Chapter Text
Li-Paz knelt on one of the empty pads on the landing platform, aiming his tricorder at the ground and frowning. Beside him, Nakahn and Zahir waited, alongside Kes and Gara. Stadi had sent the others to spread out among the Outpost, asking them to do the same thing Li-Paz was doing—looking for signs of…
What? Impending disaster? Sabotage?
Darklings?
Captain Cavit and Doctor Fitzgerald strode up, and she turned, sensing them before seeing them. Both wore civilian clothes, but their stride was all-business.
“Captain,” she said, once he was within earshot.
“Have you found anything?” Cavit said.
“Paz?” Stadi glanced at Li-Paz, and the Bajoran man rose, frowning.
“I’m not sure, Captain.” He raised his tricorder.
“Not sure?” Cavit said.
“The Mikhal use a fairly standard forced ion power network,” Li-Paz said.
“That’s right,” Nakhan said. “It’s the system technology we use in our ship impulse drives.” He frowned, his overbright blue eyes flicking from Cavit to Stadi and back to Li-Paz. “There’s nothing on any of our terminals to say there’s a problem.”
“But you’re not sure,” Cavit said.
Li-Paz handed him the tricorder. “It’s well within tolerance, but it’s running just a little hot. I wouldn’t have given it a second glance, even if I’d seen something this small on a diagnostic on Voyager, but…” He lifted one shoulder. “It’s the only thing, and I can’t quite narrow down a cause.”
White Cavit looked at the readings, Stadi cleared her mind and allowed herself to drift into Nakhan’s thoughts—he was worried, but it didn’t come from a sense of malice, and he was genuinely worried about this potential threat to the outpost where his lodge operated—and then into Zahir’s.
He, too, was worried, and again she didn’t get any sense of guilt from him. His thoughts were aimed mostly toward Gara, and how he hoped everything would not only turn out to be fine, but that she wasn’t going to ascribe her desire to be away with him to the same feelings that had come over the other Ocampa.
“You’re right, there’s no cause,” Cavit said. He paused, then tapped his communicator. “Cavit to Voyager.”
“Rollins here. Having a nice time, Captain?”
“Actually, Scott, there’s a potential problem planetside,” Cavit said. “I need you to scan the Outpost’s entire ion power system for problems. Just in case.” He faced Stadi, and she felt his confidence in her.
Which was more than she felt. Stadi took a short breath, wondering if she was going to end up having raised the alarm and interrupted everyone’s shore leave for nothing. The rest of the Ocampa had spread out to scan other parts of the power system and they’d come up with nothing, until Li-Paz’s slight temperature spike.
Stadi’s hands itched for a conn panel. She wanted to leave the planet, too, and this time, she didn’t think it had anything to do with a telepathic incident. She wanted to be back in a place of surety. Stadi at the helm was Stadi in control.
Stadi chasing darklings, on the other hand…
“Captain,” Rollins’s voice over the comm didn’t have immediate alarm in it, which was good, but it did have a note of curiosity. “Lan says she’s picked up something of note.”
“Ensign?” Cavit said.
“The temperature isn’t a problem,” Sahreen Lan’s voice over the channel also didn’t have much in the way of alarm, which made Stadi relax another fraction. Maybe, even if this was some sort of problem, they’d be so far ahead of it it would border on routine. “It looks to me to be a symptom. There’s a resonance shift occurring, at one point in the power distribution network, and it’s slowly affecting the rest of the system. Alex is trying to determine exactly where it started, and once he does, we can—”
“Captain!” Honigsberg’s voice cut into the communication. “I hope I’m wrong, but that resonance shift? It looks like a stepping stone on the way to becoming a polaric ion.”
Stadi’s hope for anything routine vanished, ice racing up her spine.
“What’s a polaric ion?” Zahir said, shaking his head. He didn’t know the term, or the technology.
“An extremely unstable power source… Captain, would this power system handle a polaric power flow?” Stadi said. She knew Captain Cavit had been an Ops officer in his past, and specifically worked with power systems as an engineer.
He shook his head. “Not for very long.” He turned to Nakhan. “Nakhan, Zahir. Does this Outpost have an evacuation plan?”
