Chapter Three: Discovery
USS Enterprise
As the Enterprise flew along at Slipstream, an occasional tremor could be felt in the deck plates. The Structural Integrity was slowly dropping as they pushed the new engines into the redline, but they had little choice, as long as the ship's integrity stayed above a certain amount. Picard was satisfied that they would reach Vulcan soon. He would tolerate the wait time at the next starbase later.
The com system chirped and LaForge's voice was heard. "LaForge to Bridge."
"Yes Mr. LaForge?" said Picard.
"We have to drop out of Slipstream again Captain. Our latest projections say that we'll lose containment in less than an hour if we don't. The engines weren't designed to be pushed this hard for so long." he replied.
Picard frowned. "Very well, Mr. Thomas, slow to impulse, watch for any anomalus readings."
The ship slowed and dropped out of the tunnel-like matrix into normal space; this time no subspace rips were following them and Thomas visibly sighed in relief.
A collective sigh followed his own as the crew on the bridge shared a smile.
"Mr. LaForge, can we resume course under Warp?" asked Madden.
"Yes sir, the stress to the Warp core has fallen down to almost nothing. We can give you Warp Eight point Six for the rest of the trip without too much trouble." replied LaForge with confidence.
"Mr. Thomas, make it so." said Madden, earning a slight smile from Picard.
The Enterprise jumped into Warp and headed for Vulcan.
The T'Pol observed the arrival of the Enterprise a short time later at Vulcan and hailed them.
"Captain T'Fal, it's good to see you again. I trust you are well?" said Picard as the Vulcan captain's face appeared on his viewscreen.
T'Fal gave a slow nod of her head to Picard and spoke in reply. "I am well, Admiral. The Anomaly is most intriguing. My science officer has found several new elements present within the anomaly itself. They appear to be providing fuel to the wormhole, holding it open."
"Interesting." replied Picard.
"Indeed." T'Fal said. "We have also detected a warp trail leading up to the rupture, The Rhode Island has been dispatched to determine its origin."
Picard frowned. "Could this rupture have been caused by some kind of weapon?"
"We do not have enough information as yet to determine that, however it is a possibility given the nature of one of its creators." said Savla, speaking up for the first time.
"The Borg." stated Picard.
"The Borg." acknowledged Savla. "Admiral Picard, I have a preliminary analysis of the other debris the device was made from. That portion of Debris is over four billion years old."
Picard frowned even more. Only one race was known to exist during that timeframe. The Progenitors and only a few people outside of Starfleet knew about it with a few Cardassians, Klingons, and Romulans among them. Starfleet had decided to classify the entire incident surrounding Professor Galen's work with fragmented DNA strands to discover the Progenitors hidden message to their "Children".
"That debris just became top secret; you are to discuss this with no one without my expressed authorization or that of Admiral Ross. Understood?" said Picard sternly.
T'Fal raised one eyebrow before she acknowledged the order, curious that this was to be kept secret. She made a mental note to review her personal files on the Enterprise's exploits. Perhaps she might find something there to explain this behavior. For many years T'Fal had been intrigued by the Earth's "Conspiracy Theories" and had begun to hypothesize with other enthusiasts over various "Theories". It was quite stimulating, despite some of the illogical conclusions her "colleagues" came up with.
"Transfer your findings to my ship and send a coded copy to Admiral Ross. Mr. Lyson, I want you to review what The T'Pol has come up with and prepare a full briefing for the senior staff in three hours." ordered Picard. He turned back to the viewscreen and looked at T'Fal. "Maintain your position captain and report any new findings to me immediately, Picard out."
Picard sighed. Command of this mission would be THE test of his career if things kept going in the direction they appeared to be headed. "Number One you have the bridge. I'll be in my ready room reviewing incoming reports."
Madden stood up from his chair and nodded to Picard as he assumed command of the bridge. Ensign Kirk looked over his shoulder nervously at Admiral Picard, he didn't want to be in Picard's shoes right now, of that he was quite certain.
Picard sat down in his ready room chair and turned to his desk viewscreen and began pulling up the latest reports from the fleet.
Half an hour later Picard was still perusing the reports when the Comm system chirped. "Admiral, Starfleet is hailing us. It's Admiral Ross sir." said Lyson.
"Thank you Mr. Lyson. Computer, display incoming communiqué onscreen." ordered Picard.
