STAR TREK: NEW EARTH - CHALLENGER Read online

  While Hahn pulled the leather-strapped presence of Zoa out of the way, Keller stumbled to the unmanned engineering console and tried to make sense of the flashing and smoldering. “Tetragrid overload! We need an engineer on the bridge to lock down the static pulses!”

  “I’ll do it,” Hahn volunteered. He skimmed down the ladder, dropped to the lower deck, and crossed to the tactical boards.

  Keller fought to tie his controls in to the tactical, racing the damage before it caused a calamity. “Starboard PTCs read amber!”

  “Leave ’em alone!” Hahn turned briefly toward aft to make sure he was heard over the mechanical whine. “Cool those plasma injectors right now! Try the—”

  The ship slammed sideways, driving Keller first backward, and then elbow-first into the environmental grids. The enemy had found them again and struck them in the main section’s port side, hitting the skin of the cruiser mere feet from the bridge. A tumor of smoke and shrapnel burst out of the tactical displays.

  The blast swallowed Derek Hahn completely. The last thing Keller saw of him was the wedge of his chin as the explosion struck him in the back.

  “Oh, cripe—!” Keller was down the steps before he realized he was on his feet.

  “Out of the way!” Roger Lake shoved Helmsman Makarios right out of his seat and plowed to Hahn.

  He and Keller met at the first officer’s writhing form. Lake pulled from one side, and Keller caught Hahn as they rolled him over.

  Hahn’s uniform was actually sizzling in Keller’s hands, but the exo was conscious, talking, and trying to stand.

  “I’m all right,” Hahn gasped. “The injectors—”

  “Pick him up.” Lake pushed off the deck and veered back to the helm. “Blanket the phasers! Set up a grid and open fire!”

  “Our weapons are depleting,” Keller reminded, but it was like talking to a tree. “Blanketing shots without a target just wastes power!”

  Derek Hahn reached out. “Roger!”

  The captain didn’t honor them with a response, turning instead to the frightened helm crew. “Ahead, quarter impulse!”

  “Oh, no—” Hahn pressed a hand to Keller’s knee and forced himself to his feet.

  When Hahn stood up, Keller was choked by a heart-clutching sight of Hahn’s uniform and the three inches of metal sticking out of the first officer’s back on the right side, an unidentified piece of the blown board material.

  Three inches out—how far in?

  And how could he avoid a panic? He grasped Hahn from behind. “Captain, permission to drag Mr. Hahn kicking and screaming to sickbay?”

  “What?” Hahn belched. “Get your hands off me!”

  “Granted!”

  “Come on, Derek.” Looping an arm around the first officer, Keller hoisted him to the turbolift vestibule. Overhead, one leg pressed against the balcony rail, Tim McAddis stared down at them in a momentary lapse from the science boards.

  He and Keller locked gazes for a moment. “Be right back, Tim,” Keller undergirded.

  The turbolift doors parted and he pulled Hahn inside. Hahn tried to help, but only one leg was working. Instead the exo clasped Keller’s arms and shrieked, “It’s the methane! Roger!”

  “Hush,” Keller warned, “don’t make me rope you,” and pulled him all the way in. The lift doors gushed closed, but before Keller could grasp the destination controller, Hahn collapsed against him and Keller devoted both hands to holding him.

  Valiantly Hahn braced his legs and tried to stay upright, but slipped a centimeter with every agonized gasp. “He’s snapping! Did you see—his—eyes?”

  “It’s just Gamma Night,” Keller said. “He’s never fought like this before.”

  “We shouldn’t be moving—not a foot, not an inch, they—could lay mines in front of us—If we move, we’re easier to find even on blinded sensors. It’s the methane, Nick, I know it is—I know it is!”

  Still holding him, Keller cranked halfway around. Where was the control arm? There! He gave it a twist. The mechanism felt sluggish in his hand. “Sickbay,” he said.

  Though the confirm light went on, the lift did nothing. Outside the closed doors, he could hear the action on the bridge and wanted to go back. The wound in Hahn’s back was now bleeding into the fabric of Keller’s sleeve, almost the same color.

  “Sickbay!” he shouted at the sound-sensitive panel. “Dang box of rocks—”

  Responding this time, the lift started to move downward, then chunked under his feet to a sudden dead stop and threw him and Hahn against the wall. Hahn gasped out his pain, and the lift began to descend again.

