Strange New Worlds VIII

by Dean Wesley Smith

  Phlox held it up to the light, seeing a thin seam running the circumference. Phlox adjusted the marble so he held both halves and twisted. Four needles flew out, pricking his skin. In seconds he was trapped in his own worst fear.

  * * *

  “Captain Archer,” a voice called through the screaming mob.

  Archer turned. “Phlox?”

  “Captain, open your eyes. I need you to wake up.”

  Archer scanned the mob even as he tried to fight off the angry crewmen around him.

  “Captain!”

  Archer startled awake. He was in sickbay and the lights were down low. Phlox stood over him, watching him.

  “Are you awake, Captain?” Phlox asked.

  “How’d I get here? Where is my crew? They’re trying to kill me, Doc. They’re try—”

  “Captain, you’re hallucinating.”

  Archer shook his head. He turned his head. He saw the crew hidden in the shadows and behind walls. They started moving in on him. He tried to scramble away, but restraints prevented him from getting away. He looked back around, finding Phlox still there.

  “Jonathan!” Phlox snapped.

  The hallucination faded. For a moment he was grounded in reality.

  “Captain, I need you to remember something. I need you to focus. Do you understand?”

  Archer nodded.

  “What was the last thing you did before you started hallucinating?”

  “Hallucinating? What are you talking about?”

  “Before the crew was trying to kill you, what do you remember? I need to know.”

  “I was getting ready for bed.”

  “And then?”

  Archer closed his eyes. “My head hurts. The crew is screaming at me. I didn’t mean to—”

  “Captain, I need you to think. I need to know what happened when you got ready for bed. Did you find an object in your room? A small sphere?”

  “I found a marble. Porthos brought it to me. Trip had it earlier. He was tossing it and—”

  “Did anything unusual happen with the marble?”

  Archer’s face scrunched in pain. He closed his eyes tight. “My head hurts, Doc.”

  “I’ll give you something for it, but I need to know about this marble. Did anything unusual happen with it?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Please try. It’s very important, Captain.”

  Archer’s face relaxed. Phlox gently shook his shoulder. Archer looked up at him.

  “It twisted. The marble . . . twisted.”

  Phlox smiled, patting his shoulder. “Thank you.” He pressed a hypospray to Archer’s neck.

  Archer relaxed, falling into a fitful sleep.

  Phlox walked to a monitor. He made a notation and changed screens.

  “The marble. Everyone has handled that marble,” Phlox told the monitor.

  He turned and tapped a com panel. “Phlox to Hoshi.”

  “Go ahead, Doctor,” Hoshi said.

  “Hoshi, I need you to broadcast a shipwide—”

  Ensign Novakovich ran in, interrupting Phlox. “Doc, T’Pol’s got whatever everyone has. She’s lost it!”

  “I’ll get back to you, Hoshi,” Phlox told her. He grabbed his case and followed Novakovich out.

  * * *

  T’Pol backed away from the aliens closing in on her. One came too close and she swung a fist at it. Her first punch connected with its jaw and the alien fell back into another. The others closed the gap, preventing her from escaping.

  “Get away from me! Get away!” she yelled at them.

  “T’Pol,” she heard Phlox say, but his voice was distant.

  “Doctor! Doctor Phlox!”

  “T’Pol, I need you to—” Phlox’s voice became distorted as it faded. And then she heard him say, “Vulcans are very volatile when they can’t control their emotions. It’s going to take all of us.”

  “Doctor!” T’Pol screamed.

  The aliens attacked her, trying to pin her down. She savagely fought back, clawing and striking out. She spun to run away and stopped short.

  She was in a barren wasteland without even a tumbleweed in sight. Dust and dirt blew across the vast expanse pitted with cavernous canyons. Overhead the sky was a strange, bright orange and red.

  “Hello?” T’Pol called out.

  No one answered.

  “Hello!” T’Pol screamed. Her voice echoed in the canyons.

  “Is anyone here?” T’Pol swallowed. Her emotions were slipping from her control. She whispered to the barren land, “Is anyone here?”

