Invasion! First Strike

by Diane Carey

  Maybe I expect too much of them, he thought vaguely as the ship swung full about and space turned on a pendulum before them. In a moment the pinecone form of Zennor's ship swung into full view, harassed by the Klingon cruisers.

  In the privacy of his mind Kirk damned Zennor's calm and set himself to match it.

  Too competitive?

  Maybe.

  Too bad.

  He glared at the screen, at the Klingon ships, four of them, sweeping up and around the horn-shaped vessel. He could almost hear the whoosh. They laid fire down across the visitor's hull, then spun wildly toward the Enterprise.

  "They're trying to keep us from increasing speed," Sulu muttered aloud as he countered the moves of the Klingon ships.

  "Doing it, too," Chekov put out of the corner of his mouth as he looked down from Spock's station.

  Kirk ignored them. There had to be weakness. There had to be one moment when those ships weren't all coordinated, when at least two of them weren't sure what the other two were doing. He was waiting for that moment. "Mr. Donnier, prepare to open fire."

  "Ready, Captain."

  "Captain Zennor, are you agreeable to evasive action? High speed to your target solar system?"

  He turned enough to look.

  In the lift vestibule, Zennor appeared as still as a gargoyle and moved not at all to answer. "Yes."

  Had his mouth even moved?

  Telepathy?

  "Would you like to inform your crew?"

  "They know it."

  He didn't offer how that could be possible.

  Kirk didn't ask, sensing that the answer would be vague and his crew would become uneasy.

  "Mr. Donnier," he said instead, "reduce phasers to two-thirds. Mr. Sulu, one-half sublight."

  Donnier looked over his shoulder. "Two-thirds, sir?"

  "We'll have a reserve if we need it. And there's no point draining everything we have to destroy those ships when all we have to do is get away from them. Prepare to dump a wash of heavy radiation behind us once we get clear. While they choke their way through it, we'll make distance. All right, gentlemen, let's drive them away from the other ship and make our getaway. I've always considered ass'n elbows a perfectly legitimate battle tactic."

  "Aye, sir," Sulu said, and grinned.

  Donnier nodded and smiled too. "Yes, sir."

  The attitude on the bridge went up two notches.

  The ship groaned with the effort of snug turns, a long-legged foxhound trying to turn like a basset. She was powerful, but she was no road-hugger. The Klingon ships worked a baffling pattern that kept one always in the starship's path while the others cut across her lateral shields and fired on her. Every few seconds a hit racked across her hull and sent tremors through it. Every time he said "fire" Donnier tried to coordinate phaser controls with the flash-by of whatever ship was in range.

  Engulfed in a shameless relief that the so-called truce was over, broken by the Klingons' first shot—if there were any doubts—Kirk flexed his hands as if they'd just been unmanacled. The old kids' excuse from any playground was at perfectly good work here: He started it.

  Zennor's ship took relentless strafing in the most leisurely fashion Kirk had ever witnessed, and it annoyed the hell out of him. He wanted movement, panic, retaliation from the other ship. That was how Klingons needed to be treated. But Zennor's vessel did virtually nothing but turn its aft end to the incoming Klingon fire and let the destructive energy wash across its folded hull plates.

  "Make tighter turns and continue evasive," he said, authorizing a risk Sulu couldn't take on his own. "Come about."

  "Coming about, sir."

  On the screen, the Klingon ships veered out from each other in a practiced formation, then began angling erratically, so their patterns couldn't be plotted. Then two of them broke pattern and swept toward the Enterprise as it came in firing and knocked the other two off course.

  The two steady cruisers kept their heads, executed a perfect maneuver, and laid into the starship's upper hull, strafing the bridge.

  Kellen knew what he was doing. Decades of experience could serve in a pinch.

  He had drawn a breath to give a maneuvering order to Sulu when a huge wing suddenly appeared in the forward screen, blanketing their view of everything else—Kellen's flagship!

