Star Trek The Original Series From History's Shadow (42 page)

Wainwright replied, “Hello, Captain. I’m told you weren’t feeling well when you woke up. Are you better now?”

“Never mind that,” Christopher snapped. “Answer my question. I don’t recognize this place.”

“You’re on the base,” Wainwright said. “I apologize for the confusion. You passed out before I had a chance to talk to you on the flight line. It was believed you might be suffering from some aftereffects of your last mission, so you were brought here for observation. Where we are really isn’t so important as why you were brought here.”

His eyes narrowing, Christopher crossed his arms. “Fair enough. That was my next question.”

Wainwright paused, swallowing. His throat had gone dry. Why was this so difficult? He had done this countless times before, so what was his problem now? He reached up to wipe at the side of his face and noted the bead of perspiration on his fingers. There also was a slight tremble in his hand, which he stopped by making a fist and holding it at his side.

“My name is Wainwright, Captain. James Wainwright, and you’re here because I believe you have information I need.”

Christopher frowned. “What kind of information?”

Instead of replying, Wainwright opened the folder he had been carrying and withdrew one of the photographs it contained. It was a grainy, dark image dominated by deep black, with an arcing white line representing the curve of the Earth as seen in pictures captured by satellites and astronauts during manned space missions over the last decade. Watching Christopher, Wainwright saw the precise instant when the pilot recognized the other object depicted in the photo as it floated above Earth, saying nothing as the man’s eyes traced over the large saucer shape and its three cylindrical projections just as Christopher had described them from the seat of his plane: two above the saucer and one below it.

“Oh, my God.”

Wainwright said, “This photograph was taken last year by a military reconnaissance satellite. The object was discovered in high orbit.”

“Last year?” Christopher frowned, his eyes moving between Wainwright and the photograph. “It’s the same thing I saw just this morning.”

“So I gathered from your cockpit transmissions,” Wainwright said, offering Christopher the picture. “Captain, I need to know everything you can tell me about what you saw up there.” It was interesting to see how the photograph and questions seemed to make the pilot relax to a degree.

Shrugging as he continued to study the picture, Christopher said, “There’s not much to tell, really. Air Defense Command tasked me to intercept an unidentified craft over the base. I got to the designated coordinates and there it was, high in the clouds and climbing away fast. At first I thought it was sunlight reflecting off my canopy. I only saw it for a second or two, and then it was just . . . gone.”

Wainwright pointed to the picture in Christopher’s hands. “But you’re sure what you saw was the object in this picture?”

Though he paused as if considering his answer, when the captain looked up from the photo, it was with a new confidence. “Yes, I’m sure of it,” he said without a trace of doubt. “What is it? Some kind of Russian rocket?” Then his eyes widened. “Wait a minute. Are they making a last push for the moon? They’re not going to beat us, are they? Not when we’re this close?”

“No, Captain. The Russians are nowhere near being ready to launch anything to the moon. Barring anything unexpected, our guys will be on their way by this time next week.” As they stood here, the
Apollo 11
astronauts, as well as their ground and support crews at Cape Canaveral, along with thousands more people in Houston, Texas, and at other
locations around the world, were in the final stages of preparing for the launch scheduled to take place in six days’ time. “Not that it matters.” He nodded toward the picture. “We don’t believe it’s Russian.”

Offering the photograph back to Wainwright, Christopher asked, “So what, then?”

“We don’t know,” Wainwright said. “What we do know is that it’s not the first time it’s been here. Remember that rocket NASA launched last year? The one that blew up?”

Christopher nodded. “Yes, I remember. It was on the news, and I read about it in a few papers and magazines, including a couple of NASA journals.”

“Well, what you don’t know is that the rocket was carrying a nuclear weapons platform; the most sophisticated piece of weaponry in our arsenal.” Once more, he held up the folder. “We believe this thing, whatever it was, destroyed that rocket and damn near started World War III in the process. And now it’s back, just as we’re getting ready for the most ambitious manned space flight in our history. Don’t you see what’s happening?”

