Episode 03: The Countdown

Inspired by The Corbomite Maneuver, a teleplay by Jerry Sohl.

TALOS is personal project, just for fun: a short-story retro-imagining of classic Star Trek original series episodes, told from the perspective of the unseen crewmembers down in the lower decks.

THE FIRST TIME I CLIMBED UP HERE a couple of months ago I was thrilled. I wanted to see what it was like near the engines, feel the raw intensity of the space warp field from close quarters. It only took climbing halfway up to realize why the ship’s designers put the engines so far away from the habitable part of the ship. I swore never to volunteer for pylon duty again, yet here I am once more, halfway up this damn tube, scratching and squirming and trying not to freak out from claustrophobia.

Imagine climbing a ladder six stories up through a sewer pipe set at a steep vertical angle. That’s what a Jeffries tubes is like. There are two of them, one in each of the long and spindly support pylons that anchor the ship’s engines to the engineering hull. Each tube extends 50 meters up to a thick safety hatch that leads into the guts of the space warp machinery. They’re unbelievably crowded with piping and wiring and GNDN junctions, and the higher you climb, the more your skin crawls from the proximity to the space warp coils.

Yesterday our ship ran into some kind of automated alien space buoy. We tried to make contact with it, but there wasn’t any answer. We watched it for two full duty shifts until the captain decided to try to maneuver past it. When we approached, it tried to chase us away. We were forced to destroy it because it was hitting us with dangerous radiation. This information is all second hand from Lt. Bailey, but he was on bridge duty and he’s usually reliable. All I know for sure was that the ship suddenly made some unusual maneuvers and then we all heard the forward phaser banks. It was the first time most of us had ever heard the ship’s weapons fire for real and not as part of a drill. It was scary as hell. The good news is that when nothing else happened, things calmed down. The bad news is that the emergency maneuvers blew out a GNDN relay in the port-side engine pylon. The worst news is that Rayburn got picked to climb up here and fix it. He was the only person on duty who had a confined space qualification.

Guess who he chose to be his helper? Lucky me.

It’s not that I don’t like Rayburn. He’s a friendly guy, a third class engineer’s mate who’s a couple of years older than me. Like me, this ship was his first assignment, but he’s been here for two years already. He’s quiet and good looking and mostly keeps to himself. Never plays cards or kanu with the rest of us. Kind of a hard man to get to know. He’s from the ultra-conservative Limbaugh colony on Deneva, so that might explain it.

Right now, he’s showing me how to use thick insulated gloves to open a power junction. He’s a patient teacher, more so than most of the other engineer’s mates.

He keeps scratching his neck and shoulders. I want to scratch, too, but I resist. Scratching only makes the creepy-crawly sensation worse. They say exposure to the warp field isn’t dangerous, even this close to the engine nacelle, but that knowledge doesn’t make the experience any more pleasant.

Did I mention the noise? It’s wicked loud up here, even when the engines are barely ticking over. Right now we’re making warp factor four, our standard cruising speed, and the engine above us roars like a million angry honeybees. Down in the engineering hull the noise is barely noticeable, and in the primary hull you usually can’t hear it at all. Way up here in the pylon, though, we’re just a few meters from the engine nacelle, so even at warp factor four it vibrates your chest and guts and makes your teeth hurt. I can barely hear it when the intercraft sounds.

“This is the Bridge. Prepare for simulated attack.”

Crammed into the tube next to me, Rayburn sighs. “More drills? Really?”

I imagine the groans and curses being muttered all over the ship. They’ve been drilling us constantly, sometimes five or six times a day. Not a soul on the ship has had an uninterrupted sleep cycle in two weeks. It’s exhausting. Rumor is that the new captain wants us to break the fleet records for drill response times. Some say he wants a medal for himself. Me, I like his competitiveness, but even I must admit that the drills are getting old.

“On the double, deck five! Give me a green light.”

Luckily for me and Rayburn, active DC crews are exempt from the drills. The voice over the intercraft continues in the background, but we ignore it as we finish up our work.

“Condition alert. Battle stations.”

“Engineering, deck five, report. Phaser crews, come on, let’s get with it. Phaser station two, where’s your green light?”

