“In addition to those refined metals,” Spock said, continuing his litany, “sensors are detecting processed woods and concrete. The materials appear to be arranged essentially in a large grid comprising numerous blocks and several open squares, all covering an area of approximately seventy-five square kilometers.”
The first officer did not end up voicing the obvious conclusion, but the captain did. “A city,” Kirk said, and he turned in his command chair to face Doctor McCoy, who stood beside him.
“Just the one, Spock?” the doctor asked. Sulu suspected that he already knew the answer to that question too.
“Yes, Doctor,” Spock said. “And, as with the lone city on the first planet in the R-Seven-Seven-Five system, those materials of urban construction are in disorder, indicating some level of decay or destruction.”
“Population?” the captain wanted to know, though Sulu understood that Kirk surely had his suspicions. The helmsman figured that, at that moment, every person on the bridge did.
“The area is uninhabited,” Spock replied.
Kirk pushed up out of the command chair and crossed to the starboard steps, though he did not ascend them. Sulu watched Doctor McCoy follow the captain and take up a position next to him. Both men looked up at Spock. “I didn’t hear you mention rodinium or tritanium in the list of refined metals,” Kirk said. Sulu remembered that the two had been present on R-775-I, in the hulls of wrecked ships. “Can you confirm their absence from the area?”
“Sensors did not detect any within the confines of the city,” Spock said, “but if you recall, that was also the case on the other planet; the incapacitated warp ships lay outside the de facto municipal borders.”
“Widen the focus of the sensors to check in the surrounding areas,” Kirk said. “I also want you to scan for anything resembling the hidden, subterranean missile installations we found on the other planet.” Once the Enterprise crew had unmasked the launch sites, Sulu recalled, they had also discerned how to identify them even in their concealment.
“Aye, sir,” Spock said. The first officer turned to his console, where he rapidly pressed a sequence of buttons, then bent to peer into his hooded viewer.
“You think it’s the same situation as on the other planet?” Sulu heard McCoy ask the captain.
“I don’t know, Bones,” Kirk said. “We’re in roughly the same region of space as when we surveyed the R-Seven-Seven-Five system, the sensor readings are exceedingly similar, and we’re talking about a distinctive and unusual set of circumstances: a single, dead city on the surface of an otherwise untouched world. It seems too coincidental for there to be no connection.”
“I agree,” McCoy said. “What are you going to do about it?” At the helm, Sulu nodded to himself, both because he concurred with what the captain had said, and because he wanted to find out just how Kirk intended to proceed.
The captain peered past McCoy toward the main viewscreen, and Sulu turned his head in that direction. The second world in a system that Starfleet designated R-836 filled the bottom portion of the viewer. It looked to Sulu perhaps a few shades bluer than its apparent counterpart in R-775, with differently shaped land masses, but otherwise, the two planets showed little difference.
The captain drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Sulu looked back over as Kirk answered the doctor’s question. “I think there’s only one thing we reasonably can do,” he said. “Investigate.”
McCoy’s brow knitted, and he tossed a thumb back over his shoulder toward Spock. “Aren’t we already investigating?” he asked the captain.
“If it’s safe,” Kirk said, “if there are no missile compounds, or if there are and we can render them inoperative—”
“You mean blow them up,” McCoy interjected. Though the doctor spoke the truth, Sulu didn’t quite understand the point he intended his statement to make. The captain ignored the interruption.
“Once it’s safe,” he went on, “we’ll need to send a landing party down to the surface to make sure we know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
At the helm, Sulu felt what seemed like a rush of adrenaline course through his body, as though experiencing a fight-or-flight response to danger. I am having that response, he thought, just not to danger I’ll be facing. He knew that if Captain Kirk decided to enlist a landing party to examine the city on the planet below—or more likely, the ruins of a dead city—he would likely include the ship’s A-and-A officer among its members. Sulu’s stomach churned at the idea of Trinh heading into any situation that could potentially threaten her life.
“I don’t know, Jim,” McCoy said. “I’m not entirely sure how reasonable it would be to beam anybody down to that planet. Last time we did that in a similar situation, we ended up with a nonfunctional warp nacelle and seven dead crew members.” Sulu appreciated McCoy arguing on the side of caution.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Kirk snapped, clearly upset by McCoy’s comment. “I’m not about to risk anybody’s life unnecessarily.”
The captain’s declaration pleased Sulu, but the lieutenant also knew that in the more than four and a half years of Enterprise’s mission, dozens of the crew had died in the performance of their duties. He wondered how many of those lives Kirk believed had been put at unnecessary risk. Sulu assumed that the captain’s answer would be zero, and yet none of those Starfleet officers had made it safely back home.
“Captain,” Spock said from where he peered into his hooded viewer, “sensors have detected tritanium and rodinium outside the city, in quantities that would suggest several small spacecraft, just as we discovered on the other world. Also as before, I read no active warp engines.”
“And what about any camouflaged missile complexes?” Kirk asked.
“Since encountering such installations on the other planet,” Spock said, “we have added subroutines to the sensor protocols that will automatically recognize similar readings. We have not yet scanned the entire globe, but to this point, no such readings have manifested themselves.”
