Star Trek: The Original Series: No Time Like the Past

by Greg Cox

  “Agreed,” Janeway said. “Inform Commander Chakotay of our present location and intentions.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  While Tuvok updated Voyager on the status of the mission, the rest of the away team inspected the mouth of the tunnel, which formed an isosceles trapezoid approximately two meters in height. Although the area just beyond the entrance was illuminated, the end of the tunnel remained cloaked in darkness.

  “What do you think is up there, Captain?” Neelix asked.

  “Answers, possibly,” Janeway said. “Or perhaps simply more questions.”

  “I would prefer the former,” Seven said. She took advantage of the gap in the cliff face to scan the interior of the monument. “I am detecting energy readings ahead, although I cannot identify the precise nature of the technology.”

  “Any life signs?” Janeway asked.

  “Negative.”

  This did not seem to reassure Neelix, who regarded the tunnel opening with ill-concealed trepidation. “You know, this whole situation reminds me of one of Mister Paris’s favorite Captain Proton holo-adventures: ‘Chapter Nine: The Curse of the Astro-Mummy’s Tomb!’ ”

  He shuddered vigorously.

  “Lieutenant Paris’s tastes in entertainment often lack sophistication,” Seven stated, “and are of little relevance to this mission.”

  Neelix still looked apprehensive. “So you don’t believe there’s a curse?”

  Talaxians were a superstitious species, Seven recalled, prone to flights of fancy and irrational beliefs. The Borg had always gone to great lengths to eliminate these imperfections from any and all Talaxians they assimilated. Seven could not say that she entirely blamed them.

  “Curses are illogical,” Tuvok said, before addressing Janeway. “Voyager has been informed of our situation, Captain. Do you still wish to proceed?”

  “No time like the present,” she said. “Let’s look inside Kirk’s head.”

  Tuvok insisted on leading the way. He kept his phaser ready, although this struck Seven as a possibly unnecessary precaution. They cautiously made their way up the tunnel, drawn upward by the overhead lights that switched on in sequence ahead of them, meter by meter. The air was stale but breathable, while the temperature inside the tunnels, away from the harsh sun outside, was cooler by several degrees. The lack of animal life on the planet meant that the tunnel was thankfully free of cobwebs and vermin.

  Seven observed the décor. The curved gray walls of the tunnel were smooth and unadorned, as though carved out by an industrial phaser drill or an equally industrious Horta, but the sloping floor of the tunnel was decorated with inlaid tiles repeating the same distinctive motif: a disk divided into four intersecting wedges of alternating red and violet hues. The simple design offered little clue as to the monument’s origin; Seven did not associate it with any known species or culture. The away team trod upon the disks as they advanced cautiously.

  “Watch out for booby traps,” Janeway cautioned. “Curse or no curse, whoever built this complex might have wanted to discourage intruders.”

  Neelix gulped. “Did I ever tell you about the time I went treasure-hunting in the catacombs beneath the Lost Sphinx of Sniilor the Eighth? I didn’t find any gem-studded latinum, but I narrowly avoided a bottomless pit filled with flesh-eating marrow-wyrms. . . .”

  “Then this must seem like a walk in the park,” Janeway said. “Compared to your swashbuckling past.”

  “I suppose,” the Talaxian said, sounding unconvinced. “So far.”

  Seven suspected that Neelix’s tales of past adventures were intended to bolster his courage, but they seemed to be having the opposite effect. She blamed Tom Paris’s absurd holo-adventures for filling the Talaxian’s head with implausible scenarios and anxieties. Seven preferred her own diversions to be grounded in reality. The universe was hazardous enough without indulging in imaginary nightmares.

  An archway at the end of the corridor led to what appeared to be a spacious burial chamber. A marble sarcophagus rested upon a tiered pedestal, which was singled out by an overhead spotlight, in contrast to the shadowy doorways or alcoves adjacent to the sarcophagus. Graceful pillars supported a vaulted ceiling. Seven noted that the tiled floor expanded on the motif from the corridor outside, with the circular floor divided into four interlocking wedges. It occurred to her that red and violet marked the ends of the visible spectrum for humanoid species, but she was uncertain if that was significant. Her own ocular implant extended her vision along a wider range.

