STARFLEET COMMAND had decided to fight back.
More specifically, Starfleet had decided the Enterprise would fight back. Help was promised, but not in time to do any good; the nearest starship was six days distant and the Sacker deadline now only seventeen hours away. The Enterprise would have to go it alone.
Mr. Spock received his orders from Admiral Quinlan, whose visage filled the main viewscreen on the bridge. Spock surmised that Starfleet probably had terms of surrender drawn up and ready to offer the Sackers should the Enterprise fail. But there'd be no overt talk of surrender as long as there was any chance at all of wresting the baryon reverter away from the race of strange beings who had stolen it from those who'd designed it for peaceful purposes. The admiral knew he was ordering a suicide mission, but—as Spock would have been the first to acknowledge—it was the only course of action immediately perceptible to him and the other decision-makers at Starfleet Command. It was up to Spock to convince Admiral Quinlan that there just might be a viable alternative.
"Admiral, you are aware that the Sacker ship has three times the firepower of the Enterprise, as well as superior shielding," Spock said levelly. "And even if we were to discover a weak spot in their defenses, we still have no way of ascertaining the location of the baryon reverter. We could very well end up destroying the one thing that could save us."
"Not if you beam an armed force aboard the Sacker ship," Quinlan said. "I know their shields are up, but it seems to me your best bet is to probe for a weak spot, Mr. Spock."
Spock waited, but the admiral had no more to offer. "Even if we could beam over our entire security force at once," the Vulcan said, "our chances for success remain minimal. Our people would still be greatly outnumbered. And may I remind the admiral that the Sackers' best weapon is their own bodies? All the Sackers have to do to put us out of commission is to touch us."
The admiral sighed tiredly. "I'm aware of all that, Mr. Spock. It still seems the only feasible solution."
"There is one other possible course of action, sir. Captain Kirk and three of his officers are still aboard the Sacker ship—"
"I understand how you feel," Admiral Quinlan cut in. "But four lives against the total destruction the Sackers threaten? You know there's no real choice, Mr. Spock."
"My point, sir, is that Captain Kirk is in a unique position. We had interior visuals for a time, and we were able to witness the activity on the Sacker bridge. It was abundantly clear that the captain was waging a campaign to demoralize the Sacker crew, and what we observed indicated he was achieving notable success. During this period Captain Kirk managed to signal us not to attack just yet. He will give the word when the time is right."
"Do you still have visuals?"
"No, sir."
"Then Kirk could be dead by now as far as you know."
Spock came as close to sweating as it was possible for a Vulcan to come. "I do not think so, Admiral. Remember these are very young Sackers we are dealing with. They are in dire need of Captain Kirk's expertise—and equally in need, I suspect, of the presence of a strong authority figure among them. They will not kill him as long as he is of use to them."
"So you're saying we should wait to see what plan Kirk is hatching?"
"Yes, sir, that would seem to be the best procedure."
"How can he signal you if you don't have visuals?"
Spock paused. "The captain will find a way, sir." There was no doubt in his mind about that whatsoever.
Admiral Quinlan was frowning in concentration. "I'll get back to you," he said abruptly, and his image faded from the viewscreen.
The tension on the bridge was thick enough to slice. The young man seated at the communications station asked nervously, "What do we do now, Mr. Spock?"
"Now we wait, Mr. Wittering. And I shall do my waiting in my quarters. Mr. Sulu, you have the conn."
The bridge crew was disappointed. The fact that Spock would take Admiral Quinlan's reply in his quarters meant it would be a private communication. They wanted to hear.
Spock hurried down to his quarters, wondering at the extraordinary feeling of alarm growing in him. It was becoming more and more difficult for him to make the coolly detached assessment of the developing situation that he should be making. He had to work at it; he had to force an objectivity that should be coming naturally, automatically. Spock did not understand what was happening to him. This new uneasiness—would it cloud his judgment, color his responses? Had it already done so? The Vulcan was not at all certain he had been adequately persuasive in his communication with Admiral Quinlan.
