Star Trek: The Lost Era - 08 - 2319 - One Constant Star

by David R. George III

  “Some time ago, Captain Demora Sulu and I encountered an unusual and as-yet-unexplained astronomical phenomenon,” John continued. “Within a particular solar system in unexplored, unclaimed space, we passed through what is essentially a rift between universes. In some ways, it is like the portal that the Enterprise and Excelsior crews confronted, but where the alien device conveyed people and objects from one place to another, the rift moves them across many universes, without surcease.” According to John, he could find no information about Odyssey and its effects other than what he and Demora had reported.

  “Even the existence of this phenomenon is classified, and it remains so,” he went on. “I am providing this information because it impacts every person aboard this ship. Before suffering her injuries, Captain Demora Sulu came to believe that the same phenomenon that she and I had encountered in our own universe also exists in the universe to which the portal connected. I believe it too. We are heading to that location now in the hopes of confirming that the rift also exists there. If it does, it my intention to take the Enterprise into it.”

  Sasine wondered what that would be like, constantly traversing from one universe to the next. What will the stars look like? In some ways, the prospect seemed like a thrilling adventure, though she understood that the reality would likely be something wholly different.

  “Even if we do find the rift, though, our success is not assured. As far as we know, there is no way to control the transition from one universe to the next, though we will of course seek such a process. Until we are able to develop one, we will employ sensor software to detect recognizable patterns of stars, so that if the Enterprise reenters our own universe, the ship will automatically be driven out of the rift.” John paused, but Sasine knew that he hadn’t yet finished.

  “If we can find the rift, it could take us a day to return home, or a month, or a year, or a decade,” he finally continued. “Or it might never happen. I do not expect any of us ever to surrender. As the former commanding officer of the Enterprise, I am proud of this crew—many of whom I have served with—for working so diligently to bring your missing personnel safely back to the ship. To Captain Hikaru Sulu and his Excelsior crew, you have provided a fine example of taking action in the face of adversity, of enduring in difficult circumstances with little or no chance of rescue. Let us bring that same level of determination to our new endeavor. Harriman out.”

  Sasine set her padd down on a small table beside her chair, stood up, and crossed the living area to the wide port above the sofa. She stared out at the stars as Enterprise soared past them, a sight far different from the static spray of the distant suns—and the nebula—visible from Helaspont Station. She had served aboard starships—Regulus, Enterprise, and New York—but the bulk of her career had been spent on outposts and space stations, so she’d become acclimated to a stationary vista. Better get used to moving stars, she told herself. It’s a brave new world we live in.

  As Sasine gazed out into space, she puzzled over what role she would play on Enterprise. The ship had more commanding officers than it needed—it even had two Captains Sulu—not to mention an admiral. She decided that she would wait for John to return to their cabin and then discuss with him what sort of contribution she could make.

  Sasine thought about her own crew back on Helaspont Station. She knew that Lieutenant Commander Farish would do a fine job in the short term, even through the trade summit. She suspected, though, that Starfleet Command would want somebody more experienced in that position if Sasine failed to return to the station in a timely manner. She’d sent a transmission to Admiral Mentir before departing Helaspont, explaining herself in a way that she hoped would not see her court-martialed for desertion when she got back.

  Court-martial might be the least of my worries, Sasine thought, but then she dismissed the idea entirely. She had no cause for concern, given the difficult days ahead for both the Enterprise and Excelsior crews. Although the situation had improved dramatically for Hikaru Sulu’s people with their rescue, she worried about how anybody aboard would react if the attempt to return home extended for a considerable length of time. What if it doesn’t take us days or weeks to get back to our own universe, but years? She didn’t know. Sasine certainly had no desire to lose all that she had accomplished in her career—she found tremendous satisfaction in commanding Helaspont Station and in leading her crew.

