“Twilight of the Gods”
Stardate 75162.2;
March 01, 2398
Episode 77
Written by Chris
Adamek
Chapter 30
Wisps of ashen
steam swirled above Erin Keller’s mug as she seated herself at the table in
the center of the mess hall. As the hot
chocolate’s sultry aroma reached her nostrils, Erin couldn’t help but
smile—even a week after her illustrious return from the Yelss ship. “The Yelss might be a pretty advanced
species,” she said to her companions, “but they make shitty hot chocolate.”
Bator
snorted. “Somehow, I am not surprised,”
he said, indolently picking at his plate of Ktarian eggs. “The Yelss don’t strike me as the galaxy’s
culinary artists.”
Alan nodded
agreeably as he downed the last few sips of his orange juice. “Do they even eat?” he inquired a moment
later.
Erin blew a
breath of cool air upon her beverage, and then shook her head. Despite her lengthy stay aboard the Yelss
station, the amount of time she spent in the presence of the eerie quadrupeds
was nominal, at best. “Well, they don’t
eat while on duty, at least… I never
actually saw one in the mess hall.”
“They must like
to eat in private,” Neelar stated.
“Many species consider public eating to be distasteful.”
“And Bolians
are not among them,” Alan swiftly interjected.
He picked up his spoon, and playfully pointed it at the Bolian. “I remember this Bolian back at the Academy…
I think his name was Gessal, or something…
Well, he and I were assigned to the same team during the remote
wilderness training exercise—and I swear, the man had to eat every three
hours! We probably lost forty-five
minutes waiting for him to eat…”
Erin abruptly
rolled her eyes. “Oh, how terrible,”
she quipped. “I see you still managed
to pass the wilderness training course…”
Alan dug the
spoon into his bowl. “It was an epic
struggle…”
“I think I had
an uncle named Gessal,” Neelar mused to nobody in particular—and as a barrage
of memories flooded the Bolian’s mind, he set down his fork to consider
them. “I think he might have been in
Starfleet, too…”
“…But of
course, I prevailed—which is truly an indication of my incredible stature,”
Alan continued, completely oblivious to Neelar’s rambling. “I mean, overcoming such odds—”
“You had
wilderness training in the Canadian Rockies,” Erin gleefully interjected. “That’s a walk in the park, little
buddy! Try spending four nights in the
Amazon!”
“Or near the
Congo,” Bator promptly added, shoveling a forkful of runny Ktarian eggs into
his mouth. “I believe there were
mosquitoes larger than your cat in that jungle.”
Alan promptly
raised a dismissive hand. “You know, in
general, it’s not a good idea to contradict your commanding officer. If he says conditions in Canada were utterly
brutal, then—lo and behold—conditions in Canada were brutal.”
“Alan,” said
Erin softly, “I very much like Canada, and I’m quite certain that it can get a
little rough—but between you and me, it is not brutal in the middle of
May.”
It was often
very difficult to get Alan to accept defeat.
One needed not only mounds of evidence to prove him wrong, but the iron
will to cut through his ego and see the conversation to the end. And as a mercurial frown fell upon Alan’s
face, Erin could tell she had prevailed.
Or so she
thought…
“I spent the
night on Kemada IV once,” he said matter-of-factly. “That was brutal… I also
spent several nights on Alarin III. That
was brutal…”
Knowing this
discursive banter could go on all morning—or worse yet, all day—Erin very
quickly decided to end the conversation once and for all. She abruptly cast an icy glare upon Alan’s
face and then playfully jabbed him in the shoulder. “Be quiet!”
And the
blabbering abruptly came to an end.
“Yes ma’am!” Alan very promptly
dug his spoon into his dish and brought a heaping spoonful of brightly colored
cereal to his mouth—and then he froze.
For a moment,
Erin suspected the dreadful conversation would continue—but as a glint of
concern spread over Alan’s face, she knew that something else entirely was on
his mind. “What is it?”
At first, Alan
provided her with little more than a shrug.
“It looked like an explosion,” he eventually said, nodding at the
windows.
Curious, Erin
promptly brought her attention to the windows at the front of the mess
hall. She quickly scanned the twinkling
starfield and saw nothing out of the ordinary—but before she had a chance to
voice her skepticism, a sudden burst of white light pulsed in the distant
stars. The phenomenon lasted only a few
seconds, but as the light began to fade, the decking beneath Erin’s feet began
to vibrate.
She suddenly
noticed tiny ripples in her hot chocolate, and as the miniscule vibrations grew
into outright trembles, Erin’s concerned gaze promptly flitted between her companions. “I don’t know about you guys, but I have
suddenly lost my appetite.”
“Me too,” said
Alan, his voice now completely devoid of the humor it possessed only moments
ago. He placed a cautious hand on the
edge of the table for support, and then hesitantly rose to his feet. “Let’s get to the bridge.”
“What’s going
on?” Captain Christopher strolled onto the bridge just as the shockwave began
to subside, and given the tone of his voice, he was fully expecting some
answers.
But as Matthew
Harrison peered into the stars on the viewscreen, he knew the Captain would be
disappointed with his report. “Sensors
have detected a massive surge in the subspace continuum,” he reported.
Christopher
gently rested his hands on the edge mission operations console. “Cause?”
“Unknown,”
Harrison replied, gradually coming about to face his commanding officer. “Sensors have not detected anything out of
the ordinary.”
“Well,” said
Christopher lightly, “I suspect something out of the ordinary has happened…”
“The shockwave
was centered in a nondescript region of space 8.4 light years from our current
position,” Neelar Drayge reported a moment later. “If there was something there, it’s definitely gone now.”
Christopher
nodded agreeably. “It was probably gone
8.4 years ago,” he quipped.
And Harrison
had to concur. Since no object can
innately move faster than the speed of light, anything that transpired
undoubtedly occurred long before the Starlight’s arrival. “It may have been little more than a star
going nova,” he suggested. “The
celestial objects here are very old, and our sensors are not yet fully
operational…”
Christopher
stared intently at the viewscreen. He
was almost inclined to agree with Harrison—but not quite. Even though the sensors were not yet fully
operational, they still worked—and there was little doubt in his mind that they
could detect a star 8.4 light years away without much trouble. “That may be the case,” he conceded, “but
I’m not entirely convinced.”
“And with good
reason,” Erin crisply interjected as she tapped a few commands into her
console. “I’m detecting a few chroniton
particles in the explosion’s wake. That
could have been some sort of temporal incursion…”
Or worse, thought
Harrison grimly. With the Yelss
constantly lurking nearby, one could never know what might happen next. “I suggest we investigate further, simply to
be on the safe side.”
And Christopher
promptly nodded his agreement.
“Neelar,” he said, casually approaching the command chair, “set a course
for the anomaly. Warp eight.”
Harrison almost
cringed at the command. While they had
managed to successfully test the Starlight and its newly acquired warp
nacelle at speeds much greater than warp eight, never had the journey lasted
more than a couple of minutes. At warp
eight, it would take the better part of two days to reach the anomaly—and using
an ancient warp nacelle designed for a maximum speed of warp five, Harrison
found such a journey to be risky.
Still, he said nothing, knowing that the Captain would drop out of warp
at the first sign of trouble.
Lieutenant
Drayge entered a few last commands into his console and then turned to the
Captain. “Course set,” he said.
Christopher
quietly settled into his chair.
“Engage!”