First Strike (part of the Invasion series) [030 4.9]

By Diane Carey

Synopsis

Klingons and the Federation at each other's throats; space-faring outcasts

from across the Galaxy returning to reclaim their rightful territory --

(or is it)? alien beings ... or are they? Kirk, Spock and the crew of the

Enterprise and a Klingon general struggle to save the Galaxy in this first

part of what proves to be an exciting series, which spans the Star Trek

generations!

INVASION!

"THE TALES ARE ALL TRUE.

THE DEMONS HAVE RETURNED."

General Kellen of the Klingon Empire spoke to his

crew, his normally calm voice brimming with terror

and anger. "They have come back and they are on

that ship out there.

"It will take all of us to defeat them," the general

continued. "Call the Empire for reinforcements.

Track that ship, but do not go near it. I will go for

help."

"For help?" his first officer asked. "From where?

From whom?"

"We need a demon to fight demons," the general

said at last. "I will get one. I will get Captain

James T. Kirk."

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4 Violations

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FIRST STRIKE

DIANE CAREY

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are

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SPACEQUAKE

Danger is never the barometer of an officer's

conduct.

-Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim

Chapter One

"THE SUN IS GROWING!"

"Impossible. Is it an illusion?"

"No! No! Also reading a reduction in mass! Seventy-one

percent and dropping!"

A relatively small star system--only five planets. Two

livable, one worth conquering.

Now, through some unimagined power, the sun was engaging in a practice heretofore reserved for balloons.

It was expanding. Dilating. It was growing.

"General, the planets! Same effect!"

"I'm standing next to you. Calm down when you

speak. Is the speed of orbit increasing with reduction in

mass?"

"Yes! And they're spinning faster and faster!"

"Stop shouting. No one else shout anymore. We will

look at this and decide."

The crew of the Klingon patrol cruiser Jada swung to

look at the rows of auxiliary monitors showing views of

the five planets. Two of the planets, the two nearest the

sun, were dilating too--blowing outward from their

cores as if puffed up by breath. A second later, the other

Diane Carey

three puffed also. And all solar-system bodies and debris

were racing faster around the sun with every passing

second.

But the first two planets were not only blowing

apart--they were charging out of their orbits like balls

swung on strings that had been suddenly released. No

longer held in a curve around the sun, they were

launched on elongated orbits. The arc was widening--distorting.

In horror and shock, the crew and their general

measured the impossible occurring around them. The

sun, minutes ago as normal as any other, now had

swollen to fill their main viewscreen. The screen mechanisms

whirred to compensate for the blinding light that

had flared too fast and set the crew to shielding their

eyes.

It could not happen, but it was happening. Their

general swung his squat, broad-chested body to the main

screen when the light finally dimmed. The light still hurt

his eyes but this was something he had to see for himself.

His voice was very quiet. "Are we falling toward it?"

"No!" the tactical officer punctuated, then remembered

what the general had said about shouting. "Position stationary. But the shipreit--we... we..."

"Speak, man."

"Reading a reduction in registered mass for us as well!

All other ships reporting the same!"

Suddenly the helmsman said, "Ship's speed is increasing,

sir! But I have not done it!"

To their left, the tactical officer turned to the center of

the bridge, stared at Captain Ruhl, and confirmed, "All

five other ships reporting the same thing happening to

them."

"Compensate." Ruhl was the newly assigned captain

of this ship, a narrow-bodied individual with a missing

tooth in front. When the general did not stop him, he

gained confidence and snapped his fingers at hit officers.

"Keep the speed down."

"Trying," the helmsman uttered, but he was involved

FIRST STRIKE

in a struggle. "Point four five of sublight... point five

zero... still increasing..."

"Everything is speeding up," the tactical officer

abridged, gasping as an animal does on the run.

Lack of inhibition about his own ignorance was Ruhl's

only good trait, and in fact was the qualification that had

gotten him this command. He had no ego at all. No

problem turning to their elder and asking, "General

Kellen, what should we do?"

Sensing the panic about to erupt around him, the

general held out one hand for silence. Five ships to

protect, a vaporizing solar system... they wanted answers

from him. Solutions. He had none.

He would do as he always did in wild situations--he

would become calmer than anything or anyone around

him. He would lower his voice, contain his stance, raise

his chin, and deliver a glacial demeanor. He had long ago

discovered the best key to winning When the situation

becomes tense, become correspondingly calm. He could

win over anyone that way. Being a Vulcan among Klingons,

controlled and contemplative, would supersede any

Klingon. Most Klingons despised Vulcans. That made

his advantage even greater.

Now he was a general of the highest mark. Unexcit-ability

had served him so well that it had become the

mantle of his reputation. He rather enjoyed that.

Except in situations like this, when there was a panic

but no thinking enemy to outthink. He could not out-calm

a natural disaster. He found himself irritated by

that, and by the blustering fear demonstrated around

him.

Critical seconds ticked off as Kellen maneuvered his

wide body toward the science officer.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"MymI"

"His name is Karn," the helmsman blurted, anxious

enough to interfere.

"Karn," Kellen repeated, "explain what you think is

happening."

Diane Carey

Pressing both hands to his head as if to hold in the

flurry of details, Karn looked at his instruments, then

back at the general. His mouth opened and closed

several times before he found his voice.

"Mass," he began, "is failing to register on my instruments.

Not the matter... just the mass!"

"The sky is falling and we seem also to be falling,"

Kellen said evenly. "Keep talking."

Frantic, Karn battled to control himself. He put his

hands out between himself and his commanding officers

and made shapes as if sculpting his words.

"Every moving thing possesses a certain amount of

energy. How quickly it moves depends upon how much

energy and how much mass. Velocity is mass versus

energy. If the mass drops away but energy doesn't,

velocity must increase. If one or the other is taken away

or added, the nature makes it balance. Mass is slipping

away, but the energy is still there. So everything is

speeding up!"

His eyes were wild with confusion. The anchors of his

life, the precepts of concrete science, were slipping their

hold.

"How can mass be taken away?" Kellen asked him.

"I do not know that! But you see it happening?

"I feel it happening. And when one of my girth

becomes lighter, one notices."

Karn nodded, breathing as if he'd just come up

through water. "If it reaches zero... if it reaches zero .. Once the mass of all those planets and the sun hits

zero--if there is only energy and no mass--everything

will go to light speed! Every particle!"

"Like photons," Kellen considered. "Are you sure this

will happen?"

Seeming frustrated that his general was content to

discuss this theory--which was quickly manifesting

itself as much more than theory -- the sad scientist

continued to lose color from his bronze fate. "I am sure

of nothing! This has never happened before! But I think it will happen?

FIRST STRIKE

"Nothing in nature can go to light speed," the helmsman

argued. "It makes no sense."

Karn cranked around. "Neither does the mass dropping!"

"So the planets explode," the helmsman said. "So

what?"

"Idiot!" Karn slashed a hand toward him. "Don't you

understand? We are all part of the existing universe!" He

pointed frantically at the internal readouts. "Our mass is

going away too. The moment it hits zero, every one of

our molecules will move away from each other at the

speed of light! The energy has to go somewhere!"

Ruhl squinted at him. "We explode too?"

Karn nodded so hard that his hair bounced up and

down at the back of his neck. "At the speed of light!"

After a lifetime in space, Kellen understood immediately

and paused as comprehension dawned on each of

the others, blanching their faces one by one.

"Read out the mass falloff," he requested quietly.

Karns gnarled face was chalky with fear as he stared

into his instruments, but he took his general's example

and tried to rein in his panic. "Forty percent now and

still dropping, sir."

Ruhl glared at him. "Is it a weapon?"

Pressing a lock of neatly clipped hair away from the

side of his face, Kellen ignored the question and snapped

instead, "Go to battle mode. Deflectors up."

Ruhl pulled himself to the helm, rather than bothering to shift the responsibility to anyone else, and with one

finger punched in the shields-up.

All at once a hand of nausea swept down upon them

all, and they were released from their own weight. The

deck slid away from their boots.

Loss of mass--loss of gravity!

As he grabbed clumsily for a handhold, Kellen called

out over the noise, "Compensate. Compensate, you

clumsy amateurs!"

"Trying, sir!"

"Trying, sir!"

Diane Carey

"Compensating, sir!"

They were trying, he could see that. The helmsman

fought with his controls while holding himself to his seat

with his knotted legs. The ship raced through open space

on a nonsensical course around the solar system, leading

the other five ships in the fleet as they all struggled for

control.

Planets blew to bits, no longer possessing mass

enough, therefore gravity enough, to hold themselves

together. Moons dislodged from their orbits, then also

expanded as if inflated from inside. Asteroids bloated to

dust, and the dust scattered.

Now only thick clouds of ejecta rushing far faster than

ever nature intended, the freewheeling satellites continued

to distend, continents shattering, oceans spraying

out into space to become ice clouds. Like the pulsebeat

of a superbeing, the sun dilated more and more, sending

its incendiary kiss out to the rubble of planets it had

moments ago nurtured. No longer bonded to each other,

the sun's burning particles ballooned outward. The gassy

inflation consumed the rubble of the first planet. Life on

the planets was already destroyed. Millions of years to

evolve, seconds to suffocate.

A sunwa huge thermonuclear fusion bomb held together

by the natural magic of gravity. When the gravity

goes, the bomb starts to explode.

From where he hovered over the helm, Kellen stared

at the viewscreen and monitors, one after the other,

slightly less familiar than those on his flagship, and he

imagined what those life-forms must have feR just now.

Terrible things. This nausea, the loss of weight. The

ground falling from beneath their feet, the air gushing

out of their lungs as the atmosphere flew outward as if

torn away in a great sheet. The land around them

crumbling, trees launching toward space, no longer

rooted, for there was no more soil.

How advanced had they been? There hadn't been time

to investigate. Had intelligence come to them yet? Did

10 FIRST STRIKE

they have the sense to be afraid? To understand the last

glimpses of each other as they vaulted toward open

space, into a sky no longer blue?

Instruments on the bridge chattered and screamed for

attention, reading out the disaster on molecular levels

and striving to compensate for the changes pouring in

through the sensors.

He heard the sound of his men's panic throbbing in his

head, calling for him--Kellen! Kellen! Kellen!--but he

couldn't respond or turn from the hypnotic destruction

on the screens. Certainly what he heard was only his

sanity calling to him in the midst of madness. For the

first time in his life he honestly did not know what to do.

He wasn't even on his own ship, with his own science

officer.

"Hail the Oul," he said steadily. "I want to speak to

my own science officer."

"Yes, General!" the shuddering helm officer choked.

Abruptly he looked at Ruhl, frightened that he might

have overstepped his post by not waiting for the ship's

commander to relay the order, but Ruhl nodded and the

contact was made. "Go ahead, sir."

Kellen drew himself closer to the communications link. "This is Kellen. I wish to speak to Aragor."

"We can't find him, sir."

"You can't find him?"

"Not... presently."

"Find him anyway."

"Yes, Commander. Stand by."

"Give me a view of the fleet," Kellen ordered as he

waited.

The tactical officer jumped to the necessary monitor.

The screen flickered, but came on, showing all five other

ships, greenish white hulls drenched in solar flush. Their

bottle-shaped forms jerked unevenly through space on

Qul's beam, and clearly they too were having problems

keeping their speed from increasing out of control. None

of them knew how to fight against this.

Diane Carey

"General Kellen, this is Aragor! Are you there?"

Kellen twisted back toward the comm unit, and almost

made another full twist around--he was losing his

grip on the deck. Losing mass. "Of course I am here.

What's happening to us?"

"Our instruments are reading a reduction in mass! It

seems to be continuing--I cannot explain it. Artificial

gravity is--!"

"I want a way to protect ourselves from it. Think of

something."

"We must keep our mass!" Karn shouted from behind

him. "Some part of it--a fraction of it! We mus t not go

to zero!"

"He is right, General. We might be able to shield

ourselves from the effect." Aragor's voice bubbled through the communications system, stressed and gaspy.

"With what?" Kellen asked.

"With... shields. If we divert all possible power, we

might be able to stall the effect--"

"Do it. All fleet science stations and helms tie in with Karn and Aragor. Match what they do. Aragor, do it."

"Yes, General."

Karn flinched, then said, "Yes, General."

The tactical officer panted, "Mass at twenty percent

and dropping!"

"Triple shields." Aragor's voice funneled through the

communications system, no longer directed at Kellen,

but at the science stations on all six ships. "Sending the

deflector formula through now. All systems accept and

confirm."

Karn and the tactical officer worked frantically at the

controls while bracing themselves in place against seat

backs and other crewmen.

"Ten percent and dropping..."

"Outside mass reading is separating from inner reading

." Karns voice shuddered with a ring of success.

"All stations report inner mass reading ...."

Solar matter continued to fly outward through the

system, cooking the planetary refuse, bombarding the

12 FIRST STRIKE

fleet's shields and tormenting the crews with the garish

noises of primitive assault.

Kellen hadn't been weightless since his first training

missions, yet the sensation was familiar, one of those

things the physical body never quite forgets. He recognized

the bizarre release of his internal organs from their

own weight, the light-headedness, the loss of equilibrium,

and fought to ignore those distractions. No control

over gravitymwithout it they dared not go to warp

speed. That meant they were trapped fighting to stay at

sublight against an effect that would ultimately drive

them to light speed, in the midst of a slaughtered solar

system about to go nova down to the last particle.

"Outer reading, five percent... inner reading, five

point one percent..."

As he listened to Karns voice, Kellen paused to think.

Decrease in mass causing increase in velocity... mass

shrinking, but with the same amount of propellant

energy. As they fell apart the outer planets were moving

faster and faster, whipping around their expanding sun.

Such a sight! If he died seeing this, certainly there were

worse deaths.

"Outer reading, two percent... inner reading, two

point zero four... zero three... zero two..."

Rubble from the decimated planets and space debris

rattled against the hull of the ship and caused an awful

percussion from bulkhead to bulkhead. The bridge crew

clamped their hands over their ears, and so let go of their

handholds and free-floated, bumping into each other in

midair.

Soon they were all tumbling.

"Outer mass at one percent!"

"Inner, one point zero five!"

"Divert impulse power to the shields!"

"Outer at one point zero one percent--"

The drone of numbers began to buzz in Kellen's mind.

How long had it been? The effect of gravity suspension

couldn't travel faster than light... that would affect

things. The pull of the sun had been suspended long

13

Diane Carey

enough to release the inner planets from their orbits, but

it would take four or five light-hours for that effect to

reach the decimated outer planets. For now they were

just clogs of shattered ejecta crashing along in their

regular orbits. When the suspension of the sun's gravitational pull reached them, they would free-fall out of

orbit as the inner planets had. If the effect lasted more

than a few minutes--if the mass reached zero--the sun

would never recover. The system would be gone forever,

just dust particles racing through space in all directions.

If it did stop, the velocity would drop and there would

be a primordial system again, as there was five billion

years ago. The whole configuration of this part of space

would be forever changed.

"Inner mass at one-sixtieth of one percent!" Karn was

hovering near the port auxiliary monitors and tipped

entirely onto his head in order to read the mass change.

"Mass outside of our shields is zero, sir! Zero!"

Between the "zz" and the "o" of his last word, the

planets of this solar system, now hardly more than

loosely grouped areas of rocky debris, seemed to vaporize

before them, molecules flashing in a million directions

. All but the sun was decimated. The sun itself, too

big to move far, expanded to unthinkable size now at the

speed of light, well off their scales and engulfing all their

screens. The shapes of the other five ships on the

auxiliary monitors were only glazed silhouettesin

And suddenly there were only four other ships.

"The Shukar!" Ruhl shouted. "General!"

Kellen stared at the brightening screens until his eyes

watered. The Shukar, blown into warp in a billion bits.

An explosion so fast as to be virtual vaporization.

Molecules suddenly radiating away from each other at

the speed of light. They had failed to hold mass.

"Inner mass, one one-hundredth of one percent!"

Karn whimpered, shielding his eyes with both hands as

he hovered upside down.

"One one-hundred

twentieth--we can't hold it!"

14

FIRST STRIKE

"Feed all weapons power to the shields."

Aragor was fighting to keep control, but Kellen knew

him and heard the tremors in his voice. They barely had

any mass at all, in practical terms it was nothing, but in

physics the difference between something and nothing was a universe of difference. They were managing to

remain intact while everything exploded around them,

but the power drain was fabulous. Seconds were slipping

away.

The planets were gone. The sun was still expanding. In

a few more minutes--

Suddenly a great hand swatted Kellen toward the

deck. His arms and legs flew upward, and he hit the deck

on his considerable stomach. Ruhl landed on top of him,

stunning them both. Confused by the sensation of their

own weight, the bridge crewmen rolled about momentarily,

searching for equilibrium. Was down once again

down?

Kellen put his palms on the deck and heaved upward,

pressing with his shoulder blades. For a moment he felt

like a bird-of-prey in battle poise, wings down, shoulders

tensed, knuckles in.

Ruhl rolled off and was dumped to the deck at Kellen's

heels. Kellen pressed down his need to vomit and clawed

toward the helm. "Status of gravitational forces system-wide!"

The crew shuffled dizzily to the shelf of readouts on

the starboard side. Ruhl's reddish hair had come loose

and was hanging in his face like a ragged mop. He was

still trying to do too much himself. Promoted too

quickly, it seemed. Not used to delegating responsibility.

Sometimes promotions happened that way when a family

was too well connected. He would learn.

"All readings returning to normal, sir!" Karn called.

He swung around to look at the forward monitor.

Kellen did the same, as did everyone. The sun would

tell.

Before their eyes the swollen, overextended mass of

solar matter was drawing inward toward its core again,

15

Diane Carey

shrinking with a terrible violence to its normal size--but

some of the solar matter flung off during the loss of mass

was too far away to be pulled back and spun outward in

all directions.

Now shorn of any life or growth, with the bits of living

bodies crushed amid the rubble, the planetary material

was bashed to primordial rubbish, thrown away at light

speed, and all bets were off. The sun would have to

gather itself, then slowly begin once again nipping at

deep space to draw bodies to orbit it. The eons had

begun again.

"Aragor," he said. "Aragor, are you there?"

The long silence was unfriendly. Had the same tragedy

happened to Qul as to Shukar? He began to look from

screen to screen.

"Aragor, sir," the comm system rasped. "The... sun

has moved several millions of miles... recoalesced

because of its size once gravity and mass returned... It

is no longer actually a sun, but a hot cloud of gas

beginning to act again as nature intended The

planets

are gone....

Random

observations, coming as Aragor thought of them.

He was deeply shaken.

"Everything

has stopped," the science officer continued

before Kellen has a chance to encourage him on. "The

velocity must have been reduced to its previous levels

somehow as the mass returned .... It must have something

to do with natural conservation of energy.

.. Energy has to come from somewhere... it cannot

just appear .... As long as we maintained the slightest mass, we remained... intact..."

He was searching for words. Saying what they were all

thinkingwthat these things cannot happen, but they just

had. Where had the energy come from that had caused

this?

"What stopped the effect, Aragor?" Kellen prodded.

More silence came back at him. He glanced at Karn,

who stared at him, waiting for Aragor to bear the weight.

16

FIRST STRIKE

"Nature stopped it."

Another stretch of silence

Kellen could sense Aragor thinking and thinking. "Mass... energy. and velocity are all related.

When mass was taken away, nature balanced with more

velocity, all the way to light speed When the mass

suddenly returned, velocity of the matter substantially

decreased."

"But velocity is only measured relative to other

things," Kellen broke in. "It decreased relative to what?"

They were all staring at him now. He felt the tense

stares of men on the other ships too. They were all

waiting for him and his science officer to find the answer.

"I do not know. "Aragor sounded whipped. He hadn't

wanted to say that. 'I could be completely wrong. I see

it, I can describe it... but I cannot explain it."

"Sir!" Ruhl gasped, moving on shaky legs back toward

his own command chair to where Kellen stood near the

helm. "Could it have been a weapon?"

"If it was theirs," Kellen said, "they have destroyed

themselves with it. If it was someone else's, then we have

a new war on our hands."

Ruhl came to hunch beside him over the shuddering

helm. "Starfleet?"

Kellen did not respond There were some things even a

Klingon preferred not to guess.

Starfleet. Their old enemy His oldest. Certainly those

people were capable of developing a mass-blanking

weapon, but he wondered if Starfleet would use such a

thing. Yes, but not without provocation, and there had

been none lately.

Kellen knew that, because he had asked to do some

provoking and been turned down.

The solar system remained in chaos. As the sun

broiled fiercely during its reintegration, alone in space

now.

Nothing left to conquer. Had the predator been

starved by the prey's self-immolation?

17

Diane Carey

If not a weapon, then what?

He turned to Ruhl, and found himself about to speak

to a shag of reddish hair, and it threw him off for a

moment. He shook his own combed locks as if in

example.

"RUM, at least get your hair out of your face when I

speak to you."

Pawing his hair out of his face, RuM caught part of his

long mustache on a fingernail and ended up with one

hand caught near his ear. He shook it loose, embarrassed,

wondering if he had just been given an order or

only a suggestion, and muttered, "Yes... yes, sir."

Rather than appease him with acknowledgment,

Kellen said "Assess damage in the fleet and make a full

sensor scan of the area."

Ruhl's small eyes grew wide. "What shall we scan

for?"

"Whatever you find."

"Yes, Commander .... "

"Karn," Kellen began, and turned to face the startled

science officer of this ship, so Karn would not look bad

in the eyes of his own crewmates. "Was the suspension

limited to this solar system? How far did it reach?"

Karn struggled to avoid thanking the general for his

attention, and poured himself into the readouts. "Long-range

sensors suggest it reached at least sixteen light-days."

"Dispatch immediate reports of all this to the Empire."

"Yes, General."

"General," Ruhl interrupted, "we should tell them the

Uri Taug star system is now devoid of life. Otherwise

they'll wonder why we failed to conquer."

Kellen held a hand toward the godlike ruin on the

screens. "We'll tell them we did conquer. After all, the

system is ours now. What's left of it."

"Sir!"

Both Kellen and Ruhl turned toward Karn. "Yes?"

18

FIRST STRIKE

"Sir... sir!"

Kellen swatted the young man's arm. "We are both

here. Say something!"

"A... a... change!"

The baffled science officer stepped aside with forgivable

gratitude as Kellen pressed toward the science station

and Ruhl pushed in after him.

In the middle distance, reading only a light-year away,

a core of turbulence had opened up on their screens. On

each screen it looked different, for each screen picked up

different elements--spectra, energy, spatial disruption.

Not a swirl, but not a crack, yet still it moved. Like a

piece of woman's fabric strung in space and waved by a

giant hand, it taunted them.

Squinting, Kellen wondered aloud, "What is that?"

"Some kind of... storm?" Ruhl sounded compelled

to invent an answer.

"A storm with good timing? I doubt that."

"Then what do you think?"

"I think we're seeing the cause of what he have just

felt." Kellen straightened and reacted briefly to a sharp

pain in his left shoulder from their experience. "I should

be on my own flagship for whatever is coming. Continue

to monitor that phenomenon. Remain at battle configuration."

"Yes, sir," Ruhl said.

"Aragor, are you still standing by?"

"Yes, General.t"

"Are you reading this phenomenon?"

'I.... see it, sir."

That was Aragor's way of admitting to Kellen that he

hadn't a clue what the waving veil was.

Using the confusion of the moment to shade the fact

that he didn't feel like walking all the way to the

transporter room, Kellen plucked his handheld communicator

from its holster and snapped it open.

"Pick up my coordinates and beam me back directly

to the bridge immediately. We will find out what did

19

Diane Carey this. If it is an accident, we will explain it. If it is a

weapon, we will own it. Activate transporter beams

now."

"Transporter officer, energize beams. Bring the general

directly to the bridge."

Aboard the Border Fleet flagship Qul, Science Officer

Aragor drew a long breath of relief that soon General

Kellen would be back aboard and would take command

during this strange time. Though he tried to appear

supremely Klingon in front of the bridge crew, Aragor

was frightened. The impossible had just happened before

his eyes, and his whole body was still quaking. Had

the mass drop continued a few more seconds, they would

have become part of an uncontrolled whirl of hyperlight.

A drop in mass! Unthinkable! It couldn't possibly

happen naturally.

The general would figure it out. He would find the

answers. The two of them would piece together the data,

and Kellen would decide what happened. Kellen was the

smartest warrior in the universe.

The whine of transporter energy chewed at Aragor's

ears, and he turned toward the open area of the bridge to

which Kellen was being beamed. Seconds now.

A pillar of expanding lights appeared, many bands,

bringing the disassembled atoms of their commander

across the emptiness of space, to be reconstructed here.

The pillar coalesced into shoulders draped with fabric, a

broad torso clad in stiff metallic fiber. For a moment

there was a short clean-cut beard and bronze hair

trimmed above the shoulder. A thin mustache, as if

stenciled on.

Then, the wide pillar of light began to fade. The whine

rose to a scream. The lights thinned out.

"What is this!" Aragor struck the communications

pad. "Transporter officer! What are you doing?"

There was no response. Before him, General Kellen's

partially formed face frowned as if sensing the transpor

20 FIRST STRIKE

tation going wrong. His right hand turned slightly outward

from his robe, toward Aragor, and the fingers

opened in beckoning.

"Transporter!" Aragor called. "Bring him in!"

"Trying," the comm buzzed. "There is interference,

sir!"

"Fight for him!" Aragor waved the other bridge personnel

back, away from the pillar of sparkling light, so no

one etse's physical presence would attract any of the

particles trying so desperately to reassemble.

What was happening? The transporter should easily

be able to do this. Ship-to-ship transportation at this

distance was nothing. Nothing!

The pillar of lights surged once as if succeeding, but

then suddenly sizzled completely away. The dim bridge

lighting seemed somehow much dimmer now.

Aragor swung around to glare at the main screen,

which showed a picture of the fleet ships. "Ruhl! Do you

have him?"

"Not here," the other captain's voice came back, high

with tension. "We do not have him!"

"Where is he? Where is he?" With the heel of his hand

Aragor struck the intraship unit. "Transporter! Where is

he!"

His transporter officer's voice was thready, shocked.

"Sir, the beams... they went into that twisting form

out there. I do not understand how it could happenmhe

was drawn in, as if magnetized!"

Aragor jumped to his science station, where he was

met by the tactical officer, and together they stared into

the science readout screen.

More of the impossible--the transporter beams,

presented in an image of chittering energy, looped like

the tail of a running animal, then were swallowed by the

phenomenon out there.

As they stood together and watched the screen, a form

began to take shape, emerge from the gash in open space.

A solid form. A vessel... a ship...

21

Diane Carey

"Taken," the tactical officer murmured. "Absorbed!"

With both hands Aragor gripped the rubber rim of the monitor. "I want him back, Vagh "

He

plunged to the helm, hammered the controls until the

main viewer switched to a sheet of black space incised

by the waving valence of new energy.

He

stared into the vision. His wall rattled the bones of his

crewmates.

"I

want my general back!"

Chapter

Two

22 VOLCANIC

WIND... perfumed, reeking atmosphere... and

a sound of engines.

Kellen materialized

gagging.

As soon

as the transporter beams released him, he stumbled back

against a hard surface, and choked. The air here

was heavy, vaporous; the surface against which he leaned

was mossy. He huddled against it until his eyes adjusted to

the dimness.

The ceiling

was only an arm's length over his head. Higher in

some places. A tunnel of some sort? A cave?

Hard ground

beneath his feet. Skin itching. Plant life--sedge, burrs

and creepers, algae, spotted cabbage, puffballs,

adder's tongue... He recognized some of them;

others were familiar but had the wrong color, the

wrong shape, or the wrong smell. He was no botanist.

Pungent

odors...

If he could only get a whole breath. Then he

could think.

Think, think.

Cling to self-control.

He had

been transporting from Ruhl's ship to his own. Now he

was on some planet, in a cave.

23

Diane Carey

"But there were no planets left," he rasped. The sound

of his own voice anchored him. "Especially none with

life ...."

He pressed his hand to the wall. Parasites jumped

from the moss onto his hand and skitt ered in confusion.

Life.

Small life, but company was company.

At least he could eat.

He pushed off the cave wall. He took one step, then

stopped as he thought of something else. Kneeling, he

peered at the ground. There was growth here too, but

vetchy, flattened growth. Flattened by other footsteps?

Where he could walk, so could others.

Others...

He brushed the ground with the side of his hand, to

tidy it a little, then stood up. That soundmhe remembered

it now, and in remembering heard it again. After

so many years in spaceships he had come to ignore the necessary thrum of power generation.

"Engines," he validated.

His experienced ears knew the sound of a power

source, but he could see none, nor discover any specific

direction from which the dim thrumming came. He

must be near a factory of some kind. A power generator.

If there was power, he could use it to get back to his

fleet, or at least to send a signal.

So the mass drop must have been some kind of

weapon or distraction, and now he, the fleet leader, was

kidnapped.

Speculating made him uneasy. He would deal only

with the facts. Footmarks and power, on a planet with

aves.

And light? Where was the light coming from? Another

power source? The sun they had watched blow up and

shrink back?

He paused to see whether the light changed at all. It

remained hazy, but steady. No way to judge whether it

was natural or not. No draft, no wind, yet the air was

tolerable now that he was breathing more slowly.

24 FIRST STRIKE

Where was he? A planet with atmosphere.

A momentary panic struck him that he could be on a

distant outer planet, waiting for the second wave of

gravity gap to wash outward from the sun for a second

apocalypse, yet he had seen those planets shatter, and

even if they were balled up again there could be no life,

no moss or insects left.

No. We reached zero mass. There is no planet left here.

Dismissing the possibility that he could still be in that

mutilated solar system, he selected a branch of the cave

at random and moved through it. The tunnel was

narrow, but roomy above his head. Within twenty steps

he found himself in another open area. Here the sound

of the power source was stronger and he became more

sure that he recognized the tenor of it. In fact, he noted

the pitch was higher than normal... normal for what?

There was nothing here but another tunnel. He went

through it into a darkness that nearly turned him back.

As the blackness closed in, he paused to let his eyes

adjust and to shore up his courage to move forward and

not back into what he already knew. The fleet would be

looking for him. He had to contrive a way to let them

find him.

The darkness became blackness. The blackness

pressed inward against his shoulders, down across the

crest of his brow. He pressed back with his will, blinking

his eyes as if they were the problem. The tunnel closed

tighter at his sides--he could feel the change. He saw

nothing, yet he sensed much.

A throbbing glow--with a regular pulse. Red... blue

... red... blue... He moved toward it. Only a few

steps now. He must control himself.

He came out into a wider area, greatly to his relief, and

all but ran forward, chased by the narrow dark section.

Stumbling out into a broader area, he sucked air as if

surging up out of a pool in which he had nearly drowned

and only then realized he had been holding his breath.

Taking it again nearly set him on his backside. He

stumbled against the cave wall.

25

Diane Carey At his side his dagger thumped against the rock--the

sound was strange. Metallic. On moss?

With one hand on his dagger and the other on the

moss, he pushed himself from the wall and took further

steps into the chamber, where suddenly his heart recoiled

within his chest and he stared to the point of pain.

Draped with shrouds of green witoh's hair, the walls

stared back. Within the spongy, foul moss, churning

with what must be insect life, lichen wept from dozens of

niches, each the size of a half-grown Terran pumpkin.

His favorite food rode into his mind on this irrational

bolt of fear, but gave him no comfort nor any anchor.

Fear held on, for in most of these dark punch-outs,

perhaps two-thirds of them, were perched bleached and

staring skulls.

Though all had eye sockets and peeled-back grinning

mouths, those were the only common elements. Some

had stumps of horns, others a dozen small holes over the

gaping eye sockets, others were of such shape and

description that churned the ugly bowels of Klingons

lore in Kellen's head. Constructed to terrorize, tales of

imminent evil rushed forward out of his childhood,

beasts of prey infused by the wills of demons, who then

had the abilities of both.

Blood-chilled, Kellen's body convulsed and he staggered

sideways, catching his heel upon the ragged floor

and staggering further. Shivering, he struck the wall

again and felt his dagger bang the wall again. Again, that

metallic noise--and this time a faint red-then-blue glow

coming on and off, on and off, under the moss.

He yanked his dagger from its sheath and sliced into

the moss, a long gash as if taking an enemy from throat

to belt. The moss pulled apart and the lips of the gash

quivered. Kellen dug his fingernails into it and ripped

the moss away in sheet.

Through a cloud of spoory dust, two panels of variegated

lights blinked at him, casting red, yellow, and

amber haze. Below the panels, a pulsebeat of technical

readouts blipped up and down on a screen.

26 FIRST STRIKE

Kellen tore the sheet of moss further all the way to the

floor. It came away cleanly, but for its own green cloud,

and there was a manufactured metal wall, a right-angled

corner, and part of a tiled floor.

He stared at the wall, kicked it, then looked up into the

skull niches and the eyes of the catacomb corridor. All at

once, the sound he had been hearing made sense to him.

He knew what he was hearing.

"A ship... a spaceship."

His voice startled even himself, and he flinched, but

even more horribly it startled someone else.

The wall was looking at him. A pair of eyes--real

ones, live ones--opened in among the tenleaf and creepers

on what he had thought was a cave tomb. White-ringed

and wide, the eyes were yellow as the middles of

eggs, each pinpointed in the center with a black dot

focused like a drill on Kellen.

The eyes came forward slowly from the witoh's hair,

bringing strands of it stretching along.

Suffused with horror, unable to call upon his tremendous

discipline this time, Kellen watched as a creature's

form took shape and pulled out of the growth. The top of

its head was being eaten by a mass of moving white

tendrils, each alive and fingering the green wall hungrily

as the creature drew farther and farther out into the

corridor.

No, not eaten--the tendrils were part of the creature's

head! Growing out of it like things he had seen in the sea!

Grotesque, poison-tipped things.

Instantly he looked up at the skull niches and searched

until he found the one nearest him with the holes in the

top. It was the skull of that--that.t The creature peeled out of the wall and with measured

movements shed itself of the gluey membranes pulling at

it from the wall. Each as long as Kellen's forearm, the

anemone-tendrils on the beast's head swirled to one side

and back to the other, seeking the open air as if driven by

currents. Some of them still reached and snipped at the

fungusy wall, plucking at it with tiny suckers.

27

Diane Carey

A ship, specter-crewed!

As his renowned sobriety crumbled, Kellen raised his

thick arms and warned the creature back with a senseless

shout, but had no effect.

He scoured his earliest memories, and called the thing

by name.

"Iraga./" he shrieked.

"Approach pattern SochDIch on my mark!"

"Yes, Science Officer!"

"Forward vessels, disruptors on full double-front! Target

engines! Repeat, engines only until we have made

our pass!"

"All are ready, sir. Three ships in forward configuration,

two behind us!"

"Tell all the others to put their shields on priority. For

us, I want scanners on priority, set to seek out Klingon

physiology. Transporter, stand by."

Science Officer Aragor gripped the command chair

with both hands until his fingernails made impressions

on the simulated animal hide. The sudden silence on the

bridge made him realize that he and the bridge crew had

been so excited they'd been yelling at each other. In each

echo he heard the ghost of Kellen's voice--Be quiet.

Speak softly. Calm down.

He battled to contain himself. He wanted his general

back and he would get him back. Now he had a target.

A ship had come out of that crack or hole or blur in

space. There had been a great shaking, not as great as the

mass drop, but enough to send the fleet spinning for a

few seconds. When they gathered themselves, there was

a ship there.

Configured like no ship Aragor had ever seen, this

alien vessel was the length of their entire fleetJsix ships

laid beak to tail--and shaped like a corkscrew. Great

fans of black and purple hull material fanned out and

overlapped each other in a spiral against each other,

archirig forward like welded petals into a point. There

28

FIRST STRIKE

was no top or bottom, no visible bridge or command

center. Seeming almost to flex its way through space, it

was constructed perfectly to screw through that opening

out there. The more he stared at the hornlike ship, the

more Aragor became sure these last moments were no

accidents. The mass falloff had something to do with

these newcomers.

Interlopers, he charged. Unlawful entry into Klingon

space. Kidnappers. Invaders!

Thought after thought, he built himself into a mode of

attack. This wasn't his job, but he would accept it. Never

in his life had he seen an effect such as that ship's entry

into this sector from wherever it had come, and no

power of that magnitude could be taken lightly. He

would have to get Kellen back, and Kellen would agree.

Together they would conquer before they were them-

selves taken. It was the Klingon way.

Or at least, it would be today.

"All is ready for the run, sir," Tactical Officer Mursha

reported, and looked at Aragor as if to confirm.

"Handle the scanners yourself, Mursha," Aragor said

in a last-minute change. "Find him."

Mursha looked afraid for an instant, then straightened

so sharply that it seemed to hurt his shoulders. "I will!

I'll find him!"

Aragor felt an urge to chide him for his hesitation, but

Mursha had just taken the tactical position two days ago.

Aragor left him alone.

"Attack configuration. Flank speed. Keep full speed

until we get within transporter range. No veering off

until my order, do you understand?"

"I understand, sir," the helmsman said.

"Fleet... advance!"

With three ships forming a point before it and one

other ship riding behind its starboard beam, the Qul surged to full impulse. The five ships rocketed through

open space toward the massive arrangement of curves,

targeting the deep pulsing mauve glow of the conical

29

Diane Carey ship's engines. Aragor recognized the surge of matter-antimatter

propulsion and was reassured by it, but the

color was unexpected. The color of Klingon blood.

The fleet ships arched in, keeping formation tight and

maneuvering for position as they reached the invasion

ship. The outer ships opened fire. Phaser energy blanketed

the other ship and brightened a veil of otherwise

unnotable particles of dust in space. Suddenly the whole

area was shimmering.

At once the unfamiliar ship declared itself an enemy

shipreit fired back. Globular bolts were launched from

the inner folds of the huge purple-and-black fans, striking

the first three Klingon ships without wasting a shot.

Energy foamed over the Klingon ships' deflector shields

and skittered into space to wash across the Qul and its

flanking ship.

The Qul shuddered under Aragor's chair. Phaser wash

broke between her hull plates and shriveled the outer

mechanics in their trunks.

"Some systems overloading, sir," the helmsman called

over a sudden braying alarm.

"Lock down," Aragor said. "Never mind trying to

repair now. And cut off that cursed noise!"

The alarm growled down to a sorry woooo, then broke

off. Closer and closer the Klingon fleet raced, skating the

length of the enemy vessel as if measuring it.

"Keep firing," he said, too softly to be heard.

The other ships had their orders--they fired relentlessly

and took the incoming blue foam of return fire on

their forward shields, maneuvering to protect the Qul,

whose power was concentrated on sensors. Qul had some

shields, but not enough to take direct hits of that

magnitude. And if Mursha found the commander's

physical blip, Qul would have to hammer a hole in the

enemy's shields, then drop her own shields completely to

beam him up.

"The phaser fire is bouncing off the invader ship!" the

helmsman blurted. "But I don't see any conventional

broadcast deflectors at all!"

30 FIRST STRIKE

Aragor squinted and watched. That could make his

task easier. The enemy ship was taking the direct fire on

its many fan-shaped hull sculptures.

"This must be their manner of defense," he said.

"There must be another ship, the real ship, hidden inside

the outer fan arrangement. That makes it almost impossible

for a moving vessel to hit. In order to incise that

inner ship, an attacking vessel would have to hover over

/ and fire down between the fans."

"That would be suicide," the helmsman said, and

gripped his controls tighter, as if afraid he'd made a

suggestion that might be taken.

"Well?" Aragor roared at Mursha when his nerves

took control and thoughts of a second run began to form.

He didn't want to make a second run. The lead ships

were being pulverized. Their shields wouldn't take a

second bombardment.

"Scanning..." Mursha had his mustache to the readouts,

both hands on the curved adjustments, looking for

Klingon life signs.

The bridge erupted in sparks and smoke puffs as

damaged systems began to overload. More hits broke

through the formation and began to pry it apart. If the

forward ships couldn't hold their position, Qul would

have to bear off.

Tense silence gripped the bridge. No voices. Only the

sounds of the ship straining around them as they maneuvered

their deadly tight course.

On the main screen, huge hull fans blew past beneath them, like a petals of a massive orchid.

"Sir!" Mursha gulped. "I believe--"

Aragor shoved out of the command chair. "Activate

the beams immediately! Beam him up! Transporter

room, do you hear me? Activate beams?

"Vergozen!"

"Speak softly, Morien. Your voice is hurting me."

"Many of us were resting or eating in the Barrow when

a strange creature came there?

31

Diane Carey

"We are all strange creatures, Morien. You mean you

did not recognize this one?"

"Or his kind. Not at all."

"Describe him."

"He had a helmet for a head, black hair around it, a

skeleton on the outside of his chest, and long sleeves

almost to the ground. He shouted at me and danced!"

"He danced?"

"Then he churned into lights and disappeared. What

does it mean? Have we done something wrong?"

"No. The others have already reported an intruder

aboard. We were sending the guards when those ships

came and somehow he was plucked away. Now we have

alterations to make on our equipment. We must be sure

this cannot happen again. And send a message back

along the wrinkle. Tell them we seem to have betrayed

our arrival and now there are ships following us. There is

apparently a destructive effect involved in the process of

transferring. Suggest it be corrected before the fissure is

opened again."

"Yes, Vergozen."

"Morien, tell me... how many eyes did this creature

have?"

"Two that I could see. Unless there were others

hiding."

"Two eyes... well, it's a beginning."

"Why did you bother with me! Why didn't you beam

an antimatter explosive into that ship while you had the

chance! They had no shields! At terrible damage to the

fleet you came in to rescue me, and now we have lost the

chance to destroy them!"

The booming voice was glorious anger to Aragor as he

stood without moving while General Kellen shouted at

him. Aragor didn't care that he had made a mistake,

because he had his commander back and he would walk

fire for Kellen.

The crew stood before the general in utter numb

shock. They had never heard him yell before. Never.

32

FIRST STRIKE

The general's clothing was coated with fine green dust,

his usually neat hair disturbed by burrs and bits of

mold, and he was consumed with shuddering in terror,

but he wasn't hurt. He vented his terror by shouting at

Aragor and glaring wide-eyed at the enemy ship as

it slowly moved away on their main viewscreen. Its

purple fans were reflected softly in the lenses of his

eyeglasses.

At last he gave up on Aregot and swung on the tactical

position.

"Mumha! Analyze the enemy ship. Can we still beam

in?"

"No, sir. They have made some kind of energy web

around their ship that resists transporter beams. Not

deflectors as we know them, but--"

"But our chance is lost!"

Aragor continued staring. That voice -- so loud, so

completely uncharacteristic.

"Sir... sir," Aragor began, "we had no salvo prepared

for penetration. We thought we should take the

opportunity to rescue you before

Kellen rounded on him again. "You had one chance!

You will not have that chance again! Next time the

choice is to save my life or take an enemy life, take the

enemy life!"

Nobly said, but Aragor remained confused. He lowered

his voice to compensate for the boom of Kellen's.

"Sir, why do you want to destroy them? What did you

see there?"

Breathing heavily, Kellen fell suddenly still and his

eyes fogged with fearful memory. He gazed again at the

enemy ship. His voice changed. The skin around his eyes

tightened.

"All these things we tell our children to scare them...

things we pretend to have conquered in our own minds

... they're all true, Aragor. There are demons. Real

demons."

"Demons? Which demons, sir?"

Two strong shudders washed through Kellen's large

33

Diane Carey body, but he valiantly controlled himself and spoke with

steady confidence.

"I saw the Iraga first," he told them, and paused.

A chill washed through the bridge. Aragor's heart

began pounding. The other crewmen were looking at

him as if to wonder whether to be afraid of their

general's sudden insanity or afraid of what he was

saying.

They didn't really think he was insane. They knew he

was not.

That meant he had seen... it.

Kellen's frazzled condition and overheated excitement

ran like a virus through them all.

"Then there were others," he added.

Aragor's hands were clenched. He could barely find his

voice to speak. "More... Iraga?"

"No, other kinds. After the Iraga came out of the wall,

others came too. Demons with vestigial membranes

expanding from their shoulders... they spread their

arms and the membranes opened and filled the space

before me..."

"Shushara!" the helmsman gasped.

"Others had fingers that reached to the ground...

and w ith fangs protruding from their foreheads..."

"Hullam'gat!" Mursha whispered, his face blanched.

He looked at the helmsman, and together they were

terrified.

Watching realization dawn in his crewmen's faces,

Kellen nodded slowly. As he transferred his excitement

to the crew, he seemed to grow more like his usual self,

recapturing the restraint that had brought him ultimately

to power.

"The tales are all true," he said. "They have come

back as they promised they would... and they are on

that ship out there."

His knees barely steady enough to support him,

Aragor moved toward Kellen. "What should we do?

What can we do?"

"I know what to do," the general said. "It will take us

34 FIRST STRIKE

all to defeat them. Aragor, you beam onto Ruhl's ship

and take command of the fleet. Call the Empire for

reinforcements. Track that ship, but do not go near it.

Do not. I will go for help."

"For help? From where?"

"I said it would take us all," Kellen repeated.

Once more he turned to the viper's tongue of a ship on

the main screen. He began distractedly plucking the bits

of moss and dust from his hair.

"We need a demon to fight demons," he said. "I am

going to get one."

35

! begin to like you, Earthman. And ! saw fear in

the Klingon's eyes.

--Maab of Capella IV

"Friday's Child"

Chapter Three

"LEvr qK, secure position and open fire!"

Ah, life in space. Weeks of tedium broken by moments

of terror.

For centuries they'd said that about being at sea. It was

dead true about both.

Dust rolled off the ridge from photon salvo bombardment

and turned into a shimmering heat in the valley

below.

Two hundred enemy troops. Maybe more. Almost the

whole crew of a large battleship. That meant there must

be more than one ship up there now, and probably a

conflict going on in space.

The captain's dirty hands and torn uniform tunic

attested to a stressful morning. Barely noon, and there

had been four major skirmishes already.

Through the shaggy hair of his attacker he had shouted

to his own men, while chiding himself for having been

surprised, for concentrating so much on the movements

of the troops that he'd let himself be jumped. His face

cracked into a grimace as he took a numbing blow to the

39

Diane Carey

side of his head and had to damn away the dizziness in

order to keep fighting. If he had to be close to a Klingon,

this was at least the way. Punching.

Beneath his soles the dry earth drummed with the

thudding boots of men fighting all around on the jagged,

jutting terrain. He sensed a shift in the attack pattern.

Saw nothing, but he knew what he would do in this

terrain, with these objectives, and made a bet with

himself that the enemy would do it too. The chips were

the lives of his men, the pot this planet and its sixty

million tribesmen, some of whom had no idea the others

existed.

The sky here was unforgiving, cloudless. His opponent

twisted sideways and forced the captain's face into the

sun, blinding him, and he staggered. The Klingon's

shoulder crashed into his cheek. He felt his own teeth cut

the inside of his lip, and the sudden warm salty taste of

blood filled his mouth. It made him mad.

He spat the blood into the Klingon's glossy bronze

face.

The Klingon arched backward and took the captain by

both arms. They sawed at each other for a terrible

instant before the grip was broken and the captain

managed to land a knot of knuckles where they did some

good. The Klingon spun and slashed downward with his

hard wristband.

The captain raised his own arm to block the blow.

Bracing his shoulder for the impact, he took it full force

but managed to deflect it to the side and keep his skull

from being cracked open, though the force drove him

facedown to the ground. He sprawled. His skin shriveled

in anticipation of a hit, but luck was with him. The

Klingon stumbled.

Bracing his palms on the ground, the captain shoved

upward, balling his fists in a single surge into the

Klingon's solar plexus. He felt his hands go into the soft

organs beneath the Klingon's rib cage, slamming the air

out of the big alien's lungs.

40

FIRST STRIKE

The Klingon gagged, staggered, and went down, suffering.

The captain scraped to his feet, knotted his rocky

right fist, and delivered it like a piledriver into the soft

spot at the base of the Klingon's skull. The attacker went

down and didn't get up.

One down, two hundred to go.

Chest heaving, he straightened and looked around.

Disruptor fire glazed the air and raised a crackle of

burning ground cover and scrub brush. Hacking, shouting,

and shooting, the Klingon wave was attempting

another surge over the grade to the captain's left, their

disruptor fire hampered by the rock formations, but

creating dangerous shrapnel out of the stone.

He drew a breath and shouted.

"Spread out! Separate!" If his men weren't close

together, there was less chance of having them mown

down. "Go right! Move! Move, move!"

They swerved and scrambled in the direction he

waved, the knuckle of rocks bearded with dry growth

that would provide cover long enough for them to take a

breath, reorganize. Motion diluted the terror with the

twisted passion of combat.

"Take cover!" he shouted.

Not retreat, and they didn't.

Below, on this side of the narrow gravelly ramp

leading between two towers of rock, his battered men

lined the gully. Their red and gold backs created a

necklace of ruby and amber jewels across the bright

throat of the ridge as disruptor fire cracked over their

heads. Among them were the native Capellans, taller

than the humans by a head, and flamboyant with bright

blocks of color on their long-sleeved suits and snug

hoods that imitated helmets.

