Chapter 13
The Cover Story
Stardate 2366.084
"Earl Grey, hot," Picard ordered the replicator, and a steaming mug immediately materialized. Picard took it to his chair; Admiral Mifune was already settled in his own seat with a small cup and a black lacquered pot filled with aromatic Japanese tea set out before him.
"So, Admiral," Picard began as he settled himself. "What is this all about?"
Mifune sighed. "That's a long story, Jean-Luc. One that involves an awful lot of classified information, and not a small amount of rumor and conjecture. There are those at Starfleet Command who think I might be crazy, and others who believe me, but object to me telling you what I'm about to tell you because they think it's too dangerous. If I'm right, Jean-Luc…This mission may change the balance of power throughout the entire quadrant. It will certainly change the balance of power between the Federation and the Romulans."
"The Romulans?" Picard asked, intrigued.
"Yes, the Romulans. Intelligence reports have turned up indicating that they've been searching for something on the planet below. It could be nothing. But if it is what I think it is…it could change the course of history. It could change everything."
"But what are they searching for?" Picard demanded.
"That's the thing. I don't think they even know. They believe they're looking for their home world, and the planet below is one of several they've surveyed."
"Their home world?" Picard interjected, confused. "But the Romulans came from Vulcan."
"In most recent history, yes," Mifune confirmed. "But in ancient Romulan and Vulcan lore, there was a previous home world, an older one. The Romulans call it Volta Vor, the Vulcans, Sha Ka Ree. According to legend, it was nearly destroyed by ancient technologies and the violent wars of their ancestors. As violent and belligerent as life on Vulcan was before the Romulans left and those that remained turned to logic, this ancient society was said to be even worse. Their technology evolved faster than their commonsense, and it nearly destroyed them. In many ways, the legend of Sha Ka Ree is much like the Earth story of Atlantis; a tale of an advanced society that progressed too far, too fast, and destroyed itself, to be lost in the mists of time. Most believe it to be just a story, but some believe it truly existed and have started searching for it."
"And you think the planet below is this Sha Ka Ree?" Picard asked, fascinated.
"It could be. And if it is, there could be technology hidden down there that could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Specifically, in the Romulan military's hands."
Picard nodded grimly, comprehending the gravity of his mentor's concern. "These supposed weapons of mass destruction. Do we even know what they are? Weapons terrible enough to destroy an ancient world might be nothing compared to photon torpedoes."
"Perhaps. But I believe I might have an idea about what that technology could be, and if it is what I suspect, then the Federation and every peace-loving society has great reason to fear." Mifune pulled out a tattered old leather-bound journal from his satchel and placed it on the Captain's desk. "Jean-Luc, how much do you know about Captain James Kirk and his Enterprise?"
"Only everything I read about him in your book, Admiral," Picard answered with a smile. "You did write the definitive biography."
"Yes," Mifune confirmed. "My grandfather was his helmsman."
"Hikaru Sulu," Picard said with admiration. "One of Starfleet's finest."
"That he was," Mifune smiled. "A great officer, a great man, and a great grandfather. When I was a boy, my mother would bring me to visit him and he would tell me stories about the great Captain Kirk and the Enterprise and all her adventures. It was what began my interest in Captain Kirk and fueled my later studies as a historian. This journal was Kirk's own. My grandfather left it to me when he died."
Picard looked at the book with keen interest. "May I…?"
"Of course," Mifune nodded, and Picard gingerly picked up the volume and began thumbing through the pages, revealing a strong, masculine handwriting. "I read this journal many times while researching Kirk's missions for my book. I knew every entry backwards and forwards. There was one mission that caught my interest, but I wasn't able to include it in my book; all official reports about it were highly classified, well above my clearance. If I hadn't had Kirk's private journal, I never would have known about it at all. You see, in one of Kirk's missions, there was a transporter accident and he ended up in a parallel universe where he encountered an object, a very dangerous and highly lethal piece of technology that generated what was called a Tantalus Field."
"A Tantalus Device?" Picard asked.
"You could say that yes, although for some reason Tantalus Field was the term Kirk used. In this other reality, the Federation was a warlike Empire, much like the Klingons and Cardassians, and advancement through the ranks was secured through assassination or vanquishing superior officers."
"Murder?" Picard exclaimed.
