Part 1: The Enterprise Incident
"Captain's log, stardate 52937.4, it's been almost a month since we first entered the area of space known as the briar patch. With the arrival of the USS Repulse and the USS Cumberland with personnel and supplies, including a new warp core for the Enterprise, we are now free to continue our mission to the Gorn system confident that the Baku will not be the target of further improper action on the part of the Sona or the Federation."
The captain of the USS Enterprise-E tapped a control to end his log and leaned back in his chair. He turned to glance out his ready room window but immediately turned back. As much as Jean-Luc Picard had enjoyed spending time with the Baku, and Anij in particular, the site of the gas clouds that made up the briar patch was beginning to irritate him. The planet's restorative effects had left Picard and the rest of his crew feeling younger and more energetic than ever. The problem was that Picard and his crew were explorers. The youthful energy and enthusiasm that had drawn the captain to the stars in his youth had returned in force, but the briar patch was keeping his ship confined.
Like Prometheus Picard saw his ship, and by extension himself, chained, unable to move. The captain, his crew, and even the Enterprise, with its new warp core, were newly energized and ready to get back to what they did best. Still, the briar patch restrained them all. Now, on the two-day trip out of the patch, the captain no longer even had Anij to keep his mind off of his ship's static disposition. The delay had become maddening.
Finally Picard couldn't take it anymore. As he had done many times over the last two days he strolled out of his ready room and back onto the bridge where, at least, he felt in control of things. On the bridge of his ship at least he felt like he was doing something.
Commander Riker vacated the command chair when he saw the captain come onto the bridge. Picard noticed as he came onto the deck that Data was at his ops station and Worf was at tactical. Whenever Worf came aboard the Enterprise he was in the habit of taking a shift at tactical as well as manning the station during more tense encounters. Picard didn't object. He had yet to find a permanent replacement for Worf at the station since he had transferred to Deep Space Nine while the rest of the crew was awaiting the completion of the new Enterprise. No one else could do the job quite as well Worf had, and when they had still been in the throes of the Dominion war the officers who had been good at it had quickly recieved promotions and moved on. They were going to have to drop Worf off at Starbase 27 en route to the Gorn system.
"Helm," Picard said as he sat down in the command chair, "how long until we're clear of the briar patch?"
"25 minutes, sir." The young ensign responded. "We should begin to see starscape about┘ now."
Just as he predicted the stars began to peek through the murky swirling gasses of the briar patch.
"And they've never looked so beautiful." William T. Riker said from his position beside Picard.
"Agreed, Number One." Picard said. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I think we've been absent from them long enough, don't you?" Picard smiled and his first officer nodded his agreement.
After giving his bridge crew a moment to admire the stars after nearly a month of looking out and seeing nothing but deadly brown and yellow gas Picard decided that it was time to get back to business, as it were. "Mr. Data," he said, "what exactly is the current situation in the Gorn system? Has our delay caused any serious problems?"
The android spun his ops chair around to face the captain. "It appears, sir, that"
"Captain!" Worf called out, interrupting the android second-officer. "Sensors are picking up some kind of distortion emanating from the briar patch ahead and to starboard."
"Analysis, Mr. Data." Picard ordered.
Data turned his chair back towards his ops console and began inputting commands very rapidly, not as rapidly as he was capable of, of course. Data could interact with the computer console almost faster than the human eye could follow, when it was necessary, but he often found that it made his human crewmates uncomfortable. So he reserved that for occasions when speed was especially important.
"Inconclusive, Captain." Data responded after a moment. "The briar patch is interfering with our sensor readings. We will be able to get a clearer reading in a few moments when the distortion has cleared the sensor interference. However, it does appear to be heading towards us."
On the cusp of cutting the bonds that restrained his powerful starship, Captain Picard was in no mood to take unnecessary chances. "Shields up, Mr. Worf." The captain ordered.
"Shields up." Worf confirmed.
"Mr. Data, I want an analysis of the distortion as soon as possible. Mr. Peters," the captain said, now addressing the young ensign with the red uniform stripes at the helm, "increase speed to full impulse. I want this ship out of the briar patch as soon as possible."
