“I know,” she said. “It’s just so frustrating. We can’t even take everybody as it is.”
Per the governor’s orders, children and adolescents had been evacuated first, followed by rank-and-file miners, assayers, technicians, clerks, and others who were not required to keep the colony functioning. Governor Dawson, her staff, emergency crews, and other essential personnel had chosen to remain at their posts until the end.
Spock was impressed by their courage and dedication in the face of certain death. There were those on Vulcan who did not understand why he chose to serve aboard a starship crewed primarily by humans. Many of his fellow Vulcans, he knew, regarded humans as regrettably illogical and questioned his willingness to live among them. Moments like this reminded him that there was more to the human race than their often flagrant emotionality and made him quietly proud of his human half.
“Continue evacuation procedures,” he instructed. “Save as many as we can.”
“Aye, sir,” Uhura said. “Columbus reports that it is taking off from Skagway now with a fresh load of evacuees. Galileo is preparing to head back to the colony.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Spock replied. “Urge them to exercise all necessary caution.”
With the barrage of high-velocity particles in-creasing in intensity, the shuttle flights were growing steadily riskier. Already, the shuttles had been forced to blast their way through the hailstorm with their shields on full.
Qat Zaldana turned the science station over to Lieutenant Kwan, who had been standing by to assist her. She crossed the shaking bridge to the command module, holding on to the safety rails to keep from losing her balance. Tremors rocked the floor beneath her feet.
“Mr. Spock,” she said quietly. “The moment has come. With your permission, I would like to board the last shuttle down to Skagway. Somebody else can take my place aboard the Enterprise.”
He nodded. “Are you quite certain of your decision?”
“Yes, Mr. Spock. This is something I must do.” Her veil concealed whatever emotions she might be experiencing. Her voice was as calm and steady as his own. “Please do not attempt to dissuade me.”
“I would not presume to do so. You are not a member of this crew under my command. I respect your right to choose your own fate.”
“Thank you for understanding.” She made her way toward the turbolift. “It has been a pleasure working with you. Please thank Captain Kirk for me. I hope he will be himself soon.”
Her remark struck Spock as curiously apropos. He arched an eyebrow. Had that been merely a casual turn of phrase, or did she know more than she ought to about the captain’s unusual condition?
“Mr. Spock!” Kwan called from the science station. “I’m detecting multiple launches from the colony!”
“What?” The announcement snared Qat Zaldana before she could exit the bridge. She lurched unsteadily back to the rail and stared up at the viewer. “That can’t be happening. There’s only one shuttle due back.”
But Columbus was not the only vessel departing the moon in a hurry. More than a dozen other vessels, ranging from shuttles to two-person prospector ships, lifted off from the battered hangars and landing pads surrounding the colony. Scouts, tugs, and ambulance ships fled the colony. Many of the ships were clearly not intended for anything more than a short jaunt about the moon itself, while others had been designed merely for mining the nearby rings. None of them was capable of making it to the nearest starbase or habitable planet. They had no place to go—except to the Enterprise.
“There’s too many of them!” Chekov exclaimed. He cut off his phaser blasts for fear of striking one of the refugee ships. “We’ve no place to board all those vessels!”
“Nor do we have the capacity to take on excess refugees,” Spock noted. “This is not an orderly evacuation.”
“No,” Qat Zaldana agreed. “This is panic. Blind desperation.”
“Mr. Spock!” Uhura said. “A priority transmission from the governor.”
He had expected something of the sort. “Put her through. Visual at fifty percent.”
“Aye, sir.”
The image on the viewer was split down the middle. Governor Dawson appeared on the left side of the screen, while a view of the frantic exodus occupied the right. She looked distraught and disheveled, her silver hair hanging loose across her face. An untreated bruise on her cheek was evidence of a recent accident or struggle. The lights flickered in her office. Spock heard shouting, sirens, explosions, and phaser fire in the background.
