"Sealed"
written by
Michael Gray
Jack looked about the lounge on Deck Seven, hoping to find someone he could sit with while eating dinner. Melissa was on a girl's night out with Kristy Bishop, and most of his other department heads were busy with various commitments.
He missed the communal aspect meals possessed during his five year stay in Earth's 19th century. Perhaps I should establish a meal once a week for the command staff.
Jack's quick scan of the lounge proved coming here had been a mistake. Finding any place on the Chamberlain devoid of people wasn't easy, but somehow...
No. There was indeed someone present, hiding out in the corner, near the window.
Jack walked over to the table.
“Ensign?”
Zaylie Burton recovered from being startled, and quickly smiled.
“Captain,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Dinner,” he said, holding up his tray. “Mind if I join you?”
She seemed to hesitate.
“If you'd rather not...”
“No,” she interrupted. “I'd actually like the company.”
Jack took the seat across from her, noting she still wore her duty uniform.
“I thought your shift ended a couple of hours ago,” he said as he tore into his steak dinner.
“I'm heading off to the holodeck to practice my tactical piloting,” she said, taking a drink from the tall glass next to her plate. “I want to be ready for my certification test next month.”
“I doubt the simulation cares what you wear,” he said with a grin.
“Hmmm?”
“The uniform?”
She smiled. “It helps make it real for me.”
“Does it work?” he asked.
“Most of the time,” she said. Zaylie looked about the lounge for a moment, then back to Jack. “I wonder if I could ask you about something, sir.”
Intrigued by what she could be so curious about after being aboard only two weeks, Jack decided to indulge her. “Of course.”
“When I found out I was assigned to the Chamberlain, I looked up your service record to familiarize myself with your style of command, your approach to missions, and some of the events which brought you to the center seat.”
Jack did his best to remain stoic, not sure how to interpret this interest in his career.
“I've discovered that how someone does on the Kobayashi Maru test is usually a good indicator of what kind of commander they'll become.”
“It's supposed to do that,” Jack replied, digging into his potatoes.
“I know...” She was caught off guard only a moment. “Like I said, I looked into your service record and found something odd.”
Jack froze.
“There's the record of your assigned test, but about a third of the cadets, strangely enough those who eventually end up with a command of their own, take the test again.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “There's no record of you having done so... at least at first glance.”
“Really?” Jack tried to act disinterested.
“Your first attempt is there for all to see, but after some digging, I discovered you had taken it again.”
Jack didn't speak.
“Must have been quite spectacular for them to seal the record,” she said, a slight grin on her face.
“Depends on your point of view.”
“If I may ask, what happened?”
“The record was sealed,” Jack said. “Wouldn't that indicate you're not supposed to be asking about it?”
Zaylie smiled wide. “That makes it all the more interesting to learn about.” Her excitement was near erupting. “So what happened? Did you beat it?”
Jack frowned. “That's a far more interesting question than you might imagine...”
***
14 March 2357...
Cadet Jack McCall stood in the living room of his Starfleet Academy quarters, staring out at San Francisco Bay. The stars hung in the sky, silent watchers of the turmoil in his soul.
A petite blond walked up behind him, wrapping her arms about his torso.
“Don't lie to me,” Larissa James pleaded, resting her chin on his bare arm. “I know something is bothering you.”
Jack took a long breath. “You going to be like this after we're married?”
“Yes.”
Larissa always knew how to make his mood better. But this time, the effect was only temporary.
“That damn test.”
“Don't let it get you down,” she said, reaching up to run her hand through his hair. “No one wins that simulation.”
“Really?”
“Okay, there was one, but he cheated.”
“There has to be a way,” Jack said, turning to her. The cool night air spilled through the open window.
Larissa shook her head. “Everyone loses eventually, my love. That's the point of the test--- to see how you hold up when you can't win.”
“But I only lasted four minutes and forty-two seconds.”
“That's about average.”
“Average isn't good enough,” Jack almost barked. “My father held out for almost fifteen minutes.”
“Is everything a competition with your dad?”
“I have to show them I'm as good as he is.”
“You're not the same person. There are things you'll be better at, and things he'll do better.”
