Star Trek: Inception

by S. D. Perry

  The lieutenant’s smile was placatory. “Doctor, it’s extremely important for us to ensure that no one on your team was responsible for tampering with your solution or your equipment.”

  “My researchers had nothing to do with this,” she said, hoping it was true. It felt true. “And neither did I. In any case, now is not the time to worry about how this happened. We need to repair it, and I need my team to do it.”

  “Whoever interfered with your experiment may well have done so from this very laboratory. We have to conduct questioning, if not now—”

  “—then later,” Carol finished. “I am not going to abandon my work. If we can locate enough phelistium, I believe we can neutralize the process.”

  “We’ve got our people working on the force field system, Doctor. I assure you, we will notify you when we’ve managed to contain the solution. You can worry about the phelistium then.”

  What was the adage, about how if you had a hammer, everything looked like a nail? Carol shook her head, frustrated. “You’re an engineer, Lieutenant, and you want to concentrate on what you know; that’s fine. What I know is that the problem here has more than one facet. I appreciate the help you’re giving us, but perhaps you should leave the science to the scientists.”

  For the indignation in her response, she was grateful. The engineers had already managed to determine that the force field was running at full capacity. Apparently the saboteurs had corrupted the readouts on the tolerance gauge, hoping to throw a proverbial monkey wrench into the experiment, but the force field itself had been running at full capacity all along. Unfortunately, the high-density field had been designed to contain the mixture only to a depth of four meters—three more than they thought they’d need—and it did not have the capacity to surround the solution on all sides. It couldn’t; even if they had the exact specifications of strata density, the Pauli Exclusion Principle wouldn’t allow both the force field and the parent rock material to occupy the same space. The permafrost should have stopped it underneath, would have if not for Whole Earth’s interference with the nitrilin ratio—which she still didn’t understand. How had they gotten to it? Almanza’s team could extend the depth of the force field but couldn’t do anything about stopping Inception’s downward progress. They just seemed to be hopeful that it would burn itself out, which, to Carol’s eyes, wasn’t looking likely at all. The nadion levels were at point twenty-six. The second-gen reaction, caused by the unexpected atmospheric gases, meant plenty of energy. The process was continuing to press through the permafrost, and by Alison’s calculations it could and likely would trigger a seismic event if it was not stopped within the next fifty-two hours.

  Not that we have fifty-two hours. Nowhere near. The Federation would have to declare a disaster long before that. All of the nearby colonies would have to be evacuated.

  “The rest of your team has been willing to cooperate,” Almanza said. “I’m going to ask you one more time.”

  “Then you’ll have to hear my refusal one more time,” she replied. Maybe there wasn’t anything she could do, but she had to keep trying. If they wanted her gone, they’d have to drag her out.

  An unfamiliar voice called through from the transporter room, presumably another of Almanza’s people. “Lieutenant, someone’s coming through. A Commander Kirk, from the U.S.S. Mizuki? He said his presence was requested. He’s ? ah, he’s on his way, sir.”

  Carol’s stomach unknotted, not entirely but enough for her to breathe.

  “Who authorized this?” Almanza asked, turning to one of his engineers. Carol tuned out their conversation, watching the lab entry. In another beat, Jim walked through, and in spite of the circumstances, Carol couldn’t help a moment of something like awe at the sight of him. The gentle, smiling man she had come to love was the picture of authority, his shoulders back, his expression set. He looked like ? like ?

  Like a Starfleet commander.

  Almanza snapped to, saluting briskly. “Commander. I wasn’t informed that anyone else would be coming.”

  Jim nodded at him, at the engineers who were still rising to their feet. “As you were. I was asked to act as liaison between Kraden’s team and ours. I have a prior relationship to Doctor Marcus, and it was thought that I could be helpful in coordinating your efforts here.”

  Almanza nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Report?”

  The two men stepped away from Carol, the lieutenant launching into an update of the situation. It didn’t take him long to paint the grim picture, but at the conclusion, Jim actually smiled. The expression was somehow authoritative and charming at the same time.

  “I don’t want to step on your toes, Lieutenant,” he said, raising his voice slightly so that Carol could hear. “It sounds like you’re handling the force field situation appropriately. I’ll talk with the doctor and we’ll see what we can do about organizing the security check.”

  If he’d had any lingering doubts about Jim’s presence, the smile undid them. Almanza smiled back, gave a brisk nod before moving off to join his engineering team. Jim waited a beat, then hurried over to Carol. Even that seemed official, a strong, confident, natural stride—until he reached her. As soon as their eyes met, she could see the compas sion and concern in him, the softness that he’d hidden from Almanza.

  No, not hidden. And not softness. He was only being himself, rising to whatever the occasion demanded.

  “What do you need me to do, Carol?” His voice was sure but infinitely gentle.

  “Keep me out of lockup, for one,” she said. “And get my people out of it.”

