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

by Kevin Ryan

  “Perfect,” said Kirk. “Do it.”

  “Sir?” Marsilii said as Kirk opened up the lid of the [171] upper cargo container. Then Marsilii’s eyes lit up with understanding. “I get it. A hiding place, sir,” he said.

  “Yes,” Kirk said as he picked up two of the crystals. Even uncut, the large starship-grade crystals were beautiful.

  “Will they be safe in the disposal area?” Kirk asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Marsilii said. “It’s just storage. They will likely just pile up with the other waste for reprocessing.”

  The young ensign worked quickly, but Kirk saw the outer door start to buckle in two places.

  “Ensign,” Kirk said with an edge to his voice.

  “Got it, sir,” Marsilii said, turning to the captain.

  Kirk smiled and said, “Let’s do it,” as he lobbed the first crystal to the security officer. He quickly grabbed another from the container and tossed it.

  Though the young man had almost certainly never seen starship-grade crystals that closely, he did not hesitate and put the crystal into the server, holding the door open with one hand.

  “We can fit two at a time,” Marsilii said, catching the second crystal that Kirk tossed.

  He let the server door shut and then caught another crystal. A few seconds later the door to the lift opened again. Then he repeated the procedure with another crystal and sent them both on their way.

  Working as fast as they could, the two men emptied the crystals into the station’s maintenance area while the door continued to buckle. Kirk kept an eye on the entrance and saw the disrupter fire cut two small holes in the door.

  Almost immediately, disrupter fire came through the [172] holes, but the angle was bad and the energy bursts slammed harmlessly into the ceiling.

  Finally, the first container was empty and Kirk tossed it aside, taking just a second to blast it with his phaser. He did not disintegrate the storage unit, merely blasted it into pieces. Let the Klingons think they had destroyed the crystals.

  It might buy them a little more time.

  Kirk opened the second container and tossed Marsilii another crystal. The server door opened and the young man tossed the crystal inside.

  Time.

  The pounding on the door told him they didn’t have much, but at least it was a race.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ADMIRAL JUSTMAN WAITED, the young Lieutenant West beside him. Justman gripped the phaser tightly in one hand, watching the door. The only thing that stood between the Klingon force and the only remaining entrance to the control center was Justman himself and West.

  It had been years since Justman had fired a phaser at another living being. It had happened a handful of times in his long career and the admiral remembered each one with a painful clarity.

  Each of those experiences had visited him in his dreams many times in the years since he had moved to Command headquarters and out of active duty on the front lines of Starfleet’s exploration and other duties.

  Justman knew that many young cadets were extremely proud of their performance in weapons training. [174] He also knew that their pride in prowess with a phaser lasted only until they used one against another being.

  The lucky ones never drew their weapons and never knew what it cost to fight a battle, even if you won. Justman knew the cost too well, but he steeled his resolve. He had watched men and women make greater sacrifices than this unpleasant duty.

  When Justman was a young officer—a period that ended at the Battle of Donatu V—he thought he would live to see the galaxy become safer within his lifetime. Like West when he was still at the Academy, Justman thought that Starfleet’s greatest victory would be in the battle and wars it prevented through friendship and exchange with other races.

  The admiral still believed firmly in that mission and in the possibility that it would succeed one day. But first, he realized, the Federation would have to survive past whatever happened today and-in the months that followed. It would have to survive past this crisis with the Klingons.

  He was no longer young enough or arrogant enough to think that their success was a given. And he knew that much depended on the outcome of today.

  The sound of West’s breathing brought him out of his thoughts. The men were crouched behind a low table that contained, according to the placard, a rare flowering hibiscus from Rigel VII. The plant was in bloom and had a sharp but pleasant scent.

  He knew it had been moved here and nurtured by Starfleet and Federation personnel who would spend their lives preserving botanical oddities from around the galaxy. He wondered what Klingons would think of that vocation.

  [175] From what he had seen of Klingon values, he doubted they would agree with that sort of allocation of resources. But Justman agreed with it, with every fiber of his being. He thought it was a noble calling, as noble as the calling of an army of Starfleet and Federation scientists, anthropologists, doctors, and researchers who were searching the galaxy to learn its secrets.

  What would happen to them and to those secrets if they failed in their mission today? He was afraid he knew. Most of those explorers would be dead and much of what they sought would be destroyed as the Klingons conquered the Federation.

  Then the Klingons would seek out new worlds, worlds yet unexplored by the Federation. But they would not come to learn, the Klingons would come to conquer, and Justman believed that if they could succeed in the Federation there were few worlds or bodies that would be able to stand against them.

  The Klingons, he knew, were powerful. And they understood sacrifice—they had been willing to sacrifice a world of their own kind to continue the fight against the Federation.

  Yet he also knew the Klingons could be beaten. He had seen Klingon battle cruisers fall and had known in his heart that he and the Starfleet ships could have won the day over Donatu V. Yet he and the other surviving officers had not been prepared to pay the cost of that victory.