For the first time, Christopher took a step back, as though wanting to put some space between himself and Wainwright. “You’re with that UFO project. Blue Book, aren’t you?”

He paused, studying Christopher’s face and seeing the uncertainty in the other man’s eyes. No doubt the captain was wondering whether what he was hearing was the product of memory or imagination, and perhaps even was asking himself if he was listening to the deluded ramblings of someone who was in the process of losing his grip on sanity.

“Captain, I believe you saw something up there you can’t identify, but you trust your own eyes, don’t you?” Wainwright held up the folder and its photographs. “This is what you saw, isn’t it?”

“You think an alien spaceship is here to disrupt the moon landing?” Christopher frowned. “What will that accomplish?”

Waving the folder, Wainwright snapped, “Can’t you see? They want to slap us down, keep us pinned to our own planet. That way, we’re all right here when they come to take us over. They can’t wait ten or fifteen years to make their move. By then we’ll have space stations and a base on the moon. They’re striking now, before we have a chance to learn how to defend ourselves against them.” He had no proof of this, of course. All he knew was that the Certoss had pledged to destroy Earth by any means necessary. The mysterious ship photographed in orbit the previous year—the same craft Christopher had described during his intercept mission—could be a Certoss vessel, and if that was the case the world might well have arrived at the eve of invasion.

“This is unbelievable.” Christopher looked around the room, and Wainwright saw that the captain’s attention was not just on him but also the door leading from the room. Was he contemplating escape?

“You’re talking movie stuff,” he said. “Martians and mind control and taking over the world. It’s ridiculous! There’s no such thing as little green men.” Then he stopped, as though forgetting his next words. His expression slackened and he blinked several times, as though trying to call forth a memory stubbornly refusing to reveal itself.

“What?” Wainwright asked, stepping closer. “Something’s bothering you. I can see it in your eyes. What is it?”

Reaching up to rub his forehead, Christopher grimaced. “No. I . . . I was there,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “On the ship. They brought me aboard, destroyed my plane.” Confusion clouded his face and he shook his head. “But, that’s impossible, isn’t it? There was no time for that to
happen. I only saw it for a second, but I was
there
. I can see a man . . . was it a man? He had weird, pointed ears.”

Now it was Wainwright’s turn to be surprised. “Pointed ears? Are you sure?”

Christopher nodded. “Yes.”

This was unexpected. Had the Vulcans returned? Were they continuing their covert observations of Earth? If that was true, then perhaps the ship in the photograph was not an actual threat. There was no way for Wainwright to know, not without the assistance of someone who could provide the required insight. Mestral might know, but he had not been heard from for more than a year. For all Wainwright knew, the Vulcan was dead.

“You know something about this,” Christopher said, his gaze hardening. “I can read faces, too, Mister Wainwright, and I can see that you know something. Who are these people? Where do they come from?” Instead of waiting for an answer, he now started moving about the room as though working to organize his thoughts. “I don’t understand why I can’t remember everything, but there are still bits and pieces. It’s all a jumble.” He held up a hand, as though waving away his uncertainty. “I have to report this; tell them what I saw.”

Wainwright replied, “Yes. We have to get this information out, warn people that there’s an alien ship up there waiting for God knows what.”

“My superiors will inform the joint chiefs,” Christopher said. “The president will take action, maybe delay the launch until they can figure out what’s going on.”

“The president?” It took all Wainwright’s self-control not to burst out laughing. “Captain, this country is preparing to send three men to the moon. They know about that ship just like we do, but they can’t afford to acknowledge it. Putting a man on the moon is a political imperative. There’s no way
they’ll risk screwing that up, even if it costs the lives of three brave men and the work of thousands of other people.”

He stepped forward, holding out the folder. “But, we don’t have to let that happen. We can take this to the newspeople, get it on television. The government won’t have the chance to bury it. They’ll have to delay the launch and deal with the problem.”

Disbelief clouded Christopher’s features. “I can’t do that. My superiors already know I saw something. I have a duty to report what I know.”

