Star Trek: That Which Divides (5 page)

His brow furrowing in concern, Kirk asked, “Does the message give any idea as to the nature of the problem?”

“
No, sir
,” M’Ress replied. “
It’s simply a distress call, and seems to cut out in mid-transmission before repeating on a continuous loop. A data packet containing their most recent sensor readings has also been attached to the message.”

Not liking the sound of that, Kirk did not hesitate. “Send a message to Starfleet Command and Starbase 23, updating them on the situation. Instruct the helm to accelerate to maximum warp. Have navigation recalculate our arrival time and send that on to Starfleet, as well. And route the sensor data to the science station.”

“
Aye, aye, sir
,” the communications officer acknowledged.

“Mister Spock and I are on our way up now. Kirk out.” Severing the connection, the captain turned to his companions at their table, and noted that Scott was already reacting to the subtle shift in the pitch of the
Enterprise
’s massive warp engines as the ship began to increase its speed. The engineer was looking at him, his expression conveying the question he did not need to ask aloud.

Kirk nodded to him as he moved toward the table. “Break’s over, gentlemen. Time to go to work. Scotty, I’ll need you keeping an eye on the engines. Mister Spock, if you’ll join me on the bridge?”

“What’s going on, Captain?” Sortino asked, her own expression one of worry. “Something with the
Huang Zhong
?”

“It looks that way, Ambassador,” Kirk replied, sighing as he wondered what they might find when they reached the Kondaii system.

Despite the best efforts of the bridge’s environmental control system, the stench of acrid smoke from burned-out relays and scorched insulation still assailed Ronald Arens’s nostrils. Normal illumination had been extinguished as a consequence of losing main power, replaced by emergency lighting that cast most of the bridge in shadows highlighted by the glow of workstations and status monitors. Though the alert sirens had been deactivated at least a full minute earlier, his ears still rang with their sharp warble. Because of that, it took Arens an extra moment to realize that the omnipresent reverberation of the
Huang Zhong
’s warp engines was notable by its absence.

“Position report!” he called out, pulling himself from his captain’s chair and moving to stand behind Lieutenant T’Vrel at the helm. “Did we make it through the rift?”

The Vulcan nodded. “Affirmative, sir. We appear to have cleared the inner boundary and are now on a course toward the planetoid.”

Arens directed his attention to the main viewscreen, which displayed the image of the small, seemingly orphaned Gralafi. Even from this distance, the captain was able to note the amalgam of grays and browns denoting the planetoid’s surface, with only slight splashes of greens indicating sparse vegetation in various, isolated regions.
Considering there were no other destinations that seemed to present themselves, he ordered, “Take us to a standard orbit, T’Vrel. Let’s park while we figure out what’s what.”

“Acknowledged,” the helm officer replied, her fingers playing across her console as she entered the necessary commands.

So, what exactly
is
what?
The thought rattled around in Arens’s mind as he contemplated the past few minutes. Everything had seemed fine as T’Vrel maneuvered the
Huang Zhong
into the rift on a course toward Gralafi. The first indications that something might be wrong had come within seconds of entering the energy field, as Boma picked up distortions from inside the rift even as the ship made the transit through the barrier. The alarms from engineering seemed to start mere heartbeats after that, with the chief engineer, Master Chief Petty Officer Christine Rideout, contacting the bridge and advising Arens of fluctuations in the warp engines. Things had only proceeded to go downhill from there.

Looking about the bridge and seeing that the rest of his officers had already returned their attention to their respective stations and duties, Arens asked, “Commander Hebert, how are we? Is everybody okay?”

“We’re good to go in that department, sir,” April Hebert replied from where she stood at one of the workstations along the bridge’s starboard bulkhead. “Everyone accounted for, and no injuries to speak of.”

Arens nodded at the report. “Small favors, but I’ll take them. Turning his attention to Rzaelir Zihl du Molidin, who had taken a seat at the unmanned console next to Hebert, he asked, “Advisor, are
you
all right?”

Zihl said, “Yes, Captain. Thank you. I am happy to hear your crew suffered no injuries.”

