A Time to Die

by John Vornholt

  “No! No!” screeched a dirty, disheveled Androssi male who cowered in a corner and held up his hands at the sudden appearance of this apparition. It was a featureless cell, save for the badly stained deck and bulkheads. Wes tried to ignore the stench. “Don’t beat me!” shrieked the Androssi. “Leave me alone!”

  Wes realized that he still had the bulk and vague appearance of a Pakled. He slimmed down into his own appearance as he walked forward. The Androssi peered suspiciously at him, then began waving his frail arms as if he were swatting away flies. “I don’t know you! Leave me alone…go away!”

  “Fristan, I’m here to help you,” said the Traveler, holding out his hands to show they were empty. “I’ve been sent by Overseer Jacer.”

  Fristan stared suspiciously at his visitor, and he bared his teeth in a feral snarl. “I know all your tricks! You won’t get me to tell you anything. Not anything!”

  “I only want to see you freed,” said Wesley, who was worried that this traumatized prisoner would never trust anyone, even those who came to pay his ransom. Wes sat cross-legged on the floor to be at Fristan’s level. This seemed to calm the Androssi. At least he stopped hissing and snarling, although he stared wild-eyed at the visitor as if seeing a ghost.

  “Some humans, like me, are coming to pay your ransom,” explained Wesley. “Don’t fight them—go with them. They will be coming to free you and take you back to Jacer.”

  “Jacer,” echoed Fristan with a high-pitched laugh. “That turgut sold me to them, you know. Jacer betrayed me! He used me to squirm out of his debts, but I didn’t give in. Fristan keeps his secrets. Fristan never tells. Drugs, beating—I don’t care! Fristan never tells his secrets.” He began to hum to himself as he picked at the six filthy toes on his right foot.

  The Traveler sat a few more minutes, but the disturbed Androssi never seemed to notice him again. Or maybe he did, but his mindless humming was his coping mechanism. By the looks of his condition, Fristan had been pressured into doing a lot of coping by the Pakleds. Wes wondered what he had suffered at the hands of Overseer Jacer, because it seemed that Fristan didn’t trust his fellow Androssi any more than he trusted the Pakleds.

  “Do you know how to find the monster of Rashanar?” he asked. “The demon flyer?”

  Fristan blinked curiously as if he had heard the buzzing of an insect around his head. Then he laughed and said, “It finds you.”

  “But how? How does it find you?”

  The Androssi wheezed a laugh and scratched the soft fur on his concave stomach. “Fristan keeps his secrets. I know the avenger will come for these turguts…you’ll see!”

  “How?” insisted Wesley. “If you tell me, I’ll save you from the Pakleds and Jacer—I’ll take you to the Federation for safety.”

  “For safety?” cackled Fristan. “Safety in here? No one is safe, you will all die.” His laughter degenerated into a coughing fit, and he lay down on the filthy deck.

  Wes couldn’t allow himself to give up when he didn’t know how long this madman would stay alive. “What does the antimatter have to do with it? Why do the Ontailians expel antimatter?”

  The Androssi pouted, groaned, and poked at his stomach. “They don’t know anything. All guessing…all fools. All pathetic fools.” He went back to humming contentedly.

  Wes got up and stood over Fristan. “If I save you from all your enemies, will you tell me your secrets?”

  “Die first,” answered Fristan with a snicker. “All of you will die first.”

  Figuring this was getting him nowhere, the Traveler assumed the form of a Pakled and stepped back into the narrow corridor. The crew members were coming back from their memorial service in the cramped torpedo room. One squeezed past him without paying him any attention. The Traveler decided to make a stop at the bridge of the cruiser before he went back to the Enterprise.

  The Pakleds seemed to have enough crew for a starship six times bigger, so Wes was able to easily blend in with the onlookers on the bridge. Spotting the elder he had seen below, he assumed he was the captain of this vessel. The white-haired eminence scratched the bushy eyebrows that consumed most of his forehead and peered thoughtfully at the readouts on a console.

  “Buoy number two reports no contact,” he said. “What about the distress signal?”

