The Antares Maelstrom

by Greg Cox

  Could be worse, he thought. A few more moments and—

  “Hikaru!” Helena greeted him from her post. “Thank Olympus we got you in time.”

  “I was just thinking the same.” He made his way across the lurching bridge, grabbing onto rails and consoles to keep from stumbling. “The shuttle?”

  “In pieces,” she reported. “Carried away by the currents.”

  Sulu felt a twinge of guilt regarding Fleetness’s destruction. Starfleet would surely compensate the Zephrytes for the loss of their shuttle, but he’d hoped to return it to them in one piece. He couldn’t help feeling that he’d abused their trust to a degree, even if lives had been at stake.

  “And yourself ?” she asked.

  “All here.” He patted himself down, realizing as he did so that he was hardly looking his best. He was sweaty and disheveled; his uniform reeked of soot and smoke. “Not that I’ve been fully checked out by a medic, mind you, but I appear to be fully operational, if a bit worse for wear. Thanks for that.”

  “Welcome aboard,” she said warmly. “Sorry I can’t give you the grand tour, but this is not exactly a good time.”

  “So I can see.”

  He took a moment to survey the bridge. It was hard to miss that the Lucky Strike was taking a pounding. Sulu wondered how much more it could take before going the way of Fleetness. Was his narrow escape merely a temporary reprieve?

  “Another rain check, then?” she said.

  “Story of our lives,” he replied. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

  She smiled wryly. “The lengths some guys will go just to have a drink with a gal.”

  “At least you returned my call, lucky for me.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dajo said sourly, breaking into their banter. “Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant, but if you’re through distracting my first officer, we’ve got a Maelstrom to cross. Find yourself a seat and stay out of the way.”

  Sulu bristled at his tone, but let it pass. The Lucky Strike had just saved his life after all. That earned its captain some leeway.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Helena said. “Sulu is a decorated Starfleet officer and one of their very best helmsmen. We’d be fools not to take advantage of that, under the circumstances.”

  “We already have a helmsman,” Dajo groused. “And your friend the lieutenant has already complicated matters enough.”

  Sulu appreciated Helena’s endorsement, but didn’t want to make waves on an already stormy sea. He also decided that there would be time enough to confront Dajo about recklessly venturing into the Maelstrom if and when they reached Baldur III. He took an unoccupied post at an auxiliary sensor station near Helena and fastened his seat belt.

  “I’m ready to pitch in as needed.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” Dajo said before turning his chair toward his own helmsman, a young male human, around Chekov’s age, wearing civilian attire like the rest of Dajo’s crew. Sulu noted that the helm and navigation stations had been combined into a single unit so that they could be operated by just one crew member. Dajo tapped his boot impatiently against the floor. “Talk to me, Perez. Where’s the Passage?”

  “I don’t know, Captain Dajo, sir.” Perez wiped sweat from his brow. His taut voice and body language betrayed the pressure he was under. “I’m following the course you provided, but I’m not finding anything resembling a safe passage.” He gestured at the seething kaleidoscope of colors on the viewscreen. “Just kilometer after kilometer of . . . that.”

  “That can’t be right,” Dajo insisted. “Recalibrate your instrumentation to make sure we’re at the proper coordinates. Maybe a swell nudged us off course without you realizing.”

  “I’ve already tried that, Captain. Trust me, we’re precisely where we’re supposed to be. It’s the Passage that’s a no-show.”

  “That’s impossible!” Dajo pounded his fist on an armrest. “He gave me a money-back guarantee that those charts were the real deal!”

  A sudden suspicion crossed Sulu’s mind.

  “Excuse me, Captain. Who exactly sold you those charts?”

  “Naylis, if you must know.” Vexed, Dajo apparently saw no reason to protect the current object of his ire. “I paid a hefty price for them too. That greedy Troyian drives a hard bargain.”

  I should have known, Sulu thought. “I hate to break it to you, Captain, but Naylis played you, along with the rest of us. He had his own agenda that didn’t involve you or anyone else getting to Baldur III anytime soon.”

