time in Sigma's tiny brig. Chekov's office was less than twenty meters
from his quarters, so he could at least look in on them after dumping
them into a sink filled with lukewarm water; if he left them in Sulu's
cabin all alone, he was afraid the water would get too cold, and they'd
die. At least this way, if they died, they would die from good
intentions, not from suffocating in a plastic bag, or freezing in his
best friend's quarters. Chekov left them chirping quietly in his
darkened bathroom, splashing about with a sponge and a clean soap dish
to keep them company. At least they sounded happy.
The same thing couldn't be said for the security division.
Voices from the squad room carried clearly into the main corridor
despite Continual reminders to the guards to either close the section
door or keep their voices down. Chekov caught a fragment of sentence in
Ensign Lemieux's fur-soft accent, her voice sounding louder and more
strident than usual. The precise tones that answered her told Chekov
why. Sighing, he passed his office door and headed for the squad room,
already suspecting he'd regret not just locking himself in his office
and pretending he hadn't heard.
"This isn't optional, I'm afraid," the other voice was insisting. "I
have my orders."
Efficiency Auditor Aaron Kelly stood just inside the squad room door,
his back to Chekov and his clipboard held at his waist in both hands.
Just over his shoulder, Chekov could see Barrasso and Jagr busying
themselves with weapons maintenance while Lemieux
ing on regulations." Kelly's relaxed politeness was almost harder to
bear, Chekov decided, than Taylor's frantic rages. "You have to
understandre"
"I don't have to do anything, Mr. Kelly." He started scanning the
downloads. "When it comes to something as trivial as duty schedules, I
view your regulations as a list of very good suggestions from which to
base my decisions. My crew's satisfaction with their scheduling comes
first." His eyes caught on a familiar name amidst a dispatch, and his
attention suddenly focused tight on the screen.
"Lieutenant Chekov," Kelly stated in a stiff, almost horrified voice,
"this is a matter of efficiency. Nothing about it is trivial."
The words, amber scrambles crawling across the black background, refused
to bind themselves to a structure. Ignoring Kelly, Chekov scrolled to
the top of the dispatch in search of some kind of meaning.
"... as a result of a breach in the Kongo's containment field on
stardate 8747.6. Among the one hundred seven listed dead are Assistant
Engineer Christopher Dailey, First Officer David Stein, and Science
Officer Robert Cecil, who assisted in an effort to save forty-seven
engineering crewmen immediately following the breach. Posthumous medals
of honor will be awarded at a ceremony...
The words continued their steady march toward nowhere, dissolving into
nonsense again. Chekov watched them without seeing, his memory having
flown ten years awayinto Starfleet Academy, and the wet-gray San
Francisco winters spent in classroom simulators and training rooms. To
a squadron bunker shared with forty other cadets, including a brilliant
American boy named Robert Cecil.
"We're going to be heroes," Robert had told him
once. Robert, with his ash-blond hair, pale eyes, and quirky North
American habitsRobert, who somehow always seemed to irritate Chekov as
often as he amused him. Chekov trailed his fingers down the screen as
if he could make the awful words more real by touch. They stayed just
as distant, and just as hard to believe.
Robert was a scientist. For him, being a hero meant proving some new
theory, or opening investigations on some new and different world.
Chekov's job description was the one that included dying, and even that
could be avoided if he were lucky enough, and careful. It wasn't
supposed to have worked out this way.
"It isn't fair ...."
"It's more fair than what you have right now," Kelly countered. Chekov
jerked a look up at him, momentarily fractured fromthe conversation at
hand. "More efficient, too."
"Efficient?"
"Efficient," Kelly echoed. "The schedules."
The schedules. Who in hell cared about the schedules? Chekov ran a hand
through his hair and switched off the terminal screen. "Mr. Kelly, if
you don't get out of my department, I'll have you arrested for entering
a restricted zone without authorization."
Stung, Kelly drew his slim frame up as tall as he was able. "But I am
authorized."
