Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (52 page)

“I am a good officer, Captain,” she said with surprising mildness.

La Forge took a deep breath to steady himself. “I have a responsibility to my crew, even to the members of
your
crew on the ship or away team.”

“I understand, Captain. Believe me, I was dismayed that a Federation ship answered our distress call. But I am still grateful that you came.”

“I’d like to ask for
Challenger
’s crew to be evacuated to
Tomalak’s Fist.”

“Is that all?” She seemed amused.

“No, I lost my mother too. And, maybe, if I’d been quicker to realize—to find out what had happened, I’d have been able to look for the right things. If I’d done that, maybe we’d have found the
Hera
in time. If I’d done that, maybe she’d still be alive.”

“Maybe. But who can say?”

“What I’m saying is . . . I can’t pretend to know how you feel about what you did as a child. I can’t pretend to know how much stronger a Romulan’s emotions are. But I do know that somewhere, on some level, we both wonder what might have been.”

“I didn’t lose my mother, as you put it,” Sela replied. “I killed her, by scre—by alerting the guards when she tried to take me from my father.”

“You didn’t kill your mother by yelling out when you thought you were going to lose your father,” said La Forge. “He maybe killed her, because he had to. In the end,
politics
killed her. Someday they’ll kill you.”

“And you. You’re telling me you killed your mother by not finding a clue in time? That’s guilt.”

“Yes it is. It’s guilt because I miss her.”

“I don’t miss my mother. She was human, she was Starfleet—”

“If you don’t miss her, then why do you feel guilty about her being gone?”

“I don’t.”

“Then what makes you think you were responsible?”

Sela closed her eyes for a moment. “Let’s go talk to Varaan.”

“We have a plan to retrieve the survivors of the
U.S.S. Hera
, and also recover the away team, made up of a mix of Starfleet personnel and Romulan personnel.”

Varaan gave La Forge a thin half-smile, but no more than that.
“I was under the impression that the away team was now in a remote part of the universe. It all sounded rather final. Unless you’re simply engaging in a morale-boosting exercise.”

Sela turned from where she was looking out of a viewport at the alien vessels back to the comm. “I hate to admit such a thing, Varaan, but I—and the Tal Shiar—will vouch for La Forge having the ability to do the things he says he intends to do. And Captain Scott is . . .”

“Oh, the Miracle Worker. I had no idea he was still in the Starfleet.”

La Forge stepped into the comm pickup. “We’ve already been able to discuss it over a communications link and we both agree it’s our best hope.”

“Hope isn’t a strategy I can use. If you have something practical to say, go ahead, but I don’t need the Federation propaganda speech.”

“I need you to bring
Tomalak’s Fist
closer to
Challenger
and
Hera
. We’ll extend our shields around your ship and through the
Hera
, and then create a static warp shell within the extension. That way we’ll have a single field on both sides of the spatial fold, and it’ll expand into that space. We’ll then drop shields, but keep the static warp shell in the same configuration. That’ll mean you can fly through the fold and into orbit somewhere between around seventy and a hundred kilometers above the surface.”

“That’s treetop-skimming in a ship the size of ours.”

“If your helmsman isn’t sure about it, I’m perfectly willing to lend you mine.”

Varaan grunted.
“Once I’m through, what then?”

“You should have no problem beaming up the survivors from the surface. You should then be able to fly back
through that hundred-kilometer fold, to where we are now. How much capacity does
Tomalak’s Fist
have?”

“It was designed for long-range scouting missions, but her interior space is larger than that of
Challenger.
What is your crew complement? I understand the typical
Galaxy-
class complement is around fourteen hundred.”

“We have six hundred and five people right now.”

“And the
Hera’s
survivors?”

“Forty-seven.”

“We have the room.”

Three hours later Geordi and Leah were walking in the half-gravity through a near-empty ship. Carolan had supervised the transport of the crew to
Tomalak’s Fist
. The energy budget was less of a problem without the need to move the ship or support the crew.

