Star Trek III: The Search for Spock: Short Stories Read online

  STAR TREK III

  THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK

  Travel with your favorite Star Trek III characters into five new and original short stories. Join the Enterprise crew as they take their crippled starship into orbit around Azphari, where they meet the strange and dangerously curious people of that planet in THE AZPHARI ENIGMA. Go with Lieutenant Commander Uhura to her home in the United States of Africa where she finds her past and present colliding in life-and-death struggle in THE JUNGLES OF MEMORY. And on the drab and frozen planet of Osler, meet 7-year-old Pandora, sole survivor at an experiment gone wrong, a child with powers and the willingness to use them to protect her privacy and the secret she must hide in AS OLD AS FOREVER. These stories and more will thrill and enthrall all Star Trek fans!

  Copyright © 1984 by Paramount Pictures Corporation.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

  Rotsler, William

  Star trek III short stories.

  Summary: Five stories featuring Captain Kirk, Spock, and other characters from the Star Trek III movie.

  I. Science fiction, American. [l. Science fiction]

  I. Title. II. Title: Star trek 3 short stones.

  III. Title: Star trek three short stories.

  PZ7.R753Stab 1984 [Fic] 84-2332

  ISBN 0-671-50139-9

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For

  RON ELLIK,

  absent friend

  The Azphari Enigma

  “Warp One, Mister Sulu. Set course to Earth.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” the young officer said to Captain Kirk.

  All about them repairs were being made to the damaged control room, the heart of the huge starship. In the sick bay the overworked medical personnel had the worst wounded in surgery, and in all the corridors lay others, waiting in pain for their turn.

  The Enterprise was a badly wounded ship. In the desperate battle with Khan Noonian Singh, the Federation starship had been severely, almost mortally damaged. Warp One—the speed of light—was as much as Kirk thought the hardy old ship could take.

  With the death of Captain Spock, Admiral James T. Kirk had taken just about all he could. Even the victory over Khan had not lessened his feeling of loss, of shock and anger. Only Kirk’s iron discipline kept him at his tasks of getting the injured vessel and its crew back to Earth. He checked often with Commander Montgomery Scott, and had gotten the impression from the tough Scotsman that perhaps he was interfering.

  “Repairs are proceeding as quickly as can be expected, sir,” Scott growled over the ship’s intercom. “There’s only so much we can do, sir. There’s structural damage, y’know. That’ll take the yards back at Terra, Admiral. ’Tis more than we can do out here, sir.”

  “Yes, I know. Do your best, Scotty,” Kirk said impatiently.

  “Aye, sir,” Scott said.

  “Kirk out.” The ship’s commander fidgeted impatiently in his chair, an ache in his heart that he knew would never be eased.

  Spock was dead.

  Buried in space. Sent off toward the amazing new planet called Genesis. A noble death, but still … death. Kirk felt as if his right arm had been lost.

  No, it’s worse, he thought. They could give me an artificial limb, but there is no replacement for Spock. Kirk looked toward the Science Station, where the young Vulcan officer Saavik was at work.

  She was good, but she was no Spock, and Kirk almost hated her for being there instead of the tall, taciturn Spock.

  “Mister Sulu,” he barked, “take the conn.” Kirk heaved himself out of the command chair and strode toward the turbolift hatch. Sulu moved into the captain’s chair and another lieutenant moved into Sulu’s helmsman spot.

  “I’m going to my cabin to clean up,” Kirk said, pausing at the door to give a last scan to the control room. “Call me if there are any problems, any at all.”

  “Aye, sir,” the Oriental officer responded. But Kirk still didn’t go, reluctant to leave the nerve center of his great love.

  Kirk looked at the big screen across the front of the control room. Stars. Millions upon millions of stars. They are the final frontier … except for death. Abruptly, he turned, entered the turbolift, and gave his destination as the red doors hissed closed behind him. Worlds without number. Inhabited worlds, dead halls of rock, planets where great civilizations had risen and fallen. Planets where strange life forms had evolved from single-celled organisms into entities of great power. And new worlds, fresh and untouched, like Genesis … a fitting memorial to a great man.

  The lift door hissed aside and Kirk strode out into the clamor and mess of the medical deck. A young Terran technician, wounded himself, was bending over an Andorian whose legs had been badly burned by Khan’s blasts. Beyond, a female Rigellian was spraying anesthetic on the burns of a cadet, who was trying desperately not to cry out.

  So young, Kirk thought. Practically children. Cadets, trainees, crew on their first spaceflight in a Federation ship. As Kirk watched, a blood-splattered nurse pressed a hydrospray against the side of an engineer who seemed dead and the drug mixture hissed into his bloodstream. At once the Feinberger began to register life signs. The nurse flashed Kirk a smile of comradeship and directed healthy crewmen to pick the engineer up and take him to the operating room.

  Was I right to take these youngsters into combat, Kirk wondered. But he knew the answer: he had had no choice. Someone had to stop Khan, and the Enterprise had been there.

