The Kobayashi Maru Read online

  The exec nodded. "That's the whole tally, sir."

  "How?"

  "Disrupters, sir," the helmsman sighed, a bit irritably. "They can do a lot of damage to a ship."

  "Is that so?" Scott grated softly, feeling the blood rise hot and angry into his cheeks. He lifted his chin to the Klingons who closed on the viewscreen, suddenly not caring that this was just a damn scenario. "Well, not to my ship, they don't—not with a single damn barrage!" Any computer that thought otherwise deserved whatever Scott could throw at it. He slammed his fist onto the command chair's intercom button. "Phaser bay!"

  "Aye, captain?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Sir?"

  Another blast rocked the ship. Scott felt each rumble like fire in his blood. "Number three screen, down!" the exec called. Scott ignored him.

  "I want all phaser bays to fire on my command, each of you aimed at one of those bedeviled crafts," Scott instructed the phaser chiefs grimly. "Continuous fire—start at your lowest possible frequency—"

  Another disrupter hit. And another.

  "Number three screen is down, sir!" the exec repeated loudly.

  Scott wished the beggar would quit interrupting his thinking. "—range upward until you match their interference pattern and cut through those shields like butter!"

  "Aye, aye!" all three bays responded in unison. Scott smiled the smile of a satisfied hunter.

  The navigator was already plotting an escape course as the Saratoga's bays opened fire with a chilling, climbing wail. "I can't signal Starfleet," the communications officer interjected from behind Scott. "The Klingons are jamming my signal."

  Golden-red light burst across the viewscreen like a nova, burning Scott's eyes with its brilliance as Saratoga's phasers finally reduced the Klingons to atoms. "Not anymore, they aren't," Scott told communications. "Contact Starfleet. Helm—get us out of here."

  "Working on it, sir." The helmsman swore suddenly, punching at his panel. "But we've got company again!"

  The five blue-gray cruisers hove into view even as the helmsman reported.

  "That's it for the phaser banks, sir," the science officer reported as the Saratoga began her limping retreat. "Bay crews report all cells exhausted beyond our ability to recharge."

  Scott waved off the report, dropping back into his chair. He wanted to feel weak and wasted after that first adrenaline surge. All he felt was sere and angry—angry at the monitoring officers for making him captain in a scenario he patently had no business commanding, angry at whoever had programmed this fatalistic computer in the first place. "Don't worry about the phaser bays. We aren't going to need them again, anyhow."

  "Klingons closing!"

  "Cut all rear shields," Scott ordered. His brain raced about like light in a mirrored box, searching his memory for any ideas at all. "I want everything we've got up front." Especially with a computer that so overestimates Klingon firepower! He punched at the intercom again as a course of action began to take form. "Engineering!"

  "Aye, sir?"

  "Pull me a canister of antimatter—" The engineer sputtered. "Sir?"

  "Don't question, just listen!" He didn't have time to explain every step of his plans to these nervous nellies. "It should take you just under three minutes, if you hurry. Pull me the whole thing and run it to the closest transporter room!"

  "But—I—"

  "Move! Bridge out." He thumbed another button as the helmsman announced that the first Klingon torpedoes were on their way.

  "Torpedo bay," a nervous male voice replied to Scott's brusque summons. "You called, bridge?"

  "Aye. You're dead down there, right?"

  "Meaning the bays, sir?"

  Scott dropped his head into his hands and counted quickly to three. "Yes, the bays. You don't function?"

  Light, white and flashing, sprayed across the bridge as the Klingon torpedoes impacted with the forward screens and detonated.

  "Everything's completely dead down here, sir," the weapons tech answered when the explosion was past.

  "All right, then," Scott continued decisively. "Pack up every torpedo you can get your hands on and get 'em to the transporter rooms."

  "Everything?"

  "Everything! Six torpedoes to each transporter room! Now go!"

  "Transporter room to bridge!" The call came immediately upon the torpedo bay's sign-off. "We've got that antimatter canister, sir. What now?"

  Scott held the channel open, turning to the helmsman. "Pull us back. Keep pulling us back as fast as impulse drive will allow."

