STAR TREK - TOS - 40 - Timetrap

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Chapter One

CAN SHIPS, as well as men, be said to limp?

James Kirk looked around the bridge of the USS

Enterprise. A less-trained eye would have seen only

an experienced group of men and women going about

their various duties, competently overseeing the mul-

titude of hardware and software systems that made

Enterprise more than a mere shell of metals and plas-

tics. But Captain James T. Kirk saw much more.

He saw weariness in the slumped shoulders of his

communications officer. He noted the signs of short

temper in the abrupt movements and tight-lipped re-

sponses of the helmsman.

If a ship can be said to be limp, thought Kirk, then

this one's limping.

The mission just completed had been more than

even a vessel of Enterprise's caliber should be asked

to endure. Only the figure bent over the Science Offi-

cer's station in disciplined absorption showed no out-

ward signs of fatigue. But then, Spock almost never

did. And yet he was called upon to give more than any

of the rest of us, at that outpost colony. Kirk shook

his head slightly in amazement and admiration.

Mistakes would not be made by this crew, Kirk

knew, in spite of their exhaustion, but he was not the

type of commander to drive his people unreasonably.

Thank God we're only hours away from Starbase

Seventeen, he thought. They can have all the rest and

recreation they need there.

I wonder what's waiting for me there. New orders,

of course. The ship would be repaired and resuppiied,

the crew given its chance to rest up, and then both

would be called upon yet again to do the Federation's

work. Sensitive work, Kirk supposed. Work requiring

the best, requiring men and women of competence and

subtlety, and a commander who had proven his ability

to cope with complex and dangerous situations often

enough.

It wore on him, this work. Every year, it wore on

him more, and yet he could not imagine doing anything

else with his life. For a time, of course, he had had to

do something else a desk job. But James Kirk was not

a man who belonged behind a desk. He was a ship's

commander whose place was on the bridge of his

beloved ship.

But there must be a limit somewhere, sometime.

That was his abiding fear. Would someone, some-

where in the Starfleet hierarchy, eventually decide that

Kirk was too old for active command, that a desk job

was all that he was really suited for now--an aging

officer who couldn't even read any more without wear-

ing archaic glasses? Horatio Nelson or John Paul

Jones, those two great admirals which would his own

career be likened to? Would he die in glory, at the

height of his career, during his moment of greatest

triumph, like Nelson, or on land, forced into retire-

ment by intrique and the changing winds of politics,

like Jones? A lifetime from now, when perhaps a very

different ship bore the gallant old name Enterprise,

how would history regard James T. Kirk?

Ridiculous, he told himself, suddenly impatient with

his own meanderings. Stop thinking like an old man

with one foot in the gravel "Mr. Sulu," he said aloud,

"estimated time to arrival?"

Sulu grinned. "Fourteen hours, thirty-six minutes

to Starbase Seventeen R and R, Captain." Kirk could

sense his crew perking up at that announcement--

which was of course why he'd asked Sulu to make it.

It was consideration in such small things, Kirk knew,

as much as competence in the big ones that gained a

commander his crew's loyalty.

"Captain," Uhura said from the Communications

console, "I'm picking up something." She frowned

and put her hand to her ear as if holding the commu-

nication earpiece would help her pick up the faint

signal. "Klingon emergency signal, sir. Heavy inter-

ference."

Ginny Crandall, at the Weapons and Defense sta-

tion, spoke up from Kirk's right. "I have them, sir.

Only a couple of million kilometers away."

What're they doing in Federation space? "Let us all

hear what they have to say, Uhura. Translated."

"Yes, sir."

From the speakers above the bridge crew came a

howl of subspace interference and then a heavy crack-

ling. A voice was speaking behind the noise, but it was

drowned out. And then suddenly the interference

ceased and the voice barked out at them, heavy and

menacing a Klingon voice, its words translated to

English by the Enterprise computer but the voice left

unchanged.

"... Klanth, commanding. Failure of vessel struc-

ture accelerating. Destruction of Mauler imminent.

Crew conduct exemplary. Request commendations be

sent to clans of all. I personally commend all of us to

the gods. Survive and succeed!"

The last words were washed ont as the interference

returned with a roar. Uhura reduced the volume to a

background growling. "I can't get it any clearer, sir."

Kirk nodded, "Spock?"

The Vulcan's face was hidden in the hood of the

Science station console. "It appears to be a magnetic-

ionic storm of some sort, Captain, and the Klingon

ship is in the middle of it. It does bear some resem-

blance to the storm Enterprise encountered in this

region some time ago. I'm sure you remember that

one, sir."

