Collision Course

by William Shatner

  “Head out this door,” the officer said, “turn left, and proceed across the plaza to the warp-core facility—what we like to call Ground Zero. Yeoman Bell will give you your tricorders at the main doors.”

  Tricorders, Kirk thought. Yes!

  The rest of this was going to be easy.

  38

  It was the scene of the crime, and Kirk couldn’t have been happier.

  Ground Zero, also known as the warp-demonstration lab, was an austere, industrial hall roughly the size of a tennis court. Half of it was given over to the traditional tiers of raised seats facing the other half—the lab area proper.

  There, a fully operational, class-E shuttle warp core lay on a series of support pylons bolted to the floor. Five and a half meters long, half a meter in diameter, the core was a few years behind the latest class-F models used on modern shuttlecraft, but in basic design and function, it was little different from the first dual-nacelle cores hand-built by Cochrane for use in the Phoenix, and later the Bonaventure.

  Despite himself, Kirk whistled softly as he walked down the steep stairs that divided the tiered seats. “Two of those can do warp three for a week,” he told Spock, “on less than five kilos of antimatter.”

  “Vulcan shuttles can achieve warp five,” Spock remarked, ending the discussion.

  As he made his way down the rest of the stairs and then across the lab area to stand by the core with the others, Kirk took careful note of the layout.

  The floor in this lab was gray polyduranium, textured for traction. Though there was no need for that here, as the floor was quite unlikely to pitch and yaw, Kirk knew it was the decking of choice for most Starfleet engine rooms. He guessed that it had been installed in this lab simply to lend authenticity.

  Since the banks of engineering computers were arranged about two meters away from the warp core, Kirk reckoned the test warp bubble it created was smaller than the cleared area. That area was clearly delineated by alternating hash marks of yellow and black. Blank for now, a large status board hung down from the high ceiling to the right of the core. The display board was angled for viewing both by any operators assigned to the control station to the left and by the students in the tiered seats.

  There were no windows—the lab was underground. Some of its illumination came from worklights mounted over key computer stations, but mostly it came from bright lightstrips hanging from the ceiling. In the shadows above those fixtures, Kirk saw reinforced support beams and an intricate weaving of brightly painted pipes and conduits, carrying everything from fresh air to fire-suppression gases. Very few of the drab gray wall surfaces were finished to any extent.

  Kirk had the sense the warp-core demonstration lab was in a constant state of change, perhaps to keep up with new developments in the technology.

  Then he saw what he had come for—the dilithium vault.

  It was in a far corner, though still visible from the student seats, a squat cube about chest height and, like the warp-core pylons, bolted directly into the polyduranium floor.

  A security input panel was located beside the vault’s door. Mounted below the door were two polished metal arms that could be swung up like rails to position the dilithium holding frame while it was being slid into or out of the vault interior once the door had been opened.

  Overall, the vault was clearly not as secure as one that might be found in a civilian setting, so Kirk guessed it was like the floor here—a re-creation of the kind of security installation found on board a Starfleet vessel. No wonder it was so easy to break into, Kirk thought.

  Of course, he reminded himself, on a vessel underway, the engine room would always be staffed, and there would be little opportunity for anyone to surreptitiously gain access to the vault. In this teaching lab, anyone who went to the vault would have to pass the operators, but if no operators were on duty and the lab wasn’t in use, then there would be many times that there’d be no one here to be a witness.

  To Kirk, that meant there had to be surveillance devices in place.

  As the orientation officer began to identify the main parts of the core, Kirk looked around to locate the visual sensors he knew had to be present. They were easy to spot ringing the lab from wall mounts, and they were all standard. Good, he thought. They’d be as easy to fool with a sensor repeater as the ones he’d outwitted in the Starfleet parking lot last week.

  “Mr. Kirk!”

  Kirk started guiltily and shifted his full attention to the annoyed red-shirted officer.

