The Rings of Tautee (14 page)

"Captain," Bogle said, forcing his voice to re-main clear and level. "It is clearly against the intent of the Prime Directive to rescue any more of these survivors."

Kirk took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "They sent out a distress signal. We responded and will continue to respond."

"And so you intend to use that to get around the Prime Directive?"

Kirk frowned at Bogle. "I plan on using whatever means I can to rescue as many lives as I can."

Bogle stared at Kirk. Until that moment he hadn't realized just how much he hated Kirk for moving ahead of him so fast. But he couldn't let the hate get in the way of doing his job. And Kirk did have a point. The Tauteeans had sent out a distress call. It was a clear way of getting around the Prime Directive, at least the way it was being interpreted at the moment by Starfteet and James Kirk.

But he couldn't let his opinion of how the Prime Directive should be followed go so easily.

Inside he knew he would help with the rescue, but he also knew it was against the true focus of the Prime Directive.

"You may be court-martialed," Bogle said.

"Didn't you hear a word I said? This is against the intent of our number-one rule. Neither one of our

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch ships should rescue any more survivors. They destroyed themselves and that is the natural way of things for some races."

Kirk snorted and his face got red. He stepped closer to the screen. "Listen to me, Captain Bogle. I may very well be court-martialed. But I have over an hour to rescue survivors and I'm going to pull every one I can out of those rocks. If I pay the price, fine. At least I'll be able to sleep at night."

Bogle nodded. It was time to let the argument re/gg*thorngg'until a later time.

"All right, Captain. You win . . . this time. We will do our best to help."

Kirk looked as if he was about to say something more, then realised what Bogle had said and nodded. "Good. Kirk out."

The screen went blank and then quickly came back up. The destruction of the Tauteean system spread out before Bogle. Three Klingon battle cruisers now grouped near the Enterprise.

Bogle turned slowly and sat down. The silence on the bridge was almost stifling. Kirk was going to go ahead and attempt a rescue and there was nothing Bogle was going to be able to do to stop him. So he might as well join him. As Kirk had said, they had asked for help. It was all the loophole he needed.

Then when they were done, they would close the rift and head for Starbase l like. And there he would begin work to make sure the letter of the Prime Directive was followed in the future.

And if Captain Kirk broke it again, he would be the youngest captain ever to lose his post.

Chapter Twenty-one KIRK TURNED FROM the screen and clenched his fists. Bogle had always been a stickler for rules. Always.

Bogle of all people should have known that rules weren't the answer to everything.

Sometimes they made the problem worse.

Like in this case.

The Prime Directive no longer applied.

The culture no longer existed.

Of all the damn shortsighted egotistical times to have a philosophical discussion.

Kirk swung around and sat down. Around him the other crew members pretended that whatever was going on at their station required their full and immediate attention. Even Prescott had the com1s3 Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch mon sense to remain quiet as she stood near the science station.

"Captain," Spock said, breaking into the deadly silence of the bridge as he stepped down to his accustomed place beside Kirk. "Captain Bogle is right. Our rescue mission is in direct conflict with the intent of the Prime Directive."

Kirk's fists became so tight that the skin on the back of his fingers pulled. Spock knew better. This argument was wrong.

On the main screen the scene of complete destruction spread out in front of Kirk.

"Spock," he said, pointing at the screen. "You don't really believe any Tauteeans could survive after the rift is closed."

""There is no chance, sir, that their civilisation will continue here. But that has no bearing on the Prime Directive. This race caused its own destruction. The Prime Directive expressly forbids us from rescuing a race that destroys itself. The theory is that such a race could never become civilised."

"I know the theory, Spock." Kirk just didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

"Not civilised?" Prescott asked. Her voice carried over the entire bridge. Kirk did not turn to face her. He couldn't look at her at the moment. "Who are you to judge whether or not we are civilised?"

