STAR TREK: NEW EARTH - CHALLENGER Read online

  Brick wall. Not unexpected, but Kirk wasn’t reaching beyond the pale to hope for cooperation from another captain, commander of a ship as powerful as the Peleliu. Such power required certain obligations, and was handed out sparingly in Starfleet.

  Obvious in his manner, Lake had no intention of subordinating himself to Kirk. That could be a big problem.

  Hello? Had someone made a raving understatement?

  “You’re not an admiral on this mission, Captain Kirk,” Lake stated harshly, angrier than he had any business being.

  Behind Kirk, Spock’s baronial voice sliced through the acrimony. “But Captain Kirk stands senior to you, sir, and the ranking Starfleet presence in the cluster.”

  “Senior by ten months. That won’t cut much meat out here in Darkest Africa.”

  Oh, this man was a spinebreaker. He didn’t even want to look back on his own actions, even to learn from them.

  “It cuts enough,” Kirk reminded. “You lost crew members, including your first officer, in a questionable encounter. That requires a full report, both from you and from your acting first officer. We’ve received neither. If Shucorion hadn’t given me a report, none of this would’ve shown itself. Then there’s the destruction of Shucorion’s ship, which was broadcasting my personal authorization code of truce.”

  Lake’s rounded shoulders stiffened. The subdued light in the office shined on his brow. “You’ve never lost crew members in questionable encounters? Never made decisions that seemed risky in retrospect?”

  Abrupt silence clutched the office. Kirk felt the burning gaze of Keller from one side and the support of Spock from the other, but he continued to lock eyes with Lake. “You ran through Gamma Night without clear readings of what was pursuing you.”

  “But we were definitely being pursued,” Lake said. “Our readings weren’t clear. I have reason to suspect sabotage.”

  “Based on what?”

  “That’s between me and my crew.”

  “We had previous damage, sir,” Keller stuck in. “We had to run on assumptions rather than clear readings. We were being chased. The captain’s instincts were right.”

  Smart. Without moving his head, Kirk shifted his gaze to the younger man. Keller stood ready to defend his captain with evidence just vague enough to be potent.

  “He was right,” Kirk said, “but he almost drove you into a gas giant. Correct?”

  From their reactions he guessed they hadn’t expected to face their near miss a second time. The incident, he would have to admit if they pressed, was hearsay. This detail had been left out of their official reports.

  It was true. That showed in both their faces, and in their stark silence. Lake’s eyes grew narrow and hate-filled. At his side, Keller was covering for his captain. Lake had no interest in opening his procedures to Kirk or anyone, senior or not, and his subordinate was backing him up. Lake, of course, presented a black hole of troubles. But the real problem was in the other chair.

  Keller. Very tricky. An officer teetering between his commander on one side and the monolith of the service on the other. How many of Kirk’s wild decisions had been given passes at Starfleet Command? Ultimately, good had come of it. Much of that outcome was luck. His officers—friends—had stuck with him every time. Never once had Spock, McCoy, Scott, or anyone from his own ship forwarded a grievance or even uttered a criticism that went beyond their immediate circle.

  If Keller wouldn’t bend, wouldn’t cooperate with an investigation, then prosecuting Lake for incompetence would be nearly impossible.

  Prodded by Keller’s devotion, Kirk found himself overwhelmed with a wish to give Lake a pass, to reserve judgment, be circumspect with another captain’s turf.

  On top of that, who would take over if he deposed Lake? Keller? The man had never commanded a ship. Second officer until a week ago. Not enough raw experience. Lake had over thirteen years in fighting-ship command, and ten years commanding service ships before that. Such a record couldn’t be cavalierly set aside. Every captain had his own style. Perhaps Lake was just eccentric.

  Kirk shook his head at his thoughts. Eccentricity couldn’t explain away the reports from Shucorion, the destruction of an emissary ship with the right code signals, or the deaths of the Peleliu’s first officer and other crewmen who had been sacrificed to what could only be logged as skirmishes.

  In any ordinary conditions, this could work. Impound Peleliu pending a competency hearing, find McCoy to preside over the medical aspects, and take the time needed to do this right.

