Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours

by David Mack

  He intuited from the horror on Georgiou’s face that she felt the same way. “What do you mean, ‘expendable,’ Captain? We came here to help these people, not incinerate them.”

  Pike turned his chair just enough to see his first officer, Commander Una, at the edge of his vision. “Number One, send Starfleet’s sensor analysis to the Shenzhou.”

  “Aye, sir,” Una said, then delegated the order with nods to science officer Lieutenant Spock and communications officer Garison.

  “Have a look at what Starfleet found in your scans,” Pike said to Georgiou. “Evidence that the ship you and the locals call the Juggernaut has a massive stardrive. That beast is warp-capable, and if it has half the power Starfleet thinks it does, it could pose a threat not just to the colony on Sirsa III, but to populated planets in neighboring systems.”

  “So we’re going to condemn hundreds of thousands of innocent lives based on nothing more than a hypothetical danger? That strikes me as premature and reactionary.”

  “Tell that to the eight hundred thousand colonists on Teratus V. Or the four million who make their home on Corratus Prime. Or the Regulans—their homeworld is less than ten light-years from here, and it has a population of over a billion.”

  Georgiou’s mien darkened with defiance. “This isn’t some abstract numbers game.”

  “Sometimes it is,” Pike said. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but this is the cold, hard reality we have to live with.” Swiveling his command chair again, he said to Garison, “Send the Shenzhou the verified orders from Admiral Anderson.” Returning to Georgiou, Pike put on his most apologetic manner. “I don’t mean to be callous about this, Captain, but we’re picking up some troubling power readings from the Juggernaut. If we don’t act now, we might lose our best chance to stop this thing before it gets started.”

  “Hang on,” Georgiou said, turning away to confer with one of her officers. When she looked back at Pike, she seemed more hopeful. “What if there was a way to complete the mission without jeopardizing the colonists and ecosystem of Sirsa III?”

  Intrigued, Pike leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

  “We use tractor beams to haul the Juggernaut off the surface, away from the planet. Then we destroy it in space.”

  He tried to visualize that tactic and was plagued with doubts about it. He shot a sidelong look at Una and Spock. “Do we have enough power to tow something that massive out of a gravity well?”

  “Neither of our ships alone could do it,” Una said. “But together? Maybe.”

  Spock’s brow lifted, telegraphing his fascination with the idea. “We would have to match the frequency of our tractor beam with that of the Shenzhou, in order to avoid gravitational shearing that would disrupt both our holds on the Juggernaut. It would also pose a significant risk of overloading both ships’ impulse drives unless—”

  “Unless we tie in the power from our warp engines,” Georgiou cut in, “and balance the loads through our dilithium matrices.”

  Her suggestion elicited a nod of approval from Spock. “A viable proposal.”

  That was good enough for Pike. “All right, I’m game. How soon can we give this a go?”

  “We’ll need a few minutes to run the cross-patch between the warp and impulse systems,” Una said, turning toward her console. “Relaying the orders to engineering now.”

  “I will calculate the optimal angle and frequency for the tractor beams,” Spock said.

  Pike enjoyed a small surge of pride as he watched his officers swing into action. He hoped Georgiou’s people were as reliable as his. “Stand by, Captain,” he said to her. “We’ll send over the specs for the dual tractor beam in a few seconds.”

  “We’ll be ready. My engineers have already set our warp-impulse patch.”

  Worst-case scenarios paraded through Pike’s imagination. “Captain, if, for whatever reason, this plan doesn’t actually work—”

  “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Georgiou said.

  Spock looked up from the sciences console. “Specs ready and sent to the Shenzhou.”

  “Good work, Mister Spock. Number One, where do we stand on the cross-patch?”

  Una conferred discreetly with the engineering officer, then faced Pike. “Ready.”

  “All right, everyone. Brace yourselves. This could get bumpy.” Pike added to Spock, “Patch in backup power and target tractor beam.”

