prise. Tell me exactly when she's about to go to
warp."
Her footsteps announced that she was crossing the
limited deck space, and I resisted the glance that
would have confirmed it.
"They're at point five . . ." she read out. "Point
five-five... six..."
"Scanner--"
"I'm ready."
"Just the nacelle."
"Ready."
Tension crackled in the cabin.
Around us the sound of our engines drummed their
effort.
My hands left sticky prints on the command board.
"Sarda, get us up there..."
"Closing. One-hundred-fourteen kilometers now."
"Warp point-eight," came Merete's soft voice.
"Seventy-thousand kilometers."
"Point eight-five . 2'
"Forty thousand kilometers."
"Point nine..."
"Twenty-five-thousand kilometers."
The old ship thrummed. Its voice made a solemn
backdrop for the voices of my crew as they ticked off
204
the elements of chance. In range, in range, in range
... we've got to get in range...
"Point nine-two, Piper," Merete read out, unable to
control a quiver of warning. "Point nine-five... nine-
eight... nine-nine... warp sp--" "Now, Scanner!"
A massive jolt sent us all rolling. Neither human
strength nor Vulcan could hold against the sudden
force. Banana Republic used the planet for an anchor
and set itself up as a pulley between natural stationary
force and the science of propulsion. Every casing,
baffle, strut, crosspiece, and joist on the old tug was
abruptly put to the test of its lifetime. I was plastered
to the port bulkhead, crushed between the emergency
exit and the forward claw control, unable to turn or
even move at all. Banana Republic went up on an
invisible axis like a bead on a taut string, tilting in
space between the planet and the starship, finding its
own best angle against the killing forces that were
tearing it inside out. Never before had it been asked to
hold a piece of a starship against warp thrust.
The cabin lights dimmed and sagged out as their
power was sapped, leaving us with only the off-angle
light of the Argelian sun to see by. Even the tiny
emergency bulbs flickered along the walkways. Staticy
crackles splintered through the electronics. Around us
the roar of our engines expanded to a deafening whine.
The engines were coming forward for a visit, or at least
a last meal. The grating noise of coilplate being
stretched like muscle tissue was as sickening as it was
terrifying.
Artificial gravity lost its grip. As it struggled to
regain control, it pulled our bodies in a dozen direc-
tions at once, as though it meant to tear us apart limb
from limb. I heard someone yell, but the words were
indiscernible under the din of mechanical torsion. I
ached to help, but all I could do was cling to the base
of a nearby chair and wait for the hull to rupture and all
our precious atmosphere to hiss out into space before
we exploded into a billion bits.
As suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The great
yank was over. The tractor beams automatically com-
pensated for the lack of thrust, luckily, or we'd have
found ourselves buried in that planer's surface.
Moans filled the cabin. Behind them, the engines
sputtered and groaned, slower and slower, grinding
like old batteries. The power was gone, no matter how
the backup circuits combed the system for more.
McCoy was pulling Sarda to his feet as we gathered
ourselves on a pitched deck. The artificial gravity was
off kilter, and not likely to improve.
I dragged myself back to the helm after doing a
quick head count. They weren't in good shape, but
they were all alive, which relegated them to my second
concern. Scanner and I made it to the viewport at the
same time. Sarda, limping noticeably now, was soon
to follow.
The Enterprise was still there... sort of.
"Goddang!" Scanner gasped. "You twisted it!"
Sure enough, the starship's port nacelle was off
kilter on its strut. Not broken off, but wrenched
speed was quite impossible.
"Remarkable.. 2' Sarda breathed.
Dr. McCoy peered between Sarda and me. His
expression was easy enough to read. Very low, witha
strange and solemn intimacy, he murmured, "The
angel falls.. 2'
I stared at him. The grimness of his message, sent
across space to our captain, caught me by the
heart.
Merete broke the sweaty silence with a prophetic
truth. "So much for the test ship."
McCoy straightened his thin form and poked a
thumb outward. "If I were you, I'd fix that before the
captain sees it."
Several seconds lolled by while Rex--and l--panted
for life. Beside me, Sarda was stiff and silent, his
breathing also ragged as we shared an unbelieving
glance.
"Status," I choked.
He pulled himself to his station. "Checking."
Scanner still gawked at the starship as Enterprise
rotated slowly in space on a bizarre angle. The
wrenched nacelle made her look like a chiid's broken
toy. "How you gonna explain to Kirk that you twisted
his ship?"
"They can't go to warp," I thought aloud. "When
help arrives from the Federation, we'll all still be
here."
