Chapter Seventeen

AGAIN PICARD FOUND himself at the head of the long black table in the Stargazer’s briefing room, regarding six attentive officers.

“You are all aware of the problem, I trust.”

Ben Zoma, Wu, Simenon, Valderrama, and the Asmund twins responded with nods and murmurs of confirmation.

The captain turned to the hologram hovering over the center of the table. It was different from the one he had called for last time in that the debris field and the outer precincts of the solar system had been stripped away, leaving the system’s core and the vortex belt clearly visible.

“As you’ve learned in your readings,” he said, “these magnetic vortices are what stopped the most enterprising of our colleagues. But they will not stop us. The question is: How can we get past them and continue to pursue our mission?”

Ben Zoma iterated his remark that a warp-speed jump was not an option. Then he called for suggestions.

Valderrama was the first to speak. “Magnetic forces of that intensity are going to tear up any shield they touch.”

“But there’s no way for us to avoid them,” Wu noted.

“They’re insubstantial,” Gerda observed, “so we can neither punch a hole in them with weapons fire nor clear a path through them with a tractor beam.”

“What about a competing force?” Idun asked.

Picard leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

“A magnetic emission of some kind,” the helm officer expanded. “Something that will fight the vortices and reduce the threat they pose to our shields.”

The captain looked around the table. Like him, everyone seemed intrigued by the nature of Idun’s suggestion. However, no one seemed able to translate it into a workable strategy.

“It’s beyond us,” Ben Zoma said finally.

Picard nodded. “Let’s move on.”

That’s when he saw the expression on his chief engineer’s face. It was a surly look, a look of discontent.

The captain had seen it before. It meant Simenon was thinking about something. Thinking hard.

“Mr. Simenon?” he said.

The Gnalish turned to him and his ruby eyes blinked. But he didn’t offer any other response.

“Mr. Sim—” Wu began.

But Ben Zoma stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. He too knew better than to interrupt Simenon when he was cogitating.

Finally, the engineer’s eyes became animated again, an indication that he was finished thinking. “I’ve got an idea,” he rasped.

Picard frowned. “And . . . ?”

Simenon frowned back at him. “What if we were to change the polarity of our shields?”

For a moment, the idea hung in the air like a second hologram, inviting everyone’s scrutiny. Then the group’s reactions began to manifest themselves.

“Can you do that?” asked Ben Zoma.

Simenon nodded. “I think so.”

“If you can,” said Valderrama, “it should make the shields a lot less vulnerable to the action of the vortices.”

Picard hadn’t trained as an engineer. However, he had a rudimentary understanding of the principles involved, and Simenon’s suggestion seemed to make sense.

“Even if Mr. Simenon’s approach works,” said Wu, “it will still be a dangerous passage.”

“Yes,” Ben Zoma agreed. “But not as dangerous.”

“I would like to see a computer model,” he said.

“No problem,” the engineer assured him. “I can whip one up as soon as I get back to engineering.”

Taking that as his cue, the captain nodded. “By all means, Mr. Simenon.” He took in his assembled officers at a glance. “You’re dismissed, all of you.”

He looked forward to seeing what the Gnalish came up with. If luck was still on their side, Simenon’s strategy would keep alive their hope of finding the White Wolf.

If not . . .

Picard caught himself. There is no alternative, he reflected. At least, not one he could live with.

* * *

Greyhorse was deep in reverie when he heard the captain’s voice over the intercom system.

“What is it, sir?” he asked Picard.

“I’ve gone over Mr. Simenon’s computer models and approved his plan for getting us through the vortex belt. Mind you, I believe we will come through with minimal damage. However, I want you to be on medical alert—just in case.”

Greyhorse nodded even though he knew the captain couldn’t see him. “Acknowledged, sir.”

“Picard out.”

The doctor’s first thought was always the same: Gerda. Would she be endangered by what Simenon had proposed? Would he see her carried into sickbay on a gurney, her body broken and bleeding?

As he had on other occasions, Greyhorse forcibly put the unwelcome image from his mind. It was his duty as a physician and as a Starfleet officer to provide medical care for everyone on the ship, not just a single individual.

