by Dayton Ward
“Never mind about that!” he blustered. He changed the subject. “Is it over? Have we passed the fil-fila—that thing?”
Another collision answered his question. The entire ship lurched to port. Dislodged pedestals toppled over onto the floor. A deafening roar drowned out the shouting of the crew as straining bulkheads wailed in protest. A jet of hot vapor scalded a crewman, who fell backward over a broken pipe. Fresh debris pelted Aadnalurg before Rorpot finally righted itself. Snirgli wriggled in alarm. Its antennae retracted.
“No,” Snollicoob answered redundantly. He clung to his pedestal. “There are too many filaments, all around us.” He seized on an image to get the idea across. “Like a jungle of hanging vines, but the vines are poison. They sting us when we brush against them!”
Aadnalurg thought he understood, a little. “We need to get away from them.” He looked urgently at the engineer. “Can you make us go?”
The power column flared brightly again. “Dung!” the captain swore, averting his eyes. The blinding glare lasted longer this time, almost half a minute. The brilliant orange glow edged toward red. He blinked the tears from his eyes.
Snollicoob gazed at the column in horror. “That is very bad.” He turned back toward his pedestal’s display screen and called up more data in a hurry. The computer did not respond fast enough, so he kicked it hard. Beeping noises suggested that the blow had done the trick. Snollicoob looked over the readouts. “Uh-oh.” His voice grew hushed. “The warp engine is getting too hot. I cannot cool it down. The force field bubble is going to pop.”
Aadnalurg understood the internal workings of the warp engine about as much as he comprehended quantum filaments. He knew that matter and antimatter collided in the engine and made the ship go, but that was about it. He glanced nervously at the column behind him, which took its power from the engine two decks below. “What does that mean?”
“We are going to blow up,” Snollicoob said. “Soon.”
The captain understood that part. “Shut it down!”
Snollicoob fiddled with the knobs. “It is not working. The safety controls are old. They are broken.” A hint of an accusation crept into his voice. “I told you. We needed repairs.”
“That was before!” Aadnalurg barked, a little defensively. “Forget about that. What are we going to do now? Can you stop the engine?”
The engineer shook his head. He threw up his hands. “I do not think so. Sorry.”
“But you are smart!” the captain protested.
Snollicoob’s head drooped. He stepped away from the useless controls. “Not smart enough.”
Aadnalurg believed him. Despite what he’d just said, the engineer was the smartest Pakled aboard. He knew things. If he said the ship was going to blow up, it was going to blow up. There was only one thing left to do.
“Abandon ship.” He rose from the chair. The thought of leaving Rorpot and its load of precious magnesite behind made him sick to his stomach. He would need to work a long time to recover from this loss. Pakleds considered insurance a waste of credits. He lumbered toward the emergency exit. “Get to the escape pods!”
Nobody moved. Snollicoob and the others stayed where they stood. Nobody tried to help the wounded to their feet. Crewmen murmured furtively to each other. They shuffled their feet. Aadnalurg was baffled by their behavior. What was wrong with the men? Did they want to blow up with the ship?
“Did you hear me?” He stamped his foot. “Hurry! We need to go!”
The men exchanged sheepish looks, avoiding the captain’s eyes. A few of the men sagged against the bulkheads, looking defeated. Others squatted on the floor to await their fate.
“What is the matter?” Aadnalurg bellowed. “Come with me! That is an order!”
Snollicoob finally spoke up. “There are no escape pods. We left them in the shop on Honvali Trice. Remember?”
Oh.
It came back to him now. In the commotion, he had completely forgotten. The escape pods had been broken, but the Pakled mechanics at their last port of call had been too slow to get the pods fixed in time for Rorpot’s scheduled departure. After much hard thinking, he had left the pods behind in order to get the magnesite to Deep Space 9 on time. It had seemed like a good idea at the time; he had never needed to use the pods before. Why not just pick them up again on the return trip? He was not planning on any emergencies.