Hand-to-hand fighting had broken out in four places

that he could see--make that five. Anxious to be in five

places at once, he forced himself to keep low. The valley

was dotted with solid patches of color--the Starfleet red

and gold, the native purple, black, blue, green, and even

41

Diane Carey

pink now and then. They looked like giant Ninjas in

goon boots and windbreaking capes, with fur stitched

across their chests and hanging in long stoles over their

shoulders.

He didn't care if the natives wore fishnet stockings as

long as they backed up his troops, and they were doing

that. He brought his palm-sized communicator to his

lips and flipped open the antenna grid.

"Kirk to Enterprise."

The ship didn't answer. Why not? Where were they?

In his mind Jim Kirk saw the giant cruiser looping the

planet in orbit, emptied of a third of her crew because he

needed them down here, and he gritted his teeth. Why

wasn't the bridge crew answering? What was wrong?

At dawn, when he ordered his ship piloted away from

the planet, everything had been peace, quiet, mission

accomplished. He'd secured mining rights and turned

the leaders of this province away from dealing with the

oppressive Klingons. Now look.

Unfortunately the Klingons hadn't gone away pouting.

They weren't satisfied at having been legitimately edged

out. If they couldn't have this planet by trickery or

bribery, they would take it by force. They'd come in with

the sunrise over this region.

Leaning his communicator hand on his bruised knee,

Kirk paused to catch his breath and scan the battlefield.

It figured. Just when he got complacent, easy in his place

as a spacelanes wagoneer, the universe snapped his axle.

This was nonaligned space, and that was the problem.

Having made the treaty, Kirk was obliged to veer back in

and protect the Capellans against the insulted Klingons.

It was a good thing he was obliged to come in, because he

was mad and would've come in anyway.

He had ninety-four men on the ground, plus sixty

Capellans from the nearest tribe. Others had been summoned

in the night from far-distant tribes, but they

wouldn't make it in time. The battle was here and now.

The next few minutes would tell.

42

FIRST STRIKE

The line of Starfleet crewmen was jagged because of

the terrain of bulging rocks. Above them, in the taller

and deeper rocks, native Capellans bombarded the oncoming

enemies with stones and sling-pellets. Not

deadly, but confusing. Soon the enemy would be funneled

into withering fire from the Starfleet hand phasers.

The enemy surge was a litter of silver tunics and black

sleeves, dark beards and sweaty bronze complexions,

faces furious as if their land were being snatched instead

of the other way around.

"Kirk to Enterprise," he said again, then again. With

bloody fingers he tried to adjust the gain. "Enterprise, come in. Mr. Scott, come in."

The instrument only crackled back at him. No answer.

He readjusted it for local communication.

"Kirk to Spock. Kirk to Spock..."

Nothing.

He looked up, scanned the bright rocks for the form of

his first officer.

There was no other slash of color like Spock in this

battlescape. All other Starfleet forces were command or

security troops, wearing gold or red tunics. Commander

Spock's lone blue shirt stood out. Among the hundreds

of Terrans, Capellans, and Klingons, he was the only

Vulcan.

He had been the only Vulcan for a long time, the first

in Starfleet, and bore his solitude with grace. Kirk

watched with appreciation, but also annoyance. Why

wasn't Spock pulling out his communicator and answering?

The Dakota-like terrain, baked by midday sun a few

shades brighter than Earth's, was hot and dry as baked

clay. His men maneuvered in companies of twenty, each

under a lieutenant. If he couldn't talk to them, how

could they be ef fective?

The captain slid to one knee, barely realizing his own

flash of weakness, and shook the communicator.

"Kirk to Spock, come in!"

43

Diane Carey Neutralized somehow. He couldn't reach the ship, but

also couldn't reach his own men down here. Without

communicators, he was back in the 1800s, orchestrating

ground assault with hand signals, smoke, and mirrors.

He looked around, picked a huddle of his own troops down the incline, and skidded toward them.

"Jim! Where'd you come from?"

Kirk waved at the dust he'd raised and looked toward

the voice.

Ship's surgeon Leonard McCoy's face was almost

unrecognizable, his squarish features coated with sand,

brown hair caked with sweaty dust until it was the same

color as his face. His tunic, the only other blue one on

the terrain, wasn't very blue anymore.

"What happened to you?" Kirk asked.

"What d'you mean, what happened to me? Klingons

all over the place, Capellans knocking me down left and

right, and Spock doing his Wellington imitation in my

face!"

"Give me your communicator." Without waiting he

snatched the doctor's communicator from his belt and snapped it open. "Kirk to Enterprise."

The empty crackle aggravated him.

"Kirk to Spock. Kirk to anybody."

"What's wrong, sir?" A skinny lieutenant named Ban-non

sagged back against a rock for a moment's rest and

knuckled his dust-reddened eyes.

"Instrument failure. Try yours."

The red-haired lieutenant tried, then looked up guiltily

when he failed. "Sir..."

"You too," Kirk said to the three others, all ensigns,

huddled in this clutch of rocks.

"How can they all be broken down?" McCoy asked as

Kirk tossed him his communicator. He rattled it at his

ear.

"They can't."

Lieutenant Bannon rubbed his bruised jaw. "Can't we

reach the ship, sir? They could break through the com

44 FIRST STRIKE

munications trouble from Lieutenant Uhura's console,

couldn't they?"

Nettled, Kirk frowned until his face hurt and didn't

meet Bannon's questioning eyes. "Probably."

One of the ensigns glanced at Bannon, then asked,

"Does that mean they're in trouble up there? They can't

come after us?"

"Don't worry," McCoy supplied, sparing Kirk having

to answer. "Mr. Scott's a no-guff man. He'd step over

anybody's line. I wouldn't get in his way. If the Klingons

do, it's their own bad luck."

Kirk looked out between two knuckles of rock at the

Starfleet company nearest to the ramp. "That's Lieutenant

Doyle's group. Phasers up... they're looking for a

target. Awfully quiet down there all of a sudden..."

"Maybe the Klingons are retreating," McCoy suggested

with hope in his blue eyes.

"Not likely." Kirk leaned forward with both hands on

the rocks. "The local Klingon commander's in trouble.

He lost his mining deal with this planet when we showed

up. If he goes back a loser, his career's in the dumper."

"Jim, keep your head down! They can take aim on you

from up there!"

Dropping only a couple of inches in response, Kirk

glanced up, up, up to the highest crags, where Klingon

lookouts had taken position.

Below that, Lieutenant Doyle's bright blond hair

shone in the hot sun, but he was behind cover, huddled

with about fifteen other Starfleeters and a handful of

Capellans. Kirk saw the lieutenant's arm move as he

gestured weapons up.

A dozen hand phasers came nose up, then leveled and

took aim.

"He sees something we can't see." Kirk made silent

bets with himself about what Doyle saw. "They're taking aim... I see the Klingons."

"Where?"

"Over the top of the incline."

45

Diane Carey

"How many?"

"Not enough for a dozen phasers, that's for sure. And

they're not charging. They're moving back and forth up

there, trying to get attention."

"You think it's a trap, sir?" Bannon asked.

"I think it's something. Trick of some kind...

Doyle's being enticed to fire. I need communications!"

"I'll go, sir!" Bannon thrust to his full height, almost

as tall as the native Capellans but about half as thick.

McCoy grabbed him and forced him back down, out

of the line of fire from the upper rocks. "Down, boy?

Bannon's red hair was plastered across his pale forehead

and he seemed exhausted, but there was determination

in his eyes. He was willing to go.

"All right, go," Kirk said. "But keep low. Don't get

any closer than you absolutely have to. I don't want all

my people bunched up."

"Aye, sir!" The young officer took his own phaser in

his hand and scraped away on the slanted slabs.

Klingon activity on the top of the incline was increasing.

Still no advancement, just more figures moving this

way and that, taking potshots with disruptors at the

hidden Starfleet forces. Rocks splattered and splintered

with every miss, but they kept shooting, even without

clear targets.

Bannon made a red and black streak of color as he

moved across the lower landscape, picking his way

toward Doyle's company. Slow going. As Kirk watched

he felt bad hbout the terrain. Down on the plain the

ground was nearly level. Large groups could move more

freely, attack more openly, but there would be death by

the hundreds. Here, the ground was ungiving, stony, and

damned, but there was cover.

Before Bannon came within earshot, Kirk saw Doyle's

men stretching out their phaser arms. In his mind he

heard the order--Ready.. aim...

"Not yet," he uttered, feeling the sweaty tension of

McCoy at his side. "Not yet--"

46

FIRST STRIKE

Ducking blue disruptor shots from above, Bannon was

moving slowly, but he was nearly there.

Fire!

A globular burst of red-pink phaser fire launched from

the huddled Starfleet group and struck out at the incline.

The up there Klingons ducked out of sight. Not one was

hit.

Instead, an answer came from overhead--a gulp of

bright bluish energy sprayed from the cloudless sky and

landed squarely on Doyle's men as if a giant flyswatter

had just come down. The sheer whine of sound drove

Kirk, McCoy, and the three ensigns plunging for the

ground, cuffing their ears.

Kirk forced himself up instantly and looked down into

the valley.

The bodies of his crewmen and several tribesmen

streaked the dusty flats. Two hundred yards short of his

goal, Bannon lay knocked flat. Fury rolled in Kirk's

chest. He'd been outthought by the enemy.

"What the blazes was that?" McCoy gasped, peering at

the sky, then back down at the draped bodies.

"Some sort of response to the phasers," Kirk muttered.

"From where? A ship?"

"Maybe a shuttlecraft."

"Let me go down there!" the doctor asked. "I can treat

those men."

"You stay put." Kirk heard the anger in his voice and

valiantly tried to keep it from lopping over from his own

self-recriminations and onto McCoy. He didn't bother

pointing out that those men were probably beyond

treatment.

"Captain!"

The familiar baritone call caught him fast and he

turned and headed toward it.

"Here!" he called. "Spock, over here!"

From among the whey-colored rocks, First Officer Spock kept low but hurried to them, carrying a bow in

47

Diane Carey one hand and an arrow in the other. He'd holstered his

own phaser, and that meant something.

"Did you see the flash?" the Vulcan asked without amenity. "Disruptor backwash came from the sky."

Kirk nodded. "What do you think it is? A ship?"

Spock shook his head, squinting. "Too low. More

likely a satellite keyed to Starfleet phaser energy. You

will recall that Klingon disruptor fire did not set it

off."

"Could it be affecting our communicators?"

"I have no facts to corroborate that, but the theoretical

conclusion bears some logic." Spock's dark eyes scanned

Kirk's blood-splattered gold shirt. He was assessing his

captain for injuries, but he said nothing about it. He too

was breathing hard, despite this hot weather's being

more natural for him than shipboard climate.

Kirk looked up, scanning the sky. "If Scotty could get

in close with the ship, he could knock any orbiter out

with one shot."

"We must assume he is occupied." The Vulcan's

words were laced with portent. He offered nothing more

specific, but there was concern in his dust-grooved expression.

"We're on our own. McCoy, corral those three ensigns.

We're going to need runners to communicate with the

field positions."

"Yes, sir," McCoy responded, with fear clutching his

sudden sense of purpose. At least he didn't argue.

"All right, if that's the way it is," Kirk huffed to his

first officer as they watched they doctor pick his way back

to the grotto. "They neutralize our weapons, then I want

theirs."

Spock nodded, scanning the enemy lines. They hung

together in silence for a few seconds, and Kirk listened to

the sound of his own heart pound in his ears.

His left middle finger was hurting. Probably a sliver.

Felt like it might be under the fingernail. He glanced

down, but didn't see anything through the dirt plastered

48 FIRST STRIKE

to his fingers, and thought the sight of their captain

picking at a tingeruail might not do his crew any good.

He shook his head. Out of all the bruises and cuts, a

silver was distracting him. Battle could be a fun-house

mirror sometimes.

As the ground cover crackled behind him he spun

around and almost lashed out, but Spock pressed him

back somehow, subtly, only raising one arm a little. Kirk

glared at what had startled himmMcCoy and the three

ensigns slipping into the cover of the rock with them.

Steadying himself, he tilted a silent thanks to Spock

and motioned the others toward him, then gestured

them to huddle.

Crouching behind the big flat slab, Kirk looked at his

men one by one. "We think the Klingo ns have deployed

a satellite or shuttle that blankets the immediate area

with destructive power when it detects Federation phaser

tire. Your job is to get to our commanding officers and

relay information. Standing order is phasers down, indigenous

weapons only. Consider the phasers neutralized.

Draw the enemy into hand fighting if possible. It'll

give us a more equal chance than letting them have wide

berth. New goal--capture Klingon disruptors."

"Sir, I don't see how we can tight disruptors without

phasers," Ensign Dunton said, a gaunt scrapper with a

gap between his front teeth.

"Phasers can target thousands in open ground," Spock

said calmly, "but at close proximity, it may not be any

better than a sword or knife, Ensign."

"It's awful," Dunton uttered, glancing out at the

collapsed forms of his shipmates. "They shouldn't have

to die in the dirt like that."

"We're here to knock the Klingons back," Kirk said

firmly. "That's the bet all spacefarers make. Our lives

might come down to this."

He saw in their faces that they suddenly understood

something they'd never thought of before--that this

might be the real fate they'd signed up for. No stars nor

bright nebulae, but the dust of some distant alien planet

49

Diane Carey

between blood-crusted teeth, and the taste of foreign soil

on a dying breath.

Beside Dunton, Ensign Fulciero looked up at him like

a kid on Santa's knee who was hoping for the right

answer. "All we gotta do is hold them off from the

villages long enough for the battle in space to be won,

right, sir?"

Kirk placated him with a nod. "And Starfleet to send

reinforcements."

He didn't estimate how much time that might take.

"What if they get past the ship?" the third ensign

asked. "They could lay waste to half the planet from

up there."

Kirk landed a fierce glance on him. "They won't."

Fulciero blinked into the sun. "Why not?"

"Because they won't. We don't have time for lessons,

gentlemen. You have your orders. Disperse."

Being on the move with a message to deliver would be

good for them. Better than sitting here, anticipating

disaster and asking questions that would take time to

answer.

Tense, he and Spock and McCoy watched the ensigns

fan out, trying to reach companies of Starfleet forces

before anybody else used a phaser. His skin crawled in

expectation of the thready whine that could come any

second, from any quarter. Twice he thought he heard it,

and glanced at the sky, waiting for the bright pounding

response, but he was wrong both times. His unit commanders

were better than he remembered. He had

become too custodial. Forgotten that they could see the

sky too, knew a plasma burst when they saw it, and were

good at their jobs. They weren't using phasers. In several

places he saw his crew holstering their hand weapons and

taking up the crude weapons of the planet--rocks,

sticks, Capellan swords and klegats.

For a moment he wanted to tell his men not to try

using the klegats. The bladed disks were used efficiently

by the strong Capellans, but they took training. They

were deliberately not very sharp. Injury came from raw

50

FIRST STRIKE

force and bone breakage. It was a crushing weapon as

much as a slicing one.

"Captain," Spock snapped, "here they come."

He pointed to the upper ground, now swelling with

living enemy soldiers who were met by advanced Star-fleet

guards, swinging and hacking.

"Typical," McCoy threw in. "They know they've

knocked out our phasers, so they're advancing." Frustration

showed in his eyes as the doctor gripped the ledge

and watched their own men fall wounded, and clearly he

wished he could sneak out and begin treating them.

"Why aren't they using their disruptors?"

"Terrain," Kirk said. "Too many obstructions."

"I believe there is more." Spock pressed a hand to the

rock and straightened to look over. "Klingons prefer

hand-to-hand fighting. They consider it more honorable

to kill at close quarters than with a long-range weapon. If

they can arrange for that, they will do so."

"So we'll give it to them," Kirk said. "We can--"

At his hip, his communicator suddenly whistled.

He snatched at it, missed, and had to grab again.

"Kirk to Enterprise--status report!"

"Scott here, sir. We punched through the communications

blanket."

"What's going on up there?"

"Battle, sir. Three cruisers. We're holding our own now.

But we've got a new development. More Klingons coming

in, and I don't know what to make of it."

Kirk glanced at Spock. "More Klingons. Lovely. Why

don't you know what to make of it, Scotty? What're they

doing?"

"Unidentified bird coming in at warp six, with wings

up, weapons systems off, broadcasting interstellar distress

call."

"A distress call while at warp six?" Kirk let the

communicator drop a little and looked at Spock again.

"Not ship distress, then."

"Unless they are under hot pursuit," Spock suggested.

"Not likely." Kirk brought the communicator up

51

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again. "Let the situation play out, Scotty. Don't fire on

them until you figure out their intent. If you don't like it

when you find it out, blow them out of the sky." 'Aye, sir."

"And there's a satellite of some kind of hovering

mechanism over our locality that's keyed to our hand

phasers. Can you knock it out?"

"We've picked up on it and we're targeting it. If we

overshoot, we could hit you there on the surface."

"Understood. Hurry up."

"Aye, sir. Scotty out."

"It's good to hear his voice." Kirk pressed the back of

his hand to his bleeding mouth. "Gentlemen, I think I've

finally reached my limit."

They both looked at him, and Spock asked, "Sir?"

"I'm sick of Klingons."

He pushed away from the rocks.

"On your toes. This is it." He stood up and started out

into the open.

"Jim!" McCoy snatched him by the arm. "They'll see

you?"

"I want them to see me. Come on, Spock."

Enemy forces were plowing over the ridge, nearly two

hundred of them at a quick sweeping estimate. Their

silver tunics and black sleeves were crisp in the unforgiving

sunlight, their howl of charge more chilling than the

whine of their disruptors. Screams of injured and dying

men looped up like sirens. The survivors on both sides

scrambled for new cover.

But none for retreat. It was good to see.

He knew better than to micromanage. His men knew

he was here. They'd fight in pairs or triplets or any kind

of unit they could form. Enthusiasm carried them up the

incline to meet the enemy, and it dimmed their sight of

the Klingons' fury until they could match it with their own.

He plunged out into the open and scooped up a raw

wooden club and a stumpy sword from the body of a

fallen Capellan.

FIRST STRIKE

"Spock!" When his first officer turned, Kirk tossed

him the sword.

"The doctor is right," Spock said by way of warning.

"They will target a commanding officer if they can pick yOU Out."

He was plumbing for Kirk's plans.

All right.

"If I don't give them a target," Kirk told him, "they'll

lay scattering fire and wound as many as they can hit. If I

let them spot me, they'll concentrate on trying to knock

me out, preferably hand-to-hand, for the glory of it. I can

make them fixate on me. Goad them into letting me

manipulate their battle plan."

With a nod of understanding, Spock let disapproval

creep into his expression, but he couldn't fight the sense

of it.

"Problem is," Kirk added, "they might target you tOO."

Spock passed the sword from his left hand to his right.

"Acceptable, sir."

"I thought you'd say that. Let's go."

52

53

Chapter Four

As atom KLiNgONS came roaring down the incline, disruptors

holstered and daggers gleaming, Kirk and Spock

charged out to meet them, pushing as close to the center

as possible when they finally met the enemies head-on.

Kirk had to work to draw attention to himself, convince

the swarming enemy that he was the leader.

Ordinary in all ways but the fire in his mind, Kirk knew

he cut no particular swash among the combatants,

especially the seven-foot Capellans. But if he wanted his

enemies to identify him, and today he did, he'd have to

be conspicuous.

As he clubbed away the first Klingon who charged him,

he loudly gave orders to his men and waved his arms

with the captain's slashes on the wrists. He stayed as

close as he could to the center of the action, and in

moments the Klingons were looking up from their own

fights, spotting him and Spock.

Around him, his own men met the howling Klingons

with clench-jawed purposefulness. The Starfleet team weren't spoiled brats who couldn't fight with anything

but phasers. They held clubs across their bodies like

54

FIRST STRIKE

battle staffs, one hand on each end, effective for blocking

or ramming, and the humans were lighter and faster than

either the Klingons or Capellans. His men weren't being

bogged down by their own weight, as some of the others

were.

He was charged by the gleam in his men's eyes. They

were enjoying this, in a twisted, unfortunate way. They

had to enjoy it a little in order to survive it--stretching

their intelligence, daring themselves to live up to the

worst, the ugliest .... There was something electric in

forcing an enemy back. This land fighting was refreshing

in the shock of reality it gave a ship's crew, so long

sequestered in the isolet of their vessel, who so rarely got

the chance to fight their enemy eye to eye. Driven to

impose their will on their enemies, here they were

unharnessed.

They knew their duty, and Kirk knew his. It was the

captain's bravery that made men face the enemy again

after fighti ng all morning, the message in his manner that

he would not only fight with them, but for them, that

made them rather die fighting than scrambling. Safety no

longer had flavor. None asked himself anymore the lurid

question, What am I dying for? The question had an

answer--not for this distant herd of unfriendly people

nor for this speck of land on a speck in the sky. What am

I dying for?

For the captain.

Why?

Because he would die for me.

Jim Kirk knew how they felt. He set himself constantly

to live up to their devotion. He remembered his captains

and what he expected of them. Determined to be worthy

of what his men were doing out here, answering that

ringing question in their minds over and over until they

could summon their own inner fortifications, he willed

himself visible among them.

Fighting twenty yards apart, he and Spock were an

attractive target. Klingon soldiers were veering toward

them, each hungering for the glory of killing the leaders.

55

Diane Carey

A Klingon soldier charged down on him fast, not

checking his speed at all as he flew down the incline. He

struck Kirk with a full-body blow that sent them both

bruising to the ground, then tumbling.

Kirk waited until they stopped rolling, then raised his

free arm and drove the elbow into the Klingon's throat.

The soldier gagged, rolled off, and crawled away on his

hands and knees.

Lashing out with his right leg, the captain caught the

crawling soldier's knees and knocked them out from

under him. The Klingon sprawled, still choking, and

Kirk snatched for the disruptor--this Klingon didn't

have one. So Kirk went for the dagger at the soldier's

belt. He looked up to see two more plunging down on

him, and he'd better be upright to meet them.

Dust puffed up all around him from the scrape of hard

soles and the impact of thunderbolt disruptor shots. So

much for honor.

Some of the Klingons on the high ground were trying

to aim between the fighters, but were mostly hitting the

dirt as they tried to avoid killing their own crewmates.

The sizzle of energy bolts raised the hair on Kirk's arms

as the shots whistled past him.

Where was Spock? He couldn't see his tint officer

anymore. Concentration was stolen by the two Klingons

bulldozing at him through the combatants, with two

more right behind them, all with their eyes on him.

There were negatives to this manipulate-the-enemy

theory.

They could charge him together, but unless they

cooperated they couldn't hit him at the same time, and

they wouldn't cooperate. He hoped.

Hoped hard as he made his bet and raised his right

arm to take on the Klingon who was a millimeter closer.

Slashing outward with his dagger, the Klingon danced

out of the way--Kirk had bet wrong--and faked to one

side, leaving Kirk's unprotected midsection for the second

soldier.

56

FIRST STRIKE

Kirk couldn't bring his dagger down in time. The

second Klingon caught him in a brutal embrace and with

sheer strength began squeezing the life from him, keeping

him from breathing.

Adrenaline surged as Kirk felt the queasiness of death

close at his throat. Over the shoulder of the Klingon

attacking him he saw the other two roaring in, eyes

blazing and teeth bared. He struggled to raise his knee--at

least he could get one of them--

A shadow crossed his face. A bulky ensign--looked

like Wilson--who had hands like bear paws and no neck

at all, plunged in and took on the other two, knocking

one flat with the sheer force of his charge.

A growl of anger boiled up beside Kirk. Now those two

Klingons were furious at Wilson for having blocked their

way, and the one on the ground slashed out at Wilson's

legs with his dagger while the ensign was throwing

punches at the other one. The ensign tried to dance

away, but the Klingons used their combined power to

drive him into the blade.

"Break!" Kirk shouted. "Ensign, break o"

Wilson flashed a glance at him and tried to obey the

order, but couldn't do it. His mouth burst open with

shock as the blade chewed into his spine.

Whipped up by what he saw, Kirk found his hands

between his own body and the chest of the Klingon

grappling him, forced his elbows upward.

As the Klingon's body went stiff with pain and the grip

on Kirk fell away, Kirk shoved the soldier over and

yanked the disruptor from the belt. Now he had one, but

it was warm in his hands, nearly drained.

The trick was not to waste it.

He swung around, jockeying for aim; he found Wilson

still fighting, and blocking a clear shot.

"Down, Ensign!"

Wilson couldn't drop back, but managed to tilt to one

side, and Kirk aimed, took a breath, let out half of it, and

fired.

57

Diane Carey The disruptor buzzed in his hand and spat a clean

string of energy into the chest of one of the Klingons.

The soldier buckled and fell backward.

The other Klingon ignored the fate of his partner, but

knew the disruptor was coming around to him and tried

to shove the wounded ensign down in order to lash out at

Kirk with a hard metal wristband. He would've made it,

too, except that Wilson leaned back in and took the blow

meant for his captain, a savage crash to the top of his

head.

The Klingon's thumbnail caught Kirk's uniform and

ripped into his shoulder. He felt fabric give way, then

flesh, as if he'd been caught in a briar bush.

He raised a knee, kicked the Klingon backward into

his disruptor sights, and fired.

The Klingon shouted an unintelligible word as the

beam blasted him into the rocks and he fell hard.

In Kirk's hand the disruptor started beeping--drained.

After a morning of firefights, he had gotten its

last two shots. Furiously he pitched it at the skull of one

of the downed Klingons and was gratified by the crack.

As Ensign Wilson staggered, Kirk snatched the unfortunate

crewman from behind, desperate that the boy's

last seconds not be his loneliest. Blood from his wounds

drained across Kirk's uniform and trousers. He felt the

thick body shudder in his arms, wobble, and go limp.

Suddenly he slipped out of Kirk's hands. Dead or alive,

there was no way to tell.

Rage boiled up behind Kirk's eyes. His disruptor was

junk, he'd lost his knife, so he grabbed Wilson's club,

tucked it at his side in both hands like a lance. Lips

drawn back, face chalky with sweat-plastered dust, uniform

torn at the shoulder, he charged into the tangle of

fighting men.

He plowed through the formless battle, assisting his

men and allies with his club, landing almost every blow

to good effect, each time freeing another of his men to

move forward. Only when he tripped and went down on

58 FIRST STRIKE

a knee was his momentum interrupted--and that was

when he twisted around to get back on his feet and ended

up looking back the way he had come.

Against the rattan landscape a blue dot caught his eye.

At first he thought he'd found Spock, but he was wrong.

"McCoy!"

The doctor had been rooted out of his hiding place

somehow and was up against the rocks, defending himself

against, luckily, only one Klingon. In hand-to-hand

fighting, McCoy could hold his own for a minute or two,

but soon he would falter. Surprise him and he would

fight, but after a few moments he'd catch the eyes of

someone fighting him, notice a muscle in a taut neck,

and the living condition of his opponents would get to

him. His inner compass would steer him away from self-preservation,

and the doctor would pause.

One of these days the pause would get him killed. Kirk

had learned to watch for it.

McCoy was waving a sword he'd found, but he was

doing it only in defense. So he'd already crossed that

line. He was backing up, tighter and tighter against the

unforgiving rocks.

Any second he'll hesitate. Kirk looked around frantically,

snatched the arm of a crewman rushing past him

and shouted at another one. "Brown, Mellendez! About face! Help McCoy!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Aye, sir!"

They took off at barreling run.

He swung back to the shouts and clacks of men and

blades and throttled his way into the fray with the club.

Then he threw the club down and scooped up one of the

short Capellan swords and hacked his way through to the

higher ground. Disruptor fire crackled past him--a jolt

of hope hit as he realized some of those shots were

coming from his own men, those who had managed to

lay their hands upon Klingon disruptors and were turning

them on their owners. Still, the high-powered weapons could only be of so much use in tight quarters, no

more use to the Starfleeters than to the Klingons themselves.

Still, the odds were beginning to balance.

Hot shale sprayed up and stung his cheeks, then went

on to rattle across the rocks. As he scrambled upward, a

half-dozen Klingons broke from their struggles and

followed. Their ambition was getting the better of them. It's working. They're disorganized.

Taunting them with a few swipes of the sword, he got

several to follow as he climbed the rocks, then kicked

two of them off balance. They tumbled and crashed to

the jagged talus below, and when he saw what happened

to them, he realized how high he'd climbed and that he'd

better not slip.

When he glanced up to make sure he wasn't boxing

himself into a trap, he caught a blue flash in his periphery.

McCoy? Up there?

He looked down, across the battle area, and saw the

doctor standing good ground with Brown, Mellendez, and two other Enterprise crewmen.

He swung around to the other swatch of blue. Spock.

The Vulcan was trapped on high ground, being funneled

to the point of a slanted arm of rock by at least

eight Klingons. Kirk's plan had worked to the worst--t hey'd

targeted his first officer.

Holding his own against the Klingons but not against

the shrinking footing, Spock was markedly stronger, but

not faster or meaner than an angry human crew up

against a Klingon force. He would try to fight logically,

and that might not work against Klingons.

As Kirk frantically searched for a way to get over

there, fly maybe, Spock fought with grim deliberation

using the sword Kirk had given him, but he was losing.

He was just plain outnumbered.

Kicking at the Klingons trying to reach him, Kirk

divided his attention and picked out one of his most

experienced field officers.

"Giotto!"

FIRST STRIKE

The lieutenant commander of Security didn't hear

him, so he shouted again, and again until Giotto's

squared face and silver hair turned up to him. Giotto

assessed his captain's situation and shouted, "Coming,

sir!"

"Belay that!" Kirk shouted. "Assist Mr. Spock!"

Giotto swung his wide shoulders, scanned the rocks,

then yelled, "Security detail!"

Seven men around him, three short of a full detail,

broke from what they were doing and managed to follow

as Giotto charged toward Spock's outcropping.

Kirk's heart pounded. They weren't going to make it.

Pebbles chipped from the ledge under Spock's feet and

rained onto the unforgiving talus below. One of the

Klingons had made it all the way up and was sparring

with Spock, enjoying the Vulcan's situation, and the only

thing saving Spock for the moment was the next Klingon

down, who wanted the glory for himself and was holding

on to the top Klingon's ankle and keeping him back.

Desperate, Kirk ignored the Klingons encroaching on

him, took his sword by the blade, wheeled it back over

his shoulder, and launched it like a throwing knife.

It wheeled through the air just beautifully, and struck

the top Klingon, but not with the blade. The hilt came

about and knocked the Klingon in the back of the neck.

He stumbled, and the second Klingon pitched him off

balance. The top one gasped audibly and skidded off the

ledge to land on a shoulder below.

Kirk winced as he heard the Klingon's clavicle snap in

two even under the protective vest.

Spock wasn't wearing anything like that.

Where were Giotto and the Security detail? There--they'd

gone behind a clutch of overgrowth to find a way

to climb the rocks. Too slow, too slow.

It's my fault. They've been fighting all morning.

They're tired. They won't get to him in time.

He'd thrown his sword and now had nothing to fight

with, so he kicked downward at the Klingons trying to

get to him. They could shoot him off, but he saw in their

61

Diane Carey

hungry eyes the desire to defeat the enemy leader with

their own hands. Only the fact that they were competing

instead of helping each other was saving him for the

moment. If his luck held out--

The crack of rock sounded clearly across the open

terrain, and Kirk looked up at the exact horrible instant

that Spock's last inch of footing gave way.

Kirk reached out. He saw his empty hand against the

sky, Spock's form a hundred yards too far from his

outstretched fingers, arms flung outward as the Vulcan

toppled backward and disappeared.

"Damn it!" Kirk choked.

He stared at the empty air where Spock had been a

moment ago, then shifted his rage downward at the

Klingons trying to get to him.

They saw the change in his face. Though he was

weaponless and at the disadvantage, at least three of

them started to back down.

He put all his anger into a downward plunge. After all,

there were nice soft Klingon noses to land on.

He felt a dozen impacts on his body--thighs, ribs,

elbows, knees--as he body-slammed his way straight

down through the Klingons and drove himself and all of

them into a tangle, scraping and scratching down the

slanted shelf. By the time he struck the bottom, he had

scraped off at least two of the Klingons and landed on

the rest of them.

His body screamed for attention. He ignored it and

tried to get to his feet, but fell twice and shuffled outward

on one foot, a knee, and the heel of a hand. His left arm

was numb from the elbow down.

Slowly he made his way past the stunned Klingons. He

had to get to Spock. If his first officer somehow survived

the fall, the other Klingons would rush in and slaughter

him where he lay. Inhaling dust, Kirk willed himself

forward.

"Stop!"

He looked up. Who was that? No voice he recognized .. one of the Capellans?

62

FIRST STRIKE

Out into the middle of the battling armies, striding as

deliberately as if on parade, came a thick-bodied Klingon

officer.

No, not just an officer... a general!

But there was no Klingon general in this sector ....

The wide newcomer strode into the middle of the

action and held out both his short meaty arms, hands

upright in a halting gesture.

"Stop the fighting! Stop! Stop this!"

The general now turned to the upper rocks and

shouted--roared--at his own kind.

"I said stop!"

63

Chapter Five

LEFT ARM NUMB, his chest constricted from the dust, Kirk

scraped between the stunned combatants as they stood

heaving and staring, and managed to keep from going

down on his knees again.

"Spock!" he called.

No answer. He didn't really expect one.

The Klingon general lowered his arms and watched as

the captain crossed the battleground. The general

seemed to understand and stood like Henry VIII on a

jousting field, watching as Kirk came around the gravelly

talus skirt.

Kirk first saw Spock as a swatch of blue and black

quilted against the stones, surrounded by Giotto and his

men, who ringed the fallen body and stood off several

Klingons who wanted to deal the death blow if it hadn't

been dealt already.

He thought the Vulcan moved, but there was so much

dust ....

Everything had stopped, just stopped. Klingons, Star-fleet

crew, Capellans, all standing still--those who were

still standing--looking at the Klingon general who

64

FIRST STRIKE

waited like a lone monolith at their center, and at Kirk as

he moved between the bodies of the fallen.

Maybe this was some kind of demand for surrender. A

full general?

He glanced at the Klingon general in something like

contempt or dare--even he wasn't sure--but kept to his

purpose. One thing at a time.

Giotto's men parted for him, but kept their weapons

up and didn't slack their stance against the Klingon

soldiers.

It felt good to kneel finally. The ground had been

pulling at him--it felt good to give in.

Spock was looking up, blinking, dazed but conscious,

at least. His lips were pressed in frustration and effort,

pickle-green blood showing in scratches on his forehead

and the point of his right ear.

As the gravel cut into his knee, Kirk pressed his good

hand to Spock's tattered sleeve.

"You all right?" he asked.

"Stunned," Spock said with effort, and with pain that

he was trying to hide. His voice was as gravelly as the

stuff he was lying on. Cautiously he raised his head,

brows drawn, then in something like amusement added,

"And, I believe, grazed here and there "

"Where?"

Kirk persisted.

Suddenly aggravated at not being able to self-diagnose,

Spock glanced up at him and belittled himself with a bob

of his angular brows. "I am not certain."

Glancing up at the needle of rock above them, Kirk

realized it was about two decks higher than he'd estimated

from way over there. "How did you survive that?"

"Starfleet training," Spock said lightly. "I rolled."

Kirk pressed out a sympathetic grin. "Think you can

get up? We've got a new development."

Faced with that, Spock pressed his palms to the stones

and tried to lift his shoulders. His voice cracked as he

grunted, "Shall certainly attempt it."

"Mr. Giotto, give us a hand."

In the back of his mind he could hear the protests of

65

Diane Carey common sense as he and Giotto pulled the injured first

officer to his feet, but it was important to Kirk that the

enemies see the Starfleet officers upright and thinking.

Once they got him up it became clear that Spock

couldn't stand on his own and Kirk accepted that he

might be making a mistake.

He waved in a yeoman to help Giotto, then said,

"Bring him over here. I want him to hear whatever goes

on."

At the center of what was quickly becoming a scraggly

ring of mixed combatants, the Klingon general turned in

place. "Who is in command here?" he bellowed, but he

was looking from Klingon to Klingon, not at the Starfleet

team.

Behind the Security detail, Kirk straightened and

watched. Was this some kind of crank?

"I am!" A Klingon commander came up over the

incline and hurried down, clearly infuriated. "Why have

you stopped our victory?"

The general's big body turned and he raised his arms

in contempt. "I see no victory here. What's the matter

with you? Why are you squabbling over this bit of dirt?

Wasting men and munitions, and for what? A few

shipments of toparine? You're a fool."

The commander waved his hand at Kirk. "They killed

my representative!"

One of the big Capellans stepped forward and contradicted,

"I killed your representative. After he betrayed

US."

The blunt honesty silenced the Klingon commander,

and Kirk took that as a cue to move in. He didn't care

about their inner quarrels. He forced himself not to limp

as he put his back to the commander as a kind of insult

and raised his chin to the general.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

The high-ranker squared off before him. "I am General

Kellen."

Behind Kirk, the other Klingons collectively gasped

and relaxed their postures in respect.

66 FIRST STRIKE

Kellen? Kirk repeated. "Of the Muscari Incident?"

"Yes."

The general waited until his identity sank in all

around. Even if they didn't know what he had done in

the past, they had heard his name and they knew his

reputation. So did Kirk. General Kellen... the only

calm Klingon Kirk knew of.

That kind of thing gets around.

The general didn't seem particularly impressed with

himself, but he was clearly counting on Kirk's being impressed with him.

And it was close.

They stood together on the printless stone flat, face-to-face,

sizing each other up.

After he'd ticked off a measured pause, the general

asked, "Your ship is the Enterprise?"

Narrowing his eyes in the bright sunlight, Kirk felt his

brow tighten. "Yes..."

"Then you are Captain James B. Kirk?"

"James T. So what?"

"Then I am here to ask for your help on behalf of the Klingon Empire and your own Federation."

"Help about what?"

"We need your help, Captain. The demons have

returned. The Havoc has come."

"Does this mean you're declaring a cease-fire?"

The question had already gotten its answer, but Kirk

wanted his men and the Klingon men to hear it from the

local top, which at the moment was General Kellen. He

didn't want anyone ending up with a dagger in the back

from the overzealous among them.

Peering over those funny glasses, Kellen nodded hurriedly.

"Yes. And I should mention that your starship is

about to punch holes in my cruiser. Instruct them not Perhaps the general was fishing for an act of trust, or at

least balance, or maybe he just wanted what he said he

wanted. A chance to talk.

67

Diane Carey

Either way, there would be a chance to pause and

regroup. Never taking his eyes off Kellen, Kirk snapped

up his communicator and flipped open the antenna grid.

"Kirk to Enterprise. Go to defensive posture... cease

fire and stand by. If you don't hear from me in ten

minutes, open fire." Without waiting for acknowledgment

from Scott, he lowered the communicator sharply

enough to make a point. "I appreciate who you are,

General, but you can't have this planet."

Kellen held out both hands in acquiescence. "I do not

want this planet. I don't know why some elements do. It

has always been my standing to let the Federation tend

these backward herds. Then we'll take the planets when

they're worth something."

Kirk snorted. "Wanna bet?"

"It has always been a mystery to me when the Federation

will fight and why," Kellen said. "That you will fight

to the last man to defend something you do not care to

possess. A planet like this is not worth the loss of a ship

of the line. I give you this planet without contention.

Congratulations. I have already spoken to your Starfleet

Command. They have agreed to let me approach you if I

agreed to stop this battle. It is stopped. Now I must speak

with you, Captain Kirk."

His voice, though he was a large man, was high-pitched,

Kirk noticed now, not low as one might expect a

large man's to be, yet it had a certain ring of authority--probably

out of sheer practice.

"You'll have to wait your turn," Kirk said. 'I'll be

back in when I've taken care of my men."

Kellen said nothing, but clasped his hands behind his

wide back and struck a stance of impatience.

With a measured glance at Spock, Kirk swung around

and scanned his surprised crewmen and the disgruntled

Klingons, all standing among each other, eyeing each

other's weapons, none of them sure what to do.

He turned another quarter turn and spotted McCoy,

kneeling at the body of Ensign Wilson.

Good a place as any to start.

68

FIRST STRIKE

With a purposeful stride he hurried--but not too

fast--to the doctor and kept his back to Kellen.

"Well," he muttered, "how do you like that?"

"Not much," the doctor muttered back, gazing at poor

Wilson as he rose to his feet.

Kirk surveying quickly the surgeon's bruised face.

"Are you hurt?"

McCoy blinked, frowned, rubbed his hands together,

and said, "No, Captain, I'm not hurt."

"Then get started with your triage."

"Yes, sir."

As the party broke up and others gathered around for

instructions, Kirk dashed off orders to others standing

around.

"Log that I gave a field commission to Zdunic. He's

now a lieutenant."

"Acknowledged," Spock said from behind him.

Weakness in the baritone voice registered suddenly.

Kirk turned to his first oflScer and realized Spock had

been answering him as if nothing was wrong, but the first

officer was still leaning heavily on the yeoman, picking at

his tricorder, valiantly trying to record the details of the

aftermath and his captain's orders.

"Mr. Spock McCoy!

Over here first. Yeoman, set

him

down." Kirk moved in as Spock was gingerly

lowered

to sit on a handy boulder, and carefully pulled

the

tricorder strap up over Spock's head to hand it to the

yeoman.

"Spock... sorry."

There

was more pain in the Vulcan's face now. He was

having

trouble masking it. His lean frame was clenched,

stomach

muscles tight, shoulders and arms stiff as he

pressed

down on the boulder, though he didn't take his

eyes

from the Klingon general. Distrust pulled at him

through

his pain.

unous,

Captain," he said, watching the Klingon

general,

"that he would concern himself with a skirmish."

"He's

got me curious," Kirk acknowledged.

"What

happened?" McCoy asked as he hurried to

69

Diane Carey

them. If he had seen Spock a moment ago in the

background, he hadn't noticed that the Vulcan was being

held up by the yeoman beside him.

"He fell," Kirk said. "From up there. I can't believe

didn't see it happen."

Y'U'I was busy." McCoy ran his medical tricorder from

Spock's shoulder to his pelvis. "Jim, my God--you

shouldn't have moved him! He's got spinal injuries."

Priorities screwed on backward. Kirk knew he'd made

a mistake. Always thinking of Spock as not just half-human,

but superhuman.

Spock was pale as sea wake. Deep-rooted pain etched

his face. He still watched Kellen.

"Take him back to the ship, emergency priority," Kirk

said, letting himself feel guilty.

Spock looked up. "Captain, I would like to stay."

There was something behind his eyes. Havoc...

whatever that was. Spock knew something and he

wanted to hear what Kellen had to say.

And I need him here, if he knows something.

Under his swatch of dusty brown hair, McCoy was

glaring at Kirk. Pretty clear message there, too.

"A few minutes," Kirk decided. "McCoy, you take

care of him here for now. Contact your staff and beam

down a full medical team to take over triage."

'captain," the doctor began, protesting with his tone.

"I said a few minutes. Until we find out what's going

on."

Fuming, his blue eyes boiling on Kirk, the doctor

cracked open his communicator. McCoy to Enterprise. Patch me through to sickbay."

Plagued not by the glare but by the reason for it, Kirk

was suddenly motivated to pierce the mystery fast and

get Spock to the ship.

He swung around and stepped back to Kellen. "All

right, General, I've taken care of my men. Now let's talk

about you."

Kellen nodded. "The Havoc has come and we have to

deal with it."

/0

FIRST STRIKE

Kirk eyed him. "I don't like the sound of that 'we."

What's 'havoc'?"

Spock tipped his head to one side. "In Klingon lore,

'Havoc' is essentially an apocalypse. The releasing of all

captive souls to wreak revenge on those who imprisoned

them."

"Yes," Kellen confirmed, wagging a finger at the

Vulcan. "Yes, yes."

"How do you know it's coming?" Kirk asked.

"My squadron encountered the beginning of it. The

coming of the Havoc ship."

"The apocalypse comes in a ship?" Cynicism blistered the air between them. "General, I'm not in a good

mood."

"And I am not here to put you in one." Kellen's

weathered face didn't change. He utterly believed that he

was here for the right reasons. He looked like a latter-day

Ben Franklin waiting to see whether he'd be the father of

a nation or on the business end of a noose.

Kirk drilled him with a meaningful glare. "What

happened to you? Start from the beginning."

"There was a mass falloff," the general began. "At first

we thought our instruments were failing, but then the

sun of a nearby solar system began to expand and the

planets to disintegrated. This continued until all things

went to zero--"

"Nothing could exist in a zero-mass environment,"

Spock countered, as McCoy worked on him. "Everything

that moved would accelerate to the speed of light."

"We came within seconds of that," the Klingon confirmed,

nodding at Spock as if anxious to be understood.

"We watched as the nearest solar system broke to

hyperlight and was vaporized. We managed to hold our

ships to positive mass by diverting all our power to the

shields. We were down to one one-hundredth percent of our mass when the effect stopped. We..." He paused,

measured the impact of what he was saying, then decided

to admit, "We did lose one ship."

Everyone everywhere was utterly still. Even McCoy

71

Diane Carey stopped in the middle of applying a field splint to

Spock's back.

As they all stared at Kellen, the whine of transporters

cut into the tension.

To Kirk's right, six pillars of garbled energy buzzed

into place, then quickly and noisily materialized into the

forms of McCoy's emergency medical staff of interns

and nurses.

McCoy waved at them without saying a word, and

they dispersed to triage the wounded.

"I have recordings of this," Kellen offered, pulling

Kirk's attention back. He spoke with control, as if

completely convinced they would want these. He raised

his arm, and pulled from his belt a Klingon tricorder.

"The de vice has a translator."

He held it before Kirk, and did not lower it.

Kirk tilted his head to his left, toward Spock. "Over

there."

Without pause Kellen took the one step necessary to

hand the tricorder to the yeoman with Spock, but he

never took his eyes off Kirk.

The yeoman blinked as if he didn't know what to do,

but a wag of Kirk's finger at the tricorder snapped him

out of it. He keyed up the instrument, working as well as

he could with a Klingon mechanism, then faced Spock

and ran the recordings on the small screen for him.

"I was transporting back to my flagship," Kellen went

on while Spock watched the tricorder, "when my beam

was diverted to another place. At first I believed I was on

some distant planet, for there were caves and growing

moss and a source of light and heat. I explored this place

and discovered solid metal walls and electrical lighting

with signal panels. But also there was a corridor of

skulls."

"I'm sorry?" Kirk interrupted. "Did you say 'skulls'?"

"Skulls. Bare, boiled skulls. Of inconceivable shapes

and kinds--creatures scarcely imaginable, Captain

Kirk. Each was set in a niche of its own from which moss

bled and lichen grew. Then, it... came out of the wall."

72 FIRST STRIKE

"What came? A skull?"

"No. No skull... the lraga itself."

The Klingon general nearly whispered the word, as if

speaking the profane, yet he was trying to be clinical and

scientific.

Iraga. Didn't sound familiar.

Kirk canted forward slightly enough to get across his

do-I-have-to-keep-asking expression.

"A... vision from our past," Kellen said, sifting for

words. "A gathering of evils in one body, with snakes

living out of its head and flame in its eyes. It means

nothing to you, but to Klingons it is our past coming

back." ....

"We have legends of snake-headed beings," Kirk mentioned,

"but I don't recall anything with fire for eyes. Mr.

Spock?"

"I am unfamiliar with any such legend, Captain," the science officer said. "Research may prove of service."

"Captain, please," McCoy wedged in.

Kirk gave him a shut-up nod, then looked at Kellen.

"Let's deal with facts right now. You say there was a power source? Readout panels? And you could breathe?"

"Yes. I felt the engines of the ship."

"Demons don't need atmosphere or conventional

power. And they certainly don't need engines."

Kellen acknowledged that with what might have been

a shrug. "Whatever is going on, legends and reality have

come together and this might be the end of things for us

all. Whatever has been our collective nightmare for cons

has now come to ruin us again. We must work together

now. Compared to those, we are so much alike that I

would rather be your slave than live on the same planet

with them. Now that the invaders are here, there is no

difference between you and me anymore."

A hot breeze coughed down the incline between the

two breasts of rock and across the warm belly of the

shale flats. Kirk found himself suddenly sweating under

his shirt. He didn't like the feeling, He wanted to scratch

his chest as perspiration trickled down his ribs.

73

Diane Carey

He glared at Kellen. The sun enhanced his flown. His

eyes were hurting.

"Captain," Spock called.

Kirk pursed his lips and crossed the ten steps or so to

where Spock was sitting on the boulder.

Grimly Spock said, "He is telling the truth. At least, he

is truthfully relating what he saw. And according to

vessel-stress readings and analyses of the computer registry,

there did seem to be a mass falloff. Their records

also have a visual log of a solar system's burst to warp

speed."

"Could his records be falsified?"

"Of course."

"But you don't think they are?"

Spock sat as stiff as an Oriental statue. "No, sir."

"What could cause a mass falloff?."

"A weapon." Kellen surged, plunging two steps closer

before a handful of Security men stepped between him

and Kirk and Spock. "A shot fired across our civilization's

bows, Kirk. For after it, there came the vessel of

demons. We have to put aside hating each other for

now."

