Star Trek: The Next Generation - 115 - The Stuff of Dreams

by James Swallow

  A thought, sluggish and heavy, formed in his mind. I should not be able to witness this. His brain, like all the rest of his body, should have been dematerialized and suspended in the matter stream. How could he still be thinking if his organic mind was a haze of particles?

  He felt a strange tidal push-pull on his ghostly form, a wave of not-gravity that seemed to come from nearby. Was it the nexus? Did it discern him somehow? Picard wondered if it could recognize his approach. Did the ribbon sense him out here, coming close? One of those who had passed through the doorway it represented, and rejected what lay within? There had to be very few who could lay claim to that distinction.

  Then the moment of nothingness was gone and Picard felt his physicality returning to him, fraction by fraction. But this transport was not the painless shift he was used to. Instead, lines of agony lanced up through him as he began to regain his form, but he had no mouth with which to cry out. For a moment, it felt as if he were being physically repelled, like the pole of an opposed magnet. The command cabin of the runabout wavered before him, a heat-haze mirage instead of true solidity. He could do nothing but trust that La Forge would get him through the tiny chink in the Cam’s protective force field, intact and whole.

  The pain surged, becoming a burn across his flesh, even as he felt the certainty of the runabout’s deck plates becoming real and firm beneath his boots. The ringing cascade of the transporter effect reached its apex and then died away. Mercifully, the pain went with it and in a heartbeat the agony was a bad dream, forgotten and gone.

  Picard staggered, blinking to clear his vision. Across the cabin he glimpsed the shape of colored robes dangling down over the sides of the pilot’s chair, and he started forward. The little hand phaser Worf had pressed into his palm was still there, and he raised it warily.

  “Kolb? It’s Jean-Luc Picard.”

  Something wasn’t right. Too slow, still shaking off the dizzying effect of the forced transport, he saw that the pilot’s seat was actually empty, the traditional robes of the Styrisian science caste draped to give the illusion of someone sitting there. Picard heard a noise behind him, felt the rush of air as something moved. He turned. But he was too slow. Still too slow.

  “Get away!” Kolb had a medical kit in his hand and he swung it like a club, slamming Picard across the shoulder and face. The captain stumbled and lost his footing, cursing silently. He struck the deck, the impact knocking the phaser from his grip.

  Kolb threw the cracked case away and bolted to the weapon, scooping it up before Picard could stop him. The scientist’s bicolored face was lined with streaks of livid red. “No,” he spat, “you shouldn’t have come here! Go back! Go back, now!” He aimed the phaser, his hands shaking.

  Picard righted himself and climbed slowly to his feet, palms up and fingers spread. “You know I can’t do that. Kolb, this has to stop.”

  “I . . .” Kolb’s face creased and he seemed about to burst into tears. He swallowed a sob and shook his head. “Just let me go, Jean-Luc. Get away, beam back to the Enterprise. And then when I am gone, when I am in there, you can do whatever you want to! Destroy it!” He jabbed a finger at the canopy. Beyond it, the spinning rope of the nexus filled the view off the Cam’s bow, growing larger with each passing second. “It won’t matter then.”

  “I can’t allow that to happen.” Picard took in the cabin, his eyes finding the runabout’s helm console and the autopilot settings displayed on its screen. If he could get to them . . .

  “Don’t stop me,” pleaded the other man.

  “Kolb, my friend. Please, put down the phaser. What do you hope to achieve? You’ve only made the situation worse. We must go back. Stop this before it goes too far.”

  “I don’t want you here!” Kolb shouted, becoming angrier. “Have your ship transport you off, do it now!”

  “I can’t,” he replied. “Not unless you stop the Cam and drop your shields.” Picard took a step closer, keeping his voice level, his manner moderated. “Please. Explain it to me. Why have you done all this, Kolb? What possessed you?”

  “You should understand!” Kolb yelled back at him. “More than anyone alive, you should know why!” He shook his head wildly. “You’ve been inside, Jean-Luc. I read the reports you wrote! I know what you saw!”

