“I don’t have answers to any of that.” Domenica’s voice was a rough whisper now. “He was dead as soon as I shot him. I didn’t have a choice—he’d already killed eleven people, and Vale would’ve been number twelve if I didn’t do something. I couldn’t afford to hesitate, or try to talk him down. This was someone who’d gotten away with eleven murders, I couldn’t—” Her voice broke. She was staring down at the deck. Fabian’s hand was still on hers.
Fabian had known Domenica since he signed on to the da Vinci during the Dominion War. In those two years, he’d never heard her voice break—not even when they went to visit her family at Fahleena III, when they both fell apart in front of each other.
Then he did some mental calculations recalling the dates on the reports he’d looked up before coming here. “I just realized something. The night you came to me, right before we helped Nog drive the Androssi off Empok Nor—” The first time we made love, he didn’t say aloud. “—that was the anniversary, wasn’t it?”
Domenica nodded.
He cupped her chin with his hand and guided her head up so he could look at her. Tears marred her beautiful blue eyes. In a soft voice, he asked, “Is that what that night was all about?”
Again, she nodded. “Wasn’t the first time—usually I tried to spend the anniversary with someone, just to remind myself that I was capable of feeling something. And also…also to distract myself. Most of the time, I don’t think about Izar or Dar or Vale at all. It was a little hard when she came on with La Forge that time, but I managed. On the anniversary, though…”
Shaking his head, Fabian said, “God, no wonder that new kid set you off. And Ken and Ted’s death—must’ve been déjà vu to have another crazy homicide like that.”
Domenica wiped her eyes with the back of the hand that Fabian wasn’t holding. “Actually, no, it wasn’t. Honestly, it didn’t occur to me to consider it similar. Like I said, I don’t think about it.” She let out a snort. “And when I do think about it, I don’t consider it a homicide investigation, I think of it as the day I had to kill the man I loved.”
Fabian couldn’t help but hear bitterness and guilt in her tone. Life in Starfleet had given him plenty of firsthand experience with both, and he quickly said, “Dom, this wasn’t your fault.”
“Right.” Domenica yanked her hand out from under Fabian’s and stood up. Her flannel robe swished about her legs in a manner Fabian might have found erotic under better circumstances. “Eight years, Fabe. Dar and I were lovers for eight years. In all that time, I had no clue that he was psychotic. You mind telling me whose fault it is?”
“His.”
That brought Domenica up short. She turned around and faced him with a confused look on her face. “What?”
“It’s Ableen’s fault, Dom. You say you had no clue—how were you supposed to? There’ve been, what, two documented cases of this kind of homicidal insanity in the Federation in the last hundred years?”
“Something like that,” she said quietly.
Getting up from the bed, Fabian put his hands on her broad shoulders. They were about the same height, with Domenica a few centimeters shorter—which had always struck Fabian as odd, since he felt shorter than her—so he could look her right in her tear-streaked eyes when he said, “There was no way you could’ve known, Dom. The only thing you could have done was what you did.”
She looked away. “I wish I could believe that.”
“Well, since it’s actually true, there’s no good reason why you shouldn’t.”
Blinking away more tears, Domenica looked back at him. “Fabe, I—”
“Senior staff and S.C.E. team, report to the bridge.”
Fabian closed his eyes and sighed. “Timing is everything.”
Wiping the tears, Domenica was suddenly “Core-Breach” again. “They must have found Lense and Bashir.” Without any hesitation, she removed her robe and went over to the closet to grab a uniform.
Fabian found himself admiring the view—and was encouraged by her lack of self-consciousness around him. “You want me to meet you there?”
As she started to get dressed, she said, “No, we can go up together.”
That prompted a smile. After that first night, she had formally requested that they never speak of it again, and when they were summoned to the observation lounge, she had gone ahead, not wanting to be seen walking in with him.
