U.S.S. Enterprise
Orbiting Susquatane
At Starfleet Academy, Pike had seen archival video of mission control operators during some of the earliest robotic missions to planetary bodies. No lives at stake, but there were white-knuckle moments nonetheless. Projects developed across decades and mounted at incredible expense all came down to one single moment: landing.
Workers who had labored in anonymity for years would wear their matching mission polo shirts for what would either be a birth or a funeral while the whole world watched. There would be long stretches of worried silence, punctuated by indecipherable status reports announced in hushed tones—and then applause as each intermediary milestone was reached. Finally, if all went well, held breaths suddenly released as cheers. Later missions with human crews were the same, times ten.
Meanwhile, Pike had agreed to the Susquatane expedition more or less because there was nothing better to do, and while the journey had taken time because of the need to go around the Acheron Formation, the landing phase hadn’t sped his pulse in the least.
“Standing by to beam first party down,” said Lieutenant Pitcairn over the comm.
Pike stood by the entry of the bridge turbolift, coffee mug in hand. “Go.”
Nicola spoke, scant seconds later. “Incoming transmission.”
“On.”
“Landing party on the surface,” Spock reported. “Conditions as expected. Initial survey underway.”
“I guess that’s that,” Pike said. He turned back into the turbolift in search of a refill.
This feels like I’m leaving for a ski trip, Pike thought as he walked into the transporter room a week later. It felt bizarre to be the only one in the hallway wearing thick boots and thermal cold-weather gear; at least it wasn’t a parka. He wasn’t planning on staying on Susquatane that long.
He hadn’t intended to go, but after days during which he had done little more than keep tabs on his half-dozen landing parties from above, Una and Colt had conspired to convince him to spend some time on the ground. “Energize,” he said—
—and took his next breath on an alien world. He coughed, his lungs protesting against the sudden presence of chillier air. But the discomfort was over soon enough—and what filled him next was wonder. The brief winter day at the polar exploration site had just ended, unleashing a sky awash in color. Birthing stars peeked through narrow gaps on the inner side of a black nebular wall while, much closer, sheets of aurora draped underneath. Between the stars and snow, Pike crunched about in a vibrant twilight.
“Captain,” Spock acknowledged, approaching from the north with his tricorder in hand. He was dressed in his white thermal uniform, apparently feeling no discomfort in this region much colder than his homeworld. He had also mastered the knack of walking in the snow without making a lot of noise. “Camp Five is ready for your review.”
“This isn’t an inspection, Spock. I just wanted to check the place out.”
Spock seemed to understand the distinction. “I have visited all our expedition sites on planet. Susquatane is ideal.”
“There’s usually a ‘but’ somewhere.” Pike didn’t believe in Edens naturally occurring in hellish places. But if there was something wrong with Susquatane, he hadn’t heard of it. This location was cool and sterile, but others were warm and teeming with life.
“Perhaps I should say that finding a Class-M planet here was improbable.” Spock gestured to the sky. “But not impossible.”
The Pergamum Nebula was an active body, with many regions of matter and energy in motion. Most had emissions hostile to living beings. But the Susquatane system sat in a bubble safely apart from the greatest dangers. “We’re in the eye of the hurricane,” Pike said, looking up.
“There are parts of the comparison which are not apt, Captain. Susquatane is not affixed to this location, such that it would be overtopped by the storm as time elapsed. Rather, it is traveling in space with the protected pocket. To know the permanence of the situation, it is imperative to study the atmosphere and geology of the world and the condition of its life-forms, both now and in the past.”
“Spock, you sold me months ago. We’re here.” Pike looked about. “You think your surveys will soak up the remaining weeks of the mission?”
“Without difficulty.” Spock eyed him. “You are willing to remain?”
Pike was surprised by the question. “Yeah, of course. We were ordered to stay in the nebula.”
“I ask because travel is the function of starship captains—and for many, their preferred state.”
“Not this one.” Pike gestured with his gloved hands. “For centuries on my world, captains have had to learn to live with time in port. This place seems reasonably safe—and as interesting as you say. I could kick around here for a while.”
“Excellent.”
“But it’d be nice to have a horse,” Pike said with a smirk. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any?”
“There are land-traversing cephalopods in the temperate zone which are sized similarly with ungulates on Earth,” Spock said.
“Then I need a saddle.”
“They would interpret any attempt to approach them as a challenge.”
“I’ve broken a bronco or two.”
“The challenge would not take physical form. The cephalopod would sing to you, and expect you to harmonize. If you fail to satisfy, it would immobilize you with a harmless ink spray while its companions educated you.”
“Maybe I can do without that.”
