STAR TREK - TOS - 89 - New Earth - Wagon Train to the Stars

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THE WAGON TRAIN TO THE STARS WAS IN TROUBLE. . . .

“Target our phasers,” Captain Kirk said, “and prepare to fire if that drone fires on us. Chekov, provide

pinpoint coordinates to the upper left.”

“Left . . . got it.”

“Spock, are we broadcasting?”

“Yes, sir. The drone is unresponsive. It believes it has found its quarry and won’t release.”

“Boost the signal.”

“Proximity range in thirteen seconds, sir,” Sulu said, tipping his shoulders as he turned the ship. “Drone’s

firing on us.” Spock watched his console instead of the gigantic crawling monster on the screen as it

approached, then dipped below the ship’s saucer-shaped primary hull. “Drone is tractoring on our

engineering section. Five minutes to phaser-critical.”

Tensely Kirk lowered his chin and digested the fact that they were now aboard the powerful drone’s

chosen target. “Mr. Sulu, bear off from the Expedition ships. Give us room to maneuver . . .”

D I A N E C A R E Y

NEW EARTH CONCEPT BY DIANE CAREY AND JOHN ORDOVER

POCKET BOOKS

New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore Belle Terre

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

BELLE TERRE

STARFLEET: YEAR ONE

Look for STAR TREK fiction from Pocket Books

Chapter One

DISTANTNIGHT, the most distant. Today, a giant’s finger of tractless lingering haze dusted space

deep cobalt blue, painting the otherwise ink matte of weeks past. Everything changed day by day, even

space itself.

Or perhaps it was only anger.

Prowling the central command deck, surrounded by a raised walkway that supported all the consoles

and monitors that showed him the universe, Captain James Kirk bedeviled his starship’s forward

viewscreen with a punitive glare, as if he could mentally brutalize what he saw into submission.

“Red alert,” he ordered, “again.”

“Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Uhura broached from the communications post, “we never stood

down from the previous one.”

Kirk ignored her. “Get the owner over here right now. Sulu, detonate those shots.”

“Trying, sir.”

The starship’s bridge pulsed with activity. Colored lights winked, and soft mechanical noises sang in the

background, a self-driven symphony of never-ending background music that could seem either

comforting or nerve-racking, depending upon the construction of any given peace or panic.

Today, Kirk let his nerves go ahead and rack. Somehow it was a message from the ship that she would

act out his will, that he was still in charge.

“Mr. Spock,” he asked, “is that drone automated or manned?”

On the upper deck walkway, watching the main screen like a cat on the hunt, the starship’s first officer

was as much comfort as Kirk would get on this mission. Sharp-eyed and dynamic, standing out on a

bridge otherwise manned by humans, the Vulcan posed a narrow form particularly imperial in the new

Starfleet colors of brick and black. His slick black hair, cut in the style of banks and points that now was

famous in the Federation, caught a band of light from the red-alert beacon, which also framed the triangle

of his left ear as he turned. “We’re not certain whether it’s manned, sir. Sensors pick up no life signs, but

may be fouled by the industrial machinery on board. Some of Mrs. Webb’s factory ships do have

security guards stationed with sensitive data files.”

“Then we can’t blow it up—yet. Invasive maneuvers, Mr. Sulu, get between that drone andOregon

Trail. Double shields port, right now.”

“Port double shields, aye,” the steady helmsman answered. Kirk was glad Sulu had come on this

mission. Even though the course was essentially straight out into the middle of nowhere at noteworthy

speeds, the helm at the hands of Hikaru Sulu somehow behaved just a thought better than at anyone

else’s.

The reassuring repeat of orders gave a sense of control to an uncontrolled situation. The starship moved

forward through a magnificent funnel of spacefaring ships, every size and construction, that now moved

aside for her. The view from here was eerie—dozens after dozens of ships flooding past, heading back

as the starship headed forward. At the helm, Commander Sulu hammered coordinates and traffic

directions into his computer console, sweeping the flotilla away from the danger point.

