“Space-time, sir,” said the cadet. “Everything the Orishan technology has done has in some way manipulated space-time similarly to the way we use warp fields to travel.”
“Similarly,” said Riker. “But not the same way.”
“No, sir,” said Dakal. “At least, not in every case. We’d need to get a look at their technology to see how they’re doing it, but we now know that the instability in this area is the result of multiple folds in the local space-time. Even their weapons are not warping space so much as aggressively folding it. I have to admit that I didn’t know the difference before, but it’s significant.”
Riker knew the difference. Warp fields created bubbles, relatively small ones, around a given vessel, allowing it to mildly bend physical laws in order to bypass relativistic speed limits. His mind flashed to his Academy days and a lecture hall where a very stern professor had stripped a hard-boiled egg of its shell, squeezed it into a plastic tube that was slightly too small, and then applied suction at both ends.
The analogy wasn’t exact, of course: the demo had been to show the fragility of any object traveling within a warp field. The technology was so ubiquitous that most sentients forgot very quickly exactly how dangerous it actually was to circumvent physical laws in that way. The image of that egg exploded all over the interior of the tube never left Riker’s mind for long, and with Dakal’s little lecture, it resurfaced.
Space folds, by contrast, needed no such visual analogies. Their name told the story quite literally. Usually by means of massive manipulation of gravimetric fields, space-time could be folded in on itself in order to bring two usually distant points close together. But the technology to make even simple short-distance folds was so dangerous that most civilizations abandoned it in favor of warp fields early on. Those that didn’t tended to destroy themselves when their folds destabilized their suns or knocked their planets out of their normal orbits.
“Someone has folded a lot of space-time here, sir,” said Dakal. “Too much for anything like safety, and something has caused the knot they made to unravel.”
“This is all well and good,” said Riker, trying not to seem too harsh with them. They had obviously been attacking this problem nonstop since the first quantum ripples had been discovered. “But how does that help us now?”
“Well,” said Dakal. “We think, now that we know the exact nature of the effects in question, as well as the nature of the Orishan weapons, we may have a solution.”
“A partial solution,” said Hsuuri softly. Dakal nodded.
“You can get us moving again?” said Riker.
“Maybe not that, sir,” said Roakn, stepping in to make sure they didn’t give the captain more hope than was warranted. “Local conditions and the ship’s own geometry still make the warp core too unstable to generate a viable bubble around Titan.”
“But,” said Peya Fell, “we think we can stabilize things enough to get the shields up to full and keep them there. And we can give Titanher phasers again.”
“What’s the catch?” said Riker.
“The catch, sir?” said Dakal, looking to the others for assistance.
“There’s always something, Cadet,” said the captain. “A downside to the plan. Some tiny flaw that makes the course of action we’re contemplating less than appealing.”
“Time, sir,” said Dakal at last. “It will take us another three hours, minimum, to complete the necessary modifications.”
“Riker to bridge,” said the captain. When Tuvok responded, he asked the Vulcan how long the shields could withstand the pressure from the Orishan grapple before collapsing.
“If all local conditions remain constant,”said Tuvok’s voice evenly. “Approximately two hours and thirty-six minutes.”
Titanlurched violently, forcing all present to grab the nearest stationary object or be knocked to the floor.
“The Orishan vessel has increased the pressure, Captain,”said Tuvok again. “We now have two hours and seventeen point six minutes.”
Riker’s eyes fell on the TOV apparatus clustered dark and unused in its designated alcove. He smiled.
“All right, people,” he said. “Why don’t we see if we can make local conditions a little less constant.”
Chapter Ten
The second quake was worse than the first, and the third and fourth were worse still. Vale and Ra-Havreii sat, listening in silence to the mounting chaos around them.
They could hear the Orishans chittering and calling to each other in terror and desperation. There was so much happening so quickly that their translators could only lift out the odd word here and there among the screams.
The end! Erykon! Fire! No! No! Please!and on and on.
As the foundations of the Spire trembled and shook, Vale allowed herself a grudging admiration for these creatures. They had built downward, deep into the ground, in an attempt to hide their civilization from the wrath of their god, and so far, their structures had withstood the worst their angry deity could dish out.
Still, that didn’t mean Vale wanted herself and the others to be there when and if the walls did come tumbling down.
Had this been a normal cell, with solid doors and pickable locks, she might have had them free already. She had a knack for that sort of thing left over from her peace officer days. The trouble was, there were no locks. Like most of Orishan technology, the cells were a combination of organic material, that metallic resin that seemed to make up ninety percent of their constructions, and the ubiquitous energy fields that had already caused her people so much grief.
Without tools or even a tricorder to generate a disruptive field, they were stuck here in the bowels of a world that was shaking itself to death.
She looked over at Ra-Havreii who, despite their current predicament, seemed somehow more relaxed than she had ever seen him. It was as if he’d been carrying an invisible weight around all this time that was suddenly removed.
He had his combadge off and was fiddling with its guts, trying perhaps to boost its signal enough to contact Keru or Troi. The Orishans, ignorant of their function, had left both Vale and Ra-Havreii with their badges. If Keru had gotten out somehow, or Troi for that matter, the field around Vale and Ra-Havreii might still prevent them making contact.
“How’s it coming, Doctor?” she said.
“Well enough,” he said, still fiddling away. “This is delicate work to be doing in the middle of an earthquake with only a bit of wire for a tool.”
“I feel your pain, Commander,” she said, bracing herself to ride out the current temblor. “But I’d like to feel it on the surface with Troi and Keru, if we can manage that.”
He said something-something pithy, she was sure-but just at that moment, the quaking grew so severe that she was smashed to the floor despite her efforts to hold on.
Then, just as abruptly, the shaking stopped. She pulled herself up again, casting around to see if maybe that last jolt had ripped an opening in the wall that they might climb through. She would even have settled for the damned force field losing power as its unseen generator was crushed under tons of dirt and crystal. No such luck.
The fields and the walls and the ceiling and the floor were all as intact and functional as when she’d been tossed in.
“Dammit,” she said, angry at her complete impotence in the face of this catastrophe. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.”
“Wait, Commander,” he said.
“Wait? Wait for what?”
“Just listen,” he said.
She was about to ask him what there was to hear when she heard it.
Silence.
Absolute, all-pervasive silence had descended on their little prison and, apparently, the universe beyond. There were no screams, no sounds of shredding or exploding machinery, so abject Orishan pleas for Erykon’s nonexistent mercy. There was nothing, nothing at all.