Star Trek: The Next Generation - 115 - The Stuff of Dreams

by James Swallow

  He looked to his own chief engineer just as La Forge spoke again. “Power levels at sixty-six percent and climbing. Discharge matrix ready. No issues reported.”

  “All decks, stand by for subspace pulse.” Worf spoke into the ship-wide intercom. Elsewhere on the Enterprise, the vessel’s sensitive systems were already going into stand-by mode or temporary shutdown to weather the brief, controlled spatial storm that was about to occur.

  “Power levels are optimal,” said La Forge. “Ready to activate.”

  Picard watched the last few seconds drop away, and his gaze shifted back to the main viewscreen and the shimmering ribbon of energy. He smothered an impulse to avert his gaze.

  “Four seconds. Three. Two.” Worf counted off the last moments of the nexus’s existence. “One.”

  “Activate.” The captain bit out the word, and a brilliant stream of silver-blue light erupted from the Enterprise, slamming into the nexus with incredible force. A second ray, identical in form and color, connected the Newton to the alien object.

  At the points of intersection, sickly flares of energy erupted from the writhing surface of the nexus, showering the void around it with fat sparks of radiation. A shuddering tremor ran up and down the length of the ribbon, and it began to disintegrate. It seemed to slowly crumble, shedding pieces of itself that dematerialized and faded into nothingness.

  An alert chime rang at La Forge’s console and he spun to investigate. “Captain . . . I’m reading a phase imbalance.”

  “In the nexus?”

  “No, sir. Aboard the Newton. Their pulse beam is starting to fluctuate. It’s drifting outside the safe parameters.”

  “Can we boost our beam to compensate?” Worf broke in with the question, knowing full well what would occur if the Newton’s pulse lost coherence. If the two beams moved out of synchronization, the effect could be severe.

  “Negative!”

  “Chen, hail the Newton,” snapped Picard.

  “Trying, sir. No response,” said the lieutenant. “Could be interference from the—”

  Before Chen could finish her sentence, something in the other ship’s energy beam rippled and contracted, the solid river of color flickering and warping.

  “Reversion effect!” La Forge called out. “Their pulse is collapsing!”

  “Commander La Forge, initiate emergency disengage.” Picard gave the order without thinking; if the other ship’s pulse was lost, then the feedback effect through the nexus could rebound on the Enterprise, and there was no way to predict what damage it could do. “Cut us loose!”

  “Pulse disengaged,” reported Worf. “Sir, the Newton . . .”

  Picard looked up in time to see the other ship battered by a whip of energy that cut away from the nexus and struck back at the science vessel’s hull. He knew immediately that Rhonu had been a heartbeat too slow in giving the critical order. Time seemed to stretch as the shock effect slammed into the Nebula-class ship and threw sheets of blue lightning over the primary and secondary hulls. An intercooler on one of the Newton’s warp pontoons went dark and burst in a scattering of glassy matter. Lights flickered and faded in patches across the curve of the main saucer.

  A second tendril of star fire lashed out toward the Enterprise, but the starship lurched to one side as Lieutenant Faur gave the vessel an ugly but effective thruster shunt to port. The energy whip cut through empty space, the tip glancing off the outer umbra of the ship’s deflector bubble. It set the vessel shaking.

  Enterprise’s captain was suddenly on his feet. “Report!” barked Picard.

  “We’re okay,” said La Forge. “Deflectors off line but no hull breaches, no other system outages . . .”

  “Scanning the Newton,” offered Glinn Dygan. “Detecting power failures across multiple decks. Severe damage to the ventral hull. They’re losing atmosphere.”

  “Confirmed.” The engineer frowned. “Cascade systems collapse in progress. Sir, it seems as if there was a major malfunction on board.”

  “Yellow Alert. Damage control and medical parties to the transporter rooms.” Picard gave the commands in rapid order as he strode to the helm console. “Lieutenant Faur, take us closer.”

  Worf was already working his console. “Captain, I have Commander Rhonu on the comm.”

  “On-screen.”