  “We’ve modified it again to duplicate the Ontailians’ frequency,” answered a younger officer, “but maybe we’re still off.”

  The Pakled elder scowled. “Is there anything else we can get out of him before we sell him?”

  A female officer snapped her fingers. “His brain is gone. He speaks only gibberish now.”

  Wesley edged closer to the captain and the station that was of so much interest to him. He got a glimpse of some coordinates a moment before a brutish officer pushed him back with a grunt. Immediately the Traveler began to fade into the background and was gone before anyone else noticed that he was there.

  He found the Pakled’s buoy in a fairly expansive part of Rashanar, with few dusty hulks to attract the errant energy bolts. Wispy clouds of silver debris drifted by, making it look like a Terran sky seen in a photographic negative. There was so much open space, he decided, that even the Enterprise could get in here to service this device, which was disguised to look like the Rashanar’s Federation buoys.

  To him, the buoy appeared inactive. He couldn’t sense any signal or power output—just another chunk of dead metal floating in the graveyard. Detached from everything, floating in space, it seemed important to connect with something, so Wes touched the protruding antenna tips and ran his hand down the shielding onto a disc that illuminated at his touch. At once, the buoy began to vibrate and emit both signal and radiation. The Traveler didn’t have to guess at this, because he turned on his tricorder and began to take readings. He felt a pang of guilt, because he was supposed to be recording events for the Travelers, not for Starfleet with this inferior mechanical device.

  What if I lose their trust and the ability to do this? Is anything—Colleen, my mother, Starfleet—worth giving up these gifts and becoming mortal again? The only answer he could think of was the Enterprise. A need to protect his ship had brought him to Rashanar in the first place and was drawing him deeper and deeper, like the gravity sink at the center of the vortex.

  Wesley hadn’t realized his mind had been wandering until an actual shadow passed over him, and the buoy went silent once again. His tricorder stopped working. Silvery debris began to pop and explode like magical popcorn—like matter annihilated by antimatter.

  With sheer dread, already feeling faint, the Traveler looked up to see an amorphous black shape, rippling and shimmering on the edges where it obliterated the space dust. Wes watched awestruck, barely breathing, while the entity writhed and seethed like a neon amoeba as big as a house. It gradually took on an outline that was familiar to him—a compact hull with twin warp nacelles below her sleek underbelly. What ship is that? he thought in panic.

  With horror, Wes whirled around to see the Pakled cruiser approaching their position at a good rate of speed. “No!” Wesley cried, although no one could possibly hear him in the twilight universe between matter and antimatter.

  Chapter Ten

  WITH EFFORT, Wesley tried to focus on escape while annihilation danced before his eyes. Remaining dark except for its glittering edges, the massive shapeshifter assembled itself like a giant origami paper structure, molded by unseen hands. Wesley could feel the lens of every Traveler focusing on him and his plight. It took all of them to rip him away from the ominious presence. It seemed to want his soul…to possess him…become him. Before Wesley fully gained his senses, he stumbled onto the bridge of the Pakled ship. In his true form, he grabbed the thick lapels of the Pakled elder, who stared in horror at this mad human who had suddenly appeared.

  “What?! Who are you?!” yelped the captain.

  “You’ve got to get out of here…right now!” He pointed out the viewport, but there was nothing to see. Their sensors were prob
ably fooled. By the time they got close enough to see it, they’d be dead. “The demon flyer is out there! You’re almost on top of it!”

  “Security!” called the captain. Wes barely had time to squirm away as two beefy Pakleds dove for him.

  The Traveler was shoved hard from behind and landed on the deck, where his captors could easily pummel him. As one grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, the lights on the bridge began to flicker. The weightless sensation came only seconds later, and every console on the bridge went dark.

  “What’s happening?” roared someone. “Aren’t shields up?”

  “Yes, but all systems are failing!” The officer pounded his board in futility as he floated off his seat.

  Realizing there was no time to save the Pakled crew, Wesley focused anew and brought himself to Fristan’s cell. It was already dark, but he could see the vague outline of the battered prisoner floating in the gloom.

