Chapter 34 - Another Mission Drop
In the transporter room, Glissen said, "You taking command of the boarding, sir?"
"No. Just tell me what you want me to do." Kirk looked around at the hard, determined faces. Glissen had pulled six reserves from the rest of the crew. That left them with four teams of 6 to 7. He approved of her choices.
The monitor on the wall showed a wireframe simulation of the planned attack.
Glissen sounded too young as she explained, "We're going over in four waves, one of them is a feint. Teams A and B will rendezvous and split up again forward of the large storage bay used for manufacturing, clearing guards and securing that area to protect noncombatants. Team C will run the passageways port side of the bay to clear guards and come up the back ladders above the bay to meet up with Team D where scans indicate there are cramped quarters surrounded by security fields. Teams C and D are coming in from the same side to prevent pinching the noncombatants in the middle with the enemy, although we're going to send a single person up to draw fire forward of the area as if we're coming in from both sides. Prisoners will be brought through above or below depending upon the situation onboard. We're carrying extra arms for those that will be able to assist in covering the escape."
She looked around the room, stopped on Kirk. "Do you want to be in charge of Team C, sir? Rig, is that all right?"
Rig nodded. He wasn't tall and with his reflective plate, he looked even shorter.
Kirk studied the sequence of movements Team C was expected to perform. There were a lot of crossing passages for the enemy and bots to intersect their intended route.
Kirk said, "I'd like to disable the warp drives, but we don't have the personnel to do that while also performing a rescue." To himself he thought, we don't have the personnel to handle the rescue.
Kirk checked his weapons. "Remember, the only vulnerable spots on a bot are the joints and the weapons portals."
Glissen said, "We aren't bring anything heavier than rifles because of the confined space. We're going to hit fast and get out so it matters less."
Kirk suspected she was quoting Yarrow. "I don't think you can bring anything heavier when you can't tell friend from foe. A launcher can't be set to stun if there is uncertainty."
They waited, shifting from foot to foot, warm in their padding, until the bridge gave the signal.
Team C was second onto the platform. Kirk tried to forget the outcome of the last time he led a team into battle. At least this time they had more complete reconnaissance.
He swung the rifle low and turned on his toes on the slippery glass plate over the transporter pad. He sank away into his head, to a place where every little creaking noise from his equipment sounded loud in his ears. The transporter tech made adjustments in slow motion. Kirk couldn't worry that someone may be worried about him. He couldn't afford it.
They arrived in a dark brown corridor where heavy dust danced in the few glow lights in the upper corners. Rig pulled up his gas mask.
Kirk oriented himself while testing the communications, which was signal-blocked as expected. He made a motion with his hand to the ear area of his helmet and the others confirmed the helmets were dead. He signaled for them to move with a hand gesture. They'd be zeroed in on immediately and this was their few precious seconds of free movement.
The passageways looked different in reality than the wireframe. Kirk pulled his visor down so he got an overlay. He didn't like the distraction of it green over the dark world, was accustomed to planetside landings, not ship boardings. He flipped it up again.
Phaser fire came from ahead, bounced off plates and scattered. The team jumped behind struts and bulkheads. There were a lot of places to hide. Kirk didn't envy anyone trying to defend this ship.
Rig signaled for cover and Kirk and another leaned out to lay down fire. Rig scuttled into position at a side cargo doorway that was sealed closed. He signaled for someone to go ahead of him. Two from near the back leapt up together and ran through fire. One stumbled, got up and hobbled into position.
Kirk rushed ahead when it was his turn and got into position on lead. He was soaking wet inside his pads and his breath felt like the air from a humidifier. He flipped the visor down to check on their progress and the time. They were just halfway but up ahead the passageway was blocked off by a large piece of equipment on a broken dolly. The seven member team were stretching thin, leaving behind personnel to hold the territory they'd cleared.
It was Kirk's turn to leapfrog when they reached the blockage, forcing a diversion to a parallel corridor. He went around the corner and glanced down the next passageway and pulled back as fire sizzled by him. He flipped the visor down for protection and looked out again. Bot sensors glowed from the end of the passageway where they could fire along the whole length. He saw only one person and the visor confirmed the single life sign.
