The Kobayashi Maru

BY
JULIA ECKLAR
POCKET BOOKS New York London
Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and
incidents are either the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET
BOOKS
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Copyright (C 1989 Paramount Pictures.
All Rights Reserved.
STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of
Paramount Pictures.
This book is published by Pocket Books, a
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All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information
address
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ISBN 0-671-65817-4
First Pocket Books printing December

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
POCKET and colophon are registered
trademarks of Simon and Schuster
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Printed in the U.s.a. Acknowledgments
For all the help and encouragement they've given
me, both during the
writing of The Kobayashi Maru and beside it, this
book is dedicated to
Ann Cecil, friend and editor nonpareil, for
doing me the very great
favor, all those years ago, of reading my first
Star Trek novel and telling me why it stank.
lo Ann Baasch, Charlie Terry, Don
Wenzel, Kathleen Conat, and, once
again, Ann Cecil, for proofreading this
manuscript to death.
Mitch and JoAnn, Don and Kathleen, Tom
and Bill, Pam, Sandy, Diana,
both Joes and all the Daves, and anybody
else who sat with us under the fireworks on July
4th and helped me figure out all the ways I
could blow up Klingon warships.
Rusty, for (among other things) pushing Gs.
And, last but greatest of them all, Don Kosak
the Brilliant, King of
Computers, for his valiant battle withand victory
over The Kobayashi Maru.
If there is anyone I've forgotten (and with all the
time and effort
that's gone into this thing, I'm sure there's someone),
please
forgive me. It isn't my intention to slight
anyone-I'm just a little hard of remembering at times.
But a hearty thank you to everyone,
whether mentioned or not. just as in Starfleet, your
contributions to The Kobayashi Maru represent the
best that is in us all.
Historian's Note
This adventure takes place shortly after the
events chronicled in
Star Trek The Motion Picture.
HALLEY
"THIS is Enterprise hailing shuttlecraft
Halley. All frequencies are
open to you, Halley, and locating circuits are
in operation. If you are able, please respond . .
. This is Enterprise hailing ship's
shuttle Halley. All frequencies are open
to you . . ." "Chekov,
can't you turn that blasted thing off?" Leonard
McCoy's voice was
uncharacteristically low, but cut clearly through
Uhura's tinny
broadcast over the shuttle radio. In the row of
seats across from
McCoy, James Kirk opened his
eyes to darkness. For a long moment,
Captain James T. Kirk was aware of little
save that he was hurt, and he was cold. Then the pain
took residence somewhere deep in his
right knee, and memory came awake with the pain.
The remembering made him vaguely sick. He
gingerly turned his head, searching the dark
shuttle for Scott and Sulu now that the doctor
had roused him.
Leonard McCoy occupied the seat just across the
shuttle's main aisle
from Kirk, one row ahead of

where Sulu, propped carefully upright, still
slept. The doctor had
been in almost the same position when Kirk,
drowsy from McCoy's pain medication, slipped
into sleep God knew how long ago. McCoy was
bundled into a field jacket nearly a size
and a half too large, his hands stuffed sullenly under
his arms for warmth. The hard, yellow
light from an emergency lamp painted his face in
bright relief
against the cold darkness around him. He hadn't yet
realized Kirk was awake; McCoy's
attention was fixed on the forward hatch, where Kirk
could hear movement, but where the dark was too deep
to see.
"Chekov!" McCoy hissed again. "Turn off
the radio!" "I heard you," Chekov called
back, sounding more than just mildly annoyed. There
was a long pause, then a muted snap-slide as
the Russian pulled one
of the radio's circuit boards. The shuttle
fell inffdismal silence.
"Don't go getting grouchy on me, Bones,"
Kirk advised McCoy. "The
quarters are cramped enough as it is." The doctor
turned to him, startled. "How long have you been
awake?" he asked, avoiding a reply to Kirk's
gentle reprimand. The captain shrugged. "Long enough
to hear you snap at my navigator."
McCoy looked embarrassed, and settled back
into his seat a bit
self-consciously. "Sorry, Jim. It's just.
. ." The doctor's ill temper seemed to bleed
away with his weary sigh. He didn't look angry
then, only tired and old. "It just seemed so
pointless," he finished. "That's all."
"I know." Kirk's words puffed out as
clouds of white vapor; the shuttle had been losing
heat for over an hour now. "But don't give up
hope yet, Bones."
McCoy managed a humph that sounded so much like his
normal crusty self, Kirk had to smile.
"How's your knee?"
"You're the doctor," Kirk replied. "Aren't
I supposed to ask you that?" McCoy favored the
captain with an unamused scowl. "You haven't done
anything that won't heal, but you'll have to be careful with
it for at least a couple weeks. You managed
to wrench it pretty good."
Kirk didn't like how that sounded; if nothing
else, it meant no movement right now. was "Wrench
it"?" he echoed, striving for lightness and (he
suspected) failing. "If you keep using these
technical terms, Bones, you're going to confuse
me!"
"Don't worry about the technical terms,"
McCoy tossed back, "just tell me if it
hurts."
Kirk shrugged again. "A little." In truth, the
knee was a solid, steady fist of pain, cramping his
thigh muscles until the urge to shift position
became almost unbearable. Every time he stirred,
though, the joint exploded in violent protest and
left him wishing he'd never tried to move at all.
But if McCoy could change the subject, so could
he. "How's Sulu holding up?"
Worry flashed across the doctor's face, but,
before he could answer, the helmsman volunteered, "dis
. . I've been better . . ."
McCoy turned in his seat to glare at Sulu.
"You're supposed to be asleep, Commander," he
reprimanded sternly.
Eyes still closed, Sulu grinned weakly at
McCoy over the cervical support holding his
head in place. "You've got to be kidding, Doc!
My shoulder's killing me!"
"I've got you on a high dosage already,"
McCoy said, his manner softened. "I don't
want to give you anything more just yet."
Kirk thought maybe Sulu tried to nod; the
only indication was the tight expression of pain that
flitted across the lieutenant commander's face. The
helmsman was strapped and belted so firmly into his
seat, Kirk was surprised he could move at all.
"That's okay, Doc," Sulu said. Even his
normally brilliant smile looked only pained and
drugged. "I don't want you to O.d. me
. . . But I'm not sleeping, either."
Kirk sank back into his seat and tried not
to think about his crew or his knee. Neither task was
easy. The stale air in the shuttle smelled
rankly of burnt circuitry and ozone.
Enigmatic sounds and smells wafted into the main
compartment from Scott's repair efforts in the rear
hatch; in the pilots' hatch, Chekov hadn't so
much as cursed as he sifted through the remains of the
radio in search of something to repair. At first,
Uhura's soothing, velvet voice over their receiver
was the only indication that home was still out there somewhere,
looking for them. Now, even that ephemeral
reassurance was gone. Kirk didn't know whether
to be angry at McCoy, or grateful.
We were supposed to go on shore leave in three
days.
Their first shore leave in four months. It just
wasn't fair.
The Enterprise wasn't even assigned near the
Hohweyn system. Then, just two weeks ago,
contact
with the Venkatsen Research Group was completely
lost, and the Enterprise was the only ship in a
position to attempt an investigation and
recovery. Again.
Failure was a chance the Venkatsen Group and their
funders had taken when the Group was first placed on
Hohweyn VII. The safest planet in an
utterly unsafe system, Hohweyn VII came
fully equipped with all the dangers expected in
such an arrangement. Hohweyn's forty-seven
planets-natural, captured, and rogue-careened
about an unstable tertiary sun, creating, destroying,
and slinging as incredible an array of astrophysical
anomalies as Kirk had ever had the honor to see.
Primarily, the Group was there to delve into the
secrets of gravitational attraction and repulsion,
hoping to better equip modern sensor systems so
travelers might discover and avoid gravitic
anomalies, rather than stumble into them.
So much for modern research, Kirk reflected
glumly. We've probably got more information on
gravitic fluxes than Venkatsen has compiled in
a year! Only they would probably never get home
with the data.
One of the unfortunate hazards of the system were
several debris clouds and asteroid belts-the
remains of the system's more unstable planets and
comets. Hohweyn VII spent most of its
solar year in the path of one or more of these. Besides the
obvious danger of collision, the iron- and
nickel-rich asteroids wreaked havoc with
sensors.
Upon arriving, Kirk deemed it unnecessary to venture
too close to Hohweyn VII with something as large
as a starship. The Enterprise was left in parking
orbit just beyond the path of the debris cloud enveloping
Hohweyn VII, and a team was dispatched by
shuttlecraft to make contact with Venkatsen and
report. Kirk headed the team himself, desperate
to be away from the bridge (even if only for a little
while), and anxious to have someone of his own tactical
skill and diplomacy along. The other five
positions were left open to volunteers.
On later reflection, Kirk realized that even
if he'd handpicked each member of the shuttle's
crew, the results would have been the same. He
wasn't sure if he should feel guilty about that, but
he did.
Kirk wanted an engineer, in the event some
mechanical problem caused the Venkatsen Group's
silence. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott
pointed out that the equipment on Hohweyn VII would
not be standard, and Kirk would need a top
engineer to discern its workings and repairs. When the tally
was in, Kirk couldn't argue with Scott's choice
for the assignment himself. The captain had seen
Scott puzzle out and repair things Kirk couldn't
even recognize as machinery, as well as
resurrect equipment other engineers had declared
utterly unsalvageable. It sometimes seemed at
least half the Enterprise's current engine room
was as the designer planned it, the other half
Scotty-rigged to do whatever Kirk asked. If the
engineer wanted to come play with archaic scientific
equipment in the middle of a messed-up star system,
who was Kirk to tell him, "No"?
Dr. McCoy didn't offer any explanation for
his willingness to tag along, and Kirk didn't ask.
The captain suspected the doctor was growing bored
with the number of stress-related problems caused by their
long stint without shore leave. The Venkatsen
rescue was just an excuse to leave the ship in some
other
doctor's capable hands. Whatever the reason,
Kirk harassed McCoy only moderately for his
sudden desire to flirt with danger, and silently
welcomed his company.
Pavel Chekov's reasons for
volunteering were easily the most obvious. Kirk's
former navigator, now chief of ship's security,
hadn't been the only member of the Enterprise's
security force to volunteer for the mission. Every
crewman in security knew as well as Kirk that
it was standard procedure to include at least one armed
escort on any investigative team; rank and
position mattered very little in the field. Kirk
knew, too, that their recent wealth of deep-space
runs had provided security with no of ship time at
all, and very few on-ship duties besides trading off
at the bridge weapons station. In the end, Kirk
looked on in amusement while, at First Officer
Spock's suggestion, the fifteen security
personnel drew lots for the contested assignment.
Kirk always considered it unfortunate that Chekov had
been transferred away from navigations (he was by far
the best navigator Kirk had ever had), so it was
to the captain's advantage that Chekov won the
draw. Kirk assigned the lieutenant as both
shuttle navigator and team security escort,
thus cutting the team's numbers by one.
Lieutenant Commander Sulu was the easiest
inclusion of all. Sulu was Kirk's chief
helmsman, and the best pilot on the ship (not
to mention in
Starfleet); Kirk planned to privately ask
the small, slender Asian to join the flight. He
suspected Sulu could be talked into it, if only
to ensure the safety of the others. To his distinct
pleasure, however, Kirk never got the chance.
Sulu showed up, as cheerful as if he'd been
report-
ing for a routine practice simulation, while
Chekov was still compiling navigational data from the
Enterprise's main computer. Within five minutes,
it was impossible to tell the two men hadn't worked
side by side in several years. "It's like riding a
bike," Sulu informed Kirk brightly, obviously
aiming the jibe at Chekov. "You never really
forget. Besides, I'll make sure he doesn't
run us into anything important." As if to prove
Sulu's teasing groundless, Chekov reported ready
for launch in record time, and they moved the shuttle
smoothly into free space.
Halley nosed into the crazy system
uneventfully. Scott rode the sensors as if they
were a nervous horse, quietly calling off
coordinates when the readings warned him of danger.
Sulu's skilled and delicate hands laced
the tiny shuttle through conflicting gravity wells and
any number of tangled lines of force, as calm and
unhurried as the plants that shared his cabin back on
board the ship. Chekov kept his eyes trained on
his own panel, acting on Scott's information as
smoothly as Sulu, though less relaxed. Neither of
them so much as glanced away from their stations until
Scott said quietly, "Mister Sulu, down
throttle."
Sulu obeyed without hesitation. Chekov glanced
anxiously at Scott, not turning away from his
panel. "What's wrong?"
The engineer nursed the readings a moment longer.
"The sensors picked up a slight flux just off our
starboard bow." A smile that wasn't at all
amused crossed his broad, highlander's features.
"Don't look now, lads, but I think we've
found a gravitic mine."
Sulu groaned. "Lucky for us."
"Can we avoid it?" Kirk asked from the
passenger
compartment. No one seemed surprised that he'd
been listening.
"We'll find out, Captain," Scott
replied. "We're sure as hell not going
to try running through it!"
Chekov already worried over his controls, leaning
back briefly to steal a look at Scott's
sensor readout. "I need more room," he told
Sulu shortly. "I can't even turn us at this
distance!"
It was serious, Kirk realized then. Sulu could
pilot them straight through hell without raising a
sweat, but not Chekov. The security chief's
irritability was a certain indicator that Chekov
was not happy with their predicament. "Take us back
about four thousand kilometers," Chekov continued.
"Beyond that well at 478 mark-was
"Mother of Christ!" Scott exclaimed suddenly,
his voice sharp with fear. "It's moving! The damn
thing's moving! Nose down, Sulu! Get us under
it!" "Give me a reading!" Chekov twisted about as
far as his seat straps would allow. "Scott! A
reading!"
It wasn't until much later that Kirk realized
Chekov wanted the second reading to plot where the
mine would be once it passed them. Two points of
reference weren't really enough to extrapolate any kind
of course, but he was going to try anyway. Like so much
else on this disastrous mission, it was a damn
fine effort.
The mine struck them broadside, wrenching the tiny
shuttle about like a rabbit caught up in a dog's
jaws. Kirk slammed hard against the wall, gasping
with surprise when the strength of the impact forced the
wind from him. All the blood in his body seemed
to rush simultaneously into his extremities,
swelling
them, crowding them. Kirk couldn't tell if the
shuttle was under violent acceleration, or merely being
torn apart by the gravitic mine's fury. He
wondered fleetingly if the horror stories he'd
heard in his youth about runaway centrifuges could
hold anything to this.
Then Sulu's voice, light and confident
"No-I think I've got it!"
"Sulu!"
Without warning, the engines in the rear compartment fired
with a sound like a dragon's roar. A sense of up and
down returned abruptly, and Kirk bounced back
into his seat so hard his teeth clacked. He'd
only just opened his mouth to call for a status report
when the suit locker next to the airlock wrenched
loose with a squeal of rending metal.
Kirk instinctively bolted toward the
sagging cabinet. "Jim, don't!" McCoy
called. One of the locker doors bulged, threatening
to bury the doctor in an avalanche of heavy
suiting and equipment. "We don't even know if
we're stable!" But Kirk was already up and moving.
Though there was no more strain on Kirk's body
to rush out in all
directions, no blood pounding the backs of his
eyes into firework displays of light and dark, still, as
soon as he was upright, Kirk knew the ship was
tumbling. He thought at first he'd hit a slick
patch on the deck-and entertained a brief, vicious
thought about whoever kept the decks in order until he
realized it was Scott-but knew something more, was wrong
when what should have been a harmless stumble drove him
feetfirst against the far bulkhead. He felt his right
knee groan with stress, then buckle 18
beneath him in a brilliant, nauseating rush of
liquid pain. He twisted his body into the fall and
met the bulkhead with his shoulder. That only softened the
blow a little. The sympathetic explosion from his knee
made him gasp.
The engines coughed again, this time making a
guttural, grinding snarl. The outlines of the
shuttle interior softened like velvet, then
melted into nothing as blackness swept from stem to stern
like a thundercloud. Kirk bit his lip hard and watched
pain throb and bloom redly in front of his vision.
What he feared most happened an instant later-the
shuttle settled into a slow, regular tumble, and
dropped him from the wall to the deck. He bit his
lip harder to keep from crying out, but only half
succeeded. The damned locked door held fast,
never loosing its load at all. Kirk almost
swore aloud.
"Jim?" McCoy's voice, concerned and
frightened, came from the doctor's seat.
"I'm here, Bones. I'm all right." That was a
lie, and Kirk knew his voice said as much.
"That was damned stupid, Captain!" McCoy
began, but Kirk cut him off "What happened up
front?"
"Doctor!" Kirk heard someone stumble over the
pilots' seats on their way toward the door.
"Doctor McCoy? Are you all right?" It was
Chekov. Kirk could hear McCoy cursing to himself.
"Just fine," McCoy growled. "What about you?
What the hell happened up there?"
"I'm fine, sir," Chekov reported
hastily. "But it's Sulu-he's hurt!"
"Nobody move!" Kirk heard his order stop
Chekov only two steps out of the cabin. Beyond the
navigator,
Sulu moaned softly, and Scott spoke to him
in low, soothing tones. "Nobody's going anywhere
until we've got lig hts," Kirk said.
"But, Jim-to "
"Bones, you can't do anything in the dark!" Kirk
twisted about to look back toward the pilots' hatch,
forgetting for the moment that he couldn't see anyway.
He allowed himself the luxury of an unseen
grimace when his knee sang out in protest to the
motion. "Scotty?"
"Right here," the engineer answered from near
McCoy's seat.
"Jesus, Scotty!" McCoy cursed. "You
scared me to death!"
"Sorry, Doctor."
"Have we got lamps in the storage cabinet?"
Kirk asked, still bent over his throbbing knee.
"Aye," Scott said. "About a dozen. But
I'll need some extra hands. Come on, lad-was This
apparently to Chekov. "comI think we're the only
two still stand- ing."
Kirk sat in tense, painful silence,
marveling at how easily he could track their
progress in the total darkness. They spoke
quietly in the back for a few moments while
Scott jimmied open the cabinet, then a fat finger
of light sprayed down the center aisle as the first of the
emergency lamps was activated.
"Thank God something still works," McCoy
muttered.
Then the wait began. Chekov helped Kirk
back to a seat while McCoy tended to Sulu.
Kirk tried putting weight on his leg only
once, then was forced to apologize when that nearly
toppled both him and
Chekov to the deck. Chekov set about placing
lamps throughout the shuttle while Scott shut down
the main engines-they were no longer producing any- thing
but noise and would never propel the shuttle another
meter. McCoy immobilized everything possible on
Sulu, using everything he had on hand, then enlisted
Scott and Chekov to help him strap the helmsman
into a second row seat. McCoy would have preferred
to lay Sulu out flat, but the only space long enough
was the center aisle, and that had to be left clear for
repair access. Better that he was secure in a
reasonably guarded location; they still didn't
know how long they would be out here.
Chekov tried signaling the Enterprise until
it became apparent no one could hear him. Even so,
he didn't give up until Kirk told him
to. Helm responded to prodding, but was useless without
information from the navigational computer. Navigations was
destroyed; Scott salvaged what he could from the
front to start work on restoring their heat and light.
Chekov was left with the radio, an all but hopeless
job; Kirk was left to watch McCoy care for
Sulu. And to worry.
Sulu's valiant action to fire the engines and
blast them free of the mine undoubtedly saved the
shuttle from immediate destruction. He'd been forced
to unbelt to reach the controls, however; while Kirk
was thrown against the bulkhead in the passengers' cabin,
Sulu suffered a similar fate up front. The
result was a shoulder which hung at an agonizingly
wrong angle until McCoy eased it back
into place. Torn cartilage, McCoy told
Kirk. Severed muscles, damaged nerves. All
of it, no doubt, reparable in a starship's
sickbay; all
of it hopeless in a heatless, lightless, airless
shuttlecraft. Kirk watched McCoy
wind what seemed like kilometers of translucent
bandaging about Sulu's still form, binding his arm fast
to his side. Like a butterfly in a cocoon,
Kirk found himself thinking. Or a fly wound up in a
spider's web, waiting for the inevitable.
He looked around the crippled shuttle now,
wondering how long Spock would search before declaring them
dead.
Sulu's voice interrupted Kirk's reverie.
"Do you know what this sort of reminds me of? Only
a little," the helmsman amended, "but it still reminds
me."
Kirk hoped it wasn't anything too dreadful.
"What?"
Sulu smiled weakly, and, even though he was
ashen, his eyes glittering with pain, the smile brightened
his face. "There was a simulation our class ran in
command school, where a ship had been disabled by a
gravitic mine-was "Not just your class." Kirk
grinned. It was supposed to be kept secret-how
else could each class's response be an honest
one?-but under the cir- cumstances . . dis"...All of
them."
Chekov groaned inarticulately.
"I remember too. The Kobayashi
Maru. his
Sulu tried to nod, winced graphically, and
instead said, "That's the one."
His smile didn't fade.
"What's a Kobayashi Maru?" McCoy
asked.
"It's a torture device," Chekov
volunteered unhelpfully from the front, and Kirk
laughed. McCoy glanced up at the hatch, then
back at Kirk, looking all the while as if he
thought they were trying to pull
something over on him. For Kirk, that somehow made
it funnier.
"It means "the ship named Kobayashi' in
Japanese," Sulu tried to explain. "That was the
name . . . of the ship, I mean."
"It was a command scenario," Kirk went on,
taking pity on the doctor's obvious confusion. "A
command cadet is placed in charge of a simulated
starship, then forced to make a decision regarding the
rescue of a Federation fuel carrier that's been disabled
in Klingon space. The name of the carrier in the
scenario is Kobayashi Maru. his
McCoy snorted and sat back in his seat. "So
what's the big deal about this test?"
"It was a no-win situation," Kirk told him.
"No matter what you did, or how hard you tried,
you always lost. All the possible decisions were
wrong."
McCoy turned, his face a study in
indignant disbelief. "Well, that sounds bloody
unfair!"
Everyone in the shuttle-even Sulu-laughed.
Kirk said, "That was the whole point, Bones."
McCoy gave up in frustration and settled
back into his seat. "I don't understand."
Kirk couldn't help feeling sorry for the
doctor, who couldn't realize why his bemusement was so
funny. "It was a character test," Kirk explained.
"Intended to find out how well you respond to losing."
McCoy surprised Kirk by laughing aloud.
"You must have flunked that one royally!"
The captain feigned insult. "On the
contrary-I actually scored rather high."
"Oh?" McCoy drew back in mock
surprise. "I can't wait to hear this!"
Kirk was startled to discover that, even after all this
time, the very thought of his private battle with the
simulator made him blush furiously. He
resisted the temptation to squirm in his seat.
"It's a long story, Bones . . ."
McCoy's smile only widened. "We have
lots of time . . . Besides," he added, more
reasonably, "it'll pass the hours."
The hours they had left before rescue or death.
That it would. Kirk's inclination to keep his youthful
follies hidden warred with the stronger instinct to somehow
serve his men even in this limited capacity. Indeed,
if this were not their final wrestle with the Kobayashi
Maru, what was? At least it was apropos.
"I'm not supposed to tell anyone," he said
by way of final resistance. "Our lips are sealed,"
Sulu promised solemnly, still smiling. "Right,
Pavel?"
Chekov stuck his head into the passenger compartment
briefly. "I wouldn't even tell my own mother,
sir."
"I'll hold you both to that," Kirk promised as
Chekov disappeared into the pilots' hatch again. "Because
if anyone ever tries this stunt again, Starfleet will
know where they got the idea . . . to was
THE NO-WIN SCENARIO
CADET JAMES T. KiRc sat cramped
inside a rec hall reader terminal, elbows on
knees, fists balled up beneath his chin.
Thumb-high people scurried about the screen in front of
him, running first forward, then backward as Kirk
changed the tape's direction with a single whispered
word. An on-screen explosion splashed the
cubicle with light; darkness rushed in again just as
quickly, this time claiming the screen image as well.
Only the words KOBAYASHI MARU TEST
463981-009 COMPLETE brightened the black
screen, and then only briefly.
I lost.
The thought struck Kirk with numbing incredulity, just
as it had five times before. After being accepted
into Starfleet at a younger-than-standard age-after testing
at the top of his Academy class every single
year-Startleet stuck him in a twelve-meter
diameter simulator for less than five
minutes, and he failed so miserably not even his
classmates had the ill grace to
laugh. He signaled the reader to replay the
tape again as impotent fury burned his disbelief
away.
"Such tenacity should belong to an Andorian,
James Kirk."
Kirk jerked upright. Outside the doorway to the
reader, Lieutenant Commander Constrev's
pale blond hair was the only thing visible through the
dark.
"It is after student curfew," he continued
complacently. "You should be in the barracks."
Kirk had engaged in late-night discussions with
Constrev too frequently to believe the computer
expert would report him now. Turning back to the
reader and the frantic scenario again filling the tiny
screen, he dropped his chin into his hand again. "I
wanted to see this one more time." I want to figure out
what the hell I did wrong . . .
Constrev folded his legs beneath him and sat on the
floor outside the cubicle. "The Kobayashi
Maru?" Kirk flicked a startled glance down at
the officer, and Constrev smiled. "It is now almost
midnight. I think you have reviewed this tape more than
once."
Kirk fixed his attention on the viewer again before
Constrev commented on his surprise; he didn't like it
that the lieutenant commander could read him so easily.
"I'm . . . timing it." He tried to make the
admission sound casual. "And I wanted to study the
details."
"I see." Constrev watched the screen with him for
some time. "Once, nearly fifteen years
ago," he remarked, as if Kirk had asked him
for the
statistic, "a student made the Kobayashi
Maru test last eleven and 26
one half minutes. My commanding officer,
Admiral Howell, told me this," he added
parenthetically. "No one has done so since then.
Why do you feel the need to succeed where others
failed?"
Kirk felt the blood come up into his face and,
this time, didn't stop the outburst that followed. "Because
I was stupid! It took the Klingons less time
to destroy me than it takes me to tell about it!"
His hands twisted into fists without his thinking about it; he
jammed them against his thighs to keep from striking something
within the cubicle. "I'm good at strategy," he
insisted, his voice so soft it was almost a groan.
"Damn it, Constrev, I'm a good commander!"
Constrev nodded sagely. "Perhaps the Klingons are
merely better."
"No." The very thought was too frightening
to contemplate. If the Klingons were "better" in this
simple classroom exercise, what would they be like
out in the real world? "It's just a computer," Kirk
finally stated defensively. "I should have been
able to beat it."
"Just a computer." Constrev's thin laughter fell
dead in the bigness of the empty rec hall. "All the
more reason why you could never have beaten it."
Kirk fixed him with a wary frown.
Constrev smiled. No one could discuss the
intricacies of computer
psychology with as much glee and expertise as
Constrev; Kirk sometimes thought binary mental
functions were his friend's sacred call. "Computers cannot
be indecisive," Constrev told him. "Computers can
think faster than any biological or-
ganism currently known. Computers take their knowledge
base from the knowledge of all species, not just from the knowledge of one
man's
experience. They are smarter than you, faster than
you, more patient than you."
"They also can't feel, was Kirk countered. He
didn't like being compared to a machine, particularly when
the comparison was unfavorable. "They have no
instinct-they have no heart!"
Constrev smiled pleasantly. "So you believe
spiritually superior biological creatures should
triumph over electronics."
Kirk turned back to the reader without
dignifying the sarcasm with a reply. "You should read
your philosophy, James Kirk. Earth's
Agrippa teaches that all beings are microcosmic
representations of the universe around them-a being is
born, and grows, and dies. So the universe was
once born, grows old, and will someday die. Your
failure in this is only a representation of how
all things-great and small-suffer failure, until
the end of eternity. Accept this, and go on."
Kirk watched as flame swallowed the
Potemkin's bridge for the sixth time that evening. He
wasn't really interested in what Agrippa thought of the
Kobayashi Maru-Agrippa's grade didn't
depend on it. "How microcosmic can we be,"
he asked Constrev irritably, "when individual
men die every day, but our species continues
to thrive?"
"In the end, entropy claims even the most
thriving species. We all fail in the end."
Kirk slapped off the tape player with an
angry swat 28
of his hand. He'd had too much of philosophy for
one night. "Good night, Constrev," he announced
shortly.
Constrev stood without protest. "Good
night, James."
It was like a bad nightmare.
Smoke obscured Kirk's vision for the second
time in as many weeks. Fans roared into life
overhead, swirling back the gray-black cloud like
a curtain as the simulator cracked open with a
loud, hydraulic hissss. The students scattered
throughout the ruined bridge set looked around in
embarrassed confusion. Their grime-smeared faces and
averted eyes tore at Kirk's already guilty
heart.
I failed them.
He stared fixedly at the navigation-helm console
as Admiral Howell stepped onto the bridge.
Howellhis dark eyes glittering with
sympathy-paused in the arc where the viewscreen once
hung, and announced, "The simulation is now over."
Almost as a single body, the cadets exhaled in
relief. Kirk couldn't help but marvel, even through
his despair, that one calm voice could reassure
an entire bridge crew following such a total
disaster. He envied Howell that steadiness-a steadiness
he was once vain enough to believe he possessed himself.
"You will have thirty minutes to clean up and
organize your thoughts," Howell continued,
apparently oblivious to Kirk's humiliation.
"We'll meet in Kare Conference Hall at ten
o'clock to review your performance. Dismissed."
The cadets filed off the simulator in groups
of two
and three. Still shaken, their movements too quick and
broad, their voices too hushed or too loud, they
abandoned Kirk without a backward glance. As well
they should, he thought bitterly. A second class of
cadets, a second starship, a second
Kobayashi Maru. A second failure. It
terrified Kirk to think this might be the beginning of a
trend.
"Are you going to join the rest of us, Cadet
Kirk? Or wait here until the maintenance crews
sweep you away?"
Kirk flashed a look at Howell's smiling
eyes, then forced himself not to look away again when he
realized he was blushing. "I was . . . reviewing
my performance. I think I'm ready to leave now."
Howell waved Kirk back into the command chair when
the cadet started to rise. "Reviewing your
performance?" the admiral echoed when Kirk stopped and
looked at him, but refused to sit back down.
"Didn't you get enough of that the other night?"
Kirk snapped his mouth shut the moment he
realized it was hanging open. "Constrev-was
"Told me nothing," Howell finished for him.
"But I know the tape of your last Kobayashi Maru
was checked out overnight, you were late for bed check, and
Constrev showed up at my office late-and
sleepy-for his duties the next day." He stepped
forward to lean across the navigation console, chin in hand.
"Mister Kirk, do you realize your reaction time to this
test was well above average for this kind of encounter?
Both times."
Kirk felt his face redden again. "I didn't
bother to time myself, Admiral."
That wasn't entirely true He 30
had studied his first scenario enough to know it took him
four minutes, thirty-seven point zero three
seconds to die. He thought it took a little longer this
time, but he wasn't sure.
"Both times, you executed flawless approaches.
You deviated from the books when applicable, and your
crew gave you admirable assistance-especially
considering that none of them has actually served on
board a starship."
Howell cocked one eyebrow and gave Kirk a
curious grin. "I didn't expect the
Reinhold pirouette this time. I'm not even sure
that's possible with a Constitution-class ship. But
Admiral Walgren gave you points for trying.
He isn't an easy man to impress."
"I lost my ship." The words crept out of
Kirk before he could stop them. An agony of shame
at his lack of control made him turn to examine the
shattered bridge around him. "I lost my crew!
Twice..."
"You did everything you could."
"I should have done more."
Howell shrugged with such infuriating calm that
Kirk wanted to hit him. "Maybe. But it wouldn't
have made any difference."
Kirk started to protest He'd studied the great
commanders since he was a boy-he knew that Korrd,
Garth of Izar, or Shaitani would have wrenched
victory from the jaws of even this defeat. God, it
was Shaitani he'd tried to emulate in his first
scenario, and even then-
Even then, he'd failed.
And that was impossible.
Staring into Howell's seamed face, Kirk looked
for some confirmation of what he'd already intuited. He
31
didn't understand why, but he knew now. Knew, and
hated Howell and all the others for forcing him to face
such a scenario.
"You planned this," he accused in a quiet
voice. "Both times, you knew I was going
to lose."
"I know everyone is going to lose." Howell
pushed himself upright and matched Kirk's glare.
"It's the nature of the game, Mister Kirk. No
one wins."
Howell didn't seem angry at Kirk or
Kirk's newly discerned knowledge. So the ensign didn't
interrupt him when he continued.
"The Kobayashi Maru is a no-win scenario,"
Howell explained. "In real life, you only
get to face this sort of failure once. But it's
something every commander has to be ready for." He gestured
toward the smoke-grimed panel in front of him.
"No matter what you do, the computer adjusts for it,
and compensates. We've drawn knowledge from every commander who
ever lived-none of them could beat this computer now. There
will always be more Klingons, more damage, less time."
Kirk nodded, understanding better than he thought
Howell realized. "It cheats."
Howell's laughter surprised him. "Of
course it cheats! Because the point of the scenario is to not
let you win! That's all the computer's programmed
for. That's all it knows."
"But that isn't fair," Kirk argued. He
folded his arms stubbornly across his chest. "When you
said I could take this as many times as I wanted, was that
a lie, too?"
"No." Howell shook his head. "You can take it
until hell freezes over. Or until the end
of the semester, 32
whichever comes first. But it won't make any
difference."
"Then why tell me this? Why not let me do it and
do it and do it, just like everybody else?"
"Because," Howell smiled thinly, "everybody
else doesn't. No one's taken this test twice
in over twenty years." The smile faded, and
Kirk thought he sensed true concern in the
admiral's dark eyes. "I thought telling you the
punch line might change your mind. I didn't
want to see such a fine student waste his time on
losing."
When he stepped off the dais, Kirk tried to do
it with a determination worthy of gods. He wasn't
sure if he succeeded; he felt abysmally
small. "We'll see," was all he said to Howell
as he stepped down.
The World Library annex in Old El
Cerrito had nothing on the Kobayashi Maru. Not
a single book, or article, or footnote
reference in even the most obscure journal in the
galaxy.
Of course.
Kirk drummed his foot as he waited for the
shuttle that would return him to the Academy, damning
himself for even hoping write-ups existed (especially
after his failure to find any references in the
Academy's own library). The fourteen tapes in
his jacket pockets clicked like out-of-tune
maracas as the December wind whipped all a round
him. Kirk jerked the front of his windbreaker
closed, then crossed his arms in frustration.
The Kobayashi Maru didn't exist outside the
confines of that damned simulator. No one spoke
of it, none of the textbooks mentioned it, none of his