  He vowed that he would never make that mistake again.

  In a fraction of a second, the doors to the arboretum opened and the Klingons began flooding in. To Justman, they seemed like a swarm.

  [176] Their uniforms had changed in twenty-five years, but he saw the same deadly determination on the faces of the warriors who came barreling through the door.

  Justman picked his first target and fired, hitting a Klingon directly in the chest. A split second before his beam found its mark, he realized that Lieutenant West had fired and struck another warrior.

  The admiral had served with West’s father and had seen the young man’s record. West had succeeded in virtually every subject and area of training. The admiral believed that West would excel in any area to which he directed his energies.

  In a gentler galaxy, West would have built a career as a scientist, a xenoanthropologist, making discoveries on a starship. But instead, Justman had called him into service and brought him to this place.

  West found two more targets and Justman found another. The admiral did not have to look at the lieutenant to know that all of his energies and resources were now focused on the fight.

  Justman was saddened that this was so, but he saw that West was excelling in this new task. He was sorry to see the last shreds of the young man’s innocence being burned away. On the other hand, he was glad to be fighting this fight with the lieutenant.

  The Klingons were suffering heavy losses—staggering losses. Yet they kept coming. And a few had escaped Justman’s and West’s phasers and had found covered positions from which to return fire.

  A disrupter bolt struck a display nearby, exploding it with remarkable force.

  [177] They have improved those things, Justman noted professionally.

  Without discussion, Justman concentrated on returning the Klingon fire while West brought down Klingons as they came through the door. Justman’s peripheral vision told him that West was doing it with astonishing accuracy.

  Yet a few more made it through.

  Justm
an brought down one more in the first position, leaving two. Then his peripheral vision told him that two more had found cover about ten meters to the right. A moment later, the first blaster bolt rocked the floor nearby.

  Justman and West were now in the crossfire of the Klingons in the two positions. Justman alternated his fire between the two positions as West concentrated his fire on the door.

  Yet one more got through. Then another.

  The disrupter bolts came closer and closer, one hitting the display directly in front of them, throwing up shrapnel and dirt.

  Still, the men kept up their fire.

  Justman hit a Klingon directly in the chest, then struck another in the shoulder. Justman was not sure if the warrior was dead but the Klingon fell out of sight and there was one less origin point for the disruptor fire.

  But another replaced the Klingon quickly.

  Another bolt struck very close to Justman and West’s position. Justman’s peripheral vision told him that two more Klingons were setting up a third, covered firing position.

  If the Starfleet men stayed much longer, they would quickly fall to the three-way crossfire. Yet if they pulled [178] back the door they would be unprotected and the Klingons would soon flood the arboretum.

  Admiral Justman did not need his advanced military training to know that he and West were not fighting a battle they could win. The best they could do was delay the inevitable for as long as possible and hope that bought Kirk and his team enough time to make a difference.

  Justman had seen many officers who had made a difference in his career. Too often that difference had required great sacrifice from great men and women. Suddenly, he saw Captain Rodriguez’s face as it looked twenty-five years ago as clearly as he saw the young man beside him. He remembered the captain’s face before the disrupter blast from a Klingon warship had blasted the entire bridge crew out into the cold void of space.

  As he got older, Justman found the distance between the past and the present shrinking, as the distance between two points shrank in the subspace world of warp dynamics. While the battle raged around him, he could feel the past and present beginning to fold over one another, forming a continuum.

  As he had done many times in his career, Justman said a short prayer to God and to Captain Rodriguez for strength.

  “Pull back!” he shouted to West

  The young man complied immediately, even though he knew what the order meant. Then the admiral and the lieutenant slowly crawled backward with disrupter fire raining above and all around them now.

  When they were a few meters behind the display, [179] Justman shot West a look and rolled across the aisle between the row of displays they were in and the next. As he rolled, the admiral fired toward the Klingons with his phaser.

  Then Justman covered West as the young man executed the same maneuver. The admiral noted that West struck at least one of his targets as he rolled and fired. Then the lieutenant was beside him, firing his weapon.

  An instant later, the display case that had been their only cover and the rare Rigellian plant it supported exploded under a torrent of blaster fire.

  “Back,” Justman said, gesturing behind them.

  The new angle of fire gave them additional cover, Justman knew, since it put more displays and equipment between the two forces. But that cover wouldn’t last long as the Klingons changed their own positions to compensate.

  They had to pull back again, then again.

  The door that would give the Klingons access to the control room was just twenty meters behind them now. And the Klingons were moving ahead faster as their numbers grew.

  It would soon become a game of inches, and seconds, Justman knew.

  He racked his brain for some way to add a few seconds to the inevitable, to give Kirk time to pull out a miracle.

  He scanned the area around him.

  They had moved in a diagonal line toward the door. Above the door and the wall was the beginning of the transparent dome. Just ahead of the door were some compartments that were marked HIGH OXYGEN ENVIRONMENT.

