Chain of Attack (24 page)

Again he paused, and this time he saw a sideways flicker of Belzhrokaz's eyes, as if someone were trying to get his attention. Kirk waited another second, and when nothing further happened, he continued.

"We are coming through," he said flatly. "As we have demonstrated, our weapons are easily capable of destroying your ships. Our deflectors, unfortunately, are no longer capable of standing up to the kind of fire we allowed you to direct at us before. Therefore, we have no choice but to fire on any ship that attempts to fire at us. We will not fire, however, unless we detect indications that you are about to fire. Remember, our instruments can monitor your weapons. We will know which ones are about to fire, and we will
stop
them from firing the only way we are able—by destroying them and the ships in which they are contained. We don't want to, but we will—unless you let us through. It's up to you."

Abruptly, he signaled to Lieutenant Uhura, who cut the link, blanking the screen. A moment later, the dense star field in front of them replaced the image of the two commanders. A half-dozen Hoshan and Zeator ships—the ones closest to the course the
Enterprise
must follow to the gate—were also scattered about the screen.

"Ahead, Mr. Sulu, impulse power, and keep that gate in your sights. All phasers, lock onto targets closest to our path and prepare to fire on Mr. Spock's command."

More tense than he had ever been at the beginning of any normal battle, Kirk settled back in the command chair, his darting eyes fixing alternately on Spock and the forward viewscreen, where the alien ships' images grew larger with each second. Despite his confident words to the alien commanders, he knew that the
Enterprise
's chances were not good in any battle that might come. Even before they had first detected the waiting fleet, Scotty had told him that the dilithium crystals had been pushed even closer to the ragged edge by their trip from the Aragos planet. The drain caused by engaging the warp drive even one more time could finish them altogether, and the deflectors were essentially useless. A single burst by one of the aliens' brute-force lasers could disable the
Enterprise
entirely, and with a dozen alien ships within range and more approaching, it would be virtually impossible for the phasers to take them all out in time to prevent them from firing.

Ahead, the ships continued closing in on the
Enterprise
's path. There were now more than a dozen visible on the screen.

"Time, Mr. Spock."

"Three-point-three minutes, Captain. At our present speed, we will enter the gate two-point-five seconds into the window."

For another fifteen seconds, there was only silence.

"Lasers activated on two ships, Captain, but they are not beginning the buildup toward firing."

"Hold fire until they do, Mr. Sulu."

"Three—five more, Captain. Closest approach to enemy ships in eighty-three seconds. And all weapons on all ships are now activated."

"Be ready, Mr. Sulu."

"Ready, sir. Phasers locked onto nearest targets and programmed to shift to new targets after minimum effective period of fire."

"Captain," Uhura called loudly, "the Hoshan commander is—
both
commanders are attempting to reestablish contact."

"Put them on the secondary screen."

An instant later, the two commanders appeared on the screen above the science station. This time, neither was in the purposely neutral set from which they had spoken before. Both were in what appeared to be the command centers of their ships, and next to the Hoshan commander stood Bolduc.

"What is it?" Kirk snapped. "Have you decided to opt for sanity and let us through?"

"Yes," the Hoshan commander began, but before he could say more, Spock's still raspy voice cut in.

"Laser on nearest Hoshan ship, bearing one-zero-five, mark eighteen, initiating firing sequence, Captain."

 

"MR. SULU," KIRK snapped, "you have your orders!"

"No, wait!" the Hoshan commander shouted, and an instant later he was snapping out desperate orders of his own for the seemingly renegade ship to hold its fire.

But it was too late, except for Kirk to snap to Sulu, "Minimum burst, only the one ship!"

An instant later, less than a second before the laser would have fired, the
Enterprise
's phasers lashed out, but only for an instant.

For another moment, there was total silence. Then Spock's voice: "No casualties, Captain, but self-destruct overload sequence has been initiated."

"No other ships preparing to fire?"