  “Since you are clearly so familiar with warp technology, perhaps you could tell the group why this grill is located in this position, and not where it would be easier to service?”

  Kirk drew a blank, groaned inwardly. He’d heard nothing of the officer’s lecture while he’d been scanning the room. If he were now sent from the lab in disgrace, that would be the end of any attempt to search the vault.

  Beside him, Spock raised his hand to his mouth, coughed in such a way that it almost sounded as if he had said, “Plasma intercooler.”

  Kirk blinked and refocused his gaze on the officer. The man was standing near the raised grills of an intercooler access plate. That was all he needed to know. He began rattling off his answer to the challenge.

  “The plasma intercooler provides plasma coolant to the warp drive. In the event of overheating, emergency cooling can be manually initiated by a forced coolant dump. If the intercooler access grill was located in a position more convenient for servicing, that would also mean that in the event of a dump, superheated coolant would be directed toward the vehicle, instead of away from it, with the potential to cause a catastrophic hull breach and loss of vehicle.”

  The officer nodded, pleased. “Well done, Recruit. That’s word for word. Is it your habit to memorize every textbook you read?”

  “Just the interesting ones, sir.”

  The officer looked at the other mids. “That’s how it’s done, gentlemen.” He patted the core. “You work with one of these, with two hundred fellow crew depending on it to get them home, and when something goes wrong, there’s no time to look up procedures in the computer. Everything you need to know to save your ship and your crew has to be burned into permanent memory—” He tapped the side of his head. “—right here.”

  The officer then walked over to the nacelle cap and swung open the dome to reveal the photonic impeller blades. As he began to describe their operation, Kirk gave Spock the elbow.

  Spock at once drew back, but nodded as Kirk whispered, “Thanks for protecting my back.”

  Kirk braced himself for the inevitable question, but Spock had a different question for him. “Have you actually memorized an entire warp-propulsion textbook?” the Vulcan whispered.

  “Why?” Kirk asked, “Don’t think we humans have it in us?”

  But it was obvious that wasn’t what Spock meant. “I was only curious to know when someone with your aversion to Starfleet would have had occasion to read such a text.”

  Kirk brushed off his interest. “Long space voyages.” He pointed to the dilithium vault in the corner. “Can you get a reading on that? See if you can pick up a carrier from a dormant jamming circuit?”

  Spock examined the two parts of the tricorder he carried—the sensor wand in one hand, the main body hanging on a strap from his shoulder. He flicked the sensor on, checked the main unit’s display. “In theory, yes. But I shall need to be closer.” He looked apologetic. “This is marked as a training tricorder and its range has been severely restricted. Very illogical.”

  “Not really,” Kirk said. “It’s to avoid temptation.”

  Spock didn’t understand.

  “Tune it to the right frequencies and you can use it to see through clothes.”

  Spock was appalled.

  Kirk suppressed a laugh. “We’ll get closer,” he said. Then, to avoid being asked a question about something he might not have memorized so many years ago, he paid attention to the rest of the officer’s continuing lecture. Much
as he hated to admit it, it was kind of interesting.

  Forty-five minutes later, Kirk hadn’t managed to get any closer to the dilithium vault, and the red-shirted officer was directing his group up the stairs, telling them how to proceed to the next point on their tour.

  Kirk let the mids go first, then slipped his ball cap out of a utility pocket on his uniform trousers and moved to drop the cap along the side of his leg to land behind a seatback.

  Spock was the only one to have seen what he did, but before he could say anything, Kirk shook his head no, and motioned for the Vulcan to start up the stairs.

  Waiting at the lift in the corridor, Kirk suddenly raised his hand to get the officer’s attention. “Sir, my cover must’ve fallen out of my pocket. May I go back to get it?”

  All the mids looked at Kirk. Caps weren’t part of their uniforms. Neither were pockets.

  “In the lab?” the officer asked.

  “I believe so, sir.”

  “You have two minutes—go!”

