STAR TREK®: NEW EARTH - THIN AIR

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  What the engineers were calling “sonic defenders” were being installed around the city. They were simply massive low-frequency speakers that emitted a noise that broke down siliconic gel molecules. His scientists called it their first line of defense.

  The second line was the roof and airlock system, also with sonic defenders installed inside.

  The sonic defenders and sealing systems were also being used in two of the major olivium mining operations. A dozen miners at each location had volunteered to remain behind and guard the mines where the olivium had crashed into the planet after the Burn. Pardonnet wasn’t sure what they were concerned about, but he hadn’t objected. If Belle Terre was to be saved from this attack, those mines, and the mines on the moon and in orbit, would be this planet’s future.

  He sighed and pushed himself back away from his desk. How had it gotten to this point? He had simply wanted to build a colony away from the Federation, from the constraints of all the rules. Yet his colony planet had almost been destroyed twice, both times saved by the very organization he had wanted to escape.

  And now the planet was on the verge of being made lifeless and again he was depending on Starfleet to save the day. The irony of it was almost too much.

  But he couldn’t depend on Starfleet and Captain Kirk to make the decisions he needed to make now. They were his decisions and the colonists depended on him making them. He just wish he had more choices.

  He stood and moved toward the door where his assistants and a group of engineers and scientists were waiting for him. He had no choice. They needed to load the mule ships quickly, and be ready to button up the canyon city in six hours.

  It was time to make that stand. Retreating was no longer an option.

  There was just nowhere else to go.

  Kirk strode onto the bridge of the Enterprise and noticed that Chief Engineer Scott was at his station. He was looking tired and not very happy.

  “Mr. Scott, sorry to pull you off the Conestoga without warning,” Kirk said. “But I wanted you on board in case we needed you in this fight.”

  “I understand, Captain,” Scott said. “But ’twas a start waking up on the transporter pad with Ensign Massie standin’ there starin’ at me.”

  Kirk tried to not smile. “Ensign Massie is an attractive young officer, Mr. Scott. I hope you were wearing pajamas.”

  Behind him Uhura giggled and as Kirk turned to sit in his chair he noticed that Sulu had his head down and was laughing silently. Clearly they had the same image he did.

  He wondered how Ensign Massie was doing.

  “Mr. Scott,” Kirk said, as he dropped into his command chair, “what’s the status of the Conestogas?”

  “Two will be ready ta go in a few hours, Capt’n,” Scotty said. “The governor has been told.”

  “Good work,” Kirk said. “How soon on others?”

  “Haven’t even started on ‘em, sir,” Scott said. “Barely had time to get the two put back together. It will take at least two more days for a third.”

  “Understood,” Kirk said. He stared at the image on the main screen. The Kauld warships were still holding their distance out of communication and scanning range. No doubt they were waiting for reinforcements. And when those got there, they would be back. There was no way they could allow the capture of their observation station to stand. Especially if Yanorada was the brains behind the siliconic gel attack.

  “Captain,” Uhura said, “three more Kauld warships are approaching the other four.”

  “That’s not enough for them, yet,” Kirk said. “But inform the other ships to stand by. We’re going to need all the firepower we can get.”

  It seemed as if Yanorada had stewed enough. It was time to try the bluff on him, before his people’s ships returned. And maybe if saving his entire homeworld wasn’t enough, the idea of saving his own skin just might be.

  On the way out Kirk decided to check in on Lilian before beaming back to the asteroid. If nothing else, it would make his anger at Yanorada very, very real.

  Tegan Welch sat beside her son, Charles, in the emergency ward of Brother’s Keeper. The seven-year-old was sleeping fitfully, but the new doctor on his case—a young, friendly woman by the name of Immi—thought it would be better to let all of the patients sleep on their own schedule, instead of being drugged as Dr. Akins had been doing. It was clear that Dr. Immi was relieved that she had taken over the case, and that the ship had been moved.

