Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (6 page)

“So this isn’t the first time you’ve played poker?” Kirk asked accusingly. Chess was more his game, and he enjoyed the never-ending tournament he and Spock had fallen into. But with three players to account for, poker had seemed a better way to socialize with his fellow patients. To Kirk’s chagrin, however, the pile of tongue depressors was deepest on the blanket beside Sarek.

$arek maintained his maddening composure. “My wife taught me many years ago, after Spock joined Starfleet. The insights it afforded me have been beneficial in certain negotiations with… certain species.”

I bet they have, Kirk thought. “Coridan’s going to be admitted to the Federation, isn’t it.” He made it a statement. If Sarek negotiated as well as he played poker, the other delegates to the Babel Conference didn’t stand a chance against him.

“I will argue for admission,” Sarek acknowledged, “but my wishes are in no way an indication of what the result of the final vote will be.” “With that much dilithium on the planet,” Kirk continued, “how could Coridan not be admitted? The Orions were willing to start an interplanetary war over it.” The knife wound in Kirk’s back was a direct result of Coridan’s dilithium. Orion smugglers had conspired to prevent the planet’s admission to the Federation in order to maintain their illegal mining and smuggling operations and profit from supplying both sides with dilithium in the war to come.

But Sarek did not agree. “It is true that dilithium is the lifeblood of any interstellar political association. Without it, warp drive can never be exploited to its full potential. But, it has been my experience that wars are seldom fought over resources. At the time, the question of resources may appear to be a valid excuse for hostilities, indeed, a rallying cry. But upon reflection, most conflict is inevitably based in emotion.” Sarek fixed Kirk with a steady gaze—an emotional signal of some sort, Kirk was certain.

“I mean no disrespect,” Sarek concluded.

Kirk mulled over that last statement, which from anyone else would have meant the opposite of what it appeared to mean, and despite the ambassador’s recent heart attacks and cryogenic open-heart procedure, Sarek had never once lost his mental edge.

Kirk wondered if there was such a thing as Vulcan humor. He looked back at Spock, trying to detect any sign of hidden Vulcan laughter.

But Spock merely raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You have a question, Captain?” Kirk couldn’t bring himself to ask the obvious. He knew he could talk with Spock about Vulcan emotions, but it might be too embarrassing a topic for Spock to discuss in front of his father. If Spock could feel embarrassment, that is. Kirk decided that changing the subject was a better tactic. “Did your mother teach you how to play poker, too?” Spock shook his head. “Dr. McCoy did, after our encounter xvith the First Federation ship.” “Actually,” Sarek volunteered, “I have often thought poker would be a useful exercise for Vulcan children, to help them learn to control the display of their emotions.” Kirk saw his opening and pounced. “Gentlemen, it sounds as if you’re suggesting that the famed Vulcan reticence to display emotion is nothing more than a prolonged bluff itself. In fact, it could be said that for a people who pride themselves on choosing never to lie, their whole demeanor is, in fact, just that.” Feeling proud of himself, Kirk folded his arms.

Sarek and Spock exchanged a look. Spock spoke first. “Captain, what you have suggested is not logical.” Kirk didn’t understand. “Yes, it is.” Spock was about to reply when Sarek interrupted. “Captain, the ‘pot’ is still unclaimed. We have yet to see your hand.” Damn. Kirk thought. He had hoped they had forgotten. He turned over his cards. A pair of fives.

“It would appear you were bluffing, as well,” Sarek said, with just the slightest hint of smugness in his tone.

“He is quite good at it,” Spock offered.

“Indeed.” Kirk looked from father to son, realizing that they had successfully changed the topic on him. Kirk decided that whatever effect the past two days were having on Sarek and Spock, they were certainly beginning to take their toll on him.

Sarek reached out to scoop up the tongue depressors. “I believe the cultural incantation required at this time is ‘Come to poppa.’” “That is correct,” Spock said.

At the sound of those words coming from the revered Vulcan diplomat, Kirk clamped his hand to his mouth to try and contain his laughter, but he knew he wasn’t going to make it. It erupted from him with a barely contained snort. He tried to cover his unfortunate reaction with a series of coughs, but that just made the knife wound in his back flare with sharp pain, bringing tears to his eves.

In their most subdued Vulcan manner, Spock and Sarek looked alarmed.

“The incantation is not ‘Come to poppa’?” Sarek asked.

