Atlantis NX-05 hung motionless in the shipyard’s skeletal embrace, neglected and dark except for work lights that illuminated the ship’s frame, revealing the many gaps in the vessel’s still-incomplete hull plating. It occurred to Mayweather then that for most of the ships here this place was a hospital, while for others it was a nursery, thanks to the war’s ever-growing demand for new ships.
But for Atlantis it looks like a tomb, he thought, feeling wistful about Enterprise, perhaps for the very first time since he had decided he could no longer serve under Jonathan Archer.
“She’s a fine ship,” Mendez said, suddenly at the helmsman’s elbow. Mayweather had gotten so lost in his ruminations that he hadn’t heard the XO’s approach. “I hope they finish with her soon and get her launched.”
“You must have read my mind, sir,” Mayweather said.
He didn’t add that he’d always thought that the Daedalus design suffered greatly when compared to the swift and speedy compound-curved lines—not to mention raw speed—of the NX-class. Or that Yorktown and her sister vessels looked about as elegant as three soup cans lashed to a soccer ball.
The Daedalus design was quicker to build than the sleeker NX ships. If the rumors he’d been hearing were true—and the sight of Atlantis lifeless in her cradle was pretty good confirmation—Starfleet was hoping to give the newest Daedalus vessels warp capabilities similar to those of the NX, while gradually retrofitting the existing fleet. Such were the war’s demands on the collective shipbuilding capacity of the Coalition’s human-inhabited worlds—a capacity that the governments of both Earth and Alpha Centauri had agreed was best decentralized as much as possible, thereby short-circuiting any Romulan plot to cripple humanity’s wartime industrial base via a single Pearl Harbor–style attack.
“There’s another one just like her being assembled in orbit over Utopia Planitia,” Mendez said quietly as cold, apparently dead Atlantis and the rest of the receding shipyard drifted out of view beyond the limb of the retreating planet. “The last one, the way I hear it.”
“Endeavour,” Mayweather said with a nod, though he hoped Mendez was wrong about Endeavour being the last of her line. “NX-06.”
“I hear you’re something of an expert on the NX-class,” Captain Shosetsu said. “Commander Mendez tells me you served aboard one.”
“Two, actually. The second one was Discovery.”
Silence fell across the bridge, and Mayweather made no effort to break it. He wasn’t sure whether to curse himself for having invoked the ghosts of the slain and stoking all-too-raw fears, or to curse his captain for not having bothered to read his personnel report.
When he took Yorktown to warp a few minutes later, Mayweather still couldn’t force the image of poor, neglected Atlantis from his mind. Nor could he avoid thinking of Endeavour, incomplete and abandoned, orbiting Mars in endless darkness, as cold and lonely as Deimos.
He could only hope that their replacements would avoid the fate that had befallen the waxen wings the Daedalus class’s mythological namesake had created.
THIRTY-THREE
Monday, December 1, 2155
San Francisco, Earth
NASH MCEVOY’S TWO ESCORTS from Starfleet Security led him past the cordoned-off crowd of noisy protestors outside the building, then outfitted him with a chipped ID lanyard before conducting him through the plushly carpeted halls deep in the interior of Starfleet Headquarters.
During the subsequent quiet procession into the building’s labyrinthine core, McEvoy rejoiced that it was he, and not Gannet Brooks, who had received yesterday afternoon’s cryptic summons from Starfleet’s Admiral Gregory Logan Black. He was all but certain that the war-toughened Ms. Brooks would simply have told the admiral to go climb his thumb while wrapping herself tightly in the self-righteous sanctity of journalistic freedom.
McEvoy, however, liked to think that he was more a creature of the real world than were many of the journalists in his employ—particularly some of the younger ones. But that didn’t mean he liked being called on the carpet, even by someone he’d known for as long as he’d known Greg Black.
Once he was seated in the padded chair before Admiral Black’s desk, McEvoy wasted no time getting down to cases with the blue-uniformed, brown-haired man with the close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard who sat behind it.
“Meaning no disrespect, Admiral,” he began, a sardonic smile fixed on his face, “but what the hell gives you the right to drag a member of the press corps in here like he’s been called into the principal’s office?”
Black displayed a wounded expression. “How does sending you an invitation at home last night and dispatching a driver to your office this morning constitute ‘dragging’ you anywhere?”
McEvoy’s glasses slid forward on the bridge of his nose. He pushed them back into place. “Suppose I’d said no?”
“Well, I’m glad we didn’t have to find out,” Black said as he sat down behind his desk for a moment. After rummaging through a bottom drawer for a moment, he emerged with a silver flask and a pair of glass tumblers. “Scotch, Mac?”
