Chapter Six
"I'm sorry, Captain, I've been workin' day and night to keep us operatin' at warp capacity. If I push these engines much more we'll wind up as helpless as a tall ship chasin' a wind." Montgomery Scott had chosen his simile carefully, hoping it might calm the enraged man pacing his engineering deck. He had seen the captain angry many times, but never like this, never irrational.
"Not good enough, Lieutenant. Call yourself an engineer? Look at this ship – it's a rustbucket. Your precious engines are suffering from your neglect. I ask you for warp four and all you keep telling me is you can't do anything until we get to Starbase Five."
"Captain Kirk!" exclaimed Scotty more hurt than indignant "The Enterprise is not a rustbucket."
The angry, pacing captain came to a halt well inside his Chief Engineer's personal space, his face inches from Scotty's. A small crowd of bemused, redshirted engineering personnel had assembled around the two senior officers. Kirk registered them as a threatening red blur in his peripheral vision and he reeled, adopting a fighting stance.
"Easy now, laddie. We don't want anyone gettin' hurt." For a split second, Scotty believed that the enraged captain was actually going to strike him; then, abruptly Kirk retracted. He tugged at the bottom of his shirt smoothed it down with his hands, then turned on his heel and made for the door. The atmosphere he left in his wake was tense in the extreme.
Montgomery Scott turned to his crew and shrugged, hoping to downplay the incident but there was no denying that everyone present in engineering had witnessed a disturbing scene, one that could undermine their confidence in their commanding officer. Scotty waited until they had all returned to their posts before he made his excuses and headed off in the direction of sickbay.
"I'm tellin' ye, the captain's not himself. He's behavin' like a man possessed."
Scotty's lack of subtlety did not bother the doctor. He was only voicing what many had been thinking. Nor was this the first account of Captain Kirk's increasingly bizarre behaviour that had come to the medic's ears. It was, however, the first account that was more than rumour.
"The captain's had a lot on his mind, Scotty."
"Aye, that he has. But he's not the only one worried about Mr Spock, when all's said and done." McCoy said nothing. He knew that Scotty knew that for Jim it was different when it came to worrying about Spock.
Still, McCoy was concerned. Jim was not himself, and worry about his first officer was not the only reason; whatever personal issues he had to deal with, the captain never let them affect his ability to run the ship.
"Is it something medical?" The Scotsman asked, lowering his voice.
"Jim's been acting out of character since shortly after we beamed back from Skara. In fact, out of everyone who beamed down, yours truly here is the only one who has not been displaying symptoms of paranoia and aggressive behaviour. At least I think I'm exempt. I may be delusional."
"I've heard no complaints about you, doctor McCoy." Scott reassured the medic. "Have ye approached the captain at all?"
"He's been avoiding me. The truth is, Scotty, I don't know what I'm dealing with here. Ryan and Visnic are both doing okay after their psychotic episodes, but they're still far from mentally stable. There are a few anomalies in their readings, but their test results were normal. I'm keeping them under observation and running more tests because I don't feel all this is coincidental."
"And the Captain?"
McCoy understood what Scott, as acting second in command of the Enterprise was asking him, but he was not ready to have that conversation yet.
"Give me a little more time, Scotty." He said, unable for the moment to meet the Chief Engineer's eye.
"Aye. Let's hope that's all that's needed." Scott said, leaving McCoy to ruminate.
James Kirk did not wish to be seen. Once, his First Officer had wished the same. He had pleaded with Kirk to lock him away, save him from himself. If he had been less than sympathetic then, Jim now perfectly understood how shame could fuel such an extreme reaction.
Half an hour ago on the bridge, the mounting anxiety and fear that he had been experiencing over the past couple of days, had escalated into full-blown paranoia. He had become convinced that his helmsman was about to attack him and had put the unfortunate Sulu in a stranglehold. Uhura had called security and it had taken two men to pull him off and escort him to his quarters on the orders of his Chief Medical Officer whose timely appearance on the bridge was also down to Uhura.
Any minute now, McCoy, who had no doubt been seeing to Sulu, would be standing at the door of his quarters, demanding to be admitted. Kirk could not refuse him, was not sure he wanted to, despite the crazy little voice in his head telling him the CMO had a hypo loaded with something lethal that he just couldn't wait to inject into his captain's veins. Somewhere still there was a rational Kirk who saw this for the preposterous nonsense that it was, but the crazy voice didn't like being ignored.
"Enter." Kirk called, dully, on hearing the inevitable request. McCoy was not alone. A red-shirted security guard accompanied him.
"What's this, Bones? You don't trust me?"
"Normally I'd trust you with my life, Jim, you know that. Only right at this moment, you're not quite yourself." McCoy observed his friend closely. He noticed Kirk's agitation, his defensiveness, the suspicious look he was giving the loaded hypo in his CMO's steady hand. "It's an anti-psychotic, Jim. You're displaying the same symptoms that Ryan and Visnic displayed before they tried to kill each other."