Though only a few seconds of pause lay before him, Kirk stole those moments to commune silently with

the great entourage of ships he was here to lead. Huge Conestoga-class dormitory ships, with their

bird-beak bows and bulbous living sections, plowed past with deceiving grace, each pushed by brilliantly

conceived devices designed just for this journey by Engineer Scott—two detachable “mule” engines,

huge rocks of unadorned muscle that could tow or push at fantastic ratios. Thus driven, the big

people-mover ships were incarnations of the first iron horses steaming out toward treacherous frontiers,

over scorching deserts, windy plains, and frozen mountains, hoping they’d make it to the other side.

Sprinkled among the Conestogas were private yachts, tenders, industrial drones, the mercy ship, the

garden ship, the governor’s VIP transport . . . What a sight. More than seventy ships, clustered in one

area of space. Even after five months in space, it was shocking to look at them all, moving together in a

great flock. Kirk was used to being in space, but alone out here, with his one powerful vessel, and the

family of crew. Though the crew of four hundred had always seemed bulky as ships’ complements went,

Kirk had found new epiphanies in the past months, leading a convoy of over sixty-four thousand colonists

to a promised land—a land they had promised to themselves and were determined to settle, a dream

they themselves had conjured and hammered into shape.

Here came the coroner ship, sedate and dignified in its promise to do whatever sad jobs came its way.

Kirk tried to ignore the passing ofTwilight Sentinel, but her presence off his starship’s port bow jolted

him back to the cold fact that he was facing a tragedy in the making and if he made the wrong decision,

that ship would be full of bodies.

He pressed his hands to his command chair and pushed to his feet as the privateer shipHunter’s Moon

slid past, her scratched black and green dazzlepainted hull gliding by at what seemed like arm’s length.

There, in the open space as the privateer cleared the viewscreen, was the tortured ConestogaOregon

Trail, being assaulted by a drone ship that had lost its mind. The functional-ugly drone, with its

retractable docking claws all out, clutched at the Conestoga like a headless insect. Its flashes of torch

phasers, several time brighter than they should be, crashed across the hulls of both free-floating vessels.

Sparks danced into space, clouding the view. If those torches cut through the Conestoga’s hide, this

malfunction could quickly become a disaster.

Around him, the starship’s refitted bridge glowed with the scarlet hue of red alert. In his misty mind, Kirk

sometimes expected to see this place as it once had been, with its rows of etched black screens, the red

rail, muted carpet, and grade-school colors that had seemed so crisp and happy. The refit had made the

bridge more technical, more cold and metallic, but under the skin she murmured to him that she was still

that old ship of his many adventures, the sturdy grand dame that had serviced the Federation so

dependably. She recognized him despite the change, and he felt more at home by the hour.

At the engineering post, the convoy’s senior engineer, Montgomery Scott, turned his iron-gray head and

looked at the drone ship on the main screen harassing the Conestoga. Irritably he reported, “That

damned box has sealed all its hatches now, sir. The hull’s electrified and it keeps evading grapples.

Nobody can get inside while the shields are up. The thing’s gone completely raving.”

Spock turned again. “Captain, I estimate eleven minutes to critical overload of those industrial phasers at

this enhancement level.”

Kirk flattened his lips. “Nothing compared to what’ll happen when I get my hands on whoever enhanced

them. Ah—Captain Kilkenny.”

“Kilvennan,” came the correction. “Michael.”

On the upper deck, just coming out of the turbolift, was one of the privateer captains, in fact the captain

ofHunter’s Moon, which had just sailed past. Escorted by Lieutenant Chekov, with shaggy long hair and

a musketeer beard, Michael Kilvennan was everything James Kirk imagined the captain of folklore to

be—a mold that, ironically, he had never quite fit. Kilvennan wore a brown turtleneck and a belted

sheepskin vest, setting him instantly apart from the starship’s crew in their fitted blood-red uniform

jackets and black trousers. In fact, the privateer captain looked uneasy standing next to the perpetually

tidy Chekov.

