by Gene DeWeese
“The only reason it has a chance, Geordi,” Data said, his yellow eyes remaining unblinkingly on the image of his own room on the screen before him, “is that you first developed the blocking field.”
“You know what I mean, Data. No matter what happens, it’s not your fault. Hell, it’s not my fault either. I just—” He paused, swallowing audibly. “I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t blame you, no matter how this turns out. And it’s been good working with you.” He risked a split-second glance at the image on the screen. “You, too, Counselor.”
“It has been good for me, too, Geordi,” Data said. “I have always considered you—”
His fingers dropped onto the control. Sensor readings streaked across both panels. Geordi’s heart lunged for his throat. Seconds later, seeing no indication of an energy surge other than that created by the blocking field, he slumped in a queasy mixture of disappointment and relief. Quickly, he deactivated the field.
“False alarm, Data,” he said.
“I see that now, Geordi,” he said, observing the activity on the screen. His fingers had already returned to hovering above the control.
“At least we proved your reaction time,” Geordi said. “And I guess we can stand a few false alarms. Better that than missing one and—”
Again Data’s fingers dropped suddenly onto the control and the sensor readings once again filled the displays, but this time—
This time they indicated the buildup of an energy surge of unprecedented proportions.
But a surge that plateaued and stalled as the blocking field built to full strength at least a second before the surge would have reached its peak.
Then it faded and was gone.
Geordi let out a wordless shout and barely resisted the impulse to race around to Data’s side of the display station and pound him on the back or hug him.
“That was it!” he said when he had control of his voice again. “That was for real, Data! You did it!”
Somehow, Geordi continued to watch the readouts. When the last traces of the energy surges faded, he waited another five seconds. Then, his body almost limp from relief, he deactivated the blocking field.
In Data’s quarters, Troi also breathed a sigh of relief. Then, on the off chance that a second attempt would be made, she lowered herself to the floor and began to try to reset the detector, which had already stopped growling but still had a tail fuzzed out to twice its normal size.
* * *
There was no second attempt, although the detector was set off three more times as groups of Directorate ships flashed into existence a hundred kilometers out. The total exposure to the blocking field as a result of those false alarms, however, was less than thirty seconds, and Dr. Crusher was able to detect only the slightest effect in the few crew members she checked before she returned to the bridge.
Zalkan, his face seeming to grow more flushed with each minute, finished his computer reconstructions only moments after the last of the ships themselves appeared on the viewscreen. Leaning on Denbahr, he watched as Worf targeted the phasers, locking them on to a series of specific points inside each Directorate ship so that those points would be hit regardless of the positions of the ships.
Despite Crusher’s insistence that he be taken to sickbay, Zalkan remained on the bridge, Picard helping him into the captain’s chair, where he slumped, seemingly staying conscious by sheer effort of will. Troi was in her own chair on one side of the scientist, Denbahr in Riker’s on the other. Each rested a hand gently on his. Tears streaked Denbahr’s cheeks.
Finally, the Directorate ships began their approach. The sensors were still crippled by the Plague field, but what they did reveal confirmed at least the broad strokes of what Zalkan had given them.
And listening to the EM exchanges between the ships confirmed what Strankor had said: Neither the leader nor any of his lieutenants would trust any of the others out of their sight for a second when booty of any kind was involved, let alone something like the Enterprise, control of which was potentially even more valuable than the control the Directorate had for centuries exercised over the dimensional-transfer technology.
An hour and ten minutes after the gas had been sent—and blocked—the ships came within what Worf at the tactical station considered a safe range, the lead ship almost in the shadow of the Enterprise. Glancing at Zalkan, he initiated the firing program he and the scientist had so carefully constructed. In less than a second, the precisely targeted and timed phaser bursts struck every programmed target. A second later, tractor beams flashed out, freezing the ships in place.
“Energy buildup!” Worf said sharply, and for a moment everyone’s stomach lurched as their eyes fastened on the screen, waiting helplessly for the flashes that would mean they had failed after all.
But there were no flashes. And Zalkan roused himself and smiled, a final moment of strength coming from somewhere deep within him. “They can try to pull the ships back,” he said in a whisper, “but they cannot succeed, not without power provided by the ships themselves, which they no longer have.”
He grimaced, much as he had when Data had first administered the CZ-14, and his eyes met Picard’s. “We have won the battle, Captain,” he said, the whisper even fainter. “Now you must not lose the peace.”
His eyes closed and, a moment later, his breathing stopped.
When Picard turned away, he saw that Koralus had been standing quietly behind him, a tear trickling down one cheek.
Chapter Twenty-four
KHOZAK’S EYES BLAZED as he faced Picard and the other Enterprise officers across the table in the ship’s main conference room. “You have these monsters in your hands? And still they live? And now you want me to meet them?” He turned to glare at Albrect, who sat at the far end of the table beyond Koralus and Denbahr and the rest of the Jalkor Council. “Is it not enough that you have tricked us into the same room with the new leader of the Directorate?”
