by David Mack
“Yes.… Hoped to control the vessel, use it to return home. Too much damage. Couldn’t stop the crash.” The arm that Arithon was using to hold himself in place slipped, and he slumped lower to the deck. Dax reached out to steady him. His skin was cold.
“And that’s why you stole the runabout,” Dax realized, thinking aloud. “You were trying to get home. But what happened to my people? Did you do that?”
“Forgive me,” Arithon said. “Did not mean to kill. Weak without the gestalt. Centuries alone. Drained energy from the ship’s batteries until none was left. Hibernated in the machines, waiting for power.” The Caeliar finished his slow collapse to the deck. His voice became hollow and distant as he stared at the overhead. “So hungry, so cold. Saw heat and fuel. Had to feed. Was nothing but the hunger. Did not remember myself until this vessel’s power restored me. Made me tangible again.”
“I don’t understand,” Dax said. “Made you tangible?”
Arithon’s head lolled in her direction and came to a heavy stop. “Needed power to rebuild myself for the return. But all for naught. Voices silenced. Gestalt is lost.”
Dax leaned closer. “What does that mean?” The alien didn’t respond. She reached out and cradled his head in one arm and laid a hand on his bony, thin chest. “What is the gestalt?”
No answer came. Before she could ask her question again, she realized that Arithon’s head was becoming less heavy in her arm—and then it weighed nothing at all. It disintegrated on her sleeve, along with the rest of his body. It all became a cloud of sparkling particles of dust that shimmered for a moment and then transformed into a dull, superfine powder.
Dax lingered in the shadows and dust and looked at the gray residue on her hands. She was torn between remorse at Arithon’s demise and relief at being rid of the entity that had killed three members of her crew.
Bowers stepped into the cockpit and stood beside her. “You live to make my job difficult, don’t you?”
“Yes, Sam, it’s all about inconveniencing you.” She stood and clapped the dust from her hands. “I just don’t get it. What did Arithon hope to find here?”
The XO shrugged. “Whatever it was, it probably got fried in the supernova.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe it left without him.”
“Maybe,” Bowers said. “What I want to know is, if this is where the Columbia entered the subspace tunnel, why don’t its logs have a record of its journey here?”
“No idea.” Dax nudged the powder on the deck with the tip of her boot. “But I bet he knew.” She looked out the cockpit windshield at the chaotic beauty of the supernova remnant. “I feel like we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough, Sam. I wish we could see where all this leads.”
Bowers replied, “I get the feeling Starfleet Command has other plans for us. Speaking of which, we should probably check in, since we’re back in Federation space ahead of schedule.”
“We’ll check in with Starfleet as soon as we get back to the Aventine,” Dax said. “But I think we’re on to something here, Sam—something big. One more ship defending Trill won’t make any difference against the Borg. But this might.”
“I have a new theory about you,” Bowers said, his serious tone telegraphing his deadpan humor.
She mirrored his grave demeanor. “Let’s hear it.”
“You don’t really like being a starship captain, and you’re trying to get fired.”
“You’d have made a good counselor. If you want, I can arrange a transf—”
A comm warble was followed by Lieutenant Commander Helkara’s excited hail: “Aventine to Captain Dax!”
“Go ahead, Aventine.”
“Captain, we’ve just received a priority-one distress call. We’re reeling in the runabout and beaming up you and your team in ten seconds. Stand by for transport.”
“Hang on,” Dax said. “A distress call from whom?”
“From the Enterprise, Captain. They’ve engaged the Borg.”
22
In the heart of night, Titan had found an iron sun.
Riker marveled at the dark orb taking shape on the main viewer. “It reminds me of a Dyson shell the Enterprise found twelve years ago,” he said to Vale, who was standing next to his chair and watching the black globe grow steadily larger. “Except smaller, of course.”
“Naturally,” Vale said. “Heck, this one’s only two million kilometers across. You can barely fit a star in there.”
He looked up and caught the hint of jest in her eyes. “Exactly,” he said.
