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Star Trek Athena: The Prophecy - crobato
:: 06/07/01 ::
Chapter 4
As usual in any missions of "diplomacy", the tendency and practice for a race is to bring their biggest ship for the visual impression, followed by two or three escorts. It was predictable that the Klingons would bring a Negh'Var, the Romulans, a D'Deridex, and the Cardassians, the new Hutet class battleship-carriers, a new generation Cardassian battleship designed to deal with Federation Galaxies and Klingon Negh'Vars and was introduced late in the war. While the Ambassador class he has for his flagship wasn't the latest and best, it's size and majesty would suffice for a mission.
"We have approached the rendezvous point," said the ensign.
"Just wait here." Hurst said.
"We got a reading," said the ensign on the helm. "I believe it's the Enterprise G, sir."
"Magnify on screen," Wu ordered. "Damn!" He said as he was overcome with awe at the sight of the sleek majestic ship, that appeared like final masterpiece of star ship design.
"Our readings show a Federation power signature, a subspace imbalance, and chromatron particle emissions." The Operations officer said. "It's definitely Federation, but not any class we know, and it's really not from our time. I bet the Romulans, Klingons and Cardassians are getting the same readings."
Three conference windows quickly appeared on the screen with the faces of General Ka'Vagh, Merak, Colonel Raek.
"Do not raise shields or power up weapons," Hurst advised them. "We mustn't appear hostile, whoever or whateverthis ship is."
"You are putting us at risk," Raek said. "But I am willing to try diplomacy before we start shooting."
"We are ready to go to red alert, if this ship shows any hostile intentions," Ka'Vagh said.
"We are being hailed on encrypted channels," the Operations officer said.
"On the secret channel? How can that be?" Wu said.
A face appeared on all the ships bridge screens. It was the face of a dark earth woman. "I am Captain Nora Wells of the USS Enterprise, the future USS Enterprise in your time. I bet you are all surprised that I am contacting you all through four different encrypted channels. In fact that is proof we are from the future. Your present Federation does not have any knowledge or key in breaking the encrypted channels for the Black Fleet, Tal Shi'ar and Obsidian Order. Don't bother to change them either. We have every knowledge of every encryption code used all the way to a whole Earth century from now. The reason why we have to use an encrypted channel is because the matters I will be telling you are of the greatest secrecy about the fates of your Empires and Unions."
"Before we begin, I must scan for infiltrators. It will only take an Earth minute."
"Infiltrators?" Merak said. "The crew in our ships have been specially selected by the Obsidian Order to serve in their capacity. You can be assured that no one aboard our ships is an infiltrator of any sort. We would object to any scanning of our ships by a foreign power."
"That is also true of the Tal Shi'ar," said Raek. "Our security procedures are the most thorough. It is a disrespect of our sovereignty if we are subjected to scans."
"I have to agree with the Cardassian and Romulan dogs. Without good cause and permission, the scanning of a Klingon ship even by a Federation ship is an affront to Klingon honor." Ka'Vagh said.
"Very well, Gentlemen, since you will know it anyway, I am scanning for Borg Infiltrator drones."
"Borg Infiltrator drones?" Hurst wondered.
"They look exactly, think exactly, act exactly as any people you know," Wells explained. "They will preserve their personalities and characters, but the Collective has taken over their minds. Through a new nanoprobe device, they are virtually undetectable with all your current sensor technology. I am not going to mince words to say that your worlds are in peril in a way that you all could not conceivably know. Now, Gentlemen, will you please let me perform my scans?"
"Let us know more about this Borg infiltrators you speak of," Raek demanded.
"You will only know more after you passed my scans," Wells said. "I cannot risk revealing more if any of you have Infiltrator drones. If you are worried about us scanning and learning your technologies, be real, Gentlemen. My ship is far advanced than any of yours and I certainly am already aware of your ship designs and technologies in the future as I am aware of your encryption codes."
They stared at each other at the conference windows. Hurst was the first to break the news. "Our ship will submit to your scans." The others quickly agreed by grudgingly nodding their heads.
