Star Trek: The Rings of Time (24 page)

“At least have some hot tea,” he pressed. “To soothe your nerves.”

“Fat chance.” She found his solicitous attitude both amusing and annoying. “Stop clucking at me, Doc. You’re in danger of becoming a cliché.”

“Just drink the damn tea,” he said patiently. “Doctor’s orders.”

She knew a losing battle when she saw one. “Yes, Mother.” She accepted the sealed, microwave-safe bottle, which was warm to the touch. Conventional teacups were useless in space; you couldn’t pour without gravity. She sipped the hot beverage through a straw. “Happy now?”

“Yes, thank you.” He hooked the tray to the control panel in front of him. “For later, if you feel like it.”

“We’ll see.”

She finished off the spicy tea, not quite recognizing the flavor. It had a peculiar aftertaste that she chalked up to the effects of zero gravity on her taste buds. Despite the doc’s prediction, the tea did little to ease her anguished spirit. She couldn’t stop thinking about Shaun and what might have become of him.

“Do you think they’ll be able to fix him?” she asked. “Back on Earth?”

“I wish I knew. If you want, I can examine him again, once we’re under way. But I’m not exactly equipped to perform brain scans out here. That may have to wait until we’re back home.”

Three months from now . . .

“I understand,” she said glumly.

Fontana knew she had to face the possibility that the real Shaun, the one she’d loved, was gone forever, replaced by whatever impostor was wearing his face and body. She recalled kissing him in the airlock right before he jetted out to try to capture the probe. That was probably the last time she had seen the real Shaun.

At least I got to kiss him good-bye.

It was all too much. An overwhelming sense of exhaustion caught up with her, and she swayed unsteadily in her seat. Despite the lack of gravity, her limbs felt as if they were growing heavier by the moment. Her arms drifted limply at her sides. Bottled-up emotions bubbled up inside her, spilling out into the cockpit.

“Oh, Marcus! I’m not sure I can handle this. What if he’s really gone for good?”

“Don’t worry,” he said in a comforting tone. Capturing her hand, he patted it gently. “It’s all right. It will all be over soon.”

Huh? What did he mean by that?

“Maarcusss . . . ?” She slurred his name, suddenly finding it hard to speak. Her tongue felt as if it was wrapped in foil, like one of the snacks on the meal tray. The tea bottle slipped free of her fingers. She felt groggy and light-headed. A jolt of panic briefly dispelled the fog enveloping her mind. She watched the loose bottle drift away.

The tea,
she realized in shock.
It was doped.

O’Herlihy had drugged her.

She tried to ask him why, but all she could manage was a single mumbled syllable. “Whyyy . . .”

“I’m sorry, Alice. I truly am.” His mournful face blurred before her eyes. He plucked the tainted bottle from the air and returned it to the tray. His deep, sepulchral voice seemed to be coming from light-years away. “I’m proud to have served beside you and Shaun. You have to believe me.”

The flight deck seemed to be spinning around her. Creeping shadows, as black as space, encroached on her field of vision. Her eyelids drooped.

“It’s better this way,” he said. “You won’t feel a thing.”

The darkness swallowed her up.

2270

“Skagway approaching the inner rings, sir.”

Chekov once again manned his post on the bridge. Unfortunately, the situation had only worsened since his earlier attempts to defend the colony. As the errant moon neared the fringe of the rings, it came under assault from multiple vectors. There was no clear line of demarcation between the gap and the inner rings, so Skagway was already crossing into the path of orbiting debris. The potential for collisions increased, even as the barrage from the outer rings accelerated. Ice and dilithium crystals of varying sizes battered the lunar colony and the surrounding terrain. On the viewer, geysers of pulverized rock and ice erupted from the moon whenever a sizable meteor struck home. The dome’s fading shields flickered ominously.

“I can see that, Ensign,” Spock replied from the captain’s chair. He spoke a bit more sharply than he intended; he had not slept in days, and fatigue was taking its toll on his Vulcan reserve. He frowned at the screen. The crisis had escalated even faster than he had calculated. The evacuation was not yet complete. “Maintain defensive fire.”

