by Kevin Ryan
A few hundred meters later, there was a service door that West knew would take them into the main corridor.
The admiral didn’t waste any time. He hit the control panel and jumped into the corridor. West followed him at a run. Fifty meters later, they were in firing range behind what looked like a large Klingon force that was firing at the control center door. They were moving some kind of heavy equipment into place.
The two men took positions at an intersecting corridor, taking cover there.
Again, the admiral did not hesitate. He said, “Target their equipment first and fire when I do.”
West understood. Even in this dire situation, Justman would not shoot the Klingons in the back.
Justman fired, and West’s beam lanced out a moment later.
The heavy equipment went up in a single large, explosive blast, tossing Klingons in each direction. Whatever it was that they had hit, West was glad that the Klingons had not had the chance to use it against the control room.
The two Starfleet officers kept up the fire until the Klingons regrouped and turned to them. The disruptor [159] fire came a moment later, but Justman held his position until the Klingon force started to move forward.
West understood and kept up fire. Then inspiration struck him and he called out, using some of the few Klingon words he had learned, “Bloodless cowards!”
The words had an immediate effect, and the Klingons started after them at a dead run.
Shots exploding against the station wall behind him, Admiral Justman fired one last shot at the Klingons chasing them. Then he turned to run. West followed him down the corridor, glad for the moment that they had a few seconds before the Klingons would be able to make the turn and start firing again. For the moment, they had a good running head start.
So far, the plan had worked.
“Do you know where this hallway leads?” West asked.
“No,” Admiral Justman said as he continued.
Then they followed a turn in the corridor and West saw that it led straight into a dead end.
No, not quite a dead end. There was a large door that had a sign over it that read, ARBORETUM.
They reached the door just as the first disrupter blasts tore at the walls and floor around them.
Then, a moment later, they were inside a huge structure that was full of rows of plants, everything from tables with potted plants to large trees.
Above them was a large clear dome. West could see the Enterprise hanging in space. And the planet beyond it.
Chapter Fifteen
KELL WATCHED FROM ABOVE as Fuller stepped through the open doors and out into the corridor.
Right behind him, Kell-came out firing in the opposite direction. Kell’s side was clear, though he heard the chief fire his phaser and turned to see a Klingon warrior fall. Even as his mind was counting the small Klingon force, his hand was firing.
Fuller, Kell, and the rest of the security team who were filing out of the emergency stairway were out in the open. The five Klingons were as well, but the security squad had the advantage of surprise.
The five warriors fell quickly and the team dashed down the corridor to the next flight of emergency stairs. The stairs for each level were not directly above one another. They were staggered by about fifty meters, so that damage to one stairwell would not affect them all.
[161] As they made their way down farther and farther, they had found fewer and fewer of the Klingon borders. Kell hoped this was a good sign—a sign that the Klingons had not yet made their way to engineering.
Kell knew they had lost a lot of time on the stairs, descending nearly thirty decks to reach the warp core. If they lost much more time, the station and the crystals might already be lost.
He hoped that Kirk was faring well. He remembered being knocked to the ground by Orion fire in the caves of the second planet in System 1324. He had opened his eyes to see Kirk seeming to rise out of the smoke. The captain was holding his phaser rifle, looking like an ancient Klingon warrior wielding a bat’leth and ready to fight a great serpent.
Kell decided that Kirk would succeed. And there was the admiral as well. Kell had seen what ensigns and lieutenants in Starfleet could accomplish. He could only imagine what it might be like to watch an admiral in action.
Down another stairwell and out into another corridor. This one was clear.
Then another. Then another.
“Five more levels,” the Vulcan announced.
Each of the five levels was clear. Then they came to the blast doors that were the only entrance to the engineering levels and the warp core.
Fuller entered the engineering deck first, with the others immediately behind him. Kell was amazed by the scale of the warp core, many times larger than any core on a ship he had ever seen.
It shot up at least ten decks in each direction. It was [162] ringed by at least five engineering decks full of bank after bank of computers and other equipment. Each deck looked over the warp core and had a short guardrail.
A quick scan told Kell that there were no Klingons in the area and the engineering staff was dead.
Parrish was by his side. She surveyed the dead on the ground, at least twenty of them.
“Monsters,” she said. She was referring to the Klingons who had done this, beings of his blood. He wondered what she would think if and when she ever learned about his true face.
Suddenly Kell understood why they had met no Klingon boarders here. After the other Infiltrator that Port mentioned shut off the core, Klingon warriors had obviously come and killed the engineers. The Klingons had not bothered to secure the decks because the warp core should take hours to restart and the Klingons expected the battle to be long over by then. They believed there was no threat here.
Spock went immediately to a console that overlooked the core. Jawer was at his side.
“How much time do you need?” Chief Fuller asked.
“No more than thirty minutes,” Spock said, his voice even.
“Chief,” a voice called.
