Crusher gripped the steel supports of the SSF as she watched for the slightest improvement in Leyoro’s brain chemistry. Come on, Baeta, she silently urged her patient. Help me here. Overhead the sensor cluster hummed quietly as it scanned Leyoro with a full array of diagnostic tools. Crusher’s heart leaped as she saw the production of neurotransmitters within Leyoro’s cerebral cortex begin to level off. “Yes!” she whispered. The triclenidil was working! Leyoro was a long ways from out of the woods yet, but at least she had a chance. Crusher cautiously administered another hundred milligrams and crossed her fingers.
The entrance to sickbay slid open and three more crew members rushed in, carrying the unconscious bodies of Lem and Milo Faal. She recognized Ensign Daniels, the security officer she sent in search of the missing patients, along with Ensign Gomez from Engineering and Lieutenant Sumi Lee from Science. “Dr. Crusher, over here,” the EMH called out. The holographic MD was already helping Ensign Daniels get Lem Faal’s limp body onto the nearest empty biobed. For once, Crusher was thankful that the gravity was out; it had to make transporting the two bodies easier.
“Keep an eye on Lieutenant Leyoro at Bed One,” she instructed the EMH, racing toward the new arrivals. The heavy magnetic boots made her feel slow and clumsy. “Let me know if her brain activity increases by any factor.”
“Understood,” he said, without any of his usual sarcasm or grousing. Apparently even a hologram knew when there was no time for a bad attitude. He headed straight for Leyoro, his image flickering only for a second during a brief but worrisome power fluctuation. The lack of gravity did not slow him at all.
“I found him by a turbolift, sprawled on the floor,” Ensign Daniels informed Crusher as she checked Lem Faal’s vital signs. He was still alive, thank heavens, but unresponsive. He seemed to be whispering, having a feverish conversation with himself, but she strained to make out what he was saying.
“The wall…the wormhole…must bring down the wall….”
To her slight surprise, his breathing sounded fine; the last time she had seen Faal he had been gasping for breath, his weakened lungs succumbing to the wasting effects of Iverson’s disease.
“The boy was with me,” Ensign Gomez explained as Crusher shifted her attention to the supine eleven-year-old form of Milo Faal, whom Gomez and Lee had lowered onto the next biobed. “He had gotten lost somehow, and I was escorting him back to sickbay when he suddenly clutched his head and collapsed.” The memory brought on a shudder. “It was very strange. There was some sort of bizarre optical effect, maybe an X-ray discharge. For just a second, he looked like a photonegative version of himself; then, in a flash, he looked normal again. I tried to wake him, but he was out cold. Then Lieutenant Lee found us.”
The science officer nodded. “Lieutenant Commander Data had sent me to investigate a pocket of concentrated psionic energy he had detected from the bridge.”
Crusher didn’t like the sound of that. “Did you find the source of that energy?”
“Yes.” Lee waved a standard tricorder in the direction of both Lem Faal and his son. “It’s them.”
“What do you mean?” Crusher asked. Milo’s vital signs were encouraging, too. Neither of the Betazoids appeared to have been affected as severely, or in precisely the same way, as Baeta Leyoro.
Lee hesitated before answering, double-checking the display on her tricorder. “I can’t be sure. Ensign Breslin is still scanning the corridors for any residual traces, but it seems like these two people have each absorbed a portion of the barrier’s energy.”
Is that even possible? Crusher wondered. And what sort of effect could it have on them? This was different from what had happened to Leyoro; that had been a severe neurological shock, potentially fatal, but still subject to medical understanding and treatment. But this…science couldn’t even explain what the barrier was, let alone how that mysterious energy could sustain itself within an ordinary humanoid brain. She initiated a full diagnostic scan of both patients’ brains, while placing Professor Faal under restraint, just in case he awoke on his own. She didn’t want another violent episode like before.
