Star Trek The Next Generation®

by David A. McIntee

  Barclay felt vindicated. “Like I said when we arrived, the geology on this planet makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The heat without either sunlight or volcanic activity, the hill growing up around and through the Hera . . .”

  Scotty drew a tricorder and activated it. It began to warble, and a regular waveform began to scroll across the screen. “Do you see this?”

  “The planet’s magnetic signature?” Savar nodded. “I have seen it many times.”

  “Not on a medical tricorder,” Scotty said slyly. He handed the tricorder to Savar. “This is set to scan for alpha rhythms, natural brainwaves, but just look at the scale!” Scotty continued. “I thought of it last night—well, before I slept, when you used the word psycho-reactive. Psycho. Why is it psycho-reactive?” Scotty suddenly kicked the rock that was growing around the spar from the Hera. “And as for this bloody thing, it’s a scab!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t ye see? It’s scar tissue! It has to be. The heat is body heat, the magnetosphere shows the rhythms of brainwaves . . .”

  “You’re saying we’re not on a planet?”

  “I’m saying the planet is a life-form. It’s alive, man! A living brain that’s grown itself a protective casing the size of Luna.”

  “That’s insane!” Voktra protested. “A living organism, the size of a planet . . .”

  “Why not? What sort of natural predator would it have?”

  “What about the L-374 system’s artifact?” Barclay said. “Didn’t they call that the planet-killer?”

  “Aye, lad, that it was. But it was a machine, a manufactured weapon; ye couldna call it a planet’s natural predator.” Scotty pointed to the rocky growth again. “Now think about the damage the toroidal continuum fold must be causing. From the Challenger’s side of the fold, it’s several meters inside the surface of the planet. Inside the skin of a living creature!”

  “Which would mean the fold, and the interior of the Hera, is, what, a tumor in the skin of this . . . planet-creature?” Barclay asked.

  “That’s exactly what it means.”

  “I dread to think what Doctor Ogawa will say.”

  Scotty laughed mirthlessly. “She’ll say it’s only natural for a living form to create antibodies to fight infection. Like us.”

  Savar paced a few feet away, deep in thought. “Not us,” he said thoughtfully. “Our minds, and our emotions.” He looked up. “Strong emotions have always drawn stronger attacks, and you were attacked in our garden of remembrance. I presume you were upset.” He looked at Voktra. “And Romulans are a very passionate people.”

  “I’ll look after her,” Barclay said defensively. He stepped in front of Voktra, and saw that her hand was shaking. “I didn’t think Romulans were afraid of anything.”

  “Who said I was afraid?”

  “You’re a little—Well, trembling a little.”

  “Are you sure its not you who’s trembling?”

  “Well, actually, no, I’m not so sure. Maybe a little. But that’s not a denial.”

  “No, it isn’t. So, are you afraid?” the Romulan asked.

  “No. Yes. I mean, sort of, but I’m not going to let it get between me and doing my duty. And you?” Barclay asked.

  “You may rest assured that I will do my duty.”

  “Even if you’re afraid.”

  “Especially if I’m afraid, which, as it happens, I’m not.” Voktra insisted.

  “Oh. But you’re still . . . trembling.”

  “That isn’t fear.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It is . . . inappropriate right now.”

  “Oh. Ah.”

  Savar spoke quietly to Scotty. “Emotion will draw more attacks. Fortunately we are far enough from the moss forest that we may be safe here.”

  “Then we’d be better making our camp here.” Scotty looked toward the viewport set into the floor. “This is where the fold is, so this is probably where we’ll have the best chance of getting back.”

  “There is no means of leaving the planet,” Savar proclaimed.

  “Are ye sure?”

  “As sure as is possible to be. Under the command of Captain La Forge, we spent the first eight months of our enforced exile here seeking a means to leave.

  “But did she know we were on the wrong side of a toroidal continuum fold?”

  “No,” Savar admitted. “None of us had determined that. Most of our engineering officers were killed in the crash.”

