It was bound to happen some day. He had known it all along. But why did it have to happen on this Christmas Eve? Santa Claus, the giver of gifts, the big old jolly father Christmas, had a problem. A very large problem that could ruin this Christmas and all other Christmases in the future...
Starfleet Temporal Security had found out about him.
He had set up a chroniton induced subspace receiver with which he listened to all kinds of radio traffic (he had to find out one way or another who had been naughty and who had been nice), but with which he also listened to the future. This way he had found that Starfleet Temporal had located him. They had finally found him; it had taken them long enough. Ever since he had crashed with his shuttle on the north pole, he had managed to elude the authorities. And he had succeeded, until now.
One of the elves walked up to him and saw his worried face. "Santa?" he asked. "You don't seem your jolly self today... What's wrong?"
Santa Claus smiled at the concern of this elf. Ever since he had rescued them from their dying planet, they had pledged an oath to serve Claus as best they could. Their loyalty and concern was touching. "I just intercepted some messages from Starfleet Temporal," Santa answered. "They've found out about me. They're coming to get me."
"You can't let that happen!" The elf responded, obviously shocked at this news. "Children all over the world depend on you! If Starfleet takes you away, the children won't get their presents!"
Santa nodded. "They couldn't have come at a worse time. It's Christmas Eve soon. The children won't..." He covered his eyes to prevent the elf from seeing him cry.
"Santa!" exclaimed the elf. "You can't be serious! You can't seriously think about letting Starfleet ruin Christmas!" The elf, called Herbert (although everyone called him "Pixy"), couldn't hide his anger anymore. "You are Father Christmas! You represent everything Christmas stands for!"
Santa showed a tired smile. "Presents?" he asked. "Does Christmas stand for presents? Does Christmas stand for old men beaming -- coming -- down the chimney to drink milk, eat cookies and deliver gifts?" He shook his head. "No, Pixy. Christmas should stand for more than that. Children nowadays only look forward to Christmas because they get presents and lots of things to eat. That isn't Christmas. It shouldn't be. Maybe it's a good thing that Starfleet's coming to take me away."
"You don't meant that!" shouted Pixy, his eyes filled with tears. "You belong here! Without Santa Claus, the world will be a much, much sadder place."
"I've been telling myself that for the past forty years," sighed Santa. "But the truth is, the world will go on without me. When we came from the future to this place, I thought the least I could do was use the advanced technology we brought with us, to help people. To give them a brighter, happier Christmas. So I ceased to be Lieutenant Claus, and became Santa Claus. But I'm beginning to think I have changed the timeline all for nothing. Despite a joyful Christmas every year, the people of Earth continue to make war. What is the point in me staying and contaminating the timeline if I can't even make a difference?"
Pixy was in tears. "You can't believe that! If even you don't believe in yourself, then what of the people of Earth? How can they possibly believe in Saint Nicholas if you don't even believe in yourself?"
"Pixy..." Santa began, but corrected himself, "Herbert. The mythology about Saint Nicholas is ancient. I just happened to fill the role of a dead saint for a while."
"No!" Pixy cried. "No, Santa, you *are* Santa Claus! You have to believe that. If anything, believe that!"
Santa smiled. "I must admit, I have believed myself to be the genuine article for quite some time. I suppose I could continue believing in myself for a while longer. It wouldn't do me any good, though... Now that Starfleet's on my tail, they'll be here before I can leave to deliver the presents. Quite a shame."
"Then ride out one last time," Pixy almost begged. "Give the children of the world one last happy Christmas. The presents have all been replicated, your sack has been filled, the sleigh's antigrav and other systems are at 100 percent, and the holographic reindeer program has been initialised. You're good to go."
"Pixy, I..."
"One last time, Santa." Pixy looked at him with puppy-dog eyes. "For the children."
Santa carefully placed his hand on the tiny elf's shoulder. "For the children," he repeated softly. "Will you be standing by at Polar Headquarters?"
"I certainly will, Santa," Pixy replied smiling. "I'll try to disrupt Starfleet's scans. That should buy you some time. You should set the sleigh's shield harmonics to match the Earth's background radiation. We'll communicate over a coded subspace frequency in the low theta-band. They'll never discover where we're sending messages to."
