textfiles/sf/STARTREK/excalibu

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From: av557@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Walter S. George)
Subject: EXCALIBUR "A TRICK OF THE LIGHT" 1/2
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Reply-To: av557@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Walter S. George)
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Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 04:37:28 GMT
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                              A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

                              an EXCALIBUR EPIC by

                                Walter S. George

                           ( USS Excalibur NCC 2004 )

FRONTIERS OF ANY TYPE, PHYSICAL OR MENTAL, ARE BUT A CHALLENGE TO OUR BREED.
NOTHING CAN STOP THE QUESTING OF MEN -- NOT EVEN MAN.
IF WE WILL IT, NOT ONLY THE WONDERS OF SPACE BUT, THE VERY STARS ARE OURS!

                                    PART ONE

     Commodore Walter S. George shivered.
     "Cold, Walt?" Lieutenant Commander Deborah Titus-George asked. She rose
from the plaid blanket covered with dishes and entrees, walked over and
embraced Excalibur's commanding officer. "I'll try to warm you up, though on a
day like this you shouldn't feel any chill at all."
     George smiled and returned the embrace. "I'm not chilled though I'll take
a hug from you any time I can get it, Debbie. I just had a weird feeling, sort
of like a premonition, or the anticipation of a coming storm."
     Titus-George looked up at the sky, perfectly clear of clouds, though
perfectly green with three suns. "Don't quit your day job, Walt. You'd never
make it as a weatherman."
     "Oh, I don't know," George said with a grin. "I can predict you're about
to be kissed, Commander."
     "Really, Commodore!" Titus-George said in mock astonishment. Then,
contrary to her pseudo-amazement, she seized the initiative kissing Excalibur's
commander firmly. For his part, he was making no pretense at resisting, rather
reciprocating instead.
     "Cut it out, you two. There are impressionable young minds around."
     In spite of themselves, the two incurable romantics had to laugh which
broke the kiss, the mood and the moment.
     "Your mind was impressed long before today, Dan," George said to the
interloper. "You have no one to blame but yourself if it didn't get impressed
with virtue and chastity."
     Commander Daniel Blasberg was Excalibur's executive officer and the
commodore's Number One fill-in-the-blank. He covered the distance from his
vantage point in a copse of purple-leaved trees to the picnic site in seven
long strides. "I resemble that remark, Commodore, and I'd protest if I didn't
agree with you. Besides, I was just thinking of the food. All that sugar in the
air could have spoiled it."
     Titus-George laughed. "You're always thinking of food, Dan. And I've seen
you put worse stuff on your food than sugar and still devour it with abandon."
     It was Blasberg's turn to laugh. He could throw any vocal barb at George
with little fear of official reprisal. Somehow, he could never bring himself to
trade verbal volleys with Titus-George. She was, after all, the commodore's
wife which somehow prompted him to treat her with utmost respect as compared to
the commodore whom he treated with all due respect. It wasn't the respect that
made the difference to him, it was how the respect was demonstrated.
     "I don't have to stand here and take this," Blasberg said.
     "No, you could go and stand somewhere else," George added, "like over by
Meridian where you're supposed to be helping Tim set up the S.T.A.R. test."
     "You and your acronyms, Commodore," Blasberg said with a shake of his
head. "That's what I came to tell you. The Self-contained Transporter Am-
bulatory Remote is all set up. Tim says you'd better come and begin the test
before we eat. He thinks the extra mass you'll absorb will botch the test
otherwise."
     "Oh he does, does he?" George asked with a frown. "It's more likely that's
what YOU think and you're putting words in Tim's mouth." He looked woefully at
Titus-George. "Sorry, Debbie. Duty and my chief engineer call."
     Titus-George sighed. "I'll make do, somehow. Maybe I'll go and find Elaine
and Debbie and see what they're up to. For now, here's a kiss to keep you."
     When George could breathe again, he caught his breath and said, "WOW! With
a kiss like that you can own me! I'll be back for more in a bit." Reluctantly,
he indicated for Blasberg to lead the way to the test site for the STAR.

                                      *****

     USS Excalibur NCC 2004 orbited Helel in the serene silence imposed by the
void of space. Sound could not travel in a vacuum, but light could with ease.
In the Helel system, the light from the three blue-white primaries, waltzing
with each other in trinary configuration, provided graphic evidence of that
fact of physics.
     The splendor of the sight was lost on the man in the center seat on the
bridge. Commander Jim Makofsky had things on his mind.
     "What's on your mind, Jim?" Lieutenant Commander Crystal March asked.
Seated at her communications station, she had ignored the waves of anxiety
Makofsky was all-but-visibly emanating. Even a non-empath could have noticed
the electric strain in the aire. March was empathic, at least as much as her
half-Betazoid heritage endowed. Makofsky's perturbed state of mind bellowed his
distress to her ersatz talent till she could no longer even pretend to ignore
it.
     Makofsky jumped, obviously startled out of intense concentration on his
worries. "Being anywhere but here, Crystal," he answered the chief com-
munications officer's query. "I'm much more comfortable at my science station
and computer console than here in the center seat. I wish the commodore hadn't
left the conn to me."
     "You're the ranking bridge officer on duty, Jim," March reminded him.
     "But you've been acting commander before," Makofsky continued his protest.
"I don't mind taking a back seat to experience."
     "I believe EXPERIENCE is the commodore's intention," March returned. She
rose, crossed down into the bridge's lower elevation and stood to the uptight
science officer's left. "You passed the Kobayashi Maru over two years ago, Jim.
Isn't it about time you tried your hand at command?"
     "I took the KM under duress and command order," Makofsky said, shuddering
at the memory, "and got a dose of theragen as a reward for my 'success'."
     "The theragen was the fault of the Emfive Virus," March pointed out, then
reflexively winced, as if mentioning the resident, currently dormant computer
virus would arrest its attention and invoke a flare-up. "The success, which is
a matter of record, is your fault, or credit depending on your point of view."
     Makofsky sighed, heavily and long. "I know. I just thought that once I had
the KM out of the way, it would be the last threat I would have to face of
being in a command position. Now, here I am and here is where I don't want to
be."
     March placed a firm, comforting hand on his shoulder. 
"Command's not so bad, Jim. I survived. It's not like it's killing you to watch
the bridge while the commodore is only as far away as the planet's surface."
     Makofsky scowled. "That's just it. What if something happens to the ship
while Commodore George is gone? What if something happens to one of the crew?
What if we're attacked by Klingons while in orbit? What if...?
     "What if you just take this one second at a time rather than trying to
make a quantum leap into what if?" March scolded. "Life is what happens, Jim.
We can't prepare for the future. We simply have to live till it gets here."
     "Easy for you to say, Crystal. You've lived there."
     March glanced around the bridge. Makofsky had kept his voice low, in spite
of his distress. Still, not all of the present compliment knew of her out-of-
time place on board. Rather than perpetuate the breech, she let it slip into
oblivious banter. "I live Now, now. Then will wait. Ease up on yourself.
Excalibur's a big girl. She can take care of herself, mostly."
     Makofsky tried another sigh, this one to feign relief. It came out as a
snort. "You may be right. Nothing wrong may happen."
     "Something right may happen," March countered. "It's all in your outlook."
A beep from her communications station drew her attention. "Oops. Duty calls.
Or at least it's hailing. If it's a Klingon, what do you want me to say?" She
was already returning to the subspace commlink panel.
     "I believe the expression is, 'nuqneH'," Makofsky said. "After that, tell
him nobody's home and we don't want any trouble from the Klingon sector today."
     March laughed. "If I tell him nobody's home there WILL be trouble from the
Klingon sector." She completed establishing the two-way link. "This is Ex-
calibur, go ahead."
     "Silva. Molina."
     March looked at the security chief seated at the defense station. "Toby,
it's Flavius. I think he wants to talk to you."
     Lieutenant Commander Toby Molina smiled. He rarely could be seen without a
smile, in point of fact. "I think I know what he wants. Patch him over." He
flipped the toggle blinking the message that a channel was open. "Hi, Flavius.
What can I do for you?"
     "Need more practice phaser-grenades," Flavius demanded. Magna Romans
rarely said please. "Julla has a raw squad that cannot hit the most expansive
side of an assault shuttle." Magna Romans, especially Silva, were somewhat
aristocratic when it came to comparing the relative abilities of other races'
warriors to their own.
     "They'll be down before you can call their mothers all the Tellar Terrible
Taunts in alphabetical order," Molina replied.
     "Funny. Laugh later. Duty now. Silva out."
     Molina failed to stifle a guffaw. He looked at Makofsky. "Permission to
leave the bridge and tend to the transport?"
     Makofsky waved a hand. "Just don't be gone long, Commander. You're chief
of security. I need you here to feel secure."
     Molina smiled all the way to the turbolift, and very likely would smile
all the way down to the armory.
     "While we're taking messages, Crystal, let's find out how the rest of the
away teams are doing," Makofsky directed.
     March opted to call the medical team first. She knew Makofsky wanted the
reassurance of hearing the commodore's voice and figured he could wait just
that much longer. The lapse of time would do his confidence a favor if he could
report to George that all was well. "Excalibur to Doctor Morning Star -- come
in please."
     There was a pause covered by the sibilant hiss of subspace white noise
during which the medical officer was supposedly stopping the task in progress,
withdrawing her communicator, raising the antenna grid with a flip of the wrist
and, "Morning Star, here. What can I do for you, Crystal?"
     "This is Commander Makofsky's dime," March informed her. "I'm just the
connecting operator."
     "Oh. Jim's nervous about being in the hot seat. I prescribe chilling out,
Commander."
     Makofsky winced at the accuracy of Morning Star's sight-unseen diagnosis.
"You know me too well, Doctor. But it IS my duty to check on the progress of
the away teams periodically."
     "I wish Doctor Alexander-Riley would give me more time down here. You can
pass that along if you'd like. There is a virtual wealth of herbals here. I
could spend decades analyzing their medicinal properties. There's even some
Klingon plants here I've only read about."
     "I think I can talk the CMO into letting you have as much time as it takes
the commodore to test his newest contraption," Makofsky said.
     "In that case I hope the commodore's contraption takes forever to test,"
Morning Star quipped.
     Makofsky laughed, in spite of his tension. "Score one for Doctor Blue
Lightning herself. You may have prescribed chilling out, but obviously your
best prescription is laughing."
     "'A cheerful heart is good medicine'," Morning Star returned, "'but a
crushed spirit dries the bones.'"
     "I feel better already," Makofsky admitted. "Thanks for the status
report."
     "I could use some extra specimen containers," Morning Star appended, "that
is IF I get the extra time to fill them."
     "I'll see that you get both, Doctor. Makofsky out."
     "Morning Star, out."
     Makofsky swiveled the center seat to face the communications station.
"Okay, Crystal. Quit stalling. You've known all along whose away team I really
wanted to talk to in the first place."
     "I'll hail Commodore George, Jim," March pretended to surrender reluc-
tantly. "At least now you have something more to tell him..." Her comm panel
BUZZED.
     "That's probably the commodore, now," Makofsky said, somewhat relieved.
     "Not," March negated. "It's a distress call."

     Makofsky's grin widened. Morning Star HAD succeeded in chasing away his
worries. It WAS all going to turn out fine. "Ha. I'm not falling for..."
     "I mean it, Jim. It's a distress call," March's eyes widened as the panel
triangulated the source. "I don't believe it."
     Makofsky frowned. It wasn't a gag. "Not that I'm really anxious to find
out, but, what's so unbelievable?"
     "The distress call is being transmitted from Praxis."
     Heads all over the bridge twisted towards the communications officer at
the name.
     "This is definitely no longer funny, Crystal," Makofsky warned, "so if
you're still pulling my..."
     "I'm dead serious, Commander." Use of rank. Serious business, indeed.
     "Praxis is a Klingon lunar satellite," Makofsky recalled, "orbiting the
homeworld itself. Patch it through. Let's hear it."
     Silence overpowered the bridge as everyone knew the next words would be
from a Klingon -- in distress.
     The viewscreen fuzzed over with severe subspace static. A Klingon was a
very distressing sight to anyone serving aboard a starship. The sight of a
distressed Klingon, as this one appearing on the distorted image, was outright
unnerving.
     "This is an emergency! We have suffered..."
     The background and foreground filled with fire and fury and the transmis-
sion was abruptly severed.
     "I don't like the looks of that one bit," Makofsky said into the leaden
hush following the aborted call. "Crystal, I REALLY need to talk to the
commodore, NOW!"
     "Aye, sir," March acknowledged and expertly tapped out the keys to signal
Excalibur's commanding officer's personal communicator. But..., "No response.
I'm not even getting a signal received indication."
     Makofsky was out of his seat and up at March's side in three steps, vault
over the rail included. "Try again."
     "I tried three times. No luck. No contact."
     "Why!?"