  “Aye, I thought as much.” Scotty considered how best to put across the conclusion he had reached. “Have ye ever seen a fella make balloon animals?”

  “Of course.”

  “Imagine such a man blows up a balloon, and twists a part of it so he can shove it back inside the main part of the balloon. That’s what we’ve got here, but balanced both ways. So as well as the smaller bubble being inside the main part of the balloon, the main part of the balloon is inside the smaller bubble.”

  “And the actual twisted part is the fold,” Barclay added helpfully, having returned to the main group with Voktra.

  “Ye’ve got it, Reg. A chunk of the universe is trapped as a bubble on the other side of the spatial manifold inside the Hera’s hull, but the rest of the universe is also trapped as a bubble in this part, under that interior of the Hera.” Scotty stood on the viewport, and stamped his foot on it, kicking up dust. “Essentially the universe is kind of like a Möbius strip. What happens when you join two Möbius strips together is you get a Klein surface, or, as it’s more usually called, a Klein bottle.”

  “Why the discrepancy?” Savar asked. “Is it important?”

  “Not at all. It’s a mistranslation to Standard from the German words flache and flasche. A Klein bottle is a type of manifold that only has one side. Both the interior and exterior of the bottle are the same side. The important thing is that the universe itself is analogous to a Möbius strip. By definition it only has one side, or surface. But as soon as you have two of it . . .”

  “They’re stuck together as a Klein bottle,” Barclay explained.

  “A Klein bottle cannot exist in three dimensional space without intersecting with itself,” Savar pointed out.

  “And you just hit on the key words, Savar. Intersecting with itself.” Scotty stepped back off the viewport. “The universe is a Möbius strip, the bubble is a Möbius strip, and because they’re tied together they’ve formed a Klein bottle. But because this is a physical thing, in real space, there has to be an intersection with itself.”

  “The Hera.” Comprehension began to dawn in Savar’s eyes.

  “Aye. The spatial fold occupying the same space as the Hera, is where the universe intersects with itself.”

  43

  “How could this spatial fold have formed?” Savar asked Scotty.

  “It couldn’t. Not naturally, anyway.”

  “Artificially?” offered Savar.

  “Not with any technology either the Federation or the Romulans have.”

  “Something else,” Voktra suggested, “sufficiently advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic?”

  “Maybe, or something else even more advanced than those things . . . whatever they are. The alien ships out there with Challenger.” Scotty paused. “Let me guess. You’re thinking that’d be a technology worth seeking out? Maybe worth copying or stealing? The next Genesis Project?”

  “As a means of advanced propulsion I’d say the drawbacks outweigh the potential gains, wouldn’t you?” Voktra replied.

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Scotty agreed.

  “For the moment,” Voktra said quietly, “I’m thinking that the only thing worth seeking out is a way back to where Challenger is.”

  “That is impossible.” Savar repeated his earlier claim.

  “Oh, is it?” Scotty waggled a finger at the Vulcan. “If it’s possible to travel one way through the fold, it ought to be possible to travel the other way, seein’ as we know mass-detection works both ways.�
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  “And yet—”

  “Have ye ever considered that maybe the reason you’ve found it impossible is because the psycho-reactive effect is making it impossible, because that’s what, on some level, you fear?”

  Savar was silent for a long moment. “There may a certain logic in what you say. I must . . . consider this.”

  “Consider it quickly, Commander.”

  One of the alien leviathans flexed slightly, and moved with effortless grace toward the Challenger. Carolan, on the bridge, calmly called a Yellow Alert. La Forge and Sela arrived a moment later. “Captain,” Carolan began, “one of the aliens is approaching us on an intercept course.”

  “Are they arming any weapons?”

  “Not that we can tell, sir, but we can’t tell anything about them.”

  “I wonder what they want?” La Forge said.

  “Not to destroy us.”

  La Forge was surprised to hear Sela react with something other than Romulan paranoia and hostility. “No.”

  “If they wanted that, they would have attacked already,” Sela pointed out.