“You better have a word with Mr. Chekov here,” the privateer demanded. “Beaming me off my ship

without permission—”

“We don’t have time for permission, Captain,” Kirk told him sharply. “And I have emergency authority.”

He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the scene on the main viewer. “That one of your drones?”

“My mother runs the line of trailing industrial drones,” Kilvennan confirmed, watching the action before

them in space. “Helen Kilvennan Webb. She works on the CPCrystobel, but our family lives on the

Yukon. She’s the one who should be here. Those drones trail after the commercial pilot—”

“Like little ducks,” Kirk nodded. “You’ll do for now.Yukon ’s under medical quarantine.”

“I’ll ‘do’? Just because Mr. Chekov’s handling Expedition security doesn’t mean he gets to yank people

off their own ships and haul them around the fleet.”

“Yes, it does. Your mother’s drone is attacking one of our passenger ships. I need to know what’s on it

right now and whether I’m free to destroy it if I have to.”

Kilvennan scowled. “Who cares what’s on it? Blow the damned thing up!”

A voice entered the argument from the upper deck. “Captain, you can’t!”

Kirk turned—so did everybody—to the future colony’s young governor as he raised a hand from where

he stood next to Scott. An idealist’s idealist, Evan Pardonnet was a man for whom youth provided a

shield against the digs that picked away at beliefs and dreams. He had planned this massive one-stroke

colonial movement, overlorded its every development, and bristled at the Federation’s inclusion of

Starfleet into the mix at the last minute. James Kirk had cast away his mantle of admiralty and once again

put on a captain’s hat, and accepted command of theStarship Enterprise to go into deep space,

escorting and guarding the greatest colonial project in United Federation of Planets history.

Easy on the drawing board. Reality was a picker bush. For five months Kirk and Pardonnet had

wrestled over who had authority to do what. In a crisis situation, should the colonists look to their fleet

captain, or to their governor? Was there time for a committee meeting? The governor now argued his

point in his usual way—passionately.

“Mrs. Webb’s line of drones,” he protested, “is manufacturing things we’ll need almost immediately to

set up a decent first year on Belle Terre! We’ve got to protect it!”

“Blow it up,” the owner’s son repeated. Kilvennan seemed relaxed, but his eyes were fixed on the

ghastly scene playing out in space, the drone ship carving plates off theOregon Trail ’s weakening blue

side. “Webb Three’s a manufacturing plant making subassemblies for industrial goods. Kitchenware,

that’s all—”

“Our ovens, ranges, refrigeration units!” The governor clenched and unclenched his hands until his palms

were red. “Filtration systems, hydrators, dehydrators, waste-recyclers—we need those, Captain Kirk!”

But Kilvennan stood his ground. “What good’s that stuff if you let it kill three thousand colonists?”

Kirk swung to him. “What kind of phasers has that thing got, Kilvennan?”

“Ah . . . level-six cutting torches, I think—”

“How’d they get up to level three?”

Pulling his hands from his pockets, Kilvennan bumped forward against the bridge rail. “Level three!

That’s impossible!”

“You’re looking at it.”

“Those are supposed to be level-six industrials, defensive at short range to deflect meteors! Cutting

phasers, that’s all!”

“Captain Kilvennan,” Spock interrupted, “if your mother’s had her phasers enhanced, she’s in violation

of Belle Terre Colonial Expedition statutes.”

“And,” Kirk firmly finished, “she’ll be held criminally responsible for any deaths caused by that drone.”

Kilvennan met him with a gale-force glare. “Who in hell do you think you are, making a charge like that?

If those phasers are enhanced, they’ll overload! Don’t you think we know that?”

Meeting the other captain’s anger point for point, Kirk snarled, “Is there any living person on board?

Anyone at all?”

“Nobody. Webb Three, Four, Six, and Nine are all completely automated. My parents run them by

telemetry from the CP.”

