by Greg Cox
“Kirk to landing party! There’s a flood on your way!”
“Come again?”
McCoy needed only a few words of explanation before he sprang to his feet and ran down the hill to shout at the people still fighting it out in the gully.
“Everyone out of the riverbed! The dam’s busted!”
A handful of combatants, including a few Starfleet officers, registered what he was saying and raced to get out of the gully in time, but McCoy’s warning went largely unheeded in the tumult—until the returning river came roaring back into the mining site, knocking both Troglytes and Baldurians off their feet. The frothing water was only chest deep in most parts, but the force of the flood was still enough to break up the fight in a big way. An antigrav sledge loaded with unprocessed pergium was carried away by the river, heading downstream to who knew where. At least one miner, safely on the shore, cried out in dismay as the precious ore was washed away.
The wall of water moved past the site, leaving a muddy river behind. Drifting pieces of splintered wood were evidence of the dam’s demise. Floundering prospectors found their feet and, fighting the current, dragged themselves onto drier land, sputtering and swearing a blue streak. McCoy swept his medical tricorder over the bedraggled assemblage, but didn’t spot any serious injuries, just a mob of soggy, unhappy prospectors whose mother lode was now underwater.
Serves them right, he thought. Letting greed turn them into—
“Help! I can’t swim!”
A Troglyte had been swept into the deep pit that had been dug into the gully, where the water was now much deeper than elsewhere. He was splashing wildly, unable to get any footing while struggling to keep his head above the water. The other Trogs stood by helplessly, clearly uncertain what to do; McCoy guessed that there hadn’t been a lot of pools or water parks in the zenite mines on Ardana.
“It’s okay!” Landon ran down the hill toward the drowning man. “I’m coming!”
She kicked off her boots and dived into the river just as the imperiled Troglyte sank out of sight. McCoy watched tensely, holding his breath, until she surfaced moments later, holding on to the man by his shoulders. She swam him to shore, where the other Troglytes helped them out of the gully. The man coughed up plenty of water, but was still breathing, as far as McCoy could tell. He rushed over to examine him more closely.
“Thank you, thank you!” the Trog said, coughing. “I thought I was a drowned man.”
A quick medical scan revealed that the man’s heart was still pounding and that he had swallowed a fair amount of water, but that his lungs were clear enough, requiring no artificial respiration. McCoy added the grateful Trog to his growing list of patients who would need to be checked out more carefully later. He wondered if Landon’s heroics would earn them enough goodwill to bring this whole ugly business to a close.
“You!” A fuming miner pointed at McCoy. He looked Baldurian beneath the mud. “You knew the water was coming! Was Starfleet responsible?”
“You had no right to flood our mine!” an equally upset Troglyte protested. “You owe us for everything we lost, our gear, our profits!”
So much for goodwill, McCoy thought. Surly expressions and harsh voices targeted McCoy and his companions, as the security folks began to assume defensive positions. The doctor feared that Kirk might have ended the strife between the rival prospectors by giving them a common enemy.
Lucky us.
“And where’s our plow?” another Trog demanded. “What’s become of it?”
McCoy had no idea, but was saved from admitting that by the rumble of heavy treads. All heads turned to see the missing sonic plow come out of the woods into the clearing. McCoy was glad to see Kirk in the driver’s seat.
“Right on cue,” he muttered. Leave it to Jim Kirk to make a big entrance.
* * *
Well, this is one way to get people’s attention, Kirk thought.
He’d made good time cutting through the woods. The sonic agitator was turned off to avoid damaging anything else, but he kept the plow idling, if only to keep the various factions on their toes. From the looks of things, flooding the gully had indeed cooled things down to some extent. Now he just had to keep them from heating up all over again.
“Listen up!” Kirk raised his voice to be heard. “This insanity has gone on long enough. I understand that both sides have their grievances, but bashing each other’s heads in isn’t going to get you anywhere, or get any pergium mined. Don’t you see? There’s no profit in fighting . . . for any of you.”