The Enterprise G began scans of all the ships. When the scanning ended, Wells' face appeared again in all their screens. "It appears that you are all clean. We can proceed with the discussion. When you are ready, we will beam all delegates into the conference room of our ship."
"No wait, Captain Wells." Hurst said. "You have already taken one of my people, a civilian scientist. We have already subjected our ships to your scans. You obviously need us for what ever you are planning. As a sign of good faith, I suggest we meed in neutral ground. I suggest the conference room in my ship, the USS Normandy."
"Let me think for a minute," Wells said.
On board the Enterprise G, Wells looked at Surak, Macek and Magh'Var for advice. "So what do you think, Gentlemen? I am specifically ask you since you may have a better understanding the character of your counterparts and countrymen a century ago."
"While it is a risk to leave the ship, Hurst is a good negotiator and a catalyst to get things accomplished," Macek said.
"In my observation, we should not let them know about the formation of the Great Alliance in the future," Surak said. "Even if this is in regards to our peoples-my Romulans, your Cardassians, Macek, and your Klingons, Magh'Var. The respective empires must fight their petty wars that lay ahead of them and discover the folly of such in the most difficult way, even if millions were to die. Only then will they evolve to a higher political state of understanding and cooperation. We must keep our temporal contamination to a minimum-to simply stop the Borg, but maintain the course of proper evolution of our empires and nations."
"I have to agree as well," Magh'Var said.
"That is my conclusion, too, Captain." Macek said. "Let them know what they only need to know."
"We could change history here in more ways than one," Wells said. "We could avoid a hundred wars, save millions of lives in all our peoples, accelerate the process of brotherhood and understanding."
"But you are all correct. We are not gods to tinker more than what we need to. I only confess that the temptation is there because the opportunity is there." Wells said. She straightened up. "We will only do what our mission guidelines say, and only that."
"Now make yourselves hidden from the screen. Bring Hurst on screen once more."
"Yes, Captain Wells." Hurst said.
"I have agreed to your conditions. We will meet in the conference room of the USS Normandy. To show more of our good faith, we will return your scientist back to you." Wells said.
"Very well, Captain," Hurst said.
"I will prepare the conference room for our guests," Wu said as he barked some orders to an ensign.
* * *
Ka'Vagh paced nervously, keeping his distance from Merak and Raek, who for some apparent reason seems to be able to get along and were having a polite conversation.
"Well, my old friend," Hurst slapped Ka'Vagh on the shoulder.
"Ha, ha, ha," Ka'Vagh laughed, slapping Hurst on the shoulder a few times that Hurst seemed hurt from it. "You've become fat, ever since you become an Admiral. We should go hunting one of these days. I know a planet where there is plenty of live prey who knows how to fight back! It becomes more fun if you only have a Dk'tahg to hunt them with."
Suddenly two columns of sparkling lights appeared. They materialized into the bodily form of Nora Wells and Helen Shiner.
"Doctor," Hurst exclaimed as Shiner ran to him. "Are you all right?'
"I have never been better in all my life. They treated me very well," Shiner said.
Hurst stared at Wells. Is this how Starfleet uniforms would look a hundred years from now? He thought. It was not like any Federation uniform he has seen, but it would be consistent with Federation styles and design standards. And it was good to see that the Starfleet emblem will always remain the same.
As for Wells, Hurst felt an immediate command presence from her. You can never fool, imitate, or fraudulently create a Starfleet captain, for a clone or simulator. A Starfleet captain always has this aura, this command presence with him and with her that beckons both respect and attention. Wells had this in spades.
The stern suspicious eyes from the Cardassian and the Romulan told Wells she just entered a crocodile's nest. She's not going to expect shaking hand pleasantries with the Cardassians and Romulans, but Hurst and Ka'Vagh were friendly enough to stick their hands out for a shake.
It was time to get to business and quick. On with the presentation!
"Gentlemen, I shall introduce to you, the Federation, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, and the Cardassian Union a hundred years from now."
Linking the briefing room's screen to the computer banks on the Enterprise G, Wells showed them an Earth, a Quo'Nos, a Romulus, and a Cardassia, one hundred Earth calendar years into the future-all covered with metallic matrices, with rivers of conduit glowing green light.
