STAR TREK - TOS - Federation

Star Trek - TOS - Federation

PROLOGUE

ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER

ELLISON RESEARCH OUTPOST

Stardate 9910.1

Earth Standard: Late September 2295

Kirk knew his journey would be ending soon.

That feeling overwhelmed him even as he resolved from the transporter beam and felt the gravity of this

world reassert its hold on him--a hold it had never once relinquished over all the years, all the parsecs,

which had passed from that first time to now. All that had happened since that first time was but a

heartbeat to him, as if his life were dust streaming from the tail of a comet, without mass, without

consequence, measured only by the moment he had first arrived at this place, and by the moment of his

return.

It had been twenty-eight years since he had first set foot here, and Kirk had no doubt that he would

never do so again. He could hear Spock's patient voice in his mind, blandly noting the illogic of that

conclusion, given that the unexpected was all too common in their lives. But in some matters emotions

took precedence.

Which is why he had returned. Everything was coming to an end.

No matter what Spock concluded, no matter how McCoy argued, Kirk's heart knew the truth of that

feeling.

This is the last time.for so man3' things, Kirk thought, falling into the litany that had grown in him since his

retirement. Soon Would come his last passage by transporter. His last look at starlight smeared by warp

speed. His last glimpse of fleecy skies and Earth's cool, green hills. He thought of the old song for space

travelers, written before spaceflight had even begun on Earth. He was saddened that he could not recall

all of it.

"Captain Kirk, we are honored by your visit." The words caught Kirk by surprise, though he knew they

shouldn't have. The speaker was a young Vulcan woman, Acad- emy fresh, standing at attention before

the slightly raised trans- porter platform in the outpost's central plaza. Kirk guessed her age as no more

than twenty-five years Earth standard. He hesitated on the platform, thinking back. When she had been

born, he'd been returning home. The first five-year mission almost at an end. An admiralty waiting for

him. Kirk cast back to the memory. He had not gone gentle into that good night. His time as a

deskbound admiral had lasted less than two years. Two years of going to bed each night on Earth

knowing that she was orbiting above him, being readied for another mission. And each night he had

known that she would not leave spacedock without him, Starfleet and all its admirals be damned. Kirk

had been right.

V'Ger had come to claim the world and Kirk had beaten the odds again. As he always would.

No, Kirk thought. Had. Past tense. He was sixty-two years old.

McCoy told him he could look forward to one hundred and twenty, even more. But the trouble with

odds was that you could never really beat them, just avoid them for a while. Spock would be the first to

admit that, in time, everything evened out. That was one way of looking at death, Kirk knew, the

inescapable evening out of the odds. The thought brought him no comfort.

"Captain Kirk?" the Vulcan began, a polite query in her tone.

"Is everything all right, sir?" "Fine, Lieutenant," Kirk said. Even though he was finally, unthinkably, retired

from Starfleet, a civilian again, however unlikely, the Fleet always remembered her own and this, his last

rank, would be his forever.

He stepped down from the platform, hearing the whisper-soft grinding of fine red dust beneath his boot.

He smiled at the Vulcan, and because Spock had been his friend for thirty years, he

could see an almost undetectable shadow of emotion cross her face. Kirk blinked and looked again at

the rank insignia on the white band of her tunic. He corrected himself: "Lieutenant Commander." He

supposed he should wear his glasses more often. But a lieutenant commander at twenty-five? Could the

Academy really be making them that young now? Couldlreally be that old?

"May I show you to your quarters, sir?" The Vulcan nodded to indicate a collection of prefab habitat

structures a few hundred meters away, assembled within a clearing in the ruins of the city.. ú or whatever

it was. A quarter-century of study by the Federation's best xenoarchaeologists had been unable to reveal

the purpose of this place, only that its primary structures were at least one million years old, and the age

of its oldest structure was exactly what Spock had later surmised: six billion years.

There was a time when the significance of such antiquity had been overwhelming to Kirk. The central

stones of this place had been carved and assembled before life had ever arisen on Earth, before Earth

herself had coalesced from the dust and debris surrounding her sun. But now six billion years was merely

an abstraction--a mystery he would never comprehend in his lifetime, just another fact to be placed aside,

abandoned, with so many other unattainable dreams of youth.

