The Face of the Unknown

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Warp drive’s beside the point, Scotty,” Kirk said. “You won’t be needing it.”

  “But in its current condition, if it takes too much damage, a power imbalance could build up and take out half the secondary hull.”

  A pause. “All right, then avoid direct confrontation. Instead, try to intercept the depth charges and detonate them in the upper atmosphere.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  A surge of turbulence struck the hangar just as the Enterprise passed through its doors. Rahda hit the thrusters to swerve and accelerate clear, but a sharp thump and scraping groan resonated through the ship’s superstructure. Scott glanced at the engineering station; the status readouts showed minimal ­damage, nothing a few new hull plates and a coat of paint wouldn’t fix.

  “That’s risky too, sir,” Ensign Chekov said as the lowering storm clouds came into view through the forward port. “Our phasers will be attenuated in this atmosphere. We will have to get pretty close.”

  “Torpedoes?” Scott asked.

  “They are not designed to maneuver in these winds, Commander. Again, we would need to get close.”

  “Scotty,” Kirk said, “you know what’s at stake. Do what you have to do to protect these people.”

  Scott straightened with pride. “Absolutely, sir. We’ll find a way. These First folks may not have been the most hospitable hosts lately, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to let them down.”

  “We know,” Triumvir Aranow replied. “Maybe it’s more than we deserve. Fortune run with you, Enterprise.”

  We’ll need it, Scott thought as he studied the view ahead. The fusion charges were ionizing the atmosphere, adding more charge to the lightning storms that were already intensified by the Web’s atmospheric effects. Lightning raked the shields as the Enterprise flew toward the clouds—lightning on a Jovian scale, plasma arcs so huge they dwarfed the starship. The vessel trembled. If this lasted much longer, Scott thought, they’d be better off facing the Dassik.

  Especially with the ionization disrupting the ship’s sensors. The Web’s sensor systems were better designed to cope with Cherela’s atmosphere, so it was a relief when the Triumvirate’s staff provided the Enterprise with a real-time feed to help them track the Dassik’s cubic depth charges. “Down here is the best place to do it anyway,” Chekov observed as he studied the feed in Spock’s hooded viewer. “They’re dropping the charges from a midrange orbit—as close as they can get without the radiation belts frying their systems.” An evasive course around the radiation belts, like Sulu had used to get down here in the first place, would’ve made an effective bombardment pattern impossible. “It takes a few minutes for the charges to spiral in.”

  “So even if we went out there and took those ghoulish beasties out now,” Scott said, “we’d be letting a number of bombs slip by us. Better to pick ’em off down here.”

  “More dangerous, though, sir,” Chekov replied. “All else being equal, it would be better to set them off in space. No shock wave, no fireball, not much EMP—just a nice, quick flash of deadly gamma rays.”

  “Aye, there’s that, lad,” Scott replied. “But who doesn’t love a good fireworks show? Lieutenant Rahda,” he ordered, “light up the sky.”

  * * *

  The staff in the situation room cheered as the Enterprise detonated one of the cubes in the middle cloud layer, far from its target. But with the atmospheric ionization disrupting communications, Kirk waited on tenterhooks until the readouts confirmed that the ship was intact. He reflected on the nastiness of the weapon design the Dassik were using. Normal fusion weapons would just fizzle out if they were destroyed, since it took a precise sequence of events within a precisely configured vessel to trigger the nuclear reaction. When the Enterprise had blown up Balok’s initial cube buoy three years before, its explosion had been conventional, less damaging than the radiation the cube had already been emitting. But the Dassik must have rigged their cube missiles with fail-safes that triggered a fusion detonation if they registered tampering or imminent destruction. So the Enterprise would have to endure numerous close-range nuclear explosions, their effects amplified by atmosphere, in order to save the Web. And worst of all, he wasn’t there in the center seat.

  “There has to be more we can do, Spock,” he said. “The First Federation has all this technology, all this power. I can’t believe all we can do is sit here and watch.”

