Tales from the Captain's Table

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  As I waited for Hana to wake, I peered around her room. It contained no adornments: no artwork, no photographs, no possessions pushed into a corner or set upon a shelf, no mementos of any kind. A window in the back wall looked out on a stand of trees, and two large chests—one at the foot of the bed and one below the window—probably contained Hana’s clothes, but other than that, the room was bare. I found the lack of personal items discomfiting, though perhaps not entirely surprising.

  I wondered how receptive Hana would be to my help. That she had managed on her own for more than two decades in that demanding environment demonstrated her independence and vitality during that period. But if what Rosenzweig had told me was true, then that time had come to an end. On the journey to Sentik from Starbase Magellan, I’d researched assisted-care facilities, but I’d needed to know Hana’s condition and her feelings about the situation before I could decide which would be best for her.

  “Demora.” At first, I couldn’t even tell whether Hana had spoken, or whether perhaps I’d just heard a gust of wind or a tree branch brushing against the outside of the cabin. I looked at her and saw her eyes still closed, but then I realized that her breathing no longer came in rasps. At the same time, her lips moved, and she spoke again, louder this time. “Why are you here?” The words did not sound as though they had been offered as a challenge, but neither did they seem particularly welcoming.

  “Hana,” I said, and elected to sidestep her question for the moment. “How did you know it was me?” Maybe she’d heard my voice when I’d been talking with Rosenzweig, but I really thought she’d been asleep at the time.

  “Your perfume,” she said simply, her eyes still closed.

  I felt my brow knit. I liked wearing fragrances, and while I never did so on duty, I’d brought some with me on the shuttle. When I’d woken earlier, still en route to Sentik, I’d checked the autopilot and verified my location, then washed up and dabbed on some perfume. But that didn’t explain how Hana had recognized me…unless—

  “Was I wearing this same fragrance when I saw you at—” I stopped, about to make reference to Great-Aunt Nori’s funeral. “When I last saw you?” I finished. I’d been using a couple of particular scents for a long time, even since my teens, but that Hana would recall one from almost a quarter of a century ago seemed remarkable. I certainly couldn’t remember what perfume I’d worn all those years before.

  “Yes, you were wearing that fragrance,” Hana said. She opened her eyes and looked toward me. Her slow, deliberate movements contributed to her air of fragility, as if the mere act of turning her head required both great effort and great care. Still, her gaze did not waver as it fell upon me. “Why are you here?” she asked again. “It must not be a coincidence that you’ve come at this time.”

  “No, it’s not,” I agreed. “Mister Rosenzweig sent a message that you weren’t well to Starfleet Command, and they contacted me.” I hesitated, and then added, “I came as quickly as possible.”

  A quizzical expression crossed Hana’s face, and it was obvious why. Despite being grandmother and granddaughter, we’d had virtually no relationship at any time in our lives, and were really more strangers than family. And although I knew that some vague sense of kinship had motivated me to travel to Sentik IV, I was also aware that what drove me was more intellectual than emotional; I understood the concept of family rather than feeling the joys of such a connection.

  Still, the fact remained that I’d gone to Hana, and even though I hadn’t adequately explained the reasons why—either to her or to myself—she did not ask again. Instead, she shifted her attention to the reality of my visit, and to its implications for her. “Have you spoken to the medics here?” she asked.

  “No, not yet,” I said. “Mister Rosenzweig told me briefly about their conclusions, but I thought I’d seek them out once you and I had spoken.”

  “You may consult them if you like,” Hana said, “but there’s really no need. I’m simply old, and my health is poor. I’m going to die before long, and there’s nothing to be done about that.” She didn’t sound angry, or fearful, or as though she suffered any of the emotions I would have expected a person to feel when they believed themselves near the end of their days.

  Hana closed her eyes and straightened her head on the pillow. “I’m afraid that your trip has been in vain,” she said.