“So we’re just supposed to stand by while these offworlders steal our resources?” a Baldurian challenged him. “From our river?”
“Who says that river belongs to you?” a Troglyte said. “And you didn’t even know that vein was there. We found that pergium, not you. We dug it up with our own sweat and skill!”
More voices joined the debate. Kirk was encouraged that they were back to talking, but feared that the argument could all too easily erupt into violence again. At the moment, he cared less about which side was in the right than about keeping the peace. It wasn’t his job to play Solomon with regard to a river—or the pergium waiting beneath it.
“Look,” he said, “it’s not my place to decide who that ore belongs to or where one claim ends and another begins. That’s for the local authorities to decide. If you have a dispute, take it to court.”
“The courts?” someone jeered. “They’re backed up for months. We’d go broke waiting around for some overworked bureaucrat to settle this!”
“And what makes you think we’d get a fair hearing?” a Troglyte asked. “The courts and the mining bureau are packed with old-timers, who think this whole planet belongs to them just because their families arrived here a few generations before we did!”
“So?” a Baldurian said. “You got a problem with that?”
Here we go, Kirk thought. “Gentlemen, ladies! Let’s not start this up again!” He held up his hands for silence while counting on the idling plow and agitator to keep the crowd in line long enough to hear him out. “I promise you, I’ll speak directly to Mayor Poho about getting this resolved in a timely fashion. And, in the meantime, I’m going to place this site under surveillance. Anyone tries to resume mining this claim, or to abscond with whatever ore has already been mined, before your arguments have been heard, and I’ll detonate this entire vein with a phaser blast from the Enterprise. Is that clear?”
His statement provoked plenty of complaints and grumbling, but no one took a shot at him. Kirk chose to take that as progress.
“You have my word,” Kirk told them. “I’ll be talking to the mayor about this right away.”
As it happened, he had some pressing questions for her himself.
* * *
“What I want to know, Mayor, is why were my people hung out to dry? Where were the local security forces?”
Kirk addressed the mayor via the computer station in his quarters. Uhura had set up a secure channel to the planet so that he and Poho could speak frankly away from the bridge. Her face looked back at him from the small viewscreen.
“My apologies, Captain. The truth of the matter is that we’re suffering a serious manpower shortage. It’s not just that our population keeps growing, stretching our resources thin, but also that too many of my people have ditched their duties to join the prospectors, making a bad situation worse. If nobody responded to your team’s calls for backup, it’s probably because there weren’t any local officers available to do so.”
“I suppose I should have seen that coming,” Kirk said. It seemed that even some of the folks running Baldur III were not immune to the lure of pergium. He was proud of the fact that, by contrast, not one of his crew had jumped ship to take part in the madness. Proud, but not surprised. Starfleet attracted only the best.
“And the courts and administrative agencies?”
“Same story, I’m afraid,” she said. “People want to work claims, not process them.”
“Well, we’re going to have to do something about that,” Kirk said, “unless you want more scenes like we witnessed today. If people can’t turn to the proper authorities to resolve their differences, they’re going to start taking the law into their own hands more and more often.”
Poho looked pained. “So what do you suggest we do about it, Captain?”
“First off, you probably need to prioritize claim disputes. Appoint more people—qualified people—to rule impartially on such issues. And make sure that both newcomers and old-timers are represented on such boards, to avoid even the appearance of bias.”
“And where am I supposed to find these extra people, when I’m already bleeding personnel as it is?”
Kirk hesitated, worried about mission creep, but spoke anyway.
“We have people aboard the Enterprise who are trained in administrative and legal matters. I can also put in a request to the Federation for additional judges and lawyers and, well, bureaucrats, to serve on an interim basis until you can bring your own institutions up to speed.”
“Oh, wouldn’t Cahill and his cronies love that?” Poho winced in anticipation. “Federation officials stepping into our courts and agencies, ruling on our affairs. He’d see that as a stealth takeover for sure.”