What happened next depended solely on the reputation Captain James T. Kirk had built up in Starfleet. Time and again the captain had turned certain disaster into triumph, or at least into an acceptable compromise. The man had a talent for survival. His resiliency and inventiveness had made the Enterprise the most talked-about ship in the fleet. Surely Starfleet Command would base its decision on those considerations. Surely? Spock wasn't at all certain the admirals would make the logical—and obvious—choice.
Alone in his quarters, Spock seated himself and started calling up those Vulcan techniques of deep concentration that had stood him in such good stead all his life. He shut out everything—the onrushing new universe, the Sackers, the Enterprise, his quarters—as he methodically turned his focus inward. Gradually he slowed down his heartbeat, and then his rate of respiration. After a time he had his feelings of alarm under control. If ever he needed the computerlike mind Dr. McCoy was always accusing him of having, now was the time.
Speak of. The door signal sounded, and the familiar voice said, "McCoy."
"Come."
The doctor stood in the doorway. "I won't intrude if you don't want me to, Spock. I can guess what you must be going through."
"Please come in, Doctor. I would be glad of your company."
McCoy took a chair near Spock's, and for a moment the two sat in silence, wrapped in their own thoughts. Then McCoy said, "He'll come through, Spock. He always does."
Spock nodded. "It is not Jim I have no faith in, but in the Sackers' willingness to go on with their training after having issued their ultimatum. They must have reached some level of confidence in their own abilities before taking a step as irrevocable as that one. Jim's time with them may be near the end."
McCoy bit his lower lip. "You didn't mention that to the admiral."
"No."
They fell silent again. Spock reached out and turned on the viewscreen. They watched the Sacker ship still practicing maneuvers, the same ones over and over again. The ship released three practice targets and hit all three of them.
"They're getting better," McCoy remarked. "Did Jim have to be such a good teacher? I wish we could do something instead of just sitting here. It's too bad the sonic hypnosis-inducer didn't work. That was a good idea, Spock."
Suddenly Spock rose from his chair. "How very odd."
"What?"
"This maneuver they are attempting now. It is not familiar to me."
They watched the ship sending out one of its legs from the end of the rectangle. The leg moved upward about forty-five degrees, and then the entire ship tilted forward—nose down, so to speak, up and down relative to the frame provided by Spock's viewscreen. Then the ship just hung there for a while, and eventually refolded itself.
McCoy looked puzzled. "What's that supposed to accomplish?"
Sulu's voice came over the intercom. "Mr. Spock—the Sackers are trying something new."
"I am watching it, Mr. Sulu. Do you recognize the maneuver?"
"No, sir. It's not in any of our manuals."
"Nor in any of theirs, I should imagine."
McCoy's eyebrows shot up. "That is Jim's signal?"
"Unlikely, Doctor. It may be simply an imperfect execution of a familiar maneuver. Let us see if it repeats."
It did. Unfold, tilt, refold, straighten up.
"That is the signal!" McCoy said excitedly, jumping out of his chair. "Jim wants you to attack!"
Spock did not agree. "We must not jump to conclusions, Doctor. He must have something more in mind than a direct attack."
"No, no—that's it! That's the go-ahead! Let's get cracking, Spock! Jim's yelling for help!"
"May I remind you that Jim himself ruled out an attack on the Sacker ship—even before he was kidnapped? The ship has not lost any of its weaponry since then, nor any of its shielding. It is the same well-protected space fortress it has always been."
McCoy ground his teeth. "Blast it, Spock, must you always be so cautious?"
"When caution is called for—always. Think, McCoy. Would you have us sabotage Jim's plan by moving too soon? He would not have gone to such extremes to warn us off unless timing were all-important. If we rush in precipitately, we will undoubtedly spoil whatever he has planned."
McCoy sank back down into his chair, suddenly deflated. "I hate it when you're right."
