GEMWORLD: BOOK ONE OF TWO

by John Vornholt

  “Connect!” ordered Bertoran. Like machines, the Alpusta moved in unison to jack into the collectors. “Transmit!”

  There was no explosion, no sparks, no fireworks—but Reg knew something dreadful had happened. The Alpusta closest to the window suddenly went limp and slumped over—only their magnetic boots kept them from floating away. All across the forest of dishes and scoops, the Alpusta collapsed. A few managed to unplug and scurry away in time, but hundreds of them weren’t so lucky.

  “Feed-coil overload!” shouted Bertoran in alarm. “Disconnect! Disconnect!”

  The Elaysians began to shout and mill around in panic. Barclay was jostled and knocked away from the window, but he saw Data soaring toward the console. The android pushed the stunned technican out of the way and took over the board, his fingers flying across the controls.

  In the chaos, Reg crawled his way through Elaysians to get back to the window, hoping the scene outside had somehow changed for the better. But not a single Alpusta was moving, except for a handful of limp beings whose magnetic boots had failed them. They bobbed slowly in space, tethered by the wires on their portable devices.

  Reg heard weeping, and he turned to see Melora staring out the window. Tears seeped from her reddened eyes and floated in the air like slow-motion raindrops.

  “This is the end,” she murmured. “It’s the end of everything.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “GET THEM INSIDE!” shouted Tangre Bertoran, pointing frantically out the window at the horrendous sight of thousands of unconscious Alpusta marooned on the space side of the shell. Their limp bodies floated in the low gravity like seaweed at the bottom of a calm ocean; only their magnetic boots kept them from floating away. The blackness of space surrounded them like a funeral shroud.

  There’s no way to get to get them back, thought Reg Barclay. He put his arm around Melora Pazlar and tried to comfort her, but her face was frozen in grief and shock. Over the din of terrified Elaysians, he heard Captain Picard’s voice. “Picard to Enterprise!”

  “Riker here.”

  “We’ve got an emergency,” said the captain. “If you lock onto my signal, you’ll find several thousand Al pusta in my vicinity, just outside the shell. Can you beam any of them to safety?”

  “Just one moment, sir,” replied the commander. It seemed hours before he replied, “Sorry, Captain, but we can’t transport through their forcefield. Besides, we don’t pick up any lifesigns outside the ship.”

  “No lifesigns?” echoed Picard. He glanced at Barclay, and the engineer gulped. They both knew what “no lifesigns” meant, and so did everyone within earshot.

  “They’re all dead!” wailed an Elaysian near them. Heartfelt cries of anguish rent the air, and Reg had never felt so helpless in his entire life.

  Captain Picard clawed his way through the milling, weeping throng to reach Data, who was still working the lone console in the room. Reg didn’t want to leave Melora, who appeared to be in shock, but he had to see if he could do anything to help. Following in the captain’s wake, he reached the console a few moments after heard.

  “Data, is it true they’re all dead?” asked the captain.

  “These instruments do not furnish that information,” answered the android. “Considering the intensity of the feed-coil overload, the increase in thoron radiation, and the weakening of the forcefield, it is unlikely they could survive. A few of them disconnected in time and were able to reach safety, but that is a relatively small number.”

  “What happened?” asked Barclay.

  “I can suggest a theory. The overload was programmed to occur if any attempt was made to disable the collectors. Our unknown adversary anticipated that we would use this solution to correct the corrupted programs, and they took action to prevent it. We are dealing with a mastermind.”

  Picard scowled. “They’re one step ahead of us at every turn . . . and they don’t mind killing everybody on Gemworld to get what they want.”

  “What do they want?” asked Reg with frustration.

  “To kill everyone on the planet,” said a feminine voice. Reg looked up to see Melora hovering above them. Her eyes were still red from crying, but a fierce anger burned in those pale orbs.

  “W-Why don’t we use the Enterprise to destroy all the collection dishes?” asked Reg.

