McCoy sat up and wiped his dirt-covered hands on his pants. He could feel the pain in his back from bending over so long, and his arms were going to ache from the digging, he had no doubt about that. But it was all worth it.
He eased himself over a few feet and sat down with his back against a rough rock, then took a drink from his water bottle. He hadn’t done this much manual labor in years and years. Luckily he was a doctor, not a farmer.
“What are you doing here, Jim?” McCoy asked, squinting up into the light as Kirk studied the hole in the rich dirt of the field.
“Actually a better question,” Jim said, “is what are you doing here?”
McCoy tapped the sealed containers. “Bacteria,” he said. “A very special bacteria. Most important discovery this planet has to offer the Federation beyond the olivium. It’s going to change agriculture, save millions of lives on other colonies. We can’t just leave it.”
Kirk glanced across the field where six others were working. McCoy could see Dr. Audry’s form taking a rest from digging.
“So you are all making sure samples and cultures are saved,” Jim said. “Good work.”
“Thank you,” McCoy said. “Figured this was more important than helping the medical people pack instruments.”
“If it’s half what you say it is,” Jim said, smiling as he kneeled beside McCoy, “you were right. You need more help?”
“We’ve got crews working all over the planet,” McCoy said. “And we’re going to make sure samples are stored on every ship leaving this system. Unless that damned moon kills us all, this discovery will get back.”
Kirk nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“So what’s the problem?” McCoy said. He’d been around his friend for too many years not to know when Jim Kirk was struggling with something.
Kirk shook his head and picked up a handful of the rich soil. “All these months coming here, my responsibility was protecting the colonists, getting them across hostile space to this planet. Now a few hours ago I told them I would no longer be responsible for them if they headed back.”
McCoy looked at his friend. “You’re having problems with the fact that a mineral is more important than sixty-two thousand lives? Right?”
Kirk nodded. “Spock was right. You have a knack of summing something up just about perfectly.”
McCoy laughed. He didn’t mean to laugh, but it just sort of came out and Kirk looked at him puzzled.
“First off, Jim, if the colonists head back on their own, that’s their decision.”
“I know that.”
“Good,” McCoy said. “Secondly, even if they do head off on their own, there is a good chance they’ll make it to a point where Starfleet can escort them the rest of the way.”
“I know that, too,” Jim said.
“So let’s get right to the point,” McCoy said, pushing himself away from the rock to get a little closer to his friend. “If the mineral in that moon, exploded or not, gets into the wrong hands, all the billions and billions of lives in all the Federation would be at risk.”
“Which is why I have to stay here,” Kirk said. “I understand that also. I just can’t get over the feeling of not doing my duty to the colonists.”
“Then do your duty to them,” McCoy said, a little gruffer than he wanted to. “And to the entire Federation in general. Do both.”
Kirk looked at him.
“Come on, Jim,” McCoy said, laughing again. “I’ve seen you bend people around your finger.”
“And how would that help?” Kirk asked.
McCoy stared his friend right in the eye. “Quit playing by the gentleman’s rules with Sir Evan, the boy governor. Quit giving him choices you don’t want him to make. Give him only choices that you can live with.”
Kirk smiled.
McCoy could see that his comments had helped. The captain had just needed permission in his head to take the gloves off, to control the colonists in this situation. And McCoy had no doubt Jim Kirk could control the boy governor without even trying. It wouldn’t even be a fair match.
“Thanks, Bones,” Kirk said, patting McCoy’s leg and standing.
McCoy stood with him, stretching muscles he couldn’t remember using before. “That’s what friends are for.”
“You sure you don’t need extra help?” Kirk asked, glancing at where the others were digging.
“Thanks,” McCoy said. “I think we have it covered on the digging side of things. You just make darn sure the colonist ships don’t leave this area until they are guarded, no matter what happens to the planet. I don’t want to have done all this digging for nothing.”
Kirk laughed. “I will, if you make sure these containers are on all the ships before we try to pull the plug on that moon. We don’t want this discovery lost any more than we want the olivium in the wrong hands.”
“It will all be safely tucked away,” McCoy said. “You can count on that.”
“And you’ll be back on board, right?” Kirk asked. “We might need your services.”
“Wouldn’t miss the giant moon-pull for the world,” McCoy said. “You can count on that too.”
Kirk turned and headed across the field toward the beam-down point outside the colony.
McCoy watched his friend walk for a moment, noting that Kirk seemed a little more determined than he had a few minutes ago. And when Jim Kirk got determined, the universe needed to watch out.
With a loud groan, McCoy got back down on his knees and started digging again in the hole, carefully filling a container with bacteria-filled dirt. He was far, far too old for this type of labor.
But in this case, it was worth it.
Part Two
DO OR DIE
Chapter Six
Countdown: 6 Days, 8 Hours
CAPTAIN SUNN stared at the star system appearing on his main viewer. Yellow sun, Class-M fourth planet. Maybe they could get lucky right out of the box.
He doubted it. He was of the belief that he and his crew could search systems at this speed for months and not come across something that would work for the colonists. But he had promised Kirk he would do what he could do. And that was exactly what they were doing.
