Edison, who had been as stunned as the others at discovering the structure, looked over at the man. “The end of what?”
“Of everything.”
Donners fought to keep her anger in check and succeeded barely, taking a few threatening steps towards Frobisher. “I don’t have time for your dramatics. I have already lost people over this and I’d be damned if I lose anyone else because of you. I want to know that thing is and I want to know why it is here. And while you are at it, I want to know where exactly here is.”
“Sir,” Daystrom said with apparent urgency and before Frobisher could answer. “I am getting new readings from the object.” His face seemed to be draining of color. “Sir, it’s—“
All computer screens on the bridge switched off to display a single symbol, the meaning of which this crew had come to learn intimately. A single, blue Greek letter had appeared on the screens all around the bridge.
“Not this again,” Donners moaned, painfully remembering her very first mission on
Agamemnon when she had first come across the Omega Directive and which had directly led to the destruction of an entire civilization when they had decided to meddle with powers far beyond their understanding.
Fully cognizant that all bridge systems would remain on lockdown until she took action, she quickly headed for the nearest computer station and entered her authorization code which promptly restored standard functionality to all systems.
Daystrom who had his own personal history with the powerful Omega molecule which had just tripped the ship’s sensors, didn’t need to elaborate much on what had just happened. “It’s coming from the structure, sir,” he said. “Sensors are detective a massive build-up of the molecule.”
“Is it … moving?” said Vej, who stared at the object on the screen.
Donners followed his gaze and could see it too. The massive structure was in motion. Very slowly but seemingly speeding up by the second.
“Confirmed,” said Daystrom. “It has begun to spin on its own axis. Moving at about 500 meters per second and accelerating at an increasing rate.”
She ship began to tremble. Nowhere as dangerously as when it had first entered this realm but enough to make Donners nervous.
“The movement is causing increased gravimetric interference. Shields are holding for now but this is will only become worse as the structure’s momentum increases,” the science officer said as he studied his panels.
The captain glanced towards the tactical officer. “Keep shields and inertial dampeners as maximum.”
The Aurelian nodded and followed her instructions.
But Frobisher simply shook his head.
“Damn it, I want some answer now,” she fumed.
“I’m sorry, Captain.”
That was not what she had wanted to hear. “It’s too late to be sorry.”
He nodded. “Yes, you are absolutely correct. It is. But when we spoke earlier, when I asked you, begged you to come here, I hoped that we wouldn’t find this here. And even if we did, I prayed we would be in time to stop it,” he said and looked back at the screen, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Captain, but it cannot be stopped. Not anymore. Not here.”
“What does that mean?” Edison said.
Frobisher ignored the first officer and stepped even closer to the captain but was held back by Mer’iab after only a couple of more steps. “You have to take me back. I’m not sure yet what all this means, and I know you have no reason to trust me, but our only chance, the only chance for the rest of us, is if you take me back to where you found me. But you have to do it now.”
Donners shook her head as if she was entertaining a madman. "You'll go nowhere but back to the brig."
The bridge shook again, stronger this time and more suddenly as if something powerful had gripped it. Donners and everyone else standing were forced to grab something for support in order not to lose their balance. She turned back to her science officer. "That wasn't gravimetric interference."
“No, sir. The structure is beginning to emit massive amounts of radiation and we were just hit with a first wave.”
“That radiation,” said Frobisher, “is deadly to everything. We need to get out of here now.”
Donners did her best to ignore the scientist. “Wayne?”
“Difficult to say. It's not something I've ever come across, and there are no matches in our database. However, the wave has caused a reduction in our shields by point four percent and the radiation is increasing exponentially.”
Donners understood what this meant, the longer they stayed in the place, the quicker their shields would be drained. They had to move. “Alright, let’s get some distance to this thing. Helm, reverse course, back us off.”
“If we reverse course we will run into the same barrier we struck when we first entered this space,” said Daystrom urgently. “We might experience the same effects.”
“Adjust your shields to sixteen point two kilo-electronvolts, and keep your speed to under one-quarter impulse, that should allow us to cross back into normal space without taking damage to the ship."
Donners shot daggers at the scientist for a moment. But then she nodded. They couldn’t stay in place and returning to normal space seemed to be their best option for now. It seemed unlikely to her that Frobisher, no matter how crazy he was, would give them a frequency that would harm the ship he was traveling on himself. “Do it. Alter our shield modulation and keep your speed below one-quarter sublight.”
Moments later
Agamemnon trembled slightly once more, as if encountering resistance in her path, but it was nothing compared to their first crossing. The main screen displayed the bountiful Amargosa Diaspora again, set against a suddenly quite soothing black void of space.
“Give me an aft view,” Donners said as she took her chair again.
But there was nothing there. The oddly rosy and white space, as well as the superstructure, had completely disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place, instead replaced once more with the more familiar look of the dense star cluster.
“I am still reading the radiation waves,” said Daystrom. “They have increased at an even higher rate.” He paused for a moment, his face scrunching up in a frown as he studied his readouts. “Space immediately around the coordinates of the barrier seems to be disintegrating.”
Donners shot him a puzzled look. “Disintegrating? How?”
“I’m not sure, it seems as if the radiation is somehow breaking down matter on a molecular level and an astonishing rate. At the current speed of expansion, the outer crest of the wave will overtake us in two minutes and twenty seconds.”
The captain stood back up, unable to remain in her chair considering what she had just learned. “How do we stop it?”
Frobisher beat Daystrom to an answer. “You can’t, Captain. It cannot be stopped.”
