Assignment: Eternity

by Greg Cox

  “It’s hard to tell, sir,” Uhura said. She adjusted the knobs on the emissions blanking control, filtering out the atmospheric background noise. “I’m picking up some transmissions, but they’re in some sort of Romulan code.”

  Kirk peered at the readouts on the external communications panel, even though he knew Uhura could read them better than he could. “Are you sure they’re Romulan?” Motak’s apparent ignorance concerning the cloaked planet had half-convinced Kirk that Seven’s people, not the Romulans, were responsible for hiding the world. So why would they be using a Romulan code, unless this project is so top secret that not even a Romulan starship commander knows about it?

  “I think so, sir,” she said. “I studied Romulan cryptography at the Academy, and these transmissions fit those algorithms. They’re specially designed to baffle the universal translator, not to mention the rest of us.”

  “I see,” Kirk said, stepping away from the communications console. As he recalled, Starfleet Intelligence had never succeeded in cracking Romulan codes, not even during Earth’s first hardfought war with the Empire in the twenty-second century. “Do what you can to decipher them, Lieutenant.”

  What were the Romulans up to, not to mention Gary Seven and his organization? Looks like there’s only one way to get to the bottom of this. He marched toward the turbolift doors, his mind made up. “In the meantime, I’m leading a landing party to check things out for myself. Mr. Spock, I’m leaving you in command. Sulu, Chekov, you’re with me.”

  “Captain,” Spock said, rising from his science station. “Now is not a logical time to embark on a potentially hazardous mission. Are you sure that is wise?”

  “Maybe not wise,” Kirk replied, “but necessary.” Spock was right; this was not a decision to make lightly. He couldn’t help thinking, though, that vital matters were at stake. Why else would Seven be here, in this day and age? The last time their paths had crossed, back in the twentieth century, Seven had been instrumental in preventing a nuclear war. Did the present now face a similar threat? The terrible tragedy of an old-fashioned global conflict paled against the possibility of an all-out war between the Romulans and the Federation, especially if the Empire had pushed their cloaking technology to a whole new level. This was about more than just the Enterprise and its crew now. The entire galaxy might be in danger.

  He still had a responsibility to his crew, however. “One thing more,” he instructed Spock, “if anything happens to me, if you don’t hear from me for over an hour, I want you to take the Enterprise and get back to the Federation as quickly as possible.”

  “Jim!” McCoy protested. “That’s suicide! You have no idea what’s waiting for you down there.”

  Kirk ignored the doctor’s objections. “I repeat: You are not to mount any sort of rescue mission on my behalf. Your first and only priority is to get this ship and its crew safely home. Understood?”

  “Understood, Captain,” Spock answered. If the possibility of abandoning his friend light-years behind enemy lines disturbed him, he did not show it. Kirk wasn’t sure if he should be reassured or offended.

  * * *

  Not wanting to beam down into the middle of a potential firing squad, Kirk had Scotty transport the landing party to a site roughly half a kilometer from the perimeter of the presumed Romulan installation.

  This region of the mystery planet resembled other tropical jungles that Kirk had visited. A dense canopy of leaves, vines, and branches blotted out the sky while moist ferns and bracken covered the ground between abundant tree trunks wrapped in layers of moss. Thank goodness, he thought, for the safety scanners built into the transporter equipment; otherwise, they could have been easily beamed inside one of the gigantic towers of timber all around them.

  A light rain was falling, the tiny droplets streaming down his face, but the air remained warm and humid. Kirk wore only his usual shipboard uniform, but he felt decidedly overdressed. He assumed Chekov and Sulu felt the heat as well. Deep, bassy croaking came from the surrounding jungle brush; frogs, Kirk guessed, or something similar. Probably harmless, but he kept one hand on his phaser just in case.

  He stepped forward experimentally, gauging the planet’s gravity. It was a little heavier than he was used to, more like the gravity on Vulcan, but not excessively so. I wouldn’t want to run a marathon here, he decided, but this should be fine for a little covert reconnaissance. He sniffed the air: plenty of oxygen, along with the ripe, pungent smell of rotting underbrush. A real equatorial rain forest, all right. He wondered what the Romulans thought of the climate. If they were as similar to Vulcans as they looked, they probably liked the gravity and the heat, although this jungle was considerably damper than most sites on Vulcan.

