Star Trek: The Original Series: From History's Shadow

by Dayton Ward

  “Aye, sir,” replied the voice of the chief engineer. “We’ll do our best.”

  “It will not be sufficient, Captain,” Spock said, and Kirk turned to see his first officer standing at his station, facing him while resting one hand on his sensor viewer. “At its current speed, the Tandaran vessel will almost certainly overtake us.”

  Kirk sighed. “There doesn’t seem to be any getting around it, is there? What can you tell me about their weapons?”

  “Very little,” the Vulcan replied. “Those areas of the vessel are shielded against sensors, though the readings I can obtain suggest armaments on par with our own. Similar shielding surrounds what I believe to be areas devoted to the ship’s engineering and computer systems. Our scans are not able to penetrate those sections.”

  The sound of the turbolift doors opening made Kirk turn to see Roberta Lincoln emerging from the car. Her expression was one of concern as she glanced toward the viewscreen before directing her attention to him.

  “I apologize for intruding, Captain,” she said, “but I was monitoring your communications with Abrenn. Don’t believe for a second that he’s bluffing. He’ll attack to get what he wants.”

  Gesturing toward the viewscreen, Kirk asked, “He said he detected different ‘temporal phase variations.’ What does that mean?”

  “When someone travels through time, they’re out of place with respect to the rest of the timeline, and that manifests itself in a measurable phase fluctuation. You have to know what you’re looking for, and even then you can’t detect it without the right equipment.” Lincoln shook her head. “I’m sorry I don’t have any more information. What I just told you was thanks to a crash course I gave myself before coming here from 1969.” She sighed. “Have I mentioned how much I hate time travel?”

  Spock said, “I am unfamiliar with the phenomenon you describe, and neither did I find any mention of it or anything similar in the memory banks.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Lincoln said. “At least, not yet. For one thing, your current experience with time travel is pretty limited. Only a handful of races know what to look for. Unfortunately for you, the Tandarans are one of them.”

  Kirk said, “We’ll have to worry about that later. Do you know anything about their weapons capabilities?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t something I read up on before coming here.” Lincoln appeared embarrassed at the perceived lapse. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

  The alert indicator positioned along the forward edge of the helm and navigation console began flashing harsh crimson, emitting its own distinctive tone. In response to the new signal, both Sulu and Chekov leaned over their respective consoles before turning to look over their shoulders toward Kirk.

  “Sir, the Tandaran vessel is trying to maneuver in behind us. Their speed is still faster than ours.”

  Chekov added, “They’re also trying to lock onto us with their forward batteries.”

  “Increase speed to maximum. Stand by aft weapons.” Glancing over his shoulder toward Uhura, Kirk said, “Notify all hands to brace for incoming enemy fire.”

  Already turning to that task, Uhura replied, “Aye, sir.”

  “Let’s see them,” Kirk said. “Reverse angle on main viewer.”

  The image on the viewscreen shifted to show the Tandaran vessel, its dark, low profile little more than an opaque spot blotting out stars behind it. To Kirk, the ship’s distinct lack of exterior illumination or anything else that might draw the naked eye was, in a word, ominous.

  “That is one ugly ship,” Lincoln said from where she still stood at the railing in front of the engineering station at the rear of the bridge.

  “They’ve locked weapons on us, sir,” Chekov reported, and Kirk heard the tension in the ensign’s voice.

  “Target their weapons and stand by to fire,” he said, his gaze fixed on the approaching Tandaran vessel’s black silhouette. No sooner did the words leave his mouth than two globes of harsh green energy spat forth from the vessel’s bow, roiling and pulsing as they leaped from the ship’s weapons port. Seconds later a yellow-orange maelstrom flashed across the viewscreen as the projectiles—whatever they were—slammed into the starship’s aft deflector shields. Having prepared himself for the impact, Kirk was surprised when the ship did not tremble around him, although the overhead lighting as well as the bridge’s various display screens and consoles all flickered in haphazard fashion.

  “Captain!” Chekov called out. “Our shields! They’re down twenty-eight percent!”

