Star Trek - TOS - 79 - Invasion 1 - First Strike

by Diane Carey

  himself. He understood what McCoy was going through.

  As a starship captain, his successes had always been

  magnified, but so were his blunders. He'd learned the

  hard way that a well-maneuvered pause could ease a bad

  situation and ordered with his eyes and posture that

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  FIRST STRIKE

  McCoy give himself that pause before anything else

  happened.

  What else could happen? He had trouble imagining

  the shuddering rage in Garamanus's face compounded

  any more than it already was. Not only was the victim's

  head gone, but McCoy had cut apart the poppet.

  Measuring each word with what could only be caution,

  Zennor looked at Garamanus and declared, "Accidents

  were inevitable."

  Feeling his skin contract, Kirk bit back the weighty

  declaration that this was no accident, but damned cold-blooded

  murder. He knew instantly how lucky he was,

  and Zennor also was, that Garamanus chose not to point

  that out himself.

  Kirk had no way to establish, even for his own

  comfort, how dangerous that silence was. And when he

  couldn't think like those around him, he had no anchorage.

  That bothered him. Bothered him big.

  In a last bid for compassion, for both crews, for both

  civilizations, he turned to Zennor.

  "Let me help," he pleaded.

  A shadow cast itself upon him and he stepped back.

  Garamanus was beside him, above him.

  The Dana's voice was like the slamming of a gavel.

  "We will wait to see what the stars say."

  "Absolutely nothing? You're sure?"

  "We're sure, sir."

  "Give me the rundown again."

  Chief Barnes, head of the astrogeology, gave him a

  pained look and pointed again at the row of bridge

  monitors on the science side. "There's not much here,

  sir."

  Beside the chief, stellar cartographer Amanda Alto

  and her brother, solar chemist Josh Alto, both looked too

  young to be able to do the kind of jobs they were doing.

  "As far as we can tell, sir," Josh said, "this sun went

  through its first red-giant stage three to four thousand

  years ago and incinerated all its inner planets, which is

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  where life generally occurs. Actually, we don't even have

  any way to know if there even were inner planetsre"

  "Except for the number and orbits of the outer planets,

  which may have changed considerably during the

  expansion stage of the star," Amanda filled in. "There had to be something there."

  "But there's no way to prove it," her brother added,

  not to be outdone.

  Kirk turned. "Any of the rest of you?"

  There were seventeen science specialists and staff

  technicians on the bridge, crowding both the upper and

  lower decks. As he gazed at them, all the young faces,

  peppered with a few older ones, all their minds crammed

  with numbers and probability and measurements, extrapolations

  of known data and theories of unknown

  data, the culmination of thousands of years of learning

  and in fact the very reason the starship could be out here

  doing what it did, he was struck with the sad realization

  that all these people were needed just to replace Mr.

  Spock.

  And he still needed Spock anyway.

  From beside the command chair, Astr obiologist

  Cantone broke the silence. "The remote cluster quark

  resonance scanners, spectrometers, and thermal imagers

  just aren't picking up anything that indicates there was

  ever life in the solar system, sir."

  "That doesn't mean there wasn't," Specialist Angela

  Godinez from the astral life sciences department

  pointed out. "It only means that any evidence of life was

  destroyed when the sun went red giant."

  "Chemical compositions of asteroids that might once

  have been planetary matter don't give us any clues

  either, sir," confirmed Astrogeologist Ross.

  Others just nodded or shook their heads in canny

  agreement. They all knew what he needed, and none

  could provide it.

  "If there ever was life here, sir," said Chief Barnes,

  "there's no possible way to know it anymore."

  Destitute. Billions of miles into space, and there was

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  nothing to show for it. An unthinkable risk, flying

  haphazard into Klingon space, using the thinnest of

  permissions to do so, likely as not a revoked permission,

  and like an errant child Kirk had a chilling sensation

  that the worst was yet to come.

  He looked at the forward screen, showing Zennor's

  ship cruising at warp speed two points off the port bow.

  "They came to search for the past," he uttered, "and

  there's none to find." He parted the sea of blue tunics

  and pressed his thigh against the bridge rail.

  "We'll keep looking, sir," Chief Barnes said with

  unshielded, and rather pathetic, sympathy for him. "But

  we won't find anything."

  "I understand that," Kirk told him grittily, aggravated

  that a stellar incident four thousand years ago should

  have so biting an effect on the eighty-odd years allotted

  to him in which he might get something done.

  He turned toward the turbolift. "Captain?"

  Against the shiny red lift doors, Zennor was a living

  gargoyle, with one errant shadow creasing his horns.

