The Captain's Oath

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Well, I’m not one of your patients. And frankly, I’m not impressed with your care for the people who are your patients. This is supposed to be the finest, most cutting-edge medical facility in Starfleet. Elena Yu has serious brain damage that needs attention. There are implants, regeneration techniques you could be trying. Instead you just put her in an induced coma and let her waste away in this bed.”

  “Before we can do any of that, we need to ease the metabolic demands on her brain so it can bring down the inflammation on its own.” The doctor attempted an appeasing smile. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that you should never underestimate the body’s power to heal itself. Even with all this high-tech, cutting-edge science and gadgetry, often the best healing techniques are still time, rest, and patience.”

  “Listen, McCoy, I’m getting tired of your ‘old country doctor’ routine. You’re a Starfleet-trained medical officer working in the most advanced hospital in the Federation, not some . . . some frontier-town sawbones!”

  “No, you listen. I—” McCoy broke off and stared at Kirk. “Sawbones?” He started laughing. “Did you actually just say ‘sawbones’? Where did you pull that from?” He laughed harder—and a moment later, Kirk joined in.

  The shared moment lasted only briefly, for as Kirk threw his head back in laughter, the painful stiffness in his neck worsened and he cried out. McCoy instantly grew serious and peered more closely at him. “What is it?” he asked after a moment. “Pain, rigidity in your neck? Trouble turning your head?”

  Kirk rubbed the back of his neck. “Must be stiff from staring at reports all day. Sitting at a desk . . . my arms and legs are sore. And this headache . . .”

  “Top or back of the head? Behind the eyes?”

  “Both, on and off.”

  “Worse when you move your head?” McCoy put his hand on Kirk’s forehead.

  The captain pulled back. “What are you—are you taking my temperature? Ever heard of a tricorder?”

  The doctor glowered. “I don’t need mechanical help to tell me the obvious. Headache, limb pain, nuchal rigidity, early signs of fever—I’ve seen these symptoms a dozen times since I came to Vega. Captain Kirk, you’re suffering from the first stage of Vegan choriomeningitis.”

  Kirk laughed. “You’re kidding. That’s extremely rare.”

  “Yes, and you’d probably never get it just walking around a Vegan city. But instead, you choose to spend all your off hours hanging around a top-notch hospital, exactly the place where the largest number of choriomeningitis sufferers are concentrated. And with a weakened immune system from all the stress and sleep deprivation you subject yourself to by worrying over people who are officially no longer your responsibility.”

  Kirk grimaced at his tone. “Did anyone ever tell you your bedside manner is terrible?”

  “All the time. But I come by it honestly. In your case, I’d say your heightened irritability and mood swings are the first symptoms of delirium, which is why I’m not taking them personally. Now, come with me and I’ll get you checked in. Hopefully we’ve caught it early enough.”

  “To a room? You expect me to stay the night?”

  “Why not? You practically live here anyway.”

  Kirk tried to brush away McCoy’s arms as the doctor guided him toward the door. “Can’t you just give me something and send me to my quarters? No—my home. I mean send me home.”

  McCoy’s voice grew even sharper. “Captain Kirk. Vegan choriomeningitis is always fatal if not treated in twenty-four hours—and it often takes nearly that long for the symptoms to start showing, which is why the disease is so deadly. At the rate your symptoms are developing, we’re already cutting it close. You’re lucky I noticed them before you left, because if you’d gone home tonight, you might never have woken up again.”

  “No. My crew . . . my ship . . . Can’t leave . . . my ship. I’m in command, Doctor. They need me. I’m in command . . .”

  He barely knew where he was anymore, but he sensed somehow that he could trust the man guiding him through the corridor. “It’s all right, Captain. Just come with me and we’ll get you all patched up. You’ll be back on the bridge before you know it.”