“I refuse to accept that.” She headed towards the helm station and where Bobby DeSoto sat. “Keep us away ahead of that wave, Mister. Adjust your speed as required.”
“Aye, sir,” the young helmsman said before entering the required prompts into his console.
From her position at the front of the bridge, she turned to face her crew. “I want solutions. There must be a way to counteract this wave.”
"We could try to bombard it with graviton particles but at this point, that would be like using a bucket to hold back the tide. The wave is expanding in all direction at speeds that will shortly exceed our own," said Daystrom, sounding entirely deflated at realizing their inability to prevent what was happening.
“I am so sorry, Captain,” said Frobisher, “there is no way to stop what is happening. That annihilation wave will not stop. There is nothing anyone can do about this. But there might be a chance to stop this from happening somewhere else. You have to let me go. You have to take me back.”
But Donners was not ready to hear this.
“We are no longer able to keep ahead of the wave,” said DeSoto while his fingers danced frantically over his console. “We are already at warp nine point nine.”
And judging by the way the deck plates rattled under her feet, Donners knew that her ship had reached its upper limit. It wouldn’t be able to sustain this speed for much longer.
“Donners to engineering. Geordi, I need everything you can put into the engines and then some.”
But her chief engineer’s answer was not encouraging.
“You’ve already got everything we have, Captain. And she won’t hold together for much longer like this,” La Forge said, the strain on his voice mirroring what they were putting on their warp engine.
“Do what you can. Bridge out.”
The lights and a number of computer consoles on the bridge began to flicker. She knew it wasn’t related to their high speed.
Agamemnon should have been able to sustain it for at least a little while longer.
“We are being exposed to a high level of the radiation, ship systems are starting to fail,” said Daystrom.
And then she felt it too. It started with a tingling sensation on her skin but it quickly went much deeper. She was getting dizzy and suddenly felt weak in her knees. She thought that she wouldn't be able to stand up much longer. "What's happening?"
“Massive molecular decay,” said Daystrom who sounded much more strained all of a sudden, as if he was beginning to experience difficulties in forming the words. “It’s affecting everything around us, including biological matter.”
Donners watched crewmembers all around her starting to collapse, unable to stand on their own feet anymore. And just before she thought she was losing her balance as well, she felt somebody grabbing hold of her. She looked to her right to see that Frobisher had stepped up next to her and was slowly helping her back into her chair.
“This is your doing.”
He shook his head. “No. I am—I was, trying to stop it. Please, we don’t have much time left.”
She looked up at him even as her vision was becoming increasingly more foggy and distorted. But it seemed obvious that whatever was affecting her and her crew had no effect whatsoever on him. She reached up to wipe away the blood that was beginning to trickle down her nose. Then she saw Vej, climbing into the chair next to hers. "Read him."
“Not without his—“
“We don’t have time for ethics anymore,” she hissed. “Read him.”
Frobisher nodded. “Do it,” he said and took a knee in front of the Ullian counselor.
Vej focused on the scientist and Donners could see his eyes opening wide as he started to nod. But a sudden coughing fit seemed to interrupt his telepathic link and prevented him from speaking.
“Goddamnit,” Donners swore. She wanted to help her friend but decided her priorities lay elsewhere. “Bobby, change our course … get us back to where we picked up—“
But DeSoto was no longer sitting in his chair, instead, he was lying motionless on the floor next to his seat, leaving the ship without a pilot.
“Help me up, help me get to the helm,” she said to Frobisher.
He didn't hesitate and pulled her back to her feet and led her to the CONN, where she fell into the chair. Operating the controls were a struggle but she somehow managed to alter their course,
Agamemnon responding more sluggishly than she had ever before. At least her warp engines were still running, and at their present high warp speed, they would reach the location of the anomaly where they had found Frobisher's ship within only a couple of minutes.
She also checked the internal sensors and she found that his vessel was still in the shuttle bay, and just like him, it showed no signs of any damage at all while the ship around them was falling apart.
Donners found a small phaser attached underneath the console and brought it up with a shaky hand, aiming it at the scientist.
Frobisher’s eyes widened in shock and he took a step back.
“Restraints,” she said.
Understanding dawned on his face and he presented her his shackled wrists.
Donners fired the phaser, keeping it on the lowest setting to avoid hurting him, and after a couple of seconds, the restraints fell to the deck. She then reached out for him, grabbing hold of his arm and pulling him closer until she was able to take hold of his neck to pull his head near hers. Her eyes piercing him like icicles. “Go and fix this.”
He nodded as much as he could with her hand tightly on his neck.
It slipped away and he headed for the exit.
“I’ll try to get you … as close as I can. Shuttle bay doors … already open.”
“Thank you, Captain. And for what’s worth. I am truly sorry.”
She uttered a little laugh. “Sure you are.”
She heard the turbolift doors opening and closing behind her but couldn’t find the strength to turn and look. Not that it mattered much. She had done everything she could. Whatever happened next was up to Frobisher. And she didn't even know what it was he could do. All she knew for certain was that it was over for her. For her ship and her crew and maybe even for everything else.
She forced herself to stay conscious for two more minutes during which
Agamemnon shot passed the initial anomaly they had detected. Sensors had failed by that time and she couldn’t tell if Frobisher had gotten to his ship and managed to depart or not.
When she looked back up at the screen, all she could see was a washed out emptiness.
The galaxy war tearing itself apart.
“And this could have been such a beautiful day.”
The story continues in
Quantum Divergence
