STAR TREK: TOS - Errand of Vengeance, Book Three - River of Blood

by Kevin Ryan

  “They are firing at some small craft, I think they are [119] maintenance vehicles. They have destroyed two, now three. The Klingons have ceased fire.”

  The screen showed something moving above the surface of one of the spokes of the station.

  “Magnify,” Uhura said.

  Then she could clearly see two travel pods skimming the surface out of the line of fire of the Klingon ship.

  “If the Klingon ship moves to intercept, bring us about and fire photon torpedoes,” she said.

  But the Klingon ship didn’t move. As the work bees reached the central hub, a disruptor beam lanced out from below, cutting through the open space and right into one of the travel pods. Then the disruptor beam cut through the people thrown into the void of space.

  The captain, Uhura thought as she stood. It must be the captain trying to get to the control center.

  But which travel pod was his? The one darting around or the one that the entire bridge crew watched come apart before their eyes?

  Uhura waited almost a minute before issuing her next order, calculating the time required for the travel pod to dock with the station.

  When she spoke, she kept her voice calm by force of will. “Get me the captain.”

  Seconds ticked by before there was a response. Uhura heard her heart beating loudly in her own ears as the entire bridge crew held their collective breaths.

  Finally, Kirk’s voice filled the bridge as he said, “Kirk here.”

  She could not keep the relief out of her voice, “Captain, we were monitoring your situation.”

  [120] “We’re in the control room now. Is Mr. Scott on the Enterprise?”

  “Not yet, sir,” she said.

  “Let me know when he arrives. Kirk out.”

  Uhura sat back into the chair.

  And waited.

  “Klingons!” Lieutenant Kyle whispered to Chief Engineer Scott, pointing to the right down the corridor.

  Section Chief Brantley motioned for Mr. Scott, Kyle, and Ensign Clark to move back into an alcove and held his weapon out.

  Kyle could hear the sound of the Klingon boots thudding on the deck plating dozens of meters away. The lieutenant knew they were lucky that the Klingons didn’t believe in sneaking around. They just marched, heavy-footed, letting anyone with a good ear know they were coming.

  The Klingons were very close now. Kyle was holding his breath and noticed that the others were doing the same. He heard the sound of his own heart pounding in his chest.

  As loud as his own heart sounded to his own ears, he was thankful that the sound of the Klingons marching masked its thunderous beating. Gripping his own phaser tightly, Kyle tried to take his cue from Mr. Scott, who was watching alertly but did not seem afraid, merely ready.

  Then, as he watched carefully from the temporary safety of the darkened alcove, Kyle saw—for the first time in his life—Klingons, five of them as they passed by. His first thought as he watched them go was that he had expected them to be bigger, both taller and broader, [121] but they looked to be not much bigger than the humans he served with on the Enterprise.

  Distracted by this thought for a moment, Kyle forgot his own rising fear, and then the Klingons were gone, without having given the small band of Starfleet officers a glance.

  Though that was the first time Kyle had seen Klingons on the station, he had heard them more than once. Chief Brantley seemed to think that the Klingons had control over most of the station already. It would be just a matter of time before they controlled the entire starbase.

  The captain would hold out as long as anyone could in the control room—and then some. But Kyle knew that the only real hope lay with Mr. Scott and getting him to the Enterprise. With the starship’s warp power back online, they could give the Klingon ship a surprise, and turn the battle around.

  First, they had to get Mr. Scott on board. And the chances were getting slimmer and slimmer as they found it more and more difficult to maneuver in the station with Klingons seemingly all around.

  “Clear,” Chief Brantley whispered.

  The chief motioned that the others should follow him, and he started off at a fast walk down the corridor.

  “How far?” Lieutenant Kyle asked.

  Section Chief Brantley glanced at Briggs, who said, “The nearest transporter is a cargo unit two decks down and about two hundred meters ahead of us.”

  “We can go down here,” Scott said, stopping and pulling a panel from the wall and setting it aside as [122] quietly as he could. Inside the panel was a maintenance ladder that went down into blackness.

  The ladder was a good idea. Kyle had a feeling that very soon the corridors would be impassable.

  “I’ll go first,” Kyle said, trying to make his voice sound confident. Helping keep his commanding officer safe was the least he could do. And without Scott, he was certain that none of them had a chance.

  Chief Brantley put a gentle but firm restraining hand on his shoulder.

  “Mr. Kyle, you follow me, then Mr. Scott, then Briggs will come last.” He faced Briggs directly. “Make sure you close the access panel.”

  The ensign nodded.

  Brantley looked down into the darkness. “I will make sure the corridor is clear. Stay on the ladder until you get my signal.”

  The group nodded and Brantley started climbing down the ladder.

  Kyle slipped his weapon onto his belt and turned to grip the ladder with both hands. Kyle waited a few seconds to make sure the chief was far enough down that he would not step on him.

  “The last place I’d like to meet a Klingon is in a dark hole,” Kyle said as he started down.

  “I’d rather not meet one at all,” Briggs said with a grim smile.

  As he descended, Kyle heard the sound of weapons fire from somewhere in the station. It could have been above or below them—or a few hundred meters in either direction along the corridor outside.

