Long Shot

by David Mack

  It had no wings, no tail fins, no obvious means of directional control. All the same, it maneuvered with speed and grace, clearly in command of forces unknown to Austaran science. Unlike the turbojets that crisscrossed Anura daily, the alien vessel emitted only a low, pleasant hum as it descended toward the landing area in front of Saranda and Kavalas. Three panels on the bottom of the ship’s saucer opened, one behind the antenna dish, the other two on either side, near its aft curves. Landing struts with broad metal feet extended downward as the vessel floated to a landing so gentle it kicked up not a whit of dust.

  A whistle of admiration escaped Kavalas’s contracting vocal sac. “I’ll give them this much: They know how to make an entrance.”

  “Agreed.”

  A large panel extended down from the center of the saucer’s underbelly. Blue light spilled out of the ship’s interior as the ramp opened wider. Four persons descended the ramp while it was still lowering. The first of them stepped off the ramp as it touched the ground. They all were bipedal, with two eyes. They wore similar uniforms, full-body suits of green fabric, and dark boots cut to fit their oddly narrow feet. Their hands were empty, but Saranda noticed they all had small gadgets tucked into waist pockets on their uniforms, and the smallest of them toted a peculiar device at his hip, supported by a strap that crossed his torso on a diagonal.

  While they were still out of earshot, she whispered to Kavalas, “Am I crazy, or do they look like lemoa taught to walk upright?”

  He whispered back, “I was thinking the same thing.”

  The visitors came closer, and it became clear that, despite their similarities to one another, the four aliens might not all be of the same species. The one in front was the tallest, with deep brown skin and close-cropped fur atop his head. The second male, who walked at the leader’s side, seemed to be of the same species, but his flesh was tan colored; he was the only one with fur on his face and a short but unkempt medium-brown mane. The group’s lone female—assuming these beings’ anatomies were similar to those of lemoa, the Anuran arboreal creatures they most closely resembled—sported jade-colored skin and raven hair. The group’s shortest member had a peculiar three-lobed cranium and solid-green eyes without visible pupils.

  Saranda concealed her fear and stepped forward to greet them.

  “Welcome to Anura. I am Tribune Tiras Saranda.”

  The large brown male came to a halt in front of her, and his team stopped behind him. He acknowledged Saranda with a curt nod. “Thank you, Tribune. I’m Captain Clark Terrell, commanding officer of the Sagittarius.” He gestured to the scruffy one. “This is my chief engineer, Master Chief Mike Ilucci.” To the male with the three-lobed head: “My senior science officer, Lieutenant Sengar Hesh.” Then to the female: “And Ensign Taryl, field scout.”

  After honoring each guest with a half-bow from the waist, Saranda directed their attention toward Kavalas. “This is Doctor Pren Kavalas, one of my science advisors, and the lead researcher on the project that’s put us in this predicament.” She motioned toward the Executive Complex. “May I suggest we repair to my office and discuss this in private?”

  “Of course,” Terrell said. “But for safety’s sake, I’d like to have my ship wait in orbit.”

  “I understand.”

  Terrell took a small boxlike device from a pocket on his waistband, flipped it open, and spoke into it. “Terrell to Sagittarius.”

  A feminine voice replied via the comm device. “Go ahead, sir.”

  “We’re heading inside. Take the ship back to orbit and await further orders.”

  “Understood.”

  “Terrell out.” He slapped the device closed and gestured for Saranda and Kavalas to lead the way inside the complex. “After you.”

  She and Kavalas led the visitors toward the complex. A low whoosh and a gentle, melodious humming turned her head in time to see the Sagittarius hover upward. It retracted its landing struts, pivoted away, and then disappeared like a shot, piercing the canopy of clouds in a blur before vanishing entirely into the storm.

  Terrell’s starship was small, but even a brief glimpse had convinced Saranda her world had no technology that even approached its capabilities. All she could do was hope that its crew had enough miracles at its command to save Anura before it was too late.

  • • •

  “That, in conclusion, is the crux of the problem,” the Austaran scientist said. “We can’t shut it off, it gets stronger by the hour, and it’s causing the wildly implausible to become common. It’s only a matter of time before one of these miracle events kills us all.”

  Terrell nodded. “It poses a challenge, to be sure.” He noted Ilucci’s look of pained confusion. “Something to add, Master Chief?”

  “I have a couple of questions.” An imploring look at the tribune. “If I may?” The alien leader nodded her permission, and Ilucci turned toward her advisor. “Doctor Kavalas, I’ve been looking over some of these partial schematics you gave us. And I have to confess, I’m a bit confused. What did you call this machine of yours?”

  “A quantum fluctuation generator.”

  “Yeah, that’s what’s confusing me.” He swiped his finger across the screen of the electronic tablet in his hand, switching from one schematic to another. “What quantum particles are created or manipulated by your generator?”

  Kavalas seemed to shrink into himself as he realized he was on the spot. “I don’t understand what that has to do with our problem.”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe everything. From what I can see in these designs, you and your people ginned up a device for tapping into the cosmic dark energy potential. Which I’ll admit is quite impressive. But I see nothing in this system that would create or affect subatomic particles. Nor do I see anything that would use quantum particles to affect dark energy.”