"No, thank you," Kirk said. "I'm afraid I won't be staying long enough to make use of any quarters. The

Excelsior will be arriving shortly to pick me up." "The staff will be disappointed to hear that, sir." Kirk

noted that the Vulcan hid her own disappointment well, as she did her disapproval that Starfleet's flagship

had been relegated to provid- ing a civilian with taxi service. That's not how Captain Sulu had viewed

Kirk's request for a favor, but Kirk understood how others might see it.

"As you are one of the few people to have interacted with the device," the Vulcan added, almost boldly,

"we had looked forward to hearing of your encounter in your own words." Kirk looked around the plaza,

anxious to continue without further conversation. "It's all in my original logs. I'm sure they Offer more

detail than I could recall today."

In what was, for a Vulcan, surely a near act of desperation, the lieutenant commander impassively asked,

"Is there nothing we can do to have you extend your stay with us?" "No," Kirk said. It was that final. In

less than two months the Excelsior-class Enterprise B would be launched from spacedock.

Kirk wasn't certain what was drawing him back to Earth for that occasion. He had no intention of ever

again setting foot on a starship as anything other than a passenger. He still recalled too well the haunted

look on Chris Pike's face when they had spoken the day Kirk had taken command of the first Enterprise.

From that first day, that first hour, somehow Kirk, too, had known that that was how his own journey

would end. With the Enterprise, or her namesake, going on without him. Even here, it made him

uncomfortable to contemplate that moment to come in his future.

There had been so much he had wanted to accomplish, so much he had accomplished, and yet the two

never seemed to overlap.

Forty-six years in Starfleet, and his losses still seemed to outweigh his gains.

Kirk caught sight of a distinctive pillar at the far edge of the plaza. Floodlights had been set up on slender

tripods around it, changing the dark color of the stone he remembered to something lighter. There was

writing on it as well, intricate lines of alien script like the overlapping edges of waves on a beach. He

didn't remember having seen writing there before, but no doubt the archaeologists had cleaned away the

encrustations of millennia.

"That way, isn't it?" Kirk asked, already walking toward the pillar, knowing what he would find beyond.

"Yes, sir," the Vulcan said. She fell into step beside him, her tricorder bouncing against her hip as she

hurried to match his stride. "If I may, sir, as you know, it gave no indication that the conversation of

stardate 7328 would be its last communication with us." "And that surprises you?" Kirk interrupted. He

picked up the pace before she could answer. He felt he was swimming in sensations--the taste of the

bone-dry air that drew the moisture from his lungs, the lightness of the gravity, the slight reediness of

sound distorted by the thin atmosphere. He was thirty-four again,

filled with purpose, pushing eagerly at the edge of all the boundaries that encompassed him.

"Surprise connotates an emotional response," the Vulcan said primly, "which has no place in a scientific

investigation." Her response, all too predictable, wearied him. Such earnest- ness was best served by

youth. Let her devote the next four decades of her life to this mystery if she would. Kirk no longer had

that luxury. ú 'Instead," she continued, "it could be said we were perplexed by its silence, especially in

light of the conversations you reported with it, and its apparent willingness to answer any--" "Yes, fine,

very good, Lieutenant Commander." Kirk let the sharp words spill out of him, anything to have her stop

talking. "If I could just have a few moments..." He sensed her falter beside him and he walked on, alone,

past the pillar and the floodlights, around a fallen wall, a tumble of columns, and--yes!--there--right

where he remembered it.

Right where it had remained through all these years, haunting him, forever haunting him, just as its name

had foretold. The Guardian of Forever.

A large, rough-hewn torus, three meters in diameter. A reposi- tory of knowledge. A passageway into

time. Its own beginning and its own ending. A mystery. Perhaps, the mystery.

Kirk paused and gazed upon the Guardian. Like the pillar, its color was different, changed by the

floodlights that ringed it.

There were sensor arrays nearby as well, sheets of gleaming white duraplast on the ground around it to

keep the soil from being disturbed by the many scientists who toiled to learn its secrets.

Kirk gazed upon the Guardian, and remembered.

.4 question. Since before ),our sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a

question.

Those had been the first words the Guardian had spoken to him. An investigation of temporal distortions

had brought the Enterprise to this world. McCoy had accidentally injected himself with an overdose of

cordrazine and in fleeing his rescuers had passed through the Guardian into Earth's past. There he had

changed history so that the Federation never arose, so that the

Entelj2rise no longer flew through space, so that Kirk and Uhura and Spock and Scott were trapped in

this city, on the edge of forever, with their only chance of restoring the universe they knew waiting in the

past.

Kirk closed his eyes, the cruel memories still alive within him.

