Part 7 (2/2)
And wondering how much longer the Alliance could be held together, with or without Sarek himself as Supreme Arbiter.
In truth, he was amazed that it had held together as long as it had. The sole reason for its existence was the presence in its midst of the Borg. There had been no choice but to unite against a common enemy so powerful it could destroy any individual world with no more effort than it would take to swat a fly.
Even the threat of total annihilation at the hands of the Borg, however, had not been enough to eliminate opportunism and backstabbing and a hundred other thoroughly illogical behaviors, particularly among the Klingons and Carda.s.sians and even now and then the Romulans.
Part of the problem was the extremely deliberate pace at which the Borg moved. They would take decades to complete their a.s.similation of a world before moving on to the next. This took away from the sense of urgency that was essential to keep Alliance members from each other's throats as they competed for short-term advantages that would prove utterly meaningless in the long run if the Borg were not stopped.
The Klingons, for example, had kept their success with interphase cloaking a closely guarded secret for decades, using the technology only to ”protect”- i.e., to surround with interphase-cloaked s.p.a.ce mines-Klingon-claimed worlds whose resources they also refused to share. As a result, a golden opportunity to destroy the embryonic Borg fleet in its cradle, the Terran system, had been lost. And by the time the rest of the Alliance developed the technology, the Borg fleet was no longer embryonic, nor was it even accessible. Dozens of cubes watched over each of the worlds that had since been a.s.similated, and an unknown number were hidden behind the sensor-opaque s.h.i.+eld they had erected around the entire Terran system, enclosing even its Oort cloud of comet nuclei. Behind it, Terra and every other body in the system almost certainly continued to be strip-mined for the raw materials needed to construct more Borg cubes.
And every few decades, the s.h.i.+eld would vanish, just long enough for a new fleet of those cubes to emerge and head for another nearby world. Vulcan, if the pattern of the last two centuries continued, would be next.
Vulcan's only hope-the Alliance's only hope-was that, before it was too late, they could build and deploy a sufficient number of interphase-cloaked photon torpedoes to carry out a belated and much more difficult version of the plan that the Klingons had thwarted originally by their illogical refusal to share their cloaking technology.
And the Alliance fleet would have only one chance.
If any Borg s.h.i.+ps escaped the attack, they would soon return.
And they would be immune to the cloaked torpedoes.
That was how the Borg operated. The Alliance had learned this early on when they had made the mistake of ”testing” a new weapon on a lone Borg cube pa.r.s.ecs away from the others. The test had been successful, the cube destroyed, but the next time the fleet attacked an even more isolated cube, the weapon had no effect. That cube-and presumably all the others-had somehow adapted and were no longer vulnerable. The attacking s.h.i.+ps were of course destroyed.
So, now, all the Alliance could do was continue to build as many photon torpedoes and as many cloaking devices as possible.
And hope.
And all Sarek could do was try his best to retain control and prevent ambitious and myopic fools like Zarcot from fragmenting the Alliance and throwing away the one small hope they all had for long term survival outside a Borg Collective.
”Very well, Deputy Koval,” he said at last, ”keep me informed and keep trying to locate Zarcot. I will cut this so-called mission as short as I can. In the meantime, if any Carda.s.sian s.h.i.+ps approach Alliance Prime, keep them in high orbit, out of transporter range. And if Zarcot reappears, a.s.sign him a bodyguard detail. For his own protection, of course. Do the same for the Carda.s.sian members of the Council.”
Signing off, Sarek deactivated the ultra-secure link and allowed the chaos of the Vortex to re-form on the screen.
It took Picard and the others-with the notable exception of Guinan, who had not reappeared since she had retreated from the bridge-only a few minutes to reach a decision: Set a course for Earth.
First, that was where, in 2293, Starfleet Headquarters had been located for decades. If anything was left of Starfleet, with or without subs.p.a.ce radio, it would be there.
Second, records showed that Kirk's death had occurred less than a pa.r.s.ec from Earth. That was where he had encountered the energy ribbon that had killed him and very nearly destroyed the Enterprise-B.
If Scott was going to show up anywhere in this timeline, it would be there.
After what seemed like an eternity, the words Scotty had been waiting for came. ”That's it!” Kirk shouted to Demora Sulu on the bridge of the Enterprise-B. ”Go!”
Scotty instantly activated the G.o.ddard's transporter, which was already locked onto Kirk's coordinates. In the split seconds he had to operate, he would not have had time to achieve a lock as well as perform the actual transport.
Kirk's dematerialization was barely completed when a klaxon-like alarm, deafening in the confines of the shuttlecraft, a.s.saulted Scotty's ears.
Heart suddenly pounding even more violently, he tore his eyes from the s.h.i.+mmering energies that were forming above the transporter pad and looked down at the control panel-and saw a red light flas.h.i.+ng in time to the alarm.
Radiation! The intense, wildly fluctuating gravimetric radiation generated by the energy ribbon must have- But it wasn't gravimetric!
The gravimetric radiation was high and fluctuating wildly, but that wasn't what had triggered the alarms.
It was a sudden surge of chronometric radiation.
Chronometric!
And it was dozens of times higher than even in the first moments after he and the Bounty 2 had emerged from the slingshot trajectory that had deposited them in this era!
Belatedly, his eyes darted up to the forward viewscreen. Only moments before, it had been filled with the Enterprise as the s.h.i.+p began to pull away from the coruscating s.p.a.ceborne tornado that was the energy ribbon.
Now there was only the ribbon, itself receding.
The Enterprise was gone!
Impossible! The ribbon couldn't have swallowed it up!
It hadn't!
And yet the Enterprise was gone!
But there was something else out there, the sensors indicated. Two somethings, and they were huge, hundreds of times the size of the Enterprise!
Hastily, Scotty redirected the scanners, and the other objects appeared on the viewscreen.
They weren't where the Enterprise had been, but a hundred eighty degrees around, apparently trailing the energy ribbon from a safe distance.
He recognized the behemoths instantly from the images in the G.o.ddard's briefing program, and they were virtually the last thing he had expected-or wanted-to see.
Borg cubes.
What had he done that could possibly have resulted in this?
A hand on his shoulder almost sent his heart into his mouth. Turning, he found himself facing a smudge-faced and very puzzled looking Jim Kirk.
Commander Varkan's image had just appeared on Sarek's viewscreen when the world seemed to go mad around him, setting his heart to pounding. The Romulan commander's image blurred almost into anonymity and the lushly carpeted floor undulated beneath Sarek's booted feet. For just an instant, the entire Wisdom seemed to vanish, leaving him floating helplessly in the darkness of empty s.p.a.ce, surrounded only by thousands of pinp.r.i.c.ks of starlight.
But almost before the images of the stars could register in his mind, they were gone, leaving him to wonder if it had all been illusion. Logically, it had to have been.
He was obviously still surrounded by the thankfully solid walls of- Of what?
A jolt of pure terror shot through him, turning his muscles to rubber as he realized he didn't recognize anything around him, not the face peering at him from the meter-wide viewscreen, not the holo-portraits on the walls, not anything!
Where was he?
How had he gotten here?
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