STAR TREK - TOS - 31 - Battlestations

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Star Trek - The Original Series - Battlestations

Chapter One

THE ENEMY SHIP cut across our port bow, forcing

to heel off to starboard, but our captain gripped

forward rail and refused to give more than a meter.

"Keep her to," he said, the quiet of his vo

somehow reaching us over the roar of the ship str

ing.

"Jim, this is crazy."

"Don't swing off, no matter what your stoma

says."

Space overhead was bristol blue, the crashing ,

even deeper azure and marbled by green swells a

white foam. The older officers called it cadet blue.

"Stand by to come about. Piper, stand by the bm

stay. Bones, you take the foresheet. And watch yc

head."

"Don't worry. My head's not going anywhere."

Below and around us white hull and green de

tilted to a sickening forty-five degrees that buried I

boom tips in brine and put us straight alongside a s

gust of wind. The bowsprit bobbed in thirteen-f

arches. We crashed against the waves, skating alo]

side our enemy's beam for a moment of reasonle

risk.

I freed the backstay on the port side so it would]

be in the way when the big main boom swung abol

then slid down the inclined deck to the starboa

backstay and got ready to pull it up tight once the s

swung by. There, shivering, I awaited the order

come about. With the ship at this hideous angle, my

thigh cut into the rail. I was almost lying on my side.

Just over the rail, an arm's-length away, the tree-trunk

boom dug furrows into the seawater with every long

dip of the schooner. Arching out and rising away from

the water, the mainsali's bright white canvas tightened

with air and became stiff as cast rhodinium. This was

drama of the highest order, and my heart thudded

testimony to the pure insanity I'd gotten myself into.

Of course, I couldn't exactly decline the honor.

This old ship had been bending to the winds for

something like a century and a quarter on this planet,

revived to splendor by the very fading of her own

kind. Originally built as a nostalgic replica of a nine-

teenth-century pilot schooner, she was a working ves-

sel, not a yacht. That "y" word wasn't allowed on

board. And there wasn't a winch to be found. Every

line had to be hand drawn, no matter how heavy the

load. The acres of canvas, caught to the masts by big

wooden hoops and lashed with rope to the gaffs and

booms, made a puzzle of stitched white overlapping

rectangles and triangles overhead and together formed

a great seagoing pyramid of sailcloth and rigging.

Pretty. But sitting here in excitement's grip, with

abused timber groaning under me and the booms biting

the tops off eight-footers, it was hard to see the pretti-

ness. Not even in the echo of ourselves as the other

ship, a bluff-bowed ancient ketch two meters longer

than our schooner, carved away from our starboard

stern and came about for another match.

"Here he bloody well comes again," uttered Mr.

Scott at wheel watch, his Scots rumble getting thicker

as tension grew. He was standing at the helm rather

than sitting, gripping the spokes of the wooden wheel

tightly, and narrowing his gaze forward. His eyes

narrowed to dark wedges. His dark hair, matted

against his forehead by spray, was laced with the first

hints of silver. He wasn't watching the sails, though.

He was watching the captain. And the captain was

watching the enemy ship.

Amidships, Dr. McCoy squinted accusingly at the

captain and held on tight to the foresheet. Wind tore at

his hair and spray battered his face.

Our bow [ifled high out of the water, coming into the

air like some flying fish, until half her keel was clear of

the sea. Almost immediately she crashed back into the

chop like a descending guillotine, burying the fo'c'sle,

burying thirteen feet of bowsprit and the whole bottom

of the Genoa jib. I winced and drew my shoulders in.

Heeled to starboard, the other ship was a mirror

image of ours, except that her mast heights were

reversed, her fore-tops'l wasn't flying, and her bow

was bluff- instead of clipper-curved. When our captain

first started talking about the enemy, I'd thought he

was saying "catch"; one of many visits to his aft cabin

library had set me right. She was the ketch Gavelan.

We were out to get her, and she us.

My hands cramped as I gripped the backstay line.

Awaiting orders, i looked at the captain and wondered

what he was waiting for. Fu[t sail in this kind of chop

was crazy enough without waiting until the last second

to execute a tack.

