The Folded World (23 page)

“Chandler, Vandella!” Kirk called. “Down!”

The two security officers glanced behind them and dropped at the same instant. The
Enterprise
landing party fired over their heads, at Romulans who were even, at that moment, whirling around and raising weapons.

The Romulans spread out through the big room, taking cover and firing in every direction. Kirk dodged a blast; the beam hit the machinery beside him and sprayed sparks across his head, scorching his face and neck. He ducked another blast and fired back. His phaser hit the shooter dead center, knocking the Romulan off his feet.

But the Romulans were scoring, too. Beachwood took a shot to the upper chest and went down hard. A disruptor beam hit Romer in the shoulder. Her phaser clattered to the deck and she fell back against one of the machines, blood gushing from the wound.

Surprise had been on their side for a moment, but that advantage was gone. The Romulans had superior numbers, and although they were caught in a cross fire, they had cover from both sides, as well.

And there would be no retreating, not with Bunker and Tikolo pinned against the far wall.

They were in for a tough, dangerous firefight, and there was no way out of it. Kirk crouched behind a hunk of machinery and took aim.

And then he saw O'Meara break from the pack and start working his way toward Tikolo. He would
have to pass right by the Romulans. It was almost certain suicide. But if Kirk called out to him, that would remove the “almost.” Instead, the captain kept quiet and focused on providing him cover, shooting at any Romulans who appeared to notice him.

Kirk hoped he had a plan, because from his vantage point, whatever O'Meara was doing, it was crazy.

•   •   •

Paul O'Meara couldn't stand the sight of Miranda, back against the wall, facing dozens of Romulans with only a beat-up Bunker beside her. Captain Kirk and the others would help, but even with that additional force, the Romulans had the numerical advantage, and it would only take one shot to kill the woman he loved. For the last several hours he had been roaming this crazy ship, desperate to find her, wondering where she was, wondering if he would ever see her again.

He saw what looked like an opening and he went for it. There was an area along the near wall to which the Romulans paid scant attention, because none of their opponents were there. If he could move quickly and quietly, maybe he could reach Miranda. Then, if the theory Mister Spock had put forth was correct, he could talk to her, make her understand that the Romulans had been brought here by her own troubled mind.

If the theory was wrong, at least they could die together.

O'Meara walked in a hunched-over position, trying to combine speed with safety. Glancing back once, he caught Kirk's gaze and realized the captain was tracking his progress, firing at Romulans who spotted him. To fire himself would give away his position and his plan.

Finally, he reached the end of his cover. Before him was a stretch of two meters, almost three, where there were none of the pieces of machinery he had used to shield his progress so far. He would have to cross the open space before he could reach cover behind the equipment shielding Miranda and Bunker.

He looked toward the Romulans. They were engaged with the
Enterprise
landing party. Close combat required focus, and they were giving it their all. He might have been able to tap one of them on the shoulder without being seen until he did.

He wouldn't get a better chance. O'Meara broke from cover and sprinted toward Miranda. No shots came his way. He made it to the first piece of machinery and called her name. “Miranda!” She turned her head and looked his way, and when he saw those eyes meeting his, he thought that he might break down and weep. “Miranda,” he said again, slowing to a crouching walk. “I'm so glad—”

•   •   •

Tikolo wasn't ready to die—she didn't know if anybody ever was—but she thought her time had come. She and Bunker were backed against a wall, facing down thirty or so Romulans looking for a fight. Vandella and Chandler came in after the Romulans, but that was still only four against a horde.

She and Bunker took refuge behind some pieces of unknown machinery, big enough to block their disruptors. For a while, at least. They fired at the Romulans, the Romulans fired back, and battle was joined.

Then, salvation, or at least its promise, appeared in the form of Captain Kirk and the rest of the landing party. She noticed that a few were missing, but they still helped to make the odds less lopsided.