No matter how he felt about her.

As Picard emerged from the turbolift, he saw everyone on the bridge glance in his direction. His officers looked as determined as he was—an encouraging sign, to be sure.

“Mr. Simenon,” he said, “this is the captain.”

The engineer’s voice flooded the bridge with its sibilance. “Simenon here. Time to give it a go?”

As Picard approached his center seat, his first officer abdicated it and exchanged glances with him. Ben Zoma’s eyes crinkled at the corners, an expression of his particular brand of fatalism.

What could possibly go wrong? he seemed to say.

“Let us indeed give it a go,” the captain told Simenon.

“Reversing shield polarity,” the engineer announced.

Nothing changed on the forward viewscreen. The vortices still loomed ahead of them, savage twists of magnetic force daring ship and crew to try their luck.

Picard glanced at Gerda. “Lieutenant?”

She nodded. “He’s done it, sir.”

“Very well, then,” the captain told her, his words ringing ominously across the bridge. “Let’s proceed. One-quarter impulse.”

The Stargazer started forward, heading for the narrow gap between the two nearest vortices. Picard felt the deck shudder beneath his feet as mighty forces reached out for them.

“Steady as she goes,” he said.

Idun’s best bet was to follow a course midway between the vortices, keeping the ship from being savaged by either one of them. She did this with unerring accuracy, even when the magnetic phenomena tore at the Stargazer and her shields, causing the vessel to slide and buck and creak in protest.

The captain trusted Idun as he had never trusted any other helm officer, and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Captain Ruhalter had said once that his right arm was less precious to him than Idun’s services at the helm.

If anyone could pull this off, it was she. Of course, the captain of the Mongoose might have felt that way about his helmsman. The same for the captain of the Leningrad or the Christopher, and they had been proven dead wrong.

So where did Picard get the gall to think he could prevail over the vortices? To imagine that he and the Stargazer could succeed where all the rest had failed?

He didn’t know. But he knew this—he wasn’t going to stop until he had snared the White Wolf and brought him to justice.

As if in answer to his vow, the ship jerked suddenly to one side and then the other, jostling them in their seats and forcing a groan out of the deck plates. Someone cursed beneath his breath.

“Shields down eight percent,” Vigo announced.

The captain frowned as the vortices on either side of them waxed immense on the forward viewscreen, two spectacular dynamos sizzling with magnetic energy. Come on, Picard urged his helm officer silently. You can do it, Lieutenant.

Sweat stood out on Idun’s brow in beads. And not just Idun’s brow, but Gerda’s as well, for the Stargazer’s navigator was sifting through incoming sensor data and feeding her sister whatever tidbits she deemed most critical.

Slowly, with infinite care and patience, Idun guided them along the razor’s edge. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the first two vortices fell away from them.

Only to reveal a great many more, rank upon rank as far as the eye could see.

Picard forced himself to take the sight in stride. After all, he was the captain now. He had to set an example.

Juanita Valderrama clung to the sides of her monitor in the science section and saw the same thing Captain Picard and his officers were seeing on the bridge.

One vortex after another muscled its way onto her screen, majestic in its deadly, dazzling splendor. The ship shivered and jerked and reeled in the phenomenon’s prodigious grasp like a fish caught on a very large hook. And then, through luck or skill, they managed to wriggle free of each vortex’s influence.

But the battle had to be taking its toll on the Stargazer. It had to be sapping their resources, just as it had sapped the resources of the other vessels that had braved this passage.

Valderrama wished she had been able to do something to help their cause back in the briefing room. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe that Simenon’s theory could work; in fact, she did think it could. It was that the captain had placed his faith in her, made her the chief of his science section, and she was letting him down.

When he had called for suggestions, she hadn’t come up with one. All she could think to do was state the obvious—that the vortices were liable to tear up their shields. For all the good she had done, she might as well not have been in the room at all.

Suddenly, the deck shot out from beneath her feet. Valderrama tried to hang on to her monitor and stay upright. But just as she thought she might be able to keep from falling, the ship lurched again and she found the floor rushing up at her.

