Star Trek - TOS - Death Count

by L. A. Graf

  Chekov down your throat, you'd have to use a secure computer line. None

  of them could even break into one, I don't think, much less trip the

  alarm and erase all evidence of their visit on their way out the door."

  Kirk turned to look back into the 'hall, at the growing rivers of

  humanity gathering outside the briefing room. "That means we're either

  being distracted by a well-prepared saboteur," he mused grimly, "or

  we're looking at a very shy good samaritan."

  Scott gave an unhappy snort of laughter. "I know which I'd rather it

  be."

  "Bridge to captain." Spock's voice echoed through the crowded corridors,

  the open channel carrying his words from one end of the deck to the

  other. "Priority transmission, channel one."

  Fighting down a wave of dread, Kirk leaned across

  the briefing room table to punch the intercom with his thumb. "Kirk

  here. Go ahead."

  "Captain." Sulu's voice sounded thin and breathless, backed up by the

  whine of a turbolift's anti-gravs. "Sir, there's a bomb set for

  immediate explosion in sector thirty-nine, Deck Six. Lieutenant Chekoe

  is trying to build a containment housing around it--we didn't have time

  to disarm it." The helmsman hesitated, and Kirk heard someone else

  moving near that distant intercom. "I found auditors Taylor and Chaiken

  murdered in their rooms," Sulu went on, "apparently so the bomb could be

  hidden there. Both were killed by unarmed assault, with no signs of

  violent struggle in the room."

  Kirk didn't pause to acknowledge Sulu's transmission. Opening another

  channel, he snapped, "Spock! Put the ship on red alert and bring us to a

  full stop!"

  The siren shrilled out almost before he'd finished speaking, splashing

  the inside of the room with scarlet light. "All hands prepare for

  explosive decompression on Deck Six." It was Spock, a certain sharpness'

  ringing through his voice despite his Vulcan calm. "Repeat, all hands

  prepare for explosive decompression."

  Kirk felt the subtexranean shiver of the warp drive fade, replaced by

  the brief growl of impulse power as the ship braked its momentum. Then

  the impulse drive died in turn, leaving the Enterprise afloat in utter

  stillness.

  "I'll get my lads ready," Scott said, and ducked out the door without

  awaiting Kirk's reply. Still, the captain nodded tensely, turning to

  follow Scott into the hall.

  Without prelude, the deck shuddered and lurched

  fiercely, hurling the captain to the floor. Kirk barely had time to

  hear the clamor of horrified cries beyond the doorway before the noise

  of the explosion 'followed the shock wave first the roar of shattered

  metal, then the unmistakable distant scream of air rushing out into

  vacuum.

  Chapter Ten

  THE DOORS TO Sulu's turbolift snapped open to the scream of multiple

  alarms and the pulsing intensity that engulfed the Enterprise during a

  crisis. Red alert lights seared across the faces of the crew as they

  pulled bulky 'environmental suits out of wall lockers and assembled into

  damage control teams. Spock's calm voice echoed from the intercom

  speakers overhead, asking all decks for damage reports.

  Sulu scrambled to his feet inside the lift chamber, swinging around to

  pull Uhura up beside him. The communications officer's bundled hair had

  come loose, spilling down to hide her face from his concerned gaze. "Are

  you all right?"

  "Fine." She tucked her hair back and pushed out into the crowded main

  corridor of Deck Three. Sulu followed her, trying to spot Kirk

  somewhere in the 'swirl of activity. It didn't look as if the shock

  wave had

  hit as hard here, probably because three layers of insulated decking

  separated this part of the ship from the blast. After a moment, Sulu

  gave up trying to see through the milling crowd and reached out to snag

  a passing engineer by the elbow.

  "Where's Captain Kirk?" he demanded.

  "Down at the emergency command center." The young woman jerked her chin

  portside, her hands full of metal plates and welders. "Sector

  twenty-six."

  "Thanks." Sulu glanced down at Uhura when she stepped back. "Aren't you

  coming?"

  She shook her head. "You won't need me. I'm going to commandeer a

  uniform from somebody and head for the br idge. That's where I can help

  most now."

  "Okay." Sulu cut a swift path between repair teams, thankful that he was

  small enough to slide around the portable vacuum bulkheads being

  assembled in the hall. Halfway around the curve of corridor, he found

  the temporary command center a conference room now bristling with

  repair equipment and engineering consoles. The door was open, but the

  way inside was blocked by a man in a bulky white environmental suit

  wrestling one last monitoring station through the door. Sulu thumped at

  his shoulder, hard enough to be felt through the stiff metal fabric.

  "What?" Scott turned, the hard lines of his face softening behind his

  face plate when he saw Sulu. "Ah, it's you, lad," he said, his voice

  deepened by his suit communicator. "The captain wants you inside."