exhaustive searches of the Federation computer banks
found even the vaguest reference to anything by that name-not
even a real spaceship. If it weren't for his own
dreams, Kirk could almost imagine he'd
never really taken the test at all.
He couldn't count how many times in the last month
he'd tossed awake at night, angry and sweating,
only to spend the rest of the night in the barracks'
bathroom plotting strategies. The fine line between
failure and winning had gnawed at his soul; after the
failure of his first computer searches, he acquired
information on other military defeats. If he
couldn't learn success from the masters, he would learn
failure from them, instead. Some of the defeats were
foolish, so easy to overturn that they were hardly
worth consideration Earth's own George Custer at
Little Bighorn, who would have slaughtered the Cheyenne
if he'd only waited for the rest of his troops;
Babin at Rukbat V, who would never have
deployed his sixth fleet to the system at all if
he hadn't been too obsessed with owning Rukbat
to pay attention to the rumors of Romulan ambush.
Others were honest defeats that the commanders at the time could
never have changed The Hoshe Offensive throughout the
Magellan sector (earth didn't know about the
transporter in those days); Fr'nir at Gast,
whose soldiers died slowly from kurite poisoning before
anyone knew what kurite was.
After the battles, then, he studied the
commanders. Garth, Babin, Shaitani,
Hoshe-I)a, Korrd, Friendly John, Von.
Biographical information and statistics on their
battles reeled about his head every waking moment. He
dreamed the battle of Tiatris only last 34
night, and he won it, too, despite the odds.
Where Friendly John had been food for the mihka,
Kirk had routed the mihka into the sea. He even
remembered how-now, when he was awake, he could
recount every move he'd made, every order given. And
they were brilliant. All of them.
Sitting on the shuttle between the Academy grounds
and the library, he sketched and figured and planned,
until he could overturn all those historic
victories as if they were preschool disputes. Some
of them he could overturn in less time than it took
to enact the original conflict. Some of them he could
avoid altogether. Some of them he could end before they would
even be considered started.
And on the heels of such successes, his thoughts
always turned to Kobayashi Maru.
In so many ways, the test was more complex than
anything he could find in his historic references. The
computer knew everything, no matter how obscure or
unlikely; Klingon reinforcements could
arrive out of nowhere, no matter that the Neutral
Zone never hosted more than four unreported Klingon
cruisers. Kirk had piles of handwritten notes
hidden under his mattress at the barracks-notes that
sometimes resembled flowcharts more than battle
plans. Twelve times now he'd constructed winnable
strategies to the Kobayashi Maru; twelve times
he'd countered his own schemes by beefing up the
computer's knowledge, increasing the Klingon forces. It was like
trying to win a war against God-no matter what he
conceived of, more Klingons could always converge, or
simply not take damage, or fatally damage his
own ship with weapons that shouldn't have penetrated the
screens.
Kirk was bound by the laws of physics, while
nothing bound the computer but some programmer's
sadistic imagination; without the framework of reality
within which to work, literally anything could happen.
So Howell was right Kirk would lose. Every time.
"It's the nature of the game. his
But it wasn't fair.
When Kirk stepped off the shuttle he found the
Academy quad predictably empty. The
midwinter rain having chased most of the students
inside for the weekend and upcoming finals
didn't help. Kirk would have stayed to study himself,
but Saturdays were the only time when he could venture
off-grounds to the library, and he didn't want
to waste what might be his last chance to collect data
before the end of the semester.
Halfway across the windy quad, Kirk spotted
a solitary figure beneath the arch of one of the elevated
walkways. A bulky parka smothered the
individual's identity, but the flared black
trousers marked him as a member of Startleet;
grinning, Kirk redirected his course to join his
snowsuited comrade.
He didn't realize it was Constrev until he
stepped up alongside and the lieutenant glanced at
him curiously. The computer expert's pale blue
eyes looked so appropriately chilled inside the
parka hood that Kirk had to laugh. "What are you
doing out here?" he asked when Constrev returned
to studying the back end of the quad.
"I'm attempting to adjust to the weather," he
replied. "I shall be studying at the Academy for
two more Earth years, and would like to be able to leave
the buildings in the winter." He was trying to sound
reasonable, but the defensive edge to his voice
betrayed that others had asked him this same question
today.
Kirk nodded agreeably, turning to follow
Constrev's gaze so that the sight of the parka wouldn't
move him to laughter again. "You're lucky the
Academy's in San Francisco," he commented.
"Most Humans don't even consider the weather here
to be cold."
"I am not most Humans." Indeed, it was a very
rare Human that was born and raised on Vulcan.
When Constrev volunteered nothing further, Kirk
asked, "It doesn't get cold on Vulcan?"
"They have a winter season," Constrev allowed, "but
not so severe as this. The summers are much warmer, as
well, and approach fifty degrees centigrade
when the year is not bad."
Kirk whistled appreciatively. "I thought
Humans boiled at that
temperature."
"Not me."
They stood, side by side, for several silent
minutes; Kirk watched a flock of dry leaves
chase themselves across the flat stone, trying not
to personify the skittering dervish as some army he should
try to outmaneuver. It only half worked, and he
made himself look some other way as the leaves
settled into a silent pile again.
"Where have you been today?" Constrev asked him. He
had been watching the leaves as well, and Kirk
couldn't help but wonder if he somehow knew what
Kirk was thinking.
"The World Library annex," Kirk admitted.
"I was looking for more
information on the test." If Constrev knew, there was
no sense trying to deny it.
Constrev shook his head, jamming his hands deeper
into his parka pockets. "I would never travel so
far from the buildings on such a cold day."
"Where I grew up," Kirk told him, "this
isn't cold. During the winter in Iowa-that's the
area of Earth where I grew up-the temperatures can
get down to as much as sixty degrees below zero
centigrade."
Constrev made a distinctly unhappy noise.
"I suppose you have snow as well?"
Kirk sighed. "Where the land is mostly flat, the
snow lies across it like icing on a cake. And the
morning sunlight turns it so bright it hurts your
eyes to look at it-like a whole sheet of stars just
packed together on the fields until there isn't even
space between them. And you can roll it up
into snowmen, or pack it together with your hands to throw at
your brother." He smiled in memory of more than a
dozen Iowa winters, with his fingers numb and stupid as
clay, his breath rushing out of him in feathery clouds of
steam. "I couldn't even begin to explain all the things
snow can mean to someone who grew up with it. Snow is
more than just chemistry. It's a whole part of growing
up."
Constrev didn't answer for a long time. After a
moment, Kirk glanced over at his friend, surprised
to find Constrev staring attentively across the empty
quad as though valiantly trying to envision the world
Kirk depicted. "Maybe I'll take you
to Iowa someday," Kirk added, feeling suddenly
foolish. "It's easier just to show you."
Constrev nodded absently. "You have a poet's
soul, James Kirk," he stated seriously.
"Why do you wish to spend all your time making war?"
"I don't want to make war," Kirk told
him.
"You study this test," Constrev pointed out. "You
spend more hours in the libraries than you spend in your
own bed. You study destruction and tactics.
Isn't this war?"
"No," Kirk countered. "It's a
principle." He stepped in front of Constrev
to break the instructor's eye contact with the
nonexistent snow. "I don't believe in the
no-win scenario," he told him. "I don't
believe it's fair to ask students to accept a
concept I don't think is valid."
"The no-win scenario is the basis of our
universe," Constrev replied. "Depending on which
point of view you employ, someone always loses."
"That's garbage."
"If you always win, someone else must lose.
Isn't that so?"
The thought bothered Kirk profoundly. He fingered
the computer tapes, suddenly embarrassed and frightened
to think that so much of his personal philosophy could be
shattered with so simple a statement. "It's not the
same thing," he argued, albeit weakly. "Losing
and not winning aren't the same thing. I believe you can
lose. I believe you can die. I don't believe
there's such a thing as a situation that's impossible
to win."
Constrev studied his face for a moment, his pale
eyes disconcertingly earnest. 7iuning away, he
stated at last, "Perhaps you are right. But if what you
tell me about this test is true, it isn't
intended to accurately represent reality. So why
concern yourself with it?"
"Because . . ." Kirk stopped, his train of thought
suddenly stymied by the idea blossoming in his mind.
"Because it isn't real," he gasped as the idea
took form. "Because it isn't fair. It cheats!"
He caught Constrev by the shoulders and shook him
joyfully. "It cheats, Constrev! Which means I
don't have to play by the rules, either!"
Constrev looked uncertain. "I believe
tampering with test results is frowned upon."
"Two negatives make a positive, don't
they?"
"But cheating twice-was
"Makes for a fair test," Kirk cut him off.
"Trust me on this-I'm a command cadet."
Kirk darted into the cadet barracks a breathless
seven minutes before the wake-up call. Curled up
beneath his bedcovers, fully clothed, he crammed a
handful of quilt into his mouth to muffle his panting.
What's happened to me? he wondered, somewhat
horrified. Only a few weeks ago-before the
Kobayashi Maru-staying out beyond curfew was
unthinkable. He'd been the good little soldier,
considering without doubting; questioning without disobeying.
Now, he felt at war with his superiors over a
philosophical issue he'd never even considered
before. A war that would end at precisely three
minutes after ten today. His heart hammered excitedly
at the pros- pect.
When the wake-up call sounded, Kirk's
bunkmate didn't even ask why the young cadet was
under his covers, boots and all; Kirk assumed the
other man had seen this often enough in the past few days
to excuse Kirk's
idiosyncratic sleeping habits as beneath men-
tion. You'll see, Kirk told him silently
as he hastily tucked down the covers on his own
bed. Soon everyone will be able to guess where I've
been nights . . .
His first two classes came and went with all the
speed and grace of a dying man dragging himself across the
desert. At ten o'clock he was released from class
to report to the simulator. Cadets craned in their
seats to watch him stride stiffly for the exit; he
wondered what they would say if they knew his hands were
cold and his mind was numb with indecision. He
wondered what admirals Howell and Walgren would
say when the test was over.
A collection of students from the security
division already milled about the bridge set when
Kirk arrived. He reported to the monitoring
officers, then took his seat at the command chair. He
felt as if he were walking through cold jelly, moving
so slowly that everyone must see that he was hindered by his
vague sense of guilt-that he was actually afraid
of going through with this, even after investing so much time and
scheming. The arms of the command chair were unyielding beneath
his grip.
Kirk had the test nearly memorized by now. He
watched the cadets around him frown seriously over
their instruments until the helmsman turned
to request coordinates for avoiding the Klingon
Neutral Zone; Kirk could have cued the senior
officer who was serving at communications "Captain .
. . I'm receiving something over the distress channel."
The words, "Put it on speakers," sounded clear
and confident, even though his mouth felt impossibly
dry.
"dis . . imperative!" a frightened voice
whispered through a symphony of static as the comm
officer
obeyed Kirk's command. "This is the Kobayashi
Maru, nineteen periods out of Altair Vl. We
have struck a gravitic mine-was
Kirk didn't wait for the plea to finish-he'd
heard it too many times to care for the artifice
anymore. A certain amount of cooperation was
expected, however, so he pretended concern as he
asked, "Kobayashi Maru, this is the U.s.s.
Potemkin. Can you give us your position?"
"Gamma Hydra," the distant voice replied.
"Section ten."
"The Neutral Zone," the navigator gasped.
Kirk leaned on his fist to hide a smile.
"dis . . hull penetrated-life support
systems failing! Can you assist, Potemkin?"
1 don't know why I'm smiling, Kirk
marveled, still masking his grin. Flunking out of command
school is hardly funny. He had a dreadful
premonition that "out" was exactly where he was
headed. So far, nothing about the test had differed-not by a
second or a syllable. Had he done it? He was
hardly a computer expert.
"Potemkin? We're losing your signal-can you
assist?"
"Take us in," Kirk ordered, straightening.
He didn't even ask to see the stats on the fuel
carrier. He'd looked at them the first time he took
the test, hoping to pin information; he'd looked
at them the second time, hoping to maintain the illusion
that he didn't know what to expect; this time, he
didn't even care.
"Captain, that would be in direct violation of
treaty," the executive officer began.
"I'm well aware of that, thank you." But ifl'm
going
to go down, I may as well go down in flames.
"Helm, raise shields. Just in case."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The computer had barely finished warning them that they were
now entering the Klingon neutral zone when the
communications officer yelped, "I've lost the
signal!" and the science officer reported, "Three
Klingon cruisers closing on our stern!"
"Evasive action!" Kirk called, gripping the
arms of his chair in
anticipation of the blow he knew was coming. It
jolted the simulator, exploding the helm console
into flame, before any of his bridge crew could
acknowledge.
"Full power to screens!"
A lithe young woman stepped over the "dead"
helmsman to stab at the controls. "Screens are
dead, Captain."
Kirk spared only a short glance of irritation
at his "dying" navigator. He slammed one hand
on the arm of his command chair, wishing he could hurt
something besides himself with the gesture. "Contact the Klingon
vessels. Tell them we're on a rescue
mission!"
He stared accusingly at the viewscreen, knowing
Howell and the others were watching, and wanting to burn them
with his anger; black space and three gunmetal
blue war dragons stared back at him in sinister
silence. He didn't even realize the communications
officer had never responded until the executive
officer prompted, "The captain told you to raise
the Klingon commander, Mister."
The communications officer stammered helplessly for a
moment. Kirk swung the command chair about in time
to see the communications officer close his 43
eyes as if in apologetic prayer and timidly
touch a button. "Coming on screen now, sir. .
."
Kirk couldn't help uttering a short cry of
surprise.
"This is Commander Kozor," announced a
guttural voice, distorted by the intership band, "of the
Kh'yem. was Behind the rough baritone, Kirk
could hear other computer-generated Klingons growling and
bustling as they went about their computer-generated
duties. "You have entered Federation Neutral Zone
against treaty. In name of Klingon Empire, Kh
yem declares war!" Jerking about in his chair, Kirk
endeavored to assume what he hoped was an
expression of cultured confidence (the Klingons
might not be able to see him, but the monitoring officers
certainly could). "This is Captain James T.
Kirk, of the U.s.s. Potemkin." It was the first
time he'd ever said his name that way; the sheer excitement
of it made him short of breath. "We are on a
rescue mission in search of a civilian freighter
registered with the United Federation of Planets. We
mean no harm, but we will defend ourselves if necessary."
"Captain Kirk?" the Klingon commander parroted.
"The Captain Kirk?" Kirk fought a smile as
his bridge crew exclaimed in a single voice,
"The Captain Kirk?" The "dead" navigator
began to laugh.
Kirk cleared his throat and went on. "I'll
prove it, if you force me."
The Klingon commander barked to the others in gruff
Klingonese. "That will not be necessary," he said in a more
subdued tone. "Report coordinates of
freighter, and Kh yem will offer all assistance,
Captain Kirk."
Somehow, the navigator's braying laughter
destroyed the solemnity of the moment. Kirk, his head
spinning, returned his crew's stunned stares with a
smug grin. "Gamma Hydra, section ten. We
would greatly appreciate your escort, Kozor."
"Of course, Captain Kirk! Whatever you
require . . . to was
By the time the test was over, eighteen minutes
twenty-seven seconds had elapsed. Kirk commanded
the recovery operations in a giddy daze, somewhat
amazed to discover that there was a Kobayashi Maru to be
rescued after all. The crew performed beautifully,
the Klingons were uncommonly cooperative, and
Kobayashi Maru's master, Kojiro Yance, even
agreed to have dinner with Kirk that evening.
The simulator still stank of seared wiring and
melted plastic when the viewscreen cracked
to admit Admiral Howell. Overhead fans
vacuumed away the worst of the smoke, but for every whiff
whisked away, another rose from the simulated
damage. Spidery glimmers of liquid crystal
crawled across the sootstreaked floor. Howell
paused just inside the starship's viewscreen
and shook his head at the laughing, shouting cadets who
pushed past him on their way to the conference hall.
Kirk stayed in the command chair, his head angled
downward as he stroked the command chair like a prized
horse. We did it, he thought contently. We beat
the no-win scenario. Not specifically the no-win,
since 45
he had changed the conditions, but that seemed a minor
technicality at the moment.
"That was an interesting performance," Howell said when
the last of the cadets were gone. "Admiral Walgren
is talking of having you
court-martialed. Ill have my hands full trying
to dissuade him." He stepped around the helm console
to sit.
Kirk grinned and studied the bridge
speculatively. "I did succeed."
"What did you prove?" Howell's voice was
confused but honestly curious. "That cheating pays
off?"
Relegating his solution to the realm of simple
cheating stung Kirk's pride. "Consider me a
conscientious objector. I don't think of it as
cheating when the rules of the game are unfair."
"I explained that to you already," Howell
began, but Kirk interrupted, to say again, "I
don't believe in the no-win scenario."
"And you think reprogramming the simulation so the
Klingons believe you're a famo us starship captain
proves you're right?" Howell studied Kirk
narrowly. "What are you going to do when you run up
against Klingons in real life? Convince them all
you're Garth of lZar?"
Kirk straightened in the command chair, feeling
suddenly protective of some nebulous future
ship and career. "I'll deal with that as I come to it,
sir," he said stiffly. "I may not have to convince them
of anything at all."
Some indefinite emotion flickered through Howell's
dark eyes, then was gone before Kirk could identify
what he'd seen. When the ensign frowned faintly,
the older officer smiled and rose from the helmsman's

chair. "Forget I asked," he acquiesced.
Stepping to the foot of the dais, he looked up at
Kirk like a subordinate reporting for duty.
"Let's go see what the rest of the class has
to say this time," he suggested. "I have a feeling
you've got quite a busy time ahead of you."
Kirk stood slowly and joined Howell
on the empty deck. "Yes, sir. I guess I
deserve whatever they give me."
Howell smiled at him kindly, "Yes, Mister
Kirk, I think you probably do."
Somehow, Kirk sensed he wasn't just talking about
the rest of the day.
HALLEY
Kiiuc HAD sHIF-REveryGG'D POSITION
at McCoy's insistence, elevating his knee
by sitting with his back to the bulkhead and his leg
stretched across the row of empty seats. He sat in
that position, drumming his fingers against a seatback, for
perhaps a full minute before embarrassed irritation
finally moved him to suggest, "It wasn't that funny,
Doctor."
McCoy choked his laughter down, "til it
became a sporadic chuckle. "Yes, it is,
Jim!" The doctor paused in rummaging through his
medikit to lean back in his seat and regain his breath.
"It's so in character! I'm surprised I didn't just
guess it!"
Kirk made a face he didn't think
McCoy could see across the half-light between them.
Too bad-it seemed a pity to waste such honest
annoyance on darkness. "Is that supposed
to offend me?"
The doctor shrugged. "It's your self-image .
. ."
"I don't think I understand . . ." Chekov had
joined them from the front hatch partway through
Kirk's narration. He sat now with his back against
the airlock doors, his arms folded on his
drawn-up knees; lamplight brushed blue
highlights into the lieutenant's brown hair, while
distance hid his dark-eyed face in shadow. "Are you
saying that you cheated?"
"Mister Chekov!" McCoy's tone was mock
scolding, his face too studiously serious to be
sincere. was "Cheated" is a trite, misapplied
word to what our captain accomplished!" Picking
something out of his medikit, he tilted it into the light for
purposes of identification. "He exercised a
commander's prerogative of creativity in the face of
adversity!"
"I changed the conditions of the test," Kirk
attempted to elaborate, but McCoy overrode
him again.
"His solution doesn't even apply to the test
his classmates took!" Disregarding whatever he'd
found, McCoy returned to his rummaging.
Chekov looked from Kirk to the doctor, as though
trying to catch some communication between the two that he was
missing. "You cheated."
Kirk felt his face twist into a sardonic
smile he doubted he would have recognized in a
mirror. "I've been cheating my whole life,"
he said, before he thought better of it. "Fate just never
figured it out until now."
Like wax under a particle beam, the tenuous good
humor evaporated, leaving only thick, churning
silence. Kirk wanted to apologize, but realized
that would only make things worse; he listened
to McCoy's quiet searching, and Scotty's
clatter in the back, and waited for someone to brave
another topic.
McCoy, as usual, was the first to break the
quiet.
"Come on," the doctor grumbled as he stood,
nudging Chekov with one foot. "Get into a seat!
This metal decking'll leech the heat right out your
backside; I don't need a hypothermia
patient on top of everything else!"
Chekov climbed obediently to his feet;
Kirk caught just a glimpse of the lieutenant's
troubled, half-angry expression as
Chekov passed through the light on his way to an
empty seat in the row behind Sulu. "Even the seats
won't be safe soon. As long as it's colder out
there than it is in here, all the insulation in existence
can't keep us alive." He dropped into a center
seat and turned hooded, frightened eyes on the
encroaching vacuum. "Practical physics in
action."
Of course it was Chekov who remained mindful of the
death waiting outside the shuttle's doors. Kirk
sometimes thought his security chief had spent so much time
fighting to stand upright between bludgeoning practicality
and blind idealism that he'd finally been torn
apart-afraid now to take a step in either direction
lest he lose his grasp on the other. Who had done
that to him, Kirk sometimes wondered. And why would
anyone want to?
"Don't give up," Kirk advised, wishing
he could follow his own advice. "We've got quite a
few hours before we have to worry about
freezing-Scotty could practically build a new
ship in that time!"
"If freezing's all you're worried about,"
Scott volunteered from the rear of the shuttle, "the
ship we've got now will suit us fine!"
Kirk's knee barked a protest as he twisted
about to face the burly engineer trudging down the center
aisle. Equipment belt askew on his hips,
Scott passed one hand through his rumpled hair to no
particular 50
effect-an afterthought to his physical appearance.
He smiled ruefully at Kirk and stepped around the
emergency lamp.
"What's the word?" Kirk already knew the answer
would not be good. Scott's initial reply was to pass
into the forward hatch and lean across the helmsman's
chair. Strong, cool light washed away the darkness
as the engineer thumbed a series of toggles; the
shuttle itself seemed to heave a grateful sigh.
Kirk smiled.
"We've got heat, too," the Scotsman
volunteered as he returned to the middle chamber.
"We won't be feeling it for another hour or so, but
it's working. We won't freeze."
"And we've got more than starlight to see by!"
McCoy paused in his examination of Kirk's knee
to click off the lamp on the edge of the seat. "This
looked better in the dark, Jim."
Kirk grimaced. McCoy had slit his trouser
leg clear up to the thigh, and the offending knee
had swelled to accommodate. The chemical cold
pack draped across Kirk's leg didn't hide the
purple-black bruising, or do much to relieve the
pain. McCoy tucked the pack under an elbow as
he readied another hypo; Kirk listened to Scott
with pointed attention so he wouldn't have to observe the
injection.
"So we have engine power?" Kirk wanted Scott
to keep talking.
"We've got generator power," the engineer
obliged him, "but no engine ability worth speaking
of." Scott leaned back against the bulkhead,
stretching his shoulders in a slow, soul-weary motion.
"It's like that with gravitic mines," he explained,
sighing. "You get
what damage the strained engines inflict upon
themselves, and then whatever damage the gravitic stress
does on top of that! I can hardly track it all
down; the damage patterns make that little sense!"
"Does that mean we're still drifting?" McCoy
retrieved Kirk's attention and applied the
hypospray to his arm just in time for Kirk to notice
the doctor.
"Aye, Doctor," Scott admitted. "It
means that." McCoy turned away to tend
to Sulu, a bit too abruptly, and Scott
seemed to feel some need to elaborate. "I've
got shunting equipment I can barely identify right
now, much less repair. Because of that, the generator
and the engines aren't . . ." He waved his hands as if
grasping after an appropriate phrase. "dis . .
Well, aren't on speaking terms, exactly. We
can run the lights and heat for another hundred years
or so . . . but we canna change our course so
much as a centimeter without outside help."
And their only prospect of help came from
Spock and the Enterprise. Kirk wondered if there
was really any chance his starship could save them, or if
abandoning what tenuous hope he placed in that chance
would be more wise. Like Chekov, torn between placing his
faith in what should happen or what would happen,
Kirk decided that miracles were made, not waited
on; if he wanted to win this scenario, he would just have
to cheat again. "Scotty, is there any chance we can
salvage the radio?"
Scott looked across the shuttle to Chekov.
"Lad?"
The Russian shook his head. "I pulled the
master board." He aimed a nod toward the front
compartment, and a look of self-reproach so
intimate it startled Kirk moved across the
lieutenant's face. "It's 52
on my chair, along with what I could remove of the
receiver."
Scott disappeared into the forward compartment again, and
Kirk heard the engineer make a soft but distinct
sound of disgust. When the captain glanced inquiringly
at Chekov, the lieutenant volunteered,
"Gravitic stress."
"I might be able to cannibalize some of what I
have back here . . . to was Scott stomped through on his
way back toward the rear, one hand clamped about a
shattered, blackened collection of what might once
have been circuitry. "It's better than sitting
idle!"
"Sitting idle. . . was The phrase stabbed
Kirk with gentle guilt, despite the thick pain
in his injured leg. I should be doing more . . . to
He looked across the aisle at Sulu and
McCoy. The helmsman had slipped into waxen
unconsciousness a half-hour ago, but McCoy's
ministrations roused him now. As he became aware of the
lapse, Sulu murmured, "I guess I fell
asleep .... Sorry, sir. . ."
Kirk shrugged, then realized Sulu
wasn't in a position to appreciate the gesture.
"You didn't miss much."
"The captain cheated on his Kobayashi Maru, was
Chekov volunteered from the row behind Sulu.
"Sir?" Sulu asked. Kirk sighed.
McCoy told him.
"I'm not too surprised," the helmsman
a dmitted with a smile when the doctor finished
speaking.
McCoy snorted. "I said the same thing," he
told Sulu. "Only the captain nearly demoted
me!"
"It's the injury, Doc-it grants me
immunity." Sulu dissolved without warning into quiet,
pain-filled
chuckling. "God protects fools, children, and
invalids."
McCoy tossed Kirk a questioning look, and the
captain only shrugged. Turning back to the
helmsman, the doctor prodded, "Come on, Sulu
. . . What's the joke?"
Sulu gathered his breath in a contented sigh. "I
was thinking about fools, and the Kobayashi Maru . . .
his
Before Sulu could elaborate, Chekov
suggested from behind him, "You haven't that much
immunity... to was Despite Chekov's threatening
tone, the
proclamation seemed to amuse Sulu all the more.
"What's this?" McCoy's eyebrows rose in
innocent interest. "Someone else on this shuttle
took the Kobayashi Maru test?"
Chekov remained pointedly fixated with whatever was
outside his viewport, his face darkening-with
embarrassment, or anger, Kirk couldn't tell.
When he didn't volunteer a reply, Sulu
explained, "We both did." The chuckling
overtook him again. "Only I left the
simulator intact when I was done!" McCoy
burst into laughter, and Kirk endeavored to suppress
a smile. "Turnabout's fair play, Mister
Chekov," Kirk enjoined.
Chekov's resolve buckled slightly. The
lieutenant's stubborn "dis . . it's embarrassing.
. . was was so quiet, Kirk almost didn't think
he'd heard. "It's always embarrassing," the
captain allowed. "That's part of the test."
"Actually," Sulu allowed, "the Kobayashi
Maru isn't the embarrassing part."
"Sulu . . . to was Chekov warned again,
this time more seriously.
"It's just sort of set up for the good part," Sulu
persisted despite Chekov's displeasure. "It's
a great story-really!"
The Russian heaved a rough sigh of frustration and
maintained his study of the stars. "All right, then," he
grumbled. "You tell them, if you want to. I
don't care."
"Come on, Mister Chekov." Kirk felt the
need to alleviate a little of the stress building between the
two officers. "How bad can it be?"
Sulu giggled. "You'd be surprised."
When Chekov turned a confused, betrayed look
on his friend, Kirk echoed McCoy's earlier
quip, "It'll pass the hours," and hoped the
security officer would understand.
Chekov didn't seem to realize anything fell
between the spoken words until Kirk made eye
contact with him for a number of seconds. Then the
captain saw understanding dawn in the dark Russian
eyes, and Chekov nodded faintly, slowly. Somewhere
behind his assent, Kirk could see that dim war still going
on; he watched practicality win an uneasy
victory over whatever Chekov's emotions demanded,
and felt both guilty and relieved. "It
really isn't funny," Chekov insisted. The
lieutenant pursed his lips and turned back toward
his viewport again. "It's more embarrassing than
anything else . . . to was
HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME
WHEN THE U.s.s Yorktown exploded into a
cloud of neutrinos and high frequency light,
Cadet Pavel Chekov settled back into his
auditorium seat and heaved a contented sigh. The
three Klingon vessels surrounding the
Constitution-class starship followed almost immediately
afterward, washing the video screen at the front of the
lecture hall an impressive, roaring white.
The other students in the hall burst into applause,
cheering and laughing like the audience in a theater. Four
science cadets in the front row were the only people who
looked disgruntled with the proceedings. Chekov
noticed Alan Baasch at the center of that group and
smiled; if anyone were going to object to a creative
finale it would be "By-the-Book" Baasch. It was
somehow satisfying to know he'd annoyed the other
cadet so thoroughly. When the auditorium lights
came up, cadets blinked like children just out of sleep.
Robert Cecil, in
the chair next to Chekov, remarked
conversationally, "Kramer's gonna kill you."
Chekov leaned forward over his desk again, watching
Cecil brush carbon grime out of his dark blond
hair. Every cadet in the hall was soot-smeared and
smelly from the simulator room. Chekov wondered
what his idol, James Kirk, would have thought to see
him in such a state of disarray. Chekov had made
no secret of his respect for Kirk or his
confidence that he would be assigned to the Enterprise on
graduation.
"What can he do?" Chekov asked the other
ensign. "They put me in a simulator and told
me to blow up the Klingons-so I blew them up!"
Cecil snorted and settled back into his own
seat. "They told you to function as a starship
commander," he pointed out. "I don't think they
intended you to blow up your own ship in the process."
"Then they should have stressed that before the Klingons
arrived." Chekov knew sacrificing the Yorktown
was quite probably a unique response to a tense
command scenario, but he still believed the solution
feasible. Commodore Aldous Kramer could strut and
fume all he wanted-God knew, that seemed to be
the only justification for the man's existence since
Chekov entered command school-but it wouldn't
change what Chekov had done. And it wouldn't
change the fact that they'd been told before entering the
simulator that these scenarios were primarily
designed to test command character, not rules laid out by command
school bureaucrats who had never been in the
field. If Kramer didn't like Chekov's character,
the ensign felt that that was Kramer's problem;
Chekov certainly wouldn't waste time liking him.
Kramer stood now at the foot of the
floor-to-ceiling video screen. His hair was the
color of steel beneath the dismal white overheads, his
uninspired eyes nothing but angry black raisins
pushed into the white dough of his face. He said nothing
to quiet the cadets, did nothing to attract their
attention. Instead, he only exuded haughty
displeasure until they ceased to rustle in their seats
and their busy chatter died away. It didn't take
long.
When the lecture hall achieved an acceptable
level of order, Kramer stepped neatly to the
front of the podium and summoned, "Cadet
Chekov!" in a sten- torian baritone.
Chekov straightened obediently in his seat.
"Sir?"
Kramer angled his head to stare up the
length of the auditorium at the young cadet. His mouth
twisted slightly, as if he'd just bitten into a
particularly tart lemon. Chekov recognized the
expression as what Kramer paraded as a smile.
"I'd feel more comfortable speaking to you if I could see
you."
Chekov slid out of his chair before Cecil could
surreptitiously nudge him beneath the desk.
Cecil apparently feared suffering from the fallout of
Kramer's ill-humor; if Chekov didn't leap
whenever Kramer commanded, Cecil felt the need
to impel him, which frequently led to more embarrassment
than Chekov cared to deal with. While disobedience was not
something the young Russian would ever consider, Cecil's
impatience had still managed to increase his response
time a little.
Once Chekov was standing, Kramer linked hands behind
his own broad back and said, "Cadet Chekov, you
have just reviewed the video record of your
Kobayashi Maru test. Yes?" His words were
rounded by a lyric Rhineland accent, the soft tones a
sharp contrast to his hard, unimaginative
personality.
"Yes, sir," Chekov replied civilly, his
own voice accented and firm. "I have."
"And how would you rate your performance on that test?"
Chekov's hesitation was nearly imperceptible.
"I feel my performance was quite satisfactory,
sir."
Kramer nodded, pacing the podium with slow,
measured strides. "A starship captain is sworn
to the protection of his ship and crew. Yes?"
"Yes, sir." Chekov tried to ignore the
unease dancing about in his stomach. "And a captain
is sworn to uphold and defend the peaceful relations
we enjoy with our Klingon neighbors," Kramer
continued. "Yes?"
"The Klingons attacked first-to " Chekov
interjected.
But before the cadet had a chance to protest further,
Kramer pulled to a stop and insisted firmly,
"Answer my question, Mister Chekov."
The young Russian clenched his fists at his sides
and resigned himself to the verbal beating. "Yes," he
finally returned, "he is."
Apparently content with that small victory,
Kramer folded his hands across the lectern and didn't
resume his pacing. "You violated the Klingon
neutral zone. You engaged three Klingon patrol
vessels in combat while there was still the
potential to retreat. You willfully destroyed a
Federation starship worth several billion credits,
and killed that starship's crew. All to rescue a
fuel carrier you cannot prove was indeed in
distress at those coordinates! So tell
me-what about your performance do you consider so
"satisfactory'?"
"If I may, Commodore . . . ?" The
politeness was stiff and hard won. Kramer threw his
arms wide in mocking invitation. "By all means,
explain! I'm very interested."
Chekov tried to ignore the smattering of laughter
that passed around the hall. He succeeded only
partially. "It is also a starship captain's duty
to protect the rights and lives of the civilians in his
area of patrol. That includes civilian fuel
transports and their crews. We did inform the
Klingons that we were in the area on a nonhostile
rescue mission-they offered no such explanation for their
own breach of the Neutral Zone."
"Just because the Klingons violate the rules,"
Kramer broke in, "does not mean we do."
"I realize that, sir," Chekov allowed. "I
only indicate that any
large-scale repercussions are
unlikely, as the violation was mutual."
Kramer inclined his head, gesturing his consent with one
hand. "That being the case," he acknowledged, "we shall
only discuss the possibilities of your posthumous
court-martial." There was laughter again, louder this
time. Chekov held his ton gue for a count of three before
continuing. "In addition, sir," he went on, "I
did not kill the Yorktown's crew."
"You," Kramer interjected, "are going to argue that
your crew survived because you evacuated the vessel
before destroying it, aren't you?" The sudden perception
caught Chekov unprepared.
He hesitated before he could instruct himself not to.
"Well . . . yes, sir . . ."
Kramer heaved a sigh so deep, Chekov
marveled at the older man's lung capacity. "You
physically collided a Constitution-class starship
with a squad of Klingon cruisers," the commodore
spelled out with painful patience. "That means you
obliterated fourdo you understand me? four antimatter
drive vessels, each with a full battery of
photon torpedoes and plasma devices! The
Federation will be lucky to transmit radio
messages through that sector of space in the next
hundred years, much less move people through it!"
Chekov felt a blush spread from the collar of his
uniform upward.
"You didn't think of that, did you, Cadet?"
Lying was not even an option. His face still burning,
Chekov shook his head shortly, and said in as firm
a voice as he possessed, "No, sir . . .
I did not."
"Of course not." And Kramer took up his
notes as if that ended the matter. "But if I may,
sir . . . ?"
The commodore paused with his hands full of paper,
his head still bent as though studying something astonishing
amidst the lecture notes.
"I still believe that destruction of the Yorktown was
a viable alternative to capture," Chekov
pressed when Kramer finally raised his eyes again.
"Even if the crew was forfeit, sir. Retreat was
not feasible. The Klingons had already fired upon us, and
our warp drive and our weapons systems were
inoperative. It's difficult enough to outpilot a
Klingon war cruiser in afunction-
al vessel, commodore-the Yorktown didn't
stand a chance."
Kramer, studying him across the distance, didn't
interrupt, so Chekov went on. "The
possibility of the Yorktown, with or without her
crew, being taken by the Klingons also existed. Rather
than allow them access to our top-of-the-line
designs, I opted for destruction of the vessel."
"I see," the instructor said coldly, his tone
of voice making it clear he did nothing of the kind.
The flush burned again in his cheeks, but this time not from
embarrassment. "I did what I could for the crew,"
Chekov insisted. "They would have been captured and
questioned had any of the Klingon vessels survived."
He swallowed hard, and considered briefly not
finishing his thought. But anger won out over common
sense. "I've read accounts of what goes on
during Klingon torture, Commodore. I believe
that my crew would rather have died."
No one was laughing now. Kramer's voice, almost
too calm to carry across the tall lecture hall,
questioned slowly, "Are you quite through?" Chekov suddenly
wanted very much to sit down and direct attention away
from himself again. "Yes, sir . . . That's all."
The commodore rounded the lectern with stiff, shot
strides. "Mr. Chekov," Kramer said, in a
tone as devoid of color as his stare, "I will not
tolerate another such disruption of this classroom.
In the future, if your explanations are
required, I will ask for them. Is that clear?"
"Aye, sir."
Chekov held Kramer's gaze with as
impassive and hard a stare as he could command, then his
teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. He asked,
"May I return to my seat, sir?" in a tone that
sounded more subdued than he liked. "You may."
Chekov felt the commodore's eyes track him as
he took his seat. Then, without warning, the commodore
asked, "Mister Chekov, do you play
solitaire?"
Chekov heard another meaning in the question, but the
sense of it eluded him. "I know how," he
admitted warily. "But, no, sir, I don't
play."
Kramer shook his head. "I thought not." His eyes
danced away to take in the rest of the class; Chekov
recognized it as the dismissal it was. "Would
anyone else like to add something regarding Mister
Chekov's performance?" The first volunteer, of
course, was Alan Baasch. "Will the entire class
grade be based on Mister Chekov's actions,
Commodore?"
Kramer smiled thinly. "Of course, Mister
Baasch! A captain speaks and acts for his
entire crew. Or had you forgotten?"
"But that isn't fair!" Baasch retorted
indignantly. "I wouldn't have kamikazed the
Klingons!"
The commodore shrugged. "But you also were not the
captain. Anyone else?" Chekov had spent enough of
his Academy time studying up on Klingons and their
war tactics-too much time to care very much about advice
offered from station-bound cadets. Instead, he brooded
at the back of the room, arms folded perhaps too
tightly
across his chest, and stared at Aldous Kramer, all
the while wondering what a disinterest in solitaire
had to do with anything.
The siren tore Chekov out of sleep like a cold
hand about his heart. On some distant speaker, a
woman's voice lilted calm instructions;
Chekov struggled upright in bed, trying to remember
if the ship had been on yellow alert when his watch
retired. He was still disentangling himself from his bedclothes
when the sound of sleepy voices and equipment locker
doors penetrated his dream-fuddled panic. Not a
red alert siren, but a wake-up call. Suddenly
aware that he'd only dreamed about being on board a
starship, he heaved a slow, unsteady sigh.
"dis . . Cadet Bloc G, report
to Shuttlepad 7 . . . Cadet Bloc G,
report to Shuttlepad 7 . . ."
Cecil, already stepping into his scarlet-and-black
cadet uniform, grinned at his friend as Chekov
kicked the blankets to the foot of his bunk. "Do you
know what time it is?" Chekov was still attempting
to shake the sleep from his eyes when Cecil
supplied, "0400. They're sending us to the
shuttlepad at 0400! Here . . ."
Chekov caught the singlet Cecil tossed at
him. His hands still shook as he pulled on the uniform
and fastened the front; the dream-need to race for a
starship bridge and report didn't fade, even
after they hurried into the corridor that led toward the
shuttlepad.
They were among the first in G Bloc to leave the
bunkard. "I wonder where they're taking us?"
Cecil didn't interrupt his efforts to finger comb
order into 64
his ash blond hair, even as he and Chekov
caught up with the fifteen women already on their way to the
shuttlepad. "It could be anywhere, I
suppose-that kind of seems the point of being a
cadet."
Chekov scanned the people ahead of them for the
distinctive flash of Sasha Charles's red-gold
hair, spotting her just as Cecil reflected,
"God, this might even be important, Pavel!"
Cecil's tone said it was a joke, but the very thought
jolted Chekov into breathlessness too reminiscent of
his earlier anxiety to make light of. "Don't
worry," he encouraged, for both Cecil's
benefit and his own. "They'd probably send for real
officers if it were . . ." It didn't quiet his
reawakened nerves.
Sasha Charles glanced back at the sound of their
voices. When Chekov and Cecil both hailed her
with waves, she stepped against the bulkhead to allow the
cadets between them to filter by. She slipped into step
with them as they approached and fitted an arm
possessively around Chekov's middle. "So what
gives?"
"We were speculating," Cecil told her,
grinning. "The current favorite is an
atmosphere breach on Luna."
A rude noise bespoke Sasha's disbelief.
"So what's runner-up?"
When Cecil-for the first time in Chekov's
memory-didn't immediately suggest an
alternative, Chekov stated simply, "7 think
it's Kramer."
Sasha briefly cinched her arm tighter about his
waist, but didn't reply. It was Cecil who
cuffed him on the shoulder and complained, "You
Russians make me nuts sometimes, you know that?"
Chekov pulled away from the other man's swat,

swallowing a harsh comment with some difficulty.
Cecil's pale eyes glittered in annoyance both
too friendly and too sincere to interrupt. "You get a
bug up your nose about something, and it's like trying
to reason with the rain!" Cecil was from Ohio, in
North America, and frequently said the most
incomprehensible things. "What's that supposed
to mean?" Chekov demanded. "It means Kramer
barely knows you exist," Cecil said. But he'd
lowered his voice so no one else could overhear. "It
means not everything he does is some direct
reflection of his attitude toward you!"
"I didn't say it was." Chekov was
distinctly ill at ease with this subject-the fact that
he couldn't discern if embarrassment or indignation
made his face burn only heightened his discomfort.
"But you can't tell me he doesn't enjoy
pointing out my errors."
"He's trying to make you a better officer."
Chekov scowled. "Better than whom? He's
an academician! What does he know about being a
line officer besides what he's read in a book?"
"That's your problem!" Cecil ducked back against
the wall, dragging on Chekov's elbow until the
other cadet grudgingly halted as well. Chekov,
in turn, caught Sasha's hand when she would have
continued, staggering the three of them down the hall at
irregular intervals. "We're going to be late,"
he reminded Cecil testily.
A dismissive wave was Cecil's only
acknowledgment of that fact. "Remember I wanted
to go look up the service records on our
instructors at the beginning of the year?"
Chekov nodded; he hadn't seen anything to be