“But obviously you’ve scanned the surface in relative proximity to the city,” Kirk said. “Can we conclude, then, that there are no missile emplacements?”
“We can only state with certainty that, in the seventy-two-point-six percent of the planet we’ve scanned,” Spock said, “there are no such facilities.”
“Recommendations?” Kirk asked the first officer.
“Complete our scans of the surface,” Spock said. “If we locate missile facilities, we can disable them. Once we have done that, or once we have ascertained that no such facilities have been constructed on this world, I recommend transporting a small landing party down to the city in order to learn more.”
Kirk nodded. “It’s important to know if we’re dealing with the same situation on both planets,” he said. “Did the aliens who settled the first city also settle this one? Did the same faction attack both? And why has this destruction taken place?”
“I agree,” Spock said.
“Now wait a minute,” McCoy said. Sulu felt grateful to the doctor for affirming his opposition. “I agree with you two that, since Starfleet’s decided to traipse around this section of the galaxy, it’s important for us to figure out what’s been going on down on these planets, if for no other reason than the possibility that we might be able to prevent it from happening somewhere else. But it’s also important to realize that we can’t save this city or the first one, or anyone who might have died in them, and we certainly won’t resolve anything by getting any more of our own people killed.” Sulu wanted to stand up and applaud the doctor’s sentiments.
“I would point out that the situations are different,” Spock said, “in that we were surprised by the attacks at the first planet. The reason that the landing parties could not immediately be transported to safety in system R-Seven-Seven-Five was because the ship was attacked at the same time as our personnel on the surface. The unexpected attack on the Enterprise succeeded to the extent that it did because it happene
d without warning, and because our defenses were down. Once prepared for the attacks, we had no difficulty in protecting ourselves.”
The captain turned toward the helm. “Shields up, Mister Sulu,” he said. “Ready main phasers.”
Sulu sent his hands darting across his panel. “Shields up full,” he said once he’d raised the ship’s defensive screens. “Main phasers on standby.”
“Should you choose to send a landing party down to the planet, Captain,” Spock said, “we can keep the shields raised to protect the ship. Recall what we learned at the first planet. Were the Enterprise to be attacked with similar missiles, we can employ the ship’s phasers to destroy them. A measurable interval occurred between the attacks, and should this be true again, that would provide sufficient time to safely lower the shields, bring back the landing party, and renew our defenses.”
“Agreed,” Kirk said. “Still, I would be more comfortable confirming that there are no missile installations on the planet, or disabling them if there are. How long will it take to finish scanning the entire surface?”
“At the present rate,” Spock said, “fifteen hours, forty minutes.” He did not consult his console in announcing the duration of the sensor sweep, but Sulu did not doubt his accuracy.
“So we’ll complete our scans by approximately zero-seven-thirty tomorrow,” Kirk said. “What portion of the day will that be in the city?”
Spock turned back to the science station, pushed a button, then bent and gazed into his viewer. Sulu watched him work the circular control on its side, then stand back to his full height. “Zero-seven-thirty ship’s time will coincide with early afternoon in the city.”
“Good, then it’ll be light out,” Kirk said. “Pending the outcome of your scans, Mister Spock, we’ll transport down a landing party at the beginning of alpha shift tomorrow morning.” The captain regarded the doctor, and with a light tone, asked, “Bones, are you up for a little more exploring?”
“What if I said no?” McCoy replied.
“Then I’d order you to go anyway,” the captain said with a grin. Sulu recognized Kirk’s attempt to lighten the mood, perhaps in an effort to reassure the doctor—Or maybe to reassure the entire bridge crew, he thought—but it didn’t ease the helmsman’s concerns.
“That’s what I figured,” McCoy said, apparently capitulating. The doctor’s sudden equanimity troubled Sulu, who had hoped for a continued protest against beaming a landing party down to the city.
“Spock, considering our experiences on the first planet, and allowing for potential danger here,” Kirk said, “I want you to remain aboard the Enterprise. I’ll take Doctor McCoy, Ensign Davis, Ensign Trinh, and two security guards.” The mention of Trinh caused a wave of anxiety to break over Sulu.
“I shall see to it, Captain,” Spock said.
“If sensors pick up anything at all on the planet—weapons, life signs, a power generator—I want to be informed at once,” Kirk said. “Shields will remain up at all times.”
“Acknowledged,” Spock said.
Sulu saw the doctor glance toward the helm-and-navigation console. “Well, the day shift is almost over,” McCoy said to Kirk. “Care to have a last supper together?”
“Very funny, Doctor,” Kirk said, though clearly the comment had not amused him. He crossed the bridge and sat back down in the command chair, his demeanor serious. “I’m going to wait for the beta-shift duty officer so I can apprise her of the situation directly.” The captain seemed to relent a bit then, telling McCoy, “I’ll meet you in the mess hall.”
“All right,” the doctor said, and he headed for the turbolift.
Sulu knew that the moment alpha shift ended, he’d be right behind McCoy. Sulu hadn’t had plans to meet Trinh until hours later—he’d scheduled a vershaan training session in the gym with Clien, and then after showering and changing, a dinner with the Andorian—but he couldn’t wait that long to see her. He would postpone his plans with Clien and go find the woman he loved.
