by Generations
Scott stayed where he was, waiting for the next strike for one second, for two. For three, and as he sat, the shaking gradually eased, and the ship was still.
Scott rose slowly to his feet, watching as Demora scrambled back to her station and peered at the helm readout; a broad grin spread over her features. "We're clear." Harriman was miraculously still at the conn. For a moment he stared at the screen, clearly amazed to find himself still alive, then punched a control on the arm of his chair. "You did it, Kirk!" He swiveled toward Demora. "Damage report, Ensign." Demora's smile had already faded; with the efficiency of a seasoned officer, she studied her console. Afine lass, Scott thought; next time he saw her father, he'd be sure to tell Sulu how well she performed in the crisis.
"There's some buckling on the starboard nacelle," Demora reported. She frowned abruptly and glanced up at Harriman. "We've also got a hull breach in the engineering section. Emergency forcefields are in place and holding." Scott could not have explained then how he knew.
Engineering covered a very large area of the ship, and dozens of areas could have been damaged without coming anywhere near the deflector room. Yet at the instant Demora said, We've got a hull breach, he went cold. For a moment he could not speak; when he did, he could manage no more than a single, hoarse question.
"Where?" Demora looked at him. His expression and eyes must have betrayed him, for at the sight of his face, she seemed to realize what he was asking. Her face went slack; her dark eyes narrowed with concern. As she stared down at the console again, Harriman rose from his chair, as if he, too, suddenly shared Scott's ominous conviction.
Let me be wrong, Scott prayed, but as he watched Demora's eyes widen, then narrow again at the sight on her board, he knew he was not.
"Sections twenty through twenty-eight," Demora read dully, "on decks thirteen, fourteen..." She gazed up at Scott. "... and fifteen." Numbly, Scott returned to the aft console and pressed the comm control. "Bridge to Captain Kirk." He paused, waited an agony of seconds, then repeated, "Captain Kirk... please respond." An eternity of silence. Scott could not meet the gazes of all those focused on him; he bowed his head and briefly closed his eyes.
When he had gathered himself enough to speak again, he turned to Demora. "Have Chekov meet me on deck fifteen." He headed for the turbolift, only distantly aware that Harriman followed close behind.
In sickbay, Chekov continued to help the survivors.
Other than their mental disorientation, the worst wound--a facial cut, from a bulkhead fragment-- belonged to the pale man who had attacked the reporter, and now lay sedated under restraints. The two journal- ists made fairly efficient orderlies, and it seemed the situation would soon be under control.
As he worked, he found it easier to maintain his balance, and gradually came to realize that the ship's shaking had eased. He smiled over at his two impromptu assistants, who were busily scanning patients.
"You see?" he called. "The people on the bridge can be trusted to take care of things." The two grinned with relief. "Thank goodness," said the woman. "I was beginning to think I'd never get the chance to file a great--" Chekov never heard the rest. The world suddenly heaved to one side, hurling him against a diagnostic bed.
When the rocking subsided, he found himself on the deck atop the dark-skinned woman with the intriguing eyes. He scrambled to his feet. "Are you all right?" She did not reply, but pushed herself to a sitting position. Her purple cap had fallen off; Chekov retrieved it and helped her on with it. She stared at him blankly as he offered her a hand, then pulled her to her feet and guided her back to the biobed.
All the while she stared, as though looking through him at another, more distant sight. And then suddenly she blinked, and seemed to see him--really see him-- and gazed intently up into his eyes.
"He's gone there, now." She said it so matter-of- factly, addressing Chekov with such lucid directness that he could not help responding.
"Who's gone? Gone where?" "To the other side." Her face grew somber with compassion. "He's gone." Chekov glanced up as the female reporter called jubilantly, "The shaking! It's stopped!" But only for an instant; the El Aurian woman's gaze compelled him to finish the conversation.
He was being foolish, of course, to think her words had any meaning. She had suffered a serious neural shock; she was raving. He tried to imagine how Dr.
