Yet the adventure was still far from over. Apparently the hibernation system had been tied into the main reactor controls. (Perhaps that explains why someone had felt the need to padlock the Scat lever.) Now that the reactor had been shut off, the induced hibernation system also shut down and the sleep that it had induced began to wear off. Some hours into the trip home, that space pirate woke up and returned to the freighter's bridge. There, he surprised Spock, disarmed and overpowered him. Spock is a person of few words and, in the absence of any witnesses, we were left mainly to speculation in trying to reconstruct the fight which must have ensued between the professional pirate and the powerful space officer aboard the derelict freighter. I have no doubt that it was a long and hard-fought battle, the material loved by makers of myths and of movies.
Aboard the Enterprise, Kirk surmised at once what the break in communications meant. At this point, however, the captain made a serious error in tactics. Since there was no communications channel open, and no way to tell when the freighter would begin to receive signals, Kirk ordered a video tape to be prepared demanding the surrender fo the freighter and the release of Spock. He then ordered that the communications controls be set so that this tape would play at the instant any communications channel opened to the ship in tow. This would allow Kirk and his senior staff to meet to plot additional strategy. Meanwhile, the Enterprise continued on course with its captive in tow.
What Kirk did not take into account was the peculiar nature of the freighter's outdated communications system. The control board was designed to prevent interference between incoming and outgoing signals by locking out outbound signals until the inboud message completed, or vice versa. More sophisticated systems for avoiding interference had been in common use for decades; even the wire-connected telephones used more advanced technology. Yet the signal-blocking technique was cheap and therefore fairly common on interplanetary commercial vessels. Kirk should have considered this possibility.
Aboard the old ship, the pirate required Spock to initiate a message to the Enterprise. He was to explain away the lost communications and to explain that, indeed, the passenger had awakened. The pirate knew that a cruiser could likely detect the changed life activity caused by his renewed wakefulness and wanted to preclude worrisome speculation by a wary cruiser captain. Spock, of course, intended to convey the truth by using pre-established code phrases.
Unfortunately, because of Kirk's orders, the incoming taped message began simultaneously with Spock's outgoing message. Both signals were blocked by the antiquated system on the freighter. Thus, the pirate was not made aware that the Enterprise had already guessed the true situation, and Kirk was unable to receive Spock's coded request for assistance.
Kirk had assembled his senior command staff in the wardroom. They were sharing potato chips and ham sandwiches and sharing ideas for dealing with the emergency when the tape began to play. Kirk had patched intership transmissions into the intercom so that they would know when communication was established.
"Well, there it goes," Kirk remarked as the tape began to play, and the officers paused to hear the tape complete. "I guess we'd better go back to work," Kirk added, and the group began to rise to return to the bridge.
But then someone asked, "Why isn't there any reply?" For naturally one would expect a blustery retort from a pirate. At once Kirk realized his error. He called the bridge, ordering communication to be cut off. This would serve as a signal to Spock. Kirk then began to assemble and arm a new boarding party which would overpower the lone criminal.
I'm still not sure what happened next. It might have been a particle storm or a physical problem with the towing system. The official logs only report that the freighter's Scat control "fell" back to the "on" position; my earth-based Land Station experience is inadequate to speculate on what physical forces a Space Officer would think could be described by that term. In any case, the reactor was restarted, threatening the ship once again. Since it had not completely cooled, the reaction returned to near-critical status very quickly, in just minutes.
Spock immediately recognized the situation and the danger from the metering available on the bridge, but the pirate suspected some sort of ploy. Spock reported "insistently demanding" access to the Engineering section in order to preserve the ship and their lives. The pirate became worried as the indicators followed the detailed predictions that Spock supplied. Finally the pirate became sufficiently engrossed by the status indicators that Spock was able to push him aside and race for the reactor controls.
The pirate apparently turned it into a real competition, first following Spock through the cramped passages wrapped around the vast cargo bay and then attempting to pass him by taking a parallel ladderway to the main mechanical deck. Nevertheless, Spock reached the control first and in time,
Immediately after, the new boarding party arrived. They had headed directly for the Engineering section, being aware from telemetry that problems had recurred in the reactor. The priate was taken into custody and transported to the Enterprise's brig. Spock remained aboard, as previously planned.
The remainder of the journey was refreshingly uneventful, at least so far as I know. The ship's crew, mostly just excess baggage now that the primary mission of the voyage had been cancelled, had plenty of time to converse, play, study, and (as they were fond of reporting to us for a month now) be ridiculously bored. Only the engineering and navigation staff really had any continuing responsibilities and, except for maintaining the tow, even that work was mere routine. They were glad to be getting home.
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