Star Trek XV – Now and Forever

Chapter Five

From the Captain's chair, Uhura saw Mitchell bursting onto the bridge carrying Jimmy in his arms while the little boy clutched Teddy in his tiny hands as if he were afraid of losing it. The officer had discarded the pushchair for it was slowing him down while he raced to his destination and now he had finally reached it, he looked like he didn't know what to do.

'Where is Dr Marcus?' Uhura asked him.

'She stayed with her device,' Mitchell replied sounding slightly out of breath, 'she begged me to take him to safety,' he added clearly referring to Jimmy, 'we have a bunch of Klingons onboard and Commander Spock was going to slow them down and…I…'

'Alright,' Uhura said taking charge, 'get Jimmy into the ready room, we'll do what we can to stop them from coming into the bridge but, if they do, his safety is your priority, hide if you have to, okay?'

'What about you?' the tactical officer asked her.

'Let us worry about us,' she replied tersely, 'now, go!'

Without needing to be asked twice, Mitchell rushed across the bridge and exited it through the door that connected it with the Captain's ready room. Once there, he sat down and tried his best to keep the frightened boy distracted so that he would not start crying. While he did this, Mitchell thought of the absurdity of the situation he found himself in: there were Klingons onboard and he was there, acting as a babysitter to a little boy he had literally just met.

Meanwhile, Uhura also found herself in a position she had never been before and, for the first time, she realised just how difficult Captain Kirk's job when she suddenly became the centre of everyone's attention. With a pang, she realised that the reason they were all looking at her was because they were all waiting for her instructions.

'Okay,' she said speaking to the officer covering for Chekov, 'we need to get the away team back from the Reliant.'

'I've already tried, ma'am,' the young man confessed, 'but the shields are up so we can't use our transporter.'

'What about the comms?' she then asked the girl covering her own station.

'They're offline,' she replied, 'Captain Kirk's is reported as destroyed.'

Swallowing and trying not to panic, she glanced back at the navigator and said:

'Issue a ship-wide alert, on displays only, warning everyone we have Klingons onbard, order them to protect all critical areas, especially the Weapons Bay and Engineering, get Mr Scott to lock down the whole area if he can.'

'Yes, ma'am,' the man replied.

To the Acting Communications Officer, she said:

'Send a message to Starfleet: we are being hijacked by Klingons and we are requesting assistance. The command of the Enterprise might be compromised so they must list it as unfriendly effective immediately. When you're done, forward the same message to the Romulans, all channels all frequencies. Hurry up, we don't have a lot of time.'

'Yes, ma'am,' the girl replied getting her head down to complete the task as quickly as she could.

'Everyone else,' Uhura then finished, 'prepare your stations, those of you with clearance, get your phasers ready and set them to kill.'

She had just finished issuing her last order when the door which gave access to the bridge opened with a swishing sound. Looking at it from the chair, she saw two Klingons half-carrying a beaten up and barely conscious Spock.

'Spo…' she said getting up from the chair.

'I am fine,' he tried reassuring her.

He failed. Uhura knew him too well to know that fine was not an acceptable word for the Vulcan.

'As you can see,' one of the Klingons said straightening up the Commander, 'you have no choice.'

'What do you want from us?' Uhura was brave enough to ask in Klingon.

The warrior looked impressed for a moment then, he ordered her to tell him who the helmsman was. Uhura hesitated only for a moment then, after exchanging a worried look with Spock, she pointed at the Andorian who was now filling in for Sulu, 'set course for Earth,' the Klingon ordered him.

The Lieutenant looked at Uhura first then, at Spock and only after he got their approval, he entered the sequence of commands which would take their ship to Earth. He only hesitated when he placed his blue hand on top of the lever that would send Enterprise into warp for, he knew, it would leave the Captain and the rest of the away team stranded in the middle of nowhere.

'Go ahead,' Uhura forced herself to order him.

With a light punch, the officer took them into warp.

At the same time but onboard the Reliant, Kirk and McCoy had managed to get up leaning against each other and, a still tied up Sulu, was trying to untie Kirk's restrains using his teeth while Chekov remained sitting down, as if the shock had frozen him in place. Kirk was about to order him to snap out of it when he heard McCoy swear.

'What…'

He never finished the question because, just as it had happened with the six Klingon warbirds a moment before, he watched the Enterprise entering warp, leaving only twin brilliant blue trails where the ship had previously been. A heavy silence fell upon them and even Sulu stopped struggling with Kirk's ropes. Ruling out the possibility that Spock had gone insane and had decided to leave them there, Kirk could only reach another, more viable but also infinitely more terrifying conclusion: the Klingon had stolen his ship.

'Ё моё!' Chekov suddenly exclaimed.

