"GODS, HOW I hate this job."
Garaia looked up from her science station at the captain of the Cardassian science ship Vendikar. He was, as usual, pacing like a caged animal up and down the walkway beside her. This was not the first time that she had heard his complaint, and she strongly doubted it would be the last. Tak was a handsome young officer—with a sleek neck, and very nice eye ridges—but he was, after all, both career military and something of a loser. A shame, really. He might otherwise have been at the very least an interesting diversion on this routine mission.
"This is an important task we perform," Garaia said diplomatically.
"Mapping the positions of a bunch of stupid rocks?" he spat, gesturing to the asteroid belt on the ship's viewscreen. "It's dull, it's pointless, and it's eternal."
Though she, too, felt bored by the routine, Garaia felt compelled to defend their mission. "We have to be able to chart safe paths through the belt," she pointed out.
The rest of the bridge crew wisely remained outside this discussion, finding their instrumentation suddenly fascinating. They were, no doubt, listening to the exchange very carefully. Though Tak was flapping his mouth foolishly, Garaia had no intention of saying anything that might cost her if it was reported back to the wrong people—as it inevitably would be. How Tak had lasted this long with such a negative attitude was inexplicable to her.
"Why?" he demanded, histrionically. "We're on the edge of Cardassian space here. Virtually on the rim of the galaxy. There's nowhere out there to go to." He gestured at the screen. "Just more empty space. And if we had to come out here for any logical reason, we could just go around this stupid belt. No, this is just punishment work for us." He laughed bitterly. Garaia knew he'd probably had a drink or two before coming on duty; it was getting to be a habit with him of late. The longer this mission lasted, the worse he became. Another sign of a loser. "Well, I know what I'm being punished for. What's your crime, Science Officer?"
Garaia managed a slight smile. "Curiosity," she replied, lying slightly. "I find this fascinating, so I am assigned to the job." Since the captain seemed to be quite talkative, she decided to probe further than she usually bothered. "And what was your crime?"
"Foolishness," Tak replied. The crime didn't surprise her, but his admission did. He gave another of his barking laughs. "I thought I was outside the usual back-stabbing." He gestured at his chest. "You wouldn't think to look at me that I was once Gul Gavron's most trusted assistant, would you?"
No, Garaia thought. "Yes," she lied. "You are obviously very capable, Captain."
"Well, I was," he went on. It was hard to tell whether he'd heard her reply or not. "I was his favorite, and thought I was untouchable. But I forgot the most important rule in the Cardassian military: No matter how much your commanding officer likes you, he likes his rank much better." Tak made another spitting sound. "When he was accused of a poor decision, I was the one he blamed for making it—even though I had advised strongly against it. Somehow; that record was expunged." He glowered at Garaia. "And I was reassigned."
The story didn't surprise her. She knew what it was like in the Cardassian military. Actually, he was lucky he hadn't simply been executed. That was the sort of barbaric punishment they usually went in for. If he was still alive and working—no matter how pointless the task—he must have had some political connections remaining. She shrugged elaborately. "And if you perform this task well," she said, "you will undoubtedly be given a better one."
"Hah!" Tak snarled. "Mapping more rocks, no doubt." He slammed his right fist into his left palm. "I want to be out there, hunting the damned Maquis, not baby-sitting a bunch of female scientists." He glared at her. "No offense, Science Officer, but I hate being here."
And we hate having you here, she thought. She was saved from having to invent some polite response by the navigation officer.
"Captain," he called. "I'm picking up something odd directly ahead of us."
Tak spun around. "Identify!" he ordered.
"I'm … sorry, sir," the navigator answered, his face twisted with puzzlement. "It does not conform to anything I have ever seen before."
Tak whirled back to Garaia. "Science Officer—why didn't you spot this?"
Because you were talking to me, you idiot, she thought. Ignoring his stupid question, Garaia studied her instruments. Her eye ridges raised in astonishment. "Whatever that craft is," she said slowly, "it is unlike anything we have ever encountered before. Or heard of, either."
Returning to the command seat, Tak glared at her, "I'd appreciate a few details," he told her sarcastically. "What are you talking about?"
"Forward scanners," Garaia ordered. "Sector three nine four green." The navigator obeyed her command, and the intruder sprang to life on their screens.
Garaia had always been very curious, and had spent hours studying data from many alien species. What she saw displayed now on the Vendikar's screens reminded her mostly of a Terran fish called a manta ray. The craft had a large central body, with wide-spreading wings. Behind it trailed a long, tail-like antenna.
Tak frowned. "It has an unusual configuration," he agreed, "but it is not unprecedented, surely?"
"The shape, no," Garaia commented. "But the size …" She let her eyes stray back to her instrumentation. "Captain, that vessel is approximately eight thousand miles long, and the wingspan is about twelve thousand miles. We are still almost an hour from its present position at current speeds."
