Can ships, as well as men, be said to limp?

James Kirk looked around the bridge of the USS Enterprise. A less-trained eye would have seen only an experienced group of men and women going about their various duties, competently overseeing the multitude of hardware and software systems that made Enterprise more than a mere shell of metals and plastics. But Captain James T. Kirk saw much more.

He saw weariness in the slumped shoulders of his communications officer. He noted the signs of short temper in the abrupt movements and tight-lipped responses of the helmsman.

If a ship can be said to be limp, thought Kirk, then this one's limping.

The mission just completed had been more than even a vessel of Enterprise's caliber should be asked to endure. Only the figure bent over the Science Officer's station in disciplined absorption showed no outward signs of fatigue. But then, Spock almost never did. And yet he was called upon to give more than any of the rest of us, at that outpost colony. Kirk shook his head slightly in amazement and admiration.

Mistakes would not be made by this crew, Kirk knew, in spite of their exhaustion, but he was not the type of commander to drive his people unreasonably. Thank God we're only hours away from Starbase Seventeen, he thought. They can have all the rest and recreation they need there.

I wonder what's waiting for me there. New orders, of course. The ship would be repaired and resupplied, the crew given its chance to rest up, and then both would be called upon yet again to do the Federation's work. Sensitive work, Kirk supposed. Work requiring the best, requiring men and women of competence and subtlety, and a commander who had proven his ability to cope with complex and dangerous situations often enough.

It wore on him, this work. Every year, it wore on him more, and yet he could not imagine doing anything else with his life. For a time, of course, he had had to do something else: a desk job. But James Kirk was not a man who belonged behind a desk. He was a ship's commander whose place was on the bridge of his beloved ship.

But there must be a limit somewhere, sometime. That was his abiding fear. Would someone, somewhere in the Starfleet hierarchy, eventually decide that Kirk was too old for active command, that a desk job was all that he was really suited for now -- an aging officer who couldn't even read any more without wearing archaic glasses? Horatio Nelson or John Paul Jones, those two great admirals: which would his own career be likened to? Would he die in glory, at the height of his career, during his moment of greatest triumph, like Nelson, or on land, forced into retirement by intrique and the changing winds of politics, like Jones? A lifetime from now, when perhaps a very different ship bore the gallant old name Enterprise, how would history regard James T. Kirk?

Ridiculous, he told himself, suddenly impatient with his own meanderings. Stop thinking like an old man with one foot in the grave! "Mr. Sulu," he said aloud, "estimated time to arrival?"

Sulu grinned. "Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes to Starbase Seventeen R and R, Captain." Kirk could sense his crew perking up at that announcement -- which was of course why he'd asked Sulu to make it. It was consideration in such small things, Kirk knew, as much as competence in the big ones that gained a commander his crew's loyalty.

"Captain," Uhura said from the Communications console, "I'm picking up something." She frowned and put her hand to her ear as if holding the communication earpiece would help her pick up the faint signal. "Klingon emergency signal, sir. Heavy interference."

Ginny Crandall, at the Weapons and Defense station, spoke up from Kirk's right. "I have them, sir. Only a couple of million kilometers away."

What're they doing in Federation space? "Let us all hear what they have to say, Uhura. Translated."

"Yes, sir."

From the speakers above the bridge crew came a howl of subspace interference and then a heavy crackling. A voice was speaking behind the noise, but it was drowned out. And then suddenly the interference ceased and the voice barked out at them, heavy and menacing: a Klingon voice, its words translated to English by the Enterprise computer but the voice left unchanged.

"...Klanth, commanding. Failure of vessel structure accelerating. Destruction of Mauler imminent. Crew conduct exemplary. Request commendations be sent to clans of all. I personally commend all of us to the gods. Survive and succeed!"

The last words were washed out as the interference returned with a roar. Uhura reduced the volume to a background growling. "I can't get it any clearer, sir."

Kirk nodded, "Spock?"

The Vulcan's face was hidden in the hood of the Science station console. "It appears to be a magneticionic storm of some sort, Captain, and the Klingon ship is in the middle of it. It does bear some resemblance to the storm Enterprise encountered in this region some time ago. I'm sure you remember that one, sir."

Kirk grimaced. How could he forget? For hours, he had been trapped in an alternate dimension, victim of a bizarre breakdown in spacetime, the air in his space suit running out, desperately trying to signal his crew during those precious seconds when he found himself halfway returned to his own dimension. In the end, Spock had been able to predict the time and place of the next intersection of the two planes of existence and had retrieved Kirk with no time at all to spare. Another Starfleet vessel, Defiant, had been destroyed by the storm.

It had all happened in a region of space claimed by the Tholians, a prickly and uncommunicative people who rejected membership in the Federation even though they were by now surrounded by it. Federation ships had been careful to avoid Tholian space ever since Enterprise's experience. "Mr. Spock, could the Tholians be responsible for what's happening to the Klingon ship?"

"Perhaps, Captain. We know little of Tholian capabilities beyond their ability to generate the web in space with which they trapped Enterprise. However, since they can generate such a web, this storm would seem to represent a prodigious expenditure of energy to achieve an object they could encompass far more cheaply."

