Captain's Glory

26

S.S. BELLE REVE, MERCURY

STARDATE 58569.2

When it had to, Starfleet moved quickly.

The provisional Starfleet Command agreed with Kirk’s reasoning and did not transmit any information concerning the Totality’s newly discovered weakness. The presumption was that every Starfleet vessel had at least one agent of the Totality on board as a spy, so Command would do nothing to warn them of what was to come.

Instead, just as in the days of Cochrane and the first great wave of human exploration, decades before the discovery of subspace radio, word went out by messenger.

One by one, starship commanders stationed in Earth’s home system were visited by three representatives from Command and given verbal orders. One by one, the commanders issued orders for their crews to brace for increased gravity. By the dozens, crew on each vessel broke into black cubes and sand as the gravity load reached four hundred percent Earth normal.

On the ships that had been cleared of Totality projections, warp cores were brought back online, and once again starships set off at factors far beyond the speed of light.

Their first objectives were those vessels stranded between the stars. Ships that had managed to shut down and retain their warp cores were told to increase their gravity, then resume their warp travel for Earth.

Those that had ejected their cores were also instructed to increase their gravity settings, then wait for a refit team from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. In the meantime, any urgent supply needs were noted, and any passengers with critical skills required for the fight against the Totality were allowed to transfer to warp vessels-Janeway’s holographic doctor among them, checking that key personnel were able to function adequately under the gravitational strain.

The Spock Defense, as it came to be called, spread out from Sector 001 at warp nine. Special diplomatic envoys carried the information to the Klingon and Romulan Empires.

But even as the Federation’s competitors were given help, one world of the Federation remained out-of-bounds.

Just as the Totality had first focused on the twin worlds of Romulus and Remus to establish a beachhead in this galaxy, another world appeared to have been chosen for their second attempt.

So it was decided to give the Totality one safe harbor to which they might withdraw. One planet on which they might feel protected. One planet that Starfleet could attack in force when the time came.

Thus, no Starfleet vessels traveled to Vulcan.

The strategy was cold, calculating, and endorsed by those senior Vulcan diplomats in Earth’s home system.

Spock had given Starfleet a strategy for exposing Totality spies and keeping Starfleet facilities free of infiltration.

Kirk had given Starfleet the Monitor transmission, and in its secrets Starfleet scientists and engineers were convinced they had found the secret to creating weapons to drive the Totality from Federation space, and then the galaxy.

Vulcan would be the first battleground and, if all worked as planned, the last.

All it would take was time.

And that was the one thing Kirk didn’t have.

Alone in his cabin, Kirk believed the only thing keeping him sane was the continual exposure to four gravities. Every movement required thought and planning. Exhaustion was a constant. The mere struggle to breathe and eat and make his plans with Spock, McCoy, and Scott left him little time for worry. Even less time for despair.

He was certain Norinda didn’t want to harm his son.

But her means and motives, her actions and goals, all seemed to shift over time, as if the Totality wasn’t constant.

That meant Joseph might be safe for now.

But he wouldn’t be safe forever.

Which was why, in less than twenty hours, the Belle Reve would set off for Vulcan with the newest weapon in Starfleet’s arsenal-a localized gravity projector.

A team of Starfleet engineers had created the device in less than a day, with Scott telling Kirk they’d done so simply by modifying two portable antigrav carriers to operate out of phase-the same technique Kirk had had Scott use to generate an artificial-gravity field outside the hull of the Belle Reve during its battle with the Enterprise. The significance of mismatching the phase of the antigravs was that doing so caused their gravitational distortions to manifest at a distance, instead of on the surface of their contact plates.

The science of the device had been known since Kirk first joined Starfleet. He still had fond memories of the late-night gravity races he had excelled in at the Academy, when teams of midshipmen would compete to see who could toss a classmate strapped to antigravs the farthest and fastest around the main grounds late at night-without being caught.

But antigravs had given way to tractor beams. Because tractor beams were able to move objects by means of directed gravitons more efficiently than gravity-field generators, the technology had never been pursued.

Now, however, it was possible to use the jury-rigged device, just slightly larger than a standard phaser rifle, to create a meter-wide region of four gravities at a range of between three to twenty meters.

