by Greg Cox
“Good to see you, Doc,” Shaun greeted him. “You two been taking good care of my ship?”
“I think we’ve gotten everything battened down,” O’Herlihy said. He and Fontana had been conducting system tests and checks while the Lewis & Clark was in orbit. Everything needed to be working perfectly before the ship set off for its ultimate destination; after all, it wasn’t as if they could call for a tow if anything broke down later on. “We’re merely awaiting your final inspection and that last load of supplies from the Renaissance, of course.”
“Don’t worry,” Shaun said. “I remembered to get the groceries.” He drifted further into the module. “So, which one of you ordered the pineapple pizza?”
“That would be me,” Fontana confessed. “And don’t even think of breaking into my private stock—unless you ask nice, that is.”
“Duly noted,” Shaun said. “I promise not to raid the fridge when you’re not looking.”
“I’m sure we’ll all be on our best behavior,” O’Herlihy said. “Or this could be a very long trip.”
Shaun smiled. It was good to see them again. The three of them had been training together for months and had been judged psychologically compatible by the space shrinks back at Houston. Good thing we get along, he thought, given that we’re going to be stuck together for the next one-point-two billion kilometers.
He made a mental note to give Ludden a tour of the Lewis & Clark before she headed back home.
“Prepare to engage engines,” Shaun ordered.
Days had passed, and more than two thousand pounds of stores and equipment had been transferred from the Renaissance to the Lewis & Clark. The shuttle had returned to Earth, leaving the larger ship clear to depart. All final system checks had been completed. They were as ready as they were ever going to be.
Fontana and Shaun were strapped in at the helm, facing the front windows. O’Herlihy was off to the side at one of the auxiliary computer terminals. A steady stream of chatter flowed back and forth between the ship and Mission Control. The Lewis & Clark had orbited the Earth more than thirty times since Shaun had come aboard, once every ninety minutes. It was time to stop chasing their own tail and get on their way.
“Mission Control to Lewis & Clark,” a voice spoke to them from Houston. “You are cleared for departure. Bon voyage.”
“Copy that,” Shaun responded. “See you at New Year’s.”
He glanced over at Fontana. “You ready to get this show on the road?”
“Stop stalling and hit the gas,” she shot back. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting any younger.”
“All right.” He manually initiated the warm-up sequence. A chronometer on the instrument panel counted down to the precise moment they were scheduled to leave orbit. His father’s dog tags dangled around his neck. “Here goes nothing.”
The Lewis & Clark’s spanking-new “impulse” engines were state-of-the-art. To date, the technology had been tested on unmanned probes such as Nomad, but this was the first time it had been employed to carry human cargo out into the solar system. The system employed powerful fusion reactors to generate a propulsive stream of high-energy plasma. In theory, it would make interplanetary travel feasible at last.
In theory . . .
The reactors had been online for hours. The engines idled, ready to go to impulse. The chronometer clicked down to zero, and Shaun felt a sudden surge of acceleration, nowhere near as potent as what he had felt blasting off from the Cape, but the ship was obviously speeding up. He kept a close eye on the gauges and monitors before him, on the lookout for the slightest irregularity or sign of trouble, but everything seemed in order. He had run through this sequence in the simulator more than a dozen times before. It was almost hard to believe he was finally doing it for real.
“Breaking orbit,” he said. “One-quarter power.”
Not wanting to stress the engines right away or accidentally plow into any unexpected space junk at top speed, they planned to start off slowly and gradually accelerate to their maximum speed of 556,000 kilometers per hour. At that rate, they would reach their destination in a little more than ninety days.
“Goodbye, Earth,” Fontana said. “Next stop: Saturn.”
Just a few years ago, the prospect of reaching Saturn in only ninety days would have been nothing but science fiction, but the impulse drive promised to change everything. The stars were still out of reach, except for sleeper ships such as the late, lamented DY-100, but at least it wouldn’t take years to reach the outer planets anymore.
Or so they intended to prove.
