((The next chapter will celebrate that which brings us Whovians and Trekkies together... soft-scientific technobabble and impending doom! YAY DOOM!))
"Worf, release him."
As the Klingon's arm fell away, the Doctor tumbled rather unceremoniously onto the floor in a heap, but was on his feet again in a flash, straightening his jacket and trying to catch his breath. Lifting a brow, still simmering with anger, Picard's arms crossed over his chest as he gestures for the Time Lord to continue.
"Your plan," the Doctor panted, "to help the colonists compensate for the heightening levels of radiation emitted by their sun? It's going to end in horrific, all-encompassing destruction for every life down there."
"How do you know about our mission here?" Picard asked slowly, eyes narrowing as he glanced towards Troi; but she shook her head, denying that she had shared any details.
"Becaaause," the Doctor replied, exasperated. "I overrode all your security measures and extracted the information from your computer core."
"You WHAT?"
"That isn't the bloody point, Captain!" The Time Lord continued, steamrolling right over the wide-eyed Captain's anger. "I know what you think you're here to do, and I know you have the best intentions, but I studied all the data you assembled, and the sun is going wibbly, almost to the point of going wobbly!"
"We are aware that the sun's emissions are intensifying," Picard snapped, "And if you studied the restricted files more closely, then you would be aware that we intend to provide the colony with shield emitters and metabolic stabilizers to assist them in adjusting to the change, until a proper evacuation fleet can be assembled to take them to a more suitable world."
"But that's a terrible plan!" The Doctor protested, throwing his hands out wide. "Sure, you might have saved the colony, hugs all round, but most of the planet's biome'll be wiped out by the ensuing solar radiation! That's hundreds of species of animals, plants, all irrevocably lost!"
"We are aware of that, Doctor," Picard replied tersely. "But we are left with little option. There are over twelve thousand people down there, too many to evacuate in time."
"Well, seems a bit of a bittersweet win, then, doesn't it?" the Time Lord snapped, "And that's only if you saved them, which you wouldn't, because it isn't even going to bloody work, because you're wrong, entirely wrong, horribly, embarrassingly wrong about the sun's behavior now, and even MORE wrong about how it is going to behave in the very, very near future!"
"And I suppose in the handful of minutes you had with our data, you've formulated a superior theory?" Picard retorted.
"Of course I have! Why else would I come up here?!"
Picard was about to order the man thrown bodily from the bridge if need be, but his conversation with Counselor Troi brought him up short. So, instead, he counted to five, then asked as calmly as he could manage under the circumstances; "Have you really?"
"Captain," the Doctor said, trying not to sound patronizing and failing utterly; "A simple examination of the sensor data makes it abundantly clear that the rising radiation and photon levels that have been sporadically emitted from the system's sun are caused not, as your people have theorized, by a natural stage in its development, but are rather the result of a large chunk of phased dark matter, likely a small planetoid, that is interacting with the sun's magnetosphere and causing, as a natural result of such an interaction, an electromagnetic surge that is disrupting the inner composition of the corona, resulting in uneven stellar mass consumption and, as a natural byproduct of such consumption, vastly varying the output of the sun. Even worse, the planetoid is being drawn deeper and deeper into the sun with every moment, which will exponentially increase the electromagnetic fluctuations until stellar mass consumption reaches a critical point that cannot be regulated by stellar osmosis. A coronal mass ejection is imminent, one that will wipe that colony, and everything else I might add, from the surface of the planet, no matter how much shielding you stack on top of them. But disaster can still be avoided if we move quickly enough."
Picard opened his mouth to reply, then settled for passing it on to a higher power; "...Data?"
Data blinked, twice, before replying; "It is... possible, sir. A dark matter planetoid would not be detected by our sensors, and could have such an effect. In theory."