  Where had he come from? Some daring twist Kirk had failed to anticipate, he realized as his gut twisted as if to show him what he'd missed. Disruptor fire danced across the starship's brow, splintering the shields and piercing the hull above the bridge before double shields could be put up there.

  The forward half of the ceiling blew downward in shards and sparks, engulfing Sulu in a flush of electricity. Donnier plunged sideways and was only scorched, but Sulu was shaken hideously, then slammed to the deck and fell limp.

  Kirk shielded his face. "Sickbay! Get him off the bridge!" The second order really canceled out the first, indicating that he didn't want to wait, or have an injured crewman to trip over in the middle of ship's action. The upper-deck technicians and engineers understood, and three of them shuffled Sulu toward the turbolift.

  "Mr. Byers! Here's your chance. Take the helm."

  Byers had almost gone into the turbolift, but now turned back to the center of the bridge and picked his way to the helm. He brushed the smoking shards off the seat and gingerly sat there on part of his backside. He stared at the helm for a moment, his hands hovering over the instrumentation without making contact.

  "Put your hands on the controls, Mr. Byers," Kirk said firmly, and knew his own work was cut out for him, taking an inexperienced helmsman into battle. "Come about starboard … that's it … Mr. Donnier, fire. Good … all we have to do is clear the way for Zennor's ship."

  Did the other ship have warp drive? It just now occurred to him that the subject hadn't come up. Fine time to think of it, James.

  They had to have warp drive, or some force of science that allowed them to go to hyperlight speeds. Examining a quadrant at sublight would take thousands of years.

  They had it, they had it. Stay the course.

  Enemy fire crackled like pulsebeats over the ship's deflectors, but she stood up to them. Returning fire was a different trick and took more than just a stuck-out jaw.

  Byers hunched forward and concentrated on keeping hold of the bull elephant in his hands, tapping maneuvers through to her impulse engines in a manner that was making the power center heave and howl.

  "Fire as your weapons bear, Mr. Donnier. Target the ship abaft starboard and fire. Mr. Byers, don't let them work our stern like that again."

  Byers pressed his hands to the controls and attempted a dry swallow before speaking. "Sir … I … I can't do this very well … respectfully submit you call up somebody with more experience. Shouldn't Mr. Chekov—"

  "Mr. Chekov's needed at the science station." Kirk stole a moment from the battle and said, "We pilot the ship by changing the field geometry of the warp-coil timing. How well each helmsman can do that is a personal thing. It's the closest thing to subjective activity on the ship. Experience is a factor, but it's not all there is. Sulu does it his way. You do it yours. We'll deal with it."

  Byers stared at him a moment, then nodded and faced the helm again. Permission to screw up, if necessary.

  That done, Kirk shifted his concentration to the movements of the ships outside, arranging them in 3D in his head and anticipating every movement he could see as the sensors on the upper monitors read the courses of each ship.

  On the main viewer, Zennor's ship had come full about and was facing Klingon space. Just a few more seconds. Just a chance to get past Kellen—

  "Down more, starboard … mark two … Don't use the sensors, Mr. Byers—follow them with your eyes and feel your way through. Three degrees port … present our profile to them. . . . Mr. Donnier, fire … good … Byers, if you see a window don't wait for my order. There—get through it! Quickly, angle ten degrees port. Midships … fire."

  For an instant there
was silence, and then the whine of the phaser controls cutting across the power-packed Klingon ships. Two of the ships bloomed in hot strikes. Another swung past, launched a shot, then veered off as if afraid it too would be hit at proximity.

  "Two good hits, sir!" Donnier said, surprised that he'd done so well.

  "Good, Mr. Donnier," Kirk awarded. "Now if we can push aside the others, we'll get past them."

  "Sir," Chekov called over the pounding of unforgiving disruptors, "their upper hull plates are only double-shielded."

  "Noted. Mr. Donnier, there's your target. Mr. Byers, get us in over their heads. Ten degrees port … good … midships."

  "Midships," Byers murmured, his lips dry.

  "Hold that … fire … five degrees starboard."

  "Five starboard, aye …"

  "A little more starboard."

