STAR TREK: TOS - Errand of Vengeance, Book Two - Killing Blow

by Kevin Ryan

  “Mr. Justman, head down to auxiliary control,” [129] Captain Rodriguez said. “We need those phasers back online.”

  “Aye, sir,” Justman said. As he turned to go, the captain took his position at the weapons console. He spared Justman a grim smile and said, “Good work.”

  Then the captain was absorbed in the console’s readouts and Justman was racing for the turbolift.

  He made it to auxiliary control quickly and found it bustling with activity, with the junior communications officer and engineering officer and computer control officer conferring with the bridge and other areas of the ship.

  He relieved the very nervous junior lieutenant at the auxiliary weapons console, which was a nearly exact duplicate of the one on the bridge. Except that this one was undamaged.

  He traced the damage-control circuits and called down to the phaser room. He had to reroute the circuit while keeping the system hot and ready to fire. It was exacting work, and he knew he had to do it quickly.

  “Mr. Justman, report,” the captain’s voice said, his calm, confident tones giving Justman more confidence.

  Without stopping his work, Justman said, “I’ll have it in a second, Captain.”

  “The Klingons aren’t talking, we think they’re preparing another group ...” Rodriguez said.

  Justman knew what that meant. The Yorkshire couldn’t use torpedoes so close to the unprotected humans floating in space. And they needed weapons fire to give them precious seconds to maneuver and avoid the Klingon blasts while the shields were down.

  “Got it,” Justman said. He knew he had cut a few corners and he knew that the chief engineer would not [130] approve of his work, yet he was equally sure that the circuit would hold.

  Before the captain broke the communication, Justman heard enough bridge chatter to know that the Klingons had forced another group of humans into space.

  Justman’s panel told him the captain was firing the phasers. Then the ship shook under his feet, announcing the maneuvers as his indicators told him the shields were down.

  Then the tactical readout in front of him told Justman that the Klingons had a weapons lock—much faster than last time, he noted.

  Then the officer at the engineering console was shouting behind him that they had an overload in helm control.

  What happened next happened very quickly.

  The ship veered sharply, and Justman was thrown with great force onto the floor. That was not just an aggressive evasion maneuver, he thought.

  Then he felt what only could have been an explosion rock the ship.

  Before that thought had completely registered, he was on his feet and at his console. He saw that shields were down.

  “Does the transporter room have anyone?” he barked.

  The communication’s officer’s shaky voice came back with, “They have a signal, but they’re having trouble ...” the officer said.

  Justman called up a transporter status readout on his panel. Someone in the transporter room was struggling to resolve a transporter signal. The ship must have been hit while a group of survivors were in midtransport.

  He tried to raise the bridge. No response.

  [131] Then he saw it. The helm was offline and the Klingons had another weapons lock.

  Shields were still down.

  Transporters were still engaged.

  Justman knew he could not afford to hesitate and he did not, though he would replay the moment in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

  With a single touch, he brought the shields up and ended the lives of six human beings still in the transporter beam.

  Aiming the phasers manually, he targeted the lead ship. He watched the twin phaser beams strike the Klingon ship’s starboard nacelle. Then he watched the shield protecting the nacelle flare brightly for a moment before it failed.

  He knew he had a clear shot at the nacelle and he took it.

  The cruiser was veering off to protect the unshielded yet vital part of the ship.

  The maneuver was executed quickly and it was almost fast enough. Fortunately, Justman was faster and saw the beam strike the nacelle a glancing but solid blow.

  He saw one phaser beam tear through hull and watched pieces of nacelle fly into space.

  At best, the Klingon would lose warp capability and a fair amount of its power. At worst, they would be fighting a warp-core breach.

  Both cruisers withdrew and Justman allowed himself a single deep breath.

  He confirmed the shields were up—and at better than fifty percent. Then he tried the bridge and couldn’t get a signal.

  [132] He turned to the communications officer.

  “I need the bridge, now,” he said.

  The lieutenant at the console worked his controls and said, “I can’t reach the bridge, the circuit must have been damaged.”

  Justman walked to the communications console and tried it himself. No signal.

  “I’m also having trouble getting damage-control reports from some sectors of the primary hull,” the communications officer said.

  Justman nodded. They must have taken the hit somewhere in the primary hull. That would explain the cut communications lines.

  Without communications to the bridge, Justman would not know how to help the captain. And given the pounding they had just taken, Captain Rodriguez would need auxiliary systems.

  A flash of insight told him what to do.

  “Can you tie into the Endeavor’s viewer and show me the damage?” Justman asked the officer.

  He put a hand on the com officer’s shoulder. The junior lieutenant was young. What was his name?

  “Mr. Heller, can you tie us in?” Justman said.

  “Yes, sir,” the young officer said. He called up the access codes on a display and punched them in. “I’m in their system ... now.”

  “Good, show me our primary hull. Put it on the viewer,” Justman said.

  Justman turned to the auxiliary-control viewscreen, and sensed that all of the other officers in the room were doing the same.

  The first image of the Yorkshire was distant. The [133] ship looked intact, but there was some scoring on the upper section of the hull. They would need a closer look.

