Star Trek The Original Series From History's Shadow (3 page)

Spock said, “Mestral, when you were captured, you said that the Certoss agents were working to effect humanity’s destruction. This behavior, along with the technology they appeared to employ, is very much at odds with what we know of the Certoss people.”

His brow furrowing, Mestral shook his head. “I am unable to explain that discrepancy, Commander. I can offer only my testimony based on what I witnessed, and the actions I took to prevent them from achieving their goal. Once the Certoss agents realized we might well defeat them, they worked to summon assistance.”

“The signal sent by the transmitter was aimed at the Certoss system, Captain,” Spock said. “It used our subspace array to dispatch its burst packet.”

Mestral replied, “That was always a goal of the Certoss agents. Though they have proven quite resourceful at adapting to the limitations of technology available to them, those restrictions prevented any such realistic attempt at contacting their homeworld. At least, not until they discovered the presence of your ship in orbit.”

“How were they able to accomplish this?” Spock asked.

“As I said, Commander,” Mestral replied, “they were restricted; not powerless. They were able to construct a device that allowed them to scan Earth orbit for the presence of space vessels, perhaps with the goal of exploiting any ship or opportunity that made itself available. I was pursuing Gejalik when I discovered she had learned of this ship. I cannot be sure, but I believe her original plan was to come aboard prior to your departure, but when that proved impossible, she . . . devised another course of action. I caught up to her, but was unable to apprehend her before we both were transported here.”

Kirk asked, “What about the equipment used to bring you here?”

“I am unable to speak to its capabilities,” Mestral replied. “When I found Gejalik, she had infiltrated an office building in New York City that contained a collection of advanced computer and other equipment, very much out of place with respect to the human technology of the time.”

“Mister Seven’s office,” Spock said.

Mestral turned his attention to the first officer. “As I said before, I am not familiar with that individual, nor do I have any idea how any of the equipment operated, but I would have welcomed the opportunity to study it in detail.”

“You mentioned others with whom you were working,” Spock said. “After your arrival, you presumably elected to
keep your identity a secret, but later partnered with what you described as a ‘clandestine organization’ with the goal of preventing Earth’s destruction?”

Mestral paused for another drink of water before saying, “I do not believe the organization with which I found myself began with that particular goal, but it became one of its paramount concerns as years passed.” Eyeing the two
Enterprise
officers, he added, “Perhaps it would be helpful if I recounted the entire story of my activities on your world.”

Kirk grunted. “I imagine it’s quite the eye-opener.”

“An apt description, as I understand the term, Captain,” Mestral said. “What you may well find even more startling to know is that the relevant events begin several years before my arrival on your planet.”

BEGINNINGS

THREE

Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio

September 23, 1947 (ACE)

Another day, another office in the backyard of nowhere
.

Sitting in the steel chair with its cracked cushion behind a worn wooden desk that was lacking the bottom file drawer on its right side, Captain James Wainwright took a long drag on his cigarette and wondered who he might have angered. He watched the smoke trailing from his cigarette to the ceiling, noting the visible water damage staining a few of the tiles. The rest of the room was an unimpressive affair; the cinderblock walls were painted a light gray and featured an assortment of nails which once had held pictures or art or whatever else the office’s prior occupant had chosen for the workspace. A black phone, a dull metal ashtray, and nothing else adorned the desktop. Along the wall opposite Wainwright’s desk was a set of five metal cabinets, which to him looked as though they might have been rescued from disposal mere moments before his arrival. Three of the cabinets were black, the others gray like his chair and walls, and all of them scuffed, scratched, and dented. Morning sunlight filtered through dusty blinds that were hanging before the pair of single-pane windows, which were the most interesting feature of the office’s rear wall. Wainwright glanced through the windows, which faced west, and noted the looming line of storm clouds darkening
the horizon beyond the other buildings and hangars within view.

