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| - I collapse backwards in a blinding haze of pain, the double-bladed knife embedded in the right side of my belly. The Orion advances on me, wipes green blood from her crushed nose, cursing, and kicks me in the jaw, sending me sprawling against the bulkhead and burying the knife still further. “Bajoran bitch!” she grinds out. “You won’t die quickly for that.” I can’t move. I can’t scream. No breath will come out. The matron has her knee on my chest as she reaches out for my ear and begins sawing. And then she’s not a greenskin. She’s a human, long black hair, Asian features. Starfleet Science uniform, noncom’s insignia. Huge, bloody hole in her chest. “I’m going to kill you slowly, Captain, the way you killed me.” Captain? I’m a sergeant. Blood pours down my side as the ear comes away. I can’t move. I can’t scream. Suddenly the nightmare vanishes with a sharp, stabbing pain to my neck. I look around. I’m in my cabin on the Bajor. The pressure on my chest is Gaarra holding me tight. The pain in my neck was Warragul with a hypospray. “Eleya, are you all right?” Tess asks. The pain is still burning in my memory, vividly real, but both my ears are intact. I push Gaarra back before I realize I’ve got no clothes on. I grab at the sheets to cover myself but Warragul’s South Australian tenor says, “Relax, Cap’n, it’s nothing any of us here haven’t seen before.” He’s right, of course. Warragul’s my doctor, Tess is my workout partner, and Gaarra … Prophets, I still don’t even know what Gaarra is. Tess goes to my dresser and tosses me a set of underwear. “We paged you to the bridge four times but didn’t get an answer,” she explains, leaning against the chest of drawers, as I fiddle with the back close of the bra. “Commander Reshek volunteered to come looking for you, then he called me to override your door, and then I called the doc when you wouldn’t wake up.” Gaarra gets off the bed and jogs over to the replicator. “Raktajino, one cream, double sweet,” he says, then digs a jumja stick out of the box on the shelf beside it. “Evidently we’re going to need to make a pit stop at DS9 at some point,” he comments as he walks back over and hands the drink and food to me. “You’re nearly out of these.” I slip my panties on under the covers as I ask, “So what’s so important that you had to wake me up at … Computer, what time is it?” Chirp. “The time is 0514 hours and 25 seconds.” “Yes, that.” “No idea,” Gaarra answers. I stare at him. “You don’t know why you woke me up?” “He means that we don’t know what the thing is that we woke you up for,” Warragul explains, somewhat unhelpfully. “Well, neither do I, so unless you want to explain it to me I’m going back to sleep.” I flop back against the pillow. “And neither does Birail.” I sit back up. “Okay, why don’t you start from the beginning?” “We’re stuck,” Tess says. “Gravimetric anomaly of some kind, came out of nowhere. Not causing any serious damage to the ship but it did something to the warp core and Bynam had to make an emergency shutdown.” I gulp down a mouthful of raktajino, tasting the bitterness of the Klingon liqueur. “How far are we from New Romulus?” We’re delivering a shipment of industrial replicators to a new orbital shipyard they’re constructing. “About half a light-year. Comms are down, too, and we’ve already tried sending a shuttle out on remote. Anomaly just sucked it right back down, tore it to pieces.” “Think the Glyrhond could make it?” “I doubt it. Runabout’s SIF isn’t much stronger than a Type-8’s.” Tess hands me an undershirt and my uniform jacket and I shrug into them. I swivel my legs off the bed and stand up, then grab my trousers. We get to the bridge and somebody barks, “Captain on deck!” “As you were.” I turn to the person in question. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?” Then I take a closer look and wonder how I managed to forget the name of the only Romulan on the Bajor. “Sauringar. Sir.” “Right, sorry. Oh, and don’t call me ‘sir’. ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Captain’ is fine.” “Sorry, sir.” He coughs. “Captain.” Now it’s coming back to me. Commander Sarsachen Sauringar, fifteen-year Starfleet vet hitching a ride to his next post. Apparently we’re permanently loaning him to the RRF or something: he’s been offered a job as XO of a warbird. I turn to the viewscreen. Dark blue lightning, a swirling pattern of energy. “Tell me more, Biri.” The Trill hands me a PADD. I yawn and peruse it but the technobabble is a little much. “So, basically you don’t know anything.” She rolls her eyes at me. “No, we know it’s about 350,000 kilometers in diameter, strong subspace distortion emanating from the center and that it’s producing a gravity well roughly the strength of a G-type star.” Takes me a moment to dredge up the memory from a half-remembered astronomy class at the Academy—I was a naval weapons major—but G-type is your basic yellow dwarf, same size as Sol or my own sun B’hava’el. Not exactly an overpoweringly strong gravity field. “So why can’t we get away from it?” She