  As Kirk walked through the wounded, he knew that the forces of what could only be called evil had to be met with the forces of good. If the good people did not resist, the bad people would prevail. The weak and helpless would die or be enslaved. Tyranny would have won. But these brave people had fought, and fought hard, Kirk thought. They hadn’t said, “But we aren’t ready yet, come back when we are.”

  Kirk was proud of them. Spock would have been proud of them. Angrily, Kirk stepped into the alcove outside the operating theater and looked in. McCoy and the other doctors were at work, patching, fixing, saving. Kirk raised a hand to the communicom by the window, then stopped. McCoy was doing his best. He always did. They didn’t need a ship’s captain asking if he could help. McCoy was the best and he worked hard to stay the best.

  Admiral Kirk went back to the turbolift and continued on to his quarters. He stripped off the soiled and torn uniform and took a quick sonic shower, sluicing off every speck of dirt and sweat. He dressed in a new uniform and caught his reflection in a mirror.

  Some commander, he thought. Got your best officer killed. Your best friend killed. The ache
grew larger, and Kirk’s face reflected his inner agony. What could I have done differently? How could I have saved him? Khan was a mighty and deadly opponent. We barely escaped with our lives, and Spock gave his so that the rest might live. “‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one,’” Kirk said aloud, in a harsh whisper, quoting Spock as he lay dying.

  Kirk’s image blurred as the tears came.

  • • •

  Kirk awoke at the buzz of the intercom. He glanced at the clock as he reached for the call button. An hour, he had been asleep an hour. I’ve been derelict, he thought, even though he knew he was not made of steel. Sleep was necessary. He was, in a sense, property of the Federation and should not overextend himself, for it would impair his function as a captain.

  “Kirk here!”

  “Admiral, we’ve got real trouble,” Scotty said in his thick burr. “The ship—she’s coming apart!”

  “Where are you?” Kirk snapped as he jumped to his feet.

  “Port pod support base, sir.”

  “Coming, Scotty!”

  • • •

  Kirk looked at the damage as he trotted up to Commander Scott. “Report!”

  “Khan’s beam cut deep, sir. Ye can see severe damage to the whole support structure there. Now, as long as we keep going at Warp One, we’re all right. The stresses are equalized. But at the other end, sir … well, if we try to drop into impulse power, she’ll tear herself apart.”

  “But we must stop sometime, Scotty!”

  “Aye, sir, and it had better be right now. She might still be able to take it. But by the time we get to Earth—and that’s the nearest shipyard—the stresses will have built up.” The Scotsman shrugged. “This gallant lady will just tear herself to pieces, Admiral.”

  “All right,” Kirk said. “We’ll stop and you can make emergency repairs.”

  “Aye, sir, but they’ll be cosmetic, practically. Enough to hold her, though.”

  Kirk thumbed an intercom. “Kirk here. Mister Sulu, prepare to bring the ship out of warp speed. Do it gently and slowly.”

  “Aye, sir,” Sulu responded.

  At once there was a change. The constant thrum of the great space vessel shifted. The steady thrumming sound became a growl. There was the grind and sharp ping of metal under stress. Scott yelled orders, evacuating the pod support area, and Kirk followed him out. Some of the lights shook loose under a new, sharp vibration, and an overloaded circuit snapped off.

  Then there was silence.

  Only the lesser, quieter throb of the ship’s impulse engines filled the air. Scott let his breath out and he patted a bulkhead. “Ye did it, ye lovely thing. Ye took it.” He smiled. He looked at Kirk. “I’ll start on repairs at once, sir.”

  “Estimate of time, Mister Scott.

  “Twenty to thirty hours, Admiral. Minimum. Maybe more after we get in there.”

  “So we’re dead in the water,” Kirk said uneasily. He liked maneuvering speed and maneuvering space.

  “There’s the impulse engines,” Scotty said with injured pride. “We’re not exactly a derelict, Admiral Kirk.”

  “No, but if a Klingon wanders by…” Kirk left the rest unsaid and returned to the control room.

  “Status report!” he said, taking his chair from Sulu.

  “On course toward Earth, sir, on impulse power. All decks report repairs underway. Doctor McCoy reports all serious patients are out of danger. And there’s a star system ahead, two points southwest.”

  “Can you put it on the screen?” Kirk asked Saavik.

  “Yes, sir, at extreme magnification.”

  Eight planets. One Jupiter-like gas giant. A G-type star. “Log it,” Kirk ordered Saavik, who bent over her screens. Kirk watched her almost surreptitiously. She seemed unaffected by the recent battle and the death of her fellow Vulcan.

  But that’s how Vulcans are, Kirk reminded himself. There was nothing Saavik could do … except her job, and that was what she was doing. Kirk began to lose his irrational anger toward her, and to feel some guilt.

  “Lieutenant Saavik, when you have finished, call your replacement and take some rest. Uhura, you, too. Mister Sulu, Chekov, Collins, Bradley, you as well.”

  “I’m all right, Admiral,” Saavik said.