  Less than ten feet down, the whole cab shifted a good two inches, tilted at a noticeable angle, and jammed to another grating stop.

  “The guides!” Hahn choked out.

  Keller looked up at the flashing warning lights. “Must be bent.”

  “If he’d sit still, the sensors might be able to pull in something. Open the doors—I’ve got to get back in there.”

  But Keller pressed him down, feeling desperation and his own fears rushing through his arms. “You sit still.”

  He craned around to look at the lift’s control panel. How could he get it moving? The doors were jammed. There’d been a power surge.

  “Did you see him?” Hahn coiled his arms around his own body. “He’s not acting right. We don’t need to be moving. We survived the surprise attack. We can stand toe to toe with anybody—there’s nobody—read the reports—who can stand up to a destroyer point-blank in this sector. But if we’re moving we can collide, we can hit anything else that’s out there, our own thrusters and shields muck up our sensors . . .”

  Maybe he was babbling, except that people who babble don’t usually make perfect sense. Keller nodded in frustration and unhappy agreement, then broke the panel off the wall and got to the direct-feed cables. A puff of gray acid smoke piled out at him, souring the air in the lift. When it cleared, he looked into the panel opening. What he saw in there—he didn’t even want to touch it, never mind stick his arm all the way in.

  “Fused,” he reported, more to himself than Hahn. “We’re stuck.”

  “They’ll break us—out in a minute.” On the deck, Hahn’s breathing grew more labored and his voice weaker. “I was hoping we could make it to Belle Terre. . . . Captain Kirk could take over . . . situation . . .” He pressed a bloody hand to his side again, but couldn’t reach the wound in his back. As his head dropped against the lift wall, his waxy eyes beseeched Keller’s. “We’re overpaying our debt, Nick.”

  More concerned about Hahn than the lift, Keller divided his mind and knelt beside the injured officer, seeing their four years together dancing in front of his eyes.

  Hahn grimaced and arched against the lift wall. “I—feel it now—I feel it—!” Pain twisted through him. He clutched toward the wound he couldn’t possibly reach. “Is there something in me? I feel something solid. Pull it out!”

  “There’s nothing in there,” Keller lied. “You’re just ship-kicked.”

  Drunk with blood loss, Hahn couldn’t raise his head. His eyes began to glaze. “He’ll be poisoned. . . . Tavola exposure—you know what that means . . . but he saved our asses. Don’t tell them, Nick . . . he’ll cover for you. I will too . . .”

  Stunned, Keller held his breath a few seconds before he realized what was happening. He dug his fingers into the chest placket of Hahn’s uniform and shook him. “Derek, that was three years ago! Come out of it!”

  “What?” Hahn murmured. His eyes cleared with a surge of adrenaline. “Oh, sorry . . . took a trip, didn’t I?”

  Angry now, Keller snapped, “Tavola exposure shows itself in the first ninety days—you know that!”

  “Usually,” Hahn gagged. “And usually the person’s watched like a hawk by every doctor within a light-year. Nick, he’s snapping and it’s our—”

  “No, no,” Keller insisted, feeling himself sweat under his jacket. This couldn’t be rearing its ugly skull, could it?
Not now! “He hasn’t been in battle in over six years. It’s just stress.”

  Forcing a shake of his head, Hahn argued, “The pressure’s bringing the reaction out. We can’t protect him anymore . . . We made a hell of a mistake. Today we . . . we pay.”

  From above, a faint voice filtered through the sound-muffling insulation. “Nick?”

  Keller bolted to his feet. “Savannah! The lift’s jammed! Break us out! We need help!”

  A response thrummed through the shaft, but he couldn’t make it out. For a moment he wondered how Savannah Ring had made it onto the bridge, but then his head cleared some and he remembered the companionway ladder leading down to the next deck. Then they must know the lift wasn’t working.

  “Open up the hatch,” Hahn said. “Let’s get back to the bridge.”

  “You’re going to sickbay,” Keller said. At least he could do that much.

  “Till I get back,” Hahn gasped, “keep our shields up, no matter what.”

