by David Mack
Reports from thousands of cubes dispersed throughout local space all relayed the same urgent message to the Borg Queen. A harnessed source of the revered particles had been pinpointed, its mass estimated at several million times greater than the largest previously known sample of Particle 010. A source of almost incalculable power, its potential output dwarfed that of the entire Borg Collective by several orders of magnitude.
The end of the Federation would have to be postponed.
Converge on the energy source, the Borg Queen commanded. All other priorities and directives are rescinded. She felt the far-flung vessels and drones snap into obedient action. Assimilate Particle 010 at any cost.
* * *
The heavens had twisted open in front of the Enterprise, and a storm of light had burst forth and enveloped the ship, whiting out the main viewer and momentarily blinding Picard. He’d raised his hand to block the glare, and he’d lowered it a few seconds later, as the prismatic eruption withdrew into the spiraling-shut aperture of the massive subspace tunnel.
The bridge crew was quiet as the majestic city-ship hovered in space, dwarfing the Sovereign-class starship and its two companion vessels. Picard found it difficult to estimate its size, because it more than filled the viewscreen. All he saw was a narrow slice of its middle, which was packed with shining metallic towers blessed with a graceful, fluid architectural style. Delicate walkways linked many of them, and the façades of the metropolis reflected the jet black of the void and the crisp, steady light of the stars with equal and perfect clarity.
Worf eyed the alien megalopolis with alarmed suspicion. “Should we raise shields, Captain?”
“No, Mister Worf,” Picard said, still somewhat awestruck by the spectacle of the great city, which had traversed thousands of light-years with apparent ease. “They’ve come at our invitation. I think we owe them a measure of hospitality.” He looked left toward Choudhury. “Hail them, Lieutenant.”
“Aye, sir,” Choudhury said.
Picard admired the aesthetic sophistication of the Caeliar city, and he found himself wondering whether Riker might be right, whether the Caeliar might, in fact, be able to stand firm in a confrontation with the Borg. He stepped forward and stood behind Kadohata at ops. “Commander,” he said to her, “are we picking up any … unusual energy readings from the city-ship?”
“Affirmative,” Kadohata said, working with haste to keep pace with the information appearing on her console. “Massive readings, of a kind the computer can’t identify.”
“All scans of the Caeliar ship are to be treated as classified information,” Picard said, “to be reviewed only on my authority. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Kadohata said, entering the appropriate command-level encryptions, which, once engaged, even she would be unable to deactivate.
So far, so good, he concluded. He had taken the precaution of bypassing the main computer’s automatic Omega Directive protocol, which normally would have frozen command systems and duty stations throughout the ship the moment the Omega Molecule was detected by the sensors. It was a heavy-handed safeguard against anyone other than the ship’s commanding officer having access to the potentially calamitous knowledge of the dangerous and notoriously unstable high-energy particle. In this case, such a measure would have drawn unnecessary attention—and since the presence of the Omega Molecule was integral to Captain Hernandez’s plan to halt the Borg assault, being saddled with the Omega Directive was a distraction Picard wished to avoid.
Choudhury looked up from her station. “Sir, the Caeliar have acknowledged our hail but are refusing audible or visual contact. They’ve asked Captain Hernandez to return to the city.”
“Dare I ask how she responded?”
“She agreed—on the condition that the Caeliar release Titan’s away team. They’ve accepted her terms.”
He nodded. “Understood. Keep me informed of any developments in the situation.”
“Aye, sir.”
Worf took a small step to stand closer to Picard, and he dropped his voice to a confidential level. “Once the Caeliar have Captain Hernandez back in their custody, they might go back where they came from—and abandon us to the Borg.”
“Possibly,” Picard said. “Though the departure of the Caeliar is hardly the worst outcome in this scenario. I’m more concerned about the risk of the Borg assimilating the Caeliar’s technology, which appears to be formidable.”
A muted tone from the tactical console signaled an incoming transmission. Choudhury silenced the alert with a brush of her fingertip and said, “New reports from Starfleet Command, sir. The entire Borg armada has reversed course.”
