The Antares Maelstrom

by Greg Cox

  “Refresh my memory, Doctor,” Sulu asked. “How exactly does a neural neutralizer work, again? I’ve witnessed its effects firsthand, but I’m a helmsman, not a psychiatrist.”

  “I need to review the relevant literature myself,” M’Benga said, “but basically the device employs a specialized beam that, as the name suggests, effectively neutralizes the subject’s brainwaves, shutting down their thoughts and leaving them in a highly suggestible state. Depending on the duration and intensity of the treatment, the operator can erase or rewrite the subject’s memories, alter their emotions, even implant powerful posthypnotic suggestions.”

  M’Benga put the scanner down on a counter after transferring its readings to the infirmary’s main computer. His gaze remained fixed on the diagnostic panel mounted above Tilton’s bed, monitoring the patient’s life signs.

  “Apparently the late Doctor Adams developed the device in hopes of ‘curing’ the criminally insane by editing their memories, but the potential for abuse was always there—and quickly corrupted his experiments.”

  Sulu nodded, remembering. Adams had ultimately employed the neutralizer on both his patients and his fellow healers, at the expense of their free will.

  “Which is why Captain Kirk ordered the neutralizer destroyed,” Sulu recalled, “and Doctor Adams’s research locked up tight.”

  “The right call, to be sure,” M’Benga said. “Alas, as history proves too well, once a new technology has been developed, it’s all but impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. Backup copies of Adams’s discoveries, some of them stored off Tantalus V, escaped into the wild and were traded by unscrupulous individuals who were quick to recognize its illicit potential.” He shook his head ruefully. “Despite the Federation’s best efforts to contain the technology, an illegal trade in neural neutralizers has sprung up in some of the more unsavory parts of the galaxy. They’re scarce and, mercifully, very hard to obtain, but they can sometimes be had on the black market . . . as proven by the condition of Mister Tilton.”

  Sulu repressed a shudder as he contemplated the benumbed man on the biobed. Now that he understood what he was seeing, Sulu found the violation done to Tilton profoundly disturbing for reasons that hit far too close to home. At least twice in recent years, Sulu had been similarly brainwashed, robbed of his free will first by Landru on Beta III, then by those extragalactic “witches” on Pyris VII. He knew what it was like to be turned into somebody else’s robotic pawn. Tilton deserved his pity, not blame for what he’d been forced to do.

  “Somebody did this to him,” Sulu said angrily, determined to track down whoever was responsible. Tilton may have been the saboteur, but the true criminal still eluded them. He looked at M’Benga. “Can I question him further?”

  “You can try,” the doctor said, “but I should monitor him while you do so.”

  “Understood.” Sulu approached the biobed. “Tilton? Listen to me. Do you understand what’s happening, what was done to you?”

  “I have nothing to say,” Tilton murmured, not making eye contact. “Nothing . . .”

  “Just tell me who did this to you. Give me a name.”

  Tilton shook his head. “I . . . I can’t say . . .”

  “Look at me.” Sulu took the man by the shoulders, earning him a cautionary look from M’Benga. “This station—your station—is under attack. Tell me who is responsible. Give me a name.”

  The urgency in his voice drew Tilton’s gaze. He stared back at Sulu, who felt as though the man was truly seeing him, at least for the moment.

  “I . . . it was . . .” Tilton struggled visibly to get the words out. An anguished expression twisted his face and his whole body tensed. Each word appeared to require a Herculean effort. “Want . . . to . . . tell . . . but . . .”

  A groan cut him off in midsentence, much to Sulu’s frustration.

  “Who was it, Tilton? All I need is a name!”

  M’Benga eyed the life-signs monitor with concern. “His blood pressure and heart rate are rising, Lieutenant. Neurosynaptic activity is going critical.”

  “Just a few more moments!” Sulu realized that M’Benga was bound to shut down the interrogation at any minute. “The name, Tilton! You can do it. Spit it out!”

  Sweat drenched Tilton’s features, soaking through his clothing. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Sulu barely recognized the tired, soft-spoken manager he’d met when he’d first beamed aboard the station.