  Someone tackled her from behind. She rolled over, finding herself surrounded by the aliens again. She screamed, fighting them. One came at her with a hypospray, pressing it against her neck. She let out an enraged scream before she passed out.

  * * *

  The marble bounced along the baseboard, rolling unnoticed past crewmen.

  Hoshi’s voice began speaking over the ship’s com: Attention, all hands. Be on the lookout for a metallic black marble.

  The marble came to an air duct and rolled into it. It rolled and rattled along, miraculously avoiding several vent openings.

  “This device has caused several crew members to hallucinate.”

  The marble dropped down a shaft and rolled several more meters. It came to the edge of a vent cover and teetered back and forth, as if indecisive about what to do next. Below the vent Malcolm worked at a monitor.

  “Do not attempt to handle this device,” Hoshi continued. “Alert Doctor Phlox immediately if you find it.”

  The marble fell through the vent.

  * * *

  The marble bounced off Malcolm’s head. He looked up and instinctively caught the marble. He realized too late what he had caught, feeling the two halves turn.

  “Call Phlox!” Malcolm cried to his crew.

  He collapsed on the floor, his hand closing tight around the marble.

  * * *

  Two crewmen ran in, carrying Malcolm on a stretcher. He was acting as if he were drowning.

  “Put him on the biobed.”

  Phlox hurried to restrain him. He brushed Malcolm’s fist and heard something hit the floor. He looked down, seeing the marble roll across the floor.

  “Continue restraining him,” Phlox ordered the two crewmen.

  Phlox grabbed a Petri dish and a tonglike instrument from a counter. He followed the marble until it came to rest against a wall. Phlox crouched and, with great care, placed the marble in the Petri dish, using the tongs. Phlox carried the marble to a containment unit, placing it inside.

  Phlox stopped at a com panel, tapping it. “Phlox to Commander Tucker.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you to come to sickbay. I’ve found the device.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Phlox returned to settling Malcolm.

  * * *

  Using tongs, Trip placed the marble on a stand. He joined Malcolm, T’Pol, and Archer across the room. Malcolm held a phase pistol, his hand constantly moving to readjust his grip. He looked back at Archer. Archer and T’Pol reminded him of victims witnessing a criminal’s death.

  “On your command, sir,” Malcolm told Archer.

  Archer nodded.

  Malcolm aimed at the marble and fired. The marble disintegrated without so much as a pop. Malcolm dropped his hand and the four were silent for a long moment.

  “I was almost expecting fireworks or something.” Malcolm commented. “That was so . . . uneventful.”

  “It wasn’t sentient, Malcolm,” Trip reminded him. “Just a device someone thought would be fun to let loose on Enterprise.”

  “Clean it up and get back to work, men.” Archer left.

  The two watched him leave before looking back where the device had been. T’Pol turned to leave.

  “He’s not all right, is he?” Malcolm asked.

  T’Pol stopped, looking back at the two.

  “No. Whatever he hallucinated has really got him on edg
e. Can I ask . . . ” Trip stopped.

  Malcolm looked at him. “Ask what?”

  “Can I ask what you hallucinated?”

  Malcolm smiled. “I was drowning. Repeatedly drowning. You?”

  “I was going to die being pulled into a planet’s atmosphere. Took off my helmet instead. Then I kept seeing all the people I care about die. There were hundreds of people around, even some doctors, but no one would help me.”

  “You’re scared you won’t be able to save someone you care about?”

  “Deathly afraid. Stupid, I know, but I am.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “No, Trip, that’s not stupid.”

  “Fears are unfounded,” T’Pol quietly commented.

  Malcolm looked back at her. “I don’t believe that.”

  “I’m afraid of living alone. That is an unfounded fear. You two have an order, carry it out.” T’Pol left the room.

  Trip and Malcolm looked at each other, surprised that she’d even mentioned her fear.

  * * *

  Although the bridge was bustling with routine morning activity, no one spoke. They were all trying to put the week from hell behind them.

