by David Mack
Ever since accepting a commission in Starfleet, Burnham had done her best to uphold the Vulcan ethos of unemotional logic. She knew this had made her a peculiar specimen among her peers. The fact that she had garnered the favor of Captain Georgiou also meant she had drawn the ire of Saru. From her first step aboard the Shenzhou, Burnham had felt as if Saru held her in disregard on her best days, and in contempt on all the others. They had been rivals for the same opportunities, the same promotions, and the same honors, at every step.
Now it was Burnham who held the position of acting first officer, and Saru who had to answer to her authority. In a way, Burnham almost envied the Kelpien. He would not bear the blame, should their working dynamic falter. If he proved resistant to Burnham’s style of leadership, the onus of responsibility would fall upon her shoulders, not his. She wondered if he even realized that, having been denied the promotion he sought, he now held more influence over Burnham’s fate than he could possibly appreciate.
She found him in science laboratory 3, surrounded by a curve of viewscreens flooded with sensor data and annotated reports from his subordinates. He appeared, for a change, to be in his natural environment—swimming in knowledge, safely hidden in the shadows. It seemed to Burnham a shame to disturb him, but duty compelled her.
“Ahem,” she said, clearing her throat.
He tore his focus from the viewscreens to assess her with a half-lidded glare of contempt. “Oh, it’s you.” Swiveling back toward his wall of raw data, he asked, “What do you need, sir?”
Had he always been so disrespectful? She let it go. “Your summary report of the science department’s findings vis-à-vis the alien drone and its possible parent vessel.”
He gestured with spread hands at the avalanche of raw intelligence on his screens. “We have tons of input. I regret that none of it as yet seems to point to any reasonable conclusion about the origin or specific capabilities of the threat on Sirsa III.”
Burnham felt Saru’s antipathy. It poisoned every word he said to her. She did her best to stay professional. “Can you make any recommendations with regard to neutralizing the drone?”
“Nothing beyond what Lieutenant Gant has already suggested.”
It would not be productive, Burnham knew, to let the animosity Saru felt for her linger unchecked. She needed to overcome it, and what she knew of Kelpiens as a species and of Saru as an individual suggested the best way to do that was to enlist him in common cause. “Mister Saru, I value your input as a department head. What method of engagement would you advise we pursue with the drone and its parent ship once we reach the planet?”
Saru looked up from his console, then turned slowly to face Burnham, as if he expected her query to be little more than preamble to a rhetorical snare. “Are you implying that you might actually consider my input without prejudice or favor before making your recommendation to the captain?” He stood and towered over her. “Or is this just some empty gesture to win my trust?”
“As long as I have your cooperation,” Burnham said, “your trust is immaterial.”
He bristled at her truthfulness, then straightened his posture so that he stood even taller. “Based on what I have seen so far of the drone, I would recommend a swift and overwhelming attack against it and its parent vessel, at our earliest opportunity.”
“Curious,” Burnham said. “That is not the action I expected you to endorse.”
“Why? Because I’m a Kelpien? A natural prey species? You think that means I’m just a helpless naïf, awaiting the cold kiss of Death?” He stepped closer and intruded upon her personal space. The fact that her eye level aligned with the bottom of his chest made his presence more than a little intimidating. “Just because my people evolved as victims of the hunt, that doesn’t mean we won’t defend ourselves.”
It was a fair point, and Burnham conceded it with a lowering of her chin. “You’re right, Lieutenant. And I accept your recommendation as a valid one—though I do not share it.”
Saru’s countenance darkened. “Why not?”
“Please don’t misunderstand me,” she said. “The drone is an exigent threat and must be dealt with accordingly. The parent ship, however—its status and motivations are unknown. It might be in our best interest to take a diplomatic approach, at least at first, to try to establish contact with it. If we can avert further violence through—”
“Are you deranged?” Saru had abandoned all semblance of deference, an act that Burnham had long suspected was one the Kelpien reserved for use in front of Georgiou. “The drone has taken multiple lives in the capital, and its parent ship destroyed an offshore rig with over nine hundred personnel on board—most of whom didn’t live to tell the tale. These things are clear and present dangers, and they have to be destroyed with all due haste!”
