Star Trek: Discovery: Fear Itself

by James Swallow

  “Lieutenant. It appears we had the same idea this morning.”

  “Lieutenant,” he repeated. “It would seem so.” Resigned to the way this would now play out, Saru got himself some muesli and yogurt from the food synthesizer, seasoned it with a generous amount of Aldebaran paprika, then took the seat across the table from Burnham.

  She didn’t give him time to start eating. “I’ve reviewed the sensor readings . . . again. A physical tear-down of the damaged unit in the lab is the next logical step. Remote analysis simply isn’t giving us the answers we need.”

  Saru doggedly chewed a large spoonful before replying. “Captain Georgiou’s orders were clear. Proceed with caution. If we bring the buoy on board before we know for certain that it does not pose a risk to the ship, we will be negligent in our duties—”

  “It’s inert,” insisted Burnham. “I am sure of that.”

  “I know you are sure,” he countered.

  “There comes a point where a degree of risk has to be accepted,” she went on. “This ship wouldn’t be out here if that wasn’t true. Starfleet wouldn’t exist. You would still be living on Kaminar.”

  “It could be booby-trapped,” said Saru, cutting off her train of thought. “The Tholians have been known to use such tactics.”

  “There’s no proof they’re responsible.” The ghost of a smile played over her lips. “But . . . that is a fair point. All right. If you won’t let me bring it to us, we’ll go to it.”

  “What?” Saru blinked.

  “You and I can go out in thruster suits. With the work we need to do, I don’t estimate the EVA operation lasting more than . . . say, ten or twelve hours?”

  Saru’s skin prickled. The notion of floating around in deep space with only a few layers of flex-mesh and a bubble helmet between him and an instant freeze-boiling death did not appeal to the Kelpien. “It has been a while since my last zero-g refresher course,” he admitted.

  “Really?” Burnham arched her eyebrow in a very Vulcan fashion. “Perhaps you’d like to reconsider my previous suggestion.”

  Her tone made him bristle, and irritation flared in Saru’s eyes. His jaw dropped open slightly in an instinctive reaction, exposing the sensing surface in the roof of his mouth. Back on Kaminar, the action would allow his species to taste the air and pick up traces of predators, but here and now it was a signifier of his annoyance at Burnham’s attempt to take charge of their shared assignment.

  It would have been easy to give in to complete dislike of the human, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was good at what she did. Saru couldn’t deny that she had a sharp, incisive mind, and that only made things worse. It was no secret aboard the Shenzhou that Lieutenant Michael Burnham was a rising star, charting an ascent through the ranks that was positively meteoric. Saru had heard other officers talking about her as the front-runner for the post of ship’s exec, in a few years when the time came for the current first officer Commander ch’Theloh to go on to a ship of his own. That sat poorly with the Kelpien.

  Saru’s own career arc was tracing a much flatter trajectory, a slow-and-steady path he had built through hard work and careful deliberation. He was a scientist, that was his first and truest impulse, but the role of XO, and the road that led to command of a starship, beckoned to Saru in a way that nothing in his life ever had. He didn’t believe in concepts like destiny, but after leaving his homeworld for Starfleet Academy, Saru believed that there was a true vocation he was best suited for. Captain of a starship, exploring the unknown, keeping the Federation safe. That was a future he dared to aspire to.

  But Burnham would get there first. He could sense the inevitability of it. She would eclipse him and race ahead, and on some level the human knew so. In his more pessimistic moments, Saru wondered if Burnham saw him as an obstacle in her path toward the center seat. He couldn’t read her, and anything Saru could not read, he automatically considered to be a danger.

  Before he could stop himself, he was returning to the pattern of argumentative discourse that seemed to color every conversation between the two lieutenants.

  “The act of beaming the unit aboard could trigger a concealed weapon,” he said quickly. “A protective force field would need to be set up around the lab to contain any possible discharge—”

  Burnham tapped her pad. “I programmed a suitable containment-field macro earlier this morning.”