  “Unless they’re just trying to get a measure of us.”

  Sela shook her head. “They’ve been watching us for some time . . . I can feel it. Call it instinct if you want.” La Forge glanced sidelong at her, as she echoed the feeling he had when the first alien ship appeared. “We need to contact them somehow.”

  “So you said earlier.”

  “The Federation doesn’t have a monopoly on first contact situations. Every planet, every race, has them.”

  “I’d love to read a copy of Romulan first contact protocols.” La Forge’s attention was drawn by the hiss of a turbolift door—the only lift still operating, while the shuttle was away. He was getting progressively less surprised to see Guinan walk in each time.

  “I’m a little busy right now, Guinan.” He hated having to say that to her, but didn’t feel he had a choice.

  “These things seem familiar somehow. I can’t even say why,” she said. “But I think I may be able to get in touch with them.”

  That really grabbed his attention, and immediately meant he wasn’t too busy to see her after all. “How?”

  “I’m not really sure . . . yet. It’s just a feeling I get.”

  “A Nexus-type feeling?”

  “Maybe.”

  “If Counselor Troi were here, she’d be able to make some kind of mental contact, but you—”

  “I don’t need empathic or telepathic abilities, Geordi. I’ve been traveling the galaxy for five hundred years, and I’ve listened to a lot of people and a lot of stories . . .”

  That was a point he hadn’t considered up till now, but it was a valuable one. “Could you have met these aliens before? Or at least heard of them?”

  “They seem familiar, so I think so. But five hundred years is a long time, and that’s a lot of memories to try to sort through.”

  “You don’t remember everything?”

  “Do you remember every person you spoke to, or heard about, over your lifetime?”

  “No . . .”

  “Neither do I. You know there was a politician on Earth once who used to get that a lot, so to stave off embarrassment when he met someone he knew he’d met but didn’t really remember, he’d always just say ‘Of course I remember you, and you were right after all.’”

  Geordi couldn’t help but grin. “That’s one way of introducing yourself, but I don’t think it’ll work so well on . . . whoever they are. But if you’ve heard anything at all about these ships, or the race who controls them, we like to know what you know,” La Forge said.

  “They’re legends, tall tales . . . When I first met you, it was in San Francisco, a major seaport. Everywhere you went you’d hear tall tales of sailors catching an enormous fish that got away, or seeing squid big enough to drag a ship to the bottom of the ocean, or sea serpents.”

  “Like the Loch Ness monster?”

  “Exactly. The Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, the North American Thunderbird . . . or maybe the Flying Dutchman, or the Klingon D’Vey Fek’lehr if you want a legendary ship for comparison. All the creatures were seen by travelers, but never proven to exist. On the other hand, the giant squid was proven to exist. When I met you in San Francisco, the gorilla was still just one of these traveler’s tales as well. So, sometimes the legend becomes fact.”

  “So, these ships have been sighted? But sea serpents and monsters were things that sailors back in the day could tell were different from everyday creatures, and the Flying Dutchman was supposed to be ghostly and glowing, definitely different from a regular ship. So what makes these things . . . Dutchmen?”

  “They’re always seen at a distance, for one thing. Never close up, just ghosts at the edge of sensor range. No one has ever seen a member of their crew.”

  “That could just mean they belong to a race who prefers to keep themselves to themselves.” La Forge stopped suddenly. “D’Vey Fek’lehr—that was the phrase used by a Klingon captain in his report about finding a trans-slipstream wake just a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Then it is the same phenomenon. A legend, that some people think is a ship, and some think is a being itself.”

  Another alien vessel decelerated rapidly, swinging past the crippled Challenger, and angling to take position in a high orbit around the Hera.

  “Another one,” Leah said darkly. “How many of these things are going to come here?”

  “It’s a big enough fleet already,” Qat’qa opined. “They can surely only be mustering for some kind of military action.”

  “An invasion? Of where?”

  “Their wakes are being reported throughout our region of the galaxy . . .”

