Captain to Captain

  The Klingons had come calling.

  Twenty-one

  Alarms echoed through the master control room. Judging from the racket, the Klingons had been considerably less than subtle when it came to blasting their way into the citadel.

  Imagine that, Kirk thought. “It appears we have company, Mister Spock.”

  “Beyond a doubt, Captain. I do not recommend that we linger to greet them.”

  “I wasn’t planning to wheel out the welcome wagon.” Kirk had no idea how long it would take the Klingons to reach the control room, but he wasn’t about to stick around to find out. If they moved quickly enough, he and Spock might be able to slip out of the citadel without running into the new arrivals. “I think we’re done here.”

  Exiting the sealed chamber was easier said than done, however. In all the excitement and drama, Kirk had forgotten about the locked doorway cutting the control room off from the rest of the citadel. He was starting to wish that he hadn’t given Una his phaser when Spock calmly operated a control panel adjacent to the door, which dilated open to reveal the empty corridor beyond. Downed globes still littered the floor.

  “Nicely done, Mister Spock,” Kirk said. “I’m impressed as ever by your efficiency.”

  Spock shrugged. “Deducing how to open a locked door from the inside is hardly a praiseworthy accomplishment.”

  “But is appreciated nonetheless,” Kirk said, relieved that the barrier no longer obstructed their escape. “About time something went our way.”

  They rushed out of the control room and took off down a tubular corridor, following Una’s hasty directions to the underwater launch bay. To Kirk’s dismay, he could hear a Klingon landing party heading their way, stomping and shouting like a targ in a china shop. They were making good time toward the control room; Kirk had to give them that. He assumed that their battle cruisers had detected the energy emissions from the citadel, just as April and his crew had years ago.

  Perhaps Una should have left well enough alone?

  Inconveniently, the advancing Klingons sounded as though they were directly between the fleeing Starfleet officers and the path Una had laid out for them. The Klingons’ booming voices and heavy tread made it clear that, intentionally or not, they were on a collision course with Kirk and Spock.

  “I suggest a strategic detour,” Spock said in a low voice.

  Kirk nodded. “I don’t think we have much choice.”

  Ducking into a side tunnel to avoid running into the noisy Klingons, they found themselves in need of a less popular route to the pods. Branching corridors presented a dilemma; it would be all too easy to get lost in the sprawling complex. Kirk glanced around for clues as to which way to go, but the signage, such as it was, was all in Jatohr. He looked in vain for a map of the “You are Here” variety.

  Spock, on the other hand, was scanning various examples of Jatohr script with his tricorder. He squinted at the readings.

  “Progress, Mister Spock?” Kirk asked

  “The Jatohr’s written language is indeed unique, lacking any common roots or cognates with most humanoid languages, but I am running these postings through a highly sophisticated translation program in order to achieve a crude approximation of their meaning.” He lowered the tricorder and pointed to the right. “I believe that we need to proceed . . . that way.”

  Kirk peered down the tunnel, which curved out of his line of sight. There was no way to tell where it led.

  “Are you sure of that, Spock?”

  Spock arched an eyebrow, as though mildly bemused by the query.

  “Never mind,” Kirk said. “Forget I asked.”

  They moved swiftly but quietly around the curve, which led to a string of diverging tunnels and ramps descending toward the lowest levels of the hub. Encouraged by their success at eluding the Klingon landing parties, Kirk began to think ahead to their next moves: reach the launch bay, commandeer a pod, fly back to the Shimizu, and then somehow get past those battle cruisers to make a dash for a border . . . and the Enterprise.

  That was going to be the really tricky part.

  They were darting across an intersection where six different corridors crossed one another when a gruff, guttural voice yanked him roughly back to the present.

  “Starfleet!”

  Kirk whirled about to see several armed Klingon soldiers glaring at them. Bristling black beards and mustaches gave them a fierce appearance, compensating for their lack of facial ridges. Their familiar gold-and-black uniforms were much more aggressively militaristic than Kirk’s and Spock’s primary-colored Starfleet apparel. Startled by their unexpected discovery, it took the hostile soldiers a moment to open fire with their disruptor pistols.

