STAR TREK: TOS - The Janus Gate, Book Three - Past Prologue Read online

  With all her heart, Uhura wished the time transporter would whip out a glowing blue curtain and make these enigmatic intruders disappear, the same way it had taken their missing captain. But the Janus Gate’s power stores were once again exhausted, and the fiery glow at its heart had shrunk back down to a [13] sapphire flicker. Despite the drizzle and mist from the ice melting all around them, Uhura could see that the armored bodies of the cybernetic aliens had linked together to form a solid metal stockade around the Gate.

  The aliens who called themselves Shechenag had descended as silently as spiders, gliding down frictionless wires from the solution pits in the ceiling. They had timed their entrance perfectly—the unwary moment when triumph and relief had swept through the Enterprise crewmen after they successfully used the Janus Gate to haul Lieutenant Sulu back from the distant future to which he’d been sent. The tense and exhausting hour Uhura had spent as the focus of the alien device had been worth it: Her quest across time had brought back not only their missing helmsman but also the future version of Chekov who’d helped Sulu survive a hellish future where the Gorn ruled the galaxy.

  But there had been no time to celebrate. Before they could use the Janus Gate to try to rescue Captain Kirk from his own past, before Sulu and Chekov had even been retrieved from the healing chamber where the Janus Gate had sent them, a horde of metallic insects had plunged down into their midst, using metallic claws with stinging electrical anodes to herd them all to the edge of the cavern. Any attempt to resist—or even to retain their equipment, as archaeologist Carolyn Palamas had tried to do with her visual translating device—had been met with such swift and ruthless punishment that the victims were either still [14] shaking with residual shock or, like Security Guard Yuki Smith, completely unconscious.

  “How is she, Doctor?” Spock asked McCoy quietly while the Shechenag clicked and whistled among themselves, apparently consulting each other on their next move. It was very odd to see the glittering translucent bodies of the actual aliens inside the clear shells of their armored suits, turning back and forth toward one another as the conversation rattled among them.

  “I think she’s just been knocked unconscious.” McCoy looked up from the sprawled body of the security guard, putting his old-fashioned stethoscope back into the chest pocket of his caving suit. The anxious faces of young Ensign Chekov and an even younger James T. Kirk craned past the shoulders of the other members of the party to listen to the doctor’s verdict. “If she doesn’t wake up pretty soon, though, it might mean something more serious is wrong.”

  “This one of your species is not injured.” The flat machine-generated tone of that voice would have told Uhura it came from among the line of Shechenag even if she hadn’t seen Spock turn his head and lift one eyebrow at the speaker. Inside the perfectly still metallic casing, several spindly limbs gesticulated for emphasis. “This one received only mild electron overdose to suppress aggressive behavior.”

  “Are her symptoms consistent with electrical shock, Doctor?” the Vulcan science officer asked.

  McCoy lifted one of Smith’s eyelids. “Yes. They’re also consistent with giving herself a [15] concussion when she hit the ground.” He lowered his voice to a grumble. “Spock, I don’t like the idea that those walking tin cans over there are listening to everything we say.”

  “Indeed,” said the Vulcan. “However, lowering your voice is not a logical response to the situation, Doctor. I believe it is safe to assume that their sound detectors are equally as advanced as the rest of their technology.”

  Uhura wrenched her gaze away from the aliens barricading the Janus Gate, although part of her still desperately wanted to watch to make sure no other insectoid robots detached themselves from those odd metallic bodies. “Mr. Spock, they learned our language from the archaeological translator,” she said, in flawless Vulcan. “But it was only programmed for an English translation.”

  The science officer’s slanted eyebrows went up again, this time in appreciation. “A fact which I should have remembered, Lieutenant,” he replied in the same language. “Especially since I distinctly recall noting its ethnocentricity in naming the transporter for the human god Janus rather than the Vulcan goddess Yelanna.” Spock eyed the Shechenag watching them, then switched abruptly to Andorian. “By using no more than a dozen phonemes from any one language, we should be able to confuse any translating device they might have brought with them.”

  Uhura glanced at the blank faces around them. “As well as most of our crewmates,” she reminded Spock in Andorian, then deliberately turned her back on the [16] Shechenag and gave the rest of their team the Starfleet hand signal that meant, Covert communication only, enemy is listening.

  What felt like a sharp metallic caliper closed on Uhura’s shoulder, tight enough to startle a gasp out of her. There was a flash of black and violet motion between the other bodies, and she suddenly found herself standing between the older versions of both Chekov and Sulu, both of them clearly poised to attack if the Shechenag did anything more threatening. With a hiss of sophisticated gears and tiny bearings, however, the alien merely rotated its limb to bring Uhura around to face it, then released her.

  “This one will face us so we can see all of its attachments,” the alien said, with no more emphasis or emotion in its voice than before. Inside its clear shell, however, two small stalked eyes swiveled in what looked almost like a glare. “Operations intended to reactivate this device will not be permitted. You have ten hours to leave this system. Departure from this cave should be immediate.”

  “That sound definite,” McCoy said in halting schoolboy French. “We leave?”

