The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Nineteen

Some things are universal across human-inhabited worlds. One such thing is the subjective duration of those last fifteen minutes of a work shift, especially near midnight. For the two bored techs manning the transporter room at one of the orbital uploading stations, the clock seems to move like a calendar.

At one time, the room must have been a sparkling, shining monument to Athena's high technology. Now, though, little remains of that antiseptic splendor. Innumerable crates have banged into the console and the walls, uncounted booted feet have scuffed the transporter platform. One of the overhead lighting panels has taken to flickering every few minutes, giving an occasional faint strobe-like eeriness to the comings and goings of the soldiers, satellite personnel, and cargo that are the stock in trade of this station. The technicians are rumpled, too, as if they were designed of a piece with the transporter room.

It has been a long day. There was that shipment of farm equipment incoming from an independent cargo tug, then a crew turnover for Defsat 22 to handle. That one was tricky, since the finicky old transporters were not really too trustworthy except for line-of-sight, and with 22, that was pushing it. Then they were on standby while Defsat 3 was under attack in case casualties had to be evacuated. Even worse, no orders came, just interminable waiting with nothing to do.

The technicians were told to stand down from alert only a few minutes ago with no explanation—not that the higher-ups ever bother to give them explanations, of course. That's the way it is when you're thought of as little more than quasi-living parts of your electronic and mechanical charges, the technicians know.

They assumed, though, that the defsat had destroyed its attacker, a Federation starship according to the gossip, with no injuries needing evacuation. The assumption was natural enough. Defsats are awesome pieces of equipment, ones that most Athenians even vaguely connected to the military are immensely proud of.

Now, they wait out their shift, sitting on crates of local fruit awaiting transport to a ship due in orbit tomorrow, playing cards and cursing each other good-naturedly. The citrus–cinnamon smell of the fruit wafts up around them.

"Get that, will you, Smiley?" the older of the two says as the control panel behind them bleats.

Smiley, a wiry man in his early thirties, sighs. "No rest for the wicked tonight, is there? Wonder who's sending that in and why they couldn't wait ten bloody minutes till we're off shift!"

He ambles over to the console to accept shipment, but sees the override indicator flick on before he has a chance.

"Who's mucking around with my equipment...?" he mutters, then looks up to see three pillars of coruscating light appear on the transporter platform. They begin to assume material form. Smiley straightens up and tries to assume a professional demeanor. The forms are human, and wearing uniforms. He curses them for showing up on his shift, but silently.

"Good evening, sirs, and welcome..." he begins, then notices that the newcomers are not wearing uniforms he recognizes. In fact, they are wearing some sort of body armor.

"Geof!" he yells to his companion, but too late. The newly-materialized figures shoot both technicians as soon as the transporter allows them to move.

"Bones," Kirk says, "Check that one by the console—make sure he didn't hurt himself too badly when he fell. Or worse yet, make sure he didn't hit an alarm on his way down!"

Spock examines the other technician critically. "I suggest, Captain, that we divest ourselves of this armor and that two of us use their uniforms."

"Good idea, Spock. Bones, you and Spock take their uniforms; do something about your ears, Spock. If we meet anyone on the way out of here—wherever here might be—I'm your prisoner, got it? Ocht may have broadcast pictures of me. Tell them you were on duty when I beamed down, now you're taking me to security."

"And if security is who stops us?" drawls McCoy.

Kirk smiles wryly. "Then I guess you and Spock will get to trade uniforms again."

❖

Spock and McCoy, dressed now in ill-fitting security uniforms, emerge from the glass door of the building's foyer, Kirk in tow between them, wearing one of the transporter techs' red uniforms. Spock has a soft hat, doubtfully regulation, jammed down over the tips of his ears.

The night is moonless, clear, and still. Stars glimmer prettily in unfamiliar constellations. Directly overhead, a smudge of light softly glows greenish-yellow.

Defsat 3, Kirk assumes. It fades noticeably as he watches. He wishes his responsibility for the dead on board would fade as easily.

The air carries a warm softness that whispers of the nearby ocean. A heavy, almost cloying fragrance seeps from the plate-sized white blossoms of trees around the transport station. Amber globes bathe the mostly-empty parking lot with light that seems palpable, creeping over and aroudn the few ground and hover cars sitting there. It makes Kirk think of a shore leave he took a few years back on Earth, to Florida.

"Now where, Captain?" Spock asks.

"Toward the city, Mr. Spock. Maybe we can borrow one of those."

"Captain," Spock says cautiously, "are you suggesting that we purloin one of the ground conveyances?"

"Exactly, Spock. Think you can...'hot wire it,' I think the term is?"

"I believe so, Captain," he says, still cautiously. "But perhaps I should drive? I recall the last time you drove such a vehicle..."

McCoy looks from one to the other as Kirk looks offended.

"Fine," he says. "I'll drive."

❖

The car proves surprisingly easy to break into and start. After three kilometers, McCoy just about has the hang of driving; at least he thinks so. Spock and Kirk have spent the last kilometer or so staring straight ahead, hands gripping the dashboard, as he transitioned from lurching mode to rocketing down the highway mode and back again.

"There's University City up ahead," he says.

"Thank God," Kirk breathes.

"What's that, Jim?"

"That's good, I said."

"May I suggest," says Spock, "that we abandon the car as soon as possible and walk into the city? If the owners have reported it stolen, or if the guards were found, we are likely to be less conspicuous without the vehicle."

"Safer, too," Kirk says under his breath as McCoy sends the car around a curve faster than its designers would have thought possible.

Spock nods, surreptitiously but wholeheartedly.