GEMWORLD: BOOK ONE OF TWO

by John Vornholt

  While the android piloted the crippled starship, Troi turned her attention to the wounded. At least she hoped they were only wounded. It was too late for Ensign Yontel. He was covered in burns, and his wideopen eyes stared puzzledly at the blank viewscreen as he floated over his charred station. Barclay had recovered enough to use his tricorder, and he was checking Riker while Pazlar steadied the captain in midair.

  In an effort to reach them, Deanna wheeled one hand helplessly, while she clutched the back of Data’s chair with the other. “How are they?”

  “They’re alive,” answered Barclay. “N-Not too badly off. I’d say it was concussion that knocked them out.”

  Troi finally let out the breath she had been holding, it seemed, since they came out of warp. “Keep them stable until the medteam arrives.”

  “I’m not sure I reached sickbay,” admitted Barclay. “They never responded.”

  Deanna tapped her combadge. “Troi to Crasher. Is there a medteam headed to the bridge?”

  “Yes,” answered the weary doctor. “Although not quickly. The turbolifts and transporters aren’t working. Since I’m talking to you, I have to assume the captain and first officer are casualties.”

  “They’re alive, but unconscious. As far as we can tell, it’s from concussion. We have one dead up here, too.”

  “More than that shipwide,” muttered the doctor. “Before you put the gravity back on, give us all a chance to get back to the deck.”

  “Good idea. Troi out.” She turned to Pazlar. “That was quick thinking about the artificial gravity.”

  The Elaysian smiled. “I’m always looking for good reasons to do without it. That’s why I’m in Starfleet—to convince you rootfeet that you don’t need gravity.”

  Data cocked his head and scanned his instruments. “We have just entered the planet’s atmosphere.”

  “Normally that means we’re about to crash,” remarked Troi.

  “Not this time. We are no long being pulled into the rift. Its effect seems to end at the shell. We are in stationary orbit three kilometers beneath the shell.”

  “We’re not in danger of hitting the crystal, are we?”

  “No, sir. The crystal growth does not extend this far.”

  “Anything else we should be concerned about?”

  Data surveyed screen after screen of readouts. “Thoron radiation remains higher than normal, although it’s not at dangerous levels. That would account for the subspace interference. Oddly, the rift still does not appear on our sensors.”

  “How is that possible?”

  The android swiveled his head to look at her. “This is conjecture, but it may be a dimensional rift. We also picked up unusual gravity readings, which may indicate unusual quantities of dark matter. The two are probably related.”

  Deanna ducked as a figure came swooping past. It was Melora, who somersaulted over a console and grabbed the back of a chair, coming to a graceful stop a few meters away from them. Somewhat defensively she said, “There’s never been any problem with the dark matter before.”

  It was hard to argue with someone floating over her head, but Deanna tried. “Something has gone awry here, though. You’ve got a singularity out there that nearly destoyed the Enterprise, and Lipuls are sending out dream SOSs. And nothing shows up on our sensors. Dark matter, a dimensional rift—we need to find some answers.”

  When no one spoke for several seconds, Data interjected, “Shall I restore gravity?”

  “Just a moment.” Troi twisted around, trying to find the comm panel on the nearest station. When she couldn’t reach it, she ordered, “Patch in my combadge to the whole ship.”

  “Yes, sir.” Data worked his console. “Go ahead.”

  “This is Commander Troi,” she said. “Captain Picard is fine, but he has been hurt, as have many of you. Please remain calm. We’re inside the shell that surrounds Gemworld, and we’re safe from the singularity that nearly destroyed us. We’re about to restore gravity, so I urge everyone to work their way to the deck. Don’t try to stand up, just get your whole body as close as you can to the deck . . . or sit in a chair. Remember, when gravity comes back, you’ll fall, and so will any objects that are floating near you. You have five minutes.”

  She nodded to Data, and he worked his board. He still looked calm and collected, seated at the auxiliary console as if nothing were wrong. “How come you’re not floating?” she asked.

