by David Mack
It was sometimes difficult for Kirk to guess at McCoy’s hidden agendas. “Why bring her up if you don’t want to see her?”
“Who says I don’t want to see her?”
“Bones, I just spent the past hour being verbally abused by Spock’s father and a Klingon politician. My patience is gone, so get to the point. What do you want?”
The grouchy physician sighed. “I just want to know that if all this goes south, my daughter won’t get caught in the cross fire.”
Kirk sympathized. He, too, had a child of whom he rarely spoke—his son, David, the product of a years-long, on-again, off-again romance he had enjoyed with Doctor Carol Marcus. The boy had just turned seven—and that was all Kirk knew of him. Kirk’s separation from Carol, though less hostile than Bones’s acrimonious divorce, still had been unpleasant. And while he had consented to let Carol raise their son free of his “influence,” whatever that meant, it was one of his few great regrets that he had let himself be excised from David’s life.
If Carol and David were here . . . I’d want to protect them, too.
He set his hand on McCoy’s shoulder. “Forget about the past, Bones. You divorced your wife, not your daughter.”
McCoy shook his head in denial. “I know Joanna still blames me. She always has.”
“How long has it been since you saw each other?”
“In the flesh?” A shrug. “A few years.” He thought harder. “Maybe five or so.” Then he came clean. “Okay, twelve years and four months. But that’s what subspace messages are for.”
The longer Kirk talked to his friend, the more certain he became that the man would never just ask for what he needed. It would have to be forced upon him, for his own good.
“Go find your daughter, Bones.”
McCoy did his best impression of a man aggrieved. “Now, hang on just a minute, Captain. I’ve got a lab full of forensic samples in need of—”
“That wasn’t a suggestion, Doctor. It was an order. Go. Find her.” He softened the directive with a friendly smile. “The samples will still be there when you get back.”
An abashed smile brightened McCoy’s weathered visage. “Aye, sir.”
* * *
Montgomery Scott had come ready for a fight. He had five Starfleet engineers at his back and no qualms about throwing the first punch, if someone deserved it. He still savored his memory of cold-cocking Korax, the first officer of the Klingon cruiser Gr’oth, aboard Deep Space Station K-7 a few months earlier. That’s what he gets for calling the Enterprise “garbage.”
The portable shield generator and signal scrambler was tucked into a tree-shaded corner of the campus, beside a high rock wall whose stones of varying size and color had been assembled with deliberate artlessness. Huddled around the machine, their hands filled with diagnostic tools, were four Klingon engineers. With tensions between the Federation and the Klingon Empire running higher than ever, Scott had no expectation of a warm welcome.
“Look sharp,” he muttered to his team.
Scott was still a few paces shy of arm’s length when the four Klingons stopped working and turned to face him and his crew. The oldest of the bunch—the only one with a hint of gray in his beard—handed his scanner to one of his subordinates, then stepped away from the machine to meet Scott, his gloved hand outstretched. “Ulgor. Chief engineer of the HoS’leth.”
The terse welcome surprised Scott. He had tensed to block a swung fist, not grasp a proffered palm. Recovering from his momentary confusion, he shook Ulgor’s hand. “Montgomery Scott, chief engineer, U.S.S. Enterprise.”
Ulgor’s grip was firm. “You’re the one who beat Korax on K-7.”
Proudly lifting his chin, Scott said, “Aye, that was me.”
The Klingon released Scott’s hand and gave his shoulder a friendly slap. “Well done! I served with that yIntagh on the LoSgor. Never liked him.” He motioned toward the generator. “We ran a full system check of the shield network. No sign of malfunction or breach.”
“We’d like to confirm that for ourselves, if you don’t mind.”
“That is why you’re here.” Ulgor looked to the largest of his subordinates. “Rathnar, give them the codes for the network’s master control panel.”
