Star Trek - Log 6 Read online

  "That doesn't speak well for the supposed friendliness of some of our nominal allies, of course."

  "Whatever its purpose or origin, Captain," Spock suddenly announced, staring intently into his gooseneck viewer as he manipulated controls, "it possesses an immense energy aura. The ship itself appears completely encased in it.

  "Something on board this craft is generating an enormous quantity of extraneous radiation—for what reason, I cannot tell." More adjustments, new readings—and a new conclusion.

  "Fascinating. Additional analysis indicates that the ship's hull is composed wholly of some unknown, unique variety of crystallized ceramic. It appears to possess some characteristics of the lighter metals such as lithium and beryllium while retaining the more malleable properties of—"

  Spock's engrossed litany was shattered as a giant, invisible hand clutched the Bridge and shook it violently. Along with everyone else, the first officer concentrated on grabbing for the nearest solid support.

  The shaking was accompanied by a loud rumbling. It wasn't a simple, steady vibration; but instead shook them with a distinct up and down, back and forth motion—unlike the effects of the energy field they had traveled through weeks ago while foiling the Romulans' attack.

  As the shaking continued, a new sound became audible—a distant declining whine. Kirk recognized the symptoms of engine shutdown even as Walking Bear called out, "We're losing speed, sir—and the helm doesn't answer."

  "Dropping to sublight velocity," Arex reported.

  Confirmation of his worst suspicions now fulfilled by the instrumentation, Kirk fought to keep from being thrown from his seat as he hit the necessary switch. The rumbling noise was fading, but the shaking continued as violent as ever.

  "Bridge to Engineering—Mr. Scott, we're losing speed. Why?"

  An uncharacteristic lag in response followed, though the reason was understandable. Scott and his subordinates in Engineering were as interested in keeping their balance as was everyone else.

  The chief engineer reported in soon after. "Scott here. Captain, all our engines are still set for warp-two thrust . . . but we seem to have run into something like a wall of solid alloy!"

  So his supposition was wrong—the engines weren't shut down.

  "Maximum thrust, Mr. Scott."

  "Aye, sir." A pause, then, "I've got 'er wide open, Captain. We're just not movin'. I dinna know how long the engine bracings can take the strain before they start tearin' themselves loose."

  "Understood, Scotty. Nice try." He switched off, redirecting his attention forward. "All engines stop, Mr. Walking Bear."

  The helmsman activated instrumentation before him that he never expected to be called to activate. Despite the newness of the operation, his hands moved smoothly in compliance. As the great warp-drive engines ceased forward thrust, the last vestiges of the rumbling noise faded away. The shaking ceased with appalling abruptness.

  "All engines stopped, sir," Walking Bear declared into the unnatural silence on the Bridge.

  Kirk tried to moderate their present predicament by repeating the Words over and over in his head. He found they provided no more succor than ever. Perhaps he was simply too hyper mentally for artificially imposed constraints like meditation ever to slow him down. Consequently, he was back on the intercom in a minute, as worried and theory-ridden as ever.

  "I want a full damage report as soon as possible, Scotty."

  "I'm workin' on it now, Captain," the filtered voice replied. "Everythin' seems minor, so far. No structural damage to the support pylons or braces, and no over-heatin' . . . at least, nothing the emergency backups couldn't handle.

  "Another couple of minutes of that strain, though . . . I think we shut down just in time, sir."

  "Thank you, Scotty. Maintain full environmental and defensive power, and effect whatever repairs are required with a minimum of delay."

  "Will do, sir. Engineerin' out . . ."

  Another call, another problem area. "Bridge to Sick Bay . . . casualty report."

  "McCoy here," came the slightly irritated reply. "No serious injuries, Jim, just the usual lumps and bruises." He managed to make it sound as if the Bridge personnel were personally responsible for the suffering he had to treat.

  "What the devil's going on up there? Who's driving . . . no, I've got it. Spock decided to see what would happen if everyone on board suddenly jumped up and down in time to a cycling of the artificial gravity."

