The Q Continuum

by Greg Cox

  This is amazing, he thought. Who knew what the full implications of his discovery might be? He couldn’t wait to tell Mr. La Forge. Even the thought of facing Professor Faal again didn’t seem as daunting as before, at least in the abstract. He double-checked his tricorder readings one more time, then headed for the exit. “Wow,” he murmured to himself, proud of his accomplishment and wondering if this heady feeling was what Mr. La Forge or Commander Data felt whenever they made some startling scientific breakthrough. Reality, he discovered, could be even more satisfying than a holodeck.

  Who would have thought it?

  Twelve

  The storm was well and truly upon them.

  The wrath of the Calamarain could be felt all over the bridge, much more viscerally than before. The unremitting hum of the plasma cloud had grown into the rumble of angry thunder that battered the ears of everyone aboard. On the main viewer, lightning arced across the prow of the saucer section, striking violently against the forward deflector shields. Riker gritted his teeth as the impact slammed him back into his seat. Sparks flew from the tactical station behind him, singeing the back of his neck, and he spun his chair around in time to see Leyoro snuff out the flames with her bare hands. “Shields down to fifty-one percent,” she reported, rerouting the deflector readings through the auxiliary circuitry even as she extinguished the last white-hot spark beneath the heel of her palm.

  Riker scowled at the news, the smell of burning circuitry irritating his nostrils. Their defenses were almost halfway down already, and they hadn’t even begun to fight back. Hell, they still didn’t know why they were under attack. “What in blazes did we do to provoke this?” he asked out loud.

  “I am afraid I cannot yet determine that, Commander,” Data answered from his station at Ops, “although I believe I am making progress in adapting the Universal Translator to the transmissions from the Calamarain.” Deanna stood at the android’s side, between Ops and the conn, her hands cupped over her ears in a futile attempt to screen out the roar of the thunder. How could she be expected to sense anything, Riker thought, in the middle of a tempest like this? “The counselor’s impressions are proving quite informative,” Data stated nonetheless.

  “How much more time do you need?” Riker asked. Given a choice, he’d rather talk with the Calamarain than engage them in battle, but the Enterprise couldn’t take this pummeling much longer. There was only so long he was willing to turn the other cheek.

  “That is difficult to estimate,” Data confessed. “The intensity of the barrage is now such that it is extremely problematic to filter out what might be an attempt at communication, much like trying to listen to a whistled melody in the midst of a hurricane.”

  “Give me your best guess,” Riker instructed.

  Data cocked his head to one side as he pondered the problem. “Approximately one-point-three-seven hours,” Data concluded after only a few seconds of contemplation. “As a best guess,” he added.

  “Thank you, Mr. Data,” Riker said, although he would have preferred a significantly smaller figure. At the rate the storm outside was eating away at their shields, the Enterprise might not last another hour, unless they started giving as good as they got. Who knows? he thought. Maybe the Calamarain are like the Klingons, and only respect aliens who fight back.

  Then again, he reminded himself, it took the Federation close to a hundred years to come to terms with the Klingon Empire….

  A new thunderbolt rocked the ship, tilting the bridge starboard. Next to Data, Deanna staggered and grabbed on to the conn station to maintain her balance. Riker felt a shudder run along the length of the bridge, and possibly the entire starship, before their orientation stabilized. “We have damage to the starboard warp nacelle,” Ensign Schultz reported from the aft engineering station.

  “Casualties reported on Decks Twelve through Fourteen,” another officer, Lieutenant Jim Yang, called out from the environmental station. “No fatalities, though.”

  Not yet, Riker thought grimly.

  “Commander,” Leyoro spoke up, echoing his own thoughts, “we can’t wait any longer.”

  “Agreed,” Riker said, hitting the alert switch on the command console. He regretted that yet another first-contact situation had to lead to a show of force, but the Calamarain hadn’t given them any other choice except retreat. Let’s see what happens when we bite back, he thought. “All crew to battle stations.”

  Baeta Leyoro, for one, was raring to go. Her white teeth gleamed wolfishly as she leaned over the tactical controls. “All weapons systems primed and ready,” she announced. “Awaiting your command.”

