“Sit down,” he suggested, indicating the empty seat where the first officer usually sat when he wasn’t filling in for the captain. Barclay sank gratefully into the chair, his magnetic boots clanging against the floor as he moved. “All this bio-organic technology is still pretty new to me,” Riker admitted. The first Starfleet vessel to employ the new organic computer systems, he recalled, had been the ill-fated U.S.S. Voyager, now stranded somewhere in the Delta Quadrant. Hardly the most promising of pedigrees, even though its bio-gel packs were hardly responsible for Voyager’s predicament. “What does this have to do with the current situation?”
“Oh, the bio-gel is wonderful stuff,” Barclay declared, scientific enthusiasm overcoming nausea for the moment, “several orders of magnitude faster than the old synthetic subprocessors, and easier to replace.” Riker sensed a lecture coming on, but Barclay caught himself in time and cut to the chase. “Anyway, if the ship’s bio-gel packs absorb enough psychokinetic energy from the barrier, maybe we can divert that energy to the deflectors to protect us from the barrier itself. In effect, we could use part of the galactic barrier’s own power to maintain our shields. Like a fire wall, sort of. It’s the perfect solution!”
“Maybe,” Riker said, not yet convinced. The Enterprise was a lot bigger and more complicated than a simple probe. Besides, if any crew member was going to pull a high-tech rabbit out of his or her hat, Riker would have frankly preferred someone besides Reginald Barclay. No offense, he thought, but where cutting-edge science is concerned I have a lot more faith in Data or Geordi. He turned toward Data. “Is this doable?” he asked the android.
“The data Lieutenant Barclay has recorded is quite provocative,” Data reported. “There are too many variables to guarantee success, but it is a workable hypothesis.”
“Excuse me, Commander,” Alyssa Ogawa said as she came up beside him. Riker felt the press of a hypospray against his forearm, followed by the distinctive tingle of medicinal infusion. Even though he had not suffered any negative effects from the zero gravity yet, he derived a twinge of relief from the procedure. One less thing to worry about, he thought.
“Shields down to ten percent,” Baeta Leyoro stated, continuing her countdown toward doom. A rumble of thunder and a flash of electrical fire accented her warning. The jolt shook the tricorder free from Data’s grip and the instrument began to float toward the ceiling. Data reached for the tricorder, but its momentum had already carried the tricorder beyond his reach. “Hang on,” Leyoro said, plucking her combadge from her chest. She hurled the badge like a discus and it spun through the air until it collided with the airborne tricorder. The force of the collision sent both objects ricocheting backward toward their respective points of origin. Leyoro snatched the badge out of the air even as the tricorder soared back toward Data’s waiting fingers. “Just a little trick I picked up on Lunar V,” she said, referring to the penal colony where she and the other Angosian veterans had once been incarcerated.
Remind me not to play racquetball with her, Riker thought. Or a game of domjot, for that matter.
“Sir, we’re sitting ducks here,” she said. “We have to do something, and fast.”
Riker made his decision. “Let’s risk it,” he declared, rising from the captain’s chair. “Data, you and Barclay do whatever’s necessary to set up the power feed between the bio-gel packs and the deflectors. Contact Geordi; I want his input, too. See what he can do from Engineering. His control panels may be in better shape than ours. Ensign Clarze, set course for the galactic barrier.”
“Yes, sir!” the young crewman affirmed, sounding eager to try anything that might liberate them from the Calamarain. I know how you feel, Riker thought.
He cast an anxious look at Troi, seated to his left. “Deanna, I want you and every other telepath aboard under medical supervision before we get too near the barrier. Report to sickbay immediately and remind Dr. Crusher of the potential psychic hazards of the barrier. Nurse Ogawa, you can accompany her.” He tapped his combadge. “Riker to Security, escort Professor Faal and his entire family to sickbay at once.” He almost added “red alert,” then remembered that the ship had been on red alert status ever since the Calamarain first appeared on their sensors. Too bad we don’t have an even higher level of emergency readiness, he thought, specifically for those occasions when we jump from the frying pan into the fire.
