by Dayton Ward
“That’s right,” Crusher replied. “It can still watch over most of the procedure, but this whole thing works in stages. If the computer misses the administration of required medications and other treatments at the proper intervals throughout the process, it could kill the crew. I can’t stand by and let that happen, Jean-Luc.”
Of course you can’t, Picard mused, at once proud of his wife’s devotion to her patients and her duty while also irritated by her impeccable if unfortunate timing. “How long will the process take?”
“Right now, we’re estimating about two hours. It could be longer, depending on whatever we have to deal with as the process continues.”
Behind him, Lynley said, “Captain, the Golvonek ships won’t arrive until after the doctor is finished.”
There was no other choice, Picard knew. For better or worse, they were committed. “Very well, Doctor. Remain on station, with only the essential members of your medical team. Mister Worf?”
“Worf here, Captain.”
“You, Lieutenant Konya, and the security details from both teams are to remain with Doctor Crusher and whoever she needs to carry out the procedure. Commander La Forge and everyone else are to return to the ship immediately.”
“Acknowledged. Worf out.”
The channel was closed, leaving Picard to stare in silence at the colossal Raqilan vessel. Now, at least, some of the questions had been answered.
Other questions, like the ship itself, beckoned.
12
“The Raqilan call it ‘Poklori gil dara,’ which more or less translates to ‘Armageddon’s Arrow.’ Basically, this ship is meant to end their war with one hell of a knockout punch.”
At the head of the curved table that ran the length of the Enterprise’s observation lounge, Picard sat in his high-backed chair with his hands resting in his lap studying—along with Lieutenants Šmrhová and Elfiki—the computer-generated technical readout of the Raqilan ship displayed on the room’s central viewscreen. The diagram rotated in place, offering views of the vessel from multiple angles. Standing next to the screen, Lieutenant T’Ryssa Chen paused after delivering her report, awaiting further instructions.
“Armageddon’s Arrow,” Picard repeated, almost to himself. “Rather dramatic, wouldn’t you say?”
Chen sighed. “Maybe if the ship didn’t live up to its name, but this one does, and then some.” She tapped the image and the screen froze, after which she touched the image of the ship itself and the schematic zoomed in. The vessel’s outer layers separated and pulled away, exposing the massive cylinder that was its core.
“This particle cannon can outclass just about anything we might throw against it. The antiproton beam it generates, as we’ve already seen from the ship’s computer records, is more than capable of taking out planet-sized targets.”
Nodding, Picard recalled the data file sent to him by Lieutenant Elfiki and demonstrating the weapon’s tremendous power. Only on rare occasions had he seen a weapon of such ability, and rarer still had he seen the effects. Even the Borg, with all the technology at their disposal thanks to their assimilation of races across the galaxy, thankfully had never acquired something of this magnitude.
And thankfully, they never will.
“So these people, the Raqilan,” Šmrhová said, “they built this thing to . . . what? Destroy the Golvonek homeworld?”
“It looks that way, sir,” Elfiki said. “According to the historical records we found in the ship’s computer, they haven’t liked each other pretty much since their first meeting, which took place a little over a century ago. Both planets progressed independently of each other, and their level of technological advancement is within a few generations of each other. In some ways, they’re very similar to the Onarans and the Brekkians in the Delos system, or even Romulus and Remus.” She shrugged. “Anyway, both worlds developed rudimentary space travel capabilities within a generation or so of each other, and started sending out probes and small ships to their worlds’ respective moons and later the system’s other planets.”
Chen added, “By the looks of things, that first meeting didn’t go very well. The records on the Arrow do a pretty good job of downplaying things, Captain, and of course they paint the Raqilan in the best possible light, but it looks to me as though they were the aggressors. Once the war finally got going, most of the engagements looked to have been initiated by them, with Golvonek forces fighting largely defensive actions.” She shrugged. “Yes, there were occasions when the Golvonek went on the offensive, but based just on the data available, I’d argue they were counterattacks or preemptive strikes intended to upset a pending action by the Raqilan. On the other hand, the primary goal of the Raqilan was overwhelming, decisive victory at all costs.”
“This probably explains their comparable advances in space flight as well as developing warp capability,” said Šmrhová. “As we all know, war has a tendency to speed up the research and development of new technologies.”
Stepping away from the viewscreen, Chen returned to her seat at the conference table. “And that seems to have driven the tempo of their war. After going at it pretty hot and heavy for several years, things calmed down and both sides went back to their respective corners, if you’ll pardon the expression. Though there was no permanent peace treaty, both governments apparently were able to negotiate a ceasefire that lasted for a few decades. Then, things took another bad turn and hostilities started up again. Before they discovered warp drive, both sides had already been establishing satellites, space stations, and outposts on the system’s outlying planets and moons. They spent years establishing footholds on new territory, exploiting whatever resources they could find, and so on. Warp drive is a relatively new advancement for them, only within the last couple of decades, and it looks to be restricted for military use.”
“So, of course they’re using it to renew and extend their attacks,” Picard said.
