“No response,” Zhang said.
“No change in velocity,” Aleco said, “and it remains cloaked.”
“Deep Space Nine to approaching shape-shifter,” Blackmer repeated. “We must speak with you before permitting you to continue on your current course.” At almost the same instant, two of the four doors leading to turbolifts opened. The captain entered from one, and Chief O’Brien from the other. “Please respond or we will be forced to fire on you.”
Ro descended into the Well while O’Brien took over at the main engineering station from Crewwoman Antigua Brown, who moved to a secondary engineering position on the periphery of the Hub. “Anything?” the captain asked Blackmer.
“Not so far,” Blackmer said. “The intruder reads as the Defiant, cloaked, but the actual ship is still a half-day’s travel from the starbase. It is clearly the shape-shifter that attacked the real Defiant. It is headed for the wormhole and refuses to respond to hails.”
“Captain,” Aleco said, “the detection grid is reading shields and charged phaser banks on the entity.”
“Damn,” Ro said. “If all it wanted to do was travel through the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, why is it running with shields up and weapons charged?”
“After the Defiant crew attempted to capture it, maybe it just wants to protect itself,” Blackmer said. “Do we risk letting it go?”
“No,” the captain said decisively. “Not without some indication of its peaceful intentions. We can’t risk an attack on the Eav’oq, or an attempt to damage the wormhole.” She looked up at Ensign Zhang. “Open hailing frequencies.”
“Frequencies open,” Zhang said.
“Deep Space Nine to shape-shifting entity. This is Captain Ro Laren. You must stop, decloak, and reply, or we will have no choice but to fire on you.” Ro waited. Blackmer didn’t expect a response, and he didn’t think anybody else in the Hub did either, but then Aleco reported one.
“Captain, the entity has changed course,” the tactical officer said, the tension in his voice presaging what would come next. “It’s heading directly for Deep Space Nine.”
* * *
Ro exchanged a concerned look with Blackmer, then glanced at the holographic display projected above the situation table. In it, a representation of Defiant soared toward Deep Space 9, a red arc behind it tracing the alteration to its course. “Raise the thoron shield,” Ro ordered.
“Raising the thoron shield,” Aleco said. The new type of Starfleet defense provided a seamless energy covering around all of Deep Space 9, along the inner sides of the starbase’s three orthogonal rings. A second casing formed around the Hub, which sat at the upper intersection of the y- and z-rings. The thoron-based defense provided greater protection than normal shields, safeguarding the starbase not only against energy weapons and transporter beams, but also against physical objects. On the downside, it hindered long-range sensors and communications. “Captain, the entity is not reducing speed.”
“Fire phasers,” Ro ordered, and she peered up at the ring of displays above the sit table. She watched as yellow-red beams streaked out into space, at no discernible target. The phasers abruptly ended, as though they had struck an invisible wall—which they essentially had. The image wavered at that point, and then the shape-shifter faded into view, looking precisely like Defiant. Except that the ship-form had none of Defiant’s coloring—no grays and whites of the hull plating, no red glow fronting the warp nacelles, no blue radiance emanating from the navigational deflector, no black characters spelling out the name and registry. The simulacrum of the ship showed entirely in reflective silver. It looked to Ro more like a ghost than something real.
“Captain, the phasers have reduced the entity’s shields, but it is still not slowing down,” Aleco said. Though he spoke urgently, his voice was steady. “It’s on a collision course with us.”
“Fire phasers and quantum torpedoes,” Ro said.
“Phasers and quantum torpedoes, fire!” Aleco said.
On the overhead displays, yellow-red beams cut once more through the void, followed by the blue-tinged white pulses of a quartet of quantum torpedoes. The phasers reached the Defiant-shape—and passed through it. A moment later, so too did the torpedoes.
“What—?” Ro started to ask, but she could see what had happened: apertures had opened in the shape-shifter–cum–starship, allowing the weapons fire to pass cleanly through it. As the captain watched, the openings sealed themselves.
