Farkas looked as if she dearly wanted to dock points for this, but held her peace.
“The question before us is, to what lengths are we willing to go to learn more about it?” Itak asked ominously.
“Sir?” Lern asked of his captain.
“Further analysis will require us to move beyond passive scans and begin interacting with it, will they not?” Itak said, though Dasht was sure that a scientist with Itak’s credentials knew the answer to that question.
“Yes, sir,” the Vulcan science officer replied.
“Why is that a problem?” Dasht asked.
“With the limited data available, it is impossible to theorize as to what any action we take, even one we might presume to be safe, might do to the anomaly,” Itak clarified.
“You’re saying we could break it?” Farkas asked.
“It’s not solid,” Hornung reminded her.
Farkas then asked, “Is there any chance this thing was created by someone or something?”
“Possible,” Itak replied. “But without further study . . .”
Farkas waved him off. “What I’m asking is, if someone or something put it here on purpose, right smack dab in the middle of nowhere where it’s awfully unlikely to be discovered and disturbed, maybe we’d do well to just leave it alone.”
“You can’t be serious,” Dasht exclaimed, certain he was speaking for all of the scientists present.
“I can’t?” Farkas asked pointedly. “Look, Parimon, I’m all about discovery. The thrill of it gets me out of my rack every morning. But there are times when our curiosity runs ahead of our capabilities. I just want to make sure this isn’t one of those times.”
“Something akin to a child coming across a phaser rifle?” Chan asked.
Farkas nodded. “It might get awfully unlucky and accidentally disable the safety.”
“There remain numerous noninvasive tests we could run that might shed more light on the anomaly without risk,” Hornung offered.
“As long as we’re not going to try firing a photon torpedo at it or anything,” Farkas said.
“Not unless it fires first,” Dasht assured her.
With a deep sigh, Farkas replied, “Well then, why don’t we all get back to our respective ships and begin running those extremely safe, noninvasive tests?”
MIKHAL OUTPOST
Hovering next to Eden, the Doctor found himself at a loss as to how best to proceed. Her shrieks had subsided, replaced by several gasps, which slowly gave way to more normal, labored breathing. Basic physical scans were nominal, but the quantum scans were so wildly off baseline, he didn’t like to think about what they might portend. The fact that Eden was floating tens of meters above the floor was certainly cause for alarm. His scans detected nothing that might explain it. This meant that getting her down safely could prove challenging.
Toward that end, he asked softly, “Captain Eden? Afsarah, can you hear me?”
Faint murmurs were her only response.
He considered simply sedating her and dealing with the rest once they were at ground level again, then he noted the intense way Eden’s eyes were fixed on the center of the black lake. To him, the shiny black surface appeared exactly as it always had. Clearly, she was seeing something that was quite alarming, if only in her mind’s eye.
“Tallar?” she whispered so softly, he wasn’t sure he had heard her right.
Eden stretched both of her arms forward, as though reaching for something just beyond her grasp, and shouted, “Tallar!”
“Captain Eden,” the Doctor called to her more firmly. If this was some sort of waking dream that included sleepflying rather than sleepwalking, it could be dangerous to try and wake her. He slowly raised his hands, preparing to place them around her shoulders for a gentle shake, when she screamed, “Tallar, no!”
He recoiled automatically as her right hand stretched behind her. A loud metallic clank and snap were followed instantaneously by a whizzing sound, and before the Doctor could process what had just happened, a long shaft of metal, similar to the Staff of Ren, was caught in her hand. The Doctor chanced a look down and clearly saw Cambridge bending low and shielding his head with his arms, no doubt worried that other very dangerous objects might soon begin flying through the air.
The Doctor had to find a way to get control of this situation. “Captain,” he said again, quite loudly as he placed both hands on the sides of her shoulders.
Eden paid him no heed. Instead, she lifted the staff to shoulder height, reared her arm back, and with grace and precision worthy of a competitive javelin thrower, hurled the shaft through the air.
Its forward end collided with the center of the black surface. A faint and disquieting crunch followed the impact. The Doctor could make out dozens of wide cracks opening in the surface from the center where the staff had struck.
Eden slumped forward. The Doctor grabbed her firmly around her torso and began a gradual descent. She was dead weight, but manageable, and after a few tense moments he once again felt solid ground beneath his feet.
The Doctor laid her gently down as Cambridge rushed to his side.
“Well done,” he offered quietly as the Doctor began a new round of scans. “How is she?”
The Doctor simply replied, “Asleep.”
Cambridge considered this for a moment, then lifted his eyes to the black surface, where the cracks were continuing to extend. “I suppose it could be worse.”
“Really?” the Doctor demanded. “How? No, don’t tell me.”
A series of high-pitched beeps from their campsite made both of them jump. A smile erupted on Cambridge’s face as he said, “Oh, cheer up, Doctor,” and hurried back to the source of the signal.
Moments later he returned and hastily began assembling a perimeter of pattern enhancers around them.
“What are you doing?” the Doctor demanded.