“It’s just like when we were back in college,” McEvoy said, glancing down at his wrist chronometer. Hell of a way to start a Monday, war or no war. “My God, it’s not even lunchtime yet.”
Black shrugged, grinning. “So what? Want one?”
The war must have been going badly indeed if some of the admirals were already drinking this early in the day. He hoped this was merely a “Monday” thing.
“Sure,” McEvoy said, doing his best to maintain an outwardly dour demeanor. He wasn’t about to let a little liquor and conviviality with an old friend spoil his bad mood.
Once the tumblers were generously filled and distributed, McEvoy said, “Tell me what you want, Greg. This is gonna take way too long if you were expecting to soften me up first by getting me drunk.”
The admiral took a long, slow swallow from his glass, then set it down on a desktop that was otherwise empty but for the presence of a small computer terminal.
“All right, Mac. I want you to... tamp down your war coverage a bit, from both Brooks and Naquase.”
McEvoy swallowed half the contents of his glass and let the caustic amber liquid burn on its way down.
“You’ve got to be joking, Greg.”
Black shook his head, his eyes blazing with something that didn’t appear to have originated from a bottle. “I’m as serious as a heart attack. Now, I’m going to trust you to keep what I’m going to say next off the record.”
McEvoy didn’t feel exactly sanguine about that, though he could see the value in making the gesture. “All right. At least, I’ll agree to warn you before I go back on the record.”
Black nodded. “Fair enough. I trust you saw that crowd out there.”
“What crowd?” McEvoy deadpanned. He was quite sure the crowd was visible from low Earth orbit.
“Very funny. Starfleet Command feels that Newstime’s correspondents have been offering up far too much unconstructive criticism of the government’s handling of the Romulan situation.”
“That’s debatable. Who’s to say what’s constructive?” McEvoy said, scowling.
“Crowds of frightened people get even more people scared. Fear snowballs, and that’s never good.”
“Brooks and Naquase are polar opposites, both politically and in terms of the war,” McEvoy observed. “If they’re both hitting Starfleet in the same sore place, maybe that means the problem lies with Starfleet.”
Black waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not going to spend the whole day debating that. Politics aside, we think their reporting has been a huge factor in motivating the people outside to break out their torches and pitchforks. What those people out there don’t know could fill the Valles Marineris twice. Regardless of that, they’re convinced that everybody from the Coalition Council and the United Earth Parliament down to Starfleet and MACO isn’t handling this crisis correctly.”
Maybe they’re right, McEvoy
thought, though he clung to the hope that that wasn’t so.
“Come on, Greg. The people have a right to get as much information as possible. We need an informed citizenry to remain free. That’s all we’re doing, trying to fill that need.”
“Journalism school talking points,” Black scoffed. “People are scared, Mac. And it’s largely because of your organization’s reporting.”
McEvoy took another swallow. “People are scared because these are scary goddamned times, Greg. But if you start trying to muzzle the press, it’s gonna get a hell of a lot scarier.”
Black leaned forward, his eyes blazing. “What’s scarier still is letting side issues like demonstrations—maybe even full-fledged riots—get Starfleet’s civilian decision-makers so distracted that they start making bad decisions regarding how best to take on the Romulans.”
“You start taking away the people’s freedoms,” McEvoy said, emptying his glass, “and you’re doing the Romulans’ work for them.”
“You have a responsibility for the safety of your planet,” Black said, his tone sharpening. “A responsibility toward your species, just as Starfleet does.”
“Don’t lecture me about my responsibilities, Greg,” McEvoy said, rapidly running out of patience. “We both have the same responsibilities to the United Earth Constitution. You’ve even sworn an oath to uphold it.”
“You’re damned right I have. And my oath won’t mean a whole hell of a lot once Romulan flags are fluttering over Starfleet Headquarters and the Place de la Concorde. If those feather-bellied alien bastards even use flags.”
“My responsibility starts and stops with keeping the public informed,” McEvoy said, his chest swelling with a fury that he would have expected more from Gannet Brooks than from himself. But then, Greg Black had always had a talent for pushing his buttons.
“Really?” Black said, folding his arms. “That’s the extent of your responsibility?”
McEvoy slammed his empty glass down on the desktop, perhaps a little harder than he’d intended. Somehow, it didn’t break. “Yes! As long as Newstime doesn’t lie, or let anything classified slip out.”
“Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it, Mac? I’m glad that you at least acknowledge that as part of your sphere of responsibility.”
“I’d like to go back on the record now, if you don’t mind,” McEvoy said, trying to reel in his indignation.
Black held up a hand, temporizing. “Let me ask you one question first: Where was that sense of responsibility when Newstime started shouting from the rooftops about the Vulcan warp-field detection grid?”
That brought McEvoy up short. He stood up, his knees slightly wobblier than he had expected after just one drink.
