But where had it come from?

And what had all the preliminary fireworks been about?

Under cover of the chaos created by the energy ribbon and the destruction of the Lakul and the Robert Fox, it was comparatively easy for Scotty to bring the G.o.ddard within transporter range of the Enterprise-B without being noticed-or at least without being challenged.

The hard part, as he had known from the start it would be, was the timing.

Beam Kirk out a few seconds too early, and he would not have had time to make the necessary alterations to the deflector generators. The simulated photon torpedo would then not be produced, and the Enterprise-B itself would be destroyed, gobbled up by the energy ribbon.

And Scotty himself-the earlier Scotty, on the Enterprise-B- would be killed. The Grandfather Paradox, in spades.

A few seconds too late, and the Enterprise-B would be saved but its one-time captain would himself be swallowed up by the energy ribbon. And Scotty would have failed a second time to save the captain.

Tapping into the intra-ship communications, Scotty waited, his face grim, his stomach churning as he tried to blot out the tortured mental image of the hundreds he had once again let die on the other two ships.

Each second ticked by like a minute as he waited, listening.

Finally, they came, the words etched forever in his memory. First, Demora Sulu's urgent warning from the bridge: "Forty-five seconds to structural collapse!"

Then silence as he began counting down the seconds until he would again hear Jim Kirk's voice shouting the words that, the first time he'd heard them, had been Kirk's last.

This time, he vowed, they would be the words that would save him.

Everywhere on the EnterpriseD it had been the same. The energy field, whatever it was, had invaded every cabin, every corridor, struck every crew member no matter where he or she was. Luckily there seemed to have been no lasting effects from the energy itself, and the spasms and falls it had caused had resulted in less than a dozen easily treated injuries, from bruises and sprained fingers to one broken arm. Data, the only one to have been rendered unconscious, was the last to fully recover, but his built-in diagnostic and repair routines brought him back to full functionality in a matter of minutes.

Having no idea whether the deadly devices were limited to the Arhennius system or were scattered everywhere in this timeline, Picard brought the Enterprise to a stop after a few billion kilometers. Within minutes La Forge, up from engineering and working at the science station, quickly rigged an alarm system that would automatically engage the warp drive at the first sign that another of the inexplicable energy fields was invading any part of the ship.

At the same time, Data completed a sensor scan of the entire system, which showed only their own warp trail and the aftermath of the photon torpedo's detonation. There was no indication, he announced, of any more of the devices.

"Why doesn't that make me feel secure?" Riker asked sarcastically. "As I recall, there weren't all that many indications of the one that almost blew us up."

"If feelings of security are your goal, Commander," Data remarked, "you have chosen a singularly inappropriate profession."

"Gentlemen," Picard began, but he was cut off by La Forge, who had just begun skimming through the sensor records of their encounter with the device.

"Captain, there's something here you should see," the engineering officer said, tapping one of the science station controls. "You, too, Data."

Abruptly, the starfield disappeared from the viewscreen, replaced by an enhanced image of the jagged oval of the energy field as it had looked only moments before its final convulsions prior to vanishing and being replaced by the photon torpedo. A stream of figures raced across the bottom of the screen.

"I think I know what that energy display was all about," La Forge said after he'd let the others study the image for a moment. "You remember last year when we gave that stranded Romulan ship a hand, and Ensign Ro and I thought we'd been turned into ghosts but actually- "

"Their interphase experiments," Picard said, suddenly remembering.

"Exactly, sir. The Klingons and the Romulans both experimented with cloaking devices incorporating interphase generators. They hoped to not just cloak their ships but to shift them to a different spatial plane. That way they could not only become invisible but could travel through other matter like a ghost." He shuddered briefly at the memory of when he and Ensign Ro, as a result of an accident involving one of the Romulan experiments, had themselves been partially shifted into another plane. They had wandered the corridors of the Enterprise like technological ghosts, desperately searching for a way to communicate with the "real" world.

"But they both abandoned it," La Forge went on, "apparently because it was too dangerous. Well, in this timeline someone-the Klingons, from the look of that thing that was carrying the torpedo-must not have abandoned it."

Picard looked doubtful. "You're saying that that ma.s.sive energy display before the device appeared was all part of the decloaking process?"

