“As they were exceeding warp four, there seemed to be some sort of chain reaction and they all had warpcore breaches.”

“Full sensor scans, alert the other captains. Picard out.”

He stared at the Petraw leader.

“I had to save my ship. I promised Ralwisssh and Ulisssshk the gateway schematics but sent them a bit of software we bartered from the Relisa. It overwrote their engineering systems and forced the breaches.”

Picard stared, took a breath, and said in a low tone, “My God, have you no conscience?”

Doral hung his head and said, “I am desperate to save my people.”

Picard was left speechless. Everything he expected when he left Earth had failed to materialize and now he found himself with a new race in desperate straits. Worse, they unleashed a threat to the galaxy that had no obvious resolution. He felt equal parts pity, compassion, and fury for Doral and his Petraw.

“I’m sending teams from my ships to oversee your fleet. Clearly, your word means nothing and I can’t trust a desperate man.”

“You’ll do what you have to, like I did” was all Doral would say as he continued to stare blankly.

The captain summoned a security detachment to escort him to guest quarters. The brig would serve no useful purpose and treating him well might make a difference later. Right after they removed Doral, Picard was collecting his thoughts, shaking off the emotions and assuming a dispassionate countenance when his communicator signaled again.

“La Forge to Picard.”

“Go ahead Geordi, what have you learned?”

“Nothing good. We’ve looked inside the control console and have noticed an exponential increase in its consumption ratios. From what Data can determine, it exhausted its fuel cells some time back and has been draining power from the engines. We’ve calculated the consumption and this ship will overload and explode in the next twelve hours. We can extrapolate that the larger gateways can suck a planet dry in less than a week.”

Alarmed, Picard put his hands on the tabletop and asked, “Best guess, how long before a planet might be endangered?”

“Any planet using pure ecology for their power production has maybe four days before the damage is too severe to repair. Anyone drawing solar energy just might fry themselves in a week.”

“Merde,” Picard muttered. “Geordi, pick an engineer to watch over the device. You and Data come back to the ship.”

“Aye, sir, La Forge out.”

“Picard to Riker.”

In brief terms, the captain outlined the latest developments and revelations to the first officer. He tried to keep his voice neutral but he knew the strain was creeping in. There was not enough time to rest, not enough time to save countless planets, not enough time to absorb the things he had learned. But if he didn’t take the time, there might be costly mistakes.

Riker shared his own theories behind the false faces of the Iconians and, like Troi, thought the assessment sound. But right now, it mattered only as an intellectual exercise. They needed to focus on the gateways and how to turn them off.

“Will, if Ambassador Worf does not mind, leave him in control of Doral’s ship and come back to the Enterprise. I think I’m going to need my best team at the ready. You’ve also been on duty too long.”

“And you haven’t? I’ll come back, but only if it means you can rest, too. Riker out.”

Before he could even think of resting, Picard went to his ready room, prepared a new report for Admiral Ross, complete with information sent by Data. It would become clear that the gateways would either have to be destroyed—if that was even possible—or as many people as possible evacuated. He couldn’t even imagine what it would entail. If Ross grew gray during the Dominion War, he’d be snow white by the time this was over.

“Picard to Data,” he said wearily.

“Data here.”

“As soon as you are situated, please begin coordinating with our fleet. I want teams to board every Petraw ship. I want all helm controls slaved to our ships and the teams are to stay in constant contact. Once the first teams have boarded, please work out rotation schedules so everyone on duty is already rested.”

“Understood, Captain.”

Picard was ready to close the signal when he came to a small realization, one he chided himself for not having thought of sooner. “Data, ask Commander Desan if she would be willing to have her crews mix with the others on the ships. The warbirds have much larger crew complements and she can easily spare them.”

“Of course, sir.”

“It goes without saying, the Romulans and Klingons should not mix.”

“True, but you just did say it.”

Picard definitely needed some rest. He sat on his couch and allowed his mind to sift through the day’s revelations.

