R.I.P. Neil Armstrong
15-08-1930 to 25-08-2012
You gave us the moon
II
With the command team gone and no omnipotent being to interrogate on their whereabouts, Jorak takes it upon himself to start issuing orders. For a Vulcan he is quite ambitious – advancement of the best and brightest being a matter of logic, as far as he is concerned - and has made it pretty clear that he is ready to drop the "Lieutenant" in front of the "Commander" any time now. Harry is already on the first item, though; some things you don't need to be told by a superior officer.
"I've located the Captain and Tom ... the Commander. The computer registers their comm badges, but I don't have contact. I do have their bio signs though. They're outside the ship, in the water. Bio signs seem to be stable, but they're … they're a bit odd, sir."
Jorak raises an eyebrow. Odd is a rather imprecise analysis coming from a Starfleet officer, even from a non-Vulcan.
"Clarify, please, Lieutenant Kim."
"Well, they still register as themselves, but their oxygen intake seems to have altered," Harry replies with a frown. "I'm not a biologist, but it seems almost … as if they were no longer quite human. There's an overlay of something else. Elements consistent with … umm … certain kinds of … umm … "
He looks up, a tinge of panic creeping into his voice as he continues.
"… marine creatures."
Harry almost whispers that last bit, as if he's afraid that people will laugh him off the bridge, and for a moment his statement just sort of hangs in the air while everybody takes a deep breath.
Deanna Troi, who in fifteen years with Picard has seen almost everything - including watching her now-husband turn into a caveman, her ex-lover into a targ and herself into a rather slimy amphibian - doesn't waste time questioning Harry's sanity. If anything, her attitude suggests that this sort of thing happens every other day. She simply nods and takes charge, subtly tapping her three full Commander's pips to remind Jorak just who is the ranking officer on the bridge, and to hell with the nice and warm counselor routine.
Of course, Deanna isn't exactly an expert at deciphering sensor readings of this sort, but she does know someone who is. And unlike some Captains she knows of, Deanna Troi knows how to delegate.
"Troi to Sickbay. Beverly, can you have a look at the bio readings that Harry is about to send you and tell us what they mean?"
She nods at the Lieutenant, who takes the hint and quickly enters the necessary commands to transmit his data.
Down in a Sickbay that is rapidly filling up, the Chief Medical Officer hides her annoyance at being interrupted just now, as well as her surprise that it is the ship's counselor doing so, quite well. Assuming that there must be a good reason for Troi's request she hands the freshly replicated basin she's been holding to Nurse Ogawa and walks briskly over to her console.
Ogawa, for her part, silently takes the basin over to Ensign Larsson whose pale Nordic skin has taken on a distinctly greyish hue. The nurse casts a calculating look around Sickbay. All the biobeds are occupied, and people are now sitting and moaning on the floor; two more are staggering in. The smell of vomit has started to overwhelm the environmental system. At the rate things are going, they will have to replicate several hundred anti-nausea hypo sprays before the end of the afternoon. And, judging by sounds emanating from Larsson and a couple of the new arrivals, quite a few more basins.
Beverly bends down over the console, her hair dropping like a red curtain as she does. She taps a few commands to correlate the data with other files, frowns and taps in a few more. Adjusting her instruments repeatedly, she finally shakes her head and opens a channel to the bridge.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the Captain and Tom have acquired gills, and everything that goes with them, replacing their respiratory functions and pulmonary system. But their bio signs are otherwise consistent with what we have on record, so the change is not down to the DNA level. Their brainwaves seem fine, too, but I can't tell whether their cognitive functions have been affected. Can you bring them in? I'd like to have a closer look."
She frowns as she considers the logistics and adds, almost as an afterthought, "Of course we would need a tank or something so they can breathe."
Gills. Harry mouths the word to himself. What on Earth are they going to tell B'Elanna? Not to mention Miral. Sorry, kiddo, your Daddy has been turned into a fish? The good news is, he can say hello to the Little Mermaid for you.
