Post-Voyage Home Vignette #1

One of the things everyone liked about Star Trek II was how it showed the passage of time since the Original Series. Kirk was an Admiral, Spock was Captain of an aging Enterprise that had been relegated to training-ship duty, and Chekov was First Officer on another ship. There was even a bit that didn’t make it into the finished film where Sulu was supposed to be on the cusp of promotion to Captain and command of the USS Excelsior.

And then at the end of Star Trek IV everyone flies off into the sunset on the brand-new Enterprise-A, pleased as punch that their careers are now right back where they were twenty years before. Sure, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty don’t have much reason to be upset since they’re where they always wanted to be. But what about Sulu, Uhura, and Chekov? Their promising careers are now stalled, and this after they helped expose the Klingon attempt to steal Genesis and saved the planet Earth from the whale probe! How might they feel about that?

This little vignette is from a story I’m working on, set mere weeks after the Enterprise-A warped off into The Voyage Home’s end credits.

“It is punishment,” Pavel Chekov declared. He was sitting, along with Uhura and Sulu, in the sunken crescent-shaped area at the aft end of the Officers' Lounge of the brand-new Enterprise, watching the stars streak by outside the four large viewports that arced overhead. The room was virtually identical to its predecessor, except that the beige, orange, and brown of the old lounge had given way to a more modern blue, silver, and grey palette.

“Oh, come on, Pavel,” Uhura chided. “Aren’t you exaggerating just a little?”

“Am I? Six months ago, I am First Officer on Reliant. Hikaru is up for promotion and command of Excelsior, and you are adjutant to Admiral Kirk, which everyone knows is precursor to a command of your own. Now look at us. Back at the same posts we had twenty years ago.”

“We have our ranks,” Sulu pointed out.

“But nothing else,” Chekov said. “It does not matter that we save the Earth, rescue Mr. Spock, and stop the Klingons at Genesis. We disobey orders, so Starfleet must punish us.”

“No one’s forcing you to stay, Pavel,” Uhura said. “I know you got as many private-sector offers as Hikaru and I did before our trial at the Federation Council.”

“Of course, but it’s no use,” Chekov replied before taking sip of his coffee. “I want to see the galaxy, not be board member for some dilithium company.”

Sulu and Uhura laughed just as the intercom whistled. “Mr. Sulu, please report to the bridge,” the voice of Lieutenant Kittay, the Beta shift communications officer, filtered through the intercom next to the couch where Sulu and Uhura sat.

Hikaru reached over and thumbed the commpanel. “Sulu here, on my way.” He got up to leave.

“I bet it’s a message from Starfleet,” Chekov said. “They are breaking you back down to Lieutenant.”

Sulu laughed at his friend’s pessimism as he trotted up the steps and headed for the door.

Chekov looked over his coffee cup at Uhura. “We’re probably next. I’m going to be the oldest Ensign in history.”

Untitled TOS-era Story Treatment

On exploratory mission in unexplored space, the Enterprise enters orbit of the second planet of the 416 Tausret solar system. Although the planet is technically class-M, it’s barely habitable and looks as though it’s recovering from a nuclear winter. Interestingly, sensor imaging detects clear evidence of orbital bombardment by advanced weapons at some point 1500-5000 years ago. There may have been a civilization here once, Spock says, but no more. They finish taking sensor readings and are about to leave the system when sensors detect an artificial object in a slightly-closer orbit around the star. They check it out, and it’s a derelict starship!

The ship resembles a Starfleet design: a saucerlike hull about the size of the Enterprise’s—only sleeker—and two very long, slender engine nacelles. (Actually, it’s a Centuar-class) Even stranger, when they zoom in on its markings, they see the words United Federation of Planets. The name on the hull is USS Polaris and the registry number has too many digits: NCC-69572. Scotty says that the design looks a lot like projections of where starship technology will be 50 years from now.  Most interestingly, although all the ship’s systems are shut down and it has no gravity or atmosphere, there’s an array of solar panels hooked up to one of the ship’s power umbilicals. (In fact, the sunlight bouncing off the flat surface of the solar panels was what first alerted us to the ship’s presence) The only power utilization on the ship is in a cluster of compartments near the center of the ship. A landing party beams over and finds the power is being used to sustain 130 stasis capsules.

