STAR TREK®: VULCAN'S HEART

by Josepha Sherman

  A voice from Earth’s past echoed in Garrett’s mind: “This is a day that will live in infamy.”

  “Warp eight,” she ordered. “As soon as we’re in-system, raise shields and go to red alert. Earlier, if the warbirds make any move toward us. Lieutenant Kepler, put that tactical display on screen.”

  The display enlarged just in time to reveal three Klingon scoutcraft exploding into white-hot fireballs. A personnel carrier still docked at the station opened fire on the Romulans, and a warbird seemed to swoop in toward it like one of the predators for which it was named, precision-firing disruptors. The Klingon ship cast off from the space station. Garrett’s heart went out to whoever was captaining it, knowing that attempting to draw the warbird’s fire was a suicide mission.

  Disruptors engulfed the Klingon ship. It exploded into a blinding blaze of light, debris, and slag toppling slowly back onto the station, pulled in by its artificial gravity.

  Utter silence fell on the Enterprise’s bridge as the light from the explosion faded. Garrett almost started when Varani cut in, “Captain, I’m picking up a Klingon message.”

  She’d never heard of a Klingon asking for aid—or even admitting needing it. “On screen.”

  The dagger triskele of the Klingon Empire appeared on screen, followed not by a message, but by howls of mourning.

  “All ships!” rasped a harsh Klingon voice, echoed a moment later by computer translation. “To all ships in this sector! Now hear this! Our Empire’s civilian outpost on Narendra III has been attacked in overpowering numbers without declaration or challenge by enemies devoid of all honor!”

  Two shuttles blew up onscreen, as though underscoring his words. A small flotilla of one-man ships struggled up from the planet’s gravity well. A warbird that seemed to be hovering, a predator with outstretched wings, waiting for an opportunity to swoop upon its prey, picked the Klingon ships off almost lazily, one by one, as they crossed the terminator between light and darkness.

  “The Romulans have got this massacre all planned,” muttered Castillo. “Dammit, it’s not fair.”

  “Fair?” Garrett asked. “You still expect the universe to be fair, mister? Even now?”

  Damn, now the warbirds had veered to fire directly on the space station. Garrett didn’t need Tholav’s quiet voice to tell her the personnel in there were taking heavy hits.

  The Klingon message broke up into static, then reformed. “Image onscreen,” Garrett ordered.

  A elderly Klingon propped himself up against his console. Violet-colored blood dripped from his mouth, and he held his arm awkwardly, as if it were broken, but warrior pride still blazed in his eyes. Flames surged in the background, then subsided as Klingons attacked the fires with as much rage as if they fought Romulans hand to hand.

  A cool voice in Garrett’s mind observed that at least the warbirds were not equipped with the plasma device that had destroyed outposts on the Neutral Zone two generations back. At least not so far as she could see.

  Yet .

  Thank heavens for large mercies as well as small.

  Maybe they just haven’t needed to deploy it yet. But there was no point second-guessing her enemy. That was the kind of thinking that woke you in a cold sweat in the night watches for years to come. Assuming you survived to get the nightmares.

  “Narendra station, this is the Federation starship Enterprise!” Garrett called. “We’re on our way!”

  To her astonishment, the Klingon gave her an almost gallant salute with his uninjured arm. “Well met, Enterprise. Trust you to scent action. We offer you a priceless opportunity for honor. Hunt with us, Enterprise. Fight at our side. Go to the Black Fleet with us! Win such glory that warriors will howl to honor our memory!” The old one’s grin showed broken, discolored teeth.

  “Captain,” Tholav said quietly, “two of the warbirds have opened fire on the planetary installation. Awaiting orders, sir.”

  The image suddenly flared, broke up, reassembled as the station took yet another blast. Through the static, Garrett could see the old Klingon clinging fiercely to his station, surrounded by swirling smoke. He bent double, choking, but somehow remained on his feet.

  “Narendra station!” Garrett shouted, hoping to be heard.

  “Yes, Enterprise?” His voice came through clearly enough despite the undercurrent of physical pain and sorrow. He gave her her ship’s name rather than her own. Klingon honor, Garrett knew: Her ship’s name was her own.