  Beside him, Garamanus was like something out of a

  reversed negative in an old photograph, the image of

  Zennor, with little of the color. Pale skin, white robes,

  and for the first time Kirk noted that his pallor might

  very well be from a life indoors, poring over historical

  information, piecing together details, with little intimacy

  to the outdoors and the brightness that bestows russet

  cheeks. Even on the other side of the galaxy, things

  couldn't be all that different.

  "I'm sorry," he said to them both. "You've seen the

  data. There's nothing left here to use as proof for any of

  our theories."

  He watched their faces and realized he was beginning

  to glean expression from those bony, deerlike features

  and the chromatic eyes. He thought of what McCoy had

  said to him about seeing aliens as like himself instead of

  unlike, and saw it now. Just a matter of getting used to

  them, and then space began to grow smaller between

  peoples.

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  Was Zennor pleased? Was that the expression Kirk

  was reading? If so, the other captain was trying not to

  show it in front of Garamanus.

  Made sense.

  "If there is no proof," the deep voice began, "then we

  must change our plans."

  "There is no proof against us," Garamanus spoke up,

  not facing him, "The Danai will not change yet."

  But Zennor did turn. This evidence is insufficient. I

  will not launch invasion based upon poor data. We must

  have absolute proof."

  "No proof is nothing," the Dana said, gritti
ng his--whatever

  those were. "This is our space. All things lead

  to this area."

  Zennor seemed to grow taller. "You wanted it to."

  The two massive beings squared off as the Starfleet

  audience watched from below, and it was as if the two

  were alone, as if Kirk and all the others had skidded

  away on the thin ice beneath them.

  "I always suspected you of being an unbeliever,"

  Garamanus charged. "Why, if you did not believe, did

  you sign up for this mission? The most important mission

  of all our civilization's history?"

  "Because I do believe we were cast out. But I do not

  want our civilization impaled upon that belief. There is

  no greater evil than that which was done to us. I will not

  have us become what we hate."

  Sensing that he was losing control of the bridge, if not

  the situation, Kirk yanked it back by stepping toward

  them and saying, "No one says you can't come here. If

  your civilization wants to move, there are ways to do

  that. There are habitable planets in Federation space.

  You're welcome to them. We'll help you. You can live in

  peace, settle, raise your--"

  Flocks, herds, spawn?

  "Young."

  They were both looking at him now, and if he could

  indeed read their expressions, then the expressions were

  very different.

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  FIRST STRIKE

  "You two can debate about this later," he plowed on,

  "but we've got to get out of Klingon space. I know you

  think well of your ship, but you don't know what the

  Klingon fleet really is. We'll give you sanctuary, but we

  must leave now."

  "I've seen your ships," Garamanus rumbled. "You

  have no idea what you stand against. You are less than an

  annoyance to us."

  Angry, Kirk raised his voice. "I don't stand against

  you. Not yet."

  Zennor stepped between them, raised his long clawed

  hand to Kirk, but turned to face Garamanus again. "Are

  these the conquerors? The drooling, snarling visions of

  evil you have held up to us for generations? Every

  essence of meanness and torture, delighting in agony?

  Why do you not admit you are wrong? The stars are not

  here, the proof is not here... the crew will be against

  you when I show them this. We have come to find evil

  and found the opposite. Can we fail to grow?"

  He paused, waited to see if Garamanus would speak,

  and when the Dana did nothing but stare, Zennor

  gestured again at Kirk.

  "We tell the conqueror we come to drive him out. He

  offers us sanctuary. We are damaged. He offers repair.

  We are attacked. He defends us. We tell him we have no

  home. He offers to make room for us. Garamanus

  Drovid, Dana of the Wrath, Keeper of the Magic Eggs

  and the Gold Sickle, call up your wisdom and not just

  your research, and tell me... is this the conqueror?"

  The large tawny hand clenched so tightly that the long

  fingernails seemed nearly to break the skin, then fanned

  open and made a sharp gesture at Jim Kirk's chest.

  Challenge boiled between the two impressive creatures.

  Tension rolled heavily across the bridge, bringing

  an ache to every head and a clench to every throat. No

  one moved.

  Standing on the tripwire, Kirk knew better than to

  move and hoped his crew would take his example.

  Reaching critical mass, Garamanus glared in bald

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  provocation, but despite anticipation there was no

  spring of attack, no roar of rage. When he finally spoke,

  his voice was as passive as a foghorn. His decision,

  evidently, had been made in those tight seconds, and

  now he would abide.

  "I wish to go back to my ship and be with my people."

