Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (44 page)

Cochrane just had time to see the flash of blue phaser fire erupt from the closing light, and then the universe exploded around him.

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.S.S. ae iTaeIIPIII$ae NCC-1701 CLOSE ORBIT TNC 65813 Stardate 3855.9 Earth Standard: November 2267

The instant the Orion ship hurtled out of the distortion node, Kirk realized his mistake.

Because there’d been no sign that the high-speed transport had been pursuing the Enterprise, Kirk had assumed he’d crippled it in his attack on the Klingon cruiser it had docked with. But obviously, Thorsen, or whoever was now commanding the attacking force, had anticipated the Enterprise’s destination and had sent the Orion ship on ahead in a circuitous route.

The strategy was obvious, but Kirk’s recognition of it was too late.

Thc screen flared white as the collision alarms sounded and for a moment Kirk feared the Enterprise had been rammed. She could withstand considerable mechanical stress under normal operating conditions, but her structural integrity systems were already strained to the limit by being so close to the singularity.

But the Enterprise held. Kirk gripped the arms of his chair as the bridge twisted beneath him. He smelled smoke and fire and the chemical spray of the fire-suppressor systems. But the Enterprise held.

“Track it, Chekov!” he called out over the alarms.

“Coming back at us!” “Photon torpedoes—two, four, six! Make him break off.” Kirk clenched his teeth as he waited. He heard only two torpedoes fire and knew there must be damage in fire control.

“Hit, sir!” “Onscreen!” The viewscreen jumped to a port-side angle. Kirk saw the Orion transport engulfed in a nimbus of glowing plasma, streaming off to the dark curve of the event horizon below.

“It’s venting antimatter, Keptin. We must have hit its engineering section.” Kirk was surprised. Where were the transport’s shields? Unless its configuration required too much energy to be transferred to its own structural integrity field.

“Power failing, Keptin. It’s—” Chekov stopped as the orange glow of the Orion ship winked out, leaving only the angular silhouette of its hull. An instant later, that silhouette stretched out like taffy, one point shooting downward toward the event horizon, the other arcing away until the strand of distant metal broke apart into glittering fragments, all at different trajectories, but all falling.

Kirk took a deep breath. What happened to the transport was exactly what would happen to the Enterprise if her power failed.

He wondered if Thorsen had been on board.

Kirk called for a damage report. At the same time he heard Spock call for a medical team to the bridge. As the damage reports came in, Kirk turned to see Cochrane cradled in the Companion’s arms. The sleeve of his technician’s jumpsuit was charred.

Transtator current feedback from the environmental controls, Kirk guessed. But Cochrane was obviously alert. His hand could be healed.

Whether the Enterprise could be was a different matter.

Only two photon-torpedo launch tubes remained functional, and the forward phaser banks had been completely shut down.

The Orion transport had aimed its weapons well, and left the Enterprise almost defenseless.

But at least Kirk knew the distortion nodes did manage to fool sensors. They still had a chance.

Then Scott called the bridge.

,.Captain—we’ve lost another crystal, sir. We canna keep up with the power demands for more than another hour.” That wasn’t what Kirk wanted to hear. “Scotty, we have to hold out for thirwen hours.” “Captain. when the last crystals go, our matter-antimatter reactor shuts down and there’s nothing t’ be done about it. We’ll be on batteries only, and under these conditions, they’ll only hold us together for a few minutes at best, without the chance to go to warp.” “Any good news, Scotty?” “Ave. When the structural integrity fails, we’ll be flattened so fast we won’t even know it.” “Do what you can.” Kirk went to break the connection, but Scott kept talking.

“Just so ye know, Captain. I’m fresh out of miracles down here.

The Enwrprise is a fine ship but she was never meant for this kind of strain. If ye want her t’ hold together for another thirteen hours, then you’ll have t’ get her well past that bloody singularity’s Roche limit. And if we stick to impulse—which I recommend— that means we’ll have to break orbit a good thirty minutes before the last crystals fail to be sure we have enough power to get there.

You understand what I’m saying, Captain?” “The Enterprise leaves orbit in the next thirty minutes, or she doesn’t leave at all.” “Just so ye know, Captain. I’m sorry.” “So am I, Scotty. Do what you can. I’ll get right back to you.” And then there was nothing more to say.

