Chapter 6 – Visitors
"These … K'rikians. When you invited them onboard you already knew they were not warp capable. Why did you decide to initiate contact?"
Riker groaned and closed his eyes, even as Stan clasped his arm in warning to quiet him. Two of the Commissioners stirred in their seats and exchanged looks; one whispered to the other, who smiled grimly and nodded. The third took notes on a PADD.
Tom took a deep breath, composed himself as best he could, and responded.
"Talking to them seemed preferable to killing them, in the very best tradition of Starfleet, Your Honour. Also I believe you could call their opening shot an 'initiation of contact' on their part. Under these circumstances, and on the basis of reciprocity, even the Prime Directive permits contact. Sir. We followed protocol. To the letter."
"You are in absolutely no position to lecture me on the Prime Directive, young man, remember that. Counsel, advise your client to tone down the attitude. Continue, Mr. Paris, and watch yourself. You too, Captain Riker."
+o+o+
The K'rikians enormous eyes, if anything, grew larger as they took in the size of the bridge and its occupants, the guests having already been thoroughly intimidated by the height of their 'welcoming committee'. Tom quickly understood why the translator had had difficulty choosing between "seeing" and "learning"; to the K'rikians, the two activities were clearly one and the same. Their heads darted back and forth in a lizard-like motion at all the unfamiliar sights.
Thanks to the polite and simple conversation Tom had initiated with their leader during the long – slightly more circuitous than strictly necessary – walk to the bridge, the translator had stored additional vocabulary, and was forced to provide optional translations only very occasionally anymore. Conversation always got easier with acquaintance.
The alien guests relaxed marginally when invited to sit down at the conference table, where their relatively long torsos brought them into a more reasonable position vis à vis their taller hosts; the dangling legs were discreetly hidden under the table.
After exchanging polite words of welcome with their hosts – even this close to the galactic core, the basic precepts of diplomacy seemed to be the same – the aliens were offered, and accepted glasses of water. They did so with an elaborate and graceful display of hand gestures that suggested the scarcity of the substance on their home planet, or at the very least on their ship. The female stared at her glass with something akin to reverence before taking a tiny, delicate sip.
The K'rikians' story - told to the Captain, the First Officer and the counselor, while the two security officers stood silently and impassively by the doors - was simple, and filled with pain.
To hear their leader, C'ro'Tak, speak, theirs was a peaceful race; without warp capability – of which they had no knowledge, and their hosts did not inquire - their interest in exploration had been limited to worlds close at hand. They knew of no other race like themselves in the Trifid, but over thousands of years they had successfully settled across a small cluster of stars in the southern part of the Trifid - called "the Cloud" by the K'rikians - ten worlds in total. Even as these worlds developed their separate and distinct cultures, they retained their ancestral bonds and closeness. Trade between them flourished, as did political and personal relations. Their system of governance was not unlike a small version of the Federation, and was referred to by the universal translator – somewhat intriguingly, Tom thought, given Earth's own history –as 'the Commonwealth'.
Then, C'ro'Tak explained, the lights appeared in the sky. Beloved at first for their beauty, regarded as bringing luck when seen bursting forth and streaking across the purple sky, they soon became feared as one by one, the K'rikian worlds became sick, diseased. Three had died already; two more were dying. People, animals, plants were succumbing to what the K'rikians called "the wasting diseases". Plants withered; childhood sicknesses that used to be harmless quickly turned lethal, and spread with unprecedented speed. Food and water became contaminated, animals died. Their skin had not always been mottled; that too was a consequence of the disease that fell from the skies like a whisper in the night, like the wisps of the nebula, bathed in beautiful light.
Tom felt his throat go dry at the unbidden memories of the planet where Earth's own Friendship One probe had wrought such unintended yet global havoc. He did not need to see one of the K'rikian worlds to understand their pain. He had been in a place like theirs, met people like them, delivered one of their deformed children; felt silent death blowing in on the evening breeze.
