TNG - The Return

VIP免费
2024-11-29 1 0 487.92KB 202 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
-.txt
PROLOGUE
He fell .... Alone.
Twisting through the air of Veridian 111. The shriek of the
metal bridge echoing in his ears. Spinning. The sun flashing
into his eyes. The shadows engulfing him. One following the
other, over and over as he fell. Light. Shadow. Light. Shadow.
Like the beating of wings. Like all the days of his life.
Intersecting...
In an Iowa cornfield--he sees the stars. A boy of five in his
father's arms. I have to go there, he says. And you will, Jimmy,
his father answers. You will...
In Carol's arms, in their bed--even as he knows he must
leave her, the son they had created quickening within her...
In Starfleet headquarters--Admiral Nogura reaching out to
shake his hand.' Congratulations, Captain, the Enterprise is
yours ....
In Spacedock--Captain Pike beginning the introduction:
Your science officer, Lieutenant-Commander Spock. . .
On the streets of old Earth--squealing brakes, Edith, haloed
in the headlights of her death...
!
Through all these days and more, alone he jell, hearing the
whispers of the past....
I am, and always will be, your friend.... Dammit it,
Jim- I'm a doctor not a bricklayer.... Let me help .... I've always known I'll
die alone....
Then one shadow blocked the light. Broke his fall. Ended the
kaleidoscope of days. He turned his head, looked up, saw a face
he recognized, not from the past, not from the present.
From the future.
"Did we do it?" the falling man asked. "Did we make a
difference?"
The other, in his odd uniform, but with the familiar touch-
stone of Starfieet on his chest, knelt by his side.
"Oh, yes. We made a difference. Thank you."
Somewhere within him, the falling man was aware of pain,
deep and incurable. Somewhere within him, he became aware
he couldn't feel his legs, his arms, as if he and all existence
were evaporating together.
The edges of his vision blurred, darkened, joined one final
shadow deep enough to swallow whatever else remained.
But the other, this stranger, this... Picard, had offered his
friendship. In another lifetime, perhaps it might have been so.
So much might have been. So many possibilities.
"Least I could do," the falling man said, ignoring the final
shadow for the sake of his friend, 'for the captain of the
Enterprise."
Voices called to him from the darkness then, their summons
more than whispers.
Through the latticework of the twisted metal above him, he
glimpsed the edge of something moving, coming closer. He closed his eyes.
What was it he had said to Picard when they had met? When
Picard had challenged him to return for one last mission?
He remembered. His eyes opened.
"It was... fun," he told Picard. He tried to smile. To spare
this friend.
2
What lay beyond the bridge swept closer, chasing him as it
had always chased him.
Through the mangled steel the shape was clearer now.
Closer. Known.
Page 1
PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com
-.txt
He gazed up at it, amazed Picard did not see, did not know.
He tried to warn Picard. To help him escape what he no
longer could.
But the momentum of his days had crested. The dark well of
his vision swirled inward. Too quickly. And the face of that
which chased him, caught him, claimed him.
The final wisps of existence lifted from him in a feathered
haze of light, revealing all that lay beyond, still to come.
"Oh my," he whispered.
As he saw.
As he knew.
And then he fell again.
Alone...
ONE
James T. Kirk was dead....
As Commander William Riker resolved from the trans-
porter beam beside the grave of that Starfleet legend, he was
surprised by the sudden thought that had come to him. Of all
that had happened on this desolate world of Veridian Ill only
a month ago, inexplicably, the fate of James T. Kirk weighed
most heavily on his mind.
Half a planet away, the shattered hulk of the U.S.S.
Enterprise lay in ruins, slowly being carved into transporter
loads of recyclable scrap by a team of Starfleet engineers.
Though the ship was beyond salvage, in accordance with the
Prime Directive no trace of it could remain on this world. A
primitive civilization existed on Veridian IV, the next planet
out from the Veridian sun. If someday voyagers from that
world landed here, they must find no trace of advanced
technology which might affect the natural development of
their science.
Riker had expected that the full emotional consequence of
the great ship's loss would have consumed him by now. She
had gone before her time, and in his dreams he had always
hoped to one day sit in her captain's chair.
5
But in the days that had passed since the Enterprise had
blazed through the atmosphere of this world to her first and
final landing, Riker's thoughts still kept turning to the fate of
the captain of an earlier Enterprise. The first Enterprise...
"Sir, is that... him?"
Riker turned to Lieutenant Baru. The seam ridge that
bisected the young Bolian officer's deep blue face pulled taut
as her eye ridges widened. She looked into the distance, past
the grave.
Riker nodded, smiling inwardly at her reaction, recogniz-
