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  Then I looked up.

  “They’re competing,” I murmured. “They’re ignoring each other! They’re not working together!”

  “Because they all want to be the one to capture the great you,” Corin groaned, nearly choked by puffs of acrid smoke from his helm trunks.

  “That’s it!” I rushed forward to the helm, pausing between Jana and Corin, barely able to keep myself from trying to do their jobs.

  But if I did theirs, I wouldn’t be doing mine. And now I knew how to do that.

  “Come about to six seven degrees true!”

  “What? That’ll put us right between two of them!”

  “Do it, Corin!”

  “All right, all right, sitting duck coming about—”

  “Jana, plot a course down one third, straight down!”

  She glanced at me. “You mean—”

  “The numbers don’t matter. Just be ready to move. They all want credit and they’ll compete to get it. They were all working together till I told them who I was. Now it’s a free-for-all. So we’ll give them their chance. Go between them, Corin. Make us a target.”

  Corin fidgeted under my left elbow. “Coming between two of the warships … third one is veering in to block our path.”

  “Prepare to fire at all three warships at once.”

  His scorched face pivoted to me. “Are you kidding? That’ll drain—”

  I grabbed his shoulder. “I’m not kidding.”

  “Okay!”

  “Fire!”

  Three lancets of phaser fire broke from our banks and sizzled across the reduced shields of the three enemy ships, but divided by three the phaser energy was depleted—Corin was right about that—and couldn’t bust through the remaining shields.

  Then—and, boy, did I need something to go right—all three enemy ships opened fire from three sides of an imaginary triangle, all aimed at us, in the center.

  “Engage evasive!” I shouted.

  Corin hit his helm, Jana reinforced the gravitational holds on the ships inner structure to keep us from breaking apart, and the starship ducked into a horrible drop-off, as if we’d plunged from the top of a cliff.

  The deck dropped our from under us. A sickening surge made my stomach heave and I fell. Above me on the upper deck, Sturek was thrown hard against his own console, and over there Robin came hurtling over the bridge rail to land beside me in a rolling heap.

  On the main screen, a view of what lay above us, the three Klingons ships were caught in a spiderweb of each other’s disruptor fire”

  “Hah!” Corin came to his feet—how did he even find them?

  “Sturek!” I grasped the command chair and hauled myself up. “Condition of those ships?”

  Sturek pulled himself back to his sensor readouts and played the board with one hand—looked like the other was numb.

  “All three ships scored direct hits,” he reported.

  “Power ratios slipping … two ships completely disabled … engine power down to five percent … third ship is breaking up at the main structural joints. They are effecting abandon ship procedures.” He turned, leaning hard on his board, and looked at me.

  “You did it, David.”

  The quiet avocation in his voice was like a fanfare on our smoky, smoldering bridge.

  “David,” M’Giia interrupted quietly from her post, “they’re sending distress calls. They’re completely disabled.”

  Why wasn’t the program shutting down? Was there something else expected of me? I’d won, hadn’t I?

  “Prepare to retrieve escape pods and beam their survivors aboard. And ready a tractor beam for the Kobayashi Maru. We’ll tow it out of the Neutral Zone.”

  Well, why not? I had to keep going until the program shut down. Maybe the program wanted to see how many we could rescue—

  Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.

  I swung around to the alert klaxon coming from the helm. “What?” I demanded.

  “Another ship!” Corin brushed crumbs of insulation off his board and gawked at what he was seeing.

  Then we saw it on the main screen too—another Klingon ship, but this one with four nacelles, a torpedolike body, and a main bulb as big as a whole Bird-of-Prey.

  My voice tore through my gullet.

  “The Klingon Heavy Cruiser! Damn you, Captain Kirk!”

  Chapter 13

  I stumbled up to the command platform and stared forward. “That’s not supposed to be in this program! Damn it, damn it!”

  Jana twisted around. “What are you talking about?”

  “He did this to me on purpose…! He re-reprogrammed the scenario!”

  “Who? You mean Kirk?”