The capsules are beamed back to the Enterprise, and we learn that they’ve been in operation a very long time, centuries at least. Only 7 are still functioning. It’s a mystery: how can a ship from the future have been here for centuries? One of the survivors is the Polaris’s Captain, Jack Shepard. He’s very weak from the long time in stasis, but quickly realizes he’s in a 23^rd century sickbay. When Kirk comes in and introduces himself Shepard suddenly becomes very intense and demands to know the stardate. “4318.2,” Kirk replies.

“You’re sure about that?” Shepard presses. “You’re sure it’s not 4309?”

Kirk repeats the stardate again, gently but firmly. “Four. Three. One. Eight. Point two.”

“Where are we?” Shepard rasps. “Are we in the Shath- the Tausret system?”

“That’s right,” Kirk replies.

“4318.2,” Shepard says, sounding relieved. “4318.2. Then it worked. Thank God it worked.” He collapses into unconsciousness.

 Another survivor, a Vulcan engineer named Storil, is slightly stronger. He tells Kirk that the Polaris is from approximately 70 years in their future. It was caught in a wormhole and emerged 3000 years in the past. The crew of 130 was much too small a gene pool to simply settle on a planet somewhere and start a colony—and anyway, many of them were from different species and couldn’t interbreed without the help of modern medicine—so the Captain decided that everyone would go into stasis and try to wait it out. They had to dump their antimatter pods, since the containment fields would never function for 3000 years, and they vented the ship’s atmosphere so the vacuum would preserve everything. Kirk tells him that Capt. Shepard seemed surprised that the stardate was 4318, and not an earlier one like 4309. Storil raises an eyebrow. “If this is the USS Enterprise, and the stardate is 4318, then his relief is most understandable. I share it.”

Spock, who had been listening, turns and leaves. Later, Kirk meets him on the bridge. Spock has a theory: Storil said that the Polaris was thrown 3000 years into the past. And their scans of the second planet showed that it was bombarded with advanced weapons about that long ago. A barrage of high-yield photon torpedoes would perfectly explain the blast patterns.

Kirk confronts Capt. Shepard, who’s gotten stronger since we saw him last. Shepard doesn’t quite admit to firing on the planet 3000 years ago. But, he explains, the planet you knew only as 416 Tausret II, we knew as Shathis, homeworld of the dangerous, violent Shathis Imperium. According to the history he knows, the Enterprise was never heard from again after entering this region of space, and the Shathians later took credit for destroying it. But that wasn’t the end of it. By his time the Shathians have allied with the Klingons and launched a genocidal war against the Federation, wiping out races they deem to be inferior. The Edosians, Hamalki, and Sulamid are gone. And the Federation is losing the war. What would you have done in those circumstances, Shepard asks Kirk, if you suddenly found yourself 3,000 years in the past with all the power of a starship at your command, back when the Shathians were a simple Iron-Age society?

Not commit genocide, Kirk insists.

I’m talking about preventing genocide, Shepard counters. The Shathians wiped out three races that we know of, and who knows how many more? Their empire extends into areas of the galaxy Starfleet has never explored. We both swore an oath to protect the Federation, he says. So when you have an opportunity to save even one of its member races from genocide at the hands of an enemy, aren’t you duty bound to take it? Even if it means making a hard choice?

Find an alternative. Kirk insists. We can’t defeat our enemies by adopting the tactics of our enemies. That kind of nonsense almost wiped out the human race a couple centuries ago.

Shepard shrugs. What are you going to do, Captain. Court-martial me? I haven’t been born yet. And now that history is going to unfold a lot differently than the way I learned it, me and most of my crew will probably never even be born in the first place. How can the Federation legal system try a man who was never born for a crime that he allegedly committed millennia before there even was a Federation?

Kirk seizes on the first part of this: Yes, history is going to unfold a lot differently than the way Shepard learned it. Who’s to say it’s any better? The Shathians were a major power; who knows what kind of unintended consequences their absence will bring? For the first time, Shepard seems to stop and think. Maybe you’re right, he finally says. But if you’d seen the things I’ve seen, you’d have done exactly what I did. Limited power has been restored on the Polaris, and he returns to his ship.

