Beyond the Veil KS ADVENT 2015
Beyond the Veil
Stonehenge 2265 Alternate timeline
Winter Solstice
Captain James T. Kirk watched as the old Vulcan stumbled. The pathway had given way to a grassed area and the cold night air had begun to frost the vegetation. Selek’s gait was none too steady and his frame seemed frail to the young Captain.
The Enterprise command crew had been honoured guests at the inauguration of the New Kelvin Archive. It was now one of several repositories of the combined knowledge of the Federation members, a decision taken to ensure that the culture and biology of each world could not be lost should any member be subject to a planetary catastrophe. Ambassador Selek had been instrumental in developing the computing capacity for the undertaking.
Elder Selek had insisted that the administrators use the backdrop of one of the most famous monuments of Old England for the post inauguration gathering, which was why they were walking from the transporter station towards the great monolithic edifice, Stonehenge, Selek had called it.
Privately James Kirk was baffled at the choice of the location. He himself found greater attraction in the wonders of the Mediterranean civilisations particularly the Philosophy and politics of Ancient Greece and the mythology of the heroes. Prehistoric civilisation and the preserver puzzle enthralled Spock more than he, though his First Officer would never have admitted to the notion of such an emotion.
Selek glanced skyward. The interplay of the great oceans and the gravitational pull of Luna Earth’s satellite was always an unpredictable quantity, yet on this night the weather favoured them; the sky was clear and the stars hung like the proverbial diamonds of a nursery rhyme his mother used to sing. But it was not her voice that echoed through his mind, Jim used to sing a lot; mostly out of key…….
“Lucy in the Sky with di..a…a..monds”
The old Vulcan followed the crowd towards the great monoliths, the moon, at perigee, seemed to take up more of the sky than usual forming a bright disc as it rose over the monument. A recent minor eruption in the Icelandic fire-field had modified the atmospheric refraction and Luna appeared reddened. Like the Watcher he mused now a lone remnant of a lost world endlessly orbiting Eridani 40 searching for its dead partner.
“Elder, please take care, the pathway is a little uneven.”
Grateful for the chance to rest, the older Vulcan stopped, allowing the command team to reach his position, gratefully accepting the hand proffered to him by Jim’s younger counterpart. On the way to the monument they had been discussing the various theories about the structure’s utility. Selek recalled with amusement how surprised the young Captain had been to find that he did not hold with the astrological theories but believed that the metaphysical had more support.
“Ambassador, I am appalled, those theories are fanciful and there is no factual basis, no evidence to support your position.”
“I see your bondmate’s personality has infiltrated your mind far more extensively than I thought possible,” rejoined the Ambassador.
“Come on Spock, help me out here.”
“I concur with the Ambassador.”
“What?!!”
“Whilst there is no doubt the monument is engineered with astro-navigational precision, perhaps previous theories have been a little ‘three’ dimensional.
Ambassador Selek smiled inwardly; Amanda’s loss had changed Spock for the better. Sarek’s mind-set had not been so rigidly Vulcan in this universe and knowing the love of his father had enabled his counterpart to embrace the duality of his heritage much earlier.
As they neared the observation area, Selek slowed and indicated a bench. “My health is not what it was; if you do not mind I will wait here. Please go and watch the Solstice ceremony, I have seen it before and it would be unfair to take up a seat that another could use.”
He nodded towards Dr McCoy who had caught up with the party and watched the trio moving purposefully towards the observation area.
Kirk’s voiced carried over.
“I still think it looks a little like the “Place of Bonding, on New Vulcan.”
Spock settled himself and began the preparatory steps for his final meditation, his mind caught in a memory of the first time he had seen the structure.
Stonehenge 2237 Original timeline
“Spock, attend.”