There’s a pause. Without turning to look at me, I hear Rayburn say, “Bet you ten credits that the phaser crew failed again.”

“Nope. Not taking that bet.”

Sure enough, the intercraft sounds again. The voice is exasperated.

“This is the Bridge. All decks prepare to better reaction time on second simulated attack. Engineering decks alert. Phaser crews, let’s—”

Another voice breaks in. I recognize the deep tones of the ship’s helm officer.

“Countermand that. All decks to battle stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”

It takes a moment for the announcement to sink in. I look toward Rayburn. “Not a drill? What should we do?”

“Finish the job, and quick,” he growls. “Then get to our emergency stations.”

We redouble our efforts. The relay is already fixed, we only need to get the GNDN cover back in place. As we work, I wonder if the current situation has anything to do with the space buoy we destroyed. We’re about to install the final fastener when the rumble of the engines begins to change pitch and the itchy feeling all over my skin intensifies.

Rayburn jerks his head toward me and barks, “Full ear protection, now! And hold on to something.”

“Bridge to phaser crews, stand ready.”

“Forward phaser, will comply. All weapons at operational ready.”

Are going into combat? Real combat? I grab the ladder rail with one hand and dig through my toolbag to pull out my headset. Just in time, too, because the engines suddenly thunder to a high warp factor, sending a shockwave down the tube that compresses my chest and would likely have deafened me without the headset. The situation must be deadly serious. Up on the bridge they know we’re in here, and they wouldn’t push the engines to maximum and risk hurting us unless it was an extreme emergency.

There’s no time to consider the implications. A sudden sideways motion throws me into the wall of the tube. Rayburn’s toolbag is secured to his waist but it’s still open and a few of his tools spill out and fall down the access ladder. Good things nobody’s below us, or they’d get brained by falling metal wrenches.

The engines roar, again. I feel the entire pylon sway.

Shit. It’s not supposed to do that. I grab the ladder with both hands.

Even through the noise cancelling headset, I hear the metal around me groan and creak. I am starkly aware that alongside our Jeffries tube is the primary power conduit that leads from the matter/antimatter reactor in the engineering section up to the enormous space warp engine. Enough raw energy is flowing next to us to power a dozen big cities. A miniscule crack in the conduit will vaporize the ship and everything within a hundred kilometers in every direction. Nope, the pylon isn’t supposed to sway, and it definitely isn’t supposed to groan and creak.

Rayburn is holding on for dear life. Gritting his teeth.

Sudden silence, and the itchy space warp feeling vanishes. The swaying motion stops. They’ve shut down the engines.

I still have on my safety headset, so I don’t hear the weird alien voice until I lift the cups from my ears. I motion for Rayburn to remove his headset, too.

“…and trespassed into our star systems. This is Balok, Commander of the flagship Fesarius of the First Federation. Your vessel, obviously the product of a primitive and savage civilization, having ignored a warning buoy and having then destroyed it, has demonstrated your intention is not peaceful. We are now considering the disposition of your ship and the life aboard.”

Rayburn looks up at the intercraft panel, but the stilted voice isn’t coming from the speaker. It seems instead to be emanating from the walls. He adjusts his awkward position so that he can see me. “You heard that too, right?”

I nod. We’re still crammed side-by-side in the tube, tools scattered around us on the metal-grate stairs. The air stinks of burned plastic.

The voice resonates again through the tube, deep and menacing. “No further communication will be accepted. If there is the slightest hostile move, your vessel will be destroyed immediately.”

Distantly, I hear the howl of an alert siren.

“Ah, damn,” mutters Rayburn. We both know what the alert means. At the bottom of the tube, the airtight safety hatch is clanging shut and the backup forcefields are being activated.

“You ever heard of an outfit called the First Federation?” I ask.

Rayburn shakes his head and reaches for the communicator strapped at his waist. He flicks it open. It beeps.

“Rayburn to Andrea.”

The response is instantaneous. “Andrea here.”

“What’s going on?”

“I can’t believe it, Rayburn, a ship showed up from nowhere. Nobody recognizes it. A new species, maybe. It’s huge, big as a moon. Apparently they’re pissed we destroyed their buoy marker.”

“We heard the announcement. Sounded like it came out of the walls.”

“Everybody heard it. There’s pandemonium up here. Where are you?”