"Get out!" Chekov kicked the chair back under the terminal desk, and
Kelly jumped a good foot in the air. As Sweeney hurried to usher the
auditor out the door, Chekov looked around at the startled guards
surrounding him and felt a sting of guilt for his outburst. "I'm
leaving," he told them. The first shock of reading the announcement was
fadings now
anger and grief were rushing in too fast to keep at bay. "If anyone else
wants to see me..." He backed through the door, at a loss for how to
excuse himself. ".,.. tell them I have something more important to
"Captain's log, stardate 5711.12," Kirk said crisply. "The Enterprise
has been assigned to patrol the Artdorian-Orion border following an
exchange of diplomatic hostilities--"
It wasn't the whir of the turbolift doors that interrupted him--it was
the distinctive snarl of Federation Auditor John Taylor's voice bursting
through them. Sulu exchanged gloomy looks with Bhutto. As head of the
auditing team, Taylor had spent much of the last few days running the
bridge crew through a battery of efficiency tests. In Sulu's opinion,
the last thing they needed was his critical presence during a station
departure. "--authorized by Starfleet! And I'm not going to put up
with this kind of interference." Taylor stalked out of the turbolift,
trailing Lieutenant Purviance behind him like a large, reluctant
satellite. Captain Kirk looked up when they came in, then sighed and
tapped off the console recorder.
"Mr. Taylor." For all its even tone, the captain's voice stopped the
auditor in his tracks. "Do you have a reason to be on the bridge right
now?"
"Yes, I do." Taylor drew himself up to his full, towering height. His
scowl carved deep brackets in his aquiline face, making him look older
than he was. "I'm here to lodge a formal protest, Captain. Commander
Scott has locked me out of engineering."
"He has?" Kirk glanced past the auditor to Purviance, who nodded in glum
confirmation. The liaison officer's stocky fingers drummed uneasily on
the bridge rail, as if he weren't looking forward to the next few
minutes. "Did he say why?"
"I didn't even get to see him!" Anger fountained in Taylor's voice
again. "Heleft two 'technicians blocking the doorway, with orders not
to let me pass!"
Purviance cleared his throat, pitching his voice to the soothing tones
of a practiced diplomat. "Commander Scott said it's too dangerous for
civilians to visit e
ngineering while the ship's on active duty. I tried
to explain that to Mr. Taylor, but he insisted on coming to see you
about it, Captain."
"Hmmm." Kirk rubbed a hand across his mouth, not quite managing to hide
the smile that tugged at it. "Well, Commander Scott's order sounds
reasonable to me. What do you think, Mr. Spock?"
The first officer glanced up from his science console, his lean face
impassive in the reflected reddish light. "The engineering decks do
constitute the most hazardous sections of the ship, Captain, apart from
the nacelles. However, I would calculate the probability of a random
accident to
"--more than Mr. Scott thought civilians should be exposed to," Kirk
finished smoothly. The Vulcan raised one eyebrow, but didn't contradict
him. "Mr. Taylor, I suggest you move your efficiency inspections to
another part of the ship."
"What other part?" Taylor demanded, taking a step closer despite
Purviance's restraining hand. "You refused to let us station anyone on
the bridge, or in any of the weapons banks; Mr. Spock asked us to stay
out of the science labs; now we aren't allowed into engineering-"
Purviance tapped on the auditor's shoulder. "Dr. McCoy said he wouldn't
mind you examining sickbay," he reminded Taylor.
The head auditor's scowl grew deeper. "Provided we leave all our
equipment outside, because it's .not Starfleet-approved and might
interfere with his medical sensors. He's g ot Chaiken and Gendron taking
notes with manual pens!"
"That certainly doesn't sound very efficient, does it?" Kirk cleared his
throat. "Well then, how about security?"
Taylor's expression eased a little. "We have made some progress there,"
he admitted. "Aaron Kelly says he can probably improve the scheduling
efficiency by--"
"Mr. Taylor." Despite her polite tone, Uhura's voice cut through the
conversation. The head auditor swung around, blinking down at her in
surprise. "You have an urgent message coming from Deck Seven."
"I'll take it here," Taylor said without bothering to ask Kirk's
permission. Purviance rolled his eyes, and Uhura pointedly glanced at
the captain, waiting for his reluctant nod before she patched the
contact through.
"Mr. Taylor, this is Kelly." Sulu recognized the agitated voice of the
other male auditor. "We've got a problem in security."
"What's the matter, Aaron?"
"I'm not sure, sir, but Lieutenant. Chekov has thrown me out and told
me never to come back."
Sulu bit his lip, exchanging amused glances with Uhura. It was too much
to hope that Chekov would manage to get rid of the auditors with Spock's
urbane politeness or Scotty's shrewd maneuvering. The Russian simply
attacked the problem head-on and with blunt force.
"What should I do, si?" Kelly asked, after a moment's silence on the
intercom.