"Clever thinking, Pixy," Santa replied, proud of his elf. Realising that this was a Christmas Eve where there was really no time to loose, he said goodbye to the elf and rushed towards his already prepped sleigh. "Go Prancer, go Dancer, go Vixen, go..." he began to yell. "Oh, what the heck. I don't have time. Go all of you!"
The holographic reindeers appeared in front of the sleigh, and Santa Claus hopped inside. "Emergency pre-launch sequence..." he said into the comm system. "Launching... now!" The sleigh, which had been a Starfleet shuttle a long while ago but was re-built as a technologically sophisticated sleigh, immediately took off, leaving behind it a haze of blown up snow. Santa knew he had to hurry; it would only be a matter of time before Starfleet would find him. With a lot of luck, he would be able to deliver most of the presents before he had been located. He pushed his sleigh's engines to the limit; Santa was on the run.
Meanwhile, in orbit of the planet Earth, a Federation Timeship dropped out of timewarp. Its Captain had his orders: To take Lieutenant Claus into custody and to prevent him from doing any more harm to the timeline. The ship's chronometers showed it was Christmas Eve 2004, and the Captain saw it fitting to bring former Lieutenant Claus back to his superiors as a Christmas present. Finding him, though, proved to be more difficult. The specific lifesigns of Claus were nowhere to be seen.
"He must be masking his life signs," Captain Smith said to his science officer. "Clever. Try scanning for chroniton particles. See if anything on the planet is out of sync with this timeframe."
"Scanning, sir," reported the science officer. "Wait a minute. I'm detecting something. Some kind of large disturbance of chroniton particles. It definitely not belongs in this timezone. I think it could be our target, sir."
"Location?"
"Pin-pointing now, sir." Suddenly, the screens started to flicker and alarming sounds were heard. "Captain, our sensor scans..." began the science officer. "They're being deflected!"
"What? How?"
The science officer shook her head. "Hard to tell. I believe it's being caused by some kind of chroniton-induced tachion beam aimed directly at us. It's interfering with our other systems too."
Captain Smith gritted his teeth and made a fist. "Claus." he realised. "Lieutenant, can you tell where that beam is originating?"
"Checking, sir." Lieutenant Adla shook her head. "Precise location is unknown, sir, but the beam is coming from somewhere on the northern hemisphere, that's for sure."
"It's a big hemisphere, Lieutenant. Got anything more conclusive?"
"Best I could do, sir. I'll try to increase power to the sensors and remodulate them. It might take a while, but it'll make the sensors more effective."
Smith nodded. "Very well. Proceed. We have to find that Claus, no matter what. I won't let him ruin our mission to capture him."
From his hide-out at the North Pole, Pixy grinned. He had just bought Santa some more time.
A couple of hours later, Santa Claus was ahead of schedule. As always, delivering all the right presents to the right children was a daunting and difficult task, but he managed this time as well. He even managed to buy himself more time by skipping the milk and cookies that had been set for him. Well, on a few occasions, anyway. Most of the time he had simply poured the milk in a large can and the cookies in a large jar. Not the most respectful way of dealing with the children's' gifts to him, but it was regrettably necessary. ~I needed to cut down on milk and cookies anyway,~ Santa though to himself. ~Stupid diet.~
=/\= North Pole to Santa! =/\= Pixy's voice suddenly sounded through the sleigh's communication system. =/\= We have a problem! =/\=
"Santa here. Pixy, what's going on?"
=/\= The Federation timeship... They've found us. They've found the Polar Headquarters! =/\=
"Raise your shields!" Santa cried, distressed by what he heard. "I'm changing course to help you." Absentmindedly, his hand searched for the button that would activate the sleigh's never before used phaser banks.
=/\= No! =/\= Pixy cried back. =/\= No, Santa, you must finish your round. Everything depends on it. Give the children one last merry Christmas, please. Don't worry about us; we'll defend ourselves. And we'll buy you some time in the process. =/\=
Santa knew Pixy had a point. He also knew that his Polar Headquarters was well concealed. The elves were numerous, and they would be able to stand their ground, at least for a while. They would bring the transporter inhibitors on-line, preventing anyone from the timeship to beam down to the North Pole. "Very well, Pixy," Santa replied in a trembling voice. "Do what you can. I'll finish my round as fast as I can and then I'll come back to help you."
