Assignment: Eternity
“I don’t know what ingenious Vulcan trick you played to see past my cloaking field,” he continued, “but it won’t be enough to save you from the full wrath of the Romulan Empire. You might as well face the truth, First Officer Spock, neither you nor your ship will ever see the Federation again.”
“In that case,” Spock replied, “I trust you will remember the mercy we have shown your own vessel and crew. Enterprise out.” He flicked a switch and Motak’s vengeful face disappeared from the viewer, replaced by the sight of Gladiator still tumbling through space, now a victim of its own unregulated momentum. “Miss Lincoln, what is the status of the Romulan vessel’s life-support mechanisms?”
“Good idea!” Roberta carefully examined the sensor displays. “Um, lifesigns appear to be stable. No indications of environmental degradation aboard the ship.”
Spock judged that Gladiator was in no immediate danger. Now that they had lured the Romulan vessel away from the solar system containing the cloaked world, the nearest sun or planetary body was hundreds of millions of kilometers away. The ship could afford to drift helplessly through the vast emptiness of interstellar space. He had learned what he needed to know: Motak’s battle cruiser had been removed as a threat for the time being.
Spock canceled the red alert throughout the ship, reducing their emergency status to yellow alert. He had no doubt that the commander had been telling the truth when he warned that additional Romulan warships had already set course to intercept the Enterprise. That was only logical. Fortunately, the utter immensity of the universe would grant him some time before this further threat required immediate action. Even at warp speed, the Romulan military could not instantly traverse the immense distances that all space travel entailed; Spock recalled the many occasions within the Federation when the Enterprise had been the only starship within range of a developing crisis. He did not expect that the Romulans could provide reinforcements any faster than Starfleet could. “More foes may be en route,” he said aloud, for the benefit of Roberta and Ensign Gates, “but they are not here yet. Our first priority must be to see to the safety of Captain Kirk and the remainder of the landing party.” He cocked his head toward Roberta. “I suspect Mr. Seven is expecting you as well.”
The turbolift doors whished open behind him and Lt. Uhura hurried back onto the bridge, accompanied by a repair team and a few more replacement crew members who fanned out to take their positions around the cabin. Assistant Engineer Schultz, recently transferred from Deep Space Five, set to work repairing the sundered helm controls. It looked like it might take him a considerable period of time.
Regrettably, they could not wait until all repairs were completed before returning to seek out Captain Kirk. “Ensign Gates, set course for our previous coordinates. Maximum speed.”
Chief Engineer Scott would not be pleased, but that could not be helped.
Chapter Eighteen
IN FACT, Kirk had always managed to avoid any Klingon mind-sifters up to now, although Spock had been forced to endure the device’s invasive effects on their mission to Organia two years ago. His first officer had been typically discreet and unemotional when describing the experience, but Kirk had some idea of the kind of ordeal Spock had suffered. He wasn’t looking forward to trying it out for himself.
He didn’t see anything resembling a mind-sifter at hand in the control room, but he doubted that Commander Dellas was just blowing hot air when she threatened to use one on him. At the moment, unfortunately, Dellas held all the cards; she had no reason to bluff.
“Well?” she demanded. “Are you going to tell me what I want to hear?” She kept her disruptor pistol raised and ready. “Why are you here? How much do you know?”
I wish I knew, Kirk realized. Dellas would probably be relieved to learn how little Gary Seven had told him about the Romulan commander’s ultimate ambitions, but there was no reason to let her on that little detail. “I know you’re planning to change the future,” he said, hoping to rattle her.
He succeeded, to a degree. He thought he spotted a flicker of doubt and trepidation in her crazed, sociopathic eyes. She definitely scowled at him, visibly displeased by his words. I hit a nerve, he thought. His mind raced, searching for a way to take advantage of this minor victory. She didn’t even want her own soldiers to hear this interrogation, he recalled. There had to be some way to exploit her apparent mania for secrecy.
“How did you learn that?” she barked. “Who is the source of your information?”