He stood on the forward deck, his eyes hard and

pinched at the corners. In a heavy brown sea jacket

with the collar up he looked like a hoio on a tour spool

from some planet-pushing travel agency His hair,

sandy and shimmering on top, darkening at the sides,

shone nicely but couldn't upstage that glare of his. I

could see him trying to put his mind into the head of

the other captain before making a decision. He wanted

more than anything to be inside Gavetan's hold, se-

cretly listening to what the other skipper was saying--

more, though, he wanted to know what the other was

feeling, thinking, breathing. He thought he could get

there if he stared hard enough.

"Come about," the captain said. "Now."

Dr. McCoy let go of the foresheet a moment too

soon, forcing Mr. Scott to haul hard on the wheel to

keep from losing the fores'l into the waves. I held on

as long as I could, but the ship wheeled and bucked,

reversing herself in the water and cutting a pie wedge

in the chop as she tacked. The rigging whistled over-

head, the timber groaned, and the hoops grated so

loudly I thought they were going to shear right

through the mast.

Barn--the fore boom elunked to port. The sail

luffed, then filled and tightened. An instant later--and

Mr. Scott ducked just in time to avoid a ringing head-

ache--the main. The schooner twisted back in the

water with the grace of a shorebird's glinting wing.

"Haul in tight," the captain called. "I mean you,

Piper. Put support on that main, then bring the sheet in

close."

I shook myself, skidded across the tilted deck and

drew in the main until we were so close upon the wind

that we threw up a sickle of spray with every dive of

our prow. He was watching me. I could feel it. Oh, he

was looking at the other ship, but he was watching

me.

"Closer," he said.

I drew down harder, sacrificing three more finger-

nails and one knuckle's skin.

Plunging toward each other like two Gloucester

packets of a different age, our two schooners glided

through walls of spray. The tapered lines of the sails

and weaving mastheads conjured images of wave

troughs deep enough to hide entire ships. I leaned

harder against the teak rail, plain scared. From two

sides of an angle, we speared for each other.

"Jim, I didn't come out here with you to become a

damned South Sea walrus!" Dr. McCoy informed the

captain, clinging desperately to the fore hatch and

glancing wide-eyed at the oncoming schooner.

The captain didn't respond. Even now, there was a

distant tranquility on his face. '['his was his blood and

beef--another man's peace was this man's boredom.

When he wasn't wrestling the irabalances of interstel-

lar space and intersystem politics, he was here, tasting

death in the same seas our mutual ancestors called

their own interstellar void.

The captain of the other ship was no Rigellian slugfin

either. Silver spume spilled over Gavelan's rail as she

held tight into the wind and rocketed through jumping

seas toward us. We were both pointed at the same

square foot of ocean, and we both wanted to own it.

Overhead, rigging whined. Tension buzzed through the

halyards.

l drew in a breath, held it, and closed my eyes. The

captain said I should learn to hear the ship, so I could

hear what was wrong when it happened. Sometimes he

made me close my eyes and covet' my ears too.

Feeling what's wrong, he called it. Even times like

this--especially times like this---could teach.

Sails moaned. Waves smacked the keel. Gaffs and

booms creaked. The wind rushed inward, filling the

main tight. On collision course, our two schooners

sliced through the seas toward each other. When our

ship's prow dug deep into the waves, met a trough that

matched its shape, and phmged six feet deeper, the

deck dropped out from under my feet. Only catching

my elbow around the backstay kept me aboard. t

heard Dr. McCoy yell something as my feet left the

deck, wobbled on the rail for three hideous seconds,

then skated off. Down I went for a ride across twenty

slippery feet of green deck, on one knee, until the

fisherman's sail-bag stopped me.

"All right, lass'?" Mr. Scott bothered to call from the

wheel.

I took a moment to nod at him while I rubbed my

knee. It was the wrong moment.

"Get your feet under you, Piper," the captain

snapped. "Prepare to come about."

"Again?" McCoy complained. "What are you? A

blasted porpoise?"

"Lay alongside, Scotty," everybody's devil called

firmly. 'Tm not going to let him work our windward.