  “Start with a midrange phaser burst,” he ordered. “Maximum possible dispersal.” The wide beams would weaken the burst’s total force, but Riker saw no obvious alternative. How the hell, he thought, do you target a cloud?

  “Yes, sir!” Leyoro said, pressing down on the controls. Phaser arrays mounted all along the ship’s surface fired at once, emitting a unified pulse that spread out from the Enterprise in every possible direction. On the screen, Riker saw the pulse emerge as a wave of scarlet energy that disappeared into the billowing, churning mass of the Calamarain. He wasn’t sure, but he thought the turbulent cloud became even more agitated when and where it intersected with the phaser burst. The roiling gases swirled furiously, throwing off electrical discharges that crackled against the Enterprise’s shields. A clap of thunder rattled Riker all the way through to his bones.

  “I sure felt that,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “The question is: did they feel us?” He peered over at Deanna, who had taken her seat beside him the minute he sounded the battle alert. “Any response from out there?”

  Deanna shook her head. “I’m not sure. I don’t think so. They’re already so upset, it’s hard to tell.”

  He nodded. In for a penny, he thought, in for a pound. “Another burst. Increase phaser intensity to the next level.” There was no turning back now. He hoped he could avoid actually killing one or more of the Calamarain, but their alien nature made it impossible to gauge the ultimate effect of the phaser beams. He had no intention of going to maximum strength before he had to, but, one way or another, he was going to make these strange, bodiless beings think twice about attacking this ship.

  “Here goes nothing,” Leyoro muttered as she fired again. A second burst of directed energy, even more dazzling than before, met the fury of the Calamarain. Once again, it was absorbed into the accumulated plasma almost instantaneously.

  The cloud’s reaction was just as immediate.

  With a howl even louder than any Riker or the others had heard before, the Calamarain shook the Enterprise savagely. Riker held on tightly to the armrests of the captain’s chair while keeping his jaw firmly set to avoid biting down on his tongue. All about the bridge, crew members bounced in their seats, their minds and bodies jangled by the brutal quaking. Even Data appeared distracted by the disturbance; he looked up from his console with an impatient expression upon his golden face, as if he were anxious for the shaking to cease so he could continue with his work. Riker knew just how he felt.

  Mercifully, the worst of the battering subsided after a few moments, although the sentient tempest still raged upon the screen and the thunder reverberated ominously behind every buzz and beep from the bridge apparatus. Riker felt his temples begin to pound in concert with every resounding peal. He searched the bridge to make sure that no one had been injured seriously, then looked back at Deanna. The counselor’s face was pale, her eyes wide with alarm.

  “They felt that,” she gasped. Obviously, she had shared at least a part of the Calamarain’s pain.

  “I got that impression,” he said.

  Barclay had hoped that Mr. La Forge would be alone when he reached Engineering, but no such luck. The first thing Barclay saw as soon as he got off the turbolift was the chief engrossed in a heated discussion with Lem Faal, who was the last person Barclay wanted to run into right now. The red alert signals flash
ing all around the engineering section only added to his trepidation, as did all the busy Starfleet officers hard at work in response to the alert.

  Engineering was abuzz with activity, much more so than usual. Every duty station was manned, sometimes by more than one individual. His fellow engineers shouted instructions and queries back and forth to each other as they hastily adjusted and/or monitored illuminated instrumentation panels all along Engineering. Yellow warning signals blinked upon the tabletop master systems display, indicating problems with at least half a dozen vital ship systems, while a whole team of crew members, led by Sonya Gomez, clustered around the towering warp engine core, carefully manipulating the enclosed matter/antimatter reaction. Ordinarily, Barclay could have expected a friendly greeting upon entering Engineering, but at the moment his colleagues were too intent upon their assigned tasks to take note of his arrival. Even Lem Faal seemed too busy with Chief La Forge to spare Barclay another dirty look.

