The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [155]
“What would this have meant to the inhabitants?” Picard asked. “Losing their homeworld for a second time…” Picard let the sentence trail off.
Of course he’s interested, Riker thought. It’s archaeology.
Then Riker noticed that Picard’s expression wasn’t so much one of interest as one of shared sorrow. Like those Riker had seen at his mother’s funeral on the faces of the people who experienced a loss of their own. Riker realized it wasn’t just Picard’s interest in archaeology. In a sense, for the captain it was personal, as he knew what it was like to lose a world, just as the Fabrini had.
The Fabrini were an ancient and advanced race that colonized other worlds some ten thousand years ago, after its home star went nova. Traces of the Fabrini had been found scattered around the galaxy, but only traces, until the discovery of an entire Fabrini colony on Yonada, a multigeneration spaceship constructed inside of a hollowed-out asteroid.
Now Enterprise had chanced on another Fabrini colony. This one was found when the ship had sent a probe to a small, former Class-M planet in an unexplored solar system. On the planet, the probe discovered the remains of a Fabrini colony established almost seven thousand years ago that had thrived for close to five hundred years before rapid polar shifts rendered the planet uninhabitable and the Fabrini were, again, forced to flee their home.
Beverly Crusher, chief medical officer, broke the somewhat awkward silence. “As near as we can tell from the probe, the shift rendered the planet inhospitable to life. And fairly quickly. The Fabrini colony that lived there would have had to leave in a hurry. If they were able to leave at all.”
“So it seems the Fabrini,” Riker started, trying to get his mind back in the game, “were smart to establish multiple colonies rather than place all their eggs in one basket again.”
“How much damage would have been done to the structures after the polar shift?” Picard asked. “The Fabrini were extremely advanced in the medical sciences. Any intact relics would be a remarkable find.”
“The structures themselves are mostly undamaged, sir,” said Data. “As to how much of their culture survived over several thousand years of exposure to…”
“We’ll need an expedition to find out,” Beverly finished. She was clearly excited by the thought of the Fabrini’s legendary medical knowledge. Moreover, Riker could tell she wanted to experience the colony and that knowledge firsthand, not talk about it in the abstract.
“Agreed,” said Picard, and Riker could see that his captain’s face mirrored the enthusiasm found on the doctor’s face.
Riker glanced down at his padd and accessed Data’s prepared presentation. He flipped ahead in Data’s outline to see where all this was leading. The now-abandoned colony was on a planet that could no longer sustain humanoid life for an extended period. The polar shift had played havoc with the planet’s atmosphere and continued to do so. Magnetic fields were constantly in flux. Without proper shielding, no human life could survive for more than a few days.
“We won’t be able to beam down?” Riker asked, cutting off Data’s lengthy description of the decay rates of Fabrini construction techniques.
“No, Commander,” Data answered. “The planet is bathed in heavy magnetic interference that is thick as pea soup.” Riker found himself smiling at the description, remembering a time when Data would have been incapable of using a phrase like that properly, or so easily. Riker realized at that moment how much he was going to miss serving with his friend.
Geordi leaned forward. “Because of the interference, transporters and communications will be severely limited. A thousand meters at best for the transporters, maybe a little more for the communicators.”
Riker glanced down, consulting the scans of the planet’s magnetic field. “Looks as though the ride through the upper atmosphere is going to be choppy as hell.”