  “Magnify, focus on upper half of primary hull,” Justman said.

  He heard the click of controls and watched the screen as the image rippled, then shifted.

  An instant later, he saw the upper portion of the hull. The image was very clear, but what it showed him was completely impossible.

  He blinked and looked again, waiting for his vision to clear.

  But the image refused to change.

  Then he knew there was no mistake. He was sure.

  The bridge of the U.S.S. Yorkshire was gone, obliterated along with part of the deck below it.

  Chapter Twelve

  CAPTAIN KIRK WAS the first to fire. He took the shot running, about midway down the wall of the ravine.

  It was a difficult shot, but the captain did not miss.

  The powerful phaser beam leapt from the rifle and reached out for the pilot’s head. It flared brilliantly against the weapons platform’s shield. Kell felt a tinge of disappointment. Unlike the first pilot, this one had not turned off his shield.

  If the shield were off, this battle would already be half over.

  Kirk had no doubt studied the reports from the System 1324 incident, which showed that the shield was weakest at the top.

  Kell was not surprised to see the shield holding, even after a phaser rifle blast. He had seen the platform’s shields absorb beam after beam of phaser-2 fire. [135] They would absorb more than one blast from a phaser rifle.

  But not much more.

  Kell fired his own weapon. The blast went wide and he aimed for another shot, targeting the weapons platform in the rear this time. He hit that shield at the pilot’s chest level. The shield flared a brilliant purple.

  Kirk came to a stop about two-thirds of the way down the ravine. The cover was adequate there with
more trees than the bare clearing directly below them.

  Kell saw movement in his peripheral vision and guessed that the primitives were escaping behind them. He kept up the fire. He and Benitez concentrated on the platform in the rear, while the captain and most of the others concentrated on the one on the front.

  The pilots were slow to respond. They expected to be hunting unarmed primitive beings and were now being pounded by high-powered phaser fire on a planet that should have contained no technology beyond simple hand tools.

  Few beings would be able to adapt quickly to that abrupt a development. Clearly, the Orions were not among that few; they were buffeted by fire. They fired their own weapons but could not find decent targets and none of the deadly blasts came anywhere near the landing party’s position.

  “Hold your fire,” Kirk called out, after a few moments.

  He stepped down to get closer to the bottom of the ravine. Taking careful aim, he fired two blasts at the lead platform. Then another three at the rear vehicle. Both ships’ shields flared and then disappeared, though the vehicles were left intact and the pilots unharmed.

  [136] Kirk started down the ravine wall. Chief Brantley called out to him.

  “Captain, the last time we faced those weapons platforms, they were booby-trapped. The Orions did not want to be taken alive.”

  Kirk nodded, but continued down, saying, “They knew they would be taking on Starfleet then. This time they weren’t expecting any resistance, and the Orions don’t usually resort to that kind of extreme action. I’m betting that they didn’t institute the same protocols here. They still think this is a secret operation.”

  Then he shot the security team a look over his shoulder. “And nobody blows themselves up until I get some answers.”

  Kirk stepped out into the clearing, his rifle aimed straight at the Orions.

  “This is Captain James T. Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise. You are under arrest under more Federation and Starfleet articles than I have time to name. Take your hands off the controls of your vehicle.”

  The Orions complied, raising their hands.

  By then, the security squad had followed Chief Brantley to the clearing. Kell noticed that there was no sign of the primitives. He found himself scanning carefully, covering the captain’s position. He quickly realized the irony of trying to protect the man he intended to kill. Yet it did not stop him from doing his job. He would continue to do that job until it came time to do his final duty for the Empire.

  “Take off the helmets. Let me see you,” Kirk said.

  Kell knew there was no tactical reason to give that order. Yet he understood why Kirk did it. The Orions [137] had done much killing from behind their masks and protected weapons.

  Such was not the way of true Klingon warriors. Nor was it, Kell had learned, the way of human beings.

  Now it would no longer be an option for the honorless Orions, who slowly removed their helmets, revealing their green faces.

  The two pilots were large, even by Orion standards. But these two pilots did not look very fierce out of their masks with a high-powered phaser weapon pointed straight at their heads.

  Holding the rifle firm, Kirk said, “Now we are going to have a little talk about your operation here.”

  The Orions did not even make a pretense of defiance. They were frightened, and by the way Kirk was looking at them, Kell thought they had good reason to be.

  “Let’s start with who you are working for,” the captain said.

  Before either of the aliens could respond, a bolt of energy tore into the ground behind and to the right of Captain Kirk.

  Kell turned his head reflexively, making sure that no one in the squad was hit. Parrish was safe. As was Benitez and the others.

  Then his eyes shot forward again and he saw another blast tear their way.

  “I’ve got two more coming in!” Parrish shouted.

  Kell could see them in the distance, lumbering along.

  “Prepare to fall back,” Kirk ordered.

  “Sir, I show two more behind us,” Parrish’s voice said.

  “Anderson, Benitez, Jawer, stay with the captain,” [138] Chief Brantley called out. “The rest of you come with me.”