Chen replied, “To a degree, yes sir. The planets are hundreds of millions of kilometers apart, so it could take months to get between them. Before warp drive, attacks against either homeworld were rare, but they tended to inflict a lot of damage.” She shrugged. “With warp drive, the same attacks could occur within minutes, and that’s the way it went for years afterward.”
“Is the conflict resource-motivated?” Šmrhová asked.
Elfiki replied, “It may not have started out that way, but that’s what it seems to be now.” She raised her hands, holding them apart. “The two planets orbit the Canborek sun almost opposite to each other. The Golvonek world, Uphrel, is about thirty million kilometers closer to the star than Henlona. The climate on Uphrel is closer to Earth, while Henlona is more like Mars. The current, terraformed Mars, that is. The atmospheric makeups aren’t identical, but they’re within ranges that make both worlds viable for either side.” Frowning, the science officer leaned forward in her chair. “Or, they will be, up until a century or so from now.”
Šmrhová asked, “Time travel?”
Instead of Elfiki, Chen replied, “Right. According to the computer records, the Arrow traveled through time from a point approximately ninety-four years in the future, back to approximately one hundred twenty-two years ago. We’re still refining the translations, so we don’t have exact departure and arrival points yet.”
“So the Raqilan military must have constructed this vessel with the intention of traveling back in time to a point before the war began,” Picard said.
“Exactly,” replied Chen. “In the decades to come, the war’s effects on both planets will be devastating. As the conflict drags on, resources for ships and weapons powerful enough to make the trip between the two planets will get harder to come by, and direct attacks will start to taper off in frequency. Eventually, the war is again reduced to little more than occasional skirmishes, with both sides turning their attentions more and more to claiming additional resources acro
ss the rest of the solar system.” She shook her head. “But the damage will have been done. Orbital bombardments will have long-term environmental consequences. The Golvonek will get the worst part of that deal; in the long run, there won’t be any real winners.” Pausing, Chen looked over her shoulder at the vessel schematic still displayed on the viewscreen. “I guess they figured they could launch the mother of all preemptive strikes, and possibly avoid the worst of the war’s effects.”
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Picard allowed himself a small sigh of exasperation. Temporal mechanics, despite the intriguing possibilities and theories bandied about for centuries from learned scholars, wild conspiracy theorists, and representatives from organizations such as the Federation’s Department of Temporal Investigations, had never been one of his favored subjects. Fate and circumstance had seen to it that he and the Enterprise had encountered their share of various time-bending anomalies, agents, and other oddities, and they were not experiences he was keen to revisit. In particular, he had no desire to deal with any variation of the scenario that had befallen Earth on at least one occasion, thanks to the machinations of the Borg. The parasitic race had attempted to use time itself as a weapon, traveling back to a point before Earth had made its first contact with beings from another world. Left unchecked, humanity would have been assimilated into the Collective more than two centuries before his birth. It was only through happenstance and good fortune that Picard and the Enterprise were able to follow the Borg ship back through time and thwart that effort.
“Their plan was to come back and what?” Šmrhová asked. “Blow up the Golvonek homeworld? That seems a bit extreme, doesn’t it?”
Elfiki added, “And that’s before we get into the ethical considerations of preemptive attacks.”
“History is filled with first strikes carried out for the right reasons,” Šmrhová countered. “While I suppose one could make the argument for launching an attack to prevent an assault you know is coming, that’s not what this seems to entail.”
Chen said, “I suppose it depends on how you look at it.” She gestured to the screen and the ship depicted on it. “Even though that thing comes from the future, the Raqilan and the Golvonek are at war right now.”
Frowning, Šmrhová rested her hand on the conference table. “While I’m not one of them, there are people who’d argue that falls within the acceptable parameters of a justified action.”
“Actually, it isn’t,” Picard said. “Lieutenant Elfiki, there’s an element to this equation we haven’t yet discussed.”
The science officer replied, “That’s right, sir. The Arrow’s original destination was a point in time one hundred twenty-one years in the past. According to what I’ve been able to dig out of their computer, the crew was supposed to have been revived shortly after their arrival, but it looks like some key onboard systems were damaged during a skirmish the ship encountered just prior to their time jump.”
“They were being attacked by Golvonek ships right up to the last second,” Chen said. “The Golvonek learned about the Arrow soon after its launch, though I don’t think they knew—or will know—about its true mission when they sent ships out to meet it.”
“As a consequence of that attack,” Elfiki added, “whatever damage was sustained prevented the computer from initiating the revival procedures, so the crew has remained in hibernation all this time.”
Šmrhová said, “They jumped back to a point before the war even started.”
“It’s worse than that,” Chen replied. “Their target was a point in time before the two races even met.” When no one said anything in immediate response, the young lieutenant added, “Does that sound familiar to anyone besides me?”
Picard rested his head on the back of his chair. “Indeed it does. Except for the time travel element, it’s the Xindi all over again.”
“But time travel even played a part in that, sir,” Chen said. “Or, at least something like it. It’s not like we ever got a straight answer about any of that.”
