by David Mack
Oriana rolled over in his direction, onto her stomach, revealing the perfect slope of her bare back from beneath the silken bedsheets. Planting her elbows on the mattress and her chin in her cupped hands, she teased him with a coquettish batting of her eyelids. “What will you bring me?”
“Name it, my sweet.”
She squinted her eyes in mock concentration, as if she were struggling to think of something he would be hard-pressed to find on such a well-provisioned starbase as Vanguard. “Chocolate-covered Kaferian apples?”
“That can be arranged.”
Undaunted, she continued. “Deltan champagne.”
“Technically, if it doesn’t come from the Champagne region of France on Earth—”
“I don’t want to have a semantic argument about it,” she said. “I just want you to bring me bubbly stuff.”
He gave her an obedient nod. “So noted.”
With a huge grin, she said, “Brie.”
“Now you’re just being difficult,” he said. “I know for a fact you don’t even like Brie. You said it was too bland.”
“Good memory,” she said. Feigning hurt feelings, she added, “Does that mean you won’t bring me some if I ask?”
He smiled wanly. “With or without a pastry shell?”
“A man who knows his cheese,” she said approvingly. “How did I get so lucky?”
“I thought I was the lucky one.” He sat up and clicked on the bedside lamp so he could look for his pants. As he reached down to pick up his trousers, the station’s public-address system squawked from an overhead speaker that was expertly camouflaged in the ceiling.
“Attention all personnel,” a female voice said. “The Starship Enterprise is cleared for main spacedock bay three.” Oriana was out of bed and reaching for her uniform while the word Enterprise was still echoing in the corridor outside. The announcement continued, “Support personnel, all shifts, report for priority operations. All previous work assignments are rescinded pending further notice. Command out.”
After hurriedly pulling on his pants, Pennington turned to see Oriana shimmy into her sheer lower undergarment. “What’s going on? What’s the hurry?”
“It’s the Enterprise,” Oriana said, flustered. “Dammit.” She reached for her one-piece uniform and pulled it on over her head. Her hair, which he had found so attractive when it was splayed across his pillows moments ago, now looked like a frightful mass of tangles, in comparison to the neat beehive currently recommended for female Starfleet officers. She spun and critically eyed her reflection in the mirror over his dresser. “God, I’m a mess.”
Pennington plucked his shirt from the desktop where it had been flung in a gesture of wild abandon. He slipped into it with fluid motions that hinted at his many years of training as a long-distance swimmer. “I’m still not getting why—”
“It’s Robert’s ship,” she snapped. “He’ll be in port any minute.”
The name was a dim memory, known but almost deliberately forgotten. Pennington had pushed it from his thoughts weeks ago, for the sake of convenience. Now it returned with a vengeance: Her husband. One leaden moment later, he muttered a heartfelt “Bloody hell.”
Her hands were working more quickly than Pennington could follow, curling and twisting and shaping her hair into something that wouldn’t betray her most recent recreational activities. “I just can’t believe this,” she grumbled. “What the hell is the Enterprise even doing out here?”
“That’s a good question.” Pennington started putting on his shoes. “Might be a story in it.”
“Lucky you.” Oriana turned sideways and peeked at herself out of the corner of her eye, studying her uniform and her hair. “Close enough.” She started gathering the loose items of the personal bath kit she had brought with her.
“Leave them,” Pennington said. “You can come back for them later.”
“Actually, I can’t,” she said. “At least, I probably won’t be able to. The Enterprise has been on patrol a long time, so she’ll probably be in port for a while.”
Pennington understood her point. As long as the Enterprise was here, she would have to keep her distance from him and stay close to her husband. “Right,” he said. “I see. No problem.”
He tried to conceal the wave of bitter disappointment that welled up inside him, but filtering his emotions had never been his strong suit. Oriana stroked his cheek with her palm. His dejection was mirrored in her sorrowful expression. “This is probably all for the best,” she said. “Robert was going to come home sooner or later, and your wife will be here in a couple of weeks…. It’s not like we thought this would last forever.”