"I'm not crazy." Kirk said, backing off.
"No-one's saying you are, but I'll wager you're aware that your actions in the past couple of days have been a tad out of character. You're sane enough to know that something's wrong. Proof, in fact, that what you say is true – you're not crazy" Leonard McCoy gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Kirk seemed to relax.
"I don't need that." He said, pointing at the hypo. McCoy deliberated, weighing up concerns about his own safety with his loyalty to his friend. Finally he asked the security guard to step outside.
"Jim…" he began.
"I know, Bones. You want to relieve me of my command due to my current mental…instability." To McCoy's intense relief, Jim spoke calmly and without acrimony. No trace now of the symptoms he had been hearing about from Scotty and other crewmembers. No hint that this was the same man who, only a short while ago had attempted to throttle his helmsman.
"I'm sorry, Jim. This part of my job is never easy." Kirk flashed McCoy one of his disarming, lop-sided smiles and made as if to pat him on the shoulder, then stopped himself and walked over to his bunk.
"Why not you?" He asked, quietly, looking at McCoy enquiringly.
"I can't answer that, yet. I don't even know if I'll remain unaffected. Hell, I don't even know if you've been exposed to some kind of toxin or affected in some way in the beam up by the affects of the ion storm. All the tests keep coming back negative."
"Well…you haven't tested me yet."
"I have tried. You've been less than co-operative, remember? You should have come to me, Jim. Your symptoms are inexplicable at present but they aren't untreatable." Kirk looked up, sharply,
"You mean..?" McCoy nodded,
"I mean that contrary to what your paranoid mind is assuming, I haven't come to relieve you of your command on medical grounds." McCoy watched the relief melt over his captain's face.
"There is a 'but'." He cautioned Jm.
"I submit to your tests and take my medication?" The doctor nodded.
"And, you come to me if you feel you're not in control. And Jim, if your mental condition deteriorates, I will have no choice but to relieve you."
Kirk nodded, holding out his arm for the hypo. "Bones, Spock took one of those darts – he was bleeding."
"I know, Jim,"
"Something in his Vulcan make-up may make him more susceptible to…whatever this is we're dealing with."
McCoy looked unhappy but he said, "We don't know that, Jim. He may be completely immune."
At that moment, Kirk's intercom beeped with a message for McCoy from sickbay. It was Nurse Chapel's voice, clearly panicked. Visnic had somehow broken free of his restraints and had overpowered his guard. Worse, he was armed with the guard's phaser and had already stunned two of the medical staff.
Kirk sounded a security alert ordering John Visnic's capture then alerted the crew to the fact that Visnic was likely to be in an irrational state of mind and highly dangerous. McCoy worried momentarily that the crew would be concerned about their Captain's state of mind, and hoped that news of his attack on Sulu had not travelled beyond the Bridge. As he and Kirk exited the captain's quarters, the doctor signalled to the security guard outside that Kirk was no longer a risk.
"Jim, let security deal with this." McCoy urged as Kirk entered the turbolift and requested deck five. Jim threw him a look that the ship's surgeon knew of old – it acknowledged McCoy's need to say the words, whilst simultaneously telling him not to waste his breath.
The scene in sickbay was one of chaos. Evidently Visnic's altercation with the security guard had been violent. Equipment and furniture lay strewn across the floor and Chapel was doing her best to administer first aid to the three injured personnel. McCoy took charge immediately. Kirk hovered near the security guard trying to determine whether the man were well enough to be questioned.
"Where was he headed?" he asked, urgently, ignoring the CMO's glare.
Wincing in pain, the guard told Kirk that he thought he had heard Visnic mutter something about the bridge.
Kirk put a call through to his Security Chief, Lieutenant commander Giotto, before running for the door.
Visnic beat them to it; beat the warning Kirk put out to his bridge crew as soon as he finished speaking to Giotto. By the time the captain and the security back up arrived on the scene, Visnic had grabbed the unfortunate Sulu and was holding him hostage, demanding that he change course.
At the captain's entrance, Sulu looked from Kirk to Visnic, obviously alarmed. Kirk understood; only an hour ago he had attempted to strangle the Helmsman, now for all Sulu knew,there were two madmen closing in on him. Kirk hoped that Giotto's presence would reassure Sulu.
"Visnic!" The captain's authoritative tone forced Visnic's attention. The deranged man had Sulu by the arm, a phaser levelled at his throat. To his credit, the helmsman exhibited no sign of panic.
"Visnic, let him go and we can talk. You're sick. You, Ryan and I – we've all been infected with something on Skara…it's affecting our minds, making us paranoid, irrational. Dr McCoy can help. He's already given me something to control the symptoms. Ask Sulu. Less than an hour ago I tried to strangle him."
