by Star Trek
known they were closed. He looked upon the Klingon woman, that
stood steadfastly behind the transporter controls. This co-
operation between him and the Klingons may not be the end-all
answer, but it was surely a start, a beginning at least for the
future that could be, one day.
"Are you all right, Captain?" Mara asked as she noticed that he
had held his eyes closed for a time.
Jim Kirk stood up straight and reigned in all stray thoughts.
"I am fine Lieutenant," he said with confidence.
"This is Kang." his voice erupted over the speaker. "We are
slowing to warp 1.1 and will be in transporter range in 10 seconds,
Mark!"
"You have your communicator?" Mara asked.
"Right here." He placed his hand on its location, behind his
back. "Thanks, Lieutenant. You have treated me with honor. Keep
monitoring the media broadcasts. I'm sure whatever happens below
will be big news."
"It is time. May the One True God protect you, Captain."
She offered him the earnest salutation of old tradition. She moved
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her hand skillfully upon the transporter controls and initiated
engagement of the beam-down.
Jim looked at her for a moment, wondering if she had read his
previous thoughts, then dismissed the notion. "Thanks, I believe
I'll need..." his voice trailed off, as he shimmered and
disappeared.
* * *
Captain James T. Kirk began to take shape in the mall that was
located behind the Supreme Assembly Hall building. Sparks popped
within the transporter field, then a distorted flickering image of
the Captain could be seen. The beam-down was failing and there was
nothing Kirk could do but silently, helplessly, endure the waves of
agony this was causing him. Charged particles were passing down
the transporter beam, forced into it by the Fury's warp field as it
passed within 60 kilometers of the Earth's surface. The grass
under Kirk's immaterial feet was beginning to smoke and burn.
On board the Fury, Mara was struggling with the controls. She
had been able to detect the problem and begin a reversal of the
transport... but it was too late. The wave had passed the point of
retrieval. She now had no choice but to increase power to the
beam.
"Kang!" she called to her husband. "Kang, you must circle
back, and remain in a loop pattern until I can complete the
transport. Captain Kirk is dying!"
Moments passed in silence as she tried to channel more energy
into the system. Then she heard a voice speak from the metal box.
"It is being done," Kang said.
She felt the ship's gravity increase as the vessel looped in
the tightest possible circle. 'I need more power to break through
the cloaking device's distortion field,' she thought to herself.
Then she had it. She set the control lock to its engaged
position and stepped from the console. Quickly, she ran over to an
engineering terminal across the room and tied into the ship's
environmental system. Ordering the ship to shut down artificial
gravity, she dashed back over to the console, unlocked it and found
the precious extra energy she needed. Centrifugal force now held
the crew to the deck.
Mara pushed the matter gain levers to maximum and cleared all
buffers, forcing the Captain out of the system.
Back on Earth, in the Mall of the Supreme Assembly Hall, a man
lay sprawled on a small patch of blackened lawn. He lay there on
the smoldering grass, motionless for a moment, then his chest
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heaved upwards, and Captain Kirk gulped a breath of fresh air. He
awoke, smelling the scorched earth beneath him and something that
reminded him of burning rubber. He closed his eyes against the
brightness of the sun and lay still for a moment. Fresh in his
memory was the pain that seemed unending, an agony the likes of
which he had never experienced before. Nor could he describe it to
another if he were asked. He lay there and realized suddenly that
the pain had ended, and remembered the reason he had come.
He opened his eyes again, and immediately a movement caught
his attention. Standing to his left was a small boy wearing anti-
grav skates and holding a small order of Pigeon McGiblets. The boy
looked more curious than scared, but he had obviously seen the
Captain beam down and was both surprised and a little shaken by it.
"Hello," Jim spoke to the child, squinting for the sun.
"You OK, mister?" the boy responded.
"Fine... just resting," Jim said.
"Your shoes are on fire," the boy commented.
Kirk was on his feet in a moment. His body had no memory of
the torment that was thrust upon it only seconds ago, and he seemed
to have more freedom of movement, more limberness to his joints.
'I don't think I'll mention this to Bones,' he thought to himself
as he stamped out his feet. 'He'll have me doing this as physical
therapy.'
