The Red King - Michael A. Martin [41]
“Commander Vale, Commander Jaza, we’ve found something highly unusual.”
Vale cocked an eyebrow. “On screen.”
Two smaller images opened to the starboard side of the forward viewscreen. One was nearly black, the other was filled with the same scrolling coordinates and other information that both Lavena and Dakal had just seen.
“Analysis?” Vale asked, and Lavena saw both the haggard-looking Vulcan, Tuvok, and the Bajoran science officer, Jaza Najem, running diagnostics at nearby science stations.
Jaza didn’t look up as he spoke over his shoulder. “Commander, I’m finding widespread spatial instabilities throughout this region. Entire sectors of the Small Magellanic Cloud are being affected to varying degrees.”
“Affected in what way?” Vale asked.
“The black portion of the screen shows a segment of space that should have something there. But there’s nothing there. No stars, no planets, no gases, no debris, no energy fields, no readings whatsoever. It’s a complete void. I can’t even find any sign of virtual particles popping in and out of existence. That shouldn’t happen even in the emptiest parts of intergalactic space.”
“How can that be? If it’s a void, wouldn’t whatever surrounds it be rushing in to fill it?”
Jaza waggled his hand from side to side. “Yes and no. But nothing’s coming into or out of this void.”
Lavena half-expected Vale to tell her to chart a course closer to that sector of space; many starship captains would have done just that. She was relieved then, to hear the ship’s first officer instead tell her to pull back.
“One interspatial anomaly at a time for this crew,” Vale said, half under her breath. She tapped her combadge.
“Bridge to Captain Riker.”
The captain’s voice issued immediately from the tiny speaker. “Go ahead.”
“You’re needed on the bridge, sir.”
As the doors to the ready room slid open, Lavena turned back to the conn, studiously avoiding making eye contact with the captain. She hadn’t had much direct interaction with him since she had first come aboard weeks ago. Given their checkered—if brief—history together, it was probably better that way.
After Vale and Jaza had finished briefing the captain on what they had learned so far, Tuvok turned to address all the bridge officers at once. “This ‘void,’ for want of a better term, has been reordered on an elementary particle level. Put simply, nearly half a cubic parsec of space containing what was has been replaced—by utter nothingness.”
“Which is pretty much the definition of a ‘void,’ ” Dakal said quietly. Lavena supposed that she wasn’t the only one who heard him, however, since her aquatically adapted hearing wasn’t particularly acute in the bridge’s prevailing M-Class environment. She also wasn’t sure what had triggered the sarcastic timbre of Dakal’s voice. Did the cadet have some personal issue with the commander, or was he simply living up to his people’s reputation for arrogance? She decided she would have to let time determine the answer to that question.
“What do those readings there mean?” Riker asked, pointing to another window-inset image that had been opened on the forward viewscreen’s port side.
“That’s an analysis of several other points we’ve been scanning throughout this portion of the Small Magellanic Cloud,” Jaza said. “Some of them are showing unusual activity. Whether this is also being caused by whatever created the void is unclear.”
“So, essentially we have a huge volume of local space that has been erased from existence,” Riker said.
“Except for the empty space itself, yes, that’s correct, sir,” Jaza said.
Riker nodded. “And we also have widespread spatial instabilities that are threatening other local regions.”
“Apparently, sir,” Jaza said. “I can’t explain it just yet. Not without resorting to the metaphysical, that is.”
“This pocket of the universe doesn’t seem terribly friendly to starship crews or other living things,” Vale said wryly.
Though Lavena found Dakal a bit difficult to understand, she decided then that Vale and Jaza were anything but. Noting how close together