"Ah, negative, Base, it doesn't seem hostile. Activating
manoeuvring jets to take a closer look."

"I'm not picking up anything on your visual, Johnny,
you seem to have a malfunction."

"My indicators are green, Base. Let me give it a slap.
That better?"

"Negative, Johnny, still no picture."

"Well, I'm seeing a sort of green and blue glow, here,
and it seems to be surrounding the ... with a sort of
... on the end."

"Johnny, your transmission is breaking up."

"I'm green ... board, Base. ... dish again ... without

"Johnny, our dish is reading clear from Alpha to
Omega. Your transmission is breaking up. Suggest you
pull back."

"... and then ... prettiest ... never..."

"Can you hear me, Johnny? Suggest you pull back.
Suggest you pull back. Your transmission is breaking
up. Suggest you pull back. Please confirm."

"... well, I ... tell ya, Mary, it's ..."

"Pull back right now. Pull back. We're losing your
signal, there's some kind of interference, pull back,
Johnny, pull back! Can you hear me, Johnny?
Johnny, confirm, please. Pull back. We are losing your
transmission. Confirm please. Johnny, confirm.
Johnny, confirm. Johnny, confirm. Johnny, confirm.
Johnny, confirm, come on. Johnny, confirm you hear
this. Pull back. Johnny, confirm. Johnny, confirm.
Johnny, confirm, dammit! Johnny, dammit, you are
scaring me to death here, confirm! Confirm, Damn you!
Johnny! Johnny! "

Transmission record found in databanks of Mining Base
CIV 34-Omega-19.

Alpha Quadrant Sector 34, date-stamped Stardate
1634.1

"...on Starbase 18. Repeat, this is Admiral Dewey on
Starbase 18. I am declaring a general emergency under
section 75 subsection 39 a of the Federation legal code as
of time of this transmission. This Starbase is under
martial law as of this time. This Starbase will be evacuated
with all despatch under standard evacuation procedures. This
constitutes a sector wide general emergency, and all ships,
bases and stations in receipt of this transmission are to
respond accordingly. Evacuation schedule to follow.
Message ends. Repeat message. This is Admiral Dewey
on Starbase 18. Repeat, this is Admiral Dewey on-"

"Shut it off, Uhura." Kirk said. "Let me know as soon as
we get an evacuation schedule through."

"Aye, sir." she said, and silenced the transmission.

Kirk hit the comm. on the arm of his chair. "Scotty, this is
the captain. I need all the power you've got. We're heading
for Starbase 18 at maximum warp."

"Sir?" Scotty said, justifiably puzzled. After the sudden
course change at Starbase 34, the departure of the
examination candidates, and the hurry to get to Starbase 9
as quickly as practical, an order to turn around just before
they got there and go streaking back across the galaxy?

"Starbase 18 is being evacuated."

"Aye, sir. Warp 8.5 when ye need it, sir."

"Thank you, Scotty. We'll get you your refit somehow, I
promise."

" That'd be a great weight of my mind, sir. My bairns'll
give you all they hae, but they're getting a wee bit tired."

Kirk closed the channel. "Course to Starbase 18 at warp
8.5, Mr Sulu."

"Yes, sir!" Sulu sang out, and Kirk felt the tone of the
engines change through the decking beneath his feet.

"ETA?"

"Seventy nine point 3 hours, sir."

"Vat do you think eet ees?" Kirk heard Chekov whisper to
the helmsman.

"Life-support failure, probably." Sulu answered.

"Next veek's vater surplus says eet's an epidemic."

"You're on." Sulu said. "Shame to take your money,
Pavel, they wouldn't evacuate for an epidemic, they'd
quarantine."

Kirk hit the comm. again for all call. "This is your
captain. We are responding to a sector wide emergency called
by Admiral Dewey requiring the evacuation of Starbase 18.
We will arrive insystem in a little over seventy nine hours.
I will have further and more specific orders closer to our
time of arrival, but in the meantime prepare to go to
Yellow Alert two hours before our insystem arrival and
general quarters one hour after that. In the interim, please
review your standard evacuation procedure manuals. That's
all. Kirk out."

He ran a hand through his hair, possibilities teeming in his
mind. "Ms Rand," he said, "can you-"

And stopped. For a moment, in the shock of hearing a
sector wide alert declared, he had forgotten, but of course
Janice Rand was not there to take his orders. Janice Rand
was not there because she was sitting the examinations
that would be part of the determination on whether or not
she could enter the command track.

On Starbase 18.

When the lift doors hissed open and he identified the voice
of Jack Whittaker raised in irate complaint, Kirk did not
turn around. Forcing the Commodore to walk around
and down to the bridge's well to get his attention, and thus
to look up to the captain's chair rather than down on it,
was a petty satisfaction and Kirk would not normally have
indulged it. But as Whittaker began to point out that the
Enterprise was not actually *in* sector 18 and therefore
was not technically required to respond to an alert there,
and would probably not get anywhere near Starbase 18 in
time to do any good, and was less than a day's travel away
from Starbase 9 at the moment and - as Whittaker's voice
went on, Kirk looked down at him and thought one single
dark thought.

~ If not for you,~ he thought, ~we would be there, where
we're needed. If not for you, and your self-importance,
and your need to run away from Fat Harry Pateman, and your
insufferable ego, I would be useful right now and not
stuck half-way across the Quadrant.~

~And all of my crew would be where I could lay my hands
on them, and gather them up, and know they were safe.~

~ If not for you.~