Sarek’s sonorous voice carried across the central area of the monument. It was a rare privilege to be permitted to walk amongst the stones, especially if one was not engaged in the druidic rituals that marked the summer and winter solstice celebration. Spock’s father, as Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, and a direct descendant of Solkar, the Captain of the T’Planna Hath, was guest of honour at the First Contact remembrance. That year the Astronavigation Department of the University of Cambridge had hosted the occasion. The final ceremony had been at the monument and the invitation had also been extended to accompanying guests.
Spock walked with purpose towards the point at which his father stood, knowing that he would be expected to demonstrate his knowledge of the origins of the megaliths and the theories which had been suggested to explain the construction and purpose of the structure. He was not anxious, as he was confident that his studies had been adequate. However he had found the structure strangely disconcerting.
As they walked back towards the waiting transport his mother hung back a little.
“What do you really think, Spock?”
His mother had always been able to pick up the undercurrent of his emotions no matter how hard he had tried to suppress it. As a linguist she was skilled not just in the nuances of the spoken word but also in the postures and expressions that accompanied the same. Her son was not responding with awe as she had expected. She wished to know what troubled him. Holding out her fingers in the embrace of family, she attempted to convey to her son that he could speak without censure.
“It reminds me of the ancestral grounds……. the place of Koon-ut-Kalifee.”
The pause conveyed much, a brief shadow had passed over his mother’s face. Sometimes his mother forgot that children have ears and those of Vulcan children are exquisitely sensitive. He already knew that his mother had not wished the childhood bonding that was to take place on their return. It was the Vulcan way, there was no other option.
Stonehenge 2271 Original timeline
He had not returned to the monument until his 41st year, the year of their bonding. They had elected to mark the occasion with a simple ceremony at the Vulcan Embassy in San Francisco. Neither man had desired to return to the place of Koon-ut-Kalifee. Some would have suggested their response was illogical, that logic cast out fear, but ignoring fear was also foolish. Jim had spoken of tempting fate. Spock rationalised the decision on the basis that since Starfleet had drawn them together it was more fitting to celebrate their union in that city. In truth, he too did not want the occasion marred by the recollection of how close he had come to causing the demise of the man that even then he had named T’hy’la.
Practically, it had also made sense; a journey to Vulcan would have left them with little time for a Honeymoon. He recalled with humour how he had asked Dr McCoy to clarify the meaning of the idiom and how his friend’s embarrassment had given way to ire when he realised that Spock knew exactly what a honeymoon entailed.
His Jim had been intrigued by the theories surrounding the building of the stone circle. Kirk had always had a breadth of thought and analytic ability that had enabled connections that left others running to keep up. It was only later in life that Spock would see these intuitive leaps as a unique brand of logic that he had labelled, “Kirkian heuristics,” a discipline that he delved into frequently when standard logic failed.
It has been during that brief visit that Jim suggested temporal physics might hold the explanation for the ley line concept so beloved of druidic worshipers. Perhaps, Kirk had mused, the unique magnetic core of the planet might create a space time vortex at certain geographical points and times in the planet’s rotation.
The idea that the solstice was a time when the “Veil” between dimensions was thin - a time when the living and the “Gone before” might communicate - appealed to Kirk’s sense of the poetic. However it was anthropology that the Admiral had drawn on to further the argument, citing several cultures both on Earth and on other worlds that spoke of communing with the dead at particular times in the planetary cycle.
“Maybe that is the nature of the Guardian porthole; perhaps there are vortices or nexus phenomena throughout the Galaxy, perhaps civilisations have always built structures at those points.”
How strangely prophetic.
Stonehenge 2282 Original Timeline
He had not visited Stonehenge again until 2293 but Jim had, Jim had spoken of the event when he had reactivated his commission and returned to Starfleet.
At the end of their second deep space mission Admiral Kirk had taken a leave of absence to care for his mother whose health and mental state had deteriorated to a level where she could no longer function alone. They had spent much of the year before Winona’s passing. A secret mission to Hellgard had taken him off planet at that point, and for some time he had assumed that decision had been the cause of the rift between them. The truth was far more devastating.
