Demands of Honor

STAR TREK®

DEMANDS OF HONOR

KEVIN RYAN

BASED UPON
STAR TREK
CREATED BY GENE RODDENBERRY

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To my mother, Elaine Ryan, who always had books in the house.

 

DEMANDS OF HONOR

S.S. HARMONY

KLINGON-FEDERATION BORDER

C
HRISTINE
A
LVAREZ
ran to the back of the ship, entered the bathroom, and retched into the sink. Nothing came up, but that didn't surprise her; she doubted there was anything left inside her stomach. Nevertheless, she spent another ten minutes over the sink until her stomach settled down again.

When she stepped back out into the main cabin, she realized that gravity was back near Earth normal, at least as far as she could tell. Six weeks ago, when they were just one month into the trip, the artificial gravity had picked up a flutter. Every fifteen or twenty minutes, it was subject to random increases and decreases of about twenty-five percent up or down. It wasn't enough to be
dangerous, but it was more than enough to play havoc with all of their stomachs.

Ironically, the “nearly full Earth gravity throughout every inch of the deck!” had been a selling point for the vessel, and a real point of pride for her father when he'd bought it. Of course, her family had never taken the ship on this long a journey, and the vessel had never logged this many light-years between maintenance. Heading back to the rear of the ship, she found Alan huddled over an open panel in the floor, while Cyndy stood nearby calling out instructions from her data padd.

“Any luck?”

She saw Alan's body tense and heard his sharp intake of breath. He was on edge, even more than the rest of them. He lifted his head and shoulders out of the panel and turned to her. “I can't reduce the power.” Christine knew what that meant. The manual recommended reducing gravity to one-half g to correct imbalances, at least until the system could properly be serviced.

By now the five others had circled around to listen. “We're following the instructions, but we can't get the power to decrease. There seems to be a bug in the system.”

There were immediate sighs from the others. “I'm sorry we can't all be as
comfortable
as we would like,” Alan said. There it was: the rebuke. Alan had less and less patience lately. “But we all know why we are on this journey. We're almost there and we know why it's important. If this is the worst we face on this trip, then I'd say we're coming out ahead.”

Christine felt a stab of shame. She was focused on a little space sickness when the stakes were so high, when
billions of lives literally hung in the balance. Then the feeling was gone, replaced by another rumble in her stomach. For a moment, she thought she might have to run for the bathroom again, but it passed.

“Is there any chance the inertial system will fail?” Max asked. It was the biggest danger they faced. If something went wrong with the inertial dampening system when they were coming out of warp, or while they were decelerating from full impulse, the end would be quick for all of them.

“No,” Tomas answered from behind her, and everyone turned to look at him. “The system has enough fail-safes built in that it's virtually foolproof. And the variations are only affecting the artificial gravity. The dampening system is showing full power.”

The crew seemed satisfied with that, and Christine felt herself relax. Tomas was their pilot, the best one in the organization and by far the most experienced in space. Of course, he was much farther out than he had ever been, and he didn't have nearly as much experience as her father's pilot—just as Alan had much less experience than her father's technicians. But there was no way to tell her father about this trip, let alone bring along his employees.

“Now, I want you to all come forward and see something,” Tomas said.

Christine knew why he was summoning them and felt a twitch of excitement. They had waited a long time for this, and she had spent many hours huddled over the sink for this moment.

The six of them had to squeeze into the front of the ship, yet they all had a good view, thanks to the large
transparent aluminum window that made up much of the nose of the vessel. When her father had bought the craft, she had thought that the large windows—like the Earth-normal gravity—were a needless extravagance. Since they were at warp, she could see stars appear to streak by, leaving colorful contrails. The view of space looked no different from the view they had seen since they'd left Earth orbit, but she knew the space itself was vastly different.

Now she saw the beauty that the stars held at warp speed. And yet there was something much more important here than the view.

“Just a few minutes,” Tomas announced.

A moment later, an insistent alarm sounded from the intercom. Then an automated voice said,
“Warning, you are leaving Federation space. Warning, you are leaving Federation space. This is a message from Starfleet Command. Civilian vessels are prohibited from traveling past this point.”
The message started to repeat, but Alan's hand shot out and hit a switch, silencing both the voice and the alarm.

“We regret that we won't be complying,” Alan said, and the entire group of them laughed, Christine included.

“Can you give us a countdown?” Alan asked Tomas.

“Sure.” Tomas waited for a long moment, then began, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five …”

They all joined in now: “Four …”

“Three …”

“Two …”

“One.”

Christine held her breath and Alan announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just entered Klingon space.”

A few seconds later, Christine realized she had forgotten to release her breath in her excitement. She did, and then took a deep gulp of air.

“Does it trouble you that we've broken about a dozen Federation laws just now?” Alan asked with a smile. Christine and the others laughed. “Good, because by the time we're finished, we are going to have broken a lot more rules.”

In that moment, Christine loved Alan more than ever. She felt the tensions and discomfort of the last two and a half months fall away, and she remembered why they were out here—and why she had fallen for Alan in the first place. She immediately regretted that they had had so little time alone together since this trip had begun. Shrugging inside, she realized it was another small sacrifice for their cause.

“Are you showing anyone on scanners?” Alan asked Tomas.

“Just a few commercial vessels at the extreme range of the sensors,” Tomas replied. “I don't think we'll have any company for a while.”

After a few minutes of looking out the window, the lights automatically dimmed. Christine realized how late it was getting. At the beginning of the trip they had maintained an extended party atmosphere and had slept at odd times, but they had soon realized that it was better for everyone's spirits and equilibrium if they maintained a more standard day/night schedule.

“If you want some sleep, I can keep the first watch,” Alan offered. Christine felt a pang of disappointment. It was their turn to have the private stateroom. She didn't want to waste it, especially tonight.

“No, I'll stay here for a while,” Tomas said, and Christine felt relieved.

Fortunately, the gravity fluctuations were minimal, and her stomach held as they got ready for bed and entered the stateroom. Once inside, Alan said, “You know, this is really just the—”

Christine stopped him with her lips. There would be plenty of time for talk later, and with Alan there was always plenty of talking. For now, she was determined to keep things simple.

A few hours later, a beeping woke her up. It took her a moment to clear her head. When she did, she realized that Tomas was on the intercom.
“Get out here everybody. That's the proximity alert.”

Christine rushed out of the room in her nightgown. A moment later, Alan pushed past her wearing only his shorts. Soon, Christine and the others were all looking out the front window of the ship at the moving star field. Nothing else was in sight.

“Where's the ship?” Alan asked, his voice maddeningly calm.

“I'm not sure.” Tomas frantically hit controls on the panel in front of him. “Scanners aren't working right.”

Christine and the others frantically scanned the space in front of the ship. She found herself wishing that her father had gone with a viewscreen instead of the window option. At least then they could change perspective and magnify as needed. She sat down in the copilot's seat and found the controls for one of the small viewers on the panel just below the window. She brought up a forward view on the screen, then found the perspective
control. She scanned the area around the ship for a full minute before she found something.