  Like a referee stopping a fight, Terrell stepped in. “Master Chief. What’s your point?”

  “I just want to know why this thing is called a quantum fluctuation generator when none of its functions have anything to do with quantum mechanics or particles.”

  Kavalas straightened his back and mustered some pride. “It describes the unpredictability of events that occur within the field created by the generator. Just as quantum effects seem to respond to strange attractors and on occasion appear to precede their causes, so, too, do events in the halo of our dark energy siphon.”

  Ilucci shook his head in disgust. “Sorry, sir. It just drives me crazy when people slap the word ‘quantum’ on things when they can’t figure out how they work. As if ‘quantum’ were a synonym for ‘magical.’ ”

  Terrell aimed a stink-eye stare at the engineer. “You done?”

  “For now.”

  “The correct answer is, ‘Yes, sir.’ ” Terrell faced Kavalas. “I get that you and your team lost control of the system, and what happened as a result. But I still don’t understand how you lost control of it. Can you explain why the system became self-perpetuating?”

  The scientist’s stature diminished with shame. “No, we can’t. We were in such a hurry to demonstrate our proof-of-concept that we failed to document several key steps in the process.”

  Taryl, who had occupied herself for the past several minutes staring out the office’s wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, turned to join the conversation. “Why were you in a hurry?”

  Her question put Kavalas on the defensive. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You said you were ‘in such a hurry’ that you half-assed part of your job. Why the rush?”

  Watching the scientist squirm before answering, Terrell mused that if Taryl hadn’t trained to be a field scout, she might have made a damned good Starfleet JAG lawyer.

  Shoulders slumped in defeat, Kavalas spilled out the truth. “We’ve been competing for the past few years with a rival group, one that’s been making much faster progress than we had. We fo
cused on tapping into dark energy. They’ve been working on using electromagnetic fields to harness the energy from matter-antimatter reactions.”

  The Starfleet officers volleyed knowing looks. The competing system Kavalas had just described was the type of reactor that powered Starfleet starships.

  Hesh reacted to the revelation with a birdlike tilt of his head. “At the risk of adding to your distress, I would be remiss if I failed to point out that your competitors’ technology will likely prove to be safer and more stable than your dark energy siphon.”

  Kavalas fluttered his vocal sac with a mournful exhalation.

  Saranda intervened. “Hindsight is a luxury for another time, Mister Hesh. And while I will take your recommendation under advisement, for the moment I would ask that we keep our attention on the crisis at hand.” She eyed Terrell. “Captain, what should our next step be?”

  He looked around at his landing party. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  Ilucci stroked his scruffy chin. “It might help if Hesh and I could visit the control center for Doctor K’s doomsday device.”

  “That won’t be of any use,” Kavalas said, ignoring Ilucci’s verbal jab. “When the generator malfunctioned, we lost all our links to the command-and-control system. There’s nothing in the lab that isn’t in the files we’ve already given you.”

  “Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t,” Ilucci said. “But until we check it out, we can’t be sure that’s not where the problem started.” A conspiratorial glance at Hesh. “Right?”

  The science officer faced Terrell. “The Master Chief and I are in agreement.”

  “Then that’s our next stop.” Terrell got up from his chair. “Doctor, take us to your lab.”

  6

  Viewed from orbit, the planet’s surface appeared peaceful. Theriault watched Anura from the comfort of the command chair on the bridge of the Sagittarius. She found it hard to imagine such a serene-looking world being enveloped by unstoppable waves of bizarre freak accidents. Even harder for her to believe was that the captain had willingly ventured into the thick of it.

  “Sir, are you sure you and the others will be safe?”

  Terrell answered, “Of course not. But risk is our business, Number One.”

  It took effort not to roll her eyes. “So you keep telling me. But we’re tracking the distortion field produced by the dark energy generator. It looks like a new pulse just went out, which means a whole new round of weirdness is about to start.”

  “How long until it reaches our position in the capital?”

  “Three minutes. It’ll make its first pass over the planet’s surface in ten, and then the wave front will begin intersecting itself as it comes back around, following the planet’s magnetic field.”

  “I’m guessing that’ll be round two, where the scores can really change.”

  “Something like that,” Theriault said, pretending she understood what archaic game he was referring to this time. “I’ve got Sorak working on some ideas for how to block or dampen the effects with a short-range shield, but it’s slow going so far.”

  “Understood. Since we have no idea what we might be in for down here, I want you to keep the ship’s sensors locked on to as many of our communicators as possible, at all times. If you see danger heading our way, give us a heads-up.”

  “Already on it, sir. Lieutenant Dastin’s tracking all of you as we speak.”

  “Well done. But remember: No matter what happens, don’t try to use the transporter.”

  “You mean the thing that malfunctions whenever there’s a solar flare or a day ending in y? I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

  “Good. We’ll let you know if we find anything useful in Kavalas’s lab. Terrell out.”