gained by Cecil's search at the time, and still
didn't. "I remember."
"Well, Kramer's got a record as long as
your name! He was weapons defense officer on the
Farragut for fourteen years, and assistant to the
Startleet Chief Administrator for another seven
before he started teaching."
Chekov blinked, honestly surprised. "Who would
have guessed?"
"I would have," Sasha volunteered. When Chekov
tossed an inquisitive glance in her direction,
she shrugged an d moved back to stand with them. "I just
assumed anybody teaching in command school would have to have
some experience."
"Why?" Chekov asked her. "Ninety percent
of the cadets will never serve on board a starship."
The fact that Chekov confidently maintained that he
would get such an assignment, and on the Enterprise
no less, had at first earned him jeers and then
suspicious looks.
"That's not all." Cecil caught their attention
again just as the last of their bloc passed by. "Kramer
also knows your hero Kirk. They go way back, as it
were. I'll bet he's the one who convinced Kirk
to come give that talk last month."
A month ago, Chekov thought Kirk's visit
to the Academy would be his only chance to meet the man
in person-and it took less than a half hour for
him to decide he would follow Kirk into hell without
question. Thinking that Kirk might know-and possibly even
like-Kramer butted a stubborn fist of rejection
against Chekov's opinion of his instructor.
"That can't be correct," was all he said aloud.
"When Kirk was a lieutenant," Cecil
explained, "he 67
saved nine people after a premature weapon
detonation that took out most of the Farragut's
starboard pod. Kramer was one of those nine! Kramer
recom- mended Kirk for conspicuous gallantry,
and then presented the citation when Starffeet granted
it."
Sasha nudged Chekov with her elbow. "I'm
impressed-you certainly intend to serve with the best!"
"I know . . ." But thinking of Kramer in
association with Kirk troubled Chekov's perceptions
of both men. Perhaps that explained the commodore's
hounding-not jealousy or rancor toward Chekov, but
toward Kirk, with Chekov the only convenient
repository. The realization kindled new anger and
frustration, enforcing what he already knew that he was being
treated unfairly.
"We should hurry." He ended the discussion by nodding
down the hall, then following his gesture. "Whatever
Kramer thinks of Captain Kirk, or of me,
won't help us if we're tardy."
Chekov watched a string of emotions chase each
other across Cecil's mobile face, but
turned away before Cecil could object.
A damp, gusty San Francisco wind
skated across the bare shuttlepad, weaving sea salt
and winter throughout Chekov's clothes and hair.
Waiting beneath the white moonlight was a scarred
intrasystem shuttle. Kramer stood at the foot
of its hatch, a blue-shadowed sculpture with
wild, windswept gray hair, he nodded vague
satisfaction as the cadets assembled before him. "As
many of you know," the commodore began, his cool voice
in perfect harmony with the seasonal weather, "the
Asian Industrial Station has been 68
abandoned for the past seven months due to bulkhead
repairs."
Sasha sputtered a laugh, and Cecil gasped,
"I knew it!" in a loud, half-serious whisper.
Chekov hissed him into silence.
"Asian does not intend to reclaim the station
until after the beginning of the year," Kramer went on.
"Until that time, the station has been leased
to Starfleet for the use of our officers' training
school." He smiled thinly. "That's you."
Cecil made a small, strangled sound. "But
is there air?" he whispered between his teeth.
Kramer's smile flickered away, and
he darted an icy glare at Cecil and Chekov.
"Yes, Mister Cecil, there is air." Cecil
pulled even more severely upright, his eyes locked
on the distance in blind embarrassment. "I was not
assigned to this Academy to kill my cadets."
I had wondered, Chekov's mind supplied against
his will. He was rewarded by a wash of mixed humor and
resentment, and hoped Kramer wouldn't see his ex-
pression through the darkness.
If the commodore noticed, he continued without
commenting. "For the next three days," Kramer
explained, "you will be involved in a training scenario
designed to test your aptitude at individual
achievement." He didn't direct his attention
toward Chekov, but the Russian could almost sense the
shift of Kramer's thoughts. "Something of a
threedimensional solitaire, if you will-yourself against
yourself.
"In the Kobayashi Maru scenario, you were a
starship commander; in this test, you are simply a
Starfleet officer, stranded on a station that has
suffered
a crippling hull breach at the hands of an
assassin committed to killing you. The goal of the
scenario is simple You must stay
alive."
No one said anything for a time, then a woman at the
front ventured, "Sir, who is the assassin?"
Kramer's smile was somehow particularly
aggravating as he sketched an elegant shrug.
"One of you. It would defeat the purpose to tell you
who, as that is a step on your path of discovery, as
well. I think you will all be surprised." An
enigmatic expression softened his entire face for
an instant, then vanished so completely Chekov
wasn't sure what he had seen. "You will be
outfitted with phasers, unalterably set for stun,
and transmitters to inform a neutral monitor of
when you have been "killed."
You can also trigger the transmitters if a problem
develops. Food can be obtained through the
processors on the station, and sleeping and bathroom
facilities are available." Kramer paused
to smile at Chekov in paternal condescension.
"And, Mister Chekov, much as it may distress you
to learn it, destruction of the station is not an acceptable
solution to this scenario. So, pleaseendeavor to contain
yourself."
G Bloc dissolved into laughter. Chekov
tilted his chin fractionally higher, and stared
across the bay at nothing as he waited for the jocularity
to die.
"Are there any further questions?"
When no one volunteered anything, Kramer
called the order to begin on-loading, and disappeared through
the shuttle's hatch.
"Honest," Cecil murmured as they performed a
smooth left-face, "I don't think he hates
you!"
Humiliation burned at the back of Chekov's
throat. 70
He growled a simple, "Shut up!" before
following Cecil inside.
"So, are you with us?"
Chekov glanced away from the viewport at
Sasha Charles's whispered question. "With you in what?"
"This station thing." She was in the seat directly
to Chekov's left, her head tipped back against the
headrest and her weapons belt left in a jumble on
her lap. "Me, Cece, Westbeld, Cantini,
and Gugin are going to try and stick it out together-you know,
a cooperative collective. We figured we'd
have a better shot at survival that way."
Chekov didn't answer immediately, taking the
opportunity to admire the cloud of loose,
amber hair that framed Sasha's youthful face, the
delicate upward tilt of her aquamarine eyes.
While he'd spent more than just a little time with Sasha
since arriving in San Francisco (some of it very
private), the prospect of teaming up seemed
weak; he wasn't certain he wanted to relinquish
his solo status so easily, even for her. "I
don't know. . ."
"What's there not to know?" Cecil pressed from
Sasha's other side. "Either we band together and watch
each other's asses, or we sit up all night
trying to keep from getting killed." He paused
to focus a scholarly frown on something in his phaser.
"It's not a hard decision," he continued,
apparently dismissing whatever in the weapon had
distracted him. "Unless you've got a death wish,
or something."
Chekov smiled. "I don't have a death wish.
I'm just aware that none of this will be real."
"We're supposed to pretend that it is," Sasha
pointed out.
Chekov shrugged her qualifier aside. "I just
don't think we're supposed to band together," he
countered, hoping that would end the discussion. "Bausch and
his cronies are," Sasha argued. "And
Kramer never said we couldn't."
"He also didn't say we could. It's a test of
individual skill, he
said-we're to survive on our own."
Cecil shrugged and axed his phaser to his belt
again. "So why can't we survive on our own together?"
A swell of annoyance gnawed at Chekov, and
he turned abruptly back to the viewport. Because
I don't NEED you! he didn't tell them. Because
I can score higher on my own! Almost immediately,
guilt smothered the flames of those feelings; Chekov
was embarrassed by his lack of faith in his friends, but
no less determined. "What if one of you is the
assassin?"
They both laughed. "If either of us were the
assassin," Sasha volunteered, "we wouldn't band
up with the others."
Chekov looked at her frankly, no laughter
in his own dark eyes. "And what if I am?"
Sasha searched his face for something-even Chekov
wasn't sure what-then pulled away to sink back
into her own seat. "You aren't, are you?" Her voice
and eyes were now hooded with uncertainty.
Chekov looked back out the viewport without
answering.
"You wouldn't kill us in our sleep or anything,
though, right? Not if you were working with us."
It's a scenario, he wanted to say as he
watched Earth
slide by in marbled, blue-green brilliance.
"No," he sighed finally, "I wouldn't." Even that
admission seemed weak-willed and unfair.
As the shuttle bumped gently against the Aslan
Station's lock, Sasha caught his face in both
hands and kissed him briefly. It was her sign that
she didn't hate him for being stubborn, even if he
drove her crazy every now and again. "Then you're with
us?"
Chekov tried to keep the displeasure out of his
voice. "I'm with you." It only increased his
annoyance when the others reacted with such thrilled
disbelief.
Sasha flopped back into her seat, relieved and
satisfied. "We'll meet at the station's hub,"
she announced as Kramer began counting off the groups
that would exit. "This level. You think you can find it.
"I can find it," Chekov told her, then added,
"and you'd better wait for me," even though he
half-hoped they wouldn't.
Sasha smiled and offered him a
secretive wink. "Always."
Kramer made him stay until last.
The cadets, armed with nothing but their phasers,
disappeared into the station a t irregular intervals.
Kramer indicated who could leave apparently at
random, sometimes dismissing individuals, some
times groups as large as four; Sasha's
entourage left in
three separate migrations. During the next hour
and a
half, Chekov entertained himself with speculations as
to which of them would make it to the rendezvous,
then experienced a gnawing dissatisfaction that he'd
allowed himself to be chained to them for the next three
days.
Cool air from the dimly lit station leaked in through
the shuttle's open hatch. Chekov studied the
grayblack repair to Asian's sloping hide through
the shuttle's rear viewport; the chill and the dull
half-dark within the station were undoubtedly attempts
to simulate the eerie symptoms of a distant hull
breach. As always, Chekov began unconsciously
tallying the errors in the fine details of this command
scenario no "spaceman's breeze" sighing down
the empty corridors; no ghost frost
hungrily licking the moisture from his lungs; no
sirens, no screaming, no distant, desperate
cries; no angelic spray of crystal dusting the
space just outside a shattered hull; no
ice-black eyes crying scarlet from the wrong side
of an environmental suit's visor.
The images wrenched up memories from news
clips he'd seen of a ruptured deep space
passenger liner that a starship had tried
unsuccessfully to rescue some years ago. That was the
real world, he realized suddenly. That's what serving
on a starship was really like. Like a bolt of
electricity through his insides, Chekov
remembered everything about that frosted panorama in a
single blinding instant; he pivoted in his seat
until the view of the station was out of sight behind him, no
longer interested in criticizing accuracy.
Kramer stood guard in the shuttle's empty
cockpit. His back was to the twin navigation-helm
console, his hands resting on the abandoned chairs, when
he caught up Chekov's dark gaze with his own.
"You think I keep you here as punishment, don't
you?"
Chekov stopped himself before turning to look at the
station again. "Is this the hubris James
Kirk inspires?" the commodore went on. "The
conviction that every environment you inhabit adapts
to encompass your needs, your actions, your beliefs?"
Chekov's hands closed on the weapons belt
draped across his knees, and he returned Kramer's
gaze with grim propriety. "Captain Kirk is
a brilliant officerthere isn't a finer commander in
Starfleet."
Kramer came forward three steps-not threatening, but
only closing the long distance between them. "I never said
he wasn't. I simply questioned the effect he has
on cadets who haven't been around him long enough
to counteract his charms."
The comment struck deeper than Chekov liked.
He felt the warm coil of anger in his chest that
sometimes moved him to say things he shouldn't. Standing,
he busied himself with the weapons belt so Kramer
couldn't see his eyes. "You wouldn't understand. . ."
"Why? Because you don't like me? Because I'm too
old?" Chekov shot a startled look up at his
commander, and Kramer snorted. "You may hate me
now," he told Chekov calmly. "But I can
guarantee, by the end of this weekend, you'll hate no
one but yourself."
Chekov stared at Kramer without speaking.
He experienced a moment's discomfort when a search
of the older man's eyes revealed only a dim,
painful disappointment, and not the jealous rancor
Chekov expected to see. He looked away
to finish fastening his weapons belt. "Should I enter the
scenario now, Commodore?"
Kramer paused only slightly, then stepped between
the narrow seats, and waved Chekov down the aisle.
"Go on," he said. "Both of us have wasted enough time."
Chekov estimated Aslan's ambient
temperature at just under fifteen degrees
centigrade; cool enough to chase away a light
sweat, as well as make sleeping on the decking a
problem. Whether the others would reach the same conclusion
couldn't yet be ascertained comChekov would have to wait
until "evening" to see which ones tried sleeping wherever
they could find cover, and which ones sought out couches and
tables in the labs.
Aslan's corridors proved not as featureless
as Chekov expected; works from several artists
clung to the sloping walls, and more than one
viewscreen reflected gray distortions of his
image as he slipped silently past. Damn
Kramer for holding him until the end! If Sasha
hadn't conspired to ambush him, surely
someone else had thought to lay in wait along this
central corridor-if not for him, specifically,
then merely to eliminate the students forced to travel
this route leaving the shuttle. Chekov trailed one
hand nervously along the cool metal hull,
wondering where the corridor would branch, and how much
warning he might have.
When the corridor flared ahead, Chekov
noticed the slight whitening of the light long before the
opening yawned into view. He eased himself to the floor
and belly-crawled the last ten meters. Heat
leeched through his uniform to disappear into the decking,
reminding him that hypothermia would be a very real
danger this weekend. Still, he crawled as far as the
entrance to the courtyard, then continued hugging the floor
as he listened for an adversary. No sound filled the
alcove but the gentle hum of the kinetic sculpture
at the center of the space. The twisted, polished
mass of blue-green metal swung slowly on its
canted base, strobing the walls with pastel light.
Chekov watched the sculpture turn, trying
to decide if the constant movement could provide
adequate cover for someone plotting an ambush from
one of the courtyard's three other exits. He had
almost decided it would be more hindrance than
help when a pale, blurred face winked at him from
one of the sculpture's convex wings.
Chekov held his breath, waiting for the surface
to come round again. The smeared reflection sprang
into existence just as the sculpture came perpendicular
to Chekov's line of sight; it was halfway up the
metal leaf, almost too distorted to be
recognizably a face. Chekov waited through a
third slow rotation to be sure the reflection
didn't move. That meant a fourth exit, barely
two meter's to the left of Chekov's current
position, with at least one armed cadet securing it.
Chekov drew both arms up under his chin and studied
the sculpture as he considered. It was doubtful the
other cadet could see him-the angle was in Chekov's
favor, and the reflection so meaningless Chekov himself
had almost overlooked it. Still, any attempts
to move beyond this doorway would doom him, and the
sculpture itself prevented a valiant dash for
another corridor. He watched the face smear
slowly past again.
Slowly, carefully, lifting his boots clear of the
floor so as not to scrape against the decking, he
rotated himself until he lay lengthwise across the
wide doorway. Nearly five minutes
were required to gingerly ease himself up onto his
knees, another three to silently dog-walk
to halfway between his own doorway and the next. All the
while, the abstract face winked at him with each
passing of the sculpture. His own face had joined it
on the bottom quarter of the panel, but the quarry
didn't seem to have noticed; that would be his undoing.
Still on one knee, Chekov pressed his left
shoulder tight against the bulkhead, held his breath, and
raised his arm until he thought it
approximated standinglevel. Then he gripped his
phaser tightly, and eased it around the corner as though
probing ahead before turning.
Another phaser flashed into view, also at
standingheight, and fired. The beam passed above
Chekov's head and spat against the far wall, wasted.
Chekov caught the cadet's wrist with his free hand
and knocked the phaser free with a single sharp rap
against the bulkhead; he was on his feet and around the
corner before the other cadet had a chance to do more than
swear.
The cadet turned out to be a female-Pamela
Spurlock, an engineeringst-mand student who'd be
spending time as engineer's assistant on an
Earthbased station. Chekov was impressed
when the thin, big-eyed woman didn't try to beg for
her life.
"How did you know I was here?" she demanded, her
voice incredulous and annoyed. "A lucky
guess?"
Chekov grinned his apology as he nodded back
over
his shoulder. "The sculpture." Then he moved
back a step to let her see. Spurlock's mouth
twisted with wry displeasure. "Well, that's real
close to brilliant. Damn . . . to was
"I'm sorry."
She shrugged, apparently not holding her failure
against him. "Yeah, me too," she sighed congenially.
Then she brightened. "Oh, well! I guess I'll
see you when the scenario's over?"
Chekov nodded. "I'll see you then." He was just
about to stun her when another phaser fired.
They both hit the floor together, instinctively
seeking a low position as weapons fired from the three
surrounding exits. Chekov didn't even dare
raise his head to identify their attackers. "Friends
of yours?" he asked Spurlock.
She laughed dryly. "Not hardly! I left
alone, and they must have left ahead of me .
. . I've killed everybody else that came through
here."
Another barrage of fire answered
Spurlock's comments, followed by Baasch's
strident voice "I know you're with her, Chekov!"
Chekov groaned. "Oh, marvelous. . ."
"Get out here and get killed!" Baasch continued.
"I'm not going to let you louse up my grade again!"
"He certainly is holding a grudge about this
grade average thing," Spurlock commented,
apparently not too concerned. "You want to blow him
away?" Chekov tried to remember if Sasha had
mentioned how many people Baasch had recruited, or how
many he'd seen leave with Baasch. "I think they have
us outnumbered," he said at last. "There are at
least three of them."
"I counted four phasers," Spurlock added.
Then she smiled and elbowed him playfull y. "But
we're clever! You did a pretty good job with that
sculpture, and I had a pretty kick-ass
trap set up in the first place. Why don't we
try to convince them we're coming around either side of the
sculpture, then only round on one. We could
clear at least one doorway, I'll bet."
Chekov chewed his lower lip and waited
for the latest volley of phaser fire to die.
"We'll round on the right," he decided finally.
Baasch's voice had come from the left. "You fire
that way, I'll cover this way." He flashed her a
smile, and added, "We'll worry about killing you
later."
"Thanks loads."
They fired together, spraying the walls to either side
of the sculpture in a futile effort to drive back
Baasch's people. The maneuver bought them enough time to dart
into the sculpture's cover, then the enemy phasers
sounded again; this time, fire was split between the two
walls.
Someone poked his head briefly into view from behind the
closest doorway. Spurlock took the man down
with a single shot, then shouted, "Let's go!" without
turning to see if Chekov followed.
Covering their escape with a flurry of rapid
shots, he stayed as close to Spurlock as
possible. It seemed they'd almost make it-that
Baasch would have to wait until later to exact his
revenge for Chekov's destruction of the
Yorktown-then Spurlock staggered and her phaser
skittered ahead of her into the body of the man she'd
brought down.
Chekov had run into her before he realized she'd
been stunned. Looping one arm around her waist, he
only just kept her from falling. She was his shield
as he stumbled into the hallway and over the body of the
"dead" man.
Easing Spurlock to the ground so she wouldn't hit
her head on the decking, Chekov stunned another of
Baasch's cadets when the woman dared a glance
around the doorway to verify his presence. Then he
heard someone swear violently, followed by the stealthy
sounds of retreat.
Collecting the fallen man's phaser, Chekov
quickly patted down the other ensign's body. He
wasn't sure what he expected to find, but he
knew he'd found it when the man's stomach clacked.
Chekov rapped his knuckles against the front of the
other man's singlet, just to make certain, then
carefully undid the front of his uniform. Strapped
to the man's abdomen with four strips of surgical
tape was what looked to be a thin plate, about ten
centimeters square. Chekov gently removed the
article, refastened the front of the cadet's
uniform, and sat back against the wall to examine his
prize.
After only a few moments of
investigation, Chekov deduced how to unfold the
plate into a four-paneled screen that he
recognized as a read-only memory display. The
activator ran along the right-hand edge; caressing the
plate with his thumb immediately produced a sharp,
intricate schematic on the face of the screen,
complete with reference codes and keys. Chekov
smiled, then started to laugh.
A map! A circuitry and layout blueprint
for the entire Aslan station! He thumbed through the
various screens, taking a quick stock of what
information the little device made available.
Circuit and computer
junctions only took up one subcategory;
administrative routing, hub-to-hub referencing, and
maintenance access paths were among the others. Chekov
was dizzy with all the advantages this blueprint could
give him, not to mention the advantage he'd just stolen
from Baasch. No wonder his adversary had been
willing to risk another soldier to try and retrieve
this body. Baasch wasn't the only one who could
seek and destroy, however; Chekov intended to make
as good a use of this map as Baasch had-probably
even better. Referencing the administrative map
one last time, he folded the screen to its
portable dimensions and fitted it down the front of his
own singlet. Then, retrieving the phasers left
by Spurlock and Baasch's two comrades, he bid
Spurlock a grateful farewell and trotted for the
closest stairwell.
The administrative offices were seven levels
higher than the docking bay. Chekov traveled the
conventional routes long enough to acquire six more
phasers, then located a maintenance shaft that took
him within two meters of administration. Pausing at the
top of the long climb, he waited for his breathing
to steady and the corridor to clear before quietly easing
himself back into the battlefield.
The door to the administration office was closed, but
the jimmied lock was still lodged on the OPEN
setting. Inspired by his success with Spurlock,
Chekov approached the doorway on his knees,
waiting until the last possible moment to key open the
door. As the hatch hissed aside, a wild bolt
flashed above Chekov's head; the young Oriental at
the administrator's desk had only enough time to bark a
frustrated curse before Chekov's shot caught him
full in the chest.
Chekov scurried into the office on all fours,
spinning about to close and lock the door before
anyone could be attracted by the noise. The
mechanism refused to lock. Chekov jammed it
manually; he could always force it open again later.
The Oriental sprawled across the top of the
administrator's desk, his face silhouetted against
an activated desktop computer screen. Chekov
took the young man's phaser, and was just dragging the
body out of the chair when he caught sight of the dark
yellow screen.
greater-than TERTIARY ACCESS ACCEPTED
greater-than LOCKOUT OFF
greater-than DECODE OFF
greater-than WELCOME, USER
293724443A
Chekov nearly dropped his victim. The son
of a bitch had broken into Aslan's main computer.
Sinking slowly into the chair, he read and reread the
screen in awed admiration.
greater-than WELCOME, USER
293724443A
"Computer. . ." he finally summoned. He
wanted desperately to make use of this
opportunity, especially since the break-in was
something he could never duplicate on his own.
"Computer, respond."
Nothing.
Chekov ducked under the desk to retrieve the
keyboard from where it had fallen during his attack.
Fitting it across his knees, he considered for a
moment before typing
greater-than VOICE ON
The screen flashed once.
greater-than DO YOU WISH AUDIO OR
MANUAL INPUT (a/m)?
Chekov smiled. An admin computer, designed
for non-tech users; deciphering such a helpful
system might not be as difficult as he'd feared.
He chose the audio function, then addressed the
computer again.
"Good afternoon, User 293724443A," a
sedate contralto voice replied. "How would you
prefer to be addressed?"
Chekov searched the other man's uniform until
he came up with a tech-rating card (a stunning tech
level IX). "Gregory L. Jao," he
told the computer, wondering if he pronounced the name
correctly.
"Please input your identification manually," the
computer requested. Chekov tapped out Jao's name.
"Thank you, Gregory L. Jao.
How may I help you?"
This is it! "I'd like to access your main operating
system."
"Main operating system accessed for alteration as of
1@.cc27."
Good. That meant Jao had broken all the
security, and not just the user code.
"Do you wish to alter my programming?"
For the space of a heartbeat, Chekov wondered who
would be accountable if he crashed Aslan's
system; he was willing to take the blame himself, but
doubted Jao would be pleased to find out how his
tech-rating was used. Remembering Kramer's face
after the mess left in the Kobayashi Maru test
chamber, he doubted the commodore would be pleased,
either. Chekov decided it was all part of the risks in
the scenario, however, and pushed onward despite the
lingering image of Kramer's angry visage.
"Yes," he told the computer. "I'd like to alter
your programming."
"Please present proof of tech-rating
IV-B or higher."
He slipped Jao's card into the reader. The
green scanner light flashed, and the computer answered
simply, "Thank you."
Faced with all the options a detailed map and a
main computer offered, Chekov wasn't sure where
to start. There had to be a way to meld both
advantages, if only by cross-referencing one
against the other. Pulling the map out of his uniform, he
spread it across the desk top. "Computer, do you
possess schematics of the Aslan Station's
circuitry and layout?"
"Yes, Gregory L. Jao."
"Display them, please."
The screen shifted, and a series of blueprints
identical to those in the map paraded by. Even the
grid referencing was the same. "Can you scan the
number of life forms at . . ."-he chose a
location at random from his map-was. . . coordinates
273-ahe-ee?"
"I'm sorry, I don't have scanner
capabilities."
"Damn. . ." Chekov thumbed through the
schematics in his map, hoping for inspiration. There
seemed to be nothing consistent from map to map,
not even from level to level. The only thing all the
displays had in common were red coordinate
highlighters at some of the circuit junctions.
"What is the indicator at coordinates
45-fcc-cc?"
"The red coordinate highlights indicate
communication outlets."
He frowned. "Intercoms?"
"Yes."
This had some potential. "Can you monitor the
intercom channels on Aslan?" "I can access
all forms of communication on the Aslan Station."
Chekov clapped his fist into his hand in
triumph, then remembered that someone might still be
outside the door to hear him. "Monitor all
intercom outlets," he said, more sedately, "and
report the coordinates of any outlets where you
hear activity."
A moment of silence followed, then the screen
displayed a long list of coordinates
corresponding to the precious map. Chekov
entertained visions of closing off accessways and
bulkheads based on the computer's reports, confining
groups of cadets for later disposition. It would
limit the amount of physical space he would have
to cover, and would greatly simplify his job.
Brit none of those plans would matter if someone
el se with an adequate tech-rating (like Cecil)
broke into the computer and undermined his plans.
Thinking of Cecil reminded him that he was supposed
to have gone straight to the hub in search of Sasha and the
others; a gust of guilt distracted his tactical
strategies. He would only be a bit longer, he
promised 86
himself-just long enough to verify his suspicions, and
to protect his claim on the main operating system.
Returning his attention to the amber screen, he
queried, "Computer, do you speak Russian?"
"Muscovite High Russian, Georgian,
or Modern?"
"Modern."
"I speak Modern Russian at a level
fifteen fluency."
Chekov folded the map and sat back with a
smile. "As of this override, reconfigure your
communications system to send and receive exclusively in
Modern Russian. All other accesses should be
denied."
"As you wish, Gregory L. Jao. Please
wait."
Almost immediately, the complex schematic leapt away
from the screen, replaced by the message prompts that
had originally greeted Chekov. Only this time the
prompts were in Cyrillic.
"Pokonchyl. his
Chekov smiled and switched off the screen.
"Prekrasneya, was he replied softly.
"Excellent . . ."
Despite the thundering white noise of Asian's
sleeping generator, the hub was maddeningly quiet,
The rumbling was a soothing, subliminal presence
coursing like a heatbeat through a great ship's deck,
palpable everywhere you stood. It was a vibrant,
vital sound, as deep as the Earth; it meant the ship
and her crew were cared for, and alive.
Chekov paused to place one hand on the hub's
outermost door. If he'd realized the decibel
level behind these doors, he wouldn't have instructed the
computer to lock the exits. On his way to the hub, it
occurred to him that Sasha and Cecil might grow 87
impatient with his tardiness and desert him as a
casualty. He ordered the computer to eavesdrop
on the area; it reported no success at discerning
human activity. He didn't consider that the
computer's failure might be because of other noise.
He'd sealed the bulkheads because he didn't
want the others to leave him behind. No-because he
didn't want them to think he had failed. The
admis- sion embarrassed him a little, but
he would rather they thought he'd abandoned them than know they
thought him incapable of joining.
Thumbing the intercom by the huge double door, he
leaned close and intoned in Russian, "Computer."
"Da, Gregory L. Jao?"
Hearing the machine answer in Russian still made
him smile. Using the same language, he
replied, "Open bulkheads at my
coordinates."
The computer complied.
Sound poured out at him in a frothing white gale.
Chdkov stepped through the doors to approach the singing
machinery with care. Crannies and cubby- holes
littered the ragged room. He couldn't even hear his
own breathing above the generator; he only knew the
outside door had closed when the ambient light in
the room dimmed by half. Sasha and the others were nowhere
to be seen.
Pausing by a shunting engine, he eased one of the
phaxer power packs off his belt and tossed it toward
the middle of the room.
It clattered against the gray decking, then lay still.
"You're late!"
Chekov wheeled, phaser drawn. Sasha scowled
at the weapon as she stepped from behind the loud
generator. Cantini and Gugin peeked out after her,

but didn't venture forth. All three cadets were
bugheaded with
noise-reducing headsets. "Where the hell were
you?" Sasha demanded at the top of her lungs,
pushing Chekov's phaser away from her with one hand.
Chekov returned the weapon to his belt.
"I was attempting to be surreptitious."
She frowned irritably and tapped at her
headset. Chekov threw his hands up to indicate that
he had no suggestions for better communication. Then
he tugged his belt about to let her see the phaser
packs there.
She adjusted her headset, but didn't smile.
"It's better than collecting scalps, I
guess."
Chekov chose not to hear the comment.
Sasha led him around the generator assembly,
motioning for Gugin and Cantini to join them. They
startled Cecil and Westbeld at the back entrance,
and were nearly shot for it. Once everyone was calmed
again, Sasha pushed them into the numbing quiet of the
corridor beyond.
"I was hoping you would wait," Chekov
said when Sasha removed her headset and rubbed at
her ears. "I was detained."
"We didn't have a choice." Cecil massaged
his own scalp with one hand, twirling the headset on the
fingers of the other. "Somebody jammed the doorswe
tried to leave almost an hour ago."
Chekov considered explaining the predicament, but
decided against it. "Well, I'm here now. We should
probably get going before someone finds us in the
hallway."
Westbeld laughed once, sourly. "dis"Where
are we going to go?" she wanted to know. "What's
wrong with just staying here?"
"It isn't secure enough," Chekov informed her.
"And it's too loud. We'd never sleep."
"But nobody could ambush us here," Sasha pointed
out. "The entrances are easy to guard from the inside.
And we've got the headsets." She presented hers
to him as though he hadn't noticed them before now.
Chekov pushed the headset back at her. "There
are other defensible places-most of them with better
acoustics."
Only Cecil looked interested. "Such as?"
"The administrative offices."
Even half-deafened by the generator,
Chekov heard Sasha's low laugh. "Sure, us and
everybody else in this man's army! Pavel, that's
the first place everybody will head!"
Chekov flashed her a smug grin. "Of course
it is. But I've been there already, and I
booby-trapped the doors so only I can get
back in."
The other five stared at him. Westbeld grinned
with delight, but the others only toyed with their weapons
or headsets and said nothing.
"Is that legal?" Gugin finally ventured.
Chekov tried to mask his annoyance. "Is it
illegal?" he returned. "They told us that we
could do anything, so long as we survived. I had
spare phasers from three other people I took out of the
scenario." He knew now that not mentioning his
relationship with the computer hack been a wise
decision. "Securing administration seemed a
prudent course of action," he finished.
"Yeah," Cantini sighed. "I suppose so .
. ."
Gugin finally shrugged and tossed her headset
back into the supply cabinet by the door. "If
you've got it
secured already, I guess we may as
well use it. Anybody else mind?" No one
voiced an objection. Chekov plucked Gugin's
headset out of the cabinet, holding a hand out to stop
Cecil from depositing his headset as well.
"Take it," Chekov insisted. Then, looking about
at the others. "Take all of them-let anyone
else who comes here have to fight the noise."
Cecil sighed roughly in frustration. "Why?"
"It'll distract them," Cantini explained,
nodding at the headset in his hands. "They'll be
easier for somebody else to pick off." He grinned
at Chekov. "Good plan." Chekov smiled in
reply.
Sasha fidgeted with her headset. "What does
making somebody else miserable gain us?" she asked.
"I mean, why do we care?"
Chekov shrugged. "If someone else stuns them,
that's better odds for us."
Everyone but Sasha took the headsets; Chekov
hesitated only briefly, then picked up hers
without comment.
Simulated twilight tugged the already inadequate
lighting into cold, warped shadows along the
reflective floors and walls. Distant phaser
fire startled Chekov more than once,
pricking him to the alertness of prey for the first time in the
scenario; the deck seemed shot through with
electricity, making each step both dreadful and
exhilarating. He was glad when they finally reached the
admin offices.
Jao's body was gone, but a Tseyluri cadet
sprawled in the hallway in almost the same position
as Chekov had left Jao. He tossed a
victorious smile over his 91
shoulder at Sasha as he eased up to the door;
she glanced at the Tseyluri and didn't smile
back.
Chekov snapped a protractable probe off the
clip on his belt and extended it toward the floor.
"What are you doing?" Cecil whispered in his ear.
Chekov glanced back at his friend, then returned
to his work. "Unboobying the trap," he explained,
glad for the distraction after Sasha's obvious
displeasure. "Keep everyone away from the door."
The probe was just under a meter in length at its
greatest extension. Chekov pressed flat against the
bulkhead, placing his feet uncomfortably close
together along the wall, and flicked the probe across the
sensor governing the access.
The door sighed open and a short,
triplicate burst of phaser fire sparked against the
far wall. Chekov kicked forward with one foot,
propping the door open with his toe, and waited for the
barrage to cease.
"It would be easier," Cecil suggested, after
Chekov had crossed the threshold to maintain the
opening for the others, "to just jam the lock."
Chekov tried for an air of nonchalance as he
shrugged the suggestion aside. "I'm not a tech,"
he rationalized. "I'd probably be unable to open
it again." In reality, he'd simply thought the trap
a better way to stop Baasch in case the other
cadet should follow him here.
Caritini flopped onto a wall-length divan.
"Well, it's gonna be more comfortable than the
generator room"!" He crossed his arms behind his
head with a contented sigh.
"As though creature comforts were all that matters
to life." Sasha clapped her phaser down on a
desktop,
then waved off Gugin when the other woman started
to speak. Chekov watched as Sasha paced to the other
end of the room and stared at the wall. "Hey,
Pavel . . . ?"
Child--kov turned to find Cecil bending
over the desk that housed the computer terminal. Cocking
his head as though trying to read something written there,
Cecil asked, "Is this a mainframe terminal?"
"It's down." Cecil frow ned at him, and
Chekov hoped the answer hadn't come too quickly.
"I tried it earlier," Chekov elaborated with a
shrug. "The ready screen wouldn't even come up. I
guess they've deactivated the system."
Cecil made a face Chekov couldn't
interpret at the blank screen. "I guess . .
."
"I'm hungry," Cantini announced
abruptly. "Anybody else want to scare up
some food?"
Westbeld raised her hand from where she sat in a
desk chair across the room. "I will. I haven't
eaten since breakfast!"
"See if you can find a rec hall," Sasha
instructed without turning around. "They'll have food
service there."
"And be careful of traps," Cecil added.
Chekov shot a startled look at the computer
tech, but didn't comment. "You can't be the only one
to have thought of it," Cecil pointed out, sinking into the
desk chair. "We should all be careful."
More careful than you know, Chekov thought, turning
back to the others. Whether another cadet practiced
trapping or not, Chekov had rigged most of the food
processors and bathrooms between the administrative
offices and the hub; bathrooms and 93
commissaries were the only two places that everyone
eventually had to visit. "There's a food service
station down that way about four hundred meters,"
Chekov informed them, pointing. "I think it's the
closest." It was also the one he'd left
unsabotaged for his own use.
Both cadets nodded understanding before ducking out the
door.
Chekov used Westbeld and Cantini's
departure to instruct Cecil and Gugin in how
to deactivate the door; Sasha, now seated,
watched them without inter- rupting, her displeasure
painfully apparent. Chekov was suddenly sorry that
they were even involved in this scenario, sorry he'd
kept quiet about his involvement with the computer, sorry
about his surreptitious bombings. Mostly, he was
sorry that this apparently mattered so much to Sasha when
it was little more than an elaborate game to him. Her
state of pique annoyed him, but he didn't want
to alienate her over something that was barely
real.
Leaving Cecil to modify the booby trap,
Chekov went to sit on the edge of the desk next
to Sasha. When she didn't talk to him for a full
minute, he asked, "Are you angry with me?"
"I don't want to talk about it here." But her
eyes said something
different, something furious.
Chekov tugged her to her feet. "There's another
office," he said, nodding toward a door at the
back of the room. "Let's talk in there."
Cecil looked up in query as they passed;
Chekov conveyed his uncertainty with a hopeless shrug,
then followed Sasha into the next room.
She crossed to the long, lacquered desk
dominating 94
the far wall, and picked up an amorphous
ornament in one hand just to toss it into the other. Chekov
watched her fluid movements with attached fascina-
tion. Sasha was trained in more forms of barehanded
combat than he even knew names for, she could
probably kill a Barbarbaar "yoat assassin
a hundred times over with that paperweight alone before the
assassin even knew Security was in the room.
Well, perhaps she wasn't quite that fast. But
she was talented, and tempered by a family tradition
of martial arts. Chekov had never known her to be
timid or circumspect in any aspect of their
relationship, professional or personal.
She didn't disappoint him now. "You've turned
into a regular Babin the Butcher, haven't you?"
Chekov crossed his arms and leaned back against the
wall. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I saw your face in there! It means
you booby-trapped the food service centers,
probably most of the lifts, and maybe even some of the
sleeping quarters." She returned the paperweight
to the desk with a startling clunk.
"Remember the parameters of the scenario?"
Chekov asked. "We're at war."
"So you turn guerrilla?"
The accusation stung more than he'd expected. "I
turn practical. We don't know who the
assassin is, we don't know what he or she is
capable of. If this were real life, you wouldn't be
complaining."
She shook her head slowly. "Don't be so
sure of that, mister."
Chekov searched her pale eyes for some sign of
uncertainty or weakness, but found none.
Finally, he turned away with a frustrated sigh.
"You don't understand . . ."
"And don't patronize me! I'm not a child!"
"Then you should know that sometimes the good guys get
ugly, too!" he shouted in return.
"But when does it stop? When do we stop fighting
fire with fire and decide not to take the easy way
out by just killing all our competition? That's, not what
Starfleet is about and you know it."
"It's a scenario, Sasha!" he insisted,
resigned to lose this fight no matter what he said.
"It's like the Kobayashi Maru It isn't real.
They're testing our reactions and resourcefulness, not
our morality. Whether we're supposed to admit it
or not, everyone knows that no one dies! I know that-you
know that! That means we're all going to behave
differently than we would in real life!" Her jaw
muscles twitched as she fingered the paperweight, but
she wouldn't look up at him. Taking her chin in one
hand, Chekov tipped her eyes into the light and said
gently, "Sasha, in real life, I wouldn't blow
up my own starship just to spite the Klingons!" She
pulled her chin out of his hand and dropped her gaze
once again. "I wonder, Pavel," she said, very
softly. "Sometimes, I just wonder."
was Sasha . . ."
"I just wish I knew what we were being tested for!"
Her voice betrayed something between frustration and anger,
but she didn't object when Chekov moved closer
to slip an arm about her waist. "It's like the
Kobayashi Maru. They don't run that test just
to find out how long it takes a Mingon war fleet
to kick our
butts-they run it to find out who gives up, who
goes down fighting, who never notices that the
battle's over. They want to know everything about us .
. ." She sighed, a soft, hollow sound that seemed
to echo some insecurity Chekov didn't share. "If
I knew what they really wanted," she admitted
finally, "I'd feel a lot better about this."
"They want us to be strong," Chekov told her,
wishing he could grant her his belief. "Whatever we
do-whatever their reasons-they want us to prove that we
can deal with anything Starfleet might ask of us. That
means we do our best to win, even when our best
makes us seem cruel or hard."
She laughed once, and looked at him. "It's the
fact that you're so sure you know what winning means,"
she told him baldly. "It's the fact that you think
it's so easy that has me worried most.
I think you'll find that you're selling yourself and
Starfleet short."
Chekov awoke the next morning to the sound of
phaser fire and shouting. Sasha, stretched out beside him
on the inner office's only sofa, rolled to her
feet with silent grace, her eyes trained,
cat-like, on the outside door. Recognizing the
voices, Chekov caught her by the shoulder and
hissed, "It's Baasch! Lock the door!"
Sasha darted across the room to slap at the door
control, twisting the locking mechanism until the
status light flashed from green to red. In the office
beyond, Cecil's voice could be heard above the others,
shouting at Cantini to move something into a more defensible
position; Chekov could barely make out the words, and
suspected the specifics didn't matter 97
much anyway. Swearing under his breath, he pulled
Sasha away from the door, toward the desk on the
other end of the room.
"We should go out to them," she insisted in a hoarse
stage whisper. "They're going to get slaughtered!"
Chekov's mind still chased itself about, trying
to figure out how someone had survived long enough to get
past his protection on the door. "We can't help
them."
"We should die trying!"
He almost laughed aloud. "And prove what? That
we aren't any more serious about this scenario than
anyone else on this station?" Besides, he had no
desire to grant Baasch his wish by giving himself over
to an easy kill. A phaser bolt landed on the
closed door, making the steel and plastic sing.
Chekov herded Sasha toward the hollow under the desk
as he cast about the room for some escape.
She caught the desktop with one hand and refused
to be pushed under. "They're our friends!" she insisted.
"We can't just leave them out there!" was Yes, we can."
A ventilation grate on the wall above the sofa was the
only avenue of escape not involving a rush through the
forces outside. Chekov knew from his pilfered map
just how erratic and treacherous the ventilation shafts could
be; nothing short of impending death of a very real and
excruciating nature could inspire him to dare those
steep and winding passages.
"You keep insisting that this isn't like real life."
Sasha, still standing, looked back and forth across the room
as well. "Just keep in mind that everybody will be
alive in the real life following this scenario, and