“Enterprise!” she addressed them. “We’ve lost control down here. My people are panicking. They don’t want to be left behind.” A loud crash off-screen caused her to flinch and look to one side before resuming her alert. “A mob stormed the spaceport, trampled over my security people. We believe they’re heading your way.”
“We are aware of the situation,” Spock reported tersely. “But surely you realize that we cannot accommodate all of these extra refugees. Our life-support systems have their limits.”
“I told them that, Mr. Spock,” she said. “All they know is that you’re their only hope.” She sagged in her seat, looking utterly defeated. “I’m so sorry. We tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t listen. They broke into the armory and pushed past our lines. Many of our security people refused to fire on their own friends and family. People are terrified. They don’t want to die.”
Spock was forced to reassess his view of humanity. Vulcans would not have succumbed to panic and hysteria like this. It was not logical.
Or was it? It occurred to him that even a remote chance of survival was mathematically superior to no chance at all. Even if only a handful of the rioters made it to safety, there was at least the possibility that you or your loved ones might be among them. Seen from that perspective, a desperate attempt to force one’s way onto the Enterprise was a perfectly logical choice, if not a very commendable one.
None of which made this particular complication any less vexing.
“I understand, Governor. I am confident that you and your people did your best.” He contemplated the chaotic exodus on the other half of the screen. “It appears that this is our problem now.”
“Don’t judge them too harshly,” Dawson said, apologizing for her people. “They’re not Starfleet, only ordinary miners and their families. They just want to live.”
“That may not be possible,” he said. “Spock out.”
Dawson’s image disappeared. A full view of the latest crisis filled the screen. A disorganized, ragtag flotilla braved the storm to close on the Enterprise. They buzzed around the much larger starship like a swarm of Lakodonian gnats. Scanning the chaos, Spock spotted Columbus trying to weave its way through the congestion to get back to the Enterprise. Random vessels crowded the shuttle, no doubt hoping to squeeze past it into the shuttlecraft bay. Columbus executed evasive maneuvers, trying to shake its unwanted escorts, but the other craft stuck to it as though caught in its wake. They bounced and scraped against one another as they jockeyed for position. An older-model ferry, which looked as though it had been salvaged from a junkyard, lost power and fell behind.
“Mr. Spock! We’re receiving dozens of hails,” Uhura reported. She feverishly worked the communications console, looking almost, but not quite, overwhelmed by the flood of transmissions. Anguish showed on her features. “They’re pleading to be allowed to board the Enterprise. Begging for their lives!”
Spock did not envy Uhura. “Issue a general announcement on all frequencies,” he instructed. “Tell them to turn back to Skagway.”
She complied with his orders, but her board continued to light up with incoming transmissions. “I’m trying, Mr. Spock. They’re not listening!”
He chided himself for not fully anticipating the colonists’ reckless behavior. It was not as though there were not historical precedents. The unfortunate images on the screen reminded him of the interplanetary “boat people” of ancient Blinogu, who had fled the imminen
t destruction of their planet in a fleet of flimsy solar-sailing vessels. Their desperate voyage, alas, had not ended happily. The Bline were now extinct.
“Columbus is hailing us,” Uhura announced. “They’re requesting new instructions.”
On the viewer, the shuttle could be seen trying to make it through the debris and the refugee ships to get to the Enterprise. The other vessels hemmed Columbus in, often blocking Spock’s view of the shuttle. He recalled that it was currently carrying eighteen authorized evacuees, plus a Starfleet pilot and a security officer. The shuttle crews had been kept small to make room for the evacuees.
“We can’t open the space doors to the bay,” Chekov realized aloud. “It would be a free-for-all. We’d be overrun!”
Spock had to agree. The situation immediately outside the ship was already untenable. Without any manner of space traffic control in effect, the various craft zipped past one another in a random fashion. A speeding prospector ship cut off a minishuttle in its haste to get ahead of the other refugees, nearly causing a collision. Two jostling scout ships grazed each other. The smaller ship’s starboard thruster went flying off, sending the scout spinning out of control. Sulu gasped as the disabled ship tumbled past the Enterprise, barely missing its saucer section. Undaunted, the other scout joined the mob crowding Columbus.
