Kevin broke into the glamorous world of Star Trek writing by placing stories in three consecutive volumes of Strange New Worlds anthologies: “A Test of Character” (SNW VII), “Assignment: One” (SNW 8), and “The Rules of War” (SNW 9). He has also published essays and articles in The Dictionary of American Biography, the Los Angeles Times, Animato!, and Mcsweeneys.net; as well as poetry in Andre Codrescu’s The Exquisite Corpse.
He thanks the busiest man in Trek, Marco Palmieri, for continuing to take chances on newcomers.
“…Officially this facility doesn’t exist,” explained Dr. Miyazaki, “so it doesn’t even have a name. Everyone here just calls it the Yard.”
The diamond-shaped orange door in front of them opened with a muffled swish. At a gesture from Miyazaki, Spock and Kirk entered the office, only to find that the Yard’s director was not, as they had expected, there waiting for them.
Kirk suppressed the urge to vent his frustration on Miyazaki. It wasn’t the man’s fault that his commanding officer was late. But it was just one more thing Kirk didn’t like about all this.
The room was twice the size of one of the conference rooms aboard the Enterprise. There was a black-topped desk with some data slates on it and a three-sided computer monitor. Four black, high-backed chairs were scattered around the room, and on display everywhere were pieces of alien technology.
A handgun that looked like it was made of green gelatin, translucent and wobbly, sat on a pedestal under glass. Nearby, fragments of an exotic space suit had been reconstructed like the skeleton of a dinosaur. By a small potted palm sat a knee-high, hourglass-shaped metal box studded with buttons and switches that shone like gems. In an alcove by the door, three rings of white stone, each as big as two fists and arranged to form a pyramid, sat on black velvet, carefully illuminated by recessed lighting.
Kirk had long heard whispered rumors that Starfleet was going to build a secret base to store and study all of the alien technology it had acquired. And now here it is, he thought.
Through the large panes of transparent aluminum that all but filled one wall, Kirk could see a handful of small, gray-white Federation space stations and a few giant, oddly shaped pieces of machinery floating in space nearby. One of them, he was certain, was some sort of starship, but the others—some made of metal, others looked more like stone—he could not place. One thing looked like a giant purple and white orchid. The Federation stations, however, each employed the familiar design of small domed saucers branching out from beneath a much larger domed saucer at their center.
From this angle, Kirk knew he wasn’t seeing everything out there, but clearly there was no emergency. No ion storms, no ancient weapons running amok. In fact, Kirk didn’t see anything that warranted the coded orders he had received from Starfleet to take the Enterprise there at top speed, rigged for “dark running.”
Following those orders, the Enterprise’s main viewscreen had been opaqued, every viewport sealed, and all communications silenced. Upon arrival, they had physically docked here at the Yard’s main station; use of the transporter was also forbidden under dark running.
Spock glanced around the office and then turned to their escort. “Dr. Miyazaki, now that I have actually arrived, I fail to see the point of continuing to conceal the purpose of my visit from me.”
“Well, you were the one named in the communiqué,” said Miyazaki with a resigned tone. “Oh, well. It’s your expertise in plasma constraint, Mr. Spock, what else?” He laughed as if it were the most obvious thing in the galaxy.
The intercom buzzed. “Lacsamana to Miyazaki.”
“Excuse me,” he said and walked over to the red wall panel. “Miyazaki here.”
“We need you in cold storage to okay those Izarian memory crystals for transfer.”
“Acknowledged.” Miyazaki turned to Kirk and Spock. “I’m positive our director will be along in just a minute,” he said as he walked out the door. “Good day.”
After the door closed, Kirk said, “If it was so urgent, you would assume…” He noticed that Spock was staring intently at the desk. “What is it, Spock?”
“Fascinating,” the Vulcan said.
“The desk?” asked Kirk.
“Yes, Captain. You have noted the height.”
“It is sort of…low.”
“Indeed.”
“So,” said Kirk, “whoever is in charge here is short.”
“Or a member of a species that is, on average, lower in stature than the humanoid norm.”
