Star Trek: Duty, Honor, Redemption (51 page)

“Stand by, energy transfer to weapons. At my command!”

“Within range, sir.”

Kruge turned slightly. After a moment, his new gunner raised his head and froze, noting Kruge’s attention.

“Sight on target, gunner,” Kruge said. “Disabling only. Understood?”

“Understood
clearly,
sir!”

“Range one thousand, closing.”

“Wait,” Kruge said, as the
Enterprise
loomed larger in his viewport. “Wait….”

At the same time, Kirk studied the enhanced image on the viewscreen of the
Enterprise.

“There,” he said. “That distortion. The shimmering area.”

“Yes, sir,” Sulu said. “It’s getting larger as we close in—”

“—And
it’s
closing on
us.
Your opinion, Mister Sulu?”

“I think it’s an energy form, sir.”

“Yes. Enough energy to hide a ship, wouldn’t you say?”

“A cloaking device!”

“Red alert, Mister Scott!” Kirk said.

“Aye, sir.”

The Klingon vessel must have beamed someone on board. Chekov would have had only a second or two to catch a glimpse of the ship. If his attention had wandered for a moment…

“Mister Chekov,” Kirk said, “good work.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

The lights dimmed. The Klaxon alarms sounded: a bit redundant, Kirk thought, since every living being on the ship was right here on the bridge.

“Mister Scott, all power to the weapons system.”

“Aye, sir.”

McCoy stood up uneasily. “No shields?”

“If my guess is right, they’ll have to de-cloak before they can fire.”

“May all your guesses be right,” McCoy said.

Kirk tried not to think what the appearance of this disguised ship, in place of
Grissom,
must mean.

“Mister Scott: two photon torpedoes at the ready. Sight on the center of the mass.”

“Aye, sir.”

The
Enterprise
sailed closer and closer to an indefinable spot in space, more perceptible as
different
if one looked at it from the corner of the eye. The ship was very nearly upon it when—

Sulu saw it first. “Klingon fighter, sir—”

The Klingon craft appeared before them as a spidery sketch, transparent against the stars, quickly solidifying.

“—Arming torpedoes!”

“Fire, Mister Scott!”

The torpedoes streaked toward the Klingon ship. It was as if their impact solidified the ship while simultaneously blasting a section of it away. The fighter tilted up and back with the momentum of the attack. It began to tumble.

“Good shooting, Scotty,” Kirk said.

“Aye. Those two hits should stop a horse, let alone a bird.”

“Shields up, Mister Chekov,” Kirk said.

“Aye, sir.” He accessed the automation center and tried to call up the shields.

Nothing happened.

“Sir,” he said in concern, “shields are unresponsive.”

Scott immediately turned to his controls, and Kirk turned to Scott.

“Scotty—?”

With a subvocal curse, Scott bent closer over his console. “The automation system’s overloaded. I dinna expect ye to take us into combat, ye know!”

On the smoke-clouded bridge of his wounded ship, Kruge stumbled over a dim shape and fell to his knees. He touched the shape in the darkness—

Warrigul.

His beast, which he had owned since he was a youth and Warrigul only a larva, lay dying. Ignoring the chaos of the damaged bridge, Kruge stroked the spines of Warrigul’s crest. His pet responded with a weak, whimpering growl, convulsed once, and relaxed into death.

Kruge rose slowly, his hands clenched at his sides.

Torg’s voice barely penetrated the white waves of rage that pounded in his ears.

“Sir—the cloaking device is destroyed!”

“Never mind!” Kruge shouted. There would be no more hiding from this Federation butcher. “Emergency power to the thrusters!”

“Yes, my lord.”

The lights on the bridge further dimmed as the thrusters drained the small ship’s power, but the tumbling slowed and ceased. The ship stabilized.

“Lateral thrust!”

Torg obeyed, bringing the ship around to face the
Enterprise
again.

“Stand by, weapons!”

Jim Kirk watched the Klingon craft come round to bear on his ship.

“The shields, Scotty!”

“I canna do it!”

“Ready torpedoes—” The order came too late. The enemy ship fired at nearly point-blank range. The
Enterprise
had neither time nor room to maneuver. “Torpedoes coming in!” Kirk cried, bracing himself.

The flare of the explosion sizzled through the sensors. The viewscreen flashed, then darkened. The ship bucked violently. Kirk lost his hold and fell. The illumination failed.

“Emergency power!”

The
Enterprise
responded valiantly, but the bridge lights returned at less than half intensity. McCoy helped Kirk struggle up.

“I’m all right, Bones.” He lunged back to his place. “Prepare to return fire! Mister Scott—transfer power to the phaser banks!”

“Oh, god, sir, I dinna think I can—”

“What’s
wrong?
”

“They’ve knocked out the damned automation center!” He smashed his fist against the console. “I ha’ no control over anythin’!”

“Mister Sulu!”

Sulu’s gesture of complete helplessness, and Chekov’s agitated shake of the head, sent Kirk sagging back into his chair.

“So…” he said softly. “We’re a sitting duck.”

He watched the enemy fighter probe slowly closer.

Kruge, in his turn, watched the silent, powerful Federation ship drift before him.

“Emergency power recharge,” Torg said, “forty percent…fifty percent. My lord, we are able to fire—”

Kruge raised his hand, halting Torg’s preparations for another salvo.

“Why hasn’t he finished us?” Kruge said. He suspected Kirk wanted to humiliate him first. “He outguns me ten to one, he has four hundred in crew, to my handful. Yet he sits there!”

“Perhaps he wishes to take you prisoner.”