ing the earnestness of youth. The Farragut's chief of security
had personally recommended Baru, and the three other
officers accompanying Riker, to be part of the honor guard to
escort Kirk's remains to Earth. Riker knew what she saw.
What they all saw now.
A lone sentinel on a distant outcropping. The dry desert
wind shifting the elegant black robes he wore. The reddening
sun reflected from the silver script embroidered in their folds.
He had come.
From Romulus.
Against all logic.
"Spock," Baru said. With awe.
Riker understood.
Page 2
PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com
-.txt
He knew the Vulcan ambassador--had worked with himm
as a living, breathing individual. Yet Spock was as much a
legend as Kirk.
As much a legendas the friendship that had bound those
two on the first Starship Enterprise.
The officers of the honor guard stood at ease, respectfully
refraining from staring at the distinguished visitor. Instead,
they faced the simple cairn of rocks Jean-Luc Picard had built
for Kirk's remains. The setting sun drew long shadows from it
and caught an old-fashioned Starfleet insignia pin with a
gleam of dying light.
Riker breathed the still, dry air of the Veridian desert. He
glanced upward to the darkening sky, as if he might see the
6
l'~trragut sliding into orbit far overhead, come to claim
Starfleet's honored dead, to bear Kirk home.
From his sentinel's position, Spock remained as motionless
as the time-smoothed stones of this place.
What could it be like, Riker wondered, to lose your closest
friend, then seventy-eight years later, to lose him again?
A hint of the power of that answer existed in the extraordi-
nary circumstances that had brought Spock here. In fewer
than four days after the crew of Riker's Enterprise had been
rescued, Starfleet Intelligence had mounted an emergency
extraction mission to bring Spock from the homeworld of the
Romulan Star Empire to Veildian Ill, so he might accompany
his friend on his final voyage.
The extraction was not an operation to be undertaken
lightly. Relations between the Romulans and the Federation
had been strained for centuries. Spock had become instru-
mental in the efforts to reduce those tensions by decades of
secret negotiations intended to reconcile the Romulans with
the Vulcans and, hence, the Federation.
Though the Romulans were an offshoot of the Vulcan race,
they had rejected the logic which had saved their Vulcan
ancestors from succumbing to their primitive, passionate,
blood-drenched beginnings. So who better than Spockma
child of emotional humans and logical Vulcansmto under-
stand both sides and work for unification?
Riker had spent many long evenings discussing Spock with
Captain Picard. Both understood that the process Spook was
involved with was simply the playing out on a larger scale of
the struggle he had faced in his own divided heart.
But whatever extraordinary actions Starfleet had taken to
bring the ambassador to this world at this time, Riker knew
that none of them would have been questioned, even given
the Federation's need to officially remain ignorant of Spock's
activities.
Starfleet, the Federation, the galaxy itself, owed Spock too
much to deny him anything.
7
Just as they owed too much to Kirk.
On the horizon, the last radiant spike of the dying sun
flared, then vanished behind a distant peak.
Overhead, stars emerged from the deepening twilight.
Far away, Riker saw Spock bow his head, as if lost in
memory.
What would it be like? Riker wondered.
A warm breeze stirred the small branches and dried leaves
of the lone bush that shared the outcropping. Lieutenant Baru caught Riker's
eye.
"Yes, Lieutenant?" Riker realized he had whispered his
inquiry. In the fading of the day, this forsaken plot of alien
Page 3
PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com
-.txt
rock had become a solemn place.
"Sir, shouldn't we have heard from the Farragut by now?."
Riker tapped his communicator badge. "Riker to Farragut.
The honor guard is in position." No response.
"We arrived ahead of schedule," Riker told the lieutenant.
The Farragut had been the workhorse of the rescue and
recovery mission on Veridian Ill. Riker was not surprised the
overburdened starship might be running late. "We'll give
Captain Wells a few more minutes before we sound general
alarm." He smiled at her.
Lieutenant Baru was too new to her rank to return the
smile. She nodded once in silent acknowledgment, then
returned her gaze to the cairn.
Silent minutes passed.
The night grew darker.
His communicator chirped.
Riker smiled again at Barn as he tapped it. She was too
tense. He'd have to talk to her about that. Not every day in
Starfleet brought life-or-death decisions. "Riker. Go ahead."
But his smile faded as he realized the garbled, static-filled
call did not come from the Farragut.
8
"Commander Riker! This is Kilbourne! We're--" An ex-
plosion of static washed out the rest of the transmission.
Riker held his fingers against his communicator, forcing an
override. Kilbourne was the chief engineer at the salvage site.
The honor guard stepped closer, on alert. "Kilbourne, this is Riker. Say again."
Static whistled. Riker didn't understand the cause of it.
