by David Mack
“You are such a Vulcan.”
“Thank you,” Spock said through a clenched jaw. “Most kind.”
* * *
“There’s been an explosion inside the Juggernaut,” Una said, parsing new data as it scrolled across the Enterprise’s sensor readout. “Near the ship’s core.”
Pike swung his chair toward her. “Secondary damage from our attack?”
“Negative. The energy profile is consistent with the discharge from a type-two phaser overload.” She stood and faced her captain, and tried to control her elation. “Sir, I think Spock and Lieutenant Burnham are still alive in there!”
Pike looked at the image of the alien vessel on the fritzing main viewscreen. “It hasn’t fired since that last mad salvo. Ohara, get me a deep scan. Is it dead, or just playing dead?”
Ohara coaxed data from his scorched half of the forward console. “No charge to its weapons. Shields are down. Stardrive and main power are offline.” He looked back with a grin. “I think we got it, sir.”
The captain smiled. “I think Spock and Burnham get the credit for this one.” He turned back toward Una. “Number One, do we have a lock on either of them inside the Juggernaut?”
“Negative,” Una said. “Scanning for—” New data churned a sick feeling in her gut. “Captain, the Juggernaut is still inside the planet’s gravity well—and it’s in free fall!”
Around the bridge, everyone wore the same look of horror. Ohara blurted, “From this altitude? It’ll hit the planet like a one-hundred-fifty-gigaton bomb!”
Tyler looked almost sick at the conn. “It’ll cook off the atmosphere in a flash.” He stared in shock at the falling Juggernaut on the viewscreen. “It’ll kill the whole planet.”
“Not today, it won’t,” Pike said. He thumbed open a channel from his chair’s armrest. “Engineering! Get me main power and tractor beams in the next thirty seconds.”
Commander Barry started to protest, “But, sir, we—”
“I’m not asking. Get it done. Bridge out.” Pike stood and stepped forward. “Mister Tyler: pursuit course. Use thrusters if you have to.” He pointed at the Juggernaut. “We’re going after it. And we’re going to stop it—even if it’s the last thing we ever do.”
27
* * *
“Do we have impulse power or not?” Georgiou strained to hear chief engineer Johar’s response through the static on the Shenzhou’s comms. “Johar, repeat your last!”
After a loud crackle of noise, Johar’s voice broke through: “Affirmative, bridge! Half impulse power restored. Working on the other half now!”
“Good work. Bridge out.” Georgiou closed the channel with a tap on her chair’s armrest control panel as she said to Gant, “Divert all power to the tractor beam.”
“Charging tractor beam,” Gant confirmed. “Scanning for a target lock.”
Georgiou tensed as she saw a corona of fire form ahead of the Juggernaut as it plunged into Sirsa III’s upper atmosphere. “Detmer, time to intercept?”
The helm officer answered as she guided the Shenzhou into position behind the falling alien vessel. “Ten seconds to optimal tractor-beam range.”
“Be ready to switch to full reverse as soon as we have a grip on that thing.”
Detmer kept her eyes on the Juggernaut outside the viewport. “Aye, Captain.”
“Ops,” Georgiou said, “can we get a transporter lock on Spock or Burnham?”
Oliveira shook her head. “Negative. They’re still too deep inside.”
“Then they’ll just have to hang on ’til the ride’s over,” Gant said. “Captain, tractor beam is charged and ready—but I have to ask: If it didn’t work before, why would it work now?”
Georgiou deflected the query with a look to Saru, who replied, “Because the damage we and the Enterprise inflicted on the Juggernaut tore away some of its ablative hull plating.” He used his console to project a magnified image of the Juggernaut over the main viewport, complete with computer-drawn annotations of the damage. “Its exposed spaceframe and infrastructure will give our tractor beams ‘handholds,’ if you will.” Another tap on his panel highlighted specific points on the Juggernaut’s exterior. “These are the best points for traction and control.” To Georgiou he added, “Transmitting my data to Enterprise now.”
“Well done, Saru,” Georgiou said. “Gant, engage tractor beam on my mark!”
