Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (53 page)

Not the person. But tradition, and the ideals he served.” Picard settled back, decision made, course set, with little possibility of failure. “I believe it is a logical course of action,” he said.

Riker looked at him closely. “Another echo from Ambassador Sarek?” Picard was startled by the sudden feeling that Riker was somehow correct. He had a flash of another bridge surrounding him—smaller, cruder.

“Will, I think you’re right,” Picard said. “I think that sometime in the past, Ambassador Sarek did touch the mind of Kirk.” “Any memory of how this turned out?” Riker asked.

Picard concentrated but found only fleeting impressions. “No,” he said at last. “We’re going to have to discover that for ourselves.”

The triple compression wave moved through the Ian Shelton first, unfelt and unnoticed by Cochrane and the Companion. Their shuttlecraft was too small, their absorption in each other too strong for anything in this universe to disturb them. Their course was set. They flew on.

The triple compression wave moved through Kirk’s Enterprise next, following close behind the shuttlecraft, though the nature of space in this environment defied ordinary units of distance and time. Spock measured the wave as it pulsed through his instruments, and he started the countdown.

On Picard’s Enterprise, Worf undertook the same countdown, his forward tactical sensors pushed to their utmost limits to obtain even the weakest reading of the wave’s progression.

When the wave reached the exact halfway point between the two ships, Worf and Spock both gave their signals at the same instant. On those signals, Sulu fired his impulse engines in full reverse, slowing Kirk’s Enterprise just as McKnight fired her impulse engines for more forward velocity.

Picard’s Enterprise crested the triple compression wave and rushed forward, balancing the countercompression caused by Kirk’s Enterprise. Thus the triple wave rolled on between the two starships, restored, unchanged, and for all values of velocity and compression to remain equal in that environment, energy was stolen from the linked singularities. Just as Spock and La Forge had predicted.

Both ships used that energy to alter their courses in the tightly compressed space, to swing past the black hole’s pulsing, triple-lobed subspace horizon and loop around it, accelerating up toward freedom and the electromagnetic horizon separating them from their destinations.

Kirk’s Enterprise and Picard’s Enterprise—they flew together, side by side, the Ian Shelton nestled between them, securely cradled by the tractor beams of both ships.

Space flowed around the two starships as they moved together, coming so close that their shields merged in a sparkling of shared energy on a common course.

Protected together, protecting each other, the Enterprises escaped their fate, linked not by the captains who commanded them, but by the ideals that were common to both.

The event horizon loomed above them, and on Kirk’s Enterprise, Spock determined that they were being drawn along the wrong worldline, to a time that was not their own. On Picard’s Enterprise, La Forge calculated the same.

It was suddenly imperative that momentum be exchanged between the ships and the means to do it was obvious to both.

Communicating, indirectly, by common knowledge of the unchanging laws of physics, the universal law of mediocrity, Kirk’s Enterprise gently released her hold on the Ian Shelton. Just as gently, Picard’s Enterprise took up the task.

Minutes from the event horizon, the shuttlecraft and its momentum safely exchanged, the ships parted, Kirk to his time, Picard to his own. But just before their handshake across time was broken, before their relativistic frames of reference grew too separated in the mesh of temporal distortions, someone on the bridge of Picard’s ship, someone whose straitlaced aura of correctness concealed just a touch of Kirk’s rebellion, that someone happened to touch a control that sent out an automatic hail, in complete and utter defiance of Starfleet’s strict standing orders governing the transmission of information from the future to the past.

On the bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise, Uhura caught the hail, faint, almost nonexistent as the separation in time grew larger. But she did hear enough of it.

She took her earpiece out. Wide-eyed, she turned to her captain. She told him what she had heard.

“Captain Kirk,” she said. “They sent a hail.” She smiled in awe. “The other ship… it was the Enterprise, sir.” Kirk nodded. And silently sent his thanks out through time itself to the someone who had broken regulations to send that small acknowledgment, that tiny confirmation that the future was secure.

And on Picard’s Enterprise, Picard himself nonchalantly moved away from a communications control panel where he had just happened to find himself with his uninjured hand resting by the automatic hailing frequencies controls, unaffected by the coded lockouts. He returned to his chair. Troi smiled at him. She knew. She understood.

