and, in the boldest bet of my lifetime, walked straight
into the line of fire. Perren's stare flickered at me.
"You know I understand you," I said to him. "Maybe
better than she does. And I think you know her
220 221
opinion of you. You can't keep retreating under her
banner. You're going to have to make a new decision
for yourself, right now. Because I'm going to take that
phaser away from you."
If I died doing it, I would be the only one to die.
Perten knew the captain and Sarda would be on him in
an instant. He'd never have time to recover with me
standing so close to him. And everything would grate
to a halt once again, and for good.
Forced into confrontation with himself, Perren
parted his lips as though silently trying to explain--to
himself, probably.
I lifted a hand. Put it out. Touched the phaser.
He raised his chin, eyelids drifting down as he
looked now at our hands, cupped on the same weapon.
His fingers tightened, then relaxed. With a tug, the phaser was mine.
Perren, his head lowered in deep contemplation,
dazedly joined Mornay and Boma on the lower deck.
But the hatred was not over. It boiled now in the
pitch black of Boma's eyes. Perhaps I had ruined his
plans one time too many, and with too much finality.
Even as Perren stepped down, Boma's rage stripped
him of caution and propelled him across the bridge; his
target my throat. Not entirely a tactic of momentary
insanity, his sudden action took me by surprise. Fro-
zen, I never had a chance even to raise the phaser.
Taking advantage, Ursula Mornay hunched her
shoulders and grabbed for the discarded weapons lying
on the upper deck. The bridge burst into wild motion.
This time, though, I wasn't alone on the summit of
Mount Danger. A flash of beige and boot--the captain
braced on the bridge handrail and vaulted into Boma
without so much as a pause for breath. He caught
Boma cleanly in the chest just before the astrophysi-
cist's hands would have torn me bodily from the upper
deck. Boma went down hard against the helm, the
wind gushing from his body, and he fell limp.
222
Mornay's eyes widened in astonishment, but she
had the phaser by now and backed against the weap-
ons console, trying to get a better grip on the handle.
Before her, Captain Kirk appeared over the handra'd
and straightened, his eyes full of warning. He had no
weapon, he had no advantage. Only his eyes. The
blades of truth.
He lowered his chin slightly, almost as though scold-
ing her. "It... is... over." The bridge fell to silence.
Challenge rumbled between them. Then, like thun-
der in the distance, it ended. Ursula Mornay narrowed
her small eyes, her face shriveling into a sneer, and she
lowered her phaser. The captain relieved her of it.
With a sigh, he reached down and hauled Boma,
staggering, to his feet and gave him a heave toward the
upper deck. "Mr. Sarda."
The voice beside me was almost a whisper. "Aye,
sir."
"Escort the professor and Dr. Boma to the brig. If
they so much as flinch," he added with a stern look at
both prisoners just for effect, "paralyze them."
"Aye, sir." Sarda glanced at me, and whether or not
he meant to be asking me for it, I handed him Perren's
phaser. He gestured Mornay to the turbolift, careful to
keep the weapon keenly trained on the little woman we
had learned not to trust. He glanced at Perren, who
remained near the viewscreen, awaiting his own fate.
Clearly Perren was no longer part of the threat. The
captain said nothing, but silently waved Sarda on with
his assignment, confirming that he intended to have
Perren handled in some other way. Soon Sarda was
gone with Mornay and Boma.
Captain Kirk came to my side of the bridge, still on
the lower deck below me, instantly at ease. He leaned
one hand on the deck rail and said, "I like your style."
A deep breath came out of me a bit more gustily than
I would've liked. "You should," I said. "It's yours."
223
Chapter Eleven
- "It should be hauled away AS garbage?
---The Trouble With Tribbles
I wns TRYING to absorb the end of the nightmare when
Captain Kirk extended his hand to me. Why did he
want to help me down from the gangway? Almost on
the thought, the answer wrapped itself around my
heart. The captain's handshake suffused me with
honor, a thousand times more than any promotion
ever had, or ever could.
As if sensing my need for a moment of not being the
center of attention, Kirk moved to his command chair
and thumbed a button. "Kirk to Engineering." When
there was no response, he punched again. "Kirk to
auxiliary control." "Spock here."
Ahhh, that sonorous voice! How welcome it was!
"Mr. Spock, the bridge is secure," the captain in-
formed him.
"That is satisfying news, sir. Congratulations. May
I ask the condition of the prisoners?"
He wanted to know about Perren, I guessed. From
opposite sides of the bridge, the renegade Vulcan and I
exchanged a meaningful regard, but nothing more.