"More'n just theory, Data, this is the real done deal," the Doctor chirped, then started to flick his fingers, as if he were mentally tallying something in his head. "The pattern of the coronal disruption all but screamed 'Dark Matter Planetoid Violating Me' when I saw it. Dark matter isn't bound by the laws of gravity, so the odds of one randomly drifting into a sun are, pardon the pun, astronomical, let alone one in an inhabited system, but when it happens... anyway, give me an hour, a torpedo, access to your replicator, bring the ship fifty thousand kilometers into the sun's corona, and I guarantee that it'll be handshakes all round by the eighteenth hole."
"The Enterprise wouldn't survive a minute that deep in the corona," Riker protested; "The heat and radiation would tear our shields apart."
"Would they?" The Doctor paused for about half a second, lips puckering in thought as he once more finger-counter before snapping them sharply. "All right, give me five hours, a torpedo, access to your replicator and shield generators, and I'll give you both the solution and the tough nutshell to get close enough to use it, eh?"
Picard's mouth was a thin, pale line as he slowly began to shake his head; "Doctor, those people have very little time before the flares begin, I cannot spare the personnel for such modi-"
"Did I ask for people?" The Doctor's fingers snapped mid-word as a thought occurred to him; "Wait, no, scratch that, Data, give me Data too, this is a big ship, could use the help, lots of heavy stuff to lug around and he can listen to instructions better'n the lot of you without arguing incessantly, so that's a boon. Give me Data, and the things I need, and I guarantee you, Captain, that you'll save your colonists, and the whole planet to boot. You can still use the rest of your crew to work on that doomed failure plan of yours, too, all right?"
Picard's jaw worked as his eyes flickered to the viewscreen, and the lush, green planet below; when he finally spoke, strain and a hint of sarcasm were both prominent in his voice. "And I suppose in exchange for your assistance, you would appreciate that we offer our own immediate aid with regards to your vessel?"
The Doctor twitched noticeably, his own mouth thinning to a pale line; his body going from twitching and desperate to utterly still.
"You're only asking that," he replied quietly, "because we've just met, and you don't know me. I forgive you for that. I'm not asking for anything from you, Captain; just to help."
Picard eyed the unusually quiet Time Lord for a handful of heartbeats... and then, finally...
"Mister Data, assist the Doctor with whatever he requires. We will continue our own contingency plan in the meantime."
"Aye, sir." Data vacated the Ops console, just in time for the Doctor to intercept him, grab him by the arm and half-lead, half-drag him to the nearest turbolift.
"As close to the nearest shield generator as you can get me!" The Doctor ordered the lift once they have stepped inside, and as the turbolift shuddered into motion, he turned his attention to his comrade; "Data, I need you to get down to one of the torpedo bays, and remove the warhead from one of them. If I'm going to get everything prepared in time, I'll need to talk you through the modifications while I work on fortifying your defenses."
"Yes, Doctor," Data replied agreeably then, head tilting, added; "I presume you intend to use the torpedo being developed to, in some way, affect the dark matter planetoid you theorized. However, as I informed the Captain, our sensors are not calibrated to detect the presence of dark matter, nor am I aware of a calibration that could accomplish this. How is it you intend to find the planetoid?"
"Don't need to see it," the Doctor replied cheerfully; "Just need to track it by the fluctuations it's causing in that sun. Just follow the ripples inwards, and we'll know right where the old girl is."
"The surface of the Alcheron star is a constantly shifting nexus of magnetic force, energy and matter," Data countered after a moment to chew over the response. As the turbolift door popped open and the Doctor stepped out, Data inched forward a little to keep the doors from closing, calling out; "With significant 'ripples' occurring naturally. And is significantly larger even than Earth's native sun; Alcheron V's surface area could fit upon it over twelve thousand times. What makes you certain that you'll be able to isolate and pinpoint the location of a dark matter planetoid in such a vast area, using only electromagnetic readouts?"
"Because," came the grand reply, the strange man whirling around to face the turbolift, a mischievous grin on his face "I'm the Doctor."
Data paused for a split second, frowning; "That does not strike me as a valid explanation."
The Time Lord's grin faded a little and he cleared his throat, waggling a finger at the android even as he turned back towards the corridor.
"Just give it time. It will!"
