Elusive Salvation (Star Trek: The Original Series)

by Dayton Ward

  The screen faded, taking with it the admiral’s visage and leaving Kirk to stare at the blank monitor for a moment. Whatever was to happen next, it would involve politicians, but that did not mean he should not be thinking ahead. There was still much he could do to prepare Starfleet for the movement of resources needed to support the Iramahl if the diplomats from all sides were unable to craft an accord—or somehow managed to make things worse.

  Because as we all know, he mused as he sipped his brandy, that sort of thing never happens.

  Kirk had made his way back to his recliner and the inviting fireplace when he realized that some deity with nothing better to do had to be deriving entertainment at his expense, for it was at that moment that his door chime sounded.

  Someone has a death wish.

  Choosing this time to place his drink aside, Kirk left the glass on the recliner’s arm and stepped toward the door, which opened at his approach. He stopped, frowning at the blond woman darkening his doorstep. It took an extra moment for him to recognize his unexpected visitor, Roberta Lincoln.

  “Hello, Admiral. It’s nice to see you again.” Though she appeared several years older than the last time he’d seen her, there was no mistaking her wide smile or her bright blue eyes. She was dressed in a simple dark blue pantsuit with a pearl-white blouse, which Kirk took to be normal fashion for the late twentieth century.

  “Miss Lincoln. This is a surprise.” Remembering his manners, he stepped aside and gestured for her to enter his apartment. “I guess it’s been a while.”

  “In a lot of ways.” Walking into the living room, she took a moment to study the decor, including his collection of antique weapons and other mementos he had acquired during his career. She turned to the window and its vantage point overlooking San Francisco Bay. “Nice view.” After another lingering gaze at the bay and the cityscape beyond it, she turned to him. “Congratulations on your promotion, by the way.”

  Kirk smiled. “It was a while ago, but thank you. Obviously, you’re still working with Mister Seven. How long has it . . . ?”

  “Seventeen years, give or take the odd trip back and forth through time. Speaking of which? I got your message, but you probably already knew that.” She made a show of looking around the apartment. “Got anything to drink around here?”

  Once both of them had situated themselves in the recliners before Kirk’s fireplace, each with a brandy in hand, he said, “All right, so you got our message, but I don’t understand. Spock programmed the probe to travel back to a point closer to the time of our first meetings with you, and after that business with the Certoss. Did he miscalculate?”

  Roberta shook her head. “Not at all. Mister Spock was on the money with his computations. The probe arrived in late 1970, more or less right where he was aiming.” Shrugging, she held her hands away from her body in a gesture of regret. “We still haven’t found them, but the data you sent was very informative and helpful. It just took us a while to dig up anything worth reporting back to you.”

  “How long?”

  Sipping her brandy, Roberta blew out her breath. “It’s nineteen eighty-five back home.” No sooner did she say the words than she chuckled. “That sounds so weird when I say it that way.”

  “Fifteen years.” Kirk shook his head. It had been less than a day since Spock had deployed the probe and sent it on its warp-speed voyage around the sun.

  “Yeah. Seven and I have been kind of busy since the last time you saw us.” Roberta frowned, casting her gaze toward the fireplace. “I mean, since the last time we saw you. Whatever.” She waved a hand as though trying to shoo away a bothersome insect. “As rough as the sixties were? The seventies weren’t that much of a picnic, and the eighties are shaping up to be all kinds of crazy.”

  Kirk said nothing, content instead to listen to this woman who had led such a remarkable life. Gone but not completely forgotten was the young, naive secretary Roberta Lincoln once had been. Now she was a mature, wise woman who had seen and done things beyond the comprehension of almost anyone with whom she had not shared that experience. Even Kirk’s own shared adventures with her and the mysterious Gary Seven had given him only a fleeting glimpse into the demanding reality that was the lives of these two remarkable individuals.