Kruge scowled at Torg. “He knows I would die first.”

“My lord,” Maltz said, from the communications board, “the enemy commander wishes a truce to confer.”

“A truce!” Kruge’s training and better judgment restrained his wish to fire, provoke a response, and end the battle quickly and cleanly. “Put him on-screen,” he said more calmly, then, to Torg, “Study him well.”

The transmission from the
Enterprise,
enhanced and interpreted, formed Kirk’s three-dimensional image in the area in front of and slightly below Kruge’s command post.

“This is Admiral James T. Kirk, of the
U.S.S. Enterprise.
”

“Yes,” Kruge said, “the Genesis commander himself.”

“By violation of the treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, your presence here is an act of war. You have two minutes to surrender your crew and your vessel, or we will destroy you.”

Kruge delayed any reply to the arrogant demand. Kirk was neither ignorant nor a fool. He must know that officers of the Klingon Empire did not surrender. And no one with a reputation like his could be a fool. Was he trying to provoke another attack, so he could justify destroying his enemy or increase his valor in the defeat? Or was there something more?

“He’s hiding something,” Kruge said. “We may have dealt him a more serious blow than I thought.”

Torg looked at him intently, trying to trace his superior’s thoughts. “How can you tell that, my lord?”

“I trust my instincts,” Kruge said easily. He toggled on the transmitter. “Admiral Kirk, this is your opponent speaking. Do not lecture me about treaty violations, Admiral. The Federation, in creating an ultimate weapon, has turned itself into a gang of interstellar criminals. It is not I who will surrender. It is you.” He paused to let that sink in, then gambled all or nothing. “On the planet below, I have taken prisoner three members of the team that developed your doomsday weapon. If you do not surrender immediately, I will execute them. One at a time. They are enemies of galactic peace.”

Listening to the transmission with disbelief, Kirk pushed himself angrily from his chair. “
Who is this?
How dare you—!”

“Who
I
am is not important, Admiral. That I have
them,
is.” He smiled, baring his teeth. “I will let you speak to them.”

On the surface of Genesis, far below, the landing party listened via communicator to the battle and to the interchange between Kirk and Kruge. Saavik listened, too, buoyed by the appearance of the
Enterprise,
disturbed by its failure to instantly disable and capture the Klingon ship. A Klingon fighter was no match for a vessel of the Constellation class. Saavik could only conclude that Kirk had come back to Genesis before his ship was fully repaired. She glanced at Spock, who sat wrapped in his black cloak and in exhaustion that was nearly as palpable. The reports
Grissom
had sent back must have brought James Kirk here. She then glanced at James Kirk’s son, and saw the hope in David’s bruised face. She hoped, in her turn and for all three of them, that he would not be disappointed.

The Klingon commander snapped an order. The sergeant in charge of the landing party replied with a quick assent and motioned to his underlings. They dragged Saavik, David, and Spock to their feet. Spock staggered. His face showed hopeless pain. The planet’s agony, which came to him without warning and frequently—more and more frequently as the hours passed—tortured him brutally.

The sergeant thrust his communicator into Saavik’s face. His meaning was clear: she must speak. She tried to decide if it would be better to reassure Admiral Kirk that his son and his friend were alive, or if she should maintain her silence and by doing so withhold the Klingons’ proof that they had prisoners.

The sergeant said a single word and Saavik felt her arms being wrenched upward behind her back. She called on all her training. Though the leverage forced her on tiptoe, she neither winced nor cried out. She stared coldly at the sergeant.

He clenched the fingers of his free hand into a fist. Saavik did not flinch from him. He gazed at her steadily, then smiled very slightly and made a silent motion toward David. The crew member restraining him twisted his arms pitilessly. David gasped. The sergeant prodded Saavik in the ribs. He did not need to be able to speak Standard to indicate that he would hurt either or both of her friends until she did his bidding. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She could not bear to bring them any more pain.

“Admiral,” she said, “this is Saavik.”

“Saavik—”
Kirk hesitated.
“Is…David with you?”

“Yes. He is. As is…someone else. A Vulcan scientist of your acquaintance.”

“This Vulcan—is he alive?”

“He is not himself,” Saavik said. “But he lives. He is subject to rapid aging, like this unstable planet.”

Before Kirk could answer, the sergeant turned to David and thrust the communicator at him.

“Hello, sir. It’s David.”

“David—”
Kirk said. His relief caught in his voice, then he recovered himself.
“Sorry I’m late,”
he said.

“It’s okay. I should have known you’d come. But Saavik’s right—this planet is unstable. It’s going to destroy itself in a matter of hours.”

“David…”
Kirk sounded shocked, and genuinely sorrowful for his son’s disappointment.
“What went wrong?”

“I went wrong,” David said.

The silence stretched so long that Saavik wondered if the communication had been severed.

“David,”
Kirk said,
“I don’t understand.”

“I’m sorry, sir, it’s too complicated to explain right now. Just don’t surrender. Genesis doesn’t work! I can’t believe they’ll kill us for it—”

The sergeant snatched the communicator from David.

“David—!”
Kirk shouted. But when David tried to reply, his captor wrenched him back so hard he nearly fainted. Saavik took one instinctive step toward him, but she, too, was restrained, and for the moment she had no way to resist.

The sergeant permitted them to listen to the remainder of Kruge’s conversation with Admiral Kirk.

“Your young friend is mistaken, Admiral,” Kruge said. His voice tightened with the emotions of anger and desire for revenge. “I meant what I said. And now, to show my intentions are sincere…I am going to kill one of my prisoners.”