Kirk took care not to even glance in Seven’s direction. Let her think that Seven, in the uniform he stole from Chekov, was just another Starfleet ensign. “There’s an old Earth expression you may have heard of,” he said. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out.”
“Oh, I will,” Dellas vowed, every syllable infused with sadistic promise, “you can be sure of that.” She stepped away from the prisoners and called out to the aged scientist working upon the control panel to the late Supervisor 146’s computer. “Vithrok, how are your repairs proceeding? I may want to speed up our timetable. We appear to have a security problem.”
Vithrok turned away from the machinery. His face was flushed and he was slightly out of breath. Kirk didn’t recognize the instruments in his hands; some sort of high-precision Romulan tools, he guessed, suitable for working on delicate circuitry. “I think it’s fixed, Commander,” he reported, huffing between each word. “I can’t promise every function has been restored, but I believe that the transporter controls are now operational.”
Damn, Kirk thought. That’s the last thing Dellas needs to have up and running again, not if the transporter could still do double duty as a time machine. Too bad she couldn’t have done a better job of blasting it earlier.
“Excellent work, Doctor,” she said. “Program the proper coordinates into the computer. There is too much at stake to take chances now. If the Enterprise stages another assault, I want to be able to leave on my mission immediately.”
This is sounding worse and worse, Kirk mused. A horrible thought occurred to him: what if, by attempting to stop Dellas and failing, he and Seven had only provoked her into setting her mysterious plan in motion even earlier than she had previously intended. They might well have initiated the very disaster—whatever it was—that Seven had travelled so far to prevent! He peered at his fellow prisoner, wondering if the same ghastly reasoning was going through Seven’s head. It was impossible to tell from Seven’s stoic expression, but he certainly looked grim and intense enough. If you’re planning to do something, Mr. Seven, Kirk thought silently, you better do it soon.
“Actually,” Vithrok replied somewhat sheepishly, stroking his beard with his free hand, “I can’t claim all the credit. This other human,” he said, gesturing toward Gary Seven, “did a remarkable job before I got here.” The Romulan scientist shuffled away from his work and approached Seven, a look of genuine curiosity on his face. “Where did you learn to do all that? Some of your . . . improvisations . . . were quite original. Revolutionary, even.”
“Is that so?” Dellas said. She no longer had eyebrows to raise but Kirk knew that she was intrigued. I have to distract her from Seven, he thought. She had already learned too much from 146; he dreaded to imagine what sort of information she could extract from Gary Seven.
“I’m shocked at your lack of expertise,” he announced loudly. “Ensign Lincoln is just an ordinary technician. Is Romulan science that far behind Starfleet?”
“There was nothing ordinary about what this man did!” Vithrok protested, obviously offended. It looked odd to see such an unmistakable and petty display of emotion on a Vulcanlike face, even though Kirk knew intellectually that Romulans were unlike Vulcans in very many respects. “This technology is centuries ahead of both Federation and Romulan science. It’s taken me months just to learn the basics, and I have been honored by the Praetor himself for my scientific accomplishments. Twice.”
“Enough, Doctor,” Dellas instructed him. To his distress, Kirk
saw that she had not been fooled by his ruse. “You should not let the captain bait you so easily.” She scrutinized Gary Seven carefully. “It seems I underestimated you, Ensign Lincoln, if that’s really your name. I’d thought you merely another Starfleet foot soldier, a minor pawn in this game, but apparently I was mistaken.” She crouched in front of him and thrust the muzzle of her disruptor beneath his chin. “Tell me who you are and what you know about this technology.”
At first, Seven said nothing. He simply gazed back at the Romulan commander with an even expression, showing no sign of fear. Kirk was impressed; Seven had almost as good a poker face as Spock.
“Tell me!” Dellas ordered, pushing Seven’s chin up with her disruptor.
Seven emitted a sigh of resignation, looking at Dellas in a distinctly condescending manner. “All I can say is that you are poised to make a terrible mistake. You are tampering with historical forces you cannot begin to comprehend.”
