The Face of the Unknown

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “The Dassik?” Kirk asked.

  “We are not sure, though—”

  Another blast made the module heave and pounded through their bodies. Sulu realized he and the others were beginning to fall toward the bottom of the hangar, though it felt the same as weightlessness. The hangar’s antigravs were failing! The ships were beginning to plummet from their docks as well. The shock of their impact, and any explosions that resulted, might tear the whole hangar open. Not that Sulu would still be alive to care at that point.

  “Emergency beam-out, all life-forms!” Nisu cried. The delay that followed seemed endless to Sulu as the deck flew closer. But the beam took him just as he heard the ships beginning to crash.

  Thirteen

  Nisu rematerialized and struck the floor, though with much less force than she would have struck that of the hangar; the transporter had corrected for most, but not all, of her momentum. Rolling to her feet, she found herself in the regional security center. Her eyes immediately went to the big hologram that displayed situational ­status. It was bad. High-yield fusion charges were going off within a few thousand kilometers of each world module. There had been no direct impacts yet, but some had come dangerously close, producing sizeable fireballs and shock waves. The modules were shielded against their electromagnetic pulses—no worse than one of Cherela’s larger lightning strikes—but radiation could pose a hazard. And multiple habitats were showing atmosphere breaches and structural damage.

  Worse, the antigrav network was showing increasing instability, with the close call in the hangar being merely a symptom. The status reports in her earpiece told her that the engineers were working hard to maintain the ­balance, but on top of the lingering instability from Fiilestii’s ­collapse, this bombardment was a serious complication to their efforts.

  “Depth charges,” came Kirk’s voice. Turning, Nisu confirmed that Kirk, Spock, Sulu, McCoy, and Uhura had materialized along with her team. All of them were clambering to their feet, but the protectors made it first and ensured the five outsiders were secure at gunpoint. “They’re dropping depth charges into the atmosphere.”

  “Essentially, yes, Captain,” Spock said, perusing the readouts of the blast pattern. “They would appear to be the Dassik’s cubic missiles, set to overload and undergo fusion explosions. They’ve narrowed down the module positions, but not precisely. They seem to be attempting to inflict what damage they can.”

  “Maybe they’re hoping to knock out the Web’s camouflage systems,” Lieutenant Sulu observed.

  “Or just setting off bombs for the hell of it,” added Doctor McCoy.

  Kirk looked around at his diminished party. “Where are the rest of my people?” he demanded.

  “I called for emergency beam-out,” Nisu told him. “That means that injured or unconscious subjects are automatically directed to a medical facility. They will be safe and cared for.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that!” McCoy exclaimed. “Take me to them right now!”

  She transfixed him with her gaze. “You are in no position to make demands!” She held her stare a moment longer, then broke it off when she realized his respiration had slowed. Some susceptible individuals could have their ­attention so transfixed by a sufficiently intense Kisaja stare that it even affected their autonomic nervous systems; essentially they forgot to breathe. Nisu had never before been angry enough to ramp her stare up to that level. It disturbed her, the degree of disruption these outsiders had brought to her ordered world.

  While Kirk made sure his physician was all right, Spock studied the status display. “The bombardment is exacerbating the Web’s instabilities. If they find their range and begin striking the modules directly, the impacts could trigger a cascade failure in the grid. In which case the entire Web of Worlds will tear itself apart.”

  “Don’t!” Nisu cried, whirling on him. “Don’t use this as an excuse to sell me your lies! The Web has always been here. It will always be here! We will deal with this!”

  “How?” Kirk demanded. “By hiding? Squeezing your eyes shut and hoping they go away? That’s what got you into this situation in the first place, Nisu. The Dassik know we’re down here now. They aren’t going anywhere. Not until they get what they want from your people.”

  “Maybe . . . maybe we can modify the atmosphere grid. Make it appear we have been destroyed.”

  “They’ve seen through that illusion already,” Lieutenant Uhura said. “If you disappeared again, they wouldn’t take it at face value.”

