The Kobayashi Maru Read online

  Well-remembered voices drifted to him from across the abandoned terminals: "—yard looked a lot bigger once we took down the bushes."

  "What did you replace them with?" Laurel Gugin wanted to know, sounding more interested in the subject than Chekov would have given her credit for.

  "Anne wanted to plant more shrubs," Westbeld replied, "but I talked her into shade flowers and meadow stuff. Actually, she wanted azaleas, too."

  Chekov sank back on his heels, suddenly hesitant. Westbeld and Gugin? Here? Had Baasch taken the women prisoner, or had the two groups somehow banded together? Where were Cantini and Cecil? Other sounds came from all over the room: footsteps, dragging and repetitive, like those of a captured lion pacing its habitat from boredom; his own breathing, coming back to him double-loud from the bookshelves to his right and left; the spasmodic click-clacking of a terminal keyboard; an occasional muffled curse.

  Robert. Chekov clenched his teeth against a string of angry words as his thoughts leapt up into turmoil again. Robert the computer expert. Robert who was, no doubt, within coding distance of discovering why the computer wasn't as cooperative as it should be. Robert, who had apparently defeated Baasch's squadron after all, then left Chekov and Sasha for dead. Robert, his Achilles' heel.

  Chekov decided he'd have to shoot Robert first.

  "Where the hell have you been?" The sharp prod of a phaser in the small of his back—not Cantini's voice—stopped him from continuing forward.

  "Don't shoot me," Chekov said, trying to hide his annoyance at being caught. "I'm on your side."

  Cantini didn't appear to be impressed. "Answer my question," he growled as Chekov turned to face him. "Where have you been?" Chekov heard Westbeld and Gugin's conversation stagger into nonexistence at the sound of Cantini's voice.

  "I've been anywhere I could get to," Chekov told Cantini simply. "There aren't many open routes through the station, though—someone's been locking the doors."

  "We noticed," Gugin volunteered as she and Westbeld approached their position. They, at least, hadn't drawn their phasers, even if Cantini refused to put his away. "Al tried to leave this level about an hour ago, but he couldn't find an access that would open."

  "So where have you been?"

  Chekov turned back to Cantini. The smaller man's dark eyes glittered in his round, flat-featured face, somehow accusing Chekov of something too unspecific to state out loud. Chekov wondered how much Cantini had guessed.

  "What do you want me to tell you?" he asked. "I've been confined to this damn station, just like you. Trying to keep myself from getting stunned. Just like you."

  The anger in Cantini's eyes faltered momentarily. "We left you with Sasha in the admin offices. You ran away when we were attacked—you didn't even come out to help us!"

  "We didn't think there was anything we could do," Chekov told him. "By the time we realized what was happening, we thought you'd already been taken out."

  Cantini snorted. "So you ran."

  Better to repeat a lie they already believed than to muddy the waters with the truth. "Yes," Chekov told him. "We ran."

  When Cantini would have said something more, Westbeld interrupted, "So where's Sasha?"

  "Out of the scenario," Chekov answered. The mention of her name, and the thought of how angry she would be when he saw her next, made his face burn. "We were surprised by two other cadets on the nineteenth floor." The lies seemed to come awfully easily now.

  Keyboard clatter attracted his attention again; he tried to look past the shelving unit between himself and Westbeld, but couldn't see beyond her shoulder. "Where's Robert?" he asked, as casually as he could.

  Gugin glanced over her shoulder, as though expecting to see someone there. When there was nothing, she turned back to Chekov with a shrug. "With the computer. Doing something."

  Chekov fingered the wire up his sleeve. "Do you know what he's doing?"

  "Does it matter?" Cantini demanded acidly. Chekov only glanced at him; he knew enough.

  "He's trying to break in," Gugin volunteered. She was the first to turn back toward the room, obviously losing interest now that their prowler proved to be friend rather than foe. "He thinks the locked bulkheads may have been arranged through the mainframe."

  Chekov, still under Cantini's watchful eye, stood to follow the women further into the room. "How long has he been working?"

