The shivers were growing stronger. Picard swallowed them back. He made himself stare at the screen, even though the maggots disgusted him almost as much as the creature terrified him. “Our leaders will speak with yours. If you tell us your purpose in coming to this sector, we will see what we can do to help—”
“You, the Unclean, offering to help us?” The creature’s laughter died, and Picard took an involuntary step backward as the Fury captain’s eyes seemed to glow red. “Just as you helped our last ship that arrived here? We ruled heaven once and we are returning to rule it again. Then you will do as we want. No negotiating. No diplomats. It is easier our way.”
Picard didn’t let his mind dwell on what the creature had said. He didn’t dare. “In this quadrant,” Picard said, “we work together. We are willing to work with you if you let us.”
“Be assured you will work with us.” The creature raised its hand, revealing long curling fingernails with razor-sharp tips. “Like little puppets on a string. We shall control your every movement. Your every feeling.”
The fear increased so that Picard had to grit his teeth to prevent them from chattering.
The creature leaned forward, as if they were the only two beings in the universe. Its red eyes seemed to glow across the distance, cutting at Picard’s insides. “And Picard, we will enjoy your every scream.”
The screen went dark. Picard staggered backward, stopping just before he reached his chair. He felt as if someone had taken his insides, squeezed them, and then stretched them. His muscles ached, and he longed to close his eyes and never open them again.
Instead, he slumped into his chair. Sweat soaked the back of his shirt. The bridge crew had not dissolved into anxiety. They still controlled themselves. He wondered if that last blast of terror had been directed at him alone.
“Sir?” Riker said, concern evident in his voice.
Picard took a few measured, deep breaths. “Number One, they know how to tap our deepest fears.”
“I know, sir,” Riker said.
“But it is artificial.” Picard was speaking as much for himself as for his first officer, fighting to wrap that band of control around his thoughts again.
He took a deep, measured breath and let it out slowly. “According to my reading of Kirk’s logs, the original Enterprise had no problem with this level of fear. That crew’s fears came only from the ways the creatures looked.”
Picard glanced around the bridge. “Yet everyone on our ship seems to have fallen prey to these overpowering emotions. Most of have not seen the imagery on the screen.”
“A weapon,” Worf said. “It is a weapon.”
Picard nodded. “I agree. They are using some sort of device now. It is—” Picard took a breath as a wave of shuddering ran through him. Riker’s eyes grew wide. Picard bit his lower lip and forced the shuddering to stop.
“It is,” he began again, “only logical. We defeated them before. They would come back stronger, using the knowledge they gained about us the first time to fight us now.”
Riker nodded. “Just as we are doing against them.”
Picard nodded. “Number One, with this in mind, I want you to go to engineering. Several of La Forge’s people were overwhelmed by the first wave. I am certain he needs assistance. Provide him with some, and make certain that the entire staff is working on a way to shield us from the Furies’ power, whatever this is. Do it as quickly as you can, Number One.”
“Aye, sir.” Riker actually looked relieved to have something to do. He pushed himself out of his chair as though anxious to be away from Picard, and hurried to the turbolift. As he passed Ensign Iket, Riker paused, spoke softly, and then continued on his way. Even in the middle of his own fear, Riker had comfort to spare for others.
Picard was lucky that Riker had turned down his own command. At moments like this, Picard needed someone solid to rely on. Fortunately, he also had Data.
“Mr. Data,” Picard said, “observations.”
Data pushed away from the console. “The Fury is justifiably certain of its own power. Ancient history from many different societies shows that they were able to enslave peoples in this sector for thousands of years. Earth, Vulcan, and Klingon cultures all show records of their influence or domination.”
Picard nodded. “Go on.”
Data looked puzzled for a moment before he continued. “It seemed to me, however, that the captain of the Fury vessel did not anticipate your response to its message. Your offer to negotiate confused it, and your mention of diplomats made it pause for a moment.”
“In consideration?” Picard asked. He had been so involved in controlling his emotions that he wasn’t able to read the emotions in the Fury captain.
“No, sir. If I had to speculate, I would say that it was not familiar with the term. I do not believe that the Furies have negotiated in their recent history. I doubt they even understood what Captain Kirk was trying to do their first time here. The records show that Kirk delayed the battle and was able to talk to them only because they were looking for proof that this area was their home area. Once they found that proof, they attacked.”
Picard steepled his fingers and tapped them against his chin. “Speculate more for me, Mr. Data. If they aren’t here to negotiate, why did they arrive with only five ships?”
“There could be several explanations, Captain. If your hypothesis is correct and they have developed a device to incapacitate us with fear, five ships might be all they think they need. It would seem, though, based on historic precedent and standard military tactics, that these five ships are an advance point. Scout ships, for lack of a better way of putting it.”
Picard felt himself shudder, but he hoped it didn’t show.
Data went on. “With that in mind, I looked at strategy. Those five ships appear to be guarding the Furies’ entry point. We think the point is a kind of wormhole, but nearly eighty years of observation have shown us that it is not available to our ships, the way the wormhole near Bajor is. However, this wormhole seems to open at the whim of the Furies. Either they have knowledge of when it will open or the wormhole is artificially created.”
