Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

Fifteen

2270

“Here comes another one!” Sulu blurted.

A boulder-sized chunk of ice hurled toward the domed colony on the viewer. Between its size and its velocity, it had a good chance of breaching Skagway’s fading deflectors and maybe even the lunar habitat itself. A breach in the dome was a worst-case scenario that seemed to be growing more likely by the moment.

“Got it,” Chekov said.

Without waiting for a command to fire, Chekov unleashed a salvo of phaser beams that shattered the frozen meteoroid into hundreds of smaller fragments only moments before it would have slammed into Skagway. Vaporizing the object would have been cleaner, but they needed to conserve the phaser banks’ power. Pulverized ice crystals rained down on the besieged colony.

Chekov let out a held breath. “That was a close one.”

“Just like the last two,” Sulu commented. “Is it just me, or are these giant hailstones getting more and more frequent?”

“Your perceptions are quite accurate, Lieutenant,” Spock stated from the captain’s chair. “The frequency of such near-collisions has increased by a factor of six-point-seven over the last twenty-four hours. As the rings continue to destabilize, ever more debris is being drawn toward Klondike VI, placing Skagway in jeopardy, even as the moon’s own orbit brings it steadily closer to the inner rings — where it will face additional hazards.”

They were fighting a losing battle, Spock knew. Once Skagway entered the inner rings, the challenge of defending the colony would increase exponentially. And the Enterprise’s tractor beams, while state-of-the-art, were hardly sufficient to hold even a small moon in place.

He called up the latest tracking data on Skagway’s orbit. The figures scrolled across the display panel on his right armrest. He performed the necessary calculations in his head. The analysis took only seconds.

“Mr. Sulu.” He addressed the helmsman. “Skagway’s orbit has contracted by a factor of nine-point-two. Please adjust our own orbit to compensate.”

“Already on it, sir,” Sulu said. “Matching course and speed.” He kept his gaze fixed on the wayward moon. “Don’t worry, Mr. Spock, I’m not letting those people out of sight.”

Chekov sighed. “Too bad those drifting icebergs aren’t letting them alone, either.”

Spock detected a note of fatigue in the ensign’s voice. By his calculations, Chekov had now been on duty for fourteen hours, twelve minutes, and forty-four seconds. A swift review of Chekov’s defensive phaser fire indicated a slight but significant loss in reaction time. Spock made a decision.

“Lieutenant Ita,” he instructed, “please relieve Ensign Chekov at the nav station. Mr. Chekov, you are relieved.”

“Sir?” Chekov looked back at him in dismay.

“No criticism is intended, Ensign,” Spock assured him. Five years of working alongside humans had taught him the importance of taking their egos and emotions into account in command situations. Maintaining crew morale was not his forte, but he had learned that it was not a factor that could be safely overlooked, particularly where humans were concerned. “Your performance has been exemplary, but you, like all living organisms, are subject to fatigue. It is only logical to rotate key personnel as required. You may resume your duties after a suitable interval of rest.”

“Well, when you put it that way.” Chekov grudgingly surrendered his seat to Maggie Ita. He yawned and stretched. “I suppose I could use a little break.”

“Get some sleep,” Sulu urged his comrade. “You deserve it.”

Sulu sounded faintly envious. Spock resolved to relieve the helmsman, too, once Ita settled into phaser duty. It would be inadvisable to replace both Sulu and Chekov at the same time, but Spock calculated that approximately thirty-six-point-five minutes would allow for a smooth turnover at the conn. Any sooner might compromise their defense of Skagway, while any longer might decrease Sulu’s efficiency beyond an acceptable margin.

“Da.” Chekov trudged toward the turbolift. “I will be in my quarters if you need me.”

“Thank you, Ensign,” Spock stated. “That will be all.”

The turbolift doors closed on Chekov.

“What about you, Mr. Spock?” Uhura asked from her station. “You’ve barely rested since the captain… was taken ill.”

Spock appreciated her discretion. As planned, the reality of what had befallen Captain Kirk had not been shared with the entire crew. This, too, was a matter of maintaining morale. Only key officers had been made privy to the truth. As far as the rest of the crew was concerned, the captain had been temporarily incapacitated by his encounter with the alien probe and was now recuperating in sickbay. That seemed preferable to letting them know that James Kirk’s body was now occupied by a confused astronaut from twenty-first-century Earth and that the captain’s own mind was missing and presumed lost in the past.

“Your concern is duly noted, Lieutenant,” he replied to Uhura, “but, with all due respect to Ensign Chekov, I am afraid that I’m not so easily replaced. Fortunately, my Vulcan heritage also grants me greater endurance and ability to concentrate in such circumstances.”

Uhura did not sound convinced. “Are you sure that’s not just Vulcan pride speaking, Mr. Spock?”

“Merely an objective statement of fact, Lieutenant.” He did not object to Uhura questioning him. He knew that she was only thinking of the best interests of himself and the ship and that she had never been afraid to speak her mind. “False modesty is not logical.”

