Kobayashi Maru Page 9

  Vance appeared to be making a careful study of Archer’s expression, which was resolute. Then he spread his ruffle-fringed hands before him in an almost theatrical concession of defeat. “So be it,” he said, turning and retracing his earlier steps down the corridor. “Follow me.”

  Mayweather found the nearly two-hour inspection tour both tedious and nostalgic. Tedious because there was precious little for a pilot to do while the more engineering-oriented portions of the inspection proceeded, and nostalgic because the freighter’s interior, in which he found himself wandering, was so much like the one in which he had grown up.

  He passed part of the time in a surprisingly congenial conversation with Arturo Stiles, who also had found himself with little to do for nearly two hours other than to hang around the freighter’s crowded, ramshackle crew lounge, awaiting Mike Burch’s detailed assessment of the freighter’s condition.

  “I tried getting into Starfleet once,” Stiles said, leaning against a bulkhead near one of the battered coffeemakers, from which he had just poured himself a full cup. “Couldn’t quite pass the physical, though.” His tone sounded vaguely resentful of the fact, though he offered no further explanation.

  “I’m sorry,” Mayweather said, his elbows resting on a dull stainless steel table as he sipped at a cup of coffee that tasted as though it once might have been used to cool old-style plutonium fuel rods. He felt stupid that he hadn’t been able to come up with anything better to say.

  “I’m from a Starfleet family, though,” Stiles continued, apparently unfazed by Mayweather’s well-intentioned gaffe. “I have a niece who’s just earned her lieutenant’s commission, a grand-nephew who’s a freshly minted ensign, and a couple of cousins who made it as far as lieutenant commander. At least one of ’em’s bound to make captain sooner or later.”

  “You must be very proud,” Mayweather said, pushing the nasty-tasting coffee to one side, taking care not to spill any lest it eat through the table, the deck, and the Maru’s ventral hull.

  Stiles chuckled mirthlessly, then looked around as though to make sure he wouldn’t be overheard by any of his shipmates. “I’m just glad I can take pride in something while I’m serving aboard this tub.”

  While Stiles was speaking, a small group of men and women brushed past Mayweather’s table on their way to the freighter’s self-service galley area. Most of them looked somewhat weather-beaten, though they all seemed strong and fit, fairly radiating both confidence and competence. As Mayweather quietly watched them going about their meals—they all seemed to be doing their best to avoid any contact with the Starfleet intruders who had temporarily disrupted their ship’s routine—he reflected that these people represented the true cutting edge of the permanent expansion of humanity’s presence throughout the galaxy. This crew reminded him of the stories his late father had told him of the hardy professional survivors whose livelihoods had required them to drive incredibly heavy multiaxle trucks over the treacherous ice roads of the remote Alaskan wilderness. Like those survivors, these people were the strong backbone of the human species’ ongoing effort to make a permanent mark on the eternal stars themselves.

  Pioneers, as it were, on a wagon train to the stars.

  “So you’re bound for Gamma Hydra next,” he said, turning back toward Stiles in the hopes of directing the conversation toward a happier topic than career regrets.

  Stiles nodded. “If we ever get this inspection business out of the way so we can finish our repairs.”

  Mayweather tried to defuse the thinly veiled complaint with more small talk. “You know, my family’s in the interstellar hauling trade, too, working with the Earth Cargo Service. I was born on a freighter, in fact.”

  Stiles chuckled around a sip of his own coffee. “Ah. A Boomer, huh?”

  “Better believe it,” Mayweather said, grinning. “The family is still doing business in the ship I was born in. That boat has to be at least as old as this one. In fact, family legend has it that the inside of her warp casing was autographed by Zefram Cochrane himself.”

  “Get outta town,” the other man said in an almost bantering tone.

  Mayweather grinned. “That’s Mom’s story, and she’s sticking to it. Anyway, the family freighter has a few stops in the Gamma Hydra sector planned for the near future.”

  “Really? What’s the ship’s name?” Stiles asked, sounding genuinely interested.

  “The Horizon.”