Melora Pazlar—or, as Riker had to keep reminding himself, her holographic avatar—turned from the aft science station and said, “Captain, we’ve picked up another sphere.” She relayed her data to the main viewer, where it appeared as a small inset in the top right corner. “Equatorial diameter is eighteen thousand six hundred kilometers. Based on the gravitational field and sub-spatial displacement, it appears to be constructed of the same unknown alloy as the star-sphere.”
Vale asked, “Distance from the star-sphere?”
“One hundred sixty-nine million kilometers,” Pazlar said. “Orbital period estimated at four hundred nineteen days.”
Riker asked Tuvok, “Any sign we’ve been detected?”
“None. I have detected no artificial signal activity in this system, Captain. No sensors, no communications.”
“So far, so good,” Vale said. “What about defenses?”
“Unknown,” Tuvok said. “We remain limited to passive sensing protocols, and the spheres absorb a wide spectra of energy. Consequently, I have been unable to make detailed scans.”
The captain felt his brow crease as he concentrated on finding the simplest and most direct solution to the issue. “What if we moved in closer? To within standard orbital range?”
Tuvok arched an eyebrow as he considered that. “That would enable me to make a more detailed visual analysis.”
Riker nodded to Vale, who turned toward the conn and said, “Lavena, take us into orbit of the planet-sphere. Half-impulse approach, and have evasive patterns on standby.”
“Aye, sir,” replied the Pacifican through her liquid-filled respirator mask. “Sixteen minutes to orbit.” The steady thrumming of the impulse engines lent an invigorating vibration to the deck, a tangible sense of impending action.
Riker swiveled his chair toward the other side of the bridge, where Lieutenant Commander Keru manned the security console, Ensign Torvig monitored the bridge engineering station, and Deanna Troi hovered at Keru’s side. “Mister Keru, does any of this look like Borg technology to you?”
The brawny Trill security chief traded a glance with the deceptively meek-looking Choblik engineer before he answered, “No, sir. It doesn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Ensign? Anything to add?”
“Yes, Captain,” Torvig said. His tail undulated gracefully behind him. “I’ve confirmed that the planet-sphere is the source of the energy pulses we detected. Another such pulse has just been emitted, toward Federation space in the Alpha Quadrant.”
Vale folded her arms across her chest. “That seals it. We have to go down there. Ranul, is your security team ready?”
“As much as they’ll ever be,” Keru said.
Tuvok interjected, “Whether there is a planet inside the smaller sphere or its interior surface serves as a habitat, I suspect its shell will prove impervious to transporter beams.”
“Then we’ll find a gap in the shell and jaunt down by shuttle,” Keru said. “Failing that, we’ll make a gap.”
Troi stepped from behind Keru, toward the middle of the bridge. “Have we considered hailing them? Opening diplomatic negotiations before we send armed personnel to their planet?”
“For all we know, it’s the Borg inside there,” Keru said. “If the shell makes it as hard for them to see out as it makes it for us to see in, then we might have the element of surprise on our side. We’ll lose that if we hail them.”
“They sent a pu
lse that knocked us out of warp and destroyed our communications systems,” Troi said to Keru. “I’d say we lost the ‘element of surprise’ quite some time ago.” She turned toward Riker. “Captain, I respectfully suggest we not abandon diplomacy before we’ve had a chance to try it. If it’s not the Borg inside that shell, we should be prepared to greet its people in peace and make a proper first contact.”
Riker was tempted to agree with everything Deanna said, but he didn’t want to be too quick to side with his wife during a debate on the bridge. He also was unsure whether he might want to concur with her simply to avoid clashing with her again, to preserve some piece of common ground between them. Instead, he shifted his gaze to Vale and said, “Your opinion?”
“She’s right,” the first officer said. “There’s no sign the Borg have been here, and our primary mission remains peaceful exploration and first contact. We may have come ready for a fight, but we don’t have to force one.”
Rising from his chair, Riker said, “I agree. Lieutenant Rager, open hailing frequencies to the planet-shell.”
