Death of a Neutron Star

by Eric Kotani

  The small ship jerked slightly as the alien ship Voyager took it under control.

  Tyla glanced at Dr. Maalot and tried to nod reassuringly. This Captain Janeway looked trustworthy, but too much was riding on how Tyla handled matters next. If she could reach an understanding with the captain of the Voyager, she might be able to get home in time to save her home-world.

  * * *

  Tom Paris watched as the bay doors closed behind the flowing lines of the Qavok yacht. He’d seen a lot of beautiful ships, but this one was right up there near the top of the list. He wanted to just go over and stroke the gold- and silver-plated surface. Even sitting on the deck, the ship looked as if it wanted to fly, as if it were speeding through a blue sky over a calm ocean.

  But he didn’t move. Instead he stood waiting alone as the door in the side of the yacht slid silently open and Lieutenant Tyla stepped out onto the deck, followed by a Lekk man.

  Tom felt the tightness in his chest as Tyla stopped and looked around the bay, then turned and strode toward him. She was gorgeous, in a dark red tunic and black tights. The tunic accented her bright red hair. Even more beautiful than she had appeared on the screen.

  Behind him the door to the shuttlebay slid open and Seven of Nine entered, moving to his side.

  He forced himself to swallow and then smile, making sure Tyla had a friendly face to greet her.

  “Welcome to Voyager,” he said, stepping forward and extending his hand.

  The vivacious redhead grasped his arm firmly when he extended his hand toward her. Apparently, an arm-grasp, quite similar to that practiced in ancient Rome, was the Lekk custom of greeting, at least in their military.

  “I’m Lieutenant Paris. Tom,” he said. “Welcome aboard Voyager.”

  “Second Lieutenant Tyla of the Lekk Deep Space Force,” she said. Her gaze held his for a moment, and then she smiled. “A real pleasure!”

  Turning toward her passenger, she added, “This is Dr. Maalot, ship’s astrophysicist.”

  “Seven of Nine,” Tom said, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to do his share of introductions.

  “A Borg?” Maalot asked, somewhat shocked.

  “I was with the Collective, once,” Seven said. “I am no longer.”

  Tom managed not to smile. He’d seen Seven go through this sort of introduction a number of times now.

  Maalot nodded; then with one long, last gaze at Seven, he turned back toward Tom.

  “Lieutenant Paris,” Tyla said, moving to a more formal posture. “I must report to your captain. I have important information your ship will need if the Qavoks return in force.”

  “I don’t see a problem with that,” Tom said, smiling at Tyla. “But first the captain ordered me to see to it that you two receive medical attention, if needed.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Tyla said, relaxing a little and touching his arm again. “But we are fine. We are most anxious to talk to your captain immediately.”

  Tom wished he had an excuse to delay her for just a little while longer. But duty called.

  “And your science officer,” Dr. Maalot said. “Since much of my report is of an astrophysical nature, I will need to talk to a science officer.”

  “I think the captain will, most likely, be the best person on both counts.”

  “I will also be able to supply needed information,” Seven said.

  “Good,” Dr. Maalot said, again glancing somewhat fearfully at the Borg. “There isn’t much time left.”

  Paris glanced at Tyla, who only shrugged. “He’s right.”

  “I think Voyager can handle the Qavok ships,” Tom said.

  “It’s not the ships I’m worried about,” Dr. Maalot said. “It’s the dying neutron stars.”

  Seven stepped forward suddenly and faced Dr. Maalot, towering over him. “Explain.”

  Tom pulled Seven back gently by the arm. “I think it would be better to tell it all to the captain.”

  Seven glanced at Tom, then nodded and turned toward the bay entrance without saying a word.

  Tyla and Dr. Maalot both looked a little shocked.

  Tom smiled and shrugged. “She gets a little excited when science comes up.”

  “So should we all, Mr. Paris,” said Maalot, whose tone reminded Tom of one of his stuffier professors at the Academy.