  "Aye, aye, sir."

  "Navigator?"

  "Sir?"

  "Start a continuous reading on the crux ship's position, and transmit your data down to the transporter room." He bent to the intercom again. "Prepare to receive coordinates."

  "Incoming," the helmsman announced, with somewhat less concern than before. Scott nodded his acknowledgment, already working equations in his head for the next fleet of ships he knew the computer would send.

  "Coordinates received, bridge," the transporter room responded after a moment. Then: "Uh, sir? Which should we use?"

  Scott grinned. "Give me less than two kilometers in front of the crux ship—"

  The second barrage hit with considerably more force than the first. Scott clung to the command chair while half his bridge crew was thrown to the floor; the lighting dimmed sharply before climbing again on emergency power.

  "—less than two kilometers," Scott picked up again when the systems had stabilized, "from whatever its coordinates are when you energize. Then I want you to immediately beam back the canister."

  "But—"

  "Just the canister," Scott stressed. When would these bairns learn to shut up and just listen? "Leave the antimatter behind."

  "Holy cow…"

  Scott listened while transporter techs scurried about like busy ants. The distance was too great for the bridge crew to see when the antimatter was delivered, but everyone knew when the crux ship struck the antimatter's area of affect: all five cruisers flew apart into white noise and molecular wind just as they leashed another assault. Scott was grinning like a fool when the ship bucked him out of the chair and onto the deck.

  "Screens are down, Captain!" sounded on top of someone else's frantic, "Hull breach! We've got a hull breach in section six hundred!"

  Scott climbed back into the command chair without bothering to ask the science officer if any trace of the enemy ships remained (the velvet emptiness beyond the viewscreen rendered such questions extraneous). "Navigator! Are we out of the Neutral Zone yet?"

  "We have been!" the navigator replied. "They're following us!"

  "Ah, hell…!"

  "Nine!"

  Everyone on the bridge jerked about at the science officer's broken squeak. "What?" Scott demanded, irrationally annoyed at the man's interruption.

  "Nine!" the officer replied, still looking shocked.

  "We've got nine Klingon ships closing on our port bow!"

  "Coming around!" helm announced even as Scott stabbed at the intercom to call, "Transporter room!"

  "We've got them!" the main transporter room proclaimed. "Six torpedoes in every room. Orders, Captain!"

  It won't work, Scott realized suddenly. He checked the equations in his head again, and wondered if a computer would let mathematics outprove experimentation. Shaking his head, he admitted that he had nothing to lose. "Take your coordinates from navigations again—" The navigator nodded understanding and started to scan. "—and from the science station." The science officer whirled to face her panel. "Lock on the juncture points in the Klingon screen system and beam six torpedoes to each juncture point on my command."

  Scott studied the sleek ships on the viewscreen as he awaited the transporter rooms' readiness. The monitors would stop the scenario, he was sure of it. Someone would blast open the screen and rail at him for dishonesty—for cheating! His career would end in ruin!

  "Transporter room, here." The voice at his elbow m
ade him jump. "All rooms ready for beaming."

  Scott licked dry lips and nodded at the approaching ships. "Transport at will."

  The resultant explosion was beyond deafening; Scott's ears rang in painful symphony with his aching heart as atomic fire consumed the nine Klingon war dragons less than a thousand kilometers beyond his bow. He ducked his head against it, hearing the navigator bark a startled curse. He was still staring at the floor as the world faded from white, to ephemeral pastels, to gray-speckled normalcy again. They're going to kill me, he thought with sick resignation.

  "Fifteen war dragons, on the way." The helmsman began to laugh a little manically. "Jesus Christ! Fifteen…!"

  Scott couldn't make himself look up to watch the ships close. The knowledge that this was not reality—and that he could pay dearly for taking advantage of that fact—had been driven home again with gale force when those nine ships cleared the screen. Suddenly, he'd lost interest in defending the honor of a ship that wasn't even really there. He would do his best until this travesty was all over, but he knew better than anyone else at this Academy just how pitiful his best would be. "Engine room, unlock the warp drive main control. You'll need somebody from weapons, but…"

  Scott kept his eyes carefully focused on the wall above Admiral Walgren's head. He didn't know whether or not this private conference room was really colder than the rest of the Academy, but it certainly felt like it now.

