Losira and the Kalandan outpost refers to the TOS episode That Which Survives. Hope you can catch other references. Enjoy!
Dr. Gillian Taylor appeared unhurt, yet she was unconscious. Her eyes seemed to be moving a lot under the eyelids.
"REM sleep," McCoy offered. He took out a hypospray from his medkit case, chose a vial of liquid and stuck it into the hypospray. Touching the hypospray to Gillian's neck, a hiss signaled its function.
Gillian's eyes soon fluttered open as McCoy's stimulant coursed its way through her system. Kirk said, "Dr. Taylor? Gillian, are you all right?" The sound of his voice finally pulled the 20th century marine biologist fully to the waking world out of the dream she was having. "James? Is that you?" She was mildly surprised to see him kneeling on Titan V over her. She smiled. "I told you. I would see you sometime." She put a hand on her head, brushing back her dark blonde curls. Her head was pounding, signaling the arrival of a headache. Finding her hair dirty from lying on the floor, she stood up, trying to regain dignity.
Suddenly, memory flooded back into her mind. "Oh God! The ship!" Kirk took strong hold of her shoulders and gently shook her. "Gill! Gill, please calm down. Please tell us what happened."
Memory was still playing in Gillian's mind as she took a breath, pushing away the last tendrils of the disturbing dream. What was the dream? It was disturbing, but never mind, there are more important things to do.
"All right...all right. We came into this system and began work in the ruins. In the digs, we found this museum. From what we could tell, the race that built this museum did not have any empire. They only raided and attacked many worlds for plunder and collecting artifacts important to these worlds. Rkar N'ra is only one of the few worlds that they actually occupied."
"Rekar Ni—...?" Kirk asked, unable to wrap his tongue around the alien name. Gillian chuckled at his poor attempt.
"Rkar N'ra. Dr. John Howard found the name for Titan V among the writings. Anyway, we returned to the ship for a celebration of our find. I'm not much for official gatherings, you know. I wanted to go back to the surface to collect more information on alien marine life. This museum certainly has lots of that." Gillian smiled, sharing memories of Earth with Kirk. "I just got on the transporter pad when the ship began shaking. The technician already began the transport. It was just luck that saved me. Next thing I remember is waking up here. Now. Do you know what happened to the Hakudo Maru?"
Chekov shook his head. "Ve do not know. It's not there anymore. No debris, so it wasn't destroyed," he added at the chagrined look on Gillian's face. Spock stepped forward. There was still one more concern. "Captain, the energy source is still registering." Kirk nodded and asked if Gillian needed to get on the Enterprise. The marine biologist straightened and told him that she would be fine. The group moved further into the darkness.
They kept going deeper and further down into the planet's surface. Occasionally, the downward sloping hall would be interrupted by open doorways into yet more rooms full of artifacts. The group was finally stopped by a closed door.
Gillian said, "We weren't able to open that door. Dr. Howard kept moaning about being careful about opening it." She rolled her eyes.
A phaser blast smashed through the stone door. Startled, Gillian turned around to the source of the phaser. It was Kirk, holding a phaser and smirking. "Now we have no reason to be careful." Gillian narrowed her eyes at him sardonically. "Still the same offhand man I kicked out of the Maritime Cetacean Institute."
"Hey, you better look at this," McCoy called out. The room behind the door was not as big as the main exhibition chamber, but it was big enough to contain a hundred cryogenic containers.
Spock was as close to excited as a Vulcan could be, which meant only stepping through the broken door and waving his tricorder over everything. Gillian gasped at the sight, while Chekov quickly followed Spock, quietly cursing the eager Vulcan for neglecting security concerns under his breath. Dr. McCoy was also pointing his medical tricorder at each standing frozen coffin. "The physiology is unknown in the Federation medical database. Somewhere between insectoid and reptilian."
Spock tilted his head. He could hear an odd noise, just low enough for human ears not to hear, a soft pulsing. He noticed that the time between the pulses had been getting slightly shorter and shorter. A timer, obviously. It did not take much logic to connect the pulsing timer to the cryogenic containers. He turned to Gillian. "Dr. Taylor, did the writings your teams discovered mention this?"
