Paint and Powder
A Star Trek anthology by Andrew Joshua Talon
DISCLAIMER: This is a non-profit fan based work of prose. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager et al are the property of CBS Television, and creation of Gene Roddenberry. Please support the official release.
Jenolan: Relics
2294
It had been the find of the century. An actual, factual, Dyson Sphere!
Well, Dyson Shell, Jenolan corrected herself, as her captain stared out at the magnificent structure.
"It's astonishing," Captain James Armstrong murmured. Jenolan projected herself alongside her captain, sharing the look of wonder on his bearded face.
"It's amazing nobody's stumbled across it until now," Jenolan agreed, "the thermal radiation signature alone should have registered!"
"Looks like the subspace signature of the thing is set to disrupt a lot of readings," her science officer, Marianne Clemmons, reported from her console, "whoever built this knew how to conceal it."
"Let's hope they're friendly," Armstrong said, "let's begin a standard survey-You remember how to do that, don't you Marianne?"
"Hasn't been that long since I was on a science ship," Marianne agreed with a smile.
"Tamás, bring us into a standard orbit... If you can call it that with this thing," Armstrong ordered.
"Aye sir!" Their helmsman, a jovial Tamás Alex, responded, and Jenolan adjusted her course with his help.
The thing was roughly 150 million kilometers in diameter, and now past the subspace interference, Jenolan's sensors were able to discern many features on the massive structure. Numerous subspace antenna lined the outside, along with sensors, and various other structures-So many it was almost overwhelming, even for her.
Jenolan wasn't built to be a science ship. She was a transport, and she was proud of it. She kept the Federation running. She'd even carried troops for border actions against the Tholians and Klingons. Her job was important, but not very flashy.
Still... She couldn't help preening a bit. To find a Dyson Sphere! Her! A plain jane transport!
Wouldn't Enterprise be impressed?
Jenolan had met the famous shipgirl a few times, mainly during resupply runs. She had been kind, and they'd forged a bit of a bond. Not as close to Vestal or her sisters, but they could be called friends. It might tickle her just as much that Jenolan was the one to make such a find, instead of her.
Speaking of...
"Sir," Ensign Matt Franklin volunteered, standing nervously at the doorway to the bridge, "one of the passengers is wondering if he could assist?"
"If it'd be all right, Captain?" Montgomery Scott grinned, his teeth shining behind his bushy mustache.
Jenolan grinned broadly behind Armstrong. Her captain beamed,
"Honestly Captain Scott? We'd be honored," he said, "this is a little out of our wheelhouse."
"Not a problem at all, Captain!" Scotty said, and at Armstrong's invitation, he took his place next to the chief engineer, Ben Sachs, and looked over the readings. "This baby could transmit enough subspace noise t' blank out the Federation! But it's so quiet!"
"But all that subspace disruption," Ben murmured. Scotty shook his head.
"Ach, that's not even a millionth of what this thing could put out! If it has this little output... Either they're keepin' quiet, or there's nobody home."
"Who would put this much effort into building a structure like this, and then just abandon it?" Jenolan asked, projecting herself over Scotty's shoulder. The legendary engineer shook his head.
"Not sure, lassie... We just don't have enough information... Still! If they've got this much transmitter capacity, surely they must have receivers?"
"Marianne?" Armstrong called on his science officer. She studied her readings.
"Captain, Mister Scott? I think I've found a receiver array," she said. Scotty went over to her station, and peered over her shoulder. He nodded, sharing his bright grin with the middle aged woman.
"Aye, good eyes lass! Can't be anything else!"
Armstrong smiled, and leaned back in his chair.
"Let's find out if anyone's at home," he said, "Ben? Open hailing frequencies. Send a standard first contact message."
Ben was all smiles as he punched up the command and sent the signal.
"Hailing frequencies open, sir," he said.
Jenolan detected a huge gravimetric surge from some of the arrays around the dish... And her aft power coils exploded. She jerked hard forward, her nose pitching down as something began to pull on her! Red alert klaxons screamed through the ship, as her power systems fluctuated dangerously. Her crew held on for dear life as she began to shake and buckle! She tried to help stabilize it, but her power systems kept sputtering.
"REPORT!" Armstrong shouted over the din of the klaxons-Something she immediately muted. Scotty got to the engineering console, and worked with Sachs.
