24 – ‘The Chandrasekhar Limit’

Star Trek: Cayuga

24 – ‘The Chandrasekhar Limit’

By Jack Elmlinger

Jeanne Pozach strode into the transporter room and she was pleased to find her officers assembled and waiting for her. Zimthar Moru, Ntannu, and Thomas Riker stood to one side of the room while Aimee Maguire had taken over Petty Officer Mbanu’s place at the transporter console. One of her hands rested firmly on Alice Polcheny’s shoulder. 

“Bring them aboard,” the Captain said with a smile. 

Maguire manipulated the controls and silvery-blue pillars appeared on four of the transporter pads. Within seconds after the materialization process, the pillar resolved into the forms of Sean Pasko, Sayvok, and two hulking, golden creatures. They twisted at the waist, their red cycloptic eyes examining the room that they were in. 

“Sean, Sayvok, welcome home,” Pozach said before she turned towards the two aliens. “Welcome aboard the Cayuga.” 

Pasko stepped off of the transporter pad. “Captain, there are the Pajahni, Gin-Sach and Gin-Sirt. We wouldn’t have been able to escape the Romulans without their help.” 

Gin-Sach stepped awkwardly forward on his back-canted legs. He extended a three-fingered hand towards Pozach. “We are pleased to make your acquaintance, Captain. We would be delighted to learn more about your Federation.” 

“If you’re not too worn out by your journey, I’d love to have a talk with you,” Moru said. Both of the Pajahni nodded towards him at the waist before they followed the physician out of the transporter room. Pozach, Riker, and Ntannu trailed out of the room after them. 

“Hey, it’s the dynamic duo,” Sean said.

Aimee’s eyes glinted at him as she released her grip on Alice. “Go get him, tigress.”

Alice moved at him in a blur of black, gray, and red, wrapping her arms around Sean and knocking him off-balance. “You’re back!,” she cried, clinging to his ribs. 

“Hey, Happy,” Aimee said, greeting Sayvok before grinning over at the joyful Alice and the increasingly embarrassed Sean. “Hail the conquering hero, eh?” 

“He is!,” Alice insisted. “He faced down the Romulans and discovered a mythical race of androids!” 

“It’s hardly the first time,” the chief engineer smirked, hoisting Sean’s bag up over her shoulder. “Why, just last year, he found a chupacabra behind the warp core.” 

Sayvok turned away from the Humans’ not wanting to intrude on their emotional reunion as much as he already had and left. Alice took a step back, allowing Sean to walk through the door. “What did I miss?,” he asked, once they were in the turbolift. 

“Well, first, we visited a planet full of sentient trees. I thought of you,” Aimee told him,” and anyways, Jeanne is now their queen. Then she helped enforce an oppressive patriarchal society of cats.” Pasko looked confused at her. “I’m not happy with her, right now.” 

The turbolift door opened and the trio exited the lift. A series of turns brought them to Sean’s quarters where Aimee kicked her load through the doorway. “Well, I’m going to recompile LCARS or something. You crazy kids have fun.” 

Sean raised his hand to wave goodbye to her but he found himself abruptly jerked inside his quarters. Alice pushed him down onto the bed, grinning while she laid on top of him, straddled to his wait. 

“So… tell me about those horrible Romulans.” 

Sean’s face darkened at her advances. “You spent a lot of time with Aimee, didn’t you?” 

“What?” 

“Get off.” Sean struggled back to his feet. He opened his bag and began to unpack. “There’s not much to tell about the mission. The Romulans got there before us and then they decided that they’d like to be alone. Gin-Sach helped us get out.” 

Alice nodded slowly and swallowed. “I’m glad that you had fun.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Bio-analogous lifeforms.” 

Doctor stood over a biobed, staring at the scan results. His reverent tone attracted Riker and Doctor Memrin to his side. 

“What does that mean?,” Riker asked him. 