  Theriault swiveled her chair to starboard. “Dastin, track all distortion wave fronts circling the planet. Have the computer predict their future intersections—those points seem to be where the strangest things are happening. Let’s make sure the landing party doesn’t blunder into one.”

  “You got it.” Dastin hunched over the sensor hood and stared into its azure glow.

  From the overhead speakers crackled a spurt of static, followed by a peculiar, atonal melody of alien music. Theriault turned the command chair toward Razka, who was flipping switches on the communications panel. “Chief, what are we listening to?”

  “A commercial radio broadcast from the planet’s surface.” His long, scaly fingers kept changing the settings on the communications board, but despite a few hiccups, the music played on. “It’s on every frequency being transmitted from Anura, and all are within four-hundredths of a second of perfect synchronicity. Also, for some reason I can’t explain . . . I am unable to turn it off.” He glared up at the speakers. “No matter how dearly I wish to do so.”

  Sorak got up from the tactical station and moved to Theriault’s side. “It’s possible this is a new manifestation of the improbability field encompassing the planet.”

  “Maybe,” Theriault said. “Or it could be a cultural thing. For all we know, the Austarans might have a custom of always playing this melody on all channels at this time of day. Let’s not be so quick to blame every oddity on the distortion field.”

  A humble nod. “Quite right. However, we might wish to continue to monitor their broadcast frequencies for other such coincidences. If similar events coincide with intersections of distortion wave fronts, or with periodic increases in the ambient distortion level—”

  “Point taken. Work with Razka to set up automated signal monitors. But remember that keeping tabs on our landing party is our primary concern.”

  “Understood.” Sorak withdrew to the communications station, where he and Razka conferred in hushed tones while they worked.

  As the ship’s orbit carried it over the terminator to the planet’s night side, Theriault’s thoughts took a dark turn. Before being admitted to Starfleet Academy, every cadet needed to know the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that the entropy of an isolated system never decreases, because isolated systems always evolve toward thermodynamic equilibrium, a state with maximum entropy.

  One of her instructors had summarized that lesson with a far more succinct version known as Murphy’s Law: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

  Deep in her gut, Theriault sensed that she and her shipmates were all about to learn just how true that adage really was.

  • • •

  The day was off to a late start, always a recipe for disaster. Executive Chef Cauda Salir burst through the doors of his kitchen, belting out a roar amplified by his vocal sac. “Line up!”

  His junior chefs, prep cooks, and kitchen assistants fell into place, standing single file and ordered by seniority. All projected an appropriate degree of trepidation as he strode past them, inspecting them with his center eye wide and the other two squeezed into menacing squints.

  “Despite my better judgment, I’m not going to fire any of you for last night’s debacle.” After a sufficient delay, he paused his march to look back and add in a sepulchral tone, “Yet.”

  The youngest of his junior chefs, Caycil Nophris, grimaced in dismay.

  As he should, considering he turned a rika-leaf soup into a pot of swamp water.

  Salir resumed his review on the move. “None of you has anything to be proud of after last night. Whether any of you will still be working here tomorrow will depend entirely on how well you do your jobs tonight.” After passing the end of the line, he flipped on the heating coil under a pot of salted water. “In five minutes, the contents of this pot will be at a boil. Each of you has exactly that long to show me some reason why I don’t terminate you right now. Get to work!”

  He found perverse amusement in watching his troop of potbellied cooks and assistants scurry about like water droplets on a hot skillet. They slammed into each other and tripped over their own webbe
d feet in their collective mad dash to reach their assigned stations.

  Half a minute after his command, flames danced from broilers. Steam rolled from pots and skillets, and vapor condensed at the threshold to the walk-in refrigerator every time the door was opened. Aromas sweet and savory filled the kitchen, and the air was alive with the steady, high-speed rhythm of knives chopping meat and vegetables. Someone switched on the radio that sat on the shelf above the slop sink, adding a lively musical sound­track to the team’s labors.

  That’s more like it. Already Salir felt the change from the night before. Today his team was coordinated and quick, and all its members acted in sync with one another. This was the way his kitchen was supposed to function all the time. He was pleased but sustained his mask of disapproval. No point making them overconfident. If fear works, let’s keep them scared.

  He roamed from station to station, doling out praise and criticism in his trademark arbitrary manner:

  “Too much haska weed.”

  “Don’t stir it so much, let it caramelize a bit.”

  “Good, but it needs a bit more zing. Punch it up.”

  “What is this supposed to be? Chum for a grazak? Dump it and start over.”

  “You’re supposed to be cooking food, not tanning hides. Learn to check your oven temperature or you’ll be today’s first casualty.”

  His first circuit of the kitchen complete, he leaned against a prep table and watched his team work. They really weren’t as bad as he liked to tell them they were. Most had graduated from esteemed culinary academies, and several had been senior chefs in restaurants of great renown, in cities all over the world. But for some inexplicable reason, they all had decided to weather his daily tirades, his merciless torrents of invective, for the chance to work in his kitchen at Andrias, an oft-overlooked restaurant attached to a remote island resort.