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Star Trek: Pioneer Rating: R (For language, sexual references, and Sci-Fi violence) Stardate:
2374.0112.0917.
We
have reached the great barrier at the core of the Milky
Way. Seven years of planning and decades of
research have brought us here after a journey of six years, and two
days. In that time, we have crossed 19,000 light
years and contacted two new species along the way.
Personally, I confess it has been a rather
uneventful trip so far. Considering the
time and distance involved, I expected a few more first contacts, but the
closer we get to the Barrier, the harder inhabited worlds are to
find. As far as we can tell from our search, a
no-man's-land of 2,100 light years extends all the way around the Galactic
Core, but I might add that we have only explored a small sector of that
area. My previous logs will indicate the
intricacies of the areas we scanned, but I can summarize them all from Stardate
2369.1203.1205 onward as being bereft of new life.
In a way, I find this comforting. If trouble
lurks beyond the Barrier, as the
logs of James Kirk indicate, we may have a ways to go before we meet up with
them. My engineering staff is having
fits keeping the warp field steady, and everyone has commented on the stark
difference between our trip and Kirk's.
To put it mildly, the
The short man with the broad
shoulders scrutinized his command display with intense
interest. "Engineering," he called out, "do we have
the
power to proceed?"
Lieutenant Commander Edmund Gordon
hesitated before he answered. "Everything
I see tells me we can, but with all the trouble we've experience in
no-man's-land
I'm not sure."
Commander Samantha Okuma was
impatient with the answer. "Just give us
your recommendation, Commander," she snapped.
Her brown eyes boiled with enthusiasm, and she shifted restlessly in her
seat.
"Commander!" Captain Peyter Koon warned. He
turned back to his command display. Absently he
murmured, "We have enough to do
without jumping Eddie's case." He looked
again at the main viewer before he spoke again.
Indicating what was in front of them he said, "That's what we
come for."
The main viewer showed a swirling
mass of blue-white light that constituted the Great
Barrier. Until about one hundred years ago, no one
had
ever suspected it manifested itself in this way.
Hidden behind a massive dust cloud so thick
light failed to backlight it from beyond the barrier, the Great Barrier was a
massive source of energy caused by slow fusion of a thin layer of
dust. Pressure from the gravity mass of the outer
Milky Way met up with the conflicting pressure from the
core. In essence, this was the border between the
Galaxy's need to expand under the explosive inertia from its formation, and the
crushing force of its own gravity. These
two forces were not perfectly balanced, and the Barrier swirled, churned, and
bucked as a result.
"Makes solar flares look like a
picnic," commented Lieutenant Darin Forte from his post at the
helm. A huge gout of wispy blue-white dust jumped
above the turmoil half a light-year wide and millions of kilometers high to
punctuate his point. Another, larger one
stretched above it all the way across the visible horizon.
Sensors indicated it spanned a distance
greater than Pioneer's ability to
detect.
"Captain, I think I may have
something," Lieutenant Kree said.
Koon turned to face the Navigation
officer, "Yes what is it?"
Kree rubbed her hands through her
white hair and changed the main viewer to a tactical star
map. The map showed their position near the
Barrier and the path they had taken to it.
"I was mapping out the path of those flares and I found they radiate
from the barrier in all directions we can detect, but," she keyed another
sequence and the image shifted to a three dimensional view, "look at what they
do as they move into no-man's-land." The
flares path began to twist and the material began to
flatten. "The Saturn Effect," she
announced. She described a theory they were sent
out to
investigate. The Saturn Effect detailed
in physics the tendency of debris to gather about an "equatorial" disc no
matter where it had originally come from.
All accretion, which led to the formation of celestial bodies, depended
on it. Meaning that, in this case, dust
thrown up from a polar position would tend to migrate down towards the main
disk of the Milky Way instead of traveling out towards the Galactic
Halo. It had been dubbed the "Saturn Effect" since
the planet Saturn most visibly demonstrated the general shape the mechanics
implied even though the planet itself showed only a weak version of the
process. Scaled up, the process started
with planets and their satellites, continued with star systems (although there
were a few exceptions), and ultimately ended with
galaxies. While the process was never really in
doubt,
a contrary theory existed that stated on this massive a scale, debris would
begin to migrate back into the core when inertia was lost as the dust began to
shift away from its original course. One
of the Pioneer's mission goals
detailed an investigation into this.
Captain Koon had to smile. This Andorian by
taking the initiative to map
out paths of the flares had just achieved a major objective of their
mission. "Dr. Totem will be pleased," he
said.
"And Dr. Spaulding will be furious,"
Commander Okuma added. A series of
chuckles, snorts, and giggles erupted from the crew.
Dr. Cole Spaulding had offered no fewer than
five detailed theories against the Saturn Effect, all of which had just been
laid to rest. But that was fine, the man
openly admitted they had been developed purely as alternatives to what they
expected to find. Furthermore, the man
was famous for short, intense fits of rage that resembled the Three Stooges,
whom he admired. No one ever escaped him
without setting him off into a stumbling, bumbling fit of temper, but no one
ever managed to be offended by it.
Dr. Krheftotemrhefkef, or more
simply Dr. Totem, was the lead scientist aboard. He
had designed the mission profile and much
of the specialized equipment involved.