Burnham absorbed Saru’s rebuke but remained detached from any emotional reaction to it. “You seem to forget, Mister Saru, that the motive for the Juggernaut’s action against the rig remains unknown, as does the drone’s assault on the capital. This entire situation might be the result of a miscommunication. The rig’s foreman admitted that shortly before the Juggernaut rose and sank his platform, their drill head had become stuck in something. It seems likely that the drill hit the alien vessel’s hull—an impact that it might have misinterpreted as an act of aggression. If so, we should not be so quick to rush to judgment—not when there might remain a possibility of establishing peaceful contact with a previously unknown alien intelligence.”
Saru reached back, shut off the viewscreens surrounding his workstation in the lab, then regarded Burnham with a sour look. “That’s a rather forgiving assessment.” Wearing his disgust as a badge of honor, he added with grim sincerity on his way out of the lab, “I wonder if you’ll still feel that way after it tries to kill us.”
5
* * *
A few hours under siege had given Jon Bowen a new appreciation for the peace of his life at sea, a pleasure he had taken for granted right up until the moment it had been ripped out from under him. He, Omalu, and Chandra huddled like fugitives in a corner of Governor Kolova’s bunker, surrounded by a couple of dozen strangers whose furtive looks and conspiratorial whispers had started to worry him. His gut told him to get himself and his people out of here. But there was nowhere to go as long as the alien drone continued its strafing runs over the capital.
Omalu checked the room’s bank of synchronized chronos. “How long until Starfleet gets here and gives us some damn help?”
“Soon,” Chandra said. “Any minute now.”
Erratic detonations from the surface trembled the bunker and opened a narrow fissure across half the ceiling. Dust fell from the hairline fracture. It wasn’t a large rupture, but the fact that it existed at all drew nervous looks from Kolova and the rest of her people, as well as from Bowen and his. Whatever protection the bunker offered, it was far from absolute. Given enough time, or perhaps just one direct hit, the drone might reduce it to rubble.
Bowen tossed a fearful look at Chandra. “At this rate, there won’t be anything left for them to save.”
Kolova, Ishii, Medina, and a handful of city-government types surrounded the room’s central situation table, which projected a miniaturized holographic representation of the capital. Every few seconds another section of it would flare red, then continue to blink—an indication of the drone’s latest attack. The latest alert drove Kolova to pound the side of her fist on the table. “Dammit! Now the drone’s shooting our firefighting teams!”
“It’s not being malicious,” Bowen offered. “At least, I don’t think it is.” He moved toward the situation table, ignoring the resentful glares his move prompted from the politicians. “It’s just shooting at anything that moves, preferably things with biological sensor profiles.”
Ishii gesticulated in frustration at the map. “So what do you recommend we do, Bowen? Sit back and just let the city burn? How’d that work out for your drilling rig?”
It was a cheap shot, one that left Bo
wen too enraged to think of a response that didn’t involve his fist flattening Ishii’s nose.
As Bowen and Ishii stared each other down, Le Fevre, the police chief, stroked his chin while eyeing the map. “Interesting that the drone chose to hit New Astana instead of one of the less defended coastal settlements, isn’t it?”
His observation silenced the room and made him its focus.
Betraying equal measures of curiosity and suspicion, Kolova asked, “Why interesting?”
Le Fevre shrugged. “Three hundred sixty thousand people on this rock. Six major population centers and a dozen or so smaller farming collectives, not to mention half a dozen mobile drilling rigs at sea. Plenty of targets to choose from, including several that are closer to the Juggernaut than we are. So why is the drone buzzing us?”
The governor reacted as if the answer were obvious. “Because this is the capital.”
“But does the drone know that?” Le Fevre faced Medina, the science adviser, as he continued. “New Astana isn’t significantly larger than the other five major centers we built. And since all our cities were created around the same time, using the same infrastructure template and prefab housing modules, there’s no appreciable difference in their ages or configurations.” He waved at the hologram. “For crying out loud, we don’t even fly a flag!”
