by Dayton Ward
He was nearly two thirds of the way to the elevator when something zipped past his ear, the first shot echoing in the narrow corridor. A second shot rang out and a fireball exploded in his shoulder. He stumbled and fell to his knees, his right hand automatically moving to his wounded arm. Pulling the hand away, he saw it was covered in blood.
“Stop!” Wainwright called out from behind him. Christopher, still on his knees, turned to face the other man. Wainwright’s face was bloody, his nose angled unnaturally to the left.
“I’m sorry,” Wainwright said, slowly walking up the corridor. A look of sadness dominated the man’s features. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Captain. I don’t want to harm anyone, but surely you can see my position. I’ve devoted my life to this country, and those in power have abandoned me and others like me to save their own worthless hides. Well, that’s ended now. The truth will come out today, and you will help me.”
A tone abruptly sounded in the hallway, and their attention was drawn to the elevator. The doors parted to reveal a figure wearing a black suit strikingly similar to the one Wainwright wore. Christopher looked up and his gaze was drawn to blue eyes and honey blond hair. A woman.
Wainwright was caught off guard by the new arrival, his hand jerking the pistol around wildly to point at the woman. Christopher had to wonder how he kept from shooting her accidentally.
“Who are you?” Wainwright snapped.
The woman calmly produced a small wallet from the inside pocket of her suit jacket and showed him a rather plain identification card with her photograph on it.
“Agent Lincoln,” she said with an air of authority that seemed in contrast with her apparent youth. “Major Quintanilla has asked me to take Captain Christopher into custody. He wants you to return to Wright-Patterson immediately for debriefing.”
“Debriefing,” Wainwright echoed. Christopher could see confusion playing across the man’s face, breaking through the single-minded focus that had dominated it just seconds before.
The woman, Lincoln, reached into her suit pocket again, this time pulling out a packet of papers held together by the pocket clip of a stout silver pen. Taking the pen in her right hand, she unfolded the papers and held them out to Wainwright. “Here are the orders.”
As Wainwright rapidly scanned the papers, Lincoln looked down at Christopher. “Are you all right?”
“Been better,” the pilot hissed through clenched teeth.
She returned her attention to Wainwright. “We have to go quickly. Military police have tracked your vehicle to this location. They’ll be here in the next few minutes.”
“These orders are fake!” Wainwright said suddenly. “The cipher key in the heading is yesterday’s code.”
The woman’s face fell as Wainwright’s pistol came up again, this time pointing at her. “I don’t know who you are,” he said. “But you’re not going to stop me from doing what needs to be done. I’ve been kept down for too long and today is my redemption.”
“What the hell is going on?” Christopher demanded, using the wall for support as he pulled himself to his feet. “Who are you?” he asked Lincoln.
Christopher’s movements distracted Wainwright, and Lincoln was obviously waiting for just such a happenstance. Her right hand came up with startling speed, the pen grasped in a firm grip.
The pen…?
A bolt of blue energy erupted from the pen, catching Wainwright full in the chest. The man sighed as the beam enveloped him, the tension immediately leaving his muscles.
“No,” he breathed as he sagged to the floor, consciousness slipping away rapidly.
“You’re tired, go to sleep,” Lincoln said to him. She stepped forward and retrieved his weapon, then turned to Christopher. “I’m sorry this had to happen, Captain, but don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“My family,” Christopher blurted. “He said he had men ready to take my family.”
Lincoln smiled. “Don’t worry about that. My…partner…is taking care of that as we speak.” She moved closer to inspect the wound in his shoulder. “The bullet passed through cleanly. We can fix that easy enough.” She reached into her pocket and produced a device Christopher did not recognize.
“What is that?” he asked as she pressed the object to his shoulder. He grimaced as pain pulsed briefly, but then the device began to hum and soothing warmth washed over his arm.
“This’ll heal your wound. There won’t even be a scar.”
