Kirk bit his words off, one by one, for emphasis. “You don’t have the advantage. As long as this ship remains at four gravities, I can go to warp without the Totality interfering. Even if I tear your ship apart. I’m giving you one minute.”
Troi leaned closer to Picard. “No question. He’s prepared to inflict casualties.”
In response to Kirk’s barely contained rage, Picard felt himself go cold. “And I’m prepared to accept them.”
Kirk and Picard locked eyes, viewscreen to viewscreen.
“Fifty seconds,” Kirk said.
“You won’t escape the other ships,” Picard warned.
“Then at least I’ll die free.”
The immovable object. The irresistible force.
Two beasts locked in eternal combat, each prepared to accept death before defeat.
“Forty seconds…”
Kirk could barely breathe. It took all his strength simply to sit upright. But he would not relax his posture. He would not let Picard see any sign of weakness.
At his engineering console, Scott had almost lost his voice. The holographic doctor had administered tri-ox and mitochondrial enhancers to everyone, but four gravities took a constant toll.
“Warp core comin’ online, Captain,” he croaked. “No sign of any interference….”
Kirk was aware of Spock at his side, adjusting a communications control. “Jim, are you certain this is necessary?”
Kirk had to struggle to enunciate clearly enough to be understood. “You’ve been away, Spock. I believe the Vulcan authorities have been compromised by the Totality. And if it can happen there, it can happen on Earth, and on the Enterprise.”
Spock didn’t argue the point, though Kirk couldn’t be certain if that was because he accepted the argument, or because exhaustion was also claiming him.
Then, without warning, the image of Picard on the center viewscreen dissolved into subspace static.
“Scotty…?” Kirk began to ask. Had the Totality devised a new method of entering normal space-time?
But before his engineer could answer, the cause of the static was revealed as a new and unexpected image appeared.
“Captain, I have broken in on both transmissions,” Tuvok said. “You are now on the viewscreens of the Belle Rêve and the Enterprise.”
This time, Riker didn’t even try to hide what he was feeling, and it left no room for any of the respect that he should be showing two more senior captains.
“You two will stand down right now or I swear I’ll open fire on both of you!”
Kirk appeared on the left side of the main viewscreen. It was as if he had not even heard Riker’s threat. “This isn’t your fight, Captain,” he rasped. “Thirty seconds, Jean-Luc.”
“Why is this a fight at all?!” Riker demanded.
Picard was on the right side of the screen, jaw clenched, eyes piercing. “Will, I’m counting on you to stop Kirk as soon as he drops out of warp.”
“No!” Riker shouted. “The universe does not revolve around you two alone! We’re all of us on a Starfleet mission and there is another way to resolve this!”
Riker took some comfort in seeing Kirk and Picard finally react to what he said, both momentarily losing their stern demeanor.
“Twenty-five seconds,” Kirk said. “Convince me.”
“I’ll increase gravity on the Titan! It’ll be the neutral ground. And when you’re both convinced that this ship hasn’t been compromised, I’ll beam everyone over for identity confirmation and a sensible discussion about how to proceed.” Riker turned to Tuvok. “Mister Tuvok, is Kirk’s warp core still online?”
“It is.”
Riker glared at the two captains on the viewscreen as he gave his orders to Tuvok. “Very well. Target the Belle Rêve and the Enterprise. All banks, full barrage.”
Then Riker made his ultimatum as clear as he could. “Captain Kirk, Captain Picard, you’ve heard my offer. But if you two are so determined to tear apart your ships, allow me to lend a hand.”
“Phasers locked,” Tuvok confirmed.
“Captain Kirk,” Riker said, “it’s your move.”
25
THE OORT CLOUD, SECTOR 001
STARDATE 58567.9
Picard regarded Troi with concern. Even he could infer from her expression that the counselor was troubled.
“I’ve never sensed Will so angry,” she said quietly.
Picard’s guilt deepened. How many times had he told Riker to always look for another way out, a way to defuse a situation rather than stubbornly insisting on proving a point?
And here was the student instructing the teacher.
“All right,” Kirk said from his side of the Enterprise’s viewscreen. “I’ll agree to stay put. And you’ll agree to let me run a complete sensor sweep of the Titan to monitor the gravity readings.”
From his side of the viewscreen, Riker gave a tight smile. “Acceptable. Captain Picard?”
“I should have thought of that myself, Will.”
“We both should have,” Kirk said.
Picard nodded. He understood, as he was sure Kirk did, that that was as close to an apology as either of them would ever make, or need to make.
Riker quickly gave his orders. All crew on the Titan were to police loose objects and brace for increased gravity. The precautions were little different from the turbulence drills that were a regular part of starship life.
Within two minutes, all decks reported they were secure.
“Tuvok,” Riker said, “increase gravity throughout the ship by four hundred percent.” He looked at the viewscreen where Kirk and Picard waited. “Captain Kirk, start your sweep.”
Already feeling the first tug of increased mass, Riker took his chair, bracing himself as artificial gravity plates below his bridge stepped up their cascade of Casimir particles to manipulate inertia.
“Two gravities,” Tuvok announced calmly.
