Star Trek #97: In the Name of Honor

by Dayton Ward

  As abruptly as it had appeared, the ship began attacking the interior of the compound, weapons blazing as disruptor energy lanced out to strike guard towers and the prison’s main headquarters building. The effect was staggering, with the Klingon guards ceasing their attempts to maintain control and instead running for cover.

  Garrovick was surprised when a familiar tingling sensation, one he hadn’t felt in years, began to envelop his body. A hum of energy started to assert itself over the sounds of pandemonium around him, growing in pitch until he could almost hear nothing else.

  Transporter beam!

  * * *

  “Clear the pad!”

  The command, barked in Federation Standard, came even before Garrovick had finished materializing. A quick look to either side of him showed that in addition to himself and Sydney, Sinak occupied the cramped, threeperson transporter platform. Garrovick turned to the source of the clipped order and saw a human manning the transporter console.

  And not just any human.

  “What the hell . . . ?” Sydney began.

  Garrovick blinked, still not believing his eyes. How long had it been since their paths had crossed? Ten years? Fifteen?

  “Captain Kirk?” he asked, his voice cracking under the strain of disbelief. “How . . . ?”

  Of course, Garrovick knew that if anyone could pull off the impossible, it was Kirk. He’d made a career out of it, after all.

  “Fascinating,” Sinak added.

  “Move!” Kirk commanded again, then he looked at Garrovick. “How many more of your crew are down there?”

  As Garrovick and the others vacated the transporter platform, the shuttle pitched to starboard and everyone in the room could hear hull plates groaning in protest.

  “Somebody doesn’t want us to leave,” Sydney said, holding on to a support column as the shuttle lurched under another impact.

  At the transporter console, Kirk said, “Sulu can handle that.” He looked at Garrovick again. “How many more are down there?”

  “Two,” Garrovick replied, then supplied the names when Kirk asked. He watched as the captain’s fingers moved across the computer console that Garrovick saw had been configured to display information in Federation Standard rather than Klingon.

  “I’ve tied the transporter controls into the ship’s computer,” Kirk explained as he entered commands into the console. “We’ve loaded the medical and biological information on the Gagarin ’s crew into a database, and the sensors are scanning the prison looking for any matches. It takes time, but we can speed things up if the computer knows exactly who to look for.”

  The ship shuddered again under another assault, followed by the crackling of overhead intercom speakers.

  “Captain! They’re bringing weapons emplacements online. We can’t get them all before one of them causes us serious damage.”

  Working at the console, Kirk replied, “Almost there, Sulu. Stand by to get us out of here on my command.”

  Realizing that the attacking ship wasn’t targeting anyone on the ground, Korax emerged from the headquarters building and out into the courtyard, a disruptor in his hand. Beside him, Khulr and Moqlah both carried disruptor rifles outfitted with targeting scopes. Still recovering from the injuries he had suffered in the mine, Moqlah was favoring his left side while cradling his weapon in the crook of his right arm.

  “Get the shield repaired!” Korax shouted into the communicator he carried in his other hand. “Quickly, before they can escape!”

  Who would want to attack them here, this all but forgotten hellhole on the fringes of the Empire? The dilithium might make a tempting target, but the vessel was too small to make off with any appreciable amount of the mineral. Whatever they could carry wouldn’t be enough to justify the risk of such brash action.

  “Commander, look!”

  Khulr was pointing into the courtyard, where a transporter beam had wrapped itself around one of the prisoners. Even though the figure was covered in dust and grime from the mines, Korax recognized the orange-hued skin of an Efrosian. There was only one Efrosian currently being held in the prison.

  And just like that, the answer was there.

  “They’ve come for the Starfleet prisoners!” he growled, turning his attention to the shuttle still hovering above the floor of the compound, bobbing and weaving even as it continued to fire on targets of opportunity. The nose of the ship turned toward the building that housed Korax’s personal shuttle as well as the prison’s small fleet of ground transport vehicles. Disruptors flared again and twin beams of energy penetrated the wall of the hangar, chewing into its thermoconcrete surface with ease.