  Data cocked his head. “Due to the rift, we are unable to position the Enterprise outside the shell. Due to the forcefields, we are unable to fire at the collectors from inside the shell. As before, we are left with only one viable solution: disabling the shell.”

  “Which isn’t possible,” snapped Melora, “without killing almost everyone on the planet. It’s a choice between a fast death without any air, or a slow death as the planet disintegrates around us.”

  “The likelihood is that,” replied Data, “increased thoron radiation will kill everyone before the planet disintegrates.”

  “Thank goodness for that!” said Pazlar sarcastically. “Excuse me, I think I need to be with my people.” Pulling herself hand-over-hand, she moved across the ceiling of the oval room and joined a large group of Jeptah gathered around Tangre Bertoran.

  Picard’s lips thinned as he surveyed the solemn crowd. “We need to get back to the ship. Maybe our sensors can tell us something—maybe there’s something we’ve overlooked.” With a sigh, he glanced back at Pazlar, who was hugging another Elaysian. “I think we can let Lieutenant Pazlar stay here for a while.”

  “Sir, can I—”

  “No, Mr. Barclay, you’re with us.” The captain nodded to Data. “Shall we go?”

  “Yes, sir.” The android pushed himself away from the console and retrieved his hover-platform. A moment later, the three visitors wended their way slowly out of the observation room. Barclay glanced back at the grieving Elaysians, who were weeping, hugging each other, and gazing forlornly out the window at their fallen comrades. They couldn’t even retrieve the bodies, thought Reg glumly.

  He was haunted by what Melora had told him at the instant of the disaster: This is the end. It’s the end of everything.

  On board the Enterprise, the command staff gathered in the observation lounge, and a solemn group it was, thought Barclay. He had only been in this room with this important group of officers a few times, and he wished he wasn’t here now. He would rather be running third-level diagnostics down in engineering instead of trying to save a couple billion lives. Reg wasn’t comfortable playing hero, especially when he had no idea how to get out of this awful mess.

  At Captain Picard’s insistence, he had kept the violet crystal around his neck, and he felt self-conscious about it. Why should he have this added responsibility when others were more deserving? Were La Forge and Riker staring at him? At least there wasn’t much small talk as they waited for the last members of the command staff to trickle in.

  The door whooshed open, and Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher entered. This brought a welcome break from the tension, as everyone rose to their feet and looked at Troi with concern.

  “How do you feel?” asked La Forge.

  “Fine,” she answered with a polite smile. Finally, thought Reg, there was someone else to take the unwanted attention off him. Troi took her seat and folded her hands in front of her, acting as if she hadn’t been smashing furniture a day before.

  “We’re all present,” said Captain Picard, surveying the faces of his most trusted officers. “Mr. Data, would you please brief everyone about what just happened on the shell.”

  “Yes, sir.” In detached, unemotional tones, the android recounted the details of the failed procedure and horrific deaths of over a thousand Alpusta. La Forge frowned and looked down at the table with his opaque eyes, while Commander Riker and Dr. Crusher made notes on their padds. Commander Troi seemed lost in quiet contemplation. Reg just stared straight ahead, unable to come to terms with the immensity of the tragedy. It wasn’t just the deaths that troubled him, but the death knell for the entire planet.

  “There you
have it,” said Picard. “The grim reality is that neither us nor anyone on Gemworld has any idea what to do next. Shutting down the shell would end the collection of dark matter and, possibly, close the rift. But it would also shut off the forcefields and allow all the atmosphere to escape. Only the Lipuls would survive the loss of the atmosphere—all the other species on Gemworld would die. We couldn’t evacuate more than a few hundred on the Enterprise. So any ideas are welcome.”

  Geordi grimaced puzzledly. “Are you sure we can’t find the one who did this . . . who corrupted the program?”

