Walking A Fine Line
Chapter 1

Authors note:-
Sorry for the wait, a handful of other stories popped up after I started writing this one. But with other stories finishing and wrapping up I can turn my attention back. Here we go.

Jim stepped out of the turbolift next to three red shirt-ed security officers. 'Good, you secure the turbolift. Only let senior bridge officers on this deck until I say otherwise. Come on Bones, you other two follow us.'

Flanked by security the Captain and his friend half jogged down the corridor. A few feet down and around Jim almost missed it. He was expecting a small device, maybe even a couple of people. Not a large wooden box, painted blue with the words Police Phone Box written at the top.

'Well I'll be damned.' Bones cursed. 'Where the hell did that come from?'

'I don't know, but I'm willing to guess that it's arrival is what made all the noise.' Jim looked around. 'Some sort of transporter got it here but why would it look like this and what is it really?'

'I have no idea Jim.'

'You know its' just possible...' An idea came to him. 'If I remember my history right they used to use something like this on the old island state of Great Britain. It was a communication hub for law enforcement, could also be used to house a prisoner for the short term. Could be a side effect of the planet throwing it out here.'

'Sound's like a long shot Jim. Spock might have an answer, even if he doesn't you saw the look on his face. The only thing keeping him on the bridge are those sensor readings. If he knew there was something like this down here he'd haul his pointed ears down before you finished talking.'

Jim grinned and hit the comm panel. 'Kirk to bridge. Mr Spock as soon as you've finished with the readings up there we've got another mystery for you.'

'A mystery Captain?'

'An eight foot tall wooden box, Mr Spock. Sitting, as large as life, about four foot from where I'm standing.'

There was a short pause. 'Fascinating. I will be there momentarily.' Bones hid a grin.

'Captain!' One of the security officers almost shouted. Snapping the comm off Jim spun to come face to face with two people.

'Oh hello, I would have knocked but I didn't know anyone was outside.' A man rapped his knuckles on the side of the box. He was quite tall and a little on the thin side. He had prominent features, especially the nose, and curling white hair. Jim would have called his suit extravagant. A black dinner suit and short cape with a silver lining. His collars had small patterns woven in to the cloth.

A shorter, very much shorter, young woman in more relaxed, but still antique, clothes had came out of the box and stood just behind him.

'Hello. This might sound odd but do you know where you are?' If he was right and they had been displaced by the Guardian he had to handle this very carefully.

'Where I am or where I should be?' The strange man asked back. 'I should be on a planet, or research station, that's conducting dangerous research into time travel. Instead I appear to be on a starship. I'd guess mid twenty-third century Earth given your uniforms. I'm the Doctor and I've been sent to stop you.'

This put Jim on guard. 'Stop what?'

Whatever humour that was in his voice was gone. 'Your time travel experiments. Playing about with time is more dangerous that you can imagine. The damage you can do, not only to yourselves, is too great.'

'Agreed, but that doesn't explain who you are or why you're involved. Security, take these two to the conference room. I'll be there in a moment to talk with them.'

He smiled with a friendly warmth 'You know its so good to deal with a civilised man for a change. More than a few people would just throw us in both in the brig.' he said to his companion an then turned to Jim 'Although I would prefer to know your name Captain.'

The brig was still an option but Jim doubted it would be a good idea. Besides in many ways this was first contact situation, he had to handle it well. 'As I yours, doctor.'

'Ahh I see your problem. It is just Doctor, my name. For reasons too long to go into I have no other title. Sorry.'

This was rapidly going from odd to difficult 'James Kirk. Captain of the Enterprise.'

'Thank you. This is my assistant Miss Sarah-Jane Smith.'

The young woman held out her hand and Jim shook it. 'Hello, its a pleasure to meet you.' She said with an English accent, come to think of it the Doctor had an English accent too.

'Come on Sarah-Jane. Lets give the good Captain time to gather his wits and whomever else he might want to talk with us.' Jim nodded to the two guards and the small group left.

After a moment, 'Bones?'

