Final Frontier

by Carey, Diane

  Young. He might be only thirty-one, but he hadn’t been young for hours, days. The effort had aged him, this awful lie that suddenly consumed the hours of life he had left. Trying to hide his own despair from the real youth on board—the children, who were more perceptive than the adults liked to think, and certainly more sensitive. And the young parents who didn’t know enough about engineering to know they were being given false hopes. If he could just keep those hopes going for another few hours, maybe they’d be too weak for any real grief anyway.

  Being alone was a relief. A time to let the pretense slide and admit to himself the grating truth—impending death. Time to look out at the electrostatic charges dancing around the viewport, time to be bitter about it. He stared out at the ion storm, its beauty an irritating reminder of the inevitable. Ironic that dying should be so pretty. And it hurt more this way. As though it was laughing at them.

  He felt spiritless. He wished they’d blown up on contact, met death in a single detonation. One blast, and all done. None of this lingering. He didn’t feel comfortable with the martyrdom. He didn’t like their being impaled on their own torment for all the Federation to weep over, crucified to the cause of colonization and expansionism. Bad enough they had to endure this, much less know their friends and families and countless strangers back in home space were being dragged through it too. Better to have gone up in one blow.

  There was a movement behind his reflection—he pulled himself up toward his desk in time to draw the shields back over his desolation.

  “Okay, Jon?”

  Kupper responded to the captain’s voice with strained enthusiasm. “Sure. Just resting.” He pivoted around, and—talk about sacrificed youth—Anita’s familiar oval face was a pattern of fatigue. Where yesterday there had been the pouches of chubbiness, today there were only hollows. Her normally lustrous umber hair had drooped and become dull over the long hours without sleep. To grind the pain in, she was holding one of the babies, the agro-engineer’s newborn daughter.

  The captain saw him staring at the baby, and she too looked down into the rosebud face. “Sleeping. I thought I’d give her parents a break. A captain’s not much use on a stranded ship.” She sighed, slipping into the lounge beside him. “And I guess I can rock a baby as well as the next guy.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he told her. “Listen . . . I was trying to decide.”

  “What?”

  “The sleeper units really ought to be tested, but . . .”

  “But that would take oxygen. I know.” She nodded sympathetically. “You’re doing your best. What’s the difference, Jon? Either they work, or they don’t. If they don’t . . .” She shrugged, by now quite numb. Death had become a companion.

  Kupper felt a stab of guilt. She was the captain; he should tell her the truth about the sleepers. Then again, even the captain couldn’t order away the inevitable.

  He clamped his mouth shut before the urge to confide in her became too heavy to bear. She had enough to deal with.

  “We’re conserving power. All sensors are shut down now,” the captain said. “No point in analyzing the ion activity, is there?”

  “Guess not.”

  “I’m leaving a log,” she went on. “I’m trying to specify just what went wrong, so others won’t make the same mistake. I want them to know it was my error—”

  “It wasn’t your error and I wish you’d please stop saying that.”

  “Don’t placate me, Jon. I don’t need it.”

  “I’m not. I just wish you’d quit taking that captain-is-responsible stuff too far.”

  “It was my decision to push into the storm in spite of the readings.”

  Too tired even to turn his head, he didn’t look at her. “The readings bore up your decision. It looked stable. I think it was stable, but it just changed once we got deeper inside. You can’t accept the blame for an act of God.”

  “God hasn’t been around here lately. That leaves me.” She leaned back in the lounge and rested her head, taking solace in the baby’s miniature pink hand as it spread over her forefinger.

  “Okay,” Jon sighed. “I’m not going to die with an argument on my lips. Have it your way.”

  Allowing him his well-deserved crabbiness, Anita Zagaroli didn’t respond. She let her eyes go unfocused, let the ion storm flash and flicker at her in the viewport.

  After several minutes, she smiled privately to herself, and opted to give the bio-engineer the last gift she had. “By the way,” she began, “you did a hell of a job explaining the sleeper units to the colonists. Very convincing. They bought every word.”

