by Dayton Ward
The human’s obvious impatience worried Snollicoob. He wondered how close the warp core was to exploding. His helmet could not provide him updates on the ship’s status; he was cut off from his gauges. “How weak is the bubble?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Geordi’s reticence was not reassuring. “Just get a move on.”
“I am almost there.” By his reckoning the chute doors were only seven meters away. He shone his searchlight in the right direction. His jaw dropped. “Uh-oh.”
An immense hull breach gaped between him and his destination. From the looks of things, the magnesite in the cargo hold had ignited, blowing open the hull. Only what remained of Rorpot’s structural integrity field was holding the ship together. Over four meters across, the breach was like a mountain ravine, directly in his path.
“Geordi, there is a problem.”
“I see,” Geordi sighed. “Is there any way around it?”
Snollicoob swept the searchlight along the length of the fissure. It appeared to stretch quite a ways across the width of the ship, for many meters in both directions. There was no way to bridge the gap; the flickering SIF would not support his weight.
“I do not think so, Geordi.” He peered down into the chasm. The blackened interior of the vault was large enough to hold many kilotons of solid ore. “Maybe I can climb down into the hold and back up again?”
“There’s no time for that,” the human declared. “You’re going to have to jump.”
Snollicoob’s mouth went as dry as . . . a very dry thing. He hoped he hadn’t heard Geordi right.
“Jump?”
“If you get a running start,” Geordi said, as though the idea were not the craziest thing Snollicoob had ever heard, “then demagnetize your boots at the last minute, your momentum should carry you across the gap. Then you just need to grab onto something on the other side before you go too far.”
Snollicoob spotted a docking strut jutting out from the hull just beyond the crevasse. The metal rail protruded ten centimeters from the underside of the ship; it was bent at an angle, but looked like it was still riveted in place. Geordi’s plan could work, but . . .
“I am afraid. What if I miss?”
“You can’t think about that now.” Geordi was obviously not going to take no for an answer. “You can do it, Snollicoob. I believe in you.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely.” Geordi sounded oddly bemused by his own declaration. “You can fly if you have to. You just need to move!”
Snollicoob decided to take his word for it. Geordi was smart. If he thinks I can do this, maybe I can.
He backed up as far as he could. As with their technology, the Pakleds had appropriated most of their religious beliefs from other species, so he offered up a silent prayer to the Prophets, Kahless, the Overseer, the Blessed Exchequer, and the Q Continuum before sprinting toward the gap faster than any Pakled had probably ever run before. His soles pounded against the warped tritanium plating. Adrenaline rushed through his veins.
It was an unusual feeling.
The yawning abyss looked bigger and bigger the nearer he got to it. He was tempted to close his eyes and let Geordi look instead, but instead he kept his gaze fixed on the life-saving strut on the other side of the gap. Before he knew it, he was only paces away from the brink of the crevasse.
“Demagnetize your boots!” Geordi reminded him. “Now!”
Oh right, he thought. I almost forgot.
A trigger in the palm of his spacesuit shut off the magnets. He threw himself over the edge, his arms outstretched before him. Just as Geordi had predicted, he soared weightlessly over the chasm. A broad grin broke out across his face.
“I am doing it! It is working!”
He crossed the gap in a heartbeat. The docking strut seemed to come racing toward him. He reached out to snag it . . . and missed!
“Uh-oh!”
Snollicoob went flying past the hull doors into the void. Gloved fingers groped for something—anything!—to hold on to, but grasped only vacuum. Floating free and untethered, he tumbled helplessly away from the ship. He frantically switched his boot magnets back on, but it was already too late. The attraction was too weak; he had to be in contact with the hull for the magnets to work.
“Help me, Geordi! I am lost in space!”
“What’s that? I can’t hear you!” Geordi’s voice was barely audible. He sounded like he was shouting from very far away. “You’re breaking up—”
The transmission faded into silence. Snollicoob guessed that he had drifted too far away from Rorpot’s main antenna array. He tapped the side of the helmet, but Geordi’s voice did not return. Snollicoob swallowed hard. He was on his own now.
