Ship of the Line Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 1996 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc., under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

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  ISBN: 0-7434-2074-8

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  Table of Contents

  Part One: The Color of Envy

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Two: The Near Unknown

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part Three: A Harbor of Doubtful Neutrality

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  None But The Possessed

  This novel is dedicated to the schooner Alexandria, sunk off Cape Hatteras, December 9, 1996, after sixty-seven hardworking years in amiable companionship with her crews and the living sea . . . a true Heart of Oak.

  All chapter heading quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken in appreciation from the works of Cecil Scott Forester, including the novel’s title.

  It was a bad moment, up there at the foremasthead, perhaps the worst moment Hornblower had ever known.

  Hornblower and the Atropos

  Part One: The Color of Envy

  Chapter 1

  Year 2278

  Bridge of the Klingon Ship SoSoy Toj

  “Today, my excellent warriors, our success will be etched on the gravestones of fifty thousand Federation dead. Today, my excellent warriors, you and I will fall upon nothing less than a fully populated and operational starbase.”

  Space boiled out before their supercharged warship, flickering on the giant forward viewscreen. The stars in the distance were the yellow and pink stars of civilization, orbited by planets bubbling with progress, the most populated sector of the settled galaxy. From this point on, all the space before them would be Federation territory.

  And the commander’s craggy face flexed with envy.

  “Look,” he said, moving his crippled hand. “Even their space is better than ours.”

  He sounded deeply moved by what he saw.

  Was he? Or were his words for the sake of the crew, who had never seen Federation space before?

  The navigation panel was particularly warm in this overpowered vessel. A short reach—the sensor grid controls also were throbbing.

  Or perhaps I am the one who is too warm.

  “Gaylon, look and appreciate what should have been ours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Gaylon answered. Still perplexed then, he stole a moment to turn and look at Kozara, “Sir, how is their space better?”

  “Look at it. A thousand luminaries displayed for the naked eye. Tails and sweeps and trunks, nebulae and storms, sparkling anomalies and ore-rich planetary clusters . . . they have everything. And look where we must live.”

  Gaylon peered at the distant suns, the nebulae, and tried to see what Kozara saw, but in truth the space before them looked like any other space he had ever seen in his career.

  “We live where we have always lived,” he pointed out, minding his tone. “The Federation took nothing from the Klingons. We live where we evolved, sir, I thought.”

  “Yes, but the Federation plots to keep us there, Gaylon. Never forget. Now . . . order the crew to begin scans. See if our plan is working . . . if we can move forward.”

  Gaylon nodded and threw a gesture to the sensor officer and the two crew members at the warship’s complex helm.

  No Klingon had ever piloted a ship like this one before. This was a refitted heavy cruiser, one of the old-style Klingon fighting vessels. Very old, very strong, thick, ready to fend off bolts of disruption from the earliest days of conflict with the Federation, in the days before modern shielding and advanced tracking sensors. Gaylon found himself envious of the helmsman and the navigator, the sensor officer and the tactical specialists here on the bridge. Of all here, he and the commander were the only crew who had no panel to man.

  And he wished to touch this ship, to work it. There was something to be said for a lower rank.

  The commander gazed at the open slate of Federation space and upon it, apparently, he saw etched his future.

  “My new son will have a famous father,” he murmured as Gaylon and the other bridge officers watched. “He will be Zaidan, son of Kozara, destroyer of an entire starbase, victorious disruptor of an entire sector . . . and all will bow before him.”

  Gaylon clamped his mouth shut. What was the point of speaking? Kozara was looking at glory and there was no turning his eye.

  “This, warriors, is the culmination of months of preparation and plot,” Kozara continued, not really speaking to any of them. “Starbase 12 is one of the Federation’s longest established starbases. For months we have introduced operatives—spies—into the workings of the starbase. Our operatives have fulfilled their purpose now and have evacuated the station. Because of that work, Starbase 12 is experiencing a power shutdown. They are running on emergency power only, meaning . . . they have no weapons. Gaylon, inform the crew of the second stage of events.”

  “Yes, commander.” Gaylon shook himself from his surprise—he hadn’t understood that his commander had shifted from hopeful reverie to an address of the bridge crew.

  In any case, he turned to the other officers and struggled to gather his thoughts and speak.

  “We have allowed it to leak out that there will be a border dispute in the Federation’s Benecia sector, approximately two hours at maximum warp from this point and six hours from Starbase 12. Now all Federation Starfleet vessels in the sector are on their way to the Benecia border of the Neutral Zone, assuming battle is coming with the Klingon fleet. Our fleet is there, yes, but with no plans to cross the Neutral Zone. Their purpose is only to make sure the Starfleet commanders think there will be trouble.”

  “And stay there long enough for us to cut across the Typhon Expanse and decimate a great structure,” Kozara filled in with relish. His eerie green eyes sparkled. “Even the Enterprise will be drawn away. And the night sky over Starbase 12 will be ours to light.”

