by Greg Cox
What the voice calls out for….
La Forge smacked his palm against his combadge. “Security to Engineering, pronto!” Then he wasted his breath trying to deter Faal by his words alone. “But we can’t create the wormhole now,” he said, badgering Faal with his timid, trivial objections, “not while the Enterprise is still in the barrier, too. We’re too close to ground zero to initiate the wormhole even if we still wanted to.”
The voice will protect me, he thought, knowing La Forge could never understand. I am beyond physical danger. “That’s not my concern,” he said, turning his back on the cowardly engineer. The mind is all. “Computer, prepare to launch modified torpedo, designation Faal-alpha-one.”
Ordinarily, a quantum torpedo, modified or otherwise, could not be launched without authorization from the captain or the tactical officer, but control of this particular torpedo, containing the experimental magneton pulse generator, had already been diverted to Faal’s personal controls so that he and La Forge could supervise every step of the experiment. Not that any common computer could stand against my will now, Faal thought. My mind is mightier than any mere machine. The preapproved launch authority only made his task easier.
“Acknowledged,” the computer reported. “Torpedo Faal-alpha-one loaded and ready to launch on command.”
“Sutter, stop him!” La Forge called out.
Caught by surprise, along with everyone else in earshot, Sutter improvised, aiming his laser wielder at Faal’s exposed back like a phaser. “Step away from the controls, Professor. I don’t want to use this weapon.”
He never had a chance. The metal instrument vanished instantly, leaving him staring in amazement at his empty hand. La Forge was also stunned by this demonstration of Faal’s new powers; the circular lenses in his state-of-the-art optical implants refocused on his fingers as he struggled to process this unexpected visual stimulus. Faal sensed the chief engineer’s shocked surprise, along with a heightened sense of caution and concern. Now do you understand? he wondered. Now do you comprehend the magnitude of what is at stake?
To his credit, La Forge did not panic when confronted with the miraculous. “Professor Faal. Lem,” he began, stepping toward the scientist slowly while making another futile try at dissuading Faal from his destiny. “Be reasonable. I know how important your work is to you, but—”
“You can’t possibly dream how important this is,” Faal declared, affronted by the human’s presumption. “You never could.” He watched in satisfaction as the monitor reported the power transfer complete. “I’ve been reasonable long enough, while Riker and Q and the rest of you did everything you could to obstruct my plans, keep me from my ultimate triumph and transfiguration.” His impatience and irritation swelled when he recalled how Riker had ordered him physically removed from the bridge, taking advantage of his former infirmity and weakness. “No more,” he vowed. Never again, say I. “Computer, initiate subspace tensor matrix.”
A pair of security officers rushed into Engineering, phasers ready. “Stop him,” La Forge instructed, pointing at Faal, “but be careful. He’s more dangerous than he looks.”
Nodding, both officers aimed their weapons at Faal and fired. Twin beams of crimson energy intersected between the Betazoid physicist’s shoulder blades, only to be blocked by the invisible forcefield Faal willed into being. The crimson rays ricocheted off the protective shield and bounced back through Engineering, eliciting cries of alarm. The deflected beams triggered explosions of sparks and haze where they met with vulnerable conduits and circuitry.
Fools, Faal thought contemptuously. Insignificant specks.
The security team switched off the phasers to prevent further damage, then rushed ahead to subdue Faal physically, but his self-generated forcefield repelled the two officers as well. Psychic energy crackled noisily as their outstretched hands came into contact with his protective field. They yanked back their hands as if burned, then looked at each other in confusion. “Sir?” one of them asked, turning to La Forge for guidance.
Faal couldn’t care less about the guards’ dilemma. He watched the display panel avidly, his luminous eyes widening in anticipation as the Enterprise projected a stream of precisely modulated verteron particles into the weakest region of the barrier, producing a subspace tensor matrix of exactly the correct configuration and intensity. Faal spared a moment to give silent thanks to Dr. Lenara Kahn, the Trill researcher whose pioneering work had laid the groundwork for what he was now about to do, the mind behind the machine. Only a Trill, he reflected, blessed with the accumulated knowledge of an immortal symbiont, could begin to understand his profound and transforming communion with the voice behind the wall, that voice that was now inside him. “Computer, launch modified torpedo. Vector 32-60-45.”
