by Greg Cox
According to their files, the moon occupied a gap between the inner and outer rings. Skagway’s own gravity helped to keep the gap open—at least, until recently.
“Coming around now, Captain.” Sulu brought the Enterprise into orbit above the planet’s rings, then descended into the empty gap. Kirk spied a bright reflective object ahead of them. The moon grew larger as the starship quickly caught up with it. The Enterprise slowed to keep pace with the tiny moon. “There it is.”
Skagway was a small moon, barely one hundred kilometers in diameter. An icy white glaze, pock-marked with craters, covered its surface. No atmosphere protected it from random meteor strikes. Only a fraction of the size of Earth’s own moon, it was nonetheless home to nearly two thousand souls. Kirk hoped they weren’t in too much trouble.
“Full magnification,” he ordered.
A domed colony could be seen on the frozen surface of the moon. A crude spaceport surrounded the central dome. Automated harvesters and sifters, designed to extract dilithium from the nearby rings, were parked on landing pads composed of resurfaced ice. A small fleet of shuttles, tugs, and scout ships, ill equipped and insufficient to evacuate the entire colony, also occupied the spaceport. Crude hangars were presumably used to repair and service the various vehicles. Thermal collectors faced the planet, which, like Saturn, generated its own heat. Skagway rotated slowly on its axis, providing abbreviated days and nights for the people living beneath the translucent geodesic dome. The moon’s dense core had made subterranean drilling both expensive and problematic.
Too bad, Kirk thought. The colonists might be safer beneath the ground, at least in the short term. If only we had some Hortas at our disposal.
Looking closer, the captain spied what appeared to be evidence of the emergency. Fresh craters pitted the frozen lunar landscape. Various shuttles and harvesters were visibly damaged, possibly beyond repair. And the colony’s protective dome, while still intact, had been pitted by multiple high-speed collisions with falling objects. Even as Kirk watched the viewer, chunks of icy debris pelted the airless moon, throwing up clouds of crystalline powder. A slab of ice (or was it dilithium?) the size of a small shuttle barely missed the dome, hitting a landing pad outside the colony. A limited array of surface-to-air phasers had been deployed to defend the dome but were clearly inadequate to the crisis at hand; they had been intended to deal with only the occasional random object, not a constant barrage. Skagway was caught in a cosmic hailstorm that seemed to be growing in ferocity.
“Receiving hailing frequencies,” Uhura reported. “It’s Governor Dawson.”
The Enterprise’s arrival had apparently not gone unnoticed.
“Put her through,” Kirk said.
“Yes, Captain.”
Skooka Dawson appeared on-screen. A handsome woman in her late fifties who appeared to be of Aleutian descent, she was dressed simply in orange miner’s overalls. Close-cropped white hair framed a drawn face that showed obvious signs of strain. Dark pouches beneath her eyes hinted that she had not been sleeping well. A framed photo of the aurora borealis could be glimpsed in the background. A chunk of unprocessed dilithium rested atop her desk.
“Hello, Captain. Thank you for responding so promptly to our distress signal.”
“My pleasure, Governor.” Kirk was eager to get the straight scoop from the ground. “What’s your status?”
“Bad and getting worse,” she replied, not mincing words. “My scientists tell me that the planet’s rings are collapsing inward, which puts us right in the middle of an avalanche. We’ve had nonstop hailstorms for days now, and some of the bigger pieces are large enough to sink the Titanic, if you get the reference.”
“I know my maritime history,” he assured her. “How is your dome holding up?”
“We built this colony to last, but it was never meant to take this kind of punishment. The Yukon Gap is supposed to be clear of debris, or at least it always was before. Our deflectors are already being pushed to their limits, which is putting a severe strain on our resources. To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer we can hold out. We’ve already had to suspend all mining operations.”
The lights flickered in her office. A heavy thud rattled the paperweights on her desk.
“I understand,” Kirk said. “I’ll have my engineering team see what they can do to reinforce your deflectors.” He looked ahead to the bigger picture. “Do your scientists have any idea what might be causing these disturbances?”
