The Soldiers Of Fear

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  His stomach felt as if it were about to burst.

  “I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise.”

  The creature laughed. Maggots swarmed out of its open mouth. Its teeth were long and sharp. Saliva dripped from them. “Captain,” it said, its voice a warm caress that was somehow more hideous than the voice he had expected. “I know who you are. I even know of your Federation of Planets. But you do not know who I am. You have faced my people, but not my kind.”

  Picard took a deep breath. He would not play this guessing game, but suddenly he couldn’t think of any other response. Everything he had planned to say had fled from his mind. The emotions he had bottled away were straining at their prison.

  “I,” the creature said, its bass tones reverberating all the way down to Picard’s toes, “am fear.”

  Its words echoed in the silent bridge as the screen went dark.

  Already they were seeping through: images of himself …

  … locked alone in a room near the vineyard, the smell of fresh grapes and sunshine taunting him …

  … alone on Casius II, his shuttlecraft in pieces around him, night with its poisonous chill approaching; and naked in the Borg hive, imprisoned in one of their devices, a needle longer than his finger heading straight for his temple …

  He wrenched himself out of the memory.

  He was here.

  On the Enterprise.

  Safe.

  The seeping fear was still there, but slowly, as if a spider had dropped a web over his emotions, his control returned. He knew the control was as flimsy as a spider’s web and would break just as easily. But it gave him something else to work with.

  He blinked, turned, and finally saw the bridge before him.

  The sight shocked him.

  Riker sat in his chair, his elbows braced on his knees, his head buried in his hands. He was shivering.

  Ensign Eckley had her arms wrapped around her head. She had fallen to the floor and she appeared to have passed out.

  Ensign Wilcox was sobbing, the harsh guttural sobs of a man who had never cried before.

  Ensign Ikel was pounding on the turbolift door as if he were trying to escape the room.

  The big surprise, though, was Lieutenant Worf. The devil had no place in his tradition, yet he stared at the empty screen, his dark, foreboding features the color of Ferengi grub worms. He seemed frozen in place.

  “Captain, I have finished the analysis….” Data swiveled his chair, and stopped speaking as he saw the condition of the bridge crew. A tiny frown furrowed his normally wrinkleless face.

  “It seems,” he said, his gaze meeting Picard’s, “that I have missed something.”

  Picard took another deep breath and let the fine web of his self-control strengthen just a little bit more. “I think we may be lucky that you did,” he said.

  Data frowned, and for some reason Picard found that very reassuring.

  * * *

  Deanna Troi sat on the bed in her quarters, her door locked. Her comm badge rested on the table in the main room. She could hear it, but had chosen not to respond. Already she had gotten calls from fifteen crew members, no doubt wanting to discuss the anxiety they had been feeling since the Enterprise had come to this area near the Brundage Station.

  The anxiety she was feeling was threatening to overwhelm her.

  A Betazoid, her mind said with the voice of her mother, knows how to control the impact of the emotions of others.

  “I know, Mother,” Deanna said. She gripped her knees and went through a calming ritual that had helped her in times past. Usually she handled these overwhelming crew emotions better than she was now. She suspected her reaction was due to the strength of the emotions.

  And they would only get stronger, magnified within her own self.

  Unless you get control Deanna. I don’t recognize this lack of control anywhere in my family. It must come from your father.

  Deanna never heard the voice of her mother in her own head. Unless, of course, her mother was nearby.

  “Computer, is my mother on board the Enterprise?”

  “Lwaxana Troi is not aboard this ship.”

  “Computer please check again.”

  “Lwaxana Troi is not aboard this ship.”

  Deanna nodded. Her anxiety level was high. She hadn’t made up her mother’s voice since she was a very young girl. Then that had been normal. A child always heard voices where there were none. It was the task of the Betazoid to learn the difference between a projected voice and an imagined one.

  Deanna stood, her skirts falling about her legs. Her mother’s voice—real or imagined—was right. Deanna needed control.

  She left the bedroom, grabbed her comm badge, and put it on. Her research with Data showed that the Furies had not encountered Betazoids. The Furies would have no knowledge of Betazed mythology. Only her human side would be affected, and she could control that much.

  The problem she would have in any encounter with the Furies would be the shipboard reaction. But she suspected, and Data hypothesized, that the Furies had come through this sector long before the original Enterprise encountered them.

  Her mother’s planet had no history of them.

  None.

  That would give her strength.

  If you can keep everyone else out of your mind, her mother’s voice said.

  “You leave first, Mother,” Deanna snapped. She didn’t need this distraction. Her mother always made her nervous….

  She paused. Her mother made her nervous. Deanna sighed. So even when she was trying to block the low-level anxiety from the ship, it appeared in the form of her mother.

  Deanna would go to her counseling offices. She had practiced control there more than she had in her own rooms. She was amazed she hadn’t thought of that immediately.

  “Computer,” she said, “please block all non-emergency calls. I will set appointments after this crisis has ended.”

  “Affirmative,” the computer said.