Ensign Fan touched her wraparound comms headset, then reported, “Captain, Enterprise confirms they have the tractor-beam coordinates. Ready to engage on your command.”
“Engage tractor beam,” Georgiou said. “Full reverse thrust!”
A pale blue beam of tractor force leaped from the Shenzhou to the Juggernaut. The instant it made contact, the Shenzhou lurched, and its spaceframe creaked and howled in protest. Through the viewport Georgiou saw a second beam, this one from the Enterprise, take hold of the alien ship. But even with both ships pulling in concert, the Juggernaut continued to plunge toward the planet, its dead mass now a potential kinetic bomb wreathed in flames.
Georgiou thumbed open her channel to engineering. “Johar! We need more power!”
“The impulse reactor’s pushing critical! We—” The chief engineer’s next words were lost amid a clamor of bangs followed by screams and shouting voices. After a wet cough, Johar continued, “Integrity field failing, cracks forming in the starboard warp pylon. Hull breaches in lower engineering, and—” Then came a muffled sound of explosion, and the channel went quiet.
Ahead of the Shenzhou, the nimbus of fire surrounding the Juggernaut grew in size and brightness, to the point where the massive vessel within was almost impossible to see. On tactical monitors around the bridge, Georgiou saw the Enterprise falter and vent plasma from its port warp nacelle. In a few more moments, it and the Shenzhou would both be pulled into the atmosphere along with the Juggernaut.
There was no time to wait for engineering to contain its cascade of disasters. “Ops,” Georgiou said, “patch in all our reserves!”
“Already done,” Oliveira said. “I’ve tapped everything that isn’t engines, the integrity field, or the tractor beam. There just isn’t enough—”
Dark sections of Oliveira’s and Detmer’s consoles surged back to life. Detmer sat up as she declared, “Full impulse power back online! Increasing reverse thrust to maximum!”
Another engineering miracle courtesy of Mister Johar, Georgiou thought with relief.
“Partial main power restored,” Oliveira added. “Reinforcing the tractor beam and the structural integrity system!”
It took all of Georgiou’s restraint not to spring from her command chair. “Give it all we’ve got! If there’s even a drop of main power we can send to the impulse engines—”
“Doing it now,” said Weeton. “Main impulse core is at one hundred four percent of rated capacity and holding!”
Saru, who had not said a word while fighting to maintain the ship’s tractor lock on the Juggernaut, declared in a proud voice: “Juggernaut’s descent is slowing!” Outside the main viewport, the cone of fire surrounding the Juggernaut dissipated, revealing the two tractor beams still hanging on to its ravaged hull. “Descent halted!” A tense silence settled over the Shenzhou’s bridge crew as they waited for Saru’s next words: “Reversal under way!”
Wild cheers and applause filled the bridge. At the forward consoles Detmer and Oliveira shook hands, Troke and Fan left their stations to hug each other, and when Georgiou looked over her shoulder, she was fairly certain she saw Weeton pump his fist in celebration. Georgiou tended to discourage her officers from strong displays of emotion on the bridge, but in this case she decided they most definitely had earned it. She even permitted herself a brief smile.
Outside the ship, the Juggernaut remained secure in the grip of the two tractor beams as it was towed out of the planet’s atmosphere and clear of its gravity well. After it had been removed to what Saru considered a safe distance from the planet, it was released.
>
Not a bad day’s work, Georgiou decided. “Ensign Fan, hail the Enterprise.”
“Aye, Captain.” A second later Fan added, “I have Captain Pike for you, sir.”
“Patch him through.” Georgiou waited until Pike’s holographic image appeared in front of the center viewport. “Congratulations, Captain. A hell of a save.”
Pike looked weary but in good spirits. “Same to you, Captain. We couldn’t have done it without the intel from your Lieutenant Saru. How’s your ship holding up?”
“It’s had better days. Yours?”
