Federation

by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  Picard blinked. It had taken no longer than that for the Enterprise to have obliterated her enemy. Then he moistened his suddenly dry lips. He glanced over at Ensign McKnight. Her face was drained of any color. Strands of blond hair hung in sweat-soaked tangles on her forehead.

  Riker stared at Picard with an expression the captain could not read. “When Starfleet hears about this, I don’t know if they’re going to give you a medal or a court-martial.”

  “I’ll settle for a refit,” Picard said. He turned to tactical. Worf was also staring at him with a strange expression.

  “Yes, Mr. Worf?” Picard asked,

  Worf grinned, baring his teeth as only a Klingon could. His dark eyes sparkled beneath his heavy brow. “It is an honor to serve with you, Captain Picard. Songs will be sung about what you did here today.” Then he went on speaking in Hol, so rapidly that Picard couldn’t pick up any of it.

  “Mr. Worf? Mr. Worf!” Picard said to interrupt what he took to be his tactical officer’s praise. “Damage report, please.”

  Worf nodded and looked down at his board as he sighed. “It is difficult to know where to begin,” he said.

  In the end, it would have been briefer to list those ship’s systems which had not sustained some type of damage in the collision. When Lieutenant La Forge was informed what had caused the severe shock to the ship, after a pause his response had been, “No, seriously, what just happened?”

  But for all the overloaded circuits, the assaulted nerves, the delicate scientific instruments thrown out of alignment by the sudden surge in the SIF strength, the damage to the Enterprise was not major, just extensive.

  Twenty minutes after the event, by which time the ship’s damage-control routines were in full operation and power to the bridge had returned almost to normal except for the food replicator and the science stations, Data mildly observed that what Picard had had the Enterprise do did not even appear as a footnote in the ship’s operational manuals. Starships had collided in the past, but never before with such bold purpose.

  “Because I sincerely doubt that precise combination of conditions has ever occurred before,” Picard said. “ If Traklamek’s ship had not been at relative rest; if his shields had not been set for battle conditions; if our warp core had not been shut down; if the Enterprise had not been cloaked; and if we had not been so close to him, the maneuver would certainly not have succeeded.”

  Data studied the captain carefully. “I am curious, sir: If those conditions had not all been present, what would you have done?”

  “I have no idea,” Picard answered truthfully. “We couldn’t fight, we couldn’t run, and a Romulan would never have accepted our surrender after we had already fired upon him.” He glanced over at Riker. “Number One, make a note to refine this scenario for a training simulation.”

  Riker nodded. “It should give the Kobayashi Maru some stiff competition.” Under his breath, he added, “Ramming speed,” and shook his head.

  Thirty minutes after the collision, the Enterprise’s redundant systems had almost completely restored the ship to normal operation. Sensor grids remained severely limited in capability until full realignment could be carried out, and the warp core remained to be reactivated. But in every other regard, Picard’s Enterprise was whole.

  She was also alone.

  No trace of Commander Tarl’s Warbird could be found. Only the widely dispersed ionized gas cloud that remained of Traklamek’s ship, and the scattered debris from DaiMon Pol’s 62nd Rule. And without full sensor capability, the Enterprise was unable to detect either a warp trace or impulse exhaust trail to indicate where Tarl’s ship might have gone.

  Two hours after the collision, at the standard senior officers’ debriefing in the observation lounge, Data offered a suggestion: “Commander Tarl’s Warbird might still be nearby, provided it is cloaked at a distance beyond Counselor Troi’s ability to sense its crew.”

  But Picard discounted that possibility. “It would make no sense for her to stay near a site where two other Warbirds have been destroyed. Perhaps Commander Tarl really was serious about returning to the Empire to atone for her actions, or else she has gone off on her own. It could be that the idea of becoming a farmer or miner did not appeal to her.”

  “I think what we should focus our attention on,” Riker said, “is that we now have both the Borg artifact and the Preserver object on board.”

