“Perhaps they have issues,” said Kebron. “Captain, permission to speak freely?”
Calhoun rolled his eyes. “Of course.”
“That thing is about a hundred times bigger than we are. We’d be insane to approach it.”
“I agree.”
“And yet we’re approaching it.”
“And yet we are,” agreed Calhoun. “As fast as our stubby little sublight legs will carry us.”
“May I ask why?”
“Yes.”
Now it was Kebron’s turn to roll his eyes. “Why?”
“Because the ship is devoid of life.”
That prompted a surprised reaction from the others. Xy glanced at his still-useless sensor devices. “I’m still getting no response from my sensor array, Captain,” said Xy. “May I ask—” He stopped himself and started again. “On what do you base that assessment?”
“A gut feeling, Lieutenant.”
“A gut feeling, sir?” Xy looked bemusedly at Kebron, as if to make sure that they were both hearing the same thing.
“That is correct, Lieutenant. A gut feeling. A feeling that comes from deep within my gut.” He had stepped out of his chair and was staring at the monitor, his hands draped behind his back. “It has guided me through many a hazardous situation. Situations that, I should add, were far more hazardous than this.”
“Really?”
Calhoun paused, giving it some thought. “Okay, actually…no. This is probably the most hazardous. But let’s face it, people: When our instrumentation lets us down, what else do we have to see us through except for good old human instinct.”
“Technically speaking, sir, you’re not human,” Xy reminded him.
“Somehow I knew you weren’t going to let that slip by, Lieutenant.”
“Captain,” Morgan asked, “shall I continue approach?”
“Did I give you an order to the contrary?”
“No, sir.”
“Then that’s your answer, isn’t it.”
“Aye, sir,” Morgan agreed.
In short order, they had drawn sufficiently close that the ship occupied and then exceeded the dimensions of the monitor. Calhoun knew that they were still a considerable distance from it, and yet it was mammoth almost beyond his ability to comprehend.
But even so…he was still not getting any sense of jeopardy from it.
Calhoun couldn’t even begin to count the number of scrapes he had managed to avoid or be one step ahead of based purely on his unerring ability to “read” a situation and perceive the inherent hazards. He’d actually once, at the behest of his wife, gone in for testing to see if he had some sort of genuine psionic power. He had always cherished the terse written report that had been issued after he’d received a thorough going-over: “Detailed analysis of Calhoun’s brain reveals nothing.” He remembered conveying the message word-for-word to Shelby, and she had laughed for a solid five minutes.
He missed her laugh. He missed her.
He wondered if she knew what had happened to him (not that he himself had any clear idea). If she did, she was probably going out of her mind with worry. Calhoun wondered, not for the first time, if he hadn’t done her more harm than good by marrying her.
In any event, despite the fact that there was no scientific proof as to the reliability of his “nose for danger”—usually characterized by the hair on the back of his neck rising—he had learned to depend upon it and had never been disappointed. Still, nothing was perfect and nothing was infallible.
As he watched the ship loom larger still, he said, “Just think, Mr. Kebron…if I turn out to be wrong and that ship fires a massive weapon of some kind that obliterates us…you’ll be in a position to laugh at me and say, ‘See? So much for your gut instinct.’ ”
“Why yes, Captain,” replied Kebron. “I would consider it personally gratifying if I, along with my crewmates, could lay down our lives for the privilege of being right while you were wrong.”
“That’s good to know.”
“I wasn’t serious, Captain.”
“I knew that, too.”
The space between the bars, which had appeared narrow from far away, had initially appeared far too tight a fit for the Excalibur to slide through. Now though, within range of the huge vehicle, it was clear there was plenty of room for the Excalibur to pass through the exterior of the ship and into…what? He wasn’t at all sure what to expect.
But it wasn’t a trap. There was no danger.
His instincts were assuring him of that.