What can I do?
He was in big trouble. His spacesuit’s air supply would run out in hours, long before he died of thirst and hunger or cold. He did not know if that was a good thing or not. He looked longingly at Rorpot as it receded into the distance. What if he hit a filament first? How much would that hurt?
“Do not give up,” he told himself. “Geordi would not.”
He fumbled with the tools on his belt. There had to be something he could use to save himself. He conducted a quick inventory of his equipment: a phaser, a tricorder, an all-purpose wrench, a portable bipolar torch, a pouch of small-gauge self-sealing stem bolts . . .
If only he had some kind of thruster!
Wait! His fingers went back to the phaser. An idea occurred to him. It was risky, but, like Geordi had said, dangerous was better than dead. More important, he didn’t have any better ideas. What can I lose?
Unhitching the phaser from his belt, he set the angle of the beam for maximum dispersion, then fired back over his shoulder at the seemingly empty void behind him. He swept the vacuum with the crimson beam, which penetrated the icy blackness at the speed of light. Snollicoob braced himself.
At first, nothing happened. The phaser beam was not solid enough to propel him through space. He sighed in defeat. His desperate plan had not worked after all.
Maybe it was just as well. . . .
Just when he was going to give up, however, a blinding flash lit up the void. There was no sound, but, nanoseconds later, a shock wave slammed into Snollicoob from behind. He yelped loudly, in both fear and exhilaration.
I did it, he realized. I hit a filament!
The energy discharge hurled him back toward Rorpot. The underside of the freighter seemed to surge toward him like a tidal wave. He threw out his hands and feet to cushion the impact, even as he crashed into the bottom of the ship with bone-jarring force. His face rebounded painfully against the inside of his helmet, squashing his nose. The phaser was almost knocked from his grip, but he held on to to it tightly. Magnetic soles locked onto the metal plating.
He was back!
“—icoob? Snollicoob!” Geordi’s voice greeted him. “Can you read me?”
“Yes, Geordi!” He wobbled atop his boots, dazed by his collision with the ship. He shook his head to clear it and blinked the tears from his eyes. His nose felt broken. Blood dripped from his nostrils. He reached to wipe it, only to find the helmet’s visor in the way. He sniffled loudly. His swollen lip had split open again. “I was lost, but not anymore.”
“You’ll have to tell me all about it later,” Geordi said. “Can you get to the hull doors now?”
Snollicoob groaned. He really wanted to rest for a minute, after his harrowing ordeal, but the inconsiderate warp core was not going to wait for him to catch his breath. His spotlight surveyed the ship’s exterior as he tried to figure out exactly where he was. Do not let me be back on the wrong side of the gap. He knew he did not have the nerve to jump over it again.
To his relief, he spied the hull doors only a few meters away. Hope gave him a second wind and he limped across the hull to the balky steel plates. The glow of the searchlight quickly revealed that the double doors had been fused shut by the energized lashings of a quantum filament. He could tell at g
lance that it would take a long time, and a lot of work, to pry them open again.
So he lifted the phaser and disintegrated them instead.
A brilliant red glow suffused the solid tritanium doors before they dissolved into atoms, exposing an open shaft that ascended to the blazing heart of the ship. An incandescent cobalt radiance emanated from the top of the chute. Snollicoob backed away from the shaft entrance. He put plenty of distance between himself and the seething warp core.
“It is done,” he reported. “The doors are gone.”
“Good job!” Geordi said. “And just in time. I’ve established remote control of your emergency safety system. I’m going to jettison the core now.”
“No!” Snollicoob froze, terrified by the human’s announcement. He had planned to be safely inside Rorpot again before the core was ejected. “Wait! I am too close!”
“Sorry,” Geordi said. “Shield strength is twenty-one percent and plummeting. The temperature inside the reaction chamber is off the charts. It’s going to blow any minute now. We’re out of time!”
