Chapter 20 – 2394

"So that's her, huh?"

"Hmmm?"

They strolled down the corridor to the transporter, on their way to meet with the president and the ambassador for their tour. The captain clearly knew that Shaw had only been back onboard long enough to change his uniform.

"The woman in question. Ambassador Radford."

Shaw didn't bristle. John Sullivan had been his friend for long enough to ask about Becca.

"I have to admit, I had you wrong, Shaw."

"How so?"

"All the years I've know you, these women chase you and you let them catch you, and then they leave and you let them leave. None of my business, of course. I had assumed that there was some great lost love in your past. That she'd broken your heart and you never got over it. Then I realized that you weren't the kind to pine over someone like that. So then I assumed," Sullivan hesitated, "then I assumed she was dead. Probably tragically. It never even crossed my mind that she was just off having her own career. Or that she was, well, an ambassador."

"I had no idea you gave so much thought to my love life."

"Space travel. Long stretches of boring."

"We could use a little boring right now."

"We certainly could."

"You think she's out of my league."

"Oh, absolutely. In a different quadrant out of your league. I have no idea what she sees in you." The captain glanced over at him again. "You might want to hitch your collar up a little, cover that bruise."

Shaw reached up, then scowled and dropped his hand when Sullivan grinned at him.

"I like her," Sullivan continued. "And for whatever reason, she seems to like you. But the real question here is whether the president is out of my league."

"Maybe not," Shaw allowed. "But I guarantee, if I get his ship straightened out and then you distract him in a new way, my ambassador's going to shove you out an airlock."

"You're probably right." But after reflection, the captain added, "It might be worth it."


The tour started well. President Alme seemed fascinated with everything from the crew quarters to the astrometrics labs. He asked questions; he wanted to know every detail. Sullivan took the lead showing him around, with Shaw and Radford trailing behind, filling in as needed. "You've never toured a starship before?" the captain asked.

Alme smiled shyly. "Other such ships have visited, but I was never invited. I was never the president before."

"Almost makes it worth it, huh?"

"Almost."

But by the time they reached Engineering, which they'd planned to be at the end of the tour, the president was noticeably subdued. He was still interested, still curious, but he seemed almost sad.

Shaw took over as tour guide once they were on his home turf. He noticed that Becca said something very quietly to Sullivan; the captain seemed puzzled, but nodded. Then he focused his full attention on Alme.

Even the warp core didn't bring the president to life the way Shaw had expected. "What's on your mind?" he finally asked, their voices covered under the comfortable standby hum of the glowing core. "Something else you wanted to see?"

"No, no." Alme's stripes were deep blue. "I am only thinking … how much Kadla would have loved all of this."

"You miss her."

"Very much. And I … and I …" He turned and walked back to where Sullivan and Radford waited. "I am very sorry. I appreciate your time, truly, it has been fascinating, but I must return to my other duties now."

"You don't want to show us your ship?" Shaw asked, surprised.

"I … another time. If you don't mind."

"I'm sure you have a lot to do," Sullivan said calmly, "but at least stay for lunch. My chef's prepared one of my favorite dishes. I'm sure you'll like it."

Alme started to refuse, and Radford added, "It would be rude for us to miss it."

"Oh." The stripes went bluer still. "Oh. Well. Yes, if you .. yes, but then I must attend to my government duties."

"Of course." Sullivan ushered him off the deck.

Trailing them, Shaw show a look at Becca. She nodded, gave a little palm-down hand gesture. We've got this. He had no idea what had happened or how she planned to fix it. He didn't think Sullivan did, either. Somehow this tour of a Starfleet ship had turned into a diplomatic matter. But he trusted her to manage it.

He didn't have much choice.


"Oooooooooh." Alme stared through the panoramic window of the observation lounge. Below, the curve of Hyslainu glowed blue and green and white. "Oh, I have seen pictures, but –" He stepped closer, raised his hands, stopped just short of placing them on the window's surface. "She's beautiful."

"She truly is," Sullivan agreed.

