He snapped the communications link back on and called his ship. Captain Chalker answered.
“Tell all ship’s captains that every colonist must be on board their ships in five hours. Initiate emergency evacuation procedures. People first, then food supplies, and then if there’s time get personal effects. Contact me if there are any problems.”
“Yes, Governor,” Captain Chalker said without even a question.
Pardonnet cut the connection and stared at the unit. He had about twenty people to get the word to in all the different branches off the colony scattered around the world. But first he’d better get it started here, in the main colony area first.
Pardonnet stood and headed for the door. Five hours to do the impossible. Captain Kirk was known for being able to pull off the impossible.
Pardonnet strode into the other room, shoulders back, ready to work. It was time to see if he could do it too.
Countdown: 4 Days, 10 Hours
Lilian Coates came back off the mountain, flashlight in hand, into what was now a partial ghost town, partial beehive of activity. It seemed if anyone was moving, they were running. Something clearly had changed and she hadn’t heard about it.
Over the last three hours she’d climbed the side of the hill in the forest above the colony, calling out Reynold’s name every hundred steps. She had heard nothing, and ran into no other searchers.
Now she was back to check if Reynold had returned to their home. The lights were still on in and around many of the domes, but even this late at night the place felt too quiet, too deserted.
There didn’t seem to be anyone left here. Everything was going on down below in the main colony area.
She quickly checked her house for Reynold, called his name once again, then went down toward the center of the colony. At the beam-up point at least a hundred people were waiting. Around them were cases of clothes and other personal effects.
She stopped the first person she met, a bald man with large eyes and a worried look. “What’s happened?”
“Problems with the moons,” he said. “That’s all I know. Evacuation has been moved up. Only two hours left. You’d better get your clothes and get to a beam-out point.”
The news slammed her in the stomach like someone had punched her.
She couldn’t breathe.
Tears filled her eyes.
That couldn’t be possible.
What about her son?
The other children?
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “But I got to go. My wife’s waiting to beam up.”
He turned and headed into the remaining crowd, not once looking back.
She slumped to the ground and sat, trying to get her breath back, watching the crowd move steadily toward the beam-up platform. They were vanishing almost as fast as they could move into position.
It was happening.
It was real.
Everyone was leaving.
She pushed herself up and headed into the center of town toward the town hall. If the governor was anywhere, he’d be there. He couldn’t let this happen. He’d been up there on the hillside helping search for Reynold himself. They couldn’t just leave her son on this planet, alone.
She forced the thought away before it overwhelmed her. She wouldn’t leave Reynold.
That much she knew for sure.
The governor was standing, talking to a group of three men when she entered the building. There were a few dozen other people working at a frantic pace in other parts of the large area. When she was about halfway across the room he looked up and saw her. The look of recognition was instant and he went white, as if he’d suddenly remembered there were still six lost children.
As she got closer he excused himself and the other men stepped quickly away. The governor squared his shoulders and stepped toward her.
“What about the children?” she asked, her voice loud and carrying on purpose. She wanted everyone close by to hear what she was saying. “Are you going to just leave them?”
“Lilian,” Governor Pardonnet said, “we have no choice. If we leave now there’s a chance we can save this planet and many more lives.”
“And sacrifice six children in the process?” Lilian shouted. She so wanted to smash the man, hit him, blame him for Tom’s death, for losing Reynold. She needed something, someone to blame.
“I’m not sacrificing anyone,” Pardonnet said, his voice cold and low and cutting. The man had power in his voice and right at that point he was turning the full force of it on her. “We’ve spent valuable time and resources over the past two days searching for your son and the rest of those children. At this point there is nowhere else to look.” He took a deep breath and looked her directly in the eye. “If there was, do you think I’d be in here?”
His words snapped her anger like a twig underfoot in the forest. The large room was deathly silent as everyone stared at them. She looked at him, then slumped into a chair, fighting back the tears. “I know,” she said.
He sat down beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. Around them the rest of the room suddenly broke into motion again as everyone went back to what they were doing.
“I’m sorry about Reynold,” Pardonnet said. “I honestly am.”
“Why the rush?” Lilian asked, getting the tears under control. She didn’t have time to cry. “What happened? Is the moon about to explode?”
“No,” Pardonnet said. “Not yet anyway. But every colony ship is needed to help get the ramming moon into position to stop the explosion.”
“And there will be no time for the ships to come back here?” Lilian asked. “In four days?”
“Kirk and his crew don’t think so,” Pardonnet said. “Our best chance of saving this colony is to fight for it in space. And that’s what we’re doing.”
Lilian nodded. Even in her anger the reason made sense. She pushed herself to her feet. “Good luck to you, Governor.”
She turned and started back toward the front door. She had long ago gone past simple tired and into complete exhaustion. But she had to keep searching. Keep pushing forward. There was nothing else left for her to do.
“Wait!” Pardonnet said. “I gather you’re going to stay and continue to look?”