  “We are coming, Narendra. Helm, give me everything you’ve got!” Garrett cried. “Listen to me, Klingon. Listen to Enterprise. Hold out. Hold on.”

  Again, the Klingon laughed. “Before I jettison station records, have you a word for our poets to remember, Enterprise?”

  Behind her, Garrett heard Tholav’s sharp intake of breath. “Captain,” he reported, “we’re getting some gravimetric anomalies. Some manner of rift’s opening up. It resembles a Kerr loop. . . .”

  Garrett waved him to silence. The only thing she wanted to do with superstring theory right now was use it to garrote Romulans. She turned back to the dying Klingon station.

  Damn! Now what? She had never been much for fancy speeches, yet here this Klingon was, asking her for the kind of words it took a Churchill of Earth or a Korask of Rigel IV to invent. She had no ringing words for Klingon bards!

  Yes, but Earth history had, and, if words could comfort a gallant old warrior about to die, she would borrow them.

  She matched the Klingon’s fierce grin. “Tell your bards and those point-eared Romulans,” she shouted, “that before we’re through, the Romulan language will be spoken only in hell!”

  He would not have understood the reference; he understood the message. The Klingon roared with laughter.

  “Well said, Enterprise. Welcome to our war!”

  Klingons around him took up the ritual battle cry. “HeghlumeH QaQ jajvam!”

  She didn’t need the translator to tell her that one:

  It is a good day to die.

  The station shuddered. The old Klingon screamed in pain and rage as a piece of debris struck him, almost toppling him. Blood gouted from a gaping wound as he clung determinedly to his post. He howled once for himself, but the cry ended in a gurgle as more blood sluiced from his mouth. The Klingon looked straight into Rachel Garrett’s eyes.

  “Qapla’!” The word was forced out. Success.

  He toppled, his head striking his ruined console, in death yielding only his life.

  “Station’s going to blow!” Castillo warned.

  “Filters up!” Garrett ordered. “Now!”

  Even with filters up, the explosion was blinding. Garrett’s mind filled in sound where, of course, there was none.

  “What do they want?” That was young Ensign Fredericks, sitting in at communications. “Romulans usually want something!”

  Dear Lord, when had the Academy started graduating them this young? His superior, Varani, was snapping “Quiet!” at him, but for once Garrett overrode one of her officers’ commands.

  “It’s all right, Ensign. You’re right. Romulans usually want something. In this case, it would appear that the praetor’s out for glory. Romulans hate Klingons, so they’re out for terror. Destruction. As much hatred as they can sow. And that’s one battle they’re going to lose!”

  “Gravimetric anomalies are increasing exponentially,” Tholav reported suddenly. On one screen, graphs replaced the fireball that had been a Klingon space station. “If this keeps up, we could have a wormhole. Or a chronological aberration.”

  “Worry about the warbirds, Commander,” Garrett snapped. She heard Castillo groan. “They look like they’re going in to scorch the planetary surface. Captain . . .”

  “Steady there, Castillo. Steady. Bring phasers on-line. Enterprise to Narendra III, ground command. We have lost contact with your station’s commander. What do you require? How may we assist you?”

  No insignia opened the downworld installation’s transmission. Instead, a monta
ge of images flooded the ship’s viewscreen: dead and dying, adults shielding children, far too many children, some clutching the sticks and rocks they had snatched in frantic, useless self-defense when the first fires had lanced down from suddenly deadly skies. The children closest to Garrett lay hugging each other as though hunting comfort even in death, and she only just bit back a cry of anguish.

  They had died surprised.

  “This is the captain,” Rachel said to her crew over ship’s speakers. “To the crew of the Enterprise: What you see is what we have sworn to stop, with our lives if need be. I ask you to give me your best as you always have. And—I thank you.”

  Something was lacking. Admiral Lynn’s old-fashioned farewell resonated in her mind. “Godspeed,” she added.

  In that moment, she almost envied the Klingons their fierce freedom of emotions. She wasn’t Klingon, but she felt like howling too for the coming destruction of her crew and her ship.