  The ground rocked under another explosion and fire erupted from the hangar’s windows and doors. Shards of glass and chunks of metal and thermoconcrete sailed in all directions. From where he stood, Korax knew that the explosion had consumed his shuttle.

  In the courtyard, the shuttle continued to attack even as weapons batteries were being brought to bear. Whoever was manning the weapons on the ship was an exceptional marksman, Korax admitted. They were removing, with surgical precision, anything on the ground or on the prison wall that might pose a threat.

  But Korax’s guards were beginning to lock on to the ship with disruptor cannons. The pilot of the vessel couldn’t be that good, he decided. It was only a matter of time.

  The nose of the craft swung in their direction, disruptors still firing. Barely forty meters away and flying only ten or so meters off the ground, Korax was able to see through the clear plexisteel windshield. A Klingon and what looked to be a human sat in the cockpit. He managed only a momentary glimpse of the magnified image from the scope’s viewfinder before the shuttle banked away.

  But it was enough.

  “Give me your weapon,” Korax snapped, grabbing the disruptor rifle from Moqlah’s hands and pulling the weapon into his own shoulder. Peering through the targeting scope, he sighted in on the ship’s cockpit.

  “No!”

  It couldn’t be!

  Korax recoiled back from the scope in shock. The Klingon at the ship’s controls looked to be none other than Koloth! Could his former commander really be here now? More than anyone or anything else, Koloth was the reason Korax had been all but banished to this useless backwater planet.

  And now he was here, abducting Starfleet prisoners? Was he working for the Federation? Had he forsaken the Empire he had long professed loyalty to, or had he simply gone mad?

  Reaching for his communicator, Korax shouted into the unit, “Lock all weapons on to that ship! Target its engines only! I want it captured, not destroyed!”

  Moqlah saw a transporter beam claim another prisoner, and wondered how many people had been taken in this manner. Further, he thought he recognized the figure as that of a human.

  Could it be?

  With Korax and Khulr both looking away from him, he let a small smile escape his lips. Had someone from the Federation mounted a rescue operation to retrieve their comrades after all this time? With the courtyard embroiled in chaos from the attack, there was no way to be certain which prisoners were being taken, but as Korax had already pointed out, the Efrosian member of the Gagarin contingent had just been swept away in a transporter beam.

  It made sense, really.

  At long last, it seemed that justice was being paid to Garrovick and his people. Perhaps their rescue would bring the entire despicable story of their ship’s capture and the treatment suffered by its crew to light. The Council would not be able to deny what had happened, and it would be the first step toward restoring both honor and his faith in the Klingon Empire.

  “Sulu!” Kirk’s voice blared through the intercom in the shuttle’s tiny cockpit. “I’ve got all of them. Get us out of here!”

  “Aye, aye to that,” Sulu said, more to himself than anyone else. His hands manipulated the controls of the ship as if the Enterprise helmsman had been piloting Klingon vessels all of his life.

  From his own seat, Koloth marvel
ed at the human’s flying. As with the bat’leth, Sulu had displayed an uncanny ability to acquire new skills in impressively short periods of time. His natural talent for flying allowed him to pilot the shuttle while Koloth himself concentrated on manning the ship’s weapons.

  “Sensors still show the breach in the forcefield,” he reported. “But it won’t last long.” Penetrating the electronic barrier had been easy enough, with the Klingon disabling the power generator for the section of the energy shield covering the entrance to the compound. He knew, though, that emergency systems would soon kick in. In fact, he was surprised that it hadn’t already happened. Koloth guessed that such systems were manually operated rather than controlled by computer. After all, how often could such emergency measures be needed out here in the middle of nowhere?

  The shuttle lurched again, and this time an alarm sounded in the cockpit.

