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himself. He understood what McCoy was going through.
As a starship captain, his successes had always been
magnified, but so were his blunders. He'd learned the
hard way that a well-maneuvered pause could ease a bad
situation and ordered with his eyes and posture that
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FIRST STRIKE
McCoy give himself that pause before anything else
happened.
What else could happen? He had trouble imagining
the shuddering rage in Garamanus's face compounded
any more than it already was. Not only was the victim's
head gone, but McCoy had cut apart the poppet.
Measuring each word with what could only be caution,
Zennor looked at Garamanus and declared, "Accidents
were inevitable."
Feeling his skin contract, Kirk bit back the weighty
declaration that this was no accident, but damned cold-blooded
murder. He knew instantly how lucky he was,
and Zennor also was, that Garamanus chose not to point
that out himself.
Kirk had no way to establish, even for his own
comfort, how dangerous that silence was. And when he
couldn't think like those around him, he had no anchorage.
That bothered him. Bothered him big.
In a last bid for compassion, for both crews, for both
civilizations, he turned to Zennor.
"Let me help," he pleaded.
A shadow cast itself upon him and he stepped back.
Garamanus was beside him, above him.
The Dana's voice was like the slamming of a gavel.
"We will wait to see what the stars say."
"Absolutely nothing? You're sure?"
"We're sure, sir."
"Give me the rundown again."
Chief Barnes, head of the astrogeology, gave him a
pained look and pointed again at the row of bridge
monitors on the science side. "There's not much here,
sir."
Beside the chief, stellar cartographer Amanda Alto
and her brother, solar chemist Josh Alto, both looked too
young to be able to do the kind of jobs they were doing.
"As far as we can tell, sir," Josh said, "this sun went
through its first red-giant stage three to four thousand
years ago and incinerated all its inner planets, which is
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where life generally occurs. Actually, we don't even have
any way to know if there even were inner planetsre"
"Except for the number and orbits of the outer planets,
which may have changed considerably during the
expansion stage of the star," Amanda filled in. "There had to be something there."
"But there's no way to prove it," her brother added,
not to be outdone.
Kirk turned. "Any of the rest of you?"
There were seventeen science specialists and staff
technicians on the bridge, crowding both the upper and
lower decks. As he gazed at them, all the young faces,
peppered with a few older ones, all their minds crammed
with numbers and probability and measurements, extrapolations
of known data and theories of unknown
data, the culmination of thousands of years of learning
and in fact the very reason the starship could be out here
doing what it did, he was struck with the sad realization
that all these people were needed just to replace Mr.
Spock.
And he still needed Spock anyway.
From beside the command chair, Astr obiologist
Cantone broke the silence. "The remote cluster quark
resonance scanners, spectrometers, and thermal imagers
just aren't picking up anything that indicates there was
ever life in the solar system, sir."
"That doesn't mean there wasn't," Specialist Angela
Godinez from the astral life sciences department
pointed out. "It only means that any evidence of life was
destroyed when the sun went red giant."
"Chemical compositions of asteroids that might once
have been planetary matter don't give us any clues
either, sir," confirmed Astrogeologist Ross.
Others just nodded or shook their heads in canny
agreement. They all knew what he needed, and none
could provide it.
"If there ever was life here, sir," said Chief Barnes,
"there's no possible way to know it anymore."
Destitute. Billions of miles into space, and there was
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FIRST STRIKE
nothing to show for it. An unthinkable risk, flying
haphazard into Klingon space, using the thinnest of
permissions to do so, likely as not a revoked permission,
and like an errant child Kirk had a chilling sensation
that the worst was yet to come.
He looked at the forward screen, showing Zennor's
ship cruising at warp speed two points off the port bow.
"They came to search for the past," he uttered, "and
there's none to find." He parted the sea of blue tunics
and pressed his thigh against the bridge rail.
"We'll keep looking, sir," Chief Barnes said with
unshielded, and rather pathetic, sympathy for him. "But
we won't find anything."
"I understand that," Kirk told him grittily, aggravated
that a stellar incident four thousand years ago should
have so biting an effect on the eighty-odd years allotted
to him in which he might get something done.
He turned toward the turbolift. "Captain?"
Against the shiny red lift doors, Zennor was a living
gargoyle, with one errant shadow creasing his horns.
