The Face of the Unknown

by Christopher L. Bennett

  * * *

  The situation room floor was sloping rather severely now, and the tower was experiencing increasingly frequent tremors. “We’re ready,” Kirk reported via holodisplay from the Tessegri control center. “Rigged for secondary override control. Let’s hope we won’t need it.” He glanced down at an indicator on his console. “I’m reading go on the last module, do you confirm?”

  “Confirmed for go,” Uhura reported, clinging to the edge of the console next to Spock. “But we’re only reading eighty-seven percent. Four teams report failure.”

  Spock nodded. Under the circumstances, it was only logical that some of the teams had been unable to position their transmitters or had lacked intact systems to interface with.

  “Make that five,” Kasan Tor reported heavily over the comm. “One team was still on Kaibikil when the last charge hit. I . . . think they’re dead.”

  “Damn,” Kirk murmured.

  “I sent them there myself,” Kasan said, his voice shaking.

  “Kasan, listen to me,” Kirk said sharply. “It’s not your fault. They knew the risks and chose to help. We owe it to them, to everybody, to hold it together and make this work.”

  “You’re right,” Kasan said after a moment. “We . . . we’re ready here.”

  “It’s not enough,” Lekur Zan growled. He had fallen to all fours to help maintain his balance, an option that came more easily to his species than others. “With that many gaps in the network, we won’t be able to synchronize enough of the field manipulators.”

  “No, we can do it,” Uhura said. “It’s just a matter of interpolating the gaps in the pattern, adjusting the signal levels to compensate.”

  “The precision required . . . it’d be prohibitive.”

  “Let me hear it,” she said. At Lekur’s stare, she turned to Spock and said, “Let me listen to the radio noise of the field.”

  “Of course,” Spock said, hands racing to set it up.

  “Trust her,” Kirk said. “Uhura’s hearing is extraordinary.”

  “Indeed,” Spock confirmed. “And while my own skills for acoustical pattern recognition are nowhere near the lieutenant’s, my hearing is excellent as well. I will assist you, Lieutenant Uhura.”

  “If you would, sir.”

  One of the situation room’s Linnik technicians stumbled over across the quaking floor and provided them with headsets to listen on. “These will block outside sounds somewhat,” she said.

  “What if we need to give you information or instructions?” Tirak asked.

  “I will monitor the screens,” Spock said. “And only the lieutenant and I will know what needs to be done at any given moment.”

  Tirak bristled. “We are still the leaders of the First Federation, Mister Spock. We should have a say—”

  “We have,” Lekur told him. “We decided to let Spock do this. Now stand back, shut up, and let him do it already.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Kirk put in.

  The Linnik triumvir subsided, though without much grace. Deprived of the ability to dominate and control, Tirak had little else to fall back on.

  Spock finished setting up the controls and turned to Uhura, who was securing herself in the seat next to his. “Ready.”

  She nodded. “Go ahead, sir.”

  He hit the switch, and the radio noise of Cherela roared in his ears. It was an intricate blend of sounds—a symphony, he thought, trying to interpret it as Uhura would, for he was following her lead. A multilayered pattern, surging, pulsing, crackling in complex counterpoint. Studying the readouts on the monitors, he began to recognize which layers of the sound corresponded to which phenomena: the steady undertone of Cherela’s magnetic dynamo, the higher, fluctuating harmonics of the Web’s destabilizing magnetic field, the percussive pops and cracks of the lightning storms, the distant sizzle of the radiation belts. Faintly, beneath it all, an irregular sputter of wideband noise, multiple different tones discernible: the sound of phasers and disruptors, starships joined in battle.

  After taking a moment to get the feel for it, Uhura turned to him, nodding to indicate her readiness. He nodded back. “Captain, we are ready to proceed.”

  “All remote stations online. It’s your show, Spock.”

  “On my mark,” Spock said. “Three . . . two . . . one . . . mark.”