  The half-Vulcan science officer keyed in the commands, reporting as he went along. “Warp power tied in. Combined output balancing. Coordinates set.” He faced Pike. “Ready, sir.”

  Pike asked Georgiou, “Ready, Captain?”

  “Relinquishing control of our tractor beam to your science officer . . . now. Good luck.”

  “Same to you, Captain. Enterprise out.” As the main viewscreen reverted to an image of the Shenzhou ahead of the Enterprise in orbit, Pike said, “Mister Spock, engage tractor beam.”

  A low-frequency hum resonated through the hull of the Enterprise as the tractor beam activated, charged with more power than it had ever emitted before. It sounded to Pike as if the ship were a bell that had been struck, and now only the lingering memory of vibration remained.

  On the main viewscreen, a pale blue beam streaked from the saucer of the Shenzhou, down into the atmosphere of Sirsa III, converging with the Enterprise’s beam as it met its target.

  “Status,” Pike said. “Do we have hold of the Juggernaut?”

  Spock adjusted the settings on his console. “Both beams have reached the target.” He creased his brow in apparent frustration. “We are having difficulty confirming a tractor lock.”

  Pike threw a look at Una, who leaned over a hooded sensor display to gather more information. “The Juggernaut is barely moving.”

  Though Pike had come to this world with orders to destroy the Juggernaut where he found it, he desperately wanted Georgiou’s plan to work. “Can we increase power?”

  “Power is already at maximum,” Spock said. “Any increase will overload the mains.”

  Garison interjected, “Sir? Captain Georgiou is asking us to stand down.”

  Pike felt his shoulders slump with disappointment. “Tractor beam off,” he said to Spock. Then, to Garison, “Put Shenzhou on-screen.”

  Georgiou’s lean, attractive face once again filled the viewscreen. “Captain, our scans indicate there’s either a compound in the Juggernaut’s hull, or an energy field around it, that makes it resistant to our tractor beams.”

  “How resistant? Is it bouncing them off?”

  “Not quite. But it is definitely one slippery fish.”

  “Point taken,” Pike said. “Can we compensate by adjusting the beams’ frequency? Or finding a little extra juice?”

  Georgiou shook her head. “My science officer studied the Juggernaut up close. He says its hull is quite dense, and has ablative qualities that will make it hard to penetrate.”

  That was not the news Pike had hoped to hear. “Well, if we can’t tow it away from the planet, and we can’t slice it up with phasers, then we have no other choice but to return to the orders we already have in hand.”

  “Captain,” Georgiou pleaded, “we still have time to find another way.”

  “No, Captain, I’m afraid we don’t. You said it yourself: tractor beams and phasers are both off the table. Which means we have only one card left to play.” He resigned himself to the inevitable. “It’s time to find out how that thing does against a spread of photon torpedoes.”

  * * *

  How had everything gone wrong so quickly? Burnham stood, aghast at the rapid decline of the Shenzhou’s partnership with the Enterprise. A solution had seemed at hand, an answer based in logic and restraint—but at the first sign of impediment all hope was cast aside. This was everything she had feared Starfleet would be when she had first been courted to its service by Sarek and Captain Georgiou: reactionary, shortsighted, blinded by a knee-jerk impulse to seek security at the expense of knowledge.
/>
  Then the advice of Sarek echoed in her memory: If that is what you find, it is up to you to change it for the better. For six years she had devoted herself to that idea. In that time, Captain Georgiou had never given her cause to put it into practice. Now Captain Pike was doing just that.

  Georgiou stood in front of the command chair, making her case to Pike’s shimmering holographic avatar. “Captain, I thought I’d made it clear that a torpedo bombardment of the surface was not an acceptable outcome.”

  “You made your opinion clear,” Pike said, “but your personal preference doesn’t change the order from Admiral Anderson. We tried things your way, and it didn’t work. Now we have to proceed with the best option we have left.”

  His intransigence stoked Georgiou’s temper. “A torpedo barrage on the planet’s surface might be the simplest option, but that does not make it the best one.” She moderated her tone to one less strident. “Please, we have time to explore alternatives. Join us, and maybe we can still find a solution that doesn’t come with mass casualties.”