“There’s an omen,” he said to no one, switching the cigarette to his left hand before reaching for the mug of steaming coffee sitting on the desk. It was the only breakfast he had managed to acquire since being directed to this office by the hapless sergeant on duty in the building’s main lobby. It would have to do until such time as somebody told him why he was here, who had summoned him, and why everything surrounding his presence at Wright was, apparently, a big damned secret. He sighed as he drank his coffee, looking once more to his reflection in the full-length mirror mounted on the wall to his right. His blond hair, which he kept closely trimmed because he felt it looked better with his balding dome, was looking a little long. He had not had time for a haircut; in accordance with the orders given to him the previous day, Wainwright had caught the first available flight from Roswell Air Force Base—Roswell Army Air Field until its renaming less than a week ago. A bumpy ride aboard a C-47 Skytrain transport from Roswell had seen to it that he arrived at Wright Field just in time to catch a fitful few hours’ sleep in the visiting officers’ quarters, with instructions waiting for him in his room to report to this particular nondescript office building at 0700 hours.

Glancing first at his wristwatch and then the clock on the wall above the office door, Wainwright verified that it was, in fact, 0748 hours. Less than a minute later there was a knock on the door, and he rose to his feet as a man dressed in a dark suit entered the room. Wainwright recognized him at once.

“Professor Carlson?” he asked, his eyes narrowing in confusion. “What the hell are
you
doing here?” As Wainwright recalled, Jeffrey Carlson was in his late thirties, though he
seemed to have aged several years since their last meeting following a mysterious event the military was striving to keep secret, but which already was being referred to in some public circles as “the Roswell Incident.” Carlson looked tired, with bags under his blue eyes, though the eyes themselves still harbored that spark of intelligence and awareness Wainwright remembered.

“Good to see you, too, Captain,” Carlson said, smiling as he extended his hand.

Wainwright nodded, taking the proffered hand. “I have to say, Professor, that you’re the last person I expected to see here, of all places.”

“I know you’ve got a lot of questions,” the professor replied, “and I’m sorry about how you were sent out here. I trust the flight wasn’t too bad?”

“So, you’ve got something to do with bringing me here?”

Carlson smiled again. “I’m afraid so.” He gestured for Wainwright to retake his seat behind the desk before retrieving one of the straight-backed chairs from the table by the windows. “When I was briefed into my own assignment here, you were one of the first people I thought would make a good addition to the group.” Turning the chair so it faced away from Wainwright’s desk, he straddled it and laid his forearms along the top of its backrest. “We didn’t get to talk too much about what happened at Roswell, did we? Then everything was classified top secret, and nobody was talking about it at all. Let me ask you something, Jim: What do you think the United States should be doing now that we know, without any doubts, that there are beings from other worlds with an apparent interest in Earth?”

As far as Wainwright could remember, Carlson never had referred to him by anything other than his rank and last
name. In truth, they had never had much interaction at all, until that fateful day back in early July when an honest-to-goodness spacecraft from another planet crash-landed near Roswell, New Mexico. The craft and its occupants, three odd beings who identified themselves as “Ferengi,” had at first attempted to negotiate opening some kind of new trade market here on Earth. The alien in charge, who called himself Quark, had offered to Wainwright’s superior, Lieutenant General Rex Denning, the chance for humanity to acquire all manner of advanced scientific and other technological knowledge. Denning, to his credit, had remained suspicious of the aliens from the beginning, skeptical of their intentions right up until the moment they escaped custody, retrieved their spacecraft, and disappeared back to the stars from whence they had come.

Reclining in his chair, Wainwright fished the pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and offered a smoke to Carlson before taking a fresh one for himself. “To be honest, Professor, I’m torn on the whole thing. On the one hand, I thought we had a chance to learn from the Ferengi. Remember what the one, Quark, was telling General Denning? Our own spaceships, machines that create food out of thin air, weapons? It all sounded too good to be true.” He paused, flipping open the stainless steel lighter he had pulled from his trouser pocket and lighting his cigarette before passing the lighter to Carlson. “How much of that was just lies to cover up their invasion plans? You remember what that other Ferengi, Nog, said, right? That we’re ‘ripe for conquest’? Well, if that’s the case, then I figure we need to be doing everything we can to make sure we’re ready when that invasion fleet of theirs decides to come for us.”