Data’s analysis was calming Picard. It was good to hear someone speaking rationally.
“What do you believe?”
“The evidence points to an artificial creation,” Data said. “If the Furies had to time their arrival in the Alpha Quadrant with the opening of the wormhole, they would have sent in their entire invasion force. If these five ships are indeed an advance team, then the hole is artificially created, and we will see other ships arrive through the wormhole shortly.”
Picard swallowed. More Furies. It made sense. But it didn’t give them much time.
“Sir,” Data said. “While you were speaking with the Fury, I took the liberty of running several tests. I hoped to find a source for the emotional distress the Furies’ visage seems to cause the crew.”
Relief flooded through Picard. “Good thinking.”
“Unfortunately, I was unable to find any obvious cause of the distress. The communication seemed like a straightforward intership exchange. The Fury ships were not using any weaponry that our systems can detect.”
But that didn’t mean the weapons weren’t there. For decades, the Federation could not detect a cloaked Romulan warbird even if the bird were within hailing distance.
“I also ran several experiments on this sector of space, thinking perhaps we had run into some sort of field that generated unease within the crew.”
Picard felt startled. He hadn’t thought of that, even though it was obvious. Too much of his energy was focused on remaining calm.
“And?” he asked.
“Nothing, sir. We seem to be in a normal sector of space.”
For some reason, the news did not discourage Picard. It made him realize that there were answers, and answers beyond the Furies’ control of the subconscious.
The key was to find those answers before the Furies’ attack began in earnest.
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“Excellent, Mr. Data,” Picard said. “Keep working along those lines. If you need additional resources, let me know.”
“Aye, sir.” Data turned back to his console.
Picard resisted the urge to cross his fingers. If they could find a way to block the fear the Furies caused, they would have half the battle won. Perhaps more than that. The fact that Data had come up with ideas Picard had not thought of disturbed Picard, and showed, only too clearly, the advantage that fear gave the Furies.
Picard needed to take that advantage away.
And he needed to do it soon.
Chapter Ten
RIKER KEPT HIS HEAD DOWN as he moved through the ship. He had tried, when he first got on the turbolift, to pretend nothing was wrong, but he couldn’t. Seeing fear in the other crew members made fear increase within him. And he needed to bring the fear down. Captain Picard felt the same terror, yet he seemed to continually face it. Somehow it weakened Riker’s defenses, made him seem less than he was.
He finally understood how the Klingons felt disgraced in battle with the Furies. Riker had survived on a Klingon ship, against the betrayal, the constant danger, the tests made on his human capabilities, and he had seen that as a challenge. Nothing had brought this kind of deep emotion out in him before.
The same things had probably happened to the Klingons in that first fight. They were used to being tough. They knew how to master difficult circumstances. They never suffered from unreasonable fears. Every fear they faced, and faced down, was justified.
A Klingon always weighed the risks and entered into battle knowing the odds. But that time a Klingon general had panicked and turned to the Federation for help. No wonder they never talked about that battle, even in legends.
Now Riker didn’t even know what he was fighting. He suspected he was fighting himself.
Throughout the ship, crew members were down. Some had passed out. Others were moaning. A few were running as if the hounds of hell were behind them—and perhaps they were.
An even larger number of crew were getting back on their feet, surveying their surroundings, mastering their feelings, and helping those around them. Their eyes had a haunted look that probably mirrored the look in Riker’s eyes. He knew if he survived this he would never again view his own capabilities the same way.
So, coming into engineering seemed like walking into a haven. Three crew members were unconscious, and someone had propped them near the door. Pale, shaking engineers were examining the warp core. Two ensigns were repairing a sensor pad on top of the screen grid.
Geordi was milling through all of it, appearing busy and concerned. The only thing that gave away his own terror was the speed with which he moved. Geordi always hurried when he felt he could do nothing else. He was hurrying now.
The surprise was Redbay. Someone else had made out the duty rosters this week, and they had placed Redbay in engineering. He now leaned over a console, his forehead propped against the plastic edge of a screen, his lanky frame hunched forward.
“Sam,” Riker said.
Redbay snapped to attention, something he never usually did. Redbay’s normal movements were languorous, even in battle. He always moved as if he couldn’t be bothered, as if the latest threat were a mere inconvenience. This time was different. This time, he gripped the laser pen in one hand and nodded at Riker.
Redbay’s eyes were haunted too.
Their gazes met. Two old friends who knew, without saying, what the other had been through.
“The captain sent me down here. He thinks we can block these waves of emotion.”
“I do too,” Geordi said from behind him, words clipped and businesslike. “I think there’s a link between the fear we felt on the station, and the fear felt shipwide here. Most people paralyzed by terror on the Enterprise hadn’t seen the Fury. And a significant number aren’t human and don’t have the same subconscious fears. If I were making a hypothesis, I would say that only select Terrans would be frightened by the imagery we saw on the station, yet it affected me. My parents were in Starfleet, and I didn’t hear about the more colorful versions of hell until we studied the Furies at the Academy.”