The path they took, the experiments they made, and the profile mission
objectives revolved around Dr. Krhefto… Totem.
And as of about twenty months ago, he had not been a bit
pleased. His displeasure centered on the ship's
meandering path they had been forced to take as soon as they entered the area
everyone had since dubbed "no-man's-land."
The original course matched, as
precisely as they could, Kirk's original to the Great Barrier, but the rout was
littered with cosmic pitfalls that collapsed warp fields.
Commander Gordon had taken to calling them
potholes. It made traveling through the
area like riding a horse at full gallop across the plains at night; sooner or
later that horse was going to step into a gofer hole and break its
leg. Fortunately, nothing catastrophic had
befallen U.S.S. Pioneer, but repairs
were frequent and the stops lengthy to accommodate them.
Gordon was getting good at system overhauls.
Kree continued, "I think I can explain
why we had such a hard time getting here also."
All heads turned with some degree of
interest. Their trip had been so troublesome,
so laborious, and so delayed that not a soul aboard could be unaffected by news
of this nature. "Go on," Koon urged.
Kree tapped out a few keys and the
flares and lights began to speed up and shrink back towards the
core. "Magnetic and gravitic distortions follow the
flares at roughly the same pace. If we
overlay our course with what the time model shows in relation to these flares…"
she stopped as the picture told the story.
On the main viewer a line, symbolizing their path remained stationary
while the bands of distortions drifted past until it stopped revealing a clear,
narrow corridor. The time reference
indicated the precise time
"Good God," Okuma said, "how long
was that path clear?"
Kree shook her head, "No more than
two months before the path began to curve.
What we didn't count on was the swirling eddies of the
material. We predicted the general drift, but not
the
coreolis effect brought on by the galactic core's rotation."
"Why didn't we find this out
sooner?" Okuma demanded.
"Because we didn't have any source
data on the flares before we got here.
The
"Kirk expected another mission to be
sent out here to investigate what they found," Okuma said.
"But they never did," Koon
said. "It doesn't matter. We've
covered a lot of useful ground by
coming this way. Lieutenant Kree, can
you plot a safer course out of here? Or
do we have to do the whole mess over again?"
Kree smiled, "Oh, almost certainly."
"Good," Koon said. "We may want to avoid the
scenic rout when we
leave."
"Sir," Lieutenant Sophia Shin said,
"incoming message from Starfleet."
"Do we need to move any time soon?"
Koon asked sincerely hoping they had to move right away.
Lieutenant Commander Hurst shook his
head, "I see no need to rush things. The
density of the barrier is only getting thicker everywhere I can
detect."
Koon heaved a great sigh. "Alright then,
I'll take it in my ready
room." He stood up and walked towards
the door. "Commander, you have the
bridge," he said over his shoulder.
Communication with Starfleet was
getting slow to say the least. Even with
subspace transmission, the delay presently approached six
months. In the interest of clarity, Admiral
Forrestal
had dictated that all further reports be relayed, letter fashion, to the
nearest Starfleet outpost only, rather than broadcast in a broader
range. Recently, Forrestal was being quite
aggravating. He redirected the course,
ordered the Pioneer to investigate
mundane phenomena, countermanded mission objectives, and then demanded they do
all this within the original timetable.
Koon wanted to throttle the man, but it would seem that
Starfleet bureaucracy
was to blame. He called it the "good
idea" syndrome. In theory anyone with a "good
idea" could walk into Forrestal's office and ask to see what could be done
about it. Since Koon was the only one
out this particular way, it was natural that any and all requests having to do
with the galactic core, Scrutum Arm, Norma Arm, or 3 KPC Arm naturally drifted
his way. But enough was enough.
He'd been out here six years already, and no
thought had been given to turning around yet.
With the core yet to be breached, the mission had barely
begun.
Koon sat down and saw the typical
Starfleet emblem. When he keyed the sequence, the image disappeared to reveal
Admiral Forrestal. The Admiral was a
thin patrician of a man. His regal mane
of silver hair framed a face beset with a Roman nose and a cleft
chin. Forrestal gazed across the light years with
deep
blue eyes that no longer seemed to meet Koon's gray eyes.
The Admiral's image made the distant Captain
cringe. The look on Forrestal's face
told Peyter that he was not going to like what the man had to say.
"Hello, Peyter," the Admiral
began. It was not a good sign.
Forrestal always acted cordial if a "good
idea" or some other mischief came his way.
"I'm calling to tell you of the reception of your last report and my
entire satisfaction with your findings."
Koon rubbed his temple, which began
to throb. The last report contained an eye
watering, in depth inquiry into a quasar fifteen light years off his projected
flight path and little else. While Koon
had signed on for this kind of work, he nonetheless bit back his
anger. The report had been filed eight months
ago. If Forrestal had only just gotten
to it this week… All kinds of issues crystallized in his
mind. They really were about as far from home as
they could be and still get the bad news.
Working on a six month delay only aggravated the situation.
"But I'm sure you're busy enough
without me congratulating you on some good science," Forrestal continued with a
warm smile.
"No kidding," Koon muttered.