  The ground heaved beneath them. Nisu refused to take the timing as a sign. But Kirk seized the moment to step forward. “The time for hiding is over, Nisu. The only way to stop the Dassik is to face them. And that’s something we know how to do. Please . . . let us help.” He moved one more step closer, lowered his voice, and projected a sincerity she could feel was genuine. “All we’ve been trying to do all along is help.”

  The reports on the data stream were growing more distressed. Modules all over Cherela were feeling gravity surges, even those that weren’t taking damage from the explosions. People were beginning to die in tube accidents, building collapses, atmospheric ruptures. The instability was growing worse despite everything the engineers attempted.

  An urgent signal came through on both her earpiece and the holographic display. A detonation had gone off alarmingly close to one of the world modules. In the display, the fireball expanded nearly to the module’s dome before convection made it roll upward, and moments later the dome buckled around the point of near-contact and began to cave inward. The superheated hydrogen and methane rushed in and mixed with the oxygen within, igniting into flame—a vast torrent of blue fire that poured into the dome with terrible, majestic slowness.

  “My God,” McCoy breathed.

  Kirk turned to Nisu, whose eyes were wider than ever. “Is that module populated?”

  After a moment, the Kisaja blinked. “It . . . no, it is a nature preserve. The subarctic biosphere of the planet Niatok. But if there are tourists . . .”

  “The sheer volume of atmosphere is great enough to shield them for now,” Spock said. “The hydrogen and methane are lower in density than the internal atmosphere, so they will not reach ground level, and it will take time for the thermal and pressure effects to propagate. Evacuation should be possible.” He paused. “However, if we do not act quickly, they may have nowhere to evacuate to.”

  No, Nisu thought, unable to process all of this. This can’t be. The Web is my home. The Web is safety. The Web has always taken care of me.

  Suddenly Spock was there, his eyes transfixing hers almost like a Kisaja’s. He was with her in thoughtspace. Ever since your parents died? he urged. Remember—how did it happen? Unwillingly, her mind went to the memory: the freak storm out of nowhere, the conduit overwhelmed and torn apart, her parents’ skulls crushed in the turbulence before the emergency balloons had deployed.

  The storm, Nisu. How many more freak storms have there been over the past few generations? Don’t you see? Your parents’ death was a symptom of the growing instabilities the Web’s concealment grid created in the atmosphere. It was a tragedy that could have been prevented if the government had not been so intractable in its determination to stay hidden.

  “No!” she sobbed, wanting to look away, but she couldn’t break the link.

  I understand your fear, Spock told her. You were alone. You were lost. The Web offered protection, security. You needed to believe it would always keep you safe. The prospect that it could die is too terrifying to contemplate.

  I realize now that we have both been paralyzed by fear of the future. We look ahead and see no clear path that will let us avoid unwelcome change, and so we quail at the thought of facing what lies ahead. But that is illogical. The future will come whether we wish it or not. Change will come. Therefore, we must accept it and adapt to it, so that we may assert some control over where it tak
es us.

  You must not let your fear prevent you from taking that control, Nisu. The First Federation has relied on fear for too long, and it has become a trap. You must move beyond that fear, as I must move beyond my own doubts and face whatever the future brings. This is not a threat you can hide from, Nisu. It must be faced openly if the Web is to survive.

  Spock released Nisu from the link, but still her eyes held his a moment longer. Then she shook her head and turned to Kirk. “I will take you to the triumvirs,” she said. “But the First are in no mood to trust outsiders right now. You’d better have a good plan if you want them to listen.”

  “All I have is the truth,” Kirk said. “We’ll just have to hope it’s enough.”

  Nisu squeezed her eyes shut, praying she wasn’t making a huge mistake.

  * * *

  “Are we hitting anything?” Grun demanded. He hovered over Remv’s shoulder, struggling to divine some meaning from the readouts on his console, but he remained entirely dependent on the monitor officer to explain them to him.