“We can rule out smell,” Redbay said. “Our noses aren’t detecting anything, and the computer says that nothing has changed in the chemical component of the air.”
“I don’t want to rule anything out yet,” Riker said. “Some gases are odorless, and we can still suffer their effects.”
“But the computer should be able to read them.”
Riker shook his head. “Our systems are good, but they’re not perfect. The Furies are clearly sending something our way, and our sensors aren’t picking up a beam or a weapon or anything. They’ve been in this quadrant before, eighty years ago. They’ve had plenty of time to develop a weapon that will affect us, but one that we can’t detect.”
“It would help,” Geordi said, “if we could determine the nature of the weapon.”
“If there is a weapon,” Riker said. But he knew he was being too careful. The Enterprise had been attacked, he knew that for certain.
“There is,” Redbay said. “There has to be.”
Riker grinned at his friend. There had to be not because it was logical, but so that they could save face, within themselves. One of the major tests for Academy admission was the ability to subdue fear. A cadet had to be able to face any situation with strength. That way he could negotiate with creatures that terrified him, or keep a cool head in the middle of an attack.
As the captain had.
As Riker attempted to do, and had, if he were being honest with himself. It just hadn’t felt that way.
It still didn’t. His greatest fear was that he would lose control of himself.
He shoved the fear aside.
“I have some ideas, Will,” Redbay said. “I’ve been thinking about them since”—he paused, grinned, and shrugged—“well, since I got my brain back. Let’s assume that the Furies have developed some sort of weapon that does this to us. If so, it must be something that can be projected across distances. To send a gas through a vacuum would require some kind of containment field, and that would be very difficult to hide.”
“We don’t know the limits of their technology,” Geordi said. “They might be able to hide such a field from us.”
“Perhaps,” Redbay said. “The reactions you had on the station argue for some sort of assault on the senses. Smell is the most logical. But Lieutenant, we were all hit with this wave, as Will calls it, at the same time. You were in a Jeffries tube. One of the ensigns still out cold over there was in the containment field around the warp core.”
“And it has a separate air-filtration system,” Geordi said.
“So does the Jeffries tube,” Riker said, beginning to follow Redbay’s argument. “Anything airborne would have taken longer to hit people in these separate areas, and it seemed that we all got hit at once.”
“So we can fairly safely rule out smell,” La Forge said.
Riker nodded.
“Sound could have reached all of us at the same time,” Redbay said, “but unless I miss my guess, Captain Picard was not broadcasting his talk with the Fury shipwide.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Riker said. He frowned. “For the Furies to be using sound, they would have to broadcast on some sort of wavelength that was carried along on the transmission. And when the conversation was cut the effect should have stopped.”
“True,” Geordi said. “It would either have to piggyback on the communication with the captain or it would have to travel long distances and somehow pierce the hull and affect all of us at the same time. Again, a containment field would be needed.”
“Not likely,” Redbay said, “at least not without detection. I was modulating the screens when that first attack hit. I should have noticed something.”
“Data was actually monitoring the Furies’ vessels,” Riker said, “and he found nothing.”
“So they are using something subtler,
something not quite as obvious, and something that can affect all of us at exactly the same time.”
“It would need to be a beam of some kind, but of a kind we don’t recognize right off.” Geordi’s voice was rising with his excitement. “We would have to test for everything.”
“Not everything.” Riker believed he knew where Redbay was going. “Only physical things, things which would induce an involuntary fear reaction.”
“Smell, sound, sight, what else?” Geordi asked.
“No,” Redbay said. “Maybe just the reaction to sight, smell, and sound. What does the body produce in reaction to those outside stimuli? Pheromones? I’m not real strong in that area.”
“But doesn’t that fall under smell?” Riker asked. He didn’t know either. But he knew who to ask.
Geordi shrugged. “It’s outside my area of expertise, too. I suggest we consult with Dr. Crusher. I also think we might want to test you, me, and Data to see if we brought anything back from the station. Maybe the Furies baited a trap for us, lured us over there, and had us bring back the trigger. The trigger might be some sort of virus, airborne, and then they pull the switch on their ship, and voila, we all get scared.”
“It’s one theory,” Redbay said.
Riker agreed. His logical mind said there needed to be a reason why the Furies did what they did on the Brundage Station. They couldn’t have done such a thing just in spite.
“Follow that idea, too,” Riker said. “The captain did say that the Furies would be stronger this time.”
“Did the first run-in with them have this weapon?” Redbay asked.
“Not that the records show,” Riker said. “The reaction back then seemed to be more out of fear of what they looked like, what they represented. Kirk and the rest of that crew never mention that the Furies used such fear as a weapon.”
“Except,” Geordi said slowly, “those old reports were of cultural demons and devils, figures of myth returned. The Klingons put a high store in that sort of thing, even now. It caused their extreme reaction, that ended up bringing in the original Enterprise. Remember Worf’s reaction when Kahless returned?”
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