Federation

by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  “It took you long enough,” McCoy said.

  Spock gave him a withering glance. “Doctor, the pattern was not established until the other vessel matched our course. Under the circumstances, I believe I have—”

  “Spock, the pattern?” Kirk said to get his science officer back on the subject. “What’s the significance?”

  Spock shrugged as if he were discussing the color of the bridge carpet. “It should be possible to time a maneuver such that we would cause our leading compression wave to combine with the compression wave of the vessel from the future, in effect stealing spatial distortion from it the way we would steal kinetic energy if we attempted the maneuver in normal space-time.”

  McCoy looked pained. “What the hell does that mean, Spock?”

  “He means slingshot around it, Bones,” Kirk said.

  “Essentially, though in higher dimensions. A better metaphor for Dr. McCoy, perhaps, would be surfing. Allowing the compression wave to do the work of moving us.”

  “Whatever, does it mean we could get out of here?” McCoy asked.

  “It does, and within the limits of our power consumption,” Spock answered.

  McCoy was smiling but Kirk had one more concern. “What about Cochrane and the Companion?”

  “If we time the maneuver correctly, we should pass by them closely enough to be able to snare their shuttlecraft with our tractor beam, then hold them within our deflector shields, taking them with us.”

  Kirk was pleased. It almost seemed simple. Like the best of ideas. “Let’s do it. Feed the coordinates to Sulu.”

  “However, there is one other factor we must consider,” Spock added.

  “Why did I know he was going to say that,” McCoy moaned.

  “In stealing spatial distortion from the other vessel, we will be accelerating them downward into the subspace event horizon beyond the ability of any technology to save them.”

  “So it’s them or us,” Kirk said. “And they already know the way this turns out.”

  “If there is anyone aboard her.”

  Kirk rubbed at his back. The knife wound throbbed, making it difficult to concentrate on the problem facing him. If he did destroy a ship from the Federation’s future, at the very least he would not be changing his own timeline. But what about the future’s timeline? How many people might be on a ship that size? There were too many variables to handle at once. Even for him.

  “When can we make the maneuver?” he asked.

  “Anytime. And the sooner we perform it, the greater our margin of safety.”

  Kirk looked at the screen, and the block of pixels that represented his only hope of survival. “Is there no other way, Spock? Anything at all?”

  “If we were able to communicate with the other vessel,” Spock allowed, “there would be another option.”

  “And … ?” McCoy urged with exasperation.

  “In seven minutes we will be coming up to a triple-compression-wave overlap pattern. If both ships were to maneuver together, precisely at the moment the triple wave is exactly between us, we could both slingshot around each other. The result would be that both ships would steal spatial distortion from the linked singularities, enabling us to exit upward through the electromagnetic event horizon together.”

  “ If we could communicate,” Kirk said. “Which we can’t.”

  “What happens if the joint maneuver isn’t done precisely?” McCoy asked.

  “The slightest miscalculation on the part of either ship,” Spock said, “will accelerate both our descents with no hope of escape.”

  “The Prisoners’ Dilemma,” Kirk said.

  “Precisely,” Spock agreed.

  Kirk saw McCoy’s look of incomprehension. “It’s an old problem in strategy, Bones. In this case, the first prisoner to act selfishly goes free while the other remains in prison. But if we both cooperate, we both go free. The trick is, we can’t communicate with each other. So neither prisoner knows what the other is thinking.”

  McCoy held out his hands to Spock. “This is no time for story problems. What does your damned logic say to do?”

  “In the Prisoners’ Dilemma, the solution is quite clear,” Spock said matter-of-factly. “Logic dictates that the first player to act selfishly will always fare better.”

  “I’ve always hated your logic,” McCoy said. “Now I know why.” He looked at the captain. “Jim, if you do act first, you could be condemning a ship full of our descendants to an infinite death.”

  “I know that, Bones. I also know that if it turns out there is no one aboard that ship and I wait, then I’m condemning my ship and all of us to the same fate.”