This was the captain's moment.
"Professor Mornay and Dr. Boma are on their way
to the brig. Perten is still here with us."
A brief pause gave weight to Spock's next question.
"And Mr. Sarda?"
224
The captain peered at me from the corner of his eye.
"He's in charge of the prisoners."
Relief went through me like a knife. I closed my
eyes and breathed deep, then let myself stare at the
floor as Kirk's support for us soaked in. Had he been
in my place before? Did he know what it felt like?
"Ship's status, Spock?" he was asking.
"Very poor, Captain, as you might guess. However,
we do have maneuvering capabilities on impulse
power. We should be able to ambulate back to Arge-
lius, 0e we take care not to strain the systems. I am
presently attempting to re-engage electrical support
for the guidance systems."
"Keep me posted. Bridge out." Again the command
chair clicked. "Kirk to sickbay. What's the antidote
situation?"
McCoy's voice shot through the com system with a
reassuring confidence. "We've isolated the antidote,
synthesized it, and introduced it into the circulation
system, Captain. The crew should start waking up
within about fifteen minutes, depending on the individ-
ual."
"Will they be functional, Doctor?"
"The intoxicant was wicked stuff. They'll wake up,
but for the next six hours or so we're going to have a
mighty sick crew on our hands, Jim."
Kirk lowered his voice noticeably. "Any count on
fatalities yet, Bones?"
"No way to tell yet." McCoy sounded edgy.
"Guess."
"We hope to hold it under a dozen. Doing our best,
Jim. Ipromise."
I felt the presence of Merete when Dr. McCoy said
"our best," and knew she had found her own way to
contribute to the situation. She could easily have
stayed behind on Earth and gotten safe transit back to
Star Fleet Command to await her next orders. Her
presence had seemed so natural that, until now, I
225
hadn't remembered to appreciate it. I sent her a tele-
pathic good luck and, remembering how she always
managed to get to the core of my tensions, flexed my
shoulders in an attempt to relax the muscles in my
neck. With that I also took a deep breath and caught
traces of a sweet odor, heavy and lingering descending
from the upper vents. Merete's silent response---the
antidote.
The captain addressed me quietly. "Piper?"
I shook myself into focus. "Aye, sir?"
"Where did you moor Keeler?"
"She's docked, sir. At Man-o-War. I took the liberty
of arranging to have her brightwork sanded and refin-
dor Shamirian in charge of her."
"I thought you would." Leaning that way, with one
elbow on the command arm, clasping one wrist as
casually as a tiger rolling onto its back in the sun,
Captain Kirk became everything a human could be.
His soft hazel eyes brushed me and hovered beneath
feathery brows that minutes ago had defined his sense
of purpose. The purpose relieved, his face returned to
the portrait of wisdom I'd known on board that lovely
schooner so far away. For that instant, he and I were
everything and everyone in the universe, mentor and
pupil, captain and mate, captain and captain.
The communication was real. It drew his lips out-
ward into a restrained grin. "Good job," he added.
I smiled. "Thanks." Funny that I felt as gratified by
his trusting me with his schooner as I was by his
trusting me with this mission. Of course, after many
weeks at sea with James Kirk, I knew what the
schooner meant to him. The mission only meant risk-
ing death. The schooner meant life itself. The
schooner, the starship... a strange and provocative
mirror image.
"That was quite a wrenching you gave us," he said
then, reinstating the paranoia. "I had no idea a con-
struction tug could do that."
Several possible responses flooded my brain. "Nei-
ther did I."
His brows went up and down in a dismissing motion.
"Well," he said, "I won't want to be around when you
explain it to Mr. Scott."
The moment's elation sank out of me. I muttered,
"Me neither." Maybe there was something to be said
for narcotic gases after all.
The captain moved around the back of his command
chair, caressing the leather. All the while he was
looking at Perren, who stood on the far bridge, swal-
lowed by his own thoughts, or perhaps by the empti-
ness of them. Abandoned by his scruples, Perren was
caught between the gears of bad and good, for the
moment quite content to surrender himself to the
wisdom of others. A sudden and completely unex-
pecteA sorrow rose inside me, touched with pity for
him. Was he so wrong to wish to free the countless
conquered worlds in the neighboring hostile empires?