opens her mouth to answer but a chirp from the intercom interrupts her. “Security to Ten Forward! Security to Ten Forward!” “The phekk?” I look at Biri. “You need me for anything?” “Not at the moment. I’ll call you when I know more.” I start for the turbolift but then stop. “Biri, random question. You ever have any Asian brunette noncoms in your department? Somebody who got run through and died?” She gives me a funny look. “Juno Ichigaki, Geo Specialist Two. Took a chunk of a mass spectrometer through the stomach when we were hit by that torpedo over Dreon VII. Why?” “No reason.” I head for the turbolift as she yells after me, “Really, you ask me about one of my dead specialists for ‘no reason’? What’s going on, El?” “Back to work, Riyannis!” I yell back. “Deck Ten,” I tell the turbolift. By the time I get there Dul’krah, Chief Athezra, and Lieutenant McMillan have already arrived. McMillan starts to yell something (probably “captain on deck”) but I wave her off, reach up, and grab the big Pe’khdar by the shoulder. “What happened?” “Captain. All I know right now is”—he points to a bewildered-looking yellow-shirted Bolian crewman I can’t place, standing against a wall with Athezra holding a stunstick on him—“that man”—he points at a Caitian ensign in a red shirt whom Assistant CMO Maela is checking with a tricorder—“clubbed that man with the whiskey bottle on the bar.” I look over at the bar. Nalak Lang is grumbling something in Cardassian that my translator can’t make out as he cleans up part of the mess. There’s a half-empty bottle of Talisker on the bar nearby, with an evidence marker next to it. I jog over to Maela and the Deferi stands and salutes. “As you were, Doc. How is he?” “Unconscious, BFT to the head, probable MTBI.” “Okay, I need that in captain dummy talk, Maela.” “He got hit over the head twice with a whiskey bottle, hard.” Two corpsmen run in with a stretcher. “Three, two, one, lift!” They lever the Caitian onto the stretcher and Maela slaps her combadge. “Doctor Maela to transporter room. Four to beam directly to sickbay.” They vanish in a shower of blue sparks. I walk over to the Bolian, brush Chief Athezra out of my way, and switch to my superior officer voice, doing my best to turn my face implacable. I’m told I do that pretty well. The scar helps. “Name, rank, station. Now.” He snaps to attention but looks frankly terrified. “Ma’am. Kuhbb Puso, Matter/Antimatter Specialist, Third Class. Main Engineering. Ma’am.” I slap my combadge. “Bynam, this is Eleya. Get to Ten Forward.” I turn back to Puso. “Well, Emmay-Three Puso, congratulations on getting ‘assaulting a superior officer’ added to your file. Would you care to provide an explanation for your conduct today, or should I let JAG handle that?” “Ma’am. No, ma’am.” I glare at him. “I don’t believe I was actually giving you a choice, Specialist.” “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?” “Please do.” “Ma’am. I can’t provide an explanation.” I raise an eyebrow and gesture for him to continue. “Last thing I remember I was … I was in the break room trying to get in a mid-shift nap. I don’t remember leaving the room or coming to Ten Forward, and I especially don’t remember hitting Ensign F’oit with a bottle. Ma’am.” “Fifteen-plus witnesses say otherwise, Specialist,” Dul’krah says. “Athezra, take him to the brig.” My combadge chirps. “CMO to Cap’n.” “Go ahead, Warragul.” “I’m getting an awful lot of reports of sleep disturbances. Bad nightmares, people turning up in odd places and not remembering how they got there.” “How many is ‘an awful lot’?” “Two dozen so far.” My mouth twists. We had a saying in the Militia. Once is a freak accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern. “Athezra, hold on a moment!” I yell as the dirty-blond senior chief half-drags the Bolian out the door. “Dul’krah, change of plans. Get this man to sickbay. Warragul, I want a full brain analysis on all the affected crewmen.” I pause. “And me.” I shuck the hospital gown, pull my bra back on and yank my undershirt down before sliding off the bed and pulling my pants back on. I throw the curtain open and step out into the sickbay corridor. I don’t claim to understand everything Warragul and Maela checked by a long shot but I recognized the questionnaire Dr. Shree gave me. Standard PTSD thing. I threw it away and told her to stay on-point. I walk over to Warragul and Maela. The Deferi scratches the front of her horn and says, “Well, Captain, we ran full psych panels on all of you and while we were at it five more cases came in. One serious: Lieutenant Kerensky, Commander Ehrob’s second officer, jumped off the third-floor catwalk in Main Engineering. Serious skull fracture; we’re not sure he’s going to make it.” “What do you know?” I say, stifling a yawn. Warragul reads off a PADD. “Elevated levels of acetylcholine and melatonin in the humans, equivalent chemical increases in the aliens. And we’ve all got unusually high levels of adenosine and its analogs.” I stare at him blankly. “Can I have that in Bajoran, please?” Corpsman Anoeza Watkins pushes