  Qixi, Vega IX

  Kirk’s symptoms flared up quickly, and for a while, it was unclear if Dr. McCoy had administered the antibiotic regimen in time. The young captain had to endure two days of intense fever, delirium, and convulsions before the infection was finally purged. McCoy’s was the first face he saw upon returning to his senses, and he felt immense gratitude to the doctor for saving his life. “The best way to thank me,” McCoy replied, “is to stay the hell away from this hospital once you’re released. Do your job, live your life. Leave your crew to us. We know what we’re doing.” After what Kirk had just endured, he had a greater appreciation of the truth of that statement.

  McCoy also recommended that Kirk take several days off work to recuperate after his release. Though Kirk chafed at the inactivity, he reassured himself that the research station would be in good hands without him. His executive officer, Rhenas Sherev, had managed things smoothly during his unplanned hospital stay, so surely he could trust her to continue doing so for a few more days.

  Or so he thought until he got a call from the authorities in the growing Vegan city of Qixi, informing him that they had arrested Commander Sherev for vandalism.

  When Kirk entered the interview room at the Qixi police station, Rhenas Sherev smiled up at him. She was a small but strongly built Andorian shen, her skin an atypically dark shade of blue. Her eggshell-white hair was coiffed in a short, wavy style that was currently fashionable on Vega but could have used some maintenance at the moment. “It’s good to see you, Captain,” she said in a confident, casual tone belying their surroundings, “but shouldn’t you be recuperating back home?”

  He glared back, not without affection. “I would be, but your actions made that impossible. What were you thinking? Ordering a civilian construction crew to halt work? Beaming their equipment away when they refused?”

  “I had to. They might’ve destroyed a vital archaeological site.”

  “The Vegan Archaeology Council cleared that site as free of ancient ruins.”

  “That’s because they didn’t know what to look for. You know we figured out a way to scan for the ceramic composite identified in the ruins of Fragment B32.”

  “Your assignment was to scan for it in the debris disk, not on Vega IX.” The ancient Vegans’ final war had been so cataclysmic that it had not only wiped out all large fauna on Vega IX but shattered several dwarf planets and created an extensive disk of debris around the star. Most of the archaeological evidence on the planet had been wiped out by erosion and geologic forces over the subsequent millennia, so the spaceborne rubble from those wrecked worlds was, paradoxically, a more likely place to find at least partially intact ruins.

  Though Sherev apparently believed otherwise. “We finished the scan in the disk. The Caliban was back in orbit here anyway, so I figured, what the hell?” She leaned forward excitedly. “And it paid off. We picked up signatures of the ceramic in deeper strata than we ever expected. Jim, this means the ancient Vegans terraformed this planet thousands of years earlier than we believed. Their civilization may have endured peacefully for nearly twice as long as we thought before the war destroyed them. There’s no telling how that could transform our understanding of their history!”

  “That may be, Rhen, but you have to learn to respect other people’s boundaries. Civilian archaeologists have been studying this system’s ruins since before Starfleet even existed. They let us take the lead in studying the debris disk because we’re better qualified to do research in space, but when it comes to the ruins here—”

  “I know, Captain, I know. But there wasn’t time to go through bureaucratic channels. Vital evidence might have been destroyed because some petty-minded construction boss wouldn’t listen to reason!”

  “If so, that would’ve been the
ir responsibility, not yours.” Kirk sighed and went on in a softer tone. “You were right to inform the construction officials of your concerns, Rhen, but you crossed the line when you took matters into your own hands. There are limits to a commander’s responsibility—to our ability to get the results we want. We have to respect other leaders’ authority as well, even when we think they’re making a mistake.”

  Sherev looked unconvinced. “With all due respect, Jim, you’re too married to the rule book. Sometimes you have to bend the rules when there’s a higher principle at stake. As for respecting authority, I’ve always felt that respect needs to be earned. I’d respect a leader who gave full and fair consideration to opposing arguments, like you do. That construction chief only cared about her schedule and wouldn’t even hear me out.”

  “Rhen . . .” Kirk paused, then gave her a cockeyed smile. “Only you would treat the study of a long-dead civilization as an urgent, now-or-never affair. You’re the most impatient archaeologist I’ve ever met.”

  “When a new discovery is hours away from being destroyed, hell, yes, I am.”