"Indeed, I have noticed that tendency in you before."
"Jim really does have a plan, doesn't he, Spock? Tell me he has a plan."
"He has a plan, Doctor. I would wager my life on it."
"You are wagering your life on it," McCoy muttered. "Yours and everybody else's as well."
The intercom came on; Wittering said, "Admiral Quinlan for Mr. Spock."
"Pipe it through, Lieutenant."
The Sacker ship faded from the screen to be replaced by the admiral's worried face. "Spock, we've decided to give you seven hours," he said without preamble. "If at the end of that time you haven't heard from Captain Kirk, you're to attack the Sacker ship. That will leave a little less than ten hours until the Sacker deadline. That's all the time you'll have to carry out the operation, and that's cutting it close. But do not wait one minute longer than seven hours. Understood?"
"Understood, sir. Unfortunately, Captain Kirk has no way of knowing he is now under a seven-hour time limitation."
"That can't be helped. Seven hours, Spock." The screen went blank.
"Oh boy," McCoy moaned. "If there were just some way to let Jim know!"
"We can but try, Doctor." Without further ado Spock opened the door and walked out.
Surprised, McCoy hurried after him. "You've thought of something!"
"I have thought of the obvious. Since Jim does not know about the new seven-hour deadline, we shall simply have to tell him. We will send a message to the Sacker ship."
"Just like that, huh? What kind of message?"
Spock stepped into the turbolift. "Why, we will offer the Sackers an opportunity to surrender, of course."
Pinky had just brought them a meal in their quarters and left.
Kirk pushed his plate of assorted mystery meats aside and said, "This may be the last time the four of us will be alone together, so let's make sure we've got everything straight. But first—Chekov, did you get a chance to check Orangejuice's course and time estimate back to the Zirgosian system?"
"Yes, Kepten. It is dead accurate." He grinned. "Vhat did you expect? She has a good teacher, you know."
"Mm, but not a particularly humble one. All right, let's count on making our move during this next session on the bridge. Chekov, watch me for the signal. I'm sorry to put this off on you, since you haven't been out of sickbay very long—but that's why you're the logical one to get sick. Make it convincing."
"Do not vorry, Kepten. They vill think I am dying. But I am almost completely recovered. The only reason I vear this thing …" —he indicated the sling holding his right arm— "… is thet Dr. Bonesovna vanted to try vun out." He removed his arm from the sling. "I haf complete use of the arm."
"Well, don't let the Sackers know that. Look as helpless as you can."
Scotty interrupted. "Better eat somethin', Captain. We have a long row to hoe."
Kirk nodded. "I suppose you're right." They all ate in silence for a while, but Kirk kept going over the plan in his mind. He swallowed a mouthful of meat and said, "Uhura, you'll have the farthest to go—from your station over to beyond the weapons station. And you'll have to make it before one of them gets it into his head to stop you."
"It shouldn't be a problem, Captain," she said. "It would seem only natural for me to rush to the aid of my collapsing colleague here."
Chekov grinned.
"And you've got to keep them distracted long enough for Scotty to take care of the E-and-E shields," Kirk went on. "A little distraction won't be enough. Make a scene, Uhura. Lay it on thick. Put them on the defensive."
"Understood, sir."
Everything depended on Scotty's getting the shields down without being noticed. E-and-E was Kirk's shorthand for engines and environment. The environmental control section was on the deck immediately above the engine room, and the two together made up one of the legs the Sacker ship could unfold on command. The Zirgosian designers of the ship had had in mind a means of isolating those two sections in case of a shipboard disaster, but Kirk had seen a way to use it against the Sackers.
With heavy reluctance, he turned to his chief engineer. "I'm sorry, Scotty. I wish there were some other way."
"I understand, sir. What hasta be done, hasta be done."