"I dunno about you," he rasped, "but I left back
when you started tawkin' about tractor lariats. I may
never come back."
"Sarda, where's that status report?" I must have
really wanted to know, since I asked twice.
Sarda bent tightly over the readout hood. "Warp
power depleted... tractor capacity down 86 percent
.. impulse drive out... major structural damage to
central bracings and all main couplings . . . stress
damage in major underpinnings and the matter/anti-
matter containment baffle . . . emergency leakage
control is still in operation, but all other electrical
maintenance systems are at tolerance." He fell silent
for a moment, not to speak again until he straightened
and directed his quiet words to me. "Piper... life
support is completely down."
Beside me, McCoy stifled himself from repeating
what he had just heard. Hearing it twice wouldn't
make it less true or provide a solution. Merete,
though, couldn't keep from struggling upward to Sar-
da's station and peeking into his readout hood.
I had to push my voice out. "How long, Sarda?"
"On remaining battery power, no more than eight
minutes."
206 207
I pressed a hand to my pulsing forehead, took a deep
breath, and shook myself. "Uh-huh... well... this is
a good time to go see how the captain's doing."
"Are we within transporter range?"
"Barely," Sarda answered tonelessly.
I struck him with a look. "That's a yes."
"Yes."
Merete asked, "They'll pick up our transporter
beams, won't they?"
"Undoubtedly," Sarda said.
McCoy pushed close. "I'm no engineer, but it's my
business to know how the ventilation system on that
ship works. They can flood any compartment with
narcotic gas at the touch of a button. We won't last
two minutes."
"No choice, sir," I told him. "We'll just have to
hope they're in disarray right now and can't move that
fast."
"You know better than that," he warned, and he
was right.
I turned to Scanner. "Are there oxygen masks on
board Rex?"
"You mean portable ones? Nope. Just the kind
that have to stay tied into the wall units. Quit lookin'
at me like that, Piper, I didn't design the damn
things."
"We'll have to use the emergency masks aboard
Enterprise."
"Beaming in one at a time? We'll never get the
chance."
"We'll have to make the chance. Sarda--"
Without a pause Sarda answered, "Six minutes,
twelve seconds left."
"There's our alternative." I led the way aft toward
our tiny transporter alcove. "Sarda, how long to beam
five people from one pad?"
Calculating on the run, he called, "A total of one
208
minute, thirty-three seconds if we beam consecu-
tively, including recalibration time for, each beaming,
plus preset time for the operator."
"I'll operate it," Scanner volunteered. "I know this
unit like the inside of my mouth." "Get it ready. Merete--"
She was beside me in an instant, and we were both
looking down at the Klingon disruptor she held. "It's
basically the same as a phaser," she said. "This word
indicates the force ray, the kill/disrupt setting. That
doesn't leave a body. This is kill/intact/heat. It does
leave a body. These are stun settings one, two, and
three, one being the lightest strike. Three is the worst;
it causes instant viral rotting of living tissue. It's
technically a stun setting, but the victim isn't meant to
live long. And this toggle gives you narrow beam, wide
field, or microbeam."
"Got it." I slipped the disruptor into my belt again
and handed Sarda his own, repressing a shudder of
disgust at having to use weapons of such calculated
cruelty. "Merete, Dr. McCoy," I addressed, turning in
the narrow passage as Scanner set the coordinates,
"you go first. Don't wait for us. As soon as you
materialize, put on the nearest emergency masks.
Then head for sickbay and get that antidote process
going."
"You bet we will," McCoy said with a thorny nod.
"Good luck."
"Good luck, Piper," Merete echoed solemnly as
McCoy maneuvered her onto the pad first.
I scowled and nodded my best response, which
wasn't much considering the circumstances. It was
definitely a yeah-right-get-going acknowledgment, but
I just had to hope she understood. Certainly she
deserved better from me.
"Energize," I said, and Merete dissolved into a pale
spectrum. "Hurry, sir," I told McCoy instantly,
"you're next."
209
The transporter hummed once again, flushing us all
with the faint nausea common to nearby dissolution,
and McCoy was gone.
"Sarda," I said with a terse motion.
"I prefer--"
"No arguments. Go."
Logic, thankfully, told him i was fight. He pressed
his lips flat and moved into the cavity, where, a second
later, he buzzed into nonexistence.
Scanner busily reset the mechanism, working with
calm assurance.
"You go next," I said. "Captain's last off the ship
and all."
His hair flopped over one eye as he shook his head.
