Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike
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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 Kellenm
"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... fre."
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.
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"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 term." . .
"Sir," Chekov called over the poundimg ot uniorgvng
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. ."
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. "I
"Sir, they're dog-fighting us," Byers choked. 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!"
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 enor-
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FIRST STRIKE
mous, 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.
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"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."
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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
185
Diane Carey 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
Klingo
n 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."
186 FIRST STRIKE
"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 un derstood
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 into 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
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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."
"A 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."
"Burn..." Garamanus visibly shuddered.
Zennor's eyes paled from red to sulfur. "In our culture,
we burn only the living."
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FIRST STRIKE
Kirk stiffened. "The living?"
"Criminals," the Dana said. "Burning is punishment.
The dead must be honored."
Zennor added, "Some of our groups require keeping
the skuls of the dead with us for four generations before
they can be smashed."
Kirk didn't ask. They'd probably just explain and he
didn't want to hear that one.
Garamanus turned from the body and didn't look at it
any more. "Where is the soul?"
Perplexed, Kirk glanced at Zennor, then back to
Garamanus. "I'm sorry?"
"Manann's soul," the Dana said. "We must have it"
don't understand."
.
Suddenly McCoy's face went as white as Garamanus's
robe. "I think I do... gentlemen..."
He motioned toward the experimentation room and
led them to the archway.
Garamanus and Zennor had to dip their horns to go
inside, and once there they stopped in their tracks and
stared at the table.
Stared and stared, as if slugged. Far worse was this
stare than that with which they had looked at the
remains.
There on the cold table lay the piles of herbs, nuts,
clippings, hair, and assorted other relics, and the cut
pen remnant of the popper itself, its limp arms and legs
no longer supported by stuffing, its open chest showing
loose threads, its tiny head d those yarn tentacles
canted to one side.
Garamanus turned away from what he saw, and his
eyes were terrible on Kirk. "What are you people?"
Silence fell like an ax blade.
Feeling suddenly unwashed, Kirk felt patent shame at
not having trodden his course more delicately.
transgressed more sensitive ground
They had and h
e had let it happen.
than mere territory,
"We meant no insult," he submitted. "We didn't
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realize how important this is to you. To us, it's just a
stuffed doll."
"Vergokirk," Garamanus chafed, "do you devour your
young?"
Kirk weighed the question, but saw no other way to
answer it. "No, of course we don't."
"Neither do we. But if we did, this is what it would be
like."
"You're joking!" McCoy reacted, then suddenly realized
he might be committing another error, glanced at
Kirk, and clamped his mouth shut.
"The mannequins are representatives of each of us,"
Zennor told them slowly. "Wherever we go, they tell our
life stories. When we go into battle, we leave them
behind, or send them in a safe pod. It is honored as if it is
the person. This... it is desecration."
"Oh, no," McCoy uttered, so softly that only Kirk
heard. His face blanched, his eyes like a cat's in a
flashlight. "I'm truly sorry," he said genuinely. "I didn't
realize!"
With a crisp warning Kirk began, "Bones--"
"No, no, it was my blunder. Please don't blame
Captain Kirk for this, or any of our crew. I take full
responsibility. I had no idea this would be any kind of
affront. Is there some way I can apologize to your crew?
If there's anything I can do, I'll gladly do it."
"McCoy, stand down," Kirk snapped.
Irritated and jaundiced with deep mortal panic,
McCoy started to speak again, but caught the captain's
glare and managed to stop himself before the error
compounded.
Kirk smoldered with the level of tension he'd been
driven to, but an instant later demanded better of