"We have some news regarding one of
our ships. U.S.S. Voyager has been
found," the Admiral announced. His face
beamed to indicate that it was good news after all.
Koon's headache vanished. Relief was not an
adequate word to describe
what he felt right now. He had friends
aboard Voyager even though it had
launched years after Pioneer. Janeway was
a friend, as was the chief engineer. To hear they
might be safe was a load off his
mind. Further imagining the Admiral's
call as nothing more than delivering some good news was a welcome
relief.
"She's in the Delta Quadrant,"
Forrestal elaborated. "Apparently they
were transported to the far end of the Galaxy by some kind of entity know as
the Caretaker. Sadly, a few of her crew
died, but she's been making her way back to the Alpha Quadrant ever since her
disappearance."
Koon nodded thinking about others
aboard the ship he might know. He
thrummed the desk with his fingers as he thought.
Was there someone else? A science
officer? A security officer?
Then it dawned on him. There was a science
officer aboard Voyager he had turned down.
Everyone aboard Pioneer had to be completely
comfortable with an extended mission,
even by Starfleet standards. The mission
had been planned with delays and extended travel time in mind; consequently,
all the scientists, crewman, and personnel had to be prepared for a ten year
mission at least. Someone he had turned
away for this reason later managed a slot aboard
Voyager. What an irony that
twist of fate was turning out to be.
"We want you to go meet her,"
Forrestal said.
Captain Koon's thrumming fingers
froze on the desktop.
Star charts replaced the Admiral's
image as he continued. He explained the
rout Voyager was taking and the
projected path he expected Captain Koon to take his
people. If all went well, Pioneer should
meet up with Voyager
in nineteen years. Lists of stores and
supplies covered by the present mission scrolled across the screen while
Forrestal explained what Koon was going to have to do to extend the
mission. By Starfleet's estimate, Pioneer
could easily manage the trip. In addition other
ships would be sent out
their way as time went on to act as relay stations to relay supplies and aid in
communication.
"Sadly," Forrestal told Koon, "the
core mission has to be scrapped. By the
data you've provided and the urgency of the current dilemma, no other ship is
anywhere near a place to aid Voyager
except you. In addition, our people tell
me that it's too dangerous to breach the barrier.
While you may make it inside the core, we
can't guarantee you'll ever manage to make it out again."
"We already knew that before I left!"
Koon exploded.
"I know this is a huge disappointment,
Peyter, but 140 of our people are at stake," the message reasoned.
"So you'll risk 815 of mine!" Koon
bellowed. His migraine bloomed again in
full force.
The message ended with the usual
formalities and Admiral Forrestal mercifully vanished from sight.
For a long, breathless moment, Peyter
Koon could barely gather his thoughts. Nineteen
years! His mind fairly blasted
the thought out of his head. That did
not cover the distance home either. Even
at maximum, sustained warp (about warp 8.5) it would take another twenty-three
years to make it home. He would be in
his eighties before he saw
He stabbed the intercom button. "Commander,
I need you in here please," his
voice was calm and quiet. He was
surprised he could manage anything short of shouted profanities.
A moment later, Commander Okuma
marched into the room. He motioned for
her to sit down, and silently played back the entire
message. For a long time after Forrestal concluded,
Okuma stared at the screen on Koon's desk.
Without a word, she leaned forward and called up the ship's inventory
occasionally flicking the data between star charts, Starfleet's estimates, and
similar data pertaining to Voyager. After
a long, long look at the collected data,
she announced, "We can make it."
Koon studied the view out his window.
Outside a magnificent panorama of the Great
Barrier spanned half his vision while wispy arms of ionized dust and gas
drifted into the Milky Way beyond. With
a thin, distant voice he said, "I know we can make it."
Commander Okuma leaned back in her
chair. Shock began to ease away from
her, and her form began to slump as though the soul within had just dragged a
great burden a long way. "Should we do
it, Pete?" she asked reverting to the title she called him as a
friend. A decision of this magnitude could not be
reached on the strength of their official duties.
"I don't see how we can't, Sam,"
Peyter replied.
"A forty year mission on the
outside, more if problems arise, and people with families at home they might
never see again," Samantha reasoned, "I think we can refuse on that
basis. We weren't meant to be gone half that
long."
"I don't see it that way," Peyter
told her.
"Our design specifications only
allow for twenty years of hard use before a complete overhaul," she
warned.
Koon regarded the Barrier one last
time before he tuned back to face her. A
sad resolve transformed his usually plain features into a striking
image Samantha
Okuma found utterly compelling. "Voyager
has about seventy years ahead of
them. Anything less we have little right
to bitch about."
"We can trim some time," Gordon said
as soon as he heard the news.
The announcement had the expected
effect on the crew: a moment of total shock.
Samantha and Peyter had agreed that the message should be played back
for the crew so they might all know the magnitude of the task
ahead. Samantha had been uneasy about the prospect
and Koon himself guessed it a gamble at best, but presenting it to them in such
a fashion offered the best chance to unite the crew behind
them. To their combined relief, no one suggested
refusing. Indeed, the crew rallied so
enthusiastically, Samantha was overwhelmed for a moment with messages from the
various section leaders on down.
