Dreadnought! Page 13

  “Sh … wait.” I leaned at Scanner’s shoulder.

  Rittenhouse tapped through to the bridge. “Ensign Booth. Open a hailing frequency to Star Empire, priority channel.”

  “Aye, sir. Hailing frequency on standby.”

  “Commander, Star Empire. This is Vice-Admiral Rittenhouse speaking on behalf of the Federation. You are surrounded and outnumbered. If you attempt to retreat any farther, we will be forced to unify the power of four starships and a destroyer to disable your vessel. If necessary, we will crowd you into the neutral zone and let the Klingon border patrols persuade you. The game is up, Star Empire. Surrender immediately. What is your reply?”

  For many moments their reply was nervous silence, though they were obviously receiving. I spent those moments taking special note of the glances exchanged between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock. They were expertly subtle communications, unnoticed by anyone else in the briefing room. But I noticed, and I paid attention.

  “Star Empire, we’re awaiting your reply,” Rittenhouse prodded.

  “Pompeii, this is Commander Paul Burch.”

  Everyone tensed. His accent was primly English.

  “We understand your message. We refuse to comply and repeat our previous demand for a diplomatic boarding party comprised of Lieutenant Piper and a Vulcan. However, we annex a further stipulation: that Captain James Kirk also accompany them. Those are our conditions, Pompeii. Any aggression against us will result in the destruction of your ships. I’ll do this, Vice-Admiral; don’t assume I won’t. I regret that these actions became necessary. I’m appealing to Captain Kirk to meet privately with us aboard Star Empire, for the sake of the—”

  “Cut transmission.”

  There was a crackle; then Ensign Booth’s voice from our bridge said, “Transmission aborted, sir. Star Empire is back on standby at your disposal.”

  “Why didn’t you hear them out?” Kirk asked.

  Surprisingly it was Nash who answered the question. “There’s no point in giving them any leverage, Jim. You know the advantage of keeping the psychological upper hand.”

  “There’s also an advantage in knowing the whole story.” Kirk turned to Rittenhouse. “I’d like to take them up on their request. Meet with them on their terms.”

  “Their terms indeed!” Rittenhouse bellowed. “Hand over a starship commander to terrorists? Kirk, you’ve gone soft.”

  “We’ve got to comply if we’re going to resolve this problem peacefully.”

  “That’s exactly what Burch wants us to believe. Kirk, don’t you see—”

  “I see you evading a chance for resolution and I’d like to know why.”

  “Vice-Admiral,” Spock interrupted, “your conclusions are based upon assuming disaster before such an outcome has been implied.”

  “I’m willing,” Kirk said in the forceful wake of Spock’s words, “to take the risk.”

  “But I’m not,” Rittenhouse said. “You’d just complicate the problem for us. This situation requires drastic action. I’m designating Captain Nash as my second-in-command with the special grade of Commodore for the duration of this incident.”

  “Vice-Admiral!” McCoy jolted to his feet.

  Beside him, Scott also unseated himself. “I protest! That’s a direct affront to Captain Kirk!”

  Kirk now stood up, never once taking his eyes off Rittenhouse. Sternly he said, “Sit down, both of you. The Vice-Admiral and I have some definite disagreements on several points, primarily involving the lives of the people on Star Empire.”

  “You’re being insubordinate, Kirk.”

  “And you’re acting vindictive, Vice-Admiral,” Kirk shot back, raising his voice until a hot shiver ran down every spine that heard it.

  “Jim, be sensible,” Captain Leedson began. “You have to admit this situation demands a heavy touch.”

  “Not before some effort at compromise has been made.”

  Spock turned on his chair’s pivot. “The dreadnought’s appropriators have made a request for conference. It is unreasonable to deny their request, since mutual silence is entirely harmful to both sides, Captain Leedson.”

  Rittenhouse spoke, “Is it unreasonable to deny terrorists a chance to capture elite hostages, Commander? No. I refuse to allow any contact with these people.”

  “They’ve requested me,” Kirk said, “and I’m willing to go.”

  “Absolutely forbidden. It would be suicide.”

  “I agree,” offered Captain Tutakai.