A chance meeting at his mother’s funeral confirmed for Jim that the deterioration of mental capacity he had experienced after Gamma Hydra IV was no fluke but represented a genuine future.
The funeral attendees were departing as a Starfleet member Winona’s funeral was marked with full military honours as her ashes were laid to rest beside her husband at the Riverside Fleet Memorial. He had not realised how many lives she had affected and though saddened at her passing he was proud of what she had achieved.
He was brought out of his reverie by a middle aged blonde woman who handed him a cup of coffee.
“You look like you could use this”
“Dr…… Dr Kalomi, I did not realise that you ….”
“Your mother was my teacher at the academy, she stimulated my interest in botany and she who encouraged me to keep going after…….”
“Did you find someone?”
“Yes, once I shed the effects of the Spores and my embarrassing crush I was free to move on. Elias and I married a year later and joined the terraforming programme.”
“Is he here with you I would love to hear more about how that project is going?”
But Elias was not there he had died prematurely the previous year. The “Berthold Dementia Effect,” Dr Kalomi had called it.
A genetic predisposition she had explained, which would have had little effect had he lived his life on Earth had been triggered by exposure to Berthold rays on Omicron Ceti III. The rays had initiated protein disruption that would reach critical damage levels as he aged.
“Let’s keep in touch,” Leila took her leave not realising the devastation that she had wrought.
Jim hadn’t known it before reviewing his mother’s papers after her demise. Her last space mission had been in 2260 ferrying colonists to Omicron Ceti III.
One of the advantages of a string of ex-lovers is that there is usually someone with expertise that you can call on, someone who will maintain privacy. Jim had sought out Dr Jan Wallace who rapidly determined that her ex-lover had the same genetic predisposition as his mother. He was facing a sword of Damocles.
That realisation had as profound an effect on Kirk as Spock’s abortive attempt to burn away his own love in the fiery hell of Gol. Jim had resigned from Starfleet; they had parted for three long years as Kirk came to terms with this demon. But for the intervention of Dr McCoy Jim would have wed Antonia, woman that he had met during that time apart; but that was another tale one that Spock no longer wished to dwell upon.
Stonehenge 2293 Original timeline
The visit they had made together after their bonding had been at the summer solstice; a time of light, of renewal and of the sense of a life together that would go on for many years. The last visit had been the nadir.
Over the previous year Admiral Kirk had become forgetful….
At first Dr McCoy had brushed aside Spock’s worries blaming the pressures of the final months of the last mission, their incarceration on Rura Penthe and the events at Khitomer. In retrospect, Jim’s behaviour during the final mission had been unusually petulant and his emotional control less tight than normal, his anger towards the Klingons untempered by his usual ability to focus on the possible good in all.
They had completed the post mission debriefing and looked ahead to a period of extended leave before decisions would have to be made about future postings and roles. There was just the final formal dinner to get through.
Spock had exited the sonic, vacating the bathroom for Kirk. Their dress uniforms hung ready for wear. It would be the last time that Spock would wear such formal dress; as Federation Ambassador in future he would dress in the formal wear of his home planet. Smoothing the jacket down he brushed it over with a soft clothes brush. Jim had often teased him about such fastidious neatness.
Turning to brush his bondmate’s jacket he noticed immediately that the medals had been placed out of sequence. Jim exited the shower and watched pensively as Spock neatly re-pinned the awards. A simple touch between them, conveyed what they both knew, the deterioration could no longer be ignored.
The neural scan before their departure on leave confirmed the re-emergence of the micro-tangles that had been detected on the scan McCoy had taken as part of the medical workup following the fateful mission to Gamma Hydra IV.
A detour on their return from leave had taken them to Stonehenge for the Winter Solstice: a bittersweet occasion. Spock found that he could not recall the ceremony but there was one conversation that was indelibly written in his memory. As “Sol Invictus” rose, the two of them had walked in silence towards the transportation hub. Jim had been pensive.
“Speak your mind.”