“Brace for impact!” Aleco called out.
No, Ro thought as she rushed to the sit table and took hold of its edge. Blackmer did the same beside her. She prepared herself for the crash. The regular defensive shields would not hold back the mass of the shape-shifter, but the thoron shield should. Even so, Ro expected the impact to rattle the starbase.
Nothing happened.
“Captain,” O’Brien said. “Look!”
Ro backed away from the sit table and lifted her gaze to the display ring. She saw a view of Deep Space 9 from high up near the Hub, looking down toward the main sphere. The golden cast of the thoron shield spread in an ovate shell bounded by DS9’s three rings. A nebulous silver blemish tarnished one portion of the shield. As Ro watched, the blotch spread in what looked like a random fashion, like a liquid spilled on top of a ball, but then suddenly it fell inward, toward DS9’s main sphere.
“What happened?” Ro asked.
“The shape-shifter has passed through the thoron shield,” Aleco said.
“What?!” O’Brien exclaimed. “How is that even possible?”
Ro quickly mounted the steps between the tactical and main engineering stations and turned to her right to study Lieutenant Aleco’s displays. As she did, Blackmer moved beside the tactical officer, to the adjoining station, where he took over the security console from Ensign Ernak gov Ansarg. Ro reached in past Aleco to a screen showing a live feed of the shape-shifter, and she dragged the time indicator backward, to the moment when the entity had penetrated the thoron shield. The captain then tapped several times at the point where the shape-shifter had come through the powerful defensive screen. The image magnified again and again, until Ro held a fingertip on it steadily. A series of numbers and descriptors appeared that described the two substances—the shield and the shape-shifter—and their interaction.
“It’s possible,” Ro said, able to interpret what she saw to find justification for her conclusion, “because the entity altered its form to correspond to that of the thoron shield. It became a part of it . . . became one with it . . . and then changed its form again, back into itself, but on the inside of the shield. It’s essentially how Commander Stinson described the entity getting past the Defiant’s shields.”
“The shape-shifter has attached itself to the hull,” Aleco said, pointing to another monitor on his console.
“It’s dispersing itself, Captain,” O’Brien said.
Ro watched the entity as it oozed across the hull in all directions. “This follows the pattern of attack Commander Stinson described on the Defiant,” she said, more to herself than to her crew.
“What’s it doing to the hull?” O’Brien asked. He operated his own console, clearly searching for answers.
“Vel? Denor? Jeff?” Ro said. She had an intuition that the shape-shifter intended no harm to Deep Space 9 and those aboard it—an optimism based on the experiences of Defiant’s crew with the entity. Still, she would take nothing for granted.
“I don’t see anything, Captain,” Aleco said. “There’s no evidence of an attempt to break through the hull . . . or to ‘become one with it’ and breach the starbase that way. There’s no increase in temperature or pressure on the hull, nothing that would suggest an energy weapon. There’s no radiation . . . check that: I’m reading some subspace radiation, but it appears to be trace amounts spread evenly through the entity. It poses no danger to us.”
At the operations console beside O’Brien, Ensign Wat said, “All starbase functions show green, Captain.” He so
unded as though he didn’t quite believe it.
“All security systems read green as well,” Blackmer said. “There are reports of issues with moving residents to their cabins and visitors to designated shelter areas, but most of the civilians have responded well to the alert. There are obviously a lot of questions and concerns.”
“Captain,” Zhang said, “we are receiving communications from the masters and crews of almost all docked ships. They all want to know what’s going on. Some of them sound on the verge of panic.”
To Crewwoman Grandy, the dockmaster on gamma shift, Ro said, “Arleta, coordinate with all vessels. Have them undock and withdraw to a distance of a hundred kilometers.”
“Aye, sir,” Grandy said.
“Suyin, try to calm everybody down,” Ro told Zhang. “Tell them I’ll speak with them as soon as I’m able, but emphasize that neither Deep Space Nine nor any of the ships, whether docked or not, are in any danger.”
