Fabian kicked his tricorder, sitting on the deck, all but forgotten. “Useless. Or damn close. The shields around this station have a dampening effect on this side. It limits the range and effectiveness of our best equipment. Which is likely why we lost communications.” Fabian exhaled sharply. “And transporter lock.”
With no comms and no emergency beam-out after two minutes, Sonya and the rest of her team had already come to that conclusion. “Pattern enhancers?” she asked.
“Still need a basic site-to-site signal.” He nodded toward where Pattie had already set up the pattern enhancers around a clear section of deck. Vinx’s combadge, donated to the cause, rested in the exact center. “On the off chance that Tev somehow manages to work around that shortcoming, we’ve recorded a status update that will help us coordinate a rescue.” There was no talk of if a rescue would be made. Only when.
Sonya had good people under her. They took quite a bit on faith, which was unusual for by-the-math engineers.
“Can we drop the shields?” she asked as Rennan and Lense walked up to join the small gathering. “That would give Tev his chance. We can easily absorb the radiation, can’t we?”
“For a time,” Lense said, nodding, but S’eth disagreed.
“Cannot be done. Our shields work in conjunction with our gravitational anchor. We drop our shields, and the Demon swallows us.”
Which Sonya translated as a complete loss of integrity as the black hole’s tidal forces ripped the station apart. “Poor engineering design,” she stated bluntly.
“Or a very good fail-safe,” Rennan said, not the least bit surprised, apparently, to hear about the integrated systems. “If you never want the station, or its inhabitants, to see the light of day again.”
“What are you saying?” Sonya inhaled sharply, turned on S’eth. “This station, and all aboard her, were sunk into the gravity well intentionally? With no way out?”
S’eth hesitated, then nodded. “That would be the case, Commander.”
“Why?”
S’eth did not appear to want to say. Embarrassed or disgruntled, Sonya wasn’t sure. But Rennan Konya had the answer. The Betazoid had waved over Corsi and Vinx, who gathered in cautiously, alerted by some signal. He nodded at the Resaurian, and then let his gaze take in the half-wrecked operations center around them. “It makes perfect sense,” he told his commander, “if you are designing a prison.”
Chapter
11
Tev wondered what this meeting was about as Soloman took a seat opposite him. With the captain to Tev’s right, Abramowitz to the captain’s right, and Faulwell to his left, they could commence.
The captain looked strained. Stretched thin. Just plain tired. Nothing showed in his voice, however, as he spoke.
“You called this meeting, Abramowitz. What have you dug up?”
Tev sniffed at her lack of preparedness; she took a whole four heartbeats to begin as she checked a few last notes on her pad.
“Actually quite a lot. Thanks to Soloman’s efforts, we’ve decoded most of that corrupted Archer file.” She nodded at Soloman, who managed to look slightly embarrassed at the praise. If he’d succeeded, why not take appropriate credit?
“It was a simple matter, Captain,” Soloman began in his strange cadence. “After Carol met with the Resaurians, I spoke with her at some length to extract additional information that can only be synthesized in a face-to-face interaction.” He nodded right back at Carol, bestowing mutual credit. “Once I had those additional data bytes, I constructed a new set of algorithmic search patterns and set it to work on the corrupted files. Once I’d extracted the first bytes and reincorporated them into the search parameters, the rest quickly fell into place, building a cohesive whole. Carol simply took that information and distilled it into what we have now.”
“Enough with the back-patting already,” Gold said with a tired smile. “Get on with it.”
Abramowitz cleared her throat. “Yes, Captain. What we appear to have is a race that is steeped in tradition; traditions hold more importance than law. In fact, most traditions become laws by default. They are slow to develop and slow to adapt. Nevertheless, a progressive faction appears every few centuries and the Resaurians suddenly leap forward in their development: culturally, scientifically, technologically—really across the board. However, this doesn’t last long. As a natural equilibrium reinstates itself, the progressive faction simply dissolves as their goals come to fruition and then centuries of slow, almost torporlike progression begins again.”
