One Small Step

by Susan Wright

  “If you won’t let us inside the station, then take us to your ship. Let me talk to your commanding officer.”

  Kirk hesitated as he opened his communicator. But it was the first request that he felt comfortable with. “Agreed.” He tuned in to the ship’s frequency. “Scotty, Kirk here. We have five to beam up. Two human and three Kalandan.”

  “Aye, sir,” was Scotty’s dour reply.

  As they dematerialized from the station, Tasm considered the first direct exchange of their engagement to be a success. The Starfleet officers were beholden to them, which was the preferred way to start. And she had almost convinced the captain on the spot that the station rightfully belonged to them.

  Playing out the character was her only course of action. It would take another mega-cron to finish replicating new quantum torpedoes. Without the torpedoes, their laser weapons couldn’t pierce the Enterprise shields. And that still left the Starfleet officers ensconced in the station. The Petraw numbered twelve, while the Enterprise had hundreds of crew members who would risk their lives to defend their fellow officers. Besides, Tasm was a scout, not a defender. Scouts only fought when victory was assured.

  Her only concern was Luz. After her pod-mate’s outburst in the command booth, Tasm wouldn’t have brought Luz down to the surface except that the engineer said their doctor would accompany the captain. Tasm had seriously considered reassigning Luz’s target to Mlan. But everything was moving too quickly to change, and now she was committed. She would have to rely on the character Luz had developed.

  When they materialized on board the Enterprise, the two Starfleet officers let out almost imperceptible sighs of relief.

  “You made it, Captain!” The crew member at the transporter controls couldn’t restrain his burst of enthusiasm. Tasm would have disciplined any of her crew who revealed so much. “The virus has been removed from you both.”

  The doctor seemed very pleased to be back on board their starship. Their gratitude would build quickly now. Not only was their ship saved, but their key officers were no longer trapped on the station.

  Tasm was the embodiment of composure, as she took the opportunity to gather more information about Starfleet for the Petraw. The Enterprise was a remarkable ship, at least four times bigger than the biggest Petraw scout ships. The spaciousness was immediately noticeable. An entire chamber was allotted just for the use of the transporters.

  “So the vaccine worked.” Kirk inclined his head toward Tasm.

  “As I told you it would.” Tasm contented herself with a casual glance about the transporter room. Later she would explore more thoroughly. She wanted to get a good look at those pattern buffers — there might be something the Petraw could use there.

  “I’m going to replicate the vaccine for the landing party,” McCoy informed his captain.

  Tasm took the opportunity to say, “Officer Luz could accompany you and assist, if needed.”

  McCoy hesitated, but his eyes lingered on Luz, who was starting to smile and nod at him. “Sure . . . Captain?”

  Kirk frowned slightly, but waved them away. “Keep me posted.”

  Tasm gave Luz’s effort a satisfactory review thus far. She was taking the demure route, while paying complete attention to the doctor. It was best not to be overtly coy or alluring — the fascination level should not peak before they got what they needed. Besides, the Kalandans were scientists, and above all they must stay in character.

  Kirk turned to Tasm and Kad. “This way.”

  Tasm followed the captain out of the transporter room into a wide corridor. It didn’t have components in the walls like their own ship. It was also much brighter and bigger, with numerous doors leading into chambers even larger than the transporter room.

  Kirk stepped into a small nook and held on to one of the handles. “Conference room,” he said out loud. Tasm lurched slightly as it moved. Some kind of internal transport. She briefly wondered what it would be like to travel through space in such an enormous vessel. It was too ostentatious for her taste, and would undoubtedly attract a great deal of attention, which was unsafe.

  Kirk took something from his pants pocket. “Here, take a look at this.”

  Tasm took the small, rounded object. It felt heavy, like a rock, and was gray, but it was smoothed and polished. On both ends it was incised with curving lines. “What is it?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” Kirk said. “I found it on the station.”

  Tasm knew better than to claim knowledge she didn’t have. It was one of the quickest ways to tip off a target. “I haven’t seen anything similar. Where did you find it?”

