STAR TREK: NEW EARTH - CHALLENGER

by Diane Carey

  “Did you have any clue it would be that big?”

  “None.”

  “What is it, Spock?”

  “It reads as an amalgam of natural and constructed substances. It may have once been a planet, but was gradually fossilized into an architectural form, probably over several thousand millennia. Parts of the structure read over three hundred thousand years old. Other parts are nearly new. It is, therefore, no relic. It is in use.”

  “Why can I see through it every few seconds?”

  “It’s in flux even now.”

  “Doesn’t sound like we can beam over and walk around,” Kirk judged.

  Spock closed his mouth on that idea and simply shook his head.

  “Captain,” Sulu said, “something I just noticed. We’re within about forty light-years of the last known position of the Rattlesnake.”

  Kirk looked down at the starchart on Sulu’s console. Kirk had sent the privateer, under the command of Captain Sunn, to look for possible places to relocate the Belle Terre colony in case the moon move didn’t work. But Sunn hadn’t come back, or reported in. After four months and a futile search for the ship, Kirk finally declared them lost.

  Suddenly, a loud crack sounded in Kirk’s head. Only inches from him.

  “Jim!” Spock jumped down, skipping all the steps, and pulled Kirk backward, managing to keep them both on their feet.

  Good thing he did too, because Kirk would’ve fallen forward into a suddenly available gaping opening in the air before him.

  Not in the deck—in the air.

  Around the back of it, he could still see the main screen broadcasting its picture of the archi-form in space.

  With Spock’s fingers digging into his arms, Kirk was relatively certain he wasn’t dreaming. He was staring into a ramplike doorway, as if something had been pulled out of a dream.

  “Don’t shoot! Down in front! I’m comin’ as fast as I can.”

  Far away, what seemed a mile into the illusion, came a trundling figure. As it came closer—much closer with each step than was physically possible for the distance Kirk was looking at—the form focused into a short, squarish person with broad shoulders and extremely short legs and arms.

  Bearded and clenching a pipe in his teeth, the easy-going newcomer seemed human enough, but a human dwarf, no more than three and a half feet tall. He spun on strong bowed legs down an invisible ramp and out of the frameless doorway, his short arms spread in welcome.

  “Holy smoke! James Kirk in the flesh! Didn’t think I’d ever be rubbin’ elbows with you!”

  Bewildered, Kirk took the extended hand. “Who the devil are you?”

  “Mitch Dogan, Captain Mitch Dogan! Me and my crew, we disappeared in a ball of flame back at that crazy moon at Belle Terre way before you guys showed up! How ya doin’?”

  “Hey, you fellas look good!” Mitch Dogan said, flicking his quick eyes around at the astounded bridge crew. “I like the new uniform. Starfleet was still wearin’ the grays when I left.”

  Kirk came forward and demanded, “How long have you been here?”

  “About eight hundred years. Don’t look a day over six hundred! Ha!”

  Spock came to Kirk’s side and looked past him at Dogan. “You were in the scout ship that disappeared during the final phase of survey at Belle Terre, correct?”

  “Yeah, that’s us.”

  “How did—”

  “Yeah, how’d I end up way out here, I know, a bazillion things to ask about. The zombies pulled us out at the last second, just before our ship turned into a marshmallow. Guess they felt guilty, y’know, like you feel after you just kicked a zarr out of its hole. They asked me to come out here and talk to you, on account of I talk English so good.”

  Noting Sulu’s terse opinion on one side, Kirk glanced at him, then back to Dogan “These beings were trying to discourage us, weren’t they? Trying to get us to turn back.”

  “Yeah—jerks!”

  “Fear of death is a potent instinct,” Spock contributed. “They expected us to turn and run.”

  “They don’t exactly understand,” Dogan said. “Once time is conquered, y’know, death is too. They don’t understand it no more. They’d forgot how adventurous people can get when they have a life span.” He scratched his beard, then poked Kirk in the chest with the same finger. His eyes sparkled with delight. “I tried to warn ’em about you. But I ain’t been around so long. They think I’m a kid. They forget how clever lifespanners can be. Just watchin’ you guys come out here, you’ve promoted a huge discussion for hundreds of years about what’s been lost in their pan-dimensional lifestyle.” He leaned for a look at Spock. “See, I got some big words too, fella.”

