The Captain's Oath

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Would you take us back to our homeland?” the voice finally called.

  Diaz threw a pleading look at Kirk, conceding that this was getting beyond her. Giving her a reassuring nod, Kirk stepped forward. “I’m afraid what you ask is not possible,” he told them, though he deemed it unwise to tell them why at this point. “But there are other places we can take you that would suit your needs. Places where you could be free to live the kind of life you chose when you traveled here.”

  “We do not know your kind. These caverns will keep us safe for now. Make camp where you are—in the days ahead, you may tell us of yourselves. Your lands, your ways, how you know of us. Once we know you, perhaps we will join you, if that is what we choose.”

  “There’s no time for that,” Kirk told them. “Have you noticed the wind in here, the wind that never stops? Have you begun having a harder time keeping your breath, or lighting fires? The air is growing thinner. You will not be safe down here much longer, and neither will we.”

  “Your words are unclear,” the voice said.

  “Of course,” Sherev muttered. “They have no concept of a vacuum or reduced air pressure.”

  “Let me try something,” McCoy said, stepping forward. “You said the storms burned your skin, poisoned your blood. We have medicines that can help you. Let us show you we only want to help.”

  More discussion, then: “Leave the medicines at the base of the wall and withdraw.”

  “I’m afraid you wouldn’t know how to use them. If you’ll let me come up there—just me, no one else—I’d be happy to treat your wounded.”

  After additional consultation, the answer finally came. “One of us is far sicker than the rest. He is close to death, and you can do no further harm. You alone remain, healer, and we will lower him to you. Help him if you can—if only to ease his pain.”

  McCoy looked to Kirk. “We agree to your terms,” the captain called.

  At Kirk’s order, the others retreated into the tunnel, leaving their hand beacons behind to light the cavern, while McCoy advanced nearer to the sheer wall. Soon, Kirk saw movement up ahead and finally got a real look at the Chenari. The Triceratops description was very loose at best. They were bipeds, somewhat larger than humans, but their dark blue-gray bodies were horizontal, cantilevered by stiff, heavy tails in a manner more like a raptor dinosaur. Their heads had wide frills and beaked mouths, but no horns, and their eyes and upper faces were more mammalian than saurian. Most distinctively, they had batlike wings folded up on their backs, too small for flight but still impressive. The ones who carried the dying Chenari forward had their wings somewhat spread, and Kirk remembered the Attican researchers’ conjecture that they had retained the wings as a means of thermal regulation, for instance, as a way to cool blood heated by exertion.

  Once the Chenari had tied a secure harness of rope around McCoy’s patient, they began to belay him down using a second stalagmite right on the edge of the plateau as a pulley. Kirk heard rock crumbling and saw chunks of limestone break off the base of the stalagmite where it met the cliff face. “Bones, heads up!” he called.

  As he feared, the stalagmite was unstable. McCoy darted back as it broke free, fell, and shattered on the grotto floor. The harnessed Chenari swung to the side, avoiding the falling rock, but the belayers up above were only able to slow him partially before they were forced to let go to avoid being pulled off. Kirk saw one of them spread its wings and flap them desperately to pull itself back from the crumbling edge.

  Once the debris settled, McCoy darted forward to check on the fallen Chenari, taking a tricorder scan. “He’s just barely alive,” he called, coughing from the dust. He opened his medkit and crouched by the patient.

  Kirk heard more crumbling sounds and looked around for the source. Sherev, with her cave dweller’s instincts, spotted it first. “Leonard, look out!” she cried, lunging forward. As she shoved the doctor aside, Kirk saw that the first stalagmite, the one the rope was tied to, was starting to give way as well—and so was the cluster of sharp-pointed stalactites directly over Sherev’s head.

  Sherev could have jumped clear in time. Instead, she heaved against the unconscious Chenari and rolled him to safety as the spears of rock gave way. Sherev vanished beneath them before Kirk had a chance to react.