Nakhan’s eyes widened. “You want us to evacuate?”
“Polaric energy is extremely unstable—if your power system tips over into a polaric state, even a slight subspace instability forming would vaporize every living thing on the surface of this planet.”
Nakhan stood there, frozen. Stadi felt the disbelief—willful disbelief, fuelled by fear—settling in, and glanced at Zahir, who met her gaze and nodded.
“I’ll get it started,” Zahir said. “I’ll sound the alarm, and send the notice.”
“I’ll come with you,” Gara said.
“Alex,” Cavit said, raising his chin. “How do we stop this resonance from tipping over?”
“We’d need to find the source of the issue in the first place,” Honigsberg’s voice said. “It’s barely begun though, Captain. I’m not going to be able to detect something that specific from up here until it’s too late.”
“I’ll try mapping the temperature changes,” Lan said. “That could give us a clue.”
“Captain,” Stadi said, stepping forward. “We have dozens of crew on the planet, and standard procedure…”
He was already nodding. He tapped his combadge. “Cavit to all crew. If you’re on the planet, grab your tricorders and head to the nearest node of the local power grid. Ops is going to send down a scan profile, and what you’re looking for. We need to find the source of a change in the Outpost’s power distribution network that could be catastrophic, before it’s catastrophic.”
An alarm sounded, followed by an voice announcing that all ships should prepare to leave the landing pads, in a timely and orderly fashion. Around them, foot traffic paused, and then picked up all around them at speed.
“How much time do we have?” Fitzgerald said, leaning in to keep his voice between himself, Stadi, and Cavit.
“Get back to the ship,” Cavit said, which was answer enough to make Fitzgerald clench his jaw before nodding. “They’ll need to co-ordinate beaming up the teams as they rule out any part of the network.”
Fitzgerald stepped away, calling to Voyager’s transporter room.
Stadi looked at the Captain, and he lifted one eyebrow. “Let’s start on the far side of the landing pad,” he said, handing the tricorder back to Li-Paz and pulling his own from his vest pocket. “We could be looking at days before this place goes critical, but…” He didn’t finish the sentence.
Stadi heard the words he was thinking anyway.
But it could be a matter of hours, for all we know.
*
Lieutenant Commander Ro strode onto the Bridge, and Rollins rose from the big chair. “We’ve got a third of the crew back aboard, just in case. The rest are spread out and scanning and uploading their findings to Main Engineering.”
“Anything yet?” Ro said.
“Not yet,” Lan said from Ops. “Sorry to interrupt your dinner.”
“I’ll live.” Ro’s small smile was there-and-gone as she sat. “Are we thinking this is an attack of some sort?”
“Right now it’s looking more like a technological failure,” Lan said. “Though we’ll know more once we can pinpoint a source of some kind. The problem is the temperature is painting a picture pretty far from where most of our people are, and I don’t think Captain Cavit is going to want us to start beaming people down to figure it out, rather than up. And there are a lot of ships lifting off right now, too.”
“We’re not beaming anyone down,” Ro said. “Not until we’ve got as many people out of harm’s way as possible.”
*
“Not exactly the hike we were planning for today,” Stiles said, as he and Russell jogged their way to the co-ordinates Voyager had sent them.
“The power network runs along that pathway,” Russell said, pointing. “About a metre underground.”
They made it to the top of the crest, and Russell pulled out his tricorder and started scanning, kneeling down on the ground to take a reading.
Stiles took a few breaths, watching Russell’s face. “Anything?”
“There’s definitely a shift happening here…” He reached up and tapped his communicator. “Russell to Voyager.”
“Go ahead.” It was Lieutenant Commander Ro.
“Commander,” Russell said. “I’m seeing an ongoing resonance shift in the juncture where Lieutenant Stiles and I are scanning. I’m uploading the readings, but I’m fairly certain this is it.”
*
“He’s right,” Lan said, looking up. “The density of polaric ions in these scans is the highest we’ve seen yet, and it’s having a cascade reaction.”
“What’s the cause?” Ro said, both to Lan and to Russell.