“What are you getting at, Spock?”
“And the chair,” said Spock. Kirk stepped behind the desk. He suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen the chair before. It was a low, back-less, S-shaped curve of metal, with a little padding on the top for a seat. “Note also that the slates,” continued Spock, pointing to two black, wedge-shaped electronic clipboards and their styluses, “are arranged vertically: one near the top of the desk and one closer to the chair. If you were going to have more than one on a desk, how would you arrange them, Captain?”
“I imagine, horizontally, one next to the other.”
“As would I. But then, you and I have only two arms, one on each side. This arrangement suggests that the user has rows of arms, one on top of the other. How many such multi-armed species have representatives in Starfleet?”
“Offhand, Spock, I can’t recall any.”
“I know of only one, and very few of its population venture into space: the Nasat.” Spock left the desk. “And I, personally, have only ever met one of them, B6 Blue. She was a scientist who spent some time on Vulcan during my youth.”
Kirk said, “Let me guess: She also has something to do with plasma constraint?”
“A related field, yes. The odds that the administrator of this facility is not B6 Blue are at least one hundred and eighty billion to one.”
“And who was she? An old friend, a colleague?”
“More than that, Captain. It was she who was responsible for my choosing Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy.”
Kirk’s eyes widened. He knew that Spock and his father, Sarek, had gone nearly twenty years without speaking as a result of that decision, but it surprised him to learn that a third party had been involved in the disagreement. What did B6 Blue want with Spock now, after all these years?
The door opened, and she entered.
She was indeed a Nasat. Now Kirk remembered; he’d seen an image of one somewhere. Her short (she barely came up to Kirk’s chest), insectile build reminded Kirk of a giant pillbug, but with a distinctly incongruous reptilian tail that reached down to the floor. Her exoskeleton and six arms were cobalt blue. Her round head had two large, yellow eyes with heavy lids that gave her a look of perpetual drowsiness.
Kirk imagined that the quartermaster’s office could have tailored a uniform to fit her, but she probably would have found even a six-sleeved shirt confining. Instead, the Nasat had simply affixed her gold commodore’s braids to her exoskeleton. They were draped along the chevron of chitin at the top of her thorax.
“Spock, I’m glad to see you again,” she said in a high-pitched, but not unpleasant, voice.
“I as well, Bishop.” He turned toward Kirk. “My captain, James T. Kirk.”
The Nasat stepped up to Kirk. “You’ve come as well, of course. A pleasure to meet you, Captain.”
“Commodore…Bishop?” began Kirk.
“My clan designation is B6 Blue. I am a commodore in Starfleet, as well as a Ph.D. But we maintain an informal atmosphere here. We’re an academic facility. We’re all scientists and researchers. More like the academy than command headquarters. As such, I go by the nickname of Bishop.” She walked around the desk and sat down. “Do sit, gentlemen.”
“Commodore,” said Kirk, “I don’t like mysteries. And I really don’t like them when they involve my ship. The Enterprise was called away from Narnel’s World and ordered to bring Mr. Spock here, and I wasn’t told why. I’m not even sure where here is. Only our navigato
r knows!”
The command to transport the Enterprise’s first officer, who had no more idea what this was about than Kirk, had arrived from Starfleet Command heavily encrypted. Kirk and Spock both had been required to verify their identities through voice print recognition before the file would open. Chekov had been dispatched to auxiliary control, armed with his own set of coded directions and far from any prying eyes, to pilot the ship here.
Kirk hadn’t even been invited down to the Yard; he’d just been ordered to deliver Spock. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to get an explanation.
“Perhaps Mr. Spock can shed some light on the situation,” said Bishop with a smile.
Spock? Kirk turned to his friend. “But you said you didn’t—”
“Indeed, I did not know,” said Spock. Then he turned to Bishop. “Exactly how large,” he asked, “will your Midnight Sphere be?”
“Sphere?” said Bishop, her smile widening. “I said nothing about a Midnight Sphere.”
