“All those threats are potentially disastrous but ultimately manageable, with time, effort, and strategy. Those are enemies we can understand and defend ourselves against, if necessary.
“But the Shedai? They’re an angry genie we’ve let loose from the bottle. It was just sheer, stupid luck that your crew had the resources and expertise to capture the one that hit you. But imagine what would happen if one of those things got loose on a populated Federation planet. Civilian law enforcement and local militaries don’t have the technology or firepower to defend themselves against the Shedai. We’d be talking about millions of fatalities, at a minimum. Hell, the only way your predecessor stopped those things was by turning Gamma Tauri IV into radioactive glass. As you might imagine, that’s not a solution I’d want to use on planets like Rigel, Vulcan, or Earth. But until you and your team give us something better, General Order 24 is the only weapon we’ve got against these things.
“So, while I understand the sincere and reasonable concerns that you and Doctor Marcus have raised with regard to the pace of the Vanguard project, I need you to put them aside. We need that array up and working, and we need your team to figure out how to use it, as soon as possible—if not sooner. That’s not a request, it’s an order. Get it done.
“Severson out.”
The screen faded to black as Severson terminated the subspace link. Nogura looked at the ceiling of his office and wondered who, ultimately, history would decide had been on the right side of that argument: Severson or Marcus? At the same time, he knew that in the here and now, the answer to that question was irrelevant. All that mattered was that he had his orders, and like a good soldier, he would follow them—even if he suspected the result would be a catastrophe.
As he sat and brooded, the words of an ancient Earth poem haunted his thoughts.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Nogura looked at the star map on the wall to his left, and his eyes fell upon the dense cluster of icons that reminded him daily of the Tholian armada assembled within prime striking distance of Vanguard.
Into the valley of Death, indeed.
Carol Marcus stood back from the Vault’s master control panel and watched Lieutenants Xiong and Theriault. The young Starfleet scientists conferred in excited whispers in front of a huge vid screen as they debated how to apply the new intel from T’Prynn to the alien array. Hours earlier, when the Vulcan intelligence officer had delivered the results of her follow-up debriefing of Cervantes Quinn, Marcus had succumbed to curiosity and pored over the arcane mishmash of symbols, formulas, and molecular models. She had even felt a flush of excitement when she, Xiong, and Theriault had begun to parse the alien syntax—a bizarre fusion of pure mathematics, applied chemistry, and quantum physics. Then she had remembered what they were working toward, and her elation turned to shame.
“Look at this sequence,” Xiong said, pointing at the screen. “I think the twelve elements in this pattern correspond to the differences we detected on the facets of each artifact. I think it defines the unique way each facet absorbs or reflects energy.”
Theriault pushed his pointing finger aside with her own. “Yes! And this larger sequence tells us which facets to place in contact with one another.” She glowed with delight. “Oh, my God! It’s an assembly guide!” Then realization set in. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It means we did this completely wrong.”
Xiong stepped away from the screen, put two fingers in his mouth, and split the sedate atmosphere of the Vault with a shrill whistle. His flock of white-coated scientists and Starfleet specialists all looked up at him, their reflex Pavlovian in its perfection. “Everyone! Listen up! I have bad news, and I have good news. First, the bad news. I know you’re all eager to start running experiments and testing your new protocols, but all that’s going to have to wait—because we need to go in there and take that thing completely apart.” Groans of disbelief and disappointment resounded inside the lab, then subsided as Xiong raised his arms and waved everyone back into line. “The good news is the reason why. We have new intel that we think will clear up all the problems we’ve had bringing this array on line. I want you all to get started on breaking down the array. By the time you’re finished, Lieutenant Theriault and I should be ready to give you specific instructions for how to put it back together—the right way, this time.” He clapped his hands, breaking the spell of attention. “Let’s get to work!”
With varying degrees of enthusiasm and equanimity, the research team trudged inside the isolation chamber and began the delicate, tedious labor of disassembling the makeshift array. Theriault joined in to help speed things along as Xiong continued to study the data on the screen and add more of his own annotations. Hoping this might be a chance to make an appeal to his better nature, Marcus joined him at the master control panel.
“Ming,” she said softly. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”
He paused in his analysis and gave her his attention. “Of course, Doctor.”
She gathered her courage. “Now that you’re taking the array apart, I want to ask you to hold off on putting it back together, even if just to—”
“You know I can’t do that,” he cut in. “I have my orders. We all do.”
The same old argument; it made her want to scream. “I’m aware of that, Ming. But I’m worried about what our work is being used for. And about how it’s being used.”
Xiong crossed his arms. “We’ve talked about this. You voiced your concerns, and Admiral Nogura overruled them.”
“And you agree with his decision?”
Conflicting emotions played across his youthful face. “It’s complicated.”
“I understand that.” She reached out and gently grasped his arm, hoping a bit of real human contact would help put her point across more effectively than mere words. “But this thing you’re building—I think it’s dangerous, Ming. It could be used for unethical purposes.”
He gently brushed away her hand. “That’s true of any technology. A warp drive could be used to accelerate payloads into planets at superluminal velocities. To an undefended planet, a warp drive can be a doomsday weapon. Technologies aren’t inherently good or evil.”
“Are you sure?” She aimed a troubled look at the array, which had already been stripped of a dozen crystals. “That thing was made to be a prison, Ming. And the research you did on the first two artifacts showed us that when those crystals are occupied, they can be used to generate almost limitless power. They destroyed eleven worlds from hundreds of light-years away. Does that seem like an ethical piece of technology to you? A weapon that runs on slavery?”
“Those worlds were destroyed by mistake.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He looked flustered. “We checked, Doctor. None of those planets were inhabited. In fact, most of them were lifeless rock-balls. No harm done.”
“Tell that to the ecosystem on Ceti Alpha V. It was completely destroyed when we blew up Ceti Alpha VI and changed its orbit.”
“Well, then,” Xiong said, “it’s a good thing nobody lives on Ceti Alpha V.”
She could see he was becoming defensive, but she had come too far to abandon her argument now. “So why is Starfleet covering it up? Did you know they forged new charts of the Ceti Alpha system? They’re pretending Ceti Alpha V is actually Ceti Alpha VI! Why?”