  “Let’s just hope it is a Borg artifact,” La Forge said. “Especially after the lives it cost.”

  Everyone at the table turned to the engineer.

  “Do you have some reason to doubt its authenticity?” Picard asked.

  “I’m not sure, Captain.” La Forge looked up at the ceiling as if searching for the best way to let Picard’s hopes down gently. “The Borg ship we encountered in System J-25 was a hodgepodge collection of bits and pieces from other vessels, other machinery, all sorts of things jumbled together.”

  “Isn’t that what the artifact in the shuttlebay is?” Riker asked.

  “Well, yes it is, sir. But remember what Data said about the age of it.”

  “Approximately four centuries,” Picard said.

  “Exactly. The entire artifact. Every conduit. Every piece of mesh, wire, light guide, and photonic circuitry in it is the same age, except for the Preserver object.”

  “What’s your point, Geordi?” Riker asked.

  “Well, if all those parts had been assimilated from other vessels, they should show some variation in their age. I mean, as we’ve been taking it apart, it’s clear we’re dealing with material that’s come from a lot of different cultures and levels of technical sophistication. But it’s all the same age.”

  Data regarded the engineer without expression. “Geordi, are you suggesting that the artifact might have been deliberately aged? Perhaps by exposure to intense, non-ionizing radiation, in order to simulate the condition of having been in space for an extended period of time?”

  La Forge made a half smile. “Something like that, Data.”

  Dr. Crusher looked perplexed. “Why would the Borg want to make their ships seem older than they really are?”

  “Not the Borg,” Troi said. “The Romulans.”

  Dr. Crusher wrinkled her brow as if the distinction made no difference. “Either one. What’s the point?”

  Picard looked at his engineer. “Any theories, Mr. La Forge?”

  “Not really, Captain. If the artifact is a fake, it’s a damned good one. It matches what we know about Borg construction exactly. Offhand, I’d say that the only way anyone could have faked it so perfectly would have been to take apart a real Borg artifact, replicate the pieces, then reassemble them.”

  “Which would account for the artificial aging it might have been subjected to after assembly,” Data said. “Molecular-level replication would not accurately reproduce the age traces of the original components and it would be apparent we were observing a recently made duplicate.”

  “What about the Preserver object?” Picard asked. “Could that also be a duplicate?”

  La Forge shook his head. “Oh, I doubt that, Captain. First of all, I can’t identify the material it’s made from. And most of it is opaque to every kind of sensor I can turn on it, including a neutrino stream which could penetrate a light-year’s worth of lead. So it is definitely the product of a technology that we can’t duplicate.”

  “How extraordinary,” Picard said. “There is another so-called Preserver object, an obelisk that houses a graviton-beam generator. It also is opaque to neutrinos.”

  “That’s good to know,” La Forge replied. “The library computers are still down and I haven’t been able to pull up any archaeological files to match against the object’s configuration.”

  Picard straightened up with interest. “Would you like me to take another look at it?” Archaeology was more than a hobby for the captain.

  “Give me an hour to cut it out of the artifact and you’re on,” La Forge responded immediately. Then
he added more seriously, “Captain.”

  “So, I stand corrected,” Riker said as he leaned back in his chair. “What we need to focus on is that we have a mystery on our hands.”

  “But what kind of mystery?” Troi asked. “Borg, Romulan, or Preserver?”

  Picard looked out the observation room windows to see the stars, silent and impassive. Given those three choices, he couldn’t shake the feeling that the real answer to the mystery would be something they hadn’t yet considered. Or, perhaps, something that they all were unable to consider.

  The unexpected had a way of continuing to turn up on this voyage. He decided he wouldn’t be surprised if it did so again.

  FOUR

  U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 ENGAGED WITH THE ENEMY

  Stardate 3855

  Earth Standard: ≈ November 2267

  Cochrane pushed himself up from the corridor floor, disoriented by the shifting angle of the walls, by screams of the sirens, the flashing red lights. He felt the officer named Kyle grab his arm and pull him forward. Captain Kirk’s voice echoed from the corridor speakers.