  “It’s . . . it’s . . . I’m trying but . . .” Pain contorted his face. His body convulsed, struggling against his restraints. An agonized scream tore itself from his lungs, drowning out whatever revelations were trapped inside him. His head whipped back and forth. Warning lights flashed upon the diagnostic monitor as his life signs spiked dangerously.

  “That’s enough.” M’Benga squeezed past Sulu to administer a sedative to Tilton. A hypospray hissed, and the manager’s face and limbs went slack. “I’m sorry, Sulu, but the man was in obvious physical distress. I couldn’t allow that to go on any longer.”

  “Understood.” Sulu stepped away from the bed. He couldn’t blame M’Benga for intervening, given his Hippocratic oath, but it was still frustrating. “He was so close to revealing the truth.”

  “But at what cost?” M’Benga watched Tilton’s life signs ease back into the safety zone as he checked the man’s pulse the old-fashioned way as well. “You want my instant diagnosis, Tilton’s been conditioned to hide the identity of whoever brainwashed him. To even try to answer your questions caused him enormous pain.”

  Sulu had no reason to doubt the doctor’s appraisal. He recalled hearing that the neutral neutralizer could have that effect while the Enterprise was cleaning up Doctor Adams’s mess.

  “Any way to get around that?”

  “Short of a Vulcan mind-meld?” M’Benga didn’t look hopeful. “Honestly, I don’t know. We might eventually be able to pry the answers out of him, despite the conditioning, but who knows what toll that would take on his mind and body? We can’t risk putting him through that, not in good conscience.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Sulu said with a sigh.

  Twenty-Three

  Baldur III

  “. . . the situation at the Thunderbird power plant is critical. All crew members currently stationed on the planet are directed to assist the local authorities as needed. Take charge if you have to. Kirk out.”

  Uhura lowered her communicator. The emergency alert from the Enterprise had not been directed to her personally, but to every member of every landing party, so she was not obliged to respond. Instead she took a moment to process what she had just heard and go to red-alert status, which involved switching gears in a major way.

  Only minutes earlier, she had been enjoying another evening at the Pergium Palace, where, in fact, she had just taken first place in a weekly talent show. She’d been celebrating her victory with Oskar Thackery and his crowd at their usual table, when she’d stepped away to take the call from the Enterprise. She glanced over at the booth, where her new friends remained still happily oblivious to the power plant’s impending meltdown. A trophy cup, studded with cheap Spican flame gems, rested on the table in front of her vacant seat.

  The power plant was only blocks away.

  Scanning the crowded nightclub, she saw her fellow crew members also reacting to the news. Uhura pondered her next move. How to sound the alarm without starting a panic?

  The decision was taken out of her hands when the subdued lighting of the club was suddenly dialed up and the music stopped playing. Mayor Poho suddenly appeared upon every entertainment screen, replacing a local bluegrass band which had been performing in the background. The mayor’s grim expression instantly put a damper on the festivities.

  “Attention, fellow citizens. An emergency evacuation order is in effect. All citizens are instructed to flee the vicinity of Jackpot City immediately. Proceed in an orderly fashion, but without delay. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is
not a drill. Get going.

  “May fate have mercy on us all.”

  The alarming message ended abruptly, leaving the screens blank and the club thrown into a state of confusion. Agitated voices clamored for answers or cried out in fear. Flossi, who had just brought a fresh order of drinks to the table, looked anxiously at Uhura. Other eyes turned in Uhura’s direction as well.

  “Nyota? Do you know anything about this?”

  Uhura chose her words carefully. She had to strike the right balance between calm and urgency.

  “This is for real,” she said simply. “We need to move quickly.”

  She was debating how much to reveal about the danger to the city, when Levity trumped her by running up to the table.

  “Listen to me, everybody!” she shouted too loudly. “I just heard from my cousin, who works at the power plant in the park. He says it’s going to explode and take the whole city with it!”

