Epilogue

“WHERE’S MY TRICORDER?” Starsa called out.

“Check the black bag,” Reoh replied from the other room. “I can’t figure out this Cardassian replicator . . . and the vent is stuck closed in the bedroom.”

“Just be glad we got a posting together,” Starsa told him, going in to put her arms around him.

“Not many people want to be on DS9 right now,” he reminded her.

They stood arm in arm, looking out the eye‑shaped window in their bedroom as the wormhole opened up. They both held their breath until a Starfleet runabout appeared.

“Probably Lieutenant Dax,” Reoh said, “with those samples. I should go help her–”

“I’m going to call my family after I check in with O’Brien,” Starsa interrupted. “They’re less than a week away. Maybe some of them can come visit?”

Reoh laughed on his way out of their quarters, remembering how he had been thrown headfirst into Starsa’s family months ago when they were first getting together. “Sure, why not? Have them all come.”

Ensign Jayme Miranda kicked open the door to her room–finally, after four years of quads, it was private! She did a little hop‑skip as she entered, tossing the stack of transport containers containing her growing medical disk library on her bed.

She flung open the curtains, and breathed deep of the mild Paris weather of late summer. The comm beeped before she could fall on the bed and relax.

“Hello!” she called out.

“Hi, Jayme,” Moll said even before her image had fully appeared. “Welcome to your new place.”

“Moll! You look great.” Jayme sat up on her knees, pleased that her first call had come from Moll.

“I just got back from dinner. You’ll never guess with who.”

“Did you already get back to DS9?” Jayme guessed the answer, as Moll knew she would. “How are Reoh and Starsa? What a couple, eh?”

“They’re happy. It makes me wish I could see you,” she added wistfully.

“Ten weeks,” Jayme told her, “Midterm break, unless you get sent back to Earth before then.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Enor agreed. “I can’t tell you how proud I am. The first Miranda to ever be accepted to Starfleet Medical.”

“Watch out, galaxy!” Jayme agreed. “Here I come.”

Bobbie Ray Jefferson walked along the line of young humanoids, sniffing slightly as he eyed each one. “I’ve never seen such a . . . puny lot of new cadets.” He didn’t mention the fact that this was the first lineup of cadets he had everseen. It was his first year teaching Self‑defense 101. But these cadets didlook much smaller than those he remembered from his first year, though that had been four years ago.

Bobbie Ray sneered at each one as he swaggered by. “You do what I tell you, and by this time next year, nobody in ten solar systems will be able to touch you. You want that, don’t you? Don’t you?!”

“Yes, sir!” they shouted as one.

Such bright and eager faces, the best and the brightest from all the Federation planets. Bobbie Ray showed his teeth in a grin. This was going to be interesting.

Read on for an excerpt from

Vulcan’s Forge. . . .

VULCAN'S FORGE

by

Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz

Please turn the page for asn excerpt from

Vulcan's Forge . . .

Intrepid II and Obsidian,

Day 4, Fifth Week, Month of the Raging Durak,

Year 2296

Lieutenant Duchamps, staring at the sight of Obsidian growing ever larger in the viewscreen, pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Would you look at that. . . .”

Captain Spock, who had been studying the viewscreen as well, glanced quickly at the helmsman. “Lieutenant?”

Duchamps, predictably, went back into too‑formal mode at this sudden attention. “The surface of Obsidian, sir. I was thinking how well‑named it is, sir. All those sheets of that black volcanic glass glittering in the sun. Sir.”

“That black volcanic glass is, indeed, what constitutes the substance known as obsidian,” Spock observed, though only someone extremely familiar with Vulcans–James Kirk, for instance–could have read any dry humor into his matter‑of‑fact voice. Getting to his feet, Spock added to Uhura, “I am leaving for the transporter room, Commander. You have the conn.”

“Yes, sir.”

He waited to see her seated in the command chair, knowing how important this new role was to her, then acknowledged Uhura’s right to be there with the smallest of nods. She solemnly nodded back, aware that he had just offered her silent congratulations. But Uhura being Uhura, she added in quick mischief, “Now, don’t forget to write!”

After so many years among humans, Spock knew perfectly well that this was meant as a good‑natured, tongue‑in‑cheek farewell, but he obligingly retorted, “I see no reason why I should utilize so inappropriate a means of communication,” and was secretly gratified to see Uhura’s grin.

He was less gratified at the gasps of shock from the rest of the bridge crew. Did they not see the witticism as such? Or were they shocked that Uhura could dare be so familiar? Spock firmly blocked a twinge of very illogical nostalgia; illogical, he told himself, because the past was exactly that.

McCoy was waiting for him, for once silent on the subject of “having my molecules scattered all over Creation.” With the doctor were several members of Security and a few specialists, such as the friendly, sensible Lieutenant Clayton, an agronomist, and the efficient young Lieutenant Diver, a geologist so new to Starfleet that her insignia still looked like they’d just come out of the box. Various other engineering and medical personnel would be following later. The heaviest of the doctor’s supplies had already been beamed down with other equipment, but he stubbornly clung to the medical satchel–his “little black bag,” as McCoy so anachronistically called it–slung over his shoulder.

“I decided to go,” he told Spock unnecessarily. “That outrageously high rate of skin cancer and lethal mutations makes it a fascinating place.”

That seemingly pure‑science air, Spock mused, fooled no one. No doctor worthy of the title could turn away from so many hurting people.

“Besides,” McCoy added acerbically, “someone’s got to make sure you all wear your sunhats.”

“Indeed. Energize,” Spock commanded, and . . .

. . . was elsewhere, from the unpleasantly cool, relatively dim ship–cool and dim to Vulcan senses, at any rate–to the dazzlingly bright light and welcoming heat of Obsidian. The veils instantly slid down over Spock’s eyes, then up again as his desert‑born vision adapted, while the humans hastily adjusted their sun visors. He glanced about at this new world, seeing a flat, gravelly surface, tan‑brown‑gray stretching to the horizon of jagged, clearly volcanic peaks. A hot wind teased grit and sand into miniature spirals, and the sun glinted off shards of the black volcanic glass that had given this world its Federation name.

“Picturesque,” someone commented wryly, but Spock ignored that. Humans, he knew, used sarcasm to cover uneasiness. Or perhaps it was discomfort; perhaps they felt the higher level of ionization in the air as he did, prickling at their skin.

No matter. One accepted what could not be changed. They had, at David Rabin’s request, beamed down to these coordinates a distance away from the city: “The locals are uneasy enough as it is without a sudden ‘invasion’ in their midst.”