The Rings of Tautee (13 page)

"That's not a problem, Mister Spock," Scotty said. "The ships can simply jump to warp ahead of the wave."

Spock nodded. "Agreed, Mister Scott. The ships can jump to safety." Spock folded his hands together. McCoy noticed that Spock always made that gesture when he was about to impart bad news. "The problem I was referring to has nothing to do with the starships. The resulting wave would pulverize the rest of the large asteroids in this system. There is a sixteen percent chance the wave would collapse the Tauteean sun."

Suddenly McCoy understood Spock's point.

His stomach clamped tightly, almost painfully. He could tell that Prescott didn't yet understand. She was staring at Spock.

Kirk's face went white and he dropped down into his chair. KerDaq frowned. Science Officer Lee glanced at Spock.

"I don't see the problem," Lee said. "Will the wave be powerful enough to destroy a neighboring system? By my calculations, even a wave of that 139 Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch intensity wouldn't have a destructive power be-yond three light-years. And there are no systems within that radius."

Spock shook his head. "That is correct.

Three point one light-years. Neighboring systems will feel it, but it would not be strong enough to cause damage at their distances."

Kirk sat staring ahead. McCoy knew he had no choice, and he obviously knew it. Unless they could come up wit h one more creative solution. The probability of that, McCoy knew, was next to nothing.

"Spock," McCoy asked, knowing the kind of chain reaction he was going to cause in Prescott, but knowing he had no way to stop it. He kept his hand on her back, supporting her. Her body was like a high-tension wire. Her subconscious knew what this was about, even if her conscious brain didn't.

"How many Tauteean survivors did you estimate to remain in those asteroids?"

"Thousands, Doctor."

"More survivors?" Prescott moved so fast that her chair nearly fell over. McCoy caught it.

She was in the center of the bridge in a heartbeat, confronting Kirk. "There are more survivors?"

Kirk only nodded.

"They'll be killed."

"Yes, they will," Spock said. He was watching her closely. McCoy took a step toward her, then stopped. He could do nothing more. He had to acknowledge the survivors, had to get the others searching for a solution, but that was all he could do.

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE "Your people created this problem. Such stupidity deserves death," KerDaq said.

Prescott spun and advanced on the Klingon.

She was half his height and one-quarter his weight, but something in her eyes made the Klingon lean backward.

McCoy stepped into her path and she stopped. He was glad she did. He didn't doubt she was much more powerful than she looked. She shot a glare at the Klingon, then returned her attention to Kirk.

"Captain," Prescott said. "You can't kill the rest of my people."

"If he doesn't, lass," Scotty said, "hundreds of billions more will die."

McCoy stared at Captain Kirk, who sat staring at the main screen, not saying a word, faced with a decision that wasn't really a decision.

Faced with the fact that he would have to order the last few thousand survivors of a race to their death.

Chapter Nineteen KIRK TURNED HIS BACK on his officers and stared at the screen before him. The rings were still expanding, grey and gold and white against the darkness of space. Sometimes beauty and destruction went hand in hand. That's what made destruction so seductive, because it could be beautiful.

Thousands and thousands of possible survivors. Even if he had a full day, he couldn't rescue them all. This was like those games that philosophers played[*thorngg'if you had to lose a friend to save a thousand unknown people, would you save the friend? Or let him die? Those philosophers never realized that people[*thorngg'real people[*thorngg'had to make these decisions all the time.

He had already made this decision once, and it still haunted him. He always dreamed about Edith

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE Keeler's face. In his dreams, he heard that scream cut off, followed by the thud. He felt the warmth of Bones in his arms, and saw the muddy brown building behind them, smelled the chemical stink of combustion engines in the air.

Let me go, Jim.

I could have saved her.

For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost. For the want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For the . . .

He shook himself, realising that only seconds had gone by when it felt like lifetimes.

A thousand lifetimes.