“Androids are machines created to mimic organic lifeforms,” the Bolian explained to him. They were clustered around the Bolian physician, intent on the readouts. He gestured toward Gin-Sirt who was lying on the biobed. “But the Pajahni don’t just mimic the functions of an organic lifeform. They replicate the very structures of a biological body.” He pointed to different sections of the scanner readout. “This is a pump for the circulatory system. These nodes work to filter out foreign substances from the body. That…” His voice trailed off in astonishment. 

“That’s a womb,” Memrin gasped with surprise. 

“Our creators, the Yanisin, intended for us to be exact copies of their own flawless forms. Our name, ‘Pahjahni’ means ‘optimum’.” Gin-Sach stood on the opposite side of the biobed, facing Riker and Moru. “Our bodies grow, according to the design built into the most fundamental parts of our being. Re reproduce sexually as humanoids do and our offspring possess characteristics of both parents.” 

“We need to get Maguire down here,” Riker muttered between his teeth. 

“Tell us about the Yasinin, Gin-Sach,” Moru asked him. “To us, the Pahjahni are a myth but the Yasinin and the other races of the Demedra Alliance? We haven’t heard even a rumor about them.” 

“Our creators were the backbone of the Demedra Alliance as the F’Bekken were the heart, the Alzok, the mind, and the Xailing, the arm. The Alliance co-existed with the Iconian Empire. Alone, they were nothing, but together, they had the Iconians’ respect.” 

Gin-Sirt carefully placed one heavy foot on the ground and then the other foot, both of them causing a resounding thud as she rose up from the biobed. “It was never them that our creators feared.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Mister Hobbes, I’m beginning to think that you have a real flair for design.” Captain Amaara M’Roaki settled down into one of the four couches that were positioned around the forty-four image of a star. 

From his place, leaning against the orange-grid wall, Riker smirked at the science officer. “I do love how you managed to match the upholstery to the corona.” 

Pozach leaned forward on her own couch. “Let’s get started,” she said, nodding to Hobbes and T’Priss. 

“This is Tau Kahla, a red supergiant star,” the Vulcan woman said,” and it is extremely close to the end of its lifecycle.” 

“It’s about to go nova?,” asked Ntannu. 

“Better,” Hobbes grinned at them. “Tau Kahla is massive. It’s going to go supernova and it’s got enough mass in it to collapse into a black hole.” 

“Now that’s something,” said Maguire. 

Survek nodded his assent. “Starfleet has only two recordings of a star collapsing into a black hole from the starship Essex in 2254 and the starship Tsiolkovsky in 2362.” 

“Neither of those ships had the sensors that the Juneau has,” M’Roaki said with pride in her ship. 

“For the Cayuga, this is an escort mission,” Pozach told the gathered senior officers from both ships. “We go in and we watch the Juneau do their job. Then we’re on our way and it’s as simple as that.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Keitsev.”

Vasily Keitsev startled at the sound of his name, jerking his attention away from the PADD that he was reading from. Crewman Leung stood over her, scowling down at the neat stacks that covered his desk. “What?,” he asked the security officer. 

“Dinnertime. Come on.” He gestured towards the door. 

“I’ll take a PADD with me,” the prisoner said absently. “I want to get through these communiques.” 

“You can’t, possibly, be that popular.” 

“They’re from the Anurans.” Keitsev pointed to the piles in turn. “Finances, spaceport policy, foreign affairs.” She shook his head. “Lamaari Crusader ships have been detected around the fringes of their star system. There have also been overtures from an Orion investor about purchasing the space station. He made, at least, one cryptic remark during his interview that makes me wonder if he’s not an employee of the Orion Syndicate.” 

“Not all Orions are evil,” Leung said, turning towards the door. “The Captain will deal with it.” 

Keitsev frowned. “I hope so.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Brandon Hobbes stared at the holographic representation of Tau Kahla, lounging back in his chair. The Juneau’s astrophysics lab was spacious — there were a dozen officers at the various stations — and this was only one of nine dedicated science labs aboard the Galaxy class starship. 