“No!” La Forge shouted. He dashed to the master systems table, where he tried to manually override the launch command. His efforts showed up on Faal’s monitor and he glared at La Forge in irritation. How long was he expected to endure such small-minded interference? You have never understood, La Forge. You could never truly see my vision. With a thought, he deactivated the implants within La Forge’s eye sockets, casting the treacherous meddler into darkness. “My eyes! What have you done! I can’t see!” A horrified gasp echoed through Engineering as the Starfleet officer groped for the controls with tentative hands, now as blind in reality as he had always been to the true importance of the work. A fitting fate, Faal thought, for so limited and fainthearted an imagination. You never saw what I see.
Smiling with cruel satisfaction, Faal tracked the trajectory of the torpedo. Soon, he thought. Soon, sooner, soonest….
Now.
Seven
Watching Captain Picard keep a wary eye on Q and his family, Riker experienced a distinct sense of déjà vu. As he sat beside the captain on the bridge, gratefully removing his gravity boots, he had a sudden vague recollection of meeting Q under very different circumstances, on a different ship with a different captain. Captain Janeway. Voyager. Some kind of trial…. He tried to dredge the details up from his unconscious, make the fragmentary impressions cohere, but it was as nebulous and hard to grasp as a half-remembered dream. That’s probably all it is, he thought, or more like a nightmare if Q was involved. He kept his mouth shut, not about to give Q the satisfaction of knowing that he had invaded Riker’s dreams.
Excited by his father’s return, little q demanded attention. He bounced up and down in Q’s arms, waving his half-eaten glop-on-a-stick like a magic wand.
“Good morning to you, little man,” Q said sunnily, beaming at his child. Riker felt a peculiar twinge of jealousy; for all his irresponsible ways, Q was obviously a more doting and affectionate father than Kyle Riker had ever been. “Or is it good evening?” Q glanced at Picard. “For the eternal life of me, I never have been able to figure out just how you people manage to tell the time of day in this stultifyingly artificial environment of yours.”
“We muddle through somehow,” Picard said dryly, unamused by the Q’s touching family reunion. No doubt he was concerned about Baeta Leyoro and the other crew members now in sickbay; Riker had brought Picard up to speed on Leyoro’s shocking collapse, wishing he could have spared the captain that news. Picard had enough problems to worry about, especially with three Qs aboard and the warp drive still down.
“You’re going to spoil him,” the female Q scolded, rising from Deanna’s seat and stepping around the accompanying computer console. She crossed the debris-strewn bridge to where Q and q cavorted. She wiped her son’s messy mouth with a monogrammed handkerchief (inscribed with a stylish “Q”) that she drew from thin air. “Look, he’s got organic residue and sucrose contaminants all over his face.”
Gathered together, engrossed with each other, the Q family presented a surprisingly ordinary portrait of domestic life. Who’d have thought that Q would turn out to be such a family man? Riker thought, not quite believing his eyes.
“Nonsense!” Q asserted. “There’s no such th
ing as a spoiled Q.” Riker saw the captain raise a skeptical eyebrow at that remark, looking like he was tempted to dispute the claim. The first officer knew just how Picard felt. The real question is, he mused, has there ever been a Q that wasn’t spoiled by too much power and not enough accountability? He was inclined to doubt it. “But why is it so dark in here?” Q asked, seeming to notice the faint lighting for the first time. “Trying to save a few credits on the power bill, Riker?” He shook his head. “No, this just won’t do. The place looks like a crypt.”
As if on cue, the overhead lights came back on, dispelling the brooding shadows from the bridge. Faint blue tracking lights also reignited along the floor. Thank heavens for small favors, Riker thought, refusing to thank Q either verbally or mentally. His command console had previously informed him that gravity had been restored not just on the bridge, but throughout the entire saucer section. Maybe we’re finally starting to get things back under control.
