Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [52]
Hawk’s mind raced as he turned back to the conn and the viewer, while behind him, Picard and Batanides conversed in low tones.
A few minutes later, Data interrupted them, his eyes steady on the screen while his fingers slid across his console. “Captain, I believe the probe has encountered something.”
“What specifically, Mr. Data?” Picard looked at the screen intently, though the starfield looked no different now than it had moments before.
“Impossible to tell for certain, sir. There is definitely an energy field being generated at coordinates 294 by 025 by minus 121. It appears to be a cloaking field of some kind, though its size is larger than anything our computers have ever mapped.”
“Is it natural?”
“Unknown. It could be a natural phenomenon, but the readings I am seeing are inconclusive. It is also possible that the field is technological in origin.”
“Which doesn’t tell us much,” Picard said. “Data, approximately how large would you estimate this field to be?”
The android cocked his head slightly, a move that Hawk recognized as a sign that Data’s curiosity had been piqued. “The probe is moving along the outskirts of the field now. It appears that the cloak may cover a volume of space roughly the size of a large gas giant planet.”
“What?” Batanides leaned forward in Riker’s chair, a surprised look on her face. “Are you saying there’s a cloaked planet in this system?”
“Not necessarily, sir. We do not know what is cloaked, nor if anything is indeed ‘cloaked’ in the traditional sense of the word.”
Picard spoke up, pointing at the screen. “Data, what happens to the signals that the probe is sending toward the field?”
“They disappear, sir. They are not reflected, nor deflected. All trace of them is gone.”
Hawk fidgeted slightly at his console. Before he realized he was doing it, the captain evidently noticed it. “Is there something you want to contribute, Mr. Hawk?”
“Captain, may I suggest that we attempt to send the probe into the field itself?” Hawk asked, relieved. “At worst, we get one of our probes destroyed.”
“Yes, perhaps you’re right,” Picard said agreeably. “We might be able to get some valuable telemetry readings from a probe, even if the field does destroy it. I think the Enterprise is sufficiently far from the… anomaly to prevent whatever happened to the Slayton from happening to us. Still, we can’t be too careful.” Picard then raised the volume of his voice, though everyone on the bridge was clearly already listening. “Yellow alert. Shields at maximum.”
Then, the captain nodded toward the young helmsman. “Go ahead, Mr. Hawk.” The lieutenant moved his fingers over the console swiftly, while to his left, Data stared attentively at the numbers and pictographs displayed on the screen.
The silence on the bridge was palpable, and all eyes were on the viewer. Suddenly, the blackness of space began slowly wavering, as if the starfield were a curtain being moved aside. For an instant, the viewer showed the infinite emptiness behind that curtain, and then in a burst of static it was gone.
“All signals from the probe have stopped, captain,” said Data. He tapped at his console, then turned his head toward Picard. “I cannot restore contact.”
“What did we just see?” Picard asked as he rose to his feet.
“Whatever it was, it lasted precisely.763 seconds.”
“Interesting. If I had blinked at the wrong moment I would have missed it. Replay and freeze the image.”
“Yes, sir.” Once again, the viewscreen displayed the hazy picture, suspending it in time. The effect was like looking into a warped funhouse mirror, with space itself showing odd distortions, and reflections of the probe broken up throughout the image. The only tangible-looking object visible in the immediate foreground appeared to be an artificial satellite of some sort; the numerical telemetry overlays, which Data displayed on the viewer, showed that the device was no larger than a Starfleet shuttlepod.
“Enlarge that object.”
As Data did so, the satellite came into view somewhat more clearly. It