The universe had been restored. The Enterprise returned to him. And the price had only been the death

of one woman. The one woman he had truly loved.

Her name formed on his lips.

"Edith," he whispered.

Kirk knew the Vulcan would hear him, but he no longer cared.

Caring was for youth, and at this moment, Kirk felt as old as the stones of this place.

He walked across the ruddy soil until he came to the duraplast sheets. A permanent static charge repelled

the dust and kept the sheets clean. His boot heels clicked across their hard, slick surface. He heard the

Vulcan follow.

Now, no more than a meter from it, Kirk stopped to study the mottled surface of the Guardian. It had

glowed when it spoke so many years ago, pulsing with an inner energy no one had ever been able to

trace to a source, just as they had been unable to replicate whatever mechanism had initially allowed the

Guardian to act as a gateway through time. The most detailed sensor scans possible consistently reported

that the Guardian was no more than a piece of granitic rock, hand-carved, and that was all.

"Perhaps you could ask it something, sir," the Vulcan sug- gested, after a moment of respectful silence.

There were a thousand questions Kirk could think to ask.

Perhaps that was why he had returned. But for now, none seemed worth asking.

"Do you really think it would do any good?" he asked. He glanced behind him and saw the Vulcan staring

intently at the Guardian, as if that simple question asked in a familiar voice might stir the intelligence

locked within the stone.

"The Vulcan Science Academy spent years in conversation with the Guardian, sir. It offered virtually

infinite knowledge, ours for the mere asking. But--" Kirk held up his hand to stop her. He knew the

story. The

)N

Guardian did claim to be the repository of infinite knowledge, present, past, and future. But it seemed

that there were inherent limitations to the languages of the Federation and the minds of the scientists who

had engaged the Guardian in conversation. Too many times the Guardian had said it was unable to

respond until a more precise question had been asked, yet it provided no clues a> to how particular

questions might be framed more precisely.

A human scientist had summed up eight years of frustrated ~-esearch by equating the total of recorded

conversations between the Guardian and humans to an exchange that might be expected between a

human and dogs. The smartest, non-genetically engi- neered dogs might have a vocabulary of five

hundred words, and comprehend a handful of actions and even abstract concepts such as direction and

the duration of short periods of time. But what about the other hundred thousand words a dog's master

could use? What hope did a dog have of understanding its master's philosophy and biochemistry and

multiphysics? How could a dog even attempt to respond to its master in the human's own spoken words?

It was frustrating and humbling for humans to be rele- gated to the status of mute animals, knowing no

way to reach up to the Guardian.

The scientist had bitterly concluded that the researchers at Ellison Outpost had spent eight years

conversing with a stone, and had gotten exactly the same results as they might get from asking questions

of any rock. A few months later, the Guardian had ceased to respond to questions at all, as if confirming

the scientist's assessment.

The Vulcan kept her face blank, but her next words, to Kirk's attuned ears, were a plea by any other

name. "I would find it most interesting if you would ask it a question, sir." Kirk nodded. It was a small

enough request. In a few minutes, a few hours at most, he would be gone, but the Vulcan would still

~vork here. Why leave her with regrets?

He turned to the Guardian, focusing on its wide opening through which the other side of the plaza was

clear and unob- structed. The ruins beyond stretched to the horizon.

"Guardian," Kirk said in a firm, commanding tone, "do you remember me?"

The Vulcan betrayed her extreme youth by holding her breath in audible anticipation. An instant later, she

remembered the tricorder at her side and brought it up to check its readings of the mute stone.

"Guardian," Kirk repeated, "show me the history of my world." The space bound by the circle of stone

was unchanged.

Kirk turned to the Vulcan. "I'm sorry," he said. And in an abstract way, he was, even though the

mysteries of the Guardian had moved beyond his concern.

"Thank you for trying, sir," the Vulcan said. Then she switched off her tricorder and stood with her hands

behind her back, as if she were stone herself and had no intention of leaving his side.

In the past, Kirk might have paused to consider a polite way to ask what he asked next, but time had

become more important than hurt feelings these days.

"Lieutenant Commander," he said, "I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone here." The startled

Vulcan hid her surprise again, though not as well as the first time.

"Is anything wrong, sir?" "I wish to meditate." It was a lie, of course, but one with which no Vulcan would

argue.

"Of course, sir," the Vulcan said. She began to walk away. Kirk turned back to the stone. Then he heard

her footsteps stop. He looked back at her. A wind had sprung up. Her severely cut hair fluttered against

her pointed ears.