Kirk grimaced. How could he forget? For hours, he

had been trapped in an alternate dimension, victim of

a bizarre breakdown in spacetime, the air in his space

suit running out, desperately trying to signal his crew

during those precious seconds when he found himself

halfway returned to his own dimension. In the end,

Spock had been able to predict the time and place of

the next intersection of the two planes of existence

and had retrieved Kirk with no time at all to spare.

Another Starfleet vessel, Defiant, had been destroyed

by the storm.

It had all happened in a region of space claimed by

the Tholians, a prickly and uncommunicative people

who rejected membership in the Federation even

though they were by now surrounded by it. Federation

ships had been careful to avoid Tholian space ever

since Enterprise's experience. 'Mr. Spock, could the

Tholians be responsible for what's happening to the

Klingon ship?"

"Perhaps, Captain. We know little of Tholian capa-

bilities beyond their ability to generate the web in

space with which they trapped Enterprise. However,

since they can generate such a web, this storm would

seem to represent a prodigious expenditure of energy

to achieve an object they could encompass far more

cheaply."

"In other words, no?"

"Probably not, sir. And of course we do know that

strange natural phenomena occur in this region." Af-

ter a pause, Spock added, "The Klingon ship does

indeed appear to be breaking up. The structure of the

vessel is disintegrating."

That answered the question no one had bothered to

voice Was the Kiingon message genuine or a ruse? As

if to add confirmation that it was genuine, Crandall

said, "Sir their shields are failing rapidly. I think..."

She fell silent and concentrated on the readings dis-

played before her. "Yes, their life-support as well."

"Helm, take us in. As close as is safe. Mr. Spock

will warn you when we've reached that limit. Shields

up. Yellow alert." Kirk could feel the adrenalin level

rising, the blood racing in his veins. He could sense

his crew responding throughout the shily--responding

to his voice, his judgment. As the klaxons rang, Kirk

thumbed a toggle switch on the arm of the command

seat. "Transporter room. Get the coordinates of that

Klingon ship and try to lock on as soon as you can."

"Do you plan a rescue, Captain?" Spock asked.

"Regulations do not require that we respond in a

situation such as this one."

"This isn't just humanitarianism, Spock. I want to

know what they're doing inside our territory. Visual

of Mauler on screen."

On the great viewscreen at the front of the bridge,

an image of the storm grew, with the Klingon ship

trapped within it, struggling ineffectually like a fly in a

spideffs web. The storm was a rough sphere of shifting

colors and brightnesses. Parts of it vanished momen-

tarily and then flared out in painful brilliance. Mauler

was almost totally obscured, but now and then it

showed clearly for just an instant. The bridge crew on

Enterprise could see the Klingon ship wavering, its

predatory "wings" beginning to crumble.

The Kilngun ship was surrounded by sparkling lights

where the storm impinged on its deflector shields, but

that sparkling was diminishing even as they watched

it. Mauler's shields were failing under the storm's

assault.

"Less than ten minutes maximum survival time,

Captain," Spock said calmly. "Transporter room?"

The response came from the speaker in the arm of

his chair. "Sorry, sir. We can't punch through the

interference. We can't lock onto individual patterns in

that soup. We'd have to have feedback from their

transporter on the olher end, and even then it would

be chancy."

Kirk thought lbr a moment. "Uhura, open a hailing

channel." He paused and then spoke in what he hoped

was a calm and authoritative voice. "Mauler, this is

the USS Enterprise, Captain James Kirk commanding.

We are standing by and are prepared to beam you

aboard our vessel. Please lock in your transporter to

OURS. ' '

For a long moment, there was no reply. Then the

voice they had heard before said angrily, 'Mauter,

Klanth commanding. Leave us, Kirk! Leave us to die

bravely, like Kilnguns."

"Bravely or not, Captain," Kirk said soothingly,

"you will die without our help. Wouldn't it be better

to survive to serve your emperor again?"

"Not with human help!" The heavy Klingon voice

was replaced with the rushing sound of subspace

static.

"Uhura?"

She shook her head. "Sorry, sir. They're no longer

transmitting."

Kirk clenched his fist in frustration. He had to

retrieve at least one crewman from that ship! Whatever

the Kilnguns' mission, it was something Starfleet

would want to know about. "Spock, could one of the

shuttles make it?"

