2190

"We are now entering communication and scanner range, Commander," said Kelso. The entire bridge is tense that the landing party has been missing for nearly 4 hours. None more so than Commander Tracey who turned to communications to see if there is a signal from the landing party to which the officer reported there was nothing so far. Tracey turned back to the hologram wondering what happened to the away team. Their sensors were sophisticated enough to penetrate the nuclear winter on the planet below, and that isolitic signature they detected before isn't strong enough to interfere with their sensors. He came to the realization that what had happened below must have happened quickly or else they would have communicated by now or the Enterprise's sensors would have picked them up when they disappeared.

"Mr. Kelso, standby to break orbit," said Tracey.

"Sir?"

"Do you have hearing problems, Mister?" said Tracey sternly at Kelso.

"No, sir, it's just..." said Kelso but to abruptly trying to choose his words carefully. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"I know what you are going to say, Lieutenant," said Tracey, "but the landing party disappeared without a trace and without warning. There are indications that the Invaders came to this planet before, which means the Enterprise is a potential target, and we will more likely get shot down if I have to justify any decision..."

"Commander!" shouted the communications officer. "I'm picking up a signal from the planet. It's Captain Pike!"

"On speakers," said Tracey skeptical about what his communication's officer said. Everyone held their breath as the communications officer opened the channel and they heard the voice, "Enterprise, this is Captain Pike. Come in please."

"Open a channel," said Tracey as his tone told everyone on the bridge to hold their celebration as he moved towards the station. "Captain Pike, please provide verification code."

"It's good to hear your voice too, Ron," said Pike sarcastically. "Verification code 4-7-Alpha-Tango. Now will someone talk to us up there?"

On the primary display, both Tracey and the communication's officer read off 47AT on the screen along with a voice print analysis that matches Captain Pike's which prompted the officer to nod his head verifying everything. Tracey then turned to the terminal and said, "Captain Pike, what happened down there?"

"It's a long story, but we made contact with one of the survivors from the Valiant along with the indigenous species," said Pike.

"Hostile?" Tracey asked with great suspicion.

"We... had a slight disagreement earlier, but they are non-hostile and talking," Pike reported. "Stand by to beam up the landing party after they retrieve the records from the escape pods. Dr. Piper and I are however remaining on the surface to get more information and to examine the survivors."

Tracey heard Kirk say through the communicator, "Captain, request permission to remain as well, sir. No offence to the Vulcans, but ..."

"I'm going to have to insist as well, Captain," said Tracey.

"Alright, you're with me," Pike said to Kirk. He really hates it when his crew gangs up on him, even when they are right. "Commander, stand by to beam up Sulu, Uhura and Hicks. I will contact you as soon as I can. Pike out."

Pike and Kirk with their Vulcan escort returned to the cave to see that Amanda had settled down. Pike then walked up to Dr. Piper while looking at Amanda and said, "Well, Mark?"

"Well, she has all the signs of post traumatic stress disorder," Piper reported. "It's pretty typical of soldiers who were trapped behind enemy lines for years. Her health is fair, but that could be because of this world or even the diet incompatibilities. The sedative I gave her has calmed her down. What did she mean by they were responsible for this planet's devastation?"

"So, it's true," said an elder human male who entered the cave with Xon with total astonishment. "I would never imagine."

"Captain Pike, this is Dr. Philip Boyce," said Xon.

Captain Pike extended his hand that took Boyce a moment to remember what the greeting was. "I'm sorry, Captain. It's been a long time since I shook hands with anyone. I've been trying to use their hand salute that I still haven't mastered." Boyce then turned towards Kirk and said, "Oh, my god. Are you Sam?"

"Jim, actually," Kirk replied with him surmising that Boyce know about his relationship with his father. "Sam is my older brother."

"I'm sorry, but I never heard your father speak of you," said Boyce.

"I never met him myself," said Kirk. "Don't worry. What was he like?"

Boyce then smiled at Kirk. He walked towards him and put his arm around him, "He was a good man, and always had a smile on his face. Kind of the smile you are giving me right now. But to be honest there were times I was going to kill him. Even with his devotion to duty, he was a bit of a practical joker. I fell victim to his pranks way to many times. I thought of getting sweet revenge by putting a powerful laxative in his coffee, but he beat me to it."

Hearing that made Kirk chuckle, that within what very little of what Boyce said, it told him a life time worth of his father.

"No, no, boy," Boyce continued. "One thing he never stopped talking about was his family. He talked about how Sam was finally out of diapers. In fact I probably know more about your mother than you do. One thing he did wish for was for Sam to be a big brother. He made plans with his wife to bring forth another addition to their family after he got back. Looks like George got his wish without knowing it."