Kirk looked forward to using it on Norinda the next time their paths crossed. It wouldn’t kill her. It wouldn’t even harm her, Spock had confirmed. It would simply drive her away.

Away from him, and away from his child.

And when he had accomplished that, Kirk told himself, maybe then he could concern himself about the fate of the Federation.

All that mattered to him now was Joseph.

Joseph was what kept him from sleeping this night.

Kirk lay stretched out on his bunk in his cabin. He wore a small medical oxygen mask at McCoy’s insistence to ease the effort of breathing during the night. But eyes open or closed, he saw only nightmarish images of Joseph decaying into black sand, slipping away from him and into Norinda’s false embrace.

He knew he’d do anything to prevent that from happening.

His door chime sounded, startling him from his dark thoughts. He and Spock were to meet at 0600, still hours away.

“Lights,” Kirk said to the computer, and his cabin brightened. “Identify.”

A familiar voice came over the hidden cabin speakers.

“Jean-Luc. I trust I’m not disturbing you.”

Kirk felt laughter bubble up in him that never reached the surface. The effort was too great. When hadn’t Jean-Luc disturbed him in one way or another?

It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, he’d realized long ago. It was because they were so much alike.

“Give me a minute,” Kirk said. Then he wrenched himself onto his side, placing his arm for a shove into a sitting position. He inhaled deeply three times, tugged off his oxygen mask, and with a grunt of exertion swung his legs off the bunk, pushed forward, and sat up.

He instantly slumped, catching his breath, supporting himself with both arms on the bunk’s edge. His feet ached where they’d slammed into the deck.

“I’m disturbed now,” Kirk said. He straightened his shirt; in four gravities, undressing for bed was a waste of effort. “Come in.”

The door to the corridor slid open and Kirk was surprised to see Picard standing there as if four gravities was completely normal.

“Are you wearing an exoskeleton?” Kirk asked, annoyed that somehow Picard wasn’t suffering as much as he was.

Picard waved Kirk over. “Step into the corridor.”

Kirk gritted his teeth, but stood up and moved as smoothly as he could to the open door, willing his legs not to buckle under him.

Then he stepped through the doorway and experienced a sudden, intense wave of vertigo, as if the deck had given way beneath him.

And then he was light. His arms, lifted, buoyant. His knees no longer grinding and complaining. The sensation was almost as if he were floating.

“What’s wrong with the gravity?” Kirk asked, though he felt like rejoicing at the release of tension in his body.

“Starfleet’s been experimenting,” Picard answered with a grin, which disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. “We’ve been spreading word to the ships in the system about Spock’s discovery. There’ve been cases of duplicated crew disappearing on every vessel whenever gravity’s been increased. With the surveillance recordings the ships have been making, we’ve been able to go back and see where some of the substitutions have taken place.”

“Engineering,” Kirk said as he realized why gravity in the corridor was back to normal.

“Exactly,” Picard confirmed. “Warp cores, powered up, are the Totality’s pathway into our ships and facilities. As long as we keep four gravities set in every engineering department, we’re safe from infiltration.”

For a moment, Kirk was impressed. Then he remembered the effort he’d expended just to walk out to the corridor. “Then why was my cabin still set for four g’s?”

“Starfleet orders-all command staff have to be placed in a four-gravity environment four times each day and before each strategic meeting. Just to be sure.”

Now Kirk grinned, gestured to his cabin.

Picard clearly realized what Kirk wanted, frowned, but didn’t argue. He braced himself in the doorframe, carefully stepped into the cabin. His shoulders sagged, the color draining from his face.

Kirk stayed in the corridor. Misery did love company.

“How long does Starfleet recommend command staff remain in a four-gravity environment?” he asked innocently, adding, “I could go get some coffee, be back in an hour.”

“The effect is apparently instantaneous,” Picard said tightly. “So a minute is considered adequate.”

Kirk decided he had had enough fun. “I’m convinced,” he said, relenting. “Come out.”

Picard stepped out of Kirk’s cabin and rocked for a moment in the corridor, regaining his balance.

Kirk refrained from smiling. It was time to get down to business. “Since it’s two hundred hours, I’ll take a wild guess and say that Starfleet’s come up with something critical that you’ve been asked to tell me.”

Picard nodded. “Let’s get that coffee.”