But more pressing issues demanded his attention now. Arriving at the proper junction, he was confronted with what might have been a bewildering array of pipes, joints, and cables to anyone less versed in the intricacies of starship design or less capable of absorbing and processing complicated diagrams at a glance. He took only a moment to verify that he had the correct outlet pipe before wrestling the tank into position and commencing to hook the tank into the system. This required care, lest he accidentally gas himself in the process or contaminate the air on other decks of the ship. He held his breath as he opened the valve on the tank. A faint hiss lasted only long enough for him to tighten the seal. He let go of the tank after making sure it was secure and lifted a communicator to his lips.
“Spock to bridge. The procedure is under way. Stand by to respond accordingly.”
“Copy that,” Pike responded. “Our people have acquired respirator masks and are ready to move in.”
“The gas should take effect in approximately two point four minutes,” Spock stated, “allowing for a reasonable margin of error.”
Calculating the correct dosage of gas, in parts per milliliter, had involved factoring in a number of variables, including the comparative metabolisms of humans and Klingons, the atmospheric pressure and air volume on deck nineteen, and the estimated rate of dispersion of the aerosolized sedative, but Spock was reasonably confident in his result. Just for a moment, he wondered if perhaps he should have double-checked his figures one last time before releasing the gas, but he quickly dismissed such doubts as illogical and unworthy of him.
He was Vulcan.
Twenty-one
“You heard me!” Guras tickled the human’s throat with the edge of his dagger. “Unlock the control panel!”
He watched her hands carefully and wished he was better acquainted with the workings of Starfleet engine rooms. Would he even spot any sleight of hand if she attempted it?
“No tricks,” he warned. “Or both you and your underling will pay the price.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” she shot back. “It’s just a little hard to concentrate with a knife to my throat, you know?”
Guras doubted that. From what he’d seen so far, she coped well under pressure.
“Try harder.”
Dograk coughed hoarsely nearby. “My apologies, Lieutenant. The smoke, I think . . .”
What smoke? Guras thought. The fumes from the explosion had long since dissipated, yet he too felt something irritating his throat and lungs. For a moment, his blood went cold as he feared that he had indeed contracted some debilitating sickness from the humans, then his eyes spied the swirling white fumes entering the chamber through the air vents. The fumes spread quickly, contaminating the atmosphere and filling up the engine room and corridor outside.
“Gas!” he realized. “They’re trying to gas us!”
“Sneaky,” Barry said. “Wonder who thought of that.”
“Tell them to cut it off!” he snarled. “Or I’ll slash your throat!” He turned to shout at Dograk, who was already reeling from the fumes. Guras felt his own wits dulling. His tongue felt thick and cumbersome in his mouth. “Kill the boy . . . to show them that Klingons do not . . . make empty threats!”
“With . . . pleasure . . .” the soldier said, slurring his words. He staggered unsteadily through the thickening vapors, which resembled a heavy fog on Argelius II. He gripped the haft of his own dagger. “Been . . . wanting . . . to kill . . .”
He got only a few steps before stumbling sideways into one of the standby power units. He threw out an arm to steady himself. He gasped for breath, sucking in even more of the insidious gas, while getting no closer to the downed male human. Guras saw his mission falling apart.
“Finish it!” Guras ordered, gasping as well. “You are Klingon. Act like it . . .”
His head swam and the deck seemed to tilt beneath him as though rocked by an ion storm. His knife felt heavy in his hand, weighing down his arm so that it drooped beneath Barry’s throat. Ordinarily, he would not have been so sloppy, but the gases dulled his reflexes, giving her time to grab his knife arm with both hands, yanking it farther away from her neck while simultaneously bending forward and flipping him over her shoulder onto the control panel. Losing contact with the deck, his heels collided with the displays above the controls as Barry ducked out from beneath him and sprang away, out of reach. Guras slid headfirst off the console onto the deck, but kept hold of his dagger. He clambered haltingly to his feet, all too aware that the gas was his true enemy now.
