Low-velocity objects such as Jupiter Station.
“Five meters… four point five…” The Klingon’s deep voice was calm and steady, reflecting the trust he had in his captain.
Picard eased his hands along the navigation and propulsion controls. Impulse engines were on standby; he was flying his ship strictly by its docking thrusters.
“Two meters…” Worf said.
Picard kept his attention on the conn readouts. He didn’t risk more than a quick glance at the viewscreen where the ventral surface of the station’s key node took the entire field of view. Engineering codes and safety labels were clearly legible.
“One meter…”
“All hands, brace for impact,” Picard said quietly.
Then a low-pitched metallic clang reverberated through the bridge as the Enterprise swayed, almost as if the starship were a sailing vessel on a becalmed sea.
“Contact,” Worf announced.
Picard knew that it would have been an easier maneuver had he chosen to bring the Enterprise to one of the station’s docking ports; then the computers could have handled it on automatic. But in order to take his ship into what was essentially a collision course, he had had to override the computers.
“Are we stable?” Picard asked.
Beside him, his ops officer checked her readings. “No drift,” Kadohata confirmed. “We’re in solid contact.”
“Then here we go,” Picard said, and once again he adjusted the thruster controls to apply gentle pressure, slowly forcing the Enterprise up against the station.
It had to be gradual, otherwise the ship might punch through the key node, snapping off the station’s six arms, turning them into unpowered and doomed spacecraft of their own.
Metallic scrapes and clangs, stuttering vibrations from the structural-integrity field in constant reset mode, the pulse of the artificial-gravity generators as they fruitlessly tried to propagate their pseudo-inertial field through the immense volume of the station above… to Picard, all these sensations brought his ship to life for him, like horseback riding: a magnificent steed so in synch, so responsive, that there was no distinction between horse and rider.
Bonded even as he was with his ship, Picard still endured twenty minutes of uncertainty before Commander Kadohata called out what he’d hoped to hear.
“Captain, our orbit is changing.”
Picard felt the rush of relief. Just as primitive chemical-powered spacecraft had once been used to raise the orbits of Earth’s first pioneering space stations, the Enterprise now carried Jupiter Station on her hull, lifting it from certain destruction. With momentum begun, he switched to impulse propulsion.
The station rose like a phoenix, untouched by what would have been its fiery fate, leaving the planetwide storms of Jupiter’s endless clouds below.
After four hours of slow but constant acceleration, La Forge reported that the main impulse manifolds were in danger of overheating. But in this new orbit, he also confirmed that the station would be safe for months, ample time for new thrusters to be installed and repairs undertaken.
Picard throttled back the impulse engines, and so gently that he did not feel the change, Jupiter Station moved up from the Enterprise, safe in its own orbit.
Only then did Picard take his hands from the controls, and almost at once he realized that his shoulders and back were knotted painfully. He had been hunched over, unmoving, for hours.
He stood up carefully, arched his back. “Ensign Choyce… take the conn.”
As Picard stepped away from the station, Choyce slipped into his place.
“We’ll need to take all the survivors we’ve brought on board to medical facilities,” Picard said. “The Denobulan Center on the moon might be best.”
Instead of complying though, or announcing that he was laying in a course, the ensign simply looked up at Picard with a nervous expression, then moved his eyes meaningfully aft.
Perplexed, Picard followed the ensign’s gaze, and saw that his ship had a visitor.
“Admiral Janeway,” Picard said, startled. “A welcome surprise.”
The admiral sat in Picard’s command chair, one finger lightly tapping the arm. There was no telling how long she had been there, but Picard appreciated that his crew had chosen not to disturb him.
“We’ll see how long you think that,” Janeway said. “We’re going to Mercury. At impulse.”
Picard looked to Worf and to Troi, but saw no sign of comprehension from either of them.
“Clearly, there’s more going on here than I know,” Picard said carefully.
Janeway sighed, but made no move to get out of his chair. Picard noticed her eyes were shadowed, skin pale. She was an admiral who hadn’t slept for days-never a good sign.
“Jean-Luc, for the past year, an enemy has made preparations to invade the Federation. In all likelihood, they’ve been at it even longer than what we’ve been able to uncover.”
Picard forgot about his aching muscles. “I assure you we are ready to meet any invader.”
Janeway shook her head. “It’s too late for that. The invasion’s already taken place, and we still don’t know who we’re fighting.”
11
GATEWAY MUNICIPAL CENTER, VULCAN
STARDATE 58563.6
“There is no crime on Vulcan,” Prefect Vorrel said calmly.
Trying to remember all that Spock had taught him, Kirk matched the young Vulcan bureaucrat’s emotionless tone. “Yet my son’s been kidnapped.”
“That is not a logical conclusion, Mister Kirk.”
Vorrel might have thought he was keeping his emotions in check, but Kirk had no trouble detecting the condescension in his voice. Still, Kirk wouldn’t give the prefect the pleasure of seeing him react like the Vulcan stereotype of an emotional outworlder.
“It’s the only logical explanation,” Kirk said evenly. “Perhaps I should talk with an official with a more certain grasp of the facts.”
It was just a subtle sign, the momentary lifting of one eyebrow a millimeter higher than the other, but Kirk could see that his insult had had its desired effect.
Vorrel made a show of checking his evidence padd-the only object on his polished wooden desk. The rest of his office was equally bare. A single carved stone IDIC broke the monotony of the smooth, rust red plaster walls and dark wooden beams. Even the dust in the air, caught in the daylight seeping in through sand-frosted glass, was still and unmoving.
“You admit you argued with your child,” Vorrel stated.
“I understand that fathers and sons have been known to argue even on Vulcan.”
The prefect folded his hands on his desk, angled his head in a show of confidence, as if Kirk had just passed control of the conversation to him. “But on Vulcan, neither individual gives in to an emotional response to that argument.”
It was all Kirk could do to remain seated. His son had been missing for almost an entire Vulcan day. He needed access to public surveillance records, satellite monitoring, all the public safety systems that this smug prefect claimed Vulcan didn’t have or need because there was no crime here.
“I know my son, Prefect. If he gets mad at me, he sulks in his quarters, he pretends he can’t hear me, he spends time with his Uncle Scotty in the engine room. But he does not run away from me on an alien planet. He knows the rules I’ve set and he follows them.”
The Vulcan’s infuriatingly placid attitude didn’t change. “One reason why Vulcan parents and children argue