  "I know." Sulu ducked past him, then spotted Kirk's slimmer

  environmental suit, the distinctive dark red of a line officer. The

  captain hadn't pulled on his helmet yet, and his face wore the look of

  focused strength that a crisis always brought out in him. He

  bent over the communications display on the conference room table,

  activating it with one metal-gloved fist.

  "Spock, are those damage reports in yet?"

  "Only preliminary estimates so far, Captain." Spock's lean face gave the

  screen an odd greenish east. "Deck Seven reports extensive power outages

  and minor structural damage, but no decompression. Decks Five and Eight

  report only scattered power losses."

  "And Deck Six?" Kirk's quick glance at Sulu told him the captain hadn't

  forgotten about Chekov.

  "Impulse engine crews report complete power outage in their section but

  no decompression. The rest of the deck appears to have lost intercom

  capability."

  "Well, see what you can do about restoring it. Kirk out." The captain

  looked up from the monitor as it went black. "Scotty, is the advance

  team ready to enter the breach?"

  "Almost, sir." Scott glanced up from connecting his engineering console

  to the rest of the array. "We've got two more portable bulkheads to

  assemble and load on the turbolift."

  Kirk grunted and turned toward Sulu, his eyes agate-sharp with

  intensity. "All right, Mr. Sulu. What kind of bomb was it, and where

  was it placed?"

  "Type of bomb unknown, sir." Sulu felt his shoulders draw back into

  cadet-rigid attention while he strove to keep his answers short and

  informative. Getting debriefed by Kirk always had this effect on him.

  "It was hidden in a carton of Auditor Gendron's possessions, in the

  storage unit of the room she shared with Chaiken. We didn't have time

  to examine it."

  Kirk frowned. "How did you know to look for it there?"

  "Chekov found an anonymous warni
ng note on his security computer. That's

  why he had a bomb kit with him."

  "I'm getting a little tired of all this anonymous help." He fixed his

  helmsman with a keen stare. "You're sure you saw the bodies of both

  auditors?"

  Sulu swallowed, remembering the metallic smell of the auditors'

  quarters. "Yes, sir. I found Taylor in his cabin, with a broken neck.

  Chaiken was in the bathroom. I think she died from a skull

  fracture--there was a lot of blood."

  "So it's doubtful either of them set the bomb." Kirk drummed metal-clad

  fingers on the conference table. "That doesn't leave us very many other

  suspects." He swung around and purposefully picked up his helmet. "Get a

  suit on, Mr. Sulu. I'm taking a security team down to Deck Six to

  record blast effects for evidence before the engineers repair them. I

  want you with us when we examine the auditors' quarters." The captain

  settled his helmet on his shoulders, then added grimly through the

  communicator, "That is, if there's anything left of it."

  It was amazing, Kirk thought, how much you could stuff into a turbolift

  car if you really tried. This one held four portable vacuum bulkheads

  including one with an airlock built into it, a dozen tall canisters of

  supercompressed air, an engineering console with a remote link to the

  emergency command center on Deck Three, and an assortment of tricorders

  and electronic notebooks. It also held nine crew members, all in bulky

  environmental suits.

  The four security guards made a wall of solid black across the back of

  the lift chamber, packed tight as phasers in a weapons locker. Sulu and

  Scott had found

  space on either side of the portable bulkheads, but Kirk and the other

  two engineers had been forced to jam themselves between air canisters in

  order to fit inside. It was a good thing none of them was fatmas it

  was, every time Kirk took a deep breath, a canister valve tried to

  implant itself between his shoulder blades.

  He shifted slightly to relieve the pressure on the laminated metal

  fabric of his suit, feeling the crinkle of thermal heating units under

  its absorbent inner lining. The suit ventilator poured a comforting

  hiss of air into his helmet, keeping his face plate clear of fog despite

  the prickle of sweat across his upper lip. Mindful of what lay ahead,

  Kirk ran another internal check for suit closure. "Scotty," he said

  across the suit's communicator channel, "is this the only turbolift

  access we have to Deck Six?"

  "Aye, sir." The chief engineer carefully steadied the swaying bulkheads

  as the turbolift shifted to horizontal motion. "The main power circuit

  running through Deck Six got cut by the blast. So far, we've only

  managed to restore continuous lift power to the port shaft." He glanced

  up at the flashing display over the door, his helmet light sweeping the

  chamber. "We should be coming up on it in just a few--"

  "Captain." Spock's voice broke into their communicator channel without

  ceremony. "Commander Uhura and I have managed to partially restore

  intercom circuits on Deck Six."

  A little kernel of relief bloomed in Kirk, a sense of gaining control

  again after all this chaos. "That was fast. Patch me into whatever's

  working."