  Pike’s resistance hardened. “The problem with your appeal is the word ‘maybe.’ There’s too much at stake here for me to disobey orders based on a vague hope.” To one of his bridge officers the Enterprise’s captain said, “Move us into firing position.” Then, to Georgiou he added, “You can either assist in the completion of our mission, or you can stand down. It’s all the same to me.”

  Without muting the channel, Georgiou said, “Detmer, bring us about and put us into the Enterprise’s firing solution, point-blank range. Ops, all power to dorsal shields. Mister Gant, arm all weapons and lock on to the Enterprise’s targeting sensors.”

  Her flurry of orders left Pike fuming. “Captain? What the hell are you doing?”

  “Whatever I have to,” Georgiou said. “If you want to bombard a populated and defenseless Federation colony, you’ll have to go through me, my crew, and my ship to do it.” Returning to her command chair, she snapped at Oliveira, “Comms off.”

  Pike’s hologram flickered and vanished before he could protest.

  This was precisely the scenario Burnham had hoped the captain would find a way to avoid. Now she and the rest of the Shenzhou’s crew were in it—over the line with no easy way back. The forward viewscreen filled for a moment with the spectacle of the underside of the Enterprise looming large and precariously close—and then, as the Shenzhou slipped beneath its sister ship, the Enterprise passed out of view above the Shenzhou’s saucer, which obstructed any direct line of sight from the Shenzhou’s underslung bridge module to the Enterprise.

  Burnham’s mind raced as the captain doled out combat orders. There must be some way to defuse this before it goes any further. Once shots were exchanged, there would be almost no hope of a brokered resolution. Burnham knew that whatever she was going to do, it had to be done now. If only we had an actual plan of action to suggest as an alternative. She reflected on all that she had seen of the Juggernaut during her mission to the planet’s surface. There has to be a way to get inside. To coax the hull into opening an aperture. If we could do that, Pike might listen to reason. She interrupted Georgiou’s battle preparations: “Captain, I have a plan to—”

  “Not now, Number One. Focus on getting our shields back to full.”

  “Sir, if I’m correct, we might persuade Captain Pike to—”

  “He’s done talking, Number One. And so am I. Now get those shields up!”

  Vexed by the captain’s dismissal, Burnham searched her console for options. Cycling through the command systems at her disposal, she found one that offered a glimmer of hope: a command-confirmation subchannel remained in place between the Shenzhou’s tractor-beam control system and the sciences console on the bridge of the Enterprise.

  Burnham worked quickly to take advantage of her discovery. She isolated the subchannel and placed it under her exclusive control. Next she rendered it invisible to the Shenzhou’s communications and security systems by patching it directly to the ship’s primary subspace transceiver circuit. Now she would be able to use the subchannel as a private conduit to send an e-comm message directly to the Enterprise’s science officer.

  It was a long shot. Burnham had known Lieutenant Spock when they both were children, but it had been many years since they had seen or even spoken to each other in passing. She had no idea what he might really think of her, or if he would even accept her transmission. If he were a by-the-book officer, he might report her attempted communication to his superiors, who would be just as likely to review it as to simply order the subchannel terminated without reading what she’d had to say. And even if he accepted her message, would he be inclined to trust her enough to risk challenging his own chain of command to deliver her missive to Pike?

  Let’s hope he judges that the “logical” thing to do. Burnham composed her message as swiftly as she was able, pausing only a few times momentarily to satisfy the captain’s request for improvements in the Shenzhou’s shield emitter output.

  As she neared the end of her e-comm, Gant announced from tactical, “Enterprise is charging phasers and targeting our engines.”

  From the helm, Detmer asked, “Evasive turn, Captain?”

  “Hold.” Georgiou’s voice was as firm as steel. “This is where we make our stand.”

  There was no more time for Burnham to fine-tune her message. She sent it in a single burst transmission to the Enterprise—and hoped in silence that her gamble on the goodwill of Spock, son of Sarek and Amanda, had not been made in vain.

