Worlds in Collision (38 page)

“Yes?”

“When the time comes for the port nacelle to be detached…”

“Go on.”

“With all respect, sir, I hope she slingshots ye all the way to hell.”

As Styles sputtered, Scott squared his shoulders and marched unhurriedly from the observation lounge. He had to leave. Even if there were better ways to leave the service than by striking Styles, for the moment the engineer couldn't think of a single one.

Later, in the privacy of his quarters, Scott stared at his personal viewscreen. A small yellow light flashed in the upper right corner telling him he had a message waiting, but he was damned if he was going to give any more of his time to the mechanics who were working to pass this ship into the insensitive hands of a sanctimonious prig like Styles.

Beside his viewscreen was a tall green glass bottle of single malt whisky from Earth, unopened and unsynthesized. Once, during the tense stationkeeping orbits around Sarpeidon, Uhura had decrypted Mr. Spock's birthday from his personnel records and had passed it on to other select members of the crew. Scott had planned to surprise the science officer with a gift from the Scottish heather when Spock's next birthday came around. He had had no doubt that on such an occasion Mr. Spock would take one of his rare drinks of alcohol—and that he would have no objection to Scott and McCoy and the captain, and the other select crew members, finishing the remainder of the bottle for him. But Talin IV had come around before that birthday, and those who were to share Spock's gift were never to be together again.

Scott hefted the bottle, imagining what it would be like to open it and have it all to himself, drinking enough that Styles and the
Enterprise'
s ruin would drop away from him. Perhaps enough that he could see his friends across the table from him again, the mission continuing, all as it should be, as it was supposed to be, forever. But he knew that wasn't an answer and never would be.

He studied the bottle's label, reading of the peat and the centuries-old traditions, remembering all the other times he had shared its like with the captain, thinking of all the other worlds they had traveled to, and all the other worlds there were still left for them to visit.

“Och, you're Mr. Spock's birthday present and I'll not be opening ye till we're all sitting together as we belong. In uniform or not.” He laid the bottle on its side on his bunk, to protect it from any sudden lurches courtesy of the mechanics outside. He still had a few duties to attend to, even as chief engineer of a nonoperational ship. “Screen on.”

Scott's viewscreen came to life, still displaying the final transmission feed he had requested the night before. The text caption running beneath the image identified the transmission source as sensor satellite two, one of eight the
Enterprise
had placed into orbit around Talin IV, half a million kilometers distant from its moon, on behalf of Starfleet's First Contact Office.

The satellite was in a fixed, geostationary position above the planet's main ocean, and three months earlier Scott had seen the images it had obtained of fission-powered sea vessels following diverse trade and transportation routes. The visual resolution from 38,000 kilometers had been crisp enough to show individual Talin on the decks of their vessels, enabling the FCO to distinguish between fishing factories, freighters, and passenger ships. In other wavelengths, electromagnetic and otherwise, the satellites could also pick up the heat trails of submersible vehicles, deep beneath the oceans' surface, and even identify the nation states to which they belonged from manufacturing and design differences, and the weaponry each carried.

But now, the oceans of Talin IV were devoid of vessels, submersible or otherwise, and the weaponry the nation states had stockpiled had all been expended. Where the planet's sun could still shine through the few gaps in the globe-encircling clouds created by that weaponry, the once blue ocean was stained deep purple. An as-yet-unidentified mutation in a single-celled algaelike organism had blossomed throughout the world's seas, swiftly overwhelming the radiation-devastated ecosystem. Undoubtedly other ecological outrages were unfolding as dramatically throughout the rest of the planet's biosphere as well.

“Change views,” Scott said grimly and the screen flickered once, revealing a new image of the world from over the secondary temperate continent now, where the FCO had once concentrated their sampling runs. Scott recognized the distinctive southern coastline, but that was all. The major agricultural bands that stretched across the land mass were scorched and lifeless, as blackened as the battle damage that scarred the
Enterprise.
Once, the crops from that land had fed tens of millions.

Scott stared at the screen with grief and revulsion. At the Academy, all cadets were required to study the worlds that had been destroyed by their dominant species' wars and environmental mismanagement. Those harsh lessons were at the core of the Federation's underlying principles of respect for life in all forms. Even the Klingons knew how fortunate they were to have survived global warfare and ecological collapse to become spacefarers. So few self-aware, technological species had. The
Enterprise,
in her time, had visited enough of those barren worlds to engrave the lessons permanently in the hearts and minds of her crew: War was never an answer and life must be held sacred above all else. Only the Prime Directive came as close in importance in determining the goals and actions of the Federation.

And Scott still couldn't understand how such honorable ideals, in the hands of a captain who had dedicated his life to upholding them, could have possibly led to the horrifying obscenity of the dying world on the viewscreen.

But others could, it seemed. For the first time Scott noticed everything that was printed out on the screen to identify the feed: SENSOR SATELLITE FIVE / 310° LONG / 205° LAT / 00:91:24 / KIRK'S WORLD.

