Star Trek: The Original Series - 161 - Savage Trade

by Tony Daniel

  “What are you now?”

  “I do not know,” Washington-Yarnek replied. “I could do worse than to attempt to become more and more like the true George Washington. He was an honorable man. I think he was a good man.”

  “He made mistakes,” Kirk said. “He lost battles.” Kirk paused, considered how deeply he wished to go into the matter. He owed it to Washington-Yarnek to speak the whole truth. “He also owned slaves.”

  “Yes, I remember,” the other said. “He freed them at the end of his life.” He looked down, shook his head. “I told myself I kept them for Martha’s sake. It was the world she knew.”

  “It doesn’t matter why one owns slaves,” Kirk said. “He should not have.”

  “I agree,” Washington-Yarnek said. “And I think he knew, too.” Washington-Yarnek stepped back, considered Kirk. “He was a complicated man, yet a man of honor. He provides one with a great deal to live up to.”

  “Captain,” Sulu said, nodding toward the screen.

  At first Kirk didn’t see it. It was just a ripple in the starfield, a small area darker than the other portions. As Kirk watched, this darkness began to grow larger and to take up much more of the viewscreen.

  “The Demiurge,” Kirk said.

  “Captain, there is very little trace of the entity on our sensors. It has achieved a near perfect camouflage. We can, however, extrapolate its position by taking sensor readings of where it is not. This presents necessary delays,” Spock said.

  “Understood,” Kirk said.

  “Excalbians dropping out of warp, Captain,” said Sulu.

  “What?”

  “The entire fleet is slowing. They are coming to a dead stop.”

  “It’s almost as if they’ve . . . given up,” Chekov put in.

  “Incoming message from Commander Anvit, Captain,” Uhura said.

  “Put it on.”

  The Excalbian appeared before them. Although the viewscreen enlarged him a bit, he was almost the same size as in real life when one was in close proximity.

  “We are going to do what we should have done all along, James T. Kirk,” Anvit said. “We will not conduct a pointless fight. We shall allow the Demiurge to devour us.” He paused a moment, then continued in a lower, sadder voice. “Perhaps it will choke on us. But I think not.” He raised a claw in emphasis. “I know your primitive mind will never be able to accept the futility of resistance. So this is good-bye, James T. Kirk. Anvit out.”

  The screen returned to starfield.

  Kirk shook his head. “Of all the boneheaded moves,” he mumbled. “We are very close to the nebula.” Kirk turned to Chekov. “Take us out of warp.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Excalbian armada at dead stop,” Spock reported. “The Demiurge has exited warp space. From sensor readings, or lack thereof, I do not think that any of our conventional weapons would do the Demiurge the slightest damage, Captain. There is nothing to lock onto, no target to acquire.”

  Kirk continued to gaze at the viewscreen as he returned to his command chair. “But we can lock onto the Excalbian vessels?”

  “Yes, sir, we can.”

  “Well, we can’t attack the Demiurge,” Kirk said. “Let’s attack the Excalbians, instead.”

  “What?” said Washington-Yarnek in surprise. “What do you mean, Captain?”

  “Mister Chekov, lock phasers onto the lead Excalbian ship.”

  “The Excalbian ship, sir?”

  “You heard me, mister.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Captain,” said Washington-Yarnek, “You aren’t serious? You can’t be intending . . .”

  “Fire phasers, Mister Chekov,” said Kirk.

  “Firing phasers.”

  The phasers squealed as they erupted toward the Excalbian flagship.

  The Excalbian ship had its shields down and took the fire. For a moment, its crystalline structure glowed a hot red.

  “Again, Mister Sulu.”

  “Firing,” Sulu answered.

  This time the hit produced the glow, and it did not subside. “We gave him a good punch,” Kirk said. “Let’s see if we’ve made him mad.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. Anvit’s rocky visage popped up on the viewscreen. “What’s the meaning of this, Kirk? You have attacked us without provocation!”

  “We were provoked, Commander,” Kirk replied. “By your inaction.”

  “We are preparing our minds for extinction. You have disrupted our self-reflection at a most crucial moment. How dare you? You will pay for this!”