  He glanced at his companions. Both Sulu and Chekov appeared to have acclimated themselves to this new environment. He saw Sulu, the amateur botanist, bend over to inspect the toadstools growing near the base of a looming tree trunk about twelve centimeters in diameter. “Grocery shopping, Mr. Sulu?” Kirk asked.

  “Just collecting samples,” Sulu said. He rose, placing one of the toadstools in a pocket of his trousers. “There are some interesting specimens here. Too bad there’s not time for a complete botanical survey.”

  Unless Spock has to leave us behind, Kirk thought. Then Sulu might end up with more than enough time to catalog the planet’s proliferating flora, assuming they didn’t land in a Romulan prison camp, or worse. His gaze travelled up the length of one moss-covered tree until he stared into the complex tapestry of vines and branches overhead. The leafy cover and light precipitation made it hard to judge the time of day, but, from the failing light, he guessed that night was approaching. Just as well, he thought. Spying was easier accomplished under the cover of darkness than in broad daylight. “Mr. Chekov, do you have the proper coordinates?”

  A tricorder hung on a strap over the young Russian’s shoulder. Chekov unslung the instrument and unsnapped the protective head cover. Wiping his rain-dampened bangs away from his eyes, he examined the illuminated video display next to the sensor controls. “Yes, Captain,” he said, pointing into the underbrush behind Kirk. “According to this, the Romulan base is that way.”

  “Very good,” Kirk said, contemplating a vigorous hike through the jungle. With luck, the thick foliage would conceal their approach from whomever might be guarding the installation. “Mr. Chekov, you lead the way. Sulu, you keep an eye out behind us for snakes, sabre-toothed tigers, or Romulan storm troopers.” Kirk grinned. “That should just about cover everything.”

  “Almost everything, Captain,” an unexpected voice added. Kirk drew his phaser and twisted his body toward the source of the voice: a dimly glimpsed figure stepping out from behind the bole of an enormous tree. The shade concealed the figure’s features, but Kirk recognized the voice instantly. Damn, he thought. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.

  “Mind if I join you?” asked Gary Seven.

  Chapter Nine

  KIRK’S COMMUNICATOR beeped before he could reply. Keeping both eyes and his phaser on the visitor from the twentieth century, he lifted the device to his face with his free hand and snapped it open. “Kirk here. What is it?”

  Spock’s voice emerged from the communicator. “You should be aware, Captain, that Mr. Seven has somehow escaped from the brig. Two security officers were immobilized, but neither has been seriously injured. A ship-wide search is now in progress, but—”

  “Don’t bother,” Kirk interrupted. Raindrops ran down his hair, dripping onto the back of his neck. “I know just where Mr. Seven is at the moment. About seven meters in front of me, in fact.”

  “Indeed.” Kirk couldn’t see Spock, but he could imagine the Vulcan raising an eyebrow as he spoke.

  “I suggest you inspect the transporter rooms,” Kirk suggested. “You may find one or two more ‘immobilized’ personnel.” Seven shrugged, looking none too apologetic. “Then I want you to beam Mr. Seven right back to the brig.”

  That got a react
ion from Seven. “I can’t let you do that, Captain. Not yet.” He drew a thin silver instrument from his pocket. Kirk’s eyes widened.

  “Don’t move!” he ordered. Chekov and Sulu followed his lead, aiming their own phasers at Seven. “Drop it,” he told Seven.

  “Captain Kirk,” Seven began. He didn’t point his weapon at Kirk, but he didn’t let go of it either. “You don’t understand. . . .”

  “Drop it,” Kirk repeated. Seven had jeopardized his crew for the last time. “I don’t care how good you are. You can’t knock out all three of us, before one of us stuns you with a phaser. You’re outnumbered.”