"Captain," Peters responded, instinctively, "if we go to full impulse it could damage the impulse manifolds."
"I am well aware of that, ensign. Full impulse now."
Duly chided Peters tapped out the command to send the ship full impulse. "Aye, sir, full impulse."
"Geordi is not going to be happy. He just got those things working again." Riker commented wryly.
"That just shows what happens when I let you take the ship out, Number One." Picard responded. A little playful banter between the two officers was just another side effect of their extended stay on and in orbit of the Baku planet. "Mr. Data?"
"Still inconclusive, Captain."
"The distortion still hasn't cleared the interference?" Riker asked.
"It has, Commander." Data responded. "However, the distortion seems to appear and disappear in rapid succession. It is never present long enough for our sensors to scan it completely enough to draw any conclusions."
"Are we still in its path, Commander?" Picard asked his science officer.
"We have moved out of the path that it was initially on."
"Initially?" Riker asked, afraid that he knew the answer already.
"Yes, sir." Data replied. "The distortion appears to be following us."
"Of course it is." Riker said, a little frustration peeking through his poker face."Helm," Picard asked, "ETA to normal space."
"Three minutes, Captain." Peters responded. Increasing speed to full impulse had shaved a considerable amount of time off of their trip.
"Distortion is gaining on us, Captain." Worf announced from behind him. "Time to intercept, approximately three minutes."
"Cutting it kind of close." Riker commented cautiously.
"Let's hope that we cut it close and not the other way around, Number One."
The next two and a half minutes seemed to go by painfully slowly and in complete silence. Finally Riker broke the silence, "Are we going to make it, Mr. Data?"
"Unknown, sir." Data replied. "The distortion's movement is erratic."
Picard spoke, "Helm, lay in any course. Engage at warp five as soon as we clear the briar patch."
"Aye, sir, programming course and speed."
Silence reigned for another few seconds.
"Impact in 4 seconds." Data announced suddenly.
"We're clear!" Worf bellowed a second later.
"Engaging warp drive." Ensign Peters declared. The bridge crew was running together like clockwork.
Just as Peters tapped the control the entire ship was rocked by a huge impact and the bridge turned sideways. An incredibly bright flash was followed by complete blackness and complete stillness.
"Status report!" Picard called out, already knowing that it was probably futile. The emergency lights hadn't even activated, indicating that there was no power getting to any system. Instead of Prometheus his ship had suddenly become more akin to a quadriplegic, completely unfettered, yet still unable to do anything.
As if to confirm his thoughts Picard heard a few fruitless taps coming from consoles around the bridge. Eventually someone had to be the one to state the obvious. "Power to bridge stations appears to have failed." Data said matter-of-factly.
As if to spite the artificial life form the lights chose that moment to come back on, and all of the consoles came back online.
"Status report." Picard commanded again. This time the result was better but only slightly.
"Shields and weapons are inoperative." Worf proclaimed.
"Sensors are down." Data added.
"The helm isn't responding." Peters finished.
Picard tapped his combadge, "Bridge to engineering." A short buzz quickly followed the beep of the combadge.
"Communications are also inoperative." Data stated.
"Thank you, Mr. Data." Picard replied, somewhat sardonically.
"Do we have anything that is operative?" Riker asked with exasperation.
"Life support appears to be operational, Commander." Data answered helpfully.
"Well, thank heaven for small favors." Riker responded.
Suddenly Geordi LaForge's voice could be heard, "Engineering to Bridge."
Picard tapped his communicator, "Go ahead, Commander."
"Captain," LaForge began over the communicator, "we've got shipboard communications back online, but that's about it for a while. Whatever that thing did to us it left everything a big mess down here. We hope to have the sensors operational within a couple of hours, but the weapons and the shields are going to take a bit longer."
"What about the engines?" The captain asked.
"That's the strangest thing, Captain. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the engines. All of our monitors indicate that they're working perfectly. The new warp core is humming away down here. We just can't get the engines to accept any commands. It's like they're not listening. I have no idea what's wrong. So I can't give you an ETA on when it will be repaired."
