Chain of Attack (15 page)

"But why would we
want
to trick you?" Kirk asked for what seemed the hundredth time.

"If I knew that, then I would know everything," Hrozak said. "As it is, I can only assume the worst, that you have allied yourself with our enemies—or that you
are
our enemies, despite the appearance and apparent abilities of your ship."

Kirk sighed faintly, unable to think of any argument not already made, any demonstration that he himself would, in Hrozak's place, consider proof positive. "If you would like—" he began, but Spock's voice cut him off.

"Antimatter overload becoming more unstable,

Captain."

"How much time—"

"Unknown, Captain, but the overload is growing at a much slower rate than before. The rate, however, is itself uneven."

"Commander Kirk," Hrozak's sharply spoken words were translated, "I have not resumed the sequence!"

"I suspect he has not, Captain," Spock said. "Nonetheless, the overload is once again growing." He paused momentarily, his eyes taking in a new reading even as it appeared. "The rate of increase appears to have stabilized. Barring further changes, terminal overload will occur in twelve-point-eight minutes. At the previous rate, it would occur in less than twelve seconds."

"A malfunction, Mr. Spock?"

"It would seem so."

"Commander Hrozak, I would suggest—"

"It is already being done, Commander Kirk."

"If you can't bring it under control," Kirk offered, "we can take you aboard the
Enterprise
before any explosion."

For nearly a minute, only silence came from the Hoshan ship.

"Overload stabilizing once again, Captain," Spock announced. And then, a moment later: "Now decreasing. They appear to have reversed the sequence."

"We have," Hrozak said. And then, after a pause: "We would seem to be in your debt, even though we still cannot allow ourselves to fully trust you or your Destroyer friend."

"We don't ask that you trust us blindly," Kirk said.

"We don't ask for the location of your home world. We only ask that you agree to take aboard the three Hoshan from the
Tromak
. And accept the translators that allow you to communicate, not only with us but with the Zeator. Speak with your leaders, tell them what we have told you, tell them what you have seen. Tell them that there is at least a small chance that the war that you have been carrying on for nearly two hundred years could be ended with no more bloodshed on either side."

"And the Destroyer? The Zeator, as you call him?"

"We will try to get his people to do the same. And whether or not we are successful, we will do whatever we can to get you and the Zeator to talking directly with each other."

Again there was only silence from the Hoshan ship. Spock continued to study his readouts, on the alert for any sudden change, while Kirk waited, as silently as the Hoshan commander. When Sulu turned from the helmsman's station as if to speak, Kirk held up a quieting hand.

Finally, after more than a minute, the Hoshan commander spoke. "The one thing we have not seen is your own firepower," Hrozak said. "If you are willing, expel one of the probes you say you carry. Allow us to take it within our own shields and inspect it with our own sensors. Then, if you are able, you can demonstrate your firepower by destroying the probe through our shields."

Kirk smiled faintly. "There might be some danger to you. How large a volume can your shields enclose?"

"Not so great as yours, but great enough. We are willing to take the risk."

Kirk turned to Scott, who had been on the bridge throughout the talks with the Hoshan. "How about it, Scotty? Can the phasers be set fine enough to take out a probe without damaging the Hoshan ship?"

"Without touching the ship, aye. However, I canna do anything about the secondary radiation from the phaser impact."

"You heard, Commander Hrozak?" Kirk asked.

"I heard. Our ships are built to withstand such radiation without our shields. We are still willing to take the risk to make sure that you are not all shell and no teeth."

"Yes," Kirk said, smiling faintly, "that very thought had crossed my own mind. Very well. Mr. Spock, transport a probe to the vicinity of the Hoshan ship."

"As you wish, Captain," Spock said, turning to the auxiliary control panel. "Probe launched," he said seconds later. "It is now five hundred meters from the Hoshan ship."

"We might as well make this as impressive as possible. Mr. Scott, can we perform this operation from a greater distance? Say from just beyond the effective range of the Hoshan lasers?"

"Their effective range now is zero, Captain."

"I know that, Scotty. Their original effective range."

"Aye, Captain, we can."

"Very well. Mr. Sulu, take us back, impulse power. Commander Hrozak, you heard what was said. Are you still willing to take the risk?"

"I am. And our sensors show nothing in the probe that you had not said was there. You may proceed whenever you wish."

"Beyond laser range, Captain," Sulu said a minute later.