“There is one in particular I would like you to meet, President Khozak,” Picard said, ignoring the president’s jab at Albrect. “We felt it might be instructive, particularly in light of your desire at one point to inject poison gas into the mines, not to mention your recent treatment of myself and my fellow officers.”
“I have explained my reasons for those actions,” Khozak said, his anger seeming to fade beneath a momentary facade of apologetic defiance. “In my situation, you might well have done the same.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Picard said, “but it is good that you feel that way. It is good that you can acknowledge that the situation a person finds himself in can cause that person to take actions he would not take under other circumstances. In any event, Mr. President, because you have requested that the Federation aid you in the destruction of an entire world in retaliation for the Plague that that world has unknowingly inflicted on Krantin, we thought it only fair that you meet the one who was leader of that world until a few hours ago.”
“Unknowingly? These creatures have known precisely what they were doing to Krantin for decades, particularly this so-called leader you want to force me to meet! Zalkan himself said it—they knew and they did not care!”
“The leader, yes, and all members of the Directorate,” Picard acknowledged, “as well as a very select number of their underlings. They were, however, the only ones who even knew of the existence of your Krantin, let alone what was being done to it. And it was one of those few, by the way, who came to Zalkan’s group and told them of the plan to capture the Enterprise and breach the walls of Jalkor. Without his action, we would almost certainly all be dead today.” Picard did not add that self-preservation had also played a role. When the informer had learned that the Directorate planned to kill the four “defectors,” simply as a precaution, he had realized that, like them, he was expendable and would never be safe as long as the Directorate remained in power.
“Even those involved with the search for the dilithium in the asteroid belt were not aware that an inhabited
planet existed here,” Riker added. “Only the leaders and the very few they needed to install and monitor the recording devices in your computers were fully aware of the existence of your Krantin and what had been done to it.”
“And they, like the pilots, were as much victims of the Directorate as you,” Dr. Crusher said. “They weren’t told, for example, that they were killing themselves. They knew nothing of the ill effects of repeated transfers. Only the leaders knew that.”
Khozak snorted skeptically. “Surely the pilots themselves noticed they were becoming ill and dying after certain numbers of trips.”
Crusher shook her head. “Before they reached that stage, the Directorate made sure they simply ‘disappeared.’ The Directorate never denied that being a transfer pilot was dangerous; they just substituted a more acceptable form of danger. One in every hundred transfers went wrong, they said, and ship and pilot were lost, possibly in yet another alternate reality. This was a lot different than saying, ‘Each trip makes you sicker until finally you die.’ ”
“But Zalkan and his group obviously knew the truth!” Khozak protested. “Why didn’t they simply expose the Directorate’s lies?”
“They tried at least once,” Picard said, “but the Directorate’s control was so complete, no one paid them any attention. And the ones who made the effort ‘disappeared’ more quickly than the pilots.”
Khozak shook his head angrily. “Why are you telling me this? What is the point in trying to prove that virtually everyone in that Krantin is innocent and that only the members of the Directorate deserve our hatred?” he asked with a sideward glance at Albrect. “You have already made it abundantly clear that my desire to protect Krantin from their continuing depredations will not even be considered.”
Picard suppressed a sigh. “Protecting your Krantin is not synonymous with destroying theirs.”
“Is it not? How many years will it take before they are willing to shut down their world in order to stop exporting the Plague to ours? And from what you have said, those infernal devices are so universally used that shutting them all down would amount to just that—shutting down their world!” He turned to glare at Albrect. “Is my understanding not correct?”
“A slight exaggeration,” Albrect said, “but essentially correct. However, we have little choice in the matter. I thought you understood that.”
“Understood what?”
Albrect looked questioningly toward the Enterprise officers but particularly toward Data. “Have you not verified our fears?”
Data nodded. “The samples I took, and the ones you brought with you, do bear them out,” Data said.
“How long would we have if we did not shut down our ‘infernal devices’?” Albrect turned to look at Khozak with a grim smile. “And they are that, in more ways than you could imagine.”
“My computer models,” Data said, “indicate that, at the current rate, you have no more than five years.”
Albrect grimaced. “Even worse than our own figures showed.” He turned back to Khozak. “That is why we will shut the machines down. If we continue to use them, if we continue to spew out the Plague onto your Krantin, our Krantin will be dead before yours. I believe you were given perhaps ten years before it was irreversible.”
“Dead? Your world?” Khozak shifted his glare from Albrect to Data. “What nonsense is this?”
“The collapse of their entire ecosystem,” Data said, and even Khozak greeted the statement with a stunned silence.