  He quickly briefed both Dajo and Helena on what Naylis had been up to, leaving out only the part where Naylis had subjected him to the neural neutralizer; there was nothing to be gained by calling his own loyalties or capacities into question. And, come to think of it, the Voice did seem to be finally fading away at last. It was still there, whispering at the back of his mind, but it was getting fainter and easier to ignore.

  Everything is fine. There is nothing to worry about . . .

  Circumstances begged to differ. Nothing like coming within seconds of being destroyed along with your spacecraft, Sulu surmised, to focus the mind on the here and now. He almost had to admire, however, the way Naylis had shamelessly worked every angle: getting overeager skippers like Dajo to pay to put their ships in danger while simultaneously getting paid by their rivals to keep them from reaching Baldur III soon or ever. Harry Mudd would be proud.

  “That perfidious green reprobate!” Dajo raged. “Is there no honor left in this benighted galaxy? No integrity?”

  Sulu refrained from commenting, choosing to familiarize himself with the short-range sensor controls instead. That struck him as a better use of his time.

  “Nobody deals false with me.” Dajo slammed a fist into his palm. “When I get my hands on him—!”

  “You may have to take a number,” Sulu said. “But the point is, I wouldn’t trust any information provided by Naylis, of all people. The Passage is a pipe dream that’s just going to get us all killed.”

  A tremor shook the bridge, punctuating his assessment.

  “He’s right, Mirsa,” Helena said. “Now that we know the truth, that we got swindled, it’s crazy to keep looking for a passage that may not even exist. We need to cut our losses and get out of the Maelstrom while we still can.”

  Dajo hesitated, obviously reluctant to give up on his daring ploy. “But I promised our passengers that I would get them to Baldur III as quickly as possible.”

  “I’m guessing you also promised to get them there alive,” Sulu said. “We all know that’s not going to happen if you persist in trying to cross the Maelstrom. You took a gamble, Dajo, but it didn’t pay off. Don’t double down on a bad bet.”

  “Listen to him, Mirsa,” Helena urged. “We need to be smart about this.”

  “I know, I know,” he said with a sigh. “I just hate to let common sense spoil a properly audacious plan. Playing it safe goes against my grain, not to mention being bad for my image.”

  Sulu could sympathize to a degree. He also liked to see himself as something of a swashbuckler, within reason. “But—?”

  “Take us out of here, Perez,” the captain ordered. “We gave it our best shot, but the Maelstrom got the better of us. Hightail it back to normal space.”

  “Not going to be that easy, Captain,” the young helmsman said. “That last big bump knocked us off course and the astrogator is getting screwy on me, so I can’t get any proper bearings. And the Maelstrom makes it impossible to navigate by any known celestial landmarks. We’re surrounded by constantly shifting rivers of plasma in every direction: ahead, behind, above, below, you name it. To be honest, sir, I can’t even retrace our route, Captain.”

  Dajo frowned. “What exactly are you saying, Perez?”

  “We’re lost, Captain. Plain and simple.”

  A hush fell over the bridge as the full implications of the helmsman’s announcement sunk in. Sulu experienced an unpleasant flash of déjà vu; this was like being stuck on Fleetness a
ll over again. The Lucky Strike couldn’t survive the Maelstrom indefinitely.

  “Shield status?” Dajo asked.

  A Trill woman at a tactical station responded. Like Perez, she was dressed more casually than a Starfleet crew member. A tank top, sweat pants, and headband made her look off duty by Enterprise standards. A bare midriff exposed her bilateral spotting, at least in part. “Fifty-eight percent, sir, for now.”

  “I see,” Dajo said. He didn’t have to spell out what that meant; that the shields were already down nearly forty percent was not a good thing. The clock was ticking and they had no idea which way safety lay. To his credit, Dajo tried to put up a brave front. “More than half strength? That’s better than I expected. Don’t lose heart, ladies and gentlemen, et cetera, things could be worse.”

  Then they came under attack.