“Not this one,” Jack grumbled. “I have to do better.”
“Don't take it again, sweetheart,” she said, pulling him tight, her warm skin nearly melting into his. “Just let it...”
“I can't.”
***
Jack stood outside the door of his Academy advisor, Commander Joral Naousvin, debating whether Larissa was right. She'd begged him not to request another go at the Kobayashi Maru, but he knew he could do better.
I have to do better.
Jack walked into the office, letting the receptionist know he wanted to speak to Naousvin.
Ten minutes later, Jack stood before the gold haired, Alpha Centaurian.
“You seem troubled, Cadet.”
“I have some questions, sir, and... possibly a request.”
Naousvin smiled. “I always look forward to your questions, Jack. Please, take a seat.”
Jack sat in the chair in front of the commander's desk.
Naousvin was about forty as best as Jack could tell. He'd fought in the Cardassian War, receiving various commendations for his service. He'd always surprised Jack with his emphasis on finding a peaceful resolution to conflict. Not at all what Jack had expected from a war veteran.
“Sir, the physics in the Kobayashi Maru simulation, are they completely accurate?”
Naousvin thought a moment. “What exactly are you getting at, Cadet?”
“I mean, if I take my ship in at full impulse, does it have the precise momentum it would have in the real world? Is the warp field around the ship exactly as it would be in reality?” Jack asked.
“Yes. We've put considerable effort into making it as physically accurate as possible.” Naousvin frowned. “But Jack, the point of the simulation isn't to test your tactical skills.”
Jack looked down at his hands. “I'm aware the Academy sees it that way, yes, sir.”
“There will be plenty of tactical simulations for you next year.”
Jack shook his head. “But not like this one.”
“You're correct. Most of those won't be so stacked against you.” He paused a moment. “There is no way to win the Kobayashi Maru. That's the point.”
“I don't expect to win,” Jack said. “I just feel my first experience wasn't the best I could do.”
Naousvin sat silent for half a minute. “You do realize you'll need me to authorize a second go at it for you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I normally discourage this, but... if you feel hellbent, I won't stand in your way.”
Jack smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“Let me know when you're ready, and I'll put it on the schedule.”
***
Saint Louis was overcast and rainy when Jack arrived. He'd taken the tram from San Francisco to avoid attracting too much attention, and as his contact had encouraged him, he'd hit a couple of tourist sites before proceeding on to his real destination.
This better be worth it, Jack thought, trying to keep the chill out of his bones.
He turned down a narrow street, doing his best to appear calm despite running late. Jack suspected the kind of people he was dealing with wouldn't view tardiness all that well.
A crack of thunder from directly above made Jack stop. He took a breath to relax. I can still make it, he told himself.
He resumed his pace.
After another minute, he turned a second corner and came to a stop.
There it was just as described.
The storefront was small, not much wider than fifteen feet. The windows seemed dark. Closer inspection revealed there was some sort of reflective material layered on the inside.
The store didn't have a sign of any kind.
Jack entered the front door, shaking the rain off himself.
The counter was only six feet in from the door. Covered in paper clutter, it seemed more like the desk of some obsessive accountant than a place to acquire difficult to find information.
After a few seconds, an emaciated man, appearing to be in his mid fifties, stood behind the counter with a smile.
“Can I help you?”
Jack nodded. “I had an appointment.”
The man pulled out a small pad of paper, leafed through it, stopping at almost the last page. “Name?”
“McCall.”
“Code?”
“Zero, zero, five, seven, alpha.”
The man paused to look Jack over a moment. “Usually you cadets come here for copies of tests and the like.”
“I have no interest in that sort of thing,” Jack replied.
“Which is why I'm interested in your reasons for coming here.”
Jack walked up to the counter. “The reasons are my own.”
“Can't blame a man for being curious.”
“I'm not blaming you.”
The man chuckled. “Just a minute.”
He disappeared around a corner.
Jack looked about the small shop cluttered with tightly packed shelves filled of musty books, barely enough room to walk around.
“You know, you probably could have gotten most of this through regular channels,” the man said from behind the corner.
“Most wouldn't be good enough.”
The man appeared again. “I figured that.”
