Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (33 page)

“They’d have just seen it as a massive subspace disturbance
without being able to understand what caused it,” said Scotty.

“Which we still don’t know for sure,” Geordi admitted, “despite all our theorizing. Nor do we know what it represented in terms of technical advancement.”

Vol blinked slowly. “All right, so this trans-slipstream wavefront hit
Intrepid
at G-231, and knocked her all the way over to the Agni Cluster?” Vol asked.

“It certainly had enough power behind it,” Barclay said, admiration in his voice as he looked at the data.

“And the Romulan minefield?” asked Vol.

“What would happen if this magnitude of a wavefront hit a mine?” prompted Scotty.

Leah shrugged. “A mine has less mass than a starship. If the wavefront could carry
Intrepid,
it would have carried the mines as well, farther and more easily. Except that they’d have detonated in the process.”

La Forge snapped his fingers. “That’s what mines are designed for, isn’t it? To go off when disturbed. So, let’s imagine that this trans-slipstream wavefront hits the mines, detonating them as it rips them out of their positions, and then hits
Intrepid,
throwing her from G-231 to the Agni Cluster through subspace by way of a subspace gravity inversion in the Bolus reach.”

Leah walked around the display. “Between the impact of the wave and the energy from the mine detonations, the
Intrepid
’s inertial dampeners are totally—” She caught herself. “Irrelevant, against those kinds of energies.”

“Cool,” Vol said. “Well, now that that’s cleared up—”

“It isn’t,” La Forge said. “All right, so now we know what knocked out
Intrepid
’s inertial dampening and killed the crew, but we don’t know what caused the trans-slipstream wave.”

Leah waved a hand toward the numbers showing the magnitude
of the wave. “Could it be some kind of natural phenomenon? Numbers like that pretty much suggest a stellar cause.”

Geordi shook his head. “I think it’s a wake.”

“A wake implies a ship created it, surely? Maybe wake’s the wrong word. We should stick with wavefront as a safe course.”

“No, and this is why I brought this data for you to see. I’m sure wake is the right word. From the form of it that we have on this reading, it’s definitely spreading out behind something in motion.”

“What could it be? I mean, what could do that?”

La Forge spread his hands with a sigh. “I don’t know, but I do know that, whether it’s a natural phenomenon or a technological one, what happened to
Intrepid
wasn’t a unique occurrence.” He brought up another display, almost identical to the first. “I knew I’d seen this type of reading before. It was round about the time my mother and the
Hera
disappeared. At the time I was so sure the
Hera
was still safe somewhere that I got ahold of every record she had sent back to Starfleet. Back then I was looking for clues to the
Hera
’s fate so I wasn’t paying much attention to her earlier reports. But I remembered this.”

Leah leaned forward, her elbows on the table. “This is from the
Hera?”
La Forge could smell the scent on her hair, and reminded himself that he was working.

“This sensor reading was included in surveys the
Hera
made of the Kaladian system three months before she disappeared.” Geordi brought up a third display. “And this one was included in the last telemetry received from the
Hera.”

“All the same kind of wavefront. Or wakes . . .” Vol said, as everyone stared at the trio of displays.

“And that’s not all. I looked at these last night, and saw the similarities. So I tried searching through the computer for any Starfleet records that showed the same thing.”

“And?” Scotty prompted.

“And . . .” Geordi touched a control and the screen broke up into a flurry of copies of the same waveform. “I found quite a few.”

“Dozens . . .”

“Dating back centuries.” Silence washed round the briefing room. Geordi sat down at last. “Most of the time these were just long-range sightings, but there are a couple that tie in to ship losses as well.”

“Including the
Hera
?”

“
Intrepid
and
Hera,
yes. If the
Hera
was carried somewhere by one of these trans-slipstream wakes . . . She might still be out there.”

“She?” Leah hesitated. “Do you mean the
Hera
, or your mother?”

“I don’t know. I just . . . do not know.”

When the door chimed in La Forge’s quarters, he had the immediate impression that it would be Leah. He had taken off his jacket but still wore his uniform shirt. He was surprised to see Scotty after he called out, “Come on in.” The captain had a dressing on his forehead and a couple of stitches in his cheek, and a bottle of Scotch in his hand.

