Текст книги "Serpents Among the Ruins "

Автор книги: David George

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Minus Ten: Foxtrot

The asteroid hung in space like an afterthought, a barren, craggy rock the universe seemed to have flung together for no particular purpose. Foxtrot XIII, irregularly but unremarkably shaped, bore no conspicuous variations from any of its dozen namesakes. Less than five hundred kilometers along its greatest dimension, it appeared lifeless and alone against the glittering backdrop of stars.

No, not alone, Lieutenant Commander Rafaele Buonarroti saw as he peered at a monitor in one of Enterprise’s cargo holds. On the small viewscreen, a gleam of light had emerged from beyond the asteroid, a distinctive gray-white shape. Enterprisehad been scheduled to rendezvous here with Agamemnon,but Buonarroti would have immediately identified the ship—or at least its class—anyway. The curved engine nacelles of the Odysseusvessels represented an experimental Starfleet design three decades old—a design that, while functional, had been abandoned when theorized efficiencies in warp-field generation had never materialized. Only two of the eight ships built remained in active service, and Buonarroti had heard recent talk that Agamemnonitself might soon be decommissioned. For now, though, the old vessel kept company with the dun, seemingly empty asteroid.

Seemingly empty, Buonarroti knew, but not actuallyempty.

Beside him, Captain Harriman reached down and pressed a touchpad on the detached console into which the monitor was set. The image shifted, bringing Foxtrot XIII and Agamemnoncloser. The old ship measured only about two-thirds as long as Enterprise,Buonarroti recalled from the specs, and carried a corresponding crew complement of approximately five hundred. But despite its smaller size and the still-ultramodern appearance of its bowed nacelles, Agamemnonlooked bulky and boxy to him, particularly when compared with the sleek, streamlined form of Enterprise.

“Are we ready to go once we’re in range, Rafe?” the captain asked, pronouncing Buonarroti’s nickname with a short aand long e: Rah-fee.The two men stood on the other side of the console from the expansive square stage of a cargo transporter. Buonarroti looked up from the monitor and over at Harriman before responding.

“Yes, we’re all set, Captain,” he said, then peered around at the cargo that Enterprisehad hauled here from Space Station KR-3. Throughout the hold, outsized metal containers of various shapes had been stacked high. Security mechanisms, a trio of green lights glowing steadily on each, had been affixed to all of the containers. One light indicated an engaged magnetic lock, the others the active states of sensor and transporter inhibitors. If any cloaked Romulan vessels penetrated the nearby Neutral Zone to gather intelligence—and Starfleet Command believed such reconnaissance to be commonplace these days—then their crews would be able neither to scan the contents of the containers nor to transport them away; the inhibitors obstructed sensors and prevented the containers from being beamed from anywhere but directly atop a transporter pad. “I’ve already received the coordinates from the outpost,” Buonarroti told Harriman, “and I’ve modified the transporter protocols not to record the details of what we beam down.” He paused, then added, “La lotta continua.”

Owing to his appreciation for his heritage, Buonarroti had an affinity for employing Italian phrases. Combined with his slightly drawn-out cadences—common to humans raised in the Alpha Centauri system—it made for a distinctive way of speaking. He remembered, back when he had first been assigned to Enterprise,the captain’s inability to contain a smile whenever Buonarroti had spiced his dialogue with Italian, but Harriman had long ago become accustomed to such verbal idiosyncrasies. Buonarroti had served under the captain for fifteen years now, the last half as his chief engineer.

Now, not only didn’t Harriman smile, but his jaw tightened. “I’m afraid that’s an understatement, Rafe,” he said. A saying Buonarroti used often enough that just about everybody on board understood its meaning, La lotta continuatranslated as The struggle continues.

The captain gazed around the hold at the cargo containers, his expression drawn, his body language hinting at his weariness. The last couple of years had been difficult for all of Starfleet, with the uncertain relations among the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons threatening the peace more and more each day. Seven months ago, immediately after the Romulans had taken the world of the Koltaari, Enterprisehad been assigned to Foxtrot Sector to patrol the Federation side of the Neutral Zone and conduct defense-readiness drills at the thirteen outposts in the region. And just nine weeks ago, Enterprisehad been ordered to team with Agamemnonto deliver enhanced weaponry to the outposts and to rotate outpost personnel. Buonarroti knew that Starfleet crews stationed full-time along the Neutral Zone were routinely reassigned to other posts in order to minimize fatigue and stress, a policy Starfleet Command had recently reinforced by choosing to rotate out entire crews from the outposts, at shorter intervals.