Nearly six hours later, the Enterprise was somewhere it had never before been; deep in the corona of the Alcheron system's sun. Whereas normally the violent heat and radiation flares would have long since cooked the ship from inside to out, the new shielding that had been installed by the strange Doctor- who had spent over four hours sprinting madly from one shield generator to the next, even as he'd barked instructions over a commline to Data- seemed to be keeping the worst of it out. Now, with everyone assembled on the bridge, the Doctor's hands were jammed into his coat pockets, where he and Data stood near the aft science station.
The viewscreen had been shut off awhile ago, as there was simply too much energy and light to be filtered out of visual sensors, even with all the visual filters in place. So the bridge crew relied instead on sensor readouts, which admittedly left those in the center seats bereft of much first-hand information...
"External heat and radiation at critical levels beyond the shield grid," Worf murmured, shaking his head. "But all readings within the shield bubble are reading normal. Shields are holding, captain."
"Metaphasic shielding," the Doctor announced, a decidedly pleased glimmer in his eyes as his arms folded across his chest. "Brilliant little gem for anyone that wants to wander past superheated gas and lethal radiation- and, let's face it, who doesn't? It's nothing, really, I'm sure you'd have figured it out before much longer."
"Impressive," Picard replied, "but we're nearing your requested position, Doctor. What's the next step?"
"Glad you asked!" the Time Lord chirped, half-nudging the Klingon aside and ignoring the glower entirely as his fingers danced across the control padd. "Mister Worf, target the modified torpedo in launcher one to these... precise... coordinates, and extend shield diameter by another twenty percent. Not to stress, they'll hold long enough. The torpedo will, of course, be exposed to the full fury of the sun once it has passed beyond our shield grid, but we're counting on that. The thermal output of that sun, and wonderful cocktail of radiation, will trigger the necessary reaction in the specialized warhead Mister Data helped design, a split second before it is vaporized, which is all the time it needs."
"All the time it needs to do what, exactly?" Riker asked.
"Why, to give that planetoid the bum's rush, of course," the Doctor crowed; "Phased dark matter isn't affected by gravity, or normal matter, which means their direction and velocity remain largely unaltered, unalterable, in fact. One of the few things this planetoid's course would be affected by, however, is an inverted phasic polaron pulse, which the warhead will generate once activated. Properly placed, the pulse will effectively shove the planetoid away from the star's corona and send it on its merry way in the opposite direction, where it would drift for another million years before it even caught glimpse of another sun. With the intrusion gone, this sun will correct itself through stellar osmosis in a few days, and all wil be nice and rosy."
Given the Doctor's promised shielding seemed to be holding up to its guarantee, Picard honestly couldn't think of a reason to doubt this newest assurance. After a long moment, his head inclined briefly as he turned his attention to Worf, who had rather pointedly reclaimed his console, 'brushing' the Doctor aside. At the Captain's affirming nod, the Klingon turned his attention to the firing controls, entering the provided coordinates and growling;
"Firing torpedo."
The moments passed, silent... without the viewscreen to assist, the wait seemed almost agonizing, soft beeps filling the air as the Doctor and Data hunched over the science station in the aft of the bridge, watching charts, graphs and innumerable numbers flit by. Finally, a particularly loud 'breep' filled the air, sounding almost cheerfully positive, and at the sound, Picard straightened in his seat, eyes still staring forward at the useless viewscreen.
"Mister Data?"
"Sensor analysis compiling, sir," Data replied, "Sensors are unable to ascertain the status of any dark matter that may or may not be present... but the star's corona does appear to be fluctuating in response to the torpedo's detonation."
"Yes, yes, because it worked..." the Doctor frowned, eyes narrowed as he stared at the science station readout, then at his screwdriver's own miniature display. "At least, the planetoid's been blown clear... but these readings are a little worr-"
The rest was cut off by a sudden, deafening klaxon as the ship's tactical alert lights began to flash.
"Captain!" Worf barked over the alarms; "Automatic red alert has been triggered; thermal and radiation levels are increasing exponentially!"