The results of the scans were puzzling. The monitors above both father and son reported accelerated brain activity, but without the adverse side effects that had endangered Leyoro. It was as if their respective cerebellums were rapidly evolving and adapting to accommodate the greater demands being placed on them by the explosion of synaptic activity. The very structures of their brains were being reconfigured before her eyes. Even stranger, the sensors recorded two distinct sets of brain waves coexisting within Lem Faal’s mind, as though one personality had been superimposed upon another. Like during a Vulcan mind-meld, she thought, remembering a similar dual pattern in a recent study from the Vulcan Science Academy.
Some form of psychic possession? Crusher speculated. She’d seen stranger things during her years aboard the Enterprise, and it might explain a lot about the scientist’s increasingly erratic behavior. But who or what could be possessing Faal? The Calamarain or something else entirely? There was always Q, of course, but somehow this didn’t feel like his style.
Taking a more hands-on approach to the examination, she gently reached out and raised one of Lem Faal’s eyelids, wanting to check on his pupils. She let out a gasp, startling the three other crew members, as she was met by an unexpected sight. Faal’s once-brown eye now glowed with an eerie white light that stared up at her, suffused with what had to be the energy of the galactic barrier itself.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Four
The brightness faded and the fugitives, as well as Picard and the elder Q, were surrounded by four new individuals, clad in the intimidating armor of Roman legionnaires. Picard recognized the female Q, significantly younger than she had appeared upon the Enterprise, not to mention a stern-looking humanoid who bore an uncomfortable resemblance to himself. One of Q’s little jokes, Picard theorized, recalling that the true appearances of the Q had been translated into images his human mind could comprehend. Should I be flattered or insulted that Q keeps casting me as the heavy hand of authority? He suspected the latter.
The remaining new arrivals were unfamiliar to him. One was a pale-skinned male, holding his crested bronze helmet against his breastplate, who looked about the same age as the young Q, with straight blond hair combed back away from his brow. He appeared nervous, looking back and forth among his fellow Q for support. The fourth newcomer, somewhat older than the others, had sad eyes, accented by mournful pouches, and a philosophic manner. “Good old Quinn,” the original Q said beside Picard. “May he rest in peace.”
The Q quartet raised their arms at their sides and coruscating beams of blue-white energy leaped from their fingertips, connecting with the outstretched hands of their associates to form an incandescent fence around 0 and the other malefactors, or, more accurately, a living quincunx with the young Q at its center. The brilliant beams crackled with unleashed power. Picard could not help feeling trapped, even though he knew that the hunters were not even aware of his presence.
The archaic armor donned by the Q only made them look more formidable. The scintillation of their discharged energy reflected off polished bronze helmets, cuirasses, and greaves. Crescent-shaped plumes of thick horsehair crested the Corinthian-style helmets that partially obscured their deceptively human features. Short, double-edged swords hung on their right hips, held on by a leather belt or baldric. While realizing that the historical costuming was largely an illusion created by Q, Picard had to admit that the ancient armor seemed more appropriate to this primeval conflict than, say, the plum-colored Starfleet uniforms he and Q now wore.
“You cannot hide from the Continuum,” said the Q who could have been the captain’s twin. Picard recognized his double’s voice as that which had boomed from the heavens earlier. Apparently the spokesman for the Continuum had deigned to make a personal appearance after all. “Do not resist our judgment.”
No, Picard thought, ret
hinking the matter. Not a spokesman, but a judge. An imperial Roman judge. A quaestor.
“Yes, Q,” his future mate urged, resembling an Amazon in her martial regalia, “give up this lunacy before it’s too late. You’ve gone too far this time.”
“It’s for the best, Q,” said Quinn, more in sorrow than in anger. “I know you meant well.”
“That’s right,” the blond Q added, attempting a not terribly convincing smile. Picard guessed he was a friend and contemporary of Q’s. “Hey, I misplaced the entire Deltived Asteroid Belt once, but it all turned out okay in the end.”
Unlike the rest of the tribunal, who seemed to have Q’s best interests at heart, the quaestor had no patience with the erring youth and his dubious acquaintances. His Picardian expression was deadly serious. “Q is our problem and will be dealt with accordingly. The rest must be banished forthwith.”
