“This will be your chance, Mister Scott.” Spock continued to work the console.
The engineer stared at the back of the Vulcan’s head. “You’re serious about tryin’ this, aren’t you? What am I thinking—of course you’re serious. Vulcans don’t believe in practical jokes.” He shook his head slowly. “Even if I believed ye, that I’m the genius who wrote that code—and I’ve plenty o’ confidence even in a version of meself that hasn’t happened yet—we’re still talking about slingshottin’ onto a ship travelin’ at warp speed that by now is a considerable distance from here. And one without a properly activated receiving pad or engineering team awaitin’ us. It’ll be like tryin’ to intercept a bullet with a smaller bullet. Blindfolded. While ridin’ a horse.” He grunted. “No—it’ll be like tryin’ to hit a grain of sand with a bullet. While they’re both travelin’ at angles to one another. In a tornado. While they’re both—”
Spock interrupted. “Ease off on the similes, Mister Scott, or you will exhaust your arsenal before you depart.” He sat back from the console and contemplated the complex information he had entered. “I calculate no more than a four-meter margin of error provided transport is energized within the next ten minutes—local time.”
“That’s all well and good,” Scott concurred, “unless you rematerialize four meters outside the ship, or in a solid slab of metal. Not that I’m buyin’ this technical twaddle for one minute, you understand.”
Spock considered briefly, then returned to working the console’s inputs. “Agreed. Therefore I determine that the aft engineering bay is the best option. A large open space, no unpredictable airlocks, located well within the ship in an area with which you will be familiar. And most importantly, one with a remote access point that will allow you to override the helm and redirect the ship’s course.” For a second time he sat back, satisfied with the work he had done, and turned to regard the engineer.
“Well, Mister Scott? You said you have confidence in yourself as well as in your future selves. Do you have confidence enough to put your abilities to an actual, practical test?”
The engineer considered. Then he broke out in a wide, wild grin. “At the hearin’ about the dog they said that unless I straightened up I was going to the dogs. Aye, Mister Pointy-ear, let’s do it! What’s the worst that can happen? That I spread meself all over a wide corner of the cosmos? Better to go out in a flash than a footnote.” He looked over at the younger officer. “And you, Lieutenant—Kirk, was it?”
Kirk nodded. “I don’t have any choice, Mister Scott—Scotty.” The engineer didn’t chastise him for employing the nickname. “There’s far more at stake here than you yet realize. And I can’t do anything about it if I’m stuck here on this planet.” He smiled thinly. “No matter how convivial the company or engaging the surroundings.”
Only one of those present protested the chosen course of action. It was clear that the alien did not want his human associate to leave. Excited at the prospect of not only escaping the backwater that was Delta Vega but at the chance to acquire actual proof of a notion with which he had been toying for years, Scott gently reassured his fellow officer that all would be well. Unable to sway his friend, the alien responded understandingly but with obvious regret.
As the Vulcan rose from the console chair, Kirk confronted him uncertainly. His attitude toward his savior was still a confused mix of gratitude, awe, and uncertainty.
“You’re coming with us?”
“No, Jim. May I call you Jim?”
“Sure, I guess.” Coming from this elder incarnation of Spock it sounded…odd. Odd, but nice, Kirk decided.
“My destiny lies along a different path,” the Vulcan told him. “You must make your own without me. The situation in which we find ourselves is unprecedented and fraught with potential danger. My presence as you seek to determine your future would present complications whose consequences cannot be foreseen and which, I feel, are best avoided.”
It was not the response Kirk had been hoping for. “Your destiny can wait. He won’t believe me. Only you can explain wha—”
The Vulcan cut him off. “Under no circumstances can the one to whom we are referring be made aware of my existence. You must promise me this.”
Kirk struggled to keep up with the possible ramifications while simultaneously trying to persuade his rescuer to change his mind.
“You’re telling me I can’t tell you I’m following your own orders? Why not? What happens if I do?”