  “Perhaps we could employ the Web’s transporters,” Spock suggested.

  Lekur Zan grunted a negative in the back of his throat. “Been tried. The things are shielded. Maybe we could push through if the atmosphere weren’t so ionized, but that’s not happening anytime soon.” He shook his massive horned head. “And we can’t get them in the tractor fields until they’re too close. We’d set them off, and the interaction with the magnetic fields would make the EMP even worse.”

  “Could we move?” Sulu asked. “Lower the world modules deeper into the atmosphere so they’d be harder to reach?”

  “If we had a few days to calculate the field configurations,” Lekur said. “As it is, it’s a struggle to keep all the modules afloat at all. The last thing we need is to destabilize the network even more.”

  Lightning flashed again, not a single flash this time but a sustained barrage of dozens of strikes against the Syletir module’s dome. The power flickered in the situation room and another gravity fluctuation made Kirk’s knees buckle. “Generator overload,” one of the technicians explained once the power came back. “Compensating with network power feeds . . . transferring to secondary generators.”

  “What a crazy place to build a civilization,” McCoy grumbled. “If the Dassik don’t kill you, your own weather will!”

  Kirk looked up sharply, meeting his eyes. “Bones, you’re a genius!”

  “Well, yes, but what’d I say?”

  But Kirk directed his next words at his first officer. “Spock, the lightning. This planet’s got enough power in its lightning storms to vaporize whole fleets of starships. If the Web’s systems can harness the planet’s magnetic fields as a tractor beam, can’t they harness that electrical energy as a weapon?”

  Spock frowned. “Unlikely, Captain. Vacuum is an insulator. It would require an electric arc of immense potential to leap across the gap from Cherela to one of the Dassik vessels. Even if we could generate that level of voltage in one strike, it would more likely arc to a nearer ground such as one of the inner moonlets—or, more probably, the Web itself.”

  The ground heaved beneath them as the network of modules struggled to maintain equilibrium. “Which is having enough problems as it is,” Kirk said. “All right, bad idea.”

  “Wait,” Lekur said. “Maybe there is a way to direct the lightning on a smaller scale, to take out the fusion charges. It would be hit-or-miss, but it could give us a shot at defending ourselves instead of depending on the Enterprise.”

  “Do what you can,” Aranow told him. Tirak merely stood by sullenly, continuing to give the outsiders a suspicious glare.

  Spock was still absorbed in thought. “Captain . . . perhaps you were on the right track after all. Cherela’s electrical activity may be constrained by its atmosphere, but its overall field of influence extends much farther into space.”

  “The magnetic field!” Uhura said. Kirk was not surprised that the insight came from the person who had discovered the Web by listening to Cherela’s magnetic emissions.

  “Indeed,” Spock replied. “And contained within that field, trapped as if in a magnetic bottle, are enormous quantities of charged particles from the primary’s stellar wind.”

  Uhura nodded. “The radiation belts.”

  Now Sulu was grinning. “Radiation belts intense enough to fry the circuits of any ship that gets caught in them. Or worse.”

  Kirk’s eyes darted between his helmsman and his first officer. “Can the outer magnetic field be
modified from down here?”

  “In fact, its source is far below us,” Spock said, “in the metallic hydrogen core of the planet. And the Web is designed to interact with that field, to draw on it for power and stabilization, and to influence its patterns so that the presence of the Web remains disguised.” Spock began to pace, eyes darting as he worked through the computations in his head. “It should be possible to use the Web’s own magnetic network to modulate the shape of the planetary field, thus redirecting the radiation belts. With sufficient precision, we could concentrate the radiation on the Dassik ships, which would be the equivalent of striking them with an intense particle beam barrage. Even a diffuse bombardment would scramble their sensors and control systems, if not burn them out entirely. If concentrated sufficiently, however, it could be a devastating weapon.”

  Now Kirk was smiling. “One that would surround this entire planet and draw on its power.” He spun to face the triumvirs. “There’d be nowhere the Dassik could hide.”