  “Captain Kirk,” Commodore Nash said, “perhaps your well-known courage at leading your men into danger is slightly misplaced here—”

  “Don’t placate me, Commodore. It’s our moral duty to fill in the holes before we fire on anyone.” His gaze shot back to Rittenhouse. “Any other suggestion is a violation of Star Fleet emergency action policy, and I, for one, intend to fill in those holes.”

  In the privacy of our one-way mirror, I pointed at the screen. “Look,” I said to those around me as we watched the argument unfold. “Notice the only dissent comes from the Enterprise officers. Everybody else is going along with Rittenhouse.”

  “Yeah,” Scanner drawled, “and he’s turnin’ cartwheels to keep Captain Kirk from tawkin’ to Star Empire. Makes his logic kinda thick to swaller.”

  Sarda pressed his lips together at Scanner’s colloquialisms, but that comprised his whole complaint.

  “Jim,” Rittenhouse was saying, “I don’t know you well, but your reputation speaks for you both in nobility and notoriety. I know you have a predilection for defying direct orders and I can’t allow that to occur in this case. You give me no choice but to act in the extreme.” He punched a com button. “Security.” Instantly—and I do mean right away—the room was swarming with behemoths, phasers drawn. “I’m placing you and your officers under special temporary arrest.”

  “You’re joking!” McCoy was on his feet again.

  Spock as well. “Vice-Admiral, such an action is highly irregular and against all precedent.”

  In the same breath Scott volunteered, “There’s your formal protest tae Federation Congress!”

  Their words, overlapping in an angry chorus, made less sense than the violent indignation on their faces. In the midst of the flurry stood Kirk, an oak of dauntless rebellion, locked in silent war with Rittenhouse.

  “Someday you’ll all understand why I had to do this,” Rittenhouse said, then waved to the security men. “Confine them in my quarters. I want two guards outside and two inside with them at all times. No one countermands their captivity but me. Is that clear?”

  Eyes burned at each other as the four from Enterprise were herded out of the briefing room while Sarda, Scanner, Merete, and I watched in blank dumbfoundment. On the screen before us, Captains Leedson and Tutakai exchanged a worried sort of in-over-our-heads glance, but they followed Rittenhouse and Nash without protesting these strange turns of protocol.

  “Damn … damn him … he knows all the angles.” I stepped back and stared at the black screen.

  My head buzzed, warning lights blinking deep in my mind. This couldn’t be happening. He had them. He had pressured Kirk down, maneuvered him into helplessness, and pounced. Kirk was the one barrier between Rittenhouse and his military take-over, the one element I’d been counting on to buck the tide with me once I’d convinced him of the Vice-Admiral’s plans. And I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Kirk yet! I had to talk to him …

  I flipped my attention to my right, suddenly aware of a funny sensation. Two sets of eyes. Flipped left. Another set.

  “What are you all looking at me for?”

  “Whatcha want to do now?” Scanner voiced for himself and the others.

  “How do I know?!”

  “It’s your party, Piper.”

  My clothes seemed to be sticking to my body. I closed my eyes and leaned on the half-wall of our access balcony. Couldn’t I wake up now? Wasn’t there a regulation against nightmares lasting this long?

  I shook m
y head. “I hate this. Hate. By the time it’s over I’ll probably hate you too.”

  “Nobody hates me,” Scanner said, grinning. “I’m too cute.”

  I paced across the platform. “We’ve got to break them out of there. Nobody at the Federation is going to listen to us if Rittenhouse succeeds in suppressing Kirk.”

  “Or discrediting him,” Sarda added.

  “Kirk and Spock together carry as much credibility as a vice-admiral. Add Scott, McCoy, Burch, and us … but it’s got to be a combined effort to clean up the corruption before it goes any deeper. We’ve got to find out where they’re taking Kirk and the others.”

  “You and I are too conspicuous,” Sarda pointed out. “Doubtless the ship is being alerted as to our escape.”

  “I’ll go.”

  The offer came over my shoulder. I turned. “Merete, it’s dangerous.”

  “But they’re not looking for me.”

  “I can go with you,” Scanner offered.

  “No, better I go alone. I always wanted to try my hand at reconnaissance anyway.”