  Brantley would cover the rear, but Kell knew they were in trouble. They were in the open with two of the Orion vehicles on either side.

  They had taken down two Orion platforms earlier, but they had done that from covered positions and they had had the advantage of surprise.

  One of the prisoners smiled, though it looked to Kell more like a sneer. Then a bolt of energy tore over his shoulder and hit a few meters from Kell’s position.

  “Down,” the captain yelled, firing his phaser at the distant Orion vehicles. The two prisoners smiled broadly now, until a bolt shot uncomfortably close to them. As Kell fired his own weapon, he saw the realization dawn on the Orions’ faces: they were in danger, standing up and caught in the crossfire between the Orion and Starfleet fire.

  Before they could drop, the one on the right caught a blast in the center of the back from one of the Orion platforms. His partner looked on in horror as the Orion was vaporized, for a moment distracted from the reality of his own danger.

  Then another blast caught him and he disappeared in a flash of energy.

  Kell fired. He judged that they would be able to eliminate the four platforms but resigned himself to the notion that most of the landing party would not survive the encounter. The faces of his section mates and one face in particular rose in his mind. He forced them back by sheer will. No one would survive if everyone did not remain focused.

  [139] He heard the battle raging behind him and wondered how Chief Brantley and the others were faring. Suddenly, the battle sounded horrific, loud and even more intense than the one he, Kirk, and the others were fighting.

  Two explosions sounded in rapid succession. Then, most of the sound behind him died away and he heard another sound that chilled him: an Orion blast fired from almost directly behind him. He saw it shoot out over his head.

  It was over, he knew, if Brantley was finished and the Orion vehicle had broken the Starfleet line behind him. They would be fighting two platforms in the front and at least one more behind them, one which was firing at nearly point-blank range.

  Knowing he had nothing to lose, Kell turned over sharply and scanned for the platform. It was just meters away.

  He aimed and had nearly fired when he heard Brantley yell, “Cease fire!” He stayed his finger, barely.

  As the weapons platform approached, it took him a moment to process what he was looking at. He realized at once that the vehicle was not firing at the landing party. Rather, it was targeting the other platforms.

  Kell also realized that it was not being piloted by an Orion, but by one of the primitives. He couldn’t make out the face in the instant he had to look, but he recognized the humanoid’s clothes. It was the first primitive they had seen, the one who had defeated the Orion pilot with a hand axe.

  Then the platform passed over them, its cannons blazing.

  The other vehicles didn’t even get off a shot. The [140] pilots seemed frozen. But their surprise didn’t last long. The humanoid who was now just ahead of Kell and Kirk’s position fired a series of lethal volleys that crashed through the Orions’ shields.

  One, then the other went up in a plume of orange fire. The sound of the nearby explosions was nearly deafening. Kell put his head down until the explosive blast passed over his head. Then he looked up.

  Kirk was getting up, but keeping his phaser rifle pointed carefully at the ground.

  As Kell got up, he saw Kirk look up at the primitive humanoid on the weapons platform, who had his back to the landing party.

  In his peripheral vision, the Klingon saw the other primitives beginning to close in. He gripped his phaser rifle tightly. It was an old Klingon axiom that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” but he did not know if these humanoids would feel the same way.

  “
I’m Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise,” the captain said.

  The humanoid on the platform reacted to Kirk’s voice by lowering the platform. He did it gently, as if he had piloted the craft before. Of course, that only made sense because he had just used it to blast two similar craft and their pilots to oblivion.

  On the other hand, that realization didn’t fit with the humanoid’s hand-manufactured clothing. He was wearing a simple tan tunic and pants, made from a rough-hewn fabric. His shoes were some type of animal-hide leather, but also looked handmade and not manufactured.

  When the platform was hovering barely off the [141] ground, the figure jumped to the ground and turned around.

  At first, Kell rejected what his eyes told him as impossible. He took in the humanoid’s face again, the dark skin, the bony ridges of the forehead.

  Kell was looking into the face of a Klingon.

  “I have learned about you,” Klak said as Karel spoke to nun in the Klingon commander’s new quarters. In Karel’s mind, he still had trouble thinking of Klak as captain.

  Klak ate his evening gagh alone this time. He had not invited Karel to join him, for which the Klingon was grateful. He preferred to stand.

  “I see you are a student of the fighting art Mok’bara, which explains your skill in hand fighting. I have also learned that you are a student of Kahless,” Klak continued.

  “I seek to follow in Kahless’s path to honor and to victory,” Karel said.

  “Honor, like history, is decided by victors,” Karel said.

  Karel did not respond. He did not trust his ability to keep the distaste out of his voice. His father had taught him that honor, like truth, could not be twisted to serve a Klingon’s ends.

  “Tell me, what happened to Kahless?” Klak said.

  “He was murdered,” Karel said.

  “As happens so often to Klingons of vision—too often,” Klak said. “I do not wish to meet that fate. I have much glory I wish to bring to the Empire. And I would like you to help me.”

  “I serve the Empire,” Karel said.

  “And you wish vengeance against the Earthers,” Klak said.

  [142] Karel nodded. “What would you like from me?” he asked.