STAR TREK: The Lost Era - 2298 - The Sundered Read online

  “WE’RE PUTTING A STOP TO THIS.”

  SULU SAID. “NOW.

  Asher, take us into the path of those blasts, between the Neyel ship and the Tholian settlement.”

  Chekov moved toward the command chair and leaned in. “Please tell me you a have a plan,” he said quietly.

  “If we lost only seven percent of our shield capacity from the previous attack, then we ought to be able to sustain another few direct hits without serious damage. And that may buy some time for the Tholians down there.”

  “You hope,” Chekov finished for him. “If that first volley they fired at us really was only a warning shot ...”

  “I can’t just allow the wanton slaughter of those people down there, Pavel. And if we can stop the attack without having to open fire ourselves ...”

  “Big gamble,” Chekov said.

  “I know,” Sulu told him. He studied the viewer as the Neyel ship, with its long, weapons-festooned hull, loomed steadily larger in Excelsior’s flight path. He wondered for a moment if any sort of parley or peace was even possible with such apparently hate-filled people. After all, the Neyel with whom he had spoken had referred to the Tholians as an “infestation.”

  I just hope I’m not placing my ship and my crew in jeopardy over a lost cause.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2003 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

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  For the gallant crew of STS-107, the proud handful of achievers who flew into Eternity aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia: Michael Anderson; David Brown; Kalpana Chawla; Laurel Clark; Rick Husband; William McCool; and Ilan Ramon. Your courage is writ large across the sky, through all the eras, lost or otherwise.

  —MAM.

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  —A.M.

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  HISTORIAN’S NOTE

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  PART 2

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 9

  PART 3

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  PART 4

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  PART 5

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART 6

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  PART 7

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  PART 8

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  PART 9

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  PART 10

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The authors’ heartfelt thanks go to Dr. Al Globus of the NASA Ames Research Center. His keen insights into the construction of off-world orbital habitats was invaluable to us both.

  Thanks are also due to the dean of science fiction, the late Robert A. Heinlein, for penning the novellas Universe and Common Sense, and the short story “The Green Hills of Earth,” which is (mis)quoted very briefly in Chapter 25 (granted by permission of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust).

  One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

  —ANDRÉ [PAUL-GUILLAUME] GIDE (1869-1951)

  If it were all so simple!

  If only there were evil people somewhere

  insidiously committing evil deeds,

  and it were necessary only to separate them

  from the rest of us and destroy them.

  But the line dividing good and evil

  cuts through the heart of every human being.

  And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

  —ALEXSANDR SOLZHENITSYN

  HISTORIAN’S NOTE

  This story is set in the year 2298, five years after the presumed death of Captain James T. Kirk aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations, and sixty-six years before the launch of the Enterprise-D in “Encounter at Farpoint.”

  PART 1

  ALIENS

  Chapter 1

  After bowing respectfully before his opponent, Captain Hikaru Sulu straightened, tensing his wiry form as he raised his épée to the ready position. “En garde!” he shouted, then lunged forward, the slender blade flashing before him.

  With a grace that belied her considerable size, Lieutenant P’mu’la Hopman deflected Sulu’s foil toward the captains left with a deft parry sixte. Sulu tried to conceal his surprise at how quick the muscular exosociology specialist was on her rather large feet. Though less than twenty years Sulu’s junior, Hopman moved like someone far younger. On top of that, she was in her male phase this morning. Sulu had become accustomed to sparring with Hopman when she wore her female form, which was more equivalent to Sulu’s own mass.

  Recovering quickly, Sulu renewed his attack, stepping forward, then back, then forward again, all the while probing his opponent for weakness or hesitation. He thrust, cobralike. Hopman countered him once again with a quarte parry, melding fluidly into a forward-lunging riposte that Sulu easily sidestepped.

  “You’re not going easy on me just because I’m the captain, are you, Lieutenant?” Sulu said, wishing he could see his opponent’s expression through the white duranium-mesh facemasks.

  [4] Hopman drew a languid circle in the air with the tip of her foil. “The captain is being entirely too modest about his skills,” she said, the smile behind her mask clearly audible.


  Sulu recalled how Hopman—a variable-gendered Thelusian who still carried the surname of a human ex-spouse—had recently stared at the platinum belt he kept on the wall of the situation room. The trophy had hung there for so long that Sulu rarely thought about it anymore. It had been years since he’d bragged to anyone about having swept the Inner Planets championship tournament as a Starfleet Academy cadet.

