Theena felt her stomach churn as she observed what the sensors told her: The Enterprise and K’tanco shunted almost all their respective primary warp-drive energy to their deflectors, providing a precious few seconds of extra protection while the ships limped away on impulse power. Both ships had escaped the trap she’d set for them.

  Then she felt Vykul’s hand squeezing her shoulder. “Don’t look so depressed. We have what we came for. We continue on course for home.”

  Theena shook her head. “Kirk and Kang aren’t going to allow that.”

  “They don’t have a choice. With your weapon and this battle base, we are unstoppable.”

  Fiota suddenly looked up from her internal-status monitors. “Vykul, we have intruders aboard. We’re detecting residual transporter signatures in the lower levels.”

  “How could they beam people over through our deflectors?” Vykul strode over and grasped the edge of the console.

  “I don’t know,” Fiota said with a nervous shrug.

  Theena sensed that Vykul’s largely untested crew was starting to panic, and for the first time, Vykul’s frown betrayed his own concern.

  “We have to protect this command center,” he said, making a conscious effort to sound confident. “Full security alert! Seal it up! If they can’t get in here, they can’t stop us.”

  “They can stop us,” Theena countered, “if they get to engineering ops and disrupt power flow from warp drive to weapons systems.”

  “Can you prevent that?”

  “Not from up here. I have to do it down in ops.”

  “Do you need any help?”

  “It’s faster if I do it alone. And you need all available personnel for security.”

  “All right… but take these.” He handed her a Klingon tricorder and a disruptor. “Scan for the intruders. Avoid them if possible- I don’t want you captured. If you have to, shoot to kill. Go- but be careful.”

  Theena bolted from the command center. Running through one corridor to another, she heard muffled explosions and felt the deck shake under her feet. The two starships were attacking again, with a steady bombardment of torpedoes fired from a safe distance. How long can this thing take the pounding?

  She ducked into a turbolift, which dropped fifteen decks so abruptly it felt like free fall. The pod jolted to a halt, the door opened, and she jumped out onto the engineering level. Then she paused to scan for life forms- and there they were: humans and Klingons, aft of her position and three decks below. Whoever got to the operations section first would be able to lock out intruders. She couldn’t allow the boarding party to beat her there.

  The deck shook again, the explosions outside the hull louder than before. They’re targeting engineering! If they’re trying to force us to stand down, they don’t know Vykul.

  Theena kept running until she felt like her lungs were burning. And then she ran some more, until she arrived at the hatch leading to engineering operations. She leaned against the wall for a rest, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath. She checked the tricorder again- the boarding party was almost here. But instead of entering ops and locking the hatch behind her, she bypassed it. She moved toward the intruders as they came toward her. As an afterthought, she pulled the disruptor pistol from her belt and held it in her hand.

  Twenty meters from a corridor intersection, Theena stopped to check the tricorder one more time, and then she waited. A few moments later, the boarding party rounded the corner and saw her. A Klingon female was an instant away from shooting when a burly human with gray hair and mustache stopped her. Theena recognized the human. “Mr. Scott!”

  Scott squinted at her. “Theena?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mara still wanted to shoot Theena. “You know her?” she said to Scott.

  “Aye. Uhh, lassie, unless you’re plannin’ to use that weapon, you might want to lower it.”

  Theena looked at her disruptor, as if she’d forgotten she was even holding it. Realizing the likely ramification of pointing a weapon at a Klingon, she clipped it back onto her belt hastily. The boarding party approached her. “I’m here to help you.”

  Scott stared at her. “You’re here to what?”

  “Help you. We have to shut down the subspace weapon.”

  Mara hadn’t yet holstered her weapon, and looked like she didn’t intend to. “Are you going to trust her?”

  “Well,” Scott said, keeping a wary eye on Theena, “that all depends. Why would you be helpin’ us?”