  But Belle Terre presented them with no ordinary conditions, ever. Kirk had no time to be conventional. He sat with his mind divided between these two problems. One ship to station here at Belle Terre, another to chase the ’bots and find out where they came from. If he shook up Peleliu’s command structure now, the action would effectively shut down one whole ship. Their defense would be unstable. He wouldn’t be able to take Enterprise and leave. He wouldn’t dare.

  Yes, that was, by the book, what he should do. But did he dare? The book hadn’t followed them out to Belle Terre.

  The pending question demanded an answer, but neither of the Peleliu officers forwarded one.

  Saved by the chime. The door twinkled. Somebody wanted in.

  Ordinarily Kirk would’ve given priority to the mini-hearing, but he wanted an out.

  “Come,” he invited, and everybody breathed a sigh of relief.

  The panel parted. Ensign Bonifay blew in. As usual his thick black hair, a little long at the neck, was brushed in a fluffy crown, with three or four wild strands craning forward into his face. Kirk always had the idea that Bonifay spent three hours every morning getting it to do that, and that he had the unruly strands named and catalogued with the Starfleet Archives. His compact body reminded Kirk of his own in younger days, though he’d never had quite the taper Bonifay was blessed with.

  Bonifay was carrying a handheld cooler, which he brought straight to the desk, until he noticed the two newcomers and spun like a top.

  “Keller!”

  “Bonifay! That’s all I need!” Keller broke out of his chair, as if on alert, and snapped to Kirk, “Sir, I’d like to apologize for anything he’s done.”

  Bonifay shot back, “That would be perfectly normal, if you were a Libra.”

  “Gentlemen,” Kirk snapped, barely changing it from “boys.” When they both faced him, he asked, “Ensign, you have a report?”

  Bonifay eyed Keller snidely as he swaggered to the desk and opened the cooler. He held up the wad of viscous goop, transparent as glasswork, though clouded by a purple coloration. Encased in its center Kirk could just make out an unevenly cut softball-sized chunk of ore, its natural glitter nulled by the gel.

  “I got together with some of the other bosuns,” Bonifay reported, “and we developed this plasticite compound out of a combination of inert blends we usually use as capstan shackle sealant. This node of active olivium is held stable inside the semi-solid gel. It’s a little sticky, but this makes the olivium safe for handling in manageable amounts.”

  “To what end?” Kirk asked. He moved slightly aside as Spock came forward to take the purplish gloop from Bonifay and scrutinize it. He noticed that while Spock was interested, Lake didn’t seem to be. Keller, though, put aside whatever annoyances rose at Bonifay’s presence and came up close behind the ensign to get a look at the bit of Belle Terre’s prize.

  Bonifay’s face grew tortured as if Keller had on bad cologne, but he otherwise ignored him. “We did a comparison study of the caches of olivium that are attracting the ’bots and figured the deposits are a quarter-ton and bigger. Maybe we can store it effectively in small amounts, and the ’bots wouldn’t be able to—”

  “Captain—” Suddenly Spock clapped his free hand to his ear and winced.

  Kirk stood up and started turning to him, but never got there.

  On the other side of the room, the door panel slid open—a door that should have been magnetically locked with a se
curity encryption. As they all turned, a singsong rumble filled the room. Pulsing and whining, one of the ’bots came floating in, its three legs folded up behind so it could fit through the doorway.

  “Holy—!” Shocked, Keller vaulted sideways, bumping his chair, which clattered to the floor behind him.

  “Keller, freeze!” Kirk shot out a hand. “Nobody move!”

  Chapter Ten

  ENSIGN BONIFAY stumbled back and bumped into Lake. Lake gripped the arms of his chair and pressed forward, but had no time to move with Bonifay almost sitting on him. Keller defied Kirk’s order and yanked Bonifay out of the probe’s path, taking the opportunity to toss the bosun into the nearest wall in something suspiciously like exuberance.