“In other words,” Worf said, “they are converging on us.”
“Correct,” Choudhury said, her tone dry but droll.
Picard asked, “How long until they reach us?”
“Fourteen hours,” the security chief said.
The captain frowned. As powerful as the Caeliar appeared to be, Picard was unable to let go of his doubt that anything could truly stop the Borg. Worse, if the Caeliar either refused or proved unable to help, fourteen hours didn’t leave him or his crew much time to formulate a backup plan.
He saw only one remaining alternative: to build a thalaron projector. The biogenic weapon might prove futile, but he doubted he would ever again be in a position to strike so many Borg cubes at the same time. He judged the risk worthwhile.
If it failed, then he, his crew, and the rest of the Federation were already as good as dead, anyway.
And if it worked … all it would cost him was his soul.
26
The shuttlecraft Mance ascended from Axion and passed through the city-ship’s protective force field with hardly a bump.
Christine Vale sat at the aft end of the shuttlecraft’s passenger cabin, across from Deanna Troi. Chief Dennisar and Lieutenant Sortollo from security sat at the forward end, and Dr. Ree and Ensign Torvig stood and awkwardly filled the space in the compartment’s center. In the cockpit, Tuvok was at the controls, and Ranul Keru occupied the mission commander’s seat.
Inyx had delivered the news of the away team’s release from Axion with as little preamble as when, days earlier, he’d told them of their incarceration. One moment, they had thought of themselves as prisoners, and the next, their shuttlecraft was hovering beside their terrace, its boarding ramp extended.
At the urging of the Caeliar, they’d remained inside the Mance and had kept it landed inside Axion’s shield perimeter while the city had risen from the surface of New Erigol. The sky had opened above them. At first, it had looked like a mere dark sliver, and then it had widened. The complex details of its inner mechanisms had become visible. Within moments, Axion had climbed into orbit, and then space-time itself had been torn asunder and sent pinwheeling into a blinding vortex.
The twist of light and color that had raged around Axion was unlike anything else Vale had ever seen. The vortex had exhibited a fluid quality, but it also had shimmered and pulsed. Before her eyes had been given an opportunity to adjust, Axion had sped free of the passage, back into normal space-time.
Waiting there, brilliant and still against the backdrop of stars, had been Titan, accompanied by two other vessels. The first was a Sovereign-class starship that Vale had recognized as her previous billet, the Enterprise-E; the other was a new Vesta-class explorer, a ship class she’d heard about but until that moment hadn’t actually seen with her own eyes.
Via the shuttlecraft’s comm, Inyx had delivered his terse valediction: “You may go now.” Tuvok had wasted no time accepting the invitation. As soon as the channel had clicked off, the Mance had been airborne and on its way home.
Seeing Titan growing larger and sharper in front of the shuttle-craft brought a smile of relief to Vale’s face. “I don’t know how Will did it, but I’m glad he didn’t make a liar out of me,” she said to Troi. “I knew he wouldn’t give up on us.”
“So did I,” Troi said, through her own bittersweet s
mile.
Vale leaned forward to keep their conversation discreet. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, Chris,” Troi said, matching Vale’s posture. “Better than okay.”
“Good,” Vale said, sincere in her concern. “You had us all pretty worried there—especially Will.”
“I know,” Troi said, lowering her eyes for a moment. “It’s been hard on all of us. And I made it even worse for him. But it’ll be all right now. I’m sure of it. I can hear him in my thoughts, and I know he’s waiting for me to come home.”
Unable to bury her envy, Vale blinked and looked away aft. She felt Troi’s inquiring stare. Turning back to face her, she said, “Sorry. I’m happy for you, really. It’s just hard for me to hear about your amazing bond with Will when I …” She hesitated, at a loss for words. “When I’m …”
“When you’re still mourning Jaza?”
