The Kobayashi Maru Page 11

  Chekov stared at Scott in brittle silence, his face blank, his back rigid. He reminded Kirk of the antique tin soldiers his grandfather used to have, with their identical stoic expressions, and identical scarlet uniforms. Kirk was immediately embarrassed for the comparison, especially in lieu of Chekov's story and Scott's angry words.

  "I'm sorry, lad," Scott said, more gently. "But it's true, and you know it's true. I can't take a risk like that. Not with other people's lives."

  No one said anything for a very long time. Kirk finally broke the painful silence. "Scotty, finish what you're doing, then get suited up and out there. Chekov, go up front and monitor that thing's position. We can maintain radio contact with Scotty through the main console."

  Chekov hesitated only a heartbeat, then turned and swept into the forward hatch without even acknowledging Kirk's decision. Kirk was still warring with whether he should feel anger or sympathy for the young Russian when he noticed Scott staring after Chekov as well.

  "Get to work, Mister Scott," Kirk suggested softly. Scott blinked, flicking a startled, embarrassed glance at his captain, then nodded and bent over the jump packs again.

  Settling back in his seat, Kirk listened to Sulu's shallow breathing, to Scott's deft tinkering, and to Chekov's accusatory silence from the front cabin. His own knee sang a waspish song of pain from where McCoy had elevated it again. The doctor had re-wrapped his knee with another cold pack and brace, but this dressing was no more comfortable than the first. His body urged him to give in, to go to sleep…but his mind refused to desert the four men who depended on his strength even when he couldn't assist them. He forced his eyes open again to find McCoy situated in the row behind him. "I'm fine," he said, more from habit than because it was true.

  McCoy's eyes, directed toward the front, shifted to look at him. "We've been stuck in this box too long." His voice was low and concerned. "Startin' to snap at each other…"

  Kirk glanced to the forward hatch as well. "Yes…" Scott was stepping into an e-suit by the lock, his back to them; there was still no sound or sight of Chekov. He thought about the intense young ensign who was his navigator for four years, now his chief of security, and how badly Scotty's words would have stung himself as a young lieutenant, and how vulnerable Chekov must feel after confiding about his Academy days.

  Kirk was almost to his feet before McCoy caught his shoulder and insisted, "Where do you think you're going?"

  He shook off the doctor's concern when McCoy rose to intercept him. "Into the front," he hedged, not interested in trying to explain further. "I need to talk to Chekov."

  "You're his captain," the doctor said, so softly that only Kirk could hear, "not his father."

  "That's right," Kirk replied, hopping toward the front hatch. "But I'm his captain, even now." Even when there's nothing else I can do. "Just let me talk to him."

  McCoy held Kirk's elbow protectively for a moment longer, then nodded. The captain was reassured by the trust in his friend's blue eyes.

  The navigator's console was in sorry disarray, a legacy to Scott's heroic repair efforts. Chekov sat with his back to the doorway, staring pensively out at the dusty stars; he didn't even turn when Kirk settled into the helmsman's chair.

  "Do you understand why I'm keeping you inside?" the captain asked without prelude. They didn't have time to waste with coddling.

  Chekov cast a bleak look over at Kirk, then seemed to catch himself and hardened his expression again as he turned away. "Yes, sir, I think I do."

  Kirk knew from his reaction that he didn't. "It has nothing to do with what you told us, or with what Scotty said." Something that was almost surprise flitted across the lieutenant's face, but he didn't shift his gaze. "I don't care what you did at command school. I know how difficult it can be to reconcile what you did as a student to what you want to do now—real life is never quite like what they tested you for, and things that seem obvious to an experienced officer weren't obvious then. Failing a scenario isn't the same thing as failure."

  "Isn't it?" Chekov turned to face him, his expression belligerent, but his eyes still hurt. "What Mister Scott said earlier—that I'm not qualified…Do you believe him?"

  Kirk met the dark Russian eyes earnestly. "You're a good navigator," he said, "and a good security chief." Any truth beyond that was so subjective. "Scotty values technical expertise a great deal—I value good officers. You do what you feel you have to, and you do it well. No one can ever fault you for that." He wished he could offer more.