Every time one of the bright lights appeared, it became worse. Scientists had projected within a few hundred years all ten K'rikian systems would become uninhabitable. Religious leaders were starting to spread the belief that the lights were demons, sent to punish the K'rikians for the presumption of venturing beyond their home world. One of the worlds had already broken out into civil war, victim to lethal battles between the rational but helpless scientists and community leaders, and the forces of superstition that insisted on finding solace in doom.
Desperate to bring an end to the dying, the Commonwealth had created the Defense Force, of which the Ul'K'Nar was the largest, the flagship vessel, now the farthest from home. Tom, Deanna and Riker exchanged glances at that. Given the distances involved and the fleet's limited propulsion systems, those volunteering for the expedition knew they would never see their homes again; nonetheless they had set out, beyond the limits of their homes, determined to find the cause of their worlds' destruction and, if possible, end it.
They also understood very clearly that flying towards the light demons that were destroying their worlds would destroy them even sooner. C'ro'Tak's companions unconsciously touched their faces at this, numbing fingers feeling for skin that was once smooth, finding flakes, cracks, and craters. And still the ships were sent out, and still the volunteers, desperate to save their loved ones, kept coming.
What their little armada had found, after years of searching and studying, confirmed what the Enterprise's crew had already begun to surmise: There was a connection between the emergence of the deadly lights and the crystal known to the Federation as dilithium. Asteroids and planetoids rich in the mineral were possible birthplaces for the light beings, and so the Defense Force had set out to systematically destroy them all. They would try and blast them apart from space, and if that did not succeed, leave cloaked charges inside the caves where the crystals grew, waiting to be activated by sudden changes in energy levels. The demons were vulnerable during their birth, before they were fully formed and capable of flying through space.
They were also at their most deadly when they first blazed into light.
"We have seen some of the places where you have been," Riker said, looking at his First Officer, who involuntarily took in a deep breath to test his still-aching ribs and gave a rueful half-smile. When they had originally checked the asteroids for 'mining activity', the kind done by the K'rikians was not exactly what they had had in mind. They would have to go over their readings again, to determine exactly what might have set off the K'rikian charge; he suspected it was the changing energy signature of the alien he had seen starting to glow, rather than the presence of the away team.
In the meantime, Tom figured that keeping his mouth shut about almost dying at their guests' hands was probably the Right Thing To Do; he could always play the guilt card later, if he had to. He could not, however, help wondering about the other victim of the K'rikians' booby trap. "Has destroying them … helped?"
C'ro'Tak's nostril slits flared a little at Tom's question, a gesture his hosts had come to interpret as a smile. His tone carried a sense of pride that did not require the services of the translator.
"Yes, it has. Where we have mined their possible birthplaces, there have been no new lights. It may take us a hundred years more, but eventually we will drive them out of the Cloud. And if only one of our worlds survives by then, it will be enough."
The Enterprise had stood between them and their next target, he explained, and while they were contemplating what to do about the clearly superior vessel, a 'light birth' had occurred. More ominously, their sensors, trained to detect dilithium, had discovered a quantity onboard the big ship – as well as an energy signature not unlike that of the light demons.
Riker and Tom exchanged glances; Deanna stirred in her seat. The Enterprise's warp core. Harry and B'Elanna had been right about the similarities. For now, all three officers knew that the Prime Directive applied, specifically what Tom liked to call "sub-rule one": Do not introduce non-warp capable civilizations to the Holy Grail of space travel. Tom never had had much use for the Prime Directive; it had been his father's personal mantra when he grew up, and in Tom's view more often than not was just an excuse for bureaucrats to fiddle while Rome was burning. But even he agreed with the restrictions on spreading warp technology.