past us with a PADD and a protein bar as Maela explains, “For some reason the affected crew, yourself included, are making chemicals that are causing us to get sleepy”—she punctuates this with a yawn—“and dream more.” I grab my uniform jacket off the coat rack. “And the connection to that grav anomaly is?” Warragul gives me a funny look and I scoff at him. “Oh, come on, we all know that’s where this is headed. Every time we or anyone else hit an unexplained anomaly like this in the past it’s made something weird happen.” I slap my combadge. “Biri, got anything else on that anomaly?” “Nothing much else, although the gravity well seems to be deepening slowly at the center.” I hear a yawn. “Mmf. Sorry, El.” “Seems to be an epidemic of that going around. Anything else?” “Reading some omicron particle currents.” “What’s an omicron particle?” “Subatomic, produced by a few types of matter/antimatter reactions and toxic to some life forms, but they’re not common.” Corpsman Watkins walks back by with another protein bar. I say ‘another’ because she’s eaten less of it than the one she had before. “Biri, feed everything into the computer and see what we get.” Warragul grabs Watkins by the shoulder as she passes him. “Did you skip brekkie, Corpsman? That’s your fifth protein bar since you came in.” She looks at him angrily. “Get off me.” Then her face twists. “Sorry, sir. For some reason I’m feeling grumpy and I’ve been hungry since I got up.” “You sleep all right?” Maela asks, raising a tricorder. “Like a baby, sir.” “Well, you’re not showing the symptoms but there’s something else weird.” She turns to me and Warragul. “She’s putting out a lot of psilosynine.” “Psilo-what?” I ask. “It’s a neurotransmitter involved in Betazoid telepathy,” Warragul explains. “Watkins is about a quarter Betazoid.” “Closer to a third, actually, sir. I don’t really have any control and it mostly just helps my bedside manner.” I pinch my chin. “Is it possible that you aren’t the one who’s hungry?” “What, that I’m picking up somebody else and thinking it’s me?” “Oh, it’s possible,” Warragul confirms. “When I was on peds rotation during my residency I treated a Betazoid kid who was convinced she had a broken foot. There wasn’t anything on the x-ray. Turned out it was her sis.” “Full-bloods get more training in that, ‘cause they need more,” Watkins says. “But what does this have to do with the price of coffee?” Off my look, “Never mind, ma’am, it’s something my dad used to say.” “Well, I’m wondering—” The intercom chirps, and Biri’s voice says, “Bridge to sickbay. Finished the computer search and you’re not going to believe this. File reference Zulu-5353-Tango-Alpha-6.” Warragul brings it up on a screen. The file shows a picture of a red and gold cloud. “What am I looking at?” “Something Voyager ran across their third week in the Delta Quadrant, stardate 48546.2.” “A life-form?” Maela says, stifling another yawn. “Yeah. They tried to harvest omicron particles from it for replicator mass, but that was before they figured out it was alive.” “So, this thing we’re trapped in—” “Probably something similar.” I look over to Warragul. “You’re thinking it too, right?” “What, that this gravitic anomaly of Biri’s is trying to eat us?” “We’ve seen weirder.” “Not this weird,” Maela disagrees. “Only theory we’ve got, though. And it maybe fits. If this thing has enough of a mind for Watkins to pick up on it, maybe it’s what’s causing the behavior changes in the crew. Hey, you thought ‘grav anomaly that wants to eat us’ was weird, try ‘grav anomaly that eats dreams and nightmares.’ Maybe Puso and Kerensky were sleepwalking. Even explains the attack on the ensign: I know my nightmare was…” I stop, shuddering. That brought back memories I’ve tried to forget for ten years. “Ma’am? You all right?” “Yes, I’m fine. I just, I need a moment.” I head out the door to the hall, pushing past the security noncoms guarding Specialist Puso. I make it to the turbolift. “Bridge.” I lean against the wall, struggling to control my breathing. No. No. I am not going to break down. I’ve got people depending on me. A small voice inside asks, Like your gun crew and the wounded murdered in their beds on the Kira Nerys depended on you? Like a hundred fifty-seven people on the George Hammond depended on you? Like the thirty-five killed on the Bajor in the last six months depended on you? Shut up, I tell the voice. Now I’m just angry. My head raises to look at my faint reflection in the control panel, brow furrowed, cheek scar creased. And when I’m angry, I need a target. The door slides open on the bridge and I look out the viewport. I’ve got one. “Tess, bring us to battle stations,” I order. “Aye, ma’am.” She hits the intercom. “All hands, battle stations. You’ve got a plan, ma’am?” she asks over the klaxons now wailing throughout the Bajor’s halls. “Full spread of quantum torpedoes seems like a plan to me. If it’s alive, I can kill it.” “What?” Biri gapes at me. “We don’t even know what that’ll do! And you’ll be killing the only known example of a—” I cut her off. “I’ll be killing a threat to