Chapter 32: Goodbye Worldship
The fleet flagship pulled Quundar inside itself, and the Enterprise tractored Copernicus into the shuttlecraft deck.
Jim waited impatiently while the deck repressurized.
Buffy hummed a musical phrase. Dawn repeated it, maybe with a slightly different inflection, but Jim could not be sure. Buffy started to hum the phrase again, but stopped halfway through.
"I understand your fascination with languages," Buffy said as she looked at her sister. "But this I'm never going to learn."
"No," Dawn agreed. "Neither am I."
The all-clear signal sounded. Jim opened the shuttlecraft's hatch and climbed stiffly down. The tender new grass had shriveled and died from vacuum exposure.
McCoy and Spock hurried down the companionway. Scarlet and Lukarian followed a moment later, as soon as Lukarian had let Athene free in the repressurized shuttlecraft.
"Jim!" McCoy clasped Jim's hand, then abandoned restraint and gave him a bear hug.
"Buffy!" Lukarian said happy to see her friend. She hugged Buffy. When she leg go she hugged Dawn. "Dawn! I'm glad you are alright."
"So am I," Dawn said.
"Dawn." Scarlet swept her wings in a circle around Dawn, in the flyers' gesture of greeting. "You have returned from your silence. I thank you for the gifts you have given me, and I regret the pain I caused you with my ignorance."
"No apologies are necessary," Dawn said. "That said though I regret that I cannot incorporate your language as you can ours."
Scarlet nodded, understanding. "If our people meet again someday, you will be older, it may be possible." She brushed her wingtip against Buffy's cheek. "It may be possible," she said again. "You are but young."
"All Dawn and I have is time," Buffy said. "About seven hundred more years' worth."
Scarlet leapt into the air and glided across the deck. Athene tossed her head and trotted after her.
"Scarlet!" Lukarian cried. "Please don't tease her!"
"She has practiced flying, now, Ame-magician," Scarlet said, hovering a few meters above Lukarian's head. "The worldship cannot sustain her, so she must learn to fly in a smaller place." The flyer glided to the other side of the deck, very, very slowly. Athene reared back, leaped into the air, and flew.
Athene practiced touch-and-go takeoffs near Lukarian, till Lukarian leaped on her back and they glided in a slow game of tag with Scarlet.
"Mr. Spock," Jim said, "just how far outside Federation territory is the Enterprise?"
"The Enterprise has been granted embassy status for the remainder of this mission," Spock said. "Therefor wherever we are at is Federation territory."
"Commander Summers," Jim said as he looked toward Dawn. "I believe you mentioned turning yourself over for court-martial. There will be no court-martial. If you hadn't had the guts to do whatever it was you did with Scarlet ..."
Dawn nodded in understanding. "Thank you, Captain."
Spock, Jim and McCoy headed up the companionway leaving Lukarian, Buffy, Dawn and Stephen alone.
Lukarian turned toward Dawn and sighed. "I disobeyed."
"I figured," Dawn said. "With the two of us each having half of the Key, I figured that you could use it to track me. Thank you, Ame. I hope you and your children never have to use it again."
"So, do I," Lukarian agreed.
Buffy looked at Stephen and smiled. "Stephen, thank you. What you did was brave."
"Buffy knows how difficult mind melds can be, even though she has never been through one like I have," Dawn said. "After all I have side-effects from …"
"Ambassador T'Pol's mind meld," Stephen said as Dawn looked at him. "I saw a bit of your memories as well as Scarlet's when I went in to pull you out. Pon Far is not easy for Vulcans, and you have it harder since you are not Vulcan."
"That's why she has me," Buffy said as she smiled.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Buffy and Dawn stepped onto the bridge. As they looked around it looked so normal but to them it felt as if they had been gone for months, as if things should have changed.
"Captain Kirk—Admiral Noguchi on subspace," Uhura said.
"Thank you," Jim said as the admiral appeared on the viewscreen.
"Well, Jim," the admiral said. "You were due at Starbase 13 yesterday."
"I know, sir. But we encountered ..." He hesitated, trying to think how to explain the worldship. "A first contact, sir."
Admiral Noguchi chuckled. "You always have had a talent for understatement. A first contact, indeed. Yes, I've seen the transmissions."
