One Small Step Read online

  Before Kirk had listened to the entire report, Uhura announced that they were receiving an encoded subspace message from Commodore Enwright at Starfleet Command. Kirk put it on the screen.

  Enwright’s upper lip was drawn back, as if he didn’t like what he had to say. But he said it anyway. “Starfleet Command authorizes you to extend all courtesy to the Kalandans and proceed with standard diplomatic overtures.”

  Apparently Starfleet Command saw the wisdom in befriending a powerful race who wouldn’t hesitate to destroy Klingons.

  Enwright’s tone became firmer. “Otherwise, your orders remain the same. Acquire information on the ancient Kalandan technology. Do not allow these weapons to fall into enemy hands.”

  Enwright’s face faded on the screen, leaving a hush in the bridge. It couldn’t have been clearer. If the Kalandans were their allies, they could take the station, as long as Kirk got scans of everything they found inside. Basically that was Kirk’s opinion of what should be done, except for some niggling instinct inside that cried out “No!” He couldn’t explain it.

  “So,” Kirk softly exclaimed. “It looks like we’ve acquired some new friends. . . .”

  “Sir?” Uhura interjected. “I’ve been decoding the noise at the time the Klingon cruiser ’Ong was destroyed. I believe I’ve located a distress signal. The ’Ong must have sent a message to the Klingon Defense Force, telling them they were under attack.”

  Startled, Kirk turned to Science Officer Momita. “How long before a Klingon battleship can arrive?”

  “Hmm . . . ” Momita consulted the computer. “I’d say approximately forty-four hours, if they travel at top warp speed.”

  Suddenly time was no longer an ally.

  Kirk pushed himself out of his chair. Now he needed to see how much the Kalandans would cooperate.

  “The Klingon reinforcements are on their way.” Kirk told Commander Tasm when they would arrive.

  It took a moment for her second-in-command to translate the amount of time into their numbers. Both seemed to relax. “Klingons do not concern us,” Tasm said with a private smile.

  “Klingons concern us a great deal. We have a treaty to maintain with them.”

  “We do not,” Commander Tasm pointed out.

  “I suggest a compromise. We will examine the station together. If I’m satisfied that you can protect the station and keep it out of Klingon hands, then in two days’ time, we’ll be on our way.”

  Tasm smiled at him. “We will not be dependent on your whim. However, we have no objection to you exploring this station with us. It is a remarkable archeological find.”

  “More than that,” Kirk murmured. But her quiet beauty again reminded him of Losira as she recorded her logs. Tasm had the same alluring confidence. If they had to be allies with someone, he would chose the Kalandans over the Klingons anytime.

  Chapter Ten

  LUZ STILL COULDN’T believe it — Tasm had given away their biggest advantage without getting anything in return! The vaccine for the sporophyte virus was worth everything to those stranded Starfleet officers, and to simply hand it over was unconscionable. Why had they waited in that nebula for so long trying to find the antidote if Tasm intended to just toss it away?

  Luz seethed inside while Dr. McCoy whipped up a replica of the sporophyte vaccine. It was galling to think of that idiot Tasm stuck somewhere in this ship, letting Starfleet get the edge on them. If Luz had been in charge of this engagement, they would already be on the surface, taking possession of the station.

  It was so unfortunate that she hadn’t been on the subspace post at the time their ship detected the message from the Enterprise. Then she could have taken over as leader.

  Luz had already examined the sickbay on the Enterprise. It was surprisingly backward for such a technologically advanced civilization. With one cursory look at the equipment tray and bio-bed, she verified that the devices performed a minimal of biological functions. There was nothing worth acquiring here, as far as medical technology went.

  Her target, Dr. McCoy, was also not very stimulating. He was clearly relieved to be back onboard his ship. The other medical technicians broke away from their duties to gather around him, smiling and calling out greetings. But, rather self-consciously, McCoy had introduced Luz as a Kalandan doctor who was providing them with the vaccine for the sporophyte virus. They got to work replicating it.

