Chapter Sixteen
Captain’s log, stardate 7413.9. Navigational scanners have picked up Intruder and our plot indicates no change in Intruder velocity or heading. We expect a visual within five minutes.
As Kirk completed his log entry, Decker handed him the status readouts. He scanned it, turned toward the helm.
“Navigational scans off; reduce navigational deflections to minimum,” Kirk ordered.
“Forward scans off,” Sulu said. “Deflectors to minimum.”
Kirk’s eyes scanned the bridge, checking off station by station that nothing on the starship could possibly indicate that they were either planning or expecting an attack. It had been as small a thing as a sensor scan which had brought on the destruction of Epsilon Nine. Kirk turned to the helm.
“Navigator?”
“I have a conic interception and pursuit course laid in, sir,” Ilia said.
“Linguacode?”
We are transmitting basic friendship code and standing by with full-range repeats, sir,” reported Uhura.
Kirk checked to see that Spock was at the science station and relief crew members were at all emergency positions. McCoy came in and fixed himself behind Kirk’s shoulder.
“Are we full mag on viewer?” Kirk asked.
“Full mag,” Sulu confirmed. “Still nothing in sight, sir.”
They would see something soon enough with the huge cloud moving toward them at warp seven and themselves moving toward the cloud even faster. The incredible speed of their combined closure rate was complicated by the unusual mechanics of hyperspace, and an eyeblink of a navigational error could see them flashing past the Intruder-cloud and a million stars past it. But Kirk had confidence in the Deltan.
The conic interception to be used would see them passing to one side, but always with the “nose” of the Enterprise headed at the center of the strange cloud. Thus, as Enterprise passed the cloud, the starship would be traveling sideways but still heading directly toward it until the starship’s path took it in directly behind the cloud, almost as if attached to it by a rubber string. Once behind the cloud, Enterprise could overtake it from the rear, permitting Kirk to approach the cloud as slowly or as rapidly as he chose. To anyone looking out the nose of the starship, the conic interception would make it appear that they had always been approaching the cloud head-on but more and more slowly as they got close to it.
The Klingons had not intercepted the cloud this way. Kirk hoped that any star-traveling intelligence would immediately understand the Enterprise maneuver for the peaceful interception that it was.
“Do you see it, sir?” It was Decker asking. Kirk realized that a hush had fallen over the bridge some seconds ago.
“Thank you, Mr. Decker. Commander Uhura, you can begin transmitting full-range friendship signals.”
Kirk was glad that he had remembered that communications were to be expanded on sighting the cloud. Otherwise, Will Decker might have suspected that the man who replaced him was daydreaming at this significant moment. Yes, he did have it in sight now, too. It was hardly a pinpoint of just slightly warmer color than the coalesced star mass ahead.
“Go to red alert,” Kirk said quietly. The Klaxons went off. He knew it was no louder than the internal alarms sounding in the minds of the crew. They had all been on the Rec Deck and seen what they would soon be facing—the cloud was beginning to grow in size already; they had also seen the green death which emerged from it to destroy a formation of three Klingon starships, each one of them at least nearly as strong as the Enterprise.
“All decks show red alert, sir.” It was Decker reporting vessel status. Kirk gave the nod he knew was expected and turned his mind back to the life-or-death need of convincing the Intruder that this interception was peaceful. The Enterprise must not appear to be preparing for battle—it was critical that no scan or beam was being emitted by any station on the starship. But it would only show nervousness on his part to ask each ship station if they were certain that this scanner or that sensor was turned off. Besides, it was unnecessary! Decker would have made doubly certain of all that by now, anyway. Kirk came near a smile as he realized how much he was learning to trust the abilities of the young man he had replaced.
The cloud was growing to the size of a fingernail now. Had he forgotten any last-minute detail? Kirk let his eyes rest briefly at each bridge station—helm, navigation, science, communications, environment, weapons defense; he went on to complete the circuit.