  “Yes, sir!” Kirk ran back to the lab, counting seconds.

  Outside the main doors, he set the tricorder to visual scan, opened one door a crack, slipped the sensor wand through, and captured a visual image of the empty lab beyond. Then, using a trick Joonie-Ben had showed him, he opened the back of the tricorder, removed the thumbnail-size range-delimiter card from the main sensor input, and reset the power output to maximum. Now the tricorder was capable of transmitting a sensor signal consisting of any pattern already stored in its memory. Kirk had turned the device into a crude sensor repeater.

  As his count reached forty, Kirk pushed through the doors and charged down the stairs. With the tricorder transmitting the visual image of the empty lab, no visual sensor would record his presence—he hoped.

  By a count of sixty-five, he was beside the dilithium vault, out of breath. He checked for the positions of the visual sensors, then slid down to the floor on the far side of the vault with his back to it. In this position, he couldn’t be seen, and he changed the tricorder’s function from transmit to scan. By seventy-five, he had begun to sweep up and down the translinear spectrum, trying to get an echo back from any nearby duotronic circuitry designed to dampen a security alarm.

  He found it, focused…moved the sensor wand back and forth…and there it was! A clear signal coming from the door of the vault! Just as he’d suspected, the circuit that had protected the real thieves from discovery had been installed as part of the vault’s upgrade.

  The count was ninety, but Kirk didn’t care. He’d estimated that once he’d been gone for the two-minute mark, it would take another thirty seconds for the officer to reach the lab to search for him. If he was running up the stairs with his cap by then, everything would be fine.

  Which meant he still had more than a minute to open the vault and grab the thieves’ circuit, recording everything with his tricorder to show to Federation Security.

  Kirk stood directly in front of the vault door, adjusted the tricorder to function as an override, then aimed the device at the vault, knowing he was now being recorded by the visual sensors. But that didn’t matter anymore. He had nothing to hide. The authorities would have to listen to him.

  He activated the jamming circuitry with a standard signal, then took a breath and, counting on Starfleet doing everything by the book, entered Elissa’s security code into the tricorder’s transmit function and pressed send.

  Now that Elissa had been cleared of all wrongdoing, he anticipated that her codes had been restored. And they had.

  Kirk almost whooped with relief as the vault door’s lights blinked on, one by one, and he heard it click open.

  He put the sensor wand on top of the vault, swung the thick door open, and—

  There was nothing in the holding frame.

  The dilithium that had replaced the stolen crystals was gone.

  Kirk recovered swiftly, decided that couldn’t be his problem now. He’d lost count of how much time he had, knew he had to hurry.

  He checked the inner surface of the vault door, saw the access panel where the upgraded circuits had been installed.

  And in the same instant that he realized he had nothing he could use to open that panel, a strange musical note rose up and the vault was washed by a flickering golden light.

  Transporter.

  With a sinking feeling, Kirk slowly turned just as three Starfleet Security officers with drawn laser pistols solidified around him.

  Kirk raised his hands. “I can explain,” he said.

  No one was interested.

  39

  Fourteen-year-old Jimmy Kirk ran across the hard, frozen ground toward the glade that bordered the Leighton farm. The cold air burned his lungs, but he couldn’t let that stop him. The kids were out here somewhere. His kids. His responsibility.

  As the oldest in the cabin, he’d made sure their clothes were clean and they wrote notes back to their families and read the lessons about crop rotation and how to care for transcattle. But now he couldn’t fool himself anymore about what was really happening. He couldn’t look the other way and hope for the best. His job now was to keep his kids alive.

  He reached the edge of the glade, and the trees there rose up like a wave about to crash, a wall of black blocking the faint star glow of night. He paused to catch his breath before plunging into the utter darkness of the glade, searching desperately for any sign of the path the kids might have taken.