Troi remained restless and she could only imagine how her crew was feeling. They had been out of action for some time, merely keeping observation of the Iconian ships. Petraw, actually—she had learned that from Picard’s report to Admiral Ross. There was a sense of the tragic in Doral’s story, but she couldn’t muster that much sympathy given the scale of the problems caused by the gateways operating. The reports from Starfleet indicated skirmishes and devastating losses to ships and lives. The Carreon and Deltan conflict was a shoving match compared to some of the battles starting to break out. Intelligence also indicated the problems were definitely being felt across the quadrant, although no official word had been received from the Romulans.

After discussing the boarding plans with Data, she and Davison looked over the duty rosters to determine the size and qualifications of those being sent over in the first wave. Most of the crew had some experience, but not as many had been in combat-ready situations such as this. She didn’t need to be an empath to register the eagerness Davison had for visiting a Petraw ship and she could spare the capable woman.

Shift change was completing as the first watch settled into their positions, running diagnostics and checking for notes from their predecessors. She surveyed them with a measuring eye and made some judgments.

“Hol, Rosario, a moment of your time.”

The two whipped around, with curiosity on both their handsome faces. She stood and they approached the command chairs with quick steps. The others on the small bridge looked over with some curiosity, especially Chan.

“We’re sending over a boarding party to two of the Petraw vessels.”

“I thought they were Iconians,” Rosario asked, perplexed.

“We have learned their true nature and that is their name,” Davison answered.

“Poor Picard,” Hol said quietly. “He seemed very eager to meet them.”

Troi nodded in sympathetic agreement but pushed onward. “Davison will lead the first party. Mr. Rosario, I’ll ask you to lead the second, if you’re feeling up to it. Mr. Hol, go with Mr. Rosario and learn what you can of their technology. We’re sending over security and engineers with both parties. You leave in fifteen minutes.”

“Aye, aye,” Rosario said, filled with enthusiasm. He then glanced over his shoulder at Chan, who seemed disappointed. He stepped over toward her, and put a comforting hand on her left shoulder. She used her right hand to cover his and they shared a silent moment.

In the office of the Federation President, Admiral Ross and several other members of Starfleet filled the room. They had been going over reports from the various ships, including the mapping efforts of the T’Kumbra. Their work had been prodigious but still presented an incomplete chart and the various lines, indicating the two, three, or four destinations of the gateways, was giving him eyestrain. Even more maddening was the growing number of deaths directly attributed to these infernal devices.

“We’ve increased the frequency of the warnings,” his communications and media officer reported. “All member planets with identified gateways have posted guards and barricades.”

The president sighed heavily. “But the people on the other side don’t always come from the Federation.”

“We’ve asked the Klingon forces to enact similar safeguards but Martok is hard-pressed to cover them all,” Ross added.

“Bill, were we wrong to send the Iconian representative away until we could convene the Council? Could this have been stemmed?”

Ross shook his head, remaining stiffly at attention. “No. They turned those on as they made simultaneous approaches across the quadrant. They caught us by surprise and I’m certain it was done on purpose to force us to negotiate quickly.”

The men and women discussed security procedures and precautionary moves to protect planets under attack. A surprisingly large number of saboteurs and fanatics were stepping through the portals, thinking they were able to strike a note for their cause. Of course, there were a large number of causes that tended to blunt each screed. The damage, however, was painfully obvious.

Ross was interrupted by the arrival of an aide with a data padd. He took it, crossed to the quietest corner of the room, and read Picard’s latest report. As usual, it was succinct and exact in its presentation. He had to credit the captain with never once showing how much pressure he was under. In person was one thing, but for the record, he was exemplary. Upon the second reading, he fully grasped the import of the Petraw’s revelation and how it just might serve as an epitaph for long-term peace in the galaxy.

“Madame President,” he said, “we have news from the fleet.”

“We have it timed—on the eighth micron you jump through, then every fifteen microns thereafter.”

“We understand.”

“Once you’re all through, it’s sixteen mics to the target. Make it quick. In, out, and back.”

“You said it was guarded. We might have to kill more than one.”