  “Done,” Jim said. “They’ll ? you’ll all have to be supervised in here, though. I’m sorry, but until the sabotage questions are answered—”

  Carol nodded. She’d expected as much. “That’s fine. If we can get a line on enough of a compound called phelistium, we might be able to fix all of ? of that.” She motioned vaguely at the window overlooking the test plot, suddenly blinking back tears. She wanted very much for Jim to touch her, to hold her but knew that he couldn’t. Not here, not now.

  He’s who he wants to be, she thought, the thought a random one, the timing all wrong. Who he needs to be.

  “Carol,” he began, but she shook her head. She couldn’t afford to fall to pieces, and an embrace from Jim would be all it took.

  “Once we get the phelistium, we can work the numbers on our neutralizing compound,” she said. “If you could keep your friends focused on extending that force field, it would keep them out of our way.”

  “They’re here to help, Carol,” Jim said. “We all are.”

  She still felt like crying but felt a flash of anger at the near hurt in his tone. As though she were being unreasonable, after Starfleet had barged in and taken over. It wasn’t that he was wrong, exactly, but that awareness didn’t help matters.

  Not time to argue.

  “Of course,” she said. “Thank you. Tell them that I’ll release access to whatever research materials they want to see. And that we’ll all cooperate with their investigation as soon as Inception is neutralized.”

  He nodded, gave her a look of such warm assurance that it almost was an embrace, and then broke away to join his colleagues.

  Relieved somewhat, Carol checked with Dachmes—Inception had progressed another three centimeters—and then Mac, who had an idea. He had a contact at a nearby starbase who had access to several databases that documented chemical storage facilities all over the galaxy.

  “He can’t get direct access to the phelistium, but he should be able to tell us who can,” Mac said.

  It was an added delay, having to go through a middleman. They’d have to make additional contacts and deal with transport. The chance that they could neutralize Inception before it effected a fault line seemed to keep dropping. On the other hand, if they could get all they needed in a single shipment, that could save them some time. Carol forced herself to concentrate, to make the best of it.

  “Call him,” she said. “I
’ll get the others. We can have everything standing by.”

  With a last, lingering look at her beloved—he stood with his back to her, his arms folded, seemingly as unaware of her presence as she was of his—she headed for the back hall. She had just reached the common room when Leila hurried around a corner, almost knocking into her.

  “My friend called,” Leila said. Her expression was almost frantic, a padd clutched in one hand. She took a deep breath.

  “I thought you were in the common room,” Carol said.

  Leila nodded. “They’re still letting us do research, though, and I had to get my notes. My friend, my ? my officer contacted me, with an idea. J.C. and Eric both think it will work. I do too. But we’re going to need someone from Starfleet to help us, someone who can access a starship.”

  Leila’s excitement was palpable, and contagious. Carol felt a rush of hope, pure and light, run through her.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem at all,” she said.

  Kent was having trouble pulling himself together. He’d gone to Redpeace headquarters after the press conference, enjoyed the buoyant atmosphere and eager chatter from the online watchers for a while before retiring to his office to work on their next statement. The next conference would take place directly in front of their office in a few moments, backdropped by the stark beauty of Ascraeus Mons, the northernmost mountain in Tharsis Montes. The timing, the setting, everything was perfect, but the few phrases he’d written so far were clumsy and redundant, as subtle as a rock to the head. Each time he tried to settle into the task, to choose the words that would inspire, all he could think of, all he could see was the look on the face of that man from the press conference, his frantic words drowning out the sounds of Kent’s own thoughts.

  There’s too much nitrilin.

  What would it mean if the solution breached the force field? He didn’t know, didn’t know enough about the experiment’s specifics. But he knew that the compound Marcus had been dabbling with was some kind of an explosive. The scientists might be in danger, but they could always run away, get away. People could be evacuated; they could choose to leave. Beyond that, Mars could be in some kind of danger. The planet that he had sworn to try to protect.

  His monitor chirped and he answered the call in a daze.

  “Kent?” The voice was a half whisper, disguised by a rudimentary pitch-distortion device, the face onscreen cloaked in darkness.

  “Yes. Who is this?” He checked the incoming signal, but the origin was blocked.

  “I just want to warn you. Kraden is trying to cover up what’s happening at that lab, but there’s a possibility ? there’s a chance that things are getting worse. You should think about moving camp.”

  Kent blinked. It was Josh Swanson, he was certain of it despite the shadows, the artificial tinniness of the voice. He instinctively dropped his own voice to an indignant whisper. “What do you think you’re doing, contacting me here?”

  “There’s no tracer on my signal, don’t worry. Just do what I’m telling you. Listen, you have to believe me—it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Something went wrong, but it’s not my fault.”

  Kent felt his face heating up. “I’m not in terested in whose fault it was. If there’s danger here, the colonists need to know.”

  There was a glimmer of smirk from the darkness. “Oh, really? Who’s going to tell them? You?”

  Kent was momentarily speechless. When he found his voice, it was subdued. “What kind of danger are we talking about? How long?”

  “I don’t know. My contact got a message out just after things started happening, but that was a while ago.”