Slowly, then with greater enthusiasm, Medina started to nod. “Yes, you’re right.” He punched in some commands to the situation table, and the hologram of New Astana was replaced by an image of Sirsa III, slowly turning. “Given the speed of the drone, it could’ve circled the planet several times over by now. If it had wanted to hit any of our other cities or platforms, it could easily have done so. But for the last three hours and counting, it’s harassed only us.”
“Which brings us,” Le Fevre said, “to the question of . . . why?”
The police chief let the question linger, as if to enable the others in the room to reflect upon it and reach their own conclusions—but Bowen knew a trap when he saw one being sprung. He shook his head at Le Fevre. “I see what you’re doing, Chief, and I don’t like it.”
Le Fevre turned to plead his argument to Kolova. “Governor, think about it. The first incident with the Juggernaut was triggered by Bowen’s rig. All but a handful of his crew went down with the platform, but Bowen and his two senior people escaped—and came directly to us. Can it really be a coincidence that the Juggernaut’s drone is focusing its attack here?”
“Even if you’re correct,” Kolova said, “what difference does it make?”
“Perhaps there’s a way to halt the drone’s attack,” Le Fevre said. “Maybe the reason it won’t relent or move on—” He aimed a meaningful look at Bowen, Omalu, and Chandra. “Is that it hasn’t found the targets it’s looking for.”
Chandra and Omalu moved closer to Bowen, who lifted his hands in a defensive gesture at the city folk. “Hang on just one goddamned minute. Is this chucklehead actually suggesting that I and my people be thrown out to the drone, like chum to a shark?” To Kolova he added, “Tell me that’s not gonna happen.” To his dismay, she hesitated to answer, which was tantamount to a confirmation of this rapidly unfolding nightmare. He shifted his attention to Le Fevre. “Has it occurred to you that maybe the drone just wants our shuttle, not us?”
“Yes,” the chief said. “I had considered that possibility. But I believe in being thorough.”
Omalu snapped, “And if it kills us, then continues attacking the city? Then what?”
Le Fevre’s shrug telegraphed indifference. “At least we will have eliminated one set of variables from our presently dire equation.”
Around the edges of the room, uniformed security personnel started inching their hands toward the grips of their stun batons. Bowen had no intention of waiting to be swarmed. He marched straight at Le Fevre and clenched his fist. “The only thing getting eliminated today is your teeth, you sonofa—”
From overhead came a thunderous roar of explosion, one that browned the lights inside the bunker for half a second. When full power returned, Ishii reverted the situation table’s hologram to the image of the city—which no longer was haunted by the circling specter of the drone. Then a woman’s voice crackled from the table’s blast-addled speakers:
“Attention, Governor Kolova. This is Captain Philippa Georgiou, commanding the Starship Shenzhou. We have neutralized the drone that was attacking your city. What is your status? Please respond.”
Kolova pressed the reply switch. “Captain, this is Governor Kolova. My staff and I are unhurt, but there’s extensive damage in the city, and an unknown number of casualties. Also, most of our emergency first responders were killed and their equipment destroyed in the attack.”
“Understood. Stand by to receive emergency medical and engineering teams, and be advised that I will be sending down a landing party to investigate the Juggernaut.”
“Acknowledged, Captain. And before I forget: thank you.”
“All part of the service, Governor. Shenzhou out.”
The channel closed with a soft click, and relieved applause filled the room.
Bowen turned, rounded up Omalu and Chandra, and guided them toward the exit. “Let’s get the hell out of here, on the double.”
Chandra asked under his breath, “Before they change their minds about us?”
“No,” Bowen said, “before I change my mind about remodeling Le Fevre’s face.”
* * *
Doctor Anton Nambue had a few dozen critical tasks he needed to address before he beamed down with medical relief teams to Sirsa III. Assuaging the neurotic demands of one of his less-than-essential personnel would not normally have been one of them, but Doctor Gregor Spyropoulos had grabbed Nambue by the front of his uniform.