McCoy would handle this: Now, ma'am, you just lie back and relax.
He smiled again and patted her hand. "Don't talk any more. You need to rest." Reluctantly, he turned away.
"Your friend," she said, with such conviction that he looked back. But he shook off the strange current of fear her words evoked, smiling palely at his own irrationality, and began once more to move away.
"Your friend, Jim," she said, and Chekov wheeled to face her.
"Commander Chekov." Demora's voice filtered through the intercom. Her tone seemed strained, oddly formal. "Captain Scott requests that you meet him on level fifteen, near engineering." Still staring at the El Aurian woman's inscrutable expression, Chekov made his way through the cluster of seated survivors to the nearest comm panel. "Demora, what is it? Is something wrong?" But she had already terminated the link.
He left the remaining patients in the reporters' care and ran to the nearest turbolift. Demora's terse message had filled him with profound uneasiness, verging on panic; even so, he did not permit himself to think, to suspect what he would find on level fifteen outside engineering until he arrived.
And saw Scott and Harriman, standing on the last few
meters of unscorched corridor, staring silently beyond a flickering forcefield and the jagged remnants of a bulk. head into open space.
"My God," Chekov whispered, as he stepped beside them. He knew before he asked what the answer to his question would be; he had seen it in Scott's defeated posture, even before he had seen his face. "Was anyone in there?" Harriman gave him a look of such pure sympathy that Chekov's heart skipped a beat. Scott never looked at him, but gazed steadily out at blackness and stars before replying softly, "Aye..." The rest of his time aboard the Enterprise-B was spent in a daze. He did not remember whether Scott or Harriman told him who it was that had been lost; nor did he remember returning to the bridge. But he re- called quite clearly the moment when he stood be- side Scott and Harriman at the helm, and the muted anguish in Demora's voice when she said, I've checked the entire ship and the surrounding space. There~ no sign of him.
He had looked to Scott then, unable to believe that there would not be yet another miracle, some way to pull his friend and captain from death's jaws once more.
They had done it before, after alltwhen Kirk had been trapped in interstitial space near the Tholian border.
They had thought him dead then, but he had survived.
Why not now?
But Scott merely sighed as he looked at the empty command chair, then shook his head. "Just a quick run around the block," he whispered bitterly.
"No," Chekov said, and felt the sting of tears behind his eyes as reality finally sank home. "It can't be. I never thought it would end like this.... " Scott stepped over beside his friend and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. "All things must end, lad." The two men yielded to grief for a time, unconscious of reporters and the camera's glare, until at last Harri- man said quietly, "Let's go home." And he moved over to the conn and took his place as captain of the Enterprise.
FIVE
On the bridge of the Starship Excelsior, Captain Hikaru Sulu sat in his command chair gazing out at stars and darkness hurtling past on the viewscreen as he sipped his tea. At the moment, the bridge was calm as a glassy sea.
The past few days had been slow enough to allow him the luxury of reflection; Excelsior was returning from a star-mapping expedition in the Thanatos sector. There was nothing left but the long journey home, then reas- signment. And so, Sulu was left with hours to do little else but contemplate. Today, the subject was time-- how, with each star streaking by, another second pa
ssed that could not be recaptured; another second that led him inexorably toward the unknown future.
Sulu smiled privately to himself, amused at his own moroseness, and decided it was directly related to the launch of the Enterprise-B. He'd felt both disappointed and relieved that he would not return to Earth in time to attend; disappointed, because he would have liked to share Demora's exhilaration on the day of her first mission, and see all his old friends again. At the same
time, he felt relief that he would not have to be reminded once again that old times could never be revived.
And yet--it was good to be reminded of the imperma- nence of things. Grief was the product of useless grasp- ing at the unattainable; happiness came from accepting the fact of change, and even one's own death. The Buddhists had a useful meditation for just that: Imagine yourself, alive and well and happy.
