Star Trek: The Original Series: The Shocks of Adversity (10 page)

“Code 2-32, negative fifteen,” Satrav ordered,
keeping his back to the rest of the crew as he focused on the numbers on the big screen.
Chekov noticed the muscles of his broad shoulders tense under his plain gray uniform
shirt as he directed the manual docking of the two ships.

“Copy, negative fifteen,” replied the technician seated to the left of where Chekov
stood in the second row of data stations, observing the operation of the Domain vessel.
He would be spending a good deal of his on-duty time over the next week and a half
aboard this ship, providing some small degree of oversight during the upcoming Starfleet-Domain
joint mission, and would need to become as familiar with this ship as he could before
getting under way.

“Status 2-12,” reported another crew member in the forwardmost row of stations, where
Sulu had been posted, taking his own crash course in Domain shipboard procedures.

“Code 2-30, oh-two-oh-seven mark nine-eight-nine-four.”

“Copy, oh-two-oh-seven mark nine-eight-nine-four.”

“Status 2-33, plus seven.”

The ensign was feeling more than overwhelmed by the quick fire and overlapping exchange
of shorthand being used to adjust the
814
’s velocity and relative orientation. A quick glance to Sulu told him that his fellow
Starfleet officer was feeling the same
way. He then stole a quick glance back over his shoulder to the third
Enterprise
officer assigned to study the operation of the Domain ship’s command center. Contrary
to the reactions he and Sulu had to what they’d been witnessing, Uhura’s expression
was one of obvious excitement and exhilaration. Rarely given the opportunity to get
away from her regular post to take part in landing parties, Uhura was clearly relishing
the chance to experience a new culture and its methods of communication.

“Code 2-30, oh-one-nine-two mark oh-oh-nine-oh.”

“Copy, oh-one-nine-two mark oh-oh-nine-oh.”

Chekov felt he was starting to pick up a little bit on what the numbers being tossed
back and forth meant. The two four-digit figures, he assumed, were three-dimensional
positional coordinates, just like the ones Starfleet used, though in fractions of
degrees. “Code 2” was apparently a kind of prefix for a navigational command or status
report, with negative and positive figures indicating a change in velocity. He supposed
the abbreviated commands were intended to make things run more efficiently, though
it seemed to him it was drawing the current docking process out longer than it really
ought to have taken.

Sulu seemed to notice the same thing, and moved down his row to peer over the shoulder
of the helm control operator, a male Liruq with a
patch of jet-black hair on the top of his head, between his ears. “Copy, negative
six,” the Liruq said as he made the latest in a series of corrections to the ship’s
velocity.

“It looks like thruster number two is about half a second out of sync with the others,”
Sulu observed, pointing to one of the readouts on the monitor bank in front of him.
The Liruq turned his head slightly to look at the data Sulu was calling to his attention,
but gave no further acknowledgment. “See, we’re drifting out of alignment again,”
Sulu said, this time pointing forward to the main viewscreen, where the bright colored
ring that had been positioned around the
Enterprise
exterior airlock had drifted, and turned a dark, bruise-like shade of purple. “You’ll
need to—”

“We know how to run our own ship, human!” the Liruq hissed at Sulu.

“I wasn’t saying you don’t,” Sulu answered quickly, trying to placate his annoyed
fellow helmsman. “I’m just pointing it out, so you could compensate.”

The Domain officer twisted around in his seat and fixed Sulu with a look of incredulity.
“Are you
mad
?”

Before Sulu could make any response, Second Commander Satrav turned and fixed the
two of them with a fierce glare. “B’Gof!” he addressed the technician. B’Gof snapped
back around, facing
forward as Satrav moved toward him. “Is this human distracting you, Crewhand?” he
asked.

“Yes, Second Commander,” B’Gof answered, sitting up straight in his seat.

Satrav looked up at Sulu, an unreadable look on his face. Then he looked down again
at B’Gof. “Code 10.”

The Liruq gaped at his superior. “Sir?”