The humming ceased after several seconds and she pulled the device away. He looked down in awe and saw that except for the blood on his suit, there was no sign he’d ever been injured. He groped the back of his shoulder where the bullet’s entry wound should have been and found nothing. The woman was as good as her word.
“Groovy, huh?” Lincoln asked.
“It’s incredible.” He shook his head in disbelief, then looked back at her. “Who are you?”
“Someone who looks out for others when they need looking out for. Mr. Wainwright had a good idea to let people know about UFOs, but he was about to make a huge error. If he’d gotten to the public with what the two of you know, it could have caused a panic. The government might delay the Apollo 11 launch, and that’s something that can’t be allowed to happen, you know?”
Realization dawned on Christopher’s face. “You mean it’s true? What he told me? What I saw? All of it?”
“Pretty heavy, huh?” she replied. “Between the two of you, you’ve got enough information to put UFO groupies and national security bigwigs into a full-blown lather.”
Christopher shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why are you telling me this?” He indicated the unconscious Wainwright with a wave of his hand. “You must know I have to report everything I’ve seen today, including all this.”
“Because you won’t remember any of it,” Lincoln said calmly as she brought the pen up once more.
July 16, A.D. 1969
In an apartment in New York City sat a man, a woman, and a cat. The man, a middle-aged gentleman of slim build with intense blue eyes and brown hair peppered with gray, regarded his companion, Roberta Lincoln. At the moment, she was completing a report detailing her last assignment.
“Agent Wainwright has been placed in an Air Force psychiatric facility,” she said. “Doctors report he suffered a nervous breakdown due to prolonged work-related stress while assigned to atop-secret military program. He talks endlessly about alien invasion fleets and UFO sightings and how the public needs to be warned. They predict that with the proper therapy, they can assist him to a full recovery inside of a year.”
The man rose from his chair, cradling the purring black cat in his arms as he strolled to a window. The apartment overlooked the city, and he stared out at the cityscape for several seconds before saying, “Unfortunate that it had to end that way for him, but at least now he won’t endanger himself or history. What about Captain Christopher?”
Roberta replied, “Given the amount of time that had passed since Wainwright kidnapped him, I decided to leave him where I found him. He has no memory of meeting Wainwright. The military police told him about Wainwright’s breakdown and attributed his kidnapping to that. As for his encounter with the Enterprise, Air Defense Command chalked it up as just another unexplained UFO sighting.”
Gary Seven turned from the window, allowing the cat to drop to the floor and scamper away. “Therefore, there’s nothing to report to any authorities and no reason for them to delay the launch of Apollo 11. All in all, a successful mission, and quite an accomplishment for your first solo outing.”
Closing the report with a sigh, she replied, “I mucked up the cipher code on the fake orders. I almost had him convinced until he saw that.”
“A minor mistake, which you overcame and thereby salvaged the operation. Consider it a lesson for the future, Miss Lincoln. It’s the little things that will trip you up on missions like ours, not the big ones.”
Roberta processed the gentle lecture, then s
aid, “It’s too bad we missed the Enterprise. I’d have liked to meet Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock again.”
The cat made a most derisive noise at that, and Seven regarded the animal with an amused expression. “Quite right, Isis. Roberta, from their point of view, they hadn’t met us yet. If we’d met with them on the day Captain Christopher saw the Enterprise, we would have risked disrupting the time stream. I don’t think I have to remind you the trouble that could cause.”
Shaking her head, Roberta blew out a breath of frustration, pausing briefly to give Isis a dirty look that went ignored as the cat began to preen herself.
“Time travel gives me a headache, you know?”
Seven allowed himself the briefest of smiles, a rare display of emotion. “I don’t particularly enjoy it myself.” He moved back to his seat and turned his attention to the television set that had previously gone ignored. Their assignment here on Earth to ensure humankind’s maturation into a peaceful society was ongoing, but for the time being it could take a back seat to the history about to unfold on the screen before them.