Snollicoob believed him. “But what can I do?”
“Get out of there!”
He did not need to be told twice. Huffing and puffing, he dashed for the nearest available shelter: the hull breach above the cargo hold. An intense vibration shook the plating beneath his feet as the warp core came loose inside the chute. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw the entire reactor assembly rocket out of the open chute, followed almost immediately by the antimatter containment pods. The warp core was glowing as brightly as a supernova; it was impossible to look at directly, even through the tinted visor. Geordi was right; the core was about to explode. Averting his eyes, Snollicoob dived headfirst into the chasm, his mass and momentum easily penetrating the feeble integrity field covering the opening. He shot down into the murky cargo hold.
It is not fair, he thought. I saved the ship!
Nothing but charred ashes now filled the empty vault, all the magnesite having been consumed during the earlier explosion. Floating embers reminded him that they had never bothered to install artificial gravity in the hold, to make stowing the cargo easier. The beam from his helmet fell upon the handle of a reinforced metal door at the far end of the vault. He kicked off from a floating piece of debris and ricocheted toward the door. He crossed the length of the cargo hold in an instant. His fingers closed around the handle. He seized it with both hands.
Made it!
The warp core exploded soundlessly outside the ship. The pristine flash of an uncontrolled matter/antimatter reaction flooded the unlit hold, briefly turning Snollicoob’s entire world white. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his face toward the door to keep from being blinded. He could feel the scorching heat even through the force field and his spacesuit. Sweat drenched the inner layers of the suit. He whimpered in fear.
How far away had the core gotten before it exploded? Was it far enough?
“Hold on!” Geordi said. “Here it comes!”
A shock wave, several times more powerful than the one that had propelled Snollicoob back to Rorpot, buffeted the freighter. He clung to the door handle as the ship tilted on its axis, rolling over onto its side. The charred remnants of the magnesite were flung across the vault. Bits of ash pelted his spacesuit. He flapped like a flag in an interstellar gale.
And then, abruptly, it was over. The intense effulgence blinked out. Shadows reclaimed the interior of the hold. Rorpot kept rotating slowly, but Snollicoob was able to fasten his boots to the floor in front of the door. In the absence of gravity, he felt as though he was standing still. He trembled uncontrollably, almost afraid to open his eyes. His rubbery legs felt about as steady as glop-on-a-stick.
“Snollicoob!” Geordi’s anxious voice hurt his ears. “Are you okay?”
He peeked at his surroundings. The torched vault did not look like Sto-Vo-Kor or Sha Ka Ree, so he guessed he was still alive. “I think so.”
Geordi laughed out loud. “You did it. Just like I said you could!”
“Yes,” Snollicoob realized. Relief mingled with pride as his racing heart began to settle down. He sagged against the vault door, every muscle aching. “You are smart!”
“We both are,” Geordi said. “Now you just need to hold on for a little while more. Help is on the way.”
Snollicoob hoped the Enterprise would get there soon.
“Estimated time to our destination?”
Picard sat on the bridge, resisting an urge to pace impatiently. Space travel had never felt so slow.
“Three-point-eight-seven-seven hours, Captain,” Data reported, “assuming we can maintain our present course of speed. Sensors confirm, however, a dense accumulation of quantum filaments directly ahead. We may be forced to further reduce our velocity before we reach Rorpot’s coordinates.”
Merde, Picard thought. This was taking too long. They were already far behind their original estimates. Geordi had bought Rorpot much-needed time by resolving their warp core crisis, but the Pakled freighter and its crew remained in jeopardy. Time was the enemy.
“Well, the presence of those filaments certainly adds credence to the Pakleds’ story,” Riker noted. “Maybe this isn’t a trap after all.”
Worf grunted behind them. “I still do not trust them.”
“Duly noted, Mister Worf,” Picard said. He mulled over their options. “How much farther to the filaments, Data?”