  The medical staff were grateful yet wary of her. Their reaction confirmed her initial opinion. Tasm had made a mistake giving the vaccine to the Enterprise crew so readily. It was too easy, and didn’t make sense after the way they had blown that Klingon ship away. That had been a glorious move on Tasm’s part, but she should have let them finish off the Enterprise first. Since that one bold stroke, Tasm had followed up with nothing.

  These humans seemed gullible enough to believe they were Kalandans, but clearly a few of them still had some doubts. And that was too bad, because their plan to impersonate Kalandans was basically workable. It was Tasm’s handling of the situation that had left them hanging around on this ship when they should be down on the surface examining that station.

  McCoy introduced Luz to M’Benga, the doctor who had been in charge of sickbay until McCoy returned. “Are your people always this generous?” M’Benga asked, his expression hiding any doubts he might have.

  Luz shrugged one shoulder. “Commander Tasm can be capricious — either very generous or very . . . severe. I’m sure those Klingons would like to exchange places with you right now.”

  With his smile frozen on his face, M’Benga bowed slightly as he pulled away. Several other technicians heard her reply. Maybe her comment would travel to Captain Kirk’s ears. Maybe he would be more cautious of Tasm rather than underestimate them.

  If Luz had to, she would single-handedly make this engagement a success.

  Once the Starfleet medical technicians had finished replicating the antidote and had loaded it into hyposprays, Dr. McCoy suggested that he take Luz to join Commander Tasm in the conference room. Luz didn’t want to sit around doing nothing like Tasm and Kad, so instead she asked for a tour of sickbay.

  McCoy clearly had other things on his mind, but was too polite to refuse. “After everything you’ve done for us . . .”

  Luz turned her smile of amusement into something special just for him. He had been trapped on that planetoid for days, and no doubt he wanted to retreat to meditate — or whatever it was humans did to relax.

  Before McCoy had finished showing Luz the bio-beds in the first room, Captain Kirk signaled. “McCoy, Kirk here. Will you and Dr. Luz please bring the vaccine and meet us in transporter room three.”

  Dr. McCoy nodded. “On our way, Captain.”

  And just like that, Luz’s bad mood was gone. They were going down to the station! She almost couldn’t believe it.

  Luz hurried after Dr. McCoy, struck by a pang of regret. She hadn’t done much to further herself with her target. She had been helpful in replicating the vaccine, and she had been pleasant and pleasing in her ways. Yet her irritation at Tasm’s dim-witted decisions had surely affected her characterization.

  So Luz was determined to be ingratiating as they proceeded through concentric rings of long, curving corridors. She asked questions about the rooms she saw, and found out that each crew member had an enormous amount of space to themselves. Her glimpse of one of the quarters proved it was three times as big as the Petraw command booth on board their ship. Even that Andorian, who was spoiled with the best in goods and technology, hadn’t had such an opulent allotment of personal space.

  They returned to the transporter room where they had first arrived. Tasm and Kad were waiting with Captain Kirk. Tasm appeared exhilarated while Kad was covertly scanning the pattern buffers on the transporter.

  Kirk’s body language indicated he was suspicious, but he seemed to be conversing with Tasm in a more comfortable manner. Tasm was actually flirting with him in front of the transporter chief. “I’m sure my senior
officers would be glad to attend a reception this evening to celebrate our alliance.”

  “What alliance?” McCoy asked.

  Kirk kept a speculative gaze on Tasm. “We’re going to work together to explore the station and get it operational before the Klingons arrive.”

  “More Klingons?” McCoy asked ironically. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “We’ve got less than two days, Bones.”

  Luz noted Kirk’s use of a nickname for McCoy. The captain had done it earlier, too. Apparently these two officers were closer than Tasm had anticipated, or she would never have assigned Luz to McCoy. Tasm was biased against her just because Luz had disagreed with the way things were run during that fateful Andorian engagement. But Luz had been right. They had barely succeeded in getting the Andorian vessel — and it was due to her quick thinking and decisive action that they had taken it at all.

