Star Trek®: A Choice of Catastrophes Read online

  McCOY PRESSED A BUTTON THAT WOULD START THE PREPROGRAMMED STIMULUS SEQUENCE.

  Impatient, he counted to ten. Now this should have an immediate effect. McCoy glanced up at the monitor.

  Nothing.

  “If there’s no physical cause,” he said, increasingly worried, “then what’s slowing his brain down?”

  “Infection?” suggested Brent. “Virus?”

  “Can’t be,” McCoy said, “he hasn’t been off the ship. The only recent possibility of infection is C-15’s anatid flu, but biofilters would stop that from getting aboard.”

  “Blood analysis?” Chapel asked, grabbing an empty hypospray.

  McCoy nodded. “Worth a try—but we need to treat him immediately. This man is dying.” Desperate to try anything, he adjusted his hypospray. “Ten cc’s should do the trick.”

  Still no reaction. He didn’t understand—what could be causing this? By all appearances, there was nothing wrong with the man.

  You have no idea what to do, do you?

  Pocket Books

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  TM, ® and © 2011 by CBS Studios Inc. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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  First Pocket Books paperback edition September 2011

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  Text design by Esther Paradelo Cover design by Alan Dingman

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN 978-1-4516-0716-1

  ISBN 978-1-4516-0723-9 (ebook)

  To the people who believe in me, to the people who have given me a chance to prove myself, and to the people who are there for me when I need them.

  —M.S.

  To Bradley Knipper, Patrick Maloney, Christopher Tracy, David Poon, James Sand, and Adam Johnson. You were the best crew a captain ever had. Tally ho, you blokes—it’s tea time!

  —S.M.

  Contents

  Mission Roster

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  MISSION ROSTER

  U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701

  Bridge Staff

  Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, acting captain

  Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, chief communications officer

  Lieutenant John Farrell, navigator

  Lieutenant Manjula Rahda, helm officer

  Lieutenant Esteban Rodriguez, science officer

  Ensign Ali Harper, engineer (subsystems monitor)

  Petty Officer (second class) Tina Lawton, duty yeoman

  Medical Staff

  Doctor Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer

  Ensign Christine Chapel, head nurse

  Ensign Zainab Odhiambo, nurse

  Ensign Cheryl Thomas, nurse

  Lieutenant Clifford Brent, medical technician

  Ensign Magaly Messier, medical technician

  Chief Petty Officer Robert Abrams, medical technician

  Miscellaneous Staff

  Lieutenant Vincent DeSalle, assistant chief engineer

  Lieutenant David Galloway, security

  Lieutenant Ryan Leslie, security

  Lieutenant (junior grade) Hayden Singh, engineer (auxiliary control)

  Ensign Homi Padmanabhan, spatial physicist

  Shuttlecraft Columbus, NCC-1701/2

  Captain James T. Kirk, commanding officer

  Lieutenant Commander Salvatore Giotto, chief of security

  Lieutenant (junior grade) Niall Rawlins, geologist

  Ensign Pavel Chekov, science officer

  Ensign Karen Seven Deers, engineer

  Petty Officer (first class) Fatih Yüksel, exobotanist

  Crewman (first class) Y Tra, security

  Shuttlecraft Hofstadter, NCC-1701/3

  Commander Spock, commanding officer

  Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, chief engineer

  Doctor Jabilo M’Benga, medical officer

  Lieutenant Karl Jaeger, geophysicist

  Lieutenant (junior grade) Mariella Kologwe, security

  Ensign Antti Saloniemi, archaeology & anthropology officer

  Petty Officer (third class) Cron Emalra’ehn, security

  PROLOGUE

  Stardate 4747.6 (1437 hours, ship time)

  “You can’t be serious!” Leonard McCoy didn’t care one bit whether his reaction was appropriate. “Captain, tell me you’re joking.”

  James Kirk shook his head. He was occupying his usual seat at the table in the Enterprise’s primary briefing room, leaning back in his chair and taking in the reactions of the senior staff members he’d summoned. “Do I look like I am, Doctor?”

  McCoy couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it. “Anyone with a medical degree could do this. Hell, anyone who’s ever held an anabolic protoplaser in their hands could do this. You don’t need me.”

  Spock cut in. “According to Starfleet regulations, transfers of medical supplies rated class-3 or above must be supervised by the chief medical officers of both locations. Your presence is required to facilitate the transfer.”

  McCoy had to keep himself from reaching across the table and throttling the Vulcan.

  The others in the room—Sulu, Scotty, and Giotto—looked astonished at the doctor’s reaction. They could afford to; after all, they didn’t have to personally oversee the transfer of two hundred forty containers of medical supplies to Deep Space Station C-15. They didn’t have to stand there inspecting every damn one, then witnessing its dematerialization on the pad of Enterprise’s cargo transporter. It was a tedious job, and McCoy didn’t want to do it.