"None, Captain."

"Belzhrokaz! Can the sequence be stopped?" Kirk shot at the Hoshan, but the commander only shook his head despairingly as he continued to repeat his own order not to fire.

"Get your other ships out of range, Commanders!" Kirk snapped. "Time, Mr. Spock!"

"One-point-two-three minutes to the gate, Captain. Twenty-seven seconds to terminal overload in the Hoshan ship."

"Transporter room! Get everyone off that ship! Now! Keep them in the transporter matrix until we can arrange to have someone waiting to deactivate their personal self-destruct devices."

"Keptin!" Chekov, his eyes wide, darted a look toward Kirk. "The gate will—"

"Will have to wait until next time, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said. "Transporter room, are you—"

"Locked on, sir!" came McPhee's voice.

"Excellent! Get them out of there!"

"Already on their way, sir."

"Warp speed, Mr. Sulu!"

The helmsman's darting fingers answered, and an instant later the forward viewscreen was filled with the kaleidoscopic brilliance of the relativistic starbow.

Then, for just a moment, the computer-generated image of the surrounding star field filled the screen, but within seconds it shimmered, replaced once again by the sublight image.

"The crystals are gone, Captain!" Scotty's voice almost wailed from the intercom.

But they had lasted long enough. Behind them, the Hoshan ship flared into a miniature nova, but the
Enterprise
was out of reach.

"The other ships—" Kirk began.

"None seriously enough damaged by the explosion to trigger a terminal overload sequence, Captain," Spock said. "And the lasers on all other ships are being deactivated."

Suddenly, as if a flood valve had been opened somewhere inside him, the tension drained out of Kirk, leaving him almost limp.

"Thank you, Commanders," he said softly into the silence that had suddenly enveloped all the ships, "for finally taking a chance on something besides more killing."

The next window was only minutes away. The Hoshan and Zeator ships, now including the thirty that had come by way of the Aragos planet, watched from a distance as Sulu once more began the approach.

"Will it last, sir?" Chekov asked over his shoulder. "Do you really think they will not begin shooting at each other the minute we are gone? There is an old Russian proverb—"

"I know," Dr. McCoy said as he continued to watch the viewscreen from his vantage point next to the command chair. "When the cat's away, the mice will go back to war?"

"Mice, Dr. McCoy? The proverb has to do with a wolverine, but the idea is perhaps the same. Keptin?"

"I don't know, gentlemen," Kirk said, still watching the screen with its nearly seventy ships hovering only tens of thousands of kilometers away. "But even the six that we picked off the disabled ship didn't seem too disturbed at finding out they were still alive. And both commanders—"

"Dr. McCoy." Nurse Chapel's voice came over the bridge intercom. "Dr. Crandall appears to be regaining consciousness."

"What?" McCoy frowned as Kirk punched the button that would allow him to answer. "Keep him under. In his condition,
any
activity could make the damage even worse than it already is. I'll be right down!"

Turning, McCoy headed for the turbolift.

"Just a second, Bones," Kirk called, slipping out of the command chair and striding toward the doctor.

"What is it, Jim? I don't have all day. You heard—"

"I heard, Bones, I heard. I also heard a few things during that—that whatever it was that Spock triggered back there on the Aragos planet. Mentally heard a few things, that is, and 'felt' a lot more."

"We all did, Jim," McCoy said impatiently.

"But you didn't happen to be looking in the same direction I was a minute later, Bones. When Spock and Crandall were transported into the vacuum, I was watching. I saw Crandall. I saw what he did. I saw his face when he did it. And I felt just a little of what had happened to him, of how he had been changed—
really
changed—in the last sixty seconds."

"And now you don't have any doubts about him?" McCoy said, a touch of sarcasm joining the impatience in his voice. "Your 'captain's instinct'—"

Kirk shook his head with a faint smile. "This time my 'captain's instinct' is on his side."