  Jon stared out the viewport and nodded, lost in his own numbness, then blinked. He drew his lounge up again and shifted his stare. “You know? You know about that?”

  Her sad smile broadened. “It’s my job to know.”

  “Oh, Jesus Christ!” Jon slammed back into the lounge, letting it wobble beneath him. “I thought—does anybody else suspect?”

  “Like I said, you did a hell of a job. I didn’t even figure it out until this morning.”

  “How?”

  “I checked stock. There isn’t enough cryon compound on board to freeze a flea.”

  “Oh, damn . . . Anita . . .”

  “Now who’s blaming himself?”

  “I figured—”

  “I know. Good thinking. You made it as easy on them as it could be.”

  Suddenly nauseated by the relief of not being the only one with his crushing secret, Kupper dumped himself backward in his lounge a third time. When the lounge stopped wobbling, he and the captain sat side by side, staring insensibly out into the layers of ionic activity. Silence fell around them. The lightshow continued, still mocking. Beyond any chance of sleep, any chance of hope, they sat together, sharing the last hours in much the same manner as they had shared the exultation of the launch so many weeks ago.

  Which was why they saw it at the same moment.

  An eerie solidity appeared in the ion disturbance next to their ship. Gradually it took form as they stared.

  The great shape moved toward them from one side of the viewport—a gigantic sensor disk the color of blood . . . a vast club-shaped hull behind it . . . and above, the biggest portable space station they’d ever imagined.

  Together, captain and engineer rose to trembling feet and gaped.

  Her bright white hull glittering with static discharge, the enormous unmarked ship pulled up beside their viewport and drew to a stately halt. Bolts of colored lightning and sheets of electric energy crackled off her shields, violent, breathtaking.

  Slowly it dawned through the blur of exhaustion that this wasn’t an illusion, but that an angel had come to pull them out of hell.

  • • •

  “Be sure to identify us right away. We don’t want to frighten them.”

  The captain smiled. “Thank you, George. I’ve already thought of that. As a matter of fact, I’d be honored if you’d speak for us.”

  George drew his hand away from the backrest of the captain’s chair. He returned the smile, but in a smaller, more respectful way, and said, “Not this time. This is your dream. You deserve it.”

  There was a long pause aboard the bridge of the starship, one more moment of obscurity before she would have a name to commit to legend. Captain April nodded, gratefully accepting the gift he’d been ready to give away.

  With a gesture, George signaled Sanawey to open the channels for the captain. Even then April didn’t speak, not until he’d given George a few more seconds of silent communication, of acknowledging all the hurts and victories that would, from this moment forward, follow them as they lived their lives.

  Then his voice hailed outward on the communication bands, too strong even for the ion storm to muddle. With his choice he gave George a gift that bronzed the lessons they’d both learned from each other.

  “Attention, Rosenberg. This is the United Federation of Planets Starship Enterprise. Prepare for transfer of all personnel. We’r
e going to take you home.”

  • • •

  Dr. Sarah Poole walked briskly down the corridor of G-Deck, heading back from the hangar bay, where shuttlecraft were transporting the Rosenberg’s crew, worst injuries first. Leading a herd of med techs with people on antigrav gurneys, she had a two-year-old boy in one arm, and the other hand held a communicator to her lips as she barked orders to the scattered med staff.

  “Take the radiation patients directly to the main ward and the burn victims to the temporary treatment pools we set up on deck five. I want all the children checked, even if they look healthy. Start accepting triage of minor injuries from Rosenberg as soon as we get the worst cases stabilized. We’ll use the F-Deck crew’s lounge as a pediatric area and—”

  The words fell from her lips as she rounded the doorway to her own office and stopped short. The med techs shuffled by her, heading for the main examination room with their load of accident victims.

  The child in her arms cuddled against her shoulder. Sarah stared at the room she’d left behind an hour ago to set up the burn units.