To a man, the frustration of
exploring the core for esoteric, intellectual reasons paled in comparison to
what amounted to a rescue mission.
People could grasp the reality of a comrade in need far easier than the
loftiest discovery. Koon's heart swelled
as he watched the discouraged, lifeless faces of his crew vanish in energy and
purpose. In an instant, he traded a
bright crew for a brilliant one just by presenting the problem before them
all. He could not be prouder.
Samantha did not waste the time
admiring the transformation. Instead,
she delighted in the bounty it produced.
"What do you mean, Commander?"
"What if we cut across the core?"
Gordon suggested. "We find a nearby spot
to…" he trailed off mentally searching for the word, "ford across the
Great Barrier. We cut across the core instead of
flying
around it, and then find another place on the other side along our direct
flight path."
"We can trim years off our travel
time there and back," Lieutenant Forte agreed.
Even Dr. Spaulding and Dr. Totem
agreed it was worth a try. "The
curvature of space time in there could shorten the trip six months to five
years at least," Dr. Totem assured them rubbing his scaly jaw in
concentration.
"I think we can find a way to breach
the Barrier right here if necessary," Dr. Spaulding added.
During the next few hours, Pioneer took on a life of
its own almost
independent of Peyter's ability to control.
The entire navigation team, plus the science teams, and engineering
worked non-stop in an effort to plot possible courses, pitfalls, strategies for
maintaining speed, and so on.
After a full day, the complete
science crew, plus most of Engineering stood in Captain Koon's ready room with
a plan. "We're in luck," Gordon told
him. "If we were in a Galaxy-class ship
this would be far
trickier. But Nebula-class allows a
certain flexibility the larger ships don't." He
turned to the display on the wall where
his presentation began to take shape.
"As you know, the Pioneer is
much more compact than other designs. We
tuck our warp nacelles under us instead of behind the main mass of the ship,
and as a result, we have to run on a different set of warp field geometry than
the conventional layout. Usually we run
a smaller field below and behind us, but if we bring the field around us in a
tight pattern we might be able to breach the Barrier at will."
"How?" Koon asked. "And why does it make a
difference what the
ship geometry is?"
Dr. Totem explained, "We've been
studying the behavior of those flares, and we believe we can use them to draw
us through the barrier without looking for points of low
density. We can create our own pocket of low
density
by compacting the warp field about us.
It would be like making an icebreaker for slow fusion
gasses. What makes the geometry useful is that we
don't have to make a huge field to encompass the ship.
For every square meter of surface area we
have to breach, the pressure on the field increases by the cube of
volume. A ship much larger than this one might
become
buoyant on the surface of the barrier and never pass through it, but we think
the Pioneer just manages to keep
under the critical dimensions."
"Any dangers?" Koon asked.
Spaulding took up the question. "The warp
field might compress the materials
to fusion ignition, and spark a flare.
However, I must point out such an event is
unlikely. The energies necessary to loft one of
those
is beyond our ability to generate."
"The whole fleet doesn't produce
that much energy," Gordon added.
"Not to distract you," Okuma said,
"but is this energy safe to harvest?
We're going to need a great deal of it over the years."
Koon nodded thoughtfully. Okuma had managed
to keep the big picture in
view. If this core venture was
successful, they still had at least fourteen years to go before they were in
position to meet up with Voyager. That did
not take into account that was five
years, give or take, of travel distance Voyager
had no way to make up. While it would
shorten the trip to the Delta Quadrant, it made the distance they had to span
somewhat longer as a result. Time was
the one thing they were going to have a lot of regardless of shortcuts and high
speeds. Time could lay waste to their
best intentions. The only weapon they
had against time was energy, and feeding 815 people while moving them beyond
the speed of light took vast quantities every day.
A substitute supply had to be found
eventually.
"We think so," Spaulding said.
"I see no reason why not," Totem
agreed.
"Can we test this breaching
technique with a shuttlecraft?" Koon asked.
"We don't want to bet all our lives if this goes wrong."
"Certainly," Totem said. "If nothing else it
should prove us right
about the size of the field."
"I'll get a shuttle ready to try it
within the hour," Gordon said.
"How large a crew will you need?"
Okuma asked.
Gordon considered for a moment.
"Four.
Five at the most."
"Select four people for the flight,"
Okuma ordered. "You stay here and
monitor their progress from the transporter."
Gordon was unimpressed, "I really
don't see that kind of danger ahead."
"And I see no reason not to be
cautious," Okuma said.
An hour later, the shuttle Lassen's Cutoff approached
the Great
Barrier.
"We're ready to begin," Lieutenant
Guy Braum announced.
"Good luck," Koon told them.
As soon as they got within eight
thousand kilometers, Braum stabilized the warp field.
The invisible bubble of subspace formed
around the ship, and the crew noted the ride (about as rough as mild
turbulence) smooth out.
"Look at that," Lieutenant Commander
Joshua Garret said. "Particle energy
just makes a slight indentation in the field and then slides on
past."
"It's like a ship in a high sea,"
Lieutenant Rachel Hutchinson commented.
"The warp field spans a distance greater than any one wave
front."