"Transmissions, admiral? We haven't had time to send any—or the capability."
"The transmissions from the fleet."
"Oh."
"I would have bet," the admiral said, "that any single Federation ship encountering the oversight committee's fleet would have been wiped out of space—or captured, and its commander paraded as a spy. Do you know what they want to do to you?"
"Er, no, sir." Jim said.
"They want to give you a medal."
"A medal," Dawn said. "Wow, that's unheard of."
"I can't accept a medal from the Klingon Empire!"
"You'll accept it, and with good grace. Jim! Who knows how long this will last? Maybe only ten microseconds! But somehow, you've got the governments talking to each other instead of trading insults. And beyond that, if it's true the people in the worldship won't move it back to the Federation, someone's got to represent us to them. Our scientists and diplomats won't arrive for at least a week. So, you are ad hoc ambassador to the Klingon frontier and to the worldship. I'm counting on you, my boy."
"I'll ... do my best, admiral."
"I know you will. Now, and in the future. We'll have a good long talk about the future, and about your next mission, as soon as you return." He smiled as Jim struggled to think of something to say. "By the way, Jim—tell Ame that the director of the oversight committee has expressed interest in seeing the company perform. If she agrees, please arrange it."
"Will do, sir," Jim said.
Noguchi let the transmission fade.
Jim noticed that Dr. McCoy standing nearby, arms folded, tapping his fingers impatiently. "You have that look of medical fervor in your eye, Bones."
"That's right. I want you and Dawn to get down to sick bay—right now."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
In sick bay, McCoy stood giving Dawn a once over. "You're a lucky woman," McCoy said.
"How so?" Dawn asked.
"If Stephen hadn't been around—"
"My mind would have been lost," Dawn said. "Which posits the next thing. Normally you would refer me to the ship's counselor for a psych eval to make sure that nothing got muddled."
"But you are the ship's counselor," McCoy said. "I can hardly refer you to yourself. Which means I will do the psych eval myself."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Two days later Dawn sat in hers and Buffy's quarters looking at the monitor. Buffy had gone to another performance of Lukarian's troop, this one on the worldship, that had the Klingon director, Koronin and the flyers in the audience along with the Enterprise crew. Dawn had excused herself as a song spun itself through her mind. As a result, she had pulled up files on the Enterprise computer about singing. She knew neither she nor Buffy would ever master the flyer's language. But she figured that if they both learned to sing, that maybe they might be able to put it behind them much like when Stephen helped her deal with Scarlet's memories.
At that moment she heard the door chime. "Come," she said.
"Dawn?" Janice Rand said as the door slip open. She stepped gingerly across the threshold. "I didn't see you at Ame's show."
"I didn't go," Dawn said.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes," Dawn said. "Is there something I can help you with, Janice?"
"I wanted to tell you," Janice said. "I've been thinking about what you said. I've been thinking about it a lot. And I've decided you're right."
"Right about what?" Dawn asked.
"About the commission. About testifying."
"That's wonderful, Janice," Dawn said sincerely. "You should be very proud of yourself for making that decision. It took bravery."
Janice blushed. "I don't think I'm very brave."
"Why did you change your mind?" Dawn asked.
Janice nodded. "Because of you. No, that's not quite right," she said. "I don't mean I'm going to testify because you think I should. I mean I'm going to testify because it's the right thing to do. You stuck up for me, even though you could have gotten in trouble. Nobody ever, ever stuck up for me before. Nobody ever stuck up on Saweoure for people like me, either, but now I can. And I'm going to. I want to be as strong as you are. Someday. I'll start by telling Captain Kirk what I told you. Every other place I've ever been, people used their power to make things easier for themselves. Even if it hurt someone else. But Captain Kirk is different. He's like you. He does things because he thinks they're right, even if they might hurt him."
"You're much stronger than you think, Janice," Dawn said.
"It's funny. I'm scared—but I'm happy, too. I feel like I can do anything!" She spread her arms as if to take in the whole universe. "Know what else?" she said in a conspiratorial voice.
"What else?"
"I'm going to let my hair grow. And then I'm going to do something fancy with it. I was never allowed to, on Saweoure. But now I will."