  “Impulse generator is offline,” Koloth called out as he glanced at the status displays. Though Kirk had been lowering and raising the shields in coordination with his use of the transporter, the protective fields had borne the brunt of intense punishment from several of the weapons emplacements while activated, and their energy levels had been dropping throughout the rescue operation. They had now weakened to the point that the ship itself was taking damage.

  Koloth didn’t have to add that without the impulse generator, the shuttle did not have sufficient power to escape the pull of the planet’s gravity. They would not be able to achieve orbit, much less a rendezvous with the Gal’tagh.

  Glancing over, he saw that Sulu appeared concerned only with getting the shuttle out of the firefight while it was still in one piece. Tapping the helm’s controls again, the ship banked under his touch and headed for the gap in the energy shield.

  Another strike rocked the ship, accompanied by a slew of alarms as warning indicators all across the console lit up and demanded their attention.

  “I’ve lost attitude stabilizers,” Sulu called out over the alarms. “Helm is going unresponsive!”

  Koloth stabbed at controls on his own console, attempting to reroute power from nonessential systems. It was hopeless, though. The last attack had damaged the ship beyond even Sulu’s powers of compensation.

  “I’m not going to be able to get much altitude,” Sulu said as he fought the increasingly sluggish controls. He had managed to clear the prison wall and emerge from the confines of the energy shield, but now it was a struggle to keep the shuttle from slamming into the towering trees of the surrounding jungle as the ship clawed for altitude.

  “Koloth, we’re going to have to set down before we crash.”

  “Kirk!” Koloth called into the intercom. “Prepare for emergency landing!”

  Even as he reached for the sensor controls to search for possible landing sites, Koloth felt the ship shudder around him, and then the bottom seemed to fall out from beneath his chair.

  Outside the shuttle’s canopy, the trees loomed closer.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  “RED ALERT.” The voice of the Enterprise computer was nearly drowned out by alarm klaxons as the bridge illumination turned a deep crimson.

  Spock swiveled in the captain’s chair to face the science station where Chekov and Lorta had been working steadily for several hours. They had taken advantage of what had until now been a characteristically uneventful duty shift during ship’s night.

  “Mr. Chekov?” he prompted.

  As the computer automatically silenced the alert sirens, Chekov said, “Transporter beam detected. Sensors are attempting to track it.”

  The two security officers had set sensors to scan for the Klingon transporter signature that had been used during the previous attack. The ship’s computer would then locate the target of the beam and lock on to whatever materialized with the Enterprise ’s own transporters so that it could be beamed away safely.

  More important, the ship’s computer and sensors would also have all the information they needed to track the transporter beam to its origin point.

  Spock’s eyes flickered to an overhead monitor showing a technical schematic of both the Enterprise and the Terthos. Pulsing blue crosshairs tracked across the representations of both ships and within seconds a point on the Terthos ’s hull was illuminated and magnified on the display.

  “There, on the secondary hull,” Lorta said as she pointed to the monitor.

  Chekov added, “It’s near their engineering section.” His head snapped up in alarm. “It’s another Klingon torpedo, sir.”

  “Open a channel to the Terthos,” Spock ordered as he returned to the command well and moved to stand in front of the helm console. Within seconds, the picture of space displayed on the bridge’s main viewer was replaced with the image of Captain K’tran.

  “Captain,” Spock said, “another explosive has been transported onto the outer hull of your ship near your engineering section. I suggest immediate evacuation.” Looking back at Chekov he asked, “Do you have a transporter lock on the torpedo, Mr. Chekov?”

  Slamming his hands down on the console, Chekov swore in his native Russian language before replying. “Negative. The torpedo has been fitted with a transport inhibitor.”

  On the viewscreen, Montgomery Scott moved into view. The engineer had been assisting the Terthos crew with repairs following the last attack, a wise use of the experience he had gained working with Klingon technology over the years.

  “Tractor beam,” Scott offered. “Ye should be able to yank that beastie off easy enough.”