"In other words, no?"

"Probably not, sir. And of course we do know that strange natural phenomena occur in this region." After a pause, Spock added, "The Klingon ship does indeed appear to be breaking up. The structure of the vessel is disintegrating."

That answered the question no one had bothered to voice: Was the Klingon message genuine or a ruse? As if to add confirmation that it was genuine, Crandall said, "Sir their shields are failing rapidly. I think..." She fell silent and concentrated on the readings displayed before her. "Yes, their life-support as well."

"Helm, take us in. As close as is safe. Mr. Spock will warn you when we've reached that limit. Shields up. Yellow alert." Kirk could feel the adrenalin level rising, the blood racing in his veins. He could sense his crew responding throughout the ship -- responding to his voice, his judgment. As the klaxons rang, Kirk thumbed a toggle switch on the arm of the command seat. "Transporter room. Get the coordinates of that Klingon ship and try to lock on as soon as you can."

"Do you plan a rescue, Captain?" Spock asked. "Regulations do not require that we respond in a situation such as this one."

"This isn't just humanitarianism, Spock. I want to know what they're doing inside our territory. Visual of Mauler on screen."

On the great viewscreen at the front of the bridge, an image of the storm grew, with the Klingon ship trapped within it, struggling ineffectually like a fly in a spider's web. The storm was a rough sphere of shifting colors and brightnesses. Parts of it vanished momentarily and then flared out in painful brilliance. Mauler was almost totally obscured, but now and then it showed clearly for just an instant. The bridge crew on Enterprise could see the Klingon ship wavering, its predatory "wings" beginning to crumble.

The Klingon ship was surrounded by sparkling lights where the storm impinged on its deflector shields, but that sparkling was diminishing even as they watched it. Mauler's shields were failing under the storm's assault.

"Less than ten minutes maximum survival time, Captain," Spock said calmly.

"Transporter room?"

The response came from the speaker in the arm of his chair. "Sorry, sir. We can't punch through the interference. We can't lock onto individual patterns in that soup. We'd have to have feedback from their transporter on the other end, and even then it would be chancy."

Kirk thought for a moment. "Uhura, open a hailing channel." He paused and then spoke in what he hoped was a calm and authoritative voice. "Mauler, this is the USS Enterprise, Captain James Kirk commanding. We are standing by and are prepared to beam you aboard our vessel. Please lock in your transporter to ours.

For a long moment, there was no reply. Then the voice they had heard before said angrily, "Mauler, Klanth commanding. Leave us, Kirk! Leave us to die bravely, like Klingons."

"Bravely or not, Captain," Kirk said soothingly, "you will die without our help. Wouldn't it be better to survive to serve your emperor again?"

"Not with human help!" The heavy Klingon voice was replaced with the rushing sound of subspace static.

"Uhura?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, sir. They're no longer transmitting."

Kirk clenched his fist in frustration. He had to retrieve at least one crewman from that ship! Whatever the Klingons' mission, it was something Starfleet would want to know about. "Spock, could one of the shuttles make it?"

"Negative, Captain. The shuttles have far less defense against this storm than the Klingon ship has."

Kirk had known the answer in advance. He had simply hoped that Spock could pull a rabbit out of his hat, as he had done in the past. He found the image an amusing one despite the present situation.

But Spock did not disappoint him. "However, you will remember that we have on board some of Starfleet's new transponders, designed for maintaining subspace radio contact through the severest phenomena Starfleet scientists could anticipate. Perhaps such a transponder could be used to maintain contact through the storm as well."

"Yes, but what good would that do us?"

"The transporter cannot lock onto a Klingon pattern through the storm, Captain, but it could certainly beam one of the transponders from Enterprise to the Klingon ship. Then a Klingon holding the transponders could be beamed back to Enterprise."

Kirk laughed. "If any of the Klingons would cooperate to that extent. And if they were willing to cooperate, we wouldn't need the transponder in the first place." Something occurred to him. "Spock, what if one man were holding the transponder and another man were touching him. Could they both be beamed back?"

Spock was silent for a moment, then said, "I would say yes, with a probability of point nine nine three. But that's just a preliminary esti--"

"Never mind, Spock. That's only seven chances of failure out of a thousand. Not bad at all. Get one of those transponders to the transporter room immediately. Security, send a squad to the transporter room. I'll meet them there." Kirk jumped to his feet. "Mr. Spock, you have the con." He strode toward the turbo elevator, feeling younger with every step.

Kirk nodded to the transporter operator and braced himself. The Enterprise transporter room and the Security squad standing on the transporter platform with him all faded from Kirk's sight. The Security team faded back in again, but the background was no longer the transporter room aboard Enterprise.

In its place was the gloomy, cramped bridge of a Klingon warship, underlit and hot by human standards, and filled with shouts and yells and the groaning of tortured metal. Kirk and the Security team were grouped immediately behind the command seat. The seat held a broad-shouldered, powerful figure: Klanth.