  Dr. Immi had also moved all the patients into the emergency area, where their vital signs could be monitored very closely and constantly displayed over the bed. Tegan found comfort in the constant blipping of the heart monitor on the wall, showing Charles’s heartbeat as real proof her son was still with her.

  Tegan liked Dr. Immi for another reason as well. She didn’t promise that Charles would be all right as Dr. Akins had done. She simply said she hoped taking him off the drugs and moving the ship would help. And if it didn’t, they would go from there.

  Tegan couldn’t believe that Captain Skaerbaek had moved the entire hospital ship out of orbit. And that he had suspected her plan to steal a shuttle. The man didn’t miss much. She liked that quality in him. And his green eyes.

  For the last hour they had been stationary a quarter of a light-year away from the Belle Terre system. The olivium-ore subspace radiation would be almost unmeasurable at this point. If anything was going to stop Charles’s deteriorating health, it was this. She just knew it. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about the chance this wouldn’t work.

  Dr. Immi was standing next to one of the other patients, talking softly to a family member, when Captain Skaerbaek came into the room. He smiled warmly at Tegan and moved over to stand beside Charles’s bed, staring intently at the health monitor for a few moments.

  “Any change?” he asked.

  “Dr. Immi said that the heart rates on all the patients had leveled,” Tegan said, standing and moving over beside the captain at the foot of Charles’s bed. “But that may be just from coming off the drugs Dr. Akins had them all on.”

  Skaerbaek nodded and said nothing.

  “Captain,” Tegan said, “I just want—”

  “Bill,” he said, smiling at her. “Remember?”

  She laughed. “All right, Captain. Bill when we’re alone.”

  “Good enough,” he said.

  She was staring up at him when his eyes got wide. She glanced at Charles, who was looking up at her.

  “Mom,” he said, his voice soft and rough. “I’m thirsty.”

  Tegan’s legs almost wouldn’t hold her. It was the first time in days he had said a word, let alone recognized her. She moved quickly around the bed to his side, grabbing the glass of ice she always kept fresh there and spooning a small chip for him to suck on.

  “Dr. Immi!” Captain Skaerbaek called firmly.

  Immi glanced up and came running, studying the blinking monitor board over Charles. Tegan’s hand shook as she held the spoon out and Charles took the ice chip and sucked on it.

  Tegan watched her son work on that for a moment, then glanced up at the doctor, almost afraid to ask what this meant.

  Dr. Immi was smiling. Ear-to-ear smiling.

  And so was Captain Skaerbaek.

  Tegan had her answer.

  And her son back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  YANORADA HAD BEEN preparing himself for the human named Kirk’s return. But when the two guards suddenly pulled him from the room, he was still surprised. He had expected Kirk to let him think about his plight longer. Clearly the human was in some sort of hurry. And that would give Yanorada a slight advantage.

  “Well,” Kirk said as the guards escorted him into the main area of the station, “I’m prepared to offer you the same deal I offered your assistants.”

  “And just what might that have been?” Yanorada asked, giving Kirk his best smile. He knew his assistants could have been no help to the humans. Half the time they had been of little help to him and hi
s projects.

  Kirk smiled right back. “My people know about the seven-sound code needed to shut off the nanoassemblers you planted on Belle Terre. We just don’t have the right combination yet.”

  “And you won’t for some time, considering the number of possibilities,” Yanorada said.

  The human captain shrugged and laughed lightly. “At the speed of the dozen computers working on the problem, the correct combination will be reached in six and one half hours at the outside.”

  “Not possible,” Yanorada shouted, glaring at the human. The man had to be either lying or misinformed by his people.

  Kirk only laughed. “Very possible. I assume we will have the code in the next four or five hours if not sooner. Of course, Mr. Spock over there might find it in your computer system before that time as well.”

  Yanorada glared at the pointed-eared one, then looked back at Captain Kirk. “You mentioned an offer.”

