The swirling plasma clouds shifted out of view as the Enterprise dived away from the Badlands.

"Standby," Kirk ordered. "Distance, Mister Chekov?"

"The battlecruiser is at 100,000 kilometers and closing fast, sir."

"The Tr'loth is firing phase disruptors," Spock announced.

"Shields, full power to the rear." Kirk braced himself, as did the others on the bridge.

The Enterprise rocked under the impact and explosion. Kirk caught the arm of the chair to keep himself from being flung out.

"Direct hit to our rear shields," Spock said. "Shields at 82 percent."

"Lock phasers," Kirk ordered. "Bring us about for attack."

"Changing course," Chekov replied eagerly.

"Phasers locked," Sulu confirmed.

As the Enterprise turned, the Tr'loth continued on for a few seconds before starting to veer away.

"Fire!" Kirk ordered.

The whine of the power couplings signaled phasers firing from all banks. The beams repeatedly struck the port side of the battlecruiser.

"Direct hit," Spock announced. "Their shields are holding."

Kirk didn't need Spock to tell him that the Klingons had fired their disruptors again. The energy streaks darted away from the battlecruiser.

The Enterprise was diving to evade the disruptor beams when they hit the top of the saucer section.

Steadying himself, Kirk could hear the strain on the hull, and a m.u.f.fled explosion from the deck below. The crew was scrambling to stay at their stations.

"Shields down to 63 percent!" Spock announced.

Kirk checked his arm console. The Klingons were forcing them back towards the plasma storms. Chekov cursed under his breath as he tried various evasive maneuvers to bring them back on course.

Suddenly gravity generators seemed to shut off. Kirk raised his arms, startled, rising up from his chair. Uhura screamed, a piercing cry of disorientation. Kirk hung in the air, kicking out one leg as he slowly turned. The rest of the bridge crew were up-ended and floating.

Several heartbeats later, gravity abruptly returned.

Kirk landed heavily on the deck. His ears were ringing from the disruption in the environmental systems. He had to swallow hard to bring his balance centers back under control.

"Spockwhat happened?" he asked, rolling to his feet.

"Sensors are offline, sir," Spock promptly replied, sounding intent and preoccupied as usual with his data. "A gravity flux occurred for 6.4 seconds"

"Scott to Captain Kirk!" Scotty interrupted though the intercom. "The warp core is offline."

Kirk gripped the arm of the chair. Not again! "Scotty, we need warp drive."

"I canna give it to you, Captain," Scott cried out. "I don' understand it, but the dilithium alignment is off again. We had to shut down the antimatter stream."

"What about impulse power?" Kirk asked.

"I'm trying, Captain," Scott a.s.sured him. "But we have to reroute the electroplasma energy through the conduits. The new circuits have blown."

"Do what you can, Scotty." Kirk fumbled for the b.u.t.ton. "Spock, that was the same thing that happened when the Romulan bird-of-prey exploded."

"There is a correlation in the type and severity of malfunctions." Spock turned around, removing the receiver from his ear. "Sir, it appears that the Tr'loth is in trouble. Their shields are down and the ship is foundering."

"Sir!" Chekov exclaimed. "We're being drawn toward the Badlands. Thrusters aren't holding us...."

Over the comm, Kirk ordered, "We need impulse power now, Scotty."

Scott acknowledged from engineering, even as another EPS circuit failed. He began to bypa.s.s the injection relays manually, keeping a graph of the circuit stress displayed on the panel so he could tell which one to shunt to next. The best he could give the captain at the moment was thrusters. Thrusters would not be enough to keep them from resisting the strong gravitational pull of the Badlands. If only they hadn't been heading toward the plasma storms at full impulse when they foundered!

"Check the flow valves," Scott ordered his best power man, Lieutenant Klancee. The slush deuterium used as fuel for the impulse engines was almost as volatile as antimatter. Scott hadn't even looked at the dilithium crystals yethe was too busy trying to get the impulse engines on-line.

Scott tapped in a quick scan. Readings indicated that subprocessors were failing all over the ship, unable to link to the main computer as many of the protected circuits failed. Alternate linkages were failing, too, and at an alarming rate.

Virtually every control panel and terminal operated the ship's systems via a subprocessor link. With the data stream interrupted, there was no way for the crew to control the ship. Backup systems were engaging in all the major systems, from navigational control to life support.