“I would think that would be fairly obvious,” Cambridge replied. “Here,” he added, tossing his tricorder to the Doctor. “I rigged a patch to our comm system yesterday to enhance the signal, on the assumption that the interference from our present location would be tough for the standard setting.”
The Doctor stared in amazement at the bright green blinking light that indicated a stable com signal from Achilles.
“Whatever is happening to her, I presume you’d rather treat her in sickbay than here?” Cambridge asked.
“Absolutely,” the Doctor said, nodding.
Cambridge then keyed a sequence into the tricorder, alerting Achilles that they were as ready as they would ever be.
“Energize,” Cambridge said with a wink, and the cavern vanished around them.
QUIRINAL
Regina Farkas sat in her ready room, staring out of the large port. The view from her desk, which was parallel to the window, was nice enough. But after returning from Esquiline, she’d perched on the long, cushioned bench that ran just below the port, gazing toward a point in space so distant it was impossible for her naked eye to perceive.
Normally, discoveries or tactical situations that disquieted Farkas sent her roaming her ship’s halls. She’d always thought best on her feet. Something about this particular anomaly had planted her in the only spot on the ship from which she could enjoy a private, unobstructed, and completely imaginary view of it.
She couldn’t place the source of her disquiet. Starfleet regularly stumbled across all manner of interstellar phenomena that could not immediately be identified or catalogued. Farkas was usually content to allow those who had devoted their lives to understanding such things to do their work, and as their captain, she did her best to give them all the resources they required.
This anomaly should be no different.
After the briefing aboard Esquiline it was agreed that all four ships were to stay and study it. There was no pressing tactical or logistical reason to cut their explorations short.
The Quirinal’s captain continued to check in with her internal early warning system.
In the past she had come to recognize a particular tension: years of service had convinced her it was her subconscious letting her know that something was wrong. Farkas had grown accustomed to trusting it, and it rarely let her down.
Right now, that system was eerily silent. Farkas tried to convince herself that this was a good thing. But the longer she stared out the port, the more difficult she found it to shake the completely irrational idea that the darkness out there was somehow darker than usual.
“Nothing to do?” The familiar, rough voice came from behind her.
Turning, the captain found one of her oldest friends and Quirinal’s CMO, Doctor El’nor Sal, standing just inside the ready room’s door. Farkas replied dryly, “I don’t recall giving you permission to enter.”
“I did ask,” Sal offered, “several times. When you didn’t answer, I had the computer confirm you were in here and that your life signs were normal. Then I hit the door’s chime again, and you still didn’t answer, so I got worried.”
“I could have been in the middle of something indecent.”
“In your ready room?”
Farkas smiled faintly at memories from many, many years ago.
“Alone?” Sal added with emphasis.
“Okay, you got me there.”
Sal moved toward the bench and sat unceremoniously beside the captain. “How was lunch?”
“As good as replicated sandwiches can be,” Farkas replied. “The pickles weren’t half bad, though.”
“I meant the briefing.”
“I know what you meant.”
Sal sat back, considering her old friend. “Let me guess. The shiny new space thingie that has every science officer on this ship pulling extra shifts is extra special unusual?” She smiled.
Farkas smiled back. “Pretty much, except for the shiny part.”
“You worried?”
Farkas thought about it and shook her head. “No.”
“Then what is it?” Sal asked more seriously.
“I think I’m tired,” Farkas replied.
Sal remained still, her eyes suggesting she wasn’t buying it.
The captain shook her head again. “Or maybe I’m just getting old.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Sal asked. “A couple of weeks ago you could barely keep your feet on the floor. Your ship almost dug its own grave on an unnamed planet in the middle of nowhere. You were practically killed fighting off an alien invasion. Against all odds we survived, and for weeks you’ve been running around here with the eagerness of a first-year cadet. But now you’re tired.”
Farkas gently patted Sal’s leg. “I know. I’m a puzzle.”
“Not usually,” Sal corrected her, “at least not to me.”
The captain returned her gaze to the window. “What do you see when you look out there?”
Sal’s shoulders drooped. “Space.” After a long pause she asked, “Why? What do you see?”
“I don’t know,” Farkas replied. “Usually, I look out there at the stars and I see endless possibilities.”
“That sounds about right.”
“But today, I just see the darkness in between them.”
The doctor considered this, then placed a hand on Farkas’s shoulder. “We all have days like that, Regina. Tomorrow, or maybe the day after, you’ll start noticing the stars again. And if you don’t, we’ll figure out why.”
Farkas turned back to her with a faint smile of unspoken gratitude. Suddenly, the ship lurched subtly, shooting her instantly to her feet. Before she could tap her combadge, her first officer, Commander Malcolm Roach, called, “Captain to the bridge.”
Farkas hurried out the door that accessed the bridge and called, “Report,” as she moved to the seat Roach had just vacated.
“We’re detecting a shift in the configuration of the anomaly,” Roach replied.
“On-screen,” she ordered.
Within moments a rather mundane view of space was replaced with what looked like an unusually bright light Farkas could have sworn wasn’t there earlier. Seconds later, it vanished.
The captain suddenly realized that the thing she’d been struggling with but unable to name for the last few hours hadn’t been a sense of danger or fear of the unknown. It was the awful awareness that some things were so unknowable, no fear could do them justice.
