ANOTHER EXCITING EPISODE
FROM TELEVISION'S MOST POPULAR
SCIENCE FICTION SERIES
—Complete in this volume—
THE
COUNTER-CLOCK
INCIDENT
Commodore Robert April, first Captain of
the Enterprise, was traveling at warp-speeds
toward retirement . . . a fate worse than death
for a seasoned sailor of the spaceways.
There didn't seem to be any way to turn
back the hands of time—but then nothing is
ever certain in the outer reaches of
the galaxy.
Nothing, that is, except that a Klingon in
pursuit means trouble . . . especially when
that Klingon is the wily Commander Kumara!
BEWARE OF KLINGONS
WEARING SMILES . . .
"The screen lit up, giving a view of the slowly turning gas giant. Suddenly the intruder seemed to leap forward, to show an irregular artificial shape clearly outlined against the brilliant hues of the planet's dense atmosphere.
"That's a Klingon cruiser, Jim," McCoy declared.
"I can see that, Bones," Kirk muttered. "Mr. Sulu, sound red alert. Mr. Arex, align phasers to . . ."
"Receiving transmission from the Klingon ship, Captain," Uhura interrupted.
"Acknowledge their signal, Lieutenant."
The Klingon who appeared on the view-screen was seated in his counterpart of Kirk's command chair. His attitude was one of relaxed attention. Except for the tight set of his lips, he appeared almost friendly.
And when the image had fully resolved at both ends of the transmission, he even smiled . . .
THAT COULD ONLY MEAN ONE THING . . .
TROUBLE!
By Alan Dean Foster
Published by Ballantine Books:
The Black Hole
Cachalot
Luana
Dark Star
The Metrognome and Other Stories
Midworld
Nor Crystal Tears
Sentenced to Prism
Splinter of the Mind's Eye
Star Trek® Logs One–Ten
Voyage to the City of the Dead
. . . Who Needs Enemies?
With Friends Like These . . .
The Icerigger Trilogy:
Icerigger
Mission to Moulokin
The Deluge Drivers
The Adventures of Flinx of the Commonwealth
For Love of Mother-Not
The Tar Aiym Krang
Orphan Star
The End of the Matter
Bloodhype
Flinx in Flux
The Damned
Book One: A Call to Arms
Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or destroyed" and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
A Del Rey Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright © 1976 by Paramount Pictures Corporation
STAR TREK® is a Trademark of Paramount Pictures Corporation registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-8477
ISBN 0-345-27683-3
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition: May 1976
Fifth Printing: September 1991
Cover Art by Stanislaw Fernandes
For all the fans of Star Trek,
everywhere . . . ignore the ignorant
and stick to your phasers!
CONTENTS
THE
COUNTER-CLOCK
INCIDENT
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
STAR TREK LOG SEVEN
Log of the Starship
Enterprise
Stardates 5536.3–5536.9 Inclusive
James T. Kirk, Capt., USSC, FS, ret.
Commanding
transcribed by
Alan Dean Foster
At the Galatic Historical Archives
on S. Monicus I
stardated 6111.5
For the Curator: JLR
THE
COUNTER-CLOCK
INCIDENT
(Adapted from a script by John Culver)
I
A warm light seemed to suffuse April's face as he stared at the drawings. Soft, caressing, intense—the kind of gentle radiance Rembrandt used to edge his portraits with.
The works hanging on the wall before him, which had inspired such a reverent gaze, would never hang in any museum, would never raise the brow of the lowliest art critic. Yet April's mind applied a critic's terminology to them. Masterpieces—exquisite, sensuous, drawn with unsurpassed skill and vivid realization—they were.
True, the drawings had no depth beyond the minimally necessary. There was no attempt to give body to the colossal conception so skeletally sketched. The use of color was minimal, every drawing done in unrelieved blue on white.
But that didn't matter. His mind filled in the myriad colors that would be added later.
"Magnificent, isn't she?" the old man standing on April's left murmured. "Even in the preliminary blueprints. The soundness of Franz Joseph's original design holds up well. You know, there was a time when people thought he designed these ships only for amusement, that they'd never have any practical application."
"Hard to believe," April agreed. "Still, they were well ahead of their time." He peered harder at the wall full of drawings. "NCC-1701, Class One . . . that's a heavy cruiser, right?"
"Sure is," Commodore van Anling admitted. "Her major components are being put together out in the San Francisco yards right now. I could take you out there, but"—he nodded toward the wall—"there's much more to be seen in those prints than in a few irregular masses of metal and plastic. Free-space assembly won't begin for another eight months yet."