  “Take them!” a Klingon officer bellowed. “Dead or alive!”

  Kirk and Spock dashed into the tunnel before them, just ahead of a barrage of sizzling emerald beams that scorched the pearlescent inner walls of the citadel. Rounding a curve as fast as they could, they fled from the Klingons, only to find themselves blocked by a fully contracted doorway. An annunciator light flashed urgently above the blocked passage. Kirk heard the Klingons chasing after them, shouting threats and egging one another on. Truce or no truce, it seemed to be open season on trespassing Starfleet personnel.

  “After the spies!” the Klingons’ leader shouted. “Show them no mercy!”

  Kirk found the command redundant. Since when had the Klingons ever shown mercy to their foes? It was a wonder the word was even in their vocabulary.

  “The door, Spock! Can you get it open?”

  “I am endeavoring to do so, Captain, but certain emergency protocols appear to have gone into effect, sealing off key areas of the citadel . . . such as, for instance, the launch bay.” Spock examined the locking mechanism as coolly as he might a particularly intriguing sensor reading at his science station back on the bridge of the Enterprise. “It may take me a moment to override the security system.”

  Vulcans were not prone to exaggeration, Kirk knew, so the delay had to be a necessary one. Kirk reached for his phaser only to remember again that he’d given it to Una.

  “Lend me your phaser,” he ordered. “I’ll try to buy you that time.”

  Spock nodded and handed Kirk his weapon. Leaving the preoccupied science officer to his work, Kirk made sure the phaser was set on stun before firing around the curve of the corridor to discourage the oncoming Klingons. Furious shouts and epithets, along with the satisfying sound of a Klingon soldier planting his surly face onto the floor, testified to his aim. Falling back, the Klingons returned fire with a vengeance. Kirk ducked his head back barely in time to avoid having his ear singed by a crackling disruptor beam, which passed so close that he could feel the heat of the blast against his skin.

  “Any time now, Spock.”

  Spock did not look away from his efforts to crack the lock on the door. “The need for haste is not lost on me, Captain.” He aimed his communicator at the control panel. “Allow me to isolate the correct sonic frequency.”

  Kirk recalled that Spock had once managed to use a communicator to start an avalanche. Come to think of it, they had been pursued by Klingons then too.

  “Whatever it takes, Spock, but quickly.”

  Kirk heard the Klingons advancing, albeit more cautiously. He risked firing another warning shot in their direction, before ducking back out of the line of fire. A ferocious burst of return fire sent his pulse racing and made him very glad that nobody had yet invented an energy weapon that fired around curves and corners.

  “Starfleet!” a voiced called out harshly. “Surrender and you will not be harmed . . . much.”

  Now they want to talk, Kirk thought, although he knew better than to trust the Klingons to play nice. But maybe I can stall them long enough for Spock to clear our path?

  “I’m listening,” he shouted back. “What do you want?”

/>   “Why, your worthless hides on trial for trespassing and espionage, naturally, and the Federation’s abject apologies for this brazen incursion on our territory. Along with whatever information you possess about this fortress and its technology, which already has our scientists as excited as a hunter scenting fresh prey.”

  I’ll bet, Kirk thought. “Oh, is that all you’re asking for? Well, the thing is—”

  A whirring noise alerted him that Spock had succeeded in unlocking the door, which dilated open. The emergency light above the portal blinked off. “After you, Captain.”

  Kirk had another idea. “Get through that door, Spock, and get ready to cover me.”

  Firing back at the Klingons, while dodging their own blasts, he waited until Spock was through the doorway before abandoning his position to follow after him. He hurled their only phaser to Spock.

  “Catch!”

  Requiring no further instruction, Spock snatched the phaser out of the air and immediately began laying down cover to shield Kirk’s retreat. He fired past Kirk at the corridor beyond, holding off the Klingons, while Kirk dived through the doorway, rolling onto the floor beyond and back onto his feet.

