Admiral John Harriman and his wife Amina’s sixtieth wedding anniversary party is interrupted by the news that the USS Enterprise-D has responded to a distress call at the Amargosa observatory involving Tolian Soran. Scotty, in attendance at the party, and Harriman quickly become suspicious of the troubled man they rescued from the Lakul while on the Enterprise-B nearly eight decades earlier. As shocking events continue to unfold, Harriman comes to terms with both his past and his future.
I discovered the Strange New Worlds contest when the first volume appeared on bookshelves. The following year I entered a single story to no avail, and continued to do so until I made it into the seventh with “Full Circle.” For volume number eight I submitted four stories, all misses, then took three more swings for number nine. Fortunately, I had one hit among the two strikes, “Terra Tonight.” But back to “Full Circle”: the excerpt below is the opening of the story.
Full Circle
Admiral John Harriman, along with everyone else in the restaurant, knew something was wrong when a number of combadges chirped at the same time. A sudden silence followed, except for the sound of moving chairs, as everyone stopped eating and watched about a dozen admirals, captains, and commanders get up and leave the restaurant to respond. Then the clinking of silverware resumed, but the voices of the patrons were now a nervous whisper. Harriman and his wife, Amina, were celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary with some colleagues at Scoma’s on Fisherman’s Wharf, a popular San Francisco dining spot for over four-hundred years. All but one of their guests were among those who had been paged, but Harriman’s own combadge hadn’t chirped yet. As Chief of Engineering Operations he was often lower on the priority call list, which was fine with him; still on active duty at one-hundred-and-twelve-years old, he’d earned a break now and then. Besides, everyone knew that he was celebrating tonight. He looked at Amina, who said nothing. At one-hundred-and-eight, she was still beautiful. Her hair was gray, a real gray, not white, and her face was thinner than it used to be, but her personal strength was still evident in the way she carried herself. She had retired from Starfleet as a captain some forty years ago, but she was still held in high regard by officers who hadn’t even been born when she left. Their marriage had been easier with only one of them on active duty, but at times like these he knew she wished he had followed suit. . . .
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