  “I activated the magnetic implants in my posterior,” he answered. “Everyone should have them.”

  “Excuse me, Commander,” said Melora Pazlar. “Breathable air—my home—is just on the other side of that hull. If you could transport me out, I could fly out there, and I could try to contact my people. They must have seen us . . . and they could be heading this way.”

  “Lifeforms are approaching,” concurred Data.

  “Please beam me out,” begged Pazlar, “before you put the gravity back on.”

  Troi looked at Data, and the android said, “We have the capability to perform one short-range direct-transport from here.”

  “Please,” asked the Elaysian, fixing Deanna with her intent blue eyes.

  She sighed. “Grab the communicator off your anti-grav suit.”

  With a swift push off the ceiling and a short flight, Pazlar retrieved the combadge off her discarded anti-grav suit. Troi could see Reg Barclay watching the Elaysian with pride and affection, delighted to see her in her native element.

  “Energize,” ordered Troi. She had never seen anybody so pleased to be leaving the Enterprise as Melora Pazlar. The young Elaysian was beaming as her body dissolved in a swirling cloud of glimmering lights.

  A shout distracted Troi, and she turned to see Will Riker tip upside down in the air. He had just returned to consciousness to find himself floating above a damaged bridge.

  “Relax, Commander,” said Reg Barclay, trying to calm him. “We’re going to get gravity back in a minute.”

  Riker saw the unconscious captain and twisted unsuccessfully to look in his direction. “Is he all right?”

  “He’s all right, and the ship is safe,” answered Deanna. “Right now we need to get everyone down to the deck before we restore gravity.”

  She explained briefly what had happened while they secured the captain and hovered close to the deck. Will took Deanna’s hand and smiled. “Quick thinking, Commander.”

  “All in a day’s work.” She returned his smile and his grip.

  “Five minutes have elapsed,” reported Data.

  “Restore gravity,” ordered Riker.

  All over the ship, thuds sounded as people and objects dropped to various decks. The bandages that had escaped from Reg’s medkit fluttered down, littering the bridge. Will and Reg secured Ensign Yontel’s body and covered it with a thin blanket from a survival kit.

  The Jeffries tube at the rear of the bridge opened, and three medical workers crawled out, looking rather bedraggled after traversing the ship without the benefit of gravity or turbolifts. They immediately tended to the captain and brought him back to consciousness, then they patched up the cut on Reg’s forehead.

  The medteam cautioned Picard and Riker to go to sickbay, but of course both of them ignored the advice. Data explained matters to the captain, and there were damage reports, casualty reports, and system checks. The reports yielded little good news. Finally the turbolifts started working again, and medteams and repair teams were able to disperse quickly throughout the ship.

  With the viewscreen out, Troi had almost forgotten where they were until a report came in from a repair crew.

  “Captain!” said an amazed voice. “This is Lieutenant Oswell. You’ve got to come down to the forward observation lounge. You’ve got to see it!”

  “See what?” demanded Picard.

  “It’s . . . it’s impossible to describe . . . it’s like a welcoming party. Sir, you’ve got to see it. Oswell out.”

  “Data and I have things under control here,” said Riker. “And we
’ll keep trying to get a message to Starfleet.”

  “Counselor, Mr. Barclay,” said Picard, rising from an auxiliary station. “Please accompany me.”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Troi, anxious to see what had brought them all this way . . . into such peril.

  As they rode in the turbolift to the forward observation lounge, Picard rubbed his head. “Are you all right, sir?” asked Barclay with concern.

  “Yes, but I think I will drop by sickbay after this. That way, Dr. Crusher won’t chase me down, as she’s certain to do otherwise.”

  The turbolift doors opened, and they stepped into a broad foyer, which led to the observation lounge and the dining room beyond. Even from a distance and a side angle, Deanna could see something she had never seen before through the panoramic window: blue sky. Normally the window was filled with stars, nebulae, or the curve of a planet—simple sky looked odd. Two members of a repair team stood gaping out the window, but they scurried off to work when they saw the captain coming.

