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

by Dayton Ward

  “A laudable stance,” Gejalik said, “though of little use at the moment.”

  Mestral added, “Indeed. I do not believe the Tandarans will be impressed.”

  “Minister Ocherab,” Roberta said, “are you able to show me the rest of the hangar bay?”

  By way of reply, the elder Certoss gestured to one of her two subordinates occupying stations along the cramped control room’s forward bulkhead. The other Certoss, a young male, moved his hands across the console without making actual contact with the station’s smooth black surface, and beneath his fingers a series of soft-lit indicators glowed in varying colors, each accompanied by an almost musical tone Roberta might have found soothing on any other occasion. On the display screen the image shifted to show the Enterprise hangar deck from different angles based on what she guessed to be sensors positioned around the Balatir’s exterior. In addition to the pair of Tandaran intruders working on the device, Roberta counted four others, each of them wielding nasty-looking rifles and acting as though they were on the lookout for potential threats.

  “Look!” Gejalik said, pointing to the screen as its image changed again to show the two Tandarans and their mysterious equipment. “They’re running away. I think . . .”

  Her words were cut off as a tremendous flash of light erupted on the screen, washing across the entire picture at the same instant the very hull of the Balatir itself shuddered around them. Every light and console on the flight deck flickered and Roberta heard a warble in the ship’s engines, as though they now were fighting not to lose power.

  “Minister,” the helm operator said, “our shields are down!”

  “Can you reestablish them?” Ocherab asked, and Roberta heard the controlled tension in the elder’s voice.

  His fingers moving across his console in rapid fashion, the subordinate shook his head. “No, Minister! The shield generator has overloaded. The engineer is already attempting to effect repairs.”

  “I do not believe we will have sufficient time,” Mestral said, gesturing to the screen where the image now depicted the pair of Tandarans returning across the hangar bay. One of the intruders was brandishing a rectangular-shaped object in one hand, which Roberta could not identify before he disappeared from view, now unfettered by the Balatir’s deflector shields.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” she said. “Something to override the door’s magnetic lock?”

  Gejalik said, “It’s an explosive charge.”

  Roberta felt her pulse quickening, as much from fright as anticipation. Even if the Tandarans captured the Certoss, which was looking more likely by the second, they still were trapped on the Enterprise. How far was Abrenn willing to take this? Would he kill Ocherab and her crew if he felt he had no other options?

  If you’re going to pull off one of your miracles, Kirk, now would be a good time.

  • • •

  “Captain, the Tandarans have activated their dampening device. The Certoss vessel’s shields are down.”

  With Lieutenant Commander Giotto following him, Kirk cursed at Spock’s report while sprinting the final dozen meters to the reinforced pressure hatch leading onto the Enterprise hangar deck. “What are they doing now?”

  “From what we’re able to see, they’re now moving on the Balatir, and have placed something on the vessel’s exterior access hatch. Sensors have determined that it’s a form of explosive.”

  “We’re out of time,” Kirk said. After checking to verify that his phaser was set to its maximum non-lethal setting just as he had ordered for Giotto and the others, he looked to the security chief, who offered a reassuring nod. “Let’s do this, Spock.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  A moment later, alarm klaxons began wailing in the narrow corridor, followed by the stilted, feminine voice of the Enterprise’s main computer. “Warning, hangar doors will open in thirty seconds. Safety overrides have been disabled. No depressurization cycle will occur. Move immediately to the nearest exit.”

  “Come on,” Kirk said, gesturing for Giotto to follow him as he hit the switch to open the pressure hatch. The alarms grew louder as the heavy doors parted to reveal the hangar deck, enough that the sirens were hurting his ears, and all of it accompanied by the chaotic flashing of the alert indicators positioned around the bay. Kirk ran into the cavernous chamber and crouched near the bulkhead. To his left, he saw Giotto mimic his movements, the security chief taking up a defensive position in order to guard his captain’s blind side. On the far side of the bay, Kirk saw another hatch open and a trio of Giotto’s security detail run onto the hangar deck, two of them carrying phaser rifles. They were led by Ensign Minecci, who gestured with his phaser pistol for the other two men to follow him.