The operations officer keyed in the command on her console and replied, “Channel open, Captain.”
He took a breath, then lifted his voice. “Attention, residents of the shelled planet. This is Captain William T. Riker of the Starship Titan, representing the United Federation of Planets. My crew and I have come in peace and wish to meet with your leaders or representatives. We intend to send a small, unarmed shuttlecraft to your world. If this is acceptable to you, please respond.”
Several seconds passed in silence. Rager tapped at her console and cycled through all the known frequencies, searching for a reply. Then she looked over her shoulder at Riker and shook her head. “Nothing, sir.”
“I might have something, though,” Pazlar said. She replaced the inset system chart on the main viewer with a close-up detail from the surface of the planet’s shell. Blocks of its exterior seemed to slide or melt away, revealing hollow spaces underneath. “It looks like a passage through the shell is being created, sir. More than wide enough for a shuttlecraft.”
Vale asked, “What about a transporter beam?”
“Sorry,” Pazlar said. “No line of sight to the planet. I’d guess they’re willing to let us fly down but not beam down.”
“Or up,” Keru muttered, his suspicion evident.
“It still looks like an invitation to me,” Riker said. “Chris, have a shuttlecraft ready to fly as soon as we make orbit. We’re going down there.”
His first officer glared good-naturedly at him. “What do you mean ‘we’? You’re not going anywhere, sir.”
“Captain’s privilege,” Riker shot back.
“Starfleet regulations,” Vale countered. “And yes, I’m invoking them for real. We don’t know who’s down there, and I agree with Keru—I worry about why they’ve made sure we can’t use the transporters. Until we know more, you should stay on the ship and leave the away mission to me.”
He was about to argue when Troi stepped closer and lowered her voice to tell him, “Listen to her, Will. Your place is here, in command of the ship. We’ll handle the first-contact mission.”
“With all respect, Counselor,” Vale cut in, “you’re not going down there, either.”
“Yes, I am, Commander. I’m the diplomatic officer on this ship, and first-contact assignments fall under my authority.”
“Counselor, this isn’t the time or the place—”
“Enough,” Riker said. He suspected their disagreement was about to ignite into something much worse unless he intervened. “My ready room, both of you.”
He ushered them off the bridge into his private office. Vale entered the ready room first, followed by Troi and then Riker. After the door closed behind him, he asked, “Chris, did Dr. Ree clear Deanna for duty?”
“Yes, as long as she stays close enough for him to monitor her condition. In other words, on the ship.”
Riker felt Deanna’s ire intensify even as her voice became very calm. “The requirement was proximity to Dr. Ree, not confinement to the ship. The doctor can join the away team and monitor my condition at all times. If anything happens, he can stabilize me long enough to get me back to the ship.”
“Seems reasonable,” Riker said.
Vale frowned. “I doubt the doctor will agree.”
“I’ll leave it to you to persuade him, then,” Riker said. “Assemble your away team and be ready to fly in ten minutes.”
* * *
As Tuvok piloted the shuttlecraft Mance into the newly opened path through the planet’s dull, black shell, he maintained a wary vigil on the environment outside the craft. A passage so easily provided could be just as easily revoked.
Commander Vale sat on his left, in the mission commander’s seat of the shuttlecraft’s cockpit. She, too, seemed to be keeping her attention focused outward, looking for any sign of a trap being sprung. Then her stare connected with his, and she rolled her eyes. He imagined it was her way of expressing frustration at their vulnerability.
Behind them, their six passengers faced one another, grouped in rows along the port and starboard bulkheads. Commander Troi, Ensign Torvig, and Dr. Ree were behind Vale. On the other side of the cabin were Lieutenant Commander Keru, Lieutenant Sortollo, and Chief Dennisar. The bench seating was awkward for Ree and Torvig, who both perched uncomfortably on its edge.
Outside the cockpit window was nothing but a dark tunnel that curved and dipped and doubled back on itself several times, creating a winding course through the shell. None of the Mance’s sensors were functioning inside the passage. Not even proximity detectors registered any contact with the shell’s mysterious, black alloy. That left Tuvok no choice but to navigate by eye and instinct, trusting in his perceptions of parallax motion to guide his hand as he steered through hairpin turns with only navigational thrusters to control the ship.