  There was a short pause, then Uhura's quiet voice replaced Spock's.

  "Captain, right now I can only link

  to Deck Six via shipboard circuits. Can you reach tlie panel in your

  turbolift?"

  Kirk struggled to half-turn, bracing himself against Sulu's shoulder as

  he reached for the intercom. "Barely," he said. The helmsman reached

  up to help him hit

  the button. "Am I on line now?"

  "Yes, sir."

  The captain raised his voice to cut through the background hum of the

  turbolift. "Kirk to Chekov. Repeat, this is Captain Kirk calling

  Lieutenant Chekov. Can you hear me?"

  What answered him through the communicator wasn't silence--it was the

  slow, bitter cracking. of metal as it cooled to absolute zero. Kirk

  lifted his hand from the panel abruptly, feeling as though the sound of

  his crippled ship had burned it.

  "No reply, sir." Beneath her professional tone, Kirk heard the deep

  sadness in Uhura's voice.

  He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. Grief was a

  luxury they couldn't afford right now. "Continue to monitor Deck Six

  intercoms from the bridge," he said instead. "Let me know if you pick

  up anything. Spook, I want you on our suit channel once we're in the

  breach. You may notice something we miss."

  "A logical precaution, Captain," the Vulcan agreed. "With your

  permission, I shall monitor your trioorder output as well."

  "Do that." The turbolift hushed to a halt on Deck Six and promptly began

  chirping in alarm, its doors locking down against the vacuum it sensed

  on the other side. Kirk found himself suddenly chilled by the prospect

  of searching that darkness for unlucky crew. "Open us up, Scotty," he

  said, very quietly.

  followed less confidently, trailing his hand along the corridor wall to

  keep his balance.

  Cabin doors crept eerily into their slanting helmet lights, only to

  whisper away into darkness again. They passed the larger darkness of

  the central corridor junction, seeing the distant firefly gleams of

  security guards down each intersecting arm. Kirk resisted an urge to

  signal open each cabin they passed, search each interior for some sign

  of his security chief. He didn't know what he wanted more--to delay

  finding out what had happened to Chekov, or to find his body immediately

  and get on with the pain.

  Switching his suit communicator to a private channel, he said quietly,

  "Spock--anything from Chekov?"

  "No, Captain."

  "We haven't found anything here, either."

  The Vulcan paused--judging Kirk's mood by his tone, perhaps, or maybe

  just dealing with some other fragment of emergency business. "It is

  unlikely that Lieutenant Chekov is still on Deck Six," Spock finally

  pointed out carefully.

  And if he were, Kirk knew his first officer was thinking, it was even

  more unlikely he'd be able to answer. But everywhere else on the ship

  had working intercoms. "I don't think we're going to find him," Kirk

  admitted. It wasn't as hard to say as he had thought it would be.

  Spock's answer was surprisingly gentle. "That is

  unfortunate. He was an exemplary officer."

  "Yes--yes, he was."

  A subliminal warning tingled across Kirk's skin, distracting him from

  his mourning. Still, it took him several more steps before he

  registered that the sparks of light ahead of him were actually stars and

  not just

  the scattered reflections of his and Sulu's helmet lights. He slowed to

  a stop at the lip of the breach, overwhelmed by a blast-torn expanse

  taller and deeper and wider than he had ever feared to see. "Oh, my

  God--"

  The vertigo alone made him feel as though he stood at the very edge of

  the world.

  Sulu braced a hand against the last edge of corridor wall, feeling
<
br />   disappointed when no adequate sensation made it through his heavily

  gloved palm. The blast had taken out not only the ship's hull, but also

  the partition separating the auditors' cabins from the curving outer

  passageway. A fractured latticewor k Of metal was all that remained of

  either wall.

  "Steady, Commander," Kirk warned him through the suit communicator.

  "Start taking tricorder readings. Spock, we're at the breach."

  "Acknowledged, Captain." The Vulcan's calm voice seemed oddly out of

  place amid the twisted and charred ruins of the deck. He paused while

  Sulu scanned the breached area with his tricorder. "Initial analysis

  indicates that the damage was produced by a large thermochemical

  explosion. The pattern of destruction is consistent with that produced

  by an overloaded power pack, possibly one belonging to a phaser or other

  phase-shifted optic device."

  "You mean a device like a metal cutter?" Kirk paced across the auditors'

  quarters, not seeming to notice the yawning gulf of space just beyond

  his left shoulder. He stopped near a blackened expanse on the floor,

  then looked up and beckoned Sulu to join him. The helmsman took a deep

  breath, stepping gingerly over the shock-crumpled decking to take a

  close-up tricorder reading of the blast zone.

  "The power pack from a metal cutter could produce such an explosion,"

  Spook conceded. "As could that of a welder or resin-caster. In fact,