It was not the substance itself that was lethal but the disruption it could engender when sufficient heat and pressure were applied to it. Ordinarily it existed in a free state in open space, its unique destructive properties cold and harmless unless it came in contact with the surface of a star.
Or, by some unnatural means, with the molten core of a planet.
As he and Sulu waited to be beamed back aboard the Enterprise, a sound caused Kirk to look up and squint at the sky. A high-pitched whine that rapidly became a shriek, it trailed behind a small solid object that was plunging toward them. For one nerve-racking instant he feared it was going to hit the drill platform. Could the Romulans have divined their presence on the disk? But even if they had, he told himself, it was unlikely they would destroy such a complex piece of equipment just to get rid of two human interlopers. Sulu also saw the descending object and raised a hand to point.
Plunging planetward at high velocity, it shot past them. Moving carefully to the edge of the platform, both men followed its trajectory downward. At their present altitude it was difficult to make out fine details on the planet’s surface, but both agreed that had the falling object struck the surface, there would have been a visible impact. Instead, moments passed without any indication that there had been contact at all.
Nothing traveling at that speed from this altitude could possibly make a soft landing, Kirk told himself.
Even as the realization struck him, far below a puff of gas billowed upward. It marked the spot, which both men had noted earlier, where the plasma drill had been piercing the planet’s crust. Some kind of bomb? Kirk wondered.
Then the shock wave struck, knocking both men off their feet and forcing them to struggle to stay on the platform. The wave’s effects did not last long, but to feel something so powerful at this altitude, on a platform rigged to remain steady in the strongest winds, suggested that something far more intense than a simple thermonuclear device had been sent rocketing into the borehole far below.
Having disabled the drill and thereby terminated the interference it had been generating, he fully expected his communicator to work. He was more than slightly relieved when it made a connection.
“Kirk to Enterprise! They just launched something into the planet.” He glanced over at his companion, who nodded confirmation. “Helmsman Sulu validates. Whatever it was, it went right down the borehole they’ve been drilling. Time delay was followed by severe atmospheric shock wave. Size and composition of subsurface discharge unknown. There was no visible flash, so it must have detonated at considerable depth.”
Sulu was now leaning over the side of the platform and beckoning. “Jim, get over here. You’ve got to see this.” Scrambling on hands and knees, Kirk joined the helmsman in gazing at the terrain far below.
Beneath them, Vulcan was starting to break up.
Huge fissures opened across the desert landscape. Mountains began to crumple in upon themselves. Light flared in multiple locations as previously inert summits were transformed into active volcanoes. The threatening yellow-red glow of fresh lava appeared as magma boiled to the surface.
The true scope of the rapidly escalating cataclysm was far more visible from the Enterprise.
Chekov stared at his instrumentation in disbelief. He did not want to accept the readouts and he especially did not want to report them to the ship’s current commanding officer, but he had no choice.
“Keptin, gravitational sensors have gone off the scale. The components of what the Romulan vessel launched remain unknown, but if my calculations are correct, the contents of the pod they dispatched has generated a singularity in the vicinity of the core that will consume the planet.”
Even for a Vulcan, even for one as accomplished and highly trained as Spock, it must have been nigh impossible to remain unmoved by the ensign’s report. Yet the science officer betrayed no sense of what he surely must be feeling. He barely acknowledged Chekov’s account.
Uhura labored under no such emotive restraints. “You’re saying their device is opening a black hole at the center of Vulcan?”
Glancing back at her, the ensign nodded, while trying hard not to look in the direction of the science station. “An oversimplification of the physics that have been set in motion, but the consequences cannot be overstated. A reaction has been started that will surely cause the planet to collapse in on itself.” He swallowed with difficulty. “Once initiated, such a reaction cannot possibly be stopped. Depending on the extent of the singularity, it will consume all matter in its vicinity. Including us, if we remain in this orbit at this altitude.”
Silence followed the ensign’s evaluation. Everyone tried not to look at the science officer and acting captain. Everyone failed. When Spock finally responded, it was in a tone and manner that anyone who knew him would have expected.
“My own calculations confirm your readings, Mister Chekov. How long?” he finished simply.
The ensign fought back the tears that threatened. “Minutes—Keptin.”
The science officer and acting captain turned back to his console. To work? Uhura wondered. Or so that no one could see his face?
“Signal a planetwide evacuation.” Spock’s voice was a monotone. “All channels, all frequencies. Transmit condensed version of available geophysical information. Alert Vulcan High Command that traditional shelters are not safe. Anyone who can get to a ship must do so and initiate maximum escape velocity as quickly as possible.” Rising from the chair, he whirled and started toward the lift.
Leaving her station, Uhura rushed after him. “Spock, wait—where are you going?”
He paused in front of the turbolift. “To evacuate the Vulcan High Council. Those tasked with protecting and preserving our cultural history. My parents will be among them.”
She stared at him. “Do you have to go yourself? Can’t we beam them out?”