  “Because Vykul’s lost his mind. All this…” She waved her hand around them, and her voice grew increasingly frantic. “This was never my intention. I don’t know how long this base will hold together, and I sure as hell don’t know how long the subspace distortion matrix will remain stable. Now, you can shoot me and try this yourself, without having the slightest idea what you’re doing. Or you can let me help you. Whatever choice you make, do it fast, because this much I do know- we don’t have a lot of time.”

  On the Enterprise bridge, Commander Uhura swiveled to face the command chair. “Captain, message from Mr. Scott.”

  Kirk nodded and Uhura put Scott on speaker. “Kirk here. Status, Scotty?”

  “We’ve reached main engineering- and we’ve got Theena helpin’ us shut this beastie down.”

  Kirk’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Theena?”

  “It’s a long story, Captain. But I don’t know if we could do this without her. How’s the Enterprise, sir?”

  Kirk couldn’t help smiling at Scott’s concern for his pride and joy. “Minor degradation to the warp engines, but they’re regenerating. The torpedoes aren’t having much of an effect on the base… and our inventory is starting to run low. So… our fate is pretty much in your hands, Scotty.”

  “Aye, sir. We’ll do our best. Scott out.”

  Kirk’s jaw tightened. He was all too aware that they’d be unable to retrieve the boarding party unless they could get back to the beam-in point at the battle base’s shield gap, or unless Scotty’s team succeeded in cutting power to the base’s deflectors altogether. The Klingons might’ve regarded this as a good day to die, but Kirk refused to accept that his people over there were expendable until he had absolutely no alternative.

  “Captain,” Saavik said urgently, “the subspace distortion matrix is becoming unstable. They cannot sustain this level of output.”

  Kirk leaned forward in his seat, his attention on the viewscreen where the distortion field had begun to waver. “But do the Torye know that?”

  “Maybe we should tell them,” Raya said from her perch next to McCoy near the communications station.

  “You’re right,” Kirk said, rising to his feet. “Uhura, open a channel.”

  “Channel open, sir.”

  “Vykul, this is Captain Kirk. Shut down the weapon, before it’s too late.”

  The Torye leader appeared on the screen above Uhura’s console. “Why would I do that, Captain? We have the most powerful weapon in the quadrant and we’re safe inside an invincible flying fortress.”

  “I don’t think so. Our boarding party’s already breached that fortress of yours. And if you check your diagnostics, you’ll find that your super-weapon is on overload. You know the consequences.”

  “I’ve been told.”

  “Then shut it down and surrender. Or are you planning to be a martyr?”

  “I’m not a religious man, Captain; I’m sure Raya has told you that. But I’ll blow this base up and take you and the Klingons with me before I surrender. So if you don’t withdraw… you know the consequences.”

  Outwardly calm, Kirk’s mind raced. Is Vykul all bluster? How far is he really willing to go? You don’t have to be religious to be a fanatic. What if we call his bluff and we’re wrong? “You’ve made your point. You’ve got Raya’s attention.”

  “That was never the point, Captain. But do I expect you to understand? No. You take orders, I give them. You’re just a cog in a machine, but I’m the power that makes the machine go. And do I mind going out in a blaze of glory? Not at all.”

  “Glory?” Raya blurted, stepping forward alongside Kirk. “Is that what you call this? If you and your Torye want to vaporize yourselves, I don’t really care. But this weapon… it could cause even more devastation than the Pulse! Did our people fight back from the brink of oblivion just so you can wreak destruction on a cosmic scale?”

  “You have the power to stop it, Raya.” With that, Vykul cut his comm signal.

  Kirk moved toward Saavik. “Lieutenant, what’s their status?”

  “Distortion pattern integrity is degrading at an accelerating rate. Matrix oscillations will soon exceed acceptable limits. Subspace tearing is increasing in magnitude, with a concurrent increase in tetryon, gamma, and hyperonic radiation.”

  “Dammit. Uhura, contact Mr. Scott.”

  Uhura nodded. A moment later, they heard Scott’s voice again. “Scott here.”

  “Progress report,” Kirk said tersely.