If he could go back and tell the boy from Iowa that leadership meant sending people to their deaths, if he could prevent that boy from succeeding at the Academy, from rising in the ranks[*thorn] He still wouldn't do it. Even though he had inadvertently sent several people to their deaths over the years as part of his role as captain, he would go through it all again.

Even Edith.

Especially Edith.

Because someone else might have made the other choice.

The wrong choice.

She would have understood the need to block Hitler, to let Kirk's history come to pass instead of hers.

She had been ahead of her time, Edith had, and that had been her doom.

All the kindness, all the good intentions in the world, couldn't change that.

She would understand this decision too, but she would rail against it. She would ask if there was 143 Dean Wesley Smithristine Kathryn Rusch some other way. And if there wasn't, she would say that even making a small difference was better than making no difference at all.

The bridge around him had grown deathly quiet.

He turned around and stared at Spock. "How much time do we have?"

"We must close the rift within the next one hundred twenty-one minutes," Spock said.

A small difference. . .

Kirk felt as if the decision were being made for him. He turned to the Farragut science officer, Richard Lee. "Have you informed Captain Bogle?"

. . . was better. . .

Lee nodded. "Yes, sir. He is waiting for your decision."

Kirk felt a surprised chuckle escape his lips. Smart man, that Bogle. Since the solution had been worked out on the Enterprise bridge, Bogle was not going to second-guess Kirk. But that left the decision about the survivors on Kirk's shoulders. And Bogle would take no responsibility.

. . . than no difference at all.

And there really wasn't a decision to make. But there had to be another way.

"Spock," he said, "can we slow down the growth of the rift long enough to get more ships here?"

"Negative, Captain."

"How about getting us a few more hours, long enough to rescue as many survivors as we can fit on both ships?"

"Captain," Spock said, using that tone. Kirk hated that tone. The tone that implied he didn't get it.

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE The problem was, he didn't. Not really. Why did the universe keep giving him these impossible choices?

"If we fire randomly into the rift," Spock was saying, "we would make matters worse. Instead of creating our own feedback loop, we would augment the existing loop and increase the size of the subspace waves. The only way we can close the rift is to fire an exactly timed burst of energy at the moment a wave emerges. We will still get one more wave, the destructive wave we've been discussing."

No choice. He had no choice at all.

Prescott pushed her way past Bones. Her tiny features contained a mountain of emotion. She made the Klingon look tame. "Captain, you can't let the rest of my people die."

He opened his mouth, closed it again. She didn't understand. It was too theoretical for her. She didn't know that other peoples existed in the universe until a few hours ago. She couldn't make the leap[*thorngg'no one could make the leap[*thorngg'f the thousand people she knew to the billions she didn't.

He knew that from vast, painful personal experience.

"I have to," he said, even though he knew convincing her was impossible. Her face would haunt him, her pleading, along with Edith's scream.

A small difference . . .

The idea he had been groping for hit him.

He leapt out of his chair, and moved quickly to

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch the rail, energizedag. "But with your help we can save a large number of your people."

"You're crazy, Kirk," KerDaq said.

"How?" McCoy asked, his face lighting up.

Kirk turned to Spock. "We have two hours?

Correct?"

"One hour and fifty-eight minutes," Spock said.

Kirk nodded, not caring about the missing two minutes. "With your help, Prescott, and with the help of the rest of your people on board, we should be able to pinpoint the most likely places for survivors.

Moon bases, sealed bases, spaceports. We have two ships. We can cram a large number of people in here if we have to." He smiled at Prescott. "At least enough to give your race a fighting chance to start over in another system."

Prescott's mouth opened. For a moment, he didn't think she would accept the proposal. Then she staggered slightly forward as stunned by his words.

"A chance is all we need, Captain."

"We have three ships," KerDaq said. "And a fourth will be operational within the hour."

Kirk felt his own eyebrows rise. He couldn't trust this, any more than KerDaq could trust him. Kirk moved over and stopped in front of the Klingon. Kirk said nothing, just stared at him.

After a moment KerDaq laughed. "We have to watch you," he said. "In case you pick up your superweapon. If we happen to pick up a few survivors in the process, so much the better."

