Assignment: Eternity

by Greg Cox

  This constitutes a serious threat to the security of the ship, he concluded. The prospect of placing the Enterprise under the command of a primitive human from three centuries ago, especially under the present hazardous circumstances, is not one that should be encouraged.

  “Miss Lincoln,” he said sternly. “You have no authority to command this vessel. Please return control of the computer systems to the ship’s personnel.”

  Roberta’s face betrayed a twinge of guilt, but she didn’t budge from the captain’s chair. “Listen, Dr. Spock—”

  “Mr. Spock,” he corrected.

  “Sorry. Mr. Spock, I mean.” She leaned forward earnestly. “I’ve been playing J. Edgar Hoover for the last hour or so, listening in on you from my quarters back in the guest wing. I know what you’re planning to do, namely head back home and leave Mr. Seven and Captain Kirk and the rest of your buddies stranded on that planet down there. I can’t let you do that, not until I hear from Seven and find out what he wants me to do next.”

  Regrettably, Spock thought, a nerve pinch was not an option. He could not risk immobilizing Roberta while she remained in control of the ship. Even if he took the cube from her, he doubted if the device would respond to his own verbal instructions. A mind meld, he thought, may well be the only way to resolve this conflict.

  Years of training, however, had taught him that a mind meld, especially with a non-Vulcan, was something to be undertaken only in the most dire of circumstances. Reason and discourse must always be the first resort.

  “I am no more eager to leave my fellow officers behind than you are to abandon Mr. Seven, but the facts remain. A force barrier has cut off all communications with the landing party, including Gary Seven. It is very possible that there will be no further instructions for you from Mr. Seven.” Spock saw Roberta flinch at the thought. “But while we delay, the Enterprise and everyone aboard remains in extreme danger. The longer we wait, the more we risk detection by either hostile warships or by the unknown parties responsible for the force field.” Did Roberta understand what a force field was, he wondered. Clearly, she was more technologically adept than she had first appeared.

  “Miss Lincoln, you must let us take whatever actions are necessary to preserve the ship. Any other course would be unwise in the extreme.”

  Roberta’s face betrayed her distress. “Look, you don’t need to lay a guilt trip on me. I know I’m putting you folks in hot water, but there isn’t anything else I can do.” She looked at Spock beseechingly. He saw both anguish and intelligence in her eyes. “I don’t pretend that I know exactly what’s going on here. Jeez, I’m just a hippie chick from the Village who’d never even heard of a Romulan before today. But I do know that Mr. Seven wouldn’t have come all this way unless his mission was massively important to the history of the world, maybe even to the whole freakin’ universe, and he’s counting on me to cover his back and bail him out if he gets in too deep.”

  “Miss Lincoln, self-deprecating remarks aside, you and I both know that you are far more than merely a ‘hippy chick.’ Nevertheless, there may be nothing you can do in this instance.” He felt, curiously, as though he was arguing with himself. Could his own doubts so closely resemble this eccentric young human’s? Fascinating, he thought.

  “Yeah,” Roberta answered, “but I don’t know that for sure. Besides, I’ve seen Seven get out of tighter fixes than this. There was this one time, when he had to slip over the Berlin Wall and back without using his transporter, that I thought I was never going to see him again. But you know what? He came back.”

  “Listen to that, Spock,” McCoy spoke up. “Sound like anyone we know?”

  It occurred to Spock that, like himself, the doctor undoubtedly had mixed feelings about Roberta’s activities. If nothing else, she had succeeded in postponing the Enterprise’s departure, just as McCoy had hoped. “Miraculous escapes, by their very definition,” he observed, “cannot be anticipated or relied upon.”

  “Yeah, but there was this other time, while we were teamed up with this wise guy reporter from Chicago, when Seven actually sneaked in and out of the Pentagon with the top secret plans for a new type of robot soldier. The Quasar Tapes, or something like that. Maybe that’s not quite the same thing as some weirdo planet light-years from who-knows-where, but if Seven can pull that one off, maybe he could do the same here. I mean, it’s not like your own force fields did such a great job of locking him up.”