Targeted widespread phaser salvos broke apart the boulder-sized ice balls into smaller particles that continued to slam into the moon and the vulnerable colony. Despite the crew’s best efforts, an ever-increasing number of meteors made it past the phasers to hit the moon. The dome shuddered visibly under the assault. Hairline cracks began to show on its surface. Spock assumed that repair crews were frantically attempting to shore up the failing dome from the inside.

Nor was Skagway alone under siege. Although the
Enterprise
was cruising above the rings, it was still being buffeted by random debris escaping their orbits. The bridge rocked beneath Spock. Repeated impacts tested their deflectors. A blow to the port side of the saucer jarred him, almost throwing him from his seat. Over by the turbolift entrance, a yeoman stumbled against a rail. Her data slate clattered onto the floor.

“Shields at seventy-two percent,” Chekov reported.

That was less than ideal, Spock noted, but his primary concern remained the colony, which was in a far more precarious situation than the
Enterprise.
He calculated that the dome had at most ninety minutes before it was breached beyond repair. While there were limited emergency shelters beneath the moon’s surface, he suspected that few colonists, if any, would still be alive by the time Skagway made it through the inner rings to spiral into the turbulent atmosphere and crushing pressure of Klondike VI. In any event, the moon itself would soon be lost in the gas giant’s swirling depths.

“Evacuation status?” he asked.

“Still under way,” Qat Zaldana reported from the
science station. She had volunteered to act as their liaison with the colony during the evacuation efforts. “Four hundred seventy-eight colonists are aboard, but there are still thirty-two more en route and waiting down on Skagway.” She looked away from her monitors. “We’re going as fast as we can, but this is a huge job. And that storm out there isn’t making it any easier.”

Spock appreciated the challenges involved. Shuttles had been employed around the clock to ferry the evacuees from Skagway to the
Enterprise,
but each shuttle could carry only twenty passengers at most. Tearful farewells at the spaceport had slowed the process, too, or so he was informed. Under the circumstances, however, he could hardly begrudge the colonists their emotions. He could only imagine what it would be like to lose one’s home and family to a cosmic disaster. Not even a Vulcan could be unmoved by such a catastrophe.

“If only we could just beam those people aboard,” Qat Zaldana lamented. “We’d be done by now.”

“That would require lowering the colony’s shields, as well as our own,” Spock reminded her, “which is hardly advisable under the circumstances. Even leaving the shuttlebay doors unshielded during landings and departures constitutes a significant risk.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just so frustrating. We can’t even take everybody as it is.”

Per the governor’s orders, children and adolescents had been evacuated first, followed by rank-and-file miners, assayers, technicians, clerks, and others who were not required to keep the colony functioning. Governor Dawson, her staff, emergency crews, and other essential personnel had chosen to remain at their posts until the end.

Spock was impressed by their courage and dedication in the face of certain death. There were those on Vulcan who did not understand why he chose to serve aboard a starship crewed primarily by humans. Many of his fellow Vulcans, he knew, regarded humans as regrettably illogical and questioned his willingness to live among them. Moments like this reminded him that there was more to the human race than their often flagrant emotionality and made him quietly proud of his human half.

“Continue evacuation procedures,” he instructed. “Save as many as we can.”

“Aye, sir,” Uhura said. “
Columbus
reports that it is taking off from Skagway now with a fresh load of evacuees.
Galileo
is preparing to head back to the colony.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Spock replied. “Urge them to exercise all necessary caution.”

With the barrage of high-velocity particles in-creasing in intensity, the shuttle flights were growing steadily riskier. Already, the shuttles had been forced to blast their way through the hailstorm with their shields on full.

Qat Zaldana turned the science station over to Lieutenant Kwan, who had been standing by to assist her. She crossed the shaking bridge to the command module, holding on to the safety rails to keep from losing her balance. Tremors rocked the floor beneath her feet.

“Mr. Spock,” she said quietly. “The moment has come. With your permission, I would like to board the last shuttle down to Skagway. Somebody else can take my place aboard the
Enterprise
.”

He nodded. “Are you quite certain of your decision?”

“Yes, Mr. Spock. This is something I must do.” Her veil concealed whatever emotions she might be experiencing. Her voice was as calm and steady as his own. “Please do not attempt to dissuade me.”

“I would not presume to do so. You are not a member of this crew under my command. I respect your right to choose your own fate.”

