The Wrath of Khan

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  James Kirk would repay the price.

  "I shall avenge you," Khan said to Joachim, his voice a growl.

  "I wished … no … revenge. . . ."

  Khan laid his friend down carefully. He stood up, his fists clenched at his side.

  "I shall avenge you."

  After taking the Enterprise's phaser burst, Reliant shot away dead straight, without a maneuver. David Marcus thought the Enterprise had won. Yet there was no elation from the bridge crew, only concentration on the scattery viewscreen, murmured interchanges of essential information, and tension over all, like a sound pitched just above the range of hearing.

  Kirk spoke into the intercom. "Get a medic up here! Stat!"

  David pulled himself out of his observer's detachment and hurried to the side of the injured helm officer.

  Sulu was not breathing. His hands were badly burned, and his skin was clammy. David felt his throat for a pulse and got absolutely nothing.

  David Marcus was not a medical doctor. He knew some first aid, which he had never had to use. He took a deep breath. The air was heavy with the smell of burned plastic and vaporized metal.

  He tilted Sulu's head back, opened his mouth, breathed four breaths into him, pressed the heels of his hands over the helm officer's sternum, and compressed his chest rapidly fifteen times in a row. A breath, fifteen compressions. Sulu did not react, but David kept going. A breath, fifteen compressions.

  "What's the damage, Scotty?" he heard Kirk say.

  For David, everything was peripheral except the life in his hands. The first rule of manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation was and always had been: Don't stop. No matter what, don't stop.

  A breath, fifteen compressions.

  "Admiral," the engineer said, "I canna put the mains back on-line! The energizer's burst; if I try to gi' it to ye, 'twill go critical!"

  "Scotty, we've got to have main power! Get in there and fix it!"

  A breath, fifteen compressions. David's shoulders and arms were beginning to ache.

  "It isna possible, sir!" Mr. Scott cried. "The radiation level is far too high; i' ha' already burned out the electronics o' the repair robot, and if ye went in in a suit 'twould freeze for the same reason! A person unprotected wouldna last a minute!"

  A breath, fifteen compressions. The ache in David's shoulders crept slowly into pain. Sweat rolled down his forehead and stung in his eyes. He could not stop to wipe it away.

  "How long, Scotty?"

  "I canna say, sir. Decontamination is begun, but 'twill be a while—"

  A breath, fifteen compressions. David was breathing heavily himself now. He had not realized what lousy condition he was in. He had worked long hours on Spacelab, but it was essentially a sedentary job; the only exercise he had ever got was playing zero-gee handball with Zinaida, whom he had sometimes accused of using him as a moving wall to bounce the ball off of.

  Come on, Sulu, he thought, give me a little help, man, please.

  A breath, fifteen compressions.

  The turbo-lift doors slid open, and a medical team hurried onto the bridge.

  "Hurry—up—you—guys—" David said.

  A medic vaulted down the stairs and knelt beside him.

  "Any reaction?"

  David shook his head. His sweat-damp hair plastered itself against his forehead.

  "Keep going," the medic said. She drew a pressure-injector out of her bag, dialed it, and fitted a long, heavy needle to it. "I'm going to try epinephrine straight to the heart. When I tell you, get out of my way but keep breathing for him. Okay?"

  David could hardly see because of the sweat sparkling in his eyes. He nodded. The medic ripped Sulu's shirt open, baring his chest. The fabric parted beneath David's hands.

  "Okay. Now!"

  He moved quickly, sliding aside but continuing to breathe for the helm officer. What was the count for artificial respiration? Fifteen per minute? He held Sulu's head just beneath his jaw but still could feel no pulse.

  The medic plunged the needle down.

  The reaction was almost instantaneous. Sulu shuddered, and his clammy skin flushed. David felt a pulse, thready and fast. Sulu gasped. David did not know what to do, whether to stop or keep going.

  The medic took his shoulder. "It's okay," she said. "You can stop now."

  David stopped. He could barely raise his head. He was dripping with sweat and panting. But Sulu was breathing on his own.

  "Good work," the medic said.

  "How is he?" Kirk said without taking his gaze off the viewscreen.

  "Can't tell yet," the medic said. "He's alive, thanks to his friend here."