Now, imagine yourself--dead, your skin cold and graying, your body growing stiff.
Imagine your dead body decaying, alive with maggots, the flesh coming away from the bones as it dissolves, returns to the earth.
He had contemplated his own death enough times to no longer be horrified by it. But the concept of loss still troubled him. Someday, Sulu told himself, this gleaming ship' would be gone. Just as the original Enterprise herself was gone, destroyed as they had stood on the Genesis planet and watched her streak to her death across a twilight sky. Perhaps he would not lose Excel- sior so violently; perhaps he would merely surrender her to another captain.
He glanced up from his reverie as his first officer, Masoud Valtane, let out a gusting sigh. A xenogeologist, Valtane had been restless of late because he had run out of new planets to play with. Sulu repressed a fond smile as Valtane, who stood in his customary place at the captain's left, began to nervously stroke his dark mus- tache. Valtane was not beloved by the crew, in part because of his total ineptness at social relationships and his reputation as a stickler for detail on the job. But over time, Sulu had grown to like him, because he'd learned that Valtane's social clumsiness came not from aloof- ness, as most assumed, but from his almost childlike lack of pretense. And maybe because his ability to take any comment literally reminded Sulu more than a little bit of another science officer.
The comm link on the command-chair arm suddenly signaled; Sulu punched a toggle with the edge of his fist, jostling the tea in its cup. "Bridge." "Captain." Lieutenant Djugashvili's habitually calm monotone was pitched a half-octave higher than normal; her exhilaration was contagious enough to make Sulu set his cup of tea on its saucer and straighten in his chair.
"Magnetic interlocks are nonfunctional; we're losing coolant. Warp breach is imminent." Sulu glanced up at Valtane, who had stopped stroking his mustache, curved hand frozen in front of his lips.
Lojur, the Halkan navigator, heard and stared over his shoulder, his family symbol, tattooed in red between his pale eyebrows, deeply furrowed. Beside him at the helm, Lieutenant Shandra Docksey turned as well, dark au- burn hair swinging.
Docksey was the newest addition to the crew; she shot a swift panicked look at Lojur, who laid a reassuring hand on the back of her chair. The two had been inseparable since Docksey's arrival from Starfleet Acad- emy only days before, with Lojur playing the role of seasoned veteran/mentor/instructor to the hilt.
"How much time do we have?" Sulu asked Dju- gashviii.
"Less than three minutes, sir." Not enough time, Sulu knew from past drills, to evacuate all engineering personnel to the primary hull--
and the Excelsior was too far out to transport them to safety. "Evacuate everyone to the lifeboats." "Aye, sir." "Red alert," Sulu ordered as he severed the comm link, and the klaxon began to screech unnervingly over- head. He swiveled his chair toward the helm, so quickly that the tea sloshed over the side of his cup and spilled onto the fragile china saucer beneath. "Lieutenant Lojur. Prepare to separate from secondary hull." "Yes, Captain." Lojur turned back toward his console and began to work.
"Docksey. Approximate distance from planets or oth- er structures?" The young lieutenant seemed to have recovered from her moment of disconcertment; she replied smoothly, "One half parsec to the nearest starbase, sir. No planets within a five-parsec radius." Sulu nodded approvingly. "Stand by to take us to maximum warp, Mr. Docksey. I want at least two parsecs between us and the secondary hull when she goes. Mr. Lojur--initiate separation procedure." "Initiating." "Mr. Valtane--" Valtane, who had hurried to his station the instant the red alert began, turned to reply, his restlessness replaced by the same intense anticipation shared by those on the bridge.
"--time left before detonation?" Sulu finished.
"Two minutes, six seconds, Captain." Sulu nodded, satisfied, and waited, silently counting the seconds until at last Lojur called, "Separation proce- dure complete, Captain."
