by David Mack
“That won’t be necessary. Scan to make sure it’s stable, then use a cargo transporter to beam it into our main hold. If you detect any sign of toxic or radioactive material—”
“Quarantine the hold and advise all forensic engineers to follow hazmat protocols.”
“Thank you, Belin,” Georgiou said, her hand alighting for a moment on the younger woman’s shoulder, a fleeting gesture of praise. Then Georgiou returned to her command chair and used its armrest panel to open a channel to main engineering. “Mister Johar. Ensign Oliveira is about to send something your way. Is your team ready?”
“Champing at their bits, Captain,” Johar replied over the comm.
“Glad to hear it. As soon as we get the drone wreckage on board, I want you and your people to rip that thing apart and tell me everything there is to know about it. What makes it tick, where its parent ship came from, whether we could face several at a time—everything.”
“Understood. If I have to, I’ll go up its afterburner with an electron microscope.”
“Thank you, Commander. I’m sure that mental image won’t haunt me for days to come. Bridge out.” She closed the channel and looked around for her two senior officers. Given their history of contention, she had expected to see them at opposite ends of the bridge. Instead, they were side by side, hunched together in front of an auxiliary tactical display near the back of the bridge. Curious to see how the pair was working together on their first day after promotion, she drifted up behind them like a ghost and lingered at their backs while she eavesdropped.
“I’m not hearing anything but a countdown to more trouble,” Saru said.
Burnham was cool but firm in her reply. “That is clearly a signal from the Juggernaut.”
“A signal, yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s trying to communicate. Pulsars emit regular repeating signals, but they aren’t known for being clever conversationalists. The universe is awash in coherent signals of no meaning or consequence.”
“Much like this debate,” Burnham said with dry contempt.
They’re getting on as well as ever, Georgiou realized, to her mild disappointment. She stepped forward, alerting the pair to her presence. They parted as she said, “What can the two of you tell me about the Juggernaut?”
“It remains at sea,” Saru said, “floating at the same coordinates where it surfaced and disrupted the drilling platform Arcadia Explorer.” He spoke quickly, as if he feared interruption. “It is emitting unusual sonic and electromagnetic pulses. The colony’s sensor logs confirm the pulses began as soon as the vessel surfaced. A cursory analysis of the pulses suggests they represent a countdown, possibly to the launch of another drone, or to its own deployment.”
Georgiou nodded, then looked to Burnham. “Where did it come from?”
“Beneath the ocean floor, as the rig foreman alleged.” Burnham called up some sensor images of the seabed under the Juggernaut. “The drill head penetrated the sea floor here. At a depth of roughly six hundred eleven meters it struck and was resisted by the hull of the Juggernaut, which then surfaced, destroying the rig platform.”
It wasn’t like Burnham to be so maddeningly literal. “I meant, Number One, where did it come from originally? I’m assuming it’s not indigenous.”
“That does seem unlikely,” Burnham said. “None of our files on Sirsa III indicated any sign of inhabitation prior to the founding of the colony. However, the configuration and hull composition of the Juggernaut and its drone are both unknown to us. Neither matches any profile currently found in our memory banks.”
“Which brings us,” Georgiou said, “to the matter of what to do next.”
Saru stood tall. “In light of the fact that the Juggernaut has already destroyed an ocean platform, resulting in the loss of over nine hundred lives, and has launched a drone that has killed an unknown number of civilians in the capital, and seems poised to do so again, my advice would be to strike now, while we possess the advantage, and destroy it.”
It was an impassioned plea, one more strident than Saru had been known for. Georgiou nodded once. “A prudent suggestion, Mister Saru, but perhaps premature in its resort to violence.” She faced Burnham. “I heard you tell Saru that you think the Juggernaut’s signal emissions might be an attempt at communication. How likely is that?”
“I’m unable to say, Captain. Mister Saru is correct when he says the signals could be natural byproducts of other processes taking place inside the ship. However, if they do represent an opportunity to make contact, we would be remiss not to investigate it more closely.”