"Negative, Captain. The shuttles have far less de-

fense against this storm than the Klingon ship has."

Kirk had known the answer in advance. He had

simply hoped that Spock could pull a rabbit out of his

hat, as he had done in the past. He found the image an

amusing one despite the present situation.

But Spock did not disappoint him. "However, you

will remember that we have on board some of Star-

fleet's new transponders, designed for maintaining

subspace radio contact through the severest phenom-

ena Starfleet scientists could anticipate. Perhaps such

a transponder could be used to maintain contact

through the storm as well."

"Yes, but what good would that do us'?"

"The transporter cannot lock onto a Klingon pat-

tern through the storm, Captain, but it could certainly

beam one of the transponders from Enterprise to the

Kilngun ship. Then a Klingon holding the transpon-

ders could be beamed back to Enterprise."

Kirk laughed. "If any of the Kilnguns would coop-

erate to that extent. And if they were willing to coop-

erate, we wouldn't need the transponder in the first

place." Something occurred to him. "Spock, what if

one man were holding the transponder and another

man were touching him. Could they both be beamed

back?"

Spock was silent for a moment, then said, "I would

say yes, with a probability of point nine nine three.

But that's just a preliminary esti--"

"Never mind, Spock. That's only seven chances of

failure out of a thousand. Not bad at all. Get one of

those transponders to the transporter room immedi-

ately. Security, send a squad to the transporter room.

I'll meet them there." Kirk jumped to his feet. "Mr.

Spock, you have the con." He strode toward the turbo

elevator, feeling younger with every step.

Kirk nodded to the transporter operator and braced

himself. The Enterprise transporter room and the Se-

curity squad standing on the transporter platform with

him all faded from Kirk's sight. The Security team

faded back in again, but the background was no longer

the transporter room aboard Enterprise.

In its place was the gloomy, cramped bridge of a

Klingon warship, underlit and hot by human stan-

dards, and filled with shotits and yells and the groaning

of tortured metal. Kirk and the Security team were

grouped immediately behind the command seat. The

seat held a broad-shouldered, powerful figure Klanth.

Crowded as the arrival of the Federation intruders

made the bridge, the Kiingons were too preoccupied

with trying to save their dying ship to realize immedi-

ately who the newcomers were. A Klingon, his eyes

on the display of a small computer in his hand, pushed

one of Kirk's men aside impatiently as he strode past.

The group from Enterprise split in two and moved

to either side of the Klingon captain's command seat.

But just then one of the Klingons in front of Klanth

happened to look up and right at Kirk. He frowned in

puzzlement, and then registered what he had seen. He

yelled a warning and pointed, and Klanth spun around.

He saw Kirk and leaped to his feet.

Moving smoothly and simultaneously, the Enter-

prise Security squad surrounded K!anth, gripping his

arms and immobilizing him. They also held onto each

other and Kirk, forming an unbroken chain, a circle

facing outward, impregnable, with Klanth in the mid-

dle. Kirk flipped open his communicator, which was

slaved to the transponder hanging from his belt, and

spoke to his ship. "Transporter room! Mass beam-in.

Now !"

On the bridge of Enterprise, where Spock sat in the

command seat, the message cut through the noise of

the storm and filled the air. The forward screen showed

the Klingon warship wavering in the grip of the storm.

Spock waited for the message from the transporter

room that Kirk, his Security team, and the Klingon

captain had all been successfully brought in.

What seemed like a vast stretch of time passed, even

though Spock knew that it was less than five seconds.

If anything had gone wrong, the technicians in the

transporter room would be working frantically to rem-

edy it, and his proper course of action was to leave

them alone and not interfere and delay them. Yet part

of him longed to contact the transporter room and

urge haste, or to go there himself, even though it would

all be over--Kirk returned successfully or overpow-

ered on Mauler and a prisoner of the Klingons--long

before he could get there. And so Spock sat in the

captain's seat, face and body outwardly relaxed, but

his two halves at war behind the calm facade. And then Mauler disappeared.

Behind Spock, someone screamed, a short sound,

choked off in the middle. Spock identified the voice as

Uhura's. He turned, saw her slumped across her con-

sole, and toggled a switch on his chair. "Sickbay to

the bridge---urgent," Spock said. "Science station?"

"N-nothing on sensors, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Hilg. A prompt response." Dis-

passionately efficient as always, Spock registered the

young Ktorran's attention to duty. It was Hilg's first

posting--and an initiation by fire.

