3
It was by far the largest stellar scale megastructure Michael had ever laid eyes upon, and as far as he knew, quite possibly the largest one anyone had ever come across. In fact, he had some difficulties getting his mind to come to grips with the sheer size of this thing they had encountered. Even Xylion, with his precise and calculated Vulcan mind had so far only been able to offer an educated guess on its exact dimensions while
Eagle’s computer still worked on the calculations, clearly encountering some difficulties in this unfamiliar environment.
It was at least five hundred million kilometers in diameter, more than twice the size of the largest space structure previously encountered by Starfleet—a Dyson sphere of unknown origin—and with a diameter far exceeding that of an average giant star.
Answers to most of their questions still eluded them but a few things were clear. The structure was ring-shaped, composed of solanogen, neutronium and elements of unknown materials, sensors were not able to penetrate the hull, if the shiny dark surface was, in fact, a hull, and a consensus had been quickly reached that no known race would have had the technological capacity to build such a structure, certainly not the Krellonians.
Michael and half of the bridge crew, including Star and Bensu, had assembled around the two aft science stations where Xylion was now working on trying to provide some, if not, any answers to this mystery, assisted by Deen and Hopkins who had since joined the bridge.
“With sensors remaining unable to penetrate any sections of the object in our vicinity, we have no means to determine its purpose,” Xylion said as he worked on the science station, seemingly consulting multiple displays and read-outs all at once.
“It doesn’t help that sensors aren’t very reliable here. Wherever here is,” said Deen, sitting at the Vulcan’s side. “I’m getting a great deal of confusing and contradictory readings for anything beyond one thousand kilometers.”
“We could try and use probes,” said Hopkins who had taken a seat at Deen’s right. The engineer wasn’t able to keep the excitement over this discovery out of her voice. “We could deploy them all along the object at regular intervals which may give us more definitive readings on its composition and maybe its function. We won’t have enough to cover the entire thing but we could start replicating more,” she said and then turned around to consider her audience.
“We need to find a way to get into the portal?” Jarik said.
“What makes you think it even has an interior?”
But Jarik didn’t seem to notice the suspicious look in Michael’s eyes as he kept his focus on the information being displayed on the consoles in front of him. “It has.”
Michael glanced at his father who offered little in response to this before his eyes once again focused on the man who had been his apparent successor. "I am starting to feel that you know much more about this portal—if that's even what this is— than you are letting on. And I'm inclined to stop any further actions here until I learn what it is you know."
Jarik met his stare defiantly but said nothing.
“When we approached this area and Bensu suggested a change of our shield frequency you were surprisingly quick to agree with it. I wonder why that is, considering that you’ve been nothing but skeptical about his assistance up to that point,” Michael continued.
“It is fortunate that Bensu did suggest the adjustment,” said Xylion. “This entire area is flooded with high-frequency subspace distortions. Had we attempted to enter this space without the adjustment,
Eagle may have taken catastrophic damage.”
“And you knew this,” Michael said, shooting Jarik an accusatory stare.
He quickly shook his head. "I did not. Sixteen point two kilo-electron volts was the exact same frequency the crew of the
Enterprise used when encountering the subspace aliens for the first time. I simply recognized the frequency.”
Deen nodded as she checked the records. “He’s right about that.”
“I’m still not satisfied that you’ve told us everything you know about what we are up against here,” Michael said and then included his father in his condemning glare.
“I’ve shared everything I know,” said Jon Owens. “If there is one person here who clearly knows much more than he’s letting on, I would think it is obvious who that is.” He glanced over to Bensu who was standing slightly apart from the others. “You couldn’t have known about the shield frequency the
Enterprise discovered and yet you did.”
“I already told you—“
“You don’t know how you know,” Jarik said, finishing the sentence for the enigmatic man who until recently had been a mere barkeep. “Yes, that’s all very convenient.”
But Michael was not yet willing to suspect Bensu and let his father and Jarik off the hook. After all, as far as he knew, only the latter two had outright lied to him. “Let's assume for a moment this thing is a subspace portal as your intelligence suggest. What do you know about this area of space? Clearly, we are not in the Amargosa Diaspora any longer.”
But both men offered nothing more than blank looks in return.
Michael decided to give up and turned back towards his science and engineering team.
