That left me alone with my thoughts, maybe not the best company for somebody my age, entombed a hundred meters underground…or did I already mention that? I tried to occupy myself with medical journals, but I couldn’t seem to concentrate. Then I struggled with a crossword puzzle for a bit, and I’m sure the computer was laughing at me somewhere deep in its isolinear brain. But what I kept doing, despite my lame attempts otherwise, was thinking about Earth. What would we find when we got back…if we got back? How many cities were smoking ruins? How many people died?

  Was that damned Ferengi right? Was there even any Earth to go back to? In all my years in space, I’d seen a score of worlds reduced to cinders, some by nature, some by the stupidity of their own inhabitants, and some by enemies bent on destruction. Were we going to end up refugees, with no world left to call home? What if the Breen ships incinerated the Bakrii, too? What if there was nobody left to let us out of this cavern? Believe me, as old as I am, and as much death as I’ve seen, I’m pretty damned sure there’s no great way to die. But getting blown to bits in space had to be better than being buried alive.

  Like I said, being alone with my own thoughts wasn’t the best company.

  The company improved when Rivera came knocking on the hatch, asking if I’d mind a visitor. But that child sure did look tired. She sunk into the pilot’s seat next to me, and I noticed the dark circles under her eyes. I asked if she’d had any sleep since her ship tangled with the Dominion.

  “I’m okay, sir,” she said with a shrug.

  “Poppycock,” I snapped. “And that’s not what I asked, young lady,”

  Rivera shook her head. “Every time I close my eyes, my brain won’t shut down. Might be better if I had an on-off switch, like that android on the Enterprise.”

  “You could take something.”

  She shook her head again, more emphatically. “No medication. I’m the one they look up to, now. I have to keep it together, stay sharp.”

  “You can’t be sharp if you’re exhausted, now can you?”

  “I can sleep later, sir.”

  I started to get the feeling that she came over as much for herself as for me. That poor girl needed to talk, and she had no one to listen but me. I was glad to be of service. “When you try to sleep, what do you see?” I asked gently. I didn’t know if she was ready to open up just yet.

  She took a deep breath. “Captain Shinoda’s face. She’s the only captain I’ve served under.” She caught herself. “Was the only captain I’ve served under. Tell me about Captain Kirk. He’s been one of my heroes since I was seven. I read everything I could find about him. What was he like?”

  “Driven. Compassionate. Single-minded. Open-minded. Stubborn as a mule—always had to be right, but still the first to admit when he was wrong.” I was glad to see an innocent sparkle in Rivera’s eye as I talked about Jim. “The best starship captain who ever lived. Maybe the worst admiral. And about the most courageous man I ever knew.”

  “So he was never afraid?”

  “Where’d you get an idea like that, child?”

  “But you said—”

  “Nobody can be courageous if he doesn’t know what it means to be afraid. I may be just an old country doctor, but I can tell you this—everybody’s afraid of something, unless he’s a damned fool.”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m so tired, but I don’t understand.”

  “Not being afraid when there’s a good reason for it, well, that’s plain stupid. Courage is when you’re scared out of your wits, and you still do what you have to do. What you’ve done since your captain got killed—that’s courage.” I could tell that the notion of anyone thinking of her as courageous didn’t sit well with Rivera. But after all these years, and serving with the crewmates I’ve known, I know courage when I see it.

  “Well, it doesn’t feel like courage,” she said, tilting the seat back and resting her heels on the console. “It just feels…empty.”

  Then I told her about my first combat casualty. “I was as green as grass. We were scouting a planet and ran into some Klingons, back when we hated each other. There was an explosion. Knocked me off my feet. When I came to, I saw my lieutenant, just lying crumpled in the dirt like a rag doll somebody threw off a roof. There was blood everywhere. And when I tried to wipe it off his face, blood was all that was there. I tried to give him an emergency tracheotomy, so he could breathe. There was this sound from his chest, like nothing I ever heard before. And then he was gone.”