The engineer nodded. "That's one reason the process is so dangerous. At least the process this bunch uses. Whatever plane they displace these torpedoes to, it must exist at a much higher energy level than ours-also much higher than the one the Romulans were using. Ro and I would've been fried if they'd been using this one. Anyway, when they open a portal to send something through in either direction, some of that energy is forced through to our plane. It's like trying to move between the pressurized interior of a ship and the vacuum of s.p.a.ce without using an airlock. If you open a door, the pressure is going to drive some of the air through the open door while you're going through. Only here it's pure energy, not air. They could never cloak an actual ship, with people in it, without ma.s.sive amounts of protection to keep them from being incinerated whenever the ship transferred from one plane to the other. But for photon torpedoes..."

He shrugged. "They're kind of hard to destroy, but even so the sensor records show that there was a protective shield around the one that nearly got us, a shield even more powerful than the Enterprise's."

"It's no wonder this technology was abandoned in our timeline," Picard said. "But now that you know what you're looking for, can you devise a way to detect them, the way we can detect ships using standard cloaking? Or at least to warn us before another one starts to 'decloak' inside the Enterprise-which I am a.s.suming is what this one was trying to do?"

The chief engineer shook his head. "Not here, and not without at least one interphase generator to work with. We're going to have to make do with the alarm system and a fast getaway."

Ten.

SAREK OF Vulcan, Supreme Arbiter of the Alliance, looked up from the viewscreen in his uncomfortably luxurious shipboard quarters as the harsh yet deferential tones of the Wisdom's commander, a Romulan named Varkan, erupted from the intercom.

"My apologies for disturbing you, Arbiter, but Deputy Koval insists he must speak with you."

"Put him through, Commander," Sarek ordered, controlling his annoyance at the obsequious commander's misguided protectiveness.

Turning back to the viewscreen, he watched as the flashing, crackling maelstrom that was the Vortex vanished and was replaced by Koval's granite-like features set against the background of his spartan office on Alliance Prime. The image flickered briefly, then took on a slight reddish tint, a sign that the Deputy Arbiter had initiated the ultra-secure link that was made possible by the special equipment that was always installed on any ship the Arbiter traveled on. Attempts to tap into the signal would now yield only static, even on the bridge of the Wisdom itself, where the tightbeam subs.p.a.ce signals were received and relayed to Sarek's quarters.

"What is it, Deputy?"

"Your suspicions appear to have been justified, sir. We have just learned that three of the Carda.s.sian members of the Council have held at least one clandestine meeting only hours after your departure. Unfortunately, we do not as yet have any indication as to what was discussed."

"And Zarcot?"

"There is still no evidence that he has returned to Alliance Prime."

"But no evidence to the contrary, either, I imagine?"

"None as yet, sir. Nor is there any clear evidence of unusual activity within the Carda.s.sian contingent of the Alliance fleet."

Sarek was silent a moment, considering. In the year since Zarcot had stormed out of the Council, the Carda.s.sian had gained far more influence than he had ever exercised as a member. Unfettered by Council rules and traditions, he had also been provoking more confrontations than ever before, all seemingly designed to undermine Sarek's authority. In his latest efforts, Zarcot had convinced the gullible and thoroughly illogical majority of Council members that "no one could possibly claim to be a true leader of the Alliance without personally observing the object that could well prove even more dangerous than the Borg."

Zarcot himself had "set an example" and traveled to the Vortex to make just such a "personal observation" several weeks ago and had sent back reports filled with dire but totally unfounded warnings that "worlds would likely be destroyed by the Vortex long before the Borg made their next move." He was supposedly on his way back to Alliance Prime with more information and the beginnings of a plan he wanted to present to the Council, but no one knew for certain where he was. As he had on the journey out, he was maintaining radio silence, supposedly for security reasons but actually, Sarek was almost certain, in order to enhance the drama of his so-called mission.

And perhaps to allow him to make a sidetrip to meet secretly with other Carda.s.sians.

In any event, the need for "personal observation" by Zarcot or by Sarek or any other official was of course utter nonsense, as all Vulcans knew. Unfortunately, the vast majority within the Alliance and on the Council were not Vulcans and were therefore all too often ruled not by logic but by that most destructive and most easily manipulated force in all of nature: emotion.

And Zarcot, obviously, was a master manipulator.

