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“Good work, Ensign,” Kirk said. “Even if we did take a few hits ourselves.”

“My apologies, Captain. It appears my targeting parameters were not quite specific enough.”

“Are they dead in space?” Kirk asked.

Giotto answered, having floated back to the sensor controls. “Yes, sir. Unfortunately, so are we.”

Ensign Saloniemi was studying the holographic projection above the control cube, which now displayed several rows of Farrezzi text.

“Status report, Ensign,” said Spock.

“Well, sir,” Saloniemi began, “I’ve managed to translate all the text.”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “Problem?”

“It’s very confusing. This is an incredibly complex system.” He shook his head. “I’m matching it against what we know about Farrezzi technology from the matter/antimatter reactor we found, and information in the database, but it’s going to take some time.”

“Will you figure it out in three minutes?” asked Spock.

“No, sir.” He slumped to the ground, but continued to pore over his tricorder nevertheless.

Seven Deers was working her way through the system. “I’m making small changes to the settings,” she said. “With trial and error, we should be able to trace all the circuits.” She sighed. “But it’ll take too long.”

“Continue working,” Spock ordered.

The crackling energy was growing louder and louder, its pitch varying wildly as the system tried in vain to stabilize itself. Spock opened his communicator. “Mister Scott, have you been following everything?”

“Aye, Mister Spock.”

“Mister Scott, the projector must transmit its distortions via subspace. If we can deprive it of access to subspace, we may be able to shut it down.”

“Aye.”

“Is it possible to configure the Hofstadter’s warp drive to generate a bubble of normal space?”

“Well—”

“Mister Scott—”

“—it is, but it would take hours to put into practice. And I’m not rounding up, sir.”

“Lower the millicochranes into the negative,” Scotty ordered. “That should do it.”

“You told Spock it would take too long,” M’Benga called back.

“Worth a shot,” said Scotty. He was going to do something, broken legs or not. “What’s it doing?”

M’Benga tapped away at the controls. “I’m getting an error message.”

“Hit ‘ignore.’”

Scotty checked the tricorder. They had sixty seconds.

“There’s no ‘ignore’ button!”

“Let me see that!” What was the doctor talking about? Of course there was an “ignore” button. “We dinna have time for this.” Scotty couldn’t remember ever feeling this helpless. “All of us will be dead—”

“Fine.”

Suddenly Scotty felt himself being wrenched upward, M’Benga’s arms around him. “This is going to hurt,” he said. It did. Moments later he was lowered into the pilot’s chair—gently, but he winced nonetheless.

There was the sodding error message. M’Benga was right, there was no “ignore” button.

How was he supposed—

“Fifteen seconds.”

Scotty could figure out a way around it, but he needed time.

The Farrezzi scientists’ miscalculations had doomed their planet. If only they had been logical—Spock stopped himself: what if they had been logical? The scientist had pleaded for visitors to the planet to leave. To impede the departure of visitors from the world would be illogical.

Spock scanned the “playback” button. It was connected to two circuits: the holographic device and an adjacent button whose connection had burnt out, a victim of the power surges running through the device. Sending an energy pulse from his tricorder, Spock activated the circuit. A single word appeared on the button: “DEACTIVATE.”

He raised an eyebrow. Logical. His hand pressed it.

A loud crack rang through the interior of the tower.

Seven Deers said something, but not even Spock’s Vulcan hearing could make it out. The crackling sound of the energy projector had become overwhelming. He glanced down at his tricorder. The projector was fluctuating wildly, climbing and then plunging.

Zero.

The crackling stopped. Everything shut down. They were standing in darkness.

Tra activated a flashlight, flicking it from person to person. All were present