I’m such a stupid git, Pennington berated himself. That’s exactly what I thought. “Yes, you’re right.” It was all he could think to say. He began to feel sick. Then he recognized the sensation: It was the yawning chasm of dread that always preceded the news that he was about to lose someone he loved. Loved. The very fact of it was like a cruel joke. It had started out as harmless flirtation, but in swift measure it had turned serious, become tempestuous, and finally had spun out of control. Caught up in the erotic thrill of every illicit moment with Oriana, he had allowed himself to forget about Lora. About his wife.
Oriana finished gathering her things into her overnight bag. Then an idea struck Pennington. “If Robert sees you holding that, won’t he realize you were planning on staying somewhere other than the Bombay? Won’t he ask questions?”
She looked at the bag in her hands. “Damn.” Frowning, she handed it to Pennington. “Okay, hang on to it. My friend Katrina will come by later and take it down to my storage locker.”
“Sure.” He put the bag on the chair beside his dresser, then turned back toward her. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”
“It’s goodbye for now.” She grabbed the waistband of his pants and pulled him to her. Their lips met with practiced ease, and their arms snaked around one another. He lost himself in her hungry, defiant kiss. After several intoxicating seconds she gently nibbled his lower lip. “The Enterprise is just passing through,” she said, her whisper warm and intimate. “Bombay is here to stay.” She punctuated her point with a quick flick of her tongue against his. “And I’ll be back.”
She was out the door before he could bid her farewell.
So much for spending the weekend in bed, he brooded.
“Enterprise, this is Vanguard control. Prepare to release your navigational systems to our control in twenty seconds.”
“Vanguard, this is Enterprise,” Kirk said. “Standing by for handoff.” No matter how many times James Kirk reminded himself that letting the spacedock team guide his ship into the docking bay was the safest possible option, relinquishing control of his ship never came easy. He sat in his chair on the bridge and leaned forward on his left elbow, the thumb of his closed fist pressed thoughtfully against his lower lip. As the Enterprise began its final approach toward the slowly parting docking-bay doors, he took his first good look at the new, pristine gray surface of Starbase 47 on the main viewer.
Vanguard was enormous—no mere G- or K-class station, with a few airlocks, shuttle bays, and spare, utilitarian habitat modules. Nearly a kilometer tall and almost as wide, Watchtower-class space stations were more on the order of small cities. Designed for complete self-sufficiency, they were capable of lending support to colonial operations or serving as home base for missions both exploratory and military, in remote areas where no other Federation support was available. He recalled that, at peak capacity, it would be capable of hosting up to four Constitution-class starships in its main spacedock, as many as twelve other large to midsized ships on the spokes of its massive lower docking wheel, and no doubt dozens of smaller craft in the numerous hangar bays along its broad central core.
Emblazoned on opposite sides of the central core and on the top of the primary spacedock—in Arabic numerals almost as tall as the Enterprise itself—was the facility’s numerical designation, 47, sandwiched between the w
ords STARBASE (above it) and VANGUARD (below). Flanking the name and number were the crimson starburst and banner icons of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets.
Ensign Varsha Mahtani keyed in a command sequence at the helm. The soft-voiced Indian woman turned toward Kirk and said, “Navigational control transferred, Captain.”
“Thank you, Ensign.” Kirk glanced over at Spock, who stood at ease next to his science station, watching the image of Vanguard’s expansive spacedock swallowing the Enterprise. “Thoughts, Mr. Spock?”
“Most impressive,” Spock said. “This far from a habitable system and civilized Federation worlds, the acquisition of raw materials for this station’s construction must have posed a formidable challenge.”
From the other side of the bridge, at the auxiliary engineering station, chief engineer Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott turned and leaned on the low railing that ran the circumference of the bridge’s upper level. “Aye,” he said, joining the conversation. “Movin’ that much matériel this far from home this quickly would be a job and a half. Four dozen ships, at least.”
“Apparently,” Kirk said, “someone thought it was worth it.”