There was nothing in this planetary system that could cause
subspace interference.
Then, for a heartbeat, the static cleared and Kilbourne's
distraught voice cut through the Veridian night.
"--can't tell where they're coming from! Two shuttles
gone! We need--"
Then nothing.
Not even static.
Riker's communicator chirped uselessly as he tried to
reestablish a link.
Riker looked at the four officers gathered around him.
Their Starfleet training came to the fore. There was nothing
youthful about the intent expressions they wore.
"This will have to wait," Riker said. He tapped his badge
again. "Riker to Ambassador Spock."
A moment passed. Then the deep, familiar voice answered.
"Spock here."
"Ambassador, there appears to be some trouble at the
salvage site. I'm going to have to ask you to remain here while
we beam back to check the situation."
"Of course, Commander," Spock agreed calmly. "What is
the nature of the trouble?"
"I'm not sure," Riker replied. He looked through the
darkness that now blanketed Kirk's burial mound to where he
knew Spock waited. But in his black robes, the ambassador
was invisible. "It almost sounds as if they're... under at-
tack."
Spock did not respond. Logically, Riker knew, he required
no response.
9
"Riker to transporter control--five to beam to salvage
site."
With Kirk's honor guard beside him, Riker tensed with
anticipation as the computer-controlled satellite transport
system reacted at once. "Energizing .... "
Page 4
PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com
-.txt
In the cool tingle of the transporter effect, the gravesite
shimmered. There was an unsettling moment of quantum
transition ....
And then Will Riker beamed into Hell.
TWO
Driving rain sprayed through the ragged hole in the canopy of
the portable transporter platform, drenching Riker the in-
stant the transporter's exclusion field shut down.
The platform shuddered in the concussion of a nearby flash
and bone-jarring thud.
There had been thunderstorms at the salvage site for days
now.
But the flash hadn't been lightning.
The concussion hadn't been thunder.
"Move! Move! Move!" Riker shouted over the storm and
the nonstop roar of explosions. The platform shuddered
again. Sparks flew from one of the pads. Riker shoved the
honor guard ahead of him, toward the steps that led to the
duraplast walkways linking the buildings of the salvage camp
spread out before him.
10
When the guards were clear, he charged after them into the
storm.
It was night in this region of Veridian III, and Riker had
been prepared for partial darkness. But the emergency lights
weren't operating, and the bombarded camp had become a
collection of looming shadows, black against black, hidden by
night and rain.
Except when the sky blazed with alien fire.
Riker caught up with Barn. She leaned over the walkway
railing, staring to the east where a sputtering ball of plasma
flared against the duranium skin of the Enterprise's lifeless
saucer. The starship's primary hull rose from the raw mud
like a cliff of glacial ice, two hundred meters distant. All
around the ship, energy beams and the flash of chemical
explosions played like crazed lightning over the towering
cranes, personnel barracks, and hastily constructed shuttle
landing pads to the west of her.
"What's happening, sir?" Baru shouted, her voice almost
lost in the deafening barrage.
Riker angrily pushed his rain-flattened hair from his eyes.
"We're under attack!" he yelled back. A sudden wind caught
him and spun him offbalance--the wake of a low-flying craft,
he knew. Released from its grip, he grasped the railing to
steady himself, then looked up. But he saw nothing except low
storm clouds, flickering with their own lightning and the
explosions that bloomed beneath them in the camp. Baru still
clung to the handrail, mesmerized by the infernal spectacle
before them.
A wave of heat blasted him from the side as a barracks
building detonated in a rocketing fountain of blinding plasma
fire. Flaming debris arced downward, its flame untouched by
the rain. Riker rapidly calculated that they were within range
of the downfall. He grabbed Baru's arm, yanking her off the
walkway, into the mud. "Let's go!"
Riker jabbed at his communicator as they ran, their boots
11
caking with thick mud each labored step. "Riker to
Kilbourne.t"
An enormous thunderclap reached out and scooped them
Page 5
PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version http://www.fineprint.com
摘要：

-.txtPROLOGUEHefell....Alone.TwistingthroughtheairofVeridian111.Theshriekofthemetalbridgeechoinginhisears.Spinning.Thesunflashingintohiseyes.Theshadowsengulfinghim.Onefollowingtheother,overandoverashefell.Light.Shadow.Light.Shadow.Likethebeatingofwings.Likeallthedaysofhislife.Intersecting...InanIowa...

展开>> 收起<<
TNG - The Return.pdf

共202页,预览5页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：202 页 大小：487.92KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-11-29

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 动力学连接体 力的合成 配电装置 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 202
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注