  Chekov's expression closed down again, and he turned back to the console to adjust something on the sensors. "I'm sorry if I've disappointed you," he said softly.

  Kirk wanted to reassure him somehow—to reach out and touch him, to chase the insecurity away. Nothing he could think of seemed appropriate, though; all over again, he recognized the distance that had developed between himself and the navigator he once thought he knew. "You've never made me anything but proud."

  Nothing further was volunteered, and Kirk didn't push the issue. Feeling cold and tired, he limped back to his seat to find McCoy waiting for him. "He'll be all right," he told the doctor quietly. "You'll see."

  McCoy scowled, unconvinced. "And so will we?"

  Kirk lowered himself into his seat, not meeting the doctor's gaze. "I trust Spock."

  "I do, too," McCoy admitted, sitting back. "It's Fate I'm not too keen about." He looked off to starboard. "There seems to be a lot of 'ifs' in Scotty's diversion plan. If he can get the pod cut free in time—if the jump packs are strong enough—if the debris isn't titanium or some blast-resistant alloy." A haunted, frightened expression danced across his seamed features, and he finally averted his eyes. "If we aren't going to be rescued," he confessed, "I'd rather be hulled by Scotty's rock than die of dehydration forty or fifty hours later."

  "I'm all set," Scott announced, inadvertently saving Kirk from having to respond to McCoy's disclosure.

  The captain nodded once. "Verify the course with Chekov before you leave." And the maneuver was on its way.

  Kirk moved into the front hatch while Chekov stood at the airlock to monitor Scott's departure. McCoy hovered over Kirk's left shoulder, pressed into the corner between the pilot's chair and the wall, as out of the way as he could manage. The radio's speaker sat cockeyed atop the helm controls, having been removed from the panel proper by Scott when the engineer jerry-rigged the alarm. Kirk listened for the Scotsman's first transmission, already thinking he might go mad with no visual to keep his eyes occupied.

  "I'll be out of the lock in a moment now. Ah, there she goes…" Scott's voice rasped out of the damaged speaker just as Chekov returned to the navigator's seat in frigid silence. "I know you can't confirm hearing me," the engineer continued, "so I'll just have to hope for the best. I'm going to head along the hull until I can belay myself off to that damaged pod. It's pretty mundane until then, so I'll just let you know when I'm in place. Scott out."

  McCoy snorted from behind Kirk. "Just great! If he gets swept away by a stellar wind or something, the first we hear is when he doesn't call in."

  "Bones, shut up." The doctor's sarcastic comments were wearing on Kirk's nerves.

  "How long do you figure it'll take him to get in place?" McCoy, predictably, ignored Kirk's wishes, but at least changed the subject.

  "Five, ten minutes," Chekov answered. His attention remained fixated with the navigation board. "Perhaps not even so long."

  "How long before collision?" Kirk asked.

  Chekov punched up a reading. "One hour, fifteen minutes."

  Not a great margin for error.

  It was nearly thirteen minutes before Scott called in again. Kirk traced the outline of every button and light on the helm console with his finger as he waited, wishing a dozen times each minute that someone would think of something to discuss so they could pass the time less painfully. When the radio finally sputtered to life, Kirk jumped so sharply that his knee screamed pain clear up into his skull.

 
; "All right, I'm at the nacelle now…Och, what a sorry mess! She's got enough damage back here that we're lucky she didn't go critical five minutes after we hit the mine!"

  McCoy leaned over Kirk's shoulder to growl at the speaker, "Forget the editorial, Scotty! Launch the thing!"

  "He can't hear you," Chekov advised impatiently.

  Just at that moment, Scott reported, "I'm going to place the packs first, then start cutting. I don't know what I can tell you before I'm done, so I'll just work, I guess."

  "Marvelous…" Kirk sighed.

  "I'll let you know when we're ready to cut free. Scott out." The transmission again went dead.

  As Kirk tried to will himself not to drum his fingers, McCoy asked Chekov, "What kind of margin does he have? I mean, how long before it's too late to launch?"

  Chekov shrugged, his lips pursed in irritation. "It depends."

  "On?"

  "On our position in the tumble when he finishes—on how quickly the packs can accelerate the mass." He pushed himself to his feet and stalked into the middle hold. "It just depends."