"Umm, not really. Only that Rkar N'ra has guardians. But we thought it was just some sort of mythology. Not my thing." She screwed her face, trying hard to remember. "'Kam'Jahtae maintains eternal watch for the Return.' That was how T'Sara translated the phrase. Seems Kam'Jahtae meant 'we who defend'." Gillian glanced at the cryogenic containers nervously. The soft pulses had finally begun to register in the humans' ears.
McCoy said, "Wanna bet that the aliens in those iceboxes are these...Kam'Jahtae?" Spock was calculating the timer in his tricorder and mind. "The timer began 5 hours and 16 minutes ago, which is approximately the time that the distress signal from the Hakudo Maru ceased."
The humans stared at the cryogenic containers. All, except Gillian, were feeling a déjà vu coming up. The memory pressing into their minds was that of the ancient Kalandan outpost and the deadly replicas of Losira. Kirk's communicator chirped for attention. The captain took it out of his belt and opened it. Uhura's voice floated out of it.
"Captain Kirk, we're detecting a spatial distortion. It looks like a cloak, but it's no cloak that we're familiar with. If readings are accurate, it's too small to be the Hakudo Maru." Kirk grunted. He did not want another incident like at the Kalandan outpost. This particular adventure may be too much for his tastes. Perhaps it was best not to disturb these containers in any way. It was time for them to leave. "Thank you, Commander. Go to yellow alert. Kirk out." He turned a dial on the communicator, cutting off the link to Uhura and opening another. "Enterprise, five to beam up."
The group stood closer together for the transport. As the motes of light appeared and spread around each of them, Gillian Taylor looked at the cryogenic containers. The tingle rapidly spread all over her body and blue-white light began to cloud her vision. But something was wrong. The light began to flicker, occasionally clearing and clouding her vision. Someone on the Enterprise must have noticed the problem, because the transporter hum suddenly grew more powerful and the light finally completely covered her vision. There was the moment that she felt like she blinked before the light dissolved to reveal the Enterprise's transporter room and the transport technician looking like she just took the final exam at Starfleet Academy.
Meanwhile, the machinery in the cryogenic chamber had gained a lot more power than before and the pulsing timer accelerated.
The group practically burst out of the turbolift onto the starship's bridge. Gillian and McCoy took up their positions beside Kirk's command chair. All of them could see an area of space distorting itself in the main viewer. It looked like an Aurora Borealis, except it was all space and stars. Spock announced his science sensor readings to the bridge. "It is not a cloak in the conventional sense. It is a...fold in space. Intriguing. The Vulcan Science Directorate has been trying to achieve foldspace technology in tandem with the Transwarp Experiment. With it, we could achieve transilience—a starship that is in one place and then in another thousands of light-years away in a single moment. Since we do not yet have the transpatial technology it requires, attempts at foldspace has failed. Sufficient to say, this particular fold is hiding an object."
Alerted, Kirk looked at Spock closely. "A ship?"
"Unknown."
"Keptin," Chekov called from his station. The bridge crew turned to watch the main viwer. The spatial distortion increased exponentially until finally, an object appeared out of the miasma. The object did not move. Rather, the distortion withdrew itself into nothingness. The object looked to be a cylinder of crafted stone. It reminded Kirk of the whale probe that dangerously contacted Earth seven years ago, except it was a little smaller than the Enterprise'sengineering hull and had a dull golden color with parallel lines of green symbols inlaid into it. The inlays appear to be of a different material than the cylinder.
Chekov gasped at the readings he was getting. "Keptin Kirk, these symbols are organic!"
"Indeed," concurred Spock. "Bioorganic technology crafted into stone. The sensors are reading a different energy signature in each of the inlays."
Kirk turned at a noise from Gillian who turned widened eyes at him. "James, the ancient writings that Dr. Howard and T'Sara talked about told of this kind of device. Too much of the writings were too damaged for us to read, but an alien race called the Sevo was responsible for this technology. A Sevo scientist named Lekkar was forced to refine the technology for his masters. Oh, James." Gillian gazed deeply into Kirk's eyes. "My main interest is marine biology, especially whales. But I share the American obsession for technology. I have to, since I lived near Silicon Valley. Federation science would love to get its hands on this device!"