Scott glanced over his shoulder at Lieutenant L’Nar and directed her attention at Rathnar with a tilt of his head. The Vulcan woman nodded in acknowledgment, then primed her tricorder to receive the access codes from the burly Klingon engineer. She silenced feedback tones from her tricorder, then said to Scott, “Codes received and relayed to all team devices.”
“Good work, Lieutenant.” To the others Scott added, “Get to it.” The two engineering teams maneuvered nervously around one another while they worked. Comparing notes, they conducted a new series of hardware, firmware, and software checks of the device and its networked counterparts. Scott watched Ulgor from the corner of his eye. “So. If the shields didn’t fail and weren’t breached, what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know yet.” Ulgor noticed Scott’s dubious reaction. “Is that not why we’re here? To gather facts and learn the truth?”
“Aye. Last I heard.”
A cool-headed Klingon? One who cared about evidence? Before that moment, Scott would have called such a notion absurd. Now he pondered Hamlet’s words of caution: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Their two teams finished their diagnostics and returned to stand in a mixed huddle around them. L’Nar spoke first. “Our review of the shield generators’ logs confirms the Klingons’ report, sir. There is no evidence of downtime, power spikes, frequency changes, or other malfunctions, nor is there any sign of a forcible breach of the system.”
“All right, then,” Scott said. “That means we can rule out Gorkon’s abduction by any known type of transporter.” He continued to Ulgor, “There’s no evidence of foul play in Gorkon’s suite, and your security vids prove he can’t have left. Which means—”
“That this has been a waste of time,” said Rathnar.
L’Nar replied, “Perhaps not.” She faced Scott and Ulgor. “Though our diagnostic of the shield network was not able to explain the councillor’s disappearance, we were able to assess some flaws in the system’s heat-dissipation protocols, as well as minor errors in its field geometry that could be exploited by an attacker. Fortunately, I think I can correct both problems with some adjustments to the system’s software.” A polite nod at Rathnar. “With your help.”
Rathnar looked to Ulgor for permission, which came in the form of a curt nod. The big, brawny Klingon gestured for L’Nar to lead the way back to the generator, and he fell into step beside her, no doubt to supervise her upgrades to the Klingon-made shield network.
Ulgor watched the departing pair for a moment, then turned back toward Scott. “Most generous of your engineer to offer to improve our system.”
“Aye,” Scott said. He left unspoken the rest of his thought: I’ll definitely need to have a word with that lass once we get back to the ship.
As useful as it might have been, in the short term, for L’Nar to have kept her knowledge of flaws in the Klingons’ shield network to herself for Starfleet’s benefit, Scott had to confess, even if just to himself, a grudging respect for the way her gesture had reduced the tension level between the two engineering teams. And, for that matter, he gave credit to the goodwill shown by Ulgor, his opposite number from the HoS’leth.
Maybe we and the Klingons should’ve sent engineers to get this treaty sorted, he mused. No way we could gum it up worse than the bloody politicians have.
* * *
It had been years since McCoy last walked the halls of a civilian teaching hospital. As odd as he knew it might seem to some people, he looked forward to the hushed atmosphere, the bite of disinfectant in the air, the vaguely pine-scented fragrance of a fresh
ly mopped floor, and even the weak aromas of bland food wafting from a cafeteria.
New Athens University Hospital loomed before him, a Y-shaped complex ten stories tall, with a footprint that occupied most of one square kilometer, including its tastefully manicured grounds. Its exterior was sheathed in the same kind of specially treated transparent aluminum common to large buildings on Centaurus and many other Federation worlds. Amber-tinted, the panels both absorbed solar energy to help replenish the complex’s backup batteries as a safeguard against a failure of the planetary power grid and prevented dangerous concentrations of reflected light that could pose a hazard to the planet’s indigenous life-forms.
The main entrance was a lobby whose façade consisted of five-meter-tall floor-to-ceiling windows and a broad, three-paneled revolving door that remained in constant gradual motion, sweeping visitors in and out of the lobby with firm but gentle insistence. McCoy followed a handful of civilians through the revolving entrance into the lobby.