“Wouldn’t you if it was your only son?”
He nodded. “I would. So there are a few things you need to know, both for your own protection and if you find your son and the others.”
She stopped and looked up into his eyes. The man truly did care for her, and for his colony. That much was clear. He was just doing the best he could with a nasty set of circumstances.
And so was she.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Do you have a watch?”
She felt her wrist to make sure it was there, then nodded.
“Note the time now,” the governor said. He waited until she did as he said, then went on, talking fast. “In exactly one hundred and five hours, if our plan succeeds, this continent will be blanketed with a very short burst of high radioactivity followed shortly by extreme shock waves. During that time you need to be under cover. As much and as thick as you can find. This building has a basement that might work. Understand?”
She nodded and glanced at her watch one more time to make sure she had the time fixed in her head. “One hundred and five hours. Thank you, Governor.”
“Good luck to you,” he said.
“From the sounds of it,” she said as she started again for the door, “you and everyone else is going to need it as much as I am.”
Countdown: 4 Days, 10 Hours
McCoy waited at the screen in sickbay as Uhura put his call to the surface through. He was like Jim in that he was getting tired of the waiting so much. He never really had been that good at waiting, but lately it seemed he was growing more and more impatient. Jim figured it was age-related. More than likely, he was right. Neither of them were getting any younger, that was for sure.
After a moment the face of Dr. Audry came on
the screen. Clearly she had had very little sleep, if any, since the last time McCoy saw her. He could imagine that there was just too much to do, with far too few hours to do it. He wished he could be there helping. But his place was on the Enterprise at the moment. Waiting.
Dr. Audry smiled. “Dr. McCoy, good to see your face. I bet you’re checking up on our little green beasties, aren’t you?”
McCoy laughed. “Exactly.” That bacteria was far, far too valuable to the Federation to let it perish at this point. He had no doubt that Dr. Audry and the others could save it, but he couldn’t help but call and check.
“Well, I have good news to report,” Audry said. “We have managed, even with the accelerated schedule, to get major samples on every colony ship.”
“Great,” McCoy said. The news was like a weight off his shoulders. He hadn’t realized he’d been worrying about the bacteria so much.
“In fact,” Dr. Audry said, “I was just about to try to contact you to ask if we could transport some storage containers to the Enterprise as well?”
“I don’t think we’re planning on being back anywhere near transporter range before all the fireworks start,” McCoy said.
“I figured as much,” Audry said. “So we’ve loaded the containers destined for the Enterprise on two of the colony ships. You can have them transported to you when we get into position near your ship.”
“Of course,” McCoy said. “I’m going to feel safer having major samples of this bacteria in every ship, including this one.”
“I agree,” Dr. Audry said, laughing. “Who knows where this bacteria just might come in handy.”
McCoy laughed also. The bacteria was going to help agriculture all over the Federation and Dr. Audry knew that. They just had to make sure it got saved.
“Contact me when the ships carrying the Enterprise samples are in range,” McCoy said.
“Glad to,” Dr. Audry said. “Talk to you in a few hours.”
With that Dr. Audry cut the connection.
McCoy sighed with relief. He would feel better having samples on board the Enterprise. He stood and headed for the cargo bay. He was going to need a safe place to store the samples and a controlled environment. Better to get that set up now before the samples got here.
Besides, it would give him something to do besides just wait.
Countdown: 4 Days, 10 Hours
Sunn had spent the last four hours with Roger and Dar, working over the records they had recovered from the Elah. From everything thing they could tell, the “Blackness” had come in from outside the system, passed very near the planet without really touching it, and then moved on, all at a constant speed.
“I’ll bet that whatever it was didn’t even notice it was near a planet,” Roger had said.
“Killed by an indifferent god,” Dar had said.
Whether it knew what it was doing or not, something about the Blackness sucked every tiny bit of energy off the planet. That had left the Elah, an advanced culture, without one scrap of energy in anything. No transportation, no communication, no lights and heat. It had taken them and basically tossed them back into their equivalent of the stone age.
Sunn was convinced that if that had happened to man, humans would have simply climbed back. Roger had agreed. No way would something like this have stopped the human race.
But for some reason, the Elah culture believed that this Blackness was some sort of god, and that taking their energy was the sign that it was time for them to move to their next existence.
So with the arrival of the Blackness and suddenly having every scrap of their energy taken from them, almost all of the Elah had simply curled up in the buildings and starved to death.
There were signs that a few of the Elah had tried to go on. Roger, with scans from the buildings, had found signs of a few camps of Elah among the buildings. It seemed that in this one city along about two hundred had managed to stay outside after the Blackness left. Roger had called them the nonreligious ones. But clearly not enough had not believed in the sign of the Blackness, because those that tried to stay outside and start over had soon died off.
As Dar had said, “These aliens had never heard of the old cliché, When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” The going got tough for their entire civilization and they had just all rolled over and died.