"Sir," she called out over the growing wind, "this outpost has standing orders that personnel are never to

step through the opening in the Guardian. We do not know if or when it might become operational again."

"Understood," Kirk called back, and the Vulcan left him. He was alone with the Guardian. He stared

through the opening. Is this what I've come back for? Kirk thought. With no more future before me, did I

hope in some way to return to the past?

The wind gusted and Kirk felt himself pushed toward the stone, caught in a swirl of obscuring dust that

made his eyes water and

his throat raw. He reached out a hand to steady himself. The Guardian was cold to his touch. He felt

tired.

He thought of the stateroom Sulu would have for him on the t.lw'c/s'ior. A soft bed. He could even turn

down the gravity to ease the ache in his back. The old knife wound he had gotten just before the Coridan

Babel Conference so many years ago had been coming back to taunt him of late. Assisted by too many

other past injuries. too many sudden transports into different gravity fields.

"Has it come to this?" Kirk asked the wind and the dust. "Will there be no more worlds to explore? No

more battles to fight?" The Guardian was silent.

Just as Kirk had known it would be.

There would be no more miracles for him in this universe. He had captured a part of it in his life,

imprinted a thousand worlds in his mind, had experiences and adventures that humans of centuries past

could not conceive, and which humans of centuries to come could never repeat.

He should be content with that, he knew.

But he wasn't.

For all his confidence, his bravado, his skills and talent and drive to be the best, in his heart, at his core,

there were doubts.

Too many words left unsaid. Too many actions left undone. Too many questions gone unanswered.

And now, with the journey's end in sight, with the knowledge that it was time to put aside those things left

unfinished, Kirk was not ready.

His doubts tortured him.

Edith, his love, in a roadway of old Earth, the truck rushing for her.

David, his son, on the Genesis planet, with a Klingon knife above his heart.

Garrovick, his commander, and 200 crew facing death on TychoIV.

For all that Kirk had done, had he done enough?

Could anyone have done enough?

Or was it all without meaning? Was life a simple tragedy of

distraction from birth to death, with no more purpose than this stone before him?

Kirk knew his journey would be ending soon, and this far into it, he still did not understand what had

driven him to take it, nor long to continue it.

Alone, he whispered a single word to the wind and the dust.

"Why?" And for the first time in two decades, the Guardian of Forever answered....

Part One

]'he Eugenics Wars of the late twentieth century were more than lifiY years in the past, but the evil that

had spawned them lived on.

Ha,'ed, intolerance, unrestrained greed, all those qualities which defined humaniO, so well, proved fertile

ground as always.

,q ,k, eneration unborn at the turn of the millennium grew up with a /~lscination for those who had

promised order and salvation in the mi&t of chaos. In the worm of the mid-twenty-first century',

crumbling beneath the environmental outrages of the twentieth, that promise was a heady dream. A

perfect worm was possible if ,n/~' the mistakes made by Khan Noonien Singh and his followers could be

avoided.

Adrik Thorsen was one of that generation determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

He heard the call of the supermen whispered through the ages, predating even Khan. He rallied beneath

the red banners and dark ea~,/e ~/' the Optimum Movement. He wore the red urnform of

Cob;he/Green. He awoke each day with the knowledge that the desUny of the world, of all humanity, lay

in the hands of those who h~d the will to take drastic, necessary action.

.4drik Thorsen had that will, and in the mid-twenO,-first century, in pockets of despair, regions

overcome by anarchy and hopeless- hess, Thorsen was allowed to enact his policies.

His quest.for perfection began with the weeding out of the unfit.

Those who were less than optimal, by infirmit),, by geneties, then by religious belie~ and political

persuasion, were the first to be coded ,for deletion. In those earl), days, killing children for the sins off

their parents had been distressing to Thorsen. But in time he came to see the anguish he experienced, and

then transcended, as a sign of his own growing perfection.

True to his own theories, Adrik Thorsen was becoming optimal.

If the world would only follow in his footsteps, he could lead all humanity to an era of peace and

prosperity that would surpass all understanding.

But his progress tormented him because he knew that whenever great men such as he dared dream great

dreams, inevitably there were those who would attempt to drag them down. By their very opposition, he

considered his opponents to have proven themselves less than optimal. Thus, they, too, could be coded

for deletion with all the others unfit to share the world.