  On the other hand, he was far from ashamed of his prowess with the blade. After all, those talents had saved his life years earlier, when he’d been forced into bat’leth combat during Curzon Dax’s impulsive hajj into the Klingon Empire. But it’s nice not to have the burden of defending a current championship title, Sulu thought. Command of Excelsior was responsibility enough.

  “I know that flattery doesn’t work on you, sir,” Hopman said, now standing motionless except for the slow twirl of her blade tip.

  Sulu grinned. “Really?”

  “Yes, sir. At least that’s how Lieutenant Tuvok tells it.”

  Sulu’s throaty chuckle resonated through the otherwise empty gymnasium. If any member of his senior staff was above the giving or receiving of flattery, it was Lieutenant Tuvok, his Vulcan senior science officer. Five years ago, shortly after coming aboard Excelsior as part of a contingent of junior science specialists, Tuvok had brought a cup of Vulcan tea to the bridge and presented it to Sulu. The subtle blend of flavors had been delightful, and Sulu had wondered for more than a year afterward why Tuvok had never repeated the gesture—until Janice Rand finally revealed that she had ribbed Tuvok that very day by suggesting that his gift of tea might have been taken as a career-advancement tactic. Sulu, too, had made a similar mock-serious observation [5] in Tuvok’s presence even as he’d taken his first sip of the proffered beverage.

  Ever since that day, Tuvok never again made another unsolicited gift of any sort to a superior officer, no doubt intent on making it crystal clear that he wished to receive no unearned favors.

  “And I wasn’t going easy on you, sir,” Hopman said earnestly, her wide shoulders slumping. Sulu thought the mannerism might have been unconscious. “I just feel more comfortable when I’m ... smaller.”

  Sulu raised his foil again. “That additional mass you’re carrying at the moment gives you a strength advantage, Pam. Why not use it?”

  With that, Sulu renewed his assault on Hopman. She parried, prompting Sulu to attempt a counterparry. The bulky lieutenant spun into a counter-disengage before Sulu could find an opening. The deck seemed to shudder slightly beneath Sulu’s feet. The effect was nearly imperceptible, but it distracted him momentarily nonetheless. We’ve changed speed.

  Suddenly, Hopman’s blade scored a solid touch against Sulu’s padded fencing jacket.

  Hopman lowered her foil and doffed her facemask, releasing her long, sandy hair. A grin spread across her wide, masculine features. “Now who’s holding back?”

  Sulu lowered his blade. “You wound me, Lieutenant. Almost literally. Be careful, or you might turn this into an affair of honor.”

  “Best two out of three?”

  Sulu shook his head. There was the little matter of Excelsior’s apparent change in velocity—and the disconcerting fact that no one from the bridge had called him yet with an explanation.

  “Another time, Lieutenant,” he said as he removed his mask and mopped the sweat from his brow with a long, white sleeve. “Duty calls.”

  [6] Just as Sulu reached the bulkhead companel, the gymnasium doors immediately beside it whisked open. Sulu turned and saw Commander Pavel Chekov, Excelsior’s executive officer, standing in the threshold.

  The slight frown that creased Chekov’s forehead plainly told Sulu that his old friend hadn’t come down for a workout.

  “The Tholians have changed the time and place of the meeting,” Chekov said.

  Sulu handed his foil to Hopman, but kept his eyes fixed on his old friend. “Don’t tell me they want to postpone.”

  “No, sir,” Chekov said. “In fact, they’ve moved the rendezvous up, to tomorrow morning at 0930 hours. They want us to meet them near the 15 Lyncis system.”

  Ah, Sulu thought. That explained the velocity change that he’d felt thrumming through the deckplates. Despite the good-natured puzzlement of Chief Engineer Azleya, Sulu had never allowed her to refine the inertial dampers to the point where they rendered such adjustments completely unnoticeable. After all, Excelsior was a ship of the line, not a luxury liner.

  “I trust Commander Lojur and Lieutenant Docksey already have us under way,” Sulu said, though he already knew the answer.

  “Aye, sir. We certainly don’t want to keep our clock-watching friends waiting.” The Tholians were notorious for the meticulous attention they paid to their itineraries. Perhaps especially so when they were altering them.

  Sulu nodded. He recalled the position of the 15 Lyncis system from his decades of helm duty. It lay a good ten light-years outside of the vast, meandering volume of space claimed and defended by the extremely xenophobic Tholians.