“Just our lucky day, I guess,” Arens said before looking again to Hebert. “Did you manage to get off the distress signal?”

“For the most part,” the first officer answered. “There was some disruption as we passed through the rift, and the last part of the transmission was cut off, but most of it got through, along with the sensor packet. The
Enterprise
was already on its way here, so they’ll likely still be the first ship to respond. They were four days away at last report. Assuming they accelerate to maximum warp, that’ll put them here in just shy of twenty-five hours.”

“If I know Jim Kirk,” Arens countered, “he’ll milk every last bit of speed from his ship’s engines to get here as fast as he can. Until then, though, we’re on our own.”

T’Vrel called out from the helm station, “We have assumed a standard orbit above the planetoid, Captain.”

Nodding at the report, Arens said, “Thanks, Lieutenant. All right, now that things have settled down for the moment, I’d like to know how we got to this point. Advisor Zihl, have your people ever encountered anything like what happened to us when we passed through the rift?”

Zihl rose from her seat, and the captain saw her expression contort into something approximating a frown. “No, Captain. At least, not so far as is publicly known. I have been through the Pass many times myself, and I have never experienced or witnessed anything like that.”

“Okay,” Arens said, not liking that answer but seeing little to be accomplished from beating the topic to death when other, more pressing matters demanded his attention. “We’ll put a pin in that for now, but I’d like you to ask your government leaders about it when we get a chance.”
Turning toward the center of the bridge, he added, “Mister Boma, did our sensors pick up anything?”

Sitting at his workstation, the science officer replied, “Judging by these readings we collected, I’d have to say that the rift reacted in some manner to our warp engines. If Rideout hadn’t ejected the antimatter containment bottles when she did . . . well, I’d rather not dwell on that, if you don’t mind.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Hebert asked, making no effort to hide her surprise. “Even with all the backup and safety systems?”

Boma leaned back in his chair. “When the disruption hit the engines, everything was out of whack for a period of about ten seconds. Backups were trying to kick in, but they were lagging, and that was with a fluctuation in the magnetic fields surrounding the containment bottles. Any delay in a system kicking in could be critical, even fatal. Rideout did the right thing by punting the antimatter.”

As if on cue, the ship’s intercom buzzed to life, followed by the voice of the
Huang Zhong
’s chief engineer, Christine Rideout. “
Engineering to bridge. Everybody okay up there?
”

Moving to his command chair, Arens tapped the control on the chair’s right arm to open the intercom channel. “Everybody’s fine, Chief. What’s the story with the engines?”

“
It’s a sad, sad tale of woe, sir
,” the engineer replied, “
and the ending stinks. Whatever we ran into, it torqued the warp drive pretty good. Even if I hadn’t ejected the antimatter, I’d still have half a dozen burnouts in the warp coils. Hell, one of the things damn near melted, if you can believe that.
”

Though Arens already had a decent enough idea
regarding the answer to his next question, he asked it anyway. “Give me the short version, Chief. How much time to make repairs?”

“
Out here, by ourselves?
” Rideout asked. “
About a century, give or take a week or two. Even if we
had
replacement antimatter and a containment system to go with it, we’d still need a tow to a proper maintenance facility, sir. Other than the warp drive, we can probably take care of everything else in a couple of days or so. Less, if we get some help
.”

Behind him, Zihl said, “Though I do not know what we might do to help, we are certainly willing to offer any possible assistance, Captain.”

“I appreciate that, Advisor,” Arens replied, knowing there was little if anything the Dolysians could do to help with his ship’s present situation. Still, there was no mistaking in Zihl’s words and eyes the genuine desire to render whatever aid might be feasible. “I truly do.” Returning his attention to the intercom panel and imagining the beleaguered expression on the face of his engineer, he said, “All right, Chief. Thanks for the update. Is there anything we can do to make your life easier?”