  “It is . . . difficult to tell, Force Leader,” Remv replied with a quaver in his voice. “The detonations worsen the interference.”

  “Get me results, Remv! Your life hangs by a thread as it is.”

  “J-just give me a moment, please! I have an idea!” Remv worked his console frantically. “Ah!” he ­exclaimed after a moment. “There! The detonations create shock waves in the atmosphere. When the waves hit ­obstructions, it alters their pattern. Whatever form of concealment these objects use must not be calibrated to cope with—”

  “Fewer words, Remv!”

  “Sir, the blasts are letting us detect the objects more clearly! We can improve our targeting!”

  “There!” Grun cried, clapping his shoulder. “I knew I was right not to kill you! Show me, show me!”

  Remv did something to the controls to make the readouts show. The objects that appeared were still vaguely defined, fragmentary, but it was possible to begin divining their form and pattern. “They’re immense!” Rhuld cried.

  “And look,” Remv added. “They go beyond our scan range. They could extend clear around the planet!”

  “Yes,” Grun said, his heart racing with the thrill of the hunt. “At long last, we have hounded the betrayers to their nest! Now they are at our mercy! Increase the bombardment until they surrender!”

  “But, Force Leader, look!” Rhuld said, indicating the readouts. “The grid is fluctuating. The modules are beginning to lose their support in the atmosphere. Our bombardment must be destabilizing their balance. If we strike too aggressively, the whole system would collapse!”

  And if we hesitate, Vraq will arrive and steal my glory. This victory had to be Grun’s and Grun’s alone. He would allow no one to overshadow him ever again. “Let it collapse, then,” he replied with a sadistic laugh. “A fitting fate for those who left our race to die!”

  “Force Leader, without the knowledge they possess, our race will die!”

  “Do not question me, Rhuld!” Grun cried, smacking him across the face once more. “I know how things stand. We will bombard them until they have no choice but to beg us for mercy. They will give us whatever we ask in exchange for their lives. And then . . . we will have no need to grant them those lives.”

  Grun could see the continued doubt and hesitation in Rhuld’s eyes, but his second was too cowardly to continue to question. He could have hoped for a higher caliber of warrior, but under the circumstances, with Vraq’s squadron drawing nearer by the moment, he preferred Rhuld’s quick and unquestioning obedience.

  “Make ready for another bombardment,” he commanded. “Target the enemy installations! We will not relent until the betrayers are broken for good!”

  * * *

  Once Nisu and the five from the Enterprise materialized in the transport center of the Syletir module’s government complex, the Kisaja quickly led them out onto the skywalk that led to the central tower. Kirk slowed to take in the spectacular vista beyond—the vast ocean and its islands, preserving forms of life found nowhere else in the galaxy, and the looming storm clouds that had suddenly become a secondary threat.

  The sky lit up above them. The dome quickly polarized to block the worst of it, but Kirk’s eyes watered, and he tried to blink away the searing afterimage.

  Once the light faded, it was some moments before he realized McCoy was shaking his shoulder, goading him forward. “Well, what are you waiting for? Come on!”

  “Sorry.” He picked up the pace.

  But the doctor peered at him closely as they strode together. “Okay, what’s bugging you?”

  It was a moment before he spoke. “I’m just . . . overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it all, Bones. To have so many worlds riding on what I decide . . . I’ve never felt so much weight on my shoulders.”

  “Bull,” McCoy said. “You’ve made decisions that affected whole worlds before. Even ones affecting the history of the whole Federation.”

  “But the stakes were more distant then, more abstract. Here . . . I can see the worlds that could live or die based on what I do next.”

  “These worlds are dying just fine without your help, Jim. Right or wrong, you have to do something.”

  Kirk nodded and resumed his course toward the central tower at a run.

  Once inside the tower, as they neared the ­situation room, the sentries spotted the approaching group and reacted with alarm, brandishing their weapons in near panic. Kirk heard cries of “We’re under attack!” and “­Protect the Council!” before one of the sentries, a ­Tessegri male, had the presence of mind to shout “Halt, all of you!” at the approaching party. Kirk was grateful for that, at least; the protector held his firearm with such agitation that he had feared the Tessegri would simply start shooting.

