Errand of Fury Book 1

by Kevin Ryan

  The president got right to the point. “Ambassador, what do the Klingon diplomats have to say about the incursion?”

  “I have not spoken to Ambassador Wolt yet, but in a message he maintained that we had agreed to allow them to send a…delegation to the planet so they could begin talks with the genetic Klingons there. As far as they are concerned—”

  “They sent a warship!” West found himself blurting out.

  Fox hesitated for a moment and then replied. “It is irregular, and I have lodged a formal protest with the Klingons.”

  A protest! West thought. The Klingons are launching an invasion, and he’s lodged a protest!

  “The Klingons have assured me that they have no hostile intent, they are merely taking the action we all agreed upon,” Fox said.

  “We agreed to a warship?” West asked.

  “No, we agreed quite specifically that they would use a civilian transport. However, the ambassador says that there was a miscommunication somewhere within their chain of command,” Fox said.

  “Do you believe him?” West asked, keeping his voice carefully controlled.

  Fox didn’t hesitate. “No.” Then he added, “However, we have already agreed to send a starship ourselves.”

  “Yes,” Solow said, “but there is a difference between using the might of a starship to monitor the activities of a hostile alien force in our territory and these actions by the Klingons whom we know are planning a massive invasion.”

  “The question is, what do we do now?” the president asked. “Lieutenant West, what do your Klingon cultural studies suggest?”

  West didn’t hesitate, either. “We know that as far as the Klingons are concerned, the hostilities that began twenty-five years ago at Donatu V have not ended. They consider the empire and the Federation to be in a state of war that has had only a temporary pause. In that context, we can see this clear violation of the spirit of our agreement with them on their contact with the people in System 7348 as a first strike. If a Klingon were engaged in a hand-to-hand duel with an enemy, it would be an initial blow designed to test the opponent’s reactions.”

  “What would you recommend as a response?” the president asked.

  “We need an overwhelming show of force. Tell the Klingons to turn their warship around or we will blow it out of space. Then, if they do not comply, we need to follow through on our threat.”

  “Ambassador?” the president said.

  “I’m not convinced that we’ve exhausted all of our diplomatic channels,” Fox said.

  The president asked Solow, “Admiral, how far along is your emergency refit program for our starships?”

  “The Enterprise was the first ship to begin the refit and it will be the first done. Four more have begun as we speak, with all twelve Constitution-class ships completed within three weeks. Most upgrades of major planetary defense networks will be finished within the same time frame.”

  “Your recommendation?”

  “I would rather have all of our upgrades in place, but I don’t think we can allow this threat to go unanswered.”

  President Wescott took all this in, a look of intense concentration on his face. West realized that he had underestimated the man after their first meeting. His face told West that the president knew full well that the decision he was about to make would be the most important one of his political career. The weight of that choice was clear, yet he made it quickly.

  “Admiral, dispatch the Enterprise immediately to monitor the situation in System 7348. We don’t have time to wait for their upgrades to be fully installed. And we’ll have to trust Captain Kirk to conduct further threat assessment and take appropriate action if necessary.”

  “Mister President,” Solow said, “the Enterprise’s original schedule put them three days ahead of the Klingons, but that was on the assumption that it would be a civilian transport. Even with the Enterprise leaving early, the Klingons may get there ahead of them.”

  West added, “That may give them time to get hold of the dilithium resources in the system—time to set up their foothold in our space and make preparations to begin a conflict that is inevitable.”

  The president nodded solemnly. “You may be right, Lieutenant, but if you are, God help us all. If this war is inevitable, then we may be looking at the last days of the Federation. I will not put us on that path now—not if there’s hope for diplomacy.” Then, before West could speak, the president raised a hand and continued. “And if we are to go to war, then we may be giving the Klingons an advantage now, but we will be sowing an advantage of our own as well.”

  West held his tongue. The president had made up his mind and had not done it lightly.

  “Ambassador Fox, you have some more time to pursue your channels. Godspeed to you,” Wescott said.

  “Thank you, Mister President,” Solow said. Wescott nodded and the screen went blank.

  “Sir—” West began.

  “Politicians and diplomats, Lieutenant. Don’t blame them. They’re a product of their natures, their training, and their experience—just as we are.”

  “But, sir, there is one important difference in this case.”

  “What’s that?” Solow asked.

  “We’re right and they’re wrong.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

  STARBASE 56

  2267

  MCCOY’S EXPRESSION DIDN’T BETRAY what he was thinking, but his eyes told Parrish something was wrong when she entered his office.

  “What is it?” she asked immediately.

  The doctor stood behind his desk and gestured for her to sit. “Please,” he said.

  “I’d rather stand, Doctor.” If this was bad news, she would rather receive it standing up. “Is there something wrong with my test results?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I did learn something about human-Klingon pregnancies. There were a few case histories on colony worlds that I was able to dig up on the starbase.”

  “Is a successful pregnancy possible?” she asked, for a moment not knowing which answer she wanted.

