Off Rogeiro’s glance, Sisko looked to Relkdahz. “What about those efforts with the warp drive, Commander?” the captain asked. “Are we any closer to being able to move the ship?”
“We theorized about deploying a tractor beam to strengthen and stabilize the warp field, but we haven’t been able to propagate the beam in the inert region around the Robinson,” Relkdahz said. “We’re now trying to adjust the tractor’s power and frequency. Lieutenant Gsellman is leading those tests, but the mathematics of it are not encouraging.”
“Why not?” Rogeiro asked.
“Because engineering theory comes from our understanding of physics, and its practice relies on the natural laws of the universe,” Relkdahz said. “Without the fabric of space-time in which to operate our equipment, without subspace beneath it, reality breaks down.”
“But not all reality,” Plante said. The second officer wore her long golden hair pulled back into a chignon. A human, she had been raised on Alpha V, though she spoke with no trace of an accent. “The ship is still here. We’re still here.”
“The space-time we occupy, and the subspace underpinning that, still exist, for the most part,” Uteln said. Unlike Plante, the Deltan did speak Federation Standard with a distinct enunciation, overpronouncing his words in a stilted manner. “But the continuum has been destroyed all around us, and even beneath the outer edges of the Robinson. We are effectively surrounded by a moat of nonexistence, with the ship extending out into that moat, but we have no ready means of crossing from where we are back to normal space.”
“I understand the warp field being unable to expand and sustain itself in the region of null space,” Rogeiro said, “but why can’t we use the impulse drive or the thrusters?”
“For one thing, the impulse engines employ subspace field coils,” said Sisko, who started his Starfleet career as an engineer.
“That’s accurate, Captain, but there’s more to it than that,” sh’Vrane said. “Theoretically, both the impulse drive and the thrusters should work since they function based on Newton’s Third Law of Motion.”
“For every action,” Sisko said, “there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
“More specifically, the mutual actions of two bodies on each other are equal and opposite,” the science officer said. “That makes the failure of the impulse drive and the thrusters puzzling. When either system creates force, movement is generated by pushing not against space, but against the physical structure of the motors themselves.”
“But then why aren’t they working?” Rogeiro asked.
“In the case of the impulse drive, a part of the problem could be what the captain noted, which is that it uses subspace field coils, although we are still working to confirm that,” Relkdahz said. “But the thrusters . . .” The chief engineer’s upper limbs—those without visual or aural purposes—fluttered up and down in a gesture that Rogeiro had come to recognize as the equivalent of a human headshake. “It is difficult to explain their inability to operate as designed.”
“Could it be the null space around the ship . . . beneath it?” Sivadeki asked.
“Yes,” sh’Vrane said. “It demonstrates that the physical laws of our universe do not apply where the space-time continuum and the subspace that serves as its foundation no longer exist.”
“But . . . wouldn’t that have a greater effect on the Robinson than simply preventing the thrusters from operating properly?” Plante asked. “Wouldn’t the ship, or parts of it . . . I don’t know . . . come unmoored? Crumble to dust? Cease to exist?”
“The edges of the ship are, in a sense, unmoored, extending out into the area of nothingness,” Uteln said. “For the moment, the ship remains intact.”
The tactical officer’s qualifying phrase sounded a red alert for Rogeiro. “ ‘For the moment’?” the exec asked.
“It is difficult to know with certainty,” Uteln said, “but the extension of the ship into null space seems at best precarious.”
“What does that mean?” Sisko wanted to know. “Is the ship in immediate danger?”
“We don’t know for sure,” sh’Vrane said. “We are continuously scanning the impacted sections of the ship and analyzing the results. The Robinson is so far unaffected, but there is evidence that the region of undamaged space-time that we occupy could break down. The null space around the ship appears to be exerting stress on the intact continuum.”
Rogeiro noticed the Andorian’s antennae crook slightly, an indication that the situation concerned her. The first officer found the idea that a section of the universe essentially no longer existed around Robinson troubling enough, but he categorized the possibility that the disappearance of reality beneath the edges of the ship could spread as a clear and present threat. Pursuing the aliens in order to find and rescue the kidnapped children provided reason enough to restore Robinson’s propulsion systems as quickly as possible, but it also seemed plain that if the ship remained in place, it could imperil the crew.
“Why didn’t they just destroy us?” Rogeiro wondered aloud.
Nobody said anything for a moment. The silence extended and grew uncomfortable, until Doctor Kosciuszko finally responded. “The aliens didn’t destroy us because they wanted to board the ship,” he said. “Because they wanted to take the children.”
Rogeiro bowed his head and closed his eyes, frustrated with himself for asking a question that could be interpreted in such an insensitive way. Among the officers on Sisko’s senior staff, none had brought children aboard other than the captain, but his daughter had been among those abducted. “I meant afterward,” Rogeiro clarified in a quiet voice. “Why didn’t they destroy the ship after they departed?”
“Maybe once they completely surrounded the Robinson with null space,” Uteln hypothesized, “their weapons no longer worked across that void.”