Jim looked at the boy who could not be more than 8 years old.
"Thanks, kid."
"You're a Fleet Cap'in, aren't ya?"
"Yes, and I am on a secret mission. So I gotta go." Jim smiled
at the youth and turned towards the building behind him.
"You goin in there?" the boy asked, pointing to the Federation
Council Hall.
"Yes, I am. goodbye now," Jim said and began to move towards
the nearest entrance to the building.
"My mom's in there already," the boy offered the Captain. He
hovered behind the Captain, keeping up with him.
"Uh huh," Jim said, acknowledging the boy's comment. "I'll
see you later."
"Can I come?" the boy asked. "I could help you."
Jim could see that he was having no luck in shaking the boy
loose from himself. "I'm sure you could, but I've got to go inside
there and stop a very bad man from hurting lots of people."
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The boy looked at the Captain with incredulous eyes. "My mom
says that there aren't no bad men. Just people who have different
valiums than we do."
"That's values," Jim said and stopped walking. He gazed down
upon the small innocent face that floated below him. "We all can be
bad at times, kid. It's a choice we to make once we realize that
there is 'Right' and 'Wrong', to choose from."
"The police keep people from being bad, don't they?"
"The police protect us and help punish the people who do not
obey the laws. Obeying laws does not make us good. Laws don't even
tell us what 'good'is, but they do show us what is 'bad'."
"If I'm bad, are you gonna come after me, too?"
"I don't know, son." Jim kneeled down to the boy's eye level.
He was in a hurry, but the boy seemed important to him somehow.
"But when we see badness, it is good to try to stop it. If we don't,
we are helping the badness get worse and saying it's OK to be bad."
"Then I got to help you," the boy said with conviction.
Jim saw that he had backed himself in a corner again, and
lacked the time to talk his way out of it. "Ok, son,
you can do
something that will help."
Jim took the tri-corder from around his neck. Bones had
intended that it be used to help track Garth, should he change into
a different form. Jim knew that if he could not stop Garth with
the first try, the second try could only be attempted with a
Starship. Garth would not allow anyone to get close enough to make
a second attempt. Jim removed his phaser from the pouch, slid it
behind his back and handed the unit to the boy.
"This has very important information that needs to go to the
Vulcan Ambassador 'Sarek'. If I can't stop the bad man, he might
be able to, with this. If you can't find him or get this to him,
tell your mom that it must get to him or the Assembly President."
He watched as the child's face lit up with the joy and
enthusiasm of being trusted with such an important task.
"Do you think you can do it?" Jim asked.
"Wow!" the boy whispered, turning the tri-corder over in his
hands. He then looked up at the Captain and nodded.
"Off you go then," Jim said and mussed the child's hair with a
gentle hand. The boy skated off towards the 'Visiting Dignitary's'
housing compound and was gone from sight in a flash.
Captain Kirk looked again at his surroundings. He had been
here many times before, for many different reasons, but never like
this. He felt like an assassin; a traitor to the Federation. If
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he were to be caught, that is exactly what history would remember
him as. Captain James T. Kirk, his name up in lights right next
to Benedict Arnold and Colonel Green.
Jim stopped himself from dwelling on the notion, and steeled
himself against any further thoughts of failure. He moved around
the huge building, seeing the mob of people that surrounded the
North entrance of the complex: Galactic Press Reporters, hoping
for any bit of information that might help them out-scoop their
peers; Protesters and demonstrators from every conceivable
viewpoint, some with signs, others singing and shouting their
messages; Onlookers, simply wanting a peek at the political
celebrities, thronging the steps to the building.
Security teams guarded the entrance and held the mob
harmlessly back with a static security web; an energy barricade
similar to a Starship's deflector screen. There were three
corridors open for authorized pedestrian traffic to and from the
building, once they were cleared by security.
Behind the security guards, mounted high on the marble pillars
of the building, were the first of the weapons detectors. Jim drew
his weapon and cupped his palm over it to conceal it from the crowd
he was nearing. With his thumb, he adjusted the phaser's focus for
the approximate distance.