“Scotty!”

“Were ye expecting someone else? Doctor Brahms, maybe?” he suggested, with a twinkle in his eye. “If so, I can’t say I blame ye. She’d be a fine catch for any engineer.”

“Let me guess—if you were twenty years younger . . .”

“More like a hundred and twenty!” Scotty sat in a chair, put the bottle down on a table, and said, “I’m presumin’ ye have some glasses.”

La Forge chuckled as he had the replicator form two glasses. “What can I do for you?”

“I was thinking about these trans-slipstream wakes, and that got me to thinkin’ about the
Intrepid,
and how it was carried away.”

“The wakes, yeah.” He wondered where Scotty was going with this, but he had a shrewd suspicion that he already knew. He wondered if Guinan had put Scotty up to this. “And that led you to thinking about other ships that might have suffered the same fate.”

“Aye, or mainly the one. The
Hera
.”

“The readings looked pretty clear to me.”

“They looked clear to me too, which is just as well. Guinan tells me that ye’ve had a bee in your bonnet about the
Hera,
and understandably so.”

“If you’re wondering whether I’m going to let the possibility of the
Hera
’s survival interfere with my—”

“No.” Scotty shook his head, with a reassuring expression. “I know ye won’t get too distracted to do your duty. But I do wonder if ye might get too obsessed to unwind when you’re
off
-duty, and that
would
get in the way.” He poured two large measures. “So, here’s some unwinding.” He raised his glass. “To Captain La Forge of the
Hera.”

“I don’t think I—” He paused, composing himself. “I don’t think I’m going to get my mother back, if that’s what you think I’m thinking. I made my peace with her loss. But if there’s a chance to know why I lost her, what happened to the
Hera,
I have to try to find out. If nothing else, whatever happened to the
Hera
might happen to other ships—hell, if the
Intrepid
’s sensors are right it definitely has.”

“It certainly could prove a navigation hazard,” Scotty said thoughtfully, “but let me ask you one thing. Would you be as determined if it was, say, the
Lexington
that had disappeared?” La Forge immediately thought of Tamala Harstad, and felt an instant stab of guilt that this was the first time
he’d really thought about her since coming aboard the
Challenger
. He couldn’t even remember what she looked like.

“No,” he admitted at last. “I think there’s a little bit of the child in all of us that—”

“That just wants one more chance to say hello to mum or dad, or granny and granddad? I think you’re right there.” La Forge gave a sad, silent nod. “That’s the thing. When someone you’re close to dies, you wish you could have them back, but you never think that if you get them back, someday you’ll probably lose them again. And, the second time around, it’s worse.” Scotty looked at his glass from various angles. “After Jim Kirk was lost from the
Enterprise
-B, it was Guinan who found me and tried to tell me that he wasn’t really gone.”

“That he was suspended in the Nexus.”

“Aye. Of course, I didna believe a word of it. I thought she was just telling me something to take the sting off. I thought I started believing it on the
Jenolen.
The ship had crashed, life support was about to go down, and I thought about what she had said about Jim Kirk being still there, suspended in the Nexus. I think maybe that’s what put the idea into my head of suspending that poor lad and myself in the transporter buffer until we were rescued.” He chuckled slightly. “I didn’t have this Nexus thing of Guinan’s handy, so I improvised with what I had.”

La Forge unconsciously raised a hand toward where his VISOR used to sit, as if to adjust it. “I think I’d have had an easier life if Soran had decided to just jump into a transporter buffer . . .”

“Life isn’t easy, or fair. If it was, we’d all be presidents of Pacifica.”

Geordi couldn’t help but laugh. “When we found you, you did say something about thinking Captain Kirk had sent us.”

“I was still in that last bit of belief that he’d survived, and had popped back out somewhere else.” He sighed and took another drink. “And then the belief wore away. I stopped believing it. Until it turned out to be true, and by the time I heard that . . . It was too late, and the captain really was dead.” He set the glass down. “I thought it would be easier to deal with, then. After all, I’d had years of having passed the mourning stage.”

