by S. D. Perry
Jim spun around, his frustration absolute, his jaw clenched. “Spock, the ship—”
“We have to leave now, Jim. If we’re caught in the initial explosion—”
Jim looked at Jain, his eyes flashing with fear or rage, his expression desperate as he spoke rapidly to his ship. “Five to beam up, and go to warp as soon as you’ve got us, any direction—”
Kettaract turned and ran toward the booth. Jain backed away, shaking her head. There was no way she was going to miss the miracle, not after all she’d sacrificed, and she’d be damned if she’d let him pull her away. She’d won, they both knew it—but for some reason she just kept seeing the look in his eyes before he’d walked away from her.
How dare he pity me.
“We were right to back Kettaract,” she said, still backing away. “You’ll see.”
“Energize,” he said, and it wasn’t fear or rage in his face as the matter of his form locked, it wasn’t pity—but a vast sadness that she couldn’t understand, that made her ache just a little, all the same.
He and his men shimmered into glittering energy and were gone.
They’ll be back. They’ll want to see for themselves.
“Jain! Twenty-five seconds!” Kettaract, at the door to the booth.
She turned and jogged to meet him, arriving just as Dr. Patterson pushed her way back out.
“They’re gone?” she asked, definitely upset. “Dr. Angelo said he was calling me—”
Jain shook her head. “They’ll be back in a little while,” she said. “The captain’s science officer gave him some bad advice, that’s all.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Kettaract said, as happy as she’d ever seen him. “Let’s take our seats, Doctors.”
There were several people talking about the captain’s bizarre behavior, a few of them quite concerned, but the anticipation level of the others was higher, and it drowned out the uncertainty. The booth was alive with it, the scientists acting like delighted children.
“Five,” Dr. Kettaract said, and the others joined in, counting down. Jain didn’t. It was her life she was watching, it was going to be wonderful and powerful and important—and it was all she had.
“Three . . . two . . . one . . .”
It’s enough. It’s—
Chapter Seventeen
There was no light or sound from the blast of energy, only the light and sound of what it consumed, so quickly that there was no sound at all. The station was enveloped and gone at the speed of light. Everyone and everything on it had disintegrated in less time than it took for the Omega molecule itself to destabilize, .0011 seconds.
There was a blur, a ripple through the dark, an explosion in negative as the antiquarks replicated themselves faster than the quarks, the cloud of nothing expanding, consuming everything it touched.
Chapter Eighteen
“We’ve got them, sir, but just our people, there wasn’t anyone else,” Tam said.
The captain had said five, and too bad for the other two, he had his orders. Scott didn’t hesitate. “Now, Mr. Sulu.”
The Enterprise tore away from the station, transitioning smoothly to a steady warp four. Scott was relieved that the captain hadn’t specified higher; the power drain from transporting an operational cloaking device had been considerable, though the engineer couldn’t imagine that they’d need to move any faster. Explosions could go only so far.
In a matter of seconds, the captain and Mr. Spock were striding onto the bridge. Scotty was happy enough to turn over command, wanting to get to the engineering station and see how his overworked warp reactor was holding up.
“Mr. Sulu,” Captain Kirk said, taking his chair. “Prepare a probe.”
Scotty quickly checked engineering’s emissions numbers, relieved to see that the reaction chamber was just fine. He was about to tell the captain as much when Mr. Spock started talking, bent over to read from his directed monitor.
“The station is gone, Captain,” he said, straightening and turning to report, “and there is an expanding relativistic reaction field emanating from where it was. A probe would be ineffective.”
“What exactly are we dealing with, Spock?” the captain asked.
“The energy released from the destabilization of this particular molecule is destroying the fabric of subspace,” Spock said. “It is creating a dead zone, through which warp travel and subspace communication will be permanently impossible.”
“How do we stop it?” the captain asked.
The Vulcan paused, frowning. “Unknown.”
He didn’t say anything else, and Scotty felt a chill. If Mr. Spock wasn’t even prepared to offer a suggestion, it was a difficult situation to be sure.
Captain Kirk turned in his chair to look at him. “What do you mean, unknown? There has to be a way to stop it, to contain it somehow . . .”
“It is currently expanding through subspace at warp two-point-seven and accelerating,” Spock said, as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. “The ability to contain such a force is beyond Federation science.”
“Then give me theory, Spock,” Captain Kirk said tersely. “I don’t need to know what’s not going to work.”
“Captain!”
At Sulu’s exclamation, they all turned to look at the view screen and for a moment, Scotty couldn’t believe what he was seeing, convinced that the sensors feeding the image were malfunctioning. From the coordinates of the Lantaru station, ghost images had formed, like flashes of lightning, a small but steadily expanding patch that radiated and branched outward, fading in and out even as he watched it, the weblike pattern reminding Scott of shattered glass.
He was transfixed. Spock’s voice, eerily calm, was the only thing he heard.
“We are witnessing the normal-space ‘shadow’ of the effect upon subspace,” the first officer intoned after checking his station’s viewer. “Its speed is now warp three-point-one and accelerating. If it overtakes us while we are in warp, the ship may not survive.”
“And if we drop out?” Scott asked.