“Dr. Miyazaki mentioned that I was needed for my expertise in plasma constraint. Your work is in artificial gravity. This facility is classified as top secret. The most logical assumption is that you are attempting to camouflage the Yard by placing it within a Midnight Sphere.” He turned to Kirk. “A shell of gas and plasma capable of absorbing light and sensor beams.” Then to Bishop, he said, “However, I do not think that Dr. Culla ever conceived of one large enough to house whole space stations when he proposed the theory. Which is, of course, where I may be of use.” Spock paused for a moment, as Bishop looked on expectantly. “Yes,” Spock said slowly. Kirk imagined he could almost see the proverbial cogs in the Vulcan’s mind turning. “Yes…I had never considered the possibility before, but certain frequencies of plasma constraint, if sufficiently powered, could be utilized to maintain a sizable shell.”
Bishop leaned back and put the fingertips of all six hands together. “Very good, Spock. In fact, excellent. I’m glad you’re on our side. To answer your question: The Sphere, once it is activated, will enclose an area exactly the same size as three-quarters of the Earth. Therefore with a surface area of…?”
“Three hundred and eighty-two million, five hundred and forty-eight thousand, nine hundred and sixty-three square kilometers,” said Spock.
“And a volume of…?”
“Eight hundred fifteen billion, one hundred thirty-eight million, four hundred ninety-four thousand, eight hundred ninety cubic kilometers.”
Bishop turned to Kirk. “He must be invaluable to you, Captain.”
“The finest science officer in the fleet,” said Kirk.
“I would expect no less,” said Bishop.
“Just let me get this straight,” said Kirk. “You’re going to create a hollow shell. Your space stations, and all collected artifacts, will be inside this shell. And, from the outside, the whole thing is going to be what, invisible?”
Bishop said, “If you are going to camouflage yourself in space, the easiest solution is to be black. So we are tuning the plasma to absorb all electromagnetic radiation, not just those wavelengths within the conventional visible spectrum. It won’t bend light—that is the provenance of black holes—but any light that does touch it will be absorbed, not reflected. Likewise it will absorb sensor beams, so that any sensor that hits it won’t ‘bounce back.’”
“So it will seem as though there’s nothing here at all.”
“Correct, Captain. The effect should be more reliable and sustainable in the long term than trying to adapt the other…more obvious solution.”
Kirk knew she could mean only one thing. “The Romulan cloaking device.”
“Yes.”
“So that’s here, too. Couldn’t you just hide everything in a hollowed-out asteroid?”
“Oh, Captain, some of the objects here are much too large for that. Some are nearly the size of asteroids themselves, as you will see.” She stood up.
“The whole thing just seems unnecessarily complex,” said Kirk.
“It’s the best way, Captain. I personally designed the system, based on all the latest theories. We were supposed to be online six days ago, but then these problems arose. The system just isn’t working.”
“And that’s why you sent for Spock.”
“Who else could I count on for knowledge of this type?” asked Bishop.
“And who else has a high enough security clearance?” said Kirk.
“I apologize for the inconvenience I must have put you through, Captain Kirk, but this is urgent. And very important.”
Kirk understood. He didn’t like it, but he understood.
Bishop said, “Since the two of you discovered a number of the artifacts already here, you, Captain, are certainly welcome to come along. But I must remind you that you are under a strict communications blackout. Dark running, you know.”
“Of course.”
“I’m sure you’re most anxious to get to the heart of the matter. If you will follow me, we can be on our way to the generator satellite.”
She led them out of her office and down a branch of the corridor different from the one that brought them here.
“We are also located in a particularly empty part of space,” Bishop went on. “Sorry, I can’t go into more detail about our position. But suffice it to say that, even if we weren’t invisible, nobody would have any reason to come through here.” She stopped in front of a large, circular hatch ringed with yellow light. “I’m afraid we’ll have to take a pod. The transporters aren’t working yet either.”
Bishop herself piloted the small, boxy travel pod. Though the three of them traveled standing up, Kirk nonetheless enjoyed the excellent view afforded by the large port that dominated the pod’s curved front.
