Flashback - Diane Carey [27]
"What is it?"
"I can't confirm the existence of Praxis. My scanners are focused on the Amrite solar system, on the correct coordinates." He stopped talking as Sulu hurried to the station and looked at the sensor readouts for himself. Even from here Janeway could see the glitter of dead rock and chips that was hardly enough to make up a moon of any notable mass.
"Praxis?" Sulu uttered.
"What's left of it, sir," Valtane murmured significantly.
Janeway moved back to Tuvok's side. "So what happened?" she asked. "Did you go to Praxis?"
As if there was anything left to go to-
"No. We were warned off by the Klingons," Tuvok explained quietly. "We resumed our survey mission. However, two days later, we learned that two Starfleet officers had been accused of murdering the Klingon chancellor. They were brought to the Klingon homeworld to stand trial."
"Can we go to two days later?"
"I shall attempt such a transfer . . ."
Janeway held her breath and waited. Then why can't we transfer to the cliff and the little girl?
"It is the judgment of this court, that without possibility of reprieve or parole, you'll be taken from this place to the dilithium mines on the
penal asteroid of Rura Penthe, there to spend the rest of your natural lives."
The sentence of Kirk and McCoy
There was hardly any change. Janeway thought for a moment that Tuvok had failed, until she realized that much of the deck damage had now been cleaned up, and the junior officers milling about the bridge were different people from an instant ago.
Captain Sulu was still here, Valtane, Rand, Tuvok-but now everyone was tense, glowering. Voices were low. Sulu was pacing.
Janeway and Tuvok watched the captain for a moment.
"Captain Sulu had served under both Captain Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy for many years. And he felt an intense loyalty to both of them," Tuvok said.
"As I recall," Janeway said, "they were released from Rura Penthe."
"Yes, they were sentenced and sent there, but they were innocent. The assassination was engineered by others, and Kirk and McCoy were implicated. Captain Sulu believed-"
"Captain," Rand spoke up then, "we're receiving a coded message. It's not on one of the normal Starfleet channels." She looked at the captain. "It's from the Enterprise."
Sulu nearly pounced on the message. His reaction suggested that he'd been waiting for this. "Let's see it. On screen."
The main viewer wiggled with a shaky, non-regulation-channel picture of a supremely poised black woman with commander's insignia on her uniform.
"Uhura," Sulu said with obvious recognition. "Are you watching the trial?"
"I'm watching the thing they're calling a trial," the woman said. Her voice was deep and eminently schooled.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
"Spock's told Starfleet Command that our warp engines are down," the woman said. "And we've been specifically ordered not to interfere."
Neither of them seemed surprised. It was as if they were communicating in code.
"I can't believe," Sulu said, "you're just going to sit there. We both know how Klingon 'justice' works. They'll end up in prison for the rest of their lives, or worse."
The elegant woman raised a practiced eyebrow. "We have our orders, Hikaru."
Janeway peered suspiciously at them both. There was more going on than either was saying. They were communicating on a subliminal level, as people did who knew each other for decades, who worked too closely for description, through events no one really liked to describe.
"How's your survey mission going?" Uhura asked, but that wasn't what she was really talking about.
"It's nearly complete," Sulu answered.
And he meant something else too.
"You know," the woman went on, "there are rather interesting gaseous anomalies in the Klingon Empire."
"So I hear.. ."
"Well. . . good luck with your survey."
"Thanks," Sulu said. "Good luck with your warp engines."
Uhura winked without really winking. Somehow she did it with her voice. "Scotty's working on them right now. I have a