And then Picard saw the light that changed everything.
His suit’s communications receiver showed purple. But beneath it, the signal strength light was flashing orange.
There was no carrier wave from Kirk’s suit transmitter.
And that could only mean one thing.
Kirk estimated he had a little more than three minutes before he made contact with the tropical jungle of Bajor below him, at a respectable speed of three hundred kph. By taking up a proper spread-eagle position to establish a slower terminal velocity, he might be able to shave a few kilometers off that. But with all his sensors and computers lost to his suit’s total power failure, he’d never know his speed with precision. Just as he’d never know what the Finagle went wrong with his suit.
Less than a minute earlier, the countdown indicator had shown his forcefield was about to regenerate as programmed, and then his faceplate displays had winked out, and the constant hiss of white-noise static in his helmet speakers had ended.
Kirk had instantly moved his chin against the physical backup controls at the bottom of his helmet. He had spoken aloud the computer activation codes. He had tried to move a hand forward to physically activate his force field with the chest controls, but his rate of speed was still too high for him to be able to move at all.
Nothing worked.
But he didn’t panic.
As he had been taught, time and again, by fate and by Spock, there were always possibilities. This was a good time to consider a few of them.
As his mind raced to analyze his situation and consider solutions, it was as if time slowed. Certainly, the purple-green jungles of Bajor slid by at a more leisurely rate. Even the sound of the air slicing past him seemed to recede until, in this moment, he was aware only of his even breathing, his unhurried pulse.
Almost effortlessly, he saw three possible outcomes.
The first was failure, and he refused to accept it.
The second was a complete system restart of his suit, followed by a cold restart of his shields. A minute from impact, he might be able to forgo restarting his shields and rely, instead, only on his physical parachute. But that presupposed he’d be able to remain in a stable position after dropping through the Bajoran sound barrier. The shockwave of that transition required a perfectly timed exertion of strength in order to maintain a proper attitude. Without any sort of airspeed indicator, predicting that moment was next to impossible.
Besides, if his suit wasn’t powered up by the time he went subsonic, then Kirk doubted it would have the capability of deploying the monomer ’chute thirty seconds from touchdown.
Which left the third possibility.
Once he dropped through the sound barrier, in stable configuration or not, he would jettison his helmet and gloves, then break the seal of his chestplate in order to release the thermic pod on his back. He would then manually open the pod and tug the drogue ’chute free. After that, the main ’chute would open about a second later, and all he would have to do is be able to hold onto the disconnected harness straps for the subsequent five-g jolt.
Kirk recalled hearing such a maneuver discussed by experienced orbital divers. But apparently, the only diver to have successfully survived it was the legendary K’Thale—the one-armed Klingon who had pioneered the sport of orbital skydiving into the atmospheres of Class-J gas giants, like Jupiter. On those jumps, divers sometimes took up to two standard days to descend to unsafe atmospheric pressures, whereupon they were beamed, usually, back to the jump ship, full of stories of having seen oceans of clear air larger than most populated planets, thunderstorms that could swallow moons, and vast pods of the kilometer-long, floating gas-bag creatures that were as common to Class-J worlds as humanoids were to Class-M.
K’Thale had disappeared decades ago, in a near-mythic jump into T’Pol’s World, the largest gas giant in Federation space. He had fallen round the planet for four days before the jump ship lost his suit signal. Kirk had seen the Klingon opera based on the endless jump, which theorized that K’Thale had been caught by a wormhole in the planet’s core, and so would fall for all eternity. Certainly, the opera had seemed to last that long.
But then, Kirk had found Klingons of this age to be an overly sentimental people. He had no doubt K’Thale had been crushed by atmospheric pressure, just as he himself would soon be smeared across the Bajoran landscape in…he checked the detail in the jungle canopy that passed below him—flashing glimpses of winding silver rivers snaking in slow curves through stunted undergrowth—gradually changing to arid scrublands. He estimated his altitude at eight kilometers, which would put his speed just above Bajoran Mach factor one.
One minute to eternity, Kirk thought.
The image of his young son Joseph sprang into his mind.
He willed both thought and picture from his mind.
Three days from now—when Spock and McCoy arrive—I will see my boy again.
Three days from now, Jean-Luc and I will be on Bajor, camped on the shores of the Inland Sea, and we will have eaten too much, and talked too much, and seen things neither of us have seen before.
Kirk was less than a minute from certain death.
He prepared, once more, to defeat it.
And then his speed dropped to subsonic.
He lost all control.
To Picard, it was like flying his personal yacht from the Enterprise, something he was not able to do as often as he would prefer.
The small vessel he now captained on his mission of rescue—his orbital skydiving suit—was essentially a fast, overpowered, overprotected runabout, as easy to handle at warp, and as dull, as a shuttle-pod. But rigged as it was for atmospheric flight, the suit was literally alive, and Picard fought to call on all the skills he had developed in flying his yacht to manipulate his forcefield and bring himself onto an intercept course with Kirk.
It was Kirk’s only chance.
Morn, or Arisa, or whichever loquacious Lurian had piloted the Ferengi shuttle was long gone, and had not tracked Kirk’s and Picard’s jumps as was standard procedure. So there would be no one to answer Picard’s emergency hails on any frequency.