  “In one of the living quarters.”

  Tasm was surprised. The last message she had intercepted from Kirk to his ship had said nothing about locating living quarters. She thought he was still stuck in the command center.

  When everything else failed, rely on character. Tasm lifted the tiny object to let the light shine off it. “I long to see the station. It’s like the past come alive. . . .”

  Kirk finally smiled with genuine warmth. That’s when she knew she was playing it too aloof. He clearly felt more comfortable with a woman who was accessible. She had already proven their technological superiority, perhaps now it was time for the soft touch.

  “It is a remarkable place,” Kirk agreed.

  Tasm let her smile deepen. “Then hurry with your consultation so we can return to the station.”

  The doorway opened and Kirk led them toward another vast room, this one with a long trapezoidal table. He asked them to wait there and left them alone. There was no one guarding the door. They were almost completely trusted. Soon she would be in the Kalandan station.

  All she needed was a few words with the Losira replica and she was certain she could find the technology they were looking for. Kirk had it wrong, thinking the Kalandans were a defensive people. They weren’t. They had just created a defense computer that was very efficient at its job. Tasm had met a lot of different aliens, and she was sure the Kalandans were ready and waiting to bend over backward to help them. So many people were in this galaxy. All she needed was one chance.

  Chapter Nine

  SULU WAITED ANXIOUSLY inside the station during Captain Kirk’s negotiation with the newly arrived Kalandans. He expected any moment to see the door breached and the landing party forced to defend their position. His post was inside the corridor leading to the botany labs, which was designated their fall-back route. Since it was lined by interlocking science labs, it would serve as an ideal warren for a defensive counterattack.

  Sulu’s grip on his phaser, set for stun, was tight as the minutes ticked by. Spock looked impassive and cool as usual, but Reinhart was sweating from nerves.

  When Spock was finally notified that Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy had successfully beamed up to the Enterprise with their Kalandan guests, Sulu realized the worst was over. It looked like they finally had a way to purge the toxic virus from their bodies. And now that the Kalandan commander and her officers were onboard the Enterprise, surely there would be no hostile move made against the station.

  But Spock maintained his defensive position behind the lift in the entrance chamber. He was seated on the portable stool, his phaser out and aimed at the entryway to the station.

  Sulu hesitated, then said from his post, “So that’s that. Now we wait to hear back from the captain.”

  Reinhart uncertainly held his position near the door. As security, Reinhart had taken the first line of defense.

  Spock kept watching the entryway, his communicator in front of him with the channel to the Enterprise open.

  Sulu waited a few moments, but he was keyed up from the adrenaline rush of facing an all-out invasion that hadn’t occurred. Finally he said, “Sir, request permission to resume searching the Kalandan living quarters.”

  Spock lifted one brow at him, then glanced at Reinhart, who came forward a couple of steps. “Very well, Mr. Sulu,” Spock said. “You and Reinhart may proceed.
Maintain communicator contact. If there is any disturbance, you will return here immediately.”

  “Understood,” Sulu acknowledged. He jerked his head for Reinhart to come along.

  Sulu was relieved to not have to stay in the entrance chamber, on constant alert against an attack. But when he was again confronted by the dozens of corridors and hundreds of chambers, he was daunted by the task ahead. Most of the things they had discovered were of no immediate value. Spock had theorized that while the colony itself appeared to be ten thousand years old, the civilization itself was much older and showed signs of millennia of development.

  Sulu stayed near the quarters closest to the doorway to the botany labs. “Why not start here?” he suggested. “That way we’re closer to the entrance chamber.”

  Reinhart looked as if, on second thought, he wasn’t relishing looking through more private effects of long-dead Kalandans. “It’s almost not right,” he protested, stepping into the next chamber.

  Sulu wanted to agree when he saw this one. Unlike the others, this chamber was not stripped and packed neatly into clear containers. It looked as if the scientist living here had stumbled up from sleep and staggered out the door, never to return again.