"I was merely stating the main directive that we operate under, madam," Spock said, sounding like a polite schoolboy. "The Prime Directive forbids us from interfering with a culture that has not reached a certain level of technical sophistication. 154 THE RINGS OF TAUTEE We are even forbidden from preventing such a race from destroying itself."

"Why?" she demanded. "To keep the population down in the universe? So that you people can control more of it?"

"No," Spock said. "It is not that simple.

It[*thorn]" "Every race," Kirk said, staring at the growing rings on the screen, "that has joined the Federation went through a self-destructive period. My people did so in the twentieth century, and nearly destroyed themselves hundreds of times. We survived it, on our own, and gained wisdom in doing so. Without that wisdom, we would not be here."

Staring at that[*thorngg'the destruction Prescott and her theories caused.

She was suddenly beside him. He could feel a stir of wind caused by her arrival. She leaned over the arm of his captain's chair, and he finally understood how she had forced a Klingon to back down. "You would let the rest of my people die and doom my race simply because of a rule?"

Kirk's mouth was dry. He couldn't answer her.

But Spock could. "The Prime Directive leaves us no choice, at least as we understand this situation at the moment."

Kirk broke his gaze away from Prescott and frowned at Spock. Even Spock disliked this.

Spock was trying to give him an out, in his own Spock-like fashion.

"However, Captain," Spock said, "I would recommend that we not follow the Prime Directive."

"What?" Kirk asked, actually surprised.

Spock nodded. "In this instance, the Tauteeans

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch did send us a distress signal. They did ask for our help."

"I understand," Kirk said. It was technically a legal way to get those survivors. But it wasn't really enough.

"Captain, I[*thorn]" Prescott snapped, but Kirk help up his hand and stopped her from saying any more. He didn't need her badgering him at thi s moment. He had to think. He got out of his chair and approached the screen. The debris field's slowly forming rings were stupendous in size, and in the amount of destruction it took to form them. In just over an hour and a half the Enterprise, the Farragut, and two of the Klingon ships would close the subspace rift caused by these Tauteean people. And in so closing the rift would send out one more huge, destructive wave that would completely wipe out any chance of the Tauteean people's rebuilding or rescuing themselves.

But by rescuing the Tauteean survivors, he was not only technically violating the Prime Directive, but putting every man, woman, and child in the Federation at risk. If something happened to the Enterprise during such a rescue operation, there wouldn't be enough firepower in the remaining ships to close the rift in time.

No matter how Kirk looked at it, Bogle was right. Rescuing more survivors was wrong. But why did he have to be the one actually killing them by closing the rift?

Then he heard himself say that out loud.

"I'm killing them."

He turned around and faced Spock, who had

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE moved back up to the science station. "Spock, by closing the rift, we are actually killing the remaining survivors. Right?"

"That is correct, Captain," Spock said.

"They would not survive such a wave."

"So follow me on this," Kirk said. "We are not allowed by regulation to kill other races. That's genocide, Spock. Earth outlawed genocide in the Geneva Conventions of the twentieth century. Genocide is something so hideous, so unthinkable that every member of the Federation outlawed it centuries ago."

He could feel the excitement starting to return.

He knew he'd found the solution, the justification he could live with. He didn't know if it would hold up at a court-martial, but it would hold up in his own mind.

Spock frowned, clearly thinking. "If we do not close the rift, the Tauteean survivors will eventually die over the next five days," Spock said, "as the subspace waves increase in intensity."

"We must close the rift to save the lives of the rest of this quadrant," Kirk said. "But our actions, without a rescue operation, will kill the Tauteean race."

"That is correct, Captain," Spock said.

"Therefore our actions would be killing the Tauteeans, not their actions."

Spock raised an eyebrow and tempted his fingers. "Technically we would be killing them," he said.

"It would therefore seem logical that we must rescue as many Tauteean survivors as possible," Kirk said, letting his voice rise in triumph.

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch "Actually, Captain, it makes no difference if our actions kill them or theirs do. The results are the same. They will die[*thorn]" "But it does make a difference, Spock."