     March studied her monitors and readouts, rapidly analyzing and even more
rapidly growing alarmed at the indications. "Interference. Massive subspace
disruption. Directional anomaly."
     Makofsky was normally light skinned, but he paled visibly. "Where from?"
He turned to glance at the duty science officer.
     Lieutenant T'Tala had focused her sensor scans the minute March had
mentioned interference. "A subspace energy swell is approaching us at warp
factor twelve, Commander."
     Another vault over the rail and Makofsky was once more in the center seat.
"Visual!" The picture spoke, no, screamed a thousand words. A wall of un-
dulating energy was pushing through space directly for them. "Shields! Red
alert!" The klaxon whooped. The crew scrambled. "The away teams on the surface,
we have to warn them."
     "The interference cannot be overcome," March said with icy calm in her
voice but chilling fear in her heart.
     "We'll beam them up!" Makofsky grasped at the last resort.
     "You'll kill them for sure," March said. "The subspace interference
playing havoc with our comms will positively destroy the patterns in a trans-
porter beam."
     Makofsky pounded the arm of the center seat. It hurt, but it felt good to
vent anger, nonetheless. "We'll have to ride it out and hope the away teams can
take cover, somehow, and survive. I knew SOMETHING would go wrong, but I never
nightmared it would go THIS wrong!"

                                      *****

     The STAR hovered sedately and staunchly 2.5 meters above the ground.
Directly beneath the STAR was the pattern mesh grid. It looked simple and
deceptively unpretentious. Yet, its design and intent were radical and revolu-
tionary.
     Commander Timothy Riley, a co-designer of the Self-contained Transporter
Ambulatory Remote (the commodore sure had a way with acronyms), returned the
focus of his attention to the compact device in his hands. It resembled a
tricorder, but was much more. It was the brain of the STAR. He swallowed with
some degree of nervousness tickling his innards. It had worked under workbench
conditions, strictly controlled. They had even beamed a person with it, while
still onboard ship. Now, they were here on Helel to field test it.
     The other co-designer of the STAR entered the clearing where Blasberg had
landed Meridian, the commodore's personal warpshuttle, and they had set up the
STAR testsite. "All set, Tim?" George called as he neared.
     "Under protest, yes," Riley admitted. "It works under strictly controlled
conditions, Walt. Why do you insist on testing it so early under less than
optimum conditions?"
     "Because, before we present it to Starfleet Engineering Division," George
explained, "I want to be sure it works under ALL conditions. The workbench
results are positive and the safety factors acceptable. We have Meridian here
as computer backup, and the subspace relay between the STAR and the transporter
systems on Excalibur gives us further insurance. What could possibly go wrong?"
     "Words to tempt Fate by," Blasberg said, "but I live for the moments Fate
takes up a gauntlet."
     "That's why I selected you to be guinea pig number two, Number One,"
George said.
     "That's another sticking point, Walt," Riley said. "We've only tested the
STAR with one person over a distance of two meters. Now you're proposing we
transport two people over a line of sight distance in an open environment.
You're not only tempting Fate, you're tweaking Its nose and calling It a
coward."
     "There's an inherent risk in being a pioneer, Tim," George said. "I
appreciate your concern, though."
     "Then appreciate my offer to be a test subject in your place," Riley
pressed. "It won't matter much if I don't come back from wherever the STAR
sends me by accident."
     "I disagree, Tim," a new voice entered the debate. "It WOULD matter to
your WIFE very much!" Excalibur's assistant chief medical officer emerged from
the sylvan shadows accompanied by the chief records officer and the resident
xenobiologist.
     "Lainey, what are you doing here?" Riley asked as he extended an arm to
summon the love of his life to his side. "You're supposed to be helping Chilton
catalog the bioforms on this planet."
     Doctor Elaine-Sue Alexander-Riley willingly sought the lee of Riley's
embrace. "I'm here to watch an open invitation to trouble and to keep you out
of it when it comes."
     "Give up on that, Elaine," Titus-George said as she stared a glare at her
husband. "Men will be men, which means men will be stubborn. We'll just pick up
their pieces and carry on as best we can."
     "Ah yes, Women's Ways, Chapter Eight, Paragraph Eleven, Section Thirty,
Item Eighteen," Lieutenant Commander Debbie Chilton feigned recall. "I know
that book by heart. I use it to keep Daniel out of trouble. That's what friends
do for friends."
     "Not The Book, again!" Blasberg mourned. "How come I've never seen this
Book that tells women so much about men, and why isn't there a companion volume
that explains women to men in return?"
     "For one thing, it's for women's eyes only," Chilton shot back, "and for
another thing, no expert exists who can write the book explaining women to
men."
     "Amen to that!" Blasberg said.
     "Okay," George spoke up. "Enough stalling. We've got an unplanned audience
but that won't stop the STAR test or change my mind one iota. Dan, if you will,
please step on the grid with me." Following his own request, George stepped
onto the mesh grid slightly right of center.
     Blasberg also stepped onto the thin metal platform, left of center. A
light breeze tousled his hair as he did so. "Let's get this over with. I came
for the picnic, not to be the floor show."
     "Move a little further left, Dan," Riley counseled. "I want there to be as
much of a resolution buffer between you when the STAR scans your patterns." The
breeze that gusted through sifted Riley's wavy hair with a fluttering sigh.
     "In other words, don't crowd my space, Number One," George quipped
cavalierly. "Any closer to me and you'd be inside me."
     "Don't even joke like that," Titus-George cautioned. "Just get this test
over with so it's not hanging over our heads." The wind blew through her blond
strands, giving them the appearance of possessing a life of their own.
     "Once we prove this equipment modification is viable," George said, "we'll
alter the way away teams handle a mission. Think of it -- a portable transpor-
ter unit they can take along and beam themselves anywhere on the planet. No
more, 'Beam me up's to escape danger."
     "All indicators are green, Walt," Riley announced. "We're as ready as
we'll ever be."
     George nodded. "It's time to fish or cut bait. Do you want to say the
magic word, Dan, or shall I?"
     "Unless the magic word is 'eat', I'm just along for the ride," Blasberg
shrugged. He brushed the hair out of his vision the wind had blown to obscure
it.
     George caught and held his wife's glance. It'll be okay, my love, his eyes
assured her. Then, to Riley, "Energize."
     Riley tapped out the sequences that would incite the STAR to scan the
patterns of his friends, dissolve their molecules into energy, and store them
in a dynamic buffer. That part of the typical sequence took place without a
hitch. The STAR should then dissolve itself while the subspace computer link on
Excalibur reassembled it at a predetermined point in space.
     All the test runs had progressed like clockwork. When the skies above
Helel suddenly blackened with angry clouds, and a gale force wind knocked them
all off their feet, Riley sensed with growing dread that something was going
severely wrong at the wrong moment. Quickly, he leaped to his feet, fought his
way against the wind's rising velocity, and wrestled his way over to the STAR's
brain he had dropped when he'd been unceremoniously unfooted.
     "Tim!" Titus-George screamed to be heard over the howl of the wind.
"What's wrong?"
     Riley ignored the records officer as he frantically reviewed all the
indicators on the Star-brain. He knew he could not keep it secret from any of
them, so better now to say what he feared. "There is a massive surge in the
subspace potential level. It's like nothing I've ever seen, even in the warp
drive." A shatter of plastic and a shower of sparks made him drop the Star-
brain yet again. The subspace monitor had literally exploded. "Oh no!"
     Titus-George had reached the chief engineer's side and grasped his arm
both to anchor herself against the tempest and to telegraph her desperation
through her clutch. "Out with it, Tim! Are Walt and Dan okay?"
     "They're in transporter transit," Riley began. Alexander-Riley and Chilton
had reached him by then as well.
     "But..." Titus-George prompted.
     "That indicator that exploded was the subspace potential monitor," Riley
continued. "It received a massive level reading that overloaded its circuits.
What that means is the power level in the local subspace continuum has exceeded
its safety thresholds. Not even a starship travelling at maximum warp speed
could do that." He started to lead the huddled group over to Meridian.
     "What could do that?" Chilton bellowed.
     "Nothing known to Federation science," Riley admitted, and activated the
warpshuttle's entry hatch. He then led the four of them up the ramp. When the
door sealed behind them the din of the maelstrom abated, but the warpshuttle
shook like a rag doll in a tiger's jaws.
     Titus-George grabbed Riley by the shoulders and made him face her square-
ly. "Where is my husband, Tim?"
     "I told you, in transporter transit," Riley repeated. "But, I've got to
tell you, that subspace surge is not good. The STAR operates on subspace
principles. Transporter transit is a state of existence partially in subspace.
Walt and Dan could be in serious danger."
     Riley's wife sank into a seat as the rocking of the warpshuttle became
more severe. "Why are we in here, then? Shouldn't we be out there trying to
reintegrate them?"
     "Lainey, that storm out there is not caused by nature," Riley said. "I
don't know how, but somehow the local subspace continuum has destabilized and
the planet's atmosphere is being torn apart as a result. If we don't try to
weather it in here, we'll surely die out there and be no help out all in trying
to rescue the commodore and Dan."
     "'Trying to rescue'?" Titus-George repeated, also collapsing into a seat.
     Riley kept his legs flexed as the warpshuttle quivered even more violent-
ly. "There may be no hope. I won't lie to you. But, then again, there may be
every hope we can retrieve them from transporter transit. But first, we have to
live through this subspace squall."
     But, just then, the warpshuttle flipped bow over stern, end over end.

                                      *****

     "ALL DECKS BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
     Impact?! Molina reflexively halted in his mad dash down the corridor. He
panted heavily, gulping air. He hadn't realized how hard it was to run with a
container of phaser-grenades. Had Makofsky really said 'impact'? How could a
starship in orbit impact with anything unless it was a rogue meteor, an
unplotted orbital body, or another ship with a clumsy helmsman? 
     Belatedly, the security chief realized he had stopped his dash for a
turbolift. The red alert WAS still sounding. His place was on the bridge, not
playing mail-order clerk for Silva's training team. But, he had drawn the
grenades from the armory and couldn't spare the time to secure them properly
before returning to the bridge. Thus, the burden in his arms as he once more
pounded the deck with his feet, his powerful legs propelling him rapidly for a
turbolift with access to the bridge.
     The turbolift doors opened at Molina's fleet approach. He bolted inside
and shouted, "Bridge!" at the voice pickup. The lift was moving too slow!
"Security override! Molina Alpha Four! Emergency speed!" He staggered then
shifted his center of balance as the computer accepted his command and the lift
accelerated beyond the safety thresholds for routine traffic. Much better, but
unless he was actually on the bridge in the next instant the pace was still too
slow with nothing to be done for it but to wait.
     It was the moment his face smacked against the ceiling of the lift that
Molina remembered the warning from the bridge to 'brace for impact'. The impact
had obviously arrived. Suddenly, every surface of the lift was being impacted
with the mass of his body. He heard and felt ominous crunches and snaps within
his frame at each blow. What was happening? What exactly had hit the ship to
cause it to tumble like this? Molina smiled, in spite of the jeopardy. I feel
like a racquetball, he thought. Then the phaser-grenade container struck his
head and he carried that thought into oblivious blackness.

                                      *****

     "ALL DECKS BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
     Makofsky imagined more than heard his own voice repeated and amplified
throughout the ship, all too aware it was probably the last order he would ever
give in his career if he survived, possibly his life if not. After a lifetime
of avoiding command decisions, he was spending his last remaining seconds of
being alive giving more commands than he had ever given since his birth. His
mind replayed the last few minutes like a tricorder archive recording. It
wasn't necessarily his whole life flashing before him, just the most intense
portion.
     "Helm, evasive action!"
     "No response, commander! Subspace interference degenerates drive fields!"
     "Maneuvering thrusters!"
     "Inoperative!"
     "Tractor beams!"
     "Ineffective!"
     "Launch log buoys!"
     "Buoys away!"
     "Suggestions?"
     "Pray... hang on... cry... run... scream... laugh!"
     "ALL DECKS BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
     "Bracing!"
     DEAR GOD!
     Then the cosmic breaker was upon them, filling the main viewscreen with
blinding-white radiance. In the dilation of time that seemed to affect the
senses in moments of crisis like this, the subspace energy swell seemed to rear
up like a wild beast about to slay its prey, then lash forward striking its
victim with the full choler of its wild nature. How in all of God's Creation
did this monster come to be spawned? What had happened on Praxis to unleash
this demon?
     The time dilation was probably a side-effect of the subspace distortion.
Rudely, temporal flow snapped back into normal progress, then accelerated into
fast-forward. The deck of the bridge rose up to smash Makofsky's nose. Or had
he been thrown from the center seat as if Excalibur herself had rejected his
failed command? Screams of terror and shrieks of pain filled the air. There was
no up or down. Stunning brilliance assaulted the vision as it seemed the
subspace energy swell permeated every micrometer of space within the ship,
indeed his very being. He had lost command as surely as Excalibur was out of
control at the mercy of whatever the whimsy of the subspace cyclone could do
and wherever it could take them.
     What am I going to tell the commodore when he returns? Makofsky wondered. 
     There was an excruciating eruption of light and heat.
     Then...

