Star Trek: The Original Series - 162 - Shadow of the Machine

by Scott Harrison

  His brother had just been accepted to Starfleet Academy. Kirk had been out in the toolshed, looking for the right spanner to fix the flow valve on his ground-hopper. Sam stepped out onto the porch in his cadet uniform. His mother was standing beside him, tears streaming down her cheeks; she looked so proud and sad, all at the same time. She placed a hand upon her elder son’s shoulder and told him how smart he looked.

  “What do you reckon, Jimmy? Do you think I could be a famous explorer just like Zefram Cochrane?” Sam asked him with a smile.

  And in that moment, Kirk would have given anything to be away from there: with McCoy and his daughter in Georgia, or back aboard the Enterprise overseeing the refit with Scotty.

  Anywhere, it didn’t matter to him, as long as it wasn’t here.

  Chapter 4

  STARFLEET MEDICAL

  SAN FRANCISCO

  “She looks so tiny, so fragile.”

  Sulu rested his forehead on the surface of the glass, the palm of his hand resting on top, as he stared down at his daughter.

  “Just so . . . tiny,” he repeated.

  Beside him, Doctor Linzi Hautala remained respectfully silent, allowing the new father to have this special moment with his child.

  Around them the ward staff went about their business, checking on the dozens of other babies all housed in similar incubators that were arranged around the room. But Sulu barely registered their presence; the room may as well have been completely empty save for himself, Doctor Hautala, and his daughter.

  “It’s not until you see another human being like this, so small and helpless, that you realize how life can be so . . . well, fragile.” Sulu laughed, feeling a little bit self-conscious that every time he opened his mouth he kept spouting clichés. “I guess you must hear this a lot from new parents? Guy becomes a father for the first time, suddenly he turns into a philosopher.”

  “I hear a lot of things, Commander,” Hautala told him. “Some of it good, some of it not so. Parents deciding the careers of their children before they’ve even been out of the womb for a single day, fathers claiming that the child can’t be theirs because it doesn’t look like them—we even had one man, an evolutionary biologist, who took one look at his brand-new eight-hour-old daughter, then broke down in a flood of tears claiming she was a divine miracle. Different people react to becoming parents in wildly different ways. Go easy on yourself for the moment, you’re just human.” She pointed at the small bundle lying in the incubator in front of them. “Now that she’s here, your life will never be the same again.”

  What the doctor was trying to tell him, Sulu realized, was exactly what Scott had been saying to him.

  His new daughter was going to change his life. The thing was, it wasn’t only his life anymore. Everything began to change the day he and Susan talked about having a baby.

  Sulu had known the conversation was coming for a while, ever since they’d attended a friend’s baby-welcoming party the previous summer in Anchorage. Being just a couple wasn’t enough any longer. They’d both been silent in the shuttle ride back, although perhaps preoccupied would have been a more appropriate word.

  It wasn’t just Susan who’d been affected; Sulu had found himself bitten by the baby bug too.

  It wasn’t an easy feeling to describe—as a matter of fact, Sulu wasn’t completely sure he could explain. All he knew was that suddenly it felt like something was missing, something important. It began to play on their minds like an itch that was just too far out of reach to be scratched.

  “I’ve been thinking, maybe it’s time we had a baby,” Susan announced, apropos of nothing, one night while they were lying in bed. “Well, what I mean to say is, I’ll have the baby. Your part pretty much stops after the conception.”

  She sat up then, and the overhead lights came on in response to her movement. “I’m serious, Hikaru.”

  “Hey!” The light was almost blinding, causing Sulu to pull the covers up over his head. “Computer, reset light parameters.”

  “Please specify required setting.”

  “Anything, I don’t care. Just turn it down a little.”

  “Computer, reduce lighting by thirty percent,” Susan said, then she reached over and pulled the covers from his head. “No hiding from me, mister. We should talk about this.”

