The Latter Fire

by James Swallow

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  This book is dedicated to the memory of Leonard Nimoy, who passed away during its writing.

  One

  He stood with the last few items of packing in his hands—a couple of off-duty shirts he had picked up at a market on Axanar, a paper book that had been a gift from his grandparents—and hesitated, his gaze ranging around the small cabin.

  Aside from the kit bag lying on the bed, the compartment was bare of any touches that might have indicated the personality of the officer who had lived there for the past three years.

  Pavel Chekov sighed; he was about to depart the U.S.S. Enterprise and leave no footprint behind. Given all that had happened to him during his tour, all the amazing things he had seen and done, it seemed anti­climactic to think that this was how a chapter of his life was going to end.

  Chekov glanced around, peering into the corners of the room. He pretended he was looking for anything he might have forgotten, but he knew there was nothing. The truth was, he was more reluctant to leave than he wanted to admit. And despite the goodwill, well-wishing, and speeches that were offered last night in the officer’s lounge, he couldn’t escape the fear that he was making the wrong choice.

  In many ways, his time on the Enterprise had been the making of him, leading him to where he was now. Chekov fingered the unfamiliar red uniform tunic he wore, indicative of his recent change of assignment from navigation to security.

  A high-toned chime sounded at his door, and the young officer’s face tensed in a frown. “Come in,” he called, returning to the work of packing the bag as the door hissed open. “I will be ready in a moment—”

  “Take your time, Ensign.” His commanding officer entered, a wry smile playing on his lips.

  Chekov immediately straightened to parade-ground attention, a reflexive reaction to the presence of Captain James T. Kirk that he had never quite been able to shake off. “Sir! Is there a problem?” Kirk didn’t typically make it down to “junior officers country,” the decks where section heads below the rank of lieutenant commander were billeted, and Chekov couldn’t hide his surprise.

  Kirk’s smile widened. “I was heading down to the transporter room, Pavel. I thought I’d walk you out.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, and both men knew it. The captain had come out of his way to stop by Chekov’s quarters, and the gesture meant a lot to the ensign. He nodded and closed up the kit bag. “Thank you, sir.”

  Kirk wandered to the circular porthole in the outer wall of the cabin. “Good view. I’m the captain, and even I don’t get a view.” Outside, hanging against a blanket of deep black and far distant stars, another Starfleet ship the mirror image of the Enterprise kept pace with them.

  Chekov rocked on his heels and didn’t say what he was thinking, that senior officers had staterooms in the more heavily protected parts of the ship, while the lower—some might uncharitably have said more expendable—­ranks had cabins on the outer hull. Instead he indicated the other vessel. “I thought you would be on the bridge for the rendezvous with the Arcadia, sir.”

  “Captain Matsumoto is not the talkative type,” said Kirk, with a shake of the head. “As you’ll find out. An automated hail was all we got.” He looked away from the port. “So, you’ll be going straight back to Earth for your security training?”

  Chekov nodded again. “Aye, Captain. An intensive course at Starfleet’s Reed Annex in London. I am looking forward to the challenge.”

  “You’ll make us proud,” Kirk replied.

  “I will do my best.” He picked up his bag. “I should go.”

  Kirk took a breath. “I remember when I came to the end of my assignment on the Republic. Felt like . . . leaving home all over again.” Then the captain stepped toward the door, and the two of them walked out. “But it’s just a cabin. Just a ship. There will be others.”

  Chekov sighed. “I don’t know, sir. The Enterprise . . . she is quite special.”

  “You won’t get any disagreement from me,” said Kirk, leading him to the turbolift. “But someday you’ll have a command of your own. And then everything will seem different.”

  The ensign blinked. “You think I could be a . . . captain?”

  Kirk shot him a mock-serious look. “Of this ship? That’ll be the day.” The turbolift hummed to a halt before them. “But in the meantime, there’s always a place for you on my bridge, Pavel.”

