Indistinguishable From Magic Part 41

"Sensors indicate that the gravity well's spatial manifold is well inside the Hera Hera's hull. Actually it's barely fifty meters across, if the readings are reliable."

"Which they may not be, considering the shape we're in," Scotty said.

"And considering the anomalous nature of the . . ."

"Anomaly?" Geordi interrupted. "I think as captain I should outlaw the use of that word."

"The thingy, then," Vol suggested. "The point is, though, it means the hull isn't an absolute event horizon. It should be possible to make physical contact with it, and maybe take samples."

That, Geordi thought, Geordi thought, was an interesting idea. was an interesting idea. He would have been a liar if he tried to say he hadn't thought of visiting the He would have been a liar if he tried to say he hadn't thought of visiting the Hera Hera as soon as he saw it. An away team to the as soon as he saw it. An away team to the Hera. Hera. It was an irresistible idea. It was an irresistible idea.

"Let's a.s.semble a team."

37.

"Status of the transporters?"

"Still offline," Scotty said apologetically. "We canna spare the power to run them. Though I wouldna recommend using the transporter in any case."

"If we could beam across to the Hera Hera-"

"We'd be beaming onto a spatial manifold, and that's a one-way trip if ever there was one."

"If there's no interior s.p.a.ce to beam into, right?" La Forge sighed. "Can we spare one of the shuttles for a trip to the Hera Hera?"

Scotty sucked on his teeth. "They're all tied into the EPS grid now. Maybe if we dropped the internal sensors, and restricted turbolift use . . ." He made a few quick calculations. "Aye, that would do it."

"Then I'm going across to the Hera." Hera."

"What makes you think you're going to lead the away team?" Leah demanded. She had not responded well to his announcement when he spoke to her in his ready room.

"It's my mission-"

She cut him off with a chopping gesture. "First off, you're the captain now. That makes it unwise. Secondly, you're emotionally compromised. Conflict of interest, whatever you want to call it. That makes it extremely unwise. Thirdly, under the circ.u.mstances, you're a lot more necessary to hold things together while we've got both damage and a potentially hostile set of guests. That makes it stupid."

"All those are good rational reasons, but-"

"Do you want an irrational reason?"

"Do I need one?"

"All right, an emotional reason then. I don't-" She shook her head, almost wincing. "I already know what it's like to be widowed. I don't need to repeat the lesson."

He held her for a moment. "I understand, but . . . I have to go." He walked out onto the bridge.

Leah followed. "Nog, tell the captain why he shouldn't lead this away mission."

"Your leading the away team to a dangerous anomaly is tactically unsound, Captain."

"See?"

"It's my decision to make," La Forge said.

"Is it?" Leah tapped her combadge. "Doctor Brahms to Doctor Ogawa." Geordi froze, unable to believe that she'd do this to him. "The captain is considering leading an away mission."

"To his mother's s.h.i.+p?" Ogawa's voice was as concerned as it was disbelieving. Ogawa's voice was as concerned as it was disbelieving.

"All right." La Forge held up his hands. "I surrender." Leah slumped in relief, rather than triumph. "I guess it needs someone with a clearer head."

"I'll go," Scotty said. La Forge looked up at him, standing behind the bridge rail. "I've been on more dodgy landing parties than you've had hot dinners."

"Are you sure you want to go?"

"Who else would you trust?"

La Forge didn't deign to reply to that. He trusted all of his crew, but saying so would have insulted Scotty, and singling him out would have insulted everyone else.

"I'll join the away team too, with your permission," Barclay said hurriedly.

"Ye're welcome to come, Mister Barclay."

Voktra, who had been a.s.sisting Barclay, cleared her throat. "Permission to join the mission?"

Barclay turned. "Are you sure you want to come?"

"You don't expect us to let you Starfleeters discover the Hera Hera's secrets alone, do you? Chairman Sela will insist on a Romulan presence on any away mission."

"She has a point, sir," Nog said. "I volunteer as well. Someone will have to keep an eye on the Romulans."

"Then we'll meet in shuttlebay one in an hour," Scotty declared. "I don't know about you, but I intend to get a good breakfast before going."

A safe distance along Nelson's bar from Barclay and Voktra, Nog related the story of the choice of away team to Guinan.

"I think those two have different motives for going," he finished.

"From each other?"

"No, that's the same, I think. From everybody else."

"Nog," Guinan said in a mock-warning tone, "You're not suggesting that Reg is a little sweet on his Romulan counterpart?"

"I think so." He shook his head in wonderment. "I expected tension between our people and the Romulans, but . . ."

"But not s.e.xual tension."

"He's mad," Nog judged.

"He could be heading for heartbreak," Guinan agreed, "but stranger things have happened."

"Humans and Romulans?"

"Just ask Sela about that one."

"And I thought Father marrying Leeta was weird enough."

"Leeta?"

"A Bajoran dabo girl."

