The Captain's Daughter

by Peter David

"Got away? From the Excelsior? How did …?" Her face went ashen. "They … they didn't fire on it, did they? Didn't get into a fight …?"

  "No, no. Nothing like that. They just …" Rand cleared her throat. "They broke it."

  Demora stared at her, not sure she'd heard right. "I beg your pardon?"

  "They broke it."

  "How do you break a starship?"

  Janice waved her hands in exasperation. "They shot the hamster running on the little treadmill that makes it go. I don't know what they did! They broke it. The Excelsior went about ten meters and then the engines conked out. Captain Styles isn't real happy about it. Made him look like a fool. They're already calling him Styles Without Substance. No, not happy at all, that one."

  Birds overhead, recognizing Demora as a customary easy touch for food, settled down near her. "Scram!" she shouted and shooed them away.

  "Okay," she said after a moment, "okay … maybe this won't be so bad. No property's been really damaged. No one's been killed. Maybe this is salvageable. If … if Dad and the others just … just bring the Enterprise back … considering their record, maybe this can all go away. They just need a real good lawyer. Maybe that Cogley guy …"

  Then she saw that Janice was shaking her head. "No Cogley?"

  "That's not the problem. The problem is bringing back the Enterprise."

  Demora's voice was deathly cold. "What … happened to the Enterprise."

  "They broke it," said Rand.

  "You mean broke it like shooting the hamster?"

  "I mean broke it like into a million pieces. Admiral Kirk blew it up."

  Demora, feeling ill, put her head between her legs. "Why did he blow it up?" she asked, her voice so faint that Janice could barely hear it.

  "I don't know. I'm sure he had a reason."

  "Of course he had a reason. The reason was to drive me insane!"

  Clearly she was making no attempt to keep her voice down anymore. Passersby in the park glanced her way briefly and then hurried on about their business.

  "Where's Dad now? Is he okay? He …" Suddenly she was struck by the horrible thought that maybe this was a long, labored way of breaking the news to her gently. . . .

  "He's fine," Janice said quickly, patting her on the hand. "I swear, he's fine. He's on Vulcan."

  "Vulcan? What's he doing on Vulcan?" "I'm a little confused on that part myself. Believe it or not … I think he's there with Spock."

  "With Spock? Spock's dead."

  "He …" Janice fished for words and couldn't find any good ones. "… he got better," she said.

  Demora stood. "I'm going home now," she announced. "I'm going home … I'm going to crawl under the blankets … and when I wake up, I'll find out this was all an insane dream."

  "Close. You'll go home and pack your stuff, and then you're coming to my place."

  "Your place? Why?"

  "Because the message your father managed to get out to me said that's what he wanted. Demora … you have to understand. Sulu, the admiral, all of them … they're criminals now. Wanted fugitives. They're under protection by the Vulcan Council, but they can't budge from the planet without risking immediate arrest."

  Demora couldn't believe it. She felt as if her world had tilted at a forty-five-degree angle.

  "It's not the kind of circumstance that allows a genuine freeflow of communication, you know? Sulu was able to get a brief message out to me, slipping it through Communicore. But that's the best he could do, and it's not likely we'll be hearing from him again until this whole business is settled."

  "Which will be … when?"

  "I don't know," said Janice Rand, not recalling a time in her life when she'd felt quite this helpless.

  "All … all right. All right, Janice. I'll get my stuff … I'll lock up the apartment … and I'll room with you. If that's okay."

  "That's fine," said Janice. "Really."

  Demora stood, shaking her head. "I don't understand why … or how … he could have done this to me. I just don't."

  "Actually … he asked me to relay something to you. Something he said he hoped would help you understand. He said to tell you that it was a matter of honor."

  Demora sighed. "Yes. I had a feeling that's what he'd say."

  Chapter Twenty-one

  THE END OF THE WORLD was nigh, and Demora Sulu knew beyond any doubt that she was going to die alone.

