“Better,” Data said, and there was a different quality to his voice, deeper, slower. “Much better to have a body again. Especially one without flesh.”
Picard stepped forward, putting himself between Data and the rest of his crew. “Identify yourself,” he demanded.
Data, or the thing that had been Data, stared at Picard, then smiled as if somehow amused.
“I do not take orders from you, Captain Picard.” His hand shot out, grabbed the captain by the collar of his tunic, then twisted so hard that Picard couldn’t breathe. “You will take orders from me.”
Picard wrapped both hands around Data’s hand but couldn’t budge it. Worf leapt onto Data, but the android’s free hand shot out and with an open-palmed shove forced the Klingon back to flip over his tactical station.
“If anyone else tries to interfere,” the Data-thing stated, “the captain will die.”
Those crew members still on their feet stepped back, showing they would do nothing to endanger their captain.
“A wise decision,” the Data-thing said. “Most optimal.”
He let go of Picard and the captain staggered back, gasping for breath as he clutched at his throat. But he glared at the Data-thing in controlled outrage. “Whoever you are, return Lieutenant Data to me at once!”
The Data-thing gave Picard a thin smile. “Lieutenant Data isn’t here, Captain Picard. I am. You may call me … Thorsen.”
TEN
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 CLOSE ORBIT TNC 65813
Stardate 3856
Earth Standard: ≈ November 2267
“I will not let you go alone,” the Companion said.
Cochrane stood by the doorway of the shuttlecraft Ian Shelton. “If you’re sure this plan will work,” Cochrane told her, “there’s no need for you to come. The captain can take you back to your planetoid. You’ll be safe until I return. A few days and we’ll be together again.”
But the Companion would not release his hand. “Our lives are entwined, Zefram Cochrane. I can no more leave you than I can be what I was.”
Spock stepped forward. “We are ten minutes from our point of no return,” he said. “You must leave now if the plan is to have any chance of success.”
Cochrane understood the Vulcan’s understated urgency. It had all gone perfectly up to now. The Enterprise had contacted Thorsen when his cruiser had arrived in orbit of TNC 65813. Thorsen had eagerly agreed to the exchange Kirk had offered, backed up by visual images of Cochrane bound and gagged in the custody of security. Kirk had convinced Thorsen he didn’t know what had happened to cause the explosion of the wreckage of the Planitia. Perhaps the warp core had finally lost its shielding. But when the explosion had occurred, what else could Kirk do but fire his torpedoes and run for safety? Surely, Thorsen could understand.
Kirk had told Cochrane that it was a story that would never have played out with a Klingon. But Thorsen had accepted it, blinded by his desire to obtain what he had searched for through the years, what he had cheated death to obtain. How could he not believe when what he desired was so close at hand?
“What chance?” McCoy grumbled. He had been late getting to the bridge and had come to treat Cochrane’s burned hand on the hangar deck.
Cochrane looked at him with an unworried smile. “Doctor, if the Companion says it will work, then I believe her.”
“Black holes and the laws of physics are one thing,” McCoy replied. “But that madman Thorsen is another. How do we know he won’t blast you out of creation the instant you’re outside the Enterprise’s shields?”
“Because he’s obsessed, Dr. McCoy. He has always wanted to see me die with his own eyes. Or whatever he’s been using to see these days. To pay me back for what he thinks I did to him almost two hundred years ago. Adrik Thorsen wants me aboard his ship.”
Kirk’s voice came over the hangar-deck speakers. “How are we doing there, Mr. Spock?”
Spock gestured to the door. “They are just boarding now, Captain.”
Cochrane realized he couldn’t argue with the Companion without continuing to endanger the Enterprise. He looked at Spock. “When the Excalibur recovers us, we’ll have to get back home in two days,” he said. The Companion could remain apart from her planetoid no longer than that and still live.
“It shall be done,” Spock promised. “Admiral Kabreigny has said she will make it her personal responsibility.”
“Will she be well enough to do that?” Cochrane asked.