Piper, bring in the jib sheet two pulls. You left it too

free."

Always the cut. Always the barb. Why? Didn't he

have enough laurels to sit on? Not ten people in a

million had his status. Why pick on me?

But as I glared at the captain, ire mixed with a stab

of sympathy for him. Most humans could afford to

cloak their flaws. A starship captain--the captain of

any vessel, I was learning---constantly had his flaws

thrown up in his face, with nowhere to deflect them.

Not only could he see them, but he must see them

displayed before all who wish to Iook--a galaxy ready

to criticize. That would beat anyone into humility.

Anyone but the strongest.

If he could be strong, if he could bear his flaws and

mine too, then I could at least haul my end of the

halyard.

Gripping the ship's rail, I got to my feet and moved

carefully along the high side toward the bow. Battered

by salt spray, the rail had gone from a burnished

ribbon to a chipped ridge. It spelled work for deck

hands. Like guess who.

I loosened the jib sheet, cranked it in, feeling the

pressure of the wind as we heeled deeply, and belayed

it without another screwup. Just when 1 was breathing

my sigh of relief, I made the mistake of looking at the

oncoming Gavelan.

"What--!" l choked. The other ship was so close

I could almost count the planks in her hull. Wreathed

in spray, she was crashing toward us out of a night-

mare. I couldn't breathe anymore.

The captain cupped his hand around his mouth.

"Now, Scotty!"

Mr. Scott closed his eyes and cranked the big wheel

hard, then took a dive for the backstay to free it. The

main boom began to swing. The sails, towering above

us like wings, luffed for only an instant.

The schooner hung in midair, shuddered as shock

waves thrummed through her wooden hull, then dived

like a seal. Her bowsprit carved across our enemy's

bow and forced the other ship to fall off the wind.

No one but the possessed would try such a move.

The booms swung around and slammed home.

Climbing the wave, the ship shook off a wash of green

seawater, filled her sails tight, and heeled in.

The captain leaned back. If he'd had a pipe, he'd

have smoked it. "Fall off," he said. Mr. Scott stiffly

complied.

Dr. McCoy slumped down on the fore hatch. "Shore

leave, my eye."

I panted silently and got my footing on the deck. A

few breaths later my thoughts came out in a mutter.

"All we need is an aft phaser..."

Gavelan was upright in the choppy water, fallen off

the wind. Her sails luffed uselessly, flapping and shud-

dering, in search of air.

Turning to me, the captain raised both straight

brows and queried, "Did I hear you say something,

Commander?"

Still out of breath, I blinked at him and tried to look

steady. "Not me."

His lips pressed flat. Kind of a grin, and kind of not.

"Good."

I watched, numb, as he walked casually down the

long green deck, unaffected by the angle, and took

charge of the wheel. Slowly now, he brought the ship

about in a stylish tack that hardly let the sails flutter

the last turn of the blade before coming abeam with

Gavelan.

Aboard the other ship, the skipper's familiar Mid-

6 7

Eastern features glowed in the sun behind a dark

cropped beard. "Brilliantly executed, Captain!" he

called. "I concede the match."

"Accepted, Ambassador," the captain returned.

"I'm looking forward to my lobster."

"And you shall have it," our former enemy re-

turned. Behind him, his crew, an unlikely collection of

individuals, watched us coast by. "The best available

in the next port of call. And my liquor cabinet is yours

to raid.'

"Faster than you can moor a dinghy."

The ambassador roared with laughter. Gavelan

caught the wind and fell in behind us. Finally, finally,

we were back on course.

I watched our captain as he steered the ship with

damnable leisure. San Francisco was long behind us

and I still tended to stay on the other end of the ship

from where he was. A respectful distance, it might be

called. A little chicken was another way to put it. He

always saw the imperfection, that halyard belayed one

turn tess than the others, the backstay not hauled up

tightly enough, the rope tied in a granny knot instead

of a square knot . . and there was nothing in this

.galaxy more soul-galling than coming up out of a hatch

in time to see James Kirk correct your little error.