“Spock, promise me this, when it is near your life’s end, come here once again. If the legends about this place are true and humans have an eternal soul, I will be waiting. “
Yosemite 2287 Original timeline
A camping trip long ago had marked a time of confessions and sharing. Jim had quipped on an earlier trip that he, Spock, and McCoy were the surety against Kirkian demise: If they were present he was safe.
However it had been the second trip, the second campfire gathering, when Jim had exacted a promise from his bondmate and his friend.
“I’ve always known that I would die alone, but I didn’t understand why, not until I knew the events of Gamma Hydra IV would be my reality.
“Bones….. Spock,” Kirk had grasped both their hands in his. “You both know that my life is going to be limited by more than just my being a mere Earther. When I go, I don’t want to drift into senility I want to die making a difference. If either of you are there you will do everything you can to save me.
“When this time comes I want you: I need you both to let me go.”
San Francisco 2293 Original timeline
Jim retired receiving the title of honorary Admiral. He took the occasional command class at the academy as visiting lecturer until even the stabilising effect of regular melding could no longer ensure that he remained lucid for long enough. Though relatively well during daylight, Kirk’s frustration at his deteriorating mental capacity manifested itself in uncharacteristic violent outbursts especially during the sundown period. He did not sleep and paced endlessly when awake as if desperately trying to remember something.
More than once McCoy had suggested respite, but Spock would not leave. Jim had spoken about the surety that he would die alone; it was illogical, but it was as if being nearby, Spock imagined he would be able to delay his bondmate’s death. Maybe McCoy would find a cure before the inevitable time.
McCoy drew the line when a paranoid psychotic episode left Spock with a broken arm; Jim had smashed the bathroom door against his lover and had refused further melds.
Then Amanda had died
McCoy had insisted he travel to Vulcan for the memorial.
“Don’t worry, we will look after Jim, Scotty and Chekov are here. Spock you need the break, you are no use to Jim in the state you are in.”
“The Enterprise B…..”
“Spock you will be back in time for the launch.”
Montgomery Scott watched as Admiral Kirk dropped from the sky, Spock would kill him. How had they both let themselves be conned into this. They had driven out to the old Kirk ranch in Iowa and then on to a bar near the Riverside Starfleet facility for a wee dram. How were they to know that it was next to an orbital drop facility and that Kirk had arranged to be transported up to a geosynchronous platform?
That was not the only dangerous activity he ordered them to accompany him on. Barrel rolling, climbing the mast of a square-rigger, skiing off piste whilst pissed: Babysitting the Admiral was becoming a nightmare. Yet the daredevil stunts seemed to be doing him some good. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush Chekov mused, recalling how he personally had avoided the ravages of aging. The Admiral was sleeping better and appeared to be less agitated. He even managed to record a holographic birthday greeting for Spock, though the brief period of lucidity had not improved his singing voice.
Launch of the Enterprise B 2293 Original Timeline
The reception was marred by static, but he had managed to convey to his colleagues that an ion storm would delay his arrival at Lunaport. Though he would get back to earth in time for the reception he would miss the inaugural launch flight of the Enterprise B. Scott and Chekov assured him that they would look after Admiral. McCoy was to meet the shuttle and they would join Scott and Pavel when the Enterprise re-docked.
The trouble started when the Enterprise B crew arrived on the bridge, Kirk was able to cope well when with friends and in a quiet familiar environment but Harriman, ever one to score some image points, had turned the event into a media circus.
Each step of the way Scott observed increased the captain’s agitation, his words became more terse then downright rude. Scott grimaced. He doubted that they would get through this media show with Kirk’s reputation intact, cursing the fact they had not pulled out the minute they knew Spock would not be there to stabilise the admiral’s mental state.
Jim was fazed, confused and did not recognise Demora. Only Chekov’s quick thinking managed to hide Kirk’s condition. At least he did not say something regrettable and in ear-shot of the media when invited to “Give the order.”