  “Not if you can’t catch me.”

  “What, now you flee?” Anvit let out a sound that sounded like a steam pipe exploding. His breath-like expulsion whistled in pure anguish. “James T. Kirk, does your arrogance have no end?”

  “I think you know the answer to that,” Kirk replied. Kirk turned, and spoke to Chekov. “Mister Chekov, hit him with another. Fire phasers.”

  “Firing phasers, sir.”

  The Excalbian ship’s crystalline interior shuddered slightly behind Anvit. “You haven’t badly damaged us, you fool!” Anvit had raised his voice and was practically shouting. “You simpleminded humans. You turn on us! You should instead be giving your lives to a species infinitely more advanced than you!”

  “Infinitely?” Kirk said. “Take a look behind you.” Kirk motioned to Uhura to cut the screen, and she did so. “All right, Mister Sulu, take us toward the Vara Nebula. Maximum warp.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Kirk turned to Spock. “Mister Spock, what are our friends the Excalbians doing?”

  “They are in hot pursuit, Captain.”

  Kirk chuckled. “Excellent,” he said. “Now we have them right where they want us.”

  “Captain, you’ve truly kicked the hornets’ nest now,” Washington-Yarnek said. “Was it merely to introduce some random factor into events?” The Excalbian answered himself. “No, it could not be.”

  “You heard Anvit,” Kirk said to Washington-Yarnek. “Our weapons are useless against the Demiurge.”

  Washington-Yarnek thought a moment more. He took off his hat and bowed. His tight smile became laughter. He slapped the side of his thigh with the hat.

  “You couldn’t kick the big hornets’ nest, so you did the next best thing,” he said. “And put some fight into Anvit, to boot! Now he has an enemy he can enjoy fighting.”

  “The Excalbians are gaining on us,” said Spock. “They are now at warp factor nine.”

  Kirk thumbed the intraship. “Mister Scott . . .”

  “. . . more power, Captain?”

  “Everything you’ve got, Scotty.”

  “We’re already in the red line heading toward a warp core meltdown.”

  “Keep us together, Mister Scott.”

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “I know you will, Scotty,” Kirk said. “That’s one of the things I’m counting on. Kirk out.” He turned back to the helm. “Full ahead, Mister Sulu.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Enterprise shuddered. “The Excalbians are testing our shield frequencies, Captain,” Spock said. “They are looking for a way to nullify our protective advantage.”

  “Hold them off, Spock.”

  “Randomizing defensive oscillations,” Spock said. “There is a range of frequencies which function to block their abilities. We may be able to keep them guessing just long enough.”

  “What’s the Demiurge doing?”

  “On a vector to bypass Zeta Gibraltar,” Spock answered. “Instead, it is on a direct path to run down the Excalbians.”

  “All right, Spock, it’s time you join Doctor Franklin down on the hangar deck,” Kirk said.

  “On my way, Captain.” Spock moved away from his post and Chekov immediately replaced him. Lieutenant Leslie took Chekov’s place at navigation. The tubolift doors swished and Spock was gone.

  “You reasoned that the Demiurge would only attack Zeta Gibraltar if there were Excalbians present. I
t goes after the most complex life as prey,” Washington-Yarnek said. “It is entirely unconcerned with lowly species such as Vulcans and humans and their puny starships. It can swat you at will.”

  “Of course,” Kirk said.

  “Two superpowers pitted against one another at Yorktown.”

  “England and France,” Kirk said. “And we’re the lowly colonials that England planned to crush.”

  “With the French represented by the Demiurge? Wicked, Captain,” Washington-Yarnek said with a chuckle. Then his expression became more serious. “I must warn you,” he said. “It was a very near thing. If de Grasse’s ships hadn’t arrived, America would have been a mere footnote in the history books—as would I. The treasonous leader of a failed rebellion.”

  “American victory should have been impossible,” Kirk said. “You made your own luck, Mister President.”

  “With a little help from Franklin, yes.”

  “The British were cut off from their navy. Cornwallis surrended.”

  “Indeed,” Washington-Yarnek said, a faraway look in his eyes.