Everything that had happened had worn her down. Her mental lapses had made things worse, and although she believed she was better, she still had a hard time trusting her own judgment. Being fired on by Romulans, intent on killing her as they had her crewmates on Outpost 4, rocked her self-confidence to its core.

Then one of them broke from the pack and charged toward her from the side. His mouth was open, he was saying something, and it sounded almost like her name, but it couldn't be that, how could a Romulan know that? She raised her phaser and saw fear enter his eyes and she squeezed the trigger and fired, and her beam caught him full in the chest. He
threw his arms out to his sides, hands going loose, and his weapon (and was that a phaser, not a disruptor?—maybe he had picked it up from the body of a slain crew member) flew away. She fired once more, though he was already falling.

•   •   •

Kirk watched in horror as Tikolo fired at O'Meara, then fired again. He had been close enough that she must have seen him, couldn't have failed to recognize that familiar face.

Unless, Kirk realized, she in fact could not recognize him because Tikolo herself was only partly there. The mental stress of these past hours must have been terrible; he didn't know where she had been or what she had gone through, but it hadn't been a stroll through the bowels of the ship.

She might have thought they were all Romulans, might fire at him or Spock or Chandler next. He adjusted his phaser, setting it to stun—not sure if it would work—and darted to where O'Meara had begun his cautious trek to Tikolo. Except O'Meara had had Kirk to provide him cover fire. Still, the battle was fierce; no one was paying attention to him, on either side.

He started toward Tikolo and Bunker, employing the same shelter O'Meara had used. He tried to move faster than O'Meara had, knowing that all it would take was for one Romulan to spot him. He would be an easy target, especially when he had to cross that open ground.

The captain kept hoping he'd have a shot at Tikolo, but she was using cover well, coming out only long enough to snap off a blast at whatever Romulan she had in her sights. From this angle, he could see only bits of her arm, sometimes a shoulder or a brief glimpse of that lustrous black hair.

He would have to do what O'Meara had done—dash across the open space—and take his shot when he got there. That meant he would have to be faster than she was. She was younger, scared, battling for her life, and possibly completely delusional.

Kirk didn't like his chances.

He broke into the open.

The captain had barely taken a step when a Romulan he hadn't noticed before rose from cover, homing in on him with a disruptor, leading him just a little. If he turned to fire, it would put him off balance, slow his dash toward Tikolo. And his phaser was only set on stun. He had to keep his momentum, hurtle forward, hope the warrior missed.

Kirk was turning his head away, watching Bunker and Tikolo, knowing that once he had a clear shot he had to take it fast, when he saw the Romulan lifted bodily off the deck—by what, Kirk couldn't tell—and hurled into his comrades.

Aleshia!
he thought. And then he was face-to-face with Tikolo. Her phaser was coming up to fire.

Kirk shot first.

The beam hit her and she froze, then fell backward. Her weapon slipped from numbed fingers. Bunker spun toward Kirk, then lowered his phaser, a smile spreading across his face.

“I knew you'd come, Captain,” he said. “The whole time I was out there, lost, I knew you'd be looking for me.”

“We were,” Kirk said. “Tikolo was. Why did you run off?”

“I thought I saw my sister,” Bunker said. “She was scared and running for her life. Only she's been dead for eleven years now. So I flipped out, I guess. I'm sorry.”

“It's that kind of place,” Kirk said.

“But all we gotta do now is make it out alive, right? Through all of them.”

Kirk looked. “All of who?” he asked.

The Romulans were gone. They had come from Tikolo's mind, and now that it was shut down—for the moment, at least—so were they.

But Kirk had to get them off this ship before she came to. Or deal with whatever her troubled psyche might materialize next.

He thought the former option was preferable to the latter. “Let's go, people,” he said. “Let's get the bodies of those who didn't make it, and get out of here.”

He had barely spoken when the ship shook. No
quick lurch this time; the entire vessel seemed to vibrate for thirty seconds or more. When it ended, nothing had visibly changed.

