Star Trek - Relics. Part 1

Relics.

by Michael Jan Friedman.

Acknowledgments.

It's funny how these things work out.

It's only recently that I've begun attending Star Trek conventions. So while some of my fellow writers are like that with some of the stars we've come to know and love, I've only had occasion to speak with one or two of them.

At Toronto Trek VI, however, I had the pleasure of meeting Jimmy Doohan. (I'd normally be inclined toward the more respectful "James," but "Jimmy" seems to fit him a whole lot better.) The con chairpersons had thrown a little party to kick off the weekend-long event. When I arrived, I scanned the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mr. Doohan. No sign as yet, though.

Then there was a commotion at the door, and in bustles Jimmy with a pouchful of flexible refrigerator magnets-looking for all the world like Santa Claus in the off season. The magnets had a cartoon image of our beloved Montgomery Scott-laying back in an easy chair, feet up, a big smile on his face-while the intercom system blasts "Beam me up, Scotty! There's no intelligent life down here!"

In my experience, few media personalities live up to their billing. Jimmy Doohan, on the other hand, was everything I'd heard he was-a man of inexhaustible charm and wit, an actor's actor and one h.e.l.l of a nice guy. And in an age when performers like to distance themselves from their roles, Jimmy embraced his Scotty persona like an old friend.

Shortly after I got home, I got a call from another man who lives up to his billing Dave Stern, Pocket Books' Star Trek editor. "How'd you like to do a novelization?" he asked. And since I'd been lobbying to do one for some time, I said, "Sure. What's it about and when's it due?"

What it was about was Scotty's appearance in a Next Generation episode ... as you know by now, having seen the cover of this book. Great, I thought. It's kismet. I meet Jimmy Doohan and then I write a book about his best-known role. I'd been doing research that whole weekend in Toronto without knowing it.

As for when it was due ... I had a whole month. Four and a half weeks. Thirty-one long, leisurely days. Seven hundred and forty-four hours, only some of which I would have to devote to sleep. To write a book. Gee, I wondered, what was I going to do with all that time on my hands?

My first impulse was to say it's impossible. Absolutely impossible. I mean, I can only write so fast.

There wasn't enough time, plain and simple-and I couldn't change the laws of physics, now could I?

Then I realized this book was about Scotty. Of course it was going to have an impossible deadline. And somehow, some way, it was going to get published on time-even if I had to work my poor wee fingers down to the first knuckle.

Along the way, I found myself grateful to a few people. First and foremost to Ron Moore, for his thoughtful and moving script. Next to Mike Okuda, for advice and generosity past, present and future. And finally to Carla Mason, without whose insight and cooperation this project could never have materialized from the ethter.

I hope you have half as much fun with this story as I did.

Prologue.

MONTIE SCOTT was flying free. The wind, cold and bracing, stretched the skin of his face over his young cheekbones, making him grin like a hyena. His hang glider bucked once and then again under the influence of an especially strong gust, reminding him of how weary his arms were.

But he was far from even thinking about a landing. Tired as they were, Scott's arms had plenty of life left in them. And he wasn't about to give up a single, blessed second of the breathtaking view hundreds of meters beneath him.

Great b.u.t.tresses of gray rock. Long, green sweeps of hillside. Deep, dark cuts in the earth, breathing a scent of mystery that he could fairly smell all the way up here in the clouds.

Away off in the north, there was a steel-gray line of storm clouds bearing down on him. But they wouldn't force him out of the sky either. Experience had taught him that weather from that quarter took a while to arrive.

Freedom. It was better than anything, better than a hundred-year-old scotch, better even than the mournful song of the pipes in the dusky highlands. When one came right down to it, it was freedom that made a man feel alive ...

"Captain Scott?"

Suddenly, the craggy, green vistas below him seemed to melt away. Scott blinked once, twice, and saw the long, narrow face of Matt Franklin looming in front of him, his straw-yellow hair plastered tight to his skull in the fas.h.i.+on of the day.

"Huh?" said Scott. It took him a moment more to get his bearings-to realize that he was in a s.h.i.+p's library, and that there was an active monitor in front of him. And that he'd dozed off.

Unfortunately, he was doing more and more of that these days. And it annoyed the h.e.l.l out of him.

Ensign Franklin smiled. "Sorry, sir. I didn't mean to disturb your nap."