  Uhura’s slender hands worked the console, activating the remote network, tapping into the Web’s entire regulation grid and centralizing its control at her station. The fate of hundreds of billions of sentient beings now rested in those hands.

  Tentatively, Uhura began adjusting the output of the grid, testing the changes it created in the sound of the planetary field as well as the visual readouts. As Lekur had predicted, it was difficult to regulate at first. The control grid was fluctuating wildly, and without a complete remote network to override it, her ability to compensate was hampered.

  But she was an expert at teasing coherence out of fragmentary signals or incomplete information. As she worked, Spock could tell that she was deducing, or perhaps intuiting, how to compensate for the control gaps, manipulating adjacent field sectors to smooth out the spikes, like generating a tone that would modulate a discordant one and bring it into harmony.

  Spock worked to adjust the equalization of the audio signal, bringing out the nuances of the Web field network. She gave him no gesture of thanks, remaining focused on the work. No such gestures were required; they were a team, working as one. She simply used the new information to refine her control still further, hands dancing across the console as she counteracted the instabilities second by second, gradually bringing the network into a state, not of stability, but of marginally balanced instability, dependent on her continued attention to hold it steady.

  And on that foundation, Spock was able to build. He began working his own controls, like a pianist taking on the main melodic line while his partner played the ostinato. Except his melody was a modulation of that same ostinato, like a minimalist composition. Gently, gradually, he took the dynamic equilibrium Uhura created and nudged it into a different configuration. Uhura adjusted along with him, modifying her performance to maintain each new alteration in the field balance. Every time he changed it, he forced her to recalculate and reconfigure so as to prevent the instabilities from erupting again. But somehow, Uhura kept it steady.

  As Spock adjusted the Web’s interaction with the planetary magnetic field, he began reshaping the field itself, or at least its outer portion. The changes propagated at the speed of light, so their effects on the radiation belts should be prompt. The nearest belt to the Dassik was below them, between them and the Enterprise; indeed, without that barrier, they would probably have closed for the kill already. But the readings indicated that the starship was damaged, leaking plasma and maneuvering erratically. The radiation belt needed to be more than a barrier. It needed to be raised to engulf the Dassik, and quickly, before they could recognize the motion and act to evade it.

  But that was simple enough. The stellar-wind protons that made up the radiation belt were circling the planet at high velocity, accelerated and confined by Cherela’s intense magnetic envelope. Thus, all that was needed was to reduce the intensity of the field confining them, and they would surge outward under their own momentum. He just had to manipulate the Web’s control grid to weaken the magnetic field at the appropriate place.

  After explaining this to Kirk and the others, Spock added, “Captain, initiating the field surge will require a major, rapid change in the grid configuration. Its stability will be difficult to maintain after that. There is likely to be renewed turbulence. It is imperative that all the remaining override transmitters remain online.”

  “Understood. All control stations, stand by. Do whatever it takes to keep your transmitters running.”

  Spock finished the computations and caught Uhura’s eyes, warning
her to be ready. She nodded.

  “Ready, Captain,” he said.

  “Do it!”

  Spock triggered the field shift. A massive shudder went through the situation room, possibly through the entire Web of Worlds. Uhura scrambled to find a new equilibrium, to keep the surge from escalating until it tore the whole Web apart. Spock heard several control stations reporting problems and Kirk giving orders to all of them, coordinating the efforts to keep the override network intact.

  And Spock could not hope or pray, but merely wait and see if the plan worked.

  * * *

  “She’s bleeding!” Force Leader Grun howled. “Limping like a rhelkul lizard with a spear in its side! Just a few more shots and we will tear out her throat! Then nothing will stop me from seizing the final prize while Vraq is still struggling to defeat a few gaudy cubes!”

  Grun was so enthused that Remv was reluctant to report the new readings. “Force Leader, we are taking new fire from . . . somewhere!”

  “What?” Grun strode over, looming above Remv menacingly. “What fire?”