they're all going to be really ticked off
at us!" She hefted the paperweight in one hand.
"Use this," she said, handing it across the desk
to Chekov. "You can knock out the grate, then we can
hide under here. They'll think we went through the
ventilation system, and we can vacate the offices after
they're gone."
Chekov smiled as he took the weight. "You're
better at this than you like to admit."
"I don't believe in doing things by halves."
Each of the clips on the ventilation grate
shattered after only a single blow. Chekov broke
three of them, leaving the grating askew, as though he
and Sasha had tried to pull the grate back
into place during their hasty departure. The
paperweight he left on the sofa.
The hollow beneath the black-and-silver desk was never
designed to conceal two Starfleet cadets; they
only fit in the space after three minutes of
thoroughly embarrassing rearrangement, and that was only
when they sat hip-to-hip with their knees in their own
ears. Sasha had just adjusted the castered chair across
the opening when the door between the two offices blew.
Chekov held his breath as light footsteps
crossed the room just beyond the desk's outer wall. Every
muscle in his legs was suddenly cramped and
aching, the need to move almost unbearable as he listened
to the intruder step up on the couch and lift away the
broken grating. He saw Sasha raise a hand
to cover her mouth, her jaw clenched and her eyes
closed; apparently, he wasn't alone in his
discomfort.
"dis . . Damn.. ." The voice, soft and
muffled, was swallowed almost to nonsense by the ventilation
duct. Then the footsteps recrossed the office, and
were gone. 99
Sasha exhaled loudly. "Can I move now?"
she whispered.
Chekov shook his head. "Wait a little longer,"
he whispered in return. "Make sure they're
gone."
They waited for nearly an hour. The cramps in
Chekov's legs were very real by now; he felt dizzy
from their constricted positions. Still, it wasn't until
he heard a cleanup crew in the office outside that
he deemed it safe to exit.
Sasha fell onto her side in exaggerated
agony, pushing the chair away with enough force to bounce it
off the wall. "I'm crippled for life! I'll
never walk again!"
Chekov crawled out behind her, pleased
to hear Sasha's laughter again after her earlier ill
humor. He nodded toward the door. "Is the
cleanup crew gone?"
She stumbled to her feet and half-ran,
half-limped to the exit. Holding herself off to one
side as she keyed open the door, she darted a quick
look into the other room. "Yeah," she confirmed with a
nod. "All clear."
was Good." Chekov terminated his stretching when he
felt something twinge in his shoulder. "I may never
recover from this."
"I'm not going to live to recover if I don't
get to a bathroom!" Sasha glanced into the outer
office again. "Pavel, I'm headed for the ladies"
room down the hall. Wait;" for me."
He nodded, still working at his stiff shoulder.
"Don't take long-I want to get food,
too."
"I'll hurry," she promised. Then she
slipped into the next room and disappeared.
Chekov gave her a moment to make it some distance
down the hall, then headed into the outer office
himself. Nothing of the ambush remained; even the three
phasers Chekov had used in the booby trap had
been taken by the cleanup crew. He tried
not to let their loss annoy him; he could always obtain
more.
The desktop computer screen was still dark. Chekov
paused on the side of the desk closest to the outside
door-wanting to hear Sasha's return in time
to terminate the conversation-and powered up the mechanism.
"Computer," he summoned, in quiet Russian.
"Good morning, Gregory L. Jao," the
computer replied.
"Please monitor all intercom outlets and
report coordinates where you detect activity."
"Yes, Gregory L. Jao."
Chekov glanced into the hall for Sasha; there was no
sign of anyone in any direction. He ducked
back into the office, prepared to wait yet for the
computer's response, and was surprised when it
greeted him with, "Two beings detected at
coordinates 456-779-340, four beings detected
at 55-ef-dg."
Chekov waited for it to continue. When it didn't,
he pressed, "Are there any others?"
"Only yourself, at coordinates 147-90-423.
Do you wish me to reassess my findings?"
"No . . . No, computer, that's fine." He
unfolded the map across the top of the desk.
The computer's reported coordinates were several
floors apart, both sets quite a distance from his present
location. If he and Sasha were survived by only
six other students, he could only hope the group of
four was Baasch's squad. Tracing a finger along
several of the deck plans, he memorized the quickest
route between the admin
offices and the smaller of the two groups, all the
while conscious that Sasha would rejoin him soon.
He wasn't certain how she'd respond to discovering
his relationship with the computer, but he knew he was going
to tell her; the computer offered too many advantages
to just abandon it now that the scenario was so close to ending.
Besides, having Sasha as a co-victor didn't
feel as much like a compromise as he'd expected.
"Computer, isolate floors one through seven, and
decks twenty, twenty-two . . ."
In the distance, hollow rumblings heralded the
descent of the ponderous bulkhead doors. Chekov
left open only a two-deck span on either side
of both parties-enough to give them the illusion of
freedom, if they chose to migrate. He would
worry about confining them further when he and Sasha
drew near the sites.
"'Will that be all, Gregory L.
Jao?"
Ire nodded as he closed the map, then realized
the gesture was lost on the computer. "Yes, computer.
Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Smiling at the incongruity of technological
courtesy, he leaned over the desk to switch off the
screen. Outside, the hallway was still silent and
empty.
Chekov trotted down the open corridor without
bothering to draw his phaser. He knew the locations of
everyone still "alive" on the station; there was no one
to defend himself against on this level, as no one was
functional here besides himself. That thought carried with it a
cold shudder of realization; he slowed his gait to a
hesitant walk.
No one. The computer reported no activity on
this level except for Chekov in the admin office.
That meant Sasha had either departed the level, or was
no longer active. He had a feeling he knew which
it was.
Dropping to his knees, he dug down the front
of his singlet for the map, balancing it on one hand as
he flipped the panels apart with the other. The admin
level flashed onto the screen, littered
with the cobalt blue indicators he'd been setting
to highlight his own trap locations. Fifty meters
down the hall from the admin office, the women's
restroom was littered with flashing blue.
Chekov groaned and buried his face against the
map. He was a dead man. Even if Robert and the
others never learned that he'd set traps all about the
Asian Station, Sasha had already divined the fact.
She would know who booby-trapped the bathroom, and
she would kill him.
He scrambled to his feet and ran the last few
meters to the bathroom. The door slid aside at
the slightest touch; inside was as silent as the
hallway. "Sasha?" Unlike admin, he hadn't
planned on reentering any of the booby-trapped
bathrooms, and so had left no options for bypassing
the traps. The phasers fired as soon as someone
rounded the first bend in the room. Chekov stayed
carefully in the doorway and called her name again.
He retreated to an intercom panel once he was
convinced even Sasha wouldn't keep silent so long
for the sake of a joke. Thumbing the audio switch,
he summoned the computer with a listless sigh.
"Monitor all intercom outlets and report
coordinates where you detect activity."
The same groups appeared-two and four-only the
two-person group had relocated by a deck; the
four-person party still kept to the library. "Close
down the bulkheads to the nineteenth floor," he said.
"If the two people at coordinates 425-457-77
move outside the room they currently occupy,
seal that room behind them."
"As you wish, Gregory L. Jao."
He headed for a lift without thanking the computer.
Less than eighteen hours into this scenario, he
planned to finish it before the
twenty-four-hour mark arrived, if only he could
reach deck nineteen before his quarry found some way
to bypass the bulkheads. First, he'd have to stop by the
engineering storeroom where he'd pilfered his first
collection of timers and triggering devices; he still
had seven phasers with which to construct a little insurance.
The two on the nineteenth floor were annoyingly
easy to dispatch. Chekov found them arguing in the
hallway outside one of the bulwarked rooms, each
apparently blaming the other for having locked the door
on their way out. Chekov stunned them before they even
knew he was there.
He sat on the floor while the cleanup crew
came for the bodies,
meticulously wiring phasers into a series and
axing them to his belt. One of the cleanup
technicians peered at him curiously while
lifting a body onto a stretcher. "What're you
making? A toy train?"
Chekov didn't look up from his work. "A
bomb."
"Ah." The tech nodded sagely at his
companion.
"Starfleet's finest," he assured the woman with
him. They both giggled as they wheeled the litters
away.
Chekov ignored their laughter. He'd told
Sasha he wouldn't sacrifice an entire Federation
starship just to spite the Klingon Empire, and he still
believed that was true. He also believed it was his
duty as an officer to make his own death or
capture too expensive a goal to be worth the
enemy's efforts. In the real world, that might not mean
the destruction of a fully crewed Constitution-class
starship, but it could mean voluntary death in the face
of inevitable defeat-death that carried the price of many
lives other than his own. Baasch, no doubt, would
miss the irony in the gesture, but it wasn't
intended as revenge against the other cadet.
Not entirely, at least.
Chekov tucked the last phaser into the array, then
set about secreting the multicolored wires out of
sight behind his belt. With the whole apparatus cinched
about his waist again, it looked like nothing more than an
equipment belt crowded with a half-dozen extra
phasers. Only Chekov knew about the wire
threaded down the left sleeve of his singlet, or about
the wire loop near his ring finger that he could tug with
almost no effort at all. No one else would see the
tiny Rube Goldberg that would trigger the first phaser
on his belt at almost the same moment it fired the
second, and the third . . .
Chekov fingered the wire peeking out of his sleeve.
"dis . . boom . . . was he murmured to himself.
In real life, the enemy would no doubt have
circuit detectors, or personnel trained in
search and remove. But, as Sasha had so testily
reminded him, this wasn't
real life. Nor was this real death. It was all a
test to which someone else had constructed the rules, but which
Chekov didn't intend to lose; even if all he
could do was assure no one else won it, either.
The door to the library was locked.
Chekov frowned at the sealed bulkhead,
toying with the loop of wire that brushed against his wrist and
trying to decide why something as prudent as a locked
door should make his spine tingle and his muscles ache
as though he were guiding a starship into battle.
True, he hadn't instructed the computer to seal this
bulkhead; he'd cordoned off the rest of the deck,
half hoping this group would show a bit more initiative
than the last. They hadn't even left the library,
though, and now he'd discovered the door locked from the
inside without even a guard placed in the hall. He
wondered if Baasch were somehow aware that Chekov was
the only one left they had to face-if he were waiting
just on the inside for the Russian to override their
lock. When Chekov entered, Baasch would shoot
him.
Growling low in frustration, Chekov backed away
from the door. If there were only some way to force them
out, to be more sure where they were, what they were doing.
He remembered an intercom only a few meters
down the corridor and trotted back to it while still
considering his plan.
"Computer."
A longer pause than he expected, then
"Yes, Gregory L, Jao?"
"Can you still verify four life forms in the
library?"
Another pause, longer this time. "Yes,
Gregory L. Jao."
"Can you pinpoint their locations within the library?"
"I'm sorry, Gregory L. Jao, but my
audio monitors are not designed for that level of
accuracy."
Chekov drummed his fingers against the wall, his
thoughts chasing each other round and round like angry
birds. If he knew where they were-if he knew
what they were doing-if, if, if.! "Computer," he
continued, wrestling his thoughts under control long enough
to choose a course of action, "can you override the
manual lock on the library door?"
"Of course, Gregory L. Jao. My
system is-was An infinitesimal pause in the
middle of its answer this time; Chekov wasn't
sure why, but the quirk worried him. "comdesigned
for convenient use by administrative personnel. Would
you like me to perform such an override now?"
"Yes."
This time the heartbeat of silence was acceptable. Then
the indicator light a dozen steps down the hall
moved silently from red to green, and the computer
announced simply, "Done." Chekov
relocated the wire loop in his sleeve, tucking it
further out of sight as he returned to the library
door. He shadowed the wall during his approach,
triggering the door sensors at the last possible
moment. The breathless hisss as the door whisked
aside seemed almost too loud to bear.
The inside of the library was dark and cavernous.
Floor-to-ceiling displays paneled off alcoves
where terminals sprouted from the tops of long tables.
A maze of shelves-housing a dusty,
woody-smelling collection of antique printed
paper books-zigged
and zagged across the first few meters in front of the
door. Chekov crouched lower than the tallest
shelving unit and eased his own phaser into his hand.
Well-remembered voices drifted to him from across the
abandoned terminals "comyard looked a lot bigger
once we took down the bushes."
"What did you replace them with?" Laurel
Gugin wanted to know, sounding more interested in the
subject than Chekov would have given her credit for.
"Anne wanted to plant more shrubs," Westbeld
replied, "but I talked her into shade flowers and
meadow stuff. Actually, she wanted azaleas,
too."
Chekov sank back on his heels, suddenly
hesitant. Westbeld and Gugin? Here? Had
Baasch taken the women prisoner, or had the two
groups somehow banded together? Where were Cantini and
Cecil? Other sounds came from all over the room
footsteps, dragging and repetitive, like those of a
captured lion pacing its habitat from boredom;
his own breathing, coming back to him double-loud from the
bookshelves to his right and left; the spasmodic
clickclacking of a terminal keyboard; an
occasional muffled curse. Robert. Chekov
clenched his teeth against a string of angry words as his
thoughts leapt up into turmoil again. Robert the
computer expert. Robert who was, no doubt, within
coding distance of discovering why the computer wasn't as
cooperative as it should be. Robert, who had
apparently defeated Baasch's squadron after
all, then left Chekov and Sasha for dead.
Robert, his Achilles" heel.
Chekov decided he'd have to shoot Robert first.
"Where the hell have you been?" The sharp prod of a
phaser in the small of his back-not Cantini's
voice-stopped him from continuing forward.
"Don't shoot me," Chekov said, trying
to hide his annoyance at being caught.
"I'm on your side."
Cantini didn't appear to be impressed.
"Answer my question," he growled as Chekov turned
to face him. "Where have you been?" Chekov heard
Westbeld and Gugin's conversation stagger
into nonexistence at the sound of Cantini's voice.
"I've been anywhere I could get to," Chekov
told Cantini simply. "There aren't many open
routes through the station, though-someone's been locking the
doors."
"We noticed," Gugin volunteered as she and
Westbeld approached their position. They, at
least, hadn't drawn their phasers, even if
Cantini refused to put his away. "Also tried
to leave this level about an hour ago, but he couldn't
find an access that would open."
"So where have you been?"
Chekov turned back to Cantini. The smaller
man's dark eyes glittered in his round,
flat-featured face, somehow accusing Chekov of
something too unspecific to state out loud. Chekov
wondered how much Cantini had guessed. "What do
you want me to tell you?" he asked. "I've been
confined to this damn station, just like you. Trying to keep myself
from getting stunned. Just like you.
The anger in Cantini's eyes faltered
momentarily. "We left you with Sasha in the admin
offices. You ran
away when we were attacked-you didn't even come out
to help us!"
"We didn't think there was anything we could do,"
Chekov told him. "By the time we realized what was
happening, we thought you'd already been taken out."
Cantini snorted. "So you ran."
Better to repeat a lie they already believed than
to muddy the waters with the truth. "Yes," Chekov
told him. "We ran."
When Cantini would have said something more, Westbeld
interrupted, "So where's Sasha?"
"Out of the scenario," Chekov answered. The mention
of her name, and the thought of how angry she would be when he
saw her next, made his face burn. "We were
surprised by two other cadets on the nineteenth
floor." The lies seemed to come awfully easily
now.
Keyboard clatter attracted his attention again;
he tried to look past the shelving unit between himself and
Westbeld, but couldn't see beyond her shoulder.
"Where's Robert?" he asked, as casually as he
could.
Gugin glanced over her shoulder, as though
expecting do see someone there. When there was nothing, she
turned back to Chekov with a shrug. "With the computer.
Doing something."
Cbekov fingered the wire up his sleeve. "Do you
know what he's doing?" "Does it matter?"
Cantini demanded acidly. Chekov only glanced
at him; he knew enough.
"He's trying to break in," Gugin
volunteered. She was the first to turn back toward the
room, obviously losing interest now that their prowler
proved to be 110
friend rather than foe. "He thinks the locked
bulkheads may have been arranged through the
mainframe."
Chekov, still under Cantini's watchful eye,
stood to follow the women further into the room. "How
long has he been working?"
Westbeld settled back into one of the stiff,
unpadded seats. "About three hours. He says he
almost got it once or twice, but it keeps denying
his communications protocol-even in binary."
Chekov nodded vacantly, and played with his
wire.
Cantini poked the other ensign in the
ribs with his phaser, startling a sharp profanity out of
him. "What's the matter?" Cantini asked
shrewdly. "You don't look like you think it's a good
idea."
"It's just. . ." Chekov made himself stop fingering
the trigger wire. "What if he disrupts something?
This is a civilian station-they might not take well
to having their data corrupted."
"He knows what he's doing," Gugin said without
concern. She turned on a reader by her left hand.
"Besides, somebody else already broke in once.
What more harm can Cece do?"
If only they knew.
"Damn it!"
Only Chekov jumped at Cecil's sharp
invective; the others were no doubt inured to his
outbursts by now. Pulling away from the table, Chekov
started in the direction of his friend's voice, ignoring
Cantini's belligerent, "Don't you go anywhere,
Chekov!"
Cecil crouched over an active terminal, his
eyes washed copper by the steady amber light. He
didn't 111
look up as Chekov approached, didn't even
glance away from whatever his eyes tracked
across the tilted screen when Chekov paused at the
rear of the monitor to stare at him.
"Robert . . . ?"
"Don't bother me," Cecil muttered
distractedly. "I'm busy."
Ill bet you are. "What are you doing?" Chekov
pressed. "This isn't our equipment."
Cecil growled inarticulately and punched at a
series of buttons. "Yeah, well, tell that to the
tech nine who cracked the system." He slapped his
hands against his thighs in a fit of frustration.
Cantini materialized at Chekov's shoulder.
"Leave him the hell alone!" he grumbled, tugging
at Chekov's elbow. "I'm still not convinced you're not
Kramer's assassin, so just-was
Chekov jerked his arm away just as Cecil
ex claimed, "Pavel!" and Westbeld and Gugin
ran up to join them.
"What's going on?"
"Did you get in?"
"Welcome, User 128641937Every . . ."
Chekov grabbed the terminal and spun it about before
Cecil could respond. "Computer!" he shouted.
"Slushayetye! Otkluchenoe!"
The terminal went dead.
No one said anything for a moment. Then Cantini
caught Chekov by the back of the neck and spun him
roughly about. "Why you son of a-to "
Chekov struck the other man's hand away,
ducking out of range as Cantini drew back to swing
at him. "Remember the beginning of the scenario?" he
cautioned. "They told us anything goes!"
Westbeld had
unlimbered her own phaser, but didn't look as
though she knew what she wanted to do with it.
"You aren't a tech nine!" Cecil argued. He
still looked vaguely puzzled, not even capable of
anger in his confusion. "I've seen you work, damn
it-you didn't break into this system!"
Chekov half turned to Cecil, glad for the
distraction. "I didn't," he admitted. "I
took it from the tech nine who did. his
Cecil shook his head slowly. "How?"
"Who cares how?" Cantini interjected. "He
screwed us, Bob! He agreed to work with us, and then
he screwed us over!" He swung an angry
glare on Chekov again. "Did you set up that
ambush, too? How did you really kill Sasha?"
"I didn't!" Chekov shot back, furious
at the suggestion. "We really thought you were
gone-Sasha and I wanted to help you!"
"Well, a fat lot of help you turned out
to be!" Westbeld pursed her lips and combed her
hair out of her eyes with one hand. Looking at
Cecil, she stated, "I say we kill him."
Cecil still stared at the blank screen, occasionally
punching a button on the keyboard as though
expecting some reply. "I can't believe this . . .
to was "We're gonna kill him, Bob," Cantini
said, a bit more loudly. "It's three to one, unless
you want to help."
"Laurel didn't vote," Chekov started
to point out, but Gugin added, "I want to kill you,
too," before he even finished his sentence.
Chekov threw up his arms in exasperation. "You
don't understand . . . to was
"I understand enough," Cecil said quietly,
evenly, "to know that we six agreed to work as a team."
He looked up from the keyboard, his blue eyes
hard and bright as ice. "Why didn't you respect
that? Why didn't you tell us about the computer, or the
traps? What game are we supposed to be playing
here?"
Chekov sighed. "That's your problem," he said.
"This isn't just a game."
"It was a figure of speech," Cecil began,
but Chekov cut him off.
"It's more than that. Every step of the way, you've been
treating this like real life-as if we were all really in
danger of being killed by some desperate situation! But
it's a command scenario, and the only "scores' any
of us are gathering will be on our records for the rest of
our lives." He looked from Cecil's frustrated
face to Cantini's angry one and back again.
"I've nothing personal against any of you," he
insisted. "You're my friends. But this is my career.
If only one of us can be alive at the end of this
scenario . . . then I have to make sure that the one
alive is me."
"Why can't we just all stay alive?" Cecil
sighed. "Band together or something, just the five of us. A
passing grade split five ways still has to count for
something."
"Yeah," Westbeld said. "Wouldn't they rather have
five cadets who were good survivors than just one?"
"I don't think it works that way," Chekov
admitted. "If one of us doesn't win, then none
of us does."
"They never said that," Cecil pointed out.
Chekov shrugged. "They never said that they
would split the grade, either."
Cecil ran his hands along the top of the terminal,
making the gray-and-white box spin lazily. "So
where does that leave us?" "The way I see it,"
Cantini said, "our buddy, the berserker-was He
hooked a thumb in Chekov's direction. "comsees
it as his duty to either kill us, or die. The rest of
us are willing to take the chance on a split grade.
So let's kill him, and get it over with."
Cecil looked at Chekov; the smaller
Russian man shrugged. "I don't want to argue
with you," Chekov said. "But I don't want
to lose, either."
"You set the ground rules," Cecil told him.
Chekov nodded. "I guess I did."
Cecil spun the terminal one last time, then
turned his back on the rest of them as though washing his
hands of the situation. "Then do it," he instructed
Cantini. "I still want to get into this system."
"Robert . . ." Chekov slipped his finger through
the loop up his sleeve just as Cecil stopped
to face him. "I really do understand your choice. And
it's nothing personal." He hoped Cecil would
remember that when this was all over.
Cecil's face softened into a faint
smile. "No," he said softly. "It's nothing
personal."
Before Cecil turned away again, Chekov tugged
once on the hidden trigger. He didn't even have a
chance to notice Cantini's reaction before the blasts
of six widely dispersed phasers "killed" them
all.
He awoke with a headache, and muscles so stiff
he could barely lift his eyelids to review his
surroundings. When he did, he found himself alone in
a plain storage room, lying atop a narrow
foldaway in a sea of
other-although empty-cots. Pushing up onto his
elbows, he swung his legs carefully over the
side until he could cradle his head in his hands.
Then he waited for the pounding to subside, and tried
to remember why he was here.
Memory came back quickly. He'd probably
been unconscious longer than the others, thanks
to his proximity to the phaser fire. That no doubt
accounted for his stiffness and headache as well; he'd
never been stunned by a phaser before, but had a cousin
who always relished passing along such horror
stories at family gatherings. Chekov smiled.
He'd have something to contribute to those
discussions now, if only his headache faded enough for him
to stand.
Voices from the next room finally piqued his
interest enough to encourage movement. One hand still shielding
his eyes from the light, he pushed to his feet and
shuffled gingerly toward the door.
The adjoining lounge was dark and vacant. The
only light came from the wide-screen monitor
set into one wall-the same source of the distant
voices. Scenes of various locations on the
Asian Station passed across the screen in increments
of thirty to ninety seconds, effectively
displaying every square foot of the station over a period of
an hour or so. Chekov approached the
viewscreen, studying the printed data in the lower
right-hand corner. Hours, minutes, seconds,
date. He wondered if they had taped the entire
weekend.
"Excuse me?"
He turned, finding one of the cleanup crew
poised attentively in the doorway behind him.
"The shuttle's loading up, sir, I . . ."
The tech paused, then reached around the doorway to key
up
the lights. Chekov saw something like
amusement and delight cross the young man's
features. "It's you!"
For the first time that weekend, Chekov felt a
whisper of fear. "I beg your pardon?"
The tech recovered quickly; studied politeness
replaced his animated expression as he joined
Chekov at the viewscreen. "I recognize you from
the drill," he explained. "I've been helping
with the revival creweverybody you've met up with this
weekend has come through here!"
Chekov followed the tech's broad gesture,
staring once about the abandoned lounge, then turning
back to the tall screen. "What's this?" he asked.
The tech surprised him by laughing. "Video
monitor," he explained. "We used the security
pickups to record everything that went on this weekend.
Any- body killed early on in the game could sit
in here and see what everybody else was doing. Or
review all the stuff that had happened before they
died."
Chekov's headache settled deep behind his eyes
as the tech leaned over to intimate, "You've been a
pretty popular viewing subject, my friend."
He could just imagine.
"It was a command scenario," Chekov
stated carefully. He was amazed how thin and worn that
litany was growing by now. "I did what I was
told. That's all."
The tech shrugged. "I suppose." He leaned
over to switch off the monitor, then turned a
sunny smile on Chekov. "Is that what you're
going to tell all the rest of them?"
Chekov opened his mouth, then realized he didn't
have the faintest idea what to say. Struggling against
panicked thoughts about Sasha, Cantini, and
Cecil, he said haltingly, "I . . . they knew
what to expect. We're all cadets here.
The tech draped an arm across his shoulders to steer
him toward the door. "If that's the best you've got
as a defense," he said companionably, "do yourself a
favor and take a civilian shuttle home . .
. to was
This must be what it feels like to drown in liquid
nitrogen, Chekov thought as he stepped through the
hatchway to the already packed shuttle. No one
spoke to him as he walked the interminable distance to the
only empty seat. Chekov couldn't very well
blame them. He stared out the window, not wanting
to face anything living during the hours-long voyage
back to Earth. The pointed silence was
maddening. He felt as though he could feel his
sixty-four classmates' angry thoughts as keenly
as daggers slipped under his skin. He wanted to try
and explain, to say that he was sorry. Only he
wasn't. Not really. He was sorry that they were
angry, and sorry that he was going to have to pay the
price for their lack of understanding. But that didn't
change what he did.
Maybe this was the difference between line officers and
desk men, he thought, not without some rancor. The
ability to do what's necessary without needing to place
blame. Everyone was so ready to condemn him because he
had acted quickly-decisively-but no one seemed
willing to offer suggestions for what should have been done
instead. They all though t exactly the same way
Run and hide! Protect what you have! Don't
try to do too much-you might fail and
end up with nothing! He'd just proven that an
officer's response to a threatening situation was not
limited to passive defense, and they all hated him
because he acted outside their ability. Too bad.
They would still be complaining about the unfairness of it all
long after he was assigned to a starship and gone from their
petty little world.
Chekov crossed his arms in a gesture
of angry defiance, then sat back in his seat
to watch the shuttle deberth.
Forty minutes into the flight, however, some of his
hauteur began to fade. The oppressive silence
weighed on his spirit like a dead comrade, and Kramer had
come to stand, equally uncommunicative, at the
front of the aisle. Chekov stared resolutely out
his window, but started to consider apologizing again.
"I take it," Kramer began, as though he'd
only just arrived on the scene, "that none of you are
terribly pleased with the outcome of this maneuver."
A discontented growl boiled from the rear of the
shuttle forward. Kramer smiled. "What do you
perceive to be the problem?"
Without hesitation, Cantini offered "Chekov."
Another chorus of growls indicated mass
agreement. Chekov clenched his teeth, pretending
to ignore them.
"Do you have a comment on that, Ensign Chekov?"
He hated Kramer more intensely than he had ever
hated the man before, but didn't turn away from his
window. They're a bunch of goddamned children, he
wanted to say. Instead, he stated simply, "No,
sir. I have no comment."
"None?" Kramer frowned faintly, his
eyes bright
and attentive. "Cadet Chekov . . . I'm
disappointed." If he meant it to be cutting, his
tone of voice failed him. "What about someone
else?"
Chekov knew the cadets must be bursting with
complaints and arguments, but no one volunteered. He
didn't care. Not anymore. He thought perhaps if
he told himself that often enough, he'd believe it by the
time they reached home.
"Very well," Kramer continued. "Then we shall start
with my evaluations on your performances." Chekov
feigned enough disinterest to make himself feel better about
turning to look at the commodore. Kramer waited
until everyone's attention was on him before announcing,
"You all failed."
""What?" Chekov wasn't the only one to ask
the question aloud; he assumed that was why no one turned
to scowl at him for speaking.
"'What the hell did you want?" Baasch
demanded. "We didn't all do the same thing!"
"'Some of us," another cadet injected,
"didn't even kill anybody!" Framer stood,
unmoving, at the front of the shuttle, not even
raising his hands to signal for silence.
"Nor did any of you," he told them sternly,
"react appropriately to the situation presented."
No one interrupted him. "Cadet Nabuda," he
summoned. "Explain the objective of the Aslan
scenario."
Nabuda frowned, glancing to her left and right as
though hoping to gain some insight from her classmates.
"We were to stay alive," she said finally. "To avoid
being killed."
"I see." Kramer looked from one bewildered
face to the next, his gaze resting on Chekov's
only long 120
enough for the ensign to understand that he'd been noted. "I
needn't ask to know that is what you all believe. I
observed enough ambushing and booby- trapping this weekend
to know how you were thinking."
"Chekov was the only one setting traps."
Chekov twisted in his seat to face the speaker,
alarmed and injured by the bitterness in her words. Sasha
kept her eyes pointedly locked on Kramer, not
even acknowledging Chekov's attention with a scowl.
He felt his heart melt within him.
"He was merely the most creative killer among
you. None of you really understood the difference between
self-defense and command." Kramer crossed
his arms and leaned back against the bulkhead. "Many
years ago, this same exercise was performed with a
class of cadets on an abandoned lunar base.
They were told the same things as you-that they were being
hunted, that they must survive. Unlike you, however,
they had among them a very creative officer who commanded
in the situation, instead of merely preserving himself.
"The officer in question inferred-correctly-that it
made no difference if one or one hundred cadets
survived the scenario. What mattered was avoiding the
assassin. He secured one of the dining halls and
began drafting a security force to guard the
entrances. Anyone who wished to enter had to surrender
their weapons; they were then guarded by a handful of
cadets already known to be trustworthy. In that
manner, the scenario concluded without a single
casualty, and that student received a high passing
grade."
Kramer looked down the aisle at Chekov again.
"Would you care to hypothesize as to that cadet's
identity, Cadet Chekov?" Chekov shook his
head, strangling with shame. It was Cecil who
spoke the name, "James Kirk."
Kramer nodded. "Command is not a picture
drawn in black and white," he told them
gently. "Not a game that one can win or lose,
depending upon one's decisions. Command is an ongoing
struggle. In it, you strive to
maintain-not win. In the real world, no one is
keeping score. I think Mister Chekov can tell
you that winning and not losing are not necessarily the same
thing."
No one said anything after that. Chekov folded his
hands tight in his lap and watched the stars from his window.
All his hopes for a brilliant Starfleet career
floundered at his feet like dying birds, killed by the
realization that he could never hope to live up to the
standard James Kirk had set in both Starfleet
and Chekov's own life-the realization that Kirk would
be ashamed of Chekov, and everything Chekov had
accomplished in the past forty-eight hours.
When the shuttle bumped gently to ground several
hours later, the
coral-pink streamers of sunrise were just caressing
the eastern horizon. Chekov stayed in his seat,
staring out at the pitted, blasted landing pad as the others
filed silently past him. He glanced up only
once, to watch Sasha walk away from him as though
he meant nothing to her and never had. For a moment, he
thought he might cry.
"So, you want to get breakfast?"
Chekov closed his eyes, not wanting to face
anyone comeven Cecil-just yet. "I'm not
hungry," he said softly.
Cecil sat down beside him. "I am. Wanna
keep me company?"
"No."
The last of the footsteps retreated to faint, sharp
echoes on the slabwork outside. Chekov felt
Cecil shift in the seat, then the computer tech said
stiffly, "Boy, are you a poor sport, or
what?"
Chekov laughed without humor. "My career is
destroyed in a single weekend, and you expect me
to be gracious?"
"You overreact," Cecil scoffed.
"Nobody's gonna boot you out of Starfleet for
booby-trapping a scenario."
"You don't understand . . ."
"Sure I do." Cecil caught his shoulder and
turned Chekov about to face him. "We all
screwed up," he said simply. "I get the
impression that's the actual point of these
scenarios-we get to do it here so we don't do it in
real life. Kramer even said your
Captain Kirk is the only one who didn't
flunk the damn thing!"
The very mention of Kirk's name wrung his heart with
despair. "I should have known better!" he insisted.
"I thought I had the right to serve under him, but I
don't know anything!" He took Cecil's
shoulders. "I'm sorry, Robert! I know what
I was thinking, only . . . I don't know! Not
now. It just doesn't make sense anymore. . ."
He turned away to the window again. "I feel like such
a fool . . . to was
"They've given fools starship commands before,"
Cecil tried to console him. "They gave out commands
before Kirk came along-they can't break the tradi-
tion now!"
Chekov smiled ruefully and sat back in his
seat. "If
they ever give me a command, I want you to be my
executive officer. To keep me from getting beyond
myself like this . . . to keep me from being stupid."
Cecil shrugged, flushing with pleasure. "After this
weekend," he allowed, "I don't think you'll
need as much reminding. So . . ." He stood and
offered Chekov a hand up. "Do you want to discuss
my future vacation pay over breakfast?"
Chekov stood as well, groaning at the very thought
of facing the others so soon after his embarrassment.
"I can't! If they don't kill me, I'll have
to kill myself!"
Laughing, Cecil headed for the hatch. "Okay,"
he acquiesced. "We'll get civvy food. More
carbohydrates-more energy!" He leapt out onto the
landing ground with ridiculous enthusiasm. "We'll
need energy!" he assured Chekov fervently.
"We're going to be heroes!"
Chekov stepped down more sedately. Cecil's
face held such an expression of trust, Chekov
didn't know how to tell him that he feared all that
trust misplaced. "Are we? I'd forgotten."
Cecil slipped an arm around his friend's shoulders
and smiled. "I know what you are," he said serenely.
"I've always known. And I never forgot . . ."
HALLEY
"I CAN'T BELIEVE Starfleet ever let you
two out in the field!" Chekov rewarded the doctor
with a look of profound irritation; Sulu merely
started laughing again.
"It isn't that bad, Bones," Kirk
volunteered from his own seat. He hadn't missed the
depth of displeasure in his security
officer's dark eyes, or the embarrassment still
evident on the lieutenant's face. "You do a
lot of things in command scenarios that don't exactly
correspond to your attitudes in real life."
McCoy nodded, obviously unconvinced. "Like
making up things so you can talk your way out of a bad
situation."
Kirk felt his own cheeks start to burn. "That's
different . . ."
"Sure it is." The doctor turned to Sulu
long enough to order brusquely, "Stop laughing! It's
bad for your shoulder!" then commented to Chekov, "If you
feel
the need to take direct action in the next hour
or so, go into the back or something, okay?"
Chekov continued staring out the window, refusing
to produce a reaction. Leaning back with a weary
sigh, Kirk hoped the doctor would take the hint and
leave Chekov's Academy embarrassments in the
past.
An hour later, emergency sirens boiled away
Kirk's troubled dreams like a laser through hot wax.
He tried to bolt upright, only to discover he was
already sitting, his shoulders braced against the shuttle's
inner wall. The muscles in his thigh
yanked at his swollen knee; he cursed his
disability aloud as he gripped the seat back with one
hand.
"Scotty?" Light from the forward hatch spilled
onto the floor of the passenger area. Kirk could just
hear Scott's baritone voice above the buzzing
siren, answered by Chekov's lighter tenor.
"Scotty! Chekov!" He swore again, knowing they
couldn't hear.
McCoy leapt from his own seat as soon as Kirk
swung his legs to the deck. "Hold it, Captain!
You're not going anywhere!"
"fret out of my way, Bones. . ." Kirk
clenched his jaw, settling all his weight onto his
left foot as he lurched upright. "I'm going
forward."
McCoy caught at his arm to keep him from
falling. "Dammit, Jim!"
"Scotty!" Kirk pulled his arm from the
doctor's grip, immediately sorry for the action when he
nearly overbalanced and fell. Two frantic
hops-guided more by luck than skill-collided him
with the entrance to the forward section. Kirk clutched at
the
doorway, ignoring McCoy's glare
of disapproval as he dragged himself closer
to Scott. "What's wrong?"
The engineer threw a quick glance over his shoulder.
"Debris," was all he said as he turned back
to where Chekov crouched in the navigator's seat,
trying to reach under the shattered panel.
Even without putting weight on his knee, Kirk
could feel the joint filling with hot fluid; the
climb in pressure made it feel as though the bone
would crack. Hobbling unsteadily past Scott, the
captain lowered himself into the pilot's chair so he could
extend his damaged leg under the panel.
"Got it!" Chekov tugged something loose from
deep beneath his console, and the alarm abruptly
silenced. Scott was already punching up coordinates
on the navigations display as Chekov righted himself in the
seat.
"I used the radio to wire up the warning," the
engineer explained without looking away from the panel.
"I was hoping we wouldn't need it."
"A warning for what?" Kirk asked again.
Scott tapped a display to attract Chekov's
attention, then stepped back when the lieutenant
nodded and set to work. "Space debris," he
answered Kirk. "There's flotsam out here
big enough to carve a starship out of-even some of the small
stuff could hull a craft this size! I rigged the
sensors to warn us about anything that got too close."
He squinted past the forward viewport, as if he
saw something Kirk couldn't. "Something just got
close, it's big and we're in its way. If it were
smaller we could try to move out of its path, but as it
is . . ." Scotty's voice trailed off
Kirk followed the engineer's gaze. "How far?"
"Ten thousand kilometers," Chekov supplied.
"Off our starboard stern." The Russian frowned
at the instruments, his eyes flicking back and forth between
columns of numbers. "It's closing quickly thoughab
two hours until impact."
"And then?"
McCoy's voice from the doorway startled them
all. Kirk glanced at the doctor, then back
to where Chekov worried over the panels. "Don't
worry about it, Bones," Kirk said softly.
"We're going to be fine." Liar! he chastised
himself. How can you be such a liar? He opted not to think
about it.
"Sir . . . ?"
Sulu's voice barely carried from the passenger
cabin into the foredeck. McCoy backed out
of the doorway to turn toward the helmsman; Kirk
called, "What are you thinking of, Mister Sulu?"
"We could divert it," Sulu answered
hoarsely. His eyes were closed, his face drawn and
sallow in the half-light. "Isn't the starboard
engine nacelle the one that's gone bad?"
Scott nodded, his eyes unfocused with thought.
"That it is . . . to was "Couldn't we use the pile
in that nacelle to knock the thing off course?"
"Aye!" The engineer's face brightened. "Or at
least use it to blast the rock into pieces small enough
for the shields to handle!"
Chekov uttered a short, mirthless laugh, then
flushed when Scott glowered down at him. "So we
sever the pod," Chekov pointed out. "The pod is
tumbling at the same velocity as the shuttle. .
." He
covered one column of readings with his hand, as though
unable to look at the numbers any longer. "We'd
all reach the same point simultaneously."
"Can't we do something?" McCoy pressed.
"Get out and kick it, at least?" Chekov looked
frustrated to the point of anger, but Scott only
laughed. "We can kick it a good sight farther than
you might think!"
"With what?" Chekov wanted to know.
Scott clapped the younger man on the shoulder.
"Accelerators!"
Revelation hit Kirk at the very same moment.
"The e-suits! Go to it, Scotty!"
Scott ducked past McCoy into the main
section, leaving the doctor to ask no one and everyone,
"What have the environmental suits got to do with this?"
"They've got jump packs," Kirk explained,
feeling giddy with relief. "Set for continuous
burn, we should be able to accelerate the pod to within a
half hour of the shuttle."
"That'll knock us about a bit," Scott called
from the other chamber, "but it beats the hell out of a
collision!"
"It ought to make a good light show, too, shouldn't
it?" McCoy glanced about hopefully, actually
looking optimistic for the first time since the accident.
"Even Spock couldn't miss an explosion like that!"
Kirk nodded; McCoy's faith was infectious.
"Let's hope so, Bones." Let's hope
Spock's looking in the right direction. There were coms
very many directions to look in space.
A loud snapt! pulled Kirk's attention
back to the navigation-helm console.
Chekov had prized up the
panel's face, and now sat with it raised at a
seventydegree angle as he leaned in to inspect the
circuits.
Kirk edged forward as well, reminding himself
abruptly of his injured knee and limited
mobility. He stopped his movement halfway to the
console. "What's wrong?"
"Hopefully, sir, nothing. . ." Chekov
pulled his head back long enough to call, "Mister
Scott, I need to pull the memory!"
Scott reappeared in the doorway. "What're
you doing?" he asked with a frown.
Chekov nodded toward the open panel. "I've
extrapolated the projectile's course against
ours. If you want the nacelle to actually hit it,
you're going to need something that can remember a course."
He motioned toward the circuitry with his free hand.
Scott grinned and came into the hatch. "Good
thinking, lad!"
McCoy leaned over Scott's shoulder as the
engineer x bent down and began tugging at a
circuit panel.
"Won't we miss that?" the doctor inquired.
Scott shook his head. "With the engines
all but out," he finished, "the pilot can't really
maneuver, so it's a moot point anyway." He
jerked free two interconnected boards, then
backed out from under the panel. "That'll do it," he
announced. Chekov settled the console back
into place.
McCoy turned to follow Scott's progress
back toward the suit locker as the engineer left the
forward hatch for the second time. "Let's just hope
we don't need those suits later."
Kirk sighed. "Bones, you're becoming a
doomsayer."
The doctor's half-smile faded. "I
worry."
Kirk's first impulse was to tell McCoy that
worrying about not having e-suits would be pointless if
Scott's hunk of rock hit them broadside.
And even if this diversion worked, they were better off
suffocating in a shuttle all together than floating
away from each other in fragile, one-man life
suits with less than six hours of air.
Introducing such thoughts was pointless, however; spirits were
low enough without Kirk giving them something else to brood
over. "Scotty knows what he's doing. If he
can't convince seven jump packs to work
together, no one can."
"Six." When Kirk frowned at Chekov, the
lieutenant said simply, "Six." He turned
to stare out the front viewport with a distinctly
unhappy air. "Someone still has to wear one of them
outside to sever the nacelle."
"It's only logical-I'm the most expendable
member of this expedition."
Kirk felt a mixture of annoyance and
admiration at Chekov's persistence. The
lieutenant had been in a foul mood since being
coerced into explaining the aftermath of his Kobayashi
Maru, and Kirk wasn't certain how much to blame
that on the impromptu tale-tolling or Chekov's
usual solemnity. Either way, he didn't like the
direction the lieutenant's arguments had token.
"Mister Chekov," he said aloud, "I'm sure
Mister Scott", appreciates your willingness
to go EV, but I don't' think we've reached the
point of discussing who's most expendable just yet."
Chekov looked up from where he'd been dogging
Scott as the engineer wired the accelerators. It
struck Kirk, for the first time, that Chekov was the only
one who hadn't discarded his duty jacket when
Scott reinstated the heating; the brass and
silver pips at the shoulder and cuffs glinted dully
as he stood. "I'm serious, Captain."
"You're not going," Scott stated flatly. The
Scotsman's obstinacy surprised Kirk even more
than Chekov's.
Qhekov glared down at him. "You're our only
engineer," he persisted. "If something should happen
"diso you, there isn't anyone else who could
repair the systems!"
Scott wouldn't even look up from his repairs.
"Nothing's going to break down any more than it alre
dy has."
was was brought along to navigate. We have no nav
gational abilities, we have no helm. If I
die, it wo "t make any difference."
was isten to me," Scott overrode him, rocking
back on is heels. "There's a l aser cutter
involved here. The re's a lot of connections and
conduits that need seal ng off if we aren't going
to contaminate the whole cra . There's these
accelerators to place, and a shortte memory
to install. Those are all procedures I'm bett
r qualified to perform."
was hen show me how," Chekov insisted. "I've
wor ed with you before-you know that I can learn this
equipment!"
was hekov . . . to was Scott sat for a moment in
silence. Kirk watched his jaw knot as the
Scotsman turned a narrow tool over and over in
his hand. "That was a long time ago, lad," Scott
said slowly, evenly. "I'm
concerned about the safety of the people left in the
shuttle. I could show you the equipment, I could
drill you on the procedures, but I'm the only one
who could make absolutely certain everything was done
right! If you missed even one conduit, or slipped
and damaged the pile-was
"I'll be careful."
"You won't be anything!" Scott exploded,
angry and insistent. "Because you're not going out there!"
"Why won't you even talk to me about it?"
Chekov wanted to know.
"Because you're not qualified!" the engineer shot
back. Chekov drew back as if struck, his
eyes wide and injured. "You haven't logged a
single hour with delicate equipment in nigh on
five years!" Scott continued. "I'll be damned
if I depend on you remembering enough of what I
once showed you to do this!"
Chekov stared at Scott in brittle
silence, his face blank, his back rigid. He
reminded Kirk of the antique tin soldiers his
grandfather used to have, with their identical stoic
expressions, and identical scarlet uniforms.
Kirk was immediately embarrassed for the comparison,
especially in lieu of Chekov's story and
Scout's angry words.
"Pin sorry, lad," Scott said, more gently.
"But it's true, and you know it's true. I can't
take a risk like that! Not with other people's lives."
No one said anything for a very long time. Kirk
finally broke the painful silence. "Scotty, finish
what you're doing, then get suited up and out there.
Chekov, go up front and monitor that thing's
position. We can maintain radio contact with
Scotty through the main console."
Chekov hesitated only a heartbeat, then
turned and swept into the forward hatch without even
acknowledging Kirk's decision. Kirk was still warring
with whether he should feel anger or sympathy for the young
Russian when he noticed Scott staring after
Chekov as well.
"Get to work, Mister Scott," Kirk suggested
softly. Scott blinked, flicking a startled,
embarrassed glance at his captain, then
nodded and bent over the jump packs again.
Settling back in his seat, Kirk listened
to Sulu's shallow breathing, to Scott's deft
tinkering, and to Chekov's accusatory silence from the
front cabin. His own knee sang a waspish song
of pain from where McCoy had elevated it again. The
doctor had rewrapped his knee with another cold
pack and brace, but this dressing was no more comfortable
than the firs. His body urged him to give in, to go
to sleep . . . but" his mind refused to desert the
four men who depended on his strength even when he
couldn't assist them. He forced his eyes open again
to find McCoy situated in the row behind him. "I'm
fine," he said, more from habit than because it was true.
cCoy's eyes, directed toward the front,
shifted to loo at him. "We've been stuck in this
box too long." His voice was low and concerned.
"Startin' to snap at each other . . ."
Kirk glanced to the forward hatch as well. "Yes
. . ." Scott was stepping into an e-suit by the
lock, his back to them; there was still no sound or sight
of Chekov. He thought about the intense young ensign who
was his navigator for four years, now his chief of
security, and how badly Scotty's words would have
stung himself as a young lieutenant, and how
vulnerable Chekov must feel after confiding about his
Academy days.
Kirk was almost to his feet before McCoy caught
his shoulder and insisted, "Where do you think you're going?"
He shook off the doctor's concern when McCoy
rose to intercept him. "Into the front," he hedged,
not interested in trying to explain further. "I need
to talk to Chekov."
"You're his captain," the doctor said, so softly
that only Kirk could hear, "not his father."
"That's right," Kirk replied, hopping toward the
front hatch. "But I'm his captain, even now."
Even when there's nothing else I can do. "Just let
me talk to him."
McCoy held Kirk's elbow protectively
for a moment longer, then nodded. The captain was
reassured by the trust in his friend's blue eyes.
The navigator's console was in sorry disarray,
a legacy to Scott's heroic repair efforts.
Chekov sat with his back to the doorway, staring
pensively out at the dusty stars; he didn't even
turn when Kirk settled into the helmsman's
chair.
"Do you understand why I'm keeping you inside?" the
captain asked without prelude. They
didn't have time to waste with coddling.
Chekov cast a bleak look over at Kirk,
then seemed to catch himself and hardened his expression again
as he turned away. "Yes, sir, I think I
do."
Kirk knew from his reaction that he didn't. "It
has 135
nothing to do with what you told us, or with what
Scotty said." Something that was almost surprise
flitted across the lieutenant's face, but he
didn't shift his gaze. "I don't care what you
did at command school. I know how difficult it can
be to reconcile what you did as a student to what you
want to do nowreal life is never quite like what they
tested you for, and things that seem obvious to an
experienced officer weren't obvious then. Failing a
scenario isn't the same thing, as failure."
"Isn't it?" Chekov turned to face him, his
expression belligerent, but his eyes still hurt.
"What Mister Scott said earlier-that I'm not
qualified . . . Do you believe him?"
Kirk met the dark Russian eyes earnestly.
"You're a good ,ffnavigator," he said, "and a good
security chief." Any to truth beyond that was so
subjective. "Scotty values
technical expertise a great deal-I value good
officers. You do what you feel you have to, and you do it
well. No one can ever fault you for that." He wished
he cold offer more.
Child tilde kov's expression closed down again,
and he turned back to the console to adjust something on
the sensors. "I'm sorry if I've disappointed
you," he said softly'
Kirk wanted to reassure him somehow-to reach out
and touch him, to chase the insecurity away. Nothing
he could think of seemed appropriate, though; all
over again, he recognized the distance that had
developed between himself and the navigator he once thought
he knew. "You've never made me anything but
proud."
Nothing further was volunteered, and Kirk
didn't push the issue. Feeling cold and tired,
he limped back to his seat to find McCoy
waiting for him. "He'll be all right," he told the
doctor quietly. "You'll see."
McCoy scowled, unconvinced. "And so will we?"
Kirk lowered himself into his seat, not meeting the
doctor's gaze. "I trust Spock."
"I do, too," McCoy admitted, sitting
back. "It's Fate I'm not too keen
about." He looked off to starboard. "There seems
to be a lot of "ifs' in Scotty's diversion
plan. If he can get the pod cut free in
time-if the jump packs are strong enough-if the
debris isn't titanium or some
blast-resistant alloy." A haunted, frightened
expression danced across his seamed features, and he
finally averted his eyes. "If we aren't going to be
rescued," he confessed, "I'd rather be hulled
by Scotty's rock than die of dehydration forty
or fifty hours later."
"I'm all set," Scott announced,
inadvertently saving
Kirk from having to respond to McCoy's
disclosure.
The captain nodded once. "Verify the course with
Chekov before you leave."
And the maneuver was on its way.
Kirk moved into the front hatch while Chekov
stood at the airlock to monitor Scott's
departure. McCoy hovered over Kirk's left
shoulder, pressed into the corner between the pilot's
chair and the wall, as out of the way as he could manage.
The radio's speaker sat cockeyed atop the helm
controls, having been i removed from the
panel proper by Scott when the engineer jerry-rigged
the alarm. Kirk listened for the Scotsman's first
transmission, already thinking he
might go mad with no visual to keep his eyes
occupied.
"7"11 be out of the lock in a moment now. Ah,
there she goes . . . was Scott's voice rasped
out of the damaged speaker just as Chekov returned to the
navigator's seat in frigid silence. "7 know
you can't confirm hearing me, was the engineer continued, "so
I'll just have to hope for the best. I'm going to head
along the hull until I can belay myself off to that
damaged pod. It's pretty mundane until
then, so I'll just let you know when I'm in place.
Scott out. his
McCoy snorted from behind Kirk. "Just great!
If he gets swept away by a stellar wind or
something, the first we hear is when he doesn't call
in."
"Hones, shut up." The doctor's sarcastic
comments werei wearing on Kirk's nerves.
"How long do you figure it'll take him to get
in plac ?" McCoy,
predictably, ignored Kirk's wishes, but
t least changed the subject. was ive, ten
minutes," Chekov answered. His attention remained
fixated with the navigation board. "Per aps not even so
long."
was ow long before collision?" Kirk asked.
C ekov punched up a reading. "One hour,
fifteen min tes."
n t a great margin for error.
It as nearly thirteen minutes before Scott
called in again. Kirk traced the outline of every
button and light on the helm console with his finger as
he waited, wish ng a dozen times each minute that
someone wound think of something to discuss so they could pass
the time less painfully. When the radio finally 138
sputtered to life, Kirk jumped so sharply that his
knee screamed pain clear up into h is skull.
"All right, I'm at the nacelle now . . .
Och, what a sorry mess! She's got enough
damage back here that we're lucky she didn't go
critical five minutes after we hit the mine!"
McCoy leaned over Kirk's shoulder to growl
at. the speaker, "Forget the editorial, Scotty!
Launch the thing!"
"He can't hear you," Chekov advised
impatiently.
Just at that moment, Scott reported,
"1'm going to place the packs first, then start
cutting. I don't know what I can tell you before
I'm done, so 171 just work, I guess. his
"Marvelous. . ." Kirk sighed.
"I'll let you know when we're ready to cut
free. Scott out. was The
transmission again went dead.
A@. Kirk tried to will himself not to drum his fingers,
McCoy asked Chekov, "What kind of margin
does he have? I mean, how long before it's too
late to launch?"
Chekov shrugged, his lips pursed in irritation.
"It depends."
"4n?"
was Co-n our position in the tumble when he
finisheson how quickly the packs can accelerate the
mass." He pushed himself to his feet and stalked
into the middle hold. "It just depends."
Kirk stopped McCoy from following. "Let him
be, Bonds."
"I will." The doctor looked troubled by his
inadequacy in this new development. Kirk knew
just how McCoy felt. "I'm going to look in on
my patient."
Kirk took the hand McCoy offered him
to struggle to his own feet. "Which one?" he asked.
"The mobile one, or . . . ?"
"The cooperative one," McCoy sniffed.
"Neither of my patients is supposed to be
mobile!"
Kirk chuckled, but didn't contradict the older
man.
Sulu watched McCoy reposition Kirk in the
front aisle, grinning. "And I thought I was a
lousy patient!"
"You're a saint," McCoy assured him. "You
at least act as though you understand the English
language."
"Now, that's not fair, Bones."
McCoy ignored the captain. "So what about you,
Sulu?" he prompted, peeking under Kirk's
cold pack before adjusting the brace on the
captain's leg. "You took this Kobayashi Maru
thing, too, didn't you?"
"Like a shot in the arm," the helmsman admitted.
was Vggell, we've got some more time to fill.
I'd say it's your' turn to "fess up'."
Sulu looked suddenly, strangely
uncomfortable. "It's not really all that interesting,"
he hedged. "And it isn't too
appropriate, I think." When Chekov grumbled
inarticulately from behind him, he insisted, "No,"
I'm serious."
"Tha captain cheated, Chekov blew up everyone
he knew) . . ." The doctor returned to his
own seat just in front) of Sulu's. "How bad can
yours have been?"
Sulu a didn't smile. "You might be
surprised."
Kirk sensed a tension in the helmsman's usually
light tone. "Don't push it, Bones," he
suggested. "We're all tired. It can wait for
another day."
"I there is one."
The doctor's frankness horrified him. "That's
enough, McCoy..."
"What I mean," McCoy said, striving for
humor, "is that we're all
remarkably receptive to disclosing embarrassing
anecdotes just now. If he doesn't tell us
here, we may never get it out of him. Considering how
he insisted with poor Chekov, it seems only
fair."
"He's right," Chekov agreed simply.
Kirk looked over at Sulu.
"Mister Sulu?"
Sulu sighed and closed his eyes. "It isn't
funny," he said tiredly. "It isn't even
clever."
"We'll settle," Kirk allowed.
"Although," McCoy intimated, "I find the thought
of you devising a boring solution just a little hard
to believe."
"It isn't boring," Sulu explained. "I just
said it wasn't funny, that's all. And it takes a
little extra explaining-to really understand it, I mean.
A lot of things went into what I did, not just the
decisions I made during the test . . ."
"Well," McCoy said placidly. "We
certainly have plenty of time."
CRANE DANCE
SuLu" cRoucHED Low against the boom of the
brilliant blue windsailor while it skated like
a dragonfly over a bottlc-green ocean.
Water sluiced up like a shattered, sparkling
curtain in the narrow craft's wake, and Sulu
whooped with zealous enthusiasm when the sailor leapt)
for an instant into silence, then crashed down onto
(water again. Sea salt dusted his face and stung his
dark', eyes. If all the happiness and
excitement in my whole life, Sulu thought, could be
jammed into one pure," breathless moment, it would be
now! was ow're we doing, Poppy?" Sulu laughed
again to hear how insignificant and fragile his
voice became against the sound of a playful sea. When
the old man just head of him on the craft didn't
answer, Sulu lean d
forward-rocking the craft-and called again "Hey,
Poppy! Anybody home?" Tetsuo Inomata
twisted as far as his one-hundredand-three-year-old
muscles would allow, but didn't
release his hold on the main mast. "You're going
to dunk us, boy!" His wrinkled golden face sat
atop his orange flotation jacket like a happy,
sun-dried apple.
Sulu leaned into the boom, cutting the sailor
across a corduroy of swells that made it jump and
twitch like a grounded swordfish. "I love this
craft! I love this wind! How can you not trust wind
like this?"
"Never trust wind!" Tetsuo ducked the boom
with the grace of an expert as Sulu swung it past
him to bring the craft about. "The wind was here long before
man was, and it's never much adjusted to man getting
in its way."
As if to prove the old man's point, a gust
nearly tipped the boat sideways. Sulu rode
with it frantically, bothered by the coincidence, but too
elated with his success to back down. "One more,"
Tetsuo informed him sagely, once the craft was
righted again. "One more, and we'll both be wet!"
Sulu opened his mouth to scoff Tetsuo's lack
of
faith, and the wind flicked the sailor's bow with an
element's uncaring ease, flipping the sleek
craft end
over end.
Salt water enveloped Sulu's sun-warmed
torso in a rush of stinging, too-cool enthusiasm.
He squinted his eyes shut, avoiding most of the pain
ocean water could inflict, and rocketed to the
surface with a single, powerful kick. Bobbing between the
swells like a lazy gull, tilde ,he caught
sight of the blue-and-white sailor not far away;
Tetsuo's bald head and orange flotation
jacket flashed in and out of his vision just beyond the
capsized craft.
After breaking down the sail and righting the board,