  “Yes, it’s possible.” He raised his hand. “But it won’t be easy, especially as you get into the second trimester. Complications are likely.”

  “Will the baby be healthy?” she asked.

  “I can’t give you any guarantees, and we don’t have enough of a sample to give you odds. I can tell you that most of the danger in these cases seems to be to the mother.” After a few moments of silence, McCoy added, “I know this may change things for you. However, you don’t have much time to make your final decision. The captain has arranged for the ship to meet with a civilian transport before we reach System 7348. That’s in three days. The transport will take you to a starbase. If you are going to have this baby, you need to be on that transport, and I would strongly recommend that you then travel to Earth immediately.”

  “Earth? But I’m from—”

  “Lieutenant, if you are going to have this baby, you can’t do it on a colony world in a mining complex,” McCoy said. “The best doctor we have for hybrid pregnancies is on Earth. I would want you in her care.”

  That definitely changed things. Parrish could almost imagine having a child at home, with her family around her. Mining colonies were tightly knit. There would be friends to help her.

  But Earth…

  She had only stayed there for her four years at the Academy. She didn’t know anyone outside of the service on the planet.

  “I’m sorry that I don’t have better news,” McCoy said. Parrish only nodded, her thoughts a swirl in her head. “And I will need your decision very soon.”

  A question rose up and Parrish asked it without thinking. “Can I remain on limited duty until then?”

  “Sure, for the few days you have until the rendezvous. But I need to monitor you closely, understood? You’ll have to come see me before every shift, and you’re only to do one shift per day.”

  “Of course. Thank you, Doctor.”
She headed for the door.

  As she entered the corridor, Parrish realized that she had no idea what she would do, what she should do. For her entire life, she had always been decisive. Her path had always been clear, her goals always in sight. She had wanted Starfleet and gotten it. She had wanted starship service and gotten it.

  Now this…

  And yet the confusing mass of thought and emotion cleared as she realized that she had an immediate duty to perform. She had made a promise that she meant to keep. For the moment, her own situation would have to wait.

  As he stood in the phaser control room, tension was written all over Scott’s face and Kyle knew why: Scott would not leave the phaser control room until the system had had at least one full-power test, and he had to be in the sensor area when work began there. The problem was that even Montgomery Scott couldn’t be in two places at once, and the disassembly of the sensor components had begun twelve hours ago.

  The intercom beeped and a voice that Kyle recognized as belonging to one of Steele’s engineers came through the system. “We’re ready to begin assembly down here.”

  “Fine, get started. I’ll be down as soon as I can. Steele out,” Steele said.

  Kyle watched Scott wince at that, but Steele gave no indication that she’d noticed. In fact, she didn’t even look up from the phaser control main console. After a few minutes a green light on the console went on and Steele looked up.

  “The simulation checks out,” she said, turning to Scott. “Would you like to give the order?”

  “Aye,” Scott said. Then he leaned over the phaser control officer and said, “Begin power-up sequence.”

  The lieutenant at the console hit a sequence on his panel, and there was a brief moment of silence followed by a gentle hum as power flooded the system. As with the shields, phaser circuits were designed to reach full power quickly, and the hum rapidly rose in volume and pitch. Kyle noticed that the sound was subtly different than it had been in the past, no doubt because of the new components. That would take some getting used to. Engineers and phaser control officers could often tell the status of the system simply by the sounds it made.

  “We’re at full power,” Scott said, and Kyle let out a sigh of relief. Without looking at him, the chief engineer said, “Mister Kyle, why don’t you adjust the power and frequency range?”

  As Kyle started work, he was surprised at how responsive the new controls were and how quickly the system could be adjusted. And if those new readings were accurate, he was seeing quite a boost in phaser power. Without a doubt, Kyle knew he was looking at the most powerful starship-based phaser banks in the known galaxy.

  Scott muttered something under his breath, and Steele seemed amused. “Surprised it works, Mister Scott?”

  “I’ll check the control circuits and let you know,” Scott replied. A moment later, he turned away from the console and Kyle could see that he was genuinely surprised.

  “Control circuits?” Steele prompted.

  “Fine,” Scott replied, a ghost of a smile on his face. Kyle knew why: in new equipment, dramatic increases in power always meant dramatic increases in magnetic fields, which wreaked havoc on control circuits—though not this time, apparently.

  Steele smiled again. “You know, back at command, we do occasionally read the reports sent back from field engineers.” Then before Scott could respond, she said, “Come on, let’s go see what they’ve done to your sensor array.”

  “Mister Kyle,” Scott said, and Kyle followed. When he got to the sensor area, Kyle was glad he was not claustrophobic, because space was tight there. In fact, it was without a doubt the most difficult space on the Enterprise to do major repair jobs or perform upgrades. Any sort of significant work, he knew, usually required decompressing the whole section and removing the exterior sensor/navigational deflector dish itself and working from the outside in.

  That process, however, could take weeks. However, Steele had devised a procedure that made such a drastic step unnecessary. Enterprise and station engineers would disassemble major components and remove them a piece at a time. When that was done, the replacement components would be packed into the same area and assembled with more handwork than Kyle had usually seen for this sort of job.