Not unreasonably, the K'rikians had assumed the Enterprise had been sent to disrupt their campaign against the light beings, maybe was even allied with them, and had acted accordingly. Out of desperation, in what they considered to be self-defense, and despite the fact that the other ship clearly possessed superior firepower. Their only real defense was their limited cloaking technology, little better than refractive shielding, but even that, when it came to hiding something as large as a ship, had to rely on assistance from the local EM disturbances to be effective. Most problematically, Tom surmised, their limited shielding was not impervious to ambient radiation.
Silence reigned in the boardroom after C'ro'Tak's recital. Deanna, who was feeling their guests' distress most acutely, was hard pressed to keep her air of professional detachment. After a few moments' silence, Tom leaned over to Riker and whispered in his ear. Riker nodded, and Tom spoke.
"We have some … familiarity with diseases like that affecting your crew. If you allow us, we may be able to help," he said softly.
C'ro'Tak's nostrils flared, just a little. "Thank you," he said, "you are very kind. But unless you can help all my people, we must decline. Our suffering is theirs, and theirs, ours. Only by remembering what we are fighting for can we continue our work in the way that we must."
He rose with as much grace and dignity as he could, and bowed. "We must take our leave now, Captain Riker. There is much to do. We will ensure that our ships know you present no threat, and would request that you, in turn, not interfere with our task."
Riker solemnly agreed. He was inherently opposed to mining, which by its nature – and as the away team had found – was indiscriminate in whom it destroyed. Unexploded ordnance, remnants of a war now silenced, still rendered whole planets in the DMZ uninhabitable, and it would take decades to restore them before they would be safe for fields to be worked and children to play.
But the Prime Directive clearly applied and there was not much more they could do under the circumstances. Moreover, he was keen to pass what hey had learned to his mission specialists for study and analysis. He gestured to Tom to escort the K'rikians back to the transporter room, security officers in tow.
On their way, Tom mulled over the K'rikians unwillingness to accept help – there was something terribly familiar in their stubborn pride, and it tweaked his love of a challenge. They may not accept medical help, but who could turn down a drink of water? He hit his comm badge. "Paris to Supplies. Please replicate three 1,000 litre vats of water and materialize on pads one, two and three of Transporter Room One for onward transmission."
Tom turned to C'ro'Tak, bowing politely in his finest approximation of diplomatic deference. "It is our people's custom to allow our guests to leave only after they accept a gift." Ignoring Ayala's ironically raised eyebrow, he added, "Please accept what we present as a gesture of our friendship, and a reminder of our hospitality."
The alien captain visibly swallowed when their little party arrived in the transporter room and he saw what they would be given, but apparently he was sufficiently well versed in the dictates of courtesy not to protest. Or maybe he was just thirsty? It didn't matter; Tom was just pleased that the gift would be accepted.
He sent a triumphant look towards Ayala, who as usual remained utterly impassive at what he had overheard in the briefing room and what was happening now – standing in classic at-ease position, left hand ever so casually draped over the holster of his phaser. One day, Tom swore to himself, he'd get the man drunk and would make him tell what he really thought about … something, anything. Even on Voyager, Ayala had always hovered on the margins of momentous and exciting events, ready with his phaser or a fist at just the right time, but never letting on to what he thought with even as much as a grunt. Tom Paris, a natural-born commenter and raconteur, found the man's silence to be bordering on the freakish.
C'ro'Tak climbed on to the platform, bowed to Tom wordlessly and touched his forehead with the palm of his hand. Tom replicated the gesture, silently praying to the God that looked after pilots-unaccountably-turned-diplomats that he wasn't breaching a hundred years of K'rikian protocol in doing so. He felt no small degree of relief when the familiar ring of the transporter took the three aliens and the Tom Paris version of a reverse hostess gift away and into space.
He thanked Ayala politely, dismissing him for the night. Failing for the umpteen-thousandth time to elicit any kind of verbal response from the man - the nod he received back was almost like an epic poem, coming from the least loquacious individual he had ever met - Tom hit his comm badge.
"Paris to Riker. Unless you need me right away, I'll just swing by the safe zone for a few minutes before coming back to the Bridge."