Kell turned to see Parrish’s new partner, Ensign Clancy, at a security console nearby. Fuller rushed over and the others followed, leaving Spock and Jawer to their work.
“We tripped some sort of alarm when we entered,” Clancy said.
“Standard station security?” Kell asked.
[163] “That is what I thought until I saw this,” Clancy said, pointing at a cutaway view of this sector of the station on the viewscreen. A large red dot was making its way down toward their level.
“Klingons,” Clancy said. “A lot of them and they know we are here.”
“How many ways are there into this area?” Fuller asked.
“Just this door,” Clancy said.
That made sense. In the event that the warp core needed to be jettisoned in an emergency, there would only be a single door to close to protect the rest of the station from the vacuum of space.
“Can you set the door to lock from the inside?” Fuller asked.
Clancy ran her hands over the panel and said, “Yes. Just hit this button and no one on the other side will be able to get through without blasting the door down.”
Fuller studied the station schematics for a moment. They looked like gibberish to Kell, but the chief seemed to be able to make sense of them.
Spock appeared behind them.
Fuller turned and said, “Mr. Spock, hit this switch when we leave. We will hold the Klingons off as long as we can. If they get past us, the door will offer you some more protection—but it might just be minutes.”
“Understood. Thank you, Chief,” the Vulcan said.
“Let’s move,” Fuller said, racing for the door.
Through the clear dome West could see part of the planet’s surface drifting slowly past and the dark [164] starfield beyond it. Under normal circumstances, this view would have stopped even the hardest of nature critics. A beautiful planetscape, large green trees, a small lake bordered by flowers. This old and very well tended a
rboretum was magnificent.
The smell of all the flowers and plants formed a thick backdrop to the fight, as the smell of phaser fire added to the mix.
And the dark emergency lighting combined with the natural light reflected from the planet gave everything a bluish tint.
With the Klingons behind them, this arboretum wasn’t a place West really wanted to be right now, or a place he would have chosen to make a stand. There was too much open space, too many ways for the Klingons to flank them. Especially with just Admiral Justman and himself.
Then Klingons began coming through the door.
And there were a lot more Klingons. Somehow, along the way, the force chasing them had gotten bigger. Admiral Justman figured that the original ones had been joined by others who had been on the way to the control room. West knew they had killed or incapacitated some when they struck their heavy equipment, but these Klingons just kept coming. The entire Klingon battle cruiser must almost be empty by now.
“We can’t let them take us here,” Admiral Justman said, sticking his head out quickly to see around the tree trunk.
“I agree,” West said. “If they take us here, the Klingons will have quick access back to the control-room area. We’re the only thing between them, Captain Kirk, and those crystals.”
[165] But there was only one way in or out. And for the moment, the Klingons were using it as an entrance.
From what West could figure, there wasn’t an option left open to them except to simply hold out as long as they could.
Justman ducked out from behind the tree, fired, and then got back into cover as three return shots pounded their position, one breaking off a limb over their heads. For a moment, West wondered if the legendary Admiral Justman was out of miracles.
“I still have a few maneuvers left,” Admiral Justman said, once again, seeming to read West’s mind.
“Of course, sir,” West said, firing at the Klingons as they came through the door. Between them, Justman and West were hitting a good number of the warriors, but for every three they hit, another made it inside the arboretum.
“We don’t have to beat them. We’re still buying time,” Justman said.
“Spock hasn’t made it to the warp core yet,” West said.
“We don’t know that,” Justman said. “But I think it’s about time we get an update, don’t you?” He pulled out his communicator and clicked it open as West made sure the Klingons weren’t moving up on them too quickly.
“Admiral Justman to Captain Kirk.”
“Glad to hear your voice, Admiral,” Kirk said, loud enough for West to hear from his place. “Where are you?”
“Pinned down in the arboretum, holding off a Klingon force. How about you?”
“They are still outside,” Kirk said. “You bought us the time. The door is holding.”
[166] “I’m glad to hear that, Captain,” Justman said.
“Scott reports progress on the Enterprise,” Kirk said. “And Spock is at the warp core now.”
“Excellent, Captain,” Justman said. “This will be a game of inches and of seconds from here on. We’ll slow them down here as long as we can.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Kirk said.
Justman closed the communicator and tucked it away. “Looks like we have to buy more time. Let’s head back toward those trees and boxes near the edge. That position looks easier to defend.”
“I’ll cover you,” West said.
“No, better we both go together,” Justman said. “More chance one of us will make it.”
West nodded. It had occurred to him that he might die at any minute but he had not considered the possibility of the admiral not making it. Admiral Justman—the hero of Donatu V—certainly he could not be stopped by Klingon fire from a hand disrupter.
“Now,” Justman said.
Both he and Justman fired off covering shots from their phasers, then turned and ran, trying to keep the tree they had been behind between them and the Klingons.
