"Those things are a weird shape," Glathaw Thala comments.
"It's like, um, maybe someone wanted to make a pen nib," says Kali Lillian, "and they didn't know whether they wanted a ballpoint or a fountain pen, so they compromised and went for both." She glances at me. "Um, antique human writing implements, sir."
"I have heard of the concept," I grunt. "How soon to Galactic Object 4704?"
"Nearly there, boss," says Thala in reassuring tones.
"Madagascar is slowing," says Som Bloxx. "Coming out of warp."
"Then we follow suit." On the viewscreen, flying streaks of light slow, shorten, become the steady diamond points of stars. In the centre, a strange multi-coloured glow marks the position of our anomaly. "Comms. Connect to Madagascar's scan network on scheduled frequencies. Science station, commence sensor sweeps." All according to Admiral M'eioi's requirements. Which I will meet. The Caitian seems more open-minded than many senior Starfleet officers; I will not disappoint her.
Madagascar is closing on the anomaly. Suddenly, there is a portly shape beside her, then another, and another - the Arehbes frigates, popping out of subspace folds as the mothership deploys them. I squint at my tiny tactical repeater. The frigates are moving smoothly into position.
"Deploy our own auxiliaries, boss?" asks Thala.
"No. They would only embarrass us." We reviewed the capabilities of my retrofitted F-class shuttles; they are combat-effective, but lack the specialist sensor suites that would enable them to be useful to M'eioi. Better to keep them in reserve. "Steer three six five mark four, one half impulse." I consider for a moment. "And raise shields."
Amphicyon turns away from the Madagascar. I study the glowing shape on the screen. Once, it was nothing more than blackness; now, it is a complex twisted torus, like the heart of some immense knot, outlined in lurid colours. "It is still active on a range of frequencies. Even now, days after the initial stimulus...."
"Signal from Madagascar, sir," says Som Bloxx.
"On screen."
A black-furred feline face appears. "Captain, you've raised shields. Have you detected anything harmful?" At least she does not waste time.
"A precaution only, sir," I say. "If there is another subspace rift, or an eruption of some kind from the anomaly itself, I would prefer not to be caught in the same position as the Southmoor."
M'eioi nods. "Reasonable. I'm not raising my own shields - they'd block frequencies I want to scan. But your ship doesn't have those sensors in any case, so -" Her mouth moves. After a fraction of a second, I realise it is a smile. "Stand ready to help us out, in case we go the same way as the Southmoor. M'eioi out." And the screen shows only the starfield, and the twisted glowing shape, once more.
"Telemetry feed checks out," Thala reports. "This thing is weird," he adds, with some feeling.
"I thought it always was?" I say.
"Well, yes, boss, but - this is a different kind of weird. It used to be a big black hunk of nothing, now it's... I don't know what it's doing. There are bursts of energy on a whole lot of wavebands, it's almost like some sort of signal, except there's nothing around for it to signal to. It's like it's... talking to itself." He bends down over the scanner, bringing his eyes close to the viewer. "This is going to fuel a few academic papers, depend on it."
"Thrilling," I mutter. "Scan for subspace rifts, also."
"Are you sure it's worth while, boss? There's no reason to think -"
"There was no reason to think the first rift would occur, either. Scan." Starfleet is too lenient with its officers, sometimes. A KDF exec who questioned a captain's orders - I indulge in a brief fantasy about what I could do to Thala, in such a case. Pointless. This ship does not even have an agony booth, though I am sure I could improvise something -
"What the hell?" Thala looks up from the scanner, his eyes round. "I don't know how you did that, boss, but we have a subspace disturbance all right. Range seven K, bearing three two mark seven five."
How did I do it? Sheer luck, I think. "Impulse engines stop. Take us on that heading, slow and careful, thrusters only. And inform the Madagascar." The star field begins to shift, slowly, as we come about onto the new heading. "Oh, and prepare a class II probe for launch."
"Yes, sir." Is that actual respect in my exec's tone? I shall relish it, while it lasts.
"Range diminishes even as we speak, noble captain," says Niquoeb. "What is your desired proximity to this aberrant phenomenon?"
"Go to station keeping at one thousand. Forward shields to maximum."
On the screen, the stars ripple, as though reflected in disturbed water. A wavering line of blue light shines out of nowhere - Cherenkov emissions, from the deceleration of super-lightspeed particles. The line points straight at the anomaly, which flares with sudden multi-coloured lightnings. Thala whistles through his teeth.
"Deploy probe. Target the rift."
A tunnel has opened through subspace, a tunnel vomiting exotic energies from some unknown location. The probe should be able to gather enough data to track those energies, find the origin point - and, if we can do that quickly enough, we may find the cause, this time. I cannot believe that this thing has a natural explanation.
