Fiction: Star Trek: Darkness Visible, Part 10

Previously on A Mind Occasionally Voyaging…

 

It had, in fact, been years since Jim Kirk had taken hands-on approach to computer hacking. He struggled to lock out command protocols, but he couldn’t do it indefinitely. To his left, Ortegas swayed as she tried to line Galileo up with Enterprise’s hangar bay doors. They parted with painful slowness. “They’re kicking me out,” Kirk said. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep their phasers down.”

“Just a second,” Ortegas said. There was no procedure for what they were trying, and she’d had to disable all the computer-assisted navigation, which would only force them out of such a suicidal maneuver. She could only see out of one eye, her heart felt like it was going to tear itself out of her chest, and the pain in her head made her hands shake. She visualized the shape of the shuttlecraft, imagining it between the hangar bay doors, saw the path from their current position to the Enterprise. Too soon, and the shuttle would tear itself in half on the doors. One more second. “Now.” She tapped the thruster controls. Galileo jumped forward.

She was just a fraction too low. The shuttle’s nacelles sheared off against the leading edge of the runway, but the body of the shuttle skidded narrowly between the doors. The bay’s automatic landing controls tried and failed to control what had become an unguided missile that tore up the deck plates. The tractor beam failed, then the safety force field. Explosive bolts deployed a dense nanofiber webbing across the middle of the bay, the last defense before the heavy tritanium bulkhead that would smash a crashing shuttle to pieces to protect the Enterprise’s interior. The webbing pulled taught, stretched to its limit, but held. The remains of the shuttle listed to one side as it slid to a halt just feet shy of the bulkhead.

“Galileo is aboard,” Sulu reported.

“Finally,” Pike sighed.

“Reliant locking phasers,” La’an shouted.

“Engineering, main power now!” Pike demanded. “Sulu, hit it!”

A phaser beam lashed out from Reliant, but met only empty space as the Enterprise jumped to warp.

The battered ship dropped out of warp only a few seconds later, but it was long enough to take them out of Reliant’s compromised sensor range. Pike left La’an in command and jogged to the hangar bay.

By the time he got there, it had repressurized. McCoy and M’Benga were carrying Ortegas from the crashed shuttle. “Erica?” Pike asked, surprised.

One eye flicked open, briefly. “Give the word, Admiral,” she rasped.

He put his hand on her shoulder. “The word is given. Warp speed.”

She blacked out. M’Benga gave Pike a hopeless look. Pike turned to Kirk, still getting his footing against the shuttle. “Erica was on Reliant,” Pike said. “Khan?”

Kirk nodded. “He attacked Regula I. Killed almost everyone. Chris… he got Genesis. It’s all my fault.”

Pike waved off the apology. “What about David?” he asked.

“He’s here,” Kirk said. “We had to leave Carol and the others behind.”

“And the rest of Reliant’s crew?”

“Captain Terrell is dead,” Kirk said. “Khan used some kind of parasite on them. We got the one in Commander Ortegas, but I’m not sure how bad the damage is. The rest of the crew was marooned on Ceti Alpha V. It doesn’t sound like they’ll last long, the planet is uninhabitable.”

“I don’t understand. Ceti Alpha V was class M.”

“Not anymore,” Kirk said. “Khan thinks you set him up.”

Pike looked away. “I should have gone back. Should have checked on him.”

“Don’t think that would’ve helped,” McCoy interjected. “From the sound of it I don’t think this Khan fellow was, uh,” he tapped his temple, “Firing on all thrusters.”

The intercom beeped. “Admiral Pike, this is sickbay,” came Doctor Chapel’s voice. “You need to get down here. It’s the captain. If Jim Kirk is with you, he should come too. Admiral, you’d better hurry.”

“Sam?” Kirk asked. Pike’s expression was all the answer he needed.

---

“There’s just too much organ damage,” Chapel said. “I don’t have a working medical stasis chamber, and even if I did… I think the best we can do is delay the inevitable. I’m sorry.”

“It should’ve been me,” Pike said, wryly. “He pushed me out of harm’s way. He never even wanted his own command.”

Jim knelt down beside the biobed. “Sam,” he said. He squeezed his brother’s hand.

Sam coughed. “Jim?” His eyes flickered. “Did you…. David?”

“Yes,” Jim said. “He’s safe.”

Sam managed a nod. “That’s good. Worth it then. Hold on to him.” He coughed again. The biobed indicators fell. “Jim… You know, they don’t give us the Kobyashi Maru test in the science track. I never took it until now. Maybe not as extravagant as your solution, but what do you think?”

“Sam…”

“Grieve later,” Sam rasped. “You’ve got a ship to save.” His focus drifted past Jim, settling into the distance. A sharp intake of breath, and he said simply, “Oh my.” The biobed droned its alarm as his life signs faded.

A sudden surge of violent anger overtook Jim as he closed his eyes, trembling. The unfairness of it. It burst out of him in a sudden, violent, primal scream, “Khan!”