The cloud had grown from a pinpoint to the size of a large coin. The crew had also seen death from that cloud destroy Starfleet comrades at Epsilon Nine and it was certain that some of them were beginning to feel some fear. But they were also undoubtedly the most experienced crew ever gathered together—frightened or not, they would obey his commands. And Enterprise was the most sophisticated and powerful starship in the fleet. Kirk felt more certain than ever that he had done the right thing in taking her over. Decker was a fine ship commander, but he did not have Kirk’s advantage of having been built by Starfleet into a legendary figure. However irksome and foolish that had been, it meant that Kirk had a crew welded together by the belief (Kirk hoped fervently he would make it true) that they were superbly led.
Kirk felt a rush a sentiment for these men and women here who had seen death strike from that cloud and had still stayed. The “ordinary” and lovely blue-white planet below them deserved protection—it had bred a sturdy and decent race, certainly a courageous one. From the beginning of time, other groups like this had gone out, handfuls of puny humans standing together against the dark night, against saber-toothed killers, against the sea, and finally into space. The shape and face of the unknown had changed during all those eons, but there had been no change in human courage.
“Captain, we are being scanned,” reported Spock.
Kirk touched his ship announcement button. “All decks, this is the captain speaking. We are being scanned. Whatever your station, you will do nothing—repeat, you will take no action except on my express order.”
The cloud was outgrowing the hyperspace star mass ahead, taking its own shape so rapidly that their eyes could see it expanding. Its eerie luminescence was becoming very noticeable.
“The scans are emanating from exact cloud center,” reported Spock. “They consist of an energy effect of an entirely unknown type.”
The size of the cloud now blanketed all the stars from view and had grown to fill half of the blackness ahead of them. Kirk could feel the throb of increasing power as Enterprise continued its conic interception. Although the cloud appeared on the viewer to be straight ahead of them, they were actually passing to one side of it and would soon begin to slide behind it into a pursuit heading.
“The Klingons were first hit about at this distance,” said Decker quietly to Kirk.
What had been luminescence before could now be seen to be the result of lovely combinations of multi-hued patterns in the cloud. It was beginning to look its true size now—the cloud’s diameter had been reported by young Branch as an incredible eighty times the Earth-to-sun distance! Big enough to hide a fair-sized star with planets of its own! Its patterned colors were growing in brilliance as the cloud began to dominate all of celestial space ahead of them.
“Have you sensed any awareness of our presence, Mr. Spock?”
Spock shook his head. “Negative, Captain. Nothing.”
Kirk gave Uhura a questioning look.
“Continuing linguacode peace signals on all frequencies, sir. No reply.”
This was the part of all this which troubled him most. Any intelligence capable of star travel should have no problem translating linguacode. Its keys were universal constants like pi, simple molecular relationships, the speed of light—adolescents with schoolroom computers could easily make sense of it.
Every eye was on the main viewer. If something were going to attack Enterprise, it would happen soon.
“Five minutes to cloud boundary,” Ilia was saying.
“Pursuit acceleration now at warp eight point eight,” reported Sulu.
“Still no reply to friendship messages.” Uhura’s voice, like Sulu’s, reflected the strain they were all feeling. The naked-headed Deltan female appeared as devoid of emotion at this moment as a Vulcan. Then Kirk became aware that the Vulcan’s face was showing a flicker of expression. Spock seemed to be astonished by a reading at his console.
“Sir,” Spock said, rechecking the reading, “I have a preliminary estimate of a twelfth-power energy field emanating from the cloud . . . ”
“Twelfth power?!” Sulu interrupted in disbelief.
Kirk was feeling the same surprise. Twelfth-power energy was on a scale that could stop the Earth’s sun from rotating!
“There is definitely an object at the heart of the cloud,” Spock continued.
Kirk felt his muscles tightening, reacting to his thought that if the Intruder did not fire soon, then it understood Enterprise’s interception course to be peaceful. They were so close to the cloud now that its color patterns had a fierce glow, yet they were still uncountable trillions of trillions of kilometers away.
“Four minutes to cloud boundary,” reported Ilia.
The Enterprise was overtaking the cloud now from directly behind. The ship’s engines were beginning to reduce power. Surely any star traveler could not miss seeing that they intended to overtake the cloud very slowly . . .
The alarm Klaxon sounded.
“Incoming fire. Ahead zero mark zero,” said the computer voice.
They could see it erupting out of the cloud, a tiny point of writhing green energy. It was coming directly toward them.