The incongruity of the operation, as far as Buonarroti was concerned, lay in the anxiety it had produced in the crew of Enterpriseand, he was sure, in the crew of Agamemnon. Enterpriseferried weapons from Space Station KR-3 to the Foxtrot asteroids and then returned to the starbase with the reassigned outpost crews, while Agamemnondelivered the new crews and also provided special technicians to install the new weapons. The tasks served as constant reminders of the precarious state of interstellar relations, and the repetition of those tasks for each outpost only helped to heighten the feeling of dread aboard ship—probably for no one more so than the captain, Buonarroti thought. Beyond carrying the burdens of his crew, Harriman also must have felt pressure from Starfleet Command; each time Enterprisearrived at KR-3, he would invariably be called into hours of meetings with the top brass. Buonarroti knew of the captain’s experiences with the Romulans through the years, and the engineer was sure that the admirals wanted to make use of whatever the captain had learned as a result of those experiences.

“Well, it sure looks like an impressive amount of firepower,” Buonarroti observed optimistically. Although Starfleet Command had classified the contents of the containers, it had been an open secret that, in recent days, the Federation had been designing and manufacturing improved—and perhaps even new—armaments. He only hoped that the weapons experts on the Federation side of the Neutral Zone performed their jobs better than their counterparts in the Romulan and Klingon Empires, and that if shots eventually did blaze through the darkness of space, the enhanced weaponry would prove decisive for the UFP.

“Yes, it does look impressive,” Harriman said.

“I’d love to see what Starfleet Tactical’s come up with,” Buonarroti told the captain. He had voiced such desires before, during Enterprise’s runs to the other outposts. He understood that times of military necessity often resulted inimpressive leaps of technological progress, and as an engineer—as with other engineers he knew, and perhaps allengineers everywhere—he enjoyed getting his hands on whatever advanced equipment he could. That had been one of the primary reasons he had joined Starfleet: on a starship, the opportunities to work on different technologies were numerous—from life-support and environmental control, to warp and impulse engines, to weapons and defensive systems, to sensors and scientific equipment. For him, Enterpriseessentially constituted an enormous playground.

“Sorry, Rafe,” Harriman said. “You know how careful Command is being these days.” As always happened during periods of interstellar tensions, suspicions had been raised about the possibility of Romulan operatives having infiltrated not only the Federation, but Starfleet as well. Such occurrences, Buonarroti knew, were not without precedent. The most notorious episode of Romulan espionage had occurred just three years ago at the Antares Advanced Design Laboratories, where Starfleet worked to develop, among other things, means of penetrating the latest cloaking technology; a woman who’d been working there for several years had been unmasked as an Empire spy. And Buonarroti knew that Starfleet had conducted its own covert operations in Romulan space; at least as far back as forty years ago, another Enterprisehad violated the Neutral Zone and two Starfleet officers—Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, if Buonarroti remembered his history correctly—had purloined a cloaking device, an incident that had sparked the conflicting consequences of increasing friction between the two powers, and at the same time averting war because of the technological parity engendered by the theft.

“I understand Starfleet’s concerns, Captain,” Buonarroti said. But before he could say more, two short electronic tones interrupted him, followed by Commander Sulu’s voice on the ship’s intercom.

“Bridge to Captain Harriman,”she said.

Harriman touched a control on the console, opening the channel. “This is Harriman,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“We’ve arrived at the outpost along with theAgamemnon,” Sulu said. Buonarroti glanced down at the monitor and saw that Enterprisenow orbited Foxtrot XIII. “Both Commander Sasine and Captain Rodriguez have signaled that they’re ready to begin.”Buonarroti looked up at the captain, but Harriman gave no indication of anything but professionalism. Still, Buonarroti assumed that the captain’s heart must have begun to beat a bit faster at the mention of Sasine’s name; the two had been romantically involved for eight years now. Sasine had served for a brief tour of duty aboard Enterprise,but she and Harriman hadn’t become a couple during that time. She’d left the ship after less than a year as second officer to take on the position of exec aboard New York,and from there she’d moved on to commanding various starbases and outposts. After her time on Enterprise,she and the captain had met again at a Starfleet briefing on Romulan activity, and they’d been together ever since, although usually across many light-years.