  “I knew it!” Neelix said unhappily. “I knew this was a tomb!”

  “But whose?” Janeway asked. Her eyes searched the chamber, which was dimly lit aside from the sarcophagus and bier. “I don’t see any inscriptions, in English or otherwise.”

  “Nor do I,” Tuvok confirmed.

  Seven scanned the sarcophagus with the tricorder. “I am detecting skeletal remains within the burial container—in an advanced state of deterioration.”

  “Human?” Janeway asked.

  “Humanoid.” Seven analyzed the readings. “The data is inconclusive.”

  “Naturally,” Janeway said wryly. “What about that signal? Is it coming from the tomb?”

  Seven switched to another display screen. “Negative. The energy readings are coming from farther within this complex.” She nodded at the darkened doorways. “Possibly from an adjacent chamber.”

  For the moment, Janeway appeared more intrigued by the sarcophagus itself. She approached the bier cautiously. “I wonder . . . Could this actually be the final resting place of James T. Kirk himself?”

  “Perhaps a closer inspection of the remains would resolve the matter,” Seven suggested. “If necessary, we can exhume them and subject them to a full forensic examination aboard the ship.”

  “I don’t know, Captain,” Neelix protested. “Desecrating a tomb? That doesn’t sit right with me. It sounds like sacrilege.”

  “You raise a valid point, Mister Neelix,” Janeway said. “It’s an old and thorny debate. When does archaeology—and the quest for knowledge—outweigh the right of the honored dead to rest in peace?”

  “I fail to see the dilemma,” Seven said. “The dead are past caring what happens to their remains. Their ‘rights’ are irrelevant.”

  “It’s an issue of respect,” Janeway attempted to explain. “To the deceased’s posterity and culture, if nothing else. People tend to get touchy when their ancestors’ bones are disturbed.”

  “That would not appear to be a factor here,” Tuvok observed. “There is no indigenous culture at hand and every indication that this tomb has been long forgotten.” He lowered his phaser. “It is uncertain who would take offense if we exhumed the remains.”

  Seven appreciated his logic. Her understanding was that Vulcan funeral practices placed greater emphasis on preserving the memories and knowledge of the deceased—what they termed the katra—than venerating the physical remains. This struck her as eminently sensible. The Borg attached no significance to the bodies of terminated drones, aside from recycling any salvageable components. It was the accumulated knowledge of the Collective that mattered, not lifeless organic matter.

  “You told me once that a proper appreciation of history was essential to my development as an individual,” she reminded Janeway, appealing to the captain’s intellectual curiosity. “If this could indeed be the tomb of James Kirk, do we not owe it to history to determine his ultimate fate?”

  “A persuasive argument,” Janeway said. “I admit I can’t help wondering if that signal was always intended to call us here, so that Starfleet could finally track down one of its own.”

  Seven suspected that, despite Janeway’s ethical concerns, the captain was predisposed toward opening the tomb and simply looking for sufficient reason to do so. Janeway had been a science officer before she became a captain after all; her curiosity came close to rivaling her conscience. Seven hoped that science would win out over sentimentality.

  “Let’s po
ke around a bit more,” Janeway suggested. “Perhaps we can find more evidence to help us decide, one way or another.”

  A reasonable course of action, Seven decided. Accumulating more data was always advisable. The tomb had gone undisturbed for a significant, if indeterminate, interval already. A brief delay would not affect the outcome of the investigation, and it might yield valuable results.

  “Yes, Captain!” Neelix was visibly eager to exit the burial chamber. Giving the sarcophagus a wide berth, he hurried into one of the side corridors. Something dry and brittle crunched beneath his feet, even as the lights came on in the corridor to reveal the skeletal remains of a dead humanoid. Startled, Neelix let out an inarticulate yelp and stumbled backward in alarm. He tripped over a desiccated femur that had gone unnoticed in the dim lighting before. Losing his balance, he fell backward and slammed into the sarcophagus. His flailing body smacked against the bier with considerable force.