  “Never mind! Shields double forward! I don’t believe this is happening! Robin, tap the warp power for impulse maneuvering! I want the fastest changes you can give me. Phaser banks—”

  “Their shields are triple power,” Sturek reported. “At current strength, our phasers cannot disrupt them sufficiently to disable that ship.”

  “Will the photon torpedoes get through?”

  “No way to be certain.”

  “Incoming!”

  Corin’s warning shout was swallowed by a hard burst from the Klingon Heavy Cruiser. The whole bridge surged up, then sideways, knocking the wind from us and blasting our bulkheads into fireworks. Half the engineering console blew up in Robin’s face, driving him backward. This was no joke! Had anybody ever been killed in a simulator?

  Robin stumbled into M’Giia, them recovered and slapped out a fire on the middle part of his controls. “Main engineering has taken a direct hit, Captain,” he called over the noise. “Impulse maneuvering power is crippled.”

  “Another shot!” Corin grasped his helm to avoid being thrown out.

  Didn’t help. The heavy cruiser spat fire at us and we lurched. Jana and Corin both struck the deck an instant after I did, and for a horrible second we were tangled in each other’s arms and legs. Then Corin found his center of balance and pulled me to my feet. I couldn’t see Robin at all anymore, there was so much smoke boiling from the port side of the bridge. Ventilators hummed overhead, but they couldn’t keep up.

  “Aren’t you going to shoot?” Jana demanded as she clawed back into her seat.

  “You heard Sturek,” I said. “We can’t cut their shields with what we have left. Besides, why haven’t they destroyed us? I know they could if they wanted to. So what do they really want? And why didn’t those three ships cut us up while they had the chance?”

  “What is this—twenty questions?” Corin complained.

  “Maybe … I don’t think anybody’s ever gotten this far into t6he No-Win scenario, do you?”

  Jana shrugged. “How would we know?”

  “I don’t,” I told her. “But maybe they want something other than to destroy us.”

  “What are you going to do, then? Surrender?”

  Oooh—that word crawled up my arms like a spider.

  “Not a chance,” I vowed. “I wouldn’t give Kirk the satisfaction. He can expel me if he wants to. Full about! Ready photon torped—”

  Shhhhhhh-Crack

  “What’s that?”

  “Tractor beam,” Sturek responded instantly. “High-resolution double-intensity energy cable. They’ve taken us in tow”

  “Should I pull back?” Corin asked.

  “No!”

  He looked at me. “No?”

  “No. Don’t resist. That’ll just drain us.”

  Sturek moved forward and stood over me on the upper bridge as we both looked at the main screen. “They’re pulling us toward their side of the Neutral Zone.”

  On the screen before us, the four massive nacelles of the Klingon ship were turning toward us as the bow turned away, and we were captured. Not dead, but caught.

  They didn’t destroy us. Was their mission to capture a starship? Was that it?

  How many cadets had run from the onslaught of Klingon ships, assuming their intent was to destroy?
>
  I held my breath a moment, partly because the smoke was making me sick, and partly because I was waiting for the program to declare me a loser and shut the simulator down.

  But it didn’t. We just stayed in tow, watching ourselves being pulled into Klingon space.

  Robin staggered out of the port side smoke. “Why isn’t the program shutting down? We’re caught, aren’t we?”

  With one hand on the back of Jana’s chair, I pulled myself to the command platform. “Yes, we’re caught … but maybe there are still more options.”

  “What options?” Corin asked. “We can’t hurt that tank with phasers. You still want to try the torpedoes?”

  “No … that’d be too easy. I don’t think that’s it.”

  Moving behind Corin so I could see his readouts, I watched the big ship on the screen, and the disabled Klingon ships we’d left floating around us, right where they’d shattered each other. Two of them were flanking our path. The heavy cruiser would pull us right between them.

  “No propulsion,” I murmured, thinking aloud, “phaser power is diminished, photons unreliable, enemy triple-shielded … under tow … no warp power … hold it—that’s it.”