“Oops,” he murmured. Maybe that was not smart.. He looked over at Snollicoob. “We cannot get off the ship?”
“Uh-uh,” the engineer confirmed. “We are stuck here. There is no way to go.”
Aadnalurg dropped back into his chair. He kicked Frojuhpwa’s comatose form, taking out his frustration on the stunned first officer, who groaned faintly in response. A fresh layer of debris coated the prone figure. “Now what?” Aadnalurg asked bleakly. His sullen gaze drifted toward the cracked viewer. He could think of only one more option.
“Call for help.”
Snollicoob fired up the communications circuits. The captain hoped they were working better than the engine. A lighted display panel encouraged him.
“Now?” Snollicoob asked.
Aadnalurg looked at the other Pakled like he was stupid.
“Yes, now!”
He kicked the first officer again.
It didn’t make him feel any better.
Chief engineer’s log, stardate 47235.9.
I am personally supervising an upgrade to the bridge’s aft engineering work-station, taking advantage of the damage inflicted on the Enterprise ’s systems by a recent infestation of interphasic life-forms to replace aging subprocessors and optical data trunks . . .
“Captain,” Lieutenant Worf announced from his tactical station. His gruff voice somehow made even the most routine statements sound like a call to arms. “We are receiving a mayday signal from Sector 004-B.”
Geordi La Forge looked up from an illuminated console at the rear of the bridge. He had just run one last diagnostic on the modified station and was getting ready to return to his usual haunts in engineering, but curiosity tempted him to linger. As proud as he was of his current duties and titles, he sometimes regretted that he wasn’t able to spend as much time on the bridge as he used to. He wouldn’t trade his position as chief engineer for all the gold-pressed latinum on Ferenginar, but he still occasionally missed being where the action is.
Wonder what’s up with this SOS?
“On-screen,” Captain Picard ordered. He leaned forward in the captain’s chair. It was the first shift, so the bridge was manned by the entire senior staff. Commander Riker and Counselor Troi flanked the captain. Commander Data had the ops station, while Ensign Wruum, who had recently transferred over from the Ephrata, took the conn. Downy azure feathers carpeted her scalp. A pointed beak proclaimed the avian roots of her people. Wruum’s owl-like features were the only new face in sight.
Just like old times, Geordi thought, feeling nostalgic for his own days at the helm. If he squinted through his VISOR, he could almost imagine Wesley Crusher on the bridge. Had he really been serving on the Enterprise for seven years now? The time seemed to have flown by at warp speed. . . .
The streaking stars on the main viewer gave way to a blurry, visually incoherent image. Phosphorescent “snow” obscured the picture, so that Geordi could barely make out a stocky humanoid figure at the center of the screen. Static distorted the audio component of the signal. Vid tiling hid the identity of the speaker. Not even the universal translator could make sense of the random crackles and buzzes. Geordi couldn’t even tell what species was at the other end of the message.
Picard frowned. “Can you improve the transmission, Mister Worf ?”
“I am attempting to do so, Captain.” The Klingon growled at the uncooperative hardware. “There appears to a great deal of subspace interference at the signal’s point of origin.”
La Forge wondered if the interference had anything to do with the nature of the emergency. “Try increasing power to the primary
array,” he suggested. Worf wrestled with the control panel, but the pixels on the screen stubbornly refused to resolve. Geordi stepped up to the rail. “Mind if I give it a go?”
Thankfully, Worf did not consider the balky technology a challenge to his honor. He gladly moved aside to make room for Geordi. “I would welcome your assistance.”
La Forge scanned the data streaming across the control panel, immediately seeing the problem. Worf hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d complained about all the interference. Massive amounts of quantum fluctuations had virtually shredded the transmission en route to the Enterprise. A flurry of subatomic particles created a storm of static. Trying to distinguish the signal packet from the turbulent background noise was like trying to read white subtitles against a holographic blizzard. Where are they hailing us from? Geordi wondered. The other side of a quasar?
“It is urgent that we discover the nature of the emergency without further delay,” Captain Picard stressed. His stern gaze was fixed on the maddeningly indistinct image before him. “Time may well be of the essence.”
