Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (26 page)

Her heart began to beat faster, but she fixed her gaze on him fearlessly and said, “Yes.”

He smiled faintly, pleased. “That is as it should be.” And he rose and stepped out from behind the desk.

She glanced up, uncertain what to expect; she rested her hand on the hidden phaser.

Klaa reached out to touch her face, and gently drew a fingertip over the soft skin between her jawline and neck.

“Morek expects you to distract me, does he? We must not disappoint him.”

She rose and embraced him.

Vixis woke to darkness and confusion.

A sound roused her—the sound of a door rushing open. For an instant of complete disorientation, she could not have said
which
door, or even where she was.

She struggled to sit up. As she did, her arm brushed against warm flesh: Klaa.

She remembered. She was in the captain’s quarters, on Klaa’s bed with the captain beside her, and the black figure in front of them, backlit by the dimly illuminated corridor, was Morek.

Vixis tensed with fear. In the doorway, the dark figure raised a weapon, clearly intending to kill them both.

Klaa spoke softly into her ear. “Do not be afraid. We are safe—”

A bolt of red pierced the darkness and imprinted itself on Vixis’s retinas, blinding her. For an instant she thought she had witnessed her own death. With the bolt came a cry of pain, anger, and defeat. The sound and light reverberated throughout the small cabin, then faded quickly.

She was still alive, though the sound of Morek’s death cry still reverberated in her ears and she saw nothing save a streak of dulling red, framed by darkness.

“Well done, Tarag!” Klaa exclaimed; his breath was warm against the skin of her neck.

Her vision cleared. Beyond the doorway of the
captain’s quarters, Tarag placed his phaser on his belt and saluted. “I am grateful, my lord.”

The door snapped shut.

Vixis released a great sigh and sank back into Klaa’s arms. She was not captain of the
Okrona,
but perhaps that was to her advantage—for with the discovery of the new shield design and the death of James Kirk, Klaa would be the Empire’s greatest hero . . . and Vixis, as his first officer and paramour, would share in his glory.

Seated at the helm, Sulu stared in awe at the fierce and beautiful sight on the main viewscreen.
Enterprise
had entered the area of giant starclusters known as the Great Barrier. The bridge glowed with the reflected brilliance of a thousand stars as the ship made her way through areas of stellar birth, through expanding blast waves from suns dying in glorious explosions.

Sulu himself felt poised on the verge of fear. He trusted Sybok utterly. But at the same time his rational mind told him that while the
Enterprise’s
shields might withstand a single phaser blast from a Klingon Bird of prey, they would not withstand the enormous onslaught of radiation from the galactic center.

Sulu watched as his hands, amazingly steady, held the ship on course.
I’m mad,
he told himself, yet for some reason he could not veer from the programmed heading. He did not want to. Sulu glanced back at the Vulcan, Sybok, who sat in the command chair, staring intently at the dazzling display of light and color on the screen. Next to Sybok stood the three diplomats, all of them focused on the sight as well. The Romulan,
Dar, looked exactly the way Sulu felt: moved, humbled . . . and frightened, but too enthralled by what was happening to try to stop it.

We’re
all
mad,
Sulu thought, and looked back at the screen. Behind him, Dar gasped softly.

The screen suddenly dimmed. Directly before them, a great black thundercloud of gas and dust reared its head.

Sulu’s rational mind knew that it was simply an accretion disk, an accumulation of stellar matter, and yet, for no comprehensible reason, the sight of it filled him with panic. He was convinced that the cloud was sentient,
evil . . .
and for an instant, he was on Ganjitsu again, and the black cloud was no longer stellar dust but smoke from the burning forests of Ishikawa. Sulu glanced at Chekov for reassurance, but Chekov’s brown eyes widened with terror at the sight of the dark specter confronting them.

“Behold the veil of darkness,” Sybok said. He spoke with the authority of a prophet. “Behold fear, in all its ugliness.”

Sulu averted his eyes, unable to bear the sight.

“Look,”
Sybok commanded, “and see what lies
beyond. ..
beyond the fear.”

Sulu quailed . . . and then, as he had done so long ago in the forest on Ganjitsu, he gathered himself. Through an act of sheer will, he forced himself to look. Through tiny gaps in the dark cloud, he saw flashes of intense brilliance, of incredible, blinding blue-white fire.

