“All right,” she said, picturing the starships swimming through the void, singing to one another like whales.
“I have them all in my mind,” he said. “And specifically I have the music of their warp cores committed to memory.”
“The news, Ra-Havreii,” she said, happy to feel something as mundane as irritation with his wandering conversation.
“I listened to the warp core at the crash site, Commander,” said the engineer. “And I can tell you that, beyond any doubt whatsoever, while that is certainly a crashed Luna-class Starfleet vessel spread over the ground out there, it is, just as unequivocally, not the Starship Titan.”
Part Two
Then Soon Now Once
Once Then Soon Now
Now Once Then Soon
Soon Now Once Then
-Tholian Axiom, First Iteration
Chapter Nine
There was a split second-just long enough for everyone who was watching to realize what was coming-and then the wave hit.
Titanscreamed as the surge of energy washed over it and through it as well. Metal twisted, software spiraled chaotically, and every member of her crew scrambled to protect whatever they could from the onslaught, mostly to little avail.
The effect went through them all like a wave, inspiring everything from nausea and disorientation in some to catatonic neural shutdown in more than a few.
Every device or system that dealt with or utilized energy fields as a matter of course buckled or shut down or exploded.
Engineers blanched as the warp core bubbled and seized, riffling though the color spectrum until the plasma inside was nearly translucent.
Rossini barked orders at his subordinates, including for someone to heft the stricken Ensign Torvig up from where he’d fallen on the deck and get him to sickbay ASAP. As it had before, the pulse had hit Torvig as hard as it had any of Titan’s mechanical systems-perhaps harder, as his mind certainly knew what was happening to his body. Titan, at least, couldn’t feel pain or terror.
As he tried not to focus on the frail body of his friend twitching and writhing on the floor, his cybernetic appendages flailing wildly, Rossini couldn’t help but think that Torvig’s condition mirrored that of Titan.
All around him there was pandemonium as those few who hadn’t been slammed into bulkheads or pitched over high railings ran to get their machines back under their control.
Ten people trying to do the work of forty, he thought. Good luck.
He didn’t feel he was ready for this, despite having survived Titan’s other harrowing adventures, but with the chief engineer off-ship and Baars having been knocked unconscious when he’d fallen from one of the upper tiers, he didn’t have time to let his insecurities reign. It was him or no one. He’d always hoped his time as chief engineer would follow years of climbing up through the ranks, after which he’d get assigned to some small research vessel where he could learn by doing and not have to worry too much about being killed.
His greatest fear had always been of being given too much responsibility before he was confident he could handle it, and now here he was, living the nightmare. Although he might not be living it long if Titan’s warp core kept behaving as it was.
His eyes stayed focused on the core as he prayed for it to return to its normal blue-white oscillation. If it settled in the next few seconds, thirty at most, they might have a chance of not being killed. If it didn’t settle, well, best not to think too much about that.
“Secure for manual core ejection,” he bellowed to the room. “On my mark!”
Bodies leaped to do as they’d been ordered. With her still-working arm Kanenya waved down from the uppermost tier that she was set. Someone had grabbed up poor Torvig and was in the process of hauling him away when the Choblik’s rear appendage whipped out, latched onto the doorframe, and held fast.
“No!” he said. “No, I can help. With the core.”
“You’ve got twenty seconds,” said Rossini.
“Tuvok!” shouted Will Riker, pulling himself back into the captain’s chair. Like everyone else on the bridge, he’d been hurled to the floor as the massive wave of energy hit. “Status!”
Somehow the Vulcan managed to maintain poise even in this circumstance, though the message he related in his calm baritone was less than reassuring.
“Shields are buckling and down to thirty-one percent,” he said. “Failure is imminent. Artificial gravity and basic life support have failed on decks eight and thirteen. Titan’s warp core is cycling toward inversion.”
Riker heard the casualty reports flooding in from everywhere. Dr. Ree obviously had his work cut out for him. There were people with shattered extremities and cracked skulls; at least a couple of the telepaths were incoherent. None of the children had been hurt, thank God. Only scared out of their minds. Riker knew how they felt.
“Computer,” he said. “Initiate warp core ejection protocol. Authorization: Riker-Beta-One-Zero-Two.”
“Unable to comply. Ejection system offline,”said the computer. The ship lurched again, violently, and he had the horrible notion in his mind of Titanrolling end over end in the darkness until the core finally killed them all.
“Captain,” said Lavena, struggling to keep not only her seat but also what little control she had of the helm. “I’m getting massive torque readings on the port nacelle strut.”
“How bad?” he said.
“Bad, sir,” she replied. “Too much more of this and it will definitely splinter.”
“Bridge to engineering,” he said and was quickly answered by a very tense-sounding Ensign Rossini. “Where is Baars?”
“Down, sir,”said Rossini. “Along with about twenty of the shift.”
My God, he sounds young, thought Riker. And scared to death. “I need you to perform a manual core ejection, Ensign.”
“Yes, sir,”said Rossini, obviously unhappy about it. “But there’s just one thing.”
“Now, son,” said Riker. “No time for any alternate plans.”
“ But, sir, I think,”came Rossini’s voice, a little stronger maybe, a bit more firm. “I think we fixed the problem.”
Riker was about to ask the young engineer what the hell he was talking about when, all of a sudden, the lights stopped flickering, Lavena gasped as her helm control returned, and Riker could feel his stomach properly seated inside him, which signified that the artificial gravity was no longer a problem.
“Well done, Ensign,” said Riker, sweeping his gaze around the bridge to take in the damage.
It seemed minimal. Tuvok was at his station, hip-deep in incoming data. Lavena grumbled over her helm but in a way that seemed less frantic and doubtful than it had in the previous minutes. Bohn and Kesi were back at navigation and science, respectively, and while the ship continued to lurch in the throes of the alien energy storm, it did so with considerably less violence. They were all right for the moment. Titanwas all right.
“Tuvok,” he said, dreading the response. He had felt Deanna’s flash of panicked warning just before the wave had exploded at them apparently from nowhere. He had felt the sudden and absolute absence of her presence in his mind. He had felt it like an icy spear ripping through him, and now he felt the ache of the wound. “What about the shuttle?”