A signal light blinked on the arm of Spock's chair.

He flipped another switch. "Spock here."

The small, tinny voice cried out, "Mr. Spock, this

is the transporter room. We've lost the transponder

signal! We can't lock onto the Captain or the others

again."

"That is because they are no longer there," Spock

said quietly.

"The storm, Mr. Spock!" It was Ginny Crandall, at

the Defense station.

Spock came back to sudden alertness. In the pri-

mary screen, the storm was ballooning outward, filling

the view. Like a living thing, Spock thought. "Full

power to shields, Mr. Crandall."

"Sir," Hilg said, "it's heading right for us."

"Helm," Spock snapped. "Reverse, maximum

warp."

But he had been a moment too late. Even before de

Broek, the helmsman, could react, the storm engulfed

Enterprise.

The starfield on the forward viewscreen was gone,

replaced by a swirl of glaring colors. The bridge lights

dimmed. Everything was bathed in the shifting colors

of the storm on the viewscreen. Heavy vibrations

boomed through the fabric of the ship. Spock found

his entire body shaking, his teeth rattling together; he

clenched his jaws and gripped the arms of his chair.

Through gritted teeth, he said, "Communications--

alert Starbase Seventeen of our position and situa-

tion."

"Shields failing, sir? Crandall said. "Can't bring

them back !"

"Helm, reverse, maximum warp," Spock repeated.

"Nothing, sir," de Broek said. "She's not answer-

ing."

Suddenly, "down" began to change meaning. Arti-

ficial gravity was being disrupted. Crewmembers fell

sideways out of their seats. Spock gripped his chair

arms all the tighter. Then he freed one hand enough to

flip a toggle switch. "Engineering!"

"Engineering, sir!" It was a voice Spock didn't

recognize. 'Gaiaym here." "Where is Mr. Scott?"

"Injured, sir. We're all being thrown"--the sound

of a crash--"down here. All the systems are being

overloaded by something. We're losing--" The voice

disappeared.

"Mr. Galaym," Spock said. 'Mr. Galaym!" He

toggled the switch a few times, but he knew he'd get

no reply.

The lights were fading still further. Somcone said,

'Life-support failing, sir." Spock didn't bother trying

to place the voice, and he ignored the cries of pain

from all around him from the other people around

him. He was listcning with all of his senses, listening

to the ship, to the booming vibrations and the creaks

and groans coming from the vessel's fabric. He was

listening the way he knew James Kirk would have

done. Enterprise, James Kirk's ship, was dying.

Suddenly all was as it had been. The storm had

vanished; the forward viewscreen showed a calm and

empty starfield.

For a moment, Spock listened to the abrupt silence,

the absence of ominous sounds from the body of the

ship. And then there was a flood of voices coming

from the rest of the ship, telling of damage or calling

for help. Spock leaned forward and stared into the

forward screen. But it didn't matter how intently he

stared the storm had disappeared, and so had Mauler;

and with the Klingon ship, so had James Kirk.

Chapter Two

AN EERIE GREEN-BLUE GLOW played around the ap-

paratus.

"Nope," Elliot said. "Sorry. Same thing again.

Energy leakage. We're just wasting energy. If we can

see it, it's no good." He reached for the power switch.

"But, sir!" An agonized cry came from the young

woman standing on the other side of the experiment.

"I think I'm really close to it! Give me a few more

hours, sir. A few more minutes. Please!"

Elliot hesitated, his hand hovering over the switch.

Finally, however, he made his decision. "I'm sorry,

Brashoff. It was a good idea. Still is, in fact. But you'll

need to do a lot more theoretical work on it." He

flipped the switch and the glow of escaping energy

died away. A faint whine dropped into the audible

range--audible to Brashoff; Elliot had been able to

hear it all along--and continued to drop in pitch,

fading into silence as it did so.

"Great," Brashoff said. "If you don't authorize me

to continue modifying the equipment, I'll be trans-

ferred, and then I won't have any opportunity even to

work on the theory."

Elliot's face stiffened. "I said I was sorry, Brashoff.

I'm not really required to do even that much. Be

thankful you've been able to spend even this much

time on your pet idea."

Brashoff flushed. "Sorry, sir. I'll go start taking

care of the paperwork to wrap this up." She saluted

and marched from the room. Elliot stared at her back

with a frown, unsure whether her manner indi cated

anger at his decision or embarrassment at her reaction

to it.

From across the room, old Admiral Kim said, "Tsk,

tsk. Kids these days. Want everything."

