Belle Terre

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Every other ship was going to take part in this attempt.

  “Open a channel to all the ships,” Kirk said after the last had moved into position. It was the most mismatched group of ships he’d ever seen in such close quarters.

  “Open,” Uhura said.

  “Okay, people,” Kirk said, “this is going to take some time if we do it right. Slow and steady wins this one. Set all tractor beams and wait for my mark to engage engines at one-tenth impulse.”

  He motioned for Uhura to cut the communications line to the other ships, then said, “Set the beam, Mr. Chekov.”

  “Done,” Chekov said.

  “All other ships are reporting they are ready,” Uhura said after a moment.

  “Open the channel,” Kirk said.

  “Open.”

  “Good luck, everyone,” he said to the other ships. “Start pulling, one-tenth impulse. Now!”

  Kirk felt the Enterprise jar slightly as it began to pull against the rock. Then nothing. The engines at this speed didn’t even seem to strain.

  He watched the screen, but nothing changed.

  “Is that it?” McCoy asked.

  Kirk felt the same way. He knew this was going to take some time. But he was used to going into a battle quickly, with action. Well, they were acting now, and nothing was happening, or so it seemed.

  He glanced over at Spock, who didn’t look up from his station. Too soon to tell if it was working at all.

  Kirk tapped his communications button on his chair. “Scotty, how are we doing?”

  “Purrin’ along like a kitten,” Scotty said.

  Kirk glanced back at McCoy, who only shrugged, then turned to Uhura. “Any problems on any of the other ships?”

  “Nothing, sir,” Uhura said. “All report green.”

  Kirk again glanced at his first officer. “Spock, how’s it looking?”

  “There is a slight rise in temperature along the desired fault lines in the rock,” Spock said, not turning from his science station. “In two hours I should know more.”

  “Two hours?” Kirk said, staring at the jagged rock face of the moon in front of him. He knew this was going to take a long time, but not that long! Could the tractor beams of all the ships hold up against such a steady pull for two hours? Or the engines? Many of the ships had barely limped into the Belle Terre system as it was. Two hours of pulling at one-tenth impulse against a moon was going to strain every system on every ship.

  “This is going to be like watching mud dry,” McCoy said.

  “Worse,” Kirk said, forcing himself to sit back in his chair and take a deep breath. Much worse.

  Chapter Seven

  Countdown: 6 Days, 5 Hours

  GOVERNOR PARDONNET stood behind Captain Chalker of the Mable Stevens and stared at the rough surface of the moon and all the other ships in formation around them, all pulling with tractor beams on a two-hundred-mile-thick section. In his worst nightmare Pardonnet couldn’t have imagined something like this happening to his colony. He had prepared for problems on the way to Belle Terre, and had prepared for every problem he could foresee facing on a new world. Food, housing, politics, weather, you name it, he had worried about it and planned for it.

  But not this.

  How could anyone have ever planned for a moon exploding, let alone two hours and thirty minutes of tug-of-war with rock?

  It had seemed as if the time had stopped. He kept glancing at a clock, thinking at least ten minutes had gone by, but each time only a minute or two had passed. And worse yet, nothing seemed to be happening. Over sixty thousand lives hung in the balance and time had slowed to a crawl.

  On the screen the rough, uneven surface of the moon seemed almost to laugh at them. If something could be moved with the simple power of the mind, that hunk of rock would already be flying away into space. That was how hard Pardonnet had been staring at it the last two hours.

  Ned Chalker, a very heavyset man with pale skin and pasty-blue eyes, shook his head. Hours ago he’d started sweating and now his shirt was completely wet and his thin, blond hair was hanging down the side of his head. Chalker stared at readouts on the arm of his command chair. “We’re starting to overheat,” he said. “And we’re draining energy faster than a broken dam.”

  “Can you put me through to Captain Kirk?” Pardonnet asked. He had wanted to talk to Kirk a dozen times during the slow two hours and thirty minutes that had just passed, but had resisted until now.