  “I . . .” He was briefly at a loss for words as the lift doors opened. “Thank you!”

  “This car arrived of its own accord,” said Commander Spock, watching them from inside the lift. “No expression of gratitude is required.”

  “And of course I’m sure you’ll greatly miss my first officer’s wit,” Kirk deadpanned.

  Chekov gave a rueful smile. “I think I’ll be back, Captain. You can count on that.”

  * * *

  Kirk watched the ensign fade away into a haze of golden particles. He was going to miss the eager young Russian. Glancing across to the officer standing behind the controls, he waved at the transporter pad. “Were we ever that young, Scotty?”

  The engineer gave the captain a sideways look. “Age is just a number, sir,” he offered, resetting the controls to synchronize with the Arcadia’s systems. “And youth is just a point of view.”

  “Spoken like a man with the wisdom of his years,” Kirk replied with a grin.

  “I find the human obsession with aging to be quite perplexing,” noted Spock, standing close by with his hands folded behind his back. “The passage of time cannot be halted or reversed. What merit is there in opposing it?”

  “Easy to say when your species has a life span that can reach over two hundred years.” Kirk made a show of looking his first officer up and down. “You’re in your forties, by Earth standards, is that right?”

  “Correct, Captain.”

  “So by a Vulcan scale, that would make you . . . a teenager?”

  Spock raised an eyebrow. “I have always been mature for my age.”

  “And then some.” Kirk drew himself up. “Are we ready for our new arrivals?”

  “Energizing.” Scott deftly worked the control sliders on the console, and three columns of light appeared where Chekov had been standing.

  The materialization effect phased out to reveal a trio of nonhumans on the pads. The first two were dressed in civilian attire. On the right was an austere and watchful Andorian male with a shorn scalp and pale azure skin, while to the left a willowy Rhaandarite woman in a flowing dress of earthy colors surveyed the transporter room with a cool, haughty air.

  “Welcome aboard the Enterprise,” began Kirk, showing the particular winning smile he maintained for every Federation ambassador, diplomat, or other non-Fleet representative. “Envoy Xuur, I presume?”

  The woman nodded, and the light caught a jeweled band she wore across her wide, high-domed forehead. “Well met, Captain Kirk. I am Veygaan Xuur of the Federation Diplomatic Corps, and this is my aide ch’Sellor.” She indicated the Andorian, who said nothing, his antenna drooping in silent greeting. “And you must be Commander Spock.” Xuur stepped off the transporter pad, glancing between the other officers. “And Chief Engineer Scott?” Her voice had a musical quality that Kirk found quite charming.

  “Greetings, Envoy,” sai
d Spock. “Forgive me, but I do not believe we have met.”

  “We have not,” she said airily, the metallic flicker of her eyes darting back and forth. “But I make a point of researching the background of all the Starfleet crews I am tasked to work with.”

  “I wasn’t aware the FDC kept records on us,” Kirk noted. Starfleet’s own briefing packet on Xuur had been thin at best, noting her successes as a first contact specialist but little else.

  Xuur gave him an indulgent smile. “We do. In fact, Ambassador Robert Fox’s reports on the Enterprise and her crew make some quite interesting reading.”

  “No doubt,” Kirk allowed, schooling his expression to hide his dismay. A few years earlier, it had been Fox’s obstinate manner that had led to the Enterprise being caught in a conflict between the planets Eminiar and Vendikar, and there was no love lost between Kirk and the ambassador.

  The captain’s attention moved briefly to the one person still standing on the transporter pad, a tall, gangly being in the mustard-yellow tunic and dark trousers of a Starfleet operations uniform. Thin-necked, with a lumpen head and deep-set eyes, Lieutenant Arex Na Eth’s Triexian physiology meant that where most humanoid species possessed a bilateral symmetry of limbs, he had an additional third arm in the center of his chest and a third leg at the base of his spine. Kirk had met natives of Triex before, but never served alongside them, and he knew the reputation their species had as superlatively dexterous individuals. Many Triexians were notable surgeons or engineers, and there was even a particular concert pianist with a quadrant-wide following. Arex, however, was one of the finest navigation officers in the fleet and a former instructor at the Academy. When his application for shipboard duty had passed across the captain’s desk in the wake of Chekov’s planned departure, Kirk seized on it.

