STAR TREK®: NEW EARTH - THIN AIR Read online

  “In its normal state, yes,” Spock said. “But for an unexplained reason this polymerized chain of molecules is forming what is commonly called a ‘siliconic gel.’ When completely expanded, a cubic foot of this ‘siliconic gel’ would be almost invisible, and very brittle.”

  “Lighter-than-air soil,” McCoy said, laughing. “Now I’ve heard of everything.” McCoy tossed an instrument on a tray with a loud bang and picked up another, which he used to start sealing one cut on Spock’s arm.

  “It’s not a laughing matter, Doctor,” Spock said. “Siliconic gel was first discovered on Earth in your twentieth century, but deemed to be a fairly harmless discovery, since in nature the material never existed in large amounts.”

  “So what caused the explosion?” Kirk asked. He stared at his first officer. So far none of this was making much sense at all.

  “This type of molecular structure, by its very nature, expands,” Spock said, using his hands to show a slowly expanding circle. McCoy pushed his arm back down in annoyance as Spock continued.

  “It can enlarge quickly to thousands of times its size when introduced to a certain stimulus, in this case an electrical current. In essence, Captain, the soil expanded in an explosive fashion to form the ‘siliconic gel’ instantaneously.”

  Kirk just stared at his first officer, not really wanting to believe what he had just heard. But the ruined science lab and ripped uniform and cuts on Spock were a clear indication of the seriousness of what Spock was saying.

  “How much did you test?” McCoy asked. “Had to be a lot to do this much damage.”

  “Approximately half a standard beaker full, Doctor,” Spock said.

  “A handful of soil caused this much damage?” Kirk asked. The idea of that kind of power being contained in simple garden soil stunned him.

  And then he thought of the garden outside of Lilian’s house, and the idea of it exploding with that same amount of force, and he shuddered.

  “Yes, Captain,” Spock said.

  “You said you found this siliconic gel forming in all the soil samples?” Kirk asked, trying to get his mind to wrap around the problem facing them.

  “Yes, Captain,” Spock said again. “More in some samples than others, but this phenomenon is clearly contaminating the entire planet.”

  McCoy stopped and stared at the Vulcan, clearly shocked.

  Kirk was feeling the same way. “Why didn’t we see this before now?”

  “Because it wasn’t there,” Spock said simply.

  “Caused by the moon explosion?” McCoy asked. “Or some of that olivium that plowed into the surface?”

  “Possibly,” Spock said. “But I do not think so.”

  “Then what caused this?” Kirk asked. “And what’s going to happen?”

  “I don’t have enough evidence to point conclusively to an exact cause,” Spock said, “but the inevitable result is clear. The siliconic gel will continue to form in one fashion or another, either slowly or explosively, and the planet will become uninhabitable.”

  “What?” McCoy shouted, turning Spock so he could look into his eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

  Spock only looked at the stunned face of Dr. McCoy without saying a word.

  Kirk knew exactly how McCoy was feeling. After all they had gone through, they couldn’t lose this planet now, so close to the Enterprise turning guardianship over to the Starship Peleliu, due to arrive within weeks. Not after what the colonists have gone through to get the planet settled. Not after what they had all gone through to save it.

  “Why will it become uninhabitable?” McCoy demanded. “I’m not following you.”

  “As I said, Doctor, siliconic gel, when completely expanded, is a large, fragile construct. It will appear clear, much like regular air, but it is really highly expanded silicon molecules. In essence, a very thin type of glass.”

  “So what will happen then?” Kirk asked, afraid he knew the answer.

  Spock looked first at McCoy, then at Kirk before he went on. “The siliconic gel, being, despite what the Doctor said, slightly heavier than air, but far more dense, will shove the breathable air out of the way. Eventually, the bottom five miles of atmosphere will contain nothing but this siliconic gel substance, destroying all life.”

  “Oh,” McCoy said, stunned.

  “How long?” Kirk asked.

  “No way to say exactly, Captain,” Spock said.

