by Diane Carey
A Vulcan! And not just any Vulcan, either—this was a Vulcan he knew!—Spock! What luck!
Oh, this trip is going to be fun, fun, fun. He clapped his hands and rubbed them. He started polishing his wooden-man jokes as he watched the young alien scientist approach. Like McCoy, the Vulcan was dressed in a typical Alaska-silver Starfleet Academy uniform shirt. His black hair was cut in a helmet shape that had fooled McCoy under those shadows a moment ago, but now caught the loading lights in a single bright band.
How strange it still was to see a Vulcan in a Starfleet uniform. Ensign Spock was the first Vulcan to choose Starfleet Academy over the Vulcan Science Academy, even after receiving scholarships to both. He was the first scientist to leave Vulcan for Starfleet. McCoy knew Vulcans kept pretty much to themselves. They were content to spend their lives in study, preferring fact over philosophy, sticking close to the hard sciences.
Just perfect for picking on.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a boring trip after all.
McCoy called across the loading bay. “Ensign Spock! How charming and inspiring to see you again. You’re looking as chipper as ever—I’m glad you’re here.”
“Ensign McCoy … are you going to Colony Cambria for the Starfleet Academy Science Conference?”
“That’s right. Medical Division seminars on the effects of life in space and on alien worlds. You know the type of place I mean … hot, dry, thin air, not enough moisture for a camel, places where no living thing was ever meant to live—oh, yes, I forgot. Vulcan’s a little like that, isn’t it?”
The young Vulcan paused and frowned at him. “In some regions. Have you cleared with Starfleet Dispatch?”
“Yes, I have. I was told to report to this shuttle, because it’s scheduled to go there anyway, so I wouldn’t have to wait for a regular Federation transport, but Corporal Goose-step over there wouldn’t let me on board. Something about regulations.”
“Cadet, not Corporal.” Ensign Spock looked at the young man who silently waited for them. The cadet matched Spock’s stony face with his own.
Spock drew his pin-straight brows together. His mushroom complexion and triangular features were etched by the bright dock lights as if drawn in sharp pencil.
“I am Ensign Spock,” he said. “Specify the point of contention, please, Cadet.”
The cadet stepped forward. “Sir, the Starfleet Transport Code specifies that no one shall board a fueled Fleet warp vessel without specific confirmation from Central Dispatch.”
“But I do have confirmation!” McCoy insisted.
Spock looked at him. “What is the code number on your authorization to take this scout?”
Glaring back at him, McCoy said, “I didn’t memorize it!”
Unimpressed, Spock turned away from him and back to the pilot. “Good work, Cadet.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Ignoring the infuriated medic behind him, Spock stepped to the young man and held out a leather pouch. “This is your new flight order packet. You are to depart immediately for Colony Cambria, with myself and Ensign McCoy as your passengers. You are to follow your regularly scheduled flight route, including all scheduled stops.”
Spock stepped past the cadet. McCoy followed him closely, determined to get on board that nice warm vehicle even if he had to do it with a Vulcan as his guard. He cast the kid a so-there glower as he passed him.
But the cadet followed them, got in front, and once again blocked the way.
“Sir,” the cadet said, raising his voice, “I protest.”
Turning to the seventeen-year-old, Spock crooked an eyebrow at him. “I beg your pardon?”
“I protest, sir.” The cadet went to even stiffer attention. “I have my assignment, and, respectfully, you are not it.”
Squaring off with the boy, Ensign Spock was suddenly more imposing than he first appeared. “Are you defying this change in orders?”
“If necessary, sir.”
“What is your name?”
“Cadet Kirk, sir. And until I’m officially informed of a change in plans by Starfleet Dispatch, this warp shuttle isn’t leaving here.”
Chapter 2
“Explain that immediately,” the Vulcan ordered.
The fiery young cadet obviously didn’t like having to talk back to someone who outranked him—although he hadn’t had much trouble talking back to McCoy. Evidently he wasn’t impressed by medics, but the senior-ranking scientist bothered him.