Kirk waved his hand. If he even tried to open his mouth, he’d go on a laughing jag that could set Earth-Vulcan relations back by a decade.

“Captain?” Spock said with Vulcan concern. “Are you all right?” Kirk nodded. He wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Water,” he gasped in what he hoped was a convincing simulation of something caught in his throat. He started to get up from his chair.

The door to the examination room puffed open, taking Kirk by surprise. It was too early for Nurse Chapel and far too late for Dr.

McCoy.

But it was McCoy who entered, eyes bleary, hair mussed, uniform obviously just thrown on. Kirk instantly knew that whatever had brought McCoy to sickbay at this hour, it had also wakened him unexpectedly.

The ship’s surgeon came to a stop in the middle of the ward. He stared at his three patients with an open mouth. “What in God’s name are you two doing out of bed?!” Sarek folded his hands in his lap. It was clear the doctor was referring to Kirk and Spock.

Spock answered the question. “Playing poker.” McCov’s eyes dropped to Sarek’s bed, took in the deck of cards, the piles’of tongue depressors. “So help me, I’ll sedate the lot of you! Put you in… restraints/” Kirk finished getting to his feet. “Bones, it’s all right. Your treatment made us feel better even faster….”But then he winced. The knife wound in his back seemed to twist in place, as if the knife were still in it. He felt the blood leave his face. From the look on McCoy’s face, it was an alarming departure.

Kirk suddenly felt Spock’s arm slip under his, steadying him.

But McCoy disapproved of that, too. He grabbed Kirk away from the science officer and manhandled the captain across the ward, telling Spock to get back to bed before he was put into isolation.

Kirk flopped back on the medical diagnostic bed and felt his breath escape him. McCoy activated the diagnostic board and Kirk heard his own heartbeat racing. “I told you this could happen,” McCoy snapped as he held a whirring medical scanner over Kirk’s chest.

Kirk mouthed the words “What could happen?” Now he really couldn’t talk. He felt as if the bandages around his chest were solid duranium, slowly constricting, cutting off any chance he had of breathing again.

“The knife was treated with a protein inhibitor.” McCoy deftly clicked a drug ampule into a hypospray. Kirk heard his heartbeat accelerating. “It’s an old Orion trick. Keeps the wound open and bleeding with no poison to show up in an autopsy. Makes sure there’s no blood left on the weapon, either.” The cold tip of the hypo pushed against Kirk’s shoulder and he felt the sudden pinch of its high-pressure infusion. “Fortunately, you were lucky enough to get in here before you needed an autopsy. Barely.” Though Kirk didn’t feel as if his condition had changed, the sudden caustic tone in McCoy’s delivery told him he was going to be all right. He felt his breathing ease. His heartbeat began to slow. He recognized the effect from his last visit to Vulcan.

“Tri-ox?” he whispered.

McCoy glared down at him “When I hear that you’ve earned your medical degree, I’d be happy to discuss drug therapies, Captain. Now stay put.” “Yes, sir,” Kirk whispered. He squinted to the side as McCoy spun around and advanced on Spock. “And as for you,” the doctor began.

Kirk closed his eyes and smiled as McCoy’s tirade continued.

Sometimes he thought the doctor was only happy when he had something to complain about, and Finagle knew Kirk and Spock went out of their way to oblige him.

The pain in his back began to lessen, and Kirk guessed that McCoy had included something else with the tri-ox compound without telling him. Just as he hadn’t mentioned anything about the protein inhibitor on the knife.

Probably didn’t want to worry me, Kirk thought, feeling himself beginning to drift as McCoy and Spock argued over medical procedures, and Sarek maintained an appropriately diplomatic silence.

Kirk slipped back to three days earlier, walking near his quarters on Deck 5. An Artdorian had passed him: Thelev, a minor member of Ambassador Shras’s staff. Thelev had nodded in greeting. Kirk had nodded in return, eager to get back to the bridge, eager to continue the investigation into the murder of Ambassador Gav—the murder for which Sarek was prime suspect.

In retrospect, Kirk decided it was his eagerness that led him to ignore Thelev’s unexpected change in pace. In retrospect, he knew he had distinctly heard Thelev stop, turn, and start again, walking behind him. At the time, Kirk had worried that the Andorian was going to raise vet another matter of concern to the ambassador, as if having 114’dignitaries on board for the past two weeks hadn’t given Kirk his fill of ambassadorial concerns. Part of him was still hoping he could make it to the turbolift before Thelev called his name when he felt the first blow to the back of his neck.