  “Uh, yes, well. Please come this way,” he replied, gesturing for the two to follow him. They did, at a distance. This was going to be a long day.

  CHAPTER 2

  JANEWAY HAD JUST FINISHED THE LAST OF HER SECOND cup of coffee when Paris escorted their two guests onto the bridge.

  Tyla looked around, taking in all that she saw. She was a striking officer, with her red hair and tunic, but Janeway’s gaze was drawn more immediately to the man with her. He was Dr. Maalot, she presumed. Like Tyla, he had deep green eyes. But unlike Tyla, with her confident demeanor, his eyes were filled with worry. Deep worry. How did two such different personalities end up escaping together?

  Janeway rose from her command chair and moved up toward her guests. Tyla stepped forward, directly in front of Janeway, with Maalot hanging back a little.

  “Captain, I don’t know how we can thank you,” she started off saying. “If you would just help us get our ship repaired, we’ll be gone as quickly as possible.”

  Janeway waved the lieutenant’s comments aside. “You needed help and we were close by. I assume this is the Dr. Maalot you spoke of?”

  Tyla nodded and turned as Maalot took half a step forward and stood in front of the captain. “A pleasure meeting you, Captain. And thank you from all our people.”

  “Glad to have you both aboard. Please follow me. We’ll go where we can talk.”

  Janeway led her two guests into the meeting room off the bridge. For some reason Dr. Maalot was bothering her. There was something disturbing about the Lekk doctor that she couldn’t put a finger on.

  Chakotay, Paris, Ensign Kim, Seven, and B’Elanna joined them. Janeway waited until all were seated, then turned to Lieutenant Tyla.

  “I’d like a brief account of how you have ended up in this situation? If you wouldn’t mind?”

  “Captain,” Dr. Maalot broke in. “I fear the neutron-star situation is approaching a critical point, if only I—”

  Janeway cut him off with a raised hand. “First things first, Doctor, if you don’t mind. I have a military situation on my hands here and that must be dealt with first. It will only take a moment, I’m sure.”

  Maalot swallowed and nodded.

  Tyla glanced at her companion, then faced Jane-way. Janeway could see sparks of irritation in the woman’s eyes. She wasn’t exactly happy at the moment. Probably because Janeway had ignored her request to have the yacht fixed.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Tyla started into her report. “The Qavoks have been scheming to annex our planetary system into their empire for decades, but their first outward actions began about a year ago when they attacked the heart of our home system.”

  “You beat them back,” Janeway said.

  Tyla smiled, the memory of the victory obviously a good one. “Soundly,” she said. “They were humiliated.”

  Janeway nodded. “So what happened next?”

  Tyla’s smile faded. “We are not naturally a military people, Captain. After we won, our leaders saw little option but to negotiate. Many of us disagreed, but we lacked the means to counterattack.”

  Janeway nodded sympathetically. Maintaining the balance between peace and force was the hardest part of her job and any other Starfleet captain’s. It had taken humans centuries to learn that balance.

  “During an initial meeting two weeks ago,” Tyla said, “they deceived our political leaders and abducted them. Our leaders were all taken to one of the Qavok planets, and are now hostages there. Dr. Maalot and I happened to be present in the Congress Hall for an astrophysical report when the kidnapping occurred, and we too were captured.”

  Janeway saw where Tyla’s report was lea
ding. “I see. You and Dr. Maalot, then, are the only people who managed to escape?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Yes, Captain, so far as we know. There is something I must make clear here. My people are in a state of war with the Qavoks. I believe the yacht is rightly a spoil of the war. I have no intention of returning it.”

  Janeway raised her eyebrows, surprised at the seemingly sudden demands. The woman clearly had courage, but not much working knowledge of diplomacy.

  “That issue will be settled later,” Janeway said. “I’m sure we can come to some agreement. How long were you in flight?”

  Tyla started to say something, then snapped her mouth shut. Her face turned almost as red as her hair. Janeway knew right at that moment the woman was going to be trouble.