"The aft power coils have exploded, sir!" Scotty shouted, "the power distribution system is on emergency! Ben, lad, try to reroute the auxilary!"
"No good!" Sachs shouted, pounding at the keys. "I'm not getting anything! The transformers are offline! We're not getting any power from the warp core!"
"Something grabbed us!" Jenolan cried. "A tractor beam, a subspace beam-I don't know what, but it killed all our momentum! We're going down!"
"Thrusters!" Armstrong ordered. Tamas quickly fired the thrusters to full, trying to correct the ship's trajectory. He shook his head.
"Best I can give you is a landing, captain!" Tamas said, "maybe we can aim for one of the smoother areas!"
"All right," Armstrong said with a nod, "that'll have to do... Launch the distress beacon! I want everyone but myself, and Ben, to go to the passenger section! It's in the center of the ship, it has the best chance of survival! Go!"
"With yer permission, sir," Scotty said, "I would request t' stay here on the bridge. Maybe I can help? Soften the impact?"
Matt Franklin, who had been monitoring the environmental controls, raised his hand.
"I-I want to help too, sir," he said, "it takes at least four people to run the ship anyway."
"Granted, both of you," Armstrong said, nodding. He gave Scotty a grim smile.
"I can't think of anyone better suited to help."
"Me neither," Franklin breathed, still staring in awe at Scotty.
Scotty nodded.
"I'll do my best, sir," he said. He took Ben's place at the engineering console, as Ben patted Tamas on the shoulder. The usually jovial Hungarian gave a grave nod to his captain, one he returned, before he headed aft. Marianne lingered, pausing only to give Armstrong a hug. He returned it tightly.
"I've launched the distress beacon," Marianne said, "but whether anyone will pick it up...? That's a good question. We're pretty far off the shipping lanes as it is, and all that subspace interference-"
"Someone will find us," Armstrong said soothingly, "don't worry. You'll see your son playing Parrises Squares again before you know it. I promise."
Marianne nodded. She gave Matt a quick hug too, and ruffled his hair. He scowled.
"Marianne!"
"C'mon, you're the youngest, you get babied, it's how it works," Marianne chuckled. Matt scowled a bit, but his smile overpowered it.
"Be safe," he said.
"You too," Marianne beamed, and looked over at Scotty.
"Captain Scott? It was brief, but it was an honor. Please, take care of us," she said. Scotty chuckled.
"Don't you start acting like it's the end now, lassie. Go on. We'll be fine," he said. He turned to Jenolan.
"Lass, try the emergency pumps into the fusion reactors! It might cause a surge! Something to the impulse engines could give us a little more speed!"
"Yes sir!" Jenolan said, saluting. She focused, her connections erratic... But the impulse drive did flare, and she gained a bit of velocity. Ben Sachs nodded from the helm, and fired the thrusters.
"I think I can give us a smoother landing, great job sir!" He called.
"We got a bit of power to the shields with the surge, too!" Scotty said. "Might be enough to soften the landing!"
"All right," Armstrong said, as the huge expanse of the Dyson Sphere loomed into view, "Jenolan! Hold off on the surge until we're about to impact! Mister Scott? See if you can reroute all our remaining power into the shields and the inertial dampeners! We're gonna need them!"
"Aye sir! Though I'll need some help," Scotty said. He turned to Matt. "Up for it, lad?"
"Absolutely, sir!" Franklin said happily. Scotty looked over to Armstrong.
"We'll need to do some cross connections," he said, "but we should be able to handle it!"
"Go for it!" Armstrong ordered, and Scotty went back and opened a panel. He dug into the guts of the computer system, as Franklin helped. Jenolan projected herself alongside Armstrong, as he sat in the command chair.
"Time to impact?" He asked.
"Two minutes, forty three seconds," Jenolan reported.
"We'll just make it!" Scotty said. He quickly cross connected various duotronic circuits, and Jenolan's eyes crossed.
"Woah... That's weird," she murmured.
"It's temporary, lassie," Scotty said, working fast, "probably..."
"Probably?" Jenolan asked.
"Hold that there, lad," Scotty said, pressing a hydrospanner between two gaps, before he jammed in some binding strips, "okay, almost there...!"