And Vulcans had that naturally intimidating manner about them.
“Sir,” the cadet insisted, “I know who my passenger is supposed to be … and neither of you is he. I’m supposed to be transporting the keynote speaker to the conference.”
The Vulcan tipped his head as if he wasn’t sure he heard right. “You were supposed to transport Dr. Richard Daystrom? Head of the United Federation of Planets Computer Science Department? In this craft?”
“The Spitfire is the biggest warp craft I’m rated to fly, sir.”
McCoy stepped between them. “And Dr. Richard Daystrom, the most famous computer genius of our time, is supposed to get on this boat so you can drive him around? How did that happen!”
The cadet’s chalk-mark eyebrows shot together. “I got top grades in all my subjects. I gave up my weekends. I scored highest in the preflight tests for warp rating. This is my…”
He stopped, suddenly uneasy in front of them, especially the Vulcan, who obviously wasn’t impressed.
“Reward?” McCoy filled in.
“Well … yes. Only one cadet every semester gets this. There isn’t supposed to be anybody on board but Dr. Daystrom and his assistant. I’m supposed to take him to the colony, then escort him around. It’s going to be in all the news. Until I’m officially informed of a change, I’m going to resist leaving here.”
Ensign Spock’s voice was crisp, his black eyes were severe. “Cadet, you are being informed. I am informing you. Check the orders packet.”
The cadet shifted his eyes to the leather pouch and opened it. Silently and unhappily he read it. He paced off a few steps. His permanent position of “attention” lost some of its stiffness.
“Well?” Spock clasped his hands behind his back.
Cadet Kirk hesitantly faced them again. Red-faced and white-knuckled, his face grim, he shoved the orders back into the packet. “Dr. Daystrom has been detained several hours. I’m supposed to take you to the colony, then wait there for further orders.”
He seemed to feel he’d been cheated. His anger showed plainly. He wouldn’t be opening the door for the famous Dr. Daystrom. He wouldn’t be in the news tomorrow.
Shoving the packet against Spock’s chest, the cadet stepped past them both and snapped, “Permission to board.”
The Spitfire hummed with energy. Its impulse engines powered up for the ride out of the solar system. Waiting quietly in back were the warp engines, which would allow the little craft to jump beyond the speed of light and go very far indeed.
After leaving the loading dock, the small vessel hovered outside of Starbase One’s giant turning spool of metal and lights. They were waiting for clearance to depart from the solar system.
Warp travel had been used for almost a century, but it was still somewhat of a technical marvel. Some aspects of technology used by Starfleet still made McCoy nervous. He wasn’t quite ready to trust some of the contraptions that others took for granted.
Suspicious that this Cadet Kirk was all steam and no thrust, McCoy slipped forward to the cockpit and stuck his head in. “Is there a regulation against my sitting up here?”
“None that I know of,” Cadet Kirk said frostily. He sat like a ramrod in the pilot’s seat. He implied that if there were such a regulation, he’d use it to keep away from the two passengers who had ruined his reward. He touched the communications grid.
“This is Starfleet Zodiac Spitfire, nine-one-six Delta India Yankee, departing for Colony Cambria, standard spaceways. Will make contact with Junction Buoy two
-nine-nine-three in the Agira Basin. ETA is zero eight hundred thirty hours … mark. Request clearance to depart.”
From Starfleet Flight Control, a gravelly voice chipped back over the comm signal. “Zodiac nine-one-six Delta India Yankee, this is the dockmaster. You’re cleared for launch on spacelane Charlie Four, Vector Twenty-five, no-wake speed.”
“Roger that.”
McCoy sat down in the copilot’s seat. “What does that mean?”
“It’s our angle of takeoff out of the solar system. So we don’t hit anybody else coming or going from Earth.”
“What’s ‘no-wake’?”
“It’s an old term that came up from days of steamships and engine-driven vessels on water. It means going slow enough that you don’t disturb other vessels. In this case, slowly enough to turn or stop quickly. There are lots of other vessels coming and going. We have to be careful not to hit any of them.” Cadet Kirk pinched his lips together. “You a doctor?”