Isis returned to Seven’s lap once more as her master settled into the sofa. Petting the cat absently, he said, “Don’t worry, Miss Lincoln. Something tells me we haven’t seen the last of the Enterprise.”
In his home in Nebraska, Captain John Christopher sat with his wife and two daughters transfixed before a television, just like millions of other people all around the world. They watched as a mighty white rocket, the most powerful transportation device ever constructed by humans, shook loose the embrace of gravity and hurtled upward into the blue Florida sky, the first step on a long journey that would forever change the way the inhabitants of Earth viewed their home planet.
Christopher had dreamed of traveling through space. He’d even gone so far as to try out for the fledgling American astronaut program. He hadn’t qualified, so like the many others whose dreams would probably never be realized, he would have to be content to merely sit, watch, and celebrate the achievements of others on this momentous day and those that would surely follow.
As the mighty Saturn V soared heavenward, Christopher glanced down to where his two daughters lay on the rug between the television and the couch where he and his wife sat. They were young, still a few years from reaching their teens. It was entirely possible they would grow up in a world where space travel was commonplace. They might even be among those fortunate enough to carry the pioneering spirit of humanity to the stars.
Why not them?
Apollo 11 climbed higher into the sky, but John Christopher was no longer watching. Instead, his thoughts wandered toward the years that lie ahead, and what a future generation of Christophers might contribute to them.
About the Author
Dayton Ward has been a fan of Star Trek since conception (his, not the show’s). After serving for eleven years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he discovered the private sector and the piles of cash to be made there as a software engineer. His start in professional writing came as a result of placing stories in each of the first three Star Trek: Strange New Worlds anthologies. With Kevin Dilmore, Dayton also co-wrote the Interphase duology for the Star Trek: S.C.E. series of “eBooks” as well as that series’upcoming Foundations trilogy. Though he currently lives in Kansas City with his wife, Michi, he is a Florida native and still maintains a torrid long-distance romance with his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Feel free to contact Dayton anytime via E-mail at [email protected].
Look for STAR TREK fiction from Pocket Books
Star Trek®
Enterprise: The First Adventure • Vonda N. McIntyre
Strangers From the Sky • Margaret Wander Bonanno
Final Frontier • Diane Carey
Spock’s World • Diane Duane
The Lost Years • J.M. Dillard
Prime Directive • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Probe • Margaret Wander Bonanno
Best Destiny • Diane Carey
Shadows on the Sun • Michael Jan Friedman
Sarek • A.C. Crispin
Federation • Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Vulcan’s Forge • Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
Mission to Horatius • Mack Reynolds
Vulcan’s Heart • Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Book One and Two • Greg Cox
Novelizations
Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Gene Roddenberry
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home • Vonda N. McIntyre
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier • J.M. Dillard
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country • J.M. Dillard
Star Trek Generations • J.M. Dillard
Starfleet Academy • Diane Carey
Star Trek books by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The Ashes of Eden
The Return
Avenger