  “This is the captain. We are under attack. All hands battle stations. This is not a drill.”

  “Who’s attacking us?” Cochrane asked as loudly as he could to be heard over the cacophony as he jogged beside Kyle. They passed a corridor intersection. Cochrane looked down it. It seemed to go on forever. No ship could be that large. “And where are we?” he added.

  “You’re on the Enterprise,” Kyle shouted back, not breaking stride. “And I have no idea who’s bloody firing at us.”

  The floor suddenly shifted again, but the movement was weaker this time. As he and Kyle made their way along the corridor, Cochrane heard strange mechanical sounds reverberate through the walls. He even heard a rhythm that reminded him of the matter-antimatter generators he had used to power his superimpellors.

  Kyle stopped when they came to a ladder on the wall. It extended up through the ceiling. Other men and women in uniforms like Kyle’s raced through the corridor. Surely, too many for any one ship, Cochrane decided.

  “C’mon,” Kyle said, waving at the ladder. “This is faster.”

  Cochrane had no idea what the ladder was faster than. He began to climb.

  “Two decks up!” Kyle called up from below him.

  Cochrane smelled smoke as he passed the next deck. The floors lurched and he grabbed onto the ladder. “What was that room I was in?”

  “Climb!” Kyle urged as the shaking ceased.

  Cochrane’s entire body ached but he forced one hand over the other, one foot above the next. He came to the second deck and stumbled off the ladder. This corridor was almost deserted. Kyle leapt out behind him. “This way!” He tugged Cochrane on again, double-time.

  “Just tell me—how did I get here?” Cochrane gasped. One moment he had been locked in a stateroom on the liner, then something cold had passed through him, and he was suddenly standing on a glowing circular plate surrounded by the other prisoners he had seen when he had been captured. He was certain he hadn’t been drugged, but he had no other explanation for how he had been moved from one ship to the Enterprise, whatever it was.

  “You were transported,” Kyle said unhelpfully as they rounded a corner. At the end of the new corridor, Cochrane could see a group of people, mostly in blue uniform shirts, gathered around other people on stretchers, arranged against the wall. He guessed this was sickbay.

  “I know I was transported,” Cochrane said with mounting exasperation. “But by what?”

  “By transporter, what else?” Kyle answered. He sounded equally irritated and out of breath.

  Cochrane gave up. Perhaps Kyle was under orders not to disclose military secrets. What other explanation could there be for such deliberately circuitous logic? They stopped again, near the people on stretchers. Kyle pointed through an open set of doors. “You’re to report in there,” Kyle said. “I have to get to my station.” Then he was gone, not wasting an instant.

  Cochrane stepped out of the way as two blue-shirted crew members rushed in carrying an unconscious red-shirted woman between them. He followed them into the room. Finally, he saw a familiar face.

  “Dr. McCoy!”

  The doctor looked up from a patient stretched out on a bed. The patient’s gold shirt was ripped open, smeared with dark red blood. Cochrane could see more blood pulsing weakly out through a charred, ragged gash on the man’s chest. “What are you doing here?” McCoy said abruptly.

  Cochrane felt even more confused. “I … I was brought here. Captain Kirk said the Companion would—”

  McCoy didn’t let him finish. “We’re under attack. The captain’s on the bridge and that’s where you should be.” He turned back to his patient, waving a glittering device over the bloodied chest as if he were some kind of witch doctor, never once touching the torn flesh.

  “But who’s attacking us?” Cochrane asked plaintively. He stared in puzzled fascination as the patient’s bleeding seemed to slow, then stop, all without the doctor appearing to do anything but gesture at the wound.

