T’Pol circled around the science console to study the readouts Cutler showed her. “There, you see?” the younger woman said. “The weapon signature . . . it’s a little bit off from what we’ve seen in other Mute attacks.”
“Perhaps an individual variance in this particular vessel. Or an interaction with the radiation field of the giant.”
“Maybe, but there’s also this.” Cutler called up another readout. “See the debris distribution? The way the fragments are interacting? . . .”
“Yes, I see,” T’Pol said after a moment. “The displacement pattern is not entirely consistent with Thejal exploding first. Although there are factors it is difficult to account for. Rivgor could have flown through the debris cloud, disrupting it. Or the gravitational interactions of the moons could have altered debris trajectories chaotically.”
“Could be, sure,” Kimura said from the other side of the bridge. “But what’s bothering me, Captain, is this firing pattern.” He called up a simulation on the main viewscreen, showing his reconstruction of the killing blow. Even in these simplified graphics, it was painful for Thanien to watch. Yet he bore witness gravely, refusing to look away. “In the past, the Mutes have always fired to disable. They want to capture ships intact. But Thejal’s destruction was no accident. Their firing pattern deliberately targeted the exposed sections; then when the rest of the shields failed, they targeted the engines specifically. This was no accident—they fired to destroy.”
“They were under attack on two fronts,” Thanien countered, “bracketed in. They struck out of self-preservation, obviously.”
“Perhaps,” T’Pol said. “But while each of these anomalies alone is easily explained, in combination they create room for doubt. Garos has not always been trustworthy.”
“Garos is on our side!” Thanien objected. “Whatever his past, we fight a common enemy, and that must be our focus.” He peered at her. “I thought the Federation was about forgiving others’ past crimes, setting aside differences. Are you not ready to set the past aside after all?” And was I too quick to set your past aside? Too quick to dismiss my cousin’s questions about it?
The captain met his gaze with that infuriating calm of the Vulcans—hiding her true reactions, as they always strove to do. If anything, he realized, the Surakian teachings that had swept Vulcan in recent years had made them better at such concealment than ever before. “I am simply pointing out how many unknowns still remain in this situation. We should seek to answer some of those outstanding questions before we act.”
“Think that way and we will never act! What we do know is that the Mutes are a menace, and that knowledge demands action! We must take the battle to these demons and force them to submit once and for all!”
T’Pol studied him for a moment, then moved closer. “You are grieving,” she said. “I should grant you the time to process your anger, and not force you to confront its cause any longer. Please take the rest of the shift off. We can handle the investigation.” She tilted her head. “You might consider talking to Doctor Phlox. His advice can be quite . . . comforting.”
In other words, you don’t trust me, Thanien thought. Her attempt to mimic human compassion was risible. She simply didn’t trust the judgment of an emotional Andorian.
How, then, could he trust her to do what was necessary now?
—
“You’re right not to trust this Garos guy,” Trip told T’Pol as they met in meditation space. The beach was not comforting her tonight, so Trip had consented to let the space revert to the empty white void she preferred. “I’ve looked into his record. Exile or not, he’s still got pretty strong ties to the Malurian syndicate.”
“They call it an alignment,” T’Pol replied.
“A mob by any other name would smell as rotten.”
She gave him a quizzical look. “I would not have expected you to paraphrase Shakespeare—even in so mangled a fashion.”
“Well, I’ve had to broaden my horizons a lot these past few years.” He kept quiet about the specifics: the cover identity he’d assumed the year before that had required adopting a more literate persona; the days of harrowing, drug-assisted crash learning; the infiltration of a resurgent Terra Prime cell capitalizing on fears of Earth losing its identity within the Federation; the pretense of befriending a man he loathed in order to set him up for a fall; the unexpected sense of guilt once that man was discredited, broken, and turned on by his own followers.
Still, he could tell that T’Pol sensed his sudden melancholy, so he covered by shifting his focus to the more positive potentials of what he did. “If you’re not having any luck finding out whether Garos was on the level about Thejal, I could do some digging. My sources may know more—”
“That’s not necessary,” she said sharply.