"I am detecting fusion spikes in the star's corona," Data announced, fingers dancing across the science station's controls. "Coronal mass ejection is imminent; ninety-six seconds to release. We are not directly in its path, but... Captain, its estimated path will result in it consuming Alcheron V seven minutes after its emission, as well as everything on the surface. The shielding we provided the colonists will be inadequate to protect, as are our own. Nothing will survive."
"Helm, set a course for the colony!" Picard snapped; "We need to get as many people as we can off that planet before-"
"No!" The Doctor barked, squinting as the display on his screwdriver, "Keep us right where we are! I can fix this!"
"Doctor," Picard snapped, "your plan has failed, and-"
"No it hasn't, we were just a little too late to stop the worst of the flare-up!" All but sprinting across the bridge, coat jacket whipping around his thin chest, he half-braced, half-slammed into the rear consoles, eyes darting from the readings on the science station, to the android who manned it. "Data, do you trust me?"
Data hesitated for half a second, then gave a sharp nod.
Reaching into his inner jacket pocket, the Doctor tugged free his sonic screwdriver, and took a deep breath, pointing it square at the android. Hesitating for a moment, he mouthed an apology before activating it, squinting a bit as if expecting an explosion. The moment the screwdriver hummed to life, Data stiffened in his chair, head swiveling to face forward, his eyes buzz of the screwdriver grew higher, and higher in pitch until it was a near whine, and Data's head began to twitch sporadically as his eyes flicked from side to side, faster and faster...
And then, his hands began to dart across the Engineering console, fingers moving in a blur, the 'beep beep beep' of each struck key blending into a near drone as dozens, hundreds, thousands of lines of base machine code began to scroll across the screen, input at a dizzying rate. Lines of code turned into an energy wavelength, and less than half a minute after they had begun, the Doctor flipped off the sonic, tucking it back into his inner jacket pocket and jabbing a finger towards Picard.
"We need to activate your ship's deflector dish, everything it's got!"
Picard's eyes were focused not on the Doctor, but instead on Data, who sat twitching in his seat, not focusing, not reacting or speaking.
"What the hell did you do to him?!" Picard snapped; "What is it you're trying to accom-"
"Twenty-seven seconds to coronal mass ejection!" Worf barked.
"Captain," the Doctor shouted, "You're not exactly swimming in options right now!"
Picard's lips twisted as he considered the juttering, spasming Data for another long moment; then, whirling towards the viewscreen, he made his decision.
"Mister Worf!" Picard finally snapped; "Activate the deflector dish, full power!"
The Enterprise hummed, then howled; a bright, blinding light filled the room...
And then the world went away, for a time.
Consciousness returned, all at once, as the crew began to awaken only moments after that bright flash; one by one, the bridge called out that they were all right, with no serious injuries reported. Dazed and bleeding from a cut in his bald scalp, Picard nonetheless waved off Riker's offered hand, instead hauling himself to his feet under his own power, leaving Riker to help Troi instead. The bridge was nearly pitch black, the gloom broken only be strobing red emergency lights, and it was only grudgingly that the control consoles flickered back to life.
Coughing at the acrid smoke that hung in the air, Picard half-shuffled, half-stumbled back to his command chair, sinking onto it with a groan and tugging at his soot-stained uniform top. "Nngh... report..."
"Numrous systems are offline," Worf rumbled, slightly slumped against the tactical console; only a tight grip to the railing had kept him from flying across the room himself. "It would appear that command and control circuits throughout the ship have been disrupted by an electromagnetic pulse... extensive overloads... life support is stable, as is intra-ship communications and tertiary systems." Worf's fingers tightened around the console. "Captain, the pulse would be consistent with the aftershock of a coronal mass ejection."
Picard's tongue flicked across his dry lips. "...the colony?"
Worf shook his head, growling. "Sensors and communication are offline. I cannot ascertain the colony's status."
"Damn. Doctor, can you ex-" Turning to the science station, Picard hesitated when he realized the Time Lord wasn't there; in fact, he wasn't anywhere near the back consoles, and with a frown, the bridge crew began to look around, searching...