"Destroying the engines is a last resort, you know. I did try to talk Babe around." Kirk held thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. "I was that close to persuading her. But she's a tough kid—she bounced back and wouldn't give in. So we'll have to do it this way."
"Yessir, I can see that," Scotty said unhappily.
Kirk looked at him closely. "It's not just the engines, is it, Scotty? It's your Mr. Green you're worried about."
"He's a good lad, Captain. I don't like the idea o' puttin' him in danger."
"Neither do I, believe it or not." Kirk played with his food a moment and then gave up on it. Something was troubling them, all of them, and he might as well bring it out into the open. He looked at Scotty, gloomily chewing on a piece of meat he probably didn't even taste. Kirk asked him, "You've actually grown fond of that Sacker, haven't you?"
Scotty sighed deeply. "Aye, I s'pose I have."
"What about you two?" Kirk asked the others. "Any qualms about blowing this bloody-minded species to bits?"
Neither answered at first. Then Uhura said softly, "I wouldn't like to see Rose get hurt."
Chekov nodded. "And I think I vould cry if anything happened to Orangejuiceandwodka," he admitted.
Kirk grunted. "Well, I'm no different. I'd hate it if that red monstrosity I have to deal with got killed. I've developed a healthy respect for Babe."
Chekov asked, deadpan, "Vhat about Blue?"
Kirk laughed. "Poor Blue. I'm going to feel guilty about him for the rest of my life." Then he sobered. "That's the difficulty, isn't it? As long as they remained a race of monsters and villains we knew what attitude to take toward them, how to react to them. But now that we've come to see them as individuals, it's not that simple anymore."
"Aye," Scotty nodded, "that's the truth."
Kirk continued, "These kids have been brainwashed from the day they left the cradle, or whatever the Sackers use for cradles. Every one of them on this ship has been indoctrinated to one way of thinking, to do one thing and one thing only—and that is to carry out their grand and glorious Plan no matter what the cost. They've been taught that all other life forms are simply obstacles to be swept away as neatly and as emotionlessly as possible. Killing is a tool to be used when needed, that's all. Babe for one isn't any too happy about that, but she doesn't really question it. I doubt if any of them do."
"There's something else," Uhura offered. "Those other Sacker ships. If this were the only ship, maybe the kids would come around eventually. But they know their entire race is depending on them, and that has to be why they're so … adamant—about going ahead with it, I mean."
The other three murmured agreement, and they all fell into a kind of reverie. Only a few weeks earlier they would have scoffed at the idea that they'd all four be worrying about the fate of the Sackers. But now … now too many things had happened to make that earlier simplistic view of the Sacker race possible any longer. Now, it was hard to hate them.
After a few moments Kirk shook himself and said, "Remember, Scotty—none of the Sackers must see you when you lower the E-and-E shields."
"They won't see me, Captain."
"Good. You manage that, and the rest will be up to Mr. Spock."
Chekov shook his head. "Vhat if Mr. Spock does not ketch on?"
"Watch your mouth!" Uhura slapped at him, only half playfully. "Mr. Spock always catches on!"
That's what Kirk was counting on. Of all the people he had ever met in his event-filled life, Mr. Spock was the only one he could unquestioningly rely on to understand a situation and know what to do about it. If Spock couldn't figure out what Kirk's signal meant … well, then they were lost, no two ways about that. There was no contingency plan.
The door suddenly opened. "Finished?" Pinky asked brightly.
Kirk noticed that only Chekov bothered to don his helmet for the few seconds it took Pinky to take hold of the antigrav unit bearing their food trays and depart with it. They do say you can get used to anything, he thought, finding a strange comfort in the old truism.
The intercom spoke Captain Kirk's name. It was Rose, summoning them to the bridge. Their rest period was not over yet; something must have happened.
When they got there, they saw that all the Sackers on the bridge had abandoned their cloaks. It was not a pretty sight. Even Captain Kirk hesitated a fraction of a second before stepping off the turbolift. Matters were not helped any by the bridge temperature, which seemed higher than ever.