  Janice wasn't there with her. This, in and of itself, was nothing unusual. Rand's days had been more busy lately since she'd been transferred to Starfleet Command. It had meant longer hours, but a step up in responsibility. And she did usually get home while Demora was still awake; indeed, oftentimes Demora would have dinner waiting for her. The situation made Janice laugh occasionally as she wondered just exactly who was supposed to be taking care of whom.

  But Janice hadn't been home for nearly sixteen hours, and Demora … along with everyone else on the planet … was painfully aware why.

  Pictures of the Probe had been broadcast across all Earth bands. Demora had had trouble taking it seriously at first; it reminded her of nothing so much as a giant pecan log. "Give me a fork and a really big glass of milk, I can take care of that thing no problem at all," she'd said.

  But there were no jokes now, no amused observations. No safety.

  No hope.

  It had drawn closer and closer to Earth, its reason a complete puzzlement. It didn't seem to want to destroy anything. On the other hand, it didn't seem inclined not to destroy anything. It just … was. Speculation was that it seemed to be searching for someone or something, although Demora was damned if she could figure out what it was. In that respect, the Probe was like a small child tearing apart a room while searching for something. Even if the object (whatever it was) was eventually located, the result was a trashed room.

  And Earth was on the verge of becoming a trashed planet.

  She couldn't see it in the skies overhead, for it hung above the Earth's atmosphere. But she felt as if she could sense it. Sense its presence, its power. She heard it screech with a noise that chilled her. In response, the Earth seemed determined to tear itself apart.

  Janice Rand, Demora knew, was busy coordinating Earth's emergency operations at Starfleet Command. A fat lot of good that was going to do. The Probe couldn't be slowed down or stopped. It was like a force of nature, and confronting it was like standing on a shoreline and spitting at an incoming tidal wave.

  Demora hadn't wanted to die in Janice's apartment. Because when all was said and done—despite it having been Demora's place of residence for three months—it was still Janice's apartment. She wanted her home. She wanted to be in her place.

  So that was where she had headed. It hadn't made tremendous sense when viewed with a dispassionate frame of mind. She was leaving one apartment to brave the wind, the rain, the trembling of the Earth's crust beneath her feet, all for the purpose of getting to … another apartment.

  The only thing it accomplished was making her feel—rightly or wrongly—that she was doing something. Making some sort of headway, indulging in some sort of activity that was, ultimately, preferable to simply waiting around for the end. If (when) she died, at least she could say to herself, "I didn't die in someone else's home … I died in my own."

  It was cold comfort, but when your planet was being shaken apart by a lethal probe, you took what you could get.

  She went to the bay window and looked out. In the distance was the Golden Gate Bridge. She could see the waves crashing against it, getting higher and higher, and it seemed only a matter of time before the entire span came crashing down. And there she stood, helpless and alone.

  And all she could think about was her father.

  Part of her was relieved for him. She knew the trajectory of the Probe very well from the news reports, and was aware that it had passed nowhere near Vulcan. So he was safe. Hiding away in exile, with the Federation Council making pronouncements against him and his friends, and now they were going to have the last laugh
. His accusers were trapped on Earth, and he was high and dry on an alien world. He was going to survive and, after all, what good was served if both of them died?

  And the other part hated him. Hated him with a passion.

  She looked at the photographs and representations of his ancestors … hers, too, of course. They stared at her with varying degrees of sullenness and inscrutability, and she felt a rage building up inside her.

  All that talk about honor. About family. About commitment. And in the end, in the final analysis, what had it meant? What had any of it meant?

  "Damn you," she whispered, and then she practically screamed, "Damn you!"

  She ran to the wall and, her fingers curved into claws, she ripped at the pictures. She tore them off the wall, sending them flying everywhere. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and she yanked so violently that she sent herself tumbling over a chair and crashing to the floor. She lay there curled up, sobbing, feeling like a child again as she tore at the shag carpet with her fingernails.