“Ninety days,” Fontana mused. “Good thing I loaded plenty of crossword puzzles into my personal reader. Gotta keep my mind sharp.”
Shaun kept his eyes on the gauges. “If your mind was any sharper, it would draw blood.”
“Thanks,” she answered. “I think.”
In truth, they had plenty to keep them occupied on the way to Saturn: observations of Mars, Jupiter, and the asteroid belt, among other things. He had spent a lot of time over the last several weeks explaining why they were bypassing those nearer destinations in favor of Saturn, but they certainly had their reasons, only some of which he had been able to discuss publicly. Mars would have to wait, maybe for the Ares missions. Plans for future interplanetary jaunts were already being drawn up, contingent on the fluctuating economy and the success of this mission.
No pressure there, he thought wryly.
“What the devil?” O’Herlihy exclaimed.
His shocked tone immediately put Shaun on alert. He glanced back over his shoulder at the doctor, who was staring wide-eyed at the display panel before him.
“What is it, Doc?”
“Hold on,” O’Herlihy muttered. “This isn’t possible.”
“What?” Shaun demanded. “Talk to me, Marcus.”
“I picked up an odd transmission, a wireless signal, coming from the habitat module.”
That didn’t make any sense. There were no ship-to-Earth communication systems in the habitat, and nobody was there to operate them in the first place. “Must be a glitch.”
“That’s what I thought, but . . .” O’Herlihy hesitated, as though he could scarcely believe what he was saying. “There’s activity in the hab. One of the computer terminals has been activated . . . and it appears that someone has just, er, used the facilities.”
It took Shaun a second to realize what the doctor meant. “The head?”
There were two gravity-free toilets aboard the ship, one in the hab and one mid-deck below the cockpit. Shaun and his fellow astronauts had personally insisted on that particular redundancy. Nobody wanted to get stuck out beyond the asteroid belt without backup facilities.
But nobody was using them right now.
Were they?
“That’s right,” O’Herlihy confirmed. He called up a systems report on his screen. “Waste-disposal suction was activated for approximately five seconds about two minutes ago.”
Shaun set the ship’s controls on automatic, then unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat and floated over to see for himself. He peered over the doctor’s shoulder at the monitor. “Could it have turned itself on and off?”
“I don’t see how,” O’Herlihy said. “Certainly, it hasn’t been doing that while Alice and I have been testing things. Nor am I aware of any reports concerning such a malfunction.”
“That’s because there aren’t any,” Shaun said. He would have known about any problem with the ship’s systems and hardware, no matter how trivial. The toilets were not supposed to switch on at random, and neither were the computer terminals. And then there was that unaccountable signal O’Herlihy had noticed.
“You don’t think . . . ?” Fontana exchanged a baffled look with the two men. “A stowaway?”
“Get real,” Shaun said. There had never been an actual stowaway in the entire history of human space exploration. That was the stuff of silly sci-fi movies and TV shows. Granted, the Lewis & Clark was big
ger and roomier than an old-fashioned space capsule, with a lot more places to hide, but still . . . “It can’t be.”
“What’s the alternative?” Fontana asked. “A ghost?”
There was only one way to find out. He activated the video-com and hit the speaker button. “Hello? Is anybody there?” He felt ridiculous even asking. “Please identify yourself.”
Nobody answered, of course. The small video screen above the speaker remained blank. Shaun wondered what the hell he had expected. O’Herlihy chuckled and shook his head. “I must say, I didn’t really expect us to go space-happy quite so soo—”
“Oh, hi!” a female voice interrupted him via the comm. A palm covered the video feed. “Is that our skipper speaking?” A playful tone made the moment even more surreal. “I have to ask. Is it now safe for passengers to resume use of personal electronic devices?”
The astronauts stared in shock at the comm. “Oh, no,” O’Herlihy whispered in dismay. From the sound of his voice, only the lack of gravity kept the blood from draining from his face. “This can’t be happening.”