  Spock congratulated him with a gentlemanly bow of his head.

  “Hundreds of years?” Kirk asked.

  “Well, it just happened in the past coupla hours.”

  “Hm?”

  “In our dimension, Captain,” Spock supplied. “These beings may have forgotten our driving forces, much as we have forgotten how bright and innovative Neolithic Man was to have engineered massive stone megaliths.”

  “Yeah, right,” Dogan agreed. “You made us feel kinda fat and lazy. We gotta get out of the way of you young hawks. Gotta get crackin’, maybe do some things again.”

  “‘We’?”

  “Oh—sorry. They’re talkin’ sort of ‘with’ me, get it? Sometimes it’s me and sometimes it’s ‘we,’ so if I start gettin,’ y’know, poetic, don’t throw up, okay? It’s just them pokin’ their two credits in.”

  “These beings, Captain Dogan,” Spock prodded, “are they spectral?”

  “Y’mean are they ghosts? Naw. Just look like it!”

  Spock lowered his voice. “We have encountered advanced beings who take on a rather sylphlike state to our perceptions. If they are noncorporeal, they may utilize corporeals to speak to other corporeals.”

  “Yeah,” Dogan confirmed, biting his pipe.

  Kirk squinted at the little man with the strong constitution. “I think I understand. Can we visit?” he asked, and gestured to the enormous archi-form in space.

  Dogan looked at the main screen. “Pretty, ain’t it? Nah, you don’t wanna do that. You couldn’t come back. They ain’t figured out the go-home process.”

  Immediately protective of someone he considered one of his own, Kirk bristled. “Does that mean you can’t come back with us?”

  “Ain’t so bad. Y’get used to it after the first coupla hundred years. Except, you don’t happen to know the wrestling rankings, do you?”

  “They exist and move through the fourth dimension,” Spock concluded, “with only a few molecules in our space.”

  “Yeah,” Dogan confirmed. “They didn’t want to clutter up your space. Like you keep your furnace in the basement and just use the hot air.”

  “If that is the case, Captain, then these beings must exist on a multimillennial level.”

  “I like that!” Dogan validated. “’Multimillennial.’ That’s a good name for ’em! I been spendin’ a coupla centuries callin ’em ‘fella’ and ‘you guys.’ ”

  Spock was on a roll, not really speaking to anyone specific anymore. “This would allow the capacity to relive your experiences over and over.”

  “That’s one of the problems,” Dogan said. “They got to a point they didn’t have to move around no more. Turned lazy. Quit doin’ stuff for themselves. Kinda lost their muscle, y’know? Didn’t build no more ships, didn’t walk around, sort of cashed in their physical presence. Now they wish they could get it back. They just love watchin’ you guys! They don’t actually travel in space no more, except for the little suckers running around. They think your ship, mine too, are so—so exciting! Charging around on a block of contained power like ridin’ some kind of stallion! The Blood, the Kauld, us humans and Federation guys, we inspired them. Only a few hundred years ago we was coming out of the caves and look at us now! So these guys, they want to go someplace else and start over, be a you
ng culture again.”

  Kirk couldn’t hold back an amazed smile. “That’s very flattering.”

  “That these really smart, really old people want to go someplace and be us? Damn right it is. They want to go get some enthusiasm.” Dogan tilted his squat body forward and warned, “And, Kirk, they mean to get out of our way.”

  Somehow, with all his command instincts and experiences screaming in his ears, Kirk did not like the sound of that at all.

  “You want to explain that?” he required.

  “Yeah . . . They’re cleanin’ up behind themselves. That’s why they’re going around suckin’ back their olivium. They’re about to leave the galaxy for good. Believe it or not, there are plenty of empty galaxies out there just waitin’ to be explored, places where intelligence ain’t got a grip yet. And after watchin’ us for a coupla thousand years, the zombies—The Formless—they want to get back in the game!”