“Thanks for the breakfast, Greg,” he said. “I think I can find my own way out.”
And he did, with the help of what appeared to be the same two Starfleet security officers who had brought him here.
Although it was past lunchtime by the time he had settled back into his own quiet Mission District office and closed the door behind him, McEvoy found that he still wasn’t hungry.
And he also found, sloshing in his own desk’s bottom drawer, an all but forgotten vessel that looked substantially similar to Admiral Gregory Black’s silver flask.
THIRTY-FOUR
Thursday, December 4, 2155
Enterprise
CHIEF ENGINEER MIKE BURCH FELT the aberrant but all-too-familiar vibration through the engine room deck an instant before Ensign Camacho spoke.
“Lieutenant Burch, the warp core is making that... noise again.”
Of course it is, Burch thought, rubbing his eyes. It had been yet another grueling night, for himself and most of his engineering staff, and the ship’s night was still barely half over. We’re damned lucky this thing hasn’t already shaken itself apart.
Not that the long, tense hours were remarkable—at least, not anymore. When the engines had to run hot for this many months on end, the entire propulsion system had to be monitored closely, hour to hour and minute to minute. There was no alternative. Captain Archer wanted Enterprise’s return to Earth expedited and the only warp engine downtime was a brief stopover at Vulcan.
Like anyone posted to an engineering position aboard a Starfleet vessel, Burch was well aware that the warp-five engine that provided power and propulsion to NX-class starships was the brainchild of Doctor Henry Archer, the late father of Enterprise’s commanding officer. But the rough treatment to which Jonathan Archer had lately subjected that engine was making Burch wonder whether the captain needed some discreet professional help with some unresolved daddy issues.
I should have transferred when Commander Kelby did, Burch thought. He was a better engineer than I am, and he didn’t think he’d be able to fill Commander Tucker’s boots.
Ever since Kelby’s transfer, on the heels of the Terra Prime terrorist crisis back in January and Commander Tucker’s subsequent death, Burch had played a fill-in role, running engineering by default. At first, Captain Archer and Commander T’Pol had made it clear that they considered him the ship’s “interim chief engineer,” which was just fine with him. But as the days had become weeks, which then had stretched into months—an elastic span during which Enterprise had voyaged to points far too distant to accommodate even the most basic and necessary of crew rotations—Burch had found that his position had gradually evolved into a state of uneasy permanence.
“Let me have another look at those flow regulators, Ensign,” Burch said as he ducked below the work platform for the massive, pulsating engine core, alert for any obvious signs of imminent trouble. He moved between Ensign Camacho and Lieutenant Hess, the former scowling at the plasma flow regulation board while the latter kept a weather eye on the antimatter containment field monitor.
The deck vibrated again beneath Burch’s boots as he ran his handheld scanner carefully over a key conduit, then paused to compare the results to those being generated by the engine room’s internal monitoring system.
A discrepancy emerged almost immediately, this one much larger than anything he’d ever seen before. Something was badly out of calibration. Better double-check it, Burch thought, maintaining a calm exterior mainly because he knew better than to mistake a single reading for a trend. He began to run the scan again, in parallel with the flow regulator’s self-diagnostic program he had activated on the console, and silently hoped to the superluminal gods that he’d merely misinterpreted some basic mathematical function.
His stomach plunged into freefall when he saw that he hadn’t.
“Shut her down,” Burch said, swallowing hard.
“Sir?” Camacho said, saucer-eyed.
“Do it! Take us out of warp, now. I have to contact the captain.”
Jonathan Archer was roused from a deep slumber by something he’d grown almost completely unaccustomed to over the past several months.
Silence.
Curled up at the foot of Archer’s bed, Porthos raised his head and made a noise halfway between a whimper and a growl.
“I hear it, too,” Archer said as he swung his bare feet onto the deck in his quarters, whereupon he felt it as well.
We’ve dropped out of warp.
Cinching his robe around himself, Archer brought his cabin lights up to one-quarter intensity and strode to his desk.
The intercom whistled just before his hand reached the button.
“Engineering to Captain Archer,” said a voice he recognized immediately as that of Mike Burch.
“Just the man I was going to call,” Archer said. “Whatever you’re doing down there just woke up my dog.”
“Sir?”
“We’ve just dropped out of warp, Lieutenant. Why?”
“The warp engines have been running almost nonstop ever since we left the Gamma Hydra sector, Captain.”
Archer scowled. They’d been through all this before, on a number of occasions. “I understand, Mike. But it can’t be helped if we’re going to get back to Earth before t
he Romulans start building summer homes there. Now why aren’t we moving?”
Star Trek: Enterprise: The Romulan War: Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Star Trek : Enterprise) Page 29