  “We can’t stay here,” I said. “Suggestions?”

  Sarda offered, “Perhaps the hangar deck.”

  “They’ll be guarding Wooden Shoe, or at least monitoring it. Anything else?”

  “You betcha,” Scanner said. “Ship’s mess. Nobody’s gonna be hangin’ round down there right now.”

  “Good idea. Merete, you take care of yourself, you hear me? We’ll split up and meet in the galley. Okay? Okay … here’s to us.”

  The ship’s galley was deserted. Not counting us, of course. The three of us found a small storage area to hide in and camped out on the floor, out of sight, to wait.

  “We shall be able to see the doctor from here if she comes in,” Sarda concluded as he lowered himself to the floor beside Scanner and lined up his vision with the entrance to the mess hall.

  “You sure she’ll be all right?” Scanner directed at me.

  “No!” I exploded. “I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything. I’m not sure I’m here! When I’m sure I’ll let you know!”

  That felt better.

  I sat down opposite them and became involved in a serious slump. They watched me, I knew it, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t care. It wasn’t my job to care. This was someone else’s responsibility, not mine, and I was getting tired, so tired … not fair … too much … too much for me.

  The strength and support from across the tiny area flooded toward me, worked on me, pulled me through, and when I looked up the innate oppositeness between Scanner and Sarda flooded over me. They were nothing alike, even at the first glance. Humanoid both, but that said it all. Even to the positions they sat in—Scanner with legs crossed, arms hanging on his knees, gazing at me through a flop of darkish hair, Sarda at regulation posture, sitting on both knees like a Vulcan at meditation, his bronze hair utterly neat despite all we’d been through. Quite a pair, my fleet. My spectrum of responsibility kept getting wider and deeper, harder to hold on to no matter how I tightened my grip. I had started out in this adventure as dealer of my own destiny and sole victim of my own errors. Now, somehow, three more lives hung on the balance of my next decision. And how could I even count the number beyond that? Star Fleet hung in the same balance, the Federation and all the people it protected, the Klingons and our other “enemies” in a war not yet provoked, all clinging to a lifeline which was the tightrope beneath my feet.

  I closed my eyes, drifting away. Through the black velvet of open space, cold and numbing, past binaries and nebulae and all the spectral beauty available among the stars. Into a cool atmosphere and into moisture, a receded warmth, and finally swelter of primordial jungle, the taste of herbaceous growth that echoed Earth’s most ancient memories. All around me swarmed the yellow jackets imported to pollinate our Earth-native crops. Beautiful, oh, their sound, their loud buzzing in our glades! The air, thick with the moist scents put off by the cycads and flytraps and sap-jeweled carnivorous plants, filled my senses and clung to my skin like perfume. I wanted to roll in the fronds, dive under the lichen-frosted pads on the salt pond. I could swim all the way from the waterfall to our settlement, to where my parents’ laboratory nestled amid dripping skirts of moss, hidden in the swampscape by its medieval architecture, like all the man-made structures on Proxima. We liked it that way. The heavy stone construction stood up to Proxima’s moist heat better than anything we might have toted from some other star system, and a growing colony couldn’t afford many frills, so we made aesthetic use of practical, available materials.

  Over the heavy, grassy scents of wet foliage came aromas of dinner at the settlement. Families gathering over stew or omelets, laughing at the day’s mistakes, discussing its problems or its discoveries, joking about our latest mishaps with interplanetary bureaucracies because somebody needed one thing or other for an obscure experiment.

  It all smelled and felt so good—why had I ever left? And how long—six years now, counting everything. I wasn’t old enough to shrug off that much time.

  I put my head in my hands and squeezed Proxima out of it. I wasn’t there; I was here, in a chilly galley, in trouble, and about to get into more trouble. That needed to be dealt with.

  A movement, very slight, shook me clear of Proxima and I plowed into a new thought. “I wonder what happened between Spock and Boma.”

