Captain's Glory зпвш-9 Page 9

  Low-velocity objects such as Jupiter Station.

  “Five meters… four point five…” The Klingon’s deep voice was calm and steady, reflecting the trust he had in his captain.

  Picard eased his hands along the navigation and propulsion controls. Impulse engines were on standby; he was flying his ship strictly by its docking thrusters.

  “Two meters…” Worf said.

  Picard kept his attention on the conn readouts. He didn’t risk more than a quick glance at the viewscreen where the ventral surface of the station’s key node took the entire field of view. Engineering codes and safety labels were clearly legible.

  “One meter…”

  “All hands, brace for impact,” Picard said quietly.

  Then a low-pitched metallic clang reverberated through the bridge as the Enterprise swayed, almost as if the starship were a sailing vessel on a becalmed sea.

  “Contact,” Worf announced.

  Picard knew that it would have been an easier maneuver had he chosen to bring the Enterprise to one of the station’s docking ports; then the computers could have handled it on automatic. But in order to take his ship into what was essentially a collision course, he had had to override the computers.

  “Are we stable?” Picard asked.

  Beside him, his ops officer checked her readings. “No drift,” Kadohata confirmed. “We’re in solid contact.”

  “Then here we go,” Picard said, and once again he adjusted the thruster controls to apply gentle pressure, slowly forcing the Enterprise up against the station.

  It had to be gradual, otherwise the ship might punch through the key node, snapping off the station’s six arms, turning them into unpowered and doomed spacecraft of their own.

  Metallic scrapes and clangs, stuttering vibrations from the structural-integrity field in constant reset mode, the pulse of the artificial-gravity generators as they fruitlessly tried to propagate their pseudo-inertial field through the immense volume of the station above… to Picard, all these sensations brought his ship to life for him, like horseback riding: a magnificent steed so in synch, so responsive, that there was no distinction between horse and rider.

  Bonded even as he was with his ship, Picard still endured twenty minutes of uncertainty before Commander Kadohata called out what he’d hoped to hear.

  “Captain, our orbit is changing.”

  Picard felt the rush of relief. Just as primitive chemical-powered spacecraft had once been used to raise the orbits of Earth’s first pioneering space stations, the Enterprise now carried Jupiter Station on her hull, lifting it from certain destruction. With momentum begun, he switched to impulse propulsion.

  The station rose like a phoenix, untouched by what would have been its fiery fate, leaving the planetwide storms of Jupiter’s endless clouds below.

  After four hours of slow but constant acceleration, La Forge reported that the main impulse manifolds were in danger of overheating. But in this new orbit, he also confirmed that the station would be safe for months, ample time for new thrusters to be installed and repairs undertaken.

  Picard throttled back the impulse engines, and so gently that he did not feel the change, Jupiter Station moved up from the Enterprise, safe in its own orbit.

  Only then did Picard take his hands from the controls, and almost at once he realized that his shoulders and back were knotted painfully. He had been hunched over, unmoving, for hours.

  He stood up carefully, arched his back. “Ensign Choyce… take the conn.”

  As Picard stepped away from the station, Choyce slipped into his place.

  “We’ll need to take all the survivors we’ve brought on board to medical facilities,” Picard said. “The Denobulan Center on the moon might be best.”

  Instead of complying though, or announcing that he was laying in a course, the ensign simply looked up at Picard with a nervous expression, then moved his eyes meaningfully aft.

  Perplexed, Picard followed the ensign’s gaze, and saw that his ship had a visitor.

  “Admiral Janeway,” Picard said, startled. “A welcome surprise.”

  The admiral sat in Picard’s command chair, one finger lightly tapping the arm. There was no telling how long she had been there, but Picard appreciated that his crew had chosen not to disturb him.

  “We’ll see how long you think that,” Janeway said. “We’re going to Mercury. At impulse.”

  Picard looked to Worf and to Troi, but saw no sign of comprehension from either of them.