“Madness,” Qat Zaldana whispered, so low that possibly only Spock’s ears could hear. “Sheer madness.”
Spock considered his options. If necessary, he could order the Enterprise to warp away from Klondike VI, but that would wreak havoc on the many small vessels surrounding the ship and would also mean abandoning Columbus and its passengers. He was not yet ready to employ such drastic measures.
“Keep hailing them,” Spock instructed Uhura. “Remind them that they are endangering the children already aboard.”
“It’s no good,” she said, shaking her head. “Nobody is listening. They’re all shouting, screaming, begging over one another.” Wincing at the tumult, she fiddled with her earpiece to reduce the volume. “They’re demanding that we let them board. They say they’re not going to let us leave without them.” She grimaced. “It’s getting pretty ugly, Mr. Spock, and heartbreaking at the same time.”
He was inclined to take her word for it. “Please disregard them, Lieutenant. Maintain an open frequency to Columbus instead.” He recalled that Lieutenant Schneider was piloting the shuttle; she was an able pilot who had logged many hours in flight drills. “Tell them to stand by and be prepared for an immediate landing or beam-out.”
He considered the probability that they could lower the Enterprise’s shields long enough to beam the shuttle’s crew and passengers aboard. Was it worth exposing the entire ship to danger to rescue one last party of refugees? He did not dare dispatch Galileo to Skagway for another run. That would be foolhardy in the extreme.
“My apologies,” he said to Qat Zaldana. “It appears that we will not be able to return you to the colony as you requested. Circumstances have changed.”
“I could pilot my own shuttle,” she reminded him.
“But we cannot risk opening the space doors to let you leave.” Spock wondered if a human would see Qat Zaldana’s inability to sacrifice herself as a “silver lining.” Dr. McCoy might think so, as would Captain Kirk, were he not lost in time. “In any event, the fact that we can no longer dispatch Galileo to retrieve more evacuees means that your presence will not cost anyone else a place aboard the Enterprise. You might as well survive.”
She tilted her head. “Was that a joke, Mr. Spock?”
“Merely an observation,” he replied. “The matter is out of our hands.”
“We’ll see,” she said cryptically.
Before he could inquire what she meant, a more urgent dilemma presented itself.
“Hold on, everyone,” Sulu warned. “We’ve got some bumpy weather coming up.”
A thick patch of ring matter pelted the Enterprise and the swarm of flyers surrounding it. Repeated impacts rattled the bridge, but Spock was more concerned with Columbus and the other smaller spacecraft. He watched tensely as craggy chunks of ice, some nearly as large as the shuttle, invaded the already-crowded space outside the Enterprise. Lieutenant Schneider had her work cut out for her if she was going to avoid being struck by one or more frozen particles.
“Mr. Chekov,” Spock said. “Can you clear a path for Columbus?”
“Negative, Mr. Spock.” His fingers hovered over the firing controls. “There are too many other vessels in the way! I can’t target the debris!”
Without phaser cover, Columbus was on its own. The shuttle rolled out of the way of an oncoming iceball that flew past its upside-down landing gear to barrel into a compact prospector ship on the other side of the shuttle. The unlucky prospector was smashed to pieces in a soundless collision that killed at least two colonists. Flying wreckage added to the hazards threatening the flotilla. A hijacked lunar transport received a severe gash along its stern. Vapor jetted from the breach before someone inside sealed the wound. The transport lost speed and maneuverability, falling away from the rest of the pack. Spock wondered if it would attempt to return to Skagway.
Unlikely, he decided. Nothing waited for them on the moon but certain annihilation.
“This is just the warm-up act,” Sulu warned. “Sensors indicate that the main event is coming up any minute now.”
The refugees were not going to turn back, Spock realized. Circling the Enterprise, pleading for sanctuary, they could not possibly withstand the hazardous environment they had rashly thrown themselves into. So far, fatalities had been minimal, but that had been more happenstance than anything else. The vulnerable flyers were at the mercy of the storm.