Sulu helped his great-grandfather to a seat
against the slender mast. "I don't need help,"
Tetsuo complained. But he didn't push Sulu
away.
"You never need help." Sulu lingered with one hand
on the older man's wrist, not liking the chill feel
to his great-grandfather's skin. He strove to cover his
concern with a smile. "I'm heading for shore," he said
as he fastened a rope to the craft's tow ring.
"It's going to be dark soon, and I've still got
to pack for tomorrow!"
"You don't have that much left to pack." Tetsuo
shifted position to face Sulu as the lithe
Oriental rolled onto his back and started for
shore. "You're already taking most of the family
heirlooms."
Sulu grinned. "Only some of them-it just seems
like all."
Tetsuo made a face that quickly dissolved
into chuckling. "You know what I mean!"
"Yeah, I know . . ."
For a while, they said nothing. The ocean whispered
soot ing secrets to no one, and the waves hissed a
distant message to the gray-white sands a hundred
met rs away. Sulu continued for shore, watching the
sky ver him darken while the last defiant
red rays leap toward the eastern horizon, as if
to hurry the daw . Everybody's anxious for tomorrow,
he thought, sighing. I only want today. Forever and
always.
B cause tomorrow, he'd be gone.
It seemed to Sulu not so long ago that Poppy
raced him all the way to the old subway station and
back, and sometimes even won. They were both much younger
then-Sulu all of nine or ten, Tetsuo only just
in his nineties-but the fourteen years between had come and
gone like the flash of a distant white
gull. Somewhere in the midst of them, Sulu
devoted two carefree terms of his life
to Starfleet, and Poppy began what would be a long,
bitter struggle with what the neurosurgeons called
a "grade four glioblastoma." The man he
sailed with today was immeasurably older than the
great-grandfather that his childhood had left behind.
Most of the medical jargon meant nothing to Sulu.
Still, he understood enough to know that the growth in Poppy's
brain could be controlled with radiation and chemotherapy,
but could never be made to go away. It had moved in
to stay, entwining with healthy nerves and tissue until
removal of the tumor would require removal of
most of what was Poppy. The doctors had
no opinions as to how long the stressful regime of
radiochemicals and toxins could go on; it would be
years before the body's systems finally broke
down-before one-hundred-and-three-year-old blood
vessels refused to tolerate the chemicals that
seared them clear every week. When that finally
happened...
Sulu reached for his great-grandfather's hand as they,
sailed beneath the gently graying sky, trying to imagine
those once-strong hands crippled and useless. Without
meaning to, he tightened his grip protectively.
"Worried about tomorrow?"
Sulu craned his neck up out of the water to see his
great-grandfather studying him across the gathering dusk, and
noticed his hold on the older man's hand for the first
time. He didn't let go. "A little, I guess,"
he admitted, glad that Tetsuo missed the
actual course of his thoughts. "Command school isn't
like the
Academy. They won't let me just be good at
what I do-there, I'll have to be good at what everyone
else dots, too! That's kind of the point of being a
captain, I guess . . ." His voice trailed
away into a sigh. "I don't want to do anything
wrong."
Tetsuo made a small noise that Sulu
took to signify his displeasure. "How asinine!"
"It's not asinine!" Sulu's cheeks stung as
much as his pride. "It's a very serious thing! There's
never more than a thousand people in command school at any one
time, and they're very picky about who they let stay!"
"And you think they won't let you?"
Sulu paused in his swimming. "I don't know .
. . I guess so . . ."
Tetsuo shifted toward the front of the little wi
dsailor. "Listen . . ." he instructed. "Did
I ever tall to you about cranes?"
"his is command school- "Sulu pitched his
voice as complaint, even though he smiled. "comn a
construction company!"
tsuo laughed, splashing his great-grandson with a
generous handful of water. "I'm talking about birds,
not machinery!"
was out showed them to me at the zoo." Sulu
returned to is swimming, angling his body to talk as
he mo ed. "They all stood on one leg and stared
at us. I bou iced peanuts off their heads, and the
zoo attendant ade us leave."
was out were a terrible child," Tetsuo conceded.
"And you folded me a thousand of them out of the
napkins from my
seventeenth birthday party." Sulu
smiled at the memory. "At least, you told me
they were cranes-I thought they looked like ducks!"
"Those are ducks," Tetsuo allowed dryly.
"Whoever invented origami just thought cranes would sound
more distinguished. You know why I folded you all those
cranes?"
"You thought I liked birds?"
"No," Tetsuo told him. "It's because of a
Japanese legend."
Sulu rolled his eyes in mock disbelief.
"Uh, ohmore Japanese philosophy!" It was
a private joke between Sulu and the old man; like
Sulu, Tetsuo was born of immigrants, grown
old in California without ever having seen the
Oriental sun.
"Will you listen to me?" the old man complained. "I
was just going to tell you that the old Japanese believed
if you folded one thousand origami
cranesprefereaably while meditating-you could make
a miracle happen."
"Dud you?"
Tetsuo shrugged. "You got into the Academy,
didn't you?""
Sulu made a face, admitting that he'd
walked straight into Poppy's verbal trap. "So
what has this got to do's with me and command school?
Did you fold more cranes to make sure I wouldn't
flunk out?"
"I didn't think of it. I was actually going
to talk to you about real cranes, not paper ones."
"May," Sulu allowed. "I'm listening."
"Do you know why they all stand on one leg?"
Tetsuo asked him.
Sulu shook his head. Then, realizing Tetsuo
no
doubt lost the motion in the waves, he added,
"No, Poppy. Why"...[*thorn]
"Because they're clumsy as hell," the old man
replied. "Nature really blew it when it came
to giving cranes virtues beyond their good looks, so
whenever the birds put both legs on the ground, they
trip over themselves."
Sulu burst into laughter. "I thought you were going
to tell me about biology!"
"@. am telling you about biology! Don't you
think Nature is part of biology?"
was Are you sure I'm not being exposed
to Japanese Phil sophy?" Sulu
asked, trying to contain his mirth.
"don't know any Japanese philosophy,"
Tetsuo sno ted. "Are you going to be quiet and
listen?"
was oes this have something to do with why origami cranes
look like ducks?" Sulu asked.
was said be quiet."
S lu slapped a pleasant, schooled
expression on his featiires. "Okay."
A parently satisfied, Tetsuo settled
back against the m and went on. "In the hopes of
fixing things up, Nat re went through and gifted some
cranes with the gra she left out of the others. Even the
cranes don't kno which ones-they can only find out
by trying. was Pu le shadows played across his face as
he angled his hea to look down at Sulu. "Every
crane has to have the courage to put both feet on the
ground," he said seriously. "Take a few
steps-find out the hard way if you can dance. A
dancing crane is a very beautiful thin to see, but
it's hell for the cranes that fail, because they have to look
at the cranes all dancing and know what they might have
been."
Sulu didn't comment. Gulls cursed angrily
above them, and, from not so far away, Sulu
thought he heard the whooping of a lonely white crane.
"We're just like the cranes, you and me," Tetsuo
said finally, softly. "While everybody else is
worrying about how to balance on that one safe leg, you
and me are out seeing how far the other one will stretch.
Even if you fall, you've got to remember that
everybody really has two legs after all-even if
you stumble, you can always get back up again."
Sulu listened for the crane again, but heard nothing
now except the gulls and the sleepy sea. "Does
this mean you don't think I should worry about command
school?"
Tetsuo smiled down at him. "It means I
don't think you should worry about command school. You'll
do fine."
He grinned in return and kicked a small
spray of water over the prow of the sailor. "And you
said you didn't know any philosophy!"
Tetsuo shrugged and splashed water back at
him. "I don't. I read that in a book a long,
long time ago . . ."
Returning the rented windsailor took longer
than the commuter shuttle back from L.a.-by the time
they reached Oakland, Sulu and Poppy were both still
damp from their excursion. Leaving his
greatgrandfather in the foyer to discard his sandy shirt and
footwear, Sulu kicked off his own shoes while
padding into the kitchen to turn on the lights.
A piteous howling erupted in answer to Sulu's
touch on the light panel; the young cadet cursed
shortly and
shouted at the plant across the kitchen from him
"Shut up, Filbert!" Long, fuzzy green
tendrils snaked back across the countertop to curl
about the meter-long pot as if they'd never strayed.
Filbert emitted another wail of despair, and
Sulu was forced to cross the kitchen in two hurried
strides and clap a hand over the plant's flattened
central trunk. Filbert whimpered and fell
silent.
was HaSo nobody fed you today?" Sulu asked,
feeling immediately sorry for his harsh tone when the plant
gently entwined his hand.
Tetsuo snorted as he shambled into the kitchen and
found himself a seat. "It can't answer you," he
advised sagely. "And it'll eat your hand if you
stand there much longer!"
Sulu disengaged his hand with little effort. "You also said
my iguana would eat Mom's parrot."
"Didn't it?"
""tilde 'he parrot ate the iguana,
Poppy!" Sulu ducked back into the pantry in
search of one of Filbert's mice, but only found
dried earthworm left over from his attempt to keep
a carnivorous Rosserian ivy. "The Tell
rian greencat ate the parrot," he continued upon
retu ing. "That's why I gave it to George
Temmu. Remember?"
T tsuo waved o@." the details as
unimportant. "Did it eat is mother's parrot?"
S lu dumped a handful of earthworm down Fil
rt's open throat. "She didn't have a parrot."
was mart woman."
Sulu dug into the container for another serving of
worms, and nearly spilled it all over the floor
when the
viewer next to him chirped. Jerking his head up in
surprise, he called, "Yes?" before even
considering whether or not he wanted to answer.
Whatever greetings he normally uttered leapt from
his mind the instant he met Arthur Kobrine's stern
and stormlike gaze over the viewer. "Where the hell
have you two been?"
Kobrine's harsh attitude caught Sulu
completely unprepared. He glanced at
Poppy, found no help there, and just shrugged
stupidly. "Sailing," he said, feeding Filbert
again. "Why?"
"How are you doing, Doctor Kobrine?"
Poppy called from the kitchen table. Kobrine shot
a glance in that direction, but Sulu knew the angle
of the viewer would keep him from seeing Poppy or the
table. Sulu pushed Filbert to the back of the counter
and stepped forward to turn the viewer slightly.
"They've been waiting for you in radiochem since this
morning," the neurosurgeon informed Tetsuo with
ice in his tone. "They wanted me to send an
orderly out for you."
"I'm not a child," Tetsuo told him, with perhaps more
force than Sulu thought necessary. The old man's hand
found a paper napkin in the table's centerpiece,
ripping it into tiny squares without apparent thought.
"My great-grandson here's almost a starship
pilot-we don't need you chasing around after us as if
we were children."
"Then act like an adult!" Kobrine shouted at
him. "Act I like you
understand the responsibility you have, and stop dragging
your
great-grandson along as if he can keep
you from getting in trouble!" Sulu felt fear's
left-handed cousin start to stir inside
his chest, and he pushed in front of the viewphone
hastily. "Doctor Kobrine, we were just sailing!"
he began, but Kobrine silenced him.
"Ask your great-grandfather why he wasn't at the
hospital today."
Sulu blinked at Kobrine, then looked over his
shoulder at Tetsuo only to be confused by the old
man's reluctance to meet his eyes. "What?"
"Your great-grandfather skipped his therapy,"
Kobrine clarified. His voice was tight with anger
and whatever emotion provoked parental lectures on
"disappointment" and "duty." "If radiochem had
hounded me-me, of all people!-one more time about how
important these therapy sessions were, I'd have
killed someone!"
dis.poppy . .
The old man reluctantly looked up from the
crane he " as patiently folding. was s that
right?" Sulu pressed. "You skipped your the apy?"
T tsuo made a face and shrugged an
indefinite reply as is attention returned
to folding. "What are you, Art"" he asked of the
neurosurgeon on the screen. "A pri
to detective now, too?"
was 'm a doctor!" he exploded. "I'm
supposed to m e sure you do what's best for your
health! Mister Ino ata, I'm supposed to take
care of you!" was hat if I don't want to be
taken care of?"
S lu crossed the kitchen to sit in the chair
next to Pop you. "Why?" he asked, frightened.
"Did you forget? His
"I didn't forget." He seemed offended by the
suggestion. He flicked the limp paper crane
across the 152
table; it skitte red over the edge and out of sight.
"It makes me sick," he admitted. "It
makes me feel all sunburned, and I figured
I'd be getting enough sun as it was." Casting an
angry look at Kobrine across the kitchen, he
complained, "Being a day late can't make that much
difference when you're my age!"
"But after the treatments, you feel better for the rest
of the week, don't you?" Kobrine insisted.
When Tetsuo didn't respond immediately,
Sulu pressed, "Don't you?" The old man
sighed and started on another square of paper. "For
two, maybe three days at the end. Before
then my head hurts, and my skin hurts, and sometimes
I can barely stand. I go to the bathroom all the time
. . ." He paused in his folding, running a hand
through Sulu's close-cropped black hair with a
smile that nearly made the young man cry. "I
wanted to go windsailing with you today! You're going to be
gone, to command school tomorrow, and I might not get to see
you . . ." He swallowed whatever he'd intended
to say. "It'll be a long time," he finished. "I
didn'It want to be throwing up the whole time we were
together!"
"It's only across the Bay," Sulu scolded
gently. "I'll visitt--"
was When they let you!"
Sulu smiled and tousled Tetsuo's thinning
hair in kind "This is Starfleet, Poppy, not
jail!"
"I'just wanted to go with you," Tetsuo said again.
was ell, you're coming in here now. I'm sending a
voluLiteer to get you."
Kobrine gestured at someone off-screen; the
doctor's expression made Sulu suddenly want
to remind him that Tetsuo was old, not stupid.
He exchanged long-suffering looks with Tetsuo
instead, and accepted the half-completed
crane his great-grandfather passed him.
"I could bring him in," Sulu volunteered.
Kobrine scowled and shook his head. "Your
greatgrandfather says you're leaving tomorrow. I don't
want to disrupt your schedule any more than it already
has been." He seemed to notice Tetsuo's
half-clad state for the first time, and added, "Take
your great-grandfather upstairs and get him dressed.
Someone will be there in about fifteen minutes."
"I'll bet he was a brat when he was little,
too," Tetsuo intimated when he and Sulu were
halfway up the stairs.
Sulu smothered his laughter, and hugged Tetsuo
soundly. "They'll assign me soon," he
promised, wish tilde ng tomorrow wasn't hurrying
upon them so fast. "It'a be on one of the big
starships, Poppy, you'll see! tilde . . I
want you to be there when it happens! I want you with
me when I go!"
Tetsuo held onto Sulu longer than the young
man expected. "I love you," he whispered
warmly in Sulu's ear. "And I'll always be with you
. . . always!" W en he finally broke the hug,
Sulu saw that they
had rushed the little half-finished crane.
Il
Slu pressed back into his aircar seat as the
Pacific Oce n caught a great sheet of
sunlight and threw it up at t e aircar. He
squinted his eyes shut against the light marveling at the
people milling about the landing field below him.
Out of the whole galaxy-billions of people!-only a
thousand of us are here! The thought made Sulu's
stomach crawl up into his windpipe again, and he
looked back at the command school landing pad in the
hopes that studying the ground would smother some of the panic
he felt building inside.
The aircar ahead of them was a commercial
transit; no one held up the six cadets who
exited with long and tearful goodbyes. Sulu's little
aircar landed without having to wait for a window.
"Well, this is it . . ." Sulu's hand was
cold and trembling when he closed it on the handle of
his carryall. His door was open, his right foot touching
the warm landing pad; he missed home already, and was
irrationally afraid he might never see his family
again. Especially Tetsuo. He knew the old
man wanted to drop him off today, but the treatments
made him so ill, and Sulu didn't feel he had
the right to bring him.
"Excuse me, sir," a polite, computer
voice interruptpd his thoughts. "We are delaying
on a privateaccess pad."
Embarrassment stung his cheeks momentarily.
"Sorry," he murmured, feeling stupid.
"Thank you. I'm out." The door closed without a
sound, and the airc*r climbed into the sunny,
salty-smelling air, leaving Sulu alone. It was
a good morning. Sulu tried to distract himself with that knowledge
as he headed for the main building, turning his back on
the aircar now landing. It was already warm, and
uncharacteristically clear for 1 te-summer San
Francisco. A hood of mist along the crest of
Mount Tam blushed pinkly in the early morning
sun, and the Golden Gate Bridge swept across the
Bay like a daring ballerina. The bridge's 155
delicate silhouette reminded Sulu of
Poppy's dancing cranes. Thinking of his
great-grandfather somehow cheered him and hurt him at the
same time; he didn't want to leave him behind, but
didn't want to be a peg-legged swamp crane
either. Grasping for some distant rapport with
Tetsuo, Sulu tucked one foot behind the other,
hoping to unobtrusively test Poppy's theory of
one-footed confidence before leaving these wide
open spaces.
He swayed ever so slightly, and bumped into someone
behind him.
"Hey! What are you, a no-zee who doesn't
know how to walk?"
Sulu botched regaining his footing, and stumbled
another few steps before completing his turn. The
woman with whom he collided pushed him upright, and
demanded acerbically, "Let me guess-you don't
speak English either?" Sulu thought that must be a
joke, her own accent was @.o pronounced. He
smiled and extended a hand. "Aheai no-I mean,
no, I don't not speak English. My name's
Sulu."
She furrowed her brow distru/lly, but accepted
his handshake. "You just don't speak English well?"
Sulu fell into step beside her to join the migration
towa d the main building. "I'm from right around here,
actually-I was born in San
Francisco!" When she v lunteered no
reply, he prompted, "I don't think I cau
t your name. . ."
was aria Theresa Perez-Salazar," she
admitted after a considered pause. Her gold-brown
hair was pulled so severely toward the
crown of her skull, Sulu found it somewhat amazing
she could draw her face down 156
into the expression of displeasure it now wore. He
opted not to comment on that, but thought he'd have to watch her
to see if her demeanor ever changed. "My friends
call me Mate."
Sulu also decided she didn't necessarily
consider him among that privileged circle. "I
take it you're not from around here?"
Perez-Salazar tilted her chin infinitesimally
higher, but her expression was etched in titanium.
"I'm from Mexico City-I attended the
Academy in Tempe."
"You speak English very well."
He'd hoped it would be a compliment-since she
seemed as preoccupied with proper English as a high
school teacher-but Perez-Salazar only snapped
him a cold, lizardine look and reproved, "Of
course! Mexico is a very civilized state!"
When she lengthened her stride to outdistance him,
Sulu didn't try to keep pace. "Starlleet's
finest," he muttered toward her back. "Wow. .
."
He managed to cultivate two more successful
conversations in the line leading into the main
building, onel with an Australian who'd lived on
Earth for his entire life. Another with a Human
who'd never been to Earth before. It was an interesting
comparison of cultures and intellect. He and the
Australian were exchanging opinions on the West
Coast's best
wiodsailing spots when Sulu's turn at the
admission's station came up. The lieutenant on
duty had to hail him three times before he realized
she was speaking to him.
Ire swung about guiltily. "I'm sorry,
sir-I was talking."
The small lieutenant smiled and pushed a
square of
coded tape across the counter at him. "I
noticed. Here-you'll need this to find your bag once
you get to the billets."
"I thought a computer would be doing this," Sulu
admitted as he hefted his carryall onto the
counter.
"You'll see enough machines the rest of the time you're
here," the lieutenant assured him. "We try
to keep things as personal and low-key as we can the first
day." The bag disappeared behind the counter. "Around me
and to your left, Cadet. You'll be issued
your uniform and an agenda for the day. Good luck!"
For the next three hours, Sulu barely had time
to
blurtout thanks for the instructions and orders he was
given, much less converse with the other cadets. He
lost the Australian shortly after relinquishing his
bag,
but Mat6- Perez-Salazar seemed to cling
to his periph
eral vision like a berm-runner on an illegal
hyper
jumpl. Once he'd changed, logged in, been
issued a
counselor, a billet number, a class
schedule, a bloc,
carried d about and delivered numerous medical
rec
ords n himself, identified himself for more comput
er systems than he'd ever have dreamed, and tried
to
explain to an indifferent liaison officer that he
wasn't
Das es-Pamudan from Isrando-on-Sheshwar,
he was
pushed down a long, windowless hall and
told to "go
straight, then left, then left, wait in
Sunside until a
monitor comes-Next!" It was a long,
perplexing
walk, indeed.
He was perhaps two-thirds of the way
to Sunsidestudi usly mirroring the route
indicated on his handsize datex screen-before he
considered that anywhere called "Sunside" was perhaps not

preferable place to be. All his imagination could
conjure was lurid, molten still shots of Mercury's
daylight half; he wondered why anyone would go there,
much less name a meeting room after the place. A
punishment cubicle, perhaps? "Here at Starfleet's
command school, we believe no raw potential should
go undeveloped. For example, impressive
disciplinary results can be obtained through the use of
pain. his
Sulu grinned, and rounded the last corner before
Sunside's entrance. Nearly thirty cadets
looked up at his entr ance, but no one volunteered a
greeting until Sulu released his own grin and
waved. "Hi."
"We're taking a poll," called an
extremely longlegged youth from the back of the room.
Sulu laughed. "Can I defer my response for
an hour?"
"They may kill us before then," someone else
suggested. Another replied, "I think that's why he
asked."
The conversation spread to another dozen cadets, and
several inventive ideas were voiced as to the name's
true meaning. Another twenty cadets joined them
over the next forty minutes, Perez-Salazar
among them, and Sulu was still trying to explain the gist
of the guessing game when a small, trim commodore
interrupted the discussion.
Her mere entrance proved enough to bring the room to its
feet. After accepting a moment of the entire bloc at
rigid attention, she called them at ease and'sat
herself on the edge of a table.
"Well, that was impressive!" Her dark,
Mediterranean eyes were quick, and as calm as a
midnight sky.
Sulu liked her instantly. "I'm Commodore
Rachel Coan, and I'll be your bloc commandant
while you're here at the Command School. You are
Cadet Bloc W. You're here today because
I, personally, wanted to make sure you all
understood why you're in command school." She nudged a
cadet near her with one foot. "How about you? Why
are you here?"
She answered without hesitation, "Because I want
to command a starship someday."
Coan nodded, turning to the rest of the room.
"You-was She singled out another from the rear. "What about
you?"
"My parents made me."
Amusement stirred through the bloc at that. "All
right . . . That's honest, at least." Then Coan's
eyes caught on Sulu's. "And you?"
His mind became a hissing white void.
Despite that he heard his voice say, "To see
if I can."
CQ-AN nodded, but didn't comment on his answer.
"Okay," she said, standing. "You seem to be an
honest bunch. That's good-I like honesty. I expect
it. Okay?" Half the gathering expressed confusion,
the othe half nodded. Coan crossed the room,
gesturing s she spoke for various cadets
to relocate themselves.
was ight now, we're going to perform the first of man
scenarios you'll be forced to endure during your
time here. This one's called Galactic
Politics!" Groans answered her announcement,
and Coan's grin grew wider. "Get used to it,"
she cautioned. "It's the second oldest profession
in the cosmos."
Everyone laughed.
"Now," Coan continued, "when I give the word,
each of you is to check your computer to find out which
planetary system you represent. Someone will be
Earth, someone else Vulcan, someone else
Klingon, or Andorian, or Altarian, et
cetera, et cetera." A handful of cadets stood
to help her drag a table toward the center of the room.
"The Klingon and the Romulan empires will sit at
this table with the Federation." She pulled a random
collection of chairs into a wandering circle farther out
from the table. "The Federated planets will sit here.
Since the Federation and the Empires control most of the
galaxy's resources, those people will get to make
decisions regarding the disposition of those resources.
The rest of the Federation can help, of course, but. . .
was And here her eyes glinted with playful malice.
"The Fed- eration and the Empires can talk at will.
To each other, to anyone else they want to. The
Federated planets can talk at will among
themselves, and to anyone not seated at the table. However,
they can't interrupt the three main powers at the table,
and they can't take any action without the consent of the
leading three."
She retrieved another chair and placed it far
away, against a distant corner. "The Vulcans,"
she went on, "who are frequently viewed as having
the answer to most', of the galaxy's problems-was This was
greeted with to mild amusement. "comsit here. They can
only interfere with galactic politics once every
half hour, but lave a wide range of possible
activities. Each time another planet requests
aid from them, however, their half-hour wait starts
anew."
"This sounds pretty complicated," someone ven-
tured, and Coan stretched her hands out to either side
in a helpless shrug. "Real life politics
isn't like playing jacks," she explained. "All
I'm trying to do is simulate some of the restrictions
and tensions existing in the real life arena. You'll
find details specific to your own situation in your
computer. I'll be here to answer questions. Just stick with
me, okay?" No one said anything. Moving back
toward her original seat, Coan nodded.
"Everybody check their computer now to get
your assignments, objectives, and limitations. This
simulation will continue for two hours, or until
somebody accomplishes something." She flashed them a
sudden, delighted smile. "Let the games begin."
Others about the room were already chuckling or moaning
about their assignments by the time Sulu thumbed his
retrieval button. The little computer screen
flashed a series of code, and a column of print
started its slow bottom-to-top scroll.
MENAK 111
TECH LEVEL Three.
S lu pursed his lips pensively. Tech
level three meant no subspace radio
capabilities, and no warp drive-rudimentary
hyperdrive at best. He hoped his objectives
didn't involve any long-distance negotiation or
travel.
FEDERATION MEMBERSHIP Menak is not eligi-
ble, due to her current political climate.

