STAR TREK - TOS - 47 - The Kobayashi Maru

The Kobayashi Maru

BY

JULIA ECKLAR

POCKET BOOKS New York London

Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

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. Any

resemblance to actual events or locales or

persons, living or dead, is entirely

coincidental.

An Original Publication of POCKET

BOOKS

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon and

Schuster Inc. 1230

Avenue of the Americas, New York,

NY 10020

Copyright (C 1989 Paramount Pictures.

STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of

Paramount Pictures.

This book is published by Pocket Books, a

division of Simon and

Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from

Paramount Pictures.

to reproduce this book or

portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information

address

Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the

Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN 0-671-65817-4

First Pocket Books printing December

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

POCKET and colophon are registered

trademarks of Simon and Schuster

Inc.

Printed in the U.s.a. Acknowledgments

For all the help and encouragement they've given

me, both during the

writing of The Kobayashi Maru and beside it, this

book is dedicated to

Ann Cecil, friend and editor nonpareil, for

doing me the very great

favor, all those years ago, of reading my first

Star Trek novel and telling me why it stank.

lo Ann Baasch, Charlie Terry, Don

Wenzel, Kathleen Conat, and, once

again, Ann Cecil, for proofreading this

manuscript to death.

Mitch and JoAnn, Don and Kathleen, Tom

and Bill, Pam, Sandy, Diana,

both Joes and all the Daves, and anybody

else who sat with us under the fireworks on July

4th and helped me figure out all the ways I

could blow up Klingon warships.

Rusty, for (among other things) pushing Gs.

And, last but greatest of them all, Don Kosak

the Brilliant, King of

Computers, for his valiant battle withand victory

over The Kobayashi Maru.

If there is anyone I've forgotten (and with all the

time and effort

that's gone into this thing, I'm sure there's someone),

please

forgive me. It isn't my intention to slight

anyone-I'm just a little hard of remembering at times.

But a hearty thank you to everyone,

whether mentioned or not. just as in Starfleet, your

contributions to The Kobayashi Maru represent the

best that is in us all.

Historian's Note

This adventure takes place shortly after the

events chronicled in

Star Trek The Motion Picture.

HALLEY

"THIS is Enterprise hailing shuttlecraft

Halley. All frequencies are

open to you, Halley, and locating circuits are

in operation. If you are able, please respond . .

. This is Enterprise hailing ship's

shuttle Halley. All frequencies are open

to you . . ." "Chekov,

can't you turn that blasted thing off?" Leonard

McCoy's voice was

uncharacteristically low, but cut clearly through

Uhura's tinny

broadcast over the shuttle radio. In the row of

seats across from

McCoy, James Kirk opened his

eyes to darkness. For a long moment,

Captain James T. Kirk was aware of little

save that he was hurt, and he was cold. Then the pain

took residence somewhere deep in his

right knee, and memory came awake with the pain.

The remembering made him vaguely sick. He

gingerly turned his head, searching the dark

shuttle for Scott and Sulu now that the doctor

had roused him.

Leonard McCoy occupied the seat just across the

shuttle's main aisle

from Kirk, one row ahead of

where Sulu, propped carefully upright, still

slept. The doctor had

been in almost the same position when Kirk,

drowsy from McCoy's pain medication, slipped

into sleep God knew how long ago. McCoy was

bundled into a field jacket nearly a size

and a half too large, his hands stuffed sullenly under

his arms for warmth. The hard, yellow

light from an emergency lamp painted his face in

bright relief

against the cold darkness around him. He hadn't yet

realized Kirk was awake; McCoy's

attention was fixed on the forward hatch, where Kirk

could hear movement, but where the dark was too deep

to see.

"Chekov!" McCoy hissed again. "Turn off

the radio!" "I heard you," Chekov called

back, sounding more than just mildly annoyed. There

was a long pause, then a muted snap-slide as

the Russian pulled one

of the radio's circuit boards. The shuttle

fell inffdismal silence.