  A dazzling sapphire pulse lit up the viewscreen even as a powerful jolt caused the lights in the bridge to flicker and the screen to blink out. Sulu glanced down at the scanner display at the station he had appropriated. His eyes widened at what he saw on the screen.

  “What in Hades was that?” Helena said. “That didn’t feel like turbulence.”

  “Because it wasn’t,” Sulu said. “Heads up. We’ve got company!”

  Rebooting, the forward viewscreen confirmed his pronouncement. An unfamiliar life-form glided past the screen, only meters away from the prow of the ship. Sulu caught a glimpse of a delta-shaped creature that looked like a cross between a manta ray and, ironically enough, the Starfleet insignia. It was roughly the size of a photon torpedo and its smooth iridescent hide glowed sporadically in places, with the radiant areas shifting constantly along the entity’s surface.

  Some sort of natural bioluminescence?

  “Reverse that image and freeze it,” Dajo ordered, leaning forward in his chair. “Give it thirty percent of the screen.”

  “Got it,” a random crew member said informally. “Here you go.”

  A freeze-frame of the creature took over roughly a third of the screen, leaving a real-time view of what lay directly ahead on the bulk of the viewer. Sulu and the others gaped at the unfamiliar life-form.

  “Anybody have a clue what exactly that is?” Dajo asked, possibly rhetorically.

  “One of the mysterious life-forms rumored to inhabit the Maelstrom,” Sulu assumed. His knowledge of extraterrestrial flora and fauna was not quite as encyclopedic as Mister Spock’s, but Sulu felt confident that the entity on the screen was largely unknown to Federation science. At best it was the stuff of xenocryptozoology—until now. “Beyond that, your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Watch out!” Helena said. “It’s coming around again!”

  Looping about, the entity swooped out of the churning plasma to smack against the ship’s shields again. Another sapphire pulse jolted the vessel, causing the lights and circuity to sputter. Sulu moved quickly to power down his sensor controls to keep them from burning out during the surge.

  “Shields down to fifty-six percent,” the spotted crew member reported. “Those pulses pack a punch.”

  And that was on top of the pummeling the ship was already getting from the Maelstrom, Sulu realized. Their situation had suddenly become even more precarious, unless they could repel the creature.

  “Just what we don’t need,” Dajo said. “Energize phasers, Fass. Let’s give that beast a taste of its own medicine.”

  “Way ahead of you, Skipper,” the spotted woman said. “Phaser batteries ramping up.”

  Sulu frowned at the prospect of immediately firing upon a hitherto undiscovered life-form, but he couldn’t really fault Dajo for taking action to protect his ship and everyone aboard. With any luck, the phasers would only discourage the creature, not damage it.

  “Acquiring target,” Fass said. “Opening fire.”

  A bright yellow beam sliced through the Maelstrom to strike the underside of the creature as it banked away from the ship, possibly gearing up for another run at the Lucky Strike. The beam hit the life-form head-on, but only seemed to jar it. Its luminous segments flared brightly before dimming back to their original intensity. Sulu squinted at the flier, half relieved, half concerned, that the phaser burst hadn’t impacted the creature more. If anything, the entity appeared to be slightly . . . larger?

  What exactly were they dealing with here?

  “Don’t look now!” Helena pointed at the upper left-hand corner of the screen, which was partially obscured by the inset image of the life-form’s first appearance. “Our new friend’s not alone!”

  Two more of the gliders emerged from the Maelstrom, swooping aggressively toward the ship. Taking initiative, Fass fired the phasers at the new arrivals, who appeared to shrug off the blasts as easily as the first creature. They slammed into the Lucky Strike, delivering jolt after jolt, or maybe sting after sting?

  “Increase power to the phasers!” Dajo ordered. “Show them we’re not playing around!”

  “I’m trying, Skipper!” Fass said. “They’re not getting the message!”

  “Hit them harder, then!”

  “Not so fast!” Sulu said. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why is that?” Dajo asked. “And who asked you anyway?”

  “I’m running a scan on them,” Sulu said. “As nearly as I can tell, they’re composed of both matter and energy, in ever-shifting proportions. That’s what those glowing patterns are, flowing all over their bodies; every part of the gliders can transition from matter to energy and back again.”