  Her voice carried across the club, adding to the panic. Customers and employees began stampeding for the exits, knocking over chairs and threatening to trample each other as they ran for their lives. Uhura saw Lieutenant Desai and several other Enterprise crew members try to bring order to the panicked exodus, but without much success. A few had drawn their inconspicuous type-1 phasers, but appeared hesitant to stun anyone for fear of creating even more bedlam. Uhura shared their reluctance.

  “Calm down, everyone, please!” She jumped onto a table, spilling drinks and snack bowls, in hopes of getting people’s attention, while shouting at the top of her voice. “Don’t panic! I know you’re scared, but people are going to get hurt if we don’t keep our heads!”

  Her voice was lost in the tumult. A fleeing stranger slammed into the table, almost sending her tumbling to the floor. She saw Desai go to the rescue of a server who had fallen and was at risk of being ground into the carpet; he snatched her up off the floor and hurled her into an empty booth to get her out of the way of the stampede, while blocking the rushing crowd like an offensive lineman. Elsewhere, bottlenecks at the exits were looking more like riots, with people pushing and shoving to force their way through doorways far too narrow to accommodate them all at once. Heated voices rose above the din, presaging violence.

  “Stop this!” Uhura shouted. “Let us help you all get out of here safely!”

  No one was listening, yet she had to do something to make her voice heard. Her gaze fell on her trophy, sitting forgotten at Thackery’s table, then swung to the now-empty stage as a moment of inspiration came from out of the blue.

  Maybe an encore performance?

  With a dancer’s grace, she headed for the stage, bounding from table to table to avoid the pandemonium packing the aisles. Cups and plates went flying. A high-domed Rhaandarite loomed in her way, and she leapfrogged over his head and shoulders to reach the next table before rushing up a short flight of stairs onto the stage, where, thanks to her advanced knowledge of communications technology, she swiftly accessed a manual control panel and switched the display function back on before taking her place center stage, which magnified her voice and image and projected it all over the premises.

  It’s showtime, she thought breathlessly.

  Three stories tall, her holographic replica towered over the chaotic scene, even as her image also appeared on multiple viewscreens. Her amplified voice rang out over the chaos and panic, seizing people’s attention, while the hologram’s giant phaser was hard to ignore as well. Uhura fired a warning shot over the crowd, which was echoed on a much larger scale by her double, albeit only as an illusion. Gasps erupted from the mob.

  That’s more like it, she thought. “Do I have your attention now? Some of you know me already, but I’m Lieutenant Uhura of the Starship Enterprise. My comrades and I are here to handle this crisis and get you all to safety as quickly as possible, but we need your cooperation. Panicking is only going to make things worse.”

  Cashing in on whatever social capital she had built up over the last few days, Uhura was relieved to see the distraught patrons listening to her at last. She suspected this had less to do with her innate star power than with their understandable need for someone to take charge of the emergency and offer them hope and help when they were scared.

  And, right now, that was her.

  “Listen to the Starfleet personnel nearest you. Follow their instructions.” She made eye contact with Desai and the rest, who nodded back at her, as they began regulating the desperate throngs streaming toward the exits. “We’re trained to handle situations like this. Let us help.”

  Her words must have been convincing, as the evacuation became less frenzied and more organized. People were still visibly distraught, but they weren’t a mob anymore. Bottlenecks turned into lines, which the Starfleet officers kept moving briskly. Uhura watched with satisfaction as the club began to clear out, but she knew there was much else to be done, not just to evacuate the Pergium Palace but the surrounding neighborhoods as well. Even in an era of mass communications, they couldn’t count on every Baldurian getting the alert on time or being able to flee the city on their own power.

  Too bad we don’t have more manpower on site, she thought. “We need volunteers to assist with the evacuation. Anybody who can help, please report to me here at the stage.”

  Most of the civilians kept pressing toward the exits, but maybe a dozen new or native Baldurians broke away from the crowd to converge on Uhura, who was not surprised to see Flossi at the forefront of the group. Thackery and his crowd, including even Levity, scurried to join her. Uhura was impressed and touched.

  “What can we do?” Flossi called out.