This old ship had a lot of shifting partitions for storage flexibility. Some were wedged open, some clearly hung crooked and broken. Some still had glowing green lights on their control panels.
Kirk scuttled back to beside Rig and matched his turtle crouch which closed up all the open areas around the reflective plate.
Kirk said, "Bots. At least three large ones. I'm going to trap them in. Take the team and continue around and to the deck above. I'll rendezvous with you. Just keep going."
"You're separating from the team? That's not wise, sir."
"I have more experience with these things than the rest of you put together. I'm the right person to assign. You'll hear a cargo partition close. That's your signal to move."
Kirk pushed to his feet and stopped at the threshold to the long corridor. He had to trust the plate to keep him alive until he could reach the next turn beyond where the partition would close. He could see it on the visor. He would be trapping himself on the enemy's side but there was a lot of real estate beyond.
Kirk ducked low and sprinted full out. He fired mostly in hopes of hitting the one humanoid. He tripped the control as he passed it and rolled through an opening beyond it to the left. His reflective plate rumbled under his back against the deck. The triggered wall rolled slowly sideways. Kirk turned and raised his weapon to defend the opening as it shrank. A human figure ran toward it. Kirk hit it with heavy stun and it slid and fell still directly in the path of the closing partition wall.
"Damn," Kirk muttered.
The bots weren't firing, but Kirk could hear their footsteps, and the distinctive sound of actuators. Something made them know not to fire on that figure. Kirk jumped out, grabbed a booted foot and tugged the figure clear of the door, just as it closed, suffering heavy fire to his helmet. His head grew hot. If it got too hot the phaser reflective properties would start to break down.
Kirk gave a last heave and pulled the fallen figure down the side passage and searched it. The tall male figure wore dark woven clothing, top to bottom. He wore a utility belt and several heavy bracelets. Kirk's crude visor scanner was no help in determining what device might be signaling to the bots. But the bots were about to make the corner and would have a point blank shot. Kirk bent and hefted the limb body over his shoulder in a fireman's carry and hurried away with the bot footsteps clanking on the deck in pursuit.
Kirk continued under the heavy load, trying to find a path out, or up to the level above where he could rendezvous with his team. The bots pursuing from behind weren't firing. They certainly had repeated clear shots. A corridor that should have widened out into a larger storage area with a ladder was closed off. Bulkhead partitions had been changed around. That's what Kirk would have done to aid in defense: make the enemy's maps useless.
Kirk's spine was compressing uncomfortably. He longed to set his burden down. Instead, he tripped and the figure rolled away and came up swinging, contacting Kirk's helmet with a heavy tool he must have had on his belt. Kirk's ears rang despite the helmet. He rolled with the blow and pulled out his phaser and fired blind. But the figure was running back down the passageway. Kirk fired again, felling him. The bots came around the corner and immediately opened fire. Kirk felt the heat of it through his plate, feared it would fail or just melt and drown him.
Kirk pushed to his feet, feeling light without his burden, and ran, limbs flying. He was overdue to rendezvous, was going to force else someone to separate to hunt him down, which he couldn't bear to have happen.
The corridor grew narrower, jogged around mysterious structures, but he kept heading roughly the same direction toward the aft of the ship where on the scan there had been lots of ladders. His sense of how big a ship could be was way off, to the point of delusion.
Beeping went off on Kirk's hazard badge. He pulled his mask up from his neck and pressed it tight, feeling the seal grab his skin. He gave a sharp inhale to made sure it was fully set and turned to look back. He couldn't see anything behind him. The lighting was sparse here. He put the visor back down so he could get an enhancement. The wireframes drew on path information which was no longer valid.
Metal boots approached and hissing actuators. Kirk ran on. He skidded to a stop at a wide spot and spun around. His boots made a gritty noise. He stood in an unused equipment alcove and there was no other passages. Cables hung from the walls along with broken brackets. It looked like something large had been ripped out by an impatient giant.
Once the bots made the last corner, he was dead. Pinned down, subject to enough fire to make his reflective plate fail, he could be snuffed out with a single, rather wimpy, burst of phaser energy.