  Kirk stopped McCoy from following. "Let him be, Bones."

  "I will." The doctor looked troubled by his inadequacy in this new development. Kirk knew just how McCoy felt. "I'm going to look in on my patient."

  Kirk took the hand McCoy offered him to struggle to his own feet. "Which one?" he asked. "The mobile one, or…?"

  "The cooperative one," McCoy sniffed. "Neither of my patients is supposed to be mobile!"

  Kirk chuckled, but didn't contradict the older man.

  Sulu watched McCoy reposition Kirk in the front aisle, grinning. "And I thought I was a lousy patient!"

  "You're a saint," McCoy assured him. "You at least act as though you understand the English language."

  "Now, that's not fair, Bones."

  McCoy ignored the captain. "So what about you, Sulu?" he prompted, peeking under Kirk's cold pack before adjusting the brace on the captain's leg. "You took this Kobayashi Maru thing, too, didn't you?"

  "Like a shot in the arm," the helmsman admitted.

  "Well, we've got some more time to fill. I'd say it's your turn to 'fess up'."

  Sulu looked suddenly, strangely uncomfortable. "It's not really all that interesting," he hedged. "And it isn't too appropriate, I think." When Chekov grumbled inarticulately from behind him, he insisted, "No, I'm serious."

  "The captain cheated, Chekov blew up everyone he knew…" The doctor returned to his own seat just in front of Sulu's. "How bad can yours have been?"

  Sulu didn't smile. "You might be surprised."

  Kirk sensed a tension in the helmsman's usually light tone. "Don't push it, Bones," he suggested. "We're all tired. It can wait for another day."

  "If there is one."

  The doctor's frankness horrified him. "That's enough, McCoy…"

  "What I mean," McCoy said, striving for humor, "is that we're all remarkably receptive to disclosing embarrassing anecdotes just now. If he doesn't tell us here, we may never get it out of him. Considering how he insisted with poor Chekov, it seems only fair."

  "He's right," Chekov agreed simply.

  Kirk looked over at Sulu. "Mister Sulu?"

  Sulu sighed and closed his eyes. "It isn't funny," he said tiredly. "It isn't even clever."

  "We'll settle," Kirk allowed. "Although," McCoy intimated, "I find the thought of you devising a boring solution just a little hard to believe."

  "It isn't boring," Sulu explained. "I just said it wasn't funny, that's all. And it takes a little extra explaining—to really understand it, I mean. A lot of things went into what I did, not just the decisions I made during the test…"

  "Well," McCoy said placidly. "We certainly have plenty of time."

  Chapter Six

  CRANE DANCE

  SULU CROUCHED LOW against the boom of the brilliant blue windsailor while it skated like a dragonfly over a bottle-green ocean. Water sluiced up like a shattered, sparkling curtain in the narrow craft's wake, and Sulu whooped with zealous enthusiasm when the sailor leapt for an instant into silence, then crashed down onto water again. Sea salt dusted his face and stung his dark eyes. If all the happiness and excitement in my whole life, Sulu thought, could be jammed into one pure, breathless moment, it would be now!

  "How're we doing, Poppy?" Sulu laughed again to hear how insignificant and fragile his voice became against the sound of a playful sea. When the old man just ahead of him on the craft didn't answer, Sulu leaned forward—rocking the craft—and called again: "Hey, Poppy! Anybody home?"

  Tetsuo Inomata twisted as far as his one-hundred-and-three-year-old muscles would allow, but didn't release his hold on the main mast. "You're going to dunk us, boy!" His wrinkled golden face sat atop his orange flotation jacket like a happy, sun-dried apple.

  Sulu leaned into the boom, cutting the sailor across a corduroy of swells that made it jump and twitch like a grounded swordfish. "I love this craft! I love this wind! How can you not trust wind like this?"

  "Never trust wind!" Tetsuo ducked the boom with the grace of an expert as Sulu swung it past him to bring the craft about. "The wind was here long before man was, and it's never much adjusted to man getting in its way."

  As if to prove the old man's point, a gust nearly tipped the boat sideways. Sulu rode with it frantically, bothered by the coincidence, but too elated with his success to back down. "One more," Tetsuo informed him sagely, once the craft was righted again. "One more, and we'll both be wet!"