At the comm station, Uhura had her hand to her earpiece. “Sir, Captain Briggs is hailing from the

Tugantine. Should he move in withNorfolk Rebel and pry that drone off the Conestoga?”

“Not even the Tugantine’s engines could break that drone’s tractors,” Kirk calculated. “Not under fire,

anyway. Tell him to stand by.”

Scott poked at his engineering controls and scowled. “The drone’s tractored itself directly to the

Conestoga’s hull, sir. There’s not two inches between them now.”

Irreconcilably prowling the command deck, Kirk seized the problem and applied his pure will to it. The

chilling sight of the factory drone chewing at a ship with three thousand passengers on board—they might

as well have been watching a cougar gnaw the leg of an elephant. Was there anything more frightening

than a machine that had lost its mind?

Even through the gap of space between him and the Conestoga, he sensed the shrieks of fear, the

huddling in horror, the confusion and desperation aboard that dormitory ship. He felt in his bones the

painful thrumming of vibration from attack as it ran through the skin of the ship and up through the feet of

those people and into their shuddering limbs. They were scared. He felt that. They needed him. He felt

that too.

The bridge was all lit up with “windows” out to space. He saw all that was around them, all the ships of

the Belle Terre Colonial Expedition, the thousands of civilians standing side by side with their spouses

and children, watching what he would do next to save their neighbors, depending on him and judging him

based upon the coming few minutes.

He hated an audience. Missions could be handled. Shows were messy.

Were they all thinking about the good old Earth they’d left behind, sinking into a gemlike backdrop,

likely never to be seen again? Or were their minds on the planet they were heading toward, another Earth

with clear skies and gleaming oceans, continents flushed as if they’d just been kissed?

Kirk was jolted as the last few ships cleared the way. The ConestogaLakota, with her warp mule

engines driving like Hadrian’s elephants. The industrial shipMacedon towing an iceberg—their water

source in space. The hugeOlympian, repository for thousands of micro-scaffolds growing body parts for

cryo-freeze. The coroner shipTwilight Sentinel with her elegant purple hull and white lights, the dairy

barge loaded with real cattle and real cowboys. Wreckmaster Briggs moving his Tugantine out of the

way. Finally the Starfleet combat support tenderBeowulf skimmed past the starship and flashed her

running lights in a good luck salute.

Beowulfwas the last of the Expedition ships blocking the way. Now the ConestogaOregon Trail and

her bulldog attacker stood alone on the vista of space, glowing in the airbrushed light of a sun they were

passing, and Kirk was at center stage.

“Nine minutes to overload.” Spock’s baritone voice pretended emotionlessness, but that was a lie.

“Captain,” the governor pressed, “I know what you’re thinking and I don’t like it. The colonists are

depending on those drones. Webb Three’s the only one manufacturing appliance subsystems. The

Webbs have spacedock facilities, computer components, all sorts of things critical to our setting up a

viable spaceport in record time! Please don’t fire on their factory drone!”

Ignoring him, Kirk turned to the privateer captain. “When did you first notice its erratic behavior, Mr.

Kilvennan?”

“It’s Captain Kilvennan, and my mother’s sensors noticed the rogue at the same time you did,Captain

Kirk.”

Suddenly ferocious, Kirk snapped, “Don’t get provoked with me. I’m having a bad week and I’m not in

a good mood.”

Though Kilvennan visibly boiled under the skin, he offered helpful information. “My first mate wondered

if maybe the lightship’s signal scrambled Webb Three’s autonav. I told him I didn’t think we were picking

up a signal yet from theHatteras.”

Spock turned to him. “We’ve been receiving a phase-distant homing signal from the lightship for nearly

four days, Captain Kilvennan. Only this morning it finally went to proximity one. The lightship uses

extreme-range sensors to gather information, then broadcast them to anyone who might need them.”