  9

  * * *

  Ensign Lao Shin’s words echoed in Pike’s ears, an invitation to calamity: “Ready to fire, sir.”

  Pike was torn between patriotism and pride. The former made him balk at the notion of opening fire on another Starfleet crew, especially one that was making a stand on principle; the latter left him stewing in anger at being made to look the fool by having his bluff called. But was it a bluff? He had fully intended to make good on his promise to fire when this confrontation began. After all, if he was willing to sacrifice more than three hundred thousand civilians, what difference would a few hundred more lives make? But that had been when the only lives at stake were mere abstractions to him, people he had never met or seen. Now, faced with the prospect of taking lives at point-blank range by destroying a ship of the line, Pike found himself sick at the idea of taking his place in history’s dark hall of fame—the one reserved for mass murderers who were “only following orders.”

  His silence filled the bridge with a palpable unease. So many eyes were on him, awaiting his order to begin the carnage they all clearly dreaded. The only member of the bridge crew not judging him was Lieutenant Spock, whose attention seemed riveted to the hooded sensor display at his station. Hoping to procrastinate just a moment longer before triggering Armageddon, Pike asked his science officer, “Something I should know, Mister Spock?”

  Spock looked up, then stood still. His expression and silence betrayed his confusion. After a few seconds of thought, Spock left his post to approach Pike’s command chair. As he did so, Commander Una moved to intercept him. They arrived together at Pike’s side.

  Una confronted Spock. “Why did you leave your post, Lieutenant?”

  Though Spock acknowledged Una’s presence, he spoke directly to Pike, his voice hushed. “Captain, I request that we postpone the attack.”

  Pike took a stern tack, though he was secretly hopeful that Spock could give him a plausible reason to stand down. “On what grounds, Mister Spock?”

  “I just received a clandestine communication from the first officer of the Shenzhou.”

  That rankled Una. “Clandestine? By what means, Mister Spock?”

  “The command-confirmation subchannel linking my station with the Shenzhou’s tractor beam system. A rather ingenious contrivance, considering its impromptu nature.”

  “You two can draw me a diagram later,” Pike said. “What did her message say?”

  “She believes s
he has a plan for neutralizing the Juggernaut’s offensive capabilities before its next attack.” Spock paused to note Una’s suspicious demeanor, then continued, “To accomplish this objective, she wants me to ask you for two things: a three-hour grace period in which to act . . . and my assistance.”

  The second item led Pike to emulate his first officer’s wariness. “Your help?”

  “Yes, sir. She was most specific.”

  Una and Pike exchanged looks of concern, and she read it correctly as her cue to take over the questioning of Spock. “Why is she asking for you?”

  “I did not have an opportunity to inquire. Our communication was somewhat one-sided.”

  There was an evasiveness to Spock’s manner that told Pike something was amiss with this situation, and he couldn’t embrace the opportunity it provided until he knew exactly what he was getting himself, his crew, and his ship into. “Time for full disclosure, Mister Spock. Who is the Shenzhou’s XO to you?”

  “Her name is Michael Burnham,” Spock said. “She is . . . a friend of my family.”

  Pike was confused. “How well do you know her?”

  “She is a few years older than I am, so we rarely moved in the same social or academic circles. If not for her connection to my parents, I would barely know of her at all.”

  Having more facts had not made the matter any clearer to Pike. “Never mind the trip down memory lane, then. The big question is, can we trust her?”

  “The alternative,” Spock said, “would be to sacrifice the lives of more than three hundred sixty thousand sentient beings, and destroy the ecosystem of a healthy planet, when they might otherwise have been saved. If there is a chance that Lieutenant Burnham’s plan might work, I think that as Starfleet officers we have a duty to attempt it before resorting to drastic measures.”

  “He makes a good point,” Una said. “If we can fix this mess by loaning Spock to the Shenzhou’s XO for a few hours, that sounds like a best-case scenario.”