“Me and Crewman Kyle are on DC duty about halfway up the port nacelle pylon. The pressure doors are closed, so we’re stuck in here.”

“Oh, no. Not claustrophobic, are you?”

“Nah. No worries. Hey, keep us posted will you?”

“Will do.”

Rayburn flipped the communicator shut. He turned to me. “We better get this done.”

He stops trying to supervise me and installs the final two fasteners himself. I don’t mind. I just want to get out of here. We’re packing up our spilled tools when the alien voice of Balok returns, echoing through the length of the Jeffries tube.

“Your recorder marker has been destroyed. You have been examined. Your ship must be destroyed. We make assumption you have a deity or deities or some such beliefs which comfort you. We therefore grant you ten Earth time periods known as minutes to make preparations.”

I turn to Rayburn. “Did he just say we have ten minutes before he destroys our ship?”

Rayburn blinks. “Uh, it sounded that way.”

I look down past our feet at the long expanse of the tube below. “We need to get out of here.”

Rayburn snaps his toolbag shut. “The pressure hatch to the engineering hull is already closed. Force fields are probably up, too. We’re in a CFS area, so it’ll take a command override to open the hatch as long as we’re at alert condition.” He thinks for a moment. “We’ll have to call the chief engineer when we get to the hatch. Let’s go.”

Climbing down is like descending an endless ladder. It takes forever. Thankfully, as we descend and put more distance between us and the engine nacelle, the nasty itchy sensation lessens.

Just as we reach the lower pressure hatch, the intercraft crackles to life. “Captain to crew. Those of you who have served for long on this vessel have encountered alien lifeforms. You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there’s no such thing as the unknown, only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilization is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a lifeform advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives. All decks stand by. Captain out.”

Before either of us can react, the alien voice once again reverberates from the walls.

“You are wasting time and effort. There is no escape. You have eight Earth minutes left.”

“Shit,” mutters Rayburn. He flips open his communicator. “Rayburn to chief engineer.”

There’s no answer. He tries again. “Rayburn to chief engineer.”

Silence.

“Shit,” he mutters again. He twists a dial on the communicator. “Rayburn to Andrea.”

“Andrea here.” She’s whispering, and I can hear anxious voices in the background.

“We need help getting out of the pylon,” Rayburn says. “It takes a command override as long as we’re in alert condition, and I can’t raise the chief engineer.”

“Hang on. We’re really busy up here. Let me see what I can do. You’re stuck in the starboard pylon, right?”

“No, the port-side.”

“Right. Got it.”

The communicator falls silent. Rayburn looks at me. He’s scared. But not as scared as me. The entire length of my gut is coiled so tightly I can barely breathe. The confined space isn’t helping. Down here at the bottom of the Jeffries tube there’s not enough room for us to stand side-by-side on the ladder. Rayburn is below me, blocking my exit through the locked hatch. I bite my lip to calm myself. The captain’s intercraft address had been reassuring. His voice had been calm. I focused on that.

We wait. Nothing happens. No response from Andrea. She’s the captain’s yeoman, and we both know she has bridge duty today. A single word from her to the captain, or any of the other command officers, will get our hatch open. What is taking so long?

I jump as Balok’s voice reverberates through the Jeffries tube.

“Seven minutes.”

Rayburn raises his communicator again.

“Andrea, what’s happening?”

For a long moment, no answer. Then a terse whisper: “Can’t talk. Give me a minute.”

“We don’t have many minutes left,” Rayburn replies.

There is no answer from Andrea. He lowers the communicator. He licks his lips and looks up at me. “How are you doing, crewman Kyle?”

“Okay, Mister Rayburn. Good as possible given the circumstances.”

Actually, I am not doing okay. Not okay at all. The walls of the tube are closing in on me. If I’m going to die, this is not at all where I want it to happen.

Something occurs to me. “If this is a new alien species, how come this Balok is speaking English?”

Rayburn’s brow creases, but he only shrugs.

“Try the chief engineer again,” I say.

Rayburn tries again. Twice. Three times. Again and again, no answer. Why doesn’t the man answer? I mean, he’s a hard-assed prick but even he wouldn’t just ignore us. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he’s doing something where he doesn’t have access to a communicator.