Logically, everyone knew that the scientists who had been tracking and observing the Vortex ever since it first entered Alliance s.p.a.ce decades ago were far more qualified observers than any politician or soldier. Unfortunately, Zarcot could claim-with only slight exaggeration-that in those decades the scientists had learned essentially nothing beyond the blindingly obvious: The Vortex destroyed or absorbed anything and everything in its path without being slowed, diverted or weakened to any observable degree. Nor did weapons have any effect, neither the phasers and photon torpedoes of Alliance cruisers like the Wisdom nor the disruptors favored by Klingons and Carda.s.sians.

Even so, Alliance scientists from a dozen worlds a.s.sured Sarek that the Vortex was a distraction and nothing more. Unlike the Borg, it was a natural phenomenon and posed no danger to any Alliance worlds-unless, of course, it departed radically from its projected trajectory, something it had shown no inclination whatsoever to do. The most effective way to "deal" with it, therefore, was simply to study it from a safe distance and stay out of its path, which was precisely what the scientists had been doing and continued to do. A half dozen automated probes constantly monitored the Vortex and transmitted all data to Alliance Outpost No. 3 for a.n.a.lysis and storage, and its projected path was recalculated continually. Other than minuscule refinements, there had been no changes to that predicted path since the observations had begun.

But those who opposed Sarek and l.u.s.ted for his t.i.tle-particularly Zarcot and the other Carda.s.sians, whose worlds likely wouldn't be threatened by the real menace, the Borg, for millennia-would have none of it. Logic be d.a.m.ned, the leader of the Alliance had to demonstrate his concern over this spectacular but easily avoidable danger.

And so he was here, pa.r.s.ecs from Alliance Prime and Vulcan, wasting precious time while the Wisdom cautiously eased its way closer to the Vortex and he learned absolutely nothing other than the utter futility of urging non-Vulcans to act logically.

And wondering how much longer the Alliance could be held together, with or without Sarek himself as Supreme Arbiter.

In truth, he was amazed that it had held together as long as it had. The sole reason for its existence was the presence in its midst of the Borg. There had been no choice but to unite against a common enemy so powerful it could destroy any individual world with no more effort than it would take to swat a fly.

Even the threat of total annihilation at the hands of the Borg, however, had not been enough to eliminate opportunism and backstabbing and a hundred other thoroughly illogical behaviors, particularly among the Klingons and Carda.s.sians and even now and then the Romulans.

Part of the problem was the extremely deliberate pace at which the Borg moved. They would take decades to complete their a.s.similation of a world before moving on to the next. This took away from the sense of urgency that was essential to keep Alliance members from each other's throats as they competed for short-term advantages that would prove utterly meaningless in the long run if the Borg were not stopped.

The Klingons, for example, had kept their success with interphase cloaking a closely guarded secret for decades, using the technology only to "protect"- i.e., to surround with interphase-cloaked s.p.a.ce mines-Klingon-claimed worlds whose resources they also refused to share. As a result, a golden opportunity to destroy the embryonic Borg fleet in its cradle, the Terran system, had been lost. And by the time the rest of the Alliance developed the technology, the Borg fleet was no longer embryonic, nor was it even accessible. Dozens of cubes watched over each of the worlds that had since been a.s.similated, and an unknown number were hidden behind the sensor-opaque shield they had erected around the entire Terran system, enclosing even its Oort cloud of comet nuclei. Behind it, Terra and every other body in the system almost certainly continued to be strip-mined for the raw materials needed to construct more Borg cubes.

And every few decades, the shield would vanish, just long enough for a new fleet of those cubes to emerge and head for another nearby world. Vulcan, if the pattern of the last two centuries continued, would be next.

Vulcan's only hope-the Alliance's only hope-was that, before it was too late, they could build and deploy a sufficient number of interphase-cloaked photon torpedoes to carry out a belated and much more difficult version of the plan that the Klingons had thwarted originally by their illogical refusal to share their cloaking technology.

And the Alliance fleet would have only one chance.

If any Borg ships escaped the attack, they would soon return.

And they would be immune to the cloaked torpedoes.

That was how the Borg operated. The Alliance had learned this early on when they had made the mistake of "testing" a new weapon on a lone Borg cube pa.r.s.ecs away from the others. The test had been successful, the cube destroyed, but the next time the fleet attacked an even more isolated cube, the weapon had no effect. That cube-and presumably all the others-had somehow adapted and were no longer vulnerable. The attacking ships were of course destroyed.