  “What’s it?” Jana asked, and there was a glint of hope in her voice. Were they starting to have a little faith in me?

  Even the illusion gave me strength.

  “Warp power,” I said, slipping into the command chair. My legs tense, I couldn’t make myself settle back, but I wanted something to hold on to, so I grasped the arms of the chair as if holding a horse’s reins. “Jana, target photon torpedoes on the derelict Klingon warship coming up on our port bow.”

  “Why? They’re done for!”

  “Yes, and that’s why. Robin, flush all weapons power into one concentrated phaser. Prepare to fire point-blank on my mark.”

  Her console fritzed and complained, but evidently responded, because she said, “Phasers armed and ready. We’ll only have one burst at this level of power concentration.”

  “Understood … ready…”

  The derelict Klingon ship floating with one nacelle down, like an ornament on a string as we approached. The Klingon Heavy Cruiser would reach and pass it first. That was the moment I wanted.

  A few more seconds … they were almost abeam of each other.

  “Brace yourselves,” I said. “Robin, hold on.”

  Bruised and scorched, he flinched at the sound of his name, but broke his trance and got a grip on the rail.

  Two more seconds … one …

  “Fire!”

  Chapter 14

  Jana hunched to her controls. On the main screen, bulbs of blue light blew from our ports and lanced into space, not toward the heavy cruiser, but at the damaged Klingon warship off our port bow.

  The warship lurched hideously as the phasers struck its underbelly—dead hit, right in the warp core.

  “Direct hit,” Sturek reported. “Warp reaction is—“

  The screen erupted into a brilliant white plume with Easter sparkles dashing toward us—bits of incendiary matter instantly liquefied by the colossal explosion of a warp engine ripping itself inside out. Big enough to take out a planet, the detonation instantly engulfed the heavy cruiser, snapped the tractor power, jolting us free of the pull, then swept over us like a tidal wave.

  The bridge rolled beneath us and half the forward wall came caving in, and the main screen was torn almost in half on a jagged angle. Now, that was something I’d sure never seen before.

  “It worked!” Corin clung with both hands to his helm. “If we’d been under propulsion, we’d have been crushed! David, that’s great!”

  Actually, I hadn’t thought of that. What luck. By not resisting the heavy cruiser’s tractor beam, we weren’t under any thrust, and that allowed us to ride the concussive wave like a surfboard instead of being smashed as if we’d hit a wall.

  “Ship’s condition?”

  Robin’s choking from the upper deck twisted into words. “Engines … off line … impulse drive is under repair … shields down to ten percent…”

  “Minimal helm capacity,” Corin reported. “Some thruster power available on aft and starboard thrusters.”

  “Weapons still online, but power’s reduced two thirds,” Jana said, and she was grinning.

  “Life support stable,” Sturek murmured, barely audible as we watched the Klingon Heavy Cruiser grind and tumble on the working half of the screen. Then he looked at his sensor panel. “Heavy cruiser sustained considerable damage … three of the four nacelles as out of alignment. Their propulsion system is compromised. They’re adrift.”

  “So are we,” I said. “It’s a draw. I guess that’s the best we’ll get. Sorry, guys.”

  “Program shut-down,” the computer voice finally came, both a shock and a relief. “Your ship is adrift. You have cast your enemies adrift. Your scores will be posted at zero nine hundred hours.”

  My hands were tingling. One of my legs ached—and I wasn’t even sure which one … left one. Knee. My face felt hot, wet. My crew looked as if they’d been shot through the business end of a phaser rifle.

  “You did great, David,” Corin murmured, turning to me, “I never thought anybody could get this far.”

  I tried to respond, but could only manage a nod.

  “At least we know you’ll fight,” M’Giia offered with a warm glow of approval.

  “I’ll never doubt you again,” Jana added.

  On the engineering deck, Robin drew heavy breath after heavy breath and smiled at me, and Sturek came down to stand at my side. Their silent testimonials were almost too much to bear.

  “You all did great,” I managed. “Better than ever. You’re turning into a crew.”