  Westbeld settled back into one of the stiff, unpadded seats. "About three hours. He says he almost got it once or twice, but it keeps denying his communications protocol—even in binary."

  Chekov nodded vacantly, and played with his wire.

  Cantini poked the other ensign in the ribs with his phaser, startling a sharp profanity out of him. "What's the matter?" Cantini asked shrewdly. "You don't look like you think it's a good idea."

  "It's just…" Chekov made himself stop fingering the trigger wire. "What if he disrupts something? This is a civilian station—they might not take well to having their data corrupted."

  "He knows what he's doing," Gugin said without concern. She turned on a reader by her left hand. "Besides, somebody else already broke in once. What more harm can Cece do?"

  If only they knew.

  "Damn it!"

  Only Chekov jumped at Cecil's sharp invective; the others were no doubt inured to his outbursts by now. Pulling away from the table, Chekov started in the direction of his friend's voice, ignoring Cantini's belligerent, "Don't you go anywhere, Chekov!"

  Cecil crouched over an active terminal, his eyes washed copper by the steady amber light. He didn't look up as Chekov approached, didn't even glance away from whatever his eyes tracked across the tilted screen when Chekov paused at the rear of the monitor to stare at him.

  "Robert…?"

  "Don't bother me," Cecil muttered distractedly. "I'm busy."

  I'll bet you are. "What are you doing?" Chekov pressed. "This isn't our equipment."

  Cecil growled inarticulately and punched at a series of buttons. "Yeah, well, tell that to the tech nine who cracked the system." He slapped his hands against his thighs in a fit of frustration.

  Cantini materialized at Chekov's shoulder. "Leave him the hell alone!" he grumbled, tugging at Chekov's elbow. "I'm still not convinced you're not Kramer's assassin, so just—"

  Chekov jerked his arm away just as Cecil exclaimed, "Pavel!" and Westbeld and Gugin ran up to join them.

  "What's going on?"

  "Did you get in?"

  "Welcome, User 128641937F…"

  Chekov grabbed the terminal and spun it about before Cecil could respond. "Computer!" he shouted. "Slushayetye! Otkluchenoe!"

  The terminal went dead.

  No one said anything for a moment. Then Cantini caught Chekov by the back of the neck and spun him roughly about. "Why you son of a—!"

  Chekov struck the other man's hand away, ducking out of range as Cantini drew back to swing at him. "Remember the beginning of the scenario?" he cautioned. "They told us anything goes!" Westbeld had unlimbered her own phaser, but didn't look as though she knew what she wanted to do with it.

  "You aren't a tech nine!" Cecil argued. He still looked vaguely puzzled, not even capable of anger in his confusion. "I've seen you work, damn it—you didn't break into this system!"

  Chekov half turned to Cecil, glad for the distraction. "I didn't," he admitted. "I took it from the tech nine who did."

  Cecil shook his head slowly. "How?"

  "Who cares how?" Cantini interjected. "He screwed us, Bob! He agreed to work with us, and then he screwed us over!" He swung an angry glare on Chekov again. "Did you set up that ambush, too? How did you really kill Sasha?"

  "I didn't!" Chekov shot back, furious at the suggestion. "We really thought you were gone—Sasha and I wanted to help you!"

  "Well, a fat lot of help you turned out to be!" Westbeld pursed her lips and combed her hair out of her eyes with one hand. Looking at Cecil, she stated, "I say we kill him."

  Cecil still stared at the blank scr
een, occasionally punching a button on the keyboard as though expecting some reply. "I can't believe this… !"

  "We're gonna kill him, Bob," Cantini said, a bit more loudly. "It's three to one, unless you want to help."

  "Laurel didn't vote," Chekov started to point out, but Gugin added, "I want to kill you, too," before he even finished his sentence.

  Chekov threw up his arms in exasperation. "You don't understand… !"

  "I understand enough," Cecil said quietly, evenly, "to know that we six agreed to work as a team." He looked up from the keyboard, his blue eyes hard and bright as ice. "Why didn't you respect that? Why didn't you tell us about the computer, or the traps? What game are we supposed to be playing here?"

