by Judith
“Then it appears I know something you don’t,” the Data-thing gloated. “Where we are going, we will not be the first.”
Collision alert sirens sounded.
“But we will be the last.”
Absolute darkness filled the viewscreen.
Impact.
Part Three
WHERE NO ONE
HAS GONE BEFORE
THORSEN
Adrik Thorsen’s dream had consumed him until only that dream remained.
What once had been human had died on Earth, centuries before, as humanity had stood on a threshold and rejected him and his kind, moving forward.
What once had been human, restored, augmented, and enhanced by the products of human technology, had brooded and plotted alone in space, until the Grigari had offered their bargain, the age-old trap—life eternal in exchange for all that made life worthwhile.
What once had been a Grigari amalgam, the last vestiges of flesh augmented by blindly programmed, self-organizing machines, had hunted for revenge. Only to find itself a silent witness to the events of TNC 65813, stardate 3856, orbiting in the second Klingon cruiser, watching all that played out below him.
Cochrane had escaped that day. Revenge was denied. Incomplete. Non-optimal.
But knowledge burned deeply within what remained of Thorsen, as painful as the laser burst forever etched within his optic nerve—the knowledge that though Cochrane had escaped, Cochrane, in time, would return.
[386] Thorsen vowed to be there when he did.
And then the Grigari bargain claimed its final payment and all that was left of the original Thorsen died.
Bui the evil that had spawned him lived on. Hatred, intolerance, unrestrained greed, all those qualities which had once defined humanity so well, proved fertile still, even in this day when they had been vanquished in so many others.
Blindly, the Grigari machines continued their work, replacing the necrotized flesh in its entirety, maintaining the form and the function, following the most basic program that had fueled Thorsen in his life. The desire to destroy Cochrane and all those like him whose very humanity now mocked the travesty that pursued them.
To fulfill Thorsen’s purpose, the Grigari machines spread out, an invisible, mechanical plague, infecting computers and starships, scanning for any clue or event linked to Zefram Cochrane and the time of his return.
Eventually, the time of the fabled scientist’s return was calculated by Starfleet, and the Grigari machines knew. They brought their information back to the construct that they served, the construct that existed now with only one program, an echo from a distant past, a version of a personality driven by desires no longer based in living thought or tissue.
A mathematical duplicate of Thorsen’s intellect devised the plan. A Galaxy-class starship must be found to survive the mission to recover Cochrane, to save him, and then destroy him. A long-lost alien object would be the bait for the trap. The Romulans, caught up by hatreds of their own, proved willing accomplices. Thorsen’s personality matrix would continue, jumping from one storage device to another, as blind in its desires as were the unknowing machines that had formed it.
As of stardate 43922.2, there was no conscious thought behind this goal of hateful destruction, and no humanity.
But then, in truth, there never had been.
ONE
TNC 65813
t = ∞
The turbulence ended.
Zefram Cochrane was aware only of the low whisper of the shuttlecraft’s air circulators, the soft hum of her engines, the warmth of the Companion’s hand in his.
He looked out through the forward windows and saw darkness, limitless, featureless, broken only by a faint blue glow to port.
“We survived?” the Companion asked.
Cochrane smiled. “Did you doubt we would?”
She returned his smile and Cochrane felt the peace of this journey fill his heart because the Companion was with him.
“I only knew I had to be with you,” she said, “whatever happened.”
Cochrane felt relief that for the first time since they had been reunited, the Companion seemed to have finally relaxed. The bandage over her eye, the condition of her hair, all might be part of some avant-garde fashion on a world he had never visited. He marveled at Kirk and Spock and McCoy for devising this plan, for making it possible. The human race had changed so much in his extended lifetime, become so strong. He could hear Micah Brack telling him he should take credit for at least part of what had [388] happened to humanity and those who joined them in their future, for giving them the stars. For in reaching out to explore the heavens, all had found themselves, as if the stars were where they were always meant to be.
Cochrane himself would never forget taking off his mask on the plains of Centauri B II, drawing that first breath of alien air.
Unencumbered.
For the first time, Cochrane could see that Micah Brack had been right but not in the way he had expected. All else in human history had followed from that moment, and Cochrane could finally admit that he had done something extraordinary—that he had given Earth’s peoples a way to achieve what they had always searched for—freedom, growth, the unending adventure of living. Yet all that mattered to him now was that in exchange for his gift to humanity, the events of his existence had brought him the gift he had searched for: the Companion, who gave to him all that made the adventure of life worth living. Love.
For a moment, Cochrane was overcome by the path he had taken to reach that final understanding of his life’s journey, that acceptance—from a child’s dream beneath a tree on Earth to the uncharted and complex dimension that lay within a black hole in space, all so he could arrive at such a simple destination, such a simple understanding.
“I love you,” he said to the Companion.
Her smile was answer enough. Journey’s end.
She glanced through the forward windows. He saw her eyes as she gazed off to port.
“What causes that glow?” she asked.
