Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

vortex, then rapidly expanded outward. The image of a giant glowing hexagon, matching the storm’s original dimensions, was briefly imprinted on his retinas before he was forced to look away despite his tinted visor. A blinding glare lit up the vacuum.

“Shaun!” Fontana shouted. “Get out of there now!”

Before he could respond, what felt like a shock wave hit him, sending him tumbling away from the probe. He struggled to regain control of his flight but found himself tossed through space like a piece of cosmic flotsam. His jets failed to arrest his headlong flight.

Damn! he thought. Maybe we should have used the robot arm after all…

And then it was over. The light subsided, and the shock wave moved past him. Testing the controls, he managed to come to a halt thirty meters away from the probe. Gasping, he sucked down precious oxygen. His heart pounded in his chest.

Fontana yelled in his ears. “Shaun! Talk to me! Are you all right?”

“I think so.” He conducted a quick visual inspection of his suit but didn’t spot any burns or punctures. No vapor seemed to be escaping into the vacuum. All gauges read green. He patted himself just to be safe. “Just a little shaken up, that’s all.” He could still see the energy bursts pulsing in his memory. An afterimage of a shining hexagon lingered in his vision. “What just happened there?”

“Beats me,” O’Herlihy confessed. “I can’t make head or tail of these readings. And I’m not sure I ever will. All I know is that the probe directed some sort of incredibly powerful electromagnetic discharge at the planet, and you were nearly caught in the line of fire.”

Shaun remembered the shock wave that had sent him hurtling through space. “What about the ship? Was there any damage?”

“Not that I can determine,” O’Herlihy reported. “There was some momentary turbulence but nothing we couldn’t withstand. You don’t need to worry about us, Shaun. We’re fine.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“We can exchange status reports later,” Fontana said impatiently. “You need to get back to the ship, Shaun, pronto. This was a mistake. That thing, whatever it is, is too dangerous.”

The colonel knew she had to be kicking herself for agreeing to this operation in the first place, but how could they have anticipated the probe firing on the planet like that? Satisfied that he was still in one piece, he turned himself around to see what the probe was up to now.

The enigmatic device appeared to have gone dormant again. It had stopped blasting at Saturn and was just hovering above the north pole once more. His eyes widened behind his visor as he gazed at the planet. Was it just his imagination, or was the ailing hexagon looking more like its old self again? All six sides seemed to be spreading outward, as though heading back toward their original positions, while the swirling vortex within the hexagon appeared to be brighter and more energetic than before.

“How—?” he murmured. Had the probe done that?

“Please, Shaun,” Fontana urged him. “Turn around and come back. We don’t know what that thing could do next.”

He knew he should listen to her, but he wasn’t ready to give up on the probe yet. If anything, what he had just witnessed made him even more eager to retrieve the probe if possible. Any technology that could affect storm patterns from space was too valuable to be left behind. He needed at least to get a closer look at it.

“I’m sorry, Fontana,” he said. “I’m going in for another pass.”

“Shaun, wait! Don’t be crazy! It’s not safe!”

The panic in her voice tugged at his heart, but he fired his jets anyway. He knew she might never forgive him, but he didn’t have any choice. This was bigger than any of them. He needed to find out more.

“I’ll be okay.” He hoped that wasn’t just wishful thinking. “I think maybe the worst is over.”

O’Herlihy didn’t try to talk him out of it. “We don’t know that, Shaun. Be careful.”

“Copy that.”

Ignoring Fontana’s heartfelt protests, Christopher warily returned to the probe. His fingers hovered over the jet controls, ready to execute a hasty retreat if the unpredictable artifact acted up again. Moving slowly, he came within arm’s reach of the probe. The beam from his helmet light fell on the probe’s metallic casing. This close, he was able to make out what appeared to be bizarre hieroglyphics embossed on the hull. The exotic symbols resembled no language, ancient or otherwise, that he was familiar with. Then again, he was no linguist.

“Are you seeing this?” he asked the others. In theory, the camera in his helmet was transmitting the images back to the ship.

“Yes, Shaun,” O’Herlihy responded, audibly awed. “It’s fantastic. This may be our first true glimpse of an alien language.”

Not counting that classified Ferengi hardware back at Area 51, Shaun thought. He was suddenly very glad that he had not headed back to the ship right away. These images alone were worth the risk he was taking, not to mention their entire voyage. “What about you, Fontana? You getting this, too?”

“It’s amazing,” she conceded. “You’re making history.”

The unearthly hieroglyphics called out to him. He couldn’t resist the urge to touch them. His fingers drummed impatiently. He reached out for the probe. A gloved hand made contact with the unknown.

A blinding white flash caught him by surprise.

“Shaun!” Fontana cried out.

Ten

2020

One minute, James Kirk was standing in the transporter room aboard the Enterprise. The next, he found himself floating in space. An environmental suit, bulkier and more cumbersome than the Starfleet-issue suits he was accustomed to, protected him from the vacuum. Kirk blinked in surprise. His eyes watered from the brilliant white flash that had transported him there, and, without thinking, he reached to wipe them. A gloved hand bumped into the gold-tinted visor of a spacesuit helmet. His own breathing echoed in his ears.

What the devil?

He glanced around, trying to orient himself. The north pole of Klondike VI appeared to be thousands of kilometers below him, if below meant anything in zero g. Or was it Klondike VI? The color wasn’t right, more mustard yellow than violet as before. And the furious hexagonal vortex at the pole looked much as it once had, not shrunken and pallid as in the most recent recordings. If Kirk didn’t know better, he’d swear he was drifting above Saturn instead. But that was impossible, wasn’t it? Saturn was months away, in a completely different sector.

The only familiar object in view was the probe, but even that seemed to have changed in an instant. The battered relic now looked much newer and less weathered than it had only seconds ago. He could see the alien hieroglyphics more clearly now; the gleaming bronze casing was no longer charred and pitted. The turquoise ring glowed more brightly than before. Additional lights flickered across its circuitry.

Kirk’s fingers tingled beneath his gloves. He recalled touching the probe right before he found himself here, along with the mysterious relic, which was also not on the transporter pad where it belonged. Had the probe transported them both outside the Enterprise somehow? It seemed so, but Kirk was still confused. Why had the probe reacted this way? And where had this clumsy spacesuit come from?

He was anxious to get back to his ship and get some answers. Come on, Scotty, he thought impatiently. Beam me back aboard.

But as long moments passed and he remained adrift in the void, Kirk began to fear that something was amiss