“Maybe,” Rogeiro said, but then something else occurred to him. “Wait. The aliens boarded the Robinson after destroying space-time around it. But their ships traveled through null space, so we know it must be possible to do that.”
“But the ships that obliterated space-time were in normal space when they attacked, and afterward,” sh’Vrane said. “The auxiliary craft they sent to board the Robinson could have utilized any functional drive system to propel them toward us in normal space, and then simple momentum could have carried them across the void.”
“I’m not talking about when they sent their ships to board the Robinson,” Rogeiro said. “I’m talking about after that . . . when they left.”
“It’s possible that they have a different type of drive system,” Uteln suggested. “One that can operate in null space.”
“Maybe,” Relkdahz said. He stood up from his leaning chair and reached down with a tentacle to a control panel on the conference table. The skewed chevron of the Starfleet emblem flashed onto the large display in the bulkhead behind Lieutenant sh’Vrane. Everybody looked up at the screen as a still image replaced the insignia. It showed the exterior of the underside of Robinson’s primary hull, where one of the alien craft had alit. Unlike the spherical vessel that the bridge crew had watched land atop Robinson’s Starfleet registry, the one on the display had an angular, rhombohedral configuration. “There are no warp nacelles,” the chief engineer said, “but we already know that warp fields cannot be sustained. That also rules out these craft using any sort of impulse drive.”
“They could be fitted with some form of propulsion with which we’re not familiar,” Uteln suggested.
Relkdahz tapped at the control panel on the conference table again. The image on the display shifted, zooming in on the bottom of the alien craft’s hull. A trio of red circles appeared around three conical structures. “These appear to be chemical thrusters.”
“But I thought we just concluded that thrusters don’t work in null space,” Sivadeki said.
“They don’t,” Relkdahz said. “Which means that these vessels must be driven by some other form of motive force—a form that d
oes work in null space.” As the chief engineer studied the image of the alien craft, he wrapped his upper limbs clockwise around his body—a contemplative posture, like a human folding their arms across their chest. “The ship is relatively small,” Relkdahz said, “so the drive could be rudimentary.”
“Wait a minute,” Rogeiro said, thinking about what the bridge crew had witnessed during the boarding. He quickly reached to the control panel in front of him on the table and toggled on the computer audio interface. “Computer, display the vessel that landed on the ship’s registration number.” An image of the spherical craft appeared. It stood on four landing pads. Rogeiro pushed back from the conference table, stood up, and walked over to the screen. He pointed to the area below the vessel, between its landing pads, where a metal shaft extended downward to press with multiple prongs against Robinson’s hull. “What about this?” Rogeiro asked.
“That came into contact with the ship right before the sonic attack,” Sisko said. “I assumed that was how they transmitted the weaponized sound.”
“Maybe it was,” Rogeiro said. “But afterward, what if the aliens used this to physically push their vessel away from the Robinson?”
“Just . . . push away?” Sivadeki asked.
“Lieutenant sh’Vrane just talked about momentum being able to carry the alien craft across null space,” Rogeiro said. “If that’s true, then all they had to do was find a means of imparting velocity to their vessels vectored away from the Robinson. Once they began moving, they just needed time to cross the void and back into normal space, where they could use traditional propulsion.” He regarded all of the senior staff, but then specifically looked to the chief engineer. “Can we do that?” Rogeiro asked. It seemed like a very basic idea, but because of that, he thought it all the more likely to work.
“You want to push the ship back into normal space?” Relkdahz replied. “That would require that the Robinson push against something, or that something push against it.”
Rogeiro pictured himself out in space, in an environmental suit, his gloved hands against the ship’s hull, trying to force it to move. But then he thought about sh’Vrane’s description of how the thrusters worked, and a different image rose in his mind. He saw a shuttlecraft in the main bay, beams streaking from it inside the Robinson.
Rogeiro looked at the captain and said, “I know how to get the ship moving.”
• • •
Beside Sisko, the first officer’s chair sat empty. After Commander Rogeiro had contrived a possible solution to the marooning of Robinson in null space, Relkdahz and his engineers worked with sh’Vrane and her scientists to ascertain the feasibility of the plan. They had no problems proving the theory, but the effects of the destroyed space-time continuum around the ship had already produced unforeseen consequences. Relkdahz and sh’Vrane both thought that the first officer’s proposal should work, but neither committed to saying that it would—or even that it would be safe to try. As a result, Rogeiro volunteered to pilot the shuttlecraft he believed could free Robinson.
Except that calculations had demonstrated that a more viable solution replaced a single shuttlecraft with the two runabouts Sisko had requested for the crew’s exploration of the Gamma Quadrant. Lieutenant Commander Sivadeki stepped up to pilot the second vessel, but the captain wanted his most experienced conn officer at Robinson’s helm for the crew’s escape attempt. Sisko assigned Lieutenant Stannis to the task.
To the captain’s right, past the empty exec’s chair, sh’Vrane walked down the curved ramp from the aft section of the bridge. Sisko saw that the science officer carried a padd. “Status, Lieutenant?”
