by Brad
The innermost moon, Fleta, whirled around the giant planet in a complete orbit every eight days. Unlike its primary, Fleta had a night four days long and then another variable one when it plunged into Gandar’s deep shadow. Fortunately, the gas giant, too small to be a real star, still had enough reaction heat to warm the little moon. The other inhabited moon, Jareta, was farther out, in a three-week orbit. It was also colder, and the Marathans who disembarked there beamed down wearing enviro suits that provided precious warmth. Jareta’s space-facing hemisphere was too cold for habitation, so all the colonists lived on the planet side.
And once they had gone, only the half-dozen representatives of Shakir remained in the Marathan quarters. Spock saw little of them. Cha had retreated from friendship and was distant and cool whenever Spock saw him. The adults—including the aged and grim Hul Minak Lasvor—gave Spock even less notice. Once Spock and Sarek, on their way to an observation deck, met Minak coming the other way. The old Marathan glowered at them, his eyes flashing. Sarek inclined his head politely. “Live long and prosper, Ambassador Minak,” he murmured.
“We know what you have done,” Minak said, and he swept past them.
Spock looked after him. “What did he mean, Father?”
Sarek took some moments before replying. “The Shakir colonists are the most bitter,” he said at last. “A religious war forced them off the planet more than two hundred years ago. Shakir is a hard environment, bitterly cold except in one narrow habitable band. Hul Minak Lasvor leads a faction that wishes to retake Marath itself, to impose order and enforce obedience to the Shakirian branch of their faith on the home world.”
“Impossible,” Spock said at once. “Their numbers are far too small.”
“Dreams of glory die hard, my son. And when those dreams turn bitter, they lead to thoughts of tyranny and revenge.”
They spoke no more of it. But a few days later, when the Enterprise went into orbit around the inhospitable planet Shakir, Spock remembered his father’s words.
Shakir was a gloomy reddish-purple sphere, its rocky surface splotched with frozen hydrocarbons and water ice. Cratered and ancient, even its sunward face looked dark, forbidding. The planet had one redeeming feature: Unlike Vulcan or Earth, which inclined on their poles relative to their suns, Shakir’s north and south poles were almost exactly vertical with regard to the binary sun.
The planet had no seasons at all. But because the warmth was constant, it did have a narrow green band around its equator only several hundred kilometers broad. Here liquid water existed (barely; night temperatures invariably were below freezing), and tough, hardy plant life grew in abundance. Here, too, the Marathan colonists had dug in, fashioning underground homes, complexes of tunnels. And here they led molelike existences, buried underground but dreaming of the stars.
“Farewell, Cha,” Spock said as he stood beside Lieutenant Commander Pike.
On the transporter pad, Cha glanced at his father and then barely nodded. His face was blank, expressionless.
“Energize,” said Hul Minak Lasvor, his voice cold.
“Energizing,” responded Pike. He adjusted the controls, the transporter gave its peculiar musical hum, and the last six Marathans beamed off the ship.
“Well,” said Pike. “That’s done. Are you busy, Spock?”
“No. I have nothing to do at the moment.”
“Then come with me, and we’ll drop into the junior officers’ wardroom. We senior officers like to eat with them from time to time. A glimpse of our splendor encourages them to do their best and become worthy of promotion.”
“Really?”
Pike laughed at Spock’s quizzical expression. “No. A joke. But it is an old service tradition, and the junior officers invited me today. They’ll be glad to have you join them as well.”
“A joke,” Spock said thoughtfully. “I know the concept of humor, but what is its purpose?”
With a shrug, Pike said, “To relieve stress, I suppose.”
“Did beaming the Marathans down cause you stress?”
Pike led the way into the corridor. “Beaming them down didn’t, but perhaps having them aboard did. We tried to be as hospitable as possible. Hul Minak Lasvor even got an indepth inspection of the Computer and Engineering sections. But they weren’t cheerful guests.”
“No,” agreed Spock.