  “Captain,” Varani said, “one of the warbirds is headed toward us. Heading 83 mark 9.”

  “Load photon torpedoes. Shields on full.”

  “Warbird’s almost within range.”

  “Steady,” Garrett told Lieutenant Kepler. Not that the tactical officer needed the caution. “Lock on target.”

  “Locked on, Captain.”

  “All ship, secure yourselves. Prepare to engage.”

  The cheers pouring onto the bridge from speakers shipwide made Garrett blink furiously.

  “Belay that!” she shouted. “The cooler we are, the longer we can hold out.”

  She nodded at her bridge crew. The best in the Fleet.

  “Very well, Lieutenant Kepler,” Captain Garrett said calmly, formally, “you may fire at will.”

  “Aye, sir,” Kepler replied, almost as calmly. “Hold her steady, Castillo . . . and . . . photon torpedoes away!”

  Castillo held course during the tense seconds as the torpedoes sped toward the approaching warbird—

  “A hit!” Kepler exclaimed. “Torpedoes both hit!”

  “Not hard enough,” Garrett corrected after a moment. Hell of a tough ship. Or else the Romulans don’t care about protecting anything on their vessels but their weapons systems.

  The warbird’s disruptors blazed with sudden poisonous green light.

  “Evasive action, Mr. Castillo!” Garrett ordered. “Now!”

  The Romulan moved with them, fired. Garrett’s crew braced, then fought to retain their seats as the Enterprise shuddered, then rocked from side to side.

  Damn those Romulans; they were fast. Fast and tough, as you’d expect of Vulcanoids. Giving no quarter—but then Romulans never did.

  “Romulan ship down to one-half power.” Tholav’s voice never wavered from its usual soft monotone.

  Garrett fought back upright. “Let’s hit it again!” she snarled. “Kepler, lay down a trail of photon torpedoes”—no use saving them—“and follow up with ship’s phasers at max.”

  She braced for the characteristic ship’s lurch as torpedoes darted from the ship.

  Nothing.

  “Kepler?”

  Garrett saw red hair fanned out over the body that slumped motionless over the tac station.

  “I’m afraid Kepler’s dead, sir.” Lieutenant Castillo’s face showed nothing and his voice didn’t shake, but Garrett knew that the operative words were the first two he’d said.

  Me too, mister. Garrett quickly transferred helm function to her own workstation. They’d lost the strategic moment to fire; she had better try something else. “Mr. Castillo, take over Tactical. Heading 38X 49Y mark 270, Mr. Castillo. We’re going to dodge that warbird and try to protect the planetary installation. On my mark. Now!”

  Enterprise’s sudden change of attitude caught the warbird by surprise. By the time it shot after them in pursuit, Enterprise was that much closer to the base.

  Nice work, Garrett thought. But the only problem with nice work was that it embarrassed Romulans, and an embarrassed Romulan was a vindictive enemy. So nothing much had changed; her ship had simply drawn a little closer to their allies. As sapients, the Klingons were worth dying for. As fighters, they were worth dying with.

  “Fire aft phasers,” she ordered. “We’ll cut our way through, if we have to. Mr. Castillo, fire!”

  “Fluctuations increasing, Captain.” Tholav, Garrett had always thought, was the sort of science officer who, if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were charging him, would comment on the conformation of Death’s pale horse—and now she saw that she was right.

  She spared a glance at the screen where the gravimetric fluctuations were indeed building up. As the anomaly grew, space tore, revealing churning lights in all the colors of heaven. They danced, forming patterns, then breaking up. Worse luck, the damned anomaly moved. Maybe she could drive a warbird into it.

  “A hit,” Castillo reported. “Got them—no, not enough damage—They’re firing!”

  Disruptor fire blazed from the pursuing warbird. No time for evasive action—Enterprise convulsed. The restraints on Kepler’s chair snapped as debris hit it, catapulting her body across the tilting deck. Someone cried out in dread, then fell silent too quickly. Someone else was swearing horribly, monotonously, but without raising his voice. On every console red lights burned or, worse yet, showed no lights at all, indicating burnout of critical systems.

  “Engaging secondary life-support,” Tholav reported.