Garret liked the comparison and told
the girl so. He was first sub-Chief
engineer aboard Pioneer, and he
relished this assignment. For the last
seven years, he had been playing second fiddle to Lieutenant Commander Gordon,
and he was eager for a change of pace.
Even if the chore proved to be brief, at least he was in
charge. The real appeal came from being first in so
many things. First through the Barrier,
first back through, first to see what wonders lay beyond this cosmic frontier;
his head practically burst with anticipation with what he was about to
see. His muscular form sat tense in his
seat as the luminous frontier to another place rushed up to meet
them.
"Commander, the ship's trying to yaw
away from the Barrier," Braum said.
Garret studied the veiwport then
turned back to his engineering readout.
"We're still descending. The rate
of descent is just slowing. Don't force
it, just ride it out and find where it'll take us.
I'll play with the warp field and see if I
can change anything."
Lassen's
Cutoff straightened out her yaw, but Braum let the pitch drift up
slowly. By now, they were 20,000
kilometers from the surface below. The blue-white
energy undulated slowly like the surface of the sea.
Everyone aboard began stealing glances at the
veiwport as the Barrier began show more detail.
"If the Med glowed in the dark, it
would look like that," Garret said, "makes me want to go surfing."
"I'll load it into the holodeck when
we get back," Lieutenant Brad Russell said.
"I wouldn't mind trying it out myself."
Garret huffed, "We're getting
distracted I see." His tone told
everyone he was more resigned than upset with their
preoccupation. Everyone nodded, took a last look at
the
veiwport for a while, and went back to work.
Braum continued to have trouble
keeping the ship descending until finally the Lassen's Cutoff
would descend no more. She bobbed and weaved like a
cork in a
bathtub as Braum tried again and again to drive the ship
lower. But all the ship could manage was a few
meters more before she shot upwards again.
"I guess we found a buoyancy point," he said.
"So it may appear," Garret said
thoughtfully. "Maybe we need to crack it
with a sharp blow. Lieutenant, take us
up again and rush back down at half impulse."
Braum did as he was told. This time though,
the Barrier seemed to part
a fraction. For an instant, they saw a
dazzling glimpse of the core beyond.
They saw a huge swirling gas cloud, backlit by the light of stars and
novas. Beautiful colors arced about the
cloud in lazy wisps where massive nebula stretched from the
center. It was massive, and somehow Garret knew
that
the space inside was far larger than the exterior showed.
And then it was gone as the shuttle was flung
away from the Barrier.
When they came to rest,
"Brad," Hutchison said, "can you
confirm my figures for this particle model?"
Russell imported her file to his
workstation and studied it thoughtfully.
"That is a great deal of energy," he thought aloud.
After a pause, he snapped his fingers as the
solution came to him. "We are moving the
excess energy through subspace. That's
why it hasn't flashed."
Garret was concerned, "Is that
dangerous?"
Russell shook his head. "No, regular warp
travel depends upon just this
kind of flow. I've never seen it happen
at impulse velocities perhaps, but we see this all the time at even
low warp."
Satisfied, the engineer turned back
to Braum. "Try it at full impulse,"
Garret said. "I think we can make it
this time."
Captain Koon watched the shuttle bob
and dance above the Barrier with no small amount of
chagrin. "Garret must be getting thrown about
pretty
good down there," he said smiling. "If
he's having this kind of trouble getting in, how hard will it be getting back
out again?"
"Depends on the nature of the Under
Barrier," Dr Spaulding said. "Material
may find it easier to leave than enter."
"Kirk didn't have this kind of
trouble," Koon mused.
"No, but he came at the right time,"
"It's a shame we didn't bring a
mystic with us," Forte said from the helm.
"More trouble than they're worth,
Darin," Spaulding said.
A beep from the science console
sounded, and
Forte scarcely had the time to see
what
The impulse engines died as critical
control links were severed. Forte
activated the warp engines. A blind jump
into space was their only hope.
Fortunately, the warp drive responded and the Pioneer
raced along the wave until two seconds later. The
warp field collapsed as the wave front
rose to meet them. In an instant, the
ship pitched up and raced away from the core with fantastic speed.
"Structural fields!" Koon yelled.
"Holding," Gordon reported.
"Get ahead of it, Darin!" Koon said.
"I've lost everything but
maneuvering thrusters," Forte reported.
The Pioneer rattled and roared like a ship in a
hurricane. People frantically tried to get to their
stations, but the floor bucked violently under them.
Koon watched his engineering display steadily
report disaster after disaster. They had
to get out of this. "Get under it then,"
he ordered Forte.
"Aye, sir," Forte said.
Pioneer
rotated smoothly about its axis, careful to show her streamlined profile the
wave. She edged into the front slowly
like a man facing a storm of hail and sleet.
"Flare border in two minutes," Kree
reported.
"Two minutes, Eddie, can you give me
two more minutes?" Koon asked.
From his station in engineering,
Gordon saw the manifold temperature to the structural fields climb to twice the
maximum, "45 seconds at most," he shouted above the din.
"We have to reduce the pressure on
the ship," Koon said.
"We could fire a photon torpedo
close in behind us and create a counter gale to the wave," Okuma
suggested.
"Carrie, do it!" Koon ordered
weapons officer Lieutenant Carrie Locke.
