Purgatory's Key

by Dayton Ward

  “It was certainly a first for me.” Each shard of recollection stabbed at her psyche, delivering shocks of pain and realization that jarred and disoriented her with the same force as the strafing runs to which she and so many others had been subjected during the attack. The terror had gripped her and refused to let go, punctuated by repeated plasma blasts with enough force to rip the breath from her lungs even as her body was peppered with shrapnel and stone. The sounds of shattering glass, tortured metal, and the screams of the injured rang in her ears and in her mind. Closing her eyes did nothing to keep away images of billowing clouds of debris as buildings collapsed upon themselves, and neither did it obscure the bodies that had been strewn about, broken and bleeding. Included among those victims had been her beloved husband, Sarek, who had risked his life to rescue a delegation of Klingon ambassadors from a university dormitory moments before it was reduced to rubble.

  And then he was taken from me.

  “Amanda?” prompted McCoy.

  Clearing her throat, she said, “I can still hear and see everything. I remember being next to Sarek, looking around to see whether it was help or another attack that was coming.” She recalled how, despite his own injuries, he had remained stoic and strong in the finest Vulcan tradition as he saw to her. Then he had yielded to unconsciousness. Even her throat seemed to ache, parched from the dust and from her repeated calls for assistance. She still saw Joanna McCoy, who had come to help her with Sarek, mere moments before the searing white light had appeared from nowhere, enveloping her husband and the young woman as though wiping them both from existence.

  “When I saw Sarek and your daughter disappear,” said Amanda, “I was overwhelmed. The idea that he’d been taken from me without warning was too much to bear.” She had fainted, a response for which she now was grateful. So much of her remaining time on Centaurus was a blur to her, including the initial treatment of her wounds by triage teams. One memory to which she had clung was that of seeing Spock walk toward her as he emerged from the surrounding crowd of those injured and providing care. In that moment, she released all of the shock, grief, pain, and despair welling within her in an unfettered display of raw emotion. Spock had weathered the outburst in a manner that would have made his father proud, assuming Sarek ever admitted to such a thing, but it was her son’s next words, so simple and yet so powerful, that had given her renewed hope.

  Sarek might yet live, Mother.

  Amanda seized the words, replaying them over and over in her mind. Spock had told her that Sarek and Joanna, along with numerous other people, had been subjected to the same phenomenon and were not dead. Instead, they had been transported into a separate, parallel universe. Whether they could be retrieved was unknown, but the Enterprise was committed to that goal. Since the starship’s departure from Centaurus, her son and other members of the crew had been working tirelessly toward finding a way to rescue her husband and the others. All Amanda could do now was wait and hope.

  “How are you handling all of this, Leonard?”

  As though caught off guard by her question, McCoy shifted in his seat. After a moment, he replied, “To be honest with you, not as well as your son. There are times when I wish I could channel some of that Vulcan emotional control. In my line of work, it’d sure come in handy.”

  Once more, Amanda laughed. “Spock’s told me that you can become quite . . . passionate when it comes to practicing medicine.”

  McCoy frowned. “Spock talks to you about me?”

  “Occasionally, during our infrequent subspace messages. I have a tendency to pry, and every once in a while he throws me a small morsel of information so that I’ll leave him alone.” Adjusting her position in her chair, Amanda said, “He usually settles for telling me a little about his crewmates, rather than talking about his work. I actually like that, since I like to hear about who’s out here with him. It’s nice to know that he has such good friends who care for him. When you first were serving together, he told me a bit about you.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what he said.”

  With a sly smile, Amanda replied, “Did you know he had to consult the ship’s computer banks to look up the word hobgoblin?”

  Blanching, McCoy shook his head, then offered a sheepish grin. “You’ll have to forgive me. I can be a bit . . . enthusiastic with my word choices.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Reaching across the table, Amanda put her hand on his forearm. “Don’t worry about it. You certainly didn’t offend him, and he knows that deep down, you don’t really mean it. Besides, he heard quite a bit worse growing up on Vulcan with a human mother.”

  “I can imagine,” said McCoy, a sympathetic look crossing his features.

  Amanda pulled back her hand. “However, those aren’t my stories to share. So, if you wouldn’t mind keeping that to yourself, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Fair enough.” Holding up his tricorder, he said, “Anyway, since I came here to see how you’re doing, I should probably get on with it.”

  Extracting a small scanner from the tricorder’s storage compartment, the doctor rose from his chair and moved to stand next to her. Both devices hummed and whined as he waved the scanner over her arm, then her leg, and finally her torso.

  “You’re sure you’re feeling all right?”

  Amanda mulled over her response. On Vulcan, such questions were not routinely asked by Vulcan physicians, including those versed in the treatment of humans. However, she recalled from her previous visit to the Enterprise, during her husband’s heart difficulties, that McCoy preferred a more informal, sometimes holistic approach to diagnosing his patients. Rather than relying on the wondrous, even miraculous devices that assisted him, he supplemented their findings and actions with old-fashioned observations of mind and body and—on occasion—spirit.

  “I’m feeling much better, actually. You and your staff have taken wonderful care of me.”