"Indeed. And the Kirk of this alternate reality had advanced quite far using the device he had found in his travels. With the mere push of a button, it could literally disintegrate a target within its range. It was the other Kirk's own private, very secret weapon, so our Kirk was never able to discover where or how the other Kirk came by it. He knew only that the other Kirk had acquired it from some ancient alien ruins. When he returned to our reality, he reported the incident to Starfleet, continued with his primary mission, and as far as I can tell from his subsequent writings, forgot about the whole incident. As you know, the idea of essentially identical, alternate universes has been a part of cosmological theory for hundreds of years, so shortly thereafter, a task force was put together to look for the device in our universe. The whole mission was kept very hush-hush; even Kirk himself knew nothing about it. The impetus for the mission was the assumption, of course, that if there was a Tantalus Device in the other universe…"
"Then there would be one in ours," Picard finished grimly.
"Exactly. All of Kirk's missions were poured over extensively, his missions on the Enterprise backtracked to see if the Tantalus Device had been missed somewhere in this reality whereas it had been found in the other. Starfleet spared no expense; they spent years searching every planet Kirk had ever visited. They were terrified by how this weapon might shift the balance of power if it came into the wrong hands; we have no idea what the range is of the weapon, how many targets it might be able to annihilate from what distance. The security threat could be tremendous, and we would have no idea how to defend against a weapon that could literally take out our most important leaders in the blink of an eye. But nothing ever came of the search. The device was never located, and all the information about it was heavily classified to prevent anyone else finding out about it and looking for it themselves."
"And you think locating this weapon is the Romulan objective?" Picard asked.
"No, like I said, I don't think they even know about it," Mifune answered. "I think they are simply looking for their home world. But when Starfleet Intelligence discovered their covert incursion into our space, they pulled several different specialists together to analyze what the Romulans might be up to. As an archaeology expert, I was asked to review the information about the ruins on the planet they had secretly visited. I found nothing of particular import in any of the data gathered, and I prepared to file my report showing inconclusive findings. But I had a few days left, and I'd been given greater security clearance than I'd ever had before, free access to Starfleet mission archives, and I must confess…" Mifune looked at Picard sheepishly. "I couldn't control myself. I took a peek at Kirk's classified missions, the ones I had been denied access to when I had written the biography.
"Admiral," Picard admonished fondly, unable to suppress a smile.
"I know Jean-Luc. But I'm an old man, now. I must be forgiven my little indulgences. Anyhow, I was looking into the mirror universe mission that I knew only the general outlines of, and that's how I discovered all the missing information about the Tantalus Device and the search for it. I knew only the basic information about it from Kirk's journal, that he had encountered the dangerous device in the other reality, and had worried about what would happen if there was a counterpart here that fell into the wrong hands. From the Starfleet archives I now knew about their search for it, and the files had exact coordinates of all the planets Kirk had previously visited, as well as detailed records of their search on each planet. I recognized many of the planets on the list from the missions I had written about in Kirk's biography, as well as what I had read in Kirk's diary. I had the diary with me; I was going through it, looking up the different missions I'd always wanted more information on. And then it hit me. I realized there was a planet missing from the Tantalus search list."
"This planet?" Picard asked, but it was more statement than question.
"Yes, Captain. This planet. I never would have made the connection if I hadn't been writing the report on it for Starfleet Intelligence. But as I went through the diary, I came across an entry I'd almost forgotten, about a mission to the Beta Virginis system. Kirk's Enterprise visited it in passing, interested in the unique energy patterns in the system. Energy patterns that make sensor readings of the planet below unreliable and transporting dangerous. Kirk had prepared an Away Team to take a shuttle down to the surface to inspect the ruins, but then got called away on a humanitarian mission to help treat a plague outbreak on Mendel IV. The type of mission the other Kirk and the other Starfleet would have had no interest in."
"So, you believe the other Kirk in the other reality went down to the planet," Picard said, as though he were piecing together the answer to one of the logic questions Mifune had always favored on exams.
"And came back with a weapon that our Kirk never found," Mifune continued.
"And the Starfleet teams never searched this planet?" Picard asked.
"No," Mifune confirmed. "In our reality, Kirk never actually went down to the planet and his mission to it had been aborted, so it never made it onto the original search list."
"And the Romulans that visited the planet? They didn't find this weapon?"
"I'm pretty sure they weren't looking for weapons, and sensor readings are erratic in the area because of the nebula. But we know what we are looking for, and we know what we are looking at: I believe that the planet below us is the birthplace of the Vulcan and Romulan civilizations, and that the Tantalus Device is one of the terrible technologies that almost destroyed them, and it is somewhere down there. Your mission, Captain Picard, is to help me recover it."