  “We’ll keep trying to do that, of course,” answered Picard. “But our adversary has anticipated every move we’ve made so far, and it’s unlikely they would just surrender themselves and offer to fix their handiwork. Also, traveling on Gemworld is very difficult now, and the saboteur might belong to one of the distant, non-humanoid species we haven’t even seen. No demands have been made, so we have to assume we’re dealing with a mass murderer rather than a political terrorist. A very clever mass murderer.”

  Riker stroked his clean-shaven chin. “The problem is in the forcefields, right? Could there be some other way to power the forcefields that doesn’t use the shell?”

  “Hey,” said La Forge, snapping his fingers, “what about the Enterprise? Could we take over powering the forcefields ourselves? I mean, we couldn’t do it for very long, perhaps no more than a few seconds, but all we need to do is disrupt this endless loop for a few seconds. Isn’t that right?”

  The captain nodded thoughtfully. “I believe so. At any rate, it’s worth looking into. Could you do a feasability study on that, Mr. La Forge?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered the chief engineer. “How much time do we have?”

  When no one answered immediately, Data cocked his head. “That is an excellent question, Geordi. I have started running a modeling program based on the growth of the mutant crystal and the increase in thoron radiation, but I have not had time to input recent data. I will take more sensor readings and update my model as soon as this briefing is over.”

  “Make it so,” replied the captain. “Next time we talk to them, I want to have all the facts.”

  “We’re not beat yet,” said Riker confidently.

  “They’ll never let you shut down the shell,” proclaimed Deanna Troi, her voice cutting through the note of cautious optimism. “They’re too afraid.”

  “I don’t see that they have much choice,” insisted Riker.

  “Nevertheless, they’ll fight you.”

  Reg opened his mouth to refute the counselor, but he really couldn’t. Although he didn’t want to admit it, Troi was probably right.

  “It’s too bad there’s no way to evacutate everyone,” said Doctor Crusher. “Or no way to give them individual breathing devices. Are we sure they don’t have the technology to survive without air, even for a few seconds?’’

  “We’ll look into that, too,” answered the captain. “We’re going to explore every avenue.”

  La Forge shook his head. “The problem is, how do we replace the atmosphere once it’s gone? The shell might be able to regenerate the air over time, but how much time? It could take years.”

  “Once we get rid of the rift, we’ve got all the time in the world,” answered Riker. “We could send for a whole fleet of ships to evacuate the planet.”

  A beep sounded. “Bridge to Picard.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, there’s a ship coming out of warp!”

  “What?!” exclaimed the captain with concern.“Hail them! Tell them not to.”

  “I have. The interference—”

  The captain charged out of the observation lounge with Data, Riker, Barclay, and the others right behind him. Since the room adjoined the bridge, they reached their usual stations in a matter of seconds. Not having a station on the bridge, Barclay hovered near an auxiliary console, in case he was needed.

  “On screen,” ordered Picard.

  “Yes, sir,” answered the officer on ops a moment before Data replaced her.

  At first, there was nothing on the viewscreen but the sparkling starscape. If Reg looked hard enough, he could almost see a dark rip in the glittering firmament, although maybe that was just his imagination. A brilliant glow appeared in the void, and a sleek star ship emerged. Judging by her twin nacelles, she was a Federation ship. Normally a ship coming out of warp was a beautiful sight, but not now . . . not here.

  “Fools!” Riker exclaimed. “What are they doing?”

  “I would say they are trying to rescue us,” answered Data.

  No sooner had the ship emerged than it tilted at an obscene angle and began to slide backward toward the unseen anomaly. Thrusters rippled along her stern, and impulse engines were obviously on full; the ship jerked and heaved as it tried unsuccessfully to escape from the deadly singularity.

  “Akira-class,” said Data, working his console. “The Summit. They are unable to compensate for the gravitational pull of the rift.”

  “Tell them to use their tractor beam!” ordered Picard.

  Data worked his console, then shook his head. “They are not responding. They are so close to the rift, they cannot receive our hails. Their reactor is close to overloading.”