He felt guilty for the privilege of having been born
Vulcan, of being born into the Federation, .where his
abilities were able to flourish without leash. I had once
thought of the Klingons' right to be what they were,
had once armed weapons to defend that clause in the
Articles of Federation that guaranteed the privilege of
serf-rule to any government that didn't wish to join the
Federation as much as to those who did. Never before
had I thought so sympathetically of those billions of
beings who might never get the choice at all. Perren
made me think. The sacrifices were his, and I had
mined them. I would do that again, of course, but
would things always have to be this way? Was freedom
of choice only a matter of proximity in the galaxy?
Where your borders lay?
As I gazed at Perren now, these thoughts folded in
226 227
on me and I became confused. I tried to isolate my
regret, but after all we'd been through I couldn't clear
my head enough for simple rationalities, much less a
complex moral question. When all this was over and
there was time to read, time to ask, time to listen, I
promised myself I would keep learning. Perren's face,
all angles and soft shadows under the bridge lights,
evoked from me a warrant of teevaluation.
Kirk shook me out of these half-thoughts. "Piper,
take the communications station and put out a dis-
patch to Star Fleet. Advise that we need an interstellar
tow to the nearest starbase, and that we'll meet them
at Argelius."
Striding across the bridge, I spontaneously asked,
"What about the Banana Republic, sir?" It was out
before I had a chance to bite it back.
His straight brows went flat on his eyes as he turned
slowly. "What about the what?"
I whirled around and froze again. Well, tunnel-
the way, Captain, I never had a chance to thank you
for arranging a command for me. So... thank you."
"You're welcome. Banana Republic?"
Hang him, he was going to annoy me into explain-
ing. Strapped, I fabricated a graceful, diplomatic lie
and served it on a silver shrug. "First thing that came
to mind, sir..."
Okay, so it wasn't graceful or diplomatic. It got me
off the hook.
His brows did a little dance again, but he let the
subject die young and waved me onward to communi-
cations.
It felt good to sit down. The bridge chair groaned
lazily as I relaxed into it, confirming the illu sive idea
that things were settling down. Only a fleeting glance
at Perten, and his at me, kept us clinging to past
actions. Captain Kirk probably intended to have me
escort Perren to the brig, as Sarda had escorted Mor-
228
nay and Boma. Perren was unpredictable and the idea
of ushering him below brought on a clutter of possibili-
ties. I would still have to be careful. I swiveled around,
putting my back to him. He wasn't my problem any
more. Feeling taken care of for the first time in too
long, I quietly tapped out the dispatch to Star Fleet
Command and put it on a priority band. After all, it
wouldn't do to have a starship hanging around in the
middle of nowhere any longer than absolutely neces-
sary. When the message was intact, I committed it to
the system and pressed the Subspace Send-Code.
Then I leaned back, my wrist still resting on the rim of
the console. The board
hummed merrily, doing what it
did best. Machines were easy to please. A small grin
tugged at my lips. Poor old Rex. Quite a show.
Buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz buzz.
I sat bolt upright. The tamper alert light was going
wild. Somewhere in the system, the dispatch was
jammed. Raking a hand through my hair, I chided
myself for still being on edge, flexed my shoulders, and
bent over the board. I didn't know much about com-
munications cross plays, but I hadn't given up without
a fight yet.
"Clanky plumbing," I accused, realizing that, of
course, I had done this to the starship myself. If things
wouldn't work, it was because I had made damn sure
they wouldn't.
I pecked away at the toggles and inputs, trying to
clear the system before Kirk got the idea that I needed
help. All the electrical routes seemed to be working,
butmthere was an intrusion of impulses. From out-
side !
"Captain, we're being jammed!" I shouted.
He was beside me in an instant. "From where?"
"Port astern. Transmitters are being impeded. I
can't get the message out!"
In a single motion he flew from the upper deck to the
helm control and rattled orders into the board. As we
229
watched in growing awareness, Perten moved away
from the main view screen and gave us clear sight of
our port astern space. The screen solidified quickly,
with only a waver of sensor shift before focusing on
two hawk-shaped warships just coming out of cloak.
I vaulted from my chair and grasped the deck rail,
staring. "They must've moved in while we were play-
ing musical phasers !"
Kirk reached back and nailed the corn link on his
command chair. For all the good it would do to an
unconscious crew, the captain's urgent words echoed
through the corridors of the crippled starship. "Bat-
tiestations! All available hands to battlestations. Mr.
Spock, to the bridge."
"Piper, take the helm."
The Red Alert klaxon howled. Bridge lights dark-
ened and became the warning scarlet that told us we
were in trouble. The helm was sluggish under my
hands.
"Raise all shields," the captain said. Calmness had