“Look. I know you’re not crazy about our methods. But—”
“Methods that your compatriots claim are justified under extreme or existential threat. At this time, we have no reason to believe the threat posed by these aliens is nearly so drastic. There is no reason for your involvement.”
“I’m just talkin’ about gathering some information.”
“Starfleet can handle it,” she insisted. “We can’t be effective at defending the Federation if we need to turn to others for help at every turn.”
“Where’s the sense in turning away help when it’s available?”
“I don’t like the precedent it sets.”
Trip sighed, recognizing her resolve. “All right. But if I should just . . . happen to stumble on something useful . . .”
“Trip.”
“Okay, okay.” He said no more about it. After studying him a moment longer, T’Pol let it go, satisfied that he would respect her wishes on the matter.
And once again, Trip hated how good he’d become at lying to the people who trusted him.
10
April 2, 2163
U.S.S. Pioneer
“ENGINEERING TO BRIDGE,” ALAN Sheehan’s voice came over the intercom. “We’ve completed the coil calibrations and the reactor’s warming up. We’ll be ready for warp within two minutes.”
Finally, Malcolm Reed thought, though he kept it out of his voice as he said, “Thank you, Commander. Stand by.” He turned to the engineering station. “Doctor Dax, I hope you’re confident it will actually work this time.”
“Well, it should, Captain,” the diffident Trill replied. “Most likely. I think we’re getting the hang of your coils now.” He shrugged. “We’ll see, anyway.”
Coming from Dax, Reed reflected, that was a vote of high confidence. At least he sincerely hoped it was. It had been a frustrating few weeks as Dax and his team had gone through multiple failed attempts to balance the warp drive with the shields. No matter how many simulations they had run, the actual results had failed to match. Dax had attributed it to the “idiosyncratic” warp coil–manufacturing process used by Earth engineers; each individual coil was subtly different, with its own “personality,” and calibrating them to work together was a trial-and-error process—especially when they were required to perform in a way they hadn’t been designed to. Apparently Cochrane-style warp fields were too finely tuned, too sensitive to the gravimetric interference of a deflector envelope; other species’ drives produced warp fields that could more easily compensate for the effect through some sort of built-in cushion in their space-time geometry. Dax had been trying to add similar compensatory layers to Pioneer’s warp field, but aligning the coils to produce the necessary interference patterns had proved challenging. If anything, the required geometry was even more sensitive to fluctuations than a normal Cochrane field. But Dax’s team was confident that once they found the right balance, it could be “locked in” and more easily replicated in other ships, or at least be a starting point for future refinements.
In his darker hours of fatigue and frustration, Reed had wondered if Starfleet would be better off ditching Cochrane drives altogether and building their future ships aroun
d Andorian nacelles. But while Dax was open to a hybrid design, he still felt (and Commodore Jefferies agreed) that the twin-outrigger Cochrane drive was the most versatile warp configuration around—though he confessed that the same lability that made it so adaptable also made it difficult to lock the changes down now.
At the helm, Mayweather finished his discussion with Ensign Tallarico and rose to address the captain. “We’ve got the course laid in,” he said. “Should be as smooth a ride as we can manage—no major masses or energy sources within two light-years, no significant subspace density gradients that we know of.” They were starting in interstellar space already to minimize the influence of stellar gravity and radiation on the warp field, giving Dax the purest baseline possible with which to work.
The Trill scientist jumped a bit as the engineering console gave off a signal tone. “Um . . . engineering reports ready, sir.”
Reed waited a moment, then asked, “So are we good to go?”
“Oh! Yes, of course, Captain. Sorry. We’re, ah, go for warp at your discretion.”
This time he did say it aloud, though only for Mayweather to hear: “Finally.” His first officer smiled, eyes gleaming with anticipation. “Tallarico,” Reed ordered, “take us to warp two.”
Reed could feel the vibration in the deck plating as the compact ship’s engines drove it into warp. After a flash of light and distortion, the viewscreen showed the usual streaks of prismatic light. “Warp two, sir,” the slim blond helmswoman reported a few moments later.
