Serpents Among the Ruins

by David R. George III

  “Toward Federation space,” Linojj said.

  “Lieutenant Tenger,” Sulu said, “can you identify the ship? Is it one of ours?”

  “Scanning,” Tenger said from the tactical station. “It is a Romulan vessel, Ivarix class…it is Tomed.”

  Sulu rose and stepped forward, both playing her role and finding an outlet for her restlessness. “Open a channel,” she said.

  She heard the tones of the communications station being worked behind her, and then Lieutenant Kanchumurthi said, “Channel open.”

  “Romulan vessel Tomed,” she said, “this is Commander Sulu of the Starfleet vessel Enterprise.” She peered at the main viewscreen, where the stars shot by as the ship sped through Foxtrot Sector.

  “There’s no response,” Kanchumurthi said.

  “Enterprise to Tomed,” Sulu tried again. “You are in violation of the Neutral Zone and heading for the Federation. You must alter your course immediately and return to Romulan space.”

  “Still nothing,” Kanchumurthi said.

  “Lieutenant Tenger, course and speed of the Tomed?” Sulu said.

  “The ship is traveling at warp nine,” Tenger said, “on a direct heading for Foxtrot XIII.”

  Linojj looked up at Sulu. “They’re going to attack,” she said in a low voice, obviously horrified. The declaration actually underscored the need for Sulu’s next order.

  “Ensign Tolek,” she said, “plot an intercept course.”

  “At maximum warp,” Tolek said, “we will intercept Tomed just as it reaches the outpost.”

  “Set course, maximum warp,” Sulu said. Tolek and Linojj acknowledged the order and worked their consoles. “Are there any Starfleet vessels in the vicinity?”

  “Agamemnon is on patrol there,” Tenger said.

  “Captain, Foxtrot Thirteen and the Agamemnon are both transmitting warning messages to the Tomed,” Kanchumurthi said. Sulu glanced over and saw the communications officer reaching up to his silver earpiece, obviously listening to the transmissions.

  “Let them both know we’re on our way,” Sulu said.

  “Captain,” Tenger said, “there are indications of a singularity containment failure in progress aboard Tomed.”

  “If containment fails at warp…” Linojj said, but she did not need to finish her statement. Almost everybody on the bridge would know that the introduction of a quantum singularity into a warp field would have devastating results.

  “A few months ago, they installed those new defenses,” Lieutenant Kanchumurthi said hopefully. “Perhaps that will be enough to protect the outpost.”

  “No defense known to Starfleet could withstand such an event,” Tenger said soberly.

  “What can we do?” Sulu asked, already knowing the action she would take. “Can we evacuate the outpost? Can Agamemnon?”

  “We’re not close enough, “Linojj said. “And even if we were, there isn’t enough time to beam up three hundred people.”

  “We can attempt to destroy Tomed,” Tenger said.

  “Too risky,” Linojj said.

  “What if—” Sulu started, speaking to the entire bridge crew. “Can we get close enough to transport the microsingularity off of the Tomed, out of its warp field?”

  “It seems unlikely,” Tenger said. “In addition to the highly condensed matter overloading the transporter circuits, we would be attempting transport from a vessel moving at warp speed.”

  “Unlikely,” Sulu said, “but not impossible.”

  “It may be impossible,” Tenger said, “but a thorough analysis would be required to determine that.”

  “I’m going to try,” Sulu declared. “Xintal, I’ll be in transporter room one. You have the bridge.”

  “Aye, aye,” Linojj responded.

  Sulu walked over to the helm and made eye contact with Linojj. “If I’m not successful,” she said, “if there is an explosion, get the Enterprise out of here immediately.”

  “Understood,” Linojj said.

  Sulu headed for the turbolift. She felt extremely uncomfortable at having to deceive her crew, but she could not think about that right now. Instead, she needed to concentrate on trying to save Captain Harriman.

