Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii
2am Local Time (GMT-10), Monday 14th February 1994
The elderly SUV came to a halt right outside the doors to the abandoned observatory. Turning off the engine, Dr Daniel Kamealoha, senior research scientist at the Mauna Kea observatory – or at least, he had been until the Klingons had arrived and shut the place down – got out of the vehicle and looked around him, taking in the beauty of the night sky. Up here at the summit, the sky was crystal clear and the milky way visible in all its glory, thousands… no, millions of stars, so close he felt he could reach out and touch them. He sighed in pleasure. "God, I've missed this. I'd almost forgotten how beautiful it is up here. I never thought I'd see this place again."
"Are you sure this is safe?" His passenger, one of a small group of students who had illegally continued to study and work with him, and who'd happened to be there when the call from Greenwich had come through, was understandably nervous.
"No idea," he said honestly. "But I haven't seen any patrols for a couple of days and the lights were off at the police station when we went past. And you heard what London said."
"Yeah," the younger man said morosely. "The aliens have disappeared. Knowing our luck, if they've gone it's because they're going to blow us out of the galaxy!" He gave his mentor a faint smile before adding, "You watch, it'll be the whole Douglas Adams thing… sorry Earth, we're destroying your planet to build a galactic bypass!"
Kamealoha laughed. Hitchhiker's Guide had been one of his favourite books, and back in the day, he'd been well known amongst his students for quoting from it. It was amusing and just a little ironic to hear it (mis)quoted back at him. "You might be right. Still, we're here now, we might as well take a look." Fishing the keys out of his pocket, he turned his attention to the massive golf-ball-like structure that housed the Keck Telescope. "We had so much hope for this once," he mused, a tiny note of sadness entering his voice. "There were supposed to be two of these, you know. We were going to learn so much, and in the end, pretty much the first thing we detected was an alien invasion force."
Despite the darkness, Kamealoha's fingers quested for, and quickly found the keyhole, and likewise, he identified the correct key by its position on the keyring. He'd done this so many times that light was unnecessary. With a faint click, the lock turned and the doors swung open. There had been a time, he thought with momentary anger, that the telescope had been protected by an electronic keypad, but with the power out – and he could only hope it had been turned off rather than completely disconnected, or worse, destroyed – that small piece of metal had been all that stood between him and the inside of the observatory. Unconsciously holding his breath, he stepped across the threshold, turning to his left and feeling on the wall for the metal cabinet that housed the circuit breaker and main power switch. Ah, there is was. Dealing with that satisfactorily, he reached for the light switches. Flick. To his relief, the place lit up with a bright intensity that left him blinking and momentarily half-blind.
Eyes quickly adjusting, Kamealoha hurried to the nearest computer panel, swearing under his breath at the thin layer of dust that covered everything. He wiped it with his sleeve, succeeding mostly in spreading the dirt around before giving up and reaching for the 'on' switch. "Get the 'scope fired up, would you, Pete," he instructed tersely, fingers flying over the keyboard as he spoke. "…and start the checks if you can remember how to do them."
"On it, boss." Pete did remember and he was as good as his word. There was no time to put the telescope through the full start-up procedure; that would take hours. Inputting his access codes and beginning the emergency sequence, he offered up a quick prayer to Kāne, the creator and ruler of the skies…or would it be more appropriate to pray to Kanaloa, lord of the dark and darkness? One or the other must have listened because the computer ran through the checks in record time, with everything coming up green. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Diagnostic complete. Running calibration sequences."
Rushing from computer to computer the two men worked together, step by step bringing the long unused Keck telescope back to life. "I think we're ready," Kamealoha said at last. "Initiating search protocols… now…"
The main screen lit up with a schematic display of the solar system. All they could do now was wait and pray. Beep… Beep… Beep… Minutes passed and then… the tone of the beep changed, and a small flashing symbol appeared on the screen. "I think we've got it," Kamealoha said tersely. "Pete, can you zoom in with the cameras, see if we can get some real-time visuals."
The visual image, brought up on the secondary screen, did not disappoint. Kamealoha's breath caught. London was right. There it was… the alien ship… and it was… Abruptly, he reached for the phone, which miraculously had not been disconnected. He'd spent the last twenty months assuming that the Klingons had destroyed this place, never daring to break the rules and go and find out. They had touched nothing, destroyed nothing, and the abandoned observatory had simply slept, waiting for his return. Miraculous, he thought again.
Most of the big observatories had their phone numbers programmed in. Greenwich was number six, he remembered. Touching 'M' for memory, he dialled 6 and waited. Four seconds. The phone rang for exactly four seconds, and he knew that because he counted them…
"London Greenwich here. Dr Helen Smythe speaking."