The thought crosses his mind that Tom would probably find the funny in this whole situation, at least after a few minutes, and he represses the urge to snort. At least for now, Harry decides, he has to remain professional. And focused. Professional and focused. Like Deanna Troi, whose own husband has been turned into a … no, he can't allow himself to think about it. Professional. Focused.
Harry clears his throat, punches in a few commands, and loses his sense of humour.
"I can read both their comm badges and their bio signs, Doctor, but I can't get a transporter lock for some reason. Q has probably done something to disable our instruments, when he changed the engine. I'm afraid a trip to Sickbay will have to wait."
"Q?"
Beverly gives one of those deep well-that-explains-everything-so why-the-hell-wasn't-I-in-the-loop? sighs of hers.
"Someone could have told me he had something to do with this."
Troi ignores her and her quite valid complaint for the moment and fixes her liquid black gaze on Harry.
"Can you try and bring the comm system back on line, Harry? I can sense Will, but only a little. I can't reach him enough for a response."
Troi has been trying to stretch her Betazoid senses to find her imzadi, but all she has gotten for her trouble was the briefest feeling of un-Will like panic, followed by relief and then a major bout of anger. Not the sort of mood where he'd be open to an empathic transmission from his wife, let alone be able to reciprocate. Empathic communication is a skill which, like Will Riker's love for his wife, had been suppressed for far too long but unlike the latter, is still a work in progress.
Harry has the grace to look a little sheepish at the exhortation to do his job, and do better. So much for focused and professional.
He fiddles with the comm system again, and suddenly – he doesn't really know what he's done – it springs to life, albeit producing rather strange sounds. It stands to reason, based on what they know, that there'd be some …
"Bubbles."
"Attempting to compensate for underwater sonic distortions, and eliminating extraneous noise patters." Jorak, too, has been busy.
After a minute or so of Harry and Jorak joining forces on their respective consoles, the whole bridge can hear it, quite clearly. One word.
"Shit."
Harry winces a little, then shrugs. It is what it is.
"Well, at least we know that Tom's brain is still functioning within normal parameters."
Deanna gives him a wry look and hopes for the best.
"Enterprise to Riker and Paris. Captain, Commander – do you read?"
Silence. A few more attempts, and it is clear to everyone on the bridge that what communication channels there are, traffic is strictly one way.
He quickly makes sure that Jorak's adjustment is applied to all peripheral communications equipment, including the communicators pinned to Riker and Tom. Might as well make it easier for them to talk to each other, Harry figures, even if all they seem to be producing right now is a string of escalating and surprisingly inventive expletives - including one in Romulan? - in which Q features prominently.
Troi nods decisively, dismissing, or more accurately, shelving, her concerns for her husband and friend. They're fine, for the moment. She forces herself to repeat, like a mantra, the main lesson from that command exam she took so long ago: Your duty is to the ship and its crew.
And because she's the type of officer who tends to look at the bigger picture, she remembers something that Q had mentioned, somewhat off-handedly, and that maybe others have forgotten in the midst of everything else.
Storm coming.
Two hours isn't a long time and there are almost twelve hundred people on the ship, including almost three dozen children, many of whom are already in distress from the unaccustomed motion of the ship.
"What happens when the storm that Q mentioned gets here? Is there anything we can do to stabilize the ship? Delay the effect of waves on the hull?"
Luckily B'Elanna has just stormed on the bridge, in time to overhear the last bit. She decides to forego venting her complaints and fields the question instead.
"We'll need to reconfigure the shields to compensate for external pressure and adjust the inertial dampeners a little. We've done something like this before, with the Delta Flyer."
She exchanges a quick look with Harry that has Troi frowning a little; she doesn't need her empathic senses to know that there are unpleasant memories for both officers associated with that particular episode. She and Tom have spent some quality time on it.
"But stabilization won't keep the waves away from the saucer section, so capsizing due to external factors is still a potential issue."
"Do we have impulse engines and thrust, Commander?" Jorak asks. "Sufficient to get the ship into orbit, or at least above the storm?"