  She might as well have walked into a dream.

  Candles. A roomful of them.

  And the main lights were all shut down. There were only candles. Makeshift candles, in oil, with gauze wicks, set in every conceivable container—beakers, test tubes, bottles, cottonball jugs, apothecary jars, specimen trays, centrifuge tubes, mortars, flasks, drinking cups. Candles and candlelight in space, flickering like stars.

  Taken aback by the oddly beautiful sight, the boy in her arms huddling closely against her, Sarah moved deeper into the realm of romance. And there, tied to a beaker, was a simple note on official Fleet notepaper. She plucked it, and read:

  Love needs candlelight.

  So does marriage.

  Here are the love and the candlelight.

  Two out of three. Shall we make it three?

  Robert

  Chapter Twenty-five

  THE LIFT DOORS parted. The bridge was a comforting sight. Like coming home.

  Strange. The farm was duty now. The bridge was home. Soul’s province.

  These comforting sounds, these reassuring faces. Today he bothered to hear, to look.

  Before him, the main screen offered a sedate view of the maintenance drydock of Starbase 1, which they’d so recently vacated. A twinge of empathy assaulted the captain as he watched the Starship Kongo being ushered into the drydock by two tugs, her massive port nacelle seared black by whatever cataclysm Captain Toroyan and his crew had encountered in deep space.

  Kirk knew the feeling, the pain he felt when his ship was injured. How often had Enterprise, as the Federation flagship, been the first to experience unimagined dangers? How often the first mounted with some weird new device or experimental technology? How often had he and his precious prize faced down the unknown?

  As he scanned the colorful bridge, warm with his command crew, those line-of-duty indignities seemed to fade.

  There was Sulu at the helm—yes, very reassuring. His hand reposed on the board before him, offering no sign of the deftness with which he guided the big ship. For centuries uncounted helmsmen had been extensions of their captains’ hands and eyes and visions. And Sulu himself, steady to a fault, in many ways more unflappable even than Spock. Beside him, Chekov at the naviconsole, barely more than a trainee when he’d been recommended to duty in the starship’s all-exclusive nerve center, barely able to speak English but resolute about learning, whose effort alone had earned him a place here.

  And on the port side, at the Engineering Subsystems Monitor, of course . . . Scotty. The single most dependable life form in the universe. His place here had been earned by something else entirely—he was a man whose natural habitat was the machine, coupled with a blinding talent for improvisation and a command sense that almost approached clairvoyance. Wizardry within his field and courage outside of it. He was a man to whom machines were music, and this starship his magnum opus. And on top of all that, he still found time, as now, to explain the bridge display graphics to one of the newly assigned young engineers. How many times had he saved the ship and happily handed over credit to the captain?

  Kirk watched him for a moment. Scott’s crimson engineering tunic, pepper-black hair, weathered face, and the rough Scottish properness had become the captain’s quickest sign of ship’s status. In times of crisis, if Scotty was on the bridge Kirk knew that whatever the trouble was, it wasn’t yet so perilous that it couldn’t be handled from here. One of the surest gauges of danger was Chief Engineer Scott’s nearness to his engines.

  And over there, of course, McCoy. Somehow he and Spock had beaten the captain back to the bridge, and Kirk got the distinct impression that they’d been waiting for him, though neither would admit it.

  In spite of a long list of credentials, McCoy would invariably be the first to claim luck as his greatest talent. A man to whom life in space would always seem artificial, McCoy had used that perception to develop a keen knack for innovative space medicine. He’d learned to fake it with the best of them, adjusting his abilities to whatever conditions or life forms came along, figuring that if it lived he could find some way to bandage it. In the process he’d made a hobby of the psychological effects of his worldless environment. Hence his preoccupation with a certain farm loft.