Vale’s emotional barrier faltered enough for a single tear to escape from her eye. She palmed it away and laughed once, softly, because the alternative was to weep like a child. “Right to the heart of it, as always,” she said. “Brava, Deanna.”
“It’s kind of my job,” Troi said. “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress since we lost Jaza. The troubles Will and I have been going through left him …” She rolled her eyes toward the overhead, apparently searching for the most diplomatic word. “Not at his best,” she finished. “And that left you to pick up the slack, for a lot longer than you should have. You had to do most of his job as well as your own. I’m sorry for that.”
Shaking her head, Vale replied, “Not your fault.”
“In a way, it was,” Troi said. “I sensed what you were going through, but I was so caught up in my own pain and problems that I didn’t get you the help that I should have.”
“Apology completely unnecessary but accepted all the same,” Vale said. A recent memory nipped at the edge of her thoughts: the moment, a few days earlier, when she had tried to comfort the distraught Will Riker in his ready room, only to come within millimeters (and a momentary lapse of reason) of kissing him. She balked at the idea of confessing her near-miss indiscretion to Troi. Then she considered the possible consequences if she tried to hide it and it came out in a less candid manner—or, even worse, if at some point she did something as monumentally stupid as to make out with her married commanding officer.
“Deanna,” Vale said, “there’s something I should probably get off my chest. It was nothing, really, but I feel kind of strange about it, and even stranger about feeling like I should hide it, and I—”
“You mean when you almost kissed Will a few days ago,” Troi said, as if it were some mundane detail of ship’s business.
“Um, well, yeah.” It took a moment to push through the shock and realize how transparent she must seem to the half-Betazoid counselor. “How did you know?”
A broad grin lit up Deanna’s face. “I haven’t felt Will panic like that since he met my mother.”
Troi laughed, and Vale found her friend’s mirth contagious. Their self-conscious chortles drew curious stares from the rest of the away team and a disapproving arch of one eyebrow from Tuvok. The muscles in Vale’s face hurt from the effort of reining in her laughter. “So, you’re not angry with me?”
“Of course not. You were still missing Jaza, and I’d been pushing Will away for months. It’s an almost textbook example of transference, with a touch of displacement.”
Vale nodded and flashed an abashed smile. “I’m glad to hear you say that. I have to admit, I was worried there for a while.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Troi said. “It’s all in the past.” Then she narrowed her eyes and added in a joking caricature of a threat, “But if you ever make a pass at him again, I will have to kill you. Nothing personal.”
Answering Troi’s stare with a knowing look, Vale felt an almost sisterly bond with her. “Understood,” she said.
* * *
Geordi La Forge stopped at the door to Captain Picard’s quarters. He looked at the padd in his hand. He’d been driven by a righteous indignation to come this far, but standing on the precipice of action, he considered turning back, surrendering in silence, and chalking it up to the cruel compromises of war.
Not this time. He pressed the visitor signal by the door.
A moment later, he heard Picard’s voice call out from behind the door, “Come.”
The portal sighed open, and La Forge stepped inside the captain’s quarters. Everything was clean and well ordered, as usual. Picard stood in front of a set of shelves. He was holding his Ressikan flute; its burnished metal surfaces caught the light as it shifted slightly in his grasp. The captain looked up from the instrument in his hands and seemed pleasantly surprised to see La Forge. “Geordi,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
La Forge took a few steps farther inside, and the door hushed closed behind him. “We need to talk,” he said.
“Of course,” Picard said, setting down the flute inside its protective felt-and-foam-lined box. He gestured toward the sofa and some chairs. “Please, come in, sit down.”
Picard took a step toward the sofa before La Forge stopped him by saying in a firm tone, “I’d rather stand, sir.”
Sensing the grave nature of La Forge’s visit, Picard put on a wary mien. “Is something wrong, Mister La Forge?”
“Yes, sir,” La Forge said. He held up the padd in his hand. “These orders you sent me a few minutes ago.”
The captain hardened his countenance. “What of them?”
