Synthesis - James Swallow [11]
Ranul Keru caught her eye. The Titan’s Trill security chief was at the main systems display at the back of the bridge. “No hull breaches, no internal threats,” he began, getting a confirming nod from the Vulcan. “Sickbay reports coming in… minor injuries, no fatalities. Obviously, we’ve lost warp drive for the moment. Life support and impulse power got shook up, but they’re still operable.”
“Weapons and shields are nominal,” Tuvok added. “Scanner arrays returning to operating status.”
“So we got tripped up and fell on our backsides, but aside from dents in our dignity, we’re fine?”
Keru nodded. “It would appear so, Commander.”
Vale looked back to Dakal. “Ensign, tell me this doesn’t mean we’re going to have to crawl through this sector at sublight from now on.”
“I’m still forming a hypothesis,” he replied.
“Form quicker,” Vale demanded. “We just turned the captain’s day off upside down—literally—and he’s going to want an explanation.”
A chiming alert tone sounded from the tactical station. “I am detecting multiple objects in our vicinity.” Tuvok’s eyebrow arched. “In addition, energetic residues.”
“From the distortion?”
“Negative.”
Dakal was nodding. “I see the objects. Not ships… at least, not a whole one.”
Vale looked forward. “Can we get that screen working?”
One of the engineers worked his console, and the main viewer, flickering and hazy with distortion, became clear. Immediately, Vale spotted a half-dozen jagged forms drifting against the blackness. Some of them tumbled, catching the light of far distant stars, while others bled orange streamers of spent energy behind them.
“Based on the clustering of the fragments, this appears to be the remains of a single vessel. I would estimate the craft to be around one-third the mass of the Titan. I am detecting refined metals, tripolymers, decay products from spent electroplasma…” The ensign read off the report from the sensor grid. “Traces of directed-energy discharges. Lots of them.”
“Weapons fire,” said Keru, grim-faced.
“A battleground?” Lavena studied the display, her hands tensing.
“Tuvok…” Vale threw him a look. “Any pattern matches in our databases?”
The Vulcan paused. “There are multiple particle signatures… I would hypothesize high-energy antiproton weapons.”
Dakal spoke again. “All of the fragments display a similar metallurgy. I’d need to make a closer examination for full confirmation.”
“You want to go and pick up a piece, Ensign?” said Keru. “It’s swimming in radiation out there.”
“One ship,” echoed the commander. “Whatever happened, it was smashed to pieces.”
“What could do that to a starship?” Lavena asked aloud, a note of fear in her voice.
“Internal explosions? Gravitational stresses?” suggested Rager. “Or maybe something with really big teeth.”
“I can find no correlation with any elements of known ship design in the tactical database,” Tuvok added.
“Zurin, what about life signs?” said Vale.
“The first thing I scanned for, Commander,” the ensign replied. “No organic forms detected. As Lieutenant Commander Keru stated, the ambient radiation fogging the area is quite lethal. If any conventional carbon-based life survived…” He nodded toward the debris field. “Survived that, I doubt they would have lived much longer.”
“We’ve encountered plenty of life-forms that can handle high rads,” noted Rager.
Dakal nodded. “And I scanned for those as well. I admit, it is possible there could be shielded compartments within the larger pieces of wreckage or zones we can’t read at this range.”
Keru let out a slow breath. “Whatever took place here, it was brutal. I’m wondering if that, uh, sandbank we hit was a side effect.”
“I concur,” said Tuvok. “The expenditure of energy in this area far exceeds that which would be required to atomize the mass of the wreckage. We can only conclude that another combatant was present.”
“Obviously,” Vale retorted.
“Indeed,” Tuvok continued, “but if another craft was here, then why do the sensors register the ion trail of only one