  Everyone on the bridge watched in horror—helpless, unable to do anything to save the struggling ship. The captain’s jaw clenched in anger, and Riker pounded a fist into his palm. Dr. Crasher slumped into a chair and lowered her head while La Forge leaned over Data’s shoulder and peered at his readouts. Only Counselor Troi stared unblinkingly at the disaster unfolding on the viewscreen.

  The nacelles on the Summit suddenly erupted, and plasma clouds blossomed outward . . . a moment before the starship exploded into a mass of silvery confetti. Even the debris couldn’t escape the hungry maw of the rift, and the clouds were swept into blackness. A second later, there was no trace of the Akira-class starship.

  “Lost, with all hands,” reported Data.

  “Why didn’t they listen to us?” muttered Riker.

  The captain scowled. “Because we’re Starfleet, and we’re always trying to do the impossible. If another ship was marooned here, we would probably try to save her.”

  “I’m sure they had a plan,” said La Forge. He didn’t need to add that plans hadn’t worked very well since their arrival on Gemworld. The only plan they could depend upon was the immutable law of the universe—that all biological beings would die, some sooner rather than later.

  Barclay felt a gnawing in his stomach. He wanted to say something compassionate and profound to his shipmates, but he wasn’t articulate under the best of circumstances. And these were the worst of circumstances. He wished Melora was there with him, because for once, he was the one who needed comforting.

  He noticed that Data continued to work his console at a rapid pace, even though nothing else was happening on the bridge. Reg stepped closer to the android and looked over his shoulder.

  “W-What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Taking sensor readings and completing my forecast,” answered the android. His fingers were a blur, and the sensor data scrolled by so fast that Reg had no chance of reading any of it. The lieutenant stepped back and saw that Captain Picard and everyone else on the bridge was waiting for Data to complete his analysis.

  After another moment, the android stopped working and turned to the captain. “Sir, I regret to say that the situation is worse than I had anticipated.”

  Picard stiffened his back. “Report.”

  “At the current rate of increase, thoron radiation will kill almost all life on Gemworld, including most of the crew, in approximately eight days.”

  Barclay’s mouth flopped open, and Riker let out a low whistle. Captain Picard tried to keep his spine erect, but his shoulders slumped perceptibly. Both Crusher and La Forge headed for the turbolift, looking determined to pursue a solution within their own departments. Only Counselor Troi took the news with an unearthly calm, almost resignation.
She stared curiously at the glittering stars on the viewscreen, as if looking for an answer in the vastness of space.

  After everything they had seen that day, the idea of dying was not far from anyone’s mind, but no one had realized that their time was so short.

  “Eight days,” said Reg softly. “That’s one more day than it supposedly took to create Heaven and Earth.”

  “It’s much easier to destroy than to create,” answered Captain Picard grimly. “One thing is certain—we haven’t got any more time for diplomacy. Mr. Barclay, are you ready to return to the planet?”

  Barclay snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”

  “Counselor Troi, do you feel up to joining the away team?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered Deanna, still gazing at the twinkling stars on the viewscreen. “Gemworld has lived on borrowed time for millions of years, but every loan must be settled someday.”

  OUR FIRST SERIAL NOVEL!

  Presenting, one chapter per month . . .

  The very beginning of the Starfleet Adventure . . .

  STAR TREK®

  STARFLEET: YEAR ONE

  A Novel in Twelve Parts

  by

  Michael Jan Friedman

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Seven

  Weapons Officer Morgan Kelly took a deep breath and considered herself in the full-length mirror.

  Like everyone else on the Christopher-class vessel Peregrine, she wore an open-collared blue uniform with a black mock-turtle pullover underneath it. A gold Starfleet chevron graced the uniform’s left breast, and Kelly’s rank of lieutenant was denoted by two gold bands encircling her right sleeve.

  She tilted her red-haired head to one side and frowned. She had worn the gold and black of Earth Command for so long she had come to think of it as part of her natural coloring. A blue uniform looked as inappropriate as a hot-pink atomic missile.