“Not yet, but I’ll see to it that all our data are transmitted to your ship.” The lights sputtered again, then came back on. “Perhaps you can spot something we missed.”
“Perhaps.” Kirk could only hope that Spock could unravel the mystery. “I don’t suppose there’s any sign that this is just a temporary phenomenon?”
“I keep hoping as much,” she said, “but if anything, the storms seem to be worsening. There’s also some concern that Skagway’s own orbit could be affected. We could end up falling into the inner rings—or worse.”
Kirk imagined the moon descending into the gas giant’s turbulent atmosphere. The planet’s intense gravity and violent storms would make short work of the domed colony, even if it succeeded in passing through the inner rings in one piece. No amount of deflectors could save them.
Not for the first time, the captain wished there was a nearby starbase or M-class planet that the colonists could be transported to. But the distances involved made multiple trips impractical; if the situation was as bad as it appeared, there was not nearly enough time to get the entire population to safety.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said. “But we should be prepared to evacuate as many of your people as we can.”
Dawson nodded. “No offense, Kirk, but I wish that Constitution-class ship of yours was bigger. I’m not looking forward to deciding who lives and who dies . . . like Kodos the Executioner.”
Kirk winced inside. Governor Dawson probably didn’t know it, but he had been on Tarsus IV when Kodos had condemned half the population to death during a planetwide famine. Kirk had only been thirteen years old at the time, but he still remembered the panic and heartbreak of those harrowing days, as Kodos had mercilessly culled the old, the infirm, and the “expendable.” The nightmare had not ended until Starfleet arrived to halt the purge.
At least justice caught up with him, Kirk thought. Eventually.
“I met Kodos,” he said, “and I’m certain you’re nothing like him.”
Dawson didn’t ask for details. She clearly had other things on her mind. “Let’s be clear about one thing, Captain. If it comes down to it, I am not leaving this colony before any of my people. I’m going down with the ship if necessary. End of story.”
Kirk understood. The Skagway colony wasn’t technically a ship, but the principle was the same. He could tell that her mind was made up. Photon torpedoes would not be enough to stop her from staying behind with the last of her people.
“That’s not going to happen,” he vowed. “We’re going to find a way to save the entire colony.”
Five
2020
“Objection!” Zoe Querez gasped. “This is cruel and unusual punishment!”
Ignoring her protests, Colonel Christopher checked the timer instead. “Ten more minutes.”
The stowaway was fifty minutes into her mandatory one-hour workout on the treadmill. Given the pernicious effects of zero gravity on the human body, it would have been grossly inhumane not to let her get some exercise at least twice a day. A harness kept her strapped down to the treadmill and gave her resistance to strain against; otherwise, she could have run in place for hours and not gotten much benefit at all. Attached to force plates on either side of the treadmill, the harness simulated gravity by pulling down on her shoulders and hips with more than a hundred pounds of pressure. Globules of perspiration clung to her face and skin. Her shorts and tank top were soaked with sweat. Shaun knew from experience just how hard she was working. Those st
raps got very uncomfortable, very fast.
“Sadist! It would have been kinder to chuck me out the airlock.”
He chuckled. “Don’t let Fontana hear you say that.”
Thirty-plus days into the mission, Zoe had been a model prisoner so far. Talking Mission Control into continuing the mission, despite their unplanned passenger, had been a challenge, but Shaun and his fellow astronauts had ultimately prevailed. It had helped, of course, that the folks on the ground had been equally aware of the dire consequences of aborting the mission at the very moment public and political enthusiasm for the space program had reached record lows. Shaun knew that this decision was ultimately on him, though. He was still hoping that he hadn’t made a monumental mistake.
NASA had also chosen to keep the stowaway’s existence a secret for the time being, for fear of courting bad press. That was fine with Shaun. Let the PR flacks handle the spin control. He had a mission to complete.
