by Peter David
Captain Morgan Bateson's image flickered slightly over the subspace patch. Sulu had begged a favor from Janice Rand, working the graveyard shift at Starfleet Communicore, to plug into a high-priority signal.
"You owe me for this, Sulu," she had said.
"Anything," he had replied.
"Fine. You make captain, you rescue me out of this lousy detail."
"Done and done," he had assured her.
She'd gotten it through on a priority signal, punching through local traffic, and getting him a direct real-time line to the Bozeman.
Captain Bateson, fingers steepled, regarded Sulu with an obvious air of puzzlement. "According to the incoming computer feed, Commander, it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 0500 hours where you are. Early riser?"
"Sometimes, yes, sir."
"Something is on your mind, I take it."
"Yes, sir." Sulu shifted uncomfortably, not exactly certain how to proceed.
Bateson nodded encouragingly. "Go ahead. I'm listening."
"I … regret that I will not be able to serve you as your second-in-command, sir. A circumstance has arisen that precludes my leaving Earth for the foreseeable future."
"I see." Bateson smiled. "Didn't get somebody pregnant, did you?" He was joking.
Sulu blinked in surprise. "Yes, sir." He paused. "Seven years ago."
Now it was Bateson's turn to look surprised. He recovered very quickly, however. "Well, Commander … I take it that either the mother has a gestation period exceeded only by the eight-year birth cycle of a Terwilligan Flogg … or else this was a fairly recent revelation."
"The latter, sir."
"The mother just sprung this on you?"
"The mother is dead, sir."
"Oh." Bateson pursed his lips slightly. "You could make other arrangements for the …" He paused. "Boy or girl?"
"Girl, sir."
"Girl. You could make other arrangements for her, I presume."
"Yes, sir. I choose not to."
"I see. You could also have simply informed me via communiqué through Starfleet Command."
"I know, sir. I also choose not to do that. I … feel I owe you a face-to-face explanation, sir."
"What you owe me, mister, is your service as my second-in-command," said Bateson sharply. "I did not make my choice lightly, and I dislike the notion of having to start from scratch."
"Yes, sir. However …"
"However, you feel you owe something to your daughter as well." His voice softened. "Must have been a difficult decision for you, Commander."
"None harder, sir."
"Then I'll be damned if I make it any more so for you." He sighed.
"I'm sorry about this, sir."
He actually chuckled slightly. "Save your sympathy for yourself, Commander. All I have to worry about is a temporary inconvenience. You have the far more serious situation on your hands. What's the girl's name, by the way?"
"Demora."
"Demora Sulu. I'll remember that. And you be sure she remembers the name of Morgan Bateson, whom she deprived of a perfectly good first officer."
"I will, sir."
"Good luck, Commander."
"And to you, sir."
"Bozeman out."
And just like that, it was over. The line was cut, the Bozeman and all the people aboard with their lives …
And Sulu's was about to begin.
Demora Ling rolled over and stretched, blinking against the sunlight coming in through the window.
She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and got out of bed. The hem of her nightgown fell down to her ankles as she walked over to the window, yawned, and looked out.
The sun was high in the sky. Too high. They had a reservation for her on an early-morning shuttle. Her suspicion was verified a moment later when she checked the chronometer and saw that it was a few minutes before noon.
She ran out into the living room and found Sulu sitting there, calmly scanning the morning headlines while sipping a cup of tea. He looked at her blandly. "Finally roll out of bed, did you. You always sleep in like this?"
"It's noon," she said.
"Yes, I know. Do you drink tea? I don't have any kid'stype drinks, like hot chocolate or such. Sorry."
"It's noon," she repeated, as if she couldn't quite believe he was that oblivious of the time. "We … I have a shuttle to get to."
"We do?"
"And … and you have an assignment to get to."
Ah. Well, there you're right. But the Academy can wait a few days."
She rubbed her eyes, apparently to make sure that she was genuinely awake. "The Academy?"
"Yes, Starfleet Academy. When Admiral Kirk was offered a teaching position there, he made an open offer to myself and several other longtime associates. I've decided to take him up on it."
Her head bobbed up and down slightly, a physical reflection of each new piece of information that was entering her head. "That's … that's here."
"Right."
"Here in San Francisco."
"Right."
"Am I still going up to the place up in Washington?"
"Not if you don't want to." He paused. "Do you want to?"
In a very soft voice, she said, "No. I hate it." "Then why didn't you say so?" Even more softly, she admitted, "Because I didn't think you'd care."
"Of course I care. I'm your father."
"I know you are. I just … I didn't know what that meant. Not really. I'm still not sure."
He put down the teacup. The movement was clumsy, and he hoped it didn't betray his nervousness. Lord, his hands had been steadier when he'd been programming phaser blasts against Klingon ships that had them sighted.
"What it means," he said slowly, "is that after you have some breakfast, we go out and take a Lifeshot, so we can watch you grow up. We go buy you some clothes. Some toys …"
"Toys?" she said.
"Okay, a lot of toys. We stop calling the guest room the guest room, and start calling it Demora's room. We put the wheels in motion—if you'd like—for me to officially adopt you. We do right by you."
