STAR TREK: TOS - Prime Directive Page 7

  “Why do you call us worldkillers?” Chekov asked.

  Krulmadden stuck out his lower lip and waved the disrupter again. “Why hands in cape, Chekov Mister?” He smiled at Sulu. “And you Sulu Mister. Both Enterprise, no? Krulmadden knows all. Fine shipmaster, Krulmadden.”

  “But in this case,” Sulu said evenly, “the fine shipmaster is wrong.”

  Krulmadden used his free hand to pick at an emerald in an upper tooth for a moment, as if carefully considering what Sulu had said. Then he shrugged, thrust the disrupter forward, and a small patch of iron at Sulu’s feet bubbled up in red hot blisters.

  “Krulmadden not good with Standard Tongue,” the Orion said. “Some things you not hear right. Some things you say ...” He tapped the disrupter against his ear and stepped from his barstool.

  “So again I say, Sulu and Chekov shipmates, but no ship.” He walked closer to them, steel-soled boots clanking on the floor plates, the disruptor swinging back and forth with each waddling step. “True, you f’deraxt’l shipmates. But other f’deraxt’la not want you. So no ship, but ...” He stood before them, grinning with a mouth like a backlit rainbow. “... Krulmadden ship!” He slipped the barrel of the disruptor into a wide burgundy sash that rested high across his stomach. “So audition over.” He reached out and slapped two meaty hands on Sulu’s and Chekov’s shoulders. Sulu winced. “You ship again.”

  Chekov looked concerned. “I ... I am not sure that I understand—”

  Sulu felt another heavy hand hit his other shoulder, and smelled a familiar stench as Artinton leaned forward from behind. The Orion’s voice was thick and nasal.

  “Shipmaster say, little ... mammals,” Artinton said, digging fingers like daggers into Sulu’s trapezius muscles, “you hired.”

  SIX

  Surprisingly, the naming of ships was not a universal habit. Scholars speculated that the root of the practice might lie within those ancient instincts, common to some species such as Klingon and human, from which sprang such strife-ridden concepts as territory and combat. However, even the Vulcans acknowledged the logic of giving ships names to honor individuals and places worthy of remembrance, or to remind all who served aboard the vessels of the qualities they should seek to master.

  But there were those other races that had taken up the custom in all its detail, without really comprehending the finer points of the practice. They christened their ships not with names from their own history or culture, but from those of the alien races who had originated the practice.

  Thus cobalt-blooded Andorians bravely piloted massive troop carriers named the Robert E. Lee and the Surak; Tellarites traveled from world to world aboard the Rhode Island and the Claw of the Vindicator; and even the Centaurans had called the first warp-powered craft launched from their planet the Daedalus.

  Which is why Pavel Chekov was not surprised to read the name ornately emblazoned upon the hull of Krulmadden’s [64] ship, high in orbit above Rigel VIII. Despite all the alien influences of its mismatched components, and the fact that it was a Rigellian Registry Vessel, it made perfect sense to Chekov that the craft was proudly named the RRV Queen Mary. He had seen stranger.

  “Holding at two hundred meters from the outer shields’ perimeter,” Sulu announced, making a final adjustment to the shuttle’s attitude thrusters. Chekov had been impressed at how well his friend had performed at the controls of Krulmadden’s stripped-down orbital shuttle. It had been a long time since either of them had flown in anything without its own gravity generator. He supposed that was yet another adjustment they would have to make now that they were no longer flying the cutting-edge craft of Starfleet.

  “So, my helmsman, what do you think of my brightest jewel?” The shuttle’s small flight cabin became even more cramped as Krulmadden floated into it from the aft cargo hold. Chekov couldn’t help but notice that Krulmadden’s command of Standard had improved substantially since they had left the tavern for the shuttle landing field.

  Sulu studied the Queen Mary’s configuration from the pilot’s window. The ship was a balanced but ungainly vessel, in the style of warp-capable craft not designed for atmospheric flight. Its main hull was a 30-meter, Mars-built disk slung beneath an elliptical Rigellian warp pod. The pod was joined to the disk’s trailing edge by a short linking pylon, and was topped by a hard-edged, Andorian military surplus impulse drive which had clearly not been part of the ship’s original design.