Penned in by the power of his peers, young Q rose to his feet. His simulated Adam’s apple bobbed sheepishly as he opened his mouth to speak. What course will he take now? Picard wondered. Would he surrender without a fight?
0 made the decision for him. “Never!” he cried, firing a blast of searing energyfrom his hands at the immense dilithium crystal beneath them and triggering a matter-antimatter explosion that flung them all, through countless layers of liquid and vapor, out of the gas giant’s majestic atmosphere into the icy vacuum of space. Picard felt himself being propelled at incredible speeds, like a quantum torpedo fresh from its launcher tube. Agonizing G-forces yanked the flesh of his face tightly against his skull as he achieved escape velocity from the gravitational sway of the Brobdingnagian planet. He was unable to halt or even control his headlong flight through the Detrian system. Blast you, Q, he cursed as he rocketed helplessly. You could have warned me.
Finally, after several endless moments, some sort of metaphysical friction, or perhaps the cushioning effect of numerous quantum filaments, curbed his momentum and brought him to a stop somewhere outside the solar system he had just been forcibly expelled from. To his annoyance, he found Q waiting for him, looking none the worse for wear. “My, I had forgotten how exhilarating that was,” he observed. “Hope you enjoyed the ride, Jean-Luc.”
Picard gave Q a withering look. “Never mind me,” he said darkly. “What happened to 0 and the others?”
“Look behind you.” Q shook his head glumly and affected a pained expression. “I’m afraid it’s turned into something of a free-for-all.”
The battle was fought on a cosmic scale. As Picard looked on from what he prayed was a safe distance, colossal figures strode the stars, hurling entire planets and suns at each other. Millennia passed in what felt like seconds as the war against 0 wreaked havoc on what Starfleet would later name the Alpha Quadrant. Picard tried to take it all in, but it was impossible to do more than glimpse fragmentary snapshots of the unthinkable devastation:
The gleaming plate armor of The One, more appropriate to the Age of Chivalry, clashes anachronistically with the Roman war gear of the blond Q, who has reluctantly hidden his face behind his plumed helmet. Determined to resist capture, He saps the energy of a nearby star, turning it against His foe. On the third planet orbiting that sun, the days grow ever colder, forcing an unsuspecting people to cope with the incidental consequences of a conflict beyond their understanding….
The android Ruk stood upon a snow-covered hilltop on Exo III, watching as massive drilling machines carved a cavern into the face of a granite cliff. Many such caverns were being dug these days, as his Creators sought to escape the freezing conditions upon the surface by seeking shelter deep beneath the planet’s crust. He and his fellow androids would join the Creators underground, serving the Creators as they always had. There would be many changes in the days to come, as both androids and the Creators adapted to their new subterranean existence, but Ruk was confident that he would continue to function effectively regardless of any unexpected alterations in the parameters of his existence. Had not the Creators programmed him to adapt and survive?
An icy wind blew flakes of frozen moisture against the angular planes of his face. His dermal sensors recorded that the external temperature was several units below the freezing point, but he did not feel the cold as a Creator might. His massive body was immune to pain or discomfort. His heavy feet sank deep into packed layers of snow and permafrost that would never ever thaw.
No one knew, not even the finest minds among the Creators, why the sun had grown steadily colder year after year. None knew how to reverse the process. All the Creators could do was burrow toward the planet’s core in search of the warmth they needed to survive. Ruk admired their resolute determination to outlive the fading sun. The Creators were teaching him an important lesson.
Nothing was more important than survival.
(*) thrives on war, so war it incites, feeding on the chaos it creates to find the strength it needs to fend off the scholarly Q with the sad eyes, whose metaphorical spears rain on (*) without cease. On yet another world, caught unbeknownst in the midst of the celestial war, it discovers a people whose mental gifts, and towering ambitions, leave them ideally suited to its purposes….
“But, Sargon, are you absolutely sure this is necessary?” Thalassa asked. “Isn’t there some other way?”