  “Do we have to do this now? I’ve got to be up early in the morning; I promised Mister Scott I’d fly him across to the shipyards,” Sulu said.

  But Susan was adamant. “This can’t wait.”

  “Look, Suze, we talked about this, we agreed that we don’t have the time for a baby right now. You said that things were really starting to happen for you down in Biomechanics, and with the Enterprise refit coming along quicker than they’d anticipated, there’s talk that the launch date could be brought forward to next year.”

  “I know, but—”

  “It’s just not practical,” Sulu told her. “You know that. It’s not that I don’t want to be a dad . . .”

  Susan looked up at him then, her eyes wide with surprise. A smile tugging her lips.

  Sulu held his hands up, as though surrendering. “Yeah, okay, I admit it, ever since seeing Beth and Gil with their new son . . .”

  “I knew it!” Susan slapped him playfully on the arm. “I knew the sight of all those toddlers running around the place would melt even your icy heart!”

  “But this would be different, Suze,” he said. “This would be ours, for keeps—no giving it back at the end of the day. It’s one thing going to parties where the kids are other people’s and we can leave once we’ve had enough. You said that you didn’t want a stranger raising your child. So who would be looking after the baby during the day when you’re down at the lab? I’ll be flying around the galaxy studying wormholes and escorting peace delegations to Babel. My mother really isn’t up to—”

  Susan shrugged. “I could always give up the lab.”

  Her words stunned him into silence. She had said them so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that just for the briefest of seconds she sounded to Sulu like the strongest, bravest person he had ever known.

  That was the first time he’d realized how serious Susan had been about the idea of motherhood, and that’s when he’d known that they were about to become parents.

  Sulu felt a hand rest lightly on his shoulder and he glanced up from the incubator. Doctor Hautala was standing at his side, a tight, concerned smile on her face.

  “You look exhausted. Go home and get some rest,” she ordered.

  “But they need me,” Sulu said, jerking his chin toward the baby. “She might need me.”

  “But you won’t be any use to either of them if you’re exhausted.” Hautala carefully turned him away from the baby. “Come on, Commander, it’s time you got some sleep. Doctor’s orders.”

  Reluctantly, Sulu allowed the doctor to guide him out of the room, but not without one last backward glance over his shoulder at the tiny, sleeping form of his new daughter.

  VULCAN

  When the shuttlecraft touched down at the port north of ShiKahr, there was only one person waiting on the edge of the platform: Amanda, wife of Sarek. Spock strode over to his mother, leaned down, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Spock,” Amanda said in greeting.

  “Mother.”

  “Our shuttle is just outside the gate.” Amanda turned and led her son through the darkened tunnel.

  Spock could feel the welcoming heat of Vulcan enveloping him; the early morning sky was just beginning to lighten.

  As they stepped into the small shuttle, Amanda activated the coordinates for home. With a faint, almost imperceptible vibration, the small craft rose and headed to the ancient outskirts of the city.

  Once they were airborne, Amanda turned to her son. “No uniform?”

  “I did not want to call attention to my arrival,
Mother.”

  “No, of course not.”

  He recognized the tone of her voice from his childhood; he had heard the same tone used on his father many times. “Do you think my greeting may have undermined my intent?”

  “I’m afraid it might have. Then having your mother there to meet you—”

  “You are not the only human on Vulcan.”

  Amanda smiled at Spock. “No, but I’m the only one who was kissed by her son on his homecoming.”

  “You have asked many times for me to do so,” he said.

  “Spock, I’m not going to be distracted: What’s wrong?”

  “Mother, I cannot continue with the Kolinahr.”

  Spock watched his mother study him. Her face was lined, her hair gray, yet she looked younger than her years. Spock realized it was her smile. Small, contained, fleeting; however, it lit up her face. “Well, maybe you can go into the family business.”

  Chapter 5

  IOWA

  James Kirk unpacked the small collection of clothes from his bag, washed, and then padded silently down the stairs to grab some coffee.

