Chapter 31: Saving Dawn
Jim stood gingerly; his knee supported by a temporary splint from Copernicus first aid kit. Nearby, Athene nibbled Scarlet's shoulder.
Buffy moved to Dawn and looked at Jim. He nodded and headed into the shuttle to try and contact the Enterprise through the jamming field.
Buffy whispered to herself in Scarlet's language as she knelt next to Dawn who lay unconscious on the ground. Stephen, kneeling next to her, looked around and managed to smile. "We're quite a crew, aren't we?" he asked as Jim came back out of the shuttle.
"Let's get out of here," Jim said. "Dionysus is faster than Copernicus ... you take Buffy and Dawn, Ame and Athene back to the Enterprise. I'll be right behind you."
Stephen calculated instantly that the proposal would not work. "We don't have time," he said. "Even if the Enterprise is still out there, T'Lekus doesn't have time."
"I'm not going to risk the life of everybody here—!"
Stephen launched himself at Jim, to grab him by the shirt and shake him in fury. But in the low gravity, the motion flung them both tumbling into the air. They came down in a tangle, bouncing. Athene shied sideways, snorting.
"What's the matter with you guys?" Lukarian shouted.
"If I'm willing to risk my life you can at least cooperate!" Stephen shouted at Jim. He picked himself up. He felt angry, truly angry, but the feeling snapped itself out of reach, and vanished. Jim rose. "What do you mean, risk your life?"
"If I mind-meld with T'Lekus when she's in this state, I might be able to bring her out of it—or we might both end up in a coma."
"I can't permit—"
"You don't have anything to say about it!" Stephen picked Dawn up and carried her into Copernicus.
"Mr. Sulu—" Jim said.
"Yes, sir?"
"Can you fly Dionysus?"
"I can fly an admiral's yacht, captain," Sulu said.
"Good."
In the aft cabin of Copernicus, Stephen laid Dawn on a bunk formed from unfolded seats.
"Her guard is down," Buffy said as Stephen looked at her. "She is empathic."
"Millennial?" Stephen asked as Buffy looked at him shocked. "I too am a Millennial."
"But Vulcans suppress their emotions," Lukarian said.
"Doesn't mean we don't feel them," Stephen said.
"Stephen?" Jim said as Sulu and Lukarian exited the shuttle. Stephen looked up. "Can you help her?"
"I will try," Stephen said as he turned back to Dawn.
Dawn's mind was slowly disappearing. She depleted her mental and physical resources in an attempt to reconcile Scarlet's memories and knowledge with her own. Stephen could sense the tendrils of confusion interweaving and contorting, dragging Dawn into darkness like a weighted net.
Stephen placed his fingertips at Dawn's temples, accepted pain, grief, and confusion, and took a slow breath. He let his intellect sink through the layers of Dawn's mind. He encountered the memories that Dawn had perceived, Scarlet's memories. Their power astonished him. No wonder Dawn had been left stunned and confused. Stephen wondered if he himself would have survived the direct connection.
Stephen hesitated, awed by even a shadowy third-hand reflection of Scarlet's reality. He experienced the exhilaration of Scarlet's flights through thunderstorms, the pain of a lightning strike across one wing, the terror of a thousand-meter freefall before Scarlet struggled back into exhilarated flight.
And finally, deepest and most powerful, Stephen felt the love and grief that had overpowered Dawn and drawn her inexorably to the wild center of the worldship, where flyers came to be silent and to heal themselves, or to die.
He knew Dawn was Millennial and knew she could not die physically for hundreds of years to come. But he could tell she was dying mentally.
Stephen let himself drift deeper. He felt a silent presence observing him. "T'Lekus?" he said in his mind.
"I did not recognize you in your Vulcan avatar," Dawn said to Stephen, more clearly than if they were speaking face to face.
"Do you know where you are, T'Lekus?" Stephen said. "Do you remember what happened?"
"Yes," Dawn replied.
"Come with me. Come back. Your mind is slowly slipping away."
"I cannot," Dawn said.
"You have no choice!"
"Scarlet," Dawn said but the thought was left unfinished.
Stephen understood what had happened. Scarlet's exhilarating emotions had pushed Dawn to feel something she had never been meant to feel. "I too am a Millennial, Dawn. I understand better than anyone what is happening to you. Scarlet's emotions were too much for you."
The silence stretched on so long that Stephen thought Dawn had slipped away forever. "Dawn—?"
"You do understand," Dawn said. "Can you help me find my way?"
"Come with me, Dawn," Stephen said.
Dawn's shadowy presence responded, reaching out for him, gratefully accepting the strength Stephen offered.
The memories and perceptions weakened, faded, vanished. Dawn shut them away, freeing herself from them.