  The system should not have worked, for a number of good reasons. For one, the amount of equipment they were building into the sensor array should not even have fit in the space they had to work with. And second, the assembly should have been possible only on a factory floor by sophisticated automated equipment.

  But according to the schedule, Kyle saw they would actually save time by doing the work manually because they would be able to field-test individual pieces of equipment as they installed them. Problems would be easier to see and fix on the spot. Once this new equipment was installed, Kyle knew there would not be weeks of shakedown and troubleshooting required.

  “Mister Scott,” Steele said in her southern drawl, “it looks like we’re about to begin assembly. If you’re satisfied in here, you and I can move on to the new shield generator components.”

  “I’ve read the specs. I’m looking forward to seeing the equipment,” Scott said.

  Steele nodded. “Then I won’t keep you waiting.”

  “Mister Kyle, help out here and call me when you’re ready to perform the system check,” Scott said.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Scott and Steele turned to go. Kyle saw that whatever difficulty the two had had before, it was over now. He knew a quick rush of optimism, the first one he’d felt in the weeks since the crisis with the Klingons had begun.

  But before Scott could leave the deck, Uhura’s voice filled the room, and a dozen engineers stopped what they were doing to listen. “Mister Scott, please report to the briefing room immediately.” There was a brief pause and then she said, “Lieutenant Commander Steele, report to the commodore’s office at starbase.” And then Uhura repeated both messages.

  Scott and Steele shared a silent look as the rest of the engineers watched them. For many hours now, they had all been caught up in the work they were doing. There was a beauty and a symmetry to the new systems that appealed to all of them, so much so that they had forgotten the deadly purpose behind their work.

  The silence of all fourteen officers on the deck was the sound of them all remembering that purpose once again.

  Steele and then Scott hit the intercom button and said they were on their way. Then the two officers left the deck together. An instant later, eleven pairs of eyes turned from the door and looked to Kyle.

  “We have a systems checklist to get through. Let’s do this quickly,” Kyle said. He didn’t have to say anything else. Everyone understood what he left unsaid.

  Kyle got to work.

  Captain Kirk nodded when Scott entered the briefing room. The rest of the senior staff and the department heads were already present, so he didn’t waste time. “There has been an important development in the situation regarding the Klingons and the delegation they are sending to System 7348. They will be arriving in less than seventy-two hours, and the Klingon delegation is being ferried by a Klingon battle cruiser, not a civilian transport, as we had been led to believe.”

  The captain paused for a moment to let that information sink in. McCoy was the first to speak. “Does this ‘delegation’ even exist?”

  Kirk shook his head. “We have no conclusive proof either way.”

  “Captain, I must concur with the doctor,” Spock said, his even tones providing an ironic counterpoint to the deadly serious content of what he was saying. “We have very little reason to believe that the Klingons have anything but hostile intent. The fact that they have entered Federation space in a battle cruiser is a serious breach of protocol.”

  “True. There will, however, be no immediate military response,” Kirk said. His people were too professional to express their surprise. “With one exception. The Enterprise is ordered to make for System 7348 immediately. Mister Scott, I know that is a tall order, given th
at you are now in the middle of upgrading two major systems, but I need your absolute best.”

  “We can be under way in ten to twelve hours,” Scott said. Kirk could not keep the surprise from his face. “Maybe less, though I can’t promise until I talk to Commander Steele.” Scott saw Kirk’s expression and explained. “The phaser refit is finished, and we’re installing the sensor equipment now and about to begin on the shield generators. If I can have Steele and her staff for another ten hours, we can get the basics in place. Then, even at maximum warp we’re looking at almost four days to the system. I can have everything online before we get there. Given the time frame, we should be able to beat the Kingons to the system. It will be close but we can do it.”

  “Mister Scott, that is impressive. Thank you,” Kirk said.

  “No need, sir. ’Tis the upgrades. Commander Steele and her design staff have done a fine job.”

  Kirk nodded. That was something. He had seen Scott’s initial reports, which showed the chief engineer’s doubts about the refit. His new attitude spoke well for the major overhaul the Enterprise and the rest of the fleet were due in three years. The captain dismissed the thought. That would come after the end of the Enterprise’s five-year mission, and the ship would have to log a lot of star hours before then. For now, their first order of business was survival, for themselves and for the Federation.

  “Then I won’t keep you, Scotty,” Kirk said, and the chief engineer got up to head for the door. Scanning the table, the captain said, “Thoughts?”

  “Jim, no one wants war, but if it’s coming anyway, why let the Klingons start it in our backyard?” McCoy asked.

  “President Wescott feels that there’s still some hope for the diplomatic option. If they continue talks, maybe both sides can reach a compromise.”

  “But if the Klingons want to wipe us out, can we afford to compromise on that? Let them have, say, half the Federation?” McCoy asked. “They tried to destroy a planet of their own people. How does the president think they will treat us if we lose?”