  "Do you know why I've called you here?" Walgren asked the engineer stiffly.

  "Aye, sir," Scott answered softly. "I…I think I do."

  "Could you state that reason, please?" Commodore Hohman glanced sidelong at Walgren, evincing more than just a little annoyance. "For the benefit of those of us who aren't entirely certain."

  Scott looked at Walgren for confirmation. The tall, gray-haired Englishman seemed the only one of the four monitoring officers who fully understood what Scott had accomplished in the simulator. Too bad—if Walgren hadn't known, either, Scott might actually have gotten away with it.

  The two commodores continued to look politely uncertain, and Admiral Howell wouldn't raise his eyes from where he played with the ice in his water glass, looking guilty and ashamed. You SHOULD be ashamed of me, Scott ruefully thought to the admiral. It was a crime against physics. I deserve to be punished.

  "Mister Scott…" Walgren's sharp tone recaptured Scott's attention. "Explain, please, what you did."

  "I used the Perera Field Theory to destroy that last squadron of war dragons." It was the last squadron he'd destroyed, at least—the last fifteen dreadnoughts had atomized Saratoga without taking a single hit. Scott was still convinced he could have taken the last fifteen, if there had really been an engine room, and if he could have run down there to demonstrate to the engineers what he was trying to explain when Saratoga was destroyed. "You see," he continued when no one save Walgren looked any more enlightened, "Klingons run in packs so they can link their shields into a multiship field system. That way, any shield hit hard enough can draw power from other parts of the system to keep from buckling." He paused to glance between the two commodores. "Should I go on?"

  Hohman's lips quirked into a half-scowl, half-grin. "Please."

  "Well," Scott continued, "the Perera Theory hypothesizes that a photon torpedo placed at any juncture point in such a screen system will detonate due to the forces exerted by the complex energy exchanges. All the math and prior theorems support Perera's conclusion."

  "Sounds good," Hohman allowed. "So what's the problem?"

  "The problem," Walgren cut in, "is that Perera's Field Theory is wrong."

  "It doesn't work in practice," Scott added for purposes of clarification. Noticing Walgren's icy glare, he quickly returned his attention to the wall.

  "You mean," Howell asked carefully, "that when you do it in real life—nothing happens?"

  "Precisely." Walgren nodded. "No one's entirely certain why, but it's been proven through experimentation. And hard data override mathematics every time."

  Commodore Shoji politely raised one hand to gain Walgren's attention. "Are you objecting to Mister Scott's use of the theory because it is not applicable in real life?"

  "Certainly!" the Englishman replied. "This is supposed to be a simulation, not a fantasy!"

  "But the students are expected to use everything they have at their disposal," Shoji returned. He glanced at Scott with an inquiring tilt to his head. "You understood that this Perera Theory did not truly work?"

  Considering his knowledge of engineering—not to mention his experience with the Perera Theory—Scott found the question surprising. "Of course!" he asserted. "But I also figured the computer would let me do it, because any mathematics it worked out would support Perera's findings."

  The Japanese commodore shrugged. "I believe Mister Scott acted well within the parameters of the scenario," he concluded. "He recognized the avenues open to him, and utilized them."

  "But this is supposed to be real!" Walgren argued, even as Hohman growled, "I still don't understand what the problem is!"

  "Well, I sort of cheated, I guess," Scott volunteered in response to the commodore's complaint.

  "More than 'sort of,' it would appear," Howell admitted.

  "Are you sure this Perera thing doesn't work?" Hohman pressed. "I mean, even Scott's introductory lecture sounded okay to me."

  The British admiral uttered a distinctly superior snort and refused to even look at Hohman. "You, Commodore Hohman, are not an engineer."

  Admiral Howell sighed. "And neither are Commodore Shoji and myself. In the hopes of reaching some consensus regarding Mister Scott's solution, Admiral Walgren, do you think you could find your way clear to produce some definitive source of information on this subject?"

