Ship of the Line

by Diane Carey

  “Kirk here. We’re minutes away, Hansen. What’s your status?”

  “Outposts 2, 3, and 8 are gone . . . unknown weapon . . . completely destroyed . . . even though we were alerted . . . had our deflector shield on maximum . . . hit by enormous power. First attack blew our deflector shield . . . if they hit us again with our deflector shield gone . . . do you read me, Enterprise?”

  “Confirm what hit you, Hansen. What vessel? Identity?”

  “Space vessel . . . only glimpse of . . .”

  “Can you locate the intruder for us?”

  “Negative . . . it seems to have . . . disappeared somehow . . . I have you on my screen now . . . switching to visual . . .”

  The poor man’s voice was a rag. His back was to the screen, and all around his wavering figure was the wreckage of a bombed-out room. Bodies of green and gray smoke boiled rom several spots, and from other spots open flame tangled the hot air. The color was faded, probably from burned connections in the visual broadcast system.

  “Enterprise, can you see it? My command post here . . . we’re a mile deep on an asteroid . . . almost solid iron . . . and even through our deflectors it did this. Can you see!”

  “Affirmative, you’re visual, Hansen. What do you have on the intruder?”

  “No identification. No answer to our challenge . . . only a glimpse of . . . then it fired something at us, some form of high-energy plasma—fantastic power! And then the whole vessel disappeared. But it’s out there somewhere . . . our sensors show that much . . . Enterprise—something coming at our viewscreen . . . coming at us fast!”

  “Lock us onto your screen.”

  “Switching . . .”

  Standing beside Captain James T. Kirk on the bridge of his ship, Jean-Luc Picard was awash in nostalgia and until now had been watching the drama as if it were only that. He only half noted what was going on, at least until the screen came on and Commander Hansen’s burned face gripped him. Hansen was injured, gasping, probably suffocating from the acrid smoke and the flames eating up his oxygen.

  Unlike a holonovel, this incident was real. It had happened. And it was being replayed here before him, as identical to reality as modern technology—and the participation of its primary player in later life—allowed. And that was considerable.

  On the forward screen, now that Commander Hansen had switched views, was a matte of star-studded space. Then, at the top center, a chalky form appeared, like wings without a body, two pods of some sort on the ends of the wings. That was about it. Just a gash in space.

  It came gradually into being, out of nowhere.

  “A cloaking device,” Picard muttered. He snapped his mental fingers. “Oh, of course—that incident!”

  James Kirk ignored him. Everyone did. He hadn’t asked a direct question.

  There was a film of sweat now glazing James Kirk’s strong cheekbones. Standing on his other side from Picard was the now-youthful Captain Spock. Mister Spock, the first Vulcan in Starfleet, officer of the starship under its first captain, Christopher Pike, and first officer to James T. Kirk. Spock’s face was younger now, his features crisply framed by his charcoal helmet of hair and his Yule-blue tunic. Spock was quite different in almost every way from his boiling-under-the-surface captain, Picard noticed. Even Kirk’s topaz tunic seemed to fit him in a way that Spock’s would never quite fit him, and Picard could never in a century imagine Jim Kirk in blue.

  Especially not looking at him now, he thought, but didn’t speak. He was more fascinated by the silent conversation occuring right next to him. There was tremendous communication going on between Kirk and Spock right now. They watched the screen together, and once in a while, very specifically, they would meet each other’s eyes as if to confirm that they were thinking the same things.

  Kirk’s brow slightly tucked, a clear worry behind the flame in his eyes. Those famous hazel eyes—Picard recognized them as if he’d known James Kirk in these younger days. Everyone in Starfleet knew that face, those eyes. And that empathy, that pain at having had to watch Hansen die, how much of that had been ignored by history? Picard had smirked sometimes at the somewhat burlesque hindsight turned toward James Kirk’s activities. This young captain was often the subject of academy jokes and spoofs.