  “Are you mad?” Tirak demanded. “You primitives have jeopardized the Web enough through your clumsy tampering with forces you cannot comprehend. Now you wish to tamper even more? You will doom us all!”

  “The required degree of modification would not be as great as that involved in repositioning the Web,” Spock said. “It would be comparable to the process Triumvir Lekur is currently undertaking to harness the lightning storms.”

  “Which is working,” Lekur reported, “to an extent. We’ve taken out two charges, missed two more we’ve tried for.” The big Bogosrin growled as the ground heaved beneath them once more. “But we can’t do both. It’s one or the other.”

  Tirak shook his head. “We cannot listen to these outsiders and their aggressive ways. We have survived for twelve thousand years by keeping to ourselves, not pushing outward. We should focus on the immediate threat of the charges.”

  Nisu stepped forward. “That’s a stopgap, Triumvir. The source of the threat is the Dassik. We have to neutralize that threat or they will simply strike again.” Tirak seemed surprised, even angry, that the Kisaja was not supporting him.

  “She’s right,” Aranow said. “We can’t stay timid. We have to stand up, face this threat.” She met Kirk’s eyes, then moved to his side, her hand clasping his shoulder. “Trust Captain Kirk. Trust Spock. They know how to face the world. How to face problems. Not just how to hide and hope they go away.”

  Tirak held Nisu’s gaze a moment longer. But she remained calm, confident, and defiant. Finally, Tirak sighed. “I have no choice, then. Assuming it can be done.”

  “That’s a big assumption,” Lekur said. “Spock, you’re wrong, it’s bigger than the lightning. That we can do on a local scale, a few control nodes at a time. For what you’re talking about, we’d need to modify the whole global network at once, a coordinated effort. That’s complicated enough to do normally. Now we’ve got control nodes down, power relays damaged or lost, and the teams in the various control centers struggling just to coordinate efforts to keep the Web together. I don’t think we can do it under these conditions.”

  “You could,” Spock said, “if you had a means of gaining centralized remote control over the entire network at once.”

  Nisu stared at him. “Like the remote transmitters you and the dissidents were planting to take over the grid!”

  “Exactly. What did you do with the transmitters you confiscated?”

  “They have been secured as evidence pending . . . your trial.” She glanced away.

  “Then they are intact?”

  “Yes.”

  “Excellent.” Spock turned back to the triumvirs. “The dissidents should still be in possession of the remaining transmitters you have not yet managed to find, and they have been trained in their use. With cooperation between the government and the dissidents, we should be able to position the full complement of devices and implement centralized control.”

  “How convenient,” Tirak said, eyes narrowing. “Your plan requires letting your fellow criminals take credit for saving the Web of Worlds. And who knows what they could do once they have full control of our grid?”

  “If we install the override transmitters in the actual control centers, rather than nearby, the interface could be two-way. Control could be implemented from this location, under the Triumvirate’s supervision.”

  “So you claim. What’s to stop you from overriding our control from your ship?”

  “Damn it, Tirak!” Kirk cried. “Stop thinking like a politician. You’re a triumvir. Your job is to protect everyone in the First Federation, not just the ones you agree with. All right, maybe you and the dissidents have different ideas about what the Web needs. But you’re both trying to protect it—because you both love it as your home, your community. You’re not enemies just because you have different points of view.” He gestured skyward. “Do you know why the Dassik are attacking you so relentlessly? Because they fear you!” Tirak stared in disbelief, but Kirk barreled on. “That’s right, Triumvir. Your big, scary bogeymen you use to frighten small children—they’re as scared for their own future as you are! They reversed the genetic change your ancestors imposed on them, but it’s unstable.” Aranow stared, startled by his words. Had she not known? Koust had said his people had contacted the Council . . . but Aranow was its newest member.

  “I don’t know what lies you’re spinning, Kirk,” Tirak attempted.