A beep demanded his attention. He hit a button on his computer, and Fontana’s face appeared on the monitor. “You called?”
“Hate to interrupt your babysitting session,” she said drily, “but I thought you’d want to know that as of sixty seconds ago, we officially entered the asteroid belt.” She smirked. “No evasive action required yet.”
Shaun glanced out the nearest porthole. All he saw was the usual darkness and distant stars. No drifting boulders threatened the habitat module.
“We’ll have to break out a bottle of the good stuff for dinner tonight,” he said. Officially, NASA frowned on alcohol in space, but their Russian partners were more inclined to look the other way where liquid refreshment was concerned. As it happened, some generous cosmonauts had smuggled a couple of bottles into one of the Soyuz capsules that had carried supplies up to the Lewis & Clark while it was in orbit. “I think this calls for a celebration, kind of like crossing the international date line back in the old days.”
“Just as long as I don’t have to be the designated driver,” Fontana quipped. “I’m not sipping Tang while you hit the booze. Red wine is supposed to be good for combating weightlessness, you know.”
“So I hear,” he said. Studies had shown that a component of red wine, resveratrol, could help prevent bone-density loss and muscle atrophy, two common effects of life in space. NASA had prescribed resveratrol supplements for the whole crew, although the tablets lacked certain other benefits associated with a nice bottle of wine. “I suspect the doc will abstain. He’s not much of a drinker.” Shaun had never known O’Herlihy to indulge. “In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for rolling rocks.”
He was kidding, mostly. Although the asteroid belt contained thousands of microplanets, the matter was spread so thinly that the odds were a billion to one against the ship colliding with anything; over the last half-century, numerous unmanned probes had passed through the belt unscathed, and Shaun had every reason to assume that the Lewis & Clark would do the same. Still, the ship’s LIDAR was on full alert for any potential hazards, and he and Fontana had agreed not to leave the cockpit unmanned until the ship was clear of the belt. They would be taking turns sleeping there for the next few weeks.
“Roger that,” she said. “You keep an eye on you-know-who.”
“Hi, Fontana!” Zoe shouted from the treadmill. “How you doing, girlfriend?”
Grimacing, the other woman cut off the trans-mission.
“You know, you really shouldn’t bait her like that,” Shaun said.
“Everybody needs a hobby.” She adjusted the straps digging into her shoulders in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure. Despite being short of breath, she kept on talking. “So, am I included in this crossing celebration? I gotta admit, I could use a drink, especially after fighting this torture device.”
“Sure,” he said with a shrug. “Why not? Provided you don’t try to blow up the ship between now and dinnertime.”
He wasn’t really worried about that anymore. NASA had checked out her story, and she appeared to be just what she claimed to be: an unusually nervy journalist out to make a name for herself. Over the last few weeks, he had been gradually letting her out of their improvised brig more often, for the sake of her health and sanity. He wasn’t about to grant her free run of the ship anytime soon, but as long as she behaved herself, there was probably no need to keep her locked up all the time. She actually wasn’t bad company, although he suspected that his copilot felt otherwise.
“Fontana won’t object?”
“Undoubtedly,” Shaun predicted. Fontana had not yet warmed to Zoe; she still regarded the stowaway as an intruder. “But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Rank has its privileges, huh?”
“And seniority,” Shaun said. “These gray hairs must count for something.”
“Yeah, you’ve been at this game for some time now, haven’t you? I did my homework on all of you before I boarded this cruise, as it were. You’ve got quite an interesting résumé, Colonel Christopher.” She kept up a steady pace on the treadmill. Shaun could smell the rubber soles of her sneakers heating up from the friction. “Say, Skipper, at the risk of pushing my luck, do you mind if I ask you some questions about your illustrious career—including your stint at Area 51?”
Oh, boy, he thought, going on alert. Here it comes. He’d been expecting this; it was a wonder that she had waited so long to bring it up. Probably wanted to ingratiate herself first.
“That’s classified, and you know it.”
