Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (54 page)

“Good shooting, Mr. Worf,” the captain said, impressed.

“I did not fire,” Worf answered, perplexed.

Picard and Riker looked at each other with startled glances, a single name on their lips. Had he come back with them? Could it be— “Sir, we are being hailed by Captain Bondar of the Garneau,” Worf announced.

Picard sighed. It had been too much to hope for that he would ever have a chance to meet Kirk in the flesh. “Onscreen, Mr.

Worf.” The captain of the Garneau was far different from her first appearance on the screen. She was forbidding, implacable.

“Who’s in charge of your vessel now?” she said bluntly.

“Jean-Luc Picard,” the captain answered. “We have regained control.”

.-Good.” Bondar said. “Otherwise, after what you did to my ship. you would have been next. Any idea what that Romulan wanted?” “It’s a long story,” Picard replied. u ‘What about that shuttlecraft you’re carrying in your tractor beam?” she asked. “Did you bring that out from the event horizon?” “Yes, we did,” Picard confirmed. “I believe it is the science package you were supposed to retrieve.” Bondar frowned. “I hope not. It looks like the Romulan shot it up pretty bad.” The next few minutes were confusion compounded by frustration. With the entire Enterprise at his disposal, Picard was unable to have the ship do anything.

The Garneau beamed aboard the two passengers from the damaged shuttlecraft. The Garneau beamed Dr. Crusher to its own sickbay to examine the passengers. The Garneau then beamed La Forge to the Enterprise’s engineering section and a team of computer technicians from the areas in which they were trapped to the Enterprise’s computer cores.

Dr. Crusher reported back to Picard twenty minutes after boarding the Garneau. Both passengers were seriously injured.

“Severe radiation burns,” Dr. Crusher said from the main viewscreen. “The male will require major organ replacement.

And the female, well, she seems human but I’m getting strange double readings. To the naked eye, she’s in just as bad shape as the male. but on my tricorder, she doesn’t seem as badly off for some reason.” “Will they survive until we can take them to a starbase?” Picard asked.

“That’s just it, Jean-Luc. The female says they can’t go to a starbase. She has to go home, or she’ll die. She says home is where Captain Kirk was taking them.” “Where is her home?” “A planetold in the Gamma Canaris region. Designation five two seven.” Picard nodded. “We’re very near. Will there be medical treatment available for her there?”

Zefram Cochrane.” Earth Standard: May 2366 Picard felt a chill lift the fine hairs on his neck. “The Zefram

Cochrane?” “His features are very close to the portrait in one of the engine manuals they have over here. Much younger, but he would have been well over two hundred years old in Kirk’s time period, so there might be something at work here we don’t know about.” “That, Dr. Crusher, is an understatement if I have ever heard one.” Picard shifted in his chair. His broken wrist was beginning to regain feeling. But there would be time enough to deal with that later.

“Ensign McKnight,” Picard said, “lay in a course for the Gamma Canaris region, planetoid designation five two seven. Mr.

Worf, get me Captain Bondar.” “We’re not taking them to a starbase for medical treatment?” Riker asked.

Picard shook his head. “Captain Kirk was taking them home, Number One. After what he did for us, the least we can do is complete his mission.”

Cochrane remembered the light and the pain of the Romulan’s attack and he thought he was on the Bonaventure H again, life ebbing, the light enveloping him, bringing him peace, bringing him— He awoke.

On the Enterprise again.

But not the Enterprise.

Kirk’s ship he had felt he could almost understand. He had glanced at some of the technical manuals Kirk had left with him on the Companion’s planetoid. He had seen the ship’s design on the plaque, seen it in space from the shuttlecraft. The lines made sense. There was a logic to its construction that clearly derived from his work.

But this Enterprise… it made him think of Clarke’s law, that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

That’s what this Enterprise was.

Magic, pure and simple.

The first night, he had sat up late in his bed in sickbay, scanning the manuals La Forge had flagged for him. More than a thousand crew. Matter replicators. A top speed beyond what his most optimistic projections had ever predicted would ever be possible.

And there was still no end in sight.