  “On screen,” Chalker said, pointing to a position beside his chair where Pardonnet should stand.

  “Captain Chalker, Governor,” Kirk said.

  Pardonnet could tell Kirk hadn’t had the best few hours either. He looked drained and was moving with jerky, impatient motions.

  “We’re starting to overheat here, Kirk,” Chalker said before Pardonnet could get in a word. “And getting close to our reserves as well.”

  “I’m afraid you’re not the only ship,” Kirk said. “We’ve heated the fracture lines between the rock plug and the rest of the moon, but not enough to turn them molten.”

  “So we’ve failed?” Pardonnet asked. It felt as if the weight of the world had smashed down on his shoulders simply by saying those words. He couldn’t fail. The colony had to go on. Too much was riding on it.

  “Not yet, Governor,” Kirk said. “Stand by for further instructions.”

  The connection was broken.

  Pardonnet stared at the rock surface of the moon. Kirk had said “Not yet.” What did that mean?

  “That crazy Kirk is going to get us all killed,” Chalker said, shaking his head.

  “Or save us,” Pardonnet said. He had to believe Kirk could do that.

  Chalker looked up at Pardonnet. “You trust that cowboy from Starfleet?”

  Pardonnet shrugged. “At this point, do I have a choice? For that matter, do any of us have a choice?”

  Countdown: 6 Days, 5 Hours

  Sunn watched as Dar, his pilot, flared the ship out flat and eased it gently down into the green-covered meadow near one of planet’s cities. With only a slight bump the Rattlesnake was resting on the soil of another new planet. And one of the more interesting ones Sunn had ever seen.

  “Nice landing,” Roger said, as the landing gear adjusted the ship to a level position.

  “All in a day’s work,” Dar said.

  “Yeah, right,” Roger said. “Do you remember the last time you landed on a planet surface?”

  “Actually,” Dar said, “no I don’t.”

  “Nice landing,” Roger said again, smiling.

  “Thank you,” Dar said, laughing.

  “Run full scans,” Sunn said to Roger, then glanced at Dar. “Keep us ready to lift off on a moment’s notice. I don’t want to be caught here with our pants down until I find out what happened to all the local residents.”

  “You got it,” Dar said. “But it sure is a beautiful place, isn’t it?”

  Sunn had to agree with that. The main screen was showing a sight right out of some storybook imagination. Tall, graceful spires of buildings shot hundreds of stories into the sky, framed and supported by smooth-cornered lower buildings. The city seemed to just sort of ease itself down into the rolling green hills around it as if it had actually grown from the soil. For all Sunn knew, maybe it had. He’d seen stranger things, especially from an advanced civilization as this one had clearly been.

  They had landed near one of the major roads leading out of the city and Sunn could tell, even in the road’s overgrown state, that it once had been well maintained. But there were no signs of the types of vehicles that used the road.

  He studied the green carpet of plants they had landed on. From what he could tell, the field they were in had once been some sort of agricultural area. He could still see patterns of ancient crop rows.

  “These people really knew their architecture,” Roger said, glancing up at the viewscreen, then back at his scanners. “Those buildings are perfectly solid. Full of garbage, but solid
. The place is totally dead. A few rat-sized creatures, a lot of small birds, nothing more.”

  “Radiation? Contaminants in the air?” Sunn asked. “Any indication of what happened?”

  “Nothing,” Roger said, clearly amazed. “Freshest air I’ve ever seen on a reading. More than likely because there’s no civilization left to contaminate it.”

  “Man, this place would be better than Belle Terre for the colonists,” Dar said. “All they’d have to do is clean up a little and move in.”

  “And die from whatever killed the previous tenants,” Roger said. “I don’t think we should be too hasty here.”

  “I agree,” Sunn said. He was thinking back to how he’d found the olivium in the Quake Moon, but hadn’t taken the next step and discovered that the moon was about to explode. Maybe there was something out there that just wasn’t reaching their first scans. Something had to have happened to all the people who had built this city and the others around this planet like it. And before he went too far, he was going to have answers.