On board the Polaris, his remaining crew are doing repairs, trying to resurrect systems that have been sitting inert for three millennia. Shepard holes up in his Ready Room, hunched over his computer monitor doing some kind of historical research.

A while later, the Polaris is patched up enough to travel, and her officers meet with Kirk and Spock in the Enterprise briefing room. The former are attired in 24^th century Starfleet uniforms they replicated for themselves (they’re the TNG Season 1 & 2 togs) . Now that the Polaris is spaceworthy again, Kirk says that the Enterprise will escort it to the Yard, a remote and secret Starfleet facility where exotic tech is studied. The Polaris is limited to low warp speeds, so they’ll be taking it slow.

Before they leave, Spock and Storil have a conversation. The other Polaris officers are defiantly supportive of their Captain’s decision; what about Storil? He’s clearly struggling with it, but says that he sees the logic in Shepard’s decision to wipe out the Shathians. Spock says “Three thousand years ago, many Vulcans would also have seen the logic in it. But if our society had allowed them to dominate, instead of turning to the teachings of Surak, Vulcan would not have survived. And you and I would not be having this conversation.” Storil doesn’t reply, but he knows Spock is right.

The Polaris officers return to their ship, and they get underway. Everything is fine for a few hours, but suddenly the intruder alert goes off—someone has beamed into the Engineering section! But there’s no time to react to that because the Polaris veers off and goes to high warp! Obviously its speed isn’t as limited as the Enterprise crew was led to believe. Kirk orders pursuit, but the Polaris is doing Warp 12, they’ll never catch them. Security calls to say the “intruder” that beamed aboard is one of the Polaris officers. Kirk orders him to be taken to the briefing room. When he and Spock get there, we learn that it’s Storil.

Storil tells them that Shepard took what Kirk said about the unintended consequences of destroying the Shathians very seriously. After some research, he realized that in his timeline the Klingons suffered a major setback twenty-five years from now when Praxis exploded. The fallout from that disaster is the only reason the Klingon-Shathian alliance hadn’t already overrun the Federation by his time. But without the Shathian alliance and the subsequent war with the Federation, Praxis’ energy-production facilities might not be taxed enough for the explosion to happen, and the Klingons will therefore be stronger and in a position to pose a grave threat to the Federation in 50-70 years. So Shepard has decided to destroy Praxis himself. The Polaris is fast enough to get there before Klingon patrols can intercept them, and the crew was able to construct a few quantum torpedoes. True, the Klingon defenses will probably destroy the Polaris during the attack, but not before they destroy Praxis.

Kirk is aghast; this will start a war! Storil says that Shepard believes the Klingons will be too devastated by the destruction of Praxis to fight a war. Any military response will be weak and easily repelled by Starfleet, he’s sure of it. What do you believe? Spock asks him.

“I believe Captain Shepard’s conclusions are illogical.” Storil says. “Because of his decision three thousand years ago, a new timeline has been created with events that cannot be accurately predicted. This action will only compound his original error, and will surely cost millions of lives even if the resulting Klingon-Federation war is as brief as he believes it will be. He must be stopped.”

Stopped, yes. But how? The Enterprise can’t catch up, but the maybe the Klingons could intercept if they knew he was coming. Uhura taps into a Starfleet intelligence drone near the Klingon border and learns that the IKS Devisor—Koloth’s ship—is patrolling the area. They’re too far away to directly contact the Devisor, unless they use the drone as a relay. But this will give away the drone’s location, which won’t make Starfleet Intelligence happy. Kirk decides they’ll just have to make it up to them by returning the Polaris intact.

Kirk contacts the Devisor. Koloth is skeptical. Maybe Kirk is just telling him about the Polaris to draw him off his patrol route for some nefarious reason. I’m telling the truth, Kirk insists. And if you don’t listen, then you’ll be responsible for the destruction of Praxis and the deaths of thousands of Klingon civilians.