Spock moved closer. “Trust me, Jim. Above all, this is the one rule you cannot break. To stop Nero, you alone must take command of your ship.”
Kirk’s expression was grim. “Over your dead body?”
“Preferably not,” the elder Spock replied. “There is, however, Starfleet Regulation Six-nineteen.” When Kirk failed to respond, the Vulcan sighed knowingly. “Yes, I forget what little regard you had for such things. Six-nineteen states that any commander who is emotionally compromised by the mission at hand must forthwith resign his command.”
Kirk frowned uncertainly. “So I need to emotionally compromise you?”
“Jim,” the elder Spock told him gravely, “I just lost my planet, my whole world. I am emotionally compromised. What you must do is get me to—show it.”
Kirk considered this. Quietly, carefully, and intently.
“Hmm.”
An equally intent but far more ebullient voice sounded behind him. “Aye, then! Live or die, laddie, let’s get this over with! The Enterprise has decent food service facilities, I’m guessing.” Whistling to himself, the engineer headed for the transporter pad.
Kirk started to follow, then looked behind him. “You know, coming back in time, changing history, informing someone in the past about what’s happened in the future—that might be construed by an impartial onlooker as cheating.”
“A trick I learned from an old friend.” Stepping back, the elder Spock retreated toward the transporter console. Before taking the seat, he raised one hand with the fingers separated into pairs. Kirk took up a stance on the pad beside the whistling engineer.
“Live long, and prosper,” the old Vulcan told the young lieutenant.
Then he sat down and activated the transporter. Both men dematerialized. When, where, and whether they would be reconstituted he did not know for a certainty. He knew that Montgomery Scott’s equations were valid. Spock could only hope that his own computations were applicable.
If they were not, if they were off by more than the four meters he had calculated, then nothing else would matter. Ever.
XV
There was no one present in the open engineering bay to hear the steady, powerful hum of the ship’s engines. Maintenance was busy elsewhere, still battling to repair the last of the serious damage that had been incurred in the fight with the Narada. At the moment no technicians were on hand in the vicinity of central cooling and water distribution, a largely automated corner of the ship that required little attention.
So it was that there was no one present to see the twin vertical columns of lambent particulate matter that swiftly solidified into the shapes of two human beings.
One of those figures stumbled, gasping, to look down at itself in amazement. I am intact, Kirk realized. His brain and attendant mechanical parts had all survived the impracticable, implausible journey in one piece. As he rose and began to slip out of his cold-weather outer clothing, a quick look around revealed that he was indeed in the engineering section of a starship. While no identification was readily at hand, he had little reason to doubt it was the Enterprise. If the elder Spock had managed the transport, surely he had also succeeded in putting them aboard their target vessel. Engineer Scott would confirm it.
Where was Engineer Scott?
Looking around anxiously, Kirk searched among the huge tubes and conduits for his enthusiastic if unlikely subspace traveling companion. He turned only when he heard a faint banging. His eyes went wide as he located the source.
Scott had
rematerialized equally intact and energetic—but inside one of the cooling tanks.
As a stunned Kirk looked on, pressure shoved the wide-eyed engineer upward and into a crosswise conduit. Trapped like a worm in a hose, cheeks bulging, Scott was spun sideways with Kirk in pursuit. Fists pounding desperately on the transparent unbreakable composite, the engineer could see Kirk but not reach out to him.
Racing along below, a frantic Kirk looked ahead in search of an access. Instead of a port or sampling cylinder his eyes fell on the main coolant distribution chamber. If the trapped Scott made it that far, he would not have to worry about drowning: the greatly increased pressure in the chamber would crush him and distribute the pieces to different parts of the ship.
If he didn’t do something quick, the Enterprise’s maintenance engineers were going to find some unpleasant clogs in various corners of the ship’s hydrologic system.