  He gave the navigator a nod of greeting. “Mister Arex.” Kirk felt the momentary impulse to offer a handshake, then halted, uncertain of what the protocol was for a being with three limbs.

  Arex didn’t seem to notice. “Reporting for duty, sir. I am honored to have the opportunity to join your crew.” He spoke with a high, slightly nasal register.

  Ch’Sellor discreetly handed a data padd to Xuur, who in turn offered it to Spock. “If I may direct us to the matter at hand, gentlemen,” she said. “The documents contained on that device encompass the full scope of our mission.”

  “The opening of formal diplomatic ties between the United Federation of Planets and the people of the Syhaari Gathering,” said Spock. “We have been fully briefed.”

  “By Starfleet,” ch’Sellor spoke for the first time. His voice was dry and measured. “The Diplomatic Corps must address different requirements. We are about to embark upon a highly sensitive contact protocol, Commander Spock. The utmost care must be taken.”

  “I did not suggest otherwise,” said the Vulcan.

  “What my colleague means,” Xuur added, “is that we wish to proceed with alacrity. Captain Kirk, if you could please call an immediate meeting with your senior staff, we can begin without delay.”

  “You wouldn’t prefer to be shown to your quarters first?” said Kirk.

  “I wish to start as I mean to go on,” insisted the envoy. “I see little point in wasting time.”

  Kirk shot his first officer a loaded look, which Spock returned with typically impassive Vulcan calm. “As you wish. The commander will escort you to the briefing room.”

  “We know the way.” Xuur inclined her head and gave a graceful smile, pausing at the threshold of the corridor. “Captain . . . I am aware that your previous dealings with the FDC have not always run . . .” She paused, choosing her words with care. “Smoothly.”

  “That’s for sure,” muttered Scott, loud enough for Kirk to hear.

  “I promise you that this mission will be different,” continued the Rhaandarite, her gaze steady. “We are committed to bringing the offer of alliance to the Syhaari, with an efficient and untroubled diplomatic effort.” Then her tone hardened. “All of which will come to pass as long as the crew of the Enterprise do their duties.”

  Whatever reply was forming on Kirk’s lips was never spoken, as Xuur turned her back on him and set off down the corridor.

  “I had heard that the Rhaandarite species were a simplistic race,” noted Lieutenant Arex. “But on secondary consideration, the envoy seems like quite a willful person.”

  Kirk frowned and glanced at Spock. “Is it too late for me to go back to Earth with Chekov?”

  * * *

  Leonard McCoy didn’t say much through the introduction of the envoy and her assistant, and the captain’s précis of their new assignment. He and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, who sat across the briefing room table from him, had been summoned from the middle of other duties without so much as a by-your-leave, and the doctor hadn’t bothered to hide his irritation about it.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t understand this mission was an important one, but he disliked the implicit suggestion that the work of a ship’s chief medical officer was something that could just be stopped and started like the playback on a tri-screen. While the delegation to the Syhaari homeworld of Syhaar Prime was not laden with the same unknowns a true first contact would bring up, there were still a lot of things that could cause problems from a medical standpoint. McCoy had been working extra shifts with Nurse Chapel to run through all available data on the Syhaari and their native environment; the last thing anyone wanted was for someone in the Enterprise’s crew to have an ­unplanned-for reaction to unfamiliar bacteria or, worse, for a Federation representative to bring potentially hazardous offworld microbes into an alien ecosystem.

  He scowled and took in the room. Uhura was attentive and focused, Spock had the same damned neutral aspect he always showed, and the envoy and her aide were listening intently to the captain’s explanation of their planned course out across the unexplored fringes of the Beta Quadrant.