“Acknowledged,” Harriman said evenly. “Lower the shields, Demora, and inform Amina and Esteban”—Commander Sasine and Captain Rodriguez, Buonarroti knew—“that we’ll commence transporting down the matériel immediately.”

“Yes, sir,”came Sulu’s brisk reply.

“Harriman out.” The channel closed with a brief tone, and then the captain said, “Let’s get going, Rafe. We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

“Sir, are you sure you don’t want me to assign somebody else to this duty?” Buonarroti asked. He’d made the same suggestion during Enterprise’s stops at each of the other Foxtrot outposts, but the captain had always insisted on taking on the task himself, and he did so again now.

Harriman bent and retrieved a meter-long device covered on one long side with grappling pads, and with a cylindrical handle at each end: an antigrav unit. Buonarroti stooped and picked up his own antigrav, then followed the captain to the nearest cargo container. The two men would use the antigravs to move each of the containers onto the transporter pad so that they could then be beamed down to the outpost. It would not be backbreaking work, but it did require an effort to maneuver the massive containers without allowing them to drift into a bulkhead. There were also a lot of containers, and it would likely take the two officers more than six hours to complete the task. Having already completed a full day shift, Buonarroti knew that he would be exhausted when they had finished in the hold. Still, he felt privileged to have been selected by the captain for the task. Because of the sensitive nature of this mission, Harriman obviously felt most comfortable doing it himself, and other than the three officers at the top of Enterprise’s chain of command—Captain Harriman, Commander Sulu, and Lieutenant Commander Linojj—Buonarroti carried the highest security clearance on the ship; coupling that with his transporter expertise, the captain had clearly believed him to be best suited to assist.

At first, the two men worked in relative silence, the only sounds the slightly metallic clanks of their footfalls on the decking, the low hum of the antigravs, and the treble whine of the transporter. Having been through this process twelve times previously, Buonarroti and Harriman set to the job with a clear sense of the effort needed, along with a grim seriousness that naturally accompanied preparing for war. For his part, Buonarroti simply wanted to get past this duty, not just here at Foxtrot XIII, but at all of the outposts. The entire crew of Enterpriseno doubt felt the same, he thought, and then realized that the captain must actually have looked forward to arriving at Foxtrot XIII.

“We’re making good time,” Buonarroti said as he and Harriman settled an enormous cubic container, more than four meters on a side, onto the transporter pad.

“We are,” Harriman said, deactivating his antigrav with a tap to its control pad. “We must be getting good at this.”

“Maybe we can sign on as stevedores on a merchant ship if our Starfleet careers don’t work out,” Buonarroti said with a chuckle.

“Some days, Rafe,” Harriman said, “that doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

Buonarroti deactivated his antigrav, pulled it from the surface of the container, and then walked with the captain back over to the console. He rechecked the settings for about the hundredth time, triggered the sequence, then slid the three activator controls up the lengths of their channels. The high-pitched quaver of the transporter filled the hold, and then the container shimmered out of its existence on Enterprise.

As the two men made their way to the next container, Buonarroti said, “I think I know another reason why at least one of us is moving so quickly.”

“Oh?” Harriman said without looking up, instead simply reenergizing his antigrav and setting it against one surface of a dodecahedral container that reached to just above their heads.

“You’ve got a date tonight, don’t you?” Buonarroti asked, smiling.

Now Harriman glanced up, and Buonarroti was pleased to see a grin creep onto the captain’s face. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I do.”

“Well, say hello to the commander for me,” Buonarroti said. He switched his antigrav back on and attached it to the container.

“Somehow, Rafe,” Harriman told him, “I don’t think your name’s going to come up tonight.”

Buonarroti laughed, a hearty guffaw that echoed loudly through the hold. “No,” he said, “I don’t suppose it will.”

Harriman took hold of the handles of his antigrav, and Buonarroti did the same. “All right, one, two,” the captain said, and on “three,” the two men hefted the container, then slowly maneuvered it toward the transporter pad. “I’ve been looking forward to this time with Amina for quite a while,” Harriman said as they moved.

