Constellations (40 page)

 

The man who designed the Jefferies tube network and integrated it into the vast array of starship systems was a genius, no question. Still, Scotty cursed his name. Crawling up and down and through the damned things any time they needed the ship to do something the brains at the Fleet Yards hadn't anticipated (and there was a
hell
of a lot out here they never anticipated) was a good way of reminding him that, though he wasn't yet old, he was a long time past being young.

He shifted his weight from one leg to the other on the narrow foot ledge as he ran his phase welder along the top edge of the backup warp plasma flow regulator, then pulled the part free from its socket. He dropped it into one compartment of his toolkit, then from another extracted his newly customized regulator, reconfigured based on Andorian experimentation and good old Starfleet innovation. Given time, he could have designed a variable flow regulator that would have allowed him to make the same kind of adjustments with a touch of a button from any engineering console. Including the one on the bridge.

“Mr. Scott?”

Scotty started in surprise, dropping the new unit. It skittered down the inclined passageway and Scotty slapped his hand frantically against the tube interior, grabbing the part before it got past waist level. Then, twisting his body so he could look down past his feet, he saw McCoy standing with his head up the bottom end of the tube. “Doctor? What are you doing down here?”

“I was just about to ask you the same question. Followed by the question, why are we no longer on our way to Thraz?”

“Change of plans,” Scotty said, turning back to his installation task.

“Is that the answer to the first question or the second?”

“Doctor, I am a wee bit busy at the moment. Is there something that you need?”

Scotty took the silence that followed as a negative. He realized he should have known better where Leonard McCoy was concerned, when a minute later the doctor's head appeared a few meters overhead, where he was now peering down through the tube's upper terminus. “There. That's better than trying to talk to your aft section,” he said with an almost impish half grin.

“Doctor, you're really not supposed to be in this area of the ship,” Scotty cautioned.

“Yeah, and I could say the same to you,” the doctor replied. “Why aren't you on the bridge?”

“Because this is where I'm needed.” To illustrate his point, Scotty turned his attention back to replacing the regulator.

“Poppycock!” McCoy practically growled. “You have an entire engineering staff, Mr. Scott. Where you're needed is where the captain asked you to serve in his absence.”

“The captain didn't know what we do now about what happened at Thraz. Mr. Sulu is our most experienced bridge officer. I trust him…”

“Oh, don't get me wrong. I trust Sulu, too. The problem, Scotty, is that you're not putting any trust in yourself. Instead, you let some ambitious kid scare you off the bridge.”

“Scare me?” Scott chortled at that. “Aren't we both just a little old for that game? Are you going to call me a chicken and make clucking noises now?”

“Mr. Scott, you're supposed to be in command of this ship!” McCoy growled.

“I'm an engineer, dammit, not a ship commander,” Scotty barked right back at him. “I've been an engineer for over twenty years, and if I live another hundred years, an engineer is still what I'll be. This extra row on my sleeve doesn't make me qualified to sit in that center chair and give orders to that crew. If it did,” he said, gesturing to the identical gold braiding on McCoy's own shirt cuff, “you'd be in line to run this ship yourself.”

“Bite your tongue!”

“Ha!” Scotty smiled triumphantly. “You see what I'm getting at, then.”

“Hell, of course I do, Scotty. With all the damned fool landing parties the captain insists on dragging me off on, how could I not? The thing is, though, I trust in his judgment, and that there's a method to his madness. Besides which, you gotta see it as some kind of compliment. Jim, I think, can see a lot more in people than we can see for ourselves.”

“Could be,” Scotty admitted after a moment.

“So?”

Scotty finished the module swap and placed his tool back in its kit. “I appreciate what you said, and your intentions in saying them, Doctor. Now please get the hell out of my Jefferies tube.”

“Aye, sir,” McCoy said with a scowl.

Once the doctor was gone, Scotty climbed down into main engineering and stepped to the nearest wall intercom. “Scott to bridge.”

“Sulu here, Mr. Scott.”

“If you switch from primary to secondary WPF systems, you'll be able to maneuver the ship safely to within ten kilometers of that thing out there. Maybe a touch closer, depending on how precise these Andorian measurements are.”

“Excellent, Mr. Scott. Thank you.”

“Aye. Scott out.”

The engineer flicked the switch off and turned to head for the engine room. He'd barely gotten two paces toward the door when the intercom whistled for his attention again.
“Bridge to Mr. Scott,”
came Sulu's voice.

Scotty sighed, turned back, and hit the button once more. “Scott here.”

There was a slight hesitation on the other end of the circuit, and then,
“Your orders, Commander?”

Scotty blinked, somewhat stunned. Captain Kirk was in the habit of referring to all his officers—all his male officers, at any rate—as “Mister” and eschewing the use of ranks except in the most formal circumstances. It was a custom the rest of his crew adapted as well, so it was a bit jarring right now to hear Sulu address him with that kind of deference. “Move to intercept, gradual approach,” Scotty said. He hesitated a moment more, then added, “I'm on my way up.”

“Aye, sir.”

Scotty considered the intercom a moment after it fell silent, reflecting on Sulu's words, and McCoy's, and the ones in the back of his own head. Then, with a deep breath, he headed back to the bridge.

 

“We already
had
orders to pursue.”

Chekov muttered his comment so softly, Sulu wasn't sure he was meant to hear it. He moved up from where he stood beside the captain's chair and lay a hand on the back of Chekov's. “I'm sorry, Ensign, did you say something?” he asked, making no effort not to be overheard.

