by Greg Cox
The future remained to be written.
* * *
2267
* * *
Eighteen years later
Fifteen
“Approaching border of disputed territory.”
Unlike the computer on Enterprise, the Shimizu’s automated systems had a masculine voice. Captain Una had customized it that way so that she didn’t feel like she was talking to herself. That the Shimizu’s voice also resembled its long-lost namesake was not a coincidence; it was a deliberate reminder of matters left undone.
Seated at the ship’s controls, Una glanced at the black carryall riding shotgun beside her on the copilot’s seat. The Transfer Key still rested inside the bag, waiting to be put to use for the first time in nearly two decades, assuming she could make it back to Usilde without encountering any unwanted interference.
“Scan for Klingon vessels,” she instructed.
“Scanning,” the computer said. “Negative. No Klingon vessels detected.”
Una trusted the computer, but conducted her own sensor sweep anyway, which came up with the same reassuring results. Not that she could relax entirely; rumor had it that the Klingons were already negotiating with the Romulans for their new cloaking device. Starfleet Intelligence believed that cloaked Klingon warships were still years away, but it was always possible that those estimates were too conservative. For all she knew, there could be an entire fleet of cloaked battle cruisers just up ahead, in which case this might be a very short trip. If necessary, she was prepared to destroy her ship—and herself—to keep the Key from falling into Klingon hands.
“Scan also for unmanned border sensors,” she added, “or listening posts.”
“Scanning.”
The Korinar Sector, which included the Libros system, had not been claimed by the Klingons all those years ago, but times had sadly changed and the Empire had expanded since her early years aboard the Enterprise under Captain April. She was taking a calculated risk crossing into the disputed territory, but figured that the odds were in her favor. Borders or no borders, space was vast and this particular corner of the sector had no significant strategic value. Even the Klingons couldn’t patrol every parsec of the border—or was that just wishful thinking on her part?
Such doubts were why she’d had to go rogue, instead of simply going to Kirk or Spock for the Key and enlisting their aid, so she’d be the only one caught defying orders by entering the disputed space and risking capture by the Klingons. Una couldn’t ask anyone else to take the same gamble. This was her mess to clean up, no matter what.
“Negative,” the computer reported, after a longer, more comprehensive scan. “No sensors or listening posts detected.”
Unless, of course, they were cloaked, or in dormant mode, or disguised as space debris. Una knew that the sensors could not completely guarantee her safety, only alert her to the more obvious hazards. She was entering enemy territory.
But she’d come too far to turn back now.
The Shimizu accelerated, continuing on its course for the Libros system and a forbidden planet she had never forgotten.
“Entering disputed territory,” the computer announced.
It was actually a bit anticlimactic. No Klingon warships burst from concealment. No strident alarms were picked up by her sensors. No belligerent hails demanded her immediate surrender.
Was she actually going to get away with this?
So far, so good, Una thought, letting out a sigh of relief. Now let’s make this quick.
She had no intention of lingering in this sector. In and out, that was her plan, revisiting Usilde only long enough to finally take care of some old business—by rescuing Tim Shimizu and the others who had been lost so many years ago.
Eighteen years had passed, but she had never given up on those “missing” crew members. She’d spent years, and many sleepless nights, studying her tricorder readings from that fateful mission, trying to figure out how to reverse the transfer-field effect and bring the exiles back to this universe. This had proved far easier said than done, especially without the Key to study, and at times she had despaired of ever comprehending the otherworldly science behind the late Professor Eljor’s singular creation. The transfer-field generator was not just revolutionary in its design and operation; it bore next to no resemblance to any technology she was familiar with, alien or otherwise. It truly was something from a completely different universe, frustrating her efforts to pry loose its secrets. She had been stumped, in fact, until recently.
But then the Enterprise came to her rescue.
Reviewing the classified logs and reports on Kirk’s recent visit to a barbaric alternate universe had been the breakthrough she’d needed to push past the obstacles that had been blocking her. Not only had that bizarre transporter accident provided her with concrete data on the physics of how exactly beings from one universe could, under the right confluence of events, pass over to another, parallel reality, but Kirk’s description of the “Tantalus Field” he had encountered in that universe bore a provocative resemblance to the transfer field the Jatohr had used to eliminate their enemies, suggesting a similar mode of operation.
Granted, any connection between the Tantalus Field and the Transfer Key remained highly speculative. Her current working theory was that, in that mirror universe, a different Enterprise had visited Usilde and an alternate version of Captain April had taken possession of an alternate Key, which had eventually fallen into the hands of an alternate Kirk, as reported by the Kirk of this universe. Or perhaps events had played out differently in that other reality, and the other Kirk had been the one to visit Usilde and discover the Key. In any event, the transporter data from that incident, as well as Kirk’s observations regarding the Tantalus Field, had been the final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle she had been wrestling with for years. Una felt reasonably confident that she could operate the transfer-field generator well enough to rescue those lost men and women.
If they were still alive in that other realm after so many years.