“We’ve conducted multiple simulations,” sh’Vrane said. “Lacking the ability to sustain their drive systems, the two runabouts can generate the greatest force not by solely using their tractor beams, but by reversing them and adding a tightly focused deflector.” Rogeiro’s plan had been to utilize a shuttlecraft to impart a force against Robinson from inside the main bay, and thereby push it into motion, but Uteln and sh’Vrane had suggested using the tractor beams of the auxiliary vessels to the tow the ship in order to get it moving.
“Commander Rogeiro’s proposal turns out to be the best choice after all,” Sisko said. “It’ll be better to push than to pull.” The captain glanced over at the bridge’s main viewscreen, which showed the two Danube-class vessels sitting next to each other in Robinson’s shuttlebay. They did not face aft, as though preparing to launch into space, but forward, toward the interior bulkhead, as though they had just landed. During preparations, the shuttlebay crew had opened the massive compartment’s wide hatch in the hope that the rapid decompression might move the ship. It hadn’t, and so Rogeiro’s plan had proceeded. The crew closed the hatch and repressurized the shuttlebay, then worked to reinforce the inner bulkhead.
“We’ve also scanned the shuttlebay and mapped the areas within it where space-time has broken down,” sh’Vrane said. She held out the padd to Sisko. “At the deepest point, the null space surrounding the Robinson extends twenty meters into the hangar.”
“Twenty meters,” Sisko repeated as he took the padd and examined its display. “That should leave enough room for the runabouts to maneuver.” The screen showed an overhead representation of the main shuttlebay. An undulous red line cut across the deck in front of the broad, closed hatch. He also saw several misshapen splashes of color. Sisko pointed to them. “These are the areas where space-time has broken down within the ship?” For the most part, Robinson sat atop the normal continuum, but null space encroached along the periphery of the ship and in small amounts throughout it.
“Yes, sir,” sh’Vrane said. “Commander Rogeiro and Lieutenant Stannis have programmed the areas of nonexistence into their helm systems. When the Robinson begins to move, they’ll navigate around them.”
“Very good,” Sisko said, and he handed the padd back to the science officer. As sh’Vrane returned to her station, the captain said, “Commander Uteln, are the pilots ready?” Normally, Rogeiro and Stannis’s efforts would have fallen under the aegis of Sivadeki, the ship’s primary flight controller, but because of the nature of the operation, Sisko had handed it over to the tactical officer.
“Aye, sir,” Uteln said.
“Then let’s begin,” Sisko said.
“Channel open to the Acheron and the Styx,” Uteln said. “Commander Rogeiro, Lieutenant Stannis, commence operation.” Sisko heard both officers acknowledge their orders, then watched the main viewer as both runabouts lifted from the deck. “Thrusters and antigravs are engaged on both vessels,” Uteln said. The antigravs, Sisko knew, would help to counter the force of the reverse tractor beams, allowing the runabouts to impart momentum to Robinson rather than being driven backward by the far more massive starship.
The captain waited as the vessels hovered in the shuttlebay. When nothing more happened, he feared that their reasoning had been invalid, or their measurements, and that the null space around and within Robinson would prevent the runabouts’ tractor beams and deflectors from functioning, and that the crew’s attempt to get the ship moving had failed even before it began. But then a tight collection of gray-white shafts of light shot from the bottom of each vessel, striking the reinforced bulkhead at the front of the shuttlebay. Though tractor beams—or, in the current instance, reverse tractor beams—did not technically qualify as offensive weapons, it still disquieted Sisko to see them discharged inside his ship. He expected to feel Robinson shudder, as though under attack, but he didn’t.
“Reverse tractor beams at half power,” Uteln said.
“I’m reading stresses on the reinforced hull, but it’s holding,” sh’Vrane said. Seconds passed. Sisko waited for something to happen, waited for Uteln or sh’Vrane to announce progress in pursuit of their goal. Instead, the science officer said, “The ship isn’t moving.”
“Increase reverse tractor beams to full,” Uteln said. On the viewscreen, the gray-white streaks brightened. The nearer of the two r
unabouts suddenly flew backward several meters before stabilizing. “Acheron, what’s your status?” Uteln asked at once.
“I had to boost power to the antigravs,” replied Stannis. “The increased force of the reverse tractor beam overwhelmed them. Recalibrating.”
“Acknowledged,” Uteln said. “Do you copy, Styx?”
“I copy, Lieutenant Stannis,” Rogeiro said. “Recalibrating my antigravs as well.”
“The reinforced bulkhead is still holding,” sh’Vrane said, “but I’m detecting vibrational stresses in the Robinson’s hull.” Sisko heard the electronic feedback tones of the sciences station as sh’Vrane worked her console. “There’s a shearing force acting on the ship. It’s . . . it’s as though the Robinson is trying to move forward, but some part of it is frozen in place . . . as though the reverse tractor beams are working to drive the ship ahead into null space, but there’s too much resistance from the normal continuum.”
Sisko imagined attempting to push a heavy crate across the sand on a beach. The solution would be to find a means of decreasing the friction between the two, either by lifting the crate or by introducing a slick intermediary surface at the point of interaction. The captain could not determine how such an analogy could be put into practice in the present circumstances.
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