Star Trek: The Lost Era - 08 - 2319 - One Constant Star

by David R. George III

Sulu nodded at the assertion, understanding the power of its simple truth. “You’re right, of course.” She peered out through the viewport again, saw the reverse question mark formed by seven stars, then leaned back in her chair. “It’ll feel good to be back aboard the Enterprise,” she said, “even if we do have to head to Foxtrot Three first and find our way back to the ship from there.”

  “I suspect that S.I. will order a vessel to take us from there to Starbase Twenty-Three. They’ll want Commander Sasine to debrief us.”

  At Harriman’s mention of Amina Sasine, Sulu actually smiled. After their weeks-long experience at Odyssey, the expression felt foreign on her face. It also felt good. “If they don’t send us to Starbase Twenty-Three, you can always request that they do.”

  Harriman’s brow pinched together. “What does that mean?” he asked. “And what is that smile for?”

  “Really?” Sulu replied. “You want me to talk about Commander Sasine?”

  “She’s the first officer of a crew stationed near the edge of the Neutral Zone and is an expert on Romulan troop deployment,” Harriman protested, as if identifying the professional reasons for him meeting with Sasine would mask the personal ones.

  “Uh-huh,” Sulu said. “And I’ve never seen you interact with anybody the way you did on Starbase Twenty-Three with Commander Sasine.”

  Harriman opened his mouth as if to deny her observation, but then he closed it without saying a word. He raised his arms and let them drop onto his thighs in a sign of surrender. “I guess that means I’m not quite as urbane as I’d hoped.”

  “Well, it’s not as though you acted like a schoolboy,” Sulu said. “But I’ve known you a long time, John, and I could tell there was something there.” She hadn’t though about the captain’s behavior around Sasine since prior to their mission, when they’d met her so that she could brief them on recent Romulan activity along the Neutral Zone. Standing a couple of centimeters taller than Harriman, the commander moved with a wispy grace that Sulu had first noticed when Sasine had served a few years previously as Enterprise’s second officer. Her tour of duty aboard the ship lasted only ten months before she accepted the position of exec aboard the Miranda-class New York. From that posting, Starfleet promoted her to commander and transferred her to the role of first officer aboard Starbase 23. “What I find peculiar is that I don’t remember any sparks between the two of you when Amina served on the Enterprise.”

  Harriman chuckled. “Good,” he said. “At least I know I can be discreet.”

  Sulu’s eyebrows rose. “Really?” she said, surprised. “You two were involved back then?”

  “No,” the captain said at once. “No, no, no. I was her commanding officer, and given our respective positions, a romance would have been inappropriate.” Sulu wondered how Harriman judged her own budding relationship with Vanetta Angelis, not to mention Aravesh ch’Vrane, but neither Vanetta nor Vesh reported directly to her, with significant steps between them in the ship’s command hierarchy. “I just meant that I’m glad to hear I was able to conceal my attraction to Commander Sasine when she was posted to the Enterprise.”

  “Well . . . mission accomplished,” Sulu said. After all they’d been through at Odyssey, after the continuous drag on her emotions, it seemed incongruous to suddenly be discussing the captain’s love life. Sulu embraced the change. “Did you get to spend any time with Amina after the briefing?”

  “I did,” Harriman said, and it delighted Sulu to see a flush climb up his cheeks. “She stopped by my cabin on the station the night before our departure. She wanted to review the specifications of the upgraded shuttle.” Harriman waved his hand to one side, a motion clearly meant to indicate the vessel in which they presently traveled.

  “But she knew that the engineer from S.I. had already taken us to the shuttle and shown us its capabilities,” Sulu said. “That sounds to me like a pretty thin excuse to see you.”

  “I thought so too,” Harriman said. “So when we were finished going over the specs, I invited her to stay for a glass of wine.”

  “How urbane,” Sulu teased. “I’m taking that it went well?”

  “Well enough that we talked about getting to know each other better after the mission,” Harriman said. He looked away for a moment, clearly self-conscious.

  “You didn’t get to know Amina when she was on the Enterprise?”