"I was nae takin' a nap," Scott protested. And then "What brings ye down here, anyway? Is somethin' wrong?"

Franklin shook his head rea.s.suringly. "Nothing serious, sir. It's just that there's a little problem with the warp drive, and we're going to have to drop down to impulse in a few minutes. The captain thought all the pa.s.sengers should know-so you won't be alarmed when you feel the deceleration."

Scott looked at Franklin askance. "A little problem? Are ye certain o' that?"

The ensign nodded, his smile broadening. "Nothing to worry about, sir. Just a slight overload in one of the plasma transfer conduits."

The older man started to get up. "Well, I suppose I could take a look at it..."

Franklin laid a gentle hand on Scott's shoulder. "No need, sir. Really. I know you used to be an engineer yourself, but Lieutenant Sachs has it under control."

Scott's enthusiasm subsided as he noted the firmness in the ensign's eyes. "All right, then," he sighed. "As long as he feels he can handle it."

In an obvious attempt to change the subject, Franklin pointed to the monitor. "Anything interesting, sir?"

Scott shrugged. "Just an' old text-very old, in fact. I came across it when I was at the Academy."

The ensign bent closer to the screen to read the t.i.tle of the thing. "The Laws of Physics," he said out loud.

The older man nodded. "Aye. The Laws o' Physics. Came out shortly after Einstein published his Theory of Relativity. A remarkable book-if only as a historical artifact. No mention of gravitons, subs.p.a.ce or antimatter." He shook his head. "We've come a long way since the twentieth century, laddie."

Franklin chuckled. "No question about that. Anyway, I'll let you get back to it, sir."

Scott grunted. Truth to tell, he wasn't all that eager to return to the screen. h.e.l.l, he'd read the b.l.o.o.d.y thing about a dozen times already. He practically knew it by heart.

His daydream, on the other hand, had been exciting as all get-out. He'd forgotten how exhilarating it could be to soar over the s.h.a.ggy hills of his homeland.

"Ensign," he said abruptly, freezing Franklin just shy of the door. The younger man turned around.

"Aye, sir?"

"Have ye ever been hang glidin', Mister Franklin?"

The younger man shook his head-a little sadly, Scott thought. "No, sir, I haven't." And then "Have you?"

Scott sat back in his chair. "Since ye ask, yes. Not lately, mind ye. I'm talking forty years ago or more, before I even got accepted at the Academy."

He gestured at a chair not more than a meter away. For a moment, Franklin hesitated, and Scott scowled inwardly.

Ye're a crazy coot, Montgomery Scott. This lad's got things to do on this s.h.i.+p-important things. An' no time to listen to an old man spin his yarns.

But the ensign surprised him. Crossing the room, he grabbed the proffered chair, turned it around and straddled it.

If the lad wasn't genuinely interested, Scott mused, he sure didn't let on to it. Either way, Scott was grateful.

"Ye see," he began, "I was born and reared in Scotland-as if ye couldnae tell. And my uncle-on my mother's side, that is-was a hang glider from way back..."

Twenty minutes later, Scott was still regaling the younger man with tales of his airborne exploits. But he didn't realize it until he happened to glance at the digital timekeeper at the bottom left of his monitor.

"d.a.m.n," he breathed. "I've kept ye a mite longer than I meant to."

Franklin grinned. "That's all right. I'm off-duty."

Ah. Well, that explained why he hadn't made tracks yet.

"And besides," said the ensign, "I'm really enjoying myself." He leaned forward over the backrest of his chair. "But what I'd really like to hear about is the Enterprise. You know-what it was like to be on the most famous vessel in the fleet."

Scott grinned back. "What it was like?" He shook his head. "It's hard to describe, actually . I mean, what we did is in the computer records-the missions we carried out, the civilizations we visited. But what it was like ... that had more to do with the men and women who served alongside me. And o' course, the s.h.i.+p herself."

"Captain Kirk?" Franklin prodded.

"Finest man I ever met, bar none. The finest commanding officer, the finest friend. And a fair hand with the ladies, to boot."

"Commander Spock?"

Scott chuckled. "Like any other Vulcan-but more so. If ye're in the jaws o' h.e.l.l, and ye can only choose one man to pull ye out... Spock's that man."

"Dr. McCoy?"

"A real crabapple ... until ye get to know him, and then ye'd walk through fire for him. Saved my life more times than I've got fingers and toes."