The science officer managed to get her hand between her face and the plastic surface, cushioning the blow. Still, she felt stunned for a moment. Then she heard someone say, “Are you all right?”

The voice that had asked the question sounded strange. Metallic, almost. Valderrama couldn’t imagine why, until she turned to look up and saw the ghostly semblance of a human visage floating inside the clear-faced helmet of a containment suit.

“Are you all right?” Jiterica asked a second time.

“Yes,” said Valderrama. She propped herself up on an elbow. “I’m fine, Ensign. Thank you.”

By then, others had gathered around them. But it was Jiterica who gently grasped Valderrama’s forearm and provided the counterweight that pulled Valderrama to her feet.

It was an eerie feeling, to have those gloved hands tugging at her. But the science officer didn’t show it. After all, the ensign just wanted to help her.

And Valderrama knew how it felt not to be able to help.

“Thank you,” she said a second time.

“You’re welcome,” Jiterica replied in her tinny, computerlike voice, and returned to her terminal.

Valderrama regarded the Nizhrak a moment longer. Then she looked around at the others who had ringed her and said, “I’m all right. You can go back to your stations.”

One by one, the crewmen dispersed. Brushing herself off, Valderrama got a grip on her monitor again and tried to concentrate on the images she saw there. But it wasn’t easy.

Not when she felt like more of a burden to her colleagues than ever.

Picard relaxed his grip on his armrests as the vortices they were passing slid off the sides of the viewscreen. They did so reluctantly, it seemed to the captain, as if they regretted not having torn the Stargazer to pieces.

Ben Zoma leaned closer to him. “Are we having fun yet?”

Indeed, Picard thought. But he kept the remark to himself. What he said instead was, “Report.”

Idun was the first to respond. “Impulse engines still operating at peak efficiency.”

“Shields at seventy-two percent,” Gerda said.

It was better than the captain might have hoped. Simenon’s approach seemed to be working.

Up ahead, another pair of vortices loomed in front of them, their whirling energies wild and hungry-looking. Idun began to steer the Stargazer between them.

But as she did, Picard caught a glimpse of the next group of vortices, deeper in, and they were significantly more tightly packed than any the Stargazer had already encountered. There was barely any space between them for a Constellation-class starship.

Idun turned to the captain, her unspoken assessment evident in her expression. “I agree,” he said. “We’ll see if we have a better chance of getting through elsewhere.”

Turning back to her instrument panel, Idun backed them off the gap and moved them to starboard, since one of the twisters was blocking the way to port. Nor did she stop until she came to another opening that would give them sufficient leeway on either side.

But the story there was much the same. Even if the Stargazer managed to get through the breach at hand, she would be unable to get through the collection of vortices beyond that. The gaps were simply too narrow for her, too rife with destructive forces.

As before, Idun was compelled to slide them to starboard in search of something more promising. However, they hadn’t gone very far before another twister became visible in the distance, threatening to cut off their lateral progress before long.

There was one more opening to starboard before they reached that point—one other chance to make it through both this set of vortices and the next one. The helm officer brought the Stargazer to a halt in front of that opening.

Leaning forward in his center seat, Picard took stock of the situation. The gap in front of them was certainly large enough to accommodate the Stargazer. However, the widest channel beyond it was considerably narrower, and considerably more daunting.

On the other hand, it was broader than any of the other second-rank openings the captain had seen. Perhaps even broad enough to grant them passage if they fought long and hard enough.

Idun was looking at him again. As before, Picard nodded. “Take us through,” he said.

Punching in the requisite commands, the helm officer urged the ship forward. On the viewscreen, the whirlwinds before them appeared to grow larger, exerting more and more influence as the Stargazer sailed boldly between them. Smaller spirals of energy spun off from the main bodies, assaulting the ship.

The deck beneath Picard’s feet kicked and rolled, balking at Idun’s attempts to remain in control. An aft console sparked and gave rise to a slender plume of black smoke, requiring the attention of a crewman with a fire extinguisher.

And still the Stargazer plunged deeper into the jaws of pure, unbridled force.

Suddenly, something whipped them in the direction of the twister to port. Idun made the correction with a burst of thrusters, forcing them back on course. Moments later, they were rocked again by magnetic forces, but they managed to get through that setback as well.