  “Return fire!” Kirk ordered, and Sulu stabbed at his console’s firing controls. On the viewscreen, a single blue-white phaser beam lanced across space to strike the Tandaran vessel’s forward shields.

  Sulu now was peering into his console’s tactical scanner. “No real damage to their shields, Captain. Whatever they lost, it’s been replaced or augmented with power from somewhere else.”

  “Fire again,” Kirk said, watching the follow-up salvo hit the enemy ship’s shields.

  Sulu shook his head. “No effect.” Two more spheres of green energy launched from the Tandaran ship to hammer at the Enterprise shields, again with no discernible signs of impact despite the light show on the screen.

  “Our shields have now dropped sixty-four percent,” Chekov offered.

  “What the hell are they shooting at us?” Kirk asked, releasing his grip on the arm of his chair and moving to the curved rail separating him from Spock.

  “Not a conventional particle beam weapon or physical torpedo,” Spock replied. “Sensors indicate a form of high-energy plasma similar to what we’ve seen utilized by Romulan vessels. Though they appear to be somewhat less powerful, it seems their purpose is not to inflict damage on the ship itself, but instead to dampen or disrupt our deflector shield generators.”

  “Another shot or two like that,” Lincoln said, “and we’ll be sitting ducks.”

  Turning from the rail, Kirk snapped, “Return fire.” He considered and discarded various tactical scenarios in the short interval it took for Sulu to let loose another phaser barrage on the Tandaran ship, before arriving at one unconventional course of action. “Drop us out of warp, now,” he said, moving back to his chair.

  Sulu looked up from the helm. “Sir?”

  “All the way to sub light. Do it!”

  Though the inertial dampers compensated for the worst effects of the ship’s abrupt shift from subspace, Kirk still felt an unmistakable pull forward as a result of the transition from warp speed. The hull itself seemed to protest the rude action, and he imagined he could hear Montgomery Scott shouting from the bowels of the ship, lamenting the abuse being inflicted upon his beloved engines.

  Sorry, Scotty.

  “The Tandaran vessel has overshot us,” said Spock, his attention still on his instruments. “They are altering their course to resume their pursuit.”

  “Come about,” Kirk said, eyeing the astrogator situated at the base of the console between Sulu and Chekov. “Course two nine nine mark zero five.” He dropped his fist down on his chair’s intercom switch. “Engineering. Scotty, I need everything you can give me if this is going to work.”

  “Aye, sir. We’re doing what we can down here,” replied the chief engineer, “but it’d be easier if you weren’t snapping us around like a bloody rubber band!”

  Kirk canceled the connection, ignoring Scott’s objection. Instead, he asked, “Shield status?”

  “Aft shields are back up to forty-nine percent, sir,” Chekov responded. “They’re firming up, but slowly.”

  “Route remaining power to forward shields.” Feeling someone’s eyes on him, Kirk turned in his chair to see Roberta Lincoln studying him, her features a mask of confusion. “Miss Lincoln?” ‘

  The younger woman frowned. “I don’t understand. You’re going after them?”

  “I’m tired of being shot at.”

  “Closing on them, sir,” Sulu reported. “They’re coming at us.”

  Studying the data
being fed to his sensor viewer, Spock said, “I’m detecting a noticeable lack of power to nontactical systems. It would appear they’re channeling all available energy to their propulsion and weapons.”

  “Fire all weapons,” Kirk ordered, “and keep after them.”

  Sulu unleashed the full fury of the Enterprise’s arsenal and the viewscreen was filed with phaser beams and a barrage of photon torpedoes. The salvo struck the Tandaran ship’s forward shields, all but concealing the other vessel beneath a frenzy of hellish energy.

  “Their forward shields have overloaded,” Spock called out.

  “Again, Sulu,” Kirk snapped. “Target their weapons ports.”

  At the instant he gave the command, he saw a new barrage of weapons fire leave the Tandaran ship. Sulu had just dispatched his next round of return fire when he jerked his head from his tactical scanner and shouted a warning. Not one but two pairs of surging jade energy advanced across the void between the two ships, untouched by any of the Enterprise’s own weapons.

