Star Trek: Duty, Honor, Redemption (59 page)

The holographic image faded. The only light remaining radiated upward from the witness box, illuminating the flushed and angry heavy-featured face of Kamarag, the Klingon ambassador to the United Federation of Planets. Sarek had encountered Kamarag before. He knew him as an obdurate opponent.

A great starship appeared above Kamarag: the
Enterprise,
bright against a background of black space and multicolored stars. A second explosion filled the chamber with the actinic light of warp engines gone critical. Beside Sarek, Commander Chapel gasped. The nictitating membranes flicked across Sarek’s eyes, protecting him from a glare that caused most of the sighted beings in the chamber to blink and murmur. When their vision cleared, they saw what Sarek observed: the destruction of the
Enterprise.
The battered ship struggled against its death, fighting to stay in the sky, but another explosion racked it, and another, and it fell from space into atmosphere. It glowed with the friction of its speed. It burned. It disappeared in ashes and in flames.

Distressed, Chapel turned away.

How very like a human,
Sarek thought,
to grieve over a starship.

“But one fatal error can destroy the most sinister plan,” Kamarag said. “The mission recordings remained in the memory of our fighting ship! Officer Maltz transmitted them to me before he, too, died. Did he die, as the Federation claims, a suicide? Or was it convenient to eliminate the last objective witness?”

The image of a small band of humans appeared. The mission recorder focused on the face of James Kirk.

“There!” Kamarag shouted. “Hold the image!
Hold!
”

The image froze: James Kirk gazed at his dying ship.

“Observe!” Kamarag said in a low and dangerous voice. His brow ridges pulsed with anger; his heavy eyebrows lowered over his dark, deep eyes. “The quintessential devil in these matters! James T. Kirk, renegade and terrorist. He is responsible for the murder of the Klingon crew and the theft of their vessel. But his true aims were more sinister. Behold the real plot and intentions!”

One image of James Kirk dissolved into a second. The new image, uniformed, calm, well groomed, gazed out at the audience.

“To fully understand the events on which I report,” Kirk said, “it is necessary to review the theoretical data on the Genesis device.”

A complex diagram glowed into being.

“Genesis is a procedure by which the molecular structure of matter is broken down, not into subatomic parts as in nuclear fission, or even into elementary particles, but into subelementary particle-waves.”

The diagram solidified into a torpedo, and the torpedo arced through space to land on a barren world. The effect of the device spread out from the impact like a tidal wave of fire, racing across and finally covering the rocky surface of the planetoid. When the glow faded, stone and dust had become water and air and fertile soil.

“The results are completely under our control,” James Kirk said. “In this simulation, a barren rock becomes a world with water, atmosphere, and a functioning ecosystem capable of sustaining most known forms of carbon-based life.”

Sarek knew about the Genesis device. He did not need to watch its simulation. Instead, he observed the councilors. Most had known little if anything about the secret project. They reacted with amazement or shock or silent contemplation, depending on their character and their culture.

“Even as the Federation negotiated a peace treaty with us, Kirk secretly developed the Genesis torpedo. This dreadful weapon, disguised as a civilian project, was conceived by Kirk’s paramour and their son. It was test detonated by the admiral himself!”

Kamarag waited for silence among the agitated councilors. Sarek gathered his own energy. The holographic screen contracted upon itself, squeezing its image to nothingness. The chamber’s lights rose.

“James Kirk called the result of this awesome energy the ‘Genesis Planet.’A gruesome euphemism! It was no more and no less than a secret base from which to launch the annihilation of the Klingon people!” He paused again, letting his outrage affect the council chamber. He drew himself up. “We demand the extradition of Kirk! We demand justice.”

“The Empire has a unique point of view on justice, Mister President,” Sarek said. He strode into the chamber and descended the stairs. “It is not so many years past that the Empire recognized James Kirk as a hero, and honored him for preventing the annihilation of the Klingon people. One must wonder what political upheaval could have changed their opinion so precipitously.”

“It is Kirk who changed!” Kamarag clamped his fingers around the edge of the lectern and leaned toward Sarek, fixing him with an expression of hatred and fury. “From concealing his treachery to exposing it, as Genesis proves!”

“Genesis was perfectly named,” Sarek said. “Had it succeeded, it would have meant the creation of life, not death. It was the Klingons who drew first blood while trying to possess its secrets.”

“Vulcans are well known,” Ambassador Kamarag said coldly, “as the intellectual puppets of the Federation.”

“Your vessel did destroy
U.S.S. Grissom.
Commander Kruge did order the death of David Marcus, James Kirk’s son. Do you deny these events?”

“We deny nothing,” Kamarag said. “We have the right to preserve our species.”

“Do you have the right to commit murder?”

The councilors and the spectators reacted to Sarek’s charges. Sarek stood in silence, unaffected by the noise rising around him. The president rapped the gavel.

“Order! There will be no further outbursts from the floor.”

After quiet returned, Sarek mounted a dais and faced the council president. This put his back to Ambassador Kamarag. It was an action both insult and challenge.

“Mister President,” Sarek said, “I have come to speak on behalf of the accused.”

“This is a gross example of personal bias! James Kirk retrieved Sarek’s son.” Kamarag’s voice grew heavy with irony. “One can hardly blame Sarek for his bias—or for letting his emotions overwhelm a dispassionate analysis.”

Sarek ignored the retaliatory insult. His attention remained on the council president. He refused to be distracted by Kamarag’s outbursts or by the whispers and exclamations of the councilors. During his many years away from Vulcan, Sarek had learned that such reactions to an altercation did not necessarily indicate the intention to interfere. However high the technologies of their worlds, however polished their educations, most sentient beings could easily be diverted from important issues by the promise of entertainment. And a fight between Ambassador Kamarag and Sarek of Vulcan would be entertainment indeed.