“
You could send me to Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet for a month
,” the engineer replied. “
We’re going to need to access some systems and components from the outside, sir. If you could set us down, that’d be a huge help.
”

“Consider it done,” Arens replied, happy not for the first time that the
Huang Zhong
’s design allowed the vessel to make planetfall, rather than being forced to remain in orbit. “Keep me posted, and I’ll see about getting you some more help.”

Through the speaker, Rideout said, “
Much obliged, Skipper. I’ll have plenty for folks to do. Rideout . . . riding out
.”

Despite the current situation, Arens could not help but smile at the chief’s signature sign-off as the communication ended. With a quick wit and a sense of humor sharp enough to cut diamonds, Christine Rideout often shouldered the burden not only of keeping the
Huang Zhong
in top running order, but also of seeing to the morale of the ship’s crew. As fast as her mind might be when coming up with a clever riposte whenever someone made the ill-fated decision to challenge her in a verbal sparring match, the chief’s fingers also seemed to move at warp speed and as though possessed of their own will. Whatever repair obstacles she faced, Rideout would make short work of them, at least so long as she had access to the proper resources. Even with the damage to the ship, which was beyond her immediate means to address, Arens knew that under the chief engineer’s watchful eye, they still were in decent shape.

“You just know she’s back there, cursing loud and hard enough to strip paint off the bulkheads,” Hebert said, offering a knowing grin as she moved from her station.

The captain nodded, chuckling at the image her statement evoked. “Oh, I know. Having to ask for a tow back to base is the engineer’s equivalent of a captain being forced to evacuate and abandon his ship, at least so far as damage to the ego is concerned.” He paused, looking around the bridge and taking stock of the situation by glancing at the array of workstation monitors and status indicators within his field of vision. “Advisor Zihl, may I have your permission to land on Gralafi in order to start our repairs?”

The Dolysian replied, “Of course, Captain. Our central colony settlement, Havreltipa, features several landing ports and a vessel maintenance facility.”

At the helm console, T’Vrel said, “I have it on sensors, Captain. The facility has two unoccupied berths.”

“Excellent,” Arens said, liking the way the situation was beginning to show signs of improvement. “T’Vrel, make preparations for landing. Advisor Zihl, if you’ll work with Commander Hebert, we’ll put you in contact with the mining colony in order to secure their authorization.” Looking to his first officer, he added, “Commander, set up a shift rotation and let’s have all available hands sent down to engineering to give Rideout some help. We’re not going to be able to do much else until the cavalry gets here.” Given the size of
Archer
-class scouts and the small crews serving aboard them, assignment to such a vessel required that each crew member be cross-trained and proficient in at least two other starship occupational specialties. Such was the case aboard the
Huang Zhong
, with everyone including the captain possessing some form of engineering skill set that could be utilized during situations just like the one Arens and his crew faced.

Hebert replied, “Aye, aye, sir. We’re on it.”

From where he still worked at his science station, Boma said, “Captain, you need to see this.”

Uh-oh
, Arens thought.
Now what?
Stepping around his chair, he moved to stand behind Boma so that he could look down at the console over the other man’s shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Something odd on the sensors,” the science officer replied, frowning. “Now that we’re on this side of the rift, I’m able to get a better look at the energy field. Though I suspected something like this from the beginning, this is the first real indication that I might be right.”

“Right about what?” Arens asked.

Boma gestured to one of his console’s display monitors. “The rift. I’m sure it’s being generated artificially, Captain.”

“Really?” Arens asked, his eyes widening in surprise. “How?”

Shaking his head, Boma replied, “I don’t know yet. It was almost an accident that I found it at all.” He pointed again to his station. “Coming through the rift disrupted our sensors, and I had to reset and recalibrate the array. I was going through some diagnostics, checking different wavelengths and frequencies, and the scanners picked up an abnormality. When I took a closer look, I was able to detect a regular pattern within the energy field surrounding the rift. It was reacting to our passage, even without the disruption caused by our warp engines. The entire field was acting like some kind of passive sensor scan. It covered the entire ship in seconds. I have no idea what controlled it, or if any information was transmitted to or from it, but the pattern was unmistakable, Captain. Whatever that thing is, it’s not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Someone or something put it there, deliberately.”