  “Nice catch, Mister Spock.”

  “That Vulcans have superior eye-hand coordination has been well documented,” Spock replied, while knocking out an overly impetuous Klingon soldier with a well-aimed stun beam. “The odds against me failing to make the catch—”

  “Are not worth citing at this moment.” Kirk nodded at the door. “If you don’t mind.”

  Spock triggered a manual switch on their side of the portal, while simultaneously firing through the aperture, and the door dialed shut. Frustrated howls, from the other side of the doorway, penetrated the barrier. Fists pounded against the unyielding door.

  “They’re getting away!” the Klingon officer railed at his men. “Blast through this door before we lose them!”

  Disruptor fire loudly assailed the barrier from the other side. The hard, shell-like material began to glow ominously. Vapor rose from newborn cracks in the besieged door. An acrid burning smell offended Kirk’s nostrils. The door began to sizzle and bubble.

  “The Klingons have already demonstrated their ability to overcome the Jatohr’s fortifications through brute force,” Spock noted. “We must assume the barrier will not delay them for long.”

  “Then we had better get to that launch bay before they do. Lead the way, Mister Spock.”

  A smooth spiral ramp reminded Kirk that the Jatohr had possessed a slug-like mode of locomotion, ill-suited to steps or stairs. He and Spock sprinted down the ramp while the Klingons continued to blast away at the sealed doorway above. Kirk didn’t like leaving the citadel—and the Jatohr’s singular technology—in the Klingons’ hands, but at least he had the Key, without which the Klingons would be unable to operate the transfer-field generator.

  Or so he hoped.

  The citadel’s winding corridors remained a maze as far as Kirk was concerned, but Spock clearly knew where he was going. A final doorway, complete with an airlock, brought them into the launch bay, which consisted of a large moon pool surrounded by a doughnut-shaped deck. The rippling water in the pool cast shifting shadows on the smooth walls and ceiling. An empty pod, matching Una’s description, rested on a ramp sliding into the pool.

  “Close the door behind us,” Kirk said, “before our new friends catch up with us.”

  “That was always my intention,” Spock assured Kirk as he sealed off the portal. “The Klingons are certainly intent on our capture or deaths, but I see no reason to accommodate them.” He stepped away from the door. “Nor to experience a Klingon mind-sifter again.”

  They hastily boarded the pod. The seats, if you could call them that, were hardly designed for humanoid bodies, but there was plenty of room for them in the cockpit. Kirk let Spock take the flight controls; he wasn’t too proud to recognize that the brilliant Vulcan science officer could more readily decipher and master the unfamiliar controls.

  “Let’s hope we don’t have to hot-wire this thing,” Kirk said.

  The archaic expression did not confound Spock. “Unlikely. By all accounts, the Jatohr had little reason to anticipate visitors and would not have needed security measures against unauthorized use.”

  He inspected the controls for only a moment before discerning how to activate the pod. The vehicle came to life and an automated voice addressed them with the aid of the universal translator. There was a time, Kirk understood, when the translator had struggled with the Jatohr’s native tongue, but, thankfully, those days were years past.

  “Commence launch procedures?”

  “Affirmative,” Spock instructed the pod. “Follow standard procedure.”

  The pod began to slide down the ramp into the waiting pool, even as a sudden explosion rocked the launch bay and the inner entrance of the air lock blew apart, spraying the interior of the bay with shrapnel. Twisted pieces of debris banged against the pod’s opalescent hull, jolting the vehicle. Kirk recognized a photon grenade when he heard one. The Klingons were breaking out the heavy artillery.

  “Spock,” he prompted.

  “Expedite launch procedures,” Spock stressed. “Initiate immediate departure.”

  “Acknowledged,” the pod replied. “Rapid-release protocols in effect.”