The chef brought lunch in. Green salads with mandarins and sugared almonds. Chicken breasts with a light lemon finish, gently seasoned brown rice, green beans. It was actually Sullivan's favorite meal, Shaw noted, and the president seemed to like his first tastes. But after they'd all commented on the food, conversation lagged. Radford steered it to talk of hiking trails and scenic vistas and waterfalls. Sullivan, an avid hiker, asked questions and helped the luncheon along.

Alme seemed increasingly miserable.

The ambassador finally picked up the remote for the tactical board and clicked it. A vid began running immediately. It was very old, black and white, jerky and poor quality.

"What is that?" Alme asked.

"That," Radford said, "Is Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Earth. Terran's very first flight."

He suppressed a laugh. "I see."

"We got better after that." The vid continued, becoming slightly better quality as the sub-orbital craft became more sophisticated. "See?"

"What are those?" he pointed.

"They're propellors," Shaw said. "They're shaped to push the air back, and the wings are shaped to give lift to the craft."

"Propellors. Propellors?"

"They worked," Radford protested mildly. "We flew across oceans with them."

"With those?"

"Yes."

Whatever had been bothering Alme dropped away, at least for the moment. Shaw could see that he was fully engaged in the little video.

"It was about sixty years we went from Kitty Hawk to our first orbital launch."

They watched the rocket launch on the screen. Then there was a still photo, one that Shaw recognized immediately. He flinched, hoped it would pass quickly. But it lingered on the vid screen. He glanced at Becca.

"Oh, sorry. Not that one, over lunch." She fumbled with the remote, finally got the vid to continue.

Too late. "Wait." Alme stood up. "Go back. What was that?"

Reluctantly, she backed the display up to the photo. It was black-and-white and showed three somber men in old-fashioned Earth military uniforms standing next to a table, with two more men in the background. On the table was a blackened, gnarled mass no bigger than a toddler. Nothing about it looked Human.

"His name was Vladimir Komarov," Becca said. "He was one of the first to orbit our planet, very early in our space exploration. His ship's systems failed on re-entry, his parachutes failed to slow his descent, and he was ultimately killed in an explosion. He was the first of our people to die in space. Although we had earlier had people die during a test launch, on the launch pad."

The president stared at the image, transfixed. "Parachutes?" he asked softly.

"They were used for re-entry in a number of our early space launches," Shaw answered.

"But surely not after this?"

Shaw glanced at Becca. He understood now that the photo had not been an accident. She'd included it to spark this conversation. "After this," he said, "we – our ancestors – improved the systems, made sure that this wouldn't happen again. But we continued to use parachutes for a time."

"And … you continued. To space."

"We did." Radford tapped the controller and the vid continued. Rocket launches, splashdowns, control centers, orbital tracking displays. Alme sat down, uneasy. "We learned. We got more advanced. We went further. We landed on our moon. We built a ship that could go to space and then land and go again."

The vid showed the first orbiter, a ship called Columbia that would be known as the first space shuttle. It showed her launch and her landing, still using a parachute, but this time not deployed until she was on the ground.

Shaw braced himself, knowing what was coming next. He still wasn't entirely clear on the why. He glanced at Sullivan; the captain didn't know, either.

"We got cocky," Radford continued. "After more than twenty years of safe shuttle launches and landings, we decided to send our first civilian to space. We wanted people to start to think that someday anyone would be able to go. So we sent an ordinary person. A teacher. A primary school teacher." A picture of the seven crew members came up. "Christa McAuliffe. Back row, second from the left. She trained, of course. Underwent physical testing and such. She was going to teach students from orbit. They brought viewers into classrooms all around the world so children could to watch the launch."

The vid showed the launch. And then the explosion.

Alme stared at the screen, transfixed. "Did they survive?"

"No."

"But … but what happened?"

"There was icing on an O-ring," Shaw said. "A gasket, basically. Where they launch from, the weather was usually warm. But there had been frost overnight. Enough ice crystals formed to make a gap. And that's all it took."

"There was an engineer who warned them," Sullivan added. "Or tried to. He advised that the delay the launch."

"But they didn't, because of all those children watching," Radford said.

"So they all saw – all of that?"

"The best we could tell them," she went on, "was that they had all died instantly."

"Which probably wasn't true," Shaw added.

"I didn't realize. I didn't know." Alme shook his head. "That you had lost a whole ship. A whole crew."

