With some satisfaction, Garrett watched the tactical display and saw how her one ship was keeping three alien attackers at bay. They seemed unable or unwilling to fire their version of phasers, and their speed was dropping.
“Captain, they’re breaking off, but two are trying to converge on our port nacelle,” Castillo called out.
“Stachow, bring us about 145 degrees. Castillo, arm photon torpedo, lead vessel.”
“Aye, Sir,” both replied, twenty fingers moving rapidly.
“Fire,” she commanded after a brief pause. For a change, she heard something: the torpedo being launched. Garrett watched it on the tactical readout. Counting to herself, the captain watched as the torpedo reached the vessel and exploded at the count of eight, apparently shattering its shields. Or overloaded them, as coruscating energy crackled around the ship—so much so that the companion vessel veered off.
Before moving away, though, it unleashed its own firepower, a blinding white bolt of energy that crackled against the Enterprise’s shields and once more rocked the deck. No one fell, this time, for which the battered Garrett was thankful.
“One vessel incapacitated,” Hemachandra reported. “All energy readings are dropping off the scale. They won’t be causing anyone trouble now.”
“Good shot, Castillo; sure you haven’t done this before?”
“Certain of it,” he replied with a broad smile. He refused to take his eyes off the station, which didn’t surprise the captain. Confident as he was, it was all new to him and he was fighting nerves. She recognized it from when she had to assume command herself, when the Gandhi’s captain was killed during an exchange with the Cardassians. She recalled the nerves, the adrenaline, and the outright fear that she had to fight while trying to stay focused on getting out alive.
“Singh to bridge! Captain, we have system failures throughout the ship. ODN junctures are shorting out. We’ve got everything bypassed but we’ve taken a beating. We’ll be limping all the way home at this rate.” Garrett had never heard Cat sound so troubled, and that in itself was a warning.
“Understood. Do what you can to hold us together. We still have two ships out there ready to do battle. Out.” Her rising spirits reversed course.
Turning to her new command crew, the captain wasn’t sure what she felt. It wasn’t confidence, nor was it fear. So far they handled her orders just fine even if they took longer to execute commands than she wanted. Still, they fought through the carnage and rose to the occasion. Just what she had hoped for, what, days ago? A quick look at the chronometer shocked her: it had just been hours before when she sat in the rec room. And since they first encountered the aliens? Maybe an hour, probably less.
“What do they want?” she asked aloud.
“Got me,” Castillo ventured. He kept whatever else was on his mind to himself.
“Without saying so, they are clearly protecting this sector of space,” Hemachandra said. “Maybe their method of communication can’t be translated.”
“Could be,” Garrett said, thoughtfully. “Castillo, status of the other vessels?”
“Functional but keeping their distance. The other one has moved out of range and is being protected by the others.”
“These three came without warning. Any way to determine if there are more nearby?”
Hemachandra scowled at his science console. “No way, Captain. We didn’t see these three when we were operating at peak performance. With the binary radiation interfering with the sensors, plus all the new energy unleashed in the area, it’s still a mess out there.”
Snapping her fingers, Garrett stood up and walked to the tactical display. Tracing a path with her forefinger, she stared for a moment.
“Stachow, plot us a course, back to the Federation but as evasive and erratic as can be for the first parsec. Castillo, rig five photon torpedoes with timers. I want them to go off five seconds apart, dispersion pattern Sierra.”
She moved from the screen back around the upper ring, pausing at the science station. Hemachandra looked up at her, a questioning look on his weathered face. She smiled, leaning her uninjured hip against the bulkhead. “If we can’t tell where they came from, we may create enough spatial interference to mask our path back to the Federation.” He nodded in appreciation of her strategy, which gave her additional confidence.
“Photon torpedoes ready,” Castillo called out.
“Course plotted, I think,” Stachow added. The captain smiled and moved down toward helm, checking over the plot. Garrett adjusted two course corrections and patted Stachow’s shoulder. “Not bad for a beginner,” she complimented.