  “To what end?” Helena asked.

  “Possibly to help them steer through the Maelstrom?” Sulu speculated. “By redistributing or altering their mass as necessary, like an old-fashioned submarine adjusting its buoyancy. In theory, they can make themselves heavier on one side than the other, tilt forward or backward, pitch and yaw, while gliding through the plasma currents.”

  It was just a theory, but it made sense to the helmsman in him.

  Dajo snorted. “And that means we shouldn’t defend ourselves because . . . ?”

  “Don’t you get it?” Sulu asked. “Those creatures can apparently convert energy into body mass at will or by instinct. Blasting them with energy beams isn’t going to hurt them. If anything, it’s only going to fuel them or heal them or even enlarge them!”

  “And you got that from a quick, short-range scan?” Dajo challenged him. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re just a pilot on the Enterprise, not a science officer.”

  “I started out in the astrosciences division, with a sideline in botany,” Sulu said. “I know my physics and biology, and, in my estimation, those gliders are not going to be stopped by phasers, no matter how high powered.”

  “Gliders?” Helena echoed. “Is that what we’re calling them?”

  Sulu shrugged. “Less of a mouthful than Maelstromites.”

  “Works for me,” she said.

  Triple shocks rocked the bridge, while further chipping away at the shields.

  “Captain?” Fass inquired. “Should I keep firing back?”

  Dajo glared at Sulu before shaking his head. “Belay that, Liddia. Let’s try to outrun them instead.” He nodded at the helmsman. “Hit the gas, Perez.”

  “Which way, sir?”

  “Anywhere but here,” Dajo barked, “and away from those things!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The Lucky Strike picked up speed, accelerating into the Maelstrom, which made for an even choppier flight. Sulu tracked the gliders, hoping to see them fall out of range of the sensors as the ship left them behind, but saw the opposite instead.

  “Are we losing them?” Dajo asked.

  “Negative,” Sulu answered. “They’re hot on our trail, at warp speed, no less, and that’s not all. There’s more converging on us . . . from all directions.”

  “Evasive action!” Dajo commanded. “See if you can shake them!”

  Easier said than done, Sulu thought. They were in shark-infested waters, so to speak; they we
re bound to encounter gliders whichever way they fled for as long as they remained lost in the Maelstrom. We’re in their domain.

  “Why are they attacking us?” Helena said. “Are we on the menu, or what?”

  “I doubt they’re predators,” Sulu answered, although he couldn’t say so for certain. “Hard to imagine that they evolved to feed on the infrequent flesh-and-blood space traveler. Where are their natural prey? I’m not picking up any other organic life-forms on the sensors.”

  He wondered if the gliders fed on the Maelstrom itself, or perhaps sustained themselves on some specific kind of particles or radiation found within the coursing plasma streams. Spock would surely have figured that out by now, but Sulu had more urgent matters on his mind.

  “So what’s their beef ?” Helena asked. “Why won’t they leave us alone?”

  “Aggression, territoriality, fear of the unknown?” Sulu could think of plenty of possible motives. “Who knows?”

  “I don’t care why they’re after us,” Dajo said crossly. “I just want to save my ship . . . and our passengers, of course.”

  “Speaking of which,” Helena said, “those passengers are getting agitated, understandably.” She fingered her earpiece while manipulating the communications controls, which were lighting up like a swarm of Denebian glowflies. “I’m getting flooded with anxious queries over the intercoms. Want to try calming them down?”

  “If I must,” Dajo said grudgingly. “Patch me in shipwide.”

  She flicked a switch and gave him a go sign. “You’re on.”

  He cleared his throat before hitting the speaker button on his chair. His voice dropped an octave to sound more authoritative.

  “Attention, passengers. This is your captain speaking. As you may have noticed, we are experiencing a high degree of turbulence, but there is no cause for alarm,” he lied. “Please keep your seat belts fastened until notified otherwise. Thank you for your cooperation.”