James Kirk. An enigma in his midthirties. And here

he was, commanding seventy-two feet of timber and

sailcloth with every ounce the commitment he used to

head up the multidepartmental city-in-space we call a

starship. The whole scope of that became scarier to me

with every minute I spent in his company. He wasn't

an easy man to get to know. He guarded himself. Oh,

he talked often enough, but he spoke little. Curiosity

boiled up in me, enough to turn a Star Fleet command

candidate into a petty snoop. Despite the integrity I

was trying to imitate, I often found myself haunting

the open aft hatch, hoping to---accidentally--catch a

line or two of the conversation between him and

McCoy and Scott during one of those quiet personal

sessions. I seldom got more than a sniff of kahlua and

coffee. In fact, the silence said plenty. My curiosity

remained intact. So did the sting of knowing 1 wasn't

yet welcome in that inner sanctum. I hungered more

for it with every passing wind.

And the mysteries about Captain Kirk seemed to

grow deeper as I knew him longer. I looked away from

him and leaned over the ship's rail for the dozenth time

to see black letters outlined in hunter-green scrolls

Edith Keeler.

Letters no one would explain. I knew "Edith" was a

feminine name on Earth, not very popular anymore.

Since sailing ships had always been named after both

men and women, knowing the name's gender nar-

rowed my curiosity by 50 percent. The rest remained a

darkness.

It was nearly three o'clock, Earth time. I seldom

knew what time it was, but as I came below, through

the aft cabin, I happened to glance at the old-style

ship's clock that lay half-buried in navigational charts

on the captain's desk. The clock I could read. The

charts--well, I could read the clock.

The aft ladder was easier to climb with a tray of

coffee mugs than the forecabin ladder, so that's the

way I went. I came up on deck just in front of the

ship's wooden wheel. Behind it, the captain was grin-

ning at himself and steering Keeler through waves that

seemed to grow calmer at his behest. What had been

eight-footers had smoothed to a light chop as we

stopped fighting them and continued sailing into the

middle of the Caribbean,

I relayed coffee to Mr. Scott and Dr. McCoy as they

relaxed amidships, then returned with one for the

captain. He took it with a silent nod, settled back in

the helm chair, and eyed me with those hazel-browns.

"Something on your mind, Commander?"

"That sounds like something Spock would say."

"Oh, no, Jim. Spock would comment on the waste.

You know, exertion and risk with no true gain. Can't

you just hear him say it, with a 'most illogical' pinned

on the end of it?"

Bidden as though by drug, I indeed heard Com-

mander Spock's rough baritone cadence knitting those

words into his own kind of commentary on races and

contests.

"Now, Captain, there's a proposal I'd like to see

worked on," Mr. Scott said, as he cocked one leg on

the cooler and gripped the loops of rope that held the

mains'l to the big boom. "Mr. Spock on board this

kind of starship. I wonder ha' he'd look in a slicker."

"Earth's a water planet, Scotty," Kirk said, be-

mused. "One of very few. Sailing ships grew with our

culture. Besides... wouldn't you hate to see Spock

even greener than usual?"

The three men laughed, enjoying their moment of

teasing bigotry at the expense of their absent friend,

forgetting that although I was human, Earth was not

my home either. I had no reason to feel envious, yet I

couldn't laugh along with them.

"Where are we headed, sir?" I asked.

"We're supposed to rendezvous with the other flo-

tilla participants at New Providence."

I waited for him to finish the sentence. Perhaps it

was his tone, perhaps the flicker in his eye, or the fact

that I'd learned to expect more from him than what-

ever was obvious. After a moment, I assisted.

"But..."

McCoy's rooster-tail brows arched up. "Tell her,

Jim. What are you saving it for? She's been looking at

you like a suspicious cat for a week now, even if she

doesn't know it."

I flushed again, but McCoy's hilarious glare made

me duck my head and smile in embarrassment. One

thing was for sure we weren't going to New Provi-

dence.

That half-grin stretched one side of Kirk's mouth.

He gazed at me from the corners of his eyes. "We're

sailing toward your future, Piper."

"A banana republic," Kirk explained, putting one

foot up on the rail, still fingering the ship's wheel

lightly. "A quaint local epithet used to describe island

settlements in semitropical areas here on Earth. The

Virgin Islands .... Greater and Lesser Antilles ....

