Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (29 page)

Reluctantly, Jim raised his communicator to his lips.

“Kirk to
Enterprise.”

“Sulu here, Captain. We can see what’s going on down there.”

As Kirk watched, the two grappling forms began to whirl, spiraling downward into the bottomless hole created by the being’s exit.

“Good,” he told Sulu. “I want you to ready a photon torpedo. Prepare to fire on my command.”

A pause.

“Aye, sir,” the helmsman replied finally. Kirk heard
the faint doubt in his tone. Sulu surely understood what his captain intended—and he knew the torpedo would destroy any chance of Sybok escaping alive.

And if the crew decided their primary loyalty still lay with Sybok . ..

“Arming torpedo,” Sulu said. His voice sounded almost normal, like that of a helmsman responding to a routine command from his captain.

Kirk held his breath. Sybok and the demon were chest-deep in the shaft and still swirling downward. Seconds passed; Jim watched as the two of them disappeared into the dark tunnel.

He was glad, at least, that Spock would not have to see.

Sulu’s voice filtered through Kirk’s communicator grid once more. “We’ve got a lock on them, Captain. Torpedo armed and ready.”

Kirk sighed; his crew was once again his own. “Fire directly into the tunnel, Mr. Sulu.”

He could hear Chekov’s protests in the background. “But, Captain, that is dangerously close to
your
position.”

“Tell Chekov his protest is noted,” Kirk said. “Send it down
now,
Sulu!”

Sulu answered: a bolt of red streaked from the sky and descended into the empty shaft.

The Vulcan stared in shock.

“Spock, come on! Let’s get out of here!” Jim grabbed his arm and pulled him along, running for cover. McCoy followed a short distance behind.

Far beneath the surface of the crater, the torpedo found its target.

The earth shuddered violently. The stone fingers of the cathedral cracked; chunks of rock fell, narrowly missing Jim and the others. Jim took cover behind a sturdy column of rock.

A searing blaze of light and raw energy erupted from the tunnel, then disappeared, leaving behind smoke and rubble.

Silence. Jim opened his eyes and blinked. His eyes were still dazzled; as they cleared, he squinted, trying to see through the haze of smoke and settling dust. The shaft of light had vanished. In its place, the gaping mouth of the tunnel glowed a dull, angry red, emitting such intense heat that Jim felt as if he were sitting too close to a campfire. Slowly he got to his feet.

Beside him, Spock still crouched beside the column, one hand pressed against the stone, and stared at the glowing wound in the earth. His expression was dazed.

“Sybok . . .” the Vulcan whispered.

Jim bent down and helped Spock to his feet. As he did so, he caught a sidewise glimpse of McCoy. “Bones?”

McCoy appeared beside him, disheveled and covered with dust. “I’m all right, Jim.”

An ominous rumble came from deep within the tunnel. Jim cast a worried glance at his first officer. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Spock gathered himself and gave a single nod of reassurance.

As the rumbling grew louder, the three of them ran together up the side of the crater.

* * *

On the
Enterprise
bridge, the main viewscreen went black, then cleared to a view of the planet. Mute with grief, Caithlin continued to stare at it. The planet that had once seemed so impossibly beautiful had dimmed; its colors were muddied, lackluster.

It was not Caithlin’s nature to weep; at any rate, she was too stunned by what she had witnessed to do so.

“It can’t be.” Talbot had paled. “It can’t be.”

“None of it means anything,” Caithlin whispered bitterly. “None of it means anything at all.”

A great warm hand rested on her shoulder; she thought at first that it was Talbot’s hand, but this was twice the size.

“Untrue,” Korrd said quietly in his bass voice. “Sybok died well, as a warrior should, looking death in the eye. He has saved us and the ship.”

Around them, the crew worked feverishly, far too caught up in their efforts to save their comrades to grieve for Sybok. Caithlin watched as Chekov went over to the science officer’s station and bent over the hooded viewer; the soft blue-white glow of the terminal readout bathed his face.

“Have you got a fix on them yet?” Sulu asked tersely, rising to look anxiously over Chekov’s shoulder.

They at least have their captain and their ship,
Caithlin thought. “And what do we have left, now that Sybok is dead?” she asked, unaware that she had spoken aloud. She glanced at the dazed, solemn faces of Talbot and Korrd.