Starfleet training had taken over then, diplomatic immunity be damned. But the first blow Kirk had taken had dulled his reflexes, and just as he thought Thelev was finished, he felt the long narrow blade of the Andorian ceremonial dagger rip into his back, grating against bone, igniting shocking streamers of pain like lava through his chest.

What had happened next, Kirk still wasn’t too certain. Whatever had transpired, he had ended up in sickbay and Thelev had been taken to the brig.

But the threat to the Enterprise hadn’t ended with the Andorian’s arrest. An unknown vessel was still pacing them.

Thirty-two ambassadors whose loss could mean an interplanetary war were its probable target. And Sarek was only hours from death, unless McCoy could operate. Which he couldn’t do without Spock’s cooperation in providing a transfusion. Which Spock wouldn’t provide while Kirk was in sickbay and the Enterprise was being followed by an unidentified vessel.

In the end, Kirk and McCoy had convinced Spock that the captain’s wound was minor. Spock had relinquished command, donated blood, and Sarek’s operation had been a success.

Xo. Kirk suddenly thought, jerking awake from his reverie. It was too soon to think of success. Thelev had turned out to be a surgically altered Orion. The pursuing ship, also Orion, had destroyed itself when the Enterprise had disabled it. But the Babel Conference had yet to take place. Coridan’s fate was still in quesuon. What if the Orions had a contingency plan? For all the effort they had put into placing Thelev on the Andorian ambassador’s staff, into reengineering one of their vessels for a suicide mission, into sanctioning Gav’s murder—it just wouldn’t be like the Orions to give up after a single attempt. l/lave [o talk to Spock about this, Kirk thought. He opened his eyes. McCoy was standing above him. Kirk had a sudden feeling of’ panic that he had slept. That he had missed something. But McCoy was in as much disarray as he had been when he had caught his patients at their midnight poker game.

“Can you breathe now?” McCoy asked. It wasn’t a friendly question.

‘Wes.” Kirk said. His throat felt normal. The pain of the knife xvound throbbed with each heartbeat, but it was dulled.

“Good,” McCoy said. “Then get up.” “Up?” Kirk felt a rush of adrenaline as he connected McCoy’s command to his unexpected presence here. Something had woken him up. Something had brought him to sickbay to waken the captain. Knowing that, Kirk was instantly alert, the knife wound a memory. “What is it, Bones?” “Nothing I’m in favor of,” McCoy complained. “But then, I’m just a doctor, not a fleet admiral.” “Admiral?” Kirk asked as he slowly sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Kabreigny,” McCoy answered, keeping one eye on the scanner he held to Kirk’s side.

Now Kirk was even more alert. Quario Kabreigny was one of the most powerful admirals at Starfleet Command, in charge of the entire Exploration Branch. Starfleet had been from its very beginning, more than a century ago, an organization whose prime mission was scientific, whose very charter clearly stated its mandate “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” Yet the nature of the universe was such that Starfleet vessels quickly took on responsibility for upholding the law at the boundaries of the Federation’s expansion, for protecting shipping lines and colonies, and for maintaining watch over security threats from other, nonaligned systems. The fact that Starfleet and the Federation itself had risen from the nightmare of the Romulan Wars further added an inescapably defensive flavor to its role.

But whenever the critics grew too loud, whenever the members of the Federation Council grew concerned over the ongoing dichotomy between Starfieet’s scientific and military missions, Admiral Kabreigny would step into the fray. By the time she had finished addressing her questioners, detailing the impressive scientific advances engendered by Starfleet, and showing how they stood above and apart from its “secondary mission,” as she characterized it, which involved phasers and photon torpedoes more than sensors and diplomacy, the debate would end for another year or two, until the next funding cycle.

Without question, Kabreigny was one of the great shapers of the modern Federation, following unwaveringly in the footsteps of those giants who had drafted the Paris Charter in 2161. Books had been written about her and her influence. Hers was a name that was spoken with a respect reserved for Black, Cochrane, and Coon—all people without whom the Federation would not exist.

And she wanted to speak with James T. Kirk.

It was a bit like waking up to find the finger of a god pointing down at you.