“Captain!” Ensign Berglund exclaimed at tactical. “According to the control panel, we’ve just fired a torpedo into the barrier!”
“What?” Picard blurted, spinning around in his chair to face the tactical podium. Riker was caught equally off guard, and even Q looked up in surprise from the babbling toddler in his arms, a puzzled expression on his face.
“It wasn’t me,” Berglund explained hastily, her pale face whiter than usual. “From the looks of it, the torpedo was launched from Engineering.”
Faal, Riker realized intuitively. The experiment. Almost simultaneously, Geordi’s voice came over the first officer’s combadge. “Commander. We have a problem. Lem Faal has just launched the retooled torpedo. He’s going to create the wormhole!”
What the devil? Riker thought. Faal had fled sickbay earlier, but security had returned both him and his son to Dr. Crusher in an unconscious state. They were supposed to be out cold, like Leyoro.
“Sickbay confirms that Professor Faal left sickbay after attacking several officers,” Ensign Berglund reported. “They say he is armed with…telekinetic powers?”
“Faal can do things, Commander. Like a Q,” La Forge said, unintentionally seconding Berglund’s report. His voice sounded shaken, but under control. Riker guessed that the engineer was only giving him the most pertinent details; something else had happened in Engineering, something bad. Had the obsessed scientist harmed or killed a crew member? First Deanna, now this. One way or another, Riker intended to see that Faal was put away for a very long time, winner of the Daystrom Prize or not. First things first, however. “Riker to sickbay,” he said via his combadge. “Casualties in Engineering.”
“Faal has to be stopped,” the captain declared, his voice and expression grave. Riker could tell from the captain’s manner that there was more at stake than just the safety of the Enterprise. “We cannot let the wormhole form, Number One. That is vitally important to the safety of the entire galaxy.” He jumped to his feet and strode toward the Q’s family tableau. “Q!” he demanded harshly. “Do something. Quickly!”
Still distracted by his squirming, squealing son, Q glanced over his shoulder at the featureless glow on the main viewer. Can he see something that the rest of us can’t? Riker wondered. “Yes, of course,” Q stammered, awkwardly attempting to hand off q to his mother. The child was determined to stay where he was, though, clinging to Q’s neck with jumja-stained arms while his happy hellos turned into an earsplitting wail of protest. “Just give me a second….”
“Captain,” Data reported from Ops. “I am detecting a subspace tensor matrix identical to the one required by Professor Faal’s calculations. It is being generated by the Enterprise as we speak.”
“Shut it down,” Picard ordered. The wails of the fussing child added an extra, unwanted level of chaos to an already tense situation. “Do whatever you have to in order to terminate the matrix.”
“I am trying, Captain,” the android stated, “but the controls are not responding.”
“Fire phasers,” Picard directed Berglund. “Target that torpedo.” If they were lucky, Riker realized, they might be able to destroy the specialized torpedo before it emitted the magneton pulse that would create the wormhole. But what if they failed?
“Captain,” he pointed out, “if that wormhole does start to form, we don’t want to be nearby. The gravitational flux alone could finish us. Perhaps we should put some distance between us and the torpedo, just in case.”
Picard shook his head. “If we don’t stop Faal from tearing a hole in the barrier, Number One, it may be too late for the entire Alpha Quadrant.” He gave Riker a solemn look, letting the first officer see some of his anxiety. “There’s a being on the other side of the barrier, Will. A being that we cannot allow into our galaxy again.”
A being? Riker reacted. Like Q? While the first officer digested that chilling revelation, Ensign Berglund called out from tactical, her voice cracking. “The phasers aren’t doing any good, sir. Something’s protecting the torpedo. A forcefield maybe, or the barrier itself. The sensor readings are strange.” She wiped the perspiration from her brow. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”
How was Faal doing this? Why aren’t Geordi and the others able to stop him? Riker wished now that he had confined the fanatical scientist to the brig the first time he raised an uproar. It was too late now; they were rapidly running out of options. Calling up the missile’s trajectory on his own command console, he saw that the torpedo was only seconds from the heart of the barrier.
“Q,” Picard exhorted his old nemesis. “You have to do something!”
