Star Trek: TOS: Legacies 01-Captain to Captain by Greg Cox

Author:Greg Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books

Eleven

“I have to say I don’t like this.”

Doctor Sarah April was not just the Enterprise’s chief medical officer, she was also the captain’s wife. A slender woman in her forties, wearing her blue Starfleet scrubs, she had come straight from sickbay to the transporter room. Concern showed in her sea-green eyes. Her hair was the same auburn hue it had been when April had first met her back on Earth all those years ago, when he’d thought that she was easily the prettiest veterinarian he’d even seen. That was before he had sweet-talked her into signing aboard the Enterprise.

“Can’t say I’m fond of the idea myself,” he said, preparing to beam down to the citadel. He’d traded his favorite sweater for his best dress uniform, the better to make a positive first impression, although he wondered just how fully a race of paranoid gastropods grasped the nuances of humanoid apparel. “But it may be our best chance at breaking this bloody stalemate and turning this fraught first contact around.”

“I know,” she sighed. “And I know you feel you have to do this, for duty’s sake.”

He appreciated that she didn’t try to talk him out of it. She was a Starfleet doctor after all, which meant that she accepted the inevitable risks of interstellar exploration as a necessary part of their mission. And, like him, she worked hard at not letting their personal relationship get in the way of their professional duties, which was not always easy at times like this.

“Just be careful,” she added.

“When am I not?”

“Do you really want a list?” she said, smiling wryly. “To start with, there was that carefree jaunt into the Neutral Zone . . . ”

He held up his hand to forestall a longer recitation of his crimes against caution. “Point taken, love, but I’ve always come home safe and sound, haven’t I?”

“Only because you know I’d never let you hear the end of it if you didn’t.” Sarah clasped her hands together to keep from wringing them. “Seriously, Rob, are you certain you don’t want to at least take a few security officers with you just to be on the safe side?”

He shook his head. “I’m going to be in the belly of the beast, surrounded by the Jatohr in their own fortress. I doubt that a little extra muscle would make any difference if matters take a turn for the worse, so why put two more lives at risk?” Worry over Una and her landing party played no little part in his decision. “And arriving with an armed entourage might send the wrong message, given that the intent is to convince the Jatohr that we come in peace.”

“But what if they’re like the Klingons,” she asked, “and won’t respect you unless you look ready to put up a fight?”

“Then I may be making a strategic error,” he conceded, “but heaven help us if we start approaching every new species as though they were Klingons.” That sounded like a recipe for constant galactic strife to him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.