The wardroom was a narrow, curving compartment with four tables, each one with four to six young men and women already seated. They welcomed the newcomers, and Pike himself brought Spock’s vegetarian lunch to the table. Spock was quiet as he ate, listening to the exchanges between the young Starfleet officers with interest. Much was technical—a discussion of some minor computer problems that had just appeared, from what Spock gathered—and much was humorous. The cadets, ensigns, and lieutenants all seemed to be enjoying their lives immensely.
At the end of the meal, the bald helmsman, Lieutenant Bann, called out to Spock from the next table: “Stick around. You can see me teach this young upstart from Engineering a lesson in three-dimensional chess.”
Spock turned to Pike. “May I?”
“By all means,” said Pike, gesturing Spock toward the table. “Are you a chess aficionado, Mr. Spock?”
“I am not. I do not know what chess is. But I am interested.”
“Oh, well, come on,” said Bann, grinning. He and the others had cleared the table and had set up something resembling an abstract sculpture, a kind of branching structure with flat rectangles here and there, the rectangles divided into brown and ivory squares. As he set silver and ebony figures on this device, Bann said, “Mr. Spock, I don’t think you’ve met Ensign Thedra Alfort. Thedra, Spock is the son of Sarek, the Vulcan ambassador who arranged the Marathan treaty.”
Thedra Alfort was a young human female with short black hair, startling blue eyes, and a quizzical expression. She nodded to Spock. “How do you do?”
Spock knew enough about human speech not to ask, “How do I do what?” He merely nodded gravely in response. “You are an engineer?” he asked.
“One day I may be,” Thedra said with a wry grin. “Right now I’m desperately trying to learn.”
Bann held out his clenched hands. “Choose.”
Thedra tapped his right hand, and he opened it to reveal a silver figurine. “You go first.” He put the silver chessman and an ebony one matching it on the board. To Spock, he said, “I’m the chess champion of the Enterprise. Thedra has rashly decided to challenge me.”
“Ah,” said Spock. “It is a contest.”
“A contest of wit and intelligence,” agreed Bann. “As we play, I’ll explain how each piece moves. Maybe you’d like to learn the game.”
Spock watched as Thedra went down to long, hard-fought defeat. For most of an hour she held her own or was down only a pawn or so. But Bann had an uncanny knack of anticipating her moves, blocking her plans, and retaliating in unexpected ways. Finally, her king trapped and one rook just taken by a bishop, Thedra shook her head. “No use,” she sighed. “It would be mate in four moves. I resign.”
“Mate in three moves,” responded Bann with a grin. “But hey, who’s counting?”
The young officers had formed a circle around the two, and throughout play they had murmured observations and comments. Now they commiserated with Thedra. “Hey, don’t take it so hard,” one said. “He beat me in fifteen minutes flat!”
Another punched the speaker playfully on the arm. “And that was no great feat either.”
“May I play?” Spock asked.
They all fell silent, giving him surprised glances. Bann looked up, his bald head glistening. “Are you serious?”
Spock raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”
With a sharklike grin, Bann began to set up the board. “This I have to see,” he announced. “Have a seat, my Vulcan friend.”
“Half Vulcan,” Spock responded, sitting across the board from Bann.
Bann paused in setting up the pawns. “Really?”
&nb
sp; “My mother is human,” explained Spock.
Bann’s grin became more friendly. “My father is, too,” he said. “My mother’s Deltan, though. Well, as one half human to another, good luck.”
“Chance does not appear to play a great role in this contest,” Spock observed.
With a laugh, Bann said, “You take the silver pieces as a courtesy to a new player. Let the slaughter begin!”
The officers crowded around as Spock made his first move. Lieutenant Bann nodded. “A standard gambit,” he said, “which I counter like this.” He moved a pawn.
With Spock’s next move, a murmur began. Then when he moved again, it became a buzz. Bann frowned at the board, reached to move a knight, thought better of it, and instead castled his king. Spock responded by taking a bishop. “I didn’t see that coming,” someone said.