“I believe it,” Buonarroti said. Even though Enterprisehad been in Foxtrot Sector for the last half-year or so, the crew’s grueling schedule had not allowed for any downtime at any of the outposts. Harriman and Sasine had seen each other for only the shortest of times, and only on official business. The captain had stayed focused during that time, Buonarroti knew, but he also guessed that Harriman would have greatly anticipated being able to spend time again with his innamorata.Today, after they had finished transporting the containers down to the outpost, that time would finally arrive. As the specialists aboard Agamemnontook over to install the weapon systems, the Enterprisecrew would have a day of light duties before beaming up the current Foxtrot XIII crew in favor of their replacements. “How long has it been since you’ve seen each other?” Buonarroti asked. “I mean, since you’ve spent any significant time together?”

“Eleven months,” Harriman said, peering around the container at Buonarroti. “Eleven and a half, actually. We took that vacation on Pacifica.”

“That’s right,” Buonarroti said, remembering back a year ago to when both the captain and the executive officer had taken leave, and Lieutenant Commander Linojj had taken temporary command of the ship for nearly a month. “What I recall about that trip of yours is that you came back to the Enterprisemore exhausted than when you left it.”

Harriman stepped up onto the transporter platform and moved slowly across it. “That’s right,” he said. “Amina and I never managed to relax, but we sure had a wonderful time.” The captain’s eyes shifted upward, and Buonarroti imagined him visualizing that romantic trip. “We swam and sailed, and hiked the Peragoit ruins. And almost every night, we ended up dancing at this bistro in Jennita…it’s this little town that sits at the top of a cliff overlooking the ocean.” The beautiful cobalt blue waters of Pacifica were well known throughout the Federation. “And the dance floor in the club actually projected out beyond the edge of the cliff…it was breathtaking. And our bungalow—” Harriman stopped, looked over at Buonarroti, and blinked, apparently embarrassed by his reverie. “Sorry,” he said, and then, “One, two, three.” As before, they coordinated their movements, this time lowering the container to the transporter pad.

“It’s all right, Captain,” Buonarroti said. “I’ve been to Pacifica, so I know that it’s conducive to amore.”

“It is,” Harriman agreed, “but right now, I’ll take that hunk of gray rock out there. It may be an asteroid with a military base buried beneath its surface, but for me, it’s an oasis in the desert.”

“I understand,” Buonarroti said. “Don’t forget to sip a little water for the rest of us.”

“Don’t worry, Rafe,” Harriman told him. “Once we’re finally done here and return to Space Station KR-3, I’ve put in for at least a few days of R and R for the crew.”

“That’s great, Captain,” Buonarroti said. “I think we need it.”

“I do too.”

It took them just short of six hours to empty the cargo hold, a tiring exercise despite the use of the antigravs. It put an end to a long day for Buonarroti, but despite his fatigue, he felt energized for Harriman. For so long now, the captain had been Starfleet’s point man in readying for battle with the Romulans, and Buonarroti could see the heavy days weighing on his captain. So as much as war might be waiting for them all in the near future, Buonarroti felt happy that, at least right now, on Foxtrot XIII, the captain’s love would be waiting for him.

Harriman’s footsteps echoed along the series of corridors that led from the transporter room to the section of the subterranean outpost that housed crew quarters. The walls, floor, and ceiling extended away from him in matte shades of leaden gray, interrupted every few meters by support columns and beams, along with an occasional access panel. The stark illumination provided by the overhead lighting panels did little to liven the sterile atmosphere. The cold, colorless setting seemed not only unoccupied, but uninhabitable, a man-made congener of the desolate asteroid surface somewhere above.

Of the 271 Starfleet personnel stationed here at Foxtrot XIII, Harriman knew, a third would be on duty at their stations, a third would be asleep, and the rest, while off duty, would likely be in either the mess hall, the gymnasium, or their quarters. This far from the main body of the Federation, and this close to the Neutral Zone—and to the Klingon border, for that matter—few opportunities for recreation would present themselves. The significant power demands of the small outpost for its sensor, defense, and weapon systems rendered most luxuries unsustainable. Harriman could readily understand Command’s rationale for regularly reassigning the crews of such installations. Unlike their counterparts aboard starships, who could travel to any number of locations for shore leave, those who staffed distant outposts were effectively bound by their responsibilities to them—bound to fragments of frozen rock beside borders that could in a flash become the front lines in a war.