  “If we run with full shields, the sensors won’t work at all.” Keller tried pushing at the ceiling hatch. The twisted lift must have jammed the hatch too. It wouldn’t budge. “Not even the little bit of data we get trickling in—dang crippled thing, open up!”

  Hahn flinched at the protest and grasped Keller’s leg. “We shouldn’t be running at all! Roger’s cracking . . . you watch him. I—I—can’t breathe . . .” His eyes cramped shut and he slipped sideways, his face a twisted knot.

  Abandoning the hatch as he heard noises thunking from above, Keller quickly knelt again and pulled Hahn up, then yanked open the placket to loose the exo’s jacket. “Let’s get your belt off.”

  “You always—wanted an excuse—to get out of uniform. . . .”

  Keller tried a grin. “At least the new ones have pockets in the britches. The other ones were just fancy PJs. What’s a cowboy to do with his thumbs?”

  “Still got those wranglers on . . .”

  “Don’t give me grief about m’boots. You don’t outrank me that much.”

  “Nick—” Hahn fought his way back from the edge of consciousness again, battled down the pain that obviously had him by the body, and hooked his bloody hand on Keller’s neck. “Nick, listen. It’s time, it’s time.”

  “Now, Dee,” Keller moaned. “He’s got thirteen years’ command experience. That’s better than what you and I got between us, even if he’s a little shook.”

  “We let it go too long,” Hahn wheezed. His gaze was now shockingly lucid. “As soon as I get back from sickbay,” he vowed, “I’m relieving him.”

  More roughly than he meant, Keller tightened his grip. “Sit still. Let me get us out of here. Everything’ll be better in a few minutes. Just sit.”

  On thready legs he stood again, reached up, and tried pulling on the hatch instead of pushing. The hatch squawked and moved this time, but it was meant to push out, not pull in, and the rim wouldn’t give. “Come on, bust open,” he grumbled. “What’ve I ever done to you?”

  If only he had something to stand on, he could apply his weight onto the hatch with a well-arranged elbow. Muffled thunks and rasping of tools and metal told him they were breaking through from the bridge. He wanted to call out for them to hurry, but the lift tube was clustered with electrical outlets and access points that might be hot, dangerous. They couldn’t hurry. He braced his legs and tried to push straight upward, but his boot heel skidded on the deck. His leg slipped out from under him. He staggered.

  He looked down.

  Hahn’s blood painted the deck, a red smear across the lift floor, with a slashing imprint of the heel of Keller’s left ranch boot.

  Maybe if he’d wear regulation footwear, none of this would be happening. If one decision had been different somewhere way back—

  Derek had tried to tell him. Why hadn’t they made a different decision three years ago? Why couldn’t they go back and fix it?

  Below him, Derek Hahn sucked a lump of air and wheezed it back out. “The crew . . .”

  “What about ’em?” Aggravated and taking it out on the hatch, Keller pushed harder on the stubborn panel.

  There was no response this time. After a few seconds, the silence made sense.

  “Derek?” Keller knelt again.

  Hahn’s eyes had lost their focus. Though sweat trailed down his face, his lips were relaxed now, his arms resting on his thighs. A breath gurgled in . . . out.

  “Derek! They’re almost through!”

  Though the first officer was still breathing, he no longer blinked or responded. His eyelids began to sag, his tight facial muscles to go limp. His face turned pasty. Another choked breath clawed its way in.

  Terror seized Keller by the heart. This was supposed to be a milk run. An easy mission. A six-month flight out to Belle Terre, the same heading all the way, boring, quiet, peaceful, simple, then take over picket duty at Belle Terre and relieve the Enterprise to return to Federation space.

  Suddenly everything shattered around him like a glass bulb he held too tight in his hand. His fingers crushed the bulb into ever smaller shards.

  Something thumped on the lift roof. The access hatch cranked open with a ghastly shriek. Bent metal, crying, weeping.

  There it was. The way back to the bridge. A hand came down.

  Whose?

  Chapter Two

  Starship Enterprise, in orbit,

  planet Belle Terre

  “THIS WAS INEVITABLE. Quantum olivium is so valuable, somebody was bound to try stealing it in larger quantties.”

  The most precious commodity, Captain James Kirk thought, discovered in the settled galaxy for over a hundred years, was disappearing in large quantities from their holding facilities.