It took at least ten running steps for the Klingons to see what they were doing. It was too long, and the volley of return fire from the Klingons missed them as they dove for cover behind a group of oaklike trees and what looked like metal alien plant-growth chambers.
Incredibly, after a few minutes the Klingon fire stopped. West realized they must have gotten them all. For now, anyway.
[167] Justman glanced at West. “I think we just bought a few more minutes. Now let them try to find us.”
West nodded. Then he waited. This lull in the battle would last seconds, no more, he knew. Then the Klingon fire would rain around them again. He was prepared to answer it, and prepared to make the Klingons pay for every step they took farther into the station.
“Start destroying those control panels,” Kirk shouted to the five young starbase officers still in the command center. From the sound of the disrupter fire against the door, the admiral had succeeded in drawing off half or more of the Klingons at the door.
Yet the ones who remained kept at their task. That task was taking longer than it would have with more weapons at work, but Kirk knew it would end the same way.
And it would end very quickly.
The admiral’s plan had been a good one. It had bought them some time. Kirk regretted that it would not be enough.
The Klingons would be storming the room and would soon overrun them. The first job was to make sure that the weapons and other controls were not available to the Klingons. That way, when Spock succeeded and got the warp core back online, the Klingons would not be able to use the station’s weapons against the Enterprise.
It occurred to the captain that he had no doubt that Spock would succeed. He only hoped he lived to congratulate the Vulcan and recommend another commendation for him.
Normally, Kirk would have been satisfied to use [168] command codes to lock them out of the station’s computer, but there had been too many security breaches. Destroying the controls and interfaces was the only way to be sure.
Methodically, the crew destroyed the consoles that controlled weapons and shields, even the computer interface panel—anything that could be used as a weapon by the attackers. The only systems they left intact were sensors and the viewscreen so that Kirk could monitor the Klingons until the last second.
And, of course, Kirk made sure that nothing they destroyed would affect their ability to strike at the Klingon warship with their jury-rigged EM blast. Kirk liked hitting the Klingons with the weapon that the Orions had used against the Enterprise when the Orions were working for the Klingons. But that would be a weapon of last resort.
There was no telling what the Klingons would do once they were attacked, and there was no way to know how much the weapon would affect the Klingon ship. They might very well turn around and start blasting the Enterprise and the station.
And until the ship and station were back online, Kirk did not want to take that chance.
Smoke poured out of a half-dozen panels, and the air smelled of death and burning wires. Never, even in Kirk’s worst nightmares, had he imagined a pitched fight like this for a control room.
The dilithium crystals placed carefully in the cargo containers in the corner troubled him the most. He did not want to destroy them. To do so would waste the admiral’s great effort.
Yet there was no hiding them. And even if they [169] evacuated the control room through the access door, he could not trust that they would be able to elude the Klingons for long.
“Prepare to evacuate,” he said to the assembled group. “Use the access door and take the corridor as far down as you can.”
Then he turned to the young ensign who had rigged the weapon for him. “Mr. Marsilii, please stay with me.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
The others seemed frozen in place.
“What about you, sir?” the acting science officer asked.
“We will be right behind you,” Kirk replied.
No one moved.
“That’s
an order,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
The four young lieutenants headed for the access door. “Stay together and avoid contact with the Klingons. You have all done well and you have all done your parts.”
The one in the lead opened the door and stepped inside, and the others followed.
Kirk stared at the door. He judged they didn’t have much time, just a few minutes now.
He raised his phaser and adjusted it as he walked over to the dilithium cargo containers.
Pausing for just a moment, Captain Kirk raised his phaser, took aim, and then stayed his firing hand.
Something had caught his eye. The food server that was just a few meters away from the cargo containers.
It would work, he was suddenly sure. But if he did it, he would be betting that Scott would have the [170] Enterprise’s warp engines online, that Spock would have the station’s core online, and that the still damaged Enterprise and the station’s relatively low-powered weapons systems would be able to defeat the fully operational and very deadly Klingon battle cruiser.
It would be a big risk and a large bet whose stakes might be the fate of the Federation itself.
Kirk decided to take the bet.
“Ensign Marsilii,” he called.
Kirk waited until the young officer was close, then pointed at the food server unit in a small alcove on one side of the control center. “If I’m correct,” Kirk said, “the food servers are a form of turbolift, similar to old-style dumbwaiters.”
“Yes, sir,” Marsilii said. “The system runs throughout the station.”
“Will it function on battery power?” Kirk said.
The ensign walked over to the unit and hit the control. It opened.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “The system does not require a lot of power and it’s on a separate circuit from the personnel turbolifts. I guess the Klingons did not think of knocking out this system.”
“Can you program it to go anywhere in the station?” Kirk asked.
Marsilii surveyed the now destroyed environmental control console and shook his head. “No, sir.” He worked the simple controls for a moment. “All I can do is a simple program to send the lifts to waste disposal.”