“Then we will certainly escape destruction, but further use of our warp engines will not be possible while we are inside the dead zone.”
Kirk turned to Sulu and said, “Helm, increase speed to warp factor six.” The captain continued to watch the screen through narrowed, thoughtful eyes. “Can we stay ahead of it, Spock?”
“Not indefinitely,” Spock answered. “I calculate that at the current rate of acceleration, the field will surpass the Enterprise’s maximum speed within 41.034 minutes.”
“How big will it get?”
“Impossible to say. There is no precedent for Omega destabilization that I’m aware of, and theory alone is unspecific. . . . I project no more than twenty thousand light years before the field dissipates, perhaps less.”
Scott cursed beneath his breath, damning Kettaract for causing this, and anyone who’d helped him.
* * *
Spock was watching the screen when Kirk suddenly looked at him, rising from his chair and pointing at Spock as he stepped to the railing between them. “You said it was beyond Federation science,” the captain said. “What about Romulan?”
Spock arched an eyebrow. “The cloaking device,” he said, surmising the captain’s meaning.
Kirk nodded. “You’ve said it works by manipulating gravitons. . . .”
Spock considered it quickly. The cloaking device did indeed use gravitons to bend light. . . . If something was heavy enough it would draw anything, but the specific field of a cloaking device was not designed to create gravity in conventional terms. He and the Romulan commander had discussed the science of it at some length.
But if the device could be modified to attract gravitons through subspace, draw them around the expanding energy field, force implosion using the power from the field—
“Theoretically, it can be done,” Spock said. “It will require the addition of a subspace transceiver, and an energy converter that would allow the cloaking devi
ce to draw power directly from the field itself. But it would also require the Enterprise to position itself dangerously close to the field’s wavefront.”
“Why?” the captain asked.
“Assuming we can make the necessary modifications for the device to draw subspace gravitons around the field at multiwarp speed, it will have to be very close to the field, and operating when it is beamed into space. Transporting it at all under those conditions will be an incredible strain on the ship’s systems, let alone over any distance . . . you must also consider that we’ll have to drop out of warp to use a transporter. If it doesn’t work, we will either be stranded, or possibly destroyed.”
Same prospects as before. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. “I take it you don’t have any better ideas?”
An unnecessary question, as Spock certainly would have volunteered a safer and more efficient plan had he thought of one. “No, sir.”
“Do it,” the captain said, staring out at the Omega effect. “Scotty, help him—and make it fast.”
* * *
The bridge was silent and grim and Spock and Scotty went below, everyone focused at the screen, watching the irretrievable loss unfold. After the adrenaline-charged emotion of the station—talking to Jain; having had to pull his weapon on her with the intention of shooting; then being hit with the worst helplessness there is, knowing that the people you’re looking at will die. After all of that, now they had to wait and watch as a piece of the universe disappeared forever, a nightmare arrangement of the incredible energy source that Jain and Kettaract had dreamed about. More lives lost to their flawed vision. Now the very structure of subspace was being shattered by it.
And if it gets much bigger—
“Mr. Chekov, are there any Federation facilities on this side of the field?” Kirk asked.
The navigator tapped at his console. “Yes, Captain. One mining colony, one science outpost, Tanaris IX and Outpost 771. Both on class-M planets. The field will reach the innermost one, Tanaris IX, in . . . nine minutes.”
Damn. He tried to remind himself it could be much worse. It came as no comfort. “Lieutenant Uhura, I want you to send out a broadband message to both facilities, alerting them to the situation. Tell them that if the worst-case scenario occurs, we’ll start sending messages immediately at conventional lightspeed . . . but that it may be years before contact can occur.”
Uhura nodded, her voice tight with concern. “Yes, Captain.”
Kirk resisted an urge to call engineering again, aware that it had been all of three or four minutes since the last time he’d called. Telling Spock and Scotty to hurry one more time might make him feel like he was taking action, but one of them would have to stop what he was doing to report.
All he could do was keep his fingers crossed that they would be able to pull off one more miracle.
* * *
Watching the ghost-image of the energy field continue to swell reminded Sulu of a story his grandfather had once told him. Kikani Sulu had been a shuttle pilot on Earth for most of his life, and had collected cultural legends and anecdotes from his stays all over the world.
It was one of those vague childhood recollections that he could only partially recall, sitting across from his grandfather at the dinner table one afternoon, the old man telling the myths he’d heard describing the end of time or the universe, he couldn’t remember exactly. What he did remember was something about a goddess giving birth to shadow, the shadow growing up to be darkness. When its mother died, the darkness would strike out in grief and everything would end, forever.
Sulu shuddered and wondered about Dr. Kettaract as he looked again at the spreading dead zone, about the mind that had accidentally given life to such darkness.
* * *
Scotty worked as fast as he could, somehow finding a way to link a Federation energy converter and subspace transceiver to the base of the cloaking device. Mr. Spock was manipulating the last of the tiny filaments that were webbed through the globe of the Romulan machine, regularly consulting a propped-up tricorder to montior its patterning sequence.