"Ambassador Sovek gave you a library, but the Vulcans tend to skim over this part of Terran history. I think they don't want to embarrass us by showing how primitive our technology was. Even Ephram Cochran is covered pretty lightly, and he's the father of our modern age."

"But after." He waved at the screen. "How did you go on after?"

"Same as before," Sullivan said. "We grieved, we learned what mistakes were made, we tried not to make them again."

"And we kept going," Shaw added.

"When we met the Vulcans for the first time, we were at the same stage of our development that you were when Sovek arrived here. They gave us so much help, so much technology." Radford waved around the room. "You look at this big, beautiful ship, and you think you could never develop anything like this. The truth is, we didn't either, we Humans. We had help from societies that were far more advanced than us. The Vulcans, the Andorians, the Tellarites. Many others. We learned from all of them. As you will learn from us. And we will learn from you."

Alme stared at her. "But she is safe. Stable. After the Vulcans came, you never lost another ship like that. Not with the whole crew?"

"Oh, I wish that was true," Sullivan said. "We damn near lost this whole ship and crew just a few weeks ago."

"That was enemy action and not mechanical failure," Shaw pointed out. "But we have lost plenty of good ships and good people. Even with all the precautions and all the experience we've shared – space keeps finding new ways to kill us."

"Or old ways that we forgot about," Sullivan said.

"Or we didn't forget, but the precautions we took weren't enough."

"The bottom line is that we aren't meant to be in outer space, and our survival there depends on a whole lot of things going right all the time."

Alme blinked. "What?"

Sullivan leaned forward. "There are beings that can exist out in space. In the vacuum, in the cold. But none of us can. We need atmosphere, warmth, gravity – it's not our natural habitat. We can build those things," he gestured around at the ship, "but the minute they fail, we're done."

"It's like you put a firebug in a bubble and threw it in the lake," Shaw explained. "It could survive as long as the bubble held, but the minute it started to leak –" He shrugged.

"So you are … you are not safe, even here. As big as she is, as advanced … still not safe."

"Not completely, no. But we try. We try really hard to keep everyone as safe as possible."

"But the only way to be absolutely safe," Sullivan said, "is to stay home. And none of us wants to do that."

Alme stared out the viewscreen at his planet.

Becca clicked off the vid. Shaw caught her eye. He got it now. The president had been overwhelmed by the Munro's size and technology, but he'd also realized that if they had waited until Hylainsu was a full member of the Federation, he would have had access to technology that might have saved his sister's life.

That was still true, but they'd shown him that it wasn't a certainty.

The Komarov slide in the stack hadn't been an accident. Of course it hadn't. She'd anticipated all of this.

"I think," Alme finally said, "I think I would like to show you my ship after all. She is small and … primitive, but I would like to share her with you."

"We'd be honored to visit," Sullivan answered.

"Would you like to have dessert first?" Radford suggested quietly.

"I … yes. I would, yes, please."


They were headed to the transporter when Dr. DeJesus came into the corridor. "Captain, may I … oh, excuse me, I didn't realize you had guests."

"It's alright," Sullivan said. "President Alme, Ambassador Radford, this is Dr. DeJesus, our chief medical officer. What can I do for you, Doctor?"

"The central medical facility on Hylainsu contacted us and offered a suite of rooms for us to set up an infirmary to treat some of the crew on shore leave."

Alarmed, Alme said, "Are there injuries? I am so sorry –"

"No, no," DeJesus said quickly, "nothing at all major or unexpected. Scrapes and bruises, some bug bites, one plant reaction. Very common, very minor."

"No sunburn?" Radford asked lightly.

"It's early in the day, I'm sure we'll get to that. Of course, if there are any major injuries we'll transport them back to the ship. What we're seeing so far are strictly patch-and-release. But we want to be mindful of not swamping their medical facility with our minor injuries. Apparently they're expecting quite a lot of maternity cases in the next few days."

"Oh yes," Alme said. "Once the suthberries are gone, the babies arrive." He flushed blue. "It's a – an old saying, first berries and then babies. And true, to some extent. More babies are born in this time of year than any other."

"Interesting. We'll definitely want to stay out of the way." Sullivan nodded. "I have no problem with this arrangement."