Tak paled, his eyes riveted to the screen. "Eight … thousand … miles?" he repeated in awe. He shook his head in disbelief. "What kind of a craft is it?" he asked.
Garaia shrugged. She was almost as awestruck as he, but she refused to allow her scientific training to suffer as a result. "Captain, the central core of the vessel is eight thousand miles long, and approximately one hundred miles in diameter. That gives an interior surface area of over two million, six hundred fifty thousand square miles. That is the size of a moderate continent."
Bored and slightly drunk though he might be, Tak wasn't stupid. "You mean that ship is some kind of colony vessel?" he asked, leaning forward and staring hard at the image in front of him.
"It would be a logical assumption," agreed Garaia. "And one probably containing several billion inhabitants."
Tak gave a sharp intake of breath. "Then we had better deal with it now," he decided. He spun about to face the communications officer. "Relay a message back to Central Command on Cardassia with all of the information we currently have," he instructed. "Inform them that we are moving in to contact the alien intruder." Without waiting for acknowledgment, he turned back to the navigator. "Plot an interception course," he ordered. "Maximum velocity." Then he turned back to Garaia. "Get me as much information on the thing as you can before we reach it. I want to know exactly what we are dealing with here. Specifically look for indications of weapons capabilities."
Men, thought Garaia in disgust. It's about time he finally got around to attacking it! "Acknowledged." Trying to hide her feelings, she turned back to her instruments, and began coaxing as much information out of them as she possibly could.
Whatever that vessel was, it had clearly come from outside the galaxy. A quick backtrack of its probable trajectory showed that much. Assuming it had taken an energy-conserving course, the computers estimated that it must have come from one of the Magellanic Clouds.
And if it had crossed the galactic void at the low velocity it was now employing, then the journey must have taken the inhabitants almost half a million years. . . .
The figures were almost mind-numbing. Whoever the inhabitants of the craft were, they could not have had contact with any other species in that time. But that was about to change. Within the next hour, the Vendikar would be approaching it.
Garaia worked hard, poring over her instruments, trying every last trick she could think of to gain even a meager amount of extra data from them. Finally, she stood upright and approached Tak. "I've gathered as much as I can at this range," she announced in a quiet voice. If the captain wanted the rest of the crew to share her findings, he'd tell them. "To learn more, we'd need to go inside the craft."
"So?" he asked her, pointedly.
"It's an extremely old craft," Garaia answered, striving to keep her irritation with his brusque manner in check. "Somewhere in the region of half a million years old. Its origin would appear to have been in one of the Magellanic Clouds. It has spent most of its life crossing the void to arrive here. Those big wings are dust-gathering devices; their size is dictated by the need to gather the finely scattered dust in extragalactic space. This is undoubtedly turned into energy and raw materials inside the vessel." She shook her head. "It would need to be a very efficient system.
The craft is proceeding at sub-light speed. Given the construction of the vessel, I would not expect it to be able to exceed that velocity. To accelerate faster would undoubtedly tear the wings apart. We are therefore looking at a very slow, ponderous ship. We could literally fly rings around it."
Tak tapped his fingers impatiently on the arm of his seat. "And the weaponry I specifically asked you to investigate?" he asked.
Garaia paled with anger, but kept her voice even. "I am unable to detect any weapons. Our sensor devices cannot penetrate the alien ship's hull. I cannot even get a reading as to what the hull is composed of. For all I know, the aliens could be completely defenseless—or able to blast us out of space without even thinking about it."
"That isn't a great deal of help to me," Tak snapped.
Garaia shrugged. "It's the best I can do—for the moment." She gestured at the manta-ray image. "The sensors do indicate that there are openings at the prow of the vessel, and several along the body of the ship. These are presumably airlocks and entry ports. Once we are closer, I might be able to get a scanning beam inside one of these and obtain some of the answers that you require. Until then, there is nothing that I can do."
"Very well," growled the captain. He leaned forward in his seat, staring intently at the screen. "If that is all, then you may return to your post until you can get me further facts." When she didn't move, his eyes flickered over her. "Well?"
"There is one thing that does puzzle me," she added. "That vessel must have smaller ships within it, surely. Explorers, shuttles, and perhaps even war vessels."
"So?"
"Well," she replied, her unease growing. "After half a billion years in the void, wouldn't you have launched some small ships to explore the first solar systems that you have ever seen?" She pointed to the screen. "Yet they have not. Why not?"
Tak considered her question and then nodded. "A good point," he conceded. His eyes narrowed in concentration. "Their ship has been on a very long voyage," he suggested slowly. "Perhaps not a successful one."
He was clearly having the same thought that had crossed her own mind. "You think, then, that there may no longer be any inhabitants within the vessel?"