Let him be in a universe where the sensors didn’t operate. Let him be in a universe where the laws of physics themselves were dubious at best, lethal at worst. Let all of that be true and still, he assured himself, nothing could tamper with his inborn ability to perceive danger to himself and those who depended upon him.
Except…what if he was wrong? What if he was indeed putting the life of his crew on the line over a hunch that was no more reliable than a hunch anyone else might have?
As much as the doubts raged within him, his exterior betrayed none of it. He looked relaxed in his command chair, legs crossed at the ankles, giving not the slightest hint that he was anything except completely confident in his course. Sometimes what a crew needed more than a captain who was sure of what he was doing was a captain who gave the appearance of being sure of what he was doing.
“Captain,” Morgan suddenly spoke up. “They were in a fight. And I think they lost. Look.”
He saw that Morgan was right. He was beginning to see signs of what looked like carbon scoring. Then there was more: Gaping holes that had been torn in various sections. Twisted struts that had been ripped away from their connecting sockets. The design of the ship had hidden such structural defects initially, but the closer they drew, the more evident it became. Morgan was right. They had indeed been in a battle, and judging from the amount of damage they’d sustained, they hadn’t come out on the winning side.
“What are those?” Calhoun suddenly said. There appeared to be pieces of something floating through the gelatinous exterior. “Can you zoom in on them?”
Morgan did so. Calhoun studied them. They were thick and tubular, a pale gray. “Xy,” he said slowly, “do those look biological to you?”
“They certainly do, Captain. Actually…they look like pieces of tentacles.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Calhoun. “As if someone blew up a squid.” He looked at the growing array of fleshy pieces hanging there. “A lot of squids,” he amended. “Either the ship was a floating aquarium…or it was piloted by beings who looked a lot like squids.”
“Extremely large squids,” added Xy, “judging by the size of the fragments we’re see…Captain! We’re getting ripples!”
“Ripples?” said Calhoun, not understanding.
“The sensors may not be functioning properly, but I can at least detect movement of the substance around us…”
“He’s right,” Morgan said. It seemed as if she wasn’t looking at Calhoun, even though she had turned to face him. Instead she appeared to be looking inward. “There’s an undulation against the surface of the ship. Something’s moving out here besides us.”
“I’m getting a ping back on the sonar,” Xy said, adopting the ages-old terms for the technique he was using. “It’s behind us. Still a good distance from us, but it’s big and it’s heading our way.”
“Is there a chance it hasn’t seen us yet?”
“We’re the size of a flyspeck in comparison to this thing,” Xy said, indicating the ship that was right in front of them. “There’s every chance.”
“Morgan. Best possible speed into the ship.”
Instantly the Excalibur waddled forward on impulse power, penetrating into the heart of the strangely molecular ship. It loomed around them, dwarfing the smaller vessel, and Calhoun was starting to have uncomfortable mental images of an insect wandering all unsuspecting into a web.
Soon there were struts and supports all around t
hem. Judging it to be far enough for their purposes, Calhoun said quietly, “All stop. Put me on intraship.”
“You’re on, Captain.”
“All hands, this is the captain,” he said. “We are now running silent. No unnecessary talking or movement from here on in until I give the all-clear…or until I sound battle stations. Captain out.” He leaned forward and murmured, “Give me a view of what’s coming our way.”
The monitor image changed. It was hard to make anything out. There was the merest outline of whatever it was that was behind them.
The tension on the bridge was palpable as, hiding within the remains of a derelict ship, Calhoun couldn’t help but think that whatever was out there…might well be the thing that had attacked the ship they were using as camouflage. If it was capable of laying waste to a vessel as large and powerful as the one they were using as camouflage, the Excalibur—for all its resources and resourcefulness—wouldn’t last a minute.
The Spectre
With the Romulan Neutral Zone looming less than twenty minutes away, Soleta wasn’t able to remain within her command chair. Instead she paced the bridge constantly, so much so that Lucius could not help but comment upon it. “Is there a problem, Commander?”