my ship and my crew, and to any other crew that comes through here thinking it’s a safe area of space like it rightly should be. Have you got any better ideas?” “I don’t know, talking to it, maybe?” “How? Flashing our running lights at it? Morse code subspace pulses from the deflector? Or, I know, how about I go out on the hull and wave my arms around!” I hear a low rumble through the ship. “Somebody tell me what the phekk that noise was, now.” Gaarra calls from his console, “Reading some minor buckling on the saucer armor plate, over compartment Four-Bravo-Romeo. Nothing serious right now, but it’s going to get worse. It’s this gravity field, it’s starting to wear down the SIF. We’ll probably be dead in fifteen minutes.” “So now we’ve got a time constraint, too. Any better ideas, Riyannis?” She glares daggers at me. I glare right back and she turns away. “I want it on the record that I strongly disagree with this course of action, Captain.” “Noted. Tess, disengage the blast shapers on the next five torpedoes in the forward tube and calculate a firing solution for the distortion at the center of this thing.” I take my seat. The Andorian’s antennae dance as she bangs out a series of commands. “I have a solution.” “You may fire when ready,” I say around another yawn. “Firing, forward tube.” Five glowing blue quantum torpedoes shriek from under the saucer and vanish into the distance in seconds. “Time to target?” I ask. “Forty seconds.” Another low-pitched rumble I feel in my bones. “Damage?” “More buckling, starboard nacelle. Revising safety margin downward.” “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, impact.” The torpedoes vanish from the plot. Half a second later the ship, which still had the impulse engines at full reverse, leaps backwards as the gravity well vanishes. I frantically order all stop. “Report!” Biri shouts, “Conn, get us the hell out of here, it’s reforming!” Lieutenant Park spins the ship hard to starboard and fires the impulse engines. “I think you just bruised it, El!” “Bridge to Engineering, I need warp power yesterday!” “I need five more seconds!” Bynam radios back. “There, try it now!” “Conn! Warp one! Punch it!” The Bajor, still twisting to starboard, suddenly leaps forward, accelerating to the speed of light in under a second, the stars blueshifting ahead of us. Suddenly a pressure on my mind I didn’t even realize was there vanishes and I’m not tired anymore. I let out a breath. “Stand down from battle stations and chart a new course. Biri, I want everything we have formatted for transmission to Starfleet Command. And New Romulus Command. Hell, even the Klingons need to know about this one. I’ll make the report myself. And broadcast in the clear to all ships to give this area a wide berth for the time being.” I stand and stride into my ready room. “Really, Captain, your first thought is ‘quantum torpedoes, full spread’?” I nearly leap out of my skin, reflexively spinning and swinging at the voice. My fist makes contact with only the wall and I start swearing, cradling my split knuckles in my shirt and leaning over to pick up the medal I knocked off a hook. I turn and face a man perched on my desk wearing an old-style Starfleet uniform, early ‘70s vintage. Shortish dark brown hair, high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. But something about him feels intensely wrong, like he can’t exist. “Sher hahr kosst. Ieyet kasain tof chin’ktah.” He winces and inhales through closed teeth. “Language, Captain.” “Are you telling me this was one of your games, Q?” “One of my…?” He scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself. Overranked little spitfire like you isn’t half as interesting as Picard. Where is he, anyway?” “Thought you were supposed to be omnipotent. He retired decades ago, and get the phekk off my desk! You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here.” “You’d have some trouble comprehending it if I did. You thought the Borg and the Iconians were trouble?” He gives me a pointed look and hops over to my trophy wall. “I was actually coming to bail you out, but you seem to have solved that problem on your own, for the moment.” “What are you saying?” “That the puppeteer is also a puppet.” He turns to me and gives me a critical look. “You’re actually not bad-looking for a lower life form.” “Don’t get any funny ideas.” “Not like that. Up here,” and he pokes me in the head. “You’ll find your way.” There’s a flash behind my eyes and he’s gone. “Can we trust him?” Tess asks. We’re in the conference room. “Based on what I’ve read of Q Prime’s interactions with Starfleet crews in the past,” I reply, “I don’t know. He’s never exactly untruthful, and he did warn us the 359 cube was on its way, but he approaches it like a big game.” Warragul growls, “Yeah, fucking with our heads is the game. I say trust but verify.” “Me too, Doctor. Me too.” The intercom chirps. “Bridge to Captain Kanril, we've hit the outer marker. Admiral Kererek wants to speak with you.” I stand. “Come on, people, back to work.”
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