  “Brace for impact!” Kirk shouted, sensing that this attack would be worse than its predecessors. He had just enough time to grasp the arms of his chair before the first two energy bolts struck the shields, and alert indicators flashed across the bridge as a hell storm erupted on the main viewscreen.

  “Our shields are failing!” was all Chekov could yell before the second round lunged forward, and this time the entire ship shuddered under the force of the assault. The primary lighting flickered and some of the emitters failed, casting portions of the bridge into shadow.

  Kirk saw something blue flash in the corner of his eye, where Roberta Lincoln had been standing mere moments earlier, but when he turned in that direction all he saw were the turbolift doors closing. Lincoln was gone.

  What the hell?

  “Fire at will!” Kirk ordered, forgetting Lincoln. “Full spread!”

  When the barrage of fire crossed space this time, there were no deflector shields to soften the blow, and the twin phaser beams and quartet of torpedoes slammed into the Tandaran ship’s forward hull. There was no mistaking the sight of hull plates buckling and atmosphere escaping from new gaps in the ship’s outer skin. The entire vessel seemed to lurch, though it did not break off its attack to take evasive maneuvers.

  Tough little bastard.

  “Captain,” Spock said, turning from his station. “Their main propulsion unit appears on the verge of failure, but I am picking up a new power reading.”

  Kirk glanced to the first officer. “Another weapon?”

  “Unknown.” Spock’s reply was punctuated by the sound of a new Red Alert siren bellowing across the bridge, loud enough to make Kirk wince but not so loud that it drowned out the frantic voice of the Enterprise’s chief of security, Lieutenant Commander Barry Giotto.

  “Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Enemy boarding party on the hangar deck!”

  TWENTY-THREE

  McKinley Rocket Base, Cocoa Beach, Florida

  March 16, 1966

  Though he was not human, Adlar long ago had learned to decipher and understand the vast array of human emotional states. The range of responses he now witnessed was easy to identify. Tension and fear was evident on the faces of everyone in the Mission Control center. From where he stood at the bay windows of the small, detached room overlooking the center’s main operations floor, Adlar was able to observe the reactions of technicians and engineers as the current situation continued to unfold. They hunched over consoles or talked on phones or into headsets or scurried about, focused on whatever task commanded their attention. Noting his own reflection in the window’s glass, itself that of “Allen Shull,” the human male he had crafted as the disguise generated by his mobile camouflage emitter, Adlar made sure that his expression was similar to those of his colleagues. Even after the years he had spent among humans, some responses still did not come to him without conscious effort.

  “The spacecraft-Agena combination took off,” said a voice filtered through the Mission Control intercom system. The speaker’s voice was tiny and hollow, and laced with the hiss and crackle of radio static. That was not surprising, given that the person talking was at this moment one of two men ensconced within the tiny, fragile spacecraft orbiting hundreds of miles above the Earth. “Yaw and roll, and we had ACS off and affirmative seven hours.”

  Hundreds of people at this moment were fixated on the spacecraft, which along with its associated mission carried the official designation of “Gemini 8.” The mission under way was the sixth manned flight of the NASA’s Project Gemini program, a series of missions designed to develop, refine, and test equipment and techniques that would—if all proceeded according to plan—result in a manned landing on the surface of the moon within the next three years.

  At present, that goal was not on anyone’s minds. Instead, everyone’s thoughts were consumed by the emergency unfolding in the void above the Earth.

  Another voice replied, “Okay, I copy. Can you . . . do you have visual sighting of the Agena right now? ”

  “No,” replied a third speaker, whom Adlar recognized as the spacecraft’s second astronaut. “We haven’t seen the Agena since we undocked a little while ago.”