“Understood, sir.” Geordi’s fingers danced across the control panel. A few deft keystrokes called up a more sophisticated user interface that granted him a greater degree of hands-on control over the Enterprise’s ship-to-ship communications network. His VISOR allowed him to observe minute variations in the graphic displays. Advanced procedural menus offered him a range of specialized options. “If I bring the auxiliary preprocessors online and reconfigure the clutter filters, I might be able to reduce the phase variance enough to give the compensation algorithms enough to work with . . .”
The chaos on the screen resolved into a coherent image, revealing the lumpen head and shoulders of a middle-aged male Pakled wearing a captain’s medallion. Geordi recognized the species immediately.
“Oh great,” he muttered. “Those guys.”
He did not have a terrific history with Pakleds.
“Help us!” the Pakled said. Static still abraded his voice, but at least he was audible now. “We need help!”
La Forge snorted. “I’ve heard that before.”
Five years ago, the Enterprise had responded to a distress signal from another Pakled vessel. La Forge had personally beamed aboard to help the Pakleds repair their ship, only to discover that the supposed malfunctions were just a ruse. The duplicitous aliens had taken Geordi hostage in hopes of extorting advanced Starfleet technology from the Enterprise. To make their point, they had repeatedly stunned Geordi with his own phaser, to the extent that he had required medical attention once Commander Riker and the others had finally rescued him. He winced at the memory. All those phaser blasts had hurt.
He hadn’t trusted a Pakled since.
“So I recall,” Picard assured him. The captain had not actually been present during their first contact with the Pakleds, having been away on personal business at the time, but he was no doubt familiar with the incident. He addressed the screen. “This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation Starship Enterprise. You issued a distress signal?”
“Enterprise!” Relief, or perhaps a treacherous facsimile thereof, flooded the Pakled’s face. A fresh cut scarred his forehead. He was missing a tooth. His chair appeared to be broken. “Good. You can help us. We need help.”
Riker sighed. “I’ve missed this sparkling repartee,” he said dryly.
“Please identify yourself,” Picard requested.
“I am Aadnalurg, the captain. My ship is Rorpot.” Only a small portion of the vessel’s bridge could be glimpsed behind him. A smoky haze veiled the scene, but charred bulkheads and severed cables added some credence to his claims, along with the captain’s apparent injuries. “It is broken. We need help.”
“So you say,” Riker challenged him. He had been in command when the Pakleds had taken Geordi hostage. His suspicious tone made it clear that he was not about to be fooled again. “Is this a trick?”
“No trick!” Aadnalurg insisted. “We are in danger. You must help us!”
“Yeah, right.” La Forge shook his head in disbelief. Did the Pakleds really expect them to fall for the same ploy twice? The damage in the background was probably just stage dressing. This was an insult to their intelligence. “Shall I terminate this transmission, Captain?”
“Not so fast, Mister La Forge.” Picard signaled Geordi to mute their response to the hail, so they could converse freely without being heard by the Pakleds. “I admit the circumstances invoke a distinct sense of déjá vu, but we should not jump to conclusions. It is entirely possible that the Pakleds are not crying wolf this time.” He settled back into his seat. “Let us hear what they have to say.”
“Yes, sir.” Geordi restored the audio connection.
Riker began the interrogation. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
“We hit a . . . a . . .” Aadnalurg seemed to fumble for the words. Another Pakled, who appeared to be a bit younger, whispered into his captain’s ear. “ . . . quantum filament.”
A gasp escaped Deanna’s lips. La Forge didn’t have to be a telepath to guess that she was remembering the time, a few years back, when the Enterprise had collided with an invisible quantum filament. The unexpected disaster had wreaked havoc on the ship and briefly placed Deanna in command of the bridge—at the worst possible moment.
That can’t have been fun, Geordi thought.
“Are you all right, Counselor?” Picard asked.
“Yes, Captain.” She quickly regained her composure.
