Happy Friday! Here's a new chapter to start your weekend off right! As always, let me know what you think!
Chapter Seven: There and Back Again
First the bombs fell. Then they were convulsing on the ground as every cell in their body felt like liquid fire. Now, Carol and Chekov could barely keep their eyes open as the wind lashed around them. Debris swirled in the mix as both officers sported deep cuts to their arms, legs, and face. They held on to one of the courtyard's stone pillars with all their strength as a vortex in the middle of the quad tried to drag them in; their surroundings becoming only the pillar in their arms and dirt stinging their eyes.
"Yomayo!" Chekov cursed, his fingers beginning to slip. He tried to readjust, but it was no use.
"I got you Chekov!" Carol shouted, grabbing his hand as his fingers lost their grip and he began flying toward the whirlwind.
Just when Carol thought she couldn't hold on any longer, her fingers digging into the concrete with the roar of the twister pounding her ears, the storm ceased like a switch turned off. Both of the officers dropped to the ground with a grunt, the wind knocked from their lungs. They sat up groaning as wisps of ash and debris slowly drifted back to Earth.
"What in the hell was that?" Carol whispered as she alarmingly noted the now empty courtyard.
"I have no idea," Chekov moaned as he sat up, bits of rubble stuck in his shaggy curls. "I have never seen a weapon like zat. Where did it come from?"
Carol's gaze went distant, running over different weapons specs she knew of and finding no correlation. "No clue. Are you ok?"
"Da," he nodded, standing and dusting himself off while surveying the land. His eyes widened, spinning around in alarm. "Where is ze Keptin and Mr. Spock? I don't see zem, or ze others anywhere."
Breathless, Carol shared the same wide-eyed response to Chekov, her head whipping around as she finally noticed they were the only two left from the Enterprise. Although other members of the ceremony were strewn about, either assessing their own injuries or helping others, neither Kirk, McCoy, or any of the other crewmembers were present.
Stumbling to her feet, Carol took off running to where their crew was last seen, Chekov hot on her heels while their hearts thundered in their chests. She glanced at the bodies scattered, the grey blending with red, blue, and green of the different species blood. But there was no dark Vulcan head, or greying doctor, or blond captain. No one aside from Carol and Chekov remained of the bridge crew.
She dropped to her knees as her hands roamed over the now hard earth in desperation. Meanwhile, Chekov yanked out the tricorder from his belt and began measuring the air and ground around them, muttering furiously to himself. In a matter of seconds, their crew all but vanished, with no clues left of where they went. In fact, not only had their crew disappeared, but the very people who attacked them were nowhere in sight, vanishing like ghosts.
"Lucy! Lucy!" a frantic woman screamed, her pristine dark suit cut and dirty, her hair disheveled, and her eyes wide with panic. She dropped to her knees near Carol, practically clawing at the concrete as she continued to scream. "Lucy!"
Carol and Chekov caught each other's attention.
"Who is Lucy?" Carol asked.
"Lucille, my daughter. Those things in the cloaks took her." The woman's dark eyes were wide and hysterical, desperately searching Carol's blue. "Do you know where they took her?!"
"I don't, I'm sorry. Do you know who the attackers were?" Carol asked the hysterical mother, placing her hand on her shoulder in comfort and trying to calm the woman down.
"No, I've never seen them before. Please, I want my daughter back," the woman cried, rivulets of tears pouring down her dark cheeks as she gripped Carol forcefully. "I saw Captain Kirk and the others go after her. Where did they go?"
Carol and Chekov shared the same disheartened glance.
"We don't know," Carol said contritely, prying the desperate mother's grip from her shoulders and holding her hands instead. "My name is Dr. Carol Marcus, I'm one of Captain Kirk's crew. This is Ensign Pavel Chekov."
"Marcus?" the woman said, her eyes widening in surprise before she shook the emotion away. "My name is Rima Harewood. Please, will the captain save my daughter? Will he find her?"
"Of course he will," Carol affirmed, Pavel nodding enthusiastically next to her although his attention didn't move the machine in his hands.
"Da, the Keptin won't stop until he 'as her. Wherever zey are."
Distant sirens began permeating the air. Carol glanced up as police cruisers began flying in, swirling the leaves and debris all around again and causing the dormant fires to flare. Medical personnel finally started rushing in, the force keeping the ceremony attendants in and help out lifting. The men and women ran to the fallen, dropping their kits and bags as they began to survey the injuries of those still left.