"Put aside decades of trouble just like that?"

"What do you want?" Kellen asked, becoming much

more agitated than anyone would expect from the calmest

Klingon in the Empire. "You want me to imprison

my grandson? You want me to find a husband for your

ugliest sister." Tell me! This is important, Kirk! If you

could have one thing from the Klingon Empire, what

would you want?"

Irritated by the pettiness Kellen seemed to take for

granted, Kirk bristled. "You know what I want. The

same thing the whole Federation wants. Freedom and

peace for all our peoples."

"You want us to leave you alone."

"Not enough. You have to leave your own people alone

too."

The whole idea crossed the general's face as utterly

foreign, but he didn't laugh or show any sign that Kirk

74

FIRST STRIKE

had asked for something he wouldn't consider today.

Kellen seemed willing to hand over the galaxy if he could

get the help he wanted.

"Just a minute," Kirk stalled. He turned his back on

the general and lowered his voice to Spock and McCoy.

"Opinions?"

"Obviously profound," Spock murmured, "if the effect

on him is so profound that the tension between

Klingons and the Federation seems childish to him

now."

"Whatever's going on," McCoy nearly whispered, "it's

got Kellen spooked. And from what I've heard about this

particular Klingon, he doesn't spook lightly."

Kirk looked at him. "Are you saying we should go?"

"Captain, I'll say anything you want if you'll let me

take Spock to sickbay."

"Captain," Kellen interrupted, and waited until Kirk

turned back to him. "I do not know if I can give you the

things you ask," he said, "but I give my word as a

warrior--I will do everything I can for the rest of my life

to work toward a treaty. You help us survive today...

and I will dedicate my life to your wish."

What?

The Klingons around the battleground stirred and

audibly choked at what they had just heard. Kirk's men

held very still, cocooned in disbelief.

"You can take me aboard as hostage if you like,"

Kellen added, "but help us against them!"

Was this Klingon bravado? A bet Kellen was making

with himself?. An experienced general knew the Federation would never take hostages.

So I will.

"Fine. You'll stay with us." Through Kellen's surprise,

Kirk finished, "We'll go out there, and we'll see what this

is."

75

WE ARE

THE IMPENDING

Chapter Six

"Bor, rEs, How is HE?"

"Not good."

"Tell me."

"Vulcans have thirty-six pairs of nerves attached to

the spinal cord, serving the autonomic and voluntary

nervous systems. Spock has some level of damage to

thirty percent of those, mostly in his lower thoracic area

and lumbar plexus. No major fractures, probably because

of the angle of the stuff he fell on, but there are

a series of hairline fractures to the white matter of the spinal column. Add that to the impact to his muscles

and tendons, a dislocated shoulder, and a fractured

wrist."

"He broke his wrist?"

"The left one."

"I... didn't notice."

His own left arm throbbed now, reminding him of his

own hurts and the hits he'd taken, and magnifying what

Spock must be going through. Without thinking, he

rubbed the sore elbow.

McCoy noticed. "Spock's shoulder is back in place

79

Diane Carey and the wrist bones are fused, but he'll be sore for a

while ."

"Can his spinal injury be fixed with surgery?"

Folding his arms, the ship's cranky chief surgeon

pursed his lips and shook his head, almost as if still

deciding.

But right now he was just plain galled.

"I'm not going to operate unless I have to. I'm not a

neurological specialist, Captain, and we're damned far

from anybody who is, let alone a specialist on Vulcan

neurophysiology. The irony is that he's lucky he hit that

skirt of gravel on his spine instead of his skull, or right

now we'd be wrapping him up for a real quiet voyage

back to Vulcan and you'd be writing a note to his

parents."

A chill shimmied down Jim Kirk's aching arms. Those

awful notes--he'd spend his whole night writing them,

one by one, with hands scratched and sore from today's

battle. He had to do them before he slept, or he'd never

sleep. He would describe the situation on Capella IV and

explain its importance to the Federation so families

would know their young men died for something important.

He would log one posthumous commendation after

another, feeding them through to Lieutenant Uhura,

who would launch the sad package through subspace to

the parents, wives, children of those who'd given their

lives today in the line of duty.

He was glad he wouldn't have to write a note like that

to Ambassador Sarek and his wife.

"We're lucky," Kirk murmured. "I'm lucky."

"Will he recover?" he asked.

Silence told him that McCoy wanted to make the

prognosis sound upbeat, but the captain was the only

person on board the starship who had to be deprived of

bedside manner. The captain always had to be given the

cold raw truth.

"I can't tell you that conclusively," McCoy said.

"We'll just have to wait and see. I've got him mounted g0 FIRST STRIKE

on a null-grav pad, to keep pressure off the spinal column. He can walk, but I'm not going to let him yet."

"Is there anything else you can do?"

McCoy responded with a bristle of insult. "Even with

advanced medicine, there are some things the body has

to do for itself. His metabolism is higher than ours and

his recuperative powers are different. I'm not going to

tamper unless there's an emergency. Don't second guess

my judgment, Captain, and I won't second gues s yours."

Kirk turned to him. "If McCoy, say it."

you've got something to say, The doctor stiffened. His eyes flared and he went off

like a bow and arrow ready to spring. "Fine. I processed

nineteen bodies this morning and fifty-two injuries,

twelve of those serious, and two men are still listed as

missing in action. That's seventy-three casualties logged

up to a petty skirmish of questionable strategic value."

"It's my job to defend those settlements. Would you

prefer processing the corpses of innocent families or

official personnel sworn to protect them? You're the one

who was stationed on that planet, you're the one who

knew these people personally. Would you advocate

abandonment?"

"There had to be some better way, is all I'm saying, something less savage than a ground defense."

"That's not for you to judge."

"Maybe not, but my patients are filling up four

wards--"

"They're not your patients, Doctor, they're my crew.

And they're Starfleet officers and they know what that

means. The Klingons might have slaughtered those people.

That's where we come in; we were there to stop it."

McCoy's blue eyes were bitter cold by now. "Maybe

there was and you chose to ignore it, just as you chose to

ignore common sense when you moved a trauma victim

simply because you needed another opinion. The fact is,

you're likely to get to an injured crewmen long before I

am, and as such it befalls you to know what to do and

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Diane Carey

what not to do, which means holstering that dash and

moxie of yours long enough to give the correct first aid!"

If the doctor hadn't been trying to whisper, he'd have

been shouting.

Kirk heard it as a shout. His throat knotted and he felt

his jaw go stiff, his lips tighten, the skin around his eyes

crimp. He stared in challenge at McCoy, reflexes telling

him to demand his rank rights to civil treatment.

But then he looked through the door toward Spock's

bed.

He raised one hand and pressed his palm to the door

frame.

"It was unpardonable," he said.

He felt McCoy's glare, maybe one of surprise, maybe

sympathy, burrowing through the back of his head.

Evidently the doctor had gotten what he'd wanted, or

perhaps he'd decided the captain was tortured enough,

because he sighed, then came up beside Kirk and spoke

more evenly.

"I'm controlling his pain, Jim."

"Understood," Kirk uttered, as if he did. With his

tone he asked McCoy to stay behind, let him deal with

this himself.

He walked into the ward.

Spock lay on what seemed to be an ordinary diagnostic

bed, with all the lights and blips and graphs silently

moving on the panel above, monitoring his vitals.

As he moved closer to the bed, he noted the four

antigrav units locked two-each to the sides of the bed,

whirring softly, keeping Spock's body hovering a millimeter

off the mattress, making his organs and bones float

as if he were hovering out in space. Only the pillow made

any contact, and that just barely, probably because it

bothered McCoy to see his patients without a pillow, A

patient in antigravs didn't really need one.

Spock's graphite eyes were glazed and pinched, his

face and hands still lime-pale. Sickbay's washed-out

patient's tunic didn't help much, seeming to suck color

82

FIRST STRIKE

out of anybody's complexion. With his sharp hearing,

he'd probably heard the two of them talking out there.

"Captain,', he greeted, sparing them both the awkward

moment.

"Spock... I'm sorry to disturb you."

"Not at all, sir. Are you all right?

Kirk shrugged self-consciously. "A few cuts and

scratches. My uniform had to be buried at sea, though."

"Beside mine, most likely. Is General Kellen on

board?"

"Yes, and without an escort, too. His flagship did a little ,posturing, but he backed them down. You

should've seen it. Whatever this thing is that he experienced,

it scared him enough that he's pocketing his

dignity. Certainly got me curious."

"And the Capellan situation?"

"Capellan space is cleared. He sent the other ships

home. That Klingon COmmander wasn't

too happy. His career is pretty much wrecked."

"Yes," Spock rasped. "He is not allowed to start a war,

but neither is he allowed to lose a skirmish. How long

will we have to wait?"

"We didn't wait. We're at warp five. Starfleet's sending

the Frigate Great Lakes and two patrol sweepers to hold

ground until the treaty takes affect. I've already signed off

the situation."

"And the Klingon vessels?"

"Kellen's flagship is out in front, leading the way. .

the other four are trailing."

"So far, SO good."

He waited for a response, but there was none.

Spock's lips compressed. The pain indicator bounced

at the top of the screen.

Kirk put his hand on the blanket and pressed it, as if that would help.

Second by second, the wave of pain subsided and the indicator drifted down a few degrees. Not enough, though, to make either of them feel much better.

"This is my fault," he forced out. "I wasn't thinking

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Diane Carey

clearly. I should've had you beamed directly here without

moving you."

Spock blinked his eyes in a motion that otherwise

would've been a nod. "Being distracted by complex

circumstances and failing to think clearly are not the

same, Captain."

Poof. You're forgiven. Forget it.

"We'll be approaching the location of the incident

Kellen described within twelve hours. I need someone at

the science station. Do you have a recommendation?"

Offering an uncomplaining gaze, Spock pressed down

the undertones of common sense. "I would prefer to be

there myself, sir."

A half-smile bent Kirk's cheek. "And I'd like you

there. But part and parcel of dangerous duty is recuperation.

McCoy deserves to have his satisfactions too, once

in a while, and we've given him a hell of a day. Least we

can do is let him hover over you for a watch or two.

Besides, all this is going to turn out to be nothing.

Something spooked a combustible Klingon and now he

wants attention. That's all it is."

"General Kellen is hardly a man given to idle combustion.

And a systemwide mass falloff could be considered

grounds for becoming 'spooked." I am quite eager to

examine the circumstances myself."

"Don't worry, you'll get your chance. For now, stay

put. Mend well... I've got a few things to keep me busy."

He took a step back.

"Rest," the captain said. He touched the blanket

again. "Get better. I'll keep you posted."

"There it is, sir. Just popped onto our long-range."

"Visual, Mr. Chekov?"

"In a few more seconds, sir. Sensors are assessing the

vessel's configuration now."

"Clear for action. Go to yellow alert. Sound general

quarters. Magnification one point seven-five as soon as

you can. Mr. Sulu, reduce speed to warp one."

"Yellow alert, aye."

"Magnification one point seven-five, sir."

FIRST STRIKE

"Warp one, aye, sir."

With amber flashes of alert panels blinking on and off

in his periphery, Jim Kirk paused as his orders were

echoed back to him from various positions on the

bridge, a long-held naval tradition borne of common

sense, to make sure orders were heard and understood

over the howl of wind. Protocol was a good, stout handle

to grip.

Here there was no wind, but there was the constant

whine and bleep of systems working, the almost physical

thrum of engines deep below, and there was the undeniable

tension of the bridge. Imagined in the minds of all

here with a capital T, this tension existed in some form

even in the most mundane of days, for this was the brain

of the starship, and the starship was the security of the

sector. Down not very deep, all hands here knew that.

And the tension was different, tighter, when the captain

was on the bridge, even though all orders might

remain the same, course unchanged, situation stable,

status unremarkable, for days on end. It was different if

he stood here too.

Always had been. Centuries.

Normally he was the most comfortable here, on the

bridge, but today there was the added presence of

General Kellen, standing on the lower deck beside the

command chair as if he deserved to be here. He was

obviously used to such a position and was unimpressed

by his rank privilege to stand here, even on a ship full of

those he considered enemies. He said nothing, and had

said very little. He watched the main screen obsessively,

but with the keen eyes of a soldier seeking weakness.

"Position of the other vessel?" Kirk requested.

"Two points forward of the port beam, sir," Chekov

reported. "Distance, two standard astronomical units

.. roughly eighteen light-minutes."

"Reduce to sublight."

Sulu touched his controls. "Sublight, aye, sir."

Kirk flexed his sore hands. "Mr. Chekov, where's that

visual?"

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Diane Carey

"Here now, sir." The young navigator picked at his

controls, tied in to the science station -- not the best, but

workable for now -- then looked up at the screen.

There it was.

Big. Well, they could see it, but that wasn't much help.

It looked like --

"Looks like a big... pasta noodle," Chekov said. "A

little overboiled, maybe..."

"It's a hunting horn, sir," Sulu offered.

Uhura swiveled to look over the heads of Sulu and

Chekov. "Looks like a cornucopia to me."

Engineer Scott canted his head to one side. "I think

it's a giant purple foxglove kicked on its side. Y'know,

the flower part."

"Enough," Kirk droned. "You're at alert."

"Aye, sir," Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu uttered, each

suddenly attentive to stations.

Satisfied, Kirk rubbed his elbow again and eyed the

new ship. It did look like all those things. Like a porridge

of those t hings. Huge collars of hull material set n a

pattern, purple plates fanned out like playing cards.

Maybe Scott was the most right. The structures were like

flower petals, winding down to a point. Yet there was a

decidedly nonfloral ferocity about it.

He could see why Kellen would be shaken. The ship

was the color of Klingon bloodplum fans shimmering

in the light of the nearest sun, twisting down, around and

around, into shades of night orchid, etched in sharp

black.

"All stop. Hold position relative to the other vessel.

Communicate orders to the Klingon ships."

"All stop," Sulu said as his hands played the helm.

"Compensating for drift, sir."

"Fire!"

General Kellen's big voice became a thunderbolt

under the low ceiling.

Kirk spun and belted, "Security!"

Kellen plunged for the helm console, his wide hand

aimed specifically at the phaser controls. Another

inch--

86

FIRST STRIKE

Sulu pressed upward out of his helm chair, driving his

knobby shoulder into Kellen's chest and almost disappearing

under the bulk. Ensign Chekov lunged sideways

from the navigator's position and pushed his own skinny

shoulders over Sulu's head and under Kellen's chin,

while Kirk himself made a grab and caught a handful of

hair and silver tunic with his weakened left hand. With

the other hand he clutched the arm of his command chair and hauled away.

The chair swiveled, then caught and gave him purchase.

He drew back hard. It took all three of them to

hold Kellen away from that critical inch.

An instant later the two Security guards made it down

from the turbolift vestibule and grappled Kellen by his

arms, muscling him back from the helm and plunging

him against the bright red rail until his great bulk arched

and his face screwed up in anger. Not too soon, though,

for Kirk's mind flashed over and over that Kellen's hand

had been halted directly over the phaser control. No

guesses. Kellen knew exactly where those firing controls

were, though there were no markings.

Once the Security men hit the lower deck, the crisis

ended, but Kellen strained against them and bellowed,

"Shoot while you have the chance!" He pivoted toward

Kirk. "Fire on them!"

"I don't know them!" Kirk pelted back, squaring off

before him.

The big Klingon's face bronzed with excitement. "But

I have seen what they are!"

Angry now and reminded of it by the screaming

muscles and throbbing bones in his left arm and both

knees, Kirk said sharply, "You've described a Klingon

legend. I told you before, legends don't use conventional

power ratios. Barbarians don't drive around in ships like

that."

The general stopped hauling against the red-faced

guards. He seemed to accept Kirk's charge of the moment,

and fell again into that disarming, nearly bovine

self-control which had garnered him a reputation even in

Starfleet circles.

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Diane Carey

"What are your intents?" he asked.

As the passive bright lights flickered in Kellen's spectacles, Kirk said, "I intend to hail them."

"You will give us away."

"I've already done that by entering the sector, General.

We neither explore nor protect by stealth. Will I have

to call more guards?"

The general squinted at him as if in challenge, but let

his arms go slack in the guards' grips and acknowledged

with his posture that this was not his bridge. The power

of such a concept rang and rang. Command. One per

ship, one only.

"Bring us into short-range communications distance,"

Kirk said, without taking his eyes from the general's.

"Aye, sir," Sulu responded, and beneath them the ship

hummed its own answer.

"Shields up, Mr. Chekov. Keep weapons on-line."

"Phaser battery on standby, sir. Shields up."

"Captain," Communications Officer Uhura spoke in

that crystal-clear teacher's English, "Mr. Spock is calling

from sickbay. He requests to speak to you."

Kirk allowed himself a smile, but didn't allow Kellen

to see it. "Somehow I'm not surprised. On visual."

Spock's angular face appeared on the darkened monitor

on the upper bridge, just above the library computer

access panel. Kirk stepped up to meet it as if his first

officer were there, at his post, as usual.

"Captain," Spock greeted. "Permission to monitor the

encounter with the unidentified vessel."

Kirk eyed the face on the screen. "And just how did

you know we were approaching the unidentified ship at

all, if I may ask?"

But he already knew, and glanced at Chekov, hunkering

down there at his navigation console and scouting

Kirk in his periphery.

"Collusion, sir," Spock admitted.

"I see. And once you've monitored?"

"I shall analyze the information and make recommendations."

88

FIRST STRIKE

"As usual. I see again. You intend to do all this from

sickbay?"

"As necessary."

"How?"

"If Lieutenant Uhura will give you a wide view..."

Without waiting, Uhura skimmed one hand over her

board, and Spock's monitor clicked to a wide side view

of the Vulcan laid out on his diagnostic couch, with the

antigravs working silently at his sides, but with a new

development. Above him was mounted a small monitor.

"And who did that?" Kirk asked, as if asking which of

the kids put the soccer ball through the bedroom window.

"Scotty."

Burying a wince, he turned and glanced up at the port

aft station, main engineering, where Chief Engineer

Scott tucked his chin guiltily and peered out from under

the squabble of black hair.

"Wouldn't want him to get bored, sir," the stocky

engineer excused, letting his Aberdeen accent make him

sound quaint, "lyin' there, an' all."

"And which of the ship's heads did you lock McCoy

into while you were doing this?"

Scott held his breath. "Don't recall mentioning it to

him, Sir."

"Nor do I," Spock confirmed.

"They both forgot to mention it to me."

McCoy sauntered out of the turbolift when Kirk

looked toward the voice, and came to join the captain on

the starboard deck.

"Flummoxed," the doctor said. "Right in my own

sickbay. That's what you get when you try to hold down a pointed-cared bunco artist." He cast a glower at Scott.

"Or his sidekick, Jock the Jolly Tinker."

Scott actually blushed, and Kirk crushed back a grin.

"I should be able to assist effectively," Spock said, and

there was unmistakable hope behind his reserve. He

managed not to frame a question with anything but his

eyes, gazing across the silent circuits at his captain.

McCoy didn't approve, according to his expression,

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Diane Carey

but he said nothing, and Kirk felt the decision go thunk into his hands from the chief surgeon's.

"I'd go stir-crazy myself," he allowed. "Glad to have

you on duty, Mr. Spock. I'll leave it to your better

judgment not to overburden yourself."

"Oh, he won't be overburdening himself," McCoy

said. "He's scheduled for a sedative."

"When?"

"The minute I decide he's overburdening himself!!"

"Oh, of course. You heard it, Mr. Spock. You're on

duty, but you're also on medical probation."

"Thank you, sir."

Kirk nodded to Uhura. "Keep Mr. Spock's channel

open, Lieutenant." While cannily watching Kellen press

his hair back into place, Kirk left McCoy's side, swiveled

toward Uhura's communications station, and spoke very

quietly to her exotic, expectant face. "Note to Starfleet

Command, scramble. Klingons have intimate knowledge

of our bridge control configuration. Suggest necessary

changes in color code and location with next design

upgrades. Kirk, commanding, Enterprise, stardate...

so on. And while you're at it, give them our location."

She turned her eyes up to him. "Right away, sir."

"Captain," Sulu interrupted, "coming into short-range

comm, sir. Thirty seconds."

"Open channels. Let's see if they'll talk."

"Talk," Kellen snapped. Cranking his thick arm

around his own body, he dug between the silver tunic

and the protective molded vest that Klingons had started

using only lately and only in battle, and yanked out his

personal communicator.

"Stop him!" Kirk shouted, but the Security men

weren't fast enough in snatching the communicator from

the big fist.

Snapping it to his lips Kellen spat, "Aragor! High.t

Tugh!"

The guard grabbed the communicator and Kellen's

hand and cranked hard. Kellen's face twisted into a

grimace, but he knew he'd gotten his message through

FIRST STRIKE

and gave up the communicator before arms were

broken--a toss-up just whose arms.

"Captain, the Klingon ships are moving around us!"

Chekov gulped. "Attack formation!"

"On screens!"

The main screen and four subsystems monitors

changed to show the five Klingon ships swinging freely

around the Enterprise as if swung on strings. In open

space, the starship could easily have outmaneuvered

them, but in these tight circumstances the lighter-weight

Klingon ships were like hornets buzzing around a swan,

racing away toward the unidentified vessel at full impulse,

and they got the best of the bigger ship on short

notice.

"General, order them back!" Kirk demanded.

"They have their orders," Kellen answered, strangely

calm now. He watched the screen as a man watches a

house burning down.

Kirk grabbed for his command chair's shipwide announcement

control. "Red alert!"

Bright poppy-red slashes lit the bulkheads in place of

the amber ones as the alert klaxons rang through the

lower decks, announcing to the crew that the ship was

coming into action. On the main screen, the Klingon

ships shot into the distance and closed on the unidentified

ship and opened fire the second they were within

range, pelting heedless and relentless lancets of phaser

energy onto the wide purple fans of hull material.

Sparks flew and bright en ergy wash pumped down the

fans, but was quickly drained away. There might've been

some spray of debris, but it was difficult to see from this

distance, moving at this speed.

Spinning full-front to the main screen, Kirk cast his

order back to Uhura.

"Warn those ships off!"

91

Chapter Seven

"THEY WILL NOT go off, Captain," Kellen said. "You have

no choice now. You will have to fight with them."

"We'll see about that. Mr. Sulu, ahead one-half impulse.

Mr. Chekov, take the science station. Ensign

Donnier, take navigations."

The assistant engineer blinked in surprise and

dropped to the command deck. Chekov jumped up .to

Spock's library computer and science station. Donruer

slipped into Chekov's vacant seat and barely settled all

the way down. He was a competent assistant for Scott,

but he'd never been on the bridge before. He was young

and particularly good-looking, which got him in many

doors, only there to stumble over his personal insecurity

because of a stuttering problem that he let slow him

down. He'd requested duty only in engineering. That

was why Kirk had ordered him to put in time on the

bridge.

The unidentified ship began to return fire--one, two,

three globular bulbs of energy that looked more than

anything like big blue water balloons wobbling through

space toward the Klingon cruiser. Two missed, but one

92

FIRST STRIKE

hit and drenched the cruiser in crackling blue, green, and

white destructive power. The cruiser wasn't blown up,

but fell off and spun out of control.

"Heavy damage to the cruiser, sir," Chekov reported.

"Main engines are seizing."

"Analyze those bolts."

"Analyzing," Spock's baritone voice answered from

up on that monitor.

Kirk glanced up there. He'd been talking to Chekov.

He stared at the main screen, where the remaining

four Klingon ships were dodging those heavy blue globes

and pummeling the unidentified ship so unbrokenly that

Kirk winced in empathy. "Stand by photon torpedoes."

"Photon torpedoes r-ready," Donnier struggled,

barely audible.

As if he were standing at Kirk's side, Spock read off his

analysis. "The unidentified ship's salvos are composed

of quadra-cobalt intrivium... phased incendiary cor-osite

plasma... and, I believe, plutonium. They also

seem to have some wrecking qualities based on sonics."

"Everything's in there," Kirk muttered. "Fusion,

phasers, fire, sound... effective, but not supernatural.

Double shields shipwide."

"Double shields, sir."

"They will use their mass-dropping weapon if you give

them the chance, Kirk," Kellen rumbled. "They can

negate the gravity in the whole sector. You must attack

them before they use it."

"If they have that kind of technology, General, then we're already sunk," Kirk responded, watching the action. "And they don't seem to have it."

"How can you know?"

"Because your ships are getting in some good punches

and the visitors haven't used that 'weapon' again.

They're using conventional defenses. If they have hand

grenades, why are they shooting with bows and arrows?

Helm, full impulse."

"Full impulse, sir."

"Good," Kellen whispered, then aloud said again,

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Diane Carey

"Good. Fight them with this monster of yours, while we

have the advantage."

"Just keep back," Kirk warned. "Helm, come to three-four-nine.

Get between those Klingon ships. Force them

to break formation."

"Kirk? Kellen pressed forward and the guards had to

grab him again.

Around them the giant Artemis hummed as she powered

up to her full potential and all her systems came online.

A choral song of heat and imagination, she took a

deep bite on space and moved in on the clutch of other ships, cleaving them away from each other with the sheer

force of her presence and her sprawling shields.

Two of the Klingon ships were pressured to part

formation, while one other was forced off course and had

to vector around again, which took time.

In his mind Kirk saw his starship plunge into the

battle. He'd put her through hell in their time together

and she'd always come out with her spine uncracked.

She'd picked herself up, given a good shake, and brought

him and his crew back in under her own power every

time. This was one of those moments when he felt that

esprit with sailors from centuries past, who understood

what a ship really was, how a bolted pile of wood, metal,

and motive power could somehow be alive and command

devotion as if the heart of oak actually pumped

blood. How fast? How strong! How much could she

take? How tightly could she twist against the pressure of

forces from outside and inside? How far could they push

her before she started to buckle? How much of herself

would she give up before she let her crew be taken? How tough was she?

Those were the real questions, because the ship was

their life. If she died, they died. When a ship is life, it

becomes alive ....

"Port your helm, Mr. Sulu, wear ship, he said. "Mr.

Donnier, phasers one-half power and open fire."

"Wear the ship, aye," Sulu said, at the same time as

Donnier responded, "One half f-f-phasers, s-sir."

94

FIRST STRIKE

Firing bright blue streamers, the starship came about,

her stern section and main hull pivoting as if the

engineering hull were held on a string high above.

Kirk gripped his own chair with one hand and Don-nier's

chair back with the other. "Ten points more to

port."

"Ten points, sir."

"Good... twenty points more... keep firing, Mr.

Donnier."

The ship swung about, showing them a moving panorama

of stars and ships on the main screen, swinging

almost lazily from right to left.

When he couldn't see the unidentified ship on the

main screen anymore, he said, "Midships."

"Midships," Sulu said, and tilted his shoulders as he

fought to equalize the helm.

Donnier glanced at Kirk, plainly confused by the term

"midships" on something other than a docking maneuver.

Good thing Sulu was at the helm instead of someone

with less experience. Maneuvering a ship at sublight

speeds, in tight quarters, had entirely different characteristics

from maneuvers, even battles, at warp.

At warp speed, the helm maneuvers were very slight

and specific, designated by numbers of mark and course,

and even moving the "wheel" a pin or two had sweeping

results of millions of light-years.

But at impulse speed, things changed. And changed

even more in tight-maneuvering conditions. Helm adjustments

became more sweeping, bigger, sometimes a

full 180 degrees, or any cut of the pie. "Midships" meant

"find the navigational center of this series of movements

and equalize the helm."

Forcing her crew to lean, the starship dipped briefly to

port, then surged and came about to her own gravitational

center and ran her phasers across the hulls of the Qul and the MatHa; knocking them out of their attack

formation. The point of Donnier's tongue was sticking

out the corner of his mouth and his backside was hitched

to the edge of his seat as he concentrated on his phasers,

95

Diane Carey following not the angle of his phaser bolts but the

position of the moving Klingon ships out theremit was

exactly the right thing to do. Like pointing a finger.

The two Klingon ships wobbled, shivered, nearly

collided, and bore off, one of them forced astern and

down. Kirk hoped Kellen took note that the starship's

punches were being pulled.

"Good shooting, Mr. Donnier," he offered. "Maintain."

Sweating, Donnier mouthed an aye-aye, but there was

no sound to it.

The other two cruisersrobe forgot their names--kept

wits and plowed in again, opening fire now on the

Enterprise. The ship rocked and Kirk had to grab his

command chair to keep from slamming sideways into the rail. His scratched fingers burned with the effort.

Full phasers.

He didn't want to respond in kind. He wanted to make a point, not chop four other ships to bits.

Well, not yet.

Problem was that their commanding general was here,

out of communication. They might take that as final

orders and fight to the death.

Qul was back in the fight now, firing on the unidentified

ship, and Donnier was doing an amiable job of

detonating the Klingon phaser bolts before they struck

the giant fan blades. He managed to catch three out of

four bolts. Not bad.

Kirk pulled himself around the helm against the heel

of the starship. "Keep it up, Mr. Donnier. Photon

torpedoes on the Klingon vessels, Mr. Sulu. Fire across their bows and detonate at proximity."

"Aye, sir."

New salvos spewed from the Enterprise, making a

spitting sound here within the bridge, much different

from the screaming streamers of phaser fire, much more

concentrated and heavy-punching, exploding right in

front of the Qul. The Qul flinched, probably blinded by

96 FIRST STRIKE

the nearby explosions, m-d bore off on a wingtip, forced

to cease fire and try to come about again.

"Call them off, Kellen," Kirk said. "I'll open up on

them if I have to."

"What right have you to do that?" Kellen bellowed. "I

brought you here to be my ally!"

"But I'm not going to be your mercenary. Call them

Off."

But Kellen only glared at the screen and damped his

mouth shut.

"Fine," Kirk grumbled.

As the firing intensified, the fans on the unidentified

ship's long twisted hull began to close inward, lying

tightly and protectively upon each other and creating a

shell instead of a flower. The curve of the hull itself

began to straighten out, like a snake uncoiling its body,

thinning the field of target and making it harder to hit.

Talk about looking like a living thing...

The strange ship continued to fire those sickly-blue

globes on the Kl ingon vessels that strafed it.

"All right, General, have it your way," Kirk ground

out. "Mr. Donnier, phasers on full power. Mr. Sulu,

photon torpedoes full intensity, point-blank range. Fire

as your weapons bear on any Klingon vessel."

Kellen cranked around against the guard's hold on

him and glared at Kirk. "No!"

"It's your decision." Kirk met the glare with his

burning eyes. "Call them The Klingon's lips parted, peeled back, then came

together again in a gust of frustration. He all but

stomped his foot. Yanking one arm away from the guard

on his left, he reached for his communicator, still being

held by the other guard. As if it were all part of the same

order, the guard let him have it.

Kellen snapped the communicator open and barked,

"Qul! Mev! Ylchu'Ha."

Short and sweet.

Worked, though.

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Diane Carey

The Klingon vessels swung about, joined each other at

a notable distance, then dropped speed and came to a

stop in some kind of formation Kirk hadn't seen before.

Good enough.

"You seem to have the ear of your squadron, General"

Kirk said. "Mr. Donnier, cease fire. Helm, minimum safe distance, then come about and all stop."

"Aye, sir," Sulu said tightly.

"Safe distance," Kellen protested, shaking his big

head. "Warriors coming home shredded and shamed,

spewing tales of a Federation devil with hands of fire and

steel in his eyes. 'I fought Kirk! My honor is not so

damaged as if I fought a lesser enemy!" It's become an

acceptable excuse to lose to Kirk. Some want to avoid

you, some want to challenge you because it would be a

better victory. I expected you to come in and shake

planets. And this is you? Talk? I wanted a warrior. All I

find is this--you--who will not act. I will go home and

slap my commanders who spoke of you."

"Your choice," Kirk said, ruffled less than he would've

anticipated at the Klingon's lopsided insults that actually

were kind of complimentary. Matching the general's

anger with his own control, he countered, "When you

met them before, did you try to talk to them at all?"

"No!"

"So you opened fire without announcement."

"They kidnapped me. My fleet came in and took me

back. Of course we fired. I brought you to fight them, not

to defend them."

"You brought me here to handle the situation. So let

me handle it."

"I am disappointed in you, Kirk," the general said.

"You do not deserve to be Kirk!"

"That's your problem." With a bob of his brows, Kirk

raised his voice just enough. For a moment he gazed at

the alien ship, then cast Kellen a generous glance. "Be

patient. Mr. Sulu, move us in again. Let's see if they'll

talk to us."

98

FIRST STRIKE

"How many ships?"

"We count six ships, Vergozen."

"Count again, Morien. Sweep the area. Be sure. They

have stopped firing?"

"Yes, Vergozen."

"Fame, hold position. Make no movements."

"Yes, Vergozen."

"Morien, speak to the engineer. Have him take some

time repairing the damage done to the ship as we came

through the fissure."

"Time?"

"Have him go slowly. Keep the power down. Otherwise

Garamanus will expect me to destroy those vessels

instead of simply closing the cocoon and firing a few

light shots at them. I do not want the repairs complete

until I am ready for them to be complete."

"I understand, Vergozen."

"Speak to him personally, Morien, not on the communications line."

"I will."

The doors of the bridge were low and wide, and took

several seconds to open, then to gush closed again, and

this time they seemed to take longer. When they closed,

Morien was gone, yes, but something else had changed

too.

"Zennor... so you have found them."

"Garamanus--I did not expect you to come to the

bridge yet."

The mission commander turned to meet his vessel's

Dana and resisted any movement of his facial features.

Briefly he thought the Dana had heard his instructions to

Morien, but as he forced himself to be calm he realized

that Garamanus had just come in as Morien was leaving.

Garamanus was watching him too carefully.

That was the Dana's purpose. Not the ship or the

danger, but the commander and the mission. To make

sure the latter two meshed as the chieftains instructed.

And the chieftains did as the Danai told them, for the

Danai had special gifts.

99

Diane Carey

Holding his long hands before him in a relaxed position,

with the traditional white streamers falling softly

from his wrists, Garamanus bowed his heavy head. Over

many years his horns had grown thick and bent his

shoulders noticeably, but even so he was taller than

Vergo Zennor by a hand's breadth. His presence chilled

Zennor, and chilled the bridge.

"You have made contact with the conquerors," the

Dana said. "Play the tape."

"They have not yet identified themselves," Zennor

countered, speaking with cautious measurement. "I prefer

to make personal contact first. Otherwise we will be

assuming we are in the right place and that these are the

people who deserve our coming. After so many centuries,

after the millennia indeed, we should be prudent.

Look--those ships are not familiar in any way. Some

fired on us, but the large one stood them off. I would like

to comprehend their conflict. We will give them a chance

to speak to us before we give ourselves away. I appreciate

your flexibility in my decision at this very special and

important moment, Garamanus. Thank you."

The vapor-pale face and heavy horns dipped slightly

under their own weight as Garamanus turned to look

from the screen at Zennor, and Zennor knew he had

lost.

Garamanus nodded as if in polite response, but his

manner became a subtle threat.

"Play the tape," he said.

"Witness you conquerors... we the grand unclean,

languishers in eternal transience, come now from the

depths of eermore. Persistent... we have kept supple,

fluid and... changeable... because we were destined to

return. You have... cowered through the eons, knowing

this day would come .... It has come. Because we are

forgiving, we shall give you the opportunity to leave this

.. sector... or you will be cast away as we were cast

away... or you will be destroyed as you have done to us.

With your last moments you will know justice. We are...

100

FIRST STRIKE

the impending. Now gather all you own, gather your kin

.. and stand aside."

The message thrummed and boomed through the low

rafters of the bridge, then echoed into silence. Not

ending, just silence. Waiting.

Everyone held still, and watched the captain.

The sound of the heavy, eerie, haunted-house voice

remained in every mind, and spoke over and over. Stand

aside...

Tightening and untightening his aching arm, aware of

McCoy watching him because he'd never reported to

sickbay for his own treatment, Kirk indulged in a scowl

and tipped his head to Uhura. eutenant, what's the

"Li

problem with that translator.

r

"I don't know, sir," she said, playing her board.

"Having some trouble distilling the accurate meaning of

some of their words and phrases."

"Fix it. I don't want to have to guess."

"Trying, sir. I don't understand why--"

"Was it a living voice, far as you could tell?"

"Given the inflections and order of sentiments, I

believe it was a recorded message, sir. Or it's being read

to US."

"I thought so too."

He moved away from her, back to where McCoy was

staring at the screen, eyes wide.

"That's a mighty poetic mouthful," the doctor uttered.

"Any idea what it meant?"

"I'd say they're inviting us to get out of their way."

"I told you." Kellen stepped forward, but made no

advances toward the helm this time, especially since the

guards flanked him snugly now. "Attack them, Kirk.

Your chance will slide away under you. Do you see it

sliding? I see it."

"Something tells me I'll get another chance, General

Mr. Spock, are you reading any shieldin o

, ?"

...... ,

g

n that ship.

,o, sir, me upper morntot

said. "No energy shields

at all, except for the way

clover-leaved

hull

plates

fold

down."

101

Diane Carey

"Not battle attitude, then," Sulu offered.

"Not ours," Kirk said, stepping down to his command

center and sliding into his chair. "But we don't know theirs

yet, other than the defensive posture we've just seen.

Maintain status."

"Aye, sir," said Sulu and Donnier at the same time, and

tensed as if they'd realized they were relaxing too much.

Kirk moved back to the rail, where McCoy stood over

him. "Opinion?"

"Pretty lofty talk," the doctor said. "But there's a ring

to it. I can't put my finger on it."

"Mr. Spock?"

By not looking at the monitor, he could imagine that

Spock stood up there, next to McCoy, bent over his

sensors, adding his deductions to the information being

drawn in by the ship's eyes and ears. Spock wouldn't

have admitted it, or wanted it said aloud, but there was a

lot of intuition in that man.

"There is a common tone in the phrases," Spock said,

his voice rough, underscored with physical effort. "'Witness

you conquerors,' for instance. 'Eternal transience,'

'destined,' and the suggestion that we have been expecting

them, that they have been wronged, and that they

believe they are returning from somewhere."

"Conclusion?"

"We may have a case of mistaken identity."

"That may not make a difference," McCoy warned.

"They're inviting us to leave, remember? They might not

take our word for our intentions."

"They can't take anything for anything until we've

identified ourselves."

"Captain," Spock's rough voice said from the monitor

, "I suggest you answer their immediate request first."

"Set the pa rameters? Yes... I agree."

There it was. The reason he needed Spock here. He

hadn't thought of that. Just answer them. The simplest

answer had almost slipped by. Set the line of scrimmage

before he offered anything else.

"Challenge them!" Kellen insisted. "Demand they

102

FIRST STRIKE

stand down and allow us to board and inspect Then

we'll be inside!" -

Kirk rubbed his hands and, gazing at the screen, shook his head.

"I think Mr. Spock and I have something else in mind.

Lieutenant Uhura," he said slowly, "tell them...

'No.""

Chapter Eight

"'No'? That's all they say?"

"Nothing else. The translation has no error, Vergozen.

They say only 'No.""

ergo Zennor gazed through the smoldering constant

vapor at the wide band of screen curving halfway around

his bridge on either side of where he stood. He thought

he had gotten used to the moisture necessary for some

members of his crew, but today, for the first time since

years past, his skin began to itch.

This was a beautiful portion of space. Or perhaps he

only wanted it to be beautiful. Ordinarily he would sit,

but with Garamanus on the bridge, he felt compelled to

stand.

Shrouded in the mystique of his order, the echo of

subtle power held dear by all Dana, Garamanus made no

comment as the answer came in from the conqueror

ships.

No?

Zennor bowed his own heavy head. His horns tingled.

So he was more tense than he let on, even to himself.

His own feelings were lost to him. Simple desires of a

104

FIRST STRIKE

straightforward mission had become suddenly and almost

instantly entangled in the mechanisms of those

ships out there. He had hoped to explore awhile before

facing those who lived here. He wanted to search around.

No longer possible. Now there were beings to be

confronted, the tape had been played, and the answer

had come back. No.

How strange. How simple. He had trouble with simple

things.

The ship at the front was a sizable arrangement of

white primary shapes--a circle, an oblong, two cylinders,

joined to each other by graceful necks of white

pylons. Behind it were ships more familiar to him in raw

form, more like the green dawn silhouettes of creatures

in hunting flight, heads down, wings arched, muscles

tight and tucked.

None was moving forward now. No, they had said. No.

Zennor forced himself to turn away from the Dana

and shiver down the waning-moon eyes that followed

him. Unlike Morien and the helmsman Fame, Gara-manus

was of Zennor's own race, the horned ones

among the many, yet Zennor felt nothing like him and

when Garamanus was on the bridge the place became as

foreign as this space.

"They want us to speak to them," he said quietly.

"You have had more communication than this with

them?" Garamanus rumbled.

"I sense they want to speak. When they contact us

again, I will answer them myself."

"That is not the procedure." The Dana's voice was

like wind. Low wind.

Zennor tightened his thick neck muscles and tensed

his shoulders, which raised his head and the curved

horns upon it. He saw his own shadow move like a

wraith against the oblong helm as he turned to face the

Dana.

"This is not your forest grove or sacred Nemeton," he

said. "This is my ship and my mission. We can never go

105

Diane Carey back, and now the situation complicates. I have done

your bidding and played your sanctimonious tape. Nothing

else is required of me yet. The next decision is mine.

And I want to speak to them. When the time comes to

destroy them, that will be my decision too."

General Kellen fumed with disappointment, but he

was standing on the port side of the command chair,

flanked by the Security team, saying nothing. He cast the

guards no attention and as such seemed to understand

why they were here.

At least he wasn't insulted by the fact that he was being

treated like a delinquent.

Kirk offered him a glance, as if to communicate that

he understood what the general was feeling, whether or

not he intended to act upon it.

"No

"Two minutes, sir," Sulu reported.

action out

there."

"Nothing on the open frequencies, sir," Uhura confirmed.

Kirk nodded, sighed. "All right. We'll do it by the book. Uhura, ship to ship. Universal Translator on."

"Tied in, sir. Go ahead."

He moved to his command chair, but despite his

raging muscles did not sit down. Not with another fleet's

general on his bridge.

Clearing his throat, he parted his lips to say the words

that were so practiced, yet so different every time he said

them, because they were said hundreds of light-years

away from the last time, and each utterance was something

completely new and critical.

"This is Captain James T. Kirk, commanding the

U.S.S. Enterprise. We represent the United Federation of

Planets and request you communicate with us on peaceful

terms. We await your reply."

Channels remained open as he paused. There was a

different sound about it, an openness, like a cave without

an echo, a tunnel waiting for someone to shout through

it.

106 FIRST STRIKE

They waited. All the others took their cue from him,

and he didn't move or make any sounds. Let the greeting

distill, see what would happen. Let the listeners hear the

ring of his voice and decide on its honesty, let them

decide what to believe.

A full minute. Nothing came over the waves.

Ten more seconds. Sweat tickled his spine.

Finally he asked, "Recommendations, Mr. Spock?"

Gravelly and contemptuous, Kellen spoke before

Spock had a chance. "Recommendations," he intoned.

"Recommendations. The great shipmaster asks for recommendations.

The cavalier of Starfleet asks of his

subordinates what to do. The Federation's headmost

uphelmer parries to his rear and mocks the rash faith

given to him by those he flies before. Recommendations.

Certainly the stories that come back to my people of

Starfleet's Argonaut will be different after today." He

gestured to the deck at his feet and added, "The arrogant

falls before me."

Kirk glared at him without really turning his head, but

with only his eyes shifted to the side.

Kellen was sizing him up and was no longer impressed

. That bothered him.

It shouldn't, but it did.

"! am . . ."

The bridge changed suddenly. All eyes turned to the

screen, to the alien ship holding position out there.

The two words were long, sonorous, even distorted,

like distant foghorns sounding over a cold ocean. Then

the voice paused as if listening to itself, testing the open

frequencies.

Or maybe they were just changing their minds.

Kirk felt the eyes of his crew. He kept his on the

screen.

"I... am... Zennor. . . Vergo of the Wrath."

There was a sense of echo. Something about the tenor

of that voice. Like the last upbow on a cello's low note.

He glanced up at McCoy and mouthed, Vergo of the

Wrath?

107

Diane Carey

The doctor shook his head and turned one palm up.

No idea. Uhura the same.

On the science station monitor, Spock's brow furrowed,

but he said nothing yet.

Kirk shifted his feet to take some of the ache out of his

back. Maybe it was empathy. What a morning.

Square one.

"Thank you for answering," he said, though it

sounded clumsy. "Where are you from?"

"Here."

Kellen bristled, but didn't interfere, though he stared a burning hole into Kirk's head.

"According to.our history, our laws and treaties," Kirk

attempted, "this area is claimed by the Klingon Empire.

Nearby is a neutral area of space, beyond which is space

charted and occupied by the United Federation of Planets

. We have no records of the configuration of your ship,

or any planets in this vicinity which could support

advanced life. Can you give us the location of your home

planet?"

"We do not... know it."

Putting one foot on the platform that held his command

chair, Kirk cranked around to Uhura. "Can't you

fix that translator? We're not making sense here."

She shook her head in frustration and touched her

earpiece. "I don't think it's in the system, sir. I think

it's endemic to their language or their brain-wave pat

terns."

"Scotty, take a look."

"Aye, sir."

As the engineer crossed the deck behind him, Kirk

pressed an elbow to his chair's arm and grimaced. What

would help?

"Our communications equipment has visual capabilities

," he said, speaking a little slower and more clearly.

"Will you allow us to open our screens so we can look at

each other?"

Another pause.

Kellen looked at him. Kirk ignored him.

108

FIRST STRIKE

"It is against our custom," the booming voice came

finally, "to display living faces on screens .... "

The voice drifted off as the translator struggled along

after it.

All right, next step.

"Very .well," Kirk responded, measuring his tone.

"Perhaps we can meet face-to-face. Will you come to this

ship as our guests?"

"No--" Kellen choked, balling his fists.

Waving him silent, Kirk went on, "We have the ability

to transport you here in minutes."

He stopped and waited. Over the years he'd learned

that extra talking didn't usually serve. Make the statement,

and wait.

Hell of a long pause.

Were they making this up as they went along? Why not? I am.

The alien ship turned passively on the screen, drifting

not from power but on a breath of solar wind from the

distant red giant sun that drenched its purple fans in

bloody glow, and the leftover momentum from the battle

so shortly arrested.

"You may..."

The voice paused, as if listening. Kirk held his breath.

His crew did the same.

"... come here."

"One moment please."

A ges ture from him caused a click on Uhura's control

board that cut off the frequency.

"What's the atmosphere like over there?" he asked.

Chekov started looking for that, but from the subsystems

screen, Spock already had the answer. "Scanning .. reading oxygen, nitrogen, argon, with faint traces of

methane and other gases... rather thin and quite

warm. Breathable for controlled periods of time."

"How controlled? Bones?"

The doctor flinched as if coming out of a trance. "I'd

recommend an hour at a time, Captain."

109

Diane Carey

"Noted. Lieutenant Uhura, inform the transporter

room that we'll be visiting that vessel out there. I want

the coordinates kept updated at all times, in case we have

to come back in a hurry. The transporter officer'll have

to stay on his toes."

"Yes, sir."

"'Vergo of the Wrath,'" he muttered, narrowing his

eyes at the big quartz ship on the screen. "Could that

mean 'captain' of the Wrath? Could 'Wrath' be the

name of the ship?"

"Possibly," Spock answered from the monitor. "However,

I caution against applying our own use of words

and concepts based on something that sounds familiar,

sir."

Kirk sighed. "Never mind how complicated it might

end up being to deal with people who name their ship 'Wrath.""

He avoided looking at Kellen. The Klingons named

their own ships with words like that.

"Dr. McCoy, you come with me, and I want a Security

detail with us also. Palm phasers only. I don't want to

appear too threatening."

Placing a hand on the rail, he climbed the three steps

to the quarterdeck and stood over Uhura's station. She

continued to look at her board and tap at her fingerpads,

and that bothered him.

"Ship to ship," he said, and waited for the click from

Uhura's board before he spoke again to the unknowns.

"This is Captain Kirk. I will come to your ship with a

greeting party. We will come directly to your bridge,

unless you have other instructions."

Silence fell in. He got the feeling things were being

discussed over there and anticipated their changing their

minds, but--

"Come."

"Thank you. We'll be there in a few minutes. Kirk out.

Mr. Sulu, drop the hook. We'll be staying awhile."

"All systems stabilized, sir. Holding position."

"Secure from red alert. Stand by at yellow alert.

Damage-control teams get to work. General Kellen, you 110O

FIRST STRIKE

may communicate with your ships and assess their

damage. If they need any life-savine assistance, we'll

provide if." '

Kellen raised his neatly bearded chin. "Imagine my

gratitude."

"Inform them we're going aboard the unidentified

ship. If they make any aggressive movements, Mr. Scott

will drive them back again. Is that clear, Mr. Scott?"

"Crystal clear, Captain."

"General, do you want to join the boarding party?"

"IT' Kellen's face turned horrible. "I will never go

there again."

"Fine." Kirk turned away and looked at Uhura again.