“Okay, but how does that help us? That’s a fine history lesson and we might use it to our advantage, but I’m not sure what that has to do with the station or our current predicament.” For the first time that Tev could remember, Gold actually sounded slightly annoyed.
“I was getting to that, Captain,” Abramowitz responded, speeding up her delivery. “This cycle progressed for who knows how many centuries. Until the Klingons.”
Everyone, except Soloman, leaned back slightly as though that were the answer to everything. How many times had the Klingons been the problem? Tev could name numerous instances where he’d personally been involved in Klingon problems, much less history in general.
Abramowitz nodded her head and continued. “The Klingons practically enslaved the Resaurians for decades—I can’t tell for sure how long, unfortunately, but enough time to thoroughly alter their society. When the Klingons departed, they left a hole that apparently was filled by another progressive faction. However, as upheavals tore at the very fabric of the Resaurian society, progress in sciences and technologies, most of it gleaned from the Klingons during their occupation and taken from their castoffs, spiraled out of control, advancing beyond the attendant advances of culture and the moral fiber to know how to deal with such technology.”
Tev leaned forward to place meaty palms onto the table, finally able to join the conversation. “This progressive faction, so enamored of technology, did not dissipate as had occurred previously. This required the traditionalists to finally rise up and remove them from power?”
Abramowitz stared, chagrined, at Tev. She was not the only person to study societal behavior. Dealing with bizarre alien species such as humans, Cardassians, and Ferengi had forced him to such lengths, even if it was simply a small side hobby. It had neither the clean lines nor the pure form of engineering and mathematics, but the probabilities study of a sentient race’s reactions to stimulation could be interesting in its own right.
“That’s right, Tev. That’s exactly right.” She turned to look at the rest of those present, as though to assure herself she’d not been the only one to hear his words. He’d be offended if Abramowitz wasn’t so far beneath his station.
“For perhaps the first time in Resaurian history, a violent overthrow of a movement occurred.” She paused, as though done with her recitation. “After that, well, it would all be conjecture. I’ve no idea what occurred with the progressive faction, or how the traditionalists dealt with something so unprecedented. More importantly, I’ve no idea if the Resaurians found their equilibrium again, or whether the imprint of the Klingons was simply too powerful and the appearance of the progressive faction occurs more frequently and with more violence than before.”
The captain finally leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, and ran his hands back through his hair before raising bloodshot eyes to the room.
“Which still doesn’t answer our question of why they’ve been so open,” Gold said. “If everything you say is true, then our first impression should’ve been correct. They should be adamantly opposed to encountering new species.”
Faulwell finally spoke up. “Could this Sha’a you met be a part of the progressive faction? Perhaps they’ve turned up once more.”
The captain shook his head. “No. Of course, it’s hard to read the Resaurians, but if ever I saw a traditionalist, Sha’a was it. S’linth, the captain, might be something different, but it looked to me like Sha’a is calling all the
shots.”
“What if—”
“Captain, this is the bridge.”
Tev snuffled—he hated being interrupted.
“Gold here.”
“Captain, we’re receiving a message from Commander Gomez.”
Chapter
12
“A prison?”
Sonya Gomez wandered through one of the lower corridors, between a hydroponics bay and the auxiliary generator that provided power to what remained of the functioning operations equipment. She was beginning to see a great deal more insidiousness in the welded doors and the carbon scoring that marred the walls everywhere she went. “All of this to lock up a group of political dissidents?”
“Dissidents!” S’eth shook his head. “We were free thinkers. Progressive diplomats, teachers, and engineers. The Council quaked in their nests when our eggs hatched.”
Corsi, Vinx, and Konya had taken up sentry positions, guarding the small S.C.E. team as they continued their survey of the station. They held off all Resaurians except for S’eth. Corsi shook her head. “Why not space you? A whole lot easier.”