  Archer sat in the captain’s chair, staring at the padd in his hand. His mind was far from it, however. It kept wandering back to his hallucination.

  “Captain, I’m detecting a ship approaching,” Travis reported. “It’s a Klingon Raptor.”

  Archer looked at the view monitor.

  “They’re hailing us, sir,” Hoshi told him.

  Archer resisted responding to his escalating panic. He stood, setting the padd in his hand aside. He felt his crew staring at him, judging him.

  Just being overly sensitive, Jonny. They aren’t judging you, Archer whispered in his head. Out loud he ordered, “Full halt, Travis. Respond, Hoshi.”

  Travis obeyed, Hoshi didn’t. Archer looked at her. She was staring at her controls, her fingers gripping the edge so tight that her knuckles were white.

  “Hoshi, hail them.”

  “Are you sure, sir? What if—”

  “I’m certain, Hoshi. Hail them.”

  Hoshi didn’t obey. Archer walked over to her station. She looked at him.

  “Hoshi, I’m giving you an order. Hail them.”

  A shiver visibly ran through her. With trembling hands she worked the controls. Her voice shook when she told Archer, “Opening a channel, sir.”

  Archer returned to stand before the captain’s chair. A Klingon captain appeared on the monitor.

  “You have something of ours. Return it immediately!” the Klingon demanded.

  “We don’t have anything of yours,” Archer argued.

  “Yes, you do! A convict told us he hid it on your ship. We demand it returned now!”

  “We don’t have—”

  “It’s a round device.” The Klingon captain held his hand up to show the size of the device. It was the same size as the marble. “It’s colored—”

  Archer’s hands had begun to grow cold and his stomach cramped in response to the building fear. But he pressed on.

  Archer interrupted the Klingon. “It’s colored metallic black and contains a psychotomimetic drug mixed with an unidentified drug that stimulates hallucinations based on the victim’s worst fear. Correct?”

  “Return it immediately.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. We—”

  “Return it now or we will destroy you!”

  Archer swallowed. In his mind’s eye his hallucination began replaying. He had to force himself to remain calm and mask his fear.

  “We can’t. We destroyed it.”

  “You did what!?”

  Archer’s fear choked him. His lips formed the words, but no sound came out. Trip stood and walked up to Archer’s left side. He pulled his hands behind his back, standing tall at full attention.

  “We destroyed that damned device,” Trip told the Klingon. “But since you’re bringing it up, maybe you’d like to tell us what it was for?”

  “That’s classified.”

  T’Pol walked up to stand at Archer’s left-hand side. She stood close enough that Archer could feel her body heat. But it did little to ease his fear.

  “Now that we know whom this device belongs to, it raises questions that I’m sure the Vulcan High Command will be asking the Klingon High Council. Such as what the device’s purpose is.”

  “Return it!”

  “Perhaps you’re hard of hearing!” Travis yelled. “We destroyed it! You’re not getting it back in pieces or all together, because it is gone!”

  “And whatever you intended on using it for,” Malcolm added, “it wouldn’t be wise to implement it. You can be assured we won’t keep that device a secret.”

  The Klingon captain leaned into the screen. “If we meet again—”

  T’Pol cut him off. “If we meet again we will fire on your ship, unprovoked.”

  The Klingon opened his mouth to respond to the threat.

  “Oh, I think this conversation was over before it started. Good. Bye,” Hoshi told the Klingon, and closed the channel.

  “Targeting their bridge,” Malcolm announced.

  Before he could fire, the Klingon ship went to warp. Travis resumed their course.

  The bridge was silent for a long moment, the crew watching their captain.

  Travis turned to Archer. “Speaking for all of us, Captain, I hope that we didn’t handle that wrong.”

  Archer smiled, looking at each of them. “You all handled it perfectly. Return to your duties.”

  Archer walked back to his chair and sat down. He picked up the padd and started reading the document on it. Discreetly he watched his crew returning to their duties. He realized that one of his fears was unfounded. His crew would never turn on him for a wrong decision.