“Even after all these years? C’mon, Skipper. Throw me a bone. What else are we going to talk about the next umpteen million miles?”
“There’s not much to tell,” he lied. “If you must know, yes, I was assigned to the Groom Lake Facility, popularly known as Area 51, for a brief time back in the nineties, where I helped test experimental aircraft that I can’t really talk about. Not exactly the stuff of tabloid headlines.”
That wasn’t the whole story, of course. In fact, he had been assigned to the development and construction of the DY-100, an experimental “sleeper ship” employing advanced technology reverse-engineered from a crashed “Ferengi” spacecraft recovered in Roswell back in 1947. If all had gone well, Shaun might have piloted the DY-100 on its maiden voyage, but the prototype had mysteriously vanished in 1996 under circumstances that puzzled him to this day. His friend and colleague, Shannon O’Donnell, had taken the fall for the loss of the DY-100, effectively ending her NASA career, but he’d always suspected that there was more to the story than she had ever let on. Last he’d heard, she had been involved with the Millennium Gate project in Indiana, and the DY-100 project had been tabled indefinitely. Maybe they’ll take those diagrams out of mothballs someday, he thought, if we pull this Saturn jaunt off without any more hitches.
He liked to think so.
“Why am I not buying this?” Zoe asked aloud. “You must have some good dirt from those days.”
“Sorry.” He tried to wave it off as if it was no big deal. “Believe me, Area 51 was not nearly as interesting as the TV specials and conspiracy theorists make out.”
“No alien autopsies or captured spaceships?”
“‘Fraid not.” He tried to change the subject. “Although my dad sighted a UFO once, back in the sixties.”
“Really?” Zoe sounded intrigued. “How did I miss that?”
“Well, there’s not much to the story.” Shaun fingered the dog tags around his neck. “The Air Force picked up a UFO on radar and sent my dad up in a fighter jet to check it out. He thought he glimpsed something in the sky over Omaha, but then it was gone in a blink. To be honest, he’s still not sure whether he really saw something or not.”
“What do you think?” Zoe asked.
“Who knows? It could have been a visiting space-craft.”
As a kid, he had asked his dad to tell him about that UFO sighting over and over again; hell, it had probably helped inspire his lifelong interest in space travel. And his tour of duty at Area 51, years later, had certainly left Shaun open t
o the prospect of intelligent life from other worlds. He wasn’t about to dismiss what his dad had seen, however briefly, as just a trick of the light.
“Look at us,” he said, gesturing around at the cramped interior of the Lewis & Clark, which had been named after two legendary explorers. “We’re heading into space to see what—and who—might be out there. I have to imagine that other intelligent species are just as curious.” He chuckled, just so she wouldn’t think he was too much of a UFO nut. “Not that I’m expecting to run into any little green men on this mission.”
“Or any sexy green girls?”
“Sadly, no,” Shaun said. “But I like the way your mind works.” He saw another way to divert the conversation away from Area 51. “I’ve been reading some of your blogs, by the way. NASA transmitted them to me—as part of their background check. It seems you have something of a cult following on the Internet.”
Zoe beamed, clearly flattered. “So, what did you think?”
“To be honest, they were a little far-out for my tastes.” He called up one of her online exposés on the computer terminal. “You really think Khan Noonien Singh is still alive?”
A notorious dictator, Khan had wielded consider-able power back in the nineties. At the height of his influence, he was said to have been the de facto ruler of large portions of India, South Asia, and the Middle East. He had been overthrown in ’96—about the same time the DY-100 had disappeared, come to think of it. That had been a pretty tumultuous year.
“Maybe. They never found his body, you know—at least, not that it could be reliably determined. What’s more, according to my research, some eighty of his closest advisers and followers remain unaccounted for.”
Shaun hadn’t heard that before. “Where do you think they are? Tora Bora? A luxury estate in Kashmir?”
“Haven’t figured that out yet,” she admitted. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll find them waiting for us out by Saturn.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” he said. “Although you certainly have a vivid imagination, I’ll give you that.”