  “Clearly, there’s more going on here than I know,” Picard said carefully.

  Janeway sighed, but made no move to get out of his chair. Picard noticed her eyes were shadowed, skin pale. She was an admiral who hadn’t slept for days-never a good sign.

  “Jean-Luc, for the past year, an enemy has made preparations to invade the Federation. In all likelihood, they’ve been at it even longer than what we’ve been able to uncover.”

  Picard forgot about his aching muscles. “I assure you we are ready to meet any invader.”

  Janeway shook her head. “It’s too late for that. The invasion’s already taken place, and we still don’t know who we’re fighting.”

  11

  GATEWAY MUNICIPAL CENTER, VULCAN

  STARDATE 58563.6

  “There is no crime on Vulcan,” Prefect Vorrel said calmly.

  Trying to remember all that Spock had taught him, Kirk matched the young Vulcan bureaucrat’s emotionless tone. “Yet my son’s been kidnapped.”

  “That is not a logical conclusion, Mister Kirk.”

  Vorrel might have thought he was keeping his emotions in check, but Kirk had no trouble detecting the condescension in his voice. Still, Kirk wouldn’t give the prefect the pleasure of seeing him react like the Vulcan stereotype of an emotional outworlder.

  “It’s the only logical explanation,” Kirk said evenly. “Perhaps I should talk with an official with a more certain grasp of the facts.”

  It was just a subtle sign, the momentary lifting of one eyebrow a millimeter higher than the other, but Kirk could see that his insult had had its desired effect.

  Vorrel made a show of checking his evidence padd-the only object on his polished wooden desk. The rest of his office was equally bare. A single carved stone IDIC broke the monotony of the smooth, rust red plaster walls and dark wooden beams. Even the dust in the air, caught in the daylight seeping in through sand-frosted glass, was still and unmoving.

  “You admit you argued with your child,” Vorrel stated.

  “I understand that fathers and sons have been known to argue even on Vulcan.”

  The prefect folded his hands on his desk, angled his head in a show of confidence, as if Kirk had just passed control of the conversation to him. “But on Vulcan, neither individual gives in to an emotional response to that argument.”

  It was all Kirk could do to remain seated. His son had been missing for almost an entire Vulcan day. He needed access to public surveillance records, satellite monitoring, all the public safety systems that this smug prefect claimed Vulcan didn’t have or need because there was no crime here.

  “I know my son, Prefect. If he gets mad at me, he sulks in his quarters, he pretends he can’t hear me, he spends time with his Uncle Scotty in the engine room. But he does not run away from me on an alien planet. He knows the rules I’ve set and he follows them.”

  The Vulcan’s infuriatingly placid attitude didn’t change. “One reason why Vulcan parents and children argue is that children often conclude that the rules governing their behavior must change before the parent agrees. Am I correct in thinking that situation can logically be applied to humans, as well?”

  With rising despair, Kirk understood that this Vulcan would do anything in his power to demonstrate that alien emotions were to blame for Joseph’s disappearance. There was nothing wrong with Vulcan-only with the aliens who visited the world.

  The realization gave Kirk the strategy he needed.

  “Then prove me wrong
,” he challenged the prefect. “Check the public surveillance records for images of my son taking off his own cooling cloak and running away by himself. Use satellite sensors to locate him so he can confirm your conclusion.”

  Vorrel leaned back slightly, just enough of a change in posture for Kirk to see the prefect suspected a trap. “The Bureau of Public Safety does not maintain surveillance records on Vulcans in public venues.”

  “On Vulcans, no,” Kirk agreed. “I agree. That wouldn’t be logical. But the Gateway attracts visitors from dozens of worlds. Are you saying that you don’t monitor hundreds of emotional aliens who might disrupt the public order?”

  The prefect took several moments to reply.

  I’ve got you, Kirk thought. But he kept his own expression as impassive as Vorrel’s.

  “There are no public surveillance records for the viewing platform,” the prefect admitted.