“Sir?” Zhang asked. Ro thought it was the first time she had ever heard the young communications officer question an order.
Beside the captain, Aleco quietly asked, “How can you be so sure?”
Past him, Blackmer said, “Agreed, Captain. This feels like an attack.”
Ro nodded, then she began walking along the outer circle of the Hub. As she passed behind the tactical and security stations, she said, “I know it would be easy to view what’s happening as a threat to the starbase, but I don’t think it is.” She moved past one of the sets of steps that led down into the Well and then past the first officer’s position. When she reached the command chair, she stood behind it and continued to address the crew. “The shape-shifter is doing exactly what it did when the Defiant crew encountered it. Commander Stinson tried to communicate with the entity, and when that didn’t work, he tried to warn it to stop. It redirected itself toward the Defiant only after an attempt to capture it. That’s when the shape-shifter covered the hull of the Defiant, but it did not harm the ship or crew.”
“But why did it do that?” O’Brien asked. “Just so that it could learn to copy the ship? For what purpose?”
“To communicate, maybe,” Aleco ventured.
“No, not for communication,” Ro said. “It seemed as though as soon as it could copy the Defiant, it did so, and as soon as it took the ship’s form, it cloaked and left the area.”
“Then why?” Blackmer asked.
“I don’t know,” Ro said. She looked up at the display ring and saw the shape-shifter continuing to spread itself across the hull of the starbase. She also saw the vessels that had been docked at DS9 moving away.
Ro genuinely believed that the entity did not pose a threat to the starbase, or to any of the docked or nearby ships, but she also recognized that she could not be certain. “Suyin,” she said, “contact Captain Swaddock aboard the Sacagawea. Explain the situation and tell him that I’m requesting he bring his ship to Deep Space Nine immediately.”
“Aye, sir,” Zhang said.
To the rest of her crew, Ro said, “If we need to force the shape-shifter away, how can we do that? And what else can we try to communicate with it?”
The ideas that followed echoed many of those that the Defiant crew had suggested, and some that they had attempted, all of which Commander Stinson had detailed in his report. New proposals included polarizing the thoron field, but that seemed as likely to keep the shape-shifter inside the field as to force it out. At some point, Ro made the decision to shut down the thoron shield altogether, given that it had been ineffective in preventing the entity from passing through it. Lieutenant Aleco advised launching many, or even all, of DS9’s dozen runabouts and having them employ their tractor beams in concert to pull the shape-shifter from the hull. Chief O’Brien talked about using all of the personnel and cargo transporters throughout the starbase to attempt to beam it away.
At intervals, Blackmer announced the proportion of the hull that the entity had covered. Thirty-five percent. Forty percent. Fifty. On the display ring, images of the starbase transmitted by various nearby ships showed the shape-shifter’s progress. Considering the enormous size of Deep Space 9, nobody initially believed that the entity would be able to disperse itself thinly enough to coat the entire hull, but as time passed, it showed no signs of slowing. When the silver veneer of the shape-shifter had concealed most of the main sphere, it began creeping the length of the crossover bridges toward the horizontal x-ring, and then eventually up the two vertical rings toward the Hub. Sixty percent. Seventy-five. Ninety.
None of the schemes to remove the entity from the starbase appeared likely to succeed, nor did any of them appeal to the captain. Ro preferred communication to conflict, but she was not convinced of the efficacy of the proposed methods for conversing with the shape-shifter. In the end, Ro could think of only one reasonable way to proceed.
“We can try the direct approach,” she said from where she sat in the command chair.
“The direct approach, Captain?” Blackmer asked from the tactical station.
Ro stood up. “I can go out there and face the entity.”
“Begging the captain’s pardon,” O’Brien said, “but ‘go out there’ how?”
“In an environmental suit,” Ro said. “Through one of the maintenance ports not yet covered.”
“I strongly advise against such a course, Captain,” Blackmer said. “For one thing, the scientists at the research facility came into contact with the shape-shifter, and it did not provide them with a means of communication. It left two of them dead. For another thing, your place is here, sir. With all due respect, if anybody is to make such an attempt, I must insist that it be a member of the security staff.”