“Singh, bridge. We’ll need warp speed shortly. What do you have for me?”
A pause and then the engineer replied, “I can give you warp 6, nothing better, and only for a short while. Will it do?”
“In a pinch. Stand by.” Garrett resumed her seat, looking around the entire bridge. Everyone was at work, no one showing any hesitation in getting his or her jobs done. Damage control parties were already refitting the damaged helm console. She’d have to wrap this up and then get down to sickbay for the grisly body count. No question Garrett had been avoiding contacting CMO Casado, and the news must be bad since he had not called the bridge during the entire battle or come up with the others. It would make for a long trip home.
“Okay, crew. Let’s go home. Stachow, execute the course. Castillo, launch the torpedoes in ten seconds and then give me a wide dispersal phaser barrage. Let’s scare the aliens into hesitating as long as possible.”
The Enterprise leapt into warp, more smoothly than the captain had hoped for. The view on the forward screen distorted as the warp bubble changed space. Rear phasers shot beam after beam as torpedoes streaked away from the ship. It was a sudden burst of activity that gave the captain a feeling of accomplishment. Battered or not, the starship was not going down without a fight.
“Alien vessels trying pursuit, going to warp,” Castillo said from tactical. “We’ve got a good head start and they seem to be faltering past warp 4.” A few seconds passed in silence and then he added, “Gaining ground and the evasive course has them confused. They’re heading 14 degrees away from our present position.”
“Not bad, but still close enough to find us with sensors. Keep it up, Mr. Stachow, Mr. Castillo. Look sharp in case reinforcements turn up.”
For the next ten minutes, space was quiet. The stars distorted on the viewer as the starship traveled at seemingly impossible speed. The tactical board had to be reconfigured to indicate the vast distance now between the alien ships and the Enterprise. No other aliens appeared on the still-fuzzy sensor scans. Garrett could tell by simple feel that the ship was struggling at warp 6 but didn’t dare lessen speed so quickly.
Ten minutes became fifteen, fifteen became thirty, and finally Garrett allowed herself to relax. She rose from the command seat and patted her officers on the shoulder. “Good work,” she said quietly. “And thank you.”
Looking around at the grinning Hemachandra, Garrett realized with finality that the danger was over.
“Bring us to Yellow Alert, shields down. Reduce speed to warp 3 and let’s assess the damage. Damage-control teams take priority. Mr. Nee, contact Starfleet. I’d like permission to get repairs at the nearest facility. Feed them our sensor logs for the last two hours. Finally, Mr. Castillo, launch several warning buoys. Work with Mr. Nee on a universal message. I want this sector off-limits to Federation vessels until we better know what’s going on out here.”
Everyone acknowledged the commands and set about their work. She looked among them with a mixture of pride and regret. She was going to miss those who gave their lives just a short while ago. Garrett hoped they would rest easy knowing the ship was in capable hands. The crew lived up to her hopes.
“Captain,” Castillo said.
She turned and looked at him, his face all serious.
“I agreed with Mr. Carmona. The Constellation ships are better for deep space. I did re
search on them at the academy.” He paused a moment. “I thought you should know.”
She looked at him, trying to recall the context. Finally, she gave him a small smile. “When we get back to base, the first round of drinks will be on me,” she said, the first happy tone in her voice since Red Alert sounded. Her crew broke into smiles and watched as she strode off the bridge. Stepping inside the turbolift, she turned command over to Hemachandra, her highest ranking officer left on duty, and ordered the lift to sickbay.
Hours later, the shift changed once more, and the captain found herself seated in a different rec room, fussing over her typical sandwich. It just wasn’t right anymore, and she pushed the plate away. Joining her were Singh and Casado. Both officers were clearly exhausted, having done their part to keep the Enterprise running. Casado, a seasoned medical officer, was solemn, given the work just completed. Neither said a word as the captain dithered over the plate.