She swiveled to face him, looking distracted. “Problem, Tribune? What sort of problem?”
Lucius glanced at the other members of the bridge crew, who were watching with open curiosity. Aquila shrugged slightly, which was about all the encouragement any of them were prepared to offer. “To the casual observer,” Lucius said gamely, “it would appear that you seem…preoccupied.”
“I am,” she replied. “Lest you forget, Tribune, I was once a science officer in Starfleet.”
“I have never forgotten that, Commander,” he said politely…so politely that it was difficult for Soleta to determine whether or not he was insulting her.
She decided it would be wisest to let the subtext pass without comment. Instead she said, “I am simply trying to figure out what it was we saw swallow the Excalibur, and what the nature of that vessel was that came in pursuit of us.”
“Whatever it was,” growled Praefect Vitus from tactical, “we should be grateful to it. The Excalibur was a troublesome vessel, and its captain an arrogant maverick. Anyone who presents a threat to the Romulan Empire is better disposed of.”
“A not-unreasonable attitude, Praefect,” Soleta said, her Vulcan-trained demeanor of dispassion masking her desire to reach over and tear Vitus’s face off. She half-suspected that he was saying it specifically to get a reaction out of her, and she’d be damned if she’d accommodate him. “However, might I point out that we are talking about a phenomenon the true nature of which we do not understand. Which effectively means that, if we are faced with the same threat, we will experience the same fate as the much-despised Excalibur. Would you be comfortable with that?”
“If we did so while defending the Empire,” Vitus said stiffly, “I would honor such a fate.”
“I have no doubt. But are you anxious for it?”
“Well…no…”
“No. Nor am I,” she said. “The readings we managed to take of it while it was happening are woefully inadequate to determine its true nature. Maurus, bring it up on screen again. Let me see it once more.”
“Again?” asked Maurus. Then, seeing the look she gave him, he immediately said, “On screen, Commander.”
She watched the entire thing unfold yet again, and felt frustration roiling within her as she continued to have no idea what it was she was talking about. “The sensors array behaved as if there was nothing at all strange transpiring,” she said aloud to herself. “But subsequent diagnostics indicated that they were functioning perfectly. Why would that be?”
“Again, perhaps it was an illusion?” suggested Lucius. “Perhaps that which we thought we witnessed was not actually transpiring.”
“A possibility, but I think not,” said Soleta. “We were still able to detect the residue of the occurrence, free-floating tachyons in high amounts that hadn’t been there before. It’s as if…” She stopped her movement and drummed thoughtfully on the helm console. Aquila looked up at her but said nothing. Then she snapped her fingers. “Yes. That makes sense.”
“What does?”
“We were seeing something that was not there.”
“An illusion, as I said…”
“No, Lucius. See…a wormhole, which is the closest analogue to what we’re witnessing, opens a hole into subspace, where different rules apply in terms of such things as traversing physical distance. But this…this sinkhole we’re witnessing…it’s possible that it’s opening a gateway to an alternate universe where our physical laws don’t apply. If that was the case, the sensors would not be able to detect anything because they literally wouldn’t know what they were looking at. So it would either come across as inconclusive or as not even there at all.”
“That makes a certain degree of sense,” said Lucius cautiously.
“I appreciate the ringing endorsement, Tribune. Still, I’ll look forward to meeting with the Praetor’s top scientists and learning their opinion of this matter.”
As if on cue, Aquila said, “Approaching Neutral Zone border now, Commander.”
“Home,” sighed Maurus.
Soleta knew he was anxious to return to the homeworld of Romulus. His mate was expecting their first child and, although there was nothing lacking in Maurus’s conduct, she knew he was feeling a little distracted. She couldn’t blame him.
Every so often she toyed with the notion of what it would be like to have a child of her own. And just as often, she dismissed it.
