STAR TREK - TOS - The Last Roundup

Christie Golden

Based upon Star Trek®

created by Gene Roddenberry

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This book is dedicated

to Three Wise Men:

Robert Amerman

Mark Anthony

and

Michael Georges

Thanks, guys.

Contents

Prologue.5

Chapter One.6

Chapter Two.10

Chapter Three.13

Chapter Four17

Chapter Five.20

Chapter Six.23

Chapter Seven.27

Chapter Eight32

Chapter Nine.37

Chapter Ten.41

Chapter Eleven.45

Chapter Twelve.49

Chapter Thirteen.53

Chapter Fourteen.56

Chapter Fifteen.60

Chapter Sixteen.64

Chapter Seventeen.68

Chapter Eighteen.72

Chapter Nineteen.76

Chapter Twenty.81

Chapter Twenty-one.84

Chapter Twenty-two.87

Chapter Twenty-three.91

Chapter Twenty-four95

Chapter Twenty-five.99

Chapter Twenty-six.103

Chapter Twenty-seven.107

Epilogue.110

About the e-Book.111

Prologue

LIGHTS FLICKERED on inside the last of the mighty sky-ships. Smoothly, the oval vessel rose into the

air, caught the sunlight on its shiny, metallic surface, and then disappeared. The stoicfaçade of the

abandoned people finally shattered. A cry of pain and agony swelled up, a cry that their proud natures

would never have permitted them to utter while their so-called masters were present to scorn their

torment.

Takarik heard the cry of his people, and his heart ached for them. He let them wail and scream, sounds

that he had never before heard any of them make. They were left alone on this place now, with no way to

ever return to their homeland.

No way that they had yet thought of, at least.

When at last the deep, mourning sobs had subsided into soft sighs and shuddering whispers, he spoke.

“What a glorious day is now dawning for our people!” Takarik cried, lifting his arms as if to embrace the

world upon which they had been stranded. His people[2]stared at him as if he had gone mad. He smiled,

and his eyes twinkled. He meant every word.

“Those who believed themselves to be our betters think they have rid themselves of us. After so many

years of doing their hard labor, they no longer found us necessary, so they placed us here. And in so

doing, they did us a very great favor.”

“Takarik!” called an angry voice. “We have been removed from all we know! We have been callously

disposed of, as if we were nothing more than their waste matter!”

“What you say is true, Minkar,” Takarik acknowledged. “But we are not they. We do not have to

regard what has happened in the same light as they do. What they have done, I tell you truly, is freed us.

The land is rich with fruit and game. We have a small amount of technology that will enable us to build

shelters and communicate and find and prepare food. We have our hearts yet, and our keen minds. And

we also have this!”

He gestured to a youth standing behind him, holding what seemed to be an innocuous box. It was

scratched and dented, but within it ... ah, within ... Takarik had deliberately hidden it in this shabby box,

tucked it away casually with clothes and supplies as if it had no more worth than those ordinary things. It

had escaped discovery during a cursory search by a guard who obviously thought handling such tainted

things was beneath him.

With a ceremonial flourish, Takarik lifted the lid and withdrew the precious contents. He held it aloft[3]

proudly, and heard some murmurs. The gem was as large as his head, and even though it had not been

faceted as so many precious stones were, it caught and seemed to hold the very sun. It was almost

completely transparent save for its amber tinting like liquid sunlight, and without flaw as far as Takarik

could determine.

“That we were able to bring this safely from our homeworld to here, without our captors ever

discovering it, tells me that we have a great destiny in this place,” Takarik continued. “Many of you have

glimpsed this as you labored for those who deemed themselves superior. But many more of you have

never seen it. Oh, you have heard the tales; so have our captors, but as far as they know, they are

children’s stories.

“We do not yet know its true value, for we have never been permitted to reveal its existence to others,

but its beauty alone inspires us. We took heart in our labors, knowing that it shone for us alone. Our

captors never even knew it was there. This gem, this precious jewel, has made the bitter journey with us

to symbolize hope.”

Carefully, he replaced the stone in its deceptively nondescript box.

“This place will become our new home, but we will never forget our true heritage. We will thrivehere,in a

place where we will finally have the opportunity to govern ourselves. We will live in the shelters we build,

and eat what we have harvested. We will devote our culture to knowledge and development. We will

always remember the Great Stone and its beauty, and know that the gods gave it to us alone. And one

day, we will take what[4]is rightfully ours, earned by our labor, our blood, our sweat.”

He looked at their eager, upturned faces. Such hope was another expression he had never seen on

visages that were more accustomed to not revealing their emotions at all, lest they suffer for it.