"Dis is strange," Chekov muttered, his focus on his tricorder with his eyes narrowed.
"What is it?" Carol questioned, standing to glance at the readings on the tricorder.
He flicked the blond curls out of his eyes, shaking his head in agitation. "I am getting wawes of abnormal grawimetric particles combining with za magnetic pulses of ze planet. Zey are swirling."
"Is that not normal?" Carol questioned as the darker woman stood, hugging her arms to her chest but her attention on Chekov; Rima's eyes narrowing in concentration while hanging onto his every word.
"Well, normally zese type waves trawel north to south or wisa wersa," Chekov explained. "Straight lines, da? But zese ones are swirls, mowing counter clockwise."
"Let me see that," Carol said, taking the tricorder. Her eyes widened in response as the patterns emerged. "This is strange."
Adjusting the frequencies and scans, she was able to pick up more information, but the particles were dissolving faster than she could record them. By the time a medical technician made their way to Carol, Chekov, and Rima to begin accessing injuries, the waves and particles had fully disappeared with not even their shadows present anymore.
"What do you think those are?" Carol asked Chekov, ignoring as medical scans displayed no serious injuries and healing the cuts and bruises.
"I don't know," Chekov shrugged, waving the EMTs away. "I am fine. Go help ze others. I have newer seen grawitational wawes move like zat before."
"It could explain that vortex," Rima nodded in concentration, both Carol and Chekov's attention darting to the woman in surprise. "It did look like a mini black hole."
They blinked at her, both with their mouths open in surprise. She wavered a moment before she sighed.
"I'm sorry, I should have said my name is Dr. Rima Harewood," she explained, tucking a few loose strings of dark hair behind her ear. "I taught quantum mechanics at University College London before my daughter became ill. My research focus was on black holes."
"Have you seen particle waves like this?" Carol regarded the woman speculatively, but showed her the readings on the tricorder nonetheless.
"Not in person," Rima shook her head, taking the tricorder and scanning its analysis quickly. "Theoretically, gravitational particles may spin inside of a black hole because of the immense pressure and gravity present. But it hasn't been proven . . . yet."
"Well they might able to be proven now," Carol said. "Look here, they seemed to straighten out, but only after they've completed the smallest circle in the middle of the vortex. Like a drain."
"We should be able to follow zat trajectory," Pavel nodded. "But I have no idea where it went from there."
"That is the problem. We don't know where the white hole is," Rima stated, blank stares meeting her own. Rolling her eyes, she explained, "The theory is that if on one side of a wormhole, which this very well could have been, is black, the other must then be white."
"A white hole?" Carol didn't sound convinced.
"Da, I've heard za theory," Chekov nodded. "Matter cannot be created or destroyed. Zerefore, when it enters a black hole, if it isn't crushed it has to go somewhere."
"That was the basis of my research," Rima supplemented. "A white hole is the theoretical time reversal of a black hole and while a black hole acts like a vacuum, drawing in any matter that crosses the event horizon, a white hole would then eject that same matter from its event horizon. Many have theorized it's most likely blown out in some alternative universe."
"Like ze Kelwin incident."
"We believe, yes."
"That's great. So, if these exist, how do we get the others back?" Carol asked, interrupting the pair before they spun off into physics theories as Chekov was notorious to do. Afterall, being one of the youngest officers in a bridge command meant he knew his stuff, but was as energetic as a puppy.
Both paused, running over scenarios while a commotion near the stage drew Carol's attention. Starfleet police had finally entered the fray while the wounded were taken out in stretchers. The officers in their dark uniforms were grabbing those able to stand, taking accounts and herding them toward one corner of the space. At the same time, Carol noted the insignias on several others who entered behind the police, among them at least three admirals, a rear admiral, and possibly the chief of staff to the President of the Federation. They stood shoulder to shoulder, a barrier against those less injured trying to leave.
"Well, if we can replicate ze particle stream and combine it with ze magnetic field, maybe we can open up zat vortex and get ze Keptin and the crew back," Chekov hypothesized, ignoring the commotion as witnesses were now forced out and into waiting vehicles. "Create our own black hole."
"And my daughter," Rima firmly commanded. "I need my daughter back."
"All of them," Carol agreed quickly, turning back to the conversation. "But how do we recreate the particle stream? Do you think it could trigger a mini wormhole?"