After she got her uniform jacket on, she walked up to him and kissed him. Fabian was a bit taken aback, and so it took him a moment to return the kiss. There was a bit of a salty taste from the tears that had streaked down to her mouth, but Fabian found he didn’t mind.
“Thank you,” she whispered after the kiss broke.
“For what?” he whispered back.
“A lot of things. For being there when I needed you on the anniversary. For—” She chuckled. “—for ignoring me when I said that it wasn’t the start of something. And for getting me to talk tonight. Honestly, I think it’s the first time I’ve really talked about Dar and Izar since—well, ever, really.”
They started to walk toward the door. It parted on their approach. “You feel any better about it?” he asked.
“Not sure. But I’m glad I did, and I’m glad you’re the one I told.”
They held hands as they walked to the turbolift. Fabian was stunned—a public display of affection was unheard of in the Domenica Corsi Code of Proper Behavior—but he wasn’t about to say anything. And, in fact, when they passed by Rai Lankford and Rizz walking the other way down the corridor, the human and the Bolian gaped openly.
Domenica didn’t even pay attention as they entered the turbolift doors. However, after the doors closed on Rai and Rizz’s astonished faces, she burst into a giggle.
“Dom, did you just giggle?”
“You know, I think I did. I also think I kinda liked it.”
He grinned. “Me, too.”
However, the new, improved Domenica Corsi was only going to last so long. As soon as they arrived at the bridge, she let go of his hand and “Core-Breach” was back.
Captain Gold was in his usual seat, of course, with Commander Gomez and Tev standing on either side of him. Soloman, P8 Blue, Carol Abramowitz, and Bart Faulwell were standing or sitting at the aft consoles behind Tony Shabalala at tactical. Domenica went to stand next to Tony; Fabian took a seat next to Bart.
Bart whispered, “Coming in together? Isn’t that interesting.”
“Very interesting, yes,” Fabian said completely seriously, which brought Bart—who had only been teasing—up short.
“I assume we’ll talk later.” It wasn’t a question. Bart, Fabian’s roommate, was the only person who had known about Fabian and Domenica’s one-night-stand back when it was just a one-night-stand, and he’d been a good sounding board on more than one occasion.
But that was for later. Gomez had turned around and was now addressing the S.C.E. team. “About ten minutes ago, we detected a duranium fragment that matches the information we got from Nog—it’s from the Missouri. We slowed to impulse, and that’s when we found this.” She turned around. “Put it up, Tony.”
The forward viewer flickered to show an area of space the center of which was—well, Fabian couldn’t say what it was. He found his eye wandering from it, unable to focus directly there.
Immediately, he turned around and activated the sensors from the console at which he was sitting.
“You’re wasting your time, Specialist,” Tev said disdainfully. Fabian turned to see the Tellarite’s disapproving glare. “Because the sensors were retuned to detect the Missouri, they are unable to extrapolate what this anomaly is.”
Gold spoke for the first time, turning around his center seat to face them, a grave look in his blue eyes. “Whatever that thing is out there, it’s right on the Missouri’s flight plan, and there’s a piece of the Missouri near it.”
“So we need to retune the sensors back?” Pattie asked.
Gomez shook her head. “Nancy�
��s on that—she’ll have them back to normal in the next five minutes. When that’s done, I want to know everything there is to know about that—whatever it is—and what it did to our people, and I want to find out yesterday.”
Fabian heard a determination in the commander’s voice that led him to think that, if they didn’t do what she wanted, her response would make Domenica’s recent treatment of Tomozuka Kim be a walk in the park by comparison.
Chapter
12
U.S.S. da Vinci
in search operations between Stations Kel-Artis
and Deep Space 9
NOW
S onya Gomez sat in the science lab on deck five of the da Vinci, staring at the unknown.
This was why she joined Starfleet in the first place: seeking out the new, the unknown, the unexpected. That was why a lot of people joined Starfleet, of course, but because she was an engineer, she also tended to add, and learn what makes it tick.