The view on the main screen shifted, from starry black void to the image of the secondary hull--engineering and the warp engine nacelles. Sulu watched as a swarm of tiny lifeboats erupted from the sides of the hull like angry bees spilling from a threatened hive. "Time?" "One minute, thirty seconds, sir." Sulu turned to his navigator. "Lojur. You've got thirty seconds to transport those lifeboat operators aboard." "Yes, sir." With Docksey's wide, green-eyed gaze upon him, the Halkan set to work--with, Sulu noted, the faint, confident air of an old salt showing the newbie how it was done.
"Captain." Gold-and-silver hair pinned up to reveal a graceful neck, Rand turned smoothly from the commu- nications board. Of all the bridge crew, she had the most experience; she had watched the events unfold with an unruffled, detached air. But now there was a note of curiosity in her voice that made Sulu glance at her in earnest concern. "You have an incoming personal mes- sage. From Earth." From Demora, Sulu decided, with parental eagerness and pride; probably to give an excited report of her first day aboard the Enterprise-B. He was pleased she had thought to contact him, disappointed that he could not respond. "It'll have to wait." "It's from Pavel Chekov," Rand said. Only then did her composure waver to reveal a subtle catch in her voice. "He sounds... I think... Something has hap- pened, sir." At first, Sulu did not comprehend; and then realized, with slow-dawning dread, that Chekov had been one of the old group who had attended the maiden launch of
the Enterprise-B. A single thought eclipsed all others, blotting out the klaxon's wail, the frenzied activity on the bridge: Dernora...
He caught his breath, suddenly cold with fear.
But no--it would have been Captain Harriman's place to contact him if something had happened to her.
Unless Pavel, as a friend, wanted to break it to him first.
Unless.
"Ask him to stand by." Sulu turned to Valtane and ordered brusquely, "Time." "One minute, thirteen seconds to core breach, sir." "In thirteen seconds," Sulu told Docksey, "get us out of here. Warp ten. Lojur--" "Understood, Captain. Transporter room reports that all but seven of the lifeboat operators have been brought aboard.~We'll get them all, sir." Sulu released a small sigh, rose from his chair, and stepped over to stand beside Rand. "Put it through to this station, Commander." She touched a control. At the station in front of her, a small viewscreen brightened in a burst of visual static, then resolved itself into the image of Pavel Chekov.
Sulu bent down, resting his palms on Rand's console to study his old friend. Chekov seemed to have aged abruptly since Sulu had last spoken with him. Yet it was not the extra gray hairs or lines etched in his face that gave that impression.
No, Sulu decided. It was the look of dazed grief in Chekov's glistening, red-rimmed eyes. That look struck the Excelsior captain like a physical blow; he recoiled from it, stunned.
"Pavel," he said softly. "My God, Pavel..." He tried to form the question that sprang to his lips, and could not; it hung unspoken between them. Who died?
"Hikaru." Chekov's tone was dull, controlled, but' Sulu heard the undercurrent of emotion that threatened to break through. "I am so sorry to be the one to tell you. During the launch, the Enterprise-B was trapped in some s
ort of... energy disturbance. The hull was breachedre" "Demora," Sulu said swiftly, but before the finali syllable was out of his mouth, Chekov shook his head. ~ Behind them, Lojur called, "All lifeboat operators aboard." "Engaging engines," Docksey reported. "Warp ten." Sulu heard them with only peripheral awareness, as[ though they were suddenly far distant, the events unfold- ing on the bridge insignificant. The small image of his friend now consumed his attention.
"She is fine," Chekov said stiffly. "Still on duty.
But... the captain went down to the deflector room in an attempt to rescue the ship. He succeeded, but was..." Overwhelmed, Chekov lowered his head.' "... killed..." '~ "The captain?" Sulu blinked at the screen in con-! fusion. He knew Harriman, the captain of the Enterprise-B, as an acquaintance; but they were not friends. Why would Chekov be calling him about-- Beside him, a small moan of despair escaped Rand's lips before she could raise her hand to them.