Kirk, McCoy and Sulu jerked their heads to stare at him to see if the poor boy had finally cracked up when, to their profound stupor, they saw that the Russian Ensign had managed to get rid of his restrains.

'That's why you were so quiet!' Sulu exclaimed looking proudly at his friend.

'I don't think they tied them as tight as yours,' he explained while he got busy freeing the three other men them up, 'since I don't look so strong, maybe the Klingons didn't consider me that much of a threat.'

'Well, that was their mistake,' Kirk said rubbing his sore wrists.

'Yeah,' Sulu agreed.

'And now how the hell are we going to get out of here?' McCoy asked pointing at the fried door.

Kirk didn't answer that, instead, he and Chekov went to inspect the console and, without having to tell him, the Captain saw his junior officer scanning the bridge, looking for something he could use to pry the cover open. He then rushed to the other end of the bridge to the navigator's station. Under the console, Chekov retrieved a basic but incredibly useful set of tools.

'I also keep one under my seat on the Enterprise,' he explained to his stunned companions, 'mine is better though: it was a present from Mr Scott for my 21st birthday,' he added while he got a long screwdriver out of the box and, before anyone could come up with an appropriate response, he started working on the console as quickly as he could. Within a few minutes, the door was released.

'Well done,' Kirk told him patting him on his shoulder.

Blushing a little, Chekov flashed a happy smile. Then, the four of them hurried to the transporter trying to ignore the multiple bodies they found along the way. When they arrived, it was clear that they weren't going to be able to beam out of there.

'They used explosives!' Sulu exclaimed after a quick assessment of the badly damaged console.

'Can you fix this?' McCoy asked Chekov who shrugged his shoulders and said:

'With a little time, yes.'

'Okay,' Kirk told him, 'you can work on this, Sulu and I will try to get the engines running, Bones, go back to the bridge and try to get in contact with Starfleet. Tell them what's happened in here and ask them to send reinforcements. Also, see if you can reach one of the Romulan outposts, they need to know about the device and what the Klingon intend to do with it.'

'Dammit man,' McCoy complained, 'I'm a doctor not a…'

'Right now,' Kirk stopped him, 'you are our Communications Officer so, get on with it.'

'Shouldn't we try hailing the Enterprise?' Sulu asked him.

'No,' Kirk replied, 'if I'm right, Spock is no longer in command aboard the ship. If we hail them, they will know we've freed ourselves and will send a warbird to destroy us. As much as it pains me to say this, we must leave the Enterprise alone and hope Spock can come up with a plan to take her back.'

'Okay,' Sulu accepted.

'Now,' Kirk said, 'we all have our jobs, let's get them done as quickly as we can.'

He and Sulu found the Engineering section a couple of decks below the bridge. It was infinitely smaller than the one on the Enterprise but still, it was large enough for Kirk and Sulu to feel suddenly lost. Soon enough, the two started looking for the console that controlled the engines, finding it in between what looked like the two massive reactors that powered the ship. Looking down at the display, Kirk saw something that made his heart sink even further.

'Captain…' Sulu started.

'I know,' Kirk replied without letting him finish the sentence.

'If those readings are accurate,' the helmsman insisted, 'I don't think we have enough fuel to take us to Romulus, heck, we might not even make it to the Romulan border!'

Kirk didn't say anything to that, instead, he turned his back on the console, leaning against it while he considered what options they had. Scouring his brain, he tried remembering what little he'd read about cargo ships and the way their backup systems worked. He knew that some civilian vessels kept a reserve somewhere that, in case of an emergency, it would allow them to reach the nearest outpost.

'Give me a minute,' he told Sulu while he started looking around the room for something that would point him in the right direction. Leaving the helmsman standing there, Kirk ran along the different walkways that covered the area and, just as he was about to give up, he saw a smaller console with the sign he'd been searching for: Auxiliary Power Station.

'SULU!' he shouted, 'I'VE FOUND IT!'

The helmsman rushed there as quickly as he could and, even before he could speak, Kirk ordered him:

'Re-route as much power from here to the main console, I will go and try to start up the engines.'

'Aye, Captain,' Sulu said.

Ten minutes later, the power cycle had been completed and both the Reliant engines seemed to be up and running. Surprisingly enough, nothing in Engineering looked like it was about to blow up.

'Let's head up,' Kirk told Sulu.

Climbing up the stairs, two steps at the time, the two of them ran past the transporter where they saw Chekov half-hidden under the console. Without time to stop and ask him for a status update, the two of them sped along the corridors. They had barely set foot on the bridge when, coming from the ship's audio system, they heard a very familiar sounding voice:

'Captain, do you copy?'

The three of them stared at each other in disbelief then, rushing to McCoy's station, Kirk said:

'Scotty, it's me, we're here!'