  Kirk saw his opening. Unless they had a strong motive, Vulcans as a rule would not lie. But that tradition didn’t prevent them from withholding information when it suited them.

  “I wasn’t talking about the platform. I found Joseph’s cloak behind the confectionery stand at the base of the platform. Are there records for the plaza?”

  The prefect tapped a finger once on his desktop, obviously agitated at having lost this round to the human. “I see. Your request was not precise. I believe there might be a visual sensor in that area. To monitor… alien activities.”

  Kirk refrained from gloating. He slid a small padd across the desk. Its display held an image of Joseph recorded just last week. “He’s quite distinctive.”

  Vorrel glanced at the padd, raised an eyebrow without attempting to hide his reaction to Joseph’s multispecies appearance. “Indeed” was his only comment.

  Then he pressed a hidden control, and a larger datascreen folded out from the side of his desk, while an input panel glowed up from the wooden surface. Until the moment it was activated, it had been completely hidden.

  Vorrel input several commands and the datascreen lit up. He checked his notes on the evidence padd, entered more information. “You sent him for candy at the fourth ode, past noon?”

  “About that time,” Kirk confirmed, struggling not to appear impatient. He was familiar with Vulcan timekeeping.

  The prefect placed Kirk’s padd beside his control panel in order to transfer Joseph’s image into the main computer system.

  It took less than a second to run the search. Even that brief time seemed too long to Kirk.

  “And there we have him.”

  Vorrel turned the screen on its support arm so Kirk could see the frozen image displayed on it.

  It might as well have been a phaser set to stun.

  In one instant, Kirk felt relief. There was Joseph in the plaza by the carved stone staircase, cooling hood back, Romulan ears, Klingon head ridges, Trill-like dappling…

  And then came the next instant.

  The figure he had taken for Joseph was too tall, almost Kirk’s height.

  The breeze had made the cooling cloak cling to the figure’s body.

  It was a female.

  A female of Joseph’s species.

  But Joseph was unique, born of the combined genetic heritage of Kirk and Teilani, herself a product of Klingons and Romulans and Vulcans and humans.

  How could there be another?

  “Run the image,” Kirk said.

  The prefect hesitated, reached out to swing the screen back.

  But Kirk didn’t care about protocol anymore. He stood up abruptly from his chair, swung the screen back to keep it in sight. “Run the image! That’s not my son!”

  Keeping his attention completely on Kirk, as if Kirk were a wild animal about to lunge at him with glistening fangs, Vorrel hit the proper control without looking.

  On the screen, the surveillance image came to life; tourists and pilgrims, aliens and Vulcans, all began to move about the plaza.

  Except for the female.

  She remained at the base of the stairway, occasionally looking around the immediate area, but spending most of her time looking up the stairs, as if waiting for someone.

  Expecting someone.

  Kirk’s attention was riveted to the screen. He didn’t blink as seconds turned to minutes, marked by the Vulcan timecodes that wove themselves around the dialectic staff at the side of the screen, resembling musical notation.

  And then, on the stair at the topmost part of the screen, a familiar pair of boots appeared. The image was silent, but Kirk knew the thunder of those small feet-he had heard them so many times on the Belle Reve.

  “There he is…” Kirk said, his voice unexpectedly tight.

  On the screen, Joseph raced down the stairs, almost comically changed direction, holding his voucher padd high as he ran for the confectionery stand.

  He didn’t even notice the female as he passed within a meter of her.

  But she had noticed him.

  She turned toward the stand.

  She took a step forward.

  The image dissolved into a blur of static.

  “What happened?” Kirk asked.

  Instead of attempting to turn the screen away from him again, Vorrel got up from behind his desk to look at it from Kirk’s side.

  “Unusual,” he said. Kirk was unable to read any emotion into the statement.

  The prefect leaned across his desk, entered more commands.

  The static shifted, then the image from the plaza appeared again, running in reverse as Joseph ran backward up the stairs.