“The admiral is still not convinced that our conclusions concerning Thorsen’s responsibility for compromising Starfleet’s computers are correct, but her health is good. Now, please, sir.”
Cochrane stepped onto the shuttlecraft. The Companion followed. He turned to see Spock raise his hand and hold it palm out, fingers split in the center. Cochrane guessed it was a twenty-third-century wave and waved back. Then he and the Companion went forward to the pilot and copilot seats.
“I remember this,” the Companion said after a moment as she looked around.
Cochrane smiled at her as they took their seats. He still wasn’t used to hearing her say “I” so often. But he understood what her increased use of the singular personal pronoun meant. Somehow, all these months after the energy being had merged with Nancy Hedford, the two disparate parts of her had finally reached a total consolidation. Her voice still had its unusual harmonic, as if two voices spoke at once. But she was clearly an individual now, part alien, part Nancy Hedford. In a way, he supposed, what had happened to them in the past few days had caused her to grow. To grow up, even.
He shook his head. He didn’t know how it was possible, but just thinking about her made her even more a part of him and his continued existence.
A voice came from the shuttlecraft’s control console. “Mr. Cochrane, this is Sulu. Are you ready for launch?”
“Yes, sir,” Cochrane answered.
“Very good. We’re opening the hangar doors now. I’m going to fly you out on remote control and toward Thorsen’s ship.”
Cochrane felt the shuttlecraft shift below him. He looked out the front viewport and saw they were moving closer to the immense hangar doors. The doors were parting and he wondered how the machinery of the Enterprise managed to depressurize the deck so quickly. He hoped he’d be back to find out.
Sulu kept talking. “I’m going to keep control until we’re sure that Thorsen has scanned you and confirmed that you’re on board. Then I’ll initiate the autopilot as we’ve programmed it. The ride will feel turbulent. Internal gravity will be a bit higher than normal to help hold you together. Mr. Spock tells me that passage through the event horizon will be like breaking the sound barrier. The flight should smooth out considerably past that point.”
The hangar doors disappeared to either side as the shuttlecraft slipped between them.
“Shuttle away,” Sulu said.
The small forward windows didn’t give Cochrane much of a view. He could see part of a glowing, gaseous arm, then the huge cylinder of the Enterprise’s starboard nacelle as the shuttlecraft eased past it.
“Thorsen’s Thorsen’s ship should now be dead ahead,” Sulu said.
And it was. About a kilometer distant, framed by a distant, rippling aurora of glowing gas, the ominous silhouette of the Klingon battle cruiser hung before him, growing larger with each moment.
“You’re being scanned,” Sulu told Cochrane. “And Thorsen is hailing you. I’m switching you to an audio and visual signal directly to his ship. I’ll stay off the circuit until it’s time to make our move.”
Cochrane glanced at the Companion. She reached her hand across the aisle between them and took his.
“This will work, Zefram. Have no doubt, no fear.”
“Never,” Cochrane said. He was surprised to discover he meant it.
Then, what had been Adrik Thorsen appeared on the viewscreen on the shuttlecraft’s control console.
“I’ve thought of you each night since Battersea,” Thorsen said, h
is voice a terrible low whisper, as if the power of speech was eroding as quickly as the last traces of his human origins. The skin Cochrane had last seen hanging in ragged strips from Thorsen’s face was now back in position, tiny silver scars marking where it had split and where the Grigari nanocomponents had repaired it. But the eye that had disappeared was now a glowing emerald orb, completely inhuman. “We have so much to talk about. Old times. Optimum times I still see the laser you shone at me.”
“We have nothing to say to each other, Thorsen. Starfleet has confirmed that there is nothing to the warp bomb. You’re insane if you think—”
“Silence! There is still time to remake the worlds. Old dreams need not die. Order. Salvation. Red banners wave and black eagles fly. There can still be a bright future for humanity.” Thorsen’s breathing was disturbing. It hissed and bubbled, hinting of further internal changes.