  As if he’s really remembering that day, Kirk thought. I’d like to believe that he is.

  “But remember, Captain,” the Excalbian said. “I only had one shot. If I’d missed—”

  “You’d have found another way,” Kirk said with a smile. “I have no doubt of it.”

  “Do you think there are such things as destiny and fate, Captain Kirk?”

  “And freedom,” Kirk said.

  “A paradox.”

  “A truth,” Kirk said. “Chekov, report.”

  “We have entered the corona of the Vara Nebula, sir,” Chekov said. “Recommend we slow down, sir,” he added nervously. “There are a lot of things to run into out there.”

  Kirk nodded. “Warp one, Mister Sulu.”

  “Warp one, Captain.”

  “That’s still . . . kind of fast, sir,” Chekov commented. He looked back at his sensor. “First debris band dead ahead.”

  The ship suddenly lurched from side to side. It rumbled as if the entire vessel had been struck by a giant hammer and was ringing with the blow.

  “Multiple impacts with space debris,” Chekov said above the noise.

  “Damage report.”

  “Forward shields down twenty percent,” said Chekov.

  “Decks eight and nineteen reporting casualties, sir,” Uhura said. “Fire suppression crews headed to deck twelve.”

  “Excalbians near to overrunning us, Captain,” Sulu said. “They are less than a thousand kilometers behind us. Already on the outskirts of our ion cavitation, Captain.”

  “What about the Demiurge?”

  “It has entered the nebula. It is gaining on the Excalbians.”

  “Captain, the Demiurge is firing an energy weapon at the Excalbians. It seems to be gravity-based. Each shot is a singularity, but moving at high speed.”

  “A cannon,” Kirk said. “A cannon that shoots black holes at tachyonic speeds. Remarkable.” He turned to Uhura. “Lieutenant, viewscreen aft.”

  “Aye, sir,” she answered.

  On the main viewscreen, Kirk could see the first of the Demiurge’s salvos reach the Excalbian fleet. The fleet was now lit by the ambient glow of the nebula, and its crystalline ships sparkled like diamonds.

  The singularity struck one of the crystalline vessels. A burgeoning blackness surrounded the diamond-like ship like a cowl, blocking out the stars beyond. There was a moment when the Excalbian ship seemed, simply, gone—but then the shining interior of the vessel began to show through the blackness. It emerged from the obscuring dark damaged, cracked, jagged lines running throughout it. But still intact.

  “We are nearing the second debris band, sir,” Chekov said. “This one has got much bigger debris than the one we just passed through.”

  Something streaked toward them on the screen, something so black it utterly obscured the general glow of the nebula gases.

  Another bit of blackness rapidly approached from astern.

  “Demiurge firing second singularity weapon,” Sulu said.

  The blackness grew and grew, seemed to obscure the light.

  Then it was gone.

  “Near miss, sir. The singularity went through the middle of the Excalbian fleet and right past us.”

  “Mister Leslie, do you have a navigation fix on the path of that singularity?”

  “I can compute it, sir,” Leslie said in a perplexed tone. Then he nodded his head and smiled. “Got it. Laying in course.”

  “Course engaged, Captain,” Sulu said.

  Kirk leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Think you can follow the path of that shot, Mister Sulu? It should have blasted us a clear path through that second debris field. But it won’t be a straight path. There’s too much mass to allow for that.”

  “I believe I can, sir.”

  Sulu adjusted the helm, and the Enterprise lurched to the side.

  “Steady as she goes.”

  “Aye, sir. On it now.”

  “Excalbian fleet dropping out of warp, sir,” said Leslie. “They are coming about to face the Demiurge.”

  “We’re through the second debris field,” Chekov reported with relief in his voice.

  “Mister Sulu, take us out of warp,” Kirk ordered.

  “Aye, sir. Impulse power.”

  “Bring us about.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Mister Chekov, how deep are we into the nebula?”

  “Fifty point four parsecs, sir. One-third of the way from gravitational center.”

  “All right, it’ll have to do.” Kirk touched the intraship button. “Bridge to hangar deck.”

