Chapter 3: Ghost Ship - Part 2

Dawn motioned to the monitor on which appeared the ship Buffy had seen in her dream. "Is this it?" she asked and Buffy nodded. "This is a nuclear aircraft carrier from the nineteen-nineties. It was a Soviet Union vessel out on a demonstration run in the Black Sea when it mysteriously disappeared on April twenty-fourth, 1989."

"Disappeared?" Picard rumbled. "Do you have any idea the size of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Ensign?"

"Better than you do," Dawn answered. "Since this ship would have been in service when Buffy and I were kids. Besides when it comes to the supernatural, anything is possible."

"Dawn's right," Buffy agreed.

"All right, go on," Picard said. "What was this ship called?"

"The Gorshkov," Dawn replied. "Her captain was Arkady Reykov. He had a long, rocky political history before leaving that arena for the naval command. His disapproval of the Soviet system had caused him some discomfort, but his skill as a naval officer evidently overshadowed that. Such experience was at a premium in the U.S.S.R. in those days, so he was allowed to continue."

"And this Vasska?" Picard prodded.

"Timofei ... " Buffy said and they all looked at her. "Timofei Vasska. I believe he was first officer."

"Buffy's correct," Dawn confirmed.

"Do we have photographs of them?" Angel asked.

"Computer, show any available visuals of Reykov or Vasska," Dawn said.

The computer settled into a long hum, but they didn't have to wait long until its soft feminine voice said, "Only available visual on specified subjects is a news photograph shortly before launch of the Gorshkov. On screen."

The screen did its best to focus a grainy photograph of some hundred or more uniformed men, apparently officers of the carrier, all standing together on the big flat deck. The figures were small and crowded together, but on the left two officers stood slightly apart and in front of the others, their faces blurred by the poor quality of the photo.

"There," Dawn said, pointing. "Computer, augment the two men in the foreground."

Abruptly two faces appeared, somewhat blurred, yet their strong features and proud expressions quite clear on the screen.

"That's him," Dawn said, pointing again, this time at the big man on the right. "That's the man I saw in the corridor."

Picard looked deeply into the Soviet officer's strong eyes and murmured, "Reykov ... "

As he said the name, he realized his reaction was instinct. No one had told him that this was the captain of the Gorshkov, yet somehow, he knew. Somehow there was a symbiosis, something in the face that he, as a captain, understood.

Picard turned to Buffy. "Buffy?"

Buffy gazed into the faces on the screen. "Yes," she said. "Reykov and Vasska."

"Dawn," Angel said, "do we have anything more on these two?"

Dawn nodded and said, "The computer found a little. Timofei Vasska was thirty-five, a longtime first officer of Reykov's. Records are incomplete, but a few articles on the incident speculated that the two men were friends and may have plotted together to defect with some new technology."

"What technology?" Angel wondered.

"Gorshkov was carrying a special device, an electromagnetic pulsor which could deflect incoming rocketry and aircraft," Dawn answered. "The science was new at the time, but the Soviets had pushed through the preliminary testing and gone straight to a fully mounted pulsor on a vessel."

"What happened to them?" Picard wondered.

"Apparently the ship was ... pulverized. Unexplainably and utterly," Dawn said.

"My God," Picard breathed.

"There was very little left of the ship," Dawn said, pausing then, "and absolutely nothing of the crew. There was no proof that any nation had attacked the ship. Add to that the appearance of seven Soviet naval aircraft from the Gorshkov which requested landing clearance on a United States carrier a short time later-pardon me. Those pilots swore no missile had come in to destroy the Gorshkov. "

They noticed Buffy stare-forward and slightly starboard of her position.

"Buffy?" Angel said.

"Someone's here with us," Buffy answered. "Dawn?"

Dawn stood and moved beside her sister and looked in the direction Buffy was. For a moment she could feel nothing and then she felt something brush her mind. "There are a few of them," she said as Buffy nodded in agreement.

Angel moved to Dawn's vacated position and made some adjustments to the internal sensors. "Captain," he said as he motioned toward the monitor.

Picard, Buffy and Dawn moved to look at the monitor. The visual of the ready room was chilling. Each of them saw themselves as they were at that moment. Around them, specters walked. Over a dozen humanoid shapes glowed yellowish white.

"Open in all frequencies," Angel said. "Tying in the universal translator." He raised his voice. "This is Admiral Angel Summers of the United Federation of Planets. May I inquire what is your purpose here?"

There was no answer.

"We request that you communicate with us," Picard said forcefully. "State your intentions immediately."

Two of the humanoid forms began to move toward them, one from the side, one from behind. Then suddenly they were gone.

"Buffy?" Dawn said, she could no longer sense the unseen presence.

"They're gone ... " Buffy said. "But I doubt they will stay that way."

"Agreed," Angel said. "And I would hazard to guess what we are seeing is ghosts."

"Hopefully a lot different than the one you and I have first hand experience with," Buffy said.

Angel nodded as he remembered the incident that Buffy spoke of.