"Don't go getting grouchy on me, Bones,"

Kirk advised McCoy. "The

quarters are cramped enough as it is." The doctor

turned to him, startled. "How long have you been

awake?" he asked, avoiding a reply to Kirk's

gentle reprimand. The captain shrugged. "Long enough

to hear you snap at my navigator."

McCoy looked embarrassed, and settled back

into his seat a bit

self-consciously. "Sorry, Jim. It's just.

. ." The doctor's ill temper seemed to bleed

away with his weary sigh. He didn't look angry

then, only tired and old. "It just seemed so

pointless," he finished. "That's all."

"I know." Kirk's words puffed out as

clouds of white vapor; the shuttle had been losing

heat for over an hour now. "But don't give up

hope yet, Bones."

McCoy managed a humph that sounded so much like his

normal crusty self, Kirk had to smile.

"How's your knee?"

"You're the doctor," Kirk replied. "Aren't

I supposed to ask you that?" McCoy favored the

captain with an unamused scowl. "You haven't done

anything that won't heal, but you'll have to be careful with

it for at least a couple weeks. You managed

to wrench it pretty good."

Kirk didn't like how that sounded; if nothing

else, it meant no movement right now. was "Wrench

it"?" he echoed, striving for lightness and (he

suspected) failing. "If you keep using these

technical terms, Bones, you're going to confuse

me!"

"Don't worry about the technical terms,"

McCoy tossed back, "just tell me if it

hurts."

Kirk shrugged again. "A little." In truth, the

knee was a solid, steady fist of pain, cramping his

thigh muscles until the urge to shift position

became almost unbearable. Every time he stirred,

though, the joint exploded in violent protest and

left him wishing he'd never tried to move at all.

But if McCoy could change the subject, so could

he. "How's Sulu holding up?"

Worry flashed across the doctor's face, but,

before he could answer, the helmsman volunteered, "dis

. . I've been better . . ."

McCoy turned in his seat to glare at Sulu.

"You're supposed to be asleep, Commander," he

reprimanded sternly.

Eyes still closed, Sulu grinned weakly at

McCoy over the cervical support holding his

head in place. "You've got to be kidding, Doc!

My shoulder's killing me!"

"I've got you on a high dosage already,"

McCoy said, his manner softened. "I don't

want to give you anything more just yet."

Kirk thought maybe Sulu tried to nod; the

only indication was the tight expression of pain that

flitted across the lieutenant commander's face. The

helmsman was strapped and belted so firmly into his

seat, Kirk was surprised he could move at all.

"That's okay, Doc," Sulu said. Even his

normally brilliant smile looked only pained and

drugged. "I don't want you to O.d. me

. . . But I'm not sleeping, either."

Kirk sank back into his seat and tried not

to think about his crew or his knee. Neither task was

easy. The stale air in the shuttle smelled

rankly of burnt circuitry and ozone.

Enigmatic sounds and smells wafted into the main

compartment from Scott's repair efforts in the rear

hatch; in the pilots' hatch, Chekov hadn't so

much as cursed as he sifted through the remains of the

radio in search of something to repair. At first,

Uhura's soothing, velvet voice over their receiver

was the only indication that home was still out there somewhere,

looking for them. Now, even that ephemeral

reassurance was gone. Kirk didn't know whether

to be angry at McCoy, or grateful.

We were supposed to go on shore leave in three

days.

Their first shore leave in four months. It just

wasn't fair.

The Enterprise wasn't even assigned near the

Hohweyn system. Then, just two weeks ago,

contact

with the Venkatsen Research Group was completely

lost, and the Enterprise was the only ship in a

position to attempt an investigation and

recovery. Again.