  With mechanical single-mindedness, the ’bot drifted into the room, paused as its sensors bleeped and whistled. Scanning—Kirk recognized the process immediately. The probe found what it wanted and efficiently swiveled its “front” end to Spock. From a port in the housing, it extended a telescoping metal finger out about two feet. The blunt end of the probe then broke into a talon-shaped grabber. Neatly it plucked the glassy ball with the olivium inside from Spock’s hand and rotated it out of the way, then called up a recognizable nozzle from its port side.

  A lather of dense foam erupted from the nozzle and sprayed Spock’s neck, chest, and the offending hand. As he stood there, splattered and bubbling, the probe backed off.

  “Thk yu,” the ’bot clicked.

  Taking care to avoid Lake in his chair and Keller braced near the doorway, the purposeful ’bot simply backed out the way it had come, humming and bleeping in a tone that could only be described as happy.

  The door closed. The bleeping faded away.

  “Yikes,” Keller uttered, dry-mouthed. “Clean getaway . . .”

  Kirk empathized with the reaction. Reading reports was one thing. Actually seeing one of those things in action had a whole other effect.

  “At least they’ve learned to be courteous,” Bonifay mumbled out the corner of his mouth. His chalk-mark black brows crawled into an expression.

  Annoyed, Kirk sighed and leered at the door panel for a moment. No point chasing the probe. They wouldn’t catch it.

  He turned to Spock, who stood with his now-empty hand out where it had been before, his torso dripping with decontaminant foam from neck to belt.

  “You all right?” Kirk asked him.

  Spock’s arm squished with foam as Kirk offered a sympathetic grip, but the Vulcan could only manage a nod. Standing in a green puddle now, he didn’t even lower his hand. The indignity of it all.

  His glossy black hair mussed, Zane Bonifay pushed himself away from where he’d landed against the wall. “So much for our no-sensing-in-small-amounts theory.”

  “And they’ve learned to use the doorways,” Kirk contributed.

  Roger Lake stood up finally, bearing a caustic grin. “So everything doesn’t always go exactly right for you either, I guess, Captain?”

  “Not always,” Kirk admitted. “All right . . . time for plan B.” Resisting the quiver of common sense running up his neck, he steeled himself and said, “Captain Lake, you have duty here at the planet. Mr. Spock and I will take the Enterprise and follow those probes out into space in an effort to identify and communicate with whoever’s sending them. It’ll be up to you and Mr. Keller to defend the planet while we try to track the source of the olivium confiscation. Can you do it?”

  Lake glowered. His shoulders stiffened. “What do you take us for?”

  Behind Lake, Keller visibly reined in a flinch at Lake’s disrespectful tone, but Kirk said nothing about it.

  However, he did have something else to say.

  “I’m assigning Mr. Bonifay to Peleliu.”

  “Me?” Bonifay gulped.

  Keller grimaced. “Him?”

  “Yes, him. He’s familiar with the olivium storage and containment systems, as well as what’s been happening on the planet with the robotic probes. Neither of you are. He’ll be your planetary liaison.”

  “He can’t even spell it,” Keller revealed.

  Striking a defiant posture, Bonifay trumpeted, “My people never had to read anything more complicated than a road sign. We always found our way.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  Kirk came around the desk, back into the fire. No more offices, no more reports or rumors. Time for duty stations. “All right, gentlemen. We’ll leave it where it is and see what happens. Dismissed.”

  But he got the feeling there were more problems now than when they’d come in.

  Peleliu, in orbit

  “Ah, the happy passenger.”

  “Mr. Keller,” Shucorion greeted passively as he stepped by—or tried to.

  Pleasantries clicked off as Keller snagged the Blood leader by one unlucky arm and boomeranged him out of his stride, pressed a hand to his chest, pinned him to the wall, and drilled him with a glare.

  “Tell me your name again? Allies? Friends? Working together? Refresh my memory.”

  Though unintimidated by the hand pressed to his sternum, Shucorion seemed incredulous. “Some point of disagreement?”

  “You told Kirk about the gas giant.”

  Shucorion instantly digested what this was about. “Yes, I told him.”

  “You weren’t even on board when it happened!”

  “Your engineer showed me the recordings of the event. Sensor darkness shouldn’t be taken—”

  “And that gives you business discussing it with Kirk?”