  Why did the people on C-15 have to come down with the anatid flu right now? Why did it have to spread to the nearby settlement of Tomogren? The station had exhausted its med supplies, requiring the Federation to arrange for a replacement shipment. This being a relatively uncharted and unsettled region of space, the Enterprise was the only ship in the sector. The crew was interrupting their mapping mission to pick up the supplies from the automated production facility on Phi Kappa.

  The Enterprise had only six more weeks to explore this sector, with one week allotted to Mu
Arigulon V, a planet so far surveyed solely via automated probe. This medical detour reduced the week to three days. As a result, the Enterprise crew needed to rework their plans, much to McCoy’s annoyance.

  Spock was clearly intrigued by indications that Mu Arigulon V had been abandoned by its inhabitants. He’d quickly come up with a plan: drop off two shuttles, fully crewed, on the Enterprise’s way from Phi Kappa to C-15. The shuttles were uprated models, equipped with warp drives and phasers. After delivering the supplies, the Enterprise would rendezvous at the planet, reaching it two days after the shuttles. They’d then have three more days to finish the survey.

  The problem was that McCoy had been looking forward to the mission to Mu Arigulon. The first two weeks in this sector had mostly been tedious charting of stars with only barren rocks for company. There had been nothing interesting, and now that there was, he was being kept away from it.

  “Doctor,” Kirk said, “what Spock means is that we don’t have any leeway. Regulations. Besides,” he added, making an effort to appear conciliatory, “it’s not as if there’s anything on the planet that won’t be there when you join us. The ruins won’t disappear.” The captain grinned. “We’ll just be scrambling through dirt all week. Mister Sulu, since Spock, Scott, and myself will be on the shuttles, you’ll be in command for the duration.”

  “Yes, sir!” said Sulu.

  “Mister Spock and I will release a full roster for the landing party within the next day. Is there anything else, gentlemen?”

  Giotto leaned forward. “Sir, I’d like to be in the landing party.”

  McCoy could see Kirk’s surprise. Giotto was the Enterprise’s chief of security, but he rarely served in landing parties. “Any reason, Commander? Can’t your people handle it?”

  “Of course they can,” said Giotto, “but under normal circumstances I can beam down if things get hairy. That won’t be an option on this mission—I want to be there from the start.”

  Kirk nodded. “Understood. I want two security personnel per shuttle; send Mister Spock your picks for the other three.” He looked around at the crew. “If that’s all, dismissed.”

  McCoy couldn’t remember a mission in which Giotto had participated and he hadn’t. The doctor just wanted to be busy. Today was his third anniversary as chief medical officer of the Enterprise, and he needed to get his mind off that fact. He’d gone into space to get away from his thoughts, and now he was being left alone with them. Since joining Starfleet, he had never held a post this long, and it unsettled him. He needed to be moving, otherwise he began thinking, began wallowing.

  As the others filed out of the briefing room, Kirk and McCoy remained seated. The doors closed behind Sulu, the last to leave. Immediately, Kirk leaned forward and rested his arms on the tabletop. “What’s gotten into you, Bones? You’re tearing into me for something I can’t do anything about. It’s not like you. What’s going on?”

  The doctor thought about it for a moment. But would Jim understand? This was a man for whom space was a passion—for McCoy it was an escape. How could Kirk understand that McCoy felt he didn’t belong here and never had? “Nothing,” he said.

  “Stop being so pigheaded,” Kirk said. “You always get me to tell you what’s eating me. Let me do the same for you.”

  “Jim, I’m fine. Stop projecting.”

  “Bones.” Kirk shook his head. “Whenever you’re this prickly, there’s something gnawing at you. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

  McCoy opened his mouth to reply but found he didn’t know what to say. He just wanted to go, to plunge into the depths of space and leave everything behind. But that wasn’t healthy.

  So he said nothing, but stood up and walked toward the door. He was out of the room before Jim had a chance to add anything further.

  The last time McCoy had felt like this, he’d signed up for a six-month survey mission on a primitive planet near the Klingon border to get his mind off things. Where would he have to go this time?

  Ten Days Later

  Stardate 4757.2 (0452 hours, ship time)

  James Kirk loved the first sight of a new world. No matter how many planets he’d seen, each one was different from the one before it. There was no substitute for that moment when the ship came out of warp and there, suspended before him in the infinite darkness, was a small bastion of life.

  The feeling was more intimate right now in a shuttlecraft—just him, the six others, and the unknown. With a crew this small, the captain took the controls.

  “ETA to Mu Arigulon, Ensign?” Kirk asked the woman sitting next to him at the navigation controls of the shuttle-craft Columbus.