What kind of year has it been? she thought as she stared at the sensor readings of the bizarre anomaly they found near the distressingly small fragment of the Missouri. Has it really been less than a year? She shook her head. Montgomery Scott had come to her after the war and her promotion to full commander with the offer of becoming first officer of the da Vinci, a duty that included supervising that ship’s contingent of S.C.E. personnel. It was a fantastic opportunity, and one she never regretted accepting.
Well, maybe once or twice, she thought with a small smile, grateful that she could smile about the doubts she’d had after Kieran Duffy died.
Thoughts of her dead lover prompted thoughts of his replacement—God, what a terrible association—and she looked over at Tev, hunched over another sensor station, wondering what she would do with him. The S.C.E. team she ran was as good a group of people as she’d ever worked with. And Tev was as good as any of them, truly, but his attitude…
“Commander.”
Sonya looked away from Tev to Soloman, who was at one of the consoles with Fabian Stevens. When she saw the look on his face, she flinched a bit. I didn’t know Bynars could look like someone had walked over their grave. “What is it, Soloman?”
“We got a doozy here, Commander,” Fabian said. “The energy readings we’re getting keep fluctuating.”
“So does the structure,” Pattie Blue added. “Every time I think I have an idea of this thing’s shape, it completely alters.”
“However,” Soloman said, “I recognized one of the energy signatures. It matches the data patterns we found emanating from Empok Nor.”
Now Sonya understood Soloman’s apprehension. Only a couple of weeks ago, they’d encountered another universe that was seeking out information in this one, a request that almost destroyed the Bajoran system. Both Soloman’s dead bondmate 111 and Kieran Duffy were alive in that universe; it had been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but especially for Soloman, who had, for the first time, lied to Sonya and the captain in order to get a chance to see 111 again, even an alternate one.
“The pattern’s changed again,” Fabian said, “but I’m starting to think that this may be another gateway between universes.”
“Not another one,” Sonya said with a sigh.
Tev suddenly stood up. “Commander, I need to go to engineering.”
Sonya frowned. “Why?”
“I must modif—” Tev cut himself off, took a breath, and then spoke in a much calmer voice. “Request permission to modify one of our class-1 probes to investigate the anomaly. When I was assigned to the Madison, I devised a program—”
Well, that’s a little progress. Aloud, Sonya said, “I’m familiar with the program, Tev—that’s why Nancy’s people are already modifying one of them with a variation on your program. Should be ready in another two minutes or so.”
“Ah.” At first Tev looked deflated, then perked up. “A variation? Of what sort?”
“It’s something we came up with here right after I signed on—a form of sensor compression that triples the amount of information the probe can take in. Soloman and Stevens rewrote your program about six months ago to utilize that angle as well.”
“Why was I not—” Again, Tev stopped himself. “Six months?”
“Yup—we pay attention to what engineers on other ships are doing, too.”
Fabian chuckled. “For example, Lieutenant Rao on the Musgrave makes a mean set of asna dumplings.”
“Conlon to Gomez. It’s done and loaded, Commander.”
Tapping her combadge, Sonya said, “Good work, Nancy. Gomez to bridge—Tony, there’s a modified class-1 in the probe launcher.”
“I’m reading it, Commander.”
“Launch it, please, and have the telemetry sent down here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Seconds later, the probe’s telemetry started showing up on her screen, fed from Tony Shabalala’s tactical station.
“That’s what I thought,” Pattie said.
Walking over to the specially modified chair the Nasat was sitting in, Sonya asked, “What did you think?”
“I finally figured out this thing’s structure—it’s perfectly spherical.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Tev got up and walked over to Pattie’s station. “The structure has been inconsistent. It is obviously of variable construction, that—”
Pointing at the sensor results with two of her pincers, Pattie said, “No it isn’t, unless that program of yours doesn’t work right. And anyhow, I figured this out five mintues ago—the probe just verified it. What that thing does is change the structure of space around it, at the subquark level, making it look like there’s a structure there, but there isn’t. What is variable is the way and amount of space it changes.”