  “The galaxy’s a big place to try to invade with only a few dozen ships,” La Forge pointed out. “And they aren’t very large ships at that.”

  “We do not know—” Qat’qa broke off. “What in Kahless’s name—?”

  “Another ship, Captain,” the ensign at tactical said urgently. “It just appeared in sensor range. No decloaking, no warp signature—”

  “Carried along by that most recent alien.”

  “The new ship is of a design I’ve never seen before. Much larger than us.”

  “One of the aliens?”

  “No . . .”

  “Let’s see it on screen.”

  “Sir, their shield harmonic is—”

  “Romulan,” Sela finished the sentence, as Tomalak’s Fist loomed on the main viewer. She sat back on the edge of one of the science station consoles, apparently unnoticed as her hand had touched a communications switch. “It looks to be about thirty thousand kilometers away, as the crow flies.”

  The new arrival was huge. A beaked bird-like head as large as Challenger’s stardrive section was thrust out proudly ahead from a pair of curved bows that looked almost large enough to be drawn by Orion the Hunter himself. Warp nacelles that looked as big as the Enterprise-E were at the ends of the bows, high above and far below that vicious, hungry beak.

  Varaan came to at the foot of his command chair, which loomed over him as a reminder of his duty. He pulled himself up into the seat and looked around. His helmsman was wiping blood from a smashed nose that had been slammed into his flight console. The communications officer was unmoving on the floor, and everyone else on the bridge was hauling themselves to their feet or into their chairs. Nevertheless, Saldis’s data had been useful in preparing the ship for this.

  On the angular main viewer, the alien vessel was shrinking into the distance on its way to join a group of others like itself.

  “Report!”

  “Thirty-six alien vessels are within sensor range. Two Federation vessels also. One Federation ship is derelict. No life signs, and sensors suggest it has been here for over a decade.”

  “And the other?”

  “Challenger.”

  “Ah, the experimenters themselves, good. Tornan, give me a situation report on Challenger.”

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nbsp; “They have no warp power, no weapons, minimal shielding. They are all but crippled. Shall I target them?”

  Varaan almost said yes, but caught himself. If they killed the Tal Shiar Chairman, he wanted to parade them on Romulus for a show trial. “Mark them as a secondary target. They’re not an immediate threat.”

  “Sir.”

  Varaan looked around his command deck, which was already back to normal operations. Saldis’s analysis of the available data on the trans-slipstream wakes had enabled Varaan’s engineers to prepare the ship to withstand the effects of running into one. They had shut down systems that would have been vulnerable to power surges, strengthened and added multiple redundant backups to the inertial dampening systems, shields, and the gravity grid.

  As a result, they were already back to strength and able to punish the aliens for their attitude, and, hopefully, to bring Sela’s assassins to justice.

  Varaan pointed to the ship on screen. “Target the alien vessel that carried us here, and lay in a pursuit course, best possible speed.”

  “Our warp drive is offline. Full impulse is available.”

  “Then full impulse it is,” Varaan said with an imperious wave of the hand. “Let’s waste no more time.” As the helmsman smoothly accelerated the Tomalak’s Fist, Varaan turned back to his first officer. “Weapons status, Tornan?”

  “Primary disruptors are offline. Torpedoes are available.”

  “Excellent. Arm them and prepare to engage the enemy. And hail Challenger. Tell them they are now prisoners of the Romulan Empire.”

  44

  Sharp yellow-green torpedoes spat across the void, as Tomalak’s Fist swept majestically in toward the most recently arrived alien vessel. The two ships were almost the same size, but the alien proved far more maneuverable. It turned neatly, and let the torpedoes sail harmlessly past.

  For a moment Sela expected the alien on Challenger’s viewer to return fire, but it simply continued on its new course. The Romulan ship adjusted to follow suit.

  “Kat,” La Forge shouted, “draw their fire.”

  Qat’qa immediately set the controls to lift the ship out of orbit on impulse. Nothing happened. “Captain! Helm control is not responding!” Qat’qa thumped the console with her fist. “It has been re-routed.”