  “The nexus is not what you think it is,” Picard shot back, still edging closer. “It is not life. It is a shadow, Kolb. The greatest and most insidious illusion.” He sighed. “It’s not meant for us. We’re not ready for it.”

  “No,” Kolb repeated, tightening his grip on the weapon.

  “Why are you doing this?” Picard repeated. “Explain it to me.”

  Kolb hesitated, on the verge of replying, but in that moment a musical tone sounded from a device on the scientist’s belt—the same custom tricorder Picard had seen earlier. A proximity warning, he guessed, we must be at the event horizon.

  It was enough to distract the scientist, splitting his focus for crucial seconds. Picard took the opportunity and threw himself across the cabin at Kolb, colliding with the Styrisian and knocking him off-kilter. The two men grappled and Kolb struggled to hold on to the phaser; he was stronger than Picard had expected, but he had no skill to speak of. The captain’s unarmed combat training came back to him easily, and he caught Kolb’s wrist, twisting it so the phaser was aimed away.

  But then Kolb cried out as a vivid flash of light filled the cabin, throwing jumping shadows across the consoles. For an instant, Picard thought the scientist had fired the weapon into the ceiling, but the deluge of brightness was streaming in from outside the Cam’s cockpit.

  He glimpsed a curling filament of energy, sun-bright, burning a blurred afterimage into his retinas. The nexus was reaching out for them.

  The glowing strand of star-stuff uncoiled and lazily stroked the barrier of the Cam’s deflector shields, illuminating them in a haze of radiation. Red warning flags bloomed across every panel on the flight deck, and the runabout shuddered, ringing like a struck bell.

  Picard knew the ship was doomed. He felt the filament carve through the remodulated shields as if they were not there. He saw the sudden explosion of tritanium and electroplasma venting out from starboard as the surge ripped into one of the runabout’s warp pontoons and destroyed it. The Cam spun out of control into a tumble, falling toward the blinding heart of the ribbon that filled everything before it.

  * * *

  Despite his orders to the contrary, Worf had kept the Enterprise on station for less than a minute after Captain Picard’s departure. As de facto commander, he overruled the order and had Faur and Dygan guide them in as close to the nexus as they dared.

  At the console in his chair, Worf had access to a constant stream of data, vital information on the composition and behavior of the energy ribbon gleaned from months of the Newton’s research, even reports from the first Starfleet ship to encounter the phenomenon, the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-B. Captain John Harriman’s Enterprise, the direct-line ancestor of the vessel that Worf now commanded, had almost been obliterated by the nexus over ninety years ago. It was only the sacrifice of another Enterprise captain that had prevented that ship from perishing with all hands on her maiden voyage. And in a way, the nexus had also been responsible for the eventual end of the Enterprise-D, a vessel that Worf had come to consider his home. He leaned forward in his chair; he was determined that he would not allow this accursed phenomenon to claim anything more from the Enterprise legacy.

  “Report!” he barked. “Where is the Cam now?”

  “Difficult to be certain . . .” said Elfiki, her hands flying over the sensor panel. “It’s crossing the event horizon. . . . The runabout is moving out of phase with us. Quantum interference is spiking!”

  At his station, La Forge nodded at her words. “I’m trying to compensate.” The engineer’s console emitted a chorus of alert tones, flagging warning after warning. “Worf, we’re losing them.”

  There were only two lives on board the runabout. The
correct thing to do would be to hold back the Enterprise, keep the starship and its complement of officers, crew, and civilians out of harm’s way.

  He could not. Even at the grave risk, Worf could not stand by and do nothing. How many times had Picard challenged the odds to save a member of his crew? How many times had he done it to save Worf’s life?

  “Full impulse! Take us in past the safe zone, bring the tractor beam on line!” He turned to La Forge. “Get them back. Target by luck if you must, but get them back.”

  “Gravimetric surge!” shouted Dygan. “Brace for—”

  The nexus made its presence known by letting a lash of coruscating energy whip out and back, pushing before it an invisible bow wave that collided with the Enterprise and shunted it across the blackness. Worf’s hand clamped onto his chair and his powerful fingers cracked the casing as he used it to stay righted, even as the ship’s inertial dampers struggled to keep the vessel on an even keel.