  “A—a proton bombardment, sir. It’s like—”

  Grun laughed. “A proton beam?! How desperate have they become? That’s barely worth bothering with!”

  “But it grows more intense! It’s not just a beam, it’s more like—”

  “Silence, Remv!” Grun interrupted. “You panic too easily. A few more shots and—”

  That was when the shields failed.

  Remv had tried to warn him. True, a proton beam was a primitive weapon—potent but inefficient, limited in range due to electrostatic bloom, and easily deflected by an electromagnetic shield. But that was on the scale of weapons built by sentient beings. A water hose was not much of a weapon either, but a flood could wash away a town. This planet’s radiation belts had been large and intense enough to sterilize entire habitable moons—and one of them had somehow risen to engulf the cluster ship.

  Grun had never been the type to listen to scientists. But science had a way of exacting its revenge.

  The flood of protons muscled its way through the shields, vaporizing much of the hull armor on impact. The ship’s systems burned out moments later, including the inertial dampers, so the crew felt the full effect of the explosive vaporization of much of their hull pushing them in the other direction. Remv clung to his seat, but Grun went flying, Rhuld’s body breaking his fall. Electric arcs danced across the bulkheads and the hunters’ armor, convulsing the command pod’s crew with the shock. Remv knew, though, that the command crew had it easy; those in the pods most directly exposed to the bombardment would probably be near death from direct and ­secondary radiation exposure.

  Then the gravity went out and all was darkness. Before long, Remv couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead. And he couldn’t for the life of him understand how a planet could reach out and smack them down.

  * * *

  “It worked!” Nisu cried. “Both cluster ships have been engulfed in the radiation belt. They’re adrift and inactive. Life readings . . . unclear but still present. I estimate low to moderate casualties, but the threat of the ships is neutralized.”

  “The Enterprise?” Kirk asked.

  “Damaged but also present. Stronger life readings. Power readings strong and . . . and stabilizing.”

  Kirk sighed in relief. He was too tired and sore from making sure the transmitters stayed functional to cheer. “We did it.”

  “And did you notice?” Aranow said. “The quakes have stopped. I think the Web’s stabilizing too.”

  “It can’t be that easy,” Kirk said. “Nisu, can you get me the situation room?”

  Soon, Spock’s voice came over the comm. “I am gratified to hear you are all well, Captain.”

  “Status of the Web?”

  “Fifteen world modules have sustained extensive damage, six of them heavily populated. One world module and six minor modules have collapsed into Cherela’s depths, but most of their occupants were evacuated in time.”

  “Most but not all,” Aranow said softly, weeping.

  “Long-term status?” Kirk asked.

  “The Web is still unstable, but the instabilities are being held in check by Lieutenant Uhura at the moment. Triumvir Lekur is supervising the creation of an automated protocol which should duplicate the lieutenant’s efforts, but it is a temporary solution.

  “You should also be aware that the Web’s long-range sensors have detected the approach of at least six more Dassik warships in the outer system. It would seem that Commander Balok and Lieutenant Bailey have rendezvoused with the Fesarius and are attempting to hold the Dassik at bay with radiation buoys.”

  Aranow looked shocked for a moment, but then relaxed. “Well, that’s no problem. Not now. We have the radiation belts now. Right? So they can’t hurt us.”

  “Providing the Web holds together,” Kirk said.

  “Indeed,” Spock added. “The more we employ the radiation belts as a defense, the more it threatens to destabilize the Web. This is not yet over.”

  “Then you need to beam us back there,” Kirk instructed. “Things are . . . something of a mess outside here. There’s no chance we can reach the transport terminal. You’ll need to bring us back directly.”

  “Give us a few moments,” Lekur’s voice cut in. “We have a few dozen other urgent matters we’re dealing with right now.”

  “As soon as you can.”

  Aranow led Kirk away from the console where Nisu monitored the situation. “While we wait . . . there’s one more thing to address. In case we don’t . . . if we aren’t here to address it later.”