  "You abandoned me, you son of a bitch!" she howled, even though her voice couldn't even be heard above the crashing of the water outside. Rain was pouring down in torrents. It was becoming impossible to see anything at all.

  Yes, abandoned her. Run off on an insane, criminal mission to help Spock. And he hadn't said anything to her about it, not a damned thing. He'd sat there, cool as a cucumber on what now appeared to have been the last night they'd ever spend together, and the most deeply moving thing he'd said to her was "Pass the rice." Hadn't said boo to her. Hadn't whispered a word of what he was going to do.

  Because he still considered her a child. Still considered her "not worthy" somehow. That was it, of course. Four damned years ago, and he was still angry at her. She couldn't believe it. She was never going to live up to what he wanted, never be what he wanted her to be. Because he didn't want her to be human. It's just like that landscaper—Booby, or whatever the hell his name was. It was just like he'd said. She was human and she screwed up, but her father didn't expect her to be human. He expected her to be this … this perfect little thing, this robot, wind her up, set her loose, and watch her never do a single thing wrong and flawlessly live up to some code of honor that was centuries old and as cold and unforgiving as the water pounding outside.

  So he hadn't trusted her, and he'd abandoned her without caring if he'd ever see her again. And he was off on Vulcan probably laughing his ass off while the entire world sank under the most cataclysmic flood since Noah had looked skyward and remarked that it looked like showers.

  She heard the Probe, getting louder and louder. It was the only noise that managed to surpass the unbridled fury of the storm outside. There was a deafening screech over and over, and she screamed, "Shut up! Shut up! Just kill us already and get it over with, okay?"

  The wind bashed against the bay window. It shattered, pieces flying everywhere. Demora was positioned behind a couch as it so happened, and that's what saved her life. Shards embedded themselves in the cushion, and a few landed in her hair. If she'd still been standing in front of the window, she would have been dead instantly.

  The wind howled through the apartment, knocking over all the contents. Swords fell off the walls, antique guns went tumbling.

  This was it. She knew this was it. And she seized upon the mostly demented notion that if she was going to die, then she was going to go down fighting. It didn't matter that the enemy was a soulless Probe orbiting the Earth … or the wind blasting her backward. It didn't matter that there was no thinking entity to combat, no villain to triumph over.

  She would fight against death itself. She would fight against all the anger, all the disappointment in her life, all the fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

  She crawled across the floor and grabbed a samurai sword, one that her father had told her once belonged to a great samurai ancestor. She imagined that she could feel strength flowing through the hilt. Her grip on it alone was enough to empower her.

  She pulled it from its scabbard, and the scrape of metal was oddly satisfying. Then Demora staggered to her feet, the blade poised. She stood facing the window, staggering from the power of the gale.

  Never in her life had she felt so completely melodramatic. But what the hell. There was no one else around. She was about to die, and if she was going to go, then let it be with some style.

  "You want me?" she shouted at Death, waving her sword in the wind. "Come and get me!"

  And then she saw it.

  Death, streaking through the sky in the shape of a great dark bird. It was as if no doubt was being left. Death had made itself visible to the people of Earth, its massive wings moving slowly, like a massive bird of prey… .

  Bird of …

  "Wait a minute … what the hell?" Her eyes narrowed.

  It was. It was a Klingon bird-of-prey. But what the hell was it doing here? The entire Klingon contingent had stormed out of the Federation Council and left Earth a couple of days ago. It had been on all the news. The ambassador and delegation had withdrawn in a snit because the UFP hadn't honored their demands for Kirk's head on a silver platter. At the time no one had doubted that, sooner or later, the Klingons would return, if for no other reason than to harass the council some more.

  But there was no way that they would have chosen now to return. Nor could it have been by accident: A planetary distress signal had gone out, warning away anyone who might even think about heading toward Earth.

