But right now, he still had his duty.
“We are assembled here today to pay respects to an officer who served with distinction. I first met Lieutenant Spock of Vulcan . . .”
* * *
The walls in Galadjian’s quarters were a shrine to science. On the wall hung diplomas and commendations from the Zefram Cochrane Institute for Advanced Theoretical Physics, the Alpha Centauri Academy of Science and Technology, and a variety of other places of the highest learning. One was entirely written in Vulcan. The professor had further accentuated the sitting room with a bookcase filled with the works of the great engineering masters. And in place of family pictures, Pike saw images of Galadjian shaking hands with three different former presidents of the Federation.
He’s living in his résumé.
Galadjian emerged from his bedroom wearing the dark gray civilian suit Pike had seen him in when he first reported for duty. “Thank you for waiting, Captain. I wanted to change after the funeral.”
“I appreciate your attending. I know you have been on personal leave.”
That was what they were calling it.
“I could hardly have done otherwise,” Galadjian said. “Spock’s was a fine mind. It is a tremendous loss.” He gestured to the chairs by the bookcase. “Please sit.”
Pike did so. He knew attending the funeral could not have been easy for Galadjian—and what he had to say next wasn’t going to be any easier. “Doctor, we have to talk. The Susquatane incident—”
“I take full responsibility for it, Captain. And I assure you I am doing everything in my power to make things right.”
How, exactly? Pike wondered. Galadjian had been holed up here since the disaster. “Since the action, I’ve heard from a number of staffers. Your division—some others. That moment on the bridge—that wasn’t the first time, was it?”
“Of course, I have not been in action before. That is a unique experience—”
“I don’t mean that. I mean the not-knowing-how-things-work.”
“I do know how things work.” Galadjian gestured to the books. “Captain, the principles on which your shields operate were based on papers I wrote twenty years ago.”
“I applaud that, Doctor.” Pike frowned. He was going to have to get at this another way. “Place your right hand in the air.”
“Excuse me?”
“Indulge me.” Pike lifted his right hand into midair, palm out. “Like you were activating the shields at station.”
Galadjian smiled. “Ah. Like this?”
“That’s right. Now increase the intensity of the deflector beam.” He spoke abruptly. “Quick, where’s your hand?”
Galadjian, tentative, drew his hand back. “I cannot see the console, sir.”
“You have to commit it to memory. The greenest ensigns on my bridge can see the interface in their sleep. Nhan could probably do it with her feet.”
“Oh.” Galadjian nodded, understanding.
“There will be times when there will be no power. No gravity. No lights. Failing life-support. And your crewmembers’ lives will depend on your knowledge not just of how things work, but of how to make them work.”
“We knew this would be the case. It is my first starship, after all.”
“I hear things as captain. You’re right—I haven’t gotten down to main engineering enough. I’ve failed you in that. But engineers have come to other officers, who have come to me. They all respect your accomplishments—” Pike stopped, not wanting to continue.
“Please be frank, Captain.”
Pike winced. “They don’t call you Good News. They call you Doctor Oh.”
“Ah, because of my ‘Doctor O’ example.” Galadjian managed a weak grin. “Yes, I have used that before with others.”
“It is the example—but they don’t mean O the variable. They mean ‘Oh’ as in . . .” He stopped.
Galadjian blanched. “Oh. As in ‘Oh, the old professor doesn’t know what the hell he is doing.’ ”
Pike spoke quickly. “Doctor—Avedis—I want to apologize on their behalf and say that this is not normal for Starfleet. Our officers are expected to be people of the highest moral standards, who are trained to treat everyone with respect. Especially superiors. This isn’t the ancient military—we don’t do pejoratives.”
“But your organization’s normal function is also to promote from within, based on merit awarded while on active duty. I have bypassed that.”
Pike couldn’t deny that. “I didn’t object to Starfleet because so much of the current refit came from your work—and none of us expected there would be anything we couldn’t handle. I figured things would improve. But we’re more than halfway through the mission.” He clasped his hands together in advance of the most difficult part. “I took the impression from evaluations that your staff has been covering for you, as much as collaborating with you.”
Galadjian looked lost. “I thought we were working as a team.”
“But you have to come out of the ivory tower and use an actual spanner a time or two. Or, at least, they think you do.”
“Is this what would make me effective? To crawl around in a Joshua’s tube?”
“Jefferies.” Seeing Galadjian’s face fall further, Pike leaned forward. “Look, the service isn’t always fair about these things—and the paths forward aren’t always linear. I started as a test pilot years ago. That’s as solitary as it gets. I didn’t want others dependent on me for their survival—not directly. Not until later, when they flew vessels I’d found to be safe. I wasn’t planning on being responsible for two other people, much less two hundred—and I’m still not sure I’m ready for it.”
Galadjian took a deep breath, as if taking it all in. He straightened. “I am a rational man, Captain; my life is equations. I am no Vulcan or Illyrian, but I admire their discipline, and try to emulate it. When I am shown a problem, I can work it out.” He locked eyes with Pike. “What must I do?”