  Beside Sulu, in the copilot’s sling, Artinton unfastened his acceleration harness and pushed off. He slipped around Krulmadden, back toward the hold, grinning at Chekov who bobbed in the navigator’s sling at the rear of the flight cabin.

  “It looks trim enough,” Sulu said appreciatively. “Though if you haven’t got any upgrades under those impulse conduits, I don’t see how she could hit anything higher than half cee in normal space.”

  “Very good, little mammal.” Krulmadden beamed, though [65] his jeweled teeth did not sparkle in the dim shuttle cabin lighting as much as they had planetside. The blue-white infernos of the Rigellian twin giants and twin lessers were hidden behind the planet for now. In addition to cutting back on expenses by having a shuttle without artificial gravity, Krulmadden had explained that he didn’t like to waste power on radiation shields when he could simply park his ship in geosynchronous orbit in the almost perpetual shadow of Rigel VIII’s rings. The light reflected from the planet’s major moon was more than enough to steer by. But watching the ease with which Krulmadden buoyed his bulk around in microgravity, Chekov thought that perhaps there was another reason for the absence of gravity generators.

  The shipmaster pointed out Sulu’s window. “That Andorian impulse shell is just that. A shell. A delusion.”

  “Uh, do you mean ‘illusion’?” Sulu asked.

  “Whatever. Beneath it is a dual tangent, full magnetopulse field coil with an artificial singularity.” He said every word perfectly, a proud father naming his children. “Relative rest to half cee in less than one second. With full cargo, still reach nine-nine cee in less than thirty.”

  Sulu whistled. “I didn’t think artificial singularities were licensed for use by anyone except Starfleet and some planetary defense units.”

  “They are not.” Krulmadden gave as good an impression of a shrug as he could in microgee. “And for good reason. It would give unscrupulous types too much advantage over f’deraxt’l border patrols. Not good, no no no.” The shipmaster slapped his own hand, then chuckled as his rhythmic exhalations began to spin him around.

  Sulu glanced over at Chekov as Krulmadden steadied himself. Chekov nodded. He understood. The Orion’s ship was obviously better equipped than they had hoped, which meant their plan was going to be much easier to bring off than they had anticipated.

  “What procedures do we follow now?” Sulu asked.

  At that, Krulmadden’s face became unreadable. He was not a [66] being who was comfortable with questions. “Now, Artinton kindly asks my sweet jewel to drop her shields and not to blow my shuttle out of space. And then, I see how good you are at docking.”

  Chekov was troubled by that. It meant the Queen Mary had an automated defense system for the times it was left unattended. He and Sulu would have to devise some way of intercepting the recognition code Artinton was apparently going to transmit to inform the Queen Mary’s computers that the shuttle was a friendly craft. If his and Sulu’s plan was to succeed, they would need to be able to transmit that information themselves, eventually.

  Krulmadden clamped his hand firmly on Sulu’s arm to steady himself. “Hold this position relative to my ship precisely, helmsman. If you deviate by more than a half sateen, you will owe Artinton more than his teeth.”

  Chekov converted the Trader’s Measure. Three centimeters. He wondered why the shuttle would have to maintain such an exact position simply to transmit a subspace code. Or even a radio signal. And why would not holding that position be dangerous to Artinton? The answer that came was both obvious and unexpected.


  A yellow-orange flickering light suddenly filled the shuttle’s cabin, originating from the aft hold and accompanied by a faint but distinctive musical chime. Artinton was transporting over to the Queen Mary. But how?

  “Is that safe?” Sulu asked. “While the shields are up?”

  Krulmadden didn’t take his eyes from his ship. “As long as you hold this position, it is.”

  Must be a prearranged interference gap in the shield, Chekov decided. Just wide enough for a transporter carrier wave from the ship to reach through. And the shields must be stacked deep around the gap so the wave can return only from a specific position. He frowned in thought. There would be no security code to intercept. Artinton was going to shut down the automated defense systems physically from onboard the Queen [67] Mary herself. The task of stealing the Orion’s ship had just become more difficult.