Tev was now staring at Pattie’s screen. “I believe you are right, Specialist. Congratulations.”
Fabian shot a look at Sonya. Sonya just smiled and said, “Okay, now we have a better idea of what it does—the question is, can we find out what happened to the runabout?”
“My best hypothesis is that the runabout did not detect the anomaly,” Tev said.
“Yeah,” Fabian said, “we only saw it at all because we slowed down after finding the fragment. If they weren’t looking, the Missouri could’ve barreled right into it.”
Suddenly the lights in the ship dimmed. Half a second later, the red alert klaxon blared.
“I’ve lost probe telemetry,” Pattie said.
“We’re moving,” Sonya said as she felt the vibration of the deckplates through her boots. “Backing off at one-quarter impulse.”
“A wise precuation,” Tev said.
“Gold to science lab. Reassure an old man, Gomez, that my ship, it won’t get blown to bits.”
Sonya walked back to the console she’d been using to verify her readings. “Probe’s been destroyed, sir. As far as we’ve been able to determine, the anomaly is caused by a small spherical object that’s altering space around it.”
Tapping his combadge while hunched over his own console, Fabian said, “Sir, I’ve just verified that every time it changes the fabric of space, not only does the size of the area it alters vary, but each time it does, the space has a different quantum signature.”
“In English, Stevens.”
Sonya and Tev both verified what Fabian just said. “Confirmed,” Tev said. “This device is a gateway to parallel universes, akin to the one we communed with on Empok Nor.”
“The current configuration,” Fabian said, “is a diameter of about two hundred meters.” He looked up. “If it was this big, there’d be no way the Missouri could miss it.”
“What are you saying, Stevens?” Gold asked.
Sonya gritted her teeth. “It means that the effect of this device is expanding.”
A tinkling noise was followed by: “I found something!”
Dashing back over to where Pattie sat, Sonya asked. “What is it?”
“I was going over what we got from the probe. Take a look.” With three of he
r pincers, she pointed at the screen.
Sonya saw what she did—they had detected another fragment of duranium, one that matched that of the material that made up the Missouri.
As David Gold sat down in the observation lounge, he said without preamble, “Tell me we have some way of getting Lense and Bashir out of that mess.”
“Working on it, sir,” Gomez said as she took her seat to Gold’s right. Tev sat on his left, with Soloman next to him. Stevens took his seat next to Gomez, Corsi next to him. Gold noted that Corsi and Stevens came in together and sat together naturally, moving almost as one. Blue was at her specially modified seat at the other end.
“Talk to me. We’ve lost too many people off this ship already, I’m not standing for it happening again.”
“Sir,” Tev said, “I feel constrained to point out that we have no empirical proof that either of the passengers aboard the runabout are still alive, nor that the runabout is still intact.”
Quickly, Gomez added, “Having said that, at least we now have a working theory about what happened.”
Gold nodded. Over the past year, he’d learned to trust Sonya Gomez’s working theories a lot better than most people’s facts.
Touching a control in front of her caused the viewer on the wall to light up with a sensor scan. In red was a spherical object. Random shapes appeared around it, one yellow, then replaced with a differently shaped blue, with a third shape in green, and so on.
“The sphere in the middle is the device that’s causing all this. It’s opening up a gateway between quantum realities.”
“Before it was destroyed by the device’s expanding field,” Tev said, “the probe was able to scan the surface of the device, but not penetrate its interior workings. The technology is unfamiliar.”
Stevens put in, “But it probably opens up quantum fissures somehow. Back when he was in Starfleet, Ambassador Worf encountered a natural fissure that sent him on a joyride through about a dozen quantum realities. This thing probably does artificially what that fissure did naturally.”
Although he was listening, Gold was also watching the colors change. “There’s a pattern to it.”
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