Pike stood. “Keep my ship running long enough to help me find whoever did this—and then get us out of this hellpit. By yourself or with help, I don’t care which. When we’re out of the nebula, I’ll breathe again.”
Galadjian watched him, before nodding with somber recognition. “And also at that point, I will no longer be your problem.”
“Kind of.”
“Very well. It will be done.”
Pike thanked the doctor. He had told the truth: Galadjian wouldn’t be his problem. None of it would—one way or another.
He saw himself out.
17
* * *
Mobile Processing Center 539
Pergamum Nebula
Spock awoke fighting.
He did not awake to fighting, though it would not have surprised him if he had, given that the last thing he remembered before he was drugged was struggling against the armored attackers on Susquatane.
No, he found that he was the one in armor now, and that he was punching another warrior. Hard.
“Keep at it,” shouted a gruff voice into his ear. “We know you have a circulatory system. Get it working!”
For a long moment, Spock thought he was having a dream, or some kind of aftereffect from the sedative. But the material encasing his body was real, as was the motion of his arms and the impact—much muted—when his blows struck the other party. He could also feel tiny prods touching his skin near his joints, generating tingling electrical impulses. Those, Spock surmised, were combining with the mechanical armature inside his armor to produce his movements.
Movements that were involuntary on his part—but certainly according to someone’s will.
Spock’s protected fists slammed against his opponent’s headgear. It was no helmet, he saw, but more of an angular dome: it resembled half a dodecahedron, with a flat side on top and the forward, left, and right faces appearing as blackened window panes. Spock had the same three ports to look through—and now he noticed data projected on the inside of the panels. A visual interface. Text a
ppeared superimposed over his fellow pugilist’s massive form: “539A-2/Green-3” moved as his opponent moved. The characters were recognizable to Spock, if their meaning was not.
Since the combat seemed to pose him no danger, Spock took the chance to look out his left and right ports. Two other titans—Green-4 and -5, his interface read—clashed with one another. Both were two and a half meters tall. Spock realized part of his disorientation came from the fact that he, too, was made taller by bulky boots and what he now perceived to be a sizable amount of gear mounted on his back.
“Your center of gravity’s going to be off for the first couple of days,” the voice said. “The gyros in the unit will accommodate—until you start adjusting. You cretins might as well start now.”
Spock looked around for the speaker, whose voice seemed an odd mix of erudition and meanness. All he could see were black walls, with glowing red lights beaming down, defining a round room a dozen meters in diameter. Too small for an arena, he thought. Inferring that he was sparring rather than fighting, he guessed the room might be a gym.
It was time to say something. Not knowing the appropriate protocol between marionette and puppeteers, Spock simply said, “Greetings.”
“Ah, another sleeping fool has decided to join us,” responded the voice.
“I am Lieutenant Spock, of the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise.”
“You’re Green-Two until I say otherwise.”
Spock threw another punch. “I wish to stop this activity.”
“I’m muting you now.”
Spock’s further entreaties went unanswered. Nor was he able to communicate with the individual he was trading punches with. The pointless pummeling went on for another three minutes before the motions of his opponent subtly began to change, becoming less robotic, more uncoordinated.
“Looks like our last one’s finally awake,” the voice said. “At ease. Stow headgear, all units.”
All four combatants stopped punching. The compartment around Spock’s head snapped open at the seams, with the left, right, and forward panes withdrawing into his armor like an automatic door into a wall. Above him, the solid top casing folded and retracted into the bulk on his back.
As his eyes adjusted to the low light—it was much harder to see without the faceplate in front of him—Spock found that his legs were immobilized. He could move his arms, however. The armored limbs were overly large relative to his body, but with the servos assisting, he was able to move them with surprising ease.
In the suit of armor across from him, Spock made out the narrow, frightened face of his opponent.
“I’m so sorry,” the gray-haired male said. Spock could not place his species. “I don’t know why I was striking you.” He looked down at the armor encasing him, clearly disoriented. “Who are you?”
“Spock.”
“I am Malce. What is this?”
“It would seem we are prisoners.” To the side, Spock saw the other two pugilists had been revealed as Connolly and Ghalka. Each of their suits had a single small, green light glowing near the left shoulder assembly; Spock hadn’t noticed that when his headgear was in place. He looked back to his opponent.
“Mister Spock, where are we?” Connolly asked, tense.
“Unclear, Lieutenant.” The air outside the armor wasn’t as fresh as what he was breathing when his suit’s cupola was closed. He felt a light tremor, followed by a wash of light as the walls of the room descended into the floor, revealing a much larger space. What had been their gym, he saw, was one of five round structures encircling a wide pentagonal dais. It was too tall to see if anyone might be atop the platform, but he could make out a railing.
In the better light, Spock realized he knew Malce’s species. “You are Antaran. But there are no Antarans on Enterprise.”
“My colony ship was cutting across a nebula. We were attacked.”
Then we were not alone, Spock thought.
Malce winced. “I feel like I’ve been out for days.”