Kirk had to agree, although he still had the misgivings he got in the ancient cryochamber on Titan V and from his experiences with advanced alien technology. This calls for caution. He ordered the starship's sensors to increase power and extend deep into the device.
The Enterprise's sensors touched the device and the inlaid symbols on the device glowed. The lights on the bridge dimmed a little. Kirk looked at Spock for explanation. "The device is using our sensors to gain power from us. I cannot deactivate the sensors...I recommend backing Enterprise away from the device. Greater distance from it would weaken its hold on the sensors and our power."
The inlaid symbols on the device shimmered and flickered. Chekov said, "Keptin, something's happening..."
The universe flickered.
Kirk ran through the forest, panting and sweating in the cold darkness of night. He could hear the running footsteps of the colony soldiers behind him, chasing him. Voices shouted after him, one of which was clear enough for him to hear. "The boy's escaping! He can't tell the Vulcans what happened here!"
Laser beams and bolts flashed through the dark forest, adding their brilliance to the glow of the fire burning in a clearing far behind. Young Kirk sobbed at the all too fresh memory of executed bodies falling into a pit. He stumbled. To avoid falling and getting hurt, he jumped over a fallen tree trunk. He screamed as a laser bolt found its mark in his back. Kirk fell in pain to the ground, hitting his face on a broken branch. He bit his lower lips, tearing holes in it. As blood filled his mouth, the 13 years old boy glanced up at the night sky through the tree tops. Darkness filled his mind, erasing Kirk's existence even as the lights of a Vulcan relief ship shone upon Tarsus IV.
Flicker
The Enterprise lurched. Kirk struggled to keep himself in the command chair, dimly aware of Spock's voice. "This is not..."
The light of the ancient device flooded the bridge, whitewashing the whole world. Titan V and its sun appeared to be leaving, shrinking in the light.
Flicker
Kirk set down the tray holding the breakfast of toast and Ktarian eggs with dillweed on his love's lap in bed. The most beautiful woman in his heart smiled up at him from the bed. She lifted a small silver dome from the butter plate and gasped. Instead of the butter for her toast, there was a ring. Kirk grinned foolishly.
"Antonia, will you marry me?"
Kirk was happy after he married Antonia in 2284, repudiating Starfleet. News from the world outside his cabin was always troubling, but not enough to distract him from his happiness with Antonia. There was the one time that news came that Khan Noonian Singh hijacked the USS Reliant and murdered hundreds before a Starfleet task force commanded by Captain Spock destroyed the Reliant. Kirk felt responsible for Khan's deprecation inflicted upon the Federation, but Antonia comforted him.
When the whale probe reached Earth, the weather became violent, too violent for the cabin to withstand. Antonia died as Kirk lost two fingers from his left hand. One of these fingers held the wedding band given by Antonia at the wedding. He fell into depression and sat for long hours by her hastily made grave, letting the hard rain wash the mud from his gray-flecked hair. The land shook from the thunder lashing down from the sky, a sign of the alien probe's wrath. He refused to look up when he heard a different kind of roar overcoming the storm's cacophony. He still did not look up from Antonia's muddy grave when a flash flood took him and broke him as Earth died.
Flicker
The world began to waver, and Kirk fought to keep the dizziness at bay. Spock's voice trembling, "...logical. We must..."
The light raged. Flicker
Dr. McCoy tried to console Kirk when David Marcus and Spock died. But he was shaken as well by Spock's second death on the Genesis Planet. Kirk soon gained a dark reputation as a man of violent moods even as his service to Starfleet continued to be valuable. It was therefore not difficult for him to join the conspiracy when Praxis exploded and Chancellor Gorkon sued for peace with the Federation. He was thrilled at the death of Gorkon. The death of every Klingon thrilled him even if it did not bring back either his son or his best friend. When President Androvar Drake was assassinated by an admiral disguised as a Klingon at Khitomer, the Federation had the pretext to declare war on the Klingon Imperial Empire and to take Chancellor Azetbur prisoner.