  John knows that, and that’s why he didn’t ask me to go with him, she thought. He didn’t want to ask me to sacrifice those aspects of my life that he knows are so important to me. She knew that he loved her and wanted to be with her, but it touched her that he hadn’t wanted to force her to make such a choice, between losing the life she’d created for herself and possibly losing him.

  But nothing in my life would mean as much as it does without John. Nothing means more to me than he does. She didn’t know how many members of the Enterprise and Excelsior crews were involved romantically with one another, but she doubted any of them could claim a sixteen-year relationship. As much as she wanted to find a way back to their universe, as much as she wanted to resume her position as the commanding officer of Helaspont Station, she would still be happy even if those things never happened. She would miss Mère and Père, she would miss her siblings—her three sisters and her brother—and their families, not to mention her friends and crew, but she had John, and as much as she stood to lose, he balanced the scale.

  Sasine had brought her home along with her.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Hikaru Sulu stood at the far end of the intensive care ward and saw his daughter’s eyelids flutter open. The sight made his heart soar. A week prior, he had watched those eyes close in what seemed might be a punishing twist of fate: having Demora come back into his life, only for him to immediately watch her die. But Doctor Chapel and her staff had gained ample experience in treating wounds inflicted by the arachnoid monsters populating the world that had become their home, including the formulation of an antivenin to counteract the creatures’ venom. Although Demora had been impaled and some of her internal organs badly damaged, the Excelsior medical team had managed to keep her alive long enough to get her aboard Enterprise and onto an operating table.

  Sulu’s daughter lay on a diagnostic pallet, her body connected by various tubes to several pieces of equipment. While a complicated operation had stabilized her viscera, she would still require at least two more operations before she could fully recover. Let it take as long as it needs to, Sulu thought. After he had spent more than a decade on an inhospitable world, time had finally become an ally again.

  Standing beside Demora’s diagnostic pallet, Chapel gazed down at her patient, with Enterprise’s CMO, Uta Morell, also observing. After seeing to his crew’s immediate needs after they’d all transported up from the planet, Sulu had spent most of the past forty-eight hours by his daughter’s side. Just a few minutes before, a signal had brought both Chapel and Morell into intensive care, where they explained that Demora’s readings indicated that she would shortly regain consciousness. Other than for a brief period after her operation, the doctors had chosen to keep her fully sedated, both to allow her body the best opportunity to heal and to spare her the pain and discomfort that they could not completely mask.

  Chapel leaned in over her patient. “Captain Sulu,” she said quietly, “how do you feel?”

  Sulu’s daughter opened her mouth as though to speak, but it took several seconds before her lips formed any words. “Like I’ve been run over by a Romulan bird-of-prey,” she eventually said. “Twice.” Her voice had a low, raspy quality to it.

  “That’s to be expected,” Chapel told her. “Are you in any pain?” Sulu could see the diagnostic display above Demora’s head, including the K3 gauge, the readout that measured pain. The indicator hovered at a high but not intolerable level.

  “Yes, a fair amount,” Demora said. She reached with one hand toward her midsection, but the movement caused her to wince and cry out.

 
“Easy, Captain,” Chapel said, placing her hand on Demora’s shoulder. “You have been run over by a bird-of-prey, and it’s going to take some time for you to recuperate.”

  Demora nodded almost imperceptibly and closed her eyes. Although Sulu longed to speak with his daughter, he would gladly wait if her recovery required it. For the moment, it was enough for him just to see her, and just to know that she would be all right.

  But then Demora’s eyes sprang back open. “My father,” she said. “I thought I saw my father.”

  Chapel bent in closer to Demora. “You need to keep still, Captain, and you’re going to need your rest,” she said, “but yes, you did see your father.” The doctor straightened and backed away from the diagnostic pallet. Sulu crossed the compartment to stand beside his daughter. Her eyes widened when she saw him and immediately filled with tears.

  “Dad,” she said, though almost no sound came out of her mouth. She started to reach for him, and he rushed to put his hands atop hers, wanting to keep her from causing herself any more pain.