And this was probably her last chance to make the attempt, before the Klingons cemented their hold on the sector, and before Starfleet promoted her into a desk job. She had to get this done now, before it was too late.
And before Kirk could stop her.
She wanted to think that the Enterprise had given up the chase after she’d lost them with that slingshot maneuver earlier, but suspected that was wishful thinking. From everything she knew of Kirk, he wasn’t the kind of captain who would just let this go or choose to play it safe. He’d even crossed into the Romulan Neutral Zone last year, risking interplanetary war, because he deemed it necessary. She couldn’t imagine that he would just let her get away with the Key.
“Estimated time to Libros system?” she asked the computer.
“Approximately fifteen-point-nine-seven hours at current rate of speed.”
Una hoped that would be time enough to reach Usilde and complete her mission before either Kirk or the Klingons could get in her way. She upped her speed, pushing the Shimizu’s engine close to the red line.
I’m coming, Tim. I’m coming for all of you.
* * *
“Entering Libros system.”
The Shimizu slowed to impulse as it approached its destination. Una’s throat tightened as she gazed at Usilde through the front viewport, laying eyes on the planet for the first time in years. She had been so young and cocky then, so eager to lead her first landing party and overly confident in her abilities. That youthful arrogance had cost Tim and the others dearly, all because she had carelessly let herself be captured by the Jatohr.
I pushed my luck, but they paid the price.
At least she didn’t have to worry about the Jatohr this time around; in theory, the “Newcomers” were all gone, sent back to whatever unimaginable realm they had originally come from, the same alien universe tha
t the lost crew members had been exiled to as well. Not for the first time, she wondered what had become of her shipmates in that other reality or if any of them had even managed to survive all this time. It was very possible, she knew, that she was attempting to rescue people who were long dead, but Una had been living with that uncertainty for longer than she cared to think about. She needed to at least try to rescue any survivors, now that she finally had the means and knowledge to do so.
And if any of the Jatohr attempt to slip back into our universe . . . well, I’ll deal with that too.
Slowing further, the Shimizu entered the atmosphere and descended toward the larger equatorial continent. From high above, the planet looked much as Una remembered it; she liked to think the Usildar were thriving now that the Jatohr were gone and that they’d been able to reclaim their world. It was tempting to check in on them, see what they’d accomplished since being liberated, but that was not what this mission was about. With any luck, she would come and go without encountering the Usildar at all, which was probably best for all concerned. After everything they’d been through earlier, the forest dwellers deserved to be left alone.
She zoomed in on the river valley where she had been captured years before. The sun was going down in that time zone, but her landing lights assisted her memory in relocating the site. Frankly, she would have preferred not to revisit the place where Tim and the rest of her landing party had been removed right before her eyes, but the logistics of her plan required a detour to the slave-labor camp to pick up a ride back to the citadel.
If all goes according to plan . . .
Getting back into the citadel presented a challenge. Unlike a Constitution-class starship, the Shimizu was not equipped with an onboard transporter station, so she couldn’t simply beam down into the fortress. And, as she well recalled, the only way in or out of the citadel was via the underwater landing bays, which meant she needed one of those submersible pods and, ideally, its access codes. In theory, there would still be some abandoned pods at the landing field in the valley.
Here’s hoping they’re still operational, she thought.
If worse came to worst, she could always try to salvage some codes or equipment from any leftover pods. Although Una had scuba gear stored aboard the Shimizu, just in case, or could conceivably take the airtight courier into the lake, she was reluctant to try to force her way into the citadel for fear of damaging the transfer-field generator in the process. And as for swimming down to the underwater entrances . . . well, she had not forgotten the multi-armed predators lurking in those waters.
A working pod would make everything much easier.
Breaking through the cloud cover, the spacecraft came within view of the labor camp—or what was left of it. Darkness shrouded the valley, making it difficult to discern every detail, but what Una could see by the ship’s landing lights indicated that the once-busy farming operation was now nothing more than ruins. She glimpsed the torched remains of buildings and rusting equipment. The surrounding rain forest had encroached on the deserted camp, attempting to reclaim it, but was being counter-infiltrated by the invasive gray fungus that was still spreading out of control, both in the ruins and beyond. Fresh stands of trees, which had grown up in the many years Una had been away, played unwilling host to jutting shelves of fruiting gray bodies climbing their trunks. The stumps of long-fallen giants, cut down by the Jatohr’s bygone operations, were practically buried beneath ugly, slate-colored mushrooms and molds, while the related gray algae still contaminated the adjacent river as well as a few stagnant canals. The sour odor of the alien weeds was all too easy to imagine.
Una winced at the sight. The Jatohr might be long gone, but they had clearly left their slimy footprint on Usilde.
The Shimizu touched down on the old landing pad, not far from where everything had gone to hell years ago. Una powered down its engines and geared up for the mission, stowing the Transfer Key in a Starfleet-issue backpack, while bringing along a phaser and tricorder as well. She didn’t anticipate needing a weapon, now that the Jatohr had departed, but there were still the Usildar and the local wildlife to consider, not to mention those creatures in the lake surrounding the citadel.