  “Speculate,” Kirk said. He needed a time frame on this.

  “A number of days in some areas before the situation becomes critical,” Spock said, “a few weeks in others, maybe even a month in the less-infected areas. There are too many factors involved to give an exact time. With the right stimulus, as I discovered in the lab, some areas of the planet are ready to explode now.”

  “Are you saying that one good lightning storm could wipe out an entire area of Belle Terre?” McCoy asked.

  “That is exactly what I am saying, Doctor.”

  Kirk shook his head. His mind wasn’t completely accepting what Spock was saying. Not after all they had done here, they couldn’t lose Belle Terre this way.

  “Can it be stopped?” Kirk asked.

  “I do not even know how it started, Captain,” Spock said. “Answering your question is impossible without further data and study.”

  Kirk looked at his cut and banged-up science officer, then at McCoy. “Bones, get Spock fixed up, then both of you meet me on the bridge.”

  He turned and headed for the door. Right now there were sixty thousand colonists on that planet and he had their safety to think about first and foremost. And that meant two things. Getting the Conestoga ships back up and running so the colonists would have somewhere to go. And the telling Governor Pardonnet exactly what they had found.

  Telling him was one thing, getting him to believe him and act was another.

  Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott stood in the middle of the engine room of the giant Conestoga and just shook his head. This was his last stop on a quick inspection tour of the ship, and it was as bad as the rest. Seemingly everything had been stripped and sent to the surface.

  Captain Kirk had sent him and Sulu to do a quick check of this ship to learn what it would take to get the ships ready to house the population of Belle Terre. Sulu was to meet him here in the engine room, but it looked as if Scott was the first to arrive.

  In his quick walk-through of the ship, Scott had discovered the bedrooms were bare, with even the closet bars removed. The kitchens that had fed thousands for months were nothing more than rooms full of holes where equipment had fit into walls. Hallways were stripped of wiring and panels. In many places even the flooring and wall coverings had been removed.

  “Bridge stripped bare,” Sulu said, as he came through the door. “Nothing left anywhere. Look at this,” he said, stopping and pointing at the hole in the doorjamb where the door had been. “They even took the sliders. What would they use those for?”

  “They took evrathin’, laddie,” Scott said.

  “I suppose it makes sense,” Sulu said, shaking his head, “assuming you never expected to use the ships again.”

  “Doin’ this to a perfectly good ship is a crime,” Scott said, and he believed it. Only now, it seemed, the colonists of Belle Terre were going to pay for this crime with their lives. And that just wasn’t right.

  “They left some things in here,” Sulu said, looking around.

  “Not much,” Scotty said. “Equipment specific to the mule engines and smaller steerin’ jets.”

  “Didn’t have use for it on the surface, I bet,” Sulu said.

  “Kept the big ship in a steady orbit, laddie,” Scott said, “and to cover up what they’d done.”

  Sulu nodded. “Makes sense. Hard to ignore big ships falling from orbit.”

  “That it would be,” Scott said. He flipped open his communicator. “Scott to Captain Kirk.”

  “What’d you find, Scotty?” Kirk’s voice came back instantly.

  �
�Basically, sir,” Scott said, staring around again, “nothin’ but an empty hull. She’ll stay in place, but that’s about it.”

  “How about living quarters, kitchens, things like that?”

  “Stripped barer than a polished dance floor,” Scott said. “You gonna have people livin’ here, they better bring their campin’ gear and oxygen masks.”

  There was a long silence from the captain. Then he asked, “What exactly would it take for people to live on that ship in orbit? Give me some good news, Scotty.”

  “Food supplies, kitchens rebuilt, bathrooms rebuilt, and beds I suppose would get them by. The biggest problem would be to have all the environmental equipment put back and in working order as well.”

  “They took that, too?” Kirk asked, surprise sounding in his voice.

  “As I said, Captain,” Scott said, “they stripped her down like she was a goin’ to the junk heap.”

  “How long to get one ready for inhabitants?”