But he would settle for the human engineer.
“No more games,” he said, coughing. “Only vengeance!”
“Uh-uh,” Barry said. “I’m going to take a rain check on that one.”
She sought out her rod, which still rested where she’d dropped it before. Cupping a hand over her nose and mouth, she kicked the rod so that it rolled directly into the path of Dograk, who tripped over it and crashed to the floor, not far from the insensate form of Kaln. Labored breaths suggested that he too was out cold. Barry half-ran, half-stumbled to Dograk’s side and snatched the fallen soldier’s disruptor from his holster. Crouching beside the man’s prone body, unable to stand, she took aim at Guras as he lurched toward her clumsily. His neatly trimmed black hair was mussed, his ridged brow scratched and scraped from the tussle. His head lolled atop his neck, even as he forced himself to stay on his feet through sheer force of will. He was Klingon; he would not be brought down by an insubstantial mist!
Just a few more steps, he thought. Keep marching. Do your duty.
“That’s far enough,” she warned him. She swayed back and forth upon her knees, visibly succumbing to the gas. She needed both arms to hold the disruptor steady, more or less. “I think I’ve got this blaster set on stun, but I wouldn’t swear to it . . .”
Guras refused to let victory slip from his grasp. He stomped through the swirling fog toward the infuriating engineer. All he needed was one valuable hostage to trade for the general’s daughter. There was still a chance to avoid the sour taste of defeat.
“You wouldn’t dare,” he challenged her. “Not here . . . not by the warp core . . .”
She managed a defiant smirk.
“This is my engine room, remember? I know just where to shoot.”
The blast knocked him out before the gas did.
* * *
“We have your soldiers, Krunn. I assume you want them back?”
Pike addressed the general via the viewscreen on the bridge. Less than an hour had passed since their improvised gas tactic had incapacitated the Klingon invaders with no loss of life to the Enterprise and its crew. The recovering Klingons were now confined to the brig, minus the soldier whose remains were currently being cleaned out of one of Climber One’s nacelles by technicians with—hopefully—strong stomachs. Pike didn’t envy them that task, which he thought it best not to dwell on, and wanted the surviving Klingons off his ship as soon as possible. He needed to resolve this crisis, not escalate it by taking on a load of prisoners-of-war.
“And my daughter?” Krunn grumbled. Unsurprisingly, the failure of his boarding party had not improved the general’s mood any. An angry vein throbbed along his hairless pate. He absently rubbed the ancient bite mark on his hand. “What of Merata?”
“That’s another matter,” Pike stated, “but I strongly advise you not to attempt to take her by force again.” He chose his words carefully, trying to walk the fine line between taking a firm stand and provoking Krunn into launching another assault. Said diplomacy was not made any easier by the fact that he felt like a shuttle had landed on his chest. Speaking was almost as exhausting as breathing. “Next time we may be less inclined to . . . overlook . . . such incidents in the interest of peace.”
His thoughts turned to the unexpected drama in sickbay during the invasion. According to Spock, Merata had passed up an opportunity to escape and join forces with the other Klingons in order to stay by her injured sister, who was no
w in critical condition. Pike debated mentioning this to Krunn, but decided against it; who knew how Krunn would react to the news that Merata had chosen Soleste over a chance to return to her father?
Better not to take that chance, Pike thought. Krunn looks unhappy enough.
But from where Pike was sitting, Merata’s unexpected actions only complicated the already murky question of where she truly belonged. Was it possible that Merata was no longer quite so adamant about being a Klingon, now that she had been reunited with her Cyprian family? Was she confused or changing her mind about where she wanted to be? If anything, the dilemma posed by the twice-stolen young woman seemed even less cut-and-dried than before.
Pike decided he needed to get Spock’s latest thoughts on the subject, if and when the opportunity arose. In theory, Spock was attending to the Mursh family at present, while Pike dealt with Merata’s more belligerent “family.” Pike suspected that he had drawn the short straw here. At least the Murshes were not equipped with disruptor cannons and photo torpedoes.