“I’ve appointed Nelson as acting first officer until we get home,” the captain said quietly. “His first task will be organizing the memorial services. God, what will I say to those families?”
Everyone at the table fell silent for a few moments.
“The buzz is different,” Singh noted.
Garrett looked up. “What do you mean?” She strained her ears and caught pieces of conversations.
“I fell out of the Jefferies tube, right on top of Aria. Talk about your compromising positions.”
“I must have set a dozen bones in under an hour.”
“Could you see us spiral? Flawless. Just flawless.”
“I’ll miss Junior. She was a great bunkmate.”
After a minute, Garrett returned to her drink, nodding in agreement with the chief engineer.
“Next mission will be different, you’ll see,” Cat added. “Guess the Warin will have to wait for a new colony world a little longer.”
“You’re right,” the captain admitted. She was still coping with the loss of twenty-seven crew members and the serious injuries to another fifty-three—a sizeable percentage of her crew. “I got what I asked for, though. I got to see what they were made of and I like them. I think this won’t be the only encounter that will help us live up to the Enterprise name.”
“You mean being seen as a maverick?” Doctor Casado asked.
“No, Esteban,” Garrett sighed. “April, Pike, Kirk—all did things as needed. We remember when they broke the rules, but they also served with distinction. And more than the captains, the crews were exemplary. I want the same reputation.”
“Well, you’ve certainly gotten further along than poor Harriman,” Singh said.
“Que?” asked the doctor.
“Poor John Harriman,” Singh explained. “Captain of the Enterprise-B, lost a piece of his ship and Captain James T. Kirk, all during its first voyage,” Singh said, wiping her mouth with a napkin. “Now that’s a legacy to live down.”
Garrett, who didn’t necessarily like Harriman’s history, suddenly felt obligated to defend her predecessor. “He recovered nicely, don’t you think? Handled the Melkot problem pretty well and certainly deserved the Zee-Magnees Prize.”
“Maybe,” the engineer said with a wicked smile. “Still, pretty dumb to let a starship leave dock without being fully prepped. At least you had the sense to leave Mars with a full complement.”
Garrett looked wistfully around the room and finally said, “Well, if I can’t learn from history, and avoid those mistakes, then I don’t deserve this command … or this crew.” With that, she stood and began to walk from table to table, making contact with her people. Patting a shoulder here, answering a question at a few tables, and listening to their concerns. If they followed her lead, then they were going to be a crew that spoke to one another, and worked together.
Singh turned to Casado, who had helped himself to the untouched sandwich, and happily said, “Pretty good captain, don’t you think?”
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
U.S.S. Enterprise-D
“I mean you’re acting like you know exactly which way in go … but you’re only guessing. Do you do this all the time?”
Dr. Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation
JOHN VORNHOLT
Rank, the saying goes, has its privileges. John Vornholt chose to set the following story in a quaint little getaway known as The Captain’s Table. No one is certain where it is, but it is for the exclusive use of ship captains. The price of admission is a story. The concept was introduced in a series of Star Trek novels some years back and makes a return appearance here.
Captain Picard, current commander of the Enterprise-E, upholds the legacy of those who preceded him. He also has had the rare opportunity to fight alongside both Kirk and Spock, something the other captains never had the chance to experience.
John has chosen to concentrate on a little-explored aspect of Picard’s personality, his dealings with youth. While no longer a youth himself, John has written numerous young adult novels including How to Sneak into the Girl’s Locker Room and several nonfiction books. An accomplished playwright, John has several plays to his credit and has even performed on stage before turning full-time to writing. He has several Star Trek adventures to his credit, plus scripts for a wide variety of animated television programs.
Currently a resident of Arizona, John is rather happy with the notion that he’s getting to write adventures to quicken a reader’s blood much the way pulp heroes such as Doc Savage inspired him in his own youth.