“I have to say,” Kirk said, “maybe you should consider joining the Federation? You’re not a small, remote colony anymore and, with all due respect, you may need a lot more organization and support to manage the thriving, well-populated world you’re becoming. The Federation can help Baldur III achieve its full potential.”
Poho frowned. “Is that what this has really been about all along, Captain? Claiming Baldur III for the UFP?”
“No,” Kirk stated. “But it may be your best option . . . because the current state of affairs is not working.”
Ten
Deep Space Station S-8
The Solar Wind’s departure was extremely short-lived. The chartered spacecraft had barely flown two hundred kilometers from the station before its warp and impulse engines failed inexplicably, leaving it adrift in space, beyond the range of the station’s tractor and transporter beams. With the station’s own ship busy guarding the border of the Maelstrom, Tilton had been forced to respond to the Wind’s SOS by dragooning a handful of private vessels to assist in the rescue operation. Some had “volunteered” more readily than others, creating more tense situations for Sulu to handle.
It never rains but it pours, he thought.
Anticipating trouble, a full security team was on hand as the ship’s captain and senior officers were the last to be beamed back aboard the station, after the Solar Wind was towed back within transporter range. Although no one had been harmed, an angry mob of unhappy customers awaited them, none too happy to find themselves where they started rather than en route to Baldur III.
“We want our credits back!” a rescued passenger demanded almost immediately. He shook his fist at the Wind’s captain, Zita Mansori. More voices added to the tumult. “We paid for a working ship, not a junk heap!”
“There’s nothing wrong with my ship,” Mansori said, bristling. “It passed every inspection.”
“Then how come we’re not on our way to Baldur III right now?” another displaced passenger challenged her. “Answer me that!”
“Honestly, I smell sabotage,” Mansori answered. “Somebody wants to stop us from getting to our destination!”
Not a totally implausible explanation, Sulu thought, looking on from the sidelines. He wanted to dismiss Mansori’s accusation as nothing more than an excuse to get herself and her ship off the hook, but, unfortunately, this was hardly the first such incident. Just yesterday, the docking clamps had refused to release a departing Tarkalean shuttle, delaying its exit by several hours, while yet another ship needed to turn back before they could get too far after their food processors turned out to be badly contaminated. None of these freak malfunctions had resulted in any serious injuries or fatalities so far, but their increasing frequency was worrisome. It was possible, he supposed, that the string of mishaps were simply the result of the headlong rush to Baldur III testing the resources of both ships and station, yet he couldn’t rule out the possibility of foul play.
“Nonsense!” A colorful figure stepped forward to refute Mansori’s charges. “Everyone knows the Wind is a worn-out relic that should have never been pressed back into service.”
The speaker was a male Midasite with silver skin, golden eyes, a mane of curly gold hair, and a pencil mustache. His flamboyant attire had a piratical flair, complete with a fur-trimmed, jet-black jacket, checkered leggings, and broad-brimmed boots. Spican flame gems, flashy but of little value, studded his wide leather belt and a front tooth. Prominent canines gave him a carnivorous smile.
“Watch your mouth, Dajo!” the affronted captain snarled. “Don’t you talk about my ship like that!”
“Fine,” Dajo said. “I’ll talk about my ship instead.” He raised his voice to be heard over the general chatter. “The name’s Mirsa Dajo, for those that don’t know, and I still have a few berths left aboard my own ship, the Lucky Strike. You want to get to Baldur III, talk to me, although the seats are going fast so I wouldn’t advise you to dither.”
The Lucky Strike?
That’s Helena’s ship, Sulu realized. And that must be her captain.
A few of the Wind’s former passengers succumbed to Dajo’s sales pitch and started shoving their way toward him, much to the dismay and outrage of Mansori.
“You!” she accused Dajo. “This was your doing all along! You sabotaged my ship in order to poach my passengers!”
He laughed out loud. “Keep telling yourself that, Zita.”
Sulu signaled his team to get between the quarreling captains, even as Mansori and her officers surged toward Dajo, possibly looking for a fight. Complicating matters, Helena emerged from the crowd to stand beside her captain.