Technicians were replacing circuits on the power conduits as fast as they could on all decks. But even with all the practice they had had over the past few days, it still took time to remove the old ones, sterilize the surfaces, and install a fresh circuit or tap. It was taking far too long to get impulse power going. Scott glanced at the display of their location, dismayed by how much closer to the storms they had been pulled.

"Kirk to engine room," came through the speakers. "What's happening down there!"

The impulse engines pulsed red and orange, coming to life with audible strain as the power stream fluctuated. Having to switch electroplasma circuits manually was causing flow disruptions. Scotty could tell the other technicians, then the junction nodes were also manually stabilizing the stream. They couldn't go on like this for very long.

"A few more seconds, Captain, and I can give you one-quarter impulse power!" he called, unable to go to the comm. He used the long plasteel power converter with the magnetic nodes to manipulate the manual routing controls.

"Flow valves holding," Klancee reported as he returned. He quickly slid open the panel under the main engineering console and began replacing the fused EPS taps.

"Plasma storms at 300,000 kilometers," Sulu announced through the comm.

The deck shifted beneath Scott as the artificial gravity control reacted to the stress of the nearby plasma storms. The entire ship began to vibrate as if they were rolling over rough planetary terrain. Scott had never felt the Enterprise react this way before.

Muttering under his breath, Scott checked the shields, noting they fluctuated between 23 and 42 percent. It would have to do, until impulse power was stabilized. If they lost impulse engines, shields would drop. Scott didn't want to think of what all that plasma would do to the hull of the Enterprise.

"We need impulse power now," Kirk prompted from the bridge.

"Captain, I'm working as fast as I can!" Scott exclaimed. "It's a miracle we're keeping her going at all!"

The jolting caught Lieutenant Klancee and caused him to bang his head on the console while he was shifting to the next panel. He cursed under his breath and hauled the large EPS tap into place without pausing.

Scotty didn't like the feel of the shuddering, as they were buffeted by the discharge around the plasma storms. The strain of holding the shields up was reflected in energy spikes in the impulse enginesbut now, with some of the faulty circuits replaced, Scotty was finally starting to make progress.

"I can give you one-quarter impulse, Captain," Scott said into the comm. "But there are still some conflicts in the reaction control system."

"Understood," Kirk said curtly.

"Wallowin' around like a drunken whale," Scott muttered as he tended to the relays.

Under the console, Klancee gave a m.u.f.fled snort that reflected a lack of humor about their situation. "Almost done here, sir. I'll do the command coordinator next"

Klancee broke off as he sat up, a shocked expression on his face. "Sir! Behind you!"

Scotty whirled around, expecting to see at least two or three Klingons invading the engineering section. What he saw was less frightening, but even more odd.

The bulkhead was glowing.

Scott went closer to see. The light was coming from the metal itself, emanating from the bulkhead. The curved support from floor to nearly eye level sparkled with many different pinpoint colors.

Scott checked it with his tricorder while Klancee moved his hand closer. "It feels warm," Klancee said.

"Don't go near it," Scott ordered. "I'm reading gamma radiation."

The Enterprise lurched more roughly, and they both went back to work. But Scott kept glancing over at the bulkhead. He sent the data from his tricorder straight to the science lab, but was unable to take another second away from the systems until they had stabilized impulse power.

When the shuddering slowed and finally eased, Scott let out a long sigh. The were moving away from the plasma storms. He let himself slump forward for a moment. At least if the shields failed now, they wouldn't be fried.

Scott went to the portal to check on the battlecruiser visually. The Klingon ship was clearly having her own troubles. Though the Enterprise sensors were still down, he could tell from the lack of distortion fields around the hull that the Tr'loth had no shields. Without shields, the Klingons weren't going to be picking another fight any time soon. The chief breathed another sigh of relief.

Then he glanced over at the still glowing bulkhead as he hit the comm. "Scott to Mister Spock. There's somethin' strange down here I think you should see."

Chapter Eight.

Yeoman harrison had been a.s.signed to a repair crew because of the emergency power failure. She had recovered from the radiation sickness, with only one lesion on her neck. Dr. McCoy had removed the dead tissue and healed the area with a skin grafter, and he told her that many of those who became ill had suffered from the same symptoms.