  “Okay,” Sunn said, “before anyone steps one foot out of this ship, I want to run every test we can think of, and a few we haven’t thought of yet.”

  “You got it,” Roger said. “Already started some of them.”

  “Stay alert and ready to move us, Dar.”

  “You say boo and I’ll have us in orbit,” he said.

  “Good,” Sunn said. “Keep a good eye on the surrounding space as well. Maybe these people, or what killed them, are still out there somewhere.”

  With one more look at the beautiful scene on the main viewer, Sunn moved over to an empty science station and started some basic scans. Just as he’d done with analyzing the hollow moon, he was going to peel back the layers of this world one at a time until he found the truth.

  And then this time, he wouldn’t stop there. This time, as Kirk and his people had done, he’d look one layer below the truth.

  Maybe then he’d find the answers he needed instead of the ones he wanted.

  Countdown: 6 Days, 5 Hours

  Kirk stood beside the science station, waiting for his first officer to do one final check before reporting. The last few hours had seemed to stretch forever. But now they were at the breaking point of this entire attempt. It was either going to work, or fail, and now was the time to finally find out which.

  “If this is to succeed,” Spock said, turning away from his instruments to face Kirk, “the pressure must be increased at this point in time.”

  “Increase it?” McCoy said. “Have you gone batty?”

  “How much?” Kirk asked. He didn’t like the idea of increasing pressure on the moon, either. Many of the ships were already having troubles and if strained any harder, there would be no doubt they would have failures.

  But at the same time, nothing had really moved inside the moon in the last two and a half hours. Their pulling had managed to do most of what they had hoped for, by heating up the border between the plug and the rock walls of the moon. But the plug was still firmly in place. Those borders had to become molten rock before that two-hundred-mile-thick plug was going to move. So something had to change.

  “Every ship must increase the pressure to one-quarter impulse,” Spock said.

  “Now I know you’re nuts,” McCoy said from where he stood near Kirk’s command chair. “That much force will pull some of these ships apart!”

  “I am perfectly sane, Doctor,” Spock said. “I am just attempting to accomplish the task we have set for ourselves. Nothing more.”

  “And might that task be killing us all?” McCoy asked, glaring at Spock.

  Kirk didn’t need his two officers bickering at this point. “Spock, is there any chance that maintaining the current amount of pull will succeed?”

  “No,” Spock said flatly. “Only a force of one-quarter impulse will increase the pressure enough to turn the rock walls between the plug and the moon’s crust molten.”

  “Well, that answers that,” Kirk said.

  Kirk moved over and sat down in his command chair. The rough surface of the moon dominated the main viewer, its sharp crags and black rocks looking more and more alien with every passing hour. On the screen above the moon he could also see many of the ships. They were ships he was very familiar with during the long journey here. He knew that most of them were not built to withstand what he was about to ask them to withstand. But they were also not able to withstand the long trip back to Federation space at this point.

  “Jim, break this off now,” McCoy said, “while the colonists still have ships to get away from here in.”

  “They won’t need ships if this works, Bones,” Kirk said.

  “Bah,” McCoy said. “We’re just signing death certificates for thousands of colonists.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, Bones,” Kirk said. He turned to Uhura. “Open a channel to all ships.”

  “Open, sir,” she said.

  “On my mark,” Kirk said to all the ship’s captains, “increase the pull on the moon to one-quarter impulse and hold it as long as possible.”

  He took a deep breath and paused, giving the captains time to inform their helmsmen of the change. Then he said, “Now!”

  Unlike the first moments of the pull against the moon, this time Kirk could feel the difference instantly. It was as if the entire ship swayed in space, then settled in. Joints creaked and a circuit popped, making both McCoy and Uhura jump.

  Around them the engine sounds were much, much louder, filling the bridge like a roaring waterfall, vibrating the decks, shaking even his chair.

  If it was doing this to the Enterprise, what was it doing to the rest of the fleet?