  “I see no ships, no spacedocks, no mass-transportation devices,” Kirk pointed out. “How are they leaving?”

  “Beats me. They just think about it, and go.”

  “Why wouldn’t they use ships to move, if they use probes to collect their olivium?”

  “They don’t remember how to. The probes come from an older time. They couldn’t make ’em now if they wanted to. Do you know how to make fire in the jungle?”

  “Actually,” Spock said, “yes.”

  “Maybe that’s a bad example. Just a minute. Let me get up here and look at you eye to eye.”

  Dogan wheeled about and thumped up the bridge steps to the quarterdeck, then turned and looked at Kirk with his chin just over the rail.

  “We got trouble, though,” he said. “Back before they figured out to use the little suckers that don’t really hurt nobody, they was using bigger energy neutralizers to suck up the stuff they wanted to collect.”

  “What is the nature of this neutralizer, Captain Dogan?” Spock immediately asked.

  “It’s kind of like . . . a spot of nonexistence. A moving black hole with no gravity. It just swallowed sources of energy. A cold factor. You’d know it if you saw it. First thing that happens is your ship loses power and just quits on ya.”

  “What’s the problem?” Kirk demanded. His fists knotted at his thighs. He didn’t mean to sound angry, but didn’t fight it all that much.

  “They got most of ’em,” Dogan bluntly said. “Then they lost one.”

  “Lost one?”

  “Yeah, it altered itself or somethin.’ It don’t answer no more. It’s being a bad machine.”

  “Are you telling me this thing’s been out there, ‘cleaning’ for centuries?”

  “Longer than that. Maybe ten thousand years.”

  “Sucking up suns? Whole populated worlds?”

  “There aren’t that many populated worlds that have enough energy output to attract it. On the universal scale, life’s pretty rare. Whole galaxies can pass through each other without a single collision. I’ve seen it. What a show!”

  Spock turned to Kirk. “This area of space has thirty percent fewer stars than any other known sector. Gaps of interstellar space are particularly far-reaching. There are many free-roaming planets and ice bodies. If this ‘Cold Factor’ has been looking for energy sources, specifically olivium, then your hypothesis about the Quake Moon’s acting as a homing beacon is most inspired.”

  “And now it’s on the way there.” Determined to stay on the straight and narrow, Kirk stepped closer to Dogan and asked, “What if we confront this—neutralization device? There are forces back in the Occult system—”

  “Won’t work. It spreads over several dimensions. They won’t be able to fight it.”

  Kirk got a strangely tangible picture in his mind of the wayward Cold Factor, drilling around in open space, relentlessly seeking olivium. How many solar systems had been left frozen and lifeless because of this thing? He didn’t really buy the idea that such a collector/neutralizer couldn’t accidentally have ruined a few billion lives, given ten thousand years.

  Perhaps the Multimillenials didn’t want to admit to themselves this possibility. If they had enthusiasm, as Dogan said, then they had emotion. That meant they had empathy, and guilt.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Dogan said, speaking very clearly, determined that they should take him seriously. “These zombies is smart, but that Cold Factor, it can still do plenty of wreckin’ and schmeckin’ if we don’t catch it soon. That thing’s gonna come in any way it can, push anything it wants out of its path, and suck back that moon stuffed with that stuff. And it don’t care what it does to nobody. And right now, it’s headin’ right for that little solar system where you guys are settin’ your new planet up. Y’know? Belle Terre? Get what I mean?”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  THE SHIP WAS a hydra to control. Every head wanted to go in a completely different direction. The only thing she would do without struggle was gallop straight forward. Turns, pitches, yaws, full abouts—chaos. The crew was shouting at each other over Keller’s head when they finally reached Pandora’s Box. Keller was relieved to escape and board the mining ship, only to find Lieutenant Commander Uhura in command and Dr. McCoy in charge of a subdued convict population clustered in cells or in the mess hall, under forcefield guard.

  They eagerly handed over the store of refined olivium. Now it sat in its containers in the frigate’s hold, pretending to be innocent.