Regaining consciousness, Dawn raised herself from the bunk in the aft cabin of Copernicus. She watched as Stephen sagged onto one of the passenger benches, hunched around himself as if he were cold, and fell into an exhausted sleep.
"Dawn?" Buffy said as Dawn looked toward her.
"I'm tired," Dawn said as she leaned over and kissed Buffy. "I remember everything, Buffy. Can we contact the Enterprise?"
"No," Buffy replied. "Their either out of range or jammed."
"We must hurry, Buffy," Dawn said. "If Koronin has provoked an attack from the dreadnought, if Spock has engaged the Empire forces, a dreadnought torpedo, an Enterprise phaser volley—either would deliver enough energy to cross the worldship's reaction threshold. Then the universe will displace itself by approximately one hundred thousand light-years. If any of that has happened it is likely that the worldship is—that we are—unimaginably distant from our homes. It is likely that the worldship left devastation—"
Buffy stood and rushed to the front of the shuttle and relayed what Dawn had just told her.
Jim flung Copernicus into full forward acceleration. He rammed it through the light web, through the energy currents. He plunged into space, seeking a familiar sky, or the constellations of a universe a hundred thousand lightyears away.
The shuttlecraft emerged from the worldship. The worldship remained where it had been, drifting through the territory disputed by Federation and Empire. But instead of a single dreadnought, a whole fleet surrounded the worldship. As the ships closed in, Quundar dodged and feinted, taunted and teased. Copernicus lay right in the path of the chase.
The sensors picked up the Enterprise, poised at the edge of Federation space as if ready to plunge forward.
"Good work, Spock!" Jim exclaimed. "Buffy." He nodded toward the console next to him. "Contact the Enterprise, put every bit of transmission power on one hailing channel. We've got to try to break the jamming!"
Buffy sang a few words under her breath; in a moment he had the channel he requested.
"James Kirk of the starship Enterprise calling fleet captain. Do not fire! I repeat, do not fire. The worldship meets attack with attack. The consequences are inconceivable!"
The fleet pulled its net tight, contracting around Quundar and Copernicus as well.
Koronin abruptly decelerated.
Quundar hung dead in space, waiting for the net to haul it in.
Jim stopped shouting his warning and sagged back in the pilot's seat. He was drenched with sweat.
The danger was over, but not for long. They saw the flicker of rocket ignition.
"My gods," Jim said. "Does she prefer suicide to capture?"
"Possibly," Dawn said from where she stood just behind Jim and Buffy.
"I am glad you are alright," Jim said as they watch as Quundar slowly spun toward the worldship.
"She knows," Dawn said suddenly.
"What?" Jim asked.
"She knows of the worldship's ultimate reaction. She intends suicide—and when she rams Quundar into the worldship, she will take half the Klingon Empire with her!"
Quundar hurtled toward the worldship.
Buffy and Jim looked at each other they had not an instant's doubt of the truth of Dawn's statement. Quundar would pass the shuttlecraft, slam into the worldship wall, and force a reaction from the flyers' home. They, the Enterprise, and the Klingon fleet would have nothing left to do but watch the beginning of absolute destruction.
"Do it," Buffy said as she noticed Jim's hand hesitating above a control. "Dawn and I may survive but if we don't act everyone else will die."
Jim's hand shook. He cursed himself and slammed his palm against the control. "Secure for impact!" He rammed on every bit of power the shuttlecraft possessed.
Quundar swept in from behind Copernicus with terrifying speed. Jim engaged the ventral steering rockets and wrenched his ship toward Koronin's.
The two spacecraft touched. The contact, for an instant, felt quite gentle. Then the hull transmitted the roar of Quundar's engines and Quundar dragged itself across Copernicus's dorsal surface with a shriek of rending metal. A glowing shower of molten alloy shards flew over their bow. The aft section of Quundar rammed into Copernicus's stern, catching the shuttlecraft and dragging it on toward the worldship. Jim shunted the shuttlecraft's drive force into the steering rockets. The lights flickered and failed. Reflected light from the web of the worldship provided the only illumination. The wall of the worldship plunged toward him.
The skid of Copernicus smashed against one wall-sphere. A tremendous explosion sent shuttlecraft and fighter tumbling. The impact flung Jim, Buffy and Dawn against a bulkhead.
The wail and scream of Quundar's engines and the whisper of the steering rockets ceased, leaving Copernicus silent and dark.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
"The worldship ..." Jim whispered.
"It's all right," Buffy said. "You stopped Koronin, the worldship's still here."
Jim gasped, his breath nearly a sob. He shuddered with relief and abruptly released strain.
Dawn reached toward him in a gesture of understanding, of comfort.
Jim grabbed the back of the pilot's chair and clenched his fingers around it. He knew he must try the engines, slow the spin, and get the tumbling shuttlecraft back under control.