Scott slapped his hand against the base of the machine, hitting its manual power switch hard enough to make the screen shake. “Ye slimy sons o'…” His voice choked off in anger. He had heard the replacement crew using that hateful name for Talin IV, and now they had gone so far as to program it into the automated logs. Well, he'd program a worm to go through the computer and delete all references. He'd take Styles's name out of the duty roster as well, transfer him to kitchen operations.
I'll turn this ship upside down before I'll
…

“Och, what's the use?” Scott said to the silence of his room. He'd been thinking:
before I'll let them win.
But the truth was, they already had.

The message light kept blinking at him from the blank screen.
What could be left to tell me that would be worse than what I already know?
he thought.

“Computer: Present my messages, please.”

“Working,” the computer's familiar voice said. The ship's backup datastores had had enough shielding to escape the subspace pulse that had destroyed the computer system's main circuitry. Once the standard replacement components had been installed in the first stages of the
Enterprise'
s emergency repairs, full computer functions and memory had been restored with only a 1.5 second gap in the sensor readings preceding the pulse, which was the length of time it took dynamic memory to be written to permanent backup. Even with mortal wounds, she was a fine ship.

The viewscreen presented the image of an unencrypted ComSys transmission screen—a common method by which Starfleet personnel could receive personal messages over subspace. Scott's name was clearly encoded at the top of the screen, overprinting the blue background shield of the United Federation of Planets. The stardate showed it had been received less than an hour ago. The message was tagged as one of one, but the sender's name was not listed.

Trying not to fool himself into hoping it was a message from the captain, Scott asked the computer to play back the recorded transmission. The screen cleared again, but not to an image of the message's sender—simply a screen of black text on a white background. Scott leaned forward to read it.

Scott swore. “They broke him to a bloody
ensign?
What are they thinking of? How could—”

The viewscreen flashed the word “more.”

“Continue,” Scott said, and the message began to scroll.

“Screen
off,
computer. Screen bloody off!”

The viewscreen darkened instantly.

“Computer: Who had the gall to send that message to me?” Scott's voice trembled so badly that he wondered if the computer would recognize him.

“Message unattributed.”

Scott slowly and rhythmically pounded his fist on his work desk. “Aye, it would be, the cowards. It would be.” He wanted to put his fist through a bulkhead. He wanted to shout loudly enough that they'd hear him back at Command. He wanted a stage to tell the worlds of the injustice of all that had transpired. But McCoy had been right.

The doctor had begged to be court-martialed. He had even punched Vice Admiral Hammersmith in front of witnesses at Starbase 29 when he and Spock had been transferred to Technology Support. That's when McCoy had sent word back to Scott that it was obvious that none of them was going to be put through any type of trial, secret or otherwise. As far as Command was concerned, the less said about Talin IV, the less damage would be done to Starfleet. “They have better ways to get us out of the damned service,” McCoy had said to Scott in a subspace message.

And then the doctor had been the first to resign, without even going on report for striking an officer—proof as far as McCoy was concerned that Starfleet wasn't about to give any of them a public forum. Kirk followed McCoy's lead when Uhura had been jailed. Sulu and Chekov left together. Spock had been determined to fight from within the system, but it seemed that not even a Vulcan could stand up to the combined weight of Starfleet and the Federation Council. So, just as McCoy had said, the
Enterprise
Five had been banished from the service without incident, without trial, and without record. Starfleet had obtained almost everything that it had wanted.

I might as well give them the last of it,
Scott thought, opening his fist into a useless hand.
There's nothing left to fight for. Not from here, at least.

“Computer.”

“Working.”

“Prepare a hardcopy message to Lieutenant Styles,
U.S.S.
—no, make that to Vice Admiral Hammersmith, Starbase 29.” Scott would be damned before he would acknowledge Styles as master of this ship. Since Starbase 29 was the closest Federation administrative outpost to the Talin system and had been given authority over the
Enterprise'
s disposition, Scott reasoned that the base's commander was the next logical choice to address his message to. He thought Mr. Spock would agree.

“From Scott, etc. Message goes: Effective immediately, I wish to tender my resignation from Star—”

“Clarification,” the computer interrupted.

“Aye, what is it?”

“Starfleet Command Regulation 106, Paragraph 1, specifically identifies the role of the chief engineer and/or designated subsystem specialists as subject to preeminent exception to Term of Service Procedures as detailed in Starfleet Com—”

“Computer: Could ye digest that gobbledygook for me?”

“The chief engineer cannot resign while the
Enterprise
is undergoing a class-two refit.”

Scott put his elbow on the desk and rested his head on his hand. It wasn't just personnel like Styles, even Starfleet equipment was out to get him. But Scott had picked up a few tricks in his years with Kirk. Especially when it came to Kirk's way with computers. “Computer, if I resign, effective
immediately,
then I will no longer be the chief engineer when Vice Admiral Hammersmith receives my message, therefore he will not be empowered to prevent my resignation.”

But the computer didn't hesitate for a microsecond. “That is a circular argument.”

“Well, then, let me put it to you this way: If you don't transmit my message to Hammersmith, then I shall rewire you into a food processor.”

This time the computer remained silent.

“Well, computer? What are ye doing?”