  “Spock here, Captain.”

  “Status report.”

  “Doctor Franklin and I are aboard the Copernicus, and we have loaded the modified device.”

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Open the hangar doors. Stand by to launch. It may be a rough exit.”

  “Hangar doors opening, Captain,” said Spock. “Standing by.”

  Before Kirk cut the connection he could hear Franklin speaking in the background. “Well, this is as exciting as my first trip across the Atlantic, I must say. Maybe more so.”

  “Captain, the Excalbians have moved into the second debris band,” said Chekov. “It would appear they are attempting to use it for cover.”

  “That’s it,” Kirk said. “Hang in there, Anvit.”

  * * *

  “Bridge to hangar deck.”

  “Standing by, Captain.”

  “Spock, it’s time to give that invention of our trio of mad scientists a try.”

  “To be fair, it was primarily Galileo’s idea,” Spock said. “Doctor Franklin made significant contributions to the deployment arrangements of the mechanism, however.”

  “All right, Spock, as you say.”

  Spock replied, back to business, “Shuttlecraft is ready to launch.”

  “Very well.” Kirk paused for a moment. “Good luck, Spock.”

  Even as the words came out, Kirk knew he should have saved his breath.

  “Captain, as you know, luck has—”

  “Nothing to do with it,” Kirk said, completing Spock’s well-worn aphorism.

  “Precisely, sir.”

  Kirk chuckled. “Launch shuttlecraft.”

  “Shuttlecraft launching,” Spock announced. “Clearing hangar doors.” A pause. “We’re away, sir.”

  “Acknowledged. Bridge out.” Kirk deactivated the comm, but stared at the receiver grill for a moment. “Good luck anyway, Spock,” he quietly said.

  Twenty

  “Sir, I don’t know exactly how to interpret these sensor readings,” Chekov said. “There are massive exchanges of energy between the Excalbian fleet and the Demiurge. If we had not moved behind the debris band, we would be in the middle of it.”

  “What kind of energy?”

  “Unknown,” Chekov said. “It is produced by techn
ological means.” Chekov looked up and shook his head. “All I can say for sure is that some of it is kinetic, according to my readings. Whatever they are using against each other, it’s ripping a hole in this portion of the nebula.”

  Spock and Franklin are out there in the thick of it, Kirk thought.

  * * *

  Spock moved the shuttlecraft thruster control quickly to one side and then the other, throwing the vehicle into two stomach-lurching banking maneuvers. Debris sped by at a significant speed. The dust particle strikes were bad enough. The shuttlecraft’s shields were steadily eroding. But when a larger chunk of pre-planetary matter slammed into them, there were explosions that were equivalent to the fission detonations of Earth’s early atomic bombs.

  The Enterprise shuttlecraft, although tightly built and kept in optimal state by the exacting hangar deck chief, a protégé of Mister Scott’s, were not made to withstand this sort of space storm for this long.

  The pounding the shuttlecraft was taking also hid it from the warring giants—the Excalbians and the Demiurge. They were beating on one another with hammers constructed by a physics that neither human nor Vulcan had even conceived of creating.

  The Copernicus passed the Excalbian fleet, giving it a wide a berth while retaining enough fuel to reach their target: the Demiurge. As they drew nearer and nearer to that monstrosity, Spock judged their distance from the Demiurge from sensor data that was not there and ought to be rather than actual readings.

  Active surveillance could serve to alert the Demiurge to our presence, Spock thought.

  If the Demiurge perceived them, they could be swatted like a fly, then all would be lost. There was a good possibility—Spock calculated it at thirty-three point eight percent—that the Copernicus would be inadvertently swatted anyway, collateral damage in the titanic battle taking place.

  Franklin was monitoring the battle, while Spock was busy piloting. “If I’m reading these sensors correctly, they’re telling me that the Excalbians have lost another ship, I’m afraid,” the doctor called out. “They are down to three.”

  Spock looked back to the forward viewport. Suddenly, there was a bright flash. A wave of matter shot past them at velocities such that the effects of special relativity doubled their mass. Several struck, but the greater part of the exploded fragments missed by only a few meters.