- and the blackness receded as the Bird of Prey blasted out of its time warp, streaking toward Earth at high warp speed, but decelerating rapidly.
“What’s our location?” Chuck asked groggily, coming out of the trance he seemed to have fallen into.
There was nothing for a moment, and then he heard Bryce quietly say, “Earth. Judging from the atmospheric pollution content, I’d say we’ve arrived somewhere in the late twentieth century.”
Chuck looked around the bridge. Aside from Bryce, the rest of the crew still seemed to be in something of a trance – Jeff at the communications station, Lester manning weapons, Anna at the helm. Morgan stood behind Chuck, his eyes glazed over.
“Yo!” Chuck shouted. “Good morning, San Francisco!”
The other four bridge crew snapped out of it. “Uh, sorry about that, sir,” Anna apologized. “I’m aiming for San Francisco.”
“Set us down in Golden Gate Park,” Chuck ordered. “And Lester, do me a favor and activate the cloaking device.”
“Engineering to bridge!” The panicked voice of Major John Casey rang out over the intercom.
“This is the bridge.”
“Admiral, you’d better get down here, right now!”
Chuck looked at Bryce. Bryce met Chuck’s worried expression with, as always, a look of logical calm. “Bryce, you’re with me.”
When the two men arrived in engineering, Casey looked like he was just about to have an aneurysm. “We’ve got a serious problem, folks. The dilithium crystals – well, they couldn’t handle the strain of the time travel. They’re decrystallizing.”
Chuck’s jaw dropped. “Shit!”
“We don’t have the technology to re-crystallize them, either,” Casey told him. “Even in our century, the equipment required is dangerous to use.”
Chuck looked at Bryce. “Ideas?”
Bryce nodded his head. “Actually, yes. There is a possible twentieth century method for, if not recrystallizing the dilithium, then at the very least, renewing it enough to return us to the twenty-third century.”
Chuck narrowed his eyes. “Explain.”
“During the twentieth century, several navies undertook a dubious flirtation with nuclear power for their sea-going vessels. The United States Navy was one of those, and they generally had at least one nuclear powered vessel docked in San Francisco Bay.
“Their reactors were poorly shielded by our standards, and tended to leak large amounts of alpha radiation, which, while fairly harmless to humans, would be ideal for energizing the dilithium crystals to a point where they will stop decaying.”
Chuck nodded approvingly. “Casey? What do you think?”
Casey shrugged. “It’s certainly not a bad idea, but I think it’s a crapshoot at best. I’ll put together a collector, but you guys are gonna have to find me a ship.”
He turned back to the dilithium crystals, but then stopped. “One more thing. These dilithium crystals are going to have to have enough energy to not just get us back to the 23rd century, but first beam up those whales and then have enough power to get us out of Earth’s gravity well with them on board. Will this radiation experiment provide enough power for that, Bryce?”
Bryce cocked an eyebrow. “I cannot say for sure. I have only hypothetical models to work with.”
“Great,” Casey muttered, walking off. Chuck wasn’t sure, but he thought he might’ve overheard something along the lines of goddamn Vulcan logic.
“Again with the Vulcan logic bit,” Bryce said. “Everybody seems to have forgotten that I am half human and that I was raised in Connecticut.”
“Yeah, but Bryce, when they took your memories out of Morgan’s head and put them back in yours, they seem to have forgotten to put your emotions back.”
Bryce shook his head. “Irrelevant. Emotionalism is illogical.”
Chuck threw his hands up in the air. “Whatever.”
When they returned to the bridge, Chuck began to hand out assignments. “Alright, here’s the deal,” he said. “Lester and Jeff, your mission is to locate a US Navy nuclear-powered ship. You’ll be beamed in, and you’ll be collecting alpha radiation with a collector Major Casey provides you.
“Anna and Morgan – your mission is to work with Major Casey, locate us the supplies to build a whale tank, and build us that tank.”
“Yes sir,” Anna responded, while Morgan breathed, “Oh, joy.”
“Bryce and I will locate our whales. Any questions?”
There were none. “Alright, let’s head out,” Chuck said. “Everyone remember where we parked.”
