Star Trek Into Darkness Page 0,54
what I found was that the very same torpedoes and everything related to their development had disappeared from official records. Hell, they’d disappeared from the unofficial records. Even rumors about them had been expunged from general discussion.”
Realization had long since struck Kirk. “And then he gave them to me.”
Standing on the steps leading into the nearest shuttle, she nodded and smiled back at him. “You’re much cleverer than your reputation suggests, Captain Kirk.”
Pleased to have the mood lightened, however indirectly, he responded in kind as he followed her into the shuttle. “I have a reputation?”
Without pausing or asking for authorization, she selected the nearest shuttle and started up the entryway. “Yes, you do. I’m a friend of Christine Chapel.”
Something landed in the pit of Kirk’s stomach that bore no relation to the remainder of his previous meal. “Oh. Christine. How is she?”
From the airlock opening Carol looked down at him. “She transferred to the outer frontier to be a nurse. She’s much happier now.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what exactly are we doing in here?”
“Would you please turn around?”
“Why?” He was genuinely baffled.
She eyed him evenly. “Just turn around.”
He complied, and she continued talking.
“You said you wanted to crack one of those torpedoes. So we do, after all, have something in common. Since their explosive power is unknown, worst-case scenario is they’re planet killers. Even if they’re designed to do no more than their conventional counterparts and take out an enemy vessel, I don’t think attempting to open one on this ship in the absence of so much as a snapshot of its guts would be very wise, do you?”
Aware that conversations were inevitably more efficacious when conducted face-to-face, Kirk turned. Inevitably, he did not make initial visual contact with her eyes.
Regulation Starfleet undergarments, he decided, had rarely looked quite so fetching.
“Turn around,” she repeated.
“Yeah—right.” For a second time he complied with the request. But the brief image he had glimpsed remained sharp in his memory.
“There’s an uninhabited desert planetoid in range,” she continued. “I can fly there—it lies within shuttle reach—but I cannot disarm a torpedo alone, especially in the absence of any relevant information regarding its insides. In lieu of such schematics, I’ll need the assistance of your chief engineer.”
Kirk coughed into a closed fist. “My chief, uh, quit.”
As she continued to don the exosuit she had chosen, she looked over at him curiously. “Did he? Why?”
“I ordered him to sign off on delivery of the torpedoes.” The damn weapons really were at the center of everything, he thought to himself. “He refused because he, uh, couldn’t get any information as to their internal components and design.”
She smiled thinly. “Well. What a coincidence. Not so clever after all.”
If there was one thing Kirk never lacked, it was a smart retort to a direct criticism. Well, almost never.
The bar was sophisticated enough to be left alone by the authorities, yet sufficiently disreputable to be fun. Situated in a part of San Francisco that had been the location of such establishments since the founding of the city, it was a glittering farrago of flashing lights, obscure décor, and throbbing music. Its multilingual staff catered to the needs of every known species that enjoyed indulging in stimulants. While oxygen-breathers predominated, there was a separate room for methane suckers. Those who required gaseous supplements with different chemical compositions could put down a deposit and enjoy the use of the establishment’s portable tanks and masks while paying only for what they inhaled.
Blasting loud and hard, music from several worlds overrode conversation, lover’s quarrels, bad jokes, and the occasional San Francisco earthquake. The décor varied from antique North American southwest to outré samples of current technolo. Due to its location and the tolerant touch of its bouncers, the place was very popular with the personnel from the nearby Starfleet complex.
This extended to and included one Montgomery Scott. Having imbibed a considerable portion of the potion for which his homeland was famed, the engineer exhibited in his present condition a decided inclination toward an unstable equilibrium. Only the fact that he was presently seated in a booth opposite his first assistant enabled him to remain upright. At least his upper body remained upright. Other than that he could not be sure, because he was having a hard time feeling anything below his waist. Across from him the stone-faced non-human Keenser was gazing morosely into his own drink out of wide black eyes, wondering