Chapter One CAN SHIPS, as well as men, be said to limp? James Kirk looked around the bridge of the USS Enterprise. A less-trained eye would have seen only an experienced group of men and women going about their various duties, competently overseeing the mul- titude of hardware and software systems that made Enterprise more than a mere shell of metals and plas- tics. But Captain James T. Kirk saw much more. He saw weariness in the slumped shoulders of his communications officer. He noted the signs of short temper in the abrupt movements and tight-lipped re- sponses of the helmsman. If a ship can be said to be limp, thought Kirk, then this one's limping. The mission just completed had been more than even a vessel of Enterprise's caliber should be asked to endure. Only the figure bent over the Science Offi- cer's station in disciplined absorption showed no out- ward signs of fatigue. But then, Spock almost never did. And yet he was called upon to give more than any of the rest of us, at that outpost colony. Kirk shook his head slightly in amazement and admiration. Mistakes would not be made by this crew, Kirk knew, in spite of their exhaustion, but he was not the type of commander to drive his people unreasonably. Thank God we're only hours away from Starbase Seventeen, he thought. They can have all the rest and recreation they need there. I wonder what's waiting for me there. New orders, of course. The ship would be repaired and resuppiied, the crew given its chance to rest up, and then both would be called upon yet again to do the Federation's work. Sensitive work, Kirk supposed. Work requiring the best, requiring men and women of competence and subtlety, and a commander who had proven his ability to cope with complex and dangerous situations often enough. It wore on him, this work. Every year, it wore on him more, and yet he could not imagine doing anything else with his life. For a time, of course, he had had to do something else: a desk job. But James Kirk was not a man who belonged behind a desk. He was a ship's commander whose place was on the bridge of his beloved ship. But there must be a limit somewhere, sometime. That was his abiding fear. Would someone, some- where in the Starfleet hierarchy, eventually decide that Kirk was too old for active command, that a desk job was all that he was really suited for now--an aging officer who couldn't even read any more without wear- ing archaic glasses? Horatio Nelson or John Paul Jones, those two great admirals: which would his own career be likened to? Would he die in glory, at the height of his career, during his moment of greatest triumph, like Nelson, or on land, forced into retire- ment by intrique and the changing winds of politics, like Jones? A lifetime from now, when perhaps a very different ship bore the gallant old name Enterprise, how would history regard James T. Kirk? Ridiculous, he told himself, suddenly impatient with his own meanderings. Stop thinking like an old man with one foot in the gravel "Mr. Sulu," he said aloud, "estimated time to arrival?" Sulu grinned. "Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes to Starbase Seventeen R and R, Captain." Kirk could sense his crew perking up at that announcement-- which was of course why he'd asked Sulu to make it. It was consideration in such small things, Kirk knew, as much as competence in the big ones that gained a commander his crew's loyalty. "Captain," Uhura said from the Communications console, "I'm picking up something." She frowned and put her hand to her ear as if holding the commu- nication earpiece would help her pick up the faint signal. "Klingon emergency signal, sir. Heavy inter- ference." Ginny Crandall, at the Weapons and Defense sta- tion, spoke up from Kirk's right. "I have them, sir. Only a couple of million kilometers away." What're they doing in Federation space? "Let us all hear what they have to say, Uhura. Translated." "Yes, sir." From the speakers above the bridge crew came a howl of subspace interference and then a heavy crack- ling. A voice was speaking behind the noise, but it was drowned out. And then suddenly the interference ceased and the voice barked out at them, heavy and menacing: a Klingon voice, its words translated to English by the Enterprise computer but the voice left unchanged. "... Klanth, commanding. Failure of vessel struc- ture accelerating. Destruction of Mauler imminent. Crew conduct exemplary. Request commendations be sent to clans of all. I personally commend all of us to the gods. Survive and succeed!" The last words were washed ont as the interference returned with a roar. Uhura reduced the volume to a background growling. "I can't get it any clearer, sir." Kirk nodded, "Spock?" The Vulcan's face was hidden