"I need a linguist. Do we have one on board?"

"Yes, sir. Me."

"You?"

Her almond cheeks rounded in a smile. "What do you

think 'communications' means? 'Small talk'?"

"Sorry," he said. Then he hesitated. Take her along?

He paused for a moment and pressed down the twinge

in his stomach. "Lieutenant, I'd like you to join the

landing party."

Uhura's face lit up. She didn't get asked very often,

and the couple of times before had turned out to be near-disasters.

Still, she seemed excited.

Aye, sir, she said, for the same reason Scott had said

it, and in almost the same tone.

"Very good," he offered,,and moved around her. "Mr.

Spock, you have the conn. '

The crew's eyes came up to him in a nearly audible

snap. Silence from the monitor up starboard. Uneased,

nobody spoke. How inappropriate it would have been

for anyone, however well intended, to point out the

captain's colossal error.

Kirk scowled at himself. "Mr. Scott," he corrected,

"you have the conn."

Scott nodded with more sympathy than was comfortable

for either of them. "Aye aye, sir."

It was the eternal ideal response to a commanding

Diane Carey

officer, the one that saved any situation and would get

anybody off the hook. Didn't work quite so well at the

moment. It got Scott and Spock off the hook and relieved

the bridge crew of their tension, but did nothing for the

captain who had made the blunder.

He charged over it. "Uhura, bring along a tricorder

tied directly in to Mr. Spock's computer access channel,

so he can see what's going on. Let's go."

"Captain," Kellen broke in, coming to the rail below

the bright red turbolift doors, "you are out of order here.

I organized this mission. I am its commander."

"You're a guest on my ship," Kirk corrected. "You can

act that way, or you can go back to your own fleet and all

bets are off."

"This transport is folly," the general insisted. "No one

with any sense goes over to an enemy ship in the middle

of a battle!"

"It was your battle, not theirs. They didn't fire on us until you opened fire. And part of the mission of this

vessel is to contact new life forms on an amicable basis if

at all possible."

"It is impossible. This is the Havoc. There is no

amicable basis."

"We'll see. I'll be back in an hour. Gentlemen, let's

take a look at who these people are."

112

What's the mission of this vessel? To seek out

and contact alien life and an opportunity

to demonstrate what our high-sounding words

mean.

James Kirk

Chapter Nine SOMETIMES THE STUNNING ART of transporting seemed to

move beyond physical science and into magic. And sometimes it seemed to take days instead of seconds.

This was one of those times.

Jim Kirk tapped a mental foot during those seconds. It

was always like this when a new form of life lay in wait

for discovery on the other side of immaterial state.

As his mind gathered itself and the transporter room

of the Enterprise dissolved into fog, he realized he

couldn't see and wondered for a heart-snapping moment

if something had gone wrong. When he felt his feet

beneath him again and his arms at his sides, the fog was

still there. Had the transport been completed?

There was moisture here. He felt hot. At least all his

nerve endings were still with him.

Starting to think like McCoy. Scientist though he was,

McCoy was a medical biologist and physics often intimidated

him, especially when physics separated biology

into a billion bits of molecular energy and claimed to

reassemble it in perfect order. Some people still didn't

believe that planes could fly.

115

Diane Carey

Kirk blinked the anxiety away and waved his hand at

the fog in front of him, not so much to clear it but to

sense its texture. The tendrils of cloud moved like smoke

rather than moisture, but felt like moisture. What did

that mean?

Smelled like a pond in here. The deck under his feet

felt pulpy, but it was definitely flat as a floor and hard

underneath. There was a source of low light, but he

couldn't pin down the location. Immediately before him

were two more sources of light, one cranberry red, the

other a bleeding purple. He glanced to his left, at McCoy.

Washed in the blended light, the doctor stood staring

and disconcerted by the strange surroundings. The back

of his head and shoulders were bathed in soft pearly

light--another light source, this one behind them. Kirk

didn't look around. That would be the job of the Security

team.

For a moment he held still, with his hand up in the

middle of a wave, and listened.

A faint vibration came up through the soles of his feet,

a throbbing of mechanical regularity. Engines. Kellen

had been right. Motive power and tangible hardware.

Obvious now that the ship had been seen, but the

sensations here were familiar enough that Kirk guessed

the power sources might be similar to those of conventional

ships. At least they weren't dealing with a race so

different from their own as to make the contest one-sided.

Nearby was the murmur of other mechanical systems,

though much more subtle than any on the Enterprise. He

saw no ceiling, and though he felt the deck he couldn't

see it. The fog was thick up to his knees, then became a

lazy haze.

There was a smell too, but not like a ship smell.

Fungus? Weeds, mosses, moisture. Algae. Spock probably

could're told him what species. Yet the foresty smell

was overlaid with a chemical presence too, almost industrial,

like glue or cleanser, and it insisted there was a

technical presence here.

116

FIRST STRIKE

His gut began to shrink, giving off warnings.

I'

ve seen aliens before, plenty of them. Some unthinkably

strange, defiant of any known evolutionary pattern. I

haven't even seen these people yet. Why am I already

flinching?

He knew the answer. Kellen. What could shake an

experienced spacefaring Klingon general with a long

record of bravery and a reputation for disarming composure?

Had Kellen set him up? The thought flashed, unwelcome

and distasteful, that he was failing into a trap. Was

he so distracted that he hadn't thought of that dimension?

Exhausted, losing so many crewmen, worried

about Spock--

Not good enough. There wasn't anything that would

take him off the hook for the entirety of his job, and here

he was, beamed in with a team, and only now thinking of

a seriously viable possibility.

On the other hand, this ship was here. Might as well

throttle up. If he had to strangle Kellen later, well, an

option was an option.

"Is this their bridge, sir?" Uhura asked just behind his

right elbow, speaking low, as if walking through a

graveyard and worried about waking someone.

"That was the plan," Kirk a nswered. "We homed in

on their communications signal. Tricorder."

She raised the powerful little unit hanging from the

strap over her shoulder and clicked it on. "Reading life-

forms, sir, lots of them."

"Proximity?"

"Nearby... the readings are.. 2' She paused,

frowned, tampered with the instrument. "I can't get a fiX."

"Jim," McCoy murmured at Kirk's side, scarcely

above a whisper. His blue eyes were wide, unblinking,

bizarre in the glowing fog.

Kirk looked at him.

"The ....

y re here, McCoy stud, his throat tight. "They're

in here now."

Put on edge by the doctor's intuition, Kirk lowered his

117

Diane Carey

right hand until it hovered near the small phaser hidden

on his belt. He didn't touch the weapon, but he kept his

hand there.

He took one step out from his boarding party and

raised his voice.

"I'm Captain Kirk," he said through the choking

humidity. "Is there anyone here?"

For several moments, possibly a minute, there was no

change at all, as if he had spoken firmly but pointlessly

into an empty cave.

The fog began to shift. For an absurd instant he

entertained the idea that the fog itself might be the life-form

they were seeking. A fog with a voice, though?

McCoy would have something to say about the vocal

chords of a fog.

No, not the fog. There was physical movement beyond

it. Shapes of upright beings began to form, broad shoulders,

high heads, like gray chalk etchings on concrete.

lbout our size, he noted instinctively. Six feet...

seven. . not out of line for humanoids.

The huge numbers of humanoids discovered by the

Federation in its outward expansion had upheld theories

of scientists who believed that intelligent industrial life

had to be of a certain size, not too big, but also not too

small, in order to develop industry and eventually space-flight.

There would have to be some form of propulsion

with which to go against the stream--legs--and some

form of sensors at the other end with which to avoid

running into walls--hands and eyes and sometimes a

nose. There would have to be at least two hands with

which to alter their environment, and at least two eyes

for depth perception.

So despite the thousands of planets out there, it hadn't

turned out so unusual that there were Klingons, Romulans,

Terrans, Orions, and others, each with roughly the

same appendages and a head each. Also not so strange

that the horta, a creature based on silicon, with no arms,

legs, head, or eye, though intelligent, had no industry.

Like Earth's cetaceans or Alpha Centauri's big mamma-118

FIRST STRIKE

1oids. Didn't matter how smart they were if they had

hooves or fins instead of hands and couldn't manipulate

their environment.

All this flashed through Kirk's mind as he waited for

the beings to show themselves. He lay in the hope that he

was dealing with humanoids, with whom he automatically

had some common ground. For a civilization to

advance, there had to be some level of cooperation, they

had to take care of their offspring, and they had to have

common goals. Those communal elements were his

anchors in exploration. He could make himself understood

to beings who understood those.

He motioned to his boarding party to stand very still

and let the next movement be those of this ship's crew.

That was how he would want it on the...

Eyes. Yes--there they were.

Like a cat's stare catching candlelight, a dozen sets of

eyes came toward them. A cold stake of shock bolted

from Kirk's stomach to his feet. His innards shriveled at

the forms moving from the fog toward them.

McCoy stiffened beside him. Uhura drew a sharp

breath and tightened her arms to her sides, but didn't

step back.

A Pandora's box of demons pushed the vapor aside.

I'll-shaped and colossal, three of them were an amalgam

of triangles, with long bony faces and eyes the shapes of

sickles, and huge twisted ram's horns upon their heads,

as elegant and horrifying as could be. Between those,

other creatures appeared with dozens of serpentine

white tentacles undulating from their skulls as long as a

man's arm and freely moving, caressing the faces and

shoulders of the beings they decorated as if searching for

something.

To Kirk's left, another creature had two sets of arms

and an elongated face like a jade tiki. Behind that one

there were others, some skeletal, others swollen, and at

least one had no face at all that Kirk could see. This was

an utterly amalgamated crew.

And there were others he couldn't make out yet,

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Diane Carey

except for the distorted shapes of their heads and their masklike faces east in shadows and highlights, caressed by fog.

Most of them wore some kind of clothing, and lots of jewelry. Recumbent half moons, demon-headed brooches like the things carved into the walls, and each one wore an engraved bronze medallion about three inches across with scrolled designs and a small handle, dangling from a long chain.

Two of the creatures moved forward of the rest. They were both of the same species, each head heavy with arching horns, but one was a watercolor ghost of the other. Totally different colors. One had eyes of rum yellow and a complexion of bronze and rattan. The other was paler, with face of bony moon-gray and ivory slashes for eyes.

Kirk cleared his throat, but paused. Did they want to make the first gesture or not?

Stiff as a statue, McCoy managed to lean toward him.

"Come on, we got used to Spock, after all "

At

the doctor's mumble, the splendid golden demon moved

one of his elongated hands. At least he only had two

of those. So far so good.

The

heavy voice thrummed, the same voice they had heard

on the message over the Enterprise's comm system.

"Are

you having trouble.. seeing?"

What

a voice. Translators were working all right at the moment.

Any little reassurance in a storm.

Kirk

found his own voice. "Yes. A little."

The

creature turned his disturbing head. Fog rolled around

his horns. "Light."

A

mechanical sound, not a beep but more of a twinkle, chittered

in the background, though they saw none of these

creatures move. There must be others here too.

Almost

imperceptibly at first, the haze began to change.

Slow as dawn, the area around them became easier

to see. The sources of colored light intensified

120

FIRST

STRIKE

gradually

until distinction came to the place where they stood

and the creatures before them gained dimension.

Like

the Enterprise's bridge, this bridge was a circle and

possessed two command chairs and a coffin-shaped helm console,

but there the resemblance ended. This place was

more like a voodoo temple than a mechanized vehicle's brain

trust. Forms were carved into the bulkheads of

animal-headed trumpet--might've been the alarm system

or just decoration. Shields and wheels and double-headed metal

masks, mostly of animal types separated by

scrolls, banded the ceiling all the way around. Other

facelike stone carvings stood in punch-outs in the

bulkheads themselves, empty eye sockets staring, with grotesque

head shapes and orifices barely notable as mouths

or noses.

"Skulls, Captain," McCoy

murmured without moving his lips more

than he could get away with. "Real."

Kirk glanced at

him. How McCoy knew those things were real and

not just carvings, he had no idea. Maybe he saw tracks of

veins or some other bio-clue. That was the doctor's

job and Kirk didn't question the call.

The skulls of

enemies, possibly? Not the best doorbell. The golden creature

took another step toward them. "I am Zennor,"

it said. "Vergo of the Wrath."

Kirk matched the

step forward, in case such a motion turned out to

be a custom of some kind.

"I am Kirk,"

he responded evenly. "Captain of the Enterprise." When the

aliens didn't say anything, he added, "We appreciate

your welcome."

The huge horns

bowed. "I cannot offer you welcome, until I know

you are not the conquerors."

Could be the

translator. Or use of the word. Zennor hadn't said "conquerors,"

but "the conquerors."

Kirk let that

one go. No sense claiming not to be the conquerors until he

had some idea who these people thought were the

conquerors.

"Then we offer

our welcome to you," he said instead. "You're new to

this space."

Diane Carey The creature like Zennor, with shell gray horns and a

banshee face, parted his lips and asked, "This is your

space?"

"This space is claimed by the Klingon Empire," Kirk

said, trying not to sound as if ownership would move the

moment. "My ship and I represent the United Federation

of Planets. Our space is not far from here."

He moved forward now, and squared off with the

white creature, then paused and with his posture asked

the unasked question.

Zennor angled to face them both. "This is Garamanus

Drovid, Dana of the Wrath."

Kirk started to respond, but only nodded, because he

now noticed something very quizzical as his eyes adjusted

to the eerie light. Each of these beings wore a

stuffed doll on a belt, each doll about eight or ten inches

long. Zennor's doll had little twisted horns and a bony

face with glossy snakish eyes, as did the dolls of each of

the beings who looked like him. Garamanus's doll was

the same height as Zennor's, but about twice as stuffed.

A horned wraith with a fat doll? What kind of day was

this turning out to be?

On the beings with the tentacles moving in their heads

were dolls bearing long wiry strings on their stuffed

heads. The creature with the rocky jade face had a doll

with a green face and the same kind of clothing. The

dolls had the same kinds of clothing the aliens wore,

right d own to tiny crescent necklaces and animal-head

brooches. The only trapping missing from the dolls

seemed to be the circular medallion on the long chain.

Kirk felt completely baffled. Here he stood, among

horrific beings with a strong ship and heavy weapons

who wore soft little toys on their belts. And why was

Zennor's doll skinny? Was Garamanus's fat doll a rank

thing? Social order?

Suddenly he started paying more attention to who said

what, and why Zennor had included Garamanus in a

conversation barely begun. What was "Dana" of the

Wrath, and in what designation compared to "Verge"?

122 FIRST STRIKE

Made a difference.

As the questions flashed through his mind, he decided

to lay some questions at the aliens' feet too.

"This is Leonard McCoy, Chief Surgeon of the Enterprise,

and Lieutenant Uhura, of Communications.

When you appeared in this space," he began, "there

was a drop in mass to zero. A solar system was completely

disrupted. The Klingons assume this is a

weapon."

"We have no such weapon," Garamanus rumbled.

"Then can you explain what happened?"

"To your solar system?" Zennor spoke. "No. We have

nothing to change mass."

Kirk paused. One plus one usually equaled two, but

when things came down to push or shove, was there any

way to prove correlation between the mass falloffand the

appearance of this ship?

They said they couldn't do such a thing. There would

be no point in insisting they had.

"Then," he began carefully, "perhaps you should tell

us why you're here. Tell us what you want. We may be

able to help you find it."

Zennor and Garamanus stared at him like wall paintings

for a moment; then Zennor simply said, "We have

come from a great distant place to this place to see if it is

OURS."

His deep voice took on an abrupt tenor of threat.

It could have been his imagination, just those shining

marbled eyes, or the firedog horns scuffing the ceiling.

"If it's yours?" Kirk echoed, then realized he had

spoken too sharply. Instinct had made him match that

sense of threat. At once he was glad Kellen hadn't come

here, or there'd be another incident. "We have a history

of more than two centuries in these areas of space."

Garamanus dipped his rack once, slowly. "Our history

is more than five thousand years."

Kirk felt his eyes widen. The translator got that one all right.

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Diane Carey

Five thousand years. That was a lot of years.

If that's what impressed them, he had a few extra

centuries to pull out of his back pocket.

"We do have a history of over a hundred thousand

years on our various home planets, proven by detailed

archeological and cultural evidence. Perhaps we're better

served by your telling us where your home planet is?"

"We do not know it," Zermor said again. "We know

only where we have been for five thousand years."

"Jim.. 2' McCoy murmured, but when Kirk looked

at him he said nothing more. His face suggested a

troublesome suspicion, though he seemed not to be able

to back it up now, and remained silent.

Making bets with currency he didn't have yet, Kirk

turned to Zennor, taking "Vergo" for what he guessed it

was. Command couldn't be done by committee, so he

addressed the one he thought was the captain, and would

let Zennor handle the affront.

"Why don't you tell me your story?" he asked, and

held out a beckoning hand.

Perhaps it was the hand, perhaps his tone of voice.

Zennor's strange eyes moved this time as he pondered

what he heard, then blinked slowly, and Kirk suddenly

realized he hadn't seen Zennor or Garamanus or the

other one with the horns blink at all until now. That,

possibly, was why they appeared more like engravings

than living creatures.

Zennor looked at Garamanus and for a brief time the

two seemed alone here, though they said nothing to each

other.

Then Zennor turned a shoulder to the being he called

his ship's Dana and faced Jim Kirk instead.

"Five thousand years ago," he began, "there was a war

between two developed interstellar civilizations. When

the war ended, one civilization lay in defeat. The survivors

of the vanquished, many races from many planets,

were banished to a far distant place in the galaxy,

'relocated' well away from the victors, dropped in the

124

FIRST STRIKE

barren middle of nothing, with nothing. No technology,

no science, no supplies.

"Many millions perished in the first few decades. The

civilization fell apart, fell back to barbarism, splintered,

regressed to the primal. There were plagues, wars, and

ultimately a massive, extended period of dim, raw survival.

"As they began to crawl out of this thousand-year

dimness and to populate three of the planets to which

they were banished, a belief emerged about another

place, the home space, where they were meant to be. As

society and science clawed upward again, the splintered

spumed began to draw together under one common

belief.

"This belief has become the driving force of our

culture as we evolved once again to high technology.

Because of the thousand-year dimness there are no

records with facts of locations, but only words passed

from descendant to descendant. On the parent's knee

every offspring learns of the fury to regain our place. It is

our unifying purpose--to reach out and repossess the

section of space from which we were evicted.

"We are the unclean, the out of grace, ill-bidden

castaways with the fury in our minds, disowned and cast

down, thrown together by our collective loss of war, with

only one thing in common--our singular commitment

to find the way back. It is a culture-wide investment...

and we are here to spend it."

Jim Kirk had stared at a lot of inhuman creatures in

his life, but somehow none of those moments ever

exactly repeated itself. This one was completely new.

Evidently there was an invasion of sorts going on, but it

was the most polite invasion he'd ever witnessed.

He shifted his feet, stalling for a moment to think, to

bottle and distill all he had just heard and decide what to

say back. "So you aren't sure you're in the correct

area?"

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Diane Carey

"We are sure," Garamanus spoke up. "Our Bardoi and the Danai have studied for centuries."

"Studied what?"

"Legends, history, biology, customs, and the designs

we saw in the skies. The positions of stars in the galaxy as

they have moved over the centuries."

"Of course, stars lying on the fabric of space," Zennor

said, "may appear side by side while being lifetimes

apart. I would like hard proof."

Garamanus glared fiercely and the others in the alien

crew stared at their captain.

Kirk looked from one to the other and sensed Zennor

was taking a mighty risk. But Zennor hadn't said anything

any sensible spacefarer wouldn't know. Why were

they staring at him that way?

To keep distraction on his side, he elected to take the

wildest, least predicted step available to him--the one

McCoy would really hate.

"Let me invite you to our ship," he suggested, "where

there are extensive historical and scientific records more

easily at hand."

Ignoring Garamanus's silent assault, Zennor gazed at

Kirk for a moment, during which the sulfurous eyes

seemed not to see. The Vergo and his Dana could easily

have been etchings on these bulkheads. But for the

undulation of the tentacles on the heads of those other

creatures, the whole gathering might have been merely

fresco.

"You may find our ship too cool. We'll go ahead of you

and prepare the atmosphere so you'll be more comfortable.

I'll inform our various divisions and labs. Join us

on board and we'll... look."

"Morien, when they take us to their ship, I want you to

analyze this beam of theirs. Find out how it is done, to

adjust the body and make it travel through open space.

Then make sure our adjustments to the ship's surface

cannot be brought down unless we bring them down.

One mistake, and we could be destroyed from within.

126 FIRST STRIKE

Centuries of scientists designed this ship to be invulnerable,

and within minutes of arrival we found ourselves

vulnerable. What other surprises await us? We must

anticipate everything."

Morien gazed at him in rapt appreciation, then uttered,

"I will check it all, Vergozen!"

With his tentacles twisting excitedly, he rushed away

into a clutch of other technicians, who also gazed at their

leader with disclosed awe at his suspicions.

Zennor nodded to them modestly, then freed himself

by turning away, and found he had made the mistake of

turning toward Garamanus. "And we should send the

analysis back through the wrinkle, so it can be studied

and copied. Then our people will also have the ability to

go through open space without a vessel."

"You are intelligent to think of that," the Dana said.

"It is my role to think of it," Zennor responded,

looking at the ships on the curved screen before them. "I

must imagine ways for the enemy to use his own talents,

or he will think of it first."

"Are they our enemies, then? These people with whom

you speak so freely?"

Zennor looked at him without turning his head, sliding

his eyes to the side as far as they would go. "Until it

becomes proven that they are not."

His judicious answer apparently satisfied the Dana, or

at least even Garamanus was inclined to wait for a

different moment before designating enemy status. Now

began a struggle for the hearts of the crew, Zennor knew,

between the day-to-day leader and the leader of cons,

between the Vergo who made the mission real and the

Dana whose spiritual strings had kept the people unified

and motivated. The crew would be devoted to Zennor

for the crude purposes o f the mission, but these were the

most fervent of the fervent and would follow Garamanus

too, should Zennor falter.

In his knowledge of this, Zennor carefully said nothing

else.

The Dana moved slightly forward, so Zennor had no

127

Diane Carey

choice but to look at him. "You told Vergokirk too much."

Evidently he was not so satisfied after all.

"That is my option as Vergobretos of the mission,"

Zennor said. "We have no reason to hide our past."

"You implied this may not be the right place." Gara-manus

lowered his voice. "The Danai have studied for

generations. You have been a mechanic in comparison. It

is not in your realm to decide what to do, but only when

to do it."

"I may not be Danai," Zennor said, "but I know the

sacrifice of our people. I will not have it wasted."

Garamanus hovered in place. "The crew is not sure

why you hesitate. These are the conquerors. Conquer

them."

"The crew will not agree to aggress against the innocent.

We have waited a hundred generations. We can

wait a day longer."

"You gave up advantage when you told him who we

"Others will not tell us who they are if we do not tell

them who we are. And Vergokirk took the first risk. Now

we will take one. Aralu, Fame, Rhod, Manann, you will

go with the Dana and me. Make the formation here

around me which they explained to us. Rhod, this way

another step. We must be correct. Very good. Aesh,

maintain defender status until we contact you. Fame,

signal to them that we are ready."

The transporter room seemed unaccountably bright

after the auramine bridge of the other ship. Fresh air

flooded into their lungs in place of the pungent, moldy

stuff they'd been breathing for the past few minutes.

Leonard McCoy plunged off the platform and let out a

huffing breath and brushed at his sleeves as if to cast

away hidden weevils. "I felt like all my granddad's

stories came to life before my very eyes! That bridge was

like a cross between a temple and its catacombs. And 128

FIRST STRIKE

I've never seen a crew like those people before. Did all

that make you as nervous as it made me?"

Not once they spoke up." Jim Kirk followed his

surgeon off the platform and reached over the transporter

console to the comm. "It's when they won't speak that

I get nervous. Kirk to environmental sciences."

"Environmental. Ensign Urback speaking, sir."

"Adjust the ship's temperature up by eight degrees

and increase humidity to ninety-five percent relative."

"Are you cold on the bridge, sir?"

"Visitors coming aboard, Ensign."

"Oh--right, sir, sorry, sir."

"And inform the crew so nobody tries to repair it."

"Right away, sir."

"Carry on. Kirk out. Lieutenant, did you get anything

out of that?"

Uhura blinked her dark eyes. "Only that I don't

believe 'Wrath' is what we think it is. I do think it's their

ship, but I'd like to zero in on the translation. And I'd

like to work on the terminology 'Vergo' and 'Dana." I

could also run the visuals of those carvings and their

clothing and jewelry through the library computer. I may

be able to have something for them when they get here.

Assuming, sir, you want me to help them."

"Until we have a reason to oppose them, we should

help them. Do it from sickbay. Give your tricorder to

Spock and let him get what he can out of it."

"Aye, sir."

"And dismiss the watch. Send them to breakfast. I

want a fresh team on duty while these people are

visiting."

"Aye, sir," she said, and stepped between the two

guards without a glance at either of them.

Kirk waved to the guards. "Security, stand by in the

corridor."

"Aye, sir."

"Aye aye, sir."

He swung to the transporter officer. "Mr. Kyle, pre-

129

Diane Carey pare the transporter to bring aboard six visitors from the

bridge of the other vessel. I told them what to do and

they should be in position in another minute."

"Aye, sir," the lanky blond lieutenant said, then politely

attended to his console and didn't look up again.

That was one of the things Kirk liked about Kyle--his

"ignore" mode. Sometimes a transporter room needed

to be as intimate as the captain's office, and a transporter

officer with discretion was worth his weight in precious

metals.

Kirk stepped around the console to the auxiliary

screen, where one tap pulled up an unassuring view of

Zennor's massive ship and two of the Klingon vessels.

"Captain," McCoy began, "I know you like to bring

'visitors' aboard because there's less chance of their

taking potshots at the ship with their own people aboard,

but, if you don't mind my asking, are you out of your

mind?"

"Probably." Kirk gazed at the ships. "But I know how I'd like to be treated and they reminded me of us."

"Only if 'us' are looking in a fun-house mirror."

"It's their similarities to us you're reacting to."

The doctor scowled. "Pardon me?"

"The scariest aliens are the ones who are distortions of

ourselves. We look at them and see something vaguely

familiar. An upright silhouette, the same kind of

movements... arms and legs, mouths, an eye or two

... a verbal language. Aliens like the horta or the

Melkots aren't as frightening because they're so completely

unlike us. It's those like Zennor and his crew that

shake us up, and all because we see a glaze of something

we recognize that's been stretched out of shape. Once we

get over that, we can look at the similarities for what

they are."

McCoy folded his arms and canted his head. "That's

what's different about you, Captain."

Kirk looked at him. "About me? I don't follow."

"Yes," the doctor sighed. "No matter how far out we

go, or how much space separates us from somebody else,

130 FIRST STRIKE

you always see how we're all alike instead of how we're

all different. And you talk to strangers as if you've

known them a year. That's what sets you apart from me

and Spock and all the rest of us. Even from the other

starship captains. Everybody else goes out into space

expecting to see things that are alien and weird. You look

at the alien and weird, and you see a piece of us."

Basking in the compliment, somewhat embarrassed

that there wasn't a veiled insult in there somewhere,

Kirk leered at him. "You're a frustrated psychoanalyst,

McCoy."

The doctor tightened his arms and bounced on his

toes. "I'm not frustrated at all."

"Those skulls over there... you're still sure they were

real? Not just decor?"

"Dead sure. Ah--bad choice of words."

"Noted. I want you to check on Spock now, while we

have the chance."

"Yes, I intended to do that."

"Do it right away. Mr. Kyle, hail the bridge and

inform General Kellen that we're having visitors from

the other vessel. Have Security escort him down here if he feels like facing his fears."

"Yes, sir."

"Then clear the board and energize Let's take the bull by the--uh--" '

"Sir?"

"Just bring them over."

131

Chapter Ten

"AH, GENERAL."

The corridor suddenly turned burlesque with possibilities

as Jim Kirk led the vagabond demons out of the

transporter room.

Kellen said absolutely nothing. Behind him, two Security

guards stood at attention, but they couldn't keep the

shock out of their faces at the diabolical creatures

following their captain.

Impressive in his tense stillness, Kellen stood with his

thick arms tight to his barrel-like body, the wide silver

tunic shimmering under the corridor's soft lighting.

Only now did Kirk notice that the general had left his

body armor behind when he'd beamed aboard. A convenience?

Or a gesture of some kind that Kirk had failed to

read? Too late now, if so.

The big Klingon didn't move a muscle, but there was

abject horror plastered on his face as he stared at the

gaggle of visitors, his eyes growing large. He stood dead

still, his lips pressed into a line, and glared with all the

appeal of a broadax.

Kirk slowly--perhaps too slowly--led the way toward

132 FIRST STRIKE

the general, hoping the extra seconds would give them

time to get used to each other, and was gratified when

Zennor, Garamanus, and their crew followed him like a

clutter of travel-stained gypsies.

He stood to the side and gestured between the general

and the aliens, and hoped for the best.

"General, this is Zennor, Vergo of the Wrath, "he said,

careful of pronunciation. "Vergo Zennor, may I introduce

General Kellen of the Klingon Imperial High

Command."

Sometimes it could be that simple. Just introduce

them. Push them past that bump, and maybe there'd be

communication.

"You are allies?" the ghostly Dana asked, his voice a

growling sound that engulfed the corridor and startled

the Security team.

"We are not allies," Kellen quickly said. He seemed to

be making good on his promise to be ashamed of having

asked for Kirk's help in the first place and having it all

come to this, a pointless parlay in a ship's corridor. "You

must turn around and return to the depths from which

you emerged. We will fight you if you do not."

"General," Kirk interrupted sharply, "they're my

guests at the moment. I brought them here so you could

see firsthand what you were attacking, in hopes that an

understanding might come about."

"I already understand them," Kellen snapped back.

"They are the Havoc. The tainted souls released from

imprisonment, returned to torture us with their poisons.

Look at them!"

Furiously he pointed at the being with the white

tendrils on its head, then at the tall thin one behind

Zennor with expanding skin flaps that moved in and out

with the appearance of wings.

"Iraga!" he belted. "Shushara!"

"Yes, I see them," Kirk said, and stepped between

Kellen and the visitors. "Are you prepared to strike up a

dialogue?"

"There is no dialogue, Captain," Kellen ground out.

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Diane Carey

"I came here to destroy them before they destroy all of

us. If you will be this foolish, then I will take my leave of

you and return to my flagship."

Kirk squared off before the general's wide form.

"You'll stay here until the sector is secured."

"Are you holding me hostage?"

"I'm holding you to your agreement to stay here until I

decide the situation is no longer volatile. Ensign Brown,

escort the general back to the VIP quarters and maintain

watch there."

It was a polite way of telling the ensign to stand guard

and keep the Klingon under house arrest. Brown glanced

at him, then snapped to attention.

"Aye, sir!" the guard's deep voice boomed. "This way,

General." A meaty six-footer, Brown stepped aside to let

Kellen pass by, and it seemed for a moment that the

corridor was filled from wall to wall with just Kellen and

the guard.

Kirk hoped it wasn't too obvious that he had picked

the bigger of the two ensigns to stand guard over Kellen.

He wanted to make a point, but not to be rude. Not yet,

anyway.

"Ensign Fulciero, please conduct our visitors on a

general tour of the primary section and labs. Inform Mr.

Scott and request he show them around main engineering."

The other ensign nodded, still wide-eyed. He held out

a hand, gesturing down the corridor. "This way...

please..."

Turning to Zennor, Kirk held out his own hand, in the

opposite direction.

"My quarters, Captain," he invited. "We'll have a

chance to talk privately."

Without the gawkings of my crew or the hauntings of

your Dana.

He was glad there were relatively few crewpeople

striding the corridors. The few they did pass managed to

choke back their shock at Zennor's size and volcanic

appearance, but Kirk was relieved to finally usher the

134

FIRST STRIKE

alien commander into his quarters and have the door

whisper shut behind them. He hoped Scott would warn

his engineers that there were visitors coming and prepare

them for just what that could mean in deep space.

Then again, the chief engineer would probably do his

share of gawking. Scott didn't trade much in discretion.

"Excuse me one moment," he said, and tapped the

desk comm. "Kirk to sickbay."

"Sickbay, Nurse Chapel."

"Nurse, is Dr. McCoy still down there?"

"Yes, sir. He's with Mr. Spock. I'll get him. One

moment, please."

"Standing by."

He let quiet settle as he waited and as Zennor moved

away from him and looked around the quarters. There

was a constant aura about Zennor, a sense of omen,

perhaps, and a sound in the back of Kirk's head like a

tuning of cellos before a performance of Faust. He had

no idea what he was sensing, but in this creature and

those others, there was a sorcerous spirit of the familiar.

"Captain," Kirk began, "if you'll look at the computer

screen on the desk, I'll call up a visual tour of the

starship and other Starfleet vessels. You can adjust the

speed with that dial on the side of the monitor."

Zennor turned to the desk, and Kirk keyed up the

program, careful to call up the nonsensitive data tour,

the one reserved for dignitaries without telling too

much. Then he edged away to let the ship show itself off.

"McCoy here."

He blinked and shook his attention back to the comm.

"Bones, how's Spock? Any better?"

"He's no less stubborn. I was hoping to have that organ

removed, but I don't have a long enough drill."

"Give me a report, please."

'I've reduced the level of antigrav and begun to put

weight on his spine again. If there any more swelling

around the disks, I'll have to increase it again."

Kirk let his chin drop a little as his gut twisted. Like

the first gnawings of space sickness in his teenage years,

135

Diane Carey

the feeling of being without anchorage rushed in. "Has

he had a chance to review the information Lieutenant

Uhura brought back?"

"Yes," McCoy said, "and he wants to go over it with

you at your earliest convenience."

"Understood. Tell him I'll be there soon."

"Yes, Captain. Lieutenant Uhura says she has a few

things for you also."

"Very well. Kirk out."

He cut off the comm before McCoy had a chance to

give any details. The doctor didn't know Zennor was

here, and Kirk wasn't ready to tip any of his hand.

Zennor continued to gaze at the computer screen as it

scrolled--damned fast--before him. He had it on full

speed and was apparently soaking up all it could give in

spite of the fact that Kirk could barely make out the

photos at that speed. "Your ship is clever. Many technologies

we have not thought of. You and this Klingon...

you are enemies?"

"Yes, traditionally we're enemies. Occasionally we

have an uneasy truce, as we do today."

"Strange that you would be enemies. You are so much

the same."

"You see no difference between Kellen and me?"

"No difference between any of you. You, your crewmen,

your Klingon..."

"There's a big difference between us and the Klingons,"

Kirk said, letting flare a touch of defense. "For

instance, just today we were engaged in a land skirmish

between an aggressive Klingon commander and my

crew. We had to hold them back from innocent people

they would've annihilated, all because those people

refused to do business with them."

"You were on a planet?"

"Yes."

"Could the Klingon not simply lay waste to the planet

with those long-necked vessels?"

"Yes, but they wouldn't. That would be an act of war.

136

FIRST STRIKE

In a skirmish, they can always claim they were ambushed."

"I do not understand this." Zennor's voice was heavy,

deep, as if speaking through a long tube.

Kirk couldn't quite read the ferocious bony mask of

the other captain's face, or the smoky reddish orbs of

eyes. Klingon command is set u, in cell .... hs

t-'

, lie explained

. "The area commanders have a great deal of

autonomy in their areas, but aren't allowed to commit

the Empire to interstellar war. Each is responsible for a

specific area, and can conquer it if it's within his skills to

do so, but if he fails in his aspiration, then all the Empire

doesn't suffer for it. The commanders aren't allowed to

drag the Empire into a war. That's for the High Council

to decide. If the local commander oversteps his authority

in the course of his ambitions, he can be demoted rather

than promoted. They could have reduced the planet to a

blackened char, but they know the Federation would

never put up with that. As it turned out, General Kellen

overruled the local commander because he was more

worried about you."

"About us..."

"You saw how emotionally you affect him. And he is a

particularly cool customer among his kind. His restraint

is famous."

"He claims we are... trouble?"

"Havoc. It's a Klingon myth about an apocalypse. A

final reckoning."

"Myths can be powerful. Given enough time, myth

becomes religion. Mysterious legend becomes immutable

fact. My culture moves on this kind of sea also. That

is why he hates us so."

"He fears you." Kirk offered a cushioning grin. "He

doesn't know you well enough to hate you."

"If it comes to be proven that we are not in our space,

we will destroy the Klingons for you."

The grin fell off Kirk's face and he almost heard the

crunch. "I can't sanction that."

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Diane Carey

"But if they are conquering, they must be stopped.

Why would you allow them to continue?"

Oh, tempting, tempting...

"We prefer other pressures. A war brings a high death

toll. People can and do change, given time. We're working

on them in other ways."

"I do not understand that," Zennor admitted. "Perhaps

I will eradicate them anyway."

Despite the words, there was something sincerely well-meaning

in the way the alien leader said what he said.

Enjoying the whole idea for a raucous instant in the

privacy of his own heart, Kirk nodded in some kind of

arm's-length comprehension, then got control of himself

and calmly pointed out, "We protected you from the

Klingons. We'll protect them from you for the same

reasons, if you force us to."

Zennor's heavy head lay slightly to one side. "You are

... spirited," he said admiringly. His almond-shaped

eyes flickered and actually changed color, like camp

matches flaring briefly in the woods. "When my ship's

power is fully restored, you will not be able to stop me."

That grin came sneaking back to Kirk's lips, and he

felt his own eyes flare a little. Undercurrents of mutuality

ran between them. Dare though this might be, still

there was something about Zennor's convictions that ran

close to Kirk's heart, and he understood what Zennor

meant and wanted, the intense sense of right and wrong

that might have been a bit skewed but still smacked of

strong decency.

And underlying all this, a spicy challenge, as when

Spock asked him to play chess.

"Let's hope we don't have to find out," he deferred

gently. "Vergo, I'm curious about where you came from.

You say it's a great distance. Can you tell me the area?"

The twisted horns tipped forward and cast a shadow

as Zennor's triangular face pivoted downward. "On the

opposite side of the mean center of the galaxy from this

place."

"And yet you said it wasn't a transporter that brought

138

FIRST STRIKE

you here. Not a mechanism of the sort that we use to

move from ship to ship."

"We have no such instrument. We came here from the

far distant side of the galaxy, using a device that causes

space to wrinkle, thus offering passage of large distance

in a short time."

Kirk waved his hands in casual beckoning. "Explain

the technology,"

"We do not understan d the technology. We only know

that it works."

Kirk felt his brow pucker. He had always assumed that

people using a science at least understood the science.

When he didn't offer much sympathy for that, Zennor

picked up on it and evidently decided he wanted to say

more.

"For many centuries this thing hovered in space above

my people's central planet. It passed between us and our sun, regularly throwing its elongated black shadow upon

our planet. Because it was known to be the machine that

delivered us to our banishment, it became a symbol of

evil and doom, a god that glowered upon us and kept us

in misery. Anything bad was credited to it, this great

black shape dooming our sky to ugliness. Our women

conjured spells against it, Young men dreamed of flying

up to destroy it. We said it was of the conquerors."

"The conquerors--you said that before. Who do you

think the conquerors were?"

"Those who cast us out. To my people they are the

highest evil. My people are from many tribes and groups

and clans--"

"I noticed that."

"We warred for eons with each other, blaming each

other for our conditions, claiming collusion with the

conquerors, until finally we realized we were all cast out

together and it was no one's fault but those who exiled

us. Worse than killing us, they took the place where we

were born. Took it. If we fail to take it back, then justice

has not been served. Gradually this became the driving

force of our unity. Century upon untold century, the

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Diane Carey

shadow of the conquerors' machine passed over us,

forging our unity stronger and stronger with every pass.

Ultimately our scientists figured out what it was. Only a

ball of mechanics. What for eons we had dreamed of

destroying turned out to be the tool of our future.

Fortunately we came to our senses before we could react

emotionally and destroy this valuable piece of lost

technology. We found out it uses time as a dimension,

and thus allows interdimensional travel. And we figured

out how to activate it."

"Your entire culture turns on this one cog? Don't you

find that a little... obsessive?"

"Yes, I do. But a culture must have a common

purpose. We spend generations storing enough energy to

push this ship through, packed with sensory equipment.

We have no idea what powered the machine originally,

and have been centuries developing enough power to

pass through to where we believe we came from. We do

not know why it goes, but we know how to make it go."

"That much energy must be a powerful space distorter," Kirk said. "It explains the mass-drop effect."

"Which was not our intention."

"That doesn't repeal your responsibility for it. Every

ship's master is responsible for his own wake."

"I do not understand that reference."

"According to our laws of space travel, it befalls you to

anticipate the effects of your ship's passage."

"These are insignificant things you speak of. We have

spent a hundred generations preparing for this. The

Danai and the Bardoi of our cultures have spent uncounted

years, centuries, on the direction and purpose of

my mission. I must keep perspective."

"What if they're wrong?"

"Then I will go against them myself. I am willing to

cast away the work of a hundred generations if we are

wrong."

"You must suspect they could be," Kirk said, "or you

wouldn't be here, talking to me." He paused, using his

140

FIRST STRIKE

senses to decide how hard he could push. "Am I right?

Do you have doubts?"

Turning away from him, Zennor's long hands coiled

the chain of his medallion as he scanned the simple

decor, the military trim of the bunk and desk, the lack of

carvings or haze, and his strange orange eyes narrowed.

"If the belief in the giant shadow god was silly," he

said, "what about the rest of our legends? If that was

wrong, what else is wrong? Shall I kill everyone on this

side of the galaxy based on myth? Was that the only part

of our mythology that we misinterpreted?"

Probing like a sea lawyer, Kirk asked, "Is there something

specific you're suspicious about, Vergo?"

As he swung around, Zennor's dangerous eyes scoped

him and for a moment Kirk thought the amicability

might be over. Then Zennor admitted, "I am not entirely

sure we were thrown across the galaxy. It appears we did not evolve together, but who knows? We could

have been moved to save our lives and grew the opposite

belief out of fear and superstition. The Danai seem to

me to have made many leaps. I would not wish to see my

civilization expending all its wealth and energy to make

war on strangers based on legends."

"But you do believe your civilization was wronged and

unnecessarily barnshed.

"We certmnly were banished, most coldly and without

resource. Many millions died, including some whole

races, because they could not survive the changeover."

"What must be proven to you?" Kirk asked carefully.

"That we were cast out... that this is the space we

were cast out from... that these are the descendants of

those who cast us out. Unlike Garamanus, I am unwilling

to assume. I think we are in the wrong place. I hope

to prove that. Then my people can begin to live a future,

rather than endlessly hunt for the past."

Seizing his chance, Kirk offered, "You can do that

now. Give up the idea of conquering the conquerors and

embrace the idea of cooperation. You can settle here,

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Diane Carey

start a whole new civilization. There are many planets

crying for colonization and development. We'll help

you."

Zennor's great horns scuffed the ceiling as he nodded

slowly. "For myself, that would serve. For my people,

certain steps must be taken first. If I can prove the Danai

wrong, the crew will not attack anyone who is not the

conqueror. They will not become what they hate. Then

the Danai will be obsolete."

"How do you know your people won't just try again?"

"The Danai insist this is the right place. How can they

insist again about somewhere else?"

"It's that simple?"

"Yes. But how do I disprove a thing? The Danai say

this is the place. How can I say it is not?"

"One step at a time." Kirk watched Zennor for a

moment, then asked, "What's the first step?"

Zenmor kept to the shadows of the captain's quarters,

perhaps seeking instinctively the shrouding veil that

twisted in his own ship, but moved toward Kirk and

deposited on the desk his crescent brooch. When he had

taken it off Kirk had no idea, but now it was in his long-boned

hand, and now it was on the desk.

With one pale fingernail, Zennor flipped the crescent

over. Etched on the inside of the curve were dots and a

series of curved lines. Kirk recognized it instantly.

"Star chart?"

Zennor nodded once. "We can tell from a few preserved

etchings how the stars looked at differing periods

five thousand of your years ago. The Danai have based

their decision on these pieces. The surviving originals

are very old, but there is a definite arrangement of stars.

What you see here is an extrapolation of stellar motion

over the generations, and how those stars should be

arranged now. These are regarded as absolute. This one

is the most certain, and it shows what the Danai believe

is the home system of the creatures like Manann."

"Manann... the ones with the wings?"

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FIRST STRIKE

"Wings? Those membranes are for temperature adjustment."

"Yes, of course .... General Kellen told me those

creatures are called 'Shushara' in the Klingon legend of

Havoc. Does that word sound familiar to you?"

"No."

"Perhaps that's good."

"Perhaps it is. This is the strongest piece of solid

evidence we possess. If this is disproven, then the

Danai's theory will collapse. If there is no planet there

which has had life in the past five thousand years,

Garamanus will have to back down."

"If those creatures lived on that planet only five

thousand years ago," Kirk said, "there's got to be

evidence of it. Let's overlay this and see if there's a

correlation."

Without waiting for Zennor to comment, Kirk

scanned the piece of jewelry into the computer access,

then said, "Computer."

"Working," the flat female voice replied back.

"Identify this star system."

The machine paused as if shut down, but he knew it

was searching, and in moments a star system appeared

on the desk access screen. The arrangement of stars

wasn't exact, but this was evidently the closest the computer

could find. Abruptly the odds struck himw

anything could look like anything, given enough monkeys

and enough years.

"We must go there," Zennor said. His maize eyes

remained unchanged, unimpressed.

"Computer," Kirk continued, "specify location of this

star system."

"It is the Kgha'lugh star system, located in sector nine-

three-seven, Province Ruchma, Klingon Star Empire." A low protest rose in Kirk's throat.

Deep into Klingon space. Deep, deep.

Zennor read his expression and evidently understood.

"For me to balk would be suicidal. It is not what

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Diane Carey we spent so many generations to do. If I do not go

there, Garamanus will take over, and our people will go

there."

"You're talking about violating entrenched Klingon

space, Captain," Kirk told him. "You'll be beaten back

before you make it halfway there."

"We will get there. My Wrath can broach any challenge."

"You're underestimating. All you've seen is a few

midweight border cruisers. You don't realize what a fleet

of heavy cruisers can do to your ship."

"I can destroy their fleet," Zennor assured, not seeming

to intend the bravado with which Kirk read the

claim. "When we came through the wrinkle, our power

slackened somewhat and the Klingon s inflicted some

minor damage, but that is no longer a problem. My ship

is no longer in any peril from you, but you, Vergokirk,

are in grave peril from us, and that is my concern. If I fail

to do this, or if the Klingons push an attack too much on

me, I will have to destroy them. If I do not destroy them,

Garamanus will take over and destroy all of you. And

that is my concern."

Kirk shoved off the desk and stood straight. "Vergo

Zennor, you're either a very skilled liar or you're putting

a great deal of trust in me."

The fiery eyes looked down at him. "I have made a

decision to trust you. And you must honor that trust,

Vergokirk, and help me keep control," Zennor finished

with slow impact, "or you will be dealing directly with

Garamanus."

Yes, well, Kirk said with a guttural response to what

he read as a dare. "You have Garamanus and I have

Kellen. For the moment, they're both quiet. While they

are, my officers are putting the ship's considerable resources

to work on information you've given them. Your

party will tour the ship and with luck gain some understanding

of us and see that we're not these conquerors

you speak of. Meanwhile, I think you and I should

144 FIRST STRIKE

attempt to iron out this problem between your people

and the Klingons."

"General, these are your quarters. I'll be right outside

if you need anything."

"Thank you, but I need only this."

With his back to the husky young Starfleet guard, and

without even bothering to turn, Kellen used a new

dagger and an old trick. He raised his chin and braced

his feet for balance, locked his elbow, and thrust his arm

straight backward. In his fist was the warm hilt, behind it

the blade.

Without even witnessing his own act, he felt the blade

pop the skin of the guard's body and grate against a rib.

The guard's breath gushed out against the back of

Kellen's head and the boy fell forward against Kellen's

shoulder.

Only then did he turn to see the boy, to turn him over

quickly so there would be no telltale blood upon the

deck, and finally to drag the body into the quarters

where Kellen was supposed to wait in complacence,

which was as much his enemy as Starfleet itself and

almost as alien to him.

So much more alien than he expected--this compli-catory

inaction was unexpected and he cursed it. Kirk

was a thorough disappointment. As the door of the VIP

quarters hissed closed behind him and hid his kill for the

moment, he thought about how far he could push the

Federation. It had always been in his mind, through all

his years in the Imperial fleet. Klingons had not survived

so long by being stupid. He knew the Federation tolerated

much more than any Klingon would, but when

they did turn and fight they were not a pleasant enemy.

They would fight ruthlessly and methodically. There

were other Kirks out there who deserved to be Kirk, and

one disappointment would not fool Kellen. Unlike

Klingon honor, the Federation had a sharp sense of right

and wrong as their barometer. When they believed they

were right, they fought with unmatched ferocity.

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This had always been a mystery to Kellen--when the

Federation would fight and why. Always a minefield to

walk. He could spit in a human's face--something a

whole Klingon family would go to war over--and the

human might shrug and walk away. Yet step on the toe of

something they had no interest in and the Federation

would marshal all its forces to defend a thing it did not

care to possess.