"We would need energy, and a lot of it," Rima thought aloud. "Exotic matter was what I was testing. It's a fourth dimensional type of conduit, but we're barely been able to scratch the surface of the theory, let alone create it."
"They did," Carol noted pointing at the destruction surrounding them. "So, it's possible, but I've never heard of exotic matter. Where can we find it?"
"Exotic matter contains negative energy density and a large negative pressure. Such matter has only been seen in the behavior of certain vacuum states as part of quantum field theory," Rima explained. "Unfortunately, it's nothing like dark or antimatter, so we don't know where to find it yet."
"You know, this sounds like red matter," Carol noted, Chekov nodding in agreement.
Rima's dark eyes widened in alarm. "You know about red matter?"
"If only we had some, like what brought Charlie here," Chekov bemoaned, missing the exchange.
"Who is Charlie?"
Carol's blue eyes widened.
"That's it," she whispered, her nerves on edge as a distinctive line began making its way towards them. Warning were now flashing for Carol, her heart beating painfully as her instincts told her something wasn't right. Grabbing the arms of both Chekov and Rima, she ordered, "We need to get out of here."
Carol whipped her head around as she looked for a chance to escape. After Khan and what happened with her father, she knew when her instincts were telling her that something was very wrong.
"What is it?" Chekov asked, finally noticing the new powers at play. "Why are ze admirals here?"
"No time to explain," Carol said, noticing a hole blown into the wall opposite the line of Starfleet officials.
In reality, Carol couldn't explain the sudden instinctual onslaught of danger she felt when Starfleet command walked in. It was expected they'd show up. After all, the ceremony was to rechristen a ship almost destroyed a year ago stopping a terroristic man. The crew was being honored for their roles blocking Khan, for the sacrifices they made while exposing the weakness within Starfleet only to be attacked, again, by an unknown group for an unknown reason. Why wouldn't command show up? There was a serious lack of security and protection to allow someone to get in with a weapon, let alone a full-blown attack.
Maybe that's why the red flags were flashing. Where was the security to have prevented the attack? Why weren't they there to stop them stealing the little girl and the crew? How were they able to so easily penetrate the defenses? Were they augments, awakened to end what Khan and her father started? But why go after a child?
So many questions bounced around her head as they snuck through the gap in the wall. All Carol knew is that the ship and the people on the Enterprise earned her trust and there was no question about their loyalty. The incident with Khan and her father highlighted how fractured Carol's trust was in those leaders sworn to protect them.
The smoke of the dying fires hid their escape both from above and beyond. As they crawled through the hole, Carol turned one last time, making sure they weren't spotted, but also to confirm what her instincts. She could see pointing, and exclamations, all of it about the masked intruders and the Starfleet crew that followed. Although the police were speaking with the people, the way in which command moved around, their own tricorders out and focused not on the bombs and security but the center where the vortex was told Carol all she needed to know. Ducking back, she followed the other two out onto the sidewalk, taking a less travelled path as they hurried away from the scene. To what awaited them, they didn't know.
"We have got to find a way to send a message to ze Keptin. Tell him what is going on."
Chekov, Rima, and Carol were currently holed out in Rima's hotel suite, a couple miles from the warzone that was the ceremony earlier that day. Both Carol and Chekov agreed that Starfleet would try to find them at their residences unless they made it seem like they followed their crew into the unknown. It was chaotic to say the least, so there was a chance those who would have recognize them missed their inability to follow the rest of the crew.
They had the stream going of the attack projected on the wall in the background. Starfleet was calling it a terrorist attack but that the perpetrators got away. Those who were anchoring the coverage were speculating. Was is Romulan? Klingon? Another source that held their resentment at bay until now? Over two hundred and fifty different species of Federation citizens were killed in the attack last year. Any number of those planets could have blamed Starfleet for the loss and sought retribution. Did they wait until the ceremony to enact their revenge? But why stay hidden?
"Yes, but how can we do that when we don't even know where they are?" Carol pointed out, pacing across the tan carpet in the small suite, casting a glare at the coverage every once in a while. She still hadn't forgiven the vilification of her father, even if ninety percent of it was true. "It's not as if they can answer their comms. I know, I tried."
"Zere has got to be a way." Chekov ran a hand through his curls agitatedly.
"Unless I knew exactly where they landed, there's no way for me to get the information across," Rima added dejectedly.
"So, what do we do? Go to Starfleet?"