This is getting awkward, Sulu thought.
“Everyone cool down,” he ordered. “Let’s not start throwing wild accusations around, or rushing to judgment before the facts are in.” Good thing he had enough security on hand to back up his authority. “Captain Mansori, I suggest you see to your ship and its repairs. Captain Dajo, if you could try to be a little less provocative when it comes to lining up customers . . .”
“Of course, Lieutenant,” Dajo said amiably. “It was never my intent to stir up trouble. Just trying to come to the assistance of anyone inconvenienced by the Wind’s unfortunate lack of spaceworthiness.” He guided a collection of potential customers out into the promenade. “Now you understand that, due to the last-minute nature of the bookings, I need to charge a premium—”
Mansori glared at Dajo as he departed with many of her passengers, but thankfully limited herself to giving him the evil eye. Sulu admired her self-control as he made his way toward Helena, who had lingered behind in the lobby of the transporter room.
“You have a moment?” he asked her.
“Sure. You up for that drink at last?”
“If only.” He led her to a quiet corner where they could converse more privately. He glanced around to make certain they couldn’t be overheard. “I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I have to ask: Could there be any truth to Mansori’s accusations?”
She stiffened, obviously taken aback by the question. Her inviting smile vanished faster than a Romulan bird-of-prey activating its cloaking device.
“Wait. Are you actually asking me if my captain is a saboteur?”
“Nothing personal,” he insisted. “But I wouldn’t be doing my due diligence if I didn’t at least try to investigate any possible threat to the security of this station.”
“And I wouldn’t be much of a first officer,” she countered, “if I went around gossiping about my captain.”
“That’s not a yes or a no.”
He hated to press Helena like this, but if there was any chance that Dajo was sabotaging his competition, he needed to ask the har
d questions, even if it meant risking their friendship—and spoiling their reunion.
“No!” she said emphatically. “Mirsa is no saint, and not above taking advantage of the Solar Wind’s bad luck, but he’s no saboteur. You think I’d be working for him if he was capable of that?”
“Probably not,” Sulu said, immediately regretting the “probably” part. “I mean, no, of course not, but is it possible that he could be up to something without you knowing? Can you think of him doing or saying anything suspicious lately?”
“Oh, so now you’re implying that I’m simply clueless or a bad judge of character?” Her dark eyebrows dived toward each other to form a V that signified trouble for whoever had just got on her bad side. Her nostrils flared along with her temper. “Way to dig yourself out of a hole, Hikaru.”
“This isn’t about you . . . or us. I’m just asking for your help, in a professional capacity.”
“Tell you what,” she said. “I see anything ‘suspicious,’ I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’ll thank you to not take the word of a disgruntled rival over my captain.”
“Fair enough,” he said, hoping to resolve the friction between them. Glancing about, he saw that the crowd had dispersed to some degree, even though there were still plenty of people waiting to use the transporters. With any luck, he had a few moments to kill before the next crisis demanded his attention. “I don’t suppose you’re ready for that drink now?”
He knew he was pushing his luck, but . . .
“Another time,” she said, her tone frostier than Alfa 177 after sundown. “After all, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your ‘professional’ duties.”
She turned and strode away from him without a backward glance.
Sulu sighed.
Saw that coming.
Eleven
Baldur III
“The skies are green and glowing, where my heart is, where my heart is . . .”
It was open-mic night at the Pergium Palace, one of Jackpot City’s most popular night spots, or so Lieutenant Nyota Uhura had been informed. She enjoyed the spotlight as she sang out on an elevated stage at the center of the nightclub’s bustling ground floor. The stage, which was roughly the size of the command circle on the bridge of the Enterprise, projected her voice and image all over the establishment, from a towering three-story-tall hologram to numerous viewscreens mounted about the club, above the bar, and throughout the gambling parlors on the mezzanine. As venues went, Uhura had to admit, it was rather more impressive than the rec room back on the ship.