"This is Dr Daniel Kamealoha reporting from… from Mauna Kea."
"Go ahead, Mauna Kea."
"Mauna Kea is up and running." Overwhelmed by the importance of the message, his voice trembled for a moment but gained strength. "We confirm observations sent by telephone, reference code MK-146-alpha. We have a visual on the main telescope as I speak. Alien ship, believed to be Klingon, is moving past Neptune in an outwards direction."
"We are in daylight so have no current visual," the crisp English voice responded. "We're tracking it by radio signal and…"
The phone line went quiet and for a moment, Kamealoha thought he'd lost the call, but immediately realised that he'd been put on hold. Long seconds counted down and just when he was ready to hang up and try redialling, the voice returned.
"Apologies Mauna Kea. We've just heard from Arecibo. They said they've heard from La Silla as well as Siding Springs and their findings agree with ours. And they said that NORAD believe the Klingons are leaving but advise caution until that can be confirmed."
Leaving! It was too good to be true. Aliens didn't invade a planet, subjugate it for God knows what purpose, live there for a couple of years and just leave. And yet, the data from observatories in London, Chile, Puerto Rico and Australia, not to mention the one in which he was currently standing, all indicated that the Klingons were doing just that. He glanced back at the screen where the steadily blinking symbol that represented the ship slowly moved outwards and away from Earth. Was Pete right, he wondered? Would the ship turn and open fire on Earth or was it really leaving? He could only hope.
Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan
6.30pm Local Time (GMT+6), Monday 14th February 1994
The hangar was a charred mess, just as the previous three had been. Joaquin sighed; it had been too much to hope that something… anything of technological value might have been missed. The Khan would not be pleased. Augment spies had been watching the airport for some time and when they'd reported signs that the alien invaders appeared to be packing up, they'd had high hopes of finding something useful.
This had been a place of glory once; the world's first spaceport, home of the Soyuz space capsule, the heart of the Russian space programme. The Klingon invaders had shut all that down. They'd 'graciously' allowed the astronauts stranded on the MIR space station to return home before turning the site into a parking lot for their own highly advanced shuttles. Before leaving, they had been thorough in their destruction, reducing the cosmodrome to little more than a pile of useless rubble and making sure there was nothing left to be salvaged by the Terrans.
Joaquin sighed again. They were wasting their time here. Still, the great one would be even less pleased if they missed something useful and it ended up in the hands of his enemies. And their enemies were many – not only the so-called 'ordinary' people… Joaquin sneered at the thought of them. They were little more than dumb sheep, fearing the sheepdog and shepherd who sought to keep them safe against the wolves… the wolves, of course, being fellow augments, not all of whom subscribed to the Khan's grand vision of a benevolent dictatorship but who craved power for their own gain. Here in Kazakhstan, they were far too close to territory claimed by Vassily Hunyenko, who, ruthless, cunning and ambitious, was the greatest threat of all to the Khan's supremacy. If there was even the smallest possibility of finding anything of use here, it must not fall into Hunyenko's hands.
Joaquin frowned at that. He was still not completely recovered from Hunyenko's last attack. In theory, and as far as the public were concerned, all the Augments had united, joining forces with the rest of the world to fight the alien invaders. In reality, not all the augments were as honourable as the Khan, and the warring between the factions had simply gone underground.
Unlike those traitors, he himself would be loyal for the rest of his life. The Khan had done so much for him… got him out of that awful Israeli prison… saved his life more times than he wanted to remember…
"HEY JOE! OVER HERE!"
The shout came from the younger of the two subordinates who had accompanied him here today. Like him, Eitan was Israeli, hailing from Tel Aviv, something he thought gave him a right to be just a little too familiar in his attitude. Still, he was loyal to Khan even if he was annoying. His other companion, Rasul, was a native Kazakh and his intimate knowledge of the terrain as well as the customs and culture of this land had made him an asset to this mission. He too was loyal. Swallowing his irritation at the contraction of his name, something he considered more than a little disrespectful, he turned to see what they wanted.
Predictably, it was Rasul who gave him the required explanation. "Joaquin, there is another hangar hidden behind this one… There's something in it and it's intact!"
Joaquin's heartbeat speeded up, excitement and anticipation causing a surge of adrenaline, even while he warned himself against premature optimism. "Show me!"
The hangar to which they led him showed signs of charring on the outside, but its interior remained undamaged. The outermost of the buildings, it had escaped the destruction the Klingons had wreaked on the rest of the base.