Until Riker called out that he'd found him, just behind the Helm console. The Time Lord crumpled on his side against the wall just beneath the main viewscreen, almost invisible under the dim emergency lighting. He wasn't moving, and between the angle of his head, and the dark confines of the bridge, they couldn't see his face clearly at all.
"Medical team to the bridge immediately!" Picard lifted a hand as Riker reached down towards the Time Lord; "Don't move him, Commander, we can't be sure how extensively he's hurt."
"Captain."
It took another moment to pinpoint the voice; Data, whose senseless body had been tossed near the after turbolift, was sitting up. As Counselor Troi knelt over the Doctor's body, watching for any signs of life, Riker and Picard quickly moved to help the disoriented android to his feet.
"Data." Picard said, keeping a tight grip on his shoulder to make sure he was balanced "Are you all right?"
"Yes, Captain..." the android's eyes flickered as he ran an internal diagnostic. "I am uncertain as to how, but I believe the Doctor interfaced with my sensory module and directly downloaded a series of instructions to my cognitive processors... it allowed me to create a new subroutine for the deflector dish, modifying its output wavelength to the Doctor's specifications. The direct flow of information overwhelmed my neural net, however, and required a system reboot to purge the code and restore system functions."
"Why did he use you?" Riker asked; "If he can interface with a computer system, why not directly download it to the Enterprise mainframe?"
"He needed the information to be processed through my knowledge of the ship programming; I do not believe he is suitably familiar with our coding methods," Data explained then, after a brief pause, added; "Yet."
"Captain," Worf announced, "Sensors are back online."
"Mister Data," Picard said gently, "If you're up to it..."
"Of course, sir." Resuming his seat at the Ops station, Data quickly called up the relevant data; when he next spoke, he sounded... quite surprised. "We has been blown free of the corona. The coronal mass ejection appears to have been... deflected... fifty-five degrees from its previously estimated course, sir, though I cannot say how this is possible. Its new heading will not place the colony in any danger, and it should dissipate long before it reaches any of the system's outer planets. The colony's electronic may be effected by the resulting electromagnetic pulse, as our own systems have been, but the colonists themselves will be unharmed... as will the planet's biome."
There was a very loud, very collective sigh of relief as everyone relaxed just a little.
"And the Alcheron sun?" Picard asked, still wary. "Does another flare seem likely?"
"The sun's output is already stabilizing," Data replied. "If it continues, it will return to its normal levels within approximately three days."
There had been plenty of stunned silences today; but this one was almost deafening as the bridge crew simply stared at the viewscreen.
"He was right," Riker marveled. "The lunatic did it. Incredible."
"Apparently so, Number One..." Picard's mouth twisted as he eyed the crumpled form. barking; "But at what cost to him? Where's that damned medical t-"
The turbolift doors hissed open a moment later, and a pair of medics stepped out with a stretcher between them; Crusher was right behind them, and after briefly making sure the rest of the bridge crew was standing and unharmed, she led her medics to the fallen Doctor. Her mouth was set in a grim line as she passed her tricorder over him, the readings obviously doing nothing to reassure her.
"Helm, set a course for the Alcheron colony, best speed. Engage." Joining the medical team by the crumpled Time Lord's body, Picard knelt beside the Chief Medical Officer; "Is he alright, doctor?"
"Well, considering I only started examining his physiology this morning, I'm not sure just how he is," Crusher replied, frustration brimming in her voice as she all but glared at her tricorder readings. "He's clearly been through a rough fall. He might have a broken rib, bruised kidney... if this even is a kidney... I'm just not sure. At the very least, his pulse... pulses... seem strong. I'll need to get him to sickbay, though."
"Make it so," Picard replied. "Do whatever you can for him, doctor. It would seem we owe him that much, and more."