He made it as far as the central information desk, which was flanked by security checkpoints. There an Andorian security officer waylaid him. “Can I help you, sir?”
McCoy pointed at the turbolifts on the other side of the checkpoint and flashed his best disarming smile. “Just visiting.”
“Not without a pass, sir.” The Andorian chan directed McCoy’s eye to a sign on the front of the ring-shaped information desk. “Access is restricted to staff and approved visitors.”
“How do you know I’m not an ‘approved visitor’?”
“Biometrics. Your face, retinal scan, and kinetic profile were checked when you came through the door. Plus—” He gave McCoy’s uniform exaggerated scrutiny. “You stand out.”
His fragile good mood dashed, McCoy glowered at the security officer. “Fine, Sherlock. You’ve cracked the case. Now what?”
“If you can tell me who you’re here to see—”
“I’m here to see nursing student Joanna McCoy.”
The guard activated a panel on his side of the desk and mumbled to himself as he accessed the hospital’s personnel directory. “McAdams, McAndrews, McCall . . . here we go, McCoy, Joanna.” An obsequious smile as he looked up. “And who should I say is here?”
“Her father. Doctor Leonard McCoy.” He hoped that his choice of emphasis might earn him some small measure of additional respect or contrition from the chan behind the desk, but his verbal microaggression went unacknowledged. Typical.
Some more taps on the screen, another phony smile. “She’ll be down as soon as she’s able.” He gestured toward the padded benches in front of the lobby’s dramatically high windows. “Feel free to have a seat and make yourself comfortable.”
“I prefer to stand.”
“Suit yourself, sir.”
Ten minutes later, McCoy started to regret his choice. He was on the verge of swallowing his wounded pride and taking a seat when Joanna emerged from one of the lifts behind the checkpoint. As anxious as he was to see her again after so long apart, he couldn’t help but break into a broad grin at the mere sight of her. He threw his arms wide to greet her. “There she is!”
She stepped into his embrace and planted a dutiful peck on his cheek. “Nice to see you, too, Dad.” All too soon she pulled away, asserting her independence. “What’re you doing here?”
“I came to see you.”
“No, I mean, what are you doing on Centaurus?”
He tried to shrug off the question as if it were a trifle. “Ship’s business.”
Concern darkened her innocent gaze. “It’s about the conference, isn’t it?”
Out of reflex, McCoy looked around for potential eavesdroppers, then lowered his voice. “Is there someplace more private we could talk?”
She threaded her arm around his and led him toward the revolving door. “Outside.” It rankled McCoy to feel as if he were being handled, but it also pleased him to walk with his daughter holding his arm. He wrestled with his confusion in silence as she guided him back out into the crisp autumn morning. They strolled together along a cobblestone path that snaked in languid curves around the complex. Sunlight streaming through a canopy of tree boughs dappled the walkway with a blend of golden light and turquoise shadows.
McCoy wanted to cut to the chase, but the circumstances called for small talk. “So, your second year of nursing school. How are your studies going?”
Her reaction was halting and awkward, as if she sensed he was masking his true agenda. “Um . . . fairly well, I guess. My grades are good. And my performance evals last year were good enough that I’m shadowing the senior RN this year.”
“That’s good. What’s her specialty?”
Another telling hesitation. “Emergent care.”
His composure slipped. “The trauma unit? Are you ready for that?”
“Dad, it’s fine.”
“It’s the emergency unit. By definition, it’s the opposite of fine.” He could sense her emotional shields going up, so he changed the subject. “Are you still living on campus?”
She rolled her eyes, which made her look like the nineteen-year-old she was. “Not anymore. The peace conference took over my dorm.”
“So where are you staying?”
“In town, with friends.” She sized him up with a sly look. “What’s got you keyed up?”
“Nothing,” he lied.
