Part 5 (1/2)
”Understood, Commander.”
In the end, the chief engineer managed to cut the time to Arhennius by approximately sixty-five seconds, but at the same time the fleeing bird-of-prey inched its own speed up, cutting over forty seconds from its own arrival time.
They would still be twenty seconds behind when Scott reached the Arhennius system.
With Arhennius now a glowing ball on the Enterprise viewscreen, the Klingon s.h.i.+p abruptly deactivated its cloaking field.
”Details, Mr. Data,” Picard snapped a fraction of a second after seeing the image on the viewscreen leap into full clarity.
”Its present course will take it through the solar corona. Its s.h.i.+elds may not be enough to protect it. Arhennius is only a quarter more ma.s.sive than Sol, but it has more than twice the energy output.”
”The G.o.ddard- ” Picard began, but Data continued.
”The G.o.ddard is indeed in the bird-of-prey's cargo hold. It is still powered down. There is a single, humanoid life form on the Klingon s.h.i.+p's bridge.”
”Not within the G.o.ddard?”
”That is correct, Captain.”
”And no Klingons? Anywhere in either s.h.i.+p?”
”As I said, Captain, there is a single humanoid life form.”
”Captain Scott?”
”His presence would be entirely consistent with the readings,” Data said.
”Then why-Mr. Worf, try again to open a channel.”
”A channel is open, sir, but there is no response.”
”But he can hear us?”
”If he is listening.”
”Very well.” Picard paused, pulling in a breath. ”Captain Scott, if you are indeed on board the fleeing bird-of-prey, please respond. This is Captain Picard of the Enterprise. You are welcome to any a.s.sistance we can provide.”
There was still no response. Data glanced up from the ops station readouts. ”The life form's pulse has accelerated to an unacceptable level.”
”Captain Scott, will you at least explain what you are hoping to accomplish? Our sensors show your s.h.i.+p heading directly into the star's corona. It is doubtful that your s.h.i.+elds can protect you.”
Still no response.
”The s.h.i.+p is once again accelerating,” Data announced. ”It will be entering the star's corona in- ”
”You must follow him, Captain!” Guinan said abruptly.
”We are following him, Guinan. As soon as we're within transporter range, we'll beam him out.”
”You don't understand! You won't get the chance. Arhennius itself is his goal. He intends to use its gravity well to slingshot back in time.”
Picard blinked. Suddenly he saw Scott's earlier actions in a whole new light, particularly his seemingly nostalgic accessing of the logs of previous incarnations of the Enterprise. Those logs, Picard realized belatedly, contained not just the logs of the Enterprise itself but those of all Enterprise personnel-even when they served on other s.h.i.+ps!
Including the Bounty, the Klingon s.h.i.+p that had carried Scott and Kirk and the others back to the twentieth century.
The Bounty, a bird-of-prey very much like the one Scott was at this moment piloting.
Guinan was right.
Scott was intending to go back in time, just as he had done before, when the alien probe had almost destroyed Earth because of the extinction of the whales. Using Spock's on-the-fly calculations, Scott and the others had sent the Bounty whipping through Sol's gravity well and back in time to when whales had still existed. And the calculations Spock had used to make the jump would have been included in at least one of the logs Scott had accessed!
But why was he doing it now?
And where in time was he going? Had he decided he couldn't catch up with the seventy-five years of new technology he'd missed out on? Had he decided he would sooner try to go back to a time when his knowledge was state of the art, not hopelessly outdated?
Unlikely. Despite some bad moments immediately after his rescue from the Jenolen, Scott was no quitter. And he certainly wouldn't risk upsetting the entire timestream for such a purely personal goal.
”Mr. Scott!” Picard said, his tone filled with as much authority as he could muster. ”I order you to stop!”
”His communications system has shut down, Captain,” Data said. ”All power is being diverted to the warp drive and the s.h.i.+elds. He did not hear your order.”
”He didn't want to hear it,” Riker muttered.
The Klingon s.h.i.+p was bulleting toward the Arhennius corona, once again accelerating despite the fact that it was already far exceeding its design specs. Picard half expected it to fly to pieces at any instant.
”Follow him,” Guinan said, coming as close to shouting as he had ever heard her do. ”If you ever trusted me, Captain, trust me now!”
He shook his head sharply. ”Two s.h.i.+ps will only disrupt the timestream even more than one. And we can't follow him precisely, not without knowing a hundred times more than what the sensors can tell us. By the time we reach Arhennius- ”
”Sensors are detecting increasing amounts of chronometric radiation, Captain,” Data announced, bringing a sudden hush to the bridge.
”Origin?”
”Impossible to say, sir. There is no discrete source. It is simply there-and growing at an exponential rate.”
”The radiation is there because the timestream is already changing, Captain!” Guinan said with even more intensity. ”You must follow him-now! Before we all forget that it has even changed!”
For a moment, Picard's mind seemed to spin out of control. Even the image of Arhennius on the viewscreen s.h.i.+mmered and s.h.i.+fted as the Klingon s.h.i.+p accelerated directly into the corona. The ever-increasing warping of s.p.a.ce caused by the s.h.i.+p's drive was, he knew, clas.h.i.+ng ever more violently with the spatial distortion caused by the immense gravity of the star. Soon, the clash between the two essentially irresistible forces would literally squeeze the s.h.i.+p out of the here and now, sending it careening through time itself like a rocket shot up out of a planet's atmosphere, not into orbit but into a suborbital trajectory that would bring it plunging back like a meteor.
But these s.h.i.+ps-the Klingon bird-of-prey and, if he heeded Guinan's desperate plea, the Enterprise-would be propelled not out of a planet's atmosphere but out of the entire s.p.a.ce-time continuum, into a jagged arc through the unknown, an arc that would bring it plunging back at some distant time that only the most precise measurements and calculations could determine.
Measurements and calculations they had no time to make.
They could find themselves years or centuries distant from their own time.
If they survived at all!