  “What’s that?”

  She gave him a wan smile. “I just realized—we’re not in the situation room now.”

  She grabbed his head in her long, strong fingers and pulled him into a kiss full of relief, gratitude, sadness, and need. For once, she didn’t rush.

  Sixteen

  “Why haven’t they stopped?” Balok paced the command chamber of his pilot vessel, now docked within its domed hangar and restored to its normal place as the “brain” of the Fesarius, as he watched the Dassik squadron fly through the debris of the last cubic buoy and resume its course toward Cherela. “They’ve seen what the radiation belt did to their ships. They should be running as far and as fast as they can.”

  David Bailey could not recall the last time he’d seen his friend so unsure of himself. All he could offer was, “They’re not Linnik, Balok. Retreat isn’t their way.”

  “But they’re hunters. Predators aren’t reckless. They only strike when they feel it’s safe. This should have worked!”

  “Does it matter?” Linar asked. “However many ships they throw at Cherela, we can stop them now! We have an incredible weapon to use against them—the might of an entire giant planet!”

  “But the Web is already on the verge of collapse. They need to focus all their efforts on stabilizing it now. Continuing to use the weapon could undermine that.”

  “They’re still not slowing,” Almis reported. He paused, listening to a report from his underlings over an earpiece. “Two of them have veered off,” he announced hopefully. But as the moments passed, his optimism gave way to concern. “They’re on course for a pair of cometary bodies in the outer system. The other four ships remain on course for Cherela.”

  “Why go after comets?” Bailey asked.

  “Oh, no,” Balok said. “Remember how they used their tractors to hurl debris at the Fesarius before.” He turned to his science officer. “Almis, check those comets against the hazard registry.”

  Bailey saw where Balok’s thoughts were heading. Naturally, every advanced planetary civilization monitored the minor bodies in its planetary system and kept an eye on those whose orbits could be most easily perturbed onto a collision course with an inhabited world. It wasn’t long until Almis confirmed, “Both co
mets are on the registry, Commander. It wouldn’t take much tractoring to shift them onto impact trajectories.”

  “So much for the ultimate weapon,” Bailey said. “The radiation belts only work at close range. The Dassik can hang back and lob as many comets at the planet as they want.”

  “Normally,” Almis replied, “I’d say the risk to the Web was minimal—the atmosphere would burn up most of them, and the odds of debris hitting a module would be slight. But given how much the bombardment has already destabilized things . . .”

  “We need to scare them off,” Balok said. “We need to threaten them with something bigger.”

  “Bigger than a whole Jovian?” Bailey challenged. “What else can you throw at them? The Fesarius is all you have, and I doubt any other orbships could get here in time.”

  The silver-robed commander looked him over. “We have Starfleet as well.”

  “But the Enterprise is crippled. They can’t make much difference.”

  Balok gave a mischievous grin. “I wasn’t talking about the Enterprise. Come with me.”

  * * *

  Bailey had always been impressed by the Fesarius’s holographic recreation room, but he was surprised to see how well it was able to simulate the bridge of a Constitution-class starship based only on Balok’s original scans of the Enterprise and its data banks. The command chair replica he sat in now certainly felt solid, its textures not unlike the real materials. A recording of the Enterprise bridge’s actual ambient sounds was looping in the background. The simulator could not replicate people, however, so Balok made sure the visual pickup was focused tightly on Bailey in the command chair—which also served to conceal the rank stripes on his sleeves. His command gold tunic would allow him to pass for the captain of an imaginary Starfleet task force, one whose approach Balok would simulate by using a distant, remote-controlled buoy to emit a suitable energy signature. The rest was simply a matter of Bailey remembering the lines Balok had fed him and delivering them with suitable authority. He hoped he wouldn’t succumb to stage fright; the ­Fesarius would be broadcasting his words across the entire system, so that the Enterprise and the Cherelan ­authorities would be alerted to the ploy and able to respond accordingly.