“There’s one of yours,” said Bishop, gesturing up with all three of her right arms.
She pointed to an irregular cone that was twenty times the length of the Enterprise. Its surface, a mass of pure neutronium, had rippling striations of blue and white that resembled frozen flames. As they passed directly in front of it, Kirk saw the enormous black maw, the opening that had swallowed whole the Starship Constellation just before Kirk had blown up that ship, deactivating this robotic destroyer.
“The doomsday machine,” said Kirk.
“Cross-indexed as ‘the planet killer.’ But to us, it’s just object J145-6A.”
“I knew that Starfleet had towed it somewhere,” said Kirk. “But I’d always assumed it was scuttled. Sunk into a sun or something.” It was, after all, a sort of graveyard. A year ago, the Constellation’s captain, Matt Decker, had given his life piloting a shuttlecraft inside the doomsday machine in an effort to destroy it. His actions had proved unsuccessful, but had inspired Kirk to use Decker’s own crippled starship against the device.
“A fascinating object,” said Bishop. “We may never know exactly where she came from, but there are some provocative theories. Dr. Pad—”
Kirk said, “I don’t see how any good can come from studying that…thing.”
“The Constellation’s impulse engine explosion completely atomized that ship, but left J145-6A’s innards intact, though completely inert.” Her voice took on an almost wistful tone. “Alas, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever be able to start her up again.”
“Why would anyone want to?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious, Captain?” Bishop sounded genuinely surprised. “Can you conceive of the secrets she must be hiding within her? Not just how she works and where she came from, but as a path to learning more about her creators.”
Kirk looked at Spock, who had arched an eyebrow.
“We’re doing all this for the larger objects, of course,” continued Bishop, her top arms sweeping across the panoramic view. “When we decided to consolidate all of the artifacts into one location, we knew we’d need to hide them. Their presence at other facilities posed too great a risk. Too many other people had access to them. Here, outside the major space-lanes, they will be safer. And to ensu
re that, we need to get the camouflage system up. Also we’re currently only about half staffed.”
Kirk had met parents who carried on less about their newborns than Bishop did about the Yard.
The Nasat turned and said lightly, “Captain, I don’t suppose Spock has ever mentioned me.”
Kirk again looked at Spock, whose face remained impassive. “No.”
“All those years ago,” she said with nostalgia. “Two decades.”
“Nineteen years, four months, twelve days,” said Spock.
“It was on Vulcan, of course,” she said to Kirk. “I had just made lieutenant. I was actually working with the Vulcan Science Academy, assisting on an artificial gravity project. And young Spock here was always hanging around. Ah, there’s the one we want.”
The generator satellite was the same off-white as the space stations, but rather than being a collection of domes and saucers, it was nearly spherical. It looked to be about fifty meters in diameter. As they approached, Kirk saw a dozen recessed areas, each a couple of meters across and resembling the Enterprise’s deflector dish, spaced equidistantly across the surface. He assumed that the other side of the station looked the same.
“My father,” said Spock, “was an astrophysicist there. It was only logical that I should attend him.”
“Spock’s father and I had a lot of arguments,” said Bishop.
“Discussions,” said Spock.
“You’d think I was trying to get Spock to defect to the Klingons, the way Sarek talked. He thought Starfleet was a bunch of warmongers. Sarek was still an academic then; he hadn’t moved into the wider realm of politics. That’s traditional on Vulcan. You enter the diplomatic corps only after accumulating life experience. Well, I’m sure I was the first Starfleet officer Spock had ever seen. The first alien, too.”
“There were humans at the V.S.A.,” said Spock. “Human warp field engineers had been there since—”
“But you’ve known at least one human your entire life,” interrupted Bishop. “And there’s little to distinguish humans from Vulcans; certainly nothing as exotic by humanoid standards as a Nasat.” She spread her arms wide and looked for a moment as if she were going to pirouette. “I’m afraid my traveler’s tales of black holes, shining nebulae, and the Efrosian frost-fields stirred unhealthy wanderlust in young Spock.”
Constellations Page 33