in the hood of the Science station console. "It appears to be a magnetic- ionic storm of some sort, Captain, and the Klingon ship is in the middle of it. It does bear some resem- blance to the storm Enterprise encountered in this region some time ago. I'm sure you remember that one, sir." Kirk grimaced. How could he forget? For hours, he had been trapped in an alternate dimension, victim of a bizarre breakdown in spacetime, the air in his space suit running out, desperately trying to signal his crew during those precious seconds when he found himself halfway returned to his own dimension. In the end, Spock had been able to predict the time and place of the next intersection of the two planes of existence and had retrieved Kirk with no time at all to spare. Another Starfleet vessel, Defiant, had been destroyed by the storm. It had all happened in a region of space claimed by the Tholians, a prickly and uncommunicative people who rejected membership in the Federation even though they were by now surrounded by it. Federation ships had been careful to avoid Tholian space ever since Enterprise's experience. '~Mr. Spock, could the Tholians be responsible for what's happening to the Klingon ship?" "Perhaps, Captain. We know little of Tholian capa- bilities beyond their ability to generate the web in space with which they trapped Enterprise. However, since they can generate such a web, this storm would seem to represent a prodigious expenditure of energy to achieve an object they could encompass far more cheaply." "In other words, no?" "Probably not, sir. And of course we do know that strange natural phenomena occur in this region." Af- ter a pause, Spock added, "The Klingon ship does indeed appear to be breaking up. The structure of the vessel is disintegrating." That answered the question no one had bothered to voice: Was the Kiingon message genuine or a ruse? As if to add confirmation that it was genuine, Crandall said, "Sir their shields are failing rapidly. I think..." She fell silent and concentrated on the readings dis- played before her. "Yes, their life-support as well." "Helm, take us in. As close as is safe. Mr. Spock will warn you when we've reached that limit. Shields up. Yellow alert." Kirk could feel the adrenalin level rising, the blood racing in his veins. He could sense his crew responding throughout the shily--responding to his voice, his judgment. As the klaxons rang, Kirk thumbed a toggle switch on the arm of the command seat. "Transporter room. Get the coordinates of that Klingon ship and try to lock on as soon as you can." "Do you plan a rescue, Captain?" Spock asked. "Regulations do not require that we respond in a situation such as this one." "This isn't just humanitarianism, Spock. I want to know what they're doing inside our territory. Visual of Mauler on screen." On the great viewscreen at the front of the bridge, an image of the storm grew, with the Klingon ship trapped within it, struggling ineffectually like a fly in a spideffs web. The storm was a rough sphere of shifting colors and brightnesses. Parts of it vanished momen- tarily and then flared out in painful brilliance. Mauler was almost totally obscured, but now and then it showed clearly for just an instant. The bridge crew on Enterprise could see the Klingon ship wavering, its predatory "wings" beginning to crumble. The Kilngun ship was surrounded by sparkling lights where the storm impinged on its deflector shields, but that sparkling was diminishing even as they watched it. Mauler's shields were failing under the storm's assault. "Less than ten minutes maximum survival time, Captain," Spock said calmly. "Transporter room?" The response came from the speaker in the arm of his chair. "Sorry, sir. We can't punch through the interference. We can't lock onto individual patterns in that soup. We'd have to have feedback from their transporter on the olher end, and even then it would be chancy." Kirk thought lbr a moment. "Uhura, open a hailing channel." He paused and then spoke in what he hoped was a calm and authoritative voice. "Mauler, this is the USS Enterprise, Captain James Kirk commanding. We are standing by and are prepared to beam you aboard our vessel. Please lock in your transporter to OURS. ' ' For a long moment, there was no reply. Then the voice they had heard before said angrily, ~'Mauter, Klanth commanding. Leave us, Kirk! Leave us to die bravely, like Kilnguns." "Bravely or not, Captain," Kirk said soothingly, "you will die without our help. Wouldn't it be better to survive to serve your emperor again?" "Not with human help!" The heavy Klingon voice was replaced with the rushing sound of subspace static. "Uhura?" She shook her ...
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