“Lieutenant Williams, stand by to activate deflector shields.”
“Aye, sir,” the armory officer replied.
“Doctor, are you ready to compensate?”
“It should be automatic, Captain,” Dax answered. “But I’ll be monitoring.”
“All right. Lieutenant—activate shields.”
“Shields activated.”
Almost immediately, the tone of the warp engines changed. “Losing speed, sir,” Tallarico said. “But only twelve percent.”
“So close!” Dax muttered. “Hang on, I just need to tweak the intermix formula a bit . . . no . . . no, no, not like that!”
Before Reed could demand an explanation, the ship began to tremble—and something bizarre happened on the main screen. The orderly streaks of starlight gave way to a twisting, spiraling web of interference patterns, making it look like the ship was speeding through a tunnel of light. “What the hell . . . ?”
Dax worked his console frenetically as alarms sounded. “Some kind of field imbalance!”
“Ensign, drop to impulse!” Mayweather ordered.
“Negative helm control, sir!”
Now the bridge lights seemed to be blurring, stretching out before Reed’s eyes. The trembling was getting worse. “Engineering! Shut down the engines!”
“We’re . . . trying . . ., sir!” Sheehan’s response seemed slowed down, as though there were some kind of time dilation effect operating inside the ship, between the bridge and the engine room. “But it’ll . . . take . . . some . . . time!”
“Doctor Dax, is there anything we can do?”
“Hold . . . on. Let . . . me . . . an-al-yze . . . these . . . rea-dings.”
Time dilation across the width of the bridge? How severe did the space-time distortion have to be to cause that? The light distortion was worsening too, along with the trembling. The captain was starting to feel lighter—was the gravity plating going offline too? But that was the least of their problems. The hull began to groan from the gravimetric shear. If this continued much longer, Pioneer could be torn apart.
It took a few moments, sorting through the sensory distortion, before he realized Sheehan was speaking again. “Shut . . . down . . . in . . . five . . . fourrr . . . three-ee-ee . . .” The intervals grew longer with each nominal second. The gravity was gone now; Reed clung to his chair, and he saw Mayweather holding on to the helm console by its safety handle. “Two-oo-oo . . . onnnnnne . . .”
The swirling vortex on the screen collapsed in on itself. The ship heaved and groaned, circuits crackled and burned out, and the viewscreen flared white as Reed felt himself flung to the deck.
—
Malcolm Reed sat up, years of training letting him shake off his disorientation and pain and take in the situation quickly. The ship hadn’t blown up; that was something. But alarms were sounding, and one stood out in his attention above all the others: a radiation alarm.
“Status!” he called, looking around for Mayweather. He spotted him motionless on the deck, his head bleeding. Blood on the edge of the helm console. He rushed over, felt for a pulse . . . thank God, there was one. “Get a medical team up here!” he cried.
“Captain,” Rey Sangupta reported breathlessly. “We’re . . . sensors show we’re in proximity to a super-Jovian planet. We’re deep in its radiation belts.”
“Get us out of here,” he ordered Tallarico.
She tried, shook her head. “Engines aren’t responding. No warp or impulse.”
Reed hit the intercom. “Engineering, status.” Nothing. “Engineering, report!”
“This is T’Venri,” a voice came after a moment—it was one of Dax’s engineers. “Commander Sheehan is badly injured and being taken to sickbay. The engines are . . . not in substantially better shape. The coils are offline, at least three of the dilithium crystals are burned out, and the impulse reactors are not responding. Still assessing time for repairs.”
“We don’t have any time,” the science officer reported with unwonted gravity. “The radiation is too intense. We need to get out of it within twenty minutes or we’re fried.”
“We, we can’t move that far in time,” Dax said, “even on thrusters. We’re stuck here.” He wrung his sweaty hands.
“We could try getting everyone to sickbay,” Williams proposed. “It’s the most shielded part of the ship.”
