Delta Anomaly

by Rick Barba

  Behind him, he heard the metallic ssshing! of razor-knives sliding open.

  Dr. Chandar adjusted the microscope. The live camera feed shuddered on the monitor. On-screen, the nanite-filled containment chamber slid sideways until the micro-camera centered on what looked like a hazy gray wall. It split the screen in half.

  “See that?” said Chandar, pointing at the wall on the monitor. “That’s the containment field boundary.”

  McCoy nodded. “The nanites can’t pass through it,” he said.

  “Correct,” said Chandar. “Yet somehow, via some sort of subatomic microsensor array perhaps, the nanite is able to get readings on things that lie beyond the impenetrable boundary.”

  “How do you know?” asked McCoy.

  “Watch!”

  Dr. Chandar picked up a long needle. He moved its tip to the edge of the nanite containment chamber locked in the microscope’s specimen tray.

  “This a sterile, chrome-plated teasing needle used for dissection,” said Chandar. “Look, there it is.”

  On-screen, the needle’s microfilament tip appeared as a massive, blocky figure just outside the containment wall. The nanites continued their lazy swirl.

  “They’re not too curious about it,” said Chandar. “In fact, they ignore it, even if I tap the chamber.” He smiled. “Now watch.”

  Chandar scraped the needle’s sterile tip back and forth lightly across the back of his hand. “Let’s add some Human epidermal cells, shall we?” Then he moved the needle tip back to the edge of the containment wall.

  “Holy cow!” said McCoy.

  The swarm was in a frenzy now. Bits gathered at the boundary, moving so rapidly that they blurred. In just seconds the swarm had blackened the screen as thousands of nanites pushed frantically against the barrier.

  “Amazing,” said Chandar. “There’s clearly some kind of marker in my biology that triggers the swarm’s curiosity.”

  “Have you tried this with other biological specimens?” asked McCoy.

  “Dozens,” said Chandar.

  “And?”

  “Well, the swarm finds them interesting at first,” said Chandar. “But it seems that when its sensors determine that the sample isn’t Human biology, the swarm deactivates.”

  “What about alien biology?”

  Chandar set down the needle. “Same thing. Initial interest, then it drops away.”

  “So the swarm is particularly curious about Human cells,” said McCoy.

  “It seems so.”

  McCoy stared at the screen. With the skin sample gone, the swarm’s frenzy had ended quickly. Nanites were drifting around the solution chamber again.

  “Deactivates,” repeated McCoy.

  “What are they?” asked Dr. Chandar. “I wish we had our own swarm of these guys.”

  “Why?” asked McCoy.

  “I tell you, Leonard,” he said, “if we could tap into their telemetry and figure out how they tick, then maybe we could control them and turn them loose on themselves.”

  “Yeah, swarm and antiswarm,” grumbled McCoy. “They could tear one another to subcellular bits. Then we could get on with our damned lives.”

  Chandar laughed. “No, Leonard, that’s not what I mean,” he said. “They could study themselves, model themselves, learn themselves, and then report to us what the hell they are.”

  McCoy glared at the monitor.

  “I’d rather they just tore themselves apart,” McCoy said.

  “I understand,” said Chandar. “It is dangerous, this swarm. And god only knows what it could do if turned completely loose. We could have a gray-goo scenario on our hands.”

  “What the hell is that?” asked McCoy.

  “Gray goo?” said Chandar. “A self-replicating neural swarm that basically goes out of control and eats entire planets.”

  McCoy swiveled to face his friend. “What?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s not a likely scenario, but it is possible,” said Chandar.

  “Explain,” said McCoy.

  “Gray goo is a term coined in the early days of nanotechnology research,” said Chandar. “It starts with a swarm of nanomachines, just like our nanites here. They’re programmed to self-replicate—to scavenge matter from an ecosystem, tear it apart at the cellular level, and then use the pieces to build copies of itself.”

  McCoy stared at the screen.

  “In the gray-goo scenario, something goes wrong,” continued Chandar. “Could be an error—an accidental mutation, say, or maybe a coding glitch. Or it could be deliberate—sabotage, or a doomsday war device. In any case, the swarm kicks into a frenzy of nonstop replication. It attacks and breaks down every bit of matter it finds. It turns everything into a gray chemical soup of elemental pieces. Then the swarm’s internal nanofactories use the soup to build nanite copies.”