  McCoy displayed all the agitation that Kirk felt. “Is there no way to find out if there’s someone on that blasted ship?”

  “No, Doctor,” Spock said with finality. “We have all the facts we shall ever have. All that remains is for the captain to make his decision.”

  Kirk looked away from the eyes of his crew to stare at the screen. The lives of everyone aboard the Enterprise rested in his hands, balanced against the lives of people he might never know, never see, but also, who might not exist at all.

  The guarantee of survival at the cost of strangers’ deaths?

  Or the chance of cooperation, which might lead to joint survival or meaningless death for all?

  It was the ultimate command decision.

  The one he had been born to make.

  And in that moment before he gave his order, he felt free.

  “The Prisoners’ Dilemma,” Picard said as he studied the three trajectories Ensign McKnight had brought up on the main screen. “The first one to act gets away at the cost of the other’s freedom. If they cooperate, they both escape.”

  “But there’s no way to know if there’s anyone on that ship to cooperate with,” Riker said.

  “And even if we did know if there were someone on board,” Troi added, “we wouldn’t be able to communicate with them to plan the maneuver.”

  “That wouldn’t be necessary,” La Forge said. “The physics of the maneuver remain the same from any viewpoint. If anyone on the other Enterprise sees the opportunity and does the calculation, that is.”

  Picard stared at the screen. They had drawn close enough that even with the intense interference brought on by spatial compression, the sensor return image had more detail. There was an old-style shuttlecraft leading the original Enterprise toward the heart of the black hole. Picard had already concluded that the shuttlecraft was the scientific package the Garneau had expected to recover. Someone was on it. Someone vital to the security of the Federation. Was that why Kirk’s Enterprise was chasing it? But then, what had happened eighty to a hundred years ago? Obviously Kirk’s Enterprise hadn’t succeeded in saving the shuttlecraft, otherwise the Garneau wouldn’t have been dispatched in Picard’s time. But then, what had happened to Kirk’s Enterprise? Was this how Kirk had destroyed it on its final mission? What would happen if Picard interfered in the outcome? There were too many variables. Even for him.

  “Captain Picard,” Worf said suddenly.

  Picard turned to face the Klingon.

  “The original Enterprise exploded, sir.”

  Everyone was looking at Worf now. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes sir. I just remembered. Something my father taught me. In Admiral Chekov’s book, in the other histories of Kirk, everyone makes the point that Captain Kirk destroyed the Enterprise without causing any loss of life.”

  “That’s what I remember,” Picard said impatiently, wondering what point his officer was trying to make.

  “But that was not true,” Worf continued. “What the books meant was that none of Kirk’s crew died. But there was loss of life. A Klingon boarding party.”

  Picard understood. “At the time the incident took place, at the time those books were written, the Federation and the Klingon Empire were deadly enemies.”

  “I know, sir. That’s what my father taught me. That once we were such
great enemies that the Federation did not consider the deaths of Klingons to be the same as the deaths of humans.”

  “We have changed a great deal since then, Worf.”

  Worf nodded carefully, trying not to dislodge the healing emitters Dr. Crusher had attached to his head wound. “I know, but I remember more about the story, from the Klingon side. The Klingon boarding party died in an explosion. Therefore, because that Enterprise we see on the screen is still intact, it is not on its final mission.”

  Picard eagerly seized on the scrap of information. “Splendid, Worf. That’s it!” He turned back to the screen. “Captain Kirk is on that ship! He must be saved. He obviously was saved for us to have read about his latter exploits.”

  “But are we the ones to save him?” Riker asked from his chair.

  “If not us, then who?” Picard asked.

  “The only way we know how to save him is to perform a risky joint maneuver that must be executed with precise timing. How do we know Kirk even knows about that maneuver?”

  Wesley turned with an excited smile. “Sir, if Captain Kirk is on that Enterprise, then Commander Spock is with him. He’ll have figured out the maneuver. He was incredible.”