"I see." April turned to the smaller, deceptively frail-looking man. "But why tell me all this, sir? Why call me away from my regular duties?" The light in his eyes deepened to an expectant gleam. "Am I going to be assigned to her?"
The commodore nodded, unable to suppress a slight smile.
April's voice rose like a small boy's. "What section, sir? If you have any idea, if it wouldn't be against regulations to tell me . . .!"
"I do and it isn't," van Anling told him, moving to a chair facing the wall.
"Engineering?" April prompted.
"No."
"Communications, then? Surely communications." The commodore shook his head. "Sciences . . . a security post?"
"No . . . no." Under the pencil-thin white mustache the older officer cracked an irrepressible grin.
"For heaven's sake, sir, give me to the Klingons, send me up for disobedience . . . but tell me! I've got to restudy whatever section it is, got to prepare . . ."
"You sure do," van Anling informed him somberly, "because you're going to be in all of them." At April's blank stare, he added, "Because she's going to be your ship . . . Captain April."
"My . . . ship?"
"You're going to be her captain . . . her first captain," the commodore continued. April eyed him uncertainly, but there was no tag to the incredible pronouncement. Therefore it had to be true.
Slowly April turned, to stare anew at the wall filled with diagrams and blueprints. His gaze traveled from one to another, but all at once the regular lines seemed wavy, the precision gone. Lines clashed crazily, ran blindly into adjoining ones. The gleam in his eyes was gone, replaced suddenly by signs of another emotion.
Fear. Fear and a thrill so overwhelming he felt as though the combination would shove his heart right out through his chest. All of a sudden Robert April was the happiest man in the world . . . and he was scared to death.
"I . . . I'm not ready for this, sir," he finally managed to confess.
"That's all right," van Anling replied benignly. "You've got a whole year to make yourself ready. Better get to it, son."
In the harsh, gray shadows of the moon, beneath hills of devastated ash and pumice, an unlimited-range, high-resolution navigational computer finished digesting a gigantic body of minutiae. The results of many days of intense electronic cogitation were regurgitated in the form of a tiny printout on an insignificant little shard of tape.
The tape was carefully routed from the computer processor through an intermediary to the person in charge of the installation, who then relayed it to the captain of the small vessel resting in orbit high above the station. The captain passed it on, together with the requisite orders, to his own navigator. That worthy conferred with his two associates—one mechanical, the other only partly so.
The thing, he explained, would have to be aligned so and so at a speed of such and such, to achieve the optimum eventual impact. From time to time the ship's gunnery officer nodded knowingly or added a comment or correction of his own. Eventually everyone agreed. The results of the discussion were transmitted to the captain, who gave his approval and issued the formal order, which the gunnery officer executed.
Although the projector mounted on the small ship looked unimpressive, its efficiency was astounding. There was no flash, no concussive aftershock, no rumbling boom, of course, but the projector did its job nonetheless. Sensors immediately took over, announcing unemotionally that the projectile was on course at the proper speed. It would reach its target in approximately two weeks, four days, sixteen hours and assorted minutes.
The captain of the small ship eyed the tiny blip until it had faded completely from the sensitive tracking screen. More than anything else, he wished he could be there when the projectile impacted on its target. Destiny, however, had ordered more mundane activities for him on that distant day. He sighed. If he were lucky, they might be able to pick up the results on the tracking monitors—if they were still in the area.
Construction of the battle cruiser was proceeding smoothly. More smoothly, in fact, than had the construction of any similar vessel in some time. Possibly the Vulcan foreman had something to do with it. But whether through causes superhuman or supernatural, it began to be whispered among the construction crew and Starfleet personnel that this was going to be an especially blessed ship, a lucky ship . . .
The projectile possessed no power units of its own. It had no sensing equipment, no detectors, no screens—nothing that could be sensed by any type of sophisticated energy-detection equipment. There was nothing to spoil the eventual surprise of its arrival, and it had to be perfectly aligned when fired. Divergence of even a hundredth of a degree could cause it to miss its intended target entirely. So its planners, both electronic and human, had been careful. It held to its course and flew silently on its way.
The United Federation of Planets Starfleet assembly station swung in majestic orbit around Earth. It resembled a bombed toy factory.
Gigantic preassembled sections of ships were boosted to this spot from half a hundred points on Earth's surface; special components from as many more deep-space cargo containers were unloaded. Thousands of elements were manufactured nearby, in dozens of enormous drifting factories, their production facilitated by zero gravity and total vacuum. Each of several million parts had to fit into sisters and brothers within a thousandth of a millimeter. Humanoid minds had conceived the project, but none of it would have been possible without the aid of machines.
One section was devoted to assembling two massive warp-drive engines. Construction crews working in triple shifts seamed the yawning sections together, work continuing around the clock.