But they had left a few records.
The Elah had traced and recorded, with star charts, the exact time and path of the Blackness as it approached and then entered their system. They gave no hint as to what it was, how big it was, or anything else. It was simply referred to as the Blackness. But in their ancient records, they had accounts of it coming from that direction before.
So Sunn figured that was where it would be now. He dropped into his captain’s chair and glanced at Roger. “Course laid in?”
“Ready when you are.”
“Dar?”
“Ready to chase the darkness,” Dar said.
“That’s Blackness,” Roger said.
“Whatever,” Dar said, laughing.
“Let’s do it,” Sunn said.
The Rattlesnake turned and, slick as could be, jumped to warp. They had less than four days to find this thing and report back to Kirk about the planet. Four days to find a Blackness in the depths of space.
But luckily, space wasn’t black. It just looked that way.
Chapter Fifteen
Countdown: 4 Days, 5 Hours
KIRK FACED Governor Pardonnet on the main screen. “Good work, Governor. All the colonists on board?”
“All but the six missing children and Lilian Coates,” Pardonnet said.
“Oh, no,” McCoy said softly behind Kirk.
Kirk immediately flashed to the image of Lilian Coates standing on the beach while the children played near her. He hadn’t realized one of the missing children was her boy. And with her husband dead, it was no wonder she had decided to stay behind and keep looking. She was a strong woman. If anyone could find them, she could.
“The other children’s families?” Kirk asked.
Pardonnet nodded. “On board, but not easily. They all had other children to take care of.”
“We’ll see if we can pull a ship away at some point to go back before the final explosion,” Kirk said. “If she can find those kids, we’ll get all of them off of there.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Pardonnet said.
Neither man said a word for a moment; then finally Kirk said, “Stand by for instructions. We’re going to do the next push just before the Gamma Night hits.”
“Understood,” Pardonnet said, and cut the connection.
The screen went back to showing the entire colony fleet in a very tight formation around them. They were all following the small moon like a pack of hungry dogs after a lame rabbit.
“Status, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, turning his mind away from the kids and to what needed to be done.
“All ships are in position. All tractor beams are connected and holding. Two minutes, six seconds remaining.”
“Good,” Kirk said.
Spock and Scotty had worked up a very intricate set of maneuvers for this burn to get the small moon up to speed. Instead of starting with all ships at one-quarter impulse, as they had tried last time, they would start at one-eighth impulse and work upward. Each colony ship was tied to another colony ship’s tractor beam. If one ship’s beam or engine started to fail, the other would simply take up the slack as needed, before the failure occurred.
This burn would need to last for exactly three minutes and forty-six seconds. And would end almost at the very moment the Gamma Night started. They wouldn’t really know if they had succeeded until ten hours later.
Ten long hours of the entire colony fleet coasting in space behind the small moon. He wasn’t looking forward to those hours at all.
“One minute,” Spock said.
Kirk nodded. They’d been through this routine twice before. It was becoming familiar.
“Uhura,
open a channel to all ships for Mr. Spock. Mr. Sulu, stand by.”
“Open, Mr. Spock,” Uhura said.
“Sure hope this works this time,” McCoy whispered as he stepped down beside Kirk’s chair.
“It has to, Bones,” Kirk whispered back.
“Thirty seconds,” Mr. Spock said to all the ships. “Stand by for one-eighth impulse power on my mark.”
Kirk sat and watched the ships on the screen. At the moment every one of them, including all the Starfleet shuttles, was hooked to the rough surface of the small moon by a tractor beam. But in reality, they were hooked to it with a lot more than that. All their hopes, their dreams of a new home, rode on this small moon. Everything these people had was attached like a tractor beam to the ability of this moon to rupture the Quake Moon.
He never would have imagined that the success of this entire wagon train to the stars could come down to one small moon and their ability to move that moon to the right spot, at the right time, and at the right speed.
“Five seconds,” Spock said.
The silence filled the bridge.
“One-eighth impulse. Now!” Spock ordered.
Kirk could feel the slight bump as the impulse engines kicked in. But at this push, the Enterprise wasn’t even straining.
“The tractor beams of two ships failed instantly,” Sulu said.
“Spock?” Kirk asked, turning to his first officer.
“The other ships are compensating, Captain,” Spock said.
“Workin’ like a charm,” Scotty said from the engineering station. He was beaming at the success of his and Spock’s plan of having a backup for every ship.
“Just keep an eye on it,” Kirk said. “Last thing we want to do is tear this moon apart now.”
“Aye, Captain,” Scott said.
One minute later another ship’s tractor beam failed and again the backup ship took up the slack.
With one minute remaining in the burn, one of the Conestogas had to drop back owing to engine overheating. Again Scotty and Spock’s system filled the gap. It was becoming very clear that they had needed every colony ship after all. This clearly wouldn’t have worked otherwise, especially at a higher speed.
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