Star Trek V: The Final Frontier by J. M. Dillard Page A

can’t find their way out of the forest!”
    A pause. Uhura asked, “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
    Sulu grinned and hoped it didn’t show in his voice. “Er . . . as a matter of fact, there is. We’ve been caught in a blizzard.”
    Chekov rolled his eyes; Sulu spread his arms in a gesture that said,
Well, then, you try to think of something better.
    To his credit, Chekov played along with it. “We can’t see a thing!” he shouted at the communicator. “Request you direct us to the coordinates.” He pursed his lips and affected the sound of a furiously howling wind. It was, Sulu thought, rather convincing.
    Another pause. “Sulu ...” Uhura’s tone was one of thinly veiled amusement. “I’m so sorry to hear about your weather. Funny, but my visual says you’re enjoying sunny skies and seventy degrees.”
    “Your console’s probably malfunctioning,” Sulu suggested helpfully, “just like everything else on the bridge.”
    “Sorry. Fixed it myself.”
    Not to be discouraged, Chekov cried, “Sulu! Look! The sun’s come out! It’s a miracle!”
    Uhura gave up and laughed aloud. “So the navigator and the helmsman don’t want to admit they’re lost, huh? Don’t worry, fellas. Your secret’s safe with me.”
    Sulu’s smile became sheepish. “Uhura, we owe you one.”
    “I’ll chalk it up with the other ones. Transporters are still out, as you’ve probably guessed. I’ll be sending down the shuttlecraft to pick you up.” She hesitated a beat. “I sure hope they can find you in all that snow.”
    Sulu was too shocked to respond humorously. “They’re sending the ship on a mission before the transporters are fixed?”
    “You heard right. And the transporters are the least of our worries, according to Mr. Scott. Figure that one out if you can.
Enterprise
out.”
    Chekov sank wearily onto a nearby boulder and shook his head as he struggled to pull off a hiking boot. “On a mission before the ship’s repaired. The captain won’t be pleased.”
    “That’s for sure,” Sulu agreed. He sat next to Pavel and was suddenly aware of the extent of his exhaustion. “I could have gone to Yosemite with the captain; I’ve never been there before.”
    “And miss walking around lost for hours with me?”Chekov asked, indignant. “Besides, if you’ve seen one national park, you’ve seen them all.”
    Sulu glanced absently over his shoulder at the wilderness they were leaving behind. In the distance, a great mountain thrust into the sky, five faces carved into the stone. All of those honored here were political figures who had died centuries before Sulu was born, including the most recent addition to the momument, Sarah Susan Eckert, the first black Northam president.
    Sulu did not answer Chekov’s question. He was thinking again about how shoddily the new ship had been constructed. Until now he had not permitted himself to think about all of the problems or to compare the new ship with the old
Enterprise.
Mr. Scott would fix the ship, would make her an even finer vessel than the old
Enterprise
had been . . . or so Sulu had convinced himself. But to take her out in her current condition …
    He began to wonder if his loyalty had led him to make a very big mistake.
    “Come and get it!” McCoy yelled as he banged a metal spoon against a frying pan. Dinner simmered in a covered dutch oven perched atop white-hot coals raked neatly to one side of a blazing campfire.
    Seated less than a meter away, Jim Kirk put his hands over his ears. “Knock it off, Bones. We’re right here and we’re starving.” He did not say it kindly. After this morning’s climb and near-disastrous fall, Jim was tired and sore—but too proud to ask the doctor for something to ease his aching muscles. Andpainfully hungry. Dinner smelted wonderful, but McCoy had insisted on cooking it the old-fashioned way, and Jim and Spock had sat waiting for the last three hours.
    At least the act of fixing dinner seemed to have improved