  “Thirty seconds until launch,” Vaughn announced, reading the chronometer in a panel set into the side bulkhead. He had moved to the second row of seats in the cabin so that Commander Gravenor and Captain Harriman could take the two forward positions. The captain would pilot the shuttle, while the commander would operate the cloaking device. Vaughn’s duty would be to monitor the time and the sensors, and then to transmit a disguised signal to the retreval vessel sent by Admiral Harriman—or by Admiral Sinclair-Alexander, he supposed, if the elder Harriman was still incapacitated.

  “I’m bringing the warp engines to full power,” Harriman said, working his console.

  “Initiating power to the cloak,” Gravenor said.

  Around them, the shuttle hummed to life. Vaughn glanced quickly to the aft of the cabin and saw the sphere of the cloaking device begin to glow. “Twenty seconds,” he said, looking back to the chronometer.

  “Commencing antigrav liftoff sequence,” Harriman said, his fingers roaming expertly across his panel.

  Through the forward viewing port, Vaughn saw another shuttle and several work pods seem to descend as Liss Riehn lifted from the landing stage. A moment later, the shuttle stopped rising, and then it yawed to port. The bay slipped away in the opposite direction as the stars came into view, the warp effect stretching them into thin lines as Tomed raced through space. “Ten seconds,” Vaughn said.

  “Activating cloak,” Gravenor said. The lighting in the cabin immediately dimmed, a signal both of the cloak’s operation and of the enormous amount of power it drew.

  “Aft thrusters at the ready,” Harriman said.

  “Three seconds,” Vaughn said. “Two…one…” As he reached “zero,” the shuttle surged forward into the starscape, the bay slipping past the viewing port until it was no longer visible. “Subspace threshold in three seconds,” Vaughn said. He knew that navigating the border between a ship’s warp field and normal space could be accomplished safely and easily at speeds slower than warp five, but at Tomed’s current velocity—

  A jolt thundered through the shuttle, and it skewed laterally from its course. Vaughn flew from his chair across the cabin. He raised his uninjured arm in time to absorb the impact as he struck the bulkhead, but the wounds in his shoulder and hand screamed in pain. A loud drone rose in the enclosed space, and Vaughn recognized the sound of the structural-integrity field straining to protect the shuttle.

  The vibrations in the cabin increased as he pushed himself away from the bulkhead and staggered back to his chair. He saw Commander Gravenor also pulling herself back up to her console, but Captain Harriman had somehow braced himself and had maintained his position. Past the two officers, a faint translucent glow, golden and the consistency of vapor, shined outside the viewing port.

  “The cloak is holding,” Gravenor yelled above the din.

  “We’re almost clear,” Harriman said, also raising his voice to be heard.

  Vaughn checked the time, grabbing hold of the panel to steady his gaze. “Five minutes, forty-five seconds until containment failure,” he called, indicating the time left before the destruction of Tomed.“Forty-five seconds until we need to go to warp.” In order to escape the ensuing shock wave, the shuttle would need to put some distance between it and the Romulan flagship.

  All at once, the shuttle stopped shaking. “We’ve cleared the subspace threshold,” Harriman said.

  Vaughn peered over at the viewing port. The stars moved in counterclockwise spirals out in space, he saw, the shuttle obviously in an uncontrolled roll. Then he checked the chronometer. “Thirty seconds until we need to go to warp,” he said.

  Captain Harriman operated his controls. “Starboard thrusters,” he said beneath his breath, his words almost inaudible. The spinning of the stars slowed, and Vaughn imagined that h
e could feel the decelerating effects of the thrusters as they braked the shuttle’s roll, although with no external gravitational reference, he surely could not.

  “Fifteen seconds to warp,” he said.

  “We’ll make it,” Harriman said calmly. Through the viewing port, the stars coasted to a stop. “Laying in our course away from Tomed and Foxtrot XIII,” he said, working his panel once more. “Going to warp.”

  The hum of the warp engines filled the cabin, accompanied by a controlled vibration. Through the viewing port, Vaughn watched the stars streak past the shuttle as it rocketed to lightspeed. Then he turned to his own panel. “Transmitting our signal,” he said. Using his uninjured hand, he activated the control sequence that would cause a random dispersion in Liss Riehn’s navigational deflector. “Signal away,” he confirmed when he had completed his task.