  Starfleet Command’s original orders had called for Excelsior to rendezvous with the Jeb’v Tholis—Tholian Admiral Yilskene’s flagship—late the following week in the Qilydra system, nearly two full parsecs inside what was generally [7] agreed to be Tholian space. Excelsior would have to accelerate to warp nine to make the rescheduled appointment on time.

  “Apparently something’s persuaded the Tholians that it’s no longer a good idea to invite us across their border,” Sulu said.

  “They haven’t canceled the meeting, though,” Chekov pointed out. “They’ve only changed the time and place.”

  “But why?” Sulu wanted to know.

  Chekov shrugged. “We’ve watched the Tholians for a long time, Hikaru. They’re usually as territorial as Klingon targs. It’s not surprising that they don’t want us coming too close to their homeworld. I don’t think the crew will be too disappointed about meeting with them elsewhere. From everything I’ve read, Tholia and the rest of the N-class planets the Tholian Assembly controls aren’t exactly competitors of Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet.”

  Sulu nodded. “When the Tholians asked for a diplomatic meeting inside the boundaries of their own space, it looked like a pretty hopeful sign. Maybe an indication that they were finally beginning to look beyond their ingrained xenophobia.”

  “Looks like that hope might have been premature,” Chekov said. “After all, it’s not easy to overcome almost one hundred and fifty years of mutual suspicion.”

  Sulu grinned. “That’s uncharacteristically diplomatic of you, Pavel.”

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Chekov said, scowling as though he’d been insulted. “Their waffling as to where and when to meet us doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Something very strange may be going on inside the Tholian power structure. Until we know what it is, I suggest we be very, very careful around them.”

  Over the years, Chekov had regaled Sulu with countless tales of the many wars and invasions his Russian homeland had endured through the centuries. Sulu knew that suspicion came quite naturally to Chekov. In fact, it was an asset [8] that he frequently relied upon in making critical command decisions.

  “I agree,” Sulu said. “All we know is that the Tholians appear to have suddenly fallen back into their old habits, but without any more explanation than they offered when they asked to meet with our diplomats in the first place. So the question remains: why?”

  “It might not add up to anything sinister,” Lieutenant Hopman said, breaking her silence as she leaned her foil alongside Sulu’s against the gymnasium wall. “You’ve already mentioned the renowned Tholian penchant for xenophobia. Perhaps that’s all this is.”

  But Sulu wasn’t buying it. “The Tholians are renowned for a lot of things, Lieutenant. Dithering isn’t one of them.”

  “Their society is made up of multiple castes,” Hopman said. “Perhaps the castes are in fundamental disagreement about how best to deal with the Federation.”

  Sulu nodded. �
��Maybe they aren’t all in agreement that they even should deal with the Federation.”

  “A distinct possibility,” said Hopman.

  “Well, maybe this will shed some light on the matter,” Chekov said, holding up a memory chip, which he then handed to Sulu. “Janice received this just before I left the bridge. It’s an encrypted message from Starfleet Command. It’s scrambled and marked ‘for the captain’s eyes only.’ ”

  Sulu contemplated the palm-sized piece of translucent red plastic he held in his hand. This far from a starbase, realtime subspace communication with Starfleet brass simply wasn’t practical. So the message’s arrival, by itself, was no cause for concern. However, its “eyes-only” classification concerned him. It obviously contained sensitive information, and its appearance on the eve of the first major rapprochement between the Tholian Assembly and the United Federation of Planets had to be significant as well.

  “Do you want me to alert the Federation special envoy [9] about the change in schedule?” Chekov said, a faint look of distaste on his face.

  Sulu shook his head. “Not yet. Let me see what Starfleet Command has to say first. Then I’ll talk to Ambassador Burgess about the change in plans.”

  Chekov looked relieved not to have to handle the Federation representative himself. For his own part, Sulu did not relish the prospect either. True enough, Aidan Burgess had been more than cooperative in furnishing Lieutenant Hopman and the rest of Excelsior’s senior staff with valuable information about the Tholians during the two days since the Enterprise had dropped her off. But the ambassador’s frantic preparations for the impending diplomatic meetings had run many of the ship’s support personnel ragged.

  Sulu had done his best to make certain that most of Deck Eight had been converted for the Tholians’ use, including the installation of forcefield-reinforced transparent aluminum walls capable of holding a Tholian-friendly N-class atmosphere at 200° C and twenty-two bars of pressure. Chief Engineer Azleya had overseen the technical details of the hasty environmental modifications with her usual Denobulan good humor.