  Scott began with a prefatory deep breath. In Kirk’s experience, that was never a positive sign. “It’s no good, sir. Theena’s doin’ all she can, but… it’s too late for a controlled shutdown.”

  “What if you just cut power to the weapon? Won’t that collapse the distortion matrix?”

  “She’s past the breakaway threshold. Cuttin’ power won’t do a blessed thing to stop her.”

  “Then we’re getting you out. Can you shut down the base’s deflector system from there?”

  “Captain, there’s no time! Leave us and save the ship! If subspace is comin’ apart at the seams, you’re already seein’ enough radiation to interfere with the transporter.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Scott. Shut down those deflectors and stand by. That’s an order.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  McCoy frowned at the main viewer, where he noticed a new development- ethereal tendrils of ionized particles swirling away from the main distortion field. “Ohh, that can’t be good,” he said, and all eyes turned toward the viewscreen image.

  “Captain,” Saavik interjected, “the subspace tears are starting to exert gravitational attraction on proximate matter and energy.”

  “Which, at some point,” McCoy hissed, “is going to include this ship.”

  Kirk ignored the comment and activated the comm panel on his chair. “Uhura, contact Kang.”

  Vykul paced behind the noticeably jittery Fiota. “What’s going on?”

  “The weapon’s on overload.” She chewed on her lip as she checked her status monitors. “Warp reactor output is fluctuating all over the place. Maybe if we shut it down, the subspace damage will stop.”

  “Shut it down?” Vykul echoed. “I don’t want to shut it down.”

  That pushed Fiota beyond her limit. She spun around in her seat, and was about to scream at her leader when she heard a shrill alarm beeping at her console. She whirled back and stared at the screen.

  “What is it?” Vykul prompted.

  Fiota swallowed hard. “Deflector emitters… they just shut down.”

  “Ours? Or theirs?”

  “Ours.”

  A second later, a clockwork flurry of five torpedoes blasted the starboard hull just outside the command center, with enough violence to throw Vykul off his feet and knock his crewmates out of their chairs. Lights flickered, and the starboard consoles sparked and caught fire.

  Out in space, Kang’s battle cruiser swerved hard about for another torpedo run, while the Enterprise edged in so close to the belly of the battle base the two were almost touching. The ship was shaking and straining to escape from the cosmic turmoil unfolding around them.

  Saavik and Chekov delivered status updates: The moaning warp engines were operating at not quite eighty percent capacity; shields were down below seventy percent. The weapon’s distortion matrix had collapsed into chaos, shredding subspace, with new tears opening all around the battle base and rapidly expanding into gaping rifts. Increasingly intense gravimetric turbulence buffeted both ships like kites in a gale, holding them back as if by a string that stretched but refused to break. And the K’tanco was in even more trouble, some distance behind the Enterprise, as a vortex of matter and energy formed with the battered Klingon base at its raging heart. The more matter and energy it dragged into its maw, the faster the vortex bloomed.

  Finally, the report came from the transporter room. “Tuchinsky to bridge. We’ve got the entire landing party, plus one, sir.”

  “Mr. Chekov, shields to maximum,” Kirk said, relieved. “Get us out of here.” Then to Tuchinsky, he said, “Chief, have Mr. Scott, Theena, and Mara report to the bridge, and have security escort the other two Klingons to the recreation lounge as our guests.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When Scott arrived at the bridge, he went straight to the engineering console, while Theena and Mara stood near the turbolift doors next to McCoy and Raya. “Scotty…,” Kirk began.

  Scott shook his head. “You’ve already got all she has to give, sir.”

  As the two starships labored to pull away, the battle base skidded back, then began to break apart as it was swallowed up by the spatial whirlpool. As it disappeared inside the roiling cloud of energized particles and vapors, everyone on the bridge waited, breathless…. The vortex coughed out three hot flares- and then a great fireball with the fury of a small sun going nova. The massive ejection of gas and gravitons slammed into the two ships and flung them away, tumbling into the distance.