                                      *****

     "Does anyone have an aspirin?" Chilton called into the darkness. The fact
that no answer was forthcoming didn't surprise her, but did nil to inspiring
her optimism. After all, in the afterlife who would think to bring aspirin
along? Was the apre's vie supposed to hurt? If not, then the supernova of pain
pushing her eyeballs down into her cheekbones could be a good sign she was
alive, or a bad sign she was critically injured. She decided to decide later
which one was the case as it hurt too much to think too loudly at the moment.
     "Ouch!"
     Someone else was obviously making observations about the nature and extent
of their own pain as well. Female voice. That narrowed the possibilities down
to two other people unless Commander Riley's vocal chords had been adversely
affected by the tumult that had tossed Meridian like dust in a twister.
     "Debbie?"
     "Debbie!"
     "This could be confusing if I didn't know which Debbie I am. I'm glad to
hear someone else is conscious. Can you move?"
     A clang of metal. A stifled oath. "I'm on hands and knees. Does that count
as moving?"
     "I'm on my back with dead weight pinning me down. Compared to that, you're
running a marathon."
     "Are you hurt?"
     "No. Are you?"
     "I think I broke a nail."
     "Then the world must have come to an end."
     "I can believe that." A third voice, also female, was speaking weakly from
above. "My world appears to have turned upside-down at the very least."
     "Lainey, how did you get stuck up there?"
     "I was about to ask you the same question until I felt the blood rushing
to my head."
     "Right. Unless the center of gravity has shifted to outer space, and after
that subspace storm I wouldn't totally discard that notion, you're hanging from
the ceiling."
     "Half right. I managed to fasten the inertial restraints before we
flipped. I'm still in my seat."
     "That means we landed upside down. No wonder I can't find a light switch
anywhere. But, I have an idea. I'll have to grope around for the entry hatch.
Keep talking. It'll give me something to focus on for direction."
     "Okay, Debbie. She sounds alright, Debbie. How are you?"
     "I assume you're talking to Debbie Chilton, which is me. I'm okay except
I'm flat on my back with the heaviest sack of... blood..."
     "A sack of blood? You're not making sense."
     "No. Wait. I was feeling around trying to get the texture of the weight
holding me to the floor. I'm feeling hair, a uniform collar, and blood on
both."
     "Process of elimination, if you'll pardon the expression in this situa-
tion, tells me my husband is on top of you. Don't worry, though. The blood
tells me nothing untoward is going on."
     "Are you serious? How can you be so frivolous when you know your husband
is bleeding, possibly dying, possibly dead?"
     "I'm a doctor. I always make light of pain and death. Ask Tim."
     "I would but I don't think he'll answer. He's too busy mimicking a corpse
right now."
     "Pretty good comeback. You face death with a certain flippant attitude
yourself."
     "If you'd've lived my life, you'd understand why. I'd cry if I weren't
laughing."
     "Found it!" A click. A thrum of moving machinery. Grey light dawned within
the toppled warpshuttle ushering in with it a draught of fairly fresh air.
     Chilton could now see. Titus-George was over by the door inhaling deeply,
as if the air outside could dispel the hopelessness she must be feeling inside.
Alexander-Riley was securely strapped in a passenger seat firmly affixed to the
floor of the warpshuttle now serving as the ceiling. Chilton craned her neck
and saw Commander Riley's muscular bulk strewn akimbo over her. On his back was
a portion of deck plate holding them both down.
     "Who needs rescue first?" Titus-George asked.
     "Can you lift this deck plate off of Tim?" Chilton asked. "Then lift Tim
off of me. We can both get the doctor down to tend to him after that."
     "I might break another nail," Titus-George said, trying to match the
nonchalant ambience belying their perilous disposition. "I'm not a weight
lifter like Tim, either. But..." 
     Titus-George stooped, gripped the deck plate under one edge with both
hands. A huff. A grunt. She straightened her knees and the deck plate rose with
her. Somehow, she managed to move it off to one side enough to shift it clear
of Riley's back. Gently, ever so gently, she lifted one side of the unconscious
engineer as Chilton wriggled out from underneath him. Then, just as gently, she
lowered him back to the 'floor', ensuring his placement was as level as
possible.
     Together, the two women looked up at Alexander-Riley sitting on the
ceiling. "I think we can sort of lower you to the floor if you unfasten the
restraints -- slowly -- and slide down into our hands," Titus-George ventured.
"It'll sort of be like a circus trick with acrobats."
     "Acrobats tumble," Alexander-Riley noted, "but they do it with more grace
and a lot more practice. Still, I haven't got any better ideas and I'm getting
a fierce migraine. Here goes nothing and here comes Lainey." She released the
inertial restraints and used them to control her slide earthward, until she
felt Titus-George and Chilton's hands grasp her lowering shoulders. "Okay. I'm
going to try something I haven't done since gym class when I was a kid. I'm
going to swing my feet around and let the momentum carry me to the floor
upright and feet first."
     "If it works, maybe you should take up juggling and sword-swallowing too,"
Chilton said, then dodged as Riley-Alexander's feet came swinging around,
plunging to the floor, the rest of her body following.
     "Whew!" Alexander-Riley exclaimed. "I wouldn't recommend that maneuver to
save wear and tear on the knees and feet."
     "Speaking of wear and tear, Doctor, you have a patient who needs your
skills," Chilton said.
     "Believe me, I haven't forgotten," Alexander-Riley said, and moved quickly
to her husband's inert form. Deft, sensitive hands felt for a pulse. A long
held sigh of relief. "The blood is dark and oozing -- venous flow. He would
bleed to death without attention." Fingers probed the gash. "Deep, but not too
much more severe. What I really need is my tricorder and medikit. I don't
suppose we can locate them in this chaos?"
     "We're miracle workers today," Titus-George said, as she approached with
the requested items. "I knew you'd be needing these and I knew the storage
locker should be relatively undamaged. I stood on a control panel and managed
to snare these."
     The doctor accepted her healing tools gratefully. "I'll tend to you two,
maybe myself, in a minute. First aid first for the serious casualties." She
passed the chirping tricorder over Riley's body. "Nothing major broken, though
a lot is bruised or torn. His vertebrae are intact so his neck isn't broken.
I'll patch up this gash and then we can turn him over to try and make him more
comfortable when he regains consciousness." Methodically, Alexander-Riley
worked on her injured husband.
     "You're amazing, Elaine," Titus-George said. "If Walt were bleeding like
that I'd be hysterical."
     "Have you forgotten where Walt and Dan may or may not be even as we
speak?" Alexander-Riley asked.
     Titus-George's lips thinned to a tight line. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
Her voice when she spoke was steady enough, though. "I remember. Tim's the only
one who can help us get them back alive. For that reason and for your sake, I'm
glad he, at the very least, is alive and relatively well."
     "Help me turn him over," Alexander-Riley requested. "My darling husband is
a tad on the hefty side." The three of them managed to turn Riley over.
Chilton's uniform tunic pillowed his head.
     "What next?" Chilton asked. "Who's in command? Debbie is the commodore's
wife."
     "Debbie, we're all women here," Alexander-Riley said. "We don't need to do
that male 'who-is-in-command' gambit."
     "Right," Chilton realized. "Sorry. I'm too military for my own good
sometimes."
     "Come see what's left outside," Titus-George suggested, standing by the
open hatch. "It's pretty bleak."
     Together, the three of them surveyed the aftermath of the subspace storm.
Not a tree of the purple-leafed forest was left standing, or even whole.
Broken, shredded trunks lay strewn about the ground, or piled up against rocks
and hillocks. There was not a sign to be seen of the STAR test site.
     "What happened?" Chilton asked meekly. "What could possibly have caused
this much devastation without warning?"
     "Tim mentioned a subspace disruption destabilizing local subspace," Titus-
George recalled. "I don't know of anything natural that could cause that severe
of a disruption unless a starship..."
     As one, all three inhaled sharply. Speculation was a gestalt epiphany for
them all.
     "Excalibur," Alexander-Riley breathed. "Did something happen to her to
cause her to..."
     "Explode," Chilton finished. "Something must've unbalanced the warp
engines and Excalibur exploded."
     "Don't be absurd, Chilton. You're a xeno, not an engineer." 
     "Tim!"
     "In the flesh, which hurts like ghe''or right now."
     The three women moved to the injured engineer's side. Alexander-Riley
stroked his brown curls gently. "Welcome back, Timmy," she said. "How do you
feel?"
     "Every time someone asks me that I know I'm in big trouble," Riley's voice
rumbled deeply in his chest. "I take it we all took a tumble and I took the
worst of it."
     "We're all standing," Chilton pointed out, "you're not. Answer the
doctor's question, Commander Riley."
     "I won't be doing anything more active than breathing right now, judging
from the way I feel," Riley said, "which is dizzy, weak, nauseated, chilled,
sweaty. I know enough to know I'm going into shock. Did I bleed much?"
     "Obviously enough," Alexander-Riley told him, "and leave the diagnosis to
the doctor please."
     "And the prognosis...?"
     "We'll tell our grandchildren all about it."
     "Thanks, Grandma. That's very reassuring," Riley said and tried a smile.
"But don't we need to have children first?"
     "We're working on that," Alexander-Riley smiled back.
     "Practice makes perfect, Lainey," Riley teased, then glanced at the other
two present. "Sorry for the intimate banter, ladies. We're an old married
couple. Now, you were babbling something about the ship exploding."
     "We weren't babbling!" Chilton snapped. "If you saw how it looks outside
you'd realize that something catastrophic happened to subspace hereabouts. What
else could it be but a starship exploding in orbit?"
     "That could cause some environmental damage," Riley admitted. "But the
STAR-brain's subspace potential monitor exploded, remember? Not even a dual-
annihilating starship could have caused that. No. It was something else, though
for the life of me I can't begin to fathom what. Did anyone TRY contacting the
ship yet?"
     They exchanged glances. "No," Titus-George answered. "Till now we have had
other things on our minds."
     "I know," Riley agreed. "I'm worried about Walt and Dan, too. That's why
I'm asking if you tried to call the ship."
     "We were plenty worried for you too, Commander," Chilton told him. "What
has the ship to do with the commodore and Commander Blasberg?"
     "Everything," Riley replied. "Walt and Dan are in transporter transit
along with the STAR. The pattern buffer WAS buried beneath Meridian for
safekeeping. Meridian may have moved somewhat but I'm willing to bet the
pattern buffer is still securely buried. The STAR system is designed so that
the ship's transporter computer reassembles the equipment at a set of predeter-
mined coordinates. I hadn't initiated that part of the sequence when the
subspace storm struck. Walt and Dan are in that pattern buffer and all we need
to do is reintegrate them."
     "Here's a communicator," Titus-George returned from rummaging around the
topsy-turvy compartment. She flipped open the antenna grid. "Titus-George to
Excalibur, come in please."
     STATIC.
     "Titus-George to Excalibur. Crystal, are you there?"
     STATIC.
     AND MORE STATIC.
     The antenna grid was flipped closed. "No response. Incommunicado for now.
And..." She looked to Riley for the next move.
     "Meridian's computer can interface with the STAR-brain," Riley thought
aloud. "I managed to bring it along so it should be somewhere inside. Lainey,
you know enough engineering to get the power back on in here. Debbie," to
Titus-George, "you're our resident computer expert. You can find the STAR-brain
and prep the network interface. Chilton, go recon outside and see if you can
spot where the pattern buffer was buried. I'll just lay here and supervise. I'm
not up to much else right now."

                                      *****

     Industrious activity filled the time and attentions of the small group.
They had a goal. They had a hope. They had each other. In amazingly short order
under the circumstances, all of Riley's instructions were carried out. Then,
Riley himself was half-carried out to where Chilton had located the cached
pattern buffer. Riley stood, supported on one side by his wife, on the other by
the commodore's lifemate. 
     Riley fiddled with the STAR-brain's controls and indicators, alternately
frowning and smiling at what he saw them do and display. "Well, I'll say this,
the STAR equipment endured the subspace storm in better condition than I did. I
swear, I've been hurt and patched up so many times since entering Starfleet
Academy that I'm not the man I was eleven years ago."
     "Look on the bright side, Timmy," Alexander-Riley suggested, "at this
rate, by the time you retire, you'll be a whole new person."
     "Thanks, Lainey. I'll keep that in mind the next time you install a spare
part. Now, there's good news and bad news."
     Titus-George felt fear twist her heart. "I don't think I can handle the
bad without hearing the good first."
     Riley's soulful brown eyes peered into her crystal-blue ones. "Either Walt
or Dan DID survive."
     "'Or'," Chilton echoed.
     Riley nodded. "There's only one signature in the pattern buffer. The good
news is there's barely a point zero zero zero zero one degree of integrity
degradation. Whichever it is, he's very much viable and retrievable. But..."
     "There's more?" Titus-George asked, dreading the response.
     Riley frowned and rechecked the readings on the STAR-brain. "Local
subspace took quite a beating from whatever-it-was. The STAR and the transpor-
ter in general operate largely on subspace theory. There's no telling what that
storm did to affect whoever is in the pattern buffer. We're lucky there's a
doctor in the group."
     "The bottom line, please, Tim," Titus-George urged.
     Riley sighed. This wasn't easy on any of them. One of his best friends in
the world was gone. The other, also one of his best friends, was still alive
but in questionable condition. "Bottom line -- it's in God's Hands now. Pray
like mad. I'm energizing the STAR."