"Not this time." "Scanner--"
"Nope." He nodded toward the chamber. Then he
grinned. "No arguments."
I was relieved that I could still smile.
A touch of regret surged through me with the first
sensations of dissolution, to be leaving my first com-
mand vessel behind and derelict. Rex's rumpled inner
hull blurred around me, disintegrated, and reassem-
bled into the clean white bulkheads of Enterprise's
hangar deck.
"Good choice, Scanner," I mumbled as the last
quivers of dissolution faded and reality became whole
again. The hangar deck was the emptiest place on the
ship, and the biggest single space, thus the hardest to
fill with any kind of gas. Sarda stood a few feet away,
plainly relieved to see me materialize. Per orders, the
doctors were already gone.
I stepped immediately away from the beaming area;
Banana Republic's transporter was just about old
enough not to have the safety devices that modern
equipment had, and I had no particular desire to merge
molecules with Scanner. Sure enough, he hummed
into being only three seconds later, exactly where I'd
210
been standing. True to his word, he was fast with that
geriatric transporter.
"Masks?" I blurted.
"Yonder." Scanner led the run across the hangar
deck to what he knew was the nearest emergency-
provisions locker. Of the three of us, he had served
longest on' Enterprise in a true crewing capacity. For
Sarda, the starship had been a science assignment,
drawn only shortly before I too had found myself
unexpectedly Enterprise-ing.
Scanner pulled himself to a halt on the Iocker's
handle and yanked it open. There were small fire
extinguishers, but the hooks for four oxygen masks
were empty. "Dang! Mornay musta had her people go
round and collect 'em in case the captain got away
from her."
Sarda shifted as though he was about to explain the
illogic of that, then changed his mind when he remem-
bered that Ursula Mornay had plenty of illogic to go
around.
"There've got to be others, Scanner!"
He glanced around the hangar bay, then made a
decision. "Right. And I know where. Come on."
Since we were already on the starboard side, we
dashed with him to the small hangars where the Arco
attack-sleds were stored. Had we been closer to the
port side of the hangar deck, the big Galileo and
Columbus shuttlecraft would have provided perfect
protection and plenty of masks, but this was much
faster at a moment when time was crucial. Mornay
undoubtedly knew we were on board by now, and
would soon take action against us. We had to be ready.
Sarda got the hangar door open and Scanner
squeezed through immediately, scrambling to the top
of the nearest sled and forcing its hatch open. That was
when a telltale hiss in the vents told us that Dr. McCoy
had been completely right. Gas!
"Scanner, the gas!" I shouted.
211
His arm disappeared up to the shoulder and he
grimaced with effort, but soon pulled out a mask. He
straightened and tossed it to me, then buried himself
deeper in the Arco's hatch, searching for another
mask. Above him, ghostly pink fog shot from the
ceiling vents.
"Scanner, put your own on!"
In a moment he resurfaced and glanced up at the
pink gas, then called, "Sarda! Here!" A second mask
flew.
"Scanner, hurry!" I called.
He was still digging deep into the attack sled when
the gas started to spread around the sled. He finally
came up with a third mask securely in hand, and
struggled to balance himself on the slippery hatch
bracings. Had he been at floor level, he might have had
a chance. But there were ventilators directly over his
head, spewing gas. It spread ungodly fast.
"Judd!" Sarda's voice was muffled by his mask.
Scanner wavered. He made a final effort to bring the
mask to his face, but his muscles flagged and he
collapsed onto the lid of the hatch as it drifted shut
beside him. He slid onto the solar wing with a hollow
bump and sagged into our arms. Though he was al-
ready unconscious as we eased him down, his hands
clutched at our clothing. He was still fighting. His
sheer determination affected us both, perhaps Sarda
even more than me. He supported Scanner's head and
gripped one limp hand, but there was nothing we could
do.
Sarda's brows knitted in anguish as he put his hand
on Scanner's chest, then looked at me. "He took a full
dose. His heartbeat is too slow."
My fist struck the Arco's photon sling to vent a burst
of rage. "We can't help him. I just hope the doctors
made it to sickbay. It's up to them." In the next
seconds, I made one of the hardest decisions of my
life and for someone who was only twenty-five years
212
old, I'd had too many of those. I stood up and said,
"We have to leave him. Mornay'11 be sending her
guards down here. Let's be gone by then."
Sarda forced himself to agree, and we crossed the
hangar deck at a run.
The corridor shocked us with the sight of a dozen
crewpeople collapsed in midstride. They were pale
and pasty, as though phasered down. Sarda quickly
knelt among them, checking pulses. "These people are