  Five minutes later, Captain Harriman brought the shuttle out of warp. The stars returned to pinpoints as the cabin quieted and stilled. “Maneuvering thrusters,” the captain said. “We are at station-keeping.” Then he turned in his chair and faced both Commander Gravenor and Vaughn. “Drysi, Elias, well done,” he said. “You’ve completed an incredibly difficult mission. And an important one. Your actions may have saved billions on both sides of the Neutral Zone.” He paused, and then added, “If I could, I’d put each of you in for the highest commendation.”

  “Thank you, John,” Gravenor said.

  “Thank you, sir,” Vaughn said.

  “John,” the captain told Vaughn. “Right now, you can call me John.”

  “Thank you, John,” Vaughn said.

  Harriman and Gravenor both turned back to their consoles, and Vaughn looked at his own panel. Their duties completed, they sat in silence, waiting to learn whether or not they would survive their mission.

  Linojj stared from the command chair at the tactical readout displayed on the main viewer, having trouble accepting what she saw. An icon representing the Foxtrot XIII asteroid sat in the center of the screen, with concentric circles drawn around it to indicate distance from the outpost. A representation of Tomed, a small, green starship symbol, sped toward the center of the display on an unwavering course.

  “It’s headed directly for it,” Ensign Fenn said from the sciences station, her voice low, her tone one of disbelief.

  “Tomed is nine billion kilometers from the outpost,” Tenger reported. “The containment field will fail completely in eighteen seconds.”

  Linojj didn’t need to work through the mathematics to know that the explosion would occur extremely close to Foxtrot XIII. Even at a greater distance, though, the unleashing of a quantum singularity within a warp field would send such a powerful shock wave through subspace that the outpost would still be destroyed. And with Tomed traveling at warp nine, the entire sector might be at risk.

  “We’re within visual range,” Kanchumurthi said.

  “On screen, maximum magnification,” Linojj ordered.

  The viewer changed, the tactical display replaced by a starscape, with the brown, irregularly shaped oval of Foxtrot XIII visible at its center.

  “Four-point-five billion kilometers,” Tenger said. “Eight seconds to containment failure.”

  Linojj felt helpless, unable to bring Enterprise close enough in the final seconds to help in any way. She could only hope that that Agamemnon would be able in the last moments to force Tomed out of warp. If containment failed outside a warp field, the microsingularity would cause localized destruction, but there would be no threat to the outposts.

  “Agamemnon has opened fire on Tomed,” Ensign Fenn said excitedly.

  “Two-point-two billion kilometers,” Tenger said. “Three seconds…two…one…”

  Linojj peered around the bridge and saw all eyes focused on the main viewer. She looked there herself, in time to see a brilliant flash of white fill the screen, the protective filters unable to compensate for the intensity of the light. Linojj squinted and looked away for a moment to protect her eyes.

  When she looked back, Foxtrot XIII was gone.

  Zero: Tomed

  In Tomed’s main engineering section, containment failed. With the complex fields that tamed its effects gone, the microscopic black hole that powered the starship reached out into the universe. Matter tore apart under the relentless draw of the singularity, and then disappeared into the pure darkness. Space and time, bound together seamlessly to form the structure of reality, rent beneath the force, twisting and wrinkling as portions of the continuum sank into the ultimate gravitational vortex. The black hole pulled at everything, devouring all it captured, its appetite insatiable.

  Around Tomed, the warp field generated by its faster-than-light drive carried the ship through subspace. The alternate realm existed within and without the starship, allowing it to travel at speeds not possible in normal space-time. Loosed in this domain, the singularity continued to feast, consuming the fabric of this other existence.

  But as subspace folded in on itself at warp factor nine, it filled the black hole. The actuality of velocity overwhelmed the potentiality of force. The singularity, infinite in its dimension, could not contain the greater infinity of subspace collapsing into it.

  Gravity turned. Matter transmuted into energy, and the energy shifted, reversed, pushing from the negative, through the zero, and into the positive. Subspace grew into the superior power, transcending the might of the singularity.