  There. That part at least was settled. No one on the ship had the luxury to discuss their emotional difficulties. They simply had to live through them.

  Just as she would.

  She felt better now. The control she had been seeking had returned. She started for the door.

  And fell forward as a wave of cold hit her as hard as a physical blow. The cold was full of voices—screaming, shouting, babbling—and imagery:

  A woman whose head was covered with snakes.

  A creature with maggots for eyes.

  A giant Klingon, his teeth covered with blood.

  Mixed in with those were a hundred others, less prominent, but as forceful.

  And behind it all, her mother’s voice.

  Deanna, you need control Deanna—

  But she had no control. Her mother would have had no control. There was too much. Too much for anyone to handle all at once.

  Deanna fought the cold back, the voices back, but the images kept coming—A great dragon, spitting fire.

  A Romulan, poised over her with a disruptor.

  A Craxithesus, screaming its blood cry.

  More and more and more.

  —She couldn’t stop them, and as she fought, she grew weaker, and weaker.

  The images crowded in on her until her senses overloaded.

  She could fight no more.

  Chapter Seven

  LIEUTENANT SAM REDBAY straddled a chair in engineering. He held a laser under his arm as he pulled apart the panel before him. Just his luck to be in engineering instead of on the bridge during what promised to be the biggest event of his career. But he had told personnel that if they assigned him to a starship he would work in any department at any time, and he had always had an aptitude for engineering.

  And, to be fair, he liked the work. Although he liked working the helm better.

  But Lieutenant Tam was down with the Xotic flu, a deadly (and fortunately not very communicable) virus that damaged the internal organs if
not monitored properly. And Dr. Crusher had ordered complete bed rest.

  Tam had contacted La Forge when the crisis started, and he gave her some sort of mental puzzle to work on from her sickbed. If it had been Redbay, he would have crawled to his battle station, virus be damned.

  Still, if he had to be somewhere outside of the action, he would rather be in engineering than anywhere else. Geordi La Forge ran a tight section. The equipment was always in top condition. The Enterprise functioned at maximum capacity, and everything the crew did only made it better.

  Like the work Redbay was doing now. La Forge believed, based on the things he had read and some things he had noticed in his trip to Brundage Station, that some of the Furies’ powers over human fears might be artificial and therefore could be effectively blocked. Redbay had already worked on a shield oscillator so that unusual frequencies would be scrambled. Now he was modifying the viewscreens to minimize intentional distortions.

  The job should theoretically take two people eight hours.

  He had an hour to finish it.

  Alone.

  The rest of the engineering staff were working on similar tasks. A few were modifying the warp engines—for what he did not know—and La Forge himself was in a Jeffries tube, adjusting the internal sensors.

  They would be ready when the Furies struck.

  If they struck.

  Redbay had his doubts about that. His own personal opinion, based on some historical study, was that Captain James T. Kirk was a bit of an exaggerator. No one, no matter what his position and no matter what the tenor of his times, could have been involved in so many important events in the history of the sector.

  Redbay’s history professor at the Academy had ridiculed that conclusion, pointing out that the history records clearly showed Kirk’s involvement.

  This, of course, would be the test. Kirk and his crew were the only ones who left a record of the Furies’ visit. The Klingons had been suspiciously silent about the entire encounter. And from the punishment they took, Redbay could understand why.

  His hand was getting tired from holding the laser in place. He still had some tweaking to do. With luck, he would be able to get the task done in the time allotted. If it hadn’t been for the prime condition of the Enterprise’s systems, the job really would have taken him the full eight hours.

  Then, suddenly, his heart rate increased, his hands started shaking, and his fingers lost their grip on the laser. It slipped from his mouth and clattered on the console, denting the surface.

  He dropped his tools and grabbed for the laser, knowing that the monsters under his bed were going to get him, they were going to kill him, like they had killed his father and his mother and the entire colony.

  He had to hide now.

  Now!

  Hide! Right now!

  He slid under the console and drew his knees up to his chest, but that didn’t drive the feeling away. The monsters were made of light, multicolored light, and they burned everything they touched. He had seen his father die that way, and his mother had made him run—

  A man was on his back, phaser clutched in both hands, pushing, pushing, pushing his way toward Redbay using his heels as propulsion, eyes focused on a point near the ceiling. The man was wearing a Starfleet uniform (Starfleet? how did they get here?), and he was moaning as he moved.

  A long drawn-out scream echoed from a Jeffries tube (a what?), and two ensigns were lying on the floor, each a shivering mass of flesh.

  They had to hide. Didn’t they know they had to hide? If they were in the open, the light would get them and—

  and—

  Starfleet didn’t belong on Nyo Colony. The colony had broken with the Federation. That’s why so many people died. Because they had no one to turn to for help. That’s why Redbay joined Starfleet, so that he could help people who needed it.

  Redbay joined.

  He was in Starfleet.

  His parents had died a long, long time ago.

  He peered out from under the console. The man in the Starfleet uniform (Transporter Chief Anderson) was still pushing himself with his legs, moving on his back, aiming his phaser at shadows.