  When the Andorian spoke up, it was from out of nowhere. “The Syhaari specifically asked for you and the Enterprise to convey us to them, Captain Kirk. Why is that?”

  Jim gave a small shrug. “Simply put . . . they know us.”

  “They?” echoed the envoy. She smiled, and McCoy’s dislike of the woman crystallized.

  The expression wasn’t genuine. It was like a learned thing that Xuur had been trained to emulate by rote. McCoy had little time for civil servants, it had to be said. In his experience, they tended to fill the air with words and get precious little done in the meantime.

  Xuur went on before Kirk could reply. “Forgive me, Captain. I’ve read your mission report from the initial contact between the Federation and the Syhaari, but I would greatly prefer to hear the details directly from you. Would you indulge me?”

  “Of course,” said Kirk, shifting gears. “Uhura, can you bring up the file from that stardate?”

  “Aye, sir.” The communications officer’s slender fingers tapped out a string of commands on her slate and the tri-screen in the middle of the table blinked to life. On the screen there was a sensor image of a Syhaari vessel, a sleek thing like an elongated dart with aerodynamic winglets that ended in stubby propulsor pods. It resembled the ancient, fanciful ideas of rocket ships that had once been part of the fiction of Earth’s pre–Eugenics Wars age.

  “Translated from the Syhaari tongue, they named this ship The Explorer Beyond,” noted Spock. “A basic, if accurate, sobriquet.”

  “How many had perished before you found them?” The Andorian’s question was flat and without emotion.

  Kirk briefly caught McCoy’s eye. “Six, out of a crew of fifty-four. Most of them killed by the radiation surge that had knocked the ship out of warp drive.”

  “The others died of complications due to delta radiation poisoning,” McCoy snapped, remembering the familiar horror of the injuries written across the bodies of the aliens. “There was nothing we could do for them.”


  “But nevertheless, you intervened immediately?” Xuur aimed the question at Kirk. “Even though they were a completely undiscovered intelligent species?”

  “Of course.” Kirk didn’t hesitate in his reply. “We had never made contact with these beings before, that’s true. But they were in space, aboard a vessel equipped with their own version of a warp drive. A civilization capable of faster-than-light travel doesn’t fall under the noninterference auspices of the Prime Directive.”

  “That is debatable,” insisted ch’Sellor.

  “But perhaps not relevant at this moment,” Xuur intercepted easily. “Please continue, Captain.”

  Kirk leaned forward in his chair. “It was nearly two years ago. We came across the Explorer after Lieutenant Uhura had detected a series of low-band subspace radio emissions.”

  “They don’t have long-range subspace comms as we do,” added Uhura. “They were broadcasting a distress call. One that would never have reached their own people in time to save them.”

  Kirk nodded. “The ship was primitive by our standards, capable of reaching speeds just above warp factor one, but they couldn’t sustain it. There was a serious malfunction in their power core and that led to the radiation surge. When we found them, they were adrift in deep space . . .” He paused. “They were, at best, a week away from total life-support failure. So we helped.”

  “They were lucky,” said Xuur.

  “Not all of them,” McCoy muttered. “We quickly discovered that Syhaari physiology was compatible with a number of humanoid medicines. We adapted what anti-rad drugs we had and distributed them to Kaleo and her crew.”

  “Kaleo . . .” The Andorian used a panel in front of him to change the image on the view to one of the alien captain. “She was the Syhaari female in command of the mission.”

  Like the rest of her species, Kaleo was a muscular, rangy humanoid with long arms and a body covered with a downy coat of fur. Her kind were simian in aspect, with limbs that ended in dual-thumbed hands and feet, and round, animated faces not unlike some of the great apes of Earth. McCoy had immediately liked Kaleo on their first meeting, when she had demonstrated great concern over the lives of her crew before herself or her mission.