Four hours later, everybody had already managed some level of success at their mission – everybody except for Chuck and Bryce. Jeff and Lester had managed to find a nuclear-powered ship – the USS Enterprise, no less – in San Francisco Bay. Casey and Morgan had found a plastics company that could manufacture what they needed, and Anna had found a helicopter with which to transport it.
Of course, when Chuck asked Casey how exactly he was paying for the material, Casey had sort of hemmed and hawed before finally admitting that he turned over the formula for transparent aluminum. Bryce’s eyebrows just about crawled off the top of his forehead when he heard that.
“Casey, you can’t do that!” Chuck exploded. “You might be changing the future!”
“Chuck, he’s the guy who invents it!” Casey shot back. “So he has it a couple years early! So what?! It’s not like he has the technology to manufacture it right now!”
Chuck had just sighed in disgust and closed his communicator. “So, it’s just us, still trying to find a couple of whales,” he sighed.
“Well, sir, I believe we can have Jeff track any whale songs coming from the city, triangulate their position, and – what?”
Chuck had smacked Bryce on the shoulder, and was pointing wordlessly at the side of a bus. “Or, we could just do that,” Bryce said.
SEE GEORGE AND GRACIE AT THE SAUSALITO MARINE INSTITUTE! the sign proclaimed. Next to their names was a picture of, yes indeed, two humpback whales.
“Let’s go to Sausalito,” Chuck said.
Half an hour later, they were at the Sausalito Marine Institute. Walking in the front door, Chuck dropped a bill into the box that said “Donations Please.” Knowing very little about the currency of 1986 America, he hoped that the one with the “5” on it wasn’t too much or too little.
Tours form here every 30 minutes, a sign informed him and Bryce. “What say we join the tour, recon the place?” Chuck suggested.
“Not a bad idea,” Bryce agreed.
They joined a group of about ten people waiting on benches. Five minutes later, a door that said “Tours Only” opened, and a stunning blonde woman walked out.
Chuck’s eyes widened when he saw her, and he stood up quickly. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a body to kill for. He realized that even Bryce was taking notice, and Bryce NEVER took notice except for that one time every seven years.
“Good afternoon,” she said. “I’m Doctor Sarah Walker, associate director of wildlife studies for the Sausalito Marine Institute. I’ll just head off any wise remarks right now – yes, I really am a marine biologist and NOT a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model.”
A ripple of laughter ran through the small group. Chuck didn’t really get the joke, but something about the way she said it made him smile.
“Ordinarily, one of our tour guides would give the tour, but we had a little bit of an accident involving a staircase and a hangover this morning, so I’m filling in!” she continued. “If you’ll follow me, we’ve got some pretty incredible things to see.”
Over the next forty minutes, Chuck learned more about marine mammalian life than he could’ve ever hoped to learn in the 23rd century, when most species were extinct. He also saw some pretty gruesome evidence of why the species had gone extinct. “Horrifying,” Bryce noted calmly.
Then, Dr. Walker led the group outside onto what resembled a pool deck – except the pool was enormous, and clearly had salt water in it – along with two humpback whales. One of them surfaced and exhaled, sending up from its blowhole a plume of vapor which then rained down on the crowd.
“This is perfect, Bryce,” Chuck murmured. “We beam up the whales, hit the gas for the 23rd century, avert the destruction of Earth – not a bad day’s work, huh?”
There was no answer. “Bryce?”
Chuck turned around. There was no sign of Bryce – until he heard Dr. Walker yell, “What the HELL?!”
Chuck closed his eyes. “Oh please God no.”
He ran to the edge of the tank, just in time to see Bryce hauling himself out. “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?” he yelled simultaneously with Dr. Walker.
She whirled to face him. “Do you know him?” she demanded.
“Unfortunately,” Chuck admitted. He turned to Bryce. “What the hell was that all about?”
“I was simply attempting to communicate, Admiral.”
Chuck smacked his hand against his forehead. “Stop calling me Admiral, dammit!”
“I did not call you Admiral Dammit.”
Sarah Walker looked between the two of them. “The two of you have about ten seconds to explain what’s going on before I call the police.”
Bryce looked at Dr. Walker. “Gracie is pregnant.”