  Rivera stared at me, without a blink of those pretty, long lashes. Her voice came out a whisper. “What did you do?”

  “I puked my guts out. That’s over a century ago, but I’ll never forget it.”

  “They don’t tell us it’ll be like this. War, I mean.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “I joined Starfleet to explore. I never thought about…this.”

  I reached out and took her smooth hand in my old wrinkled claw. “You’ll do some exploring. I have no doubt about that. And you’ll never forget the thrill of seeing a new world for the first time, or discovering some stellar phenomenon no one’s ever seen before, or making a successful first contact with some new species. And you’ll know you’re the latest link in a chain that goes back to Magellan and Neil Armstrong and Jonathan Archer…and Jim Kirk.”

  “And what about this? I suppose I’ll never forget this either.”

  “No, no, you won’t, my dear. It’s part of who you are, but it’s not all. Not by a long shot.”

  And then, finally, she dozed off, just like a baby. I hoped she’d be seeing new worlds in her sleep, and not the faces of the dead.

  Scotty came back after an hour or so, and Rivera woke up and went back to her ship. We were all wondering what was going on up on the surface. We got our answer about thirty minutes later, when we saw Mezta’s face on the comm screen.

  “The Breen ships are gone,” she told us with a smile. “We’re bringing you up, and if you’re not in a hurry, we’d like to complete those repairs.”

  Well, that was a big enough surprise all by itself. But when the elevator platforms got us back to the surface, I couldn’t believe what was waiting for us—at least twenty Bakrii, standing around long tables where they’d set up all kinds of food and drink, all for us. They had fresh pastries, fruits and vegetables, steaming stews and soups. And at least half the people there to greet us looked like teenagers. Mezta was waiting for us as Scotty and I climbed out of our runabout.

  Rivera came down the Saladin’s ladder first, her mouth just gaping open in shock. Her crew seemed like they weren’t sure if they should follow, but she waved them out impatiently: “Come on, come on!”

  Mezta could see we were all a little flummoxed, so she gestured us toward the tables and the friendly faces of the people who couldn’t wait to feed us. There was a shy little Bakrii girl, the size of an eight-year-old human, sort of hiding behind her mother. She was holding a bouquet of flowers, and her mother gently pushed her toward Rivera. She held the flowers out, and Rivera took them and knelt down and gave the girl a hug. Well, that little girl scurried back to her mother, but she was beaming a mile-wide smile.

  “This is the welcome you deserved,” Mezta said to us. “I’m sorry we weren’t able to give it to you the first time.”

  “Beggin’ your pardon, lassie,” Scotty said, “but how did you change Vuko’s mind?”

  “Well,” Mezta said, “the truth is, I didn’t.”

  I shook my head. “Now I’m really confused. If he didn’t change his mind—”

  “I changed mine,” she said.

  “And Vuko let you do all this for us?” said Scotty.

  “Uhh, not exactly. Let’s just say Vuko is…hmmm…tied up at the moment.”

  My eyebrows went up fast. “Literally?”

  Mezta nodded, and Scotty and I couldn’t help laughing. As she guided us over to all that delicious-smelling food, she explained. “When he refused to extend your stay, I got so angry that I started talking to others on our staff. And it became clear that nobody shared his opinion. When he wouldn’t see reason, we…ummm…narrowed his choices. He’s under house arrest.”

  “Mutiny isn’t usually a smart career move,” I pointed out.

  “I’ll worry about that later. Vuko may not care who rules the quadrant, but I think most Bakrii do. As a new friend told me recently, it’s sometimes difficult to be better than you want to be. This seemed like one of those times when it was worth the effort, and the risk.”

  While we and the Saladin crew enjoyed the Bakrii’s genuine hospitality, Mezta’s crackerjack repair teams went back to work on our ships. It did my heart good to see Rivera’s young crew actually smiling and laughing. Some of the Bakrii children were asking the Saladin crew about their homeworlds, and their families, and the excitement of being in Starfleet. And some of the older Bakrii women hovered around like mother hens, making sure everyone had enough to eat. It was just a short respite for those kids from the Saladin, but beggars can’t be choosers.