“Thank you for understanding.” She made her way toward the turbolift. “It has been a pleasure working with you. Please thank Captain Kirk for me. I hope he will be himself soon.”

Her remark struck Spock as curiously apropos. He arched an eyebrow. Had that been merely a casual turn of phrase, or did she know more than she ought to about the captain’s unusual condition?

“Mr. Spock!” Kwan called from the science station. “I’m detecting multiple launches from the colony!”

“What?” The announcement snared Qat Zaldana before she could exit the bridge. She lurched unsteadily back to the rail and stared up at the viewer. “That can’t be happening. There’s only one shuttle due back.”

But
Columbus
was not the only vessel departing the moon in a hurry. More than a dozen other vessels, ranging from shuttles to two-person prospector ships, lifted off from the battered hangars and landing pads surrounding the colony. Scouts, tugs, and ambulance ships fled the colony. Many of the ships were clearly not intended for anything more than a short jaunt about the moon itself, while others had been designed merely for mining the nearby rings. None of them was capable of making it to the nearest starbase or habitable planet. They had no place to go—except to the
Enterprise.

“There’s too many of them!” Chekov exclaimed. He cut off his phaser blasts for fear of striking one of the refugee ships. “We’ve no place to board all those vessels!”

“Nor do we have the capacity to take on excess refugees,” Spock noted. “This is not an orderly evacuation.”

“No,” Qat Zaldana agreed. “This is panic. Blind desperation.”

“Mr. Spock!” Uhura said. “A priority transmission from the governor.”

He had expected something of the sort. “Put her through. Visual at fifty percent.”

“Aye, sir.”

The image on the viewer was split down the middle. Governor Dawson appeared on the left side of the screen, while a view of the frantic exodus occupied the right. She looked distraught and disheveled, her silver hair hanging loose across her face. An untreated bruise on her cheek was evidence of a recent accident or struggle. The lights flickered in her office. Spock heard shouting, sirens, explosions, and phaser fire in the background.

“
Enterprise
!”
she addressed them.
“We’ve lost control down here. My people are panicking. They don’t want to be left behind.”
A loud crash off-screen caused her to flinch and look to one side before resuming her alert.
“A mob stormed the spaceport, trampled over my security people. We believe they’re heading your way.”

“We are aware of the situation,” Spock reported tersely. “But surely you realize that we cannot accommodate all of these extra refugees. Our life-support systems have their limits.”

“I told them that, Mr. Spock,”
she said.
“All they know is that you’re their only hope.”
She sagged in her seat, looking utterly defeated.
“I’m so sorry. We tried to reason with them, but they wouldn’t listen. They broke into the armory and pushed past our lines. Many of our security people refused to fire on their own friends and family. People are terrified. They don’t want to die.”

Spock was forced to reassess his view of humanity. Vulcans would not have succumbed to panic and hysteria like this. It was not logical.

Or was it? It occurred to him that even a remote chance of survival was mathematically superior to no chance at all. Even if only a handful of the rioters made it to safety, there was at least the possibility that you or your loved ones might be among them. Seen from that perspective, a desperate attempt to force one’s way onto the
Enterprise
was a perfectly logical choice, if not a very commendable one.

None of which made this particular complication any less vexing.

“I understand, Governor. I am confident that you and your people did your best.” He contemplated the chaotic exodus on the other half of the screen. “It appears that this is our problem now.”

“Don’t judge them too harshly,”
Dawson said, apologizing for her people.
“They’re not Starfleet, only ordinary miners and their families. They just want to live.”

“That may not be possible,” he said. “Spock out.”

Dawson’s image disappeared. A full view of the latest crisis filled the screen. A disorganized, ragtag flotilla braved the storm to close on the
Enterprise
. They buzzed around the much larger starship like a swarm of Lakodonian gnats. Scanning the chaos, Spock spotted
Columbus
trying to weave its way through the congestion to get back to the
Enterprise.
Random vessels crowded the shuttle, no doubt hoping to squeeze past it into the shuttlecraft bay.
Columbus
executed evasive maneuvers, trying to shake its unwanted escorts, but
the other craft stuck to it as though caught in its wake. They bounced and scraped against one another as they jockeyed for position. An older-model ferry, which looked as though it had been salvaged from a junkyard, lost power and fell behind.