  “She’s got you there, Spock,” McCoy chortled, clearly enjoying himself far more than Spock judged appropriate.

  “Your remarks are not entirely helpful, Doctor,” Spock stated, “nor are they convincing.” He attempted once more to persuade Roberta. “Your confidence in Mr. Seven’s abilities is commendable, but it is not sufficient reason to justify retaining control of this ship. You are not a Starfleet captain. You are a stranger to this era and this sector of space. Logic dictates that you return command of the ship to those more qualified to perform that task.”

  Roberta turned the cube over and over in her hands. “Logic never was my strong point, I guess, and I’ve been accused of having a problem with authority figures.” She gave Spock a defiant look, and leaned back into the captain’s chair.

  “In my day, we call this a sit-in.”

  Chapter Eleven

  NOCTURNAL BIRDS trilled in the treetops overhead. Now that the cooling rain had faded to a gentle drizzle, Kirk grew ever more aware of the sweltering heat of the jungle. Even though the sun had almost set, leaving the tropical forest at the end of twilight, the air felt as hot as a Miami afternoon. No doubt the Romulans love this heat, he guessed, scowling, unhappy at having to grant his foes yet another advantage in this situation.

  They were circling the clearing, keeping safely behind the green curtain of the jungle brush. Branches flicked against Kirk’s face and stringy vines tugged on his legs as he worked his way through the dense foliage. Osiris led the way, gliding effortlessly between the trees and bushes. Gary Seven followed behind the big cat, only a few paces ahead of Kirk, while Chekov and Sulu kept up the rear. “So far, so good,” Seven whispered to Kirk. “Now might be a good time to return my servo to me.”

  Kirk shook his head. “You’re here as a guide and observer, not a combatant. I’m in command of this mission, and I’m not satisfied that you wouldn’t turn your weapon on me and my crew if it suited your purposes.” Seven could not be trusted with his handy little sleep-inducer, he thought. Just ask Chekov and McCoy.

  Seven apparently knew better than to argue the point. With a resigned expression on his face, he silently followed Osiris until the cat came to a halt several meters later. Kirk glanced around; he had to admit that this swatch of jungle seemed indistinguishable from any other. For all he could tell, Osiris could have led them in a complete circle.

  A throaty rumble came from the cat. Seven nodded and turned toward Kirk. “Osiris says this is as close as we can get to the entrance without being detected.”

  Kirk furtively crept to the edge of the underbrush and peered through the branches. He received a head-on view of one face of the bunker, and glimpsed a darkened indentation that could have been a doorway. Two Romulan guards stood at either side of the entrance, their disruptor rifles at the ready. Kirk grimly contemplated the guards, and the expanse of open clearing between him and the entrance. Nothing but a wide carpet of grass, no more than a few centimeters high, stretched in front of him. There was no way to approach the bunker without being spotted by the Romulans.

  “We need a distraction,” Kirk concluded. “Sulu, Chekov, I want you to circle back and attack the bunker from over there.” He pointed to a location many meters away. “Do whatever’s necessary to attract the guards, then let them chase you into the jungle. Keep them busy for as long as you can, but don’t let them capture you. Understood?”

  “Yes, Captain. Are you sure you will be all right on your own?” Chekov asked, giving Seven and Osiris a suspicious look. He clearly didn’t like the idea of
leaving Kirk alone with such uncertain allies. I don’t blame him, Kirk thought. Frankly, I’d rather have Spock at my side.

  “Your concern is noted,” he said, “but I can take care of myself.” He checked to make sure he still had his communicator. “Maintain communications silence until I contact you. With any luck, I’ll be in touch after I’ve completed our mission.”

  Sulu nodded. “You can count on us, sir.” He looked at Chekov and cocked his head in the direction Kirk had indicated. “Let’s go.”