"Probe away." Thala mops his brow. "That radiation beam is working up a whole new set of responses from the anomaly, sir. It's radiating more... signals... on a bunch of different frequencies. The first one woke it up, it looks like, and this one's - prodding it some more, I guess."
"Madagascar is hailing, sir," says Som Bloxx.
I switch the tac repeater to monitor the probe. "On screen."
M'eioi's face reappears. Her question is the same as Thala's: "How'd you know?"
"I did not, sir. I just thought it was something to watch for. Do you have any idea what this beam is - doing?"
"Besides stimulating the anomaly? No, not yet. We're getting some interesting data, though. You launched a probe -"
"Currently traversing the subspace rift. The radiation flux is on the high side, but not enough to overcome the probe's shielding - at least, not yet." I allow myself a satisfied smile as the data flashes up on the tac repeater. "I have the origin point. Sending coordinates along your data subchannel now... I will try to identify it from our stellar cartography files." I fiddle with the armrest controls, silently cursing the designers who did not equip the captain's chair with full-size command consoles. M'eioi looks at something outside my field of view. We both speak at the same time: "Rikilsa Alpha system."
"Jinx," says M'eioi with a feline smile. "That's nothing special, according to my astrophysics database. A standard B-type primary."
"But there is something there. An Orion commercial research facility. With a wide-area sensor array. And if you have a large antenna, you can send as well as receive -"
"You think that rift was deliberately generated?"
"Either something unprecedented has happened to a bright star, or someone has reconfigured a subspace sensor array. Which seems more likely, sir, in your scientific opinion?"
"Fair point," says M'eioi. "All right, what do you want to do?"
"We have the origin of the rift. It would make sense to investigate it." I am switching screens as I speak, calling up navigation data. "Amphicyon could reach the transwarp hub for this sector in four hours - two transitions would take us within range of Rikilsa, we could be there within a day. I am sure we have enough sensor capacity to investigate an Orion science station."
"I don't doubt it," says M'eioi. "All right, Captain. My auxiliaries and I will remain here, while you check out Rikilsa Alpha. Stay in touch. I'll await your results with interest."
"I will not disappoint you, sir."
"I'm sure you won't. That was quick work, Captain. Well done."
I feel obscurely pleased.
---
We crash out of subspace to find Rikilsa Alpha in a ferment. I sit back and study the data on the main screen.
"That is a lot of debris," I comment.
"Also a whole lot of Orion corvettes, boss," says Thala. "We're being hailed."
"On screen."
A female Orion face appears on the viewer, her lips compressed in an angry line, her eyes furious. "Federation vessel. State your business."
"This is Captain Surella aboard the USS Amphicyon. We were surveying an anomaly when it was targeted by a subspace rift originating in this star system. We are here to... find out how it happened, I suppose."
"Find out how it happened? I can tell you how it happened!"
I raise an eyebrow at her. "Please do."
She narrows her eyes, apparently having second thoughts about speaking. Then she takes a deep breath and says, "Someone came visiting, with a proposal for using the array to send a high-power subspace pulse. They spoke to Matron Kharoz, put this proposal to her, and she turned them down. So they killed her and her bodyguards, subverted the main computer, and sent their damn pulse anyway. It was way outside our safety margins! It blew out virtually the whole of our distributed antenna array!"
"I see." Except I do not see, not at all. "Who made this proposal? And why?"
"We don't know. The main computer memory was wiped. They slotted some sort of virus - our records are corrupted. We're reconstructing the sequence of events from witness statements and remote backups." Her glare intensifies. "We do know that they came here aboard a very highly advanced Federation ship. A temporal raider, the USS Beauregard."
I turn to Thala, snap, "Find it in our files."
"The array is wrecked," the Orion continues in furious tones, "and the Matron is dead. We want whoever did this, Captain. We want them badly. And we are not going to let the Federation get in our way."
"Got that file, boss," says Thala. "USS Beauregard, one of a number of future-tech spaceframes reclaimed in a classified incident. Says here it was requisitioned under diplomatic protocol by the Trill Symbiosis Commission, and assigned to one of their people in a private arrangement. Um, I don't think we're high enough up the Intelligence food chain to get all the details -"
"No matter." The Orion captain and I exchange glances. "Someone has friends in high places," I say. "I know I could never get myself assigned a temporal raider. And I doubt I have enough influence to make the Symbiosis Commission give up its data." I frown pensively. "Though perhaps my immediate CO might."
"We've got lines into the Trill organization," the Orion says. Of course she has. The Orions have eyes and ears everywhere.
"Perhaps we can cooperate," I say. "Can you send me data? Whatever you have on the Beauregard and its master. And whatever details you can give me on the subspace pulse. If we know what they did, we might be able to work out why they did it - and, perhaps, what they are likely to do next."
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