  How they felt about that, I couldn’t tell. There was no way to say it any better, so I just turned to Sturek and offered a hand.

  He took mine, and his eyes smiled.

  “All right, open’er up.”

  The voice came from behind the smoke, inside the whir of fake damage, and all around us the engine sounds began to shut down.

  It was over, it was over. No win.

  The panels parted beside the destroyed viewscreen. There, enshrouded in whispering smoke and crowned by sparks still drifting from the ceiling, Captain James Kirk strolled onto the bridge from a place where in real life there wouldn’t even been a door. At his sides were Captain Sulu and Commander Chekov, followed by about a dozen technicians, advisers, and clean-up artists.

  Full complement. I braced to take what was coming.

  Kirk strode across the upper deck. Sulu and Chekov lagged back, looking around at the level of damage wrought by our persistence. Their amusement was irritating.

  “Everyone all right?” Kirk asked. Damn him, he thought all this was funny.

  Robin managed a nod, then stepped out of his way.

  No one else in my crew made any response to him. It was as if we’d been boarded.

  Then I realized something else was happening that never had before—they were letting me speak for them.

  “We’re fine, sir,” I said, even though I didn’t know for sure.

  He stepped down to my level. “Your lip’s bleeding.”

  I didn’t wipe it. “Yes, sir.”

  “Quite a mess here,” he said, glancing around. “You’ve achieved a level never before matched by any cadet in the Kobayashi Maru test.”

  Anguished, I ground out a miserable, “Thank you, sir. But we didn’t save the freighter, and we lost the battle.”

  “You weren’t captured,” he told me, holding up a finger. “That was the actual goal of the Klingons. By rendering all ships derelict, even your own, you prevented a starship from falling into enemy hands. Technically, you’ve just effected a win.”

  “Yes!” Corin jumped up and clapped me on the back.

  Somebody else grabbed me in a body hug from my right and for a crazy moment I thought it was Sturek, but it turned out to be Jana.

  Then James Kirk held
his hand out to me. “Mr. Forester, you’ve just become the second cadet to beat the No-Win Scenario. Congratulations to you, and to your crew.”

  All around, the officers, technicians, advisers, and other cadets broke into applause.

  I just stood there, my sore knee trembling, my left hand gripping the arm of the command chair to keep me on my feet. Somehow I couldn’t feel deserving of all this. I’d cheated, and it had backfired. So I handled it well and got lucky—so what?

  After a few more pats on the back and handshakes, the bridge fell to a busy murmur as technicians crawled around, shutting off power to the snapping circuits and sparking ruptures.

  “Now,” Kirk said, “Captain Sulu?”

  “Yes.” Sulu stepped forward. “Cadet Forester, report to the commandant’s office for reprimand.”

  “Reprimand?” Corin blurted.

  “There’s still the problem of having reprogrammed the simulator, and the issue of breaking and entering. The rest of you are confined to quarters until further notice. Dismissed.”

  Chapter 15

  “Why did you cheat?”

  Commandant Rotherot sat behind his desk like some kind of overfed inquisitional barrister. I stood before him, and Sulu and Chekov were in the office too, with Sulu leaning against a wall with his arms folded, and Chekov sitting on the leather couch.

  I’d expected Captain Kirk to be here too, but I guess he was sparing me the embarrassment. Gee, thanks.

  “The simulator shows evidence of tampering,” Rotherot went on, without waiting for an answer to his first question. “What’ve you got to say for yourself?”

  What could I say? That changing the parameters of a simulation isn’t exactly cheating by a strict reading of the rules? How would that sound? That I wanted to impress my crew? That I needed to beat the No-Win in order to stay in command school long enough to clear my science officer of sabotage and my engineer of espionage?

  “So my ship could survive, sir,” I said. Good as any.

  “Reprogramming the simulator may not violate the letter of the law,” he said, “but it’s a violation of everything we’ve been trying to teach you. Therefore, we’ve decided to take disciplinary action against you.”