“It will not be in my lifetime. Nor in hers,” he said, pointing to an infant in her mother’s arms. “Nor in her

child’s. But one day, I promise, it will happen.

“I swear to you by the beauty of the Great Stone—one day, we will go home.”

Chapter One

IT WAS A DEAD WORLD.

It had never supported life of its own. The planet known in Federation records as Polluxara IV had no

intelligent life that might interfere with the Prime Directive. It sported not so much as a microbe, but within

its lifeless, rocky exterior had once flowed a rich vein of what was then one of the most precious

substances in the universe—dilithium.

It was this deposit that had led Earth, almost a hundred and fifty years ago, to establish a colony in order

to mine the mineral. But now, once again, Polluxara IV was lifeless, save for the twenty-seven souls that

stood safely encased in environmental suits on its still-radioactive exterior.

Captain James Tiberius Kirk, once Admiral Kirk, and earlier and since captain of theU.S.S. Enterprise,

was one of the twenty-seven. The others were much younger and, at this moment, were quieter than he

had ever heard them.

[6]Kirk wasn’t surprised. Standing at the site of a great tragedy had that effect.

Towering above them were the ruins of what had once been a colony of vital importance to a

pre-Federation Earth. There remained only sharp shards of metal and other materials, warped, melted,

twisted, and pulverized. The bodies were long gone, of course. What the Earth forces could come and

retrieve to honor with a hero’s burial had been so gathered, decades past. But there hadn’t been enough

remains to bury of most of them; hadn’t been enough to find.

Kirk didn’t speak immediately after they materialized. He let the cadets look around and absorb what

they saw for themselves. The wide-eyed solemnity he saw in their faces—a mixture of species that would

have stunned those who had died here a century ago—made him nod slightly in approval. Good kids, all

of them. He’d been right to call in a few favors on this.

Time for the pop quiz.

“Cadet Singh,” Kirk said sharply. Indira Singh’s head whipped around.

“Sir!” she answered, snapping to attention despite the mute testimony to death that lay all around her.

“Tell me about Commander Lowe, if you please.”

Light glimmered on her protective faceplate, but not so much that Kirk couldn’t see her lick her lips

nervously. “CommanderSabraLowe led the mining colony here in the middle part of the twenty-second

century. It was a state-of-the-art colony that turned out swift production of a very pure form of dilithium,

almost ninety-two percent pure.”

[7]“How many other active dilithium mining colonies were there at that time?” Out of the corner of his

eye, he saw Cadet Skalli Jksili raise her long, slender arm, but he ignored her.

“Only seven. Polluxara IV turned out—” Singh hesitated, and her dark eyes widened as she frantically

sought the answer. “Four point oh seven two times the amount of the others.” She breathed easier.

“Very good. You’ve just made an excellent start on your final.”

A chorus of protest rose as the students realized that Kirk was apparently springing at least part of the

final exam of his course, “Command Decisions and Their Consequences,” on them here, now,

unannounced. The sounds were oddly comforting to Kirk, standing here among the ruins. It was a sound

that reminded him that life had to go on, no matter how many colonies—

“I did tell you to do your research,” Kirk reminded them mildly, raising a hand to still them. They quieted

at once. “Now. Cadet Brown. Tell me what happened here a few years later.” He could see Cadet Skalli

shaking her head in disgust.

Cadet Christopher Brown stood at attention, trying not to smile. Kirk had given him an easier question.

“Commander Lowe received advance warning of an attack. The scout reported that the Romulans, then

a relatively unknown species, were approaching.”

“And their goal was to completely destroy the colony, in order to strike fear into the heart of Earth

forces.”

“Negative, sir!” Brown’s smile widened as he caught[8]Kirk’s trick question. “Their goal was to take

over the colony in order to harvest the dilithium.”

“Which was to be used how?”

“To develop warp drive and create more ships to bring to bear against Earth forces in the war. Sir!”

“Very good. You too have a head start on the final, Mr. Brown. Cadet T’Pran, pick up the narrative

from this point.”

Cadet Skalli was now actually stomping in impatience. Kirk had once tried to curb these physical

displays of her irritation, but it was impossible. It was simply a part of what she was—a Huanni.

T’Pran, a coolly beautiful young Vulcan female whose calm demeanor was the antithesis of Skalli’s,

predictably showed no emotion as she obeyed Kirk’s request.

“There was insufficient time for Earth to send defense vessels. The colony had no weapons other than

approximately two hundred handheld phase guns, fourteen primitive torpedoes, sixteen assorted pieces

of mining equipment, and four thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven detonation devices.”

Not for the first time, Kirk marveled at how Vulcans used the wordapproximately.

“Very good. Cadet Lasskas, continue.”