Beside him, Garamanus was like something out of a
reversed negative in an old photograph, the image of
Zennor, with little of the color. Pale skin, white robes,
and for the first time Kirk noted that his pallor might
very well be from a life indoors, poring over historical
information, piecing together details, with little intimacy
to the outdoors and the brightness that bestows russet
cheeks. Even on the other side of the galaxy, things
couldn't be all that different.
"I'm sorry," he said to them both. "You've seen the
data. There's nothing left here to use as proof for any of
our theories."
He watched their faces and realized he was beginning
to glean expression from those bony, deerlike features
and the chromatic eyes. He thought of what McCoy had
said to him about seeing aliens as like himself instead of
unlike, and saw it now. Just a matter of getting used to
them, and then space began to grow smaller between
peoples.
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Was Zennor pleased? Was that the expression Kirk
was reading? If so, the other captain was trying not to
show it in front of Garamanus.
Made sense.
"If there is no proof," the deep voice began, "then we
must change our plans."
"There is no proof against us," Garamanus spoke up,
not facing him, "The Danai will not change yet."
But Zennor did turn. This evidence is insufficient. I
will not launch invasion based upon poor data. We must
have absolute proof."
"No proof is nothing," the Dana said, gritti
ng his--whatever
those were. "This is our space. All things lead
to this area."
Zennor seemed to grow taller. "You wanted it to."
The two massive beings squared off as the Starfleet
audience watched from below, and it was as if the two
were alone, as if Kirk and all the others had skidded
away on the thin ice beneath them.
"I always suspected you of being an unbeliever,"
Garamanus charged. "Why, if you did not believe, did
you sign up for this mission? The most important mission
of all our civilization's history?"
"Because I do believe we were cast out. But I do not
want our civilization impaled upon that belief. There is
no greater evil than that which was done to us. I will not
have us become what we hate."
Sensing that he was losing control of the bridge, if not
the situation, Kirk yanked it back by stepping toward
them and saying, "No one says you can't come here. If
your civilization wants to move, there are ways to do
that. There are habitable planets in Federation space.
You're welcome to them. We'll help you. You can live in
peace, settle, raise your--"
Flocks, herds, spawn?
"Young."
They were both looking at him now, and if he could
indeed read their expressions, then the expressions were
very different.
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FIRST STRIKE
"You two can debate about this later," he plowed on,
"but we've got to get out of Klingon space. I know you
think well of your ship, but you don't know what the
Klingon fleet really is. We'll give you sanctuary, but we
must leave now."
"I've seen your ships," Garamanus rumbled. "You
have no idea what you stand against. You are less than an
annoyance to us."
Angry, Kirk raised his voice. "I don't stand against
you. Not yet."
Zennor stepped between them, raised his long clawed
hand to Kirk, but turned to face Garamanus again. "Are
these the conquerors? The drooling, snarling visions of
evil you have held up to us for generations? Every
essence of meanness and torture, delighting in agony?
Why do you not admit you are wrong? The stars are not
here, the proof is not here... the crew will be against
you when I show them this. We have come to find evil
and found the opposite. Can we fail to grow?"
He paused, waited to see if Garamanus would speak,
and when the Dana did nothing but stare, Zennor
gestured again at Kirk.
"We tell the conqueror we come to drive him out. He
offers us sanctuary. We are damaged. He offers repair.
We are attacked. He defends us. We tell him we have no
home. He offers to make room for us. Garamanus
Drovid, Dana of the Wrath, Keeper of the Magic Eggs
and the Gold Sickle, call up your wisdom and not just
your research, and tell me... is this the conqueror?"
The large tawny hand clenched so tightly that the long
fingernails seemed nearly to break the skin, then fanned
open and made a sharp gesture at Jim Kirk's chest.
Challenge boiled between the two impressive creatures.
Tension rolled heavily across the bridge, bringing
an ache to every head and a clench to every throat. No
one moved.
Standing on the tripwire, Kirk knew better than to
move and hoped his crew would take his example.
Reaching critical mass, Garamanus glared in bald
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provocation, but despite anticipation there was no
spring of attack, no roar of rage. When he finally spoke,
his voice was as passive as a foghorn. His decision,
evidently, had been made in those tight seconds, and
now he would abide.
"I wish to go back to my ship and be with my people."
Unsure to whom the sentence was directed, Kirk took
it upon himself as host to respond. "Transporter room
two will be standing by when you want it."