An unusual pause in the work rhythm accompanied the placing of shielding from Tashkent. Assembly totally halted as the second-shift engineer-in-charge slowly turned his flexible armored worksuit to face the glowing Earth below. He arranged his suit carefully, moving the upper part in a particular way. His motions were directed toward a distant point on the planet's surface. They were as accurate as he could make them without benefit of detailed instrumentation. A slight divergence would not matter. His thoughts exceeded the actual movements in importance.
He quickly resumed directing the shielding installation. Below, Mecca had rotated past, turning majestically with the rest of the world.
In bits and pieces the huge ship began to form, sections of a white puzzle taking shape against a chill black background. Each crew, each shift, prided itself on being more accurate than its predecessor. Every coterie of seamers drifted on tethers and tried to outdo its counterparts for smoothness of joining and accuracy of component integration. The technicians and constructors and fabricators who set the lanes for the ship's bowling alley in place did their job with no less care and finesse than did the cybernetics crew responsible for locking the central computer into the ganglion of electronic nerves which stretched the length and breadth of the steadily maturing ship.
While construction proceeded with remarkable speed and efficiency, a tiny projectile continued toward a preselected point in space.
Eventually the day came when no more massive boosters lifted from the Earth's surface. No components required a last recheck; every bit of instrumentation had been certified operational. Everything was in place, from photon torpedoes to potted philodendrons.
Several thousand strong, the construction crews began to assemble around the finished ship. Individuals in worksuits drifted in, as did crews of two or three manning engineering lighters—several hundred looking on from the orbital assembly stations that boxed in the construction area. All looked on as the first crew finally took official possession of their ship.
The engineering staff alone did not proceed at once to assigned quarters. Starship engineers seldom used their on-board personal cabins. They lived in jeffries tubes and cramped accessways and in the free spaces between computer housings.
April barely had time to check out the glistening chronometer in his quarters. Luxuriating in the comparative spaciousness of the captain's cabin would have to wait. He had a ship to command.
It was a short turbolift ride to the bridge. His first-shift officers awaited him there. Slowly, appraisingly, he looked them over one at a time. Were they all as nervous as he was, he wondered? Some had had more time in Starfleet than he did, albeit in noncommand ratings. Did any of them feel the same overpowering mix of fear and exultation, terror and expectancy, that had been building in him since that day the commodore had shown him this ship, at the time only a smattering of diagrams spread on a wall outside the San Francisco naval yard?
To April's relief, it was First Officer Shundresh who smoothly broke the silence.
"Ready to get under way, Captain."
"Very well, Mr. Shundresh. All stations stand by."
Suddenly his fear was gone, replaced by a strange calmness. It all seemed so natural somehow, as if he had been doing this for years. Walking forward, he assumed his position in the command chair. His body melted easily into the deceptively blunt contours. The chair was comforting beyond imagination, in a way that bordered on the erotic.
Leaning over, April pressed the proper button and spoke with a reassurance that sprang from just-tapped regions. "Engineering?"
"Chief Engineer Kursley," the thick voice filtered back. "Standing by for orders, sir."
"Activate warp-drive engines, Chief."
> "Activating warp-drive, Captain." Kursley turned to the prime engineering board. She eyed her subordinates, then muttered a silent liturgy. It might have been a prayer, might have been something else. She engaged the energies of a sun.
Hitherto quiescent monitors awoke on the bridge. Blank-eyed circlets winked on, needles sprinted ahead, bands ascended on gauges, and a tiny shock ran through every member of the bridge crew.
"All systems," April ordered firmly, "final checkout. Report."
Response came from around the bridge, from speakers at the freshly painted communications station, and finally from Navigation.
"Visual contact, sir. Object approaching on collision course, bearing dead ahead."
"Acknowledged, Lieutenant Po." April addressed the general intercom. "All hands, stand by."
Other, distant hands were standing by in a small room beneath the lunar surface. Other eyes checked chronometers and predictors as they watched the distant Earth-ball, fighting to find a minute speck outlined against that brilliant blue-white globe. The drama begun on a small stage several weeks before was approaching the final curtain.
"Contact in thirty seconds, Captain," Lieutenant Po reported, with an irrepressible shiver of excitement.
"Thank you, Lieutenant."
In suits and ships and stations, thousands of men and women of several races watched their fully formed offspring and waited expectantly.
"Four . . . three . . ." the navigator counted off tensely, "two . . . one . . . interdiction . . ."
Head-on, the tiny projectile struck the completed cruiser, exploded, and burst into a small but rapidly expanding ball of brilliance. Tiny reflective fragments caught the morning sunlight and turned the diffusing globe into a spray of diamonds.