  “Rhen!” he screamed, choking from the dust. As soon as his view cleared, he ran forward, fearing what he would see.

  To his relief, Sherev was still alive and conscious, but her lower torso was pinned underneath a ton or more of shattered rock. She was wincing and moaning in agony, and blue blood trickled out from the pile of rubble.

  McCoy was back on his feet, sizing up the situation. “I can’t help her until you get her free,” he said. He moved over to the fallen Chenari, gesturing to his medic. “Hakim, stabilize Sherev. I’ll do what I can here.” He was clearly worried for his friend, but his healer’s instinct took precedence.

  Diaz moved in beside Kirk, staring at her superior’s plight in horror. “We have to do something. Can we phaser her out?”

  “No,” Sherev gasped. “Not until . . . scan the rock pile. It’s pinning me . . . remove the wrong piece and it crushes me.”

  “She’s right,” Kirk said. “We have to be careful.”

  “Sir!” Kreftz called, pointing upward.

  A number of spread-winged, tailed figures were gliding down from the plateau. The Chenari came down around the rescue party, several meters away. But one stepped cautiously forward and spoke in what Kirk recognized as the spokesperson’s voice. “She gave her life to save Thurelor,” he said in apparent puzzlement, “though he is already near death.”

  “Hey, I’m not . . . dead yet,” Sherev gasped.

  “I might still save both of them,” McCoy said, “if we can get the hell out of here fast enough.”

  Kirk crouched to match the spokesperson’s eye level. “To do that, we need your people’s help, to free my friend and carry both our people’s wounded to the surface. Please—will you help us?”

  The spokesperson traded looks with those around him, but the answer came quickly. “Yes. We cannot turn away those in need. Not when they were hurt trying to help us.” He gestured to the others. “We will bring more people down to help clear the rubble. Then we will lead you out. There is a quicker way to the surface.”

  Kirk met the Chenari’s dewy eyes with profound gratitude. “Thank you. My name is James Kirk.” He extended a hand, unsure if the Chenari would understand the gesture.

  But after a moment, the spokesperson reached out and clasped the offered hand. “My name is Phelarasan.”

  U.S.S. Sacagawea

  The Chenari’s vestigial wings turned out to have another use, as a form of natural basket or knapsack, which they used to carry belongings on their backs. The largest Chenari in the group carried Sherev out of the cave on her back, her wings wrapped tightly around the Andorian’s broken body to keep her immobilized as the group made swift time to the surface. But many of the others, as it turned out, carried eggs. The Chenari were an oviparous species, and according to Phelarasan, the colonists had gone through an annual spawning not long before the disaster. When the lethal storms and radiation had come, many of the settlers had been too ill or too badly burned to travel, so they had entrusted the care of their eggs to the party that had retreated to the caves. While the group consisted of only a few hundred individuals, they had more than triple that number of eggs with them, meaning that they still had a large, genetically diverse enough population base to rebuild from on a new world.

  Back on the ship, while McCoy and his team struggled to save Sherev and the dying Chenari, Kirk distracted himself by supervising the evacuation of the remaining survivors of the nearly dead planet. He had feared how the Chenari would react to having starships and transporters sprung on them all at once, but as it turned out, now that the crew had earned their trust, the Chenari readily accepted everything they were shown. They were pioneers, after all, explorers of a new land, and th
ey had seen many animals, plants, and geological formations there that they considered unprecedented wonders. Since so much of their own world was still alien to them, they were used to encountering things they did not understand, and so they took real aliens and starship technology surprisingly in stride.

  Once McCoy confirmed that Sherev and Thurelor were both stabilized, Kirk was left with one more duty to perform. Left with no choice but to face the music, he contacted the Exeter and filled in Captain Tracey on what he’d done.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Kirk,” the senior captain intoned. “You made it clear to me that you understood the importance of following the Prime Directive.”

  “With respect, sir, I believe that’s what I’ve done.”

  “By making open contact with a primitive people? Bringing them aboard your ship, showing them our technology?”