  Even though Rosenzweig had already said much the same thing, Hana’s words should have moved me, should have elicited my sympathies, but they didn’t. Hana’s remoteness, her stoicism, rendered impotent any feelings prompted by her situation. Speaking as impassively as she had, I said, “I think I can help. Someone can see to your needs, and that you’re kept as comfortable as possible.”

  Hana said nothing for a few minutes, and I thought that perhaps she had dozed off. But then she said, almost in a whisper, “Do you intend to stay here with me?” Her inflection told me that she thought the notion of me looking after her completely absurd.

  “I thought I could take you to an assisted-care facility,” I said.

  A small, sharp sound emerged from Hana, and it took a second for me to realize that it had been a laugh. “Talk to the medics,” she said. “They’ll tell you that any trip off-planet would likely kill me. Even a journey in stasis would probably be too much for this ancient body of mine to survive.”

  “I will talk to them,” I said. I felt totally disconnected from Hana, her closed eyes an apt metaphor for the walls separating us.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Hana said. “Even if I could travel, I wouldn’t. This place—” She opened her eyes as the bedclothes at her side moved, and she struggled to pull her arm free of the blanket. When she had, she waved her hand weakly about, clearly intending to take in the whole of her house and land. “This place is my home. It’s been my home for twenty-four years. I won’t leave.”

  I wanted to ask Hana what kind of a home that would be for her in her infirmity. Although the small population of Sentik could have provided a tightly woven community, I doubted that it actually did, or would—an estimation bolstered by my interaction with Rosenzweig. Also, according to my research, the founding of the settlement had been conceived as a flight not only from technology, but from society as well. Rosenzweig had made it clear that whatever he had done for Hana during the past couple of weeks had been an aberration, and that he would not continue such efforts. I suspected that no one who lived there would be willing to provide Hana the care she would need.

  “You can’t will away the fact that you need help, and it doesn’t seem like you’ll get much from the people who live here.” I said to her. “According to Mister Rosenzweig, you don’t even have much food. I saw your crops…they need to be harvested, and many have died. If you choose to remain here on your own, how do you expect to survive?”

  “That’s very simple,” Hana said, and she turned her head to look at me again, the gaze of her dark eyes locking with mine. “I’m not going to survive.”

  Sulu shifted in her chair, using the movement to cover her glance around the tavern. Strolt continued to observe her, she saw. She’d brought him to this point in her tale, where Hana had needed help and Sulu herself had been in a position to give it, just as Zeeren Tek Lom-A needed help right now that Strolt was in a position to give.

  Here, she knew, the story needed to turn.

  The decisions she would soon reveal she’d made with respect to Hana could send the wrong message to Strolt, in effect validating the choice he’d made to forsake the delicate balance of power between the Federation and the Tzenkethi Coalition in order to help his mate. But those decisions Sulu had made would provide only the context of what she wanted to convey to Strolt, and not the substance of her moral claim.

  For that, she would need to describe the events that had motivated her during her time on Sentik. The mission to Devron II remained classified, and so she would not be able to reveal its details: the location; the identities of the seven-member Starfleet team, which had inclu
ded Captain Harriman and “Iron Mike” Paris; and the reason for the mission—namely, the Romulans’ attempt to infiltrate the Neutral Zone and establish a covert base there. But even without divulging such specifics, she felt confident that she could still give an account of what had occurred, and especially of what had been sacrificed.

  As Sulu charted the story in her mind, she absently reached forward and plucked her wineglass from atop the table. She slid her middle and ring fingers around the stem and raised the glass to her lips, pausing briefly to note the wine’s intense violet-red color, and to sample its strong bouquet of aniseed. She sipped it, and recognized at once the Argelian vintage, so similar to an Earth Tempranillo. It was one of her favorites, and one she’d never encountered anywhere but on Argelius.

  Sulu peered over toward the bar, to where the bartender had retreated. When their eyes met, he lifted his glass, part toast, part encouragement that she continue with her story, she thought. Curious, but with no time to dwell on the odd circumstances surrounding this tavern or its host, she set the glass down and returned to Sentik IV.