  Kozara was not old, yet he was deeply experienced, and still over the years of service glory had escaped him. Most of his crew were somewhat disappointed with their assignment with him. Gaylon would not go so far as pity, but there was an awareness among the crew that their commander greatly needed a victory. And such as this—monumental!

  An entire starbase! In its place
would be scattered bits of flotsam and shredded bodies forever in orbit, a bizarre museum of this day’s conquest. And forever the Klingon Empire would be taken seriously by the Federation. The names of Kozara, Gaylon, and every member of this crew would be elevated in the imperial hierarchy.

  Some of the commander’s hunger infected Gaylon as he stood here only steps from Kozara. The ship was old, large, and powerful, and the bridge strictly utilitarian, most of the positions barely leaving room for elbows to move freely. Whoever designed this ship knew what ships were for, and that there was little sensible need for space in space.

  Gaylon’s thoughts were driven out as Kozara suddenly came to his feet, lifting his war-injured left hand as if it were a torch.

  “Across the Neutral Zone!” he declared. “We have fifty thousand to kill, a starbase to shatter, and my son’s legacy to ignite! Helm, plot a course across the Federation Neutral Zone. Enter the Typhon Expanse!”

  Chapter 2

  The year 2278

  Fries-Posnikoff Sector, Klingon Neutral Zone Border Bridge of the U.S.S. Bozeman

  “Oh, that’s wicked good. Isn’t it?”

  “Gabe, it is. An old-fashioned rum tot at change of watch can’t be beat. Adding cinnamon and—what’s that other thing?”

  “Vanilla. Got it from my grandmother, sir. She liked her rum after a voyage.”

  “Best thing since synthesized mamba venom. You’ve got the strongest sense of family I’ve ever heard of. Me, I don’t even know who my father was. It was just my mother and me, and she didn’t talk much about her past. Hurt too much.”

  “I’m so sorry, sir.”

  “Well, those of us who have no anchorage . . . we just have to build our own. Now, you keep some of this stuff aside for Captain Spock and the two new men. Better initiate our new lieutenants right—with a slug’a rum.”

  “I have theirs here on the upper deck, sir. And we’ve picked up the Enterprise on long-range. They’re almost here.”

  “Entiproyse . . . I love that accent, Gabe. Never lose that.”

  “Clings like lint, don’t worry.”

  First Officer Gabriel Bush saw his captain smother a grin and grinned himself. The captain had on a properly mournful expression laced with just enough bastard nobility as he talked about having no family to trace. Now Bush was obliged, as always, to suffer along with his poor rootless commander.

  “Mmm,” his captain said. “We really ought to dispense this with meals too. Call down to the galley and tell them it’s a direct order. Rum with all meals.”

  “Breakfast?” Bush commented. “What a happy crew we’d have. We’d have to cut it down to grog. We can’t program food good enough to absorb the real thing.”

  “You cook, then.”

  “Oh, anytime. Corn flake stew, corn flake casserole, corn flake kabobs, corn flake pie, and rotisserie cornflakes.”

  “What about corn flakes with strawberries?”

  “Never. Too pedestrian.”

  “You know I’m a peasant, Gabe.”

  “You are, sir.”

  “You ahh, suhh—damn, wish I could sound like that! Lend me a quattah so I can buy some chaddah in Glaastah.”

  “Then we’ll have steemizz and crackizz with scraaad,” Bush finished, exaggerating for his captain’s amusement, and around him the bridge crew chuckled.

  “What’s ‘scraaad’?” the communications officer asked.

  The captain swung around. “That’s the thing that comes up from the sewage dump with a head like a hammer and it’s got just the one eye—”

  “Baby cod,” Bush interrupted before he lost total control. “Get it right, pikers.”

  “Is it anything like ‘potatoes of the night’?”

  Despite the drowsy moment, there was a hint of gallows in the humor. Bush baptised his grin with a sip of warm rum and shuddered down a lingering rag of dread. Oh!—that shudder was still with him, left over from the recent collision and fight with smugglers. The conflict had left him with a broken ankle and the ship with several crew members dead, including the science officer and second lieutenant. The bridge still smelled of burned circuits, raw insulation, and a heavy blunder of lubricants that were never meant to be mixed. A few steps away from where he stood, the empty command chair reminded him of the fight. Still ripped near the front, the seat was a sly reminder that his captain would’ve been killed if he’d been sitting there when the upper bulkhead caved in. Bush would be in command.

  Oh . . . shudder. His stomach clenched. He pressed his mind away from that.

  Two weeks of round-the-clock work had cobbled the cap bulkhead back together, but the command chair’s leather remained torn. Many other conveniences had gone wanting for repair as the more critical systems were pasted back to some echo of working order. The interior of the border cruiser looked like a junk sale. Her outer hull was scorched and even missing plates. She was operational, but only generally.

  Yet the captain resisted returning to Starbase 12 for repairs. He wanted the crew to do the work.