Qat’qa had put the ship firmly in the required position, and engaged automated station-keeping systems before evacuating the ship. Doctor Ogawa and Guinan had taken the neural scanner and makeshift communications setup with them, to where a Romulan named Saldis was installing it on their ship.

Only Vol was left, down in engineering, setting up the static warp shell.

“Originally I didn’t want to come aboard,” Geordi reflected, “and now I’m going to miss her.”

“Me too. I built her, and now I’m going to kill her.”

“You’re not going to kill her. Not personally. You’re going to see her off.”

“Yes. The
Galaxy
-class was designed to last for a hundred years, you know.”

“I know.”

“She’s had such a short life.”

“We all do,” Geordi said softly.

“Who gets to extend the shields?”

“I do.”

She stopped, and looked at him closely. “Don’t get any funny ideas about going down with the ship.”

“Not a chance.”

She kissed him, hoping it wasn’t going to be the last time. “I’ll see you on the Romulan ship.”

La Forge stood alone at the tactical console, one of the few systems still running. This would be the second
Galaxy-
class ship he had lost.

On the main viewer,
Tomalak’s Fist
loomed large, the raptor-like head of the command section appearing to peer into the
Challenger
through the viewscreen.

“Vol,” he said, “are you ready?”

“Hot to trot, Guv.”

“Varaan?”

“When you give the word, Captain La Forge.”

Geordi took a deep breath, activated the shields at maximum power, and extended them around the Romulan ship. He further extended them forward, stabbing invisibly through the hull of the
Hera
. “Shields extended.”

“I read you.”

“Vol, initiate static warp shell.”

“Right you are.”

Almost immediately, there was a flicker around the ships, and the
Hera
began to melt, bleeding forward like a badly copied vid image. The
Hera
’s hull smeared around the edges as it was enveloped by the shields and static warp shell like oil. It also faded, and Geordi could see stars through it, and, dead ahead, a Luna-sized planet, inflating like a balloon.

“Transport now, Varaan.”

The
Challenger
’s bridge vanished from around Geordi, and he felt distraught knowing that he would never see her again.

As Vol and Geordi materialized in one of the transporter rooms aboard
Tomalak’s Fist,
the ship began moving forward, into thin layers of stars between the void and the planet’s surface.

Slowly at first, but quickly accelerating to a majestic swoop, the great green raptor smoothly dodged the planet’s surface, and then rose once again into star-filled skies.

Everyone on the planet’s surface hit the dirt as the city-like structure made from the
Hera
’s interior began to bleed into the sky. Pieces of debris stretched both up into the heavens and down into the depths as the last remnants of the
Hera
vanished into the storm.

A few seconds later, something gigantic and green accelerated overhead and upward with a painful subsonic rumble.

Scotty’s combadge chirped.
“This is Commander Varaan of
Tomalak’s Fist.
Do you have a Mister Scott I could speak to?”

Scotty was half amazed that the plan had actually worked. “Scott here, Commander Varaan.”

“I am orbiting the planet, and should be back in transporter range of your group within three minutes.”

Even the Vulcans among the group looked as if they couldn’t believe their ears. The Caitian, Lieutenant M’Rsya, let out a long screech of joy.

Three minutes later, true to Varaan’s word, Captain Geordi La Forge, Guinan, Doctor Leah Brahms, and Chairman Sela materialized on the dust bowl plain where the
Hera
had so recently been.

La Forge was enjoying catching up with Scotty and Nog again, and hearing about their discoveries on the planet. “Wait a minute. If this planet is a life-form . . .”

“It is, lad. Trust me on this.”

“I’m not disagreeing, I’m just thinking. All those beings, the living creatures that have been creating the trans-slipstream wakes by thinking themselves across the galaxy . . . Why do they congregate here instead of just navigating by it?”

“You mean on the other side of the fold?”

“Exactly. Where the planet should be. Or maybe that spot should be here. Either way, they have a connection to this world.”

“It may be their homeworld, I suppose, or just their wee but an’ ben.”

“It may just be that, but if this whole planet is one huge life-form, maybe they’ve got a personal biological connection to it.”