Taylor's aquiline face hardened with determination. "Proceed to the next
stage of operations, Aaron. I'll be down to join you shortly." He turned
back toward Kirk, swaying slightly when the Enterprise cleared the last
of the station gantries and swung OUt into open space. "Captain, it's
clear we're being systematically stonewalled by your crew. I de-manam"
Wheeling stars traced fiery strands of light across the viewscreen as
the Enterprise came around to her new course. Sulu ignored the familiar
pitch and roll, instead checking some last minute course adjustments
that Bhutto had relayed to his console. He heard the navigator gasp,
and looked up in time to see the viewscreen burst into fire-bright
static. An instant later, every station on the bridge erupted with
alarms.
Chapter Five
SULU COtn BArnroY the captain's voice above the battering roar of
warning sirens. "Spook," Kirk shouted, "what's going on?"
The Vulcan bent over his panel, eyes narrowed against the chaotically
strobing light it threw back at him. "It appears we have been hit by
some kind of subspace radiation pulse, Captain. It has disrupted all
computer circuits."
"What about these alarms?" Kirk demanded. "Have we taken that much
damage?" Sulu heard the howl of decompression alerts amid the other
jolting noises, and realized why the captain sounded so urgent.
"I do not believe so." Spook glanced up at the hissing explosions of red
and violet fire on the screen. "Even what we see now on the viewscreen
does not reflect outside reality, only the interference from the
radiation pulse. The alarms are reacting to electro
magnetic surges within the bridge stations, not to structural damage
elsewhere on the ship."
Sulu wrenched his eyes away from the meaningless static on the
viewscreen to find a similar dribble of electronic nonsense crawling
suddenly realized that he was blind, deaf, and dumb to the outer
worldmand still piloting the Enterprise through it. "Captain, I've lost
helm control," he said sharply. "I'm cutting impulse power--no, wait a
minute. I think the helm's back." He looked up to find the normal
diamond-fires of stars sprinkling the dark screen again. "What
happened?"
"The radiation pulse appears to have faded." Spook toggled his panel
controls and several of the alarms fell silent. "The ship seems to have
returned to normal, Captain."
"Then let's see if we can't get the rest of those alarms off." Kirk
watched the screen with intent eyes, as if defying it to misbehave
again. "Mr. Sulu, is our course still set for sector nine-eighteen
mark three?"
Sulu glanced'at his console monitor and saw reassuringly familiar
figures there. "Yes, sir."
"Then let's get out of here." Kirk's voice got easier to hear as a few
more alarms went quiet. "Warp six, Mr. Sulu."
"Warp six." By habit, Sulu tossed a look up at the viewscreen for one
last verifying glimpse of stars before he engaged the warp engines. His
fingers froze on the controls, then jerked back as if the dark metal had
seared his skin. He flung a hand out to slam off the impulse drive.
"Captain, we're off course!"
"What?" Kirk sprang down to stand beside him, scanning the monitor's
display. "Mr. Sulu, what are you talking about? This heading reads
correct."
"But it's not." Voice sharp with disbelief, Sulu watched the stars drift
toward them, then tried to give the helm another course. The monitor
display never changed. He spared one glance up at Kirk, just long
enough to read the comprehension on the captain's face, then went back
to fighting with the controls. A moment later, he heard Bhutto gasp
again and looked up to see the lights of Sigma One swing back onto the
viewscreen. The Enterprise drifted slowly toward them, running on the
slight inertia of her cut-off impulse drive.
"Captain!" Uhura's voice was urgent. "Inquiries coming in from Sigma
One, sir. They want to know why we've changed our course."
"According to the helm computer, we haven't." Kirk glanced at the
navigation screen to watch
their present trajectory build across the
screen, a line of red fire that ended abruptly at a solid white square.
"Navigation shows us on a direct collision course with Sigma One, but
helm insists we're still on our original heading."
"Helm's not responding to reprogramming orders, sir." Sulu fought an.
urge to drive his fist through the piloting panel that had locked them
onto this heading. "I don't know what's wrong with it."
Kirk swore and glanced over his shoulder. "Spook, can you bypass helm
control?"
"I am endeavoring to do so, Captain." The first officer's voice was as
imperturbable as ever, but Sulu could tell from the high-speed whirring
of his console that he was inputting commands to the ship's computer at
a speed no human could have matched. "The radiation pulse we
experienced has apparently caused a complete failure in that sector of
the computer."
"Captain, Sigma One is hailing us again." Uhura
paused. "If our equipment malfunction is not repaired, they say we'll
impact with the station in two and a half minutes."
"Damn." Kirk glanced up at the screen, hazel eyes narrowed with
concentration. "If the helm computer won't let us change our heading
away from the station, then.we'll have to find some other way to change
it." He spun and went back to his command console. "Bridge to
engineering."
"Scott here." The background sound of alarms must have told the engineer