  “You said yourself that your scan picked up several new sites on the planet. Do you know for a fact that losing this one would’ve cost us knowledge we couldn’t get from the others?”

  “I don’t know that it wouldn’t. And I wasn’t about to take the chance.”

  Kirk studied the intense, vivacious Andorian for a moment longer, then shook his head. “Your passion for your work makes you an admirable science officer, Rhen, but your command judgment leaves something to be desired.”

  She cocked her antennae in the equivalent of a shrug. “Just as well I’m not interested in command. I joined Starfleet to do science. I leave the leadership in more capable hands. Which is why I’ll be glad to turn the big desk back over to you.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Are you trying to flatter me so I’ll go easy on you?”

  “I find it works pretty well on humans.”

  “Well, I’m not the human you have to worry about. You still have to smooth things over with the Qixi police and the Archaeology Council.”

  Sherev gave him a skeptical look. “Seriously. You expect me to be diplomatic and appeasing?”

  “I expect you to make an effort to learn how.”

  She fidgeted like an adolescent faced with a term paper. “Your faith in me is overwhelming, Captain.”

  “That’s the spirit. Now, let’s get you out of here . . .”

  Orpheus City

  In the weeks that followed, Kirk stayed in contact with Leonard McCoy—not merely to keep abreast of his former crew’s recovery (including that of Elena Yu, who’d finally come out of her coma, though whether she would regain full cognitive function was not yet clear), but to take the doctor up on his offer to show Kirk the night life of Orpheus City. The captain had come to appreciate the doctor’s plain-talking, brutally honest manner—as well as the deep reservoir of compassion and integrity that drove it—and had realized that, if he were to take McCoy’s advice to get out more and establish a social life, he could think of far worse choices for a friend than McCoy himself. Indeed, the doctor proved a charming and stalwart companion—a conversationalist of an affably cynical bent, a good judge of music and food, and an even better connoisseur of potable intoxicants, with a seemingly inexhaustible stash of high-grade Saurian brandy. All in all, the companionship of “Sawbones” McCoy—as Kirk had inevitably nicknamed him as an inside joke—effectively filled the void left in Kirk’s life when Gary Mitchell had been reassigned after the crippling of the Sacagawea, even though the two men could hardly be more different.

  The drawback to McCoy’s forthrightness was his recurring tendency to try to get Kirk to talk about what had happened to his ship. Of course, the doctor knew the tale from his patients and from Starfleet records, but he insisted that it would help Kirk work through any lingering sense of guilt or responsibility if he opened up about it. What McCoy didn’t understand was that Kirk had no desire to get past that sense of responsibility. It was the thing that drove him to keep trying harder to protect his people—just as it had been since five years earlier, when his brief moment of hesitation at the Farragut’s phaser station had allowed a cloudlike entity to penetrate the starship and kill nearly half its crew, including his mentor Captain Garrovick. He couldn’t blame the doctor for wanting to ease his pain, but this was a pain Kirk needed to keep him focused.

  The doctor was also a pretty good poker player, though for this they required a larger group. As it happened, Rhenas Sherev was a mean player herself, and she and McCoy between them were able to bring in other friends of theirs to fill out the table. (In Sherev’s case, remarkably, this included the vice chairman of the Vegan Archaeology Council, with whom she’d somehow managed to make peace after all, though she had no qualms about repeatedly cleaning him out at the poker table.) Sherev proved as aggressive and impulsive a gambler as she was an archaeologist, yet she somehow managed to make it a winning strategy in both areas. The one and only time that another player—a radiologist colleague of McCoy’s—accused Sherev of cheating by using her antennae to distinguish the cards by the electric fields of their ink patterns, she sent him away whimpering by challenging him to an Ushaan duel to avenge her honor . . . after which she fell back laughing. “Believe me, I wish my antennae had that kind of resolution. I’d cheat you all blind.”