Fontana, on the other hand, acted more pissed-off than chagrined. Turning away from the comm, she glared at the hatch separating them from the habitat. “Did you hear that? Who the hell does she think she is?”
Shaun just wanted answers, pronto. “Who is this?” He pressed down on the speaker button with more force than necessary. “And what are you doing on my ship?”
“Come and see,” the stowaway replied. “I’m not going anywhere.”
We’ll see about that, Shaun thought.
He launched himself toward the hatch.
Two
Captain’s log. Stardate 7103.4
The Enterprise is nearing the end of its five-year mission. We have just finished surveying a previously uncharted star system. After nearly half a decade in deep space, seeking out new worlds and civilizations, one has to resist a tendency to take such accomplishments for granted. Exploring the cosmos has become almost routine . . .
“Captain,” Lieutenant Uhura said. “A priority message from Starfleet Command.”
James T. Kirk sat up straight. His chair faced the viewscreen at the front of the bridge. “Put it on-screen,” he said crisply.
“Yes, Captain.”
Uhura patched the communication through. On the viewer, a starry vista was replaced by the head and shoulders of a dark-skinned older man with silver hair and a grave expression. Visual and aural static hinted at the vast distance between the Enterprise and Earth. A network of subspace relay beacons carried data back and forth across the quadrant. Uhura worked her communications console, and the transmission quickly cleared up. Kirk recognized Commodore Faris. The man was a Starfleet veteran who had once served under Robert April himself.
What’s this about? Kirk wondered. Are the Klingons acting up again? Or the Romulans?
“Kirk,” Faris addressed him. “Are you reading me?”
“Loud and clear, sir.” Kirk got right down to business. “What can I do for you?”
“We’ve received a distress call from the Skagway colony. Are you familiar with it?”
Kirk searched his memory. “It’s a mining outpost. In the Klondike system?”
Faris nodded. “Skagway is one of the moons of Klondike VI, a gas giant not unlike Saturn. For reasons unknown, the planet’s rings appear to be destabilizing, possibly compromising the safety of the colony. Skagway’s governor has requested Starfleet’s immediate assistance, and I’m afraid the Enterprise is the only starship in the vicinity.”
“Understood,” Kirk replied. “We’ll set course for the Klondike system at once.”
“Good.” Care furrowed the commodore’s brow. “Skagway has proven to be a rich source of dilithium crystals. I don’t have to tell you how important it is, to Starfleet and the Federation, that we keep that colony up and running, if at all possible. We need those crystals.”
Dilithium was essential to warp-propulsion systems. And rare enough to make it one of the most precious substances in the galaxy.
“If I ever forget that, my chief engineer will be sure to remind me,” Kirk assured Faris. He sought to anticipate the challenges ahead. “Sir, you said the planet’s rings were ‘destabilizing.’ Do we know how quickly or what might be causing this?”
“Details are sketchy,” Faris admitted. “You’ll probably have a better idea of the situation once you get there. But I wouldn’t recommend taking the scenic route. Governor Dawson sounded very concerned.”
A mental image of a handsome, middle-aged woman surfaced from Kirk’s memory banks. He vaguely recalled receiving a briefing on her appointment a few years back.
“Tell the governor she can expect us shortly.” Kirk made this new mission his top priority. “You can count on us, Commodore.”
“Good luck, Jim.” The other man reached to cut off the transmission. “Faris out.”
His image blinked away. An endless expanse of stars beckoned on the viewer. Kirk wondered which, if any, of those distant points of light was their new destination.
“Mr. Chekov.” He addressed the navigator. The young ensign shared the conn with Lieutenant Sulu, who was at the helm. The ship’s astrogator unit was positioned between them. “How far to the Klondike system?”
Chekov consulted his display panel. “Skagway is very remote,” he observed. “At warp five, we’re talking approximately nineteen days.”
“Nineteen-point-four-eight, to be exact,” Spock amended. The Vulcan science officer was seated at his usual station at the rear of the bridge. Glancing back over his shoulder, Kirk noted that Spock had already called up a schematic of the Klondike system on his console’s monitor. Streams of data regarding the system, its planets, and its moons scrolled along the edges of the screen.
