"GRAF, L. A - STAR TREK ROUGH TRAILS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Graf L A)

an entire colony from otherwise certain destruction.

And the colonists had yet to forgive them.

From the moment they left Earth's gravity well, the Belle Terre
colonists had bristled with fierce independence. They made their own
rules, picked their own battles, all but spat upon Starfleet's offers
of help and personnel-even when that help saved them from the numerous
disasters that had plagued the expedition practically from the word go.
Even now, when extended dust storms threatened the small continent of
Llano Verde with starvation, the Enterprise's sacrifice of its own
rations to assemble relief supply drops was accepted with palpable
resentment. The fledgling colony had nothing to spare for its own
members, but the Enterprise's continued humanitarian support was
interpreted as an implied criticism of Belle Terre's ability to take
care of itself.

This flight to the surface was no different. The volume of olivium
dust laced through,h Llano Verde's soil after the Quake Moon impacts
made transporter travel there impossible, and Captain Kirk had issued a
moratorium on Starfleet personnel hitching free rides on
civilian-operated shuttles. Which put Chekov in a bit of a bind. He'd
been left on the orbital platform three weeks ago when the Enterprise
set out to patrol for pirate traffic, keep an eye out for the
Kauld-aliens who had attacked the expedition-and search for the nssing
vessel Rattlesnake. Chekov was officially cut loose, on leave,
grounded. Sometime in the next two or three months, the light courier
City of Pittsburgh was due at Belle Terre to pick up Chekov, John Kyle,
and two other Enterprise crewmen for reassignment to the newly
commissioned science vessel Reliant. Until City of Pittsburgh arrived,
Chekov, Kyle, and the others were expected to rest, relax, and comport
themselves in a manner that wouldn't aggravate the Belle Terrans any
more than was inevitable. In general, this translated into long
stretches of profound boredom as far away from the colonists as
possible. Chekov spent the time trying to get used to seeing himself
with executive officer's bars on his shoulder and answering to the
title "lieutenant commander." He hadn't felt so small and ill suited
to a uniform since being named Enterprise's chief of security two years
before.

Which was why he was once again violating Kirk',% prohibition to join
Sulu and Uhura for dinner in Eau Claire, the continental capital of
Liano Verde. The two had been stationed there with Montgomery Scott
and Janice Rand for several weeks, cut off from chatty conu-nuniqu6s by
Gamma Night and olivium-contaminated dust, not to mention swamped with
work and colonial frustrations. Long months away from shipping out to
his new assignment, Chekov was lonely, insecure, and painfully bored.
Part of him feared he'd never make the kind of lifelong friends on the
Reliant that he had on the Enterprise; another part half-hoped their
reunions would somehow prove him too indispensable to let go. He would