'I don't know Jim, and what's all this about stopping time travel experiments? We're not experimenting with that device down there are we?'

'We're not and if I have anything to do with it we won't. It's too dangerous Bones, even if we just left it here with a full starbase to guard it.' Turning he looked at the box. 'So a shuttle?'

'Sure Jim. I guess, but where are the engines? Come to that where did it launch from? Didn't Sulu say we were all alone until the Gemini gets here?' McCoy looked into the box.

'And that's way outside of teleport range.' Jim looked around the back. 'But that's the only way it could have gotten this deep.'

'What the devil?' Bones shouted, as if he'd been stung by something. 'Jim It's bigger on the inside!'

'...Its bigger on the inside!' Spock heard Dr McCoy exclaim.

'That is an impossibility Dr McCoy. An objects internal size is dictated by its external proportions.' He explained one of the most simple rules of spatial logic as he approached. The Captain was correct. A large blue box was up against the side of a wall. 'Obviously this object arrived via a long range transporter of some description. The sound we heard must have been produced from its re-materialisation. Although how it arrived without a transporter trace or energy signature is fascinating.' He flipped open the tricorder and began a scan. The Captain stepped through the doorway.

'Spock, you have not looked in there alright I know what I saw. Now stop treating me like a damned child!' Dr McCoy insisted.

'Your observational skills are not in question. Yet neither are the most basic facts of the universe. The volume of an object can not exceed its dimensions.' Fascinating, there was no transporter trace from the object, it simply was a wooden box. Primitively made with natural materials. The Captain stepped out of the object, that was strange. There had been no trace of him while inside.

He looked distinctly shocked; 'I don't think the people who built this thing got that message. Have a look.'

Flicking an eyebrow up Spock entered the box. the result was... Astonishing. Both the Captain and the good Doctor were quite correct. The volume out stripped the external dimensions by a significant amount. Taking a few steps further into the box Spock performed further scans. It was useless, something was preventing his tricorder from reading anything.

He was left to rely on visual observations alone. The room was a stark white. A small monitor hung from a far ceiling, next to the back wall. A old chair and a hat stand occupied either side of the main doors and in the centre of the room a hexagonal control panel sat. The walls echoed the hexagon shape and a cursory inspection showed that the room itself was the same shape.

'So I was right. logic, Mr Spock, was wrong!' Dr McCoy smugly informed him. Both he and the Captain had followed him inside.

'Logically this is impossible, yet all evidence points to it existing.' It was a fascinating conflict. His Vulcan heritage insisted that it was not possible yet it was. All the evidence proved it both that it was and it wasn't.

In the sprit of discovery Spock went back to the door. Walking around the outside would provide no further, useful, information. Standing in the door frame he placed his left hand on the outer wall and then reached around. Were it not for the properties of the box his right hand would have passed through it's opposite. 'Well that's a nice trick.' the Captain quipped.

Going back inside Spock fought down the urge to run screaming from the box and spend the rest of his days praying in a Vulcan temple. From every principle the universe was based on this ship, for that was undoubtedly what it was, could not exist. For the first time he could be said to envy the Captain and Dr McCoy for their lack of logic. 'Captain. This is a ship that goes beyond all know laws that govern this universe.'

'You trying to say this crazy fun box is some sort of spaceship?'

'Even beyond that doctor. Given it's method of appearance arriving here and its properties I doubt distance is taken into account when travelling.'

'And just what the blazes does that mean Mr Spock.'

'He means Bones that distance isn't a factor for this ship. My God Spock, you know what you were saying? This ship could travel anywhere in the universe.'

'Indeed. I see only two possibilities. The first is that ship was "washed" here by the temporal disruption or someone with immense power is wishing to make first contact with us.'

Scotty met up with the Captain and his little group outside the main briefing room. 'Just what in blazes is going on? That sound almost got in the way of a level two overhaul of the transporter array!'

'Did it cause any damage Chief Engineer?' Mr Spock asked, he sounded concerned.

'No, just worry. I thought I'd done something to the stabilisers.' Scotty admitted. He watched the Captain stand next to a wall comm

'Uhura. Can you put through what's being said in the conference room?'