Failure was a chance the Venkatsen Group and their

funders had taken when the Group was first placed on

Hohweyn VII. The safest planet in an

utterly unsafe system, Hohweyn VII came

fully equipped with all the dangers expected in

such an arrangement. Hohweyn's forty-seven

planets-natural, captured, and rogue-careened

about an unstable tertiary sun, creating, destroying,

and slinging as incredible an array of astrophysical

anomalies as Kirk had ever had the honor to see.

Primarily, the Group was there to delve into the

secrets of gravitational attraction and repulsion,

hoping to better equip modern sensor systems so

travelers might discover and avoid gravitic

anomalies, rather than stumble into them.

So much for modern research, Kirk reflected

glumly. We've probably got more information on

gravitic fluxes than Venkatsen has compiled in

a year! Only they would probably never get home

with the data.

One of the unfortunate hazards of the system were

several debris clouds and asteroid belts-the

remains of the system's more unstable planets and

comets. Hohweyn VII spent most of its

solar year in the path of one or more of these. Besides the

obvious danger of collision, the iron- and

nickel-rich asteroids wreaked havoc with

sensors.

Upon arriving, Kirk deemed it unnecessary to venture

too close to Hohweyn VII with something as large

as a starship. The Enterprise was left in parking

orbit just beyond the path of the debris cloud enveloping

Hohweyn VII, and a team was dispatched by

shuttlecraft to make contact with Venkatsen and

report. Kirk headed the team himself, desperate

to be away from the bridge (even if only for a little

while), and anxious to have someone of his own tactical

skill and diplomacy along. The other five

positions were left open to volunteers.

On later reflection, Kirk realized that even

if he'd handpicked each member of the shuttle's

crew, the results would have been the same. He

wasn't sure if he should feel guilty about that, but

he did.

Kirk wanted an engineer, in the event some

mechanical problem caused the Venkatsen Group's

silence. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott

pointed out that the equipment on Hohweyn VII would

not be standard, and Kirk would need a top

engineer to discern its workings and repairs. When the tally

was in, Kirk couldn't argue with Scott's choice

for the assignment himself. The captain had seen

Scott puzzle out and repair things Kirk couldn't

even recognize as machinery, as well as

resurrect equipment other engineers had declared

utterly unsalvageable. It sometimes seemed at

least half the Enterprise's current engine room

was as the designer planned it, the other half

Scotty-rigged to do whatever Kirk asked. If the

engineer wanted to come play with archaic scientific

equipment in the middle of a messed-up star system,

who was Kirk to tell him, "No"?

Dr. McCoy didn't offer any explanation for

his willingness to tag along, and Kirk didn't ask.

The captain suspected the doctor was growing bored

with the number of stress-related problems caused by their

long stint without shore leave. The Venkatsen

rescue was just an excuse to leave the ship in some

other

doctor's capable hands. Whatever the reason,

Kirk harassed McCoy only moderately for his

sudden desire to flirt with danger, and silently

welcomed his company.

Pavel Chekov's reasons for

volunteering were easily the most obvious. Kirk's

former navigator, now chief of ship's security,

hadn't been the only member of the Enterprise's

security force to volunteer for the mission. Every

crewman in security knew as well as Kirk that

it was standard procedure to include at least one armed

escort on any investigative team; rank and

position mattered very little in the field. Kirk

knew, too, that their recent wealth of deep-space

runs had provided security with no of ship time at

all, and very few on-ship duties besides trading off

at the bridge weapons station. In the end, Kirk

looked on in amusement while, at First Officer

Spock's suggestion, the fifteen security

personnel drew lots for the contested assignment.

Kirk always considered it unfortunate that Chekov had

been transferred away from navigations (he was by far

the best navigator Kirk had ever had), so it was

to the captain's advantage that Chekov won the

draw. Kirk assigned the lieutenant as both

shuttle navigator and team security escort,

thus cutting the team's numbers by one.