“Stellar collapse is proceeding at a predictable pace,” T’Priss said, walking along the consoles. 

Hobbes felt a flare of jealousy over the facilities that she commanded. “Have we finished our surveys?” 

“The close spectroscopic analysis has been completed,” one of her junior officers reported to her.

“I’ve finished mapping the sunspot activity,” reported Huang.

“Excellent,” the Vulcan officer said before she tapped her combadge. “T’Priss to Bridge. We have completed our deep scans and we are prepared to move back to a safe distance.” 

“Commander, deploy your probes,” M’Roaki said over the intercom. “Mister Muriko, take us beyond the edge of the system and tell the Cayuga to follow us.” There was a pause before the Caitian woman said,” I don’t see any of those stars moving.” 

“Course set. There are no stellar objects in the way,” the Zakdorn reported. Hobbes and Huang shared a confused and worried look between them. “Matter/antimatter flow is stable. Engaging warp drive… and nothing, Captain.” 

“Bridge to Engineering!” 

T’Priss turned towards her technicians. “How long until the stellar core collapses?” 

There was a flurry of hands moving over consoles. “It’s impossible to say for certain,” one of the science officers answered her,” but I would have to say in no less than thirty hours.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Every bulkhead and every floor panel in Engineering had been pulled up and piled out of the way. The darkened warp core brooded over the frenzied activities of the engineers. 

“Try it again!,” Maguire shouted from down deep inside the warp core pit. 

Suspended from the side of the core, her assistant chief engineer, Zehna Nako reset the matter flow regulator. “Ready!,” his voice floated back up to her. 

“Ready!” 

“On my mark.” Maguire grit her teeth and crossed her fingers. “Mark!” 

Simultaneously, Zehna and Abdelazekk relaxed the magnetic constrictors, allowing minute amounts of matter and antimatter to race into the middle of the warp core, smashing against the dilithium chamber. For an instant, the warp core thrummed to life before it fell silent again. 

Maguire blew out a sigh of relief. “Maguire to Port Nacelle Control.” 

“Connelly here. We never got power to the nacelle.” 

“Starboard Control?” 

“The computer registered the command to engage the warp coils, but the power to do so did not arrive here,” Sayvok answered her and she bit her lip, restraining from uttering a howl of anger. 

“Would it help if I got out and pushed?” 

Maguire turned to see Pasko and Captain Pozach picking their way across the floor. “Report,” the captain said, her eyes moving over the dormant warp core.

“We’ve ruled out any damage to the warp core.” 

“A flaw in computer control? Maybe it’s something that Stavek left behind for us?” 

“No.” Maguire shook her head “We can produce power. It just — disappears.” 

“That’s impossible,” Pasko said. 

“Then imagine my surprise when power leaves the core and doesn’t go to the nacelles.” 

“Could we be,” — Pozach frowned, searching for the correct work — ,” leaking?” 

“We would be dead before we realized that anything was wrong.” She began to tug at her braid in frustration. “Fenzel found the same thing wrong with the Juneau. My next move is to rip apart the power transfer system, section by section.” 

“How long will that take?” 

“Almost a day.” 

“We don’t have much time.” 

“I can’t do this any faster, Jeanne,” Maguire snapped at her. “I’m disassembling systems that were either designed by some master genius. Or weren’t meant to be opened outside of a shipyard.” 

“Hurry,” the captain said, turning on her heel. 

“Because I’ve been dawdling along so far” Maguire sneered at Pozach’s backside as she walked out of Engineering before she shoved her braid over her shoulder. “Maguire to all engineers. Come on home. We’ve got some work to do.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“We’re running away from Tau Kahla at full impulse,” Lieutenant Pasko said, resting his elbows on the Situation Room table. “It should buy us another two or three minutes once the star goes nova.” 

Around the table, the senior officers fidgeted in their seats and at the aft edge of the window, Commander Riker could see the luminous dot of Tau Kahla. 

