STAR WARS-to-STAR TREK
"THE IMPOSSIBLE POWER"
By: Dan Bivens
Chapter Five
MEDICAL LOG, STARDATE: 7417.4. Dr. Chapel and I have had Mr. Spock on a bio-table for some time now. We've run every conceivable scan. Attempted tests on that green ice water Spock called blood. Nothing. Except for the inescapable conclusion that Spock was utterly unconscious…almost to the point of a deathlike coma…he's as healthy as any other Vulcan. Whatever this Darth Nihilus did to Spock's marvelous mind…not that I would ever tell him that!…it's something my medical methods can't counter. At least…not yet.
"Dr. McCoy," said the formerly blonde-now-brunette time-maturated Dr. Christine Chapel to the seated-in-his-office Dr. Leonard H. McCoy. "I've run another series of medical scans on Commander Spock. Same results."
"I could've told ya that, Nurse," wearily replied a scowling-more-than-normal McCoy while slowly standing and stretching out the stiffness and discomfort brought on by ever-advancing age.
With a fleeting look of chastisement, Chapel corrected, "It's Doctor now. Remember?"
Waving off his mistaken title usage with a single hand, which only caused an amused smile to play upon Chapel's lips, McCoy complained, "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Let's just try and figure out a way to help Mr. Spock, then you can beat me to death with the fact you rose in rank and status while I had temporarily stepped down as starship CMO. C'mon…Doctor."
"Certainly," said Chapel with a teasing smirk, "Doctor."
Meantime, five decks straight up…
"He's charging his laser veapons again, Keptin!"
"Reinforce shields, Mr. Chekov!"
"Aye, sir!" was Lt. Chekov's nerve-racked response while reading his Security station's data displays. "Shields are down by twenty-five percent. Sir!"
"Then drop aft shields," Kirk ordered right away with his eyes transfixed on the viewscreen, "and reinforce forward shields that way, Lieutenant, but do it fast!"
"Yes, Keptin!" answered Security Chief Chekov while allowing experienced fingers, following five-plus years of Starfleet service, to do a determined dance over blue-lit touch-sensitive controls. "Forward shields…reinforced!"
"Thank you, Mr. Chekov," cut in Captain Kirk curtly, as further orders were directed to Helm and Navigation. "Sulu, be ready to cut in warp engines for emergency counter-maneuvers. DeFalco, preprogram your board for fast repositioning of the ENTERPRISE so that those forward shields stay in the direction of Darth Nihilus' ship no matter how it shifts its spatial positioning."
"Aye, Captain," Lt.-Commander Sulu said smoothly, while his hands worked just as smoothly in regards to programming his Helm controls to swiftly shift from sublight to Warp One or better at the proverbial drop of a hat.
"Preprogramming Navigation, sir," Chief DeFalco finished a split-second later. Her far less-experienced digits adeptly moving over blue-illuminated buttons.
Hitting his center seat's intercom control, Captain Kirk commanded, "Phaser crews, stand ready. Photon torpedoes…load forward tubes only. Bridge out."
Before another word could be uttered at all, Darth Nihilus' resurrected RAVAGER, colossal capital ship from a far distant spiral galaxy his surviving essence had left behind billions of years earlier, was now a mere hundred thousand kilometers from the USS ENTERPRISE…
"Hahahahaha! What weaklings these Humans be," Nihilus laughed while his evil abilities manipulated, telekinetically, a wide range of bridge station controls as easily as the Imperial personnel, had they survived the passage of ages as well, would've invariably achieved. "Let us see how well they fight…before I obliterate them down to the last stray atom."
"They're firing veap—!"
Before Lt. Chekov could complete his louder-than-necessary warning from the port side of the bridge…
BOOOMMM! THUUUMMM! Zzzzzzzzzzt!
"Damage control to the bridge!" loudly demanded, via intercom, Captain Kirk, currently held firm by the arms of his center seat reacting to the rocking and shuddering of a starship under close-quartered attacks. "Return fire! Phasers and photon torpedoes!"
Chekov didn't need Kirk's order to do what his Security Chief duties had demanded since his promotion to such shortly after the end of Kirk's original five-year run. His hands were already activating everything ENTERPRISE had in the direction of the RAVAGER.
"Phasers firing, Keptin! Torpedoes avay!"
TRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLL! TRRRRLLLL! TRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLL!
Fuh-THMMMM! Fuh-THMMMM! Fuh-THMMMM! Fuh-THMMMM!
In the span of seconds that stretched to an eternity from the Human view of the crew of the starship ENTERPRISE, crimson phasers seared airless space even as bright-white points of destructive matter-antimatter quickly crossed the hundred thousand kilometers…
BOOOOMMMM! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzt!
As a spray of sparks flew from several stations situated about the centralized walkway of the broad bridge of the RAVAGER control tower…
"It would seem I may have misjudged this insignificant starship," Darth Nihilus said without a hint of concern to tone or hidden-by-mask mien. "It would certainly seem that my manipulation of the Dark Side of The Force must be pressed into usage a bit sooner than planned. So be it."
His black gloved hands seemingly solidifying beyond the confines of his dark cloaked Self in an especially tensed fashion…
"Now, Captain James T. Kirk," his suddenly vociferous voice reverberated in a god-like cadence. "Now you shall feel the full power…of the Dark Side. Heheheheh, heh!"
Far faster than thought, Captain Kirk found himself gasping for air as unseen hands strangled him to a point where words of common command were quite literally choked off before being orated.
"C-can't…b-breath…," barely managed the commanding officer of the USS ENTERPRISE, while still struggling to physically remove the metaphysical from about his throat.
Finally forcing one hand to hit the lap-release on his center seat's control-laden armrests…
"Keptin!"
END OF CHAPTER 5