The corridor jogged to the right, past an exposed conduit that had obviously been repaired recently; a patchwork of optical fibers emerged from several openings and wound around like the web of a disoriented spider. Harriman sidled by, distinguishing another characteristic of duty at the periphery of the Federation, namely the necessity of performing makeshift maintenance. Supply ships never called often enough.

As he continued on, he thought of his own crew. Though not posted to a base along the Neutral Zone, they had been at the vanguard of the Federation’s delicate and dangerous contacts with the Romulan Empire for years now, without any real respite. Prior to spending the last seven months in the precarious Foxtrot Sector, there had been the Romulan occupation of the Koltaari, and before that, Enterprisehad been embroiled in half a dozen other tense ship-to-ship encounters with Imperial vessels.

And then there had been the clandestine mission to Devron II. That had not involved the entire crew—only Sulu had accompanied him from Enterprise,together with five officers from other Starfleet postings—but that had been a year ago, and it brought home to Harriman the reality of just how long this strife with the Romulans had been plaguing the Federation. The operation on Devron II—a planet in the heart of the Neutral Zone—had been especially brutal. Harriman remembered trying to mitigate the horror of the experience for himself by believing that the efforts of his team would ultimately prevent hostilities from breaking out. Instead, good women and men had died—and worse—for nothing; all this time later, war still impended.

One of the officers who had served at Devron II had been Commander Michael Paris—known as “Iron Mike,” an odd moniker for so frail-looking a man, Harriman had thought at first, although the commander’s constitution and determination had soon explained the nickname. Paris had taken leave from his position as first officer of Agamemnon—the same ship in orbit about Foxtrot XIII right now—in order to take part in the covert assignment, and he’d comported himself admirably. He’d risked his life to save Sulu’s, and it had been his courageous and quick-thinking actions that had allowed the team—or what had been left of it—to escape the Devron system. Ironically, Harriman thought, in order for his current mission regarding the Romulans to succeed, he would once again require the assistance of Iron Mike Paris.

He reached an intersection. Down the cross-corridor, to both the left and right, numerous doors led to crew quarters. He checked for the number of Amina’s cabin on a directory mounted on the wall, and confirmed its location down the corridor to the right. He turned in that direction and hurried on.

What Harriman had told his chief engineer earlier, back in Enterprise’s cargo hold, had been no exaggeration: he’d been looking forward to this time with Amina—to anytime with Amina—for quite a while. They hadn’t been together since their week on Pacifica a year ago; although his crew believed he’d been there the entire month he’d been away from Enterprise,he’d actually spent the first three weeks on the Devron II mission.

Since they’d become involved, this had been the longest period during which they had spent no time together. They’d sent missives and messages to each other often, and after Enterprisehad been posted to Foxtrot Sector, they’d actually been able to speak to each other in real time on several occasions. They had even seen each other in person once or twice, but because of Enterprise’s rigorous schedule along the Neutral Zone, only briefly, and only as part of their Starfleet duties.

Harriman reached the door to Amina’s quarters and stopped. The sounds of his steps continued on for a second or two and then faded to silence, as though swallowed up by the corridor. He tugged at the base of his red uniform jacket, straightening it, then lifted a hand to the epaulet on his right shoulder, making sure that it was secured properly. Satisfied, he reached for the door signal. His heart raced. He felt like a schoolboy, arriving to collect his date for the prom.

A moment later, the door panel slid open with a soft rush of air. Inside sat a small room that belonged unmistakably to Amina. Harriman stepped inside, his gaze drawn to the wall directly across from him, to a mounted copy of an immigration certificate to the Martian Colonies. He’d seen the document before, and knew that it helped to tell the story of Amina’s grandmother’s grandmother, the first of her forebears to leave Earth. Next to the certificate hung a poem, a sonnet entitled “For Now and Ever”; Harriman had written it for Amina just six months into their relationship.