Babe said to Rose, "Play back the message."
Mr. Spock's image filled the screen. "Attention—Sacker ship. This is First Officer Spock of the starship Enterprise. I call upon you to surrender your ship and your prisoners within the next seven hours. If you surrender within seven hours, Starfleet Command will show leniency. If you do not surrender within that time, we will be forced to attack. I repeat—you have only seven hours." Rose froze his image on the screen.
"Will it be enough, Captain?" Scotty asked under his breath.
"It should be." But still he wondered why the seven-hour time limit.
So did Babe. She said, "Why seven hours, Captain Kirk? Does the number seven carry some special meaning among your kind?"
"No, it's just the length of a full work shift," Kirk improvised. "On our ship, at least. We tend to think in terms of work shifts."
Orangejuiceandwodka edged closer to Chekov, her eyes not leaving the viewscreen. "Is that a Vulcan or a Romulan?" she whispered.
"A Wulcan," he whispered back.
"What are you going to do, Babe?" Kirk asked.
In response she told Rose to contact the Enterprise. "This is Commander Babe speaking." She didn't identify her ship because she couldn't; their human captain hadn't named it yet. "We thank you for your offer to accept our surrender, and we make the same offer to you in return. Surrender to us or leave this sector, and we will not destroy the Enterprise. What is your answer?"
The frozen image of Spock disappeared from the screen to be replaced by a live one. "Greetings to Commander Babe," Spock said with no indication that he found her name even a little bit strange. "We decline your offer and repeat ours. Please take the entire seven hours to reconsider your decision."
All right, Spock, I got it, I got it! Kirk said aloud, "That's a good suggestion, Babe. Take the time to think it over."
"Captain?" Spock said. "Is that you?"
"End transmission," Babe told Rose quickly. "Captain Kirk, I will not have you speaking with your first officer."
Kirk made a show of protesting. "I wasn't even in the picture."
"Nevertheless, he recognized your voice. It will not matter in the long run, however. Now that we have mastered the invitational maneuver, we will attack."
"I don't think 'mastered' is the right word," Kirk said slowly. "Babe, are you certain you want to do this?"
"I will tolerate no more argument, Captain Kirk. I command you to fire upon the Enterprise."
"It's a mistake, Babe." But he took the command chair with a reluctance that wasn't all show, thinking nothing could ever have made him believe that one day he'd be directing an attack against his own ship. Attack the Enterprise? Unthinkable. Earth, Starfleet Command, God himself, maybe—but not the Enterprise. "Attack mode three," he ordered with a sigh.
They all assumed their posts. Chekov hunched down in the navigator's seat looking helpless, as instructed. Only Ivan and Orangejuiceandwodka stood near him, as Rasputin's term of banishment had not yet ended. Uhura too was down to two trainees; she'd grown tired of Iris's dogging it and told him he'd flunked the course. Brownie had reassigned the would-be commander to Shuttle Maintenance.
The ship unfolded itself. "All right, Blue, look sharp," Kirk said. "You're going to have to be faster than Sulu, remember. Half-turn."
They moved in on the Enterprise at an oblique angle. All of them, Sackers and humans alike, were holding their breaths. This was the young Sackers' first taste of combat; every one of them was not only anxious about the outcome, but concerned about how well he or she would perform under fire. The moment was tense; it was their final exam, with ultra-stiff penalties awaiting failure—penalties that included capture, injury, and even death.
"Ready photon torpedoes," Kirk ordered.
"Torpedoes ready," said one of the Sackers at the station next to Scotty's.
"Lock on."
"Locked on, sir."
Kirk paused a moment to let the tension build even more. "Fire." The ship released eight torpedoes.
The Enterprise danced gracefully out of the way.
"There! You see that!" Kirk said forcefully. "Blue, did you see how fast Sulu moved the ship? That's what you're going to have to do. About full."