Idun was getting better at this, Picard remarked to himself. She was navigating this corridor between the vortices with more skill and confidence than she had displayed in navigating the corridors that came before it.

Finally, the worst of the passage was over. The vortices began to peel away on either side of them, relinquishing their hold on the Stargazer—and revealing the even greater test that lay ahead of her.

“Shields at sixty-four percent,” Gerda reported, even before the captain could ask.

Sixty-four percent, Picard repeated to himself. It was remarkable, given the challenges they had met. But would it be enough to see them through the challenge to come . . .

And what lay beyond it?

Picard eyed the phenomena between which they hoped to pass. They stood there like the gates of hell, pillars of cold fire that spun and undulated and writhed in what seemed to be the most hideous torment.

As the captain had always heard, misery loved company. The Stargazer had no choice but to give them some.

Picard could feel the tension on his bridge as Idun took them into the opening. It was a palpable sensation, like that of a violin string stretched to its breaking point.

And the trouble they had expected wasn’t long in coming. First there was a rumbling, more felt in one’s bones than heard. Then the Stargazer was wrenched hard to starboard, throwing the captain and everyone else to the deck.

The console next to Paxton’s erupted in a fountain of sparks, forcing the communications officer to recoil from it. As a crewman went to douse the fire, a second one broke out.

Picard staggered to his feet and eyed the viewscreen, where the image of the vortices had rotated a dizzying ninety degrees. Worse, the helm was unmanned. The captain started for it, ready and willing to put his once-considerable piloting skills to use.

But Idun managed to beat him to it. Dragging herself off the deck and back into her seat, she began tapping away at her controls. Little by little, she managed to right the ship.

But no sooner had the twisters turned vertical again on the screen than the Stargazer was bludgeoned anew. Wave after wave of magnetic energy broke over her bow, keeping her from advancing any farther.

Picard heard Idun growl as she struggled with her controls. Clearly, she needed more power.

“Mr. Simenon,” he snapped. “All available power to the impulse engines!” And as he thought about it, he added, “Cut life support!”

“Aye, sir!” came the engineer’s response.

The captain knew that they could survive on the air they had for as long as twenty minutes. Of course, the small amount of energy they saved might not make much of a difference, but it might also represent the margin between victory and defeat.

“Shields down to thirty-eight percent!” Gerda snarled.

Suddenly, the Stargazer began to make progress again. The walls of whirling energy seemed to crawl by on either side of them, yielding meter after grudging meter.

But they were far from free of the vortices’ embrace. Picard felt his vessel vibrate and slew sideways, then shoot forward and veer in the other direction.

“Twenty-six percent!” Gerda announced grimly.

The captain began to doubt that they would make it—not that they had any choice but to try. They were more than halfway through now, too far to think about turning back.

The Stargazer lurched forward, fighting the good fight, though the vortices grabbed and tore at her with all their insane power. Yet another console began to spit sparks, and the smell of smoke became strong in Picard’s nostrils, especially without the ventilation that was part of life support.

A little farther, he thought. Just a little farther.

And then he saw it.

Ben Zoma must have glimpsed it at the same time, because he pointed to the viewscreen and said, “Look!”

It was a narrow, vertical strip, seen between the seething near edges of the vortices. A ruddiness, as soft-looking as one of the clouds that stretched over the captain’s native France at sunset.

It provided Picard and his officers with a glimpse of what lay beyond this strait—a hint that if they could only squeeze past these last two vortices, they could at last put this ordeal behind them.

“Shields at sixteen percent!” Gerda told her colleagues, inserting a note of reality into the captain’s newfound optimism.

Picard felt his jaw clench. Once the shields were stripped away, there would be nothing left to protect them but their reinforced titanium hull, and no one could expect that it would last very long under such intensely adverse conditions.

“Six percent!” Gerda called out.

For just a moment, Picard had a vision of his ship being peeled like an overripe fruit, one section of hull at a time. Then, with an effort, he put the image from his mind.

Just in time to grab the back of his chair, because the vortices were clawing at them with renewed fury.