"Understood, Commander. Make the sensors your priority. We need to figure out exactly what happened to us and where we are."
"Aye, sir. LaForge out."
For the first time since coming onto the bridge the captain got out of his command chair. The crew was then treated to the familiar site of the captain pacing the bridge. It was something he did when he was thinking. He turned to stare at the viewscreen. It was completely blank. Without information from the sensors the viewscreen had nothing to display. After a few moments' contemplation he turned to his first officer. "What do you think, Number One?"
"I don't like it, Captain. We're defenseless, and we're blind. Even if we haven't sustained serious damage a stray Sona ship could come into the area and pick us off." The after a second he added, "That is, if we're even still near the briar patch."
"Quite right." The captain agreed. He'd considered that possibility as well. In his tenure as captain he'd encountered quite a few anomalies, and as often as not they tossed his ship to and fro across the galaxy, "especially considering that we were entering warp at the time of the impact."
Picard paced back and forth for a few more moments. "Mr. Data," he said finally, "is there any way to determine our position without the use of the sensors?"
Data tapped a few commands into his console. After getting a readout he turned to his captain, "Stellar cartography is currently in the process of attempting to triangulate our position using the stars visible from different parts of the ship." Picard was proud. His crew had anticipated his orders and was already on the job. "However," Data continued, "without the help of the sensors, recording and analyzing the data could take more than an hour. I believe, sir, that I could be of assistance."
"By all means, Data. Go. I want a briefing in one hour."
"Yes, sir." With that Data got up and headed for the turbolift. A lieutenant who no one had noticed until that moment quickly rose from his station and took Data's place at ops without a word.
Picard returned to his command chair and tugged on his uniform tunic before sitting back down.
"What now, sir?" Riker asked.
"Now we wait, and hope that we get back on our feet before something unfriendly arrives."
An hour later the senior staff, minus LaForge who was on the other side of the ship still trying to get the sensors back online, was gathered in the conference room. Data was standing next to a screen at one end of the room. He activated the screen which showed a small Sovereign-class ship which represented the Enterprise. Stars began to appear around the ship in small groups until the tiny ship was at the center of a large group of stars. Data pointed to the ship in the middle. "The Enterprise is currently here."
"And where exactly is 'here,' Data?" The question came from the Enterprise's red-haired doctor, Beverly Crusher.
"'Here,'" Data said, "is the briar patch."
A wave of confused looks passed over the table, a few looking toward the window where the stars were twinkling away. "Shouldn't that have been pretty easy to figure out, Data?" Commander Riker asked. "I mean, ideally, if you're in the briar patch you walk up to a window, look out, and you come up with the conclusion pretty quickly."
"You misunderstand, Commander." Data responded, pointing to the grid being displayed on the screen. "As you can see we were able to gather stellar data from every side of the ship. There are no gas clouds of any remarkable size anywhere in our vicinity."
"But I thought you said we were in the briar patch." For the first time Counselor Troi spoke. The half-Betazoid was sitting next to Commander Riker. The two had gotten much closer since the mission to the Baku planet had begun.
"It would be more correct to say that the position that the Enterprise is currently occupying falls within the briar patch. The nebula itself is not present."
This explanation drew surprised looks from around the table. The briar patch had been a huge nebula, covering a massive amount of space including at least one entire solar system. For it to have suddenly vanished without a trace, leaving the Enterprise behind seemed incredible to say the least.
"Are you certain of our position Mr. Data?" Picard asked.
"Yes, Captain." Data replied. "And given our position before we encountered the disruption, an erroneous conclusion leading to this particular result seems unlikely."
Picard had to agree. If the stellar cartography team had made a mistake in their calculations, which was unlikely given Data's history, it would be a stunning coincidence for them to mistakenly place the Enterprise so near to where it was before the incident. "Ok," Picard concluded finally, "we're in the briar patch, but the briar patch isn't. Theories?"
Worf was the first to speak up. "Could the disruption we encountered have destroyed the briar patch?"
"Unlikely." Data concluded. "When we first detected the distortion it was moving through the gasses that compose the briar patch. It did not seem to be affecting them at the time."
"Do you have a theory, Mr. Data?" The captain asked.