The first night on this ship, this miracle, he had held on to the Companion’s hand as she sat beside him by his bed. He had drifted in and out of sleep, in and out of fragments of his life. He was increasingly sure that there was a path there, one he could see, and the feeling only added to a sense of completeness he felt building within him. But he knew now the path itself had begun before he had been born and he could see it would continue after his death. His own life had only intersected for a moment with that larger path, already filled with so many others’ journeys.

Three hundred and thirty-six years he had seen. Three hundred and thirty-six! He wondered what his friend Micah Brack would have said to that. If he would have been jealous.

What wonders he had seen. What wonders he knew were still ahead.

The second morning he awoke smiling, thinking of those wonders, cradling the Companion in his arms.

She had slipped into her coma shortly after. The ship’s doctor had been concerned, but Cochrane had convinced her not to worry. When they returned to the planetoid, all would be well.

The Companion drew her life from that place. She would do so again.

Picard came for him that morning as the Companion slept in Cochrane’s arms.

They had been moved from sickbay and given an ordinary stateroom. One of unthinkable luxury to someone used to the twenty-first century.

To Cochrane, Picard seemed a serious man. Almost too controlled, as if he had a touch of Vulcan blood inside him. “We have arrived,” the captain said.

Cochrane nodded his thanks. It was difficult to talk. The doctor said that he had been badly irradiated. That he would need drastic medical treatment. But Cochrane had not been worried.

Once the Companion was well, there would be time enough for him.

“And I have some rather bad news,” the captain continued.

Cochrane tightened his embrace of the Companion. She didn’t stir. though he could hear her, feel her breathe.

“The planetold is no longer there,” the captain said. “Instead, at its coordinates, we’re reading rubble, almost a century old.

With a high degree of some unusual energy matrix our scientists have been unable to identify.” Something in Cochrane slowed and was still. Three hundred and thirty-six years. He was not surprised it was coming to an end.

“From what you have told us about the Companion, in her first form. we’re wondering if it is possible she had some symbiotic relationship with her home. You said she could maintain the temperature, and air, and gravity as long as she was there, but when the Orion pirates injured her, her control failed. That could be a sign that she was bound to that place and that place was bound to her.” Cochrane nodded. Life and habitat were always intertwined.

Anything was possible. His existence was proof of that.

“We can take you to a starbase where there are medical facilities more advanced than what we can offer.” Cochrane smiled sadly. He had seen this ship’s sickbay. Medical facilities more advanced than these belonged only to the gods.

Perhaps that was where the larger path led. Eventually.

Cochrane swallowed, preparing his throat for the effort of speaking. Picard waited attentively, respectfully. In his mind’s eye, Cochrane saw Kirk stand beside him. That man would have been raging, consumed with frustration at not being able to save his passengers. He wondered at the difference between them. Two so unlike, yet so much the same. One so full of timeless youth and confidence, forever searching, full of passion. One so seasoned by his years and measured doubt, forever considering, full of timeless wisdom.

Youth and maturity. Not just the men but the culture they inhabited. A common culture. The Federation. But at different stages. Following its own larger path.

And it was time for Cochrane’s interception of that path to end.

He knew that now.

“Could you move the ship?” he asked in a whisper. “So we can see the stars as we would see them from the planetoid.” No rage. No bluster. Acceptance. “Of course,” Picard said gently. “I will make it so.” Cochrane thanked him silently. He was weary. The Companion lay warm and at peace in his arms. But just once more, he wanted to see the stars.

Who knew? Perhaps they would sing to him one final time.

EN ROUTE TO NEURAL III Stardate 3858.7 Earth Standard: Nevember 2267

In the conference room, at the end of two hours, Admiral Kabreigny offered Kirk a cup of coffee. Kirk took it as a good sign.

Maybe some progress had been made during this meeting after all. The nerve pinch had not been mentioned at all.

Spock declined her offer. McCoy accepted, but he looked as if he’d rather be having a mint julep.

“And so,” Kabreigny said, staring intently at Kirk, “I will be able to report unequivocally to Starfleet that no information about the future was transferred to our present?” “None,” Kirk said firmly. His bridge crew had been sworn to secrecy. The name of the ship that they had encountered in the black hole would never be revealed. In that way, Kirk could be truthful in saying no information had been passed from one age to another. After all, he would never lie to Command.