S’eth recoiled as if bitten. “Resaurians have a long life span. To shorten it would be an inconceivable crime. Not that other races haven’t shown a tendency to do just that.” He had already told Sonya of the Klingon oppression of his race nine hundred years ago. “After experiencing that kind of brutality, we were more devoted than ever to the tradition of the sanctity of life.”
“And warming to the concept of cruel and unusual punishment.” Sonya adjusted her tricorder, fighting against the dampening field that limited its range to mere meters. Power fluctuations on the deck below. Thermal signatures in the next room—more Resaurians standing posts in the auxiliary power room, most likely. “A life of confinement, spent inside a black hole?”
“Technically, we might never die.” S’eth shrugged. “And the station had every possible convenience. With holographic technology, we might pretend that life was fairly normal.”
“A silk prison,” Fabian said. Everyone looked at him. “Old Earth history. Feudal Japan. Carol was telling me about it after that mission to the Kursican orbiting prison. You create a palacelike prison, as a show of respect for your prisoners.”
Pattie shook her antennae in a negative way. “The Resaurian definition of ‘palace’ leaves a great deal to be desired.”
S’eth slithered along next to Sonya, ducking his head in repeated apology. “It was a grand station, originally. But the…century of wear and use have stripped it down to the most basic elements. A large metal cage thrown into the darkest pit around.”
Trust was going to be a long time in returning, Sonya knew. If the S.C.E. team didn’t need S’eth in order to complete their survey and find a way to reestablish comms with the da Vinci…She pointed out some welded doors, and the weld scorches that slashed the walls nearby. “Looks more like vandalism to me. Or damage from some of your ad hoc weapons.”
“Most of that kind of damage is what is still left over from the riots. The early years were not easy ones on the twelve hundred who were cast away. We became our own small world, with factions and struggles and even a dictator who was prepared to risk everything—all of our lives—for a mad chance at freedom.”
Lense hugged her arms, shivered. “I think I might have agreed with him.”
“Es’a, the nest-breaker, was insane,” S’eth said adamantly. “Even among the progressives, his thoughts were too radical. We looked for a saner method of escape, or of rescue.”
A century, and meanwhile nearly eight hundred years had passed outside of the Demon. The conversion of Resaurian cycles to Federation years wasn’t hard once they had the common Klingon calendar as a frame of reference between them. And it was just as easy for Sonya to calculate the time dilation (assuming a fairly constant standard) between the away team and the da Vinci. One hour on the station. Eight hours aboard ship. The captain must be tearing out what was left of his hair by the handfuls, if he hadn’t already ripped his clothes and buried them.
No. Not David Gold. He wouldn’t give up hope until he saw cold bodies. Maybe not even then.
Sonya slowed, dropping back for a moment to speak with Rennan Konya. The Betazoid security officer held on to every word spoken by S’eth. It was starting to unnerve her. “Everything okay?” she asked, perhaps a bit louder than required. She didn’t want S’eth worried about the S.C.E. team. They still needed allies.
Rennan nodded slowly. “This is one of the rare times I wish I had a greater gift for telepathy. S’eth believes what he is saying. And I don’t sense any immediate danger. But there is still something he’s not telling us.” He shook his head. “Like why they still have so many weapons if these riots took place so long ago.”
“We’ve seen one hydroponics bay that might feed a tenth of the population he claims still lives on this station.” Sonya glanced at some more scoring along the walls. “There is quite a bit our host isn’t telling us.” She drifted back forward, smiling as if Rennan had just given her good news.
“Don’t worry,” she said to the security guard. “We’ll get out of here yet.”
“Are you certain there is a chance to contact your ship?” S’eth asked.
Fabian glanced up from his own tricorder screen. “If we can find the transmitter array being used for your distress call, yes. With luck, we can modify the system and alert the da Vinci of our status.”
“And without luck?” Lense asked.
Without luck, it would be ninety-three years before their change in the message worked its way up out of the black hole. Everyone knew the answer. Vinx simply shrugged. “I can create a fizzbin deck and teach you to play. It’s good for passing time.”