  Much to his surprise, Hanna was waiting for him in the kitchen at the end of the hall, a freshly brewed pot of coffee sitting on the countertop.

  The table sat in the open floor space to one side of the kitchen, with five mismatched chairs pushed around it. One had been pulled out just a little, indicating that Kirk should just go right ahead and sit himself down.

  “You’ll have to excuse us; it’s not often we sit down together at breakfast,” Hanna explained. “But I thought I’d wait for you before I start my day.”

  “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think anyone would be here,” Kirk said.

  Hanna glanced across at the kitchen clock; it was just a little shy of quarter past nine. “Your uncle Abner was up and out of here an hour before you arrived. They’ve been threatening a storm for the last few days, so Abner wants to get the lightning shield up and working again, just in case.”

  His aunt finished off the last of the dishes, then dried her hands on a towel that hung on a brass hook by the stove. With her kitchen chores done, she crossed to the counter and poured two cups of fresh coffee, setting one down in front of Kirk.

  “You look like you could use one of these,” Hanna said with a wink as she settled herself into a chair opposite. “Maybe I’ll sit and join you for a few minutes, although don’t tell Abner or he’ll say I’m slacking.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Kirk promised.

  The coffee was good and just how he remembered it: hot and black, with the faintest hint of chicory. Some things never change.

  He felt the rising urge to flee, the need to be away from here, to be safely aboard a shuttle and on his way back to the Enterprise. Kirk took a couple of good, deep breaths and kept a lid on it.

  “I know that letter coming out of the blue was probably the last thing you needed right now, what with you just getting your ship back, and . . .”

  Kirk looked across the table at his aunt; she was frowning down at the table, seemingly distracted by the coffee cup that she was twisting in her hands. Kirk said nothing. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what to say to her, but he knew that if he gave her enough time she’d get to her point.

  “Abner and I didn’t know what else to do. Your folks never had any problems like this when you and George were boys.” Hanna glanced up, the frown straightening out a little. “Your minds were made up long before either of you had reached Peter’s age.”

  “For Sam,” Kirk said, “it was always the Academy, no question.”

  “Do you remember the first time he came home in his cadet uniform?” Hanna asked.

  Kirk nodded. “He asked me if he looked like a famous explorer.”

  “Your mother was so proud, she took a hundred pictures of him standing out there in the front yard,” Hanna said. “Sent them to everyone she knew. He cut a handsome figure.”

  “Knowing that he’d graduate from the Academy, that he’d be out there . . .” Kirk stopped, finding it hard to go on.

  “And you?” Hanna asked him.

  Kirk shook his head wearily. “I wanted to go to the Academy. I wanted to join Starfleet, serve aboard a starship, command my own vessel, but . . .” He thought about it, then shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. Sam and I felt things very differently. When we were growing up, Sam always knew the things he was going to do, knew they were going to happen for him.”

  “If Peter had a fraction of that Kirk confidence, then we wouldn’t need you here, Jimmy,” Hanna said.

  “Peter’s inherited many fine qualities from his father,” Kirk pointed out.

  “And what about your boy?” Hanna asked. “What qualities has he inherited from his father?”

  Kirk shifted uncomfortably in his seat, taking a thoughtful sip of coffee before answering. “You’d have to ask Carol about that. I’ve not seen David since they left for the New Berlin colony.”

  “She’s not letting you see him?” Hanna asked.

  “No, it’s not . . .” Kirk shook his head.

  “Jim . . .”

  “It’s probably for the best,” Kirk told her. “Starship captains do not make good fathers. My home has always been up there.” He jerked his head toward the sky.

  “You’ve got command of the Enterprise again. Must be a comfort,” Hanna said.

  Kirk dropped his eyes, silently staring at the last dregs of coffee swilling around the bottom of his cup. At long last, he said, “What makes you so sure that I can get through to Peter?”

