Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [64]
“Full power,” said Leybenzon from behind him.
Worf stared at the viewscreen. Gorsach V was now half the size it had been only a moment before. What unfolded before him was Gorsach V going through a similar process that should, as Kadohata had indicated, take centuries occurring in only a few minutes.
A flash of light, and the star exploded outward again. “Shields holding,” Leybenzon said.
From ops, Kadohata reported, “Continuing sensor scans, but I’m finding no signs of the captain’s combadge—or any life signs anywhere in this system outside the Enterprise.”
Worf heard a hand slamming on the tactical console. “How can a planet disappear like this?” Leybenzon asked.
Kadohata’s fingers danced over the controls as if something, anything, she could do would find the captain. The Klingon got up, drawn into the horror unfolding on the viewscreen. Standing beside Miranda, Worf heard her mumble, “The same way we got transported back here from whatever fantasyland Q sent us to.”
“Fantasyland?” Worf asked. He trailed off. Gorsach V was indeed collapsing, but it was not becoming a red dwarf. Worf looked down at the readouts on the ops console.
“Sir, the readings from Gorsach V aren’t tracking with a gas giant collapsing into a red dwarf. In fact, I don’t know what to make of this,” Kadohata reported.
Worf knew.
It was becoming a blue-white mass of swirling energy approximately a quarter of the diameter that the gas giant had been.
“It’s some kind of fissure,” Kadohata said. “I don’t recognize the type, and the database is coming up empty.”
“It is a quantum fissure in the space-time continuum,” Worf calmly stated.
Kadohata said, “Sir?”
“I have encountered the phenomenon before.”
“Due respect, sir, why isn’t it in the database?”
Worf explained, “If you examine the log entries I made on stardate 47391, you will see a reference.”
On his way back to the Enterprise from a bat’leth tournament, Worf’s shuttle had passed through a fissure much like this one—it had sent him on a journey through half a dozen parallel universes. Unfortunately, the solution to the problem had meant that there were no visual records, no scans, just Worf’s memory.
“Lieutenant Faur, bring us to within one hundred thousand kilometers of the quantum fissure, full impulse,” Worf ordered.
“Aye, sir.”
“Lieutenant Leybenzon, maintain Red Alert, shields at maximum.”
“Aye, aye sir.” Leybenzon asked, “What about the captain?”
Sitting back in the command chair, Worf said, “I suspect that he is in Q’s hands.”
Unhappily, Leybenzon said, “Aye, sir.”
The quantum fissure was something Worf knew—and something he was uniquely qualified to handle.
“I’m reading something weird,” La Forge reported. “The fissure’s fluctuating.”
A ship appeared near the fissure. Then another, and another.
“Report!” Worf said, striding to stand between Kadohata and Faur.
“There are dozens of ships appearing—most appear to be Sovereign-class.” Leybenzon looked up, a perturbed expression on his face. “Sir, there aren’t this many Sovereign-class ships in the fleet.”
Kadohata said, “Commander, each of those ships is holding station at thirty thousand kilometers from the event horizon of the…the fissure.”
“The same distance as us,” Worf said.
“Aye, sir.”
“Commander Kadohata, scan the other vessels for their quantum signatures.”
Kadohata looked up at Worf. “Sir?”
“Obey my orders, Commander.”
“Aye, sir.” Kadohata quickly moved to obey.
Worf understood her confusion. Scanning for a quantum signature must have seemed like a waste of time, because all matter and energy in the universe had the exact same quantum signature.
If Worf was right, these ships were not from this universe.
“This isn’t possible,” Kadohata said with an incredulous tone. “Each of those ships has a different quantum signature.”
“I get no IDs for the ships, but the visual registry numbers that