  Sherev also joined Kirk and McCoy in their visits to Orpheus’s cabarets, and she shared their appreciation for the dancing girls, though she’d previously shown an equal appreciation for the male physique. “Male, female—you two-sex species have it easy,” she chuckled one evening while on her third brandy. “Try having to find three bondmates compatible with you and with one another. Then try juggling the needs and hang-ups of four adults and two young children, with a third on the way.” She shook her head. “I’m lucky I just had to fertilize and not actually carry our kids. I don’t know how my zh’yi handles it.” A laugh. “Especially since the little ones have my genes, which means they’re headstrong and hard to corral. As you know too well, Jim.”

  Across the cozy table, McCoy quirked a brow at her. “Is that why you joined Starfleet? To get away from the chaos at home?”

  She stared at him, her antennae rearing back in surprise. “Get away? Why would I want that? I love a challenge. And I love my bondmates and my kids. They’re all unbearable in the most wonderful ways—just like me,” she finished with a wink. After a sip of her brandy, she grew more serious. “No, knowing that they’re waiting for me at home, that they’ll be there for the long haul no matter what, because they’re part of me . . . that’s what anchors me when I’m out here, what keeps me sane and gives me the incentive to do my best. I’d be nothing without them.” The fact that she was raptly watching the stripper onstage while she spoke somehow failed to detract from her declaration of devotion to her family.

  “Well, I don’t know how you pull it off,” McCoy said. “I couldn’t even balance one wife and daughter with my career. I came out to this godforsaken frontier because I had nothing left back home after the divorce. Serves me right, though. I brought it on myself . . .” He trailed off.

  Sherev reached over and pulled his drink away before he could take another sip. “Cut it out, Sawbones. You’re a maudlin drunk, you know that? Oh, you humans and your liquor. There was this engineer stationed here last year—he hated the local food, but the way he drank . . . Oh, what was his name? Montgomery . . . something. I remember his surname was the same as his nationality, which confused me no end . . .”

  Kirk barely noticed her rambling, for he was still preoccupied with the earlier conversation. How did she manage to balance family and career so well? It was an ability he envied deeply. His own attempts to establish a lasting relationship that could survive the pressures of his career had never ended well. In the end, his duty had always come first.

  SACAGAWEA

  2261

  Two

  Jim Kirk was
many things, but he was never a Boy Scout.

  —Dr. Carol Marcus

  U.S.S. Sacagawea NCC-598

  “This is Captain James Tiberius Kirk of the U.S.S. Sacagawea, Federation Border Patrol.”

  Kirk’s voice hitched on the “Tiberius,” and he hoped no one else noticed. He’d thought his full name would make him sound more intimidating, but once he heard it out loud, it felt pretentious. What were the odds that the name of a Roman emperor would have any meaning to the Xarantine smugglers he addressed? Was he really saying it for their benefit, or to sound more impressive to his bridge crew? Did it come off as overcompensation for the fact that he was younger and less experienced than several of the officers around him?

  His sense of discipline reasserted itself, shoving aside his fleeting moment of doubt. Kirk may have been the youngest captain in Starfleet, but he had worked hard for eleven years, excelling at Starfleet Academy and working his way up the ranks from the Republic to the Farragut to the Constitution to the Eagle, in order to earn that rank. He wasn’t going to forget that accumulated learning now.

  “You have entered Federation space illegally,” Kirk went on. “Stand down and prepare to be boarded.” As the silence continued, he couldn’t help adding, “You’re not fooling anyone, you know. Certainly not at this range.”

  The freighter on the Sacagawea bridge’s forward viewscreen was mostly hidden from view, dwarfed by the dozen or so massive ice boulders that had been lashed against its hull. It was not the first time smugglers had used this trick, hiding their ships inside chunks of cometary ice and rock and coasting across the border to fool long-range sensors. But that was why Gary Mitchell and Elena Yu, respectively the Sacagawea’s navigator and science officer, had worked together over the past few weeks to compile a detailed catalog of cometary and asteroidal bodies in the region of interstellar space that the midsized vessel patrolled. Anything whose motion didn’t match the tables was flagged for further investigation—which led to many false alarms and newly cataloged minor objects, but occasionally produced positive hits.