Sarah’s eyes widened, and she punched Bryce, sending him flying back into the tank. “Okay, Admiral Dammit,” she hissed, “you start explaining, or you join your friend the freak in the tub.”
Her blue eyes pierced into Chuck, and all at once, he felt an overwhelming urge to tell her the truth, ever last ounce of it, and before he even realized what he was doing, it was spilling out of him like word vomit. “We’re from the twenty-third century,” he blurted. “We came because we have to get two humpback whales, because they’re extinct in our time, and the planet is about to be destroyed by some alien life form that seems to be pissed off about the fact that they’re gone. Bryce, my friend, he’s half alien, and he can read minds by doing some sort of mind meld thing, and I don’t think he was trying to do anything else.”
Bryce had hauled himself out of the pool again. “That is correct, Admiral,” he confirmed.
Dr. Walker’s eyes had gone wide as plates, and her jaw was just hanging open. She stood there for a moment, speechless, before she finally turned to the rest of the group. “Uh… uh, I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to cut the tour off early,” she said, much to their disappointment. “Please feel free to show yourselves around the remainder of the institute, and if you wish to join the next tour, there should be another one forming in about twenty minutes.”
As the group dispersed, she turned to Chuck. “I don’t know why,” she began, “because that’s the biggest bullshit story I’ve heard in my entire life, and I’ve heard some good ones, but for some reason… I believe you.”
She couldn’t have shocked Chuck more if she’d stripped naked right there. “I’m sorry?” he asked in disbelief. “You BELIEVE me?”
Sarah shrugged. “What can I say?”
“Hot damn,” Chuck whispered with a grin. He whipped out his communicator and opened it. “Bartowski to Casey,” he said. “Casey, please come in.”
“Yeah, what is it?” he heard the irritable voice of his chief engineer say. “We’re a little busy renewing some dilithium crystals here.”
“So that mission was successful, then?”
“Yeah, Jeff fell and cracked his head pretty good. Fortunately, he doesn’t really have much of a brain, otherwise it would’ve been a problem.”
Chuck heard Jeff’s voice come through faintly in the background. “I’m fine, Adm’ral!”
Chuck narrowed his eyes. “Casey, he sounds drunk.”
“Morgan liquored him up pretty good. The Klingon painkillers we have are crap.”
“Alright, whatever. We’ve got a pair of whales. We have three humans and two whales to beam up.”
Casey snorted. “Dream on… sir. I have a transporter range of about 100 feet right now. You’re gonna have to be right outside the ship for me to beam you in, and we’re gonna have to be right over those whales to beam them up. Tank’s ready, but the transporters are… well… not so good.”
“Hell,” Chuck muttered. “Alright. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
He looked at Dr. Walker. “Do you have a car or something?”
She was staring at him again. “Uh, yeah… uh, three to beam up… what does that mean?”
“Transporters,” Chuck explained. “They move matter from place to place, and that’s the number of people I needed beamed up.”
“Why three?”
She had Chuck there. “Um… well, I guess I thought you might like to come with us. After all, you do seem to believe us, and, um, we’re gonna need somebody who knows what to do with these things.”
And then she actually smiled. “Twenty-third century, huh? That could be fun.”
Forty minutes later, her Blazer skidded to a stop in Golden Gate Park. “Let’s go!” Chuck shouted, as they bailed from the truck. He ran toward where he thought he remembered the Bird of Prey being – and was knocked off his feet as he ran smack into the side of it.
Painfully, he got back to his feet. “Found it!” he called weakly, waving to Bryce and Sarah, who jogged over – much more slowly – to join him.
When they were next to him, he opened his communicator again. “Bartowski to Casey,” he said. “Three to beam up.”
“Oh, holy shit!” Sarah Walker exclaimed in surprise as the transporter beam began to dissolve her form. Chuck grinned and closed his eyes as the cool wash of the transporter beam dissolved to blackness –
To be continued…
Author's Note: for those of you who may not have recognized this chapter, it's a spoof of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which remains to this date unquestionably the funniest and most popular of the Star Trek films. For character comparison, Chuck is Admiral James T. Kirk, Bryce is Captain Spock, Morgan is Dr. McCoy, Jeff is Uhura, Lester is Chekov, Anna is Mr. Sulu, and Casey is Scotty.
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