“You missed your chance, Thorsen. You’re like I am—a dinosaur. We shouldn’t be in this age.”
“This age shall be remade in my image,” Thorsen said. “And my first—”
The audio and visual feed ended. Sulu’s voice returned on the secure and scrambled channel. “Here you go,” the navigator said. “Make it look good and we’ll see you in twenty hours—or thirty minutes from your point of view. Smooth sailing, sir.”
The shuttlecraft rocked. The forward boom of the Klingon cruiser swung by the viewports as the Ian Shelton’s orientation suddenly veered away. Cochrane held the Companion’s hand tightly in his. He cleared his throat. Then he activated the communications link. And just as Spock had coached him, he screamed out in panic.
“Enterprise! Enterprise! This is Cochrane! Thrusters have malfunctioned! We’re headed for the horizon! I can’t control it!” Seeing the flashes just above the ominous darkness of the event horizon inspired Cochrane to make his cries sound real.
Sulu’s voice returned to the console speakers, transmitted so that Thorsen could hear him as well. “Shuttlecraft: This is Enterprise. Stand by for tractor beam.”
Just as Kirk had surmised, the next voice was Thorsen’s. “Stand back, Enterprise! Zefram Cochrane is mine!”
A blue glow came through the viewport. Cochrane had been told to expect it. It was the radiation signature of a focused linear graviton beam. The Klingon cruiser was using it to attempt to drag the Ian Shelton back on course. But just as Spock had calculated, it was almost impossible for gravitons to remain focused this close to the event horizon. The sharply climbing gravity gradient smeared the beam, dropping its effectiveness.
“Warning,” the onboard computer announced. “Approaching event horizon. Impact in twenty seconds.”
But Cochrane saw that the blue glow of Thorsen’s tractor beam did not diminish. Instead, it intensified.
“Course altered,” the computer said. “Impact in fifty seconds.”
The Companion said, “Zefram, that is wrong.”
Cochrane knew it.
The blue glow grew even brighter. Spock had said that Thorsen’s tractor beam would fail.
“Course altered. Impact in three minutes.”
They were being pulled away from the event horizon. Cochrane swung the spherical tactical viewer from the side bulkhead and peered into it. A portion of the display screen showed an aft view. Thorsen’s ship was closing on them. Spock had said the Klingon vessel couldn’t operate this close to the event horizon. That Thorsen wouldn’t risk coming after the shuttlecraft. But there he was, close enough that his tractor beam was working.
“What can we do?” the Companion asked.
Cochrane felt the onboard gravity increase. According to the autopilot, they should be just seconds from entering the event horizon. But they were minutes away because of Thorsen’s interference.
Cochrane reached out his hand to the controls. He had to tell the Enterprise what was happening. They had to change the program, recalculate the trajectory inside the event horizon. Everything depended on the shuttlecraft describing a perfect parabolic arc around the heart of the black hole and then coming back to within a few meters of the event horizon in twenty-two hours. For Cochrane and the Companion, because of relativistic time dilation, the total flight would be no more than thirty subjective minutes. But the trajectory had to be exactly as Spock had calculated it, and now, because of Thorsen’s interference, there was no chance it would even be close.
A ready light glowed on the control console even as Cochrane’s hand shook against the increased gravity, trying to switch on the communications circuit. The light showed that the shuttlecraft’s warp engines were powering up.
“No,” Cochrane gasped. “The trajectory is wrong.” In the tactical viewer, the Klingon battle cruiser filled the screen.
“No!”
The ready light stopped flashing. Cochrane heard the whine of the Ian Shelton’s warp engines begin. He looked straight ahead through the viewport. The blue glow of Thorsen’s tractor beam vanished. Darkness rushed at him, enormous, unstoppable, swallowing everything.
“Impact,” the computer said.
Zefram Cochrane and the Companion passed through to the place where light stops.
ELEVEN
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC- 1701 CLOSE ORBIT TNC 65813
Stardate 3856
Earth Standard: ≈ November 2267
One instant, the Ian Shelton was on the main screen, a glowing spot of blue light barely ahead of the Klingon ship. The next instant, it was gone.