“Make no mistake, Pike,” the general said. “We will reclaim Merata, one way or another. It is a certainty.”
Pike took that as a barely subtle reminder that Klingon reinforcements were converging on the system and were now only hours away. He wondered briefly why Krunn had not simply waited for the other battle cruisers to arrive instead of attempting to liberate Merata on his own by means of the boarding party. Probably a matter of Klingon pride, Pike guessed. No doubt Krunn would have preferred to reclaim his daughter without any other Klingon’s help.
Tough, Pike thought. “About your men . . . ?”
Krunn grudgingly got back to the topic at hand, with all the enthusiasm of a junior lieutenant assigned to a graveyard shift in the ship’s bowels. “What do you propose, human?”
“I am prepared to beam the soldiers back to your ship on the condition that you give me your word of honor that you will not launch another attack on the Enterprise the minute we lower our shields.”
He did his best impression of a marble statue, solid all the way through. He breathed shallowly through his teeth to keep from coughing or wheezing.
“Are you well, Pike?” Krunn leaned forward, as though sensing advantage. “We have been monitoring the news transmissions on Cypria III. It is said that there is sickness aboard your ship, human. That you are all dying of fever.”
Pike silently cursed the Cyprians’ loose tongues.
“Reports of our imminent demise have been greatly exaggerated,” Pike lied. “Cyprian media coverage is highly sensationalized. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for such shameless yellow journalism?”
A cough clawed at the back of his throat, demanding release. Pike struggled to talk past it.
“The only exaggerated claims I know of were yours, concerning that fractured warp core,” Krunn said, calling Pike on his earlier deception. “So you expect me to believe that you are not gravely ill?” Skeptical eyes regarded Pike across the void. “You look worse than I remember.”
“I’m getting pretty tired of your looks too,” Pike shot back. “And I’m choking only on your stubbornness. Do you want your men back or not?”
Krunn leaned back in his seat, considering.
“Very well,” he agreed finally. “My soldiers deserve better than to be confined to a stinking plague ship. You have my word as a Klingon that I will not open fire as you beam the rescue party back to the Fek’lhr. Is that good enough for you?”
“Works for me,” Pike said. “I have no reason to doubt your word . . . or your honor.”
Not that he planned on trusting Krunn too far. The battle cruiser would have to lower its own shields to receive the prisoners and Pike intended the Enterprise to be fully armed and ready to retaliate if the Klingons tried to pull a fast one.
“Consider this a gesture of good faith,” he said.
“Fah.” Krunn dismissed the overture with an impatient wave of his hand. “Do not think to buy any goodwill here, Pike. You still have my daughter and, on my honor, there will be a reckoning.”
That cough was getting most insistent with every breath. Pike was practically choking on it.
I need to wrap this up, he thought, before Krunn sees just how sick I really am.
“Let’s hope for a resolution rather than a reckoning. For now, however, I’ll have my crew arrange to get your rescue party off my ship. Enterprise out.”
Krunn’s visage had barely vanished from the screen before Pike started coughing violently, causing him to double over in his chair, hacking and gasping as though he was trying to cough up an organ or two. Pike envied the Klingons; he could use an extra lung right about now.
Number One looked back at him from the helm. “With all due respect, Captain, you belong in sickbay. I can manage the bridge.”
“And prove to Krunn that I’m unfit for battle?” Pike shook his head while trying to bring his coughing under control. “Not a chance. We might as well roll over and present our belly to that battle cruiser.”
Colt made a face. “There’s a picture I didn’t want in my head.”
“But, sir,” Number One protested, “I am quite capable of—”
“I know you are, Number One, but that’s not the point.” He sat up straighter as the coughing fit mercifully subsided. “Do me a favor, though, and work out the details of returning those Klingons to the Fek’lhr. Let’s make this happen sooner rather than later.”
