STARTREK®: NEW EARTH - WAGON TRAIN TO THE STARS Read online

  “This is the kind of thing I mean.” Pardonnet held out a beseeching palm. “Why can’t you just let the individual captains run their own crews their own ways? They’ll put anybody they want at the helm.”

  “Because a flotilla isn’t a free-flowing colony.” Kirk let himself breath again. Mandrake Anachronae had stopped moving sideways, and began a sluggish turn back toward the Expedition. She’d been stuck at the bank of the gravity well. While not in danger of being sucked in, she had been the equivalent of aground—stuck, without the strength to pull herself out. A little tug had brought her out.

  Now, what had he started to say?

  “Uhura and all the watch leaders,” he recovered, “will have to make changes in the emergency drills, because more people will be asleep during those hours. Mr. Spock will be coordinating all the first officers on ships’ status. Mr. Scott will have to keep a strict eye on power levels and general condition. We’re only as fast as the slowest ship. If we have to take someone in tow, that slows down the whole fleet. Slowing down invites more trouble. And I won’t split us up.”

  Answering a signal from the other ship, Uhura pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. A shrug—and she waved her hand, then pointed at the forward screen in a motion he understood. All’s well now. Watch.

  Under her own power again, the Mandrake was pausing in space. A shimmering golden plume vented from her exhaust ports. Kirk drew a sustaining breath. That explained it. Being an older ship, she didn’t have the advanced filtration sytems of most of the other vessels. She’d had to bear off to vent her core waste.

  Connecting gazes one more time with Sulu to make sure the Enterprise stayed between the Mandrake and the well until the Expedition was past the phenomenon, Kirk stepped around the command chair and approached Pardonnet in what he hoped would be a brotherly manner, or at least be taken that way.

  “Your colonists have been acting as if they’re on some kind of vacation,” he said. “That led to disorganization in loading processes, treaty violations, conflicting stowage diagrams, infectious failure of over a dozen OUS capacitors—a hundred little mistakes that Mr. Chekov and Mr. Spock had to iron out before we could run smoothly. Now we’re out here, and your colonists are getting even more indulgent as things get harder.”

  “They’re trying to keep their spirits up,” Pardonnet submitted. “They’re not experienced spacefarers.”

  “No, they’re not,” Kirk said with a sigh, and the extra eye still on Mandrake. “Spacefarers are used to doing without. The ideal is to arrive with a significant portion of your fuel and supplies still in the tanks. You won’t be doing that. That means I have to keep tighter control, or you won’t arrive at all.”

  “The dream of Belle Terre is to go so far away from established bureaucracy that people like you simply can’t reach us. We want a chance to set up a system based on true individual rights of decision and property . . .”

  As the governor went on, Kirk fogged out briefly to note Sulu’s choreography. Mandrake Anachronae’s less-than-graceful return to the flow of the Expedition train had to be adjusted to keep her out of the wash from the organ lab Olympian, but also keep her from bumping the iceberg being towed by Iroquois. Almost there . . .

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Pardonnet continued, “the Federation’s done fairly well, bumping along under its big net of regulations, but nobody can fly in a net. It keeps us safe, but at what price? Sit around being safe until we die off?”

  Kirk blinked and finally gave all his attention back to the governor. If that wasn’t the oddest thing he’d heard in a while—when had the maverick James T. Kirk become one of the establishment?

  “If I don’t keep control,” he said, “we could find ourselves with anarchy. That’s not the kind of freedom you want, is it?”

  Pardonnet straightened his shoulders in defiance. “What we want is to go into space to live our dream, not to be another rung on James Kirk’s climb to glory.”

  Snapping his attention also back to the Pardonnet, Spock visibly bristled. “That’s most uncalled for, Governor.”

  “Sir,” Sulu spoke up, his features animated, “if Captain Kirk’s ego were hurt, he could commit suicide by climbing to the top of his medals and jumping off. He’s not here for glory.”