“Nothing a week at Starbase 7 won’t fix. Give us about half an hour to put out a few fires, and we’ll be ready to go back to the planet to deal with our little colonial problem.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Fan interrupted, “Captain? We’re being hailed on the emergency channel. It’s Lieutenant Burnham!”
“Patch them in so Captain Pike can hear them.” Georgiou waited until Fan gave her a nod to indicate the transmissions had been merged. “Number One, do you read me?”
Burnham’s voice sounded far away over the comm. “Aye, Captain.”
Pike asked, “Burnham? Is Lieutenant Spock with you?”
Spock replied, “Yes, Captain, I am here.”
Georgiou didn’t try to hide her relief. “Are you two all right? Do you need medical assistance?”
“We’re fine, Captain,” Burnham said. “We’re moving closer to the nearest hull breach to make it possible for one of you to get a transporter lock on us.”
Saru chimed in, “I have their signal, Captain. If they continue in their present direction for another seventeen point three meters, we can beam them out.”
“Did you copy that, Number One?”
“Aye, sir. Seventeen point three meters.”
“We look forward to your return. Shenzhou out.” Georgiou cued Fan to close the channel. Pike’s image faded away, and then Georgiou turned her attention to Saru. “As soon as you have a clear signal from Burnham and Spock, relay their coordinates to the transporter room.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Georgiou settled into her command chair and stared in wonder at the defeated Juggernaut. She felt a great relief at not only having prevented it from annihilating the colony on Sirsa III, but at having managed to preserve even a part of it for scientific study. In spite of all the trouble it had caused, it was still an artifact of a culture nine million years extinct, and though it was gravely damaged, there was no telling what insights might be gleaned from forensic analysis of its inner workings, not to mention its “slippery” hull plating.
It would have been a terrible shame to destroy it.
There were still unpleasant tasks left to be done—not the least of which would be ending the hostage crisis on the planet and arresting Governor Kolova and her conspirators, followed by the collection of evidence for the fraud case against the colony’s corporate sponsor . . . but the part of Georgiou that was a scientist and an explorer was already thinking ahead to plumbing the secrets of this amazing, eons-old vessel from a dead empire.
She thumbed open a channel to engineering. “Bridge to Commander Johar.”
“This is Johar. Go ahead, Captain.”
“How long would it take to put together a forensic engineering team to explore the remains of the Juggernaut?”
Something on Johar’s side of the channel went boom and was followed by a choir of panicked shouts and alien profanities. “Good question,” Johar said. “Can I get back to you on that after I put out the fire on deck ten?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
“Thank you, sir. Engineering out.”
* * *
Dark and eerily silent, the oval passageway terminated at a flat emergency bulkhead. Burnham touched it, expecting it to be cold since there was nothing on the other side but the vacuum of space. Instead, the surface her hand found was the same temperature as the air inside the corridor. “I will admit this much admiration for the Turanians,” she said to Spock. “Their engineering and materials science were exceptional.”
“Indeed.” Spock’s angular cheekbones and brow ridges cast deep shadows that gave his face a diabolical cast—an unfortunate consequence of Burnham’s tricorder’s display being their only light source inside the crippled Juggernaut. “I shall be most curious to see what the Starfleet Corps of Engineers learns about this vessel in the years to come.”
“As will I.” Burnham didn’t know what to say next to Spock. In the space of just a few hours they had gone from being all but strangers to telepathic intimates. The abruptness of that transition continued to unsettle her, and though the last traces of their mind-meld had faded, she felt as if she owed him more than a perfunctory farewell. “Spock . . . I just wanted to—”
Her communicator beeped twice. She pulled it from her hip and flipped open its grille. “Burnham here.”
“Lieutenant, this is Chief Newitsky on the Shenzhou. Are you ready for transport?”
“Stand by for my signal, Shenzhou.” She closed her communicator with a flip of her wrist. “Sorry,” she said to Spock. “As I was saying, I—”
Spock’s communicator beeped. He lifted it from his hip and opened its grille with a flick of his thumb. “Spock here.”
“Lieutenant Spock! This is Chief Pitcairn. Are you—”
“Stand by for my signal, Chief.” He closed his communicator, then faced Burnham. “You were saying?”