  “Hence, gray goo,” said McCoy.

  “Frightening, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the most frightening thing I’ve ever heard, Parag.”

  Dr. Chandar held out his hands. “Like I said, only theoretically possible,” he said. “When you think about it, viruses are nearly perfect nano-entities. And yet they don’t run amok, eating everything, breaking everything down into goo. Our planet’s ecosystem has remarkable defense mechanisms that can fend off even the most aggressive viral attack, over time.”

  McCoy groaned. “Well, I feel much safer now,” he said.

  Chandar laughed. “I’m glad, Leonard.” He gazed at the monitor again. “But the thing is, a nanoswarm could be an unprecedented research tool, if used properly.”

  “Right,” said McCoy. “As long as it doesn’t eat us first.”

  His pager suddenly beeped.

  “Hmm,” he said, checking it. “It seems I’m wanted in the shuttle hangar transporter room immediately.” He looked up at Dr. Chandar. “It says . . . on the double.”

  Chandar gestured toward the door.

  “Run like the wind, Dr. McCoy!” he said with a smile.

  Kirk pushed up his shirtsleeve, revealing a medallion strapped to his upper forearm. He tore it off and fastened it around Hannah’s arm.

  “What’s this?” asked Hannah.

  “See you in twenty minutes,” said Kirk, giving her a quick kiss.

  Behind them, the three Saints howled. Kirk looked back at them. They were huge.

  “Okay, maybe thirty,” he said.

  “Jim?”

  He flipped up a crystalline cover on the medallion and punched the inset red button. Targeting scanners got an instant coordinate lock on Hannah. Her molecular structure was scanned on a quantum level, her body was disassembled into a matter stream of subatomic particles, dumped into a pattern buffer, then transmitted via subspace frequency to the shuttle hangar at Starfleet Academy and finally reassembled on the transporter pad.

  To the Saints, it just looked like she had just dissolved before them.

  “What the hell?” shouted one Saint. “Where’d she go?”

  Kirk shrugged. “I sent her home,” he said. “I didn’t want an unfair advantage over you.”

  Mongol Saints were famed street fighters—dirty and deadly. But Starfleet close-combat training was based on the brutally aggressive, efficient, no-nonsense principles of Krav Maga, originally the old Israeli Defense Force combat system. The fight was over in fourteen seconds. Kirk suffered a superficial razor-knife slash to his left forearm. The Saints suffered two dislocated elbows, one broken hand, one collapsed cheekbone, and three broken noses. And for Hannah, as well as all the other women in the neighborhood, Kirk inflicted a few additional nasty blows that promised to keep them out of commission for a little while.

  When Hannah stepped off the shuttle hanger transporter pad in a daze, the console was unmanned. But most Starfleet transporter stations were preset to receive emergency transports at any time. She looked at the armband strapped around her bicep.

  A uniformed man rushed in. When he saw her, he halted and folded his arms.

  “I s
hould have known,” he said. What he thought was, Where does he find these girls?

  Hannah looked at him. “Where am I?” she asked.

  “This is the hunting ground of Cadet James T. Kirk,” said the man. “I don’t suppose you know him?”

  Hannah looked around. “He’s in trouble!” she blurted. Then with a hint of annoyance she added: “Who are you?”

  “My name is McCoy, Leonard McCoy.” He gave her a sharp look. “What do you mean, trouble?”

  “Three guys were about to jump us,” she said.

  McCoy glanced at her arm. “So he slapped that thing on your arm and zapped you here,” he said. “Tell me about the three guys. Where was this?”

  “Big gangbangers,” she said. “Like, biker big. Huge. Three of them. We were on Columbus Avenue.”

  “On the street?”

  “Yes.”

  McCoy smiled. “Well, Jim should be here any minute.”

  Hannah frowned in disbelief. “Did I mention that there were three of them?” she asked. “Three guys?”

  McCoy nodded. “Yes, you did,” he said.

  Hannah pulled the emergency transporter band off her arm and tossed it abruptly to McCoy.

  “Why aren’t you worried?” she asked sharply.