The years once again grew between Kirk and Picard but in the grand scale of things, there was little that separated them.

Each to their own time, both servants of the Federation, they reached the upper event horizon, and together yet apart they made their way back to their separate times and the destiny they served…

… the United Federation of Planets.

The stars burst like fireworks before Cochrane’s eyes and he blinked in surprise and excitement.

“We’re free!” the Companion exclaimed. “Oh, Zefram, we can go home!” Cochrane could still not believe what had happened. He had seen two starships, the Enterprise and one twice its size, fly in formation to either side of the shuttlecraft. He had seen the Emerprise veer off and disappear in the murk of the environment beyond the event horizon. He guessed that some rescue had been organized. Perhaps the larger ship that kept the shuttlecraft safe was the Excalibur or the Lexington, both of which Kirk had said were on their way to help.

There was no sense of movement as the gas disk of the black hole fell away from beneath them. They were in warp space, heading away from the tidal forces of the singularity. It had all worked out.

Then, in the moment of his rejoicing, Cochrane saw a shimmering of green light through the forward windows, and as he watched in utter astonishment, a green starship materialized out of the vacuum, and flew at him, weapons firing.

The stars burst like fireworks before Kirk’s eyes and he knew they were free from the event horizon.

An instant later, the bridge lights dimmed and damage alarms sounded.

“Och,” Scotty said from engineering, “there go the crystals.

And after what we’ve been through, we’ve only got a minute of power left.” “Shut down every system!” Kirk commanded. “Communications, environmental, everything! Put it all into propulsion, Mr.

Sulu.” Kirk knew they had to get as far away from the region of the black hole’s crushing tidal forces as they could, before his ship’s structural integrity field failed and the Enterprise was torn apart.

Spock was to Kirk’s right. “I regret to point out that we do not have sufficient reserves to escape the Roche limit,” he said flatly.

“These efforts are useless.” McCoy was on Kirk’s left. “You regret it?” “Scotty will get us out of here,” Kirk said. Scotty always did.

But Scotty said, “Not this time, Captain. With no matter-antimatter reactor, I’ve got nothing more t’ draw from. I’m sorry, sir.” Kirk straightened in his chair. There were no more options. No more rules to change. The odds could only be beaten so many times before the law of averages made itself known. The journey was over. As simple as that.

“You warned me, Scotty,” Kirk said, uncharacteristically quiet. the fire gone from him in this moment, accepting that even he had limits. “We took this ship into a black hole and we brought her out again. Maybe this is the way we’re supposed to go out.” “Being the first,” Spock said. u ‘And the best,” McCoy said.

Scott started the countdown from engineering. “Thirty seconds, Captain.” “l’m proud of you, Scotty. You kept her going when no one else could.” “Glad to have been aboard, sir,” the chief engineer replied softly. “Twenty-five seconds. The lights will go first. The SIF will fail a moment later. Just so ye know.” Kirk touched the intercom control on the arm of his chair. He spoke to his crew, to his ship, telling them of his pride in all of them. He spoke to the passengers he had rescued from the t’
w
itia. telling them of his sorrow. He ended the broadcast and in the privacy of the bridge said his farewells to Uhura, to Chekov, to Sulu.p>

He was surprised that in the end there were no real regrets.

“Ten seconds,” Scott said.

“I never thought it would end this way,” McCoy said.

Kirk forced a smile as he stared at the screen, wondering what he might see the instant before it happened, and the instant after.

“I never thought it would end, period,” he said.

“Five seconds,” Scott announced. “I’ll see you in Valhalla, gentlemen.” Beside him, Kirk heard Spock sigh. “At least it can be said that it was f—” A blinding blue flash flared from the viewscreen. A second flash followed, and with that all systems failed—the lights, the displays. the engine roar. Only battery lights remained, offering dim illumination for the final second.

Which became the final two seconds.

The final five seconds.

“Why are we still here?” McCoy asked.

“She didn’t go!” Chekov exclaimed.

“Obviously,” Spock commented.

And instantly Kirk realized what had happened. The flight recorder he had launched! The twin flashes of blue light!

He turned in his chair. “Uhura! Full battery power to communications! And get that screen going!” A moment later, Captain Harris of the U.S.S. Excalibur was grinning from that screen. “Welcome back, Enterprise.” Kirk felt like laughing, felt like crying, both together. “Tom.