  Maybe this isn’t the best time, Barclay thought, his previous enthusiasm cooling in the face of the irate Betazoid scientist. He wanted to talk to Mr. La Forge about his discovery in Transporter Room Five, but the chief looked like he had his hands full with the red alert, not to mention Professor Faal. The visiting scientist was obviously upset. He held on to a duranium pylon for support while he argued with La Forge. “I don’t understand,” he said. “We can’t cancel the experiment now. It’s ridiculous.”

  “We’re under attack,” La Forge pointed out, looking past Faal at the cutaway diagram of the Enterprise on the master situation monitor, his attention clearly divided between Faal and the ongoing crisis. “It’s a shame, but I’m sure Commander Riker knows what he’s doing.” He started to turn away from the irate physicist. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me while I see what’s the matter with our warp engines. You should go back to your quarters.”

  “This is more than a shame,” Faal objected, a faint whistle escaping his throat with every breath. La Forge had discreetly briefed the engineering team on the physicist’s medical problems, and Barclay felt sorry for the man despite the bad blood between them. Iverson’s disease, like all manner of illnesses and medical threats, terrified Barclay. Even though he knew Iverson’s disease was caused by a genetic disorder and was by no means contagious, listening to Faal’s tortured breathing still gave him the creeps.

  “I’ve devoted years to this project. It’s my last hope for…well, I suppose you’d call it immortality.” His knuckles whitened as he held on to the pylon with what looked like all his strength. “Your Commander Riker has no right to make this decision. I’m in charge of this experiment. Starfleet specifically told your captain to cooperate with my experiment!”

  La Forge shrugged impatiently. “I don’t know much more than you do, but I know we can’t pull this off in the middle of a combat situation, especially with the captain missing.” He hurried over to the master systems display, where Ensign Daniel Sutter stepped aside to permit La Forge access to the primary workstation. La Forge continued to speak to Faal as he simultaneously ran a diagnostic on the graviton polarity generators. “Maybe the Calamarain will go somewhere else and we can try again. Or maybe you’ll have to try another section of the barrier.”

  “No,” Faal said, following closely behind La Forge. He sounded ever more sick and distraught. “This is the ideal location. All our sensor readings and calculations prove that. We have to break through the barrier now. I might not get another chance. I don’t have much time left….”

  Barclay was getting tense just listening to this conversation. He seriously considered turning around and coming back later. But what if the way the bio-gel packs in the probe absorbed some of the barrier’s energy turns out to be important? He’d never forgive himself if the Enterprise got destroyed and it was all his fault; it was bad enough that he’d infected the entire crew with that mutagenic virus a couple of years ago. Don’t live in the past, Counselor Troi always told him. Show people what you’re capable of.

  Mustering up all his courage, Barclay stepped closer to the chief and Faal. The Betazoid genius spotted him approaching and gave him a murderous look; clearly, he hadn’t forgotten the incident with the pulse generator. Or forgiven.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Barclay said to La Forge. He could feel Lem Faal’s baleful glare burning into the back of his neck. “But when you’ve got a moment, I’d like to talk to you about something I found in that probe you asked me to look at.”

  La Forge sighed, as if the rescued probe was just one more thing for him to worry about. Barclay immediately regretted bringing it up. “Can this wait, Reg?” he asked with a slight edge of irritation in his tone. “There’s an emergency with the warp engines and the deflectors.”

  “Yes. No,” he answered. “I mean, I don’t know.”

  Professor Faal lost his patience entirely. “What are you doing, wasting time with this idiot?” Saliva sprayed from his mouth as he gasped out the words. “This is intolerable! I want to speak to Commander Riker!”

  Before La Forge could respond, a tremendous clap of thunder echoed through Engineering, drowning out even the constant thrum of the warp core. The floor swayed beneath Barclay’s feet and he found himself stumbling down a sudden incline that hadn’t existed an instant before, bumping awkwardly into no less than Professor Faal himself. Just kill me now, he thought.

  La Forge frowned as the floor gradually leveled out again. “This isn’t good,” he said. Circuit patterns rotated in his ocular implants as he concentrated on the tabletop display, taking stock of the situation. “I can’t waste any more time with this. Reg, make sure the professor gets back to his quarters okay, then head back here. We’ll talk about the probe later.” Without a backward glance, he stalked across Engineering toward the warp core, issuing orders as he went. “Sutter, divert impulse power to the subspace field amplifiers. Ortega, keep an eye on the EPS flow….”