“You ordered me to turn the main deflector into a thalaron radiation projector, like the one Shinzon had on the Scimitar.”
“I know what I told you to do, Commander.”
Frustration made La Forge clench his jaw and his fist as he fought to find words for his outrage. “How could you give me an order like that? How can you possibly expect me to obey it?”
Picard slammed the lid of the flute box shut with an earsplitting crack. “I am not in the custom of explaining my orders, Mister La Forge! And I expect you to obey them because you’re a Starfleet officer.”
La Forge shook his head. “Sorry, Captain. Not good enough. Not for this.” He tossed the padd at Picard’s feet. “I won’t insult you by pretending I have any standing to question your order. I’ll just say it to your face: I refuse to obey it.”
With quiet menace, Picard replied, “You’re treading on dangerous ground here, Mister La Forge.”
“You want to talk about dangerous? Unleashing a metagenic superweapon—that’s dangerous.” The captain glared at La Forge, who continued, “Consider this. We’re developing shields against thalaron radiation, and it’s a good bet the Borg can, too. And the moment they do, this weapon becomes useless.”
“But not until then,” Picard snapped. “And when their armada surrounds us, we’ll be able to eradicate them.”
The thought of such a tactic horrified La Forge. “You’re talking about mass murder.”
Picard bellowed, “I’m talking about survival, Geordi! You can’t negotiate with the Borg. You can’t bargain with them, or seek a truce, or a cease-fire. There’s no other way.”
“I refuse to believe that,” La Forge said. “After all we’ve done and all we’ve seen, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that there are always alternatives to killing.” He felt the captain’s silent resistance and knew that he would never get him to concede the point, so he moved on. “Say you’re right, and we wipe out the Borg with a thalaron weapon. What then? You know you can’t put that genie back in the bottle. Once the Klingons and the Romulans find out about it, we’ll be back at war.”
Walking past La Forge on his way to the replicator, Picard replied, “That’s a problem for the diplomats and the politicians.”
“I’d say the politicians are the problem. Access to a weapon like that would give them ideas. Power corrupts, and a thalaron weapon that can fry a planet is a lot of power.”
The captain seemed to ignore
La Forge’s remark as he stood in front of the replicator and said, “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” His drink appeared from a singsong flurry of particles, and he picked it up and took a sip. He carried the cup to a table and set it down. “Your concerns and objections are noted for the log, Mister La Forge, but we don’t have time to debate this. I need that weapon operational immediately.”
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear, Captain. I didn’t come up here just to register a complaint so I could work with a clean conscience. When I say I won’t do it, I mean it.”
Incensed, Picard shot back, “The Federation is a democracy, Mister La Forge, but this starship is not. I gave you a direct order, and I’ll repeat it for the last time: Turn the main deflector into a thalaron projector before the Borg arrive.”
“No,” La Forge said. “Repeat it as many times as you want, it won’t make any difference. I will not resurrect that … that abomination. I won’t be party to whatever atrocities it winds up being used for.” He stepped closer to the captain and gestured emphatically as he continued, “When Shinzon had one, you were ready to die to stop it. Data gave his life to destroy it. For me to rebuild it now would be an insult to his memory and a betrayal of his sacrifice. I can’t do that. I won’t.
“You want to put me in the brig? Fine. I’ll walk down there and turn myself in. But I absolutely will not follow that order. It’s immoral. It’s illegal—and since no illegal order is valid, it’s my duty to refuse to obey it. And yes, I know that you’ll just get someone else to do it, someone who won’t put up a fuss, who won’t question orders, who’ll just get it done.
“But it won’t be me.”
La Forge didn’t wait for the captain’s response. He turned and walked out, and he kept walking, down the corridor and into the turbolift, which he directed to main engineering. Reflecting on his outburst toward the captain, he half expected to find armed security personnel waiting there to take him into custody.
Assuming we live till tomorrow, I may have just ended my career, he realized. He was surprised to find the thought didn’t scare him as much as he had thought it would. If that’s how it has to go, he decided, so be it.