“I’m a medic. I won’t be a full-fledged physician till I finish up at Starfleet Medical. Then I’ll be signing on a ship someplace. Cadet Kirk…”
“Yes, sir?”
“I was just thinking you look familiar. Kirk—I know! Didn’t you knock me upside-down during a football game back at the Academy?”
“Was that you?”
“Sure was! You cost me my winter break, buster!”
Unaffected, the cadet tossed off a polite, “Sorry, sir.”
But he wasn’t sorry. McCoy frowned, but dropped the subject. “What kind of vessel is this?”
“It’s a Zodiac-Class Interstellar warp shuttle, sir.” Cadet Kirk ground his words out. He obviously wasn’t in a mood to talk about the transport after McCoy’s insults. His face was still red under the toast-blond wisp of hair that fell over his brow.
McCoy glanced around, back into the main cabin, where Ensign Spock sat reading a manual of some kind. “Looks pretty clunky to me. Hope it holds together.”
“It will.” The young man twisted in his seat and pointed at the two rows of elbow-shaped supports running along the deck where the side bulkheads met the carpet. “Those beam brackets are the old-style knees, made of heavy-duty cast rhodinium. Above that, you can see the clinker plating, with strakes overlapping like roof shingles. Most of the newer transports are made with flush plating, set edge to edge. The clinker plating is stronger. I wrote a paper on it two months ago. This ‘crate,’” he went on, “is exactly that—a crate. No comforts or amenities, and there are only two joiner bulkheads, which are bulkheads that don’t contribute to the strength of the hull. No cabin walls and dividers to add weight.”
McCoy watched the cadet, who was concentrating very hard on his piloting. On the wide forward screen, the moon rolled by like a big beach ball. There was no real window, but instead a screen that pretended to be a window, showing them what was in front of them. The screen could be switched to show the aft view also, and they would be able to look at whatever they were flying away from.
Soon the cadet gained the nerve to pilot the ship faster and faster at sublight power, and the planets began to wheel by on the curved course that would take them out of the solar system. They were taking a flight path that ran along the plane of the ecliptic, the same imaginary pie plate the planets circled on. They could go “down” or “up” from that circle, but other ships might be using those flight paths.
Earth’s sister planets, the others circling this sun, were all in different places, but on this particular flight path the Spitfire did pass a couple of them. The huge streaked ball of Jupiter, the gray-blue yarn of Uranus … these were among the first planets every Earth child learned.
“How do you know so much about this particular crate?” McCoy asked.
“I slept here last night,” Cadet Kirk said.
“Why would you do a thing like that?”
“Because I wanted to get the feel of the craft.”
“Couldn’t you get the feel of it just by driving it?”
“That’s … not what I mean.”
“All right,” the medic allowed, “explain what you mean.”
The cadet seemed uneasy at having to clarify his feelings. “Ships have … personality.”
“Oh. I get it. That thing sailors talk about—how the ship’s got some kind of life and pulse and like that. Identity. Aren’t all ships of a certain design built exactly alike?”
“No matter how identically the parts are made,” Cadet Kirk said, “when they’re attached to each other there are always slight differences. That’s why every vessel is individually tested and rated for its own tolerance levels. Two ships that seem identical might have different safe top speeds, or different turning stress levels or braking capabilities.”
“But all those are things you learn from actually driving,” McCoy pointed out. “What does sleeping in here do for you?”
“It let’s the ship know I’m here,” the cadet told him slowly. “There’s a bond between a ship and her crew. How hard you’ll fight for each other … how much of a pounding you’ll take for each other … you get attached. It matters.”
McCoy grunted. “Buster,” he said, “I wouldn’t get that attached to my own liver.”
He was getting the idea that this cadet not only flew this bucket, but liked the bucket. McCoy thought he’d better be more careful about what comments he made about the Spitfire.
“So,” he went on, “how long have you been making this run?”
“About twenty minutes, sir.”