  But more—even as Engineer Scott was the barometer of ship’s condition, Leonard McCoy was the captain’s personal seismograph. Doctor, friend, live-in pest. A porcupine. Smooth if rubbed one way, prickly if rubbed the other. The captain knew he could get gut-level truth about himself fastest and most jarringly from McCoy. If he was being testy, McCoy would tell him. If he was off-base, McCoy would tell him. If he was being judgmental, lordly, shortsighted, improper, stubborn, plain wrong, McCoy would tell him. If he didn’t want to be told, McCoy would tell him. Over the years the captain had come to treasure his compassionate, erratic chief surgeon, and had come to find the bridge a little empty unless McCoy was on it.

  With a private sigh, he contained a smile as he noticed McCoy deliberately not looking at him.

  And Spock, at the science station as usual. Were there words for Spock? For so long he’d been alone, fitting into neither his Earth heritage nor his Vulcan. So long among humans who were startled by his Vulcan appearance and demeanor. Since then, humans had grown accustomed to the enigmatic aliens, but that hadn’t spared Spock the strain of being the first of his kind in Starfleet. Lately both cultures wanted to claim him, so often had he given each reason to be proud. The captain had watched as over their years together Spock had learned to admit to their friendship and even to display it. He’d learned that shame was an even sillier emotion than the other feelings his home planet had made profane. Having learned, he was no longer ashamed. Of course he was no less himself, no less veiled, no less gifted, no less refined. He was simply less enclosed, more at ease. A sign of true wisdom—he’d let himself learn clemency from humans just as he had learned restraint from the Vulcans. He’d gone from the ever-present stranger to being the father of the bridge, a man everyone had come to trust, who commanded a devotion he once would have rejected.

  He, unlike McCoy, looked up as the captain strode slowly onto the bridge. With a brief, courteous nod, he acknowledged everything—relinquishment of command, stability of status, and the deeply personal synthesis between himself and Jim Kirk.

  The captain nodded back, his gaze lingering with Spock’s an extra few seconds. The corner of his own lips turned upward in wordless message.

  One of Spock’s thorn-straight eyebrows rose slightly, so slightly that only someone who knew him very well could have perceived the change at all.

  The captain moved to his starboard, to the communication station and the graceful dark woman who played the console like a piano’s keyboard, whose clear voice was the single most familiar sound to every one of the ship’s four hundred thirty crew. Uhura, who could make “hello” sound dramatic, who could address kings and draw their attention
just with her husky, symphonic delivery. That clarity had been polished to perfection, and coupled with her own personal sense of politeness and decorum, not only could she talk nice into a com system, but she could tear apart and rebuild it as well, intrigued not only by the fact that sound traveled, but how it traveled and how to make it travel farther.

  As he approached her, she pivoted toward him in her chair, her legs discreetly crossed, and he marveled that she still found the presence of self to remain consummately feminine—in itself an art.

  She smiled up at him. “Welcome back, Captain. Starbase Command has cleared us for departure.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he responded, self-consciously keeping his voice down. “Patch me through to Admiral Oliver.”

  “Right away, sir.” She turned to her panel and waved her magic hands over it. The lights started flickering.

  In the interim, James Kirk scanned his bridge again. Yes, McCoy was right. They were special. Every last one of them. And though he might have occasion to place death at their doorsteps, he didn’t have any right to dictate their choices of life.

  “Admiral Oliver, Captain,” Uhura announced.

  The captain turned. “Ollie, Jim Kirk here.”

  “Yes, Jim.”

  “About that reassignment.”

  “Yes?”

  “I wonder if you’d do me a favor.”

  “Sure will.”

  “Do you think you could arrange to cold-file the orders for a while?”

  “Sure could.”

  The captain paused. “You never put the orders through, did you?”

  “Sure didn’t.”

  “You haven’t drawn them up yet, have you?”

  “Sure haven’t.”

  “Oliver, you’re a conniving bastard.”

  “Sure am.”

  The captain chuckled. “All right. And . . . thank you. Kirk out.”