  “Of course you did,” he muttered. “I find it difficult to understand why someone raised in the Vulcan doctrines fails to grasp the logic of being careful.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Just as I fail to understand how a being who grew up around lethal predators can’t make a value judgment between a real danger and an illusory one. Only so much can be achieved by watching from the sidelines, Saru.”

  He drew back and fixed her with an arch look. “I recall a human aphorism about fools rushing in . . .”

  Burnham’s lip curled. “We’ve been at this for days. There’s no rushing of any kind going on.” She let out a breath. “Which is why I chose to proceed with the transport before I started my breakfast.”

  “What?” Saru shot to his feet and took a step toward the ports along the length of the mess hall. He immediately looked out toward the bow, where he had seen the buoy adrift from his cabin. The object was no longer visible.

  Burnham got up and walked over. “We’re all still here. So I guess that means the buoy wasn’t booby-trapped after all.”

  “You had no right to proceed without me.” Saru’s words were tight with annoyance, and he glared out at the stars. “We may share the same rank, but I have served longer, I have seniority!”

  She stood beside him, looking at the void. “This isn’t about that. I’m not trying to undermine you, I’m trying to complete our assignment.”

  “By ignoring regulations?”

  “By interpreting them,” Burnham shot back. “To best effect.”

  “Then what was the point of that comment about the EVA?”

  She shrugged. “I was interested to see how you would reply.”

  Saru turned to face her, raising a finger, belatedly becoming aware that someone was standing behind the two of them. “Your assignment is to analyze the buoy, not my response to . . .” He trailed off as he realized that the new arrival was Shenzhou’s commanding officer, Captain Philippa Georgiou. Burnham, too, reacted with surprise at the other woman’s appearance.

  The captain had an unerring ability to approach out of nowhere that even Saru’s acute senses sometimes missed, and a mentor’s seemingly bottomless patience for the quirks of her crew. A wry smile played on Georgiou’s face as she sipped at a mug of tea. “Oh, Mister Saru,” she began, “don’t stop on my account. It’s fascinating to watch my officers bickering in their natural habitat.”

  “It isn’t . . .” Saru stiffened in embarrassment. “We were not . . .”

  To her credit, Burnham had the honesty to look as contrite as Saru felt. “We weren’t bickering, Captain. It was more of a . . . a spirited . . .”

  “Spirited discussion,” Saru added. “Between two differing . . .”

  “Scientific methods,” concluded Burnham as the pair of them patched together a shared explanation.

  “Was it?” Georgiou said mildly, and with those words Saru briefly felt like an errant child called to account by an elder. At his side, Burnham stood as stiffly as he did. “While I approve of competing schools of thought aboard my ship, I do draw the line at outright disagreement.” The captain took another sip and eyed them both. “You are two of my best officers. Your skills are meant to complement each other, not create friction.” Another commander might have made those words an admonishment, but not Philippa Georgiou. She made it sound like a challenge, like a request. Her smile deepened. “Well. Not too much.”

  “Lieutenant Saru and I will have an updated report by the end of the shift,” said Burnham. “I’ll inform the chief engineer he can deploy the replacement buoy.” She gave Saru a questioning look that
asked Do you agree?

  “Of course.” Saru was going to add more, but then a flicker of faint light at the corner of his vision drew the Kelpien’s attention back to the mess hall’s windows. For a brief instant, out in the darkness a needle-sharp glint of hard-white color flashed and then faded.

  “Saru, what is it?” Burnham looked in the same direction, her brow creasing in concern.

  “Did you see that?” It was possible that Burnham and the captain had not, as human optical ranges did not venture as far into the ultraviolet as that of Kelpiens. “A flash of light, like a distant supernova . . .” Saru paused. Had he been mistaken?

  He was still wondering when the strident tones of a bosun’s whistle sounded as the Shenzhou’s intraship activated, and the stern, uncompromising voice of the first officer issued out of the air. “Captain and senior science officers, report to the bridge immediately.”

  A chill crawled up the base of Saru’s spine as he stared out in the direction of the flicker, and the brief instance of curiosity he felt began to shade toward fear.