  Kirk ordered, “You’re with us, Doctor. We need to administer the vaccine to the landing party.”

  McCoy grimaced at being told he was returning to the station so soon.

  “Kirk to bridge,” Kirk said. “Drop the shield.”

  After a moment, a voice responded, “Shield disengaged, sir.”

  Luz could feel the tension from the Starfleet officers, who were almost expecting an attack. That wasn’t good. Tasm should be lulling their suspicions, not confusing them into compliance.

  Now that she considered it, Luz’s initial elation faded. They weren’t going to be able to do much inside the station with these Starfleet officers looking over their shoulders every step of the way.

  “Sir,” the transporter chief spoke up. “For some reason, our targeting sensors can’t penetrate the shell of diburnium and osmium. I’ll have to transport you into the entrance chamber. The upper part is rock.”

  Kirk acknowledged as Luz took her place on one of the pattern buffers. Kad was frowning slightly, obviously thinking the same thing — how long could they sustain their characters when they knew so little about the Kalandans? Why hadn’t Tasm convinced the Starfleet officers to leave the station? But no, Tasm was smiling like she was glad they were coming along.

  “Energize,” Kirk ordered.

  As the transporter dematerialized her, Luz was busy thinking of ways she could salvage something from this engagement. It looked like once again Tasm had taken on more than she could handle.

  Mr. Spock was waiting with Mr. Sulu and Security Guard Reinhart in the entrance chamber. After he had rescued them from the sealed and airless chamber, they had immediately ceased their explorations of the Kalandan station, as per Captain Kirk’s orders.

  The landing party materialized, and Kirk introduced Commander Tasm and her officers. Spock noticed that McCoy stayed near the Kalandan medical technician and always seemed to be speaking to her. Luz made a pretense of helping as the doctor administered the vaccine to all three men.

  Before beaming down, Kirk had briefly shared his misgivings with Spock about these newly arrived Kalandans. However, Spock believed it was logical to exhaust every opportunity for exploration. He was unable to form an opinion about the Kalandans until he could examine their behavior.

  “Let’s proceed to the command center,” the captain suggested. “Sulu and Reinhart, you stay here.”

  Sulu murmured an acknowledgment. Neither of them were in top condition after their near-asphyxiation. But clearly Kirk didn’t want to leave the entrance to the station unguarded while the shield was down.

  Commander Tasm walked by Kirk’s side down the corridor, with Spock directly behind. Officer Kad fell in next to Spock, behind his commander. Kad seemed interested in the botany labs, craning his neck to see inside, but Kirk didn’t pause on the way through.

  Bringing up the rear were the two doctors. “I’ve heard they used to terraform the surface on these old stations,” Luz was saying to McCoy.

  “You should see what the surface used to look like,” McCoy replied. “Simply breathtaking!”

  Spock dismissed the idle chatter as they passed through the oval nexus chamber.

  Then Kirk gestured to the corridors that spread out around them. “Here’re the living quarters we just discovered.”

  “These quarters must hold a wealth of information about our ancestors.” Commander Tasm hesitated at one cross-corridor, as if wanting to go inside one of the rooms.

  “Not as much as you would think,” Kirk said gently. “Mostly like the object I gave you. A few personal belongings they packed up, I suppose after each one died.”

  Commander Tasm displayed a remarkable restraint of emotion. “The sporophyte virus kills slowly.”

  There was an awkward silence that Spock associated with a rather useless phenomenon known as survivor guilt. Naturally, he felt nothing. For a moment there was only the soft pad of their footsteps in the empty corridor.

  Then Kirk ventured, in a deceptively mild tone, “In all these quarters, we’ve found no signs of children or their playthings. Is it common for your people to not bring children on their voyages?”

  Commander Tasm looked speculative. “Are you sure? Since we no longer maintain planetary stations such as these, it’s difficult to know. Most Kalandans are concentrated in colonies, and there we have plenty of children. But there are no children on board my long-range ship.”

