Star Trek: The Rings of Time
Read Star Trek: The Rings of Time Online
Authors: Greg Cox
2020
The
U.S.S. Lewis & Clark
, under the command of Colonel Shaun Christopher, sets off on humanity’s first manned mission to Saturn. But the unexpected presence of a stowaway complicates the mission—as does a startling encounter with an alien probe. But when Colonel Christopher attempts to capture the probe, he suddenly finds himself transported across time and space to a future era of space exploration. . . .
Stardate 7103.4
The
U.S.S. Enterprise
responds to an urgent distress call from a mining colony orbiting Klondike VI, a ringed gas giant not unlike Saturn. For unknown reasons, the planet’s rings are coming apart, threatening the safety of the colony and its inhabitants. Searching for a way to avert the disaster, Captain James T. Kirk and his crew investigate a mysterious alien probe that has just entered the system. But when the probe is beamed aboard, Kirk abruptly finds himself floating in space above Saturn, wearing an old-fashioned NASA spacesuit, with the
Enterprise
nowhere in sight. . . .
Two missions. Two crews. And a time-twisting crisis that spans the centuries. . . .
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“BUT I THOUGHT YOU SAID THIS PROBE DID NOT MATCH
ANY IN OUR COMPUTER BANKS?”
“May I remind you, Captain, that little is known of the Preservers and their technology. It is possible that a more rigorous examination may turn up subtle similarities between this probe and the obelisk, but they were apparently constructed of different materials, possibly at different points in the Preservers’ history and development. Certainly, we lack the data to identify their relics easily.”
“But these markings do look the same?” Kirk asked impatiently. He searched his memory, trying to remember exactly what the hieroglyphics on the obelisk had looked like. Spock had eventually deduced that they had corresponded to musical notes. “Don’t they?”
“Yes, sir,” Spock conceded. “They do.”
Overcome with emotion, Kirk reached out to touch the symbols.
“Captain! Wait!”
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Pocket Books paperback edition February 2012
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ISBN 978-1-4516-5547-6 (print)
ISBN 978-1-4516-5549-0 (eBook)
Dedicated (in advance)
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One
June 28, 2020
“Launch minus five minutes . . .”
The space shuttle
Renaissance
faced the early-morning sky at Cape Canaveral. Its enormous fuel tanks and boosters dwarfed the vessel as it towered over the launch pad. The launch tower pulled away, leaving the shuttle and its booster rockets clear for flight. It was a beautiful morning, the last Colonel Shaun Christopher would see for more than six months. It would be winter the next time he set foot on Earth.
Assuming all goes well,
he thought.
Inside the cockpit, Shaun was strapped into his seat, staring up at the nose of the ship. A flight suit and helmet provided meager protection from the titanic forces about to be unleashed. The Atlantic Ocean could be glimpsed out the starboard window. A pair of old-fashioned military dog tags dangled above the lighted instrument panel in front of him. A good-luck charm, the tags had accompanied him into space before.
“Ready to go, Colonel?” the pilot sitting next to him said. Commander Shirin Ludden was among the first
of a new breed of shuttle pilots. She seemed shockingly young to Shaun, who was in his early fifties.
“You tell me,” he answered. “I’m just a passenger on this flight.”
Despite their banter, the launch procedure continued on schedule. The sound-and-heat-suppression system fired up far below the cockpit, but Shaun could feel the vibration from all that water where he was sitting. He and Ludden closed the visors on their flight helmets. He took a deep breath of piped-in oxygen. The entire shuttle trembled as the launch engines gradually came online. Shaun felt a familiar excitement growing inside him.
The
Renaissance
had been intended to be the first in a new fleet of second-generation shuttles, but then the aerospace bubble had gone bust, cratering the economy again and creating entire districts of homeless people in many of the world’s cities. The latest round of budget cuts had left the
Renaissance
as a one-of-a-kind prototype, kept alive primarily by private investors and international partners who couldn’t afford to build ships on their own. She was an impressive vessel, state-of-the-art. A shame she had to fly alone.
Still, at least she would get him where he was going.
“Launch minus ten seconds . . .”
The engines ignited, and the shuttle strained to escape the eight-inch metal bolts holding it down. The spaceplane swayed violently before turning its nose back up toward the sky. Computerized systems
went through their paces. Even though Ludden was nominally the pilot, the launch was out of her hands now. Rattling inside the cockpit, Shaun braced himself for what came next. A grin spread across his rugged face.
This never got old.
“Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”
Liftoff!
Explosive charges blew away the hold-down bolts. The
Renaissance
blasted into the sky atop an inverted geyser of fire and smoke. Shaun was slammed back into his seat, then shaken back and forth like a rat in a dog’s jaws. The shuttle rocketed up from the Cape, leaving Mother Earth far behind. The booster rockets fell away, having done the heavy lifting. Shaun felt a twinge of relief; like most astronauts, he felt safer rid of those enormous Roman candles. The bumpy ride quickly leveled off as the bright blue sky before him gave way to the blackness of the upper atmosphere.
The g-forces pressing down on him felt like an elephant standing on his chest. Shaun gritted his teeth; this part did get old after the first few minutes. He craned his neck to try to read the gauges on the instrument panel. So far, everything looked okay, although the elephant seemed to have gained weight since the last time he took this ride.
Or maybe that’s just me.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, the elephant disappeared as though conjured away by
a Las Vegas magician. One last jerk shook the ship as the empty fuel tank fell away. The pressure on Shaun abruptly went from three g’s to zero. His body lifted away from the seat cushions, held in place only by his safety straps. Glancing at the instrument panel, he saw the lucky dog tags floating weightlessly.