New Beginnings - 21104.01

By T.M. 'Mike' Wong

Prolog

It was the middle of gamma watch aboard the USS Dauntless, her Commanding Officer Commodore Wong was sitting at the bar in ten forward. With him was First Officer Arking, Audad Gnu the Bolian barkeeper, and a couple of the ship’s department heads.

It had been a rare night of sharing stories and drinks and the topic had turned to how each of the people came join Star Fleet or in the case of Gnu come to be aboard Dauntless. It came at last to Wong’s turn.

The story begins.

“Alright… I didn’t enter the academy until I was 45 years old. Before that I had been a surgeon in my ancestral home in Taipei on the island of Taiwan, on Earth. But I suppose I should go back even further for this to make any kind of sense.

As a boy I was fascinated with space. I read about the first ascents of man into the dark void, and later of the wonder of discovering we were not alone in the universe. I suppose it’s pretty normal for a young person to dream of things more exciting and exotic than their hometowns and monotony of childhood.

I pestered my parents until finally they agreed to take me off planet on holiday for my thirteenth birthday. We could afford to go no further than Mars but it might as well as been the galactic border to me. I must have made my poor parents sick asking questions, studying any scrap of information from any source, all instead of my school work.

Finally the day came. We traveled by transporter to Hong Kong where we boarded a long sleek passenger shuttle, she was named the Astro Explorer.”

Mike’s demeanor changed as he spoke, the smile vanished and the tone darkened.

“The upholstery on the seats was threadbare in places as I recall. That should have been a warning but I could see nothing but me leaving Earth and flying to the stars, all their undiscovered wonders to reveal themselves to me.

The flight through the atmosphere was incredible and in just minutes the sky turned from blue to black and more stars than I had ever imagined existed blinked into view. After a flyby of the Luna colonies it was on to Mars and my face was plastered to that transparent aluminum window the entire time.”

The shadow of a smile tugged at Wong’s lips.

“The guide pointed out the major constellations and the odd asteroid or comet as we traveled. We watched a holovideo of humankinds explorations of Mars from the ancient astronomers to the first steps man took on an alien world. I wanted to do that, you know? Be the first…

It seemed like eons, but finally the guide told us to put our seatbacks and tray tables into the upright and locked position. You could feel the engine throttle down and then the Martian gravitational pull take hold of the shuttle.”

Mike paused here, gulped his drink and asked for another before continuing.

“When our heat shield interfaced the first traces of atmosphere I saw what looked like tiny fireflys emerging from the leading edges of the craft. They got bigger and bigger until becoming long sinuous strands of light.

The guide explained it was superheated plasma, atmospheric friction building against the shield… but I still like to think it was fireflys. When we emerged into the lower atmosphere I could really see the planet below. I started naming the craters and other landmarks as we flew by them, and then you could see the edge of Olympus Mons on the horizon. We were to land there and continue the tour in a rover.

But something went wrong.

Suddenly we rolled almost forty five degrees to port, and I remember the lights flickered. It got very quiet in the cabin but soon the lights came back on and we rolled back to starboard. We could hear the guide speaking to someone- the pilots- over a private intercom. I remember she sounded frightened and that was the first time we realized something had happened.

Directly the guide announced that we were having some kind of ‘minor’ navigation issues and that we were going to land at a larger facility outside of one of the Martian colonies. And so we maneuvered to bleed off speed, I realized much later that the shuttle could only turn to starboard at that point. I could only see stars outside my window now because we were turning and banking so hard. And then there was a violent shuddering somewhere aft and suddenly I could see the horizon again… but it was upside down.

We lost inertial dampeners next, for a moment I could feel myself hanging by my seatbelt, bags and recorders were flying through the cabin something hit my mother… her head was bleeding and she was screaming at my father. He had unbuckled himself and was hugging me tightly, and then my mother did the same thing. Other people were screaming or praying, maybe both but we just held on to each other…

My next memory began what I was told was sixteen weeks later. I was in the hospital back in Taipei and a man was staring at me with tears in his eyes.

Father! What has happened? I cried but when he answered it was not his voice, it was not him my uncle Soh Gee was there. He had come to Mars after the crash and brought me to Taipei when I was stable enough. I… I was the only survivor. My uncle looked after me, raised me from that point on. He was a healer not a doctor but a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine and he would use his methods on me. Most of my doctors dismissed him as a fool, but one or two said I wouldn’t have survived without the care he added to theirs.

Twenty eight years later I had become a doctor myself, a surgeon. I trained in modern medicine and largely ignored my uncle’s beliefs. I did just want to help people like I had been helped, and I believed in modern science and medicine. I could tell this hurt my uncle sometimes but he allowed me to practice as I wished. I had a gift for surgery and by then had become the chief of surgery at the International University Medical Center in Taipei; it was the oldest and most prestigious hospital on the island. I had been appointed to the faculty of other schools in Asia and one in Australia so I traveled regularly.

I couldn’t stand being in a shuttle again, I did use transporters even thought I didn’t trust them either… it was the lesser of two evils I suppose.

On this day after morning rounds with my students I ducked into my office for a break and a cup of tea. My administrative assistant’s name was Elisabeth Lee, she had been at the job before I was born and I inherited her when I became chief of surgery. She was a formidable woman it was easy to be fooled by her age and diminutive size, but oh Gods if you pissed her off how she would make you pay.”

Mike laughed at the memory and accepted another drink from Gnu before continuing.