The face of Admiral Ross appeared on the viewscreen, he looked very tired. "Jean Luc, as soon as you have enough information gathered from the probe and the fleet, I want you to take the Enterprise into the wormhole under cloak. You are to reconnoiter the area surrounding the other end and report back to Starfleet. We've been able to ascertain that you can leave a communication relay inside the wormhole at the halfway point and that will allow you to maintain contact with our universe. Any questions?"
"No Bill, I've ordered a full briefing that should be ready in approximately two and a half hours. If you like I can have you monitor the briefing at that time."
"No, I'm afraid I won't have time, but please forward your findings as soon as you've finished. After that, I need you to get underway, Ross out."
The Starfleet Command logo briefly appeared on the screen before returning to the report Picard had been reading when Ross called. Picard stopped reading for a moment and looked out the window to his ready room. All he could think about for a moment was Pandora's Box seemed to be opening once more on his beloved Federation, but what wonders or tribulations awaited its opening this time were yet to be seen. He just hoped that it wouldn't herald the end of everything.
He decided he had put off changing his uniform long enough, like it or not Jean Luc Picard was now an Admiral of the Federation…
Picard pulled at his collar again trying futilely to adjust the fit. He understood that his discomfort was really just in his head, but he wasn't willing to give up the fight just yet. He continued to pull on the collar until he heard a faint tearing sound and realized his new Admiral's uniform was damaged by his action. Sighing he sat down at the briefing room table and waited for his officers to arrive.
The Bridge crew of the Enterprise entered the main briefing lounge quickly. Picard nodded to his officers as they entered and took seats around the table. A few seconds later the doors opened again and revealed a rushed Harry Kim and Geordi LaForge. They also took seats and waited for the Admiral to begin.
"Mr. Lyson, could you please begin with a brief summary of our current information?" asked Picard.
"Yes sir, as the rest of you are now aware, a new wormhole has opened up right in our backyard as the saying goes. What makes this wormhole unique and different from the typical wormholes we've encountered in the past is that this one is also inter-dimensional in nature as well. It opens from our universe into an entirely different one.
"Preliminary analysis indicates that this new universe works much the same as our own does, in other words the laws of physics appear to be identical. One major difference however is star locations, while some stars appear to be in the same place relative to our own, others are either in totally different locations or don't exist at all, while others exist where none do here. What this means to us is we have no idea what's out there.
"Some of the races of our universe may exist there, but we are sure that there are many others that will be new to us. The probe we sent into the wormhole has returned with lifesign scans of a space station that exists there not far from the wormhole's exit point. It indicated over a quarter million inhabitants are living at that station. Of those detected only one species came back known, Humans."
"Was the probe able to locate Sol?" asked Picard.
"Yes, The Sol system exists in nearly the same location as our own. There's one thing more the probe was able to ascertain, the other universe is about temporally out of sink with ours. The displacement is roughly eighty years to the old Earth date of 2261." said Lyson.
"2261… This may change a few things. Mr. Lyson, was the probe able to detect how they travel at warp? How are they getting from star system to star system?" asked Picard.
"I'm afraid we're still at a loss with that one. No warp trials or warp capable ships were detected, however there was one structure that has a few of the engineers around here talking." Lyson stood and pulled up the image of what looked like a large space dock. "While this may look like a space dock, it isn't. It's a transdimensional conduit. What we think this device does is it creates a wormhole into another kind of subspace, one that may be smaller than real space. Our best engineers are working on the idea now."
"Could such a device have been the cause for what made this wormhole?" asked Ensign Kirk.
"The device doesn't seem to have enough power to do the job, but we could be wrong. We just don't know at this time." replied LaForge.
"What kind of effects can we expect upon entering this wormhole?" asked Picard.
"Gravimetric readings indicate that the wormhole is still a bit unstable. We'll probably have to use emergency power to maintain the inertial dampeners as we pass through." said LaForge.
"Can we use the cloak?"
"Yes, but I wouldn't recommend it. The power usage will put a strain on key systems. We may lose some of them during the transition between universes." replied LaForge.
"Admiral Ross has ordered us to enter the wormhole under cloak. Do your best to maintain those systems commander. If there's nothing else, dismissed…" ordered Picard.
Bridge: A few minutes later.
The bridge crew worked seamlessly as they prepared for the transition through the new wormhole into anther universe.
"Mr. Lyson, activate the cloak. All stations, yellow alert, standby for maneuvers. Mr. Thomas, take us in, one quarter impulse." ordered Picard.
The Enterprise cloaked and began to surge forward toward the opening of the wormhole. As the ship began to enter, the cloaking field flared briefly giving away their location to the fleet massed around the system. Finally the ship was gone, leaving its own quantum reality for the first time into the unknown…