Ship of the Line - Diane Carey [32]
“It does?”
“Yes. While he was on the faculty at Starfleet Academy, he cooperated in making all of his mission logs into programs, and extrapolated on them for guest participation. Kirk told them what he was thinking, why he was thinking it, and what he thought he could’ve done better. Then they incorporated some of the perceptions and memories of other participants, just to make sure all the details were right. They used the building plans of the original starship and the technical schematics. The computer’ll give you the real James Kirk, too. After all, it’s not impressed by legends.”
The captain drew his brows together, trying to imagine just how such records could be step-by-step, breath-by-breath fed into a computer and turned into a three-dimensional interactive program. Riker had wondered the same things.
Picard tipped his head contemplatively. “I hadn’t given it a thought …”
Riker smiled. “Well, you should.”
Pressing his lips tight, the captain bobbed his brows and seemed intrigued, if not entertained, and put his teacup down on one of the lounge’s obsidian tables.
“Well, sir,” Riker bridged awkwardly, “are you ready to visit the new starship? After all, everyone’s assuming.”
Picard sighed. “Suppose it’s my duty to stoke the rumors, isn’t it?”
“Not rumors, sir. Hopes. Just the pitiful wishes of a group of ragtag misfits, alone in the universe but for each other, clinging to the forlorn museful glimmerings of—”
“I’m walking out the door, Number One. You’re not still talking, are you?”
“No, sir, not me. Let’s go to the right, sir, it’s shorter.”
Chapter 9
Long, long years, and many grinding sorrows. Was this the shining return of knights? No, this was the melancholy reappearance of coachmen in a not-very-impressive coach. No great warship hummed beneath, but only an exploratory tank, now crammed full of samples and specimens. Not even an unusual specimen.
Feeling as if his burdened chest were turning inside out, Gaylon rumbled out a sigh. The moment they had so long waited for was at hand. Return.
This tank ship rattled around him as he arranged the last docking maneuvers at the Zgoda Ring. With no more to do, Gaylon turned and watched the last few umbilicals screw out from the station’s housings and latch onto the tank ship. He wished he were a machine too.
In the center seat on this stuffy and unenlightened bridge, Commander Kozara sat in silence. A sharp-eyed patrol ship on the outer expanse had forced them to identify themselves, so even their approach to Fortress Zgoda had not been peaceful and without identity. By now, everyone on that station and half the people in the Klingon Command structure knew Kozara and his gloryless crew were finally coming home.
Gaylon and his crewmates had hoped for a grace period, a few days to contact their families and feel out the reception, to see if public and private mockery had possibly cooled after so long. After all, Kozara’s crew had paid, had they not? They had taken ignoble duty, gone out to “explore,” to absent themselves from the empire they had mortified, and they had contacted Klingon Command only twice. Each time they had been told to stay out there, remain exploring the Great Waste even longer. And they had obligingly stayed. That had to mean something, entail some credit, some bank of favor, yes?
Shh-CHUNK—the final tether drew into its mount and locked there. The expedition was over. They would never have to come back to this forsaken pot of a vessel anymore. It had served, and could be cut to scrap for all Gaylon cared.
He caught a thin reflection of himself in the scratched frame of the sensor mount at the helm as he went to stand in the same general area as Kozara, without moving too close. They were both ragged now, aged by years and even more by this humiliating voyage to collect useless bits, a voyage really meant to keep them away from here. Kozara was absolutely gray. Most of the warrior had been bored