  McCoy asked her to take a series of deep breaths, and as she did so he continued waving the scanner along her left side where her rib had been injured.

  “Any pain?” he asked.

  “Nothing I can’t manage.”

  “Good.” Nodding in apparent satisfaction, McCoy deactivated the scanner and returned it to its compartment in the tricorder. “You took quite a beating.”

  “Physically, yes,” Amanda said. “Emotionally, I believe we both have.”

  His gaze lingering on his tricorder, McCoy cleared his throat. “Well, I can’t argue that.”

  “Your daughter, Joanna. She seems like a remarkable woman.” Amanda had learned the identity of the woman from Nurse Chapel while undergoing final treatment in the Enterprise’s sickbay. Though she had been cared for by doctors on Centaurus, the damage to the New Athens hospital had prompted Doctor McCoy to order her transported to the Enterprise. This was more than acceptable to her, as she had already decided that she could not wait there while her son and his shipmates set off for parts unknown in a desperate bid to rescue Sarek and the others. She wanted to be on the Enterprise if and when that miracle occurred. As for Joanna McCoy, it was only upon learning of her connection to the ship’s chief medical officer that Amanda realized why the doctor had seemed so tense and distracted in those first hours after the ship’s departure from Centaurus.

  McCoy nodded. “She’s the one thing I’m most proud of; the one thing I can say without doubt that I got right.”

  “She’s just like you,” Amanda said, motioning for him to retake his seat. “Your passion, your desire to help others regardless of the risk. I watched her on Centaurus. She didn’t hesitate, not for an instant, and I’m absolutely certain it’s because of her that I’m alive. Me, and Sarek . . . wherever he is.”

  McCoy forced a smile. “Thank you. That’s kind of you to say.”

  “You believe they’re alive, don’t you?”

  “I’m . . . I’m not sure.”

 
Again, Amanda laid her hand on his arm. “I am. I believe it with all my heart. Just as I believe that your daughter is there, with my husband, caring for him just as she cared for me.”

  Moving his arm, McCoy grasped her hand in his. “I’ll borrow a little of that hope, if you don’t mind, and I’m sure Joanna’s just as grateful to have your husband as he is for her.”

  Amanda smiled. “Gratitude? Remember who we’re talking about. Let’s settle for his acknowledgment of her competent performance as a nurse.”

  Despite what had to be heavy thoughts troubling him, McCoy’s smile returned. “Right. How silly of me.” He squeezed her hand once before releasing it. “I feel a little better now, thanks to you.”

  She nodded in understanding. For the first time since boarding the Enterprise, she felt real hope that all would work out for the best.

  “No. Thank you, Leonard.”

  Four

  He had been sitting at his desk less than a half hour, and already Kirk felt his eyes beginning to glaze over. If he were to list the various aspects of his duties that he would do away with given the chance, reviewing status reports of any sort would have to be his top choice.

  Status reports from the Enterprise’s department heads were necessary, of course, as Kirk took a keen interest in every aspect of his ship and crew. Though he might not understand every facet of every piece of equipment or task undertaken, it was critical that he not shirk his responsibility to be engaged to the maximum possible extent. He relied on the expert opinions of his senior staff and other crew members to help fill the gaps in his knowledge, but he did not allow that to be a substitute for actual engagement with the people under his command.

  Having dispensed with those reports, he now was reviewing the latest message traffic from Starfleet Command. The constant stream of communiqués relayed from headquarters could not be avoided, and while being mindful that the information such reports contained was important, it remained an often mind-numbing process. Not for the first time, Kirk found himself stealing glances at his bed. It was a tempting thought, he conceded. He had not slept much over the past couple of days due to the stress of the Enterprise’s current situation and the repairs Mister Scott and his engineers were continuing to address.

  You can sleep later.

  For now, there were the reports and his coffee. Kirk thanked whatever deity who might be listening that the food slot in his quarters was back up and running, providing him constant access to that marvelous elixir. Drinking from his second cup since sitting down, Kirk sighed and returned his attention to the reports and computer data cards littering his desk.

  Salvation came in the form of his door chime, and it was with more than slight relief that Kirk said, “Come in.”

  The single door slid aside to reveal McCoy, who stood in the corridor with arms crossed. Kirk noted a tricorder slung over his friend’s left shoulder.

  “Are they fixing this ship, or just building us another one?” said McCoy.

  “Bones,” said Kirk, smiling in greeting. “What can I do for you?” It was the first time he had seen his friend since informing him and the rest of the ship’s senior staff that they would be returning to the Libros system.

  “I got tired of looking at the walls of my office and thought I’d take a walk.” The doctor stepped into the room and allowed the door to close behind him. “Then the ship started acting up, and I got curious. Took a peek in engineering.” He shook his head. “Scotty’s got his boys running every which way.”

  Unlike many medical and science professionals assigned to starships that Kirk had encountered over the years, the Enterprise’s chief medical officer was not the sort to lock himself in sickbay or a lab and pretend the rest of the universe did not exist. With no restrictions preventing him from accessing any part of the ship, he preferred to wander the Enterprise corridors when time permitted such opportunities, interacting with the crew who called the vessel home. Assessing their mental and physical well-being in this way was—at least in the doctor’s opinion—far more helpful than within the more formal atmosphere of an examination room.

