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

by Kevin Ryan

  This time, the cold start of the warp core had not caused [184] any problems. And it had taken even less time. Now they would soon be ready to give the Klingons a little surprise.

  “Helm,” Scott said. “Stand ready on my command to engage the Klingon ship.”

  “Standing by,” Scott said.

  “Uhura, have we heard from the captain or Mr. Spock?” he asked.

  “No, sir. No reports,” she said.

  Before she could ask, Scotty said, “Let them be. They will advise us when they are ready.”

  Scotty knew that their chances against the Klingon warship would improve if the station’s defenses were at full power as well. Scotty knew that it would be easier to power up the newer Enterprise engines than the old starbase core. Plus, Mr. Spock already had done the calculations for the Enterprise. He would be working on the fly at the station with antiquated equipment.

  “Sir,” the acting science officer said. “We were just scanned by the Klingon vessel.”

  “Damn,” Scott said, adding a few more Gaelic words under his breath. “They know we have warp power and that we will be at full power soon.”

  He didn’t need to call down to Kyle to get the report. He knew the math. Shields and phasers were still charging. It would be a few minutes yet before they were at full power—or whatever would pass for full power on the still damaged Enterprise.

  If they waited a few more seconds, the shields might actually survive a full-power disrupter blast or a torpedo hit.

  Once.

  [185] But even if they survived a single hit, Scotty knew they would not likely survive a second, or a third. And the Klingons would throw everything they had at the Enterprise.

  “Shall I raise shields?” Sulu asked.

  “No,” Scotty said. He knew it would do more harm than good to try to raise them when the system was still charging and was in its present condition.

  “We’ll wait,” he said to the entire bridge crew’s unanswered question.

  But the Klingon ship knew they had power and knew they would very soon have weapons.

  He waited, but he knew the Enterprise would be going into battle, very soon—whether she was ready or not.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE DECK SHOOK under Kirk’s feet. It felt like someone was firing on the station, or like a large explosion had detonated nearby.

  A quick glance at the environmental control board told him that there had been a large and sudden decompression in the arboretum—where Admiral Justman and Lieutenant West had just been.

  A sense of foreboding rose up, but Kirk forced it down. He had duties.

  Then a red light began flashing on the sensor board on the next console.

  “Ah ... Captain Kirk,” Marsilii said from his position near the access door. “We don’t have much longer.”

  Kirk could hear more and more disrupter blasts coming from the breaches in the rapidly failing blast door. He ignored them.

  [187] He scanned the readouts. The screen measuring the Klingon vessel’s power output was increasing—minutely, but it was increasing.

  “Um, sir ...” Marsilii’s nervous voice said. “The Klingons, sir.”

  Scanners, Kirk realized—they were scanning the Enterprise. A quick look at another readout told him that the ship’s warp engines were online. That meant weapons and other systems would be powering up.

  And if the Klingons were scanning the ship they would know that.

  Even as he saw the graph measuring the Klingons’ tractor beam show a decrease, Kirk was in motion. He threw himself at the nearby panel that held the switch for Marsilii’s jury-rigged plasma weapon.

  If the Klingons broke away before he reached it, the weapon would have no effect—and the Enterprise would be nearly helpless.

  His hand slammed down on the switch as a disrupter blast tore into a nearby panel. He heard and saw out of his peripheral vision that Marsilii was returning fire.

  Without turning around, Kirk said, “Get inside!”

  Then the captain raced for the access door and threw himself inside as disrupter fire nipped at his heels. Jumping to the side, he hit the control panel that would shut the door.

  And nothing happened.

  He hit it again. Still nothing.

  “Disrupter fire,” Marsilii said. “It must have damaged the door. We can make a run for it.”

  “No,” Kirk said. “If they know we’ve gone, they will [188] coordinate with the others and have a squad waiting for us at the next exit. Go up the ladder, Ensign.”

  Kirk returned fire as the young man followed his order. He knew what the security officer was thinking. There was nothing up there except the airlock that led to the travel pod, and the pod was a death trap with the Klingon cruiser outside.

  Yet, up Marsilii went.

  Kirk returned the Klingon fire and then raced up the ladder after him.

  At the top of the ladder, he said, “Watch the door, Ensign, and blast anything that comes through it.”

  Kirk looked over the travel-pod airlock control panel. Fortunately, it was clearly marked. As he heard Marsilii firing down toward the door, he hit the button that said Emergency Ejection. He watched through the window as explosive bolts tore away the seal between the station and the travel pod, blasting it, twisting and turning, into space.

  “Hold your fire,” Kirk called out.

  “Captain Kirk?” Marsilii said, turning to watch the travel pod go.

  “They won’t look for us if they think we went that way,” Kirk responded.

  Of course, that left them with another problem. How could they get past the Klingons and out of this service area?

  Kirk motioned Marsilii to be quiet and edged his way out onto the catwalk that ringed the top of the control room’s inner shell.

  Disrupter bolts occasionally tore up from the access door below, but they were exploratory in nature. The [189] Klingons saw that Kirk and Marsilii had stopped returning fire and were wary of a trick.