“Shh,” hissed Bann, scowling in concentration.
Three more exchanges of moves, and then Spock sent his rook down to his opponent’s level. “I will capture your king with the next move,” he said.
Bann exhaled. “You say, ‘Checkmate’ now.”
“Why do I say that?”
“Because you beat me, that’s why.”
“Oh. Checkmate.”
“Eleven minutes and nineteen seconds,” someone said, awe in her voice. “I never thought it was possible.”
“You’ve played before,” Bann said to Spock.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Come on. How could you beat me if you’ve never played the game?”
Spock looked up. He was the center of attention. “It is a very logical process,” he said simply.
They all laughed as if he had made a joke. Even Bann grinned. “Spock, I met you two years too late. If I’d only known you during my senior year at Starfleet Academy, you could have tutored me in logic. Then maybe I could have done better in Fedderling’s class and graduated first instead of ninth!”
“Fedderling’s a terror,” Thedra Alfort agreed. “Wouldn’t it be great to see him arguing with someone as logical as Spock?”
A muscular lieutenant in a red Security tunic chuckled. “I’d give up two years seniority to see that,” he said.
“Hey,” someone else said, “Fedderling’s class was no joke, but what about the simulator trials? Can’t you just see Spock at the control when old Jeffries causes three simultaneous systems failures? Zip! Zap! Zowie! ‘The repairs were all very logical, Mr. Jeffries!’ ”
Spock said mildly, “I do not understand what—”
A razzing klaxon horn cut him off. The young officers leaped toward the door, and Spock found himself trotting along the corridor beside Mr. Bann. “What is happening?” he asked.
Without looking around, the young lieutenant snapped, “We must be under attack. It’s a red alert!”
Chapter 4
Spock stepped off the turbolift and stood to one side as Lieutenant Bann relieved an ensign at the helm. Captain April sat in the command seat, his back to Spock, his attention riveted to the viewscreen. And on the screen, a stocky, grim-faced Marathan—Karos Mar Santor, Spock noted, Cha’s father—was speaking: “—are completely surrounded, Captain April, and helpless. We are not pirates. We do not seek to rob you, only to prevent great harm to our own people. We want only the certified original of the Marathan treaty created by the spy Sarek. If you surrender that, you will be free to go.”
April’s voice was harsh and icy: “This is an outrage, Mar. Sarek is no spy. He’s a decorated ambassador, and you yourself agreed to the treaty.”
The Marathan suddenly looked old and weary, but his tone did not change: “That does not matter now. I tell you, Hul Minak Lasvor’s rebel fighters will take the treaty by force if they must. The rest of us have no control over him. It was only through the utmost persuasion that we convinced him to allow us to give you this warning. Surrender the spy Sarek and the draft of the treaty, Captain April, and avoid an unnecessary confrontation.”
April shook his head. “This is a grave violation of interstellar law. If Marath truly wants to join the Federation, this is a strange way of going about it!”
Mar said, “Perhaps all of Marath does not want to join the Federation. And if the original draft of the treaty is not transported to Federation headquarters, it never will.”
Captain April’s voice became a bit more conciliatory. “Look, Mar, I don’t know why you’ve made this senseless demand. The treaty is not final yet anyway. Whatever your objections are, you have time yet to address them, to correct any errors. You have weeks of negotiations by subspace communication to put the finishing details—”
The Marathan looked sick, anguished. His voice sounded choked as he muttered, “I cannot explain our actions. It is forbidden to speak of such things to outsiders, but please believe me, Captain April, we are well aware of the state of the treaty and of the negotiations still to be done. None of that matters now.”
April was silent for a long moment. “Very well. Let me warn you, though, the Enterprise is well equipped to defend herself against any attack by Marathan fighters. Let your rebel leader know that aggression against a Federation vessel is a serious mistake.”