  Keeping their heads down, the two men scurried away into the surrounding jungle. Within seconds Kirk had lost sight of them. Good luck, he thought. As always, he regretted putting any of his crew into the line of danger, but, he considered, in the long run, getting chased through the jungle was probably safer than infiltrating the bunker itself. He and Seven faced the hardest part: getting into the Romulan-controlled base and destroying it without getting themselves killed or captured in the process. Not exactly the Kobayashi Maru, Kirk thought, but no piece of cake.

  Seven stroked Osiris’s head as he watched Chekov and Sulu disappear. “Now what?” he asked Kirk.

  “Now we wait,” Kirk responded.

  * * *

  He called himself Septos, but his colleagues knew him as Supervisor 146. While he resembled a Vulcan or a Romulan in appearance, he subscribed to neither the teachings of Surak nor to the warrior ethic of the Empire. His true loyalty was to the alien aegis who had trained and sponsored his family for countless generations, indeed since before the early Romulans broke away from their Vulcan roots. Throughout his career, he had always taken his duties very seriously—which made his ultimate failure all the more painful.

  The fierce glare of a harsh white light added to his torment. He tried to close both his inner and outer eyelids against the illumination, block out what was happening to him, but a sharp slap against his face brought him back to the cruel reality of his captivity. Staring past the blinding glare, he could barely glimpse the outline of his assailant, but he knew all too well who she was: Commander Dellas of the Tal Shiar, the dreaded Romulan secret police.

  “No, no, my friend,” Dellas said. She was an imposing Romulan woman, a mere sixty years old, with short black hair cut well above the points of her ears. A thin white scar ran across her brow, intersecting both of her angular eyebrows. “You cannot escape my questions that easily. I demand your full attention.” She raised her hand, prepared to strike him again. A faint olive bruise marked his cheek where she had slapped him.

  Septos knew his tormentor well, having frequently perused her file in better days. The youngest daughter of a disgraced proconsul, she alone had survived the purge that had erased the rest of her family from existence. Raised from childhood in the harsh environment of a government detention camp on Barbaros IV, she had impressed her captors with her cunning and ruthlessness, rising swiftly from exile to centurion to commander of her own elite task force, charged with investigating any and all threats to the internal security of the Empire. It was said, in some circles, that even the Praetor feared her zeal and ambition.

  “That’s better,” she said, meeting Septos’s gaze. The small chamber with its bare, water-stained gray walls had once served as his private meditation room; Dellas had converted it to an interrogation cell. Septos sat on a hard metal stool with one of Dellas’s men standing behind him, holding his shoulders down while Dellas paced back and forth in front of him. An older Romulan, paunchy and balding, stood to one side, using a tricorder to record the interrogation. This, Septos had learned, was Vithrok, Dellas’s chief scientific advisor. Unlike most Romulan males, Vithrok affected a beard, perhaps to compensate for his thinning hair. He wore a white lab coat over his military uniform, and looked mild enough, yet, in his own way, the scientist was quite as dangerous as his cold-blooded superior; it was he who had already deciphered too many of Septos’s technological secrets.

  So far he had not gathered any new information this session, a testament to Septos’s continued resistance. Photon torches had been set up in a triangle around the prisoner. Their glare hurt his eyes and seared his skin. You would think I would be used to it by now, Septos thought. This was not the first time Dellas had subjected him to such an inquisition. He feared it would not be the last.

  Stubble dotted his jawline. His eyes were bloodshot and streaked with green. A swollen lip concealed the gaps where several teeth had gone missing. I must endure for as long as I can, he thought. I must survive to summon assistance, alert the others to what has befallen here. The sheer enormity of the catastrophe nearly overwhelmed him. How could he have let the Tal Shiar come into possession of this base? How could he have been so careless?

  It was Dellas who had discovered him. She must have been observing him for months before making her move. He had just returned from what had seemed like a routine assignment, helping key Romulan dissidents defect to Vulcan, when Dellas surprised him in his own headquarters. Her troops had seized him and taken control of the compound before he even had a chance to react. Only Osiris had managed to escape into the jungle, although Septos knew that there was little the cat could do without access to the equipment within the base. It was up to him to turn the tables on the Romulans somehow, if only long enough to sound an alert. If only I’m not too late, he thought. They’ve already learned so much!