Scott understood the theory behind Mr. Spock’s plan, and knew a lot about coaxing ordinarily incompatible technologies into working together. But he wouldn’t have known enough to do this on his own. He’d hardly understood the cloaking device when he’d first hooked it up to the Enterprise, and was privately astounded at the time that it had worked at all. But this . . .
They were turning the cloaking device into a lightning rod, one that would attract free gravitons through subspace, essentially compressing them into a forcefield shell against the expanding Omega field. The trapped kinetic energy was supposed to amplify the cloak’s effect, creating enough feedback to force a subspace implosion. Ifthe device lasted that long.
Scott finished his end only a minute after Mr. Spock resealed the top of the device. Scott flipped a switch, and indicator lights on the transceiver glowed green.
“Scott to bridge. It’s finished, captain. Mr. Spock says it should work, but if it doesn’t . . .”
“There’s no choice, Mr. Scott,” the captain said, the stress clear in his voice. “Get it ready to transport immediately, and tell Spock to report to the bridge.”
“Aye, sir,” Scott said, knowing from the sound of it that it had gotten bad out there while they’d been working. He only hoped that it wasn’t about to get much worse; if the graviton lightning rod didn’t work, there’d be none of them left to worry about it.
* * *
Kirk had Sulu drop out of warp, far enough from the pursuing energy field to allow them a twenty-second countdown. After the seemingly endless and agonizing moments spent watching the swelling destruction, waiting helplessly, Kirk could still only wait and watch. With the lives of his crew now on the line, the seconds felt too short, his thoughts too fast.
“Nineteen . . . eighteen . . .” Spock began, and with the strangely rippling space suddenly tearing toward them, Kirk abruptly remembered his first officer’s last countdown only days before—twenty seconds before Sulu had jumped into warp.
To save the Sphinx. The cleanup of a different kind of disaster, less consequential than minimizing the effects of this current force of destruction, maybe, but no less appalling. All those people’s lives, and for nothing greater than the barely cloaked cause of aggressive patriotism, fear and greed dressed up as loyalty.
“Thirteen . . .”
The lights of the bridge dimmed significantly as Scotty diverted power from all over the ship to work the transporter, the incredible draw taking its toll. The cloak was already on, but until it began siphoning power from the field, turning the energy against itself, its effectiveness wouldn’t be known. If it didn’t work, there wouldn’t be time to register failure.
“Nine . . .”
The field had grown immense, its curves and farreaching tangents already engulfing two worlds with hundreds of Federation citizens. They were watching the formation of a scar that would last forever.
Come on—
“Four . . . three . . .”
“Energizing.” Scotty. Two . . . one . . .
“Warp speed, Mr. Sulu!” Kirk ordered.
Sulu’s hands moved—
—and suddenly the ship lurched, battered and tossed as the field overtook them. The force knocked Chekov out of his seat, sent Kirk slamming into the railing near Spock’s station. On the other side of the bridge, stations sparked and blew out as the hull groaned against the strain. Spock fought to keep his eyes focused on his viewer—
Too late. We were too late—
Then, suddenly, all was calm. The AG and inertial dampeners reasserted stability. Chekov picked himself up, apparently unharmed, and the bridge crew as one began checking the ship’s systems. Uhura’s voice called for damage and casualty reports throughout the ship.
Spock announced the result calmly. “The energy field has imploded.”
Chekov and Sulu both let out held breath, and he could hear some of Scotty’
s people cheering over the intercom. Uhura reported mostly minor injuries and no fatalities, with minimal damage to the ship. The Enterprise had weathered the storm well. Kirk tried to focus on that, and the fact that his crew had survived. They were safe.
And dead in the water.
“The cloaking device did not achieve our purpose as quickly as I’d hoped,” Spock offered. “We were overtaken by the field before it could be contained.”
Kirk nodded grimly, resigned to years, perhaps decades of sublight travel until they cleared the dead zone. “How long until we can use warp drive again?”
Spock frowned, considering. “Assuming Mr. Scott cannot increase the efficiency of the impulse engines, we will be unable to clear the dead zone for at least nine days.”
Kirk felt his eyes widen, fighting and failing to control the grin spreading across his face. “Nine days,” he repeated.
Spock nodded as he looked at Kirk, his eyes almost smiling back.
Kirk shook his head and laughed, then turned and settled into his chair, his smile fading as the strain caught up with him, grimly knowing that Bendes Kettaract and Jain Suni would always be remembered for their work, just as they’d wanted.
“Mr. Chekov,” he said, “kindly set a course for Deep Space Station M-20. Mr. Sulu . . . best speed.”
Chapter Nineteen
Christine knew that something was definitely wrong and four days into the journey out of the Lantaru sector, she was starting to fear that it might be serious.
The doctor hadn’t been himself lately, even before he’d lost his friend on that station—that early morning she’d walked in on him, for example, when he’d seemed so evasive. He’d definitely withdrawn further into himself in the days since the Omega affair, though, and while she could understand the pain of losing someone, she thought it went deeper than that. It was as though he was going through the motions of his life, doing the same things he always did but without actually doing them. She’d known him too long not to notice his unhappiness, and though she’d always felt that it was rude not to respect other people’s privacy, enough was enough.