  The captain’s methods often mystified Bush, but then Bush knew himself to be a simplistic and utilitarian fellow who often missed the unseen purposes of Captain Morgan Bateson, a decidedly unsimplistic man.

  “Captain,” the communications technician said, turning from his board, “the Enterprise is coming up on our port side.”

  “Open a channel, Wizz.”

  “Channel open, sir. Oh, and let’s have port side visual, boys.”

  Bateson stepped in behind Bush and took the command chair, changing instantly from a casual rum-sipper to a more proper gentleman. The captain had both of those in him. His musketeer’s beard and high forehead framed a pair of air-brushed gray eyes that were constantly working. At first meeting Morgan Bateson had seemed standoffish, but that had turned out to be merely one of Bateson’s many operational personae, which he donned and doffed like theatre costumes.

  In fact, the captain’s fingernails were still dirty. He’d done his share of the hands-on repair work and only scrubbed up when he heard the Enterprise was passing through.

  Stepping to Bateson’s side, Bush was suddenly aware of how motley he must appear. Captain Bateson had stolen a moment from the repairs to freshen up when he heard the Enterprise would be transferring two bridge specialists, but Bush hadn’t shaved in two days. He’d only managed a moment to change out of his utility suit and into his day-dress maroon uniform jacket.

  Of course, unlike Bateson, who could buff himself up and shed the cragginess when he needed to, Bush could polish his skin off and still look like a shuttle mechanic. His hair was nondescript brown, a little darker than the captain’s, and he had a forgettable face. Tended to say, “Who are you?” to the fellow in the mirror every morning.

  The ship’s half-patched bridge systems found their way to the forward screen and flickered up a port-side visual of a stunning silvery starship. The famous Enterprise was on final approach.

  “Holy Jerusalem,” Bush gasped. The starship had come up almost abeam already.

  “What a sight!” Captain Bateson cried out, laughing with boyish cheer. “Look at her! Everybody turn and have a look at the Enterprise. Wizz, turn around. Eduardo, get your crew up from the trunks. Stand up and take a look at a ship of the line!”

  No one turned him down on that one. All over the bridge, heads twisted, including the four ensigns who until now had been sprawled on the deck with their heads in the trunks.

  Yes, there she was. Refitted and strong as an ox, the U.S.S. Enterprise hovered off their port quarter. The original of her kind, this massive starship had recently returned from her second five-year mission under the command of James T. Kirk, the shipmaster who had piloted her to fame.

  “Isn’t she a sight to behold?” Bateson murmured. “That design’s never been beat. The big main saucer, round as a cake plate, that swanlike neck . . . deflector dish like the eye of a god . . . and the nacelles, splayed out in back for all to see—ah, it’s like looking at p
rovidence formed! ‘Bright phantom of the night, mother of muse, diva of my heart’s desire, dance exotic across my path’!”

  As Bateson’s vibrant operatic voice rolled across the bridge, the crew gazed in decided humility at the starship, now so close that they could see her plate bolts.

  Feeling his brow crinkle, Gabriel Bush looked and looked, but could only see a large white ship with crisply defined hull plates, the chunky engineering hull, gleaming polished windows, and the rocketlike thrusters. He saw the speed, he saw the power and strength, and the size that allowed for labs and recreation unheard of on others vessels. He knew he was looking at virtually a colony in space. But he didn’t see any dancers.

  “Where’s that from, sir?” he asked. “A poem?”

  Bateson kept looking at the starship and shook his head. His voice took on a street-level roughness as he mocked himself. “Beats me, Gabe. Heard it somewhere. Hail them, will you?”

  Bush turned a quick nod to Wizz Dayton at communications, and upon getting a return nod from there, he said, “Go ahead, Morgan.”

  The captain grinned again and shimmied deeper into his command chair as if he were squaring away behind a podium.

  “Morgan Bateson here. Welcome to the Typhon Expanse, Captain Spock.”

  “Good afternoon, Captain Bateson. This is Jim Kirk speaking.”

  The bridge crew around Bush all turned at the sound of the famous voice. After Starfleet training, everybody recognized it.

  “Well, Admiral Kirk!” Bateson leaned forward. “I had no idea you were aboard the starship. A special welcome to you, sir. Wizz, give me a bridge visual. Well, aren’t we privileged today?”

  “Thank you for that.” The image of the starship shifted to a view of Admiral Kirk on his handsome bridge. “I feel a little privileged myself. I haven’t seen a genuine border cutter in a good six or seven years. That’s a classic rig you’ve got there, Captain.”

  Bush noticed that Kirk didn’t resemble very closely any of the photos of him, which must have been taken when he was on his first five-year mission. Now, instead of the familiar gold shirt of that earlier time, the famous captain—admiral—wore the same bristol-fashion maroon jacket and white collar as Captain Bateson. He seemed much more a settled master mariner than the wildwood scout of his youth.