  “Not well,” the captain said. “I mean, only on a professional level. But I’m hoping to change that now.” He paused, and then the right side of his lips curled up in an expression that Sulu found boyish. “I like her a lot,” he said quietly, as though confessing a secret.

  Sulu leaned forward and touched a hand to Harriman’s knee. “That’s wonderful, John,” she said. “I hope—” A two-toned chirp from the control panel interrupted her. She examined the data that appeared on one of her displays. “Sensors are detecting a rogue planet ahead, seventy-one light-seconds from our path,” she reported.

  Working at his own station, Harriman operated a series of controls. “I’m still reading no indication of ships in the vicinity,” he said. “There could be one or more vessels hiding on the far side of the planet, though, so I’ll maintain a sensor lock.” The captain didn’t mention the possibility of cloaked ships, but Sulu supposed that he didn’t need to, since they could do nothing about them. Through the years, Starfleet had developed and installed on many of its starships equipment capable of detecting vessels veiled by the Romulan’s stealth technology—equipment with technical requirements that made it impossible to install on a shuttlecraft. None of the Federation’s cloak-penetrating matériel worked with one hundred percent effectiveness anyway, not least of all because the Empire continually worked to improve their most significant military advantage—and sometimes to redesign it entirely.

  That had been the justification for Sulu and Harriman’s covert mission. Intel collected within Romulan space revealed that the latest upgrades to their cloak involved not just incremental enhancements, but a top-to-bottom reinvention. Starfleet Command feared the possibility of Imperial Fleet ships gaining the ability to move undetectably within the Federation. S.I. had therefore tasked Sulu and Harriman with observing field tests of the latest cloak, collecting readings that would aid Starfleet scientists and engineers in penetrating the new technology. They had also been ordered to survey the Empire’s military strength and positioning along the Romulan side of the Neutral Zone. Since they had finally escaped the hold of Odyssey and would be able to deliver the data they’d accumulated to Starfleet Intelligence, they could consider their mission a success. They had gathered not just those details they’d been charged with finding, but other information about the Romulans as well. One of those facts suddenly juxtaposed itself in Sulu’s head with what had taken place afterward.

  “Captain,” she asked, “do you think what happened to us at Odyssey could have been caused by an isolytic subspace weapon?” During the course of their mission, they had recorded unusual sensor readings near the Romulan star system of Algeron. Analyzing that data, Sulu concluded that a metaweapon had ripped through that region of space, perhaps as recently as sometime in the prior century.

  “I don’t know,” Harriman said. “What we saw around Algeron was not all that close to Odyssey.”

  “No,” Sulu said, “but when it comes to subspace weapons, ‘local effects’ can range far in normal space.”

  “True,” the captain said. “And since we’re talking about devices that tear through the fabric of subspace, I suppose it’s conceivable that such a rent could have been captured in Odyssey’s gravitational field, maybe even stabilized.”

  “Maybe not just stabilized,” Sulu proposed, “but expanded.”

  Harriman nodded slowly. “I’ll include all of this in my report,” he said. “It’s possible Starfleet Command might want to investigate, but I think it more likely that they’ll simply designate the area a hazard to navigation and bar Federation vessels from traversing the region.”

/>   Sulu considered the idea of a strong gravitational field nabbing a subspace fissure and tried to work out the mathematics in her head. The problem quickly grew too complex, but even if it hadn’t, there remained too many unknowns for her to have reached a reasoned solution. “We know so little about the effects of isolytic subspace weapons,” she said, “since Starfleet’s never even tested them.”

  Captain Harriman casually returned his attention to his control panel. His nonchalance hinted to Sulu that perhaps she’d made a false assumption, that just because she didn’t know an event had taken place didn’t mean that it hadn’t happened. It troubled her to think that Starfleet had at some point tested a metaweapon of any kind, but she took solace in the sure knowledge that the Federation had eschewed their use on the field of battle.