B'Elanna shakes her head vigorously in the negative.
"All we have is forward movement, and very limited at that. Impulse thrusters are offline. With what Q did to my engines, all we could do is lower the warp core down into the ejection chute until it's halfway out. When we activate it, with what power remains in the matter-anti-matter chamber it might act as a propeller."
"A what?" Troi is a little out of her depth now, and not afraid to admit it.
"Ancient propulsion device from carbon fuel days," O'Reilly helpfully interjects. "The principle was used in ships and early aviation. Primitive, but functional."
B'Elanna looks at him, mildly impressed. No wonder Tom likes the guy, despite his rampant insecurities. They probably played with the same toys when they were little. Still do, actually.
"That's right. It can move the ship forward, but not very fast. I doubt I can get up enough speed to stay ahead of any storm though."
"Plus, what about Tom and the Captain?" Harry adds loyally, forgetting that B'Elanna doesn't know about their predicament yet. "We can't just leave them."
Troi immediately realizes the rather significant omission. She takes the engineer aside and fills her in on the basics, her hand on B'Elanna's arm. To the surprise of absolutely no one, B'Elanna snarls something nasty in Klingon and slaps her hip with a balled fist. But, like all of them, she's a professional and pulls herself together quickly.
Belatedly, it occurs to Troi that this would normally be the time where Will would call a senior officer's meeting, and so she does, asking people to turn up on the double.
The tour de table is quick and efficient, and nobody wastes any time in unnecessary handwringing. The clock is ticking.
"I'll have my team focus on stabilization and containment." B'Elanna.
Petra Cran, the astrometrics and science officer, announces with somewhat unseemly glee that they appear to be somewhere in the Beta Quadrant, on the outer edge of one of the galaxy's arms. To Beverly's disgust, Cran makes it pretty clear that all she wants is to get back to her instruments; to her, this is a scientific opportunity not to be missed.
Troi shrugs it all off. It's not the first time Q has flung her ship to the far beyond, and location is the least of her worries.
"Someone should consider what we can throw overboard to increase buoyancy," Harry offers.
"I'll send out a team to inoculate the entire crew against seasickness," Beverly states. "Also recommend that we evac non-essential personnel and families via the escape pods and shuttles. That would safeguard lives and decrease weight."
Troi likes both Dr. Crusher's suggestions and looks at B'Elanna. "I assume the force fields in the escape hatches and shuttle bays will permit underwater exit?"
The engineer simply nods. Good. That matter is decided.
"We could go and back up the Captain and Tom with whatever they're doing, on the Flyer," O'Reilly adds hopefully. He's been told by a few people – although not by Tom Paris himself, the man is curiously closed-mouthed on that subject - that the XO once used the shuttle as a submarine, and he has been dying to try it himself ever since.
Troi basically approves all the ideas that have been put forward, and tasks Harry to make the necessary changers to Flyer One and take O'Reilly and Mike Ayala out to find the command team. It shouldn't be hard, with the comm badges still active. Any sign of Q or Q-like doings anywhere, anytime, are to be reported to the bridge immediately, and environmental better keep a close eye on the weather.
The meeting over, and everybody sets to work.
…..
They've been heading straight down for a while now, but fortunately the waters don't seem to be getting murky, or dark for that matter. On the contrary, sunlight from the surface is being reflected back from the sandy bottom in speckles and waves in a sort of liquid, luminescent dance.
It would probably be all rather fun, Tom thinks as he flippers down with the easy grace that comes from years of practice, if it weren't for the pressure to find an undefined something, somewhere - within a very clearlydefined time span. The other thing that is a bother is the periodic shadows that glide over that speckly bottom, the shadow of something big and unpleasant swimming above them.
One of those big, unpleasant things had come awfully close to them earlier, possessed of a wide-open mouth and far too many teeth for comfort. Luckily when they had shed their boots, turtlenecks and tunics – the water is pretty warm after all – they had decided to keep their belts and all those annoying dangly bits that hang from them. Tom had learned pretty early on in the Delta Quadrant never to leave his quarters without a phaser strapped to his hip. Equally luckily, whoever designed them had assumed that they would need to be fired in all sorts of atmospheric conditions - including, as it turns out, water.