Dawn smiled.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
THE WORLDSHIP GLOWED, a distant jewel. The Enterprise and the director's fleet lay on opposite sides of it and a good distance from it, safely outside its vortex.
From the bridge of the Enterprise, Jim and Buffy watched it and regretted its imminent departure. Lukarian and Dr. McCoy waited with them.
Scarlet's image shimmered into being on the viewscreen.
"I wanted to say good-bye," she said. "To all of you. You won't be forgotten."
"You won't change your mind?" Jim said.
"No. It is impossible."
"I envy you the sights you'll see, the distances that will pass."
Scarlet blinked and touched her tongue to her sensory mustache. "You, too, will see many wonderful sights and pass great distances. Who knows? Perhaps the next time our people meet, you will seek us out."
"Maybe we will," Jim said.
"Ame-magician ... I hope you find a sky for Athene."
"So, do I," Lukarian said. "Thanks, Scarlet—for everything."
"May you fly with lightning."
"Scarlet, I'll remember what you sang to me the rest of my long life," Buffy said.
"I am glad. I feared—"
"I know. But a glimpse of something beautiful is better than knowing nothing of it at all," Buffy said.
"May the wind buoy you, and sing you to sleep."
The turbo-lift doors swished open. Janice and Dawn came onto the bridge.
Janice took her place at the environmental systems station, but Dawn hesitated, watching the worldship.
"Dawn, you are the fixed point of the stories we will tell. The stories could not move, without you," Scarlet said as her gaze turned toward Dawn.
"I know that if I see your people again it could very well be toward the end of mine and Buffy's millennia long life," Dawn said. "That said I am glad we met, and I am glad you will not forget us. Nor will I or Buffy forget you."
"Good-bye, Dawn."
Scarlet's image faded. The worldship glowed like a swarm of fireflies.
The worldship vanished.
Uhura tried to make sense out of a translated cacophony of signals. "Captain! Some kind of disturbance in the fleet—"
A tiny ship, an escape boat or a courier, sped away from the fleet and headed straight toward the Enterprise. It traveled quite a distance before the battle cruisers reacted and opened fire on it.
"Shields up! Hailing frequencies, Uhura! Director, what's the meaning of this?"
The battle cruisers accelerated.
The director appeared on the viewscreen. His brow ridges had contracted and darkened, and he was enraged.
"Koronin!" he cried. "The traitor has escaped!"
"That's no reason to blast my ship!" Jim said.
"Forgive me, captain. I must recapture—" The director's image faded before he finished speaking.
The little ship evaded the photon torpedoes, veered toward the path the worldship had taken, dived straight between the dangerous pearls, and blasted one of the wall-spheres with its aft phaser. The explosion set off a chain reaction, an enormous burst of energy and light and luminous dust. With the spectral flash of a ship entering warp-speed, the courier vanished.
"Wow!" Lukarian exclaimed.
The fleet ploughed forward. The roiling dust-cloud occasionally flashed with brilliant light as the remaining intact wall-spheres exploded. At the last moment the ships of the fleet veered aside. They twisted into their transition to warp drive, producing a wild clash of interacting spectra, a pattern of darkness and brilliant multicolored light.
The Enterprise floated alone in silent space.
Buffy heard laughter from beside her. "Ame?" she said as she turned to look at her friend.
"Is he gone?"
"Who?" Jim asked. "The director? Yes."
Lukarian rose, still chuckling. "I didn't want to laugh in his face."
"What are you laughing about?" Buffy asked.
"Koronin. I can't help it, I know I ought to be glad she got caught and sorry she escaped—that was an escape worthy of Houdini!—but I feel exactly the opposite. And I know how she got free."
"How?" Buffy asked.
"With myself no longer able to use the Key in my performances. I had to use a codepicker for my newest trick," Lukarian said. "I found it missing after the performance on the worldship. She stole it."
Buffy and Dawn both laughed. "And you showed the director one of your tricks," Buffy said. "That's when…"
"She took it," Lukarian said. "As you remember, Buffy. She was the Klingon's prisoner during the performance. They refused to leave her alone with the director wanted to see how I did a trick. She's pretty good for a novice."
Author's Note: Next we go into 4 episodes of TOS, then Wrath of Khan. I am debating adding in Search for Spock and Voyage Home before we move into TNG.