by S. D. Perry
The unhappy shock on her face gave way to sympathy, compassion... but he didn't see what he'd hoped for, what he'd prayed for. There was no reassurance coming. "Oh, Lenny, I'm so sorry."
McCoy swallowed, hard, and nodded. "That's all right."
"No, I mean I'm sorry you've been diagnosed," she said. "Your chances are slim to none, I won't kid you, but it's not totally hopeless."
Her bedside manner hadn't improved, but he barely noticed. "Really? How, I mean--where? Who's doing the research?"
"You're looking at her," Karen said, though she wasn't smiling encouragingly. "I've been considering the problem off and on for years, how to slow the red blood cell production. I have a couple of ideas, but Lenny--"
She shook her head. "I don't know. Even if one of them pans out, I just don't know. How long?"
"A year, maybe."
She forced a smile. "Well, I guess I won't be hanging around here, then. I'll pack my bags tonight."
McCoy couldn't believe it. Twenty years had passed, and yet she was willing to set her life aside to help him... to offer him a thread of hope, real hope.
The lump in his throat was hard to get past. "I-Karen, I don't know what to say--"
She sighed. "Honestly, Lenny, I wouldn't say anything, yet. I don't want you to get your hopes up."
"Of course," he said, trying to mean it. "I understand."
She opened her mouth to say something else and then stopped, looking past his shoulder. McCoy turned and saw a man approaching, rubbing his nose with one hand and grinning wildly.
"We're ready," he breathed, sniffling loudly, shifting his weight from foot to foot like an overstimulated child. "Everything's ready."
Spock was apparently just finishing looking over Dr. Kettaract's notes when Kirk walked away from Jain to meet them, clamping down on his feelings as best he could.
He was hurt, angry, and dreadfully, horribly disappointed. It was as if she thought he'd never questioned an order, or searched himself for the morality of his choices. She thought he didn't understand, he saw it in her eyes ... and to be so harshly underestimated by someone he'd respected, shared his feelings with She was wrong. He understood exactly what she was saying, what she wanted, what she believed. He'd heard all the arguments before, both sides--the Federation needed to be aggressive and militaristic, it needed to be passive and peaceful. He'd finally come to realize that neither and both were right, and that was the least popular option of all.
He understood that people wanted answers, they wanted solid rules that they could apply to every situation it was the nature of man, he'd always thought, to want to figure everything out in advance. To know how you're supposed to feel and what you're supposed to think without having to constantly question everything, all the time. He wanted it, too, and why not? Everything would be so simple.
And if life actually worked that way, we would all be able to close our minds, to stick to our personal convictions without ever having to listen to anyone else's. To never doubt ourselves... but at the expense of never changing.
Starfleet was a military organization. It was also a pacifistic organization, and a scientific one, and many other things ... and in Starfleet as in life, any situation was best handled by trying to see it with a clear eye before making a choice.
He'd looked at Jain and seen certainty. She'd decided that the Federation needed more power, and had set about trying to achieve it without looking at the decisions she was making to get there. It had been the downfall of too many people to count, and it hurt his heart to see her there.
Kirk stayed standing, though Spock and Kettaract were both seated at a small folding table. Spock set Kettaract's clipboard aside and folded his arms, frowning thoughtfully.
"Well? You see the evolution, don't you?" Kettaract asked eagerly.
"Yes," Spock said. "And the work is brilliant, Doctor. The inclusion of opposing magnetic fields in a cross pattern to more precisely control the acceleration rate is most interesting."
Proud to the point of conceit, Kettaract nodded, smiling. "It is, isn't it?"
"However, your synthesis will almost certainly fail," Spock continued. "The quark-antiquark imbalance will dissolve the atomic binding energy even as it's formed."
Kettaract's smile had faltered. "And I've taken that into account, with the subspace vent at fusion."
"Which will not be sufficient to stabilize," Spock said evenly. "And which will release the reaction into subspace, creating a chain reaction that will have a catastrophic effect on that continuum."