"I don't object." Alme frowned. "But I, hmm, perhaps …"

"Maybe you should run it by Secretary Rosu," Radford suggested. "Just as a formality."

"Yes. Her, yes."

"She's the head of the Safety and Health Commission," the ambassador explained.

"Yes." Alme nodded again. "I should go and speak to her. It should not take long."

"I can go, if you like," Radford said. "There's no reason I can't discuss it with her. And you can go on with your visit."

"You'll miss the ship," Shaw said.

"I've seen her. She's beautiful. She's so beautiful."

Alme was clearly in favor of the idea. "But would that be proper?"

"Rosu may want to touch base with you, confirm that you have no objection. And with the hospital administration. But it's mostly formality. If you had more staff you could hand it off to them."

"But you will not hand it off," Alme protested.

"I won't," she agreed, "but only because at this time of day I know she'll have a fresh pot of argerbet." She looked to the others. "It's a local beverage. Sort of like if cappucino and chai had a very spicy baby, served over ice."

"It's awful," Alme said.

"It's delicious, and Secretary Rosu makes it best."

"It sounds like we have a plan, then," Sullivan said.

"Shouldn't take more than an hour. May I contact Dr. DeJesus directly?"

"Please do," the captain said.

"Thank you," DeJesus said. "I'll start getting things together."

The four of them beamed back down to the planet and prepared to split up.

"You should take them in through the upper door," Radford advised as she left them. "She's most beautiful from above."

Alme colored, still nervous but clearly pleased now to show off his creation. "I will."


Ambassador Radford was not, of course, wrong.

Shaw and Sullivan stood on the catwalk in the hangar and looked down at the most unique and arguably most beautiful ship they had ever seen.

The Swift Two was shaped very much like the bird she was named for. Her body was long and sleek. Her wings – she had wings – angled back sharply from just behind her head – a rounded nose that Shaw assumed contained the flight deck. The wings ended in long cylinders that he guessed were Alme's version of nacelles. They were slender, elegant, and looked like the folded-in tips of a bird's wings. Her body flattened aft, forming a tail that currently stood open to form a cargo ramp. There was nothing on the top surface of the ship that disturbed her smooth lines. She was silver-white and elegant on the hangar floor.

"Whoa," Shaw breathed.

"She has wings," Sullivan said.

"Yes. We originally tried to build her with full-length wings, but it was impractical. And all of the literature we received from Starfleet said the same. So we modified her. But she can still glide on re-entry without power if necessary. In theory, anyhow."

Shaw had seen space vessels with wings before, of course. The Romulan's Warbirds were the closest comparison. Klingon Birds of Prey. But they were both bristling with weapons and defenses. The ship below seemed utterly peaceful.

Oh, that's a terrible idea.

She looked a little like Earth's old space shuttles, except that her body was more slender, her wings higher on the body and longer. She almost looked like one of the sub-orbital crafts in Gander's museum. Yes. The Swift looked almost like an airplane. She was much bigger, of course. Roughly the size of a speed freighter. The wing configuration was different. And her capabilities, presumably, were vastly different. But Shaw understood exactly why Becca was drawn to her.

She's beautiful.

He glanced at Sullivan.

The captain nodded as if he'd heard his thought. "Oh, I bet she flies like a dream." His hands flexed involuntarily; way back when, Shaw knew, Sullivan had started his career at the helm.

"Not yet she doesn't," Alme said.

"We don't have anything like her. Sabre class, maybe, or Yeager. Intrepid … no, Peregrine … but none of them are like her. She's-" Sullivan gave up and just whistled softly.

Alme beamed, his stripes bright with pleasure. "Come. Come see her."

They went down the stairs to the hangar floor. The ship was bigger than Shaw had first though, three or maybe four decks high, and with all the necessary exterior fixtures on her underside. They boarded on the cargo ramp. While her hull was nearly completed, the interior was rough and largely skeletal. Alme walked them through, showing them where everything would be. It was as clean and elegant as her exterior. But it was far from finished.

There was a part of Shaw that would have liked to stay for a year and help build this brand-new ship. And there was a part that was very glad to know that Becca had an exit plan for them.

All of him understood why Kater Alme could not concentrate on the treaty that would bring his world into the Federation. The Swift was his passion, his joy, his life.