"Marianne to bridge," the science officer called, "we're all in the residential module. Hatches are shut. We're in bracing position!"
"Good!" Armstrong called, as the surface began to rush up to them. It filled the viewer completely, a vast, gray landscape. The size was almost impossible to fathom, the sheer scale... He shook his head clear.
"One minute to impact!" Jenolan cried.
"Captain Scott?" Armstrong called.
"Almost there," Scotty muttered, "just a few more... Need your thumb, lad!"
"Aye sir!" Franklin said.
"Thirty seconds!" Jenolan warned.
"I've put us towards a... A valley?" Ben said, fingers flying over the controls, "it's the smoothest section I can find!"
"It'll have to do!" Armstrong said, "Mister Scott?!"
Scotty tapped a few keys on a console, and Jenolan felt power running through her systems: Not much, but enough!
"Okay! Clear connections established! I've shut off the power relays we don't need!" Scotty reported.
"Ten seconds!" Jenolan shouted.
"All hands, brace for impact!" Armstrong bellowed over the comms.
At two centiseconds before impact, Jenolan surged her reactors in one last burst! Her shields flared into existence, and her inertial dampeners went to full. Her belly slammed against the hard surface of the Dyson Sphere, the outer layers giving way. Even with her stabilizers and shields, it hit hard enough her very bones seemed to shake and rattle like they were coming apart!
Her ventral hull screamed. Her plating rattled and rumbled. But she was intact... She was holding together...!
"LOOK OUT!" Ben shouted uselessly. She saw it too-A spar of some kind, jutting out of the surface ahead.
Like a ground car running over a metal spike, she went right over the spar. It didn't break... But she did.
Her residential module was pierced. Jenolan frantically tried to erect her forcefields, but the power systems didn't comply. She watched her crew, Marianne included, get blown out into the vacuum or die from the explosive decompression.
They next hit a dip, and at their velocity, it took everything she had to keep her artificial gravity stable. Armstrong was thrown out of his chair, the gravity plating underneath him surging. Sachs was slammed into the helm console, his ribs crushed. Armstrong slammed his head into the bulkhead, his lifesigns fading fast. Scotty and Matt held on for dear life, Scotty bracing himself with his arm-Which snapped like a twig. Franklin slammed into the bulkhead, screaming in pain as his femur was broken in three places.
Jenolan finally came to a stop, her hull still shuddering. She forced her sputtering power systems to function, and managed to project herself onto the bridge again.
"Captain!" She cried, leaning over Armstrong's body. "CAPTAIN!"
Nothing. She felt the urge to cry, despite the lack of any such capacity, as her cameras told her the same thing her sensors did. He was gone.
She cursed her lack of a gynoid body, her lack of anything that could help. She flickered over to Ben, just in time to sense his heart stop. She tried to access the residential area-Her sensors and projectors all showed her the same thing: Death.
She focused on the bridge. Captain Scott was struggling to his feet. Franklin was lying on his side, clutching his thigh. Scotty staggered over to him, and knelt by.
"Hold on lad, hold on!" He said. He looked around, and got up. He got to the nearby emergency medkit, and carried it over to Franklin with his good arm. He pulled out a painkiller, loaded up the hypospray, and injected it into Franklin. The young man breathed a little easier.
"How bad is he, Lassie?" Scotty asked. Jenolan focused her sensors.
"Compound fracture of his femur... There may be internal bleeding, I-I can't tell," she stuttered. Scotty pulled out the medical tricorder, and scanned him. He shook his head.
"All right... All right... I'm no Bones, but I can see... Yeah... Okay..." He looked at Franklin, "this is gonna hurt, laddie-Even with the painkillers-"
"Just... Just do it," Franklin managed. Scotty nodded. He searched around, found a metal bar, and dragged it over. He held it against Franklin's thigh.
"Gonna need yeh t' hold this, lad," he said. Franklin held it down, wincing. Scotty laboriously wrapped it up with some sealing gauze from the med kit-The bandages hardened into a cast, as Scotty wrapped it as tight as he could. Scotty finished, breathing hard.
"Right now... Lad? Little help?" He asked, gesturing to his arm.