“Lieutenant Commander Maguire and her engineering teams are working on getting our warp core back on-line but it isn’t looking good.” Pozach drummed her fingers on the table in front of her. “We need to prepare for the eventuality that we’ll have to abandon ship.” 

Breaking the uncomfortable silence, Ntannu said,” We have the escape pods along with the Garibaldi and the Ivanova. How long will it take us to tow all of our pods outside the radius of the blast zone?” 

“That depends on the numbers of escape pods and auxiliary craft that the Juneau carries.” Pozach’s voice rose at the end of her sentence and her eyes directed the question to Riker who moved away from the window.

“How the hell should I know?” 

Pozach blinked at his reaction and Pasko spoke up, slowly, watching the First Officer as well. “They should have the runabout and a dozen or so of Type-Six and Type-Nine shuttlecrafts.” 

“If it helps at all, I’m getting spectacular data,” Hobbes said, but no one cared. 

“My orders for all departments are to pack up everything possible and to prepare to abandon ship,” the Captain said, rising up from her seat. “We have eighteen hours.” 

Riker was the first one to the turbolift. “Sickbay,” he snapped at the computer. 

He stepped onto Deck Five, smiling to himself as Crewman Leung flattened against the bulkhead to get out of his way. The doors to Sickbay whooshed open for him and the nurses looked up in surprise at his sudden presence.

“Can I help you, Commander?,” Nurse Taylor asked him from the nurse’s station.

“Ensign Collier asked me to remind her about her meeting at fifteen hundred hours.” 

“Thank you, Commander,” Collier said, standing up from her seat beside Taylor. “I’d nearly forgotten.” She kept the grin off of her face until the couple were in the turbolift together. “I don’t have any meetings,” she murmured teasingly. 

Riker’s tone was exasperating. “We’ve faced with a somewhat unique situation.” 

“Is there trouble?,” she asked him as he pulled her out of the lift. They paused in front of the door to his quarters and he keyed open the door with his thumbprint, pushing her ahead of him. 

“Yeah, we’re all going to die.” Spinning her around on her feet, he flicked her combadge across the room. “Or we’re not, but we’ll be stuck inside of escape pods for a month.” He tugged down the zippers of her duty jacket and the blue shirt underneath it in two swift jerks of his hand. 

“Oh.” Roslyn felt a wicked grin slip over her lips. She angled her shoulders back, shedding her pants. “Well, bed or floor?” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Amaara M’Roaki sat facing the window with a glass of amber liquid loose in her paw. Her eyes were locked onto the coin-sized star in the distance while she waited for it to blink. 

The door chimes rang and she set her glass down onto her desktop with a scowl. “Enter.” 

Jeanne Pozach stepped inside, squinting in the darkness. 

“Captain Pozach,” she said, gesturing towards the windows,” are you here for a viewing?” She nodded and sat down across from her desk. “Can I get you a drink?” 

“Caitian firewater, please.” M’Roaki tapped the replicator which produced a crystal sifter for her. 

“Command is a series of hard decisions,” her fellow woman said,” and what’s best isn’t always necessarily what’s right.” 

M’Roaki handed her the sifter. “What’s eating you?” 

“The Kzinti-prrt.” 

“It’s unconscionable that a culture advanced enought to achieve space flight would trade in sexual slavery,” she said, taking a sip of her drink. “We faced aspects of it with the Ferasans.” 

“I don’t blame the Kzinti for their culture.” Pozach thought for a moment. “Well, I suppose I do, but I don’t blame them for the situations that they put me in. Or the choice that I had to make.” 

“Returning the Kzinti-prrt?” 

“It was both right and wrong,” she said, staring at the reddish liquid. “Right, in the fact, that we can’t interfere with the Kzinti culture. Wrong, because it trampled on her personal rights. And they would have killed all of us but that seemed to be beside the point at the time.” 