“Fear blocks the light within,” Sybok intoned. “A light brighter than ten million suns. Master your fear . . , and free the light within.”

The viewscreen went blank.

“Radiation levels were off the scale,” Chekov said, gazing down at his console. “The circuits have overloaded. We have no instrument readings.”

Sulu turned to face the Vulcan. “They say no ship can survive it,” he said, feeling a slow trickle of fear. His outward calm surprised him.

Sybok stood up. “I say they’re wrong. The danger is an illusion. Go beyond it. Full ahead, Mr. Sulu.”

Sulu paused, recalling the mindless panic that had seized him in the forest of Ishikawa . . . and how the thought of Mrs. Weisel had given him the strength to find his way home. He was thinking of her when he programmed Sybok’s order into the helm’s computer.

“Full ahead, aye,” Sulu said.

Enterprise
leapt into the abyss.

“The new shields are now operative, Captain,” Vixis reported from her station.

“Excellent,” Klaa said. “If all goes well, we will soon have an opportunity to test them. Activate.”

“Activating.”

Klaa’s gaze lingered admiringly on his first officer for an instant. On the bridge, her demeanor—which had been forthright and delightfully unrestrained in the privacy of his quarters—was once again consummately respectful and efficient He had done well to trust her.

“Captain!” Tarag cried excitedly.
“Enterprise
has entered the Barrier, and her shields appear to be holding!”

Klaa jumped up from his seat and strode over to the
helm, where Tarag sat next to Morek’s conspicuously vacant chair.

Okrona’s
main viewscreen displayed an awesome vision:
Enterprise,
bombarded by a flux of visible energy and light that pulsed brilliant spectral colors like an insane aurora borealis.

“Amazing,” Klaa whispered. The sight evoked within him an intense excitement. The chase was on; he would follow
Enterprise
into the unknown, destroy her, and return not only a hero but a discoverer as well. At the same time, he was filled with wonder and an awareness of his own insignificance compared to the cold, vast beauty of the cosmos.

“Captain!” Tarag exclaimed again.
“Enterprise
has disappeared! Our scanners have lost track of her.”

Klaa stared at the huge and terrible specter of the Barrier, then glanced at Vixis. Her expression only served to underscore the uncertainty Klaa felt.

He looked back at the viewscreen and made a decision.

“Follow,” he told Tarag.

On the forward observation deck, Jim Kirk stood with his friends and watched in helpless rage as
Enterprise
sailed into the Barrier. Starlight streamed through the viewing window; when it reached an unbearable degree of luminosity, Jim turned to Spock, who stood beside him. The Vulcan still gazed out at the dazzling panorama; Jim caught a glimpse of filmy nictitating membrane as it flashed in the Vulcan’s dark eyes.

“He’s really going to do it,” Jim said tightly. He
paced a few steps forward, then pivoted and paced a few steps back. He paused to glance at the two possible exits—one leading out to the corridor, the other to the ventilation shaft. Both were guarded on the other side by Sybok’s soldiers . . . and while Spock’s brother might have reservations about killing, Jim was certain the Nimban homesteaders did not.

Behind Spock and Kirk, McCoy sat glumly, one elbow on the communications console, with his chin propped on his fist. “What I want to know is,” the doctor said, “where the hell is the rescue ship?”

It had the ring of a rhetorical question, but Spock took it upon himself to reply.

“Unknown,” the Vulcan said, turning at last from the view. “Perhaps no ship was close enough to respond, or perhaps our communication was intercepted.”

Jim stopped in midpace. “Worst-case scenario: the Klingons intercepted it, but even
they’re
not crazy enough to follow us here.” He paused. “Spock, how much time before the shields give way?”

“Impossible to be precise, Captain, as the radiation levels are fluctuating greatly. Even if I had access to instruments that could measure the precise amount of radiation to which
Enterprise
has been exposed—”

“Get to the point,” Jim snapped. “I’d like to hear the answer before we die.”

Spock raised a brow in mild surprise and said, “There is no chance that the
Enterprise’s
shields will survive passage through the accretion disk. Bombardment levels will increase significantly.”