  Uhura had to bite her lip against a hysterical giggle, since the expression on Spock’s lean face would have done credit to the most chauvinistic Frenchman. “We intend to leave,” he said in English, answering both the doctor and the alien facing them. “An immediate departure, however, will require a transporter [17] beam to be generated from our ship. With your permission, I will contact them—”

  Uhura tried to school her face to look perfectly calm, but she felt her heart leap with excitement as she recognized Spock’s ingenious strategy. If the Shechenag didn’t know that the transporter beam would repower the Janus Gate rather than take them back to the Enterprise, there was a chance they could get the hostile aliens trapped in one of the random subspace warps that floated around the alien device when it was fully charged.

  After a moment’s pause, however, a burst of chattering from the other Shechenag made the one closest to them step back. A flush of colors passed across the surface of its floating chitinous body, although Uhura couldn’t be sure if that represented a flush of strong emotion or just a rapid mental reassessment of the situation. Inside the clear torso tank, its stalked eyes elevated to peer at Spock with what looked like sudden attentiveness.

  “Operations intended to reactivate this device will not be permitted.” There wasn’t the slightest variation in the Shechenag’s machine-generated voice, but two of its clawlike appendages flashed upward with violent swiftness. Uhura was abruptly shouldered backward between the older versions of Chekov and Sulu, and had to stand on tiptoe to peer over their shoulders. The cybernetic alien had made no other move toward them. Inside its clear tank, the small floating body was also pointing upward, making it clear that [18] its motion was intended to be directional. “Immediate evacuation can also occur using these ropes,” it said. “No disabling has been done to your shuttlecraft. One trip back to your ship will be permitted.”

  Uhura saw the older version of Sulu glance over his shoulder at his younger counterpart. “Will the shuttle carry all of us in one trip?” he asked in fluent Japanese.

  “If we throw out everything including the bulkhead supplies?” the younger pilot replied in the same language. “Maybe.”

  The older Sulu glanced at the man standing beside him, with the odd bittersweet smile Uhura had seen him use when his sense of amusement was tickled by something other people might
think morbid. “We’re expendable now, Pavel,” Sulu said in rough but understandable Russian. “You want to stay down here and see if we can peel some of these shrimp out of their shells?”

  “That may not forward our goals, Captain,” Spock informed him in much better Russian, before Chekov could answer. Uhura wasn’t sure how the Vulcan managed it, but his voice sounded equally formal and mannered in every language he used. “And there is a distinct probability that you will be needed more for later actions.” He switched back to English, turning to meet the translucent gaze of the Shechenag who had issued the evacuation orders. “We will depart in the shuttle when we have transported all members of our party to it. However, we may not be able to leave [19] the system within ten hours, because of the disabled status of our warp engines.”

  “You are given ten hours to depart the system.” Perhaps because of its lack of anything like human emotion, the mechanical voice sounded completely implacable to Uhura. “If you are still within the system after ten hours, you will not be able to depart.”

  “Are you threatening to attack us?” Spock inquired politely.

  The alien’s metallic body took an odd, swaying step backward on its multiply jointed legs. “We are Shechenag,” it said, just as it had done when it first spoke to them. There was a pause, as if that should have been enough explanation for them. When Spock continued to meet its gaze inquiringly, the alien rattled off something in its native tongue and was answered by a clattering chorus from its comrades. “Shechenag once made war for nine millennia,” said the toneless voice. “We make no war now. After ten hours, nothing departs or enters this system for one thousand years. You are warned.”

  Spock surprised Uhura with a polite inclination of his head toward their captors. “We thank you for the warning,” he said, then glanced over his shoulder. In the back of the group, the younger Chekov and Kirk were helping a groaning Yuki Smith to her feet. “Mr. Sanner, please climb up to the cave entrance above us so that we may begin evacuating everyone.”

  “Spock, you coq au vin!” Even in his atrocious [20] French, McCoy’s voice sounded recognizably indignant. “We no leave without Jim!”

  “Non,” the Vulcan said simply. “We shall power up the Janus Gate from space and see if that dismays our enemies.”

  “Mr. Spock,” Uhura said in urgent Vulcan. “If the Shechenag are telling us the truth about fighting a war for nine millennia, maybe they are the original inhabitants of Tlaoli. Maybe this Gate belongs to them.”

  “I have considered that possibility,” Spock replied in his native language. “But the ancient Tlaoli people left this Gate for use by anyone who followed them. It would not be logical for them to chase away those successors now, especially if they could simply deactivate the Gate they built.” He switched to the more guttural sounds of Tellerite. “I suspect these are not the aliens who built the Gate, but rather the enemies against whom it was once used. That would explain both their fear of using it, and their conviction that it cannot undo the disruptions it causes in the timeline.”

  The older Chekov cleared his throat. “So you don’t think they really know how to deactivate this device?” he asked Spock in slow but passable Tellerite. “All they can do is try to barricade it from us?”

  “That is my belief,” Spock said.

  “And if we cannot destroy their barricade by powering the Janus Gate from space?” asked the older Sulu, also in Tellerite, “What will we do then?”