"Here," Alme pointed, "is where I gave up on my power distribution. Your EPS solution I think will work."

"It should," Shaw said. He cocked his head at the mess of wiring. "Where does this go?"

Alme showed him.


Sullivan followed them around for a time. Then he excused himself to go look in on the temporary infirmary. He checked on his crew; all injuries remained minor. He changed his clothes and went hiking in the mountains. They were every bit as spectacular as promised.


"President Alme? Commander Shaw?"

"In here!" Shaw called. They were in what would one day be the cargo bay, just at the top of the ramp, leaning over a schematic screen.

Nico Zarzour came into the hangar, with a Hyslain man. "We've brought you some dinner."

"We had lunch on the starship," Alme answered.

The native man cleared his throat. "That was many hours ago, sir."

Alme and Shaw shared a look. "Now that they mention it," Shaw said.

"I am rather hungry as well."

They washed up, then went to the table the aides had set up in the doorway of the hangar. "Just leave everything when you've finished," Zarzour said. "We'll clear up later."

"Thank you."

They sat down together. The table was absolutely loaded with assorted dishes.

"I must apologize," Alme said as they ate. "I should have been more mindful of the time. Made sure we stopped for a meal."

"It's fine," Shaw said. "Didn't know I was hungry until I saw the food."

"I'm sure this is the ambassador's doing."

"Probably. She knows engineers. Knows we won't stop to eat unless someone puts it right in front of us."

They ate quietly, quickly, for a time. A cool breeze came in off the grassy field outside the hangar. The sun sat on the horizon.

"What is that?" Shaw asked. He pointed across the field at a distant pile of what looked like metal, perhaps art of some kind. It seemed off to have such an installation on a landing field.

"That is what remains of our ship to leave our solar system."

"Ahh."

"Her name was Curiosity. The ambassador tells me that you've also had ships by that name."

"Several, if I recall."

"She was just a rocket, basically. Much like your early space ships. Kadla and I designed and built her. Our first faster-than-light ship. We didn't call it warp then. We'd worked with the government, but they didn't believe that part would work. And most of them didn't think there was any life beyond our system anyhow. So we … financed that part on our own and didn't tell anyone. We were supposed to go to the sixth planet, to the edge of our system and back. We got there and then we just kept going."

"You were brave."

"We were idiots. We got out there, we reached warp one, and then the whole ship started to break down, one system after the other. We turned around and limped back toward home, patching as we went. It took weeks."

"But you made it."

Alme's stripes went bluer. "We didn't, actually. On re-entry the shields failed. We had no power left, no way to slow ourselves except to try to control the glide path. And that wasn't enough."

"That's why your new ships have wings," Shaw realized.

"Yes. To give us a fighting chance. Of course, Swift One had wings and it didn't make a bit of difference …" He gazed across the field at the older wreckage. "Curiosity started to burn up. We knew we were going to die. We were afraid we were going to crash into the city. We tried steering, tried power, and there was just the slightest response, like a tug, enough to divert our course but not enough to save us. Kadla held my hand, and I looked at her, and then there was this sparkling light all around us." He chuckled. "I thought we were about to die. I thought we were seeing the Sky Mother. And then suddenly we were sitting in the grass just outside our launch area, and our ship was exploding up in the sky. But out over the launch field, where it did no harm."

Shaw grinned. "And you did not meet the Sky Mother."

"We did not. There was more sparkling light and then there were these aliens, these – I'm sorry, is that an offensive term?"

"No. We are aliens on your world."

"They had no stripes. One was blue, with antennae. One had spots, but no stripes. And this man, this tall man with pointed ears. He was so serious. And he said, I am Ambassador Sovek from the planet Vulcan. I represent the United Federation of Planets. We regret that we were unable to preserve your ship. Do you require medical assistance? Kadla and I didn't know what to say. We just started laughing. Which I learned later was not really the proper way to greet a Vulcan."

"Understandable reaction. Not every day you almost die, experience a transporter, and meet a Vulcan all in the space of five minutes."

"I don't think I'll ever match that feeling. It was amazing, it was – I can't even describe it. If I had died right then, I would been satisfied with my whole life."

