by Kevin Ryan
Then he headed for the door. Spock immediately followed.
“Come on, Mr. Spock, let’s go home.”
Chapter Twenty-three
WHEN KIRK AND SPOCK stepped onto the bridge, the captain felt all eyes on them. He did not repress his smile and saw that he was not the only one smiling.
Mr. Scott got out of the command chair, beaming.
“Welcome back, sirs,” Scotty said.
“Thank you, Mr. Scott,” he said, taking a moment to scan the bridge. “And thanks to all of you who made sure that we had a ship to come back to. Excellent work today, all of you,” he said.
Kirk settled into his command chair and felt some of the day’s tension leaving him. He was home and the ship was safe. Whatever happened in the next few months, he took comfort in those two things.
The captain felt McCoy’s absence on the bridge at times like this, but the doctor would be busy for some time with a full sickbay and his staff running back and [240] forth to the starbase hospital, where more of the injured were being treated.
Given the size and scope of the conflict, there were relatively few wounded. The Klingons, apparently, did not believe in half measures. They did not take prisoners and they were not satisfied with merely injuring someone enough to keep them out of the fight.
And they were prepared to destroy a planet full of their own people, Kirk thought. Whatever happened, the Federation could not afford to lose to the Klingons.
He had a hundred duties to attend to and many of them were unpleasant. However, before he began there was something he needed to do. Looking around, he suspected the crew needed it just as much.
“Mr. Spock, how long until the Klingon escort arrives?” Kirk asked.
“Four point eight minutes,” the Vulcan said.
“Lieutenant Uhura, hail the commander of the D’k tahg,” Kirk said, gesturing to the damaged Klingon cruiser that was now at the center of the viewscreen.
“No response,” Uhura said.
Kirk smiled. He had been expecting that.
“Mr. Sulu, please fire phasers across the Klingon ship’s bow,” he said. “And Sulu, make it very close.”
“Aye, sir,” Sulu said.
Kirk did not have to see the helmsman’s face to know that he was smiling.
“Firing phasers,” Sulu said as two red beams lanced out toward the Klingon ship and came remarkably close to the front of the vessel.
“Excellent shooting, Lieutenant,” the captain said.
[241] Kirk waited. It would not be long.
“I have the Klingon commander, Captain,” Uhura said.
“Good,” Kirk replied as he stood up. “Put him on the screen and put the transmission on shipwide audio.”
A moment later a Klingon appeared on the screen. The Klingon’s face was unreadable.
“I am Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise,” Kirk said.
“I am Koloth, captain of the Klingon battle cruiser D’k tahg. I protest your resumption of hostilities when a cease-fire agreement has been agreed to by both our governments.”
“That was not hostility, Captain Koloth, I assure you,” Kirk said. “If hostility had been our intention, we would not have missed and you would not still be there talking to me.”
There it was: rage. The Klingon was not so hard to read after all.
“Consider it a message,” Kirk continued. “And I have another message for you to take back to your High Command. We know what you were doing here today, Captain. And we know what the Klingon Empire is planning. You were beaten by a starship and her crew. You were defeated by the lesser race you call Earthers. There are eleven more out there waiting for any Klingon vessel or force to move against the Federation. If you choose to forget the lesson of today, we will be glad to reenlighten you.
“We are a peaceful people, by nature, but when we are roused to fighting we do not lose. The Klingon Empire will challenge us at its own peril,” Kirk said.
Kirk was not sure how the Klingon commander [242] would respond, but he had not expected the smile that suddenly graced Koloth’s lips.
“My dear Captain Kirk, I have found our encounter today exhilarating. I look forward to meeting you again.”
The Klingon’s face disappeared from the screen and was replaced by the Klingon cruiser.
“Captain,” Uhura said. “We’re being hailed from the second Klingon cruiser.”
“Keep them waiting for a few minutes, Lieutenant,” Kirk said. “Then talk to them and see that they take the D’k tahg and get out of Federation space as quickly as possible.” .
“Yes, sir,” she said.
From what Kirk knew about the Klingons, the commander would see it as an insult that Kirk did not speak to him personally.
Good.
“Captain,” Uhura said, “I also have the prime minister of the government on the planet’s surface.”
“On screen, Lieutenant,” Kirk said, and a moment later a surprisingly young man who was in his early thirties and was wearing civilian clothes appeared on the screen.
Kirk smiled and said, “This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise. What can I do for you, Mr. Prime Minister?”
As soon as the prime minister began speaking, his face twisted in a way that told Kirk everything he needed to know. “This is Prime Minister Althaus. I would like to know exactly when Starfleet intends to continue their pullout. We have negotiated a very clear schedule, Captain.”
[243] “With all due respect, Mr. Prime Minister, there is a new security concern that—”
“We have an arrangement!” Althaus said.
Kirk stood up and raised his own voice. “Mr. Althaus, a fully armed Klingon battle cruiser, a second Klingon battle cruiser, is approaching this system and will be here in a few minutes, but if you like the Enterprise will leave the system right now.”