There are no civilians in the Empire, Captain. Koloth replies. We are all warriors of one kind of another. But he agrees to help. Kirk then turns to Storil. We need a way to disable the Polaris before it can destroy the Devisor, otherwise there could still be a war. Storil identifies a point on the underside of the ship, at the junction of the nacelle struts. If they can hit it with a precise phaser or torpedo strike, it’ll knock out warp power.

The plan works. The Devisor is able to slow the Polaris down enough for the Enterprise to catch up, and some precision shooting by Sulu knocks it out of warp and takes out its weapons. Shepard accepts the inevitable and surrenders. 

Suddenly, the Klingons grab the Polaris with a tractor beam. Clearly this is an advanced Federation vessel, clearly an intelligence coup for the Klingons. Bringing it home would be a huge feather in Koloth's cap.

If you try to leave with that ship I'll blow it up, Kirk warns. 

Koloth says he's not leaving empty-handed. He'll be in enough trouble when his superiors learn he cooperated with Starfleet, even temporarily. 

But you don't have to. Kirk points out. If the Enterprise has the Polaris in tow, they won't be able to stop Koloth from scooping up the nearby Starfleet intelligence drone now that he has a fix on it. 

Koloth begrudgingly agrees and releases the Polaris. The Enterprise takes it in tow, and they leave Klingon space. Kirk doesn’t throw Shepard and his officers in the brig, but he does confine them to quarters. When the reach they Yard, Kirk & Shepard have a conversation. Kirk informs him that Starfleet has decided not to press charges. After all, as he pointed out there are legal obstacles to trying people who will probably never be born.

What will become of us? Shepard wonders.  You will certainly not be allowed to join Starfleet, Spock says. Kirk is more diplomatic. Shepard & his crew have a whole galaxy of possibilities before them. After all, for the first time in 3,000 years they have no idea what the future holds.

I envy you, Shepard says. The Shathian/Klingon war had effectively ended Starfleet’s mission of exploration in his time. Starfleet was aware of peaceful humanoid races living under the Shathian yoke on the far side of their empire, races like the Cardassians and the Tzenkethi. Maybe Kirk will play a role in helping them to join the Federation.

Spock simply raises an eyebrow. Later, on the bridge, he and Kirk talk of the limitless human capacity for self-deception, and Shepard’s complete inability to see that he’d become the very thing he spent his life fighting. Humanity may have come a long way, Kirk says, but that’s one thing they’ll always have to guard against.

A Curious Relic

Sometime in the middle of Enterprise's dismal run (I don't remember exactly when) I wrote this piece. Basically, it's just the crew of the original Enterprise coming across the NX-01 and remarking on how there's no way this thing could have come from their past.

"It appears to be an Earth ship, Captain.” Spock announced as he peered into his hooded viewer. "Sensors indicate it has been adrift for a significant period of time, possibly a century or more."

Kirk peered at the odd little spaceship that was drifting across the main viewer. "It almost looks like a Starfleet vessel."

Spock stepped down from his station to stand next to the center seat. "I am inclined to agree, but we have no record of that configuration in our databanks."

The ship in question had a small saucer section very reminiscent of the Enterprise. The eerily familiar engine nacelles were mounted on a catamaran-like structure that attached to the primary saucer.

“Life signs?” Kirk asked.

“None, Captain.” Spock replied. “And no power readings of any kind. However,” he continued, anticipating Kirk’s next question, “the vessel is structurally sound, and other than the lack of atmosphere, there is nothing aboard that would prove inimical to humanoid life.”

Kirk rose from the center seat and headed for the turbolift. “In that case, you’re with me, Mr. Spock. Uhura, tell the transporter room to outfit the landing party with environmental suits, and have Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott meet us there. Sulu, you have the conn.”

***

Ten minutes later, four spacesuited figures sparkled silently into existence on the bridge of the mysterious vessel.

Spock waved his searchlight around the spare, functional compartment. “This bridge appears to fit within the design lineage of Earth vessels of the last one hundred and fifteen years.”

“But no records of a configuration exactly like this.” Scott said as he clomped around the room in his magnetized boots. “Just like the rest of the bloody ship.”