Pike was also listening in, but then gestured to Kirk that the time for a posthumous family reunion is going to have to wait. He walked back to Piper and said in a lower voice, "Mark, are Amanda and Dr. Boyce strong enough to be questioned?"

"I can't be certain," said Piper in an equally lower voice. "Amanda has calmed down, and Dr. Boyce seems stable, but there is no assurance that they can remember everything. It's been nearly 30 years. I'm surprised that they haven't forgotten English."

"It seemed logical that we learn their language as they learned ours," said Xon from the other side of the cave. Pike turned to Xon with amazement then back to Piper and said, "Good ears."

"Captain Pike," said Amanda as she stood up, "I'm ready. We've been waiting to tell someone for a long time." Piper put his arm around her and agreed. They sat down together with Pike facing the 2 as the others listened in.

Amanda took a deep breath as she tried to remember what happened and trying to retain her composure. "I was the communications officer when we dropped out of warp. We did a general scan and detected the energy signature that matched the Invader's. We moved passed the asteroid belt and saw something. I don't know what it was. It was an array of 3 long mechanisms that paralleled each other like in an equilateral triangle. Each mechanism's dimension was like a pen with interwoven circuitry or something and coming off of them was an array of... solar collectors or something. They were angled in such a way that if you looked down them, the whole thing almost looked like a hexagon.

"Science officer Ger... Ger..."

"Germanotta," said Boyce when he noticed that Amanda was struggling to remember.

"He believed that the array was some form of rail gun that can send a ship faster than light, maybe their method of star travel," Amanda continued. "We then continued onto T'Kashi where we detected the radio signals, but we also detected high energy discharges. Captain Hernandez ordered a yellow alert as we approached. When we got closer, we detected the Invader's energy signature again and then found out they were fighting the Vulcans, and the Vulcans were losing."

"Our ships were driven by a pulse fusion drive and we used the nuclear explosives from our engines to fight the Invaders to no real avail," said Xon.

"Captain Hernandez called battle stations," Amanda continued. "As we got closer, we saw 3 ships. 2 looked like support vessels defending their primary warship. The main ship it... it... oh, hell."

Amanda picked up a stick and began to draw in the sand. The rendition she made looked like a 3 armed squid with wings coming from the main body in between the arms and what everyone recognized as engines.

"The 2 smaller ships were similar only without those wings," Amanda continued. "The main ship were firing pods out of the wings, I think they were..."

"Firing the tripods to attack Vulcan," said Pike.

"T'Kashi," Xon corrected.

"Kirk noticed that when the support vessels fired their primary weapons, they had to drop their shields. It was the same when the warship launched pods," Amanda continued. "He suggested that we use the element of surprise to attack the Invaders, Captain Hernandez agreed. When the Vulcans were in full retreat, she ordered a full barrage of photon torpedoes at the Invaders when they dropped their shields and supplemented the attack with phasers at full. It worked. We destroyed one support ship and damaged the other one badly. It fired on us and we took some damage, but we were able to collapse its shields and disable it.

"Do you know how loud everyone was cheering?

"The main ship took considerable damage but it was still able to turn towards us. There was an energy build up on its 3 arms, Captain Hernandez ordered full power to hull plating and... I can't remember," said Amanda who was distraught and beginning to lose her composure. "The next thing I knew I woke up on T'Kashi with Dr. Boyce and the Vulcans over me. I didn't know what was going on; I didn't know what happened, except..."

"What?" asked Pike.

"All I remember was seeing Kirk's face half burned off," said Amanda and everyone knew she couldn't talk anymore.

"That's why when you saw me, you freaked out," said Kirk.

"I was on my way to the bridge when the ship shook violently, probably when the second ship fired on us," said Boyce filling in the blanks that Amanda couldn't remember. "The stupid thing is I was only an intern when we left Earth. But before I got there, there was another blast where I found myself being tossed around. It fleet like every corridor exploded on the ship. When I got to the bridge, most of the crew were dead. I found Amanda unconscious with a bad concussion, and Kirk's face was badly burned on the one side. Needless to say he was dead. I found Captain Hernandez still alive but with a metal shard sticking out of her chest. When I saw the location and the amount of blood she was spraying, the shard must have lacerated her aorta.

"She ordered the ship to be evacuated and she moved towards the helm after pushing Jose's body out of the way. I took Amanda to the nearest escape pod and we got out of there. I looked out the viewport and saw the blast had destroyed nearly half the saucer section and blew off the port weapon pod. The captain must have brought the impulse engines to full power to ram the remaining Invader ship. Another blast came from the Invader ship and... It destroyed the Valiant. But somehow the warp nacelle remained intact and its momentum carried it to the Invader ship. The antimatter pods detonated on impact and destroyed the Invader ship.