Chekov turned and looked up and him, all youthful innocence. “I just said, we already had our orders. Sir,” he added, flashing that boyish smile that had helped him ingratiate himself to the entire crew in his short time aboard. Behind the smile, Sulu read all the things his friend wouldn't say aloud:
You didn't need to page Scott a second time and give him the excuse to return to the bridge. Worse, you sounded like an indecisive fool doing it. You had the chance to command this mission, Hikaru, and you blew it.

Sulu pushed all those self-recriminations down and answered Chekov, while at the same time addressing the entire bridge crew with a clear, deep voice. “This is an unknown alien ship, which attacked Federation citizens without provocation, with unknown—and perhaps superior—weaponry. This is a time we all have to pull together as a crew, to cooperate, to put all other concerns aside, for the good of this ship and the four hundred thirty lives aboard her. Am I understood?”

That elicited an abashed look from Chekov. Turning away from the young officer, Sulu also caught a tiny smile of approval from Uhura and deferential nods from the rest of the bridge crew. And it was at that moment, when he finally felt the respect of the people around him, that the turbolift opened and he was displaced by the arrival of a superior officer.

“Status, Mr. Sulu?” Scott asked as he stepped down to the center of the bridge, stopping on one side of the captain's chair, with Sulu standing on the other.

“On intercept course now,” Sulu reported. “We'll be at minimum safe distance in thirty seconds.”

Scott turned to consider the growing image of the alien ship on the main viewer. “Any change in their speed or course?”

“Negative, sir,” Chekov said, as he divided his attention between his board and the screen. “They're keeping at a constant warp three-point-seven.”

A corner of Scott's mouth twisted as he considered that. “Just enjoying the ride.” He turned to the communications officer. “Are you attempting to hail them, Lieutenant?”

“I am,” she replied, “but with all the subspace interference, I doubt they're receiving us.”

“One hundred kilometers and closing,” Chekov reported.

“Bring us directly abreast of them, Chekov.”

“Aye, sir. Fifty kilometers…thirty…” A slight but definite tremor washed through the ship just as Chekov announced, “Ten kilometers, and holding distance.”

“Steady as she goes,” Scott said, staring at the dark shape that surfed heedless along the river of superluminal energy. “Any indication at all that they know we're here?”

Chekov shook his head. “Their course and speed still steady.”

“Still can't get a signal through,” Uhura added from her station.

Scott frowned at the screen, then turned to the helmsman. “Suggestions, Mr. Sulu?”

For a split second, Sulu imagined Scott was taunting him for having brought them to this impasse. He didn't really believe so, but whether or not the senior officer was genuinely soliciting his strategic advice, he couldn't let the impression that he was unconfident remain. “Fire a photon torpedo across their bow. Get their attention, and hopefully draw them out into normal space.”

 

Scotty couldn't help but admire the confidence with which the bridge officer made his recommendation. He was also relieved that he didn't suggest firing directly on the blind vessel—no matter what Kirk or McCoy thought him capable of, Scotty did not believe something like that was included.

There was one concern he had with Sulu's proposal, though. “Do we know what the effect of a photon explosion within the streamer will actually be?”

Sulu frowned, immediately understanding Scott's hesitation. Before he could say anything, though, Ensign Frank piped up from his post. “There was an Andorian shuttle that reportedly suffered fusion drive failure inside the streamer early on. It caused a sharp spike in radiated energy, but otherwise had no effect.”

“Except to the shuttle,” Scotty muttered, then quickly added, “Thank you, Mr. Frank,” to acknowledge his contribution. Turning back, he addressed Chekov. “Ready photon torpedo number one, and set for detonation five hundred meters off their bow, minimal yield.” With any luck, that would be enough to get the aliens' attention, but do nothing more than that.

“Aye, sir,” Chekov answered. “Torpedo armed and ready.”

Scotty stared at the screen. “Fire.”

The missile shot from its launch tube and crossed the short distance to the Thraz Streamer in a bright streaking blur. Seconds later, a spot of increasing brightness appeared within the phenomenon, and it seemed to bulge, like a blocked blood vessel getting ready to burst.

“
BRACE
—”

That was all Sulu managed to get out before the deck fell out from under them. Scotty grabbed at the arm of the captain's chair and missed, ending up doubled over the back of Chekov's chair. “Damage control parties, report!” he called as soon the ship's artificial gravity reasserted itself and he found his breath again.

“All departments reporting minor injuries only,” Uhura said, already back in her seat, one hand tugging at the hem of her uniform skirt.

“Shields holding at ninety percent,” Chekov added as he settled himself back into his chair and reviewed the status of his board. He started as he noticed a change in another of his readouts. “The alien ship! It's gone! It's left the streamer!”

Scott's initial sense of elation was short-lived, overtaken quickly by concern. “Where are they?”

“Astern of us, and falling away…” Chekov turned to face Scotty with an expression of disbelief. “Mr. Scott, they came to an almost instantaneous full stop!”

“They what?” Scott's expression matched the navigator's. On reflection, he shouldn't have been so surprised. If the aliens could enter the FTL streamer from normal space without being torn to atoms, it stood to reason they could do the reverse just as easily. “Take us out of warp, and bring us about!” Scott agonized as the
Enterprise
went through its own gradual deceleration, from warp 3.7 to warp 1 to normal relativistic velocities. By the time Sulu could safely execute a 180-degree course change, they'd already overshot the alien ship by some 40 million kilometers.

While he did that, Dr. McCoy burst through the turbolift doors and onto the bridge. “What's going on up here?” Something in his expression seemed to soften when he spotted Scotty standing beside Kirk's chair, but it didn't soften his tone. “You could give a person some warning before you start knocking the ship around like a damned piñata!”