  She flung out a stretcher. It rippled, straightened, solidified. David staggered to his feet and tried to help her get Sulu onto it. He was not a great deal of use in lifting, because his arms were so tired they had gone numb. But once Sulu was on the stretcher, David at least could guide it. While the medic started working on Sulu's burns, David pushed the stretcher to the turbo-lift and down to sick bay.

  Pavel Chekov felt and heard the battle begin; he watched the flow of casualties start and increase. He considered himself responsible for everything that had happened. He tried to sit up, but Dr. McCoy had strapped him down—it was a safety precaution, not restraint, and as the ship rocked and shuddered around him he freed his arms and fumbled for the fastenings. Sick bay spun around him; he had to close his eyes again to get his balance.

  For a moment, he lay back. What possible use could he be on the bridge, half-crippled and sick?

  Then they brought Mr. Sulu in. Dr. Chapel read his life signs grimly, looked at his hands, and cursed under her breath.

  Chekov ripped off the restraining straps and forced himself to stand. In the confusion, no one noticed him get up, or if they did they did not try to make him lie down again.

  His hearing was still one-sided. At the entrance to sick bay he lost his balance and kept from falling only by grabbing the doorjamb.

  Someone took him by the shoulder.

  "You'd better lie down again," David Marcus said. Chekov remembered him vaguely and dimly from the painful haze of Regulus I.

  "I can't," Chekov said. "I must get to bridge—Mr. Sulu—"

  "Hey, look—"

  "Pazhalsta," Chekov said, "help me, bozhemoi, the ship has nothing but children on its crew!"

  David hesitated. Chekov wondered if he would have to try to fight him to get out of sick bay.

  David slung Chekov's arm across his shoulder and helped him toward the lift.

  Chekov would never have made it to the bridge without Marcus's help. Even half-supported, he felt like he was struggling through a whirlpool.

  As the lift doors opened Chekov drew away from David Marcus: Admiral Kirk would send him back if he could not even make it to the bridge on his own feet. David seemed to understand, and let him go without argument.

  Chekov walked carefully across the upper level, took a deep breath, and managed to navigate the stairs without falling. At Kirk's elbow, he stopped.

  "Sir, could you use another hand?"

  Kirk glanced at him, startled. Then he smiled.

  "Take your place at the weapons console, Mr. Chekov."

  "Thank you, sir."

  At the science officer's station, Mr. Spock tried to make something of the distorted readings his sensors were receiving.

  "Spock, can you find him?"

  "The energy readings are sporadic and indeterminate, but they could indicate extreme radial acceleration under full impulse power. Port side, aft."

  "He won't stop now," Kirk said. "He's followed me this far; he'll be back. But where the hell from?"

  Spock considered.

  "Admiral," he said. "Khan's intelligence cannot make up for his lack of experience. All the maneuvering Reliant has done, bold though it may be, has occurred in a single plane. He takes advantage neither of the full abilities of his ship nor of the possibilities inherent in three degrees of freedom."

  Kirk glanced back a
t him and grinned. "A masterful analysis, Mr. Spock. Lieutenant Saavik, all stop."

  Saavik decelerated the ship to zero relative motion.

  "All stop, sir."

  "Full thrust ninety degrees from our previous course: straight down."

  "Aye, sir."

  "Mr. Chekov, stand by photon torpedoes."

  "Aye, sir."

  The Enterprise plunged downward into the shadows of the nebula.

  Khan sought any sign of Kirk in the mangled image on his viewscreen. All around him lay the wreckage of the bridge and the bodies of his people. A few moaned, still alive, but he no longer cared. This was a battle to the death. He would be glad to die if he took James Kirk with him.

  He scanned the space surrounding Reliant, but found nothing. Nothing at all—only the impenetrable energy fields of the nebula.

  "Where is Kirk?" he cried. "Where in the land of Hades is he?"

  Nothing, no one, replied.

  The Enterprise hovered within the Mutara Nebula's great dustcloud. The ship was blind and deaf. Jim Kirk forced himself to sit quiet and relaxed as if nothing worried him. It was the biggest act of his life. The ship was badly hurt; every score of Reliant's weapons had touched him as painfully as any physical blow. And in truth, he had no idea what Khan would try next. He could only estimate, and guess, and hope.