Locke did as she was told; fusing
the torpedo in the tube in fact, but when she fired it off the force of the
wave front forced it harmlessly away.
The ship didn't even shudder when it went off.
"No effect!" she reported.
Koon shook his head. "Full spread directly
ahead of us!" he
ordered.
Locke fused them at full distance
and fired eight torpedoes. The torpedoes
strained to get ahead of the ship against the force of the flare, but they
managed to reach their standard detonation distance before they ran out of
fuel. Pioneer bucked as if it had hit a
rock as the detonations raced
back at them. But the explosions, under
greater pressure from the flare, stretched into an oblong area of lower
pressure. Pioneer dived into it and the
flare helped by pushing them along as
it struggled to fill this bubble of relatively low
pressure. Eight seconds later, the ship emerged
under the
flare almost two light years from where the started from.
The sudden quiet deafened the crew
into shock. Everyone froze, fixated on
the sudden stillness.
Down in engineering Gordon stood
transfixed to the plasma manifold pressure and temperature
gauges. Slowly they began to decline.
The dropping motion of the readout motivated
him into action. He increased the
dynamic pressure and shut down the emergency gain to the structural fields, but
a few plasma conduits still failed. With
loud, buzzing thuds, some let go of the plasma in various parts of the
ship. Gordon ordered his people about
until he heard the Captain calling over the Com.
"How's it look down there, Eddie?"
Koon asked.
"We cannot handle another second of
that," Gordon reported. "The plasma
conduits will melt. We have multiple
breaks all across the ship. There's
more, but I haven't had a chance to look into anything in detail."
"Well it looks like we're out of it
right now. We can shut down and repair
so far as I can see," Koon offered.
"That'll help. I can use some more people
too," Gordon said.
"All I can spare," Okuma told
him. "Just give me a list of repairs and
I'll have everyone pitch in."
"Aye, sir," Gordon said.
Koon keyed the 1MC and said to the
crew, "Look alive, people. Pioneer just
struck a reef." Captain's log supplemental: It's been six
weeks since we encountered the flare, and I'm happy to say the damage is almost
repaired. Working in shifts and
forsaking all other duties, we've managed to get the ship fully operational
again. We lost twelve people in the
disaster, but it looks like all of them died when the shuttle struck
us. It would appear that Lieutenant Commander
Garret caused the Barrier layer in contact with his warp field to go critical
when he tried to penetrate the surface.
The resulting cascade harmonized with the field and accelerated the
particles past the natural speed of light.
We had five seconds before it struck us.
When we tried to initiate a warp field of our own, we didn't realize we
would be confronted with a subspace field exponentially stronger than
ours. The flare still travels unabated into
no-man's-land and we are gravely concerned with its
progress. Dr. Spaulding claims he has a way to fix
it
before it endangers life. We will have
to see to it after the warp core comes fully online.
Services have been held for our lost
crewmembers, and I've made the decision to turn the area of the saucer section
where they died into a plasma buffer for energy surplus.
Others wanted to leave the section clear in
their memory, but we still have a long way to go.
Lieutenant Commander Garret, Lieutenant
Braum, Lieutenant Hutchinson, and Lieutenant Russell have been investigated in
this incident and found not at fault for what happened.
It was agreed they had no idea how to avoid
the events that lead to the cascade.
Their names will be cleared of all blame.
May they rest well among the stars. Their
bodies, and those of five others, were
unrecoverable. Blame ultimately is
mine. In trying to shorten the trip to
the Delta Quadrant, I made a decision that ran contrary to my
orders. While I don't expect to keep my commission
when and if we get home, the crew has refused to release me from my duties as
regulations require. By unanimous acclimation,
they have elected to keep me as Captain of the Pioneer, and have
drawn up a petition to Starfleet Command to confirm that decision.
"This is piracy," Koon told them.
"How so?" Okuma asked.
The assembled officers filled Koon's
ready room until it overflowed into the bridge.
Anxious, hopeful faces stared at him from every
quarter. A hand snaked down and touched his
shoulder
gently, followed by two more from crewmen standing behind his
chair. Koon looked up to see four junior officers
with pleading expressions attached to those hands.
"You can't just elect a Captain in
Starfleet, that's what pirates do," Koon protested.
"We are a long way from Starfleet,
Captain," Okuma said. "And we need a
strong pillar to guide us home."
"If I retain command of the ship,
we're still gong to rescue Voyager,"
Koon warned them. "Do you want
that? Thirty to forty years of me being
in charge may prove this decision foolhardy."
Uneasy expressions flitted about the
room and a slight mumble of discontent followed into the
bridge. However, in a moment all eyes were back to
him. Some were hopeful, some were
confident, but others were resigned or desperate.
It was clear they had made up their minds for
many different reasons, but they all still regarded him as the best and only
choice.
"I don't want to see you all get in
trouble over this," Koon protested.
There was a time of stillness while everyone considered the truth of
what he said. Legally speaking, what
they proposed was mutiny. Few had any
illusions what would happen to them if Admiral Forrestal ordered Commander
Okuma or someone else to take over. Lieutenant
Commander Speer, the security chief, had informed everyone, in great detail,
the consequences they would face even though he signed the petition
himself.