“Photons above us,” Cochrane said, admiring the line of her precious face, so softly lit by the glow from the shuttlecraft’s instruments. “The ones falling toward the singularity that we’ll swing around. We see nothing ahead of us because no light can escape the singularity from that direction. But we can see the blue-shifted light beginning its fall.”
“But not all the light is blue, Zefram.”
From his position, Cochrane could not see as far to port as the Companion could. He swung the spherical tactical monitor out from the bulkhead and checked the aft view.
[389] He gasped.
Directly astern, flaring from within a rainbow-streaked halo of gravity-smeared light, a Klingon battle cruiser raced straight for him.
Even here, even now, there was no escape from the Optimum.
The turbulence ended.
Kirk eased his grip on the arms of his chair, a parting caress. The Enterprise might just as well have been flying at half-impulse through normal space.
“We have tunneled through the event horizon,” Spock announced.
“Scotty,” Kirk asked, “how’s she doing?”
“Captain Kirk,” a Scottish lilt answered back, “considering we’re in a region o’ space where nothin’ bigger than a molecule should be able to exist, th’ fact that we can have this conversation at all should be answer enough for ye.”
It was. The Enterprise had done it again. Her crew had done it again.
Kirk had done it again.
“Mr. Chekov, any sign of the shuttlecraft and the Klingon cruiser?” he asked. The main screen was black and Kirk could see Chekov working frantically on his sensor controls, trying to establish an image.
“There is no forward optical information available to us in this environment,” Spock said. “I am switching all sensors to subspace ranging-echo only.”
Instantly, the main viewscreen came to life with a collection of indistinct green splotches—an irregularly shaped bl
ob to the lower right, and two much smaller dots to the upper left.
“Analysis, Spock?”
“In the upper left of the screen, I believe we are seeing sensor returns indicating that both the shuttlecraft and the Klingon vessel survived the event horizon. However, I am also recording extreme quantum compression waves that correspond to no known theory of gravitational singularities. Those waves are preventing me from obtaining finer display resolution.”
“Range to Klingon vessel?” Kirk asked. He sat forward in his [390] chair. At least he could see that the small dots were expanding. The Enterprise was gaining.
“Keptin,” Chekov said plaintively. “Sensors indicate the Klingon vessel is more than one million kilometers away.”
“Impossible. The diameter of this event horizon is only eight hundred kilometers.”
“The quantum compression waves are to blame,” Spock explained. “They are distorting spatial dimensions, though not as theory predicts.”
“Then how can we set a course in here?” Kirk asked. “How can we target that Klingon ship and save Cochrane?”
“I am attempting to create a conversion program for our navigational routines. However, the compression waves are erratic. It appears our presence here is disruptive and the computer cannot cope with the changing spatial conditions.”
Kirk hadn’t come all this way to be stopped by a computer shortcoming. “Dammit, Spock—what’s the source of those waves?”
Spock adjusted controls at his science station, and the image on the main screen expanded to show the irregularly shaped blotch from the lower right corner. As the green shape filled the screen, it became better defined, until Kirk could see that part of its distortion came from movement—it appeared to be pulsating with three expanding and contracting lobes.
“That is the source,” the science officer answered. “It is the subspace event horizon. The boundary from which not even warp engines could return us to normal space-time.”
“But why isn’t it a sphere, like the electromagnetic event horizon we passed through above?”
“Unknown, Captain. Our sensors cannot obtain any information from beyond that boundary. However, judging from the pulsations, I suspect that instead of one singularity being at the heart of this black hole, there are in fact three. They appear to be linked into tight orbits of each other, at what would, from necessity, be faster-than-light speeds.”
Kirk turned to look at his science officer to be sure he had heard correctly. “Three singularities? Orbiting faster than light?”
[391] Spock made a dismissive expression. “I do not pretend to understand how such a thing could exist at all.”
“All right. It’s there. How can we deal with it to stop the Klingon ship?”
“I would suggest launching a photon torpedo. Its onboard guidance system can perform necessary course corrections in flight.”
Kirk turned back to the screen. “Put the cruiser and the shuttlecraft on the screen, Mr. Chekov.”
The pulsating tri-lobed shape disappeared, replaced by two green, rough-edged silhouettes. One was little more than a few pixels across, showing no detail, but the other image was identifiable as a D7 battle cruiser.
“Lieutenant Uhura,” Kirk said, “can we use subspace radio in here?”
Uhura frowned as she listened carefully to her earpiece. Her expert fingers moved swiftly over her controls. “Barely, sir. There is considerable interference.”
“Try to hail the cruiser. We’ll give it one warning at least.”
“The ship is not responding, sir.”
Kirk turned to Spock again. “Any way to know how shock waves will travel through this region? If we do destroy the cruiser, what might that do to our shuttlecraft?”
“Shock waves will not propagate here faster than the relative velocity of the shuttlecraft. It will not be harmed.”