“I ... did not mean ... just the Enterprise,” Althaus said. Then the prime minister was momentarily silent. When he spoke again, it was with a much softer voice. “We want to be reasonable, Captain, but we have an arrangement with Starfleet and a timetable.”
“I am afraid that that timetable will have to change. Like it or not, your planet has just become very important both because of its strategic position and its dilithium crystals. And the Klingons know you are there,” Kirk said.
The prime minister was once again speechless.
“Now, we will have to finish this discussion tomorrow,” the captain said. “We have lost a lot of people today and we’re very busy. Kirk out.”
The captain waited until the Klingon ship arrived, engaged its tractor beam on the D’k tahg, and warped out of the system.
When the two ships were well on their way to Klingon space, Kirk got to his feet and said, “Mr. Spock, the bridge is yours. I will be in my quarters.”
When his doors closed behind him, Kirk sat at his desk, hit the intercom, and said, “Kirk to sickbay.”
There was a pause of a few seconds, and then the doctor’s voice replied, “McCoy here.”
[244] “Bones, what is your situation?” Kirk said.
He could hear the doctor take a breath before he spoke. “We have everyone stabilized and the last one just came out of surgery.”
“Do we have a count of the casualties?” Kirk asked.
“Not yet, but it’s bad, Jim, maybe the worst this ship has seen. We’re setting up morgues on the station and on board. It will be a while before we have a final count, because there were some disintegrations. We do have some positive identifications and, well, Jim, we have confirmed that both Sam Fuller and Admiral Justman are dead.”
Kirk was silent for a long moment.
“We will have a full report by midday tomorrow,” McCoy said finally.
“Thank you, Bones, Kirk out,” the captain said as he hit the intercom button that closed the communication.
It seemed impossible. Admiral Justman was the Hero of Donatu V. A legend and part of Starfleet’s living histo
ry.
Of course, Kirk had studied the battle at the Academy. And he had done some further research and had read the admiral’s reports of the time.
The then-lieutenant’s account in his own words had had a powerful effect on Kirk as a cadet. They had also helped shape the next twenty-five years of Starfleet history.
What had Justman called the Constitution ... ?
A ship of dreams.
The performance of that ship, unfinished and untested, had helped insure the future of the starship program.
Now there were twelve ships ... twelve dreams.
[245] And those twelve might be the only things that stood in the way of the end of Starfleet, the end of the Federation: the end of everything.
The admiral had left something behind. He had inspired countless other cadets and he had achieved much in his more than quarter-century career.
That should have comforted Kirk, but it did not. They had all lost something precious that could not be reclaimed.
And Sam. He had come to believe that the chief was indestructible, like his father. Michael Fuller had also survived the Battle of Donatu V. Kirk had meant to introduce Justman to Michael’s son Sam and to ask the admiral if he and the elder Fuller had known each other in the battle.
That was when Kirk thought there was still time for such things.
The captain had seen Sam Fuller work miracles. He and his people had saved the settlement in 1324. Against impossible odds, Sam and the others had saved nearly all of them.
In the entire time Kirk had known Sam, the man had never doubted himself, had never wavered. He had known his duty and had done it without hesitation.
The captain was sure that that was how he had died.
Now Kirk would have to tell his father, Michael Fuller, who had saved Kirk’s own life when he was a young, overeager, overconfident lieutenant serving on the Farragut.
Kirk would have to tell Michael Fuller that he had not been able to do the same for his son.
* * *
[246] Lieutenant West was exhausted. He knew he needed to sleep, but found that he could not and did not want to. When he closed his eyes, he found that images he did not want to see came unbidden.
The crew of the Enterprise had taken pains to make him comfortable. He had been given comfortable quarters to himself, yet a different room than the one he had when he had arrived on board with the admiral.
He wondered if someone was trying to spare his feelings by changing the rooms. He appreciated the effort, but knew that whatever demons he had now would follow him much farther than a deck or two on this starship.
West knew he could not silence those demons while he did nothing but wait. Now he saw that the images he saw when he closed his eyes and the sounds he heard in the silence around him were not demons at all—they were a warning.
A warning that he could heed.
West got up from the bed and sat at the small desk. One of the crew had moved his personal things from his old quarters to the new one. It was the kind of thing that Admiral Justman might have arranged, except that West knew, of course, that that was impossible.
Reaching for his data tapes, he chose the one he needed and placed it into the computer. If it was later and less busy on the starship, he would have used the central computer, but the terminal in front of him would be fine for now.
He had added to the Klingon cultural and historical database that he had compiled at Starfleet Command, [247] augmenting it with data he had found elsewhere and most recently in the Enterprise’s own computer.
As a result he had much of what he needed in front of him.
West knew that many in Starfleet Command still thought the Klingons were invincible, yet West knew that was not true.
He had seen the Enterprise and the crew on board the starbase turn what should have been a crushing blow against the Federation into a sound defeat for the Klingons.
A defeat.
Something the Klingons would never have expected, but something they understood. As a warrior culture, they lived for victory, but they did understand defeat.
