by Eric Kotani
“Therefore,” Seven went on, “we are not capable of changing the binary’s disruption, so I completed the energy containment as you requested. It is now collecting and functioning within acceptable parameters.”
Janeway glanced up at the monitor, at the rapidly revolving neutron stars, but not yet touching. “There has to be a way,” Janeway said. “We can’t just let those worlds die.”
“There is no choice,” Seven said, turning to go back to work.
Janeway shook her head slowly from side to side, as if shaking Seven’s words from her ears. “There has to be a choice,” she said. “I won’t accept anything else.”
With that she spun and headed toward the door, her stride firm, her resolve set. She would find a way, if it meant breaking every rule of nature and physics.
* * *
Tyla stood beside the Vulcan Tuvok on the bridge as the captain returned. Janeway had asked her if she was going to try to escape again. When Tyla had said no, where would she go with a fleet of Qavok warships standing guard nearby, Janeway had dismissed the two guards and had told her to help Tuvok where he needed it.
So far, the security officer had not needed her help, or even spoken to her. Yet Tyla was determined to follow the captain’s orders and help where she could.
Dr. Maalot had been given a station beside Mr. Kim and was humming softly to himself as he worked gathering data from the neutron-star binary that filled the main screen. He didn’t seem to be worried at all about the outcome of the events around him, but instead was focused completely on the death of the binary. Tyla envied his focus. Her focus was on saving her people and there was nothing she could do toward that goal at the moment.
It was a hopeless feeling. A feeling she was not used to.
“Lieutenant Tyla,” Janeway said, smiling at her. “Join me for a moment. You too, Dr. Maalot.”
“Gladly, Captain,” Maalot said.
Tyla said nothing as she stepped away from Tuvok to follow.
Janeway also nodded for Commander Chakotay to follow her and then led the way through a door off the bridge.
After a moment Tyla found herself in what was clearly the captain’s personal office. It had a warm feel, yet was very neat and completely functional. Tyla decided it fit Janeway’s personality perfectly.
Janeway was already sitting behind the full-sized desk, when the door slid closed behind Chakotay and Dr. Maalot.
She looked up, first at Tyla, then at her second-in-command. “We’re running into a problem here,” Janeway said. “Our calculations show that it would take a massive explosion, timed perfectly, to send the binary into its last stage and control the flight of the runaway star.”
Tyla understood what Janeway had said. It was the Qavok plan to destroy her homeworld. Dr. Maalot was also nodding.
“Our problem,” Janeway said, going on quickly, “is that we don’t have enough power on this ship to cause a large enough explosion. Not even close.”
“What?” Tyla asked, unable to remain silent. “This ship is far more powerful than a Qavok warship. You’ve proven that. How can you not have enough power when they do?”
“That is exactly my question,” Janeway said. “Either we’re missing something in our calculations, or the Qavok have miscalculated and will fail in their attempt.”
“Captain,” Dr. Maalot said, “may I see your calculations?”
“Of course,” Janeway said. With a few taps on her pad, she swung a small screen around on her desk so Dr. Maalot could study it.
Tyla glanced at Chakotay, who stood silently, waiting. Janeway watched Dr. Maalot go over the numbers, her expression passionless, almost cold. Tyla managed to force herself to also remain calm. Yet as each moment ticked by, she felt as if the last hope for her people was fading. She knew that was just her imagination, and she tried to ignore it. But she was a trained fighter. Standing and watching someone else do the fighting was not in her nature.
Finally, Dr. Maalot glanced up at the captain. “I’d like to run more calculations,” he said. “But on the surface, your calculations seem correct.”
“So is it possible,” Janeway asked, looking directly at Tyla, “that the Qavok have some sort of special weapon or explosive capabilities we don’t know about?”
“How large?” Tyla asked.
“Large enough to shatter a small planet,” Dr. Maalot said.
Tyla actually laughed before she could catch herself. “If the Qavok had such a weapon, do you think they would use it in such an indirect way?”
She stared at the captain, making sure her point went clearly home. “If the Qavok had such a weapon, they would have long since used it against my planet. So the answer to your question is no. The Qavok do not possess such an explosive force.”
Janeway nodded. “So they have either miscalculated, or they have figured another way of affecting the path the neutron star will take. And that’s what we’ve got to find out quickly.”
The captain turned to her second-in-command. “I want you to run any scan you can think on the Qavok warship Invincible. I want anything unusual pinpointed on that ship.”
“Understood,” Chakotay said.
“Dr. Maalot,” Janeway said, “I’d like you to run calculations to confirm our findings as quickly as possible, then I’d like you to search for any possible way to alter the secondary’s explosion with less power.”
“I will do that, Captain.”
“Good. Lieutenant Tyla, you go with Commander Chakotay. I assume you know the basic layout of a Qavok warship.”
“I do, Captain,” Tyla said.
“Good,” Janeway said. “So if you two find something different over there in your scans, I want to know about it.”
Tyla nodded. For the first time since Voyager had saved them, she felt like she had a useful task to perform.
“We’re going to make Captain Qados mad,” Chakotay said, smiling. “I doubt their screens will block our scans.”