  “Thank you, thank you.” Quieting each with a brief contact, Kirk mildly admonished them with a genuine rush of humility. “I think we understand each other.” He looked at Pardonnet. “You breathe too much fire, Governor. There’s nothing all that wrong with the way we old-timers do things, is there?”

  “There are some things wrong,” the young man defended. “If we’re not passionate and vigilant, the Dark Ages can come again. Freedom can die.”

  “Governor Pardonnet,” Spock put in, “you misinterpret the Federation Council’s decision to assign Starfleet to the convoy. Our participation is a gesture of sworn duty to protect citizens in space.”

  Pardonnet’s expressive features flared. Suddenly his voice got a tinge of resentment, his eyes a spark of savvy. “Oh, I know, Mr. Spock, why the Federation’s suddenly so interested in giving us Starfleet protection. We shocked them by signing up privateers and plowing ahead even after they withdrew Starfleet’s support. We were moving to Belle Terre without plundering our neighbors’ pockets.”

  “Governor—” Kirk held up a hand, and fielded away the temptation to blurt out that they’d just averted a possible disaster and only experience had done it.

  On the other hand, why crow in a barnyard?

  Pardonnet talked without bothering to breathe.

  “We’re not wishing for paradise and forcing somebody else to foot the bill. We’re going out to build paradise with our own sweat. The Council knows we don’t need their help, and they’re terrified of being left behind. That’s your job—be here when the future happens, so they can say they were part of the most ambitious success in Federation history. You’re their figurehead.”

  Sensing the eruption of his personal defense team again, Kirk deliberately backed off a step and nodded passively. “Very well, Governor. I’ll exercise some discretion next time. I had reasons to investigate one of the owners because of a . . . mutual experience.”

  “Are you sure that’s not just your suspicious nature at work?”

  “Oh, yes it is,” Kirk admitted. “My suspicious nature is always at work.”

  To his credit, the young official dropped the expression that got him to this point and changed his manner. “Maybe we really do understand each other. Thanks for listening. I’ll tell the owners that you were very gentlemanly about this. Permission to, ah . . . whatever you say when you duck out.”

  Kirk nodded lightly. “Permission granted.”

  A bit awkwardly the governor walked through the ensuing silence and onto the accommodating turbolift. The silence remained until the lift doors closed, then a few seconds longer, until they all knew the tube was cleared.

  Then it blew.

  “What a brat!” Uhura squalled. “I never heard such idealistic puffery! No respect for authority at all!”

  “No sense of circumspection,” Sulu agreed.

  Chekov nodded and held up a demonstrative finger. “No finesse!”

  Spock folded his arms and surveyed Kirk with one of those comfortingly annoyed expressions. “One would hope he might have reviewed your service record before carrying on so.”

  With a shrug, Kirk let his shoulders relax and stepped up to the command chair’s podium. “I’ll get over it.”

  “Captain,” Uhura mused, half-grinning, “you’ve just been accused of being a glory-grabbing bureaucrat by a juvenile history-hound. Don’t you have anything to say?”

  Kirk settled back into his chair and crossed his legs. “Yes, I do,” he announced. “I like him.”

  COMMAND DUTY ROSTER—MEDICAL

  Designated by James T. Kirk, Adm.

  Belle Terre Colonial Transit

  Senior Project Medical Officer: LEONARD McCOY, Cdr.

&nb
sp; Authority:

  Surgeon General, Starfleet

  Duty Station(s):

  Enterprise, Starship NCC-1701, Kirk

  Brother’s Keeper, Mercy Ship SCCM-778 Clevenger, Capt. Skaerbaek, Surgical Treatment; M’Benga, General Practice

  Twilight Sentinel, Coroner Ship SCCM-99, Satchell, Capt. Rochea, Chief Coroner

  DIRECT RESPONSIBILITIES:

  General health and welfare, vaccination, dispensaries.

  Life support systems, life pod integrity.

  Exercise program and facilities.

  Dense rations, potable water, galley inspection, hydroponics, dairy.

  Troop space, living space.

  SAR teams, HazMat teams.