  Stiles’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “It’s a small galaxy, Ensign. The Horizon’s scheduled to make a cargo pickup from us when we get to Gamma Hydra.”

  Mayweather didn’t try to conceal his delight in hearing that. His grin broadening involuntarily, he said, “Do you think I could trouble you to deliver some personal mail to Rianna and Paul Mayweather, care of the E.C.S. Horizon?”

  Stiles shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Assuming we can get there in time to make the rendezvous, that is.” He rapped his knuckles against the bulkhead, and the sound made hollow echoes throughout the somewhat squalid crew lounge. The earlier curtain of glumness abruptly descended once again over the first mate’s demeanor.

  Once again at a loss for a satisfactory reply, Mayweather felt relieved when Captain Archer, Captain Vance, Lieutenant Burch, and Jacqueline Searles chose that moment to step into the room, followed by Lieutenant Reed and the two MACOs.

  Burch wasted no time handing Stiles a small padd, which the first mate studied with a steadily lengthening face.

  “Here’s a copy of my report, Mister Stiles,” Burch said as he pushed a pair of old-style reading glasses onto the thatch of graying blond hair at the top of his head. “As I’ve already explained to Captain Vance, this vessel is going to need some serious repairs before she’s back up to UESPA code.” Burch shook his head. “Don’t ask me what’s been holding your life-support system together.”

  “Clean living and noble intentions, for the most part,” Vance said, looking vaguely dyspeptic. “The repairs will be expensive ones, no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” Burch said. “You’ve either just flown this ship through the flames of hell and back, or else you’ve been deferring your major maintenance problems and ignoring component-replacement issues for years.”

  Vance responded with a noncommittal smile. “Let’s just say that the vicissitudes of interstellar trade have lately placed some severe limitations on my ability to keep this vessel in factory condition. And all the uncertainty and confusion surrounding the formation of the new Coalition hasn’t helped matters any.”

  Archer’s brow furrowed. “‘Uncertainty and confusion,’ Captain? It’s funny how law and order can make everything look uncertain and confusing. Particularly when you’ve gotten used to making a living in the absence of law and order, that is.”

  Vance’s smile grew ironic. “A pity you weren’t here to explain the newly lawful and orderly status quo to the Orions and the Nausicaans. Particularly the last few times they decided to deprive me of my cargo.”

  Vance’s earlier reference to the pleasure worlds he favored when his vessel was at liberty sprang abruptly into Mayweather’s mind. Having lived in space all his life, he understood better than most that the interstellar hauling trade favored neither the lazy nor the libertine, though he also knew that brains counted for at least as much as hard work did. And he could see that this self-styled pirate was certainly not lacking in brains. Maybe if he spent more time working and less time partying, he thought, he’d be able to afford to keep his ship from falling apart around his ears.

  “We can tow you back to one of the drydock facilities at Altair VI in just a few hours, Captain,” Burch said.

  “And I’m to pay for their services with what, Lieutenant?” Vance said, sounding angry now that his embarrassing state of financial disarray had at last been laid totally bare. “My credit with the Altair VI port authority is, shall we say, less than sterling at the moment. My cargo is already spoken for, so I can’t simply trade it away. Besides, the fine, upstanding c
itizens of Darro-Miller will want hard currency, and I won’t be flush again until after the Maru’s current voyage concludes.”

  “In the state she’s in right now, Captain, the Maru’s voyage is already over,” Burch said. “I’m sorry.”

  Though Vance looked deflated, his tendency toward bravado hadn’t deserted him entirely. Addressing Archer, he said, “You wouldn’t be interested in floating us a temporary loan, would you?”

  Except for the faint clatter of metal forks against lightweight aerogel plates, a sudden hush blanketed the room. The crewmen and technicians who were eating at the tables along the opposite wall made a show of ignoring the tableau, though they had to have heard every word. Stiles looked like he wanted nothing more than simply to crawl away somewhere and die with whatever slender shreds of dignity remained to him. Mayweather felt intense embarrassment for the first mate, as well as for his captain.

  Archer was the first to disturb the extended silence. “I’m afraid I can’t lend you any money, Captain Vance.”