“I understand enough,” Dellas replied. “History is determined by those with the will and the strength to shape it to their own design.” She grinned smugly. “All I needed was knowledge of the future—and the ability to go there.”
Seven shook his head, acting more like a weary teacher than a prisoner of war. “You have not looked far enough ahead. In the long run, reunification is in the best interests of both the Vulcan and the Romulans, not to mention this entire quadrant of the galaxy.”
Reunification, Kirk thought. Was that what this was all about? It was hard to even imagine such an event, Romulan and Vulcan culture had diverged so much over the course of the last millennia. Was it even possible? He would have to ask Spock what he thought, assuming they both got back to the Federation in one piece.
Dellas sneered at Seven. “You are human,” she said. “It is you who cannot begin to understand. The Vulcans have learned some interesting things over the years, tricks of the mind and such, but they lack the passion and the courage that makes any race great. The only way Vulcan will ever join the Empire will be as one of our conquests.”
“Conquest. What a ridiculous concept,” Seven said. “I wish I could have left that behind in the twentieth century.” His voice and manner grew more intense and urgent. “Is there any way I can convince you that you’re making a mistake? You weren’t meant to have this technology yet. You’re like a child playing with fireworks.”
Kirk found Seven’s analogy a bit insulting, not to mention depressingly familiar. Does every more advanced civilization have to compare us to children? he thought. Bad enough to hear it from the Organians or the Metrons, but from Gary Seven, too?
Commander Dellas evidently took offense as well. “And I thought the captain was insolent,” she remarked acidly, her blast-darkened face growing even darker. She pressed her weapon much harder against Seven’s throat, sinking the muzzle of her weapon into his flesh. “Perhaps I should remind you who is holding the gun.”
Kirk wondered for a second if Seven had deliberately provoked Dellas, perhaps to trick her into rendering him dead or unconscious or otherwise incapable of being interrogated. Then Seven surprised him by moving faster than Kirk’s eyes could follow, grabbing the commander by the wrist and yanking the point of the weapon away from his throat. “What?” Dellas snarled as they grappled for control of the disruptor, dragging each other up onto their feet only a few meters away from Kirk.
He saw his opportunity and seized it, springing to his feet and racing for the phaser resting near the control panel. Vithrok, surprised and flustered by the sudden violence, made a feeble try to block Kirk, but the Starfleet officer easily shoved the old scientist aside. Vithrok staggered backwards, almost falling through the hole Kirk had cut in the turbolift doors. “Commander!” he shouted frantically, grabbing onto the seared edges of the doors with both hands to keep from landing flat on his back. “Commander! You have to stop him!”
Now only the hover-chair stood between Kirk and his phaser. He grabbed onto the back of the chair and moved to push it out of the way, but the damn thing refused to budge. Someone left the brakes on, he realized. He didn’t waste any time fumbling with the controls; instead he darted around the chair and reached out for the phaser which was only a few centimeters away. Got it, he thought.
A beam of red-hot energy struck the phaser first, melting it to slag before his eyes. Yanking his fingers away just in time, Kirk spun around to see Commander Dellas aiming her disruptor with one hand. Her other hand was squeezing Seven at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder in an all too familiar gesture. A nerve pinch, Kirk recognized instantly. Seven’s eyes rolled upwards until only the whites could be seen. She released her grip and he dropped onto the floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut. “Please step away from the transporter controls, Captain,” Dellas insisted, turning her weapon toward him. “We do not want to undo all of Doctor Vithrok’s hard work.” She nudged Seven’s prone body with the toe of her boot. The visitor from old Earth did not react at all, not even with a groan. Kirk stared helplessly at Gary Seven’s insensate form. The whole thing had only taken a few moments.
“Perhaps your associate had a point after all,” Dellas commented, flexing the fingers of her free hand. “There is a thing or two we can learn from our Vulcan kinsmen.” She smiled, gazing triumphantly at the transporter pad. “Now let us see what we can teach them. . . .”
Gary Seven lay sprawled upon the floor of the control room, seemingly dead to the world. I can’t believe it, Kirk mused again. I don’t believe it.