“Entering the distortion node,” Sulu said.

“Hold her steady,” Kirk ordered. He went to Spock. “You heard Mr. Scott?” “Yes,” Spock said. “His report adjusts the odds of our survival.

Dramatically. Downward.” “Why don’t you carry more dilithium?” The question came from Cochrane. He was back in his chair at the environmental station. looking dazed. The Companion had dressed his hand with a first-aid kit.

Kirk shrugged. “I ask that question myself, Mr. Cochrane. And

Starfleet tells me the operational life of a set of starship-grade dilithium crystals is twenty years and that I should take better care of them because there’s not enough to go around.” “Any way to go back to an ordinary lithium converter, the way it used to be in my day?” Spock shook his head. “Ordinary lithium crystals cannot operate at the efficiencies required for modern starship operation.” “So,” Kirk said, facing what he thought he would never have to face—the inevitable. “We have thirty minutes to come up with a way to get past Thorsen’s cruisers. Other than relying on a lucky shot.” “There is no way,” Spock said. “We do not have the weaponry available to fight. We do not have the warp capability to flee. We do not have the energy capacity to remain hidden. Therefore, we have only one option.” Kirk knew what that option was, but he rejected it. “The Enterprise will not surrender.” “She doesn’t have to,” Cochrane said. He stood up, still groggy, steadied by the Companion at his side. “If he wasn’t in that ship that was destroyed, Thorsen wants me. So turn me over. I volunteer.” The Companion spoke for them all. “No. You cannot.” “It’s the only way,” Cochrane said. “The only reason Thorsen even came after the Enterprise is because I’m on her. I…” Cochrane stopped as he saw Kirk and Spock look at each other.

“What is it?” “Can he leave the ship?” Kirk asked. “In a shuttlecraft with a torpedo aboard?” “A suicide mission?” Cochrane asked. Was this finally how he would end?

But Kirk said, “No. When you’re close enough to Thorsen’s ship, we’d beam you back, then detonate the torpedo.” “Even if a single torpedo detonation were enough to overload the structural integrity field of ThorseWs ship, that would still leave the second cruiser,” Spock said.

“It would double our chances,” Kirk said.

“Twice zero is still zero,” Spock replied.

,’Captain,” the Companion suddenly said. “If the man were not here. would you be safe?” Kirk looked at the Companion intently. She had said so little since he had rescued her from her planetoid that he had begun to think of her only as a silent extension to Cochrane. But he reminded himself that within her, no matter what the origin of her alien half, there were still the mind and skills and talents of a Federation commissioner. “There is a chance that Thorsen or his followers would leave us alone. Slim to none, but still a chance.

Why?” “Then let us hide, away from you, as we hid with the man so long ago.” Kirk didn’t understand. He looked at Cochrane for enlightenment, but he seemed no more certain than Kirk.

An intercom hail sounded and McCoy’s voice asked, “What’s the situation on the bridge? You still need medical up there?” Cochrane held up his bandaged hand. The glittering fabric was stained with blood.

“Affirmative,” Spock said.

“Emergency?” “No.” “All right. I’m finishing up in phaser fire control. Tell the captain. no fatal casualties. I’ll be up soon. McCoy out.” Cochrane used his good hand to hold one of the Companion’s.

“There is no place where the captain can take us to hide,” he said quietl} to her.

The Companion looked troubled. Her brow creased in concentration. “Part of us understands. But part of us… remembers what it was like to flv among the stars.” Spock leaned forward. “Companion, when you were in vour energy state, before you merged with Commissioner Hedford, > ou were able to move at warp velocity. Can you do so now?” But the Companion shook her head with a gentle smile. “No.

VVe have become human. We no longer fly among the stars, but we knox love. It is a fair bargain.” “What are you trying to tell us?” Cochrane asked her. “Do you know of a place to hide?”

The Companion pointed with her free hand. All eyes followed in the direction she indicated. The viewscreen. The dark ellipse.

“There,” she said. “Where light stops.” “If you go there,” Kirk explained, “you can never come out.