  As Troi trailed the captain to the window, her jaw succumbed to the newly restored gravity. Barclay gasped, and the captain let out a sharp breath. All three of them reached out to touch the window, as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  Just outside the hull of the Enterprise, the blue sky was filled with hundreds of Elaysians—flying, floating, soaring. With their billowing white outfits, they looked like winged beings from the mythology of a thousand different cultures. Some of them waved, and the three stunned observers waved back. Floating among them were small hovercraft, nets, and ropes, which Troi assumed were used for hauling passengers. It was shocking enough to see humanoids this close to the ship at all, not to mention without spacesuits, surrounded by blue sky, and flying.

  “Now that’s something you don’t see everyday,” said Barclay in a hoarse whisper.

  Captain Picard smiled like a boy at the circus. “They’re remarkable. What a unique culture this must be. But it’s a little disappointing that we can’t see the crystals from here.”

  “What’s that thing?” asked Barclay, pointing down. Deanna leaned over the wooden handrail to see what appeared to be a rocket shooting toward them. It left a long, dark vapor trail behind it, stretching out of view. But there was no flash of flame, and the object seemed too slow to be a rocket. As it drew closer, Troi realized the craft had several legs.

  “Is it a landing probe?” asked Picard.

  “Maybe it’s a satellite,” guessed Reg. “Or equipment the Elaysians need.”

  “At least they don’t seem to be concerned about it,” said the captain with some relief.

  Troi was willing to believe the craft was unmanned, until she saw the legs rhythmically opening and closing. The object changed course slightly, and the vapor trail twisted around like some sort of cable. She wondered if it was an umbilical cord to the surface.

  “It’s . . . it’s moving,” said Barclay.

  “Yes, I saw,” agreed the captain. “What is that trailing behind it? Some sort of tentacle?”

  That was what it looked like now, thought Deanna. In fact, the approaching object seemed to look more organic and animated the closer it came. The spindly legs, of which there had to be a dozen, opened and shut as if pushing the tentacle out behind it. It was more like a web, she realized, a stiff web which kept pushing the gangly creature ever higher.

  The being finally stopped several meters beneath the horde of hovering Elaysians. Two of the humanoids dropped down to touch the creature, which looked black and spiny, almost like a sea urchin. The newcomer sat perched atop its gently swaying tentacle, like a bird’s nest atop a flagpole. From her reading and her dream memories, Troi realized she knew what the creature was.

  “That’s an Alpusta,” she said.

  “Of course!” exclaimed Reg. “It’s bigger than I thought it would be. What’s it doing?”

  “Studying us,” answered Picard. “We need to make contact with the inhabitants.”

  “Look, it’s Melora!” said Reg happily. “I mean, Lieutenant Pazlar.”

  They followed his gaze to see a blond Elaysian come streaking toward them. She was gripping one of the small hover-platforms like a swimmer grips a lap board, letting it pull her along. She turned it off about thirty meters away from them and glided the rest of the way, bouncing to a stop on the hull with her fingers and toes extended like miniature shock-absorbers.

  Barclay waved, Troi smiled, and Picard tapped his combadge. “Picard to Pazlar.”

  Melora quickly found her combadge in the billowing white folds of her traditional clothing. “Pazlar here.” It was disconcerting to hear her voice coming from the captain’s combadge when she was floating only a couple of meters away on the other side of the convex window.

  “This is quite a welcoming party,” said the captain. “But we’ve taken serious damage, as you know. Do your people have an explanation about what’s going on here?”

  “Plenty of them, but none they can agree on.” Melora lifted her arms to show the triangular sails underneath. “And, Captain, I’m sorry that I’m out of uniform, but I had to discard my anti-grav suit during the emergency. If you want to be able to fly, you’d better be able to catch a wind current. You can do it in this apparel.”

  “That’s understandable . . . under the circumstances,”

  answered Picard. “But I expect you to comport yourself as if you were wearing a Starfleet uniform.”

  “Yes, sir.” She looked around at her fellow Elaysians and the lone Alpusta. “We have representatives from the Elaysians, Alpusta, and Lipuls who want to meet you.”