“It’s not possible. They’ll be in the katric arc. The shelter was built to withstand not only conventional disruption but all varieties of radiation. Transporter waveforms will not penetrate. It is not possible to get a beam lock through its shielding. I must get them myself.” He paused only for an instant. “Given the scale and rapid escalation of tectonic disruption I suspect they will already have moved deep into the main shelter.” He stared at her, looked for a moment as if he was about to say something else, and finally did so.
“Lieutenant Uhura,” he declared with astounding calm as he moved quickly toward the lift, “you have the conn.”
Mouth set, she acknowledged the change of command. “Yes, sir.” There was more she wanted to say, much more, but there was no time. There never seemed to be enough time.
Then he was gone, the lift doors closing behind him.
The Enterprise was not the only ship in the vicinity that was suffering convulsions, but in the case of the Narada they were of the atmospheric rather than emotional variety. Hovering at a lower altitude, even the enormous bulk of the Romulan warship was being buffeted by repeated concussions from below. His expression and attitude one of alarm, her chief science officer conferred with the ship’s second-in-command until Ayel broke off the conversation and moved quickly toward the command chair. While less panicked than that of the science officer, his own expression was fully reflective of his cohort’s rising concern.
“We must withdraw! The drilling has left us too close. If we remain in this orbit we risk being drawn into the expanding singularity.”
Nero nodded absently. While he was thoroughly engrossed in monitoring the destruction of the hated world below, that did not mean he wished to share its fate. Romulus too had its version of the Pyrrhic victory. He had no intention of adding to that particular lore.
The officer in charge of tactical spoke up. “What of the Enterprise? Their present orbit is borderline relative to the projected singularity.”
“Leave it,” Nero replied curtly. He looked to his left. “Retract the drill and fall back. Set course for our next target. Our work here is done.
” Settling himself in the command chair, he leaned forward to rest his chin against one hand.
“The rest of our work has just begun.”
XI
neither man was prepared when the drill platform lurched sharply and unexpectedly upward. Leaning over the side of the disk as they studied the planetary surface, they were completely engrossed in the catastrophe that continued to escalate below them. Knocked sideways, Kirk managed to keep his balance. As he steadied himself, he looked in his companion’s direction. There was the briefest instant of eye contact.
Then the helmsman was gone over the side.
“SULU!”
If Kirk had thought about it, he might have acted differently. Instead, he simply reacted. Crew—in danger—death. Without hesitating, he leaped after the rapidly plummeting helmsman.
Sulu’s training had been no less thorough than Kirk’s. Though extinction was rushing toward him at well over a hundred kilometers an hour, his task as a trained crewman and as a human being was to postpone that apparent inevitability for as long as possible. Spreading his arms and legs wide and keeping parallel to the ground, he did what little he could to slow his plunge as much as possible.
Above him, Kirk was doing exactly the opposite. Legs held together, face forward into the shrieking wind, and hands pressed to his sides, he dropped like a stone. Even as he closed on the helmsman, he knew he would have only one shot at what he was going to try. Streak past Sulu and it was unlikely they would have enough time to try the midair maneuver again.
Left arm out slightly to adjust his angle of descent, head up and chest out to slow as much as possible—wham! It was not a gentle rendezvous, but Sulu did not complain. With his arms locked around the helmsman, Kirk screamed into the other man’s face.
“I GOTCHA—PULL MY CHUTE!”
Nodding vigorously to show that he had heard and understood, his left arm wrapped around Kirk’s waist, Sulu reached down and fumbled until his fingers made contact with the requisite control. A firm touch was all it took to cause Kirk’s chute to snap out of its container. Billowing, it expanded above, jerking them to a momentary halt.
Momentary, because an instant later their combined weight coupled with the inertia acquired during their plunge proved too much for the chute to handle. While the fabric remained largely intact, the cords that connected it to Kirk’s suit, already stressed from the demand that had been put on them by the space drop, snapped. Direction, velocity, and plunging toward imminent death resumed straightaway.
At least, Sulu thought, I won’t die alone. Better if Kirk had let him go.
Too busy for philosophical reflection, Kirk was yelling into his suit’s pickup. “Enterprise, we’re falling without a chute! Beam us up or we’re dead!”
On board the Enterprise, his cry resounded over the newly restored communications. Springing to another console, Chekov let his fingers fly over the instrumentation. He had done this sort of thing dozens, hundreds of times previously—in simulations. As he worked frantically he was shouting toward the console communicator.
“Transporter room, come in! This is Ensign Chekov on the bridge. Emergency command override, transfer full control to the forward console!”
At her station Uhura was also hurriedly requesting, manipulating, and entering information. “Preparing intercept coordinates—stand by for transfer!”
The officer who had assumed the responsibilities of the science station when Spock had departed now looked up anxiously. “The singularity’s expanding. We won’t reach minimum safe distance if we don’t leave!”
“SHUT UP!” Uhura and Chekov responded simultaneously. Their reaction was not regulation, but it had the desired effect. Grim-faced, the replacement science officer turned back to his console. Sweat was beginning to stream down his face as he confronted numbers that implacably recognized an escalating sequence of physical events that were no less lethal for their mounting improbability.
At the forward transporter console an increasingly fretful Chekov was desperately manipulating the manual targeting control. It was not quite like doing it during a simulation. For one thing, there was no one to back him up. For another, knowing that real lives were at stake instead of career points was having a deleterious effect on his blood pressure.