So far, on their short and very rushed exploration, they’d dropped out of warp at twelve promising systems just long enough to take a look around and jump back up to speed. Three systems with nothing hospitable to humans, eight with planets that were more like Mars than Earth, and one that held a pre-warp culture on the only good planet.
Twelve down, who knew how many more to go.
When Kirk had asked him to try this, he had given no real instructions as to one direction over another. And since there were a thousand directions Sunn and the Rattlesnake could head in, he had narrowed the choice down with a few criteria.
First, the direction had to be generally, but not directly, back toward Federation space. That way if he found a marginal planet, the colonists could use it as a stopping point. That eliminated half the possible directions.
Secondly, it should be away from the homeworlds of the Blood and Kauld. No point in asking for trouble when they didn’t even need to be in the fight.
Third, the new planet needed to be outside the sphere of the Gamma Night problem. That really wasn’t a hard and set criteria, but Sunn was so tired of sitting around for ten hours, he had made it one.
And fourth, there should be a large number of possible star systems along the route.
That had narrowed Sunn’s choices to almost a hundred different paths away from the Belle Terre system. At that point, looking at the star charts of this small area of the galaxy, he had gotten a true realization just how large the universe was, and how packed it was with stars. Up until that point, he’d never really given it any thought one way or another.
He had picked the path with almost two hundred stars along a four-day flight, and they had set off, right after the Gamma Night released them.
Four days out he planned on turning the ship
in a wide arc and heading toward Belle Terre, checking planets on a new course on the way back. A course that had another one hundred and twelve possible systems. They were going to try to at least check out over three hundred systems in under eight days. How impossible a task was that?
“Captain,” Roger said, lifting his gaze from his scope and staring at Sunn. “We might have a good one here.”
Sunn just stared at Roger, not believing he had even heard those words.
Roger Utlilla, a stout, black-haired man with a steady smile, had been with Sunn for almost five years as his second-in-command. Roger was from a small island in the Pacific and loved to explore almost as much as Sunn. All three of them on the Rattlesnake loved the thrill of finding new planets, seeing the new sights the universe had to offer. Otherwise they wouldn’t be on this ship.
“You’re kidding,” Dar Longsun said, leaning forward.
Dar was their pilot and the only other crewman on the bridge, or the ship for that matter. Dar was from the desert area of Arizona. He was shorter than Roger and rail thin. His bald head, combined with his thin shape, often got him called “Pool Cue.” The last guy who had called him that had needed two days on the medical ship.
“Put it on the main screen and tell me what you’ve found,” Sunn ordered. “You know I don’t want to waste any time on any false alarms.”
A blue-green planet filled the screen, looking similar to Earth in basic color and cloud cover. Sunn studied the image. One pole had a small ice cap, the axis of the planet was clearly tilted slightly, and oceans covered a large percentage of the surface. Sure looked promising.
“There’s massive evidence of a past humanoid civilization here,” Roger said. “Now there are no signs of life above small animal stages.”
“So what happened to them?” Sunn asked. “And how long ago?”
Over the years he and his crew had stumbled on a number of dead planets where civilizations had once thrived and then were wiped out for one reason or another. Usually the civilizations had been pre-warp and had destroyed themselves. Earth had come darn close itself to being one of these dead planets at different times in its history.
Sunn stared at the screen. This kind of planet just might be perfect as a stopover point for the Belle Terre colonists, giving them a place to hold up and get supplies, or wait until supplies came from the Federation.
Or maybe it might even be a good place to form a new colony. That had been done lots of other times on planets where earlier civilizations had existed. Why not this one? That was one of the questions he and his crew needed to answer before they reported back.
“No idea what did them in,” Roger said. “No evidence of bomb craters or high radiation of any type. Looks like it was fairly recent, too. I’d say within the last one hundred years.”
“Well, something wiped them out,” Dar said.
Now Sunn was really interested and excited. Who knew what kind of discoveries a recently lost civilization might have to offer to the Federation. Who knows, maybe one race’s tragedy could be the lifesaver of a colony.
“This system on any charts?” Sunn asked.
“None that we have,” Roger said. “From the size of their cities and road system, they were at least space-flight level when they went missing. But no leftover energy sources at all. Maybe they just packed up and left the neighborhood.”
“Air breathable?”
“Perfectly,” Roger said. “I’ll need to test for contaminants down closer, but basic balance seems good. Gravity just slightly less than Earth standard.”
Sunn looked at the planet now filling the screen. It looked so tame, so beautiful from orbit. But something had wiped out the civilization down there just a fairly short time ago, as far as the universe was concerned. And before he reported back to Kirk on this planet, he needed to find out what had caused the disappearance of an entire race.
“Okay, Dar,” Sunn said, “take us in for a closer look. Near one of their bigger cities.”
“You got it,” Dar said.
Sunn could hear the excitement in Dar’s voice, and could feel it in his own stomach. This kind of thing was why he was out here in space. He’d have to remember to thank Captain Kirk for the chance.