=/\= There was no doubt in my mind about that, sir, =/\= Pixy said. =/\= Polar HQ, out. =/\=
More determined than ever to finish his round in record time, Santa diverted more power to the engines. There was no time to loose.
Just when Santa had finished delivering all the presents to the kids in Europe, his communications array flared up again. The message was badly garbled, but it was clear that Pixy was calling him. He sounded quite distressed. =/\= Santa! ...need to... out of there! =/\= Just as Santa was about to respond, the proximity alert went off and almost at the same time, a Federation shuttlecraft nearly grazed his dorsal shields.
Immediately, Santa took action. Realising he had been discovered by Starfleet despite his sensor-dispersing field around the sleigh, he ordered the sleigh to go down. As he looked behind him, he saw that the shuttle was following him. A channel opened and a voice commanded, =/\= Stand down, mister Claus. =/\=
"I can't!" Santa yelled back. "Don't you understand? I have to bring presents to the children all over the world! I have to give them one last merry Christmas!"
=/\= We cannot allow you to continue polluting the timeline. You will come with us. =/\=
"You'll have to catch me first!" shouted Santa, and he diverted all auxiliary power to the engines. The sleigh lurched forward, driven by extra power, and raced on over the ocean. The shuttle followed, also diverting extra power to the engines. It matched every manoeuvre Santa made and appeared to have no trouble keeping up.
Apparently, the occupants of the shuttle didn't find this chase amusing any longer, for a bright orange phaser beam shot right past Santa's sleigh. =/\= Consider that a warning shot, mister Claus, =/\= the voice said. =/\= Next one will hit. Now stand down. =/\=
"You really want to take away Santa Claus from the children?" Santa shouted into the communications system. "What kind of evil monsters are you?"
=/\= We have our orders, mister Claus. Besides, you know as well as we do that you're not Santa Claus. =/\=
Santa grinned. "We'll see about that," he said and pressed a few buttons. "Eat my fairy dust." He tapped one last button and immediately a compartment at the back of the sleigh opened, releasing golden and silver specs of dust. The moonlight reflected against it beautifully as the tiny pieces of 'fairy dust' obscured the shuttle occupants' view. As they were forced to slow down, Santa made use of this by initiating a low-level warp field around his sleigh, making him go faster. By the time the occupants of the shuttle got rid of all the golden flakes, Santa had already re-initialised his sensor scattering field. He had disappeared from sensors and also from view.
"We've lost him, Bud," one of the officers in the shuttle said to the other.
"I know, Larry. How are we going to tell the boss?"
"The Captain doesn't need to hear about this. Besides, he'd never believe that we were chasing Santa!"
Bud sighed. "Yeah. I am *so* not gonna get any presents from Santa this year."
To Santa's surprise, he wasn't interrupted even once during the rest of his trip. But what worried him was that he couldn't contact the Polar Headquarters either. This was, however, of later concern, as he flew over the last village he needed to bring presents to. As he put the last present in little Jimmy's sock and emptied the bowl of cookies and the glass of milk, he realised he had done it. He had brought a merry Christmas to all the children in the world for one final time. It saddened him to know that he wasn't going to bring any more presents to any more children for a long time -- if ever.
He beamed back to his sleigh, only to find that a subspace message had been sent to him while he was away. Santa played it. "They've breached through our defences!" Pixy shouted on the recording as an explosion in the background made the image flicker. "We have taken refuge in the Toy Factory, but we can't hold out much longer. They have trapped us here... It will be only a matter of time before--" The screen flickered again and the recording ended. Obviously something had happened that caused the transmission to end. Pixy had taken a huge risk to contact him, since the communications array was located in the main HQ building, and they were now hiding in the Toy Factory.
His primary mission complete, Santa could now finally go back to the North Pole to help Pixy and the other elves. With -- again -- no time to loose, he sped in the direction of the North Pole; his home. But his great speed could not prevent that two Starfleet shuttles took up position behind him. This he could not use right now; he had to go faster to outrun those shuttles. But his sleigh had already reached its maximum speed, and using a warp field again would only put a strain on the engines, causing them to explode.