  Spock spoke up from behind. “This station was certainly created to be a long-range vessel.”

  “Do you have children living on the Enterprise?” Tasm asked.

  “No,” Kirk said. “It’s felt that it’s too dangerous on a ship that explores unknown territory.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  Kirk hesitated. “I have enough people to take care of already.”

  Commander Tasm was nodding as they entered the command center. Spock noted that Kirk held back, waiting for the Kalandans to reveal what they knew about the station. Tasm first looked up at the computer node in the ceiling as the colors rippled across the surface.

  Then she went straight to the command chair and sat down.

  The Losira replica appeared, standing to face Tasm. Seeing them both together, the resemblance was less marked. The colored eyelids and brows were similar, but the underlying shape of Tasm’s bone structure was different from Losira’s. However, five hundred generations of mutations and interbreeding could cause that degree of change in a species.

  “I am Commander Tasm, of the Kalandan Beta-nine colony. We detected your energy signal and we came to find you.”

  Losira looked closer. “You are different from the last one,” she said in her lyrical voice.

  “Didn’t he introduce himself?” Tasm asked, glancing at Kirk.

  “No.”

  Tasm smiled, making her resemblance to Losira more marked. “He didn’t understand what a sophisticated replica you are.”

  Spock raised one brow and met Kirk’s ironic shrug. Indeed.

  Tasm explained to Losira, “That was Captain James T. Kirk of the Starfleet Starship Enterprise. You wouldn’t know about the Federation, they’re a new territorial entity.”

  “I also know of no Kalandan Beta-nine colony.” The Losira replica seemed very interested, not as dreamy and detached as she had been with Kirk.

  “Of course not,” Tasm told her. “We are ten thousand years in your future. You are our ancestors, and we are the descendants of your children. We have been looking for this science station for hundreds of generations. But you’ve been lost to us.”

  Spock thought it was unusual for Commander Tasm to make an emotional appeal to a computer program. However, the Losira replica had consistently displayed emotional responses, so perhaps it was the correct course of action.

  Right now the Losira replica was looking slightly stricken. But as Spock had observed, she was not programmed to ask questions, only to give information.

  Tasm raised both her hands, palm up. “We need your help to make this station operational. While the Starfleet officers were stranded on the station, they damaged the defen
se computer. We must fix it before other ships arrive and try to take possession of the station by force.”

  “The defense computer is currently malfunctioning,” Losira agreed. But nothing happened.

  Kirk was looking determined, as he always did when confronted with the Losira replica. He almost spoke, but Tasm was focused, her fingers tightly gripping the armrest. Spock noted she only had four fingers instead of five, like Losira.

  “There must be a way,” Tasm urged. “Show us how to get to the defense computer so we can fix it.”

  Losira gestured. Abruptly a door appeared in the wall of the command center. “This corridor will take you to the defense computer.”

  McCoy let out a strangled cry, pointing to the door, while the Kalandan doctor looked stunned. Even Kirk was surprised. “All I had to do was ask!” he murmured to Spock.

  “So it appears.” Spock considered it to be logical. Every door in the station had opened when presented with the correct few words.

  Tasm beamed at the Losira replica. “We’ll get to work and keep you apprised.”

  Kirk joined Commander Tasm as she approached the doorway, refusing to relinquish the lead to Officer Kad. McCoy hung back to say to Spock, “So it looks like they really are Kalandans.”

  “That remains to be seen,” Spock replied noncommittally. “However, the fact that you still doubt is apparent.”

  “No, not at all. I feel that we should trust them. Luz is a fine technician —”

  “I cannot assist you with your feelings, Doctor.”

  McCoy threw up his hands. “Doesn’t anything ever get you excited,?”

  Spock unslung his tricorder and prepared the sensors to search and record. “I fail to see what my level of excitement has to do with adequately performing my duty.”

  Spock stepped into the corridor to follow the captain and the Kalandans. Emotions would merely interfere with his work. He preferred to take tricorder readings of everything he encountered and properly analyze those.