  Janeway maintained eye contact until Tyla finally answered. “One full day, at top speed.”

  “So at least two full days for Qavim to get back to his base, regroup, and come back to this location with more ships.”

  Tyla nodded. “At least. If he doesn’t get executed for failing when he reports back. It is a Qavok tradition. Kill all failures.”

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy,” Paris said.

  Chakotay frowned at him and Janeway ignored the comment.

  “Anything else you can think of that might help us in a fight with the Qavoks?”

  Tyla shook her head.

  Janeway nodded and turned. “Okay, Doctor, it seems we have a little time. It’s your turn. How about starting at the beginning so we follow you?”

  Dr. Maalot nodded, swallowed hard, then said, “This might be a little technical.”

  “We’ll manage,” Janeway said, glancing at where Seven sat, staring at the doctor.

  He glanced at Seven also, then started. “Two weeks ago I was on a medium-sized asteroid near the outer edge of our home system, tinkering with a signal-enhancing device attached to a large array of radio antennae. I detected weak, rapidly variable, periodic signals from a binary pulsar.”

  “Binary pulsar?” Janeway asked, leaning forward. “Those are very, very rare.”

  Dr. Maalot could only nod. “From its extremely short orbital period of barely eight seconds, I immediately deduced the nature of this neutron-star pair. Judging from the binary system’s high relative velocity with respect to the local stars, the pair might have been ejected from a triple-star system through a cataclysmic event of some sort.”

  Maalot sounded quite proud of his discovery, as he had every right to be, as far as Janeway was concerned. What he had found was one of the rarest things in known space.

  “A pulsar binary with such a short orbital period?” Seven asked. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” Maalot said. “Its orbit must be decaying rapidly through gravitational radiation.”

  “Allowing for the light transit time to your homeworld,” Janeway said, “the period would already have to be much shorter at the source now.”

  “Correct,” Maalot said, clearly delighted with the knowledgeable questions. Janeway understood such delight. For one thing, most people did not understand that what one observed with a telescope was what had happened at the source some time ago; if the star was located a dozen light-years away, what you were observing had already happened there a dozen years before.

  “The distance to the binary pulsar,” Maalot said, “from my original observations, turned out to be a little over ten light-years.”

  “Ten light-years?” Janeway said.

  Maalot smiled. “The discovery was thanks mainly to my new signal-enhancing device, at that.”

  Janeway nodded. “Go on.”

  “The orbital period was already down to about a second at the source. That shocked me, I must say, Captain. As you can understand, we are facing a possible imminent disaster.”

  Janeway glanced at Seven, who seemed puzzled at the doctor’s fear of disaster.

  “The rate of decrease naturally depends on individual masses,” Seven said. “You must have determined the masses of the component stars.”

  Maalot allowed himself to look a little smug before answering the question. “Yes, indeed, I did. What with such a short period, I had the radial velocity curves for each star almost as soon as the discovery was made. The binary system’s orbital inclination was also easy to determine; as the two stars eclipsed each other, the orbit was edge-on toward our solar system. It was simple then to calculate the absolute masses; it was one solar mass for the massive star and a tenth of the solar mass for the secondary. The rate of its orbital decay is accelerating at a tremendous rate now.”

  Janeway nodded.

  Beside her Paris looked completely confused, and Chakotay was looking puzzled.

  “I need more data,” Seven said, “but this seems to indicate that the final stage for the neutron stars could come within a matter of days.”

  Janeway watched as Maalot stared in clear amazement at Seven. Janeway knew how he felt. Seven could do calculations faster than anyone else aboard.

  “That’s right,” Maalot said. “I had only some preliminary data before taking this report to our political leaders, but the timing should be in that approximate range. Maybe even sooner. And, of course, this orbital inclination gives us a great deal of concern for our solar system.”

  “Why?” Chakotay said.

  Dr. Maalot only looked at him with a frown.