Kirk laid his hand on what was obviously the Captain’s chair. Who had commanded this ship? What had happened to him?

His thoughts were interrupted by McCoy running his mediscanner over the chair. “There’s no cellular residue at all here, Jim, at least none my instruments can detect.”

“What does that mean?” Kirk asked.

“It means no one’s been here in a very long time. Decades.”

“Captain,” Spock said. “Recommend we make efforts to restore minimal power. Activating the lights and life support systems will make examination of the vessel easier, and should facilitate access to the main computer.”

“Can you do it, Scotty?” Kirk asked.

“Aye, sir; she’s perfectly intact. We’ll just need one of our emergency batteries from the Enterprise to jumpstart one of the fusion reactors.”

Kirk nodded. “Do it.”

***

A few hours later, Kirk , Spock, and McCoy were back on the Enterprise bridge.

“Captain, I have established a link to the vessel’s main computer.” Spock said. “If Mr. Scott is successful in restoring power, I should have access momentarily.”

“Sir, Mr. Scott is signaling,” Uhura reported.

Kirk punched the intercom button on his armrest. “Kirk here.”

"Captain, we're all ready to jumpstart this lass when you give the word."

"Proceed, Mr. Scott."

There was a pause, then the sound of congratulations. Scott’s voice came through the intercom again. "She's holdin' together just fine, sir. Fusion reaction is stable. We're activatin' life support support systems and startin' artificial gravity generation now. Mr. Spock, ye should have access to the main computer."

Spock worked his instruments. "Thank you, Mr. Scott. Captain, I have begun downloading the contents of their main computer."

Kirk happened to be looking at the main viewer when the mysterious vessel's exterior spotlights came on. He frowned at something he saw there and rose from his seat. "Mr. Sulu, go to full magnification on viewer."

The screen wavered, and the vessel on it seemed to jump forward. Everyone looking at the screen at that moment shared a collective gasp as they read the name emblazoned on the vessel's saucer: "NX-01 ENTERPRISE"

***

Several hours later, the senior officers were gathered in the briefing room.

"The only Earth space vehicles named Enterprise, other than our vessel, are the prototype Space Shuttle from the late 1970s, and the starliner from the mid 22nd century." Spock stated. "The ship we found today cannot be from our past."

"How's that possible?" McCoy asked. "You said yourself that it's been adrift for over a hundred years."

"Aye, it has. When the ship's chronometers came back on, they showed the date as September 26th, 2155." Scott said. "But that doesna tell us where it came from."

"Gentlemen, what does all this mean?" Kirk asked.

"There is technology aboard that ship that did not exist in the 22nd century" Spock said.

"They have a transporter." Scott revealed. "And it can complete a full cycle in 4 seconds. We also found these." He placed two pistol-like weapons on the table. "Phasers. As far as power output, they're roughly equivalent to the first phasers Starfleet issued 12 years ago. We found ship mounted-phaser cannons, too."

"The vessel is also equipped with subspace radio." Spock added. "It does not, however, have forcefield technology of any kind. For towing, is uses the same variety of grappling hook found on Earth vessels of our mid 22nd century, and the outer guard is limited to a system which polarizes the hull plating."

"Like the ships we had during the Romulan War," Sulu observed.

"Precisely." Spock said. "Along with its phaser weapons, the vessel is also mounted with the kind of pulse lasers and fusion-powered torpedoes that were in use during your Romulan War."

"So we've got a UESPA-constructed ship that no one's touched for a hundred years," Kirk said, "yet it's a curious amalgam of past and present technology."

"There is still more." Spock continued. "I found several items of interest in the computer records. There is no mention of the United Earth Space Probe Agency at all. According to its memory banks, the ship was constructed by Starfleet."

"But Starfleet didn’t exist in 2153," Scott protested.

"Nevertheless, the ship's memory banks clearly refer to Starfleet as its authority" Spock said. "Additionally, there are indications that the ship once made a trip from Earth to the Klingon homeworld in less than one week, yet they traveled no faster than Warp 5. There are also database entries for an alien race known as the Suliban, with whom the crew of that Enterprise appears to have had extensive contact."

"I've never heard of the Suliban." McCoy said.