"It is one possibility," he agreed. He abruptly gave her a smile. "I recall reading a story once in which the inhabitants of a generation starship reverted to savagery. When their ship reached its destination, they had become uncivilized louts who couldn't even operate an airlock door. That is another possibility in this case. After all, a great deal can be forgotten in half a million years."
"Indeed," she agreed. "Or, of course, learned. Perhaps they have entered a new stage in their evolution and no longer need machinery to do their bidding?" She gave the captain a smile of her own. "I have also read such speculative fiction."
Tak nodded. "Well, all we can do is to wait," he said. "In a short while, we will have all of the answers we need." He turned to face the communications officer again. "Open a channel using as wide a band of frequencies as you can to the ship ahead of us," he ordered. "Send our identifying code and demand a response. Inform me immediately of any reply." He turned back to Garaia. "And now we wait," he said. There was a gleam in his eyes.
As she returned to her station, Garaia smiled to herself. This was certainly far more interesting than scanning rocks. And Tak seemed to have dragged the shreds of his personality together. Whatever happened now, he would be pleased. Their routine punishment mission had suddenly become something very important. If he handled it well, it would put him back in favor with the military.
And if he handled it badly, then he would die. Either result would probably suit him much better than commanding survey charting.
As they continued their approach, Garaia scanned and rescanned the ship, trying to eke out just a little more information. She didn't have very much luck, however. The vessel guarded its secrets well. As she couldn't penetrate its skin, she had no way of knowing whether they were approaching a floating cemetery or a mobile fortress. The uncertainty was wearing on her nerves, and she suspected that none of the crew was immune. Every now and then, Tak would start rapping his fingers nervously on his command-chair arm. Then he would catch himself and force himself to stop. Only to begin again a few moments later.
Then, finally, there was a change. "Captain!" she called, urgently. "The sensors register the opening of the main portal in the craft."
Tak glanced at the screen. "I see nothing."
Fool! she thought. The prow of the craft was a hundred miles across. One small portal a mere two hundred feet across wouldn't be visible at this distance. "I'm registering smaller craft emerging," she announced. "Twelve of them, in a very loose formation." She tried bouncing a sensor beam past the craft and through the airlock, but it dissipated rapidly. Then the portal irised closed again. Damn! Still, now she had something other than the main ship to play with. She turned the sensors onto the smaller craft. "Each is approximately eighty feet long," she called out. "They're a lot more fragile than the main ship, and—Captain, each vessel is armed. I'm reading energy weapons powering up."
"Sound alert," Tak ordered, his eyes dancing with joy. He was in his element now. "Raise shields. Power the weapons systems."
The weaponry officer moved swiftly to obey. Garaia frowned. She understood the need for this move, and she had no qualms about combat but she hated to see the loss of research material.
"Any response on our hail yet?" Tak demanded.
"No reply at al Captain," the communications officer called back. "I'm running it again, with greater variation in frequencies and—Captain, incoming signal, audio only."
"That's better," Tak said with satisfaction. "Put it on the speakers."
There was a second or two of noise while the translation computer hooked into the signal and scanned it. Then the noise cleared into words.
"Approaching craft, identify yourself and your purpose."
Tak scowled. "This is the Cardassian vessel Vendikar," he answered. "Identify yourself."
"We are the Hive." The voice was neutral, without any apparent emotion.
"You are entering Cardassian space," Tak said bluntly. "You will not do this without permission. Bring your ship to a halt and prepare to meet us."
There was a slight pause. "Unacceptable," the voice finally replied. "We will continue our journey. You will not attempt to interfere."
Sitting up straighter in his chair, Tak snapped, "You will not be allowed to enter Cardassian space. Halt your vessel now, or else we shall be compelled to use force."
"This contact is terminated," the voice commented coldly. The carrier went dead.
Garaia scowled. "How do you propose to stop that craft?" she demanded. "We could detonate every weapon aboard our ship and still not even dent its hull."
"They do not know that we are alone," Tak told her. "They will not risk beginning a conflict without further information. All we have to do is to hold them off until reinforcements arrive."
Garaia was about to dispute that assertion, but was saved the trouble.
"Incoming vessel," the navigator announced. "They have powered up their weapons for the attack."
"Ready response," Tak ordered, eagerly. He looked like a wild beast who had just been set free from his cage and smelled a victim ahead. "Steady all weapons."
Garaia watched as two of the small craft came spinning toward them. She kept a sensor lock on them, waiting to see what kind of weapons they would be using. They were both much smaller than the Vendikar, and probably less well armed and armored. This attack was both unprovoked and foolish. There was no way at all that it could succeed.
She died with that last thought on her mind. The two ships whipped past the Vendikar on opposite sides. There was no sign of any energy discharge, no sign of any weapons system being used.
As their pass was completed, however, all that was left of the science vessel were tiny shards of metal and plastics, and smaller pieces of flesh that spread out in ever-widening circles, all that marked where the Vendikar had been annihilated.