by L. A. Graf
scorched metal with it. "Hey, don't do that! If the radiation
shielding is ruined, we could die!"
"Shut up." Sulu dove into the narrow access tube leading back to their
miniature warp core, coughing at the smell of burnt metal and melted
wiring that clogged his throat. The trickle of emergency lighting
showed him the dark bulk of the toroidal magnetic lens, wrapped around
the warp core to focus its antimatter drive. As Sulu wriggled closer,
he could see the effect of the explosion a fist-sized hole blown
through the housing's thick outer shell, with shattered metal petaling
away from the impact site. Gashes in the tunnel walls showed where the
rest of the exploded metal had gone. A cascade of liquid nitrogen
poured out from broken coolant lines inside the magnet, forcing him to
Straddle the center line of the access tunnel to avoid it.
Sulu's pulse hamm ered in his throat while he leaned forward to peer
through the breach, trying to see if the core shields inside the housing
had been destroyed by the blast. The dim gleam of transparent aluminum
was barely visible through the silvery fog, but the phosphorescent fire
on its inner surface told him it was still intact. He slumped back
against the tunnel wall in relief, then cursed when something blunt and
metallic smacked into his back.
"Hey!" Chekov's voice echoed down the tunnel from the passenger bay,
sounding furious. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Getting ready to evacuate." The tinny sound of Haslev's reply told Sulu
the Artdorian had already donned his suit helmet. "I figured when I
heard the,, phaser--"
"Phaser? What phaser?" Chekov's voice rang down the access tunnel.
"Sulu, do you see a phaser inside there?"
"I think I just found it." Sulu wriggled around to tug at the object
that had poked him. Tape tore away from the corrugated metal wall and
the familiar shape of a phaser pistol fell into his hand. Under a
crystal film of ice, its power indicator was dead black. Sulu tucked it
into'the belt of his jacket and crawled back out to the passenger bay.
He emerged to find Uhura and Chekov staring at him through the mist-with
identical expressions of fierce concern. "Ion't worry," he said at
once. "The shielding's still intact. There's no radiation leaking
out."
The fine lines around Uhura's eyes smoothed out with her sigh of relief,
but Chekov's worried frown didn't fade. "What about the containment
housing?" he asked.
Sulu shook his head, tossing the phaser at him. "The saboteur set this
to blow a hole right through it. We've lost all the coolant in the toms.
The magnetic field strength is probably decaying already." He closed the
door to the access tunnel, wishing he could shut away the lurking danger
behind it just as easily. "It's only a matter of time before the warp
field goes out of control." His gaze met Chekov's through the filmy
mist, seeing the grim knowledge darkening the other
man's eyes. "I don't think we can make it back to the Enterprise in
time. We're going to have to evacuate."
"Well, I'm ready." HasIcy shrunk back a step when Chekov swung around to
glare at him. "What's the matter with you now?"
"Did it even occur to you to call us when you heard that phaser?" the
Russian demanded hotly. "We could have disarmed it before it damaged
the housing!"
HasIcy grimaced. "And then continued with our voyage to Sigma One? No,
thank you. I'm much happier with the situation as it stands."
"We'll see how happy you are if the explosion catches us before we get
outside the blast radius." Sulu ignored the alien's squeak of dismay,
shouldering past him toward the opened emergency locker. Uhura was
already there, sorting through the environmental suits stored inside.
"How did you get free anyway?"
The Andorian's voice turned sulky. "It doesn't take an engineering
genius to figure out the principles behind a mechanical lock," he
pointed out. "Engineering geniuses can just do it a lot faster than
other people."
Chekov snorted in disgust. "So can common criminals."
"What I can't figure out," Sulu said, waiting for Uhura to hand one of
the orange-and-gray suits out to him, "is how the saboteur knew we were
going to take this shuttle."
"I don't think he did," Chekov said grimly. "I think he was trying to
sabotage the Enterprise. For all we know, he may have rigged every
shuttle in the bay." The security officer strode across the mist-filled
aisle to join them. "A containment field breach in a core this size
would be enough to take out the entire ship if it blew inside the
hangar,"
"We've got to get back to the Enterprise right away." Sulu glanced down
at the communications officer, puzzled by her sudden stillness. "Uhura,
what's the matter?"
"This." Uhura stepped out of the locker, face numb and dark eyes
shadowed with dismay. She held out her hand to show Sulu the shard of
bright-edged metal cupped in her dark palm.
"That looks like shrapnel from the containment housing." His stomach
lurched with dread as he guessed what must be wrong. Behind him, he
heard Chekov curse in soft, vehement Russian. "Oh, God. It didn't
explode into the suit locker, did it?"