“Shields. Red Alert. Ensign Hoch,” she called to her flight controller, “put a light-year between us and the anomaly, maximum warp.”
“Aye, Captain,” Hoch replied.
Farkas counted the seconds with each beat of her heart as she waited for the main viewscreen to show the initial warp field effect of stars stretching out into long white lines. She got to ten and was distracted by a sharp lurch to port, this time strong enough to force her to grab her armrests to maintain an upright position.
“Mister Hoch?” she demanded.
“Unable to establish a warp field, Captain.”
“Full impulse then,” she ordered. “Farkas to Lieutenant Bryce.”
“Bryce here, Captain,” replied the young man who had been chief engineer for only a few weeks.
“I need warp speed ten seconds ago.”
“Understood, Captain. But we can’t create a stable warp field until we get clear of the anomaly’s effects on subspace.”
“Hoch, do what you can,” Farkas ordered.
Five more seconds, and the ship began to shudder and rattle. The inertial dampers cut out, and the ship jerked, pitching her forward. As the dampers cut back in, she barely kept her seat. Her spine crunched as it met the back of her chair at an unsafe velocity.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“The anomaly appears to have shattered, Captain,” Hornung reported from the science station.
“I thought we couldn’t break it,” Farkas whispered. “Noninvasive, perfectly safe tests, my ass,” she added under her breath. Then, louder, “Report.”
“Multiple fractures have appeared all around us and are continuing to extend beyond our position. Navigating around them at full impulse is not possible. Reducing to half,” Hoch said.
“At your discretion,” Farkas replied. The captain knew well everyone was sharing the same thought: Get us out of here.
“Jepel,” she called to her operations officer, “what is the status of our sister ships?”
“Hawking, Curie, and Esquiline were closer to the anomaly at the moment of . . .” He trailed off, clearly unsure how to describe what he was seeing.
“Of whatever wasn’t supposed to happen but somehow did, I know,” Farkas replied grimly. So they’re probably worse off than we are.“Hornung?” she asked.
“We’re now reading multiple fractures over a hundred localized event horizons,” the science officer said.
“Don’t event horizons come with gravimetric distortions?” Farkas asked.
“Yes, Captain,” Hornung replied, then added with less confidence, “but these are not normal event horizons, even though that’s the best term available to describe the intersection between normal space and the anomaly. What’s important right now is that the density of the fractures and their sheer volume make it increasingly likely we will be unable to avoid slipping into one.”
“When?” Farkas asked.
“Uncertain,” Hornung replied.
“But something we should avoid, if possible, Ensign Hoch,” Farkas called to the conn.
“Captain, a fracture is closing on our position,” Hornung advised. “We can’t outrun it at half impulse.”
“How long?” Farkas demanded.
“At current speed, thirty seconds,” Hornung replied.
“Send out an emergency hail on our secure frequency. Tell anyone responding to approach our coordinates with extreme caution.” Opening her channel ship-wide, Farkas added, “All hands, this is the captain.” She suddenly paused, wondering exactly how to describe what was likely about to happen to all of them. She settled for, “Brace for impact.”
Chapter Nineteen<
br />
Q CONTINUUM
Kathryn Janeway had no idea how long she and Kes held one another, but eventually Kes pulled gently back. Still holding Kathryn by both shoulders, she looked her over from head to toe. A tinge of mischief lighted upon her lips as Kes said, “There. That’s better.”
Kathryn looked down and realized she was once again clad in the uniform of a Starfleet admiral. It appeared to be a universal law that everyone entered, or reentered, existence naked. The perfectly tailored, form-fitting ensemble had always felt like a second skin covering her body, but now Kathryn became conscious of how severely it restricted her.
Even her skin, she discovered, was taking a little getting used to. Kathryn had faint memories of herself as a young child, coming upon one of her father’s discarded uniform jackets. She had pulled it around her, comforted beyond measure by its warmth, but more deeply, by its smell. It was as if she had found a way to wrap herself in her father’s love. To stand again in her own body was a similar sensation. It was pleasantly familiar, but like her father’s much too large jacket, it was a bit unwieldy. Briefly, she mourned the freedom she had recently known beyond her body. But with each passing second, her new existence became more familiar and real, while her old one slipped into the realm of half-forgotten dreams.
Testing her voice, Kathryn said softly, “How can I ever thank you enough for what you’ve done?”
“You would have done no less for me, were our situations reversed,” Kes assured her.
Kathryn nodded.
“Are you ready, then, Aunt Kathy?” Q asked, stepping closer.
She wasn’t. All that she had just experienced would take months, if not years, to process. She knew full well that at least for now, she, Q, and Kes occupied a reality separate from the normal flow of time. Part of her wished to linger here indefinitely, or at least until she felt more prepared to step into the duty she had signed up for when she made this choice.
This is life, the now much more distant voice of her consciousness reminded her.
Forcing herself to set aside her fears, Kathryn asked, “Where exactly am I going?”
Star Trek: Voyager - 041 - The Eternal Tide Page 18