Aadnalurg ignored Deanna’s outburst. “Our ship is broken,” he repeated. “We cannot go. The engine is too hot. It is burning up. Help us.”
Picard looked to Deanna for confirmation. “Counselor?”
“It is difficult to truly sense his emotions from so far away,” she answered. “But his anxiety strikes me as sincere.” Her dark Betazoid eyes took in the Pakled’s expression and body language. “I believe they are truly in danger.”
Worf disagreed. He rejoined La Forge at the tactical station. “They have deceived us before,” he snarled. “They are without honor.”
“Perhaps,” Picard conceded. “But even scoundrels can sometimes be in genuine need of assistance.” He came to a decision. “By all means, we should stay on our guard, but I do not believe that we can turn our back on these individuals simply because of our unfortunate history with others of their species.”
He held up a hand to ward off any further objections from Worf. “Mister Data, estimated time to Sector 004-B?”
The android officer swiftly performed the calculations in his head. “At maximum warp, we should be able to reach Rorpot’s coordinates in approximately six-point-two-four-eight hours. If there are indeed quantum filaments in the vicinity, however, we may be forced to navigate the sector at a slower speed to avoid a disaster of our own. This could significantly delay our arrival.”
“Good point,” Riker said. “We don’t want to collide with the same filaments that damaged the Pakled vessel. If they even exist.”
“Are there any other Federation ships in the region?” Picard inquired. “Who might be able to reach Rorpot more quickly?”
Data consulted his ops terminal. “No, sir. The nearest other vessel is the Lorentz, currently patrolling Sector 2001-G. We are indeed the closest ship available.”
“Very well, then,” Picard said. “Warp speed seven. Proceed with caution.” He hailed Aadnalurg once more. “We are prepared to offer you whatever assistance we can provide, Captain, but I fear it will be some time before we can arrive at your coordinates. Can you hold out until then?”
“Umm . . . maybe. I don’t know.” Aadnalurg tugged another Pakled into the frame. He looked like the same crewman who had whispered to the captain before. Aadnalurg prodded his subordinate. “Talk to them!”
The second Pakled waved clumsily. His cropped brown hair had not receded as far. His facial creases were less pronounced. A split lip looked painful. His torn uniform had seen better days. “Uh. Hello.”
“And you are?” Picard asked.
“I am Snollicoob. I am the number one engineer.”
The chief engineer? Geordi contemplated his Pakled counterpart.
He wasn’t impressed.
“What is your status?” Picard inquired.
“You must hurry!” Snollicoob exclaimed. “Life support is breaking down. Our air is going bad. We have no escape pods. The warp engine is too hot.” He wrung his hands. “The force field bubble is going to pop!”
Bubble? It took La Forge a moment to realize that Snollicoob was referring to the magnetic containment field. The full implications of the report sank in. “Captain, I think he’s talking about a possible warp core breach!”
Despite his doubts regarding the Pakled’s honesty, he felt a chill run down his spine. What in the world were the Pakleds doing with warp technology? Just the idea of them messing with matter/antimatter reactions made him nervous. They could barely manage impulse engines!
“Yes!” Snollicoob confirmed. “Warp core breach! We will blow up!”
Picard’s frown deepened. The situation appeared to be growing more dire by the moment. “Can you shut it down?”
“I am trying!” Snollicoob insisted. “But it will not work.” La Forge got the definite impression that the Pakled engineer was in over his head, dealing with borrowed alien technology that he didn’t fully understand. Snollicoob lowered his head in shame. “I don’t know how.”
“How much time do you have?” Picard asked.
Snollicoob shrugged. “Not a lot.”
His answer lacked precision, but got the idea across. Riker turned to the captain. He lowered his voice. “If they can’t shut down that runaway warp core, there could be nobody to rescue by the time we get there.”
“His fear seems authentic as well,” Deanna reported. “We should assume he’s telling the truth. If not, the results could be truly tragic.”
Picard nodded. “Captain Aadnalurg. How many crewmen are aboard your vessel?”
