Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (49 page)

“What pathetic weaklings this species has become without leadership,” said the Data-thing, shaking its head in disgust.

The phasers hummed.

“Low-level burst detonating one kilometer in front of the Garneau,” Worf reported. “Captain, we are receiving an urgent hail.” Picard stared defiantly at the Data-thing. “Onscreen,” he said.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Picard?!” Bondar was on her feet, shouting into the viewer. “You are interfering in a classified Code One Alpha Zero rescue operation! Back off now or we will return fire!” Picard didn’t understand Captain Bondar’s use of the code.

One Alpha Zero meant a spaceship was in distress. But there were no other ships in the area. What did she mean?

The Data-thing’s voice rose sharply. “Go to battle stations at once. That puny vessel is no match for this ship.”

“This ship has no crew,” Picard snapped. “If we go into battle relying on automatic controls only, that puny vessel could blow us otlt o1’ space.” The Garneau’s captain stared out from the viewscreen in conl’usion. “Picard? What was that about having no crew? Are you in some kind of operational difficulty?” Picard started to answer but the Data-thing stood up in front of him.

“There is no difficulty,” the android said. “Worfi Fire?’ Picard saw his chance. He reached out for the android’s back a n d — The Data-thing’s hand moved in a blur and closed around Picard’s right wrist. With a burning twist, Picard felt bones crack and he cried out in shock.

“Fire!” the android shouted.

“All hands battle stations!” Bondar ordered on the viewscreen.

Then she added quickly, “Listen Enterprise, whoever’s in charge, just remember the gravitational environment you’re in. No ship can survive being crippled this close to the event horizon. One shield fluctuation and the tidal forces will stretch you to taffy.

This is your last chance. You must withdraw?’ “F/i/re/” the Data-thing screamed, and he wrenched Picard forward to throw him on the deck of the bridge at the same time.

Picard hit and rolled with a gasp of pain. His right hand hung useless. He saw the Data-thing spin to face Worf, but Worf took his hands from the tactical controls. He refused to fire.

Incoherent with rage, the Data-thing rushed to the side of the bridge rail, leapt over it, and threw himself at Worf. The Klingon braveIv stood his ground, got in one powerful though ineffectual blow to the android’s head, and then was smashed sideways into a control console, which exploded in the impact. Worf slumped senseless to the deck as Troi, Wesley, and Dr. Crusher ran to his aid. Riker, clutching his leg on the floor, could only watch in helpless frustration.

The Data-thing took over Worf’s console, and the Enterprise’s phasers fired. Picard pushed himself up to look at the screen.

The bridge of the Garneau rocked with the hit it took. Picard heard warning sirens sound on the science vessel. “Captain

Bondar!” he called out. “The Enterprise has been hijacked! It is no longer under Starfleet control! Withdraw at once!” The Enterprise lurched as three photon torpedoes from the Garneau burst across her primary hull shields. Damage warnings sounded on his own bridge.

“This is a rescue operation, Picard! We cannot withdraw,” Bondar shouted.

“Where is the other ship you’re to rescue?!” Picard demanded as he heard the Data-thing fire phasers again.

“Beyond the event horizon!” Bondar answered. She held on tightly as her command chair shuddered. Picard saw sparks erupt from a console behind her. “It’s a science package Starfleet launched ninety-nine years ago. We’ve got to—” The transmission washed out in a wave of static, then came back half-strength.

“Damn you, Picard! Can’t you take responsibility for your own ship?!” Picard groaned in pain and frustration. Why wouldn’t this captain realize the danger she was in? He heard the twang of photon torpedoes launching even as the Enterprise trembled beneath the Garneau’s phaser blasts. “Get out of there, Bondar!

Starfleet can always launch another science package!” “You don’t understand!” the captain said. “There is a passenger on board it! He is crucial to the security of the Federation! He is—” The transmission ended without static, signifying a complete shutdown of the Garneau’s communication system. But from the view of the gas disk that returned to the main screen, Picard could see no indication of the science vessel’s fate.

But he knew the real mission of the Thorsen personality.