The space shuttle – or whatever it was, barely fit inside the hangar. Roughly cylindrical in shape, pointed at one end and blocky at the other, its lines, which were by no means beautiful to start with, were marred by a modular structure in the middle that reminded him of nothing so much as a big, metallic half-donut. He must be hungry, he decided, if he was thinking like that. Donuts indeed! Besides, beauty was in the eye of the beholder and if they could gain access to the interior of this thing, learn its secrets, get it working, and maybe even build others, then it would be beautiful indeed!
"It's a DY100 troop carrier," Eitan informed him excitedly, eager to show off his knowledge. "Short range – at least, short by their standards – troop carrier. There's no warp drive… that's what they call their faster than light systems… but it's space capable and…"
"And how would you know any of that?" Joaquin snapped irritably. "Since when did you speak or read Klingon?"
The young man gave his superior a smug grin. "I can't," he admitted, "but I can speak English – and so can some of them. I 'made friends' with a couple of their soldiers. Turns out they like Russian vodka. I even got to try some of their wine… weird stuff, it has blood in it. Tastes disgusting."
Yes, Joaquin thought wryly, somehow that did not surprise him. Eitan's brash, cockiness, his arrogance and borderline overconfidence were exactly the sort of personality traits that would appeal to the Klingons. Whatever the reason, if this was what it seemed – and if they could get it away from here before Hunyenko's supporters found out and came in force looking for it – it would be of great use to their cause. Khan would be pleased indeed.
St Alfege Church, Greenwich, London
Early afternoon, Monday 14th February 1994
Breathing hard, the man ran up the steps of the church, bursting in through the ancient, dark oak doors. He stopped, bending and putting his hands on his knees as he fought to recover his breath. Up by the altar, he could see a group of people… the choir, he supposed, judging by the hymnbooks in their hands and the sweet refrain echoing through the building.
"…and won the victory, yeah. Oh, victory in Jesus, my Saviour forever…"
Recognising the hymn, he smiled. How appropriate was that! Straightening, he moved forward, approaching the altar. "It's over!" he called out. "The aliens have gone. We're free!"
The singing stopped mid note. "You're sure?" The question came from the older, blue-robed man who had been conducting the choir.
"I've just come from the observatory," the man gasped, still slightly out of breath. "I've seen it myself… the ship has gone… they're all gone!"
In the chaos that ensued, the only reasonable response seemed to be to ring the church bells and somehow, the man found himself in the bell chamber, his hands on a thick rope, dangling from a hole in the ceiling. Pulling down hard on the rope, he remembered just in time to release it, before pulling down again. Far above his head, the great bronze bell moved, swinging on its pivot and letting out a deep, sonorous clang that seemed to reverberate through his entire body. He pulled again… and again, barely aware of the people around him, hurrying to follow his example. A lighter bell rang out, its sound high and clear, and then a third bell and a fourth. They had no idea what they were doing; none of them were trained bell ringers and there was no recognisable pattern or rhythm to their efforts. The result was a joyful if slightly discordant cacophony ringing out across the city.
In the distance, they heard the mighty bells of St Paul's cathedral sounding in response and as the news spread, other churches took up the refrain, the chaotic, joyous sound of the bells spreading outwards into the suburbs and beyond into the countryside. Freedom! They were free!
Firstly, a happy new year to all readers. May 2022 be a good year for you all. My thanks go out to my three loyal reviewers, Solasnagreine, JDC0 and RobertBruceScott, whome Ive come to consider my fanfiction friends. I am grateful for all their support and comments as this story has developed.
Now, some notes:
All places mentioned in this chapter are real places. Mauna Kea in Hawaii, has two Keck telescopes. At the time of this story, only 1 had been constructed, going into operation in early 1992. The other was completed in 1996. Siding Springs (Australia), Arecibo (Puerto Rico) and of course Greenwich (London) are all real observatories which were in operation in 1994.
Baikonur Cosmodrome is the launch site of the Soyuz space capsule. In 1994, the MIR space station was still in operation. It is in Kazakhstan but on long term lease to the Russians.
St Alfege church is also a real place. It is a Church of England church, over a thousand years old, which is located close to the Greenwich observatory.
The hymn sung in the church is 'Victory in Jesus', written by EM Bartlett © 1939 Eugene M. Bartlett, renewed 1967 Mrs. Eugene M. Bartlett, by permission of Albert E. Brumley & Sons, Inc. (Used with respect and with no intention to make money from the song.)
Joaquin is a canon character, seen in the TOS episode Space Seed. He is also depicted in the novels by Greg Cox, 'The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh', Vols 1 and 2. Vassily Hunyenko is mentioned in those books as one of Khan's greatest enemies.
By the way, Khan is a title, not a name, and I have used it accordingly in this chapter.