“Are ye suggesting it’s their mother?”

“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting,” La Forge said forcefully “Why not? There’s obviously a connection between them, and it’s not a hostile one.”

“There’s no evidence for it.”

“There’s no evidence against it either. If we could get a good sensor reading of one of them as well as the planet, and compare them . . .”

“Maybe we could talk to it.”

“To the planet?”

“I don’t know that it’s capable of communicating in the way that the ship-creatures are, but why not? There’d be no harm in trying, would there?”

Savar interrupted. “If communication with the planet
were possible, we would have sensed it, in our minds.”

“And there’s been no sign of that?”

“None,” Savar said. “Your hypothesis about the relationship of the planet to the spaceborne creatures you describe is logical, but merely demonstrates that we don’t have enough data to form a concrete theory. It’s just as likely that this planet, to them, is a source of nourishment, perhaps like the milk cow of Earth. They share a connection, but it is not necessarily familial.”

La Forge, Silva, Captain.
The words were burned into Geordi’s brain and heart as permanently as onto the duranium plate. “How did she die?” Savar didn’t answer for a moment, and Geordi got the feeling that maybe he was reluctant to upset his rescuer with an unpleasant tale. “It’s okay, Commander. I . . . I made my peace with her being gone a long time ago.”

“Captain La Forge was killed in a landslide, approximately fourteen months after our arrival on this planet.”

“A landslide?” Geordi had never imagined that. He wasn’t sure whether it sounded like a good death or a bad one. Right now, he wasn’t sure whether there was a difference. “Was it . . . Did she suffer?”

“I do not believe so,” Savar said carefully. La Forge was well aware that Vulcans praised truth quite highly, and couldn’t help wondering whether Savar’s avoidance of a simple yes or no was related to that. The Vulcan seemed to see the uncertainty in his eyes, and continued. “She was missing overnight, and we found her dead amidst the landslide the next day. There is no way to be certain how instantaneous her death was. However, the slide was not far from our camp. I believe that, had she been mortally injured and in pain for any length of time, we would . . .”

“Have heard her screaming.”

“We would have known,” Savar finished softly, with a slight nod.

La Forge nodded. Leah squeezed his hand, while Guinan just knelt and laid a flower on the grave. Geordi had no idea where she had got it, but it was a peace lily, his mother’s favorite.

Sela looked at it. “My mother has no grave,” she said quietly. “After the execution, the body was disintegrated.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” La Forge said.

“What would I do with a grave anyway?”

“Visit it,” Guinan suggested. “Talk to her.”

“She’s been gone a long time.”

“Sela,” Guinan said quietly and seriously. “Everything exists, just as long as the last person who remembers it.” She squeezed Sela’s hand now. “You’re living proof of that.”

There was a faint rumbling from belowground, and Savar looked around like a startled rabbit. “The planetary entity is reacting to us. We must go. Now.”

Geordi tapped his combadge. “This is La Forge. Five to beam up.”

“W
elcome aboard
Tomalak’s Fist,
our newest long-range exploration vessel,” Chairman Sela said to Savar as they stepped off the wide rectangular transporter platform.

La Forge almost laughed at her choice of terminology. “Exploration, huh?”

“Show me a spacefaring race that doesn’t have either a desire or a need to find new resources, living space, or scientific discoveries. Anyone who doesn’t look for something would never be out in space. They could stay at home and sit and talk over their old achievements. And never make new ones.”

“There’s another problem that none of you have addressed as yet,” Varaan said, quietly but firmly as he stepped around from behind the transporter console. “Even assuming we succeed in removing this intersection, or spatial fold, and evacuate everyone safely to the position where you first discovered the
Hera . . .
it’s a very long journey back to the galaxy, and when we get there we’ll just run face-first into the Barrier.”

La Forge paused. “Actually, Chairman Sela and I have discussed the issue of travel time back to the galaxy . . .”

“What did you decide?”

“That we agree to differ.”

“I think I’d have been shocked otherwise.” Varaan smiled.