He nodded. “Are you quite certain of your decision?”
“Yes, Mr. Spock. This is something I must do.” Her veil concealed whatever emotions she might be experiencing. Her voice was as calm and steady as his own. “Please do not attempt to dissuade me.”
“I would not presume to do so. You are not a member of this crew under my command. I respect your right to choose your own fate.”
“Thank you for understanding.” She made her way toward the turbolift. “It has been a pleasure working with you. Please thank Captain Kirk for me. I hope he will be himself soon.”
Her remark struck Spock as curiously apropos. He arched an eyebrow. Had that been merely a casual turn of phrase, or did she know more than she ought to about the captain’s unusual condition?
“Mr. Spock!” Kwan called from the science station. “I’m detecting multiple launches from the colony!”
“What?” The announcement snared Qat Zaldana before she could exit the bridge. She lurched unsteadily back to the rail and stared up at the viewer. “That can’t be happening. There’s only one shuttle due back.”
But Columbus was not the only vessel departing the moon in a hurry. More than a dozen other vessels, ranging from shuttles to two-person prospector ships, lifted off from the battered hangars and landing pads surrounding the colony. Scouts, tugs, and ambulance ships fled the colony. Many of the ships were clearly not intended for anything more than a short jaunt about the moon itself, while others had been designed merely for mining the nearby rings. None of them was capable of making it to the nearest starbase or habitable planet. They had no place to go — except to the Enterprise.
“There’s too many of them!” Chekov exclaimed. He cut off his phaser blasts for fear of striking one of the refugee ships. “We’ve no place to board all those vessels!”
“Nor do we have the capacity to take on excess refugees,” Spock noted. “This is not an orderly evacuation.”
“No,” Qat Zaldana agreed. “This is panic. Blind desperation.”
“Mr. Spock!” Uhura said. “A priority transmission from the governor.”
He had expected something of the sort. “Put her through. Visual at fifty percent.”
“Aye, sir.”
The image on the viewer was split down the middle. Governor Dawson appeared on the left side of the screen, while a view of the frantic exodus occupied the right. She looked distraught and disheveled, her silver hair hanging loose across her face. An untreated bruise on her cheek was evidence of a recent accident or struggle. The lights flickered in her office. Spock heard shouting, sirens, explosions, and phaser fire in the background.
“Enterprise!” she addressed them. “We’ve lost control down here. My people are panicking. They don’t want to be left behind.” A loud crash off-screen caused her to flinch and look to one side before resuming her alert. “A mob stormed the spaceport, trampled over my security people. We believe they’re heading your way.”
“We are aware of the situation,” Spock reported tersely. “But surely you realize that we cannot accommodate all of these extra refugees. Our life-support systems have their limits.”
“I told them that, Mr. Spock,” she said. “All they know is that you’re their only hope.” She sagged in her seat, looking utterly defeated. “I’m so sorry. We tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t listen. They broke into the armory and pushed past our lines. Many of our security people refused to fire on their own friends and family. People are terrified. They don’t want to die.”
Spock was forced to reassess his view of humanity. Vulcans would not have succumbed to panic and hysteria like this. It was not logical.
Or was it? It occurred to him that even a remote chance of survival was mathematically superior to no chance at all. Even if only a handful of the rioters made it to safety, there was at least the possibility that you or your loved ones might be among them. Seen from that perspective, a desperate attempt to force one’s way onto the Enterprise was a perfectly logical choice, if not a very commendable one.
None of which made this particular complication any less vexing.
“I understand, Governor. I am confident that you and your people did your best.” He contemplated the chaotic exodus on the other half of the screen. “It appears that this is our problem now.”
“Don’t judge them too harshly,” Dawson said, apologizing for her people. “They’re not Starfleet, only ordinary miners and their families. They just want to live.”
“That may not be possible,” he said. “Spock out.”
Dawson’s image disappeared. A full view of the latest crisis filled the screen. A disorganized, ragtag flotilla braved the storm to close on the Enterprise. They buzzed around the much larger starship like a swarm of Lakodonian gnats. Scanning the chaos, Spock spotted Columbus trying to weave its way through the congestion to get back to the Enterprise. Random vessels crowded the shuttle, no doubt hoping to squeeze past it into the shuttlecraft bay. Columbus executed evasive maneuvers, trying to shake its unwanted escorts, but the other craft stuck to it as though caught in its wake. They bounced and scraped against one another as they jockeyed for position. An older-model ferry, which looked as though it had been salvaged from a junkyard, lost power and fell behind.
“Mr. Spock! We’re receiving dozens of hails,” Uhura reported. She feverishly worked the communications console, looking almost, but not quite, overwhelmed by the flood of transmissions. Anguish showed on her features. “They’re pleading to be allowed to board the Enterprise. Begging for their lives!”
Spock did not envy Uhura. “Issue a general announcement on all frequencies,” he instructed. “Tell them to turn back to Skagway.”
She complied with his orders, but her board continued to light up with incoming transmissions. “I’m trying, Mr. Spock. They’re not listening!”
He chided himself for not fully anticipating the colonists’ reckless behavior. It was not as though there were not historical precedents. The unfortunate images on the screen reminded him of the interplanetary “boat people” of ancient Blinogu, who had fled the imminent destruction of their planet in a fleet of flimsy solar-sailing vessels. Their desperate voyage, alas, had not ended happily. The Bline were now extinct.
“Columbus is hailing us,” Uhura announced. “They’re requesting new instructions.”
On the viewer, the shuttle could be seen trying to make it through the debris and the refugee ships to get to the Enterprise. The other vessels hemmed Columbus in, often blocking Spock’s view of the shuttle. He recalled that it was currently carrying eighteen authorized evacuees, plus a Starfleet pilot and a security officer. The shuttle crews had been kept small to make room for the evacuees.
“We can’t open the space doors to the bay,” Chekov realized aloud. “It would be a free-for-all. We’d be overrun!”
Spock had to agree. The situation immediately outside the ship was already untenable. Without any manner of space traffic control in effect, the various craft zipped past one another in a random fashion. A speeding prospector ship cut off a minishuttle in its haste to get ahead of the other refugees, nearly causing a collision. Two jostling scout ships grazed each other. The smaller ship’s starboard thruster went flying off, sending the scout spinning out of control. Sulu gasped as the disabled ship tumbled past the Enterprise, barely missing its saucer section. Undaunted, the other scout joined the mob crowding Columbus.