Countdown: 6 Days, 7 Hours
This Gamma Night, Kirk had actually managed to get some sleep, mostly because there was just nothing else for him to do. And McCoy had suggested, not exactly subtly, that a rested captain making decisions was better than an exhausted one.
So he managed to sleep for six hours of the Gamma Night and now strode onto the bridge ready to do what they needed to do: Pull a plug out of a moon. Kirk had to admit, McCoy had been right. He did feel better.
Spock was at his station and McCoy stood beside Kirk’s chair. Sulu and Chekov were at their stations and Uhura smiled at him from communications.
“Did you follow your own suggestion, Bones?” Kirk asked as he sat down in his chair and glanced at the static-filled screen.
“Slept like a baby wrapped in cotton,” Bones said. “I can see you did as well.”
“Not sure about the cotton,” Kirk said. He turned and looked back at his first officer. “Spock, how long until the Gamma Night clears?”
“Less than two minutes, Captain.”
Kirk nodded and tapped the communications button on the arm of his chair. “Scotty, are the tractor-beam modifications finished?”
“That they are, Captain,” Scotty said.
“Shuttle ready to fly as well?”
“Just sittin’ there,” Scotty said.
“Stand by,” Kirk said. He turned to Uhura. “When the interference clears, check with all the other ships as to their tractor-beam modification status and tell them to stand ready to move into position on my order.”
“Understood, Captain,” Uhura said.
McCoy moved in a little closer to him. “Jim, you really think it’s wise to leave most of the colonists on the surface of the planet for this? There’s still time to get them on board the big Conestogas.”
“It would make no difference, Doctor,” Spock said. “If the moon explodes while we are making this attempt, all ships including the Enterprise will be destroyed along with all life on the surface of the planet.”
“I don’t think having them anywhere near this system is wise,” Kirk said.
“That’s my point exactly,” McCoy said. “Get them loaded up and away before we try anything.”
“If all the ships do not participate, Doctor,” Spock said, “there will be no point in, as you put it, trying anything.”
“And where would they go, Doctor?” Kirk asked, staring at his friend. “To the Kauld? I’m sure they’ll welcome them with open arms.”
Kirk had had this discussion before he beamed up with Governor Pardonnet. It had finally been the governor and his top people’s decision that the risk should be everyone’s risk. Every man, woman, and child. They had all come here, taken a massive chance at finding a new home together. They would stay together in the attempt to save their planet.
Kirk had understood, to a point. Maybe even admired them for doing it. But he and the governor both knew there really wasn’t any other choice. The colonists had nowhere to go and not enough of anything to make it back to Federation space. Saving this planet was just about their best hope. And, as Spock had pointed out, they only had slightly over a five percent chance of doing that. At the moment, everything seemed stacked against the Belle Terre colonists.
McCoy stared first at Kirk, then at Spock, but said nothing more as he moved back out of the way and stood, holding on to the railing.
The screen cleared of static as the Gamma Night passed. Kirk glanced at Spock as he immediately checked his readings, then glanced at Kirk. “No change in the moon, Captain.”
“Understood,” Kirk said. Again he was disappointed. He wasn’t sure why he was always hoping the situation would change just because they couldn’t follow it with their sensors.
“I keep
hoping this is all just goin’ to go away,” McCoy said.
Kirk knew exactly how he felt. But it wasn’t going to until they forced it to go away. “Move us into position, Mr. Sulu.”
As he watched, the Enterprise broke orbit and moved around to the far side of the large moon. The surface wasn’t as big as that of Earth’s moon, and it was far more ragged. But considering what was in the center of this moon, it was far more valuable.
“All ships report in ready, sir,” Uhura said.
“All ships are moving into positions, sir,” Sulu said, “behind and around us.”
Kirk nodded as Sulu stabilized the Enterprise’s position far too close to the jagged surface for his liking. Since the Enterprise had the more powerful tractor beam, it was going to be the center of all the ships. Each ship had been assigned a specific area of the two-hundred-mile-thick rock plug to try to pull out. The Enterprise’s job was to try to make all those individual pulling tractor beams act uniformly on the entire two hundred miles.
If this worked, the area between the plug and the rock walls would slowly grow hot from the tension, eventually turn liquid, and allow the plug to move outward. More than likely far faster than a cork out of a pressurized bottle.
“Sulu, I want you ready to move us out of the way instantly if that thing lets go,” Kirk said. “You understand.”
“Course plotted and laid in, sir,” Sulu said. “Standing by.”
Kirk glanced at Uhura. “Make sure every ship has a plotted escape route, also.”
“Understood, Captain,” Uhura said.
Kirk sat back and waited as on the screen ships from the wagon train took their positions above the moon. Conestogas with their big mule engines, transports, industrial, and cattle barges. Even the hotel vessel Uncle Jake’s Pocket moved in beside the coroner ship Twilight Sentinel.
Only two ships from the original fleet weren’t in the mass formation above the moon’s surface. The hospital ship Brother’s Keeper, since it had no tractor beam and one would have been nearly impossible to install, and the small pathfinder ship Rattlesnake, that Kirk had sent looking for another safe haven.
Belle Terre Page 6