“Good,” Janeway said. “Let him take a shot at us and we’ll end this quickly.”
Tyla wanted to rejoice. Finally, the captain had the attitude she had hoped for.
“Will do,” Chakotay said.
“Dismissed,” Janeway said. She swung the small screen on her desk around and began to study it.
Tyla followed Chakotay out of the room.
This was too good to be true. Let Dr. Maalot study his stupid stars. For her it was far, far more important to study a Qavok warship.
And then live to get the information home.
CHAPTER 11
JANEWAY FINISHED GOING OVER THE CALCULATIONS one last time. The energy needed to cause the secondary star to explode at an exact moment was far, far too immense to even consider. Yet she knew, without a doubt, that they were missing something.
She pushed herself away from her desk and checked the time. About eight hours from now, the secondary neutron star would lose too much mass to maintain its nuclear degeneracy, causing a massive explosion that would send the more massive neutron star hurtling through space, the deadliest missile ever conceived by Mother Nature.
Janeway was making no progress at all. Maybe someone else was. It was time to check.
Finishing the last sip of her coffee, she headed onto the bridge. Chakotay and Lieutenant Tyla were hunched over a sensor panel. Dr. Maalot and Ensign Kim worked silently in the communications area. Tom worked the controls, keeping Voyager steady against the increasingly rough gravitational forces coming off the neutron star binary.
“Anything, Commander?” she asked as she moved up behind Tyla.
“Nothing,” he said.
Tyla nodded, the frustration clear on her pale face and wide, green eyes.
“As far as we can tell,” Chakotay said, “the Invincible is a standard Qavok warship. Except for an unusually large crew, nothing extra has been added or removed.”
“Then they seem to think,” Janeway said, “that a regular phaser shot that wouldn’t even cut through our
shields will change that binary’s death course?”
Chakotay nodded. “It would sure seem that way. Unless they’ve discarded the idea of trying it.”
“If they had done that,” Tyla said, “the Invincible would not be in this position. They do not care about scientific data. Unless it can be used as a weapon.”
Janeway tended to agree with Tyla on that count. “Okay, then we’re down to two options on this track. Either the Qavok calculations are so far off as to be laughable, or they have figured out another way.”
“They are warriors, Captain,” Tyla said. “Not bright, but clearly not stupid. I’m sure they think their method will work. And I would not bet against it.”
“Okay, so we need to find what they have found. You two keep searching.”
“And annoying Qados in the process,” Chakotay said, with a barely perceptible grin.
Tyla seemed pleased with that notion, also.
“Good,” Janeway said. “Keep scanning him.”
“Will do,” Chakotay said.
Janeway turned and glanced at Tuvok. “How many now in the Qavok fleet?”
“Three more warships have been added, bringing the total to seven holding one astronomical unit away.”
Janeway shook her head. Captain Qados was about as obvious as they came. “Keep an eye on them.”
“Captain?” Dr. Maalot said.
Janeway moved over between him and Ensign Kim. “Tell me you’ve found something.”
“I just might have,” he said. His fingers flew over the board in front of him. He was amazingly adept for someone who had only seen the system for the first time a few hours earlier. He pointed to the screen.
An illustration came up. It was a chart showing energy and results. Energy expended on the x axis, amount of motion resulted on the y axis. A simple diagram.
Dr. Maalot pointed to a peak area of motion. “We started with a desired result and worked backward,” he said. “So we got a fantastic energy requirement for a result.”
He tapped the board and another diagram filled the screen. Same layout, but different line in the center.
“I plugged in the energy output of one of Voyager’s phaser beams set on continuous fire, then plotted the result on the neutron star binary.”
“And?” Janeway said, still not catching the exact meaning of the chart on the screen.
“If you had fired one phaser at the bloated secondary neutron star six days ago and kept it up for three hours, against the star’s rotation, it would have changed the final outcome of the explosion by exactly six-tenths of one millisecond.”
Janeway looked at the Lekk physicist. He was beaming at his discovery. She didn’t follow.
“Doctor,” she said, “we weren’t here six days ago. We only have a few hours. What can we do?”
“I don’t know exactly,” he said. “But don’t you see? It’s figuratively like using a fulcrum on a large rock. It takes so much energy to move a rock directly. It takes less when using a fulcrum. I’ve just found one fulcrum to move the secondary neutron star. There will be others, I’m sure, if we open our minds and think outside the desired result.”
Janeway stared at the diagram on the screen and suddenly knew exactly what he was talking about. They had been asking for a result and working backward. They needed to research different methods and look at the outcome.
She tapped her combadge. “Janeway to Torres and Seven.”
“Go ahead, Captain,” B’Elanna said.
“Yes?” Seven said.
“I’d like you both in my ready room in five minutes.”
“Understood,” B’Elanna said.
“Someone must monitor our experiment,” Seven said.
Janeway smiled. “Can you rig up a sensor to allow you to move around the ship and still monitor it?”
“I can do that,” Seven said. “Five minutes.”
“Good,” Janeway said. “Out.”
“Doctor,” she said to Maalot, “would you join us in my ready room in five minutes.” He nodded at the request.
