The air felt wrong. Kirk shifted his shoulders
beneath his shirt, trying to ease the tension there,
trying to shift the prickle at the nape of his neck.
The air felt - tight. Like there was an electrical
storm coming. He could see the other bridge crew felt
it, too. Uhura had her hand to her earpiece as usual,
but she was tapping it with one finger. Tap, tap. Tap,
tap. Tap, tap.
It was driving Kirk mad.
Sulu checked the course, checked it again, rubbed his face
with one hand and checked the course once more. Chekov
was biting on his thumbnail. Only Spock seemed unmoved,
standing at science station with his hands clasped behind
his back.
"All readings within normal parameters for this section of
space." he said.
"Starbase 34 in visual range." Sulu said.
"On screen."
The great base hung in the view screen, lights shining
steady and clear. Kirk studied it for a moment. Nothing,
at this distance, wrong.
"Ms Uhura, any luck raising them?"
"No, sir. No response whatsoever."
"All right." Kirk said. "Yellow alert. Second shift, take
stations. Mr Athende, take us in to transporter range and
hold, pending further developments and according to your
briefing."
"Sir, affirmative." Athende said, taking Sulu's seat.
"All crew, this is the captain. We are at yellow
alert. Operation Saint Bernard now initiated."
Kirk stood up from the centre seat, glad to be
moving, to be doing, to have an end to the mystery
within reach. However bad it was, he thought, it
could not be as bad as waiting.
He did not know that he was as wrong as it was
possible to be.
"Mr Iyen, you have the conn. Alpha shift, with me."
They rode down in tense silence, broke away from each
other without a word to take charge of their teams.
No more discussion was necessary. Kirk saw McCoy and
Chapel with Chekov's team, medical kits ready.
Spock's team was full of science section blue, as was
Uhura's. There was a less visible security presence
than would have been usual in a landing party going
in to an unknown, potentially hostile situation, but
Kirk had been willing to trade off specialised
security skills for the absolute best in stability
and experience.
He stepped up to the transporter pad, hand on his
phaser. "Energise."
Starbase 34's shuttle bay was empty. Silent, and
empty. Even once the full landing party from the
Enterprise had beamed over, the cavernous hush
swallowed their voices and footsteps.
"Team Alpha, Ms Uhura, you're clear to go." Kirk
said, his voice somehow shockingly loud.
"Yes, sir!"
"The rest of you, you have your search patterns.
Let's move."
"Sir!" It was Lieutenant Commander Trent from
science. 'Life-signs, sir!"
"Belay those orders!" Kirk shouted, stopping the four
teams left in the shuttle bay from dispersing. "Ms
Regna, where?"
"One deck up, sir." She studied her tricorder.
"Human, sir, mostly. Some other species. About
thirty."
"Teams Beta and Delta, resume search. Team Gamma,
with me, and team Epsilon as well." Kirk said. Spock
nodded, Sulu sketched a salute, and those two led
their teams out. Chekov assigned his team in a
pattern Kirk recognised to be designed to provide
protection for the captain.
"We'll take the stairs." Kirk said. Frustrating
Chekov's attempts, he led the way, taking the stairs
three at a time. Following Regan's directions, he
turned left and fetched up outside a storage bay.
The door was not locked. It didn't seem remarkable in
any way, there was nothing to indicate why whoever it
was inside had chosen this room rather than any
other. Around Kirk, crew drew their phasers,
crouched in readiness.
He reached out his hand to the controls and for a
second cold, mindless dread washed over him. He did
not want to open that door, there was some reason
that he could not quite remember that he should leave
the door shut, should turn and run away -
Kirk shook off the panic. He pressed the control
firmly, and brought his phaser to ready as the door
hissed back.
Starfleet uniforms, that was the first thing he
registered. Starfleet uniforms on every person
inside. The second thing was the utter terror in
every face. Thirty or so Starfleet officers sat on
the floor of the storage bay and stared at the
officers in the doorway and the only reaction they
appeared to have was fear.
"I'm Captain Kirk." Kirk said. "Who's in charge
here?"
A massive figure in the corner of the room heaved
itself to its feet. Uniform torn and dirty, hair
mussed, one eye blackened, Fat Harry Pateman was
still instantly recognisable. He was certainly more
intimidating even than he had appeared on the
Enterprise. Motionless, the monumental bulk, the
impassive face, the tiny glittering eyes, put Kirk in
mind of some stone god carved by a primitive tribe
which had a particularly unpleasant idea of the
afterlife. He stared at Kirk for a full minute, and
then shot into galvanic movement.
"Let's go, lad." he said, striding across the room to
take Kirk's arm and turn him smartly about. "On your
feet, people! What do you think this is, a holiday
camp. Get up! Get up, on your feet, move it, move
it!"
Staggering, weaving, moving like broken marionettes,
the crew in the storage room got up and began to
follow Pateman. Kirk saw that each and every one of
them wore the thunderbolt insignia of First In
services. These were Fat Harry's own crew, the ones
who had still been on the Starbase finishing the
installation when Kirk and the Enterprise had taken
Jack Whittaker on board and left.
"Mr Pateman," Kirk said, "what happened here?"
"I'll tell thee later, lad. Right now, we have a ship
to catch."