Like this Kirk. Why had he refused to fight so obvious

a threat? Certainly there were primogenial memories in the Federation of those demons, just as there were for

the Klingons. Even time beyond recall could be recalled

when the common danger was disclosed.

Some predictions could work, though. He had gambled

and won that these people were too polite to make a

body search of a visiting dignitary, even a Klingon

dignitary. They hadn't. He had kept his dagger hidden,

and beside it a shielded communicator which he now

withdrew and powered up.

"Qul... Aragor, do you read me? Come in, QuL" Communicator shields often worked in both directions

and impaired broadcast. He kept the signal weak,

not sure how much of a signal would trigger this ship's

security systems and notify them that he was attempting

to reach out from here to his own ship.

He started walking. No turbolifts. Too entrapping.

There would be ladders, tubes, other ways to go down.

"Qul... Qul..." Over and over he murmured the

name of his ship, slowly adjusting the gain on the

communicator until they would hear him calling.

And here was a tube--with a ladder. He asked and

was answered.

He peered down the tube to be sure there was no

technician coming up whose head he would have to

crush, and swung his thick leg around the ladder.

"General... this is Aragor. Where are you?" Clinging to the rungs and wedging his way into the

tube, which barely accommodated his girth, Kellen

paused. "I am in the starship. I believe Kirk is about to

146

FIRST STRIKE

betray us. Call for reinforcements, as many as you can

find. Make no obvious movements, but be ready to

attack. Contact the Jada and tell that idiot Ruhl to

prepare the squadron's defenses, but quietly."

"Sir... the commanders will not be allowed to attack

a Starfleet ship under a flag of truce without provocation

or gain. How will we make them believe you saw?"

"I must be believed! Or it is disaster."

'I believe you, General, but the commanders will

demand proof."

Anger welled and he wanted to shout at Aragor, yet he

knew this was not Aragor's doing. His science officer was

neither fool nor petty stooge. A truth was a truth.

"There will be proof. I will find it somehow. You call

them. Give them the facts as we know them. Show them

the tapes. I am going to main engineering to disable this

vessel. Make preparations to beam me back when I make

signal No more communication."

"Understood. Out."

The tube was narrow but bright, and he felt closed in,

trapped, even as he moved freely downward through the

veins of the starship. The voices of the crew from deck to

deck were his only contact with the Starfleeters, giving

him reason to pause now and then to be sure no one saw

him pass through the open hatchways and companion-ways.

He could be easily cornered here, but his size

forced him to move slowly, with cautious deliberation.

To slip and tumble because of nervousness would be

shameful.

Tours. Guests. Open arms to demons and friends.

Havoc embraced. A Kirk who was no Kirk. Seek out the

unshatterable and discover only crumbs.

The rungs were cool against his palms. Rung after

rung, the ship peeled away beneath his hands and boots.

Nearer and nearer he climbed down toward the pulse

and thrum of the warp core. He felt it vibrate through

the ladder and heard it hum in his ears. That was the

power source he must cripple, or the starship would once

again stand in his way.

147

Diane Carey When the thrum was strongest, he went one deck more

to make sure he had indeed zeroed in on the main

engineering deck, then climbed back up and cautiously

extracted his bulk from the tube. This was a wide-hailed

ship, with room to stretch his arms from bulkhead to

bulkhead even in the passages. They wasted space, these

people, attempting to create an environment too much

like planetary architecture. They came into the depths of

space, then tried to pretend they were otherwhere. They

coddled their comforts too much in sacrifice to efficiency

and quickness. No one needed this much room. And

with every extra bit of indulgence, there had to be that

much more thrust, so they wasted energy to accommodate

their waste of space.

That could mean they had power to spare. He would

have to consider that in his sabotage.

He moved slowly through the offices to the functioning

engineering deck, keeping himself hidden from humans

in red shirts who moved from panel to panel, reading

and measuring what they saw, and crossed walkways

overhead. At the far end of the deck he saw the

cathedral-tall red glow of the warp core throbbing placidly,

off-line as the ship lay at all-stop.

Finding an angular elbow between three tall storage

canisters, Kellen paused to assess what he saw and

decide how best to inflict injury that would be hard to

find and take time to fix.

As he studied the movements of the engineers and

listened to their faint conversations, wicking general

information about these panels, he almost failed to

notice the most important change when it came--the

demons were here.

There... nearly obscured by the thing he was hiding

behind, but they were here! On their tour... doing just

as he was doing, seeking information and scanning the

uncovered consoles and all this technology these idiots

kept out in the open and freely showed to any and all

who came. Even demons could see.

That other ensign now tagged behind. The gaggle of

148 FIRST STRIKE

evil was led instead by a senior engineer, who seemed

uneasy at the creatures following him. He spoke little,

but gestured for the creatures to disperse about the deck

and gaze about.

The other engineers paused in their work and stared at

the ghastly amalgam who came here now, the long-faced

horned beasts, the winged Shushara, the hideous Iraga

with those white snakes in its head. Even the vaulting

humans who spoke so large and pretended nothing

bothered them today could not hide their disgust. They

acted as if they did not remember these ill-biddens, did

not recognize what they saw, but it was in their eyes and

the tighten ing of their shoulders as they looked upon the

erictees who now returned unasked.

No matter how they lied to themselves, they did

remember. It was their Havoc too.

Kellen held his breath as the Iraga crossed the deck,

shuffling upon its ugly limbs toward him, coming to look

at something on this side of the high-ceilinged chamber.

Its leprous face was more terrible than any mask,

crowned with those arm-long snakes that moved independently,

reaching and retracting, as if tasting the air.

He backed into his nook and held very still. There was

a cool and convenient shadow here, not quite big enough

to engulf his entire body, but dark enough to obscure

him.

The profane thing passed by him and moved into a

secondary chamber, passing within inches. He smelled

its licheny body and drew his chin downward in disgust,

wincing as the tentacles whipped toward his face and

licked at the canister's edge. If they had eyes, the Iraga

would know he hid here.

What would the horror be, to be overrun by these, the

condemned, even to survive and be forced to do their

filthy bidding? The thought shuddered through him. He

held his breath.

But his shadow served him. The beast moved past.

Kellen raised his right hand and sifted through his

outer robe for the familiar palm-filling shape of his

149

Diane Carey dagger's hilt. It was a good dagger, not his family dagger,

which he had already given to his son, but a good

weapon that had known too little use. Now it would have

its moment.

The general rolled out from between the canisters,

walking casually across the open archway because that

would gain less attention than if he attempted to sneak

across.

Without changing his stride he walked up behind the

Iraga, reached as high as he could, snatched a handful of

the gory tentacles moving in the creature's skull, and

drove his blade into the haze of white gauzy doth

covering the creature's body.

Chapter Eleven

150 UNLIKE THE BODY of the ensign whom Kellen had just

killed, the Iraga's wound gushed no liquid onto his fist,

but instead puckered around it. He felt no spine, but

assumed there was one in there somewhere, and aggravated

the blade across the body from side to side.

The Iraga gasped and arched backward against him.

Its mouth stretched open and its limbs thrust outward.

Kellen pulled it down until he could twist the tentacles

around the creature's face and stuff them into its

mouth and down its throat, guttering any cry it tried to

make.

He waited for it to die, but it would not die. It cranked

to this side, then that side, trying to pull itself free of his

grip and the blade digging into its back. Soon it began to

go pliant in his arms and he let it drop.

It slid down his legs and rolled to the deck at his feet,

staring up at him with bitter green eyes that had no

pupils.

"Security to Mr. Scott. Emergency."

Kellen looked up, and stepped to the archway. The

senior engineer was reaching for the nearest panel.

151

Diane Carey

"Scott here."

"Sir, Mr. Giotto here. Captain says to notify you of

intruder-alert status. We've had a call from deck four.

Yeoman Tamura went to ask the Klingon general if she

could bring him dinner and she found Ensign Brown on

the floor of the VIP quarters. He's been killed, sir, and

there's no sign of the general. We're attempting a bio-sweep

for Klingon physiology, but we haven't pinpointed

anything yet."

The engineer's face turned stony, and for a moment he

glared at the comm as if it had done the killing. When he

spoke his voice was like metal grating on metal. "Acknowledged.

Scott out." He looked up and snapped his

fingers. "Mr. Hadley! Go to Security alert status two in

the lower section. Double guards at every entrance. Let's

clear this deck of all but assigned personnel. Arm the lot

and set up in teams."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Scott. Johnson, come with me! Elliott,

come down here!"

Suddenly there was confusion all over. The demons

were rounded up and shuffled out of Kellen's sight.

Guards with phasers jogged through, and his plans for sabotage were snuffed before his eyes.

So the plans must be altered.

He stepped back to the poisonous body, yanked his

dagger clear of the Iraga's back, and quickly retracted

the two claw extensions. Taking the hilt in both hands,

he braced his legs wide, raised the heavy center blade as

the creature looked up beseechingly at him, and brought

it down with all the power in his thick upper body. The

blade erunched through the Iraga's throbbing neck and

went a tingeifs length into the deck.

Sawing deliberately, he ignored the free flood of white

fluid and gray organs. Finally he twisted his left hand

into the frantically jerking tentacles and pulled as he cut.

The eyes flared as if the demon knew what was happening

to it. The lips moved open, closed, open, closed, as if

trying to speak to him, and there was sound from the

ravaged throat that soon dissolved into a froth.

152 FIRST STRIKE

He sawed relentlessly. In moments the beast's eyes

began to roll and the tentacles began to coil around and

around Kellen's hand and wrist, growing thinner as they

tightened. He was disgusted at the greasy sensation, but

forced himself to maintain his grip and continue to pull

and cut.

The neck muscles were twisted like cord and resisted

even the razor-sharpness of his dagger blade. The bones

of this demon's throat grated fiercely, but he gritted his

teeth and applied his strength, and soon the Iraga's lips

peeled back to reveal its pointed teeth, and its head

flinched off into his hand.

Kellen stumbled back with the force of his own pulling

as the last of the ligaments snapped. Before him the

Iraga's body winced and jolted, its long fingers scratching

at the deck, air sucking with futile desperation into

the exposed tube endings through which it had been

breathing only moments ago. It was trying to live.

He had no idea whether it would succeed, but he had

its head and that was what he needed. Now there would

be movement, action against the Havoc, which he had let

slip through his grip by failing to destroy the Havoc ship

from within when he had the chance. Since then, everything

that had happened had done so because of the

price of his own life.

He would not make so great an error again. The

Klingon who stopped the Havoc would be the icon of the

next age.

And more, far more, the disaster to his people and all

people would be shoved back into the maw of legend.

With his gut-stained hand he shoved his blade into his

belt and clawed for the communicator. The instrument

nearly slipped between his wet fingers. If it fell, it would

ring the deck as loudly as a klaxon and they would come

and find him.

He brought the instrument to his lips. "Qul. Qul.

Activate transporter. I have the prooff"

153

Diane Carey

"This is a mighty odd invasion, as invasions go."

McCoy adjusted the antigrav on Spock's diagnostic

bed down another few degrees, then tilted the upper-body

section of the bed so Spock could at least feel as if

he were sitting up some.

The science officer's computer accesses were still at

fingertip convenience and Spock wasn't moving much,

but his face had lost its sea-foam pallor. The therapy of

work had done him good.

McCoy wished there were something that could do

some good for a furious captain whose arms were

knotted at his sides and who couldn't seem to stop

pacing in bitter rage.

"I've got a crewman murdered by a dignitary with

whom I made a treaty, and a potential flashpoint on my

hands," he snarled as he swung around and started back

toward Spock after coming nose-up to a shelf full of

vials. Every time he paced over there he caught a sour

vision of himself in a mirror behind the shelves.

It made him madder.

He struck the nearest comm unit and for the fourth

time clipped, "Kirk to Security. Progress report."

There was a pause, though he could tell through raw

experience that the line was open.

"Captain, Giotto here. We've completed our bio-sweep.

There's no Klingon on board anymore. The

general must've gotten off the ship somehow."

Big surprise.

"Understood. Shields up. No more beaming unless I

authorize it personally."

"Aye-aye, sir."

He snapped the comm off without acknowledging and

twisted back to Spock "Have you got anything? Anything

at all?"

Spock's straight brows furrowed some as the responsibility

hit him squarely between them, but he tapped on

his keyboards and brought up on the screen a stylized

watercolor painting of a creature disturbingly like one of

Zennor's party.

154

FIRST STRIKE

"in Klingon legend, the Shushara was a winged demon,

or group of demons, given to consuming unsuccessful

warriors, beginning with their feet and eating its

way up the body while the victim witnessed this and

contemplated his failures. Like many other demons, they

were ultimately banished, but promised to return with

the Havoc to consume the weak. Kellen may see Zen-nor's

crew as a manifestation of the Empire's failure to

expand since the establishment of the Neutral Zone by

the Federation."

"Havoc is their punishment for having let themselves

be contained?"

"Yes," Spock said. He moved his hand to his lap,

rather gingerly, slowly, and scooped up the crescent

brooch, looking at the scratch of stars and comets upon

which Zennor's civilization set its hopes. "Regarding

this etching, taking into account the ten differing periods

of their standard year and the speed and movement of

stars, there is a legitimate corollary in the Danai research.

They seem ready to jump to a conclusion, but

n othing is disprovable yet. Any arrangement of stars

may look like something else five thousand years later

from any angle of your own choosing. I must admit,

though, this is an excellent correlation to this particular

stellar group, given the millennia and the constant

movement of celestial bodies. I find myself deeply impressed

that they managed to do this, especially from

across the galaxy, Captain. The technology--"

"Not the technology now, Spock. How likely is it that this is the actual place?"

Spock let the brooch slip back onto his thigh and

moved his eyes to Kirk. "Not very likely."

Kirk flattened his lips. "As I understand it, Zennor

and Garamanus are competing for the loyalty of their

crew. Garamanus is, more or less, the spiritual force

aboard, like the priests who went on board the ships

the Spanish Armada and were the political force that the

captain had to deal with. When Zennor didn't move to

destroy us and the Klingons, Garamanus had a reason

155

Diane Carey

not to trust him. Zennor's required to take certain steps.

If he doesn't take them, Garamanus can have him

removed."

"And one of those steps," McCoy prodded, "is to

prove that we're the conquerors, whoever they were?"

"Or that we're not. 'Conqueror' to them is like saying

Kodos the Executioner to us. We have to establish that

we weren't involved in the conquest that banished their

civilization and that they have come to the wrong place

to look for their home."

"They have ferocious religious beliefs, evidently,"

Spock said, "and these have taken care of them over the

generations."

"But Zennor seems to be some kind of agnostic," Kirk

added. "He wants our help to disprove that we're the

conquerors. Their priests have settled on this area for

their own reasons, and the scientists have been afraid to

challenge. They put all their cultural energy into coming

here, but Zennor doesn't want to come here and become

just another conqueror. He has a mission inside his

mission--to disprove the mission."

"Interesting," Spock murmured. "The galaxy is prohibitively

huge, Captain, and they have risked everything

to come to this one area. Either way, the trip is one-way

for Zennor and his crew. No matter what happens, they

cannot go back. They are here now. Such commitment

takes great fortitude. I am impressed with Vergo Zennor

for taking on convictions above and beyond belief in his

assignment."

"So am I," Kirk said with a reckless sigh.

"The priests of their culture are taking this as hard

fact," McCoy said, holding out a hand to Spock. Then he

looked at Kirk. "They'll only take hard fact to knock it

down. What're we going to do?"

Kirk glowered at the edge of the bed, not really seeing

it. "If we go there and there's no such planet around the

star they've targeted, or there is a planet but there's

never been life on it, then their plan falls apart. Zennor

156

FIRST STRIKE

wants it to fall apart, but we have to go there to pull it down."

"Vergo Zennor believes his ship can stand up to a

Klingon fleet attack," Spock said. "I have checked and

double-checked their vessel, and yes, it is powerful and

may be able to stand down a squadron of patrollers. But

a fleet of heavy cruisers -- I tend to doubt."

"I don't want to find out," Kirk said. "If it comes to

that, I'll have to side with Zennor. The Klingons are

being completely irrational about this. They're acting on

an instinctive leveL"

"I can understand it," McCoy offered. "Our crew's

having the same reaction. And so am I. These people

look... I don't know, familiar somehow. Even though

I've never seen anything that looks like any of them

before."

"Regardless, I've got a decision to make. Do I violate

Klingon deep space now that I've put my foot in this? Or

do I abandon Zennor at the Neutral Zone and see to myself?. No, scratch that. I've made a commitment to the

situation."

The doctor frowned. "Jim, shouldn't you ask permission

from Starfleet Command before you make any

tactical movements farther into Klingon space?"

"I've already been given permission once. Why ask

again and give them a chance to say no? Those orders

aren't withdrawn. The mission isn't over. It's still my

option. I won't hand that option away to a bureaucrat.

All right, Spock, you've found a threadmfollow it. In the

meantime, I'm going to let Zennor set the pace. He

knows the pressures he's dealing with and I believe him

when he says he wants to knock the knees out from

under the driving forces. There's a short road to defusing

this situation and unfortunately it leads directly into

Klingon territory"

Scooping up the crescent brooch, Kirk rubbed his

thumb across the etching on the inner curve, then held it

out before them.

157

Diane Carey

"This is it, gentlemen," he said. "If we can disprove

this, the invasion falls apart."

The crew of the Imperial patrol cruiser Qul shrank

back like beaten children, huddled into the recesses of

the bridge, and covered their faces with shuddering

hands. Before them writhed the unthinkable, the incarnate,

twisting between the fingers of General Kellen as

he held high the proof of Havoc.

Kellen felt like a living beacon as he held the straining

tentacles of the Iraga before his witnesses.

"All screens on! Broadcast this on all frequencies to

the squadron and on long-range to the fleet and all

Imperial receivers, wide dispersal! There will be no more

doubt!"

No one moved. Aragor, Mursha, Karg, Rek, Horg--they

all stared with eyes like eggs at the thing in his

hands, which stared back with its slowly blinking green

eyes and moved its lips in ghastly beckoning at them.

"Quickly!" Kellen roared. "Before it dies!"

There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;

A tousie tyke, black, grim, and large, To gie them music was his charge

He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl, Till roof and rafter a' did dirl.

Coffins stood round, like open presses, That shaw'd the Dead in their last dresses...

Robert Burns

"Tam O'Sbanter"

158

Chapter Twelve

"The ship is run at sublight speed by an internally

metered pulse drive. We call it impulse."

"We have something similar."

"I know you do. There's quite a bit that's similar

about your civilization and ours. If we can reach an

understanding, perhaps your people will be satisfied to

settle here and exchange knowledge, share a few things."

"Vergokirk... you underestimate the passion of my

civilization. You are too comfortable in your identity.

You and your friends, and the Klingons and others here,

all have a sense of home. You all know where you came

from. You have no doubt in your souls about defending

it. When we find our space, we will defend it."

Each corner of the captain's cabin and office had been

thoroughly roamed, and now Zennor had found himself

the most amenable corner from which to contemplate

the place and people among whom be now found himself.

He hovered behind the perforated privacy partition,

which cast a gridlike pattern of shapes and shadows

upon his face and form. Standing there in the dimness,

he was as bizarre a visage as Jim Kirk had ever seen.

161

Diane Carey

"You say that with great conviction, but I'm not sure I

accept what you say," Kirk told him. "You've admitted

you think the evidence is too scant."

"Scant or not, it is taken as religion now." Zennor

turned to Kirk, and his bony face was terrible as it

caught the brittle shadows. "I do not believe you are the

conquerors."

Strange how his words were so antithetical to the

appearance of this enigmatic alien. He was indeed a

ghastly visage hovering there in the shadows, the light

designed mostly for humans stamping in confusion

across the angles and twists of his skull and horns. And it

had no idea what to do with those eyes.

"If we find this is the wrong space, we can live among

your Federation. There is something here upon which to

build, and my people are builders."

"And we'll welcome you," Kirk said. "We'll welcome

you right now, if you'll let us."

Before Zennor could answer, the comm unit behind

Kirk twittered and he turned to it. "Kirk here."

"McCoy, Captain. As soon as you can, would you

please come down to sickbay? I've got an emergency and

I believe you should know about it."

Abruptly interested, Kirk pressed his elbow to the

comm and leaned closer. "Is Spock all right?"

There was a pause. "It's something else, Captain.

Please come alone."

Come alone? What was that supposed to mean?

Instantly he knew what it meant. Leave Zennor up

here, something's been found out.

"If you'll excuse me," he said quickly, "my first officer

was severely injured this morning and I think my ship's

surgeon is trying to cloak any weaknesses in my staff. If

you wish to leave here, push this button and Security will

answer. They'll escort you back to the bridge or to the

others in your party. As I understand it, they're enjoying

their tour of the ship."

162

FIRST STRIKE

"Bones? What's going on?"

Sickbay's main door panel to the corridor closed

behind Kirk.

"I'm in here, Captain," McCoy called, and appeared

in the doorway of an auxiliary examining room.

Kirk glanced into the main ward, where Spock was

confined, but didn't go in there. "All right, what's your

crisis?"

"Captain," the doctor said, "there's been a murder."

As he looked at McCoy's sober face and hoped for a

punch line, Kirk felt his feet go cold. "You mean, other

than Brown? A second one?"

"Yes. But not one of our crew. This is one of Captain

Zennor's people. It was just discovered about twenty

minutes ago. Security delivered the body down here and

I instructed them that I would notify you."

Ramifications tumbled across Kirk's mind, piling one

upon the other. A visitor from an alien vessel in a

volatile situation, murdered. Here.

Horrible.

But only a little more horrible than the body McCoy

led him to. This wasn't just a murder. This was a

slaughter.

Kirk stood over the mutilated cadaver lying on its slab

in the lonely and so rarely used morgue, unfortunately

today occupied by the bodies of crewmen killed in the

land battle with the Klingons. In a few days, they would

be buried in space with full honors, once matters at hand

were dispensed with and the crew could adjust to the loss

of shipmates. It was never easy.

This, though--this thing on the slab...

He cleared his throat. "Where's the head?"

"I don't know," McCoy said straightaway. "We

haven't been able to find it. I suspect--"

"That Kellen took it with him."

"Then you do think he did it?"

"We'll know in a minute." He reached for the comm

on the wall, the least-used one on the ship. "Kirk to

Security."

163

Diane Carey

"Security, Hakker."

"Do a biosweep of the ship for Klingon biological

readings. Hail sickbay with the results."

"Right away, sir."

"Kirk to bridge."

"Bridge, sir."

"Bring the ship to double yellow alert. And hail the

Klingon fleet."

"One moment, sir."

The moment was a long, ugly one. Kirk stared at the

remains, and McCoy stared at Kirk, both supremely

aware of each other.

"What're you going to do?" McCoy finally asked when

the pressure got to him.

"I don't know," Kirk said. "But I have to decide the

next move, or Kellen will decide it for me."

"How could he get off without tripping some alarm

somewhere?"

"I'd get off."

"Captain, bridge. The Klingons refuse to answer our

hail, sir."

"Any movement out there?"

"None yet, sir."

"Notify me if there's the slightest change. Kirk out."

Stiff-lipped and severe, he circled the foot end of the

corpse.

Its pale hands were chalky with lack of life, long

fingernails nearly blue now, and there seemed to have

been very little blood, or whatever fluids this creature

possessed. Its clothing was nearly pristine. There hadn't

been much of a struggle, but considering Kellen's

strength and experience, that was no surprise.

"You didn't do an autopsy, did you?"

"I wouldn't do that without consent," McCoy said

with a touch of pique. "I sterilized the body and had the

scene of the crime searched and sealed off. If they want it

back, or want back any of this jewelry it's wearing, we're

prepared to comply. By the way, look at this." He

plucked up the round bronze piece hanging from the

FIRST STRIKE

chain, similar to Zennor's and all the others'. "This

medallion isn't a medallion. Did you notice? It's a mirror."

He turned the oblong disk over to the undecorated

side, and sure enough there was a crudely polished

surface there that could be used as a mirror when held up

by what now looked like a small handle.

"They each carry a little mirror?" Kirk looked, but

didn't touch. "Why would they do that?"

"I certainly don't know. Would you carry a mirror if

you looked like that? But, Jim, there's something else. If

you'll come with me..."

He led the way into a smaller examining room, where

a normally clean metal experimentation table was cluttered

with a matte of shredded cloth and separated piles

of what appeared to be dried leaves, nuts, hair, and some

kind of chips.

"What's all this?"

"I found it on the body. Take a look."

At closer examination Kirk realized what he was

looking at. "It's the doll. Each of them carries one. You

dissected a doll? This is a new low for you, isn't it?"

"It's more efficient than reading the handwriting on a

wall. Besides, it smelled funny and I wanted to see why.

Now, take a closer look."

"Yes, I see it. It's got strings in its head and clothes like

that. The doll looks like them."

"No, no. It looks like him." McCoy pointed at the

headless corpse. "With the head on, I mean. Look at

it."

Irritated and impatient, Kirk pointed at the doll,

whose guts lay spread all over the table, but whose little

wormy head was still mostly intact. "I don't get your

meaning."

"That corpse is of that species and the doll is also, but

look closer. It's got the same features, the same coloring,

the same hair--well, yarn--and it's missing the same

finger that the corpse has been missing for most of his

life."

165

Diane Carey

"You mean, if one of them loses a finger he cuts it off

his doll?"

"A finger, or whatever they've got. And one leg is a

little shorter than the other, just like the corpse, and it's

got the same scars marked on it as the real body has. And

it's wearing tiny versions of the same jewelry that's on

the body. Jim, this doll isn't just any doll. It's a poppet."

Kirk looked up and let silence ask his question before

he barked it out.

Getting the message, McCoy held one hand over the

piles of hair and leaves and bits. "All these things filled

the doll. It's not just stuffing. You could throw this in a

pot and make soup. Here you've got bits of hair,

fingernails--not from the same person--buttons, something

that might be a kind of bullet, pulverized nutshells,

candle wax, caraway seeds, dried rosebuds, berry leaves,

various worts, cloves, spider's web, and over here is the

dried heart of some kind of small animal. And these

things didn't all come from the same planet." The doctor

looked up at him and meaningfully said, "I think this is a

chronologue of this creature's life. They're relics of his

experiences. If I didn't have the body, I could even

roughly guess his age from just this mannequin. It's a

facsimile of that very person over there."

"Yes," Kirk murmured, glancing back. "Zennor's has

little antlers, a crescent brooch, bands on its wrists, and

it wears his clothing. If it gets filled gradually, over a

lifetime, older beings would have more items inside their

doll than younger beings." He paced around the table

again, thinking. "So Garamanus is older than Zennor."

Seeming satisfied that he was getting his analysis across, McCoy sighed and nodded. "Very likely so."

"What was that other word you used?"

"Poppet. I was getting to that. It's a medieval practice

that came out of witchcraft and sorcery, which basically

was the first practice of medicine. Poppets were one

method of mixing mysticism with herbal medicine,

invoking sympathetic magic."

166 FIRST STRIKE

"But that's Earth. It's trillions of miles away from

where these people come from. What're you getting at?"

"That's what I'm getting at." McCoy leaned over the

table. "I'm talking about Earth. That other one--they introduced him as Garamanus Drovid, right?"

"Yes. So?"

"I did a little skipping around in my medical-history

files and there's a match. The word 'drovid' has roots in

Old English, and that was where I found the references

to poppets and midwives and sympathetic medicine."

"Bones, make your point before I stuff this mess back

in the doll and stuff it down your throat."

"First ask me where the other two wise men are."

The doctor stood back a step, pointed at the piles of

herbs and bits, then swept his hand toward the corpse on

the table in the next chamber.

"Drovid," he said. "The drovids. The 'infernal of our

past, the sinister, the banished'? Jim, don't you hear it?

These people are druids!"

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Chapter Thirteen

"THAT'S THE WILDEST leap of logic I've ever heard," Kirk

accused. "As near as we can calculate, it's a leap across

galactic quadrants."

'I' agree." With typical sleepless diligence, Spock

scanned the information McCoy had handed over for

analysis.

Druids?

Every time Kirk heard the word in his head, he

squinted as if looking through a fog. How many times in

his career had he been faced with the inconceivable and

asked his crew to believe? Now he couldn't seem to give

himself that much cooperation.

He rubbed his sweaty palms and waited for Spock to

do the dirty work.

Spock's hands and eyes moved as he keyed information

into the monitor mounted over his head. The

screens rolled with gory pictures of ancient myths that

bore startling resemblances to Zennor's crew.

"With uncharacteristic efficiency," the Vulcan barbed,

"the good doctor has stumbled upon some interesting

data."

168

FIRST STRIKE

"I do not 'stumble,' sir," McCoy aggrandized. "I am a

superior scholar in my field. I know my poppets."

Abandoning what may have been an effort to ease

pressure on the captain, Spock became suddenly clinical

and looked at Kirk with disclosed sympathy. "Lieutenant

Uhura is still working on some o the nomenclature

and linguistics using Dr. McCoy's theory, focusing on

the crossover between the old woodland religions of

western Europe and the encroachment of Christianity.

The simple folk of those times easily believed in both."

"Old religions die hard," Kirk said. "Zennor's people

are living proof. They're hanging on to theirs and looking

for scientific data to back it up."

"Real scientists do not form a theory first and look for

data second, Captain," Spock said. "However, I would

be deluding myself to deny the surprising similarities

between Zennor's race and the pantheon of Celtic folklore."

"Specifically?"

Spock hesitated, as if walking on thin ice, but offered

his typical straightforwardness. "Specifically, the

Horned God, ruling deity of winter and the hunt. It was

a beastly vehicle, usually portrayed in stag form, with

horns."

"And Zennor... sure has horns," Kirk said. "But

some of those beings have wings. Doesn't make them

angels."

"No, of course not," the doctor agreed, "but I think

this is the key to a peck of trouble. You've been going

about this all wrong, Mr. Spock, looking at arrangements

of stars and searching for archaeological evidence. These

beings look a lot like common archetypes in humanoid

culture, but not just any archetypes. Specifically archetypes

of evil. Antlers, horns, snakes, skulls -- they'll find

so much that looks like them that they'll say, 'See? We're

from here." People who are this much into their myths

will be very convinced by ours. Jim, you'd better disprove

this, because if I were them, all this Celtic stuff

would bother me."

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Diane Carey

"Celtic," Spock said unsparingly.

McCoy looked at him. "Pardon me?"

"You said 'Soltic,' Doctor. The word is 'Kltic." The

'C' had a hard sound in the ancient Gaelic language. It is

often mispronounced by the ignorant."

"Now wait a minute, Mahatma. Didn't there used to

be a baseball team called the Boston 'Soltics'?"

"Basketball," Kirk corrected, and was instantly mad

at himself for bothering.

Keenly Spock raised one punctuating brow. "An ideal

case in point."

McCoy's squarish features deployed a barrage, but he

didn't say anything.

Tilting a scowl at an innocent wall, Kirk squeezed

back a headache and reached for the nearest comm.

"Kirk to engineering."

,, ' ' Hadley, sir."

Engineering,

"Request Mr. Scott join me in the sickbay right away."

'

irn"

"Yes, sir, I'll find him.

Impatient, Kirk paced a few steps away, as if to

distance his officers from the stain of his responsibility

and the tilt of this conversation. Myths.. gods of this

and that... poppets and witchcraft. he didn't like

any of it as a basis for any decision.

"Zennor's people seem very fierce, but tolerant of each

other, as races go. They've had to live together and work

toward this common cause, and as such they've had to

believe in it, proven or not. It forced them to respect

each other's various cultural habits. They're actually

better at tolerance than the Federation, except for this

one clubfoot. This group-space idea. Zennor is smart

enough to realize the holes in all that."

"Who did they have this war with?" McCoy asked.

"Do we have the foggiest idea?"

"It was five thousand years ago," Kirk mourned.

"Maybe more than that."

"Could it have been one of the early Klingon cultures,

and maybe that's why it seems to fulfill a legend of

Chaos?"

170

FIRST STRIKE

"Havoc," Spock adjusted. "I doubt that. The Klingons

had no spacefaring capabilities in their sectors that long

ago. I suspect it was some advanced race, now long

gone."

"Or still there, in some other part of the galaxy," Kirk

pointed out. "Don't make their mistake and assume this

is the right place. Zennor said their archeologists pretty

much proved they didn't evolve on their planets. They

were all transplants. After all this time, there's no way

even to know whether they were persecuted, or if they

lost a legitimate war."

"Legends become distorted over five thousand years,"

Spock said. "The people writing them tend to skew them

in their favor. Havoc, heresy... all these are inventions

of those who wish to maintain control through threat of

supernatural punishment. In fact, the word 'heresy' is

from the Greek. It means 'free choice.""

"Well, they're exercising free choice right now, that's

for sure."

Kirk scuffed his boot heel on the deck and anchored

himself to the sound, the hard sensation of his ship

around him. The hollow ache of having lost crewmen,

especially young Brown, ate at him. And what was he

going to do with that headless body in there?

"Spock, what about their ship? What exactly are we up

against?"

"I have done extensive sweeps, but there is much

sensor masking. The ship remains essentially an unknown.

I do believe they have the raw power to push

back the Enterprise, but could they push back all of the

Klingon squadron and us as well? I have no conclusions."

"Neither do I," Kirk told him, "and I can't put my

finger on it, but there's something about his ship that

Zennor's not telling."

"Intuition, Captain?"

"If necessary."

The Vulcan frowned into his monitor screens. "I am

also questioning Garamanus's astronomical data regard-

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ing the Klingon solar system as seen from the other side

of the galaxy, given the distorted nature of the galactic

core. It can not even be seen through. To send out a

probe of any effect would take hundreds

He moved one arm to tap an order to his computers,

and apparently moved too much. He suddenly stopped

speaking, choked silent by a spasm somewhere in his

injured body. Kirk covered the space to the bedside in

one step, but somehow McCoy got there first and hurriedly

adjusted the antigravs to take some pressure off.

So much for pain being a thing of the mind.

"Are you all right?" Kirk asked.

"Well enough, Captain." The voice was a scratch now,

still twisted with effort, and more seconds passed before

the pinch left Spock's narrow eyes and his hands began

to relax again on the fingerpads.

As they waited, the outer door parted and Chief

Engineer Scott thumped in, looking untidy and frustrated

with the day's tensions. His emblematic red shirt

was rumpled and bore the burns of a splatter of sparks.

He clearly didn't want to be here.

"You wanted me, sir?" He reached up to check the

mountings on the monitor. "All right with this, Mr.

Spock?"

Kirk squared off behind him. "Scotty, what do you

know about Celtic mythology?"

Scott twisted around, one hand still poised overhead.

"Celtic what, sir?"

"Druidic myths of supernatural beings," Spock filled

in, burying his effort. "The primary deity of hunting and

survival. The Horned God."

"Me?" The engineer looked from each to the other.

"Not much. Where'd you ever come up with all that,

sir?"

"We just wondered if all this meant anything to you,"

Kirk told him, keeping his tone even, not wanting to

hedge his bet.

"Because I'm Scottish?"

"Any port in a storm."

172

FIRST STRIKE

"Oh..." Scott's expression turned pained. "Sir...

you're barking up the wrong kilt. That Celtic druid stuff,

that's a lot of hooey!"

"That hooey may be the key to our situation. You have

druid ruins in Scotland, don't you?"

"Have we. We hang our laundry from 'em. That'n

postcards is about all they're good for."

Kirk simmered. "You don't know anything at all about

that folklore."

Glancing with a pathetic face, Scott's round eyes

bobbed in a shrug and. he looked like a street urchin

being asked where the neighborhood hiding place was.

"Well... give or take Tam O'Shanter, not a blessed

thing."

"What's that?"

"Everybody's heard the story of Tam O'Shanter's

ride."

"Give me the high points."

"Oh... well, it's a Robert Burns poem about a fellow

who takes a look inside a haunted kirk -- oh, sorry, sir--a

haunted church." Uneasy at relating folklore instead of

phase inversion ratios, Scott struggled to scrape the dust

out of his memory. He made a disapproving sound in his

throat and forced himself to speak. "Inside are demons

and unconsecrated dead dancing about, and perched in

the window is the devil, shaped like a beast, wheezing his

pipes for all he's worth. I saw a reenactment of it once,

right there near the actual kirk in Alloway--"

"Wait a minute!" McCoy cut in. "The devil plays

bagpipes?"

The engineer screwed a glare at him. "Welcome to

heaven, here's your harp, welcome to hell, here're your

bagpipes."

"Oh, fine."

"Can I go now, sir?"

"No," Kirk snapped. "What other details are there?"

Scott shifted his feet. "I don't rightly recall, sir....

I'm sure it's in Mr. Spock's computer someplace. This

Tam has to get away from the demons, and there's

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something about how demons can't cross running water,

so he makes for the bridge."

"Logical," Spock fed in.

McCoy shook his head. "Logical!"

"Scotty," Kirk pressed, "why can't demons cross running

water?"

"I wouldn't have a' clue, sir."

"Is there a point to it happening in the ruins of a

church?"

Desperate, Scott shrugged. "Why does Hamlet happen

in a castle, sir?"

McCoy leaned forward. "Why's the devil in the shape

of a beast?"

,, ' not talking to

Doctor, the engineer groaned, you re

a man who thinks there's a monster in the loch."

Unsatisfied, Kirk let his brow crimp. "Very wel.!

Scotty, dismissed."

"Aye, sir!" Flushed with relief, Scott vectored for the

door, then abruptly looked back. "It's all got to do with

that lot we beamed over, doesn't it? If ever a bunch

needed a ruined kirk about 'em, those are the ones."

Before anyone could stop him, he dodged for freedom

and the sickbay door hissed shut on empty air.

"Well, there's one generalization gone up in smoke,"

McCoy commented.

"I

disturbed

Kirk paced, embarrassed.

shouldn't have

him."

tone,

Gentlemen, Spock said with an anchoring

"this is interesting information, but it is entirely anecdotal

. Still only folklore."

"But dangerous information, Mr. Spock," the doctor

insisted. "Sometimes myth can be much more explosive

than fact."

Kirk turned to Spock and waved his hand. "McCoy's

right. You and I need hard evidence, but Zennor's crew

may well be satisfied with anecdotal evidence. We can't

take that chance. All this will become a moot point if we

can get to this Klingon solar system and find no proof

174

FIRST STRIKE

that it's their home system. That's my intention. We are

not having a war. We' re not having these people warring

against the Klingons, the Klingons against them, and the

Federation scrambling in the middle. I'm not having it. I

want both of you to--"

"Red alert. This is the bridge. All hands, red alert."

Suddenly angry that his aggravation was being interrupted,

he assaulted the comm. "Kirk here."

Sulu's voice came through, sounding tight. "The

Klingon squadron, sir, they're moving into attack position

and swinging under us toward the other ship."

"On my way. Contact Security and have them bring

Captain Zennor to the bridge. Kirk out. McCoy, Spock,

you two keep on this line of research. And hurry it up. If

this is legitimate, I want to know it. If it's not, I want

something concrete that I can put in front of Zennor and

Garamanus to show them that it's not."

"Yes, sir."

"We'll do our best, Jim."

"Status, Mr. Sulu?"

"The Klingon squadron swung around us to attack the

visitor's ship, sir. They've opened fire several times, but seem to be only making glancing blows. They may be

looking for weak points. Impulse power's on-line and

helm is answering."

"Mr. Donnier?"

"Phaser batteries on standby, sir. Photon torpedoes

powering up."

Hardly had the tube cleared when it opened again and

Zennor came out into the shadowed area beside the

glossy red doors. Kirk glanced at him.

As the Klingon squadron separated into a new attack

formation on the forward screen.

Kirk dropped to the recessed deck and gripped his

command chair, but didn't sit. He couldn't quite make

himself do that, not with Zennor haunting the upper

deck's turbolift vestibule, looking quite zombieish with

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the soft bridge lights teasing his bony features, sulfurous

eyes, and twisted horns and glinting off all that carved

jewelry.

"Sensors full capacity. Come full about starboard,

impulse one-quarter. Intercept course. Gentlemen, I

thought I ordered change of watch. What are you all still

doing here?"

Donnier swung around as if he'd committed a crime,

but his mouth hung open without making a sound.

Sulu turned too, but didn't take his hands from the

helm. "The order just came up, sir. We were waiting for

our relief to show up. I think the lower decks have all

changed over."

Kirk glanced over his shoulder. "Vergo Zennor, I

assume you'll want to return to your ship to confront this

action."

Zennor's horns caught the bridge lights ,and played

with them. "My ship is strong, Vergokirk."

"As you prefer," Kirk said, a little irritated. He'd want

to be here, and suddenly that seemed like a sign of

weakness. He trusted his crew, but this was his responsibility,

not theirs.

Strange, though, to be so completely unconcerned

as if a bunch of delinquent children were hitting his ship

with sticks. Zennor was either very confident in his

ship's technology or he was putting on a hell of a show.

Grudgingly Kirk accepted the first divisions between

himself and Zennor that weren't physical.

The turbolift door gushed open and an engineer came

out, but didn't go to the port side. Instead, the short and

thickly built fellow stepped down to the helm and looked

at Sulu, then at Kirk.

"Lieutenant Byers, sir, relieving the helm."

"Not nOW."

"Sir?"

"Not in the middle of action. Stand by."

"Aye, sir." Byers blinked at him self-consciously, then

at the screen. He was new to the bridge and Kirk guessed

176

FIRST STRIKE

that a department head somewhere below was pushing

him. Happened sometimes. Sooner or later the lowliest

technician got a hitch at the wheel, just to see what it felt

like, not to mention in case of some catastrophe that

blistered the whole crew and left one confused yeoman

to steer. That happened sometimes too. Usually those

were historical acgounts, but one could never tell.

Byers rubbed his wide hands on his thighs and shifted

from foot to foot, not knowing whether to vacate the

bridge and wait to be called, or take a position on the

upper deck and wait there, doing nothing.

"Up there." Kirk pointed sharply to the engineering

systems station. He couldn't keep the irritation out of his

voice, nor did he want to take the time to explain that

the lift tube should be kept as clear as possible during

action, especially not to someone who should know it.

Maybe I expect too much of them, he thought vaguely

as the ship swung full about and space turned on a

pendulum before them. In a moment the pinecone form

of Zennor's ship swung into full view, harassed by the

Klingon cruisers.

In the privacy of his mind Kirk damned Zennor's calm

and set himself to match it.

Too competitive?

Maybe.

Too bad.

He glared at the screen, at the Klingon ships, four of

them, sweeping up and around the horn-shaped vessel.

He could almost hear the whoosh. They laid fire down

across the visitor's hull, then spun wildly toward the Enterprise.

"They're trying to keep us from increasing speed,"

Sulu muttered aloud as he countered the moves of the

Klingon ships.

"Doing it, too," Chekov put out of the corner of his

mouth as he looked down from Spock's station.

Kirk ignored them. There had to be weakness. There

had to be one moment when those ships weren't all

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coordinated, when at least two of them weren't sure what

the other two were doing. He was waiting for that

moment. "Mr. Donnier, prepare to open fire."

"Ready, Captain."

"Captain Zennor, are you agreeable to evasive action?

High speed to your target solar system?"

He turned enough to look.

In the lift vestibule, Zennor appeared as still as a

gargoyle and moved not at all to answer. "Yes."

Had his mouth even moved?

Telepathy?

"Would you like to inform your crew?"

"They know it."

He didn't offer how that could be possible.

Kirk didn't ask, sensing that the answer would be

vague and his crew would become uneasy.

"Mr. Donnier," he said instead, "reduce phasers to

two-thirds. Mr. Sulu, one-half sublight."

Donnier looked over his shoulder. "Two-thirds, sir?"

"We'll have a reserve if we need it. And there's no

point draining everything we have to destroy those ships

when all we have to do is get away from them. Prepare to

dump a wash of heavy radiation behind us once we get

clear. While they choke their way through it, we'll make

distance. All right, gentlemen, let's drive them away

from the other ship and make our getaway. I've always

considered ass'n elbows a perfectly legitimate battle

tactic."

"Aye, sir," Sulu said, and grinned.

Donnier nodded and smiled too. "Yes, sir."

The attitude on the bridge went up two notches.

The ship groaned with the effort of snug turns, a long-legged

foxhound trying to turn like a basset. She was

powerful, but she was no road-hugger. The Klingon ships

worked a baffling pattern that kept one always in the

starship's path while the others cut across her lateral

shields and fired on her. Every few seconds a hit racked

across her hull and sent tremors through it. Every time

178

FIRST STRIKE

he said "fire" Donnier tried to coordinate phaser controls

with the flash-by of whatever ship was in range.

Engulfed in a shameless relief that the so-called truce

was over, broken by the Klingons' first shot--if there

were any doubts--Kirk flexed his hands as if they'd just

been unmanacled. The old kids' excuse from any playground

was at perfectly good work here He started it.

Zennor's ship took relentless strafing in the most

leisurely fashion Kirk had ever witnessed, and it annoyed

the hell out of him. He wanted movement, panic,

retaliation from the other ship. That was how Klingons

needed to be treated. But Zennor's vessel did virtually

nothing but turn its aft end to the incoming Klingon fire

and let the destructive energy wash across its folded hull

plates.

"Make tighter turns and continue evasive," he said,

authorizing a risk Sulu couldn't take on his own. "Come

about."

"Coming about, sir."

On the screen, the Klingon ships veered out from each

other in a practiced formation, then began angling

erratically, so their patterns couldn't be plotted. Then

two of them broke pattern and swept toward the Enterprise

as it came in firing and knocked the other two off course.

The two steady cruisers kept their heads, executed a

perfect maneuver, and laid into the starship's upper hull,

strafing the bridge.

Kellen knew what he was doing. Decades of experience

could serve in a pinch.

He had drawn a breath to give a maneuvering order to

Sulu when a huge wing suddenly appeared in the forward

screen, blanketing their view of everything else--Kellen's

flagship!

Where had he come from? Some daring twist Kirk had

failed to anticipate, he realized as his gut twisted as if to

show him what he'd missed. Disruptor fire danced

across the starship's brow, splintering the shields and

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piercing the hull above the bridge before double shields

could be put up there.

The forward half of the ceiling blew downward in

shards and sparks, engulfing Sulu in a flush of electricity.

Donnier plunged sideways and was only scorched, but

Sulu was shaken hideously, then slammed to the deck

and fell limp.

Kirk shielded his face. "Sickbay! Get him off the

bridge!" The second order really canceled out the first,

indicating that he didn't want to wait, or have an injured

crewman to trip over in the middle of ship's action. The

upper-deck technicians and engineers understood, and

three of them shuffled Sulu toward the turbolift.

"Mr. Byers! Here's your chance. Take the helm."

Byers had almost gone into the-turbolift, but now

turned back t o the center of the bridge and picked his

way to the helm. He brushed the smoking shards off the

seat and gingerly sat there on part of his backside. He

stared at the helm for a moment, his hands hovering

over the instrumentation without making contact.

"Put your hands on the controls, Mr. Byers," Kirk

said firmly, and knew his own work was cut out for him,

taking an inexperienced helmsman into battle. "Come

about starboard..-that's it Mr.

Donnier, Ver,e.

Good.

. all we have to do is clear the way for Zennor s

ship."

Did the other ship have warp drive? It just now

occurred to him that the subject hadn't come up. Fine

time to think of it, James.

They had to have warp drive, or some force of science

that allowed them to go to hyperlight speeds. Examining

a quadrant at sublight would take thousands of years.

They had it, they had it. Stay the course.

Enemy re crackled like pulsebeats over the ship's

deflectors, but she stood up to them. Returning fire was

a different trick and took more than just a stuck-out

jaw.

Byers hunched forward and concentrated on keeping

hold of the bull elephant in his hands, tapping maneu-

18o

FIRST STRIKE

vers through to her impulse engines in a manner that was

making the power center heave and howl.

"Fire as your weapons bear, Mr. Donnier. Target the

ship abaft starboard and fire. Mr. Byers, don't let them

work our stern like that again."

Byers pressed his hands to the controls and attempted

a dry swallow before speaking. "Sir... I... I can't do

this very well... respectfully submit you call up somebody

with more experience. Shouldn't Mr. Chekov--"

"Mr. Chekov's needed at the science station." Kirk

stole a moment from the battle and said, "We pilot the

ship by changing the field geometry of the warp-coil

timing. How well each helmsman can do that is a

personal thing. It's the closest thing to subjective activity

on the ship. Experience is a factor, but it's not all there

is. Sulu does it his way. You do it yours. We'll deal with

it."

Byers stared at him a moment, then nodded and faced

the helm again. Permission to screw up, if necessary.

That done, Kirk shifted his concentration to the

movements of the ships outside, arranging them in 3D in

his head and anticipating every movement he could see

as the sensors on the upper monitors read the courses of

each ship.

On the main viewer, Zennor's ship had come full

about and was facing Klingon space. Just a few more

seconds. Just a chance to get past Kellenm

"Down more, starboard... mark two... Don't use

the sensors, Mr. Byers--follow them with your eyes and

feel your way through. Three degrees port... present

our profile to them .... Mr. Donnier, fire... good...