  “We don’t know exactly what happened in the Algeron system,” Harriman said. “We don’t know if the Romulans detonated an isolytic subspace weapon themselves as part of a test, or whether they were attacked with such a weapon, or even if such a weapon was used at all. Our sensor scans suggest that might’ve happened, but our readings could’ve resulted from some sort of failed scientific experiment, or from an industrial accident, or maybe even some naturally occurring phenomenon. We just don’t know. Frankly, I’m far more concerned about the weapons and military technology that we know the Romulans do use.”

  Sulu sighed. “I hope the Empire comes back to the negotiating table.” Two years earlier, the Federation had invited the Romulans to participate in a summit aimed at entente. Months of long-distance diplomacy ultimately led to a series of meetings scheduled on the neutral world of Drixane IV. After just a few sessions, though, the Romulans had withdrawn from the talks. “I know that the Federation is seeking a durable peace. What I don’t understand is why the Empire isn’t.”

  “They trust us even less than we trust them,” Harriman said. “And after all, here we are, spying on them.”

  “For good reasons,” Sulu said.

  “I’m sure the Romulans justify whatever operatives they send into the Federation in the same way.” The captain shook his head. “I know that we need to stay current on the Empire’s cloaking technology and their ship deployment along the Neutral Zone, but it all just seems like escalation.”

  “You’re concerned that tensions could erupt into military incidents,” Sulu said.

  “I’m concerned that we’re on a path to war,” Harriman said, his expression sober. “There are so few Romulan leaders these days speaking out about the importance of maintaining interstellar peace, and too many drawing an image of the Federation as the great enemy of the Empire. And on our side, there are too many councilors spouting the same sort of thing about the Romulans.”

  “You sound like you believe war is inevitable,” Sulu noted.

  “I desperately want peace, but if a genuine rapprochement with the Romulans ever comes, it will be hard won,” the captain said. “Thank goodness for the Klingons.”

  “The Klingons?” Sulu asked, surprised by the statement.

  “Yes, thanks to the Khitomer Accords,” Harriman said, referring to the historic peace treaty between the UFP and the Klingon Empire ratified a decade earlier. “As long as the Romulans believe that the Klingons might enter any battle on the side of the Federation, they’ll be slow to risk war. If that should change . . .” He did not need to finish his sentence to convey his meaning.

  “You make it sound liked the Romulans are poised to strike, given the opportunity.”

  Harriman nodded again. “You and I wouldn’t be here if that weren’t the case.” He hesitated, then added, “Lately, I’ve been thinking that if we truly want to establish peace with the Romulans, we may have to maneuver them into it.”

  “ ‘Maneuver’ them?” Sulu asked. “How would that work?”

  “I’m not sure,” Harriman said. “But I think there might just be too many bellicose leaders at the top of the Romulan government right now for negotiation and reason to win the day.” His control panel emitted a tone, and he checked one of its displays. “We’ve passed the rogue planet,” he said. “There’s still no sign of any vessels in the area.”

  The news pleased Sulu, as did the fact that they encountered no other ships for the remainder of their journey. When they entered Federation space a day and a half later, they sent a coded burst to Foxtrot III for retransmission to Starfleet Command. Twelve hours after that, they arrived at the outpost, and not long after, U.S.S. Oglala carried them to Starbase 23, where, in separate sessions, a Starfleet Intelligence officer and then Commander Sasine debriefed them.

  Sulu felt proud in having successfully undertaken her first mission for S.I., believing that the information she and the captain had gathered about the Romulans would contribute to the overall security of the Federation. Their experiences at the star they called Odyssey stayed with her, though, the sense of loss engendered in her during the incident difficult to cast off. She began sending messages to her father on a regular basis, and she made a point to spend as much time as she could with her friends aboard Enterprise—especially Vanetta and Vesh—hoping that the increased interaction with her loved ones would fill the emptiness she felt. She wanted nothing more than to put Odyssey and its effects completely behind her, to wall off those few weeks of her life and place them squarely and permanently in her past.

  Ultimately, she would not be able to do so.