  “You’re the one Peter went to when he had a bee in his bonnet about something, even when his mom and dad were alive. I dunno what you’d care to call it.” Hanna spread her hands out, palms up, knowing how uncomfortable her nephew would be with the sentiment.

  “Hero worship?” Kirk said.

  “You were there when his parents were killed, your ship was the one that saved him, the Enterprise carried his parents’ bodies home. Maybe that affected Peter more than we realize.”

  Kirk nodded in understanding. Deep down the thought troubled him greatly. He’d already made a complete mess of it with his own son; he didn’t want to make it two-for-two with Peter. But if Abner and Hanna felt that he would have better luck getting through to Peter, then who was he to argue?

  He pushed his chair back and made for the kitchen door, placing his empty cup in the sink as he passed. Before he could reach for the screen-door handle, Hanna called out, “Jimmy?”

  When Kirk turned toward his aunt, she was already up on her feet and heading over to him. Grasping him by the shoulders, she looked up into his eyes.

  “Why are you still in Starfleet?” she asked him.

  The question took Kirk by surprise. “What?”

  “Don’t you try to lie to me, James Tiberius Kirk. Whenever you had a problem at home, who’d you come to?”

  Just for a second Kirk felt like a young boy again, the seven-year-old Jimmy Kirk.

  “I know you. I can see you are troubled, and your response to my letter . . . not my Jimmy. What’s wrong?” Hanna asked.

  “I love serving in Starfleet. I’m a good starship commander. I’m just not sure that I can be trusted with so many lives.”

  V’GER

  Despite the chaos, the endless, swirling patterns of color are hypnotic.

  To Sulu’s left the navigator screams as a bank of relay controls explodes outward, showering them with red-hot shards. It sounds like Ilia, but that’s impossible because Ilia is already dead, killed by the column of blinding white light, the V’Ger probe.

  Sulu tries to turn his head, to see if she’s hurt, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the forward viewscreen.

  The alien is immense, unstoppable, gathering itself before them like some gigantic storm cloud, preparing to
unleash its destructive energy upon them.

  There is a cold flash of blue somewhere ahead, followed by another, then another, and three bolts of plasma energy race away from the center of the cloud toward the fleet of starships.

  We are dying out here. We are all dying.

  On the viewscreen the Exeter is on fire, spinning wildly out of control as a volley of ice-blue plasma energy bolts slams into its hull, cracking the reinforced skin of the ship like an egg.

  As he watches, the Constellation moves in, trying to position itself between the dying starships and the alien cloud, attempting to deflect some of the disruptive energy bolts. But they are too powerful. It’s all in vain. The first bolt punches a hole through the saucer section, the second rips the starboard nacelle clean off its strut.

  And now the immense cloud is turning, directing its attention elsewhere as it leaves the Constellation to die.

  First it brings those unstoppable bolts to bear on the Lexington, tearing its saucer in half with a single, well-timed shot, then it moves on toward the Yorktown.

  All of space is a graveyard, a vast, never-ending vista of twisted metal and frozen bodies.

  That is when Sulu realizes that only the Enterprise is left.

  The cloud turns again, causing the insanely beautiful patterns of blues and silvers and whites to dance once more.

  But something is happening.

  The thick covering of cloud starts to change color, racing violently through the vast spectrum of varying shades and hues until it finally settles upon a pale, almost colorless gray. Before Sulu’s eyes the outer shell begins to ripple, then to undulate, until, at last, it falls apart, peeling away like chunks of dead flesh.

  There is only the machine left.

  Black light crackles and sparks across its smooth, alien architecture as the machine begins to edge steadily forward, closing the distance between itself and the Enterprise.

  From behind him the captain orders full reverse, and Sulu reaches obediently forward for the controls.

  But he is too late.

  A circle of long, cylindrical spires slides silently out of the vast machine’s maw. Energy erupts across the length of its skin once more, followed by another series of blue flashes.