She answered with a 'Yes Sir.'

'...So just what are we doing here?' A young English woman asked

'I told you Sarah-Jane.' An older man with the same accent answered. 'Ever since the Time Lords gave me back my freedom to travel in time and space they have decided they need a.. an agent.'

'Isn't there anyone else that can do this sort of thing? I mean you work for UNIT, don't you.

'Only in an advisory capacity Sarah-Jane. It is against our highest laws to do anything else but advise and protect. My occasional... interference shall we say, is frowned upon but it makes me the perfect person to send in this situation.'

The Captain took his finger off the switch. 'That answers that question. He was sent.' his face was grim and Scotty knew he couldn't be the only one to be thinking of the guardian, down on the planet.

'Jim I get the feeling we're about to be in over our heads.'

'Dr McCoy is correct Captain. I hesitate to theorise quite what this meeting means for the Federation.' Mr Spock announced, brow furrowed.

'And there's no point in putting it off.' the Captain nodded and the four of them entered the briefing room.

'Ahh Captain. I trust you have recovered from your shock at our arrival.' A tall man with white curling hair and what looked like an antique formal suit, complete with cape, greeted them. Scotty recognised his voice as the male from before. 'You will allow me to make the introductions once again. I am the Doctor and this is my friend and travelling companion Miss Sarah-Jane Smith.'

The short attractive woman next to him stood up and offered her hand in the direction of . 'Hi. I'm sorry this is all a bit new to me.'

'As I said I'm Captain James Kirk, but you can call me Jim.' The Captain took her hand and turned on the charm. 'This is my first officer Mr Spock, you've met my chief medical officer Dr McCoy and this is Montgomery Scott, my chief engineer.'

'Aye, but you can call me Scotty lass. Everyone else does.'

The Captain sat down, as did everyone else but the unnamed Doctor. 'Captain Kirk, if I may. This is the early twenty third century, your people are still using a space warp drive. How are you conducting these dangerous experiments in time travel?'

'Still? What else could we use?' Scotty bristled but the Captain held up a hand. Silencing him

'We are not conducting any time travel experiment. We found an artefact on the planet we are orbiting, it allows people to walk through... A window in time?'

'Not quite Captain.' Mr Spock expanded. 'The object merely presents the history of any planet it isolates. You can then travel to that history through the portal provided.'

The Doctor sat down. 'And you're saying it is constructed.'

'We do not know. The intelligence that controls it claims to have been there since the beginning of time.'

'No, we'd know about it otherwise... An intelligence you say. A living object with the ability to view space and time with no laws. This is more dangerous than I thought.'

The Captain took the moments pause to ask. 'It is dangerous, we agree on that. I have to ask what is your interest in it.'

'To stop it of course. Disable if I can, destroy it if I have to. My dear chap you don't seem to understand just what you have stumbled upon here. It could unravel the very fabric of he universe.'

'We know the damage, it can change history. There was an incident and it almost happened.'

The Doctor shook his head. 'Any fool can change history Captain. All they need is the right wormhole or a time warp. With a device of this scope you could interfere with your own timeline. Create a paradox that destroys three quarters of the universe.' That got Scotty's attention, the whole table's attention as a matter of fact. 'You see that's my interest, why my people sent me. We understand better than most races how fragile time can be. A small rip here and there almost fixes itself don't you see. But a hole like this, guided by some unknown intelligence. Who knows what it's objectives are, or just how far it's willing to go.'

'What are you going to do Doctor.' his young companion asked him

'What I always do Sarah-Jane. Save the universe!' Scotty looked at the two of them. The old gentleman was chuckling slightly. Like the fate of the universe was everyday stuff to him.

The look the Captain and Mr Spock shared however worried him.

End Chapter 1

Authors note:-
That's the introductions out of the way I know not much really happens (aside from the odd Vulcan nervous breakdown) but there isn't really anywhere else to end it. So no cliffhangers or suspenseful music just a nice little wait for the next chapter.