Byers, if you see a window don't wait for my order.

There--get through it! Quickly, angle ten degrees port.

Midships... fre."

For an instant there was silence, and then the whine of

the. phaser controls cutting across the power-packed

Klingon ships. Two of the ships bloomed in hot strikes.

Another swung past, launched a shot, then veered off as

if afraid it too would be hit at proximity.

Diane Carey

"Two good hits, sir!" Donnier said, surprised that he'd

done so well.

"Good, Mr. Donnier," Kirk awarded. "Now if we can

push aside the others, we'll get past term." . .

"Sir," Chekov called over the poundimg ot uniorgvng

disruptors, "their upper hull plates are only double-shielded."

"Noted. Mr. Donnier, there's your target. Mr. Byers,

get us in over their heads. Ten degrees port.. good.

midships."

"Midships," Byers murmured, his lips dry.

"Hold that... fire... five degrees starboard."

"Five starboard, aye..

"A little more starboard."

"Little more, aye..

"Midships. ."

With one hand on Donnier's chair and the other on

Byers', Kirk drove his ship as though rushing whitewater

in his favorite canoe. He moved his shoulders with the

rhythm of the ship, flexing his knees as the deck rose and

dropped, tipped and rolled around them. "I

"Sir, they're dog-fighting us," Byers choked. can't

get past them."

"You don't have to. Just distract them until Zennor's

ship gets past."

Phaser blast after phaser blast vomited from the ship's

ports and crashed across space to torment the Klingons,

who returned fire shot for shot without remittance.

"Static pulses, sir? one of the engineers gasped from

upper port side. "Shield power's fibrillating!"

As they were hit again the engineer's response was

swallowed in howling alarms and a puff of chemical

smoke. Metal splinters rained on them and for a few

seconds all they could see of each other were hunched,

headless shoulders.

On the main screen, Zennor's dark ship loomed enor-

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FIRST STRIKE

mous, so big that Kirk had to shudder down a desire to

duck.

"Sir, I..." Byers stopped, unwilling to say the obvious.

He couldn't get past the swarming cruisers, not and

protect Zennor's ship at the same time. The starship was

simply too big and too sluggish at low sublight speeds to

handle a well-manipulated squadron of lighter, quicker,

tight-turning buzzards.

"Stay with it, Mr. Byers."

From the upper deck, Zennor's bass voice hummed.

"Vergokirk."

Kirk turned.

Zennor looked down at him, and came forward a step.

"Allow me to clear the way for you."

An instant before he would've told Zennor to hold

position, that the Enterprise could take these ships with

the right maneuvers and a certain amount of sacrifice,

Kirk clamped his lips. Here was a chance to see what

that uninvited vessel could do, and he suddenly didn't

want to give that up.

He gestured to the communications station. "Would

you like to contact your ship?" he offered again.

"I have," Zennor said.

"Sir!" Chekov pointed at the forward screen.

Kirk cranked around.

The giant ship of purple shadows and tightly laid

shingles was turning color--not overtly, but as if some

mystical stagehand were backstage, changing the spots

and footlights. The purple colors bled to hotter electric

blue, then bundled together and ran down the pinecone-shaped

hull to blast out the twisted point and blow into

space.

Two Klingons vessels were hit directly and knocked

violently off course, and the others were kicked into a

spin, left struggling to regain their gravitational balance.

"Sir! We're clear!" Chekov called suddenly, and then

coughed on a puff of chemical smoke. "Sir!"

"Captain Zennor, I hope your ship knows to follow us," Kirk called.

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"They know."

That voice. Like cellos and concert basses moaning in

another room.

Damn it, how could they know?

He refused to ask.

"Very well. Chekov, dump that heavy radiation."

Chekov plunged four feet down the starboard side and

hammered the controls. "Dumped, sir!"

"Mr. Byers, warp factor five, right now."

184

Chapter Fourteen

"The Klingon SQUAD is falling behind, Captain,"

Chekov clipped, unable to keep the victory out of his

voice. "The radiation is choking their thruster ports.

Captain Zennor's ship is matching our speed."

"Very good. Go to warp six, Mr. Byers."

"Warp six, sir," Byers answered.

"Captain," Lieutenant Nordstrom spoke up, her hand

on her earpiece receiver, "General Kellen is hailing us."

"Is he. Put him on."

"Go ahead, sir."

"General, this is Captain Kirk. You're seriously overstepping."

"Are you out of your inadequate mind?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You are streaking into Klingon space with those

fiends. Why?"

"Because there's a chance of resolving the conflict. I

request you secure clearance for us from your High

Command."

"I refuse. You are giving asylum to a threatening

185

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around and leave."

"I'm here at your request," Kirk pestered steadily.

"You're the one who came aboard my ship, then murdered

a visiting dignitary from another government.

That will not go unanswered, I guarantee. If I turn

around and leave without resolution to the problem,

you're going to look pretty foolish, not only in front of

my government, but in front of yours. Who in the

Klingon Fleet will take your word for anything anymore?"

"They have taken my word, and they are coming. I

asked for help from you and this is what I've been given.

We will take care of the Havoc ship ourselves. If you

interfere, then there is war between us."

"I hope to have this resolved before you and your fleet

can reach us. In any case, I'm lodging a formal protest

with the Klingon High Command, stating that we have

been invited here and attacked while authorization was

never officially revoked."

"Lodge what you want. I would expect no better from

such as you. I did not attain my position by waiting for

my bidding to be done by others."

"Sir, he cut us off," Nordstrom said before Kirk could

answer, as if he had an answer.

They had left behind the immediate problem, but

not the lingering question. With a sigh, Kirk scratched

the back of his head and wished he had time for a

backrub. Or somebody around whom he wanted to

give it.

He glanced back and caught in his periphery the sorcerous form of Zennor in the lift entrance.

No point avoiding the inevitable.

Gripping the bridge rail for sustenance, he pulled

himself to the upper deck.

"Vergo," he began, "we have a situation in sickbay

that demands your attention."

186 FIRST STRIKE

"Let me apologize ahead of time for what I must show

yOU."

Jim Kirk led the way into sickbay. Zennor followed,

having said very little on the way down, as if he

anticipated something dire and unmendable. Kirk un derstood

that. A captain's sixth sense. He could feel

when something was crooked.

He avoided the area where Spock was recuperating

and instead gestured in the other direction, toward the

morgue.

"If you'll come with me..."

McCoy appeared at the door of his office, his face

suddenly blanched as he saw Zennor. He didn't say

anything, but stepped out as if to follow them.

Before they reached the specially sealed doorway of

the morgue, the hiss of the outer door panel made them

turn.

Kirk had been anticipating speaking to Zennor alone

about the murder, but that wasn't going to happen

now.

Garamanus's tall form filled the doorway, chalky and

bloodless, his skullish face and animal eyes immediately

untrusting.

How could he know?

"Gentlemen," Kirk said, and gestured again.

McCoy silently stepped forward and keyed in the

security code. The morgue door slid open on a breath of

suction.

Without ceremony he led them to the body of their

crewmate--the headless body.

Zennor came a few steps into the room, then stopped.

Garamanus never made it past the doorway.

"We believe General Kellen did this before he arranged

to have himself beamed off our ship," Kirk said.

"I want you to know that none of my crew would ever be

involved in such an atrocity and that I stand in utter

condemnation of this act. I intend to log an official

request for extradition of Kellen for trial at Starfleet

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Command, although... the Klingons don't have a stellar

history of complying with Federation law."

Sounded too prepared, though he hadn't prepared it.

Some things had to be said, logged for official reasons, no

matter how stilted they sounded.

Neither of the horned beings said anything. No response

at all. They simply stared and stared. They didn't

blink.

McCoy stood aside, also not blinking, but he was

staring at the two of them instead of the body.

Kirk allowed them a couple of silent minutes--long,

long minutes--to absorb what they saw. He had no way

to tell how they felt about the dead person, whether their

astonishment was couched in loyalty of one crew member

to another, or actually in the devotion of friendship.

For all the clues he read in their faces, it could've been a

female and married to one of them. He just couldn't tell.

Finally he stepped between them and the body. "Can I

help explain this to your crew, perhaps?"

"We could never explain this," Zennor said tightly.

Slowly Garamanus shook his large horned mantle. His

voice was like gravel turning in a drum. "We could never

bring Manann back this way."

Zennor quickly said to Kirk, "You will have to dispose

of him before any of our crew sees this."

"A you wish," Kirk assured. "We'll do everything we

possibly can to ease the situation. How would you like us

to dispose of the body?"

Zennor looked at Garamanus for a moment, then

turned to Kirk and for the first time seemed dubious

about which course of action to take. "What... do you

do with your dead?"

In his sudden desire to offer at least one straight

answer, Kirk said, "Most of our cultures bury the body.

Some burn them. On the ship, if possible, we launch the

remains into a sun."

"Burn..." Garamanus visibly shuddered.

Zennor's eyes paled from red to sulfur. "In our culture,

we burn only the living."

188

FIRST STRIKE

Kirk stiffened. "The living?"

"Criminals," the Dana said. "Burning is punishment.

The dead must be honored."

Zennor added, "Some of our groups require keeping

the skuls of the dead with us for four generations before

they can be smashed."

Kirk didn't ask. They'd probably just explain and he

didn't want to hear that one.

Garamanus turned from the body and didn't look at it

any more. "Where is the soul?"

Perplexed, Kirk glanced at Zennor, then back to

Garamanus. "I'm sorry?"

"Manann's soul," the Dana said. "We must have it"

don't understand."

.

Suddenly McCoy's face went as white as Garamanus's

robe. "I think I do... gentlemen..."

He motioned toward the experimentation room and

led them to the archway.

Garamanus and Zennor had to dip their horns to go

inside, and once there they stopped in their tracks and

stared at the table.

Stared and stared, as if slugged. Far worse was this

stare than that with which they had looked at the

remains.

There on the cold table lay the piles of herbs, nuts,

clippings, hair, and assorted other relics, and the cut

pen remnant of the popper itself, its limp arms and legs

no longer supported by stuffing, its open chest showing

loose threads, its tiny head d those yarn tentacles

canted to one side.

Garamanus turned away from what he saw, and his

eyes were terrible on Kirk. "What are you people?"

Silence fell like an ax blade.

Feeling suddenly unwashed, Kirk felt patent shame at

not having trodden his course more delicately.

transgressed more sensitive ground

They had and he had let it happen.

than mere territory,

"We meant no insult," he submitted. "We didn't

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realize how important this is to you. To us, it's just a

stuffed doll."

"Vergokirk," Garamanus chafed, "do you devour your

young?"

Kirk weighed the question, but saw no other way to

answer it. "No, of course we don't."

"Neither do we. But if we did, this is what it would be

like."

"You're joking!" McCoy reacted, then suddenly realized

he might be committing another error, glanced at

Kirk, and clamped his mouth shut.

"The mannequins are representatives of each of us,"

Zennor told them slowly. "Wherever we go, they tell our

life stories. When we go into battle, we leave them

behind, or send them in a safe pod. It is honored as if it is

the person. This... it is desecration."

"Oh, no," McCoy uttered, so softly that only Kirk

heard. His face blanched, his eyes like a cat's in a

flashlight. "I'm truly sorry," he said genuinely. "I didn't

realize!"

With a crisp warning Kirk began, "Bones--"

"No, no, it was my blunder. Please don't blame

Captain Kirk for this, or any of our crew. I take full

responsibility. I had no idea this would be any kind of

affront. Is there some way I can apologize to your crew?

If there's anything I can do, I'll gladly do it."

"McCoy, stand down," Kirk snapped.

Irritated and jaundiced with deep mortal panic,

McCoy started to speak again, but caught the captain's

glare and managed to stop himself before the error

compounded.

Kirk smoldered with the level of tension he'd been

driven to, but an instant later demanded better of

himself. He understood what McCoy was going through.

As a starship captain, his successes had always been

magnified, but so were his blunders. He'd learned the

hard way that a well-maneuvered pause could ease a bad

situation and ordered with his eyes and posture that

190

FIRST STRIKE

McCoy give himself that pause before anything else

happened.

What else could happen? He had trouble imagining

the shuddering rage in Garamanus's face compounded

any more than it already was. Not only was the victim's

head gone, but McCoy had cut apart the poppet.

Measuring each word with what could only be caution,

Zennor looked at Garamanus and declared, "Accidents

were inevitable."

Feeling his skin contract, Kirk bit back the weighty

declaration that this was no accident, but damned cold-blooded

murder. He knew instantly how lucky he was,

and Zennor also was, that Garamanus chose not to point

that out himself.

Kirk had no way to establish, even for his own

comfort, how dangerous that silence was. And when he

couldn't think like those around him, he had no anchorage.

That bothered him. Bothered him big.

In a last bid for compassion, for both crews, for both

civilizations, he turned to Zennor.

"Let me help," he pleaded.

A shadow cast itself upon him and he stepped back.

Garamanus was beside him, above him.

The Dana's voice was like the slamming of a gavel.

"We will wait to see what the stars say."

"Absolutely nothing? You're sure?"

"We're sure, sir."

"Give me the rundown again."

Chief Barnes, head of the astrogeology, gave him a

pained look and pointed again at the row of bridge

monitors on the science side. "There's not much here,

sir."

Beside the chief, stellar cartographer Amanda Alto

and her brother, solar chemist Josh Alto, both looked too

young to be able to do the kind of jobs they were doing.

"As far as we can tell, sir," Josh said, "this sun went

through its first red-giant stage three to four thousand

years ago and incinerated all its inner planets, which is

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where life generally occurs. Actually, we don't even have

any way to know if there even were inner planetsre"

"Except for the number and orbits of the outer planets,

which may have changed considerably during the

expansion stage of the star," Amanda filled in. "There had to be something there."

"But there's no way to prove it," her brother added,

not to be outdone.

Kirk turned. "Any of the rest of you?"

There were seventeen science specialists and staff

technicians on the bridge, crowding both the upper and

lower decks. As he gazed at them, all the young faces,

peppered with a few older ones, all their minds crammed

with numbers and probability and measurements, extrapolations

of known data and theories of unknown

data, the culmination of thousands of years of learning

and in fact the very reason the starship could be out here

doing what it did, he was struck with the sad realization

that all these people were needed just to replace Mr.

Spock.

And he still needed Spock anyway.

From beside the command chair, Astr obiologist

Cantone broke the silence. "The remote cluster quark

resonance scanners, spectrometers, and thermal imagers

just aren't picking up anything that indicates there was

ever life in the solar system, sir."

"That doesn't mean there wasn't," Specialist Angela

Godinez from the astral life sciences department

pointed out. "It only means that any evidence of life was

destroyed when the sun went red giant."

"Chemical compositions of asteroids that might once

have been planetary matter don't give us any clues

either, sir," confirmed Astrogeologist Ross.

Others just nodded or shook their heads in canny

agreement. They all knew what he needed, and none

could provide it.

"If there ever was life here, sir," said Chief Barnes,

"there's no possible way to know it anymore."

Destitute. Billions of miles into space, and there was

192

FIRST STRIKE

nothing to show for it. An unthinkable risk, flying

haphazard into Klingon space, using the thinnest of

permissions to do so, likely as not a revoked permission,

and like an errant child Kirk had a chilling sensation

that the worst was yet to come.

He looked at the forward screen, showing Zennor's

ship cruising at warp speed two points off the port bow.

"They came to search for the past," he uttered, "and

there's none to find." He parted the sea of blue tunics

and pressed his thigh against the bridge rail.

"We'll keep looking, sir," Chief Barnes said with

unshielded, and rather pathetic, sympathy for him. "But

we won't find anything."

"I understand that," Kirk told him grittily, aggravated

that a stellar incident four thousand years ago should

have so biting an effect on the eighty-odd years allotted

to him in which he might get something done.

He turned toward the turbolift. "Captain?"

Against the shiny red lift doors, Zennor was a living

gargoyle, with one errant shadow creasing his horns.

Beside him, Garamanus was like something out of a

reversed negative in an old photograph, the image of

Zennor, with little of the color. Pale skin, white robes,

and for the first time Kirk noted that his pallor might

very well be from a life indoors, poring over historical

information, piecing together details, with little intimacy

to the outdoors and the brightness that bestows russet

cheeks. Even on the other side of the galaxy, things

couldn't be all that different.

"I'm sorry," he said to them both. "You've seen the

data. There's nothing left here to use as proof for any of

our theories."

He watched their faces and realized he was beginning

to glean expression from those bony, deerlike features

and the chromatic eyes. He thought of what McCoy had

said to him about seeing aliens as like himself instead of

unlike, and saw it now. Just a matter of getting used to

them, and then space began to grow smaller between

peoples.

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Was Zennor pleased? Was that the expression Kirk

was reading? If so, the other captain was trying not to

show it in front of Garamanus.

Made sense.

"If there is no proof," the deep voice began, "then we

must change our plans."

"There is no proof against us," Garamanus spoke up,

not facing him, "The Danai will not change yet."

But Zennor did turn. This evidence is insufficient. I

will not launch invasion based upon poor data. We must

have absolute proof."

"No proof is nothing," the Dana said, gritting his--whatever

those were. "This is our space. All things lead

to this area."

Zennor seemed to grow taller. "You wanted it to."

The two massive beings squared off as the Starfleet

audience watched from below, and it was as if the two

were alone, as if Kirk and all the others had skidded

away on the thin ice beneath them.

"I always suspected you of being an unbeliever,"

Garamanus charged. "Why, if you did not believe, did

you sign up for this mission? The most important mission

of all our civilization's history?"

"Because I do believe we were cast out. But I do not

want our civilization impaled upon that belief. There is

no greater evil than that which was done to us. I will not

have us become what we hate."

Sensing that he was losing control of the bridge, if not

the situation, Kirk yanked it back by stepping toward

them and saying, "No one says you can't come here. If

your civilization wants to move, there are ways to do

that. There are habitable planets in Federation space.

You're welcome to them. We'll help you. You can live in

peace, settle, raise your--"

Flocks, herds, spawn?

"Young."

They were both looking at him now, and if he could

indeed read their expressions, then the expressions were

very different.

194

FIRST STRIKE

"You two can debate about this later," he plowed on,

"but we've got to get out of Klingon space. I know you

think well of your ship, but you don't know what the

Klingon fleet really is. We'll give you sanctuary, but we

must leave now."

"I've seen your ships," Garamanus rumbled. "You

have no idea what you stand against. You are less than an

annoyance to us."

Angry, Kirk raised his voice. "I don't stand against

you. Not yet."

Zennor stepped between them, raised his long clawed

hand to Kirk, but turned to face Garamanus again. "Are

these the conquerors? The drooling, snarling visions of

evil you have held up to us for generations? Every

essence of meanness and torture, delighting in agony?

Why do you not admit you are wrong? The stars are not

here, the proof is not here... the crew will be against

you when I show them this. We have come to find evil

and found the opposite. Can we fail to grow?"

He paused, waited to see if Garamanus would speak,

and when the Dana did nothing but stare, Zennor

gestured again at Kirk.

"We tell the conqueror we come to drive him out. He

offers us sanctuary. We are damaged. He offers repair.

We are attacked. He defends us. We tell him we have no

home. He offers to make room for us. Garamanus

Drovid, Dana of the Wrath, Keeper of the Magic Eggs

and the Gold Sickle, call up your wisdom and not just

your research, and tell me... is this the conqueror?"

The large tawny hand clenched so tightly that the long

fingernails seemed nearly to break the skin, then fanned

open and made a sharp gesture at Jim Kirk's chest.

Challenge boiled between the two impressive creatures.

Tension rolled heavily across the bridge, bringing

an ache to every head and a clench to every throat. No

one moved.

Standing on the tripwire, Kirk knew better than to

move and hoped his crew would take his example.

Reaching critical mass, Garamanus glared in bald

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provocation, but despite anticipation there was no

spring of attack, no roar of rage. When he finally spoke,

his voice was as passive as a foghorn. His decision,

evidently, had been made in those tight seconds, and

now he would abide.

"I wish to go back to my ship and be with my people."

Unsure to whom the sentence was directed, Kirk took

it upon himself as host to respond. "Transporter room

two will be standing by when you want it."

"Go back to the ship," Zennor sanctioned. "We will

send a message through the wrinkle. The conquerors are

not here. Our place is not here."

Without another word or look, Garamanus flowed

toward the turbolift and like some piece of a drifting

wind was suddenly gone.

The tension, most of it, went with him.

Well, some of it.

Kirk turned to his science staff. "Duty stations," he

ordered.

The flood of blue uniforms toward the lift was as much

a flood of relief. There was an uneasy pause as they

waited for the tube to clear and another lift to appear

there, enough for about half of them to 'leave; then

another two minutes lagged as the remaining science

staff huddled the hallway and Zennor by himself in the

other half until a third lift was able to arrive.

Then they left, and Zennor was again alone up there.

He and Kirk looked at each other.

Without turning away, Kirk said, "All stop."

He was surveying Zennor as if scanning a sculpture

and thinking about what he was going to say.

"I'm glad," he said at last, "that you found enough--or

enough lack--of information to convince you we're not enemies."

Zennor's weighty head bowed slightly out of the

shadow. "I am convinced not by what we found, but who we found." He offered Kirk a pause that was indeed

heartwarming. "If I had found only the Kling, we would

be occupying this space by now."

196

pFIRST STRIKE

Feeling suddenly better, and supremely gratified, Kirk

discovered after a few seconds that he was grinning. He

hadn't felt that coming on.

"Captain," Chekov said, straightening sharply at the

science station, "long-range sensors are reading a heavy

surge in warp-field exhaust, sir! The Klingon fleet is

coming inma very large fleet--at high warp speed!"

Kirk nodded and motioned t'or the young officer to

calm down, set a better example, and comprehend the

vastness of space. They had time to move. Not much,

but they had it.

He looked at Zennor. "We'd better wear ship and get

out of here or they'll hem us in. Now that we know

there's nothing here, there's no reason to stay."

Zennor--if that face could--offered what might've

been on the other side of the galaxy a smile. "You go. Let

me linger. I will happen to be here when they come. If

they attack, I am no conqueror to destroy them."

"It's tempting," Kirk allowed, "but no."

The thick horns drew an imaginary pattern on the

ceiling. "No matter, Vergokirk. Once we are among you

and you have our technology, you will be able to take

care of them yourselves." He lowered that drumbeat

voice and added, "You know you will have to eventua lly."

"People change, Vergo," Kirk wagered. "We have to

give them that chance."

He started to turn to the helm to usher Byers into a

new course, but Zennor said, "No, they don't change.

Good is good. Bad is bad."

Stifling any disappointment he might've been tempted

to show, Kirk took the high road. Mildly he said, "I guess

that's just another difference between us."

Every hospital has a morgue, and none wants one.

Leonard McCoy was in his, doing all those hundred

things a doctor is obliged to do once he has saved all he

can save and there is only clean-up work to do. Logging

the names of the dead, matching physical attributes and

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body marks to the official file of each, to make sure there

is no error, that no family gets the wrong letter from the

captain, and so each family knows with absolute certainty

that the body wrapped in silk and sent into the nearest

sun was indeed the son they would never get back. No

one should ever wonder. That was his job now, and he

took it with supreme care.

Now, after the battle, after the ground assault, after

the incident that asked of a serviceman the bottom-line

sacrifice, came the time that came so rarely, and he

realized in the midst of this sorry duty how lucky he

really was to have Jim Kirk for a captain. Kirk had many

reputations, saint or demon, depending on--what had

he said?--whether or not somebody agreed with his

work. And some who liked his work still didn't like him.

Call it jealousy, call it impatience, call it just another

method of doing business, some people just didn't like

him. A lot of people, in fact.

But he was a leader, not a politician, and being liked

was the last on his list. Some of his own crewmen didn't

like him, but that didn't matter. This shooting star they

were riding still had the lowest transfer rate of any ship

in the Fleet. And the waiting list was the longest of all

twelve starships.

Space was no fairyland and a charming captain did no

one any good. They signed on because they knew he

would fight for their lives. Down to the last man, he

would fight for each of them.

What mattered was times like this, when hundreds of

men had gone into battle and only nineteen failed to

come out of it. More than any other starship captain,

Kirk had a reputation for fundamentally despising the

death of a crewman. It was his own tragic flaw. He took a

shipmate's death personally. Sometimes too personally

for his own well-being, McCoy felt.

In order to be a physician he had long ago learned to

reconcile his bone-deep desire to preserve life and the

quality thereof with the analytical callousness every

doctor needed at times like this.

198

FIRST STRIKE

He placed the cool, rubbery hands of one' of the

Starfleet boys on the corpse's chest and covered him.

That was ten done. Time for a break.

He looked up, and found himself gazing at the...

whatever that poor individual was. It lay stark white and

uncovered, headless and horrible on its bench. He'd

been unable to go near it since the others left, timid

about breaking any more taboos before the captain and

the other captain decided what they wanted to do with it.

Yet it tugged at him. It was here, and though dead still

under his care. He found himself reticent to ignore it.

They all begged a few moments' final attention, and he

ached to give.

A sound in the outer ward shook him hard and he

fought to control himself. His nerves were on edge. Silly.

"Mr. Spock, if that's you getting up, I'll have your

stripes," he called.

He wiped his hands, scooped up the medical tricorder

he was using, and strode out of the morgue, gladly

leaving behind the chilly room for the time being. After

all, nobody in there was in any particular rush.

And he hungered now for a conversation, even a little

lashing back and forth with Spock. He was in the mood

for a semijovial insult, and didn't particularly care in

which direction the barbs flew. Barbs could make him

feel alive and he needed that.

The sight he met as he stepped out into the outer

offices was not Spock leaning on a doorjamb proclaiming

that he was perfectly well, thank you, but instead the

elongated and cloud-woven form of Garamanus.

McCoy froze, drew a breath, then bolted back on a

heel before he caught the edge of a desk and stopped

himself. He chided himself for not being used to aliens

by now, but these aliens...

Behind Garamanus was another of the horned beings,

and behind that one was a tall bony creature with

expanding membranes at rest between its arms and

thighs. Probably some form of perspiration control, or

mating consideration. Certainly locked in the appear-

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ance of otherworldliness, though, in the truest and most

supernatural sense of the word.

He tried to be clinical as he gazed at the creatures

crowding his door, blocking his way.

"May I help you?" he asked.

They said nothing, but moved a few steps into the

room, so the doorway no longer cramped them.

"Oh," he murmured after a few seconds, "have you

come for the remains? I haven't touched the body... I

didn't want to make any more mistakes or insult you

further in any way... if you'll come with me, I'll help

you prepare the body."

Perhaps that was just another mistake. They probably

wanted nothing to do with him, wanted him as far away

from their dead as they could push him.

Scarcely had his hand left his side to gesture toward

the morgue than the two beings behind Garamanus

disappeared...

No, they hadn't disappeared, but had simply moved so

fast that he didn't see, for they were on top of him.

He choked out halfa word, halfa cry for help or sense,

but there would be none of either, and they had him. The

horned being embraced him from behind in a grip like

sculpture, and the being with the membranes raised its

long thin arms. One of the membranes dropped over

McCoy's head and formed itself to his face and

shoulders as fitting as a fishnet. His lips pressed into the

rubbery membrane, he felt it compress into the hollows

of his eyes, bend his eyelashes, and cut off his breathing.

He could see nothing now but the milky membrane and

the outline of Garamanus moving toward him.

One feeble kick was the only motion of protest McCoy

could manage as he was lifted clear of the floor and

tipped sideways like a rolled rug on its way to the

cleanefts. Balance went to the wind. They were carrying

him--they were taking him away. They were kidnapping him.

They had to carry him through the main sickbay

200

FIRST STRIKE

entrance way in order to get out. Spock would be able to

see from the other ward. Spock would call for help.

He heard the swish of the door panel, but there was no

call from Spock, no demand that these brigands let the

doctor go.

What had they done to Spock?

As he waited for common sense to descend, for them

to come to their right minds and unroll him and apologize,

McCoy's last conscious thought was of the hard

pain caused by the medical tricorder as it gouged against

his chest.

201

Chapter Fifteen

"SPOCK. SPOCK, say something."

"McCoy. ."

"I think he's only stunned somehow, sir," Nurse

Christine Chapel said as she and Kirk knelt beside

Spock, whose narrow form lay sprawled on the deck a

few steps from his bed. "That's what I'm getting on these

readings. I've given him a muscle relaxant and a nerve

stimulant. He should come around in a minute."

"With his nerves and muscles arguing, no doubt."

"No doubt. Sir," Chapel added, glancing up at the

monitors and fingerpad desks set up at Spock's bedside,

"Mr. Spock had a stack of computer files here...

they're all missing. He might've had them put away, but

there hasn't been anyone in here to do that except me,

and I didn't do it. Do you think whoever did this

could've taken them too?"

Kirk kept a grip on Spock's arm, but was careful not to

push or pull, despite the urge to put his first officer back

on the bed which had been doing him so much good. But

he wasn't going to make that mistake again.

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FIRST STRIKE

He was glad he had left Zennor on the bridge. Glad for

now, at least. "Is it safe to move him?"

The nurse gave him a floorside medical nod. "I'm

checking, sir."

"McCoy..."

"What about his other injuries?" Kirk asked the nurse.

"Has his recuperation been compromised in any way?"

"I don't think so," the nurse said, her voice rough with

concern. "They knocked him off the bed, but the antigravs

held on to him long enough that he had a relatively

soft landing. He might have some bruises."

"Spock." Kirk fixed a gaze on the narrow inkdrop eyes

and demanded of the Vulcan that he meet the stimulant

halfway and bring those thoughts out into the open. "We

know they took McCoy. Who did it? Did you see?"

He knew, and the suspicion was a cold metal ball in

his stomach. Garamanus.

Lying on his back, his knees supported by a pillow

hastily shoved under there to assist blood flow, Spock

blinked and struggled for consciousness. He looked like a

man coming out of phaser stun.

Might be exactly that. Zennor's technology packed a

punch, but there were explanations for that. Otherwise,

their power consumption and energy ratios weren't all

that unfamiliar. There was no notable reason their

,nethods of stun would be much different either.

Unless they had some kind of Vulcan neck pinch of

their own, which was a possibility too.

Spock fixed his eyes on Kirk and anchored there. He

caught Kirk's arm and used it for leverage as he tried to

raise his head.

His voice was a scratch.

"It was... the Furies..."

Fu ries.

What was that supposed to mean? Had Spock made

up a word? No, that didn't make sense. It also had never

happened before. Spock wasn't a making-up kind of

man.

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Diane Carey

"Well?"

Kirk pressed up against the side of the diagnostic bed

until the edge cut into his legs.

Nurse Chapel watched the readout panel, nodded,

then sighed. "Much better now. Let's have a little more

of the magic bullet--"

She checked her hypo, then pressed it to the hollow of

Spock's shoulder and made it hiss.

Tense with effort, Spock suddenly relaxed and was finally able to quiet the interior struggle and look at Kirk

with lucid eyes.

"Pardon me, Captain .... "He seemed greatly relieved

to be able to make the connection between the

complex racing of his mind and the articulation of his

voice. "How did they get off the ship with the doctor?"

"They stunned the technician manning it the same

way they did you. You're on to something, Spock. What

is it? You said 'Furies." What's that mean?"

"I was still dazed, sir."

"But you said it. What does it mean?"

Spock's expression told Kirk that whatever had been

discovered was probably not scientific.

"A myth?" the captain pushed. "Some of that material

McCoy found? You said you were going to follow that

thread. Come, Spock, it's critical."

"Yes, of course... I was studying early civilizations

in our quadrant and their mythological bases for fact.

Kirk gritted his teeth, then said, "And you found..."

"I found a striking, in fact quite disturbing, similarity

between Zennor's people and a clutch of mythological

figures called the Furies." His body tightening with

strain, Spock reached for the fingerpads, then paused.

"The files--did you take them, Captain?"

"No. The people who attacked you took them."

Spock's brows drew tight. "Why would they have

taken my files?"

Kirk felt his hands go cold again. "They knew we were

doing research into the past, to try to identify them. And

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FIRST STRIKE

they know you're the science officer. I told Zennor we

were looking through our historical data, searching for

correlations. He probably told Garamanus. I doubt he

suspected Garamanus would do anything like this. What

difference does it make? You didn't find anything conclusive,

did you?"

Genuine alarm burst out of Spock's controlled expression,

long enough for Kirk to get the gravity of the theft.

"Captain... this is dangerous."

"What is? Can you show me?"

"Let me call it up."

The access to the fantastic log of information was

eerily silent for long seconds, then came to life suddenly,

as if pleased to show off what it had found.

Above, three of the screens popped full of pictures of

horrendous fantasy beings, Medusa-types with snakes

for hair and flamelike wings, nappy green skin, and

pointed teeth.

Kirk hadn't paid attention to this stuff since he was ten

years old. Fantasy. He was instantly ill at ease. Numbers,

flight plans, light-years--he could deal with the concrete.

But not this.

"The Furies," Spock said, "are images from Greco-Roman

mythology. They were beings, generally portrayed

as female, who pursued and punished crimes that

had gone unavenged. Quite unpleasant.-Ultimately they

were associated with demonic behavior, but always with

the element of reprisal."

"Reprisal chasing down the '

,

conquerors and

kicking them out."

Spock moved his brows. "It certainly could be taken

that way. The element of banishment or uncleanliness is

deeply rooted in our cultures, Captain, and particularly

in Earth culture. We would be quite remiss in our

research if we failed to recognize the surprising similarity

between these beings and images like the Furies, and

witches and goblins as manifested in our own histories.

These are images of which we are inherently afraid."

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Diane Carey

Lips cracking as he pressed them flat, Kirk asked,

"Mr. Spock, are you trying to tell me that these people

are witches?"

Pliantly Spock's dark eyes left the screens and moved

to Kirk. "There are not true witches in the colloquial

manifestation. I am saying they are archetypes. General

representations, or they look like general representations

found easily in our cultures."

"So Bones was right."

"Yes, the doctor was right. These people now have my

files, and they will see themselves all over our culture, or

at least things like themselves, and they may take those

similarities as some form of gospel. And they'll also see

that we are inherently frightened of them. They have

built a civilization of very small clues, and thus will take

these pictures quite seriously."

"If you're kicked out of your homeland," Kirk said,

'le" He

"any little bits you have left become valuable." He picked up the crescent etching from the table beside

Spock and looked at it, feeling as if half the galaxy were

about to bump up against the other half with himself in

the middle. He put his other hand on the edge of Spock's

bed as if to connect himself to the ship physically. "If all

you have is your beliefs, you cling all the more tightly to

them."

"Yes," the Vulcan said. "And--"

"Captain?"

Uhura. They hadn't even heard the gush of the corridor

panel.

"In here," Kirk called.

"Sir?" She was there, but couldn't see them from the

other side of the two diagnostic beds.

"On the deck," Kirk added.

"Oh, my!" She came plunging around the foot of

Spock's bed, arms loaded with computer cartridges.

"Sir! Mr. Spock, what happened?"

She knelt quickly beside Nurse Chapel.

"Just a friendly attack," Chapel reported sandily.

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FIRST STRIKE

"Oh, Mr. Spock..." Uhura's lovely dark face, usually

the essence of reserve, now became animated with

concern.

"Don't worry," Chapel said. "He's in the best of

hands."

Aware of her attention, which had proven in the past

much less curable than a bad spinal injury, Spock looked

past her to Uhura. "You have a report, Lieutenant?"

"Oh, yes, yes," the communications specialist said.

She held up one of the cartridges. "Dr. McCoy's lead on

old druid culture turned up a half-dozen matches right

away. 'Verge' could be 'vergobretos' or 'bretan,' which

was a tribal chief. A captain of sorts, sir. The 'Danarms'

were the priests, or those with special gifts."

"Those are too close for comfort," Kirk commented as

he snatched another pillow from the bed and handed it

to Chapel, who carefully put it under Spock's head so he

would be more comfortable while she stabilized him.

"It certainly made me shiver," she agreed. "And I was

bothered by the ship's name, so I tracked that in old

Gaelic. It's not 'Wrath' as in 'anger." It's 'Rath' without a

'w." It's an Old English derivative of the word 'rathe,'

meaning 'early.""

"Early..."

"Yes, and it's also an ancient Irish word meaning

'earthwork' or 'hill." I would say the most accurate

translation would be 'fortress.""

"An early fortress." With a thoughtful frown, Kirk

looked at Spock. "A scout ship?"

"It fits," Spock confirmed as he lay there on the deck

with Chapel working over him.

"This makes a big problem for us," Kirk said. "If

they're anchored in their myths, then they're willing to

act upon them. If their myth tells them to find their

home space, and they want it back, that means they're

prepared to take it back."

Spock tilted his head. "Meaning?"

"Meaning you don't send just one ship for that.

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Diane Carey

Zennor's not telling me something and I think I know

what it is. I think there might be a fleet waiting for

instruction from him. Him... or Garamanus."

"We have no proof of that."

"I can't afford to wait for proof. I have to act on my

instincts. Now Garamanus has those files and he can

show them to whoever sent them here."

"You believe they are communicating with someone

on the other side of their portal somehow?"

"What good would it be if they couldn't?"

"Very little... Zennor says he cannot go back."

"That's what he says."

Silence dropped between them for a few moments,

long enough for them to hear the emptiness of sickbay,

the passive twitter of the diagnostic panel above Spock,

the whisper of some machine in the lab that had been left

on to do whatever it was doing, the mournful presence of

that sliced-up poppet beyond that door over there.

"I am sorry, Captain."

Kirk looked up. "For what?"

Spock's face was cast in regret and he didn't mind

showing it. "I know you have forged a kind of synthesis

with Captain Zennor... a friendship."

Bitter, Kirk gazed at the deck. How often had this

happened to him in his life? To find synthesis, to have

commonality, to make friends with someone, only to

have that friendship blistered and ultimately sundered

by some outside consideration. Competitors at Starfleet

Academy, at Starfleet itself, in space, where his drive for

the win had also driven a stake into the heart of any

chance for amicable feelings when all was over.

And in deep space, there had been flat-out enemies he

wished he could've known better.

But when the smoke cleared, he always stood alone.

Some fences damned mending, and certainly climbing.

He'd had to turn away time after time, leaving animosity!

where he had wished to have comradeship.

That was why, he realized in this moment particularly,

he cherished and so unflinchingly defended and pro-!

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FIRST STRIKE

tected both Spock and McCoy. They had stood with him

and never given in to the differences between themselves

and him, as so many others had.

Differences. Differences.

Damned differences.

Suddenly he was mad again. "The friendship's about

to be tested."

"How soT'

"I'll tell you how. I'm beaming over to that ship and

get our doctor back. And while I'm there I'm going to see

exactly what it is that we're up against."

He punched the nearest comm. "Kirk to bridge. Put

Captain Zennor on."

The blade in his voice evidently came across for all it

was worth, because Nordstrom didn't respond.

Very quietly, Spock asked, "Are you going to tell him,

Captain?"

"I don't know. I promised I'd help him .... "

The Vulcan's face was limned with concern. "That

could be most imprudent."

"I know."

"This is Zennor."

"We have a problem. Your Dana and others have

attacked my first officer and kidnapped my doctor."

"Garamanus. . . kidnapped your McCoy?"

"He did and I'm not taking it well." '7 must go to my ship immediately."

"I'm going with you, and I'm bringing a Security

team."

"They will be killed instantly. You must come with me

alone, if you insist upon coming. We can only go there one

time. I will give you the modulation to drop the block of

your transporter beam, but as soon as we go, they will

change it again. But we must go immediately. It is your

McCoy's only chance."

209

Chapter Sixteen

"VERY daNgEROUS for you to be here now. If there is

reaction, I cannot protect you."

"I'll take my chances. Where's my chief surgeon?" .

"Come with me. Prepare yourself."

Not very reassuring, as phrases went.

The tour through Zennor's ship was skin-chilling. Like

wandering through a cave behind a suddenly agile bat.

Zennor, who had moved with such cautious reserve

down the broad, bright, open corridors of the Enterprise,

now skirted down shoulder-wide passages coated with

dark velvety moss and overhung with some kind of web.

Kirk stumbled several times until his eyes adjusted,

then stumbled a little less, but the deck was nearly

invisible in the dimness. He felt he was stepping foot by

foot through the chambers of a hornet's nest. Somehow

they had beamed directly into these veins and now were

moving through them.

There was something beneath his feet, not carpet or

deck, but a litter of crunchy and mushy matter, all

different sizes, different textures, as if he were treading

over a dumping ground. Fungus gave under his weight

210

FIRST STRIKE

and puffballs popped as he stepped on them. Other

things cracked. The air was thick and musky with smells

both plant and animal.

When he thought he couldn't stand another meter of

the cloying dimness and moss that grasped at his hair

and arms, Zennor led him out into a broader cavern,

though still coated with growing plant life--and a sense,

if not a visible presence, of other life, of eyes watching

him. To all outward senses, he and Zennor were alone

here.

But Kirk had spent his life being looked at. He knew

when it was happening. There were beasts in the walls.

No, the walls didn't have eyes, but they did have

punctures, dark recesses from which more of those skulls

peered out, many skulls, but not humanlike skulls. There

were many kinds, some belonging to creatures he hadn't

seen yet but now assumed were here. Unless they were

dragging along the skulls of aliens they met on their

voyages, Zennor's amalgamated crew was even more

amalgamated than Kirk had first guessed. These were

most likely the skulls of fallen comrades.

So they kept the skulls of some, and the "souls" of

others. And who could tell what else? Foreign cultures

could be very complicated.

Suddenly he wanted the chance to get to know them

better, and felt that chance slipping away as he dodged

behind Zennor up their icy slope.

He forced himself to ignore the skull niches as he

hurried behind Zennor, also forcing himself not to

bellow an order to move even faster.

All at once they burst out into a blinding brightness,

creased with the noise of hundreds of voices making

disorganized, wild cheers and chants. Kirk shaded his

eyes and paused until they adjusted, then tried to look.

The chamber was enormous, as big as a stadium and

half again taller, lit with green and yellow artificial light,

and twisting with a white haze created by vents dearly

spewing the stuff near the ceiling. From the configuration

of the Rath, he guessed they were near the aft end. So the

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Diane Carey

propulsion units weren't back here, but somehow arranged

elsewhere. He'd have to remember that--

But thoughts of hardware and strategy fled his mind as

he looked up, and farther up.

In the center of the huge foggy chamber stood--yes, stood--a giant mannequin in humanoid form, with a

head, two arms, two legs, like a vast version of one of

those poppers, except that this mannequin was a good

six stories tall and made entirely of slats of wood and raw

tree branches, and veined with braided straw or some

kind of thatch. Its arms stood straight out like a rag

doll's, bound at the wrists with some kind of twine; its

legs ended at the ankles, with only stumps of chopped

matter for hands and feet.

Bisecting the hollow arms, legs, and torso of the

wickerwork giant were narrow platforms -- scarcely

more than slats themselves, but enough to stand upon--and

there, in the middle of the straw giant's see-through

right thigh, Leonard McCoy hovered twenty-five feet

above the deck.

The doctor clung pitifully to the twisted veins of

thatch, looking down upon a gaggle of cavorting beings,

all types of misshapen vagabond demons, from the

snake-headed beings to the horned ones to those more

squidlike than anything else, and the others who looked

as if they had wings.

Evidently this was Zennor's crew, dancing around the

straw legs of the monster, laying more straw and twigs in

heaps around the giant's ankles, and chanting while they

did this.

The Furies. Even if it wasn't them, it described them now.

Kirk stared, measuring the critical elements, consumed

for a moment with astonishment and a bad chill.

He knew a preparation for a bonfire when he saw one.

Stepping forward from the entrance way, he felt the

green-tinted light reflect off the topaz fabric of his

uniform shirt and sensed how bizarre his facial features

212

FIRST STRIKE

must look with that light cast from below, like something

boys would see playing with tlashlights in a pup tent.

"Jim!" McCoy knelt on the slats and called down,

pushing his face between the veins of thatch.

Kirk turned to Zennor. "What is this?"

Zennor gazed at him with ferrous eyes that held no

apology. "Punishment."

The crew of the Rath, at least the off-duty crew

presumably, jumped and rushed, chanting all the way,

around the giant straw mannequin in a gansly kind of

organization, each going his own way at his own pace,

but all going in the same direction. They deposited

bundles of straw, branches, and even whole trees at the

ankles of the giant. Their metal wristbands, chains,

medallions, bracelets, and belts bounced and rang, creating

a fiendish jangling in the huge hall. On their metal

belts, many of them had those linen poppets, each in the

rough image of the wearer, doing another kind of dance.

As Zennor stood before him in his dominating and

statuesque manner, Kirk was careful to stand still, not

attract any more attention than necessary until he could

size things up.

A sundry train of beings broke off from the dancing

circle and hurried toward him and Zennor. It took all of

Kirk's inner resolve to stand still and let Zennor handle

his own crew.

The horrendous gagsic descended upon them in a rush

until the last four feet, when they skidded to a stop and

made Kirk glad he was still wearing his portable translator,

because they were all speaking at once.

"We're home!" a winged thing said to Zennor.

"The Dana told us the news!" crowed an elongated

creature that seemed to have no bodily mass other than

bones thinly veiled with rubbery brown skin. It would've

looked like a Halloween skeleton, appropriately enough,

except that it had four arms.

A tentade-head repeated, "The Dana told us the

good news!"

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Diane Carey

"This is our place!" someone else trilled in a high

voice, clearly meant to congratulate their leader.

"The Dana had no authority, Morien," Zennor said.

His voice had a tenor of bottled rage. "You should be at

your posts."

"But we have a criminal, Vergozen," the tentacled

person said, and looked at Kirk. "Is this another one?"

The "it" gestured at Kirk.

"He is here for the final visitation," Zennor snarled,

and Kirk couldn't tell whether it was sarcasm or not.

Then Zennor motioned for Kirk to move past them.

"Fetch me the Dana."

Morien quickly said "Yes, Vergozen!" and skittered off

into the crowd.

Kirk took his cue and moved toward the wicker

colossus. Other creatures seemed uninterested in him,

though many glanced up in mild curiosity. They were involved in their work and looking forward to what they

were about to do. They didn't seem to care about visitors

who walked in with their captain.

He came to the bottom of one straw leg, as big around

as a warp engine, close enough to speak to McCoy in a

normalish voice, without attracting attention.

"Bones," he began tentatively, "you all right up

there?"

"So far." The doctor gripped the reedy filaments of the

colossus. "Did they hurt Spock?"

"They knocked him off his bunk. Chapel's taking care

of him. I've never seen her so happy."

"Are the Klingons here yet?"

"Just popped onto our long-range. We were about to

make a border run when you turned up missing. Now I'll

settle for anything I can get away with."

Frustrated, McCoy glanced around, then reached

down with a toe and found a lower slat, and climbed

do wn through the wooden webbing until he could stand

inside the giant's right leg, just above the knee. He could

only make it about another seven feet down before the

straw webbing stopped him.

214

FIRST STRIKE

"Jim... they're going to set fire to this."

Caught with empathy, Kirk nodded and tried to be

clinical. "Yes, I know. I'm working on it."

"I broke their laws with that damn doll. You might not

be able to do anything about it."

"Don't make any bets."

"I don't want to," the doctor said. "Jim, listen--when

they put me in here, they shoved in a lot of other things.

They put my medical tricorder in with me, and all this

other stuff." He maneuvered with difficulty, having to

stand on slats of bowing straw twisted to provide a

foothold that was obviously temporary, and scoop up

bits of material from around him. "There are thigh and

hand bones here ... and hanks of hair, skin scrapings

.. and this bony plate is the back part of a cranium."

"The place is full of skulls."

"Yes, I know. But this skull is Andorian!"

"That's not possible," Kirk said, but it came out with

a terrible resignation that surprised even him.

McCoy raised a long gray bone, scored with cracks.

"And this thighbone... it's human. From Earth. It's a

perfect D.N.A match." He leaned on the slat with one

knee and held up his medical tricorder with his other

hand.

"Could they have acquired it here in the past twenty-four

hours?"

"They could've. Except that they'd have had to raid an

archeology lab for this. It's old as a bristlecone pine!"

"How old is that?"

"As nearly as I can estimate, it's over four thousand

years old. A human bone!"

"Bones, are you sure about this?"

"I've had nothing else to do in here"

"They put those in there with you just now?"

"Just a half hour ago. I think they're raiding their own

coffers and placing things in here that look physiologically

like me. At least to their minds. Some kind of

symbolic connection--who knows?"

"Can you explain the D.N.A link?"

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Diane Carey

The doctor scowled. "I'm not saying that humans or

Klingons went out into space and met these people, but

I'm wondering if somehow these people ended up on our

planets a long time ago and affected our beliefs. If a

shipload of Vulcans showed up on Earth in the fourteen-hundreds,

they'd sure be taken for devils."

"And life has been around the galaxy for millions of

years. Is it really any surprise if Earth, Vulcan, the

Klingon homeworld, and a lot of other planets might've

had visitations?"

"Given the numbers, I'd be surprised if they hadn't."

McCoy squirmed for a better grip.