Sitting bolt upright, McCoy stared at him. “Twenty minutes? Are you telling me you’ve never piloted into deep space before?”
“That’s correct, sir. Not alone, anyway.”
Grasping the arms of his seat, McCoy sat straight up. “Turn this thing around!”
Chapter 3
“I’m not allowed to turn around,” Cadet Kirk said. “Not unless there’s an emergency.”
“This is an emergency!” Leonard McCoy insisted. “I’m putting my life in the hands of another student who’s never driven beyond interplanetary spacelanes!”
“Never soloed,” the cadet corrected. “I can do it. I earned this, remember?”
“You earned what? Something other than being Richard Daystrom’s chauffeur?”
“I also earned the privilege of having a special solo. That usually means going beyond the Agira Basin. This will complete my qualification for my warp rating.”
“And I’m your first passenger? Lucky me.”
“I’m a certified near-space pilot, Sublight rating. I’m licensed for Earth transports and interplanetary crossings. This voyage’ll qualify me for my F.O.S. warp rating.”
“F.O.S.?”
“First Open Space.”
“How long will it take us to get to Colony Cambria?”
“We should arrive in about three and a half days.”
“Three and a half? But I heard the trip would take less than two days!”
“It would if we went straight there. But first I have to drop off a satellite at the Smith-McBride Asteroid Station for a hydrographic survey. Then we have to pass by a Federation automated outpost and pick up its power system numbers.”
“How long will that take?”
“No time at all. We’re not stopping. We’re just swerving by the area and picking up the numbers by remote. Automated stations broadcast them every hour. After that we stop at the Tank Barge Polly Herman to fuel up. Then I have to inspect a convoy of cattleships—”
“Battleships?”
“Cattleships. Ships that transport livestock to colonies. I have to inspect the pens, the conditions of the animals, the safety and sanitation systems, and make sure everything’s up to Starfleet code for live-animal transport.”
“We have to be around a herd of cows?”
“Cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, horses, and llamas,” the cadet said. “The ships are just called ‘cattleships’ out of tradition. It actually means any ship rigged for livestock.”
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br /> “Doesn’t sound like very dignified duty for a crisp young preranker like yourself.”
“Dignity doesn’t matter. Following orders does.”
The cadet was still mad. McCoy could tell. And in a way he understood. The young man had struggled to get good grades, earned his chance to make a name for himself as Richard Daystrom’s pilot and aide. All that was being left behind at ever-increasing speed.
McCoy watched the grim, ruddy-faced boy. “How old are you, tiger? Nineteen?”
“Going on eighteen. My birthday’s next month.”
“You’re only seventeen?” McCoy blurted.
Cadet Kirk scowled. “You’re not much older, sir.”
“Older enough.” Sitting back, McCoy fell silent and looked at the licensing tag on the Spitfire’s bulkhead.
Cadet James T. Kirk
Sub-L, N.S.P.
UFP STARFLEET ACADEMY
Authorization 405 G
Those must be the ratings Cadet Kirk had just talked about—sublight, near-space pilot…
“Ready for warp speed,” the cadet said coldly, adjusting the controls before him. Obviously he wasn’t the type to waste time. “Warp point five … point seven … point eight-five,” the cadet droned, pressing the full-warp enabler.
Dotted with jewels of distant stars and nebulae, space blew into a wash of streaks. Crack—the speed of light!
“Warp one,” Cadet Kirk murmured. He stared at the forward screen, as if all this frightened him a little too. But he also seemed proud, and glad to have somebody here to witness this.
Holding his breath, McCoy shifted his eyes from the forward screen to the cadet, then back again. Then to the cadet again. Any minute they’d melt or blow up or something.
Any second…
Any time now…
“Warp two,” Cadet Kirk said.
Warp speed … going faster than the speed of light, by actually bending the relationship between time and space. The whole idea sometimes struck him as impossible, and even though space travelers had been using warp speed for a long time, high speeds were always dangerous. Warp speed was dangerous because of the strange, almost magical science involved.