So, now, all the Alliance could do was continue to build as many photon torpedoes and as many cloaking devices as possible.

And hope.

And all Sarek could do was try his best to retain control and prevent ambitious and myopic fools like Zarcot from fragmenting the Alliance and throwing away the one small hope they all had for long term survival outside a Borg Collective.

"Very well, Deputy Koval," he said at last, "keep me informed and keep trying to locate Zarcot. I will cut this so-called mission as short as I can. In the meantime, if any Carda.s.sian ships approach Alliance Prime, keep them in high orbit, out of transporter range. And if Zarcot reappears, a.s.sign him a bodyguard detail. For his own protection, of course. Do the same for the Carda.s.sian members of the Council."

Signing off, Sarek deactivated the ultra-secure link and allowed the chaos of the Vortex to re-form on the screen.

It took Picard and the others-with the notable exception of Guinan, who had not reappeared since she had retreated from the bridge-only a few minutes to reach a decision: Set a course for Earth.

First, that was where, in 2293, Starfleet Headquarters had been located for decades. If anything was left of Starfleet, with or without subs.p.a.ce radio, it would be there.

Second, records showed that Kirk's death had occurred less than a pa.r.s.ec from Earth. That was where he had encountered the energy ribbon that had killed him and very nearly destroyed the Enterprise-B.

If Scott was going to show up anywhere in this timeline, it would be there.

After what seemed like an eternity, the words Scotty had been waiting for came. "That's it!" Kirk shouted to Demora Sulu on the bridge of the Enterprise-B. "Go!"

Scotty instantly activated the G.o.ddard's transporter, which was already locked onto Kirk's coordinates. In the split seconds he had to operate, he would not have had time to achieve a lock as well as perform the actual transport.

Kirk's dematerialization was barely completed when a klaxon-like alarm, deafening in the confines of the shuttlecraft, a.s.saulted Scotty's ears.

Heart suddenly pounding even more violently, he tore his eyes from the shimmering energies that were forming above the transporter pad and looked down at the control panel-and saw a red light flashing in time to the alarm.

Radiation! The intense, wildly fluctuating gravimetric radiation generated by the energy ribbon must have- But it wasn't gravimetric!

The gravimetric radiation was high and fluctuating wildly, but that wasn't what had triggered the alarms.

It was a sudden surge of chronometric radiation.

Chronometric!

And it was dozens of times higher than even in the first moments after he and the Bounty 2 had emerged from the slingshot trajectory that had deposited them in this era!

Belatedly, his eyes darted up to the forward viewscreen. Only moments before, it had been filled with the Enterprise as the ship began to pull away from the coruscating s.p.a.ceborne tornado that was the energy ribbon.

Now there was only the ribbon, itself receding.

The Enterprise was gone!

Impossible! The ribbon couldn't have swallowed it up!

It hadn't!

And yet the Enterprise was gone!

But there was something else out there, the sensors indicated. Two somethings, and they were huge, hundreds of times the size of the Enterprise!

Hastily, Scotty redirected the scanners, and the other objects appeared on the viewscreen.

They weren't where the Enterprise had been, but a hundred eighty degrees around, apparently trailing the energy ribbon from a safe distance.

He recognized the behemoths instantly from the images in the G.o.ddard's briefing program, and they were virtually the last thing he had expected-or wanted-to see.

Borg cubes.

What had he done that could possibly have resulted in this?

A hand on his shoulder almost sent his heart into his mouth. Turning, he found himself facing a smudge-faced and very puzzled looking Jim Kirk.

Commander Varkan's image had just appeared on Sarek's viewscreen when the world seemed to go mad around him, setting his heart to pounding. The Romulan commander's image blurred almost into anonymity and the lushly carpeted floor undulated beneath Sarek's booted feet. For just an instant, the entire Wisdom seemed to vanish, leaving him floating helplessly in the darkness of empty s.p.a.ce, surrounded only by thousands of pinp.r.i.c.ks of starlight.

But almost before the images of the stars could register in his mind, they were gone, leaving him to wonder if it had all been illusion. Logically, it had to have been.

He was obviously still surrounded by the thankfully solid walls of- Of what?

A jolt of pure terror shot through him, turning his muscles to rubber as he realized he didn't recognize anything around him, not the face peering at him from the meter-wide viewscreen, not the holo-portraits on the walls, not anything!

Where was he?

How had he gotten here?