"Is this a joke?" Raek asked.
"I'm afraid it's not. As much as that ship you saw is real with your own sensors and eyes, and as much I am real," Wells said.
"If this would become true, this would be a most horrifying vision of the future," Merak said. "Far more horrifying than the holocaust of Cardassia by the Jem'Hadar."
"The wars in the late 24th century were nothing compared to the final invasion of the Borg," Wells said. And we lost. All of us lost. There was complete assimilation of all major races in both Alpha and Beta quadrants.
"And that's why you're here," Hurst said. "To change the entire time line."
"But the temporal contamination this would cause..." Raek said.
"A flagrant violation of the Temporal Directive," Hurst said.
"We all have laws here for each one of our races, regarding the tampering of the time line." Ka'Vagh pointed out.
"And what future would you have? Do you want the future you just saw?" Wells said. "I had my principles and morals too, once. But now I see I no longer have a home. The Enterprise G is the sole ship remaining of your future Federation. Our survival, all of our species here, is hanging on the balance, and we still talk about laws and directives? What is it that you don't understand about the word 'Survival?'"
"Pick a choice? Your principles or that nightmare vision of what your capital worlds will be like a century from now." Wells said.
"I would say the choice is very easy," Ka'Vagh said.
"How is that possible?" Macek asked. "I am aware that all of our nations have greatly improved both our offensive and defensive capabilities after the War. The Federation in particular, leads in anti-Borg defense programs. The Romulans and the Klingons too have developed anti-Borg programs separately on their own. And we in Cardassia, despite the rebuilding of our nation, we still have allocated resources to initiate an anti-Borg defense program."
"This has something to do with that scan you just made on ships, isn't it?" Raek said.
"Yes, Commander. The key is this," Wells showed them the screen shot of a new nanoprobe. "It's called a Type B nanoprobe. With this new nanoprobe, the Borg has been able to create a new, virtually undetectable drone which we call Infiltrators. They will look like you and I, and none of your scanners could detect them. In the future, the infiltration will reach to the very highest levels of government and military, severely compromising any defensive posture against the Borg. It was like a conspiracy, a disease from within-assimilation from within. Broken from inside, regular assimilation would follow."
"This is why we cannot use normal diplomatic channels. We do not know how much each of your respective nations have already been infiltrated, or will be infiltrated in the future. When it does, if it had not happened already, even your highest offices of government will not be spared."
"We come here a hundred years because we made an estimate when the infiltration first begun to take place. The Dominion War provided a perfect distraction for the Borg to set up an infiltration base or colony somewhere. This is about the time they started. And this is the time, that this can be stopped. Not twenty years into the future, not fifty years into the future. By the it would have spread and cannot be stopped. The time to stop this infiltration is now."
"That's why I come to you, each one of you from a secret organization. You all have the infrastructure to deal with threats from within. You understand the nature of conspiracy. You all understand the need for secrecy. Each of your governments gave cases of temporal violation to the jurisdiction of your respective organizations because of the prime need for secrecy as a way to contain the contamination."
"In the future, Doctor Helen Shiner here would invent the means to detect the Type B infiltrator nanoprobes. With it, the ability to detect the Borg infiltrators. But the invention was twenty years late, and even then widespread implementation was even more delayed, until it was fatal to all."
"I will correct this error." Wells said. "For each one of you, here are the plans for such a device." She handed each of them the plans both in a digital pad, and in a hard coded backup form, which cannot be erased or changed.
"You, the Federation, are giving us technology?" Raek said. He studied the diagrams. "This is incredible. This is workable.."
Wells said. "I handed each one of you, a version of the scanner that will work with the existing scanner technology used in your ships. You can use it, adapt it, modify it, for use in each of your secret fleets If I were you I would implement them as soon as you can. "
"And what if these things work and we truly detect the Borg infiltrators among our kind?" Ka'Vagh asked.
"I am sure, General, that you all know what to do," Wells said.
* * *
Each of the ships, Klingon, Romulan and Cardassian, have departed back to the homeworlds, each to deliver the one tool at the hands of the right organization that can stop the infiltration.