  There would be nothing he could use in there. Though he might be able to get one or more of those compartments [180] to explode, the blasts would do little good unless the Klingons cooperated and lined up right in front of them.

  Then an idea struck him.

  “Cease fire and follow me,” Justman said.

  The admiral rolled to the next aisle and then the next. Now there were just six or seven meters of open space between them and the arboretum wall.

  The admiral stood and ran, motioning West to follow.

  He knew he had less than a minute before the Klingons moved far enough ahead to see them, so he acted quickly.

  Justman stopped in front of the transparent door he had spied a moment ago. A quick look inside confirmed what the admiral had suspected. Beyond the transparent door, there was a small compartment, then another transparent door that protected the exotic plants that needed the oxygen-rich environment.

  The space between the two doors was an airlock that the botanists would use to protect the plants from the low-oxygen environment outside.

  “What can I do, Admiral?” West asked.

  Justman smiled at the young man. “Patrick, you have done very well today. I want you to know that your father would be very proud of you.”

  Then in practically one motion, he hit the control panel next to the door with one hand and grabbed West by the shoulder with the other. As the door slid open, he shoved Lieutenant West inside and resealed the door.

  Using his phaser, Justman fired at the control panel, sealing the door and the lieutenant outside.

  On the other side, West looked at him with confusion, then understanding.

  [181] As Justman turned, he heard West pounding on the door from the inside.

  The admiral was amazed by his calm as he stepped out for a better firing position. He moved quickly now, taking aim at the support pylon that connected the wall in front of him with the transparent dome above.

  The pylon flared out of existence and Justman could immediately hear the hiss of escaping air. Moving quickly, he aimed twenty meters farther down and disintegrated another pylon, then another.

  For a moment the only sounds he could hear were the hiss of escaping air—which was strong enough to create a breeze in the arboretum—and Lieutenant West’s pounding. Justman regretted giving the young man a new set of nightmares to follow him in his dreams. On the other hand, with luck, West would live, and that was something—or as Justman had learned in his life and in his career ...

  It was everything.

  It was a gift given to him by a starship captain named Rodriguez and the finest bridge crew he had ever known. It was given to him by countless others who fought and died for their beliefs—who fought and died for others.

  It was a gift that Justman never felt worthy to receive because his sacrifices had never been as great. Yet, he had always remembered theirs and tried to make a difference.

  A new sound was added to the room, the sound of movement. Justman raised his hands and waited.

  He did not have to wait long. The Klingons appeared quickly, stepping out with disrupters pointed at him. They were wary of some trick.

  [182] Their leader spoke.

  “You surrender to us? Earther?” he spat. “You must not know much about Klingons. Turn around. You will soon wish you had died in battle, Earther, when we are through with you.”

  Admiral Justman complied. As he did he felt time slow to a crawl. The seconds stretched out and the sounds around him died away, replaced by a peaceful silence.

  If West continued pounding or the Klingons said anything else, Justman was not aware of it. He turned his head to look up. He saw through the transparent dome and saw the Enterprise sitting just outside of the drydock.

  It was still the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. It was still a ship of dreams.

  Then the past and present merged into one, the Constitution and the E
nterprise merged into one ...

  One ship ...

  One dream.

  And she had come to save them all.

  Admiral Justman fired his phaser.

  For a moment, there was nothing, no sound, no movement. Then there was as a large section of the dome above them flew into space.

  Then there was a rush of air as he felt the stars pull him off the floor ... pull him closer.

  Scotty could feel the Enterprise coming to life beneath his feet. Power flooded into the warp core faster than even its designers ever intended.

  [183] He stepped out of the turbolift and onto the bridge.

  “Good to see you, Mr. Scott,” Uhura said, smiling at him as he strode out of the turbolift and onto the Enterprise bridge. He noted that every face on the bridge was smiling as well, and looking to him.

  “You too, Commander,” he said.

  Uhura moved quickly out of the command chair and took her place at the communications console.

  He hit the com button on the command chair and said, “Scott to engineering. How are we doin’ Mr. Kyle?”

  “Warp core will be at full power in about thirty seconds,” Kyle’s voice said. The lieutenant sounded calm, but Scotty knew that the lad had had a bad time at the station. He had done his job, but Scott knew that the young man had paid his own price for what he had seen.

  There was a pause and then Kyle said, “Warp engines to full power.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief.

  “Full power to helm,” Sulu announced.

  “How long until shields and phaser banks are fully charged, Mr. Kyle?” Scott asked.

  “Just a few minutes, sir,” Kyle replied.

  “Fine,” Scotty said. “We will stand by. Scott out.”

  That done, he got up and walked over to the bridge engineering station. He ran a quick test of the warp system. Mr. Spock had been right again. A slight change in the intermix formula had insured that they avoided the temporal problems they had had the last time they had attempted the procedure, flinging them days into the past.