  Redbay was in engineering on the Starship Enterprise. Getting ready to face the Furies.

  Who terrified their opponents by manipulating their emotions.

  Terror.

  He had only felt this kind of terror once in his life.

  The day his parents died.

  Only once.

  His parents had died thirty years ago.

  Thirty.

  Years.

  Thirty.

  He kept repeating that inside his head, over and over.

  He had been modulating the ship’s screens. He had no reason to be so frightened.

  None.

  But his limbs were shaking.

  He eased out from under the console, the terror still a part of him, but slowly coming under control. If he kept his mind focused the terror would always be under control

  He had learned that at age six, living alone for a month on Nyo before a passing freighter had picked up the automated distress signal.

  Redbay kept his gaze on Chief Anderson—no sense in startling a panicked man—and slowly stood, his legs trembling.

  The surface of the console was dented where the laser initially hit, but again, none of the important sensors were damaged.

  The damage all seemed to be internal—within the engineering staff.

  Then La Forge rolled out of the Jeffries tube, slapping himself as though he were on fire. He landed on his back, and gasped as the air left his lungs. His hands slapped their way up to his face. When they reached his VISOR, he stopped.

  Anderson hit his head against the console, yelped, and aimed his phaser at the wall.

  Redbay didn’t move. He wasn’t going to move until Anderson put the phaser down.

  La Forge removed the VISOR and sat up, leaning against the opening of the tube. He was breathing hard, but he seemed to be calmer.

  Anderson put his phaser away.

  Redbay let out breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. Slowly he made his way to La Forge. La Forge’s face looked odd without the VISOR. Redbay had never seen his eyes before, didn’t realize that they were a milky white. The eyes didn’t focus on him.

  “M-Mr. La Forge?” Redbay’s voice sounded strangled. He cleared his throat. “Sir?”

  With a hand not yet completely steady, La Forge put his VISOR back on. “Lieutenant.”

  He sounded calm. If Redbay hadn’t seen him fall out of the Jeffries tube in a panic, he would have thought that La Forge had felt nothing.

  “I can see two crew members who still haven’t controlled themselves,” Redbay said, letting La Forge know that his panic was not unique. “Anderson seems to be coming out of it. I haven’t been able to get to the warp drive to see what’s happening there.”

  “Great,” La Forge said, and he didn’t have to explain what he meant by that. If La Forge had panicked and fallen out of a Jeffries tube, and Redbay had panicked and allowed a laser to damage a console, then what kind of damage happened to the warp core?

  La Forge pulled himself to his feet. “Engineering to bridge,” he said as he stood.

  “Go ahead, Mr. La Forge.”

  Redbay found the captain’s normal response unusually reassuring. But La Forge frowned. He had worked with Picard a long time. He might have heard something in the captain’s voice that Redbay hadn’t.

  “Captain.” La Forge paused and glanced around, then took a deep breath and continued. “Something pretty strange just happened down here. I don’t know how to describe it. We all seemed to panic for no reason at all. Two of my ensigns are still huddled in terror on the floor, and I don’t know what’s going on near the warp core. There might be some systems damage. I’ll need help from the bridge in running a systems check.”

  “That isn’t possible at the moment, Mr. La Forge.”

  Now Redbay heard it too. There se
emed to be an abnormal amount of caution in the captain’s tone, as if he were choosing his words too carefully.

  “Then, sir, give us five minutes before attempting to use any major system. I need to check—”

  “Mr. La Forge,” the captain interrupted as if he hadn’t heard La Forge at all. “Did you have the screens on during the last transmission?”

  La Forge glanced at Redbay. Redbay shook his head. He had been working on the screens, not watching them.

  “No, sir,” La Forge said.

  “Fascinating.” The captain’s comment was soft, as if he were mulling that piece of information.

  The silence seem to stretch too long. Finally La Forge said, “Captain?”

  “Mr. La Forge.” Picard’s voice seemed somewhat stronger. “We have a problem that extends beyond engineering and the bridge. We must assume that the entire ship has felt this wave of terror. Repair what you can, Mr. La Forge, but remain at your posts.”

  “Yes, sir,” La Forge said.

  “Geordi,” Picard said, his voice lower, almost as if he were asking a favor. “Get your crew on their feet again, if you can. We need to discover where this feeling is coming from, as quickly as possible.”

  “Lieutenant Redbay and I are already on our feet,” La Forge said, “and Anderson seems to have regained control as well. Between the three of us, we should be able to get the rest of engineering in order.”

  “Good,” Picard said. “I need a report as soon as you can get it to me.”

  “Aye, sir,” La Forge said.

  Redbay swallowed convulsively. It was taking most of his strength to stand beside La Forge and look calm.

  La Forge’s hand went to his VISOR again, then dropped to his side. “I suspect we don’t have much time.”

  “I suspect you’re right,” Redbay said. “I think those of us who can work should. If we find a way to block whatever is causing this, the others will come around immediately.”