That meant there were no orbital craft to swoop down to the rescue. No distant starship to reach out with her transporters or tractor beams to save the day.
Kirk’s suit had failed. Picard’s was still operational.
A freefall linkup was the only thing that could save Kirk now.
Picard was one hundred meters behind Kirk and coming up fast when Kirk’s speed went subsonic.
Picard saw a halo of ice crystals suddenly flare out from Kirk, then saw his friend tumble head over heels, obviously unprepared for the transitional shockwave generated by the jumpsuit’s aerodynamic profile.
Kirk’s chaotic tumbling also meant his speed dropped even more quickly, and Picard sped past him, missing any chance of catching his friend by twenty meters at least.
Picard didn’t stop to think about what to do next—there was no time left for thought, only instinct.
He punched the controls that inflated his forcefield’s diameter to maximum, and blunted its forward spike.
Picard lost his breath as he suddenly slammed forward in his suit, then was hit again by his own shockwave of subsonic transition.
It was as if he’d deployed a physical parachute from the back of one of the primitive spacecraft that required a runway to land. But his suit gyros still functioned and he didn’t lose attitude, though his rate of descent was much quicker than Kirk’s and he dropped below him almost at once.
Less than sixty seconds from the ground. Picard saw reason for hope. He was below and behind Kirk. He’d have a simple glidepath to intercept his friend’s trajectory. There was only one critical moment remaining—when he toggled off his forcefield to allow Kirk to enter its perimeter, then switched the field back on and shrank it. That way, he’d be able to use the forcefield as a crude tractor beam to draw Kirk directly to him.
As soon as they made conta
ct, surely it would be a simple matter to connect their harness loops—designed for tandem jumps—and deploy his own main ’chute. It would be a harder landing than usual, and far off target. But as Boothby the gardener was so fond of saying back at the Academy, any beam-in you could walk away from was a successful beam-in.
Picard kept shifting his gaze from the sensor display in his helmet to Kirk, now only fifteen meters away. Kirk had regained control of his descent, and expertly thrown himself into the classic, spread-eagle position. Picard deeply admired his friend for that. Kirk could have no idea that Picard was within seconds of saving his life, yet faced with imminent death, he showed absolutely no sign of defeat.
Picard confirmed his final intercept trajectory. Only then did he switch off his forcefield. Now he was dependent on his own arm and leg positions to bring himself within range of Kirk.
But just as Picard moved his arms in the last few seconds of his approach, he saw that Kirk was doing more than accepting his fate. He was taking action! Picard cursed himself for not realizing that Kirk was the last person who would meekly allow himself to descend, however gracefully, to destruction.
Kirk’s hands moved to his helmet and twisted, and suddenly the helmet bobbed up past Picard, to tumble through the air at a markedly slower rate, quickly joined by Kirk’s gloves.
By pulling his arms in close, Picard saw that Kirk had changed his wind resistance, causing him to gain speed, sending Picard directly over him, missing contact by three meters.
Even as Picard tucked in his right arm to make himself spin around to face Kirk again, he could see what Kirk was going to attempt.
The K’Thale Deployment.
Typical, Picard thought as he oriented himself toward Kirk once more then threw out his arm to stabilize himself. There was a reason K’Thale had only one arm. The foolhardy Klingon had lost the other in his first attempt to master the emergency deployment that bore his name. Popped right out of the socket, as Picard recalled the story went. Only Jim would think that was a reasonable strategy to take now.
Sure enough, he saw Kirk twist the manual clasps on his chestplate. Picard knew exactly what was going to happen next: Kirk was going to jettison the chestplate, then swing around to release the thermic pod on his backplate. The only problem with that strategy, Picard estimated, was that Kirk’s strategy would take about thirty seconds to complete, and according to Picard’s sensors, they only had twenty-five seconds of descent left.
Kirk’s chestplate flew away and Picard, five meters distant now and closing again, could see Kirk was so focused on twisting his backplate around that he didn’t look up to see Picard coming for him.
Picard was aware of the hot desert landscape of Bajor filling his vision, meaning that he and Kirk had run out of sky.
Only one chance, Picard thought as he stretched out his arms to speed up his final lunge at Kirk. There would be no time for linking harnesses. Everything would depend on Picard’s forcefield keeping them together while his ’chute deployed—a forcefield powered by the same type of lintium batteries that had served Kirk’s suit so well.
Picard closed within two meters of Kirk.
His ground proximity alarm began to chime.
Kirk’s thermic pod cover flew past Picard, almost smashing his helmet.
And then, as if Picard and Kirk plunged across the electromagnetic event horizon of a black hole, time stretched as Picard saw with horror Kirk’s backplate snap in two, his folded parachute instantly lost. Kirk’s speed and trajectory changed unpredictably even as Picard’s eyes met Kirk’s and Picard could swear his friend was smiling. Their hands met, ten seconds from infinity.
Ten seconds too late, Picard thought.
When the backplate broke in half and took his last chance for survival with it, Kirk reflexively looked up to the sky, as if to see the stars one last time, as if to whisper his apology to his child.