"Given the erratic nature of the anomaly's movement it is possible that it was moving in more than just our three-dimensional space. It could have been moving along another axis which we were unable to detect, and that it propelled the Enterprise along that same axis."
"Like time?" Troi volunteered.
"Again, unlikely. While it is possible that we have been pushed into a time before the briar patch existed or after some unknown event caused it to disappear, stellar drift should be evident because of the time difference. It is not. In essence, the stars are all where they are supposed to be, even if the briar patch is not."
"Then what other axis were you thinking Data?" Crusher asked.
"I believe that the disturbance we encountered may have multiple realities, alternate universes." Worf was visibly shaken by the pronouncement. Nodding to Worf Data continued. "We have encountered similar phenomena before."
"Indeed." Worf growled.
Data began to explain. "For any event, there is an infinite number of possible outcomes. Our choices determine which outcome will follow. But there is a theory in quantum physics that all possibilities that could happen do happen in alternate quantum realities. I believe the distortion we encountered may have been moving through different quantum realities. If that is the case the impact could have pushed the ship into one of these alternate realities."
"How does that explain the disappearance of the briar patch?" Troi asked.
"With an infinite number of differing realities, it is possible that there are realities in which the confluence of cosmic forces necessary to create something as large and complex as the briar patch never occurred or that some event occurred in the intervening millennia to cause it to disappear."
"Mr. Data," Picard said, "how can we determine if this is the case? More importantly, how can we reverse the process?"
"After reviewing the report that Lieutenant Commander Worf filed following his initial encounter with a quantum fissure on stardate 47391 I have determined that if we have indeed traveled to a different quantum reality we will be able to confirm it by simply examining any matter native to this universe. According to the report matter native to each universe resonates with a different quantum frequency."
"Well," Riker interjected, "that shouldn't be too difficult."
"However, reversing the effect could prove more complex. We have no idea where the anomaly went after hitting the Enterprise. We do not even know if the anomaly continued to exist in this universe at all. Even if we were able to locate it again, there is no way to know if a second encounter would reverse the effect of the first."
"Very well." The captain concluded. "Mr. Data, I want you to work on this problem. Find out if we are in a different reality. If that is the case, find us a way back."
"I will do my best, Captain."
"Everyone else, our first priority is repairing the ship. We may be stuck here, wherever here is, for quite some time, and there is no way to know what we might encounter."
"So," Riker joked, "just another day at the office."
"So it would appear, Number One."
Picard got up and walked over to the screen that Data was still standing next to. After one final look at the display, which still showed a miniature Enterprise surrounded by stars he tapped the com panel. "Picard to LaForge, status report."
Geordi LaForge was in the ancillary sensor data monitoring room. It was one of the least desirous posts on the ship. Usually it was staffed by some new ensign who hadn't the seniority to move to a more important post yet. Since all of the sensor data was processed by the computer, the person assigned to this post spent most of his or her time watching the readouts go by, acting as a human backup in case something went wrong with the computer. As if to compensate for the boredom of the post, or maybe so the technician could make sure what he was seeing actually correlated with something in reality, the room was also equipped with a large window along one wall. LaForge thought this would probably be a really interesting place to watch a battle from.
Geordi heard the captain call him and looked up at one of the monitors to see an image of the conference room with the entire senior staff assembled, looking back at him. "Status report." The captain's voice said.
"Things are really a mess down here, sir." LaForge reported. "But I'm hoping to have the local sensors back online within the next few minutes. Long range sensors are going to take a little bit longer."
"Excellent Commander, keep me apprised."
Before the connection broke a flash of light drew the chief engineer's attention back to the window. "Captain!" he said quickly.
Picard turned back to the screen and noticed that LaForge's expression had changed quickly from hopeful to surprised. "Yes, Commander?"
The conference room window was on the opposite side of the ship from the one LaForge was looking out of. So they weren't seeing what he was. "Captain," he said again, this time more slowly. "I think we have a new problem." Another flash of light. "Or two."
Written by Data laughing
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227
Thanks for reading Part 1. If you have any feedback positive or negative email it to or post it in my journal on RvB.