  McCoy stepped toward her.

  “I am worried,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Right about now, those three guys need a top-notch trauma center, and I’m not sure there’s a good one in that neighborhood.”

  CH.10.12

  Tanika Station

  The following Monday morning, Dr. McCoy huddled with Team Delta in the ready room of Shuttle Hangar 1. He was there at Kirk’s request to run preflight checkups before the five-man team boarded the Gilliam, a Class F-shuttle bound for the top-secret location of Tanika Station. The cadets wore the compression biosuits they’d been issued, an indication that their destination was in space.

  Everyone was tense and silent. A burly crew-cut cadet named Raynor seemed to be even more tense than everyone else, and he paced back and forth.

  “What’s the delay?” he asked in irritation. “We’ve been here two hours, waiting.”

  As McCoy packed up his medical tricorder, he glanced around the room.

  “You men are unbelievably ugly,” he said. “That might have something to do with it.”

  “Really?” replied Glorak from a window overlooking the cargo bay. “You think so?”

  “Yes,” said McCoy. “You especially.”

  Glorak snorted a laugh. His Tellarite snout popped in and out.

  “See?” said McCoy. He shook his head.

  “He’s right,” said Marcus, a skinny cadet from Seattle. He pointed at Glorak. “You should be shot and processed in salt.”

  Glorak nodded back. “Along with your mother,” he said politely.

  Marcus, grinning, acknowledged defeat and held up his palm. Glorak reached over and high-fived him.

  Kirk shot McCoy a grateful grin.

  It had been a long weekend. On Saturday the team lost a member, a cadet named Simmons, who, despite his stellar Academy record—or maybe because of it—suddenly packed up and fled home to Omaha. To replace him Kirk had recommended Braxim, the Academy’s only Xannon cadet. Kirk knew that his easygoing demeanor would be a plus for team chemistry. He needed someone to offset Raynor, who Kirk feared had a tendency to be a loose cannon. And he didn’t need that on his team. Braxxy was strong and smart and had performed well with his own ATT team, which got ousted in the semifinal round of testing.

  Across the room, Braxim stood up and tried to stretch. His micro-elastic biosuit clung to him like a second skin.

  “These are decidedly uncomfortable for a man of my girth,” he said. “But I guess it’s better than bloating up like a week-old corpse.” The biosuit’s purpose was to maintain counterpressure in the vacuum of space, where decompression caused Humanoid flesh to swell up to twice its normal size.

  Kirk grinned over at McCoy. “Sure you don’t want to join us up there, Bones?” he said.

  “People should just stay on their planets,” muttered McCoy.

  Braxim laughed his foghorn laugh.

  “Doctor, I’m tempted to agree with you,” he said. “My Xanno ancestors emigrated from rock to rock for four hundred and fifty years. We planet-hopped across two quadrants, finding nothing but pestilence and racist rejection. We crossed mountains, deserts, oceans, voids, and asteroid belts looking for a home. My people camped on countless miserable way-station planets until we found New Xannon.”

  Suddenly a red light flashed over the ready-room door.

  “Team Delta,” called a voice over the speakers. “Your shuttle is ready. Prepare to board.”

  Raynor punched the air. “Yes!” he said.

  “Please proceed to Pad Fourteen,” added the voice.

  As the five cadets began to gather up their gear, McCoy approached Kirk looking a bit embarrassed. Seeing this, Kirk asked, “What’s up, Bones?”

  “I’m supposed to give you this,” said McCoy.

  He slipped a small felt bag tied with green ribbon into Kirk’s hands. Kirk untied and opened it. Inside was a botanist’s eyepiece on a lanyard, and a note.

  The note read:

  Always check for glands on the underside of leaves. Look for growth patterns and try to figure out, “Why?” Never assume the plant you see is all there is. You are damn sexy when you’re about to kick some ass. I’m off at seven. Hannah xo

  Smiling, Kirk folded the note and slipped it with the eyepiece into a hip pouch on his biosuit.

  “And let me add, Jim, this girl is a something else,” said McCoy, widening his eyes.

  Kirk grinned. “She’s a good one,” he said.

  McCoy nodded. “I like her,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “Although she does remind me a bit of my ex-wife,” said McCoy with a dark look.