The Stargazer bucked and slid and bucked again, paying for every meter of headway with huge expenditures of energy. She shot forward, came up against what seemed like a tangible barrier, then pierced it and shot forward like an arrow.

And each time they made some progress, the scarlet strip ahead of them got noticeably wider, noticeably closer. The end is in sight, Picard assured himself. We can do it . . .

Gerda swiveled in her seat to look at him. “Sir,” she said in a disgusted tone of voice, “the shields are down!”

The captain bit his lip. Their defenses were gone, and they were hardly out of danger yet. Had they dared too much after all? Would they falter just short of the finish line and be torn to pieces?

Picard shook his head, answering his own unspoken question. Not today, he insisted.

As if to dispute his conclusion, a wave of energy slammed into them head on. It sent the captain sprawling across his center seat, its armrests digging into his ribs. Then another wave hit them and another, each one fiercer and wilder than the one before it.

Without her shields to minimize the blows, the Stargazer was at the mercy of the vortices. She absorbed impact after impact, her lights flickering, her bulkheads keening as if in agony.

“Hull breaches on decks five, six, and seven!” Paxton announced. “Also, on decks ten and eleven!”

“Damage control teams!” Ben Zoma commanded.

There would be more breaches, Picard knew. Many more, if they lingered much longer in this confusion of colossal forces.

Get us out of here, he instructed Idun silently.

But the vortices seemed to have other ideas. They battered the ship’s naked hull with assault after magnetic assault, as if they knew this would be their last chance to destroy the intruder.

And it seemed to Picard that it was just that. Never mind the damage they were taking—the ribbon of red had claimed nearly a third of the viewscreen and was claiming more with each passing second.

“Breaches on fourteen, fifteen, sixteen . . . !”

Suddenly, the lights went out and the captain felt the ship wrenched back and forth, shaken like helpless prey in the jaws of some titanic predator. He clung to his seat and watched the zagging image on the viewscreen, hoping Idun could straighten them out somehow.

Then, just as suddenly as the shaking had begun, it stopped. The lights came back on. And the viewscreen showed Picard a path all but free of the vortices.

He felt a single, small tremor, a final sickening reminder of what they had been through. But after that they were home free, sailing into the region of scarlet mist as calmly and effortlessly as if the vortex belt had never existed.

The captain drew a deep breath. Then he turned to his comm officer and said, “Casualties?”

“Nothing serious, sir,” Paxton told him, relaying the latest information he had received from sickbay. “But there are hull breaches on eleven different decks.”

“And we are defenseless,” Gerda added, “until we can restore power to the shields.”

“That too,” said Paxton.

Picard nodded. They had taken a beating, one from which they would need time and considerable effort to recover. And somewhere beyond this placid sea of blood-red mists waited the White Wolf, who knew this system a good deal better than they did and might have come through the vortices a lot better fortified.

But they had made it through. They were alive. And for the moment, Picard reflected, that was all that mattered.

Ensign Jiterica got the news along with the rest of Lieutenant Valderrama’s science section.

The ship had made it through the vortex belt. They had negotiated the system’s second major obstacle without irreparable damage to the ship. It was a significant achievement, a tribute to the expertise of Chief Simenon and his engineers.

What’s more, everyone in the science section seemed to agree with her. They were laughing and patting one another on the back. Expressing jubilation, the ensign observed.

Jiterica was capable of jubilation as well, maybe even more so than her colleagues were. But she wasn’t jubilant at the moment. She was too intent on something that had begun to nag at her a moment earlier, something that lay just under the surface of her consciousness.

An idea. Or at least the beginnings of one.

Jiterica tapped out a command on her keyboard, and the image on her monitor changed, showing her a spectrographic analysis of the wildly churning gases surrounding the Stargazer. It was a different environment than the one that existed on her homeworld, but still . . .

The ensign tapped out another command and brought up a second analysis. It was encouraging enough for her to bring up a third analysis, and then a fourth.

It was still a raw notion, of course. Jiterica would have to examine it further to see if it held any real promise, and that might take a good deal of time. On the other hand, given the simplicity of her assignment here in the science section, time was something she seemed to possess in great abundance.