  The 1980s, Kirk thought. Even with the incomplete records of that era that were available to modern historians, students, and other curious parties, he knew that the late twentieth century was something of a precipice for human civilization. This would be only partially understood at the time, and even in the decades immediately following that tumultuous period. The dawn of the twenty-first century would bring its own problems, of course, along with all manner of triumphs as humanity fought to stretch its wings beyond the confines of its own planet while at the same time struggling to keep that world from descending into everlasting chaos. Even as the first footprints disturbed the parched soil of Mars and humans stared with unaided eyes at the breathtaking beauty of Saturn’s rings and the storms of Jupiter, Earth was marching toward oblivion. And yet, somehow, the people of this world found a way to survive the destruction and despair that would all but consume it. How much of what humans finally became after scratching, scraping, and pulling themselves from the ruins of famine, environmental calamity, and nuclear war was due to the unheralded efforts of Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln?

  Kirk suspected he would never know the depth and scope of the answer to that question, although Seven had provided a few insights. It had been during a meeting with the furtive human agent some years ago, aboard the Enterprise near the end of Kirk’s five-year command. Seven had arrived much older than he had been during any of their previous meetings, and to this day Kirk was unsure whether the man had used time travel to visit him, or if he simply had enjoyed a prolonged lifespan thanks to the genetic enhancements imbued into him and his ancestors. The Eugenics Wars had been the crux of that conversation, but it had given Kirk reason to consider the impacts of other conflicts that had so burdened those times, such as the various Middle East clashes of the early twenty-first century and—eventually—World War III.

  Even if we had some extra help, we made it through all of that. I’ll take it. Thank you, Mister Seven.

  “Thank you, Miss Lincoln.”

  Shifting in her seat, Roberta eyed him with confusion. “Thank me for what?”

  Only then realizing he had said the words aloud, Kirk sipped his brandy and smiled. “You and Seven, and everything you’ve done, or will do. It’d be nice to hear about it all someday.”

  “Well, it’s funny you should say that. We had our share of help over the years. You know that, seeing as you’ve helped us a couple of times, yourself.” Roberta paused, finishing her drink. She drew a deep breath, savoring the last of her brandy, before returning her gaze to Kirk. “I could use your help again. Yours and Captain Spock’s.”

  “Our help?”

  “Like I said, it took us fifteen years to get any kind of a decent lead on these guys. They’d been hiding on Earth for more than a hundred years before you contacted me, and it looks like they’d gotten pretty good at it. Other than one verified encounter in the nineteen fifties, there was nothing concrete, but now we’ve got something solid: their ship.”

  Kirk said, “Really?”

  Nodding, Roberta replied, “Beta 5 thinks we might be able to use it to attract the Iramahl’s attention, but there’s also the Ptaen to deal with. They’ve managed to stay off our radar for years, as well, but now that we’ve got a pretty good idea how to find the Iramahl, we think the Ptaen will be coming hard.” Roberta shrugged. “So, I’m stacking the deck a bit.”

  Kirk considered this. “What does Seven say?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be annoyed when I tell him.” When Kirk laughed at that, it evoked another smile from Roberta, but it was short-lived. “Just you and Spock, like last time. We get in and get the job done, and I get you back here,
hopefully with the Iramahl.”

  Sighing, Kirk shook his head. “My file with the Department of Temporal Investigations is about to get bigger, isn’t it?”

  “Probably.”

  A rather insulated branch of the Federation Science Council, the DTI was tasked with the unique challenge of studying and reporting on any instances of time travel or encounters with temporal phenomena. Stories had circulated for years that the group had a special file just for Kirk, though no one at that agency had confirmed such rumors. Kirk himself preferred to think that such a dossier did exist. After the numerous bizarre run-ins he and the Enterprise had experienced with time-related oddities, he would be disappointed to find out no one had been recording such incidents for posterity.

  Maybe it’ll all make for a good book or two someday.

  “I’ll contact Spock,” he said, using the opportunity to drain the rest of his brandy. “He’s going to love this.”