Star Trek: Odyssey (contains The Ashes of Eden, The Return, and Avenger)
Spectre
Dark Victory
Preserver
#1 • Star Trek: The Motion Picture • Gene Roddenberry
#2 • The Entropy Effect • Vonda N. McIntyre
#3 • The Klingon Gambit • Robert E. Vardeman
#4 • The Covenant of the Crown • Howard Weinstein
#5 • The Prometheus Design • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
#6 • The Abode of Life • Lee Correy
#7 • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan • Vonda N. McIntyre
#8 • Black Fire • Sonni Cooper
#9 • Triangle • Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath
#10 • Web of the Romulans • M.S. Murdock
#11 • Yesterday’s Son • A.C. Crispin
#12 • Mutiny on the Enterprise • Robert E. Vardeman
#13 • The Wounded Sky • Diane Duane
#14 • The Trellisane Confrontation • David Dvorkin
#15 • Corona • Greg Bear
#16 • The Final Reflection • John M. Ford
#17 • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock • Vonda N. McIntyre
#18 • My Enemy, My Ally • Diane Duane
#19 • The Tears of the Singers • Melinda Snodgrass
#20 • The Vulcan Academy Murders • Jean Lorrah
#21 • Uhura’s Song • Janet Kagan
#22 • Shadow Lord • Laurence Yep
#23 • Ishmael • Barbara Hambly
#24 • Killing Time • Della Van Hise
#25 • Dwellers in the Crucible • Margaret Wander Bonanno
#26 • Pawns and Symbols • Majliss Larson
#27 • Mindshadow • J.M. Dillard
#28 • Crisis on Centaurus • Brad Ferguson
#29 • Dreadnought! • Diane Carey
#30 • Demons • J.M. Dillard
#31 • Battlestations! • Diane Carey
#32 • Chain of Attack • Gene DeWeese
#33 • Deep Domain • Howard Weinstein
#34 • Dreams of the Raven • Carmen Carter
#35 • The Romulan Way • Diane Duane & Peter Morwood
#36 • How Much for Just the Planet? • John M. Ford
#37 • Bloodthirst • J.M. Dillard
#38 • The IDIC Epidemic • Jean Lorrah
#39 • Time for Yesterday • A.C. Crispin
#40 • Timetrap • David Dvorkin
#41 • The Three-Minute Universe • Barbara Paul
#42 • Memory Prime • Garfield and Judith Reeves-Stevens
#43 • The Final Nexus • Gene DeWeese
#44 • Vulcan’s Glory • D.C. Fontana
#45 • Double, Double • Michael Jan Friedman
#46 • The Cry of the Onlies • Judy Klass
#47 • The Kobayashi Maru • Julia Ecklar
#48 • Rules of Engagement
• Peter Morwood
#49 • The Pandora Principle • Carolyn Clowes
#50 • Doctor’s Orders • Diane Duane
#51 • Enemy Unseen • V.E. Mitchell
#52 • Home Is the Hunter • Dana Kramer-Rolls
#53 • Ghost-Walker • Barbara Hambly
#54 • A Flag Full of Stars • Brad Ferguson
#55 • Renegade • Gene DeWeese
#56 • Legacy • Michael Jan Friedman
#57 • The Rift • Peter David
#58 • Faces of Fire • Michael Jan Friedman
#59 • The Disinherited • Peter David, Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger
#60 • Ice Trap • L.A. Graf
#61 • Sanctuary • John Vornholt
#62 • Death Count • L.A. Graf
#63 • Shell Game • Melissa Crandall
#64 • The Starship Trap • Mel Gilden
#65 • Windows on a Lost World • V.E. Mitchell
#66 • From the Depths • Victor Milan
#67 • The Great Starship Race • Diane Carey
#68 • Firestorm • L.A. Graf
#69 • The Patrian Transgression • Simon Hawke
#70 • Traitor Winds • L.A. Graf
#71 • Crossroad • Barbara Hambly
#72 • The Better Man • Howard Weinstein
#73 • Recovery • J.M. Dillard
#74 • The Fearful Summons • Denny Martin Flynn
#75 • First Frontier • Diane Carey & Dr. James I. Kirkland
#76 • The Captain’s Daughter • Peter David
#77 • Twilight’s End • Jerry Oltion
#78 • The Rings of Tautee • Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch
#79 • Invasion! #1: First Strike • Diane Carey
#80 • The Joy Machine • James Gunn
#81 • Mudd in Your Eye • Jerry Oltion
#82 • Mind Meld • John Vornholt
#83 • Heart of the Sun • Pamela Sargent & George Zebrowski
#84 • Assignment: Eternity • Greg Cox
#85–87 • My Brother’s Keeper • Michael Jan Friedman
#85 • Republic
#86 • Constitution