  Vance now looked utterly defeated. “Then please don’t neglect to scuttle us before you get under way for your next assignment,” he said very quietly.

  “But since the regs require me to render aid to all vessels in distress,” Archer continued, “I’ll lend you something more valuable than money: my chief engineer and his staff.”

  “Sir?” Burch said, obviously as surprised as Mayweather was. Reed, Vance, Stiles, and Searles all looked poleaxed as well, and even the two usually impassive MACOs exchanged quiet sidelong glances.

  “How much time do you need to get the Kobayashi Maru back under way?” Archer asked the engineer.

  Burch answered without hesitation. “Forty-eight hours, max.”

  “Then get busy, Lieutenant. Give T’Pol a list of whatever personnel and matériel you think you’re going to need.”

  “Yes, sir,” Burch said, grinning as he contemplated the no doubt unusual challenges that awaited him. Mayweather hoped for his sake that his repair-time estimates would prove as reliable as those his predecessor used to make. After all, as good as Burch had so far proved himself to be, he wasn’t Commander Tucker.

  Nobody is at the moment, Mayweather thought with a profound sense of sadness.

  After directing Lieutenant Reed and the MACOs to remain aboard to keep an eye on things, Archer moved toward the lounge’s raised hatchway. “Let’s head back to Enterprise, Travis. I want to get this job expedited so we can get back to chasing real pirates just as soon as humanly possible.”

  “Can never get enough of that, Captain,” Mayweather said, grinning as he followed Archer into the corridor that led back to the section of the Kobayashi Maru to which Shuttlepod One was docked. As they walked, he contemplated still more endless hours of patrolling, watching, and waiting. And the interval that would precede the resumption of those monotonous tasks.

  Forty-eight hours. Two days.

  Plenty of time to dash off a few handwritten letters home before the Maru resumed her voyage toward Gamma Hydra, and a rendezvous with the Horizon.

  SEVEN

  Day Thirty, Month of K’ri’Brax

  Dartha City, Romulus

  THE LIGHTS SUDDENLY WENT OUT, throwing the entire lab into stygian darkness. Trip knew that the facility had its own emergency backup power systems—which should have kicked in on their own the minute the main power circuits were interrupted—so he was immediately suspicious. His pupils struggled to cope with the night’s abrupt intrusion.

  Though he was still effectively blinded, his artificially pointed ears nevertheless identified the nearby sound of metal clicking against metal.

  A disruptor pistol’s safety catch.

  “Ehrehin, get down!” Trip shouted.

  In the same breath, he tackled the elderly scientist, hoping that the more-than-human strength inherent to Vulcans and their genetic offshoots would keep the old man from suffering a bad fracture when he hit the floor.

  Breaking a hip is still a lot better than taking a disruptor blast, he thought as both men’s bodies slammed against the unyielding tile floor behind one of the lab’s massive bookcases. The transitory brilliance of an energy blast singed the hairs on Trip’s neck in the split second before he’d moved out of the immediate line of fire.

  That was way too close, he thought amid the acrid stench of ozone and fear. He struggled to catch his breath and get his bearings.

  “Cunaehr!” The old man could barely wheeze Trip’s Romulan cover name, his lungs just having been forcibly and suddenly emptied. But at least he had eluded the assassin’s disruptor beam.

  For the moment, at least.

  “Stay down, Doctor,” Trip whispered. “And keep quiet.” He hauled himself up onto his elbows, cautiously surveying what little he could see of the lab’s work area in an attempt to pinpoint the would-be killer’s location.

  Then he heard the gentle rustle of something moving beyond the sturdy desk behind which he and the old man had taken refuge. The sound seemed to have come from somewhere near the lab’s rear exit. Another muffled noise came from the opposite side of the room. Though his heart raced like a reactor core about to go critical, Trip tried to remain absolutely still.

  Shit. At least two of ’em are in here with us.

  “Are you armed, Cunaehr?” Ehrehin said quietly, a fearful quaver in his voice.