  Unsure to whom the sentence was directed, Kirk took

  it upon himself as host to respond. "Transporter room

  two will be standing by when you want it."

  "Go back to the ship," Zennor sanctioned. "We will

  send a message through the wrinkle. The conquerors are

  not here. Our place is not here."

  Without another word or look, Garamanus flowed

  toward the turbolift and like some piece of a drifting

  wind was suddenly gone.

  The tension, most of it, went with him.

  Well, some of it.

  Kirk turned to his science staff. "Duty stations," he

  ordered.

  The flood of blue uniforms toward the lift was as much

  a flood of relief. There was an uneasy pause as they

  waited for the tube to clear and another lift to appear

  there, enough for about half of them to 'leave; then

  another two minutes lagged as the remaining science

  staff huddled the hallway and Zennor by himself in the

  other half until a third lift was able to arrive.

  Then they left, and Zennor was again alone up there.

  He and Kirk looked at each other.

  Without turning away, Kirk said, "All stop."

  He was surveying Zennor as if scanning a sculpture

  and thinking about what he was going to say.

  "I'm glad," he said at last, "that you found enough--or

  enough lack--of information to convince you we're not enemies."

  Zennor's weighty head bowed slightly out of the

  shadow. "I am convinced not by what we found, but who we found." He offered Kirk a pause that was indeed

  heartwarming. "If I had found only the Kling, we would

  be occupying this space by now."

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  pFIRST STRIKE

  Feeling suddenly better, and supremely gratified, Kirk

  discovered after a few seconds that he was grinning. He

  hadn't felt that coming on.

  "Captain," Chekov said, straightening sharply at the

  science station, "long-range sensors are reading a heavy

  surge in warp-field exhaust, sir! The Klingon fleet is

  coming inma very large fleet--at high warp speed!"

  Kirk nodded and motioned t'or the young officer to

  calm down, set a better example, and comprehend the

  vastness of space. They had time to move. Not much,

  but they had it.

  He looked at Zennor. "We'd better wear ship and get

  out of here or they'll hem us in. Now that we know

  there's nothing here, there's no reason to stay."

  Zennor--if that face could--offered what might've

  been on the other side of the galaxy a smile. "You go. Let

  me linger. I will happen to be here when they come. If

  they attack, I am no conqueror to destroy them."

  "It's tempting," Kirk allowed, "but no."

  The thick horns drew an imaginary pattern on the

  ceiling. "No matter, Vergokirk. Once we are among you

  and you have our technology, you will be able to take

  care of them yourselves." He lowered that drumbeat

  voice and added, "You know you will have to eventua lly."

  "People change, Vergo," Kirk wagered. "We have to

  give them that chance."

  He started to turn to the helm to usher Byers into a

  new course, but Zennor said, "No, they don't change.

  Good is good. Bad is bad."

 
Stifling any disappointment he might've been tempted

  to show, Kirk took the high road. Mildly he said, "I guess

  that's just another difference between us."

  Every hospital has a morgue, and none wants one.

  Leonard McCoy was in his, doing all those hundred

  things a doctor is obliged to do once he has saved all he

  can save and there is only clean-up work to do. Logging

  the names of the dead, matching physical attributes and

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  body marks to the official file of each, to make sure there

  is no error, that no family gets the wrong letter from the

  captain, and so each family knows with absolute certainty

  that the body wrapped in silk and sent into the nearest

  sun was indeed the son they would never get back. No

  one should ever wonder. That was his job now, and he

  took it with supreme care.

  Now, after the battle, after the ground assault, after

  the incident that asked of a serviceman the bottom-line

  sacrifice, came the time that came so rarely, and he

  realized in the midst of this sorry duty how lucky he

  really was to have Jim Kirk for a captain. Kirk had many

  reputations, saint or demon, depending on--what had

  he said?--whether or not somebody agreed with his

  work. And some who liked his work still didn't like him.

  Call it jealousy, call it impatience, call it just another

  method of doing business, some people just didn't like

  him. A lot of people, in fact.

  But he was a leader, not a politician, and being liked

  was the last on his list. Some of his own crewmen didn't

  like him, but that didn't matter. This shooting star they

  were riding still had the lowest transfer rate of any ship

  in the Fleet. And the waiting list was the longest of all

  twelve starships.

  Space was no fairyland and a charming captain did no

  one any good. They signed on because they knew he

  would fight for their lives. Down to the last man, he

  would fight for each of them.

  What mattered was times like this, when hundreds of

  men had gone into battle and only nineteen failed to

  come out of it. More than any other starship captain,

  Kirk had a reputation for fundamentally despising the

  death of a crewman. It was his own tragic flaw. He took a