  The gravity wave passed and Worf bared his teeth in annoyance. “Status?”

  “Undamaged,” reported La Forge.

  “The runabout,” he demanded, “where are they?”

  Elfiki’s expression darkened as her scan played back and forth over the length of the energy ribbon. “There was another filament . . .” she began, then halted. The lieutenant was trying and failing to find the right words. Finally, the answer fell from her lips in an untidy rush. “Commander Worf, we didn’t make it. The Cam is gone.”

  “Destroyed?” He said the word in a dead voice.

  “No . . .” La Forge was reading the same data, and he spoke as if he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. “No wreckage, not even microparticles. The runabout is just . . . gone.”

  Worf stood. “Pull us back into the safe zone. Intensive scan of the phenomenon, now! We may have missed something—” A warbling tone from Šmrhová’s tactical console interrupted him and the Klingon rounded on the woman, his eyes alight with fury. “What now?” he bellowed.

  “The Kinshaya,” she reported, keeping her tone level. “They’ve just entered combat range. Their shields are at full power and all their weapons are in pre-fire mode.”

  “Incoming hail,” noted Chen. “Finally, they’ve decided to stop ignoring us.”

  Worf drew himself up and took control of the high emotions churning inside him. He moved to the center of the bridge and nodded at the viewscreen. “Show me,” he said.

  The screen rippled and became a portal into an ornate chamber that resembled a place of worship more than it did the command deck of a starship. The domed cathedral space was festooned with gaudy banners and pennants. Operations pits—shallow bowl-shaped depressions in the deck—were manned by cowering Kreel helots or the griffin-like Kinshaya themselves. Each of the equine-avian beings sported varicolored wings and wore sashes and medallions that appeared to denote rank or status.

  Glaring out from the center of the display was an older Kinshaya—a female, if Worf was not mistaken. The luster of her feathers was grayed and faded but the ready hatred in her dark eyes was undimmed. Even though the alien was decidedly nonhumanoid, Worf could still interpret enough of her expression to see that she was utterly repulsed by what she saw on Enterprise’s bridge. As if to underline the point, the Kinshaya commander turned her head and spat. “Demon-thing, unlife, and worthless creature. You soil the majesty of this vacuum with your presence.”

  “We have as much right to be here as you,” he shot back. “I am Commander Worf of the Starship Enterprise. Identify yourself.”

  The Kinshaya flared her wings. “Insolent heathen maggot. You dare demand my name? I would not have you sully it by uttering the words.” She glared at him. “You are done in this place. Take your vessels and run home to your Federation. Or remain.” The commander snapped her beak. “Remain, and engage me in violence. I would relish it.”

  Worf folded his arms across his chest, giving nothing. “You have no authority here, Kinshaya. This is unclaimed space.”

  “We claim it now!” she hooted. “By the right of the Holy Order’s will!”

  He saw an opening. “But you are not agents of the Holy Order, are you? You are the zealots, rejected by your people. You have no right to claim anything.”

  Worf’s gambit worked, and his retort sent the Kinshaya commander into open fury. “The Devotionalist heretics, cowards and fools all! They are not the true Holy Order. We are. We are the truth and the way!”

  “Our ships will not leave this area.” The Klingon pressed on, goading the alien. “Ours is a peaceful scientific mission, and we are . . . engaged in a rescue operation at this time.”

  “I witnessed the path of your subcraft into the anomaly. Your crewmen are dead, demon! Destroyed by the hand of righteous fury!”

  “I do not agree,” Worf replied, iron beneath the words.

  “And I do not care!” hissed the Kinshaya. “Heed me, for I will say this only once. We declare that anomaly to be the work of the Gods. It is a holy thing and sacred to us. Approach it again, and you will be judged for your temerity, in fire and blood.” The alien gave an order in its native language.

  “Both the sphere-ships are taking up attack postures,” reported Lieutenant Faur. “They’re targeting the Newton.”

  “Back away, animal,” growled the alien commander. “Or we will obliterate your cripple-ship and then turn our cannons upon you.”