So now, whatever shadows are gliding overhead are coming to feed of whatever it was that Tom had shot earlier. He doesn't really want to think about what happens when dinner is done, or when they have to swim back up through the churning, ravenous crowd.
They're almost at the bottom now though, and the only sights that present themselves are a forest of elegant green fronds that are waving gracefully in the currents created by swarms of colourful fish. There's also an expansive bed of rather enormous clams, which remind Tom uncannily of the kind that Miral's favourite princess - a mermaid that looks a bit like a younger version of Dr. Crusher - apparently likes to nap in.
Tom slows down to let Riker catch up, since it is clear they have to figure out where they should go next. The Captain, when he gets there, taps Tom on the shoulder and points to the clams, most of which are open, no doubt looking to sift the warm waters for plankton or whatever. His mouth emits a small burst of bubbles, which Tom, assisted by Harry's adjustments to the communicator, actually understands quite clearly.
"Pearls?"
Pearls.
Certainly, those huge clams seem eminently capable of producing major pearls. In theory, anyway. Could that be what Q is after? A pretty bauble to appease his offspring's mercurial mother? It doesn't seem likely given the control he has over all things geo- and biological (and just a little too easy) but Riker is swimming up to the nearest of the huge clams and peeks inside.
The serrated edge of the enormous shell is fringed with what looks like long, rusty-red fronds that thicken intermittently into bright orange knots, like an old-fashioned beaded curtain that waves slightly in the current Riker has created with his approach. Sure enough, the refracted light from the surface ever so often dances over something round and opalescent, shimmering deep in the fleshy folds. Riker flashes a triumphant grin and reaches into the mollusk's folds for an impromptu body search. His arm lightly grazes the drifting fronds.
What happens next goes down really, really quickly, and Tom has occasion to be once more impressed with his Captain's reflexes, which are those of a much younger man, not to mention of a seriously mean fighter. Will manages to get his arm out of the clam just as it closes with a vicious snap that sends a cloud of sand over the bottom of the ocean. The sand cloud, in turn, triggers a chain reaction among the other clams which, mindless things that they are, seem convinced that whatever it is that is touching their radulae must be a threat. Or food.
"Obviously those fronds aren't just there to sift out plankton," Tom observes after he has ascertained that the Captain still has all his fingers. Being out of breath with adrenaline creates kind of a ticklish feeling inside his gills, and he scratches himself absently.
"We better keep our feet away from those things."
Riker nods, obviously ready to gloss over the whole embarrassing episode as if it hadn't happened. He seems to have given up looking for pearls, anyway.
"Now what?" he blubs. "I'm open to suggestions."
They are both quiet for a moment. Neither of them notices that the water around them is slowly filling with fish that had disappeared when they arrived. Overhead a school of millions of silvery bodies, each no larger than Tom's little finger, undulates in unpredictable patterns occasioned by a dozen or so larger fish that seems to be slowly herding them towards a more convenient lunch spot.
"You know what I just realized? The communicators are working," Tom finally says, reluctantly tearing his eyes off the spectacle of life and death playing out above them. "I can hear you much better all of a sudden, despite the bubbles. Harry or Jorak must have fiddled with the receptors."
He taps his badge. "Paris to Enterprise. Can you read?"
Silence.
"Apparently not," Riker says. "Odd, because the translator is obviously working. So there is a link on some level."
He frowns, swiping irritatedly at the little blue-and-purple fish that tries to examine his beard now that they've stopped moving.
"And they must have heard us, to be able to adjust for the underwater distortions. I wonder if they still can."
Tom thinks for a moment.
"And if they can hear us up top …"
"… so can Q," Riker finishes his sentence.