Next to Dawn and Jim, Buffy sang a few wordless notes, slipping back into the flyers' language.
"What did Buffy do?" Dawn asked.
"Learn their language," Jim replied. "Or at least tried to."
The high-frequency hum of a tractor beam filled the cabin. Another tractor beam cut in. The frequencies beat together, heterodyning, but the dizzying tumble slowed and finally stopped. The power systems of Copernicus began to recover. The emergency lights glowed faintly and gravity returned at a few percent of normal.
Jim looked toward Buffy. "Buffy."
Buffy nodded. "I'll contact the Enterprise immediately."
Dawn turned and climbed through the erratic gravity to the aft cabin of the shuttlecraft. She saw that the crash had flung Stephen from the bench. He lay on the floor, still huddled around himself, shivering.
The tractor beams slowed and stopped the spin of Copernicus.
"Buffy," Dawn called out. Buffy came in to the after compartment and nodded. She picked up Stephen and put him on the fold-out bunk before returning to the front.
Dawn smiled as she found a blanket in a storage bay. "Thank you," she whispered as she laid it over Stephen. It was then that Dawn realized that the only thing she had on above her waist was her bra. She noticed lying there in the cabin was the remains of her uniform shirt. It was dusty from being dropped in the tunnel of the worldship wall, but otherwise undamaged. She pulled it on.
"Dawn."
Dawn turned and looked at Jim. "Yeah."
"Is Stephen injured?"
"No, he's asleep."
"Asleep? He wasn't injured by the ... ordeal?"
"No," she said.
"You appear to have come out of this unscathed."
"Mostly," Dawn said. "That said though I was in control of my faculties when I set out upon this course of action. Therefore, on my return to the Enterprise, I will submit myself to Security, preparatory to a court-martial."
Jim frowned. "A court-martial!"
"Yes, Jim," Dawn answered. "For attacking McCoy and the transporter chief."
Jim returned to the main cabin of Copernicus and tried to get some reaction from the control panel of the shuttlecraft, while Buffy attempted to resuscitate communications. He could hear her humming under her breath as she worked.
Buffy looked at Jim. "Are you going to court-martial her?"
"I don't know," Jim said.
The shining sparkle of a transporter beam cast its illumination over Copernicus's instrument panel. A Klingon noble materialized in the shuttlecraft main cabin and loomed over Jim and Buffy.
"Who are you?" Jim said.
"Why did you stop her?" the noble said.
"What do you mean?"
In a fury, the noble strode forward and grabbed Jim and lifted him from the deck.
"Koronin curses you for stopping her! Could the worldship do what she claims? Could it destroy the Klingon Empire?"
"Yes," Jim said. "Or the Federation of Planets."
"She would have destroyed your enemies!"
"You aren't my enemy," Jim said.
"Our governments are opponents—"
"We aren't at war! Even if we were—do you think I could stand by and watch the deaths of millions of innocent people?" Jim grabbed the noble's wrist. "Let me go."
Dawn, who stood in the shadows behind the noble, held out her hand and aimed it at the noble.
The noble released Jim, muttering something incomprehensible but unpleasant in a grudging tone.
"Stand down, Commander," Jim said as the director spun to face Dawn. He straightened his shirt then addressed the noble again. "Did you have anything else to ask me?"
The director reached for his belt. Jim tensed, but the director pulled out a communicating device. He spoke into it, then folded it and put it away.
"I have ordered a truce, captain," he said. "I have given your starship—and the unknown craft—permission to remain in the realm of our revered empress."
"That's ... very civil of you," Jim said.
The noble dematerialized.
As the Enterprise's tractor beams pulled Copernicus home, Jim looked out at the worldship, drifting placidly in space. "It looks so peaceful—yet it's the biggest, most destructive weapon ever built," he said.
"It's not a weapon," Dawn said.
Jim looked askance at Dawn. "You're the one who realized what it would do if anyone attacked it!"
"But the—" Dawn pronounced a trilling, soaring musical sound—"the flying people have never conceived of war or of weapons. Under normal circumstances they would cause the universe to exist around the worldship in one safe configuration, then—when they wished to explore a different portion of space—to change to another safe configuration. It is only under conditions of unnatural stress—such as attack, which the flying people could not have imagined, since they have never imagined war—that the worldship forces the universe to move along unsafe vectors, distorting the fabric of space."
"They even have you talking as if they moved the universe instead of the worldship!" Jim said.
"They do," Dawn said. "I can't explain it. I just know that the universe moves around them, not the other way around. Compared to us, they are far more advanced. To use an old saying. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
"So says someone who has magic inside her," Jim said.
"Ame told him," Buffy said as she looked at her sister, "about the Key."
"We don't exactly know what the Key is beyond energy," Dawn said. "So, in essence even that could be construed as science to someone more advanced than us."