"It must have. I've found some of it embedded in every suit so far."
Utmra's fingers curled around the metal fragment, tightening recklessly
around its arrow-sharp edges. "As far as I can tell, not a single one
of them is space-worthy."
Chekov reached past Uhura to jerk one of the buried suits off its
storage rack. Jagged slivers of metal shook loose from the tattered
fabric, shattering around his feet in a nitrogen-cooled shower. He
slung the suit across the aisle, diving in for another. "Pull them all
out!"
Discarding her own suit, Uhura turned to obey while Sulu pushed Haslev
back from the locker to make more room. "What are you doing?" the
Artdorian asked Chekov.
"The blast can't have destroyed everything." The lieutenant twisted free
an undamaged sleeve and tossed it. onto the seat behind him. "We can
take pieces from all the different suits to make up a few good whole
ones." He threw another mined piece
aside. "You've got two hands--get in here and help US!"
Pieces tumbled into unsteady piles on the deck as they sorted, the heap
of shrapnel-littered wrecks rising higher than Chekov cared to think
about. Still, he couldn't help keeping mental tally of every unscarred
sleeve and helmet, and despair sank deeper and deeper into his heart
with every useless suit discarded. Before Uhura even crouched among the
parts to count them out, Chekov knew they had only five sleeves, two
trouser arrangements, eight breastplates and ten helmets to choose from.
The communications officer looked up from her counting, eyes dark and
tragic. "There's only enough here for two suits."
"Three," Chekov corrected her. He couldn't believe how calm and certain
his voice sounded. "Counting Haslev's."
Sulu glanced darkly at the Andorian fidgeting
by the airlock. "So what
do we do now?"
Chekov hefted a suit torso and shoved it into Sulu's arms. "You suit up
and get out." When the helmsman turned to stare at him, Chekov bent to
pass a breastplate to Uhura so he wouldn't have to look at his friend.
"Chekov--"
Not that Uhura's huge, frightened eyes were any easier to face. "No,"
she said thinly.
Chekov took her hand and gently looped it around the suit to make her
hold it. "You haven't any choice."
"Sure we do." Sulu pushed between them, hugging his empty suit like a
shield as he confronted Chekov. "We can argue about which of us gets to
stay."
"And waste time we don't have." Chekov tugged at
his sling to remind Sulu of its reality. "I can't move my arm," he said
plaintively, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "It will take me
forever to suit up, and I won't be able to work the controls EVt"
Sulu threw his partial suit to the ground. "Bull. It doesn't take
physical strength to move around once you're outside." The anger in his
voice and stance bled.so rapidly into concern that Chekov almost felt
his friend's fear as a physical pain. "I could help you suit up," Sulu
pleaded. "I know it couldn'tt"
"Sulu, don't." Chekov reached up to clamp a hand over Sulu's mouth, and
aborted it to grasp his friend's shoulder at the last minute. "Someone
has to stay," he said carefully, "and there's no good or fair way to
decide who. Please"-He tightened his grip, both in warning and
entreaty. "Don't make me knock you unconscious to put you in that
suit."
"Well" Haslev danced forward to drag on Sulu's arm With one' hnd,
pulling Uhura to her feet with his other. "You heard the man--he's
volunteering. Let's go!"
Sulu jerked himself out of the Andorian's grasp. "You're not welded into
that suit," he snarled. "We could still take you out of it."
Haslev pressed his antennae down into his hair, but fell silent. Leaving
him to Sulu, Chekov turned to drag suit trousers over to Uhura. "Get
dressed," he said gently.
Her face was smooth and calm despite the tears tracking down her cheeks.
"We'll send somebody back for you."
"I'm counting on it." He wiped her face with his fingers, heart nearly
caving in with despair. "I don't want to die," he admitted in a
whisper.
She echoed his gesture by reaching up to take his
own face in both small hands. "And I don't want to leave you."
"I could have hours before the containment field decays." It was both
the truth and a liethe truth because probability allowed for it; a lie
because he didn't believe it for a moment. He brought her hands down to
fold them in his own. "If nothing else, I'll patch one of these suits
and follow you as soon as I can. I promise."
Sulu stooped grudgingly to collect sleeves for his suit. "I just want
you to know," he said, frowning, "I hate this plan."
Chekov managed a small, almost heartfelt smile. "I'm not in love with it
myself."