"Excellent. Lock phasers onto the probe, Mr. Sulu, very carefully. How far is the probe from the Hoshan ship, Mr. Spock?"

"Fifteen hundred meters, Captain. A shield with that range would be consistent with the Hoshan technology."

"Ready, Commander Hrozak?"

"Ready, Commander Kirk."

"Very well. Phasers locked on, Mr. Sulu?"

"Phasers locked on, sir."

"Minimum-duration burst, Mr. Sulu. Fire."

Instantaneously, a single blue-white beam seared a path from the
Enterprise
to the probe, lancing through the Hoshan screens with virtually no lessening of intensity. Almost as quickly, the beam winked out, the only evidence of its brief existence a sparking, bubbling wound across half the face of the probe.

"Radiation levels, Mr. Spock?"

"One-eight-seven at the surface of the Hoshan ship, Captain, but less than one percent of that within the crew compartment. Well within safety limits."

"Commander Hrozak?"

Once again there was silence from the Hoshan ship, but this time for only fifteen seconds. "Very well, Commander Kirk," Hrozak's translated voice said, "you obviously have teeth as well as a shell. And no matter how hard I try, I can no longer see any persuasive reason for someone with your obvious capabilities to have to resort to the kind of trickery we have been discussing, or any other kind. Therefore, I will do as you ask. I will take your translators and your message and my records of what I have seen to my superiors. I will do what I can, but I can promise nothing."

"Thank you, Commander, that's all we ask. We will transport the crew of the
Tromak
and the translators whenever you're ready."

Cutting off the channel to the Hoshan ship, Kirk glanced around the bridge with a grim smile. "One down, gentlemen," he said, "one to go."

 

IN MANY WAYS, the meeting—confrontation—with the Zeator was a replay of that with the Hoshan. Scotty, forced to watch not just one ship but four smother the
Enterprise
in wave after wave of unreturned fire, at first looked as pained as before, but finally, like Sulu's, his features took on a grimly prideful look.

The commander of one of the guard ships, however, despite all the logic Kirk could muster and all the pleas that Atragon could manage, refused to halt his ship's overload sequence. Its antimatter fuel vaporized the entire ship and disabled the nearby ship that Atragon had been on. Luckily it left the two more distant ships untouched. Also luckily for the crew of the disabled ship, Spock, having analyzed the signals needed to trigger the suicide implants, was able to override them long enough to allow McPhee, once again in the transporter room, to lock onto the survivors and pull them from the disabled ship before its automatic circuits took over and completed the overload sequence its commander had attempted to halt moments earlier, before the disabling of his ship had taken that option from him.

As a necessary precaution, the Zeator brought aboard the
Enterprise
were stunned by phaser fire as they materialized, but they were kept unconscious only long enough to take them to the medical section to confirm what Atragon had said about the implanted devices and to disable the auxiliary triggering mechanisms in their rings. Atragon, his words relayed directly to the bridge and from there via subspace radio to the two remaining Zeator ships, talked almost continually from the moment of the ship's explosion, explaining what was being done, and why, including an account of the Hoshan who had succeeded in detonating the Hoshan version of the implant, vaporizing himself and seriously injuring one of the humans.

The Zeator on the ships said little, only listened, waiting tensely for the five who had supposedly been snatched from their exploded sister ship to be allowed to regain consciousness. Like the Hoshan commander, neither reversed the overload sequence in his ship but held it steady at barely eight seconds to terminal overload. Kirk also remained largely silent, letting Atragon do the talking.

When the five from the destroyed ship were allowed to awaken, Atragon was standing in front of the cushioned examination tables they still lay on, unrestrained. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy stood behind Atragon, flanked by the same security team that had stunned the arriving Zeator in the transporter room. Here, the team's phasers, though immediately available, were not drawn.

Automatically, the fingers of each awakening Zeator darted to the trigger mechanism in his ring. None, however, actually attempted to activate it, although their fingers invariably remained close to the rings, as if ready to make the attempt at a moment's notice, despite Atragon's assurance that the mechanisms had been at least temporarily disabled and his repeated explanation of the reasons.

For the most part, they listened to Atragon's tale with an outward calmness, even passiveness, but when he suggested that the Hoshan, the so-called World Killers, might not be the ones responsible for the Slaughtered Worlds, that they might even be innocent victims of Zeator paranoia, they rebelled.