  “It’s come!” he whispered. “I told you!” The Androssi cackled insanely and began to sing.

  “We’re not staying to meet it!” shouted Wesley, grabbing the slender humanoid and hauling him twenty kilometers into the boneyard.

  The frightened salvager clung to him like a monkey and stared wild-eyed at the space rubble and dusty derelicts surrounding them. “I don’t understand,” he muttered.

  Wesley felt defeated and wondering if it was his fault for tripping the buoy…only to draw the monster to them.

  The Traveler pointed into the distance. The fragile Androssi followed with his eyes and saw two identical Pakled cruisers. Their shiny newness glistened in the junkyard like jewels among brass. From this distance, Wes couldn’t tell which one was real and which was the shapeshifter. They had the appearance of art-deco bookends holding a field of stars between them.

  “How am I standing in space?” asked Fristan, sounding very rational.

  “I’ll tell you later,” said the Traveler. He glanced down to see that his tricorder was still dead; even his senses felt dulled, as if he had almost passed out. “Let me take you somewhere you’ll be safe.”

  “Safe?” asked Fristan with a chuckle. “You are funny, human. Safe he says!”

  The Androssi was still tittering when they showed up on the Enterprise bridge, where Riker was in deep discussion with Troi and his mother. They looked at him and his traveling companion with curiosity and broke off their conversation.

  “I like it,” said Fristan, looking around the sumptuous bridge. “Won’t help…but cheerful.”

  “Captain,” said Wesley, trying not to sound as panicked as he felt. “I’ve seen it out there—the replicating ship. It…it attacked a Pakled vessel. That’s where I rescued Fristan.”

  “Can we reach them in time?” asked Riker, striding forward.

  “Yes, but I don’t know if we should,” answered Wes. “I mean, we don’t really know what to do with this thing. However, we could track it from a distance.” He moved toward Data at the conn.

  Fristan hooted. “Yes, you should chase it! You must. It likes to play tag, it does!”

  While Wesley gave Data the coordinates, Riker turned to Deanna and said, “Counselor, will you please make our visitor more comfortable.”

  “Certainly,” said Troi with her most cheerful smile. Wesley didn’t pay much attention to their conversation, but Troi was quickly able to win Fristan over and conduct him off the bridge.

  “Captain,” said Data from the conn, “these coordinates are on the other side of Rashanar. The best available path we can take will get us there in forty-two minutes. The Skegge is closer and could take a more direct route, reaching the site in half that time.”

  “And what could the Skegge do?” asked Beverly Crusher.

  “They’ve got a cloak,” answered Wes. “They might be able to trail the demon ship, but we’ll have to come back in time to meet the Androssi.”

  “Don’t take any chances,” warned Riker, looking sternly at the young man. “You can escape from almost anything; however, I don’t want to lose Picard and Vale.”

  “Wesley,” asked his mom, “did you feel as if you were affected by the presence of this thing?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. I felt as if I needed the focus of all my fellow Travelers in order to escape.”

  “Then you stay away from it,” ordered his mother in no uncertain terms. “When you go off by yourself, you’re all alone out there. There’s no one to help you or to even tell us that you need help. Use the Skegge, but don’t go after this entity on your own. Will you promise me that?”

  The young man gulped, realizing he had been taking a substantial risk, especially with the presence of wild antimatter. He turned to the android. “Data, here’s a tricorder I used to monitor the anomaly. It died, but maybe you can get something off it. We’ll check in from the Skegge and tell you our status.” Without waiting for a response, the Traveler vanished from the bridge of the Enterprise.

  Jean-Luc Picard poured himself another cup of tea and tried to keep from pacing across the cabin of the Skegge. He held up the pot, offering some to Christine Vale, but she politely declined and turned to view the distant light show intermittently illuminating the hulking wrecks and clouds of glitter.

  “I dislike waiting,” said the captain, employing a smile to make his statement sound less like a complaint. “I would prefer to be on the offensive. Of course, we need more information. Maybe this Fristan can give it to us.” Thoughtfully he sipped his tea, wishing they had a bona fide plan.