  “What’s wrong with the recording?” Kirk demanded.

  Vorrel tried other commands, but to no effect.

  “The record has been erased,” he said.

  Kirk’s fears soared. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Not on Vulcan.

  Joseph’s disappearance was no random crime. It had been planned.

  “Who has the authority to erase that record?” Kirk demanded.

  “Records can’t be erased,” Vorrel said. “There’s ample storage available. Future sociologists could find– “

  “Then how did this happen?!”

  Kirk had nothing more to lose. If Vorrel wanted to think of him as a typical, emotional human, then Kirk wouldn’t disappoint him.

  The prefect moved warily back to the other side of the desk, as if intending to shield himself behind it. “I… I will have to conduct an investigation.”

  “I want access to satellite surveillance records. Joseph has a unique biosign.”

  “This is a municipal center, Mister Kirk. What you ask is outside my authority.”

  “Then find me someone who does have the authority, now.”

  The Vulcan jumped at Kirk’s raised voice.

  “Sir, becoming irrational will not help matters.”

  “My son has been kidnapped from a region under your jurisdiction. If I find out you’re in any way responsible for this atrocious breach of security… you have not begun to see me get ‘irrational.’” Kirk pointed to the control panel.

  Vorrel changed the control configuration to a communications system.

  A Vulcan voice answered at once. “Proceed.”

  The prefect cleared his throat, studiously avoiding looking at Kirk. “I am Prefect Vorrel, Gateway Region. A crime has been committed against an outworlder. I require the assistance of the Ministry of Planetary Defense.”

  “State the nature of the crime.”

  Kirk heard every word the prefect said in reply as a knife wound in his heart. “A child has been abducted.”

  “A state of emergency is in effect. That crime does not warrant the involvement of the ministry at this time.”

  Enraged, Kirk charged around the desk to shout at the Vulcan on the screen. “That is unacceptable! My son is missing and Vulcan security records have been altered to hide the crime!”

  The figure on the screen wore the red uniform of Vulcan’s Planetary Defense Force. She glanced away from the visual sensor transmitting h
er image, appeared to read something of interest.

  “Voiceprint analysis identifies you as the human, James T. Kirk.”

  “I am,” Kirk confirmed. Though he was usually reluctant to trade on any notoriety he had earned during his Starfleet career, under these circumstances, he’d use any advantage that might help him get the cooperation of Vulcan authorities.

  “That is fortunate,” the Vulcan said. “We have been looking for you.”

  And before Kirk could even ask why, he felt the familiar cool rush of the transporter effect as Prefect Vorrel’s office dissolved into light around him.

  They have me, was his last thought before dissolution. Just like my son.

  12

  VOSTOK ACADEMY, MERCURY

  STARDATE 58563.6

  Picard staggered from the transporter pad. It had been an unusually rough beam-in. He felt disoriented.

  A Starfleet medical technician was there to take his arm, steady him.

  “Sir-do you know where you are?” the medic asked. He had raised his voice, as if he expected Picard to be unable to hear him.

  Picard was puzzled by the question-not because he didn’t know the answer, but by the fact it was asked at all.

  “Sir?” the medic prompted again.

  Picard saw another medic a few meters away in the undersized transport chamber, aiming a medical tricorder in his direction. There was no one else present, not even a transporter technician.

  “Vostok Academy,” Picard answered. The venerable outpost, deep beneath the surface of Mercury, was one of the oldest planetary research facilities in Earth’s home system.

  “Do you know what stardate it is?”

  Irritated now, Picard yanked his arm from the medic’s grip. “Fifty-eight five sixty-three. What’s this about?” He glanced back at the pad. It was still glowing, as if about to accept another beam-in. “Is something wrong with the transporter?”

  “No, sir. But you were in the buffer for about ten minutes, and that can sometimes– “

  “What?”

  “Identity confirmation,” the medic beside Picard said. He looked to the medic with the tricorder. “Match?”