The android reviewed the sensor readings. “The filaments themselves remain difficult to detect by conventional means, but an excess of subspace distortions and high-energy particles suggests that we are nearing the perimeter of the phenomenon. Tau neutrino levels exceeding ordinary probability levels by twenty-three-point-five-nine-eight percent. Meson proliferation increasing as well.”
“Understood,” Picard said grimly. “Reduce speed to warp five. Increase power to the forward shields. Yellow Alert.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Ensign Wruum reported from the conn. Descended from seabirds, her people had a strong nautical tradition. “Warp factor five.”
Picard scowled. He had issued the command reluctantly, but saw no alternative. They could not rescue the Pakleds if the Enterprise itself ran afoul of an invisible filament. Like everyone else who had survived that day, he still recalled the last time they had flown head-on into disaster. He had found himself trapped in an unstable turbolift with three small children—and a broken ankle to boot. Only the valiant assistance of those youngsters had allowed him to live to see another day. As he recalled, Jay Gordon’s parents had since transferred off the Enterprise, but the other two children were still aboard the ship. He could not endanger them, and the other one-thousand-plus souls in his care, by recklessly charging into the hazardous filaments.
But could the Pakleds survive the delay?
“Hail Rorpot,” he instructed Worf. It was imperative that he stay informed of the imperiled freighter’s status.
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Aadnalurg appeared upon the viewer. “Where are you, Enterprise?” he wailed, visibly distraught. He wrung his hands, while a sluglike creature squirmed restlessly atop his shoulder. An ugly scab had formed over the captain’s head wound. “Our life support is breaking. We are running out of air!”
“We are proceeding as fast as we are able,” Picard assured him. “What is your status? How much longer can you hold out?”
Aadnalurg hastily consulted with a subordinate. His face went pale. “What? Do not say that!” He angrily dismissed the unfortunate crewman before turning back toward the screen. He appeared even more rattled than before. “It is bad. We cannot make any more air. We have only an hour left. Maybe not that much.”
“Oh, no,” Deanna gasped, feeling the Pakled’s fear. “Captain, we have to do something!”
“I know,” Picard said. He wished he could promise Aadnalurg that they would get there in time, but that was looking increasingly unlikely. “We appreciate the urgency of your situation, Captain. Rest assured,
we are making every effort to reach your coordinates.”
His calm tone did little to reassure the other captain. “You must hurry, Enterprise!” Aadnalurg trembled noticeably. “Our heat is broken, too. It is very cold!”
Picard hoped that Geordi’s heroic efforts had not been in vain. “We are on our way. Enterprise out.” He signaled Worf to terminate the transmission. The captain looked to his crew for a solution to their current dilemma. “Data, is there any way we can increase our speed?”
“I would not advise it,” the android said. “The extent of the subspace disturbances indicate a sizable concentration of quantum filaments. Navigating them safely will be difficult, especially since the Enterprise is considerably larger than the Pakled vessel.”
“For once our size is working against us,” Riker observed. “Too bad we’re not smaller and more maneuverable.”
Inspiration struck like a photon torpedo. “Perhaps we can make it so,” Picard said. “Suppose we separate the saucer from the drive section?”
“That could work.” Riker instantly saw the advantages. “Without the saucer, the drive section might be able to weave through the filaments more easily.”
“And with less risk to the rest of the Enterprise, including the support staff and families aboard.” Picard thought again of the children who had survived the previous collision; he had no desire to subject them to the same ordeal again. A saucer separation was a drastic move, which he had resorted to only a handful of times over the course of his career, but it might be just what the circumstances called for in this instance. We have the capacity. We might as well use it.
He rose from his chair. “Number One, the saucer is yours.” He did not entrust this responsibility to Riker lightly; the enormous saucer contained the vast majority of the Enterprise’s crew and facilities. “Take care of our people.”
“You can count on me, sir.” Riker took the captain’s chair, while Data and the others prepared to turn over their stations to the relief crew. A dedicated turbolift connected the bridge with the battle bridge in the drive section. “I just wish I was going with you.”