  Roberta regarded him with a sidelong glance. “What about your superiors? What will Admiral Nogura say?”

  Echoing her earlier remark, Kirk replied, “I’m sure he’ll be annoyed when I tell him.” In truth, Nogura and Admiral Morrow would likely fly into a monumental rage when they learned what Kirk proposed to do. “So, I’ll tell him when we get back.” He studied his now empty glass. “Time travel. You know, I’m never going to get used to this sort of thing. Given everything that’s at stake, how do you stay so calm?”

  Roberta said, “There’s really no need to rush when we’re talking about time travel.” Pushing herself from the recliner, Kirk noted her sudden wide, enthusiastic smile. “Oh, wow, speaking of time travel, that reminds me: There’s this great movie that’s playing. Maybe there’ll be a chance after all of this for you to see it. There’s this kid, and he’s got a friend who turns a car into a time machine. It’s insanely funny.”

  Kirk eyed her with amusement, only partly understanding her meaning. “What year are you taking us to, again?”

  Sixteen

  United States Coast Guard Cutter

  Polar Sea—The Northwest Passage

  August 8, 1985

  Never in his young life had Charlie Atwell seen anything so beautiful.

  Leaning against the rail, cigarette in his hand and enjoying the crisp Arctic air, he smiled at the wonder that was the ice field surrounding the ship as well as the coastline to starboard. He listened to the sound of the hull breaking the ice ahead, and felt the vibrations in the railing and the deck beneath his boots, as the Polar Sea made its way ever forward with slow, steady determination.

  “Something else, isn’t it?”

  Atwell turned to see his friend Susan London making her way along the deck toward him.

  “Yeah, it’s something,” he replied, taking a drag on his cigarette.

  Gesturing toward the water, which now was home to thick sheets of ice as well as larger chunks that had broken away from the glaciers lining both sides of the channel, London said, “Kind of like poking Mother Nature in the eye with a sharp stick, right? She says you can’t come up here, and we say, ‘Screw that.’ Kind of like climbing a mountain or going to the moon, right? We just decide to do something, and it gets done.” She pointed toward another massive glacier looming ahead, some distance off the ship’s starboard bow. “You don’t see this kind of thing in Florida, that’s for damned sure.”

  “Do you even have ice in Florida?” asked Atwell.

  London shrugged. “In freezers, and in drinks, but that’s about it.”

  “I’ve seen crazy ice storms every once in a while,” replied Atwell, “but nothing like this.” As a native of Independence, a small Missouri city just to the east of Kansas City, he had seen his share of what he thought were harsh winters, but all of that went away upon his posting to the Polar Sea. Even the pictures his grandparents had brought back from their two-week Alaskan cruise, which had included a transit through the Inside Passage and the Gulf of Alaska, had not prepared him for the pure grandeur that was the Arctic Circle.

  “This ain’t nothing.” London grinned. “Wait until they send us down under.”

  Atwell had read about the ship’s previous missions to Antarctica, which included breaking channels through the ice floes of the Ross Sea so that a string of supply ships could bring food, fuel, and all manner of other cargo to McMurdo Station, the permanent international research center that was home to several hundred scientists, engineers, and other support personnel. London had already made one such journey to that inhospitable region, and Atwell could not wait for his turn. The trip would take nearly six months to complete, but it would be worth it for him to go to a part of the world visited by none but a privileged few.

  Life in the coast guard had delivered several of the so-called promises offered on that fateful day the previous summer when Atwell decided to visit a recruiting office, travel being chief among them. Until his enlistment, and not counting routine hops across the state line into Kansas, he had never ventured out of Missouri. The farthest he had been away from Independence was St. Louis, and then only to see his hometown Chiefs take on the Cardinals. A brief stint in the coast guard offered more opportunity than he would ever have if had stayed home and gone to work in the family furniture store, and once his tour was done he would go to college. Maybe he would decide on the University of Kansas or perhaps one of the schools in or around the Seattle area that was the Polar Sea’s home port.