  [123] Or it could have been coming from all of those for all he knew.

  As he climbed down, he sincerely hoped that it was not coming from below. The trip seemed to take forever in the near complete darkness that surrounded the ladder, but Kyle calculated that in reality it had to be less than a minute.

  There was a light from below. Kyle froze.

  The next sound he heard was the chief’s voice, which said, “All clear.”

  Continuing down the ladder, Kyle soon felt the solid deck beneath his feet. He leaned down and came out on another deck, which was completely deserted except for Chief Brantley, who was scanning the corridor carefully.

  He was pleased to be in the light again. On the other hand he knew that the brightly lit corridor would give them nowhere to hide.

  “One more deck,” Brantley said. “Help me find the next ladder accessway.”

  Kyle moved, hoping that the transporter they found next would be the one to take them home to the Enterprise.

  At an intersection of the corridors, the Vulcan halted them, turned to Ensign Port, and asked, “Does the central core of the station have a self-powered emergency turbolift that can take us to the engineering decks?”

  For a moment, Port looked stricken. Kell knew that he did not want to give the Vulcan an answer; to do so would give assistance to the enemy.

  [124] “Ensign?” Spock asked.

  Kell watched Port grip his phaser more tightly and he knew the Klingon was calculating his chances against the squad, wondering how many he could hit before someone stopped him.

  None, Kell thought as he began to raise his own phaser. It ends now.

  A blast tore into the wall next to Kell’s right before he could fire. He recognized the green flash instantly. Disruptor fire, he thought.

  Without hesitating, Kell continued his motion and fired past Port and into the corridor where the Klingon warriors were advancing.

  “Cover,” Fuller shouted, moving quickly to one side of the corridor as the team split up and did the same on either side of the corridor. The support beam
s that ribbed the walls provided some cover.

  Kell found himself and Grad behind one pylon, firing in a nearly continuous stream. Sparing a glance at the rest, he saw Fuller, in position in front of them, with Parrish and her new partner Clancy on the other side, with Spock and Jawer.

  Port, however, was still in the corridor. The Klingon who wore the face of a human and the uniform of a starbase security officer clearly did not know which way to go.

  To either side of him were the Earthers he was sworn to destroy.

  In front of him were Klingons of his blood.

  The Klingon’s hesitation was momentary and understandable; it would also cost him his life in seconds out [125] in an unprotected position. Fuller noticed Port’s position a split second after Kell had himself.

  “Port!” Fuller shouted. “Get to cover now!”

  Kell saw the smile that told him that the Klingon in the corridor was not going to take another order from an Earther. The proximity of the Klingon force had obviously given him a new sense of purpose.

  Port gave Fuller an unpleasant sneer and raised his phaser. Unlike Port, Kell knew his path and did not hesitate.

  He redirected his phaser and swung it out to target Port ...

  ... A fraction of a second before the Klingon took a full-power disrupter blast that disintegrated him instantly.

  Kell turned his attention back to the battle and kept up his own fire, his phaser finding its own target: a large Klingon warrior. It was the first time he had ever taken a Klingon life, and he found that his blood was quiet, except for its continued call to defeat this enemy.

  The Starfleet cause was just, he knew. He also knew that it would be a mistake from which the Klingon Empire would never recover. Even if it won, the stain on the Empire’s honor could never be erased.

  And the High Command who would sacrifice the lives of a planet full of Klingons to achieve a dishonorable victory would be emboldened by their success. More atrocities would follow, Kell had no doubt.

  Perhaps if the Empire failed to get the dilithium, it would delay the coming large-scale attack. Perhaps that attack would never come and more honorable forces in the Empire would prevail.

  [126] Kell knew that the future glory of the Empire could come only from Kahless’s path to honor. And the followers of Kahless were growing in number every day and every year.

  They were the Empire’s future.

  So Kell followed his blood and followed the lead of Captain Kirk, who had saved Gorath and all of his people.

  Kell’s phaser found another target. And another.

  The others were also making hit after hit. Kell noted that Spock was a particularly good shot, though he went about his work with a calm precision that looked completely alien to Kell, who was caught in the heat of the battle.

  Kell fired and fired again.

  Yet he could see that the Klingons were still coming. Kell could not see how many there were but he could see that they had already lost more warriors than the small Starfleet team had in their force.

  In Kell’s time with Starfleet he had never seen them fight against less than overwhelming numbers and overwhelming odds.

  He had also never seen them lose, it occurred to him.

  Still, as he watched the Klingons advance, he feared that this might be the first time he saw that happen. The battle could not continue long like this. The Klingons would eventually overwhelm them, and Spock would never be able to get the station’s power back on.

  With the Enterprise out of the fight, and the station’s defenses without power, even the few brave Starfleet officers with him and with the captain would not be able to stand under the onslaught of a Klingon battle cruiser.

  [127] He had to do something, and quickly.

  “Sir, I have an idea,” someone said. It took Kell a moment for it to register that the words had come from the man next to him, from Ensign Grad.

  “What do you need?” Fuller called back.

  “Just some cover,” Grad said.

  “You have it, Ensign,” Fuller called out.