“That felt like—” McCoy began.

“Captain,” Spock interrupted. “I believe we're being fired upon.”

“Mister Scott!” Chekov said. Scotty had just stepped onto the bridge.

“Aye?”

“The
Ton'bey
just fired at that large wessel. The one in the middle of the dimensional fold.”

“The one we think the away team is on?” Scott asked.

“The same.”

“Did they hit it?”

“I cannot be sure,” Chekov said. “It appeared that the fold might have deflected it to some extent, but I believe they did.”

“I believe this calls for a swift and certain response,” the engineeer said. He stormed back toward the captain's chair.

“Is that an order?” Chekov asked. Hope was written across his face.

Scotty scowled, considering the options. He wanted to give the order. But he couldn't simply give in to his immediate urge; he had to try to do what was best for the Federation.

“Uhura, hail the
Ton'bey.
Order them to stand
down. Tell 'em that under no circumstances are they to discharge their weapons again. If they do, they'll suffer the most severe consequences.”

“Aye, sir,” Uhura said. She spun around to her station and started hailing the Ixtoldan ship.

“What's next?” Chekov asked.

“Next I'm gonna have a serious talk with that Chan'ya creature. And if I don't like what she has to say . . .”

“Yes?”

“Well, you might still have a chance to launch her from a torpedo tube.”

“I am,” Chekov said, “eternally optimistic.”

•   •   •

“Who would shoot at us?” Kirk asked.

“Maybe the Romulan ship, sir?” Chandler suggested.

“There
are
no Romulan ships. The Romulans we fought were manifested by Tikolo's subconscious mind.” The captain waved his hand around the now Romulan-free space. “As you can see, when she lost consciousness, they vanished.”

“If I may, Captain,” Spock said. “The most logical suspect is the Ixtoldan battle cruiser, the
Ton'bey
.”

“Explain.”

“Although no Ixtoldan histories I encountered in my prior research mentioned this vessel, we know it originated on Ixtolde, and we know its background. The usurpers of Ixtolde rewrote the histories of that planet to suit their own ends. But these events
happened in the relatively recent past, and there have been, no doubt, stories handed down through the generations. I believe that as we approached the dimensional fold, the Ixtoldans, both on the
Enterprise
and the
Ton'bey,
recognized this ship. They did not want us anywhere near it.”

“Which is why Minister Chan'ya was so adamant that we continue on to Ixtolde, instead of stopping to investigate,” Kirk provided.

“Indeed. She tried everything within her power to encourage us to bypass the fold. When you announced that you would board the
McRaven,
to learn what had happened to her crew, she tried to set time limits on the away mission. By this point, we have been here long enough that the minister suspects her worst fears have been realized. She believes that we have learned the truth about this ship, and therefore about the takeover of Ixtolde. She knows that such a revelation would eliminate any chance of Ixtolde being admitted into the Federation. Ixtolde is the last planet in their system that has even a fighting chance of survival, but true survival depends upon the trade advantages that Federation membership brings. Therefore, she is determined to destroy the evidence—and us with it.”

“But, surely she knows that firing on this ship, with the
Enterprise
right there, would bring about the same result. There's no way the
Enterprise
wouldn't report the
Ton'bey's
actions.”

“Presumably she does, Captain. Which simply means
that once the
Ton'bey
has destroyed this ship, its captain will have little choice but to also destroy the
Enterprise
. For that matter, we have been here for several hours, at least. We cannot know if the
Ton'bey
has been joined by other Ixtoldan warships, or if the
Enterprise
has already been bested.”

Spock's words sent an uncomfortable tingle down Kirk's spine. He was right, of course. They'd had no communication with the
Enterprise
since before they had set foot on the Ixtoldan vessel. Although he believed in his crew, the fact remained that they were relatively close to Ixtoldan space. If reinforcements from Ixtolde had arrived, the
Enterprise
might have been surrounded and outgunned.