  “Damage control, report!” Garrett snapped.

  “Deck Five . . . shields down to forty-two percent.”

  “Deck Three . . . Compartment Five, isolated . . . hull breach . . .”

  God help those poor bastards, vented out into space, Garrett thought. At least it’s a quick way to die.

  “Captain, this is Singh in Engineering . . .” The Indian was coughing so hard Garrett wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t identified himself. “Coolant leak. Twenty dead. We’re getting it contained.” Another racking cough, and Garrett wondered how long until the casualty count was twenty-one.

  A deadly light bloomed on her board. Fluctuations in the structural integrity field. Damn!

  “Singh!” Garrett shouted. “Singh! Divert auxiliary power to shields and structural integrity field.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “We’ve got two of ‘em coming straight at us, Captain,” Castillo warned sharply.

  Damnation!

  The warbirds bracketed the ship, firing with a systematic, efficient viciousness.

  All right, Intelligence reported that Ambassador-class ships can outmaneuver warbirds. They’d damn well better be right.

  Garrett took Enterprise to Mark 270, “below” the warbirds’ plane of fire so fast that warning lights lit on the internal damping system readouts. If she wasn’t careful, she’d tear her ship apart before the Romulans got to it.

  Mind you, if we’re close enough to a warbird, an exploding nacelle will take them with us. Not quite the defense I have in mind.

  One warbird began almost instantly to correct course to cut Enterprise off. Quick learners, these Romulans. Like fighting Vulcans who’d turned vicious. Still, Garrett thought, she had some tricks left. She bared her teeth, tasting blood. She didn’t remember biting her lip.

  “Mark 15Y 90 degrees!” she ordered, and the ship veered away.

  Not fast enough. A Romulan disruptor raked across the star-board nacelle. Enterprise shuddered.

  “Structural integrity field compromised,” Tholav intoned. If the SIF field failed, the ship would tear itself apart before the Romulans could blow it out of space.

  “Engineering!” Garrett shouted.

  The ship bucked again, rocking almost out of control. Sparks cascaded from installations all over the bridge while, over the cries of the injured, the deep shuddering of what might already be a mortally injured ship, came the ominous warning from the SIF readouts.

  Tholav hurled himself from his station to the security console, his hands darting over the board, bypassing Enginee
ring to channel power directly from Command to the SIF. Disruptor fire struck again. The console erupted in lightnings. They surrounded Tholav with an unholy halo. His white hair ignited as the charge that electrocuted him flung him across the bridge. Garrett managed not to gag at the reek of the blue, burning flesh of his ruined hands.

  But the SIF warning subsided. The ship held together.

  Tholav, Garrett grieved. Tholav. You could at least have waited and gone with the rest of us.

  She felt a lightness as if weight, motion, and pressure had suddenly grown uncertain. Never mind the gravimetric fluctuations from the rift; the internal gravity generator had just glitched.

  “Singh!” she shouted.

  “Mr. Singh’s down, Captain.” A young woman’s voice fought to be heard over the frying sound—don’t think of that—of deteriorating speakers. “We’re trying to get gravity back to full strength.”

  “Sickbay, Captain.” That was Aristide’s precise voice. “Thirty-three more dead.” A pause, and she heard him order, “Have three of the medtechs suit up and go in! Someone may still be alive in that corridor.”

  The ship jolted again.

  “Dr. Aristide?” That was one of the medtechs: LoPresti? “Commander?”

  Too long a pause.

  “Oh. My. God. Captain, Commander Aristide’s gone.”

  Dead, then, Garrett thought with a flash of anguish, just one more among the casualties he had fought to save.

  One by one, and ten by ten, ship’s communications brought Garrett news of the loss of irreplaceable people as the ship failed. Engineering decimated; Aristide gone; Tholav dead, Kepler; so many others of her seven hundred, dead, dying, burning with her ship. If she lived, she would mourn them: a reason to wish not to go on living.

  “Steady as she goes,” Garrett said, as much to herself as to the others, and entered the ship’s final course. Buffeted, reeling, Enterprise somehow held that course toward Narendra III, then turned at bay.