Nodding as he recalled more details from memory, the captain said, “Correct, Lieutenant.” Even before enrolling in Starfleet Academy, he was familiar with the Xindi attacks on Earth during the mid-twenty-second century. An alliance of five distinct advanced species that all had evolved on the same planet, the Xindi had come to believe that the Federation would—in centuries to come—be responsible for the destruction of their homeworld. Convinced of this threat by parties from another alien race that possessed the ability to examine the course of future history across multiple timelines, the Xindi set about constructing a massive weapon with the intention of destroying Earth. Their intentions had only become known after they opted to deploy a prototype version of the weapon against the planet, and the results of even that limited attack had been considerable.
“Except it looks as though these guys were smart enough not to tip their hand too early,” said Šmrhová. “The Xindi screwed up by attacking Earth with a prototype version of their super weapon. If they’d run their test on some other planet, we’d never have known they were coming until it was too late.” She paused, frowning. “Perhaps test isn’t the appropriate word.”
As a teenager, Picard had read the historical narratives of the catastrophic incident in which more than seven million people had been killed in a matter of minutes, and he recalled having thoughts similar to those expressed by Šmrhová. Why had the Xindi squandered their advantage of total surprise in such heinous fashion? He did not remember a suitable explanation ever being given, beyond the simple belief that the Xindi believed humans incapable of determining the identity of their attackers. While Picard knew that some form of investigation had revealed the truth behind the perpetrators, he suspected there was more to that story than was contained in the official records. Any information pertaining to how the Xindi came to know about future events would be classified and closely guarded, restricted only to DTI personnel and a very small circle of senior Federation and Starfleet officials. Rumors persisted that some form of time travel on the part of Starfleet officers two centuries earlier may even have played a role in the eventual foiling of the Xindi plot, but none of that had ever been confirmed, denied, or even entertained as a possibility by anyone in a position to know what really happened.
“We know the Raqilan tested the weapon before their time jump,” Elfiki said. “They recorded the results of the particle cannon fired at a moon being used by Golvonek forces as a forward military base. Raqilan leaders warned their counterparts on Uphrel that the attack was coming and gave them time to evacuate, which when you think about it is pretty strange, considering the Arrow’s ultimate mission.”
Chen, her elbows resting on the conference table, replied, “Maybe not. We know that both sides continuously pursued diplomatic solutions throughout the war’s duration. They were doing it when the ship was launched, and if I read the dates right on the records I reviewed, they’re in the midst of such negotiations right now. I’ve been able to determine that in this time frame, there haven’t been any significant engagements for nearly eighteen years.”
Picard shook his head. “And then one side felt compelled to build something like this.” In short order, and despite whatever steps he did to prevent or even mitigate their involvement, he and the Enterprise would find themselves in the midst of this decades-old struggle between two worlds. How best to deal with the situation, particularly in light of the information he possessed about the future of both these civilizations?
“Lieutenant Elfiki,” he said after a moment, “the moon that was destroyed in the future. Were you able to ascertain its location in this time period?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the science officer. “It’s there, all right, but our long-range scans show no definite signs of habitation.” She shrugged. “Interference from an asteroid field between the system’s fifth and sixth planets is playing hell with our sensors. The only way to get good rea
dings would be to move into the system.” Gesturing toward the screen, she added, “I can do some further digging in their computer records to see about determining when the Golvonek established a presence there.”
Waving away the suggestion, Picard said, “Perhaps Lieutenant Chen can research that later. The information may come in handy if and when we have to deal with officials from either planet.” He was not sure just yet how useful such knowledge might be, but he believed that in this case, with so many unknowns still facing them, it was prudent to put forth every effort to be prepared, if indeed that was even possible in this instance.
“Captain,” Chen said, swiveling her chair to face him, “what do we do about the Golvonek? Fleet Legate Mynlara is coming to take possession of the Arrow and custody of its crew. Since she said they’re considered prisoners of war, she’s almost certainly going to interrogate them. What do we do if they find out about the ship’s mission and that it came from the future?”
Clasping his hands and resting them in his lap, Picard replied, “I honestly don’t know at this point, Lieutenant. To say this is a fluid situation would be an understatement of enormous proportions.” Though he already had agreed to Mynlara’s request to remove his people from the ship, Doctor Crusher’s efforts to revive the crew from their cryogenic stasis had reached a point that required her constant supervision. His attempts to update the Golvonek fleet legate had been received, but no response had been offered, and now Picard was worried that tensions between him and Mynlara would be prematurely heightened before they engaged in their first meaningful dialogue. Even that, he knew, would present something of a challenge, as the Enterprise most definitely was in uncharted territory here. Starfleet regulations did cover various scenarios relating to time travel and other situations involving temporal manipulation, but he recalled no specific language pertaining to which might help him with the situation he and his crew now faced. Even with the wide latitude afforded to starship captains to interpret existing orders and rules so that they might make correct if unorthodox decisions when dealing with unprecedented events and circumstances, Picard knew he would still have to answer for any choices he made here today. Being judged for his actions did not concern him as much as ensuring he did not—despite the most noble of intentions—do irrevocable harm to the Golvonek or the Raqilan.