  “Your captain’s state of mind—”

  “—is an internal matter and we’re handling it. You’ve got no right talking about me or mine to Kirk or anybody.”

  “I see. . . . Are you actually angry?”

  Keller pointed at his own hardened expression. “Does this look like joy?”

  “You would not have reported the truth? For the sakes of your men? Your crew? Their reputation?”

  “That’s not how we do things. We don’t just spew hearsay. We take proper steps, have hearings, call witnesses. These things take time.”

  “You have no time,” Shucorion pointed out. “Swiftness of truth is important for you here. You have only two fighting ships to protect an entire star system under a siege.”

  “Lots of people are eccentric,” Keller snarled. “Starfleet has a long-standing tradition of mavericks, eccentrics, and wildmen. You’re gonna be facing one if you don’t back off. Where I come from, we protect our own. I’m the one sitting on this thorn, not you. Lake got us here. Our doctor’s in charge of his condition. The Enterprise is leaving. That makes Peleliu the ship in authority after tomorrow, and Lake’s the ranking officer. If I hear you discussing us, it better be to say what a nice ride you had.”

  “Because of your captain’s twisted judgments,” Shucorion reminded, “my men and I have no ship. What is said in your culture of a man who destroys the ship of allies because he reacts too sharply?”

  “Ah, that’s it?” Keller accused. “Revenge?”

  Shucorion blinked, and his expression changed to bewilderment. “Revenge? . . . Revenge . . . seems unproductive. Your captain is unbalanced. My people have never had an ally before. Now we must depend upon you and your ship, as well as those of this planet must depend upon you. I will continue—”

  Keller choked off his words with a well-placed set of knuckles. “It’s my problem to worry about, not yours.”

  Struggling only slightly, Shucorion managed a nod. “With these tidings, I would worry also.”

  “Don’t agree with me,” Keller snarled. “I hate that.” He shoved off so roughly that he bruised them both. “I want you and your men off my ship and away from my crew and my captain and if you spread talk about us again I’ll be on you like green on a grape. Got it?”

  Intelligent eyes never wavering, Shucorion’s gaze speared deep into the hidden parts of Keller’s conscience and hit a sour note.

  “I have it, Mr. Keller. But do you?”

/>   “Mr. Keller.”

  The Peleliu was in orbit while a few determined crew members and one or two engineers spared by Commander Scott crawled around her, trying to effect repairs.

  Keller himself had been awake thirty-five hours straight, unshaven, hungry, grumpy, trying to do both the second officer’s and the first officer’s jobs running interference among Lake, McAddis, the engineering staff, and almost everyone else, convincing people to give up perfection in favor of expediency. Some divisions were even arguing over who got which part or tool first. The Enterprise was leaving, dumping a huge responsibility in Peleliu’s lap. The ship had to be patched together. It had to be.

  “Captain Kirk?”

  There he was. In the shadows of the partially lit corridor. The ship’s power had been reduced considerably, to favor certain systems that needed energy for repair work. This place was no starbase.

  There, in the shadows at the turn in the corridor, in a ladder bay, stood James Kirk. At first Keller thought his imagination was playing tricks.

  Kirk’s face was a pattern of shadows, his clever eyes veiled, mysterious.

  Intruder alert.

  “Sir,” Keller began, and moved toward him, wondering if something was wrong. “I’m sorry—nobody notified me you were on board.”

  “It’s not an official visit.”

  “How did you—”

  No point finishing the question.

  James Kirk was wearing one of the new field jackets, Starfleet’s answer to peacoats. Looked good in it, as if he’d always had it in the back of his mind, even before they were designed and issued. Had his hands in his pockets. Suddenly Keller was self-conscious. Kirk was leaning, with one shoulder against the bulkhead.

  This was one of those holes in the road that most people had sense not to step in, but somehow the foot just kept getting sucked in the wrong direction till wham. Magnetic north.

  Unable to resist the center of gravity, Keller found himself moving closer on thready legs, but made a last-ditch scramble for redirection. “Captain Lake’s in his office, I think, sir. I’ll notify him. Would you like to wait in the wardroom?”