Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (39 page)

“Go to visual, Uhura,” Kirk said. If this was the way Cochrane dealt the hand, then Kirk would play along. Nothing could be gained by trying to hide Cochrane’s presence any longer. “Who is this Thorsen?” he asked the scientist.

Onscreen, half of Thorsen’s face reacted with dismay at what he saw as his own viewer came on.

“.4drik Thorsen,” Cochrane said with revulsion.

The name was vaguely familiar to Kirk. Something historical.

“The Adrik Thorsen?” Spock asked. “Of Colonel Green’s cadre?” “That is not Cochrane,” Thorsen hissed.

Cochrane stepped in front of the Companion as if protecting her the way she had earlier protected him. “Look at me, Thorsen.

You know who I am. The way I used to be. Think back to Titan.

The first time I escaped you.” Whatever Cochrane had done to Thorsen on Titan, Kirk could see that the reference had the desired effect. Thorsen’s face revealed recognition and hatred.

“But you’re young! How is that possible?” he said. “After all these years?” Cochrane apparently had no intention of feeding Thorsen’s twisted interest in him. “How are you possible?” Kirk heard Spock approach from behind. He spoke in a low tone. “Captain, computer records show that Colonel Adrik Thorsen died in a resistance attack in London, just prior to the onset of World War Three.” On the screen, Thorsen emitted a hollow drawn-out laugh. He held up a fist. Or what Kirk thought had once been a fist.

It was mechanical, three-fingered, the color of burnished duranium.

“Only part of Adrik Thorsen died at Battersea Stadium, oh six, two one, two oh seven eight,” Thorsen said.

The mechanical fingers opened and flexed as the equivalent of a wrist socket rotated fully. At the same time, the image on the viewscreen changed its angle of coverage, so more of Thorsen was revealed.

“Fascinating,” Spock said, as the full, horrifying extent of ThorseWs cybernetic transformation could be seen.

What flesh remained to him was supported upon and within a flattened exoskeleton, which ended at his shoulders. Both arms were mechanical, each with two elbow joints. Woven through the intricacies of the open chest, Kirk could see hanging pockets of skin connected by glistening, pulsating cords, as if human organs still remained, removed from no.longer-necessary muscle and bone. All that was flesh was encircled by tendril-like power conduits and gleaming wire. And where metal made contact with flesh. the living parts were swollen, inflamed, encrusted with dried fluids.

What Cochrane had addressed as Adrik Thorsen now stood up from the modified command chair on three duranium legs.

Behind the obscene apparition, Kirk saw two members of a Klingon crew, and an Orion. All were in civilian clothes; none of them wore uniforms.

“Colonel Thorsen appears to have made use of Grigari technology.” Spock commented.

Kirk corrected him. “Outlawed Grigaft technology.” “What have you become?” Cochrane said in disgust.

“What you have made me,” Thorsen answered. His arms moved like the questing feelers of some enormous insect, twisting up to hold two clenched fists by his still human face as if to display them for their owner’s admiration. “I have become optimal.” Thorsen probed at his face with the mechanical pincers of his duranium hands. Kirk recognized their distinctive design just as Spock had. Each metal pincer ended with three smaller grippers inset at the tip, and each of those in three smaller ones, and so on, into the nanometer realm, giving each hand the capability to take apart living tissue on a cell-by-cell level.

Nanotechnology was the secret of the success of Grigari medical technology. Their molecular assembly devices could expertly weave together flesh and steel, uniting living nervous systems directly with computer-control circuits. But it was not a static situation.

The flesh of most life-forms would eventually reject the filaments of connection the Grigari devices wove. So the devices were programmed not to stop, in order to continually maintain the connection. Thus, as each layer of living cells became damaged. they were stripped away and replaced by more filaments of circuitry and steel. Eventually, the living body of a Grigari amalgam was completely discarded, replaced with an inexact, mechanical substitute.

The Grigari had proclaimed themselves as traders come to offer eternal life to the worlds of the Federation. But when their treatments had been investigated and found hideously flawed, the

Grigari ships had left as one, moving on to other, uncharted sectors, leaving behind only gruesome tales of the horrors their painful technology had wrought.

But for some people, Kirk knew, death was an even worse horror, and despite all that was known about what must inevitably happen when living matter and Grigari technology merged, there were still some worlds beyond the Federation’s boundaries where the forbidden operations were available. For a price.