Crowded as the arrival of the Federation intruders made the bridge, the Klingons were too preoccupied with trying to save their dying ship to realize immediately who the newcomers were. A Klingon, his eyes on the display of a small computer in his hand, pushed one of Kirk's men aside impatiently as he strode past.

The group from Enterprise split in two and moved to either side of the Klingon captain's command seat. But just then one of the Klingons in front of Klanth happened to look up and right at Kirk. He frowned in puzzlement, and then registered what he had seen. He yelled a warning and pointed, and Klanth spun around. He saw Kirk and leaped to his feet.

Moving smoothly and simultaneously, the Enterprise Security squad surrounded Klanth, gripping his arms and immobilizing him. They also held onto each other and Kirk, forming an unbroken chain, a circle facing outward, impregnable, with Klanth in the middle. Kirk flipped open his communicator, which was slaved to the transponder hanging from his belt, and spoke to his ship. "Transporter room! Mass beam-in. Now!"

On the bridge of Enterprise, where Spock sat in the command seat, the message cut through the noise of the storm and filled the air. The forward screen showed the Klingon warship wavering in the grip of the storm. Spock waited for the message from the transporter room that Kirk, his Security team, and the Klingon captain had all been successfully brought in.

What seemed like a vast stretch of time passed, even though Spock knew that it was less than five seconds. If anything had gone wrong, the technicians in the transporter room would be working frantically to remedy it, and his proper course of action was to leave them alone and not interfere and delay them. Yet part of him longed to contact the transporter room and urge haste, or to go there himself, even though it would all be over -- Kirk returned successfully or overpowered on Mauler and a prisoner of the Klingons -- long before he could get there. And so Spock sat in the captain's seat, face and body outwardly relaxed, but his two halves at war behind the calm facade.

And then Mauler disappeared.

Behind Spock, someone screamed, a short sound, choked off in the middle. Spock identified the voice as Uhura's. He turned, saw her slumped across her console, and toggled a switch on his chair. "Sickbay to the bridge -- urgent," Spock said. "Science station?"

"N-nothing on sensors, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Hilg. A prompt response." Dispassionately efficient as always, Spock registered the young Ktorran's attention to duty. It was Hilg's first posting -- and an initiation by fire.

A signal light blinked on the arm of Spock's chair. He flipped another switch. "Spock here."

The small, tinny voice cried out, "Mr. Spock, this is the transporter room. We've lost the transponder signal! We can't lock onto the Captain or the others again."

"That is because they are no longer there," Spock said quietly.

"The storm, Mr. Spock!" It was Ginny Crandall, at the Defense station.

Spock came back to sudden alertness. In the primary screen, the storm was ballooning outward, filling the view. Like a living thing, Spock thought. "Full power to shields, Mr. Crandall."

"Sir," Hilg said, "it's heading right for us."

"Helm," Spock snapped. "Reverse, maximum warp."

But he had been a moment too late. Even before de Broek, the helmsman, could react, the storm engulfed Enterprise.

The starfield on the forward viewscreen was gone, replaced by a swirl of glaring colors. The bridge lights dimmed. Everything was bathed in the shifting colors of the storm on the viewscreen. Heavy vibrations boomed through the fabric of the ship. Spock found his entire body shaking, his teeth rattling together; he clenched his jaws and gripped the arms of his chair. Through gritted teeth, he said, "Communications -- alert Starbase Seventeen of our position and situation."

"Shields failing, sir!" Crandall said. "Can't bring them back!"

"Helm, reverse, maximum warp," Spock repeated.

"Nothing, sir," de Broek said. "She's not answering."

Suddenly, "down" began to change meaning. Artificial gravity was being disrupted. Crewmembers fell sideways out of their seats. Spock gripped his chair arms all the tighter. Then he freed one hand enough to flip a toggle switch. "Engineering!"

"Engineering, sir!" It was a voice Spock didn't recognize. "Galaym here."

"Where is Mr. Scott?"

"Injured, sir. We're all being thrown" -- the sound of a crash -- "down here. All the systems are being overloaded by something. We're losing--" The voice disappeared.

"Mr. Galaym," Spock said. "Mr. Galaym!" He toggled the switch a few times, but he knew he'd get no reply.

The lights were fading still further. Someone said, "Life-support failing, sir." Spock didn't bother trying to place the voice, and he ignored the cries of pain from all around him -- from the other people around him. He was listening with all of his senses, listening to the ship, to the booming vibrations and the creaks and groans coming from the vessel's fabric. He was listening the way he knew James Kirk would have done. Enterprise, James Kirk's ship, was dying.

Suddenly all was as it had been. The storm had vanished; the forward viewscreen showed a calm and empty starfield.

For a moment, Spock listened to the abrupt silence, the absence of ominous sounds from the body of the ship. And then there was a flood of voices coming from the rest of the ship, telling of damage or calling for help. Spock leaned forward and stared into the forward screen. But it didn't matter how intently he stared: the storm had disappeared, and so had Mauler; and with the Klingon ship, so had James Kirk.