  Sulu opened his mouth to scoff Tetsuo's lack of faith, and the wind flicked the sailor's bow with an element's uncaring ease, flipping the sleek craft end over end.

  Salt water enveloped Sulu's sun-warmed torso in a rush of stinging, too-cool enthusiasm. He squinted his eyes shut, avoiding most of the pain ocean water could inflict, and rocketed to the surface with a single, powerful kick. Bobbing between the swells like a lazy gull, he caught sight of the blue-and-white sailor not far away; Tetsuo's bald head and orange flotation jacket flashed in and out of his vision just beyond the capsized craft.

  After breaking down the sail and righting the board, Sulu helped his great-grandfather to a seat against the slender mast. "I don't need help," Tetsuo complained. But he didn't push Sulu away.

  "You never need help." Sulu lingered with one hand on the older man's wrist, not liking the chill feel to his great-grandfather's skin. He strove to cover his concern with a smile. "I'm heading for shore," he said as he fastened a rope to the craft's tow ring. "It's going to be dark soon, and I've still got to pack for tomorrow!"

  "You don't have that much left to pack." Tetsuo shifted position to face Sulu as the lithe Oriental rolled onto his back and started for shore. "You're already taking most of the family heirlooms."

  Sulu grinned. "Only some of them—it just seems like all."

  Tetsuo made a face that quickly dissolved into chuckling. "You know what I mean!"

  "Yeah, I know…"

  For a while, they said nothing. The ocean whispered soothing secrets to no one, and the waves hissed a distant message to the gray-white sands a hundred meters away. Sulu continued for shore, watching the sky over him darken while the last defiant red rays leapt toward the eastern horizon, as if to hurry the dawn. Everybody's anxious for tomorrow, he thought, sighing. I only want today. Forever and always.

  Because tomorrow, he'd be gone.

  It seemed to Sulu not so long ago that Poppy raced him all the way to the old subway station and back, and sometimes even won. They were both much younger then—Sulu all of nine or ten, Tetsuo only just in his nineties—but the fourteen years between had come and gone like the flash of a distant white gull. Somewhere in the midst of them, Sulu devoted two carefree terms of his life to Starfleet, and Poppy began what would be a long, bitter struggle with what the neurosurgeons called a "grade four glioblastoma." The man he sailed with today was immeasurably older than the great-grandfather that his childhood had left behind.

  Most of the medical
jargon meant nothing to Sulu. Still, he understood enough to know that the growth in Poppy's brain could be controlled with radiation and chemotherapy, but could never be made to go away. It had moved in to stay, entwining with healthy nerves and tissue until removal of the tumor would require removal of most of what was Poppy. The doctors had no opinions as to how long the stressful regime of radiochemicals and toxins could go on; it would be years before the body's systems finally broke down—before one-hundred-and-three-year-old blood vessels refused to tolerate the chemicals that seared them clear every week. When that finally happened…

  Sulu reached for his great-grandfather's hand as they sailed beneath the gently graying sky, trying to imagine those once-strong hands crippled and useless. Without meaning to, he tightened his grip protectively.

  "Worried about tomorrow?"

  Sulu craned his neck up out of the water to see his great-grandfather studying him across the gathering dusk, and noticed his hold on the older man's hand for the first time. He didn't let go. "A little, I guess," he admitted, glad that Tetsuo missed the actual course of his thoughts. "Command school isn't like the Academy. They won't let me just be good at what I do—there, I'll have to be good at what everyone else does, too! That's kind of the point of being a captain, I guess…" His voice trailed away into a sigh. "I don't want to do anything wrong."

  Tetsuo made a small noise that Sulu took to signify his displeasure. "How asinine!"

  "It's not asinine!" Sulu's cheeks stung as much as his pride. "It's a very serious thing! There's never more than a thousand people in command school at any one time, and they're very picky about who they let stay!"

  "And you think they won't let you?"

  Sulu paused in his swimming. "I don't know…I guess so…"

  Tetsuo shifted toward the front of the little windsailor. "Listen…" he instructed. "Did I ever talk to you about cranes?"