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Summary: What was going through Pike’s mind as he piloted the shuttle to Nero’s ship.
Seven Minutes
By Rocky
Seven minutes. That was how long it had taken Captain Robau’s shuttle to reach the source of the “lightning storm in space” 25 years earlier, and so it was logical to assume that was how long it would take his shuttle to do the same. Rationally, he knew this didn’t mean he had only seven minutes to live; Robau had survived an additional 5.7 minutes on board the alien vessel before his life signs had abruptly been terminated. But it was hard to be entirely rational when suddenly confronted with a bogeyman from the past, and in a corner of his mind—the part that wasn’t involved in barking out orders for a last ditch attempt to save Vulcan—he knew his own chances of survival were practically nil. Just before the turbolift door closed, he transferred command of the Enterprise, a “normal” act that assumed there would be a ship left to command, that at least some of them would make it out of here alive.
Six minutes. He cut Spock off abruptly—there really wasn’t much worth saying once he’d finished issuing his final commands—and headed for the shuttle bay. Alone for the first time since the crisis had erupted, he closed his eyes and relived the moment the Enterprise had emerged from warp at Vulcan’s coordinates and found themselves surrounded by the blasted wreckage of their fellow ships. The sheer loss of life—but he wouldn’t think about that now. He’d bit back the impulse to order the young helmsman—Sulu, his name was, Chekov was the even younger navigator--to avoid any collisions with the debris. All while holding a rapid-fire discussion on what was happening and considering their options; as captain, he didn’t hesitate in agreeing with Kirk’s “wild” theory. But none of this changed the fact that the heart of the fleet was gone, and that he, alone with his own ship full of children, was the last grim hope against a vastly more powerful foe. The surprising contact with the enemy, the demand for the Enterprise captain to approach in a shuttle…it was the Kelvin all over again. They said that those who ignored the lessons of history were doomed to repeat it. Apparently, the opposite was also true. He could have laughed at the irony.
Five minutes. He strapped himself into the pilot’s seat, ran through a very abbreviated check-list and lifted off. He wasn’t really listening to the chatter of the “kamikaze” team he had personally assembled to try to disable the alien ship’s drilling beam, though he did hear the engineering chief—Olsen, was it? He hadn’t really gotten a chance to become acquainted with his senior staff and now it didn’t look like he ever would—boast about kicking some Romulan ass. It was a little surprising that Kirk wasn’t the one bragging; that young man was oddly quiet. Perhaps the burden of history wasn’t the captain’s alone to bear.
Four minutes. He executed the maneuver that would bring the shuttle close enough to the planet’s atmosphere—just skimming the surface—to release the team and then continue to the Romulan vessel without rousing any suspicion. Not that the Romulans had much to worry about—what could anyone actually do against such an overwhelmingly superior enemy? One that appeared at random intervals, its motives shrouded in mystery. And led by a man with a seeming propensity for toying with his victims. Why else order the Starfleet captain to present himself as the sacrificial lamb? Just like Robau, all those years ago. He could only hope that his crew, like the Kelvin’s, would also make it out of here alive. Even if his ship did not…
Three minutes. The last of the men was away, and he proceeded, mechanically, on course to his deadly rendezvous. He wondered idly if the added maneuver would add any significant amount of time to his private countdown and decided it wouldn’t. Shuttle technology had improved in the last quarter-century, even if the ‘Fleet’s overall weaponry and defenses were still incredibly vulnerable to this implacable foe. He wondered again at the Romulan who controlled these events. The communication had been baffling in every respect, starting from the very beginning. Saying “hello”? Calling him by his first name? Did the Romulan have such little knowledge of Human society, or had he deliberately chosen such an intimate form of address? Were they acquainted, somehow? He should his head in bafflement. He was sure they had never met before, so why not just address him by his rank? Why would the commander of this powerful vessel have such disdain for military protocol, or was the Universal Translator simply out of its depth? He should have asked the young communications officer, Uhura…yet another missed opportunity he would not have a chance to rectify.
Two minutes. He could feel, even before the shuttle sensors confirmed it, the gravity beams of the Romulan ship taking hold and beginning to draw him inside the yawning bay. He had a wild impulse to break away, now, while he still could—but of course he didn’t. What good would it do? The Romulan ship could destroy him as easily and thoughtlessly as a cat could crush a mouse it had been playing with, as easily—no, more so—as it had crushed the other ships of the ‘Fleet sent to Vulcan. He ran through their names in his mind. The Farragut, Garrovick’s ship. And the Potemkin, commanded by Lester. The Hood, the Exeter… He hadn’t heard but he hoped to God that the Constellation was already in the Laurentian system and Leigh was far from this carnage. Speaking of the Almighty, but for the grace of God and a helmsman who was raw enough to forget to release the external inertial dampeners, the Enterprise would have been among the victims. But, what good was it that they had survived the initial onslaught, that for some mad reason the Romulans had decided not to destroy them—yet? It would all end up the same in the end. What earthly good could he do, could any of them do? He thought fleetingly once more of the three men he had just dropped into the planetary atmosphere. If they succeeded in their mission, if they managed to land on the drilling platform and disable the beam and then transport back to ship—what then? His lip curled as he remembered he had appointed the hot-headed Kirk as first officer, to serve under the cool and collected Captain Spock. Those two would undoubtedly have a rough transition. He would give a lot to see them make it past their initial confrontation over the Kobayashi Maru and become the fine command team he knew they had the potential to be. But of course, he would not.
One minute. It wasn’t fair. He was only 52, he had the best years of his life ahead of him. He didn’t want to die, not like this, not so soon. He had so much more he wanted to accomplish in his life and his career. He was the captain of the ‘Fleet flagship, damn it. But just like the Enterprise launch had been stripped of all pomp and circumstance, so too had his own command been cut short. He thought of his father, a mag-lev engineer. Henry Pike had never left Earth; in fact, he’d spent most of his life in the immediate vicinity of Mojave. His son could see him now, looking up from a control panel whose circuits were beyond repair, yet trying to fix it anyway. “It’s a poor person who sits down and cries because life isn’t what he thought it would be. What are you going to do to make it work?”
Thirty seconds. The bump and jolt told him he had docked. Even as he stood, the hatch of the shuttle opened. His head held high, Captain Christopher Pike stepped out to confront his captors. “I’ll try, Dad,” he whispered. “I don’t know what I can do, but I’m going to go down fighting. I promise you that.”
FINIS