Blue brought the ship about, muttering about the helm's sluggishness. They made another run, with the same results. The Enterprise ducked easily.
"You are deliberately mistiming the torpedo fire," Babe accused Kirk.
He slid out of the command chair. "If you think that, you do it."
She did. This time the torpedoes went so far wide that the Enterprise didn't have to use evasive maneuvers at all. Chekov stifled a snicker. Babe kept trying, though. Finally she got close enough that her target did have to move—but that was small consolation to a commander bent on blasting her enemy out of the sky.
"You're just not going to hit 'em, Babe," Kirk said tonelessly. "They're too fast for you."
"We'll try phaser fire," she said angrily. "Increase to mark three."
"Now, Babe, you know they're not going to let you get close enough to use your phasers," Kirk lectured her.
"Helm—ahead, now."
"It won't do you any good, Babe. They'll just back away out of range."
"Increase to four."
"Don't you see, they'll just match whatever velocity you—"
"Ready phaser banks one and two."
"You can use all your phasers and it still won't make any—"
"Captain Kirk—shut up."
"Yes, ma'am." Kirk meekly quick-stepped over to stand by Scotty.
As the Sackers approached phaser range, the Enterprise simply backed away. Babe increased the speed; so did the Enterprise. Babe tried swooping down and coming up from below; the Enterprise swooped away in the opposite direction. Babe pursued; the Enterprise retreated.
"Misterma'am," Kirk called out, "are you checking distances?"
"Yes, sir. They're staying within torpedo range but just outside phaser range."
"So they can shoot us any time they feel like it," Kirk mused out loud, "but we can't hit them with our torpedoes for love or money. Interesting situation."
"Transporter?" Babe asked.
"Also out of range," Misterma'am replied.
Kirk let the futile chase go on for another fifteen minutes. Then he strolled casually back to Babe. "All right, evaluate the situation," he said in the tone of instructor-to-pupil. "We can't hit them with our photon torpedoes, and they won't let us get close enough to use phaser fire. So what do you do?"
"Lure them closer," she answered promptly. "This is the time for the invitational maneuver?"
"This is the time."
"You had better do this." She gave him back the command chair.
Kirk directed the ship to assume a position not found in any combat manual of any space fleet anywhere. "We look helpless to them," he told Toots. "Now we wait to see if they take the bait."
Then he folded his arms over his chest, his signal to Chekov to begin.
"There it is again!" Sulu exclaimed. "That same odd maneuver! What are they up to, Mr. Spock?"
"What is he up to, you mean," Dr. McCoy muttered. "That's Jim's doing, you can bet on it."
Spock said nothing, concentrating on the position the Sacker ship had assumed as a result of the maneuver. It had gone back to its rectangular mode, with the exception of one section protruding from the aft end at a forty-five degree angle. The forward part of the ship had tilted downward, leaving the protruding section more exposed than ever. The ship hung there in space, doing nothing.
"That can't be a regular attack mode," Sulu said. "Could they be in trouble?"
"That is what it appears to be, Mr. Sulu. Or, that is what they wish it to appear."
McCoy asked, "How do we tell the difference?"
"We watch to see what they do next."
They waited. "There's nothing wrong with that ship," McCoy grumbled. "It's a trap. They've been chasing us all over the galaxy, for Pete's sake—now all of a sudden they're helpless? Ha! If you believe that, there's a bridge on the planet Iotia I'd like to sell you."
"I agree with Dr. McCoy, sir," Sulu said. "It's a trick."
"It is indeed a trick," Spock replied. "But whose? Captain Kirk's or the Sacker commander's?"
Then as they watched, the protruding section folded back into the Sacker ship. The ship rotated on its axis until it once again occupied the same plane as the Enterprise. A solid-looking rectangle, it did nothing for two minutes, and then it once again assumed its peculiar position—tilted forward, one section sticking up at the rear.
Spock shot out of the command chair. "Ready photon torpedoes!"