Guinan folded her hands and took on a sage-like demeanor. "Sometimes the alien is attractive. There's a difference between the alien individual and the alien as a collective. One, individually, tends to be admired, or something to aspire to. An outsider who doesn't have to fit in with the day-to-day life that we're used to. An outsider who does things differently. Unusual and exotic. But collectively, the alien isn't exotic, it's threatening-a wave of threat to the standards and way of life we're used to." She looked at Reg and Voktra again. "It all has to do with how we see our own ident.i.ties. Me as an individual versus me as a member of my society, cras.h.i.+ng headlong into the alien as an individual versus the alien as a member of their their society." society."

"You mean when Reg thinks of the Romulans, they're the enemy and he's scared of them, but when he thinks of a a Romulan-" Romulan-"

"That Romulan." Romulan."

"-he finds her exotic and attractive?"

"Pretty much. It takes people that way sometimes. The really funny part is, neither of them probably see it themselves yet."

Nog grunted. "Let's hope they live to find out."

La Forge had never found the center seat of a stars.h.i.+p less comfortable than now, watching the shuttlecraft with its half dozen occupants coast away from the s.h.i.+p.

As it began to drop toward the Hera, Hera, he realized he was digging his fingernails into the armrests of the seat again, out of pure frustration. Leah laid her hand on his, and gently lifted it away. he realized he was digging his fingernails into the armrests of the seat again, out of pure frustration. Leah laid her hand on his, and gently lifted it away.

"I should be going with them," he said tightly.

"No you shouldn't."

Instead of replying, he said to the ensign at ops, "Follow them all the way on the main viewer."

"Aye, sir."

As the image on the viewer tracked the shuttle, something suddenly flashed across it. Whatever it was had a triangular section, and was ten times the length of Challenger Challenger. "What was that?"

The proximity alerts began to sound. "A vessel has . . . arrived," the ops ensign squawked.

"Is it going after the shuttle?"

"No, its on the opposite side of the Hera, Hera, and outside our orbit. It's left a trans-slipstream wake where it arrived." and outside our orbit. It's left a trans-slipstream wake where it arrived."

"Show us the new s.h.i.+p." The ops ensign worked his console, and the main viewer was filled once more with the enormous and shark-like hull of a design La Forge had never seen before. Narrower at the bow than the aft, it was patterned in zigzag colors, and seemed to flex as it moved.

La Forge had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that it was looking back at him as he watched it. For a moment he wished Deanna Troi was sitting next to him so that he could ask her if he was just imagining things.

"Go back to the shuttle," he told the ops ensign. The image on the viewer changed immediately to show a closer view of the Hera Hera's upper surface. There was no sign of the shuttle. "Where are they?"

"I don't know sir . . ." The ensign looked up helplessly. "The shuttle has disappeared completely. It's almost as if it's just been swallowed up by the Hera Hera's hull plating."

38.

"What is it?" the centurion asked. The Romulan survivors of the Stormcrow Stormcrow who weren't working on repair crews at the moment were watching the alien vessel through the windows of their quarters. who weren't working on repair crews at the moment were watching the alien vessel through the windows of their quarters.

It looked to Sela like one of the predator fish that her grandfather-her father's father, of course-had liked to hunt in the western ocean of Romulus. They were a great delicacy and a feared hunter. One had eventually taken his arm, and Sela had long suspected that the enforced retirement from hunting them had been the cause of the broken heart that he eventually died from.

It had been agonizing to watch him wither away, his will to live lost along with his livelihood. Saying goodbye to him, hoping against hope for a response in his uncaring eyes, was the worst thing that Sela could remember from her childhood, short of the night that her mother tried to kidnap her and take her away from her father.

What was it? she asked herself. she asked herself. An alien s.h.i.+p? One of the things that had brought them here? An alien s.h.i.+p? One of the things that had brought them here?

"It may just be our way home," she said.

"The Starfleet crew won't like that idea."

"I'm not going to ask them to like it. Just to accept the necessity."

"And if they don't?"

"They will. One way or the other."

The centurion grinned wolfishly, and she knew which way he would prefer the Starfleet crew to accept things. He was a good centurion, and that att.i.tude was probably one of the reasons that the Stormcrow Stormcrow's commander had requested his presence on her crew.

He would enjoy his work, when the time came.

"And the aliens?" he asked.

"An alliance would be to our advantage, I think. We must find a way to contact them." Trans-slipstream would put the Empire well ahead of the other Alpha Quadrant powers, and allow it to truly dominate the Typhon Pact.

"The Federation people will be doing the same thing."

"Absolutely, but for different reasons. They have slipstream already. We must be ready when the time comes." Sela thought quickly. "In fact, perhaps it would be to our advantage for the Federation people to make contact . . ."

"You want to what what?" La Forge couldn't believe what he was hearing. He sat at his ready room desk, the alien s.h.i.+p visible through the window behind him.

"Challenger has no warp power," Sela was saying, "and the alien s.h.i.+p has some kind of trans-slipstream drive. They could carry us home." has no warp power," Sela was saying, "and the alien s.h.i.+p has some kind of trans-slipstream drive. They could carry us home."