While accurate, his assertions did leave out certain qualifications. He had been in command of the Enterprise for precisely fifteen-point-six hours now, and fatigue was becoming an issue, even for him. Certain meditative techniques, along with the occasional bowl of plomeek soup, had helped to conserve his strength so far, but he could not maintain his focus indefinitely. Although he was reluctant to hand the bridge over to Lieutenant Commander Scott before the current crisis was resolved, especially since Mr. Scott was more usefully employed in Engineering, logic dictated that he eventually seek rest, too. He was half-human after all, even if he was loath to admit it.

“Incoming!” Sulu warned.

A trio of icy missiles threatened the colony. “I have them,” Ita reported. The slim Asian woman had recently transferred over from the U.S.S. Darrow. “Firing now.”

Sapphire beams targeted the first two meteoroids, which blew apart into — relatively — harmless hail. She hastily attempted to blast the remaining missile, too, but it was accelerating too fast. The massive hailstone cratered into the spaceport outside the dome. A cloud of shattered ice erupted from the shattered landing pad.

“Damn,” Ita muttered under her breath. She turned to look at Spock. “I’m sorry, sir. That last one got by me.”

Spock had observed her reactions carefully. “Why did you target the other two meteoroids first?”

“They seemed to be heading straight for the dome itself,” Ita replied. “I thought they posed the greater threat to colonists, sir.”

“Precisely so,” Spock agreed. “By my calculations, the meteoroids you destroyed were on course for more vulnerable targets. Do not fault yourself, Lieutenant. You made the correct choice.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Spock suspected that such decisions would become more difficult — and common — as time went by. Wide-dispersal blasts could be employed to target multiple hazards but only at the cost of reducing the overall intensity of the phasers. They would have to weigh the effectiveness of such a strategy against the need to ensure that no single large ice boulder breached the dome. None of which would matter if the entire moon ultimately spiraled into the crushing immensity of Klondike VI. The ship’s phasers and photon torpedoes were no match for the ringed giant’s gravity.

“Mr. Spock,” Uhura said. “Governor Dawson is hailing us. She wants an update on the situation.”

Spock understood her desire for fresh information. The destruction of the landing pad must have been a dramatic reminder of the danger her colony was in. He only wished he had a concrete solution to present to her.

“Please inform her that we are continuing our efforts to the best of our abilities.”

“I’ve tried, sir. She wants to talk to you.”

“Very well.” Spock accepted the interruption as unavoidable but decided that such a discussion was best conducted away from the bridge. “Please patch the frequency to the briefing room.” He thought ahead to the meeting. “And have Qat Zaldana report to the briefing room as well.”

The colony’s chief scientist was continuing to study the data from the shrinking hexagonal vortex on Klondike VI. No doubt Governor Dawson would want to hear from her, too.

“Aye, sir.”

He turned the captain’s chair over to Sulu, whose rest period was apparently going to have to wait. Ensign Brubaker assumed Sulu’s place at the helm.

“Notify me at once if there are any significant new developments,” Spock stated. “And divert additional power to the phasers.”

He did not want Skagway to be struck by an ice ball while he was conferring with the governor.

“Where is Captain Kirk?” Governor Dawson demanded. “I need to speak to him.”

She scowled in triplicate on the triscreen viewer in the briefing room. Spock and Qat Zaldana sat opposite each other. A sealed doorway ensured their privacy.

“My apologies, Governor,” he replied. “But, as I explained earlier, the captain is recovering from an accidental energy discharge. Our ship’s doctor has instructed that he not be disturbed.”

“That’s all very well and good,” Dawson objected, “but we’re fighting for our lives and home here, or have you forgotten that? I think that warrants ‘disturbing’ your captain.”

“The timing of the captain’s injury is unfortunate,” Spock said. “But the situation cannot be helped. I assure you that Captain Kirk would speak with you were he able.”

His answer was apparently not good enough for Dawson. Bypassing Spock, she directed her queries to Qat Zaldana instead. “What’s going on there, Qat? Have you seen the captain? What’s wrong with him? How bad is it?”

The veiled scientist paused before answering. “I have no reason to doubt Dr. McCoy’s assessment,” she said diplomatically. “Given the current emergency, he would not restrict the captain to bed rest unless it was absolutely necessary.” She spoke calmly, without excess emotion or dramatics. “In the meantime, Mr. Spock and the rest of the crew are working around the clock on our behalf. I believe we are in good hands.”

Spock was grateful for her measured words. She had, after all, seen “Kirk” behaving erratically after his contact with the probe. A vivid description of those events, including the captain’s apparent amnesia, would have done little to assure Governor Dawson that the situation aboard the Enterprise was under control. It seemed that Qat Zaldana also understood that.

“If you say so,” Dawson grumbled. “A hell of a time for Kirk to get himself banged up, though, I have to say.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t mean to sound uncaring, Mr. Spock, but right now I’ve got an entire colony on the verge of panicking, so you’ll forgive me if I can’t afford to worry about how your captain is feeling.”

“Understood,” Spock said. “The preservation of Skagway must remain your top priority… and mine. The Enterprise is devoting every resource to this crisis, as the captain would have us do.”

If he were truly here, he amended silently.