Saru stepped forward. “Captain, please—the time to destroy this threat is now, before it has another chance to attack the colony—or perhaps even us.”
Georgiou felt trapped between idealism and pragmatism. In her decades of Starfleet service she had seen too often, and far too intimately, the nightmarish tragedy of war and thoughtless conflict. She wanted a reason to choose the less aggressive course of action, and she was counting upon Burnham to provide it to her. Michael has never had trouble arguing her opinions before; what’s different about this mission? Or is it Michael that’s different?
The discussion was interrupted by an update from Oliveira. “Captain? Doctor Nambue and his medical team are ready to beam down.”
“Is their security escort with them?”
“Aye, sir.”
“Then beam them down and notify Governor Kolova of their arrival.” Georgiou turned back toward Burnham and Saru. “I don’t want to fire weapons at the Juggernaut until we know more about it. Its hull resisted an industrial drill. Let’s find out what it’s made of before we commit to a grudge match. Number One, put together a landing party and go check it out.”
“Aye, sir. Saru, Gant, you’re with me. Oliveira, have two armed security officers meet us in the transporter room in three minutes.” She moved at a quick step toward the turbolift. Gant fell in beside her as she passed his station, but Saru seemed stuck in place where she had left him. “Pick up your feet, Mister Saru,” Burnham said as she and Gant headed to the turbolift. “Time, tide, and transporters wait for no one.”
Shocked into motion, Saru hurried after Burnham and Gant. The lift arrived as he reached them, and the trio stepped inside. Then the door closed and they were gone in a thrum of electromagnetic propulsion.
That was more like the Burnham I expect to see, Georgiou mused. But why does it suddenly feel like she’s holding back? What’s she waiting for?
Those, Georgiou feared, were mysteries whose solutions would have to wait for another day.
6
* * *
Unlike some of his peers in Starfleet, Saru enjoyed the sensation of being beamed. As he stood on the platform in front of the energizer array in the Shenzhou’s transporter room, the pressure of the annular confinement beam had a calming effect upon his oft-frazzled nerves. When he felt himself vanish into the dematerialization sequence, he imagined himself becoming invisible . . . intangible . . . untouchable. For the briefest of moments, he was hidden beyond reach.
He felt safe.
Then came the sensory overload of materialization. Scintillating light, coupled with a musical wash of noise. Sensation returned as his surroundings appeared, bright and unfamiliar, and he found himself with the rest of the landing party, once again solid and utterly exposed.
Vulnerable.
Over the years Saru had taught himself to hide his anxiety. He lifted his tricorder from his hip and switched it on. Pivoting in a slow circle, he ran the standard battery of recommended scans. “Air temperature and quality register normal and free of toxins,” he declared, though no one had asked. Aside from the landing party—which consisted of himself, Burnham, Gant, and security officers Temkin and Rogers—he detected no life signs on or inside the Juggernaut. “We appear to be alone out here,” he said to Burnham. “No evidence of sapient life other than us.”
The acting first officer nodded. “Very well. Mister Gant, conduct a detailed study of
the vessel’s hull. If you can, try to obtain a sample of this material.”
“Aye, sir,” said Gant, who filled a small vial with sea-water and grit collected from an indentation on the back of the vessel. Noting Saru’s stare, he said, “For my collection.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.” Saru watched as Gant, self-conscious, tucked away the vial.
As Gant walked toward one end of the Juggernaut, Burnham caught the eye of one of the security officers. “Temkin, go with him and stay alert.” To the other she said, “Rogers, stick close to Saru.” Then she turned toward Saru. “Make a new scan of the sonic and electromagnetic signals being emitted from the Juggernaut.” Her brow creased while she entertained a thought. “Add a filter to simulate how those signals would propagate and be received underwater in this sea, taking into account its specific density, salinity, depth, and water-temperature variations.”
“Yes, sir.” It was an eminently sensible request. As Saru made the necessary adjustments to his tricorder, he felt vaguely annoyed that he hadn’t thought to suggest it first. I’m the senior science officer, he chastised himself. I should know to account for local conditions in my study.
