“Incoming!” Sulu warned.
A trio of icy missiles threatened the colony. “I have them,” Ita reported. The slim Asian woman had recently transferred over from the U.S.S. Darrow. “Firing now.”
Sapphire beams targeted the first two meteoroids, which blew apart into — relatively — harmless hail. She hastily attempted to blast the remaining missile, too, but it was accelerating too fast. The massive hailstone cratered into the spaceport outside the dome. A cloud of shattered ice erupted from the shattered landing pad.
“Damn,” Ita muttered under her breath. She turned to look at Spock. “I’m sorry, sir. That last one got by me.”
Spock had observed her reactions carefully. “Why did you target the other two meteoroids first?”
“They seemed to be heading straight for the dome itself,” Ita replied. “I thought they posed the greater threat to colonists, sir.”
“Precisely so,” Spock agreed. “By my calculations, the meteoroids you destroyed were on course for more vulnerable targets. Do not fault yourself, Lieutenant. You made the correct choice.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Spock suspected that such decisions would become more difficult — and common — as time went by. Wide-dispersal blasts could be employed to target multiple hazards but only at the cost of reducing the overall intensity of the phasers. They would have to weigh the effectiveness of such a strategy against the need to ensure that no single large ice boulder breached the dome. None of which would matter if the entire moon ultimately spiraled into the crushing immensity of Klondike VI. The ship’s phasers and photon torpedoes were no match for the ringed giant’s gravity.
“Mr. Spock,” Uhura said. “Governor Dawson is hailing us. She wants an update on the situation.”
Spock understood her desire for fresh information. The destruction of the landing pad must have been a dramatic reminder of the danger her colony was in. He only wished he had a concrete solution to present to her.
“Please inform her that we are continuing our efforts to the best of our abilities.”
“I’ve tried, sir. She wants to talk to you.”
“Very well.” Spock accepted the interruption as unavoidable but decided that such a discussion was best conducted away from the bridge. “Please patch the frequency to the briefing room.” He thought ahead to the meeting. “And have Qat Zaldana report to the briefing room as well.”
The colony’s chief scientist was continuing to study the data from the shrinking hexagonal vortex on Klondike VI. No doubt Governor Dawson would want to hear from her, too.
“Aye, sir.”
He turned the captain’s chair over to Sulu, whose rest period was apparently going to have to wait. Ensign Brubaker assumed Sulu’s place at the helm.
“Notify me at once if there are any significant new developments,” Spock stated. “And divert additional power to the phasers.”
He did not want Skagway to be struck by an ice ball while he was conferring with the governor.
“Where is Captain Kirk?” Governor Dawson demanded. “I need to speak to him.”
She scowled in triplicate on the triscreen viewer in the briefing room. Spock and Qat Zaldana sat opposite each other. A sealed doorway ensured their privacy.
“My apologies, Governor,” he replied. “But, as I explained earlier, the captain is recovering from an accidental energy discharge. Our ship’s doctor has instructed that he not be disturbed.”
“That’s all very well and good,” Dawson objected, “but we’re fighting for our lives and home here, or have you forgotten that? I think that warrants ‘disturbing’ your captain.”
“The timing of the captain’s injury is unfortunate,” Spock said. “But the situation cannot be helped. I assure you that Captain Kirk would speak with you were he able.”
His answer was apparently not good enough for Dawson. Bypassing Spock, she directed her queries to Qat Zaldana instead. “What’s going on there, Qat? Have you seen the captain? What’s wrong with him? How bad is it?”
The veiled scientist paused before answering. “I have no reason to doubt Dr. McCoy’s assessment,” she said diplomatically. “Given the current emergency, he would not restrict the captain to bed rest unless it was absolutely necessary.” She spoke calmly, without excess emotion or dramatics. “In the meantime, Mr. Spock and the rest of the crew are working around the clock on our behalf. I believe we are in good hands.”
Spock was grateful for her measured words. She had, after all, seen “Kirk” behaving erratically after his contact with the probe. A vivid description of those events, including the captain’s apparent amnesia, would have done little to assure Governor Dawson that the situation aboard the Enterprise was under control. It seemed that Qat Zaldana also understood that.
“If you say so,” Dawson grumbled. “A hell of a time for Kirk to get himself banged up, though, I have to say.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t mean to sound uncaring, Mr. Spock, but right now I’ve got an entire colony on the verge of panicking, so you’ll forgive me if I can’t afford to worry about how your captain is feeling.”
“Understood,” Spock said. “The preservation of Skagway must remain your top priority… and mine. The Enterprise is devoting every resource to this crisis, as the captain would have us do.”
If he were truly here, he amended silently.
Spock remained troubled by the uncertainty regarding Kirk’s fate. Although he had no doubt where his duty lay at the moment, he could not help wondering what had become of his captain — and his friend.
Where are you, Jim? Do you still exist?
Governor Dawson called him back to the present emergency. “And have you made any progress?” she asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate all of that fine skeet shooting you’ve been doing, but we’re still getting pummeled down here, and our shields are about shot. And they tell me this entire moon is circling the drain.”
An apt metaphor, Spock thought. “That is correct. Your orbit is contracting steadily, and you can expect to enter the inner rings in forty-nine-point-eight standard hours.”
“Fantastic,” Dawson said sarcastically. “As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.” She gazed at Spock hopefully. “I don’t suppose that high-powered starship of yours can nudge us back where we belong?”
“Regretfully, no,” Spock said. “Our tractor beams are insufficient to the task.”
“I was afraid of that.” She didn’t sound too surprised. “So, what else have you got?”
Qat Zaldana spoke up. With Spock now occupied commanding the Enterprise, the bulk of the scientific analysis had fallen on her. “We’re still studying the situation, but we’ve determined that the trouble with the rings — and our moon — may have something to do with an unusual phenomenon we’ve detected down on the planet.”
“What phenomenon?”
Qat Zaldana explained about the apparently simul — taneous contraction of the hexagonal vortex at the planet’s pole. The governor was familiar with the land-mark, naturally, but was clearly uncertain about the significance of this development.