Star Trek Into Darkness Page 0,91
and down to ground safely—provided they could reach their assigned stations. The difficulty arose from the conflict between Earth’s intensifying pull and the increasingly erratic operation of the ship’s artificial gravity system. While the crew was prepared to deal with an emergency that saw them walking on floors one minute and ceilings the next, the constant gravitational flux forced everyone to go very slowly to avoid injury. As a result, the majority of the crew had yet to make it halfway to their designated shuttles.
If conditions did not improve, they might not have enough time to make it at all before the Enterprise disintegrated on entry.
Well aware of the increasing danger, Kirk and Scott made their way toward Engineering as fast as circumstances permitted. They were almost there when the ship’s gravity gave a sudden lurch. Scott compared it to floating in a giant bathtub that had just been given an abrupt shove. The unexpected gravitational switch saw him tossed over a railing toward a deck below. Only Kirk’s rapid reaction in getting a hand on the engineer’s forearm saved Scott from being smashed against the unyielding metal below.
The captain’s grip was firm, but he could do nothing about the shifting forces beneath his feet. As they changed direction once again, he felt himself starting to follow Scott over the rail. Straining hard, he tried to wrap his other arm around the railing to stabilize the two of them, at which point their continuing survival became a matter of muscle. Charged with supporting the chief’s weight, he felt his own strength ebbing. Even if he lost his grasp and went over, he told himself, he wouldn’t let go of Scott.
At the last possible instant, hands grabbed his arms and gripped tight. “I’ve got you, Keptin!”
Strung out over the railing, the three of them stayed like that a moment longer. At the same time as Chekov began to pull Kirk back, and Kirk to pull Scott, the gravity shifted again, and Kirk’s feet found firmer footing. Soon the three of them were standing on what, for the moment at least, was a solid deck.
Scott was grateful, but there was no time to waste on extended expressions of gratitude. Instead, he glared at the ensign.
“What’d you do to me core?”
“Nothing,” Chekov stammered as the ship rocked around them. “You can have it back!”
Scott nodded vigorously. “I intend to. And once we get a minimum of power back up, you’re gonna manually redirect it to impulse control so we can avoid smashing into Earth. Much as I’d like to see home again, I dinna want to do it by turnin’ any o’ the Highlands into lowlands. There’s a separate, backup relay—”
“Behind the deflector shielding.” Chekov was completely in tune with the chief engineer’s plan.
“Exactly.” Scott said no more, impressed with and now confident in the ensign’s surprising knowledge of a department that was not his own.
“Then I had better get going,” Chekov told him. “The relay’s going to need some supplementary programming.”
“Mr. Sulu,” Spock exclaimed, “divert all remaining power to stabilizers!”
“Doing what I can, sir,” the helmsman replied as he desperately fought to comply. “Doing what I can.”
Spock tried his best to see that the Enterprise’s vanishing energy resources were parceled out meticulously among the ship’s most critical active systems. While life support drew the most attention, he and Sulu attempted to steady the starship’s wildly skewing and rapidly failing artificial gravity. If he couldn’t stabilize it any better, there was a good chance a large percentage of the ship’s crew would never be able to make it to their assigned evacuation stations. Yet if he shunted power from life support to the precessers, there was a chance atmospheric pressure would fall too low and kill everyone on board.
They kept at it, doing their best, each man and woman calculating and recalculating in their mind as they strove to create an equilibrium out of uncooperative difficulties.
It took Chekov longer than he’d hoped but less than he feared to reach the auxiliary engineering station. Heaving aside the protective cover to expose the controls beneath, he was confronted by switches that were as archaic as they were functional. Levers and switches might be old-fashioned, but there were times when something made of metal and composites could operate efficiently while pure electronics were down.
The double connector was dark red and labeled “Main Router.” Closing it required Chekov to employ both hands and all of his strength. Straining, he threw it forward until it snapped into place—and