Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (22 page)

“An ah . . . a what kind of disk?” McCoy asked.

“A ring which lies approximately thirteen light-
years from the galactic center, and consists of dust and molecular gases. The dust in the ring is hot, heated by an unknown energy source in its center, which radiates an enormous amount of high-energy X rays and gamma rays. Current research indicates that the energy source is at least ten million times more luminous than Earth’s sun.”

The doctor frowned. “Well, what the heck
is
it? A giant star?”

Spock shook his head. “Unlikely. The accretion disk is rotating about the center, which means the object at the center possesses gravity—such enormous gravity that its mass must be roughly two million times greater than that of Sol.”

“Two million times,” Jim marveled. “That’d be
some
star.”

“Indeed. But there is not enough gas or dust present to account for more than a fraction of the mass. This has led to two theories: one, that a singularity—either a neutron star or a black hole, compact but incredibly dense and exerting incredible gravitational force—is at our galaxy’s center.”

“And the second theory?” Jim asked.

“A white hole. A ’creation machine,’ if you will.” Spock paused. “Of course, this is sheer speculation.”

No one spoke for a few seconds. And then McCoy said, very hesitantly, “And . . . this source . . . is what Sybok’s looking for?”

Spock gave a single curt nod.

“Great.” The doctor’s tone was sarcastic. “And he’s gonna take
us
into the middle of
that?”

“He’s mad.” Jim’s anger had been reawakened.
“This starship simply isn’t constructed to withstand that sort of intense radiation, nor is her crew. He may be your brother, Spock, but he’s mad.”

The Vulcan’s tone was calm, but there was a faintly troubled look in his eyes. “That thought has occurred to me as well; certainly his actions and beliefs are bizarre by any standards. And yet Sybok possesses the keenest intellect I have ever known. He is better versed in the theories I have just named than I; indeed, his training was in astrophysics. As a scientist, I am skeptical about his claims, but at the same time I am curious to know his rationale. So little is known about the galactic center. Perhaps he really has discovered something that explains the legend of Sha Ka Ree.”

“Spock!” Jim snapped. “My only concern right now is getting my ship back. When that’s done and Sybok is in
here,
the two of you can debate Sha Ka Ree until you’re green in the face. Until then—”

Jim broke off and frowned at the tapping that came from the back wall of the cell. He turned. “What the hell is
that?”

Spock tilted his head and listened. “I believe it is a primitive form of communication known as the Morse code.” He moved over to the wall and knelt down to rest a hand on the spot from which the sound emanated.

Jim crouched next to him. “You’re right, Spock. Morse code was required knowledge at the Academy, but I’m a little out of practice.”

The message ended; Jim waited for it to be repeated. “Let’s see . . . that’s an
S,
isn’t it?”

Spock nodded. “The next letter is a
T.”

“A,”
Jim translated.
“N, D. . .
end of word.”

“Stand,” McCoy said. “So what kind of message is that?”

Kirk shushed him. “It’s not finished. A new word now:
B, A—“

Spock finished:
“C, K.”

“Back,” the doctor said, pleased with himself for solving the riddle. “Stand back.”

Kirk and Spock looked at each other in horror.

A panel from the wall exploded into shrapnel. Jim lunged for cover, but not soon enough to avoid getting showered with debris.

When Jim opened his eyes again, he saw Scott’s head and shoulders poking through the opening. He stared, stunned, at the engineer.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Scott scolded them. “Don’t you recognize a jailbreak when you see one?”

Scott led them through the labyrinthine bowels of the ship. The fact that the
Enterprise
was in the hands of a group of unwashed hooligans offended him beyond words. After all, he had virtually rebuilt the entire ship with his own two hands; she was now his as much as her predecessor had been, perhaps even more so.

Scott crouched down as he led the three escapees into a narrow ventilation shaft.

Behind him, Mr. Spock spoke. “We can trust no one, Captain. You saw the mental condition of the hostages. Sybok is capable of doing the same thing to every person aboard this vessel.”

“They looked like religious converts,” McCoy remarked
in a subdued tone. “Completely brainwashed. I don’t mean to pry, Spock, but I thought mental control was illegal or something on Vulcan. In poor taste, at least.”