And such was his life that when he saw Picard flying toward him, hands outstretched, Kirk wasn’t surprised.
Just in time, Kirk thought.
He smiled at Picard. Saw Picard smile back.
Two starship captains.
Two friends.
Hand in hand.
Eight seconds from infinity.
Picard shouted to his suit’s computer. “On!”
Tightened his grasp on Kirk.
Felt Kirk’s grasp tighten in turn.
Both captains waiting for an impact that…
Chapter Four
U.S.S.ENTERPRISE NCC-1701, STARDATE 1003.6
DR. PIPER EYED the folded-over documents that Kirk slapped down on his desk, as if debating whether or not to acknowledge their existence.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“You tell me,” Kirk said. The Enterprise had been his ship for five months, three days, and a handful of hours. She was still full of mysteries to him, but this latest revelation from his science officer had instantly jumped to the top of the list.
Piper picked up the documents, flipped them open, then settled back in his chair behind his cluttered desk in the small office off the dispensary. Kirk heard the chair creak, as if it were actually made of wood. He angled to get a better look at it.
The doctor stopped reading, spoke abruptly. “What?”
“Is that a regulation chair?” Kirk asked.
Piper refolded the documents, grunted. “It was my father’s. Logged more light-years than anyone on this ship. Including me.”
Kirk restrained himself. He’d caught the veiled reference to his relative inexperience. Had any other officer made the comment, he’d not have let it pass unchallenged. But a ship’s doctor held a special position on a starship. And, truth be told, Mark Piper was a living legend. Even Kirk felt some awe that he was in command of such an individual.
Piper put down the documents. “You’ve read this.”
“Of course. Yeoman Jones brought it to me ten minutes ago.”
“So what’s your concern?”
Starship captain or not, Dr. Piper had the annoying ability to make Kirk feel as if he were still an Academy cadet.
“My concern…” Kirk paused, trying to find the proper words. It was a habit he had developed on his first Academy posting on the Republic, when a friendly communications officer had, one memorable night, informally passed on to him the disheartening news that Ensign Kirk had barely escaped a formal reprimand for his propensity to speak his mind too quickly, and too freely. Kirk rarely made the same mistake twice, and since then had made certain to review his words carefully before voicing them. “…is that…I don’t know how to interpret it.”
“It is what it is,” Piper said gruffly, and pushed the papers toward Kirk.
Kirk hadn’t come to consult his chief medical officer for a country doctor homily. “But how will command interpret it? As loss of confidence in me? An act of mutiny?” As soon as Kirk uttered those words, he regretted them. As much as they reflected what he was really thinking, the last thing he wanted to present to Piper was an image of an insecure commander prone to exaggeration. Chris Pike had left an indelible stamp on this ship, and Kirk wondered how long it would take before his crew stopped comparing their new captain to their previous, beloved one.
“Captain,” Piper said, “this is simply a standard request for a change of assignment. Under fleet regulations, every crewman has the right to request a change, at any time.”
“Mr. Spock is not any crewman. He’s my executive officer. He’s the best science officer in Starfleet.”
“No argument there.”
Kirk waved a hand at Piper, as if trying to levitate the doctor from his antique chair with a magician’s pass. “And less than six months after I take command of the Enterprise, he wants to go. What does that say about me?”
Piper placed his hands flat on the one clear area of his desk. “Captain, in my day, I’ve served with my fair share of spaceship commanders, even a few of you starship captains, so I know what I’m about to say will come as
a surprise.” The doctor fixed his unblinking gaze on Kirk, as if trying to restrain a smile. “Not everything that happens on this ship has to do with you.”
Kirk reacted as if he’d been slapped. “Yes, it does.”
“At last count, this ship had four hundred and eighteen souls aboard her. That’s four hundred and eighteen individual lives, individual careers. You’re going to see some of those crew, fresh from the Academy or smaller ships, rise to greatness in the next five years. You’re going to see some make stupid mistakes, and you’re going to have to decide which of those deserve a second chance, and which need to be sent back home in disgrace. And you’re going to see some wizened old faces, like my own, gracefully take our leave, our time at an end.
“Spock has served on this ship for coming on twelve years, Captain. For any officer, that’s a long, solid career. It’s time for him to move on.” Piper nodded at the documents on his desk. “So you should move on, too. Sign those. Get a new science officer. And hope that all the other command decisions you’re going to face in the next five years are so simple.”
Kirk reluctantly picked up Spock’s transfer request. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why now?”
Piper’s eyes narrowed. With amusement or annoyance, Kirk wasn’t sure. “You know, I’m starting to feel slighted that you didn’t kick up this kind of fuss when I gave you my transfer request.”
Kirk didn’t see how that was anywhere near the same. “You gave that to me when I came aboard, at the first senior staff meeting I held. You also gave me eight months’ notice. Your transfer had nothing to do with me.”
Piper gave Kirk a look that said the doctor had just won the argument, and that Kirk had lost. “Exactly! And neither does Spock’s request.”
Kirk looked at the document in his hand, still unconvinced, uncomfortable with the feeling that the veteran officer had somehow got the best of him.
Captain's Peril Page 4