                                      *****

     What is taking so long? George asked himself, as he made every effort to
peer through the transporter beam dazzle that clouded his vision. Usually, time
in transporter transit was virtually instantaneous. He had spent many hours,
all told, beaming up, down, over, in, and out. But this one beaming seemed to
be taking longer than all those other experiences combined. Is it a side affect
of the STAR?
     "It's Walt!" George heard his beloved wife exclaim.
     "No, it's Dan," Chilton was heard to contradict.
     "It can't be both," Riley pointed out, "can it?" He was intensely scruti-
nizing the STAR-brain's panel. "This has to be one of the weirdest, if not THE
weirdest thing I've ever encountered."
     "Tim, you're scaring me," Titus-George said. "Is that my husband or not?"
     You're scaring me too, George mentally agreed. Hurry up and finish the
integration so I can take a look and see what's so weird.
     "I don't know whether or not to complete the integration cycle," Riley
said, more to himself. "There IS only ONE signature in the pattern buffer. But,
it looks like TWO people are materializing. And, from what I can tell, the
subspace signets are way out of specs or even speculations."
     George felt his heart drop into his feet, not literally. Something had
gone wrong with the STAR and they'd lost Daniel C. Blasberg, Jr. He had
inadvertently killed his first officer. Hurry up, Tim! he wanted to shout.
Maybe we can still save Dan if you let me try my hand at the STAR-brain.
     "I really wish I knew what the end result will be if I complete this,"
Riley continued to muse. "I don't want to risk putting him... them... nuts!...
back in the pattern buffer with the subspace readings looking like they do --
which is like a tossed salad revisited. Two solid objects CANNOT possibly be
occupying the same space at the same time! But, that's what the readings say is
happening."
     George felt the overwhelming urge to take command and order the chief
engineer to stop stalling and restore altogetherness altogether. He must've had
a good reason to hesitate, but he who hesitated too long was lost. Due to the
virtues of the transporter beam, though, George was in no position to command
anything but his impatience and apprehension.
     "Tim, please!" Titus-George said as both request and demand.
     "All right, Debbie," Riley resigned. "For better or worse, I'll bring
him... them... nuts!... in and pray your prayers and mine are answered."
     George would have huffed in relief, but bodily movement was restricted in
transporter transit. Instead, he savored the sensation of awareness that his
five senses were returning to normal as the physical world regained solidarity
for him, at last! "Okay, Tim, what was the holdup for?" he demanded to know,
stepping near the group.
     They drew back as one... in fear?
     "Walt?" his wife asked tentatively.
     "Dan?" Chilton ventured.
     "Yes," he heard Blasberg answer, "in the flesh, finally!"
     "Dan, where are you?" George asked. He had stopped dead in his tracks, and
further movement seemed difficult in the extreme.
     "Commodore?" Blasberg's voice called. "I can hear you but I can't see
you."
     Titus-George fainted at that moment. Alexander-Riley knelt beside her as
doctor and friend to tend to the unconscious woman.
     "Debbie!" George exclaimed and wanted to rush over to his stricken wife.
Again, moving of his own volition was thwarted. "Tim, explain! What's going
on."
     "That's what I'd like to know," Blasberg demanded, though he still
remained invisible to George's eyes. "Has something happened to the commodore?"
     "I'm all right, Dan. It's you I'm worried about, wherever you are."
     "With all due respect sir, did you bump your head? I'm standing right
here."
     "Where? Wave or something so I can see you."
     "Here!" An arm waved directly in his line of sight.
     That's my arm... isn't it? George asked himself. He hadn't moved his arm
yet he'd seen his arm move when Blasberg waved.
     Riley and Chilton stood transfixed at some horrific sight, judging from
their expressions.
     "This is physically impossible," Chilton managed to say. "I've seen some
weird lifeforms in my short career, but this is definitely one for the record
books."
     "What do you mean, Commander?" George asked, trying again without success
to look around. "According to your own report this planet is void of animal
life."
     "Sir," Chilton began, "I don't know how to say this to my commanding
officer... or even his second-in-command... but you... sirs... are the weird
lifeform I am referring to, with all due respect."
     "Debbie, you're talking like we're one person instead of two," Blasberg
said. "Please tell me this is one of your practical jokes, like mouthing words
to pretend I'm going deaf or something like that."
     "I'm not pretending, Dan," Chilton denied. "This is for real... I think."
     "That's enough!" George stated in full command mode now. "Report!"
     Riley took a step or two nearer his friend. "Commodore, it appears the
STAR has... er, uh... malfunctioned and reintegrated you and Dan into one
body."
     "I need to sit down," George said, feeling vertigo sweep through him.
     "So do I," Blasberg, yet out-of-sight, agreed.
     "Doctor," George called, "you're the expert on physiology here. What is
your diagnosis?"
     Alexander-Riley rose, assured Titus-George was merely unconscious. "Walt,
Tim and Debbie are right. It... appears you and Dan are one person... sort of."
She aimed her tricorder at him and frowned at the readings. "But a person in
nearly perfect health, maybe, relatively."
     "Not funny!" Blasberg exclaimed, "and not possible... is it?"
     "It is," George agreed. "Explain, Tim, please."
     "It must have been that subspace storm, or whatever it was," Riley
speculated.
     "What subspace storm?" George and Blasberg asked in tandem, literally and
physically.
     Riley involuntarily gaped at the sight and sound. "Right after you
dematerialized, some sort of subspace disruption struck, destabilizing the
local subspace continuum. It played havoc with the planet's atmosphere, as you
can see. We took refuge in Meridian, but the subspace storm sent us on a little
spin. When we recovered from that, we came looking for you two. Instead we
found one of you registering as a pattern buffer signature, or so we thought.
Apparently, your two signatures were merged as one by the subspace disruption.
So, when the STAR reassembled your patterns, it did so as one person instead of
two."
     "I need a mirror," George said.
     "I need a drink," Blasberg added.
     "We need to get back to the ship," Riley countered. "Maybe the ship's
transporters can undo what the subspace disruption has done."
     "Then, why haven't we beamed up to the ship yet?" George asked.
     Riley cleared his throat. "They don't answer our calls, Walt. After that
subspace storm, it may be merely interference. Or..."
     "My ship..." George breathed. Then, "Where's Meridian? We've got to get
back into space and find out what happened to Excalibur."
     "It got tossed about two hundred meters away," Riley told him. "The
insides are somewhat scrambled but she may still be spaceworthy."
     "Commodore," Chilton spoke up, "we're forgetting the other away teams on
the surface here with us. Shouldn't we go looking for them and see if they
survived..." She left the 'or not' unsaid.
     "Commander... Debbie," George held her gaze, "If we can find Excalibur,
we'll have a better chance to locate Silva's and Morning Star's away teams with
the sensors onboard than flying recon patterns in Meridian."
     "Time's a wastin'," Blasberg said. "We can talk en route. Just get the
commodore out of my body so I can feel normal again."
     "Okay, Number One," George said. "We can get you feeling normal again... I
hope... and looking normal again. Sorry we won't be able to change your normal
looks though."
     "You should be so lucky, sir," Blasberg retorted, "with all due respect."
     "Is my wife all right, Doctor?" George asked.
     "She just fainted, Walt," Alexander-Riley answered. "The mild stimulant I
gave her will bring her around shortly."
     "Fine," George said. "Tim, you look like something the cat dragged in then
dragged back out, so I assume you're in no condition to carry my wife back to
Meridian."
     "She helped carry me this far," Riley said. "When I'm feeling better, I
can return the favor. For now, it's all I can do to stand here and smile."
     "We'll wait until Debbie comes to," George decided. "Try to explain what's
happened to me... us... whoever so she'll understand I'm still alive. If I were
her, under the circumstances, I'd faint too."

                                      *****

     Launching an upside-down warpshuttle had been a whole new experience for
Lieutenant Commander Debbie Chilton. But then, there had been a plethora of
novelties -- a subspace storm, a ride in a warpshuttle not unlike a barrel over
a waterfall, a freak transporter malfunction combining two of her favorite
people in the world into one. Yep, she'd certainly filled her year's quota of
the strange and the new in one day.
     Chilton had had plenty of backseat advice from Riley, George and Blasberg,
though the latter two currently counted as one person. It had been odd thinking
backward and upside-down lifting the warpshuttle on antigravs and flipping it
with thrusters. But, her brain had done warm-ups on perceiving the ultimate in
Siamese twins just looking at the George/Blasberg synergic amalgam.
     George/Blasberg and Riley were in no condition to pilot Meridian, much
though Blasberg protested. G/B simply couldn't sort out who was controlling
which body part and Riley was still recuperating. Titus-George and Alexander-
Riley felt less confident about piloting than Chilton did, which must have been
pretty feeble since she wasn't all that hyped on piloting herself. But, she'd
gotten them off the ground without crashing and into space without burning up.
Too many more novelties today, and she'd be able to retire from Starfleet
tomorrow and feel she'd seen and done it all.
     "The planet's ozone layer is eighty per cent depleted," Titus-George
reported, "and the atmosphere is completely ionized. Sensor readings of the
surface are sporadic and untrustworthy."
     "More bad news," Alexander-Riley added. "One of the primaries of this
system is gone. The other two are critically imbalanced. There are solar flares
erupting from their surfaces being drawn into each other. They're fueling and
destroying each other all in one action."
     "An atmosphere ionized," George summed up, "a star destroyed, subspace
destabilized. Whatever happened must have been quite a light show."
     "We're approaching orbital altitude, Commodore," Chilton reported.
     "Standard orbit, Commander," George told her. "Tim, any sign of Ex-
calibur?"
     "None at all, Walt," Riley answered. "No debris, no radioactive fallout,
no log buoys, no bodies, no nothing."
     "Know nothing," Blasberg burlesqued, "that's our main problem. We know
nothing and need to know something if not everything about what happened."
     "I just want to know one thing at the moment, Number One," George said
grimly, all too well aware, to all appearances, he was speaking to himself,
"where is my ship? Where is Excalibur?"

                              CONCLUDED IN PART TWO
--
It left the world and took its flight    Taking care of business
Over the wide seas of the night.                   and
The moon set sail upon the gale,            Working overtime!
And stars were fanned to leaping light!  ********************=<O

Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Path: tivoli.tivoli.com!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!utnut!nott!cunews!freenet.carleton.ca!FreeNet.Carleton.CA!av557
From: av557@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Walter S. George)
Subject: EXCALIBUR "A TRICK OF THE LIGHT" 2/2
Message-ID: <CxyFMB.3KL@freenet.carleton.ca>
Sender: news@freenet.carleton.ca (Usenet News Admin)
Reply-To: av557@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Walter S. George)
Organization: The National Capital FreeNet
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 1994 04:39:47 GMT
Lines: 956


                              A TRICK OF THE LIGHT

                              an EXCALIBUR EPIC by

                                Walter S. George

                           ( USS Excalibur NCC 2004 )

FRONTIERS OF ANY TYPE, PHYSICAL OR MENTAL, ARE BUT A CHALLENGE TO OUR BREED.
NOTHING CAN STOP THE QUESTING OF MEN -- NOT EVEN MAN.
IF WE WILL IT, NOT ONLY THE WONDERS OF SPACE BUT, THE VERY STARS ARE OURS!