"No." Carol's blonde bob whipped back and forth. "At least, not right now. I can't explain it, but something isn't sitting right with me about today."
"Da," Chekov nodded, his brows drawn low over his eyes. "Zere is no way zat kind of attack could 'ave happened without prior knowledge. Ze ceremony was in ze middle of campus. Someone must have let zem in. Whoewer zey were."
"But who would do that?" Rima asked, her own gaze concerned. "Who would steal a child?"
"Someone who had access to red matter?" Chekov stated, concentrating as he continued going over the scans from the tricorder. "It's ze only way zat kind of anomaly could be created. Question is why?"
"And what the bloody hell those weapons were," Carol growled as she plopped on the couch next to Chekov. "I've never seen something that could remotely attack the electronical patterns of the nervous system."
Carol sent a concerned glance toward Rima as she visibly swallowed, wetness coating her lashes as she remembered her daughter falling unconscious from the pain. Rima waved her off, burying those memories for another time after her child was back in her arms.
"Listen, I know we're concerned about Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew," Carol said, sitting forward with her elbows on her scrapped knees. "But until we can figure out how to get to them, we have to trust that they're taking care of themselves and finding a way back."
"So, we should sit here and do nothing?" Rima's dark eyes flashed dangerously.
"That's not what I said," Carol denied. "No, I think the ceremony may have been a trap for that group that showed up."
"Why?" the mother questioned. "Why use something so public?"
"Draw them in? Give them the exposed platform they've been looking for?"
"Then why didn't they announce who they were, what their goal was? Why take my daughter?!"
Carol sighed. "I don't know, I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure this out just like you."
"Maybe, maybe if we try to find zis rogue group, maybe we find why Starfleet is so interested," Chekov interrupted. "Maybe we can zen find the others?"
"That's not a bad idea," Carol agreed, the streaming now moving to members of Starfleet's top brass answering questions, most of which was either omitted or plain wrong information. They knew Starfleet was trying to stop panic that undoubtedly could occur, but it still seemed distasteful. Carol shook her head in disappointment.
"Alright, their weird weapons aside, what do we know?" Rima asked.
"Well, this group must have used some form of red matter to create that vortex," Carol said. "I don't know if that's how they got there, but we know that's how they left. If Starfleet knew, this may have been why they set a trap for them."
"Some trap if they got away," Rima sneered.
"But zer is no more of ze red matter," Chekov said, a hint of exasperation in his tone. "I used the rest of it meself with Mister Scott to get ze girls back to zere time."
"What are you talking about?" Rima asked. "I thought red matter was destroyed along with the Narada?"
Carol and Chekov shared the same glance wondering how much to tell her. Other than the leadership, no one was told about Charlie and her friends, and the events that revolved around their coming to the 23rd century. While the Kelvin event was well known and regarded because of the sacrifices of George Kirk, the Boradis Incident as it was referred was relatively unknown. The last thing Starfleet wanted was to broadcast that there was red matter still accessible in the universe.
"We haven't been completely honest with you," Carol began hesitantly.
Chekov nodded. "Zere has been something like zis before."
Rima's dark stare bore into the other two, waiting for them to continue.
"A friend of ours, Charlie, who we mentioned is not actually from here. Our time that is. She came here using red matter, but in a stabilized form. There was a descent of hers that was researching it, and while I don't know the whole story, it brought her here."
"We thought we used ze last of it to send her friends home," Chekov added. "Zere was the potential to find ze designs to recreate it, but it was destroyed. Or we thought so."
Silence descended on the three as they waited for the inevitable reaction.
"I know."
Those two words had Carol and Chekov reeling.
"I'm sorry?" Carol questioned sharply.
"I haven't been honest with you either." Rima's British accent became accentuated as she continued, her emotions beginning to get the best of her. "Yes, I was a professor at UCL, but that was my cover job. My husband and I were both working for Section 31 in London."
"Chush sobachya." Chekov's eyes narrowed and his face grew red. "You worked for those monsters?!"
"We didn't know it at the time," Rima hastily defended. "I thought we were working to protect the Federation. I know now I was misled."
Carol placed a hand on Chekov's arm as his mouth opened to argue back.
"We all were."
Chekov's jaw closed with a snap. He continued to scowl, his arms crossed angrily over his chest, but he remained silent.
"How long did you work there? Until last year?" Carol asked, needing to know how much she could trust the woman sitting in front of her.