“Starfleet has never, to our knowledge, encountered this realm before. I won’t be able to offer a full analysis without further study, but the composition of our surroundings seems consistent with elements we know to exist in subspace,” Xylion said.
“So we are inside subspace?” said Star.
Xylion shook his head slightly. “Not directly. The best hypothesis I can offer at this time is that we are currently occupying a transitional space between our own space and the realm we refer to as subspace.”
“In-between space,” said Deen which Michael didn't find particularly helpful as he turned back and took a few steps away to look towards the viewscreen at the front of the bridge where the ominous, swirling mass of in-between space greeted him, along with just a minuscule section of the massive ring structure that occupied the entire area. As a man who had made a career out of traveling and exploring the stars, their prominent absence, as well as the lack of the familiar black void of space, felt rather disquieting. Not to mention the presence of a giant megastructure of unknown origin or purpose, looming just ahead, dwarfing
Eagle the way a blue whale would a common ant.
“Commander,” said Star. “I know we’re not able to scan the structure, but do you detect any odd energy readings from the object?”
Michael could see by the way Xylion raised one of his arched eyebrows that he found the question somewhat perplexing. Of course, he knew exactly what she was getting at. “How do you define odd, Commander?”
“Anything out of the ordinary,” said Star but must have realized the absurdity of her question even as the words came over her lips.
“Is there anything around here that isn’t out of the ordinary?” said Deen.
Star acceded the point and then joined Michael who had moved up to the horseshoe-shaped tactical console and few steps away from the rest of the group. They considered the viewscreen together. “No sign of the molecule,” she said in a subdued voice nobody else would be able to overhear.
“Probably because we can’t scan inside that thing.”
“If it is inside,” she said. “If it is powering a structure of that size, the amount of energy it might be able to produce could be enough to make it capable of just about anything.”
Michael nodded slightly but with trepidation. It had been a thought that had crossed his mind as well. And it frightened him.
“Bensu, are you feeling alright?”
DeMara's concerned tone forced Michael to turn back towards the rest of his people and he immediately spotted the only civilian among them in noticeable discomfort. He had closed his eyes and was leaning heavily against one of the aft workstations.
Leva and Deen were tending to him.
“Something is happening,” he said.
Michael and Star quickly closed in on him. “Can you try and be more specific?” he said.
Deen pinned him with a disapproving glare, likely not appreciating the way he was prioritizing his mission over a crewmember's well-being but Michael chose to ignore this for now.
Bensu reached for his head, almost as if attempting to stop it from spinning. Then he opened his eyes wide. “Something immensely powerful. I am not sure I can do it justice by explaining it in words. But it is, quite literally, taking my breath away,” he said with tears welling up.
Michael and Star exchanged worried looks, Omega on both their minds.
“It is close, Captain,” he continued. “Very close.”
“The structure,” said Star.
He shook his head. “No. Much closer than that.”
“Sir, I am detecting an energy spike,” said Xylion as he quickly refocused his attention from Bensu to the science station.
Both Michael and Star whipped around, their minds still preoccupied with the terrifying thoughts of the immeasurable powers the structure might be able to unleash. “What’s happening?” Michael said.
“Unclear,” said Deen. “But it seems to originate from the space at the very center of the ring structure.”
“On screen,” Michael said and turned to look.
At first, he could see nothing there but more of that pinkish mass which had replaced the dark matter of space but within just a few moments something began to bloom there. A bright, radiating light which had started out as a pinpoint but was rapidly growing outwards, swallowing up whatever had been there before.
“Analysis?”
“Sensors are unable to determine the nature or the composition of the anomaly, however, I can confirm that it is growing at a rate of approximately five-thousand meters per second,” Xylion said.
Before Michael could fire off another order, the deck plates underneath his boots shook so suddenly, he would have lost his balance if he hadn’t grabbed hold of the tactical console nearby.
“Sir, I’m reading a massive gravimetric force we seem to gotten caught in,” said Milestone who had since retaken the helm from which she had been temporarily evicted earlier. Her fingers were racing across her console, seemingly trying to regain control.
“Red alert,” Star shouted and then took a moment to help Deen back onto her feet after she had lost her footing.
Michael strode back towards the command area of the bridge while Deen returned to the forward facing ops station to relieve Stanmore. Star joined the captain, taking her chair next to the center seat.