“Just tell me it’ll be fast,” McCoy said softly. “Just tell me I don’t have to . . .” His voice faltered.

Spock glanced questioningly at him. “You were saying, Doctor?”

“Dammit, Spock.” McCoy looked away, and said in a low voice, “I didn’t want to have to see you—you know. See it happen to you again. Once is enough.”

For a moment, Jim feared that the Vulcan would press McCoy for an explanation, but Spock questioned him no further. Instead, the Vulcan nodded at the observation window. Jim followed his gaze and saw the approaching darkness in the form of a huge, slightly irregular ring.
Interstellar dust,
Jim’s rational mind told him, but the sight of it repelled him; a more ancient part of his nervous system recoiled in fear at the sight of the malignant black mass. It was ugly, evil, and in the back of Jim’s brain, a hysterical voice told him that this thing would destroy them all.

“The thermal radiation, combined with the high-energy X and gamma rays should—” Spock broke off abruptly. His voice rose with puzzlement. “Quite frankly, Captain, there is absolutely no logical explanation as to why the ship has withstood it thus far. According to the laws of physics, we should not be alive.”

McCoy’s tone was faraway. “Maybe Sybok was right.”

Jim looked at the doctor sharply. “Maybe he was—but I can’t let him take that chance with
my
ship,
my
crew. Spock, maybe we can create a diversion before - it’s too late.”

The Vulcan appeared skeptical. “There are eight soldiers outside in the corridor and another five guarding the ventilation shaft. I do not believe that—”

“I won’t just stand here waiting to die along with my entire crew!”

“Jim, aren’t you listening?” McCoy asked. “We should already be dead . . . but we’re not.”

At that precise moment,
Enterprise
sailed into darkness.

The room went black. Jim held his breath and waited, grateful for the darkness. McCoy had voiced a terror that Jim had felt as well: he had seen his first officer die from direct exposure to high levels of gamma radiation. It was not a sight he cared to witness again . . . or experience himself.

Shows how right you were about dying alone . . .

The presence of Spock and McCoy should have been some consolation, but Jim felt totally isolated, unable to open his mouth and speak a final word of comfort and friendship. The darkness filled him with unfamiliar blind panic.

“Bones,” he whispered, reaching out in the darkness and catching hold of nothing. “Spock . . .”

Brightness streaked through the dust ring like lightning through a roiling thundercloud. The brightness flashed and grew. It seemed as though
Enterprise
had been caught in the midst of an incredible electrical storm, but she made her way through the turbulence as smoothly as if she sailed through empty space.

The cloud thinned and parted to reveal not the black hole Jim had feared but an area of utter calm, like the peaceful eye at the center of a hurricane.

In the midst of this serene spacescape a single planet rotated around a single white dwarf star. The planet was touchingly beautiful, as beautiful as the dust cloud had been hideous.

“My God,” McCoy whispered reverently. “He was
right.
Sybok was right.”

Awestruck, Jim stepped forward and rested his hand on the antique ship’s wheel. For a moment he stared, mesmerized by the sight before him. Then, inexplicably, his attention was drawn to the bronze plaque attached to the wooden spokes of the wheel. On the plaque was engraved the
Enterprise
charter. Jim’s gaze fell upon one phrase:
TO GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE.

He looked away, moved. His mind could not accept what was happening . . . and yet his heart accepted it gladly.

“Are we dreaming?” The doctor’s voice shook with emotion.

“If we are,” Jim replied, “then life
is
a dream.”

Of the three, Spock seemed the most stunned by what had transpired. His mask of self-control had vanished; he half frowned in open amazement at what lay beyond the observation window. “Fascinating,” he whispered. “Captain, I am at a loss to explain it. We should not have survived. And . . .” His voice trailed off. He struggled to regain his composure, then forced himself to continue. “This small solar system cannot be the source of power. Logically . . . logically, the source simply cannot be here.”

“Spock,” McCoy said, smiling at the vision of beauty before them, “I believe it’s high time to stop worrying about logic. I don’t think it’s important anymore.”

“Illusion?” Jim asked his first officer.

Spock considered this. “Possibly. The bridge’s sensors would be able to tell us. But even Sybok is
incapable of influencing all our minds to this extent.”