Sonya smiled. Not much got the da Vinci crew down for long. “I’d rather believe in a universe that contains luck,” she said, paraphrasing James T. Kirk.
“Then you will convince your Captain Gold to climb down the anchor and, how did you say, ‘bump shields’ with us? That will let you transport everyone off the station?”
“It may take a few trips, but yes. We can manage that, I believe.”
S’eth shook his head, pouching his neck muscles in what might have been a shrug of exasperation, or defeat. “I think it sounds like you are asking for the impossible as well.”
She bristled, but it was Pattie who came to her rescue against S’eth’s pessimism. “We’re the S.C.E.,” the Nasat said. “ ‘Impossible’ is our stock-in-trade.”
Taken right off the lips of the S.C.E.’s overall commander, Captain Montgomery Scott, but Sonya couldn’t have said it better herself.
Fabian could. Smiling, he walked over to a nearby wall hatch. Pulling his phaser, he didn’t bother with the niceties of dismantling the hatch but instead sliced through the hinges. It fell into the corridor with a metallic clang. Behind the panel, an energy conduit pulsed with a modulated energy wave.
He snapped his tricorder off.
“Impossible takes an extra ten minutes,” he said.
Chapter
13
The triumvirate of Resaurians faced the viewscreen, as inscrutable as ever; strangely, they were the only individuals on the bridge. Gold knew it was simply a problem of communications, but he couldn’t help but think their emotionless faces were an act—a conscious move to hide their true emotions behind a façade.
It only enraged him further.
“So, this is how it went down,” he said, uncaring that the endless hours of frustrating failures to bring his crew home were hemorrhaging into his voice. “For millennia you’ve peacefully passed through cycles of quick progression, followed by centuries of slow evolution. Until the Klingons came. They subjugated you, enslaved you, and after thoroughly altering your society, cast you aside. With more technology than you could possibly hope to deal with, your equilibrium shattered, the progressives came into power and held sway for a hundred years. Upheavals continued as you tried to come to terms with technology well beyond y
our cultural or moral development. Finally, in an act of desperation, the traditionalists overthrew the progressives and removed them from power. How am I doing so far?”
Gold couldn’t care less about his sarcasm-laced words, as the trio continued to stare at him as though watching a bug they found fascinating, but ultimately would eat. He knew Abramowitz was probably having a conniption right about now, but he couldn’t care less about that either. They’d lied to him. Lied to him on his own ship, while his crew was stuck in that hell-hole they’d created.
“So, you’d overthrown the most powerful of the progressives, but you didn’t know what to do. You couldn’t kill them—the Klingons may have erased much of your culture, but that was one tradition that you’d jealously kept—so you constructed a prison inside the black hole and threw them. How long have they been down there? How long has this secret been kept?”
He stared daggers across the electronic gulf, and for the first time noticed something different. Sha’a had remained a statue during his rant and Suliss only less so, nodding once in a while as though to confirm and support everything he’d said. Captain S’linth, however, appeared agitated. If the councilman had not been so still, perhaps holding himself from giving anything away, Gold probably would not have even noticed S’linth’s movements. Now, however, the slight sway of the head, the twitch of the arms, the quiver of the lips: they all added up to a captain who was receiving the surprise of a lifetime. He’s been lied to as well. Can the whole Resaurian population be blind to this but the councilmen? Or perhaps the overseers to each ship that the Council appoints?
Gold looked again at those obsidian eyes and had his answer. “Councilman, answer me. You threw them into that hole for eternity.”
“We did not kill them,” Sha’a finally answered.
“What?” Gold launched himself out of his seat and moved to stand close to the screen; it changed nothing, but psychologically it was good to appear closer to them. “That’s your answer? You didn’t kill them? You for damn sure might as well have. It’s been nine hundred years since they were tossed into that mishegos. The whole galaxy has changed in scope and then some since then. It would’ve been better to slit their throats and be done with it.”
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