  He stepped carefully over the threshold. There were several white containers of petrified substance on the ledge next to the door. It looked like a science experiment gone bad, or ten-thousand-year-old leftovers. Clothing was strewn on the floor and draped across the sofa-bench — mostly narrow strips of material edged with metallic thread.

  Other stuff had been left where it was thrown, styluses, measuring devices, and stacks of magnetic film that had apparently been used for taking notes. Now they were blank, and none recorded a mark when Sulu tried to press a stylus against them.

  “Maybe the components have failed,” Sulu ventured a guess.

  “What’s this?” Reinhart asked, holding up a round flat disc about three centimeters across. It was split into quarters colored yellow and red.

  Sulu shrugged, his eyes widening. “Who knows? Look at all this stuff! There’s got to be a station map or something in here.”

  But after thoroughly riffling through the contents of the room, they found lots of things they didn’t recognize but nothing that looked like a map. They did gather up dozens more of the round plastic computer interfaces. But there were no appropriate slots on any of the devices they found.

  Frustrated, Sulu sat down on the bed. “This is impossible.”

  Reinhart shifted uneasily, putting down some of the loose bits of stuff they had found. “At least it’s clean. You should see the dust on my shelves.”

  “It is clean.” Sulu looked around sharply. “Why didn’t I think about that before?”

  “Because the other rooms had the stuff packed up,” Reinhart said reasonably.

  “You’re right. Everything in this room was left lying around. Yet there’s still no dust . . . not here, and not in the botany labs.”

  Sulu aimed his tricorder at the clothes left on the floor. But there were no signs of humanoid tissue — not a skin flake or hair was left. Even the ancient science stuff bore no defining characteristics, with the organic matter long since decayed.

  “This station must have a good ventilation system,” Sulu said. “It’s scoured this place clean.” He got up and began examining the walls, looking for a vent of some kind.

  Reinhart looked surprised, then he nodded. “The air is fresh in here.”

  “If I’m right . . .” Sulu bent over to look under a ledge that served as a table. “Ah-ha! There it is.”

  Reinhart also bent down to see the narrow strip that ran just under the ledge. It was a grid of tiny holes.

  “A vent,” Reinhart said, sounding puzzled. “But it’s hardly as wide as my hand. There’s no way we can get through that.”

  “That’s right.” Sulu remembered what Spock had done with the monofilaments in the computer node. “But I know something that can.”

  Sulu was on his way back to the entrance chamber when Spock checked in with him via communicator. There was no news yet from the Enterprise.

  So Sulu told Spock his idea about sending nanites into the air vent. By the time Sulu arrived in the entrance chamber, Spock had programmed a vial of nanites.

  “I will remain here to track the nanites with the remote operator,” Spock told Sulu.

  Sulu saluted and ran back the way he had come, carrying the dispenser and vial. If they could give Captain Kirk more information about the station, then he would be in a stronger position to negotiate with the Kalandans.

  Reinhart was waiting for his return. Sulu held up the dispenser and went directly to the air vent. He was breathing hard from his jog to and from the entrance chamber. McCoy had warned him that his injured shoulder would take a toll on him for a few more days.

  Eagerly, Sulu placed the opening of the dispenser against one of the tiny holes. With one smooth motion, he injected the nanites into the vent.

  Sulu opened his communicator and tuned to their landing party station frequency. “They’re off, Mr. Spock.”

  “Acknowledged.” Spock didn’t sound nearly as excited.

  Sulu waited, knowing that the nanites didn’t move quickly. He tried to see into the vent, but it was blackness beyond the wall. Each hole looked as if it had been punched into the plasteel, leaving the edges curving inward. Focusing on one hole, moving closer, it seemed to grow larger and larger, as if he could almost see inside. . . .

  Sulu abruptly sat back, shaking his head. What a disorienting feeling . . .

  “I feel dizzy.” Reinhart put one hand to his head, swaying where he sat.

  Sulu sagged, holding himself up with one arm. “ ’S the vent! Somethin’s wrong . . .”