  Yet here was a Klingon bird-of-prey, big as life, twice as ugly, crashing into the surging water beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, disappearing in the clouds and blasts of rain that were everywhere in this moment of ultimate cataclysm. Who in hell would be so totally devoid of sanity—or, perhaps, of fear—that they would pilot a warship directly into the heart of the storm, facing certain death and …

  "Oh, my God," she whispered.

  They—Dad, Kirk, and the others—they had stolen a Klingon bird-of-prey. That was one of the things the ambassador had complained about, according to news reports as the facts of the entire affair had come to light.

  It was her father.

  He'd come home to die with her.

  Tears ran down her face as she thought, That is so sweet. . . .

  Long minutes passed, during which time an odd calm descended on her. She watched the clouds rolling, watched the waves leaping ever higher, and yet there was a certain … rightness about it all. She'd found an inner peace, although her hands were gripping the hilt of the sword so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

  It was all going to come to a head within the next seconds, she was certain of that. What would happen? Would a giant wave crash into the building? Would the Earth simply open and swallow them? Would a beam of force blast them to bits?

  She was so calm, she realized she didn't even have to wait to find out. Her father, in a final display of honor and integrity, had been willing to perform a final suicidal act rather than outlive his native planet. Perhaps it was an example that she should have the bravery to emulate.

  She reversed the sword, put it to her chest, gripping it firmly and taking a deep breath. She tried to find the strength and resolve to drive it home. It was becoming easier and easier for her to concentrate on her intention, thanks to the wind dying down and …

  "Dying down?"

  Startled at the realization, she looked out the window and couldn't believe what she was seeing.

  The storm clouds were blowing out to sea. It was as if someone had taken a vid of it and started rolling it backward. The Pacific was smoothing out, the waves lapping around the supports of the Golden Gate descending to their normal height. Demora watched the phenomenon with growing incredulity.

  The sun was coming out. And high above, she saw a shuttle angling around and descending toward where the Klingon bird-of-prey had gone into the drink.

  Within five minutes of the arrival of the bird-of-prey, the impending armageddon was not only no longer impending … it was, in fact,
history.

  "What happened?" she wondered out loud.

  "What happened was, we were cleared."

  It was Hikaru Sulu's first meal home in three months, and the events leading up to it had been nothing short of impressive.

  Demora hadn't had a chance to see him at first. The shuttle that had plucked Sulu and the others from the water had brought them straight to Starfleet Headquarters. Suspecting that that's where they would be, Demora had headed straight over there. Her efforts to get in to see her father had been herculean. She'd tried every possible means of ingress, tried to talk her way past more guards than she would have believed conceivable. She offered every excuse, up to and including that she was dying and only had a very short time to live. ("Bring a doctor's note," one amused guard instructed.)

  None of it had worked. Despite Demora's best tries, the Enterprise seven had been kept under wraps. The only ones who might have gotten in to see them were legal counsel, but the accused had all refused the option (Scotty had been the most outspoken about that: "Lawyers. As if we dinna have enough problems"), until the council of the UFP had been able to convene and discuss the situation.

  The outcome of that discussion had been made public. It had been less than an hour ago when the renegades from the Enterprise had faced the council in closed session. Then the session had ended and the outlaws-turned-heroes had separated to return to home and loved ones.

  When Sulu had walked in, Demora had been waiting for him. She'd made desperate endeavors to clean up the apartment, but there were still many signs of the damage that the storm had wreaked. Sulu hadn't cared, however. His booted feet had crunched on the broken glass in the carpet as he walked quickly to his daughter and embraced her.

  "Did you miss me?" he asked her.

  "Why, did you go somewhere?" she replied with her typical breeziness.

  Now they sat at the hastily cobbled-together dinner that Demora had managed to prepare for them. Many systems were still out of whack. It was going to take some time for everything to be restored to normal. Sulu made a point of saying that he didn't care, that being with her was all that mattered.