West knew that in the 1324 and 7348 incidents the Klingons had suffered setbacks, but they had been using Orions as intermediaries.
This time, the Klingons had put themselves into the fight and they had been soundly beaten, achieving none of their objectives. Instead, they had lost many warriors and had nearly lost a ship.
Defeat was the key. Not in a limited battle, or in a single incident, but in an all-out and decisive battle with Starfleet.
Only then could the Federation make a lasting peace with the Klingon Empire. Only then would the Federation have real security and an opportunity to fulfill its dreams and Starfleet its mission.
Lieutenant West got back to work.
* * *
[248] Karel’s blood no longer burned. It now ran cold in his veins.
In the transporter room Koloth had met him and said, “You are the last, you were ordered back an hour ago. You are a good warrior, Karel, but never let me doubt that you will follow my orders immediately and without question.”
Karel had nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
“You were nearly left behind with the Earthers,” Koloth said.
Karel had considered that. He had considered simply staying where he was with his brother’s body in his arms until the Earthers came and captured him.
Capture was unthinkable, but no less unthinkable than what his own hand had done.
He had once thought that it was impossible for the cowardly and weak Earthers to have killed his brother. Kell, whose spirit and courage was too great to be felled by mere Earthers. Kell, who had once, as a young and small boy, brought down a large charging targ by himself while older and more experienced hunters ran for their lives.
Karel had been right. Earthers had not, could not kill his brother; only he and his burning Klingon blood had been able to do that.
And now that blood, which had burned with the glory of battle, ran cold with his shame.
He knew he deserved no better than to suffer and die in the care of Earther interrogators. He certainly did not deserve to see Qo’noS again.
Yet to avoid his fate through inaction and to let the Earthers take his life would shame him further. He might not have his brother’s courage, but facing the [249] consequences of what he had done was the least that he could do to honor his brother’s memory.
And he had questions about why his brother was wearing an Earther’s face and why Karel was told by Klingon command that his brother had been killed by Earthers in a cowardly attack.
So many lies and deceptions. Lies that had pitted Klingon warriors of the same blood, of the same father, against each other.
He would have his answers, answers that lay in a small bloodstained data disk in his hand.
“Did you strike the Earthers additional blows?” Koloth asked.
“No,” Karel said. “I accomplished nothing.” Except the death of my father’s son, he thought.
Koloth studied him. What the captain might be seeing in his face, Karel could not even guess. For a moment, Karel considered telling Koloth some of what he had learned. The captain was a Klingon of honor and a follower of Kahless.
He had believed that Koloth might be a great ally to him. Karel decided that he might test the limits of Koloth’s honor, but he would not do it until he knew more.
After a moment, Koloth said, “You are dismissed.”
Gripping the disk firmly, Karel headed for his quarters.
Chapter Twenty-four
LESLIE PARRISH WOKE and instantly recognized that she was in sickbay. She had a moment of peaceful clarity before the truth came crashing down on her.
Jon was dead. He had gotten her to safety and now he was dead.
She remembered security officers coming to get her. The fact that there had been anyone to find her told her that they had won.
Jon had not fought for nothing. He had not died for nothing.
&
nbsp; Yet those thoughts gave her no comfort.
She wondered about the others. Had they all died too?
Most likely.
She turned her head to scan the room. Next to her she saw someone lying on the bed. Someone she did recognize.
[251] It was Ensign Jawer. He looked unconscious, but he was alive.
She lay there for a long time before she heard footsteps approaching. Turning her head, she saw the captain approaching with Dr. McCoy.
She tried to push herself to a sitting position. To her mild surprise, she found that her right arm worked. Yet to put it to any use caused a nearly blinding flash of pain there.
A gentle but firm hand on her shoulder told her to stop trying. It was the doctor.
“Stay still for now, Ensign,” Dr. McCoy said. “Your arm will be fine, but give it a chance to heal.”
Then he turned to Kirk and said, “Just a few minutes, Captain.”
“Understood, Doctor,” Kirk said as McCoy walked away.
“Ensign Parrish, how are you feeling?” the captain said, a look of genuine concern on his face.
That look, that concern, threatened her composure most of all. She forced her emotions back down and said, “Ensign Jawer and I are the only survivors of the squad?”
“Yes, I’m sorry, Ensign. Chief Fuller and Ensign Anderson were lost in the fighting.”
Parrish nodded. She had known that, felt it.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Parrish,” Kirk said.
“Thank you, Captain,” she said. Then she said nothing. She found that she did not trust her voice.
“I understand that you and Jon Anderson were close,” Kirk said.
Parrish could only nod. Yes, we were close.
[252] “All of his personal effects, medals, and citations are being returned to his family on Earth. However ...” Kirk held up a small container. “However, I have his equipment. His phaser, his communicator, and his tricorder. They are yours if you would like them.”
Parrish managed a grim smile and even a few words. “Thank you, Captain.”
“Well then,” Kirk said, straightening himself. “I will be back to see you later.”
Then, with a nod, the captain turned and left.