Kirk looked encouragingly at his helmsman. Sulu put a hand to his throat and when he spoke his voice sounded hoarse, causing Kirk a pang of guilt.
"It's true, John. The Captain attacked me. He thought I was going to kill him. Look at him now – he's back in control."
Visnic's grip tightened around Sulu's throat; he had a wild-eyed look that suggested he'd crossed a line and wasn't coming back. Kirk took a step towards him and Visnic dragged the helmsman in front of him as a shield.
Out of nowhere a high-pitched, pain-inducing noise assaulted their ears. Hands instinctively covered ears. Kirk, recovering first, moved panther-like across the bridge in a single leap at Visnic, knocking the phaser from his hand, pulling him to the ground. They wrestled together while Giotto hovered looking for a chance to stun Visnic.
In the ensuing tussle, Visnic's dropped phaser was forgotten, until, breaking free of Kirk's hold, Visnic made a dive for it and turned it on himself.
"No!" Kirk yelled, watching in horror as the stricken-faced crewman exploded in a blaze of yellow light. There was complete silence on the bridge.
"It's my fault." Uhura said, finally breaking the silence. I jammed the comm system to create a diversionary noise…I never meant…I didn't think.."
"Uhura." Kirk roused himself from his stunned paralysis and crossed to her side. "It wasn't your fault. Your action probably saved Sulu's life. Visnic was killed by…whatever he brought back with him from that planet."
Uhura recovered herself enough to give the captain a grateful nod.
"The phaser was set to kill." Sulu said, incredulous, his voice unsteady.
"Mr Sulu, you are relieved of duty." The captain advised him.
"There's no need sir; I'm fine." Sulu answered.
"That's an order, Sulu. You've had two attempts on your life in as many hours. Mr Giotto, see that he makes it safely to his quarters."
"How's Ryan?" Kirk asked when he reported to sickbay later. McCoy wished he could lie. "He took it badly. Visnic was a friend. They graduated from the academy together." At his words, Kirk winced as though with pain. The death of a crewmember, was, McCoy knew, a source of anguish for Jim who felt each loss as a personal failure.
"Come on, Jim." The doctor said, gently, leading Kirk towards the CMO's office.
"What about the tests?"
"The tests can wait until after you've taken your medicine." McCoy answered, taking a bottle of Saurian brandy from his desk drawer and pouring two generous glasses. Handing one to Kirk, he said, "To John Visnic. May he rest in peace."
A solemn silence ensued, both men reflecting on recent events. Finally, Kirk looked at his friend and asked, "How long until I go crazy and pull a stunt like that?"
"Jim, you know I don't have enough information to make that sort of prediction. All I can say is that the anti-psychotic should mask the symptoms for now until I can find an antidote."
"Did Visnic have a shot?"
"No. I trialled it on you. If only I'd.."
"Don't go there, Bones. It wasn't your fault. Just – get that antidote."
"I'm trying, Jim. The toxin isn't anything like what we encountered on Psi 2000. I've already ruled out a whole host of potential environmental causes."
McCoy was referring to a time early in their mission, when the mental faculties of certain crewmembers had been affected by water from the planet Psi 2000 reacting in their bloodstreams and producing an effect not dissimilar to alcoholic intoxication.
"Trust you to escape whatever it is." Kirk said, huffily. McCoy swirled the remains of his brandy around in his glass before finishing it off with a satisfied grunt.
"What can I say? We Georgians are made of stern stuff. Now, how about we run those tests?"
Five days of cruising at warp one brought the Enterprise steadily closer to her destination at Starbase Five. Kirk's symptoms of anxiety and paranoia were being held at bay by McCoy's medication but the captain wished the good doctor could invent a cure for impatience. And the sheer tedium of daily routine when there was a pressing need to act.
Kirk spent hours reviewing the records that Chekov had been scanning through, his frustration growing. Why had Klingon High Command denied responsibility, then changed their story? Why bother to deny it in the first place when they knew what analysis of the weckage would reveal? Kirk's suspicions about what had really happened to the Curie intensified, but there was no information to lead him to any sort of hypothesis.
Inevitably, because the Curie's shuttle had ended up there, and because Skara itself was uppermost in his thoughts, the two became interlinked in his mind. And once they became connected, it became difficult to view the presence of the Klingon battlecruiser at Skara as mere coincidence.
Kirk noted with interest that Admiral Caton had signed off on the investigation into the Curie incident, after assigning liability to the Klingons. Others had demanded a fuller investigation, but Caton had had the final say. The name was familiar and he soon remembered why – Ben Caton had been first on the scene at Ravik, a planet where a Federation science sation had been based; the planet had been all but obliterated in an attack by an unknown aggressor, years earlier.
Caton had retired from active service a couple of years ago, itself something of a mystery. Kirk brooded and researched and kept hitting dead ends. On a hunch, he made a mental note to find out what he could about Ben Caton when the Enterprise finally limped into dry dock at Starbase Five.