  On both ships, bodies and equipment went flying. Somehow, Scotty and Chekov clawed their way to the controls and coaxed the Enterprise out of her wild spin. Those who weren’t hurt helped those who were. Kirk wiped away the blood dripping from a gash over his eyebrow and made his unsteady way back to the center seat. The viewscreen revived in time for them to see the final frenzied moments of the gravimetric maelstrom consuming all matter and energy within its savage grasp. It collapsed and twisted itself into an unimaginably dense, searingly bright pinpoint. Finally, all that compressed mass exploded into a fountain of rainbow plasma which swiftly began coalescing into the beginnings of a shimmering new nebula.

  Raya and Theena stood transfixed by the awful beauty of what they’d witnessed- and survived. Brilliant colors from the viewscreen image danced across their faces. “It’s… so beautiful,” Raya whispered.

  “But lethal,” Theena added softly. “Radiation levels in this region will be deadly for centuries. There could have been planets… civilizations… destroyed. And it’s my fault.”

  Raya looked into her young friend’s haunted eyes. “Some of it, yes.”

  “I was responsible for creating a terrible, dangerous weapon.”

  “But it didn’t have to be used. You helped Vykul use it.”

  “I know… I do know. And I’m sorry,” Theena said as two security guards approached to take her away. “Here I am with this big brain. But it took all this for me to understand… the most dangerous thing in the universe is a creature convinced beyond doubt of his own virtue.”

  Kirk overheard Theena’s humbling, hard-won wisdom… and he knew, beyond doubt, it applied to all of them.

  Epilogue

  Mara and her crewmates returned to their ship, and Spock and Morrow beamed over to the Enterprise. As both crews assessed damage and made repairs, Kang’s vessel escorted the Enterprise through Klingon space and back toward the Neutral Zone. Kirk informed Kang he planned to urge the Federation to ban any further development of subspace-disruption weapons, by the Payav or anyone else- and he warned that the Federation would not tolerate deployment of the provocative battle stations.

  When they reached the Neutral Zone, Enterprise and K’tanco went their separate ways. With his ship on course for Mestiko, Kirk left Chekov in command and stepped into the turbolift, with Spock and McCoy following. Noticing that Kirk looked especially grim, McCoy tried to lighten the mood. “Those Klingons might be writing one of their caterwauling songs right now, commemorating for the ages the day when the great Captains Kang and Kirk worked together to save the galaxy.”

  “Indeed,” said Spock, “future generations may look back on recent events and recognize them as a key step toward peaceful coexistence between the Federation and the Klingons.”

  Despite the fact that he’d cheated death yet one more time, and escaped with his ship and crew intact, Kirk did not warm to the spirit of the occasion. “The Klingons… can go to hell. And I don’t mind showing them the way.”

  So much for lightening the mood. They rode down in silence, until Kirk grabbed the control grip and brought them to an unscheduled halt. He fixed his first officer with a hard, accusatory glare. “Spock, what the hell were you and Morrow doing in Klingon space in the first place?”

  “We were asked to undertake a sensitive mission by President Ra-ghoratreii himself, which remains classified. I regret that I cannot discuss it further.”

  “So do I.” Kirk looked away and restarted the turbolift.

  When they reached their destination deck, and the door opened, the captain took a deep breath and his expression softened, permitting his friends a fleeting glimpse of the heartache he’d carried with him since the day his son was killed. “We… can’t negotiate with them, Spock. You know what they are… what they’ve done.”

  “Jim,” Spock said, “there are some Klingons who recognize the imperative of change.”

  “They’ll never change.” Then Kirk turned and walked down the corridor.

  McCoy sighed as they watched him go. “Well… you can’t blame him.”

  “Doctor, after all these years, I do understand that emotions can be a heavy burden for humans,” Spock said, not unkindly. “His feelings toward Klingons are substantive and understandable. But a starship captain cannot allow judgment to be impaired by emotion.”