ENT - 012 - Kobayashi Maru

FORTY-THREE

Tuesday, July 22, 2155 S.S. Kobayashi Maru,Gamma Hydra sector

J ACQUELINE S EARLES TRIEDnot to think about how much freefall always made her want to puke.

The Marus bridge was as dark as a proverbial tomb until the dim, red emergency lighting reluctantly flared to life. Searles breathed a silent prayer of thanks that the fuel carriers perpetually expense-averse skipper had finally heeded her repeated requests that he bankroll the upgraded backup redundancies shed installed late last year.

Too bad he was willing to settle for the cheapo brand-X artificial gravity plating, though,she thought as her stomach lurched. Her gorge rose to a higher orbit as Simonson drifted into view; the young pilots neck was bent into an unnatural shape that vaguely resembled a question mark. She didnt want to think about how many others aboard the Marumight have shared Simonsons fate. Moving with cautious deliberation, she secured the dead man to one of the chairs at an unoccupied duty station and somehow resisted the urge to become violently ill.

I must be in shock. Moving on autopilot.

“What the hell did we hit? Vance said as he launched his weightless form from console to console with surprising grace.

Employing considerably less grace, Stiles clung to one of the ops consoles as though his very life depended on it. He pounded on its side, bringing it back to a blinking, flickering semblance of normalcy using a technique he liked to call “percussive maintenance.

“Dunno just yet, the exec said. “But its for damned sure we didnt run over a cat. Thank God you managed to get through to Earth on the compic, Vance.

A fat lot of good thats going to do us right now,Searles thought. She wondered idly how many weeks it would take for a ship from Earth to reach this remote part of the Gamma Hydra sector.

Orienting herself so that she faced one of the forward stations, Searles pushed off against a section of wall near the bridges ceiling. Her inner ear had convinced her body that she was plunging downward at breakneck speed, despite the evidence of her eyes, which confirmed that she was moving fairly slowly relative to the console.

She drifted across the three meters or so of space that still separated her from the console, into which she slammed with a surprisingly hard and loud thump. Scrambling to avoid caroming off in some random direction, a slave both to microgravity and to her own inertia, she grabbed one of the consoles gravity-failure handholdsdesigned for this very sort of mishapand began checking the internal com grid. The ships intercom network was pretty thoroughly jammed up, with upwards of three hundred people trying to call the bridge simultaneously to find out what was going on. Rebooting the console allowed at least a few individual voices to separate themselves from the background gabble of the rest of the multitude.

“Whats going on in the rest of the ship? Vance called out, cutting through the cacophony.

“We have a lot of dead and injured in the passenger and crew areas, she said, disabling the speakers to keep the horrific noise from drowning out all conversation on the bridge. A horrible bleakness shrouded her soul as she paused to speculate on whether the dead might be the lucky ones, with rescue such an unlikely option this far from Earth.

“Those cloak-and-dagger Vulcan passengers of yours must be responsible for this somehow, Vance, Stiles said, all but accusing the captain of blowing up the ship himself.

“Weve got massive hull breaches, Captain, Searles said, interpreting the multiple alarms she saw on her console.

“Drive status? Vance asked with a note of hope that Searles wished she could share.

Searles punched a button on the com console, nearly launching herself willy-nilly into the microgravity environment in the process. “Searles to engine room, she said into the voice interface. “Engine room, come in.

Nothing. Just like the first attempt shed made back in Vances office.

Searles noticed then that the Marus exec was frantically entering commands into one of the adjacent bridge consoles. “Arturo, Ive got to get back to the engine room. Find out if my people

“Its going to have to wait, Jackie, Stiles said. “The hull breaches made the emergency bulkheads slam shut.

“Do we have any idea yet why this is happening? Searles asked.

He shook his head. “Im still not sure about that. At least I dont think we were fired upon.

“Why not? Searles said, her brow crinkling.

“Because if somebody had wanted to blow us to kingdom come with, say, a torpedo of some kind, then they probably already would have launched a second one by now, and finished us off already. Stiles paused, frowning at his console. “Hey, why am I picking up such heavy graviton counts in here?

Searles shrugged. “Beats me. With the gravity plating offline, the graviton levels ought to be way belownormal.

“Then the gravitons must be leaking in from outsidethe Maru,said Stiles.

Vance launched himself quickly into the space between Searles and Stiles, using one of the emergency handholds to bring himself to a stop.

“The Romulans and the Klingons have gone to war a number of times over control of this sector, he said. “And the Romulans have been known to use gravitic mines to defend their territorial claims.

“Gravitic mines? Stiles said, an eyebrow raised.

“Ive heard of them, Searles said, nodding. “Theyre compact, high-yield graviton generators designed to focus the equivalent of huge tidal energies on a vessels hull, or on its spaceframe.

“What? Stiles said, his eyes glazing visibly in response to her explanation.

“Fancy bomb, Searles clarified. “Make part of the ship go boom. Sometimes more than one part, and not always all at once.

“Oh. So we still might take even moredamage from the same damned weapon. Crap.

“Could be worse, Searles said. “If that mine had clipped one of our neutronic fuel tanks, we wouldnt be having this conversation.

The exec turned toward his captain. “Vance, youre a gambling man. If you were handicapping our chances of getting rescued out here, how would you estimate the odds?

The orange “incoming light on the com panel near Searles began flashing insistently at that precise moment. A calm, reassuringly competent-sounding female voice emerged from the hash of static that issued from the speakers.

“Kobayashi Maru, this isEnterprise. We are on our way to your present position.

Searles watched as a broad grin spread across Vances face. “Id say our odds just got a hell of a lot better, Arturo.

Searles allowed herself the luxury of hope, if only for a moment.

Then she heard and felt the low rumble, which immediately preceded a great roar and a gale-force wind that slammed her backward into one of the battered monitors.