  "I wish that was all it was, Bones. Bridge out." Kirk glanced across at Spock and saw that the first officer appeared not to have heard McCoy's abrasive sally. To ignore an argumentative invitation by McCoy was a sign that his first officer was worried—and when Spock was worried, that was a good time for anyone in the vicinity to make sure their service insurance was fully paid up.

  "What are our chances of getting around this obstacle, Spock?"

  "I am sorry to say, Captain, that I do not think that is possible. There is no obstacle to go around . . . the obstacle is all around us. So we cannot retreat, either."

  "Its nature?"

  "A globular force-field of unknown origin, in which we are presently entrapped. It is obvious that there can be only one source of so strong and sudden an energy projection—the approaching alien ship."

  "But we hit the field at warp-two," Walking Bear blurted in confusion, "and practically stopped dead. We should have been pulverized on impact!"

  Spock shook his head patiently, touched a lever. The view ahead changed as short-range scanners cut in. The much wider field of view showed a faint, bluish-white glow which the long-range scanner had pierced. It was very much, Kirk mused, like what the interior of a soap bubble might look like.

  Spock was lecturing. "We did not hit a stone wall, Mr. Walking Bear. The globular field did not form instantly around us, at a single position in space. It materialized slowly. As it slowed, we slowed against it in proportion. Even so, according to Chief Scott's report, the stress was almost seriously damaging.

  "But I confess I do not understand why we did not suffer more than we did. I cannot explain it, except to point out that the field is of an unfamiliar type." Something beeped behind him and he finished as he turned to his insistent console. "The knowledge responsible for such an impressive piece of physics must be formidable."

  He paused, then: "Sensors indicate we are now being probed."

  "Captain," Walking Bear exclaimed as he switched back to longer-range scanners, "there it is!"

  No gasps issued from those on the Bridge. They'd seen too many wonders on too many worlds to be easily overwhelmed. But the bow view offered of the approaching craft was radical and unexpected enough to set speculation rife in their minds even at this distance.

  At first it resembled the face of a demon. Nearness resolved hazy lines into the struts and projections of a real ship—of peculiar design, but a ship nonetheless.

  The demon's face was formed by what was probably the command section or bridge. The curving prow formed the rest of the head, while propulsion "wings" hinted at monstrous horns. A round glassy glow the hue of polished onyx was centered in the middle of the construct like a baleful Polyphemian eye.

  Every arch, every line of it hinted at an engineering knowledge and sophistication undreamed of by Federation shipwrights. Yet it remained a vessel composed of recognizable sections. One that could have been built by Federation hands if the basic blueprints and knowledge had been supplied.

  The command module was unarguably a command module. Propulsion units, winglike or not, could be nothing but propulsion units. All this was evident, despite the differences in size.

  "The approaching vessel is slowing," Arex announced laconically into the quiet. "It is . . ."

  Only the ship's battle compensators saved everyone on the Bridge from permanent blindness as pure radiance struck forward.

  The vibration died slowly and there was a distant mutter of thunder as air somewhere within the ship was displaced. Kirk didn't need instrument
s to tell him what had happened.

  They had been fired on by an energy weapon of a new type and of considerable power—and they had been hit point blank. Port and starboard scanners locked on the alien as it fired again.

  Coruscating breakers of fire foamed across the forward edge of the cruiser's saucer decks and organized confusion reigned on the Bridge as all alert indicators on board flashed crimson.

  Half asleep, off-shift personnel who had been awakened before by the severe shaking wondered what was happening as they scrambled for their duty clothes and stations.

  "Full power all shields . . . all engines, maximum reverse thrust!" Kirk was shouting at Walking Bear. "Try to get us away from that beam!" Even as he finished, another blast of intense energy rocked the battered ship.

  Amid the confusion and harried reactions and semi-panic, rose the calm, steady voice of Spock. "Evasive action will not be effective, Captain. The forcefield now surrounding us is ninety-eight point two percent efficient. Our maneuverability is severely limited."