"Who are these creatures that you believe the fantasies they spin?" the one who appeared to be the commander asked, casting what was probably a malevolent look at the humans.

"Fantasy?" Atragon demanded. "Was your inability to touch this ship with your weapons a fantasy? Are these devices that let us speak with them a fantasy? Is it a fantasy that you are alive, here, when you should by all rights have been vaporized with your ship?"

"I grant that they have a technology superior to ours," the Zeator said. "That does not necessarily make them truthful! Who are they? Where are they from? Why are they here?"

"If it will help," Kirk interceded, "we will show you what we have already shown Atragon."

All six were then taken to the bridge, where, when the five new arrivals became unfrozen enough to assimilate new information, they were shown roughly the same sequence Atragon had been shown earlier, a brief summary of the
Enterprise
's arrival and its subsequent encounters with the Hoshan and the Zeator. Atragon, seeing the images for a second time, explained as best he could to the other Zeator what they were seeing.

As with the Hoshan, however, it was the demonstration with the probe, with the
Enterprise
's phasers piercing the Hoshan defensive screens in a split second, that seemed to impress them the most. In any event, it was then that the five halted their angry questioning of Atragon on virtually everything he said and even began suggesting to the commanders of the remaining two Zeator ships that they had nothing to lose by accepting the translators and at least speaking to other Zeator of what they had seen and heard.

Finally, reluctantly, the overload sequences were reversed on both ships. A half-hour later the six Zeator on the
Enterprise
were transported, three to each Zeator ship, along with a plentiful supply of translators.

Dr. Jason Crandall, who had been allowed to listen but not to participate in the meetings with the Hoshan and the Zeator, found himself wishing with ever-increasing intensity that the
Enterprise
possessed the same type of self-destruct mechanisms that the alien ships did. Such a device, if it existed, would be a ready solution, probably the only solution, to his problems. Even in his present state of desperation, he doubted that he could bring himself to commit suicide, individually and alone, even if he could find a quick and painless method. For one thing, suicide would mean that he had surrendered, and it would give Kirk an easy and unqualified victory over him. But if there were a lever somewhere, the kind of lever that apparently existed on the alien ships, a lever that would destroy not only himself but the
Enterprise
and everyone on board—pulling such a lever would not be surrender. It would, in fact, be a victory, the only victory that Crandall could, now, ever know.

In the first hours following his ill-conceived and abortive attempt to overthrow Kirk and his emotionless first officer, Crandall had felt a brief surge of relief, even gratitude, at the seeming leniency of Kirk's treatment. Such feelings, however, had quickly soured as he began to realize that he had little reason for relief, even less for gratitude. Perhaps not everyone on the
Enterprise
knew the precise details of what had happened on the bridge, but they knew enough. The expressions on the faces of every crew member he passed in the corridors or on the recreation decks, even in the turbolifts, told him that much and more. They knew. They knew, and now they saw him not only as an outsider who could never be allowed to enter their exclusive club but as an enemy as well.

Worse, they now saw him as a fool.

Behind their fleeting, superficial smiles now lurked derisive laughter. This ludicrous outsider, they thought whenever they saw him, had deluded himself so thoroughly that he actually thought he could become one of us. In his ignorance, he thought that he
understood
us, thought even that he could come between us.

Even Ensign Davis, the young woman he had once thought of as an ally, had turned against him, unwilling even to listen to the reasons for his action. Once he had seen her walking alone down one of the ship's endless corridors. For a moment, their eyes had met, and he had thought that, in her, there was at least one person on board who had some understanding of what he had done. But he had been wrong. The instant he turned toward her and opened his mouth to speak, her face reddened angrily, and, deliberately averting her eyes, she turned and virtually ran to the nearest turbolift, as if his very presence were poisoning the air.

Life under such conditions, Crandall had quickly realized, was intolerable, and every day he became more certain that conditions would never improve. For a time he had thought there was at least a chance that some day he might be put down on the Hoshan home world. The Hoshan might not be totally human, but they would almost certainly be less alien to him than the crew of the
Enterprise
.

And if only the
Enterprise
had entered the battle on the side of the Hoshan, making heroes of everyone on board, himself included, who knows how far he could have gone?