*
Stiles watched Russell work, knowing his own limited understanding of the theoreticals in play wasn’t likely to help, and instead focusing on what he could see. Nothing looked tampered with. The pathway was undisturbed. The plant life didn’t seem particularly disturbed.
“I don’t know how this happened,” Russell said, after a few more moments of scanning. “The minerals in the nearby rock are refracting some of my scans. But we need to stop it, and soon. There’s a cascade effect, and it’s increasing exponentially, Commander.” Stiles saw him swallow, and realized they were in more trouble here than he’d thought they might be. “Any one of the ships at the landing site could create enough of a subspace disturbance to set off a polaric reaction if this spreads far enough.”
“You’re not seeing a cause of any kind?” Lieutenant Honigsberg’s voice was clipped, all-business.
“Only the rock,” Russell said. “The polaric ionization effect isn’t helping my scans, but this could be geological—mineral refraction—but I’m not sure how that would have taken this long and…” Russell paused. “It’s spiking, Lieutenant. I’m going to have to risk a counter-resonance now, or…” This time he trailed off without explaining.
Yeah, Stiles was more sure than ever this was bad.
“How are you going to generate it?” Honigsberg said. “I’m not sure we can risk beaming anything down.”
Stiles knelt beside Russell, and Russell bit his lip. “Sam, do you have your phaser with you?”
Stiles nodded, and pulled it out of his pocket.
“You brought a phaser on shore leave?” Honigsberg’s voice was incredulous.
“Lieutenant Stiles is very security conscious,” Russell said, already adjusting the settings and glancing back and forth between it and his tricorder. “Sir, you might want to beam up everyone you can.”
“We already are,” Commander Ro answered.
“Do you have a clear enough reading for the counter-resonance?” Lan said.
“I might have to eyeball it a bit,” Russell said.
Stiles raised his eyebrows, and Russell shrugged with what looked like an apology.
“Do what you have to do, Lieutenant,” Ro said.
“Should I stand back?” Stiles said, speaking low enough for his voice not to carry over Russell’s combadge, or at least he hoped so.
“No point,” Russell said, just as softly. “Either this will work, or…” He chewed his bottom lip.
“Right,” Stiles said. “Got it.”
“Still glad you asked me to join you?” Russell said, checking the phaser against whatever his tricorder was telling him before looking at Stiles with a trace of gallows humour.
“Ask me again later,” Stiles said.
Russell laughed. He lifted his chin. “I’m ready, Commander. I’d like to give you more time for transport, but it needs to be sooner than later if I’m going to to stop the cascade.”
“Make it so, Lieutenant,” Ro said, and for some reason Stiles didn’t grasp, her wording seemed to make Russell smile. He glanced at Stiles, made one more adjustment to the phaser, then aimed it down at the ground beneath their feet and fired.
*
On Voyager, Ro forced herself not to pace, instead crossing her arms and waiting, facing Lan, who was watching her display with a tight jaw and her unblinking, dark brown eyes.
“Anything?” Ro said quietly, when she couldn’t force herself to stay silent any longer.
“It’s hard to see from up here,” Lan said. “If I do see any signs of polaric ions, then…” She glanced up. “It wouldn’t be good news.”
“No sign of explosion,” Rollins said. “The shipyards is nearly two-thirds empty.”
“Away Teams?” Ro said.
“We’ve still got twenty people down there, including Stiles and Russell.”
Ro waited.
She’d just about brought herself to hail Russell again when instead, his voice came over the comm.
“Russell to Voyager.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
“It worked. I’d suggest we send an engineering team down to make sure whatever set this off in the first place doesn’t start over, but I’ve got no signs of polaric resonance any more.”
“The temperature in the power network is already returning to normal,” Lan said.
“Good job, Lieutenant. Glad we had you nearby,” Ro said.
“Thank you, Commander.”
“Bridge to Engineering. Alex, I’d like you to co-ordinate with Russell and the Travelers. Let’s find out how this happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Aye, Commander.”
Ro turned back to the big chair and sat. She blew out a breath, then turned to Rollins. “I guess we should send people back down for the last of their shore leave before the second wave.”
Rollins smiled. “I’ll handle it, Commander.”
*
Gara ran her hand along the navigational console of Zahir’s ship. