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  STAR TREK®

  ERRAND OF FURY BOOK 2

  DEMANDS OF HONOR

  KEVIN RYAN

  BASED UPON STAR TREK

  CREATED BY GENE RODDENBERRY

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Dedication

  To my mother, Elaine Ryan, who always had books in the house.

  DEMANDS OF HONOR

  Prologue

  S.S. HARMONY

  KLINGON-FEDERATION BORDER

  CHRISTINE ALVAREZ ran to the back of the ship, entered the bathroom, and retched into the sink. Nothing came up, but that didn’t surprise her; she doubted there was anything left inside her stomach. Nevertheless, she spent another ten minutes over the sink until her stomach settled down again.

  When she stepped back out into the main cabin, she realized that gravity was back near Earth normal, at least as far as she could tell. Six weeks ago, when they were just one month into the trip, the artificial gravity had picked up a flutter. Every fifteen or twenty minutes, it was subject to random increases and decreases of about twenty-five percent up or down. It wasn’t enough to be dangerous, but it was more than enough to play havoc with all of their stomachs.

  Ironically, the “nearly full Earth gravity throughout every inch of the deck!” had been a selling point for the vessel, and a real point of pride for her father when he’d bought it. Of course, her family had never taken the ship on this long a journey, and the vessel had never logged this many light-years between maintenance. Heading back to the rear of the ship, she found Alan huddled over an open panel in the floor, while Cyndy stood nearby calling out instructions from her data padd.

  “Any luck?”

  She saw Alan’s body tense and heard his sharp intake of breath. He was on edge, even more than the rest of them. He lifted his head and shoulders out of the panel and turned to her. “I can’t reduce the power.” Christine knew what that meant. The manual recommended reducing gravity to one-half g to correct imbalances, at least until the system could properly be serviced.

  By now the five others had circled around to listen. “We’re following the instructions, but we can’t get the power to decrease. There seems to be a bug in the system.”

  There were immediate sighs from the others. “I’m sorry we can’t all be as comfortable as we would like,” Alan said. There it was: the rebuke. Alan had less and less patience lately. “But we all know why we are on this journey. We’re almost there and we know why it’s important. If this is the worst we face on this trip, then I’d say we’re coming out ahead.”

  Christine felt a stab of shame. She was focused on a little space sickness when the stakes were so high, when billions of lives literally hung in the balance. Then the feeling was gone, replaced by another rumble in her stomach. For a moment, she thought she might have to run for the bathroom again, but it passed.

  “Is there any chance the inertial system will fail?” Max asked. It was the biggest danger they faced. If something went wrong with the inertial dampening system when they were coming out of warp, or while they were decelerating from full impulse, the end would be quick for all of them.

  “No,” Tomas answered from behind her, and everyone turned to look at him. “The system has enough fail-safes built in that it’s virtually foolproof. And the variations are only affecting the artificial gravity. The dampening system is showing full power.”

  The crew seemed satisfied with that, and Christine felt herself relax. Tomas was their pilot, the best one in the organization and by far the most experienced in space. Of course, he was much farther out than he had ever been, and he didn’t have nearly as much experience as her father’s pilot—just as Alan had much less experience than her father’s technicians. But there was no way to tell her father about this trip, let alone bring along his employees.

  “Now, I want you to all come forward and see something,” Tomas said.

  Christine knew why he was summoning them and felt a twitch of excitement. They had waited a long time for this, and she had spent many hours huddled over the sink for this moment.

  The six of them had to squeeze into the front of the ship, yet they all had a good view, thanks to the large transparent aluminum window that made up much of the nose of the vessel. When her father had bought the craft, she had thought that the large windows—like the Earth-normal gravity—were a needless extravagance. Since they were at warp, she could see stars appear to streak by, leaving colorful contrails. The view of space looked no different from the view they had seen since they’d left Earth orbit, but she knew the space itself was vastly different.

  Now she saw the beauty that the stars held at warp speed. And yet there was something much more important here than the view.

  “Just a few minutes,” Tomas announced.

  A moment later, an insistent alarm sounded from the intercom. Then an automated voice said, “Warning, you are leaving Federation space. Warning, you are leaving Federation space. This is a message from Starfleet Command. Civilian vessels are prohibited from traveling past this point.” The message started to repeat, but Alan’s hand shot out and hit a switch, silencing both the voice and the alarm.

  “We regret that we won’t be complying,” Alan said, and the entire group of them laughed, Christine included.

  “Can you give us a countdown?” Alan asked Tomas.

  “Sure.” Tomas waited for a long moment, then began, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five …”

  They all joined in now: “Four …”

  “Three …”

  “Two …”

  “One.”

  Christine held her breath and Alan announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just entered Klingon space.”

  A few seconds later, Christine realized she had forgotten to release her breath in her excitement. She did, and then took a deep gulp of air.

  “Does it trouble you that we’ve broken about a dozen Federation laws just now?” Alan asked with a smile. Christine and the others laughed. “Good, because by the time we’re finished, we are going to have broken a lot more rules.”

  In that moment, Christine loved Alan more than ever. She felt the tensions and discomfort of the last two and a half months fall away, and she remembered why they were out here—and why she had fallen for Alan in the first place. She immediately regretted that they had had so little t
ime alone together since this trip had begun. Shrugging inside, she realized it was another small sacrifice for their cause.

  “Are you showing anyone on scanners?” Alan asked Tomas.

  “Just a few commercial vessels at the extreme range of the sensors,” Tomas replied. “I don’t think we’ll have any company for a while.”

  After a few minutes of looking out the window, the lights automatically dimmed. Christine realized how late it was getting. At the beginning of the trip they had maintained an extended party atmosphere and had slept at odd times, but they had soon realized that it was better for everyone’s spirits and equilibrium if they maintained a more standard day/night schedule.

  “If you want some sleep, I can keep the first watch,” Alan offered. Christine felt a pang of disappointment. It was their turn to have the private stateroom. She didn’t want to waste it, especially tonight.

  “No, I’ll stay here for a while,” Tomas said, and Christine felt relieved.

  Fortunately, the gravity fluctuations were minimal, and her stomach held as they got ready for bed and entered the stateroom. Once inside, Alan said, “You know, this is really just the—”

  Christine stopped him with her lips. There would be plenty of time for talk later, and with Alan there was always plenty of talking. For now, she was determined to keep things simple.

  A few hours later, a beeping woke her up. It took her a moment to clear her head. When she did, she realized that Tomas was on the intercom. “Get out here everybody. That’s the proximity alert.”

  Christine rushed out of the room in her nightgown. A moment later, Alan pushed past her wearing only his shorts. Soon, Christine and the others were all looking out the front window of the ship at the moving star field. Nothing else was in sight.

  “Where’s the ship?” Alan asked, his voice maddeningly calm.

  “I’m not sure.” Tomas frantically hit controls on the panel in front of him. “Scanners aren’t working right.”

  Christine and the others frantically scanned the space in front of the ship. She found herself wishing that her father had gone with a viewscreen instead of the window option. At least then they could change perspective and magnify as needed. She sat down in the copilot’s seat and found the controls for one of the small viewers on the panel just below the window. She brought up a forward view on the screen, then found the perspective control. She scanned the area around the ship for a full minute before she found something.

  “There.” She pointed to the screen.

  Magnifying the image, she saw a vessel of some kind. It looked large, but it was hard to tell for sure. The ship had two warp nacelles and a boxy forward section followed by a long series of more or less identical segments.

  “It doesn’t look like a warship,” Tomas said.

  “Probably a cargo ship,” Alan said with authority.

  Of course it was a cargo ship. The segmented rear of the ship must be the cargo containers, Christine realized. She felt a flood of relief. The point of this trip was to make contact, but she was sure that it would be better to make civilian contact first. There was a smaller likelihood of a misunderstanding that would lead to trouble—the kind of misunderstanding and trouble that defined Starfleet and Federation history.

  “I’m trying to open a channel, but there is some kind of interference,” Tomas said.

  “Could they be jamming us?” Christine asked.

  “It’s a civilian ship,” Alan said, another rebuke in his voice. “Remember, this is what we want. Up until now, virtually the entire relationship between the Klingons and the Federation has been defined by our military establishments. We’re about to see the power of ordinary people talking to one another.”

  It occurred to Christine—and not for the first time—that at least half of the time that Alan spoke, it sounded as if he were making a speech. Usually, his words lifted her up, but with the ship outside and nervousness welling up within her, she was simply annoyed.

  “I have something,” Tomas said as he worked the controls for the transmitter/receiver.

  A moment later they heard static coming through the intercom.

  “Earther vessel, drop out of warp immediately or be destroyed,” a gruff voice said.

  Alan turned to the group and said, “Don’t worry. Bluster is part of their culture. It’s simply how they speak.” Then he nodded to Tomas, who hit a button. Leaning down, Alan said, “Klingon vessel. This is the S.S. Harmony. We are a private, civilian ship with no weapons. We are no threat to you. I represent a small delegation from the Anti-Federation League. We are on a mission of peace to your homeworld to negotiate a resolution to the differences between our peoples. We have no quarrel with you or any other Klingon.”

  Finished, Alan turned and gave them all a confident smile. After a moment of silence, sounds of gruff laughter came over the intercom. “Drop out of warp now or be destroyed, Earther ‘peace’ negotiators. You have one minute to comply.”

  Christine felt the blood drain from her face and her stomach tighten. For the first time since she had known him, Alan was at a loss for words.

  “I don’t think they understand,” Arleen said from behind them.

  “Alan, make them understand!” Christine found herself nearly shouting.

  That snapped Alan out of his trance. He leaned down again and said, “I said we are on a peace mission to your homeworld. We respect your culture and your ways, but we will not be deterred from our course. Perhaps we could talk further.”

  “You have forty-five seconds,” the Klingon voice said.

  “We are here to talk about peace!”

  “You may talk … for about forty more seconds.”

  “Alan, what do we do?” Christine asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  Alan looked stricken. “Tomas, do it. Bring us out of warp.”

  “I’ll need some time to do the transition to sublight safely. This isn’t a starship, you know,” Tomas said, his hands shaking on the controls.

  “How long?” Christine asked.

  “At least thirty minutes,” Tomas replied, an edge of fear in his voice.

  Alan still looked stricken and didn’t seem to know what to do. Christine pushed down her own rising panic and hit the transmit button. “We will comply, but we need thirty minutes to effect transition to normal space.”

  “You are lying, cowardly Earthers. Comply now. Your time is almost up.”

  “Damn you, you moron, we are a civilian ship, it will take some time!” Christine shouted.

  “Christine, it won’t do any good to antagonize them,” Alan said.

  “You’re right, but until now we weren’t in trouble,” she shot back.

  Her mental countdown told her they were almost out of time. The Klingon said, “Our scan of your vessel suggests you may be telling the truth. Thus, we will assist you in your deceleration.”

  “We don’t need any assistance, we just need a few minutes,” Christine said.

  There was silence from the other side, but she could see the Klingon vessel on the viewer slowly change its orientation.

  “What are they doing?” someone behind her asked.

  Then a flash of energy came from the top of the Klingon ship, and Christine barely had time to register what was happening. They’re shooting at us, she thought as the Harmony shook all around her. She closed her eyes and felt herself lurch forward, then backward …

  And then everything went dark.

  For a moment, Christine thought that was it—for the ship and for them. And then the emergency lights came on. A split second later the regular lights came back on and Christine had a single thought: We’re still here.

  She saw that the stars in the windows were still, telling her that they were now traveling at sublight speed.

  “What happened?” she asked, taking a quick inventory of her five friends. Alan and anyone else who had been standing was now on the floor, but they were all moving and starting to get up.

 
; “Alan, how is the ship?” Christine asked.

  Alan was on his feet, working at a maintenance panel to her right. “Bad. They shot our engines. It was a low-power blast but the warp-field generator shut off immediately. Even if it’s not badly damaged, we can’t restart it, not out here.”

  “Impulse engine is online. We’re at nine point eight lightspeed,” Tomas offered.

  “Earther peace negotiators, reduce your speed to space normal or you will be destroyed.”

  “Do it,” Christine said to Tomas.

  “Decelerating now, but it will take at least twelve hours to get down to space normal if the inertial dampeners hold,” Tomas said.

  That much Christine understood. She didn’t know much about physics, but she understood that accelerating and decelerating from near lightspeed took tremendous power and it put the greatest stress on the inertial dampening system. A starship could do it nearly instantaneously, but the Harmony took the better part of a day to decelerate from lightspeed.

  “Klingon vessel, we are complying, but we are a civilian ship. It will take us at least twelve hours to reach that speed, possibly more if you have damaged our systems,” Christine said.

  There was silence for a moment. “Your ship is as worthless as you are. We will have to assist you again.”

  “No!” Christine shouted into the panel.

  Alan’s hands were on her, lifting her out of the seat. “Go strap yourself in,” he said, pointing her to one of the seats in the back. “All of you, strap yourselves in.”

  It wouldn’t do much good if they lost inertial control. The ship would tear itself into small pieces and it would all be over before they knew it, but Christine strapped herself in anyway.

  Alan took the copilot’s seat and said, “Klingon vessel, shooting at us won’t do any good. Our inertial control systems cannot handle a rapid deceleration. As I said, we are on a mission of peace to bring a better understanding between our two great peoples.”

  “Earther, I do not think your people or your ship are very great, but perhaps you will prove me wrong,” the Klingon said, laughing.