  “What about the other three races?” asked Picard.

  “Maybe in time we can meet them,” said Pazlar. Troi sensed a tension in her voice at that answer, and the Elaysian quickly changed the subject. “I know I transported out, but our scientists don’t advise using transporters again until we find out exactly what’s causing that rift.”

  “The Enterprise is not fit to go anywhere at the moment,” said Picard, “but we should be able to use our smaller shuttlecraft without problems. They will also give us islands of gravity on your world.”

  “Good idea, sir. Our Exalted Ones request that you send a small party, and that it include Counselor Troi. I wouldn’t mind personally if Lieutenant Barclay also came with you.”

  “No transporters?” Reg asked with surprise and relief. He sounded quite debonair as he replied, “I’d be delighted to visit your planet.”

  Picard’s combadge chirped. “Bridge to Picard!”

  “Go ahead, Number One.”

  “We have to put up shields!”

  They stared in horror at Melora and the other Elaysians, who would likely be vaporized if they put up shields now.

  “Belay that!” ordered Picard. “We can’t—”

  Without warning, a barrage of rocks thudded into the underside of the hull, and the Elaysians were scattered by a shower of stones zooming toward space. Deanna stared out the window and noted with alarm that they weren’t rocks but broken crystals—dark, dangerous shards pelting everything in sight. The ship took a tremendous beating—it sounded like a rockslide was pounding the hull—and Melora barely dodged a fusillade of deadly missiles. Some of the other Elaysians weren’t so lucky. They were struck in the onslaught. The Alpusta shrunk into a spiny ball and descended swiftly through the dark hailstorm on its retractable web.

  The Enterprise couldn’t escape, and they couldn’t put up shields—they were as helpless as the Elaysians trapped in the crystal storm.

  Chapter Six

  SHOOTING UPWARD THROUGH the atmosphere of Gemworld came a deadly shower of broken crystals, raking the Enterprise and hundreds of Elaysians caught in midair. Those who could reach hover-platforms used them to escape to the nacelles and hull of the Enterprise, looking for protection. The others scattered in all directions, but there was no escape for most of them from the onslaught of dark, gleaming shards.

  Reg Barclay peered out the windo
w of the observation lounge, looking desperately for Melora in the chaos. He was unable to spot her among the scores of panicked Elaysians.

  “Picard to bridge,” said the captain’s voice beside him. “Report.”

  “We’re taking a beating,” came Riker’s voice. “The hull is holding—no breaches yet. Data says it should be over . . . about now.”

  As abruptly as it began, the assault stopped. A few struggling chunks drifted past the observation lounge window on their way off the planet, but the worst of the crystal storm had passed. Nevertheless, there were scores of wounded Elaysians floating in the air outside the ship, and scores more desperately rushing to their aid. It was one of the most surreal and disturbing sights Barclay had ever seen. He thought he saw Melora in the mayhem, but he couldn’t tell.

  “What caused that?” demanded the captain.

  Riker answered, “Apparently part of the crystal structure of the planet just broke off. It acted like an avalanche, smashing more crystals and growing bigger as it rushed outward. Data is trying to figure out where the impetus came from, since there isn’t much gravity on the planet.”

  After a pause, the first officer continued, “It looks like there was a gravity spike, perhaps caused by dark matter. We had no warning on that avalanche, and we didn’t realize how many Elaysians were out there. As soon as we can, I want to clear this area and put up shields.”

  “There are a lot of wounded out there,” said Picard grimly, “but we can open the hatches to get them. I’ll contact sickbay, then I’m leading an away team to the surface. You stay on repairs, Number One.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Picard out.”

  “What can I do?” asked Counselor Troi.

  “You and Barclay go to shuttlebay one and pick out a small personnel shuttlecraft. Make sure we have as many supplies and portable instruments as we can carry—we don’t know what might be useful. I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

  Reg only half heard this as he continued staring out the convex window at the desperate mayhem outside. “They . . . they need help, sir.”