  "Little more, aye …"

  "Midships."

  "Midships …"

  "Fire."

  With one hand on Donnier's chair and the other on Byers', Kirk drove his ship as though rushing whitewater in his favorite canoe. He moved his shoulders with the rhythm of the ship, flexing his knees as the deck rose and dropped, tipped and rolled around them.

  "Sir, they're dogfighting us," Byers choked. "I can't get past them."

  "You don't have to. Just distract them until Zennor's ship gets past."

  Phaser blast after phaser blast vomited from the ship's ports and crashed across space to torment the Klingons, who returned fire shot for shot without remittance.

  "Static pulses, sir!" one of the engineers gasped from upper port side. "Shield power's fibrillating!"

  "Ignore it. It'll hold."

  As they were hit again the engineer's response was swallowed in howling alarms and a puff of chemical smoke. Metal splinters rained on them and for a few seconds all they could see of each other were hunched, headless shoulders.

  On the main screen, Zennor's dark ship loomed enormous, so big that Kirk had to shudder down a desire to duck.

  "Sir, I …" Byers stopped, unwilling to say the obvious. He couldn't get past the swarming cruisers, not and protect Zennor's ship at the same time. The starship was simply too big and too sluggish at low sublight speeds to handle a well-manipulated squadron of lighter, quicker, tight-turning buzzards.

  "Stay with it, Mr. Byers."

  From the upper deck, Zennor's bass voice hummed. "Vergokirk."

  Kirk turned.

  Zennor looked down at him, and came forward a step. "Allow me to clear the way for you."

  An instant before he would've told Zennor to hold position, that the Enterprise could take these ships with the right maneuvers and a certain amount of sacrifice, Kirk clamped his lips. Here was a chance to see what that uninvited vessel could do, and he suddenly didn't want to give that up.

  He gestured to the communications station. "Would you like to contact your ship?" he offered again.

  "I have," Zennor said.

  "Sir!" Chekov pointed at the forward screen.

  Kirk cranked around.

  The giant ship of purple shadows and tightly laid shingles was turning color—not overtly, but as if some mystical stagehand were backstage, changing the spots and footlights. The purple colors bled to hotter electric blue, then bundled together and ran down the pinecone-shaped hull to blast out the twisted point and blow into space.

  Two Klingons vessels were hit directly and knocked violently off course, and the others were kicked into a spin, left struggling to regain their gravitational balance.

  "Sir! We're clear!" Chekov called suddenly, and then coughed on a puff of chemical smoke. "Sir!"

  "Captain Zennor, I hope your ship knows to follow us," Kirk called.

  "They know."

  That voice. Like cellos and concert basses moaning in another room.

  Damn it, how could they know?

  He refused to ask.

  "Very well. Chekov, dump that heavy radiation."

  Chekov plunged four feet down the starboard side and hammered the controls. "Dumped, sir!"

  "Mr. Byers, warp factor five, right now."

  Chapter Fourteen

  "THE KLINGON SQUAD is falling behind, Captain," Chekov clipped, unable to keep the victory out of his voice. "The radiation is choking their thruster ports. Captain Zennor's ship is matching our speed."

  "Very good. Go to warp six, Mr. Byers."

  "Warp six, sir," Byers answered.

  "Captain," Lieutenant Nordstrom spoke up, her hand on her earpiece receiver, "General Kellen is hailing us."

  "Is he. Put him on."

  "Go ahead, sir."

  "General, this is Captain Kirk. You're seriously overstepping."

  "Are you out of your inadequate mind?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You are streaking into Klingon space with those fiends. Why?"

  "Because there's a chance of resolving the conflict. I request you secure clearance for us from your High Command."

  "I refuse. You are giving asylum to a threatening species. I have summoned the Assault Fleet. You turn around and leave."

  "I'm here at your request," Kirk pestered steadily. "You're the one who came aboard my ship, then murdered a visiting dignitary from another government. That will not go unanswered, I guarantee. If I turn around and leave without resolution to the problem, you're going to look pretty foolish, not only in front of my government, but in front of yours. Who in the Klingon Fleet will take your word for anything anymore?"