  The black hole became the black entrance, the black portal. Subspace pushed backward, flowed from the point of its virtual demise and rushed, born again, back into the universe, carrying with it matter and energy previously consumed.

  In the space occupied by the disintegrating form of Tomed, subspace asserted itself with its new force, destroying the rest of the starship in a fraction of second. And the wave of energy continued on, expanding in every direction, coursing through and beneath space and time with little resistance.

  The shock wave caught Agamemnon, and an instant later, Agamemnon was no more. The inconspicuous asteroid dubbed Foxtrot XIII provided more opposition, withstanding the onslaught of subspace energy for an entire second before crumbling into nothingness. And still the great sphere of the wave expanded.

  The shuttle Liss Riehn lasted as long as each of the two starships had, its distance from the source of the shock wave keeping its smaller form intact longer than it would have had it been closer. And still the subspace wave spread.

  It chased another starship, Enterprise, which escaped only by virtue of the greater speed allowed by the separate subspace field projected around it.

  Foxtrot XII vanished next, its matter blown apart in seconds. Outposts XI and IX followed, gone as though they had never been, so complete was their destruction. Two unnamed asteroids and a comet in the Neutral Zone were pulverized.

  Finally, the vastness of space and time over which the shock wave had traveled took its toll. The subspace wave, its energy diminishing at each point as it expanded, began to fade. It demolished Foxtrot X, but took a half-minute to do so. Outposts VIII and VII each disappeared in a minute, and Foxtrot VI in two. As the wave weakened and slowed, it lost its ability to devour. Four of the remaining five Foxtrot asteroids shattered, but left progressively larger chunks of themselves floating through the void. Foxtrot I withstood the initial assault relatively intact, its hollow center caving in, but the asteroid itself not breaking up for more than an hour.

  And then at last, the wave died, its energies spent on trillions of trillions of cubic kilometers of space.

  In its wake, Foxtrot Sector was gone.

  Plus One: Ruins

  Sulu stood alone in the transporter room, peering down at the hooded sensor display in the center of the control console. She tapped a series of touchpads, trying to cast a wide net, but not too wide. The dispersion in the Romulan shuttle’s navigational deflector would not be differentiable from the background noise of the universe at too high a level of granularity.

  As Enterprise raced toward Fo
xtrot XIII, Sulu had to continually adjust the targeting scanners. As she did so, she could not help thinking about Linojj and the others attempting to reach the outpost in time to protect or rescue its crew. Their efforts would ultimately prove fruitless, and there seemed to her an inherent cruelty in that. While they would mourn the loss of the almost three hundred personnel stationed at the outpost, they would also have the burden of watching the event unfold. And they would witness, via sensors, the deaths of not just those on Foxtrot XIII, but also those on each of the other dozen outposts, and those aboard Agamemnon. After initially suffering herself the grief caused by the loss of Universe and its fifty-one personnel, Sulu could only imagine what the Enterprise crew—along with the rest of Starfleet and the Federation—would feel at the murder of more than four thousand men and women.

  Sulu understood the value of the plan Captain Harriman had devised and then carried out. If the consequences of what he had done played out as he’d intended—and she saw no reason now to believe that they wouldn’t—then war would be averted, and countless lives would be saved. Was that worth the sadness that would be inflicted on the people of both the Federation and the Romulan Empire? She had to agree that it was, and yet she wanted to go to the bridge and tell her crew—tell everybody—that nobody had died, that nobody would die—not aboard Universe, not aboard Agamemnon, and not in Foxtrot Sector. She wanted to remind them of all the equipment Enterprise had recently ferried to the outposts, and to reveal to them that the ship hadn’t been delivering new defenses or weapons, as all had believed, but equipment to simulate the life signs of a crew of three hundred. Enterprise had rotated personnel off of the outposts, but no replacements had been delivered by Agamemnon; instead, a skeleton staff from that ship had installed the new equipment, and then had left their empty ship orbiting Foxtrot XIII, its functions automated—including a final run at Tomed, phasers firing. Captain Harriman’s plan had been so meticulously plotted—