Chapter One

He felt a strange tingling coming from somewhere inside his head. It was as if some intricate mechanical pattern had started to form there. Then that pattern became a memory, and he realized that he was receiving a Starfleet command alert signal. He did not like the feeling of it—and knowing that it came from a device implanted inside his brain made it even more annoying. As was the custom in Starfleet—indeed, it was a requirement—he had been implanted with a senceiver on receiving his first command. It was the ultimate signal device, reserved for use in only the gravest of emergencies—and this was only the second time that Starfleet Command had ever intruded into his mind in this fashion.¹

“Is something wrong, Admiral Kirk?”

The question had come from one of the Libyan scholars who traditionally operate the Egypt-israeli Museum at Alexandria. Kirk was on a vacation leave tour of Africa’s lovely old cities and had been drawn to the extraordinary history exhibits here in this most famous of all Earth museums. It was, to say the least, an unusual place to receive a Starfleet emergency signal—the surprise of it had brought him halfway to his feet with what he knew must be a somewhat alarmed look on his face. He managed to shake his head at the Libyan, and then sat down again at the research console he had been using.

It took James Kirk a moment before he could force himself to relax. Actually, he could not have been in a better place in which to receive this kind of emergency message. While pretending to be absorbed in his research console viewer, he could clear his mind of conscious thought and let his implant create images there for as long as the signal lasted.

Then, as the message began to form in Kirk’s mind, it started as a powerful kind of daydream. At first a confusion of images, many of them vestiges of his most recent conscious thoughts of this vacation trip, the history studied, the museum here, the Libyan scholar. These arranged themselves into patterns which became symbols, faintly familiar alien symbols—then Kirk realized that these symbols were affixed to war vessels.

Klingons!

Kirk found himself seeing three Klingon cruisers which appeared to be moving at warp velocity and in battle formation. The images became more detailed, increasingly real—he could begin thinking about them consciously. The Klingon vessels were big, dangerous looking—undoubtedly their new K’t’inga-class heavy cruisers which some Admiralty tacticians feared might prove faster and more powerful than Starfleet’s First Line Constitution-Class starships.

Could that be the point of this alert? Information about an old enemy’s new weapon? Kirk immediately discarded that possibility. The existence of a new enemy starship could hardly be classed as an immediately urgent crisis. Nor could this formation of only three Klingon vessels pose any serious threat to Earth or the Federation. This alert must concern something else, something more.

Then with the images firmly established in his mind, Kirk’s senceiver implant began to filter the command alert message into his thoughts. As he had guessed, Starfleet had received these images from one of its deep space outposts along the border of the Klingon Empire. This outpost station, Epsilon Nine, had detected the Klingon cruisers in time to get sensor drones launched in time to infiltrate the cruiser formation. Kirk was pleased to see that the Klingons were unaware that they were being shadowed and examined.

The purpose of the drone launch had been to gather intelligence on the new Klingon cruiser design. But once there, the drones had learned something far more important. Something had violated Klingon borders and was passing through their territory and the Klingons were responding in typical fashion. This was heavy cruiser attack formation.

Then the Klingons swept into a wide turn and Kirk could begin to make out an object ahead in that direction. For an instant, he doubted the accuracy of this image he was receiving—it seemed to be merely a cloud. True it was strangely luminescent, unlike anything Kirk had ever seen in space before, but why would the Klingons be attacking a cloud? Then, as the cruisers swept closer to it, Kirk began to become aware that the cloud was incredibly large. Then the signal being received by his implant confirmed that it was billions of kilometers in diameter. More, he was made aware that it had passed through Klingon territory so rapidly that this particular cruiser formation had been the only Klingon warships in position to intercept it.

It was all over very fast. The leading Klingon fired a photon torpedo spread toward the heart of the “cloud.” Its torpedoes simply disappeared—leaving Kirk with the impression that some almost “godlike” force had simply wished the torpedoes out of existence. Then, as if the Klingons had made something angry, Kirk was aware of a point of green fire emerging from the “cloud,” hurtling toward the cruiser which had fired the photon torpedoes. It was obviously an energy bolt of some sort—then, the offending Klingon vessel was enveloped by angry whiplashes of wild, green energy, crushed, and then it simply imploded into nothingness! The other two cruisers were now firing torpedoes too, and were being destroyed as easily and frighteningly.

The “daydream” ended abruptly. Kirk became aware that the Libyan scholar was again giving him a puzzled look. Why? Then Kirk realized what it was. The scholar could see that Kirk was shuddering.

What was his mind suggesting to him? That the Klingons and their vessels had now become wall exhibits in Hell? And where in hell did those words come from? What did they mean?

The “cloud” thing had merely been passing through Klingon territory, but its interest was not in Klingons or their Empire. It had responded to the attack of their big cruisers with hardly more effort than if it had been brushing away insects. Its interest was elsewhere.

Then Kirk understood what it was that was frightening him. Somewhere in those images received, the command alert had informed him that the frightening huge, luminescent “cloud” was on a precise heading toward a planet named Earth.