Ghost Ship Part 21

Picard rounded on the tactical station and stood beside Tasha Yar. "Then we're going to have to force it to compact again. Where's that gas giant?"

Yar shook herself and bent over her console. "Bearing point-seven-nine mark three-four, sir."

"Head toward it."

Riker came aft on the lower deck and asked, "Your plan, sir?"

"We're going to hide behind a tree, Mr. Riker," the captain said, moving down the ramp with his hand tracing the shape of the bridge horseshoe. The strange light across the monitors cast a b.l.o.o.d.y purple glow on his face. "It won't be able to absorb all the energy inside a level-ten gas giant a half million miles across. It's going to have to decide to come around one way or the other. When it does, there'll be a standoff."

Riker turned immediately and said, "Geordi, point-five-zero sublight to the gas giant, tight orbit."

"Point-five-zero, aye," Geordi repeated, avoiding a glance at the Ops position, where Wesley had slipped into Data's seat.

Picard kept his voice steady. "Prepare an emergency warning dispatch to Starfleet, single-pulse and high-warp. If we don't make it, I want to be sure the Federation's ready for this. Shields at maximum," he added, holding a hand up to shade his eyes from the sizzling screens.

"Shields up," Yar said shakily. "Maximum energy available for defensive-" She stopped, glaring at her readouts, and almost instantly had to gasp, "Sir, it's moving in!"

"Keep tight to the gas giant. Tighter, LaForge!"

"Trying, sir ... "

Across the Enterprise's shields crashed the punishing force of the phenomenon. It knew where the starship was, but discovered it had found two things-a starship, and a ma.s.sive planet that was virtually a ball of twisting energy. No matter how it contracted, no matter how it closed its fist, the planet confounded every effort to devour the starship. Every time the thing tried to contract upon its quarry, it was driven back by the energy put out by the gas giant. Spasms of electrical energy pounded the ship and flooded through the gas giant's churning atmosphere. The ship defied the attack, shimmying with every pulse of energy that flogged the shields, draining them moment by moment.

"Outer skin heating up, Captain," Yar reported. "We're entering the atmosphere."

Picard ignored her. "Move in closer, LaForge. If it wants us, it's going to have to face us."

"Captain!" Troi shouted. When he neither fired the weapons nor hit that blue b.u.t.ton, frustration crumpled her features and she blinked into the bright screen.

Threads of smoke and fans of sparks shot from half the bridge consoles as the ship fought the mauling once again, but Picard made no further orders. He would stand his ground and so would this ship-though he stood now beside his command chair and gripped the arm with the blue b.u.t.ton.

"Captain!" Yar shrieked then, and raised her eyes to the main screen. Even as she spoke, every screen dropped its color in a great wash forward, as though all the images had been sucked out of the back to the main viewer. The main screen now glowed with a compact view of the creature, back in its original form.

"Get ready!" Picard shouted, but it was already upon them, dashing around the protective tree and pouncing on the ship alone, while beside them the gas giant spun ignorantly.

The Enterprise was taken by a great fist of lightning many times more powerful than that of moments before, and electrical bombardment once again blitzed the bridge.

"Fire phasers point-blank!" Picard ordered over the shrieking noise.

The ship spewed energy. Rocked by each shot, the Enterprise endured the punishment as the radical new phasing system dragged energies apart that wanted to be together, then shoved them into each other at the last instant. The ent.i.ty bucked in the a.s.sault, shaking the ship. Around him Picard saw his crew attacked by the silvery lights and blue undercurrents.

"Shields draining ... " Yar shouted from her post above them.

"Keep firing!" Picard responded, hanging on to the command chair as bolt after bolt of intensified phaser energy thundered through the ship and into the phenomenon's heart.

"The thing's output is becoming unsteady, sir!" Worf shouted over the electrical shriek. "It's working!"

Suddenly the ship trembled so deep in her core that everyone felt it through his feet, and the phasers stopped.

"What-" Picard tried to turn, but managed only to twist the upper half of his body around to see Yar.

"Complete phaser meltdown, Captain! The core's blown!"

Picard's heart sank to his knees and rattled inside the electrical sheath that now strengthened on the bridge.

"Captain!" Troi's face appeared beside his shoulder. She was hanging on to his arm with both hands, her eyes tormented. "Do it! Do it, sir! Please!"

He looked at the blue b.u.t.ton. He pushed his hand toward it. Even as he moved, forcing his quaking muscles to fight against the electrical attack, he felt himself slipping away. The beginnings of the chamber experience ... consciousness beginning to float, to let go ...

Troi's voice pierced his pain and struggle. "Captain!"

The blue b.u.t.ton was an inch away from his thumb.

He concentrated on it, clinging to his ident.i.ty and his memories as if they were ropes dangling in an abyss. If only he could find the energy- "Energy," he ground through his gritted teeth. "The gas giant! Yar!"