Things went from bad to disastrous; an energy ribbon and a compromised vessel and an attempted rescue by a Starship that should never have been taken out of dry dock. Scott watched Jim pace as Harriman dithered; he sincerely hoped that Kirk would choose not to take the centre seat. Yet when Kirk made the move a remarkable sense of lucidity descended over the man whilst Harriman crumbled.
When Kirk vacated the chair Soctt thought they were done for, and infectual captain and an Admiral whose faculties were only temporarily clear. At least with Kirk off the bridge his parlous mental state parlous would renain undetected, if anyone surviced to report the events of the inaugural voyage. Scott prayed for a miracle but prepared for death.
Lunaport 2293: Original Time Line
When Spock finally arrived at Lunaport, McCoy ushered him away from the crowded concourse and instructed an ensign to transport the ambassador’s bags to the embassy. Walking towards the officers’ lounge he briefed Spock on the events taking place at 310 Mark 215.
"We will have to wait , let's find somewhere to sit down.........” McCoy didn’t finish the sentence as Spock recalled that he had been near collapse. The doctor, thinking fast, hit the access panel to a nearby private meeting room and dragged him within sealing the facility in the face of the posse of media employees.
It had happened twice before, both times when there was grave danger; a voice across space, an unmistakeable voice.
“Spock I need your help.”
He could see the panel front of Jim, the control panel for the forward deflector array. A memory flash, Scott’s supposition that a resonance burst from the main deflector dish might enable them to break free of the energy ribbon.
“Spock, now would be a good time.”
Spock’s mind, Kirk’s hands, the ship shuddered and shook as the quantum physics and Newtonian mechanics combined to force the Enterprise B free from danger. Spock slumped back on his heels. So close; he had come so close to losing Jim.
He could feel Kirk’s exhilaration and then the tearing of metal met the tearing of a bond and a pain like nothing that he had ever known before ripped through every part of him. The last wisp of thought
I always knew I would…………….die………alone.
Stonehenge 2385 Original timeline
The last time he had visited the monument in his own universe he had travelled incognito. There was no logic in the decision, but there was an emotional need for the ancient stones to be a witness. What he was about to do would likely brand him as a traitor. But he would not live long enough to experience the consequences.
The mission was a gamble, the science untested, but if there was even a small chance that the effects of a supernova in the Romulan Star System could be averted, it would be worth it.
He had already behaved reprehensibly, an odd touch with shields lowered, a conversation overheard; he knew that the outcome of the debate was a foregone conclusion. The Federation perceived red matter not as a force for good as he had intended, but as a weapon of awesome destructive power, and of course they feared its hijack and an altered balance of power, more than the effects of the supernova on the Romulan people.
Spock had made his decision; he would act without support. A Federation that would not sanction its use for good did not deserve to have Red Matter at all. He was half way to Romulus when the holo projector he had installed at Vulcan Space Central failed and the “Jellyfish” apparently docked there winked out exposing his theft. For the second time in his life Starships were scrambled to intercept a renegade.
The debate had wasted precious time, though he had managed to disrupt the nova sufficiently to restrict its destructive power, it was too late to prevent the loss of the Romulan home world, and his arrival was too late to maximise survival by evacuation. The pain of failure and the regret that he had not been able to execute this plan earlier was the last thought on his mind as the Jellyfish slid over the event horizon and into gravity well where he had envisaged the red matter would remain trapped like a Titan.
However physics is not always predictable; there is always uncertainty.
Stonehenge 2265 Alternate timeline
The meditation was proving ineffective his mind was clouding; he stood to, pace a while. He had taken up the habit after Jim’s death, finding it soothing to the spirit. An irrational urge to touch one of the great stones entered his mind.
Strange, he found his joints freer than they had been for some time; he stepped toward the stone and saw Jim, at first like a mirage in interphase but then slowly forming, solidifying.
He looked back at his old frame, wrapped for warmth in the burial robe that they had kept since Genesis, Jim called him impatiently.
“Come”
“Where are we going, Jim?”
“The undiscovered country.”