Kirk gripped the straw spokes too, as if to make a

connection. "The dangerous bottom line is that it's

beginning to look like this was their space."

"Then we'd all better get used to carrying pitchforks,"

McCoy said, "because I think that's the conclusion." He

held up the human thighbone and shook it. "Unless they

killed a human in the past twelve hours and somehow

made this bone appear to my readouts as if it were four

to six thousand years old. I think we got that mythological

stuff from our Greeks and Egyptians and druids, but I

think the Greeks and Egyptians and druids got it from them."

He swept the medical tricorder to indicate the circle of

aliens, then reached out between the wood and straw and

tossed the tricorder to Kirk.

"If I don't make it, you've got to take that to Spock,"

he said urgently. "I don't mind being right, but this time

I was even more right than I had the sense to know. It's

not just a coincidence that these people look like our

legends and myths of evil. They are our legends and

myths of evil!"

A sight within a sight.

Furies and fire.

In the center of the great hall, twisted with manufactured

fog and looming nearly to the ceiling, the straw

giant had no face and no hands, only the bound strands

216

FIRST STRIKE

of thatch to make up the most base form of' intelligent life. On the walls, carved forms of animal heads and

double-headed statues flared down in carnal images of

the beings dancing below.

"Have you got your phaser with you?"

McCoy's question was subdued.

"Yes," Kirk said. "They didn't take it away. I don't

know if that's courtesy or they're just not afraid of it. It's

not because they're stupid, I'll bet."

Around them a drumbeat began, low and not very

steady, timpani made of skin stretched over some kind

of iron cauldron. Horned beings like Zennor were

pounding them with thighbones the same as the one

McCoy had shown him.

"Jim," the doctor began.

Kirk turned. "What?"

"Ify..u .can't. get me out of her,e, and they light this up,"

McCo stud with great struggle, use the phaser on me"

Anguish pushed at the backs of Kirk's eyes as le

looked up and saw McCoy for the fullness of his character

at that instant, McCoy hadn't asked him to open up

on these creatures in order to get him out of here, to

incinerate them in order to spare him incineration,

never mind that a single phaser could easily do that.

Hundreds could be killed in a single sweep, much more

painlessly than the death they were offering the doctor

now.

McCoy didn't want that. He'd take the death, but he

wanted to make sure that his life was the only sacrifice

and that, if there was still a chance for peace, he should

die to smooth that path of possibility.

"Understood,"

throat. "I

Kirk accepted. Sympathy tightened his

promise."

Each knew a heavy price was being asked here, and a

terrible guilt to be risked. The space between them was a

cursed thing.

He stepped back, through the chanting circle of aliens,

to where Zennor stood waiting, colossal in his own way,

perhaps vile in the same way.

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Diane Carey

"You know I won't let them do this to him," Kirk said.

"Nor would I, were he mine," Zennor said. "There are

customs."

Abruptly petulant, Kirk squared off in front of him.

"Where I come from we have laws instead of customs to

rule us. We have trials before we have punishment. What

about that?"

"He mutilated Manann's soul. He admitted it. He

wished to atone. This is atonement."

"This is villainy. One crime doesn't absolve another.

Are you going to stand there and let this occur?"

Zennor did not answer. In fact, he was no longer

looking at Kirk.

"There are other crimes," Kirk pushed, not caring

anymore if he was being rude. He all but shouted across

the chasm of distrust that had cracked between them.

"Theft, for one. Garamanus stole several computer

records from my ship. That's Starfleet property. I want

them back, untouched."

"What is upon them?"

"Give them back. Then we'll discuss it." In mortal

panic of pressing the situation too far, too fast for

McCoy's good, too fast to get back the records and the

volatile information upon them, Kirk reined in his tone.

He held out a supplicant hand. "There has to be some

line of trust between us, or we have nothing and our

cultures have nothing on which to build. I know you

don't want that."

The entreaty burned in his throat, for it was a lie. He

knew the tangled truth and dared not tell yet. If possible,

he would introduce these people to the weird truth

slowly to explain it, gradually enough to make them

digest the distance in time from the common element,

whatever that element turned out to be, and that whatever

happened five thousand years ago, there was no one

here to answer for it anymore. Slowly, he hoped, enough

to explain that whoever the conquerors were, they

couldn't have been Terrans, Vulcans, Romulans, Orions,

or even Klingons. The years just weren't right.

218

FIRST STRIKE

That message had to' be delivered with finesse, of

which at the moment Kirk possessed not a drop.

Zennor looked past him, gazing instead at a new

presence moving out of the greenish haze toward

them.

Spinning quickly, out of instinct, Kirk found himself

staring up at the imposing half-moon eyes of Garamanus.

Zennor stepped out and met him. "Why have you

done this?"

"You know why," the Dana said. "This is our home

space. The Danai are correct."

The galloping crew slowed down and few by few began

to stop and watch the power struggle play out. None

seemed surprised, though all were tense, and Kirk drew

the sensation that this was an old struggle between the

quest of the Dana/and the hard science of machines and

pilots, a struggle thousands of years old, today coming to

a head.

"You have no proof," Zennor said when his crew

dropped to a sizzling quiet and listened. He stepped

closer to Garamanus. "You have told them a lie."

The reaction of the crew was bizarre--but somehow

familiar to Kirk, who had seen many kinds of humanoids

and aliens and had learned to read for clues. Color

changes, changes in the shapes of eyes, altered posture.

He saw all those now. Had anyone ever called a Dana a

liar before?

Kirk entertained a particular shiver and kept his

mouth shut.

"I know their secrets

, the Dana told him. "I have

seen their memories. They are the conquerors."

The priest indicated Kirk somehow without moving very much at all.

Relatively clear. Somehow he had managed to read the files even with mechanics from all the way across the galaxy.

While they were gone, power had shifted. How could they get it back?

219

Diane Carey

"We are not conquerors," Kirk said. "I refuse to

concede the point. The past you're talking about is all

finished and all you have left is a festered memory. I'm

urging you not to act on it."

"It is not festered," Garamanus said. "It is the Veil of

Evermore and as real as you are. When we light the effig y

and burn the one who cuts souls, it will be the beginning

of our onslaught. We know who you are." He clasped the

medallion hanging at his chest and turned it upward for

the mirror side to show. Kirk saw the flickering reflection

of his own face. "And we know who we are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kirk demanded.

Garamanus clasped his own medallion, but did not

hold it up. "We each wear a mirror, to be sure we will

never forget what the damned look like. Until now, we

held them only to ourselves. But that is all changed. Now

we are not the cast-out, the despised, the unclean

anymore... you are."

The Dana kept the small mirror up, and in it Kirk

continued to see his own flushed face.

He reached out and pushed the mirror down.

"We did what you asked," he went on persistently,

unable to keep the desperation out of his voice. His

words sped up. "We investigated your data and it turned

out to be nothing. There's no scientific proof--"

"You have not disproven us," the Dana said.

"But not proven either," Zennor claimed.

In the full flower of his newly acquired mantle, Garamamus

raised his opal horns. "Thousands of years ago

the Danai decided you would not understand these

things. There are millions of little clues."

"But we have not found proof" Zennor said again, his

voice echoing in the huge chamber now that the chanting

had fallen away.

"It is proven to me," Garamanus said, "and to them."

He made a long, confident gesture at the circle of Furies,

while above it all McCoy huddled fearfully in his straw

prison in the middle of the circle. The Dana was very

220

FIRST STRIKE

different now from the way he had been when gennor

had embarrassed him on the Enterprise.

Zennor was different too. He was defending the future

and Garamanus was defending the past. A pure, strange

clash of two things which could never meet, but which

today found embodiment in these two beings.

"Listen!" Zennor called to his crew. "You will decide

between us! Come around us and listen."

His hands tingling and cold, Kirk slowly slipped the

strap of the medical tricorder over his head and slipped

one arm through. He reached around behind his back

and drew his palm-sized phaser unit and brought it

around front. It rested in his palm, warm with ready

energy. If he opened up on all these beings, wide

dispersal, he could betray the oaths both he and McCoy

swore they would live by, slaughter them all in an

instant.

Or he could aim at McCoy and do as he had sworn he

would. The most duty-binding promise anyone could

make to another--I'!l end your life before the pain

comes.

The desire to rush forward almost crushed his lungs.

But what could he do? Pull that woven straw apart with

his bare hands? It was as tight as steel cord.

Could he phaser it open with a narrow beam? Yes... if he could get close enough. But there were fifty strands

of that stuff to cut apart before he could get McCoy out,

and that would take time.

As the crew moved closer, uneasy, Garamanus faced

Zennor. "The Klingon recognized us. They all know us.

He knows who we are." Pointing at Kirk, the Dana

narrowed his strange eyes. "This is our quadrant and

you are colluding with the conquerors!"

"He led us here," Zennor accused, calling to the crew

and pointing at Garamanus. "The planets to which he

brought us are gone. I have seen the place. There are no

planets, there is no proof, there is nothing. Now he wants

us to kill these people and take what is theirs. We have

227

Diane Carey

squandered whole lifetimes in the Danai quest for power.

Shall we crawl into the pit with them and their errors?

I will not! The Danai are our inner conquerors! Which of

you will come forward to defend this one?"

His voice drummed. He was fighting to get his crew

back.

And they were vacillating, Kirk could see.

Garamanus raised one hand, scarcely a gesture at all,

and dropped his medallion to fall again to the bottom of

its chain; from the circle of beings there came a dozen or

so breaking off from the others and charging toward

them.

Kirk plunged backward against the nearest wall, but

the charging Furies weren't coming for him--they were

coming for Zennor. He tried to think of this happening

on his ship, with his crew, but couldn't

Perhaps here, with their odd rules, this wasn't considered mutiny at all. Garamanus was in charge, and he had

made his order, unthinkable ,though it seemed.

"Zennor!" Kirk snapped. ' Do something or I will!"

He raised his phaser. Abruptly he realized why Zennor

let him keep the weapon. He was the living failsafe. If

things went too far wrong, everything would be ended

here and now.

But the other captain ignored him and even ignored

the rushing creatures of his own crew. He countered the

rush by plunging directly at Garamanus.

Instantly the two horned beings twisted in a bitter

embrace, glowing with crackling electricity generated

somehow by their bodies. Yellow lightning knitted their

horns and ran up their arms and ringed their necks.

Their eyes changed color as if boiling from within from

some kind of biologically generated energy base.

Kirk shielded his face. All he could do was press his

hip against the wall and fend off the sparks with his

arms.

The Furies skidded to a halt and gave ground as

Zennor and Garamanus whipped toward Kirk; then

balance changed and the two grappling leaders plunged

222

FIRST STRIKE

toward the wicker mannequin, falling against it and

causing the straw to smoke and turn black.

McCoy huddled back, but there wasn't far for him to

go, and there was nowhere for him to hide.

With the Dana's huge hands coiled around his throat,

Zennor grimaced horribly and seemed to call up the

determination given to him by his own secret hopes for

his civilization. He freed one of his own hands from his

own grip on Garamanus and reached out for a strand of

the coiled straw.

Kirk craned to see. The coiled straw was stiff and firm

as a dockline. How could it be moved?

But Zennor was moving it. Somehow he had the

strength to bow out the strand, to pull it toward him.

Roaring for a last surge of power, he thrust Garamanus's

head under the strand, then let the straw snap back into

place, taking the Dana with it.

Caught by the throat between two cords of straw rope,

the Dana clutched at the thing strangling him, but

Zennor cranked hard on the wicker and took hold of one

of the horns in Garamanus's head, pushing him deeper

into the deadly netting.

"Who is Vergobretos?" Zennor boomed at the undecided

crew.

His voice filled the huge chamber, and echoed over

and over. He swung his free arm violently and pushed

Garamanus farther down with the other.

The Dana struggled. Not dead yet.

The Furies stared, waved their fists--or what cretin

and bellowed some kind of chant that Kirk didn't

understand.

Now Zennor took that free hand and grasped the straw

vein nearest to Garamanus. He gripped it hard and it began to smoke. The energy that had flowed through the

two angry, dangerous beings now flowed into the strand

of straw and set it smoldering.

Sparks cracked, and the straw grew hotter, then

popped into flame.

Zennor held on despite the heat. The snapping flame

223

Diane Carey crawled toward Garamanus, who was now bluish in the

face and hands as his throat was crushed, though he

continued to struggle.

"Bones, keep back!" Kirk called over the crackle as the

flames ran up the straw form, drenching McCoy in

smoke so that he could hardly be seen.

He came up behind Zennor, though he couldn't dare

touch the body of the other captain while it was still

charged with energy. "Zennor," he called. "Stop what

you're doing. He's down. Back off."

But Zennor's hand remained tight on Garamanus.

Flames crawled up the outer superstructure of the

effigy's left leg and chewed at its torso, stretching out tall

into the upper regions and rolling along the left arm.

Huddled in the thigh of the right leg, McCoy waved

furiously at the smoke and counted seconds. "Jim!"

Kirk rushed to the right ankle of the giant. "Hang on!"

The creatures of the Rath's crew began to howl a cheer

and wave their arms, encouraging the climbing flames.

Now the straw giant had no head, but only a rolling ball

of fire. Kirk witnessed with a shiver the loyalty that a

commander could possess as opposed to a secondary

influence. Maybe this could only happen on a ship, but it

was happening here.

"Zennor! Back off!." Kirk called, disappointed that a

struggle and a quest that had gone on for millennia now

apparently came down to a physical fight between leaders

of two factions. He always wanted things to be loftier

than that, and so often complex circumstances came

down to shows of muscle, driven to victory or failure

only by the intensity of belief driving them.

Grudgeful and clearly vexed, Zennor gave the Dana's

convulsing form one last shove, then stepped away.

The creature called Morien and a dozen others

plunged in to scoop up the choking Dana, who was too

weak to struggle against them, and to Kirk's shock they

shoved Garamanus through the burning slats of wood

and strands of straw and into the burning leg of the

colossus.

224 FIRST STRIKE

In a moment, the hall began to echo with the screams

of the Dana as he was burned alive.

Zennor covered the space between the giant's legs in

three strides, then grasped the unburned straw of the

right leg. His hand began to shine and show its bones

with that inner energy he could somehow generate when

he was irreconcilable. There were appar ently advantages

to being hopping mad on the other side of the galaxy.

Propulsively Kirk hurried behind him, his own hand

hot on his phaser.

Yanking hard on the straw line, Zennor snapped the

straw cord at the place where he had burned it. He did

this again, then again, gradually chewing his way upward

as far as he could reach.

"Bones!" Kirk called. "Climb down! Can you hear

me? Follow my voice!"

Through the curtain of boiling smoke he couldn't tell

if McCoy were even still conscious.

Continuing to burn and yank, Zennor systematically

opened a jagged gash in the straw giant's knee.

"Bones!" Kirk pawed at the smoke. It was hot--getting

hotter. Sweat drained down his face and under

his uniform shirt.

A hand, human, came out of the smoke, then a blue sleeve dusted with soot and smoldering matter.

Kirk grabbed it and pulled.

Scratched in the face by the rough burning edges that

Zennor had broken away, McCoy tumbled out of the

straw knee and drove Kirk to the ground. They sprawled

into the smoldering twigs.

Feeling the heat burning through his resistant uniform,

Kirk rolled to his feet, still holding McCoy's arm,

and hauled away.

The doctor came flying out of the kindling and stumbled

against the wall. Kirk hauled him up and held him

away from the flames. McCoy blinked his watering eyes

and grasped his right thigh as if it were hurt, but he was

standing on his own. Together they turned and looked.

"Where's--"

225

Diane Carey

"They threw him in there," Kirk said.

Astonishment rocketed across McCoy's face. "My

God! He was innocent!"

Zennor followed them away from the straw giant. Now

it was burning and the Furies were building to a shrieking

frenzy. "Go back the way we came, through the

Barrow and into the Ritual Shafts. That area is not

shielded and you will be able to beam out. Go now,

before they notice."

"I want our files," Kirk attempted corrosively.

For the first time, Zennor reached out and touched

him. His hand was a shock of dry cold despite the

temperature here and the moisture of the air. "There is

no time. I will find them and destroy them. Go away...

go now!"

Towering over them, the straw giant was now a giant of

fire. Black and yellow flame rolled along its arms and

coiled in its wide legs. The basic structure had apparently

been built to survive until the last minute, so the

thing would remain standing while the innards were

consumed. Along with whoever they had decided to put

in there. How many "criminals" had been disposed of in

this way over the past five thousand years."?

"My mama always warned me I'd end up here if I

wasn't good," McCoy wheezed.

Kirk blinked into the stinging smoke. "Let's go."

"They'll burn their ship ...."

Glancing upward at the ceiling, where the smoke was

separating into four distinct funnels and being sucked

out before it could gather, Kirk told him, "It's venting.

They've done this before."

Deeply troubled, he looked at the other leg of the straw

man, and saw the outline of the Dana, sketched in flame,

and knew he was watching the torture of an innocent

person and that he had failed to stop it.

Though he took the doctor's arm, McCoy was unable

to resist hovering briefly, just to take in the full sight of a

sixty-foot man-shaped inferno, flames going on its arms

226 FIRST STRIKE

like rolling pins, and the wild-eyed wraiths rallying and

howling around it, thudding their drums. Together they

watched the holocaust of the colossus.

McCoy's face glowed. "Captain, this may be the most

poignant log entry of your career... 'Jim Kirk discovers

Hell.""

227

It's hard to dance with the Devil on your back.

--"Lord of the Dance,"

a folk song

Chapter Seventeen

"YELLOW ALERT. Mr. Donnier, lay in a direct course back

to--Mr. Spock."

Donnier and Byers turned to gaze at him, caught

briefly in the concept of laying in a course to the first

officer, but that was what being on edge could do to

concentration.

Jim Kirk paused on the middle step down toward his

command chair, pulled himself back to the upper deck, and moved forward on the starboard side.

"Mr. Spock.. 2'

"Captain."

Standing much too straight for comfort, Spock

swiveled unevenly on a heel. He looked supremely in

place here, living a life before the wind.

For the first time Kirk noticed a dull bruise shading

the right side of Spock's face from the bad roll he'd taken

on Capella IV. Somehow he hadn't seen that yet.

"Mr. Spock, you haven't been released from sick-bay."

"Considering the circumstances, sir," Spock said with

undertones, "when you left the ship, I invoked Special

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Diane Carey

Order Number Four Two Seven, Subsection J-Three,

regarding the right of senior officers to override any

departmental authority in a crisis."

"There's no such subsection."

"But Nurse Chapel did not know that. And since I am

here already, I suggest we not embarrass her."

"As opposed to McCoy's reprimanding her when he

finds you gone?"

"Is the doctor all right?"

"A little scorched, and don't change the subject."

Spock nodded, only once and with monkish reserve,

being careful of his condition and trying not to move or

twist, but he gazed at the deck for a moment, thoughtfully.

"I am ineffective in sickbay, sir."

"But you're injured. Patients in sickbay aren't supposed

to be effective, Spock. I want you back in recovery.

I appreciate your dedication, but you're providing the

wrong kind of example. The rest of the crew deserves to

know that they're valuable too."

While nothing else would've gotten to Spock, that last

bit did. There were some advantages to their knowing

each other too well.

He lowered his eyes again and murmured, "Yes, sir, I

understand." Then he looked up again as if just remembering.

"Sir, did you retrieve the files?"

"No," Kirk sighed, and paced around to the other side

of Spock. "It was all we could do to get out of there with

our skins. Zennor killed Garamanus."

He felt the guilt rise on his face.

"Indeed," Spock murmured. "To free McCoy?"

"Partly. There was a power play going on. I think it

had been going on a long time. Not just the two of them, but everything they both stand for. Now he's got command

of the ship and possession of the files. I'll just have

to trust him."

Almost as he said it, he realized how foolish that was.

Wanting to trust someone and actually being able to

were entirely different game boards.

He glanced at the helm. "Shields up, Mr. Donnier."

232

FIRST STRIKE

"Shields up, sir."

The turbolift slid open and McCoy hurried in, cranky

and agitated, spotted them, and angled toward them, a

sling on his right arm and a computer cartridge in his left

hand.

"Subsection J, my backside, Mr. Spock," he scolded.

"Nurse Chapel is a lot more upset than she deserves to

be."

"I apologize for my deception, Doctor, and I will be

returning to sickbay."

"Yes, you will be." McCoy handed him the cartridge.

"That's all the information I collected on my medical

tricorder over in that other ship. Jim, I confirmed

everything. The ages of those bone fragments and hair,

the biological roots and the planetary origins. There's no

doubt about it. Those people had some contact with this

quadrant on the order of four to seven thousand years

ago."

Conveniently forgetting to remind them that he'd

been ordered off the bridge by the only two people who

could do that, Spock had turned stiffly to his library

computer and inserted the cartridge, and was looking

through his sensor hood at the readouts, probably running

them through about five times faster than Kirk

could've read them.

Kirk couldn't see inside the hood, but he heard the

machine whir faintly, or imagined he did.

His movements hampered by pain, Spock slowly straightened and faced them again, his face expressive

and heavy with import. He didn't like what he'd seen.

"This is unprecedented. Obviously the track we were

on before is far more accurate than we guessed."

"Do you have a conclusion?" Kirk asked.

"I have a hypothesis."

"I'll take it."

"If there was some massive interstellar war roughly

five thousand years ago and these people were the losers

and they were banished, as Zennor insists, we might

postulate that some survivors could have been stranded

233

Diane Carey on Earth, Vulcan, and other planets that supported humanoid life. Beings with 'horns', or 'wings'm"

"Or snakes in their heads," McCoy filled in.

"If these were advanced beings who only wanted to

survive," Spock went on, "among the nomadic Klingons,

early Terrans, Vulcans, and Orions, and possessed powers

unknown to these ancients--for instance, energy.

weapons,,, extreme speed, advanced healing techniques

Again McCoy interrupted. "Acts which in those days

could only be taken as miracles."

"Or sorcery," Spock agreed. "Natural powers taken as

supernatural. The 'Furies,' if you will. Trying to escape

the mass relocation, they may have hidden on our

worlds, and as they lived and died slowly, they floated

into our mythos. These refugees may well have been the

pathways along which legends have come down to us,

and why we feel we 'recognize' them. Their physical

traits could easily have been taken as animal parts, skull

extensions as antlers or horns, feeding tendrils as snakes,

stings for the power to turn people to stone, cooling skins

for wings, bony feet for hooves."

"And in the changes of religion on these planets,"

Kirk uttered, thinking hard, trying to encompass millennia

in his concrete mind, "they would have had to be

considered. That druid Horned God. Zennor s raThe

Hunter Go d was ultimately absorbed by Christianity,

but they had no place for him in their pantheon. In

order to turn the lay public to the new religion, the

priests painted him as a devil. Satan."

The bell rang so loudly in Kirk's head that he almost

glanced for the red-alert flash.

"This is not guesswork, Captain," Spock said, seeing

Kirk's reaction. "We do know this happened." He gazed

into his sensor hood briefly. "The woman's household

tools were turned into elements of witchcraft when male

physicians wanted to take over the healing arts. Now we

have the image of the soot-darkened woman flying on a

234 FIRST STRIKE

kitchen utensil and casting spells from a cooking pot. In

the same way, the Horned God's pitchfork, a symbol of

male toil, became associated with devils when Christianity

moved him out of their way. These things are

relatively easy to track."

McCoy's eyes were wide. "I'll bet the jewelry these

people wear is the same kind of thing! All attached to

something symbolic. Like those little mirrors."

"To look at the damned." Pacing past them, Kirk

rubbed the dozen tiny burns on his knuckles. "Satan...

wizards... witches, druid priests... all nothing more

than remnants of a war in space during a superstitious

time. It's mind-boggling."

Spock shifted his shoulders a little. "Before science

and medicine upgraded the quality of daily life, there

was little to turn to but superstition, Captain. Unfortunately

, these innocent refugees fell victim to that."

Kirk looked at him. "You really believe this?"

"It is not a matter of belief. Long ago, Vulcan was

indeed occupied, for a time, by beings we called Ok'San.

They resembled the Furies in many ways, and their

impact was keenly felt. Many Vulcans retain a distant

memory of the turmoil they brought us."

Kirk nodded. "Yes... we've also run up on this kind

of thing before. We know it's possible. According to

Zennor, the losing civilization was banished, unceremoniously

dumped on a handful of neighboring planets half

the galaxy away. They fell into a dark age, crawled out of

it, found each other, fought with each other, then found

out they had similar backgrounds and that they'd all

been kicked out at the same time. And during that time,

we caught up with them technologically."

"And now they're back," McCoy said. "And we're all

here together."

Kirk spun to him. "But it wasn't them!" He gestured

as if to point through the bulkheads of the starship to the

huge ship flanking them. "And it certainly wasn't us.

The winning civilization is dead and gone, and all its war

crimes are gone with it. I refuse to take responsibility for

235

Diane Carey

any action by anyone other than myself or my crew, and

I only take on the crew's because I'm the commanding

officer. We certainly don't owe them anything and they

don't deserve to take what's ours. Times change, history

moves along. No one is 'owed' by the children of others.

This is as silly as if I went back to some coruer of Roman

Britain and claimed it as my own, because some ancestor

of mine owned it a thousand years ago. I don't buy this

collective-memory group-rights mind-set."

"We have to accept that Zennor's people do buy it,"

Spock said. "And that will be our stumbling block. The

fixation on having been banished or punished is not a

new one. Neither is the link to fire which you both

encountered so intimately."

"How astute," McCoy drawled, and rubbed his sore

arlB.

"The concept of burning the guilty, or the 'damned,'"

Spock went on, ignoring him, "has a logical source.

'Gehenna' was a pit outside of Jerusalem where refuse

was buried. Parents frequently threatened children with

'sending them to Gehenna' if they failed to behave.

Hence the images of flame in a place of punishment.

Over the generations on Earth, that image took on

names like Orcu, Styx, Aralu, Jahannan, Doom, Hades,

Hell... and on other planets names such as Kagh'Tragh

and Aralua. Even Vulcan had such a concept, though we

dropped it generations ago. All involved banishment

and punishment."

"If they'd had this on the mountain," McCoy grumbled,

"there'd be eleven commandments."

"Captain," Spock cautioned, "although Zennor and

his crew have the physical appearance of devils, of

'Furies,' they do not seem to have the inner makings of

evil purpose. Legend was obviously written by the winners."

"Saints and demons can be the same," Kirk contemplated,

"depending on whether you approve of their

work."

He knew the bitterness was coming out in his voice,

236

FIRST STRIKE

but his feelings were boiling to the surface and he didn't

feel inclined to push them down. He was beginning to get

a picture of what his duty would be, and he didn't like

looking at it.

"They're not demons, no matter what they look like.

They're just people with a fixed purpose, no different

from any others who get their minds stuck on something.

Zennor's a decent, forthright captain on a mission and

he wants to do the right thing. It's just what I would do if

I had those beliefs. And I stood by and let him kill

Garamanus, even though I knew Garamanus was on the

right track. I should've stopped it."

Spock looked like a boy who'd broken a window with a

rock, but wasn't sure whether the building had been

condemned yet or not. He watched his captain. "Your

devotion to Zennor is most unexpected, sir."

Gazing at the forward screen, Kirk sadly said, "I like

him. We have a lot in common."

McCoy put one foot up on the stand of Spock's chair.

"Figures you'd get on so well with the Devil."

Crooking that eyebrow, Spock almost smiled. His eyes

smiled, at least, and Kirk was flooded with a sense of

possibility that blunted the torment of the moment.

"What do I do now?" Kirk considered. "Escort a

hostile power into Federation space? Abandon them

here to stumble on the truth, then to attack the Klingons?

Pretend they wouldn't find us eventually? I'll have

to notify Starfleet. Have them standing by."

At this moment he hated his rank. He hated being the

watchful renegade of Starfleet, who not only had trouble

dropped at his door, but who went chasing when it

appeared. He didn't feel as unshatterable as his reputation

and now remembered Kellen's expression when the

Klingon general had discovered that the great Kirk was

as much cautious sentinel as sword swallower.

Kellen had been right about everything all along. So

had Garamanus.

He moved between McCoy and Spock, running his

hand along the red rail. "I have to talk to him. I have to

237

Diane Carey

make him understand, think past that tribal clubfoot he

drags around."

"Captain.. 2' Spock spoke, but he had no more to

say, no way to bewitch logic so it could solve his

captain's trouble.

"Come-on, Mr. Spock," McCoy said, and took the Vulcan's arm. "It's that time. Back to sickbay. I want you

to walk very slowly."

Spock lingered a moment longer, still watching Kirk,

still searching for something to say.

In his periphery Kirk saw him, but this time didn't

turn, didn't glance. He tucked his chin to bury a shudder.

He would provide no excuses for Spock to stay. No

more mistakes.

"Captain?"

"Mr. Chekov?" His voice was a croak.

"Reading the Klingon fleet coming into short-range,

sir. ETA, thirty minutes, distance--"

The bridge went up on an edge as if it had been kicked

from under the port side. Sirens blared; red alert came

on automatically, changing the lights on all the panels

for emergency readings in case the main power wobbled.

Kirk slammed sideways and barely missed crushing

Lieutenant Nordstrom at the communications station,

where she was hanging over her console, pressed to the

board by the impact.

He skidded past her and caught himself on the aft

science board, bending his back painfully over the edge

and holding himself by his fingernails on the rubberized

edge. One foot came up off the floor. Around him the

bridge flashed to black and white as the lighting blinked,

searching for conduits that hadn't been ruptured. The

surreal forms of Spock and McCoy were crushed up

against the side of the turbolift doorway.

For a moment he couldn't turn his head. Artificial

gravity was being compromised by impact or energy

flush and he heard the systems yowl, but couldn't react.

Any momentJ

His arms and legs lightened abruptly and he shoved

238

FIRST STRIKE

himself off the console. He pushed Nordstrom back into

her chair and told her, "All decks clear for action."

"Aye, sir!" she said on a rushing breath.

Stepping around her, he caught both Spock's arm and

McCoy's good arm and provided leverage as McCoy got

to his feet; then they both pulled Spock up and held him

through the clutch of pain until he gained some control.

"Over here." Kirk drew them to the science station

and brought Spock to his chair. "Sit down." As Spock

valiantly reached for his sensor controls, Kirk dropped

to the command deck and glanced at the helm. "Mr.

Byers, visual checks."

Byers nodded and punched his controls, looked at

them, then punched some more.

Several of the auxiliary monitors lining the upper

bridge flickered on, snatching power from other systems

long enough to do their jobs, to show scenes of open

space around the starship, including, off the port beam,

the enormous purple plates of the Fury ship.

"Put our forward shields to him, Mr. Byers."

Again Byers didn't manage to respond, but only complied.

The plates still glowed with expended energy. No need

to ask what had happened.

"Hail him." Kirk braced himself.

"Channel open, sir," Nordstrom offered.

"Kirk to Zennor. Pleas e come in."

He was as cold as a beached carp. His hands scarcely

had any feeling. He knew what was coming and that

there was no way to backpedal.

Nordstrom's wide Scandinavian features buckled as

she touched her earpiece. "Channel's still open, sir. He's

hearing you."

He took her at her word. Drawing closer to his

command chair as if closer to Zennor, he spoke again.

"You looked at the files."

Moments passed with not so much as a crackle on the

comm. He waited. The bridge around him was dim now,

some lights still flickering, trying to come back on. The

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whir of ventilators told him there was a gaseous leak somewhere and compensation systems had come on.

The ship would take care of herself to some degree"I looked."

A glint of solid chance rang through with the sound of Zennor's deep voice.

"We have to talk about this," Kirk attempted. He almost winced. His sentence sounded hollow and point

less.

"There is no talk. I was wrong. The Danai were right all along. Garamanus was right. This is what he was trying to say when I ruined him. Now I must take on his purpose.

He picked the right place, and I will reclaim it in his name.

The fabric of this tenuous peace was ancient and crumbling. Kirk felt it shred in his fingers.

"He wasn't right," he insisted. "You still believe the things you told me, don't you?"

'I was right only when I told you that people don't change. You are the conqueror."

"You know that's not true. The past doesn't matter."

"The past is all that matters."

Gazing at the slowly turning alien ship on the forward

screen, Kirk gripped his chair. "We're friends. We're

alike. Isn't that a better foundation than what you're

talking about?"

He waited. Nothing came back.

No one on the bridge moved. The alarms and alerts

seemed to get quieter in anticipation.

"You knew about this." Zennor's words were heavier

even than the usual sound of his voice now, and the

personal wounding came through. "Is this how your

people wrecked our civilization before? With trust as a

weapon?"

"No," Kirk said desperately. "Those mistakes were

mine alone, not my culture's. Think... think! Be rational

for one more moment. No one has any right to a

particular piece of space. You have the right to live as

240

FIRST STRIKE

free beings in our society. Our hand of friendship is st'ill

extended. Don't knock it away."

In the corner of his eye he saw McCoy step slowly

down to the center deck and join him on the other side of

the command chair, providing what moral support he

could and trying nobly to join him in the responsibility

for what had happened. Now the two of them had

something more in common than they'd ever wanted!

McCoy moved forward a little and was about to say

something when the comm boomed again.

"Go to your civilization and tell them to get out." Kirk blinked at the screen.

Aggravated, he allowed himself a dirty expression,

"You want me to tell a trillion and a quarter people...

to pack up and move?"

"That is what you told us."

The statement burned, for it had its strange ring of

truth, at least truth as Zennor saw things.

"It wasn't us," Kirk abridged. "No one alive had

anything to do with what happened to your ancestors.

My offer stands. Come with us and be welcome in the

Federation. But you'll have to shed your attachment to

the past."

He waited for the threadlike moment of communication

to crack, but instead there was only another stretch

of silence. This time he wasn't going to-wait.

"Zennor."

When had this happened? At which moment had the

career, the job, the duty become his veins and the blood

flowing into them? When had the desire to drive a ship

and do some good turned into responsibility for the

whole Federation's well-being?

He'd crawled out of a rocky youth, or been kicked,

gone into Starfleet, where everyone insisted on conformity

yet gave him medals for fire eating. He'd innovated,

he'd survived, he'd swallowed fire, and they'd pinned

awards on him and handed him a few hundred other

lives and a ship with which to execute his appetite upon

the galaxy.

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Diane Carey

All for this?

Yes, exactly this.

"Zennor, answer me."

His answer came, but not in the form he desired.

"Captain--" Spock stared at his readouts, then

turned his chair until he could look at the main screen

without moving his head too much. "Something is happening

in space. A fissure is opening. Reading a large

solid object moving through. Coming toward us."

Kirk pushed forward, stepped up onto the platform

and stood in front of his command chair. "Dimensions."

"Are... roughly seven hundred thousand metric

tons .... Size... is... reading out at more than..."

Even Spock couldn't keep the astonishment out of his

voice.

"Length overall is in excess of one thousand meters,

sir."

Sweat broke out on Kirk's face. "On visual." Nothing

happened, and he was forced to snap, "Mr. Byers,

forward visual."

The big main screen dropped the image of Zennor's

purple and black pinecone and caught a wide view of

space in time to see a bizarre gash in the blackness of

space, as if someone had come along with a giant cleaver

and taken a random hack. Out of the gash spilled liquid

blue light, and from within the light came a vessel.

More than half a mile long, a thousand feet tall,

shaped like Zennor's ship, the enormous moving corkscrew

twisted itself through the gash in space, and when

it was through the gash sealed up with a snap that made

everyone blink.

"Any drop in mass?" Kirk quickly asked.

"None," Spock said. "They must have solved that."

As they watched, the giant vessel screwed itself

through open space toward Zennor's ship, and with

skilled excellence the two came bow-to-stern and executed

a flawless docking maneuver. Now Zennor's ship

provided only the forward section of what had become a

mammoth vessel.

242

FIRST STRIKE

Burning with the knowledge that his ugly guess had

been right, Kirk looked upon the greatest assault vehicle

he had ever seen. If its power matched its size, there

would be disaster today.

McCoy backed off to the ship's rail, apparently sensing

that this wasn't the time to be hanging on the captain's

chair, disturbing the bubble that was the command

sphere. Kirk sensed the change without looking. He'd

noticed that since the beginning of his career--the more

tense the situation, the more the crew tended to keep

distance, giving the officers room to think. He'd come to

use that as ajump-start for dangerous thinking, a kind of

personal red alert. He wished his head weren't throbbing.

He didn't really care if the crew saw him wince. Maybe

in a few minutes he would, if they lived.

"Emergency alert, all decks," he said. "We're about to

do battle with the damned. And they have nothing to

lose."

243

Your foes are determined, relentless, and nigh.

--"Lock the Door, Larrison,"

a folk song

Chapter Eighteen

"SOUND GENERAL QUARTERS."

He'd held off saying it, but the order was overdue.

Hope had kept it back until now.

"Battle stations... all hands to battle stations. This is

not a drill .... Secure all positions .... Damage-control

parties on standby."

"Mr. Byers, veer us off to maximum phaser range. I

don't want to take another of those hard punches at close

range. Get me some room to maneuver."

"Yes, sir... maximum phaser range, sir."

"Mr. Spock, any other contacts from behind that

fissure?"

"None, sir. They may regard their combined vessel as

some kind of dreadnought. In fact, there is no sign of the

fissure any longer at all."

"We know what kind of power it takes to open it,"

Kirk uttered, more to himself than anyone else. "Practically

have to float a black hole in here just to open the

door."

He should send Spock below while he had the chance,

he knew. An inner alert stopped him. He noticed,

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though, that McCoy wasn't saying anything. Spock

would be little better off being tossed about on the way

down to sickbay than here at his post, where all people

with spinal injuries should be, of course.

Kirk understood them both. He even understood

himself this time.

He settled into his command chair and forced himself

to steady down.

"Secure the ship. Shut down any nonemergency emissions.

Short-range sensors on priority. Impulse engines

prepare for tight maneuvering. Warp speed on standby.

Arm phasers. And someone get me a cup of coffee."

"Nonemergency emissions, aye. Short-range sensors

ready, sir."

"Impulse engines answering, sir."

"Phasers armed and ready, sir."

"Warp engines ready and standing by, sir."

"Cup of coffee, aye, sir."

The partoting back of his orders was reassuring and

bolstered him. Underlying energy swung around the

bridge from person to person, and through the ship like

blood pumping.

"Photon guidance on standby," he added, and Chekov

said it back almost immediately. Settling back in his

chair, with the cool leather pressing to his lower back

and reminding him of lingering aches from Capella IV,

he surveyed the forward screen and the now-huge vessel

that was at a notable distance now that the starship was

moving back. "How close is the Klingon fleet now?"

"ETA fourteen minutes, Captain," Chekov reported.

He'd been ready for that.

"Hail General Kellen."

"Go ahead, sir," Nordstrom said. "Channels open."

"General Kellen, this is Captain Kirk."

'I know what you think you are. I suggest you not

attempt to stop us again. I have my fleet now. Ten battle

cruisers. I am officially revoking your privilege to be in

Klingon space. Go home. Thi s is man's work."

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FIRST STRIKE

"You also have my cooperation. And my apology. You

were correct about these people's ancestry."

"Hah."

"I'm not saying you're right about the mythology and I

don't believe in the thing you call Havoc. But there does

seem to be an inescapable connection between them and

this side of the galaxy."

'Thank you. Get out of my way."

"I will not get out of your way," Kirk blistered. "I will deal with this if you and your fleet will cooperate."

There was a pause, and he recognized it as the kind of

pause a commander takes when he's weighing his options and trying not to give any away.

"What do you want?"

Respect for Kellen boosted a few degrees. He wasn't

throwing the kettle out with the stew just because he had

been disappointed before.

Kirk indulged in a pause of his own and let Kellen

guess for a moment or two.

Then he said, "I want all of us to provide a united

front and make them think twice about their intents." 'Against them? You're going to fight?"

"Only as a last resort. I want to back them down only

enough to give me a chance to talk to Zennor."

"Talking again.

"Yes, talking. I want a chance to explain some historical data to him, without all this... fury."

How well the word fit.

Before him on the screen was a ship full of household

spirits, glen nymphs, tikis, banshees and zombies, were-wolves

and medusas, none hellborn as legend had rattled

down, but only a crew of Ishmaels. That wasn't hell over

there, but another starship, crewed by expatriates with

an ill-considered dream.

Still a dream, though. He didn't wish to wreck it, but

only to redirect it. So much energy, a whole civilization

and all its past for four thousand years, so much worth

and resolve, if he could have the time to make them

understand

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"No more talking," Kellen broadcast. "This is Klingon

space. You will stand aside."

Gazing in unexpected longing at the purple scales of

Zennor's now-vast ship, Kirk glanced at the upper

starboard screens and noted the visual picture of the

approach of ten full-sized Klingon battle cruisers,

flanked by more than a dozen lighter-weight patrol

cruisers. There weren't many overt differences between

the two classes of ships--the difference was more one of

hull weight and firepower--but to the trained eye, and

Kirk had one, the difference demanded consideration.

"Hail Zennor again, Lieutenant," he crabbed.

Nordstrom's console beeped behind him, like pins

going into his scalp. Went silent. Beeped again.

"No response, sir. He's closed his frequencies."

"Ship to ship."

"Go ahead, sir."

With a bitter hunch of his shoulders, Kirk leaned on

his chair's arm, pursed his lips, and felt his eyes burn.

"Very well, General. Both of you can have it your way.

Be advised we're moving off. Mr. Byers, clear the way for

the Klingon fleet to make their own maneuver against

the Fury ship."

Byers glanced at him, emotions crashing across his

round face. "Moving off, sir."

The Klingon fleet made no attempt to contact or warn

off Zennor's invasion ship. They came in fast and firing,

patrol cruisers rushing in first, with obvious intent

simply to blast the invaders out of Klingon skies, or

anybody else's sky. Kellen's determination had infected

the fleet, and clearly they meant to be sure this threat would not exist after today, here or anywhere. They

weren't going to leave enough of that vessel to limp into

Federation sanctuary, only to come back at them later.

Kirk might've been reading too much into what he saw

on the screen, but the sensations ran hot in his instincts and he didn't think he was misinterpreting much.

The patrollers led the way, strafing the closed purple

250

FIRST STRIKE

petals on the Fury ship, trying to punch weak points in

the hull where the heavier goosenecked cruisers could

then inflict deep wounds. The hematite blackness of

space erupted into waves of disruptor fire, sheeting off

the Fury ship's cornucopia hull as fluidly as water.

The resulting glow of released energy as it flooded into

space made him glad he had moved off to observance

range. Even from here he could see the quick, maneuverable

Klingon patrollers rocking in the waves of backwash,

wobbling like seagulls.

"Effectiveness?" His hands were clenching and un-clenching.

"None readable." Spock bent forward, leaning on one

hand and hanging on to the sensor hood with the other.

He had stood up when Kirk wasn't looking. "I suspect

Zennor's dreadnought is swallowing the power wash

somehow. It is accepting the impact, then absorbing the

energy as it attempts to dissipate. Possibly back into

their own power wells."

"You mean Kellen's doing them a favor by firing on

them?"

Spock nodded. "We may not have the capacity present

to overload Zennor's ability to absorb the punishment."

"Could it do the same to phaser and photon energy?

no way to judge that. The Vulcan glanced at him.

"Likely, though. To devise such an ability, they must have a remarkably resilient and adaptive culture."

"They had to be." Peering at the screen as if he were about to do surgery, Kirk mumbled, "Better do some

thing else, then."

At the forward science station, Chekov straightened suddenly. "Sir, the general's heavy cruisers are moving in!"

"Which is the general's ship?"

The young man pointed at the main screen, lower starboard. "He was broadcasting from the ship with the yellow ensign, sir."

Kirk squinted.

On the screen, flooding past them at proximity range,

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growing suddenly out of the edges of the screen, came

the elegantly massive Klingon war cruisers, with their

hulls of brushed silver, forms not so swanlike as the Enterprise, but instead mindful of the in-flight silhouettes

of cranes on a dark horizon. Their necks outstretched

with sensor bulbs chewing at space before

them, they flowed past the starship on a rendezvous with

General Kellen's version of foresight.

And there, on the right, was Kellen's own ship, banded

with a yellow collar for identification over and above the

other vessels, so everyone would know where the fleet

leader was. Klingons didn't believe in protecting their

leaders.

As soon as they reached short range they opened fire.

There was no approach strategy--they simply plowed

in, blasting away. The dozen patrollers vectored off, then

swung around in circles, up, down, and at angles, buzzing

about the attack scene and shooting whenever they

had clearance.

Space lit up in a holiday light show, flash upon flash of

bright blue-green energy, and there was so little damage

on Zennor's dreadnought that the scene was nearly

entertaining. Kirk felt detached, drugged with fascination

and regret, as he watched the patrollers zag about

the huge purple ship, having less effect than sparrows

smashing into a brick wall.

He pushed out of his chair. Moving toward Spock, he

hung an arm over the rail and kept his. voice down.

"Energy weapons seem to be about as useful as a waxed

deck."

"Zennor's technology has found a way to negate

enemy fire by absorbing it." Spock kept one hand on the

sensor hood, bracing his weak back. "His claims were

apparently not bravado. The ship is very strong. He has

not even returned fire yet ....

"If, as I suspected, Zennor's ship has some way of not

only funneling down the enemy fire, but drawing upon it

.. he may be taking the opportunity to build power

while draining the Klingons'."

252

FIRST STRIKE

Kirk turned to Nordstrom. "Lieutenant, ship to ship

with General Kellen."

Yes, sir. Ready.

"General, this is Kirk. Be aware your shots are being

absorbed somehow by Zennor's ship. We think you're

providing him with energy to fight you."

"Mind your own business."

Shaking his head, Kirk pushed off the rail and went

back to his chair, but didn't sit. "You're welcome.

Lieutenant, keep the channels open."

"Channels open, sir."

McCoy joined him there. "One tribe fighting another

tribe. And why? Because they're tribes. It's a sorry

sight."

"Your civilization depends on how much you suppress

the savage," Kirk told him. "They're giving in to it

instead."

"We all have our inner demons. Just think of all the

conflicts and stories and threats coming to a head today,

right out there. All the childhood nightmares and

confession-box repentances... it boggles the mind.

Makes me want to study my history files a little more

often. Just for the hell of it."

Kirk snapped him a fierce look. "Are you doing that

on purpose?"

His pique pinned the conversation to the deck and the

only thing that saved McCoy was Yeoman Tamamura

appearing in the turbolift with the captain's tray and

several cups of coffee.

"Sir," she greeted, but she was glancing at the action on the screen and almost dumped the tray onto the

captain's chair. She recovered in mid-slosh, handed the

captain his cup, then offered one to McCoy.

"Do we get popcorn too?" The doctor looked up, not

at the yeoman, but at Kirk.

Over the open channels in the background, communication

between Kellen and the other ship crackled as the

captains and their helms coordinated an attack that was

clumsy at best, but in essence the clumsiness didn't

253

Diane Carey matter. They kept opening hard fire, but the disruption

kept having no effect, just sheeting down the folded

petals of the Fury ship and somehow being funneled

away without cracking that scaly armor.

Petals... petals... scales...

He'd done and felt this many times before, yet each

time the tapestry was different. The lives were the same,

but not a thing else. No training scenario co uld anticipate

the real thing, with dozens of minds working

independently, and passions flying wild.

He flinched as an explosion on the upper left corner of

the screen took him by surprise, and his mind was

instantly back on the choreography of the battle.

The bridge crew flinched at the stabbing light and

didn't even have time to shield their eyes. When the light

faded, there was nothing left but tumbling hull plates,

motes of smoke, and a forest fire of sparks. Gases and

remnant plasma from the disseminated bowels of the

cruiser spun through space, burning themselves away without purpose, with nothing left to push on.

A full-sized Klingon cruiser--gone!

"What happened?" Byers stammered.

Ensign Chekov gawked at the screen. "Sir, did they

self-destruct?"

Realizing he too was staring like a struck midshipman,

Kirk didn't bother to mask his surprise. "Mr. Spock?"

But even Spock frowned at the scene. "I... suppose

they may have sacrificed shield power for disruptors ....

Perhaps they did not have time, or forgot, to divert

power back to their deflectors." He turned to his sensor

hood, determined to depend on the witness of science

instead of guessing. After a moment he reported, "Zen-nor

apparently opened fire, Captain. Reading the same

kind of energy flush signature as when we and Zennor

engaged the Klingons earlier. Much stronger now, however.

One Klingon battleship has exploded... a direct

hit. Complete thermal compromise. They must have

been hit squarely in the warp core. No survivors noted

as yet."

254 FIRST STRIKE

"Pretty sore price for a mistake." Aware of his crew's

glances, Kirk tried to be casual. He hadn't even seen the

Fury ship fire. It must have happened while one of the

other Klingon ships was masking the view. "Keep your

eyes open, everyone. I don't want to miss another

change. Keep the short-range sensors sweeping for life-pods,

Mr. Chekov."

"Yes, sir," Chekov answered.

Spock's face was blue with sensor light, and he

squinted as he spoke. "Residual energy is nominal...

dissipating. No solid objects larger than point-five-three

meters. No possible survivors."