Riker heard faint creaking from the deck and a few of the bridge consoles as they responded to the building gravitational load. He felt the subtle change in the almost subliminal vibration of the ship’s structural-integrity field as it sent bracing energy through the superstructure.
“Three gravities,” Tuvok announced, and alone of all others on the bridge, he was the only one still on his feet, the only one who didn’t sound affected by having his apparent mass triple. “Three point five…”
At the conn station, Ensign Lavena suddenly called for a replacement and slumped from her chair to the deck, lying awkwardly against her hydration suit’s stiff dorsal spines where they protected her twin gill crests. “Apologies, Captain,” she said haltingly. “Suit’s pressure adjustment…not functioning…”
Commander Vale stomped heavily to the conn as if she bore two hundred kilos on her shoulders and slammed down into Lavena’s empty chair. With a grunt of effort, she swung her hands to the controls, standing by.
Lavena lay on the deck to the side of her chair, the liquid gurgle of her gills audible, labored, even through her suit. From his vantage point, Riker could see that the water in the suit had pooled around her. The suit’s distended shape gave the appearance that she was melting into the deck.
Riker concentrated on moving his head to the side, intent on locating any crew who might be near a critical equipment locker. Lavena needed extra water injected into her suit at once.
A blank-faced ensign sat on the deck staring at nothing, his legs straight out before him, his back to a wall of equipment lockers.
“Ensign!”
The young man did not respond.
Riker searched his memory. The young man was one of the few humans on board, fresh from the Academy. Riker had met him briefly, spoken to him at the orientation assembly…the name flashed before him.
“Ensign Doyle!”
Three things happened then, ensuring that Riker would never forget the young man’s name again.
First, Doyle turned his head quickly and easily to look at him.
And third, just as Tuvok reported four gravities had been reached, Ensign Doyle came apart.
Riker stared as the ensign split into squared-off tendrils as if he were being pushed through a sieve, each cubelike segment losing color as it unwound to the deck, transforming in turn to grains of what looked like black sand that slowly lost definition and substance until there was nothing left, not even a stain.
The Titan’s bridge crew gaped in silent shock. The only word spoken was from Tuvok. “Fascinating,” he said.
“Captain Kirk…” Riker finally managed to gasp in the crushing pressure of four gravities. “Did you see that?”
“More importantly,” Kirk replied, also struggling to speak, “Jean-Luc, did you see that?”
“Indeed, I did,” Picard said with difficulty. “I…I’ll stand by to be beamed to the Titan at your convenience, Will.”
Riker summoned the strength to poll the deck commanders throughout his ship. In addition to Doyle, seven members of his crew had dissolved: two humans, the others alien.
The conclusion was inescapable: Despite the medical monitors and constant surveillance, the Totality had infiltrated the Titan completely undetected.
To Riker, that meant one thing and one thing only.
Each Starfleet vessel, starbase, and installation must now be considered occupied territory.
Kirk, Picard, and Riker—three generations of Starfleet’s finest—returned to Mercury at warp, on board Kirk’s Belle Rêve.
When challenged, they refused to beam down to meet with the members of the Provisional Starfleet Command. Neither would they explain themselves over open communication channels.
The enemy was everywhere.
Instead, their messenger was the Emergency Medical Hologram. He had no physical body that could be duplicated by the Totality. The details of his one physical attribute—the advanced-technology holographic emitter—had been mapped and measured by Starfleet down to the molecular level. Though its sophisticated components could not be duplicated by twenty-fourth-century technology, the emitter itself was easily checked against existing records for alterations.
In less than an hour after the EMH beamed down to the Vostok Academy deep beneath the surface of Mercury, he returned with Admiral Janeway.
To avoid injury to the admiral, Kirk had his engineer set the Belle Rêve’s transporter room to one gravity for her arrival. Once Janeway had positioned herself on a chair from one of the staterooms, Scott, working from the bridge, slowly brought the gravity up to the safe setting—four times Earth normal.
To the relief of the three captains—and the EMH—the admiral, though distinctly bothered and uncomfortable, maintained her integrity. She did not disintegrate into black sand and disappear.
A few minutes later, their meeting took place on the bridge, where the console chairs offered headrests and better support. Spock and Scott were present as well. McCoy had retired to the infirmary and a diagnostic bed, monitoring the bridge discussion over a communications channel.
Following captains’ orders, the EMH was prepared to administer tri-ox and other pharmaceutical aids to the admiral upon her request. But since Janeway still hadn’t determined if this was another ruse on the part of an enemy other than the Totality, she refused.
The holographic doctor remained by Janeway’s side nonetheless, helpfully explaining that he was convinced by the captains’ story and that he was certain she would be, too, soon enough.
Then the admiral, with a scientist’s skepticism, listened as the three captains told her their tale.
Kirk assessed Janeway’s reaction as the sensor log from the Titan played back on the central viewscreen.
When Ensign Doyle, by decomposing and vanishing, was revealed as a projection of the Totality that had presumably been somehow reabsorbed, the admiral’s expression did change from neutral, to concern.
But she was not yet convinced.
Kirk caught Picard’s eye, signaling his unspoken query. They still needed to make their case.