“It may not matter,” Aleco said. “The entity has now wrapped itself around the entire starbase. All of the maintenance hatches are covered.” Ro peered back up at the display ring to see Deep Space 9 shrouded in silver.
“I’m picking up increased energy readings in the entity,” Aleco said.
“And there are corresponding readings inside the hull,” Blackmer said. “It’s not a weapon. It appears that we’re being scanned.”
Ro moved to the steps and headed down into the Well. A holographic representation of Deep Space 9 hung above the situation table, its exterior smooth and featureless. Ro studied it, then said, “We’ve already shut down the thoron shield. We can shut down the regular shields as well, and I can beam onto the hull.”
“Onto the shape-shifter itself?” O’Brien asked.
“Or in space just beside it,” Ro said.
“Captain, as both chief of security and acting first officer, I cannot allow you to endanger yourself like that,” Blackmer said, his manner very serious. “I’m not clear why you think that such an attempt to make contact with the entity will work, but if somebody is to try it, it has to be a security officer. I volunteer.”
Ro considered the security chief’s perspective. She knew that he held himself partially to blame for the assassination of the Federation president, because when Bacco and the other dignitaries at the DS9 dedication ceremony had refused the use of defensive screens during their speeches, he had not insisted. Ro also understood that she had just appointed him as acting first officer, and he plainly took his responsibilities to heart.
“Jeff—” she started to say, but then movement on the holographic image drew her attention. She looked and saw a line of silver streaming away from Deep Space 9. “Vel, what’s happening?”
“The entity is beginning to move away from the hull,” Aleco said. Even as he did so, Ro saw portions of the starbase becoming visible as the silver extent contracted toward the part of the shape-shifter jetting out into space. “I’m still detecting no damage to the starbase.”
“Where is it going?” Ro wanted to know.
“Bearing: two hundred seventy-three degrees, mark thirteen,” Aleco said. The tactical officer paused as he operated his controls, then said, “It’s stopping in space approximately two thousand meters aw
ay.”
“Suyin,” Ro said, “show us.”
“Aye, sir.” Zhang worked the communications station, and the starfield on the display ring changed. “Magnifying.” The viewscreens blinked, and the flow of silver became visible. It spilled to a point in space, where it collected into a growing sphere.
“What is it doing?” O’Brien asked.
Ro thought she knew. She reached forward and tapped a control on the situation table. The image of starbase disappeared, replaced by the accumulating silver mass. It did not take long for the entity to begin taking on a recognizable shape.
Blackmer said it first: “It’s Deep Space Nine.”
* * *
In the conference room just off the Hub, Miles O’Brien sat across from Lieutenant Commander Blackmer and Lieutenant Aleco, all of them waiting for Captain Ro. The four of them would shortly begin discussing the unlikely occurrence of a massive shape-shifter forming into an exact copy of Deep Space 9 in nearby space. And, the chief engineer assumed, what we should do about it.
The attendance at the meeting felt light to O’Brien, but of greater import, so did the collective experience of the few assembled. The captain’s conferences with her senior staff usually included Wheeler Stinson, Ren Kalanent Viss, John Candlewood, and Pascal Boudreaux, as well as Zivan Slaine in Aleco Vel’s stead; until a week prior, they had also included Cenn Desca. O’Brien had been in Starfleet for three and a half decades, and he knew that Blackmer had been in for two. Even Aleco, who’d first come to the original DS9 as a fresh-faced corporal in the Bajoran Militia, had served for ten years. Despite the record of O’Brien and the two other officers, though, it seemed a formidable proposition for them to adequately stand in for the wealth of experience and knowledge missing from the room.
The doors parted and the captain entered the conference room. She sat down at the head of the table. “The shape-shifter is continuing to form into a replica of Deep Space Nine,” she said. “The main core is complete, and the crossover bridges, and now it’s forming the rings.”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Ascendance Page 26