  Feeling as though I needed some air, I opened the front door of Hana’s cabin and walked out into the dreary day. She and I hadn’t said much more to each other after she’d made it clear that she would be staying there—that she would be dying there—no matter what I said or thought. I hadn’t asked about her time on Sentik, and she hadn’t asked about mine in Starfleet. Nor had she mentioned her son, my father. Walking alone between Hana’s cabin and her dying crops, and figuratively between the needs of her failing life and a quick return to my own existence, I wished that I could speak with my father, seek his opinion on what I should do, draw on his strength, wisdom, and experience. But that was impossible.

  Still, my choice seemed clear. The Enterprise was scheduled to depart on its year-long mission in five weeks, and I needed not only to be on it at that time, but to prepare my ship and crew before then. To that end, I had one week to spend on Sentik before starting on the three-and-a-half-day journey back to Starbase Magellan. I’d thought I would utilize that time to help Hana get situated in an assisted-care facility, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen. She was an adult, and though she was in poor physical condition, her mind seemed sharp as ever. I had no right to impress upon Hana my opinions about what would be best for her. She was entitled to make her own decisions about her life, no matter the impact on others.

  And really, how much effect would her choices have on me? That was only the third time I’d seen Hana in my forty-four years, and the truth was that I’d spent most of my existence blissfully unaware of the events transpiring in her life. And yet for all of that, leaving her there by herself in her diminished state seemed wrong.

  As my stride brought me nearer the failing crops, it occurred to me that the deteriorating forms of the plants provided fitting imagery for Hana’s own condition. I thought of my grandfather, recalling his poetic nature, and how he’d once touched my soul with his words. What would he have wanted me to do in that circumstance, I wondered.

  Something cool suddenly struck my cheek, then slid down my face. I held my hand out, palm up, and waited, eventually feeling several other drops fall from the sky. I peered upward, and saw that the clouds had thickened and darkened, threatening a rainstorm. Not wanting to get caught in a downpour, but not wanting to return to Hana’s farmhouse either, I headed instead for the barn, a simple structure not much larger than the cabin.

  I passed a stone well along the way, then trotted through a large, open doorway. Inside the unlighted interior of the barn, the smell of hay and animals was strong. Birds clucked at the far end, and I heard a couple of larger beasts moving about in nearby stalls.

  I turned and looked back out at the overcast day. The temperature had dropped since I’d first arrived, and my breath formed evanescent puffs of white when I exhaled. The rain grew heavier as I watched. I peered skyward again, and the image of the unbroken cloud cover quickly sent my thoughts back to a similar scene I’d witnessed at a different time, in a different place.

  My mind traveled then, from the gray haze of Sentik IV to the miasma enshrouding another world.

  I’d first seen the forbidding sight from space. The pall enveloping the planet churned and roiled, a cauldron of bleak shadows. I was piloting one of two warp shuttles, which together were taking a team of seven officers, including myself, to gather critical information from the veiled world. Starfleet Intelligence had uncovered evidence that renegades had established a covert base there, on the cusp of Federation space, and from which they intended to strike at both military and civilian targets. Our mission was to find and infiltrate the compound, obtain data detailing the plans of the renegades and the locations of any other bases, then return that information directly to Starfleet Command.

  We neared the planet as stealthily as possible, shutting down the warp drive of each shuttle, employing only passive sensors, and masking our approach by riding the tail of a comet as it fell toward the system’s star. When the burning ball of dust and ice passed as close to our destination as it would get, we flew the shuttles from the cover of the plasma cone. Seeking to reestablish concealment as quickly as possible, we sped toward the clouds, my shuttle closely following behind the first.

  The cabin in the shuttle I piloted was quiet during the short journey, the only sounds the hum of the impulse drive and the beeps and chirps of the navigational and helm controls as they responded to my touch. I felt my weight shift as I began our descent, the planet’s natural pull asserting itself over our craft’s inertial dampers. As we soared through the atmosphere and into the thick layer of clouds, the view of the lead shuttle through the forward ports vanished.