Sarek greatly preferred the Vulcan way. Perhaps the council president had also studied Vulcan methods, for he remained calm until the uproar subsided.

“Mister Ambassador,” the president said to Kamarag, “with all respect, the council must deliberate. We will consider your views—”

“You intend to let Kirk go unpunished,” Kamarag said, his tone low and dangerous.

“Admiral Kirk has been charged with nine violations of Starfleet regulations—”

“Starfleet regulations!” Kamarag snorted with disgust. “This is outrageous! There are higher laws than Starfleet regulations! Remember this well: there will be no peace as long as Kirk lives.”

He swept down from the witness box and strode from the council chamber. In the shocked silence that followed his ultimatum, the heels of his boots thudded loudly on the polished floor. His security guards surrounded him; his staff snatched up their equipment and hurried after him.

Disturbed, finally, by Kamarag’s reaction, the president turned his attention to Sarek. “Sarek of Vulcan, with all respect,” he said. “We ask you to return Kirk and his officers to answer for their crimes.”

The president’s request told Sarek much. The inquiry would find that charges were justified. James Kirk and his friends would face court-martial.

Kirk and the others had risked their careers and their lives at Sarek’s request. They had willingly gone through an ordeal that most of the beings in this chamber could not even imagine. This was their reward.

“With respect to you, Mister President,” Sarek said evenly. “There is only one crime: denying James Kirk and his officers the honor they deserve.”

The president hesitated, as if hoping Sarek might relent. Cold and silent, Sarek met his gaze.

An aging sun gave the planet Vulcan its two simple constants: the appalling heat, and the dry red dust. The climate wrung Jim out. The atmosphere’s scanty oxygen forced humans to take a maintenance level of tri-ox. Tri-ox made Jim almost as lightheaded as oxygen deprivation. He supposed that at least it caused less neuron loss.

For all their long civilization, Jim thought, Vulcans never bothered to invent air conditioning. I wonder what logic explains that?

Near sunset, Jim crossed the plain at the foot of Mt. Seleya and paused by the Klingon fighting ship. In the long shadow of its swept-wing body the temperature fell a few degrees, but the inside of the ship would be an oven. He and the others worked on the ship at night. During the day they slept in the relative coolness of the mountain habitat, they did what work they could outside the Klingon fighter, and they worried. No one second-guessed either Jim’s choice or their own decisions. But everyone worried.

Jim worried most about McCoy. Whatever the facilitation sessions were doing for Spock, they drained McCoy more completely as they progressed.

He heard a scraping noise above him. He went back outside and tried to see the dorsal surface of the ship from the top rung of the ladder.

“Who’s there?” he called.

“Just me.”

“Bones? Are you all right?” He chinned himself on the edge of the wing and climbed onto the ship. He was hypersensitive to any hint of odd behavior on McCoy’s part, but he tried not to show it.

“T’Lar says Spock doesn’t need any more facilitation sessions,” McCoy said, without turning around. He sat back, regarded his handiwork critically, and made one last stroke with his paintbrush.

Jim looked over McCoy’s shoulder. The doctor had struck out the Klingon identification script; above it he had spelled out
“H.M.S. Bounty.
”

“We wouldn’t want anybody to think this was a Klingon ship, would we?”

Jim chuckled. “You have a fine sense of historical irony, Bones.”

“Jim, I think we’ve been here just about long enough. How about you?”

“Not just about long enough. Too long.” He gripped McCoy’s shoulder. “And everyone’s had long enough to consider the question. We’ll vote tonight.”

They climbed down again. At the top of the ladder, Jim took a long breath, let it out, and entered the ship. The heat closed in around him. By dawn the temperature would be nearly tolerable. James Kirk was accustomed to living in the perfectly controlled environment of a starship. Back home he lived in San Francisco, a city with an even and moderate climate.

“I’m
never
going to get used to that smell,” McCoy said.

The heat intensified the pungent, slightly bitter odor of the materials of an unfamiliar technology.

“It isn’t that bad,” Jim said. “You never used to be this sensitive to unusual smells.”

“Don’t tell me how I’ve changed, Jim,” McCoy said. “I don’t want to hear that anymore.” His good mood vanished. “I’ve got work to do in sickbay.” He disappeared down the corridor.

Jim walked down the long neck of the Klingon fighter to the command chamber. The differences far outnumbered its similarities to the
Enterprise.
He and his officers had all taken a crash course in the obscure dialect of Klingon in which the controls were labeled. Bits of tape with scribbled reminders littered all the consoles. Chekov’s mnemonics were in Russian. Sulu’s were in three different languages, only one of which used the Roman alphabet.

Jim sat at Uhura’s station and glanced over her notes, which were in Standard. He turned on the system.

“Vulcan communications control.”

“James Kirk, requesting subspace to Delta. Private channel, please.”

“Subspace channels are blocked with heavy interference. Please try again at a later time.”

Jim cursed softly. His every attempt to contact Carol Marcus had met with failure. Perhaps she was avoiding him, out of grief or out of fury. Or both. He remembered what she had told him the first time he and David had met: “You have your world, and I have mine. I wanted David in my world.”

Her reluctance had been justified. James Kirk’s world was wondrous and dangerous. In seeking out the wonder, David encountered the danger. It destroyed him.

Jim envied Carol’s knowing the boy. What would his own life have been like, if he had been told about David and invited to participate in his childhood? But he had not. He had never known David as a child; no one would know David in his maturity.

Jim treasured his few memories of the arrogant and intelligent and sensitive young man who had been his son. He grieved for David’s death and for lost chances.