He stood on the other side of the counter, holding a data card.
“That's fairly old technology,” Jack said.
“Easier to keep secure,” the man said. “That is unless you know what you're doing.” He handed it to Jack. “I've verified your payment.”
“That Nandorian account and the funds in it weren't easy to come by, you know.”
“Money never is on this planet,” the man said with a toothy grin. “Without you cadets, the whole Nandorian economy would probably collapse. What did you give them in trade?”
Jack shook his head as he held up the data card. “That's my business.”
“Last year, there was a female cadet who gave them two weeks of her time. I never found out how that time was spent.”
Ignoring his prattle, Jack examined the card. “This is what I paid for, right?”
“Wouldn't do me much good to anger a customer,” the man said. “But just remember, you've got as much to lose as I do if anyone finds out you came here.”
“I'm very aware of that.”
***
It took Jack more than a week to go through all the files on the data card. It contained every record of his father's Starfleet career. Jack took special interest in Jeremiah McCall's Kobayashi Maru test. Much to Jack's dismay, he hadn't really done anything all that surprising. He'd just kept reinforcing his shields and weapons at the expense of life support. While not a realistic way to deal with an enemy, it was reasonable given the test would end in the ship's destruction anyway.
After that avenue of inquiry had produced less fruit than he'd hoped, Jack sifted through his father's many missions, looking for anything else that might prove helpful with taking the test a second time. And though he wouldn't admit it to anyone else, curiosity about his father's life away from home had always consumed Jack. It made him feel connected to the man who had put so little time into Jack's childhood.
In the first light of a cloudy Thursday morning, less than three hours before he had to be up for class, Jack found it.
“Oh... now this is...”
The more he read, the less he could speak.
Jack had never heard about this mission, but then Starfleet officers weren't supposed to talk about that sort of thing.
At first, it shook him that his life might have changed so drastically if his father hadn't succeeded in his mission. Finding the details of how the final bit of that success had been accomplished started Jack's mind down an entirely different path.
“Maybe I can beat the damned test after all.”
***
Two weeks later, Cadet Jack McCall sat in the command chair of the Kobayashi Maru simulator room.
Everything began to unfold as before--- the distress call, the analysis of the ship's location within the Romulan Neutral Zone.
Jack stood from his command chair and strolled to Larissa James seated at the helm.
“Bring us about.”
Larissa turned to him. “Away from the Neutral Zone?”
“Yes.”
All the other cadets on the bridge turned to him.
“And the crew of the Kobayashi Maru?” Larissa asked.
“We'll get to them shortly,” he replied with a smile.
Larissa smiled in return as she followed his order.
“Mr. Brown, find me the largest gravity well in this sector.”
Eric Brown, their navigator, looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
“What? Uh, sir... if I may, why?” Brown asked.
“Indulge me.”
“Sir, the Kobayashi Maru is signaling again,” Cadet Miller, the comm officer said.
“No response.”
“But sir, they are in the Neutral Zone.”
“Now they are, yes. But they won't be... next time,” Jack replied.
“Next time?” Larissa murmured.
“Found it, sir... a pulsar in the Ladera system,” Cadet Brown informed Jack.
He turned to the navigator, “Mr. Brown, I believe you consider yourself an expert in warp field dynamics.”
“I know something about it, sir.” A grin crossed Brown's face.
Jack handed him a PADD. “Input these course calculations into the navigation system. Be sure to monitor them closely as we approach the pulsar.”
Brown scanned through the data on the device. His eyes narrowed. “Sir, the combination of the pulsar's gravity well and our warp field will distort the local space-time in such a way that...” Brown's eyes darted from the PADD to his navigation panel and back again.
Brown smiled. “Are these equations...”
“Field tested.”
Brown nodded and began entering the calculations into the ship's navigation.
Jack returned to the command chair, touching the ship wide comm.
“Captain to crew, in ten minutes we will slingshot ourselves around the Ladero Pulsar. You may notice some odd effects during this maneuver. But do not be alarmed.” Jack stopped to let that sink in. “After the maneuver, we will intercept the Kobayashi Maru on our side of the Neutral Zone.”
Everyone on the bridge except Brown, turned with wide eyes to Jack.