But the task of Nora Wells remained uncompleted.
"Where are you going, Captain Wells?" Hurst asked.
"I cannot return to my own time. By handing out these instruments, I would have changed the time line greatly. Returning would create a severe paradox. The consequences in theory can be from nothing to extremely severe, like the end of the Universe. But of course, we don't know, because we dare not try." Wells said.
"But my presence will continue to contaminate this time line. So is the presence of this ship." Wells said.
"The Section can prepare something that can completely isolate your existence from the rest of the Universe." Hurst said. "You and your crew can continue to live in complete secrecy."
"Thank you Admiral, but our work is not done yet. If I came here just to deliver technology, one person and a scout would have sufficed. No Admiral, the enemy still lies ahead of us. We have made studies about the infiltration's early phase, and we now believe that the extent of the infiltration could not have happened without a major base or colony to launch it from."
"But we only detected one Borg colony in the quadrant, and that's the one with the Gate, which we have captured from the Borg," Hurst said. "That's the Gate you entered."
"And we have scanned it. There was absolutely no presence of the Type B nanoprobes," Nora said. "The Borg colony centered around the Gate is not the colony we are looking for. There must be another. There has to be another!"
"Then we will find it. Section ships have the best reconnaissance and scanning capability of any task force within the Starfleet." Hurst said. "In the meantime we will find a suitable hiding place for you where we can minimize temporal contamination. I suggest that the Enterprise G must follow the Normandy. And Captain. Even if you are from Starfleet in the future, this is Starfleet now. I want to make it clear that I am your Superior officer."
"Admiral. I respect you. Before the assimilation of the Federation, history spoke well of you. But the Starfleet and the Federation I pledged to no longer exists." Wells said. "It is either assimilated by the Borg, or I have rendered it invalid by shifting the time line. Even if I did this to save the future, I am in violation of the Temporal Directive. I am an outcast, a foreigner to this time. So is my ship. So is my crew. We don't belong to your Starfleet as much as we don't belong to this time."
"Wait a moment Captain," Hurst tried to say.
"Good luck, Good hunting and Godspeed, Admiral. Our fates here are already decided, Admiral." She clicked on her communicator. "Enterprise. Beam me home." She disappeared in a column of sparkles.
"No, wait." Hurst shouted.
Shiner stood by Hurst. "I know what she said is true. After assimilation, I can hear the Borg voices once in a while, and I know there are new different voices, voices that I can hear came from our quadrant. We don't have much time to waste. I need to study the scanner design and see how we can adapt it to the sensor suites of our ships. What's really funny is that I was the one who supposedly designed these scanners twenty years from now."
Hurst's communicator went alive. "Admiral, the Enterprise G just engaged warp." Wu said.
"Dammit. Where is she going?" Hurst asked. "Follow her. I got a bad feeling about this. Doctor, I need to the bridge."
"I will follow you," Shiner said.
The Normandy engaged warp in pursuit of the Enterprise G. Following closely behind the Ambassador class ship was the Hiryu and the Lionheart.
"Admiral, I don't believe we can catch her," Wu said. "She's entered Warp 9.997 and still going faster. None of our vessels can match her rate."
Hurst let out a sigh. "Captain, disengage pursuit. Let's go home. I don't think we'll be hearing the last of her."
* * *
The schematics were laid out in front of her. Not everyone can understand their own work, especially something from one's future, Shiner thought. Maybe the Klingons, Romulans and Cardassians will have better luck. She finally had better headway when she assumed a mindset of trying to design the device herself. The lack of standardized sensor suites among Federation vessels will make her job harder. You have to cope with sensor equipment of different vintages, different designs with different mission profiles.
Her flat screen terminal came to life. There was Boussard on screen.
"It is a relief to see again, after that episode with the time ship," Boussard said. "Hurst had briefed me and de Witt on the situation. Our hunch about the Borg among us, is correct. It is good to know we are not crazy, or going crazy."
"Yes, vindication has its joys, although we just merely discussed it in private conversation. My talk with Captain Wells of the Enteprise G gave me the impression we had this conspiracy theory bottled up for twenty years before we spoke openly about it. I guess that will never happen anymore, after Wells spilled the beans."