Talbot considered her question carefully, then answered: “We have Paradise.”

She wheeled on him, ready to lash out at what she thought was a cruel, thoughtless joke . . . but then she saw that Talbot was quite serious.

On the other side of the bridge, unnoticed and unmanned, the defense station still displayed the graphic of a Bird of Prey, and a message:
ESTIMATED TIME OF INTERCEPT: FOUR MINUTES.

The unseen graphic of the ship dissolved; the message flickered and changed into a warning:
CLOAKING DEVICE ENGAGED. POSITION UNKNOWN
.

Vixis smiled down at the tiny representation of a Federation starship on her terminal monitor, then looked up at the bridge viewscreen, which showed the real
Enterprise
still orbiting the mysterious planet.

“Enterprise
defense systems are down,” Vixis reported triumphantly, then half swiveled in her chair to exchange smug glances with Klaa. “Captain, they don’t even know we’re here.”

Klaa smiled. “They will.” He crossed to his gunner’s rig and settled in with relish. “They will.”

Accompanied by the captain and the doctor, Spock ran to the top of the crater and through the narrow mountain pass toward the shuttlecraft. He was still dazed by Sybok’s death, even more dazed by his own reaction to it. After thirty years, he had expected the emotional barrier erected between himself and his brother to stand. But upon confronting Sybok again, Spock had experienced afresh the pain and betrayal he had felt on learning that his admired elder brother was a heretic. Yet all the bitterness had faded at the
moment of Sybok’s death. Spock remembered only his brother’s kindnesses.

He ran, following the captain; Spock could hear the doctor’s ragged gasps close behind them. And more: Spock sensed the malicious entity nearby. Neither Sybok nor the photon torpedo had been able to destroy it utterly.

Kirk reached
Copernicus
first and opened the hatch. The three of them entered, McCoy last, grazed by the lowering hatch as it closed, sealing them inside.

Jim sat and started fastening his restraints. “Spock, get us out of here!”

Spock slid into the pilot’s chair and found the thruster controls.

The thrusters failed to fire;
Copernicus
convulsed under the impact of an enormous blow. The entity was trying to force its way inside.

“Do it, Spock!”

Spock tried once more to engage the thrusters; the dials on the shuttle’s control console flashed brilliant red, then went dark.

The Vulcan looked somberly at Jim; he had to shout to be heard over the sound of the entity pounding against the shuttle’s flank. “Thrusters inoperative, Captain. The entity seems to be damping our power source.”

Before Spock could finish speaking, Jim pulled out his communicator. “Kirk to
Enterprise!”

“Scott here, Captain.”

“Scotty! Now would be a good time to tell me the transporter’s working!”

Scott paused in a way that indicated it was not.
“She’s got partial power, sir,” the engineer replied apologetically. “I might be able to take two of you.”

The shuttlecraft began to vibrate as if she were trying to tear herself apart. Spock opened his mouth, ready to volunteer to remain.

He was not given the opportunity.

“Beam up Spock and Dr. McCoy,” Kirk shouted into the transmitter grid.
“Now!”

The craft’s quaking interior dissolved into the winking shimmer of the transporter beam, then metamorphosed into the
Enterprise
transporter room.

Spock stepped off the pad and crossed to where Montgomery Scott manned the console. “Mr. Scott, send the beam back down.”

“Aye, sir.” Scott’s hands moved quickly to comply.

The ship reeled. Spock watched in amazement as the floor of the transporter room rose abruptly to meet him; the Vulcan staggered forward and fell, dimly aware that the doctor had just been thrown past him. With his peripheral vision, Spock saw the transporter pad rain sparks. It emitted a loud crackle, followed by a small black puff of smoke.

In the confusion of the moment, Spock retained the clarity of mind to realize three things: first, that the
Enterprise
was under attack; second, that she would have to raise shields . . . and third, that with the shields up and the transporter apparently damaged, there was no way to beam Jim Kirk to safety.

Jim waited inside the groaning craft. The rumbling outside steadily worsened; it sounded as though the
energy-creature had picked up the shuttle and was trying to shake him out.

Twenty seconds passed, then thirty, then a full minute; Jim began to worry. He flipped open his communicator again. “Mr. Scott?”

Static.

It struck him then that he was alone on the planet surface.