  “That’s an order, Mister Saavik.” He softened his command with a smile. “If you intend someday to command, Mister, you must learn to take orders as well as give them.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said unemotionally. In moments the new star system had been logged, checked through the computer, and verified as a new discovery, and Saavik turned toward her captain. “Would you like to name it, Captain Kirk?”

  Kirk started to speak, then closed his mouth. Spock would have thought it an example of emotional human reaction to have a star system named after him. Besides, it might be inhabited and the natives have their own name. “No, just log it and let the computer label it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Twenty minutes later a new and relatively fresh crew had replaced the bridge personnel. Except for Kirk. He sat, isolated by rank and mood from the others, staring at the screen, seeing the new system draw closer.

  That’s why I’m here, he thought. To go where no man has gone before. I was born to he a starship commander. To see new worlds. To seek out new lifeforms, new civilizations, new vistas.

  A starship captain was part scientist, part explorer, part military man. He had to be both curious and brave, cautious and bold. Kirk knew he was good, but more often than not he saw only his flaws and seldom his virtues. He was never, in his mind, quite good enough.

  If he had been good, Spock would not be dead.

  The intercom buzzed and Kirk slapped the control button. “Kirk here!”

  “Admiral, we’re gonna hafta shut down the impulse engines as well,” Scotty said. “It’s the vibrations, sir; we need some time at a real stillness to let the molecular welding really work.”

  Kirk was looking at the star system ahead. “Helmsman, how long until we can reach an orbit around that second planet?”

  The helmsman punched swiftly at his board. “Two hours, four minutes, sir.”

  “Scotty, we’ll shut down in two hours. Orbit this new planet up ahead. While you’re putting the Enterprise back together, I’ll go do something to earn my pay.”

  “Aye, Admiral. Two hours.”

  “Kirk out.”

  Yes, go explore a new world. Do something—anything—to avoid thinking about Spock.

  • • •

  “Life forms detected, Admiral,” Saavik said from her post.

  “Try the hailing frequency, Commander,” Kirk told Uhura.

  “Nothing, sir. I’ll try other bands. Sir! There’s something on … I can’t make it out. Plugging into computer, Captain.”

  Kirk watched the magnified picture of the planet roll across the screen as they orbited the new world. It was quite Earth-like in many ways, but with a gravity of 1.3 and an atmospheric pressure at sea level of eighteen pounds per square inch. You’d feel a lot heavier there, Kirk knew, and the breathing would be harder, but it was well within tolerance levels.

  “Launch probe,” he ordered.

  A robot dropped from the ship and raced into the atmosphere, reporting back its every find. Onboard analyzers sampled the air, digested its components, took a look at the floating spores, at the dust and microorganisms. As the probe dropped lower, it pinpointed the largest concentrations of life energy, analyzed this grouping as grazing animals, that as a higher form, and so on. Between the ship’s detectors and the probe’s close-in facilities, the experts on the Enterprise soon had a detailed picture of the planet. By that time the computer had pieced together what signals Uhura had picked up on a low-register band and reported that there was a life form that used language.

  Intrigued, Kirk ordered a security team to stand by. He thumbed the intercom. “Doctor McCoy, how would you like a little shore leave?”

  “Jim, I just can’t. I�
��ve got an ensign here with a lung infection. There’s a marine sergeant here we have to fit with a new arm, and—”

  “Doctor McCoy, in your estimation, do you have an adequate surgical team?”

  “Adequate! Captain … Admiral Kirk, they are the best! I—”

  “Then you can leave things in their hands for a few hours, can’t you? A little time breathing real air will do you good, and I need a medical person. Report to Transporter Room Two in fifteen minutes. Bring all your electronic black bag; and a sidearm.”

  “Jim, I—”

  “That’s an order, Doctor. Kirk out.” And he grinned. It was faint and it hurt a little, but it was a grin, nevertheless.

  • • •

  Doctor McCoy came angrily into the transporter room. “Captain Kirk, as Medical Officer on this ship—”

  “You will be needed on shore, Commander McCoy.” Kirk grinned. His none-too-gentle reminder of rank made McCoy stop.

  “What is this place?” he growled.

  “Just another brand-new, untouched, unknown planet, Doctor. Never seen before by the beady little eyes of man.”

  McCoy glowered at him in a silent rebuke. “You seem in good spirits, Jim.”

  Kirk looked over at him, his face becoming sober. “I’m doing my job, Doctor, as I’m certain you will do yours … and as Spock would have done his.” McCoy took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped onto the transporter disk.

  The others were in place, and Kirk snapped the order to energize. The figures sparkled as the demoleculization began, and then they were gone.

  • • •

  “Computer link,” Kirk said, glancing around him at the new landscape. It was stark, sharp-angled rocks and spiky shrubs. He felt heavy and sluggish, his breathing labored.

  “Computer ready.”

  “Repeat any native words that might be spoken,” Kirk said.

  “Computer ready.”

  “This way. Scouts out,” Kirk said. The red-clad security men sprang ahead, guns in their clips but ready to hand. “Sir!” one of them said at the crest of the rise.