“That is possible.” If their captors were in the habit of drugging their victims, he could see recovery rates differing. How long had any of them been in this predicament?
Another rumble, and the massive dais started to retract into the floor. It stopped with a meter’s height to spare, revealing several armored figures inside the railing, bustling around a circle of consoles. Some of the individuals’ gear was bulkier than others’. A warrior with black shoulder plates stepped to the railing to address Spock and his companions.
“So this is Green Squad,” he said in the same voice they’d heard earlier. The words were audible through the faceplate of the speaker’s armor—and Spock realized he was hearing a translation coming from his own. “I’ve seen better-looking warriors in graves.”
“What is this?” Connolly asked. “Why are we here?”
Spock had his own question—inspired by the Federation’s recent state of war. “Why can’t we see your face?”
“I do the talking!” The black-shouldered warrior gestured—
—and Connolly turned and gave Spock a teeth-jarring slap with the back of his reinforced hand. Immobilized in the armor, the senior officer had little chance of avoiding it.
Connolly looked at Spock, horrified. “Lieutenant! I didn’t—”
“Do not explain,” Spock said, doing his best to ignore the pain. “We do not control our actions here.” He turned his head to focus again on the speaker on the dais. “Who does control them? Are you Klingons?”
Black Shoulders simply laughed. “Klingons!”
“What’s a Klingon?” asked a voice from the middle of the crowd on the dais.
When the speaker stepped forward, Spock recognized the older, pocked armor worn by one of his attackers on the ice. “You were the one that abducted us. Who commanded you to do so?”
“History did. And in this fleet, I’m the one who commands.” The battlesuit’s cupola retracted, revealing a ruddy brown face that could have been seen on a Vulcan lizard. Golden eyes, little more than slits between the scales, looked down upon the foursome. “My name is Kormagan,” she said, pointed tongue slipping out. “I am of the Boundless. And now so are all of you!”
18
* * *
Mobile Processing Center 539
Pergamum Nebula
Kormagan walked among the statue-frozen assemblage. What she was about to do, she had already done three times that day with other groups—and thousands of times before over her long career. Other wavemasters left orientation chores to their underlings—but then those other fleet leaders slept occasionally too.
Not Kormagan. She wanted to see what she had to work with. They could take it easy. She had a war to win.
“You are of the Boundless, Wave Five-Three-Nine,” she said. “I don’t know the names of all of your species. That is unimportant. I barely remember the name of my own. Your battlesuits will adjust to your individual anatomies, making you all the same. You, we—are all one.”
“What are you talking about?” Malce cried. “Where is my family? Where are my people?”
“Some are still getting suited up.” Kormagan gestured to the four other rounded walled areas. “Some are acclimating, like you were.”
At that, the dark-haired one with the ears looked keenly at her. “Did you take more of our people from Susquatane?”
Kormagan responded matter-of-factly. “I took them all. The ones on the ground, anyway.”
“Careless of you to leave them about,” the black-shouldered warrior hissed.
She flashed a stern look over her shoulder before returning her attention to the Starfleet officer. “You were driving the snow vehicle.” She nodded. “You have spirit.”
“I am Spock.”
“To you, maybe. To me, you’re Green-Two of the Aloga-Five platoon. That may change as you perform and as events warrant—but one thing won’t. You’re a Thirty-Niner. It’s all the identity you should ever want.” She gestured to the others.
“Even after the rest of your unit is gone, you will remain Thirty-Niners in your hearts—or whatever organs are most vital to you.”
“You are a military organization,” Spock said. “We are not warriors. We are scientists, who come in—”
“Save it.” Starfleet members of the first two groups she had spoken with had tried to plead the same thing. Nonsense. Spock and his companions down on the ice had been armed, even fired at her—hardly the demeanor of peaceful people. And Enterprise had entered the nebula armed to the teeth. Clearly they had either expected to meet trouble—or to make some.
Besides, the Boundless needed scientists too. If that was indeed what they were, that would come out in time. If they lasted.
Spock stared at her, undeterred. “You also said ‘recruited.’ We were kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped, drafted—I’ve responded to that question since before you were born,” Kormagan said, beginning to walk again. “Nothing you would have ever done in your lives is as important as what you are going to do for us.”
“And what is that?”
“Eager.” Kormagan smiled. “I like that.” She continued to pass among them. “You are Thirty-Niners, but there are other waves, known by other numbers: Forty-Sevens, Fifty-Ones, Fifty-Fours. They are Boundless, like you—and yet they are not like you, because they are garbage. You are the pinnacle of existence, the ones who will take back what was lost. They dress up in armor and pretend they’re soldiers. You live to kill. When they fall back, you charge ahead.”
The white-skinned recruit squirmed in her battlesuit. “This thing is miserable. Let me out!”
“Silence!” the black-epauletted warrior still on the dais snarled.
“Ensign Ghalka, do not provoke them,” Spock warned.
Kormagan saw Spock look with caution to the railing. “Has my subaltern been slapping you around?”
“By proxy.”
The Enterprise War Page 9