  • • •

  Burnham followed her captain onto the Shenzhou’s bridge, with Saru loping along a pace behind. In the middle of the command deck, the captain’s chair swiveled toward them and Commander ch’Theloh stepped smartly out of it, drawing up to full attention. “Captain on the bridge!” he snapped briskly, and the Andorian’s antennae arched.

  Ch’Theloh had an open face at odds with his rigid manner. His adherence to military protocol sometimes seemed overly ceremonial to Burnham, but the first officer’s razor-like efficiency was without question, as was his ability to marshal the bridge crew in a time of crisis. Surveying the other stations, Burnham saw that every duty officer was hard at work. She moved to the science console, with Saru still shadowing her, and cast a glance toward Ensign Troke at secondary scanner control. The pale blue Tulian shot her a wary look as he tapped the wireless data implant on his neck. Something is up.

  Captain Georgiou took her seat and turned back to the main viewer, studying the display projected on the inner surface of the bowl-like observation dome that formed the lowest deck of the Shenzhou’s spaceframe. Ch’Theloh already had a tactical plot overlaid across the starscape, the few scattered suns and dust clouds in the nearby region highlighted in glowing blue and green. “Report,” ordered the captain.

  As always, the first officer wasted no time with preamble. “Anomalous energy discharge at extreme range. Subspace frequencies, diffuse at this distance but enough to trip our sensors.”

  As ch’Theloh spoke, Burnham brought up the pattern of the energy effect that Troke had fed to the console and scrutinized it. Saru peered over her shoulder to follow the analysis. “Phase-wave pulse,” he offered, his skull-like aspect creasing in thought. “Artificial?”

  She nodded, pointing at the smooth peaks and troughs of the wave pattern. “Agreed. The high-order regularity would make that likely. A natural phenomenon would be more random.”

  “Engineer Johar was calling down almost the instant it reached us,” continued the first officer. “Said the discharge was registering on his board in engineering.”

  “From this far away?” Georgiou pivoted to look in Burnham and Saru’s direction. “Lieutenants, what’s your take on this?”

  Burnham inclined her head, letting Saru take the lead. He cleared his throat. “The flash of light I saw from the mess hall appears to be the visual component of a subspace energy shock. I believe we are looking at a localized, high-intensity quantum effect generated by an artificial source.”

  “It’s a nadion pulse,” added Burnham.

  “Captain, nadion particles are generated by directed-energy weapons.” Kamran Gant, Shenzhou’s senior tactical officer, spoke up. “The Romulans use that technology.”

  “Noted. But we’re a long way from the Star Empire,” said Georgiou, quashing that line of speculation before it could begin. “What else could be responsible?”

  “A polaric-ion power matrix,” offered Saru. “Certain varieties of contra-field warp drives use nadion injection primers . . .”

  Burnham was listening with half an ear as she worked the console in front of her, assembling a virtual model of what the epicenter of the pulse would look like, based on the readings, the distance, and the particle decay rate. What formed on the holographic screen in front of her was alarming. “Captain, the initial source of the pulse was very strong. The fact that the UV radiation flare was visible to Saru means that this was a catastrophic release. I think we may have just witnessed the destruction of a starship . . .”

  “Not the destruction,” Saru corrected. He leaned in to tap out a command string on the panel, and a blurry quadrant of the viewer shimmered as it refocused. “If that were so, we would be picking up a broad field of irradiated wreckage.”

  “Confirming,” said Troke, staring into the middle distance as his data implant beamed new readings directly into his cerebral cortex. “I have a high-probability detection of two discrete objects at the origin point of the pulse. Ships.”

  The captain shot a look toward Ensign Fan at the communications station. “Mary, are you receiving any signals from those vessels?”

  Fan held a wireless transceiver to her ear and gave a slow shake of the head. “Nothing, Captain.” Her catlike expression tightened in concentration. “But local subspace is so heavy with static from the pulse, they could be broadcasting Denobulan opera at full blast and we wouldn’t hear it.”