As he journeyed on his own inner search for the Optimum, Adrik Thorsen's dream consumed him. Then

it consumed his own pocket of the world. In time he was certain it would consume the world itself and

Paradise would follow from that moment as surely as night followed day, as constant as a law of nature.

But ,first Thorsen understood he must vanquish the laws of histor)'. The biggest mistake that had been

made by Khan's supermen was that they had lost. Adrik Thorsen would not permit that mistake to be

made a second time.

Thus on the morning of ;l/larch 19, 2061, Thorsen himself led the mission against the WED Research

Plat/brm, geostationary orbit, Earth. Six carbon-shelled, single-passenger orbital transfer units carried

Thorsen andfive trusted troopers to within two kilometers off the corporate space station, undetected by

proximiO' radar. The transfer units were jettisoned and the final approach was made in membrane suits,

using nonignition maneuvering units.

The); made magnetic contact with the station's hull at 01:20 G.xll', precisely as scheduled. Their induction

scans showed that no alarms had been triggered.

:tl 0l;27 GMT, they detonated the first spinner charge on the zq~link dish, shutting off all communications

with the platform's ~,otporate headquarters. Eight seconds later, a series of secondary dctotTations

flashed along the staff module, splitting it in two.

T17orsen watched with satisjaction as he counted seven platform crew members expelled from the

resulting hull breach, arms and /c~s kicking frantically, mouths horrifically gaping with silent cries i, the

vacuum. As he had suspected, two of the crew members wore t/l~' bhtc and white unzforms of the New

United Nations peacemak- it~,~/brees. It was clear that Thorsen and the Optimum Movement were t7ot

the only ones who knew what breakthrough had been ~%~,~itleered at this facility.

,tccording to the operations manifest Thorsen had obtained, ten researchers and an unknown number of

peacemakers remained on the platform. By now, the platform ~ automated emergeno' decom- [,'ession

procedures would have sealed internal airlocks. It would bc at least.five minutes before any remaining

peacemakers could ctr;~l their own membrane suits and launch a counterattack.

Tllor,sen and his troopers were unopposed as they jetted directly to t/ze oz~termost arm of the platform,

where the revolutionary new test vehicle was stored in its own docking module.

Thorsen knew he could not explosively decompress that module without risk of damaging the vehicle

itself. And it would be suicide /i,' a~iv of his troopers to attempt entry through the personnel (lir/ock,

where they would become a captive target. Accordingly, T/zor,s'en ordered one of his troopers to the

airlock to deploy an i~!flatable decoy. The decoy' was the size and shape of a trooper in a ,Tc,Tbrane

suit, and would draw the attention and laser fire of any o'cw members inside. At the same time, Thorsen

commanded two other froopers to assemble an emergency evacuation blister on the (~,,'side e f the

docking module, sealing it to the hull and pressuriz- i~•,, it. 5k)w his forces could breach the module's

hull without loss of i~f~'r~zal atmosphere. The vehicle inside would be safe.

,-tt Thorsen 5' signal, the first trooper cycled the inflatable deco), t/,'oz~,h the personnel airlock as the

troopers in the evac blister used c'z~tiqk' lasers to breach the hull.

The two troopers floating near Thorsen, ten meters away from

the module, watched for the approach of peacemakers from the other airlocks.

But whoever remained inside the vehicle storage module did not share Thorsen's respect for rational

military action. Before Thorsen's troopers in the evac blister could finish cutting their entry point, a gout of

crystallizing moisture exploded from the vehicle airlock doors at the end of the module. Debris blew out

with it, meaning both the interior and exterior doors had been opened at once.

Thorsen guessed what desperate strategy was being attempted and instantly moved to counteract it. He

and the two troopers with him.jetted to the open vehicle airlock door. The.first trooper to arrive was cut

in half by a particle beam, his suit and flesh rupturing in an explosion of instantly frozen blood.

Thorsen directed a fiy-by-wire fiare pack to the lip of the vehicle airlock door and ignited it. Anyone

inside who had seen the flash would be blind for at least thirty seconds. Then he and the remaining

troopers flew into the docking module, lasers on contin- uous,fire, tuned for membrane fabric, not for

metal or carbon.

There were no peacemakers inside, only' unarmed researchers, all but one cowering in their pressure

suits. Soon, only that one remained alive. She was in the vehicle itself, a reconfigured Orbital Fighter

Escort with a single particle cannon on its nose. The modifications that Thorsen knew had been made to

the fighter's vectored impulse drive unit appeared to be all interior. From the outside, it was no different

from any other fighter he had piloted.