                                    PART TWO


     The drone that siphoned his consciousness out of the murky depths throbbed
in rhythm to the pounding ache in his skull. It reverberated through his jaw to
his teeth. It commuted down his vertebrae into his legs. The super low-toned
buzz resonated throughout his entire body and brought him slowly to full aware-
ness.
     "Who am I?" It was asked out loud and he had voiced it. "I must be me, so
therefore I am..." A moment stretched into infinity as he groped through fogged
recall for... "Toby Molina, security chief of USS Excalibur NCC 2004."
     "Where am I?" also asked aloud. It was dark, but his eyes were open. The
only sound was the angry buzz tickling his ears and vibrating the marrow of his
bones. He pieced together the last moments he remembered; phaser-grenades, red
alert, brace for... "IMPACT! We hit something. I'm in the turbolift with a
container of..." 
     Phaser-grenades.
     Now, Molina could place a name to the hum. Not one, nor two, but many
phaser-grenades all primed and charged. True they were only designed for
practice and the force of one detonation could knock a person back a step or
two. But, if more than one of them exploded and set up a chain reaction in the
others...
     ...if their respective fields modulated together...
     How many phaser-grenades were there in one container? Molina chewed on his
lower lip and thought of the weapons manuals he had read. Fifty. Fifty phaser-
grenades in one standard Starfleet issue container. If even one of them went
off in close proximity to the others...
     Molina sat up sharply. Till now he had lain motionless, concentrating on
the hum and his headache. Rudely his attention diverted to the stabbing agony
in his right leg. He sucked air through his teeth with a hiss, stifling a
heated oath. He forced himself upright and against the bulkhead of the tur-
bolift to examine his leg by feel. It could be a sprain. But, the bones he felt
protruding though his uniform and the very damp blood-drenched cloth told him
the leg was very much broken. If the bone had sliced an artery then he could
die in a very short time. He combed his hair with his fingers with growing
apprehen... Oh, no. He had run his fingers by his right ear and felt the
trickle of blood seeping out. A concussion, or worse.
     Great! Either the phaser-grenades would kill him, or his concussion, or he
could bleed to death. No lights meant no power, no comms, maybe no life-
support. Maybe whatever had struck Excalibur had compromised hull integrity. He
could be sitting in the only chamber on board with atmosphere.
     He could be sitting in his coffin.
     Worry about one thing at a time, Molina. The phaser-grenades were a
crucial priority. If they went off and by some chance hulled through the
turbolift, the explosion could endanger others who might still be alive on
board after... whatever it was that had happened to Excalibur.
     Molina dragged himself towards the buzz that sounded like maddened
hornets, ignoring the piercing anguish each move invoked in his broken leg.
That pain did in no way help his headache any either. He reached the container
both by guess and by luck. He grabbed it with both hands and dropped it,
screaming as his palms and fingers were scorched. The container was HOT, as his
singed fingers had found out. This could be a very bad thing... VERY bad.

                                      *****

     It was not a good thing. It seemed like hours, but only minutes had passed
since Makofsky had regained awareness of his world. He awoke to not only find
the nightmare of command continuing, but worsening as well. 
     A few things had been accomplished. The life-support had been restored and
along with that the lights. For now, all they had was emergency battery power,
but Lieutenant Sevik, chief engineer in Commander Riley's absence, assured the
reluctant acting commanding officer with Vulcan certitude that at least impulse
power could be restored before the batteries were depleted.
     Sick bay had briefly reported several casualties but no fatalities... yet.
All decks had not yet reported in as the comm system was in a state of unpre-
dictable flux due to the subspace energy swell that had permeated every area of
the ship.
     That was the best of the worst news. The truly bad news had yet to
manifest itself, but Makofsky harbored little doubt that tragic tidings were as
imminent as...
     "Too much pessimism will give you an ulcer, Jim."
     March. Somehow she always knew what was going on inside him, feelings-
wise. She was seated calmly at her station, monitoring  ship's status or
replies to their distress call. He was pacing the upper elevation of the bridge
like a cornered predator. "I prefer to think of it as positive negativism,
Crystal. If I'm certain things will go wrong then I've already circumvented
Murphy's Law. Case in point -- look where we are right now."
     March stood, barricaded Makofsky's pacing and surveyed the bridge.
"Nothing a few repairs and some cosmetic painting won't solve. We're alive
aren't we? After what just hit us, don't you think that's something to inspire
optimism?"
     Makofsky tried a smile, just for March's sake. He knew she was trying to
dispel his anxieties. But, just the sight of the bridge was enough to ignite
them all over again. "Look what I've done to the commodore's bridge. I shudder
to think what has happened to the rest of the ship and the crew."
     "That's a little conceited, isn't it?"
     "Conceited? How could I be overly proud of... this?"
     "How can you assume the responsibility for that subspace energy swell that
hit us? You're a fairly intelligent being, Jim, but you're not powerful enough
to disrupt subspace and toss this ship through it like a discus."
     "'A commander is responsible for his ship and his crew,'" Makofsky quoted.
     "But not for the unforeseen calamities they face," March countered. "The
blame for that falls on the unknown or the unexpected. Exploration has never
been without inherent risks."
     "We weren't even exploring," Makofsky observed. "All we were doing was
orbiting a planet, minding our own business when subspace physics turned ugly."
     "And just where did that ugliness originate? Excalibur? The bridge. Your
mind?"
     "You know perfectly well where that subspace swell initiated from --
Praxis, the Klingon..." Makofsky stopped in mid-tirade and a sheepish look
crossed his face. "We WERE just minding our OWN business. Something happened on
Praxis to make the Klingons' business ours -- vicariously."
     "You're right," March said gently. "What happened on Praxis is OUR
business now, Jim. Your business is to lead us out of this predicament.
Commodore George trusts you to keep a level head, or he wouldn't have placed
you in command in his absence. Remember what happened on Oubliette? I was so
scared I nearly jumped ship to avoid my responsibilities. Well, not literally,
but I wanted to. The point is, WE triumphed over the Annihilators then. This...
is child's play compared to that."
     Makofsky looked around Excalibur's bridge... HIS bridge. The viewscreen
was darkened but that would soon be rectified. Technicians were busy repairing
panels. One or two medics were treating minor wounds. T'Tala was busy at her
station, Kelley and Thokov were absorbed at their helm and navigation tasks. 
     When all was ready to be coordinated, the center seat would become the
clearinghouse for information and decisions. When he had first regained
consciousness, he had avoided that chair like it was electrified. Now, thanks
to March's tender reprimands, he knew only he COULD sit there in this situa-
tion.

                                      *****

     "Uuuh! Uuung! Huuuung!"
     The exigency exit of the turbolift came away from the bulkhead with a
sudden spring. Molina lost his precarious balance on his one good leg and
toppled heavily to the floor with a resounding thud. Several expletives from at
least two dozen worlds sprang to mind. Molina tempered his temper and sufficed
with, "OUCH!" It was still four letters and was the most eloquent word of
hundreds of worlds to express pain-invoked outrage.
     Pain WAS an inadequate word to describe the fiery anguish assaulting his
injured leg, or the vise-like pressure threatening to thrust all consciousness
out of sight and out of mind. The Klingons a had a word for it -- "'oy'", which
was as close to OUCH the Klingons ever got. Two letters and two accent marks,
but eloquent in its brevity.
     Concentration on linguistics did little to take Molina's mind off the pain
he was trying to ignore, but it did more than nursing and focusing on the pain
itself. If he did that, he would succumb to the lethe that the pain was a
harbinger of. And after the lethe, there would be death.
     Speaking of death, the resonating thrum of charged phaser-grenades drilled
its way into his brain. Usually, a phaser-grenade remained inert until manually
triggered by the person about to throw it. Somehow, Molina wasn't sure, these
fifty phaser-grenades had all been activated simultaneously. Their collective
unified fields were heterodyning and the resultant energy backwash was amplify-
ing in magnitude confined within the container. Death was a heartbeat away.
Which agency of impending death was merely a matter of time.
     Molina strained to reach his uniform tunic by one sleeve. His extended
fingers grasped the blood-red material and he gingerly slid the bundle over to
him. He wasn't going to wear the tunic, exactly. In it was the phaser-grenade
container, bundled like a burden in a rucksack. With no small effort, he
brought the makeshift pack and its volatile contents around behind him, lifted
it up by the sleeves to the level of his shoulders, and tied the sleeves around
his chest, bandoleer fashion.
     Now for the really hard part. Everything after this would be downhill --
one way or another. Molina had to stand, favoring the injured leg and suppor-
ting his weight and that of the less-than-light phaser-grenade container, all
without losing his precarious balance. He raised one arm and grasped the safety
railing affixed to the turbolift bulkhead. Just like weight-lifting only he was
the weight he was lifting. "Hyuunguuh! OUCH! 'oy'!"
     He stood for a moment, gathering his wits out of the stupor of vertigo
filling his skull. There is no pain. Liar. There is TOO pain. There is no time
to coddle yourself. Get the lead out and get moving.
     He had already uncovered the emergency ladder inset into the turbolift
shaft just outside the lift itself. He inched his way around the inside of the
lift by hauling himself along the railing. Reaching the open exigency exit, he
peered out and up. The clearance between the lift and the wall of the shaft was
barely enough for him and his burden. He couldn't exactly see where the next
deck was, but he had to climb at least that far before he could truly escape
and rid himself of the impending catastrophe attached to his back.
     He gripped the first rung. Great. The heat from the phaser-grenade
container was barely tolerable, muffled by his tunic, but he was sweating
buckets and his hands were slick with perspiration. Just hang on and do not
under pain of death, literally, let yourself let go. 
     With a hop, he placed his uninjured leg on the ladder, and hung there for
a moment, feeling for the equilibrium between his body and the ballast on his
back. With a combination hop-reach-grasp he ascended each rung of the ladder
meticulously and purposefully. He was almost clear of the turbolift, when the
container caught on some protrusion, jerking his leg and one hand free of the
ladder. Now, two fingers and a thumb were all that secured him to the scant
safety of the ladder. He dangled, fighting fear and despair, knowing if he fell
even to the roof of the turbolift that he lacked the strength to get back up.
     His grip was slipping! In desperation, he used the momentum of the sliding
of his fingers to swing around and reach for the ladder with his other hand. He
fell, but not far, for he managed to grab a rung firmly with all five fingers.
His arm was nearly wrenched out of its socket as his downward inertia was
halted with a snap. He banged against the ladder with a painful jolt, his
headache augmented by the pounding.
     Don't feel. Don't faint. Concentrate. Next rung. Hop. Reach. Grab. Pull.
HANG ON!. Next rung. Hop. Reach. Grab. Pull. HANG ON!
Next rung. Hop. Reach. Grab. Pull.  H A N G   O N !
     A thousand rungs later, or so it seemed, Molina arrived at the doors to
the next deck up. His vision was blurred and shadowy. His grip on awareness
less secure than his weakening grip on the ladder. With a final surge of
determination and stamina he hit the emergency access switch and the doors
snapped open. With the last erg of grit left to him, Molina flung himself and
his burden through the opening. The phaser-grenade container pummeled his body
as he slammed to the deck. No vigor left. Lethargy seized his body. His
conscious thoughts shredded in a maelstrom of crimson agony.
     "Cuidado! Muy peligroso! Ayudam<61>!"
     Numb went his mind and black went his life-spark.