  “Even given that,” Riker said skeptically. “How can we be sure Kirk will elect to perform the joint maneuver? Maybe he’s going to choose the selfish maneuver any second, as soon as Spock works out the math. Maybe Kirk survived in the past because he consigned us to the linked singularities.”

  “As Mr. La Forge has said, Number One, the physics are the same. The law of mediocrity still holds. Kirk will understand what must be done for us both to escape.”

  “As I remember history, Kirk was not noted for being a team player, sir.”

  Picard paused in thought. Riker was correct. Kirk was entirely capable of doing the unexpected to survive, no matter what the cost.

  “Captain,” Ensign McKnight said, “we’re coming up on our point of no return. Either we break away within the next minute, or we will have to wait for the triple compression wave. And that joint maneuver will be our last and only chance to escape.”

  “Understood, Ensign,” Picard said.

  Picard looked away from the eyes of his crew to stare at the screen. The lives of everyone aboard the Enterprise rested in his hands, balanced against predicting the decision of a man who had been revered for his unpredictability, who had been perfectly capable of consigning a ship from the future to an endless fall in order to see his Enterprise survive.

  Picard’s options were clear. The guarantee of survival at the cost of consigning a hero to death, before that hero could do the same to him. Or waiting for the chance of cooperation, which might lead to joint success or, if Kirk acted first, to senseless defeat.

  It was the ultimate command decision.

  The one he had been trained to make.

  And in that moment before he gave his order, he knew what duty compelled him to do.

  FOUR

  TNC 65813

  t = ∞

  “Zefram,” the Companion said, “sing to me. As you did when we lay beneath the stars. Sing to me, so I will remember you forever.”

  Darkness loomed before the shuttlecraft once again and Cochrane knew it was the singularity that would claim them in an endless fall. Even the Companion knew that.

  But their hands were entwined and would remain so for as long as stars still shone.

  “Sing to me, Zefram.”

  He did.

  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me

  I once was lost, but now I’m found

  Was blind, yet now I see….”

  She joined him and their voices rose together in the tiny bubble of light and warmth, poised on the brink of oblivion.

  And together, there was nothing that they feared.

  “Mr. Sulu, prepare to initiate the triple-wave maneuver on Mr. Spock’s mark. Mr. Chekov, stand ready on those tractor beams to bring Cochrane’s shuttlecraft into our shields as we pass.”

  McCoy took Kirk’s arm. “Are you sure, Jim? That’s a big risk to take, counting on someone who probably hasn’t been born yet.”

  Kirk had no doubt. “That’s a Starfleet vessel out there, Bones. That means a hundred years from now, the Federation is still there, too.” Kirk took his chair. He felt nothing but confidence. “That’s what I’m counting on. Not a person. But tradition. An ideal.”

  Kirk settled back, decision made, course set, with no possibility of failure.

  “Your reasoning is most illogical,” Spock said.

  “In this case, my reasoning doesn’t have to be logical,” Kirk said lightly. “It just has to be right.” He looked behind him at his science officer and friend. “Your father might not agree with that, but I’ll bet you could persuade him.”

  Spock inclined his head as he thought for a moment. “It would require a bluff,” he said.

  “Ensign McKnight, prepare to initiate the triple-wave maneuver on Mr. Worf’s mark. Mr. O’Brien, stand ready with tractor beams to catch the shuttlecraft as we pass.”

  “Are you certain, Jean-Luc?” Riker asked. “You’re taking a big risk gambling on someone with Kirk’s reputation.”

  Picard had little doubt. “Whatever his reputation, Number One, James T. Kirk remained a part of Starfleet for almost fifty years. He wasn’t the kind of man to make that kind of commitment without feeling something for the institutions he was sworn to defend.” Picard took his chair. He was fairly certain he had made the right choice. “That’s what I’ve based my decision on. Not the person. But tradition, and the ideals he served.”