  “This is from your friend at the lab?”

  Swanson nodded, did his best to sound appropriately furtive. “My contact. Word has it there’s a significant possibility of a ? seismic event.”

  Kent felt a prickling tightness across his chest. “You mean a quake.”

  “Whatever you want to call it, you should get your people out. My contact says it could be a big one. Their solution has infected all the soil below it, and seismic activity will probably make it spread even farther.”

  “But isn’t Starfleet there?” Kent asked. “Why haven’t they notified the colonists?”

  Swanson snorted. “Because they think they can fix this before it gets any worse. Because they’re arrogant, and they’re unethical. Like I have to tell you.”

  Arrogant and unethical. Had he ever been so blindly hypocritical? He wrestled with his anger—at Swanson, at himself—and finally managed to find his voice again. “We have to do something.”

  “That’s up to you, if you don’t mind implicating yourself. Look, I have to go. I suggest you do the same.”

  The monitor went blank. Kent continued to stare at the dead screen, paralyzed.

  I didn’t know, Jess. He could see her face so clearly in his mind’s eye, it was as though she were actually on the monitor. He could see the disappointment on her face, the sadness—and the fury. Consorting with criminals like Swanson—what could he have been thinking? How could this disaster ever be justified, even if the unthinkable didn’t happen?

  Perhaps Swanson was wrong, or misinformed. He’d said himself that his information wasn’t current. And Starfleet was trained to deal with this kind of thing. If they couldn’t bring things under control, they would evacuate. They probably had a handle on the situation already. Kent could only hope. The irony of placing his trust in Starfleet was not lost on him, and it was proving as bitter as he might have expected.

  Jess, I thought I was doing the best thing. I thought I had no other choice. I wanted it so badly ? He remembered the press conference earlier, remembered how he’d determined to lay Redpeace’s success at the foot of his lost wife’s grave, and felt a knot form in his throat. Not like this.

  His monitor chirped, signaling another call. Kent tapped at the keys, his memory of Jess’s face disappearing in a blur of pixels.

  It was one of their volunteers, in the outer office. A dark-haired young woman, Merle something, called in to help with the expected flux of netsite calls. Her cheeks sparkled with applied glitter.

  “Mister Kent, are you ready for your statement?”

  “I ? yes, just one moment please. I’ll be ?” His voice was faint, distracted. He realized, with horror, that his eyes were wet. “I’ll be right there.”

  “The correspondents are here.”

  “Yes, I’ll be there in a moment.”

  Merle something hesitated, then flashed him a beaming smile. For the barest flicker of a second, he saw Jess in her, in her eyes.

  “I just wanted to say, I’m so happy to be here today. Things are really happening, you know? My family’s been on Mars for three generations now, and it feels great to be involved, keeping it red, you know? You must be proud of what you’ve done here.”

  Kent had nothing to say to her. He stared at the hopeful, optimistic young woman and found no words. Her smile finally faltered slightly.

  “Well, then, I’ll let them know you’re on your way,” she said, and tapped a key.

  Kent slumped, the tears spilling out. The shame, the self-loathing, the profound sense of betrayal to who he once was washed over him like an ocean. He couldn’t afford to lose it like this, not now. This might be his one chance to broadcast the message to an audience of billions, but as the tears came faster, he knew that he was not going to be the one to deliver it. He didn’t deserve to be.

  It took several calls and more than a few favors promised, but as Kirk settled into the captain’s seat of the U.S.S. Aloia, he felt certain that it had been worth the effort. The bridge, spacious and gleaming, looked good from where he was sitting; the controls felt right under his fingers, as though the chair had been designed with him in mind. He’d handled the much smaller Mizuki, of course, and even the Farragut once or twice, under Captain Garrovick’s watchful eye, but this turn at Aloia’s conn, as captain and ranking officer on a mission of paramount importance to the safe
ty and well-being of millions of Martian citizens ? In spite of the circumstances, he couldn’t help a feeling of intense satisfaction.

  If it actually works, all the better, he thought lightly, although there was nothing humorous about the situation. It had to work. Besides the danger to Mars and its people, Carol’s career would be over if it didn’t. He felt another flush of rage at Whole Earth’s sabotage but quickly set it aside. Command, he’d learned through the years, was to some extent about maintaining control of oneself. Sometimes, it was the only thing one could control.

  Carol believed she’d found a way to stop the spread of the Inception process, and she needed a starship to do it, along with a high-density force field projector. With a nod of approval from Almanza, now manning the projector just beamed to the lab—and a word or two in the appropriate ear from Captain Olin—Starfleet Command had approved the idea and offered use of the Aloia. The Aloia was a ship without a crew, a brand-new Miranda-class that had been in dry dock at Utopia Planitia for a month or so, awaiting assignment. Awaiting a captain. Of course, this operation would take only a few hours at the very most, and she harbored less than a skeleton crew, all culled from the station. Half weren’t even on active duty, had come from other ships being repaired or refitted. Still, this was an experience he would not be likely to forget.