“I could not override,” Spock said.
“Where is he?” Kirk demanded.
Spock had set the shuttlecraft’s trajectory personally. It was supposed to pass through the event horizon on a parabolic curve that would bring it around the singularity and return it to just beneath the horizon in time to rendezvous with the Excalibur. At that time, if the Ian Shelton were limited in its movements to only normal space-time and electromagnetic phenomena, it would never be able to return to the other side. But the small craft carrying Cochrane and the Companion had warp capability and could easily move past any barrier that light could not escape.
But Thorsen’s obsession had gone beyond the limits of even what Kirk had counted on. When it had become apparent that the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft was beyond rescue as Spock had planned, Thorsen had followed it toward the event horizon.
At first, Spock had not been concerned by Thorsen’s cruiser’s change of course. He said that the structure of the Klingon ship was designed for combat, and did not have the integrity of the Enterprise.
But Thorsen’s ship had held together. His tractor beam had deflected the Ian Shelton to a new trajectory.
For all Kirk knew, Cochrane could be on a direct descent into the singularity itself—the point of absolute mass and pressure where physics broke down and from which not even the technology of the twenty-third century could rescue him.
“Spock,” Kirk repeated, “where is he?”
“Sensors indicate the shuttlecraft has entered the event horizon, Captain. I am detecting no increased level of Hawking radiation from the boundary layer; therefore, we may assume the Shelton has survived the passage intact.”
Kirk couldn’t remain seated. “I know it survived, Spock. The whole plan was based on the fact that it would survive. But what’s its trajectory?”
Spock finally looked up from his station. His expression was pained, and not just in a subtle Vulcan way. “At the angle it entered, it will spiral into the singularity within ten of our subjective hours.”
Ten hours. The Excalibur wouldn’t even have arrived by then.
“How long will it seem to Cochrane and the Companion?”
“As they approach the singularity, their relativistic velocity will approach the speed of light, and the corresponding time dilation will, from the perspective of the outside universe, stretch out their final seconds to infinite length.”
Kirk felt as if he’d been kicked. Stars would form and die. Whole cultures evolve and become extinct, and Cochrane and the Companion wo
uld still be falling to their deaths. There was nothing they could do. Nothing Kirk could do.
He refused to accept it.
Spock suddenly pointed at the viewscreen. “Captain, Thorsen is attempting to follow the shuttlecraft.”
Kirk wheeled in time to see the Klingon battle cruiser flash into the absolute darkness of the event horizon. “That’s suicide. Isn’t it?” he turned to Spock. “Did he make it?”
“Scanning for Hawking radiation … scanning …” Spock looked up, making no attempt to hide his surprise. The tension of the moment was bringing out his human half. “No radiation.”
“He made it,” Kirk said. The concept was sickening. The pursued and pursuer trapped in an endless, infinite fall. But if the Klingon ship could do it …
“Spock! You said the D7s weren’t built for the stress the Enterprise can take.” Kirk pounded his fist on the railing separating the upper level of the bridge from its center. “If Thorsen can do it, we can!”
Spock’s expression of Vulcan calm returned to him. “Captain, I understand your desire to save Mr. Cochrane and the Companion. But they are but two individuals, and the Enterprise has a crew of—”
“Don’t tell me about my crew!” Kirk shouted. “If Thorsen can go in there, then he can come out with Cochrane! And what happens if the warp bomb is possible? Are you willing to risk it being put into that madman’s hands? Can the Federation risk that?”
Kirk’s heart was pounding. He knew he was right. “Calculate an angle of entry, Spock. Now!”
The intercom whistled. “Engineering to the bridge,” Mr. Scott said. “Captain, if we don’t start out within the next two minutes, we won’t have the power t’ be out of range when we lose the crystals.”
“We’re not leaving, Scotty.”
“Captain? We’ve only got another thirty minutes in our crystals. Less than a second if we try to go to warp.”
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