Successfully prying q off his harried father, the female Q carried the crying child to the starboard side of the bridge, stroking and cooing q in hopes of quieting his tantrum. Free from his son’s clutches, if not from the nerve-jangling noise of his shrieks and sobs, Q spun around and faced the shimmering viewscreen. He stretched out his hands before him, as if reaching for the unseen torpedo. His brow knitted in concentration. His fingers flexed as a grunt of exertion slipped past his lips.
“What is it, Q?” Picard asked apprehensively. “What’s happening?”
“Something is blocking me,” Q admitted. Riker was surprised by the evident strain in the all-powerful being’s voice, not to mention a note of genuine fear. “It’s him, Picard. He’s here.”
“Where?” Picard asked desperately. Riker ground his teeth together, wishing he knew more about what was happening. What sort of being could spook both the Captain and Q?
“Here on your ship,” Q said, the muscles beneath his face twitching as he sought to exert his considerable powers upon the intractable torpedo, “at least in part. And behind the barrier as well. He’s all around us, Picard, flanking me at every turn….”
Perhaps frightened by his father’s obvious anxiety, or simply determined to escape his mother’s confining embrace, little q teleported away in a twinkling of light. The female Q gaped at her now-empty arms with a look of distress. “Oh no!” she exclaimed and disappeared herself, doubtless in pursuit of her elusive child. Riker was not saddened to see them go, not if it meant two fewer distractions for all concerned, including Q, who seemed to have his hands full at the moment, as impossible as that sounded.
“Captain,” Data announced with inhuman calm, “the magneton pulse generator within the torpedo has been activated. The pulse is reacting with the subspace matrix, exactly as Professor Faal’s theory predicted.” He studied the sensor readings displayed at his console. “I am detecting elevated neutrino levels, indicative of wormhole formation.”
“What if we used phase conjugate graviton beams to disrupt the wormhole’s spatial matrix?” Riker suggested, remembering that Starfleet had tried just such a tactic to permanently close the Bajoran wormhole near Deep Space Nine. That effort had failed, but only because of Changeling sabotage.
“You might as well throw rocks at it,” Q said scornfully, dismissing Riker’s plan. His shoulders sagged as his arms dropped to his sides. “It’s too late, Picard. We
’ve lost.” His voice took on a doleful tone as he exchanged a worried look with Picard. “He’s coming through.”
“Um, who is he exactly?” Barclay asked nervously, voicing the unspoken question in the minds of everyone except the captain and the Q’s. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind learning that myself, Riker thought, but first there was the little matter of a wormhole to deal with.
Picard had reached the same conclusion. “Ensign Clarze,” he addressed the conn, “get us out of the barrier now. Maximum impulse.”
“Yes, sir!” the young Deltan said. There was no change upon the overloaded viewscreen, but Riker felt the thrum of the impulse drive beneath his feet as the Enterprise headed back toward the galaxy it came from. But even at maximum impulse, could they possibly escape the barrier before the birth of the artificial wormhole wrenched apart the very fabric of space-time?
“A massive quantum fluctuation is forming directly behind us,” Data reported.
“The subspace shock wave, registering 715.360 millicochranes, will strike the ship in approximately 2.008 seconds.”
Riker couldn’t vouch for the precise accuracy of the android’s prediction, but he felt the shock wave almost immediately. The subspace tremor buffeted the Enterprise, nearly shaking the first officer from his seat. Thank heaven for Barclay’s psionically enhanced deflectors. He’d have to commend the hapless engineer for his creativity during a crisis, if the ship didn’t come apart first. “Shields buckling!” Ensign Berglund called out, holding on to the tactical podium for dear life.
More shocks jolted Riker as the intense vibrations rattled every bone in his body. His aching head felt like a warp-core breach. Sparks flared at the conn station, nearly burning Ensign Clarze, who shielded his face with his arm. Riker glanced quickly at Picard, who grabbed on to the back of Deanna’s chair to keep from falling. The entire ship was quivering like a Vulcan gong right after it had been struck. Has the captain returned to the Enterprise, Riker wondered, just in time to perish with the rest of us?