The Antares Maelstrom

by Greg Cox

  “Procedure incomplete,” an automated voice reported. “Shutdown unsuccessful.”

  “What is it?” Galligan said. “What’s happening?”

  Scott wanted to know that himself. He scanned every readout in sight, called up every scrap of data from every blessed diagnostic program still running. They didn’t paint a pretty picture.

  “It’s the injectors,” he said. “They’re not disengaging from the warp core the way they’re supposed to.”

  “How come?” Spears asked.

  “Hard to say without looking under the hood,” Scott said. “Maybe the injectors are fused to their couplings. Maybe the bypass circuits are burnt out. Maybe it’s a software issue. All I know is that we’re not going to be able to shut down the reactor from here.”

  A countdown started in his head. At the rate the temperature was climbing within the warp core, they were looking at a major breach in at least two hours, assuming nothing else broke down in the meantime. At which point Thunderbird, the surrounding park, and several nearby blocks of shops and residences would become nothing but a radioactive crater. Jackpot City was facing a major catastrophe, just as Scott had feared.

  Remind me to dig in me heels more next time.

  “What now?” Spears asked.

  Scott knew the options by heart. “If we’re lucky, we can still shut down the reactor manually.”

  He peered through the EM shield grating at the warp power assembly beyond. Its usual orange glow suffusing the engine room had morphed into an infernal red glow, reflecting the increasing amount of energy being generated by the reactor. He briefly considered changing into a protective hazard suit before entering the chamber, but concluded there wasn’t enough time. Radiation levels within the engine room were still within acceptable levels, at least for the time being. The place probably felt like the inside of an oven, but Scott figured he’d be okay if he moved quickly enough. And if the procedure took too long . . . well, radiation poisoning was going to be the least of his worries.

  He procured a tool belt, complete with a multipurpose wrench and a phaser welder, from a supply locker and buckled it on. Spears handed him a tinted visor to shield his eyes from the glare inside the engine room, which he accepted gratefully. Galligan paced about the control room, wringing his hands.

  “Do you think you can do it?” he asked Scott.

  “If I can’t, no one can,” he replied, eschewing false modesty. Aside from possibly Mister Spock.

  “No offense,” Galligan said, “but I wish I found that more comforting.”

  “So do I,” Scott admitted. “Just keep an eye on the situation and give me a shout if aught else goes amiss.”

  “Will do,” Spears promised.

  A metal gangway led to a Jefferies tube connecting the control room to the engine room. Scott crawled through the tube and opened the hatch at the other end. Just as he was about to clamber out of the tube, a loud metallic crack startled him. For a second, he feared that the warp core had breached prematurely, but, no, he’d already be atoms if that was the case. He saw instead that a plasma transfer conduit had cracked, jetting radioactive deuterium gas into the engine room. The ruptured conduit hissed like an angry serpent.

  “Mister Scott, Mister Scott!” Spears shouted to him over an intercom. “We’ve got a radiation leak in the engine room.”

  “Don’t I know it, lass!” He considered, just for a moment, trying to make it to the injectors anyway, no matter the cost, but realized that he’d just be throwing his life away without saving anyone. Never mind the radiation; he’d be scalded alive long before he succeeded in uncoupling a single nozzle. The flesh was willing, but his fragile skin and bones could not withstand the laws of physics . . . or basic biology. “I’m coming back!”

  Klaxons blared and annunciator lights flashed red, their color almost lost in the intense incarnadine glow from the warp core. A force field slammed into place, sealing the engine room off from the rest of the ship. Scott couldn’t get past it if he tried.

  He scrambled backward into the tube, yanking the hatch shut behind him and making sure it was tightly sealed. He knew that it was only a matter of time before the tube itself was sealed off to help contain the radiation, so he raced to exit it as quickly as he could. His tool belt caught on a rung, forcing him to discard the wrench rather than waste vital seconds trying to work it free. He tumbled out of the tube onto the gangway, landing unceremoniously on his rump. A heartbeat later, a second force field crackled into place, so that both ends of the tube were blocked. He counted himself lucky as he closed the outer hatch as well.