Picard confronted the Data-thing. “You want that passenger, don’t you? Whoever he is, he’s from a century ago; you’re from almost three centuries in the past… you’re still fighting some war that ended generations ago.” The Data-thing contemplated Picard. Its rage was no longer evident. “Very impressive, Captain, except that the war continues. And I will triumph.” “How?” Picard asked. “By leaving the passenger inside the event horizon? Trapped forever?”

But the Data-thing slowly shook his head. “Oh, no, Picard, I came to ‘rescue’ the passenger myself. I saw him go in there, and I intend to bring him out. Personally.” -‘Why’? Who is it?” “He is a man who dared claim that I exist because of him. So I xvant him to see what he has made of my existence, before I destro}’ his.” ”’
bu*re mad,” Picard said. It was the only explanation.

“The entire universe is mad, Captain Picard. That’s why it needs me to lead it. I’m going to protect the rest of you from yourselves.” The Data-thing looked past Picard. “Mr. O’Brien— status of the Garneau.” “No readings,” O’Brien reported sullenly.

“Destroyed?” Picard asked.

“This close to the event horizon, sir, I can’t be sure. Half of our sensors are still off-line.” The Data-thing walked purposefully down the ramp to the command area again. “That’s all right,” he said. “I understand the environment beyond an electromagnetic event horizon is quite simple. Sensors will not be taxed.” With those words, for the very first time, Picard also understood whv the Thorsen personality had come for the Enterprise.

“No,” Picard said. “You cannot do this.” “Correct,” the Data-thing agreed as he walked past Picard and casually reached out to snag McKnight’s uniform and toss her from her station. “I cannot. But the Enterprise can.” Picard stood helplessly by the android as he watched the new heading entered into the navigation controls. “The Enterprise has ,just experienced a collision,” he said. “Her crew is incapacitated.

Her structural integrity field has been overloaded.” The Data-thing glanced up at Picard with contempt. “I have had subroutines monitoring Starfleet computers for decades, Pieard. I know this ship was designed to withstand warp tunneling through electromagnetic event horizons.” “Theoretically!” Picard insisted. “Event horizon missions have only been carried out by remote probes—never by crewed vehicles.” He looked up at the main screen. The giant, dark ellipse of the event horizon curved across the bottom of the image, lit by blinding flashes wherever gas and dust and debris fell in, accelerated to light-speed by the monstrous gravitational pull of the singularity deep within it.

“Then it appears I know something you don’t,” the Data-thing gloated. “Where we are going, we will not be the first.” Collision alert sirens sounded.

“But we will be the last.” Absolute darkness filled the viewscreen.

Impact.

Adrik Thorsen ‘ dream had consumed him until only that dream remained.

What once had been human had died on Earth, centuries before, as humanity had stood on a threshold and rejected him and his kind, moving Jbrward.

What once had been human, restored, augmented, and enhanced b), the products of human technology, had brooded and plotted alone in space, until the Grigari had offered their bargain, the age-old trap—hfe eternal in exchange for all that made life worthwhile.

I~’hat once had been a Grigari amalgam, the last vestiges of fiesh augmented by blindly programmed, self-organizing machines, had huntedJbr revenge. Only to find itself a silent witness to the events O[ TNC 65813, stardate 3856, orbiting in the second Mingon cruiser, watching all that played out below him.

(k;chrane had escaped that day. Revenge was denied. Incomplete. Nonoptimal.

But knowledge burned deeply within what remained of Thorsen, as pait~fit/ as the laser burst.forever etched within his optic nerve—the knowledge that though Cochrane had escaped, (bchrane, in time, would return.

Thorsen vowed to be there when he did.

And then the Grigari bargain claimed its.final payment and all that was left of the original Thorsen died.

But the evil that had spawned him lived on. Hatred, intolerance, unrestrained greed, all those qualities which had once defined humanity so well, proved fertile still, even in this day when they had been vanquished in so many others.

Blindly, the Grigari machines continued their work, replacing the necrotized fiesh in its entirety, maintaining the form and the function,.following the most basic program that had fueled Thorsen in his life. The desire to destroy Cochrane and all those like him whose very humanity now mocked the travesty that pursued them.

7b fulfill Thorsen’s purpose, the Grigari machines spread out, an invisible, mechanical plague, infecting computers and starships, scanning for any clue or event linked to Zefram Cochrane and the time of his return.