Elliot laughed. Kim always had the ability to make

him laugh, even with the most innocuous remark. "It

was a good idea, though," Elliot said.

"Indeed," Kim said. "Had it been successful, it

might have given us a very useful weapon against the

Kilnguns. Still, you sounded encouraging. Once the

young woman has developed the theory further...?"

Elliot shook his head. He looked around to make

sure Brashoff really was gone and then said quietly,

"I didn't want to discourage her too much. She has so

much promise. But I'm afraid the work was going

nowhere; it's a dead end. Getting her off it and onto

something else is the best thing I can do for her career.

Her idea was a fantasy, really, nothing more."

Admiral Kim sighed. "A pity," she said. "A real

pity. Such an appealing idea... ! But of course your

judgment is the one that counts. By now, you know,

the entire Science Division feels that way about you."

Elliot looked embarrassed. "Everyone places too

much confidence in me, I'm afraid."

"Nonsense!" Kim snorted. "Not too much at all!"

Obviously sensitive to his embarrassment, however,

she changed the subject. "Shouldn't you be leaving

abut now? Or have you changed your mind? I don't

want to have to order you to take time off!"

Elliot grinned at her. "Since you're twisting my

arm, I'll leave right away."

"Where are the two of you going?"

"Luisa wants to go to England." Elliot shrugged to

indicate his helplessness.

"England again? Your wife has an unhealthy fasci-

nation with the Hole."

"Don't I know it! I've hated that place ever since

the disaster. I wasn't there, of course, and now I don't

want to go back. It's... so changed."

Kim nodded understandingly. "I can imagine how it

makes you feel. But you can't talk Luisa out of it?"

"I've never been able to in the past. You know how

fascinated she is by England--especially Devon. Any-

one would think she had been born there, although in

fact she grew up utterly ignorant of the country. I'm

the first Englishman she ever met." He paused

thoughtfully. "She says my past is buried in the Hole,

and she wants to absorb it by being there."

"Ghoulish."

Elliot smiled. "And it's not cheap, either."

"Don't forget your medication."

"No, Mother." A rare thing he elicited a laugh

from Admiral Kim.

He left the room, quite satisfied. Perhaps he did

deserve that vacation--for his success with Brashoff.

"But we are already on our way to Starbase Seven-

teen, Doctor, as I have repeatedly told you," Spock

said. "We will be there in less than twenty hours. To

be precise--"

"Don't be precise, Spock!" McCoy said. "I don't

need the third decimal place. What I do want to know

is why it's going to take so long when I distinctly

remember being told by someone that we were only

sixteen hours away from Starbase Seventeen, and that

was a couple of hours before the storm."

"Because I am holding us to Warp Factor Two,

Doctor. I am not willing to risk greater stress on the

ship's systems or structure."

"Spock... !" McCoy threw up his hands and turned

away from the Vulcan First Officer, breathing in and

out deeply. "Spock," he began again, speaking more

calmly this time, "I'm understaffed and undersupplied

because of what we went through a few days ago, on

that outpost. On top of that, one of my nurses and one

of my surgeons were injured so badly during the storm

that I've had to put them into induced comas while

they heal. And in addition to that, I have two dozen

other injured people down here, many of them seri-

ously hurt. It's more than my remaining staff and

supplies can take care of. Safely, I mean--safely and

for an extended period. The ones with minor injuries,

we've already patched up and sent back to their quar-

ters because we were so overloaded. Or sent back on

duty in a couple of cases, because you insisted," he

said bitterly. "But the two dozen in Sickbay now, I

have to get to better facilities. Some place without a

shortage of manpower or drugs. Like Starbase Seven-

teen."

"I understand the needs of your department, Doc-

tor," the Vulcan said. He was aware, as always, of the

emotional demon Leonard McCoy constantly kept

reined in, and Spock wished he could control his voice

and choose his words when speaking to the doctor so

as to help him in his task. But that was an ability he

lacked, based as it was on empathy and understanding

of what the other man was experiencing. It was a skill

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ChapterOneCANSHIPS,aswellasmen,besaidtolimp?JamesKirklookedaroundthebridgeoftheUSSEnterprise.Aless-trainedeyewouldhaveseenonlyanexperiencedgroupofmenandwomengoingabouttheirvariousduties,competentlyoverseeingthemul-titudeofhardwareandsoftwaresystemsthatmadeEnterprisemorethanamereshellofmetalsandplas-...

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