But she was helpless, plastered back against Worf by the lightning, which grew stronger with every pulse now that the ship's shielding was strained to its fullest.

"Riker!" Picard roared.

He could vaguely see Riker dragging himself step by agonizing step up the horseshoe rail toward tactical.

A form pressed against Picard's shoulder and a narrow shape came by his elbow ... a hand. Troi's hand. Reaching for the blue b.u.t.ton. He heard her struggling to move past him, to fight off the terrible a.s.sault as she promised she would.

He struck out with his left arm and held her back, but her determination made her strength superhuman and she was pressing harder against his shoulder, her hand clawing toward that b.u.t.ton.

"Let me!" she bellowed through the electrical blasts.

Picard wrenched her away from the command chair with the last of his energy, and the two of them collapsed across the command arena. "Riker," Picard rasped with a final breath, "hurry! Full power!"

Even as he spoke, glowing photon torpedoes broke from the ship's primary hull and crashed down through the gas giant's atmosphere into its active heart, forcing it to release its energy. Bolt after bolt careened downward, drilling into the compacted energy, which spewed back out in great volcanic blasts. And still the ship didn't relent. It continued sending fully charged photon torps deep into the planetary reactor and forcing explosion after explosion, until finally the greatest of all disruptions came. Half the planet's violent core erupted and shot out into s.p.a.ce.

The concussion sent the ship catapulting through open s.p.a.ce, blown out of orbit by megatons of exploding matter.

The ship turned in s.p.a.ce, gravity gone to h.e.l.l, tossing its people about like dolls, and finally settled a quarter million miles from the gas giant.

Picard dragged himself to his feet and stumbled forward. An instant later, Riker was beside him. Around them, the crew grabbed for their control boards and tried to accept the fact that they were still alive-really alive.

Before them on the screen, the creature fluxed and twisted against the glowing rubble of the gas giant's remains. A million explosions raged around them where it was forced to digest the gas giant's released energy and, finally, in one singular blast, was ripped apart.

Nodules of false-color energy splayed outward across the system, and all the glitter was suddenly gone. Only blobs of dissipating energy remained, cascading by the millions around the ship and outward into open s.p.a.ce.

"It couldn't take it...." Riker murmured hoa.r.s.ely.

Picard rasped, "Status!"

Yar's voice trembled. "Shields down ... main reactors unstable. The phaser core is a complete burnout. Totally fused. Nothing but molten metal in there, sir."

"Bet it smells," Geordi grumbled as he pulled himself back into his helm seat and gingerly touched his own equipment. Beside him, Wesley simply held on to the Ops console with both hands, and shook. They both knew. Fused. The whole core. All the safety systems had somehow saved the ship from being part of that meltdown. Wesley's model had had no safeties. If he'd turned it on, it would've created a dead short, the reserve antimatter containment would've collapsed, and a thousand people would've disappeared and Starfleet would never have known why. There was a sudden ringing clarity about why a starship had rules.

Wesley continued to stare, to blink, and the color stayed out from his face for a long, long while.

"Report on that thing?" Picard barked as he got to his feet.

It was Worf who finally came forward on the upper bridge and made the stark announcement. "Dissipated, sir. No central ma.s.s any longer." He looked at Picard directly now and said, "You did it, sir."

Picard sighed, his shoulders aching. "Collaborative effort, Mr. Worf." He stepped to one side now and reached downward for Counselor Troi's hand.

She sat on the floor, stunned, her face a thousand emotions slowly wringing out of her as she regained control. As her hand closed on his it was weak and shaking.

He lifted her to her feet and privately said, "Well done, Counselor. Your prognosis?"

She swallowed hard, then looked up at him and forced herself to speak. "I can't feel them, sir ... anymore."

He smiled. "Congratulations."

Troi nodded, trembling, still working at once again being in total possession of herself. For a fleeting moment, loneliness filled her eyes.

Chapter Thirteen.

GEORDI LAFORGE SAT at his helm with depressingly little to do. The ship couldn't move until the warp engine core was stabilized, and couldn't leave the vicinity anyway, at least not yet. As soon as the immediate danger had blown itself to bits, their duty as a main Federation extension kicked in and they were obliged to make sure the area was secure before they even thought of moving on.

He was one of only five people on the bridge now. Worf and Tasha occupied the upper deck, feeding through the intricate readings that correlated the first repairs on the phaser lockup. The meltdown would take weeks to clean up and mend. Mr. Riker was on the upper deck, speaking quietly to Deanna Troi. The two of them had been talking for a long time. Under different circ.u.mstances, Geordi might have been more curious to know what they were talking about.