  “I did, didn’t I,” Kirk said, smiling and pacing. “I told your assistants that if they gave me the seven-sound code, I would give them the code to shut off the nanoassemblers we planted on your world.”

  Yanorada smiled. “Of course, you learned they did not have the sequence. I would never trust such weak fools with such important information.”

  “So I’ll make the same offer to you,” Kirk said. “Save us the time now and I’ll spare your home planet.”

  Yanorada stared at the human captain. The man seemed very sure of himself and capable of just about any act. But Yanorada did not believe him capable of wiping out an entire planet full of beings. From what he knew of the humans and their Starfleet, that was not something they would ever do.

  “I’m afraid, Captain Kirk,” Yanorada said, “that I cannot give you the sequence. You and your supercomputers are going to have to find it without my help.”

  The human only shrugged. “You are amazingly free with the lives of your entire race,” Kirk said.

  “Assuming you have done what you have threatened,” Yanorada said.

  Kirk glared at him. “Many people have thought over the years that I was not capable of an action. They were all surprised. Strap him in that chair.”

  The security guards yanked Yanorada by the arm and sat him down in his command seat, tying his legs, hands, and chest far, far too tight for comfort.

  Kirk moved over and flipped on the screens. “I thought you might like a little entertainment.”

  The screen showed seven distant Kauld warships. Why was Kirk showing him this? It made no sense.

  “I assume,” Kirk said, “that more ships will be joining these shortly. And if I were in command of those ships, I wouldn’t want this observation station and all the information on it to fall into enemy hands. Would you?”

  Yanorada made himself sit very still and only look at the screens, but he saw exactly where Kirk was headed.

  “We, of course,” Kirk said, “will try to protect this post for a short time. Of course, by then we will have all this information downloaded to our ship’s computers, so we will have no need to put up much of a defense. Just enough to make it a good show.”

  Again Yanorada forced himself not to move, but the images of the warships seemed to fill every ounce of his brain. Kirk was right. Those ships and the idiots in charge of them would not allow this station to continue to exist, especially if the humans attempted to protect it.

  “You should have a front-row seat right here,” Kirk said, patting Yanorada’s shoulder. “Too bad you won’t be around to see the end of your own homeworld. An end you could have stopped simply by giving us a code a few hours ahead of when we will have it anyway.”

  “You would just kill me immediately if I gave you the code sequence,” Yanorada said.

  “Actually, I wouldn’t,” Kirk said, smiling and moving around so Yanorada could see him easier. “I would simply return your assistants to this base, untie you, take the code and retreat. The ships out there would never need to know we were even on this station, let alone talked to you. You return home, shut down the nanoassemblers we planted, save face, become a hero, and stay alive. We get a few hours’ jump on saving our planet.”

  Yanorada looked into Captain Kirk’s eyes. The human was deadly serious. For the first time since he saw this human, he actually believed what he was saying. “A fair solution,” Yanorada said.

  “All I need is the code to shut down the nanoassemblers,” Kirk said.

  “I’m sorry, Captain,” Yanorada said. “My answer is still no. And for the same reason as my assistants.”

  Kirk looked puzzled.

  “You do not have the code, do you?” the pointed-eared one asked.

  “That’s correct,” Yanorada said, smiling at Kirk. “I would be tempted by your offer, but I’m afraid I can’t comply. You see, I had the computer pick the seven-sound sequence randomly.”

  “I do not understand the logic in doing such a thing,” the pointed-eared one said. “A shutdown sequence is built into nanoassemblers in case they need to be shut down. Not knowing what the code was would seem to make such a precaution useless.”

  Yanorada shrugged. “It would take me a few hours at most to find the computer-picked sequence. I always assumed that would be enough time, considering the function and type of nanoassemblers these are. Not knowing the code also made it safer in cases exactly like this one.”

  The pointed-eared one nodded. “Logical.”

