The Missing (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Una McCormack is the author of ten previous Star Trek novels: The Lotus Flower (part of The Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine trilogy), Hollow Men, The Never-Ending Sacrifice, Brinkmanship, The Missing, the New York Times bestseller The Crimson Shadow, Enigma Tales, The Way to the Stars, the acclaimed USA TODAY bestseller The Last Best Hope, and Wonderlands. She is also the author of five Doctor Who novels from BBC Books: The King’s Dragon, The Way Through the Woods, Royal Blood, Molten Heart, and All Flesh Is Grass. She has written numerous short stories and audio dramas. She lives with her family in Cambridge, England. 

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Missing

One

Captain’s Log, Personal.

It has long been my intention to set down some general thoughts on the nature and purpose of exploration, with some particular observations on first-contact missions. This is as good a time as any to attempt to organize my thinking: not only because Beverly remains away but also because war is, at last, over, and it is my hope that Starfleet can, as a result, return to its primary mission of peaceful exploration. My small hope is that these reflections might prove of some use to a reader embarking upon voyages such as those that have been the boon and the challenge of my life.

What is the purpose of exploration? Why do we search? What draws us on the quest and makes us leave behind the considerable comforts that our homeworlds might offer? What makes us absent ourselves and choose to make a transient home among the stars?

The pursuit of scientific discovery, of course, has driven many of my colleagues: to be the first to document a new species, or hear a new language, or see the ancient ruins of a civilization that was gone before life had emerged from Earth’s oceans. There is, too, a fascination with the unknown: to chart not only the farther reaches of space but the farther reaches of knowledge as well. And then there is the challenge of it all—not simply the logistics of crewing and commanding a vessel such as the Enterprise, but the challenge that one sets oneself: to be pitted against the unknown and to find within oneself the capacity to respond not with fear but with curiosity, empathy, and humility.

War has, for too long, distracted us from these purposes: from the pursuit of knowledge for the benefit of others; from the pursuit of self-knowledge for the benefit of ourselves. Let us hope that peace will usher in a new era of discovery . . .

Doctor Katherine Pulaski knew that people didn’t like her, and she didn’t care. She led a good life—a life she loved, full of travel, adventure, and a handful of excellent friends who did not trouble her beyond her interest or inclination to socialize with them. Above all, she had her work, to which she was devoted passionately and with a degree of absorption that made it the primary love of her life. Friends, lovers, husbands—they came and went, but work was always there, a companion, a challenge, and a source of great satisfaction and pride. She was an expert in several fields and had made breakthroughs in genomic therapy that had markedly improved the lives of many people. She was successful and busy, and had never compromised her ideals or opinions to get where she was. So why the hell should she care that others thought she was cantankerous and awkward? That was exactly what she was—and she knew herself well, loved what was there, and didn’t worry about the rest.

And now Katherine Pulaski had a spaceship to play with, the fruit of many hours browbeating the decision makers at the Rosalind Franklin Institute for Biomedical Research until they gave her exactly what she wanted in the hope that she would go away for a long time (it was a technique that worked, so why would Pulaski pass it up?). The ship was called the Athene Donald (after a scientist Pulaski had long admired), and it was, she was pleased to tell anyone who asked (and a few who didn’t), a civilian science and exploration vessel. There had not been enough of these in recent years, in Pulaski’s opinion. In grand old-fashioned style (Pulaski was both grand and old-fashioned), this ship—with its crew of scientists and researchers—was going to travel into uncharted space to explore what was out there, doing science all the while.

Pulaski had wasted no time in assembling a team, and right now the Athene Donald was on its way to Deep Space 9 for some final pickups before setting off on its maiden voyage. She had exactly the crew she wanted. First, as the ship’s director of research (and de facto commanding officer), was Pulaski’s old friend Maurita Tanj. Pulaski and Tanj—a joined Trill—went back to postgraduate days, when Pulaski (kicking and screaming, naturally) had been forced by her advisers to do an interdisciplinary study with another student from the xenosociology department. Pulaski thought that the social sciences were pretty much a waste of time (not even decades of friendship with Tanj had entirely altered that opinion), but Tanj—a specialist in interspecies group dynamics—had known from the get-go how to handle her difficult study partner, and their project (looking into different care strategies for patients across five separate species groups) had won several academic prizes that year. Pulaski, who set store by results, had thus been convinced that Tanj’s specialty had at least some worth, and Tanj, who found the other woman’s spikiness and frankness hilarious, had warmly accepted Pulaski on her own terms. They had been friends ever since, and Pulaski knew that the person to make the Athene Donald the success that she wanted (and who was interested in failure? Not Kitty Pulaski) was her old friend Maurita Tanj. The Trill knew how to handle people: not only Katherine Pulaski (that was always a bonus) but also the very special crew that they had assembled.

Because the Athene Donald’s big sell—what had made the folks at the institute balk initially at giving her the ship but had eventually persuaded them of the worth of the mission (with a little oil on the joints from Tanj; Pulaski was no fool)—was that the crew was multispecies.

So far so good. But the Federation by definition comprised many species, so plenty of its vessels had multispecies crews. The Athene Donald had gone farther. Pulaski had invited colleagues from Ferenginar and the Klingon Empire; there were several Cardassian females crunching numbers in data analysis. And that wasn’t all. What Pulaski had wanted—and what she got (with more help from Tanj than perhaps she realized)—was a truly multispecies crew. Several Romulans had signed up to participate in some of the more obscure branches of temporal warp physics. But the cherry on the top of the cake that was the Athene Donald was the person running the genetic-screening program. Her name was Metiger Ter Yai-A, and she was the first Tzenkethi ever to be permitted (by both governments concerned) to travel on board a Federation vessel. Pulaski had read her papers and wanted her: not only for Metiger’s expertise but also for the message that her presence would send.

“Science,” Katherine Pulaski informed the board of Rosalind Franklin Institute in her presentation (quite aggressively and with no apparent sense of irony), “will do what diplomacy can’t.”

“This project will be the first of its kind,” explained Tanj (more calmly, and with an eye on how the board members were reacting). “The first to be truly serious about peace among all species across the Khitomer Accords and the Typhon Pact. There’s been too much tension and strife in recent years—unnecessarily so. It’s time to set this aside and put scientific research and the exploration of space back at the heart of what the Federation does. And that means reaching out in friendship to those whom previously we would have treated with suspicion. Peace with the Klingons was a massive achievement. We can replicate this with the Romulans, and we can replicate it with the Tzenkethi—if we put our minds to it. Think of the Athene Donald”—and here Tanj’s...