She was almost back to the door into her ready room when Ensign Kim stopped her.
“Captain, the Xorm ship is hailing us.”
Janeway shook her head. In the fight with the Qavok and all the push to solve the problem of directing the neutron star so it wouldn’t destroy entire systems, she had forgotten about the Xorm ship.
“On screen,” she said, moving over and standing in front of her command chair.
Captain Fedr’s face appeared. He was smiling, still wearing the same garments he’d worn earlier.
“Nice fighting, Captain,” he said, almost laughing. “The Qavok do not take easily to defeat.”
“I’ve heard that,” Janeway said. “And if they’d just left us alone, they wouldn’t have lost those ships.”
“I know that,” he said. “You seem to be an honorable race, you humans.”
“We do our best,” Janeway said.
“I’d like to warn you about something we’ve heard,” Captain Fedr said.
“Well, thank you,” Janeway said.
Fedr shrugged. “Anyone who can set the Qavok on their heels as you did deserves all the help they can get.”
“So what have you heard?” Janeway said. She really didn’t have time to stand here and gossip. There was too much work to do and not enough time to do it.
Captain Fedr took a deep breath and dove right in. “The Qavok intend to try to alter the course of the larger neutron star. I know that sounds impossible, but they seem to think they can do it. We’re not exactly sure where they plan on trying to aim the thing.”
Janeway nodded. “We’ve heard the same thing. But we are at a loss as to how they intend to do it.”
“As are we,” Captain Fedr said, almost relieved that Janeway knew about the Qavok plot. “The energy needed would be too extreme for them to produce.”
“We’ve come to the same conclusion,” Janeway said. “But what worries me is that they believe they can do it. They must have run the same mathematical calculations as we did.”
“True,” Fedr said. He was now frowning. “Very true. The Qavok are not entirely stupid.”
“My people are working on the problem now,” Janeway said. “If we discover anything, we will let you know at once.”
“And we will do the same in return,” Fedr said. “Good luck.”
“And to you,” Janeway said.
Captain Fedr’s face was replaced by the images of the revolving neutron stars. She stared at it for a moment, just taking in the incredible beauty of it. And the magnitude.
* * *
It was Dr. Maalot who set the tone for the meeting with a provocative question.
“Seven,” he said, “if a warp core were dumped into the neutron star, what would be the result?”
“The tidal forces would tear it apart, causing a breach and a warp-core explosion.”
“And would such an explosion have an effect on the less massive of the neutron stars?”
“Of course,” Seven said. “But the energy would not be enough to cause the explosion at an exact point in time.”
“Not at the exact moment of the warp-core explosion,” Dr. Maalot said. “But it would alter the eventual time of the final moment of the binary, and thus alter the course of the neutron star runaway. Am I correct?”
Seven stared at him for a moment, then said, “You are correct.”
“So,” B’Elanna said, slowly. “If we know the exact time of the coming explosion and then work backward, we should be able to find a point where applying enough energy would change that time enough to cause a desired change of path for the runaway star.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Maalot said.
“That would not be practical to predict,” Seven said.
Dr. Maalot ignored her. “The two stars are orbiting each other every few hundred milliseconds at the moment. Even the slightest change in the equilibrium of the secondary could cause it to explode sooner.”
“Very true,” Janeway said. She glanced at B’Elanna. From the look on her face, it was clear the chief engineer was following Dr. Maalot.
“It is not possible to predict the exact moment of the secondary’s explosion,” Seven said.
“Who says?” Janeway asked.
Seven looked at Janeway with surprise etched on her determined face. “I have assimilated hundreds of different races. They all believe it would not be possible.”
“I don’t care,” Janeway said. “I want you to run computer models on that binary. We’ve assumed up until now we couldn’t predict it. Well, I’d like to try.”
“I will try,” Seven said, nodding.
“Good,” Janeway said. She knew without a doubt that Seven’s try would be the best any of them could do, and then some.
CHAPTER 12
“SIX HOURS, THIRTY-SEVEN MINUTES, EIGHTEEN SEConds, twenty-one milliseconds, two hundred nine microseconds,” B’Elanna said. “I agree with Seven.”
B’Elanna, Seven, and Dr. Maalot were standing with Janeway in the astrometrics lab. On the display was a section of space near their present location. Hundreds of stars seemed to float in the air in front of them, like fireflies. Seven had marked the inhabited systems in a green tint. It gave the display an almost festive feel, if not for the line cutting through the entire area.
A death line as far as Janeway was concerned. Seven had put a red-tinted cylinder around the line showing the deadly area of a one-thousand-astronomical-unit radius. Janeway had no doubt the radius was bigger than that, but for now that line and red-tinted cylinder were enough.
And it would all start in six hours and thirty-seven minutes.
If Seven’s calculations were correct, the larger neutron star would destroy three inhabited systems on that path, and who knew how many more beyond this area of space. Three green lights were inside that red-tinted area.
And once the neutron star started on that path, there would be nothing anyone could do to stop it.
“If my calculations are short by one millisecond,” Seven said, “this would be the path.” Seven keyed in a number and the line and red cylinder shifted slightly to Janeway’s right.