  “Well, I slept very well,” bragged Lieutenant Vale, “better than I have in months. This is kind of a peaceful place, as long as you’re hiding out.”

  “It’s not peaceful anymore,” said a somber voice.

  They both turned around to see Wesley in the bow of the craft, entering coordinates into the conn.

  “Wesley!” said Picard with relief. “We were wondering what the next move should be.”

  “Captain, I’ve seen the mimic ship.” Crusher never looked up from his grim task. “It’s out there right now, replicating a Pakled cruiser. Allow me to take the controls.”

  “Make it so. Will the cloak help us?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Wesley, dropping into the pilot’s seat. “I don’t intend to get close enough to be in danger. The Enterprise can’t get there as fast as we can, because we have to go right through the center.”

  “You can’t use the cloak and the engines at the same time,” Vale reminded them. “What about the Androssi?”

  “I rescued Fristan from the Pakleds, so dealing with them is pointless—unless we turn Fristan over to them in exchange for the cloaking device.” Taking the trimpot controls in hand, he piloted the little tug out from under the Hickock’s saucer section and sputtered away into the haunted darkness.

  After they were under way, he brought Picard and Vale up to date on what he had seen. “I know it’s real now, Captain. I know I’m in danger too. Everything made of matter is in danger.”

  Picard sat in the seat nearest his old comrade. “What do you think it is, Wesley?”

  The young man frowned and finally said, “The nearest I can suggest is that it uses matter-antimatter conversion. It’s almost more biological than mechanical. Converting into matter, it has to have a form, so it picks the closest living spaceship and replicates it, the way a cancer cell mimics a healthy cell and feeds off it. Maybe it’s not a force weapon, but a kind of succubus. It sucks the life out of them. I’m sure it’s attracted by a distress signal, which I unwittingly set off.”

  “That makes sense,” answered Picard. “On our previous trip, the first Ontailian ship we saw expelling antimatter—they also set off a distress signal. Later the Ontailians denied that their ship had even been in the area.”

  “Things started going downhill after that,” added Vale.

  “You know,” said Wes, “there’s a theory that antimatter can’t exist in such small amounts as we find it or create it. There has to be a whole antimatter universe equiv
alent to ours, existing right beside us. Perhaps there is some seepage between the two—or a doorway. If there can be living matter, why can’t there be living antimatter?”

  Vale sighed. “Now you’re starting to scare me, Wes. The Travelers don’t even know about this?”

  “They didn’t before, but they do now.” The young man made a course adjustment to skirt around a scorched Jem’Hadar derelict, then continued zooming toward the flashes of light in the center of the graveyard. “Like Data, I’ve seen it up close, but I can’t tell you what it is.”

  “I hear Cabot’s voice in my mind,” muttered Picard, “saying that if it’s a living thing we shouldn’t destroy it.”

  “Yeah, I know how she feels,” answered a frustrated Wes. “But I don’t agree, not after seeing it. Maybe this thing is not malevolent, but it kills us the way you would step on an insect.”

  “If this is the Ontailians’ demon flyer,” said Picard, “then it’s also been around for hundreds of years.”

  “And they’ve been feeding it, appeasing it.” Wes narrowed his eyes, concentrating on his flying. They were reaching a dangerous part of the boneyard, near the center, where the gravity sink had drawn lots of company in swirling, crashing orbits. Picard folded his hands, watching Crusher, thinking that maturity and experience had only magnified his old skills. Wes almost never checked their position; he seemed to be piloting by instinct. If he weren’t a Traveler, wondered Picard, would he be able to fly like this?

  The captain peered out the convex viewport at the debris that sparkled off their shields; he flinched as larger, more dangerous chunks barely missed hitting them. Wes had nerves of titanium with an admirable sense of purpose, but Picard could feel their quarry slipping away. Maybe it was the young man’s urgency that convinced him that they may have missed their opportunity.

  As they neared their destination, Wes’s shoulders slumped. He began to check his coordinates and sensors. He stopped when they spotted a sleek, fairly modern starship rotating slowly in the middle of some sparkly rubble. It was a new addition to the forlorn shipwrecks, but it looked as if it belonged.