  “Three, maybe four days,” Scotty said. “And that’s per ship with a full crew workin’ at her. And that’s without me doin’ a full check of the environmental systems. Might be worse. How many ships are ya gonna be needin’ again?”

  “All the Conestogas,” Kirk said. “And Spock tells me we have less than three days in some areas to get people to safety.”

  “Not possible, sir,” Scott said. “Even if we could find all the environmental equipment on the planet in one piece and just bring it back up to each ship, it would take us weeks to get it all working again.”

  “It’s going to have to be possible, Mr. Scott. Sixty thousand colonists may have no other choice. Kirk out.”

  Sulu frowned as Scott just shook his head.

  Around Scott, the giant ship seemed even emptier than it had a moment before. This was one miracle he didn’t think he could pull off for the captain.

  Chapter Three

  GOVERNOR PARDONNET forced himself to slow down after he got outside the hospital and into the fresh, cool air of the morning. The sun was up, and even with a thin cloud cover, the coming day promised to be beautiful and warm. This area needed a few days like this to improve everyone’s mood.

  He strode down the gravel path in front of the hospital and turned toward the settlement center where he kept an office. Tegan Welch had gotten under his skin, of that there was no doubt. And he didn’t blame her, with her son dying. But there were many factors she just didn’t understand at the moment.

  After the Burn, and the disasters that followed for the settlements along the Big Muddy, they were short of everything. They had cannibalized many of the ships for supplies and equipment. Not even Captain Kirk knew exactly how much they had taken out of those big ships still orbiting up there. Pardonnet wasn’t even sure if he knew. On much of it he had simply looked the other way. His focus had been on getting the people settled safely on the surface and starting to mine the ore on land and from space. The explosion of the moon had seeded Belle Terre with olivium, but a large portion of the rare material had been blasted clear of the planet and into space.

  Of course, some ships of the original wagon train had not been touched, which included the hospital ship, but any ship that could be used as an ore-chaser had been converted to one. Before they started taking parts and materials from the ships, he doubted there was a ship left under his control that could have safely handled the long trip back to Federation space. Now he was certain of it. And the five people who were allergic to the subspace properties of olivium would never survive a flight in an ore carrier, that close to that much of the stuff.

  Tegan Welch also didn’t know that in a month or so Kirk and the Enterprise, plus a few of the other Starfleet ships, were due to head back. If, on the hospital ship, the doctors could find a way to keep the Welch kid and the others alive that long, then Pardonnet was sure that Kirk would take them with him. There were a lot of things Pardonnet didn’t like about Kirk, but he had to admit, the man cared a lot about people.

  The clouds and sky were still faintly red from all the dust and remains from the Burn, but it seemed to be clearing a little every day. And slowly the weather patterns were starting to settle down some, especially on the main continent. Belle Terre, given enough time, was going to be a beautiful place to live again. And with all the olivium, a very rich place as well.

  Ahead of him his assistant, Mary, wearing a blue dress and running shoes, rushed from the log building that was his office. She looked up the street at him and waved for him to hurry, moving at almost a run to meet him.

  He didn’t pick up his pace. After the conversation with Ms. Welch, he didn’t feel like being rushed for anything.

  Mary had a look of worry on her face, but she often did. She had become his assistant after the floods, when it became clear that he needed help to run a colony of sixty thousand people spread over an entire planet. Mary was efficient, fairly young at twenty-three, and didn’t mind working long hours, but there was no doubt he was going to need more help very soon. The work was starting to overwhelm the both of them.

  “Governor,” Mary said when she was a dozen paces from him. “Captain Kirk is looking for you. He said it’s urgent.”

  Pardonnet laughed and kept walking at the same pace toward the office, letting Mary fall into step beside him. “Kirk always says something is urgent. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

  “This time he seemed even more demanding than normal,” Mary said.

  Pardonnet laughed again as he turned in to the office, a medium-sized log building built first as a medical shelter, then turned over to him when the hospital was built up the road. In a small side room was a communications board. During emergency times, the room was staffed around the clock. But there hadn’t been anyone besides him and Mary using this room for a long time now.