“Wasn’t it?”

The older man looked up with eyes that had seen far too many years, and said, “What do you think?”

Alyssa Ogawa wasn’t looking forward to her appointment with the captain. She sat in her office and wished she could just be out in the main part of sickbay, getting on with treating patients. She was happier doing that, and it was all she had ever wanted to do.

She reminded herself that what she was doing now, she was doing for Noah. Having the responsibility of extra paperwork and tricky decisions was worth his safety and education.

Scotty came in slowly, and sat heavily opposite her. “Sorry I’m late, lass. I had some doctorin’ of my own to do.”

“Self-medication isn’t such a good idea.”

“Don’t worry, it was Geordi I was medicating.” He looked her in the eye. “Well now, I guess it’s time we had that little chat that you wanted to have last night.”

“Captain,” Ogawa began.

“I thought I had made it clear that all the senior staff were to call me Scotty.”

“I know. I just . . . Look, this is hard enough as it is.”

“Don’t worry, Alyssa, just spit it out.”

“It’s not something anyone on a starship could ever feel comfortable about, telling their captain that . . . that he’s
not going to pass the minimum requirements for command fitness.”

“Ah. And ye don’t just mean because of my injuries, do you?”

“No. They’re a contributing factor, obviously. I’m sorry, Captain . . . Scotty, but a younger man would recover from these injuries more quickly, and need less aftercare.”

“And I’m not a younger man, by any means.”

“I’m sorry.” Ogawa wanted to shrivel up and disappear. She wondered how Beverly Crusher managed to do this.

“Don’t be, lass. You’re doing a fine job, and if you’re worried that you’ve somehow offended me, then you needn’t be.”

“I don’t want to put you through testing. I’d rather spare you that.”

“That’s kind o’ ye, lass. There was a time once before when I retired from Starfleet, I thought it was ninety years ago,” he said with a rueful smile.

“Ninety years ago? That sounds like a pretty good comeback.”

“Aye, but nothing lasts forever, does it?”

“Captain—”

“Please,
Scotty.
If nothing else, you’ll have to get used to saying it when I—” He slumped a little in the chair, and, for the first time Alyssa could think of, looked his age. “When I’m not the captain.”

“Scotty,” she said carefully, looking for an out for the decision one of them had to take. “The command fitness requirements only apply to command.”

“There are minimum requirements for the service at every level,” He reminded her. “And, truth to tell, it’d be harder to stay and step down than to retire at the top.”

“I thought you might see it that way.”

“Challenger
’s my project, and the Corps of Engineers is too. I suppose I have enough pull to step across to being a civilian specialist.”

“Well, I don’t see you being kept out of anything you want to do.”

Guinan had a neat Scotch ready as Scotty entered Nelson’s. “I thought you might need this.”

“You wouldna be reading my emotions, would you, Guinan? I didn’t think you were a Betazoid.”

“I don’t need to be a Betazoid to read expressions, or to listen to what’s in the offing.”

“Unless there’s been a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality I’m not sure what there is to listen to.”

“Oh, no, Alyssa wouldn’t do that. But a starship has its own voice, it’s own tone. Conversations kind of get trapped in the walls and ripple through the air. You’d be amazed what you can hear if you just listen.”

“Ah. And what have you heard on what passes for the wind on
Challenger
?”

“That she’s going to have a new captain in the morning.”

Scotty nodded. “That she is,” he said. The words came more calmly than he expected.

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“I retired once before.”

“It’s not going to be temporary this time.”

“I bloody know that!” Scotty exploded. He slumped into a seat, but didn’t touch the Scotch. “I didn’t come here for that. I came here because . . . I need to be able to say things the way I really don’t want to say them. Things like ‘I don’t bloody want to retire,’ or ‘I wish tae—I wish I could make ye see that I’ve still got what it takes even though I know I haven’t.”

“A good man knows his limitations.”

“Who said I was a good man?”

“Everyone who knows you.”

Scotty blushed. “Aye, well, that’s as may be, but sometimes even a man who knows his limitations needs to . . . to rail against them.”

Guinan sat across the table from him. “I’m listening.”