It hit McCoy just an instant later. "By golly, they're wearing a 'Kick Me' sign!"
"That is exactly what they are doing," Spock said, "if I understand the allusion correctly. We are being invited to fire upon the exposed section. It is an invitation I think we will do well to accept."
"Photon torpedoes ready, sir."
"Lock in on the extreme end of the protruding section. We do not want to hit the main body of the ship."
"Just nip off the end of the tail," McCoy said happily.
Spock said, "Mr. Sulu, status of the Sacker shields?"
"They're still up, sir," Sulu answered regretfully.
"Then we have a little longer yet to wait." Spock sat back down in the command chair. "The minute those shields are down, Mr. Sulu—"
"Understood, sir."
They waited, but this time with a feeling of anticipation made fervent by the real hope that this long nightmare might at last be near its end. For the first time, they understood what Captain Kirk wanted them to do.
Chekov clutched his chest with his good hand and rose shakily from his seat. "Orangejuice … you had better take over."
"Mr. Chekov—what's the matter?" Kirk asked with just the right note of concern.
"I … I do not feel so veil, Kepten. I vould like to go to the head."
"Do you need help?"
"No, sir, I can make it." He started to weave his way unsteadily to the upper level of the bridge. He made it just past the weapons station, where he collapsed—taking care to fall on the shoulder that had not been burned.
"Chekov!" Uhura shrieked, and flew past the command chair in a blur. Kirk followed; Scotty had left his station to peer between the two Sackers from the weapons station who were bending over the prone navigator, afraid to touch him. "Look what you've done!" Uhura screamed at the two helpless Sackers. "First you burn him and then you make him report for duty before he's recovered!"
"Chekov—can you hear me?" Kirk asked.
"I … we did nothing," one of the Sackers protested faintly.
"A medteam is on the way," Rose announced.
Babe had joined the group around Chekov. "Will he be all right?"
"You!" Uhura exclaimed in her most scathing tone. "What do you care whether he's all right or not? What do any of you care? Look at him! Does he look all right?"
"He looks as if he has fainted," Babe replied calmly. "Surely this is not serious."
"Oh, now you're a doctor, are you?" Uhura snapped.
Kirk glanced at Scotty and saw him making a circle of his thumb and forefinger in the okay sign. Kirk felt a surge of adrenaline and said, "All right, everybody—stand back, don't crowd." Come on, Mr. Spock, he prayed silently, we don't have much longer before—
An explosion jolted the ship. On the bridge, it was felt only as a sudden vibration that threw everyone a little off balance. "What was that?" Ivan cried.
"We've been hit!" Misterma'am exclaimed in a tone of disbelief as he read his instruments. "The Enterprise has fired upon us! They actually shot at us!" He sounded ready to break into tears.
"Damage report!" Babe snapped out.
"Ah … engine room hit. Environmental hit. Warp engines are out!"
"Do we have any power at all?"
"Impulse only," Blue said, a distinct note of fear in his voice.
Kirk said, "That won't get us away from the Enterprise. Babe, you'll have to take evasive maneuvers while Mr. Scott and I see to the warp engines. When you—"
A second explosion rocked the ship.
"Hard to starboard, Blue!" Babe shouted.
"Keep the ship moving!" Kirk yelled as he and Scotty stepped into one of the turbolifts.
"Now, Chekov," Uhura said in a low voice. In three steps she was in front of the escape chute. She grabbed the bar above the opening and lifted herself into the chute feet first. Chekov was right behind her, performing a one-armed lift that protected his injured shoulder and arm.
They left behind them a scene of near-panic. Orangejuiceandwodka was yelling at the Sackers at the weapons station, they in turn were yelling at Misterma'am, Misterma'am was yelling at Blue, Blue was yelling at Babe, and Babe was yelling at everybody. The frightened young Sackers suddenly found themselves in a real battle in real combat with real weapons—and with no humans to help them or to tell them what to do.