  “If this follows pattern,” Janeway said, “then the less massive secondary neutron star, which is actually larger in diameter than the primary, will start shedding its exterior mass. Or it might have already started. Correct?”

  “Correct, Captain,” Maalot said.

  “So I too do not understand your worry, exactly.”

  Seven started to speak, but Janeway stopped her. “I want to hear the doctor’s theory.”

  Maalot nodded. “The lesser star will become a mini-supernova.”

  “Exactly,” Seven said.

  “I know that,” Janeway said. “Go on.”

  “When that happens to the companion, the more massive star will turn into a runaway object that will fly away at a relativistic speed in the direction it happens to be headed at the time of the explosion.”

  “Correct,” Seven again said.

  Maalot went on as if she had not spoken. “The fugitive star will destroy any solar system in its path, although I have not yet been able to figure out which direction it will take.”

  “It would not be possible to predict exactly, as yet,” Seven said.

  “And your homeworld is along one possible path,” Chakotay said.

  “That is correct,” Dr. Maalot said.

  “Is there more?” Janeway asked. She could tell that Dr. Maalot wasn’t telling them everything.

  Maalot glanced at the silent Tyla, then went on. “I just fear that the runaway star will hit our system. I fear for my family and our people. All of them.”

  Janeway wasn’t going to get what he was hiding just yet, that much was clear. She glanced around the room. “Well, we’re here to see new things. I for one, have never seen a binary neutron star system in its last days. In fact, I know of no Federation ship that has seen one. Who knows what we might learn.”

  There were nods throughout the room.

  “Mr. Paris, get the coordinates of the binary system from the doctor and set a course. There’s no point in us being here when the Qavok return for vengeance.”

  “Aye, Captain,” he said, smiling. He stood, indicating that Dr. Maalot should follow him back to the bridge.

  Janeway waited until the two had left the room, then turned to face Tyla directly. “This means we will have no time to take you two back to your homeworld first. However, I promise to do so as soon as we are able to.”

  “Would it be possible for you to repair my ship and send me on my way?”

  Janeway shook her head. “Based on the preliminary assessment of the damage to the yacht, it will take some time to get it back to warp capabilities. We’ll do our best, but I’m a
fraid you’re along for the ride at the moment.”

  Janeway also wanted her chief engineer to have the time to take that yacht apart, so that they would have a reliable appraisal of the Qavok technology in case there should be another armed confrontation with them. It never hurt to be prepared.

  Tyla looked almost angry, her green eyes showing her defiance and strong will. “Can we at least attempt to contact my people?”

  “Of course,” Janeway said. “But I can’t imagine them not knowing your leaders have been taken.”

  Tyla again looked uncomfortable. Janeway waited for a moment, then resigned herself to the fact that she wasn’t about to get any more out of Tyla than she had gotten from Maalot. At least not yet.

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “In the meantime,” Janeway said, “I’d appreciate any suggestions about dealing with the Qavok if we run into them along the way.”

  Tyla nodded. “Understood, Captain. I will do what I can to help your cause.”

  “And I yours,” Janeway said.

  Tyla only nodded.

  Janeway knew that Tyla didn’t like her decision. She frowned as she imagined the hotheaded young woman stealing one of Voyager’s shuttlecraft, just as she had stolen the yacht.

  “Come with me,” Janeway said, standing and heading toward the bridge. As she entered, Tom said, “Course laid in, Captain.”

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Warp seven.” Then she turned to Dr. Maalot. “Would you be willing to provide my people with information about this star while we are in transit?”

  Maalot’s face beamed with excitement. “With great pleasure, Captain. I would not have it any other way.”

  She nodded to Seven and B’Elanna. “Get to it.”

  Then she turned to Tuvok. “Please escort Tyla to guest quarters.”

  “Captain, I—”

  Janeway held up her hand and stopped the Lekk from speaking. “We have time. Now you need some rest.”

  Tyla’s face again turned a faint shade of red; then she nodded and followed Tuvok off the bridge.