London, Wednesday 19th January 1994
Chrissie watched the Klingon patrol as they disappeared into the snow and the darkness, her expression thoughtful. Her companion had obviously taken on board her comments about how cold it must be for the duty guards; just another small detail that showed his thoughtfulness and his care for the men and women under his command. Chrissie remembered how he had told her "I am in charge here." That he was of high rank was obvious. The alien called Spock had pointed out that a security captain outranked a Defence Force colonel. Defence Force being what they called their military, she supposed, although what part of invading someone else's planet counted as defence, Chrissie didn't know. Certainly though, other Klingons were very respectful when they spoke to him.
"Why did he address you as my lord?"
"The Klingon word is joHwI'," Krang told her. "It does not translate well into your language, but it is a term of respect for a senior officer." It was a little more than that, but he preferred not to advertise his status as planetary governor.
Chrissie considered that. Bilingual in English and Spanish, she had also learned French and Latin at school although she was not so fluent in those two. Languages interested her. "joe-wee." Carefully she sounded out the alien word.
"joH…wI'…" Repeating the word, enunciating the syllables slowly and clearly, he corrected her pronunciation.
She repeated the word again, this time getting it more or less right and he nodded in approval. "Your accent is not bad for a beginner," he praised her. "Try this one…"
By the time they had reached the end of the road, she had learned three more Klingon words. Turning the corner, they came into an area that was brightly lit and a little more populated, with people coming and going from a cluster of restaurants and takeaways. The nearest was a slightly seedy looking pizza and kebab place with several people clustered around the entrance waiting for their orders. Just past it was… a Klingon restaurant?
Chrissie stopped and looked at the display in the restaurant window, interested. The pictured food looked… interesting and not completely edible. Nevertheless, she was curious. "The Neutral Zone? There's a Klingon restaurant here in London?"
He nodded. "It offers both Klingon and Terran food."
"That seems an odd combination," Chrissie said. "How did that come about?"
Krang laughed. "One of my soldiers is a chef. He came to me a year or so ago and asked permission to open a mixed species restaurant. It turned out that he'd been talking about food with a Terran chef he was supposed to be questioning and they came up with the crazy idea of going into business together and opening a place where people of both species could try each other's food. I granted permission and this place was the result."
One of my soldiers… granted permission… again, the indications of high rank. He had told her he was in charge here. But where was here? London? Or something more? Again, she remembered what Spock had said about his rank. He was, Chrissie suspected, more important than he was admitting but obviously he did not want to discuss that with her and she guessed he wanted to stay under the radar. It made sense, she thought. A very high-ranking officer would be a target for the resistance. Masquerading as someone of lower rank no doubt gave him a degree of freedom he would not otherwise have. It would be best not to ask, she decided. Instead she turned her attention back to the menu. "What is your food like?"
"By your standards it is very… fresh, sometimes even alive. We do not burn or overcook our food the way you do. I do not think you would like it."
That was a challenge if ever Chrissie had heard one. "It's not all alive, surely? I think I'd like to try it."
"I had planned to take you to the French restaurant across the road," he told her. Thanks to his housekeeper, he had a fairly good knowledge of French food and 'La Belle Fleur' was a high-class place with a very good reputation. "However, if you are sure you wish to try our food, we can eat here instead."
It was a major concession on his part. Selfishly, he had been hoping for a quiet meal but 'The Neutral Zone' was a popular restaurant and there would be other off-duty Klingons eating there. For all it was a mixed species restaurant and both humans and Klingons patronised it, the two species did not mix and they would attract unwelcome attention. The same would be true in the French place, he acknowledged but to a lesser degree and none of his officers would be in there. He glanced down at his companion; her earlier stiff nervousness gone, she had come alive and her eyes sparkled with genuine interest. His momentary annoyance faded.
USS Enterprise NCC1701,
Wednesday 19th January 1994
The captain's office, located just off the bridge and colloquially known as the ready room, was small and cramped to the point of being almost claustrophobic. Captain Kirk did not use it often, preferring to do his 'paperwork' in the rather more comfortable environment of his private quarters on deck twelve. For now, though, he preferred to remain close to the bridge.
Kirk considered the information coming in from Earth. The reports were both satisfying and disturbing at the same time.
Very careful scanning had begun to build up a picture of the scale of the occupation and they now had a good idea of the numbers of troops involved and their approximate locations. There were not, it seemed, as many Klingons on Earth as they had first thought. With high speed shuttles and transporter technology, the occupying forces were able to operate with relatively low numbers. There seemed to be Klingon outposts in a number of key locations across the world, mostly major cities – and it was these cities that were feeling the brunt of the invasion. It was very possible that people living in remote locations of no strategic importance were relatively unaffected and had seen little more of the invaders than the occasional shuttle flying overhead.
All over the planet, resistance to the Klingon invaders was increasing as a direct result of the broadcast early that morning. The aftermath of the raid on the London detention centre had been brutal although not completely unexpected. They had done what they set out to do – rescue Chrissie's brother and stir up resistance to the Klingons at the same time. Kirk had been disappointed that they had not been able to rescue the local resistance leader, but the sad truth was, they could not save everyone. Even so, Jamal's execution was a bitter blow to the cause.
With a heavy sigh, the captain turned his attention back to the information they had been given by the Department of Temporal Investigation. They'd had only minutes to get out of the timeline, but once they were safely ensconced in the twentieth century, they were protected from any changes to the future and could afford to take their time. Enterprise had been late to the party, so to speak, arriving in the time period almost two years after the Klingons, but it appeared that the catalyst that had caused… would cause… the changes that the Klingons hoped for, had not yet happened. Quite what those changes were… or would be… was hard to say, but Kirk could make an educated guess that it involved the destruction of the Federation.