  I knew she was Starfleet material, Uhura thought. Remind me to recommend her to the Academy if and when we get out of this alive.

  “Round up the other club workers and whoever else wants to help. We need people to go door by door, house by house, business by business, to make sure everyone’s got the word and has a way to get out of the danger zone. Secure whatever vehicles you can find and start loading them up with as many people as they can carry. Somebody who knows the area, chart the best routes out of the city.”

  On Earth or Alpha Centauri, job one would be getting people to emergency transporter stations and beaming them out of harm’s way, but such stations were few and far between on frontier worlds like Baldur III, if they existed at all. They would have to make do with whatever resources were available.

  “Desai, Lewis, Faust, Gonzalez, everyone else,” she addressed the other crew members. “Break into teams, one Starfleet officer per group of volunteers, keep your communicators handy so we can stay in touch and coordinate our efforts. Check in frequently until we’re sure the surrounding areas are cleared.”

  “Aye, Lieutenant,” Pran Desai said. “We’re on it.”

  Thackery raised his hand. “As it happens, I’ve got a ridiculously ostentatious sky-yacht parked on a roof nearby that can carry plenty of passengers.”

  “Perfect!” Uhura said. “You and Rixon start ferrying people out of the city. And contact your friends and associates. Enlist anyone else with a ready means of transportation.”

  “But what about people who can’t be moved?” Levity asked. “My great-grandmother lives a few blocks from here. She’s practically bedridden. She can’t just clamber into a truck or flyer.”

  A valid concern, Uhura thought. “Your designated Starfleet team leaders will request emergency transporter rescues as required. Disabled and/or immobile citizens can be beamed up to the Enterprise on a by-need basis.” She regarded the other officers. “Use your best judgment, but don’t leave anyone behind.”

  “Hang on!” Levity protested. “Why can’t you just beam all of us up right now?”

  “I wish it was that easy,” Uhura said. “But even the Enterprise can’t transport an entire city’s population in less than two hours.”

  Levity looked unconvinced, or maybe she was just worried about herself and her family. “But—”

  “Leave her be,” Thackery
said, cutting her off. “I’m sure the folks on the Enterprise are doing the best they can, under the circumstances.”

  “Absolutely,” Uhura assured him. “You can rely on Captain Kirk. I’ve trusted my life to him more times than I can count.”

  Flossi nodded. “What about you, Nyota? What are you going to do?”

  “What I always do,” Uhura said. “Work the comms and make sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.”

  * * *

  “The first of the evacuees have been beamed aboard, Captain. Transporter room reporting many more incoming.”

  Lieutenant Elizabeth Palmer was manning the comm station with Uhura down on the planet. In a way, Kirk envied Uhura. He wanted to be there in the thick of things, getting his hands dirty, instead of being stuck on the bridge supervising the evacuation efforts from orbit. An unfortunate reality of command, however, was that sometimes you had to stand back and oversee matters while the people serving under you risked their lives on the front line. Kirk acknowledged that, even if he had never truly made peace with it. If Spock was here to take the bridge, he thought, I’d be down there in a minute.

  “Good,” he replied to Palmer. “Inform security to find temporary accommodations for them. Move them into the guest quarters, the shuttlebay, the storage holds, the bowling alley, the gymnasium, the botanical garden . . . anywhere we can set up cots and other necessaries.”

  “Even the VIP suites?” Palmer asked.

  “Especially the VIP suites,” Kirk said.

  The Enterprise couldn’t house an entire population indefinitely, but if Jackpot City was indeed destroyed by a warp breach, the survivors were going to need emergency housing in the aftermath, so there was no telling how long the Enterprise might have to accommodate them in the short term.

  “And hail the other ships in orbit,” he added. “Find out how many evacuees they can each accept. The more the better.”

  Not every vessel was equipped for surface-to-ship transports, but the Enterprise could always beam or shuttle any surplus civilians over to the other ships if necessary. First things first, he reminded himself. Getting people away from ground zero took priority. Finding shelter for them, either in orbit or on the planet, came later.