The bridge was ominously quiet now. The pit at the center of his soul wouldn't fill. No matter how many of the helm's light displays flashed and hummed to tell him things were being rapidly put together belowdecks, Geordi merely watched dispa.s.sionately. They'd been attacked once before, and engineers were quick learners. This repair would go two times faster than the previous ones. The ship and her complement would proceed to her mission, only slightly bruised from this incident, perhaps even stronger for it, but they would in the end simply move on. Such was sometimes the cost of winning. No real changes.

Except for the empty place beside him, which someone would fill, someone else.

Bitterness filled his mind. What tribute would be made for an android's sacrifice? What memorial would there be for Data? A burial in s.p.a.ce, befitting a Starfleet hero, for the body lying empty and pulsing in sickbay, a body not yet dead, never to be reclaimed? Geordi wondered as he sat if he would be left to mourn alone. If Picard and Riker would clamor to define death as fervently as they had to define life. Or if it really mattered at all. Ultimately they had already failed Data, and nothing would make up for that.

He gazed now, through his visor, at the open s.p.a.ce on the viewscreen. The remains of the gas giant still boiled in s.p.a.ce like the remnants of some primordial explosion, ignorant of their own beauty or their own meaning. Much like Data, who hadn't perceived his own charm or worth.

Geordi slouched in the chair, one elbow braced on the helm, and felt emptier still. He hadn't realized how lost he'd become in his own thoughts until a hand dropped onto his shoulder. Someone wanted his attention, and only the discipline of Starfleet training brought him up through the murk and made him straighten and look.

But it was neither the lordly face of Picard nor Riker's big-brother expression that looked down on him. What he saw was a warm infrared glow, a gentle face and a welcoming smile.

He spun out of his chair and knocked the helm console aside.

"Data ... "

Data caught his arm and kept him from tripping over the Ops lounge, and kept grinning that warm little grin.

Behind him, Captain Picard, Dr. Crusher, and Wesley were watching the unexpected reunion as they too came away from the turbolift toward Geordi. On the ramp, Commander Riker was speechless as he broke away from Troi and came toward them.

"Data!" Geordi gasped again, clasping Data's cool hand and looking deeply into the android's eyes to see if it was indeed Data-and not just some weird new science n.o.body had told him about that could make the body walk around.

"h.e.l.lo, my friend," Data said, humility touching his tone. "I'm sorry to have put you through this."

Geordi squeezed Data's hand with both of his, desperate to feel the essence of life that simply refused to showcase itself, but he couldn't think of anything to say.

"Captain," Riker blurted finally, "Doctor-what happened?"

"We're not sure," Beverly Crusher said with a one-shouldered shrug. "He just slowly came back and started looking around. He was disoriented for a while, but as you can see ... "

Riker grasped Data's arm and pulled him around-not too roughly, but not too gently either. "Data? You all right?"

The android nodded generously. "I feel a bit woofled, sir."

"Do you know what happened to you?"

"Yes, sir. I think I croaked."

Riker stared at him, suddenly breathless, and tried to absorb his presence. It simply wasn't normal for the dead to get up again.

Data seemed sympathetic, or at least touched by Geordi and Riker's reactions. "Truly," he said, "I do not know what happened to me or why I returned. I can only surmise that when the creature got in trouble, it had to release those it was carrying and try to fight for its own existence. Of all the millions of life essences, I alone had a place to come back to. Of course," he added, "I am only guessing."

Breathing quickly, Geordi glanced at the others then back to Data, and laughed his relief away.

"All right, all right," Picard said tolerantly. "Riker, Data, and Mr. Crusher, I want you all waiting for me in my ready room in five minutes, clear?"

"Very clear, sir," Riker murmured, but he was still looking at Data. Looking very protectively this time.

Data looked back, and gave him a grateful nod.

The three of them stood in the captain's ready room, admittedly nervous.

For a few minutes they were companionably silent. Riker ultimately approached Data and held out his hand. "Congratulations. You've got the answer you wanted."

Data took the hand, though he seemed self-conscious now. "Not really, sir. The phenomenon's criteria for life was never clear to us."

"Look," Riker said, cutting him off, "as far as I'm concerned, that was the closest we've come to an authority on what life is. You may not be human, exactly, but it recognized something in you as alive. And ... that's good enough for me. I'm glad you're back."

The android tipped his head and responded, "Thank you for coming after me. That is, as you say, good enough for me."

Wesley folded his lanky arms and commented, "Don't get mushy, guys."

Riker cuffed him. "When you've been dead and come back to life, you can talk about mushy, mister."

"How much trouble do you think we're in?"

With a small shrug, Riker said, "I don't know about you, but I doubt the captain'll be congratulating either Data or me on our ingenuity. Two utility ships lost, disobedience of standing orders-not very pretty."

"At least neither of you melted down the whole phaser core," Wesley commented sullenly.