Star Trek - TOS - Death Count

by L. A. Graf

  "I know, Spock, but it's been a while since we tried this trick." He

  quirked one corner of his mouth into a

  wry little grin. "I just wanted to make sure you remembered."

  Spook, as expected, didn't seem amused.

  A tense buzzing from communications caught Kirk's attention even as

  Spock turned to his panel. "Mr. Goldstein?" He twisted an alarmed look

  over one shoulder. "Problems?"

  "Yes, sir--" Goldstein looked up with one hand to his earpiece, blue

  eyes bleak and uncertain. "We've just lost two of the suit locator

  signals, sir. We're no longer in contact with 'the shuttle crew."

  Alone on board the Hawking, Chekov shouted a string of pungent oaths,

  kicking a helmet in frustration after ten wasted minutes of trying to

  get out of his sling one-handed.

  The strap around his neck was twisted into a constricting rope by the

  time he fell into one of the empty passenger seats. McCoy, damn him,

  had been smarter than Chekov gave him credit for. Without being

  obvious, he'd strapped on Chekov's sling so that it couldn't be undone

  without a second hand. A belt across his chest pinned his arm to his

  side; he couldn't reach the buckle to loosen that band, and he couldn't

  lift off the neck strap unless he could raise his arm. Desperate fear

  burned through him again, and he kicked the seat in front of him for

  lack of anything more constructive to do.

  If he hadn't given Sulu his phaser, he could have tried to burn through

  the chest strap with a low heat setting. As it was, he didn't even have

  so much as a dinner knife with which to attack the webbing. Even the

  twists of shrapnel littered among the environmental suits were too

  brittle with nitrogen-cold to be useful. If only-

  He stopped, turning in his seat to frown at the wreck behind him.

  Silver-white pools of liquid nitrogen still drizzled from behind the

  environmental suit compartment. It boiled away with a secret hiss,

  kissing a hollow trail of frost along the deck where it passed. Reaching

  out with one foot, Chekov stepped gently on one of the ice-whitened

  scraps of metal, and it splintered into dust beneath his boot.

  True hope speared through him for the first time since the explosion. He

  bounded across the aisle to snatch up his jacket and loop it around his

  hand. It made an awkwa bundle, but he could move inside it well enough

  to fumble a piece of shrapnel off the floor without freeze-burning his

  fingers. Jacket fabric crackled as it fought to equalize temperatures

  with the metal, and Chekov tried not to think about how quickly the cold

  would eat through to him as he squatted beside the cabinet door to scoop

  up a thin puddle of fiitrogen.

  Contact with his body heat evaporated the liquid faster than it could

  run down the chest strap's width. Glossy ice still hissed along the

  nylon fibers, though, and the ephemeral touch of nitrogen on his skin

  sliced across his nerves like a painless knife. A second meager dousing

  froze a band wide enough to form its own stress fracture; he barely had

  to twist the strap to shatter the frozen fibers.

  Much as he appreciated the need for pampering his arm just now, Chekov

  still felt better once he'd struggled the sling over his head. Being

  strapped down made him feel too much like an invalid, too helpless in a

  situation already out of his control. He carefully rotated his shoulder

  joint while he scooted suit pieces around with his foot. He'd lied to

  Sulu, a little, at

  least; he could move the arm well enough, but it was weak and wouldn't

  last long. The muscle across the back of his shoulder burned with

  fatigue after herting nothing heavier than one of the intact suit

  torsos. So perhaps his justification had been only half a lie. After

  all, he probably wouldn't be able to lift his arm at all by the time

  he'd cannibalized even one useful environmental suit.

  The torso he squirmed into was scarred across the front, a finger-deep

  gouge angling from shoulder to hip while still managing to miss the

  suit's more vital functions. He felt comforted by the shell's bulky

  weight, almost believing he could leave this floating deathtrap if he

  had to, maintain a minimal atmosphere, possibly even survive. Fitting

  the one good sleeve onto the body of the suit, he stayed gloveless long

  enough to kneel in the bottom of the locker and searob for a repair kit

  not blown apart by the explosion.

  He couldn't find one.

  The alloy patches from countless suit repair kits peppered the floor;

  two-part sealant pooled among them and was already hardening where both

  parts had run together. Smoothing out a tear between unsteady fingers,

  he scooped up a gobbet of sealant and smeared it thickly on the suit

  trousers laid out beside him. It took two patches to cover the tear,

  and another fingerful ofsealant to fix it all into place. The next hole

  was even bigger, though, and he was only halfway down its length before

  the puddles of sealant on the floor had thickened beyond the point where

  he could scrape them up. Then he had to crawl away from the cramped

  workspace to scrub his hand clean on the remnants of his sling. He

  didn't have enough sealant

  to finish fixing even one environmental suit; the last thing he needed

  was to glue his fingers together, as well.