“I can’t get a target lock on their pattern signatures! They’re falling too fast!”
Far below, Kirk noted with interest that they had now dropped farther than the peak of a nearby mountain. He chose this method of estimating their present position because the alternative would have been to look groundward. This he preferred not to do, having decided that when the impact came he would rather it arrive unexpectedly.
“Enterprise, now, now, now!”
“Boost the waveform on the gain stream!” Uhura was shouting. “I need more signal in order to lock!”
“Trying!” Chekov yelled back. An instant later, “Got ’em—toopik!” His free hand slammed down on a large control disk.
On the other side of the bridge one junior officer frowned at another. “Did he just say ‘toothpick’?”
His companion ran a terrestrial language quick-check through his own console, then glanced up. “Russian’s his ancestral language. Toopik—it means ‘dead end.’”
His expression one of deep concern, the other officer looked in the tactical officer’s direction. “I hope he meant that in a good way.”
In the Enterprise’s main transporter room, several technicians glanced up apprehensively from the consoles and instruments they were monitoring. The sensitive curved chamber before them still stood empty. According to their readouts, entanglement had been successful. Far below the ship, two falling bodies supposedly had vanished. If that information was accurate, then their exact duplicates ought to be…
It was not a neat rematerialization. Not at all regulation, no. Instead of arriving in upright stances, faces forward, hands behind back, the two bodies slammed into the deck with considerable force.
But not, if the pained grunts that issued from each man were to be believed, lethal force.
Though the tech crew was stunned by the manner of arrival, they were not nearly as stunned as the two officers. Both men slowly peeled themselves off the transporter deck. Holding himself, Sulu blinked in Kirk’s direction.
“Th-thanks.”
“Uh-huh,” his colleague replied weakly. Starting at his head and working his way downward, Kirk checked himself, not overlooking a single bone. By the time his examining fingers had traveled as far as his thighs he was becoming convinced he had somehow made it intact. “I swear we were so close I could smell the dirt.”
Sulu was formulating a reply when the transporter room portal parted to admit the ship’s science officer. Kirk gaped as the Vulcan strode purposefully past him, turned, and positioned himself for departure.
“Step—or roll—aside. I’m going to the surface.” Without waiting to see if the men on the floor were complying, Spock addressed himself to the transporter’s chief engineer. “You should already have received coordinates for a specific disaster shelter located near the city of Shi’Kahr. While physical design constraints prevent putting me down inside, get me as close to the entrance as you can.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.” The transporter chief bent to work.
Drawing himself into an upright position as he staggered away from the transporter platform, Kirk could only gape at the self-possessed figure standing in the exact center of one of the modules.
“The surface of what? You’re going down there? Are you nuts?”
As was his wont, the science officer was not prone to acknowledging rhetorical questions. His attention remained focused on the transporter engineer.
“Energize.”
In an instant he was gone, leaving in his wake a grim team of transporter techs, an exhausted and seriously woozy helmsman, and one disbelieving junior officer.
Spock nearly lost his balance and fell as he rematerialized on the surface of his homewo
rld. It was not he who was unstable but the ground underfoot. While they varied considerably in strength, the quakes that were shaking the surface to pieces were continuous now. Floating atop the planet’s upper mantle, the continents were temporarily buffered from the complete destruction that had commenced farther below.
The transporter team had fulfilled its instructions with precision. Directly in front of him the entrance to the shelter beckoned. Running lightly to keep his feet, avoiding chunks of collapsing construction material and stone, he raced toward the opening.
Deep within the sanctuary as their world crumbled around them, six sets of hands rested on the katric ark. Vulcan’s single most sacred object, it purportedly held the katra or soul of the ancient known as Surak. Together with its contents, the ark represented all that was good and noble and revered in the humanoid species that called the desert planet home. Linked together by mind-meld as they sought to shut out the chaos rising in intensity around them, the six Elders chanted softly among themselves. Among them was Amanda Grayson’s husband. Though she could not by herself join the collective mind-meld, it was important to Sarek that she was present.
She was more than a little startled when her son burst out of the entryway, glanced around once, and came quickly toward her.
“Mother, the planet is not safe. A singularity has been ignited in the core. There may be only seconds left.” Tilting back his head, he allowed himself a last sweeping look at the sanctuary. It would need to be remembered in something other than recordings. It would need to be remembered in the mind of someone who knew it from life—and remembered in the heart. “We must evacuate this shelter immediately. Nothing is going to remain. Nothing.”
Looking up at him and meeting his gaze, she nodded. She did not understand him completely, but she trusted him completely. “Go and tell your father and the others.”
He knew they would be reluctant to leave. A comparable group of humans charged with similar spiritual duties would have been adamant in their desire to remain, to perish with their relics and their sanctuary. It was possible that the Elders felt similarly, but the decisions of Vulcan Elders are not made on the basis of how they happen to feel. A runaway singularity would destroy their planet. It must not be allowed to destroy their civilization. Removing the ark from its pedestal, they carried it between them as they rushed to abandon the collapsing sanctuary.