  “Your mental discipline is admirable,” Dellas commented. A thick ebony cloak, indicating her rank in the Romulan intelligence service, was draped over the right shoulder of her uniform. “So far you have resisted many of our most dependable drugs. You have even defied a Klingon mind-sifter set at force three, which, you may be interested to know, is the highest level that does not yet inflict permanent brain damage on its subjects. But your suffering is pointless. You know I will learn everything I want, eventually. Even without your cooperation, my scientists have already mastered much of your technology, including your very impressive transporter device.” Septos heard malevolent triumph in her voice. “I have plans for your time-travel equipment. Quite ambitious plans, although I suspect you would find them more than a little horrifying.”

  Time travel! Septos struggled not to let his shock show on his face. It was even worse than he thought. He tried to imagine all the damage a person like Dellas could do to history as he knew it, and was frightened by all the possibilities that came to mind. I need to slow her down if I can, stall her for as long as I’m able.

  “What do you need from me then?” he asked hoarsely. His throat was parched and dry. His rumpled garments, the tan robes of an ordinary Romulan merchant, reeked of old sweat and spilled blood. His bare feet scraped the cold tile floor. It was hard to even string the words together. He had not slept in days.

  Dellas shrugged. Septos glimpsed the emblem of the Tal Shiar on her collar; some said that it was Dellas who had actually founded that infamous organization, although Septos had been unable to confirm that rumor. “Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. Information is the life’s blood of the Tal Shiar, and I want every scrap of data that may be hiding in that traitor’s skull of yours.” She laughed coldly. “One of the great advantages of time travel is that I can depart on my mission whenever I choose and still arrive at the ideal moment. That being the case, I prefer to know every variable, every possible snag, before I take action, including the names and locations of all your confederates and superiors.” All humor disappeared from her voice as she leaned toward Septos until her face was only a few centimeters away from his. Her dark brown eyes held no trace of mercy. “Tell me now. Who do you work for? Who sent you here? Tell me!”

  Septos met Dellas’s stare and kept his jaws tightly shut. Bad enough that he had, through carelessness, betrayed himself. Nothing would force him to expose the others. He tried to stand up, but strong, unforgiving hands pressed him back down onto the stool. I won’t talk, he vowed. I will die first.

  Dellas did not take his silence well. “Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped. “Give in while there’s still som
ething left of you worth preserving.” She grabbed hold of the duranium rod supporting one of the photon torches and tipped it toward Septos’s face. The heat from the lamp felt dangerously close to his flesh. Vithrok winced and looked away; clearly, he did not share his commander’s enthusiasm for threats and intimidation.

  “There is no one else!” Septos protested. “I work alone!”

  A cruel smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “You’re a better martyr than a liar, Citizen Septos. In my experience, espionage is a social disease; no one ever contracts it alone.”

  “I’m not a spy,” Septos insisted for the hundredth time. The heat from the torch was scorching. His face felt like it was sizzling. “I consider myself an anonymous philanthropist, nothing more. There is no one else.”

  “Perhaps he is telling the truth?” Vithrok suggested. He nervously stroked his whiskers.

  “Silence,” Dellas commanded. “This is my field of expertise, not yours.” She returned her attention to her prisoner, glaring accusingly at Septos. “You are an enemy of the Empire and a liar.” Dellas stepped away from her captive, returning the lamp to its original position. “I dislike mind-sifters. They’re crude, brutal things. Typically Klingon. At their highest settings, they tend to destroy as much of a brain as they expose. I’ve seen them reduce a brilliant scholar or poet to a babbling imbecile.” She paused to let her words sink in. “Nonetheless, I am not above using them when other forms of persuasion fail to bring me the information I desire. You should keep that in mind. My patience is not unlimited.”