That doesn’t make it a good place to hide.” “But we can come out,” the Companion insisted. “Part of us knows that place. Part of us understands what you said to the man about fields and torpedoes and shuttlecraft. Between our two halves, we know it can be done.” She pulled herself close to Cochrane. “Zefram, please, in a shuttlecraft, we can go in to the place where light stops, and we can come out again. We know this to be true.” Her face twisted, as if in pain, as if struggling with some inner fight. “Zefram, I know this to be true.” Cochrane looked surprised. He turned to Kirk. “She hasn’t said T for months, Captain.” Kirk had neither Spock’s logic nor McCoy’s passion to guide him now. His ship was in danger. Only minutes remained before Thorsen’s cruisers would arrive and the Enterprise would have to leave the protection of the distortion node, putting herself at their mercy. If ever there was a time to change the rules, this was it.

Kirk looked at Cochrane. Somehow, he felt he saw himself, in a different era perhaps, fewer rules, fewer choices, but a kindred spirit just the same. “Do you trust her, Mr. Cochrane? With your life?” Cochrane didn’t hesitate. “With all my heart, Captain Kirk.” Kirk made his decision. He did the unthinkable.

He put the fate of the Enterprise in the hands of the Companion.

//.S.S. ENTERPRISE NCC-1701-D DEEP SPACE Stardate 43922.1 Earth Standard: May 2366

Even as the stars called out for him, Picard felt a hand with the strength of molybdenum-cobalt alloy close on the back of his collar. restraining him against the gale that rushed from the shuttlebay to empty space. Debris blew all around him—cleaning cloths, tricorders, the smaller wire and mesh segments of the Borg-like artifact no longer contained by their security field. But Picard was held in place and he knew why. Data.

Picard twisted to see the android behind him, unaffected by brief exposures to vacuum, standing immovably on the deck.

Data’s other hand held Wesley Crusher firmly by the collar, the youth’s face wide-eyed with fear but impressively without panic.

La Forge had wrapped his own arms around one of Data’s to grimly hold himself in place.

The wind vanished, the air completely gone, and though artificial graxity still held them to the deck, only seconds remained to Picard, La Forge, and Wesley before lack of oxygen claimed them all.

Already Picard felt his lungs demanding that he breathe.

V~’csley’s mouth gaped open, trailing tendrils of sublimated vapor.

Picard could see him beginning to struggle like a drowning swimmer. Starfleet trained its members to remain conscious for a minimum of ninety seconds after explosive decompression events, but Wesley hadn’t had that training yet. Picard realized with chagrin that for himself, it had been too long since his last refresher course.

In the eerie total silence of the vacuum, Data started forward, pulling his captain forward across the deck. The android still kept hold of Wesley under one arm, legs dragging. La Forge stumbled alongside him, still clutching Data’s arm. Picard could not hear the Enlerprise’s engines or the clatter of their boots, but he felt the vibrations of his ship through the deck and they seemed to match the flickering of the black dots at the side of his vision.

Data stopped and Picard was dimly aware that they stood before a door—exactly where, he couldn’t tell in the dull illumination of the emergency lighting. La Forge dropped to his knees, hands at his throat. Picard felt cold, a cooling prickling sensation over all his skin. His eardrums ached with the pressure within them. He tried to blink to relieve the pressure building in his eyes, but his lids were stuck as if frozen open.

Data’s hand moved to a door panel control. Picard tried to warn him not to open itmthat he would only decompress the rest of the corridor beyond. But no words came out. As some part of him, the composed and thoughtful part he had shared with Sarek, fought to deal with the knowledge that he was suffocating and had only seconds of consciousness remaining, Picard finally came to the realization it didn’t matter what Data did. Every door on the ship was under computer control. Whatever had taken over the Enterprise would never allow them to be opened. They were trapped on the shuttlebay. Picard would never draw breath again, and as he faced his death in those final moments, his one overwhelming regret was that he would never know the truth about the Preserver artifact.

His legs gave way as his vision shrank through a well of darkness. He felt as if gravity had been switched off and that he was tumbling down without end. Then a bright light gathered him up in a blinding luminescence. He felt surprise. Could the stories of the moment of death be true?

He felt himself thrust upward into the light. He welcomed it.

The adventure would continue after all.

His body spasmed. Safety carpet bristled into the side of his face. He inhaled with one last shudder. Safety carpet? He tasted air.

Picard’s vision was blurred, his eyes were still stuck open, but as what they gazed upon became evident, he saw enough to understand just where he was, where Data had brought him.