"If it's working that well, then it should also tell you that, unless you let me go take care of him, he won't survive long enough to ever find out how you feel about him."

"That is precisely what I'm afraid of, Bones, and I want to do something to help the odds."

"Keeping me standing here—" McCoy began, but Kirk continued, speaking rapidly.

"You've always said that a patient's state of mind, even when he's unconscious or in a coma, has a lot to do with his recovery. So, what would happen if he were allowed to regain consciousness for just a minute, just long enough, say, for you to tell him something that would stick with him when he goes back under? Something that might help him hang on until we can get him to a starbase hospital? Even with the new dilithium crystals, it's going to be a long haul."

"All right, Jim, I'll thank him for saving us. Now if—"

"Make it something more concrete than that, something that'll be sure to register. For instance, I've been thinking that the Aragos world back in our own galaxy will be in line for an ambassador once the Federation has established formal contact. Considering Crandall's experience—and the change he's undergone—he's someone I could recommend for such a post."

Somehow, McCoy managed to scowl and smile at the same time. "I'll tell him," he said. Turning to enter the turbolift, he added with a shake of his head, "You know, Jim, there are times when I think my country doctor routine has rubbed off on you. Now if you can just pass a little of it on to Spock, you might—"

The closing door cut off whatever else he was going to say.

"Two minutes to the gate, Captain," Spock said as Kirk returned to the command chair.

"Captain," Lieutenant Uhura said sharply, "both commanders are trying to reestablish contact."

"Put them on the secondary screen, Lieutenant."

Abruptly, the Hoshan and Zeator commanders appeared, once again in their respective control rooms. What, Kirk wondered, did they want now? They had said their curt good-byes hours ago, when the rescued Hoshan had been beamed aboard Belzhrokaz's ship.

"We had to speak to you again, Commander Kirk," Belzhrokaz said without preamble. "Neither of us can guarantee that our own superiors will not overrule us, but do know this: We, Endrakon and myself and all those who now observe your departure, will do our best to see that you will be given a better welcome when you return."

"
If
you return," Endrakon added, and in that moment Kirk saw in the alien's slim, avian face a flash of the same guilt that had filled Atragon's face when he had first been told that his people had for more than a century been warring against a people who had, originally, been as innocent as they themselves had been when they had first been attacked three centuries earlier.

A moment later, something similar darted across the Hoshan's face, settling in his deepest, shadowed eyes.

And in that moment, much of the doubt that Kirk had felt about this uneasy alliance faded, and he smiled.

"We'll be back," he said. "I'm sure, now, that we'll be back someday."

"Gate in ten seconds, Captain," Spock announced.

Mentally counting down, Kirk watched not the forward screen but the images of the alien commanders, themselves watching wordlessly until, in a sudden flare of color not at all characteristic of normal subspace signal loss, the images vanished.

Simultaneously, the clouds of stars on the forward viewscreen flickered out and were replaced by the comparative emptiness of the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy. The only sound, if sound it was, was that of four-hundred-odd officers and crew and nearly a thousand Aragos suddenly relaxing.

"Transition successful, Captain," Spock said.

"Excellent, Mr. Spock. Mr. Scott?"

"Aye, Captain," Scott's voice came immediately from the intercom, "the dilithium crystals. We're on it already. And the deflectors."

"Of course, Mr. Scott. I assumed you would be." Pausing, Kirk turned toward Spock. "And now that we're safely home, Mr. Spock, I would suggest you take the rest of the watch off, in fact, the next two or three, and that, unless you have other plans, you let Dr. McCoy check your baling wire again and see what can be done about something more permanent."

"I have no other plans," Spock said, for once not protesting the suggestion that he rest for a time. "Thank you, Captain."

"No," Kirk said, more conscious than ever of the evidence of the Vulcan's ordeal, the gravelly quality that still coated his voice and the greenish-red tinge still visible in his eyes, "thank
you
, Mr. Spock."