The Captain and the King
Mmmm. Thank you, Cap, this is delightful. After tasting this excellent Pinot Noir—quite a rare vintage for a Delacroix—I will be honored to recount a tale. I see many comrades and allies here tonight, but no Andorians. That’s a pity, because it would be nice to have an Andorian’s perspective on these events. Or perhaps that’s as it should be, under the circumstances I can speak a bit more freely—
“And no one can call you a liar!” crowed a voice from the back of the dimly lit tavern, to much laughter.
True. But this much is also true: next to the Klingons, no race in the Federation has a more warlike history than our tall, blue-skinned comrades, the Andorians. Like humans, they are prone to fighting awful civil wars, so they depend upon a strong central government—a hereditary monarchy. It’s been repressive at times, but it’s held them together. They had a long reign of peace under a ruler named Collev, who died recently.
“Good riddance,” growled a hard-bitten, green-skinned Orion. “That Collev was nothing but an old brigand.”
Perhaps, but he made the shuttles run on time. Both Collev and his son and successor, Bregev, died in the same shuttlecraft accident. Or was it an accident? That’s another story for another storyteller, but I’m sure many of you remember the harsh words and accusations that followed Collev’s death. The Andorians have achieved peace again, but few of you know how that peace was obtained … and at what cost.
My involvement began when the Enterprise was sent to mediate and show the colors. With no clear-cut successor to Collev, two armed camps quickly formed. The Red Sash were renegades from the military who supported a general with uncertain bloodlines. The Absolutists were the old guard who supported Collev; without his family, to rally around, they were worried about staying in power.
Both sides were capable of devastating a whole planet, so a certain mixture of tact and firmness was necessary. Since Andorians are impressed by force, the Enterprise was chosen to go. I was a mediator, but I also had a message: if the Andorians started a civil war, they faced expulsion from the Federation.
“So they sent Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a well-known hero,” said a Ferengi captain. “Smart.”
Both sides were intractable, and I just tried to keep them talking. Neither one of them was an exemplar of virtue—the Red Sash were renegades with a history of terrorism, and the Absolutists wanted to keep their power and privilege at any cost. At least, both of them had a totalitarian bent.
My
first officer and I took long walks in the streets of Andoria, discussing how to end the impasse. The capital city, Laibok, is a magnificent place with cockeyed buildings and towering doorways, all built with a complete disregard for symmetry. The doors are built for the lofty Andorians and their antennae, and their sloping houses reminded me of ramshackle cottages in the French countryside. I certainly didn’t want to see any of this unique architecture destroyed by a pointless war.
On our walk, Commander Riker and I entered a bazaar, chockful of exotic clothes, food, and trade goods. I can still remember that pungent perfume the Andorians cherish—there were barrels of the stuff. One booth offered rather garish portraits of King Collev and many of his predecessors. One of them in particular intrigued me, because the king was so young and handsome-looking, while the others were all somber and aged. The silver frame had a latinum plaque that bore the words “King Thurl of Greater Andoria.”
“Is that what he looked like?” asked Riker with surprise. “Awfully young.”
“He was king just before Collev,” rasped a voice behind us. We turned to see an old woman with wrinkled blue skin and antennae which drooped over her lofty forehead. Her hair was as white as a nova. “I can get you an autographed copy—if he’s still signing them.”
“Still signing them?” I asked. “Do you mean that King Thurl is still alive?”
“Ex-King Thurl. He abdicated while he was quite young … just after that likeness was made.”
“Why?” asked Riker.
The shopkeeper shrugged her bony shoulders. “He was bought off. You are aware, aren’t you, that our marriages involve four partners, and family connections get rather complicated? The royal family is actually a ragtag collection of families related by marriage—some wealthy, some not. Thurl wasn’t rich, but his bloodlines were impeccable from all four parents. Collev had plenty of money but commoners in his family. So Thurl sold his throne for riches beyond imagining, although he’s had to enjoy his wealth in exile. A sad exile, I would imagine.”
Star Trek: Enterprise Logs Page 27