“We are now partners with the Federation humans,” he told B’Gof, but speaking at a
volume that was clearly meant to be heard by everyone in the command center. “If you
are going to be distracted by them, you cannot properly perform your duties. Code
10.”

A wounded expression flashed across B’Gof’s face, which was quickly replaced by one
of indignation as he vacated his chair. His shoulder clipped Sulu’s, hard enough to
send the smaller human back half a step, as he left his post. Chekov watched him stalk
out the door, while his seat was immediately filled by one of the relief crew members
who stood stationed by the bulkheads.

“And you.”

Chekov turned back to see Satrav leaning against the long gunmetal-gray console and
glaring at Sulu. Even though the workstation was slightly elevated from the forward
deck, the Goeg still managed to loom over the lieutenant. “We are in the middle of
a very delicate and complex maneuver,”
he said in a low rasp. “So unless you want us to put a big dent—or worse—in your pretty
white ship, I suggest you make an effort to minimize your disruption of my crew.”
For this last, Satrav made eye contact with Chekov and Uhura as well, making sure
he impressed upon them that he found each of them equal distractions.

Satrav then turned his back on them again, returning his attention to the master display
wall and issuing orders again. The three humans exchanged silent looks, but said nothing,
and continued to say nothing as they watched the docking maneuver proceed, the new
helm officer struggling with the balky number two thruster.

*   *   *

It was one thing to look at the asteroid damage done to the exterior hull on a screen
on the bridge. It was another thing entirely to stand on the ship and get to look
at it up close.

It could have been worse,
Scotty reminded himself as he walked carefully, step by magnetically aided step,
around the patch of buckled and marred hull plating. As ugly as the damage was, the
hull had not been breached, neither here nor elsewhere on the ship. No lives had been
lost. That had been a blessing, no question. Still, it was with effort that Scotty
had to turn his attention away from the impact site to the task that had brought him
out here.

Several meters ahead, a thick beam of solid duranium rose up from the surface of the
hull at an angle—or, from another perspective, it extended down and away from the
Enterprise
’s underbelly, where Scotty now stood, reaching to the dorsal hull of the
814
. This was one of six such struts that formed the connections between the two ships,
in addition to the airlock and the warp plasma transfer conduits, and would ensure
those connections remained secure for the duration of their joint mission. As Scott
reached the strut, he grabbed the tricorder secured to his thigh with a gloved hand
and scanned the welding seams, ensuring there were no flaws or weaknesses in the molecular
bond between the hull plates and the struts.

“What is your judgment, Mister Scott?”
came the voice of Chief N’Mi over his helmet’s internal communicator.

The engineer straightened up as he reached for the suit’s transmit control, positioned
just over his breastbone. As he did so, Scott could see, out the high transparent
top of his helmet, the figure in a Domain EVA suit moving hand over hand along the
duranium beam, from the
814
to where he was standing. “Everything looks good and secure,” Scott answered his
counterpart from the other ship, “though I do wish your people had been a bit neater.”

From about three meters up (or down), Chief
N’Mi swung her legs down in a slow, weightless arc and planted her magnetized boot
soles on the
Enterprise
.
“Neater?”
she asked.

“Right, look at this,” Scotty said, pointing to the uneven lines of what looked like
melted and cooled candle wax that marked the joining of support to ship. “I know we’re
under time constraints, and a molecular welder isn’t the most precise tool there is,
but they could have used a wee bit more care.”

The visor of the Domain suit provided a more restricted view of the wearer’s face
than the Starfleet version did. Still, Scott could clearly see that N’Mi was not particularly
sympathetic to his grievances.
“It’s only a cosmetic matter,”
she told him.
“These hull plates will need to be repaired or replaced in any case, once we reach
Wezonvu and detach the ships.”

“Aye, I know,” Scott said, giving his shoulders a slight hitch underneath the silver-colored
suit. “I just hate to see the old girl such a mess, is all.”

“Who is ‘the old girl’?”
N’Mi asked.

Scotty chuckled. “The
Enterprise
. In our culture, we often refer to ships as ‘she,’ and assign feminine attributes
to them.” He shut the flap of his tricorder and refastened it to his suit, then began
slowly walking back toward the secondary airlock.