                                      *****

     March sensed stress and anxiety. With a sigh and for the thousandth time
since regaining consciousness 'here', wherever that might be, she plied the
mental skills that subdued extrinsic emotions she perceived from others and
reinforced her practiced detachment from those emotions. At times, she wished
the simple act of taking two aspirin could accomplish the same buttressing of
her self against the flo of others' passions. The mental techniques were a
drain on time and vitality. Stress and anxiety were the ambience of the hour
from nearly everyone aboard Excalibur.
     To be fair, she also sensed hope and confidence as the bridge crew sought
to answer how and what had happened to them, when and where they were, and why
it had all happened in the first place. From Makofsky she sensed a nagging
uncertainty of what to do next, coupled with a determination to wait and see
nonetheless. The young Starfleet officer really had command potential and March
puzzled over what personality quirk within Makofsky hobbled that promise of the
leader he ought to be.
     "I have findings to report, Commander," T'Tala announced from her seat at
the science station. "I have reconstructed the sequence of events from the
moment we were struck by the subspace energy swell to the moment we lost power
to the bridge systems."
     Makofsky swiveled the center seat to face the Vulcan woman, acting as a
Human lens focusing the attention and curiosity of the rest of the bridge crew.
To March it was almost a visible beam of inquisitiveness gleaned from his crew
and discharged toward the assistant chief science officer.
     "I've been waiting for this report," Makofsky said, keen anticipation
shading his words with an edge. "First, can you tell us where we are?"
     "Not in discrete terminology," T'Tala replied. "Much of what I, Ensign
Kelley and Lieutenant Thokov have culled from the admittedly scrambled data is
hypothetical, even purely speculative. The certainty of the validity of our
conclusions are therefore..."
     "Lieutenant, time may be crucially short," Makofsky cut in. "We can accept
the face value of your conclusions and take them with a grain of salt."
     T'Tala lowered an eyebrow in a half-frown. "Sodium Chloride? Illogical.
However, the gist of our findings are that the subspace energy swell carried us
out of orbit, across the Helel system and into Helel B, one of the blue-white
primaries."
     "You're saying we fell into one of the stars?" Makofsky was openly gaping
at the thought.
     "Objects cannot fall in space as there is no gravity and all directions
are relative," T'Tala apprised him. March had to suppress a smile at the
logical literalism that restricted T'Tala's perception of Human colloquialisms.
At least T'Tala's Vulcan control of her emotions were a balm to March's
battered talent. "But, we have reconstructed the juxtaposition of the vector of
the subspace energy swell and our orbital trajectory at the moment we were
struck." She paused, observing the less-than-comprehending looks her words
evoked on her shipmates' expressions. "Perhaps a graphic of the course of
events would be more instructive."
     "An audio visual aid would be great, T'Tala," Makofsky told her, "and
appreciated. Please proceed."
     He sounds like Commodore George when he says things like that, March
thought to herself. Indeed, she sensed from Makofsky the same sort of not-
quite-hero-worship he usually projected when the commodore was around. So. He
was imaging the commodore and most probably envisioning how Excalibur's
commanding officer would be directing this discussion. Makofsky had selected an
excellent role model for command, the best March had ever encountered in point
of fact. She tacitly applauded the science officer's choice and mentally
propelled that certitude in his direction.
     Makofsky turned his head slightly in March's direction as if sensing her
telempathic projection. He smiled at her, tickled by uncertainty as to why.
Then his eyes, all eyes were on the forward viewscreen, watching T'Tala's
graphic representation of her report.
     Helel was a green sphere in the lower right quadrant. The trinary primar-
ies in the upper left were yellow spheres. Excalibur was a red dot positioned
just above the green sphere. White concentric rings rippled towards the green
sphere from the lower right corner. They propagated across the screen, enlar-
ging their circumference as they went. They overtook the red dot and it was
swept along with their headway toward the center of the three primaries. The
red dot merged with that primary and the circles warped in shaped like a
whitecap against the bow of a clipper ship. The circles moved on and out of
range. The primary disappeared from the graphic and so did the red dot. The
screen blanked.
     "Alright," Makofsky spoke into the reflective silence. "That's what
happened and how. Now, where are we?"
     T'Tala's eyes wavered from her logical, rational computer equipment to the
all too Human eyes of the acting commander. "This is the purely specula..."
     The starboard turbolift doors snapped open. Someone fell heavily through
the opening.
     "Cuidado! Muy peligroso! Ayudam<61>!" he croaked weakly.
     "WARNING! EXPLOSION IMMINENT! BRIDGE LEVEL! WARNING! EXPLOSION IMMINENT!
BRIDGE LEVEL!" the computer cautioned.
     March was seated next to the turbolift. Fighting through waves of anguish
and despair blasting her from the stricken man, she rushed to his aid. She
began to undo the bundle crushing him to the deck. "It's Commander Molina, Jim.
He's hurt and YEEEEOW!"
     Makofsky was at their side with a leap over the rail and two steps. "What
is it, Crystal?"
     "That is HOT!" March said through teeth clenched against the pain of
blistered hands.
     Makofsky examined Molina's burden. "A phaser-grenade container... and it's
humming... Quick, Crystal, drag Toby as far away as you can without injuring
him further!"
     March sensed growing alarm within Makofsky. Without taking the time to
ponder the reason for the alarm, she acted on his command, dragging Molina away
from the heated container of phaser-grenades. She was joined in her efforts by
Ensign Kelley.
     "Ensign, give me your phaser, now!" Makofsky demanded of the security
guard on duty. Starfleet security guards were trained to act instantly to
commands. The requested phaser flipped expertly through the air. Makofsky
snared it with one hand and rapidly set it to its highest setting. In a smooth
motion spurred by the instinct to survive he shoved the thrumming container
back through the open turboshaft doors, into the shaft proper. Before the
container fell down the shaft, he fired the phaser point blank range, then dove
over the bridge rail, shouting, "Everybody! Down!"
     There was blazing light, noise and percussion from the direction of the
turboshaft. The computer klaxon wailed in joint warning of the phaser fired way
above stun setting and the explosion in the turboshaft.
     "WARNING! HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISE! STARBOARD TURBOSHAFT AT BRIDGE
LEVEL!"
     "Computer, belay alarm!" Makofsky called out from where he had landed on
the deck. "We already know what happened, thanks." He looked in the tur-
boshaft's direction, assured himself the doors had shut off the vacuum of open
space, then stood. "All clear, everyone. Any injuries?"
     "Just Toby," March answered, while two of the medics who had been present
on the bridge knelt over the stricken security officer, working quickly to
preserve the life force she could sense was ebbing away.
     "Get the engineers working on sealing that hull breach," Makofsky direc-
ted, then slowly sat in the center seat. "Now then, T'Tala, you were getting to
the purely speculative part?"
     He's diverting attention away from the life and death crisis, March
realized. Good move, Jim.
     T'Tala had moved next to the viewscreen in the aftermath of the detona-
tion. She straightened into Vulcan correctness of posture, clasped her hands
behind her back, and addressed Makofsky directly. "Where we are is more
difficult to ascertain as the term 'where' inadequately expresses the conundrum
of our location. Observe." She nodded to Kelley who touched some switches on
the helm.
     The viewscreen beside T'Tala came to life and the view was discomfiting.
It twisted the eyes, churned the stomach and assaulted the rationale. It was
Chaos, pure but in no wise simple.
     "This is where we are," T'Tala said. "This is subspace as we've never seen
it before. As near as we can assess, the subspace energy swell fused with Helel
B. The resultant power surge pushed Excalibur deep into subspace many levels
below the superficial ones required for warp drive to operate."
     "You said that direction in space is relative," Makofsky pointed out. "How
can we be deep into subspace if there is no 'down'?"
     "It is not so much of a direction as a magnitude of dimension," T'Tala
answered. "It would be more precise to say we are separated through a multitude
of levels of subspace from what we consider as normal space further than any
manned vessel has ever been. We were propelled here by the agencies of the
subspace energy swell and the collapse of Helel B."
     "Sir, we're taking Lieutenant Commander Molina to sick bay," a medic
interrupted T'Tala's discourse.
     Makofsky let a frown of annoyance slip through his discipline. "Thank you,
Ensign. I would like to be kept apprised of his condition."
     As the medics gurneyed Molina into the turbolift, March moved to Makof-
sky's side. "He'll live, Jim."
     "How can you be certain, Crystal?"
     "I have my ways," March impishly grinned.
     "I'm sure of that," Makofsky said. "T'Tala, can you tell me if we can get
back to relatively normal space?"
     T'Tala exchanged glances with Kelley at the helm and Thokov at naviga-
tions. "We are working on that, Commander. There is an eighty-five percent
chance of a successful return."
     "No decimals to that percentage?" Makofsky asked. "I'm disappointed."
     "I have found precise estimates to be somewhat of an annoyance, if not an
outright waste of the effort to relate to most Humans, Commander."
     Makofsky blinked. Vulcans WERE known to be candid and honest. "Thank you,
T'Tala. Carry on."
     March had returned to her communications station, a nagging prickling
eating at her musings. She replayed T'Tala's graphic in her mind... green
sphere, yellow spheres, red dot, white concentric rings... green sphere...
"T'Tala, there is another question you can answer, at least for me."
     "Yes, Commander March?"
     "What happened to the away teams on the surface of Helel. Could anyone
have possibly survived?"

                                      *****

     "I'm not sure if anyone else survived or not, Commodore," Chilton repor-
ted. "The atmosphere is completely ionized. There are no answers to our hails.
Maybe we should go down and have a look for ourselves."
     Titus-George looked at her husband to watch his expressions as he weighed
consequences of various decisions. Only now, his accustomed features and
countenances were blurred, blended with those of another man sharing the same
body via an aberrant transporter malfunction. The synergic being caught her
scrutiny and tried to smile away her anxieties. Who was smiling at her? Her
husband or Blasberg? For both of their benefits, she returned the smile and
fought down the cascade of tears as she wondered how could she be married to
George in his present frame? His (whoever's) smile faded, as if guessing her
trepidation.
     "Doctor Alexander-Riley, what is the projected ability of the planet's
surface to support life?" It was George asking.
     "The ozone layer is forty percent depleted," Alexander-Riley answered.
"There is an increase in solar radiation on the surface coupled with a decrease
in temperature. The planet could still be cataloged as Class M, marginally."
     "If the others survived the subspace storm," George continued gathering
information, "could they survive on the surface until we either find Excalibur
or evacuate them through some other means?"
     "Yes," Alexander-Riley replied. "But, Helel A and Helel C are growing in
instability in geometric progressive phases. Soon, solar flares will threaten
this whole system, especially the two class M planets. There is also the
likelihood of either or both of them going nova."
     "For a medical doctor, you make a fair science officer, Lainey," Riley
observed.
     "I report what the sensors tell me, Timmy," Alexander-Riley said. "Almost
anyone trained to serve aboard a starship could do the same."
     "Even Blasberg?" Chilton asked, "I mean, with all due respect, sir."
     "I'm not myself today, Chilton," Blasberg retorted, "or you'd never get
away with that, even the with-all-due-respect alibi."
     "What do the facts tell us about whether or not we should expend time and
resources to recon the surface, Commander?" George asked.
     Titus-George was alarmed at how easy it was becoming to tell which man in
the synergic amalgam was speaking by his singular inflection and expression.
Two minds, one body. She smiled as she thought that for years now, they'd been
almost one mind in two bodies. If only she could be sure that George was the
mind in control of the body when it came to his relationship with her. But
always, by default, Blasberg would be there too. She shuddered at the thought.
     "I think I see the point, Commodore," Chilton said slowly, sifting through
her musings. "Even if we find the other away teams, Meridian is too small to
hold them all for any length of time. Excalibur is their only hope for timely
rescue, provided we can find her. Otherwise, someone will have to decide who
stays behind to die."
     "Would you want to make that choice, Debbie?" George asked.
     "No, sir," Chilton admitted, "not unless I was in command, and even then
I'd dread making it."
     "As do I even now," George told her, and all others aboard Meridian. "But
I intend not to HAVE to make that choice. We are going to FIND Excalibur."
     "We won't have to look far, Commodore," Blasberg said. "There she is
approaching from the starboard sector." Everyone peered out the viewport to the
right, straining to catch a glimpse of the pearly hull and regal profile of the
Excelsior class starship Excalibur approaching from that vector.
     "You'd better check out Dan, er uh, Walt, I mean," Riley stumbled, "I
mean, Dan's hallucinating, Lainey. I think the shock is affecting his mind."
     "If so, Tim, it's affecting my mind, too," George said. "We may be sub-
letting the same carcass, but we seem to know our own minds, so to speak. I see
Excalibur too and in the same spot."
     "Sensors show nothing there, Commodore," Chilton contradicted.
     "Then we're seeing a phantom," George said, "but both of us are seeing it.
I'm willing to wager it has something to do with our unique, uh, perspective."
     "Bet you your next paycheck, sir," Blasberg challenged.
     "We're on the same side of this, remember, Dan?" George reminded him.
     "We can't help but be on the same side, Commodore. I just can't seem to
see it from your point of view."
     "If you were me you could, Dan." It was uncanny watching a man talk to
himself and know he was really talking to somebody else. "Just humor us, in
this, please. Debbie," his glance was focused on Titus-George, "open hailing
frequencies, widest possible bandwidth. What have we got to lose if Excalibur's
NOT there, except to prove we ARE losing our minds?"