Alme looked down, and Shaw guessed that he was thinking about his sister again. Then he shook his head. "Ambassador Radford was there."

"At first contact?"

"Yes. She wasn't an ambassador then. I don't even know if she had a title. She was just there, part of the group. She offered us water. She sipped it first to show it was safe. Which was, I realized later, complete nonsense, because we knew nothing of her physiology, what was perfectly safe for her might have been deadly poison for us, but … we drank, and it was safe. And then …" He paused. "Then a firebug landed on her arm. Have you seen one up close? They're ugly creatures, big and hairy. She was startled, I could tell. But she didn't flinch or smash it, or even brush it away. She just slowly turned her arm and brought it closer to her face so she could see it." He demonstrated with his own arm. "She said, it has hairy legs, is it a pollinator?

"One of the others had a device, a tricorder, I later learned, and she scanned the bug. She said, it's bioluminescent, is it nocturnal? The Vulcan said, have we disturbed its rest cycle? Has our arrival caused it harm? It was a bug, this common bug, this bug I'd seen every night of my light, and they were all so concerned about it. So careful. I don't think they even knew if it was dangerous or not." Alme shook his head. "I know it's naïve to think that how a group of advanced beings treats a bug reflects how they will treat your whole civilization. But – it was true. They were curious and respectful and so concerned about our well-being. From that first moment."

Shaw took a deep breath. He spent so much of his time dealing with Starfleet's petty bullshit and the Federation's nonsensical bureaucracies, parts and provisions shortages, orders that took them days out of their way, battles that could have been avoided with clearer communication and better negotiation. It was easy to forget what they were all working for. That the Federation was good, and admired, and striving always to be better.

"It kills me," Alme said, "that I am failing her so badly."

Startled, Shaw asked, "Who?"

"Ambassador Radford."

"You're … not. Why would you think you were?"

Alme put his fork down. "She's very patient, endlessly patient, but … I've seen a document with the timeline. The final treaty was supposed to be signed over a month ago, and we are nowhere near ready for it even now. I have delayed her so much because I wanted to be here."

"I'm guessing," Shaw said carefully, "that the timeline you saw was drafted before your entire government got itself removed. Before you were president."

"Yes. But it still could have been accomplished …"

"Was she even here then? Ambassador Radford?"

"No. There was someone else then. I think I only met him once. She came … after the crash, after the scandal was exposed. Shortly after the last president stepped down, in fact."

"So your government changed, our ambassador changed, doesn't it make sense that the timeline would change?"

"I suppose. But if I were even half-way competent …"

Shaw considered. "Let me ask you something. How long you been studying engineering? Space flight?"

"All my life. I was fascinated even as a child."

"And how long have you been a diplomat?"

"Since … oh." Alme's stipes colored a little. "I do see your point. But …"

"But you've been a genius your whole life, so you expect yourself to be a genius about things you just started doing."

"Well. Yes."

"You know who has been a diplomat her whole life?"

"… Ambassador Radford?"

"When I first met her, when she was still a student, she was writing a study on how treaty negotiations get derailed sometimes because of things that happened in the lives of the diplomats outside of the negotiations. She's arguably the Federation's leading expert on situations just like yours. A genius in her own field. But if you brought her down here to fix this deflector, you would have to walk her through every single step of the process. That doesn't mean she's not smart. It means she's spent her life studying something else."

Alme stared at him. His stripes went deep blue, then pale, then back to their normal color. "Oh."

"The only one who expects you to be a brilliant diplomat here is you. The Federation doesn't. They sent you their ambassador best equipped to walk you through this. And I guarantee you, Becca threw that old timeline out the window the minute she got the assignment. So stop beating yourself up about not being the expert. You have an expert."

"I … oh." He looked out over the field again. "Oh. I never … you're right, I'm used to being the smartest person in any room, I never …"

"You probably still are," Shaw said, "but there's a difference between being smart and having experience."

"And being wise," Alme added. "I think you are wise."

"Well, that would be the first time anyone ever said that about me, but thank you."

The president picked up his fork again. His eyes were already turned back to the hull of his ship. "I think," he said slowly, "that I will take your advice. And the ambassador's."

"Good choice. And then we'll talk about deflectors?"

Alme laughed. "Of course."