Spock descended the short stairs to stand at Kirk’s side. He lowered his voice, implying a need for discretion. “This far from Federation territory, a small facility would not be uncommon, as a border outpost. But a facility of this size and complexity…implies a mission much larger in scope.”
There was no need for Spock to elaborate. Kirk understood his first officer’s point: Something important was afoot here on the outskirts of explored space, something so crucial that the Federation was willing to commit itself to the Herculean task of establishing a major starbase that would then be left to fend for itself, come what may.
It was a mystery that now had Kirk’s undivided attention.
Reyes strode swiftly through the corridor circling the middle deck of the main spacedock. He was headed to bay two, where the Bombay currently was berthed.
The passage bustled with throngs of officers debarking from the Enterprise and the Bombay. For Reyes, it was easy to tell which crew was which. The Bombay personnel had recently received the new Starfleet duty uniforms, which featured more intense primary colors and, for female officers, a one-piece miniskirt. Both the men and women from the Enterprise wore the previous generation of shirt-and-trouser uniforms, whose colors were more muted, and lacked the new black collar.
It never ceased to amaze Reyes that, in an organization as large as Starfleet, with all its personnel and its fleets of starships spread across the galaxy, whenever two ships managed to make port at the same time, so many members of their crews seemed to know each other. Already clusters of Enterprise crewmen were mingling with Bombay officers. Back-slappings and shouted salutations filled the wide, bulkhead-gray corridor with the sounds of joyous reunions, of friends and colleagues and academy cohorts too long separated by the call of duty.
The swelling tide of happy bonhomie brought a broad smile to Reyes’s weathered face. It had been a few years since he had commanded a starship, but he remembered well the unique joy that coursed through any vessel at the utterance of two simple words: Shore leave.
Reyes recognized the stylishly tousled flaxen hair of the Bombay’s commanding officer as she exited the gangway into the corridor. As he approached, he shouted to her. “Hallie!” The attractive, fortyish captain looked around, apparently unable to determine who had called her name. He waved to her, and once again was thankful that his lunar upbringing had made him taller than average for a human. “Captain Gannon!”
This time she saw him. Stepping quickly and with grace, his former first officer from the Dauntless slalomed through the moving wall of bodies to join him. He fell into step beside her.
“Commodore,” she said brightly. “Good to see you again.”
“Likewise, Captain. Everything went smoothly?”
“By the numbers,” Gannon said.
“Good, good.” He hesitated, telegraphing with silence what he had to say next. “I have some bad news, I’m afraid.”
“I figured as much. What can I do for you?”
“Priority signal from Ravanar.” The two officers detoured around a large knot of personnel who were moving slowly up the center of the corridor. As they reunited in front of the group, he continued, “We need to get some gear out to them, pronto.”
“Not a problem,” Gannon said. “Anything else?”
“A few things. You need to pick up a team of dilithium prospectors stuck on Getheon because their warp drive committed seppuku; Lieutenant Commander Stutzman needs to hitch a ride out to the colony on Talagos Prime, so he can rejoin the Endeavour when she comes off patrol in a few weeks; and you need to confirm some long-range scans in Sector 116 Theta and update the star maps for a set of grid coordinates that astrocartography will send over in about an hour.”
“And make our usual circuit of the homesteader colonies after we do our midsector recon, right?”
“Right, but make the run to Ravanar first.”
She seemed to sense the urgency in Reyes’s tone. “How soon do you need us to ship out?”
“How soon can you be ready?”
Gannon sighed. “We need repairs and supplies. If I cancel shore leave, and your people move us to the front of the line—”
“It’s already done.”
Her shoulders hunched into a resigned shrug. “Twenty-four hours?” Reyes’s incredulous stare conveyed his disapproval. She revised her estimate. “Sixteen if we push it.”
“Do your best,” he said.
“Mind if I have lunch first?”
“Eat quickly.”
“Do you want to join me?” She gestured out the transparent-aluminum wraparound window, toward the Enterprise, which was docked in the next bay, ninety degrees away on Vanguard’s main core. “Maybe Captain Pike would—”
“That’s Kirk’s command now,” Reyes said.
“Who?”