In just sixty-nine years, less than one human lifetime, the Vulcan ship T'Plana-Hath would pick up the signature of Earth's first ever warp flight and land in Bozeman, Montana. First Contact, arguably one of the most important events in Earth's history and one which had led to the eventual formation of the United Federation of Planets.
It had been Zephram Cochrane who had invented warp drive, Kirk remembered. But Cochrane had built on the scientific discoveries of earlier, equally prominent scientists such as Stephen Hawking, Peter Higgs and Miguel Alcubierre to name just a few. What would happen if those scientists disappeared from history?
Without warp drive there would be no Federation, no Starfleet and no neutral zone. There would be nothing to stop the Klingon Empire, currently hemmed in on one side by the Romulans and on the other by the Federation, from expanding across this sector of space. Nal Komerex, Khesterex. It was a Klingonaase phrase, roughly translating as 'that which does not grow will die'. And that, Kirk thought grimly, was the point of this whole mess.
The senior officers, indeed the entire crew, continued with their work, going about their duties diligently as they gathered in data, analysed it and attempted to develop plans and strategies. None of them had complained - with the exception of McCoy who complained about everything, mostly, Kirk suspected, in an ongoing attempt to get a rise out of Spock. But this mission was a long, slow one, requiring patience and subtlety and Kirk suspected that some of them were struggling with that, even if they were too professional – and too loyal – to show it. He could sympathise; a man of action, he hated this sitting around and waiting. But he had the sense to know not to rush things. If the DTI files were accurate – and given that organisation's pedantic attention to detail - he had no reason to think they were not – they could be waiting for several weeks, maybe longer. In the meantime, their instructions were to remain hidden, monitor the situation and encourage rebellion where possible while they waited for an opportunity to rid the planet of the invaders once and for all.
By now, the Klingons must know that they were not the only time travellers on Earth; the rescue team's use of phasers had made that inevitable. Already, they were picking up signs of scanning as the Klingons searched for evidence of Federation involvement. So far, hidden behind the moon, the Enterprise had not been discovered and Kirk wanted to keep it that way for now. It had been risky to allow Chrissie to return to the planet, given her need to interact with the Klingons if her children were to be located, but the human woman had been sensible enough to realise that the less she knew about the Enterprise and the resistance, the better. If things went wrong and she was arrested and questioned, there was almost nothing she could tell them that they did not already know.
At least there had been some good news. McCoy had reported that his patient was awake and recovering well, if somewhat confused and disoriented to find himself on a starship from the future. The doctor wanted to keep him in sickbay for another twenty-four hours for observation before allowing him to go home. Sarah had been very pleased at that news, and Kirk grinned at the thought. If those two were not a couple, then they surely would be soon. He was almost disappointed by that; the American woman was undeniably attractive. Actually, and Kirk sobered as he considered the implications, the DTI had strict rules as to the disposition of temporal refugees and there was doubt as to whether Sarah and David would be allowed to go home. They both knew far too much about the future.
Kirk sighed. He was not good at blindly following rules and regulations. Whatever he decided - and in the end he would do what he thought best under the circumstances - he had no doubt that the DTI would find fault and this incident would be filed away as Kirk: Temporal violation number eighteen. Surely, he mused, that had to be a record.
London, Wednesday 19th January 1994
Curiously, Chrissie looked around her. She did not quite know what she had expected but this wasn't it. The restaurant was larger than it looked, narrow, but like many old buildings, going back a long way, with a bar along one side and a good-sized dance floor separating two groups of sturdy tables.
A large mural had been painted on the wall, depicting a futuristic city with a red, moody sky and spaceships flying low over the buildings; large green-painted ships with outspread eagle-like wings, they were both beautiful and menacing.
The restaurant was fairly quiet – if that word could be applied to a room containing Klingons – and there were plenty of available tables. On the near side, only one table was occupied. A group of mid ranking officers were clustered around it, helping themselves from overflowing plates of food that did not look even remotely edible to Chrissie. Over at the bar, several soldiers were chatting loudly amongst themselves as they drank from large, pewter tankards.
Music was playing. Incongruously for the location, it was a lively pop song from the early 1980's. Chrissie knew it well – Cyndi Lauper had been one of her favourites - and a group of humans, students from the look of them, were dancing. The music came to an end and the group headed back to their table on the far side of the dance floor from the Klingons.
Seeing the security captain, the officers got to their feet, offering salutes. Hiding his annoyance, Krang gave a sharp nod of acknowledgement. This was exactly what he hadn't wanted. "I am off duty," he growled, wordlessly warning them that he did not want company and that they should stay away. "As you were."
Surveying the scene, Krang decided on a table that was a reasonable distance from the other patrons and yet would give him a good view of the restaurant and its various entrances and exits, allowing him to retain an awareness of what was going on around him. Guiding her to his chosen table, he unfastened his cloak and threw it over the back an unoccupied chair. Removing her coat, scarf and gloves, Chrissie did likewise, glad now that she had taken the time and effort to put on the pretty green dress. She hadn't thought that morning, that she'd be wearing it to go on a date with a Klingon.
They had barely seated themselves when a slightly overweight Klingon wearing chef's clothing approached them. Obviously, Chrissie mused, the security captain's presence merited the attendance of the restaurant owner.
"joHwI'," he greeted cheerfully, baring his teeth in a wide grin. "You've finally decided to visit our humble establishment. Welcome to 'The Neutral Zone."