  Sarda withdrew the hand that had been reaching toward me. Then he spoke, particularly deliberate, careful. “Spock had a more difficult time acclimating to the Service in the company of humans. In fact, before his request for starship duty among humans, any Vulcans in Star Fleet were quite isolated. Their own ships, their own accommodations, private meal facilities … there was not true interaction. Mr. Spock pioneered interaction between our races. I’m sure there were stresses for him to bear which might have crushed a weaker individual.”

  “Are you trying to answer my question with that?”

  “Perhaps indirectly. When the Enterprise first began exploring, humans were unaccustomed to Vulcan methods, Vulcan demeanor, Vulcan ways in general. Many humans still tend toward dislike of Vulcans because they do not understand us. In a tense situation, I hypothesize that logic and emotionalism clashed en route to a singular end.”

  I felt a sympathetic twist on my lips. “Or logic and intuition?”

  He thought about it. “Unlikely. Dr. Boma does not impress me as an intuitive individual. Emotion and intuition do not necessarily coexist.”

  In his way, he had just paid me a compliment.

  “Why would things have been so hard on Mr. Spock?” I asked. “Why didn’t he just go with the isolated Vulcans in the Fleet if the pressure was so bad?”

  A depth crossed Sarda’s thought, though impassivity still held on his expression. Only his pause before speaking hinted at any discomfiture, perhaps even a need to guard another Vulcan’s reputation. Finally he decided to speak it out. “Mr. Spock is half human.”

  Immediately Sarda tightened his lips over the echo.

  I stared at him.

  Scanner stared at him.

  “Odious,” I said.

  “I may retch,” Scanner said.

  “And I’m on the same ship with him?”

  “Y’all can kill me now.”

  Sarda held his breath and looked from me to Scanner and back again. “I meant no offense—”

  “Just watch it next time, Points. Steppin’ perty close to the ol’ homestead. I bin known to hold grudges nigh onto a day an’ a half.” He rebuked Sarda with an exaggerated glower, which slowly changed to a grin of surprising familiarity. Only then did I remember that they’d been roommates for a few weeks and probably knew each other better than I realized. Scanner seemed thoroughly comfortable with Sarda, more so than most humans ever got with most Vulcans, and I wondered if that was because of Scanner’s utterly open personality shoving its way through, or if Sarda had, for some unknown reason, opened up to him. The latter was doubtful; Vulcans and humans might be mo
re accustomed to each other, but Vulcans remained scrupulously Vulcan, and they still considered casual display of emotion crude and a sign of weakness. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like a textbook example of that. And Sarda was Vulcan. Trying to squeeze emotion out of him constituted a terrible cruelty, a gross unfairness on my part. All these years I’d respected Vulcans, yet not bothered to respect Sarda.

  And he worried about insulting us?

  I didn’t want to laugh at him. So we’d boxed ourselves into a corner again.

  Scanner took care of it with another unrefined squeeze on Sarda’s arm. “Back home in Cullowhee, we’d take y’all back behind the smokehouse and made you shuck corn. Guess we can let it go this time, though.”

  If I hadn’t been sitting down I’d have fallen down when Sarda firmly responded, “Your generosity is staggering, Judd.”

  So there was something there. I suddenly got a slap in the face from assuming I alone could break through to Sarda, and lowered my eyes away from petty jealousy.

  Sarda said, “I had assumed Spock’s mixed parentage to be commonly known.”

  A mirthless huff carried my thoughts. “No, I didn’t know one of his parents was human. But I guessed he had a human half.”

  “I fail to comprehend your meaning.”

  His lack of understanding came as no surprise. How could I explain my feelings without insulting him, even hurting him? Lost in a blurred sight of the joint between the wall and the floor beside Sarda, I mumbled, “Kirk is his human half.”

  Relief flooded over us when we first glimpsed Merete’s platinum hair over her blue medical shirt coming into the mess hall. She knelt beside me when we called her into our cubicle.

  “Deck two, starboard,” she said. “Three guards in the corridor, and there are two inside with Kirk and the others.”

  “Rittenhouse ain’t taking any chances,” Scanner said.

  “With Kirk,” I thought aloud, “I wouldn’t either. We’ve got to disable those guards in the hall.”

  “Perhaps we might cause a similar disruption of energy as that which freed us,” Sarda suggested.

  “It’d take us all day to find the circuitry.”