Star Trek: The Original Series: Devil’s Bargain by Tony Daniel

Author:Tony Daniel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

Ten

The alarm went off on the bridge just as Kirk was attempting to take a sip of his coffee. Wasn’t that always the way? He quickly handed it back to the yeoman who had brought it to him.

Kirk pressed the intership button on his chair. “What do you have, Scotty?”

“Captain, I was picking up a power drain from some unknown source, and then I noticed that there was a pressure change associated with it. I ran a scan, and, believe it or not, we have a breach. I’m attempting to pinpoint it.”

A hull breach. The worst disaster in space. It was almost unheard of in Starfleet. Ships were not only made of extremely tough stuff necessary for interstellar travel, but the exterior was reinforced with force fields to contain atmosphere and to keep out the radiation that a breach might produce.

“Where, Scotty? Have you found it?” Kirk asked. He felt the adrenaline rising within him.

“Captain, you’re not gonna like this, but the breach is in the shuttle bay,” Mister Scott reported. “Do you think one of the Horta has somehow disregarded our warnings and burned a hole in a bulkhead?”

“I don’t think so,” Kirk answered. “How bad is it?”

“From the power drain, I’d say it’s fairly large,” Scotty said. “I’ll get a team on it right now. It looks like the shuttle bay doors failed.”

“That’s impossible. That thing has a dozen failsafes,” Kirk said. He shook his head. This smelled very fishy, and he wanted to investigate himself. “I’ll head for the shuttle bay. Have an EV suit standing by.”

“Aye, sir,” Scotty said.

“Full stop, Mister Sulu! Take us out of warp and maintain our position.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You have the bridge, Sulu.” Kirk rose from his chair.

Chekov was manning the science station. “Ensign, get every sensor we have on the area we just passed through. Backtrack as far as you can.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Kirk strode quickly to the turbolift, almost running into Spock. “Come with me, Spock,” said Kirk. “We have a situation in the shuttle bay.”

When Kirk arrived, he saw that the interior airlock was fully engaged, cutting off the crew from the main shuttle bay area. It was only possible to open the airlock without expelling atmosphere if the shuttle bay shields were working, but that was not the case. The doors were partway open—this much could be seen through the airlock port—and the atmospheric gauge beside the airlock read near zero for the interior. Kirk turned and asked Spock, “What do we know about the Horta and a vacuum? Can they withstand it?”

Spock reached over and touched the door. A troubled expression crossed his face for a moment, but then he returned to his usual placid indifference. “I am too far away for anything but the most tentative of communication. I am detecting signs of distress within, however, but not due to suffocation or other physical deterioration. What I feel is dismay and fright.”

“Captain, this is the bridge,” said Chekov’s voice over intership. “Sensors indicate that several Horta have been ejected from the shuttle bay and have fallen out of hyperspace into Newtonian space-time.

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