But now, with Kirk so enamored of his role as godlike bringer of peace, even that door was closed. Hoshan and Zeator might soon be talking to each other for the first time in their histories, but neither would ever fully trust the
Enterprise
or anyone on it. The Hoshan and Zeator worlds were both now out of Crandall's reach, probably forever, and the possibility of finding other civilizations in this no-man's land of devastation was virtually nonexistent. That had become ever more apparent with each new stellar system the
Enterprise
scanned.

Worst of all, however, was the soul-shriveling knowledge that, because of his own stupidity and miscalculations, earth and the Federation were now as lost to him as everything else. Even if the so-called gate reappeared tomorrow and deposited the
Enterprise
in a standard orbit around Starbase One, it would do Crandall no good. No matter how lenient Kirk played at being here on the
Enterprise
, Dr. Jason Crandall was, in Kirk's eyes, a criminal and a traitor, and there was absolutely no doubt in Crandall's mind that, if they ever did get back to Federation territory, he would instantly be brought up on charges. Kirk could afford to do nothing else, not there.

Here, far from the reach of the Council, Kirk was all-powerful, and he could afford to play whatever catand-mouse games he wanted with Crandall. In Federation territory, where he was only a starship captain, he would have no choice but to bring charges. Not that Kirk would want to keep Crandall's blunders a secret, of course. Doubtless he would take great pleasure in telling and retelling the story of the pitifully deluded outsider who had tried to instigate a mutiny.

Kirk's only reason for keeping it to himself would be if he thought that by so doing he could gain leverage over Crandall and his influential friends. He might think that a little blackmail would get him some extra gold braid or a plum post with Starfleet Command. Crandall had no doubt that Kirk would be more than willing to try it—if he thought he could get away with it. But blackmail with the entire crew of the
Enterprise
knowing the secret was obviously impossible. No matter how great their camaraderie, more than four hundred people, even the crew of a starship, were incapable of keeping a secret like this one.

No, even if by some miracle the
Enterprise
suddenly reappeared in Federation territory this very day, Crandall could see no acceptable future for himself, no future that he would choose to live through.

Lying back on the bed in his stateroom, from which he now rarely stirred, Dr. Jason Crandall continued to dream of levers and destruction.

"Captain Kirk! Ta' the bridge!" Lieutenant Commander Scott's voice crackled over the recreation deck intercom.

Kirk, sweating profusely from the calisthenics McCoy had insisted he start up again, dropped the medicine ball that Lieutenant Woida had almost floored him with and slapped the nearest intercom.

"Kirk here," he said between breaths. "What is it, Scotty?"

"Subspace contact, Captain, wi' both the Hoshan
and
the Zeator!"

"Where are they?"

"Both beyond our sensor range, Captain, and widely separated from each other. Both wish to speak wi' the commander of the
Enterprise
."

"On my way!"

Pausing only long enough to grab his uniform tunic, Kirk raced down the corridor to the elevator, slipping on the tunic as he ran. Less than a minute later, still breathing heavily, he emerged on the bridge.

"What—" he began, but the words froze as his eyes fell on the forward viewscreen, split to show two separate images, one in each half. On the left was a Hoshan, short and stocky in the same type of utilitarian, multipocketed outfit the others had worn, except that this one seemed somehow crisper, the pockets more numerous but more for display than for utility. Perhaps they were, Kirk thought briefly, a badge of rank for the Hoshan. He could remember no identifying markings on any of the Hoshan who had been on board the
Enterprise
.

On the right of the screen was a Zeator, tall and regal, his uniform a pale blue-green with white and yellow diamond-shaped markings on the breast, where the others had displayed similarly colored circles. A silvery streak ran down the center of his featherlike hair.

The two images had only two things in common. First, both Hoshan and Zeator held universal translators, and second, behind each of the aliens was a featureless bulkhead, revealing nothing of the interior of the ships.

"Their ships have always had a visual capability, Captain," Spock said, even as Kirk darted a questioning glance at him, "but neither the Hoshan nor the Zeator have used it before except in the compressed subspace bursts."

"You are the Commander James Kirk we have been told of?" the Zeator said.

Suppressing a grimace, Kirk ran his fingers through his perspiration-damp hair and stepped forward. "I am Captain James Kirk, commanding the U.S.S.
Enterprise
, yes," he said as he slid into the command chair that Scott had vacated only moments be fore.

"I am Endrakon," the Zeator said, "in command of all ships patrolling the Slaughtered Worlds."