He could hear the smile in the Captain's answer. "Acknowledged, Commander. Say goodnight to the little one for me."
+o+o+
Tom bounded down the hall and entered the airlock that led to the radiation safe zone, now more than ever thankful for the foresight that had led them to establish it for the children. None of them had come down with the Vulcan measles, and hopefully, none would. Out of an abundance of caution the Doc had now equipped the airlock with a sterilizer. Tom waited the requisite five seconds to be disinfected and entered.
The sight that greeted him was as far removed from the order and professionalism of the bridge as Earth was from the Delta Quadrant. Colourful toys, PADDs, half-build forts, pillows and abandoned 'science experiments' (or leftover sandwiches?) were strewn about in the main play area set aside for the younger children. Libby Kim was trying her best to straighten out with the help of some of the older children, but Tom could tell by the wry grin on her face that it was a hopeless task; the mess would be right back the minute the first of the little ones got up. His daughter was probably one of the worst offenders, if the status of his and B'Elanna's quarters was any indication.
"Hey Libby," he said. "Her ladyship still awake?"
"Oh hi, Tom. Yes, I think so. We just put the little ones down a few minutes ago. She's had a pretty good day, I think, except for dinnertime. She complained about the chicken nuggets and kept asking for pizza. Where'd she get that from, you figure?"
"I wouldn't want to hazard a guess." Tom grinned at his best friend's wife as he headed for the room set aside as a sleeping area for the smaller children. He spotted Miral's bed easily; B'Elanna had brought it and her starship mobile from their quarters to give their daughter a little piece of home while she was staying in the safe zone.
"Daddy!" Miral popped up as soon as he approached; her Klingon senses, even as genetically diluted as they were, had recognized his footfall - and quite possibly his scent - well before he arrived beside her crib. She held up her arms to be picked up, and hugged him fiercely as he ruffled her hair and blew into her ear.
"Hey, munchkin. I came to say goodnight. Still having a nice camp-out with the other kids?" She nodded vigorously. Libby and the other teachers had pulled out all the stops to ensure that the children were not only comfortable, but also well entertained; regular visits reassured the littlest ones that their parents had not forgotten about them.
"Can I have a story, Daddy?" Tom smiled and reached for the PADD behind Miral's crib. "Of course you can. That's why I'm here." "Pooh?" He dabbed her on the nose with his finger. "Wouldn't dream of reading you anything else. And guess what? Here's a chapter that's a bit like where the Enterprise is right now. It's called 'In Which Piglet Is Entirely Surrounded By Water'."
As Tom read, he noticed a few other heads popping up in the beds around Miral's, listening intently. Being read to by his own father was the most treasured memory of his childhood, and he found it astonishing how few parents seemed to take the time.
"Mommy came and said 'night already," Miral informed him sleepily after he finished. "Can I have pizza tomorrow, Daddy?" Tom smiled and nodded. "I'll tell Libby and Nurse Ogawa that you can replicate some pizza for lunch, but do try some of the other food, okay?" "Mmmh. 'Kay. Love you, Daddy."
"Love you too, sweetie."
Tom stroked his daughter's cheek with his finger, watching her bright-blue eyes grow darker and begin to close. He still found it hard to believe sometimes that this little being was the result of his and B'Elanna's love, and just how much of a focus of their life she had become. He could not imagine his existence without her.
Unbidden, Tom's mind flashed to the moment in the dilithium cave when he had felt himself being crushed by the falling rocks. The regret that he would not be there for his daughter, would not see her grow up, would miss all the important milestones she had yet to pass in her young life.
Just how many lives did he have left before the odds would catch up with him? How many more times could he cheat death? Dark thoughts, quickly banished behind the walls where Tom Paris liked to keep these things, to be held at bay until a time when he would be forced to stand exposed before the truth of his feelings and his fears. His daughter seemed to bring those walls down more easily than he had ever thought possible.