With Praxis gone, it was only a matter of time before the Federation won the war. But Starfleet Command did not reckon on the Klingons' fanatic spirit of fighting for the very survival of their empire and people, nor did it reckon with General Chang's new cloaking device so that Klingon ships were now able to fire upon Federation starships while still cloaked. The resources of the Federation were almost totally drained before Kirk led a thousand starships across the old Klingon border and dealt the killing blow to the Klingon Imperial Empire. During the war, sometimes Kirk had the odd sensation that this was not the way things were supposed to happen.
Just as peace returned to the known galaxy and Starfleet set about to rebuild and to incorporate the fallen Klingon worlds into the Federation, the Romulans struck.
Hatred of the Klingons had blinded Kirk and he paid for it in still more blood. The wars with the Klingons and the Romulans left gutted starships and gutted worlds in their wake. Through the light-years of the Federation, he fought and fell back before Romulan warbirds equipped with the new Klingon cloaking technology, while all kinds of ships full of refugees flooded the heart of the Federation. The remnants of the Klingon Empire joined the Romulans in this war, slavering for vengeance, not caring that it meant Romulans ruling their fallen empire. He watched as the Romulans burned Andoria and Tellar from orbit. He raged when Vulcan declared its neutrality in the war. Admiral Kirk decided to make his stand at the Mars Defense Perimeter when the Romulans and Klingons gutted the fleet at Wolf 359. He vowed that he would not leave Earth to the mercies of the enemy so long as he lived, so what was left of Starfleet prepared to defend the human homeworld and its first extraterrestrial colony while the people still ran to other worlds.
Even as phasers, disruptors and torpedoes made their deadly dance over the skies of Mars, and the Enterprise-B shook under his feet, Admiral Kirk once again felt that the universe took a wrong turn somewhere. He had to suppress that feeling for there were too many of the enemy to fight. Finally, a disruptor beam tore through the Enterprise's shields and ripped the roof of the bridge off of the once pristine starship. Hurtling out into the cold of space, broken, his blood boiling, Admiral James Tiberius Kirk died amid the fires of heaven.
Flicker
Kirk struggled to remain sane as the Enterprise shuddered under the hammer blows of gods shifting through the possible universes. He fought to hold onto his command chair, using it as an anchor for his sanity. He thought he saw a starbase sweep past the main viewer, but he dismissed it as part of the insanity.
"...leave here!" Spock screamed, his Vulcan self-control almost completely shot.
Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker. Flicker.
Kirk was a Starfleet marine. He was a rancher. He was a beggar, and a dictator. He was Emperor Tiberius of the Terran Empire. He was farmer, actor, assassin for hire, diplomat, president, spy, slave. He was born, lived, and died a woman. He died still in Dr. Janice Lester's body. He died mad, he died rotting, he died of sickness, accident, age, murder. He fought Cardassians. He fought beside a Starfleet captain from the future against a madman bent on destroying stars. He was abducted and lay under huge black eyes in a room full of shadows and silver lights. He winced as screams impossibly cut through the vacuum of space. He ran from his destiny, he forced his destiny, he embraced his destiny. He lived and died never knowing. A secret agency called Section 31 recruited him. Aliens with machines grafted into them made Kirk one of them. Section 31 interrogated him to the point of death and madness. He tortured many people. Carol Marcus married him and gave him a son named David Marcus Kirk. Janice Rand, with tears in her eyes, pointed a phaser at him and fired, and he thanked her as he died. He saved Edith Keeler and condemned Earth to a dark future. He loved other women, married other women, and women he had never seen before he lived those lives, one of whom appeared to be a Romulan-Klingon hybrid. Even a few men. Hundreds of lives. So many he could not count them. And at the end of each life, he died. He died with regrets. He died with no regrets. McCoy failing to save him countless times. Screams cutting through the void of night, screams cutting into the mind. The screaming laughter of a mad emperor as he was killed. He so desperately wanted to get away from all of that and he could tell that his crew shared the same sentiment.
Flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker flicker....
Abruptly, the light cleared and everything appeared peculiarly dim. Somehow, Kirk knew that it wasn't his eyes. It was a darkening and squeezing shut of everything around him, as if he was closing his eyes to sneeze. As if the universe was closing its eyes to sneeze.
The universe sneezed.