"But Doctor, do you still hear the voices?" Boussard asked.
'Yes, Captain. At times, like a vision, an apparition, or a dream."
"I hear that you're working on adapting the new scanners to the ships." Boussard said.
'Yes. I'm working this in cooperation of the Normandy's engineering teams. Our purpose is to get the ones for the Normandy up first." Shiner said. "I've already sent diagrams for the Lionheart's engineering department so they can begin working on the adaptation. I'm supposed to send you one too, but you just happen to beat me to the screen."
"Oh in that case, we're ready to receive your download." Boussard said.
"Transmission begin," Shiner said as she pressed a command on her console.
"Okay, we got the diagrams, thank you. I have notified my engineering department to begin work." Boussard said.
"If there is any problems and questions, tell your engineers to call me directly and right away." Shiner said.
"Understood, Doctor. Is there still anything wrong? I feel something is troubling you. Let us say, I got a hunch." Boussard said.
"There has to be another Borg colony out there," Shiner said. "A central Nexus that links all these Borg Infiltrators. The Infiltrators alone would lack the subspace range to link to the Collective, without a new Nexus with a powerful Vinculum. If you have a Nexus, it has auxilliary bases nearby, even an Assembly Matrix that can build the Borg ships. These colony can be the source of the Infiltrators themselves. Hypothetically speaking if the Infiltrator Nexus has a shipyard of its own, hypothetically speaking it's not impossible for them to copy Alpha Quadrant vessels and use them as dispersion vehicles. Infiltration will require that the drones must have entry points where they can penetrate Federation political structure and Starfleet hierarchy."
"I don't like this one bit, Doctor." Boussard said. "This will mean we cannot trust our own Federation, our own people and maybe even our own chains of command, unless we can scan for the new nanoprobes first."
"I can see why this requires a secret organization to execute the scanning procedures," Shiner said. "In space, ships must secretly scan on other ships to determine the presence of the nanoprobes. On the ground, agents must use portable devices to secretly scan for the infiltrators, starting with levels of government and Starfleet hierarchy. The whole operation cannot be exposed to anyone."
"And if you find the infiltrators?" Boussard asked.
"Well said, we would know what to do," Shiner said.
Boussard made the gesture of a gun in the screen, cocking it and then pressing the trigger. "They may not just look like Starfleet top brass. They may not just look like your Starfleet comrades. They can look like your close friends. They may even look your relatives and love ones. Anyone becomes fair game," Boussard said. "But do you have the will to do what is necessary?"
Shiner was silent for a while.
"If the Infiltrator drone takes the form of a child, will you shoot it?" Boussard said. "If the Infiltrator is a Starfleet vessel with over a thousand crew mates, will you dare destroy it? The situation becomes more complex if the Starfleet vessel is not completely assimilated. What do you if the Vessel has a few drones, but most of the ship remains non assimilated?"
"It is not like I have not killed a drone before," Shiner said.
"Ah, Doctor, but what if it looks perfectly human? Will you kill it? Will you kill an infiltrator that looks like a Starfleet officer? Will you kill an infiltrator that looks like a loved one? Will you kill an infiltrator that looks like a child?" Boussard repeated.
"I know I should, but I honestly don't know if I were in that final situation," Shiner said.
"It is not going to be easy for you or anyone. This is not as easy as aiming your phaser on something that looks ugly. In my part, we may have to shoot against a fellow Federation vessel. The order to open fire has that same effect on you as when you press the trigger of a phaser set on kill." Boussard said.
"I admire this Captain Wells," Boussard said. "She took to do what is right, even at the expense of her vows and principles. I have been in that situation before. It would eat a little of your soul piece by piece, starting an hour of staying awake at night. You will keep thinking to yourself if you had done right. Wells had a clear goal, a clear mind and a clear set of priorities. I feel that she has her doubts once in a while, but in the end, her goal is everything to her. To do what is right above everything, regardless of what our impressions and principles are. The road ahead will be most difficult for the soul, mind you."
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