Kirk pressed himself to the side wall and held his phaser rifle aimed just about shoulder height. His only very slim chance of survival was to slag the bot's weapon portal, and then hope it only had one. He slid the phaser rifle to low power and jerked it back to full power, making sure it was all the way up. His hand stung he yanked so hard.
The metal footsteps came closer. A sound like a medical tricorder filled the corridor, rocking to and fro, then stabilizing. It had a lock on his lifesign. Kirk backed up, looked around. He was angry at himself. Not for separating from his team. Not for the decision to board the enemy ship rather than wait for reinforcements. No, he regretted that at that moment he had no memory of bedding Spock to dwell in should he be backed into the last corner, faced with those glowing bot sensors guiding weapons with powerpacks that never seemed to run dry.
In the hazy brown light full of dust and the stink of diesel and machine oil, he wondered at himself, who he really was, because apparently, he didn't know. This was not how he wanted to exit this universe.
Kirk looked around again, growing more pissed off rather than rattled. The world around him grew stark, the sounds became less urgent. He became acutely aware of his own body.
The empty equipment alcove extended deeply into the bulkhead on the left toward the bow of the ship. Kirk hurriedly unslung the phaser rifle from his shoulder and pulled a hand phaser from his belt. He moved without thought. Hand phaser in his left hand, feet shifting left, preparing to jump. He threw the phaser rifle where the passageway emerged. It bounced, skidded, hit the wall and spun. He bent his knees, brought this hands together, and tracking the powerpack portion of the rifle, fired just as he leapt sideways.
The blast set off a great groan of metal, picked him up, twisted him around and slammed him the rest of the way into the alcove. Cables whipped him. His butt met the deck at the same moment the shockwave made the bulkhead pulse away from him and snap back.
Kirk couldn't hear. Even his own breathing. With shaking hands he pushed his gas mask better into place, felt around it compulsively that it was intact, that the seal was tight against his cheeks. His helmet was crooked, choking him. He found the clips and released them, tried to pull it straight but it refused to fit. For some reason these things seemed incredibly important.
He felt around for his phaser in the darkness. His helmet light was no longer working. Either the silence was complete or his hearing was gone. He pulled off the helmet and heard the sound of air hissing. He ceased his crawling around in search of his phaser to use all fours to get to his feet. The right side of his body obeyed only weakly, lagging the rest of him.
He found his phaser when he kicked it. He set it to low power, wide beam so he could use it as a light and held it far to the side in case someone used it as a target. He was turned around in the darkness. The damage was 180 degrees from where he thought it should be. He had almost kicked the phaser into the gaping hole in the deck.
The rifle powerpack had blown a round hole into the square passageway. A grid of bent trusses were intact between the missing decking plates. He might be able to step across them, once they cooled. Kirk switched off the phaser and listened. He tapped the side of his head to be certain his ears were working. They weren't working much.
He was going to have to chance it. He put his head around the corner and flicked the phaser on and off to get a glimpse. The corridor contained a tangle of bot parts and shattered plates with two toppled but intact bots beyond. No lights.
He looked again, longer this time. There was a swinging conduit from the overhead and some settling of bot limbs, but nothing moved by power of servo.
Before he had a chance to think about the risk of falling through to the next deck, Kirk stepped out onto the truss grid that was the only path leading back the way he had come. His right leg nearly gave way when he put all his weight onto it. He put both feet together, stepped out with his left foot, arms waving for balance, brought his feet together. He repeated this, until sweat dripped from his armpits and around his mask.
With slow movements, he picked his way through the debris, ducking under a bot leg, untangling himself from cables and cords, passing by as far as possible from the two intact bots, sweating cold beads at the sight of their dark status lights and phaser ports, like the closed eyes of something pretending to sleep.
He tripped, sending his face to the floor. He probably should have kept his broken helmet on, but it was too late to fetch it. He couldn't immediately push back up to his trembling legs, so he continued on by crawling.
At the corner there was shouting, warbling and odd. He pressed to the sidewall, slid upward to his feet, hand phaser in both hands, trying to make sense of the sounds.