Star Trek: The Original Series: The Rings of Time

She glanced down at the cumbersome suit, which was at least one size too big for her. Her head barely poked out of the metal ring at the top of the rigid torso assembly. The gold-tinted visor covered her face like a veil.

“Then why am I dressed like Barbarella before her striptease?”

“To survive when I depressurize the airlock,” he explained. Even staying where she was, she was going to be exposed to the vacuum for a time. The life-support system on her back held at least eight hours of oxygen, which ought to be more than enough. “Don’t worry. One way or another, this will be over before you run out of air.”

“Got it,” she said. “But what am I supposed to do while you’re out traipsing through space?”

“Keep O’Herlihy distracted as long as possible.” The scientist was bound to notice when the airlock was activated, if he wasn’t too busy collecting data while simultaneously piloting the ship to its doom. He might even come to investigate. “You think you can do that?”

“You’re kidding, right? I was born to distract people.”

Kirk could believe it.

Almost ready to depart, he had a few last tasks to handle first. A command via the tablet started the depressurization mechanism, which, to his relief, was more functional than the inner hatchway. As the air was rapidly pumped from the chamber, he took a metal hammer and shattered the lens of the closed-circuit camera beneath Zoe’s discarded top.

There, he thought. If Marcus wants to find out what’s happened here, he’s going to have to check it out in person.

That should give Kirk time to get where he needed to go.

As a final precaution, he tethered Zoe to the locked inner hatch to keep her from drifting out into the cargo bay with him. “Hold on to the door,” he urged her, “and don’t let go.”

“Not going anywhere,” she promised. “Don’t be too long, though. Okay?”

“You won’t even know I’m gone.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I’m missing you already.”

The green light over the outer hatch gave him the go-ahead. He secured the tablet to one of the clips on his suit, then tried to activate the second hatch. Despite the oxygen feeding into his helmet, he held his breath to see if the airlock would respond.

The metal slid out of the way, exposing the cavernous cargo bay beyond.

That’s more like it, he thought. Spock would be proud.

He turned to wave farewell to Zoe. She blew him a kiss through her visor, then held on to the other hatch with both hands. They had agreed to maintain radio silence from now on, just in case O’Herlihy tried to listen in.

“See you soon,” he whispered.

He floated out into the cargo bay, holding on to the handrails to control his progress. He had left the short- circuited jetpack behind. In all the tumult, they had never gotten around to repairing it; besides, its miniature jets could never have kept pace with the ship unless the pilot was deliberately trying to rendezvous with him. He was going to have to climb, not fly, to his destination.

The spacious bay reminded him of his first, disorienting introduction to the Lewis & Clark, right after he’d unexpectedly found himself in this century. It was hard to believe that less than five days had passed since then; he felt as if he had already spent weeks in Shaun Christopher’s skin.

Here’s hoping I don’t end up dying in his place.

A ladder led out of the bay onto the hull. He climbed the ladder using carabiners of the sort used by mountain climbers to ascend rocky cliff faces. Kirk had always enjoyed climbing back on Earth; one of his long-term goals was to climb the towering peaks of Yosemite someday. Who knew? Maybe he would have time to accomplish that in this era, if any of them made it back to Earth.

Clambering onto the top of the ship, he paused to take his bearings. The Lewis & Clark was indeed cruising in a polar orbit, perpendicular to the rings. Its delicate solar panels had been retracted, no doubt to keep them from being shredded by the orbiting ring matter. Staring down the length of the ship, he spied the glittering tops of the rings spreading out from the equator, thousands of kilometers below. It was like gazing at the surface of a luminous river made of sparkling boulders and flakes of ice. The inner B Ring shone brighter than the planet itself, even as the rings appeared to be rushing up to meet the ship. Could he reach his destination before they passed through the rings again? Kirk wasn’t sure.

I need to get a move on, he realized, and pronto.

He tore his gaze away from the dazzling spectacle to focus on the task at hand. The front half of the ship stretched before him, pointed straight down at the rings. His goal was to reach the command module — and, most importantly, the docking ring attached to the nose of the command module. If he could just get there in time, he might be able to get back onto the flight deck and regain control of the ship. O’Herlihy was bound to have other ideas, but Kirk would cross that bridge when he came to it, after he crossed the rest of the ship.

Spacewalk exercises had been mandatory back at the Academy, and Kirk had always excelled at them. He was a bit rusty, though. Command of the Enterprise seldom required him personally to stroll outside the ship. At best, he took part in an EVA once or twice a year, usually as part of an emergency drill. He hoped that those drills would pay off now.

Guide rails mounted on the exterior of the modules provided foot and hand holds for careful astronauts. Kirk hooked his carabiners to the rail for safety’s sake, then pulled himself along hand after hand. He moved briskly, tempted to ditch the tethers to save time. They slid along the rail behind him, making no noise in the silence of space. His feet dangled behind him, avoiding contact with the hull. The last thing he wanted right now was for O’Herlihy to hear footsteps stomping outside the ship.

The captain wished he knew what the desperate scientist was doing right now. Feverishly transmitting priceless scientific data back to Earth in his last few hours or rushing to check on the airlock? It was possible that he’d assumed that both prisoners had been flushed into space, but what if he guessed that a captive or two were attempting an unauthorized spacewalk? He was a brilliant man; he might well have figured out what Kirk had in mind, which could severely complicate matters later on. Given a choice, Kirk wanted O’Herlihy to be otherwise occupied when he attempted to reboard the ship.

Keep him busy, Zoe. You can do it.

The hab loomed before him, wider and more heavily insulated than the other modules. Its sides jutted out between the cargo bay and the command module like a section of snake that was digesting a large, lumpy meal. He had to scale its stern to reach the top of the hab, which he hurried across to make up for lost time. Arriving at the end of the module, he descended onto the vestibule connecting the hab to command, the same vestibule where he and Fontana had battled the fire only yesterday. Had they survived the blaze only to be torn apart and crushed by Saturn’s singularly violent atmosphere?

Not if he had anything to say about it.

He set out across the vestibule. Almost there, he thought. He looked ahead and saw the brilliant immensity of the rings towering over him like a tidal wave — or perhaps a colossal floating avalanche.

I was too slow, he realized. Here they come again.

He looked about for cover. A canopy-sized communications dish offered shelter, and he flew beneath it only a heartbeat before the ship entered the rings. The light from countless reflective particles, spread across more than a hundred thousand meters, blinded him, forcing him to shield his eyes. Minute pieces of dirty ice, most no larger than grains of sand, pelted the hull. More substantial chunks of ice mingled with the tiny particles. The myriad obstacles orbited Saturn like billions of miniature moons. A hailstone the size of a pebble smashed through the communications dish, barely missing Kirk’s head. A second piece ricocheted off the hull, leaving a dent in the titanium shielding. He crouched low and kept his head down. The multiple layers of his spacesuit contained a lining of rubberized nylon to prevent damage from micrometeorite strikes, but he knew that if a fast enough or large enough piece struck his life-support system or helmet, he was as good as dead. A volley of lethal frozen bullets strafed the ship. He recalled that the temperature of the rings was minus one hundred ninety degrees Celsius. He could feel the cold even through his insulated suit.

Hang on, he thought. It will all be over in a minute.