"Sir, picking up a transmission." Uhura said. Mayday

and automated repeat from the Shuttle Mayru. Captain

Kirk, Commander Spock and Ms Larssen aboard."

"I have them on sensors - heading out of the blast

zone on impulse. They're at the inner edge of the

detonation radius." Chekov said. " Substance

distortion vill reach them in forty seconds. They

won't make it."

"Transporter Room Two," Sulu said into the comm.,

raising a finger at Uhura and Chekov to signal them to

send their data to Kyle. " Information coming to you

from communications and tactical. Lock on to life

forms at location being sent to you now. Get them out

of there!"

"Their shields are up, sir." Kyle answered. "We can't

lock on."

"I'm taking us in. Sound take hold and general

quarters." Sulu said, keying in the course as he

spoke.

"All hands, Take Hold and General Quarters -" Uhura's

voice rang out over comm. "All hands, Take Hold and

General Quarters."

"Chekov, extend our shields to overlap theirs. We'll

form a single bubble and get them aboard." He kicked

the Enterprise into a hard vertical roll and brought

her around on a heading that would bring her parallel

to the Mayru. "Engaging full impulse."

"Sensor indicate their shields have been modified."

Iyen reported. "They are not compatible with ours. I

believe they have retuned them to offer greater

protection from this specific detonation. Seeking to

duplicate frequencies."

"Can you raise the shuttlecraft, Uhura?" Sulu asked.

"Iyen, as soon as you have those frequencies I want

our shields tuned to theirs. Liase with Engineering.

"

"Aye sir!"

"We're closing in five seconds." Sulu said. His comm

squawked and he sang out "Save it, Scotty!" He coaxed

the Enterprise to a harder angle. ~Come on, girl, he

willed her. We're going to get the captain. Just give

me a little more. Just a little more, for the

captain. He's yours as much as he is ours. Give me a

little more. A little more...~

"Ten seconds." Chekov said. "Frequency modulations

underway. Frequency modulations complete. Shield

owerlap approaching. Shield owerlap - the Mayru is

vithin our shields, sir."

"Full power to shields!" Sulu said, hitting the

reverse thrusters and stopping the Enterprise dead

with a shudder that rattled the hull.

"Aye, sir."

Lights dimmed to emergency lighting, and the gravity

cut suddenly back to less than half-g.

"Impact in three - two - one -"

Sulu closed his hands hard on the armrests of the

centre chair and gained a new appreciation of the

difficulties of command. Kirk's chair was a lot

harder to stay in than his own, for all that it looked

more comfortable. He managed to keep his seat for the

first five seconds while the bridge around him

vibrated like an amusement park ride and then a

particularly sharp jolt sent him flying. One hand on

the railing and the other clutching the base of

Chekov's station, Sulu made himself a solemn vow. ~If

I ever get my own ship, he thought, I swear the

captain's chair will have a seatbelt.~

He clawed his way back to his seat and into it as

Uhura turned her head, spreadeagled across her station

and hanging on to its edges with a white-knuckled

grip, her legs wrapped around the column of her chair.

"Transporter room reports - three beamed aboard!" she

yelled.

Sulu checked power allocations with a glance. Going

to warp with the power drain from the boosted shields

could overload the warp core -

"Another wave!" Iyen shouted. "Ten seconds - nine -"

With no discernable change in expression, Sulu threw

the ship into warp space.

Nothing blew up, but he could see the indicators

climbing to red. He now had a new and immediate

problem. He had no course laid in. Warp space and

real space operated on different rules. In warp, a

starship could pass indifferently through anything

that did not have a warp presence of its own: stars,

planets, even other ships that were not themselves in

warp. Once it dropped back into real space and the

warp bubble collapsed, however, this was no longer the

case, and a ship that resumed its real space presence

too close to another mass would make a very bright,

very brief, blaze across the deep.

"Pavel, find me a place to come down." Sulu said.

The comm squawked. "Mr Sulu, we are dangerously close

to a core overload down here." Scotty said.

"I know." Sulu said. "Pavel."

"Vorking." Chekov said. Dark sweat stains spread

across his back. Trying to establish the Enterprise's

position underway with variable acceleration and no

predetermined heading was the kind of mathematics that

even Spock would prefer not to do on the fly.

Sulu slowed the Enterprise to warp two, then one,

nursing her at the very lower limit of the warp

bubble, trusting his skill to keep her just above the

threshold, trying to minimise the stress on the

engines. Indicators yellow, orange, red...

"Course to your station!" Chekov snapped, and Sulu

saw flash up on his display, matched it, saw the

Enterprise's co-ordinates match the red point on the

course projection and dumped them out of warp and

back into realspace with an inertial spill that made

the gravity fluctuate again as the ship took its

attention away from the comfort of its inhabitants

and gave it to the more urgent task of ensuring their

continued existence.

As Sulu slowed them to a steady impulse course he

could see the indicators settling down to a less than

optimal, but not emergency level, yellow.

"Commander Scott?" he said into the comm.

"Aye, lad, we'll do for now. Please don't be tossin'

her around again, though, lad, I canna guarantee

anything if ye try any more fancy moves."

"Noted." Sulu said. "Bridge out."

"McCoy reports the Captain, Commander Spock and

Lieutenant Larssen all in sickbay. No condition

report." Uhura said. She gave a sudden brilliant

smile. "I have the captain for you, sir!"

"Put him on." Sulu said, knowing that if he gave in

to his relief now it would overwhelm him.

"Mr Sulu." Kirk's familiar voice crackled over the

bridge. "Thanks for the pick up. There'll be a

section heads briefing as soon as we can arrange it.

In the meantime, go to intruder alert stage four, and

lock Commander Spock and Lieutenant Larssen out of

all codes under order General Order 1 9 subsection 4

paragraph 14. I think we're out and clear, but let's

go by the book."

"Aye, sir!" Sulu said.

"I'll be up to relieve you as soon as I can. Get

Rand to set up shift rosters - rest breaks and

medical attention as needed, standard intruder alert

patterns, she knows the drill, implement them as soon

as she writes them if I'm not up there by then."

"Aye, sir." Sulu said.

"Lay in a nice, slow course for the nearest

Starbase." Kirk said. "Don't rattle Mr Scott's

'bairns' any more than you need to."

"Aye, sir."

"Alright. Oh, and Mr Sulu?"

"Yes, sir?"

"What exactly do you call the course you were flying

just then?"

Sulu smiled in answer to the grin he could hear in

his captain's voice. "Sir, I call that course 'the

hell out of here.'"

"I thought as much." Kirk said. "Kirk out."