Moments later, they were through the Neutral Zone, which served as the border to Romulan space. Soleta had tensed slightly, both in the approach and in their passage through the Zone. She knew it was a holdover from the old days when being in a Federation ship that was entering Romulan territory was tantamount to an act of war. A Romulan ship doing so, obviously, was not in any danger. Which reminded her….
“Drop cloak,” she said. “Switch from ion glide to standard warp. Run normal space.”
“Normal space, aye.”
The Spectre shimmered into existence. It was virtually undetectable when running invisible and utilizing the ion glide. Soleta saw no reason to be sneaking around or expending ship’s energy needlessly now that they were in their own backyard.
“Commander,” Maurus said. He appeared a bit puzzled. “I’m doing a routine scan for subspace chatter…”
“Yes?”
“There isn’t any.”
“None?” Soleta frowned, her arched eyebrows knitting. “That would indicate some sort of communications blackout from the homeworld…area ships, everything. Why would that be?”
“I have no answer for you at this time, Commander.”
“Keep listening, then.”
“Shall I send out a general call for response?”
She considered it. Something about the oddity of what they were experiencing made her even more cautious than usual. “No. Listen for whatever you can detect, but say nothing. Vitus, full sensor scans. If anything’s coming our way, I want to know about them before they know about us.”
The Spectre maintained its course, heading for Romulus. Soleta retreated to her command chair, trying to determine what the reason could be for the odd state of affairs. She had received no recent communiqués from the Praetor, but that in itself was nothing to be especially concerned about. Hers was, after all, a stealth vessel, carrying out missions of extreme delicacy and espionage on Praetor Hiren’s behalf. So it wasn’t as if she expected any sort of routine communication from him.
Still…something seemed…off.
She promptly dismissed the notion. What, was she turning into Mackenzie Calhoun, working his way through space by taking guesses and operating on instinct and hunches? She admired the man, yes…not that she would have admitted it aloud to her crew…but his tendency toward flying on instinct never struck her
as any sort of logical way to conduct oneself. There was too much luck involved, and sooner or later, luck tends to run out.
“Commander,” Vitus suddenly said, “two contacts, approaching at 227 mark 8.”
“Ours? Or do we have troublemakers in Romulan space?”
“Ours,” said Vitus. “From their energy signatures, I make them to be the Dhael and the S’harien.”
“The S’harien is under the command of Commander Aurelius,” said Lucius. “Trustworthy and honorable. He’d be honored to provide us escort straight to the Praetor if we asked him to.”
“Excellent,” Soleta said, relaxing a bit. Lucius was never wrong about this sort of thing. He commanded the respect of other Romulans that she often secretly wished she could acquire for herself. “Maurus…send a hail. Get their attention.”
The centurion did as he was ordered, and minutes later, the two Romulan warbirds had come into view. They were approaching slowly, with not the slightest hint of aggression.
“Commander,” said Maurus, “the S’harien is responding.”
“Put them on, Centurion.”
The image of an older, stately Romulan appeared. He said nothing, but simply inclined his head slightly at the sight of Soleta.
Soleta decided to make the first move. “Commander Aurelius,” said Soleta, with a slight bow.
“Commander Soleta,” replied Aurelius. “Welcome back. May I take it that Tribune Lucius is with you as well?”
“I am here, Commander,” said Lucius, stepping into view. It was a slight breach of protocol, an inferior officer addressing another ship’s captain without so much as a by-your-leave from his own commanding officer. However, Soleta saw no reason to make an issue out of it.
“Yes,” said Aurelius, and that struck Soleta as an odd response. Just…yes? Why didn’t he act as if he was pleased to see his old friend? She glanced over at Lucius and even he seemed mildly surprised by how tepid the reply was.
“Did you accomplish your recent mission for the Praetor?”
Lucius glanced at Soleta, clearly unsure whether he should continue the conversation. Soleta nodded to him and Lucius replied, “Yes. We have achieved our goals for the glory of the Praetor.”