No tools were at hand—not that the tough, durable synthetic of which the coolant tubes were made would yield to hammering driven by mere human muscles anyway. There, just off to one side—a control panel. But did it offer access to the right controls? When only one option presents itself, decision-making becomes easy. He made for it as fast as his feet would carry him.
Beneath his pounding fingers a schematic of the complete cooling system offered itself up for inspection. Which conduit, which direction, which valve…? A sideways glance showed that if he didn’t do something fast it would no longer matter—Scott’s lungs would fill with water before his body even reached the distribution chamber.
Try something, Kirk shouted at himself. His fingers stabbed wildly at the console.
On the bridge a small portion of a usually unimportant display suddenly went from green to red. Chekov frowned at it, fingered a couple of controls, and double-checked before daring to report.
“Keptin, we’re detecting unauthorized access to one of the auxiliary cooling tank control boards.” He checked his console. “Appropriate retrieval code was not entered.”
One eyebrow rose sharply. “Auxiliary cooling?”
Chekov eyed his console again. “Yes, Keptin. Perhaps the technician on site forgot to punch in his identification.”
The acting captain considered. “Perhaps. What is the board’s current status?”
“Still in use, Keptin. And there is something else. The sequences that are being entered: from an engineering standpoint they seem almost—random.”
Spock nodded curtly. “Someone is being derelict in their duty. Or…” He paused, pondering. “Send a security team to check it out. Tell them to take sidearms. Set to stun.”
“Aye, Keptin.” Chekov issued the necessary order.
Kirk forced himself to take a mental step backward. “Okayokay—comeoncomeoncomeon—think. Pretend you’re in the relevant simulator.” His fingers moved again; slower and more assured this time. With purpose instead of panic. “Manual control; enabled. Pressure; calculated. Emergency pressure release; located.”
Fluttering eyes half shut, Scott was shooting down the final conduit leading to the distribution chamber. All that remained was to see if he died from drowning or being torn apart by the distributor pump. Then…
The rush of water ceased as emergency seals fell into place on either side of him and a maintenance access panel in the underside of the conduit abruptly dropped open, unceremoniously dumping onto the deck a couple hundred gallons of water and one severely waterlogged engineer. Kirk rushed to his traveling companion and propped him up as a gasping Scott spasmodically relieved his insides of a liter or so of involuntarily imbibed liquid. Worse, it was water.
“You all right…?”
Taking a deep breath, the engineer wiped at his dripping face, looked up, and recognized his new friend.
“Nice,” he coughed up water, “ship. Really.”
Kirk helped him to his feet. “Better to be remembered as the inventor of the equations that allow for long-range ship-to-ship transporting than as the first man in history to die from drowning aboard a starship.” Still supporting the engineer, he was looking around worriedly. All this commotion in what was normally a tranquil section of the ship was bound to attract attention.
“Come on—let’s get to the bridge!”
His prescience was soon proved correct as a security team arrived barely moments after they had departed. Noting the presence of entirely too much water on the deck, an emergency release latch that showed no sign of having accidentally given way, and wet boot-prints leading deeper into the ship, the team drew their sidearms as they went on immediate alert.
“Captain,” the team leader reported into his communicator, “we appear to have unauthorized access on the engineering level.”
Spock responded quickly to the new information. “Seal engineering. All security personnel on high alert.” He moved quickly toward the helm station. “Mister Sulu, activate security imaging. Check the entire crew, including the wounded and those still in sickbay. Also all refugees—their vitals should have been entered into records by now. Do we have any unregistered life-forms on board?”
Sulu swiftly entered the request. In response to his query the monitor provided a scalable schematic that showed every deck and every corner of the Enterprise. On some decks dozens of green dots glowed, often in small clusters. On other decks only a few green identifiers appeared. On engineering…
Two red dots, moving fast and beeping steadily.
“Affirmative, sir.” A disbelieving Sulu confirmed what was evident on-screen. “Engineering bay—hydrologics. But—but that’s impossible….”
