No Surrender - Jeff Mariotte [2]
“And the Kursicans are doing what?” Gold asked. “They can’t bring it under control remotely?”
“They’ve tried. Between you and me, I don’t think they’ve tried that hard. They seem not to care much about what happens to the folks onboard the platform—far as they’re concerned, it’s the dregs of Kursican and her sister planets. But when the thing comes down on them, they might sing a different tune.”
“Still,” Gold said. “It seems like they ought to make some effort on their own behalf. They’re not even a Federation planet, for that matter. We’re involved why, exactly?”
“You’re right, they’re not. But they’re under consideration, and we happen to have an ambassador—name’s Uree, a Deltan—who’s out there now. In fact, he’s on the Plat. That’s our justification. We’ve asked the Kursicans if they mind us steppin’ in, and they’ve given their blessing. If nothing else, we’ve got to see if we can get him off alive.”
“Good,” Gold said. “I’m starting to see the picture. One thing, though. Why not the da Vinci? What’s this personal reason you spoke of?”
“Because, David,” Scotty said, his voice somber, “one of the prisoners on the Plat is a gentleman named Augustus Bradford. I believe you know him.”
Know him? Gold thought. Now there’s an under-statement. He hadn’t heard the name in years, but he’d never forget it….
David Gold and Gus Bradford had entered Starfleet Academy the same year. They had become close friends. After the Academy, they’d both served on the Gettysburg, under Captain Mark Jameson. Gus in particular had idolized Jameson, and Gold had to admit that, back then, the captain had seemed like the real thing. He was courageous, he was smart, he was not afraid of making hard decisions, and more often than not, he made the right ones. He was already justifiably famous in Starfleet for his negotiating skills, with his success on Mordan IV being the feather in his cap. When Gus heard they were being assigned to Jameson’s ship, he had literally danced for joy.
But Jameson hadn’t been quite the negotiator he had claimed to be. Decades later, the truth about what happened on Mordan IV had come out. Both Gold and Bradford had moved on by then; when the story spread, Gold had contacted Bradford and they’d spoken about it, and about the disgrace that had come to Jameson late in life.
Jameson had been dispatched to Mordan IV because Karnas, the son of an assassinated tribal leader there, had captured a starship and threatened to kill its passengers and crew unless Starfleet gave him the weapons he felt he needed to avenge his father’s death. Jameson got the ship back intact, saving the lives of sixty-three people, and he was hailed as a hero for his efforts. But what Starfleet didn’t know—until years had passed and millions had died—was that Jameson had given in to Karnas’s demands. He had given Karnas the weapons he wanted. Knowing he’d violated the Prime Directive by doing so, Jameson tried to fix things by giving the planet’s other tribes the same weapons he’d given Karnas, thereby maintaining the balance of power.
What he had really accomplished, though, was to give Mordan IV the means with which to destroy itself. A civil war began, which lasted for forty years and came close to wiping out everyone on the planet. Decades later, now a retired admiral, Jameson was brought back to Mordan IV on board the U.S.S. Enterprise. Having taken a restorative drug to counter the effects of the Iverson’s disease that wracked his body, Jameson learned that Karnas had lured him back to the planet to punish him for his long-ago actions. He managed to negotiate a release for captive Federation representatives by turning himself over to Karnas. But it was already too late for Jameson—the drug he had taken killed