"My husband and I were there from the beginning, but when our daughter became sick, we took turns taking care of her and working. When we were told she had less than six months to live, I took an extended leave to take care of her. My husband just dove into work. The day she recovered, he was killed in the bombing."
Carol could tell there were other things left unsaid but left her alone for the moment. There were more important things to focus on.
"I'm sorry about your loss," Carol said, understanding that pain. "Ok, so we know this group had to have used red matter. Question is, how did they get it?"
Chekov sent one last glare at both the women before he sat forward, his brow wrinkled in concentration. "Well, ze last place we know it was, was ze Boradis Station."
"Wasn't it destroyed?" Carol asked.
"Ahhh, ish," Chekov shrugged. "It was repairable, but Charlie convinced ze Keptin to destroy it."
"Why?" Rima questioned, surprised.
"With a weapon like zat, who knew what could happen. I wanted to keep it, study it more. After Khan, and how much ze timeline could change for ze worse, it was right for ze Keptin to do it. We are not ready for zat type of power."
"Is anybody, really?" Carol added dryly. "Ok, could there have been anyone before? Someone who got there and took the info without anyone knowing?"
"It's possible before the station went down," Rima said, thinking. "Remember how I told you about exotic matter? Well, our main focus was on these different states of matter, trying to see if we could replicate red matter again. I didn't know there was still some in existence, though. Dr. Spear was on my team for a time before he went to the station. He wasn't just trying to create it, but make it stable – a way to travel, potentially through time, but we were also thinking through space; be able to go to the other side of the galaxy if we wanted."
"Wait, you knew him?" Chekov exclaimed.
"Yes," she nodded. "We were both studying the same phenomenon, just in different ways. He went to the station to 'research in peace.' At least that's what I heard. He all but disappeared in the night."
"Did a lot of people go out there?" Carol questioned.
Rima shook her head. "Not that I know. It was pretty far out in the Beta Quadrant. Supply ships of course, but there wasn't as much activity as what we were working on in the Sol system. Though I remember Admiral Marcus went out there once, about six months before the station was attacked."
Carol tried not to let her astonishment show. As head of Starfleet, her father was always jumping around the galaxy – it shouldn't have been surprised for him to check in on a far outpost. Especially if those types of experiments were going on.
"Did he bring anyone with him?" Chekov frowned, wondering if Marcus could again be the link, the pinnacle of every crazy thing that has happened to the Enterprise in the last few years.
"A few minor admirals and commodores," she shrugged. "His usual troupe of Yeomen and groupies that followed him everywhere. I might be able to pull up a list if I can access the servers were using. They're probably at headquarters."
"No need," Carol remarked. "I know who my father usually took with him."
"Your father?" It was Rima's turn to look outraged. "I was right then, when I asked about your surname."
"I am not my father."
"Da, I can wouch for Dr. Marcus." Chekov was quick to her defense. "She helped us last year with ze Wengeance. She swayed our ship."
Rima's eyes were like obsidian, dark and sharp as they flickered between the two Starfleet officers before something seemed to click.
"Alright. We can't change the past and our roles in it – whether good or bad. All we can do it try to impact the future. We need to get my daughter and your crew back. And we need to figure out who it was that started this to begin with. So, what do we do?"
They sat thinking in silence as the minutes ticked by – all three running over every scenario that came to mind. As much as Carol hated to admit it, the more she thought about it the more she realized they needed the connections that Starfleet had. They were the best access for information and resources but the question was how to use what was available to them, without alerting the admirals to what was going on. Until they knew who the group was that attacked them, what their mission and goals were, and how the leadership of the Federation played into it, they needed to play everything close to the breast.
There was the crew to think about, and Lucy, and the politics that swirled around their universe. Was this the starter for civil war? For war with the Klingons? Or Romulans? Carol knew that was what her father was preparing for, and she wondered how much was his paranoia and how much was the truth.
"Maybe," she stated slowly, gauging their reactions. "Maybe instead of hiding we go out in the open? Pretend we know nothing, but check the records, the comms. Hide in plain sight."
"I can work from the underground," Rima nodded. "I still have all my access codes, and a few friends on the inside. See what they know."
"Da," Chekov agreed. "Might work, but we have to be cautious. Don't know who is friend or foe. Like we say in Russia, keep your friends close and enemy closer."
Rima seemed confused and opened her mouth to argue before Carol caught her eye and shook her head. It was just like Chekov.
"Alright," Carol nodded. "Let's get to work.