  No one would spoof him if they were here watching today. No one with any circumspection of soul could possibly take lightly the young captain’s misery, the weight of responsibility he obviously felt right now. He was clearly out of range, yet he still felt responsible.

  Desperation voiced itself again over the crackling comm. “Can you see it, Enterprise? Can you see it? Becoming visible in the center of my screen!”

  “Do you have phaser capacity?” Kirk demanded edgily. “We’re still out of range.”

  “Negative,” Hansen mourned, “phasers gone, weapons crew dead.”

  Kirk turned his head to speak over his right shoulder to his communications officer, but Picard noticed the young captain never took his eyes off that ship. “Make challenge! Warn that ship off!”

  “Trying to, sir,” his communications officer said. “They don’t acknowledge.”

  The ship on the screen fired, but not a weapon Picard recognized. A plasma cloud boiled toward them, a gluey see-through salmon mass, almost pretty if one didn’t know what it could do. Like the business end of an avalanche the plasma cloud rolled toward the screen. And it was fast—

  A loud thrum blew from the forward screen’s audio system. The screen switched back to a view of the command center as the systems began to break down under fire. Now they could see the pathetic, brave Hansen as he suddenly arched back in a supercharged convulsion. His hands clawed in agony, his mouth gaped toward the ceiling. He was quite aware of his own last moments, and Picard grimaced to see it.

  BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—successive surges of energy blew through Hansen’s body, through the whole command center, through the whole asteroid. The noise was like a kettledrum without a damper.

  The whole bridge crew, and Picard too, winced at the pain suddenly in their eyes, as the bright destruction bloomed across the entire screen, a hurtful white light of plasma reaction. James Kirk shielded his face with his right hand, and his sedate first officer was driven to flinch and blink at his side.

  Picard actually looked away briefly. No point going blind, was there?

  As he turned away, his gaze fell upon James Kirk, on James Kirk’s sorrowful eyes, and Picard noticed the depth of sadness, of worry. In just those short seconds of conversation, Kirk had invested in a relationship with Commander Hansen. Interesting—the young captain’s intense empathy with other people was palpable right now, apparently even with people he didn’t know.

  Commendable. I didn’t know that about him.

  And in that moment, Picard took a chance to appreciate where he was standing—a scrupulously detailed representation of the bridge aboard the first starship named Enterprise. A charmed place, rather like the secure milk-and-honey childhood dream everyone had in common, a cloud-woven place everyone recognized. This was the quixotic beginning of Starfleet’s reach out into deep space, the Federation’s first great manifestation of farsight, and this ship its first deep-space anticipator.

  And it was a pleasant looking place as well, tidy and rather simple, slate-blue and black work areas racing-striped with bright Starfleet-red.

  Now Mr. Spock moved away from the captain and quickly took his seat at the science console to confirm the terrible facts they all knew already.

  “Outpost 4,” he began, then turned to look at Kirk meaningfully, “disintegrated, Captain.”

  Spock seemed deeply affected—and Picard had been long ago conditioned not to expect that from a Vulcan. But Spock was not your garden-variety Vulcan. He was less laconic, less stiff than one might’ve expected, and moved and spoke with straightforward fluidity and intimacy that was a surprise.

  And these were those old days, the earliest days of the Enterprise’s missions under James Kirk. The ship would
be ten or eleven years old, if Picard recalled correctly, relatively young in the tenure of a vessel.

  Shadows lay dry-brushed across James Kirk’s smooth face. He was a stylish young man, Picard noticed, with a powerful presence that drew all eyes when he was in the vicinity. Now Kirk moved toward Spock and placed both hands upon the red rail between them.

  “Position of the intruder, Mr. Spock?” he asked.

  Such a quiet voice! One always expected a hero to project like somebody on a stage. Kirk wasn’t doing that.

  “Disappeared,” Spock said. “Interesting how they became visible for just a moment.”

  Excellent diction.

  “When they opened fire,” Kirk murmured. “Perhaps necessary when they use their weapons.”