She seemed to want to say a hundred things at once. Instead the only word the child was able to get out, her eyes wide in wonderment, was "Why?"
He smiled. "A lot of reasons. Only two that really matter: Because I'm your father. And because I love you."
"Love me?" she said incredulously. "You don't even know me."
"I know. Isn't it the most stupid thing you've ever heard?"
"Yes," she said, her lower lip trembling.
He put out a hand to her, and she took it and started to cry just as she had the previous night, except this time there were strong arms to hold her and comfort her as she said over and over, "It's stupid it's stupid it's stupid …"
And somehow, Sulu felt the eyes of Ling Sui upon him.
Wherever you are, you crazy woman … I hate you. And by the way… thank you … thank you forever. . . .
Chapter Eighteen
"DAD … CAN I GO with you to the Academy sometime?"
Sulu looked at Demora in surprise while, at the same time, never breaking stride.
The two of them were jogging briskly down Telegraph Hill, the way up always being a bit easier than the way down. The sun was still just in the process of coming up over the horizon, as it usually was during their early-morning runs.
In the early days, when Demora had wanted to run beside him, he'd had to completely alter his route to accommodate her. But over the years, as she'd approached her teen years, she'd had less and less trouble keeping up with him. Consequently he'd started going back to his old running paths. She'd continued to keep up with him, and he started to foresee a time when it would be all he could do to keep up with her.
"You want to come to the Academy?"
"That's what I said."
Her long hair swung across the small of her back like a pendulum. They were both wearing T-shirts and shorts as she displayed her ability to maintain pace with her fath
er.
What Demora wasn't was tall … a source of great frustration to her, although Sulu kept assuring her that she was in for a growth spurt. Demora would teasingly ask him if he was anticipating a growth spurt for himself, and indeed would occasionally gibe him by calling him Tiny. She meant it affectionately, and he let her get away with it, although he swore that anyone else who ever tried to call him that would sorely regret it.
Indeed, her lack of height made her appear, at first glance, much younger than she was. Her face still had the softness of childhood. Fully dressed, she looked preadolescent. However, in the sweaty shirt plastered to her chest and the shorts, and the shorts revealing legs like those of a young colt, there was no mistaking the fact that she was a youthful woman on the cutting edge of maturity. Sulu noticed young men's eyes turning these days as they jogged along, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't the one being sized up.
They slowed to a stop at a street corner. Sulu started to stretch, massaging a muscle that was cramping. "You've never asked to before. In fact, the first time I mentioned it, you showed such disinterest I never brought it up again."
She shrugged (some things never changing). "I didn't think you really wanted me to."
He gaped at her. But then he thought better of his first reaction, because if there was one thing he'd come to learn, it was never to accept anything Demora said or did at face value. It had been a long and hard lesson for him. He was used to dealing with adults … and outspoken adults, at that, such as Leonard McCoy or Pavel Chekov. People who told you exactly where they stood.
Demora wasn't always as forthcoming. This had worried him at first, but Sulu—being thorough—had researched the subject. He'd read everything he could get his hands on, from recent treatises on child rearing, all the way back to material written centuries before. He remembered a confusing conversation he'd had with Chekov, wherein Sulu had been quoting certain philosophies on parenting and Chekov had asked him who was the authority Sulu was using.
"Spock," Sulu had told him.
Chekov had looked exceedingly confused. "Meester Spock? Vat does he know about children?"
"No, Dr. Spock."
"A doctor?" Chekov was even more befuddled. "Ven did he become a doctor? Does Dr. McCoy know?"
In any event, Sulu had learned not to believe the first thing Demora said … or, for that matter, even the second or third necessarily. Speaking with any child was less like a normal conversation and more like peeling an onion: many layers to slice through to get to the core, and not a few tears shed along the way.
"You thought I didn't want you to? Demy … come on. You couldn't have thought that. I've told you about it often enough. Encouraged you. You've heard Chekov and me discuss the old days whenever he comes over. So how could you possibly think that I didn't want to share it with you?"
Demora had her foot placed flat against a building and was stretching to touch her toes. She paused and looked to him. "Truth?"
"Beats lies."
She turned and leaned against the building, her arms folded across her budding breasts. "I've been hearing about Starfleet for so long, and how wonderful it is … I've almost been afraid of it."
"Afraid of it?" He said it half with a laugh, unsure of what she could possibly be talking about.
"What if I visit the Academy with you … meet the cadets, sit in on a class … and I find the whole thing … I don't know. Dull. Maybe the cadets will be jerks, or the subject matter will bore me stiff."
"Demy! It's a visit, not a career choice."
"It's stepping into your world for the first time. Oh, I certainly was off-planet enough with Mother. But it's … it's different somehow. I don't know why, but it just … is."
"But now you want to come."
"I've just been doing a lot of thinking lately. I miss Chekov, for one thing. He sends his letters from the Reliant, but it's not the same. It couldn't be. And also there's …"
"All right, then," Sulu said. "How about today?"
She looked surprised. "Today?"
"Why not today?"