Scott took a breath of memory, savored it and let it out. Those were the days, all right. There were adventures before and since that time and some fond remembrances from those times as well. But the Enterprise...

"Captain Scott?"

He'd almost forgotten that Franklin was sitting in front of him. "Aye, lad?"

"This is going to sound funny, but..."

"Spit it out, Ensign. No need to mince words with me."

Franklin straightened, a little surprised by the sudden authority in Scott's voice. "Well, sir, pardon me for saying so, but-"

"Ye're mincin' words again, laddie."

Finally, it came out "You don't seem like the type to be headed for the Norpin Five colony, sir. I mean, I've served on this transport for more than a year now, and I've seen my share of retirees. And somehow, you just don't fit the bill."

"Ahh." Scott dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. "It's nice o' ye to say so, Mr. Franklin. But ye're wrong-dead wrong. I've worked my fingers to the bone on Starfleet's behalf for four decades and more. No one's earned a peaceful retirement more than Montgomery Scott has. And no one's looking forward to it more, either. In fact-"

Suddenly, he felt a shudder in the deck plates below his feet. "We're droppin' out o' warp," he judged.

The ensign nodded. "Probably not for long, though."

Scott looked at him. "Because Lieutenant Sachs has everything under control."

Franklin nodded again. "That's what he said, sir."

The older man tapped his fingers on his armrest And then, unable to contain himself any longer, he got to his feet.

"I dinnae care what Lieutenant Sachs said. I was tinkerin' with warp engines before he was old enough to walk. An' I'll be d.a.m.ned if I dinnae at least take a look at what's goin' on down there."

The ensign shrugged as he got to his feet as well. He had a look of mock resignation about him. "I tried to stop you, sir. But you were just too insistent."

"Ye're b.l.o.o.d.y right I was," said Scott, heading for the exit and the corridor outside.

Captain James Armstrong sat in his command chair, scanning the starfields ahead of the Jenolen courtesy of his forward viewscreen, but he wasn't exactly thrilled to be there. He'd envisioned better things when he applied for admission to Starfleet Academy some twenty years ago.

It wasn't fair, he mused. He'd studied as diligently as anyone else. He'd worked hard, scoring high in every phase of cadet training. He'd held up his end of the bargain.

Sure, he'd flubbed the Kobayas.h.i.+ Maru test-but so had everyone else. Only one man in the annals of the Academy had beaten the no-win scenario, and that had been decades earlier.

Like the other cadets, Armstrong had hoped for adventure, for the excitement of discovery. He'd looked forward to plumbing the depths of the unknown. What he'd gotten was a transport vessel, whose only mission was to ferry Federation citizens from one world to another.

Where was the justice in that?

Here he was pus.h.i.+ng forty, his wavy, light-brown hair graying at the temples, and all his old cla.s.smates had pa.s.sed him by. l.u.s.tig was in the command chair on the Hood, Barrymore on the Lexington, DeCampo on the newly commissioned Excalibur-every last one of them a success.

Except for him.

And why? He couldn't say. Bad luck, maybe. A failure to be in the right place at the right time.

Sighing, he looked about his operations center-a cramped complex, which on a larger s.h.i.+p would have been at least three and possibly four separate facilities. This wasn't just his command center, where he sat daily, bemoaning his fate as he stared unimpressed at the viewscreen. It was also the place that housed the Jenolen's warp-drive access-a crowded array of engineering consoles manned by a crowded array of engineers-and a modest, two-man transporter platform.

On the Potemkin, where he'd served as ensign, the transporter room alone was bigger than this. h.e.l.l, the closets were bigger than this.

"Ready to drop out of warp," announced tall, dark-haired Ben Sachs from his position behind the main engineering console. There were two other engineers working alongside him-the full complement of Ops center personnel.

Again, Armstrong had occasion to reflect on the inequities of his situation. On the Potemkin, there'd been a crew of more than four hundred. On the Jenolen, all he had were thirty-six-and he could probably have made due with even fewer in a pinch.

"Go ahead, Lieutenant," he told Sachs. "As we discussed, we'll proceed at full impulse while we effect repairs."

"Aye, sir," said his chief engineerin a vaguely annoyed tone, Armstrong thought. There'd been no need to remind Sachs about maintaining impulse power; they'd only talked about it a few minutes ago.