  Coordinate medical diagnostics, dispensaries, treatment, surgical procedures with General Practitioner aboard Mercy Ship.

  Coordinate above with all medical officers.

  INDIRECT RESPONSIBILITIES:

  Coordinate with Drill Chief: life pods, EVS units, evac procedures, life support, rations, emergency medical evac and transport.

  * * *

  COMMAND DUTY ROSTER—EMERGENCY PROCEDURES

  Project Emergency Drillmaster: UHURA Lt. Cdr.

  Report to:

  Spock, Cdr., senior first officer

  McCoy, Leonard, Cdr., safety, SAR, HazMat

  Duty Station:

  Communications, NCC-1701

  DIRECT RESPONSIBILITIES:

  Coordinate all watch leaders and emergency duty rosters.

  Devise and direct safety drills for atm. contamination, hull breach, unfriendly contact, fire, collision, abandon ship.

  Communications: devise visual pennant system, coded audio system, coded signals, networks, frequencies, tolerances, process for emergency traffic notification. Disseminate all coded procedures to first officers, communication officers.

  Coordinate SAR and HazMat teams.

  Chapter Six

  Coroner Ship Twilight Sentinel

  A SOLEMN SHIP, a funeral home in space. The Twilight Sentinel provided the Belle Terre colonists with one of life’s oldest and saddest necessities. She was their Boot Hill, their Oak Crest, their Sunset Valley. She was the celestial cemetery where the departed could be discharged for burial in space, or stored to be interred on the new world where their families would live out their lives without them.

  She was a purple-hulled transport, flickering with tiny white lights, a piece of the night sky floating in elegant repose. Here there were dark burgundy draperies, devices of all known religions, private booths, viewing areas, a pleasant little café, a library, even a children’s play pit. The owners wanted Belle Terre’s citizens to feel comfortable here, to not mind coming if they had to or wanted to.

  The aft end held an off-limits morgue, coroner’s lab, and crematorium. Midships, sepulcher vaults, both occupied and not, lined long quiet corridors. The occupied vaults had imitation stone faces with etchings like historic gravestones, truly lovely and homey in their way, telling the needed stories, and the ship was indeed sweet as potter’s field.

  Yet, somehow the designers had made a hopeful, forward-looking place here too. Near the bow was a plush lounge area, divided into more private conversational cloisters by mini-grottos of tropical broadleafs, ferns, and stone fountains. There, along the ship’s curved forward section, were floor-to-ceiling windows framed in carved mahogany. It was as if the old craftsmen of a simpler time had put their stamp upon the stars and nebulae of open space. People could commune with their passed relatives and friends, then move forward and sit together, gazing at the future out those windows.

  Jim Kirk had squirmed more at the idea of coming here than he ever had at beaming into the sweltering drone that was about to blow up. This was an entirely different kind of squirm. He recalled it from his visits to the chapel on Enterprise to comfort crewmen who had lost mates in the line of duty.

  He had never been good at that. Action, yes. Comfort, no. He never had the words. All he could do was provide his presence and hope the captain’s aspect eased the process along to a livable end.

  Today he stood with Spock and Scott in the midship corridor, providing that presence for the families of two teenagers lost to the lung flu, and three people who had died in the drone attack.

  “How many have we lost total now, Spock?” he asked, very quietly.

  Spock watched the families milling among the draperies and plush couches. “This bring us to a total of fifty-nine deaths since leaving Federation space.”

  “Fifty-nine,” Scott muttered. “Let’s hope it holds.”

  A moan of agreement clawed up in Kirk’s throat. He strode away from them a few steps, hands clasped passively behind his back, fielding nods of sorrowful greeting from passengers who met his eyes, and hoped not to attract more attention than just low-key respect and gratitude that he’d bothered to appear. He didn’t really want to speak to these people. They had each other. What could he say to them? We all went into space to start a new life, and you’re saying a final farewell you never counted on. That’s space travel. We warned you.

  Hmmm . . . better not.