  A strip of running lights suddenly flashed into life along the side of the Queen Mary’s warp pod and orientation lights began to blink on the main hull.

  “Shields are down,” Sulu announced, reading his control panel’s tactical display.

  “Shuttle berth is on the disk, on the opposite side of the warp pod pylon,” Krulmadden said.

  Sulu tapped a readiness code into the thrusting system. “That’s not a standard configuration.”

  Krulmadden laughed again. “The entire ship is not standard configuration. You would be a clever mammal to always keep that in mind.” He turned to make sure that Chekov was listening to his lesson as well. “It might help prevent needless ... accidents.”

  Without looking at any control panel readings, Sulu brought the shuttle smoothly around the Queen Mary’s disk and guided it toward the lit circle that indicated the airlock berth. He docked the shuttle with so little vibration that Krulmadden had to study the board to make sure the airlocks had mated. “Very good, mammal. Smooth as a slave’s ... ah, but then you are f’deraxt’la, and would not know about such things ... thus far.”

  Krulmadden pushed himself over to the copilot’s controls and hovered by them, the orange tip of his tongue showing in concentration. “Your duties are finished. I shall take care of the remainder.” He ran his fingers over the control panel and Chekov’s ears popped as he heard the shuttle’s airlock whoosh open into the Queen Mary.

  A row of blue lights glowed on top of Krulmadden’s board and he threw a locking switch, freezing the controls. Chekov surmised that a security code would have to be input before they would unlock again. That was another condition he and Sulu would have to get used to as civilians: the lack of trust that was reflected in the engineering of private spacecraft. Aboard a [68] Starfleet ship, when life or death could depend on a crew member’s ability to initiate action within seconds, there were few built-in safeguards to restrict access to critical controls. It was simply accepted that Starfleet personnel who had earned the opportunity to serve on a starship were among the most loyal and balanced the system could produce, so why spend time and engineering effort preventing such people from misusing controls when they would never choose to do so in any case? The added risk that complex ships such as the Enterprise might be made more vulnerable to hostile takeover from within had many times been proven worth the increased efficiency and flexibility such an open system provided. But judging from its shuttle, the Queen Mary was organized along completely different routines—almost as if Krulmadden were expecting someone to steal it from him every day. Well, Chekov thought, at least this time he is correct.

  Krulmadden spun away from the copilot’s station and pointed at Chekov. “Now you must help take Lasslanlin to the medic booth.” Chekov undipped his harness and floated off to begin his first work assignment for the shipmaster. It seemed an appropriate task considering he was the one who had made Lasslanlin require the medic booth in the first place.

  In the hold, Lasslanlin was still wrapped in a stretcher cocoon and lashed to the ‘down’ bulkhead, his sleep inducer strapped to his head. Back at the tavern, the bartender had used a black-market medical tricorder to diagnose the Orion as having a broken nose, broken jaw, and concussion. On the Enterprise, Chekov knew that Dr. McCoy could have dealt with those injuries in less than half an hour, but with only a computer-run medic booth on board the Queen Mary, Lasslanlin was looking at two or three days of uncomfortable recuperation. Chekov hoped the stories he had heard about Orion vengeance oaths had been exaggerated.

  The airlock was set in the hold’s ‘up’ bulkhead—a departure from normal configuration. It should have been in the aft wall. As Chekov unhooked the elastic cords holding Lasslanlin’s stretcher in place, he tried to determine if any other [69] modifications had been made in the shuttle. Estimating the interior volume of the hold, he realized that it was not as large as he had expected it should be, based on what he had seen of the shuttle on its landing pad at the spaceport. The interior storage area appeared to end about two meters short of the craft’s outside dimensions, even allowing for upgraded shielding, and Chekov suspected that Krulmadden had additional customized equipment installed in the dead volume.