“Aye, Captain,” she replied. “I’ll see to it at once.”
He could tell from her tone that she thought he was making a mistake, but he appreciated her not making an issue of it. He imagined that she and Doctor Boyce would gang up on him at some point, when the fever truly had him on the ropes, but right now the prospect of lying sick in bed while his ship was in danger was worse than any physical distress he could conceive of. He’d sooner face another dose of illusionary hellfire and brimstone back on Talos IV.
“Thank you, Number One. I’ve had all the Klingon bluster I can take for now”
At least until those extra battle cruisers arrive, he thought. Somehow I doubt that they’re going to be as “easy” to repel as Krunn’s boarding party.
If the fever didn’t beat him first.
Twenty-two
“Be reasonable, Chris. You belong in sickbay.”
Boyce had come straight to the bridge from sickbay, after performing emergency surgery on Soleste Mursh. Minute traces of Cyprian blood still speckled the doctor’s rumpled blue jumpsuit. Pike regretted calling Boyce away from his numerous other patients, but he needed the doctor’s expert assistance if he was going to be able to stay in command of the bridge.
“Not now, Doctor,” Pike said as firmly as he could in his present condition. Between his killer headache, increasing shortness of breath, and sinking strength, he felt like he was practically ready for a burial in space. “Our Klingon friends are expecting their friends any time now. I need you to keep me going for as long as you can.”
“I’m no miracle worker.” Boyce stood beside the captain’s chair. “Without that ryetalyn, I can only treat your symptoms, not the fever, and I can’t even promise you much in the way of relief there, certainly not in the long term. You’re approaching stage three. There’s only so much I can do for you.”
Boyce spoke quietly, for the captain’s ears only, but Pike was all too aware of the remaining bridge crew as they did their best to pretend that they weren’t listening. He hated showing weakness before his crew, but that cat was out of the bag at this point. Better that the crew knew he was sick than that the Klingons did, especially with two more battle cruisers bearing down on them.
“Do what you can, Doctor. That’s all I ask.”
Boyce produced a hypospray from his portable medkit. “This is a combined stimulant and anti-inflammatory. It may help . . . a little.”
He pressed the hypo against Pike’s neck. A brief hiss accompanied the introduction of the medicine into Pike’s bloodstream. He felt a sli
ght stinging sensation.
“Thank you, Doctor.” Pike waited impatiently for the drug to kick in. So far he wasn’t feeling much of an effect, although maybe the tightness in his chest was loosening—barely. “You can report back to sickbay. I’m sure you have other patients to attend to.”
“Does Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet have beaches?” Boyce lingered in the command circle, eyeing Pike with concern. “But if you need me here . . .”
“Get going, Doctor. Unless you’ve got a working vaccine against Klingon disruptors.”
“Still working on that one, I’m afraid.” Boyce made his way to the turbolift, only to pause at its entrance. He called out to the helm. “Keep an eye on him, Number One. Doctor’s orders.”
“You are preaching to the converted, Doctor,” she replied. “But I’ll do my best.”
Boyce stepped into the turbolift, vanishing from view. Pike rubbed his neck where the hypospray had been applied, as though he could massage the medicine deeper into his system. He inhaled experimentally, testing his lungs. Maybe it was just a placebo effect, but it seemed he was wheezing less. And at least he hadn’t coughed for a moment or two. His head still hurt, though, and it was hard to keep his head and eyelids from drooping. He wanted to lie down, but was afraid he’d never be able to get back up again. He found himself envying the crews of those old-time sleeper ships. He could use a two-hundred-year-long nap.
“Captain!” Weisz said at the science station, his eyes fixed on the gooseneck monitor. “Two additional battle cruisers have entered the system. They’re closing in on us, sir.”
“The Ch’Tang and the BortaS, I presume.” Number One had already familiarized herself with the names of the addition Klingon warships. She glanced down at the ship’s chronometer. “Arriving somewhat ahead of schedule.”