So Yeoman Harrison was able-bodied, unlike the crew members who had been hit first and hardest by the radiation. She figured that almost a dozen were still confined to bed rest in their quarters.

Harrison first helped replace electroplasma circuits m sickbay, and when those were completed, she continued up to the scanning grid on deck 6 along with the test of her team. When they pa.s.sed by the quarters of Commander Teral, Harrison realized she should probably look in on their guest. Captain Kirk had a.s.signed Harrison to serve as liaison to Teral, so the yeoman was supposed to make sure the Romulan had everything she needed.

There was only one security guard outside Teral's door. Captain Kirk had reduced the number of guards the first night Teral was on board.

The guard nodded familiarly as Yeoman Harrison approached. "She's been asking what happened."

It was just as Harrison suspected. Commander Teral was not one to sit calmly on the sidelines while other people fought her battles. The guard opened the door and followed her inside.

"Are you injured?" Harrison asked Teral.

Teral ignored her inquiry. "What happened? No one has answered my calls. Why did the Klingons attack us?"

"Maybe it's because you wouldn't talk to them," Harrison said somewhat more tartly than she had intended. She had heard rumors of what had happened on the bridge. She kept trying to ignore the fact that Captain Kirk had spent the past two evenings in Teral's quarters. It was none of her business.

"I want to speak to Captain Kirk," Teral imperiously demanded.

"The captain is busy right now," Harrison said, remaining courteous. "But I can take a message to him if you would like."

"Yes, tell him to come here," Teral ordered.

The yeoman watched her pace back and forth in front of the viewscreen, focused on the image of the Klingon battlecruiser. Even from this distance, it was clear the ship was moving slowly, when it moved at all.

But Harrison was more interested in the Romulan woman than in the threat the Klingons posed. She couldn't understand why Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy were so interested in her.

Teral could be very nice when she wanted something, very complimentary and friendly, like when she asked Harrison to get her some outfits more casual than the mesh jumpsuit. But there were other times, like now, when she was cold as ice and meaner than a mugato. Harrison wondered if the two men simply never saw this side of her.

"Don't just stand there," Teral told her. "I want to see Kirk now."

"I'm sure he's busy," Harrison retorted. "But I'll pa.s.s along your request"

Harrison was heading toward the door when it opened from outside.

Captain Kirk stood in the doorway. "What's going on here?" His expression eased when he saw the security guard inside.

"I came to make sure Commander Teral was all right," Harrison said.

"Oh, very good," Kirk told her, seeming preoccupied.

As well he should be, Harrison thought, with the Enterprise in such disarray. Though she felt a flush of pleasure that Kirk was pleased with her performance, she didn't like the self-satisfied expression on Teral's face. Who did Teral think she was, able to demand and immediately get the presence of the captain of the flagship of the Federation?

Kirk realized Yeoman Harrison was upset. That tiny wrinkle between her brows was deepening.

No wonder, he thought, when he caught a glimpse of Teral's smug look. The way Teral came up to him, smiling possessively, was enough to make anyone jealous. Somehow the Romulan shifted closer to him, making it clear that she and Kirk had formed a bond.

That seemed to infuriate the yeoman even more. Her glossy brown hair trembled as she lowered her chin, her hands fumbling with the large round circuits she carried.

"You're both dismissed." Kirk wondered if he should have someone else liaison with Commander Teral. But that was of little importance right now.

He waited until both Yeoman Harrison and the security guard had left and the door slid shut behind them.

"You can't lie to me anymore." Kirk turned abruptly on Teral. "I know Darok is here to meet with you, to get those specs on the plasma-beam weapon ."

She blinked, caught. But she quickly said, "I think the Klingons are here for the same reason, because of what you were told."

"What do you mean?" Kirk asked.

"What if the Klingons were given the same information as you? That a smuggler carrying the specs on the plasma-beam weapon would arrive at this very spot? They would try to stop the Federation from obtaining the weaponthey want it for themselves."

"Are you trying to say this is all a hoax?" Kirk asked flatly. "Who would benefit from that?"

"The same people who hired me to lure a bird-of-prey to this place," she told him. "Spies and informants thrive on war. Why not bring the three superpowers together in a distant star system? Let them destroy each other over information that was never there. That would start a tidy little war and keep the credits flowing in their direction."