Kabreigny appeared to accept his assurance and sipped her coffee.

“I am curious, Admiral,” Mr. Spock said. “What will you report?” Kabreigny shrugged. “I will have to seek out advice on that matter. Obviously, since a ship from the future penetrated the event horizon in a trajectory that brought it to you and the shuttlecraft, someone in that time knew that the shuttlecraft would be there. I don’t want it publicly known that Zefram Cochrane is on board, so we’ll keep your secret of your meeting with him as you originally intended. The last thing we’d need is for one of Thorsen’s collaborators to drop a few antimatter bombs through the event horizon to try and destroy him. Before he gets rescued the way you observed he already has been rescued—will be rescued.

“Perhaps we could say that Starfleet dropped a science package into the event horizon,” she continued. “We could then ask that it be recovered on whatever date the shuttlecraft’s original trajectory would have brought it closest to the event horizon.” Spock looked skeptical. “You are treading close to a causal loop, Admiral.” Kabreigny actually smiled at Spock. Kirk thought it was the first time he had seen a real smile on her face. “Which is why I will seek out advice, Mr. Spock. Starfleet is very cautious when it comes to time travel. And this is a good example why.” Kirk saw his opening and decided to take it while the mood was auspicious. “How does Starfleet feel about conspiracies?” he asked.

The smile left the admiral’s face. “It would appear that I need to seek out some advice about that as well.” “At least there was a conspiracy,” McCoy said, trying to be helpful. “It wasn’t just some paranoid delusion.” His smile faded, too, as he realized no one was sharing it with him.

“The conspiracy didn’t originate within Starfleet, Doctor. For which we can all be grateful. But Colonel Thorsen was able to exploit an unsuspected weakness in our security and it could take years to build in the proper safeguards.” “In the meantime,” Spock said, “Adrik Thorsen might still be at large.” That possibility did bother Kirk. When the Lexington and Excalibur had escorted the Enterprise from TNC 65813, there had been no sign of the second Klingon battle cruiser, and no way to know which of the two cruisers Thorsen had been on. He might have died in the cruiser the Enterprise had destroyed in the black hole. Or he might still be free. Free to pursue Zefram Cochrane.

“I don’t think we’ll have Thorsen to worry about much longer,” Kabreigny said. “The Grigari nanomachines will take care of him, cell by cell.” u ‘Still.” Kirk said, “‘the evil that men do…’” Kabreigny shook her head. “There’s no room for evil in the galaxy anymore, Captain.” u ‘Science isn’t enough to guarantee that,” Kirk said.

Kabreigny put down her cup. “Captain Kirk, after all we’ve been through, is it going to end like this? With us still on opposite sides of the old debate?” “It doesn’t have to,” Kirk said. “If your secret committee had shared with the rest of Command your concerns about a possible military plot in Starfleet, revolving around Cochrane and the Klingons and a warp bomb, we might have been able to stop this before it escalated as far as it did.” “Knowing what we knew at the time, how could Starfleet’s science divisions trust the military branch?” Kabreigny asked.

Kirk folded his hands on the conference table. “Knowing what you know now, about how that lack of communication led to such a profound division between us, how can you not trust them?” Across the table, Kirk and Kabreigny faced one another. Neither readv to give way.

“You must not remain on opposite sides of the debate,” Spock said to the two of them.

“You can’t afford to,” McCoy added, damned if he was going to allow Spock to be the peacemaker.

“Admiral, we’re both part of Starfleet,” Kirk began after a long moment. “Perhaps the question is not whether or not we have to label ourselves as a military organization or a science organization. Perhaps we should just say we’re Starfleet and leave it at that. Something new. A label all its own. Let the conflict go. With Thorsen and the Optimum. Where it belongs. In the past.” Kabreigny stood. Regal. “Somehow, I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem today, but, Jim, my thanks for trying.” She paused, then held out her hand dramatically. Kirk stood to shake it with equal flourish.

“I wonder what kind of galaxy Zefram Cochrane’s going to find a century from now?” Kabreigny asked.

“A better one,” Kirk said. “I guarantee it.” Kabreigny looked at him as if she were going to ask another question, perhaps to check again that no information had come back from the future. But she seemed to think better of it.