  The view of the wounded Newton snapped to a bleak, smoke-wreathed window into the science vessel’s bridge. The Betazoid woman winced in pain as she drew herself up, attempting to maintain her composure. “Enterprise,” she breathed, “can you assist? Our mains are off line and we’re adrift. There was a feedback discharge along the pulse. It overloaded our systems . . .” She broke off, coughing.

  “We’re coming to you, Commander,” Picard confirmed. “We’ll take you in tow, stabilize your ship with our tractor beams. Stand by to receive support teams.”

  “Thank you, sir . . .” Rhonu looked away as another of Newton’s officers appeared in view and thrust a padd into her hands. The woman’s face fell as she read what was written on it.

  “Commander?”

  When Rhonu looked back up at him, her dark eyes were filled with sorrow. “The first casualty report, Captain. Six wounded, eight dead, including Lieutenant Commander Vetro . . . and Captain Bryant.”

  Picard felt a grim and familiar sensation settle upon him. “Understood,” he replied. “Hold fast, Newton. Help is coming.”

  * * *

  He folded his arms behind his back and looked down. From the observation lounge, Picard could see part of the dorsal hull and the sensor pallet of the other starship, tethered beneath the Enterprise by a glittering beam of light. Both craft were bathed in the pinkish-amber glow of the nexus ribbon, which tumbled on regardless of them, its course unchanged. According to Elfiki, scans of the energy ribbon showed that the disruptive effects of the incomplete subspace pulse were already being undone by some unknown manner of self-repair at work inside the phenomenon. The nexus had shrugged off their attempt to destroy it, and Picard wondered what would have happened if the malfunction aboard the Newton had not stopped them too soon.

  Worf completed his summation of the current situation aboard the science vessel on a hopeful note. The injured crew members struck by the aftereffects of the feedback blast were all well on the road to recovery, thanks to the timely intervention of Beverly Crusher and her assistant chief medical officer, Doctor Tropp. The Newton’s medical team had been grateful for the use of Enterprise’s sickbay after their own had been rendered dark and powerless by a blown EPS conduit. But that still left eight people who would never go home to their families, eight lives snuffed out in an instant.

  Thom Bryant had not died well. Trapped under a fallen stanchion, the captain of the Newton suffocated as the air in his compartment fled through a hull breach. The young engineer, Vetro, had lost her life trying to save him.

  And now, through accident and catastrophe, the burden of all this was squarely on Jean-Luc Picard’s shoulders. He had a duty to carry out, one that filled him with dismay, but still a duty he could not shirk from.

  “Commander La Forge remains on board the Newton for the time being,” Worf went on, as Picard turned back to his assembled officers. “He informs me that the ship will be able to move under low impulse power within the next three to five hours.”

  “What about warp drive?” The question came from Lieutenant Aneta Šmrhová, her Czech accent firm under the words. “Shields and weapons?”

  Picard raised an eyebrow. “Is the latter a necessity, Lieutenant?” Šmrhová had recently taken the role of Enterprise’s tactical and security chief, in the wake of the loss of her predecessor, Jasminder Choudhury. She was settling into the job, but she still had a tendency to go straight for the jugular on some matters. “You feel we’re under threat out here?”

  “Most emphatically yes, Captain,” she responded. “If I may?” Šmrhová indicated the controls for the conference room’s holographic screen, and Picard gestured for her to continue. �
��You’ll recall that Captain Bryant mentioned the presence of Typhon Pact probes in the region . . .” She called up a data set, and the screen lit to show a tactical plot and a fuzzy, low-resolution scan of a torpedo-like object, caught as if moving at high speed. “This is a Kinshaya Missionary Remote, a model typical of their crusader fleet forces. Usually deployed to conduct surveillance on forward targets before a full assault by manned vessels.” She tapped the controls, and the image switched to an equally blurred object that was quite clearly spherical in design—the standard construction template for Kinshaya starships. A second orb-like craft was visible in close formation with the first. “These are Iconoclast-series liberators, roughly approximate in tonnage to a Starfleet Steamrunner-class cruiser. This pair are operating under a rather poorly maintained emission cloak at the far edge of our sensor range.”