Hello. Glad you could make it.” “I‘11 bet you are,” Harris laughed.

Another voice came over the speakers. “Jim, you old spacedog.

Am I reading my sensors right? You’ve got no power, no crystals, no nothing?” The screen image changed. Commodore Robert Wesley appeared, front and center on the bridge of the Lexington.

“Hello, Bob,” Kirk said to his old friend. “Thanks for the lift, and the tractor beams, and the shields.” Wesley shook his head in admiration. “Hold on tight, Jim.

We’ll be taking you to warp as soon as we calibrate with the Excalibur. “Wesley looked off to the side, grinned back at Kirk. “I tell you, Jim, from the damage statistics we’re getting from your ship, you’d better hope Starfleet doesn’t decide to deduct the damages from your salary. You could be flying these things for the next thousand years.” Kirk leaned back in his chair. “I’d settle for a hundred,” he said. “That would be just about right.” Then, like a wounded warrior carried victoriously from the field, the Enterprise rested in the shields of her companions.

Flanking her, supporting her, but adjusting their beams so she had the honor of leading the way, the Excalibur and the Lexington delivered the Enterprise from the gravity of TNC 65813, and returned her to the stars where she belonged.

The stars burst like fireworks before Picard’s eyes.

They had succeeded.

“Congratulations,” Riker said to Picard.

“To us all, Number One.” Picard turned to his engineer. “Mr.

La Forge. can we handle warp speed long enough to get us away from here?” “We should be able to manage a few light-hours, Captain.” “Mr. O’Brien,” Picard continued. “What is the status of the shuttlecraft?” “Two strong life signs,” O’Brien answered. “One human, one. u.” He shrugged. “Not human, I guess.” “Two? The captain of the Garneau was aware of only one passenger,” Picard said. “Will the tractor beam hold them till we get away from here?” “Yes. sir. For an hour or so at least.” “Very good,” Picard said. Already the next course of events was becoming clear to him. A brief warp flight to empty space. Then, a complete shutdown of the Enterprise’s computer system so they could bring it back on-line without the lockout codes the Thorsen personality had somehow programmed into it. To begin, work crews could get around the sealed doors and security screens by using the personnel transporters in the several shuttlecraft the ship carried. Those transporters could also be used to bring aboard their mysterious passengers from the past. “A day or two and we should be able to get underway for Betazed,” Picard said.

There was no sense in delivering a counterfeit Borg artifact to Admiral Hanson. “In time for the trade conference. And then we can see what we can do about restoring Mr. Data.” Riker carefully touched the splint on his leg. “And the rest of us,” he said.

“Ensign McKnight, plot a general heading toward Betazed, warp factor three.” “Course plotted, sir.” “Engage.” With only a slight hesitation, the Enterprise came to life around them. The gas disk of the Kabreigny Object began to shrink in the viewscreen.

“I wonder if that black hole was named after Admiral Quarlo Kabreigny?” Picard asked. “I have always found her essays about the dual nature of Starfleet most compelling.” “We’ll know as soon as we get our computer back,” Riker said.

A collision alarm sounded.

“Warbird decloaking!” Worf called out.

There could be only one explanation. “Tarl!” Riker said.

The viewscreen flickered as a phaser burst hit the ship.

“Shields at forty percent!” Worf announced.

“Captain,” La Forge said, “without a crew, we’re not going to be able to maintain even that strength for long.” “Maybe we should have brought Kirk into our time,” Picard said. “Mr. Worf, ready on phasers! Ready on photon torpedoes!” “The Warbird is coming around,” Worf said. “Our phasers are at fifty percent.” “Prepare for evasive maneuvers,” Picard warned his crew.

The Romulan Warbird filled the screen. The Enterprise shook from the fury of its attack.

“I’m all out of tricks,” Picard said. “The only thing we can do is—” The Warbird’s port side flared with a phaser hit. The ship twisted with the sudden vaporization of its hull plates. Two streaks that could only be photon torpedoes swept in through the shield opening and slipped between the double hulls. Then golden light flared within those hulls and the Warbird split in half, top and bottom, with her bridge tumbling forward until it, too, disintegrated in a fireball.