  That could have gone worse, he thought, but we’re still deep in the haggis.

  Between the radiation leak and the overheating warp core, Thunderbird was in its death throes and poised to take many more lives with it. In space, he could just eject the warp core into the void, but that was not exactly an option in the midst of an overcrowded population center. Scott began to prepare for the worst.

  “We need to evacuate all nonessential personnel immediately.” He looked soberly at Galligan. “You should go too, for your family’s sake.”

  Galligan shook his head. “This is my responsibility. If anything, you should save yourself by beaming back to the Enterprise.”

  “I’ve never walked away from a job in my life,” Scott said firmly. “Not about to start now.”

  Even if the best he could do was try to delay the breach long enough for the surrounding areas to be evacuated.

  “I’m not going anywhere either,” Spears said. “I’m here for as long as it takes.”

  Scotty was moved by their dedication and grateful for their courage. He couldn’t do this alone. He flipped open his communicator to notify Kirk of the crisis.

  “Scotty to Enterprise. Put me through to the captain immediately.”

  Nineteen

  Deep Space Station S-8

  “You wanted to see me, Lieutenant?”

  Sulu found Tilton in his office, peering vacantly out of the viewport. Knox and Johann were along as backup, not that the worn-down old station manager appeared likely to cause trouble. Then again, Sulu reminded himself, appearances could be deceiving.

  “That’s right, sir.” Sulu declined to sit down. “It’s about the saboteur.”

  Tilton didn’t look at him. “Yes, I heard that you and Grandle apprehended someone. Good work.”

  “Thank you, but I’m afraid that was just an isolated incident. I have reason to believe that we still have a bigger problem, one that’s been right under our noses all this time.”

  Tilton frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean, Lieutenant.”

  “Well, I’ve been aboard this station long enough to see that Mister Grandle runs a very tight ship, even under the present circumstances, which makes it highly unlikely that any serious saboteur could get away with it for as long as they have . . . unless they were uniquely positioned to do so.”

  That got a response from Tilton, who finally turned toward Sulu. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, what exactly are you implying? That Mister Grandle is the guilty party?”

  “No, sir,” Sulu answered. “Even Grandle has only limited access to this station’s primary systems and controls. The only person on this station with the authority to disable or override any and all security measures, edit logs and registers, and have free run of the entire station, including its most sensitive areas, is . . . you, Mister Tilton.”

  Tilton’s reaction was typically muted. There was no indignation or angry protestations of innocence. He didn’t even look surprised by the accusation. His haggard face remained slack, his voice barely more than a monotone. He might as well have been discussing the weather in New Helsinki this time of year.

  “An interesting theory, Lieutenant, but where is your evidence?”

  “Honestly, it’s the lack of evidence that’s most provocative,” Sulu said. “Take the incident in the shuttlebay, for instance. I’ve reviewed the engineers’ reports; as far as they can t
ell, there was no obvious mechanical reason why the emergency vents and filters failed in the crisis. They didn’t malfunction, they were deliberately deactivated in anticipation of the coolant leak, in which case there should be some record of who exactly entered that command, but that data appears to have mysteriously vanished from all the relevant databases.” Sulu fixed a stern gaze on Tilton. “There’s not many people on this station who could issue that command and delete all trace of it afterward. You covered your trail too well, Tilton. That’s what pointed me toward you.”

  It wasn’t exactly a smoking gun, and probably wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but Sulu felt in his gut that he was on the right track. He didn’t need to prove it; he just needed to stop Tilton from doing any more damage. Not that a full confession wouldn’t make this easier for all concerned.

  “Is that all you have, Lieutenant?”