“A few minutes after I sat down to enjoy my tea the intercom buzzed and Elisabeth told me my first appointment was here. I asked her who it was and she said a woman from Star Fleet. What in the hell Star Fleet might want with me I had no idea.

She introduced herself as Lieutenant Emily Proctor of the Star Fleet Medical Recruitment Office. She was a pretty girl as I recall human, red hair and freckles… Anyway she asked me if I recalled a Doctor M’Tach. Of course I recalled him he was a student of mine, very sharp fellow who graduated from surgical residency six years earlier.

I told Miss Proctor this and asked if M’Tach was alright, I was afraid something awful might have happened to him to involve Star Fleet. She laughed and informed me he was quite alright and had risen to the rank of Lt[JG] and been named the ACMO of the USS Bradbury. Back then I had no clue what a Lt[JG] or an ACMO was so I asked her if that was a good thing. She laughed again and assured me it was, for it was very rare for someone to rise to an administrative level only two years out of the academy.

Star Fleet Academy? I asked her and she nodded. I was shocked and disappointed because the last time I’d seen M’Tach he was going to help start an academic surgical program at his local hospital. Now he had gone and joined Star Fleet, become a space jokey and worse a deskbound pinhead.

I sort of said those exact words to Lieutenant Proctor, her smile faded for a moment and I could see I had made her genuinely angry. So, I apologized and explained m goal was to train surgeons to work in the trenches of medicine and to make a difference for people in need.

I’ll tell you fellows what they say about a redhead’s temper is true. That woman proceeded to dress me down like a first year cadet who forgot to salute the academy commandant. When she was done I was well aware of the proud tradition of Star Fleet Medical in bringing modern medicine to Federation crews and others throughout known space. Then she tried to close the deal by telling me how highly M’Tach had recommended me for service… me… in Star Fleet. At the time nothing could have been further from happening.

I didn’t tell her I was afraid to ride in a shuttlecraft much less a Star Ship. I did explain that I was very happy in my career and saw no need to make a change. I was a respected surgeon and teacher both in Taiwan but also had been granted professorships at the local medical school and others around Asia and Australia.

She wasn’t going to be easily deterred and told me how valuable a man of my talents could be to the Federation.

I had had enough, so I pressed a little button under my desk and a moment later Elisabeth interrupted with the announcement I had been paged for a STAT consult in the trauma bays. I feigned disappointment as best I could and escorted the Lieutenant to the door relieved to be rid of her.

I thanked Elisabeth for saving me telling her I owed her one, she reminded me I owed her about one thousand and further reminded me I was to leave for Sidney that afternoon for grand rounds and a conference at the Prince Alfred Hospital. That meant traveling by transporter or shuttle and since there was no way I’d go by shuttle she’d booked me a time at the local transporter terminal.

I asked her to make me reservations for the weekend because I’d need a couple nights’ sleep and some stiff drinks between trips. Nothing against engineers but I didn’t trust that infernal device that ripped my atoms apart then bounced them off a bunch of satellites to be reassembled within whatever they considered an acceptable margin of error thousands of miles away.

I had to go home and pack so I told her good day, she asked me to say hi to my uncle and to be careful with the stiff drinks or they’d become a nasty habit one day…

I had lived with him all those years, he had no family of his own he and I were the last of our father’s line. As I was packed he asked where I was going and I told him Australia. He asked me to bring him back some Blue Leaved Malee herb. I told him I could just synthesize some of the active component in a lab but he insisted on the real stuff, always. So I told him I’d try and set about to find some clothes that weren’t’ too dirty to pack… I never was big on doing laundry.

Later, from his room I heard a loud thud, like someone dropped a sack of wet sand. I ran to the room calling out to see if he was alright… he wasn’t.

His heart had stopped beating and I grabbed my bag and began resuscitating him, I worked for an hour trying everything I had and knew. When it was clear there was no hope I knelt there with his head in my lap crying, cursing the Gods and my own failure as a physician. I remember his face… even in death he looked peaceful and had an amused little smile on his face. I did all I could uncle I sobbed again and again.

Then I heard a voice from behind me, I was too upset to recognize it at first but when I did my head snapped around and my mouth dropped.

Tsing Mao, everyone dies no matter if we do all we can. The voice said.

I couldn’t believe it, I was holding his dead body in my arms and here behind me he was standing and talking to me as if nothing were wrong. I thought I was hallucinating from shock and was about to run a tricorder scan on myself.

You can’t be there. I said to the vision of my living uncle. You have died and I am dreaming.

I’m certain that I am dead Tsing Mao, he answered. But do not grieve for me for this isn’t the end, rather another beginning. Follow your heart in all things and it will not lead you too far astray. This impossible apparition told me.

And then when I looked away for a moment, it or he was gone. The corpse of my uncle remained on the floor still smiling up at me…

After that I took a leave from my positions. Months passed and I spent them reading his books and notes, hiking in the jungle and mountains and thinking.

Then came the day I made the decision.

I sat in the very front row of the shuttle, to be near the exit, and arrived in San Francisco one foggy morning. After I found the Star Fleet Medical building I walked into the recruiting office to find a red haired, freckle faced Lieutenant and asked her to finish what she had been saying.

Epilog

Three more empty glasses sat in front of Commodore Wong at the end of his story and an uncomfortable silence had settled upon the previously joyful group. When Gnu slid a full one to Mike he picked it up and toasted his companions.

“To new beginnings!”