In that instant, Sulu wanted nothing else but to see Trinh, and to hold her in his arms as long and as tightly as he possibly could.
• • •
They walked through the city—What remains of the city, Trinh thought—for hours.
Before that, the landing party had materialized outside the urban expanse, in a mountainous region located to the south. In the cool shade cast by a tall peak, Captain Kirk led the group to three large fields of wreckage, each of them separated from the others by enough distance to indicate that it had required discrete attacks to cause all the destruction. The mounds of debris, charred blacker than the shadows draped across them, resembled nothing even remotely recognizable to Trinh. She could discern that whatever had occupied that space had been blasted apart and set ablaze; some pieces of metal, both large and small, showed signs of shattering, while others drooped and wavered, rigid surfaces that had obviously turned malleable under the influence of great heat.
Ensign Davis, one of Enterprise’s junior scientists, had detected with his tricorder substantial amounts of tritanium among the shards and fragments left behind. “A hull, then,” the captain concluded, and no one disagreed. They all knew that a number of disabled spacecraft—warp-capable vessels—had been discovered near the empty city on R-775-I.
“In that case, it looks like they might have been trying to hide them,” Doctor McCoy had remarked. “Just like on the first planet.” Trinh recalled that the ships there had been located in a large cave system, as well as in a low valley, both sites out beyond the borders of the city. The Enterprise crew had drawn the conclusion that the inhabitants had attempted to secrete the vessels away from their attackers, and examination of those ships had yielded a likely reason: they possessed only minimal weaponry. When the cities had been assaulted, the ships could not have substantially aided in defending them, only in providing a means of escape. Once populations had come under fire, they must have wanted to conceal the ships for that purpose—though it appeared that, in the end, their annihilation had prevented their flight.
When the members of the landing party had finished their investigation in the mountains, they transported to the outskirts of the destroyed city, where sensors indicated an easier passage along the thoroughfares that divided the area into blocks. The bright sunlight that shined down on the demolished landscape seemed to Trinh like an exposé, as though the star around which the planet orbited had laid bare the ruthless attack on the people who had once called the place home. She did not know who had dealt such viciousness to those who’d attempted to settle that world, nor did she know their reasons for doing so, but she found herself hating them.
Even before they’d begun exploring the city, Trinh had executed a scan of the materials employed in constructing it. An analysis of her sensor readings told her that, as on the first planet, the settlement had not existed for long. She estimated that it had been established less than a year earlier, and more than likely, not even half that far back.
At the periphery of the city, some buildings still stood, though not a single exterior door or window remained intact. Mostly one story, and never more than two, the structures appeared in Trinh’s imagination as homes. Here and there, she could see patches of color on the outer walls, though most of the paint had been either singed or melted away. Many of the houses—If that’s what they were—attached to small, open plots of land. Wild vegetation covered a few of those spaces, but most had become desiccated tracts of fallow soil. Trinh envisioned residents of the city tending small gardens, helping to feed themselves, and thereby contributing to the sustainability of their settlement.
Captain Kirk had wanted to enter some of the buildings, as had Trinh, but one of the security officers—Lieutenant Roger Stack—reported that the blasts that had totally destroyed many structures had also left those still standing extremely unstable. The captain contented himself with approaching some of the empty doorways and window frames to peer inside. Trinh accompanied Captain Kirk when he did
so, but she saw little more than burned-out interiors.
As they’d walked through the city, taking readings and trying to learn all they could about what had taken place there, they searched in particular for some means of verifying that the alien species who’d settled there had also settled the lost colony in the R-775 system. To some extent, the two sets of ruins resembled each other, but what could distinguish between one collection of broken buildings and another? The degree of destruction in the two cities prevented any meaningful comparison of architecture.
At several points along their route, though, the Enterprise crew members had espied written characters. They saw two rendered in wood, hanging off-center and askew, above an empty doorway that led through the lone standing wall of one building. Several more appeared on a metal sign lying on the ground, the top portion sheared away. The ideogrammic characters resembled those Trinh had seen on the first planet, on the hull of one of the spacecraft, but when she compared them, using the records on her tricorder, she saw that none of them matched up.
Later, though, Trinh had spotted an identifiable shape peeking from beneath a mass of crumbling concrete and twisted steel. She started to climb over a half-fallen run of fencing in order to retrieve the object, but because of the uncertain footing, Lieutenant Stack insisted on doing so himself. When he returned, he carried what Trinh had spotted: a hardbound book, with only one green corner of its back cover differentiating itself from the rest of its burned, blackened form. But it had landed open on the ground, as though a reader had set it down like that before stepping away, so that they could find their place in the text when they returned to it.
Trinh had opened the book as best she could, but most of its seared pages disintegrated in her hands. In the middle of the volume, though, she turned to four pages, parts of which had survived the inferno ignited by the attack. She juxtaposed the characters there with the writing she’d recorded on the first planet. A few of the ideograms matched precisely.
Star Trek: TOS: Allegiance in Exile Page 14