The wall lay covered by those objects and others—by artwork; by small, semicircular shelves laden with numerous and varied artifacts; but mostly by framed photographs. Harriman saw Amina’s parents at the party their children had thrown to celebrate the couple’s fiftieth wedding anniversary. He saw her siblings—a brother and three sisters—two of whom he’d met, and two of whom he’d only ever seen in pictures. Amina’s beautiful, smiling face peeked out from a few of the prints, but the images were mostly of others, of those people who meant something special to her. He saw himself, in his Starfleet Academy graduation picture—a painfully thin boy from thirty years ago that he barely remembered anymore—and in a shot taken with Amina in Jennita, atop a cliff overlooking the sea’s magical sapphirine waters.

“Captain John Jason Harriman the Second,” said a silky voice to his left, “are you just going to stand there, or are you going to say hello?” The words carried the faint hint of French pronunciation—Amina hailed from the Republique de Côte d’Ivoire, in Africa—an accent Harriman had always found exotic and romantic. Despite her mellifluous tones, though, Amina somehow still managed to express her strength and confidence, two characteristics that he had always found most appealing in her.

Harriman turned. Amina stood there in a gold silk dress, the plush fabric accentuating the beauty and sheen of her dark chocolate skin. Sleeveless, with a pleated skirt that reached to the middle of her calves, the dress had been one she’d worn in Jennita when they’d gone out dancing, the skirt lifting and twirling spectacularly as she spun, her movements lively and graceful. Her straight, jet black hair framed her lovely features, curling inward slightly as it caressed the tops of her shoulders. She was radiant.

“Amina,” Harriman said, his voice catching as he spoke the name of this woman he adored—and had missed—so much. He crossed the room in two strides, sent his arms around the small of her back, and hugged her tightly to him. Her arms encircled his shoulders—she stood slightly taller than he did—and embraced him back. He loved the feel of her long, lithesome body against his; they fit well together.

Harriman pressed his lips against Amina’s neck and kissed her, taking in the sweet, wispy scent of her flesh. In an instant, the months of separation fell away, the yearning undertone of their many letters to each other now a remote memory only. The rightness of their relationship, their essential need to be together despite the millstone of physical distance that often kept them removed from one another, asserted itself once more. It had always been like this, from the very beginning. They parted only because of necessity—she had her career, he had his—and whenever they rejoined, whatever emotional hardships they had endured crumbled into dust.

“Amina,” he said again, and he pulled back so that he could look into her eyes. Her green irises, flecked with grains of hazel, seemed to peer back at him with as much love as he himself felt. She looked good, her skin smooth and lustrous. Lines imprinted into her face along the sides of her mouth revealed a person who laughed easily and often, but did not add to the years in her appearance. At forty-eight, Amina could have passed for a woman in her early thirties, although the dignity and self-assurance with which she carried herself conveyed her maturity.

“I missed you, John,” she said, softening the first letter of his name to a zhsound.

“I missed you,” he said. He leaned in toward her, and their lips met, gently at first, and then in a harder, more passionate kiss. Harriman felt a fire with this woman as he had felt with no other.

When they parted this time, Harriman took a few steps away, looking around the room. There wasn’t much to the place. Amina stood beside a half-wall that divided her quarters in two. Behind her sat a bed and a built-in dresser in a small sleeping area, too small to have been comfortably enclosed. Past the bed, a closed door no doubt led to a bathroom. In this section, a desk—topped with a computer-and-communications interface—and two chairs filled at least a third of the floor space. Still, as spartan as the accommodations were—save for Amina’s adornments—Harriman was certain that these quarters, the commander’squarters, were the largest on the outpost. By comparison, his cabin on Enterpriseseemed lavish.

“This place is…” Harriman started, and then searched for an adjective to adequately express his thoughts. “This place is very much you,” he finally settled on, referring to Amina’s penchant for taking and keeping photographs.

“You mean the pictures,” she said, clearly in tune with him. “All my albums are back in Aboisso with Mère and Père.” Though they traveled a great deal, Amina’s parents still kept a home in the African harbor city. “Starfleet didn’t give us a lot of storage space out here,” she said.

“That’s all right,” Harriman told her. “There’s still plenty of room for both of us.”

“Oh?” she asked, in apparent mock surprise. “Are you planning to move in?”