  "They have taken my word, and they are coming. I asked for help from you and this is what I've been given. We will take care of the Havoc ship ourselves. If you interfere, then there is war between us."

  "I hope to have this resolved before you and your fleet can reach us. In any case, I'm lodging a formal protest with the Klingon High Command, stating that we have been invited here and attacked while authorization was never officially revoked."

  "Lodge what you want. I would expect no better from such as you. I did not attain my position by waiting for my bidding to be done by others."

  "Sir, he cut us off," Nordstrom said before Kirk could answer, as if he had an answer.

  They had left behind the immediate problem, but not the lingering question. With a sigh, Kirk scratched the back of his head and wished he had time for a backrub. Or somebody around whom he wanted to give it.

  He glanced back and caught in his periphery the sorcerous form of Zennor in the lift entrance.

  No point avoiding the inevitable.

  Gripping the bridge rail for sustenance, he pulled himself to the upper deck.

  "Vergo," he began, "we have a situation in sickbay that demands your attention."

  * * *

  "Let me apologize ahead of time for what I must show you."

  Jim Kirk led the way into sickbay. Zennor followed, having said very little on the way down, as if he anticipated something dire and unmendable. Kirk understood that. A captain's sixth sense. He could feel when something was crooked.

  He avoided the area where Spock was recuperating and instead gestured in the other direction, toward the morgue.

  "If you'll come with me …"

  McCoy appeared at the door of his office, his face suddenly blanched as he saw Zennor. He didn't say anything, but stepped out as if to follow them.

  Before they reached the specially sealed doorway of the morgue, the hiss of the outer door panel made them turn.

  Kirk had been anticipating speaking to Zennor alone about the murder, but that wasn't going to happen now.

  Garamanus's tall form filled the doorway, chalky and bloodless, his skullish face and animal eyes immediately untrusting.

  How could he know?

  "Gentlemen," Kirk said, and gestured again.

  McCoy silently stepped forward and keyed in the security code. The morgue door slid open on a breath of suction.

  Without ceremony he led them to the body of their crewmate—the headless body.

  Zennor came a few steps i
nto the room, then stopped. Garamanus never made it past the doorway.

  "We believe General Kellen did this before he arranged to have himself beamed off our ship," Kirk said. "I want you to know that none of my crew would ever be involved in such an atrocity and that I stand in utter condemnation of this act. I intend to log an official request for extradition of Kellen for trial at Starfleet Command, although … the Klingons don't have a stellar history of complying with Federation law."

  Sounded too prepared, though he hadn't prepared it. Some things had to be said, logged for official reasons, no matter how stilted they sounded.

  Neither of the horned beings said anything. No response at all. They simply stared and stared. They didn't blink.

  McCoy stood aside, also not blinking, but he was staring at the two of them instead of the body.

  Kirk allowed them a couple of silent minutes—long, long minutes—to absorb what they saw. He had no way to tell how they felt about the dead person, whether their astonishment was couched in loyalty of one crew member to another, or actually in the devotion of friendship. For all the clues he read in their faces, it could've been a female and married to one of them. He just couldn't tell.

  Finally he stepped between them and the body. "Can I help explain this to your crew, perhaps?"

  "We could never explain this," Zennor said tightly.

  Slowly Garamanus shook his large horned mantle. His voice was like gravel turning in a drum. "We could never bring Manann back this way."

  Zennor quickly said to Kirk, "You will have to dispose of him before any of our crew sees this."

  "As you wish," Kirk assured. "We'll do everything we possibly can to ease the situation. How would you like us to dispose of the body?"

  Zennor looked at Garamanus for a moment, then turned to Kirk and for the first time seemed dubious about which course of action to take. "What … do you do with your dead?"

  In his sudden desire to offer at least one straight answer, Kirk said, "Most of our cultures bury the body. Some burn them. On the ship, if possible, we launch the remains into a sun."