Reed realized he’d been in a similar situation once before, back on Enterprise. “There’s one place more shielded: the catwalks in the warp nacelles. With the engines down, they should cool enough to be habitable.”
“But, but, but you can’t,” Dax sputtered. “We, we can’t fix the engines from inside the nacelles! We’d be stuck here!”
“Sir, we’re in a decaying orbit,” Tallarico said. “We have at most four days.”
Reed addressed them all forcefully. “We’ll deal with those problems later. For now, I’m ordering everyone to the starboard catwalk, best possible speed. Alert Doctor Liao to bring everything she’ll need to treat her patients.” He picked up Mayweather, struggling to carry the taller man. Williams moved in and took the first officer’s other arm, making it look effortless. “All right, let’s go!”
U.S.S. Endeavour
“Firing,” Takashi Kimura announced. Phased energy beams raked the flanks of the black ship on the screen, causing their green light to flicker out. “Engines are down.”
But arcs of plasma tore out from the ship’s bow, and Endeavour rocked. “Continue fire,” T’Pol ordered. “Neutralize their weapons.”
She spoke not only to her own tactical officer but his counterparts on the two Rigelian scout ships that flew behind the alien raider as Endeavour flew in front of it. A Xarantine task force ship had been the first to encounter this particular vessel. The aliens had made no attempt to retaliate for the destruction of another of their vessels, perhaps not realizing the Xarantine’s connection to its destroyers. The Xarantine had fired first, driving the ship into retreat, and reported its trajectory to the nearby Rigelian scouts, which had intercepted and harried it, knocking it to impulse before Endeavour arrived. The Starfleet vessel had positioned itself ahead of the enigmatic ship, catching it in the crossfire that had now neutralized its propulsion—though of course its momentum still carried it forward at a fifth the speed of light, the other ships coasting with it at equal velocity.
The aliens’ weapons inflicted significant damage on one of the Rigelian scouts, tearing through one of the stout wings
of the slender, conical gray vessel and coming dangerously close to its starboard warp nacelle. The scout veered off, decelerating. “Their navigational deflector’s taken damage,” Sato relayed. “They can’t maintain this speed.”
“Understood,” T’Pol said. “How long until reinforcements arrive?”
“Vinakthen should be four minutes away. Rivgor . . . probably not much longer. I can’t get a precise estimate.”
The ship rocked again. “Mister Kimura.”
He remained unflappable. “Almost there, Captain.” Another two efficient shots from him took out the last of the hostile vessel’s weapon ports.
The Rigelians fired one more sustained burst. “That took out their main power,” Cutler reported. “They’re helpless.”
T’Pol turned to Sato. “Open a channel.” At the other woman’s nod, she said, “Attention, hostile vessel. This is Captain T’Pol of the Federation vessel Endeavour. Your propulsion and weapons have been neutralized. I advise you to surrender peacefully. If you cooperate, we might be able to resolve this conflict without further violence.” She waited, but no reply came. “Our reinforcements should arrive shortly. You cannot escape. Communication is your only logical recourse.”
Nothing. Even in total defeat, the aliens maintained their resolute silence. “Even making the offer was a waste of time,” Thanien said after a few moments.
“Commodore th’Menchal is hailing,” Sato said.
“Open a channel.”
The aged Andorian appeared on the screen. “I’ve been monitoring. Clearly they won’t cooperate. Once Vinakthen and Rivgor arrive, we’ll board their ship, take the crew prisoner.”
“Very well,” T’Pol said. “We will prepare a boarding party in EV suits.”
“If I may, Commodore,” Thanien interposed. “Why not simply transport them aboard? We know a single isolated use of the transporter isn’t dangerous. And even if it were—they’re the enemy. They’ve killed hundreds, maybe thousands of good people.”
“They are an enemy we need to understand,” T’Pol countered. “Their biology and neurology are different from ours in ways we cannot predict. If the transporter’s rematerialization process lacks complete fidelity, it may obscure some vital piece of information on a molecular or genetic level.”
Star Trek: Enterprise - 015 - Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures Page 15