Death of a Neutron Star - Eric Kotani [28]
B'Elanna did as she was told.
Janeway barely avoided wincing when she saw an area they had cut out of the schematic.
"Before the meeting I downloaded the records of inhabited worlds in this area from the prince's yacht," Janeway said.
With a few quick keystrokes she overlaid the inhabited systems in the area on the schematic, showing the inhabited worlds as green dots.
"Many of those worlds are primitive at best," Tyla said. "I don't see their danger to the Qavok."
Janeway glanced around at her staff. All of them, it seemed, were seeing what she had seen in Engineering. "B'Elanna, show the orbital plane as a two-thousand-astronomical-unit-thick disk."
The engineer nodded, and a moment later the schematic on the main screen changed to show a volume of possible destruction.
"Oh, my," Neelix said softly.
Janeway knew exactly what he meant. They were inside a star cluster, and there were a few dozen systems within this volume at danger from the runaway neutron star. Why hadn't she realized this before now? And now that she had, what could they do about it?
If anything.
"Captain," Torres said. "It's even worse than it seems."
Janeway focused on her chief engineer. The half-Klingon was clearly shaken.
"I took this possible path here," B'Elanna said, "and extended it."
A silence filled the room as if someone had died. Finally Torres said, "It extends through the heart of the Federation and the Alpha Quadrant."
"What?" Chakotay said. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "There is as much a chance of the runaway neutron star plowing a path through the Federation as there is of it taking out the Lekk homeworld. Of course, it will take time for it to get there, but it will get there. Actually, predicting its exact course over such a long path is tricky because of the differential galactic rotation and close encounter with stars that could deflect the trajectory."
Again silence filled the room as they all tried to absorb what Torres had just said. Janeway was having her own problem with it. She had become so used to their own distance from home, she was having a hard time understanding that an event they were witnessing could destroy entire systems in the Alpha Quadrant. That just didn't seem possible.
Yet she knew it was.
She forced herself not to think about the possible destruction. It was up to them to make sure it didn't happen.
"Okay, people," she said. "What are we going to do about this?"
"Changing the timing of an exploding neutron star is not possible," Seven said.
"One optimistic nonsolution," Janeway said. "Anyone else?"
No one said a word.
"B'Elanna, on the schematic eliminate any path that would cause destruction to an inhabited system, either here or in another part of the galaxy."
B'Elanna nodded and bent over the panel in front of her. On the schematic, section after section disappeared, as if some person were eating slices of the pie one large piece at a time. Finally there was only a small slice of the pie left. A very small slice.
"If the runaway takes this path," B'Elanna said, "it will miss all systems and leave the plane of the galaxy eventually."
Janeway looked at that small area. How in the world were they going to control one of the rarest and most powerful events in nature, enough to send a neutron star along that path?
It didn't seem possible.
But it had to be possible. Otherwise they were about to witness the death of entire systems full of beings. And that wasn't an option.
"Dr. Maalot," she said. "How much time do we have?"
Maalot shrugged. "The separation between the two neutron stars is under seven hundred kilometers now, and the revolutionary period of the two has decreased to under a half a second." He seemed to think for a moment, then went on. "Eight hours. "I'd count on the eight hours."
"I want ideas in front of me in one hour," Janeway said, her voice as firm as she could make it. "Dismissed."