  Why me? Barclay thought, left alone with Lem Faal. Couldn’t someone else—anyone else—escort Faal? He already hates me enough. But La Forge was in charge; he had to keep his eyes on the big picture. “Yes, sir,” Barclay said dutifully, if less than enthusiastically. “Please come with me.”

  Faal ignored him entirely, chasing after Geordi. “You can’t do this, La Forge,” he said, his wheezing voice no more than a whisper. “The barrier is bigger than some pointless military exercise. We can’t lose sight of that. The experiment is all that matters!”

  But La Forge, determined to inspect the warp engine power transfer conduits, would not be distracted. “Reg,” he called out, exasperated, “if you could take care of this?”

  I can’t let Mr. La Forge down, Reg thought, taking Faal gently but firmly by the arm. “Please come along, Professor.” Part of him felt guilty about bullying a sick man; another part was greatly relieved that Faal wouldn’t be able to put up much resistance.

  Physically, that is. The scientist’s vocal indignation showed no sign of abating. “Let go of me, you incompetent cretin! I insist on seeing Commander Riker.”

  Barclay had no idea where Riker was. On the bridge, he assumed, coping with the latest ghastly emergency. There you go again, he chastised himself, leaping to the worst possible conclusion. But he couldn’t help it. The flashing red alert signals and blaring sirens ate away at his nerves like Tarcassian piranha. A dozen nightmarish scenarios, ranging from an uncontrolled plasma leak to a full-scale Q invasion, raced through his mind. He tried to dismiss his fears as irrational and unfounded, but with only partial success. An angry Q could do anything, he thought, anything at all. Still, he somehow managed to get the professor away from La Forge and into the turbolift. Let me just get Faal stowed away safely. Then I can report my findings on the probe. “Which deck are your quarters on?” he asked.

  “Seven,” Faal said grudgingly, still visibly incensed. Unable to stand upright on his own, he had to lean back against the wall of the lift. Something wet and clotted gurgled in his lungs. Barclay tried not to stare at the silv
er hypospray Faal removed from his pocket. It’s not contagious, he kept reminding himself. It’s not.

  The turbolift came to a stop and the doors whooshed open, revealing an empty corridor leading to the ship’s deluxe guest quarters, the ones reserved for visiting admirals and ambassadors. Nothing but the best for the winner of the Daystrom Prize, Barclay thought, wondering how much larger the suite was than his own quarters on Level Eleven. “Here we are,” he announced, grateful that Faal had not raised more of a fuss once they left Engineering. I’ll just drop him off, then hurry back to Mr. La Forge. He still needed to tell the chief about the psionic energy the probe had picked up.

  “Just give me a minute, Lieutenant,” Faal said. His hypospray hissed for an instant, and the debilitated scientist grabbed on to the handrail for support. His chest rose and fell slowly as he choked back a rasping cough. Barclay looked away so as not to embarrass the professor.

  The next thing he knew a pair of hands shoved him out of the lift compartment into the hall. Surprised and befuddled, he spun around in time to see the doors sliding shut in front of his face. For one brief instant, he glimpsed Faal through the disappearing gap in the door. The Betazoid grinned maliciously at him. The doors came together and the lift was on its way.

  Oh no! he thought. He immediately called for another lift, which arrived seconds later, and he jumped inside. I can’t believe I let him do that. I can’t even keep track of one sickly Betazoid. He didn’t know how he was ever going to look Geordi La Forge in the eyes again. Just when I thought I was really on to something, what with the probe and all, I have to go and do something like this!

  “Destination?” the turbolift inquired when Barclay didn’t say anything at first. The prompt jogged his mind. Where could Professor Faal have run off to? Back to Engineering? Boy, was Chief La Forge going to be annoyed when Faal showed up to pester him again. “Engineering,” he blurted, and the lift began to descend. Maybe I can still stop him before he gets to Mr. La Forge.