  Seven paused, as if mentally evaluating his chances. Kirk found himself grateful that at least Roberta Lincoln was apparently not within the vicinity. “Perhaps you’re right,” Seven said finally. The silver device slipped from his fingers, splashing gently into a rain-filled puddle at Seven’s feet.

  “I thought we took that thing away from you,” Kirk commented, lowering his phaser. Sulu and Chekov kept Seven under guard while Kirk retrieved the weapon from the puddle. It was just as lightweight as it looked, even more so than a standard issue phaser. Starfleet science would probably love to get a look at this gadget, he thought.

  “Servo has a homing device,” Seven explained. “It was easy enough to lock onto it with your transporter and beam it back to me at the same time that I transported down to this planet.”

  “A simple, one-step process, right?” Kirk asked, impressed despite himself. He doubted that even Scotty could manage to transport two objects simultaneously with that much precision.

  “Something like that,” Seven said. “Captain, I gave you my tool as a gesture of good faith. I would much rather work with you than against you. Now that we’re this close to my goal, we can’t afford to keep getting in each other’s way.”

  So Seven’s mission does involve this cloaked planet, Kirk thought. He didn’t feel surprised, just manipulated. “Sorry, Mr. Seven. Your intentions may be sincere, but your methods seem to involve assaulting my crew whenever it strikes you as convenient to do so. I can’t afford to trust you, and you don’t deserve it.”

  “But this isn’t about me,” Seven said. “It’s about the future.” He approached Kirk, his boots sinking into the muddy earth between them. Chekov rushed, phaser raised, in front of Seven and forced him to back up a few steps.

  The rain was coming down even harder now, reminding Kirk of the flood victims back on Duwamish. Seven had endangered them as well. Kirk slipped the servo into his pocket, then brought his communicator up to his lips. “Spock? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Captain.” Static distorted Spock’s voice. Kirk wondered if the turbulent weather was interfering with the transmission, or if something more ominous was responsible for the static, maybe some kind of jamming technology? “Is the situation under control?”

  “For now,” Kirk said, “but I’ll feel better when Mr. Seven is back in the brig. Beam him up.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Captain.” Seven glared at the phaser in Chekov’s hand. “Trust me, you have more to lose than almost anyone else.”

  Kirk felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. What did Seven mean, I have the most to lose? He watched as the familiar sparkle of the transporter effect enveloped Seven. His angular frame began to dissolve into a column of golden sparks.

  Then something went wrong. Without warning, the process reversed itself. The smell of ozone permeated the air and the usual hum of the transporter turned into a harsh, screeching noise, like the sound of a phaser on overload. Raw energy and information was forcibly crammed back into tight, restrictive patterns, abruptly displacing a man-sized volume of wind and rain. Kirk felt a splash of moisture against his face as the disrupted transporter beam stirred up the already stormy atmosphere of the jungle. Golden sparkles dimmed abruptly, their radiance snuffed out, and, blinking the rain from his eyes, Kirk saw the outline of a humanoid body thrashing wildly amidst a disintegrating column of energy, a scream of agony blending with the grating screech of the distortion. Through a haze of chaotic particles and mist, he thought he discerned a pair of dark eyes, alive with shock and anguish. Dear God, Kirk thought, can he feel what’s happening to him? The once-shimmering, now shadowy beam of light collapsed into a writhing, radiant figure composed of billions of agitated electrons rushing together, reintegrating into solid matter, into a being called Gary Seven, who let out a cry of pain before falling forward into the mud.

  Sulu ran over to the prone figure, lifting Seven’s face from the mucky water before he could suffocate. A sticky layer of mud adhered to Seven’s features, partially masking his expression. A thin, brown slurry streamed from his lips and nostrils. Sulu rolled the man over onto his back and placed his ear against Seven’s chest. The enigmatic time traveller appeared to be breathing, but it was difficult to tell through the rain. Did he need a doctor? Did they dare risk beaming McCoy down after watching Seven implode like that? “Spock, what happened?” Kirk shouted into the communicator. “Spock! Spock?”

  There was no answer. The transmission had been cut off. But was his communicator malfunctioning, Kirk wondered, or had something happened to the Enterprise? He had to know the answer. “Chekov, try to contact the ship! Can you get through?”