  Since a gravity generator would have had to run behind the ‘down’ bulkhead, Chekov decided he would give even odds that the shipmaster had added a small warp unit—maybe factor 1.5 to 2—or extended life-support capability. Either choice would make sense for someone who might have to make a quick getaway or need a place to hide out for a few months. Chekov reminded himself to pay close attention to other dimensions onboard the Queen Mary, to establish if any more capabilities were being hidden from him. He was certain there would be.

  Artinton appeared on the other side of the Queen Mary’s airlock, looking through at everyone in the shuttle’s hold. He held his hands out. “Be cautious pushing Lasslanlin through the lock. Go very slowly so the transition will not jar him.”

  “Transition?” Chekov asked as he carefully rotated the stretcher into an orientation that would enable it to fit through the narrow airlock. “Is there grawity on the Queen Mary?”

  Krulmadden stared at Chekov. “Would you care for acceleration to nine-nine cee in thirty seconds without it? Krulmadden has clients who would be happy to spread what’s left of you on their biscuits.”

  Chekov angled Lasslanlin perfectly, braced his feet on the ‘down’ bulkhead, then pushed the stretcher toward Artinton. “I was just surprised that you left it turned on when no one was aboard.”

  Krulmadden shook his head at Chekov. “You jump to too many conclusions for navigator. Who told you there were no others on board?”

  “Why, no one. I ... just thought ...”

  “I am shipmaster. I do thinking for all my crew.”

  [70] Silent now, Chekov guided the end of the stretcher through the lock. When the opening was clear, he launched himself toward it to grip its metal lip, still cold from space despite its insulation. Then he felt the soft rippling pressure of the Queen Mary’s, gravity field.

  As he crawled through the meter-long tunnel, he decided he was not happy about Krulmadden’s intimation that there might be other beings on board. Overpowering three Orions would not be beyond him and Sulu working together, especially if they struck while Lasslanlin was confined to the medic booth. But if there were other crew on board, especially other Orions, then it was beginning to look as if he and Sulu had just made the worst mistake of their brief civilian careers.

  When Chekov was fully within the gravity field, he was puzzled at the amount of muscle tone he must have lost during his months of civilian life. The sudden transition from microgee was a surprising shock, much more strenuous than he had anticipated. And then he realized that yet another obstacle had been placed in their way. The artificial gravity field on the Queen Mary was set to normal for Rigel VIII—almost two Earth gees.

  Chekov paused for a moment in the airlock—now an opening in a corridor floor—to reposition his hands for better purchase. But before he could move again, Artinton grabbed him under the armpits and hauled him up the rest of the way without apparent effo
rt. The Orion mate moved as easily in the heavy gravity as he had in the low-power ‘tourist field’ that operated through most of the spaceport’s alien quarter.

  When Sulu appeared in the airlock, Artinton hoisted him through as well, and he enjoyed the look of surprise on Sulu’s face as his feet hit the corridor floor faster and harder than he had expected. Chekov saw the look of apprehension on the helmsman’s face and knew why it was there. A few days in this gravity and neither one of them would be able to crawl, let alone take on Krulmadden and his crew.

  Artinton squatted down to slap an antigrav to Lasslanlin’s [71] stretcher, then stood, lifting the mass-neutral stretcher with one powerful hand. “You wait here for shipmaster. On big ship like this, you could get lost ... forever.” He grinned at Chekov, flicking his tongue to show the holes where several teeth used to be, then started the stretcher gliding down the corridor.

  Sulu stood by the airlock and rocked experimentally from foot to foot. “That’s got to be at least a one point eight.”

  “It feels like five,” Chekov said and stepped back to lean against the corridor bulkhead. As he rested, he glanced up the corridor in the direction that Artinton had gone. It was obviously a main branch that ran along the disk’s diameter. Its narrow and utilitarian appearance, thick with exposed conduits and service access panels, was similar to the old class-J ships that Academy cadets trained on.

  “From the way she looks on the outside, I wasn’t expecting her to be even this up-to-date,” Sulu said.

  “That is only the light.” Chekov fought the high gee to lift his hand and shield his eyes from the dazzling bluewhite glare that came from the corridor’s ceiling panels. Like the gravity, they were set to produce Rigel VIII normal. “We will have to wear eye filters.”