Better safe than sorry.
A peculiar sense of déjà vu afflicted her as she exited the Shimizu, sealing the hatchway behind her, and set foot on Usilde once more. The globe-lights that had once illuminated the facility had gone dark; she spotted a few lifeless spheres resting inertly on the ground here and there, like antique glass buoys washed up on a shore. So she had to resort to a palm-sized beacon to make her way across the abandoned landing field. Small animals of uncertain genus scurried away at her approach. The beacon’s cool white beam exposed more evidence of the camp’s ravaged state.
The old wooden dormitories and other timber buildings had been burned to the ground, while more metallic structures and equipment showed signs of deliberate vandalism as well. Una guessed that the Usildar had done their best to eradicate what remained of the Jatohr’s occupation of the planet, but they were obviously fighting a losing battle against the stubbornly aggressive fungus contaminating their environment. Spongy gray mushrooms sprouted like weeds from the cracked tarmac and from the ashes of torched fields and buildings. Even the hot, humid air smelled more foul than she remembered; the sour, mildewy odor of the fungus invaded her mouth and nostrils, spoiling every breath. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. It was like walking through a badly ventilated organic compost facility—or enduring the bad breath of a Tennekian emissary.
Perhaps we should have offered the Usildar more assistance years ago, she thought, when it came to reversing the damage done to their environment.
But there had been the Prime Directive to consider, and, in all honesty, the captain and crew of the Enterprise had been anxious to put Usilde behind them. At the time it had seemed enough that they—or rather, Professor Eljor—had given the Usildar their world back, even if it wasn’t entirely unscarred by the Jatohr’s presence. Or so they had told themselves.
That might have been a mistake.
Una made her way across the fungi-choked tarmac toward a waiting pod, growing ever more dubious regarding her chances of finding the aircraft in working condition. Of more immediate concern than the contaminated ecosystem was the discouraging possibility that the Jatohr’s pods had also come under attack by both time and the Usildar, in which case she was wasting precious time here and would have to find another way into the citadel. Preferably before Kirk came looking for her.
The beam from her beacon confirmed her fears: the nearest pod had been trashed. Scorch marks blackened its formerly iridescent hull, while the one-way viewports had been smashed in. Arcane runes were scratched across its cracked and dented surface; it was even money on whether they were hex signs intended to banish evil or merely angry obscenities. Creeping vines fought the ubiquitous gray fungus for possession of the derelict aircraft, clotting the shattered viewports. One downturned wing had buckled, possibly under the weight of rampaging Usildar, so that the parked pod listed to one side.
It was not going to be taking to the air ever again.
“Damn,” Una muttered. She kicked a dead globe-light in frustration, but it only rolled a meter or so before it was halted by a clump of fruiting mushrooms. Una stared at the wrecked submersible in dismay. This complicated her plans in a big way.
She glanced over at the nearby hangar, which was also in ruins. It was possible that there was a more intact pod somewhere inside the hangar, but she doubted it; the Usildar seemed to have spared no effort in taking out their wrath on the former site of their oppression. Not that Una could blame them. She would have wanted to raze the place to the ground, too, if she’d been in their shoes.
Too bad they couldn’t leave me one working pod, though.
Sighing, she drew nearer to the overgrown aircraft, looking for the best way inside, past tangled vines and fungi. She
wasn’t looking forward to climbing inside the wreck, but maybe her tricorder could still pick up the access codes to the citadel from whatever was left of its controls. Granted, she could always take the Shimizu down into the lake, but she still needed a way to get into the underwater landing bay. Even if the courier had been equipped with phasers, which it wasn’t, she didn’t want to have to blast her way in—unless she absolutely had to.
She started to climb onto a wing, only to be startled by a large, spiky nut that struck the wing with a loud smack. The nut ricocheted off the wing, barely missing her face.
“What the—?”
“Step away from the unclean relic,” a stern voice commanded her. “To touch it is forbidden.”
Una spun around to find several Usildar converging on her, brandishing weapons. She recognized their lithe, lanky bodies and simian proportions, as well as their wary, fearful expressions. The forest dwellers clutched an assortment of spears, clubs, maces, and slings. Their arsenal had not improved noticeably since the last time she’d encountered them, but remained crudely effective nonetheless. Her hand went instinctively to the sidearm on her hip, but she refrained from drawing it. Apparently the Shimizu’s arrival had not gone unnoticed, and she could hardly blame the Usildar for being suspicious of alien visitors from the sky. She needed to assure them that she meant no harm.
“I am not Jatohr,” she called out. “I am not your enemy!”
An older male Usildar stepped forward. Unsurprisingly, given the number of years that had transpired since her last visit, he was not the same Usildar leader she’d met before, but Una thought she saw a slight resemblance beneath the dyes and dust camouflaging his face. A carved wooden helmet denoted his authority. He shook a spear at her.
“You have trespassed on unholy ground—and forced us to do the same! This is an evil place. None may venture here!”