  Then Grad was on the move.

  “Hold your fire!” he called to Spock, Parrish, and Clancy, who were positioned slightly behind him on the other side of the corridor.

  Kell and Fuller increased their fire as Parrish and the others held theirs. Grad moved quickly, cutting a diagonal across the wide corridor, and then Kell saw what the human was doing.

  The corridor they were in currently ran in a circle around the central hub of the station. To get to the station’s core, they would have to head about fifty meters ahead of their position and then turn right on the corridor that cut perpendicularly to theirs and ran to the station’s center.

  The problem was that the Klingons were perhaps twenty meters ahead of that right turn. The Klingons would no doubt cut down the Starfleet team before they reached the intersection, let alone made the turn.

  Grad’s plan, if it worked, would cut the Klingons off and give them a clear run to the center of the station.

  But to do it, Grad would have to reach the controls for the blast doors that were just a few meters from the Klingon forces’ position.

  Kell concentrated his fire on the Klingons who would [128] have the most direct line of fire on Grad. Unfortunately, that was almost all of them.

  Still, Grad’s zigzagging sprint seemed to be working. He had covered most of the distance to the control panel while the Klingons concentrated the bulk of their fire on the main Starfleet force.

  Just a few more meters, Kell thought.

  Grad obviously had the same thought, because as a disrupter bolt streaked in the air over his head, the ensign threw himself into the air at the control panel.

  A disrupter bolt raced toward Grad and there was an explosion and a great flash of light. For a moment, Kell thought that Grad had disappeared. Then he realized that the bolt had struck the huge, reinforced frame that held the blast doors in place when they were closed.

  He saw that Grad was on the floor, intact if not alive.

  Then the human stirred. He was cut in a number of places that Kell could see and his left arm hung loosely. But the human was moving, pulling himself forward on his right arm.

  When he was directly beneath the control panel, Grad pushed himself to his knees. Then he paused for a breath and swung his right arm at the controls. Just as he started the movement, Kell caught sight of a blast fired at nearly the same moment.

  It would be close, very close.

  Grad won. His hand slapped the panel a split second before the blast tore into him.

  Kell knew that a direct hit with a disruptor set on full was devastating and would almost immediately disintegrate a person.

  [129] This was not a direct hit, but it was still more than enough to extinguish Grad’s life. The blast caught his left shoulder and tossed the human in the air.

  When Grad—or what was left of him—hit the ground, he was still.

  The blast doors began closing immediately. They were designed to protect major sections of the station from a major decompression. In just a few seconds, they closed between the two battling forces, and then the Klingons’ deadly bolts of energy were cut off.

  Fuller fired the next and last shot of the encounter. He blasted the control panel, effectively locking the door.

  As soon as that was done, Fuller was heading down the corridor at a run, shouting, “Move out!”

  As Kell made the turn toward the station’s central core, he said a silent thanks to Ensign Grad, even as he avoided looking at the human’s mangled form.

  As he ran he remembered that Grad had served in Starfleet for a year and a half. Yet this was how his first day of service as a part of the Enterprise crew had ended.

  Chapter Twelve

  KIRK STUDIED the Klingon cruiser on the control room’s main viewscreen.

  “The Klingon vessel had not made a move against the Enterprise,” Kirk said. “That’s something.”

  As long as the shi
p was in space, there was still hope that Scotty could get there in time to put the ship back into action.

  “My guess is that the Klingon commander is waiting to take care of the ship after he has achieved his objective on the station and has possession of the dilithium crystals,” Admiral Justman said from behind him.

  “Do you think they expect us to fire on them? Either from the ship or the station?” Kirk asked.

  “No, Captain,” Lieutenant West said. “A Klingon in our position would fire even low-power weapons, just to [131] strike at his enemy, even if it would mean his immediate destruction.”

  “Will they get suspicious if we don’t do the same?” Kirk asked.

  “Not at all. In fact, they do not expect us to fight,” West said. Then, reading Kirk’s quizzical expression, he added, “They consider us a lesser race, a race without much courage. In fact, the term cowardly is usually applied to us in communiqués. It is about as big an insult as the Klingons use.”

  “For now, at least, that thinking is working to our advantage,” Justman said.

  With one more look at the screen, Kirk turned to the group in the control room.

  When Kirk and his team had arrived through the access tunnel they had found four young and scared lieutenants at their posts.

  Kirk knew it was easy to underestimate new officers in that position. He remembered that a young and untried Lieutenant Justman had somehow bested three Klingon battle cruisers at Donatu V.

  All heads turned to hear a fresh round of disrupter fire slamming into the control center’s shields.

  “Stations,” Justman called out.

  The four of the starbase’s young lieutenants took their stations. They were under orders to wait there until full power was restored. When the warp core came back online, they needed to be ready to put the shields up immediately and fire the station’s weapons, both the relatively low-power phasers and even the old-style phase cannons.

  It was not much, but it was all they had to fight back [132] with. If the Enterprise got into the fight, it might even be enough.

  What they needed was a weapon, something to do the Klingon vessel real harm.

  Of course, Kirk thought. He should have thought of it immediately.