'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven' - Chapter 2
Marla had been looking idly around her quarters, deciding how best to occupy herself when she heard the announcement for the standby alert and the warning sirens.
She froze slightly as she attempted to remember the lessons from the Academy about what to do. Even though she had only been there a year ago, nothing was coming to her, everything in her mind went blank at the sound of the siren. In her short time on the Starbase, she had not taken part in any drills, although she had been given an orientation manual when she first arrived.
She did finally realize it was a standby alert, so she sat back down at the computer terminal to try and distract herself. That didn’t work for too long, so she paced her small quarters a few times, sat on her bed, and considered getting out her sketchbook so she could try and calm herself down, although when she looked at her hands, she realized it would just make matters worse. A short while of that and she still didn’t know exactly what to do and was sure there was a well-worn path in the flooring.
When the First Officer called for personnel to report to the transporter room, it took her a moment to realize that one of the names was her own. She was sure that when she answered her voice was noticeably shaky.
She quickly checked her computer and a short message came up about why she was required. It seemed they were investigating an unresponsive late 20th Century Earth vessel. She stared a moment at the screen, amazed at a vessel which was presumably that old being discovered just floating in space. She stumbled as she stood up and hurried over to collect her tricorder, ready to record everything about the ship. This was an amazing opportunity and one she thought she would never have access to, an actual ship in what appeared to be in original condition.
The other crew members were just vague shapes on the edges of her vision as she walked down the corridors of Deck Seventeen. She had only been on board a few months but she knew her way to the turbolift and waited patiently for it to arrive so she could take it to Deck Seven. She kept her eye on her tricorder in her hands the whole way until she was standing outside the doors to the transporter room.
As the door opened, she saw the Chief Medical Officer, Dr. McCoy, and the Captain himself standing by the transporter control panel. Behind the panel, she saw the Chief Engineer and a transporter officer whom she didn’t recognize. The men had ignored her entrance while they talked among themselves. She wasn’t sure what to make of being included on a landing party with such senior officers, let alone being on a landing party for the first time in her life.
There were four other crew-members she didn’t recognize holding xenobio-containment suits. One of them approached her and handed over a phaser. She looked at the other officers and they all had phasers. She had training with the weapon but was a little hesitant in accepting it.
The suit was not offered to her, but considering what was being said by Lieutenant Commander Scott, it was obvious why this was the case.
“Well, it looks like that ship was expecting us. Heat’s coming on, complete oxygen atmosphere,” he said as he looked at the other two senior officers.
“Very interesting,” Captain Kirk replied as he looked at his CMO, who, as she remembered from the news reports when it first broke, was also his partner. Everyone at the Academy could talk of nothing else and she had retreated back into her history studies, not interested in gossiping with the others. She had been only in her first year at the Academy then and it had been a confusing time for her.
The Captain slapped Dr. McCoy on the shoulder and walked over to the transporter pad, his hand moving to check that his phaser was secure at his side. “You ready, Bones?”
“No. I signed aboard this ship to practice medicine, not to have my atoms scattered back and forth across space by this gadget,” Dr. McCoy complained as he reluctantly followed the Captain and stood on a pad to the Captain’s right.
“You're an old-fashioned boy, Bones.” The Captain smiled at him, while Marla heard Lieutenant Commander Scott failing to hide a laugh, as he too walked over to the pad.
“We haven’t lost you yet, doctor,” Lieutenant Commander Scott pointed out as Marla hurried up to join them on the pad, taking position on the Captain’s left.
“McGivers, sir. Reporting for duty,” she said quietly. She took her position on the transporter pad as the doctor responded to Lieutenant Commander Scott’s comment.
“There’s always a first time and then it will be my last time,” Dr. McCoy grumbled.
“At ease, Lieutenant. Energize.” Captain Kirk smiled at her. Moments later there was the white swirl of light, the unique sound of the transporter winding up and then they were no longer on the Enterprise.
oOo
As the view came into focus, Jim quickly looked around, checking for any signs of danger. They were in the middle of a T-junction and from what he could see, the ship was a warren of corridors. All along the corridors were compartments with a clear window, and in each of them lay a person, presumably a human. A pale violet light, of the type which certain plants required, was shining on the faces of the people. They were dressed in a gold mesh all-in-one and they appeared to be fast asleep.