Kirk was leaning forward. He could feel the excitement course through him. This was right. He knew it. "If with their own actions, they destroy themselves, the Prime Directive applies. If our actions destroy them, we have a duty[*thorngg'a legal responsibility[*thorn)'ffmake certain they are provided for."

"He is right, Mister Spock," Sulu said from his console. "We have a duty."

"Technically, Mister Sulu, he is correct. But legal technicalities are often twists of a phrase, small games made to keep scholars happy...."

"Am I to understand, then, Mister Spock, that you do not want to rescue the survivors?" Kirk asked.

Spock tilted his head back, then rested his folded hands across his stomach. "Captain, all life is precious."

Kirk grinned. He turned to Prescott, whose face held a mixture of anger and puzzlement.

"Can you give Mister Spock possible locations of survivors?"

She almost beamed, she was smiling so hard. "I most certainly can," she said.

Kirk turned and sat down again. "Mister Sulu, lay in a course to the first location given to you by Mister Spock. We have survivors to fmd in a very short time."

"Yes, sir," Sulu said.

"And send Captain Bogle alternate locations," Kirk said. He'd played poker with Kelly Bogle 158 TEIE RINGS OF TAUTEE before. He knew that underneath that rough, bythe-book exterior lay a huge heart. Captain Bogle would do his best to help, now that he had decided to go along.

Kirk dropped back into his command chair. "And Mister Spock. . . relay the outcome of the discussion we just had to Captain Bogle and Starfleet. We may as well cover ourselves."

"Yes, sir," Spock said.

In front of him was a screen full of a destroyed system. They were going back in there to find survivors and the decision felt right.

"Ready when you are," he said.

Chapter Twenty-two IT FELT LIKE DROWNING, only there was no water around her. Ergi lay on her back on the cool rock. The air had a thick feeling to it, stuffy. Breathing was hard. It felt better to take small breaths than large ones.

Sleeping would feel good too.

But she knew if she slept she would die.

Around her lay her family[*thorngg'her mother, her daughter, and her mate[*thorngg'z well as their friends and colleagues. Some had passed out against dark rock. Others had fallen asleep normally, their chests still rising and falling, but the breaths obviously shallow.

She sat, her arms wrapped around her knees, and watched them, guarding the only light that still 160 THE RINGS OF TAUTEE worked. She wasn't sure if they would die first or if the light's reserve power would fail.

It had seemed like such a good idea a week ago.

They had seen the destruction of the ninth planet. The waves rippled out from it, and she had projected, using the figures she could get from the government and her own calculations, that her planet, the sixth, would suffer the same effect.

Unless she found a way to survive.

Chunks of the ninth planet had floated off. People who were underground would survive until rescue teams found them. That's what she told her mate. He had told others, and they had crowded into the Er Mineral Mine near their home. They had stored food and other supplies, and sealed the entrance, thinking a week's worth of air would be enough.

It wasn't.

She hadn't believed, hadn't counted on the fact, that this crisis was bigger than her people. Even as her family crawled into the mine shaft, she believed that the scientists would find a way to solve the crisis.

A week, tops.

But a week hadn't been long enough. And one of the men, who had brought a portable computer with him, reported that the other planets and moons were going as well.

She knew what that meant Even if they found a solution, it might be months, years before anyone found her.

And she simply hadn't prepared for that.

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch She put her hand on her daughter's head and smoothed back her hair. The girl's skin was clammy. Her lips were blue. She would be dead soon, and it was probably a merciful thing.

Then[*thorn)'suddenly tilde the entire room glowed.

Ergi rubbed her eyes, but froze in midmovement.

No one had told her that when all the oxygen disappeared, she would see multicolored lights.

But she did.

What a beautiful way to die.

Tijer stood at the window, staring out into space.

He had been here for nearly a week now, his stomach twisting as he watched Space Station Alpha spin away from its own system. The planets were gone now, forming rings around the sun. The waves continued, but somehow the station held together. When he wasn't in the medical unit, he was here, in the corridor, staring out the windows at the destruction beyond.