“No, there’s something on your mind. Something you want to ask about Mom?”
Now his shields were up. “Not in a million years.”
She shook her head. “Still holding a grudge, eh?”
“Might as well. It’s all she left me.” As soon as he’d said it, he knew he’d crossed the line. Joanna turned around in midstep, and he lurched after her. “Wait, Joanna—”
“No, Dad. If the only reason you’re here is to play out this same old song—”
“That’s not why I came to see you.” His admission halted her retreat. She turned back and with a look prompted him to continue. “I’m here because I’m worried for your safety.”
She took a step back toward him. “Why?” A narrowed gaze of suspicion. “It’s the peace conference, right? Something went wrong?”
“How’d you know?”
“The news channels can’t shut up about the Enterprise and a Klingon cruiser being in orbit. They’re trying to say it’s no big deal. But it is, isn’t it?”
As always, too smart for her own good. He sighed. “Kind of, yeah.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Hoard food? Stock up on potable water?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of booking passage back to Earth.”
She raised her eyebrows so high they vanished beneath her bangs. “Are you nuts? I’m in the middle of a semester here. I can’t just pick up and leave.”
He bristled at her hostile tone. “The hell you can’t. Three transports to Earth leave every day. I could have you on one tonight.”
Crossed arms and a scowl. “Over my dead body.”
“Stay here and you might get your wish. If this conference keeps going downhill—”
“Sometimes being a medical professional means working in dangerous places.”
“But you’re not a professional, Joanna. You’re just a student.”
“No, Dad, I’m a nurse.” Her anger boiled over. “You think I’m stupid? That I don’t know the peace conference is going south? Thanks for stopping by, but I figured that out myself.”
“Dammit, Joanna! You’ve never seen war, real war, up close. I have. It’s something I hope you never have to face. And that’s why I want you as far from this mess as possible.”
A slow, sad nod. “Yeah, that makes sense . . . coming from you. Cut and run was always kind of your thing, wasn’t it?” She turned her back and strode away from him. He stood, stunned and silent, too emotionally wounded to retort or tr
y to follow.
Recklessness, obstinacy, self-righteousness—Joanna’s youth was marked by all the same selfish qualities McCoy remembered from his own early adulthood.
With reflection came enlightenment.
No wonder my father couldn’t stand me.
Thirteen
It took the better part of an hour for Elara to get far enough from the campus’s upgraded security field to feel comfortable attempting to contact her superiors. Ensconced in a cramped hotel room on the outskirts of New Athens, she had taken care while prying up the carpeting and cutting a hole in the floor with a plasma knife, all so that she could tap into the building’s communications systems. It had been tedious, but it let her hijack the hotel’s link to the planet’s orbital subspace signal relay and set up an encrypted real-time signal to her overlord on the Orion homeworld.
Why doesn’t he answer? She had been pinging the Red Man for nearly two minutes. He usually answered within seconds. Confused, she checked her wrist chrono again. It was early afternoon in New Athens on Centaurus and late evening in the capital on Orion. The Red Man tended to follow a nocturnal schedule; he should have been awake. So why doesn’t he—?
His crimson face and bald head filled the screen of her handheld comm tablet. She recalled he wore a black braid of hair on the back of his head, but it wasn’t visible on-screen—only the glare of his yellow-gold irises beneath his black peaked brows. “What, Elara?”
“My apologies if I’ve disturbed you, Master.”
“You want forgiveness, make this worth my time.”
“The peace conference is falling apart because of Councillor Gorkon’s disappearance.”
That news put a rare smile on the Red Man’s face. “Define ‘falling apart.’ ”
“Two warships in orbit, one Starfleet, one Klingon. Armed troops from both ships on the ground. And a total halt to the treaty negotiations.”
“Excellent. Just as we’d hoped.”
Nothing made Elara as suspicious as seeing the Red Man elated. “We want them to go to war? Their last conflict wasn’t good for business. Why would this one be different?”