                                      *****

     "Either I'm losing my mind," March said, as she pressed the transceiver
tighter to her ear with one hand, "or we're receiving a hail from a vessel in
orbit around Helel."
     Makofsky leaned forward in the center seat. The viewscreen's image was
blurry and contorted, an effect of how far deep into subspace they were. It was
a testament to the skills of Kelley, Thokov and T'Tala that they could even
navigate the ship at all through that murk. "Is it Meridian?"
     "We could spend time guessing, or..." March prompted.
     "Are we even ABLE to respond through all of THAT?" Makofsky asked.
     "We can receive their hail," March pointed out, "and I'm moderately good
at this job. So..."
     "What have we got to lose?" Makofsky said with a shrug. "Put them on
audio. If you can manage it, establish visual also."
     "I said I was MODERATELY good," March said, "not a miracle-worker."   As
if to prove herself wrong, she tweaked and squeezed every last hertz, every
last erg, every last picowatt out of the incoming signal, and boosted their own
transmit to the max.
     The viewscreen warped from the obscurity of the depths of subspace, to a
haze that sort of formed itself into the barely discernable image of a person.
"Thi...s C..mod... Geo... com...n.. Exc..ibu.."
     "Can you clean that up?" Makofsky asked.
     "Let me get you some turnip blood first, sir," March quipped, but at-
tempted to tweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak the incoming signal a tad more.
     The picture wavered a little, and the interference did tidy up a bit.
"Excalibur, this is Commodore George. Do you read? Respond, please."
     Makofsky activated the commlink on the arm of the center seat. "Commodore!
It's an understatement, but, man am I ever so glad to see you again!"
     "Aw, Jim, I'm hurt to the quick. Didn't you miss your old pal Dan?"
     "Not now, Number One. Don't confuse the issue with the facts."
     "Sorry, Commodore. I forget myself sometime, which is pretty easy to do
particularly now since sometimes you are me."
     "Crystal, what's wrong with this picture?" Makofsky asked. "Is that two
people we're seeing superimposed as one?"
     March checked the signal analysis monitors. "As near as I can tell, that
is the transmitted image of one person."
     "We had a little mishap while testing the STAR," George, was it George or
not, told them. "We're not sure, but we think some sort of subspace distortion
swept through the system. Did you register any anomalous readings?"
     "You might say that, Commodore," Makofsky told him, "especially if you
consider a subspace energy swell of immeasurable magnitude a mere anomaly."
     "I see," George said. "Is that what happened to my ship, Commander?"
     Here it was, the moment of truth. "Yes, sir. We were maintaining a
standard orbit when we received a distress call from Praxis..."
     "PRAXIS!"
     "Yes, sir. It was disrupted by a subspace energy swell approaching our
position at better than warp factor ten. We didn't have time to get out of the
way. It carried us into the center primary of this system. The power of that
fusion pushed us deep into subspace. We're here but not here, if you see what I
mean."
     "I can see Excalibur, Commander. So can Commander Blasberg. The rest of us
cannot."
     "Commodore, why CAN we see you and Commander Blasberg as ONE person?"
     "Ah, yes. Well, like I said, there was a mishap while we were testing the
STAR. It seems this subspace energy swell was in the wrong place at the right
time. Dan and I were in transporter transit when it swept over the planet.
Local subspace destabilized, and, well, you can see the result."
     "Not clearly, sir. As I said we're not exactly here. We're pretty deep
into subspace and returning even as we speak. It may take some time for us to
return to normal space."
     "How much time?"
     "Unknown. No vessel has ever made this trek before."
     "This is a day to mark on the calendar for lots of reasons then, Com-
mander."
     "Commodore, what's our next move. I mean, we've managed to pretty well
solve our dilemma, but you seem to have a problem on your hands."
     "My hands, too, Jim."
     "Dan, I said, not now. And till now, I hadn't really considered any action
beyond finding Excalibur. We've accomplished that, sort of. I don't suppose
you're able to scan the planet and find out if any of the other away team
members survived?"
     "Again, Commodore, we're too far away in subspace to be of any assistance
there."
     "Understood. Then, I propose we seek out the root of our problem and see
if we can't find some solutions there."
     "But, Commodore, our problems are rooted where they originated, at
Praxis."
     "Then, Commander, to Praxis we will go."

                                      *****

     Commander Tim Riley breathed a low whistle. "I've heard of half-moons, but
this is taking it a mite too far, even for the Klingons."
     Praxis, or rather, half of Praxis floated lopsided in its orbit around
Klinzhai. Bits of it still drifted near by, but the other half that wasn't
there, looked like a giant claw had taken a cosmic swipe at the satellite and
left an incurable scar to indelibly mark its attack.
     Alexander-Riley looked up from the bluish glow of the sensor hood.
"Klinzhai's atmosphere is completely ionized by the effect of the subspace
destabilization. They obviously took the brunt of the blast. Their ozone is
polluted, registering in deadly levels of radiation. I estimate they have
sixty, maybe even fifty years before their oxygen supply is thoroughly deple-
ted."
     "You're saying Klinzhai is dying, Elaine," Titus-George summed up. "In
less than half a century they'll be too weakened to repel any attack or
invasion."
     "I'd say the Klingons are already severely incapacitated," Riley said.
"They haven't even sent us a nasty-gram, telling us in no uncertain terms how
unwelcome we are to be on their very doorstep."
     George studied the view somberly. "If anyplace could have been the cause
of that subspace energy swell, Praxis is definitely it." He looked out the
viewport of Meridian and saw Excalibur, diaphanous and spectral. It was mind-
boggling to imagine that, though she could be seen by his altered eyes, she was
actually an unthinkable distance submerged in subspace. And though she appeared
to be standing still, Excalibur was warping her way, trekking every second
closer to normal space. The starship had been an invisible escort as Meridian
crossed the Klingon Neutral Zone and infiltrated deep into the Klingon Empire
to the very homeworld of that race of warriors. He knew she was in no danger of
detection from the Klingons as even warpshuttle's sensors couldn't distinguish
the starship hanging close by in space. George COULD see Excalibur through some
trick of the subspace light that had merged his molecules with those of his
first officer.
     "I can see Excalibur, too, sir," Blasberg spoke up, "and I can still guess
the train of your thoughts. I want to know why the Klingons haven't picked up
on Meridian intruding on their space yet."
     "That one's easy to answer, Commander," Chilton told him. "Since this is
the epicenter of whatever-it-was that sent a wave of subspace distortion
warping through space, subspace hereabouts is thoroughly scrambled. There isn't
a sensor anywhere in this quadrant that could detect ten starships now."
     "That means the Klingons are sitting ducks for any enemy who wants to
sneak in in plain sight," Riley realized.
     "The Klingons ought to be glad they have us for enemies," Blasberg said.
"Starfleet isn't the sort of group to kick a foe when they're down. The
Romulans now, they should be jumping at the chance to hit the Klingons where
they live. This sort of unfair advantage is right up their alley."
     "Dan, you really have moments when you're struck with brilliance!" George
exclaimed.
     "Moments?" Blasberg repeated. "What about my hours of brilliance, or the
occasional week? I remember once when I was brilliant for a whole month
running."
     "Never mind, Number One," George said. "I can see that what you said was
an accident of syntax, but you have at least given me a brilliant insight."
     "My husband," Titus-George sighed, "you're talking in riddles. I'm afraid
you're taking a turn for the worse in this whole synergy situation."
     "It's a riddle, but I see the obvious solution," Chilton said. "Who WOULD
gain the most advantage from crippling the Klingons this way?"
     "I know you want me to say, 'the Romulans'," Blasberg said, "but if that
were so then why isn't Klinzhai surrounded by a bird of prey flock at this very
moment?"
     "That is another good question Number One," George admitted. "We ARE
absolutely correct in blaming the Romulans for this mishap. I feel it in my
bones."
     "The only thing I feel in my bones is that we missed eating the picnic
food back on Helel," Blasberg said. "How come my bones don't feel like your
bones since our bones are the same bones?"
     "We've have lots of questions," Riley said. "We seem to be fresh out of
answers."
     "Since Praxis is the source of the questions," Titus-George said, "and
since we came here to look for answers, I say we go down and have a look for
ourselves."
     "That's why I married you, Deborah, my love," George said. "You think the
thoughts I forget to, and no comments from the peanut gallery, Number One."
     "Don't mention peanuts," Blasberg said. "It just reminds me of that lost
picnic and how hungry I am."
     "If we're going to make planetfall on Praxis, shouldn't we tell Excalibur
our plans?" Alexander-Riley asked. "What if we encounter Romulans lurking about
down there?"
     "Precisely my next intention, Doctor," George told her. "Debbie, open a
hailing frequency to Excalibur. Let's give them a forewarning there may be a
Romulan encounter in the near future."

                                      *****

     "There may be a Romulan encounter in the near future," T'Tala reported.
     Makofsky looked over at his science officer. He welcomed any excuse at
this point not to view the devastated moon on the main viewscreen. "Assuming
the fact, T'Tala, you KNOW we're in KLINGON space, and assuming the fact you
are not given to fits of prescience, I can only assume you have a logical basis
for making such a prediction."
     T'Tala raised an eyebrow, a sure sign from any Vulcan that a minor
emotional reaction was being logically controlled. "Indeed. As you know,
Commander, we are deep in subspace exerting much effort to return to normal
space."
     "Even though it feels like we are sitting still, yes," Makofsky agreed.
"So, where do the Romulans fit in to the picture?"
     "Patience, Jim," March counseled, turning from monitoring her com-
munications channels. "T'Tala has a logical reason for setting up her explana-
tion."
     Makofsky glanced briefly at March, saw her wink, and took the hint. "I
apologize, Lieutenant T'Tala. Please continue."
     T'Tala rose and moved to stand at the rail separating the upper from the
lower bridge elevation. She stood as straight as her frame allowed and clasped
her hands behind her back. "In order to forecast our course through subspace,
it is necessary to scan as far as possible through the projected levels of
subspace through which we must pass to ensure the course is free of obstacles.
Otherwise, we may collide with an object occupying the space we are about to
enter, a catastrophic encounter to say the least. We know two solid objects
cannot..."
     "...occupy the same space at the same time," Makofsky finished for her.
"The commodore and Commander Blasberg seem to be literally living proof that
there is an exception to that rule. I repeat the question, where do the
Romulans..."
     "Jim, your interruption is making the explanation last needlessly longer,"
March pointed out.
     Makofsky nodded, curbed further queries, and indicated for T'Tala to
continue.
     "I have scanned a subspace anomaly four levels above, or beyond if you
will," T'Tala said. "It is a deformity in the linearity of subspace that almost
resembles a cylinder, or even a very long pipe very much similar in concept to
a wormhole of more natural origins. The terminus of this subspace pipe is here
at Praxis. Extrapolating back along the pipe's linear vector, it is possible to
deduce its reciprocal terminus."
     "Where is that?" Makofsky prompted.
     T'Tala let a second of silence add accent and impact to her reply.
"Romulus."
     "A tunnel," March said. "You're saying there is a tunnel through subspace
from Klinzhai to Romulus. How in the cosmos did it get there?"
     "On Terra in the latter half of the twentieth century," T'Tala began, "the
southern portion of the national federation known as Korea feared imminent
invasion from the northern portion of the peninsula. This fear had some basis
in fact as the northern aggressors had actually tunnelled many kilometers from
their domain, under border sentries, almost to the capitol city of the southern
peoples. The southern peoples remained extremely vigilant of such tunnels,
obstructing their completion at every opportunity."
     "So, the Klingons have tunnelled their way through subspace to Romulus,"
Makofsky concluded.
     "A likely possibility," T'Tala allowed. "But just as likely, or even more
so, is the high probability it is the Romulans who have tunnelled through
subspace to Klinzhai. Indeed, from the resulting incapacitation the Klingons
would undergo from the devastation of Praxis, I can deduce that the Romulans
purposefully orchestrated the catastrophe either to hide their subterfuge or to
anchor the subspace pipe's terminus here at these coordinates."
     "Either way," March thought aloud for everyone else, "or even if both are
the case, it WOULD seem almost certain the Romulans are staging an invasion of
the Klingon Empire."
     "The question is," Makofsky continued the train of gestalt conjecture,
"are we going to sit by and just let that happen, even if the Klingons are
long-time enemies?"
     "Can we even do anything about it, if we're so inclined?" March added.
     "I believe there is a way to foil this stratagem," T'Tala began. "We must
terminate this end of the subspace pipe, which can be accomplished with an
explosion similar to the one that either created or anchored the pipe. Ex-
calibur has the potential to create such a detonation."
     "Are you suggesting I order the destruction of the commodore's ship?"
Makofsky asked. "He'd kill me."
     "Indeed not, Commander," T'Tala said, nearly raising the volume and tone
of her voice at the thought.
     "How, then, do you suggest we produce the required explosion?" March
asked.
     T'Tala turned her gaze to the viewscreen. "We must foment the annihilation
of the other half of Praxis."