The translator turned Lasskas’s hissing dialect into intelligible Federation standard, though it played a bit

with sentence structure.

“Commander Lowe choice had none. Selected she to colony destroy, detonation devices all deployed at

time same. Not Romulan hands fall into, precious dilithium,[9]at time of war when vulnerable Earth. Died

eight and forty and one hundred males and females by order of Commander Lowe.”

“Most of that is correct, but there’s something very wrong with that answer. Do you know what it is?”

Lasskas’s sharp-toothed muzzle opened and his thick, green, forked tongue fluttered. Since the rest of

his face was unable to move, that long tongue was the only indicator of his emotions. He clearly had no

idea what Kirk was getting at.

“Anybody know what was incorrect about Cadet Lasskas’s answer?” He could all but see their sharp

minds turning as they tried to find the factual flaw in Lasskas’s statement. They were all being too literal.

Not even Skalli’s hand was up this time. Her pale purple face was screwed up in frustration.

Kirk didn’t enlighten them at once. He began to walk around the area, carefully.

“We’re in a place of death, cadets. Even safely in our environment suits, we can feel it, can sense it. This

is sacred ground. A place where lives were sacrificed in order to preserve noble ideals. One day, any of

you might be looking at a similar scenario. I want you to take a moment and put yourself in Commander

Lowe’s position. Imagine yourself as commander of a colony of over a hundred people—people who

looked to you to keep them safe ... their families safe. Most of them hadn’t signed on for this out of a

desire for adventure or even any particular sense of loyalty. There was good money to be had for hard

work on this planet.”

They were quiet now, attentive. For the first time[10]since he started this class at the beginning of the

semester, Kirk felt that he was finally managing to get through to them. Hitherto, he had thought them too

starry-eyed to really listen. It had taken this—a risky visit to a devastated world that still leaked radiation

from its death throes—to do it, but he thought he had succeeded. If they understood this one message, it

wouldn’t matter to him what they had scored the rest of the semester.

“And then you hear from one of your scouts, who is attacked and killed shortly after he sends the

message, that Romulans are on the way,” Kirk continued, his voice ringing in this silent place. “Romulans.

You’ve never even seen them, only heard vague rumors about these faceless beings hitting outposts hard,

then vanishing. And now, they’re coming. For you.”

A few of them shifted uneasily. Others gazed at him raptly. Chief among these was Skalli. Kirk quickly

looked elsewhere. Skalli never needed much encouragement.

“They’re coming for you,” he repeated, “and your home planet can’t do a damn thing to protect you.

You’re too far away. You know what they want, and you know their tactics. They’ve never left anyone

alive before.” He paused in midstride and whirled back, catching their eyes with his own hazel ones.

“But they’ve never wanted anything from an outpost before. They might take you prisoner. They might

agree to let you go. You just don’t know. Now do you see why Cadet Lasskas’s answer wasn’t

correct?”

They stared at him blankly. Skalli was obviously[11]frustrated that she couldn’t grasp what her instructor

was getting at, and the rest seemed uneasy as well.

Kirk sighed. Maybe they were just too young. Maybe at their age, he wouldn’t have been able to

comprehend this either. After all, wasn’t he the one who secretly reprogrammed the simulation computer

in order to become the only Academy student able to wring victory from theKobayashi Maru

simulation?

“Cadet Lasskas’s answer was factually correct. But you’ve got to take into consideration more than just

facts if you’re to be a good officer in Starfleet. You’ve got to consider things like hunches, intuitions, gut

feelings ... and knowing that you always have a choice.” He glanced over at Lasskas, who was hanging

his reptilian head. “You said Commander Lowe didn’t have a choice. From our perspective, a

hundred-odd years in the future, that statement seems obvious.”

He spread his hands.“Of course she had to destroy the colony, and sacrifice every one of those one

hundred and forty-eight men and women, didn’t she? Weall know that’s what she had to do, don’t we?”

he said, exaggerating the words. “She couldn’t risk having that much dilithium fall into Romulan hands at

that crucial juncture. Just push a button. An easy decision. It’s in all the textbooks, so it must have been

obvious, an easy choice. It has as much relevance to us now as the fall of Lamaria, or the losses at

Normandy in 1944, back on Earth. Which is to say, not very much.”

Again, he surveyed them, standing tall and imposing. He had come to realize, somewhat ruefully, that to

many of these youngsters he was a living legend. If he could[12]drum this lesson into their heads, he

wouldn’t mind the pedestal.

“But theyshould have meaning, damn it. Every single man who died on the beaches at Normandy had a

life that was as dear, as precious to him as life is to any of you. Every single Lamarian who fell defending

their home from a vicious onslaught once laughed, and cried, and loved.”