  “Watching us,” mused Dygan. “Waiting for an opportunity, no doubt.”

  “They have every right to be here,” Picard broke in. “We have no quarrel with the Kinshaya . . .” He turned his attention to Šmrhová and Worf. “Or do we?”

  The two officers exchanged looks. “Not yet,” said the Klingon. “But the day is young.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Picard’s response was dry. “Let’s concentrate on the problems we do have before we think about the ones we might have,” said the captain. “Worf, I want you to personally lead the accident investigation aboard the Newton. I need to know exactly what went wrong over there.”

  “Do you still intend to go ahead with Captain Bryant’s mission, sir?” Lieutenant Elfiki leaned forward over the conference table.

  “Our orders are clear-cut,” Picard told them, but he was unable to keep his own sense of disquiet from the words. “It could be weeks before another Federation starship arrives out here. We’re parsecs off the galactic plane. We have to work with what we have.” He nodded once. “Report to your stations.”

  His officers dispersed, but Worf lingered a moment. “Captain. If the Kinshaya decide to initiate an aggressive reaction to our presence, we will be at a grave disadvantage. The Newton is in no state to defend itself.”

  “I’m well aware, Number One. But we’re not at war with the Holy Order or their compatriots in the Typhon Pact. We’ve seen nothing to indicate any hostile intent toward us.”

  “As I said a moment ago, the day is young, sir. I am Klingon, and my race has known nothing but Kinshaya hatred and aggression for centuries. Whatever promises of moderation they have spoken of in recent times, I warn you not to give them the benefit of your doubt, Captain. They do not deserve it. If they see weakness, they will seek to exploit it.”

  Picard looked back out at the nexus. “Let us hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  * * *

  The first officer bent to enter the wrecked engineering bay, stooping low to avoid striking his head on the collapsed sections of the overhead. Worf threaded between a pair of broken stanchions and moved deeper into the ruined space. The acrid tang of burned hyperpolymers and scorched ODNs stung his nostrils, and the air was bitter. Part of the outer hull was missing, opened in a ragged wound from outside, and darkness showed through. Only a portable field generator was holding out the vacuum and the deathly cold, but it was not enough to keep the bay from having a wintry chill to it.

  Worf acknowledged Lieutenant Taro with a nod as he passed her. One of the Enterprise’s legion of engineering officers, the Bajoran woman was working with a trio of Benzites from the Newton’s crew complement; they were conducting a structural scan of the section, looking for the places where the feedback shock had tested the science vessel’s hull beyond its limits.

  He frowned. The Newton’s damage was severe enough to warrant spacedock time, and the nearest starbase that could supply it was still quite distant. The ship would have a long, slow journey ahead of it, unable to risk even the shortest passage at high warp velocities.

  He found Geordi La Forge in the center of the wreckage, crouched over the broken remains of what looked like a power regulator module. “Commander?”

  La Forge looked up, and his expression was etched with concern. “Worf. Thanks for coming down here.”

  “I was supervising the forensic sweep of the ship’s logs. What is it that requires my presence?”

  The engineer came closer. “I didn’t want to broadcast it. Not until I was certain.” He held up his tricorder for Worf to see. “The phase variance that disrupted the Newton’s pulse began right here. This power regulator is one of five on the engineering deck. There was a momentary loss of energy at a critical juncture, enough to set up a collapse. It should have knocked the pulse off line, but the resonance was already affecting the nexus when the loss occurred. The pulse couldn’t just switch off . . .”

  “And so the feedback effect was created.” Worf took this in. He knew his comrade and friend well enough to guess that this was more than just the tragic but ultimately prosaic story of an unfortunate technical fault. “What have you not told me, Commander?”

  “Most of the regulator was destroyed by the shock, but there’s enough for me to reconstruct part of the control matrix. At first I thought I was looking at thermal trauma, but it doesn’t match the pattern of any of the other damage.” He lowered his voice. “Worf, this was an act of deliberate sabotage. Somebody purposely tampered with the regulator.”

  “That is a grave assertion, Geordi,” said the first officer. “You can prove this?”

