Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours

by David Mack

  “Let me,” Georgiou said. “Governor Kolova. I don’t know where you received your legal education, but it seems to me you might have skipped a few chapters pertaining to Federation colonial law. First, because your local law-enforcement authorities have to be considered as possibly corrupted by the same scandal as your administration, your colony’s right to police its own offenses is liable to immediate suspension, at the discretion of the ranking Federation authority in the sector—which, unfortunately for you, is me.

  “Second, the Federation’s attorney general is, even as we speak, determining whether she will prosecute KMC—and you, and anyone else on Sirsa III who knew about this—for conspiracy to defraud the Federation.

  “Third, you don’t seem to appreciate how grave an offense this is. This wasn’t merely a matter of concealing the presence of valuable exploitable resources, though that appears to have played a role in KMC’s actions. Your patrons, and subsequently you and anyone else who knew about this, engaged in a pattern of deception to hide the discovery of an extinct alien culture, as well as a previously unknown type of alien starship. Any of you found guilty as accomplices or accessories after the fact might be facing up to ten years in a penal colony.”

  That litany disturbed Kolova’s façade. The governor swallowed hard, blinked once. “If it comes to that, Captains, I would have no choice but to nullify this colony’s charter and declare it an independent world, one no longer subject to Federation law.”

  This time, Pike decided to be the bearer of bad news. “I wouldn’t recommend that, Governor. Casting off your obligations to the Federation would also mean surrendering the few protections it offers you. For instance, planting your personal flag on a world still classified as a Federation possession would make you invaders—and obligate me and Captain Georgiou to escalate a military response.” He noted a subtly accusatory look from Georgiou, and was reminded that less than an hour had passed since he had been on the verge of eradicating all life on the planet’s surface without any warning to its residents. Pushing back against the bitter irony of his position, he said to Kolova, “I think it’s safe to say that’s an outcome none of us want.”

  Kolova acknowledged his warning with a slow nod, then forced her chin upward once more in a hollow imitation of pride. “How, then, are we to proceed?”

  “Captain Georgiou and I still need to deal with your Juggernaut problem. While we’re doing that, I’d suggest you prepare your colonists and yourself to abandon Sirsa III.”

  “Why?”

  Georgiou replied, “Because, even if by some miracle you escape prosecution, the Federation will want to document the remains of the extinct indigenous culture, and the Council will likely demand an all-new xenoarcheological survey—one that will require all potential cultural contaminants, such as you, your colonists, and all your infrastructure, be removed.”

  At last Kolova seemed to resign herself to defeat. “Very well, then. I hope you’ll forgive me if I at least try to lodge an appeal for mercy with the Council before they render judgment.”

  “Be my guest,” Pike said. “Just be sure you pack your bags while you’re doing it.”

  If the governor had a retort for that, she kept it to herself as she closed her end of the three-way channel. That left Pike and Georgiou to confer, captain to captain. He checked the ship’s chrono. “Time’s slipping away, Captain.”

  “Is it? By my reckoning, Burnham still has over two and a half hours.”

  Pike nodded. “Barely that. But if I find out she has no plan to neutralize the Juggernaut, I want you to know I intend to proceed with the orders I have in hand.”

  “Yes,” Georgiou said. “You’ve made that quite clear.” She checked something off-screen. “I’ve just been informed Burnham and Spock are beaming down in two minutes. Trust me when I tell you not to underestimate her. She can be quite resourceful.”

  “I could say the same of Spock.” Pike recalled a detail from the Shenzhou’s briefing about the hidden native civilization. “Your second officer speculated that the planet’s indigenous culture went extinct around the same time the Juggernaut went dormant. Did he find any reason to think the two events were connected?”

  “Not yet. But perhaps we might each consider sending an officer down to the planet to look into it. If there is a link, it might yield some kind of clue to help us stop the Juggernaut.”

  It was a reasonable suggestion. Pike glanced to his right and caught his first officer’s eye. He saw that she was keen to snag that assignment. He faced Georgiou. “I can spare my first officer, if you have a mission site in mind.”