  2319

  * * *

  Enterprise

  * * *

  * * *

  1

  * * *

  As Enterprise approached the shrouded world, Captain Demora Sulu leaned forward in the command chair and studied the image on the main viewscreen. The second of seven planets in the unexplored Rejarris system, the dun-colored orb looked lifeless and uninviting, despite that it floated along the inner edge of the star’s circumstellar habitable zone. Clouds ensphered the globe, completely obscuring its surface. To Sulu, it resembled the second planet in Earth’s own solar system, Venus, and as with that desolate world, the captain expected sensors to describe an arid wasteland, with an atmosphere composed mostly of carbon dioxide, and ground-level temperatures in excess of four hundred degrees Celsius.

  “We’ve achieved standard orbit,” reported Ensign Torsten Syndergaard from his position at the helm.

  “Initiate planetary scans,” ordered the ship’s first officer, Xintal Linojj, who stood to the captain’s right. The Boslic woman maintained a workstation on the starboard curve of the circular bridge, but during the course of active operations, she often vacated her panel and took up a position beside the command chair. “Take a set of basic readings,” she went on. “Identify anything out of the ordinary that might warrant further study.” Sulu and her crew concentrated their survey of previously unvisited solar systems on those that would supply something new to the Federation’s body of knowledge. Such contributions typically came when they encountered alien life or discovered something scientifically unusual, but when they found nothing more than common stars and empty planets, they simply collated fundamental data about the astronomical objects and moved on in their journey.

  “Aye, sir, scanning,” replied Lieutenant Commander Borona Fenn. Sulu glanced to her left, over to where the Frunalian woman crewed the primary sciences station. As Fenn worked her controls, her eltis—the flesh-covered sensory appendage that extended upward from her brow, across her hairless head, and down her spine—rippled slowly, like the forward edge of a wheat field beneath the soft breath of an autumnal breeze.

  “Continue monitoring for interstellar transmissions and executing long-range scans,” Linojj said. She looked aft, past the command chair, toward the freestanding console on the raised, outer ring of the bridge, and Sulu followed her gaze. On one side of the console, Ensign Hawkins Young manned the communications station, while on the other, Commander Tenger kept watch at tactical. “We need to know if anyone enters the neighborhood.”

  Although Linojj did not specify th
e Tzenkethi Coalition by name, she didn’t need to: on their open-ended exploratory mission, the Enterprise crew had taken their ship into an unclaimed, unaligned region of space that, although distant, measured closer to the borders of the Coalition than to those of the Federation or any other known warp-capable power. Aware of the notorious territoriality and belligerence of the Tzenkethi, Starfleet Command had instructed Sulu to avoid not only a confrontation with them, but any contact at all. In the ten months Enterprise had traveled the sector, the crew had detected only two Tzenkethi vessels, both of them civilian, and which they’d given a wide berth.

  After Young and Tenger acknowledged their orders, Sulu leaned toward her first officer. “Somehow, I doubt we’ll be seeing the Tzenkethi around here,” she told Linojj. “This star and these planets won’t appeal to the Coalition any more than they do to us.” With an unexceptional main-sequence sun, five conventional gas giants, and only two terrestrial worlds—both of which appeared unsuited in the extreme for humanoid life—the Rejarris system would offer little in the way of valuable resources, and its remoteness meant that it lacked any sort of strategic worth.

  “You’re probably right, but it’s difficult to know with the Tzenkethi,” Linojj said. “They might show up just because we’re here.”

  Sulu nodded her understanding. “They do sometimes seem preoccupied with the Federation, don’t they?”

  Before Linojj could respond, Lieutenant Commander Fenn spoke up. “Captain,” she said, and in just the single word, Sulu could hear surprise in the science officer’s voice. “Sensors are reading a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere.”

  Sulu looked to Linojj, whose deep-set eyes widened beneath the smooth, protruding ridges of her brow. “Is it breathable?” the first officer asked.

  “Yes, but . . .” Fenn started, but then she operated her controls once more. Finally, she turned toward the center of the bridge. While the science officer peered at the captain with one of her eyes, Sulu saw that her other remained trained on her displays—an initially disconcerting sight back when Fenn had first joined the crew, but to which the captain had long ago grown accustomed. The eyes of Frunalians functioned independently of each other, and the organization of their brains allowed the concurrent processing of both sets of visual information. “Surface temperatures are near or below freezing almost all across the planet.”