"No reason not to. I just meant … some time in the future."
"Two hours from now is the future, isn't it? That's the wonderful thing about the future. It's whenever you want it to be."
"Okay. Fine. That would be … fine," said Demora.
"But Demora … promise me something."
"Sure, Dad. What?"
"You'll stay out of trouble."
"Dad!" She looked at him accusingly. "When have I ever …?"
"Let's not cite chapter and verse, all right?" he warned. "You know very well the number of times I've heard it from your teachers about your knack for getting in over your head. I want you to swear to me, on your honor, that you'll stay out of trouble."
"Sure. Whatever."
"I don't want 'whatever.'"
"All right, I swear."
"On your honor?"
"On my honor."
She smiled.
He frowned.
Chapter Nineteen
MAKING ASTRONAVIGATION interesting was not an easy task. There were no subtleties, no deep philosophies, no sprightly discussions about the ethics of the situation or second-guessing the right or wrong of an action. There was just straight memorization and trying to teach students how to think without regard to such irrelevancies as "up" and "down."
So in order to prevent eyes from glazing over, Sulu would tend to intersperse his lectures with his firsthand experiences. This would invariably keep the students' interest, their minds sharp and entertained, so that they wouldn't feel overwhelmed in trying to grasp the many facts that would be necessary for them to survive.
He was in the midst of one now, amused—as always—by the reactions he was getting from his class. "So I brought the Enterprise around, full one hundred and eighty degrees … and the planet was in front of us again."
There was startled laughter … and some looks of outright incredulity … from the students.
"I thought that I had forgotten every single thing I'd ever learned about helming a ship," he continued. "I kept looking at the instruments, looking back at the screen, back at the instruments," and he demonstrated, his head bobbing as if it were on a spring, his eyes growing increasingly flummoxed.
"He moved the planet?" asked one cadet. "The whole thing?"
"The whole thing," affirmed Sulu.
"That's the most insane thing I've ever heard," said another.
Sulu figured that he should save for another time the anecdote about the giant hand gripping the saucer section and keeping the entire ship in place.
His eyes swept the room, looking for Demora. She'd been seated toward the back, her hands propping up her head. It was hard to tell if she was interested in what he was lecturing about. It was all somewhat advanced, after all. Not the sort of thing that was normal for a young girl to try and absorb, or even pay attention to.
She wasn't there. Her seat was empty.
He stopped talking for a moment, slightly concerned. Where the hell had she just vanished to? He wondered if she should halt, or even dismiss, the class, and go look for her.
But surely that was an overreaction. They were at Starfleet Academy, after all, not rowing in the Amazon or something. And she'd promised, on her honor, that she would not get into trouble. Demora knew how seriously Sulu took such oaths, and he had every confidence that she would do nothing to violate it.
Everywhere she looked, there was something new.
Galvanized doors, signs pointing the way to various labs and classrooms. Cadets would pass her and react with a brief smile, or a nod of the head. Plus the occasional puzzled frown, of course.
"Excuse me … where are you going?" she heard from behind her.
She turned to see two cadets, male and female … the latter a Vulcan. It was the Vulcan who had spoken to her.
"Just looking around."
"You should not be wandering around," said the Vulcan. "Who are you?"
"Demora Sulu," she replied.
The cadet at the Vulcan's side pulled at her sleeve. "See? She's Commander Sulu's daughter. Come on, Saavik, we're going to be late for class."
"All right, Peter." She cast one more uneasy glance at Demora. "I think it would be best if you returned to your father," she said before she and classmate Peter Preston moved off down the hallway.
Demora, naturally, put the encounter immediately out of her mind, and continued on her way.
A couple of cadets came through a pair of heavy-duty doors, and Demora slipped through them before they shut, so that she never saw the sign that read MARK IV SIMULATOR.
She did, however, notice the freestanding sign a little farther in that read, USE OF THIS FACILITY WITH AUTHORIZED SUPERVISION ONLY. She drummed on it a moment and then continued on her way.
She made her way down the hall, past windows overlooking the gardens. She saw a young man working down there, under the guidance of an older man. The young man was medium height, with closely cut red hair. The older man was bossy and—judging by the younger man's reactions—a bit of a grouch.
Demora watched for a few minutes, and then kept going.
She slowed and then stopped upon finding what appeared to be a large set of double doors. She stepped through them … and stopped, slack-jawed.
She'd heard about them, but she'd never seen one before.
It was the bridge of a starship.
Oh, she knew it wasn't really, of course. It was some sort of mock-up, a model. Probably designed to show students what they could expect when they finally made it through training and embarked on their career in space.
She entered it, looking around, fascinated by what she was seeing. Everything was lit up, flickering. There was even a starfield displayed on the monitor screen. It didn't take much for her to imagine herself out in the depths of space. At every station there were readouts of activities throughout the "ship."
Her hand brushed briefly across the command chair, but somehow it didn't seem to hold interest for her. Instead she found her attention drawn to the helm station, the site of so many of her father's stories. The adventures, the battles … the incredible sensation of having the mighty starship's heading and weaponry at your fingertips.