He looked up to see Burnham had already moved off on her own, toward the end of the Juggernaut opposite the one being investigated by Gant. Though she carried a tri-corder, she didn’t appear to be using it. Instead she was relying, as she so often did, on her senses and Vulcan-trained memory. Her mental acuity never ceased to impress—and intimidate—Saru. He both admired and resented her for it, as he did for so much else.
Shadowed by security officer Rogers, Saru limited his perambulations to the middle region of the Juggernaut’s back. He squinted against the glare of sunlight sparkling across the sea. His eyes roamed the waves in a futile search for any signs of the demolished drilling platform. What did I expect to find in water this deep? In his imagination he had seen pools of burning fuel slicked across water littered with flotsam and debris. Instead, there was only the Juggernaut, surrounded by a seemingly endless expanse of sea and sky, an unbroken horizon. A stiff breeze fluttered the fabric of Saru’s uniform and kissed his face with a spray of salt water.
Focus on the mission. He finished his adjustments to his tricorder. The scan and simulation ran while he conducted a new test: he programmed his tricorder to emit sonic pulses of its own, in configurations that would echo those of the Juggernaut.
Less than four seconds later, his improvised message garnered a response.
He couldn’t hear it, but he felt it—in the soles of his feet, in his bones, his spine, his teeth. Infrasonic pulses, too low to be audible but strong enough to quiver his organs. It triggered a memory older than him, one ingrained into Kelpien DNA, to fear the thundering tread of great beasts, to know that wherever that tremor occurred, death was not far behind.
His threat ganglia emerged in frantic motion. He retracted them by sheer force of will.
Each reverberation in the Juggernaut’s hull escalated Saru’s anxiety. His breathing turned shallow. His pulse raced—he felt it in his temples and his wrists. Within seconds his mouth was drier than Burnham’s sarcasm, and his throat twisted tighter than a tourniquet. He wanted to cry out, to send up an alarm, but his limbs refused to obey him. Stiff as a statue, he fought to turn his head. When he did, he was dismayed to see that none of the others seemed to have even noticed the harbingers of doom being telegraphed by the alien vessel under their feet.
Ensign Rogers stepped toward him, her manner curious. “Sir? Are you all right?” When he failed to answer, she moved closer. The lithe human looked him up and down, growing more alarmed as she did so. She stepped in front of him. “Lieutenant Saru? Is something wrong?”
Saru struggled to force out a whisper. “Don’t you feel that?”
She shook her head. “Feel what?”
Another series of pulses rattled Saru’s teeth. “That!”
Confusion beetled the woman’s brow. “You mean that mild vibration?”
“No,” he said, at a loss to explain his agitation. “It’s more than that. I—It—”
“Sir, maybe I should get the XO.” Rogers turned to shout toward Burnham.
Desperation overcame fear: Saru reached out in a blur and set his hand on Rogers’s shoulder. “No, Ensign. That won’t . . . won’t be necessary.” He forced through his rising tide of panic to put on a mask of composure. “Resume your patrol. I am fine.”
Apprehensive, Rogers stepped away to give Saru his space. He turned his back to her and pretended to fine-tune the settings of his tricorder while he collected himself.
Can’t let them say I panicked, he realized. If I lose my calm, I’ll never be considered for first officer, on this ship or any other. He finished his pantomime of tweaking and returned the device to its place at his side. A few more minutes and we’ll be back on the ship. A deep breath did little to soothe his mounting fear. Once we’re safe, I just need to find a rational argument for why this thing is a nightmare that will try to kill us all.
* * *
Lieutenant Commander Saladin Johar stood off to one side against a towering bulkhead in the main cargo hold of the Shenzhou. In front of the chief engineer and a team of his best forensic technology specialists lay a sprawl of burnt, twisted wreckage from the alien drone shot down only minutes earlier above the capital of Sirsa III. A few pieces still smoldered, and at least one glowed red-hot. He shook his head and looked askance at operations officer Oliveira, who had ventured belowdecks to help him coordinate the reassembly and analysis of the drone.