The walls were a dullish grey and so was the flooring. It wasn’t like the Enterprise. The vessel was clean though, no debris littering the corridors and there wasn’t a cobweb to be seen anywhere. It was almost a little too clean and spartan and Jim was not going to let his guard down. He could hear Bones’ tricorder beeping as he took recordings.
“The air, Bones?” he asked.
“All clean and exceptionally so. The purification system must still be working well.” Bones sounded a little surprised, but Jim was used to Bones being continually surprised while on missions. The man did try to hide behind a cynic’s statement on most occasions, while Jim knew deep down what he was really like. He was someone who cared deeply for people, but tried to hide it.
“Scotty?” Jim asked next as he turned to see where Scotty was. The man hadn’t let him down-- he had found a control panel and was thoroughly inspecting it.
“Definitely Earth-type mechanism, sir,” Scotty reported. “Twentieth century vessel. Old type atomic power as suspected. Bulky, solid. I think they used to call them transistor units. I'd love to tear this baby apart. How this ship survived is a miracle.”
Scotty was true to himself and at another time, Jim might have chuckled at Scotty’s words, but past experience had him feeling a little uneasy and on his toes.
“Captain, it appears to be a sleeper ship,” Lt. McGivers whispered, a reverent tone to her voice. She was reaching one hand out toward the glass and the sleeping woman behind it.
Jim stepped over to stand with her, noting that her hand was still hovering over the glass, as if she was afraid to touch it, and that if she did, then it would then prove to be nothing but a mirage. “Suspended animation,” he said aloud, remembering Cochram’s History of Space Travel.
“Yes, I've seen old photographs of this. Deemed necessary because of the time involved in space travel until about the year 2018. It took years just to travel from one planet to another.” She was passionate in the recitation of her knowledge of the past.
Jim nodded as she explained the reasoning behind it but it also made him realize he was happy in this time and with their ability to travel at the speeds they now could. If he was born back in the 20th Century, he would have likely gone mad from impatience to explore the universe and having to put oneself into suspended animation. What sights and new discoveries did they miss being in the state they were in?
“Is it possible they're still alive after centuries of travel?” he asked as he looked around.
From where he stood, he could see twelve bodies in compartments and with the size of the ship it was likely that there would be a large number, possibly up to a hundred people and all from the past. This confirmed Bones’ earlier prediction of about sixty or seventy bodies. It was no wonder Lt. McGivers had a look of wonder and reverence on her face, which was similar to how Bones looked whenever he found a new cure which no one else had even thought of before.
“It's theoretically possible,” Bones said as he joined the two of them in looking at the woman. “I've never heard of it being tested for this long a period, though.”
Jim noted that Bones was looking a little harder at the woman, probably checking to see if she was dead, alive, or in stasis, although Jim noted that from his naked eye he couldn’t tell the difference between the first and the last. She was a fairly attractive blonde, who had a bit of the look of Jocelyn about her. Jim watched Bones carefully but he was only looking back down at his tricorder again.
“What a handsome group of people,” Lt. McGivers stated as she turned to look at the other compartments, a wide smile on her face. Jim tried to remember the right analogy for the moment and then it came to him. Like a kid in a candy shop she was.
“Jim, I have a new reading. The lights must have triggered some mechanism,” Bones said.
Jim stepped over to look down at Bones’ tricorder for himself, while his hand drifted to rest just above his phaser. He looked back over his shoulder and Scotty was following the pattern of lights on the panel, trying to make sense of such dated technology.
“Captain, look here,” Lt. McGivers called. She had walked over to another area and as Jim joined her, he could see there were more lights on in that compartment. It was illuminating a dark-haired man with a middle-eastern or asian ancestry. He was as handsome as the others, which they could see lying in the compartments like a parody of the sleeping beauty stories.
“Scotty?” Jim asked.
“Beats me what's happening,” Scotty said as he walked over. “I think we need Lt. Uhura to come over and see if she can talk ‘Past Engineering Standard.’”
Jim smothered a laugh. In the height of a perilous moment, he could trust in his Chief Engineer to make a comment which would raise at least a smile.
“We've triggered something, all right,” Bones reported. “His heartbeat's increasing. Now passing eight beats per minute. There are some signs of respiration beginning.”
Jim looked intently at the man. Sure enough, his chest was slowly moving up and down very slowly.
“This one was probably programmed to be triggered first,” Scotty pointed out.