  Kirk clapped McCoy on the shoulder. “Friend, not every bright, beautiful girl is out to tear the flesh from your bones,” he said.

  “I hope not,” replied McCoy. “I’ll walk out with you.”

  The team walked single file between the rows of support craft lining the walls of Shuttle Hangar 1. Behind Kirk and McCoy, Braxim was still talking about his home world.

  “New Xannon is a beautiful place, my friends, much like your Earth!” he exclaimed. “Yet it is thirty-two thousand light-years from our planet of origin, and that makes me sad.” He shook his head. “I sometimes wonder if the tales are fantastic myths.”

  Up ahead, McCoy could see the sign marking LANDING PAD 14. There, red landing lights flashed on the Gilliam as the nacelles that housed the twin ion-impulse engines began to whine.

  At the shuttle door, McCoy grabbed Kirk’s hand and gave it a firm shake.

  “Good luck, Captain,” he said.

  “Thanks, Doctor,” said Kirk.

  As Kirk hopped aboard, Braxim stepped up behind him, eyes twinkling. “By winning today, I honor my ancestors, Dr. McCoy,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m sure word will spread clear back to your origin world, wherever that is,” said McCoy.

  “Perhaps so,” said Braxim. “But it would take many years to reach the core ward sectors of the Delta Quadrant.”

  Frowning, McCoy watched the big Xanno duck into the passenger compartment.

  “Delta Quadrant?” he repeated.

  Uhura’s heels clicked sharply on the pavement as she walked across campus toward the Institute of Xenology building. The irritation in her throat and chest had subsided considerably, with only a mild tickle remaining.

  At the institute’s entry checkpoint she put her eye to the iris scanner. The device beeped and said: “Nyota Uhura, cadet first.” When the door hissed open, she stepped to the reception desk and flashed her security badge.

  “Hi, Jerry,” she said.

  “Hey, Nyota!” said the big security guard sitting at the desk. “Where you been?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know,”
she replied.

  Jerry pointed at the sign-in sheet. “You got visitors waiting for you in the lab,” he said. “Couple of doctors.”

  “What? I just left a full physical exam,” said Uhura with annoyance. She read the names on the sheet and frowned. “Yep, that one’s on my medical team. I don’t know this other guy.”

  “I bet they just like checking your pulse,” said Jerry with a wink.

  Uhura gave him a look. He put his hands up.

  “I’m just saying,” he said with a grin.

  When she reached the lab, Dr. McCoy rose from his chair and said, “Hello, Cadet.” Another young man in a lab coat stood and nodded.

  “Doctor, your interns just checked my lungs twenty minutes ago,” she said.

  “I’m not here about your lungs,” replied McCoy. “It’s about your translations.”

  Uhura looked surprised. “What about them?”

  McCoy gestured to the man next to him. “Cadet Uhura, this is Dr. Parag Chandar,” he said. “He runs the nanotech lab over in Hawking Hall.”

  “A pleasure,” said Chandar, shaking Uhura’s hand and bowing.

  Uhura smiled. “So what’s up?”

  Chandar smiled brightly. “We have some information that might be useful for you,” he said.

  Orbiting Earth at an altitude of two hundred fifty miles above the equator, the shuttle Gilliam fired a small side thruster, starting a gentle spin. Its nose pointed toward the center of a massive rotating space platform; the shuttle’s rotation soon synched with the platform’s spin. Then the Gilliam nudged forward into a large rectangular docking bay.

  “Helmets on,” called the pilot. “Prepare for EVA.”

  Team Delta exchanged looks. EVA: extravehicular activity. A spacewalk.

  “Wow,” said Raynor.

  “This is it,” Braxim added.

  Kirk reached down and pulled a pressurized helmet out of the compartment under his seat.

  “Let’s do it,” Kirk said.

  The lightweight helmet slid over Kirk’s head then locked under a foamed neoprene flap in his biosuit’s neckline for a tight seal. He connected the helmet’s air tube to a small dual-purpose backpack; the pack held three hours’ worth of breathable air plus a set of small ion thruster-jets for spacewalk maneuvers. ATT program cadets got lots of training in biosuits, so Team Delta was ready to go in less than a minute.