  This was not distressing to Adlar. Turning from the window, he returned to his own workstation, a conglomeration of status indicators and dials, compact digital readouts, and rows of switches surrounding a pair of television screens as well as a telephone, all of it set into a bulky, metal frame. It was one of a half dozen positioned around the room, each overseen by a different engineer. One of the console’s status indicators told him that telemetry still was being transmitted from the Agena target vehicle, including the signal from a transponder installed aboard the unmanned test craft, which relayed its information on a frequency undetectable except by equipment developed by the Department of Defense just for this purpose. Packed almost to overflowing with a variety of equipment and recording devices, the Agena was designed to provide astronauts with an interactive test subject for practicing orbital rendezvous and docking maneuvers as well as other tasks while connected to the unmanned, remotely guided craft. The test vehicle, along with its top-secret DoD payload known only to a privileged cadre of military and civilian personnel, had been sent into orbit earlier in the day and prior to the launching of the Titan II rocket carrying the Gemini 8 spacecraft and its two-man crew, astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott.

  “Shull, what’s the status of the target vehicle?”

  Adlar looked up at the sound of the gruff, apprehensive voice to see the older human male staring at him from across the room. Colonel Samuel Thorpe, dressed in an Air Force blue duty uniform, was the officer overseeing the Agena vehicle’s launch and operations. He was a dour-looking man, with narrow eyes beneath a heavy brow and a long, thin nose that gave his features a predatory air. His head was devoid of hair, which only served to accent his intimidating stature. In Adlar’s experience, Thorpe was a cold, stern officer, possessing no discernible sense of humor. He did not engage in any form of casual conversation, so his interactions with civilian engineers or other military members tended to be blunt and succinct.

  “It’s likely tumbling,” Adlar said, remaining seated at his console. “Since it’s been determined that the problem is with the Gemini capsule, we should be able to bring the Agena back under control with its own thrusters.”

  “Yeah,” said another engineer, a younger man named James Cushman. “Thank God Scott was able to transfer control of it back to us before they separated. They’re already working up a procedure to get it back under control.” Though his hair was combed back from his face, a lock had fallen down across Cushman’s forehead and his left eye, and he reached up to swipe it up and out of his way. “We got lucky on that.”

  “So, what happened?” Thorpe asked, his expression wavering not the slightest bit as he resumed his slow, measured pacing around the room.

  Cushman replied, “About forty-five minutes after the capsule linked u
p with the Agena, Scott reported that they were tumbling end over end and had undocked. At first they thought the Agena was responsible, but it’s looking more like one of the capsule’s maneuvering thrusters was stuck open somehow. They’ll probably run checks to verify that once things settle down up there.”

  Thorpe frowned. “And we’re sure there’s nothing wrong with the Agena’s thrusters?”

  “So far, everything looks nominal,” Adlar said. The entire sequence of events had lasted less than thirty minutes, with the Gemini 8 astronauts reporting their violent banking and tumbling after disconnecting their spacecraft from the target vehicle. It then had taken Armstrong several minutes to regain control of the wayward ship, using the capsule’s reentry control system thrusters to force the spacecraft out of its uncontrolled rolling. During those frantic few moments, they had been forced to concentrate on their own situation, disregarding the Agena vehicle. Throughout that brief period, Adlar had maintained a close eye on the telemetry being transmitted from the unmanned ship.

  “What about our package?” Thorpe asked. “Any sign of damage or other problems after all this?”

  Adlar shook his head. “Everything’s showing normal. Targeting and maneuvering systems are all active and transmitting data.”

  “Good,” Thorpe said, offering an approving nod. “As soon as they regain control, I want a full rundown of everything. Thanks to those astronauts and their quick thinking, we might still be able to meet our mission objectives. Get me that status report on all systems as soon as possible.”

  As he watched the colonel depart the room, Adlar said, more to himself than anyone else, “He certainly is difficult to please.”

  “Brother, you don’t know the half of it.” Cushman shook his head, releasing a sigh. “I’ll be happy when this is over, so I can move on to something else. This sort of thing isn’t why I joined this company, anyway. I want to be on one of the teams designing stuff we’re going to be sending to the moon, not babysitting the military’s new pet project.”