  The young ensign spoke into his communicator, then shook his head. “Nyet, Captain,” he called out. Tossing the worthless communicator aside, he consulted his tricorder. “Captain, I don’t believe it.” He swung the tricorder in a full circle around him, his gaze glued to the readout on the instrument’s display screen. “It’s a force field, many kilometers across, all around us, cutting us off from the ship. I don’t know where it came from. It wasn’t there a minute ago, I’m sure of it.”

  “Understood,” Kirk answered. He understood all too well.

  They were trapped on the planet—with no way out.

  * * *

  Roberta watched the monitor in her room with growing dismay. On the screen, the woman in the red uniform, whose name she had learned was Uhura, tried relentlessly to get hold of the landing party, but without any success. Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy looked on grimly while they spoke of a “force field” that apparently had them stumped. She didn’t need to be on the bridge physically to sense the tense mood that had come over the scene.

  Great, she thought bitterly, just great. Now that the crew of the Enterprise had lost contact with both Gary Seven and Captain Kirk, how was she supposed to keep track of what was going on? Granted, Mr. Spock had been prevented from beaming Seven back onto the Enterprise, but that was hardly reassuring. All she knew was that Seven was stuck on the planet below—assuming that he had even survived that botched transporter job. Judging from the tense conversations she had overheard via the computer, not even Mr. Spock or Scotty the engineering guy were quite sure if Seven was still alive and well on the planet. I have to do something, she thought, but what?

  She contemplated the illuminated green cube sitting atop the computer station. So far the device had acted as an all-purpose skeleton key to most of the Enterprise’s computerized systems. How far was she willing to push it?

  “Computer,” she said. “Show me Supervisor 194. Code name: Gary Seven.”

  The cube blinked furiously for less than ten seconds before responding. “Subject is not within range of ship’s scanners.”

  She scowled and tried again. “How about Captain Kirk, then?”

  “Subject is not within range of ship’s scanners.”

  “Great,” she muttered sarcastically. It made sense, though; the cube was limited to whatever resources were available to the Enterprise. If Mr. Spock and the others couldn’t locate the landing party, then neither could she. The cube could only override whatever technology already existed aboard the ship; it wasn’t Aladdin’s lamp.

  Leaning back against her chair, she pushed away from the computer station and looked over at the closed door to her temporary quarters. She was startin
g to feel a little stir-crazy. There was only so much she could do cooped up in this comfy little interstellar hotel room. Perhaps it was time to stage another breakout. She studied the green cube from a few feet away. Maybe it was no crystal ball, but it might work as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  But what could she do once she was loose? Where should she go? The planet itself was one possibility. She could probably figure out the Enterprise’s transporter system if she had to; how different could it be from the one she and Gary Seven used all the time? Granted, there was still that force field to deal with, but surely it couldn’t be covering the whole world? With a little bit of luck and a lot of hiking, she might be able to hunt down Seven on Planet Romulan or whatever it was called. She refused to accept that he had been permanently disintegrated by the interrupted transporter beam, not after all they had both survived back on Earth.

  Yeah, she thought, that’s a plan. Maybe I can even hook up with Isis before I vacate the ship. Or not. After all, someone had to stay behind to keep an eye on the ship, and she nominated the cat.

  She hurried to retrieve her old sneakers from the bedroom, then dropped back into the chair to pull them on. She was just lacing up the last shoe when she heard an angry voice come from the computer screen. Something about the tone of the speaker’s voice caught her attention, and she stared at the screen, which continued to look in on the ship’s bridge. Doctor McCoy seemed to be having some sort of confrontation with Mr. Spock, and he didn’t look happy.

  “You can’t be serious, Spock!” he objected strenuously. “We have to organize a rescue party, not plan our escape! What about Jim and the others?”

  The alien first officer appeared unmoved by the doctor’s outburst. “We are making every effort to reestablish contact with the captain, despite the ongoing problem of the force field. However, if we do not succeed in reaching him within the agreed-upon time period, I will have no choice but to set course for the Federation, just as Captain Kirk instructed.”