Franklin helped Scotty make a sling, ripping from fabric from his uniform. Scotty got up to his feet, and helped Franklin up into a chair. He pulled another chair over, and lifted Franklin's leg onto it. He leaned against a console, breathing hard. He looked up at Jenolan's projection.
"Any... Any one else..." Scotty asked.
Jenolan shook her head, grim and despondent.
"No," she mumbled, "the residential module... Hull breach."
"Damn," Scotty muttered. He closed his eyes and sighed. "How are the supplies?"
"Most of the food supply was in that same area," Jenolan reported, "I've got emergency rations here and there. They could last you two... Thirty-three days, at maximum."
"And life support?" Scotty asked.
"I've shut it down to everywhere but here," Jenolan reported, "It isn't as badly damaged as my other systems. It should last indefinitely."
"How long until someone finds us?" Matt groaned.
Jenolan was quiet.
"If the distress beacon can get past the subspace interference? ... Six months, two weeks, three days... Give or take an hour."
Scotty shook his head, wincing as he held his arm.
"Well... That's a grim scenario," he chuckled, "reminds me of when the Enterprise was trapped in this subspace void. All these other ships from numerous races had ended up trapped there, too. They'd formed a big alliance, when they realized they weren't going anywhere. We'd been chasing some Klingons, and they ended up here, too! So we had to work with the Klingons to get out of there! Heh... They weren't very cooperative, for sure! Had their own little scheme! But Mister Spock, he saw right through them! Made sure their plan wouldn't get us!"
Matt Franklin nodded, smiling through his pain. Scotty hummed, leaning back against the console. Jenolan looked at him, worried.
"Captain Scott, can I-can I help you? Is there anything I... I can do for you...?"
She felt like breaking down. Scotty seemed to sense this, and rested a hand on her shoulder. He nearly went through the projection, but she appreciated the gesture.
"Don't you worry lass," Scotty said soothingly, "we're gonna get out of this. All three of us."
"But my crew..." She trailed off. Scotty nodded.
"Aye... They were good people. All of them," he said softly, "I didna know them well... But I knew them enough. Saw them when things were most dire... They performed like the best. Because they were... We're not gonna die. Not after all they did fer us, that's for sure!"
Scotty hummed, thinking hard... Before a smile appeared on his face.
"Lass... How are the transporters looking?"
It took a lot of work. Jenolan was most worried about Franklin-He couldn't even walk, he had to scoot around on chairs or lean against Scotty. But she found the parts necessary, and helped direct the modifications.
Scotty stood at the transporter console, as Franklin laid on the transporter pad.
"Sure this is gonna work, sir?" Franklin asked. Scotty grinned.
"Nothing t' worry about, lad! Just relax! This'll work."
Franklin nodded, smiling.
"In case it doesn't... Well... Thank you, Captain. It was an honor."
"Lad... Was all mine," Scotty said sincerely. He activated the controls, and Franklin was beamed into the transporter buffer in a shimmer of golden light. Scotty checked and double checked everything, and nodded his satisfaction.
"I read the buffer is stable," Scotty said, "how about you, Jenolan?"
"He's stable, no loss of resolution," she said. She looked at Scotty in concern. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
"Well, we don't have a lot of choice, now do we lass?" Scotty asked. He smiled. "Sorry t' ask ye to keep watch over us as we sleep-"
"It's my job, Captain Scott," Jenolan said firmly. Scotty shook his head.
"Still... I know what isolation can do t' shipgirls," he said, "so..."
He made a few programming adjustments, and nodded.
"There. This can run... You can go into hibernation mode, too," he said, "and you'll only wake if there's a problem."
"But still," Jenolan murmured. Scotty shook his head.
"Now lass... Don't you worry. Just dream... And make 'em good ones, all right?"
Jenolan nodded.
"I will," she said, "as long as you do the same."
Scotty smiled wryly.
"Aye, lass."
He stepped onto the pad. Jenolan engaged the transport cycle. He was still smiling as he vanished into the shimmering golden light. Jenolan took a deep breath, simulated, and took one last look around her destroyed hull.
Her crew... Scotty and Franklin had taken some time to get their bodies stored properly.
She didn't know if she could ever get them back to their families... Or what she would even say to them.
Twenty years with the same people... And they were all gone. So many happy memories... So much loss.
Jenolan closed her eyes, and slept.
I shouldn't have forgotten her...