Kirk took no pleasure in what he knew he must do next. It might be better if the Klingon ship had tried to fight back. “Does the cruiser even know we’re here?” he asked.
“Each ship in this region experiences time at a different rate. It could be that their sensors cannot even perceive us,” Spock said. “The compression waves we’ve disturbed are creating pockets of temporal distortion as well as spatial ones.”
Shooting at a blind enemy didn’t make it any easier for Kirk, but he knew he could delay no longer. “Mr. Chekov, target the Klingon cruiser.”
“Cruiser targeted, sir.”
“Fire photon torpedo, self-guided mode.”
[392] The sound of the torpedo launcher hummed through the bridge. Kirk watched as a tiny point of green appeared on the screen, then seemed to spiral in the general direction of the cruiser, making constant course corrections.
“As I suspected,” Spock said, “as the torpedo passes through different compression nodes, its sensors are perceiving the Klingon ship in different locations at different times. This is a most fluid environment. Quite fascinating.”
The tiny green dot moved past the Klingon ship. Kirk tensed, worried the torpedo would lock on to Ian Shelton. But the dot doubled back, merged with the cruiser’s silhouette, and then both were gone.
“That’s it?” Kirk asked.
“As soon as the torpedo disrupted the cruiser’s structural integrity field,” Spock said, “tidal forces would have reduced the ship to little more than a molecular mist.”
“Then Cochrane and the Companion are safe?”
“Only if we can adjust their trajectory, and ours. For the moment, both our vessels are being drawn down toward the linked singularities and the second horizon.”
Kirk was too fueled by adrenaline to remain seated. He paced the area behind Chekov and Sulu. “Mr. Sulu, match trajectory with the shuttlecraft.” He glanced back at Spock. “At least we’ll be able to beam them back aboard.”
But Spock shook his head. “There are too many temporal distortions present, and we are creating even more as the compression waves bounce off our shields. Our transporters would never be able to hold a coherent signal, even at close range.”
“Then we’ll use tractor beams,” Kirk said.
“If we are able to generate sufficient power.”
Kirk heard the unspoken message in Spock’s tone. “Are we going to be able to correct our trajectories, Spock?”
“I do not believe we have that capability, Captain. We are too deep within the gravity well.”
Kirk stopped pacing. “Even if we go to warp?”
“The condition of our dilithium crystals is such that we cannot remain in warp long enough from this position to reach the event horizon. If we even make the attempt, our crystals will burn out [393] within a second, our structural integrity field will collapse, and—”
Kirk finished it: “—we’ll be reduced to a molecular mist, like the ship we just destroyed.” He tapped his fist against his open palm, brain afire with possibilities. “Can we adjust our trajectory enough to slingshot us past the linked singularities and use the velocity we’d gain to carry us upward to the first event horizon?”
“I am endeavoring to calculate that course,” Spock said. “But the compression waves are reducing the amount of space we have in which to maneuver. The closer we approach the singularities, the more problematic course corrections become.”
Kirk could see he shouldn’t interrupt Spock again. If there was a course correction they could make, Spock would find it. But only if he had time.
Kirk sat back down, forcing himself to remain calm. “Uhura, try to raise the shuttlecraft so we can at least let Mr. Cochrane and the Companion know what’s going on.”
He tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair. There had been a way into this black hole, there would be a way out. All he had to do was find it.
“No response from the shuttlecraft,” Uhura said. “Too much interference.”
“Keep trying,” Kirk said. He watched the tiny dot on the screen slowly expanding as the Enterprise drew near. At least wherever
they were bound, they would all get there together.
Uhura suddenly murmured with surprise and Kirk turned to see her pull out her earpiece.
“Sorry, sir. I just got a flood of interference.”
“Keptin,” Chekov called out. “Sensors are picking up the presence of another wessel! It has just passed through the event horizon above us.”
Kirk’s jaw tightened. “Ready photon torpedoes,” he ordered. He had been half expecting this. The second Klingon cruiser had finally arrived. And by being in the higher orbit, it had the upper hand. “Onscreen,” he said.
The screen flickered as an aft view was displayed. Instead of a black background, the screen was alive with flashes of color and light, the result of the infall of photons and subspace signals from [394] above. In the middle of the visual confusion was the smeared, irregular silhouette of the third vessel.
It looked wrong.
“Can you make that any clearer?” Kirk asked.
“Trying, sir,” Chekov said, but no matter what adjustments he made, the level of interference remained the same.
The third ship was gaining, its silhouette growing larger. “That’s not a Klingon cruiser,” Kirk said. The silhouette showed a distinct saucer section and twin nacelles. “Spock, have we been down here long enough for that to be the Excalibur?”
“It is possible,” Spock said. “The temporal-distortion nodes are interfering with normal time-dilation effects. I will attempt to trace the vessel’s trajectory to calculate its time of entry.”
“Keptin, the wessel is making course corrections, matching our trajectory.”
“Uhura,” Kirk said, “open hailing frequencies to that vessel. Warn them away from our trajectory.”