“No!” Wainwright barked, shaking the folder in his hand, and all but waving it under the captain’s nose. “All these years we’ve spent trying to get them to understand, to accept the truth and deal with it, but they’ve ignored us! Now they’re shutting it all down and throwing it away, and me along with it. This could be my last chance to prove to them how wrong they’ve been. You’re not going to take that away from me.”

“I’ve had enough of this,” Christopher said, stepping away from him and moving toward the door. “I’m going to go report. Somebody has to be wondering where the hell I am, anyway.”

Wainwright drew his pistol and cocked its trigger, which was loud enough in the small room to make the pilot stop in his tracks. “I can’t let you do that, Captain.”

Eyeing the weapon’s muzzle, Christopher said, “Shooting me won’t help.”

“I don’t plan to shoot you unless you force me to,” Wainwright countered. He hated that the situation had deteriorated to this point, but the captain was leaving him no choice. Going to his superiors would all but guarantee that both of them would be hushed until after the launch, and by then it could be too late.

Christopher made no attempt to hide his astonishment. “You can’t be serious. All this time, you say you’ve been working to protect us all from supposed alien threats, and now that you’ve got someone to help corroborate your story, you’re going around them just so that you can prove to them how right you’ve been all these years? Don’t you realize how pathetic that sounds? Where’s your honor or duty?”

“Gone, along with my marriage and my son and the rest of my life,” Wainwright said. The Air Force owed him quite a lot, he had decided, and it was long past time for them to settle their bill. “You’ll get to tell your story, Captain, but we’re going to do it my way.” Using the pistol, he motioned for Christopher to move to the door. “Let’s go.” The pilot reached the door and opened it just enough to look out into the gray, empty corridor. He paused, and Wainwright placed the muzzle of the pistol between his shoulder blades. “Move, please.”

“Fine,” Christopher said. Then he yanked the door open, and Wainwright realized he was standing too close. The door’s edge caught him across his face and he winced in pain as he reached for his nose. Christopher turned and swung at him, the punch connecting with the side of his head and forcing Wainwright to his knees. His lost his grip on the pistol and he felt it slide from his fingers before it went clattering across the floor. His vision blurred and filled with spots, and he heard Christopher’s heavy boots running down the corridor.

Wainwright staggered to his feet and set off in pursuit, lurching into the hallway in time to see Christopher sprinting toward the elevator. “Stop!” he shouted, bringing up the pistol. The first shot echoed in the corridor but Wainwright missed. His aim was better when he fired a second time,
watching as Christopher’s body jerked before he stumbled and fell to the floor. Blood already was staining the left shoulder of the pilot’s orange flight suit. Rolling onto his side, Christopher pressed his right hand to his wounded shoulder, and Wainwright could see the blood seeping through his fingers.

Holding his free hand to his nose and feeling wetness coming from it, Wainwright jogged up the corridor, aiming his pistol at Christopher. “I’m sorry.” He had not wanted things to go this way; had not wanted to make the pilot his enemy. Christopher was supposed to be his ally in this. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, good job with that,” Christopher said, hissing the words through gritted teeth. “I’m sure the TV stations will love how you shot me so I’d go along with you.”

“It doesn’t look too serious,” Wainwright said, kneeling close enough to inspect Christopher’s wound. He extended his hand. “Come on. I’ll take you to a medic.”

Wincing, the pilot asked, “Before or after I help you?”

Even as Wainwright began to reply, both men turned at the sound of a single bell tone from the elevator just as the doors parted to reveal a young blond woman. At first Wainwright scowled, not recognizing her as anyone who even should have access to the building, then he paused as something triggered in his memory. She seemed familiar, somehow, but from where?

“Who the hell are you?” he snapped.

The woman smiled. “A friend you don’t remember.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

U.S.S. Enterprise

Earth Year 2268

On the transporter room’s viewscreen, Minister Ocherab, flanked by Gejalik and Adlar, clasped her hands in what Kirk now recognized as a Certoss friendship gesture.

“
We are in your debt, Captain. Thank you, for everything
.”

Kirk smiled. “On behalf of my crew, Minister, it was our pleasure. Gejalik and Adlar, I wish you the best of luck. I think you’re going to love what your world has become.”