“The almighty Prime Directive.” M’Roaki raised her glass up. “It’s messier than they made it out to be at the Academy.” 

“I remember hearing examples about having to participate in bizarre rituals or staying hidden from young cultures. They never said that it would be repugnant.” 

“Years ago,” M’Roaki began and then stopped to take and blow out a breath,” I was a science officer before I entered the command track. We were doing cultural observation of a society on some backwater world. You should have seen the job that the CMO had to do to hide my… feline features.” 

She smiled, showing off her large canines. 

“Anyways, the duck blind that we had set up overlooked this rock that they used for religious ceremonies. I was watching one of their rituals, one day, and I didn’t realize until they were half-way through it, that it was a virgin sacrifice.” 

She took a drink. “I got busted back down to Ensign for trying to stop it.” 

“Is non-interference worth it? We have so much in the Federation and with even the slightest effort, we would raise the quality of life on hundreds of worlds.” 

“Cultural independence over individual rights?” She took another sip of her drink. “Ni, I don’t like it, either,” she continued, pulling at her ear,” but consider this. In the twentieth century, Earth was… well, you guys were a mess. Conflicts over religious doctrine. Wars over resources. It wasn’t until the rise of Khan Noonian Singh that the existing social structures were annihilated and you Humans were able to build truly equal societies.” 

Pozach took a meditative sip of her own drink. It made her feel warm inside. “Yes, but did that result make something like the nuclear destruction of Teheran okay?” 

“Not even slightly.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Do you need help?” 

Alice stood in the doorway to Sean’s quarters, glancing around the room. His quarters were usually Spartan but now even the small things that he deigned to decorate with — his medals and his crucifix — had been stripped off of the walls and packed away into a standard-issue duffle bag. He glanced up from folding his uniforms. 

“I’m almost done.” 

Nodding, Alice stepped inside, letting the door slide shut behind her. “Are you mad at me?” 

“What would I have to be mad at you about?,” he asked her, placing a uniform into his bag. 

Alice caught the edge of of his bag and tipped it over, spilling its contents onto the floor. “Please don’t put me off,” she said. “You’re angry. Mad. Pissed! You don’t have to pretend that you’re fine when you’re really not. Talk to me.” 

Sean resisted the urge to pick up the fallen items. “You wouldn’t understand.” 

“Try me.” 

“Flying has always been a joy for me. A gift.” He stalked across the room, turning back towards her before he hit the wall. “What’s all of my flying been amounted to? I dodn’t join Starfleet to fight, Alice, but that’s all that I do. And you? I know you don’t understand because you’re satisfied with your job. You’re satisfied because you pervert flying with combat.” 

Alice sat down on the chair in front of his desk. “That’s not fair,” she told him,” but you’re angry so I’ll forgive you.” Sean grunted at her, searching the bathroom for some deodorant. “So, are you mad at me for enjoying something you’ve spoiled for yourself? Or are you mad at yourself for spoiling it in the first place?” 

Anger and irritation were mixed on his face. Polcheny stood up and walked over to him, standing on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips. “Work yourself out,” she whispered,” then come back to me.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Keitsev dropped the welding glasses from his eyes.

“That should do it,” he said, stepping out of the escape pod. Skt had planted itself, a few feet down the hall and it was watching him as he wiped soil off of his boots and his knees. “When you hear Captain Pozach call for evacuation, you head for this escape pod. Hit this panel,” — he tapped it, triggering the newly-installed array of lights — ,” and you’ll be set until we’re able to pick you up.” 

“Where is your escape pod, Vasily Keitsev?”

“Near my quarters on Deck Seven.” 

Skt rustled its branches, its eyestalks peering at both Keitsev and the escape pod. “You are different from the others aboard this ship. You are not treated like you are one of the Grove.” 

Keitsev frowned. “I did something that they didn’t like. Something that they thought was wrong.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Okay. What if…” He thought for a moment. “What if the Glorious made a decision that hurt only a few of you?”