Jim looked around for a moment, searching for something. Then
he found what he needed. Across the lawn were several public
vending machines lined up in rows against the fusion-formed walkway
wall. Jim aimed his weapon at the candy machine nearest the throng,
and fired, causing it to harmlessly ignite and smoke profusely. It
served as an ample distraction, as all were wanting to see either
what was burning or what everyone else was looking at.
Jim closed the distance from himself and the front entrance
corridor to approximately 50 meters. He stealthily aimed his weapon
at the right pillar and fired. He saw that his aim was too high by
a meter, as a spot on the marble column began to glow red. Jim
slowly dragged the beam downward until it made contact with the
weapons detector. He hit it square in its sensor array, fusing
the elements together silently, then pulled the beam over to the
left pillar and connected with the other unit.
'One scanning station down,' Jim thought to himself, 'Now to
get past these guards and into the building.'
* * *
The Supreme Assembly Hall was brimming to the rafters. Only
select persons of the News media were allowed to attend the final
session and multicast the event to all Worlds. They panned their
multi-cams across the crowded tense room as the delegates argued
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fervently while seating themselves and awaiting the President to
announce the results of the decision made there this day.
The President of the Assembly prepared to take the stage, as
his aide gave him the sealed document that only he was authorized
to open. He ascended the raised platform and took his place behind
the podium. On top of the dais was the membership charter that
was ready for the Emperor's signature in the event that the
decision was in his favor. The President would be expected to
contact the Klingonese Emperor in a moment, to allow him to be
present for the vote of admission. The Emperor had stated his
desire to hear the verdict with the rest of the Assembly.
The President could feel the division among the beings he now
faced. Throughout the deliberations of the past two days, tensions
between the delegates had escalated exponentially, the "For's"
versus the "Against's", both sides passionately opposed to the other.
That in itself was nothing new, but it had never been so on an
issue of this magnitude. Then again, in past deliberations, there
had literally been more time to debate the issues and sift out the
truth, or the proper course of action, time to determine the best
course of action. Now the President could only see a stampede of
cattle, rushing into oblivion and trampling each other in the drive.
As a boy, raised on a ranch, he had seen lightning start his
father's herd to running. And as he looked into the Emperor's eyes
earlier, he was now certain that there was lightning in them. He
had never been so afraid for the Federation.
It was now, as ever, his responsibility to hold the delegates
of the United Federation of Planets together no matter which side
the vote would favor. With the eyes of all upon him, the President
addressed the Assembly.
"Gentle beings," the President spoke to the anxious masses.
"Today we have reached a determination on a highly complex issue.
It was a difficult decision to make for all parties concerned and
we may find that it will not be easy for all present to accept.
But this vote should bring us closer as a coalition, regardless of
the outcome."
"We represent many races, many worlds. We are an example to
the rest of the galaxy, demonstrating the ability to set aside
personal differences and pull together for the betterment of the
whole. We have heard evidence of this, even from the mouth of the
one whom we had known as our enemy."
He looked to his friends, his guests, his allies. The
division ran deep. The only thing that could preserve this United
Federation of Planets was to remind them of what it was they stood
for. 'It is easy to forget, when the test is upon us,' the
President acknowledged to himself.
"A new idea can be difficult to accept... It is hard to extend
your trust to a stranger and even
harder to turn away a friend in
need. But we, as a body, must make decisions, good or ill, and
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live with them. We do so with this ideal in mind: That we are not
merely interplanetary members of an organization, but we are
members, one of another. I am from Earth, but I am no less one of
you, if you accept me. It is a marriage, both of necessity and
convenience, for it is necessary to bear each other up in times of
trouble, and convenient to rejoice together in times of happiness.
Fellow beings... Let us continue in what our fathers started long
ago... Let us test and prove that the United Federation of Planets
was not created in vain!"
The President's oration moved the audience, and cut to the
heart of the delegates. They saw the issue in a slightly different,
slightly broader perspective now, and though there would always be
disagreements among them, it would take more than the events of this
day to destroy the unity they shared.
Sarek of Vulcan was the first to stand out of respect towards
the President. One by one the others stood with him and affirmed
the solidarity of the congregation.
* * *
Jim made his way towards the men in 'security red' guarding the
front entrance to the Assembly complex. All told, there were
fifteen security men in the front of the building, five at each
corridor entrance, and this was only the first station. There