Thorsen ~ troopers on watch outside the airlock door reported that no peacemakers had yet emerged

from the other modules.

Thorsen conferred quickly with the troopers in the module with him. They c'ould see the researcher in

the.fighter through the vehicle's jTight-deck windows. It was dij~cult to assess what she was doing on the

control consoles, but it was apparent that the fighter was still locked into position on its launch rails and

would not be able to leave without a manual release.

Then Thorsen's induction scans alerted him to impulse circuits cycling through their ignition sequence. The

researcher was at- tempting to power up the fighter's main drive. Thorsen knew that when the researcher

activated it, the plasma venting would kill

overtone in the docking module, including her, and the mechanical strain against the launch rails would

tear what was left of the entire ?/af/brm apart.

Thorsen admired her for her willingness to die for her ideals.

He nodded at her with respect as he tuned his laser to optical j).cqtwncies that would pass through the

fighter's flight-deck win- dows. Though he forgave her the terror she showed as she saw the muzzle of

the weapon point at her,' she died badly', without ~lcceptance of her fate at the hands of her superior.

She was obviottsly not optimal. Thorsen thus had no regret as he watched tter lff~,less body slowly spin

in the fighter~ cabin.

ItJthin ten minutes, the troopers had removed the researcher~' body and Thorsen was strapped into the

pilot's chair. Despite the ,todlifications to the vehicle, there were no major changes to the jlifitt controls.

He approved. The best innovations were always the ~implest. EJficieno' was always optimal.

Thorsen ~ troopers released the fighter from its launch rails and Thorsen used the maneuvering thrusters

to gent/), guide the vehicle from the storage module. He told his troopers he would use the particle

cannon to decompress the platform's remaining intact modules,' then, when the danger of a peacemaker

counterattack /tad been neutralized, the); could board.for the next phase ()f the mission.

I[ took Thorsen three minutes to destro), the pla(form. Bodies /1oating everywhere, a cloud of death

surrounding the distant Earth. as it always had. In two more minutes, he had used the particle cannon to

neutralize his own troopers as well. History' had too often shown that great men were brought down by'

those who dared to share the glory for others' actions. Thorsen.felt no remorse because none was

warranted.

At 02.'11 GMT, Thorsen sent a coded signal to an Optimum listerling post on the moon. The listening

post responded with a /li~17t plan that would guide the.fighter to Thorsen'3' meeting with de.sti~Tv. And

Thorsen's meeting with destiny would be humaniO"s ~t~rt~ing point as well.

Because, as of March 19, 2061, the key to total victory over the Optimum's opposition, and to the

resulting emergence' of a new Order and salvation for the world, lay in the hands of a young

scientist named Zefiram Cochrane, who was poised on a threshoM from which he would forever change

humaniO'%' place in the universe.

Driven by the wings qf history and dreams of salvation for all who were ~vorthy, and determined not to

repeat the mistakes of the past. Adrik Thorsen fiew jbr Titan.

His plan was simple, efficient, optimal--whoever controlled the genius of Zqfram Cochrane would control

the future of humanity.

And as o['March 19, 2061, the future of humaniO' belonged to Adrik Thorsen.

ONE

CHRISTOPHER'S LANDING, TITAN Earth Standard: March 19, 2061

For just one moment, a fleeting instant of the time his life would span, Zefram Cochrane thought he heard

the stars sing to him.

He could see them overhead, through the transparent slabs of aluminum that formed the dome over this

part of the colony of Christopher's Landing, Earth's largest permanent outpost in near-Saturn space.

Beyond the dome, the frozen nitrogen winds of Titan swept away thick orange streamers of crys- tallizing

methane and hydrogen cyanide, as they chased the terminator to clear the dense atmosphere for only a

few min- utes between the clouds of day and the mists of night, allowing, briefly, dark bands to appear in

the sky above. In that darkness, the stars flickered for Cochrane, creating a shimmering jeweled band

around the dull yellow arc of Saturn that filled a quarter of the sky, so far from the sun that the light

reflecting from it made the enormous planet almost imperceptible in Titan's twilight. Its rings, head-on in

the same orbital plane as the moon, Were invisible.

In that narrow window of time, between the beginning and end of a day unlike any other in human

history, Cochrane stared at Stars he had known all his life, and they were unfamiliar to him.

Alone among all humans now alive, as far as he and most others knew, he had seen them as no one ever

had. Blazing in deep space.

STAR TREK - TOS - Federation

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