Skt’s roots shifted against the deck’s carpet. “It is unlikely. The Glorious chooses what is best for all.” 

Keitsev closed the escape pod’s hatch. “Now, see, I don’t believe that. If the Glorious always picks what’s best for you, then why did you stow away for a chance to talk to Captain Pozach?” He turned back towards Skt. “When the government is wrong, the people must take individual action.” 

“We accepted the Glorious as our ruler because we hoped that she would teach us new ways of living.” Skt’s branches shuddered as if the tree-creature was shrugging. “Perhaps this is one of the first.” 

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The bulkheads on Decks Five through Nine included three feet of special buffering to protect the crew from radiation, subspace distortion, and other nastiness that the warp nacelles generated. The buffers were complicated to disassemble with its forty-seven layers. Some of them were irradiated and some of them were paper-thin. In a shipyard that was equipped with the proper tools and an entire refit team, disassembling the buffers would usually take half a day. 

Maguire cut through them in under ten minutes. 

“We’re going to have to evacuate this deck when we go to warp,” Zehna said, accepting the plasma torch from her. 

“And the adjacent decks, to be safe,” she answered the Bajoran, crawling into the narrow tunnel of pipes and conduits that she had exposed. The tunnel stretched off to the left, running down the entire length of the port nacelle. She scurried over to the angular box where she knew that power flowed into the nacelle. “Pry the covering off.” 

Sayvok and Zehrna worked the fasteners, loosening the panel and setting it aside. Underneath it lay the thick piping of the electro-plasma system. Maguire frowned, fingering a golden object which was blatantly foreign and tapped into the power system. Trading a look with Zehna, she plucked the object off of the conduit. 

Instantly, the device ripped away from her fingers. It dripped out of her palm and evaporated before it touched the floor. 

Maguire struck her combadge. “Connelly! Run a test pulse through the port nacelle!” 

An electric trill sound ran through the tunnel and from the depths of the nacelle, a brilliant blue obliterated the darkness. “Commander! The port nacelle is reading green across the board, accepting power all along the line!” Maguire frantically shooed the other engineer back inside. 

She set down the corridor at a dead run, heading for the starboard nacelle. “Maguire to Pozach!”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Pozach turned away from the Garibaldi. “Go ahead.” 

“We’ve got it! I need,” — Maguire paused, panting — ,”ten minutes to get this thing out of the other nacelle!”

Pushing out of the pilot’s chair, Pasko said,” We might just beat the stellar eruption.” 

“Bridge, Now,” Pozach said. They raced for the turbolift, relishing the press of its acceleration as it ascended. 

“I’m putting a tractor beam on the Juneau,” the captain said as she stepped behind the ops console. “All shuttles and escape pods are out of the blast radius.” 

“She works fast,” Pasko commented. “The mains are back on-line. So is the warp drive.” 

“Look.” Pozach was pointing towards the viewscreen. The dot of Tau Kahla expanded and then exploded in a flash. “I can’t think of a better send-off.” The stars elongated and the Cayuga jumped away to warp space.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Aimee Maguire lay spread-eagle on the deck in Engineering, grinning dopily at the warp core. She could feel its power surging through the ship. “I’m glad that you’re still here,” she murmured. 

“Lieutenant Commander.” 

She jumped at Tom Riker’s voice, scrambling to her feet. 

“Commander,” she said,” what can I — “

“Have you finished checking for more of those devices?” 

“The warp drive is clean.” 

Riker wasn’t impressed. “Did you check the weapons and defensive systems?” 

“Yes.” 

“Life-support?”

“First thing,” the chief engineer snapped back at him, her eyes thinning into slits. 

Riker began to circle her. “And have you figured out how those things were placed inside compartments that we don’t have doors on?” 

She turned to face him. “I’ve got a theory — “

“Theory isn’t going to keep this from happening again.” Riker leaned down into her face. “Get some evidence. Get some facts. And stay the hell off of the damned floor.” 

The End…