“The gravimetric force is originating from the anomaly,” Xylion reported but Michael had already deduced that much.
“We are being pulled towards it,” said Deen after she had checked her sensor feeds.
“Engage impulse engines, full reverse. Put some distance between us and that structure,” said Michael.
But Milestone didn’t appear to have much success judging by the way she was shaking her head with frustration. “I cannot produce enough thrust to counter the effects of the anomaly.”
“Can we go to warp?” said Star.
“I would not recommend it,” offered Hopkins who had moved over a few stations to man the bridge engineering console. “The hull may not be able to withstand the strain and we could literally rip ourselves apart in the attempt. Not to mention that we don’t yet understand the laws of physics of this area of space. Warp might not even work here.”
“The anomaly is continuing to expand,” said Xylion. “The gravimetric forces are increasing at a proportional rate. At our current acceleration towards the anomaly, I anticipate that we will make contact with it in sixty-four seconds.”
Michael turned to look for his father to implore him once more for answers. He still felt certain that he knew far more than he had shared, possibly even possessed knowledge that could stop them from being dragged into an unknown subspace phenomenon. But he couldn’t see him anywhere and didn’t have the time to look. He regarded the bartender instead who was doing his best to hold on to the port auxiliary console. “Bensu, any ideas?”
“I wish I had, Captain. That power I’ve felt earlier, it’s still here and it is like I’m experiencing a familiar sensation about all this but it’s buried deep inside my mind. Not unlike a distant whisper you hear in the dark. You know it’s there but you cannot make out what it is trying to tell you.” He seemed genuinely frustrated at not being able to offer more than he did.
“Well, try to remember quickly,” he said and looked back at the view screen and that growing mass of pulsing white light threatening to swallow them whole any second now.
“Full power to shields and structural integrity,” said Star. “Pump everything we’ve got left into inertia dampeners. Advise all stations on all decks to brace for impact.”
“Ten seconds to contact,” said Deen.
There was nothing left to say, Michael realized as he clutched the armrests of his chair so tightly, his knuckles were beginning to turn white. There was little that was more frustrating than the helpless feeling of knowing that you were about to be dropped into a big hole without knowing the first thing about what to expect at the bottom of it. He didn’t even know if it had a bottom or if
Eagle could survive the fall. But if they wanted to or not, they were about to find out.
“Contact,” Deen said just before she braced herself against her console, as did everyone around her.
The bright light on the bridge almost immediately winked out and darkness engulfed them before Michael’s senses were attacked by a vast array of colors so diverse, he was sure he wouldn’t have been able to name a fraction of them.
The light show was so intense and all-encompassing, he seemed to lose his grasp on reality. His chair, the deck, the bulkheads, even the people all around him seemed to disappear as he felt himself floating weightlessly through empty space.
The endless attack on his visual spectrum seemed too much for his eyes or his brain to register and soon all he could make out were flashes of light so powerful, he thought they were burning his retinas and shooting fiery lances of pain deep into his skull.
He wanted to scream but he couldn’t hear his voice anymore, he couldn’t hear anything at all. He couldn’t even tell how much time had passed since they had entered what could only be described as pure and total madness. He couldn’t be sure if it had been seconds or days.
And the uncertainty just continued to spread like a cancer burrowing itself through his mind at light speed. Had they entered into an unknown realm of space or had it all been a dream, a waking vision of sorts, torturing what little was left of his rational brain? Had there been a structure or had it all just been a figment of his imagination? Was his father alive or dead? Was Amaya Donners a friend or a foe? Had he ever truly taken steps into subspace, coming across an alien race and had Bensu saved his life or had he never been there at all?
Visions began to flood his memory. Visions of things he thought he knew and visions of things he thought he could never possibly have known. It was all blurring together like different shades of ink swirling on a blank page. Nothing seemed certain, everything was suddenly possible. Nothing he had known had ever taken place and yet at the same time, everything had happened all at once.
His brother Matthew had died many years ago but he had also lived. His mother had perished in an accident when he had been a child but she had also raised him until he had left home as an adolescent. His father had been a caring family man, putting his wife and children before anything else in the universe, and he had also abandoned them all to pursue his Starfleet career. Amaya Donners had been his best friend, his lover, his wife, and his greatest enemy. The Dominion had been vanquished in their long war and the Federation Alliance had been utterly destroyed. The Borg had been pushed back again and again in their single-minded attempts to conquer humanity, and they had assimilated all of Earth and the Federation.