Tom shivered slightly, bent down and kissed Miral on the forehead. She smacked her lips a little and burrowed deeper into her pillow, clutching B'Elanna's old stuffed targ, Toby, and breathing in her mother's comforting scent.
He quietly left the nursery, winking and waving at some of the other children who were still awake. The First Officer was a familiar figure to all of them, and as he re-entered the main area, some of the older ones made a passable effort at coming to attention as he passed. He nodded solemnly at those, acknowledging their respect in equal measure, before giving Libby a quick goodnight hug and a peck on the cheek and informing her that it would be fine to feed a certain voracious quarter-Klingon pizza – again. He smiled a heartfelt 'thank you' to her and Ogawa before entering the airlock.
As he headed back to the bridge Tom hoped the Captain would not keep him long. He and B'Elanna had not had much time together in the last few days, and with his physical condition finally having returned to normal, he was planning a few ways in which they could take advantage of what was essentially a free baby-sitting service. His lips curved in an anticipatory smile. An evening off would be nice.
+o+o+
Spooned around each other, sleeping deeply and peacefully in the afterglow of activities that had been as strenuous as they had been pleasurable, Tom and B'Elanna woke at the same time, to an overwhelming sense of wrongness. His pilot's instincts would still tell him when the engines dropped out of warp, regardless of where he was on the ship; her own engineer's senses felt the loss of her engines' hum as others might the beating of a loved one's heart.
For both of them, the sudden silence of the warp drive screamed an alert louder than any klaxon, and they were out of their bed, into their uniforms and out the door in under a minute. No words were necessary; there had been too many moments like this in their lives. Words would come later, when they had information. Before the turbolift deposited them at their respective destinations, they exchanged a look of guilty relief that there was no need to arrange for someone to look after Miral this night, then B'Elanna tore down the hall towards engineering while Tom stayed on the lift to head for the bridge.
"Report!" he barked as he entered the bridge, noting the Captain had not yet arrived. Gamma shift was on, and the Lieutenant who had the bridge practically jumped out of his chair at the sound of the XO's voice. Sue Henley, who had come aboard the Enterprise some six months earlier at Tom's recommendation to join O'Reilly's conn staff, turned to him, relief at his presence evident in her eyes.
"Warp drive went off-line three minutes ago, sir. Cause unknown. We still have impulse. Go to red alert, sir?"
"No, maintaining yellow will do for now." Tom hit his comm badge. "Paris to engineering," he called out. "Talk to me, B'Elanna!"
"We seem to have suffered a sudden drop – make that a complete loss – of the matter-antimatter exchange in the dilithium matrix. The warp core is completely … dead."
"Any chance of a breach?"
"No, none that I can see. The exchange just … stopped, but there is no sign of an overload in the gravimetric manifold. Thank Kahless for that. Obviously we'll be working on trying to restore the reaction, but until we find out what stopped it, it may not be that easy. For now we may be dead in space, but at least we're not in any danger from the core. Will report back when we know more. Torres out."
Will Riker had arrived on the bridge during this exchange, his eyes still a little bleary with sleep but grimly determined to find out what was wrong with his ship, and who had caused it. Tom immediately relinquished the command chair and headed for the helm, tapping the console as Henley gave him the necessary space. He cursed even as his fingers danced over the controls, finally slamming the flat surface in frustration.
"Dead as the proverbial duck," he confirmed, patting Henley's shoulder in silent apology for the invasion of her space as he headed back towards the Captain. The remainder of the senior staff was filtering in, Jorak immediately relieving the ensign in charge of tactical during Gamma shift. He shook his head at the Captain's expectant looks. No answers from the external sensors. What a surprise, his raised eyebrow seemed to say.
Harry Kim was just taking his station, uniform in slight disarray, when his wife's voice came over the intercom from the safe zone. He looked up instantly; Libby never commed the bridge directly.
And yet, it was unmistakably her voice. Choking, half sobbing, hanging by a thread.
"The children … they're gone … all of them."