  “I’m here, honey,” he said. He bent in close to her and kissed her cheek. “I’m here, and I’m so happy to see you.”

  “Dad,” Demora said again, and then her eyes darted past him, toward Chapel. “Am I still unconscious? Am I hallucinating?” she asked the doctor.

  “No, Captain,” Chapel said. “You’re awake and lucid.”

  Demora looked back at Sulu. “But . . . how . . . ?”

  He felt Chapel’s touch on his arm. “Captain,” she said quietly, and he understood her meaning at once. At that moment, his daughter needed rest, not an account of what had happened to her father, nor details of what the Enterprise and Excelsior crews still faced.

  “It’s a long story,” Sulu told Demora. “The important thing is that we found each other, and now we’re both aboard the Enterprise.”

  “I . . . I can’t believe it,” Demora said. “I’m so . . . so . . .”

  “I know,” Sulu said. He heard the whisper of a teardrop on the bedclothes, and he realized that it had fallen not from his daughter’s face, but from his own. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Dad.” Demora closed her eyes, forcing tears to spill down her cheeks. Sulu began to turn away, but then he heard her voice once more. “Dad?” When he looked back, he saw an expression of concern on her face. “What about Ensign Kostas and Ensign Young?”

  Again, Chapel tapped him on the arm, then gently squeezed his elbow. Once more, he knew what she wanted of him. “They’re both back on board,” he told Demora, not exactly lying—along with Ensign Young and the Excelsior crew, Kostas’s body had been transported up to the ship—but willfully misleading his daughter. Knowing that she had lost a member of her crew would do her no good in the present circumstances. Later, when she did find out, Sulu told himself, at least he would be there to help her get through it.

  “Good,” Demora said. “Good.” Her eyelids drifted slowly closed. Sulu waited to see if she would open them again, but her breathing quickly grew slower and deeper as she slipped off to sleep.

  “Captain,” Chapel said. “You really should get some rest yourself.”

  Sulu turned to the doctor. “Is that an order?” he asked of the only member of his crew who could issue him a command. Though he would have been content simply to stand there and watch his daughter sleep, he offered Chapel a smile to let her know he did not intend to object to her advice.

  “It’s an order only if it needs to be,” Chapel said, returning his smile.

  Sulu took one more glance at Demora, then started across the compartment, headed for the entryway. Before he got there, he stopped and looked back at the doctor. “Christine,” he said, “thank you . . . for everything.”

  “It’s my privilege, Hikaru.”

  Sulu exited intensive care and made his way through Enterprise’s sickbay to the corridor. When he reached the quarters he’d been assigned, he didn’t even bother to remove his uniform—the clean, new uniform provided to him from ship’s stores. He flopped onto the bed, exhausted but wondering how he would possibly be able to shut his mind off after his reunion with his daughter.

  He fell asleep in minutes, and didn’t rise for another twelve hours.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Tenger worked the tactical console, searching for something that had been only vaguely defined for him. More than a little frustrated, he peered over at the helm, to where Harriman sat. Tenger wanted to blame the admiral for the imprecise orders, but he recognized the unfairness of doing so. Despite being the highest-ranking officer on Enterprise, and despite having aboard two other active captains—Hikaru Sulu and Amina Sasine—Harriman had left Linojj in command. The first officer had remained in the center seat for four weeks while Captain Sulu underwent a total of three surgeries and a subsequent period of convalescence. When the Enterprise’s captain finally returned to the bridge, Linojj took her place in sickbay, where Doctor Morell had attached her new biosynthetic arm.

  All of which means I should blame Captain Sulu, Tenger thought. The Enterprise’s commanding officer had been back on duty for ten days, and though she frequently consulted with Admiral Harriman about the mission they’d set themselves, she left no doubt that the final decision about the fate of her crew—and of everybody else aboard—fell to her. But I don’t want to blame the captain. In addition to the great esteem he had for her, he also knew how much she had been through during the past couple of months, since the ship had first arrived at Rejarris II, up to the memorial service that the captain had held a few days prior for Galatea Kostas.