  Then I saw Rivera, off in a corner near her ship, with a baby-faced ensign who looked barely a day over eighteen. Old as I am, my hearing’s still sharp and I could hear him crying, just overwhelmed by everything he’d been through in the last few days, and by the fuss the Bakrii were making over us, thanks to Mezta. I thought about going over and lending a hand, but Rivera was doing just fine by herself. She spoke to that ensign like a big sister, just as calm as you please. She told him what he needed to hear, and maybe what she needed to say, too. She smiled. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders. And she sent him off to have a good time, while there was time. I knew right then and there that she was going to make a great starship captain, and I planned to tell that to Starfleet first chance I got.

  And then I saw her slip behind her ship’s landing pad, saw her shoulders slump, saw tears sliding down her cheeks. I wanted to go and do for her what she’d done for that ensign, but before I knew it, she’d wiped those tears away, squared her shoulders and marched over to join her crew with a smile on her face.

  Well, soon enough, Mezta came over to tell us that her repair teams were done. Both our ships were ready to go and face whatever might be waiting for us out there. We thanked her, and all the other Bakrii who’d ended up making us feel as welcome as family. Rivera’s crew, weighed down with boxes of food for the trip, boarded the Saladin. Scotty gave Mezta a hug and climbed into our runabout. Then I linked my arm in hers, so she couldn’t get away without answering what I had to ask. I needed to know what made this apparently ordinary woman do this extraordinary thing.

  “It had to be more than what we said or did,” I said. “It had to be something inside you.”

  Mezta took a deep breath. “Before I was born, we Bakrii spent fifty years living under an alien dictatorship. We lost a lot of young people fighting for the resistance. Their blood bought the freedom we have today—including the freedom to choose our allies. When I met Commander Rivera’s crew, and saw how young they are, I thought about how I’d want our young soldiers treated if they were in your situation. That made it easier to do the right thing.”

  I clasped Mezta’s hands in mine. “Well, we’re sure glad you did.”

  We said our goodbyes, and then our little convoy took off, looking for a safe route home. Were we worried about running into the Breen or the Jem’Hadar? You bet we were. But no matter what the dangers, we knew where we were needed. And like my new friend Mezta said, that made it easier to do the right thing.

  All the way back, we kept trying in vain to contact Starfleet. We kept hoping we’d run into some other allied ships that might’ve escaped the attacks on Earth. But it felt like we were the last two ships in the universe. Space never seemed so empty. The closer to home we got, the more we expected the worst.

  Finally, five hours out, the Starfleet channel crackled to life. We got the news that Earth was battered, but safe…for the moment. And all hands on two lonely little ships cheered like it was New Year’s Eve. When Starfleet asked Rivera if her crew was prepared for a new assignment, I was afraid she’d feel obligated to say they were ready, willing and able. Instead, she said they needed a day or two of R & R first, and then they’d be ready to march into hell. Just then, the way she looked out for her crew, she reminded me of Jim. Starfleet approved her request, told her to report to Mars Base first and then to Starbase 4. As the Saladin peeled off from our tiny formation, I said a silent prayer for her and those kids under her command. And Scotty and I continued on toward home.

  As we made our final approach to mother Earth, I was glad we’d seen those news images, so at least we knew what to expect. Even so, my stomach got all queasy and sick when we first saw the wrecked spacedocks, the blast-craters pocking the planet, and the smoke plumes rising from her beautiful cities.

  “Scotty,” I suddenly said, “take us in over New York.”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it, okay? Why does everything have to be a big debate? All I ask is a simple little course change, and you start a big argument. Every time—”

  Scotty rolled his eyes. “All I said was, ‘why.’ ”

  “Does it matter why? Good God almighty!”