Riker’s eyes met Deanna’s just as she and Ogawa entered the turbolift. For an instant, he almost thought he could hear her voice in his mind, through the special bond they had always shared. Take care, her eyes entreated, then the turbolift doors slid shut and she was gone.
Good enough, he thought, turning his attention back to the task before him. There had never been any need for grand farewells between them. Each of them already knew that should anything happen to either one, the other would always remember what had existed between them. They were imzadi, after all.
On the viewscreen, Riker caught a glimpse of starlight as the prow of the Enterprise pierced the outer boundaries of the Calamarain. He felt surprisingly heartened by the sight of ordinary space after long hours spent in the opaque and angry fog. Then the front of the gigantic plasma cloud overtook them, snatching away that peek at the stars. “The Calamarain are pursuing us,” Leyoro stated.
“Can we shake them?” he asked.
“Not at this rate,” Clarze called back from the conn. “I’m at full impulse already.”
No surprise there, Riker observed. We already knew they were fast. “Very well, then,” he said defiantly, determined to bolster the crew’s morale. “Let them come along with us. I want to know just how far they’re willing to take this.”
With any luck, he thought mordantly, they’re not half as crazy as we are. With all eyes glued to the viewscreen, watching for the first light of the barrier as the starship zoomed head on for the absolute edge of the galaxy, Riker inconspicuously crossed his fingers and hoped for the best. I can’t believe I’m really staking the Enterprise on some farfetched scheme from Reg Barclay, of all people! This was not one of Barclay’s holodeck fantasies, this was real life, about as real as it gets.
And, possibly, real death as well.
“But this isn’t the way to Engineering!” Lem Faal gasped.
“I told you, sir, you and your family have been ordered to sickbay.” The security officer, Ensign Daniels, kept a firm grip on the scientist’s arm as he herded Faal and the children through the corridors of the starship. Milo clomped down the weightless halls in magnetic boots several sizes too large for him, cradling Kinya in his arms. He sensed that the large human crewman was rapidly losing patience with the boy’s father. “Please hurry, sir. Commander Riker’s orders.”
Milo hurried after the two adults. His father struggled to free his arm from Daniels’s grip as, wheezing with every breath, he tried to convince the crewman to let him go to Engineering instead. What was he planning to do with us, Milo wondered bitterly, just dump us on the poor ensign or drag us along to his shipboard laboratory? Probably the former, he guessed. Two children would just be in the way in Engineering, the same as they always seemed to be in the way where their father was concerned. Resentment seethed in the pit of his stomach. Concern for their future, and anxiety over their safety, only slightly diluted the bile that bubbled and boiled within him every time he thought of his father’s gross abandonment of them. Even now, he brooded sullenly, he’s more worried about his precious apparatus than us.
Red alert lights flashed at every intersection, emphasizing the urgency of their fast-paced march through the Enterprise. Ensign Daniels didn’t know or wouldn’t explain why they had to go to sickbay in such a rush, but obviously it was some sort of emergency. Are they expecting us to get sick? Are the aliens winning the fight? Are we going to die? Milo gulped loudly, imagining the worst, but tried not to look afraid in front of his little sister. He had to act brave now, for her sake, even though his whole body trembled as he visualized a dozen different ways for th
e cloud-monsters to kill him. What if we have to evacuate the ship? The galactic barrier, he knew, was a long way away from the nearest Federation colony. Will the clouds let us escape in peace?
At least Kinya was weightless, too. Even still, his arms were getting tired from holding Kinya this whole hike and his legs weren’t feeling much better. It still takes effort to move this much mass, he realized. “Are we almost there?” he asked Ensign Daniels. His voice only cracked a little.
“Almost,” the security officer promised. They rounded a corner and Milo saw a pair of double doors on the left side of the hall. A limping crewman, a Tellarite from the look of him, staggered toward the doors from the other end of the corridor, clutching a wounded arm against his chest. Blood leaked from a cut on his forehead and scorch marks blackened the sleeves of his uniform. One tusk was chipped, and his hoof-shaped boots clicked at an irregular pace against the steel floor. A rush of pain from the injured officer hit Milo before he had a chance to block it. His hands stung vicariously from the man’s burns. He felt a phantom ache where his tusk would have been had he been a Tellarite. He closed his eyes and pushed the stinging sensations away.