Kettaract shook his head. "That won't happen. The reaction isn't sufficient for the particulate matter to reach a critical velocity, or a critical temperature. The energy will be contained."
Kirk glanced behind him and saw that McCoy had returned, and was watching with some concern. "According to one of the scientists, everything is ready to go now," Bones whispered, leaning forward. "And they're all convinced it's going to work."
Spock was still speaking. ".. . and while your mathematics are otherwise sound, you've presumed that the transition into subspace will dampen velocity and temperature. I put forth that it will not, and your work hasn't convinced me otherwise."
Jain had approached the other side of the table, to stand behind Kettaract.
"You're arguing a theoretical point," the physicist said angrily.
"Indeed. As are you, Doctor," Spock said. "It is an unknown. You'd be risking your life to find out which of us is right."
"I know--" Kettaract stopped, his face flushed and unhappy... and Kirk thought he saw the faintest shadow of doubt cross his face before it was gone.
"The risk is minimal," Jain said, putting her hand on Kettaract's shoulder. "You know that. You've worked on Omega for years, you've covered and checked every aspect again and again--we never would have supported you if we didn't believe in your work, Bendes. / never would have supported you."
She looked at Kirk, her expression as cold as her voice was encouraging. "Everything is ready to go. Don't let them stop you now, at the very threshold. They don't want anyone to take a chance, because they can't. They're hypocrites, just like the rest of them." Kettaract was nodding. "You're right, Jain, of course you're right."
"Right or wrong, I'm not going to let you destroy yourselves," Kirk said. If the scientist didn't want to see reason, fine, he didn't have to. "Bones, go talk to your friend, convince her it's over, she can help explain to the others. Spock, start shutting the equipment down, and I'll have Mr. Scott--"
Jain turned and sprinted across the laboratory, running for a long panel set into the wall less than fifteen meters away.
"Captain, she must be stopped!" Spock said, quickly rising to his feet.
Kirk grabbed his phaser, no time to think as he raised it, pointed--and Jain was already there, her hand on the panel. He was too late. She turned and smiled triumphantly but there was no happiness in her victory, nothing but self-righteous anger in her expression, crossed with pain when she saw the phaser in his hand.
"I'm sorry, Bendes," she called, her voice ragged. "I know it was supposed to be your big moment."
Kettaract stood up, an incredulous smile breaking across his face. "You did the right thing."
He turned to Spock, still smiling. "We'll find out which of us is right, Mr. Spock, in about ninety seconds."
Chapter Sixteen
Jain walked back toward them as a smiling Bendes said something to Spock; she didn't catch it. Probably something about the countdown.
It's done. Finally.
She was still overwhelmed by the sense of relief that had washed over her when she'd flipped the switch; nothing else mattered. Jim Kirk and his high-flying morality could go to hell.
Mr. Spock responded to Kettaract's smiling statement by ignoring it, turning to Jim instead.
"We have to leave immediately, Captain. This station will be destroyed."
"Can we stop it?" Jim asked. "Break the equipment, shut down the computer?"
&nb
sp; "Negative, we could accelerate the process."
"I think you should stay for the show," Jain said, but Jim wasn't listening. He snatched up his communicator and flipped it open, talking fast. "Scotty, lock on to us, prepare to go to warp."
The hum of machinery was filling the room, the other scientists clapping and laughing as they filed into the observation booth. Jim turned and waved his arms at them, shouting. "Listen to me! You have to evacuate, now!"
"Karen!" the Enterprise doctor called, but Dr. Patterson was well inside the booth.
Kettaract started waving, too, shouting louder than either of them. "Everything is fine! Everything is fine! Sixty seconds or less!"
The team members Jain could see looked confused, but they still moved into the booth, finding their seats. She knew they would, they had faith. They knew Kettaract was right. For all his personal failings, he was a genius.
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.
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," Tarn 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 h
eavy 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 device 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 multi warp 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.