"Go back to the ship," Zennor sanctioned. "We will
send a message through the wrinkle. The conquerors are
not here. Our place is not here."
Without another word or look, Garamanus flowed
toward the turbolift and like some piece of a drifting
wind was suddenly gone.
The tension, most of it, went with him.
Well, some of it.
Kirk turned to his science staff. "Duty stations," he
ordered.
The flood of blue uniforms toward the lift was as much
a flood of relief. There was an uneasy pause as they
waited for the tube to clear and another lift to appear
there, enough for about half of them to 'leave; then
another two minutes lagged as the remaining science
staff huddled the hallway and Zennor by himself in the
other half until a third lift was able to arrive.
Then they left, and Zennor was again alone up there.
He and Kirk looked at each other.
Without turning away, Kirk said, "All stop."
He was surveying Zennor as if scanning a sculpture
and thinking about what he was going to say.
"I'm glad," he said at last, "that you found enough--or
enough lack--of information to convince you we're not enemies."
Zennor's weighty head bowed slightly out of the
shadow. "I am convinced not by what we found, but who we found." He offered Kirk a pause that was indeed
heartwarming. "If I had found only the Kling, we would
be occupying this space by now."
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Feeling suddenly better, and supremely gratified, Kirk
discovered after a few seconds that he was grinning. He
hadn't felt that coming on.
"Captain," Chekov said, straightening sharply at the
science station, "long-range sensors are reading a heavy
surge in warp-field exhaust, sir! The Klingon fleet is
coming inma very large fleet--at high warp speed!"
Kirk nodded and motioned t'or the young officer to
calm down, set a better example, and comprehend the
vastness of space. They had time to move. Not much,
but they had it.
He looked at Zennor. "We'd better wear ship and get
out of here or they'll hem us in. Now that we know
there's nothing here, there's no reason to stay."
Zennor--if that face could--offered what might've
been on the other side of the galaxy a smile. "You go. Let
me linger. I will happen to be here when they come. If
they attack, I am no conqueror to destroy them."
"It's tempting," Kirk allowed, "but no."
The thick horns drew an imaginary pattern on the
ceiling. "No matter, Vergokirk. Once we are among you
and you have our technology, you will be able to take
care of them yourselves." He lowered that drumbeat
voice and added, "You know you will have to eventua lly."
"People change, Vergo," Kirk wagered. "We have to
give them that chance."
He started to turn to the helm to usher Byers into a
new course, but Zennor said, "No, they don't change.
Good is good. Bad is bad."
Stifling any disappointment he might've been tempted
to show, Kirk took the high road. Mildly he said, "I guess
that's just another difference between us."
Every hospital has a morgue, and none wants one.
Leonard McCoy was in his, doing all those hundred
things a doctor is obliged to do once he has saved all he
can save and there is only clean-up work to do. Logging
the names of the dead, matching physical attributes and
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body marks to the official file of each, to make sure there
is no error, that no family gets the wrong letter from the
captain, and so each family knows with absolute certainty
that the body wrapped in silk and sent into the nearest
sun was indeed the son they would never get back. No
one should ever wonder. That was his job now, and he
took it with supreme care.
Now, after the battle, after the ground assault, after
the incident that asked of a serviceman the bottom-line
sacrifice, came the time that came so rarely, and he
realized in the midst of this sorry duty how lucky he
really was to have Jim Kirk for a captain. Kirk had many
reputations, saint or demon, depending on--what had
he said?--whether or not somebody agreed with his
work. And some who liked his work still didn't like him.
Call it jealousy, call it impatience, call it just another
method of doing business, some people just didn't like
him. A lot of people, in fact.
But he was a leader, not a politician, and being liked
was the last on his list. Some of his own crewmen didn't
like him, but that didn't matter. This shooting star they
were riding still had the lowest transfer rate of any ship
in the Fleet. And the waiting list was the longest of all
twelve starships.
Space was no fairyland and a charming captain did no
one any good. They signed on because they knew he
would fight for their lives. Down to the last man, he
would fight for each of them.
What mattered was times like this, when hundreds of
men had gone into battle and only nineteen failed to
come out of it. More than any other starship captain,
Kirk had a reputation for fundamentally despising the
death of a crewman. It was his own tragic flaw. He took a