Lieutenant Commander Sulu was the easiest

inclusion of all. Sulu was Kirk's chief

helmsman, and the best pilot on the ship (not

to mention in

Starfleet); Kirk planned to privately ask

the small, slender Asian to join the flight. He

suspected Sulu could be talked into it, if only

to ensure the safety of the others. To his distinct

pleasure, however, Kirk never got the chance.

Sulu showed up, as cheerful as if he'd been

report-

ing for a routine practice simulation, while

Chekov was still compiling navigational data from the

Enterprise's main computer. Within five minutes,

it was impossible to tell the two men hadn't worked

side by side in several years. "It's like riding a

bike," Sulu informed Kirk brightly, obviously

aiming the jibe at Chekov. "You never really

forget. Besides, I'll make sure he doesn't

run us into anything important." As if to prove

Sulu's teasing groundless, Chekov reported ready

for launch in record time, and they moved the shuttle

smoothly into free space.

Halley nosed into the crazy system

uneventfully. Scott rode the sensors as if they

were a nervous horse, quietly calling off

coordinates when the readings warned him of danger.

Sulu's skilled and delicate hands laced

the tiny shuttle through conflicting gravity wells and

any number of tangled lines of force, as calm and

unhurried as the plants that shared his cabin back on

board the ship. Chekov kept his eyes trained on

his own panel, acting on Scott's information as

smoothly as Sulu, though less relaxed. Neither of

them so much as glanced away from their stations until

Scott said quietly, "Mister Sulu, down

throttle."

Sulu obeyed without hesitation. Chekov glanced

anxiously at Scott, not turning away from his

panel. "What's wrong?"

The engineer nursed the readings a moment longer.

"The sensors picked up a slight flux just off our

starboard bow." A smile that wasn't at all

amused crossed his broad, highlander's features.

"Don't look now, lads, but I think we've

found a gravitic mine."

Sulu groaned. "Lucky for us."

"Can we avoid it?" Kirk asked from the

passenger

compartment. No one seemed surprised that he'd

been listening.

"We'll find out, Captain," Scott

replied. "We're sure as hell not going

to try running through it!"

Chekov already worried over his controls, leaning

back briefly to steal a look at Scott's

sensor readout. "I need more room," he told

Sulu shortly. "I can't even turn us at this

distance!"

It was serious, Kirk realized then. Sulu could

pilot them straight through hell without raising a

sweat, but not Chekov. The security chief's

irritability was a certain indicator that Chekov

was not happy with their predicament. "Take us back

about four thousand kilometers," Chekov continued.

"Beyond that well at 478 mark-was

"Mother of Christ!" Scott exclaimed suddenly,

his voice sharp with fear. "It's moving! The damn

thing's moving! Nose down, Sulu! Get us under

it!" "Give me a reading!" Chekov twisted about as

far as his seat straps would allow. "Scott! A

reading!"

It wasn't until much later that Kirk realized

Chekov wanted the second reading to plot where the

mine would be once it passed them. Two points of

reference weren't really enough to extrapolate any kind

of course, but he was going to try anyway. Like so much

else on this disastrous mission, it was a damn

fine effort.

The mine struck them broadside, wrenching the tiny

shuttle about like a rabbit caught up in a dog's

jaws. Kirk slammed hard against the wall, gasping

with surprise when the strength of the impact forced the

wind from him. All the blood in his body seemed

to rush simultaneously into his extremities,

swelling

them, crowding them. Kirk couldn't tell if the

shuttle was under violent acceleration, or merely being

torn apart by the gravitic mine's fury. He

wondered fleetingly if the horror stories he'd

heard in his youth about runaway centrifuges could

hold anything to this.

Then Sulu's voice, light and confident

"No-I think I've got it!"

"Sulu!"

Without warning, the engines in the rear compartment fired

with a sound like a dragon's roar. A sense of up and

down returned abruptly, and Kirk bounced back

into his seat so hard his teeth clacked. He'd

only just opened his mouth to call for a status report

when the suit locker next to the airlock wrenched

loose with a squeal of rending metal.