  The results were immediate—and devastating.

  A blinding white flash temporarily overloaded Seven’s optical implants. She experienced a sense of disorientation and extreme discomfort. Her pulse and respiration ceased for what felt like a subjective eternity, only to abruptly resume. Her eyes rolled, exposing only the whites, and her legs lost their ability to support her. She collapsed onto the floor. Her last thought, before slipping into unconsciousness, was to reflect that perhaps Neelix’s apprehensions had not been so irrelevant after all.

  Was this what a “curse” felt like?

  • • •

  Seven stirred upon the floor of the burial chamber. Her eyes opened and she staggered to her feet. Nausea and lightheadedness threatened her balance, but the moment passed and she regained her equilibrium. Memories of Neelix’s accidental collision with the sarcophagus, and the ensuing energy burst, rushed back to her. Her chronometric node informed her that only a few minutes had passed since the pulse. She stretched her limbs, reassured to find them in working order. She looked around urgently.

  “Captain? Tuvok?”

  She spotted the rest of the away team sprawled upon the floor. At first she feared that they had been killed, but then she spied evidence of respiration. She rushed to Janeway’s side and attempted unsuccessfully to revive the captain, who was pale and breathing shallowly. Radiation burns scarred Janeway’s face and hands. Her pulse was weak and unsteady. She clearly required medical attention, as did Neelix and Tuvok.

  “Seven of Nine to Voyager!” she hailed the ship. “We have a medical emergency. Request immediate beam-out.”

  Static greeted her hail.

  “Seven to Voyager! Please acknowledge!”

  Her hand came away from her combadge. The lack of response clearly indicated that her transmission was being blocked, perhaps by the dense stone walls of the monument. She glanced back the way they’d come. She hesitated, reluctant to leave her injured companions behind, but saw no other alternative. The sooner she could contact Voyager, the sooner Janeway and the others could receive the care they so urgently required.

  “I’ll be back,” she said irrationally, knowing they were incapable of hearing her in the present condition. She felt compelled to do so anyway. “As soon as I summon assistance.”

  She dashed for the archway, only to bounce off a newly erected force field. Brilliant blue energy discharges marked her points of collision with the invisible field, which she assumed had also been triggered when Neelix forcefully came into contact with the sarcophagus. They had obviously run afoul of some automatic security mechanism. A booby trap, as the captain had put it.

  Then why lure us in with a distress signal? she wondered, experiencing a flash of all-too-human anger at the tomb’s unknown designers. What purpose is there in drawing random travelers into danger?

  She cautiously tested the field with her hand and found it unyielding. Exerting any further pressure on the barrier would obviously be a waste of valuable time, so she turned back toward her unconscious comrades. She lacked the expertise of Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram, but her own first-aid skills would have to suffice until she found a way to deactivate the force field and restore contact with the ship. She suspected that it was the field that was blocking her emergency transmissions.

  Her tricorder rested on the floor where she had fallen before. Retrieving it, she was dismayed to discover that the instrument had been damaged by the energy burst. She put the tricorder aside and examined Janeway directly, hoping to determine the extent of the captain’s injuries. To her surprise, she found the symptoms consistent with the effects of a dangerous chroniton pulse, leading her to fear that temporal distortions at a cellular level had caused significant damage. Her ocular implant registered the distinctive aura of chroniton poisoning radiating from Janeway’s body.

  The diagnosis made sense—and explained why Seven was still standing. Her Borg physiology offered greater protection from chroniton pulses, while the nanoprobes in her cells and bloodstream were already repairing whatever damage she had suffered from the pulse. It was fortunate, Seven realized, that she had accompanied the away team on this mission, but that would do the captain and the others little good unless she managed to get them to sickbay in a timely fashion. Although Neelix had been equipped with a standard Starfleet medkit, this was insufficient to deal with injuries of this severity. The best she could do was stabilize them for a short period of time.