“Six minutes,” drones Balok.

“Fuck,” I say.

Rayburn ignores me. He’s trying to work the hatch’s manual controls even though we both know it won’t work until command releases the override lock. Eventually he pounds the control panel in frustration.

He tries to contact the chief engineer again, then Andrea, but now neither of them answers. He closes his communicator, flips it open again. “Rayburn to Melina.”

First nothing, then a hushed voice. “I’m a little busy, Rayburn. What do you want?”

“Me and Kyle are stuck inside the port nacelle strut. The lower hatch is locked with a command override, and we can’t get in touch with anybody who can override the lock.”

Melina sounds scared. “I’m not surprised. Did you hear the alien?”

 “We heard.” Rayburn glances down at me. “What are we doing about it?”

“I have no idea. I’m here at the EMM at my alert station. There hasn’t been a peep from the bridge. I did hear that the alien ship is huge. It has us in a tractor beam, and we’re stuck.”

Once again, the voice of Balok comes from the walls, still counting down to Armageddon.

“Five minutes.”

“Why isn’t the captain doing anything?” hisses Rayburn.

“I don’t know. Listen, I have to go. Sorry. Melina out.”

The communicator goes dead. Rayburn shakes it violently, makes an aborted motion like he’s going to throw it against the wall. Instead, he fastens it back on his waist. He starts frantically tapping the manual hatch controls again.

“That’s not going to work,” I point out.

“I know it’s not going to work,” he snaps. He punches the panel, hard. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!”

Rayburn is two years my senior, both in age and in rank. His rising panic isn’t making me feel any better about our situation. In fact, the Jeffries tube seems to be getting smaller, the air more heavy and stale.

I take out my communicator, flip it open. My voice quavers. I clear my throat and try again. “Kyle to Leslie.”

The communicator beeps. Leslie is refusing my call.

I flip it shut, flip it back open.

“Kyle to Barok.”

“Barok here.”

Barok is a bosun’s mate. He works in the astrogation section.

“Listen, me and Rayburn are stuck in the port nacelle pylon. We need somebody from command to override the CFS lock on the lower hatch so we can get out. Can you help?”

“Whoa, man, that sucks. Not sure what I can do. My lieutenant isn’t here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Not sure. There’s an alien ship out there, says they’re going to blow us up. They’re doing a fucking countdown, if you can believe it.”

“I know, we hear it too.”

As if on cue, the alien voice of Balok returns.

“Four minutes.”

“Why doesn’t the captain do something,” wails Rayburn.

“We’re wondering the same thing,” says Barok.

“Is he just going to roll over and let us all die?” says Rayburn. “Why don’t we attack the alien ship? At least try to escape?”

“Don’t know. Gotta go. Barok out.”

I close my communicator with the sudden conviction that Rayburn and I will never make it out of this tube alive. In truth, we’re already dead. The realization calms me a bit. There’s really nothing for us to do but wait. Hopefully, it’ll be instantaneous. I try to relax, lean into the ladder.

Beneath me, Rayburn’s breathing has intensified. It sounds like he’s hyperventilating.

Nothing to do but wait.

Nothing to do but wait.

Nothing to do but wait.

Balok’s voice: “Three minutes.”

Rayburn’s eyes are closed. He murmurs something under his breath. Sounds like he’s praying.

I open my communicator. “Kyle to chief engineer. Please answer. God damn it, answer. Please.”

Nothing. I close and reopen the antenna grid. “Kyle to the captain.”

Rayburn’s eyes spring open and he looks up at me in disbelief. I shrug. “Worth a shot,” I say.

“Kirk here.”

We both jump. I stare at the communicator, words frozen in my gullet.

“I’m busy, crewman. This better be good.”

“Um, yes sir. Um, me and EM3 Rayburn are stuck in the port nacelle pylon. We need a CFS override to get the lower hatch open, and we haven’t been able to raise anybody else in the command division.”

“Stand by. Kirk out.”

 “I can’t believe you called the captain,” Rayburn breathes. “You’re going to get in serious trouble for that.”

I laugh. It sounds hysterical to my ears. “Dude, we’re going to die in two and a half minutes.”

He laughs, too. Also hysterically.