He saw a countless number of possibilities flash in front of his eyes, each lasting less than a second and an eternity, all searing itself into his brain only to disappear again before he could grasp their meaning.
And then he felt an anguish the likes of which he had never experienced before. It was the despair of an infinite number of souls which had seen the bright light of existence one moment before they were claimed by the crushing darkness of annihilation the next.
Michael could be sure of only one thing. He was losing his mind.
It wasn’t until he felt the coppery taste of blood in his mouth that the first strands of sanity seemed to return like scarce rays of light pushing through thick clouds after a storm.
He felt something hard and unforgiving just underneath him. He opened his eyes hesitantly, fearing what he would find.
Nothing was in focus and the world around him was a blurred and indistinguishable mess. He could make out rough shapes which looked familiar but he found impossible to name.
The sensation in his extremities returned slowly and immediately punished him with excruciating pain he wasn’t sure he had ever experienced before. He felt as if he had been fed through a woodchipper and then haphazardly reassembled.
He remained there, splayed out on the deck, for what felt like minutes, unable to move a single muscle.
Sound seemed to return before his vision and his ability to move. After decades of serving on a starship, he was quite familiar with the tones and resonances created by the equipment required to travel the stars and he recognized it instantly, even if he could tell from experience that something wasn’t quite right. The ship was hurting.
That revelation seemed to be enough to force him into action and ignoring the pain he felt, he slowly began to push himself off the floor until he was on his hands and knees. He very nearly collapsed again, but when his vision finally cleared, and he was able to make out his bridge, he fought to pull himself up onto his knees. He spat out some blood but when he felt his face, he could sense no external injuries at all.
He tried to speak, his instincts telling him that he needed to know how bad things were, how much damage the ship had taken and how many people had died, but none of those words managed to come out.
He craned his neck up to look towards the tactical station and he saw Bensu standing there instead of Leva or Alendra. His fingers were working on the station but he stopped when he spotted the captain looking up at him.
“The ship is still in one piece,” he said, sounding to Michael as if he was speaking with a dozen voices all at once. “According to internal sensors the crews’ life signs are weak and intermittent. Most of our systems seem to be scrambled. I think life support is stable but I can’t really tell much more.”
Michael wanted to ask where they had ended up but again, couldn’t quite get the words to form in his mouth. Bensu seemed to notice his struggles and quickly rounded the station to come to his help. “Take it easy,” he said as he helped him to stand up. “Whatever we just went through didn’t just scramble our systems. The entire crew has been affected.”
He couldn’t manage to stand and Bensu helped him to his chair instead. All around him he could see the rest of the crew littering the deck. “See … to … others.”
Bensu seemed to understand and began to help those who were regaining consciousness back to their chairs, all of whom were dazed and clearly not fully aware of what was happening.
Michael attempted to check on the ship status using the console in his armrest but Bensu had been right in saying that most ship functions were offline. He tried the viewscreen and when he looked up he could see it flickering to life, even though heavily distorted with interference.
He could see stars again but he wasn’t entirely sure anymore if they had ever gone away in the first place or if they had always been there.
There was as starship which looked very much like the
Agamemnon. He seemed to have a faint recollection of giving an order to advise the other ship of their last position. What he couldn’t tell was if he had given that order a few hours ago or if it had been days or even weeks.
Agamemnon was not alone.
The other ship looked as familiar as the reflection in a mirror.
His console indicated an incoming transmission and he accepted it.
The still flickering viewscreen shifted to show another bridge just like his own. A man stood there and stared back at him. He had seen that man before in his dreams.
“This is Captain Edison of the Starship
Eagle,” the man said with a crisp English accent, unable to keep anger and suspicion out of his voice.
“Gene Edison,” Michael said, his voice distant to his own ears. The name though was as familiar as his face. He knew that man, or had known him once.
“Yes,” he said sharply. “And I want to know who the bloody hell you are and where the blazes you’ve come from.”
Quantum Divergence continues in
Book II: State of Entanglement
Coming this Fall
This will either work brilliantly, or it’ll be an unmitigated disaster, there can be no middle ground. I love the Niner’s individual characters, and I can only wonder at the havoc they’ll wreck if given the opportunity.