  “Don’t talk anymore,” Trip whispered back, ignoring the question. Though he didn’t, in fact, have an effective weapon within handy reach, he didn’t want to admit it out loud. Keeping the bad guys guessing about things like that was always the best policy in this sort of situation.

  “Stay here,” Trip whispered directly into Ehrehin’s ear. Despite the darkness, he was close enough to Ehrehin to see that the old man was beside himself, owl-eyed with commingled fear and outrage.

  Trip heard another noise coming from the front of the lab, the direction from which the disruptor bolt had originated. Someone’s feet moved slowly and stealthily forward. No one was visible as yet behind the farrago of tables, desks, bookcases, and computer terminals scattered about the room, so the shooter had to be crouching, keeping his profile low.

  Taking his cue from the intruders, Trip slowly—and quietly—combat-crawled toward the source of the intermittent sound before him. A moment later, another disruptor blast cleaved the air above him, at perhaps chest level.

  Trip grinned as he imagined a pair—he hoped it was only a pair—of assassins, hunkered down on the floor much as he was, at opposite sides of the lab. They don’t know exactly where to shoot just yet. And they have to fire high to protect each other. He wondered whether the assassins’ tactics implied that they lacked night-vision equipment, or were merely displaying an overabundance of caution.

  As he inched forward toward the edge of a storage cabinet, Trip’s hand brushed against a padd that he’d evidently knocked to the floor when he’d tackled Ehrehin. He picked it up and felt its reassuring heft. It was solid, square, and not too badly balanced. Taking care to remain silent, Trip rose to a crouch, clutching the little device nearly hard enough to shatter it.

  More motion, this time coming from the right side in his peripheral vision. Without thinking, he turned and hurled the padd with every ounce of strength he could muster. Moving from a crouch to a full run, he wasted no time chasing the object he’d thrown, shouting as he executed a flying tackle on the source of the movement.

  He landed hard and found himself lying directly atop a supine humanoid body—one that was very much alive and struggling. As he tried to grab and restrain his assailant’s wrists, he realized his adversary was female.

  And as strong as the proverbial ox.

  The Romulan woman sat up abruptly in spite of his strenuous attempt to pin her shoulders to the floor, and forced him relentlessly sideways and onto his back. Hot liquid dripped from her face onto his. He realized it was most likely blood; the missile he’d thrown must have split her lip open, or perhaps clipped her in some other part o
f the head or face. Just nowhere near hard enough, he thought as she kept pushing him steadily backward and downward in spite of his best efforts to push in the opposite direction.

  The room’s scant illumination gleamed at the threshold of visibility against the disruptor pistol she still clutched in her right hand—and whose barrel he saw she was trying to point directly at his head. His arms trembled with exertion as he tried to push back against her and keep the weapon away, succeeding only in slowing its inexorable progress toward him. He remembered his bureau colleague, a deep cover field agent named Tinh Hoc Phuong, who’d been killed elsewhere in Romulan space by a blast from a nearly identical weapon. He forced that horrific recollection aside with an absurd transient thought about T’Pol, and how much fun an encounter like this might be in an entirely different context. If, that is, he ever got to see her again.

  Trip felt as though he were in an arm-wrestling contest with a piece of farm machinery. His biceps, triceps, and forearms quivered as fatigue toxins began to accumulate in his tissues. He knew he was getting tired out. And that she wasn’t. Though he probably outweighed her by more than a few kilos, she nevertheless seemed to be at least marginally stronger than he was, no matter how much effort he expended. And in terms of endurance she appeared to have him flat-out beaten. He was uncomfortably aware that even the most marginal advantage in a contest like this could end it quickly and decisively in favor of the least exhausted opponent.

  Unless he changed the rules of the game, and damned quickly.

  A number of small, hard objects clattered to the lab’s floor, presumably after having fallen from some pocket in the woman’s dark, formfitting garment. Taking full advantage of the momentary distraction, Trip suddenly stopped resisting her efforts to push him backward. Her disruptor hand swung directly toward Trip’s face, overshooting it before she could press the trigger even as both combatants abruptly crashed to the floor.