  But Nisu stepped to the front of the group. “Stand down, Initau! These people are with me.”

  “But—but Triumvir Tirak said they were attacking the Web.”

  “Tirak says many things. That is his job. Yours is to obey my orders. Now stand down and let us pass.”

  “But they’re outsiders!”

  “Look around you, Initau. Did your kind evolve here? Did mine?” The floor swayed and rumbled beneath them once more. “Surely now, more than ever, it is obvious that none of us truly belong here.”

  Finally, the sentry stepped aside, and the others followed suit. Nisu looked to Kirk. “Now we must face Tirak himself. Be ready.”

  As promised, once she led them inside, the older Linnik male was already storming toward them, no doubt alerted by the earlier ruckus. “You!” he exclaimed, gesticulating furiously at Kirk. “This is your fault!”

  He met Tirak’s eyes head-on. But this was not the time to confront him over his secrets. “That’s right,” Kirk said. “Much of this is my fault. So let me help fix it.” The triumvir froze, the wind taken from his sails.

  Brilliant light flashed. Kirk realized that the roof of the situation room was a high, clear dome showing the sky beyond, a sky roiling under the shock of another detonation. A gravity fluctuation pulsed through the room: a harrowing sensation of falling, a feeling of crushing weight, then normality again, all within seconds. “Tirak.” It was Aranow, resting her long blue fingers on the older triumvir’s arm. “We don’t have time. The bombs are getting closer. Let them help.”

  “Is that Kirk and Spock?” Lekur bellowed from across the room, where he’d been immersed in the status displays, not even noticing the drama. “For hrunh’s sake, get them over here now!”

  That settled it. In moments, they were all assembled around the massive array of display holograms showing the escalating situation. “They’re getting their range now,” Lekur said. “We’re boosting the emergency shielding as fast as we can, but with the fields so unstable already, it’s a fight. And if we divert too much energy, we won’t be able to damp th
e fluctuations in the Web.”

  “Can’t you shoot down the bombs before they hit?” Kirk asked.

  “We’re not equipped for combat,” Aranow said. “We don’t need to be. Nobody ever found us before.”

  “The Enterprise is,” Kirk said. “Put me in contact.”

  “It is not our way to depend on outsiders,” Tirak insisted. “Especially ones who have betrayed our trust.”

  “The depths with politics!” Aranow cried. “We need help. Who cares how it looks? I vote yes.”

  “Me too,” Lekur said. “Doesn’t have to be unanimous. Call your ship, Kirk.”

  * * *

  Montgomery Scott was immensely relieved to see Captain Kirk on the viewscreen. He had been trying his best to talk his way through the bureaucracy and get permission to help, but the dock foreperson had been too reluctant to risk the disapproval of the angry masses. Scott had been on the verge of abandoning diplomacy and ordering Lieutenant Rahda to blast the ship free of the hangar.

  Even so, he would have been setting off without most of the command crew. He looked around the bridge: Chekov manned the science station, Elizabeth Palmer sat at communications, Frank Gabler monitored engineering, Manjula Rahda worked the helm, and Jana Haines filled in at navigation. All good people, or they would not have been aboard the Enterprise, but they were not the people Scott was accustomed to relying on when the fate of worlds was at stake.

  So it did his heart good to see that, despite all the odds arrayed against them, Kirk and Spock had once again muscled their way right to the top and convinced the authorities to cooperate. He never should have doubted what those two could accomplish.

  Once Kirk had relayed his intentions, Scott acted promptly. “Rahda, get us into the open air.”

  “Scotty,” Kirk asked once the helmswoman had acknowledged and complied, “are you up to taking on two Dassik warships?”

  “I wish I could say yes,” Scotty told him, shaking his head. “Shields are still a bit iffy, and the port warp engine’s still half-assembled.”