"Our only choice was to head for the planet. Before we were able to land, we shook violently again and saw... even after all this time I still can't really describe it. It was like a..."

"Lightning storm in space?" Pike continued assuming that was Boyce was about to say which made Kirk suspicious of Pike.

"I think so," said Boyce. "But what happened caused this planet to undergo some sort of nuclear winter on a planetary scale. When we landed, the Invader's tripods began to shut down. The Vulcans took us in, and we tried to survive as best as we could.

"We then saw footage as to what had happened. Our weapons pod reached the upper atmosphere and somehow created this lightning storm in space. I've seen antimatter detonations before, but never like this."

"Amanda, do you remember if Captain Hernandez mentioned anything about a special ordinance during the attack?" Pike asked her.

Amanda had to stop and think which was becoming more strenuous on her. "I think so... yes. When we saw the Invaders, she said something about arming something called Special Ordinance..."

"53," said Pike which Amanda confirmed. This caused Pike to contain his contempt and anger that still peaked through which Kirk noticed once again. "Okay, I think we have enough for our report. You can quit recording Uhura, and I want you , Sulu and Hicks to return to the ship after you retrieve the records from the escape pods."

The trio retrieved their environmental suits and left the caves with their Vulcan escorts. Piper began a medical exam of Dr. Boyce and asked the Vulcans to bring the other Valiant survivors. In a lowered voice, Kirk came up to Pike and said, "Captain, what is this special ordinance 53?"

"It's classified," said Pike. "I'm sorry but that is all I can say."

Before Pike was able to step away, Kirk grabbed his shoulder and turned him back towards him, "Let go of me, Commander!"

"Captain, you said you needed to trust me, but I also need to trust you," said Kirk. "Besides I think we owe the Vulcans an explanation as to what happened to their planet and this lightning storm in space. What is special ordinance 53?"

Pike was left in a bit of a dilemma as he would never have tolerated such insolent behavior from Commander Tracey, but he probably allowed this from Kirk because he knew Kirk was right. "Damn him anyways," Pike thought. After a deep exhale, Pike confessed, "It's an isolitic subspace weapon."

"What's that?" Kirk asked.

"I don't know the physics, but the way it was described is that it causes a spatial rip in space that has the crushing effects of a black hole," said Pike. He saw the look on Kirk's face of total shock and disgust. "It was developed in Alpha Centauri to be used as a weapon of last resort against the Invaders. That's what was on the Valiant."

Kirk took time to absorb what Pike had said by saying "The Pandora bomb," which Pike nodded. "I don't get it; why not use a concentrated form of the common cold? It killed them last time."

"If it were only that simple," said Pike. "First off how are we supposed to give them the common cold onto their ships with shields? Also we did autopsies on the Invaders, they only died of the common cold. Not the flu, not chicken pox, not even the measles. It was sheer luck that the common cold affected them in the first place. If we didn't have that virus, we wouldn't be here.

"I'm sure the Vulcan's have their own diseases, but apparently it didn't affect the Invaders, nor did it affect the Valiant survivors. And the Vulcans didn't die of the common cold either. So we only had one weapon should things go sour."

After absorbing what he said, Kirk looked back up to Pike and said, "The particle wake, was it the Pandora weapon?"

"No," said Pike. "Based upon what Amanda has been reporting, the particle wake might have come from the Invader ship exploding since it had an Invader energy signature."

"Captain, do we have one of those weapons on board the Enterprise?" Kirk asked.

"We do," said Pike. "I didn't find out until after we arrived. Despite my outstanding order, Admiral Rittenhouse overruled me behind my back."

"Through Commander Tracey," said Kirk. "Rittenhouse needed a high ranking commanding officer to sneak that thing on board the Enterprise. Do you think he's Terra Prime?"

"I don't know," said Pike.

At that moment they heard a commotion just outside of the cavern entrance where they turned and saw 2 Vulcans arguing. Amanda said something in their native language that persuaded the guard to allow the individual to enter. He pulled down his hood which revealed a nasty bruise on the side of his mouth that made Kirk recognize him as the man he fought just before he was captured.

As a bit of a joke he said to him, "I believe we met before." The Vulcan was not amused and moved towards Amanda showing great concern. When the Vulcan and Amanda were facing each other both Kirk and Pike saw something they couldn't believe. They saw that both the Vulcan and Amanda were nearly spitting images of each other.

Amanda then turned to Pike and Kirk with Piper listening. She then realized she had to tell them the truth of the secret she can no longer hide. "This is Spock. He's my son."