                                      *****

     "It's the end of the world," Titus-George whispered, as if fearing to
shatter the fragile looking landscape.
     "It's the end of this world at least," Alexander-Riley amended, "and may
very well be the harbinger of the end of Klinzhai as well."
     George looked through the faceplate of his survival suit and up at the
serene verdant sphere that was Klinzhai and mulled over the end of all life
thereon. For decades now, many within the United Federation of Planets had
fervently prayed for just such a turn of events without shedding a tear or
feeling the slightest twinge of a pang of remorse. Now, with the hypothetical
demise of all that was Klingon becoming a reality before his very eyes, he was
surprised to find himself choked in sympathy for foes as ruthless as the
Klingons. He smiled, though, at the thought of what those ruthless foes would
think and say if they could read his thoughts, followed by a frown at what they
would do in a reverse situation.
     "Klingons," Blasberg's voice broke into his thoughts, "can't live with
'em, can't live without 'em, can't love 'em, can't ignore 'em. What a pity they
won't be around much longer to fight with anymore. It was sort of fun, in a
way."
     "They're party animals when it comes to war, that's for sure," Chilton
agreed, "and they really know how to throw a battle-bash, if not their fist."
     George's communicator beeped. He brought it out and flipped the antenna
grid. "George, here."
     "Riley, here. If I were there I wouldn't be needing to call to remind you
that you haven't checked in since departing Meridian. My doctor says worry
isn't conducive to my present state of health, so I can only assume you're
trying to kill me with anxiety. And I thought we were friends."
     "Sorry, Tim," George consoled, "we got lost in thought while taking in the
sites. I haven't got sore eyes but the scenery sure hurts to look at nonethe-
less."
     "I GROK. I'm having a bit of difficulty maintaining clear comms. Subspace
hereabouts is in existential tatters and highly unstable. No wonder we haven't
been able to contact Excalibur. Whatever you're looking for you'd better find
it in a hurry. There's no telling what may happen with subspace threatening to
dissolve between one wink and another."
     "Understood. Keep an eye on us. We're nearing some structures of some
kind. If we enter, you may lose comms but I'll have someone emerge every so
often and give you a status report."
     "Don't make me come after you, Walt. But you know me. Even if I have to
drop a few appendages and lose a little fluid here and there, I'll crawl
through hell and high water to pull your butt out of danger."
     "Your doctor would never forgive me if I made you do that, Tim. Relax.
We'll be back shortly."
     "'Relax', the man says. Next thing he'll be telling me the Klingons are
suing for peace. HA! That'll be the day! Riley out."
     The five of them, correction, four of them including the George/Blasberg
synergy had reached the threshold of a building obviously held together by
stubborn architectural design. 
     "Leave it to the Klingons to build a structure that stands despite, or
rather, to spite one of the most powerful detonations since the Big Bang,"
Blasberg said.
     "Praxis is... was the Klingons' chief energy production facility," George
recalled. "Not only did they refine dilithium here, wasn't there a power beam
transmitter established here to beam power to stations on the surface of
Klinzhai?"
     "According to all Intelligence, yes," Titus-George affirmed. "They must
have been overmining the dilithium and using extremely poor safety precau-
tions."
     "Unless the Romulans REALLY had everything to do with Praxis's an-
nihilation," Chilton pointed out. "How could they have infiltrated the Klingon
Empire so far as to actually engineer... THIS?"
     "Traitors come in all sizes, shapes and species, Commander," George told
her. "There are many ambitious Klingons who are loyal to themselves first. It
wouldn't surprise me if..."
     A disruptor bolt rudely interrupted his reply as it shattered the already
blasted rock at his feet.
     "Hold where you are Federation pestilence!"
     "Now just a minute," George called, "we're here to help you Klingons
not..."
     "The Klingons are beyond help," their as yet unseen assailant spat, "but
the Romulans are ready to help themselves to the Klingons' helplessness." A
Romulan indeed stepped into view, holding a disruptor trained on a captive.
     "romuluSngan veqlargh!" she hissed, venom in tone threatening to eat the
Romulan's auditory nerves as effectively as acid, "tlhInganpu' yay! Hegh!"
     George couldn't believe his eyes. It had been too long to comfortably
remember yet... "K'Tsao!"
     The Klingon woman twisted in the Romulan's grip at the call. In spite of
her fury at her captor, surprise dragged a reciprocal recognititve response
from her. "j'orj! ruSloDnI'wI'!"
     "Your threats are empty, Klingon worm," the Romulan jerked her arm almost
wrenching it out of joint. "As for your ally, he is in no better position to
help you than you are to help yourself." With that, without warning, the
Romulan took rapid aim with his disruptor and blasted the form of George/Blas-
berg. They were engulfed in the molecule-ripping energies of disruptor fire.
     There was a scream of terror from Titus-George. Chilton and Alexander-
Riley were too stunned to breathe. K'Tsao took advantage of the chaos to whirl
on her captor and slap him soundly across the bridge of his nose. The Romulan
dropped the disruptor and howled in agony as green blood spurted from the
wound. K'Tsao leaped upon the weapon and with battle-lusting zeal vaporized the
Romulan where he lay crumpled. She then turned to the remaining Starfleet
officers, numb with appalling grief over the sudden loss of both their comman-
ding officer and executive officer, and the lifemate of one of them.
     "What are you doing HERE, 'ejyo'?" K'Tsao challenged.
     Chilton recovered first. "Praxis exploded. We suffered as a side-effect.
It's a long story. What does it matter now? The Commodore is dead!"
     "Long live The Commodore!" Blasberg called. "While he's at it, I think
I'll try that living shtick myself."
     "Dan!"
     "Walt!"
     "j'orj!"
     There, against all reason or explanation, stood two men who had been torn
apart by disruptor decimation, And, there WERE two of them.
     "How?"
     "Why?"
     "Who?"
     George walked over and hugged his wife in a fierce, relieved hold. Titus-
George used her every ounce of strength to return the embrace. Blasberg was
receiving a similar welcome from Chilton. Alexander-Riley stared at her medical
tricorder as if to convince her eyes with the hard evidence of sensor readings.
     "Okay, Commodore," Blasberg wheezed through Chilton's choke hold of
friendship, "explain how you know this tlhIngan be'. You never cease to
surprise me."
     "Talk about surprises," Titus-George sniffed through tears of overwhelming
happiness, "and don't take this the wrong way but why aren't you two dead?"
     "Not to mention, why aren't you two one?" Alexander-Riley asked.
     "My question demands an answer first!" K'Tsao asserted. "What are you
doing on Praxis?"
     The nearly-demolished roof of the structure chose that moment to vaporize
in red phaser fire. K'Tsao dropped defensively to one knee and aimed the
disruptor skyward.
     "ghobe'! baHbe', ruSbe'nI'wI'!" George shouted, rushed over and slapped
her arm down, spoiling her aim.
     She growled, glared at him, but restrained herself from firing. "You may
be sealing our Heghmey, j'orj."
     George looked up. "jIHQubbe', K'Tsao. That object hovering above us is my
personal warpshuttle, Meridian. It is being piloted by my chief engineer who
must have had a good reason for moving it, let alone for taking off the roof."
He brought out his communicator. "George to Meridian."
     "No time for chatter. Excalibur is on a collision course with Praxis.
Impact in two minutes. Stand clear. I'll land. Get aboard. We've got to high-
tail it off this rock before we become history with it and Excalibur!"

                                      *****

     "Personal Log stardate it-really-doesn't-matter-now. Note to myself to
have my head examined in the afterlife. Additional note to myself to avoid
meeting the commodore in the afterlife as well. He'll kill me again for sure."
Makofsky ignored the sweat beading on his forehead, and called out for the
umpteenth time, "Time to impact?"
     "Forty-eight seconds," Thokov, the navigator answered.
     "T'Tala, tell me again this is going to work," Makofsky pleaded.
     "The cumulative effect of our warp field, the acute instability of local
subspace and the mass of what remains of Praxis will cause the expected
detonation," T'Tala said serenely. "As we will not physically occupy the same
space as Praxis, even upon the advent of impact, we shall pass through each
other unscathed. The resulting subspace disruption will complete the destruc-
tion of Praxis. The Romulans' wormhole will draw the resultant backlash energy
and the debris into itself and then collapse."
     "Are you sure?" Makofsky prodded.
     "Ninety eight point zero zero four three eight percent certain, Com-
mander," T'Tala advised.
     "Thanks for the decimals," Makofsky quipped. "Can I have the extra one
point nine nine five six two percent in small change, please? Status of
approaching Romulan warbirds?" 
     "They are still within the wormhole," Lieutenant Susan Winters, manning
the defense station reported, "approaching at warp factor nine. They will
arrive in forty seconds."
     "This is going to be close," Makofsky said through gritted teeth. "Cry-
stal, tell me again what a great thing it is to be in command."
     "You're about to find out for yourself, Jim," March told him. "When this
works you're going to be positively smothered in accolades."
     "Can I get that in writing?" Makofsky requested. "Too late. Been nice
knowing you. ALL DECKS BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

                                      *****

     George ran a finger around the collar of his tunic. It seemed to be
shrinking in the heat of the quprIp chamber. All of Klinzhai was like the
deepest tropics on Terra, or so it seemed. "So, you're telling me Number One
and I really weren't in the same body at all?"
     "No, sir," Makofsky answered. "You were each occupying a separate point in
subspace and merely looked like one person by a trick of the light, as it were.
When that Romulan disruptor hit you, it dissolved the subspace bonding between
you. The unstable subspace fields on Praxis absorbed the destructive energy and
you two emerged into normal space as two instead of one."
     "What a relief," Blasberg said with a dramatically exaggerated sigh. "I
was worried my good looks were gone for good."
     "No loss," Chilton told him. "Your looks aren't your best feature anyway,
Dan."
     "Really?" Blasberg returned. "What would you say IS my best feature,
Debbie?"
     "I'd tell you but it would bloat your ego," Chilton answered cryptically.
"It's too stuffy in here for that. Besides, we'd never get you back on board
Meridian and we have to leave soon to rescue Silva's and Morning Star's away
teams back on Helel."
     "At any rate," George inserted into the banter, "I'll expect a full report
once we return to the ship, Mister Makofsky. There may be a commendation in it
for at least one or two people involved. I think Lieutenant Commander Molina
deserves that and a lot more at the very least for his beyond-the-call beha-
vior."
     "Agreed, Commodore," Makofsky said. "Chalk one up for experience. Better
yet, make that two." He smiled a tacit thank you at March.
     "Qapla'!" The bellow drew the attention of all towards the approaching
Klingon. As she approached, K'Tsao soundly thumped her chest with her right
fist, then flung it outward and upward in salute to George. "The romuluSngan
veqlarghmey are defeated. my mission is successful. The tlhInganpu' survive yet
another day under the naked stars. My tlho'mey to you ruSloDnI'wI' j'orj. Qang
gorqon approaches. He is coming and cannot be kept long. But, he has tlho'mey
to offer and a request to make."
     "Commodore, we're overdue for introductions," Blasberg hedged. "May I have
this lovely lady's name and phone number?"
     George sighed. "This is ra'wI' K'Tsao wa'DIch bogh puqbe' tai-Qugh. She's
a... long-ago acquaintance."
     "She's a Klingon," Blasberg felt obliged to point out. "But I won't hold
that against her. I can think of other things..."
     "Not now, Dan," George warned. "For now, I'll just say the 'T' is silent.
K'Tsao, I trust you are satisfied with our explanation of our presence here in
Klingon territory."
     "From you, j'orj, I would accept any explanation as vIt," K'Tsao admitted.
"You arrived now as you did way back then, just when I most needed your
alliance to battle to victory."
     "This should make an interesting story," March said. "I haven't known you
long, Commodore, but I know your records do not mention your acquaintance with
K'Tsao or the fact that you speak tlhInganaas rather fluently."
     "Another time," George said. "Here comes the voDleH."
     "That's not voDleH KsIsar," Blasberg challenged.
     "There has been a change," K'Tsao told him.
     "Then things must change around here at warp speed," Blasberg returned.
     "Remember what planet we're on, Number One," George cautioned, "and mind
your manners." There was no time for further exchanges. The leader of the
Klingon Empire was in proximity to be introduced.
     A younger Klingon snapped to attention between George and the Klingon
leader. "This is Qang gorqon, the blood and soul of wo'tlhIngan."
     Gorkon was a venerable Klingon warrior in seeming, yet his demeanor exuded
peace. It was an odd ambience. George looked to March, wondering what it was
she sensed from the old warrior. "You are totlh j'orj of veS'etlh. I know of
you from my predecessor's journals. Your appearance here is unlooked-for but no
less appreciated. As I have been informed, you saved the life of my be'nI'puq-
be' q'sao. For that I am personally grateful. You have been instrumental in the
defense of Qo'noS in an hour when we are impotent to defend ourselves. For that
I am forever in your debt."
     "Batlh, gorqon!" George snapped out, not in rudeness but in respect. "We
have received a mutual benefit from our second sojourn here in your wo'batlh."
     "'It is good to not owe your enemy a favor'," Gorkon quoted. "Yet, now I
must shift that balance and be indebted to you once more."
     "I will do you no favors, Qang gorqon," George replied, then quickly
added, "for I am at your service, if not your command."
     "You speak to preserve my batlh," Gorkon said with a slight smile. "It is
no wonder you are spoken of as if you were Klingon yourself, totlh j'orj. Very
well. Neither of us is indebted to the other, as it should be between loD-
nI'mey. Please, then, consent to escorting my boQDu' 'ech qerla to your nearest
Federation embassy. He has instructions from me to request an ambassador from
your Federation council be dispatched to Qo'noS at once."
     George favored Kerla with a welcoming glance. "HIja' Qang gorqon. Is this
a sign of more change to come on Qo'noS?"
     Gorkon looked suddenly weary and weighted with a massive burden. "The
changes coming because praqsIs is no more are multitude. Perhaps, when they are
over and done, Qo'noS and the tlhInganpu' will be no more."
     "I will do everything in my power to ensure that is not so, Qang gorqon,"
George told him. "The universe would mourn the loss of glory if the tlhInganpu'
cease to be."

                                      rIn.

                                     Qapla'!
--
It left the world and took its flight    Taking care of business
Over the wide seas of the night.                   and
The moon set sail upon the gale,            Working overtime!
And stars were fanned to leaping light!  ********************=<O