Another warning shot went straight past him and through one of the holographic reindeers. The signal was clear: stop now, or we will stop you. =/\= Mister Claus, you are hereby ordered to surrender! =/\= a voice ordered.
"Not until I save my elves," Santa whispered, and kept going.
The next shot hit his aft shields. Santa considered arming his own weapons, but he didn't want to fire at these Starfleet people. They were only doing their job. Unfortunately, their job included firing at Santa Claus. The North Pole was coming close, but Santa knew his shields would collapse before he got there. Another phaser beam hit his aft shields. He needed to do something fast. He was all out of fairy dust, but maybe there was another trick he could use...
Santa brought his sleigh down towards the ocean. The icy shores of the North Pole, complete with its icebergs and slippery chasms and glaciers, came into visual range. Santa smiled; he had a plan. If only he could reach those shores... Another couple of phaser beams made it clear that the Starfleet people weren't going to give up. Nor would he. With a tap on a button, he brought the sleigh's phasers on line and took aim. Just a couple of seconds more...
He was hit badly yet again. The sleigh started shaking and smoke started to pour out of a breached conduit. He had lost inertial stabilisers -- he had to fly manually now. All the better. They were nearing an area of the North Pole with nasty every-changing cliffs, chasms and lumps of ice that could break off the wall they were hanging on any moment. It was a treacherous place. A place where only the best of pilots would dare to fly. "Let's see if I can't loose them here," Santa said softly.
The shuttles had almost caught up with the sleigh when Santa decided it was time for a test of piloting skills. He veered to starboard and then suddenly moved to port, flying around an iceberg, only to come back again and move his sleigh into a narrow passageway between two walls of ice, where a large chunk had recently broken off. The shuttles followed, as Santa had expected. Coming up was another chunk of ice that was on the verge of breaking; if it did collapse, the road ahead would be blocked. Santa knew this, but knew that the shuttle pilots didn't know.
At high speeds, the three vessels raced through the chasm as if it were a race course. Santa managed to avoid quite a number of phaser blasts; he was in his element here. Impacting on the icy walls, the phaser beams made ice and snow erupt from the point where they impacted, blinding the shuttles for a short while. This wasn't sufficient to loose them, though, but the upcoming chunk of ice just might be. Santa waited patiently until he was in range, and then fired his phasers. As he flew underneath it in the nick of time, hundreds of kilos of ice came falling down, blocking the path.
Santa looked back for only a second to survey the situation. ~Santa: 2, Starfleet: 0.~ The two shuttles were both stopped for at least a while, buried under a kiloton of ice. Oh, they would get themselves out, of course, but by that time, Santa would already be at his Polar Headquarters.
And he was. As he touched down his sleigh, several Starfleet troops surrounded him, pointing their phasers around them. "Ho ho ho!" he roared to them. "Merry Christmas!" He got out of his sleigh and walked up to the troops. "May I be the first to welcome you to the North Pole. I would kindly ask you to put your weapons aside, though. The elves don't fancy weapons fire. And frankly, neither do I."
A man stepped forward. He didn't carry a phaser, and seemed to be the leader of the group. At least, his rank insignia seemed to indicate he was a Captain. "Is that why you left Starfleet, Lieutenant Claus?"
"It was part of the reason, yes," admitted Santa. "But I get the feeling you're not here to talk to me about my reasons for leaving Starfleet."
"You stole a shuttle, mister Claus," Captain Smith continued. "And while on the run from Starfleet, you entered a solar storm at full warp, ended up in a time warp, arrived here, crashed here, and instead of trying to signal Starfleet for help, you *polluted* this timeline. My question is not why you left Starfleet, mister. My question is why the hell you messed with the timeline!"