Jamaica, the Caymans, the West Indies in general."

"Because of the banana trees?"

"Banana trees, banana vendors, a generally banana

life-style is what you'll find there."

He gazed at the sea between McCoy and Scott. "I

guess we taught Ben Shamirian a good lesson today,"

he said, enjoying the sight of Gavelan plowing along

several ship-lengths behind Keeler.

"That you did, sir," Scott said. "And bonnily too.

'Course, Doc and I'll ne'r be the same for wear..."

"What, Scotty? Thinning out already, at your age?

I'm dismayed."

"And I'm ocean-sick," McCoy drawled.

Meanwhile, I was itching to find out what he meant

about sailing toward my future.

When I spoke, my voice seemed not to fit in among

theirs. "Are you tampering with my future, sir?"

He nodded, dawdling through a sip of coffee. "Your

first command."

He was teasing me again. Bad enough when I did

know what he was talking about, much less when 1

didn't. I sat down on the rail and leaned back against

the lifeline. "A lobster scow, right?"

Kirk shook his head, saying, "A space vessel."

Through my astonished stare he continued, "With

atmospheric and stellar capabilities."

12 13

The stare started to hurt. My eyes watered in the

wind. Mr. Scott was chuckling.

"Are you . . ." I stammered. "Are you kidding

me?"

" Commander, it's a Star Fleet-commissioned space-

going passenger vessel, and it's waiting at Man-o-War

Cay for you to take command." When Kirk saw my

expression--'ff by any reach of terminology I still

appeared human at all--he buried a flicker of amuse-

ment in a blink.

McCoy leaned forward on the rail, supported by

both hands on either side of his legs. Those demonstra-

tive eyes widened at me. "How hard did you think it

would be to wangle a light command for the youngest

person to receive the Federation Medal of Valor?"

"But... but... but... but why?"

My question started in McCoy's direction, shifted to

Scott, and ultimately landed on Captain Kirk. After a

moment, he said, "Oh, I've got a little mission for you.

Call it a... mail run."

"Space... a space... a mission out in space?"

"That's right."

I took a deep breath, and shook the seaweed out of

my head.

"Think you're up to it?" he asked.

"No!"

Captain Kirk chuckled openly. "That alone tells me

you are," he said. "We'll be there by tomorrow after-

noon. Start getting used to the idea, Commander. As

of tomorrow, you've got a ship of your own."

Chapter Two

"Anything you might say has already been taken down in

evidence against you."

--The Squire of Gothos

MY OWN COMMAND.

Gladiator. Excalibur. Odyssey. Mountaineer. Trou-

badour.

Since she would be acquired during my stay here on

Earth, shouldn't my ship have a Terran name? This

planet might be just a little squeak that started a big

rumble, but Earth's history had plenty to offer. More

so in plain gallantry and intrepidness than in many

more, dare I say, civilized cultures. I was just begin-

ning to appreciate that. Earth, planet of my ancestry,

had been the subject of my fascination, my study, even

my curiosity, but never my respect.

As Star Fleet hung in political suspension a few

thousand kilometers behind us, subject to tense

purges, and courts-martial, I contemplated the name

of my ship. Had I earned this? I had fallen into a bad

situation and forded it. That was Star Fleet's hope

when they created the Academy to mine the crude ore

of future command, wasn't it? The cost had been long

and wide--the lives of a Star Fleet destroyer's entire

crew; no, not my fault, but inevitable because I

refused to give in. I felt victorious about the failure of

Vice Admiral Rittenhouse's clandestine attempt to

trigger the collapse of Star Fleet and set up his own

intersystem'republic, but I still didn't feel good about

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StarTrek-TheOriginalSeries-BattlestationsChapterOneTHEENEMYSHIPcutacrossourportbow,forcingtoheelofftostarboard,butourcaptaingrippedforwardrailandrefusedtogivemorethanameter."Keepherto,"hesaid,thequietofhisvosomehowreachingusovertheroaroftheshipstring."Jim,thisiscrazy.""Don'tswingoff,nomatterwhatyour...

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