Sargon considered his wife’s plaintive entreaty. It was indeed a lot he was asking of her, of all of them, but they had no choice. His eyes swept over the austere lines of the hastily constructed vault. Row upon row of steel niches ran along the opposite wall, stretching the entire length of the futuristic catacomb, each niche holding a single translucent globe. All but two of the spheres glowed from within, holding the psychic essences of valiant comrades. One of the remaining globes awaited Thalassa.
“It is the only solution,” he said solemnly. “According to my calculations, the forces unleashed by the war will soon rip away the entire atmosphere, rendering our world uninhabitable. Only by storing our minds in these receptacles can we hope to preserve some vestige of our population and culture.”
“But to live without bodies of our own? And for how long?” She stared in anguish at her own hands, memorizing the fragile complexity of the flesh and bone she soon must sacrifice forever. “It’s horrible.”
Sargon nodded. “Perhaps it is the price we must pay for our terrible arrogance.” The coming cataclysm is no one’s fault but our own, he thought. We dared to think of ourselves as gods and look what has become of us.
“Speak for yourself, Sargon,” a sardonic voice requested. Henoch strolled toward the elderly scientist and his wife, smiling. The representative from the Northern Coalition smiled more than any man Sargon had ever met; it was one of the reasons he distrusted him. “I take no responsibility for the precarious position we now find ourselves in. Perhaps you should have said as much to your own generals, before they challenged our claim to the borderlands.”
Sargon frowned, resisting the temptation to strike out at the foreigner with the power of his mind. “You are here as a gesture of peace,” he reminded Henoch, “in hopes of future harmony among our people. Do not abuse our generosity by baiting me with your self-serving propaganda.”
Henoch shrugged. “I suppose it is rather too late to argue politics at this point. If I did not think the war unwinnable by either side, I would not have joined you here today.” He scratched his chin speculatively. “Funny, though, how quickly the conflict escalated, almost as if powers beyond our ken were somehow pulling our strings, setting us against each other.”
You seek to blame anyone but yourself, Sargon thought, wondering once more whether it was wise to include Henoch and a handful of his followers among those whose consciousness would be stored in the receptacles, against the far-off day when they might live again. He did not care for Henoch, whose affable charm barely concealed a scheming nature, but he and his people were part of the society Sargon had worked so hard to preserve. To exclude them from this final chance for salvation would be an act of selfishness and paranoi
a comparable to those that had doomed their world. For better or for worse, he is one of us.
An explosion upon the surface, several miles overhead, shook the vault despite its reinforced steel walls. The war was drawing nearer and growing more intense. “It is time, my love,” he told his wife.
“I am ready,” she said bravely and approached one of the dormant spheres, securely tucked away in its recess. For the last time, save in memory, Sargon gazed upon the physical form of his lifelong mate and partner, savoring the elegant arch of her eyebrows, the delicate tips of her pointed ears. Then she laid her palms upon the curved shell of the receptacle and closed her eyes in concentration. “Until we live again,” she said.
A bluish glow flared within the sphere only an instant before a bright red nimbus spread over her body. Sargon wanted to look away, but could not, standing by passively as the scarlet energy consumed every trace of Thalassa’s corporeal remains, leaving not an atom behind. Only when her body had been completely disintegrated, her life force transferred to the interior of the globe, did he lower his face into his hands and sob.
From a technical standpoint, it was not necessary to destroy the body while transferring the mind, but practically there was no better alternative, lest the underground vault become a charnel house. Judging from the sound of the battle being waged above, soon there would be no one left to dispose of the bodies of those whose thoughts and memories now resided within the receptacles. Forgive me, he thought to the glowing globe that held his wife’s spirit. Forgive us all.
“So you actually went through with it,” Henoch observed, inspecting Thalassa’s receptacle before wandering over to the last empty sphere visible within the catacomb. “I insisted upon being the last to go, just in case there was trickery afoot, but seeing that you were genuinely willing to sacrifice your own wife to this farfetched scheme, I suppose I might as well trust you one crucial step further.” He ran a finger over the empty globe, inspecting it for dust. “So how long do you expect we will wait in this underground mausoleum before some wayfaring space travelers drop by to say hello?”