  Chekov sighed. "That's your problem," he said. "This isn't just a game."

  "It was a figure of speech," Cecil began, but Chekov cut him off.

  "It's more than that. Every step of the way, you've been treating this like real life—as if we were all really in danger of being killed by some desperate situation! But it's a command scenario, and the only 'scores' any of us are gathering will be on our records for the rest of our lives." He looked from Cecil's frustrated face to Cantini's angry one and back again. "I've nothing personal against any of you," he insisted. "You're my friends. But this is my career. If only one of us can be alive at the end of this scenario…then I have to make sure that the one alive is me."

  "Why can't we just all stay alive?" Cecil sighed. "Band together or something, just the five of us. A passing grade split five ways still has to count for something."

  "Yeah," Westbeld said. "Wouldn't they rather have five cadets who were good survivors than just one?"

  "I don't think it works that way," Chekov admitted. "If one of us doesn't win, then none of us does."

  "They never said that," Cecil pointed out.

  Chekov shrugged. "They never said that they would split the grade, either."

  Cecil ran his hands along the top of the terminal, making the gray-and-white box spin lazily. "So where does that leave us?"

  "The way I see it," Cantini said, "our buddy, the berserker—" He hooked a thumb in Chekov's direction. "—sees it as his duty to either kill us, or die. The rest of us are willing to take the chance on a split grade. So let's kill him, and get it over with."

  Cecil looked at Chekov; the smaller Russian man shrugged. "I don't want to argue with you," Chekov said. "But I don't want to lose, either."

  "You set the ground rules," Cecil told him.

  Chekov nodded. "I guess I did."

  Cecil spun the terminal one last time, then turned his back on the rest of them as though washing his hands of the situation. "Then do it," he instructed Cantini. "I still want to get into this system."

  "Robert…" Chekov slipped his finger through the loop up his sleeve just as Cecil stopped to face him. "I really do understand your choice. And it's nothing personal." He hoped Cecil would remember that when this was all over.

  Cecil's face softened into a faint smile. "No," he said softly. "It's nothing personal."

  Before Cecil turned away again, Chekov tugged once on the hidden trigger. He didn't even have a chance to notice Cantini's reaction before the blasts of six widely dispersed phasers "killed" them all.

  He awoke with a headache, and muscles so stiff he could barely lift his eyelids to review his surroundings. When he did, he found himself alone in a plain storage room, lying atop a narrow foldaway in a sea of other—although empty—cots. Pushing up onto his elbows, he swung his legs carefully over the side until he could cradle his head in his hands. Then he waited for the pounding to subside, and tried to remember why he was here.

  Memory came back quickly. He'd probably been unconscious longer than the others, thanks to his proximity to the phaser fire. That no doubt accounted for his stiffness and headache as well; he'd never been stunned by a phaser before, but had a cousin who always relished passing along such horror stories at family gatherings. Chekov smiled. He'd have something to contribute to those discussions now, if only his headache faded enough for him to stand.

  Voices from the next room finally piqued his interest enough to encourage movement. One hand still shielding his eyes from the light, he pushed to his feet and shuffled gingerly toward the door.

  The adjoining lounge was dark and vacant. The only light came from the wide-screen monitor set into one wall—the same source of the distant voices. Scenes of various locations on the Aslan Station passed across the screen in increments of thirty to ninety seconds, effectively displaying every square foot of the station over a period of an hour or so. Chekov approached the viewscreen, studying the printed data in the lower right-hand corner. Hours, minutes, seconds, date. He wondered if they had taped the entire weekend.

  "Excuse me?"

  He turned, finding one of the cleanup crew poised attentively in the doorway behind him.

  "The shuttle's loading up, sir, I…" The tech paused, then reached around the doorway to key up the lights. Chekov saw something like amusement and delight cross the young man's features. "It's you!"

  For the first time that weekend, Chekov felt a whisper of fear. "I beg your pardon?"

  The tech recovered quickly; studied politeness replaced his animated expression as he joined Chekov at the viewscreen. "I recognize you from the drill," he explained. "I've been helping with the revival crew—everybody you've met up with this weekend has come through here!"