Spock remained troubled by the uncertainty regarding Kirk’s fate. Although he had no doubt where his duty lay at the moment, he could not help wondering what had become of his captain — and his friend.

Where are you, Jim? Do you still exist?

Governor Dawson called him back to the present emergency. “And have you made any progress?” she asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate all of that fine skeet shooting you’ve been doing, but we’re still getting pummeled down here, and our shields are about shot. And they tell me this entire moon is circling the drain.”

An apt metaphor, Spock thought. “That is correct. Your orbit is contracting steadily, and you can expect to enter the inner rings in forty-nine-point-eight standard hours.”

“Fantastic,” Dawson said sarcastically. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.” She gazed at Spock hopefully. “I don’t suppose that high-powered starship of yours can nudge us back where we belong?”

“Regretfully, no,” Spock said. “Our tractor beams are insufficient to the task.”

“I was afraid of that.” She didn’t sound too surprised. “So, what else have you got?”

Qat Zaldana spoke up. With Spock now occupied commanding the Enterprise, the bulk of the scientific analysis had fallen on her. “We’re still studying the situation, but we’ve determined that the trouble with the rings — and our moon — may have something to do with an unusual phenomenon we’ve detected down on the planet.”

“What phenomenon?”

Qat Zaldana explained about the apparently simul — taneous contraction of the hexagonal vortex at the planet’s pole. The governor was familiar with the land-mark, naturally, but was clearly uncertain about the significance of this development.

“I don’t understand,” the governor said. “What does that damn hexagon have to do with us?”

Spock wished he knew. “I have given the matter some thought,” he informed her. “We lack the data to reach a definitive conclusion, but let us theorize that the hexagon — or whatever lies within it — was somehow instrumental in maintaining the gravitational integrity of the planet’s rings. If that is so, then perhaps that ancient mechanism is now malfunctioning, with the results that we are currently witnessing.”

“Maybe it’s finally just broken down after all these years,” Qat Zaldana speculated. “I’ve been reviewing the data on both Klondike VI and other ringed planets such as Saturn, and I’ve determined that the hexagons might well be an artificial phenomenon, possibly along with the rings themselves. We think we understand the gravitational forces creating the rings, but what if the mass of the planet’s core is actually much less stable than we’ve always believed? I mean, it’s not like anyone has ever actually visited the core of a gas giant; that’s beyond our technology, even today. What if Klondike VI and planets like it are actually much denser than we suspect, and the hexagons somehow act as counteragents creating the conditions that allow the rings to exist?”

Governor Dawson shook her head. “Is that even possible?”

“Conceivably,” Spock stated. “The mass and density of a planet are not always fixed constants. I have personally witnessed the disintegration of a dying planet, whose gravity fluctuated dramatically in its final days.” The planet in question, Psi 2000, no longer existed at all, and the Enterprise had nearly been caught in its gravitational death throes. “It may be that Klondike VI is similarly variable — without the stabilizing influence of the hexagon.”

Dawson nodded. “All right. So, how do we get the hexagon working again?”

“That has yet to be determined,” Spock confessed.

“Why did I know you were going to say that?” She groaned aloud. “Look, this is all very interesting scientifically, but what about my people and this colony? What’s our time frame here?”

“As I said, we have more than two days before Skagway enters the inner rings, which will increase the danger by several orders of magnitude, and perhaps another twenty-seven hours before the moon enters the planet’s atmosphere.” Spock considered whether the time to find a solution that would save the colony, and all of its inhabitants, was running out. “We should accelerate our plans to evacuate the colony.”

By his calculations, it would take sixteen-point-thirty-three hours to bring aboard as many evacuees as the Enterprise could safely transport. Even allowing for an adequate margin of error, they still had time to spare, but they needed to prepare for the worst.

“I’ve already begun drawing up lists of who gets to leave and who has to stay,” she admitted ruefully. “Children first, of course, but after that, the choices will break your heart. I know they have mine.” The strain of her position showed on her face. “I knew I should have retired years ago. I could be on New Pangea now, playing with my grandchildren, not deciding who lives and who dies.”

Spock was Vulcan, but he still grieved with her.

“Perhaps it still won’t come to that,” Qat Zaldana said, but her words rang hollow. Unknowable cosmic forces were in play, and they were running out of time.

A warning siren sounded in the governor’s office. She looked up in alarm as the room shuddered on the screen. Dust fell from the ceiling. A paperweight rolled off her desk. “Helfrost,” she muttered. “Not ag—”

The transmission was cut off abruptly.

“Governor!” Qat Zaldana exclaimed. “Skooka!”

The intercom whistled. Spock hit the speaker button on the viewer. “Spock here.”

“Sorry to interrupt, sir,” Sulu reported from the bridge. “But another barrage of meteoroids just hit the moon, about twenty kilometers west of the colony. Probably shook things up a bit.”

Spock overlooked Sulu’s typically human lack of precision. He had already deduced as much from the tremor that had cut off the transmission.

“And the colony itself?” he asked.

“No direct hits on the dome,” Sulu reported. “It’s still in one piece.”

For now, Spock thought.

But for how much longer?