  Spock swept a measuring glance across the Shechenag, with their menacing cybernetic armor and the [21] detachable robots now being arranged in a protective circle around the Janus Gate itself. He paused, then deliberately switched back to English again so all of them could understand his next words. “In that case, we will be forced to attack our problem more directly.”

  Chapter Two

  “YOUR SON ISN’T HERE,” Kirk told his father. A flutter of burning cloth, made feather-light by the flames consuming it, drifted down between them to temporarily illuminate George Kirk’s hard, determined face. He’s not as tall as I remember. But he looked exactly as angry.

  “He got on board just before you closed up,” the elder Kirk insisted. The flames between them guttered down to amber pinpricks in the older man’s eyes. “He’s fourteen, just a little over a meter and a half, with a smart mouth. You must have seen him.”

  Kirk didn’t try to hide the irritation on his face, although years of practice let him hide the emotion in his voice behind a crisp tone of command. “I didn’t say I hadn’t seen him, I said he wasn’t here.” He turned away to flip Maione’s body and pat it down in [23] search of weapons he could use if the Vragax returned. Not much to his surprise, none were left. “We sent him back to the embassy after the shuttle went down.”

  George Kirk had already begun to copy Kirk’s weapons check on the other bodies nearby. “And you didn’t send anyone with him?”

  Was he always this irreverent with his commanders? “We didn’t exactly have anyone to spare.” Although maybe if one of them had come with him, that man would have been spared—would have kept Kirk out of the hands of the Vragax guerrillas—would have gotten them to the embassy in time to make everything different.

  But everything is already different. The thought froze Kirk with his hand on a dead man’s hip. I’m here this time. I’m delaying my father. He spun on George, suddenly shaken by the prospect of disrupting his own history. “Did you check the buildings?”

  The other man jerked a look at him over one shoulder. “What?”

  “The buildings,” Kirk insisted, climbing to his feet and hauling up the meager gear he’d been able to salvage. “Between here and the embassy. Did you search any of the buildings?”

  George was already jamming an extra phaser and a short string of sonic grenades into his belt. “I was following the shuttle.” An awkward pause silenced him only briefly. “I didn’t want to be delayed.”

  Then when did you find me? Kirk realized with a [24] sick, almost youthful panic that he wasn’t exactly sure how his father had located him that night. He’d always assumed George had noticed some commotion that had led him to the armed Vragax who had cornered his son, or that he had stumbled across the imminent assassination through some stroke of unbelievable luck while on his way from the embassy launch pad to the crash site. He’d also always worried that his father’s refusal to go back for Maione and the others had meant he was a self-centered son of a bitch who had found what he came for and couldn’t be bothered with anything else. For some reason, it had never occurred to Kirk that his father had actually covered the entire distance to the downed shuttle and searched for him there before turning back toward the embassy. And after ending his blistering tongue-lashing with the words, “Your mother is never going to know about any of this, you understand?” George Kirk never spoke of that night again. Haunted by the thought of Maione, Leone, and all the others he’d left behind to face the Vragax alone, his son had shamefully followed the father’s example.

  At least now Kirk knew that no one had abandoned the shuttle’s crew. George Kirk had found them, and he’d been just as helpless to save them as his son.

  Wrenching his gaze away from the scattered bodies, Kirk motioned his father to join him at the rear of the shuttle. “We sent him back toward the embassy.” It somehow made the deception easier when he spoke of himself in the third person. He could function as a [25] captain then, reacting to the situation in front of him and taking the necessary action, and not just as the adult doppelganger of a terrified fourteen-year-old boy. “If you didn’t come across him on your way out here, then he either made it back to the embassy—”

  “There isn’t much of an embassy to go back to.”

  “—or he’s still out there somewhere.”

  Kirk didn’t have to see the look of frustrated disgust on his father’s face to know it was there. “I just hope he had enough sense to stay out of sight. The Vragax aren’t being too particular about who they shoot right now.
”

  Kirk slung the rifle half-readily across his front and left the shuttle’s protective shadow before the urge to backhand his companion drove him to do something he was sure to regret. “He’s not stupid,” he assured his father without even bothering to waste a glare on him. “And he doesn’t want to die any more than you do.”

  George Kirk fell into step beside him with a skeptical snort. “Sometimes I wonder.”

  They made better time together than Kirk had alone. Leapfrogging each other down the lengths of empty street, one always keeping watch while the other moved, they tugged on every door they passed, darted furtive looks inside every broken window. Kirk appreciated George’s practicality—he didn’t waste time kicking in locked doors or investigating intact windows. He might understand little else about his son, but he knew the boy wasn’t capable of [26] breaking in anywhere that wasn’t already wide open. He just didn’t have the strength or the skills.

  For himself, Kirk struggled to call up some memory of the streets he’d run down that night, some distinguishing feature of the building where he’d finally been caught. Shouldn’t such a seminal event have left indelible images in his brain? He had dreamed about the small, dark room where he’d tried to hide almost nightly for seven months. For years afterward, he could have drawn the pattern of blood and war paint and braids on the Vragax who’d finally cornered him. Yet now that his young life might actually depend on it, he couldn’t even remember if the outside of the building was concrete, brick, or wooden shingle.