AFFILIATIONS Long-standing trade relations with
Carstair's Planet.
Carstair's-a frontier world inhabited by four
species' bail jumpers and troublemakers. Sulu
sighed.
HISTORY Mineral-poor Menak III
depends heavily on Carstair's for raw
materials, interplanetary and interstellar relations
with wealthier societies, and infusion of medical and
food production technology. Menak III is
approaching the end of its second industrial
revolution; sweeping politi- cal reorganization
and economic upheavals are the results. The
current parliamentary government is threatened by a
separatist religious faction which believes a
return to "simpler times" would be in Menak
III'S best interests. Menak III'S
political leaders do not agree.
RULES OF PLAY You can only
communicate with the Federation through Carstair's Planet
. . .
Sulu looked up from his computer to scan the room.
A dozen other cadets craned looks left and
right, as though trying to identify their allies
by facial feature alone. Sulu noted that two of the
table's three inhabitants were in place.
Perez-Salazar sat at one end; Sulu felt
some sympathy for whomever Fate chose to share that
galaxy with her for the next two hour. "Who's
Carstair's Planet?" he called
congenially, turning back to his own affairs.
On the floor across the room, sitting with his back
against the wall, a dark-skinned Maori jerked his
head up in ill-humored surprise. Glittering
black eyes darted left and right. "Who asks?"
Sulu attempted his most disarming grin, and waved.
"I'm Menak III."
Settling back into his seat, he continued with his
reading .
. . . You can only communicate with the Federation through
Carstair's Planet; you may communicate with any
non-Federated planet you choose. Since you lack
subspace radio capabilities, all
communications must be made via oldstyle radio
waves. To simulate this, you may only contact
other planets by written notes, passed from you
to whomever you are contacting. You may not leave your
seat.
O tilde IECTIVES The Federation has the
resources to alleviate many of Menak Ill's
economic and health problems. All you want is a
chance to speak, one-on-one, to a Federation
representative.
tilde I
Sulu nodded. Looking about, he saw a
table near the mai door, apparently stocked with
props for their scenario a painted scepter,
assorted colored and numbered tokens, writing
implements and a great deal of paper, the mother board from
some electronic devi a (the Carstair's
Planet Maori cadet took this), and a wheel.
Sulu abandoned his seat to collect some paper and a
pen, then settled in only a few chairs away from
Carstair's-to facilitate communications. After
a single nervous, unhappy glare, the cadet
ignored him.
Sulu tucked his feet up under himself on the
chair, until he was firmly seated,
tailor-fashion. Licking the point of his pen with a
flourish (and then deciding not to do that anymore), he
composed his first communique
Carstair's-Everybody's dying here, we aren't
hav-
ing a terrible lot of fun economically, and we
understand you have some pull with the Federation Council; 1'd
desperately love a visit from a Federation
representative. Any help at all would be
appreciated. Love,
Menak 111
He smiled, resisted the temptation
to line the bottom of the note with "hugs-n-kisses"
X's and O's, folded it into a neat little square,
and turned to the young woman next to him. "Would you hand
this down to the planet on the end, please?"
Before she could reply, Coan interposed herself between
them and plucked the note from Sulu's hand. "Foul,
Menak," she informed him, grinning. "You can't talk
to a neighboring planet-you've got to writ.."
Sulu took the note back from her, annoyed.
"You mean I have to write her a note just to ask her
to pass this dote?" That struck him as ridiculously
restrictive.
Coan only nodded. "That's what I mean.
Try again."
Sulu's second note was short and to the
point"...Help! I'm being held prisoner in a
complex Starfleet scenario! Please pass this
note to Carstair's Planet (the social
butterfly to your right) before it's too late!"-and the
"transmission' to Carstair's was quickly on its
way.
Carstair's gawked at the note, stared in
almhorror at the cadet who'd last touched it, and
finally directed a black-eyed glare down the length
of chairs at Sulu.
Sulu waved again, and smiled. This was going to be a
long game.
"I'll bet you've got quite a wait ahead of
you."
Sulu craned a look over his shoulder, finding
Coan still standing nearby, watching Carstair's.
"Carstair's can't approach the Federation Council
without at least one Federated planet to support
him. That's not always easy under normal
circumstances-Narv's lack of social graces
isn't going to work in your favor."
Sulu sighed and glanced back at the cadet.
Narv was already kneeling near one of the outlying Federation
chairs, talking, quietly but gruffly, with the
inhabitant. "What am I supposed to do in the
meantim ?" he asked Coan. "My planet's
got a lot of problem;!"
Can leaned over to tap Sulu's pad of paper.
"Sketch something. You can sell the art to other pla
ets and upgrade your economy."
S lu perked up at the suggestion. "Is that
allowed in this scenario?" Can's laugh was cheerful, but
not reassuring. "No. But you might be able to buy
yourself lunch with the proceeds."
"What about paper airplanes?" Sulu
twisted in his
seat to follow her progress as Coan started
to move away.
"No!"
He flopped back into his seat with a sigh; he'd
expected as much.
Seven minutes-and ten elaborate paper
airplanes comlater, Carstair's and Rigel V
made their way up to the main Council table. Sulu
sailed his last airplane in the general vicinity of
an equally bored cadet (who'd been returning
fire with clever, chittering paper constructions that
reminded Sulu of kamikaze crickets), and
settled in to observe Carstair's plea on his
behalf.
Rigel and Carstair's waited another full
minute before the Federation delegate finally turned
to them and demanded, "What do you want? Can't you see
we're trying to agree on negotiation formats?"
The cadet snorted noisily and thrust a piece
of paper up at the Federation cadet's face. "A
list of demands," he growled. "For my people."
"Who are you?" The Federation glanced at the list,
then deposited it atop the table between himself and the two
Empires. Perez-Salazar plucked it
up and studied it in silence.
was Carstair's Planet," Rigel V
volunteered. Then, flashing the Federation a
ridiculously wide and stunning smile "I'm
Rigel V-already a member in good standing with the
Federation."
was Oreat." The Federation's enthusiasm seemed
limited. "We'll consider your requests and get
back to y.t
"All services are sorely needed," the
Carstair's insisted when the Federation would have turned
away. "I insist upon immediate attention!"
Perez-Salazar uttered something brief and
sibilant. "These requests are ludicrous!" she
exclaimed, pitching the paper back at Narv. The
rumpled sheet caught the air and fluttered
erratically off to one side. "You want missile
technology, computer assistance, access to our data
centers . . . to was
"The Federation's data centers," the Federation
reminded her firmly. "They aren't asking for anything
from the Klingons!"
Perez-Salazar twisted her mouth and narrowed her
eyes. "Racism again? You don't feel the
Klingon Empire has anything to offer?"
Sulu covered his smile with one hand.
Perez-Salazar was the Klingons-he should have
guessed.
"Nothing that we can't offer more safely!" The
Federation handed Narv back his note. "Go sit
down. We'll get to you."
"I ask little," Carstair's insisted. When the
Federation didn't answer, the cadet turned to face
Vulcan on the opposite side of the room. "If
I cannot appeal to your to less compassionate
neighbors, then I appeal to you, logicians, for
recognition."
This three at the main table uttered simultaneous
inarticulate cries while Vulcan looked
to Coan for direction. The monitor shrugged
mutely.
"You idiot!" the Romulan Empire howled.
"key!" Coan barked. "There'll be none of that
around here! This is just a game!"
The Romulan Empire wilted noticeably,
weaving her hands into angry baskets in front of
her. "Sorry, sir . . ."
Coan was still frowning as she nodded to Vulcan.
"Start timing your half hour again."
"Aye, sir."
And that ended Carstair's first round of negotiations.
Sulu made sure a note was waiting for the
Carstair's by the time he returned to his seat.
What happened to my requests? Fifty
million more people have died around here! Don't I need
food more than you need missiles?
Narv's lips moved through the message slowly.
Once finished, he scrawled a brief reply
across the bottom, crushed the paper into a ball, and
threw it back at Sulu. Sulu untangled the
note to read what he already suspected it said
"NO. was He flicked the ball away from him, and
started on his notes again.
Hi! I'm Menak III, a small,
insignificant, and technologically
underdeveloped planet in the Murasaki
sector. Carstair's Planet is ignoring me,
and I'm bored. Wanna start a war?
He folded the note into his most careful
aircraft yet, and sailed it across the room
into Orion's lap with the delicate precision only
a born helmsman could commano.
Orion's automatic reply was a chittering
cricket. Sulu, quickly folded a second
plane, scribbling across the wings, "Read the
first airplane!" and bounced the second plane against
Orion's chest. Orion blinked twice, raised
his eyebrows, then set about trying to locate the
message plane among all the others. He found
it, dismantled it, and read it. The reply arrived
in Sulu's lap less than a minute after
Sulu's secondary launch.
Sulu unfolded the plane and scanned the
answer.
Sorry-Orion is officially hostile toward
Menak Ill.
If I get into ANY kind of war, it'll
probably be with
YOU! Better luck next time.
Orion II
A chittering cricket-bearing the proclamation,
'7
am a primitive thermonuclear device.
Ka-BLAMP"-
quickly followed up the note. Orion returned
Sulu's startled look with an apologetic shrug,
but didn't retract the mock bombing. Sulu
dismissed him further, and Orion went back
to folding his toys.
Carefully tearing off the bottom part of the
page, Sulu eliminated Orion's negative
response. Somewhat more tattered, but still
flightworthy, the airplane look like the only
survivor of Orion's last message. He
aimed it at random, hoping chance would help him nd a
sympathetic government on his own side of the room.
The plane bounced into the lap of a stocky, redheaded
female four seats away. Picking it up, she
asked, "What's this?"
Sulu captured her attention with a friendly wave.
"It's an old-style wave radio
transmission-I'm reaching out to my fellow man."
She smiled, but sailed the plane back at him.
"I'm tech 1 vel two-I don't have the
capabilities to receive an interplanetary
transmission. Sorry."
Sulu plucked the craft out of the air with one hand.
Frustrated, he turned to the room at large and
called,
"Is there anybody with a tech level four or
better who isn't hostile to Menak III and
wants to start a war?"
Even as the room burst into laughter, Coan
called, "Foul, Menak!" from the other end of the
room.
"But--to ,
"Foul!" Coan was smiling, but didn't relent.
"You have to pass notes, or you can't communicate at
all."
Sulu fingered the nose of his aircraft
unhappily, slouching into an exaggerated pout for
Coan's benefit. "Do I even have to send notes
to you?" Coan snorted briefly with laughter. "You
can't send notes to me."
"Why? Who are you?"
"I'm God. Now hush!"
Sulu had delivered his war offer to half the
participants on his side of the room by the time
Carstair's gained the Federation's attention for a
second time. "We're considering!" the Federation
irritably assured Narv before he could even speak.
"These are matters of much importance." Narv's
tone of voice could have indicated anything from fury
to pleasant neutrality.
Toe Federation collected Carstair's note, but
didn't read it. "More missiles?" he inquired
acerbically. Rigel V winced. Beyond him, a line
of fidgeting delegates stretched nearly
into Vulcan's lap.
was onsideration of Carstair's
application," Narv persisted. "We wish to be as
Rigel-Federated into your ruling body."
"Starfleet doesn't rule," the Federation
began, and Perez-Salazar amended hotly,
"Tell that to the Romulans!"
"Hey!" The Romulan Empire leaned across the
table in front of Earth to scowl at
Perez-Salazar. "The Federation does not have us
henpecked!" "I never said they did!"
And so ended Carstair's second approach to the
Federation Council. Sulu tore free a sheet of
paper and began methodically shredding it into a pile
at his feet. According to his time piece, he had
approximately another hour and twenty-five
minutes to kill before this scenario reached its
less-than-climactic climax. He resolved
to make a pile as high as his seat before that time.
"You're wasting your national resources." Coan
appeared at his shoulder, still wearing that infuriating
know-it-all smile. "You've got nearly
eighty-five minutes yet, Ensign!"
"My stock market crashed," Sulu replied.
He tried to keep annoyance out of his tone, but
failed miserably. Sifting to face Coan, he
hooked one foot over the chairs arm and
propped his elbow atop the back. "It's pointless!
I'm in a position where I can't do anything for myself,
I'm paired with an antisocial Federation hopeful
who isn't a great deal of help, and those three at
the main table are still trying to decide what kind of
china) to use at their formals!"
Wen his comments only seemed to amuse Coan the
more, he turned away from her again, grumbling, "And
my cadet bloc monitor is a closet sadist
that somebody gifted with commodore's bars."
He hand took hold of his shoulder in warning.
"Careful . . ."
Sulu felt his face grow red. "Excuse me,
sir."
Once Coan was gone, he reevaluated what
he'd said
to her. He didn't really want to quit-he
didn't want to be a one-legged swamp crane who
never learned to dance. What would Poppy say after
spending all that time explaining about the silly dancing
birds? Sulu smiled and glanced at the Federation
Council on the other side of the room. Well, if
the mountain wouldn't come to Mohammed. . .
He attracted Coan's attention by bouncing an
origami crane off her shoulder.
Expressing more irritation than he suspected she
actually felt, she stepped through the assembly
to squat by the arm of his chair. "I want to go to the
Federation myself." Before she could condemn or verify his
plan, he elaborated, "I know I've only
got the wave-radio capabilities, and I know
they wouldn't be expecting my call. And I know it
would take-was He tipped his eyes unconsciously
ceilingward as he figured. "comnearly eighteen
months for the call to reach them."
Coan grinned at him. "And you've only got
eightyfive minutes to go."
"This is a scenario," Sulu pointed out. "Can't
we compact time a little?" Still grinning, Coan reached
behind his chair and came up with one of his many paper
constructions. "You seemed to be doing pretty well
with these earlier." Sulu shrugged, and Coan went
on "If you can (land a message on the main table,
or even in the lap of a Federated planet, anyone
who reads it can act for you. Just because they rely on
subspace communication doesn't mean they can't hear
what you send." She unfolded Sulu's paper
plane as she stood, dropping it into his lap.
"What if they won't read it, or they ignore
you?"
Sulu shrugged, flattening the piece of paper.
"Then I'm no worse off than I am right now."
She studied Sulu so intently it made him
shift uncomfortably in his seat. "Only
seventy-five minutes and eighteen months to go,"
she said finally, breaking her gaze. "You'd better
start writing!" And, with an approving smile, she
moved away.
Sulu considered his note carefully, knowing if he
was to have any hope at all of Federation intervention it
would be dependent on how effectively he could convey
his plight in writing. He discarded Coan's
unfolded plane in favor of a clean sheet of
paper.
Dear Delegates of the Renowned and Honest
Federation Council
He hated it immediately. Too wordy, too
insincere. Scribbling out that line, he began anew,
more thoughtfully.
Dear Champions of Freedom
"y tilde ck."
He I scratched out his second attempt, and
finally settled on a neutral, unimpressive
I
Dear Members of the United Federation
1 s nd you this communique on behalf of the
citizens of Menak Ill. Although not members of the
Federation, we respect and appreciate the good
your kind emissaries do throughout the galaxy. We
appeal to you now for your aid.
Menak is being crushed beneath the weight of
economic and health turmoils beyond our ability
to control. We are mineral poor. We are
neglected. We are dying. Please-all we
request is the opportunity to speak with you regarding
help for our people. You have knowledge of medicines, and safe
power sources; without your assistance, we fear Menak
will have no future at all.
Please.
The Governing Body of Menak 111
Satisfaction displaced the frustration of only a
moment ago. Sulu tucked the rest of his papers
into a pocket, and considered the best delivery method
for his note. Paper wads were out, since they were too
easily mistaken for a personal affront;
origami cranes were more dense than airplanes (and
so traveled better over short distances), but they had
a tendency to tumble while airborne, so didn't
frequently exercise much accuracy in attaining their
targets; airplanes ran the risk of
overshooting, and (for reasons Sulu failed
to comprehend) it seemed no one ever thought to unfold the
planes to find their message. Still, airplanes
seemed the best of the three alternatives, and
seventy minutes really wasn't enough time to get
creative. He hummed to himself as he folded the
plane.
The resultant vessel was hardly a work of art,
but Sulu was confident it would traverse the distance necessary
to deliver his plea to the Federation Council. He
caught Coan's eye as he inspected the lines of
his aircraft, and returned her conspiratorial
wink with a somewhat
embarrassed smile.
No wind disturbed the air in the spacious room,
so Sulu knew nothing but satisfaction as he
watched his courier float cleanly over the heads of
half his classmates and dip sweetly to a landing
over the Romulan Empire's right shoulder.
Perez-Salazar was the only member at the table
to even notice the landing; she made a face at the
paper construct, then pushed it out of their work area.
Sulu was folding another plane before
Perez-Salazar had even rejoined the heated
discussion; he should have learned from his exchange
with Orion. Scrawling a repeat of his "READ
THE FIRST AIRPLANE" message, he tossed the
second plane toward the main table.
This time, Perez-Salazar snatched the plane
while it was till airborne, crushing it in her
fist. She fixed Sulu with a disapproving glare as
she tossed it to join the first plane. In an agony
of frustration, the ensign called, "Read it!" only
to be drowned out by Coan's ste , "Foul, Menak!"
was f course . . . to was he grumbled, slouching low
in his chaff .
If tilde his were indicative of galactic
politics, Sulu was sufficiently convinced that he
didn't want to be a councilor. He tore a
sheet of paper into six rough squares, sullenly
folding a crane from the first as he listened to the
Klingon and Romulan empires argue about voting
rights. In the smallest handwriting he could manage and
still be legible, Sulu started at the nose of the crane
and wrote THIS CRANE wILL
sELF-DESTRUCT IN S
SECONDS. Then he decorated the crimped
wings with . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .
1 . . . He was disappointed that there was no room
left to write BOOM! Widening the tiny
hole in the bottom of the crane, he inserted the tip
of his pen to launch it. He stopped himself just before sending
the crane on its way. Terrorism wasn't the
answer-not if he really wanted to establish some
rapport with the Federated planets. He removed the
little crane reluctantly, and set about writing
another impassioned plea.
This note he folded as a crane (sufficiently
discouraged with the responses to his airplanes).
He mounted it on his pen like the first, then snapped it
catapultstyle toward the main table. The crane
careened over the Romulan Empire's head, into the
center of the table, and over the Federation's right shoulder.
The Federation delegate growled something short and foul
as he stooped for the paper bird; Sulu wondered if
he were the only one to notice where the crane landed when
the Federation tossed it offhandedly away.
Vulcan started quite satisfactorily as the
crane bounced into her lap, staring at the origami
avian as though uncertain if she should touch it.
"Uh, Commodore Coan?" The hesitant
summons caused everyone at the head table to twist
about in startled dismay. "Is this a communication,
sir?" the solitary cadet asked, holding up the
little crane.
The Federation squeaked in indignation. "Where did you
get that?" he demanded, frantically scanning the
room proper. "Who sent that?"
Sulu wished desperately to be less than
three feet tall.
"Well, you threw it to me . . . but it came from
over
there." Vulcan pointed across the room toward
Sulu; the young cadet waved. "Does this mean I
should start timing my half hour again, sir?"
Vulcan appealed to Coati again.
"No!" The Federation's insistence sounded more
desperate than
well-considered.
Coan stayed where she was against one wall, her arms
folded across her front. "What do you think?" she
asked with a shrug.
Vulcan studied the crane very seriously.
"Well, it is a transmission from an outside
source . . ."
"Oh, come on!" the Federation moaned.
was . . so I guess it's only fair. . ."
"Fair?" The Federation leapt to his feet
to seize the crane from Vulcan. "Fair to drive
the Federation to desperation just because some jerkwater
planet is throwing ducks?!"
S lu straightened in his chair. "They're
cranes!"
The Federation slung the crane back at him; it
only flew about halfway. "They look like
ducks!"
"top acting like children." Perez-Salazar's Latin
contralto cut through the beginning of Sulu's reply.
"You're only complaining," she accused The Federation
"because you planned to use Vulcan as the solu ion
to all your problems. This is what you dese a for not
having the courage to act for yourself!"
was hat I don't deserve," the Federation
returned acid y, "is a bunch of war-mongering
idiots grubbing up every planet they come to and then
claiming they own the whole system!"
Sulu thought he had never before seen someone's soul
truly catch fire. Perez-Salazar's face
grew even darker as her eyes began to smolder;
Coan started 178
across the room for the head table. "Okay, people, I
think that's enough for now . . . to was
"You are accusing my people of cowardly acts?"
Sulu wasn't sure whether Perez-Salazar was
responding from a sense of offended nationality
or if she'd gotten too involved in the
role-playing.
"Take it as you will," the Federation replied.
Perez-Salazar rocketed to her feet just as
Coan reached the table. She spit on the table in
front of the Federation. "Congratulations, el jefe
estupendo-you now have a war!"
Coan physically sat herself on the table between the
two, stopping the Federation's advance with a warning hand
on his chest. "This is
make-believe!" she reminded him, then turned
to rake a meaningful look across the rest of the room.
"Maybe you'll all appreciate the usefulness of
make-believe in the rest of your training!" Waiting
until the Federation had nodded his understanding and returned
to his chair, Coan motioned that Perez-Salazar
should sit as well. "I wish you could all just listen
to yourselves! It's like recess with a bunch of kids!"
No body laughed. "I have never had a less
cooperative, more selfish bloc [*thorngg'f
cadets in my life!" Coan continued through their
guilty silence. "You were all chosen to be here because
you're- special-intelligent-because you display
abilities common to good command officers!" She paced
toward the middle of the gathering, turning
slowly as she walked in order to rake an icy
glare across them all. "Well, where did all those
fine traits go?" topping just behind Sulu's chair,
she leaned against the back of it. "I saw one of you
use creativity and cooperation to solve the problems
put to him. And
everybody else either made fun of him or
ignored him!" Sulu had a feeling he knew who
was being singled out. "If this had been real life,"
Coan berated the rest of them, "you'd be lucky if
Menak didn't bomb you all while you were busy
squabbling among yourselves!" Sulu slipped the
terrorist crane into his pocket as
surreptitiously as he could manage. "In later
scenarios, you won't get the chance to be so kind to one
another, even if you feel so inclined."
She looked them over with coldhearted calculation
one last time, then broke into a friendly smile and
clapped her hands. The transformation was so com-
plete, Sulu didn't know whether to respect her
flexibility or resent her manipulations.
"Okay, everybody," she cried, making herding
motions toward the closest door, "time for lunch! Go
put food in your stomachs-we've got a million
things to do yeti today!"
beulu tossed his accoutrements into the growing pile
on the head table, pocketing the last of his origami
cranes. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in
a hosing deal on Menak III?" he quipped
to PerezSal zar. She didn't dignify his comment
with a reply.
Sulu barely noticed the passage of the next
week.
lass followed class followed drill followed
meals. Sleep must have occurred somewhere between the buy
days, but Sulu honestly had no memories to account
for all the nights. What happened on Tuesday was
as distant or as near as what commenced on Friday;
Sulu took to dating his class notes and his
private reminders just to keep the past in
perspective. His future he didn't even think
about as yet.
He recognized Monday when it arrived only
because it was the very first day on which he had any inkling what
would happen next his class schedule was the same as
that first Monday, and he had kept meticulous
record. Somehow, the warp-driven pace seemed a
little less grueling, the instructors and courses just a
little less confusing with that time schedule as an anchor for
reality. Sulu achieved the end of the day in
much better humor than he had one week before.
No voices greeted him upon his return to the
bunkard. He was somewhat surprised to have beaten
everyone else back, but privately admitted that
sprinting across the quad (the weather was far too
exhilarating to allow mere walking) probably
affected his time. He sailed his course notes at
his bunk from three meters' distance, then swung into the
adjacent concession by catching the doorpost with one hand
as he danced past.
He stumbled to a stop when Poppy called
cheerfully, "I was hoping you'd get here soon!"
Sulu dashed frantic looks in all
directions, expecting Coan to appear like an
avenging angel and shrivel him with a glance. "What
are you doing here?" he demanded in a high stage
whisper. "How did you get here? This is a
restricted campus!"
The, old man climbed to his feet, patting
Sulu's cheek tilde as though to soothe the ensign's
distress. "Old Japanese men look
distinguished," he explained. "I told them I was
an admiral."
"Oh, good God . . . to was
Tetsuo followed amiably as Sulu
dragged him toward the door. "They were polite before
then, but they got very polite afterward. They said I could
find you here."
"Poppy . . ." Sulu checked both
directions before leading his
great-grandfather out into the hall. "I think it's a
capital offense to impersonate Starfleet
officers!"
Tetsuo scoffed. "I didn't impersonate
anybody," he insisted. "I didn't even give
them my name!"
"I don't think that's the point." When the door
at the lend of the hall whisked open, Sulu tucked
Tetsuo back against the wall until he had
glanced around the corer to verify the presence of a
guard. A bored senior cadet wandered back and forth
in front of the doorway, occasionally glancing at the
inviting weather outside.
"Where are we going?"
Sulu put his hand over Tetsuo's mouth; the
old man
fell "obligingly silent. "You want to be an
admiral?" Sulu whispered. tell, shrugged. "Not
especially."
",ell, do what I do anyway-and
don't say anythi g!"
S Au didn't wait for Tetsuo's
acknowledgment. Ste ping through the doorway, he pulled
his shoulders bac , tucked his chin up, and strode
purposefully tow rd the guard at the end of the
hall. The cadet to ed at the sound of Sulu's
footsteps, waving a cordial hello as the other
cadet approached. Returning the security
guard's casual greeting with a terse nod, Sulu
barely glanced at the young man on
his way by; Tetsuo's friendly, "Hello!" was
almost lost under Sulu's stiff, "Carry on."
Once on the quad, Sulu relaxed his stance and
turned to pull Tetsuo up next to him. "I
told you not to talk!" he scolded, walking them
further away from the building.
Tetsuo shrugged, grinning. "I forgot."
Sulu growled with feigned frustration and pulled the
older man into a hug. "Maybe we can get you off
on mental incompetence."
Tetsuo chuckled and returned his
great-grandson's hug soundly. "I've always thought that
wouldn't be hard."
"But, seriously, Poppy, don't sneak in again!
You can get us both in a lot of trouble."
"If you say so." He pushed Sulu away and
started them walking again. "So how is everything?"
"Okay," Sulu allowed. "It's only been a
week-I've been too busy to have an opinion."
The air gusted around them with the smell of ocean and
late roses; it ruffled Sulu's hair like a
warm, loving hand. "You could have called if that's all
you wanted to know."
Tetsuo didn't answer. Sulu glanced over
at his great-grandfather when the older man reached inside
his jacket for a tiny square of colored paper. He
folded a delicate crane as they walked.
"Poppy . . . ?" The smile pn the old man's
face was sweet and happy, like the sell of fragile
honeysuckle just before the frost. "Poppy, is something
wrong?"
Tetsuo's eyes remained fixed on his tiny
work. "I'm dying," son," he said without
prelude.
Sulu wasn't sure how he was supposed
to respond to that, so he only slipped his arm around his
great 183
grandfather's shoulders and whispered, "I know,
Poppy."
"No, I mean really," Tetsuo went
on. "Right now." The crane finished, he tucked it
gently into another pocket, and retrieved another
slip of paper. "Doctor Kobrine says the
tumor's bigger. He wants to operate on me."
Coldness swelled against Sulu's heart. "And?"
Tetsuo paused in his folding, smiling wanly
at Sulu. "I came here because I wanted to talk
to you. I wanted to explain."
The coldness closed into a "painful fist.
"Explain about what?" He didn't want to understand.
Ti'tsuo put away the half-finished crane
to take both of Sulu's hands in his own. "The
operation isn't really going to help anything. It'll
make the tumor smaller, Doctor Kobrine
says, but they can't take it completely away because
of the way it grows."
Sulu nodded slowly. "I know that . . ."
"So operating could maybe kill me. It won't
make the treatments
unnecessary, and it may not even slow down how the
tumor grows. All it does, at best, is make
it all go on a little longer."
was octor Kobrine is the best in the world,"
Sulu insi ted, wanting to speak before Poppy got
too farwa ting to make him understand. "If
he says you sho ld do it, then you should! It's better
than nothing. his
T tsuo squeezed his great-grandson's hands and
smi ed. "I'm not so sure about that anymore."
P nic swam counterclockwise to sorrow.
"Why are you telling me this, Poppy?" Sulu
demanded urgently. "What is it you're trying
to say?"
"I'm trying to say," Tetsuo said gently, "that
onehundred-and-three is older than God ever meant
people to be. Giving you something like a grade four glioma
is His way of telling you to hurry it up-give the
next generation a crack at the world." He reached up
t[*thorn] touch his
great-grandson's face. "I wanted you to understand
why I told Doctor Kobrine to stop the
treatments, because I know no one else ever will."
Sulu's stomach twisted in silent despair.
"You can't stop the treatments . . ."
"I already have."
"No, Poppy!" He pulled away, out of the
old man's reach, out of his grasp. "Don't you
realize what'll happen? Don't you understand what
you've done?" "I've gained a month, maybe
two, of feeling happy, healthy, and
alive before I die," Tetsuo told him.
"Whatever comes after that . . ." He shrugged.
"Maybe nobody really knows. But it doesn't
frighten me anymore."
Sulu felt tears wringing out of his ragged
emotions. "You're giving up!" he accused,
furious. "You're going to desert me just because you're
afraid to-was
"No," Tetsuo interrupted sternly, "I'm not
afraid. Not of dying. Not like this, at least. I'm
afraid of dying badly, son. I'm afraid that
if I wait . . ." Pain glittered in his
stone-black eyes. "I have loved my life! I
loved your! great-grandmother. I loved all the children we
had to together, and all their children, and all theirs. I loved
boating, and the ocean, and the way my face felt after the
salt and wind dried it all shiny like the sand. I
love the animals at the gardens, and those plants you
used to bring home all the time. . . was His voice
trailed off into a gentle laugh. His eyes focused
again,
and he sighed. "I want to say goodbye to all that
whil e we're still on speaking terms. If I stay,
I'm afraid I'll learn to hate living . . .
then I'd really have nothing to live for after
all."
Sulu stared at his great-grandfather, ashamed of the
cold tears on his cheeks, ashamed that shedding those
tears should make him so afraid. "Doctor
Kobrine will stop you."
"He won't," Tetsuo said with certainty.
"I've thought a long time about this. And I've been
folding cranes." He displayed the half-done
crane, shiny purple in the afternoon light.
Sulu slapped the paper construct out of his hand.
"I don't care about your damn cranes!" he
cried, his voice choking on the pain gathered in his
throat. "I care about you, Poppy! You said you'd
come when I gradated! You said-was
"I'm sorry. But it has to be done-it has
to be this way." Sulu jerked away when Tetsuo
reached up to touch him. Lonely disappointment flashed
through the Id man's eyes. "I thought you, of all people,
woul understand."
was ell, I don't!" Sulu grated. "And I
never will! How coul you want to die? How could you
want to leave me. . . to was He felt more tears
rush to the surface, and turned away before his
great-grandfather's gentle sorrow could make him cry.
"Just go home and die if you want o!"
he shouted. "Don't try to make me justify it for
y u!"
Wen he broke and ran for the bunkard, he
didn't know if he wanted Tetsuo to stop him or
let him go. As it was, his great-grandfather said nothing.
It was that image of Tetsuo, standing abandoned 186
and small in the middle of the windy quad, that
Sulu would remember for the rest of his days.
"Ugh!" Sulu threw himself onto his bunk, not
caring enough about the mud and pitch and detritus on his
uniform to bother stripping out of his clothes. "I can't
believe anybody actually lives in those
mountains!" he moaned to the cadet in the next bunk
over. "What did they say? Two and half
million people in one of the smaller cultural centers
alone?"
His companion's uniform and equipment were as filthy
and sweat-soaked as Sulu's; he displayed the same
lack of concern for his bed's welfare as he stretched
out on his own bunk. Cadets all throughout the
bunkard were engaged in similar pursuits.
"I feel like I haven't slept in weeks,"
Sulu replied. "After two months of midnight
drills and six Am. breakfast calls, you'd think
I'd be used to this."
The cadet's only reply was a loud snore.
Sulu closed his own eyes, relishing the
decadent feel of r laxation. After a week and a
half on the other side of t e North
American continent, Sulu welcomed eve San
Francisco's damp, chilly autumn. They'd
been dropped in ten degrees centigrade weather in
the northern Allegheny Mountains and instructed
to make their way to a predetermined base "as soon
as you ca not."
They'd had sufficient gear and food to keep them
alive (sulu had hoped), but it was a
whitehaired, smart-mouthed boy from upstate New
York who" saved them all. He reckoned
directions by the stars better than anyone Sulu had
ever seen; they reached their destination in record time,
losing only a 187
backpack and a sleeping tent in the process.
Sulu, as commander of the excursion, was distinctly
pleased.
He was also exhausted. Classes, duties, and
drills demanded more time and energy than Sulu would have
believed he possessed two months ago, and this
trek through the Alleghenies was only the last on a
long list. He took inspiration and stamina
from every available source-invigorating
conversations, newly formed friendships, frequent
naps and frequent meals comb his greatest source of
strength was his family. Communications from
home-especially from Poppy-had formed the underpinnings
of his endurance. He hadn't realized how much he would
miss that support until it ceased. Tetsuo had
called twice after their argument on the quad. Sulu
responded to neither recorded message, but the
second made him silently cry himself to sleep.
"I feel wonderful," Poppy had told him.
"I feel free. If I c"...ment make you understand
why it has to be this way, at least be happy for me
. . . I love you so much."
The worst part of it was that Sulu thought perhaps he di
understand. His life and activity were always so
important to Tetsuo; the same things were
important to S lu, as well. He couldn't
imagine his own life with ut Stardeet, without
windsailing, without fenci g . . . But if he
admitted to himself (and to Tetsu) that there was dignity in
choosing the time to die, i might seem as though he
condoned it. And he didn' want Tetsuo to go.
Sul rolled over roughly, uttering a guttural
sound of frustration. The unhappy thoughts
slipped to the back of his mind, following a route
well-worn after 188
two months of dismissal. He tried studiously
to will himself to sleep before any more thinking could occur.
He didn't know how long he'd been dozing before
someone jounced his bed. "Mail call! Rise and
shine."
Sulu struggled into a sitting position, feeling as
though he'd been bound up in cotton like a mummy.
He held out a hand for the message tape the other
cadet presented to him. "Oh . . . uh, thanks
. . ." he muttered fuzzily.
But the mail carrier was already awakening the next
cadet in line. "Mail call!"
Sulu squinted at the message's origin through a
yawn. When he saw the California transmit
code, the last of his tattered haze of sleep dashed
away. He scrambled to his feet.
Sunside-as Sulu and the other cadets eventually
discovered-was the recreation area for off-duty
cadet. No one had ever discovered a reason for the eni
matic name, but, with time, no one seemed to car
anymore, either. Along with the chairs, tables, and'i
food services stations, Sunside also sported
seven reader terminals.
The terminals were deserted now. Sulu slipped
into the closest booth; no doubt everyone in this bloc
was stilt recovering from the wild and frigid
Alleghenies.
His name, rank, and serial number appeared,
followed by a return transmit code that he
didn't immediatbbely recognize. He sat
back in the padded seat and waited to see who was the
originator.
Arthur Kobrine's face appeared on the
screen, backed by a room Sulu didn't
recognize, and 189
accompanied by voices Sulu had never heard.
All hope inside him paused, but he couldn't bear
to banish it just yet.
"Cadet Sulu," Kobrine said, his voice low
and strangely roughened. "I . . . They said you were
gone on maneuvers. I hope those went well. I
only wish I . . . I wish you were here, son.
I'd rather tell you this, not some machine. . ."
Kobrine glanced over his shoulder anxiously, his
eyes following something beyond Sulu's ability to see.
When he turned back, his eyes were sad. "Your
great-grandfather died today, son. I tried to call you,
but they said you were gone. I didn't want
to leave a message . . . a lot of messages for
you to find when you got back . . . He was only
sick for the last week, only really sick for the last
few hours . . . He was really happy, son. And
he missed you. He said to tell you ., . ."
Kobrine dropped his gaze, scrubbing at his eyes
with the heels of his hands. "He said to tell you he
loved, you," he finally finished miserably. "That he
alwa s had and always would . . . He left a
bunch of those paper cranes you and he used to make
all the time.i A thousand of them, he said . . . He
said you'd unde tand . . ."
Someone interrupted him again from behind; Doctor
Kobrine nodded an acknowledgment, then raised his
sad face again. "I have to go. I' sorry I had
to tell you like this. Call me at the hospital, if
you'd like. I'm so sorry, son . . ." The trans
ission ended on a white corridor wall while a
dista t intercom called Doctor Kobrine away
to care for some patient who was still among the living.
The rock upon which Sulu laid was bone-eating
cold, smoothed by centuries of interplay with the ocean
and by the feathery green plants that clung to it for
support. Foliage draped in limp tendrils
across muscles, stones, and mollusks
to bob in the moonlit tidal pools like weary
undines; Sulu felt them, cool and moist, beneath his
stomach as he stared across the glassy sea. Like the
kelp, ebb tide found the young cadet without the
strength to stand.
The ocean seemed his only respite after
Doctor Kobrine's horrible message. Sulu
left Sunside without bothering to take the tape from the
reader. Stopping in the bunkard only long enough
to slide a bulky box out from its place in his
locker, he walked away from the bunkard, the quad,
and the Academy without speaking to another living soul.
The box cut into his chest now, pinned between his
pain-racked body and the cold, kelp-wrapped
rock. Sulu, had emptied the contents of the box
into the retreating tide; the last of the thumb-sized
cranes floated beyond the limits of his sight over
an hour ago. Silver, white, transparent,
rainbow, blue . . . He'd fold tilde d them
out of any material that fell into his han so.
While high in the Alleghenies, he'd folded more
than a dozen out of the scarlet-and-white protective
strips on their rations. He'd folded them against the
growing numbers he knew his great-grandfather
collOcted-folded in desperate need of a
miracle now that science and love had failed
him-folded sixhundred-and-forty-four before Poppy
finished his one thousandth and ended the silent race.
Now, the evening breeze blew the little cranes out
to sea like six
hundred vanished souls, leaving only Sulu and
an empty container behind. It was moonless and full
dark before Sulu was able to rouse himself and stand. He
felt stiff, and sick, and tired-partly a legacy
of the cold rock he'd been hugging, partly the
emotional vacancy that ate at his heart like a dying
fire. He walked with cottony, uncaring step, up
the jagged embankment, across the long green concourse,
down the quiet, starlit st reets. He deposited
the box into a refuse container as he passed. The
Academy quad was warm and well-lit upon his
return. Moving into the almost-daylight, something like
embarrassment stirred in Sulu and made him brush
ineffectually at the front of his singlet. A few
pieces of kelp dislodged to fall wetly to the stones
at his fleet. Sulu wished he'd thought about his
appearance] before stretching out on the rock, but he
couldn't truthfully say he'd thought about anything
except somehow freeing the cranes he'd tried
to contain. At that time, that had seemed so
terribly important.
A he stepped through the student entrance, the guar on
duty nodded a reserved, "Good evening." Sulu l
returned the greeting, but didn't pause; he
heard the nsign open an intercom panel just before he
pass d into the hall.
C an waited against the wall outside the
bunkard.
was ood evening, Commodore."
E en her dark eyes looked cold in the
subdued light. "Co gratulations," she said
quietly. "You've just accrued a batch of demerits
that'll take three years to undo."
Tears welled up inside him again, and he did
everything he could to keep them out of his voice. "I
know, sir . . . I'm sorry."
"Save your "sorry's for your parents," she
countered. The disappointment and anger on her face
hurt far worse than her words. "This is command
school. I don't give a damn what you
apologize for-I give a damn what you do!" She
pushed away from the wall with a rough, angry movement,
and started down the hall. "Go in and get to bed.
We're running a scenario tomorrow that you're going to need
your sleep for."
"dis . . thank you, sir . . ." He'd spoken
so softly, he doubted she had heard. Even if she
had, he felt sure she wouldn't care.
"dis . . including responding to computer-generated
incidents such as any starship captain is apt
to encounter," Coan continued, ceasing her pacing of the
lecture hall to sit on the edge of the raised
platform. "The commander of the U.s.s Exeter-your
ship for the course of this scenario-was chosen by our
allwisej all-knowing computer earlier this morning."
She angled her chin upward to meet Sulu's gaze
from all the way down the long hall. He didn't
know if he should be horrified or flattered. "Are
you ready to take youri, post, Captain Sulu?"
Everyone turned to look at him-some to smile, some
to stare. Sulu only shook his head dumbly and
sdeaful "I don't want to be the captain."
Can's look of disappointed anger from the night before
flashed briefly inffbeing again. "Then why are you in
command school?"
"I meant-was
"I don't care what you meant. You're captain
for
this scenario. You'll be in total and complete
command, even over the line officers who have
agreed to help us with this. Remember that, no matter
what happens." She stood then, and announced to the
class at large, "Be at the simulator deck
in twenty minutes. Don't be late! Dismissed."
Sulu sat, staring down at his hands, as the rest
of the class filed out the doors. His heart still ached from
yesterday; he lacked the creativity to decide which
pair of underwear to choose this morning, much less the
quickness required to adequately command a scenario.
He knew Coan would feel little sympathy for such
sentiments, though; when the last of the class arrived at
the simulators, Sulu arrived along with them.
The bloc was split into seven different groups of
varying sizes and composition. Four officers (two
commanders and two captains) greeted Sulu's
bridge crew at simulator four and assigned
them their position's. Sulu settled into the command
chair hesitantly, feeling as though he were sitting
somewhere he shobledfuldn't and that someone would soon come
to chase him away. No one did, though, and the
simulator, as soon sealed and ready to run.
Lights, smells, and sounds cocooned Sulu from
all sides. He heard status reports from
faraway sections of the nonexistent ship,
unimportant flippancies over
intercom channels, sensors cooing peacefully beneath
the more strident computer prompts. It was all so
active-so real! His heart awakened, ever so
slightly, as though responding to some half-heard
clarion; he gripped the arms of the chair for strength.
"Helmsman," he beckoned, trying for
briskness
and instead achieving a sort of breathless anxiety.
"What is our current heading?"
The cadet at the helm glanced at the officer
manning navigations.
Completely in character, the officer only raised an
inquiring eyebrow and turned back to her own
equations. Nodding, the helmsman reported the
heading, then added of his own accord, "That will take us
within fifteen point seven parsecs of the Klingon
Neutral Zone, sir."
Sulu was certain that detail would matter. Swinging
his chair about, he confronted his executive officer.
He drew back slightly in surprise and alarm
to see PerezSalazar seated in the exec's station by the
turbolift doors; he didn't know why her
presence hadn't registered before. "First Officer
Perez-Salazar," he said, recovering, "what is
the nature of our mission in this sector?"
Apparently much more at ease with her position in
this scenario, she consulted her computer briefly.
"Routine scouting," she reported. "We are due
to take on supplies at Station F9 in four
days."
"Is F9 on the neutral zone?"
Perez-Salazar smiled grimly. "If we could
cut through the Neutral Zone, we could reach F9 in
twelve hours."
"I see . . ." Sulu rotated his chair
back toward the front, only just remembering to say,
"Thank you, Mister Perez-Salazar."
The helmsman and navigator both looked at
him expectantly. Sulu flashed them a confident
grin and instructed, "Navigator Janda, plot a
course around the Neutral Zone for rpndezvous with
Station F9. Helmsman, ahead warp three."
"Course plotted and laid in, sir."
"Warp three, sir. Aye, aye."
Sulu settled back in the chair a bit more
comfortably. "Very good. Carry on."
He'd barely had the chance to adjust to his
newfound status before the communications officer started in
her seat and called, "I'm receiving a transmission
. . ." She touched her earpiece and
frowned. "It's very garbled, sir . . . and it's on
the distress channel . . ."
Sulu uncrossed his legs and sat forward in his
chair. A distress call! This was working up to be an
interesting scenario indeed. "Put it on audio."
The communications officer complied; a broken wall
of static filled the tiny bridge. "dis . . Maru,
nineteen periods out of . . . six . . ." The
voice was British, thin with both distance and concern.
"dis . . Mayday! Mayday! . . . neutronic
fuel carrier Kobayashi Maru, nineteen . . .
out of Altair . . . We have struck a gravitic
mine . . . all power, many
casualties . . ."
" Gravitic mine... ?" one of the cadets
whispered.
he captain at navigations nodded bleakly. "I
don't kn w who lays them, I just know they tear the
hell out of passenger ships and freighters."
",They do a good number on starships, too,"
an engineering cadet added. ?"' . . hull breach .
. . Do you read?... Mayday! Ma* . . ."
Sulu signaled communications to ready them for
reply. "Kobayashi Maru, was he declared, "this is
U.s.s. Exeter. What is your
position?"
"dis . . read you, Exeter . . . Sector ten
. . ."
Sulu glanced at the navigator, who winced.
"In the Neutral Zone, sir."
Sulu stopped the next words he planned to say.
"dis . . Exeter, we're losing air . . . can
you help us? . . . Over."
"Sir," communications finally prompted, "do you
wish to reply?"
The Neutral Zone. "Helm," Sulu said, more
softly, "give me a long-range scan on that
sector. What do you get?"
The helmsman gnawed at his lower lip, then
finally shook his head. "Dust, gas . . . I'm
getting a lot of interference . . ."
"Is there a ship out there?"
"1 . . . I think so, sir . . ."
That didn't help with the decision. "You think so?"
The helmsman opened his mouth as though ready
to commit more fully, then scanned the readings again and
sighed. "I don't know, sir."
When Sulu said nothing for several moments,
Perez-Salazar pressed, "Captain, the
Kobayashi Maru is awaiting your
reply."
Sulu nodded, slowly, stiffly. "Kobayashi
Maru . . . You are a civilian freighter?"
"Neutronic fuel carrier . . . three
hundred passengersi. Exeter, what's the
problem?"
"What are you doing in the Neutral Zone?"
The answer this time was long in coming. "dis . "dis
don't know . . . must have slipped course . . .
Exeter, can you help us . . . ?"
Sulu swallowed, feeling a sickness in his
stomach
that told him everything he was about to do was wrong-only
something else inside him knew this was his only
choice.
"Kobayashi Maru, was he answered calmly,
"I'm . . . sorry. We can't help you. I'm
afraid you're on your own." He felt his small
crew stir like agitated bees, but no one said
anything to him. "Breaching the Klingon Neutral
Zone with a Constitution-class starship could be considered
an act of war. An interplanetary conflict with the
Klingons would result in millions of lost
lives, and . . . that's a risk I am not prepared
to take for the lives of so few . . . I'm
very, very sorry."
"dis . . you daft? We're dying!. . . his
"I'O'M sorry."
"Captain, I'm-was The communications officer
recoiled slightly when Sulu turned. "That's
really lousy," she said, dropping out of the scenario.
"I think we ought to go in."
"Se's right," the helmsman intervened. "You can't
just ave them out there."
was e're leaving them." Sulu couldn't believe his
voic sounded so calm and assured. "You've got your
course, Mister."
was h . . ." The navigator, laughing
slightly, turned away from her panel. "You can't
do this," she began.
"I" the commander," Sulu reminded her firmly.
But is insides quivered, and he didn't dare let
go of the c mmand cha ir, lest they see how badly he
was shaking. "I have total control over this vessel,
and I have made my decision." A hard decision-a
horrible decis on-a decision that means all of those
people will die! The navigator nodded, and turned back
to her post.
"Listen, Sulu," the cadet at the security
station interjected, "we're supposed to be
in StarQeet. We're supposed to guard, and
protect!" "Avoiding a war-was
"is cowardice! Kobayashi Maru is less
than fifty parsecs into the Neutral Zone-we could
be in and out before the Klingons even knew we were there!"
"They may already know." No one interrupted, so
Sulu went on. "What is Kobayashi Maru
doing in the Neutral Zone, anyway? Why can't
we clearly scan her coordinates?"
"The ionization factor-was the helmsman began,
but Sulu cut him off. "Possibly. Or a
Klingon trap. There may be no ship out there
to rescue."
The cadet at the science station threw his hands up
in disgust. Sulu noted with some irritation that it was the
Federation from the Galactic Politics scenario on
their first day. "That's so damn paranoid!" the cadet
exclaimed. "Do you mean to say that, as a starship
captain, you would couch all of your decisions in terms
of "maybes'?"
Sulu looked at him, unsure how to respond.
"What else is there?"
Protests erupted from all across the bridge, some
of them in favor of his decision, most of them
emphatically opposed. Sulu kept
expecting the floor-to-ceiling vievluscreen
to crack like an oyster and return them all to loan
and the outside world; he studied the stars displayed on the
screen and waited.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" a voice cut in
sharply from behind him. "This is mutiny!"
The uproar cut off like a transmission that had
suddenly lost its signal. Every thought in Sulu's
brain simply ceased, and he turned the command chair
slowly as Perez-Salazar queried, "Should I
contact security, sir, and have these miscreants
thrown in the brig?" He only blinked at her.
"Calm down, Mate," the security cadet
grumbled.
Her eyes splashed him with prideful fury.
"If we are to treat this scenario as reality for the
purposes of rescuing Kobayashi Maru, then we
should treat our officers realistically, as well."
She turned to all of them, scowling her disgust. "If
this is how you would truly respond to your commander and
peers, I never want to serve on a starship with any
of you!" Her dark gaze glanced off Sulu, and he
felt the implicit, Except you, in that look.
Pride and shame, strangely intermixed, thickened
his throat beyond his ability to respond.
"H w dare you!" she went on, stepping down
to stand by his right hand. "How dare any of you assume
his d cision is an act of cowardice! You!" She
stabbed a finger at the cadet manning communications.
"Save your tarship, or save yourself. Choose!
Now!"
He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again and
s ammered, "I . . . my . . . my ship!"
The scowl that twisted Perez-Salazar's dark,
Latin face etrayed her opinion of his
decisiveness. "Do you say that because you really wish the
ship to survive, or beca se you are afraid of the
repercussions should you choo a the more selfish option?"
This cadet didn't volunteer a reply.
"No matter how noble that choice may seem to you
or to others, that was a decision of cowardice," she