  The captain had shifted roles that instantly—no, not shifted. He was still mourning. But he had also embraced the needs of the new moment.

  “Have a blip on the motion sensor, Captain,” Spock said then. “Could be the intruder.”

  Kirk turned forward. “Go to full magnification.”

  The helmsman said, “Screen is on full mag, sir.”

  That voice—

  “Captain Sulu!” Picard looked at the helmsman. “Of course . . . I’d completely forgotten—”

  “I don’t see anything,” Kirk said, evil-eyeing the main screen. He climbed up the short steps to the upper deck, leaned back on the rail, and put a foot up on the stand of Spock’s chair. “Can’t understand it.”

  Evidently Spock took that as a question. “Invisibility is theoretically possible, Captain. Selective bending of light, but the power cost is enormous. They may have solved that problem.”

  “Continuing to challenge, sir,” the communications officer said. “Still no response.”

  “Discontinue. Contact remaining outposts, have them signal us, any sightings or sensor readings in their area.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Blip has changed its heading, Captain . . . and in a very leisurely maneuver. He may be unaware of us.”

  “Their invisibility screen may work both ways. With that kind of power consumption, they may not be able to see us.”

  “His heading is now one-eleven . . . mark fourteen.” Spock dropped off the reading, then turned once again to communicate with Jim Kirk in that personal way they had. “The exact heading a Romulan vessel would take, Jim . . . toward the Neutral Zone. And home.”

  Home. So much meaning in a single word, and Spock had put all that substance into his tone, into his eyes as he connected with his captain’s, and the two continued to communicate after the words were done.

  Picard paused in brief appreciation. Such a charming moment, a pivotal point in Starfleet history. He took an instant to glance around and enjoy the streamlined console desks in glossy black, with brightly colored knob-lights and buttons for easy identification, the rugged swivel seats, gleaming monitors at eye-level on the upper deck, the forward screen that seemed small compared to what he was used to, yet somehow still dominated the bridge . . . nostalgia was a universal comfort, and Picard found himself grinning in spite of the tense action around him. What a nice place to be, right in the middle of a myth. If he could only stay—

  But he couldn’t. He had only as long as it took to get to Cardassian space. Then this rescue mission would require his personal vigilance.

  Riker was smart, though. These holotapes not only would sweep Picard into confronting some of his own thoughts about command, but would keep a senior captain out of the hair of Reynolds and his crew, which could only be to the good. Having a Starfleet officer aboard and looking over their shoulders could be slightly terrifying to a private crew, who knew their jobs perfectly well otherwise. Picard was better serving himself and them too by doing Riker’s evil bidding.

  On the starboard side, Kirk had given a helm order and come down to the command deck, and Picard wasn’t really paying attention. His mind was still in other places.

  “Don’t you mean interception course, sir?”

  “Negative.” Kirk moved to the forward side of the helm, faced the two men stationed there, and spoke to the navigator. “You and Mr. Sulu will match course and speed with the object on our sensors move for move. If he has sensors, I want him to think that we’re a reflection . . . an echo. Under no circumstances are you to cross into the Neutral Zone without my direct orders.”

  “Acknowledged, sir,” Sulu said.

  “Cancel battlestations, all decks standby alert.”

  Picard followed the captain around the helm. “If I recall, this is when the hunt begins, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Kirk said as he settled into his command chair. “The game from now on is dangerous. Every move we make will be a critical one.”

  “An act of war, actually,” Picard corrected.

  “The act of war has already happened.” Kirk gripped the arms of his command chair and eyed the screen, though there was nothing to see yet but stars. He pointed at the great emptiness which held a lurking enemy. “He made it. That moment’s past.”

  The holodeck program completely accepted Picard’s presence, without admitting him in as a “character” in the drama of a situation where he did not belong. He was an observer here. This was an instructional historical program, not a game or toy, not meant at all for recreation.

  In fact, the navigator had turned to address the captain, but now the program circumvented that. Picard had asked a question. Now, all the active members of the show would find something to do until Kirk’s part of the program was ready to push on.