  “Our obligation under the Prime Directive, sir,” Kirk replied, “is to protect the natural development of alien civilizations from outside interference or disruption. As I see it, a cosmic disaster that destroys a civilization is the most extreme form of external disruption imaginable. By rescuing the Chenari, by finding another uninhabited world for them to settle, we can allow their culture to survive and resume its natural development.”

  Tracey glowered at him. “How natural will their cultural development be now that they’ve learned about starships and aliens?”

  “At least they’ll still have a culture to develop. These people were pioneers to begin with. They were already changing their own culture to fit a new environment. They were the ones who initiated contact with us, because they fully expected to meet new life and new civilizations. Knowing that said life exists on more than one planet won’t really change their worldview that much, I think, as long as we limit their exposure to our technology and leave them to their own devices once they’re resettled.” He smiled slightly. “I think the young are often more adaptable than the old.”

  “I’ll try not to take that personally,” Tracey said. After a moment, the grizzled older captain sighed. “You’ve got some nerve, Kirk, I’ll give you that at least. Starfleet might actually buy your argument about the Directive. Now that you’ve gone ahead and saved an actual species from extinction—your second, if I’m not mistaken—they can’t very well order you to undo it. Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? Hell, you’ll probably get a commendation for this.”

  “Then . . . I take it we can rely on the Exeter to provide logistical support for the resettlement?”

  Tracey smirked. “Like I said, you’ve got nerve, Jim. I may not agree with your way of seeing things, but I respect your commitment.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Tracey signed off and closed the channel. Kirk stared at the blank screen, absorbing their conversation. Something about the older captain’s attitude still rubbed him the wrong way. His points had all been valid, and he’d been almost complimentary toward Kirk. But he had shown no interest in the survival of the Chenari except as a matter of regulations, logistics, and politics. He’d shown no sign of the relief and gratitude Kirk felt at preventing the extinction of a civilization.

  Kirk shook off his concern. Different captains just expressed themselves differently. He’d been on the wrong end of stern lectures more than a few times before, often from senior officers he admired greatly, like Stephen Garrovick and Robert Wesley. There was no reason to assume Ron Tracey was uncaring just because he’d given Kirk a rough time.

  Besides, there were more immediate things to worry about. “Rhen,” he muttered to the empty room. “Always rushing in headfirst. I knew it’d get you in trouble someday . . .”

  * * *

  “The Atticans have agreed to take charge of the Chenari’s resettlement,” Kirk told Rhenas Sherev days later as he sat by her bed in the sickbay intensive care ward. “They’ve decided to move their own colony to a safer planet anyway, so they’re willing to help the Chenari do the same.”

  “Will it be the same planet, or a different one?” Sherev asked. She was still weak, her antennae sagging, and her crushed legs and hips were encased in a support frame that was slowly knitting her bones back together, but her usual strong, optimistic spirit remained.

  “They haven’t decided yet,” Kirk replied, “but the Chenari seem to be leaning toward going their own way, if possible. I wouldn’t be surprised. They’re pioneers, people who left their homeland in search of independence and the freedom to choose their own path. If anything, discovering how advanced and powerful we are in comparison makes them less willing to become dependent on us.”

  “My kind of people,” Sherev said. “You think the Atticans will respect that?”

  “They’re pioneers too,” Kirk said. “I think they understand each other well enough.” He smiled. “Meanwhile, Admiral Komack tells me that Starfleet is formulating a new standing order. From now on, all vessels will be required to investigate and monitor all microquasars and quasar-like phenomena they come across, so that we’ll have advance warning of any future disasters like this.”

  “Good. That should’ve been the rule from the start.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Kirk replied. Then he grew thoughtful. “Still . . . I’m grateful I got the chance to meet the Chenari. They’re an impressive people. Gentle, cautious, but inquisitive and eager to learn. They could be great space explorers . . . in a thousand years or so.”