  Then his eyes caught a red flicker to the left. Another. Two more after that. Laser fire in the glade. He flinched, apprehensive, afraid to call out. But he took off in the direction of the shots, running helter-skelter, banging into trees, stumbling over roots and fallen logs, catching his own laser rifle on low branches.

  He was lost and on his own, and the only thing that kept him moving was his kids.

  Up ahead he saw the flash and glow of palmlights moving in a clearing. At once, he forced himself to slow down and breathe quietly while he crept up to the clearing’s edge, maintaining cover. He needed to see who held the palmlights and what they were doing.

  Adults. Two of them. He thought he might have glimpsed other people in the clearing, maybe huddled or lying on the ground on the other side, but the palmlights no longer shone there, so he couldn’t tell.

  He held his position, unsure what to do, worried that Matthew and his followers would come crashing through from the other side. Then he’d never find the missing kids.

  He thought quickly, frantically, then decided to let the adults go on their way, and dare crossing the clearing by himself. He tried not to think of what he might find on the other side. But if any of his kids were hiding there, then at least he’d see what had happened to them.

  He concentrated on the two tall figures who stood together in the clearing, their palmlights spilling down, illuminating their legs and boots but nothing else. They appeared to be looking at something one of them held. Jimmy could see the pale blue glow that came up from it. It was just like the light from a small sensor display. Then—

  Jimmy blinked. For just a moment, one of the adults had seemed to have two heads. He didn’t think there were any aliens in this colony. He didn’t know of any aliens with two heads. Would aliens be part of a rescue party?

  The two figures turned in his direction, and Jimmy was pinned in the palmlights. The beams were so bright his eyes hurt and he couldn’t see to run.

  In his instant panic, he barely heard the voice calling out to him. “It’s all right, child, come out. Nothing bad will happen.”

  Jimmy froze, conflicted. He knew that voice. It sounded kind.

  “There’s someone here who thinks he knows you.”

  “Jimmy?”

  “It was Donny Roy.”

  “Jimmy? I’m cold. Please help me.”

  Jimmy had no choice. He stood up and pushed through the last, crackling barricade of old dry branches and into the clearing, holding one hand to shield his eyes from the lights.

  “Donny?�
�

  He was close enough now to see the two adults clearly. One was an older teenager unknown to him. The other was a red-haired man with a high forehead and neatly trimmed beard and mustache. He looked familiar, maybe one of the farmers he had met this summer?

  “Kirk?” the man asked, solving the mystery of why he’d appeared to have two heads. He was carrying Donny inside his cloak.

  Now Jimmy knew why the red-haired man’s voice was familiar. He’d heard it on the public-address announcement.

  “I’m Jimmy Kirk. Are you the governor?”

  “I am,” the man confirmed. “Were you looking for your friend here?”

  Kirk nodded. For no reason he could articulate, he knew he shouldn’t mention he was looking for other kids, too.

  “Well, there you go then.” The governor gently let Donny to the ground and the little boy ran to Jimmy and wrapped his arms around his legs. Jimmy could feel his shivering.

  “I’ve heard good things about you, Kirk. That’s why you’re on my list. You understand what it means to be on my list?”

  Jimmy’s fingers went to the red bandana he wore.

  “That’s right. It means you’re working for me now. Helping our colony survive difficult times. Doing what we have to do. Do you agree?”

  Jimmy could barely find his voice, but he managed to say, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” The governor patted Donny’s head. “Are you ready to help with this little fellow?”

  Jimmy didn’t know what was expected of him, so he repeated what he’d said before. “Yes, sir.”

  The governor looked down at Jimmy sternly. “I want you to take him back to the storehouses. Go to any of the big tables there.” He pulled out a yellow card, handed it to Jimmy. “Give this to someone at the table—anyone with a red bandana—and tell them it’s for your friend. They’ll make sure he’s reunited with his parents.” The governor paused and gave Jimmy a piercing look. “It’s important for children to be with their parents at a time like this. In difficult times, it’s the best way. The only way.”