Carlson took a long pull of his cigarette and blew a stream of smoke into the air above his head. “I still think
that story of theirs about an invasion fleet is crap, but I can’t rule it out. Besides, even if that Ferengi might’ve been screwing with us, some other bunch of aliens from a whole other planet might well be gunning for us. In fact, there are people in Washington who think this kind of thing has been going on for years. Remember the brouhaha back in thirty-eight, when that radio show ran a fake broadcast pretending to be an invasion from Mars?”

“You mean
The War of the Worlds
?” Wainwright had not heard the broadcast, but he had read about the national reaction in the following day’s newspaper. “I remember. It was a dumb stunt.”

Shaking his head, Carlson smiled. “There are those who think the fake radio-show story was just a cover-up for someone finding a real alien ship.”

“Come on.” Wainwright shook his head in disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

Carlson shrugged. “Granted, there’s never been any proof. Then again, nobody’s got any proof about what happened at Roswell, either. Still, plans for what to do if Martians or somebody else comes calling have been in motion for some time, but they really started heating up after Roswell. That’s why I’m here, and why you’re here.”

Wainwright stopped himself from taking another drag of his cigarette as he regarded the professor. “What are you talking about?”

“The National Security Act signed by President Truman last week?” Carlson asked. “The one creating the National Military Establishment and making the Air Force its own branch of the military? Well, buried deep in all of that red tape is another project with a simple, twofold mission: seek out any and all evidence of extraterrestrial activity on Earth,
and develop strategies to combat any aliens who are proven to pose a threat. The group’s code name is Majestic 12, or MJ-12 for short. Officially, it doesn’t exist, but as of 0700 hours this morning, you’re a part of it.” Sticking his cigarette in his mouth, he extended his hand to Wainwright. “Welcome aboard.”

Caught off guard by this revelation as he shook Carlson’s hand for a second time, Wainwright was unsure what to say. During their joint time at Roswell, particularly during the incident involving the three aliens, he figured the professor believed him to be little more than a typical brainwashed military robot, incapable of exercising any thoughts not already programmed into him by his superiors. In truth, Wainwright had not been very impressed with Carlson’s behavior during the Ferengi affair. Part of him still believed the civilian and his fiancée, a nurse with the Air Corps—now the Air Force—named Faith Garland, had helped the aliens to escape. Despite Carlson’s insistence that they had been manipulated by the Ferengi’s so-called “insidious mind-control powers,” Wainwright still harbored suspicions that the professor and his fiancée had acted of their own free will. Both Carlson and Garland had struck him as naïve in their hopes and beliefs that the aliens had come in peace rather than with conquest in mind.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Carlson said, as though he indeed possessed the ability to read Wainwright’s thoughts. “You’re still wondering what might really have happened with me and Faith back at Roswell. The truth is I really don’t know what to think about the Ferengi, whether they were yanking our chains or if they were a scouting party for some kind of invasion fleet. My gut tells me those three weren’t a threat to anybody, but this project is bigger than that. Much bigger.”

Wainwright leaned forward, reaching to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray sitting on the desk between them. “So, what is it I’m supposed to be doing?”

“Initially, you’ll be working with me,” Carlson replied. “Our primary job at this point is to investigate reports of any unidentified craft. Since Roswell, there’s been a surge in reports of people seeing flying saucers all over the place. We’ll conduct interviews, gather any evidence that might present itself, and go from there.”

“Evidence?” Wainwright asked, frowning. Though originally a skeptic so far as the existence of beings from other worlds was concerned, Roswell had made him a believer. That did not mean he would accept without strict scrutiny anything presented to him as proof of extraterrestrials.

Carlson nodded. “A few of the reports we’ve received have included photographs of strange flying objects, or figures the witness purports to be aliens. Most of the pictures I’ve seen are terrible—out of focus, bad exposure, double exposure, whatever—but a few of them will definitely get your attention, Jim. There may be other evidence, too, of a sort similar to what our Ferengi friends had.”