“A price worth paying to regain our sovereignty. These portals came at exactly the time we needed them. We can move the revolution timetable forward and be free people once more.”

“It shall be my knife that drinks the blood of the dictator.”

“As it should be. After all, you lost your entire family, I only lost a wife.”

“We can all begin life anew when this is done.”

“Have you prayed yet?”

“Yes, the minister came by and administered rites to us all after breakfast. We’re as ready as we’re going to be.”

“Then go forth and begin the revolution. When you get back, this colony world shall be free of the Praetor’s influence once and for all.”

The ship wandered aimlessly through the region of space called the Briar Patch. Its sensors were rendered useless and even their communications failed them.

To the Breen privateer, this was madness. Her small scout ship was on its way back to the Black Cluster, its hold full of dilithium and trilium. The pickings had been good, once she detected the battle near Rimbor. It was child’s play to selectively target and beam plunder from the dead ships. She couldn’t have cared less about why the two races engaged in battle, and hadn’t even shown any curiosity why one ship was totally unfamiliar to her. The trading at Sherman’s Planet was pitiful, so this more than made up for a trip that was originally written off as a failure. Once the cargo was moved, the profits would allow her to upgrade the ship and take six months off.

She had been idly thinking of ways to spend the free time when she was caught up in the vortex created by a gateway. Thrusters couldn’t stop the scout and it jetted right through the aperture and she found herself here. Almost immediately, she noticed her manifolds were overheating and she slowed her ship to a crawl as she tried to flush them clean.

It became apparent that the area was full of cosmic clutter and not safe for stardrives. Her mapping programs showed the region to be near Federation territory and nowhere near home. How this had happened baffled her until she visually spotted the gateway, hanging open near an asteroid belt. Whatever it was she would reverse course and slowly, very slowly, approach it and return to her original course. She would make a note of the phenomenon in her computer logs and tag the sector to be avoided in the future.

Half an hour later, she managed to turn her ship around, make certain her engines were clean, and head back for the gateway. She was eager to be back on course; there was a growing demand for trilium as a building ornament on some of the colony worlds near her homeworld. That made it more valuable than the dilithium.

She approached the gateway, maintaining one-third impulse, and was merely a hundred meters away when she began to notice the gateway was actually fluctating, with differing readings coming across her barely functioning sensors. She spotted her original path, but was also reading high measures of helium, and then something the ship could not register. Her hands flew to the controls, trying to pull the scout off the course, but there was too much momentum and she would go through.

She screamed briefly but then the ship emerged on the other side and was in a region without stars. It was totally black. Just the scout and the gateway on her sensors. This was worse than the other side, she immediately decided. With no stars, there was nothing to navigate by and she would be trapped with dwindling power supplies.

There was little choice but to go through the gateway one more time.

She tried and failed to find her way back. So, once more she entered the gateway.

And once more she entered the gateway.

And once more she entered the gateway.

The brief nap actually took five hours but left Picard somewhat refreshed. He stretched and got himself a fresh cup of tea from the replicator. At his desk, he took a sip and called up ship’s status and everything seemed fine. A quick look at the communications log showed only a terse acknowledgment of his report from Ross so he presumed things were quiet for a change.

It wouldn’t last, he knew, given the deadly situation he found himself in. While he had hoped to find the Iconians for real, he hadn’t. Their influence was felt, however, as their gateways continued to cause strife across the Milky Way galaxy. For a brief moment he wondered if it extended beyond that but quickly dismissed the notion. Things were complicated enough without adding in other galaxies.

He stared at an image of the gateway he found on Iconia and thought about the influence these people left behind. He couldn’t begin to imagine what people would think of the Federation two hundred millennia from now; it was just too vast a period of time. Sol would still be burning yellow, although beginning to enter middle age.

Influence.

He quickly reviewed his frustrating conversation with Doral. They had been to Federation space before, found the gateway on an abandoned world at what was once the edge of the Federation. Now, where would that be?

“Picard to Data. Meet me in stellar cartography.”