  That was not acceptable.

  Deactivating the force field became her top priority, which meant locating a control room or generator. She recalled detecting energy readings from an adjacent chamber, so she hurried toward it. This necessitated stepping over the skeletal remains that had so startled Neelix.

  She spared a moment to inspect the remains. A distinctive skeleton, along with surviving fragments of clothing and other artifacts, identified the dead alien as an adult male of Species 8532, a spiny space-faring race once known as the Taaf. The Borg had assimilated the Taaf generations ago, but Taaf merchants and scavengers had traveled widely prior to their contact with the Borg. A quick scan of the bones revealed lingering traces of chroniton radiation. She deduced that the dead Taaf had fallen victim to the same booby trap that had waylaid the away team, which must have reset itself at some point afterward. She briefly wondered how the unlucky Taaf had made his way past the hidden doorway, but she decided that was irrelevant to her present concerns. For all she knew, he had simply risked beaming into the complex. Similarly, the absence of a Taaf vessel on the surface could be explained any number of ways, the most likely of which was that he had been abandoned by his comrades after being trapped in the tomb.

  Seven doubted that Voyager would readily do the same.

  Leaving the alien bones behind, Seven entered an antechamber that was notably smaller and less imposing than the burial chamber outside. Conduits and power grids of unfamiliar design, thrumming with azure energy, lined the walls of the chamber, while less-familiar apparatuses resisted easy interpretation. A string of linked generators, horizontally mounted to the floor, churned like turbines while occupying the center of the room. Each generator was twice the size of a photon torpedo and was equipped with automated backup systems and monitors. Heavy shielding insulated the power cores of the generators. The amount of visible redundancy in the equipment suggested to Seven that the system had been designed to function indefinitely without need of maintenance or organic operators. It was entirely automated and built to last.

  Seven was encouraged by the technology on display, which suggested that she had found the complex’s engineering center. She looked about for a control station and spied a glowing terminal located in a cylindrical booth roughly the size of her regeneration alcove back on Voyager. The control panel and monitor were installed at the back of the booth, while the floor of the booth featured the same divided disk motif she had observed before. Translucent red and violet wedges comprised the disk, which was about half the size of a standard transporter pad. The touch-activated interface on the control pane
l was unknown to her, but she had confidence in her ability to decipher it. The only question was whether she would be able to do so in time to save the rest of the away team. Her phaser, which remained affixed to her hip, was of little use in this instance.

  The possibility of another booby trap gave her pause, but the urgency of the situation spurred her on. Janeway groaned pitifully in the burial chamber, and Seven quickened her step. Eschewing caution, she stepped into the control booth. The disk beneath her feet lit up abruptly.

  All at once, a stardate flashed onto the monitor before her:

  6122.5.

  A second later, Seven was somewhere else.

  Five

  “And so I found myself on the planet designated Yusub, just in time to intervene in your conflict with the Orions.”

  The mysterious woman who called herself Annika Seven seemed quite at home in the briefing room of a Federation starship. The meeting aboard the Enterprise, which was still in orbit around Yusub, was closed to all but Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and, at his insistence, Commissioner Santiago. Seven had argued, for reasons of temporal security, that the true nature of her arrival on Yusub be kept on a strictly need-to-know basis and that no record of this interview would be maintained. This struck Kirk as a reasonable precaution, assuming she was telling the truth.

  “So you’re a castaway from the future, who needs to be returned to her own time in order to avoid changing history?” He eyed the stranger skeptically, searching for the truth behind her composed, elegant features. He had changed into his standard duty uniform following their return from the planet. “Why do I feel like there’s a lot more to this story than you’re telling us?”

  “Because that is precisely the case,” she stated unapologetically. “I have deliberately edited my account to avoid revealing more of the future than absolutely necessary . . . as I expect you would do under similar circumstances.”