  A shriek of sirens tore past him from the front of the ship. Jerking

  upright, fear bolting through him like lightning, he listened to the

  computer's dispassionate singsong without being able to breathe. "Core

  temperature one thousand seven hundred degrees Centigrade. Containment

  decay irreversible; core breach imminent. Estimated time to breach

  twenty-three minutes forty-three seconds."

  Chapter Sixteen

  SuLu svtn nROtn, blinking as his eyes tried to adjust from interstellar

  space to the sudden glare of arc lights. He found himself confronting a

  circle of uniformed and blue-visored forms, and pressed his phaser

  firmly to Haslev's helmet. "If you try to beam us away, I'll shoot

  him," he warned through his external suit communicator.

  A ripple of ironic laughter answered him instead of the Orion growls he

  expected. "Feel free to do so," a dry voice said. "It will save us the

  trouble of arresting him and taking him home for trial."

  Su!u jerked in surprise, realizing that what he'd taken for visors were

  actually bright blue faces. He heard Muav Haslev's agonized groan

  across the helmet channel.

  "You're Andoriansl" Sulu reached up with his free hand to unlock his

  helmet and tug it off his shoulders,

  so they could see his Starfleet collar. "Is this a Federation ship?"

  "Passenger transport Shras, currently on paramilitary assignment with

  the Artdorian Reserve Fleet." The nearest Artdorian stepped forward,

  bowing with the old-fashioned courtesy of his race. He was.a tall man,

  with a long and bony face. "I'm Captain Pov Kanin."

  "Good." Sulu swung toward the technician sitting behind the transporter

  console. "We left a Starfleet officer stranded on that shuttle out

  there. Beam him over at once."

  "Please." Uhura
lifted off her own helmet, a flare of hope lighting her

  eyes. "If you heard our distress call, you know it's urgent."

  The Artdorian glanced uncertainly at his captain. "Sir?"

  "Starfleet officers hold automatic command authority over all planetary

  reserves," Captain Kanin told him, one antenna flexing in gentle

  reproof. "Of course, we will oblige the lieutenant commander's request.

  Scan for the shuttle's coordinates, and lock--"

  Sulu's feet kicked out from under him without warning, staggering him

  back against the transporter chainher's wall. He saw Uhura catch at

  HasIcy when he stumbled onto his knees. Bulkheads groaned around them

  with the recoil from a photon torpedo strike, and the crew of the Shras

  broke into shouts of alarm; several scrambled for the exit.

  "Captain!" A nervous voice crackled across the ship's intercom. "We're

  being fired on by the Orion police cruiser Mecufi.t"

  "Shields up! Take evasive action immediately!" A second thunderous blow

  rocked the Shra& and Pov

  Kanin let out a hissing curse. "How did they find us?" he demanded,

  turning on the gray-faced officer next to him. "I told you to plot a

  course that would make us look like a sensor ghost!"

  Sulu struggled to his feet, made clumsy by the rigid metallic fabric of

  his suit. He pushed himself off the shuddering wall toward Muav Hasler.

  "Take off your helmet!" he ordered, slapping at the release buttons on

  his shoulders. "As long as you're using the suit ventilator, its

  distress signal is still going out--"

  The alien yelped in dismay. and flung the helmet away. His face was

  ashen with distress. "Why didn't you tell me?"

  "I had other things on my mind." Sulu sWUng around in time to see the

  Andorian captain stride through the doorway with his crew, obviously

  headed for the bridge. The helmsman's mouth hardened with

  determination. "Come on. Let's see if we can still convince them to

  rescue Chekov."

  Uhura threw him a puzzled glance as the Andorian ship shuddered under a

  third glancing blow. "But the shields are up! There's no way we can

  beam Chekov on board now."

  "No, but we can dock and pick him up." Sulu tossed the phaser over to

  her. "Here, you take this. We might still need to use it on Haslev for

  bargaining."

  "You can't do that!" Haslev's pale antennae quivered with apprehension.

  "You heard what they said--they'll let you shoot me!"

  "You'd better hope they were joking." Sulu stepped off the transporter

  pad and headed for the door. Uhura prodded Haslev with the phaser,

  forcing him to follow.

  Outside the transporter room, one narrow corridor ran along what looked

  like the entire length of the

  ship, anchored at either end with manual access shafts inst ead of

  turbolifts. Sulu guessed the passenger transport had been modeled after

  a Starfleet courier perhaps five decks high and only wide enough for

  two rows of cabins on its passenger decks. He pounded past silent

  doorways to the forward access shaft, feeling the ship shiver as it was

  pushed to its highest warp capability.

  "They're trying to run away!" Uhura crowded Hasler into the access

  shaft, and pushed him to climb up the ladder rungs behind Sulu. "They're

  going to leave the Enterprise to fight the Orions by herself!"