  “Warning, hangar doors will open in twenty seconds. Safety overrides have been disabled. No depressurization cycle will occur. Move immediately to the nearest exit.”

  “I hope the computer knows what it’s doing!” Giotto shouted over the sound of the alarms. “Not that I don’t trust you or Mister Spock, sir, but still . . .” When Kirk glanced over his shoulder, it was to see the commander shrugging. Despite the present situation, Kirk could not help a small grin.

  Though he believed the Tandarans’ helmets and armor likely would protect them from any loss of atmosphere, Kirk was counting on Abrenn and his people not wanting to be in the bay should the massive clamshell doors begin to open. The effects of abrupt depressurization would send every unsecured item and piece of equipment careening for the bay doors, carried on the invisible wave of escaping oxygen and turning the entire room into a hazardous gallery of flying debris.

  At the center of the bay sat the Balatir, and Kirk caught sight of the first Tandarans moving about the hangar deck. As he expected, the intruders were moving away from the rear of the bay, trying to distance themselves from the hangar doors and get behind the various equipment, storage crates, and other items taking up space in the chamber. He counted four figures running for the front of the massive chamber, moving toward Minecci and his men and appearing to focus more on getting to safety than anything else. As they passed another access hatch, that portal opened to admit still more Enterprise security personnel.

  “Warning,” the computer droned, “hangar doors will open in ten seconds. Move immediately to the nearest exit.”

  Into his communicator, Kirk barked, “Minecci! Take them!” With Giotto on his heels, he rose from his crouch and headed across the bay, angling for the Balatir and where he suspected the two remaining Tandarans still lurked. Weapons fire caught Kirk’s attention, and he turned to see Ensign Minecci and his people engaging the other intruders. Phaser beams flashed across that section of the hangar deck as the Enterprise personnel caught the Tandarans in a crossfire, the maximum stunning force of the security team’s weapons penetrating even the intruders’ tactical armor. Within seconds, the quartet of Tandarans had fallen unconscious to the hangar deck.

  “Warning, hangar doors are opening.”

  Kirk grunted in resignation. “So much for our big bluff.” He of course had no intention of subjecting the hangar bay to sudden decompression with his own people exposed to danger, but he had been hoping the perceived peril might force the Tandarans into dropping their guard and making mistakes. Now that the computer’s countdown had concluded and the hangar doors remained closed, Abrenn would know for certain that it all had been a ruse.

  Stepping around the Balatir’s forward section, Kirk caught movement above and to his right, and he looked up to see a dark figure leaping at him from atop the Certoss vessel. He had time only to brace himself for the impact before the attacker crashed into him, sending them both tumbling to the deck. Kirk’s phaser fell from his hand and he heard it sliding away, but he ignored it as he rolled to his feet, bringing himself into a defensive stance. Backpedaling to give himself maneuvering room, he saw Abrenn staring at him through the faceplate of his protective helmet.

  “Captain!” he heard Giotto shout from somewhere behind h
im before another weapon report echoed in the bay and the security chief was forced to seek cover. More shots followed him as he dashed around the front of the Balatir, leaving Kirk alone with Abrenn.

  “My compliments, Captain,” said the Tandaran, his voice muffled by the small speaker grille at the base of his helmet. “You employ deception and diversion with great skill, but I did not think you would risk exposing your crew and ship to unnecessary danger. However, I have no such reservations. Ranzareq! Now!”

  In response to the colonel’s barked command, a small explosion rumbled through the bay and Kirk felt the shockwave in his chest just as he stepped around the Balatir’s forward section. He ducked, throwing up his arms to protect himself, but then realized it had to have been the device Abrenn or his companion had affixed to the Certoss vessel’s access hatch. The charge was shaped to cause only the amount of damage necessary to force open the door, and the echo of its detonation still was ringing throughout the hangar bay as Kirk saw another Tandaran—Abrenn’s companion, Ranzareq—running toward the hatch. He applied some new device to the hull and activated it, resulting in the ship’s outer hatch cycling open.