Kinya, who had been sobbing and squirming as Milo carried her, fell still at the sight of the wounded crewman. She tightened her grip on his shoulders. The Tellarite really looked like he’d been through a war. Even Milo’s father was quieted, at least for the moment, by this open evidence of the battle being waged, his indignant remarks to Ensign Daniels trailing off in mid-insult. Seeing his father act so subdued and reasonable, Milo had to wonder how long it would last. Not long enough, he guessed.
The double doors opened automatically at the Tellarite’s approach, offering Milo his first look at sickbay. His instant impression was one of crowded, constant activity. Between the wounded and those treating them, there had to be over a dozen people in the medical facility, many of them strapped onto biobeds whose monitor screens reported on the vital signs of each patient. Despite the packed conditions, however, everything seemed to be under control. The activity was fast, but not frenzied; health workers in magnetic boots shouted queries and instructions to each other, but nobody was panicking. Sickbay worked like a machine, with a dozen moving pieces working in perfect coordination with each other. Polished steel instruments flew from hand to waiting hand. Ensigns with handheld suction devices efficiently cleared the atmosphere of floating fluids, ash, and fragments of cloth. Was it always so busy, he wondered, or only during emergencies?
The doors stayed open for Milo and his party. Ensign Daniels led the way and gestured for the rest of them to follow. Remembering the pain he had absorbed from the Tellarite, Milo clamped his mental shields down hard before stepping inside.
The air had a medicinal odor that he had learned to associate with sterilization fields, and the overhead lights were brighter than elsewhere on the ship. They made their way carefully into a hive of ceaseless motion that adjusted to their presence and flowed around them as easily as a mountain stream circumvents the rocks and other obstacles in its path. A levitating stretcher bumped into Milo’s shoulders and he caught an alarming glimpse of a severed antennae taped to the stretcher next to the unconscious body of a wounded Andorian crew member. Can they reattach that? he wondered, turning around quickly so that his sister wouldn’t see the grisly sight. He heard a frightened whimper from the little girl.
The doctor attending to the Andorian, a tall man with a bald dome, glanced down at the children and rolled his eyes. “Marvelous,” he muttered sarcastically. “Children, no less. We’ll be getting cats and dogs next.” Curiously, Milo did not detect irritation from the man, or any other emotion; it was almost like he wasn’t really there.
Looking around, Ensign Daniels spotted Dr. Crusher deeper inside the facility, directing her medical team like a general on a battlefield. “Doctor!” he called out, weaving through the throng. “I have Professor Faal and his family.”
A nurse rushed up and handed Dr. Crusher a padd. A report on one of the patients, Milo assumed. She glanced at it quickly, tapped in a few modifications, then handed it back to the nurse, who hurried away to see to the doctor’s instructions. Dr. Crusher took a deep breath before focusing on the security officer and his charges. “Good,” she said. “I’ve been expecting them.” She nodded at Milo’s father. “Give me just a second, Professor, then follow me.” Her sea-green eyes surveyed the room. “Alyssa, take over triage until I get back. Make sure the EMH looks at those radiation blisters on Lieutenant Goldschlager, and tell Counselor Troi to join me as soon as she finishes up with Cadet Arwen.” She took custody of Faal’s arm from the security officer. “Thank you, Ensign. If you’re not needed elsewhere, we can really use an extra pair of hands. Contact Supply and tell them to beam another load of zero-G plasma infusion units directly to sickbay. We can’t replicate them fast enough.”
“Yes, Doctor,” Daniels promised. “First thing.”
“Come with me, Professor,” the doctor said, leading them away from the main crush of the medical emergency ward to an adjacent facility, where they found a row of child-sized biobeds as well as what looked like a high-tech incubator unit. The pediatric ward, Milo realized unhappily. He felt like a patient already and he hadn’t even been injured yet. “Here, let me help you with her,” Dr. Crusher said to him, bending over to lift Kinya from his grateful arm, which he stretched until its circulation returned. Kinya squalled at first, but the doctor patted her on the back until she got used to her new address. “That’s a good girl,” she cooed, then wiped her own forehead with her free hand. “Thank you for coming, Professor. We’re in a crisis situation here, obviously, but I want to make sure you and your family are properly cared for.”