He raised his arms and indicated their surroundings. “This particular site is unique. Because there’s no

atmosphere, it’s going to be preserved this way forever. There’s no grass here to soften this battlefield,

no grave markers to bleach and fade in the sun. We’ll always be able to stand here and look at what was

willingly done for the good of others as if it happened yesterday. Just because these people died over a

century past doesn’t mean we should let their sacrifice count for nothing.”

He softened his voice. “There is a quote from an ancient book on my world that says, ‘Greater love hath

no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ I disagree. It’s noble to die for a friend, for

someone you love and value. But how much nobler—and harder—is it to die for a stranger?

CommanderSabraLowe died for people she had never met. And shemade that choice freely. Now

that, cadets, is a command decision. And this is its consequence—both the ruins of Polluxara IV and the

fact that you and I are able to stand here today, alive, free, and members of a Federation that values

freedom and justice.”

To his deep satisfaction, Kirk saw the flickering of understanding pass across some of the painfully[13]

youthful faces. He heard a slight thump and turned in the direction of the sound. Not surprisingly, tears

were flowing down Skalli’s purple face. She had forgotten she was wearing the environmental suit and

had bumped her hand on the faceplate in an effort to wipe the river away.

The Huanni had only recently joined the Federation. Kirk had never seen such an emotional race before.

It in no way compromised their intelligence or skills, which were considerable, but they were as open in

their emotions as the Vulcans were closed—which was saying a lot. Skalli, the very first of her species to

be accepted at Starfleet Academy, had come a long way in the single semester Kirk had known her. By

Huanni standards, she was coldly logical. He had tried to be understanding of the outbursts while at the

same time helping her learn how to control herself. She had confided in him that she wanted to be an

ambassador one day. Kirk thought this highly unlikely.

To help her focus, he addressed her. “Cadet Skalli,” he said. “We will take a moment to think of those

who have died here so that we might live. Please, recite their names, slowly and solemnly.” He knew that

she, like all her species, had an eidetic memory, and this would be no challenge for her. But she would

see it as an honor.

She looked up at him, and in her enormous eyes shone pride and a very intense form of hero worship.

Kirk managed not to cringe. She composed herself, and with tears still streaming down her face began to

list the names of the colonists.

“CommanderSabraLowe. First Officer Jason Riley.[14]Second Officer Ramon Sanchez. Chief Engineer

Jonathan Bedonie. ...”

It took a long time, to recite a hundred and forty-eight names. When Kirk caught one of his students

fidgeting, he glared at him until he stopped. They stood at attention, until finally, Skalli stated the last

name.

Kirk waited a moment longer. At last he said, “We have twenty minutes before we return to the ship. I

suggest you take the time to wander the colony and get to know it for yourself. Be mindful that though the

residual radiation from the explosion is low it is still present, and that you are not under any circumstances

to remove so much as a glove. Also be aware there are many opportunities for a careless cadet to slip

and break a leg. I’d advise against it.”

There were slight, wary chuckles at this.It figures, thought Kirk.They finally start seeing me as a

human being on the last day of class. While it was obvious that the students were thrilled to be able to

attend his class, he knew that they were more interested in seeing him than in what he was saying. But

talking about major command decisions of the past few centuries—including a few historical ones he

himself had made—had only served to remind him that all he was doing was talking. He was horribly

bored, itching to get out and do something, which was one reason he had called in a few favors to

authorize this field trip to a place that was still largely off-limits. Command decisions weren’t textbook

cases, they were real, and bloody, and bitter. And heaven knew he’d had more than his share.

“There will be an essay as part of the final exam. It[15]is free-form, and all I want from you is your

impressions of Polluxara IV and what happened here. It will be due in my hands when we return to Earth

orbit. The students who correctly answered my questions will receive extra credit. Those of you who

didn’t have that opportunity will just have to make sure your essays are even better.”

“Captain, that’s not fair!” one of them piped up.

Kirk merely smiled. “It doesn’t have to be. I’m the instructor, and you’re the students. You’ll find that a

lot in this universe isn’t fair, but it has to be dealt with nonetheless. That, too, is part of being a Starfleet

officer. Dismissed.”

There were always those who loved writing essays in any class, and these students were abuzz with

excitement as they hastened off to explore. And, of course, there were always those who loathed essays,

and Kirk overheard the predictable grumbling from this segment as they departed with much less

enthusiasm.

Kirk wasn’t overly concerned. Most of them were outstanding students, and would pass even if they

failed the final. He welcomed the solitude, for he, too, wanted a chance to roam this place and soak up

the atmosphere.

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