He helped them suit up as best he could with only one hand. Uhura only
nodded miserably at his reassurances, and the bleak silence with which
Sulu stepped into his own gear told Chekov how out of control the
helmsman must feel with the situation. If he could have thought of some
way to defuse the fear crowding among them, he would have. Instead, he
did what he always did; he fell back on the practical things that needed
doing no matter how uncertain the future. Retrieving his phaser from the
helm console at the front of the shuttle, he held it out to Sulu butt
first. "Take it with you," he said. Then, nodding at Haslev. "And don't
trust him. He's not worth it."
Inside his helmet, Sulu's face looked gray and grim behind ghost
reflections of his surroundings. He reached for the phaser withou t
lifting his eyes, closing his hand instead around Chekov's wrist, and
pulling the lieutenant into a quick, fierce hug.
Chekov closed his eyes, fear crowding his chest and making his voice
uncharacteristically gruff. "I'll see you soon," he promised.
"You'd better."
Then, there was nothing more to say. They pushed apart by silent
consensus, and Sulu turned without hesitating, herding Uhura and Hasler
into the airlock. Chekov watched, hand pressed to the portal, as the
atmosphere hissed out of the small chamber and the outer door rolled
silently aside. It looked cold outside. And dark. And empty. He
managed to stay brave long enough for the outer door to seal and hide
him from their sight. Then he sank to his knees and leaned his head
against the airlock, wondering what in hell he was going to do.
The stars burned in silence, their fires cold and distant across the
engulfing blackness of interstellar space. Sulu stepped out toward
them, gritting his teeth against the sudden lurch of weightlesshess when
he left the Hawking's aifiock. He let the momentum of his final step
Carry'him slowly away from the shuttle, keeping his gaze nailed to the
steady shimmer of a nearby nebula until his stomach adjusted to the
sense of perpetual falling.
"Sulu." Uhura's quiet voice emerged from the suit's helmet communicator,
close as a whisper in his ear. "Can you hear me?"
"I can hear you." The helmsman let his arms and legs float up to the
position they normally found in space--elbows flexed, knees bent as if
for sitting. He began to reach up to his chest panel with his right
hand, then remembered he still held the phaser in it and lifted his left
hand instead to activate his jets. Compressed gases exploded silently
from valves in the hardened back of his suit, kicking him toward the
nebula he'd chosen as a reference.
"Set your thrusters to maximum velocity," he told
the others. "They should last long enough to get us outside the blast
radius."
"What if they don't?" Haslev asked apprehensively. Sulu took a deep
breath, anger at the Andorian bursting through his fierce control for a
moment. "Then we'll kick you back toward the shuttle and use the
momentum to go the rest of the way!"
"Sulu." There was no reproof in Uhura's voice, only concern and warning.
Personal feelings had no place in a deep-space evacuation--their lives
were balanced too precariously to allow any emotional reactions to cloud
their judgment.
"I know." Sulu didn't glance back at her, keeping his face turned toward
the shimmering starscape around them. He forced himself to identify as
many systems in it as he could, so he wouldn't have to think about the
darkened shuttle disappearing behind them. He found Deneb, first and
brightest, with blue-white Spica trailing quietly behind it. Further
overhead, Antares gleamed an unmistakable ruby red, with Beta Centauri
and Achemar flanking
"Sulu!" This time it was Uhura's voice that crackled with emotion,
disbelief mingled with elation. "I think--I think I hear the
Enterprise.t"
The helmsman gasped and ducked his chin, pressing his communicator up to
maximum reception. A hiss of ominous s
tatic overlay the subspace radio,
so close it had to be coming from the damaged warp core of the shuttle.
Beyond it, he could just hear the rising whistle of a familiar hailing
frequency. A jumbled mutter followed it.
Sulu groaned. "I can't make out what they're saying!"
"Something about losing contact with us." Uhura paused and Sulu held his
breath, afraid even so slight
a noise across their communicator channel would interfere with her
reception. "And something about proceeding on impulse powerw" The
distant voice faded, drowned out by an increasing roar of static from
the Hawking. Sulu heard Uhura's teeth snap in frustration. "That's all
I could manage to get." ,.
"Proceeding under impulse power." The helmsman tried to subdue a leap of
desperate hope. "I wonder if they meant us or them?"
He heard Uhura pull in a startled breath. "Could they move the
Enterprise with the hull breached?"
"If they went slowly enough, they could." Somehow, the stars no longer
looked so impossibly distant and cold to Sulu. "And if Captain Kirk
guessed we had a problem witthe shuttle, I'm betting that's exactly what
he'd do."
"Yes. Yes, he would." Uhura paused. "But can he get here soon enough?"
Sulu frowned and used his small wrist jets to swing himself arouid.
Uhura and Haslev were only odd-shaped shadows against the surrounding
stars, their faces barely illuminated by the interior lights of their
