Star Trek: Duty, Honor, Redemption Read Free Page A

its deathblow struck the Enterprise full force. The screen blazed again, then darkened, with the radiation of the furious attack.
    “We’re losing auxiliary power, Captain, and our shields along wi’ it,” Scott cried. “The ship canna take another—”
    The scream of irradiated electronics cut off Scott’s warning. The enemy ships in pursuit caught up to the Starfleet vessel. At close range, they fired. The Enterprise shuddered, flinging Uhura against the railing and to the deck. McCoy left Sulu’s inert body and knelt beside the communications officer.
    “Uhura—Uhura…Oh, my God,” McCoy whispered.
    Saavik fired at the Klingons, but nothing happened.
    “Mister Scott, all power to the weapons systems; it’s our only chance.”
    “Mister Scott…is a casualty….” his assistant replied. Her voice was drowned out by a flood of damage reports and pleas for medical help. “Environmental controls destroyed. Life support, nonfunctional. Gravity generators failing.”
    McCoy cursed at the intraship communications. “Doctor Chapel, I’ve got to have a team on the bridge! Doctor Chapel! Chris!”
    But he got no reply at all from sickbay.
    Saavik touched the photon torpedo arming control one last time, delicately, deliberately, yet with the realization that nothing would happen.
    “There is no power in the weapons systems, Captain,” Spock said. He felt the gravity sliding away. “There is, in fact, no power at all; we are merely bleeding the storage cells.”
    The enemy ships enclosed them, hovering at the vertices of an impenetrable polyhedron. Spock saw the final attack in the last fitful glow of the viewscreen.
    Firing their phasers simultaneously, the cruisers enveloped the Enterprise in a sphere of pure energy. Spock imagined he felt the radiation flaming through the ship. He grabbed for a handhold.
    His console exploded in his face.
    As he fell, he heard the wailing hiss of escaping air, a sound that had been the last experience of all too many spacefarers.
    Saavik, clutching at the helm officer’s console, fighting the ship’s quakes, turned just in time to see Mister Spock fall. For an instant she wished only to be ten years old again, so she could scream with fury and the need for revenge. Doctor McCoy struggled toward Spock, but never made it; the convulsions of the ship flung him down. He screamed, and collapsed with a groan.
    Saavik stood up. Her ship, her first command, lay dead in space, her crew was destroyed by her incompetence. She opened the hailing frequencies, not even knowing if any communications were left at all.
    “Prepare the escape pods,” she said. “All hands, abandon ship.” She armed the log buoy and fired it out into space. It would testify to her failure, yet to her honor in accepting the responsibility.
    “All hands,” she said again. “Abandon ship.”

One
    Sitting in front of the viewscreen, Admiral James T. Kirk shook his head. He laughed softly, but more at memories than at what he had observed.
    “All right,” he said. “Open it up.”
    The wall in front of the video console parted and opened, revealing the destroyed bridge of the Enterprise. Kirk got up and walked into it. Acrid smoke burned his eyes, but the heavy-duty ventilation system had already begun to clear the air. He stepped carefully through shattered bits of equipment, over Doctor McCoy’s body, and stopped in front of Lieutenant Saavik. She met his gaze without flinching.
    “May I request the benefit of your experience, Admiral?”
    “Well, Lieutenant, my experience is that the Klingons never take prisoners.”
    Saavik’s expression hardened. Kirk turned all the way around, surveying the wreckage.
    This could have happened to me, he thought. It almost did, all too often and not in simulation, either.
    “Okay, folks,” he said. “The fun’s over.” He glanced at the upper level of the bridge. “Captain Spock?”
    Spock got smoothly to his feet. A scattering of breakaway glass shivered to