A little more than two million people,Riker thought. Though he was thankful that the numbers of Neyel settlers and Oghen aborigines that had been rescued would enable both species to survive, he couldn’t stop thinking about the nearly two billion that the convoy had been forced to leave behind because of lack of time and resources.
Oghen, a world that had nurtured its own sapient life-forms for millennia—as well as a unique human society for centuries—was now gone forever. Utterly erased from existence by the continued encroachment of an expanding protouniverse.
But those cultures still have a chance to live on,Riker thought, doing his best to maintain a positive outlook. And once we get this habitat someplace where those cultures can take root and flourish, we can finally get to know them better.
As he continued watching the convoy’s almost balletic motions, a flash of wan yellow light erupted momentarily on the asteroid’s rocky exterior, sending a considerable volume of gray-black basaltic debris arcing into space. For an instant, the effect cast Vanguard’s rough, cratered surface into sharp relief, and glinted off the silvery remnants of an ancient cluster of what appeared to be communications antennae. This was by no means the first time Riker had watched the asteroid suffer a direct hit from the Red King’s ever-more-frequently occurring energy discharges; still, the sight made him wince.
“Asteroid status?” Riker asked Jaza, who was diligently monitoring Titan’s sensor web from his post on the starboard side of the upper bridge.
“No serious damage, Captain,” the Bajoran science officer said. “Just some minor rearrangement of the surface rock layers.”
Riker touched the combadge on his chest. “Riker to away team.”
“Vale here, Captain.”
Riker spared a quick glance at Jaza. The science officer appeared visibly relieved to hear the exec’s voice. “How are things holding together inside Vanguard, Chris?”
“So far Keru, Tuvok, and I have managed to persuade almost everybody riding inside this rock with us not to riot. With a little help from our entire security complement, Frane, and our former guests from the Neyel military, that is.”
Riker couldn’t quite suppress a smile. He felt a surge of pride at Frane’s newfound sense of duty to his people.
“We could probably do with a little less shelling, though,”Vale continued, an edge of acerbic humor audible in her tone. “Dr. Ree and Dr. Onnta have their claws and hands full enough already without having to deal with an explosive decompression event on top of all the other injuries.”
Yet another flash of light briefly illuminated the surface of Vanguard, reminding Riker of a brilliant meteor shower he’d witnessed over Valdez during his thirteenth summer. Fortunately, this latest conflagration did not appear to have reached the habitat’s vitals. But even with the emergency forcefield generators Dr. Ra-Havreii’s engineering team had placed in strategic locations along Vanguard’s surface, Riker knew that the habitat’s luck couldn’t hold out forever; being ten kilometers long, the great rock simply couldn’t weave and dodge the way her tow ships could, no matter how quickly Titan’s sensor web distributed the real-time navigational hazard data it gathered.
Even though Vanguard’s human builders had taken the precaution of arranging the habitat’s interior into many independent, airtight sections—thereby preventing a single small hull breach from taking out the colony’s entire population—the death toll that would result from the blowout of an entire section would be in the thousands.
Riker took this latest light show as a signal that time was growing dangerously short. “We’ll keep doing our best to avoid the worst of the bumps, Chris,” he said. “How are the refugees doing psychologically?”
“I think we all have our hands full keeping passenger morale about as steady as you’re keeping Vanguard. Fortunately, we’ve got some expert help.”
“I thought Counselor Huilan and Counselor Haaj might come in handy over there.”
“Oh, they have, Captain, believe me. But I was referring to somebody else: Mekrikuk. Granted, a few of the Neyel have reacted to him as though he’s a monster straight out of a fairy tale. But he seems to have exerted a strong calming influence on a lot of the more agitated folks we’ve encountered here.”
Riker was gratified to hear that. He was pleased to discover that such projective telepathy had an application other than wanton violence; he couldn’t help but hope that the Federation authorities would look kindly on Mekrikuk’s request for political asylum.
“You’re doing great work, Chris. I need you to try to keep a lid on things just a little while longer,” Riker said. “The convoy is approaching the periphery of the Red King now. We’ll be making the passage through the rift in just a few minutes. We’ll see you on the other side. Titanout.”
He stepped back down to the bridge’s center and took his seat. “Restore forward view, please, Cadet,” he said. “Full magnification.”
Dakal entered a short series of commands into his console. The viewscreen responded by replacing Donatra’s fleet with a slowly swirling mass of glowing, multicolored clouds that might have been constructed out of the universe’s entire stockpile of anger and violence.
The tendrils of energy that had seemed relatively benign some eight days earlier, when Titan,the Valdore,and the Dughhad first emerged from the center of the phenomenon, now seemed almost malevolent, bringing to mind the grasping fingers of some hungry carnivore. Their colors had shifted down toward the red and orange end of the spectrum, with the more peaceful blues and greens muted almost into oblivion. Explosive energy discharges appeared and vanished within the effect’s apparently infinite depths, the interspatial equivalent of violent thunderstorms.
The Red King, preparing to snap out of the dream that keeps this corner of the universe running,Riker thought as he stared at the towering, ocher-and-crimson vista that filled the screen. Or is it the Sleeper, getting ready to wake up and replace everything around him with a brand-new Creation?
Even now, he still wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to call this thing, or how it ought to be characterized. All he knew for certain was that the phenomenon was now far more than part of the cosmic cenotaph that marked the sacrifice of his late friend and colleague, Data. It was an emergent universe that threatened to displace a goodly portion of this one. It had already killed billions, and would wipe out countless more if left to expand unchecked.
Sleeper or sovereign, this thing had to be sent back to wherever it had come from, and as quickly as possible.
Lavena turned her chair to face Riker, her hydration suit gurgling almost inaudibly as she moved. He saw that she was smiling through the semitransparent breathing mask that covered most of her face. “Navigational sensors have just made contact with the Dugh,sir.”
“Confirmed, Captain,” Dakal said, his gaze riveted to the viewscreen, where the dark shape of a battered Vor’cha-class cruiser was swiftly differentiating itself from the energy tendrils that appeared to be trying to grasp it like some sea monster out of Earth’s ancient maritime legends. “The Klingons seem to be right where we left them.”
Riker wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected Tchev to cut and run prematurely.
“Hail them, Cadet.”
The overflowing violence of the still-growing protouniverse disappeared a moment later, replaced by Captain Tchev’s scowling visage. Lieutenant Dekri, Tchev’s female second officer, was visible just beyond her superior’s right shoulder.
“You’re back, Riker,”the Klingon commander said. “At last.”