Janeway shook her head, carefully, in the punishing gravity. “Interesting, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“It is a completely unknown form of life,” Riker argued. “It stands to reason that it might not behave according to logic.”
Janeway turned her gaze to Spock. “No objection to that, Ambassador?”
“I am curious to know why you believe what you’ve seen doesn’t make sense, Admiral.”
Kirk’s experienced eye and ear told him that Spock was impatient with Janeway’s caution.
“Many reasons,” Janeway said coolly, indicating that she would not be rushed into agreement. “The most important one is that given the power of this so-called Totality, why did they limit their attack to denying us warp travel? Why haven’t we been completely overrun by them?”
Kirk had spoken with Norinda often enough to know the answer. “They don’t want to force us to do anything.”
Janeway frowned in disbelief. “You say they want to wage a war without using force, which they do by destroying hundreds of our ships, and inflicting thousands of casualties? Come on, Kirk.”
Kirk tried to shrug, but under four gravities, his shoulders didn’t budge. “The Totality is convinced that once we truly understand what it is they’re offering us, we’ll embrace it—without a fight.”
“And,” Janeway asked, “they’re offering us what, exactly?”
“The chance to join them,” Spock said.
Janeway’s reply dripped with cynicism. “And become one with the universe.”
Spock, impervious to such emotion, focused on the facts. “Admiral, they believe they are the universe, and in a way, they are correct.”
To Kirk, it seemed as if Janeway momentarily lost her struggle to ignore the extreme circumstances of their rendezvous. Even talking under four gravities was the equivalent of a heavy workout. She paused for a long moment, took a deep breath as the holographic doctor unobtrusively aimed a tricorder at her, just to be sure she was holding up. “Ambassador, where exactly were you this past year?”
Spock replied easily, maddeningly in control of his breathing and his speech. “I existed in a realm of shadow matter. My personality remained intact; I had an illusion of my body with which to interact with an illusory physical environment constructed to put me at my ease. But I was aware of other minds around me, as if I were in a constant state of residual mind-meld with uncountable individuals.” He looked at Kirk. “And, when I was given the opportunity to meditate, I found myself able to sense the minds of others who remained in this dimensional reality.”
“It worked, Spock. You got my attention.”
Spock acknowledged Kirk’s confirmation with an almost imperceptible nod. Then he looked back to Janeway. “And underlying the experience, at a distance yet always beckoning, I felt the mind-force of the Totality, urging me to take the next step to total absorption.”
“Absorption into what?” Janeway asked after a long moment of silence.
“The Totality itself,” Spock said.
“A group mind?” Janeway grimaced. Kirk felt sympathy for her. It had been hard for all of them to truly comprehend. “Like the Borg?”
“No, Admiral. I am familiar with the collective, and this experience was unique. Where the Borg are driven by the need to assimilate individuals and have them work for the continued growth of the group, the Totality is not driven by anything except its own immediate existence. It has no goals, no purpose, only awareness.”
Janeway struggled to raise a hand to rub at her temples. “I thought their goal was to bring us into the fold.”
“That is correct,” Spock agreed. “But not for the sake of conquering us, not for obtaining our resources, but merely because…they feel sorry for us.”
Janeway stared at Spock, baffled.
“Admiral,” Kirk said, taking pity on h
er, “what it all comes down to, what it’s always been about since the first time I encountered Norinda, is that the Totality only wants to help us.”
Janeway looked to Picard and to Riker. “You both go along with this?”
Kirk wasn’t surprised to see that his fellow captains were uncomfortable accepting his summation.
“Whatever the Totality is,” Picard said, clearly choosing his words carefully, “it’s a life-form that we’ve never encountered. One that inhabits a realm our minds never evolved to comprehend. I don’t think it’s critical what their motives are, however accurately or imperfectly we understand them.” He glanced at Kirk as if offering an apology. “What is critical is putting an end to what they’ve done to us.
“Spock has given us a way to drive them off our ships and enable us to travel at warp again. And Jim has a database of information collected by the first Starfleet vessel to encounter the Totality as it traveled from Andromeda to our galaxy.”
Janeway looked back at Kirk, now thoroughly confused. “Which vessel?”
“The Monitor.” His hand and arm trembling from the effort, Kirk drew Marinta’s copper-colored message player from his jacket. “This is their last transmission. I believe it contains information that’ll enable us not only to resist the Totality, but to fight back.”
Janeway pursed her lips in satisfaction. “So you do admit that we’re in a war?”
“We are,” Kirk said. “But they’re not.” He knew how Janeway would react to what he was going to say next, but that didn’t stop him. “You see, the whole reason they’re reaching out to us, attempting to communicate instead of just overwhelming us, is that the Totality loves us.”
As Kirk expected, Janeway didn’t appear to believe a word of what he had said. If she’d been capable of rising from her chair to mock him, he suspected she’d have done so.
“How do you propose we fight ‘love,’ Captain?”
Kirk said nothing, but tightened his hold on the message player, hoping the answer was somewhere in its contents.
Because right now, he had no answer for the admiral.
Captain's Glory Page 19