  Pardonnet reached the panel and flicked a switch. “Governor Pardonnet to Enterprise. Come in.”

  “Governor,” Kirk said, his voice coming back clear and very quickly, “are you in your communications room?”

  “I am,” Pardonnet said.

  “Good,” Kirk said.

  Pardonnet glanced at Mary and shrugged. He started to ask Kirk what he wanted when suddenly a transporter beam took him, leaving Mary standing, her mouth open in surprise.

  “Damn you, Kirk!” Pardonnet said aloud. Kirk wasn’t going to get away with this. Not this time.

  Two young Enterprise crew members in maroon uniforms greeted him in the Enterprise transporter room as the beam released him. Both looked very serious.

  “This way, Governor,” one said, turning toward the door.

  “And if I don’t want to go?” Pardonnet asked, stepping down off the transporter platform and looking at the man who stood in the door.

  “With apologies, Governor, Captain’s Kirk’s orders are to take you in any fashion that is necessary. Sir.”

  Pardonnet nodded, containing his anger. In all the times they had worked together, Kirk had never pulled anything like this before. He’d better have one damned good reason, or he was going to have more problems than he could ever imagine.

  Pardonnet followed the young crew member with the rifle to a door labeled SCIENCE LAB, then stood aside and indicated Pardonnet should enter.

  The door was broken and shoved back. Pardonnet stepped inside and looked around. He was alone and the place smelled of chemicals and smoke. A couple of portable lights had been set up, illuminating the space. Clearly the room had been destroyed by a fairly large explosion just recently. There didn’t look to be anything larger than half a chair remaining intact. And glass and equipment were scattered everywhere.

  Captain Kirk stepped into the room behind him, his boots making crunching noises in the broken glass. Kirk was followed quickly by Dr. McCoy and the Vulcan Spock. Spock clearly looked as if he’d been in the explosion, with cuts on his face and exposed hands.

  “I’m waiting for an explanation of my kidnapping,” Pardonnet said, stepping toward the captain. “I ass
ume it has something to do with the explosion that happened here.”

  “It does,” Kirk said. “An electrical charge sent into a small sample of soil from a garden outside of the main colony compound exploded, causing this damage.”

  Pardonnet’s first reaction was to laugh, and he did. Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Spock did not return the laughter.

  “Come on, Captain,” Pardonnet said, “you can’t be serious. Why would soil explode?”

  “Oh, I’m very serious,” Kirk said. “And the soil did explode. I wanted you to see this. Spock, explain to the governor what is happening as we head back to the bridge.”

  Kirk turned and strode for the broken door, followed by McCoy.

  By the time they reached the bridge, Spock had explained the properties of siliconic gel, had explained how it was forming, had explained the explosive nature of the substance, and had even suggested that the planet needed to be evacuated.

  “Evacuated?” Pardonnet asked as Spock moved to his science station and Kirk stood next to his own command chair. “Again? Your solution to all our problems is to run away.”

  “That’s hardly fair, Governor,” Kirk said. “I’ve worked hard to make certain you could stay. But it’s my job to tell you when to prepare to run.”

  “My apologies,” Pardonnet said. “You’re right. What planetwide disaster, exactly, do we face this time?”

  “Siliconic gel is going to expand to fill the lower few miles or so of atmosphere in a very short time. It will suffocate all life in and under it. Unless we can find a way to stop it.”

  Pardonnet started to open his mouth to say something, but for the life of him, he couldn’t think of anything to say. His stomach was twisting so hard he felt he wanted to be sick. And all he could think about was the useless Conestogas floating in orbit, cannibalized for parts. There were sixty thousand people on the surface with no means of escape.

  If they died, it was going be his fault.

  “Governor,” Kirk said, “we’re going to have to approach this on a dual front. While we are trying to stop the siliconic gel from forming, we had hoped that you could get the Conestogas restaffed and start getting people off the surface in case we fail.”