Spock answered reluctantly. “Both. It is considered a breach of personal ethics and one of the most heinous crimes imaginable.”

“We’ve got to stop him as soon as possible,” the captain said. “We’ve got to send a distress signal.”

“How?” McCoy asked. “We’ll never make it to the bridge.”

Spock replied, “It is possible to override the bridge communications board with the emergency signaling apparatus in the forward observation room.”

“The only problem is,” Kirk said, “it’s up there . . . and we’re down here.”

There was a solution, of course. Scott thought for a moment, then turned his head to look back at them. “You might be able to reach it by means of turbo shaft number three.”

“Oh, no.” McCoy shook his head vigorously. “You’re not getting me in any turbolift shaft. That’s dange—”

Scott silenced the doctor with a scornful look and a wave of his hand. “It’s closed for repairs, so there’s no danger of being crushed by the lift, if that’s what you’re worried about, Doctor. But it
would
be a long and dangerous climb.”

For reasons Scott did not understand, McCoy’s tone turned ironic. “Actually, some of us get off on long and dangerous climbs.”

Kirk ignored him. “Scotty, get the transporter
working. If we make contact with a rescue ship, we’ll need it.”

“Aye, sir. You can count on me. I’ll get right on it.”

“Before you go,” Kirk said. “Which way to the turbo shaft?”

Scott pointed. “Head down this tunnel and make a right at the hydrovent, then a left at the blowscreen. You canna miss it.”

Kirk smiled and shook his head. “Mr. Scott, you’re amazing.” He and the others turned and headed in the opposite direction down the shaft.

Scott allowed himself to revel in his sense of accomplishment as he made his way down the long, dark shaft toward the transporter circuits. What the captain had said was undeniably true: He
had
accomplished a miracle, after all; why, he had overhauled the
Enterprise
almost single-handedly.

“Nothing amazing about knowing my way around,” he muttered to himself. “Why, I’ve fixed just about everything aboard her that can malfunction. I know her now like I know the back of my own hand.”

He was so caught up in his prideful reverie that, as he rounded a sharp corner, he forgot to duck.

And knocked himself out cold on a low-hanging pipe.

If there was one thing in life he hated more than transporters, Leonard McCoy reflected, it would have to be heights. He had to tilt his head all the way back to gaze up at the turbolift shaft; claustrophobically narrow, it stretched up into the darkness, seemingly to infinity.

And the only way up was a narrow emergency ladder.

Even Jim seemed a little taken aback by the idea of climbing up there, but he covered his uneasiness, as he always did, with forced enthusiasm. “Look at it this way, Bones. At least we’ll get a good workout.”

McCoy grimaced sourly. “Or a heart attack.”

Jim ignored him and began to climb. McCoy balked, then shot a glance at Spock, who gestured for the doctor to go ahead. McCoy sighed and began to climb.

Look at it this way,
he told himself.
At least you’re not last, so you won’t get left behind if you’re too slow. You’re in the middle, the safest place to be. If someone’s at the other end, Jim’ll find out about it first, and if I lose my grip, Spock will break my fall.

It didn’t help much, but McCoy kept right on climbing. He tried to stay below the heels of Jim’s boots, but in a matter of minutes Jim was several meters ahead of him . . . and McCoy was sucking in air like a dying fish. The air in the shaft had little oxygen in it; McCoy’s arms began to tremble with fatigue.

“Jim,” he gasped. “Slow down! This is going to take me forever.”

Jim was unsympathetic. “You were the one who told me I had to exercise more, as I recall. You should learn to take your own advice, Doctor.” He peered down at McCoy, then suddenly stopped climbing. “Where’s Spock?”

Struggling against vertigo, McCoy cautiously glanced down between his boots. Below, the shaft
disappeared into blackness. Spock was nowhere to be seen. Had the Vulcan fallen without so much as a sound?

A soft
whoosh
descended upon them from above; McCoy looked up, startled. Spock eased slowly down the shaft, sporting the levitation boots he’d used at Yosemite. The Vulcan floated down to Kirk’s level and hovered there.

“I believe,” he told Kirk and the doctor, “that I have found a faster method.”

Jim grinned. He stepped off the ladder and held on to Spock’s neck; they slowly descended until they were beside McCoy.

“C’mon, Bones,” Jim called. “All aboard.”