  When had a simple escort mission turned into a safari to hell? Right around the third light-year out, as he recalled. Seemed far back.

  At his side in the hangar deck of their only oasis, the United Federation of Planets flagship Enterprise, Captain Spock, currently the ship’s acting first officer, drew and released a long uncharacteristic sigh. “I’d hoped for a grace period,” he commented, “before losing quite such a large grip.”

  No “sir,” no “Jim,” no nothing.

  Spock’s angular features were drawn and etched with fatigue. He hadn’t slept in days, and not well in weeks. Not since the storagemasters discovered the slow leaks of thievery from the olivium vaults. Spock had no comforts of delusion for his commanding officer, or even the simple reassurances of logic to offer. His statement left a grinding emptiness. Why wasn’t he saying something to make Kirk feel better?

  Couldn’t have everything all at once, apparently. Today, they couldn’t have anything at all but questions.

  He’d noticed a difference in Spock over the past few months, since the trickle of olivium thefts had begun to plague the colony. Spock overworked himself now, hardly slept, delegated his other responsibilities to lieutenants all over the colony.

  Did he think he was working alone? That he was the only one who could solve the problem?

  A familiar discomfort. Kirk had shouldered this kind of burden himself many times, but something about this was different for Spock. Spock was the one everyone went to for answers. He didn’t have any yet.

  “I feel like a fractured bone,” Kirk said, hoping there might be comfort in collaboration. “We’ve hardly seen any of our command staff for weeks. We’re supposed to be a ship’s crew, leaders of an expedition, not tutors in a survival clinic. Scotty’s been running engineering projects and ship refits all over the planet, Chekov’s off exploring on the Reliant. Sulu’s been checking up on the flight teams he trained after that mess in the Big Muddy, Uhura setting up communications and emergency networks, McCoy’s off who knows where, working on making sure the crops are getting the right amino acid balance from the changed soil. I wish he’d get back here to complain and grouse. After all, that’s his number-one job, isn’t it?”

  When Spock, strangely, had no tidy retort about the absent doctor who was
ordinarily a fixture in their lives, Jim Kirk started answering himself in private. Quips, comments, satiricals and snidisms flitted back and forth like a badminton birdie between the imaginary Spock and McCoy in his head.

  He and Spock were isolated. Not physically, but in their souls. They were in their ship, but they weren’t in a crew. Instead, they were advisors, field guides, mentors, assistants, tutors—duties usually left to other Federation emissaries. But there weren’t any Federation emissaries this far out who could take over those jobs, no one to step in and fill the gaps, allowing the starship to go on its way and to do the job it had been built for, the job the crew had imagined and trained to do. The ship’s complement, largely, had been dispersed all over that planet down there, the new colony, the dream of thousands. Suddenly they were parents to a confused and ragged colony of people amiably determined to stay and slog through the wake of disaster.

  That alone had kept Kirk and his people on target.

  “I hope the Peleliu arrives soon,” he commented in a less than commanding way. “I’ll be glad to cede this mess to somebody else. Escorting the colonial expedition out to Belle Terre was one thing. Staying here and helping them carve a living out of a half-wrecked planet speckled with the most valuable ore ever discovered and solving a planet-threatening crisis every other hour . . . that’s not what I suspended my admiralty for. Now I find myself in charge of a new Gold Rush. It’ll be my pleasure to hand this over to Captain Lake and the specialists he’s bringing out with him.”

  The only answer was the click and twinkle of Spock’s tricorder and the tie-in to the ship’s mainframe. He had, for days now, been coordinating quantity broadcasts from olivium repositories all over the planet and in orbit. Ordinarily this would be a grunt job, except for the fabulous value of the stuff they were storing.

  Here in the wide white hangar deck of Enterprise, several sealed drums holding olivium in flux stasis stood in sentinel form, a little taller than Kirk and twice as thick. Quantum olivium that lent itself to stability. He could hardly believe it was here. Until the discovery of the Quake Moon at Belle Terre, this remarkable stuff had been only a scientific fantasy, created in minuscule amounts in laboratory conditions. The advancements it would bring were a feast for the imagination. Spock himself, Spock the understated, Spock the subdued, had referred to the discovery’s value in his most extreme of terms . . . “inestimable.”