  “Damned Klingons!” McCoy muttered. He looked to the blond woman at his side. “Close this one up.” He looked out over the room. “Where’s the compound fracture?” A blue shirt waved the doctor over to another ravaged body on another bed. Some sort of medical display flashed and blinked above the second victim. Cochrane wondered how anyone could function in the room’s chaos, yet somehow the doctor seemed to be in control of everything at once without effort.

  He followed McCoy to his next patient. The doctor still wasn’t touching flesh or bone as he treated the man with the broken leg. “Dr. McCoy, please—how do I get to the bridge?”

  McCoy looked around angrily. Cochrane couldn’t tell if it was real anger, or just the result of interrupted concentration. The doctor jabbed a finger in the direction of a young woman with her arm in a sling and a red uniform that consisted only of a shockingly brief dress. Cochrane wondered if she had been changing when she had been injured and hadn’t had time to finish dressing. By the early-twenty-second-century standards of Centauri B II, the woman might as well have been naked. “Ensign!” McCoy barked. “This man’s to report to the captain. Take him to the bridge.”

  The ensign was clearly in pain, but she instantly sprang to her feet and nodded at Cochrane. “This way, sir,” she said, and led him rapidly past the crowd outside, then around another corner.

  “What are Klingons?” Cochrane asked as he tried again to catch his breath.

  The ensign glanced at him sharply. “Where’re you from?” she asked.

  Cochrane understood her reaction. Apparently, everyone knew what Klingons were. Except people from the twenty-second century.

  “Never mind,” Cochrane said. This wasn’t the time for a history lesson. But maybe he had been wrong about Kyle’s apparent reticence to discuss how he had come here. “Ensign, can you at least tell me what a transporter is?”

  The ensign stopped in front of a set of flush-mounted doors. They sprang apart to reveal a tiny room no larger than a closet. After a moment, Cochrane realized it was an elevator, and felt foolish. He had been expecting more twenty-third-century wizardry.

  “You been frozen or something?” the ensign asked curiously as she stepped inside.

  “How’d you guess?” Cochrane said, grasping her question and seeing in it a chance to escape further suspicion. The technical manuals Kirk had left behind had contained only vague allusions to the politics of the day, and there had been so much to do in order to prepare to support himself and the Companion that Cochrane had never gotten around to reading the history updates. He hadn’t been all that interested, either. “I’m from 2117. I don’t know a thing past that.”

  The ensign whistled. “Twenty-one seventeen? That’s a long time.” She grabbed a downward-projecting handle and said, “Bridge.”

  The elevator doors closed and Cochrane felt the car move sideways. “What is this?” he gasped as he grabbed for
another handle.

  “Turbolift,” the ensign said. “Like a … an elevationer, I think they were called back in your day.”

  “Elevator,” Cochrane corrected. The car stopped moving sideways and began moving up. He watched the lights flashing by the frosted window, wondering if each flash could represent a deck. If so, the ship was monstrous. “So, what’s a transporter?” Cochrane asked, no longer caring how out of touch he seemed. Information was information, and he’d always been a quick study.

  “Matter-energy conversion,” the ensign answered. She shifted her arm, apparently trying to find a more comfortable position than the sling would allow. “Converts you to energy, beams you to a new location, reconverts, and there you are.”

  Cochrane felt his stomach drop out of him, and it wasn’t the turbolift. He stared at his hand. It looked like the same one he’d been born with.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “What?”

  Cochrane was appalled. Had human life become so cheap? So meaningless? “Each time you’re converted to energy, you’re killed,” Cochrane said. “What comes out the other end is just a duplicate that thinks it’s the original.”

  The ensign gave him a wide-eyed look that she might have reserved for a child. “You’re thinking about old-fashioned matter replication, sir. In replication, the original is destroyed so that duplicates can be reconstructed at any time. But the transporter process operates on a quantum level. You’re not destroyed and re-created; your actual, original molecules are tunneled to a new location. You’re still you, sir. Believe me. We do things differently these days.”

  Cochrane could believe it. He felt marginally better. The lift doors opened.