  “Well, you’re the admiral and I’m just a wee captain, so New York it is.”

  I just didn’t feel like telling him, ’cause it seemed so silly. But there was something I had to see. It was night on the American east coast as we broke through the bottom of a cloud cover, crossing on a diagonal over the rocky coast of Maine, then passing over New England, and I could feel Scotty cut our speed. I know he did it for me, cranky old son of a gun that I was. Whatever it was I wanted to see, that was all right with him. When we caught sight of New York City, first thing we saw was all the damage, just like the rest of the planet.

  Then we rounded the south tip of Manhattan, and I saw what I was afraid I wouldn’t see. There she was, standing on her island in the harbor, her back straight, torch held high and burning bright.

  Scotty glanced at me, smiled, and flew a lazy circle around her. When they first built her, five hundred years ago, she became a symbol of hope for the hopeless, no matter where they came from. Back then, there weren’t a lot of free places on Earth. America stood for something better, and, like the poem says, generations of “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” were drawn by that light in the harbor.

  The history books tell us how it was touch and go there in the twenty-first century, when cultures clashed and terror seemed to be hiding in every shadow. For a while, it looked like the good guys might lose the very things that made them good. If ever there was a time when good needed to be very, very careful, that was it.

  Somehow, we survived all that. And, eventually, the people of Earth came together. When every land became the land of the free, it looked like that lady in the harbor might’ve outlived her purpose. Instead, she became a symbol for the whole planet. Then, when the Vulcans came down out of the sky to let us know we weren’t alone in the universe, and Earth eventually became the capital of the Federation, that torch needed to burn even brighter. The ideas she stood for needed to reach a whole galaxy.

  That’s the world I was born into. And I’ll never forget the first time my parents took me to New York. We made the same pilgrimage to the statue that millions of families have made for hundreds of years. Of course, we’ve lived with so many technological wonders for so long now, you might think a simple, mute copper statue on a little green island would seem a quaint relic so ancient that it couldn’t possibly convey anything important centuries after they put her up on that pedestal.

  But that statue’s done a miraculous thing—she’s evolved. She started out as the “Mother of Exiles,” welcoming her world’s “wretched refuse” to a place where they could build a good, new life they’d only dreamed of before. And when there were no more “homeless, tempest-tossed” to bring in, she started beaming her message out.

  So, the truth is, the longer she stands, the more she means. And the longer I stand, the more I under stand that some ideas never go out of style.

  “After all these years, and all these wars,” I said to Scotty, “I was afraid that this time…”

  “Aye.”

  Then we flew west for San Francisco, both of us looking straight ahead. After a while, Scotty said, “Don’t tell me you’re gettin’ sentimental in your old age.”

  “I most certainly am not.” Then I added: “And even if I was, do you have a problem with that, Captain Scott?”

  “Not at all, Admiral McCoy.”

  That’s one of the nice things about having old friends. After a century or so, you pretty much understand each other, without having to say a whole hell of a lot.

  Field Expediency

  Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  War correspondence: In 2000, Pocket began publishing Star Trek: S.C.E., a monthly series of eBooks focusing on the adventures of the Starfleet Corps of Engineers on the U.S.S. da Vinci. Though the eBooks primarily deal with the period after the Dominion War, the da Vinci did serve in that conflict. “Field Expediency” tells the story of one such mission.

  Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

  Dayton Ward has been a Star Trek fan since conception (his, not the show’s). After serving for eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he discovered the private sector and the piles of cash to be made there as a software engineer. His start in professional writing came from placing stories in each of the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies. He is the author of the Star Trek novel In the Name of Honor, the science fiction novel The Last World War, and the short story “Loose Ends” in Star Trek: New Frontier: No Limits, as well as having cowritten several Star Trek: S.C.E. adventures and two Star Trek: The Next Generation novels with Kevin Dilmore. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with his wife Michi, he is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You can contact Dayton and learn more about his writing at (www.daytonward.com).