  “No!” Kirk shouted, moving forward despite Abrenn standing in his way, but the Tandaran closed the distance between them. As the colonel reached for him, Kirk grabbed him by the shoulder and drove his knee into Abrenn’s gut, just below the chest plate of his armor. He had no expectations of inflicting any real pain but the blow still was enough to catch the Tandaran off guard, giving Kirk the seconds he needed to grip Abrenn’s arm and lever his opponent over his hip, dropping him to the deck. The Tandaran fell on his back and Kirk heard his grunt of surprise.

  Not giving Abrenn any chance to recover, Kirk drove his boot onto the colonel’s helmet faceplate, feeling the transparent material yield beneath his heel. A hairline crack appeared across the protective screen, enough to make Abrenn’s eyes widen in concern as he rolled away. He swept his leg to catch Kirk behind his knees, taking his feet out from under him. Kirk, his balance gone, crashed to the deck. Training and experience prepared him for the fall and he was able to absorb most of the impact, already coming up onto one knee and pushing himself back to his feet when an energy blast shrieked past him. It was Abrenn’s companion, standing at the Balatir’s open hatch. The Tandaran was adjusting his aim to fire again when Kirk heard the familiar whine of a phaser beam. It passed him and struck the Tandaran in his chest, pushing him against the Certoss vessel’s hull, where he then slid unconscious to the deck.

  “Abrenn!” Kirk shouted as he saw the colonel regaining his own footing. “It’s over!” Hearing footsteps behind him, he glanced over to see Giotto stepping into view, his phaser aimed at the Tandaran. “Your people are in custody and there’s nowhere for you to go. There’s no need for any of this!”

  For the first time, he saw Abrenn display genuine emotion, his anger evident on his features as he glared at Kirk through his helmet’s damaged faceplate. “I’m acting to protect my people!”

  “Your people are safe!” Kirk snapped. “You’re responding to a threat that doesn’t exist! How can you not see that?”

  Abrenn sneered. “You have no comprehension of the dangers I see, Captain. The threat is real, lurking beyond your ability to see or understand. That was the reality of the war we fought—will fight, and lose—if we do not act against that possibility.” He gestured toward the Balatir. “That is what you’re protecting. There’s no way to know what chaos that fugitive represents, or can bring down upon us all.”

  “She’s just one person,” Kirk said. “Cut off from everything and everyone she’s ever known. Even if there was a way to send her forward to her own time, her own planet—its history and culture—is unrecognizable to her.”

  Sighing, Abrenn shook his head. “You simply have no idea, Kirk.” Reaching up, he pressed a control embedded into his suit’s chest plate. “And you give me no choice.”

  “Wait!” Kirk snapped, holding out his hand. Not waiting for an order, Giotto fired his phaser, catching Abrenn in the torso and knocking the Tandaran unconscious. He fell, but Giotto was able to catch him and lower him gently to the deck. “What did he do?”

  The security chief shook his head. “I don’t know, sir.” Reaching for his tricorder, he activated it and waved it over Abrenn’s chest armor. “It’s some kind of burst transmitter. A distress beacon, maybe?”

  Alarm klaxons wailed once more across the hangar bay, followed by the harried voice of Lieutenant Sulu booming through the intercom system. “All hands, brace for impact! The Tandaran vessel is on a collision course! ”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Cocoa Beach, Florida

  March 29, 1968

  With dawn peeking over the horizon and stretching across the Atlantic Ocean, the giant Saturn rocket gleamed in the distance at nearby McKinley Rocket Base, just visible over the treetops with the first rays of the sun. It was, James Wainwright conceded, magnificent; a triumph of modern technology and resolve. Soon, rockets like the one now towering into the morning sky would carry men to the moon, in keeping with the bold challenge thrown down by President John Kennedy just seven years earlier. While the president himself was gone, struck down in a moment of horror by an assassin’s bullet, his dream persisted, willed into reality by the hundreds of thousands of men and women and billions of dollars committed to the effort.

  “It’s really quite something, isn’t it?” asked Allison Marshall, standing behind him and leaning against the fender of their government-issued blue Ford sedan.