  “The remains of a densely populated settlement lies buried in a cave complex along the coastline closest to the Juggernaut,” Georgiou said. “Lieutenant Saru suggests we start any investigation there.”

  “Works for me,” Pike said. “Send the coordinates to my transporter chief. I’ll have Commander Una meet your man on the surface in ten minutes. Enterprise out.”

  Chief Garison closed the channel as Pike turned to face Una. “Be careful down there, Number One. I’ve learned a lot of things the hard way in Starfleet—one of them being: extinct civilizations sometimes aren’t.”

  “Your concern is noted, Captain.” As Una passed his chair on her way to the turbolift, she lowered her voice to add with a playful smile, “If I see any ghosts, I’ll let you know.”

  * * *

  The shimmering golden veil of the transporter dissipated, delivering Spock and Burnham to the back of the Juggernaut. The massive vessel had drifted closer to the shoreline, which appeared as little more than a hairline sketch interrupting the perfection of the horizon.

  A stiff gale baptized Burnham with saltwater mist. She winced, palmed the moisture from her face, then reached for her tricorder and switched it on. A few paces away, Spock was already consulting his tricorder and ambling slowly toward the narrow end of the alien vessel. Cycling through sensor modes, he asked, “What are we looking for?”

  “An ingress point,” Burnham said. “The hull is made of a smart metal that opens and closes without leaving a seam. That was how it launched the drones earlier.”

  Spock adjusted his tricorder. “I see now what you described as the prevalence of symmetry in the ship’s exterior. The tendency manifests even at very small scales, suggesting it might have been grown using biomechanoid materials in a fractal matrix.”

  “That was my thought, as well,” Burnham said. “I had the chance to work with some experimental biomech templates at the Vulcan Science Academy, and they produced textures similar to these.” She lowered her tricorder. “I wasn’t aware that biomech was on the curriculum at Starfleet Academy these days.”

  “It isn’t.” Spock continued to gather tricorder readings. “I do my best to stay apprised of recent advances in a variety of scientific disciplines.”

  Burnham nodded. “Sensible.” She resumed scanning with her tricorder, but she felt distracted. Stealing a look in Spock’s direction, she inquired, “If your interests tend toward cutting-edge science, why choose Starfleet?”

  His eyebrows lifted in a dignified approximation of surprise. “Starfleet is one of the premier scientific research and exploration entities in—”

  “Sorry,” she interrupted. “Please don’t misunderstand. I’m well aware of Starfleet’s bona fides. What I meant to ask was, why choose Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy? I’d heard you were offered admission, but turned it down.”

  Only after she asked the question did Burnham feel self-conscious about it. She had been unable to restrain her curiosity regarding Spock’s estrangement from Sarek and his troubled relationship with Amanda, but as she watched him grapple in silence with what she presumed were difficult emotions, she feared she had pushed too far into a private matter.

  He frowned for only a moment, but it was enough to warn Burnham she had struck a nerve. “My application to the Vulcan Science Academy was tendered by my father. Though their invitation honored me, I had by th
at time already elected to seek a Starfleet commission.” His focus turned inward. “A decision to which my father took great exception.”

  “I see.”

  It sounded like an empty platitude, but Burnham felt as if she truly understood Spock’s dilemma. Sarek was a formidable personality, one unaccustomed to being refused by those from whom he expected fealty.

  Spock resumed his scanning. “I was given to understand that you graduated with highest honors from the Vulcan Science Academy.”

  “I did.” She followed him as he turned his steps toward the opposite end of the vessel.

  “With such credentials, you could have pursued a promising career on Vulcan, in academia, or in scientific research. Yet you also chose to join Starfleet. Why?”

  She was unsure how much of the truth to share with him. “Because Sarek told me to.”