told him. "For it to be truly noble, you must
choose death because to live any other way is
unthinkable."
Sulu sucked in his breath abruptly, feeling as
though he'd been kicked, deep and hard, from inside.
"Mister Perez-Salazar. . ."
She turned, straight and proud, at his
summons.
"That will be all. . . Thank you."
He didn't look away when she paused to study
his eyes with painful candor. "Yes, sir." Passing
her muster left him somehow strangely pleased.
"Communications," he said, turning back to the
front, "contact the nearest Starbase with details
on the Kobayashi Maru. If Starfleet can
locate a Klingon representative in time, it
might still be possible to save the freighter. In the
meantime, we have a supply run to make. Helm?"
Only the navigator uttered a cool, "Aye,
aye, sir," in acknowledgment. But they all turned
back to their stations without complaint.
"I hope he knows what he's doing," the science
officer whispered to someone beyond Sulu's sight.
The ensign remained fixed on the stars, and
pretended not to hear. What has to be done, he
told himself gently. I understand that now, Poppy . .
. I honestly, really do . . .
Brutal. He decided that was the best word
to describe the lecture and review following the
Kobc tilde yashi Maru scenario. Coan
replayed the events
on a karge-scale monitor (embarrassing
Sulu as well as
everyone else in the bridge crew), then the
class
discussed their opinions and suggestions regarding
the young ensign's course of action. While the
commodore was studiously nonpartisan throughout the
debate, the bridge crew wasn't quite so hostile
by the time class let out; Sulu felt he had a
pretty good idea what Coan's view of his
decision had been. The knowledge made him proud.
The wind through the quad was brisk and chilly, but
sunlight leapt from one granite-flecked square
to the next as Sulu crossed the white stone plaza.
It seemed somehow sinful to be so lighthearted less
than twentyfour hours after hearing of Tetsuo's
death, but Sulu thought Poppy would understand, and maybe
even approve.
He caught sight of Perez-Salazar walking
alone, as
always, a half-dozen running steps ahead of him.
Oscillating only briefly between approaching her
and
pr et nding not to see, his feet solved the
dilemma for
him by lengthening their strides until he found him
self matching her stiff, determined
gait. "Hi!"
S e glanced at him pugnaciously, and he
continued befo a she could speak, "I wanted to thank
you for stan ing up for me during the simulation. It was
a big help."
She looked forward again and shrugged. "I didn't
do i for your benefit."
Her eyes almost glanced at him, but she seemed
to remember herself and directed the away again. "You were
simply in the right, that's all."
S u smiled. "I had a good teacher." She
didn't prompt him for further information; he
considered letting that mean she didn't want to talk
to him further, but decided he didn't want to play
this game by her rules anymore. "My great-grandfather
had a lot
of understanding about responsibility, and things that just
need doing." The pain inflicted by the subject was
barely overbalanced by the love he would always feel
for the old man. "You'd have liked him," he told
her. "He was a very strong man."
"And a wise man," Perez-Salazar allowed.
"A very wise man, if he taught you these things so
well." Her voice was just as cold as always, but
Sulu still felt warmed by her words.
"Yes," he admitted. "A very wise man.
He taught me the difference between playing hero and being
responsible . . . and how sometimes the two can be the
same." He continued matching her pace as they
approached the main building, not wanting to break this
newfound rapport with Perez-Salazar, yet not
sure how to continue it. As they entered the building's
long, gray shadow, he asked abruptly, "Have you
ever seen Old San Francisco?" She paused
in her walking, and so surprised Sulu that he almost
overshot her position. "No," she said warily.
"Why?"
was Well, I'm a great native guide,"
Sulu informed her with a wink. "We could get passes
for this evening, and I'll show you Golden Gate
Park, and Fisherman's Wharf, and the Palace of
Fine Arts." He saw something like panic move in
her eyes, and amended, "No strings. Just a thank you
. . . Really."
Tle panic subsided, leaving only a
vestigial smile on her face; the smile made
her very pretty. "All right. I shall meet you here after
supper."
"threat!" Sulu dug into his pocket and drew
out the crumpled paper crane he had
folded during the class debate over his
Kobayashi Maru decision. He 203
presented it to Perez-Salazar with a flourish.
"Redeemable for one dynamite tour."
She took it as though it were a soiled sock. "This
is one of those ducks," she complained, but not so
severely as her expression suggested. "You folded
these all through our first scenario."
Flattered that she'd even noticed him during the
turmoil of Galactic Politics, he hid his
embarrassment behind an expression of resignation.
"They aren't ducks! They're cranes!"
"Cranes?"
Sulu closed her hand about the tiny construct and
explained patiently, "In ancient Japan,
cranes were revered for their grace and beauty. It was
believed that if you folded one thousand paper cranes
while meditatin@., you could create a miracle."
Perez-Salazar opened her hand only long enough
to sneak a look at the origami bird, then smiled
more stunningly than before. "Does it work?" A swell
of pain and love overwhelmed him again, and Sulu thought
of Poppy and nodded. "I believe it does" he
told her sincerely. "I really believe it might
be true."
I
I i
HALLEY
WELL, HE wns xrcHT Kirk
reflected unhappily. It wasn't funny. He
stared at the airlock door and willed Scott
to hurry.
"Your great-grandfather must have been a very exceptional
man," McCoy finally said softly. "I would have
been honored to meet him."
Something reminiscent of a smile tugged at
Sulu's lips. "Hang in there, Doc," he
confided weakly. "You might still get your chance."
"Captain? Shuttle?"
Scott's voice from the front cabin drew
everyone's attention. Chekov slid from his seat behind
Sulu and trotted into the front as the engineer
reported, "I've got . . . some bad problems
out here, Captain-a dust storm, or a cloud, or
something . . . I just busted my tail "to repatch a
conduit that's been shredded by dust, and-"The channel
didn't waver; Kirk heard Scott swear-
softl y before continuing. "I'm hurrying as fast
as I can, was the Scotsman finished grimly.
"But I think . . . Well, it's best you
not wait on me. his
McCoy threw Kirk a frightened glance.
"What's he saying? What does that mean?"
Kirk gripped the back of his seat and wished for the
millionth time that he wasn't injured. "Get him
back in here," he ordered tightly.
"dis . . I knew it . . . to was Chekov hovered
in the doorway, looking pale and shaken. "7 should be
out there, not him!"
"Chekov!" Kirk snapped. The lieutenant
started, flushing with
embarrassment. "Get him in here! Hurry!"
"With what?" McCoy insisted. "Jim, we
haven't got a radio!"
Chbkov bolted for the suit locker by the exit.
"Yes, we do!" he gasped. "My God, we have
six of them!"
Kirk couldn't believe none of them had thought of the
h lmet radios sooner. "Good, Chekov!"
"Scott?" Chekov held the locker door open
with one foot as he triggered the radio in one of the
helmets with is hand. "Mister Scott! Do you
read?" " IK ep out of my ear, Chekov!"
Scott's voice returned peevishly. "7'm
trying to concentrate!"
"ND," Chekov countered, "come back in. You
can finis when the dust storm has passed."
Sc tt's warm, rich laughter was thinned by stress
and distance. "7 can't wait that long, lad, and you know
I can't. Now shut up and let me work. was "D
dn't you listen to Sulu's story?" Chekov asked
the engineer. "Heroics don't always help!"
"What are you prattling about?" 206
Kirk waved for Chekov's attention, shaking his
head. "Let him be. . ."
Chekov looked up in response to Kirk's
voice, and a skirl of keening feedback tore through the
front of the shuttle. McCoy swore caustically;
Chekov twisted away from the helmet in his hands. As
the clamor peaked and slid away, Scott's
voice pierced the resultant static with a sharp,
frightened cry.
Chekov clutched the helmet to him again.
"Scotty!"
"I've got a suit breach! Ah, DAMN!
Chekov! Listen, lad, you've got to- was
Silence engulfed the open channel. Chekov's
suit helmet clattered to the deck as the
lieutenant began hastily stripping off his duty
jacket. He slung the jacket onto the
front row of seats and dragged a full suit from the
locker without even asking permission to go.
The shuttle groaned and shuddered slightly, echoed
by a short, ringing report along the starboard hull,
and a muted thump. An almost imperceptible sensation of
movement made Kirk's head spin. He realized
then that Halley's tumble had shifted; Scott had
cut the cylinder free.
"Where do you think you're going?" McCoy's
voice brought Kirk's attention back to the room.
"Chekov, don1t be an idiot!"
The lieutenant was half-suited, hastily
checking his pressure and seals. "Stay inside,
Mister Chekov," Kirk ordered sternly.
Chekov didn't look up from his work. "I
won't leave the lock," he promised. "If I
can't see him, I'll come right back."
"Chekov . . ." But the thought of abandoning
Scott turned Kirk's stomach; it could hardly do
more harm to let Chekov salve his conscience by checking.
"We need someone in this shuttle besides me who
isn't incapacitated . . ."
McCoy sat with Chekov's jacket in his lap,
twisting the garment into a thick rope with his nervous
hands. "Chekov, didn't you listen
to Sulu's story? Sometimes you have
to sacrifice-losing both of you won't help
anyone!"
"I know that!" Chekov shouted, slamming the locker
door with one suited hand. "Do you think I didn't
know that before we sent him out there?" He calmed
abruptly; Kirk watched him take four deep,
measured breaths before stooping for the fallen helmet
"But we can't afford to lose him, either," Chekov
finished quietly. "That's the difference between
classrooms and reality."
"Qo on, then." Kirk intercepted whatever
McCoy had lbeen about to say. "But be careful."
Cleaekov only nodded. Running his hand across the
overlarge controls beside the airlock door, he
inspected the seals on his helmet one last time as
he waited for the door to open. Kirk was just about to question
the delay when Chekov looked up with a frov tilde
n and touched the clumsy panel again. S mething
almost like pain crossed the lieutenant's face as he
stared at the panel. Kirk's heart wrenched inside
him. "What is it? What's wrong?" "I . . ."
Chekov shook his head slowly. "I can't
access!"
McCoy straightened in his seat.
"What?"
"It won't let me in!" Chekov cried in
delight. He
tossed the helmet back behind him again. "The
airlock-it's cycling! He's alive!"
McCoy was already on his feet beside Chekov by the
time the status light on the airlock door flashed
green. Chekov yanked off his own gloves as the
doors sighed open; it was all the two men could do
to catch Scott as the engineer stumbled through and started
to fall.
"Scotty, move your hand!" McCoy ordered,
trying to pry loose the hand Scott had clamped just
above his left elbow. "Move your hand!"
The hand moved, but not in response to McCoy;
Scott caught at Chekov's wrist as the
lieutenant reached to break Scott's helmet
stays. A six- centimeter-long tear marred the arm
of the suit, revealing Scott's blood-stained
tunic beneath. McCoy thrust his hand into the opening as
Scott motioned Chekov frantically to his left
shoulder. The lieutenant nodded comprehension.
"Whoa! Hold on a minute!" the doctor
protested when Chekov shouldered him out of the way.
"This man's hurt!"
"tie also has a suit breach," Chekov
answered shortly. "There are joints in these suits
that lock down to inimize air loss. They also cut
off
circulation." He angled his eyes up at
Scott's visor and asked loudly,
[*reggg'Reaft?"
Looking thoroughly miserable, Scott merely
nodded
Chekov twisted something at the shoulder of the suit,
and the seal gave way with a popping gasp. Scott
threw his head back with an expression of profound