It was a little over an hour before Sickbay reported that the Time Lord had regained consciousness, although it had little to do with their intervention. The Doctor's biology was so unusual, Crusher had been loathe to try much of anything; she simply wasn't sure what any drug, or regenerative treatment, would have on him. All she had been able to report for certain was that the man was a mass of bruises, inside and out, which was fairly mild considering he had been all but catapulted across the bridge, the only one who hadn't grabbed onto something in advance. Fortunately, though, he also seemed to be recovering at a rather surprising rate, and so it wasn't that tremendous a surprise when he finally awoke, groggy and mumbling something about ponds.
Stepping into sickbay a few minutes after the report, Picard couldn't help but marvel at the difference. A man who had such a short time ago saved an entire planet, tamed a rampaging star, and turned aside a blast of energy powerful enough to wipe out an entire world, was sitting on one of the biobeds. His suit jacket was missing, the shirt underneath torn and stained with soot; he was currently examining a medical took with considerable fascination and, with the exception of a single, dark bruise just above his jaw, he seemed fine.
"Doctor."
"Aaah, Captain. So good to see you." Setting the tool down, the Doctor turned in his seat to face his visitor; freezing for just a moment and baring his teeth in a grimace as his battered ribs flared up at the movement. The casual demeanor flickered, just briefly, a touch of concern in his eyes. "How's Data?"
"He appears to have recovered from your interface process," Picard replied. "None worse for wear."
"Good. Good..." The Doctor winced; "I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't risk in what I did to him, but-"
"-not exactly swimming in options," Picard finished wryly. "Mister Data concurs, and even I must admit, I understand your reasons. How are you feeling?"
"I'll be all right," the Doctor replied, giving his hands a cursory glance. "There's no glowing, so obviously I'm not that badly hurt..."
"...I see," Picard lied, brow furrowing. "I take it you're curious as to the status of the Alcheron star..."
"Well, we're still alive, and I'm not in your detention cell, so I'm going to assume it worked."
Picard's lips quirked, but for once they did so upwards, nodding. "Yes, it did. How...?"
"Oh, it's pretty simple," the Doctor replied, waving his hand slightly. "A spatial refraction effect caused by your 'deflector dish,' acted like a lens, altering the focus of spacetime in a localized area, so when the flare occurred, its passage through the altered region of spacetime caused it to, effectively, shift its orientation or, more accurately, the orientation of the universe around it. In that way, the mass emission's course was altered without... well, directly altering its course, which of course would have been impossible. Per se."
"...I see." Another lie.
"All's well that ends well, though!" the Doctor chirped, working his shoulders in their sockets. "So, what's the new plan, then?"
"Well, the Enterprise will remain in orbit over the colony for another week or so," Picard explained. "The solar flare caused a powerful electromagnetic pulse that has disrupted much of the colony's command and control circuitry. We'll make sure that they receive the assistance they require to restore their systems, and then set up a monitoring station to ensure the sun continues to return to normal."
"No rest for the wicked, is there?"
"No, I suppose not," Picard replied, pausing for just a moment before continuing; "In the meantime, I will assign a team of engineers, as well as Mister Data, to assist you with restoring your vessel to operational condition. The resources of this ship, at least those not currently involved with the colony, are at your disposal for the duration."
The Time Lord actually looked quite surprised at that, a delighted grin crossing his face as he reached out to enthusiastically clasp Picard's hand in a brief shake.
"Much appreciated, Captain." The Doctor began to hop to his feet, then gave a stifled grunt of pain and instead slowly eased off the biobed. "But if it's all right with you, I think I'll go lie down for a bit first. Have a bite to eat. Wait for the swelling to go down."
"Of course." Stepping to one side, Picard inclined his head as the Time Lord limped past; just as he neared the exit, however, the Captain called out; "Doctor."
Stopping with a wince as his bruised body protested, the Time Lord half-turned, brow raised inquisitively.
Picard's lips turned upwards in a small, warm smile. "Thank you. Very nicely done."
Returning the smile, the Doctor gave a brief, jaunty salute, wincing again as it drew another sharp sting from his ribs.
"All part of the job, Captain." His brows lifted as he added impishly; "Bit of fun, too."
((Don't worry, ladies and gents! I wouldn't be so cruel as to end things with one little exploding sun! This is, to steal an old phrase, just the beginning...))