  And our crisis still hasn’t been resolved, Tenger thought. Aboard Enterprise, more than thirteen hundred Starfleet officers remained cut off from the Federation. Tenger knew that weighed heavily on Captain Sulu, and would until the day that their accidental exile ended. If it ever does end.

  An indicator on Tenger’s console flashed, and he checked his display. “We are approaching the Odyssey system,” he announced. Admiral Harriman had encrypted the course he’d set for Enterprise, as well as the spatial coordinates of their destination, but it would have been far too risky to demand that the crew desist from monitoring sensors.

  “Acknowledged,” said Harriman from where he sat at the helm. “Bringing us out of warp.” Knowing that Enterprise would reach Odyssey during alpha shift that day, Sulu had assigned the admiral to take over for Ensign Syndergaard.

  The deep pulse of the warp nacelles eased, like the heartbeat of a galloping Thoroughbred as the animal slowed to a trot. Tenger could feel the vibrations of the faster-than-light drive fading, replaced by the sturdy hum of the impulse engines. Enterprise halted its sprint across the galaxy in favor of a leisurely search through a solar system.

  “We are crossing the termination shock,” said the security chief.

  “Are the navigational routines engaged?” Sulu asked from the command chair. The captain had taken the lead herself in writing a series of programs to process an image of the starscape surrounding Enterprise. Designed to recognize patterns of stars that had occurred in the Milky Way at any time during the previous year, or that would occur at any time during the next, the routines would, upon identifying such a configuration, automatically engage the impulse drive to move the ship directly away from the Odyssey star.

  “The programs are operational and tied directly into navigation and the helm,” replied Lieutenant Aldani.

  Tenger had disagreed with the captain’s decision to seek a return to the Federation at any point within the current two-year period. He felt that if the plan Sulu had chosen to pursue couldn’t reasonably be counted upon to send them back home within a window of a month or two, then they should be seeking a course of action more likely to succeed. The uncertain nature of the so-called Odyssey solution had troubled the security chief from the moment he’d learned about it.

  Minutes passed as Enterprise gradually made its incursion into the system. Tenger regarded the main viewer, where Odyssey barely dis
tinguished itself from the background field of stars. The yellow-white sun showed as a pinpoint of light at the center of the screen, marginally brighter than the other pinpoints surrounding it. It inspired neither hope nor confidence.

  What were you expecting? Tenger chided himself. A star emitting radio waves that translate as THIS WAY TO THE FEDERATION?

  He discovered, though, that he couldn’t take his gaze away from the viewscreen. Nor, he realized, could anybody else. When he finally looked around the bridge, he saw every head turned toward the main viewer. And why not? Tenger thought. At that moment, as far as any of them knew, that one slightly brighter dot provided not just their best chance of going home, but perhaps their only chance.

  “We are nearing the transition point,” Harriman said. “Reducing speed in anticipation of a full stop.”

  “Commander Tenger,” the captain said, “do sensors detect anything out of the ordinary?”

  The security chief inspected the readings on his panel. “Negative,” he said at last. “All measurements are showing well within expected limits: electromagnetic radiation, density, solar wind, gravity.”

  “Planets?” Sulu asked.

  “None,” Tenger reported.

  The answers appeared to satisfy the captain. By degrees, the drone of the impulse engines faded, until at last the sounds of its motive force ceased entirely. Around the bridge, panels continued to issue feedback tones, noises that provided a lonely counterpoint to the silences of both the ship’s engines and its crew.

  At last, Harriman said, “We have reached the transition point. Thrusters at station-keeping.”

  Tenger scrutinized the sensor readings on his console. Nothing changed. When he looked up at the viewscreen, he saw only the same tableau of stars he had before, seemingly static points of light arrayed around the ordinary form of Odyssey.