Unless . . .
“Mr. Chekov, expand our shields outward by one hundred sixty percent.”
Startled, Chekov looked back at him. A baffled expression indicated that he was confused by his orders. “Excuse me, sir. Did I hear you correctly? Extending the deflectors that far out will severely diminish their strength and integrity.”
“That is correct, Ensign.” Spock knew that the shields had been designed to conform to the profile of the ship, adding a layer of protection akin to a secondary hull. Ordinarily, their protection seldom extended more than fifty meters beyond the ship’s exterior plating. But these were not ordinary circumstances. “You have your orders.”
“Aye, sir.” Chekov resigned himself to his task. “Extending shields.”
Spock moved to notify Engineering of his plan, but Mr. Scott responded even more quickly to the drastic change in the shields. An agitated brogue erupted from the intercom. “Mr. Spock, what sort of games are ye playing up there? I canna believe what my readouts are telling me.”
Spock took the engineer’s reaction in stride. It was to be expected. “No games, Mr. Scott. It has become necessary to expand our shields to encompass the space surrounding the ship.”
“But that’s not what they were built to do!” the engineer sputtered. “As Dr. McCoy might say, are you out of your Vulcan mind?”
Possibly, Spock thought. “Emulating the good doctor is unworthy of you, Mr. Scott. Please see to it that sufficient power is diverted to the task and that the deflector grid remains operational.”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Spock, but that’s going to put a considerable strain on our resources. I’m not sure how long we’re going to be able to manage this daft stunt of yours . . . sir.”
“Your caveats are noted, Mr. Scott. Spock out.”
On-screen, the results of his tactic were already visible. A force-field bubble, roughly following the contours of the Enterprise, now extended for approximately four hundred meters around the ship in every direction. The bubble was invisible except where the ubiquitous debris struck it, which was almost everywhere. Brilliant flashes of Cherenkov energy lit up the screen, making Spock grateful for his protective inner eyelids.
“Dim luminosity,” he instructed. “Thirty-point-two percent.”
&
nbsp; For the moment, the refugee ships were safe within the Enterprise’s shields, but Spock knew that this was only a temporary solution. He needed to take advantage of the opportunity while he could.
“Shield status?”
“Thirty percent and holding,” Chekov reported. “For now.”
That will have to be enough, Spock judged. He activated the intercom. “Transporter rooms. Lock onto shuttle crew and passengers.”
With the shuttle no longer outside the Enterprise’s shields, it was now possible to beam its endangered human cargo aboard. Unfortunately, this entailed abandoning Columbus and the last several evacuees waiting back on Skagway, but that could not be helped. The evacuation was over now. All that remained was to stand guard over Skagway until it reached its inevitable end. Spock hoped that those left behind would make good use of what little time they had left.
“Transporter rooms reporting, sir.” Uhura was visibly relieved by the news. “The shuttle crew and passengers have been beamed aboard.”
On the viewer, Columbus veered away from the Enterprise. Spock assumed that Lieutenant Schneider had set an automatic course that would reduce the chance of any unwanted collisions. The tugs and scouts that had been shadowing the shuttle broke away from it to stay close to the starship instead. Spock watched as Columbus headed away from both Skagway and the Enterprise before slowing to a stop against the force-field barrier. In time, it, too, would be sucked in by the planet’s fluctuating gravity. A minor loss, compared with the epic tragedy facing the lunar colony.
“Shall I keep the shields extended, sir?” Chekov asked. “Now that our people have been beamed aboard?”
An excellent question, Spock mused. He was reluctant to abandon the refugee flotilla to its fate but wondered how long the Enterprise could be expected to shelter the fragile craft beneath its metaphorical wings. “Shield status?”
“Twenty-eight percent,” Chekov said dolefully. “Eighty-five percent of generator output diverted to deflectors. Other systems operating below capacity.”