The two men stare at each other for a few seconds while a fluorescent jellyfish drifts by, propelled by a graceful pumping action. It reminds Will momentarily of the alien creatures they encountered at Farpoint Station, his first mission with the Enterprise - the very first time he met Q, and his not-so-hilarious penchant for threatening a crew (if not all humanity) with certain death. Basic extortion, just to prove something that an entity laying claim to omniscience ought to have been bloody well able to figure out for himself.
Obviously – as Tom has suggested - Q's alleged omniscience doesn't extend to these watery depths, though, or else he derives a sadistic pleasure from watching his sentient human toys flail around doing his bidding. Either way, it stands to reason that Q would be curious as to their progress. Riker can practically imagine him quivering with glee as he and his XO exchange details of what there is to see, and what they might do next.
Will casts Tom a meaningful glance, points at his comm badge and shapes the letter "Q" with his hands, but Tom has already figured it out. They both grimly nod their understanding, and reach for their comm badges almost simultaneously. Whatever leverage they might have over Q will disappear the moment he gets the answer he is looking for, and then will be nothing to guarantee that he will keep his bargain and return their ship to its normal state.
Tom holds his badge in front of his mouth for a moment. There's no time for subtlety; may as well call a spade a spade and let Q know they're on to him.
"Paris to Enterprise. We assume you can hear us … We realize you would probably like to keep tabs on us, but Q will be rather keen to know what's down here. So, frankly, we suspect the line is bugged. And we'd rather keep to ourselves for a bit."
Riker is momentarily puzzled by the reference to 'bugs' here in the ocean, but decides to ignore it. He too has something to say, and he remembers who is boss on the ship in his and Tom's absence.
"Deanna, if you can hear this, we'll be cutting out for a while. We'll try get back to you if there are problems, or else when we've solved Q's little conundrum and he gives us our ship back."
There's a crackle in the comm badges, and a new voice comes on, drenched in a cheeriness that fools no one.
Q.
"Oh, don't be silly, boys. Why do that to yourselves? Really, my dear Captain, if I had only known that you were so keen on chatting with the pretty little missus I would have made sure that they can talk back to you. There, I'll be nice. Chatter away, you little lovebirds."
Onboard the Enterprise, the pretty little missus doesn't hesitate to take advantage of the sudden access to communications.
"Will, Tom – can you hear us now?"
"Loud and clear," the Captain says grimly, and exchanges a meaningful look with Tom.
"We've started evacuating non-essential personnel and are working at stabilizing the ship. B'Elanna thinks she can buy us some extra time, but not much more than two ours, depending on wave action."
There. The original two-sentence briefing. Make every second count.
"Understood and thanks."
Deanna turns and rounds on Q, who materialized on the bridge at the beginning of the exchange.
"Yu were saying?" she says sweetly, albeit a sharp edge of what the hell do you want now? embedded not so deeply in her voice. She waves off Jorak and Ayala, who instinctively reached for their weapons, Ayala gripping his phaser more tightly than usual.
"Really, Counselor, I almost forgot that you poor little things can't talk to each other without help, and that you have to rely on these … primitive devices to help you out. My apologies. They're working now, you'll be happy to hear."
Q bows gracefully and insincerely, gesturing vaguely at Deanna's comm badge as he does so.
It is not lost on her, though, that he is vexed, and trying to hide it. Deanna is an empath, and can read emotions in facial expressions and body language just as well as she can pick them up from people's minds. Despite Q's human appearance being essentially a mock-up, his eagerness to preserve the comm link might as well be written across his forehead in Size 36 font.
Troi's eyes are like smoldering pieces of coal.
"Those primitive devices, as you call them,are what you need to keep an eye on what happens down there, aren't they? Just like we puny humans are whom you want – no, need - to find whatever it is you want? Well, that's just too bad, Q. So, unless and until you end this silly game of yours, you'll just have to wait for the outcome like the rest of us."
And so Deanna Troi makes the call. Her eyes lock with Q's now not-so-mocking blue ones as she does, although it is not him to whom her words are addressed.
"I agree, Will – we need to terminate the comm link, for the reasons you mentioned. Good luck to both of you. And us. Troi out."