Following alongside him, N’Mi asked,
“But you don’t really think of it as a living being, do you?”

“Not literally, no,” Scotty said. “Though in a sense, the
Enterprise
really is one. She’s got a beating
heart in her warp engine . . . a mind in her computer banks . . . but her crew, they’re
what gives her a soul.”

“In the Goeg Domain, a ship is just a ship,”
N’Mi said.
“Its engines and computers are just machines, and its crew . . .”

For a second, Scott was unsure if the comm link between them had been cut off or if
the chief had cut herself off before finishing her thought.

“Is just a crew,”
she finally added as they approached the airlock.

“Well, that’s a shame,” Scotty said, as he reached again for his suit communicator
controls and signaled to have the airlock decompressed and opened. “As fond as I am
of the
Enterprise
herself, it’s the people I get to work with who make it worthwhile.”

N’Mi had no reply to that, and as the hatch opened, he opted not to pursue the matter
any further.

*   *   *

“Code 8-71,” called out the Domain technician, a female Abesian named Fexil, to the
mixed team of Starfleet and Domain engineers working in the cramped lowest level of
the
Enterprise
’s engineering section.

Uhura, standing just behind her, consulted her data slate and translated, “That’s
a complete purge of the warp plasma conduit.”

“Are you joking?” That question came from
Crewman Steven MacNeal, a young Centaurian who had just joined the
Enterprise
crew following their recent stop at Earth. “We just finished a code eight-whatever
for a standard flush of the warp plasma conduit!”

“What reason would I have for joking?” Fexil asked, sounding exasperated by the experience
of having to repeatedly explain her work methods to the Starfleet half of the detail.
The Domain’s system of command and status codes, Uhura had learned, had stemmed from
the beginning of their efforts to integrate their Defense Corps, with the intention
of bridging any language barriers and establishing standards of operation. It was
somewhat ironic that the ship’s senior communications officer was needed here in order
to facilitate the use of those codes.

“What reason is there to have us do essentially the same procedure twice?” MacNeal
protested.

“Code 8-71 is not the same as code 8-65,” Fexil told him, struggling to maintain her
professionalism. “There are trace contaminants in both ships’ systems. They may not
affect performance while that system is self-contained, but they could interact with
other trace elements from the other vessel, and end up crippling both.”

“I understand that, but why not have us do a full purge to begin with?” MacNeal persisted.
“Or better yet, why couldn’t we set up something to filter out those—”

“Mister MacNeal,” Uhura cut off the young
Enterprise
engineer with a stern look. “You need only to understand what your orders are, not
why you are given them.”

MacLean looked as if he wanted to continue arguing his case, but muttered, “Yes, sir.”

“Mister MacNeal,” Uhura whispered into his ear, forcing him to turn back, “I don’t
expect there to be any more ‘language barrier’ issues between you and First Lieutenant
Fexil, am I understood?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” he said again. Uhura didn’t get to exert her authority often, but
she clearly had a knack for it, as MacNeal was suddenly in a rush to obey her orders.
With the distraction over, the rest of the team went back to the task at hand.

Fexil made a low, croak-like sound that Uhura took as a sigh. “I don’t understand
how you manage to keep a ship of this size running with the way you do things.”

“I have to apologize for Mister MacNeal,” Uhura said. “I know Scotty made it clear
to his entire team that they were to cooperate fully.”

“I’m not talking about just him,” Fexil told her. “Everything on this ship seems so
uneconomical. Too many words, too much time to explain things to all these people,”
she said, gesturing to the accessway they were now walking down, past other work teams.

“I suppose this is a bit of a culture shock for
you,” Uhura said as she followed alongside the Abesian.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Fexil answered. “Are all Starfleet ships like this?”

“No, the
Constitution
-class starships are actually the largest in service,” Uhura told her. “The
Oberth
and
Miranda
classes are more comparable to your Class III as far as crew size is concerned, though
you’ll find the same operating methods on those ships.”