The interruptions had only amplified the awkwardness Burnham felt, but there were things she needed to say to Spock before they parted ways. But where to begin?
With the truth.
Her confession proved more difficult to express than she had expected. “I think . . . I’ve misjudged you, in some respects. I’m not sure who or what I expected you to be, but . . .”
“I understand.” Spock’s deep voice took on a soothing timbre. “Now that we have melded, there are no secrets between us. It would be pointless for us to prevaricate or to hide behind empty courtesies.” On a more somber note, he added, “We misjudged each other.”
Burnham found it liberating to be able to confront the truth in the open. “I’m sorry that I let my envy prejudice my opinion of you. When I was young, living on Vulcan as a ward of your parents . . . all I ever heard about was you. Your achievements. Your accolades. Nothing I did ever seemed good enough to please Sarek.”
“A feeling I know all too well.”
“I know that now. But until today, I’d thought I was Sarek’s greatest disappointment.”
“Unlikely,” Spock said. “I am quite certain he has reserved that distinction for me.”
It was a sentiment spoken in jest, but Burnham felt the lingering pain behind Spock’s words—not just out of empathy, but out of experience. More troubling to her was her awareness of his anger, an emotion she knew he would deny. “You still resent me, don’t you?”
He reacted to her question by hanging his head in shame. “I find it . . . difficult . . . to accept many aspects of your past relationship with my parents.”
“It bothers you that Sarek melded with me to save my life.”
“Yes.” Spock’s brow creased, and his manner became uneasy. “You know how private an experience a mind-meld is. It is often practiced among only the closest of friends and the most intimate of partners. Most parents and children never share the meld, nor do most siblings or other kin. And yet you carry a katric echo of my father in your psyche. . . . You have had the privilege of knowing my father’s mind in a way I likely never will.” He turned to face Burnham, and now she saw an even deeper anguish in his troubled gaze. “But worse than that is the fact that it was my mother who insisted upon Sarek’s melding with you, to save your life. In my entire life, I have never felt a moment of such passionate devotion from her. Yet you and her seem to have formed a bond of great intensity and affection. I cannot explain it.”
“I can.” Burnham noted Spock’s surprise at her assertion. It wa
s clear to her that an aftereffect of their meld was that he had been slow to restore his emotional barriers. I might be seeing a side of him no one else ever has—or ever will. She softened her tone and did her best to project compassion without condescension. “First, you need to know that Sarek would never have risked melding with me to save my life had Amanda not demanded it. He cared for me, yes. Even felt a sense of responsibility to me after my parents died. But one thing I know for certain because of my meld with him: Sarek has never loved me, and will never love me, the way that he loves you. He will never take the same pride in my accomplishments, never feel the same admiration for my career milestones, as he does for yours. And I know—he has never expressed any of this to you. And he probably never will. If I had to guess, I’d say that someday very long from now he will regret these omissions of affection. But I assure you, I know this to be true. And because you’ve melded with me, you know it, as well.”
She reached out and took Spock’s hand. The gesture seemed to confound him, but he did not try to pull his hand away. Burnham stepped closer to him and looked up until their eyes met. “As for Amanda . . . I’ve felt your love for her, and your alienation from her. I know you think you had to separate yourself from her, because that was Vulcan custom. And you wanted so much to be the son your father expected you to be. . . . But the affection that Amanda felt for me, the attachment she formed with me—those were never really about me. When I was a child, I thought they were. But now I know better. It was a classic case of human emotional transference, Spock. All the love and affection and attention she so desperately wanted to shower on you, she gave to me instead, because I could accept it, and you couldn’t. Not because I deserved it, Spock, but because the love she felt was too strong for her to hold in. Every moment of devotion she gave to me . . . was really meant for you, Spock. It was always meant for you.”
Her confession seemed to infuse Spock with an air of quiet dignity, as if a lifetime of questions that had long undermined his logic had at last been put to rest. He raised his right hand to her in the classic Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Michael Burnham.”