  The whole truth, as ever, was far more complicated. Sarek and Amanda had served as Burnham’s foster family after the deaths of her parents when she was a young child just starting her education on Vulcan. Never in all the years that they had looked after her had they asked for her gratitude; all Sarek had ever wanted from Burnham was her dutiful obedience. After she had finished her studies at the Vulcan Science Academy, and having been denied a position with the Vulcan Expeditionary Group, she had acquiesced to Sarek’s insistence that she accept a commission from Starfleet instead. He had told her that he hoped it might help her reconnect with her humanity—though why a Vulcan mentor would desire that for his protégée, Burnham could not imagine.

  Since then she had hidden her discomfort at living and working among non-Vulcans—just as she had concealed her lingering resentment at Sarek for effectively casting her out of the only world that had ever made any sense to her.

  But now she was here with Spock, the much-lauded scion of the great Ambassador Sarek, the heir to one of the most ancient and respected family dynasties on Vulcan, and all she could think about was, What could possibly have driven him to spurn everything I wish I had?

  Spock seemed equally befuddled by her. “Did acceding to Sarek’s request—”

  “It was more of a demand,” Burnham corrected.

  He pressed on. “Did your compliance earn you Sarek’s approval?”

  She almost laughed, until her Vulcan conditioning diminished her response to a taut half smile. “I am not sure anything anyone has ever done has met with Sarek’s approval.” Suddenly concerned she might have offended Spock, she added, “Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Not as much as one might suppose,” Spock said. “He has never understood why I would want to live and work among non-Vulcans, and in particular among humans.” His thick brows knitted together as he noticed something on his tricorder display, then he quickened his steps.

  Burnham picked up her pace to stay alongside Spock. “Have you ever considered requesting a transfer to one of the new, all-Vulcan Starfleet crews?”

  “Such as the one on the Intrepid?” He shook his head. “No.” Then he stopped and trained his piercing gaze on her. “Have you?”

  “I’ve thought about it,” she lied, not wanting to admit that her inquiry about a transfer to the Intrepid had been coldly rebuffed. Even so, her fear that Georgiou harbored doubts about her readiness to serve as the Shenzhou’s first officer had her thinking of trying her luck with the next all-Vulcan crew, which was being assembled for the Starship Persepolis.

  Walking again, Spock split his attention between Burnham and the path ahead. “I doubt either of us would be welcomed among Vulcan crews. As quick as they are to profess the wisdom of IDIC, they remain in many ways quite provincial.”

  It pained Burnham to admit to herself that Spock was likely correct. IDIC—the Vulcan philosophy that extolled the virtue of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations—all too often was honored in its breach rather than its observance. If someone as famous as Spock, son of Sarek, thinks he’d be persona non grata on an all-Vulcan ship, what chance will I ever have?

  She rebelled against a swell of desperation and compelled her mind into emotional silence. It took all of her Vulcan conditioning to purge her psyche of its toxic brew of regret, guilt, anger, and so many other intermingled feelings that defied definition, but when it was done, the blessed quiet of logic was her reward.

  Once more Spock quickened his pace. Burnham matched his stride. “What are we moving toward in such a hurry, Mister Spock?”

  “If I am correct,” he said, checking his tricorder, “I might have found the ingress point you seek. I have no idea how it might function, or if there is any way for us to make use of it, but now that you have shown me the pattern, I can confirm your suspicion: it is there.”

  “Outstanding,” Burnham said. “Let’s go see what’s inside this thing.”

  * * *

  After the blissful song and seclusion of the transporter beam faded away, Saru was left with only the far-off hush of waves breaking against a rocky shore, and the whispering of the wind across a terrifyingly open sprawl of grassland and dunes. He had beamed down alone from the Shenzhou. At the time the beam-down site had seemed to be a matter of little importance, but as he regarded the vast and empty coastline, he began to feel exposed. To a Kelpien, standing alone in the open was tantamount to suicide. It felt to Saru as if he were begging some unseen alien predator to devour him.

  He tightened his grip on his phaser and listened for the padding of paws across sand, or the susurrus of a legless horror slithering through the yellowed grass. To most other sapient bipeds such sounds were barely audible; to a Kelpien they were clarion cries of danger.