Kirk instinctively bolted toward the

sagging cabinet. "Jim, don't!" McCoy

called. One of the locker doors bulged, threatening

to bury the doctor in an avalanche of heavy

suiting and equipment. "We don't even know if

we're stable!" But Kirk was already up and moving.

Though there was no more strain on Kirk's body

to rush out in all

directions, no blood pounding the backs of his

eyes into firework displays of light and dark, still, as

soon as he was upright, Kirk knew the ship was

tumbling. He thought at first he'd hit a slick

patch on the deck-and entertained a brief, vicious

thought about whoever kept the decks in order until he

realized it was Scott-but knew something more, was wrong

when what should have been a harmless stumble drove him

feetfirst against the far bulkhead. He felt his right

knee groan with stress, then buckle 18

beneath him in a brilliant, nauseating rush of

liquid pain. He twisted his body into the fall and

met the bulkhead with his shoulder. That only softened the

blow a little. The sympathetic explosion from his knee

made him gasp.

The engines coughed again, this time making a

guttural, grinding snarl. The outlines of the

shuttle interior softened like velvet, then

melted into nothing as blackness swept from stem to stern

like a thundercloud. Kirk bit his lip hard and watched

pain throb and bloom redly in front of his vision.

What he feared most happened an instant later-the

shuttle settled into a slow, regular tumble, and

dropped him from the wall to the deck. He bit his

lip harder to keep from crying out, but only half

succeeded. The damned locked door held fast,

never loosing its load at all. Kirk almost

swore aloud.

"Jim?" McCoy's voice, concerned and

frightened, came from the doctor's seat.

"I'm here, Bones. I'm all right." That was a

lie, and Kirk knew his voice said as much.

"That was damned stupid, Captain!" McCoy

began, but Kirk cut him off "What happened up

front?"

"Doctor!" Kirk heard someone stumble over the

pilots' seats on their way toward the door.

"Doctor McCoy? Are you all right?" It was

Chekov. Kirk could hear McCoy cursing to himself.

"Just fine," McCoy growled. "What about you?

What the hell happened up there?"

"I'm fine, sir," Chekov reported

hastily. "But it's Sulu-he's hurt!"

"Nobody move!" Kirk heard his order stop

Chekov only two steps out of the cabin. Beyond the

navigator,

Sulu moaned softly, and Scott spoke to him

in low, soothing tones. "Nobody's going anywhere

until we've got lig hts," Kirk said.

"But, Jim-to "

"Bones, you can't do anything in the dark!" Kirk

twisted about to look back toward the pilots' hatch,

forgetting for the moment that he couldn't see anyway.

He allowed himself the luxury of an unseen

grimace when his knee sang out in protest to the

motion. "Scotty?"

"Right here," the engineer answered from near

McCoy's seat.

"Jesus, Scotty!" McCoy cursed. "You

scared me to death!"

"Sorry, Doctor."

"Have we got lamps in the storage cabinet?"

Kirk asked, still bent over his throbbing knee.

"Aye," Scott said. "About a dozen. But

I'll need some extra hands. Come on, lad-was This

apparently to Chekov. "comI think we're the only

two still stand- ing."

Kirk sat in tense, painful silence,

marveling at how easily he could track their

progress in the total darkness. They spoke

quietly in the back for a few moments while

Scott jimmied open the cabinet, then a fat finger

of light sprayed down the center aisle as the first of the

emergency lamps was activated.

"Thank God something still works," McCoy

muttered.

Then the wait began. Chekov helped Kirk

back to a seat while McCoy tended to Sulu.

Kirk tried putting weight on his leg only

once, then was forced to apologize when that nearly

toppled both him and

Chekov to the deck. Chekov set about placing

lamps throughout the shuttle while Scott shut down

the main engines-they were no longer producing any- thing

but noise and would never propel the shuttle another

STAR TREK - TOS - 47 - The Kobayashi Maru

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