  "Maneuvering be hanged!" Kirk cursed as much in frustration as anger. "If that thing can fire in, maybe we can fire out. Mr. Walking Bear, lock main phasers on that ship and fire. Arex, our field of movement appears to be restricted. That means you're going to have to use your imagination to avoid that energy beam."

  Ayes echoed from both stations.

  The Edoan navigator embarked upon what Kirk later described as a maneuvering miracle. Using only impulse power to minimize stress-threat to the main engines, he managed to shift the cruiser's position within the confined area of the force globe so often and so unpredictably that it suffered only glancing blows from the irresistible energy beam.

  At the same time the Enterprise's phasers began to reply with lambent salvos of its own. The destructive double beams sought outward.

  Kirk's hopes died when they reached no farther than the interior curve of the pale blue field, where the concentrated energy simply stopped.

  "Dispersed, possibly, within the fabric of the field itself," Spock theorized.

  Walking Bear continued to fire, but their phasers proved totally ineffective even as the white flame continued to lick at their deflector shields.

  "The force globe is selective," Spock commented dispassionately, lending voice to the obvious. "Our attacker can beam us at will and we are helpless to respond."

  Kirk mulled this over furiously, hunting for a flaw in the alien's seeming invincibility. They couldn't absorb much more of this intense punishment without overloaded deflectors burning out.

  While a force-field is hypothetically capable of dispersing energy among its own fabric, he thought, it is not necessarily effective against more primitive weaponry. Physical objects, for example, possess different properties than those of phaser beams.

  He was about to order a full complement of photon torpedoes fired, when the till now unceasing assault unexpectedly stopped. The shaking halted concurrently with the disappearance of the white beam. Behind him, Kirk could hear Uhura struggling to handle the flood of inquiries and reports that started pouring in from every deck and section.

  While thankful for the respite, he still remained poised for the barrage to resume at any moment. After all, their best attempts at resistance had already proven childishly weak.

  Yet . . . the alien had apparently elected to halt its attack. Why? "Cease firing," he ordered, suddenly aware that in the absence of any orders to stop, Walking Bear was persisting in a futile attempt to strike at the belligerent opponent with phasers.

  Kirk turned to Spock as the ensign acknowledged the command. "Status on the alien?"

  "Still approaching, Captain," Spock told him, his attention fixed on his instruments. "Going sub-light now. It has continued probing us throughout the battle . . . a moment." He paused, then, "Its surrounding energy pattern is now shifting."

  As they watched in amazement, the field of intense radiance which hugged the alien craft like a tenuous remora, the same field which had first attracted Spock's attention, began to assume density and color. The hull of the craft remained unaltered as this process accelerated, though it grew increasingly difficult to detect through the darkening fog.

  It wasn't long before the fashioning of the ghost was finished. The result was so nearly terrestrial that for a moment Kirk almost suspected the "alien's" ancestry.

  But no . . . it was similar, but undeniably different. The relationship was one of marriage and not blood. That made it no less startling.

  The alien's prow had become a huge snake skull. Jaws hung agape and sported gigantic fangs which curved downward and back. It wore a crest of rainbow-hued feathers vaguely resembling the leathery neck shield of the terran South Pacific frilled lizard. Simulated feathers likewise cloaked the propulsion pods, the illusion heightened by the already winglike construction of the engines themselves. Feathers they were not, only brilliantly colored spines of energy, exquisite in their insubstantiality.

  Of all the crew, Walking Bear was the most astonished. Nor did he try to conceal it, staring in open-mouthed awe at the fiery image resplendent on the screen, the bizarre craft draped in the ethereal raiment of a serpentine spirit.

  "Ever seen anything like that, Spock?" Kirk asked. The heady apparition was baroquely impressive. But the captain had little time for idle admiration, however. His immediate concerns were more basic.

  What were the motives behind such blind hostility—and what was the explanation for this at once juvenile and overpowering display? Exactly how the energy sculpture was accomplished was a question he'd leave for Spock.