  At the helm, Saavik glanced at him with a questioning expression.

  "Hold steady, Lieutenant," he said.

  She nodded once and turned back to her position. Chekov never moved. He hunched over Sulu's weapons console. He had looked terrible when he came in, pale and sick and dizzy. But the truth was Kirk needed him; the ship needed him. With Sulu gone—Kirk glanced around the bridge and saw that David had returned. He gestured to him. The young man came down the stairs and stopped beside the captain's seat.

  "How's Sulu?"

  "They don't know yet," David said. "His hands are a mess—he'll be in therapy for a while. If he lives. They wouldn't say. He might have brain damage."

  "You got to him fast," Jim said. "He'd be dead if you hadn't. You gave him the one chance he had. Whatever happens—David, I'm proud of you."

  To Jim's surprise and shock, David reacted with a curse.

  "What the hell right have you got to be proud of me?" he said angrily.

  He stormed back to the upper level of the bridge and stood scowling with his arms folded across his chest. He ignored Jim Kirk's gaze.

  Jim turned back to the viewscreen, angry and hurt.

  "Stand by photon torpedoes," he snapped at Chekov.

  "Photon torpedoes ready, sir."

  The interchange with David had broken Jim's concentration. He felt irritated and foolish to have tried to make peace and friends with the boy and to have been so throughly rebuffed. It served him right for thinking about personal matters when the ship was in danger. He forced himself back to the problem at hand.

  "Lieutenant Saavik."

  "Aye, sir."

  He had been tempted to say, "Dive! dive! dive!" earlier, but refrained; now he kept himself from ordering the young Vulcan officer to let the ship surface. This was not, after all, a submarine, and they were not hunting an enemy U-boat.

  Too many old novels, Jim, he thought.

  If he failed, his crew would have not a comforting sea to receive them, but unforgiving vacuum filled with nothing but radiation.

  "Accelerate. Full impulse power at course zero and plus ninety. Just until the sensors clear." That would get them out of the worst of the dust. "Then all stop."

  "Aye, sir," she said, and executed the command.

  The artificial gravity was holding, but at a level tentative enough that Kirk could feel the acceleration: straight up. The viewscreen was still dead, but as they rose out of the gas cloud it slowly cleared.

  The roiling mass of dust and gases draped away from Jim Kirk's ship like the sea around the flanks of a huge ocean mammal. They rose: and Reliant lay full ahead.

  Bull's-eye! Jim Kirk thought.

  "Mr. Chekov—!"

  "Torpedoes ready, sir!"

  "Fire!"

  Chekov fired.

  The torpedoes streaked away.

  In the pure silence of hard vacuum, the torpedoes touched the enemy ship and exploded. Reliant's starboard engine nacelle collapsed, spun, tumbled, and gracefully, quietly, exploded.

  Reliant responded not at all. The ship drifted steady on its course.

  "Cease fire," Kirk said. "Look sharp."

  The bridge crew reacted with silence, watching, waiting. Too soon to be certain. . . .

  "Match course, Lieutenant," Kirk said to Saavik.

  She obeyed: the Enterprise followed Reliant, maneuvering slightly till their relative speeds were zero, and Reliant appeared dead in space.

  "Our power levels are extremely low, sir," Lieutenant Saavik said.

  Kirk switched the intercom to the engine room. "Mr. Scott, how long before you can get the mains back on-line?"

  "At least ten minutes, sir, I canna send anyone in till after decontamination."

  Kirk glowered and snapped the channel off. "Commander Uhura, send to Commander, Reliant: Prepare to be boarded."

  "Aye, sir."

  Her long, fine hands moved on her instruments.

  "Commander, Reliant, this is U.S.S. Enterprise. Surrender and stand by for boarding. I repeat: Stand by for boarding."

  Lying on the deck of the bridge of Reliant, Khan Singh heard the triumph of the Enterprise communications officer. He groaned and forced himself to sit up. He would not accept defeat. Blood ran down the side of his face, and his right arm was shattered. He could see the bone protruding from his forearm. He felt the pain and accepted it, then put it aside. Shock intoxicated him and put a fine edge on his anger.