  Picard settled back, decision made, course set, with little possibility of failure. “I believe it is a logical course of action,” he said.

  Riker looked at him closely. “Another echo from Ambassador Sarek?”

  Picard was startled by the sudden feeling that Riker was somehow correct. He had a flash of another bridge surrounding him—smaller, cruder.

  “Will, I think you’re right,” Picard said. “I think that sometime in the past, Ambassador Sarek did touch the mind of Kirk.”

  “Any memory of how this turned out?” Riker asked.

  Picard concentrated but found only fleeting impressions. “No,” he said at last. “We’re going to have to discover that for ourselves.”

  FIVE

  TNC 65813

  t = ∞

  The triple compression wave moved through the Ian Shelton first, unfelt and unnoticed by Cochrane and the Companion. Their shuttlecraft was too small, their absorption in each other too strong for anything in this universe to disturb them.

  Their course was set. They flew on.

  The triple compression wave moved through Kirk’s Enterprise next, following close behind the shuttlecraft, though the nature of space in this environment defied ordinary units of distance and time. Spock measured the wave as it pulsed through his instruments, and he started the countdown.

  On Picard’s Enterprise, Worf undertook the same countdown, his forward tactical sensors pushed to their utmost limits to obtain even the weakest reading of the wave’s progression.

  When the wave reached the exact halfway point between the two ships, Worf and Spock both gave their signals at the same instant. On those signals, Sulu fired his impulse engines in full reverse, slowing Kirk’s Enterprise just as McKnight fired her impulse engines for more forward velocity.

  Picard’s Enterprise crested the triple compression wave and rushed forward, balancing the countercompression caused by Kirk’s Enterprise. Thus the triple wave rolled on between the two starships, restored, unchanged, and for all values of velocity and compression to remain equal in that environment, energy was stolen from the linked singularities. Just as Spock and La Forge had predicted.

  Both ships used that energy to alter their courses in the tightly compressed space, to swing past the black hole’s pulsing, triplelobed subspace horizon and loop around it, accelerating up toward freedom and the elect
romagnetic horizon separating them from their destinations.

  Kirk’s Enterprise and Picard’s Enterprise —they flew together, side by side, the Ian Shelton nestled between them, securely cradled by the tractor beams of both ships.

  Space flowed around the two starships as they moved together, coming so close that their shields merged in a sparkling of shared energy on a common course.

  Protected together, protecting each other, the Enterprises escaped their fate, linked not by the captains who commanded them, but by the ideals that were common to both.

  The event horizon loomed above them, and on Kirk’s Enterprise, Spock determined that they were being drawn along the wrong worldline, to a time that was not their own. On Picard’s Enterprise, La Forge calculated the same.

  It was suddenly imperative that momentum be exchanged between the ships and the means to do it was obvious to both.

  Communicating, indirectly, by common knowledge of the unchanging laws of physics, the universal law of mediocrity, Kirk’s Enterprise gently released her hold on the Ian Shelton. Just as gently, Picard’s Enterprise took up the task.

  Minutes from the event horizon, the shuttlecraft and its momentum safely exchanged, the ships parted, Kirk to his time, Picard to his own. But just before their handshake across time was broken, before their relativistic frames of reference grew too separated in the mesh of temporal distortions, someone on the bridge of Picard’s ship, someone whose straitlaced aura of correctness concealed just a touch of Kirk’s rebellion, that someone happened to touch a control that sent out an automatic hail, in complete and utter defiance of Starfleet’s strict standing orders governing the transmission of information from the future to the past.

  On the bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise, Uhura caught the hail, faint, almost nonexistent as the separation in time grew larger.

  But she did hear enough of it.

  She took her earpiece out. Wide-eyed, she turned to her captain. She told him what she had heard.

  “Captain Kirk,” she said. “They sent a hail.” She smiled in awe. “The other ship … it was the Enterprise, sir.”