McCoy clung stubbornly to the ladder and shook his head. “Not me. You two go ahead. I’ll wait for the next car. The three of us’ll never make it. Spock’ll have trouble levitating with only one passenger, much less two.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Jim was beginning to sound exasperated. “We can’t split up.” He paused, then said craftily, “Well, maybe we should. We’ll just leave you here. There’s no time for Spock to come back for you. But you can climb up yourself, if you insist, and meet us up on deck later.”

That did it. McCoy took one last fearful peek at the dizzying blackness above and below him, then squeezed his eyes shut and took hold of Jim’s neck.

“Oh, hell. Here goes . . . .”

He made it. McCoy opened his eyes; amazingly, they did not fall . . . but they began to sink steadily downward.

“It would appear that the doctor was correct,” Spock admitted. The levitation boots cannot support our combined weight.”

“Thanks a lot,” McCoy snapped. “That’s a great comfort. I can see it on my tombstone now—’Leonard H. McCoy: He really was right.’”

“It’s all those marsh mel—” Jim began . . . and stopped as soon as he saw what awaited them in the shadows below. McCoy followed his gaze.

“There!” Sulu cried, pointing up at them.

At first, McCoy smiled, relieved . . . and then he saw that the search party Sulu led was composed, not of
Enterprise
crew members, but of Sybok’s soldiers. McCoy caught a glimpse of the expression on the helmsman’s face and realized with a shudder that Sulu really wasn’t Sulu anymore.

“Spock!” Jim hissed, “the booster rockets!”

Spock hesitated. “Captain, if I activate them, we will be propelled upward at an unpredictable speed. If we collide with the shaft ceiling, we could be injured . . . perhaps killed.”

“Great,” McCoy muttered bitterly. “Caught betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea.”

“Fire the boosters!” Kirk ordered, in a tone that made Spock comply immediately.

The boosters hurled them upward; the ladder whizzed by at vertiginous speed. McCoy cried out and clung to Jim and Spock for all he was worth.

They stopped with a sickening lurch.

Timidly, McCoy opened his eyes. Sulu and the others had disappeared into the darkness below. The doctor’s head was reeling, but he was alive and
uninjured. So was Jim, though the captain looked as pasty-faced as McCoy felt.

Spock was entirely unruffled by the event. “I am afraid,” he announced, “that I overshot our mark by one level.”

“What the hell,” the doctor said shakily. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Spock carried them to the exit. McCoy clambered out first, and was gratified to find that they were in the corridor directly outside the forward observation deck.

Once inside the observation deck, Spock crossed over to the communications console and activated it. He turned to Kirk. “Emergency channel open, Captain.”

Jim stepped up to the console. “To anyone within the sound of my voice: this is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation Starship
Enterprise.
If you read me, acknowledge.”

Several moments passed, and then a burst of static crackled through the grid, followed by the faint sound of a feminine voice.

“Enterprise,
this is Starfleet Command. We can just barely read you. Over.”

Encouraged, McCoy exchanged grins with Jim. Kirk raised his voice as he spoke into the grid.

“A hostile force has seized control of our vessel and put us on a direct course with the Great Barrier. Our coordinates are zero-zero-zero, mark two. Request emergency assistance. Acknowledge.”

“Acknowledged,
Enterprise.
We are dispatching a rescue ship immediately.”

“Roger, Starfleet. Kirk out.”

“Starfleet out.”

Jim closed the channel and exchanged a hopeful look with his friends. “Thank God,” McCoy breathed reverently. “Thank God.”

Aboard
Okrona,
Vixis leaned over the subspace transmitter at her station. “Starfleet out.”

Her accent was flawless; the humans had been completely fooled. Triumphant, she looked over her shoulder at her captain.

Klaa’s face was that of one obsessed; without turning from her gaze, he barked an order at the helmsman. “Tarag! Plot course zero-zero-zero, mark two.”

Vixis had feared as much. Klaa had no choice now but to kill Kirk, or lose face before his entire crew. Yet Vixis understood quite well the risks of nearing the Great Barrier: draw too close, and the high levels of radiation would penetrate the shields, killing all aboard
Okrona
... if the incredible temperatures did not kill them first by superheating the ship’s hull.