Larrisa James was the only one to speak, “Time travel?!”
“We are going back one week. We will intercept the Kobayashi Maru, preventing their crossing into the Neutral Zone, saving all aboard.”
Brown turned to Jack. “Captain, time travel calculations have been entered into...”
All the screens in the bridge simulator went dark.
Then the main lights went out.
“Remain calm,” Jack ordered. “Emergency lights.”
Nothing.
The main viewscreen opened, filling the simulator room with shafts of light. A figure entered.
It was Admiral Benson, chairman of the Tactical Department at the Academy. “All cadets... stand at attention!” he barked.
Everyone in the simulator room rose.
Benson continued, “This incident is hereby classified by order of Starfleet Intelligence. You will not speak of it to anyone. Is that clear?!”
“Aye, sir!”
“Follow your instructors to a holding area where you will be individually debriefed.”
As the others filed out, three men in plain black suits walked up to Jack.
“Come with us,” one of them said.
Jack didn't at all like how this was turning out.
***
The three men took Jack to a small ten by ten room, occupied by a table and two chairs. He'd been left there, sitting for nearly an hour before anyone returned.
Captain Angela Morris, the chief instructor of the Kobayashi Maru simulator stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. Usually Morris wore a pleasing smile, but not this time.
She sat across the table from Jack. “Cadet, you should consider your words very carefully from this point forward.”
Jack took a long breath. “Should I retain counsel, ma'am?”
“That option is not currently available to you,” she said.
“That violates my rights as a citizen of Earth, the Federation, and as a member of Starfleet,” Jack replied.
“This is a special circumstance, Cadet McCall, falling under the Temporal Directive of 2314.”
“I have not risked the timeline in any way,” Jack pleaded. “All of those present in the simulator are Starfleet personnel and are bound to protect the timeline.”
“There is the matter of where you acquired the information to pull off this stunt.”
Before Morris could answer, the three men in black returned. One turned to another reading a PADD.
“Are they the real equations?”
The man reading the PADD nodded. “They are indeed. And they include the latest modifications.”
The one with the PADD turned to Jack. “How the hell did you get your hands on time travel equations.”
Jack grinned. “Then I take it, my solution works.”
“Wipe that smile off your face before I...”
Captain Morris raised a hand.
The man with the PADD calmed himself. “You see, cadet, these equations are classified. We need to know how you came to possess them.”
“Classified? Hardly. After discovering a temporal incident from one of my father's missions, I went through the historical archives, found the first set from more than a century ago, and used those to track down the latest version.”
The man's eyes went wide, he and his cohorts murmured amongst themselves for almost a minute.
“We would like a full report on how exactly you tracked them down.”
“And who exactly are you?” Jack asked.
“They are from Temporal Investigations,” Morris replied. “They have been empowered by the Federation Council to prevent any threat to the timeline.”
“And my grade on the simulation?”
“This isn't a negotiation, cadet,” Morris snapped. “Being Jeremiah McCall's son has up to this moment kept you from being turned over to Temporal Investigations for... enhanced questioning... an ordeal which would take months to finish. Of course you would therefore not be able to finish your classwork and would fail this semester.”
Commander Naousvin entered the room.
Jack nodded. “I notice you haven't ordered me to give you the information. I take it that's because an order would make everything we're doing here official. There'd be a record. And none of you want that, do you?”
“Jack, this goes beyond winning against the no win scenario,” Naousvin said. “Time travel is the most dangerous threat we face. This must remain... off the books.” He sat on the edge of the table. “If you're the Starfleet Officer I think you are, you'll know that.”
“But I did win, didn't I?”
“Technically, no. The simulation didn't finish, so you didn't get a chance to save the ship.”
“And no doubt the time travel solution will be dealt with in the program from this point forward?” Jack asked with a frown.
“Most certainly,” Morris replied.
Jack took a long breath. “Okay, I'll give you the details of how I got the equations.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, everyone but Naousvin and Jack left the room.
“And now, your evaluation on the simulation...”
“But I thought it was classified,” Jack said, surprised to be going through this.