  “Um, Captain?” The young officer at the rear of the bridge, where Shenzhou’s engineering monitor station was located, raised his voice. “I want to add, nadion pulse? Not good.”

  “Agreed, Ensign Weeton,” said Georgiou. “Go on.”

  “Lieutenant Saru is right about some warp-matrix designs using that tech, but it’s flaky as hell.” Weeton made a complex shape in the air in front of him, trying to illustrate a point of quantum physics with just his fingers. “A particle release of this magnitude is enough to blow any passing ship out of warp. If we hadn’t been at station-keeping, it would have thrown us out of warp. And anyone right in the middle of it would be staring down the barrel of a core breach.”

  Burnham watched the shift in the captain’s expression and she knew where Georgiou’s thoughts were going. And so did Commander ch’Theloh, the Andorian’s antennae drooping slightly as he gave a grave shake of the head.

  “Before you say it,” warned the first officer, “take another look at the tac-map. Detmer, zoom out on that.” The woman at the helm tapped a control and the tactical graphic dropped back to a larger scale, showing a wide swath of the border space. “I don’t have to tell you we’re on the edge of a danger zone here.” The location of the pulse’s epicenter glowed in the middle of two overlapping patches of color. “The phenomenon is located inside an area declared as a buffer region by both the Tholians and a nonaligned post-contact race called the Peliar. By any interpretation, it’s outside of our jurisdiction.”

  “But it’s not outside our responsibility, Number One.” Georgiou sat back in her chair, and her eyes briefly met Burnham’s. “Lieutenant, any indications that the pulse may reoccur and damage Shenzhou?”

  “Unknown,” Burnham replied. She hated not having more information to give, but the scans were vague and conflicted.

  “If we approach, we will be going in blind,” insisted Saru, and he felt Burnham tense by his side. She was thinking the same thing.

  “Noted.” Georgiou turned back to face the main viewer. “Ensign Detmer, plot an intercept course. Note in the ship’s log we’re departing our station and transiting from Federation space.”

  “Captain!” Saru blurted out the word, his hand flicking up to the back of his head as a set of fine feelers emerged out of the skin there. Burnham had seen this reaction from the Kelpien before, the appearance of his “threat ganglia,” a pure reflexive response that occurred whenever Saru’s species sensed the presence of an imminent threat. “The Tholians! They will conside
r any transgression into their space as an invasion!”

  “I am well aware,” said Georgiou, “but we’ve seen no sign of them in all the time we’ve been here, Mister Saru, and technically the buffer zone isn’t actually theirs. I’m not going to let the possibility of their displeasure prevent us from rendering assistance to beings in grave danger. We’re going.”

  “Course laid in,” reported Detmer.

  “Engage engines,” ordered the captain.

  Out beyond the viewer, the static pattern of stars leaped closer, transforming into warped streaks of light as the Shenzhou plunged through the barriers of relativistic motion.

  Saru made a quiet, negative noise as he massaged the back of his scalp, unconsciously retreating a step from the science console. “I hope we don’t regret this,” he muttered.

  Commander ch’Theloh crossed to the science console and made a show of looking at the display in front of Burnham. “I need you watching the sensors like a Tarkalean hawk, Lieutenant. The first inkling you have that the pulse might reoccur, I want to know about it.”

  “Aye, sir.” She gave a nod as the Andorian turned to Saru and put a hand on his shoulder.

  The Shenzhou’s executive officer was the only one on the ship close to Saru’s near-two-meter height, and he gave the Kelpien a hard look. “Caution is useful,” noted the commander, “but there’s such a thing as worrying too much. Don’t expend your energy dealing with problems we don’t have yet.”

  “I understand, sir,” Saru replied, glancing at Burnham, “but several ships have been lost without a trace in this sector over the years. Only a few weeks ago, a J-class transport belonging to the Evans Charter went missing—”

  “Fret not, Mister Saru,” said the captain, speaking loudly enough for the whole bridge to hear her. “I’m not about to let the Shenzhou . . . or those ships out there . . . become another statistic.”