“Increase speed to warp six,” Kirk ordered. If the colony was truly in jeopardy, the sooner they got there, the better. Especially since it was unclear how rapidly the crisis might escalate.
“Aye, aye, sir.” Sulu worked the helm. “Warp six.”
Kirk tapped the intercom controls on his right armrest. “Kirk to Engineering. I’m going to need you to push the engines, Mr. Scott. We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
“Captain!” Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott protested via the speaker. A Scottish accent colored his inflections. “Canna we take it a little slower? My bairns are no spring chickens, you know. They’re overdue for a refit.”
Kirk repressed a grin. Scotty’s response was to be expected. He could be very protective of his engines.
“This is a rescue mission, Mr. Scott. Lives may be at stake.”
Scotty couldn’t argue with that. “Ah, well. In that case, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Mr. Scott.” Kirk closed the line, then turned toward his science officer. “What do you make of this, Spock?”
“It is puzzling, Captain.” Spock lifted his eyes from his data. “As the commodore reported, Klondike VI is a Class J gas giant. Long-range telescopes and unmanned probes have observed it for more than a century, beginning long before the mining colony on Skagway was established. During this time, the planet’s rings have remained stable, within the standard parameters. A cursory examination of recent data from the colony suggests no obvious reason for the rings to alter their orbits. The primary gravitational factors have remained constant.”
Kirk took his word for it. Spock’s “cursory examination” was likely to put the most detailed computerized analysis to shame. “Then we have a mystery on our hands.”
“So it appears,” Spock agreed.
Kirk frowned. The prospect of studying such an inexplicable celestial phenomenon would be more appealing were innocent lives not in jeopardy. A troubling thought occurred to him. “What is the current population of Skagway?”
Spock looked it up in the ship’s database. “Our records indicate that some one thousand seven hundred forty-six individuals currently inhabit the colony, give or take any recent births, deaths, o
r fissions. Including several families and small children.”
Damn, Kirk thought. The Enterprise was not equipped to transport that many individuals at one time. They would be unable to evacuate the entire colony should it prove necessary. “And there are no other vessels nearby?”
“None, Captain.” Spock confirmed the inconvenient truth. “Mr. Chekov was quite correct when he stated that the Skagway colony is notably distant from any other inhabited worlds. Aside from the Enterprise, the nearest Federation starship is the Vancouver, which is currently four-point-zero-three-three sectors away.”
Kirk got the message. “Then it’s up to us.”
He just hoped that would be enough.
Three
2020
They found the stowaway waiting for them on the lower level of the habitat module. The crew’s personal quarters were one deck above, while the mid-deck was a common area that served as gym, infirmary, galley, and general rec room. Sealed cupboards and pantries lined the walls. A treadmill was there for exercise. Circular windows offered a view of the endless void outside, but Shaun wasn’t interested in sightseeing right then. He stared instead at someone who, to put it mildly, was not supposed to be there.
“Whoa,” she said, tumbling in the air just below the ceiling. From the look of things, she was still trying to get the hang of navigating without gravity. She grabbed onto a hanging guide loop to arrest her uncontrolled flight. She groped in vain for a smart tablet floating nearby. “This is trickier than it looked on YouTube.”
The stowaway was a petite Hispanic woman who appeared to be in her twenties. A neon-blue streak added flair to her dark brown hair and bangs. A floating ponytail wagged back and forth with every movement of her head. Her tank top and shorts set her apart from the astronauts in their standard-issue jumpsuits. As she rotated head over heels above them, Shaun glimpsed a tattoo at the nape of her neck. It was a series of concentric rings.
“Who are you?” he demanded. Grabbing her ankle to keep her from spinning away, he yanked her down until they were face-to-face. His own foot was tucked into a loop in the floor, holding him in place. “And how did you get aboard my ship?”
