Kirk stood in front of the door. He tried to turn
away, but it was impossible. The door was very
ordinary. Somehow, that made it worse. He knew that
soon the door would open, and he would see ... would
see whatever was inside. What was inside? It seemed
to him that he knew, and yet he didn't know. And in a
moment, the door would open, and what was behind it
... oh god, the door *was* opening, it was sliding
slowly back and inside there was -
He woke, sweating, weak with nausea. It was minutes
before he could do more than lie limp in the tangled bedclothes,
breathing in great sobbing gasps, and when he did move it
was only to lean over the side of the bed and retch emptily.
"Computer, lights on." he said.
"Please repeat." the computer said, unable to understand
his shaking voice.
"Computer, lights on, dammit!" Kirk shouted.
The lights came on and he swallowed, the sudden
familiarity of his quarters banishing the last of the dream. There
had been a door - he thought there had been a door - no, it was
gone. He suddenly felt very foolish. Thirty six was a
little old to be frightened into incoherence by a bad dream.
Still, he did not go back to sleep that night, and when the
comm. went two hours later he caught it on the second
chime. He was surprised to hear Uhura's voice - although he knew
that like his other department heads she rotated her duty
shifts to spend time on each watch, he could have sworn
that this week her 'night' coincided with his.
"Captain," Uhura said, "Incoming from Starfleet HQ,
coded Captain's Personal."
All curiosity about Uhura's unexpected presence on the
bridge vanished. Captain's Personal wasn't an order to declare
war. It wasn't that urgent.
Not quite.
"What are the code groups?" he asked, leaning over the comm.,
unconsciously bunching his muscles like a sprinter waiting for the
start gun.
"111-7360-8733-22." Uhura said.
"On my way." Kirk said. A twenty-two would take his
retina verification to unscramble, so he headed for the bridge.
And a one-one-one: well, that was the reason he headed for the
bridge at a run.
When he reached the bridge, Spock was already there. He
has a sixth sense, Kirk thought ruefully, something Vulcans
inherit which allows them to be on time for everything
without ever having to hurry.
Kirk submitted himself to the required identification
verification, and then took his seat while he waited for
Uhura to decode the message. Barely had he sat down,
however, before she turned to him and said:
"Captain, the code groups on this are 1 Alpha Priority."
Codes that only captains were allowed to hold the key to, a
key that was not supposed to be used in the presence of
anyone of lower rank than captain.
"Send it to my office," Kirk said, standing. "I'll read it
there."
"Aye, sir." she said, and Kirk went back into the turbolift.
"Mr Chekov, he said as the doors began to close, "You
have the conn."
The back of Kirk's neck prickled with the sense that the
next stage was unfolding. Whatever was going to happen was
coming closer. This message would not be the lash of storm winds
or even the first drops of rain.
It was, however, the first flicker of lightning on
the horizon.
A captain's personal was an indication that something
serious was going on, but it could be anything from a
declaration of war to a sensitive political issue. A
111 code upped the stakes a little: a 111 gave the
message priority over all other transmissions, and
indicated that whatever was going on needed an
immediate response. 1 Alpha Priority, though... 1
Alpha Priority meant that Starfleet *really* wanted
to keep this, whatever it was, secret. That usually
meant that it was either highly diplomatically
sensitive, or that release of the information would
cause a panic.
Cause a panic even among the crew of Starship, Kirk
thought, or else why make it *my* discretion whether
to tell my officers or not? He had received
Captain's Personals before. He had received 111
messages before. He had received 1 Alpha Priorities
before now.
It was the conjunction of all three that made him
suddenly aware of just how thin the hull of a
starship was, and just how cold and vast the vacuum
outside it.
He laboriously fed the key to the code into the
computer, and waited for the ship's computer to
verify that he was alone in his office. The message
that came up was text only. It didn't take long to
read it. He read it again, and then once more.
Once more for luck, he thought, and then reached for the
comm.
"Uhura," he said, "Send McCoy and Spock to my office,
quietly if you can."
"Yes sir," she said
"And listen out for a coded scramble transmission at 10:27
on frequency 11678."
"Yes, sir." If she was curious, or surprised, it didn't show
in her voice.
While he was waiting, Kirk read the message over a few
more times.
It didn't get any better.