  For now, though, this life would do quite nicely.

  “Any word from topside?” he asked, taking the last pull from his cigarette before snuffing it out and beginning the process of “field stripping” the butt by removing the unused tobacco and balling up the filter and leftover paper. Though smoking was allowed on deck, it was considered a mortal sin in the military to flick a spent cigarette overboard, or to the ground if they were ashore. The nearest butt can was hanging on the bulkhead next to the hatch where Atwell had come outside from the galley. He would toss his remnants there on his way back inside.

  Watching this process with no small amount of amusement, London replied, “There was some squawk this morning, but nothing since then.” Unlike Atwell, who worked in the ship’s engineering spaces, his friend worked in the communications shack close to the bridge. Because of her job, including the incoming and outgoing message traffic she saw every day, London was privy to news, rumors, and gossip well ahead of most of the Polar Sea’s crew.

  The situation had been tense for more than a week, ever since the ship began its transit of the Northwest Passage on its way from Greenland to Alaska. What had begun as a simple supply mission had become an international incident between the governments of the United States and Canada.

  Canada? Who the hell provokes Canada? Is that even possible?

  The idea behind the transit had been easy enough, in that the coast guard higher-ups had figured out that the passage represented a shorter, less costly route than sending the Polar Sea south and through the Panama Canal. While this was obvious to almost anyone who could read a map, the problem with the idea was that ownership of the passage was in dispute. Canada had declared the route to be within their borders, whereas the United States held the position that the passage was within international waters and therefore open to shipping traffic. Granted, navigating the region was all but impossible most of the year, save for vessels like the Polar Sea, with hulls and the engine power to drive the ship through the otherwise unyielding ice, but the politics of the matter were of greater concern.

  Despite a lack of official authorization from the Canadian government, the coast guard ordered the Polar Sea into the passage, and the ship had begun its transit just over a week earlier, on the first day of August. From what he had heard from brief snippets of radio news broadcasts, the trip was making headlines across the United States and Canada as well as countries abroad. Even the Russians were taking an interest in the affair, with thei
r government even going so far as to support Canada’s claim of sovereignty over the passage.

  We got the Commies siding with Canada. How does that even happen?

  In sharp contrast to the public perception of deep political tension between Canada and the United States—at least some of which was well earned, the way Atwell understood things—and regardless of how diplomacy played out over the next days and weeks, things at the moment were far more pleasant on the Polar Sea. A team of Canadian observers was traveling aboard ship, and for the most part, they had been polite, at least during the few instances where their paths had crossed with Atwell’s. One advantage of being a machinist’s mate was that you could duck and avoid “dog and pony shows” and guided tours for guests who were not very interested in seeing the guts of a naval vessel. Better to keep those people topside, with the portholes and the hot coffee.

  Speaking of coffee, Atwell mused, that sounds like a damned fine idea.

  “I’m heading back inside,” he announced, closing his fist around his spent and stripped cigarette butt and crushing it into an even tighter ball. “Going to grab a cup of coffee before I head back below. Interested?”

  London nodded. “Sounds like a plan.” Her expression shifted, and Atwell saw her eyes widen as she pointed to something away from the ship. “Holy crap! What is that?”

  Turning to look in the indicated direction, Atwell saw that the Polar Sea was coming abreast of yet another mammoth glacier, and he watched an enormous hunk of polar ice in the final seconds of calving away and falling into the sea. The plunge forced plumes of water into the air that showered down upon the newly formed iceberg as it bobbed and listed to one side before righting itself. Ice already in the vicinity of the point of entry was pushed away, crashing into still more unbroken ice as everything seemed to shift and make room for the new arrival. Seconds later, Atwell was sure he felt the ship itself heave as ripples carried along the water beneath the ice pushed outward across the channel.