  “Two minutes, Captain.” Karen Seven Deers was older than Kirk, having elected to join Starfleet after a successful career as a mechanical engineer on Centaurus. She had only recently completed training and been posted to the Enterprise. Kirk remembered being a green ensign nervously following Captain Bannock’s orders on his first landing party. Seven Deers, by contrast, was positively blasé.

  “Stand by for warp deceleration.” Kirk’s hands ran across the console in front of him, setting the engines. He could feel the power of the craft humming beneath his hands. “Signal the Hofstadter for verification.”

  Seven Deers tapped a control. “Hofstadter signals ready, Captain.”

  Not wanting to miss his first sight of Mu Arigulon, Kirk looked up to check that all three of the viewport covers at the front of the Columbus were open.

  “Is everyone ready?” Kirk spun his chair around to take a quick look at the remainder of the Columbus’s crew. Lieutenant Commander Giotto was sitting right behind his captain, of course. The silver-haired security chief—also older than Kirk—gave the captain a curt nod. Next to him was one of his security team, Crewman Y Tra, a male Arkenite with the distinctive large cranium typical of his species. He nodded even more curtly.

  The two scientists, Rawlins and Yüksel, offered quick “ayes,” but Kirk heard nothing from the shuttle’s seventh and final occupant. “Mister Chekov? Are you ready?”

  The young Russian looked up from the data slate he’d been engrossed in. “Aye, Captain! I have been refreshing my knowledge of the history of this sector. Did you know that Station C-15—”

  “Thank you, Mister Chekov,” said Kirk with a smile. “That’ll be all for now.” The ensign was serving as the Columbus’s science officer for this mission. Spock had personally selected him, and Chekov had perhaps been overdoing it to live up to the Vulcan’s standards.

  The captain noticed Giotto studying the ensign. During the long journey to Mu Arigulon, the security chief’s attitude toward Chekov had seemed to waver between amusement and frustration. Kirk chalked it up to boredom, but he knew they’d all be able to do something soon, which should improve everybody’s mood. The four-day flight had seemed even longer, since the crew had spent the time gradually transitioning to the planet’s long day/night cycle, disrupting everyone’s sleep patterns.

  Kirk checked the spatial plot, in the console between him and Seven Deers. They had just cleared the outskirts of the Mu Arigulon system and were rapidly approaching the fifth planet. “Point of deceleration in five,” announced Seven Deers, “four… three… two… one.”

  Kirk throttled down, and with a gentle hum the Columbus dropped to sublight.

  All of a sudden, right in front of him, he could see it: Mu Arigulon V. It looked vaguely Earth-like—blue ocean and green continents—but the clouds, which covered the planet in large, rapid swirls, had a dusky gray tinge. “There she is,” he said. It truly was a glorious view.

  “Captain, we should signal the Enterprise now,” Seven Deers said.

  Kirk nodded. He knew that, of course, but he was pleased to see that the ensign was already becoming familiar with ship’s procedure. “Take care of it, Ensign. Bring the Hofstadter into the linkup, too.” According to his instruments, the other shuttlecraft had also safely decelerated from warp and was already settling into standard orbit. Spock ha
dn’t wasted any time. Kirk set the Columbus’s controls to do the same.

  “Link established,” Seven Deers reported. “Bringing it up now.”

  “Enterprise,” Kirk said, “Columbus is in position and ready to begin landing procedures.”

  “Hofstadter is also in position,” said Commander Spock on the other shuttle. “We are preparing to begin our orbital survey.”

  “Acknowledged,” Lieutenant Sulu said from the bridge of the Enterprise. “Captain, you have fifty-four hours on your own before we join you. I’m sure you’ll make the best of it.” Kirk knew from previous communications that the Enterprise had transferred the supplies from Phi Kappa to C-15 without incident.

  “We will, Lieutenant, we will,” Kirk said. “Mister Spock is already getting antsy. He can’t wait to set foot on the planet.”

  Spock spoke up. “I must correct you, Captain. I am not getting ‘antsy.’ That peculiar adjective implies impatience, something I do not experience. However, I must admit to considerable scientific curiosity as to the fate of the inhabitants of Mu Arigulon V.”

  “I withdraw my remark,” Kirk said, grinning. “Everything all right on the Enterprise?”

  “Absolutely, sir,” came Sulu’s immediate reply. “Mister DeSalle assures me that the engines are in perfect order.”

  “They’d better be,” said a new voice that Kirk immediately recognized as belonging to Commander Scott, who was with Spock on the Hofstadter. “I dinna want to come back and find my wee bairns fried.”

  “Don’t worry, Mister Scott, I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Sulu said. “Captain, I hope the planet’s as interesting as it looks.”

  “So do I,” Kirk said. “Sixteen planets charted so far in this sector, and every one of them has been completely unsurprising. I’m hoping for something different this time.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find it, sir,” Sulu said. Kirk thought that the young helmsman sounded at home in the big chair.