"BRIDGE, THIS IS Commander Ansfield," she snapped. "Disable all controls in the engineering control room, now! Retain control on the bridge at all costs! Ensign Stepanovich has locked himself in the control room, and we have no idea what he may do. He is apparently being affected by the same thing that was affecting Captain Chandler the last two days. Try to establish communication with the ensign. Calm him down if you can. Locate someone he might consider a friend to talk to him. But disabling the controls has top priority. Lieutenant Aldrich, is there anything you can do from where you are?"
"Nothing, Commander. And I doubt that anyone on the bridge can, either. The control room is—"
"I know, Lieutenant! Whoever's in there can control virtually the entire ship. Can you cut into the control circuits directly? Through a wall? A floor? Anything?"
"Given enough time, possibly."
"Then get on it! Get everyone from engineering up there, and get them started!"
Pausing, she punched another code into the comm unit. "Security! Full detail to engineering deck. Report to Lieutenant Aldrich. Do whatever he says."
Shutting off the comm unit, she stood perfectly still for a second, then turned to the Enterprise officers. "Any suggestions, Kirk? Anyone? Anything helpful would be greatly appreciated."
"You might want to double-check your emergency battery power," Kirk said, "to be sure you're ready in case he cuts normal power."
"Understood," she said, snapping the comm unit back on and giving the necessary instructions.
"And disable the ship's phasers and photon torpedoes, in case he can figure out a way to start firing on the Enterprise from in there."
She hesitated, and for a moment Kirk thought he saw suspicion in her eyes.
"I'll consider it," she said, "once we find out just where we stand with Ensign Stepanovich. In the meantime, warn whoever you left in charge on the Enterprise. They can raise the deflectors or pull back out of range."
Kirk nodded, flipping his communicator open. He could hardly blame Ansfield for her suspicions under the circumstances. He had suggested, in effect, that she make the Cochise totally helpless.
"Kirk to Enterprise," he said as he followed the others into the corridor outside the briefing room.
"Scott here, Captain."
Quickly, talking as he and the others hurried toward the turbolift, Kirk explained the situation. "For now," he finished, "put up the deflectors. And see if you can come up with any way of rooting our friend out of the control room."
"Aye, Captain. It can be done, but no' without time and tools. Ye remember Lieutenant Riley."
"I do, Mr. Scott," Kirk acknowledged with a grimace. Riley, temporarily demented by an alien infection, had similarly locked himself in the Enterprise's engineering control room and had very nearly destroyed the ship before they had been able to dislodge him. "Contact me if you have any suggestions. Kirk out."
As on the Enterprise, the bridge was seven decks above sickbay and the briefing room. Halfway up, the lights faded into darkness, and the turbolift shuddered to a stop. A second later, the emergency lights, dim and red, pulsed into life. More slowly, the turbolift resumed its motion.
"I guess we'll see if our batteries are fully charged or not," Ansfield muttered.
A minute later, Ortiz manually opened the door, and the group emerged onto the bridge.
"What happened to the power?" Ansfield asked. "Did Stepanovich cut it off?"
"More than that, Commander," the tall Oriental woman at the science station said. "He's shut down the matter-antimatter engines."
"But why the devil—Have you been able to talk to him? Has he said anything?"
"The comm unit in the control room is on, but we haven't been able to get a word out of him," Lieutenant Richards at the communications station reported.
"He can hear you?"
"Affirmative, but he refuses to respond."
"Patch me in, Lieutenant."
"Right away, Commander."
"Ensign Stepanovich, this is Commander Ansfield. I'd like to talk to you." Her voice, Kirk noted, had suddenly lost its sharp edge. It wasn't soft, but, like McCoy when he was attempting a soothing bedside manner, she put more friendliness than command in it.
But there was no response. Stepanovich's breathing, loud and ragged, could be heard, but that was all.
"We know something's wrong, Ensign," Ansfield went on, talking into the silence. "We think that whatever has happened to you is the same thing that happened to Captain Chandler. We know that whatever you've done, it isn't your fault. Ensign? Do you understand what I'm saying?"
When there was still no response, Chandler stepped forward next to Ansfield. "This is Captain Chandler," he said, speaking almost as softly as Ansfield had. "I know what you're going through. I went through it myself for almost two days. I was afraid of everything and everyone, just like you are now, but I knew I didn't have any reason to be. You don't either. You have nothing to fear, especially from Commander Ansfield and myself."
"The captain's right, Ensign," Ansfield said. "He knows what he's talking about. He's been through it himself."
"Just stop and think, Ensign," Chandler took up when there was still no response. "Think about it rationally. I wasn't able to control the fear, but that was because I didn't know what was causing it. But now we know. It's being caused by something that came through the gate—and it doesn't mean any harm. Remember, whatever it is, it didn't harm me in the slightest. Now that it's left, I'm perfectly all right. And now that we know that, I'm sure you can control the fear you're feeling. You have to control it. Do you understand?"
Still, there was only the ragged breathing coming from the control room. Chandler and Ansfield exchanged glances.
"Think, Ensign," Chandler continued, his voice turning husky with the effort to keep his own remembered fear from showing through. "Look at the fear rationally. There's no basis for it. Something is making you feel that way, but it can't hurt you. It didn't hurt me, not in the slightest. And it left me. It left me and went to you, and now I'm perfectly all right. It will leave you, too, and you'll be fine. Unless you do something to hurt yourself. That's the only danger in the situation, Ensign. The only danger is that this fear you feel will make you do something to hurt yourself. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
When Chandler fell silent again, there was at first no sound at all from the control room, as if Stepanovich had begun holding his breath, but then, after nearly fifteen seconds, there was a shuddering moan.
"It's all right, Stepanovich," Chandler said quickly. "Just keep control of yourself, and everything will be all right. We'll help you. You don't have anything to worry about. All you have to do is stay in control."
The moan went higher in pitch, but still there were no words.
The turbolift door opened a moment later, and a young woman, an ensign in science blue, stepped through nervously.
"Commander Ansfield," she said, halting immediately in front of the turbolift doors. "I was told to report to the bridge. I'm Ensign Karen Laszlo. I'm a friend of Ensign Stepanovich."
Motioning the woman forward, Ansfield said, "Ensign Stepanovich, your friend Karen is here. She'd like to talk to you."
Hesitantly, as if intimidated by their rank, the woman came to stand next to Ansfield and Chandler.
"Andy, are you all right?" she began, but before she could say more, the moan from the control room turned to a scream and then cut off sharply.
"He shut off the comm unit, Commander," the communications officer said.
"Commander!" The voice of the lieutenant at the science station sliced through the half-dozen other voices on the bridge. "He's preparing to start the engines! Cold!"
"But he can't! It's impossible!" Chandler almost shouted, realizing as he did that all the comforting words he had spoken to the ensign had been lies. Whatever had possessed him had nearly killed him, and now it was going to kill his entire ship!
"Impossible or not, Captain," the lieutenant said sharply, "that's what he's trying to do!"
Ansfield's face drained of color. Like everyone on the bridge, she knew that, without the requisite warmup period of nearly thirty minutes, bringing the matter and antimatter together to start the engines was tantamount to suicide. They would become, literally, a small sun as the reaction between matter and antimatter, normally perfectly balanced, went out of control, annihilating itself and vaporizing the Cochise.