'Oh thank God for that,' the Engineer said sounding incredibly relieved.

'Where are you?' Kirk asked him, 'your voice sounds weird.'

'That's because I'm bloody hiding in one of the bloody Jeffrey's tubes!' the man exclaimed.

'What's happening on our ship?' Kirk asked him.

'The Klingons have the conn,' Scotty said revealing nothing they didn't already suspect, 'Commander Spock and the rest of the bridge crew have been locked up in the ready room, don't worry Captain, wee Jimmy is in there with them.'

Kirk felt himself letting out a sigh of relief.

'One of the Klingons took Dr Marcus and her device,' the Engineer said again not revealing anything new, 'there's a transponder installed in the crate carrying it. I know its frequency and I could track it but we didn't see the warning on time and now a damned Klingon has taken my place in Engineering. With the whole bridge crew held hostage, it's not like we can retaliate, is it?'

'Scotty…'

'Fear not Captain,' the older man said, 'Keenser and I have a plan but, for it to work, we must not be seen. I called you so that I could send you the frequency hoping you could track it yourselves, it was far-fetched since I didn't know if you'd be...well, I didn't know if I would manage to find you but I didn't know what else to do.'

'It was a good move,' Kirk assured him, 'please send us the frequency and we'll take it from there.'

'Alright,' Scotty replied, 'stand by,' he said while he keyed in the right code.

'You said you and Keenser have a plan,' Sulu commented while McCoy received the information.

'Yes,' Scotty confirmed, 'I'm not sure if we'll manage but we're going to try to cause an accident that'll drop us out of warp.'

'You're what?' Kirk asked sounding alarmed.

'I know,' Scotty said, 'I hate doing this to her but it's the only way I can stop her. Maybe, while those brainless orks try to figure out what's gone wrong, it'll buy enough time for Commander Spock to come up with a plan and regain command of our ship.'

'Nice thinking,' Kirk acknowledged, 'please hang in there Scotty, we've already asked for help.'

'I'll do what I can, Captain, I'll do what I can,' the older man promised, 'Scotty out.'

'Where is she?' was the first thing Kirk wanted to know.

'Er…' the doctor hesitated concentrating on the console, 'I'm not entirely sure…I'm not exactly a navigator now, I am?'

'Send the coordinates to the helmsman station,' Kirk ordered him, 'Sulu, as soon as you can, set course to that location.'

'Aye, Captain,' the Lieutenant replied sitting down on the pilot's seat. Once there, he took a quick look at the data McCoy had just sent him confronting it against the starmap the ship came equipped with, when his brow creased in a very deep frown.

'What's wrong?' Kirk asked him.

'Sir,' Sulu said, 'we can't go there, it's an asteroid.'

'So?' McCoy asked him from his seat.

'If it were a planet, or a moon, we could try and approach it from the right angle and reach the place unseen,' Sulu explained, 'with something as small as that, there's nowhere to hide. In other words…'

'We're screwed,' McCoy said.

Kirk pinched the bridge of his nose while he paced nervously in front of the Captain's chair.

'We could wait until Chekov fixes the transporter,' Sulu suggested, 'if I take us close enough, we could beam down there, find Dr Marcus and then...'

'No,' Kirk stopped him, 'it might take too long and who knows what they're doing to her.'

'Jim…'

'Bones,' he interrupted him too, 'you remember what they did to me, don't you?' he asked him rhetorically, 'there's no way I'll let them do anything like that to Carol. We must get her out of there now.'

Then, without telling anyone where he was going, he rushed out of the bridge leaving McCoy and Sulu at a loss about what had just happened. They got their answer a few minutes later when Kirk re-appeared carrying what looked suspiciously like one of those booster powered EV suits.

'Please tell me you're not going to do what I think you are,' McCoy practically begged him.

'I am,' Kirk said confirming his worst fears, 'Sulu, you will take us as close as you can but, instead of beaming down, I will jump from here to the base then, once Carol is free, we can hide and wait until Chekov's done fixing the transporter.'

'Are you nuts?' Dr McCoy asked him.

'No,' Kirk replied calmly, 'I've done this enough times to know it will work. I just need Sulu to put us in a position so that the jump can be done in a straight line. This will afford me more autonomy since I won't have to use the boosters to change direction.'

'You can't do this alone,' Sulu said all of a sudden.

'Sulu…'

'Captain,' he interrupted him, 'I too have experience with this, remember?'

Kirk found himself smiling at him and, nodding, he said:

'Okay, let's do this.'

'You two are nuts,' the doctor diagnosed, 'and if you think I'll help...'

'You will have to help,' Kirk reminded him, 'who do you think is going to open the hatch for us?'

McCoy just glared at him, aware he could do nothing else to stop this madness.

To be continued…