"I'll be sixty-seven at least before
I go to trial," Lieutenant Locke said with a giggle.
"I think I'll manage."
Quietly at first, then louder as
more joined in, laughter began to thunder through the
room. One by one, each considered the consequences
and
still found themselves a long way from Starfleet.
The tension of the last six weeks burst as
the simple task of survival was challenged by this trivial detail from a
far-off, bureaucratic fleet. As one they
brushed this speck of nonsense aside and got to the task of living another
day. Captain Koon, they all agreed, was
an essential tool in that process.
"It's not like you don't want the
job," Okuma said when they calmed down.
"True," Koon said, "still I have to
look at the regulations…"
Lieutenant Commander Speer
interrupted him, "Let me worry about that, sir."
Koon looked about the room. He was
frightened by the intensity he saw
there. They might panic if he
refused. Pioneer and possibly Voyager
would be lost if that happened. They
needed him now. "I suppose you've made
your decision," he said.
"You could say that," Forte said.
"We can think of no one better,"
Gordon added, "not even back at Starfleet."
Koon smiled, "I'd be honored." He took a
deep breath and stood to his full
height. "The Admiral is on Earth, the
Fleet is on maneuvers, our relay is on the edge of Romulan space, and our
objective is in the Delta Quadrant," he announced
speculatively. He slammed his fist onto the desk
and
shouted, "To hell with them we're right here!"
Far removed from this small act of
defiance, content and comfortable in his office, Admiral John Clay Forrestal
listened to the latest report from, U.S.S.
Pioneer. Captain Koon's image displayed
the man's ill-concealed
contempt for what he had to tell Forrestal.
The Admiral scarcely listened to what the distant Captain had to say;
usually he only listened for key phrases pertaining to the
crew. The rest of the mission he deemed
irrelevant.
When the door chimed, Forrestal
stopped the playback, closed the file, and encrypted the message to a separate
unit. Only after this was done did he
answer the door. "Come in," he said
cheerfully.
Commander William Porter strode
through the door with a data pad in his hand.
Porter had been Forrestal's aid for two years now; the last aid had been
forcibly retired in disgrace. Average of
height and powerfully built, the man had been a cross county marathon runner
until his duties engaged too much of his time to keep in adequate shape for
anything of consequence. His weathered
features were usually neutral, but today his face snarled with
intensity. He slapped the data pad on Forrestal's
desk
and stood rigidly at attention.
"You'll have to stop that,
Commander," Forrestal chided, "it's unseemly."
Referring to Porter's habit of shoving work directly under the Admiral's
nose, Forrestal had grown intensely irritated with the notion that his aid
could (in a manner of speaking) force action out of the Forrestal.
"Permission to speak freely,
Admiral, sir," Porter said. His basso voice
rattled Forrestal's bones even if the man spoke quietly.
The Admiral often complained to Porter that
the man's voice was far too big for his frame.
Forrestal considered Porter's
request at length. Finding nothing wrong
with the way the Commander phrased the request, he nodded his
assent.
"Admiral, sir, I find this data
extremely suspect, sir," Porter said stiffly.
The man chafed under the formality Forrestal insisted upon, but, being a
good officer, he endured it without complaint.
Forrestal secretly delighted in Porter's discomfort.
Forrestal sat back in his chair and
regarded his aid with suspicion. "That
has unpleasant undertones, Commander."
He sat forward again. "Indeed, it
has the ring of accusation. I trust you
have the facts at hand to either allay my fears, or revise my first
impression." Forrestal spoke softly in a
precise enunciation. One had the
impression the words were brittle enough to shatter like crystal.
"I do, sir," Porter boomed back at
the Admiral. His plain face showed
impatience. "The data we're using could
only have come from a source closer to the phenomena."
"Just how did you arrive at that
assumption, Commander," Forrestal asked.
"And I must emphasize the assume
part, this command does not deal with assumptions at any time."
Porter weathered the abuse without
flinching. "I know of no array we
affiliate with capable of tacking celestial bodies this far beyond our line of
sight. Also, the precision of the data,
magnetic rotation, specific debris mass, and so on have the science teams
asking me what technique was used to verify it.
I have no other sources that can come close to the quantity and
precision of these sources." Porter paused,
"I'm of little use to them if I can't tell them how to duplicate our
findings."
Forrestal considered Porter at
length again. Without speaking further,
he reached forward and picked up the data pad.
He briefly scanned it, and then decided to download it onto his
desktop. When that was done, he
scrutinized the screen and occasionally referred to the data
pad. Taking his time, he left Porter standing at
attention in silence. For over an hour,
they stayed there like that. "Precisely
what don't you understand here, Commander?" he asked finally.
Porter continued without
hesitation. "Sources Alpha to Epsilon,
then source
Forrestal scowled, "Let me get this
straight, you're complaining that we have better data than
expected?"
Porter did not waver, "No, sir. I'm simply
at a loss regarding the
sources. We cannot confirm anything from
these sources. The data is neither
strategic, nor critical. We should have
no reason to hide…"
"Hiding, Porter?" Forrestal
interrupted. "Starfleet does not hide
scientific advances for the common good."