  Strange. If Kirk “liked” talking to Picard, the computer would just let him keep doing it. Yet somehow the programming would sense when it was time to move to the next step. Ingenious. Nothing short of brilliant. Not the machine—the people who had invented it.

  “Are you saying you’re at war?” Picard asked him. “That’s your attitude?”

  “Not yet,” Kirk said, raising his brows. “But we’re not at peace either. Commander Hansen and his people wouldn’t want us to pretend nothing happened. And I’m not going to.”

  “You’re running a parallel heading with the blip?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What if they go into the Neutral Zone?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “You mean you may actually consider following them in?”

  “I’m already considering it.”

  “Really . . .”

  For the first time Kirk turned his head very slightly and eyed Picard with that forceful leer. “You’d do something else?”

  “Once they cross back into the Neutral Zone,” Picard said, “in my time we would let diplomats handle such things. They’re headed back into their own territory. Why don’t you let the Federation handle this? Perhaps it’s a rogue. You don’t know whether this action is sanctioned by the Romulan government.”

  “Sanctioned or not, they’re responsible.” Kirk pointed at the screen. “No ‘rogue’ developed that plasma weapon on his own. That takes infrastructure.”

  “Perhaps it’s not even a Romulan. You’re assuming.”

  Kirk seemed unmoved, even nettled by the suggestion. There was only the slightest tensing of his shoulder muscles beneath the gold tunic. “It’s a Romulan ship, near Romulan space, slaughtering Federation outposts in an area where the Romulans once staged a protracted war against us. If you don’t like assumptions, get another job.”

  “How do you know what their real intents are?”

  Eyeing him fiercely, as if Picard were really annoying him, Kirk leaned toward him and drawled, “Am I supposed to wait for another declaration of intent?”

  It was a good point. Picard offered an eyebrow shrug and accepted that. Four outposts violently demolished. Couldn’t be ignored.

  As if tiring of that line of talk, Jim Kirk got up and prowled the command area, rarely looking at anything but the screen. The soft sorrow of those moments with Hansen was completely sweated out of him now. He was hardened, or m
ore properly he was hardening, preparing himself for what he thought might be coming.

  “The Romulan government has been the silent body,” he said. “They’re the ones who haven’t made their philosophies clear. They’re the ones who haven’t stated their goals outright. If they let a rogue get through, they have to bear the responsibility for their silence. If there’s a war, they’ve brought it on themselves.”

  “I understand.”

  “But you don’t agree?”

  “I’m not sure yet. I don’t think you are either.”

  “That’s for me to know,” Kirk said, “and them to find out.”

  He sighted-down the screen, and in some way seemed able to see that invisible enemy out there. Picard noticed Kirk trying to project his whole mind out there into that ship, that bridge, to hear what was being said and thought. The hunger to be out there was interesting—Kirk was quite a provocateur. He was anxious to get on with activities he would rather not have happen.

  Well, Picard recognized that kind of paradox, but for himself he’d never been quite as forward-leaning about it as Kirk appeared right now.

  “Phaser overload! Control-circuit burnout.”

  Helmsman Sulu’s voice cut through the brief pause between Picard and Kirk, but Kirk already had his hands on the helm controls between Sulu and the navigator and Spock was also working the controls.

  Picard scanned his memory about ships’ systems in these days. The phaser guidance and aiming systems were here on the bridge, but actual power-up and firing controls were somewhere below, though he couldn’t recall just where. A team of phaser specialists were required to operate the complex engineering that controled the gathering and release of such fantastic destructive power. These were the days shortly before such things could be automated and controted directly from the bridge. Reaction time, firing time, therefore, was slower and required a series of relayed orders. Those seconds were critical.

  Now they’d had an overload. Phasers were down. Did they have photon torpedoes at this time? Picard wasn’t sure—no. no, they didn’t. Those came a little later than the beginning of James Kirk’s captaincy. Yes, that was right.