Annoyed, Kirk peered from the corner of his eye.

"Keep' scanning anyway, Mr. Chekov."

"Aye, sir."

"There they go?" Donnier grasped the navigation

console with both hands and held on.

The nine remaining Klingon battle cruisers moved in,

using a dependable hourglass formation. Four ships

came in, firing hard, then bore downward; then two

more came in, separated, and strafed the flanks of the

pinecone-shaped hull; then the last three, making a

triangle around the enemy as they roared from the Fury

ship bow to its stern, grazing the purple scales with full

disruptor fire all the way.

Space before the Enterprise was no longer black, but

made up of plumes of electric blue and sargasso green.

As the last wave of cruisers scared by, the Fury ship

opened fire again. Lavender and yellow spirals of energy

built along the half-mile-tall stern of the dreadnought,

screwed down the body of the ship as pretty as anything,

then went out from the ship like sound waves to engulf

the passing Klingon fleet.

"Wow!" Donnier gasped. He rocked back in his chair

and his hands fell onto his lap.

That pretty much summed up the expressions Kirk

saw in his periphery.

The nearest three Klingon cruisers were knocked

straight sideways--and no ship was ever meant to take

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that. They squalled off, spewing mare's tails of expelled

gas and tumbling hot wreckage. Scorched bits of fragmented

hull material rolled through space and splattered

on the starship's shields.

Kirk and his bridge crew bit a collective lip at the

sight. Those crews must be flying around inside there

like so much trash in a tumbler. Artificial gravity would

be screaming. Kirk could hear the bones breaking. Their

propulsion systems were buckling. He could see it from

here.

What a punch Zennor packed with that combined

ship.

And not a word from him. Despite their dramatic

manner and archaic speech patterns, Zennor and his

people evidently hadn't come here to make speeches.

"Condition of the Klingon ships," he requested.

Spock studied his readouts. "Two ships veering off,

both venting plasma. One is adrift... being tractored

out of range by two patrol cruisers. Another is emitting

spotty motive ratios, but is limping away under its own

power .... The others are regrouping and coming back

in." He paused again, then cleared his throat and added,

"General Kellen's ship is shutting down partial life-support,

but is not veering off."

"Thank you. Mr. Spock, sure you're all right?"

Spock looked at him as though threatened. "For the

moment, Captain."

Might or might not be true. Spock was smart. He knew

a hollow reassurance that he was just dandy would

probably result in his being kicked below. Telling a hazy

version of the truth, that he was suffering some, had a

different effect and implied that he would speak up when

he couldn't handle it anymore.

He probably wouldn't.

Feeling McCoy's dagger gaze from the port side of his

command deck, Kirk deliberately didn't look over there.

Gripping his chair as if holding himself to the concrete

presence of the chair and the deck, he watched the

Klingon fleet as it was casually smashed.

256

FIRST STRIKE

"Lieutenant Nordstrom, contact the flight deck and

sickbay. Deploy four pilots and two interns in two

shuttlecraft to retrieve lifepods and treat survivors. Instruct

them to stay at safe distance until the engagement i s over, and to make their reports to Mr. Chekov."

" n

"Understood, sir," Nordstrom responded, and turned

to her board.

"Sir!" Chekov bolted straight and looked at the screen,

but there was no time for him to say anything more.

Turning its hornlike tip to meet the remaining Klingon

ships, the Fury ship turned violent with yellow and

thistle-purple electrical weapons that buzz-sawed

through the Klingon approach. Amazing that such a

knightly color as purple and all its florid shades could be

made so bitterly deadly.

Before their eyes three more Klingon cruisers had

their approach-side wings shorn off and were forced to

drag themselves away, or be dragged, their structural

balance sliced apart as if they had been caught in a bear

trap. The ship from hell was a hell of a ship.

The main force of the Klingon battle fleet, crippled in

minutes?

It was unthinkable.

"My God!" McCoy croaked. "All of them at once

Jim, Kellen's ship! .....

The remaining Klingon vessel, the general's ship had

turned up on a wingtip and was tilting drunkenly across

space toward the midsection of the Fury vessel. The

Klingon ships were very heavy, long-bodied, almost as

heavy and long as the Enterprise, and a little better

balanced. To see one skidding on an edge like this,

rolling off its line of gravity and shrunken to toy proportions

as it rolled nearer and nearer to the enormous

modified Rath, shook the bridge crew for a few critical

seconds.

Byers came halfway out of his seat. "It's going to

collide!"

257

Chapter Nineteen

As A man steps onto a guillotine ramp, Jim Kirk stepped

onto the platform that held his command chair, slid onto

the edge of the black leather seat, and spoke quickly so

that his crew would move quickly. , . ,"

"Mr. Spock, condition of the general s ship."

"Impulse drive is off-line. They are helpless."

"How much of a pounding can we take?"

"Unknown." Spock swiveled his chair around to meet

Kirk's eyes. "May I ask why, sir?"

"Because I'm going to move her in at close range."

At the helm, Byers turned and his eyes got big. "Sir?"

Kirk ignored the question. "Ahead one-quarter impulse,

Mr. Byers. Mr. Donnier, ready with tractor beams."

"One-quarter impulse, aye."

"Tractor beams r-ready, sir."

"Full magnification on Kellen's ship."

The Enterprise leaped forward with breathtaking ferocity,

as hungry to get into the cockfight as her captain

was. The ship was different in battle mode than cruising

mode, all systems warmed up, on-line, backed up,

251t

FIRST STRIKE

humming... maybe she actually did jump. Maybe it

wasn't just imagination.

Patrol cruisers zigzagged in and out of the screen as

the starship approached the scene of intensity. On the

screen was a huge magnified picture of Kellen's cruiser

sliding toward the sharp edges of the Fury ship's five-hundred-foot-wide

scales. Kellen's disabled ship was

still shooting, though it drifted at a nauseating pitch

toward the Ruth, making a last-ditch attempt to do the

impossible.

The aft scales on the Fury ship were the largest ones,

and Kellen's ship was sliding toward the big vessel's aft

starboard quarter. Only now did Kirk get a full perspective

of just how large Zennor's ship had become, with

that vast new section added on.

What was in that section? Was that the power base?

"Mr. Spock, where's the emission center of those energy spirals? See if you can zero in on it."

Without answering, Spock lowered gingerly into his

chair, ran his fingers over his controls.

Kirk waved over his shoulder for Nordstrom's attention.

"Send Starfleet a recording of what we've seen so

far. Do it right away."

"Deploying, sir." A crack came out in her voice. She

was getting scared.

"Tractor proximity, Captain," Donnier struggled.

"Get it on, Mr. Donnier, don't wait for orders when

you know what to do. Keep Kellen from colliding into that ship."

"Aye, s-s--" Donnier didn't get the response out, but

he did get the tractor beam on.

The starship hauled back on the tractor beams and

Kellen's drifting ship drew up sharply just as its sagging

starboard wing grazed the edge of a purple scale that

would've cleaved it in half.

"Power astern," Kirk ordered at the right instant.

"Astern." Byers was hypnotized.

Kirk leaned forward. "Let's go, move... don't baby

her, Mr. Byers. Throttle up."

259

Diane Carey

He wasn't watching the Klingon ship being drawn

away from the Rath. He was watching the Rath. Would Zennor fire on him?

"Position of the Klingon fleet."

The ensign shook himself and bent over his sensors.

"Eight vessels... three completely disabled... one

more moving at less than one-quarter power... four

others regrouping."

"They actually retreated," McCoy observed. "After

just a few minutes."

"How many patrollers left?" Kirk asked.

Chekov squinted into his screen. "Six... seven still

functional, sir."

Looking blanched and strained, Spock pressed his

wrist to the edge of his console and paused to look at the

screen. "A great deal of damage with very few shots."

"Unless we find weakness, we can't deal with that ship

under these conditions," Kirk agreed. "Bring her midships,

Mr. Byers. Back straight off. I want my intentions

clear."

"Aye aye, sir." Byers licked his lips as he worked to

equalize the helm while hauling the Klingon vessel

whose damaged systems were still trying to propel it

along its last ordered course.

If Kellen would shut down, this would be a lot easier.

"Pull, Byers. Faster."

"Trying, sir, but there's some kind of resistance."

"Yes, the cruiser's automatic drive--"

The petals of the Rat& filling the screen like huge

theatrical flats, began to glow with that sickly yellow-lavender

electrical presence.

Kirk drew a breath. "Uh-oh... double shields! Brace

yourselves!"

He turned to say something to Nordstrom, but suddenly

the ship heaved up as if in recoil and the night

opened up with purple dragons, cutting a blazing wave

across the primary hull and straight through the bridge,

throwing the captain and the standing crew to the deck

in a tangle.

FIRST STRIKE

"Overload!" Assistant Engineer Edwards shouted, the

first time since coming on the bridge that he'd said

anything at all.

Byers shielded his face from sparks launching from his

console, then waved at the smoke and shouted at the

screen.

"They fired on us! They fired on us right in the middle

of a rescue maneuver!"

Smoke boiled across the bridge. Ventilators came on

and sucked valiantly. Somehow the onrush of near-death

had shaken Byers out of his timidity and made him mad.

Good.

Generally, those two, Byers and Donnier, would be

nowhere near the bridge, yet they'd rallied here today,

under adverse conditions. Ordinarily in battle Kirk

preferred to have his senior crew there, Sulu and

Chekov, or Sulu and another navigation specialist, but

Sulu was down, Chekov was helping Spock, and Donnier

had just caught the bad luck of the draw.

Donnier and Byers would be able to claim having

served in the best crew in Starfleetmyes, they were the

best, but they were the best at their own specific jobs.

Nobody could be the "best" when thrown into somebody

else's job. Almost anyone could fake it at the

technicals of another position, but there would always be

a loss of art. Kirk knew that he could bull and cackle his

way around engineering, but that Scott would be a far

better captain than Kirk would ever be an engineer. That

was why people had specialties, and why the Enterprise was staffed with specialists. The art of the technology.

That was also what they needed today. A little creative

art among the technical business. A little sorcery...

Kirk waved at the smoke, motioned McCoy back

against the rail so he had something solid to hold on to,

and spoke past him to the engineering station, though he

couldn't see through the gushing smoke.

"Compensate," he authorized.

"There's a burnout on the crystal triodes, sir."

That was Nordstrom, but it came from the engineering

261

Diane Carey area. She was either helping Edwards or replacing him, if

he was down. The curtain of smoke went from the ceiling

to the upper deck earpet.

"Compensating," Donnier called from the starboard

side, up where Chekov had been. Unable to cough up

much volume, he spoke from the science subsystems station, leaving Byers to handle helm and weapons.

Was Chekov down?

Kirk flogged himself for not thinking to overstaff the

bridge. With Sulu down, he should've called an all-hands,

summoned the main watch, and just let it be a

little crowded up here.

Violent lights, shadows, and sparks argued all around

and hadn't settled when Zennor's ship turned loose another whip-crack of purple fire.

"Full astern! Byers[ Byers!"

He plunged for the helm console, found the chair

empty, poked through the smoke for the motive action

menu and forced his fingers to tap the impulse generation

up to full power.

"Power's wobbly, sir," Edwards reported innocently,

as if he didn't notice the ship being pummeled around

him.

"We've got to move off. Mr. Scott'll find the power."

The starship bolted again and his stomach went with

her. The deck groaned as if in convulsion beneath his

hands. A piece of the hull screamed past his face and he

swore it grazed him, but it was gone before he could raise

a hand to fend it off. The carpet and the deck beneath it

slammed him hard and drove his knees into the side of

his chair. The chair swiveled and he couldn't hang on.

He sprawled to the deck.

Splinters whistled past his ears and speared his shoulders.

He buried his head for an instant until the whistling

bore off, then grabbed for the sky and caught part of

the helm. He dragged himself to one knee, finally to

both, and was about to cheer his accomplishment when

he made the fatal error of looking up to scan the damage.

FIRST STRIKE

He saw Engineer Edwards' red and black form propelled

sideways by a vicious eruption at the port console,

slam into the bridge rail, and collapse to the deck.

The purple and sulfur twine of energy shined again on

the main screen. Zennor's ship basted near-space with

another razor of energy, and over Kirk's head--the

ceiling exploded.

262

263

Chapter Twenty

James KIrK waved at the smoke as it piled before him and

stung his eyes. Was the tractor beam holding? He

couldn't see the forward screen.

He grabbed for the foggy shape of his chair and hit the

comm. "Scotty, bridge? "Scott here."

"Trouble."

"See it, sir."

"Put everything to the shields and tractor beams.

Reduce life-support if you have to, but keep those shields

"No priority to the weapons, sir?"

"We can't punch through those hull plates. Just keep

the shields up."

"I like it, sir."

"I thought you would, Mr. Scott." He wheeled away,

toward starboard. "Mr. Spock?"

From the anterior glow of emergency lights, the blue-blacks

of Spock appeared out of the smoldering fabric of

the bridge. "Here, Captain."

"Where's Mr. Chekov?"

264

FIRST STRIKE

"On the deck, sir."

"Hurt?" He squinted into the rolling smoke near the

service trunks.

"No, sir," Chekov called, looking up from between his

arms, which disappeared past the elbows inside one of

the trunks. "Radiation wash in the bypass conduits, sir."

He stumbled across the English syllables as though he

believed he was speaking Russian.

Kirk turned, and realized the deck was at an angle.

"Are the tractor beams still on? Mr. Donnier, where are

you?"

"Here, sir?" Donnier dodged under a puff of sparks

near the main screen trunk and landed on both feet.

"Take over assisting Mr. Spock while Mr. Chekov

effects repairs. Lieutenant Nordstrom, take navigation

and weapons. You're going to have to learn to shoot."

"Coming, sir?

"Somebody have relief personnel sent to the bridge."

"I'll do it, Captain," McCoy called from the boiling

gray mist. "Relief personnel to the bridge. Repeat, relief

to the bridge, all stations!"

At once he realized they were all shouting. What was

all this noise they were shouting over? The red-alert

klaxon was howling, yes, and that god-awful whistle--must

be a hull breach somewhere up in the damaged

ceiling.

Somebody would pick up on it. Until it was sealed,

atmosphere would pour out in a bitter silver funnel into

the ice cold of space, and compensators would pump

more and more into the bridge so they could keep

breathing. The ship was exhaling herself to death to keep

them alive and she'd go down to the last quarter centimeter

of reserve oxygen before she gave up. She'd

sacrifice deck after deck, hoping her crew heard the

warnings and evacuated in time. If they didn't, they'd

die there while she tried to save the rest of the crew, until

failsafe made it all the way to the bridge. The bridge

would be the last to be sacrificed. She'd steal from her

own guts if that would work.

265

Diane Carey

And it just might. It would buy them time. The bridge

had to breathe if the ship was to be saved.

The turbolift wheezed two-thirds open, then jammed.

Four bridge relief crewmen poured out, followed by

three men in atmospheric suits. One of those carried a

collapsible ladder. They went to work on the sparking

ceiling while the relief crew dropped into appropriate

positions.

Byers was back at the helm. Kirk had no idea what had

happened to him, if he'd been knocked silly, if he'd

frozen with fear, or what. He was back now.

Two medical orderlies dropped at Edwards' sides

while relief personnel manned the engineering stations.

Kirk hadn't seen the medics come out of the lift, but

then he hadn't paid much attention.

The pair checked Edwards' vi tals, then scooped him

up and carried him to the lift. The lift wasn't happy

about having to close that jammed door and protested

with a metallic screech, but then that was done.

"Course, sir?" Byers asked.

"Away from the big ship any way you can do it, Mr.

Byers. Ensign, how are you doing on that radiation

wash?"

"I think I have a formula, sir," Chekov called as the

ship bucked and whined again.

He cursed himself for his trust, his hope. Zennor had

lashed out with no sign of regret or hesitation, and with a

greater punch than Kirk would've bet on. He'd hoped to

maneuver out of the trap, and now he had to fight his

way out. He hunched his shoulders and glared at the

screen.

"Magnification point five," he called over the whistle

of the fans.

Ventilators had cleared the bridge of about sixty

percent of the smoke, and he could see the action on the

forward screen as it backed off its zoom view. He saw the

tractor beams still holding Kellen's crippled ship, and he

saw most of Zennor's huge Rath.

266

FIRST STRIKE

He also saw the Klingon fleet moving in again.

"Ship to ship, General Kellen," he said. But no one

was at the communications console. He looked around

and found McCoy hovering at the starboard steps.

"Bones, get back up there and stay there."

".Oh--sorry." The doctor tucked his injured arm

against his side and pulled himself back up the tilted

deck to the communications station. "Ship to ship..."

he muttered as he poked at the controls. "I think this is

it. Try it."

"General," Kirk spoke up, "call off your ships."

"Fire! Fire, you coward! My weapons are down! Fire

at them!"

"I'm telling you, the disruptor fire is providing power

to Zennor and he's hitting us with it. Tell your ships to

back off and save their energy. I need time to tow you out

of here."

"Thank you for the tow. Now mind your own business."

"All right, but at least shut down your thrusters so we

can get out of here. Your ship is providing resistance."

There was no response at all this time.

"General! Damn it." He motioned for McCoy to cut

off the communication. Like the patrollers, he was

knocking his head against the same kind of brick wall.

"Captain!" Byers called.

Kirk looked at the forward screen again in time to see

four scorched patrollers soar past the Enterprise and

viciously strafe the Rath, looking completely ridiculous

in their total ineffectiveness. The energy they deployed

simply washed down the cone-shaped hull and disappeared

inside somehow. Damn it, damn it, damn it.

Zennor's ship glowed in retaliation, and Kirk braced

to take another hit, but this one shot out in bright rings

right where the patrollers were passing and selectively hit

them. So the weapons were directional as well as area-wide--either

that, or Zennor and his crew were learning

as they fought.

267

Diane Carey

"Shouldn't we return fire, Jim?" McCoy asked, sensing

the starship would be next. "Isn't there some way?"

"It's a waste of effort. There has to be a weakness."

"I hope you find it."

"I hope so too."

He stepped to the bridge rail, and only now realized he

was limping--his hip was hurting. He must've struck it

on an edge when he fell. He reached up for McCoy to

take his forearm and hoist him out of the center of the

command deck, giving the repair crew more room to

maneuver as they climbed about inside the ceiling like

squirrels in an attic.

Byers ducked out of the way as much as he could, but

somehow managed to do it without taking his hands off

the helm, shuffling around in front of the console while

repair work was done above him.

The repair crew went about their business with a zeal

that suggested they were enjoying the terror, for it gave

them something to do. Within a couple of minutes, the

loud wheezing was reduced to a sorry whistle, then

finally to nothing, and the hull breach was sealed.

The ship sighed with relief. Everything suddenly became

quiet, as -if to feign that nothing was happening.

Between Spock and McCoy, Kirk watched the Klingon

patrollers being basted by the Rath's selective hits. The

patrollers shuddered and veered off, but one of them

veered in the wrong direction.

"It's gonna hit!" Byers gulped, only an instant before

impact.

The patroller decimated itself into the pleats of the Rath. The body of the ship exploded first, leaving for a

terrible moment only the wings flying through space,

unattached, before they too were caught by the points of

the scales and the plasma inside them blew up.

"That's it!" Kirk said, and the sound was much softer

than the thought. Only McCoy and Spock heard him.

Spock looked at him, but didn't have to ask.

"Look at the hull plates," Kirk said, pointing.

"They're bent."

268

FIRST STRIKE

Seemingly impregnable moments ago, the fifty-foot

plates of Zennor's ship were scored and misshapen

where the patrollers had stricken them, but most important,

they were peeled back several feet--several meters

even.

And under there, he could see the faintest shimmer of

bare hull.

Bare unshielded hull.

"That's it, that's our target... there it

He started to step down to the command arena again,

when, overhead, one of the repair crew fell out and

landed on his back across the command chair, then

rolled off, stunned.

Kirk picked him up roughly, then looked up. "Come

down from 'there! Is that secure?"

"Yes, sir!" another repairman called as he and another

one scurried down and folded the ladder.

"Then get out of here."

"Aye, sir!"

He stepped up to his chair, littered now with insulation

crumbs and sharp bits of ceiling material that

hadn't been cleaned off yet. Eventually somebody would

come up here and vacuum it up. For now, he would sit

on chips and fuzz.

"Sir, General Kellen's ship is no longer under thrust,"

Spock reported. "We are free to tow."

"I don't want to tow him anymore. Bring him out

behind us and drop him."

"Sir?"

"And bring the tractor beams to bear on the forward

points of those hull plates. Pick up as many as you can

without reducing tractor capacity. Then I want to heel

back and peel those plates up on whatever they have for

hinges."

Spock thought about this for a moment, then said,

"May I ask your intentions?"

"Yes, you can. We're going to fire straight down into

the cracks."

The bridge crew blinked at him for a moment.

269

Diane Carey

He glanced at each of them, waved his hands, and

snapped, "Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Byers said, and licked a bleeding lip.

"Aye aye, sir!" Donnier nodded furiously.

Complying, Spock responded. He brushed crumbs

of hull material off his console, then looked again at Kirk

and waited for the order.

"Concentrate three-quarters from the aft end of the

ship. I want to target the area of Zennor's original ship.

That's where I think the command center still is."

"Aye aye, sir."

"I'm ready, sir."

"Ready also, sir."

Kirk settled into his chair, on top of the chips and the

fuzz and the grit. "Haul away, Mr. Spock. Mr. Donnier

.. prepare to open fire."

"I'm ready, s-sir."

"Fire."

As the tractor beams strained and the impulse engines

thrust furiously to pull back the scales of the Rath, one at

a time, the ship's volleys of phaser fire opened up the

bared hull between the sheared-back plates.

Cutting like a surgeon's lasers into the underskin of

the Rath, the phasers immediately gave Kirk gratification.

Sparks, hull matter, and atmospheric gases spewed

past the starship and out into space.

"Shields are fluctuating, sir," Chekov reported. "The

tractor beam is compromising deflector power consumption."

"We don't have any options, Mr. Chekov. Maintain."

Zennor's ship let loose another whip of glowing power,

thudding the Enterprise viciously, but this wasn't the

time to do anything but lie close and take the heat.

The tractor beams howled now, drawing power and

arguing with the shields.

"Shut down aft shields," Kirk instructed. "Forward

shields only. Keep pulling.. full traction.. good.

maintain fire."

Would the inner hull on Zennor's ship give first, or

27O

FIRST STRIKE

would the starship's shields go? There was no way to

judge that. It was a night at the gambling tables.

Plate after plate, the Enterprise chewed her way across

the Rath's acres-wide hull, phaser fire burrowing between

them and causing plumes of matter to erupt from

in there. The big dark ship slid away and fell off its

position, and he sensed that he knew where the havoc

was right now. A dreadnought designed for invasion,

vastly powerful, but untested in real battle, and a crew

who had heard their whole lives about their destiny to

invade but had never done any such thing, today were

both finding out that plans and hopes alone do not serve.

They had strength, delivered by the resources of a whole

civilization, but they had no strategy, for they had never

before needed one.

As the ruptures between the peeled-back scales began

some serious billowing and gushing, Zennor's ship

opened up again with another engulfing salvo of the

burning power, and the Enterprise rocked hard to her

starboard side, throwing everyone down hard. Not one

of the bridge personnel was able to stay off the deck.

Kirk saw the bridge whirl around him, then blinked

and found himself crushed into the crease between the

upper and lower decks, under the rail on the starboard

side. More smoke and sparks and putrid fluids and gases

spewed all around him.

He reached up, caught the rail, hauled himself up, and

instantly looked for Spock.

The Vulcan was on his hands and knees on the deck,

slowly raising one hand and searching for the edge of his

console.

"Spock, wait," Kirk said, and forced himself up there.

"Slowly."

He got a good grip on Spock and took much of the

Vulcan's weight as they both found their balance on a

deck now tilted nearly forty degrees.

"Thank you, Captain," Spock wheezed, choked with

pain again.

"Sit down and stay down. Don't get up again."

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Diane Carey

"Thank you." The first officer gladly settled into his

now-dusty chair and closed his eyes for a moment, not

caring that he had repeated himself.

"Stop thanking me," Kirk muttered.

"Captain, the weapons!" Donnier called, without a

slammer. "We've lost weapons power! We can't shoot!"

"Confirm that, engineering." Whirling in the other

direction, Kirk dropped again to the middle deck.

"Confirmed, sir!" Davis called over the surging howl

of ruptured system.

"Not now... continue traction. Keep peeling those

plates back. Bones, hail Kellen again."

"Kellen ... yes, sir." McCoy swung around and almost

lost his footing on the tipping deck, but waved away

the smoke and found the same buttons he'd found

before. "Ship to ship, Captain."

"General, do you have weapons power?"

"You were shooting. Keep shooting."

"I can't. My weapons are off-line. How are yours?"

"Mine are on, but I have no engine thrust."

"You don't need thrust for what I have in mind."

"You want me to do what you say? You want Klingon

commanders to do your bidding?"

Kirk glared at the main screen as if at Kellen's face

and imagined the general standing before him and

expecting something spectacular.

All right. Fine.

"Yes, I want you all to do my bidding. I will take care

of this problem for you, but I want senior authority,

clearance to act on my own judgment, and absolution

from any breakage of treaty until the Enterprise is safely

on the other side of the Federation Neutral Zone, or I

veer off right now and leave you to the Havoc. It's your

turn to cooperate, General. I want you to make me

Commodore of the Klingon Fleet."

272

Chapter Twenty-one

HE reFusEd to ask again. He let Kellen hang out there,

without engine power, staring at the monolithic threat of

the invasion dreadnought, and he bided his time.

"I concur."

Kirk gave,,liis command chair a victorious pounding

on the arm. accept. Inform your commanders."

"They know."

"Good. My first order to them is that they cease

random fire and prepare for coordinated strafing with

specific targets, on my orders only. I want you to divert

all your power to weapons and stand by while I attempt

one last time to talk to Zennor."

"Talk Yt '

ou re gotng to talk again?"

"Yes, I'm going to talk," KIrk grolled indignantly, 'I'm

going to talk and you're not going to question me

anymore. You have your orders. McCoy, hail Zennor

and hail him good."

McCoy didn't respond, but jabbed at the communications board in what seemed childlike confusion, then

looked up and shrugged with his eyes. "Channel's open,

Captain."

The

Invasion

Continues

,BOOK TWO

The Soldiers of Fear

Diane Carey

He didn't add the implied I think.

Gnashing his teeth, Kirk felt his brows go down as he

glowered at the Rat& the early fortress.

"Zennor, this is Commodore Kirk of the combined

forces of the United Federation of Planets and the

Klingon Imperial Fleet. I know you can hear me. We've

discovered a weakness in your armaments and I'm about

to launch an assault against it. I give you one more

chance to stand down and let me try to explain to you

exactly what it is that you're acting upon. Legends and

folklore over five thousand years old, stories told to

children to frighten them into behavior... the stuff that

ignorant people allow themselves to believe because they

haven't learned any better. We've learned better... and

now we have a chance to mend the wrong done to your

civilization by people who are strangers to all of us."

His words rang, and tension set in. The Rath hung out

there, several of its hull petals torn backward, bent up

out of place, rupturing the floral symmetry of the huge

conical hull.

"I'm offering you one last chance to build instead of

wreck. Isn't that what you've wanted all along?"

Over the OPen channel came only the faint clicking

and crackle of distant damage, of voices barely more

than echoes calling out to each other in frantic desperation.

So it was only bare hull in there after all and he had

been right. There was a chink in the armor of the

damned.

Changing the timber of his voice to something he

reserved for other captains, he simply requested, "State

your intentions."

Then all would know, and all duties would be clear.

He waited.

Under his skin he sensed Zennor's eyes, watching the Enterprise just as now he watched the Rath, peering at

each other over the short gap of space, the long gap of

time, wondering if the weaknesses they saw in each other

were real, and if the time to crow was over.

"We will build."

274

FIRST STRIKE

Hope flared and Kirk leaned forward. Zennor's voice

was underlaid by the groan of damage over there, the

whoop of alarms, and the frantic voices of the alien crew.

"Upon the ruined cities of the conquerors' children, we

will build our rightful place. There is no giving up. History

renews itself and breathes life into the doomed. This is the

Battle of Garamanus. This is our place and we will defend

it. First we will smash the Klingon civilization, and then

we will come for yours."

The flare guttered and sank away. Kirk sighed, shook

his head, pressed his lips flat, but there wasn't anything

else to say.

'I regret... it has to be you," Zennor added then. 'I

did not expect to like the conqueror."

The station-sized ship began to hum and glow again in

a now-recognizable process of building to open fire.

Kirk nodded as if Zennor could actually see him. "I'm

sorry too."

He motioned for McCoy to close channels.

"Kirk to Kellen. Brace yourselves and prepare to open

fire."

"Ready."

"Mr. Donnier, tractor beams. Mr. Byers, full power to

thrust. Let's pull that ship apart. General, open fire."

The starship whined and dug in its heels, pit-bulling

the hull plates of the Rath up two by two. The Klingon

ship blasted photon salvos with accuracy down into the

grooves left exposed as each plate was squalled backward.

The blue balls of energy plowed straight down

inside, to detonate deep in the grooves, pounding the

inner hull of the Rath to bits and sending destructive

explosions ricocheting around in there.

Kirk crimped his eyes in empathy. He knew what was

happening to the interior of the Rath. But there was also

a naughty I-told-you-so swelling in his chest, and that

was the feeling he grabbed on to for stability.

Zennor's ship glowed and vaulted another heavy attack

at the Enterprise and Kellen's ship.

The bridge lights flashed, then went out completely for

275

Diane Carey

a moment, leaving only the bright glow of the main

screen and the scene on it. A moment later, small

emergency lights came on along the deck and about

halfway around the ceiling area, just enough to work by.

Around him the crew's faces were sculpted to the bones

by hellish red lights from below and creamy yellow lights

from above, the hollows of their eyes made deep by

shadows and their noses and chins turned to sickles.

"Captain, shields just fell!" the relief engineer called.

"We've got no protection anymore."

"Spock, confirm that."

"Confirmed, sir. No shield power left at all."

"Perfect. If they hit us again, it's all over."

"Sir," the engineer called again, "Mr. Scott says we've

lost the conduits to the warp drive. The engines are good,

but we can't engage them. We'll need twenty minutes to

reestablish."

"We've still got impulse, correct?"

"Yes, sir, we've got that."

"Understood. General Kellen, maintain fire. Attention,

Klingon fleet. All available ships begin strafing

maneuvers now. Come in at full impulse speed. Target

specified areas of weakness between the abutting ends of

the plates."

Zennor's ships built to fire again and tried to pick off

the Klingon ships as they rushed in like streaks of light,

but at high speed they were better able to avoid the

washing yellow-purple energy blasts, or at least to take

only glancing blows. Two Klingon cruisers were

slammed out of the way in the first attack, but others

made it through and hammered the exposed inner skin

of the Rath with blunt photons.

The Fury ship started to move, to fall away, trying to

gain some room, but the Enterprise stayed with it, and

Kellen's ship continued to fire down into the fissures

caused as the starship pulled up petal after petal.

The bridge crackled and fumed with new damage, but

the starship kept working. Kirk imagined the flurry

276

FIRST STRIKE

below decks to keep the systems on-line long enough to

succeed. Engineers would be tripping over damage-control

parties, who would be stepping between clean-up

crews. Everybody was hustling today.

"Sir, they're starting to pitch," Byers called out over

the whistle of a leak on the port side.

Before them Zennor's huge vessel began to tip downward

and to roll sideways, bucking and twisting like an

elk trying to throw off a clinging bobcat, but Kirk

wouldn't call off. Zennor didn't have tractor beams and

his technology hadn't anticipated them. That was why

this could work.

"Look!" Donnier choked, and pointed.

"Flux emanations are off the scale, sir!" Chekov sang

out, and also looked at the main screen.

Zennor's ship, the whole vast length and breadth of it,

was beginning to glow, but not like before. This glow

came from inside, shining out of the edges of all the

petals in the wide midsection, bright neon yellowish

white, and it was expanding through the ship, spilling

forward under the plates. Several of the plates were

blown completely off as the violence traveled.

"Building up to overload," Spock concluded as he

looked at his sensor screen. Sharply he looked up.

"Detonation any moment now."

Nobody had to tell Kirk that. Halfway across the

galaxy or not, he knew a main power core meltdown

when he saw one.

"Mr. Byers, full about! Ship to ship--General, we're

evacuating. Notify your fleet to clear the area at high

warp. Broadcast long-range warnings--"

"We have no thruster power. You go, Captain Kirk,

and we will continue firing until we all are a ball of fire.

We will personally take that demon ship to its own

prophecy!!"

"They don't need an escort. Donnier, shift tractor

beams to the general's ship."

"Shifting beams, sir."

277

Diane Carey

"We'll tow you out of the immediate impact range, General. With full shields you should be able to survive

the blast."

"Use your warp speed to get away, Kirk. All warriors

die."

"Yes," Kirk said. "But it's my turn today, not yours.

Our shields are down and we've lost warp maneuvering

power. We can't get far enough away from here to survive

without shields."

The crew tried to keep their faces still, but their

postures were revealing. Kirk was careful not to turn his

head, so none would feel lessened in his captain's eyes,

even as he spoke of their impending deaths.

The best crew in Starfleet. Didn't mean they were

icicles. He regretted not coming up with a word or two of

shallow comfort. They needed to hear that in his voice,

but he had none. The only gift he could give them was that they would die while saving others.

"We can tow you to safe range and your shields will

protect you." He glanced around at the sweaty faces of

his crew and noted how young they all were. "Everybody

has to die sometime. At least we're dying for a good

reason."

"Idiot." Kellen's insult was almost warm. "Do you

think you're dying today? Shields on extension mode."

As the two ships drew away from the Rath at painfully

slow speed, the Fury ship glowed brighter and rolled in

space furiously now. More and more hull plates blew off

as explosions tore through the inner core. A moment

later, the point of the horn-shaped bow blew off, leaving

a shorn stump through which plasma and radiation

boiled freely into space.

"Captain," Spock began, "General Kellen's ship has

extended their shields around us."

"That stretches him too thin," Kirk commented, but

didn't bother to call Kellen.

As he looked from Spock to the main screen again, the Rath reached its critical mass. The hull plates blew off all

over it.

278

FIRST STRIKE

Then, an explosion the size of a continent erupted

across open space, devouring the purple structure until

nothing could be seen but tumbling plates, spraying

matter and energy, and bright incendiary destruction.

Shock waves rocked the starship and the battle cruiser,

shoving them bodily backward through space. Kirk

clung to his chair as pressure hit him hard and artificial

gravity on the ship crushed him toward the deck as it

tried to compensate.

The Enterprise went up on a side, almost ninety

degrees. The crew tumbled, but they knew what to grab

for and managed to pull themselves into place as the

deck began to right.

The Klingon shields crackled and sparked around

both ships, but held. Wave upon wave of energy plied

space across them in a vast sphere.

Kirk waved at the electrical smoke and blinked as it

burned his eyes. On the screen, the Fury ship was gone.

Hell had gone to hell.

279

What is death but parting breath?

-"MacPherson's Rant,"

a folk song

Epilogue

"SECURE FROM RED ALERT. Establish contact with the shuttlecraft and have them report on any rescues and

return to the ship as soon as possible. We need a damage-control

party on the bridge."

The bridge gasped and spat around them, but there

was a sense of control again. Pausing to cough out the

acrid smoke that was tickling his lungs, James Kirk

prowled his bridge and checked on his people one by

one. In their sweat-streaked faces he saw the charity they

offered him for the decision he had been forced to make,

their willingness to do it all again if necessary, and a

respect he found somehow saddening.

One by one they assured him they were all right and

would now begin the slow process of piecing together the

damaged systems that had brought them through all this

alive.

There wasn't one of them who would jump ship at the

next dock after all this. These were the kind of people

who discovered themselves better for having fielded

mortal danger. No matter the fright, they hadn't

crouched scared or shrunk from the face of it or let it

283

Diane Carey

petrify them out of doing their jobs. Not even Donnier

and Byers, who had found themselves in the wrong place

at the wrong time, doing things they'd never imagined

they would have to do. But if the ship had been wrecked

under them, they'd have died with their hands on the

halyards. That was something to write home about.

One by one he congratulated them, and finally made it

around to Spock.

"Mr. Spock."

"Captain."

"Final analysis?"

"Zennor's ship has been completely decimated. Their

dreadnought attachment was apparently a massive power

factory, and once unshielded and ignited..."

Spock paused and shook his head, communicating

silently the ferocity of such a chain reaction.

"I am certain it was very quick," he added.

Gratefully, Kirk made a small, inadequate nod.

"Thank you. But Zennor made his own choice. I'm sorry

it had to happen, but I won't blame myself."

Spock seemed relieved by that. "Both the shuttlecraft Columbia and Galileo are on final approach, and both

report having picked up survivors from several Klingon

lifepods. Galileo reports she's towing what may be a

lifepod from Zennor's ship, but there are no life signs

aboard."

"I want to have a look at that. Tell them not to open it

until I get there."

"Yes, sir."

"Captain," McCoy interrupted, using his good hand

to hold the communications earpiece to his ear. "General

Kellen's requesting permission to come aboard."

Kirk glanced at him. "Fine. But tell him to come

unarmed this time and expect to be under armed escort

at all times."

McCoy paled at having to tell that to a Klingon

general, but turned back to the board.

"Captain," Spock went on, "I have also picked up

telemetry broadcast by Zennor just prior to the final

284

FIRST STRIKE

explosion, but it has not been sorted out yet. The signals

were scrambled and quite complex."

"Telemetry? Meant for us?"

"No, sir. I believe he meant it for broadcast back to his

own people."

"Do you think the message got through?"

Spock canted his head to the side, then winced and

straightened it again. "No way to tell. I know it was

successfully broadcast, but there was no evidence that

the fissure opened to receive it. Still, their technology is

largely an unknown."

"See if you can make any sense of it. I'll be on the

flight deck. Have the general brought there when he

comes aboard. McCoy, with me. And, Spock... thank

you again."

Spock clasped his hands behind his back, a casual

motion considering his condition. "My pleasure to

serve, Captain. As always."

The flight deck was organized chaos. Well, havoc, to

keep in the spirit of the occasion. The two newly

returned shuttlecraft lay in the open rather than in their .

docking stalls, having just come in with their various

acquired rescues and tows. Several Klingon lifepods

littered the deck, in various conditions from pristine to

burned and dented, unable even to sit on the deck

without tilting.

Wounded Klingon soldiers, also in various conditions,

sat or lay against every bulkhead. At first glance as he

and McCoy entered, Kirk guessed there were over three

hundred of them.

McCoy broke off immediately to collect reports from

the dashing interns, nurses, and medics. Orderlies and

ensigns moved about everywhere, passing out drinks and

something to eat that made most of the Klingons sneer,

but they were all eating whatever it was and trying to be

polite.

Those who were conscious looked up at him suspiciously

as he surveyed them and received reports from

285

Diane Carey the shuttlecraft lieutenants. He saw in their eyes their

fears, relying on rumors of the savagery inflicted by

Starfleet on any prisoners of war. They didn't seem to

have quite absorbed the fact that they were in fact allies

for the moment and were in the care of their commodore.

"Lieutenant," Kirk greeted as the commander of the Galileo approached him with a manifest.

"Staaltenburg, sir."

"Yes, I remember. Eric."

"That's correct, sir."

"You're the one who reported picking up a pod from

the big ship?"

"Yes, sir." Staaltenburg brushed his blond hair out of

his eyes and led the way around to the other side of

Galileo, where there lay a solid black pod without so

much as a running light upon it. In the blackness of

space, it would've been completely invisible if they

hadn't been scanning for things about that size.

"We practically slammed into it, sir, before we realized

it was there and wasn't an asteroid. I never heard of

a lifepod that didn't want to be found. No life signs at all

in there, by the way, sir. We've scanned it... no harmful

rays or leaks, and there is an atmosphere in there, so

it's properly pressurized. We can open it anytime you

like."

"Do so."

Staaltenburg waved up two men who had been standing

by, anticipating the order, who came in with phaser

torches and went to work on the locking mechanism of

the pod.

"Captain," Staaltenburg said then, and nodded to

ward the port side entryway.

Kirk turned.

General Kellen trundled toward him, flanked by two

Starfleet Security guards.

"General," Kirk greeted, not particularly warmed up.

"Commodore. My men are being taken care of, I see,"

the wide Klingon said, glancing about at the rows of

286 FIRST STRIKE

rescued soldiers. "I shall expect them to be completely

cooperative."

"So far, so good," Kirk said.

Kellen faced him and looked over the tops of his

glasses. "I congratulate you. You saved what is left of my

fleet. You are the Kirk."

Unable to muster any mirth, the captain--commodore--bobbed

his brows in response. He got a

little jolt of satisfaction at being reinstailed as the

resident buzzard of Starfleet.

"Thank you. You still have charges to face regarding

the murder of a Starfleet serviceman and a guest of the

Federation. Counsel will be provided if you require it."

Kellen made a small conciliatory bow. "I know. I shall

face those charges boldly. I accept your offer of counsel,

as it will go in my favor to have Federation lawyers

speaking to a Federation court."

"Very wise, and probably true, General. There are

considerable mitigating circumstances. Be forewarned

that I take the death of my crewman very seriously and I

intend to testify against you. However, I'll also testify

that you stopped the assault on Capella Four and by

doing that probably forestailed many other deaths. It'll

be an interesting few months for us both, I think."

"I am ready. I confess that I do not understand what

makes you humans fight. You did destroy them after all,

but even though I told you what these people were, it

took you a very long time to decide to act."

"On the contrary," Kirk pointed out, "I decided not to

act rashly. That too is a decision. You were right about

who they were, but you were wrong about what they

were. No one is inherently evil. That comes only from

the choices we make and the actions we take."

"Perhaps." Kellen's small eyes twinkled. "I wish you

people would fight against us. What a grand war we

could have!"

Kirk leered at him, now somewhat amused in spite of

everything. He felt an unbidden grin pull' at his cheeks.

"Maybe someday, General."

287

Diane Carey

"Sir!" Staaltenburg called. "it's open."

Kirk glanced around the vast, high-halled flight deck.

"McCoy! Over here."

He waited for the doctor to join them, then nodded to

Staaltenburg. "Go ahead, Lieutenant."

Together, Staaltenburg and the two other crewmen

hauled open a very thick hatch on the black pod. There

was no light inside, but only a slight gush of atmosphere

as the pod equalized.

"Get a light," Staaltenburg ordered, 'and one of the

crewmen passed him a handheld utility light.

The crewmen, the general, the doctor, and the commodore

pressed into a half-circle and huddled up before the

open hatch.

"Well, I'll be damned," McCoy spouted.

The light cast a bright blue-white glow inside the pod.

There, with tiny faces in many shapes, their bodies

stuffed with memories, lay carefully stacked what must

have been over a thousand linen poppets.

Kirk looked at McCoy.

"Rag dolls?" Staaltenburg blurted. "They bothered to

save a bunch of rag dolls?"

They stood back from the hatch, contemplating what

they saw there.

"You want me to have these disposed of, sir?" the

lieutenant offered, clearly aggravated that he'd gone to

the trouble of capturing and towing in a pod that turned

out to be stuffed with stuffed dolls.

Kirk gazed into the bubble of tiny sojourners and

remembered a moment, a conversation, that might have

flowered into something very good, had the past not

thrown out its tripwire.

"No, Lieutenant. I want these carefully catalogued,

then permanently stored in airtight containers. It's a

trust I owe to a friend."

Staaltenburg frowned, then shrugged. "As you wish,

sir."

The lieutenant and his men moved off to follow their

assignment, and McCoy was watching Kirk. He was the

288

FIRST STRIKE

only one who understood the strange order, and Kirk

found comfort in that.

"Very nice, Captain," the doctor offered. "I don't

know what else we can do."

"If that door ever opens again," Kirk said, "we may

need a peace offering. And their families will want to...

have those."

McCoy nodded. "Zennor would be glad to know you

picked them up, Jim. In spite of everything, I believe

that."

"Captain," Staaltenburg called from the bulkhead,

and motioned at the comm unit. "Mr. Spock, sir."

McCoy followed as Kirk headed over to the port side,

both of them a little too aware of that pod back there.

"Kirk here."

"Spock, sir, "the baritone voice came through. "I have

translated the telemetry. The message was launched at

nearly warp twenty-five. I had believed such speed impossible,

but they have somehow overcome that. I remind you

there is still no way to know whether or not the message

went through the fissure or will travel on its own to the

other side of the galaxy."

"Go ahead, Mr. Spock. I think I'm beyond surprises."

"I hope so, sir. The message is from Zennor himself It

states, 'The Battle of Garamanus is lost. We have not

survived, but this is our rightful place. Try again.""

289

The

Invasion

Continues

,BOOK TWO

The Soldiers of Fear

The message from Starfleet had been curt. Assemble

the senior officers. Prepare for a Security One message

at 0900. Picard hadn't heard a Security One message

since the Borg were headed for Earth. The highest

level code. Extreme emergency. Override all other protocols. Abandon all previous orders.

Something serious had happened.

He leaned over the replicator. He had only a

moment until the senior officers arrived.

"Earl Grey, hot," he said, and the empty space on

the replicator shimmered before a clear glass mug

filled with steaming tea appeared. He gripped the mug

by its warm body, slipping his thumb through the

handle, and took a sip, allowing the liquid to calm

him.

He had no clue what this might be about and that

worried him. He always kept abreast of activity in the

quadrant. He knew the subtlest changes in the political

breeze. The Romulans had been quiet of late; the

Cardassians had been cooperating with Bajor. No

new ships had been sighted in any sector, and no

small rebel groups were taking their rebellions into

space. Maybe it was the Klingons?

He should have had an inkling.

His door hissed open and Beverly Crusher came in.

Geordi La Forge was beside her. Data followed. The

doctor and Geordi looked worried. Data had his usual

look of expectant curiosity.

The door hadn't even had a chance to close before

Deanna Troi came in. She was in uniform, a habit she

had started just recently. Worf saw her and left his

post on the bridge, following her to his position in the

meeting room.

Only Commander Riker was missing and he was

needed. Picard waited anxiously.

It was 0859.

Then the door hissed a final time and Will Riker

entered. His workout clothes were sweat streaked, his

hair damp. Over his shoulder he had draped a towel,

which he instantly took off and wadded in a ball in his

hand.

"Sorry, sir," he said, "but from your voice, I figured

I wouldn't have time to change."

"You were right, Will," Picard said. "We're about

to get a message from Starfleet Command. They

requested that all senior officers be in attendance--"

The viewer on the captain's desk snapped on with

the Federation's symbol, indicating a scrambled communique.

"Message sent to Picard, Captain, U.S.S. Enterprise

V," said the generic female computer voice.

"Please confirm identity and status."

Picard placed a hand on the screen on his desk.

"Picard, Jean-Luc, Captain, U.S.S. Enterprise. Security

Code 1-B58A."

The computer beeped.

Picard's palms were damp. He grabbed his cup of

tea, but the tea was growing cold. Still, he drank the

rest, barely tasting the tea's bouquet.

When the security protocol ended, the Federation

symbol disappeared from the screen, replaced by the

battle-scarred face of Admiral Kirschbaum. His features

had tightened in that emotionless yet urgent

expression the oldest--and best--commanders had

in times of emergency.

"Jean-Luc. We have no time for discussion. A

sensor array at the Furies Point has been destroyed.

Five ships of unknown origin are there now, along

with what seems to be a small black hole. Two of the

.ships attacked the Brundage Station and we're awaitng

word on the outcome. I'm ordering all available

ships to the area at top speed."

The Furies Point. Pcard needed no more explanation

than that. From the serious expressions all

around him, he could tell that his staff understood as

well.

Picard's handtightened on the empty glass mug. He

set it down before he shattered it with his ri "We'r

on our way, Admiral."

g p'

e

"Good." The admiral's mouth tightened. "I hope I

don't have to explain--"

"I understand the urgency, Admiral."

"If those ships are what we believe them to be,

we're at war, Jean-Luc."

How quickly it had happened. One moment he was

on the bridge, preparing for the day's duties. The

next, this.

"I will act accordingly, Admiral."

The admiral nodded. "You don't have much time,

Jean-Luc. I will contact you in one hour with transmissions

from the attack on the Brundage outpost. It

will give you and you r officers some idea of what you

are facing."

"Thank you, Admiral," Picard said.

"Godspeed, Jean-Luc."

"And to you," Picard said, but by the time the

words were out, the admiral's image had winked

away.

Picard felt as if someone had punched him in the

stomach.

The Furies.

The rest of the staff looked as stunned as he felt.

Except for Data. When Picard met his gaze, Data

said quietly, "It will take us two point three-eight

hours at warp nine to reach Brundage Station."

"Then lay in a course, Mr. Data, and engage. We

don't have time to waste."

Look for Star Trek The Next Generation

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It is the Day of Reckoning

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THE SOLDIERS OF FEAR

By Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch

A generation ago, another U.S.S. nterpriseTM repelled a deadly

invasion. Now, the exiled aliens known as the Furies have returned,

more powerful than ever, and this time their weapons include the

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