  (First Prize)

  A & Ω

  (Alpha & Omega)

  Derek Tyler Attico

  In the Federation’s darkest hour, the cornerstone of its founding was realized. The galaxy was at peace.

  Conquests for power and territory became irrelevant. Prejudices and mistrusts were set aside. Species that isolated themselves opened their doors of communication.

  General Order Zero, the catapult initiative, was well under way. Across the galaxy, over two thousand catapults were under construction. Worlds with no choice were building them and those that had a choice helped others. Earth’s catapult, the prototype, was an engineering masterpiece and the largest structure ever created by humans in space.

  To Jean-Luc Picard, as he stared out the viewport aboard the task-force flagship, the device’s curved graviton emitters looked like two immense parentheses punctuating the only thing that could frighten the galaxy into unity: a Borg supercube. Starfleet engineering could not find a better description for the immense structure; it was eight hundred times larger than the last cube over Earth.

  Within the walls of this terror resided a half-billion drones, not swarming with goals of assimilation and perfection, but motionless. The same phenomenon was reported in every quadrant of the galaxy. There were no pursuits for technology, no assimilations. Borg cubes, Borg cities, Borg worlds had simply stopped. The most powerful force in the known galaxy was silent, and no one knew why.

  “Not the view it used to be,” a voice from behind Picard commented.

  The captain felt the sickening truth of the statement. The supercube eclipsed what had once been the western United States. Earth now had two moons, one of magnificent natural beauty and one of utter technological horror. The arrival of the supercubes had wrought chaos and destruction. On Earth and throughout the rest of the galaxy, everything had changed. Starfleet and the Federation had moved from a charter of exploration and peace to one of salvation and restoration.

  “No, not quite.” Picard replied.

  From Voyager’s ready room, he could see the forcefields around Earth’s coastal cities holding back the 150-foot tidal waves. When the supercube emerged from transwarp, it upse
t the natural balance of gravity, killing two hundred million people worldwide just by settling itself into geosynchronous orbit over Starfleet headquarters.

  San Francisco was now a city of ruins, a pile of dirt on a planet of rubble. Today more than any other day in his lifetime, the four tiny pips on Picard’s collar sat a bit heavier. He was a captain conflicted with his duty, and a man concerned about his home. My life was a dream, and I have awakened to the nightmare.

  “Coffee?”

  Picard forced a half-smile and turned toward the person voicing the absurd suggestion.

  “I could make that an order.” Admiral Janeway smiled, arching one eyebrow for effect.

  Picard tried to appear gracious. “Thank you, Admiral, but I’d prefer—”

  Janeway’s raised hand interrupted him as she turned to face the replicator. “Tea. Earl Grey, hot. Coffee, black.” Twenty-fourth-century technology resonated to life as energy and light coalesced into a soothing, subtle brew and a steaming, stimulating extraction, polar opposites that matched their owners perfectly.

  Picard welcomed the jovial touch from his commanding officer, but he knew this wasn’t a social visit. Admiral Janeway’s Delta Quadrant expertise on the catapult design and the Borg had made her the only logical choice to head Earth’s catapult program and the only one who could authorize his plan.

  “I want to thank you for taking time out of the project to see me, Admiral.”

  Janeway approached Picard in silence and held out his tea. As he grasped the cup, he quickly realized she was not going to release it until he looked at her. “Jean-Luc, I’ve decided to deny your request. The personal risk is too great.”

  Picard returned Janeway’s gaze with all of the sincerity and intent that she had given to him. “Don’t you think that’s my decision to make, Admiral?”

  Janeway turned away from Picard at the viewport and took a seat behind her desk.

  “Captain, I thought you—more than anyone—would understand the risk. We’ve been here twice before, the Borg poised over Earth, once with you as their assimilated representative. The damn thing’s sheer size and proximity to Earth makes it impossible to destroy it. It’s taken us a year of nonstop building to get here, and in six days the catapult will send that monstrosity into the sun. Why do this now?”