  Commander Scott now had charge of the envoy heading back to Belle Terre to be sorted out, a gaggle of ships made up of the frigate’s shuttle, the mine ship, and several Kauld. The easy half of the job was done.

  Dr. McCoy had wanted to come with Keller. So had Commander Uhura. Though they hadn’t spoken up specifically, Keller could tell they wanted to come along, to help the whippersnappers get things right, maybe not die trying. The temptation to bring them had almost knocked Keller down.

  But he could not be responsible for their sacrifice any more than he wanted to be responsible for losing a man like Montgomery Scott. When push came to shove, the three of them were more valuable to Belle Terre and Starfleet than he and his whole crew and his whole ship.

  He’d sent them back there, where they would do for the future what they had done for the past.

  So he drew in the reins, wrestled the cantankerous frigate about, and spurred her flanks. Now she streaked toward the Kauld solar system, on a heading that would take them beyond it to the interstellar space where an undefined danger would meet them head on.

  The danger Keller could handle. The undefined part . . . he could barely concentrate on the work they were all scrambling to accomplish in the time they had. He couldn’t give up the detail work. It picked at him until he ended up doing things himself that a commander should leave to the crew. After the first hour he learned to vector around Zoa, who didn’t like being approached from behind. His sore rib bore that testimonial. Like a homing beacon it ached every time he came within three steps of her.

  And he couldn’t out-detail Bonifay. Zane was a bosun through and through, old-lady fussy down to wanting all the lockered gear to face due forward. Keller had to remind him twice that they were heading for trouble and needed to sacrifice housekeeping to other immediacies. Zane was twenty-three and had watched his former captain killed and their ship blasted to a hulk around him. How would he react this time?

  What could he do against the kind of menace Vellyngaith described? What could Nick Keller kick up in the face of a power that could humble a skilled and life-long battlelord? Yes, he had some technology on his side, but his warp core was Blood, not Starfleet. Would it be as strong? Was it resilient or tempered? How far could he push it? He had a ship, but he didn’t know the ship yet.

  However, he was getting more and more intimate with the frigate as every moment passed. He now had lubricant stuck all the way up the right arm of his sweater, wire shavings embedded in his pants, and insulation in his hair. He hated stuff in his hair.

  Shucorion had the ship on auto
pilot—after all, they were just going straight—and was on the deck with Zane, half buried in the trunks, trying to reconnect the stubborn veins that made the ship work without protest. So far they weren’t having much luck.

  But as they passed the Kauld solar system and drew nearer to the threat area, he had to give up picking nits and treating this like a test drive.

  Once Keller was down on the quarterdeck to stay, Savannah Ring came quietly to them, her arms folded tightly. She kept her voice low, but she was looking across the bridge at Vellyngaith. The Kauld battlelord stood near the lockers on the lower deck, watching the main screen like a panther in the grass.

  “How are you?” she asked.

  “There’s stuff in my hair.”

  “I think there’s something wrong with that man.”

  “What?” Keller looked at her.

  “I don’t know. I think he’s sick. So were at least three of the other men in the Kauld group. I can hear him breathing from here. Sounds like pneumonia or some cardiopulmonary compromise.”

  “But not just him?”

  “They all sounded like that, and they all had the same discoloration in their eyes and lips. They’re sick.”

  “You think it’s a virus or something?”

  “I’m a field operative, not a doctor.”

  “Sorry.” Without making any bridging comments, Keller simply stepped down from the crescent and strode to Vellyngaith. He was just now learning that he no longer had to explain every choice or what was coming to everybody involved. Just go do it.

  Battlelord Vellyngaith didn’t look at him, but took a deep breath. He knew he would soon have to speak.

  “How are you feeling, sir?” Keller asked, not disguising the significance.

  Vellyngaith endured this final indignity with laudable grace. He seemed drained but accepting. “We are all ill.”

  “All?”

  “All our soldiers. We were contaminated in an accident, an experiment at our fortress. Many have died. All the rest of our military men are ill, dying. We have no one left strong enough to fight.”

  “That’s why you broke off the battle with the Peleliu, isn’t it?”