  La Forge held up the tricorder. “It’s all in here.”

  “Have you informed Commander Rhonu or any of the Newton’s crew?”

  “Not yet. If there’s a saboteur on board, security might be compromised.” He paused, thinking. “We need to get Aneta over here. If I’m right, then this whole area has just become the crime scene.”

  Worf thought about that for a moment. “Not yet. The arrival of a security detail could alert the culprit. We must be cautious.” He removed his own tricorder and activated it. “Have you scanned for organic molecular traces?”

  “Not yet.”

  The Klingon nodded and set his tricorder to bio mode, sweeping it back and forth. The device beeped, lines of data streaming down its tiny screen. Worf’s eyes narrowed, and he tapped his combadge. “Worf to Enterprise sickbay. Doctor Crusher, may I speak with you?”

  He walked away a step or two, toward an empty part of the compartment, taking care to pick his way over the broken remains of computer consoles. “Crusher here,” came the reply. “Mister Worf, can this wait? I’m about to go into surgery.”

  “I need only a few moments of your time, Doctor. Please access your main medical display. I am forwarding you bio-organic scans from my tricorder.” He tapped a series of keys, and the data was immediately mirrored on Crusher’s screen aboard the other starship.

  “I have it,” she replied. “Two partial DNA traces . . .” The doctor fell silent for a moment. “Worf, these are badly corrupted by radiation. What am I looking at here?”

  “I would like you to tell me,” he replied.

  “All right . . .” He heard the note of wariness in her voice. “The first trace is the most degraded of the two. It’s humanoid, carbon-based. . . .” She paused again. “I can attempt to reconstruct the genetic sequences and get more definition, but it’ll take some time.”

  “Please proceed. What is your evaluation of the second trace?” Worf peered at his tricorder; the second scan was murky, and he wasn’t certain of what he was looking at.

  Crusher’s response confirmed his concerns. “That’s odd. . . . There’s a conflicting molecular structure here. This is a pair of traces, not a single one.”

  “Two DNA readings mirroring each other. How is that possible?” But he already had an inkling.

  “Someone was attempting to mask their true genetic identity. Worf, I think this trace could be of Orion origin. . . .”

  Worf nodded grimly to himself. “Doctor, run a full analysis of the data I sent you as soon as possible, and hold all
information under security protocols.”

  “Confirmed. I’ll put Lieutenant Mimouni on it immediately.” She paused again. “Worf, does this mean what I think it means?”

  “As soon as possible,” repeated the first officer, his thoughts churning with the import of this grave discovery.

  * * *

  An hour later, the Enterprise’s first officer stood before Picard’s desk in the captain’s ready room, his hands folded behind his back, as his commander pored over the summary Worf had hastily assembled.

  Picard’s hawkish expression tightened, his eyes narrowing. He read in silence before finally speaking aloud. “There’s no mistake here.” It was a statement, not a question. “Sabotage.” The captain said the word as if it were a curse.

  “Doctor Crusher believes that an Orion male, concealing himself beneath a genetic mask, is masquerading as another humanoid species aboard the Newton. However, the DNA traces are too badly corrupted to ascertain any further information.”

  “Meaning, this person could be almost anyone. He may be a deep-cover agent, or someone operating under a co-opted identity. We can’t even rule out gender alteration.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Worf. “If we have a suspect, an intensive genetic scan would reveal the truth in moments. But short of individually checking every member of the Newton’s crew one by one, we cannot narrow down the pool of suspects.”

  Picard put the padd down on his desk. “In other words, we can’t trust anyone on that ship until we verify their identities. And if we begin a program of scans or deck-by-deck searches, the saboteur will know it and react accordingly.”

  “Orion agents are adept at operations like this one.” The commander’s lips curled at the thought of such honorless subterfuge. “An escape route would be part of any plan.”

  “The Kinshaya ships . . .” mused Picard. “What if they’re not just watching us?” He considered that for a moment. “Employing a freelance spy would be in keeping with the Holy Order’s martial culture. Given the appearance of their species, one of them would hardly be able to infiltrate the crew of a Federation vessel without drawing notice.”