  His Klingon blood sang in his ears, eager for the chance to go to battle and test the mettle of this arrogant adversary. Slowly, however, his clenched fists relaxed and he metered his breathing. “Helm,” he began, “withdraw to take station with the Newton. One quarter impulse power.”

  “There is another matter.” Worf had been about to sever the communications link with a throat-cutting gesture, but the Kinshaya had more to say. “You have something that belongs to us, demon. The Orion is our property. Surrender him. Then you will be free to leave undamaged.”

  Worf and La Forge exchanged glances. “This is the Federation flagship. You believe you are a match for us?”

  “I believe we are a match for you. This ship, and the six others that will be here within one rotation.” The signal cut abruptly.

  Šmrhová leaned against her console. “Does anyone know if the Kinshaya play poker too?”

  4

  “Oh, come on, Jean-Luc. You can’t be that tired. At least stay awake to the end of the evening!”

  His wife’s voice snapped him back to full awareness and he grinned. “I was just thinking . . .” The grin became brittle and faltered. Thinking . . . about what?

  Across the table, Beverly’s expression became one of concern. “Is something wrong?”

  She looked older and yet she was ageless. Still the brilliant, vital, warm woman he had fallen for so long ago. In that moment, he could not have loved her more. “Nothing is wrong.” He smiled again, taking in the room.

  The pavilion erected in the garden was lit by hundreds of flickering candles—the real thing, not holographic, as Beverly had insisted—all of them warding off the sultry shadows of the evening. The smell of cool air, good food, and fine wine was in the atmosphere, and all around, the wedding guests were laughing and joking. A few danced, most talked. The place was joyful.

  “As if joy were a tangible thing,” Picard said the words, uncertain of where they had come from.

  “Like you could wrap yourself up in it?” asked Beverly, looking at him with a quizzical smile. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  “I really don’t know.” It was strange. He was happy, and he wanted to surrender to it . . . but there was something else, a small tug on the edges of his thoughts. As if his spirit were gossamer, wanting to drift freely, but a thread of it lay snagged upon a thorn.

  A chair scraped across the brick floor and he turned as his stepson sat down, an easy grin on his face. “Hey, you two.”

  “Hello, Wes,” said Beverly, and her face lit up in a way that only her firstborn son could bring out.
>
  Wesley tapped Picard on the shoulder. “Look at you. I never thought civilian life would agree with you so well.”

  “And I never thought I’d see you back in a Starfleet uniform.” He nodded at the younger man’s dress whites and the captain’s insignia at his throat. “Plus ça change.” His stepson laughed and for a moment Picard was reminded of Wesley’s father, Jack, when they had both been younger men. If not for the beard, Wes would have been the double of Beverly’s first husband.

  “Have you danced with the bride yet?” she asked.

  Wesley gave a mock-serious nod. “René was very adamant that I did. Duties of the best man and all that.”

  Picard frowned. “I haven’t had the chance yet. . . .” He looked away, across the pavilion to where his son, elegant and tall in his formal tails, was talking animatedly with the Rikers. René’s new wife—my new daughter-in-law, he thought—had her back to him and for one odd, dislocated moment he found he couldn’t recall her face. His son looked so handsome, so confident. Picard felt a great swell of pride for René. He was a fine man and he would be a good husband and father. He was all Picard wanted him to be, and more.

  “This is some party,” Wesley was saying, toying with a place setting on the table before him. Each was a small model of an object connected to the Picard family’s history: a bunch of grapes, a sailing boat, a hot-air balloon, a starship. “I’m glad I could make it back.”

  “Where . . . are you off to next?” Picard found it hard to draw his gaze away from René’s wife. Her name. He did know her name, didn’t he?

  “Styris IV,” came the reply.

  “No shop talk,” Beverly admonished. “Otherwise you’ll have him reinstating his commission before the night is out.”

  The woman in the wedding dress would not turn around. He kept looking at her, waiting for it to happen, but she would not turn. The smile on Picard’s face became brittle and crumbled. “This . . . is not right,” he muttered. He felt warm, suddenly too warm for the sultry Labarre evening. All at once, the sound of the party seemed loud and invasive, the laughter forced, the scent of the nearby vineyards cloying in his nostrils.