  That would give Kirk and the ensign some time. Not much, but it might be enough.

  Kirk led the way around the catwalk to the opposite side and saw the small airlock and access corridor below. The problem was that there was no ladder this time and the Klingons would soon start their way up the ladder by the airlock.

  Climbing over the guardrail, Kirk stepped onto the control room’s inner shell. The surface was bare metal, but it was crisscrossed with cables and relay boxes. If they were careful they could climb down without arousing the Klingons.

  If they did it quietly and quickly—and didn’t slip or fall ...

  Marsilii followed Kirk’s silent command and the two men made their way slowly down the curved surface.

  The climb went more smoothly than Kirk thought it would and they were down in less than a minute. But then Kirk could hear Klingon voices. He made a mental note to learn at least a few words of Klingon if he survived the next day.

  As they approached the small airlock door, Kirk heard the sound of boots on the catwalk. He knew there was very little time, but he waited until he had the rhythm of the steps before he hit the control panel that opened the door.

  The sound of the door was mostly masked by the Klingons’ own sounds. Kirk hoped it was enough as he pushed Marsilii inside and followed. He took the same care closing the door.

  [190] “Can you lock them out, quietly?” he said.

  Marsilii nodded and hit a sequence on the console. By then Kirk had opened the other door and was racing down the small corridor, his phaser out and ready.

  He spared a glance behind him and saw Marsilii locking the outer door as well. Then they came to the next set of airlock doors and repeated the procedure.

  Finally on the other side of the two airlocks, Kirk allowed himself to relax a bit. If the Klingons knew where they had gone, they didn’t have a chance. There would be Klingons waiting for them at the exit. But Kirk did not think so; his instincts told him that they had gotten away clean.
/>   Well, that was fine, he thought. Things had gone the Klingons’ way up until now. A sudden stab of feeling came over him when he remembered the decompression in the arboretum.

  The admiral had given them time, time to hide the crystals and time to use the plasma weapon against the Klingon ship. That time might well save the Enterprise as well.

  He gave Marsilii a smile and said, “Nice work, Ensign.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the security officer said. “I only hope the EM burst worked.”

  Kirk nodded. He badly wanted to know, himself, but he had another task to attend to. He flipped open his communicator and said, “Kirk to Spock.”

  “Spock here,” came the immediate reply. The Vulcan’s voice was calm, as if he were making a routine status report.

  “Does the station have power?” Kirk asked.

  “I am finishing computations now.”

  [191] “Could you hurry up, Mr. Spock?” Kirk asked.

  “I am hurrying, sir,” Spock said dryly.

  “How long?” Kirk asked.

  “Three minutes to finish the computations and then just two more minutes for the warp core to warm up. Fortunately, the core’s design—”

  “Thank you, Mr. Spock. I look forward to hearing your report in person. Good luck. Kirk out,” the captain said as he closed his communicator.

  Spock would succeed. If the Klingon ship had been damaged and had not yet engaged the Enterprise, they might turn this battle around.

  The captain flipped his communicator open again and said, “Kirk to Enterprise.”

  With Fuller in the lead, Kell, Parrish, and Clancy raced down the corridor and up the stairs they had been racing down just a few minutes ago.

  Once inside the first stairwell, Fuller blasted the control panel for the door. It would not hold the Klingons for long, but it would help. It might buy Spock and Jawer a few extra seconds to work their miracle.

  Battles were won and lost by seconds, Kell knew. He had seen it. And he had seen those precious seconds bought with the blood of brave people, brave warriors. He was willing to shed his own blood for whatever advantage it would bring. He knew the other three with him were just as willing.

  They did the same thing on five more levels, then another. Kell’s blood warned him that the Klingon force must be close.

  [192] At the top of another stairwell, Fuller stopped and turned around. Clearly he was thinking the same thing.

  “We need to stop their descent on this deck,” he said. “Stand back.”

  The group moved back while Fuller stood in front of the doors they had just exited and fired his phaser inside. He fired a long blast and then stepped away from the doors and fired again. The red beam crumpled the metal, twisting it and throwing it into the ruined stairwell.

  “That will keep them from even trying that way down. Come on,” he said, gesturing down the corridor. They followed, and Fuller did the same thing to the next stairwell.

  Then the next.

  Finally, at the end of the corridor, there were large doors that were at least ten meters high and twice that wide. The sign on top of the door said, MANUFACTURING PLANT.

  “This is where we make our stand. Come on,” Fuller said, stepping inside. Kell, Parrish, and Clancy followed.

  The manufacturing facility was large, very large. It was roughly a square of about two hundred meters in length and width. At the far end were a large stairwell and a freight turbolift that probably took heavy equipment to the lower levels of the station.

  The space between was nearly covered with synthesizers, metallurgy equipment, consoles, and other equipment whose function Kell could only guess at.

  It was large, and it had many obstructions. In many ways it would provide great advantages to the defenders.

  However, Kell knew they would be fighting a larger force of highly trained and very aggressive Klingon warriors. These were no simpleminded and arrogant Orions.