"But," Picard said. "If they were actual ghosts our sensors would not have shown them. Would they?"

"Section 10," Angel replied, "has dealt with ghosts. Depending on the type of ghost, some are invisible to sensors and some are visible. Well not really visible but the energy field that surrounds them can be seen."

"What did the sensors show?" Dawn wondered.

"Phased energy," Angel said. "In other words, their trapped between our world and the next. Captain, since the majority of your crew outside of your senior staff do not know about the supernatural. They should be informed to keep calm, go about their duties and that if they see these people, they should leave them alone and that we are dealing with the situation."

"Of course, Admiral," Picard agreed. "Our next thing should be to determine what they are doing here?"

"Agreed," Angel said.

"Bridge to Captain Picard," came Riker's voice.

"Go ahead, Number One," replied Picard.

"There is something on the edge of sensor range, sir."

"Yellow alert," Picard said as he, Angel, Buffy and Dawn exited the ready room. "Scan it."

"Scanning," Tasha replied. "I can't get a fix – wait a minute – that ... that can't be right. I'm not getting anything back. No, that can't be right."

Picard spun. "Nothing at all? No reaction to the scan at all?"

"No, sir," Tasha complained, "not even readings of surrounding space debris or bodies-" She broke off and slapped her control board like an errant child. She straightened decisively, absolutely sure of what she was seeing on her instruments. "Sir, far as I can tell, it's absorbing the sensor scan."

Angel frowned as he looked at Buffy, Dawn and Picard. "Corroborate it with the space sciences lab immediately," he said to Tasha.

"They're already tied in, Admiral," she said, her eyes sparkling. "Same report."

"Boost the sensors," Picard said.

"Definitely reading something now!" Tasha said after doing as Picard ordered. "God! It's heading directly at us out of interstellar space – it homed in on us! It'll be here in seventy-eight seconds!"

"Visual!" Angel ordered. "Adjust the sensors twelve points into the gamma-ray spectrum."

The starfield blurred before them, sizzled, and reformed into a new pattern- and suddenly the bridge was walled with a gigantic glassy false-color image, undulating and fluxing as it raced at them through open space. Its aurora borealis colors were chaotic, its luster blinding, its electrical nature obvious as it crackled across the huge screen.

Geordi instantly brought a hand up to shield his visor. "Chrrrrist-"

The fireworks blazed across their faces. It was a thing utterly alien, and struck panic in the hearts of everyone except Angel, Buffy and Dawn.

"Don't let it get near us!" Buffy said.

"Buffy?" Angel said as he turned to look at her.

"Evil." Buffy simply replied.

"Mr. LaForge," Angel said. "Red Alert. Raise shields."

"Red alert!" Riker echoed instantly, flashing the words toward Tasha. "Speed and ETA?"

"Warp six now! Sixty-one seconds ETA!" She flinched under the prismatic light from the screen..

"Lieutenant Yar, fire phasers across its bow. Make our intentions absolutely clear. Warn that thing off" Picard answered.

"No," Buffy said. "Angel."

"Belay that," Angel said, but it was too late.

Without acknowledgment, Tasha played her controls and before them phasers lanced space, thin as needles, their power twisted into threads so slim that they could strike even at this distance and be felt like solid blades.

"Captain, it's accelerating!" Tasha shrieked then. "It's put on a burst of speed- warp ten now ... warp twelve! Warp fourteen-point-nine!"

"Maximum warp," Angel said. "Parallel course away from the object."

LaForge smeared his palms over the controls, jamming the starship into emergency warp. The change of speed was so abrupt that even sophisticated Starfleet equipment couldn't compensate for the stomach-sucking effect.

The starship wheeled in space and bolted into a sudden warp nine, but there was no warp fifteen in its vocabulary. Before the ship could maneuver more than one light-year's distance, the thing was upon them.

St. Elmo's fire blanketed the bridge as the Enterprise was given the shakedown of the millennium. A billion tiny firecrackers erupted across the heavy-duty shielding. Electrokinetic jolts fanned through the ship, through every person's body, through every bone and nerve, every circuit, every conduit, every skin hair, and crackled through every inch of stuff, living or mechanical.

All around Buffy and Dawn, jagged voltage profaned the bridge with ugly blue fingers and left sparks wherever it touched. They saw her crewmates falling, writhing, fighting. They heard the whine of the ship's gallant battle against this electrical storm, and knew the Enterprise, like the crew, were defying the attack.

The weight of a thousand minds crushed into the sisters' heads and they forgot the ship, forgot everything but the pain of it. They were screaming at them, shrieking the reedy noises of zombies and wraiths. As the minds sought their brains and all the parts of them that reacted to their telepathic selves, it released their muscles one by one and they sank to the deck.

Angel saw the sisters fall. He was the only one that seemed to be unaffected. Could it be because he was already dead and this attack was aimed at the living or at the least something else that he was not. He moved to Buffy and Dawn as the attack seemed to move on from them towards others and finally settle on Data.