“For five hundred years,” Picard picked up the explanation, “they have been transferring matter from their world to yours, but it has not all been ‘waste,’ not nearly all. The dilithium is but one example. While transferring the smoke from their industries, for example, they also transferred great quantities of their atmosphere. Their atmospheric pressure is at least five percent lower than yours. In transferring organic waste in a thousand ways, they have transferred elements essential to plant and animal life. Dr. Crusher noted a deficiency of certain trace elements in the bodies of the so-called defectors who brought the first markers aboard the Enterprise. Zalkan, on the other hand, who has lived on this Krantin for more than a decade, did not suffer from such deficiencies. Similar deficiencies were found in the plant samples Mr. Data brought back, and in Albrect himself. Those deficiencies are only the tip of the organic iceberg, so to speak, the first signs of what is rapidly approaching. The dead trees that we saw in the park area beneath Albrect’s window are another. At this point, the process can be reversed, but sometime between three and five years from now, it will reach a point at which it cannot. If Data’s models are correct, all life, even microorganisms, will be gone within two years of that point unless certain key elements begin to be replaced. Or returned.”
A gleam of satisfaction radiated from Khozak’s eyes, but only for a moment. Then the scowl returned as he turned back to Picard. “No!” he almost shouted. “For you to even suggest that we help them, that we give them even an ounce of Krantin’s lifeblood—No! It is too monstrous even to—”
“Captain Picard did not suggest it,” Denbahr broke in angrily. “Nor did Albrect or anyone from that Krantin. I suggested it.”
“And I agreed,” Koralus said. “The Ten Thousand on the Hope will return—Captain Picard has agreed to transport us all—and we will help in whatever ways we can.”
Khozak snorted. “Ten thousand Deserters will help a billion murderers to survive! Why am I not surprised!”
“Only seventy-five Deserters at the most,” Koralus said mildly, “myself and those of the One Hundred I did not awaken to die. None of the others have ever seen Krantin except in images. And there may well be another sixty thousand, if the other ships can be located.”
Khozak shook his head violently. “It makes no difference. I will not be a party to an obscenity like this! I will not allow that world to save itself by stealing back the very stuff with which it destroyed Krantin!”
“Even if the ‘stealing’ is a part of the process by which Krantin is itself restored?” Picard asked. “The Federation will assist in whatever way it can—terraforming technology and equipment, if that is what is required.”
Khozak shook his head again, even more violently. “Never!”
Picard let his breath out in a controlled sigh and stood up. “Come, Mr. President. It is time for you to meet the former leader of the Directorate.” He motioned to Albrect, who stood as well. “You can return them all to your Krantin when the president is finished.”
“You can return them now, then!” Khozak snapped.
“Not until you have met their leader,” Picard said. He turned to Worf. “Lieutenant, if you would assist President Khozak?”
Khozak continued to scowl, but he was on his feet before Worf had taken a second step. “Why am I singled out for this unique honor?” he asked sourly as they descended in the turbolift. “Why not the entire Council?”
Picard suppressed a smile. “If, after the meeting, you wish the Council to meet him as well,” he said, “you can bring them down yourself. Albrect will delay their return.”
The turbolift door hissed open. Picard led the way to the same detention area the four defectors had died in. The Security lieutenant on guard silently acknowledged Picard as they walked by his station.
“There,” Picard said, indicating the compartment with a single prisoner standing with his back to the forcefield.
They came to a stop less than a meter from the forcefield, but the prisoner did not acknowledge their presence.
“Khozak,” Picard said, “there is someone I’d like you to meet.”
“You’ve already established that!” Khozak snapped, but a second later he gasped.
The prisoner had turned at Picard’s words.
“So,” the prisoner said as he eyed the president, “this is my twin from this misbegotten world.”
When President Khozak returned to the conference room an hour later, he offered no reason for changing his mind, nor did he sug
gest that the rest of the Council be taken to speak with the prisoner. He merely nodded to Denbahr and Koralus and said, “I will not stand in your way. Do as you wish, you and your ten thousand.”
Picard breathed a sigh of relief. Zalkan’s peace, if not won, had at least not been lost.
“Of course, Data,” Geordi said, laughing as he reached down to scratch a purring Spot behind the ears, “I’ll be glad to come to your thank-you party for Spot and Fido. However, maybe you should include the counselor in there, too. After all, if she hadn’t been able to calm Spot down after all those invaders were popping in and out, it never would’ve worked.”
Data considered a moment. “You are right, Geordi. I will of course include Counselor Troi. Or should hers be a separate affair? I would not wish to offend her.”
“Don’t worry, Data, it’ll be fine. For that matter, if you want to include me, too—didn’t you tell me that Spot’s reflexes wouldn’t have done us much good without the blocking field? And yourself, come to think of it. You’re the one who realized what was setting both of them off and put a stopwatch on the phenomenon.”
“But then perhaps we should include Commander Riker as well,” Data said thoughtfully, “since it was he who returned me to the Enterprise so expeditiously.”
Geordi laughed again. “Maybe you better just stick to Spot and Fido after all, before we find a reason to include everyone on the Enterprise. You don’t want to spread the Spotlight too thin. There is just one thing, though.”
“What is that, Geordi?”
“I hope you don’t want me to ‘watch’ either one of them. After all, it is a party.”
“I had not thought of that, but you are correct again. However, if you could spare some time later, it could be of help in my ongoing study.”
“Come on, Data, don’t you think they’ve earned the right not to be stared at for a while, particularly Spot?”