  [193] “We have to stop them from getting to that stairwell,” Fuller said, pointing to the rear of the room. “We need to hold them as long as we can then fall back in that direction. In the event that we are overrun and you are the only one of us left, overload your phaser and toss it inside. If they can’t get down that way, they will have to backtrack two sectors to find another way down. Remember, to win, we don’t have to beat them, we just have to buy Mr. Spock and Ensign Jawer enough time to get the warp core and the station’s defenses back online.

  “Come on,” Fuller said, “we have to find our positions quickly.”

  The first stop that the chief made was the rear of the room, where he tested the freight turbolift. The doors opened and there was a car there, but it would not move.

  “Good, so there’s only one way down to engineering,” he said. “Anderson, you’re with me. Parrish and Clancy, take position on the right,” he said, pointing to a large piece of equipment. “Get up high, if you can. It will be another advantage.”

  Then Fuller led Kell to the left side of the room near the front, where they chose a large console. Fuller boosted Kell up, and then Kell gave the chief a hand. Moments later, they were in position, looking down from the console’s three-meter height.

  Kell scanned with his eyes and found Parrish and Clancy, atop another piece of equipment. For a moment, he caught Parrish’s eyes. Neither moved, or made an expression, yet something passed between them. Against all sense and reason, Kell found himself thinking of the future.

  [194] Then the moment passed and both looked forward. Their future would be mere minutes unless they could get out of this room alive. He knew it was intended for building things, creation. Yet in a few moments, he knew it would be full of destruction and death.

  It would become a killing box.

  Kell waited and watched the door.

  “Scott here, Captain,” Scotty replied. “It is good to hear your voice, sir.”

  “Yours too, Mr. Scott. The ship?” Kirk asked.

  “Fine, sir. The Klingons scanned us and we thought ... well, we thought it was over. Then the Klingons got a nasty shock. I assume that was you. I thought I recognized your work, Captain.”

  “Not me, Mr. Scott. You will have to thank a young ensign from the station for that pulse.”

  “Then I look forward to shaking his hand.”

  “I will try to arrange that, Mr. Scott. What is the ship’s status?”

  “We’ll have phasers and shields fully charged soon,” Scott said.

  “All systems at full power,” the acting science officer announced.

  “We are ready, Captain,” Scott said. “We can engage the Klingon ship right now if you give the word.”

  “Delay that,” Kirk said. “Do not fire unless the Klingons fire at the Enterprise. They were powering down their tractor beam when we hit them. I’m not sure they have been incapacitated. If you can, wait for Mr. Spock to get the station to full power.”

  [195] “Aye, sir,” Scotty said.

  “Good work, Mr. Scott,” Kirk said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Scotty said, then the captain broke the connection.

  “Monitor the Klingons very carefully,” Scotty said to the acting science officer. “I want to know if the commander uses the head.”

  “Aye, sir,” came the reply.

  Up until now, the day had been defined by defeat after defeat. Setback after setback.

  But something had happened when the captain’s team had struck at the Klingons. They weren’t invincible, as it had started to seem.

  If the Klingons could suffer one setback, they could suffer another, and another.

  The tide of the battle had turned. Scotty was sure of it. Just as he was sure that no one could dish out setbacks like Captain Kirk.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “ARE YOU READY, Mr. Spock?” Ensign Jawer asked.

  Spock could hear the nervous tension in the young human’s voice. That tension had increased when the disruptor fire had begun on the engineering section’s door. The V
ulcan had found the disrupter fire a distraction.

  He would have preferred complete silence for his calculations. The new intermix formula he had developed had been optimized for the Enterprise’s mass and its warp engine’s output.

  Both of those variables were different on the station. In addition, scans of the warp core itself told Spock that it was no longer operating according to specifications. And to make matters more difficult, his scans showed that it would be subject to fluctuations in its own power output.

  Those new variables required careful computations.

  While the Vulcan would have preferred quiet, [197] ignoring the noise of the disrupters was a simple matter of mental discipline—a discipline that Jawer, as most humans, seemed to lack.

  “Mr. Spock?” Jawer said again.

  The Vulcan turned away from his work for a moment to face the human. “If it reduces your anxiety, I have calculated that the Klingons will not be able to penetrate the door for at least twelve minutes at their current rate of fire,” he said.

  “What?” Jawer said, his face showing that the information did not reduce his anxiety at all.

  “Ensign,” Spock said. “Anxiety is counterproductive and at the moment, illogical. We still have nearly twelve minutes before the Klingons break through the door.”

  Spock returned to his work. There was just a final check on his calculations.

  “Complete,” Spock said.

  The human smiled. “What can I do?” Jawer asked.

  “I will begin the intermix countdown from here,” Spock said. “Please observe the dilithium reaction chamber for irregularities.”

  The human sprinted for the dilithium chamber, which was several meters away from Spock’s engineering panel.

  “Ten seconds,” Spock said.

  “All systems seem normal,” Jawer announced.

  Spock nodded.

  “Five,” he said.

  “Four.

  “Three.

  “Two.

  “One.”

  [198] Spock could hear the hum of the dilithium reaction chamber as it powered up. Then a warning alarm went off.

  “Mr. Spock, something’s wrong,” Jawer said.