  Standing with his hands in his pockets, he looked over his shoulder at her and smiled. “I used to dream about stuff like this when I was a kid, reading all those stories and watching those movies. I wanted to be Flash Gordon, or Buck Rogers, or Captain Proton. Hell, I wanted to be Alan Shepard or John Glenn. I still do.” It was a notion that made him smile. Approaching his fifty-first birthday, he still enjoyed reading the fictional exploits of space adventurers, and he had followed the various missions of the Mercury and Gemini space programs and their progress toward meeting Kennedy’s goal by the end of the decade. Still, much of that had lost its allure in the face of the truth about space travel as presented to him by his own job. Despite his best efforts, Wainwright had failed to separate his work from other aspects of his life, and as a consequence the fantasies—and fun—of his youth were forever lost.

  What the hell are you doing? Get back to work.

  Drawing a deep breath, Wainwright blew it out before returning his focus to the matter at hand. “Okay, let’s get to it.” He turned back to the car and the briefcase Marshall already had placed on its hood. “You take the scanner this time. Damned thing gave me fits yesterday.” Eyeing the clipboard-sized device given to them by Mestral, he shook his head as he recalled his troubles while attempting to master its functions, which he knew were quite simple in keeping with their Vulcan friend’s intentions. As designed, the scanner would be able to detect the presence of any non-human. After studying the odd harness belonging to the Certoss killed by Wainwright and Marshall in Yuma fifteen years earlier, Mestral had been able to key the scanner so that it should work even when the target was using such a harness to appear human.

  At least, I hope so.

  “Let’s go,” he said, eyeing the apartment complex’s parking lot that still was near capacity even at this early hour. “People are going to be heading to work soon.” A background check on the apartment village revealed that, like the three such complexes they had investigated the previous day, a significant number of tenants worked for NASA or one of the government agencies or civilian firms attached to the various efforts under way at McKinley as well as Cape Canaveral just a few miles farther up the Florida coast. The day would be one filled with all manner of final preparations for the launch scheduled to take place later that afternoon. Wainwright and Marshall had passed several trucks outside the McKinley gates, with reporters and camera operators from the various radio and television news bureaus
, and he had seen a satellite parking lot for journalists and other members of the media already filled to overflowing. While there could be no hiding the fact that a rocket was launching today, Wainwright knew that only a fraction of the people on the base were aware of what really was taking place, and the truth of the rocket’s classified payload. The question, of course, was which of those people were not native to this planet.

  “Ready?” Marshall asked.

  Wainwright nodded. “As ready as ever, I guess.” After years of attempting to track the Certoss agents’ movements, along with the occasional fragment of information provided by Cal Sutherland’s various contacts within the NASA community, he and Marshall—with help from Mestral—had spent weeks putting together a plan for hunting the aliens. Their strategy hinged on the assumption that the operatives, wanting to avoid undue attention while working on the nuclear weapons platform project, would have found roles and jobs that would keep them from anything resembling a “spotlight.” Mestral had suggested that an engineering or other technical role, something offering access to the rockets’ hardware and computer support systems, was the ideal cover identity. It was a sensible notion, though it only narrowed the field of potential targets to several hundred suspects just here in the Cocoa Beach area.

  So, we should probably get started.

  • • •

  The scanner in Marshall’s hand went off within the first five minutes.

  “Really?” Wainwright asked, his eyes widening as he regarded his partner.

  Nodding, Marshall held up the scanner for him to see. The needle on the unit’s display—a gauge repurposed from an old Geiger counter so that the numbers on its face now represented distance from their target—had pegged out at the scanner’s maximum detection range. “He’s within one hundred feet.”

  “That could be anywhere around here,” Wainwright said, lamenting the scanner’s one obvious detriment of being unable to determine the direction of their target. Like the Geiger counters from which most of its parts had been taken, only sweeping the device so that its forward sensing component could focus on the object of their search provided any hint as to the correct bearing. Sighing, Wainwright studied the catwalk on which they stood, which encircled the apartment building’s third floor. A dozen closed doors lay ahead of them. The Certoss agents could be in any of the first half of those or in a corresponding apartment on either of the neighboring floors.