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“The other transport is about to go to warp, and we’re going to follow it.”

“Exclamation of woe!”

Horr began to wriggle his tentacles again, but Kirk turned his attention back to the ship on the heads-up display. “Are we ready, Mister Chekov?”

“Warp speed at your command.”

With a flash, the other ship was gone.

“Now, Mister Chekov!”

SIXTEEN

Stardate 4758.4 (0859 hours)

Chekov’s finger stabbed down on the button he had identified as ENGAGE. The console thrummed beneath his hands as the ship jumped to warp. Once again, the other ship was back onto his sensor plot, only seconds ahead of them.

“Warp one,” he reported. “We have matched course and speed.” Chekov moved his hands to increase speed, but found that they were shaking. Not now! He was feeling better, he really was. He wasn’t thinking any longer about—about—

“Are you okay, Ensign?” Giotto asked the question so quietly, only he could hear.

Chekov wanted to tell the security chief that he was fine, but he knew he wasn’t. “I am trying, sir, but it is very difficult. I just wanted to put things—”

Giotto grabbed Chekov’s shoulder and leaned in to whisper. “Focus. When you make a mistake, you don’t need to atone for it, just don’t make the mistake again. You can fly the ship.” Giotto let go.

“Aye, sir.”

“Good.”

Chekov could not believe it. He had impressed “Stone-face” Giotto somehow.

The other ship was slightly ahead of them. Chekov increased the speed. The ship didn’t feel right. He was flying a ship whose warp engines had been sitting for a century without maintenance.

A green indicator light began to blink. The forward sensors.

“What’s that?” asked Giotto.

On a Federation starship, the results would come up automatically, but here someone needed to operate manually. “On the next console. Please press the orange glyph,” Chekov said. That would display the forward sensor reading on the heads-up display.

Giotto activated the readouts, and a detailed plot of the surrounding region of space appeared, The lines were squiggled and twisted, not the standard lines of subspace.

“Subspace distortion!” Chekov reached for the controls to dial back warp power. Too late.

Spock had rappelled many times, both in preparation for his kahs-wan and during his Academy training. However, he had never rappelled from a hovering shuttle to a partially smashed alien structure built into a steep mountainside while being buffeted by a jet of air.

Quite agreeably, Spock found that he still possessed the skills.

Standing on a narrow ledge, Spock considered the building—a tall, narrow spire. He had not expected it to be so severely damaged. A rockfall had struck it, destroying a smaller annex completely and tearing away a considerable part of the main structure, including what could have been a landing platform.

Ensign Saloniemi was the last off Columbus. It took him longer to rappel down, but he did so without assistance.

“This way.” Spock pointed to a large semicircular door, almost twice as tall as he. Seven Deers went straight for the dark panel to the door’s left, pushed it, and stepped back.

Nothing happened. “The mechanism must have been damaged in the rockfall,” Spock surmised. “We will need to seek alternatives.”

“Agreed,” Seven Deers said. “What do you suggest, Commander?”

“Brute force.”

“Phasers don’t work on these doors.” Saloniemi’s fatigue was evident in his voice.

“That is correct, Lieutenant,” said Spock. He looked up above him, at the two shuttles doing their best to hover in position. “Time is of the essence. A phaser rifle on overload should supply the necessary force.”

Sickbay was quiet, with nurses and med techs out there, going from one temporary recovery room to the next. McCoy stood at the foot of Bouchard’s biobed, studying the man. There was no way to know how their plan would affect the five. The ship had to plunge through an affected area, before it would be free of the distort-zone. A course that would involve the shortest possible time spent in distorted space might still prove deadly to the espers.

“We are ready