  Kirk stared at his officer, then back at Yanorada. The look of complete disgust was clear on his face. He stepped away, walked a few paces to the door into the living quarters, then turned and came back. “Take this prisoner to the brig on the Enterprise.”

  Yanorada waited patiently as the guard untied the too-tight bonds that held him to his chair. It seemed that Kirk was not even serious about leaving him in his chair to watch the destruction. It had all been a bluff. And a good one. It would have worked if he had known the code.

  “Three to beam aboard,” the guard on his right said.

  A moment later Captain Kirk, his pointed-eared friend, and the observation station that had been his home for the past few months vanished.

  Pardonnet walked the corridor of the big Conestoga as if he were walking in a bad memory. Or maybe a nightmare. In his worst fears, he hadn’t imagined that his colony would have to once again be filling these ships. Yet it was happening.

  The halls smelled of stale air and new machine lubrication. The engineers said that all the environment systems were in and running smoothly, the kitchens were rebuilt, and some of the living quarters were put back together. But to Pardonnet, just walking the hallway, it was clear how much had been taken to the surface from these big ships. Large areas of wall paneling had been removed, and in a few places he could tell the decking was temporarily replaced.

  Hundreds of people were already aboard and hundreds more were on their way. In six hours this ship alone would have almost three thousand people aboard.

  Three thousand people who, like him, never expected to be here again.

  He found his way to the bridge of the large ship. There five people were working over panels that looked makeshift at best. And there wasn’t a chair on the bridge. Even the captain’s command chair had been removed and not yet returned. Pardonnet wondered if anyone even knew where it was.

  Captain Branch saw Pardonnet and put down a scanner and moved to greet him. Branch was a short man, with gray hair and a slight pot gut. He’d been a freighter captain for years and had taken this last job with no intention of ever returning to the Federation. As he had said on his application, Give me a small hunk of land and help me build a house and I’ll be happy as a pig in slop.

  Pardonnet had no idea how happy a pig in slop might be, but he had hired Branch on the spot for one of the big ships. And had come to trust him a great deal on the way here. The man was a good captain. And a natural leader.

  “Inspection tour, Governor?” Branch asked, smiling and extending his hand.

  Pard
onnet laughed. “No, just trying to make myself believe this was really happening.”

  “Boy, I hear you there,” Branch said. “I was hoping I’d never hear another person call me ‘Captain’ again. I liked my little farm on the river.”

  “Well, with luck, we’ll have you back on it fairly soon.”

  “Real soon, I hope,” Branch said, his face serious. “Right now my crops are covered with about fifty feet of that siliconic gel stuff. Not so sure how long they’ll make it.”

  “Neither am I,” Pardonnet said. He glanced around. “Any major problems?”

  Branch smiled. “Nice choice of phrasing, Governor. Major problems, as in do we stop bringing people aboard? No. Scott and his Starfleet crew did a good job on the big stuff. We’re left to deal with all the small things that are important if we ever have to take this ship out of orbit.”

  “I sure hope that doesn’t happen,” Pardonnet said, barely restraining a shudder.

  “Yeah,” Branch said, “but we’re going to be ready just in case it does.”

  “Good thinking,” Pardonnet said.

  “About ready to button up the canyon city?” Branch asked.

  “Next few hours,” Pardonnet said.

  “Thought of a name for the place yet?”

  Pardonnet looked around the now very makeshift bridge and thought about the quickly built city. “Everyone is just referring to it as Canyon City,” Pardonnet said. “I’ve been thinking of calling it Hell.”

  Branch laughed. “Come on, Governor, from what I hear it’s not that bad.”

  “Well,” Pardonnet said, “where would you rather live? Your open, green farm, or in a rock hole in the ground in the middle of a hot desert?”

  Branch nodded. “Put it that way, Hell fits.”

  Kirk watched Yanorada and the three guards beam out, then turned to Spock. “Can you find that sound code?”

  “From all indications, Captain,” Spock said, “it’s in the computer, just as Yanorada said it was. But finding it will be another matter.”