Broken Bow - Diane Carey [51]
“Resume log. I still haven’t decided whether to ask Sub-Commander T’Pol about this temporal cold war ... my instincts tell me not to trust her—”
He paused. Something had just changed. The vibrations coming up through his injured leg were different from a few seconds ago.
He looked at the window. The stars were changing.
The ship was falling out of warp!
“Computer, pause. Archer to T’Pol. Report!”
“If you’re feeling well enough to come to the bridge, Captain,” her voice called with a thread of tension, “now would be a good time.”
CHAPTER 12
THE TEMPORAL ARCHWAY GLOWED and sizzled as if in anger. The barrier of energy blocking the way to the future, and also providing a window to it, now glared fitfully in its cylindrical housing. The murky, milky figure of the future being stood passively, but Silik could tell the individual was displeased.
“Did Sarin give them anything?” it asked.
“I don’t know,” Silik said, both truthful and impatient. He didn’t like being made responsible for dangerous things of such undefinition.
“What do you know?” the figure demanded.
“They followed us here.”
“Looking for Klaang? Or for you?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll destroy them before they locate the Helix.”
The being was still for many seconds. When it spoke again, the words curdled Silik’s blood to his very core.
“We didn’t plan to involve the humans, or the Vulcans. Not yet. Sarin’s message cannot reach Qo’noS. If the humans have it, you must stop them.”
“It’s a gas giant.”
Archer settled into his command chair as T’Pol stepped out of it, and eyed the big orange mass on the viewscreen—a gargantuan planet of mostly gravity and dust holding each other together on a vast scale.
“From the looks of it, a class six or seven,” he muttered.
“Class seven,” T’Pol confirmed. “The Suliban vessel dropped to impulse a few hours ago and altered course. Their new heading took them through its outer radiation belt.”
“We’ve lost them?”
Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Move us in closer.”
Mayweather glanced at him, then worked to obey that order. Archer pushed out of his chair and paced, working his leg to keep it from stiffening up. Phlox’s pet liver had done a good job. He felt twinges, but no loss of strength.
The ship moved closer toward the radiation belt of the orange gas giant. The planet loomed large and imposing on their screens, causing warnings to go off on several stations, but not the right ones.
“Anything?” he asked.
“The radiation’s dissipating their warp trail,” Reed reported. “I’m only picking up fragments.”
Archer gave T’Pol his hunting-eagle glare. “You finished helping us?” he challenged.
She went to Reed’s station and eyed the graphics, then hit a control. One simple click.
On the main screen, an enhanced picture of the giant appeared, this time with a fragmented ion trail faintly traced in colors, being broken up by the winds.
“Lieutenant,” she said, “run a spectral analysis of the fragments.”
Reed hit a series of controls in specific order. On the graphic, a sequence of numbers appeared near each fragment, all different.
“There’s too much distortion,” Reed complained. “The decay rates don’t even match.”
“Calculate the trajectory of each fragment.”
He looked a bit dubious, and glanced at Archer, who nodded. “You heard her.”
Reed clearly hadn’t a clue what she was looking for, but he did as he was bidden.
T’Pol, while Reed worked, turned and met Archer’s eyes. For the first time they seemed to be thinking the same thing.
The graphic now displayed telemetry for each fragment. Archer nodded at T’Pol, who moved to another station and began doing the work for herself.
“Recalibrate the sensor array,” Archer authorized. “Narrowband, short to midrange.”
“Measure the particle density of the thermosphere,” T’Pol added.
Archer looked at her again. “Those fragments weren’t from the Suliban ship.