Spock leaned forward. “There is visual confirmation. It could be a system anomaly.”
The two security guards had their weapons trained directly at Kirk and Scott. With nowhere to go, both men slowed. Bemused but professional, the security team came closer. Then one of them grinned unpleasantly at Kirk.
“Come with me—moonbeam.”
Kirk recognized the voice as well as the body. It was the cadet he had bloodied in an Iowa bar in what now seemed like centuries ago…
When they entered the bridge the pair were greeted by stunned expressions. From Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov. Only Spock, and his father, who was also present, regarded the arrivals calmly. Scott wisely kept silent and drew little of the attention. He knew none of them anyway and was unaware that the tension on the bridge was due as much to the awkward relationship that existed between its acting captain and Kirk as to the far greater danger that now threatened them all.
Spock straightaway confronted the one prisoner he knew. Flanked by security personnel, Kirk met the Vulcan’s probing gaze without flinching. The effects of the stun that had been used to subdue him had already worn off.
“Surprise,” Kirk said.
Ignoring him, Spock eyed his companion. “Who are you?”
He’s with me.” Kirk’s smile widened.
“How did you beam yourself aboard this ship while it is traveling at warp speed?”
Battered and exhausted from what had been a very long day indeed, Kirk still managed to grin. “You’re the genius: you figure it out.” He nodded toward a particular bridge station. “Why don’t you ask the ship’s science officer?”
“As captain of this vessel I order you to answer the question.” It was not exactly a shout, but much more than a casual request. “You are a prisoner. There is nowhere for you to go. This question impinges on the very security of Starfleet itself. I assure you that I will utilize whatever authorized methods are at my disposal to convince you to respond to my inquiry.”
“Well, I’m not telling.”
Clearly taken aback, Spock had no rejoinder for that. Relishing the confusion he had engendered, an energized Kirk pushed harder.
“Does that frustrate you? My lack of cooperation? Does that make you angry?”
Turning away from him, Spock studied the stranger who had accompanied him.
“You are not a member of this ship’s crew. Under penalty of court-ma
rtial, I order you to explain how you beamed aboa—”
“Don’t answer him, Scotty.”
Spock was not to be denied. “You will answer me,” he ordered the stranger.
Scott looked from Vulcan to Kirk—and demurred. “I’d rather not take sides, if you dinna mind.”
Frustrated beyond measure, Spock nodded to the security guards. “Escort them to the brig.”
But Kirk wasn’t yet ready to go. In fact, he was just getting warmed up.
“What is it about you, Spock? Your planet was just destroyed. Your whole civilization was wiped out. Your mother murdered—and you’re not even upset?”
Spock stared back at him, hard and unblinking. “Your presumption that these experiences interfere with my abilities to command this ship is inaccurate.”
“Ha! I mean, did you see that bastard’s ship? Did you see what he did?”
“Yes, of course I…”
“So are you angry or aren’t you?”
“I will not—allow you to lecture me about the merits of emotion.”
Kirk moved closer, before the guards could think about intervening. “Then why don’t you stop me?”
Spock’s eyes did not waver from the human confronting him. Off to the side, McCoy was watching the growing confrontation nervously. Sarek merely—watched.
“Step away from me, Mister Kirk.”
“Tell me, Spock.” Kirk didn’t move. “What’s it like not to feel? Anger. Or heartbreak. Or the need to stop at nothing to avenge the death of the woman who gave birth to you?”
A vein had begun to pulse in the Vulcan’s neck. His eyes had widened slightly.
“Back away….”
“You must not feel anything,” Kirk persisted. “I guess it must not compute for you. When it comes down to it, I guess you must not have loved her at all….”
“Stop it, you sonofabitch!” Rising from her communications station, Uhura started toward them. A hand caught her arm and held her back. Looking around in surprise she saw that she was being restrained by, of all people, the ship’s doctor. McCoy wore an indecipherable, almost speculative expression.