  Maybe he could speed this up some. There was no doubt most of the ships wouldn’t last long at this speed.

  “Spock,” Kirk said, “would increasing our pull above the others help? The Enterprise is built to withstand more than the other ships.”

  “It would,” Spock said. “Considering the location of our tractor-beam hold, it would have the effect of increasing the others as well. A booster effect.”

  “Sir,” Uhura said, “reports are pouring in. Engines are overheating, a few tractor beams are about to fail.”

  “Tell them to hold on!” Kirk said. “As long as they can!” Then he turned back to the screen. “Increase speed to one-half impulse, Mr. Sulu.”

  “Increasing, sir.”

  Around them the Enterprise started to rattle as the forces pulling at it tried to rip it apart. It felt as if a monster were shaking the ship, roaring as it went.

  “Are we getting close, Spock?” Kirk shouted over the noise.

  “Impossible to tell, sir.”

  “Go to point six impulse!”

  “Point six!” Sulu shouted back, confirming he had done the order.

  The rough surface of the moon below didn’t seem to be bothered.

  “Come on,” Kirk said, under his breath. “Let go.”

  “No movement yet!” Spock reported.

  The shaking and rattling now was almost so loud Kirk couldn’t hear Scotty shouting from Engineering over the communications link. “Captain, she canna take much more of this!”

  “How long, Scotty?” Kirk shouted back.

  “A minute at most!”

  “Hold her together!” Kirk shouted.

  On the main viewer one of the big Conestogas suddenly veered away wildly. Kirk watched as the crew of the big ship valiantly tried to get control, but without success. The huge ship, with its two mule drives shoving it, smashed into the moon’s surface and exploded.

  “That was Hampton Roads,” Sulu shouted.

  Captain Nickle had been in charge of that ship. A good man. He and his crew would be missed. But thank the heavens it also hadn’t been full of colonists.

  At that moment the coroner ship Twilight Sentinel broke off and shot away so fast it seemed as if it had disappeared. Clearly its tractor beam had suddenly failed.

  “Spock?” Kirk shouted over the roari
ng and shaking.

  “Rock is becoming molten,” Spock shouted, “but the plug is not moving.”

  Two more ships suddenly broke away and shot into space. One was spinning, clearly out of control.

  “This isn’t working, Jim!” McCoy shouted. “Call it off!”

  Near Spock one panel exploded in a shower of sparks, filling the bridge with acid-smelling smoke.

  “Engine failure in thirty seconds!” Scotty shouted over the communications link from Engineering.

  Two more ships broke free and shot off as their tractor beams failed.

  And then one of the mule drives of the Conestoga Yukon exploded, sending debris swirling in all directions. A large hunk of the engine smashed into one of the smaller private ships, destroying it instantly.

  “Spock!” Kirk shouted. “Tell me that thing’s about to break loose!”

  “It’s not!” Spock shouted back.

  “Send word to shut down!” he ordered. “Mr. Sulu, back us off to zero!”

  Slowly the noise and shaking around them reduced until finally only the silence and the smoke remained.

  “Captain,” Uhura said, “I’m getting reports in of widespread damage to most ships. We lost two of the Conestogas and four smaller ships completely.”

  Kirk stared at the screen for a moment, then said, “Order the remaining ships that can to return to planetary orbit. Set up search parties for survivors of the destroyed ships and damage-repair crews for the others.”

  “Yes, sir,” Uhura said, turning back to her communications board and starting to work.

  “Spock, what happened?” Kirk said, turning to his first officer.

  “We were unable to generate enough force, Captain,” Spock said plainly.

  Kirk slumped into his chair. They had failed. For some reason, over the past few hours, he had thought they just might pull this off, save the planet, save that beach that just a short time ago he’d been sitting on.

  “Well, it was worth the try, Jim,” McCoy said.

  Kirk shrugged. “I hope those who gave their lives for it thought so.”

  “If they didn’t,” McCoy said, “they wouldn’t have been here.”

  “I know that, Bones,” he said. “It doesn’t help.”