  “Then I guess Starfleet will be in good hands once we’re finally gone,” Sherev quipped. “Brilliant of me, wasn’t it—getting myself hurt so they’d see us as the ones needing help.” Then she grew quiet, her antennae taking on a solemn, thoughtful cast.

  “Rhen?”

  She let out a breath. “Jim . . . Bones gave me the verdict. I’ll walk again, but I’ll never regain full mobility. Not enough to qualify for starship duty.”

  Kirk took a few moments to absorb it. “Rhen, I’m sorr—”

  “Don’t you dare. Don’t tell yourself this is somehow your fault. I was the most qualified caver—I needed to be there. Leonard would be dead if I hadn’t had the experience to see the rockfall coming. And I chose to act on what I saw. What happened to me happened because of me, of who I am and what I decided. Don’t make it about you.”

  As always, he appreciated her blunt comfort. But that was why he didn’t want to lose her. “You could still be in Starfleet. Go back to Vega, or a starbase—”

  She shook her head. “A desk job? I’m no more cut out for that than you are.” She sighed. “I still intend to do archaeology. That’s my first love. I’ll just have to do it as a civilian.”

  He stared at her, stunned. “Resign your commission? Rhen, I . . . I . . .”

  “Oh, don’t react like it’s such a tragedy. The rank never mattered to me. The blue uniform never worked with my skin tone anyway. All I want is to do science, Jim. Starfleet is an amazing place to do science, but it’s not the only place. And it has too many other demands that distract from the science.” She reached out and patted his hand. “I’ll be fine, Jim. I’ll be happy once I’m back on the ground, digging in the dirt.”

  After another moment, Kirk smiled and clasped her hand in both of his. “Then you go do what makes you happy, Rhen. But if you ever need me for anything, just call, and I’ll be there.”

  Sherev smiled back at him warmly. “You always have been before, Jim. It’s good to have someone I can rely on in my corner. So I’ll hold you to that.”

  ENTERPRISE

  2265

  Thirteen

  Thorwor and Kinikor looked back from their tiny raft and wept as the Beasts burned down all that was left of their island, their home, their kin. They wept until their tears raised the ocean and let them sail past the reef. “We do not know what we will face out there in the endless sea,” Kinikor said, clutching her pregnant belly.

  “We know it will be better than what we left,” Thorwor told her. “For there will be no more Beasts to betray us, and we need never
teach our children the ways of war.”

  —Aulacri origin myth

  Karabos II

  “Just call, and I’ll be there.”

  Rhenas Sherev chuckled as she recalled Jim Kirk’s words. They had turned out to be more prophetic than either of them had realized: She hadn’t even called, but Kirk was here now that she needed him. Thank Uzaveh Starfleet sent him instead of that sourpuss Captain Tracey, she thought. He would’ve probably just beamed me and my team up without stopping to ask and let all this get destroyed for the sake of a treaty. She had joined Starfleet because of its unmatched resources for scientific study, but she had found over the years that politics, policy, and the Prime Directive sometimes forced Starfleet captains to make choices that were both scientifically and ethically unsalutary. A year and a half back in civilian life had made her grateful for the injury that had ended her career—though she still wished there had been a less agonizing way to make the transition. She still had to deal with a certain amount of pain when she exerted herself, and she relied more on the cane than she let on, but despite that, she felt freer now than she ever had in a Starfleet uniform.

  Still, she didn’t mind admitting that her team would never have made as much progress as it had in the past twelve hours without Starfleet’s help. The team that Lieutenant Commanders Spock and Scott had brought down from the Enterprise had been highly skilled and efficient, aiding her own small team of fellow researchers and grad students in erecting an atmosphere dome atop the entry to the mountain crevice that allowed the closest access to the Karabosi’s underground complex, pressurizing it, and then mounting and firing the phaser bores to begin the excavation. Normally they would have done that far more slowly, carefully sampling, sifting, and cataloging every cubic meter of rock they dug out in search of artifacts or geochemical traces. Under these rushed conditions, they had to settle for deep sensor scans and samples of the vaporized rock.