We both stare at the hatch control, waiting for the green light.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Still red.

“Come on, captain,” I whisper.

Nothing.

“Two minutes,” says Balok.

Instantly, Rayburn loses it. He screams and starts punching the control panel over and over, with all his might. His knuckles split and there’s blood. He keeps punching. Keeps screaming.

I’m yelling at him to stop, but I can’t hear myself over his screams.

He’s hurting himself. Now he’s kicking the walls, banging his elbows and knees against the sides of the tube, smacking his head into the ladder.

I’m starting to panic, too. Without thinking, I slide down the ladder and wedge myself into the tube next to him. His blows land on me, but at least he’s not hitting bare metal. There’s no room for him to draw back, so his punches are not so bad. I grab his shoulders. His eyes are wild. He doesn’t see me. He slams his forehead into my nose. My head snaps back.

That did hurt. I try to pin his arms against the ladder, but he’s too strong, and he’s struggling out of my embrace.

I do the only thing I can think of.

I kiss him, full on the mouth. He freezes, stiffens.

I break off the kiss. I’m gay, and he probably isn’t, but right now, it doesn’t matter. Rayburn doesn’t let me go, so I keep holding him. He makes a sound full of embarrassment and fury.

“God damn it,” he mutters. The curse is directed at himself, not me.

“One minute,” Balok says.

Ding.

Next to me, the light on the hatch control turns from red to green. We both see it.

I reach out with one hand and tap the control. Beneath our feet, the hatch swooshes open.

Rayburn draws back.

Before he can say anything, I untangle myself and gesture that he should go first.

His face hardens. “Damn,” he says, and he wipes his eyes. He drops down the ladder and out the hatch. I follow him.

The hatch slams shut behind us. After the Jeffries tube, the passageway seems palatially huge. We’re in one of the access corridors that overlooks the ship’s shuttlecraft hangar. The alert signal light on the wall is flashing red, but they’ve turned off the alert siren.

Rayburn rushes to one of the external windows. I follow him. He stabs at the window control, and the protective shutter opens.

“God almighty,” he breathes.

The alien ship is close, and it’s huge. Spherical, its surface is covered with an infinity of smaller spheres of different sizes. Most of them are pulsing with light. Hard to judge its true scale, but it’s many, many kilometers in diameter. The size of a city.

There’s nothing to be done now. We stand next to each other, watching the alien ship.

There must be only seconds left on Balok’s countdown.

My gut clenches. I inhale my very last breath, sucking the air deeply into my lungs. It tastes sweet.

Rayburn notices, does the same.

Holding our breath, we watch the alien. Seconds tick by.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Will we feel it when the end comes?

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Nothing happens.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

I can’t hold my breath any longer, and I expel it loudly.

It’s been more than a minute, I am sure.

We’re still alive.

Rayburn lets out his breath, too. He glances at me.

The adrenalin in my system drains away. I reel against the bulkhead.

“The alien was bluffing,” he says.

“Maybe,” I say.

More time passes. Nothing happens.

I point to the flashing alert light. “We should get to our emergency stations.”

Rayburn nods. Before I can turn away, he grabs my elbow. His words are clogged with humiliation.

“Listen, uh, sorry about losing it in there.”

I shrug. “Sorry about kissing you.”

He scoffs, grimly. He clears his throat, lets his hand drop from my elbow.

“You know, you’re a good kisser,” I say.

“You know, you’re an asshole,” he replies.

We both laugh. Rayburn gives me a barely perceptible nod, an acknowledgement of gratitude. I return it. We turn and rush down the corridor to the turbolift and toward our emergency stations. The alien ship is still out there, and we still have our parts to play.

The TALOS stories (so far…):

Episode 01: Delta Vega (Where No Man Has Gone Before)

Episode 02: Mudd Pie (Mudd’s Women)

Episode 03: The Countdown (The Corbomite Manuever)

Episode 4: Blood and Salt (The Man Trap, coming ???)

This is a work of fan fiction. It is a labor of love and is offered freely and generates no form of revenue for the author or anyone else. Star Trek is a registered trademark of Paramount Global  (previously ViacomCBS and/or Paramount Pictures and/or CBS Broadcasting, Inc.). The author is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Paramount or CBS.