  The difference between captain and science officer, as usual, was the difference between Why and How.

  Spock was elucidating, "It is not Vulcan-inspired, Captain. Nor do I believe it to be of Klingon or Romulan origin. Romulan, possibly, but . . ."

  "I recognize it," a voice whispered unexpectedly.

  Even Spock showed signs of astonished surprise as everyone on the bridge looked blankly at Walking Bear. The ensign mouthed the word as he continued gazing at the screen.

  "Kukulkan."

  "The name means nothing to me, Mr. Walking Bear," Kirk pressed when the ensign gave no sign of elaborating.

  "Incoming transmission, Cap—"

  Uhura never finished the words.

  X

  The strange, reverberant voice rolled thunderously over the bridge. It was loud, overbearing—but not unbearable—a unique meld as of many voices speaking in unison. Melodious and rhythmic, passionate and forceful, it compelled attention. Kirk stared at the viewscreen image. He began to suspect that it was the ship itself—the ship and its enveloping ghost—that was speaking.

  "I attacked you because I believed you had forgotten me. But there is one among you who knows my name."

  Kirk shook his head, trying to clear it of the aural cobwebs surrounding the transmission. The voice was engulfed in a swarm of echoes. It was hard to believe there was nothing wrong with his hearing. He found he could force himself to focus on one part of that multi-faceted tone. When he did so he could make out the words, distinct and solemn—and threatening.

  "You will be given one more chance to succeed where your ancestors failed. Fail me again and all of your kind shall perish!"

  The broadcast concluded as abruptly as it had begun.

  "Short and sweet," Kirk murmured. But without any of the explanations he so desperately needed. Now he had all this biblical-sounding business of failing ancestors and incipient annihilation to contend with. What were they supposed to have succeeded at, and how had they failed, and whose ancestors did the voice mean, anyhow? His . . . Spock's . . . maybe Arex's or those of M'ress's Caitian system.

  If the ghost-maker wanted to play God, the least he could do was be a bit more informative . . .

  One thing Kirk did know—they were pinioned here by a powerful energy bubble fashioned by an enemy whose actions and words were far from friendly. Before he could decide on a course of action, he had to have f
acts, information, something on which to hang a supposition. The sole possible source of such information appeared to be a half-green ensign of no combat experience, but with considerable promise.

  As Spock returned to his instrumentation and Uhura to communications, Kirk rose from the command chair and walked over to the helm. The subject of his impending—perhaps crucial—questions was sitting silently, apparently thinking hard. But he glanced up readily when Kirk approached.

  Kirk started talking in an unintentionally suspicious tone, which he hurriedly corrected. "Mr. Walking Bear, how do you happen to recognize anything about that ship?"

  For a split second something very old and very wise flashed in the young helmsman's eyes. Then it was gone, and Kirk couldn't be certain afterward if he'd actually seen it.

  "I'm an Amerind, Captain. North America territory, desert—southwest, Comanche tribe. Anthropology's always been a hobby of mine—personal anthropology in particular." He smiled, ever so slightly.

  "You have to know, Captain, that I was an example of an almost extinct terran subspecies . . . the orphan. So I'm rather more interested in my own history than most people. In the course of pursuing my own past, I've also had occasion to study the history of many earlier Earth cultures. Now the image assumed by that ship out there," he gestured at the screen, "bears a powerful resemblance to a god in ancient Aztec legends—Kukulkan. The variance is minimal . . . shockingly so."

  Despite the factual knowledge to the contrary, there were still times when Kirk couldn't be sure which was the faster . . . the library computer or its master. In any case, Spock spoke up almost immediately.

  "Captain, the records confirm Ensign Walking Bear's suspicions. The countenance of the alien is a remarkable analog of the Central American deity Kukulkan. Research shows that the Aztecs and their neighbors and predecessors—the Mayas and Toltecs, Zapotecs, Olmecs and many others—all possessed legends of a winged serpent god."