  He crawled to his feet. His crushed arm flopped against his side. He picked up his useless right hand and thrust it beneath his belt, holding it steady and out of his way.

  "No, Kirk," he whispered. He smiled. "Our game is not over yet. I am not quite prepared to concede."

  "Reliant, stand by and prepare for boarding." The viewscreen was dead, but Khan did not need it to know that the Enterprise was approaching him, secure and arrogant in the certainty of its conquest.

  Khan staggered from the bridge, toward the storage bay. . . .

  Laughing.

  Back on the Enterprise, Mr. Spock kept a close eye on his instruments and waited for a reply from Reliant. Perhaps Khan had been killed in the final barrage. Perhaps.

  Spock did not believe it. The engines, both impulse and warp, were destroyed, and the bridge had been damaged, but he saw no evidence of a break in the hull in that area.

  "Enterprise to Reliant," Commander Uhura said again. "You are to surrender your vessel and prepare for boarding by order of Admiral James T. Kirk, Starfleet General Command."

  Nothing.

  "I'm sorry, sir," Uhura said. "No response."

  Kirk stood up. "We'll beam aboard. Alert the transporter room."

  Spock's attention was drawn to an odd energy pattern on one of his sensors. He focused and traced it: Reliant.

  "Admiral, Reliant is emitting the wave form of an energy source I have never before encountered."

  David Marcus, from his place near the turbo-lift, frowned and hurried to the science officer's station. He leaned over to look at Spock's sensor.

  "My God in heaven," he said.

  Spock raised one eyebrow.

  "It's the Genesis wave!" Marcus said.

  "What?"

  Marcus turned toward Admiral Kirk. His face paled.

  "Khan has Genesis!" David Marcus said. "He's armed it! It's building up to detonation!"

  "How long—?"

  "If he kept our programming … four minutes."

  "Shit," Kirk said. He leaped up the stairs and slammed his hand against the turbo-lift controls. "We can beam aboard and stop it! Mr. Spock—"

  "You can't stop it!" David cried. "Once it's started there's no turning b
ack!"

  Kirk rushed back to his place and stabbed the intercom buttons.

  "Scotty!"

  Kirk received no answer but static. He spoke anyway.

  "Scotty, I need warp speed in three minutes or we've had it!"

  The intercom crackled. No reply.

  Spock watched all that occurred. He knew what Mr. Scott would say if he could even be reached: Decontamination would take at least another six minutes, and no human being would last long enough in the radiation flux even to begin the jury-rigging necessary to bring main engines on-line. He knew, from studying the Marcuses' data, the incredible velocity of the Genesis wave, and he knew the speed his ship could go under damaged impulse engines. It was no match.

  "Scotty!"

  Spock made a decision.

  "Saavik!" Kirk said. "Get us out of here, full impulse power!"

  "Aye, sir." She was prepared: at the order, the Enterprise spun one hundred eighty degrees in place and crawled away from Reliant.

  Spock permitted himself a moment of pride. Saavik would make a fine officer: she would fulfill the potential he had detected in the filthy, barbarous, half-breed Hellguard child. He wished he would be able to guide her a little further.

  But this way, she would be freer to find her own path.

  When the doors to the turbo-lift opened, responding to Jim Kirk's abandoned order, Spock stepped inside.

  Khan Singh felt hot blood flowing from his temple, from his arm, inside his body. He coughed blood and spat it out. His cold hand caressed the Genesis torpedo. It was armed and ready.

  He staggered and fell to his knees.

  "No," he said. "No, I will not die here. . . ."

  He stumbled into the turbo-lift. It pressed upward beneath him. When it reached the bridge, he had to crawl to leave it. He collapsed finally at the top of the stairs, but he could see the viewscreen.

  The Enterprise crept away at a painfully slow speed. Khan began to laugh. The pain caught up to him, and he coughed. He was bleeding into his lungs, into his belly. He did not have much time. But it would be enough.

  "You cannot escape me, James Kirk," he murmured. "Hades has taken me, but from his heart I stab thee. . . ."

  He watched the Enterprise, turned tail and fleeing, terrified. He laughed.