  But the captain pushed on. “Fewer Dassik are born with each generation. They’re heading toward extinction if they don’t find the answers. And only your people have the knowledge to save them. But in your fear of them, you’ve rejected them, hidden from them, and so they feel they have no choice but to take the knowledge by force. Your fear is killing both of you! And it doesn’t have to happen.”

  “What are you saying, you lunatic?” the older Linnik cried. “Do you want us to fight them or make peace with them?”

  “Right now, they’re too angry to make peace. Too afraid. You have to stop them to save yourselves. But you have to do it by putting aside your fear of the people in your own society who disagree with you. And then, once you’ve managed to do that, maybe you can do the same with the Dassik, so that an attack like this doesn’t happen again.”

  Nisu stepped forward. “Tirak, I don’t understand what he’s claiming about us and the Dassik. But I do know that our own people are not our enemies. The enemies are the people out there trying to destroy all of us. They don’t care what side you or the dissidents are on. So do you want to stay politically pure, or do you want to contribute to actually solving the problem?”

  “Tirak, come on,” Aranow said. “What else can we do?”

  The child-sized triumvir reluctantly looked to the huge Lekur. “Zan? Will it work?”

  The Bogosrin grumbled. “Don’t like the idea of relying on alien tech. But if it can do what Spock says, we have to try.”

  “Very well,” Tirak said heavily. “Contact your dissidents. We will sort through the lies later.”

  The ground heaved once more. “If there is a later,” Aranow said.

  Fourteen

  “Come on, faster! We’re not goin’ to make it!”

  “We’re at maximum airspeed already, sir!” Lieutenant Rahda told Scott even as she worked the helm controls to try to coax a bit more speed out of the engines. The Enterprise was already trembling from the rush of air across its shields as it forced its way through Cherela’s atmosphere, fast enough that a corona of blue flame now engulfed the ship, obscuring the forward view. The vessel had already taken a pounding from the charges it had successfully intercepted so far, and it hadn’t been designed for these conditions; but it was holding together impressively well nonetheless. Scott had expected nothing less of his baby.

  If her speed could not be increased further, then Scott would just have to push a different performance envelope. He turned to the weapons subsystem
s station just starboard of the viewscreen, which was manned now that the ship was at red alert. “Mister Lemli, I need the tightest, most intense phaser bursts you can manage—we need more range.”

  The crew acknowledged his orders, but they had little time to work. The next cube was only seconds away from reaching the minimum altitude at which it could be safely detonated. When the moment came, he had no choice but to order, “Fire!”

  On the tactical plot, the beams lashed out across the distance, leading the target by just enough, or so Scott hoped. Attenuated by their passage through the ­atmosphere, the beams had no effect at first, but finally, seconds later, the cube detonated. “Damage to the Web?” he called.

  “The nearest world module has sustained a major atmosphere breach,” Chekov reported. “Antigravity ­failing—no, wait, it is stabilizing at a weaker level.” He sighed in relief. “There should be time to evacuate. But . . . but a smaller module of some kind, maybe a hangar, has fallen. Hard to get life readings, but . . .” He trailed off.

  “Don’t dwell on it, lad. Move on to the next one.”

  “We may not be able to get to the next one, sir. The problem is that the Dassik are in orbit and we’re stuck in this soup. We can’t go fast enough to keep up. Not without breaking atmosphere.”

  “Which would open us up to direct attack.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chekov shrugged. “But we’re not that much better off down here. At least then the shields wouldn’t be strained fighting the atmosphere and the blast effects.”

  “Just fighting disruptor fire,” Scott replied pointedly.

  “At least we could maneuver. All we have to do is hold out until the captain and Mister Spock can carry out their plan.”

  Scott considered. The idea of using the planet’s entire magnetic field as a weapon may have been daft, but he had seen Kirk and Spock pull off madder schemes. The engineer knew better than to underestimate what talented, determined people could pull off in a crisis. And surely that went for the people around him now. He may not have known this lot as well as the usual bridge crew, but they had comported themselves with distinction, and he had no reason to doubt that they would rise to the occasion as well as any who wore the arrowhead.