  “Not exactly.” Sulu crossed the room to examine the scale model of the Shenzhou on display in the manager’s office. “I’ve been looking into your background. You’ve had an impressive career, mostly in engineering, including a stint as the deputy superintendent of the Tranquility Base shipyards back during the first Federation-Klingon War. You even received a commendation for preventing a matter-antimatter generator from exploding due to Klingon sabotage . . . which, ironically enough, proves you have the skills and the know-how to pull off this recent campaign of sabotage.”

  Tilton mustered a dry chuckle.

  “Do you hear yourself, Lieutenant Sulu?” the man scoffed. “No evidence is evidence? Preventing sabotage proves I’m the saboteur? Sounds to me like you’ve gone through the looking glass and have this all backward.”

  Sulu feared that Grandle would feel the same way, which is why he had not included her in this informal interrogation. He hoped to present Tilton’s guilt to her as a fait accompli.

  “You have the means and opportunity,” he insisted. “The only thing that still stumps me is the motive.” He spun Tilton’s chair around to face him and leaned toward the embattled manager. “Why, Tilton? Why sabotage your own station and the travelers depending on you?”

  “I . . .” Tilton’s blank expression buckled for a moment. Grimacing, he opened his mouth to answer, only to seemingly choke on his own words, producing nothing more than a strangled, inarticulate gargle. A muscle twitched beneath his cheek. “I . . .”

  “Tilton?” Sulu was taken aback by the man’s apparent distress. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Is he all right, sir?” Knox asked, looking on.

  “Beats me,” Sulu answered. “Talk to me, Tilton. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” the man said. “Nothing, except—” He grimaced again, as though straining to get the words out, before abandoning the effort. The fit seemed to pass as his expression emptied out again, collapsing back into blank passivity. His voice drained of all emotion. “What do you want me to say, Lieutenant? I won’t say it. I can’t say it . . .”

  “Tilton?”

  “I’m so tired,” he said, “so tired and alone . . .”

  Sulu stepped back, away from the inert manager, who almost appeared to be having some sort of breakdown. He was tempted to summon Doctor M’Benga, but was reluctant to do so before he got the answers he needed.

  “Talk to me, Tilton,” he said again, more gently this time. “If you need help, we can get it for you. Just tell me what’s wrong with you.”

  “Nothing,” Tilton mumbled. His detached gaze returned to the viewport, looking out into space. “Nothing but emptiness, extending forever and ever . . .”

  “I think he’s gone, sir,” Knox said. “Mentally, I mean.”

  “I don’t get it,” Johann added. “It’s like he doesn’t even care that he could get shipped off to a penal colony.”

  “More like a psychiatric hospital,” Knox said. “Not that there’s much difference these days.”

  Sulu froze. The young officers’ chatter, along with this entire situation, teased his memory indistinctly. Something about all this felt strangely familiar, even if he couldn’t quite place it just yet.

  “What did you just say?” he asked.

  Knox shrugged. “Just speculating about whether Mister Tilton belonged in a penal colony or a mental asylum, assuming he is the saboteur, as you suspect.”

  “Same difference,” Johann said.

  Sulu let their remarks echo in his brain, hoping the reverberations would shake the right memory loose. Tilton mumbled in the background, his face and voice empty of emotion, as though the man he’d been had been leeched away from him, leaving nothing but an empty husk . . .

  “Great Bird of the Galaxy,” Sulu whispered as it hit him like a phaser on stun.

  It had been a few years ago, during the early days of the Enterprise’s five-year mission. A routine visit to a remote penal colony on Tantalus V had turned ugly when it was discovered that the Federation’s most-celebrated psychiatrist, Doctor Tristan Adams, had been testing an experimental new mind-control device on the inmates under his care. Sulu had not been on the first landing party to visit the colony, but he’d beamed down later to help restore order to the asylum in the wake of Adams’s defeat and accidental demise. He still remembered some of the brainwashed patients he’d encountered there, particularly a chilling young woman named Lethe, who displayed the same empty eyes and lack of affect that Tilton did now, thanks to Adams’s insidious invention, which he’d called . . . what was it again? It took Sulu a moment to retrieve the name.