He dismissed the panic and tried again to hail the
Enterprise. Copernicus
was shaking so hard that Jim couldn’t keep his hands steady. The communicator almost slipped through his fingers.

“Mr. Scott, you’d better be there.”

Static.

“Damn!” Jim returned to the communicator to his belt, trying to think of what to do besides wait.

Mere centimeters behind his head, the thick un-breakable polymer of the starboard hatch shattered into pieces with a dull crunch.

Jim tore off his restraints and turned his head to look.

An arm—Jim did not know what else to call it—an amorphous limb of swirling deep bronze energy, had burst through the hatch and forced its way inside. The creature was pounding an opening in the shuttle’s side; within seconds, it would make its way to the very spot where Jim was sitting.

Jim propelled himself from his chair and scrambled to the shuttle’s aft hatch. He pressed the emergency exit control. Slowly, over the course of what seemed like eternity, the hatch rose. Jim crouched down and wriggled his way out before it opened completely.

* * *

Spock, McCoy, and Scott arrived on the bridge just as auxiliary control hummed on and the last of the fires was put out. The three diplomats were still on the bridge, huddled quietly together out of the way; their faces displayed shock and loss.

As for Spock, he had managed to achieve singleness of focus. He was prepared to do whatever was necessary to save the
Enterprise,
and Jim Kirk—a singular challenge, considering Mr. Scott’s report that both transporter and shields were damaged and temporarily inoperative. Spock would deal with any grief over Sybok’s death later, in privacy.

But the doctor was still distraught. As Spock took his place at the conn, McCoy faced him, gripping the arm of the captain’s chair.

“What about Jim?” the doctor cried. “We can’t just leave him down there!”

Spock did not meet his eyes; he was far too engrossed in the drama unfolding on the bridge. “Doctor, please,” he said calmly. “There is no time for arguments.”

McCoy surrendered his grip on Spock’s chair; his arms fell to his sides and dangled helplessly.

“Commander Uhura, status report.”

“Aye, Mr. Spock.” Uhura’s eyes were clear, as focused as Spock’s; any effects of Sybok’s mind-meld had vanished. “Klingon captain wishes to name his terms.”

“On screen,” Spock ordered.

An image flashed on the screen: a smug young Klingon, arms folded across his chest. He sat in the commander chair on the Bird of Prey’s bridge as if it were a throne. He wore an expression of triumph,
total arrogance that sagged slightly as his gaze met the Vulcan’s. Spock got the impression that he was most disappointed to find a Vulcan in command.

“This is Captain Klaa of the Bird of Prey
Okrona,”
he gloated in Standard. “Attempt to raise shields or arm weapons and I will destroy you. You are alive for a single reason—the renegade James T. Kirk! Hand him over, and I will spare your lives. My transporter stands ready to beam him aboard.”

Spock quite naturally did not believe him; the moment James Kirk was handed over, the
Enterprise
and all aboard her would be destroyed. For the moment, he was relieved the captain was still below on the planet surface; it provided him with the opportunity to stall “Captain Kirk is not among us,” he answered truthfully.

Klaa lunged forward in his chair. “You
lie!”

“I am a Vulcan. I cannot lie,” Spock replied. Not quite the full truth, but it would serve for the moment.

The Vulcan was reminded of a paradox he had once heard the less-than-scrupulous entrepreneur Harry Mudd employ:
I always lie. In fact, I am lying to you now.

“Captain Kirk is on the planet below.”

“Then give me his coordinates!”

Spock experienced a sudden inspiration. It descended on him full-blown, without any attempt on his part at logical deduction. Jim Kirk would have called it instinct and been proud of it.

“Mike off,” he said softly, and swiveled in his chair to face the three diplomats. “General Korrd.”

Korrd glanced up, startled.

“I am in need of your assistance.”

“My
assistance?” Korrd asked. “I am of no help to you now.”

“On the contrary.” Spock inclined his head toward the screen, where a larger-than-life Klaa scowled. “You are his superior officer.”

The Klingon shook his head. “You misunderstand. My assignment to Nimbus proves I am in disgrace. I am no more than a foolish old man.”

Spock studied Korrd’s jowly face carefully. Desperate measures were necessary; Klaa would not wait much longer. Jim’s life far outweighed the cost of personal embarrassment.