“Please!” Spyropoulos said, almost manic.
Nambue tried to free himself, but the older man’s grip was viselike. I’ll have to reason with him. “Greg, I’m sorry, but you’re not on the roster this time.”
“I’m never on the roster,” Spyropoulos said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Three years I’ve been on this ship, and not once have I ever been on a landing party.”
“Of course you haven’t,” Nambue said. “You’re a dentist.”
That declaration only made Spyropoulos more upset. “So? I know I’m a goddamned dentist. That doesn’t mean I can’t be useful on a landing party. I have medical training.”
“Certification in oral surgery doesn’t really qualify as ‘medical training,’ Greg.” Nambue picked up his white field satchel and shrugged under its strap, which landed diagonally across his torso, while the medkit sat comfortably at his hip. “Look. Speaking as someone who’s been on more landing parties than I can count, let me assure you: you’re better off here on the ship.”
Spyropoulos looked so frustrated, Nambue thought the balding man might spontaneously combust right there in the middle of the Shenzhou’s antiseptically pristine sickbay. “I don’t want to be better off, Anton! I want to be promotable. You know as well as I do that experience on landing parties carries a lot of weight during personnel reviews. I’ve been in Starfleet for over sixteen years, and I’m still a damned lieutenant. If I ever want to get my O-4 grade, I’ve got to do something to get noticed. Like be part of a high-profile colonial medical-relief team.”
“You are aware that the capital has more than two hundred dentists of its own, right? So unless every single one of them is busy when someone needs an emergency root canal—”
“Don’t mock me, Anton. Give me scut work. Make me a paramedic trainee. I don’t care what I’m doing, as long as I get to be part of the effort.”
Ninety seconds of arguing with Spyropoulos had left Nambue feeling as drained as he often did by the end of a long day. He needed off this carousel, and acquiescence seemed the fastest and least problematic way to extricate himself from this emotional tug-of-war.
“Fine, go pack a field kit.”
Spyropoulos clapped his hands, th
en grinned. “Thank you!” The dentist sprinted toward the double doors of sickbay’s main entrance.
“Report to the transporter room in ten minutes,” Nambue called after him.
“I’ll be there in five! You won’t be sorry, Anton!”
Nambue waited for the doors to close, then he sighed. “I seriously doubt that.”
* * *
“Secure from red alert,” Georgiou said, “but maintain yellow alert until we’ve retrieved the probe.” She turned her chair toward her new senior tactical officer. “Good shooting, Lieutenant.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Gant said with a smile, then lowered his dark eyes in humility. “But the targeting computer did most of the work.”
“Nonsense. I’ve watched veterans miss easier shots. Learn to take a compliment.”
“Aye, sir.” Nods of congratulation came to him from around the Shenzhou’s bridge.
“That being said, I hope for your sake the drone really has been neutralized.”
“Oh, I guarantee you, Captain,” Gant said, “that thing is toast.”
Georgiou stood from her command chair and moved forward, toward the three broad center viewports that looked out upon Sirsa III. She had always admired the vantage point of the Shenzhou’s underslung bridge. Being situated on the underside of the Walker-class vessel’s saucer-shaped primary hull gave the bridge an unobstructed view of the space beneath the ship. That position had always conjured for Georgiou the illusion of standing astride the cosmos rather than just gazing up at it, as one would from a bridge on the dorsal side of a starship.
Now she gazed down upon the seemingly placid face of a world barely touched by sentient habitation. Even when she strained, she was unable to pick out the colony’s capital of New Astana from the more dramatic natural features on the planet’s surface. “Ops, do we have a fix on where the alien probe went down?”
“Affirmative,” Oliveira said. “Thirty-nine point three kilometers south-southeast of the capital, in an unpopulated stretch of flood plains near the coastline.” The Lisbon native looked over her shoulder at Georgiou. “I can magnify it on-screen, if you like.”