  A neural neutralizer.

  “Alert Doctor M’Benga,” he ordered. “We need to get this man to the infirmary!”

  Twenty

  Yurnos

  The smugglers’ craft lifted off from the beach, its landing gear retracting. The unnamed vessel rotated 180 degrees before heading out over the bay, where it swiftly dived beneath the waves, disappearing from sight. The marmots harnessed to the wagon chittered at its departure, as the shuttle left Spock and Chekov alone on the beach with Eefa, who angrily cursed the smugglers in their wake.

  “Faithless, murdering caitiffs!”

  The men were still bound. She was still armed, and upset over Woji’s sudden disintegration. Spock judged the situation volatile and hazardous. It required careful handling.

  “No sudden moves or outbursts,” he advised Chekov in a low voice.

  “Understood, sir.”

  For the moment, however, Eefa’s violent emotions were directed at the smugglers. Perhaps emboldened by their absence, she vented furiously into her communicator. “That’s right, you cursed swine! Kill my man and just leave me here to deal with your enemies. I hope you choke on my tea!”

  “My sympathies for your loss,” Spock said.

  “To limbo with your sympathies, you . . . Vulcan!” She glared at him and Chekov. “You’re as much to blame as they are. I had a fine deal working here before you two came along. Now Woji’s dead and it’s all your fault!”

  She waved the pistol at them, rage, grief, and a loaded firearm adding up to a dangerous total. Spock could not help finding the combination disturbing. His memories flashed back to that moment on Neural, two years, eight months, and fourteen days ago, when a bullet fired from a primitive rifle struck him in the back and passed all the way through his body to emerge from his chest, felling him. The weapon may have been crude by modern standards, but the pain and injury had been no less intense. His body still remembered the trauma even as he applied logic to put the memory in its place.

  That was the past, he thought. This is the present.

  “Your anger is misplaced. We did not harm your associate.”

  “But you started this!” she accused him. “You brought this on us!”

  Spock regretted Woji’s death, but, logically, he realized, it was the smugglers who chose to introduce homicide to the equation when any number of less violent responses were possible. He could not be held accountable for their crime.

  “Your associates killed Woji without cause,�
�� he stated. “We did not force them to resort to murder.”

  He chose not to point out that Woji’s execution had been in response to Eefa personally threatening the smugglers. It was difficult to predict how she would react to that observation.

  “We are very sorry for what happened to your friend,” Chekov said. “That was never our intention. What those criminals did was . . . unconscionable.”

  His palpable sincerity penetrated her shields, dampening her anger to a degree. She kept the pistol fixed on them nonetheless.

  “You realize I can’t let you go now. Not after what you’ve seen. Not with who or what you are.”

  Spock feared she was trying to talk herself into doing what she thought was necessary. He attempted to reason with her.

  “We have no desire to interfere with your life or legitimate business affairs. Our only interest is in curbing the illegal activities of those who just departed. We have learned all we need from you.”

  “And I’m supposed to take your word for that?” she said. “A Vulcan . . . from Starfleet, whatever that means.” She shook her head reluctantly. “You expect me to believe that you will just walk away after all this . . . and not want to settle scores?”

  “Vulcans do not seek revenge,” Spock stated. “That I can assure you.”

  “Same here,” Chekov said. “No hard feelings, really. What’s an involuntary wagon ride and a few bruises between friends?”

  “No, no, I can’t take that chance,” she said. “You’ve brought too much trouble to my door already. I need to be rid of you for good.”

  The quaver in her voice belied her certainty. Her gun arm trembled.

  “I am not convinced you are capable of killing in cold blood,” Spock said. “Unlike those who took Woji’s life.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m capable of.” She glanced briefly at the bay. An idea seemed to occur to her. “Start walking . . . that way.”

  Chekov looked at her in surprise. “Into the bay?”

  “That’s right.” She gestured in the direction of the surf. “Walk into the water and keep on going . . . all the way back to where you came from.”