"You are not alone, Doctor," Spock said. "The Suliban do not appear in any Federation database."

"What about the crew?" Kirk asked. "Were you able to find some kind of a crew manifest?"

"Yes, Captain. The crew roster lists such luminaries as Captain Jonathan Archer, Commander Charles Tucker, and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, to name a few. However, there is an anomaly in the roster as well." He pressed a switch on his computer console, and a picture of a Vulcan woman appeared on the three-sided viewer in the middle of the table. "Subcommander T'Pol, a noted member of the Vulcan Star Service. She is listed as First Officer."

"Spock, aren't you the first Vulcan to serve aboard an Earth ship?" Kirk asked.

"Indeed I am.The T'Pol with whom I am familiar never served with humans," Spock said.

A smile crept over McCoy's face. "Mr. Spock, I can't help but notice the very illogical uniform that this Subcommander of yours is wearing in that picture. Looks like very tight long johns."

 "No doubt she was the unfortunate victim of a human quartermaster," Spock replied. "Gentlemen, I submit that the Enterprise we discovered did not originate in our universe. We have, after all, had personal experience with parallel universes and timelines."

Kirk was skeptical. “An alternate universe? Why not some kind of elaborate fraud, like the Cardiff Giant?”

“Too much detail,” Spock answered. “Also, if someone were to go to the effort of perpetrating such an elaborate hoax, why leave the vessel drifting in open space where it might never be found?”

“Then if you’re convinced that ship came from an alternate universe, do we know how it got here?” Kirk asked.

"Negative, Captain." Spock replied. "It has been adrift here for over one hundred years. Any evidence of the event which brought the vessel here has long since faded."

 "Thank you, Mr. Spock. Scotty, throw a tractor beam on that ship, we're taking it to Starbase 6 for analysis," Kirk said. "Mr. Sulu, plot a course. Dismissed."

***

Captain's Log, Supplemental: We are fourteen hours away from Starbase 6, towing a mysterious derelict vessel. Science and Engineering teams continue to examine it, hoping to find some clue as to how it got here.

Kirk punched the STOP button on his recording computer and leaned back in his chair. Suddenly, the ship lurched violently, and Red Alert sirens went off.

Kirk slammed his fist down on the intercom panel. "Bridge! What's happening up there?"

"Spock here, sir. The other Enterprise has disappeared."

"Disappeared? How?"

"Unknown. I have ordered full stop while we conduct a scan of the area."

Kirk nodded. "I'll be right up."

By the time Kirk reached the bridge, the alarms had stopped.

"We've scanned the entire area, Captain." Spock reported. "No sign of the vessel."

"Were any of our people over there?" Kirk asked.

"Affirmative. Crewman Daniels was aboard at the time."

The frustration of losing a man stung the Captain. "And there's no way to tell where that ship went?"

"Not as yet." Spock said. "The vessel simply disappeared. There were no abnormal readings before or after, no evidence of spatial or temporal distortion."

"We'll stay in the area until we're certain there's nothing more we can do." Kirk decided.

***

Captain's Log, additional entry: We have resumed course for Starbase 6. Despite our best efforts, we were not able to ascertain the cause of the derelict vessel's disappearance.

Kirk switched off his recording computer and stared blankly at the wall, mentally preparing his message to the family of Crewman Daniels.

"Captain Kirk?"

Kirk whirled around, startled. A young man in a red Engineering jumpsuit stood just inside the door to his quarters. "Crewman . . . Daniels? How did you get in here? What happened to that ship?"

"I-I'm sorry, sir, but I can't tell you that." Daniels said nervously. "I never meant for anyone to find the ship; it was all a mistake. Just a relic from an unstable timeline. It doesn't really matter one way or the other, nothing should be changed. In your timeline, I mean."

"What do you know about the timeline?"

"I'm sorry sir, I can't tell you any more than that. Oh, Mr. Spock will be calling you any minute now, to tell you that all the information you collected on the other Enterprise has been wiped from your memory banks. Believe me, it's better this way." And then he was simply gone.

Kirk stared for a moment at the empty space where Daniels had been. Then he rose from his chair, and headed for the Bridge.