“Jim Kirk.”
“Never heard of him. What’s he like?”
“Don’t know,” Reyes said. “Haven’t met him. Rumor has it he’s some kind of young hotshot.”
“That’s what they used to say about Pike,” Gannon said. She looked over at the Enterprise again and chuckled. “I can’t believe he finally gave her up.”
“I know. The Enterprise without Pike—it seems like the end of an era.” He patted her shoulder then quickened his pace. “Talk to T’Prynn about getting that gear for Ravanar.”
“Will do,” Gannon said.
Reyes veered off toward a nearby turbolift. Gannon continued along and swiftly vanished into the crowd of red, blue, and gold uniforms swarming through the corridor. Looking out the turbolift door, Reyes eyed the Enterprise with quiet admiration. Chris Pike had captained that vessel for two consecutive five-year missions, and he and his crew had distinguished themselves as few others ever had. It was hard for Reyes to imagine someone who could earn greater accolades as a starship commander than Christopher Pike, especially when that officer was as young as Jim Kirk.
Well, someone at Starfleet Command thinks he’s qualified, Reyes mused as the turbolift doors hissed closed. But that’s a mighty big ship for a first command. I hope he’s up to it.
Tim Pennington pressed his back into a narrow niche in the wall, not so much to stay clear of the dense pedestrian traffic in the main spacedock corridor as to stay out of sight. Peeking around the corner, he strained to pierce the shifting wall of bodies coursing past him.
Several meters down the corridor, on the opposite side, Oriana waited near the gangway entrance at bay three, where the Enterprise was docked. The curvaceous Italian woman paced anxiously, but her face was the epitome of calm. You’d never guess she’s a woman with a secret, Pennington thought.
Oriana glanced down the gangway, stopped pacing, and waved. All her attention was directed toward Lieutenant Robert D’Amato, who emerged from the gangway and swept her up in a b
ear hug that lifted her off the deck. He spun her around, a full turn, before planting her back on her feet. Jealousy burned Pennington from within as he watched them kiss. It didn’t matter to him that, as the “other man,” he had no claim to be jealous of his lover’s husband. Feelings were irrational things, immune to logic and reason, and he had never said otherwise.
Fantasies of revealing the affair tempted him, but he knew no good would come of such impulses. As he watched Oriana with Robert, the truth that he had denied for the past several weeks made itself abundantly, brutally clear: She was not going to leave her husband. Robert was her security, her long-term plan, her ace in the hole. Tim was just a luxury, a convenience, a taboo entertainment to be discarded.
They were still kissing. I should just end it, he knew. Walk away. Hang on to my dignity. As the two lovers pulled apart and began walking down the corridor in his direction, he retreated around the corner and did his best to press himself into the duranium bulkhead. Dignity? What dignity?
The D’Amatos passed by him, too wrapped up in the bliss of their reunion to notice him skulking in the half-shadowed corner. For a brief moment, he was grateful to feel invisible, inconsequential. Then relief gave way to shame and resentment.
Before he could savor the maudlin flavor of the moment, his news-service pager vibrated silently on his wrist. An angry sigh flared his nostrils as he raised the device to his eyes and checked the incoming message. It was from his editor.
Haven’t seen a story from you in eight days. Unless you’re dead, file something by tomorrow or we’re giving your column to the new intern.
—Arlys
P.S.—Stop filing meals on your expense report.
They’re not covered, and you know it.
He turned off the pager and pulled his sleeve back down over it. Time to get back to work, he told himself. Looking around at the frenzy of activity produced by having two starships in port, he knew that there had to be a story waiting to be found.
He would make the usual token gestures of asking the senior officers for comments, and he would pretend to be annoyed when they refused to talk. It was all part of the game. Years of thwarted efforts had taught Pennington that it was very rare for people in positions of authority to talk on the record, unless they had an ulterior motive for doing so. Officers had nothing to gain and everything to lose by speaking to the press. In Pennington’s experience, the only way to get a quote of value from an officer was to already know the truth, then make them either confirm it, deny it, or utter a pathetic “no comment.”