  Turning again, he paused for a moment, looking at Scott in the new Starfleet uniform. The engineer stood prouder in this uniform than the previous design. He’d always claimed the old ones were making him color-blind. But then, Scotty always looked durable and fitted, no matter what he was wearing. Age had peppered his hair and brought on a thick iron mustache to brighten his toothy flyboy smile. He wore the years well, along with the fire-red shirt under his darker blood-red jacket. Somehow Scott had always been older, even back when he was younger.

  Spock, on the other hand, was ageless. The white command-status turtleneck framed his angular face and offset his slick black hair and Vulcan ears. The belted garnet Fleet jacket and black trousers made him seem even taller and slimmer than he was.

  Kirk could only hope the outfit also provided that effect for the stockier build of a mariner who wasn’t thirty anymore. He felt as if it did. He’d felt more polished in this uniform than he had since the old days in his command golds.

  Today he needed to feel in control, to sense he looked commanding to the people watching him. Because he wasn’t. He hadn’t prevented those fifty-nine deaths from accidents and malfunctions and sicknesses. Could he prevent the ones that were on the way, between here and Belle Terre? Could he jump that high, run that fast, stretch his arms wide enough to protect seventy ships full of innocent people?

  Spock was approaching him, and paused casually. For a Vulcan, he did a good casual. “Is everything all right, Captain?”

  “I don’t like this place,” Kirk admitted. “I can’t stop it from existing, and that bothers me.” He took Scott’s arm, pivoted him and pointed to the bow section. “Let’s go forward. Walk through those people so they can all see that we’re here. Then I want to leave.”

  Escape, he meant. Only nodding, Spock began the stroll, which Kirk and Scott had no choice then but to accompany. The three made their way through the velvet Victorian couches and stone grottos, shaking hands, murmuring sorrows, and accepting greetings, and Kirk measured every face, doing his best to remember each person. He knew he couldn’t hold on to those identifications, but he wanted to try. He pretended to know the people who clasped his hand, recalled some of them, truly knew very few. They all knew him.

  By the time the three of them paused before the forward viewing windows, hovering over to the side in a kind of polite solitude, Kirk’s hands were cold and trembling. He glanced back over the mourners like a nervous bird. The Expedition was passing a nebular cloud which seemed close, but in fact was light-years away. Even so, it dominated the entire expanse of the port-side windows.

  He put his hand on his jacket collar and tugged down to relieve his tightened throat. “I feel like I’m going to a hanging. My own.”

  Though Scott stayed away a few steps, near the opposite windowframe, Spock came around a little at Kirk’s side, to partially face him while
not closing off his view of the people who were still meeting the captain’s eyes for a sad, passive communion.

  “They don’t blame you, Jim,” he said.

  Uneasy, Kirk couldn’t stop a smile. “Quit reading my mind.”

  But the assurance warmed him some. He turned to gaze out the viewport at the nebula’s crawling gases, but his eye strayed. Instead of the nebula, nature’s true grand performance, he found himself staring out at mankind’s grand performance . . . a fleet of ships he was leading.

  There were so many of them, following each other, bunched in Sulu’s traffic pattern that kept them in order and safe from collision or other mishaps. So many lives inside the shells protecting them from the vacuum of deep space, and they were all depending upon him and his command of the million details that had gotten them this far and would hopefully get them the rest of the way. Flexible response, stowage diagrams, cubic bale capacity, palletized load units, capstan shackles, arbitration clauses, lists and demands, memos and cries for judgment—his mind spun with it all as he looked out at all those ships.

  “I was surprised,” he mentioned, “when I scanned the officer manifests for all those ships. Remember what that was like? Seeing all the familiar names among the unfamiliar ones? You don’t realize how many acquaintances you’ve gathered over the years. Tony DeSalle, commanding his own Starfleet ship now . . . Senior Geologist Ben Childress, one of those lithium miners we got in trouble with all those years ago . . . Thomas Meer, Ele’en Aka’ar’s second son . . . I sponsored his application to the Merchant Space Service. Jamie Finney and her husband, two kids . . . and Lieutenant Bannon! That kid who hit me once.”