  Turbulence began to buffet the hull. I adjusted the trim, attempting to compensate, and succeeded briefly. But then the shuttle jolted, as though struck by something solid. The cabin began to tremble, and none of the corrections I tried calmed the movement.

  “What’s going on?” I asked the officer—a man named Mike—seated to my left at the primary console. I glanced over to see him operating the sensor panel.

  “We’re passing through a column of ash and rock,” he announced after a few seconds. I looked up through the forward viewing ports again, but saw only the dark vapors I’d thought were simply clouds. At the same time, I recalled the mission briefing, which had mentioned the planet’s sporadic but significant geological activity. From habit born of long experience, I reached down and grabbed hold of the strap concealed in the side of my chair, then fixed it across my lap.

  “Secure yourself,” I said over my shoulder to Mike and the other two members of the team aboard the shuttle. “I think we’ve come down in the middle of a volcanic eruption.” I sent my hands feverishly across the helm controls, intending to halt our descent and take us into a wide turn, even though that would mean breaking from our planned flight path and parting from the other shuttle. But if it was a volcano below us, I wanted to get clear of the plume.

  The bow of the shuttle suddenly lurched upward. I felt the safety strap tighten over my legs as my body threatened to fly from my seat, but I remained in place. I thought I heard somebody cry out in pain behind me, but I had no time to find out who it was. Around me, the cabin grew loud, the sound of the wind extreme as the shuttle hurtled through the air. Something—probably rock ejecta spewed from the volcano—had clearly struck from below, compromising the noise-suppression plating and altering our attitude.

  I worked the helm to right the shuttle, easing its nose down onto a level trajectory. Ash and rock pelted the hull, the impacts audible in the cabin, like hailstones beating down on a tin roof. “Give me a direction,” I yelled, raising my voice to be heard. When I received no response, I peered to my left, and saw Mike pulling himself up from the floor and back into his chair, from which he’d doubtless been thrown. “I need the shortest distance to get us clear,” I shouted.

  “Working on it,” he called, bending over the console. “Engag
ing active sensors,” he added, and didn’t wait for authorization from the captain who led our mission. I looked up and stared through the viewports, searching for clear sky somewhere ahead. “I’ve got it,” Mike finally yelled above the din. “Relative bearing: thirty-five degrees.”

  My fingers moved rapidly across the helm controls, sending the shuttle onto that course. I was grateful that our nearest exit from the plume lay before us, and not behind. I gazed through the viewports again and waited, hoping that nothing else would strike us before we made it into open sky.

  Seconds passed…one, two, five, ten…and then at last the murk fell away. At once, the flight of the shuttle settled down, though with the noise-suppression plating no longer intact, it remained loud in the cabin. Smoke and clouds still covered the sky above us, and soot and smoldering pieces of volcanic rock continued to rain down, but we’d escaped the furor of the eruption itself. Below, the great green expanse of the planet spread out before us.

  “We’re out of it,” I called back to the others. I quickly resumed our descent, visually searching for the first shuttle.

  “Oh no,” I heard Mike say, and before I could ask him anything, I spied the cause of his exclamation: a corkscrew of black smoke rose in front of us, different from the clouds and ash through which we’d been passing. I followed it down to its source, and saw far below us the other shuttle spinning out of control, flames streaking out of its aft section. “The other shuttle’s been hit,” Mike yelled. “It’s going down.” He called out its altitude, and then: “Twenty seconds until it hits the planet surface.”

  I felt a presence step up beside me, to one of the starboard panels. “Targeting transporter,” I heard the captain say. Through the viewports, I saw a flare of light emerge from the first shuttle, brighter than the fires already consuming it. Two seconds later, a fractured warp nacelle pinwheeled toward us. I banked our shuttle hard to port, and we plunged past the broken engine structure, missing it by the narrowest of margins.