  Today, however, Kirk suspected his friend was roving about because it aided his own mental health.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked, waving his friend to the chair on the other side of his desk.

  Unlimbering his tricorder, McCoy placed the device on the desk before dropping into the seat. “All things considered? I’ll get by. It’s the not knowing part that eats at me.”

  It was McCoy’s nature to be anxious about the welfare of anyone, and that compassion had been tested on numerous occasions just in the time he had served aboard the Enterprise. Unlike those previous missions, even those that had brought with them great peril to the ship, its crew, and the handful of shipmates he counted as close friends, this situation was far more personal. His daughter, ­Joanna—along with Ambassador Sarek as well as Councillor Gorkon of the Klingon High Council and the commander of a Klingon battle cruiser, General Kovor—was caught up in the latest chapter of a mystery that had begun nearly two decades ago.

  The current situation had been put into motion weeks earlier, with an unusual and unexpected visit to the Enterprise by a former member of its crew, Captain Una. Her ties to the starship dated back to its earliest missions under its first commanding officer, Robert April, for whom Una had served as a junior lieutenant. After April was succeeded by Christopher Pike, she received a promotion in rank and became the ship’s first officer. Later, after Pike’s transfer of the Enterprise to Kirk, Una eventually received her own promotion to captain, as well as her own command, the U.S.S. Yorktown, her current assignment. Despite the years that had passed, it was her bond with the Enterprise and both of its previous captains that had brought her back, with a most unusual purpose.

  Una had taken from Kirk’s quarters an alien artifact entrusted to him by Christopher Pike, and to Pike from April. The artifact, the Transfer Key, was the central piece of a much larger and far more powerful piece of technology. Eljor, an alien scientist, had devised a “transfer-field generator” for the purpose of moving his people, the Jatohr, to this universe from their own, which was in its death throes. That effort had been focused on Usilde, a planet in the Libros system to which the Enterprise currently was headed.

  “I can’t believe you and Spock kept this secret to yourselves all this time,” McCoy said. “I know there are things you don’t always tell me, for one reason or another, because it’s classified or whatever, but after everything we’ve been through, it’s hard to believe you’d still be carrying something like this around.”

  Kirk replied, “It wasn’t personal, Bones. This is just something that’s been handed down, from captain to captain. If all had gone according to plan, I’d have passed the damned thing to the next captain and gone on my merry way.”

  The Key and its origins had been discovered by Captain April during the Enterprise’s original visit to Usilde. Eljor’s transfer-field generator had taken the form of an immense construct the Jatohr called “the citadel,” which was the landing point for Jatohr making the transition between universes. Though Eljor’s reasons for creating the device were well intentioned, the first Jatohr to make the transfer from their own universe had immediately taken to colonizing the planet and beginning the lengthy process of terraforming it to suit their own needs. This had come at great cost to the world’s existing ecosystem as well as its indigenous inhabitants, which included a sentient species, the Usildar. Further, the planet was to serve as a beachhead, a foothold in this universe from which the Jatohr could expand to other systems and perhaps inflict similar damage to other worlds.

  Along with the immediate danger the Jatohr posed to the Usildar, the larger threat the transfer-field generator represented in both universes had compelled April and his crew to assist Eljor in returning his own people to the realm from which they had come. Eljor had sacrificed his own lif
e, entrusting to April the Transfer Key, without which the transfer-field generator could not function. The doorway between universes would remain sealed, so long as the Key was kept safe. Eljor wanted to prevent the Key and the generator from being used for further exploitive or destructive purposes, and April had promised to uphold the Jatohr scientist’s final wishes.

  To that end, the captain had held on to the Key, rather than surrendering it to Starfleet’s research and development branches for study, thereby protecting it from possibly falling into the wrong hands. April stored the Key in a sealed compartment in his own cabin aboard the Enterprise, and upon his transfer from the ship, it had become Pike’s secret. Both Pike and Una would continue to safeguard the Key and its secrets until it became Kirk and Spock’s turn. In time, Kirk had expected he would turn over the Key to whoever followed in his footsteps as the next Enterprise captain.

  “Do you think Joanna and Sarek may have found Captain Una?” asked McCoy. “I keep wondering what the odds of that might be.”

  “There’s no way to know, Bones, but if there’s any consistency to how the Transfer Key operates, they may well have all ended up in the same place.” Kirk had no evidence to support his theory. Instead, he was relying on his gut and no small amount of faith. Even Spock, following his own renewed examination of the alien device, had been unable to provide an answer in this regard. “Spock’s still trying to find some answers. If anybody can figure out how that thing works, it’s him.”

  McCoy grunted. “I know. Just don’t tell him I said that, all right?”

  “Your secret’s safe with me.” Kirk could not help a small smile, as he was happy to see his friend’s spirits lift even the smallest bit. “Besides, he has just about the same stake in getting to the bottom of this as you do.”

  “Maybe even a bit more,” replied the doctor. “After all, Una’s almost like family to Spock. For a while, she might have been closer to him than Sarek. At least before he and Spock buried the hatchet.”