Smith was getting angry, Santa could see that. "Your version of events is not entirely correct, Captain." he countered. "My ship encountered a dying planet, on the verge of its destruction. Its people were dying. The Prime Directive stated that we couldn't help them, since they didn't appear to have warp technology. But they were warp capable, Captain. The scans didn't reveal it, but they were warp capable. Their technology had been destroyed by the planet's many earthquakes. I suspected there was more than met the eye, but I was denied permission to take a shuttle down and see for myself. So I did what I thought was the right thing: I defied orders and stole a shuttle. When I arrived at the planet, I encountered a village which was going to be overrun by lava from a nearby volcano. Its population just sat there, helpless. I beamed as many of them up to the shuttle as I could, and then high-tailed it out of there. While trying to elude capture, I warped into the solar storms of that system's unstable sun. I ended up here, forty years ago, four hundred years in the past, from my perspective, and crashed here on the North Pole. At first, I lived isolated, together with those I had rescued. But then I started to look around. I picked up television and radio broadcasts. I saw how these people lived, and I felt I had to do something to make their lives more enjoyable. Since my career was already flushed down the drain, I thought, why not? Why not do all that I can to make one day in the year more comfortable for them? So I did a little background on this Santa Claus, and soon after that, well, I became Santa. Still am today."
Smith was momentarily baffled by this monologue. "You actually play the role of Santa Claus?" he asked. "Bringing Christmas presents to all the nice children?"
"That's what I do," replied Santa. "That's who I am. Today is, or rather, was, Christmas Eve. And so, as I did all those other years, I delivered the presents today as well. Although, I must admit, it was more special this year. I had never been chased by shuttles before... And, sadly, this was the last year I got to make the children happy. There will be no more merry Christmas for them next year or any other year. No more presents from Santa Claus, no more ho-ho-ho's down the chimney, no more fat old jolly bearded person living on the North Pole. All that will be gone."
Captain Smith actually looked at him with a sad look in his eyes. He was touched. "You *are* Santa Claus," he said softly." Then he continued, softly, more to himself than to anyone else, "Is it right to rob the people of Earth of their Santa Claus? Of the embodiment of their tradition?" He was having a hard time deciding.
At that moment, Pixy came running out of the Polar Headquarters, followed by a few guards whom Pixy had obviously eluded. Captain Smith told them to stand down, as Pixy jumped into Santa's arms. "Santa!" he cried. "I'm so glad you're all right!"
"As am I to see you are okay, Herbert," Santa replied and smiled. "You are okay, right?"
Pixy nodded. "They're holding us captive down there, but we're being treated well." He swallowed. "Santa... What's going to happen to us now?"
"I don't know," Santa replied and looked at Smith. "That all depends on the Captain here."
"I have explicit orders to bring you back, mister... Santa," Smith said, looking grim. He was obviously thinking very hard about this -- his was a difficult dilemma. "And there are times when breaking orders is the right thing to do."
Hope briefly flared in the eyes of Santa and Pixy. Hope that they might still be allowed to stay and continue their annual activities.
Smith swallowed. "But, it is with great difficulty that I decide that this is not one of those times. I am sorry, Santa, but I will have to ask you to come with us." He sighed deeply. "I really wish this could have turned out differently. Your transporter inhibitors have been taken off line, so we can beam you up at any moment, but I would advise you to co-operate."
Whatever hope Santa and Pixy had, now faded fast. The Captain wasn't going to let them go. In a way, they understood; allowing them to stay on Earth was too great a risk. The timeline could be contaminated in more ways than one. "But the children," Santa began to argue. "Think of the children, Captain! Aren't the happy looks on the children's faces worth some damage to the timeline? Besides, what kind of damage to the timeline would taking away Santa Claus cause?"
But Smith stood by his difficult decision. "I really am sorry, Santa Claus." He sighed deeply and averted his eyes. "Smith to the North Star," he said in a voice thick with suppressed tears, calling his ship. "Begin the beam-out."
Santa sighed and looked around the North Pole one last time. It had been his home for many years. "Goodbye, good Earth," he said finally. "For what it's worth: Merry Christmas!"
The wind carried his voice over to the far reaches of the North Pole, as he, Pixy, all the Starfleet officers and practically everything else that belonged to Santa, vanished in the blue light of the transporter beam. Santa Claus had brought a merry Christmas to the children of the Earth one last time. An era had ended.
An old man watched the proceedings from a distance and smiled slightly. "It's about time that person left," he told a creature very much resembling an elf. "He's been taking over my job for the past forty years!" He turned around and together they started to walk to a building of their own, hidden by snow and ice. "There is still much work to be done for next Christmas," the real Santa Claus said to the elf, his eyes sparkling. "And it seems we are back in business."