“Yes, sir. Feester hypothesized that the leader was often set to revive first,” Lt. McGivers said. “This would allow them to decide whether the conditions warranted revival of the others.”
“Heartbeat now approaching forty per minute. The respiration pattern is firming up,” Bones reported.
“Makes sense,” Jim offered, studiously avoiding the use of the word ‘logical’.
“Heart beat now fifty two and increasing,” Bones added.
With the process of bringing the man out of stasis being so slow, it was probably a good thing, Jim thought. Too fast and the body may not have coped with it so well as it had been suspended for 200 years.
“The others?” Jim asked as he looked around, but only the one compartment they were standing in front of was fully lit. The rest still had the single purple light illuminating each face.
“There's no change,” Scotty said as he turned and walked over to the other compartments.
“A man from the twentieth century coming alive.” Jim heard Lt. McGivers whisper in reverence.
“Maybe,” Bones contradicted. “His heartbeat is dropping.”
“Circuit shorting?” Jim guessed, bending over to get a better look into the compartment. There was no clue as to how the man was being triggered. The walls were smooth and looked like a simple box. Jim didn’t want to think they were almost coffin-like, but it was the closest description. There was a tiny gap around the front panel where it presumably would open but there was nothing obvious which would make it open.
“Probably some dust causing a small break in the circuit,” Scotty offered as an explanation.
“Heartbeat now thirty, dropping fast. It's a heart flutter. He's dying,” Bones announced, not once looking up from his tricorder, his voice at the end betraying his feelings. Bones hated to lose a patient.
“Captain, please do something,” Lt. McGivers requested.
Jim looked at Bones and Scotty before he glanced back at the compartment. There was nothing he could see which could possibly be a release mechanism. “Can we?”
“It'd take an hour to figure it out,” Scotty said as he knelt down to get a closer look at the compartment as well.
“What happens if we get him out of there?” Jim asked.
“Jim, he'll die in seconds if we don't,” Bones said as he knelt down by the compartment, running a hand over the joint.
Jim looked around for anything he could use to break the glass, then he remembered what he saw by the control panel which Scotty had been looking at earlier. He rushed over and pulled out the metal bar. As he headed back to the compartment, Scotty and Bones stood up and away from it, knowing what he was planning. Lt. McGivers was still standing in the same spot though, far enough that Jim didn’t need to warn her to move away. He stepped up to the glass by the man’s feet, figuring that shattering the glass in the precise area would hopefully minimize any injury to the man. He checked to make sure none of the others were in the way of his swing. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but there wasn’t much time for another option.
He swung and, blessedly, he felt the glass crack a bit on the first swing. It took another two swings to get the glass to shatter. He scraped the metal bar around the opening to create a wider space for him to reach into the compartment. Scotty was waiting next to him as he stepped forward. He handed over the metal bar to Scotty and felt carefully around the door, seeking a trigger to open it, otherwise they would have to try and just pull it open and he wasn’t sure they had time for it. His fingers found a small depression and he pushed at it, hoping it was the trigger. It was, and he had to pull his arm out quickly as the door opened, the top lowering down and then the bed that the man was resting on slid out automatically.
Bones was already at the side, tricorder beeping madly as he monitored. Jim kept one hand on his phaser while he grabbed his communicator with the other and flipped it open. He could feel himself tense as the man gasped and opened his eyes. Bones leaned closer, a grim look on his face, but the readings weren’t obviously too life threatening at the moment. Jim felt the tense presences of Scotty and Lt. McGivers standing next to him.
“How long?” the man managed to gasp out as he looked at Jim. He spoke standard and his voice had an accent to it, but Jim couldn’t pinpoint exactly what sort.
“How long have you been sleeping? Two centuries we estimate.” Jim ignored the look from Bones about revealing the information. If he had been put in stasis and he was woken up with strange people standing over him, he would at least want to know the basics for his own peace of mind. “Boarding party to Enterprise. Come in,” Jim said as he hailed the Enterprise.
“Go ahead, boarding party. We read you,” Uhura replied.
“Lock in on McCoy's beam and the person next to him,” Jim ordered. “He's transporting back with a casualty we discovered here.”
“Yes, sir,” Uhura acknowledged. “Medical has been notified. Uhura, out.”
As Bones leaned forward to help the man sit up, the white light of transport started to surround them both. The last view Jim had in that moment was of Bones looking back at him, with surprise and frustration fighting to become the dominant look.
oOo
Chapter 3 this way