Adrik Thorsen, it appeared, had paid that price years ago, and what was left of him was paying it still.

“I don’t care what you think you are!” Cochrane called out. His hand cut through the air in a forceful gesture, as if to ward off Thorsen and what he represented. “The Optimum Movement is over, Thorsen! You lost!” Thorsen’s pincers worried at the flesh of his face, distorting the expression of his frozen side. Kirk frowned at the sight. He doubted there was much of the original Thorsen underneath.

“I lost but a battle,” the amalgam said. “The war continues.” Having observed the nature of his adversary, Kirk had already begun formulating his strategy, and now he began implementing it. “The Federation is at peace, Colonel Thorsen. The war you remember is long gone.” The pincers came away from Thorsen’s face. The skin of his cheek was broken now, like the cracked bed of a dried river. But there was no blood. Only dark shadows, cutting deep, deeper.

“There will always be a war, Enterprise. It is the nature of the beast. And only Cochrane can stop it.” “How?” Kirk asked. He quickly shut off his transmission and told Spock to confirm which of the three battle cruisers ThorseWs signal was coming from.

“He knows the secret of the ultimate deterrenL” Thorsen said.

His pincers fastened on his immobile eyebrows. The eyelids beneath the activity didn’t blink. “He is the reason why the war was fought. Why Earth was devastated by the weak, who were cowards, incomplete, less than optimal. If he had listened to me on oh six, two one, two oh seven eight, Earth would be a paradise.

None would have been able to oppose me.” “There is no ultimate deterrent,” Kirk said, trying to keep this deconstructing madman engaged in debate as long as necessary.

Spock stepped in front of him, hands behind his back, gesturing to indicate that Thorsen’s signal was coming from the leftmost ship, as Kirk had already assumed.

‘-Starfleet knows,” Thorsen said as he placed the tip of another pincer against his unmoving eye. “I looked into their computers.

Sent little strands of myself into their circuits.” He treated them to his eerie half-smile, half-grimace again. “I can do that now, you know, Mr. Cochrane. Unlike you, I am much more than the sum of my parts.” Spock glanced at the captain. “I believe he is implying that he used Grigari nanocomponents to infiltrate Starfleet’s main computer system. If so, by actually reconstructing themselves into duotronic circuits, the nanocomponents could create worm programs with impunity, making it appear that the network had been compromised by insiders, when, in fact, it was the system itself that was in control.” Thorsen inhaled with an oddly fluttering breath. “I am the system. now. I was always meant to be the system. And every time I reached out into the system, Starfleet moved against me, to classify more and more that had to do with Kashishowa Station.

Now, Mr. Cochrane, I ask you, why go to all that trouble to hide a secret. unless there is a secret there to hide?” Cochrane and Kirk turned to each other at once.

“Is that what this is about?” Cochrane asked.

On the screen, Thorsen sighed as he plucked at his unmoving eyelid. “I see it all, now,” he whispered madly.

“It would appear so,” Kirk said, answering Cochrane. To Thorsen he said, “The battle’s been fought for nothing.” Kirk could see exactly how the scenario played out, even to the point of Admiral Kabreigny believing the officers of the Enter- ?ri~c were involved in a conspiracy against Starfleet.

Thorsen, with the abilities ofa Grigari amalgam, had somehow come into contact with a Starfleet terminal and created worm programs to search out information about the Kashishowa Station incident, believing it would reveal the secrets of a Cochrane-devised warp bomb. Kabreigny, or her staff, perhaps always on the alert for unauthorized weapons research, discovered that someone was digging into old science connected to long-since disproven rumors of the warp bomb. Concerned that someone else might know more than the Federation, that there was a chance that a warp bomb might exist, she had used her position to classify the results of Cochrane’s early research and deployed worm programs of her own to selectively erase that data from the Starfleet computer network. But her response only confirmed what Thorsen had believed, so he began to intensify his search, trying to find some trace of information she might have forgotten, widening his areas of inquiry until it became a general inquiry covering anything at all to do with Cochrane, even down to the reference “Gamma Canaris.” And each escalation Thorsen undertook must have convinced Kabreigny that she should take further measures in response, intensifying a secret war where no one knew who the real opponent was, and all fought over an ancient experiment that meant nothing.

“But however illusory the reason for the war,” Spock said, “the stakes are very real.” He glanced at the screen. So did Kirk.