  He fumbled with the communicator, but it seemed a long way off. Then he slowly crumpled to the floor. Still scrabbling at the communicator, trying to get it close to his mouth, he mumbled, “Mm . . . sss . . .”

  Behind him, there was a thud as Reinhart fell off the bed platform. He could still see the room, the curve where the ceiling met the wall, and the recessed lights. But darkness nibbled at the edges, and soon Sulu couldn’t see anything.

  Captain Kirk sat in his chair on the bridge, once more in command of his ship. The familiar whirs and dings from the control panels were soothing to his ears. Reports were pouring in. The Enterprise was quickly being repaired — Scotty had the new integrator in place and a test run of the warp engines would commence soon. After Dr. McCoy replicated the vaccine, the landing party would be able to return to the ship.

  But from his vantage point on the bridge of the Enterprise, Kirk had a wary feeling about these newly arrived Kalandans. Why did they utterly destroy the Klingon ship the instant they had arrived, only to wait patiently in his conference room to negotiate with him?

  What did the Enterprise have that the Kalandans wanted? Possession of the station. Since that appeared to be the only leverage they had against the Kalandans, Kirk was reluctant to disengage the shield and hand it over to them.

  Kirk sent a report to Starfleet Command purely in an effort to gain time. They needed warp capability in order to stand a chance against Tasm’s ship, if it came to a fight. There was nothing they could do to defend themselves against quantum torpedoes except run.

  Kirk was in agreement with Tasm on one thing — the Klingons were an “aggressive warlike race who are resistant to cooperation.” Captain Mox had confirmed his opinion of the Klingons. In the incident last month, it had taken much bloodshed before Kang had listened to Kirk and Mara. Even then, they had almost failed to forge a cooperative response to reject the malevolent entity.

  Mox had appeared to be worse, according to the logs of the incident. They were fortunate the Kalandans had arrived when they did.

  Uhura turned, touching one hand to her earpiece. “Captain, Mr. Spock is signaling from the station.”

  Kirk hit the audio channel. “Yes, Spock?”

  “Captain, a defense syst
em was triggered, locking Mr. Sulu and Security Guard Reinhart into one of the living quarters.”

  “The defense computer is off-line,” Kirk protested.

  “Apparently, this was a local defense system that was activated after Mr. Sulu injected nanites into a vent. I tracked their progress for one point four-nine meters, where the nanites were destroyed.” Spock’s tone became dryer still, if that was possible. “When I received no response from Mr. Sulu, I proceeded to their location. I removed the sealed plasticized osmium door using a phaser set on level five.”

  “Good job, Spock.”

  “Both men were unconscious inside —”

  “Spock!” Kirk’s finger moved to deactivate the shield around the station, but the landing party couldn’t be transported up until they had received the vaccine.

  “— and I revived them,” Spock finished calmly. “They are both unharmed. It appears the oxygen was removed from the chamber when the local defense system was activated by the nanites.”

  “Well . . . ” Kirk said thoughtfully. “Those nanites haven’t been much help, have they?”

  “Indeed,” Spock agreed. “What information can the Kalandans give us?”

  “Not much,” Kirk admitted. “They claim they lost most of their technological advances in their dark ages. Anyway, they say they don’t have interstellar transporters or the cellular disruptor.”

  “Most unusual,” Spock commented.

  “Yes. I don’t like it, Spock.”

  Kirk waited, but Spock had nothing else to add to his report. Such as it was. “Hold your position,” he ordered. “Kirk out.”

  The channel closed as Kirk’s fist softly hit the arm of his command chair. Options were being exhausted on every side. Clearly, the Kalandan station was still a deadly place for his people.

  Kirk was wondering when Commander Tasm’s patience would end when Dr. McCoy reported that the vaccine was replicated and ready to be administered to the landing party. It would protect them for approximately twenty-two hours; then they would need a booster shot. McCoy agreed with the Kalandans that no one should receive more than two booster shots in a row.