  Walgren offered the other admiral a haughty glare. "As if the word of two engineers weren't enough!"

  "Uh, Admiral?" Scott shuffled uncertainly from his place at the center of the room. "Sir, I could—"

  "Keep your peace, Mister Scott," Walgren suggested sternly. "We haven't finished with you yet."

  But I can explain! Scott wanted to plead. Still, Walgren's steel-gray eyes didn't look interested in producing a "definitive source" other than his own, so Scott merely uttered a doubtful, "Uh…aye, sir…" and fell silent.

  Walgren buzzed his own yeoman to bring the appropriate references from his library. Scott twiddled his fingers behind his back and tried to recognize constellations in the speckled tile on the ceiling.

  "Ah! Here it is!" Walgren was already deep into one of the manuals, keying past pages so fast Scott was surprised the man could identify the contents. "In the Encyclopedia of Engineering Development and Design," the Englishman recited. "Under A, for 'Aberdeen Solution.'"

  Hohman made a face. "The engineer's name was Aberdeen?"

  "That's the city where the theory was tested," Scott volunteered quietly. Howell flicked a quick glance at the cadet, but no one else seemed to hear.

  Walgren ran a finger down the reader screen, tracing the lines of type. "'Aberdeen, Scotland, Earth…'" he muttered, his voice without inflection as he scanned ahead of what he read. "'…in which Earthborn engineering student Montgomery Scott constructed seven separate field generators in order to simulate the current Klingon design, based on data obtained…'" Scott saw Walgren's eyes dart back to the top of the screen, then the older admiral's hand stopped its tracing. "Montgomery Scott?"

  Everyone turned to stare at Scott. Blushing, the ensign offered them a small shrug. "Aye," he admitted, grinning. "That's me."

  Hohman looked as if he'd lost the ability to breathe. "How old were you?"

  Scott shrugged again, uncertain why this mattered. "About sixteen, I suppose, sir."

  "Good God…!"

  "Do you tinker with engineering as a hobby, Mister Scott?" Walgren asked seriously. His eyes bore into Scott intently, as though this were the final question on some test Scott hadn't known he was taking.

  "I majored in Engineering, sir,"
he answered honestly. "And I thought about being a starship engineer before I came to command school." Walgren's steady scrutiny was beginning to bother him.

  "So you didn't want to attend command school?"

  "No, sir," Scott asserted, deeply sincere. "I respect what captains do, sir, and I appreciate that Starfleet thinks I'd make a fine one. But…" He sighed and shook his head. "I think my heart's meant more for commanding machines than commanding people. I'd rather I had a captain who appreciated that—one who didn't feel the need to make me what I'm not inside." There—it's said! The results of his admission would no doubt quickly follow.

  A certain distant tenderness settled onto Walgren's weathered features, and the Englishman nodded slowly. "I think we can arrange that, Mister Scott, if you don't mind."

  Scott frowned. "Sir?" His heart labored under a hope he didn't dare tender.

  "I'm removing you from command school," Walgren stated brusquely. "You performed inadequately during the Kobayashi Maru scenario, and you have been found to display an attitude and disposition not suited to a command officer in Starfleet." At Scott's delighted gasp, Walgren almost smiled.

  "I…Well…Thank you, sir!" It seemed such a ludicrous response; Scott didn't even care if the older man understood just what he'd done.

  "Make good use of your failure, Mister Scott," the Englishman advised as he gathered his tapes and turned to go. "We don't all get a second chance."

  Scott stared at Walgren in admiring gratitude as the admiral headed for the door. "I'll do that, sir," he promised. "And I'll never forget you for this!"

  The door slid aside, and Walgren paused only briefly, surprised. "Don't thank me, Mister Scott. Thank your coupler." He smiled at Scott's startled stare. "I couldn't very well let the engineer who could piece that together slip away. Good designing, Mister Scott. And God go with you."

  "God go with you, Admiral Walgren!" Scott called as the hatchway whispered closed.

  He never saw Walgren again after that, but Scott kept track of the older engineer until Walgren's death at age seventy. During that time, Scott always hoped that grand luck did, indeed, follow the admiral to the very end.