“Not now, Spock,” Kirk preempted. “We’re not sure what set that drone off, but no stray signal’s going

to change level-six torches to level-three disruptive phasers. So somebody’s been tampering. Now the

ship’s gone rogue and it’s trying to cut up a people-mover with three thousand passengers on board.”

Governor Pardonnet sweated as he watched the Conestoga on the main screen. “Can’t we have one

day without an accident?”

“This is no accident,” Kirk rejected. “If it were just a malfunction, that drone would’ve snatched one of

its own line of drones or some ship close to it. Instead it went right for theOregon Trail, ignoring ten

other vessels in its way.”

Before them as the starship drew cautiously nearer, the chunky manufacturer ship, with its thick arms

and pods extended like claws, assaulted the helpless Conestoga. Flashes of torch phasers, five times

brighter than they should be, brightened the flanks of both vessels. At the helm, Sulu settled down to

concentrate on moving just the starship now that the rest of the Expedition ships were out of the way.

Kilvennan asked, “Can’t you fry its autopilot with a microburst?”

“As you pointed out,” Spock answered, “enhanced phasers are quirkish. A burst might set them into

critical mode.”

Hearing their voices as if detached by a thousand miles, James Kirk gripped the back of his command

chair as the starship pulled closer, narrowing the distance between itself and the crazed drone. The

Conestoga loomed so large on the screen that he could count its hull bolts.

“When it flew off on its own,” Kilvennan offered, “my mother contacted me and told me to broadcast

commands in our private code when it came pastHunter’s Moon, but it wouldn’t accept. Instead it

passed right by the other ships and went forOregon and started opening up.”

“Seven minutes,” Spock reminded.

Kirk almost snarled at him to quit counting, but held back. “Chekov, go down to auxiliary control and

use the battle targeting computer to take a pinpoint firing fix on that drone. Contact us the minute you’ve

pulled it up.”

“I’ll be there in thirty seconds, sir!” Chekov brushed past Kilvennan and plunged into the lift. With a hiss

he was gone, and the young privateer captain stood alone on the aft walkway.

“Mr. Kilvennan,” Kirk summoned, “would you come down here and take his post at weapons and

navigation.”

Startled, Kilvennan stepped back. “Nah, you don’t want me. Never even been on a starship’s bridge.”

“And I’ve never been a privateer. The seat’s right here. You’re the one who wants to blow it up, and I

need somebody to push the button when I give the order.”

Making a decision he didn’t like, Michael Kilvennan stepped down to the lower deck, grumbling, “Bet

you haven’t heard the word ‘no’ in twenty years.” He slipped into the nav chair next to Sulu and tried to

make sense of the multilights on the board before him. “Why don’t we just blow it up now? Why wait?”

“We’ve got to get it offOregon Trail ’s hull,” Kirk said, “or it’ll rip a hole in that ship the size of a

gymnasium. There’s Chekov’s tie-in. He just connected.”

Pointing at a grid on the right side of the board, Kirk moved around to Kilvennan’s side, feeling compact

and chiseled in comparison to the lanky hired gun with his long hair and rugged clothing.

“You’re in my way,” Kilvennan accused.

But Kirk didn’t move. He paused in midstep, fingertips of his left hand poised on the nav console. He

was looking up at the science station.

The ultimate of verticality, Spock continued to look down at him as if they had all the time ever made.

Had they both stopped breathing? Kirk felt the eyes of Scott and Uhura, who knew them both so well.

Governor Pardonnet was watching him too, but in a completely different way. So was Kilvennan.

“Itdid go straight for theOregon Trail,” Kirk murmured. “Didn’t it?”

Spock peered at him. “The ID beacon?”

Kirk slapped the helm with a flat palm. “Try it, Spock! Sulu, shields down!”

“Our shields, sir?” Sulu asked. “Oh—of course! Shields down, sir!”

“Phaser overload on the drone,” Spock ticked off, “within six minutes.”

Six minutes, and the factory drone would blow itself up without help.

STAR TREK - TOS - 89 - New Earth - Wagon Train to the Stars

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