"A ship to catch?"
"Your'n." Pateman said, propelling him down the
corridor to the stairs. "Doan' stand there gawping!"
he snapped at the Enterprise crew. "Move it, move
along!"
Such was the force of his order that they
instinctively obeyed. Kirk saw confusion on his
crew's faces. They had not been given an order by
their captain - but their captain was being dragged
by main force back to the shuttle bay - by a
Starfleet officer, which was outside the usual
security procedures.
"Pateman," Kirk said, digging his heels in and
managing to wrest his arm free, "I have sixty other
crew on this Starbase. Tell me what happened here,
now."
"Sixty?" Pateman said. "Christ, man, get them off!
Pull them back, now!"
Kirk reached for his comm., thumbed it open. 'Any
reason?"
"All the reasons thou wantst, but for the love of
god, later, man!"
The comm. failed to raise a reply. "Ms Regna," Kirk
said, "set up the stand alone communications unit.
Transmit my order for all crew to fall back to the
shuttle bay. Team Epsilon, stay with her, and then
join us in shuttle bay."
"Aye sir."
"Team Gamma, assist Mr Pateman's crew." Kirk gave in
to Pateman's pressure on his arm, and followed the
fat man as he lumbered down the stairs with
surprising speed.
"What did that final transmission mean, Pateman?"
"I doan know what transmission thourt talkin' abou'."
Pateman said. "We sent none. Our equipment has been
useless since it happened."
"Since what happened?"
"Man, you hae more questions than a quiz show host!
Get thy people out of here and we'll talk when we're
a safe distance away."
"A safe distance away from *what*?" Kirk asked. They
were in the stifling hush of shuttlebay now, and
Pateman was looking left, right, up at the ceiling,
his piggy little eyes darting in all directions and
his face shining with sweat.
"From *it*." Pateman said distractedly. "Move up,
people, move up, come on now!"
"And what is *it*?"
"I doan' know. None of us know. I reckon those as
know are dead. Or worse."
"There were thousands, tens of thousands of people on
this Starbase." Kirk said. "where are they, are they
dead? Are you the only survivors?"
Pateman turned and grabbed him by the shirtfront.
"Just shut up!" he hissed. "No - more - questions!
Get us *out* of here!"
"Sair!" It was Chekov. "Sair! Ms Regna is unable to
raise any of the other teams, sair!"
"They're gone." Pateman said flatly. "They're gone.
Let's *go*, man!"
"Pateman," Kirk said, "I am not assuming the deaths
of more than ten thousand people including sixty of
my crew without some sort of firmer information than
you have been willing to give me. We'll form a
standard search pattern and move further into the
station until we locate our people and ascertain
conditions. The communications interference is
obviously more severe than we anticipated. Those of
your crew able to assist -"
'I'll not give thee one of them, Kirk, not a one."
Pateman said. "I am taking them off here. I am doing
it now. Dost thou hear me? They hae stood enough,
they hae stood all they can! And so hae I!"
"Give me something to go on, then!" Kirk said. The
man's fear, his barely contained panic, were
contagious. "Give me some help! My crew are in there,
damn you!"
"It's hell." Pateman said. "It is hell, man, and
that's all that can be said. Your crew are *gone*,
man, if they're in there."
And that was all he would say. Pateman repeated that
over and over again, gripping Kirk's shoulders, his
great sweaty face obscuring Kirk's view of the rest
of the shuttlebay and his foul breath gusting over
him. "Gone, man, gone!" he was still saying as the
transporter beam took him.
Kirk looked around at the forty crew left in the
shuttlebay. "We'll stick to our search pattern." he
said. They looked back at him, obviously unnerved by
the sight of Fat Harry Pateman unhinged. "Close
formation, Gamma team to spiral out through deck C
and meet up with Alpha, order them to fall back to
the shuttle bay and transport off. Epsilon, with me,
across the core to deck B. We'll intercept Beta and
Delta and fall back. When we have a more complete
briefing from Mr Pateman and his crew, we will re-
assess our plans."
"Aye, sair." Chekov said.
"You should all remember that none of Mr Pateman's
crew seemed to be physically injured. Bear in mind
that the Enterprise crew selected for this landing
party were chosen specifically to meet some sort of
threat which affects the mind, not the body - and
First In, for all their expertise and skills, are a
construction unit and not the Enterprise. However,
be aware that whatever is in there is clearly
extremely dangerous."
"Aye, sair."
"Move out."
Chekov led his people across the shuttle bay at
double time and Kirk turned and started back up the
stairs. Team Epsilon was behind him in close
formation search pattern, falling into the routine
with no fuss or confusion. They *were* far more
highly trained than First In, Kirk thought. They
were tried and tested in the most challenging of
missions. Just as he would not have bet on Scotty's
engineers in a assemblage race against Pateman's
people, he would never expect First In to meet and
match the kind of problem the Enterprise solved as a
matter of course. They would get through, collect
their strayed crew and any other survivors they came
across, and return to the ship for a more complete
briefing from Pateman when the fat man had recovered.
Kirk hit the corridor and started down it, twenty of
Starfleet's finest at his heels.
And deep inside Starbase 34, something stirred, and
blinked, and woke.