  His heightened senses fixed upon a sonorous droning. Insects? An avian call? Within half a second Saru relaxed as he recognized the pitch and oscillation of a post-2253 Starfleet personnel transporter’s annular confinement beam disrupting the local atmosphere just a few meters from where he was standing. Not wanting to give a misleading impression to his colleague, Saru removed his hand from his phaser. He stood at attention while he waited for the golden scintillation of the beam to resolve into the familiar shape of a humanoid female wearing a pale beige turtleneck tunic, black trousers, tall boots, and a small backpack. As the energy surrounding her dissipated, he saw that she was tall for her species, dark-haired, and wore insignia that identified her as a commander.

  Only after the last remnants of the beam had vanished did Saru see her clearly. She turned just enough to face him, and she met his formal at-attention pose with a disarming smile. “You must be Lieutenant Saru,” she said, offering him her hand in friendship.

  He relaxed and shook her hand. “You must be Commander Una.”

  “In the flesh.” She let go of his hand.

  Then she regarded him with a curious double take. He wondered why until he realized that it was his own fault. “My apologies, Commander. I didn’t mean to stare.”

  “It’s all right. It’s nice to be found interesting.” A coy look. “Might I ask why?”

  Having been caught out, he felt obliged to explain himself. “If I might speak candidly?” Reassured by her nod of assent, he continued. “When first I saw you, I perceived you to be human. But then, when you met my gaze . . . I felt that you were not like most Terran humans. You share many of their physiological identifiers, yet you do not seem to be one of them.” He feared he had said too much or maybe even given offense. “But perhaps I’m mistaken.”

  “No, your senses do you credit,” Una said. “My biology is human, but I was born and raised on Illyria, in accordance with their traditions.”

  Upon hearing her explanation, Saru understood and was relieved to learn his instincts remained as keen as ever. “An Illyrian,” he said. “That explains it. Mentally disciplined, pacifist by nature, vegetarian—those and micro-gestures specific to your culture explain why you don’t project the ‘apex-predator’ vibe that I feel from so many other humanoids.”

  His comments seemed to both flatter and embarrass Una. “Yes, I’ve heard that before.
From Vulcans, for one example. And from the Choblik.” She bowed her head by the slightest degree. “I take it as the highest of compliments, and offer you my thanks.”

  “You are more than welcome, Commander.” It was a rare thing for Saru to feel an instant kinship with anyone other than another Kelpien, but he felt it for Una. She reminded him of the small team of Starfleet officers who had rescued him from certain death on his homeworld many years earlier. They, too, had given off the vibe of “evolved beings,” a quality of their essential nature that had made them fascinating to him: sentient creatures who possessed the attributes of an apex predator, but also the empathy and compassion of a fellow prey animal. Just as their assurances had done so long ago, Una’s kind overtures put Saru at ease.

  He gestured toward her tricorder. “Commander, did you have a chance to review my report on the suppressed evidence of a primitive indigenous civilization here on Sirsa III?”

  “I did,” Una said. “I was impressed you could compile something so detailed and so eloquent in so brief a time. It’s clear to me why you’re not just the Shenzhou’s senior science officer but also its second officer: skill sets and discipline such as yours are rare, indeed.”

  If she were Kelpien, I would fall in love with her.

  “Most kind of you to say, Commander.” He lifted his own tricorder and verified their position, and the bearing to their destination. With a westward wave, he said, “The entrance to the cave complex is fewer than two hundred meters in this direction. Shall we proceed?”

  “With all dispatch,” Una said. She started walking, and Saru stayed by her side.

  Together they navigated a narrow path through a rocky cliff face that ran the length of the peninsula. As the space around them closed in, Saru felt his anxiety start to rise. Just as it was nerve-racking for him to be in a wide-open place, it was troubling to move in overly confined areas. If an attack were to come, to where would he flee? Where could he take cover? The nadir of a canyon was just as dangerous a place to be as the middle of a desolate plain.