Pike heard the others approach before he saw them. It was the sound of the R3, one of the small surface vehicles Enterprise kept in its stores for expedition sites. Generically known as a snow scouter, it resembled a three-person version of one of the open-air Earth snowmobiles of old. With sleds at its base and antigrav-assisted repulsors for occasional use, the device cut a clean path across the slope, barely disturbing it. Pike’s footsteps were leaving more of an imprint.
The driver disembarked first. Ghalka, a silver-haired Andorian biologist, looked as if she felt right at home. “Welcome, Captain,” the chipper ensign said. “We’ve established a post above a subglacial lake. Would you care to see it?”
“Maybe later.” Pike smiled at the second occupant. “Wheedled your way down, did you, Connolly?”
Connolly stepped off the snow scouter and smiled. “I said I’d be useful.”
You and a lot of other people, Pike thought. A fair chunk of his staff was on the ground. This team’s safety was coordinated by the third rider. Nhan was still seated in the vehicle, cinching her uniform and examining her phaser. The replacement for longtime Security Chief Mohandas had insisted on taking some of the shifts personally, perhaps not bargaining for the weather. “Ready for the next safari,” the Barzan said, moisture crystallizing in the air in the space before her breathing device. “They should put a roof on this thing.”
Spock conferred briefly with his colleagues and then approached the vehicle. “Commander, I must go back to the lake. There is an instrumentation problem.”
Nhan shivered. “Glad I didn’t bother to get off.”
“You must. There are only three seats and I will need both my colleagues with me.”
“That’s not the arrangement, Mister Spock. The camps are under shipboard surveillance, but nobody leaves without a security officer.”
“I can vouch for their safety.”
Nhan stood and looked to Pike. “Captain?”
Pike’s eyes widened. Wow, a command decision. “This is the deadest place on the planet, right?”
“Until you get a kilometer down,” Connolly said.
Pike nodded. “It’s been a week with no incident. And we don’t want to beam when it’s short distances.” Even in this relatively safe spot of the Pergamum, Enterprise’s crew had decided not to overuse the transporter until they knew more about interactions with the particle environment. “Your call, Nhan.”
She looked at the scientists. “Who doesn’t have a sidearm?”
Ghalka looked puzzled. “I don’t, but—”
“You do now.” Nhan stepped off the snow scouter and placed her phaser in the ensign’s hand. “I want that back.”
Ghalka stared at it. “It’s your only one?”
“It’s not even the only one on me,” the security chief said. Her devotion to her personal weaponry was well known. “Report back to Enterprise every fifteen minutes.”
Well done, Pike thought as the snow scouter powered up again. Nhan was new, but his crew was in good hands.
Boots crunching snow, she began to walk around the camp with him. “I was going to see you after my shift down here,” she said, “to report on the torpedo detonation.”
“This is as good a place as any.”
“It’s as cold a place as any. I’m freezing my ass off—Captain.”
“Sorry.” He’d always known her to speak her mind. “We can always go back up before we talk.”
“Are you kidding? After all those months I thought the walls were closing in.”
Pike well understood. “The torpedo. What are our theories again?”
Nhan began numbering with her fingers. “One: that Good News—I mean, Galadjian—is wrong about it being a torpedo.”
“The five percent possibility. A natural phenomenon.”
“Two: that it was a mine that somebody left.” Nhan waved randomly to the sky. “A mine in defense of what, I have no idea.”
“I hate mines,” Pike said. Every spacefarer did, with a passion.
“Three—and I used to like this—that the weapon had gone off track from some previous war, seeking a target until it had found the Pergamum—and Enterprise.”
“You don’t like that one anymore?”
Nhan pointed to the horizon, and the receding snow vehicle. “Spock did the math for me on how infinitesimal such an accidental meeting would be. I believe him.”
“I can believe he said ‘infinitesimal.’ ” Pike began to wish he’d brought the parka after all. “What about hostile actors firing with intent?”
“That’s always been the zero option—as Spock would say, the null hypothesis—to be disproven.” Nhan shrugged. “But we’ve found absolutely no supporting evidence for it in eight months here. There’s more life under our feet than in those clouds.”
“At least in the parts that we’ve seen.” Pike kicked at the snow. “Conclusion?”
“I’ll keep looking. Hell, we’re not going anywhere for a while.” She gritted her teeth. “How long are we here?”
“The rest of the tour. The full four months.”
“Ouch.” Nhan shivered again and looked around. “I think I’ll let my staffers handle the detail at this site. Enough of them want down here, they can have it.”
Pike clenched his teeth and nodded. “Yeah, the night air’s starting to get a little brisk. Let’s both go up. I think Spock can take care of himself until your relief arrives.”
“No argument here.”
Pike flipped open his communicator. He was already thinking about a change of clothes—and a trip to one of the warmer zones. Whichever one doesn’t have the singing cephalopod.