Vale peeked upward through the windshield. “How thick do you think the shell is?”
“Without sensors, I could offer only a vague estimate,” Tuvok said. “I would speculate that, so far, we have made seven-point-three kilometers of vertical descent while navigating inside the shell.”
The XO replied with gentle mockery, “That’s a ‘vague estimate,’ Tuvok?”
“Indeed. I suspect it might be inaccurate by up to three-tenths of a kilometer. Its value as a computational variable for assessing the shell’s mass and other properties is negligible.”
“Noted,” Vale said. She resumed her anxious visual survey of the environment outside the ship as Tuvok guided the Mance through another banking turn, into a much brighter area.
The cockpit windshield dimmed automatically to reduce the glare, enabling Tuvok to see that the passage came to an abrupt end roughly sixty meters ahead of the shuttlecraft, at the source of the light flooding into the tunnel. He slowed the shuttle’s forward motion to less than two meters per second as it drew within twenty meters of the light. The windshield dimmed again, revealing a gap along the bottom of the passage, an opening just more than wide enough to let the Mance through.
He guided the shuttlecraft to a stop with its nose less than a decimeter from the terminal wall of the passage. Then he nudged its vertical thrusters into a descent profile and eased the Mance straight down, past what he guessed was more than twenty meters of the same black metal … and into open space.
Tuvok had too much control over his emotions to be amazed by the spectacle that stretched out ahead of him, but as a disciple of reason and as an explorer, he was impressed.
Before them lay a lush, bluish-green world swaddled in clouds and bathed in ersatz sunlight projected from the interior surface of the shell. From their vantage point on the edge of the planet’s uppermost atmosphere, the shell looked like nothing more than a starless night, as if this was the only world orbiting the only star in the universe.
Checking his systems panel, Tuvok reported, “Sensor functions restored, Commander. Scanning the planet’s surface.”
>
“Any sign of habitation?” asked Vale.
“Life signs are extensive,” Tuvok said as he reviewed the data. “The planet appears to be rich with plant and animal life in all regions and climates.” He adjusted the sensors. “Scanning for artificial power sources and signal emissions.” It took only seconds for the Mance’s sensors to lock on to something large. “Intense power readings, Commander. From inside a large mass of refined metals and synthetic compounds. Range, nine hundred eighty-one kilometers, bearing two two one.”
“Take us in, Tuvok.”
“Should I raise shields?”
Vale shook her head. “Negative. Not unless they give us a reason. Let’s try to make this a friendly visit.”
“As you wish.” He adjusted the shuttlecraft’s heading and keyed its thrusters, hurtling the small ship forward through the atmosphere. They punched through massive cloud banks and made a slight detour around a black-bruised stormhead that was bursting with rain and flashing with electric-blue lightning. Far below, the surface blurred past, a verdant landscape marked by dramatic rock formations and pristine, azure lakes.
Then the Mance passed over a range of jagged peaks capped with snow and cruised over a twilit arctic sea, toward a shimmer on the horizon. Tuvok reduced the shuttle’s speed and altitude as a glittering metropolis took shape above a sea of pack ice. The city covered the entirety of a vast, bowl-like platform, which hovered hundreds of meters above the water. Most of its highest towers were clustered in its center, and the airspace above and between them teemed with thousands of small objects in motion.
“Wow,” Vale said under her breath. “I’m guessing that’s our energy source?”
“Affirmative,” Tuvok said. He responded to a soft beeping on his console and saw that a signal was being transmitted to the shuttlecraft. “Commander, we appear to be receiving a repeating signal from the city. I believe it might be a beacon intended to guide us to a landing site.”
Vale nodded once. “Follow it.” She adjusted the sensor protocols. “The energy levels are making it hard to detect any life signs inside the city … except one. It’s carbon-based, but it doesn’t match anything in the computer.”