Kirk felt nauseated. Thorsen had peeled away the skin around his eye to reveal more duranium.

“Look at him,” Cochrane said. “He’s insane.” “At his stage of transformation,” Spock suggested, “it would be more proper to say he is malfunctioning.” “Give me Cochrane,” Thorsen rasped. “I want him to appreciate what he has done.” First one pincer, then another plunged deep within Thorsen’s eye socket, but there was no sign of organic damage. To his sickened onlookers, if there was anything left of Thorsen that was human, it was no more than a vestige.

“Very well,” Kirk said, forcing his eyes to remain on the screen.

“But I want your word as an officer that you will then allow me to withdraw with the other rescued passengers from the Utopia Planitia. I have many injured who require immediate medical attention.” “No!” the Companion abruptly cried out as she realized what Kirk was doing. “We will not allow you to endanger the man!” She moved toward Kirk. Spock intercepted her, pulled her firmly away.

“Stand by for transport,” Kirk said, his focus unshaken. “This might take a moment. Enterprise out.” He killed the transmission, audio and visual, just as Thorsen’s pincers began to withdraw from deep within his eye socket. Kirk felt better not knowing what they might have emerged with.

He stepped out of his chair. “Spock, it’s all right. Companion: I will not harm the man.” “Thank you,” Cochrane said. He went to the Companion as Spock released her. “But what will you do?” “We have an edge, Mr. Cochrane,” Kirk said, adrenaline flowing as once again he saw the way out. “The armaments and response time of those ships are handicapped by their commander. You saw the bridge personnel behind Thorsen. No uniforms.

It’s a smuggler’s crew. Maybe he stole those ships, maybe the Empire’s in such bad shape that they’re starting to sell their battle cruisers, but we’re not facing top Klingon warriors. That’s a big advantage to start with.” Kirk went to the command console and reached down between Chekov and Sulu to check sensor readings. “Mr. Spock, have a shuttlecrati prepared for maximum warp on automatic pilot.

We’ll need a decoy in a few minutes.” “What heading, Captain?” For that, Kirk didn’t have an answer. Yet. “Mr. Sulu, we’ve got warp seven capability for only a few hours. Find us somewhere to go where we can disappear. Back to the asteroid belt in Gamma Canaris. A nebula. Somewhere we can avoid their sensors.” Kirk left the console. “Then chart a course for the shuttle directly opposite that heading.” “Aye-aye, Captain.” “I thought we couldn’t outrun them,” Cochrane said.

“Not for long,” Kirk replied. “But they’re not the enemy I thought they were.” He took his seat again. “Mr. Chekov, when I give the order, I want what’s left of the Planitia blasted to plasma to create a sensor screen. Immediately after, we will concentrate all phaser fire on the bridge of the leftmost battle cruiser, and target all photon torpedoes on its warp nacelles.” Chekov acknowledged his orders enthusiastically.

“Hit and run?” Cochrane asked in disbelief at the daring of it.

Kirk nodded, smiling. “With luck, they’ll be leaderless. And we’ve already seen that the crews of those ships won’t take action without Thorsen’s presence.” “Captain,” Uhura said. “We’re being hailed by Colonel Thorsen.” “Keep him offscreen, Lieutenant. Don’t transmit visuals.” Thorsen’s transmission was a single word, long and slow.

“Cochrane.” “He’s not cooperating,” Kirk answered curtly. “Security is chasing him. We’ll have him in a few minutes.” “One minute.” “All three ships are powering up their phasers,” Sulu announced.

Kirk ended his audio transmission. “Do you have a heading, Mr. Sulu?” “Three possibilities, Captain.” Sulu turned around in his chair.

“The Gamma Canaris asteroid belt is at the edge of our range, but once we got there, it would be cat-and-mouse until reinforce-ments arrived. Nothing to really confuse their sensor scans.” “What else?” Kirk asked. According to the chronometer, they had forty-five seconds before Thorsen opened fire.

“Epsilon Canaris. G-type star. Several planets including a gas giant. If we make it to Epsilon Canaris III, they have planetary defenses that could help us.” Kirk discounted that possibility at once. That planet was still in a precarious state as Federation commissioners continued to broker a peace treaty. The sight of the Enterprise rushing in, pursued by Klingon cruisers, would definitely be destabilizing to the fragile peace process.