Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike
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bobbed in a shrug and. he looked like a street urchin
being asked where the neighborhood hiding place was.
"Well... give or take Tam O'Shanter, not a blessed
thing."
"What's that?"
"Everybody's heard the story of Tam O'Shanter's
ride."
"Give me the high points."
"Oh... well, it's a Robert Burns poem about a fellow
who takes a look inside a haunted kirk -- oh, sorry, sir--a
haunted church." Uneasy at relating folklore instead of
phase inversion ratios, Scott struggled to scrape the dust
out of his memory. He made a disapproving sound in his
throat and forced himself to speak. "Inside are demons
and unconsecrated dead dancing about, and perched in
the window is the devil, shaped like a beast, wheezing his
pipes for all he's worth. I saw a reenactment of it once,
right there near the actual kirk in Alloway--"
"Wait a minute!" McCoy cut in. "The devil plays
bagpipes?"
The engineer screwed a glare at him. "Welcome to
heaven, here's your harp, welcome to hell, here're your
bagpipes."
"Oh, fine."
"Can I go now, sir?"
"No," Kirk snapped. "What other details are there?"
Scott shifted his feet. "I don't rightly recall, sir....
I'm sure it's in Mr. Spock's computer someplace. This
Tam has to get away from the demons, and there's
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something about how demons can't cross running water,
so he makes for the bridge."
"Logical," Spock fed in.
McCoy shook his head. "Logical!"
"Scotty," Kirk pressed, "why can't demons cross running
water?"
"I wouldn't have a' clue, sir."
"Is there a point to it happening in the ruins of a
church?"
Desperate, Scott shrugged. "Why does Hamlet happen
in a castle, sir?"
McCoy leaned forward. "Why's the devil in the shape
of a beast?"
,, ' not talking to
Doctor, the engineer groaned, you re
a man who thinks there's a monster in the loch."
Unsatisfied, Kirk let his brow crimp. "Very wel.!
Scotty, dismissed."
"Aye, sir!" Flushed with relief, Scott vectored for the
door, then abruptly looked back. "It's all got to do with
that lot we beamed over, doesn't it? If ever a bunch
needed a ruined kirk about 'em, those are the ones."
Before anyone could stop him, he dodged for freedom
and the sickbay door hissed shut on empty air.
"Well, there's one generalization gone up in smoke,"
McCoy commented.
"I
disturbed
Kirk paced, embarrassed.
shouldn't have
him."
tone,
Gentlemen, Spock said with an anchoring
"this is interesting information, but it is entirely anecdotal
. Still only folklore."
"But dangerous information, Mr. Spock," the doctor
insisted. "Sometimes myth can be much more explosive
than fact."
Kirk turned to Spock and waved his hand. "McCoy's
right. You and I need hard evidence, but Zennor's crew
may well be satisfied with anecdotal evidence. We can't
take that chance. All this will become a moot point if we
can get to this Klingon solar system and find no proof
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that it's their home system. That's my intention. We are
not having a war. We' re not having these people warring
against the Klingons, the Klingons against them, and the
Federation scrambling in the middle. I'm not having it. I
want both of you to--"
"Red alert. This is the bridge. All hands, red alert."
Suddenly angry that his aggravation was being interrupted,
he assaulted the comm. "Kirk here."
Sulu's voice came through, sounding tight. "The
Klingon squadron, sir, they're moving into attack position
and swinging under us toward the other ship."
"On my way. Contact Security and have them bring
Captain Zennor to the bridge. Kirk out. McCoy, Spock,
you two keep on this line of research. And hurry it up. If
this is legitimate, I want to know it. If it's not, I want
something concrete that I can put in front of Zennor and
Garamanus to show them that it's not."
"Yes, sir."
"We'll do our best, Jim."
"Status, Mr. Sulu?"
"The Klingon squadron swung around us to attack the
visitor's ship, sir. They've opened fire several times, but seem to be only making glancing blows. They may be
looking for weak points. Impulse power's on-line and
helm is answering."
"Mr. Donnier?"
"Phaser batteries on standby, sir. Photon torpedoes
powering up."
Hardly had the tube cleared when it opened again and
Zennor came out into the shadowed area beside the
glossy red doors. Kirk glanced at him.
As the Klingon squadron separated into a new attack
formation on the forward screen.
Kirk dropped to the recessed deck and gripped his
command chair, but didn't sit. He couldn't quite make
himself do that, not with Zennor haunting the upper
deck's turbolift vestibule, looking quite zombieish with
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the soft bridge lights teasing his bony features, sulfurous
eyes, and twisted horns and glinting off all that carved
jewelry.
"Sensors full capacity. Come full about starboard,
impulse one-quarter. Intercept course. Gentlemen, I
thought I ordered change of watch. What are you all still
doing here?"
Donnier swung around as if he'd committed a crime,
but his mouth hung open without making a sound.
Sulu turned too, but didn't take his hands from the
helm. "The order just came up, sir. We were waiting for
our relief to show up. I think the lower decks have all
changed over."
Kirk glanced over his shoulder. "Vergo Zennor, I
assume you'll want to return to your ship to confront this
action."
Zennor's horns caught the bridge lights ,and played
with them. "My ship is strong, Vergokirk."
"As you prefer," Kirk said, a little irritated. He'd want
to be here, and suddenly that seemed like a sign of
weakness. He trusted his crew, but this was his responsibility,
not theirs.
Strange, though, to be so completely unconcerned
as if a bunch of delinquent children were hitting his ship
with sticks. Zennor was either very confident in his
ship's technology or he was putting on a hell of a show.
Grudgingly Kirk accepted the first divisions between
himself and Zennor that weren't physical.
The turbolift door gushed open and an engineer came
out, but didn't go to the port side. Instead, the short and
thickly built fellow stepped down to the helm and looked
at Sulu, then at Kirk.
"Lieutenant Byers, sir, relieving the helm."
"Not nOW."
"Sir?"
"Not in the middle of action. Stand by."
> "Aye, sir." Byers blinked at him self-consciously, then
at the screen. He was new to the bridge and Kirk guessed
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that a department head somewhere below was pushing
him. Happened sometimes. Sooner or later the lowliest
technician got a hitch at the wheel, just to see what it felt
like, not to mention in case of some catastrophe that
blistered the whole crew and left one confused yeoman
to steer. That happened sometimes too. Usually those
were historical acgounts, but one could never tell.
Byers rubbed his wide hands on his thighs and shifted
from foot to foot, not knowing whether to vacate the
bridge and wait to be called, or take a position on the
upper deck and wait there, doing nothing.
"Up there." Kirk pointed sharply to the engineering
systems station. He couldn't keep the irritation out of his
voice, nor did he want to take the time to explain that
the lift tube should be kept as clear as possible during
action, especially not to someone who should know it.
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
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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
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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
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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 t o 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, Ver,e.
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 re 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 maneu-
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vers 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