"Then the sources should be easily
accessible," Porter reasoned.
"That has the sound of an accusation,
Commander," the Admiral hissed, "very well.
We have multiple sources in the way of various arrays and ships posted
about the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. The
sources you have outlined there are from a new Institute that specializes in
compiling data from dissimilar organizations." Forrestal said this in a
conspiratorial hush.
Undeterred, Porter asked, "Then why
is this Institute obscured with multiple sources?"
"It's not in their charter to be so
thorough," the Admiral answered.
Porter stared hard at the
Admiral. "An intelligence post," he
stated this flatly. Normally he did not
express doubts, and he had none here.
"A useful source of information," Forrestal
corrected.
"An illegal one I gather."
Forrestal rose to his feet, "I don't
like your tone, Commander."
Porter shook his head. "What treaty does it
violate so I know whom
not to disclose information?"
The Admiral regarded Porter another
long moment. "Too many to count
Andorians to Romulans, Vulcans, and Klingons alike, the Institute has enough
there to offend about everybody."
Porter considered what the Admiral
said at length. "Forgive me, Admiral,
but may I make an assumption?"
"Provided it progresses the
subject," Forrestal said.
Porter continued, "The only action
this office has taken regards the dispersal of this
information. Would it be safe to assume the data
this
institute compiles is fairly benign?"
Forrestal smiled, "Incredibly so. They'll be
closing down their operations
soon. The need for counterintelligence
has evaporated for the large part."
Porter frowned, "When?"
Forrestal sat back down with a regal
flourish. "Shortly before I retire, I'll
close down the last links to the institute and we will speak no more of
it. The final report will detail the
strengths and weaknesses of our alliance.
I can tell you the report so far found no real surprises."
"And the sources I mentioned will
discontinue," Porter said.
"That is correct, Commander," the
Admiral said.
Porter nodded, "Very well, sir. I'll see to
it my report on this matter isn't
filed with a board of inquiry. It would
appear to be a waste of resources to trouble ourselves with the
matter." He picked up the PADD and made to
leave. "My apologies, sir. Was
there something else I could do for you?"
Forrestal shook his head, "Not right
now, Bill." He waved a hand in
dismissal, and Porter left. As soon as
Porter left, he breathed a great sigh of relief.
Soon this little thorn in his side would be
no more.
"So what do you have in mind?" Koon
asked Dr. Spaulding.
The taller man studied his notes for
an instant to gather his thoughts then explained, "We use the same technique in
reverse. We travel at high warp to the
apex of the flare, and then modulate our warp field to harmonize with the
subspace field we find there. After that,
we travel down the length of the flare at a matching speed to its
source. The field should be reabsorbed into the
Great
Barrier and dispersed by the mass in play there."
"And promptly get crushed when the
thing traps us there," Dr. Totem protested.
"Captain, it would be impossible for us to escape this thing
before…"
"What about reversing the planned
course?" Lieutenant Kree interrupted.
Spaulding and Totem turned sharply
to face her. After so long working together,
they were accustomed to arguing with one another, but in all that time, the
pretty little Andorian had never interrupted them.
"You mean traveling up the flare rather than
down to the root of it?" Spaulding asked.
Kree nodded, "That could mange the
same affect couldn't it?"
Spaulding considered this
thoughtfully, but Totem shook his scaly head.
"We cannot manage that kind of power, Lieutenant.
The reason we made the decision to take the
path we did is a result of field amplification.
The very tip of this flare is a small volume and mass to contend with and
we can capture it within our warp field.
As we travel down towards the barrier, the mass we have to handle grows
geometrically. By using inertia and
shaping subspace with our own engines, we can cause the flare to
rescind."
"So start at the base and let the
inertia build slowly where it has to travel the least distance," Kree
reasoned. "The mass of the outlying flare
will carry the lower material back into the Great Barrier in a wave front won't
it?"
Before Gordon could answer, Dr.
Totem blurted, "I worked out the math myself, Lieutenant.
This is the only way to bring the flare under
immediate control."
Gordon shook his head, "Not
necessarily. Think of the flare as a
lever, Doctor, if we apply pressure to the end of it we will move it with less
force, but if we break the lever we'll wind up with a fierce
backlash. On the other hand if we apply a little
force
all the way along the lever and slide the fulcrum up the swing arm, we might
keep it under control."
Totem wasn't satisfied. "What science do you
base that on?"
Gordon smiled, "A swinging door
hinge and an old household implement on Earth called a broom."
Before Totem and Spaulding could
respond, Koon silenced them all with a wave of her hand.
"Let's keep our options open, people.
Gordon, look into it. Have Kree and Hurst
work out a course we'll
have to fly and keep me informed."
Okuma shook her head, "Eddie's
running a madhouse getting the ship back together, Captain."
Koon nodded, "Point," he agreed,
"Dr. Totem, have Kree and
All three looked unhappy with the
arrangement. Totem, Kree, and
"You suggested it, Commander," Okuma
snapped, "now defend it." The first
officer glared at the three impatiently.
Her gaze settled on Totem. "And I
expect your best efforts to support each other even if you
disagree."
Totem hissed with resignation. "Yes,
Commander," he said clearly reluctant. To Be Continued |
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