He distinctly recalled what had happened, back in the twentieth century, when Spock applied his signature nerve pinch to Gary Seven: absolutely nothing. He wasn’t sure who was most surprised, he or Spock, but Seven had proven completely immune to an attack that had immobilized just about every humanoid specimen Spock had ever had occasion to try it out on. Kirk still couldn’t figure out why this should be so, especially after McCoy pronounced Seven thoroughly human in all respects, but he had seen with his own eyes Seven shake off the effect of the nerve pinch as though it did nothing more than tickle him. It wasn’t something he was ever likely to forget.
He’s faking it, Kirk concluded. He has to be. Kirk refused to accept that Commander Dellas, who wasn’t even a true Vulcan, could deliver a more effective pinch than Spock, not that he intended to share that opinion with her anytime soon. “That man is a Federation citizen,” he lied, finding it easy to summon up the appropriate indignation. “If you’ve killed him, your whole damn Empire is going to pay!”
Dellas acted unworried by his posturings. “He’s not dead yet,” she stated, keeping her disruptor pistol aimed squarely at Kirk. He backed away from the control panel with his hands above his head. “No one ever dies before I have learned all their secrets, as I trust you will discover in time.” She walked around Seven’s apparently unconscious body and took Kirk’s place by the controls. “Unfortunately, that will have to wait until I have completed my current project. A matter of priorities, you understand.”
With her free hand she pressed a button on the control panel and a slot opened on the adjacent wall, revealing a small storage compartment. Reaching inside, she drew out a bundle of folded gray fabric. “Doctor Vithrok, are the coordinates for the time travel set?”
“Yes, Commander,” the scientist replied, more confidently than Kirk would have liked. He scurried around Kirk to join Dellas at the controls. Everything is happening too fast, Kirk thought. Whatever Dellas was intending, whatever Seven had journeyed so far to prevent, appeared on the verge of happening. Kirk wished he had a better idea of just how worried he ought to be. Worried enough, I bet.
Dellas handed off the disruptor to Vithrok, who, rather anxiously, kept Kirk in his sights. The pudgy, balding scientist swallowed repeatedly and stroked his beard. He didn’t look like much of a killer, Kirk thought, but he hardly needed to be an expert marksman to fell a human target at such close range. Sometimes a nervous finger on a trigger could be deadlier than the coolest assassin. “
Don’t move,” Vithrok said. It sounded more like a plea than a warning. “There’s nothing you can do to stop her . . . I mean, us. You shouldn’t have come here. It was useless to try. . . .”
His commander ignored Vithrok’s babbling. Moving swiftly and efficiently, she unfolded her bundle, which turned out to be a full-length gray robe of a style Kirk was unfamiliar with. She shook out the garment, draped it over the back of the chair, then removed her communicator from her belt and placed it on the counter near the transporter controls. Unconcerned with propriety, she removed the outer layer of her singed and rumpled uniform, then drew the robe over herself. Some sort of disguise, Kirk guessed, but what was she pretending to be? Where—and when—was her ultimate destination? The robe stretched all the way to the floor and was pleated heavily from head to toe. An attached hood hung empty behind her head. Dellas tugged on the sleeves to make sure the garment fit, then looked up at Kirk.
“Not very eye-catching, is it?” she remarked. “Trust me, it will be the height of diplomatic fashion several decades from now, at least among the next generation of Romulans.” She ran her fingers lightly over her brow, feeling the faint remains of her eyebrows. A slight scowl darkened her expression. “This is a nuisance, but I suppose it will have to do.” She pulled the hood over her head, shrouding her hairless forehead in shadow. “Where I’m going, no one is going to be looking at me—until it’s too late.”
Kirk was getting tired of being the only person in the room, conscious or otherwise, who didn’t know the full score. Enough cryptic hints, he thought. Maybe Dellas was more talkative than Gary Seven. “Perhaps I’d be more impressed,” he said, “if you let me know exactly what you have in mind. Or are you afraid to tell me?”