  "Why not?" Sulu asked breathlessly, pulling himself up past another

  empty passenger deck. He heard Haslev's reluctant footsteps climbing

  after him. "You heard the Andorian captain say he'd been hiding from us

  as a sensor ghost. No one can accuse him of abandoning a battlefield if

  no one knows he was there in the first place."'

  Uhura's voice echoed in the ladderway. "But we know he was there."

  "Exactly what I'm going to point out to him." Sulu heaved himself up the

  last of the rungs and out onto a long teardrop-shaped bridge. A small

  cluster of uniformed Andorians milled about near the main viewscreen,

  ignoring their posts to watch something there. Otherwise, the bridge,

  like the rest of the ship, looked deserted.

  Sulu reached down to pull a panting Hasler out of the shaft, then

  stepped back when Uhura scrambled up after him. "Looks like they only

  brought a handful of crew on this trip," he commented.

  "And a worthless handful at that." Uhura used her phaser to push HasIcy

  away from the access shaft, her

  dark face carved with determination. "Let;s go. We don't have any time

  to waste."

  Hasler turned reluctantly toward the front of the bridge. "You know, it

  might already be too late."

  "Shut up." Sulu strode past him, staggering a little when another photon

  torpedo exploded near the Shras. He scowled. "One of the Orions must

  be chasing us--that was too close to be a miss on the Enterprise."

  "Then what is everybody doing standing around?" Uhura toggled her suit's

  external speaker, lifting her amplified voice across the chaos of shouts

  and ship alarms. "All hands to battle stations! Repeat, all hands to

  battle stations irnrnediately.t"

  The Artdorian crew members scattered like fragments from an exploding

  nebula, clearing the space in front of the viewscreen. Sulu saw Pov

  Kanin swing his captain's console around to stare at them in

  astonishment. Behind him, the curving viewscreen was dominated by the

  sleek, predatory shape of the Orion police cruiser Mecufi. Sulu's scowl

  deepened. The steady angle of the sensor image told him that the Shras

  was simply trying to outrun her pursuer.

  "Is this what you call evasive action?" Sulu crossed to the helm panel

  in two strides and yanked at the shoulder of the Andorian manning it.

  "I'm a Starfleet pilot," he snapped, stripping off his bulky gloves.

  "Let me take this helm before we get blown to Sigma One!"

  The crew member threw a quick look at her captain, then scrambled out of

  her seat. Sulu slid in behind the panel, scanning its layout, then

  tapping in a swift series of flight maneuvers. The Shras slewed

  abruptly sideways.

  "What--" Kanin's voice broke off as another pho

  ton torpedo exploded brilliantly across the screen, far off the port

  side of the ship. The hras barely quivered in response. "What are you

  doing?"

  "Getting us out of torpedo range, I hope." Sulu glanced over at the

  navigation panel, not trusting the gray-faced navigator to give.. him

  an accurate estimate .. of distances. The Mecufi had overshot them when

  they

  turned, and was now turning herself to cross over her previous path.

  Sulu waited until she'd found her new heading, then spiraled the

  Andorian ship off on a completely different course. The Mecufi shifted

  again and again while Sulu continued the random corkscrew motions, each

  time losing ground in the chase.

  "The Orions would be better off to stay on one course," Kanin observed,

  laning across his console to watch Sulu's maneuvers.

  Sulu spared him a tight smile. "Don't worry. They'll realize that in a

  moment. And when they do--" He madeon.e more course alteration, and

  this time saw no response from the Orion ship. His smile widened while

  he
laid in the course he'd intended to follow all along. "Engineering,

  give me every ounce of

  speed you've got."

  "Affirmative!"

  The Shras slowly accelerated, moving away from the Orion cruiser. It

  took the pursuers several long moments to realize this wasn't just

  another evasive swing, and by then, the hras had flashed out of torpedo

  range. The image of the Mecufi dwindled behind them, disappearing when

  the scanners hit the end of their range.

  "That should keep them off our backs for a while." Sulu set the ship's

  scanners around to the front, then glanced over his shoulder at Pov

  Kanin. "I've set our course to three forty-nine mark four." The

  Andorian's

  bony face slid from relief to worry when he recognized the heading. "I

  don't think you want to be brought up on desertion of battle charges

  when You get back to Andor."

  "But--" Kanin's dark pink eyes narrowed in honest dismay. "But we

  rescued you!"

  "And then abandoned our ship, not to mention our friend in the shuttle.

  Saving our lives isn't going to make us grateful enough to forget about

  that." Sulu glanced over at the navigation board, watching the

  coordinates roll back to familiar numbers as they drew closer to the

  Enterprise. Faint flickers in one corner of the viewscreen showed the

  starship still battling with the Orion destroyer Urnyfymu. "We're

  within hailing distance of the Enterprise now. Uhura, can you run the