Kirk laughed with him. "It seems Starfleet will allow us to help survivors destroyed by your superweapon."

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE KerDaq nodded, still half laughing. Then his eyes froze on Kirk. "No tricks, Kirk."

"No tricks. Have my science officer explain how to surf those subspace waves to reduce damage to your ships. We can't have one of your ships being destroyed by an asteroid. We need all four ships to close the rift."

KerDaq grunted. "We need no explanation.

You just be sure to survive."

"Deal," Kirk said.

Kirk turned to Prescott as KerDaq headed for the lift with Science Officer Lee. "We need locations fast."

Prescott, her eyes alive, her face beaming, jumped to Spock's side and began giving him directions.

Chapter Twenty THE BRIDGE OF THE Farragut was still dark.

Projeff hadn't gotten all the systems back on line. But the shields were operating at ninety percent of maximum capacity.

For what good that would do them.

Bogle sat in his command chair, his fingers tapping on the arm, thinking back to the days when both he and Kirk had served on this very ship. Somehow, mostly due to Kirk's brashness and ability to bend rules without breaking them all the way, he had been promoted. Bogle didn't totally understand how or why it had worked that way, but it had.

In those early days on the Farragut, they really hadn't been that close of friends. They'd played poker a lot together, but not much else. As officers

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE they had come aboard at the same time, starting their careers as equals. But it hadn't remained that way. It had bothered Bogle for years that Kirk had been promoted to captain ahead of him. In fact, Kirk had become the youngest Starfleet officer ever to be promoted to that rank.

And no matter how much Bogle tried to put that fact away, he had always held that against Kirk.

And he most likely always would.

Now, here he was, captain of the Farragut, Kirk's old ship. And what was he doing? He was letting decisions be made by Kirk, of all people.

Sitting here, now, Bogle felt that by deferring to Kirk regarding what to do with the Tauteeans he was putting himself and his career at a personal risk.

Kirk wasn't going to set back Bogle's career. He would make sure of that.

His science officer, Richard Lee, hadn't been back two minutes before Bogle realized what Kirk had set them all up for.

"We're supposed to do what?" Bogle asked.

Lee was standing beside him, a flush on his light skin. He obviously had agreed with the decision and he had known what his captain's reaction would be.

The other members of the bridge crew watched in wonder.

"We're going to rescue as many survivors as possible in the next one hour and forty-eight minutes," Lee repeated. "Then we close the rift and get out of here."

Bogle closed his eyes and leaned his head back.

The edge of the seat felt hard. He had just had his

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch chair recushioned and it still felt hard. "Has Kirk ever heard of the Prime Directive?"

"It came under consideration," Lee said cautiously.

"That's good to hear," Bogle said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He should have expected this. That was what kept running through his mind.

He should have expected Kirk to throw all the rules out the window.

The thing of it was, Bogle's heart agreed with him. It was Bogle's mind[*thorngg'and his dedication to Starfleet[*thorngg't was having the trouble. The Prime Directive should be the most important rule the Federation had. It should be much, much stronger than Kirk and the others treated it. But at the moment that was only his opinion. Starfleet seemed to take a much more relaxed attitude toward it.

"Get me Kirk," Bogle said. He gave Lee a hard stare and then turned his back on his science of ficer.

"Aye, sir," Gustavson replied quickly.

Then after just a moment she said, "On screen, sir."

Bogle stood and stepped toward the screen as the flushed face of Kirk appeared. Before Kirk could even say a word, Bogle said, "The Prime Directive won't let you do this, Captain."

Kirk had started to smile and suddenly the smile was gone. "What are you saying, Kelly?"

Kirk was trying to pull friendship now and all that did was make Bogle even angrier. This wasn't a matter for friendship, as if they were ever friends. i50 THE RINGS OF TAUTEE Kirk might treat his crew like a bunch of friends, but Bogle believed in maintaining discipline and following the rules. And right now one of those rules was being broken[*thorngg'in his opinion.