Eventually, the time of the fabled scientist’s return was calculated by Starfleet, and the Grigari machines knew. They brought their information back to the construct that they’ served, the construct that existed now with only one program, an echo from a distant past, a version of a personality driven by desires no longer based in living thought or tissue.

A mathematical duplicate of Thorsen’s intellect devised theplan.

A Galaxy-class starship must be found to survive the mission to recover Cochrane, to save him, and then destroy him. A long-lost alien object would be the bait for the trap. The Romulans, caught up by’ hatreds of their own, proved willing accomplices. Thorsen’s personality matrix would continue, jumping from one storage device to another, as blind in its desires as were the unknowing machines that had formed it.

As of stardate 43922.2, there was no conscious thought behind this goal of hatefid destruction, and no humanity.

But then, in truth, there never had been.

The turbulence ended.

Zefram Cochrane was aware only of the low whisper of the shuttlecrafi’s air circulators, the soft hum of her engines, the warmth of the Companion’s hand in his.

He looked out through the forward windows and saw darkness, limitless, featureless, broken only by a faint blue glow to port.

“We survived?” the Companion asked.

Cochrane smiled. “Did you doubt we would?” She returned his smile and Cochrane felt the peace of this journey fill his heart because the Companion was with him.

“I only knew I had to be with you,” she said, “whatever happened.” Cochrane felt relief that for the first time since they had been reunited, the Companion seemed to have finally relaxed. The bandage over her eye, the condition of her hair, all might be part of some avant-garde fashion on a world he had never visited. He marveled at Kirk and Spock and McCoy for devising this plan, for making it possible. The human race had changed so much in his extended lifetime, become so strong. He could hear Micah Brack telling him he should take credit for at least part of what had happened to humanity and those who joined them in their future, for giving them the stars. For in reaching out to explore the heavens, all had found themselves, as if the stars were where they were always meant to be.

Cochrane himself would never forget taking off his mask on the plains of Centauri B II, drawing that first breath of alien air.

Unencumbered.

For the first time, Cochrane could see that Micah Brack had been right but not in the way he had expected. All else in human history had followed from that moment, and Cochrane could finally admit that he had done something extraordinary—that he had given Earth’s peoples a way to achieve what they had always searched for—freedom, growth, the unending adventure of liv-ing. Yet all that mattered to him now was that in exchange for his gift to humanity, the events of his existence had brought him the gift he had searched for: the Companion, who gave to him all that made the adventure of life worth living. Love.

For a moment, Cochrane was overcome by the path he had taken to reach that final understanding of his life’s journey, that acceptance—from a child’s dream beneath a tree on Earth to the uncharted and complex dimension that lay within a black hole in space, all so he could arrive at such a simple destination, such a simple understanding.

“I love you,” he said to the Companion.

Her smile was answer enough. Journey’s end.

She glanced through the forward windows. He saw her eyes as she gazed off to port.

“What causes that glow?” she asked.

“Photons above us,” Cochrane said, admiring the line of her precious face, so softly lit by the glow from the shuttlecraft’s instruments. “The ones falling toward the singularity that we’ll swing around. We see nothing ahead of us because no light can escape the singularity from that direction. But we can see the blue-shifted light beginning its fall.” “But not all the light is blue, Zefram.” From his position, Cochrane could not see as far to port as the Companion could. He swung the spherical tactical monitor out from the bulkhead and checked the aft view.

He gasped.

Directly astern, flaring from within a rainbow-streaked halo of gravity-smeared light, a Klingon battle cruiser raced straight for him.

Even here, even now, there was no escape from the Optimum.

The turbulence ended.

Kirk eased his grip on the arms of his chair, a parting caress.

The Enterprise might just as well have been flying at half-impulse through normal space.

“We have tunneled through the event horizon,” Spock announced.

“Scotty,” Kirk asked, “how’s she doing?” “Captain Kirk,” a Scottish lilt answered back, “considering we’re in a region o’ space where nothin’ bigger than a molecule should be able to exist, th’ fact that we can have this conversation at all should be answer enough for ye.” It was. The Enterprise had done it again. Her crew had done it again.