“Never mind that,” Faal said. His face looked flushed and feverish. The effects of weightlessness, Milo wondered, or something more serious? “What’s this all about, Doctor? I demand an explanation.”
Dr. Crusher glanced down at Milo, then decided to choose her words carefully. “To elude the Calamarain, Commander Riker has decided to take the Enterprise into the outer fringe of the barrier. He believes that our engineers have devised a way to provide us with some protection from the barrier, but it seemed wisest to place all telepaths under direct medical observation.” She nodded toward the listening children. “I don’t think I need to explain why.”
She didn’t need to. Milo knew how dangerous the galactic barrier could be, especially to anyone with a high psionic potential; just because he resented his father’s work didn’t mean he hadn’t paid attention to what his parents had hoped to accomplish. Even humans, who were barely telepathic at all by Betazoid standards, sometimes had their brains fried by the barrier, and now the Enterprise was taking them right into it! Milo shuddered at the thought. The battle with the clouds—with the Calamarain, he corrected himself—had to be going badly if Commander Riker was desperate enough to fly into the barrier instead. We should have never left Betazed, he thought. We’re all going to die!
His father sounded just as upset by this turn of events, although for different reasons. “But he can’t,” he exclaimed, “not without my wormhole.” His chest heaving, he leaned against the central incubator and groped for his hypospray. “That’s the whole point. That’s why we’re here.”
“Right now Commander Riker is primarily concerned with the safety of the ship,” another voice intruded. Milo sensed Counselor Troi’s arrival even before he saw her framed in the entrance to the kid’s ward. She walked toward the other two adults, taking care to step around Milo. “I can assure you, Professor, that the commander has considered every possibility, including your wormhole theory, and he truly believes that he is acting in the best interests of everyone aboard, including your children.”
“But he’s not a scientist,” Faal wheezed. The hypospray hissed as it delivered a fresh dose of polyadrenaline to his weakened body. “What does he know about the barrier and the preternatural energies that sustain it?”
The counsel
or tried her best to calm him. “Commander Riker may not have specialized in the hard sciences, and certainly not to the extent you have, but he’s consulted with some of our best people, including Commander La Forge, and he and Lieutenant Commander Data and Lieutenant Barclay feel tha—”
“Barclay?” Faal exploded, his voice sounding perceptibly stronger than seconds ago, and Milo felt Troi’s heart sink. He didn’t know who Barclay was, but the counselor instantly realized that she had made a mistake in mentioning his name. “Do you mean to tell me that my own extensive research into the barrier and its effects is being trumped by the scientific expertise of that clownish incompetent? By the Holy Rings, I’ve never heard such lunacy.”
“Please, Professor,” Dr. Crusher said firmly. “There is no time to debate this. The decision has been made and I need to prepare you and your family before it’s too late.” She gestured toward one of the kid-sized biobeds. “What I’d like to do is set our cortical stimulators on a negative frequency in order to lower the brain activity of you and the children to a more or less comatose state during the period in which we are exposed to the psionic energy of the barrier. The same for you, Deanna,” she added. “Along with the extra shielding devised by…Data and Geordi…that should be enough to protect all of you from any telepathic side effects.”
She sounded very certain, but Milo could tell she wasn’t nearly as confident as she pretended to be. Didn’t she know she couldn’t fool a Betazoid? Maybe the doctor and the counselor should actually listen to his father. Despite his failings as a parent, Milo figured his father probably knew more about the barrier than anyone in the Federation.
Lem Faal sure thought so. “This is so ridiculous I can’t even begin to describe how insane it is,” he insisted, returning his hypospray to the inner pocket of his jacket. “It was bad enough when Riker just wanted to retreat from the barrier, but to go forward into it without even attempting my experiment…”