“I suppose it would’ve been a bit much to ask that it be captured intact, wouldn’t it?”
She pursed her lips. “Gotta give Gant credit—he’s a hell of a good shot.”
Several meters away, the shimmer of the cargo transporter’s wide-field beam heralded the arrival of the last swath of debris found on the surface. Everything had been beamed up and materialized inside the cargo hold based on grid references, so that it would preserve the relative positions of the drone’s parts. The advantage to that method was that it facilitated a study of how durable the drone’s remains were upon crashdown. The disadvantage was that it took up a lot of room in the cargo hold, and brought up half a meter of soil under each grid.
I pity the crewman who has to swab this deck tomorrow, Johar thought.
Chief Petty Officer Shull—a stocky and balding cargotransporter operator—shut down his console and called over to Johar, “That’s the last of it, sir.”
“Thanks, Chief. You’re dismissed.” As Shull lumbered away, Johar reached over to a panel on the bulkhead behind him and opened an intraship channel to the next cargo hold. “Time to get started.” He thumbed the channel off without waiting for a reply.
Broad, tall doors that separated the main hold from the next one aft parted with a gasp of hydraulics and a hum of servomotors. As they slid apart, a team of seven forensic engineers and mechanics entered, all walking side by side in a long line, toting their gear like weapons of war.
Oliveira noted their arrival with a smirk and nudged Johar. “Three guesses who’s been watching old astronaut hero-vids in the rec hall.”
“If that’s what the right stuff looks like now, we’re in deep trouble.”
The pair walked to the middle of the hold to greet the arriving specialists. “Good afternoon, my friends,” Johar said. “Around you are the remains of an alien attack drone, origin unknown.” He gestured at the scattered squares of debris, which stretched across nearly the whole length of the hold. “I hope you don’t mind that we’ve presented it in an exploded diagram format.” He waited for them to get the gag. None of them reacted, not even with a ghost of a smile. Johar scowled. “Oh, come on. That was a quality pun, folks. That’s as good as it gets.”
“I think that’s what they’re afraid of,” Oliveira confided.
Pearls before swine, he lamented in secret. “So be it. Listen up for your duty assignments. Esposito, catalog this stuff, every last chip
and cable. Payne, Reddick: materials analysis. What are its parts made of, and where did that stuff likely come from? Coniff, you’re on provenance. Is this thing native to this rock, or did it drop in from someplace else? Find out. Wierzbeski, reverse-engineer an internal schematic for this thing. I want to be able to build one from scratch out of spare parts if we have to. McShane, Bloom: What frequencies does this thing work on? Is it autonomous or remote-controlled? If it’s a remote, can we jam its signals? If it’s a hybrid system, can we jam and then disrupt it?” He met the team’s cool, professional stares. “Questions? No? Then get to work—and let me know the moment you find anything.”
The specialists fanned out and picked their way through the assorted piles of broken alien machinery. Soon the hold resonated with the oscillating tones of multiple tricorders.
Oliveira and Johar walked past a large chunk of the drone whose internal mechanisms were exposed but still in place. “This thing looks pretty sophisticated,” Oliveira said. “Would you rate it as less advanced, more advanced, or roughly on par with our own tech?”
“Until we know more about it, I really couldn’t say.” Johar kicked a chunk of hull debris out of his path as they strolled along. “It’s fast and maneuverable. Good enough to take out civilian interceptors. On the other hand, we picked it off from orbit in a single volley.”
“So, it’s good in a dogfight, but not tough enough to take a hit from our phasers. Seems like a toss-up.”
“Maybe,” Johar said, “maybe not. Some ion drives can haul ass and turn on a dime, which is great in an air battle, but they can’t maneuver to save their lives in vacuum. And for all we know, the fault might be in the drone’s command-and-control system. If it’s a dumb attack dog, executing a limited range of tactical responses, it might have been configured to cope with the colony but not a starship. If the Juggernaut that launched it can reprogram these things, then who’s to say it won’t equip its next drone for combat with the Shenzhou?”