“This is pointless,” said Mar. “Captain April, you will transport the official copy of the treaty to the coordinates I will transmit. Ambassador Sarek must be turned over to the Marathan government in exile in Shakir for trial. You have one qual. At the end of that time, if you have not surrendered the draft of the treaty and the ambassador, Minak will take both by force.” The screen blanked, and a second later, it resolved into a starfield. “A qual,” said Lieutenant Commander Pike, “is just over seventeen standard minutes. Not much time.”
April stared at the viewscreen. It showed white streaks against the star-spattered blackness of space, inconsiderable silvery scratches on a vast, dark background. “There they are. Can you imagine them trying to stand up against our firepower? Sensor report: How many enemy craft?”
“Thirty-one,” the science officer, Lieutenant Cheyney, said promptly. “They are all single-pilot attack vessels, capable of light speed. I have one isolated. Shall I put it on screen?”
“Yes,” Captain April said. “Maximum magnification.” The viewscreen wavered, then refocused on a streaking silver form. It was delta shaped, a silver triangle pivoting against the darkness of space, and moving fast relative to the stationary background of stars. There was no way of telling how large—or small—it was with nothing to compare it to. The science officer seemed to sense that and, consulting his instruments, said, “It is approximately 3.47 meters long with a span of 5.2 meters at its broadest part. The power plant is a Marathan impulse engine, with a secondary warp nacelle using matter-antimatter flux. It is armed with one laser cannon and three neutron torpedoes.”
“Hopeless,” April said, shaking his head. “Ants attacking a giant. Raise shields, Mr. Belas.”
“Aye, Captain.” This came from the security station, but a second later, the burly lieutenant manning the console said, “Sir, the shields aren’t responding.”
April turned in his seat. “Chief Engineer Powell, get on that. Mr. Belas, arm laser cannon and photon torpedoes.”
“Weapons systems are not responding either,” the lieutenant reported. “Sir, our defensive and offensive systems are dead in the water.”
“Take us to warp four.”
“I can’t,” Chief Engineer Powell said tightly, working frantically at his station. His seamed face wore an expression of anger and frustration. “We’ve got serious problems here, too.”
“Sir,” said the young science officer, “without shields, the neutron torpedoes can destroy all life aboard the ship, while leaving the physical structures intact.”
“I’m well aware of that, Mr. Cheyney,” growled April. “Number one, how’s our time?”
“We have 14.5 minutes left, sir.”
April swiveled back. “What’s wrong with the computers, Mr. Cheyney?”
The science officer was fra
ntically scanning readouts. “Sabotage, sir. Someone evidently used a master override device, an isolinear command unit, to alter our security codes. Nothing in the defense or weapons programs is making sense.”
“Solve the problem.”
“Aye, sir, but the mathematics is all wrong. It seems to be base four, but—“Chief Engineer, what about warp speed?” Powell turned from his console, and when he spoke, his voice was furious but controlled: “Sir, the field damping system is not online. We could conceivably go to warp, but it wouldn’t be pleasant, especially with those thirty shielded fighters so close around us.”
“What would happen?”
The chief engineer rapidly made some calculations. “The warp field would be thrown in flux. There’s a better than even chance that the warp cores would break down under the strain. And we’d certainly drag a third or more of those ships with us. Their pilots would be dead for sure. Most likely their antimatter containment fields would collapse, and the Enterprise herself could blow up within thirty seconds of engaging warp drive.”
“What’s the risk of a core breakdown?” asked the captain.
Chief Engineer Powell shook his head. “I’d say roughly seventy percent.”
“Seventy-one point three eight seven percent,” Spock corrected. “That is a closer approximation.”
April turned and glared at him. “What’s this civilian doing on my bridge?”
“I will leave if you wish,” Spock said. “However, I believe I may be of use. I have some experience with computer languages, and I may be able to repair your problem.”
“Sir,” Pike said, “nine minutes left. Mr. Spock is an extremely gifted young man. It couldn’t hurt to let him have a try.”
“Very well, Mr. Spock. Take the science officer’s console,” April said.