  Chekov followed the tech's broad gesture, staring once about the abandoned lounge, then turning back to the tall screen. "What's this?" he asked.

  The tech surprised him by laughing. "Video monitor," he explained. "We used the security pickups to record everything that went on this weekend. Anybody killed early on in the game could sit in here and see what everybody else was doing. Or review all the stuff that had happened before they died."

  Chekov's headache settled deep behind his eyes as the tech leaned over to intimate, "You've been a pretty popular viewing subject, my friend."

  He could just imagine.

  "It was a command scenario," Chekov stated carefully. He was amazed how thin and worn that litany was growing by now. "I did what I was told. That's all."

  The tech shrugged. "I suppose." He leaned over to switch off the monitor, then turned a sunny smile on Chekov. "Is that what you're going to tell all the rest of them?"

  Chekov opened his mouth, then realized he didn't have the faintest idea what to say. Struggling against panicked thoughts about Sasha, Cantini, and Cecil, he said haltingly, "I…they knew what to expect. We're all cadets here."

  The tech draped an arm across his shoulders to steer him toward the door. "If that's the best you've got as a defense," he said companionably, "do yourself a favor and take a civilian shuttle home…!"

  This must be what it feels like to drown in liquid nitrogen, Chekov thought as he stepped through the hatchway to the already packed shuttle. No one spoke to him as he walked the interminable distance to the only empty seat. Chekov couldn't very well blame them. He stared out the window, not wanting to face anything living during the hours-long voyage back to Earth.

  The pointed silence was maddening. He felt as though he could feel his sixty-four classmates' angry thoughts as keenly as daggers slipped under his skin. He wanted to try and explain, to say that he was sorry. Only he wasn't. Not really. He was sorry that they were angry, and sorry that he was going to have to pay the price for their lack of understanding. But that didn't change what he did.

  Maybe this was the difference between line officers and desk men, he thought, not without some rancor. The ability to do what's necessary without needing to place blame. Everyone was so ready to condemn him because he had acted quickly—decisively—but no one seemed willing to offer suggestions for what should have been done instead. They all thought exactly the same way: Run and hide! Protect what you have! Don't try to do too much—you might fail and end up with nothing! He'd just proven that an officer's response to a threatening situa
tion was not limited to passive defense, and they all hated him because he acted outside their ability. Too bad. They would still be complaining about the unfairness of it all long after he was assigned to a starship and gone from their petty little world.

  Chekov crossed his arms in a gesture of angry defiance, then sat back in his seat to watch the shuttle deberth.

  Forty minutes into the flight, however, some of his hauteur began to fade. The oppressive silence weighed on his spirit like a dead comrade, and Kramer had come to stand, equally uncommunicative, at the front of the aisle. Chekov stared resolutely out his window, but started to consider apologizing again.

  "I take it," Kramer began, as though he'd only just arrived on the scene, "that none of you are terribly pleased with the outcome of this maneuver."

  A discontented growl boiled from the rear of the shuttle forward. Kramer smiled. "What do you perceive to be the problem?"

  Without hesitation, Cantini offered: "Chekov." Another chorus of growls indicated mass agreement. Chekov clenched his teeth, pretending to ignore them.

  "Do you have a comment on that, Ensign Chekov?"

  He hated Kramer more intensely than he had ever hated the man before, but didn't turn away from his window. They're a bunch of goddamned children, he wanted to say. Instead, he stated simply, "No, sir. I have no comment."

  "None?" Kramer frowned faintly, his eyes bright and attentive. "Cadet Chekov…I'm disappointed." If he meant it to be cutting, his tone of voice failed him. "What about someone else?"

  Chekov knew the cadets must be bursting with complaints and arguments, but no one volunteered. He didn't care. Not anymore. He thought perhaps if he told himself that often enough, he'd believe it by the time they reached home.

  "Very well," Kramer continued. "Then we shall start with my evaluations on your performances." Chekov feigned enough disinterest to make himself feel better about turning to look at the commodore. Kramer waited until everyone's attention was on him before announcing, "You all failed."