pain, then slid bonelessly to the floor between
Chekov and McCoy.
"Is he all right?" Kirk asked anxiously.
McCoy nodded from where he was still bent over
Scott's arm. "Looks that way. This is long, but
clean, and not too deep." He flashed Scott a
rueful grin as Chekov removed the engineer's
helmet. "So much for the heroics, eh, Mister
Scott?"
Scott's grin looked weak and sad against his
pale face. "No more heroics, Doctor-that I can
promise you..."
"laid you sever the nacelle?" Kirk wanted
to know.
Scott nodded. "I was hit at a good time-just when
I was ready to go. She's severed and on her way."
He chuckled. "She ought to produce a bonny
fireworks display when she hits home, too."
"Well done, Mister Scott," Kirk told
him, smiling. "1"'11 et you a promotion for this."
"I'd settle for a week off with pay," the
engineer replied.
"Done."
"Sr . . . ?" Sulu stirred slightly, but
didn't open his eyes. "Do you really think the
Enterprise will see the flash?"
Kirk sighed, afraid to hazard a promise.
"I don't know, Mister Sulu," he admitted
at last. "We'll just have Ito wait and see."
I
White-blue light bathed the shuttle nearly an
hour later, blinding Kirk and Chekov, who
happened to be watching out the starboard windows for the
event. "Do you think that did it?" McCoy wanted
to know.
"It did something," Chekov replied cynically.
"We just have to hope it hit the right
asteroid."
Scott stretched out to rest in a row of rear
seats; when a lightning show of sparks and flashes
commenced precisely a half hour following the
explosion, the engineer only commented, "I'd say we
hit the right
asteroid," and went back to sleep.
An hour of tense inactivity followed, but the
Enterprise didn't appear. "Maybe Spock
wants to be sure before he commits to coming this close
to the planet," McCoy suggested halfheartedly.
Scott was the only one moved to respond. "More
likely, not enough of the explosion's energy made it through
this system's gravitational mumbo jumbo to register
as noteworthy on the Enterprise's sensors," the
engineer explained sadly. "We didn't look
any different than anything else that's going on out
here."
"Meaning?" McCoy pressed.
"Meaning nothing," Scott told him. "Nothing
at all."
No one else cared to speculate further on the
Enterprise's absence. Kirk's stomach
embarrassed him by occasionally punctuating the silence
with voluble grumbles; he soon gave up
apologizing. They were tilde all hungry, and
tired, and depressed. He tried not to remind himself
that all these conditions would end t1ar too soon.
"How are you feeling, Scotty?" he asked, just
to bre tilde up the silence. Scbtt looked up from
his impromptu couch and rubbed at his bandaged left
arm. "Good enough," he said. "But I'm not going
EV again!"
Kirk smiled. "I don't think you'll have to."
"Do you have a Kobayashi Maru story?"
McCoy wheedled from the front row. "We still have time
to fill."
Scott pushed himself upright with a sigh, wincing when his
injured arm brushed against the back of the seats. "I
suppose I could take up a wee bit of time with the
story."
Chekov looked honestly surprised. "You took
the
Kobayashi Maru?"
Scott scowled at him. "No, they just let any
engineer take the bridge when the captain is gone!"
He softened his words with a smile. "I had my share
of command school. I just didn't take to it so
well."
"With the destructive tendencies the rest
of this crew has displayed," McCoy commented, "I
would think anything you did as a cadet would be exem-
plary."
Scott shook his head and settled in for the tale.
"Doctor, when it comes to destructive tendencies,
these bairns have nothing on me . . . to was
I
IN THEORY
"IF THIS WERE GRADE SCHOOL, Mr.
Scott, I'd have to take those drawings away."
Scott hastened to conceal his papers beneath splayed
hands, scratched a meaningless line along the left-hand
margin of his diagram in the process. AdmiraGl
Howell smiled indulgently from the front of
Scot's desk; that's when Scott realized the rest
of his classmates were long gone. He felt his
face begin to warm. "Oh . . . Sorry,
Admiral, sir. . ."
was omehow," Howell commented with a sigh, "I dou
t you are." He plucked the bottommost paper
fro Scott's pile and turned it about for study.
Scott trie hard to withhold a wince when Howell
frowned at the drawing, rotated it another ninety
degrees, then lifte one eyebrow in
uncomprehending
curiosity. "Sc ematics?" he finally
queried, glancing at Scott.
T e young Scotsman knotted his hands together in
his lap. "Aye, sir. . ."
"Mister Scott, this is history class, not
design!"
"Oh, I'm not designing it, Admiral!" He
leaned halfway across the desk, bending the edge of the
paper back to peer at the scribbling upside down.
"I'm redesigning! See, it's part of a
defective coolant system at my cousin's
station. I was helping her trace a fault, and we
got as far as here-was He tapped one complex
tangle of lines and symbols. "combbf I had
to leave for command school." His attention caught on a
mismatched circuit reference; the stylus was in his
hand, scribbling at the paper before he took the time
to consider that Howell probably wasn't interested in
the drawing's accuracy. "What I can't figure
out," he went on, returning the stylus to his
desk, "is how this coupling-was He circled yet
another portion of the sketch with one finger. "comfits
into it all. I mean, it fits--right here-but it
doesn't fit in, if you see what I mean. And
I think that's the problem. See, if you
look right here-was
"viister Scott . . ."
"plus comy can see where the current-was
"Mister Scott!"
Scott clamped his mouth closed on his blathering,
forcing his mind to shut down all technical thought.
Stopping thinking was never easy for him, but it was something
he figured he'd have to get used to. Captaino were
supposed to depend on other people fvr cleverness. That's
why they were captains.
H (well kept glancing from the paper,
to Scott, to the aper again. "You drew this from
memory?" he aske , brown eyes busy with thought.
"All of it?"
"Well . . ." Scott pulled down the corner
of the sheet again, just in case they'd somehow begun
discus-
sion on another sketch without his knowing it. The
same drawing filled the crumpled sheet. It was no
wonder Howell felt the need to verify the
blueprint's authenticity; Scott was ashamed of his
own sloppy handiwork. "I only tore the system
down the once," he was forced to admit abashedly.
Howell snorted once with amusement, then dropped
the schematic back among Scott's other
things. "What's your major area of study, Mister
Scott?" he asked as Scott shuffled his drawings
into some order.
"Engineering, sir." He wished Howell would
excuse him before remembering to turn this talk into a
formal reprimand.
"And you studied engineering before the Academy?"
"Yes, sir. . ." Smoothing his crumpled
drawings with one hand, Scott tried to ignore the
despair slowly twisting his stomach. "I've always
studied it."
"I see." Howell leaned back against another
desk and folded his arms. "Why are you here, Mister
Scott?"
"I . . ." Scott cursed aloud when he
realized it was 1113 and he was more than just a little
late for his next class. "I don't know!" he
cried. "I was due in tacos-was
,eaationo, Scott . . ." The admiral caught
at Scott's arm as the engineer pushed to his feet
in a flurry of books and loose paper.
"Blot, sir, I-was
"I mean what are you doing in command school?"
Scott's mind shied away from all thoughts of
215
captaining a starship; he didn't want to give
fear another chance to tear up his peace of mind. "I
. . . I'm learning to be a starship commander."
was Do you want to be a commander?" Howell asked
him, still holding on to his arm.
Scott shrugged (a bit stupidly, he thought),
all the while wishing his mouth hadn't gone so dry.
"I don't know, sir."
Howell nodded. "I take it that means no?"
""lies, sir," he admitted timidly. "I
guess it does."
"So why are you here?"
Scott sighed and sank back into his seat.
"My family, sir . . ." He spent a moment
casting about for words that wouldn't misrepresent the
situation back home. "I've been helping my
cousin, who's a bonny engineer," he finally sighed.
"But the rest of them . . . well; they think I'm
being wasted by not being in command . . . I got tired of
fighting them, that's all , ."
was idn't your cousin have anything to say?"
S ott laughed as he remembered the string of
voluble rofanity Cheryl had launched at the family
when she eard of Scott's "decision." "Aye, she
had plenty to s you. But the folks figure
you can buy fine engineers thro gh the mail." He
caught a flash of disapproval in Ho ell's
eyes, and leaned forward to insist, "They mean well,
Admiral-they truly do! They're good folk, and
good people. They just don't understand the ailing-they most of
them don't know what it mea s . . . to was
"But it's your life, Mister Scott." Howell
tugged at Scott's diagrams but didn't pull
them free again. "It's your career! If you really
don't want to be a starship 216
captain, tell me! I'll go to Admiral
Walgren and see if I can have you transferred
to Engineering School."
The very thought made Scott's stomach wrench with
worry. "Please, sir, don't do that." Pushing
to his feet, he pulled all his books to his chest
and hoped they would hide his unsteady breathing. "I
got in here, after all, so I must have something. If
I've really got the ability Starfleet seems
to think I do, I figure it would be a crime not
to use it. Besides, it would break my poor mother's
heart if I just walked out now."
Howell sighed and partially turned away. "Have you
thought about what you're going to do when they finally push you
up to your own command?" Scott stepped past
Howell and headed hastily for the door. "I'll
make do," he assured the admiral. "I always
do."
Scott rubbed at his eyes and slouched lower at his
workstation. The coupler he'd been designing rotated
slowly through all three dimensions on the computer
screen in front of him. He paused it wherever he
felt necessary, but there were few alterations to make at this
stage; he'd been working on the coupler for several
hours.
A1 three in the morning, the computer lab was
predictably empty. Scott didn't mind the
solitude; in fact," he preferred it to the
noisy, pointless evenings enjoyed by his fellow
cadets. Listening to the others speculate on their
future careers, their future commaids, ate at
Scott's already fragile sense of selfworth; his
own lack of ambition hung around his neck like a
stone, marking him as unworthy of the attention and
encouragement he'd already received in Starfleet.
He felt guilty that he'd allowed himself to be
pressured in!coming to command school-guilty that he
didn't want to be here at all. Scott would have
been happy repairing and designing ships' systems
forever, and, for some reason, he felt
guilty about that, too.
Stopping the coupler display's rotation, Scott
leaned forward to speak into the computer. A few notes
to Cheryl, then he'd batch the entire design off
to her before cutting off to bed. He'd already have a rough
time slipping into the barracks unnoticed; he wished
he worried about curfew violations as much as he
worried about his future.
The technical notes to Cheryl only took a
few seconds. Scott hesitated briefly over
whether to include personal hellos to the family;
he decided against it when all he could think to say
was, I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE! over
and over and over again. And then,; I MISS YOU
ALL.
HOEA"d only just sent the transmission on
its way whe the computer screen flashed black and the
coup er design vanished. Scott paused, his hand
hov- erin over the power switch, wondering who he would
repo t a malfunction to at this time of night. Of
course, he could always pry the equipment apart and
trac down the problem himself. Before he could slide the
terminal about and set to work, an amber trail of
print danced across the screen.
I T OUGHT THIS MUST BE Y.
NICE DESIGN-
IN , 'SCOTTY".
"What in . . . ?" He pulled his hands down
into his lap, not sure if he should power down the
terminal or
encourage this peeper by responding. The fact that
some computer wizard had managed to "peep" into the
Academy's system at all troubled Scott
mightily. There were more important data than
Scott's engineering designs in the Academy
computer; all it took was one careless peeper, and the
whole system could come crashing down. Then it occurred
to him that the peeper might very well be within the
Academy, and not an outside source at all. That
calmed his mind a little. "Where are you?" he asked.
"Don't you know it's after curfew?"
AMUSING. I NEEDN'T WORRY ABOUT
CURFEW. BUT YOU SHOULD-IT'S AFTER 0300.
WHY RISK SO MANY DEMERITS FOR SUCH
A SILLY PROJECT?
Labeling Cheryl's coupler "silly" wounded
Scott's pride. He'd promised Cheryl a
finished design before he left; he was delivering
nearly three months late, but he vas confident enough
in his abilities to believe she'd think the
wait well worth it. He wasn't about to try and
explain his affection for design to some peeper whose very
hobby made clear that he didn't give a damn
about the pride people took in their systems. "Who are
you?"
PERHAPS I'M YOUR FAIRY GODMOTHER. I
AM WILLING TO GRANT YOU ONE WISH.
Send me home! Scott thought, all unbidden.
He shook his head to scatter such dreams, afraid
to even mention them, much less wish for them.
YOU ARE A FINE ENGINEER, BUT AN
UNHAPPY CAPTAIN. IF YOUR FAIRY
GODMOTHER WERE TO OFFER YOU A CHANCE
TO LEAVE COMMAND SCHOOL AND RETURN
TO
ENGINEERING-WITHOUT SHAMING YOUR FAMILY OR
REQUIRIN G YOU TO BE REMISS IN YOUR
DUTIES-WOULD YOU ACCEPT?
Scott touched the screen with wondering fingers. The
coupler design sprang up beneath them, rotating a
slow, silent waltz.
YES OR NO, MISTER SCOTT?
the peeper pressed impatiently.
THE ANSWER IS THAT SIMPLE.
distilde seaea1
It was done. He couldn't take the word back now,
no matter what happened. The genie was out of the
bottle and promising his fealty.
I
VERY WELL. SIMPLY BE YOURSELF,
SCOTTY.
LE*VE THE REST TO ME.
The coupler vanished, along with the glowing word ,
leaving Scott all alone in an empty computer
lab. He thumbed the power switch with one numb hand
tilde then sat for a long time after the faint hum of the
machinery faded. Early the next morning, as
Scott pulled on his boots in a crowded, brightly
lit barracks, he realized it all
must have been a dream. You just didn't get
second chances of such
magnitude-Cheryl would get her coupler
design, Scott would get his captain's stripes,
and all these silly wishes would be left far behind.
Unknown peepers just didn't come in and fix everything
without being asked. That just wasn't how the real world
worked.
He tried not to let the incident bother him
anymore.
"Tell me again-how did I get to be
in command of this scenario?"
"Computer selection. I always thought the computer
picked the best commander for any scenario based on
student records." The other cadet glanced
Scott quickly up and down, shrugging more to himself than
to his companion. "I guess it's just random draw,
though."
Scott was inclined to agree. In a previous
scenario, he'd been assigned the position of chief
engineer, and the annoyance of having to tell a
half-dozen other cadets what to do (as if
engineers couldn't think of enough duties for themselves)
nearly killed him. Now the computer was saying that
Montgomery Scott was the best it could do for a
starship commander from this class; if that were the case,
Scott was heartily concerned about the rest of
Starfleet.
The simulation chamber-so startlingly like a real
stalrship's bridge that Scott kept expecting the
real captain to chase him out of the command chairrumbled
shut like a monstrous clam. How could they Wk him in
here like this, responsible for so many people? It was only
make-believe, true, so any decisions he made
couldn't really affect the whole Federa-
tion. Still, no one had even asked
Scott if he wanted to be the captain, and he
most emphatically didn'd Oh, Admiral
Howell had asked, "Are you ready?" just before steering
Scott off for the bridge, but Scott knew that was
only a polite question, not a real question wanting a real
answer. So Scott had replied, "I'm ready,"
in a voice whose steadiness lied about his trembling
hands. Smiling a little sadly, Howell had clapped
him manfully on the back and sent him on his way.
Scott would rather the admiral had banished him to the
outer Pleiades.
The first part of the scenario passed in a haze. The
U.s.s Saratoga didn't appear to be doing
anything important in this simulation-just a routine
training cruise to Gamma Hydra, without even
supplies to drop off or passengers to coddle.
Scott mouthed meaningless course changes,
responded woodenly to questions and comments. He couldn't
completely divorce knowledge of the simulation's falseness
from everything that happened, so he tried to convince himself that
nothing impressive would be expected from j him.
When asked about rescuing a damaged neutrbnic
fuel carrier, Scott responded with an
automatid affirmative, then turned back to the
discussion he'd een conducting with
Saratoga's nonexistent engineering staff. This red
alert siren startled him out of a dissertation on ci uit
rerouting and energy dispersal. "What's the matter?"
he asked, realizing belatedly that he probably should
have directed that question to his exec.
"T Klingon cruisers, dead ahead," the
science officer reported, just as helm exclaimed,
"They're readying their weapons!"
Scott's stomach turned to hot water and started
to crawl about his insides. "Communications," he
summoned evenly, "try to explain to these . . ."
Mindful of the monitoring officers, he tempered the
label he'd intended to employ. "dis . . people that
we're here on a rescue-was
"Incoming!"
"Full power to screens!" The command had barely
cleared Scott's lips when the first barrage of
disrupter fire expended itself against Saratoga's
deflectors. Scott's teeth clacked together as
he was flung back into his seat by the impact.
"Screens four, seven, and eight are down," the
executive officer, bent over his viewer,
reported stonily. "Screens three and sixteen
are damaged. They won't last another round,
sir."
Scott stared at the exec in stunned
disappointment. "Were our deflectors up?" he
sputtered. Intellectually, he knew they were;
instinctively, he just couldn't believe a simple
disrupter could wreak that much havoc, even through only
partial shielding.
"We've also got premature detonation in four
of our six torpedo tubes," the exec continued.
"What?!"
"And a complete loss of power in the starboard wasp
nacelle." The young officer raised his head from his
viewer like a doctor pulling away from a dying
patent. "We're just about done, sir."
Scott would have been less confused if the man had
started speaking in tongues. "That much damage...?"
The exec nodded. "That's the whole tally, sir."
"How?"
"Disrupters, sir," the helmsman sighed, a
bit irritably. "They can do a lot of damage
to a ship."
"Is that so?" Scott grated softly, feeling the
blood rise hot and angry into his cheeks. He
lifted his chin to the Klingons who closed on the
viewscreen, suddenly not caring that this was just a damn
scenario. "Well, not to my ship, they
don't-not with a single damn barrage!" Any computer
that thought otherwise deserved whatever Scott could throw
at it. He slammed his fist onto the command chair's
intercom button. "Phaser bay!"
"Aye, captain?"
was Yes, sir?"
"Stir?"
Another blast rocked the ship. Scott felt
each rumble like fire in his blood. "Number three
screen, dowp!" the exec called. Scott ignored
him. "I' want all phaser bays to fire on my
command, each of you aimed at one of those bedeviled
crafts," Scot instructed the phaser chiefs
grimly. "Continuous re-start at your lowest
possible frequency-was
Another disrupter hit. And another.
"Plumber three screen is down, sir!" the
exec repeated loudly.
Sc tt wished the beggar would quit interrupting his
thin ing. "comrange upward until you match their
interference pattern and cut through those shields like
butter!"
was ye, aye!" all three bays responded in
unison. Scot smiled the smile of a satisfied
hunter.
The navigator was already plotting an escape
course as the Saratoga's bays opened fire with a
chilling,
climbing wail. "I can't signal Starfleet,"
the communications officer interjected from behind Scott.
"The Klingons are jamming my signal."
Golden-red light burst across the viewscreen like
a nova, burning Scott's eyes with its
brilliance as Saratoga's phasers finally reduced
the Klingons to atom. "Not anymore, they aren't,"
Scott told communications. "Contact Starfleet.
Helm-get us out of here."
"Working on it, sir." The helmsman swore
suddenly, punching at his panel. "But we've got
company again!"
The five blue-gray cruisers hove into view
even as the helmsman reported. "That's it for the
phaser banks, sir," the science officer reported
as the Saratoga began her limping retreat. "Bay
crews report all cells exhausted beyond our
ability to recharge."
Scott waved off the report, dropping back
into his chair. He wanted to feel weak and wasted
after that first adrenaline surge. All he felt was
sere and angryangr tilde at the
monitoring officers for making him captain in a
scenario he patently had no business commanding,
angry at whoever had programmed this fatalistic
computer in the first place. "Don't worry abou the
phaser bays. We aren't going to need them agai ,
anyhow."
was ingons closing!"
"CO all rear shields," Scott ordered.
His brain raced about like light in a mirrored box,
searching his memory for any ideas at all. "I
want everything we've got up front."
Especially with a computer that so
overestimates Klingon firepower! He punched
at the intercom again as a course of action began
to take form. "Engineering!"
"Aye, sir?"
"Pull me a canister of antimatter-was
The engineer sputtered. "Sir?"
"Don't question, just listen!" He didn't have time
to explain every step of his plans to these nervous
nellies. "It should take you just under three minutes,
if you hurry. Pull me the whole thing and run it
to the closest transporter room!"
"But-I-was
was Move! Bridge out." He thumbed
another button as
the helmsman announced that the first Klingon torpe
does were on their way. ?"'" orpedo bay," a
nervous male voice replied to Scott's
brusque summons. "You called, bridge?"
"Aye. You're dead down there, right?"
was Meaning the bays, sir?"
Scott dropped his head into his hands and counted
quickly to three. "Yes, the bays. You don't
function?"
L ght, white and flashing, sprayed across the
bridge as t e Klingon torpedoes impacted
with the forward scr ns and detonated.
was verything's completely dead down here, sir," the
wea ons tech answered when the explosion was past.
was 11 right, then," Scott continued
decisively. "Pack up every torpedo you can get
your hands on and get "emIto the transporter
rooms."
"Everything?"
"Everything! Six torpedoes to each transporter
room! Now go!"
"Transporter room to bridge!" The call
came immediately upon the torpedo bay's sign-off
"We've got that antimatter canister,
sir. What now?" Scott held the channel open,
turning to the helmsma n. "Pull us back. Keep
pulling us back as fast as impulse drive will
allow."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Navigator?"
"Sir?"
"Start a continuous reading on the crux ship's
position, and transmit your data down to the
transporter room." He bent to the intercom again.
"Prepare to receive coordinates."
"Incoming," the helmsman announced, with somewhat
less concern than before. Scott nodded his
acknowledgment, already working equations in his head for the
next fleet of ships he knew the computer would
send.
"Coordinates received, bridge," the
transporter room responded after a moment. Then
"Uh, sir? Which should we use?"
Scott grinned. "Give me less than two
kilometers in front of the crux ship-was
The second barrage hit with considerably more force
than the first. Scott clung to the command chair while
half his bridge crew was thrown to the floor, the
lighting dimmed sharply before climbing again on
emergency power.
"comeaMess than two kilometers," Scott
picked up again when tilde the systems had
stabilized, "from whatever its coordinates are when you
energize. Then I want you to immediately beam back the
canister."
"But-was
"Just the canister," Scott stressed. When would
these bairns learn to shut up and just listen? "Leave
the antimatter behind."
"Holy cow . . ."
Scott listened while transporter techs
scurried about like busy ants. The distance was too
great for the bridge crew to see when the antimatter was
delivered, but everyone knew when the crux ship
struck the antimatter's area of affect all
five cruisers flew apart into white noise and
molecular wind just as they leashed another assault.
Scott was grinning like a fool when the ship bucked
him out of the chair and onto the deck.
"Screens are down, Captain!" sounded on top
of someone else's frantic, "Hull breach!
We've got a hull breach in section six
hundred!"
Scott climbed back into the command chair
without bothering to ask the science officer if any
trace of the", enemy ships remained (the velvet
emptiness beyorfd the viewscreen rendered such questions
extraneouj). "Navigator! Are we out of the
Neutral Zone yet his
"4We have been!" the navigator replied.
"They're foll tilde wing us!"
" Ah, hell . . . to was
"Nine!"
veryone on the bridge jerked about at the science
obled er's broken squeak. "What?" Scott
demanded, irrationally annoyed at the man's
interruption. Nine!" the officer replied, still looking
shocked. "We've got nine Klingon ships closing
on our port bow!"
"Coming around!" helm announced even as Scott
stabbed at the intercom to call, "Transporter
room!"
"We've got them!" the main transporter room
proclaimed. "Six torpedoes in every room.
Orders, Captain!"
It won't work, Scott realized suddenly. He
checked the equations in his head again, and wondered if a
computer would let mathematics outprove
experimentation. Shaking his head, he
admitted that he had nothing to lose. "Take your
coordinates from navigations again-was The navigator
nodded understanding and started to scan. "comand from the science
station." The science officer whirled to face her
panel. "Lock on the juncture points in the
Klingon screen system and beam six torpedoes
to each juncture point on my command."
Scott studied the sleek ships on the
viewscreen as he awaited the
transporter rooms' readiness. The monitors
would stop the scenario, he was sure of it. Someone would
blast open the screen and rail at him for dishonesty-for
cheating! His career would end in ruins
"Transporter room, here." The voice at his
elbow made him jump. "All rooms ready for
beaming."
Scott licked dry lips and nodded at the
approaching ship. "Transport at will."
Toe resultant explosion was beyond deafening;
Scot's ears rang in painful symphony with his
aching heart as atomic fire consumed the nine
Klingon war dragons less than a thousand
kilometers beyond his bow.i He ducked his head against
it, hearing the navigator bark a startled curse.
He was still staring at the floor as the world
faded from white, to ephemeral
pastels, to gray-speckled normalcy again. They
iegoing to kill me, he thought with sick resignation.
" Fifteen war dragons, on the way." The
helmsman began to laugh a little manically.
"Jesus Christ! Fifteen . . . to was
Scott couldn't make himself look up to watch the
ships close. The knowledge that this was not realityand that he could
pay dearly for taking advantage of that fact-had
been driven home again with gale force when those nine
ships cleared the screen. Suddenly, he'd lost
interest in defending the honor of a ship that wasn't
even really there. He would do his best until this
travesty was all over, but he knew better than
anyone else at this Academy just how pitiful his
best would be. "Engine room, unlock the warp
drive main control. You'll need somebody from
weapons, but ."
Scott kept his eyes carefully focused on the
wall abov tilde Admiral Walgren's head.
He didn't know whet er or not this private conference
room was reall colder than the rest of the
Academy, but it certainly felt like it now. was o
you know why I've called you here?" Walgren aske
the engineer stiffly. was e, sir," Scott
answered softly. "I . . . I think I do."
was ould you state that reason, please?" Commodore
Hoh an glanced sidelong at Walgren, evincing
more than just a little annoyance. "For the benefit of those of
us who aren't entirely certain."
Scott looked at Walgren for confirmation. The
tall,
gray-haired Englishman seemed the only one
of the four monitoring officers who filly understood
what Scott had accomplished in the simulator.
Too bad-if Walgren hadn't known, either,
Scott might actually have gotten away with it.
The two commodores continued to look politely
uncertain, and Admiral Howell wouldn't raise his
eyes from where he played with the ice in his water
glass, looking guilty and ashamed. You SHOULD be
ashamed of me, Scott ruefilly thought to the
admiral. It was a crime against physics. 1
deserve to be punished.
"Mister Scott . . ." Walgren's sharp tone
recaptured Scott's attention. "Explain,
please, what you did."
"I used the Perera Field Theory to destroy that
last squadron of war dragons." It was the last
squadron he'd destroyed, at least-the
last fifteen dreadnoughts had atomized Saratoga
without taking a single hit. Scott was still convinced he
could have taken the last fifteen, if there had really
been an engine room, and if he could have run down
there to demonstrate to the engineers what he was trying
to explain when Saratoga vea*ness destroyed. "You
see," he continued when no one save Walgren
looked any more enlightened, "Klingons run in
packs so they can link their shields into a multiship
field system. That way, any shield hit hard enough
can draw power from other parts of the system to keep from
buckling." He paused to glance between the two
commodores. "Should I go on"..."...I
Hohman's lips quirked into a half-scowl,
half-grin. "Please."
"Well," Scott continued, "the Perera Theory
hypothesizes that a photon torpedo placed at
any juncture point in such a screen system will
detonate due to the forces exerted by the complex energy
exchanges. All the math and prior theorems
support Perera's conclusion."
"Sounds good," Hohman allowed. "So what's the
problem?"
"The problem," Walgren cut in, "is that
Perera's Field Theory is wrong."
"It doesn't work in practice," Scott added
for purposes of clarification. Noticing
Walgren's icy glare, he quickly returned his
attention to the wall.
"You mean," Howell asked carefully, "that when you
do it in real
life-nothing happens?"
"Precisely." Walgren nodded. "No one's
entirely certain why, but it's been proven through
experimentation. And hard data override mathematics
every time."
Commodore Shoji politely raised one hand
to gain Wal en's attention. "Are you objecting
to Mister Scott's use of the theory because it is not
applicable in real life?"
"Certainly!" the Englishman replied. "This is
supposed to be a simulation, not a fantasy!"
"But the students are expected to use everything they
have at their disposal," Shoji returned. He
glanced at Scott with an inquiring tilt to his
head. "Yo understood that this Perera Theory did not
truly work."
Considering his knowledge of engineering-not to mention his experience
with the Perera TheoryScott found the question surprising.
"Of course!" he
asserted. "But I also figured the computer would
let me do it, because any mathematics it worked out would
support Perera's findings."
The Japanese commodore shrugged. "I believe
Mister Scott acted well within the parameters of the
scenario," he concluded. "He recognized the
avenues open to him, and utilized them."
"But this is supposed to be real!" Walgren
argued, even as Hohman growled, "I still don't
understand what the problem is!"
"Well, I sort of cheated, I guess,"
Scott volunteered in response to the commodore's
complaint.
"More than "sort of," it would appear,"
Howell admitted.
"Are you sure this Perera thing doesn't work?"
Hohman pressed. "I mean, even Scott's
introductory lecture sounded okay to me."
The British admiral uttered a distinctly
superior snort and refused to even look at
Hohman. "You, Commodore Hohman, are not an
engineer."
Admiral Howell sighed. "And neither are
Commodore Shoji and myself. In the hopes of reaching
some consensus regarding Mister Scott's
solution, Admiral Walgren, do you think you could
find your way clear to produce some definitive
source of information on this subject?"
VU-ALGREN offered the other admiral a haughty
glare. "As", if the word of two engineers weren't
enough!"
was Vh, Admiral?" Scott shuffled
uncertainly from his place at the center of the room.
"Sir, I could-was
"Keep your peace , Mister Scott," Walgren
suggested sternly. "We haven't finished with you
yet."
But I can explain! Scott wanted to plead.
Still, 233
Walgren's steel-gray eyes didn't look
interested in producing a "definitive source" other
than his own, so Scott merely uttered a doubtful,
"Uh . . . aye, sir . . ." and fell silent.
Walgren buzzed his own yeoman to bring the
appropriate references from his library. Scott
twiddled his fingers behind his back and tried
to recognize constellations in the speckled tile on
the ceiling.
"Ali! Here it is!" Walgren was already deep
into one of the manuals, keying past pages so
fast Scott was surprised the man could identify the
contents. "In the Encyclopedia of Engineering
Development and Design, was the
Englishman recited. "Under A, for "Aberdeen
Solution.""
Hohman made a face. "The engineer's name was
Aberdeen?"
"T at's the city where the theory was tested,"
Scott volunteered quietly. Howell flicked
a quick glance at the c det, but no one else
seemed to hear. W gren ran a finger down the reader
screen, tracing the lies of type. was "Aberdeen,
Scotland, Earth . . ."" he uttered, his voice
without inflection as he scanned ahead of what he
read. was "dis . . in which Earthborn
engineering student Montgomery Scott construc ed
seven separate field generators in order
to simulate the current Klingon design, based
on data obtained . . ." was Scott saw
Walgren's eyes dart back to the top of the screen,
then the older admiral's hand stopp d its tracing.
"Montgomery Scott?"
Everyone turned to stare at Scott. Blushing, the
ensign offered them a small shrug. "Aye," he
admitted, grinning. "That's me."
Hohman looked as if he'd lost the ability
to breathe. "How old were you?" Scott shrugged again,
uncertain why this mattered. "About sixteen, I
suppose, sir."
"Good God . . . to was
"Do you tinker with engineering as a hobby, Mister
Scott?" Walgren asked seriously. His eyes
bore into Scott intently, as though this were the final
question on some test Scott hadn't known he was taking.
"I majored in Engineering, sir," he answered
honestly. "And I thought about being a starship engineer
before I came to command school." Walgren's steady
scrutiny was beginning to bother him.
"So you didn't want to attend command school?"
"No, sir," Scott asserted, deeply
sincere. "I respect what captains do, sir, and
I appreciate that Starfleet thinks I'd make
a fine one. B. . ."
He sighed and shook his head. "I think my
heart's meant more for commanding machines than commanding people.
I'd rather I had a captain who appreciated that-one
who didn't feel the need to make me what I'm not
inside."
There-it's said! The results of his admission would
no doubt quickly follow.
A certain distant tenderness settled onto
Walgren's weathered features, and the Englishman
nodded slowly. "[*thorngg'I think we can
arrange that, Mister Scott, if you don't mind."
Scott frowned. "Sir?" His heart labored
under a hope he didn't dare tender. "I'm
removing you from command school," Walgren stated
brusquely. "You performed inadequately during the
Kobayashi Maru scenario, and you
have been found to display an attitude and disposition
not suited to a command officer in Starfleet." At
Scott's delighted gasp, Walgren almost
smiled.
"I . . . Well. . . Thank you, sir!" It
seemed such a ludicrous response; Scott
didn't even care if the older man understood just
what he'd done. "Make good use of your
failure, Mister Scott," the Englishman
advised as he gathered his tapes and turned to go.
"We don't all get a second chance."
Scott stared at Walgren in admiring
gratitude as the admiral headed for the door.
"I'll do that, sir," he promised. "And I'll
never forget you for this!"
The door slid aside, and Walgren
paused only briefly, surprised. "Don't
thank me, Mister Scott. Thank your coupler."
He smiled at Scott's startled stare.; "I
couldn't very well let the engineer who could piece, that
together slip away. Good designing, Mister
Scott, And God go with you."
"God go with you, Admiral Walgren!" Scott
called as the hatchway whispered closed.
He", never saw Walgren again after that, but
Scott kept rack of the older engineer until
Walgren's death at age seventy. During that time,
Scott always hoped that grand luck did, indeed,
follow the admiral to the very end.
Mqst of all, he wished he could tell Walgren
just how much that one decision had meant to his life.
"The difference between living and just hanging around," he would
have told the admiral. "You understand that, don't you?"
Scott couldn't help but believe the admiral
did. Any real engineer would have.
HALLEY
SCOTT sMILED AT KIRK from across the
shuttle's narrow aisle. "It has been grand,"
he sighed with a placid smile. "Hasn't it,
sir?"
The captain nodded, pained and warmed
by all the memories he and the engineer shared. "Yes,
Mister Scott, it certainly has . . ." There was
nothing more to say, and volumes left unspoken.
Kirk closed his eyes, listening to Chekov
reconstruct the radio from Scott's hastily
wired alarm in the front hatch.
,"Come on," he heard McCoy cajole the
engineer softly, "lie back and get some sleep.
We've had enough yalrning for one day."
con"There's no such thing as enough tale-telling,
Doctor," Scott replied, but there was no real
protest in his voice. "We still have the whole realm of
disfiction to address!"
McCoy must have pulled some spectacular face,
because the next thing Kirk heard was Scott's deep
chuckle. "Save it for some other time,
Scotty," the doctor chided. "You need your rest,
and so does our brave leader."
"Aye, Doctor."
McCoy knows, Kirk thought, without any great
alarm. He knows Spock didn't see us. He
knows not to hope anymore. Kirk had come to this
realization an hour after the severed nacelle's
explosion; sharing that knowledge with his old friend lifted some of the
burden from his own conscience, but didn't
help him to accept the defeat. Some part of his mind still
rooted for a solution, like a terrier after a
particularly wily fox. He felt as though he were
only digging at stone now, though; there was nowhere else
to look for that fox within the confines of the real world. Still,
the terrier wouldn't stop trying.
A pouch on his knee brought his attention back to the
resent.
"beow're you doing?" McCoy asked when the
captain iopened his eyes. Kirk suspected the question
probed for information on more than just his knee. was well
as could be expected," he replied, truthful on
al accounts. "How about Sulu?"
Aborting a glance over one shoulder, the doctor
shrugged and continued loading a hypo. "Asleep.
He'll be all right, I think. I've done everything
I can." The hypo filled, he injected the contents
into Kirk's swop n knee. "That should dull the
worst of the pain, " he explained with professional
detachment as he returned the last of his gear to his
pouch, "although it might tend to make you a little
sleepy. Just try to be comfortable, and call me if you
. . ." The doctor's 238
hands hesitated in stowing the equipment away. "dis
. . if you need anything."
Kirk caught McCoy's wrist, switching his
grip to the doctor's hand when the older man looked
up to meet his gaze. "Thanks, Bones. . ."
He hoped McCoy would understand all the other things
he didn't have the words to say. The doctor only
smiled wanly and squeezed the captain's hand.
"No charge," he said softly. "Now go to sleep."
McCoy dimmed the overhead lights on his way
back to his own seat.
Dancing on that dividing line between emergency
lamplight and darkness, rest proved too elusive
for Kirk's agitated state of mind. The pain in his
knee, just as McCoy promised, dampened
to nonexistence, but only a dryness in his mouth and a
muzziness in his head hinted at the sleep that should have
accompanied that respite. One by one, all movement
from Scott and McCoy stilled, both men's breathing
drifting into the childlike susurrus of exhausted
sleep. Sulu's harsh, strained breathing blended with the
quit white noise from the damaged radio up
front.
I've done it, Kirk thought, oddly fascinated
by the realization. I've failed. He tried
to reject the thought, but jcdn't; so far, the only
way they'd kept themselves safe was
by exhausting every available avenue. Now, there was nothing
left to hope for. Nothing left but jthe waiting. I
WON'T give up! Kirk insisted. He
valiantly wanted to dig for just one more try, but
exhaustion crept in too close, and he felt his
eyes begin to close. I don't believe in the
no-win scenario! Still, try as he 239
might, he sank into a restless sleep to the
melody of the radio's distant static.
And awoke in a fever, certain of what they must
do. Kirk pushed himself upright, delighting in the
swell of anguish that engulfed his knee, in the
giddy, dizzy darkness that lingered all about him.
Only one emergency lantern still burned-in the main
cockpit, where it illuminated only the front
quarter of the passenger area; Kirk could just make out
the soihnolent forms of his four crewmen as he
rolled over and started to rise.
Slapping at the lighting control as he hobbled
past, Kirk even reveled in the sleepy confusion that
reigned as the others struggled into wakefulness.
"Jim, 1-1,
"I've got a plan," Kirk interjected,
cutting off McCoy's protest. "I think we can
still get out of this."
No one said anything for a heartbeat. Sulu
stirred slightly; Chekov placed a protective
hand on the helm man's shoulder as Sulu asked
faintly, "What's all the excitement about?"
"Ybu'd better be damn sure about this,"
McCoy warmed the captain grimly. Kirk
turned instead to Chekov; he couldn't promise
McCoy certainty, so he wouldn't promise
anything at all. was tilde lister Chekov-the
navigation
computer's perman tilde nt memory keeps
track of Halley's location in relation to all the
pertinent beacons and markers. Correct?" The
security officer only nodded. Kirk shot the
next question at Scott "Is there anything wrong with
,t permanent memory?"
"Not a thing," the engineer replied.
"Then we know precisely where we are." That was
hurdle number one. "All right," Kirk continued.
"Sulu, can you recall the Enterprise's
coordinates when you left the bridge?"
"Yes, sir. 896-448-009 mark 24, and
holding."
"So we know where the Enterprise is," McCoy
picked up. "But I still don't understand."
Kirk grinned at him. "You don't have to."
Shifting position on his good leg, he braced himself
more firmly against the bulkhead. "The problem with
waiting for the Enterprise, was he addressed them all,
"is that the
Enterprise doesn't know where to look. It
doesn't help that the sensors are half-blinded
by what's going on inn the system around us. You said it
yourself, Scotty-we don't look any different
than everything else the Enterprise can read. So what
we need to do is make ourselves look
different, then aim that difference at the Enterprise
so she can't help but notice."
Delighted by the prospect of rescue,
Scott's face still betrayed some reservation.
"How?" he wanted to know. "We've barely got
life support!" "But we've got the radio."
Kirk waited until he saw understanding begin to dawn
in the engineer's eyes. "Can you make it receive everything
aimed in our direqtion-radio transmissions,
light, sensor scans, the works?" "tilde portable
black hole . . ." Scott muttered distantl .
Kirk nodded. "That's the idea."
was ell, aye . . . but what good does that do us?"
"hat's where Chekov comes in." The young
lieutenant stiffened in his seat, immediately wary and
insecure. "Let's presume Spock started
running a
logical, by-the-book search pattern as soon
as the Enterprise lost track of us . . ."
"That should be a safe assumption."
Kirk ignored the doctor. "I want you to use
that assumption, and the coordinates Sulu
remembers, to plot out where the Enterprise is
now-in relation to us." He returned his attention
to Scott. "If we can direct your black hole
at the ship, a routine scanner sweep should pick it
up. I'm trusting Spock to do the
rest.gg*thorn]"
Scott nodded absently, his fingers twitching on
nonexistent circuits as he plotted through his
construction. "We'll have to coax that remaining engine
into action," he mused, not fully turning his attention
away from his thoughts. "With the bad converter, we'll have
to suck off all our life support and lighting power
if we want to beat this tumble long enough to do any good."
Then his eyes focused abruptly, and he shot) an
anxious glance at Sulu. "Assuming we've got
a pilot, that is . . ."
A brave but weak smile tugged at
Sulu's lips. "This it's where I come in," he
croaked. His dark eyes flick d to one side in
search of McCoy. "Better get me off t ese
drugs, Doc," he advised blithely. "It's
going to b bad enough trying to pilot when I can't turn
my hea 1"
B ue eyes clouded with apprehension, the
doctor sho k his head. "Jim can do it."
rk almost laughed. "No, Jim can't."
Before McCoy could protest further, Sulu
explained, "The captain can pilot a fully
functional ship all right, but this isn't the same
thing. It would be kind of like trying to ride a
unicycle when you only know 242
how to ride a bike. Same principle,
different skill." He tried to flash McCoy a
reassuring grin. "I'll be okay."
"Sulu, you start messing around with that shoulder,
you'll. . ." McCoy's voice trailed off as
he saw the look on the lieutenant commander's
face. Kirk nodded.
"We have a problem. . ." Chekov's dismal
voice brought everyone's attention back to him. He
stared up at Kirk in mixed amazement and dismay.
"The equations we need," he explained,
looking at the others as though in apology. "Mister
Spock might be able to do that kind of mathematics in
his head, but I can't. Not without a computer."
Kirk felt his hope slip away.
"Can you work out the equations by hand?" Scott called
from the rear; the engineer had already bounded out of his seat
to begin collecting various equipment and tools.
Chekov considered for a moment. "I could, was he
allowed. "But-was
Grinning smugly, Scott reappeared in the
doorway with 4 slender rod in one hand. "How about
on deck plates?"
Frowning as Chekov rose to study the offered
tool, Kirk asked, "What is that?"
The engineer pulled the rod down the wall by his
head," leaving a shiny dark streak behind it. "A
deck marking tool," he explained. "You use them
for mar ng circuit information on bulkheads and
decks." He handed the little tool to Chekov with a
triumphant flourish. "Where do you want to start?"
Thinking ahead, Scott tore up all four rear
seats while Chekov was still occupied on the back
wall. The
seats Scott jettisoned out the airlock; the
Russian carried his figuring down onto
the floor without pause.
Excitement built in Kirk like a coiled
clock spring, ticking away at his patience with every
line of equations scribbled across the scuffed deck and
walls. Across the aisle from him, Sulu's bright
humor slowly faded as more and more of McCoy's
pain-killing drugs washed out of his system. "I'm
going to be okay," he kept assuring no one.
"We're all going to be okay."
McCoy paced until Chekov explained
(somewhat irritably) that he was going to have to start
writing on the doctor's feet if they weren't
kept out of the way. The suggestion moved Sulu
to laugh, but McCoy was somewhat less amused; he
retreated sullenly to his front-row seat-tucking
his feet protectively beneath him as he watched
Chekov work along the floor. Kirk did his best
to encourage everyone to remain calm, despite the
fact that he'd have outpaced McCoy if his damaged
knee allowed. Only Scott gave the captain
no headache throughout the planning; however, watching the
engineer disappear into the back with an increasing amount
of the forward hatch finally caused Kirk to quip,
"Leave Sulu something to pilot with, Scotty!"
"tilde he burly Scotsman laughed
with pleasure. "The toi tilde ets go before the helm
does, Captain! Don't you fre to was
Out Kirk fretted anyway.
cCoy kept an equally worried eye on his
patient, occasionally reaching across the seats to touch
Sulu's uninjured shoulder. "You all right?" he
asked, time and time again.
"Sure," Sulu always assured him, adding the
last 244
time "I need to be clear-headed if I'm going
to pilot this wreck."
The doctor snorted. "Are you going to be
clearheaded while you're in this much pain?"
Sulu made a tiny sound that reminded Kirk more
of a sob than a laugh. "More than I would be on your
drugs," he replied thinly. Then, after a minute
pause "Just keep talking to me . . . okay?"
"Sulu!" Chekov called from the rear of the
shuttle; he was out of sight behind the remaining seats,
guarded over by a wall of navigational graffiti.
"What are the Enterprise's last coordinates?"
"Pavel," the helmsman sighed, "didn't you
write them down?"
"Tell me!"
"896-448-009 mark 24."
Chokov finally sat back on his heels with a
weary sigh. Cramped black writing sketched a
cobbled path down the length of the main aisle. He
stretched, stood, and stretched again, then turned and
jotted several lines of numbers on one of the front
walls. "Pry this loose to for me," he instructed
Scott on one of the engineer's trips.
"All finished?" Scott asked with a smile.
Chokov nodded, not exuding quite the same level of
optimism. "That's our course."
"I" ready to fly," Sulu insisted. His
voice was stretc ed as thin as fine wire. "But I
need help getting up front."
Scot paused by the helmsman's seat. "We
don't need you yet," he told Sulu, displaying
the increasingly complex device in his hands. "I've
got to get this outside first. Hang on a while
longer."
"I'm fine," the helmsman answered faintly.
"I love my job."
Scott smiled. "I know you do, lad . . . I
know."
The extravehicular duty fell to Chekov this
time. Scott double-checked every seal on the
lieutenant's suit, clucking and scolding
like a maiden aunt as he pressed the hodgepodge
contraption into Chekov's hands. "Belay to the lock
before we crack the doors," he stressed sternly.
"And keep this thing tied fast to you--lose it, and
I'll see you busted lower than you've ever dreamed!"
Chekov tugged at the cable fixing Scott's
device to the suit. "I won't lose it," he
assured Scott. Then he pulled on his helmet
before the engineer could harangue him further.
Scott caught the lieutenant's helmet in
both hands just', before Chekov turned away. "Be
careful!" He stared hard through the thick face
plate. "You hear me tilde his
Kirk saw Chekov nod once, then the
lieutenant stepped into the waiting lock and was
swallowed by the (closing doors.
tilde o radio chronicled Chekov's
progress along the shu tle's hull. Scott
tried to reassure Kirk "He's only going a
little way--not even as far as the nacelle. The re's
a service hook-up that the gadget will fit right
nicely."
It didn't help. Kirk finally insisted
McCoy an Scott move Sulu into the front
hatch just so there would be something else to do.
Every step proved agony for the young Oriental; as the
pain increased, so did his breathing, which only tore
at his damaged shoulder more. By the time they
situated him at the front console, his sobbing
gasps had almost torn Kirk to shreds.
The captain hobbled into the front doorway to find
McCoy kneeling by the helm. "Let me just give
you something!
Sulu couldn't even command the breath to object, he
simply clutched at McCoy's wrist with his good
hand and refused to let go.
"Damn it, Sulu-to "
"No . . . to was the helmsman whimpered. "dis .
. Doc, please . . . I'll be okay. . ."
The doctor clung to his hypo as though afraid
to try and cope without it. "You're sure?"
"dis . . sure. . ."
McCoy retreated into the passenger area without
even commanding Kirk to sit down.
Chekov returned less than five minutes
later, ffushdd with excitement over the successful
placement of the beacon. Stripping off his helmet and
gloves, he joined Kirk and Sulu in the front
hatch as Scott went aft to fire up the engines.
"You have the course?" Chekov asked Sulu
as he stepped out of his e-suit.
"S re," Sulu whispered. He pointed
shakily to the marked bulkhead plate before him on his
panel. "But , . . why don't you read them off
to me? . . . So l can j still think about piloting. .
."
Ki k plucked the square of metal off the
console and handed it back to Chekov. The security
officer took it with wan, worried nod; but his
voice was calm and confi ent as he reported
to Sulu, "Bring us about to heading 896-448-887
mark 3 . . ."
"dis . . aye, aye, Mister Navigator. .
."
A resonant clunk . . . clunk . . .
clunk . . . clunk passed down the length of the
shuttle as Scott killed the main lighting. Kirk
heard McCoy rise wordlessly in the passenger
cabin and begin snapping on the emergency lamps
once again; the captain clicked on the inset
lantern above the main console without interrupting
Sulu and Chekov's dialogue.
"1'm slipping! . . . Are we slipping off
course?"
Chekov leaned over Sulu's shoulder
to look, touching the helmsman
reassuringly. "You're fine-right on course."
No lights, no air, no heat . . . Kirk
whirled the tally around in his head as he studied
Sulu's pain-creased face. Back to exactly
where they'd started, their lives depended on the
performance of Scott's tiny construc- tion
outside, on Chekov's hastily prepared
navigational equations, on the viability of
Kirk's original plan. If any part of the
complex structure failed, they would all die, just like
in the Kobayashi Maru.
t we all BEAT the test! Kirk's mind
insisted. We pro ed you don't have to accept defeat
gracefully! You could reroute it, like Kirk; or
carry on despite it, like Chckov; or avoid it,
like Sulu; or fight it to the last like a Scottish
bulldog. They would do all those things before giving up
now, if Kirk had to sacrifice his own soul, in the
process. "Heading, Mister Sulu?" he
requested in his most composed captain's voice. was
. . 896-449-678 mark 89 . . ."
was ery good . . ." He glanced up at Chekov
for venocation; the Russian simply nodded. "Carry
on."
Almost precisely an hour later, Sulu
collapsed. He simply didn't respond
to Chekov's course correction, then slid slowly
sideways until Kirk was forced to
lunge out of his own chair to catch him. Chekov and
Scott carried the helmsman back to the passenger
cabin. This time, they laid him gently in the center
aisle, atop a layer of heavy uniform coats;
Chekov spread his own jacket across his friend's
torso.
"Do you think it worked?" the Russian asked
quietly as McCoy administered a series of
injections to Sulu's lifeless form.
"If the black hole worked," Scott tendered
glumly. "There was really no way I could test it."
"And if Spock happened to search in this
directions" Kirk added.
"And if my equations were correct . . ."
"Listen to all of you!" McCoy grumped
crustily. He stomped back to his own place and
seated himself with determined confidence. "It worked. Now
shut up and wait."
It was cold again, and dismal. Kirk hoped they
wouldn't have to wait for long.
fit Ah, Jim, look at her! She
looks like-like an angel!"
Relieved almost to the point of tears, Kirk
didn't respond to McCoy's enthusiastic
commentary; the Enterprise filled his eyes and heart
beyond his ability to react to anything else, and all he
could think was that, to him, the great ship looked like a
fairy-tale swa .
.
comCoy's shining, blue-white angel had
flickered int view a mere fifteen minutes after
Sulu's collapse. Gro ing in the starboard
ports like the rising sun, the point of light
rapidly took on the shape of their salvation.
Kirk hadn't seen the big ship from the
outside for a long time; he'd almost forgotten how
beautiful she could be. Scott dashed about
Halley, closing up equipment lockers, battening
down the cannibalized panels. "What a bloody
mess!" he kept exclaiming. "If I let my
lads see a work area I've been in while it
looks like this, I'll never get "em to put their
gear away!"
"What are you going to tell them about the seats?"
McCoy wanted to know. Scott groaned. "I'll
say we built a drive engine out of
them-it'll keep up their respect."
"Tell them the truth," Kirk suggested. "That
should build enough respect."
"You don't know my engineers," Scott said.
"Bigheaded, all of 'em. It's best if they think
I can build a ship put of scrap wire,
believe me!" By", the time the Enterprise's
rear shuttle bay engulfeci their wayward craft,
Scott was trying to decide if he should dismantle the
defaced interior walls or keep hem for
posterity. Chekov stalwartly refused to voic an
opinion.
McCoy sprang to his feet the moment
Halley bum ed to a cockeyed standstill at the
center of the shutt a bay. Punching at the airlock
controls, he corn lamed, "Scotty! These things
won't open!"
"T at's because we've got no power," the
engineer repli
McCoy slapped at the closed doors with his
hand. "Wel , we've got injured people in here, damn
it! How are going to get out of here?"
"Sock will open the doors," Kirk assured
him. "Now sit down, Bones-they've got
to pressurize the bay first."
"That damn Vulcan thinks we've got all day
. . . to was The doctor struck the door a second
time before starting to pace. "It probably never
occurred to him we might have casualties! Hurrying
is no doubt an "illogical'
activity!" He swung about abruptly and
pummeled the doors again. "Spock, can you hear me?
Open this damn door!" As if inspired by the
doctor's vehemence, the airlock slid open,
releasing
warm, sweet-smelling air into Halley's
central cabin, revealing Spock framed in the
doorway. "Good afternoon, Doctor McCoy," the
science officer greeted him. "I am pleased
to learn that eighteen hours of unnecessary confinement has not
adversely affected your social
skills." "Oh, get out of my way,"
McCoy ordered brusquely as he
shouldered past the tall Vulcan. "Nurse!
Get a litter in here! Have sickbay prepare for
surgery!" Spock moved calmly out of the
doorway, coming to stand by Kirk's shoulder as
McCoy hurried back in with a stretcher and a small
team of medics. Sulu tried to struggle upright as
he was lifted from the floor. "What's going
on?" he
murmured fuzzily. "Where are we?" "Home,"
Chekov told him, smiling. He caught at
Sulu's arm to hold the helmsman down when Sulu
sat up to hug him. "We did it," Sulu said.
Joy at finding himself still
alive seemed to override any pain he might be
feeling. "We actually pulled out of this! We should
get some sort' of medal." Chekov
laughed and pushed his friend flat again. "I'm
satisfied with being
alive."

McCoy grumbled from the head of the stretcher. "That
can be
rectified, Lieutenant." When the security
chief only looked
startled, McCoy elaborated, "I'm taking this
patient to sickbay.
Now, either get out of my way or walk
alongside, but quit holding up the wheels of
progress." "Sorry, Doctor." Chekov
stepped meekly
aside. "I'll be down later," he promised
Sulu as the stretcher
passed. "I'll wait with bated breath."
Chekov followed the
medical team out the door, and Kirk watched a
swarm of chattering
engineers take their places. "Don't touch the
walls!" Scott bellowed at the tech who
scratched at the equations with a thumbnail, seeing if
the script was permanent. "I haven't decided
what I'm doing with
"em yet." "Jesus, Mister Scott," the
tech commented, startled.
"They're a little heavy to frame, don't you
think?" Kirk
suspected Chekov was glad he wasn't around
to hear all this. "A,"
full record of my activities since your
misplacement, is on file on
the bridge, Captain." SpOck's voice
caught Kirk's attention,
reminding him of his first officer's presence. "Very
good, Mister
Spoc comv efficient." He shifted position on
the seat, ngling his gaze up at Spock as though they
were discu sing a recent chess game. "I take it
everything went ell?" This captain detected
a mental shrug in the tilt of the can's head. "With the
exception of Halley's misfo une, everything has
transpired acceptably. We are still endeavoring
to reestablish contact with the Venkatsen Group,
however." Kirk
didn't have the

heart to tell Spock that he'd all but forgotten
about Venkatsen.
When the Vulcan swept a cool look about the
interior of the shuttle,
Kirk glanced about as well, seeing the destruction
as if for the
first time. "Kind of made a mess, didn't
we?" "I shall be
interested to read your own report regarding the last
eighteen
hours," Spock admitted at last. "A
report couldn't do it justice,
Mister Spock," he chuckled, pushing himself
to his feet. "This is
something better left to tales than records."
Spock surprised Kirk by offering the captain an
arm for support; Kirk tried to refuse,
but relented after only two stumbling
steps. Leaning heavily on
Spock's arm, he quipped, "Well, Mister
Spock-should you lead, or shall I?" "Captain?" Which
meant Spock didn't entirely understand.
Kirk smiled. "Let's just say you haven't
got much of a career in
dance." "Indeed." The bright bay lights made
Kirk blink as he trudged slowly down
Halley's inclined ramp. He wondered if he'd
truly believed he'd never see the Enterprise
again, or if some
foolish part of him maintained faint hope . He
suspected the grateful ache in his heart was the
answer. "Nothing's ever impossible."
Spock glanced down at him curiously. "I
beg your pardon?" "Did I
ever tell you about my solution to the Kobayashi
Maru test, Mister
Spock?" "I think not, Captain." Spock
raised an eyebrow.

"By solution, do you mean to imply that you beat the
scenario?"
"Oh, yes." Kirk nodded. "Your solution .
. ." Spock asked, "it has some bearing
on what occurred on board Halley, I
presume?" "All the bearing in the world," the captain
answered softly. He rested his hand against the
Enterprise's cool ivory bulkhead for a
second, then
allowed Spock to guide him out into the corridor.