  Klingons poured through the breached doorway, preceded only barely by a cloud of dust and smoke. Through the haze, they spotted the pod sliding into the water. Disruptor beams struck the pool, producing bursts of steam. A photon grenade bounced off the top of the pod and ricocheted into an upper bulkhead, where it went off with a directed charge that blew open a hole in the bay’s outer wall, letting in the lake outside.

  “Dive!” Kirk ordered. “Dive!”

  The hull breach, added to the damage to the doorway, fatally compromised the pressurized air bubble holding the water out. Churning white water flooded the launch bay, sweeping them off their feet and back into the corridor outside, while submerging the pod completely. The submersible vessel descended to the underwater exit, which dilated open to let them pass into the murky depths beyond.

  “Departure complete,” the pod announced.

  The pod shot out of the citadel at an accelerated rate, throwing Kirk back into a padded backrest intended for less-humanoid passengers. He shot a concerned look at Spock.

  “Please tell me you can fly this thing.”

  Spock experimented with the flight controls. “Forgive me, Captain. This will require a modicum of trial and error.”

  “More trial, less error,” Kirk replied. “If that’s all right with you.”

  The pod yawed, rolled, and pitched beneath the water while executing abrupt turns and loops in three dimensions. Startled by the pod’s erratic course, a multi-armed monstrosity jetted away from the vehicle in panic. Kirk wondered if it was the same one he had repelled with his phaser earlier. The alien cephalopod was definitely having a bad day.

  A sudden dive sent Kirk tumbling forward toward the front of the cockpit, and he grabbed onto an auxiliary console to keep from slamming his head into the windshield. As the pod descended at a precipitously steep angle, Kirk worried that they were about to slam into the bottom of the lake, a concern shared by the pod’s onboard computer system, which blurted in alarm:

  “Proximity alert! Collision imminent!”

  Through the murky water, Kirk spied the rocky floor of the lake dead ahead. It seemed to be rushing up at them like the cratered surface of a killer asteroid.

  “Pull up, Spock! Pull up!”

  “Correcting course,” Spock said calmly. “Brace yourself.”

  At the last minute, just as they were about to crash into the lake bottom, the pod tilted upward and climbed steeply toward the surface. Bursting from the rippling, scum-coated water, the pod took off into the bright blue sky and kept on climbing
. The speed of its ascent blew any clinging algae from the pod’s hull.

  “I believe I am getting a feel for the controls, Captain.”

  Kirk was glad to hear it. “Just be thankful Doctor McCoy wasn’t here for that takeoff. You’d never hear the end of it.”

  “That is undoubtedly correct.”

  The pod leveled off high above the sunlit rain forest, leaving the citadel behind. Once again, Kirk regretted ceding the alien fortress to the Klingons, but took comfort in the fact that he still had the Key—and that the Klingons didn’t. How much they might learn from studying the Jatohr’s equipment remained a concern, but that was a problem for another day. Right now he and Spock just needed to get off Usilde and back to the Enterprise.

  If only he knew how his ship was faring.

  Cruising above the jungle canopy, the pod headed south toward the Shimizu, whose location the Enterprise had detected earlier from orbit. Peering down at the endless verdant growth below, Kirk saw little in the way of landmarks.

  “You sure we’re heading in the right direction?”

  Spock looked at him askance. “Captain, your continued lack of faith in my abilities is becoming most disconcerting. I assure you that we are approaching the proper coordinates.”

  “My apologies for doubting you, Mister Spock. I’m simply anxious to get the Key—and ourselves—back to the Enterprise as quickly and easily as possible.”

  “I share your concern, Captain, as well as your desire to return to the ship without further incident.” He piloted the pod with ever-increasing skill and dexterity. “We should be coming up on the Shimizu momentarily.”

  True to his word, Spock soon brought them into view of an abandoned farming operation in a river valley that, even from a high altitude, appeared positively overrun by the invasive gray fungi and algae. Captain Una had not been exaggerating when she’d lamented the environmental contamination left behind by the Jatohr. He reminded himself to inform Starfleet if he got the chance.

  Although that may be the Klingons’ problem now, if they choose to stick around.