  “Agreed,” Spock said, already turning to issue the proper order. The lieutenant manning the helm entered the instructions to her console, but shook her head after a few seconds.

  “No effect, sir,” she reported. “Whatever’s interfering with the transporter must be disrupting the tractor beam as well.”

  On the viewer, K’tran said, “Captain Spock, can you use your weapons to destroy the torpedo?”

  Lorta turned from the science station. “That might detonate it, Captain. Considering where it’s placed, it could do serious damage to the engineering area. If the antimatter containment field is disrupted, the entire ship could be destroyed.”

  She was interrupted by a beeping tone from the console.

  “Sensors have traced the transporter signal,” Chekov said. “It came from the Terthos herself.”

  “Is there any indication as to when the torpedo might detonate?” Spock asked.

  Chekov consulted the sensor displays before replying. “No evidence of any timing mechanism. The weapon does contain a transceiver assembly, though. It could be waiting for a remote detonation signal.”

  “Perhaps we can jam its ability to receive such a signal?” Lorta suggested.

  “Possible,” Spock said. “Provided the transceiver isn’t shielded like the rest of the weapon.”

  From the viewscreen, Scotty said. “We canna take the chance, Mr. Spock. We hafta get that thing off the hull.”

  Coming from anyone else, Spock would have considered the statement to be born of rampant emotionalism. However, he had never known the engineer to make any suggestion lightly.

  “You have a proposal, Mr. Scott?”

  * * *

  No sooner had the torpedo dematerialized from the cargo transporter pad than Ag’hel set about covering her tracks. As before, she would have to take carefully plotted steps to remove all traces of her activities from the security logs maintained in the Terthos ’s main computer.

  She pulled her communicator from a compartment on her wide leather belt and activated it. All she had to do was adjust the device to the proper frequency and open the channel. There was a risk that her call would be traced, but it was only a slight one. Ag’hel had instructed the ship’s computer to forgo logging her outgoing signal, again using her override code. When her business here was finished there would be no record of her communication, transmitting an apparently random hailing signal. Kaljagh would know immediately that the torpedo had been planted and t
hat he could detonate it at his command.

  Ag’hel had adjusted the torpedo’s yield so that the danger to the Terthos ’s antimatter system was minimized, thereby preventing the complete destruction of the ship. But the damage caused by the torpedo would still be devastating, given the weapon’s placement near an area of the ship where the crew was highly concentrated. Casualties would be massive, and the ship would be crippled.

  The successful execution of this strike was critical, she knew. If the results were as lackluster as those generated by the first two attacks, she wasn’t certain they would get another opportunity before the conference ended or the Council members directing them opted to sever ties with their operatives.

  Completely.

  “Do not move.”

  Ag’hel whirled around at the sound of the voice to see Captain K’tran’s massive frame filling the doorway. Lieutenant Lorta and the human security officer from the Enterprise flanked him. All three were armed.

  “It is over, Ag’hel,” Lorta said. “We know that you are behind the sabotage.”

  Ag’hel would never surrender so easily. “What are you talking about?” Mentally, though, she was retracing her steps. Had she left a clue for the two security officers to discover? She had faked the inventory reports detailing the number and status of the ship’s torpedoes. The reports had implicated the munitions officer and K’tran had ordered him thrown in the brig to await trial and execution. She had performed similar acts on the transporter and communications logs to cover her tracks. How could any trail, if indeed one had been left, lead back to her?

  The hand holding her communicator was still partially concealed by her body. Moving her thumb almost imperceptibly across the familiar face of the device’s faceplate, she managed to press a control without being noticed.

  “You can thank Lieutenant Connors on the Enterprise,” Chekov said. “It was his idea to plant an additional identifier stamp on all computer entries. The requests you made to update the armory and transporter logs were encoded with a unique designator identifying the access terminal that you used, which happened to be the one in your quarters.” The small security oversight program had been the Enterprise computer specialist’s last task for the Terthos ’s main computer.