“It is. Once we walk of this room, we'll never speak of it again. There will be no record of it other than to say there was a technical problem with the simulator. A... circuit failure.”
“So what's to talk about?”
“Your actions in the simulation,” Naousvin said. “This is a good learning experience for you, McCall. It addresses one of your greatest weaknesses.”
“Which is?”
“Your inability to see past the circumstances of the moment.”
“I don't know what you're...” Jack began.
“Exactly,” Naousvin said with a frown. “Did you consider the consequences of going back in time seven days?”
“In light of the threat to lives, those aboard the Kobayashi Maru and the threat of the Romulans instigating an excuse for war, I considered it worth the risk.”
“And what about those aboard the Maru? Did they figure into your considerations?”
“I just said...”
“Had it crossed your mind they might have intentionally crossed the neutral zone?” Naousvin asked.
“Why...”
“Who knows why? Smuggling, illegal activities, spies, could be a hundred reasons you could never know.”
“In light of the fact they'd be facing attack...” Jack started.
“And if they'd chosen to take that risk?”
“Then rescuing them...” It finally began to sink into his mind. Naousvin had just shown him the game board was bigger than Jack had ever imagined.
“No, you were acting on what you knew at that moment, which wasn't much,” Naousvin said, taking the seat across from Jack. “But once you go back seven days, you have to consider larger issues, Cadet, such as what you're doing to their choices. That's the real threat of time travel.”
***
“Sounds like an interesting solution,” Zaylie said with a grin.
Jack looked at the young woman across from him. It was there, that youthful enthusiasm for adventure he'd once had. Somehow along the path of his life, he'd lost it. It was the price he'd paid for losing so many people he cared about.
Part of him wanted to yell at Zaylie Burton out of envy. But a last ember of adventure within his soul wouldn't allow that to happen.
Instead he'd use this moment the way such times had been used with him--- to teach.
“In the aftermath, I was pretty damn proud of myself,” Jack said with a frown. “Rumors spread across campus that I'd defeated the no win scenario, and since no one could talk about it, rumor became absurd legend.”
He shook his head at the misplaced pride which had driven him to excel his last year, wondering what might have been if he'd not had that incident to propel him to where he was now.
“But Naousvin was right,” Jack continued. “I hadn't considered what I was doing to the Kobayashi Maru crew. Manipulating time for our own ends takes away the choices of everyone involved. People have a right even to their wrong choices. Those are often the ones that make history.”
She watched him for several seconds. “This sounds more personal than I would have expected.”
Jack shook his head. “It seems I'm going to have watch myself around your overly perceptive mind, Ensign.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't apologize,” Jack said. “I shouldn't have burdened you with this.”
“It's not a burden.”
“It's classified and you aren't to speak of it to anyone, nor initiate time travel or allow it to be initiated by anyone.”
“I don't have a problem with that,” Zaylie said.
“You will the next time someone dear to you dies,” Jack said, his thoughts returning to Larissa. The day she had died, he'd gone searching for the time equations again. Fortunately, Hank Evans had stopped him before he'd gotten very far.
“It will haunt you,” Jack said. “And it may give you the mistaken notion you have more power than anyone should ever have.”
“I've always suspected someone within Starfleet had figured out time travel,” Zaylie said.
“Based on what?”
“Didn't you ever ask yourself how humpback whales came back at the very moment Earth needed them?”
Jack grinned. Yes, he had wondered about that incident. He hadn't really believed the story that someone had just happened to find a DNA sample a ten years before that probe appeared over Earth.
Zaylie stood. “I understand what you're saying, sir. Don't worry, I agree with your point about choices.”
“Good,” Jack said.
Zaylie stood looking at him for several moments. “I think your Kobayashi Maru experience explains why Commander Vargas looks at you the way she does.”
“Really?” Jack hadn't ever made a connection between that incident and his wife, Melissa Vargas.
Zaylie leaned toward him, lightly kissing his cheek, stopping just long enough to whisper in his ear, “Some girls like a guy who's a little dangerous.”
She walked toward the lounge door. “Vargas is a lucky woman.”
Jack laughed, and returned to his meal, alone once again.
* * *
Dark Horizon Story and Characters Copyright ©2011 Michael Gray
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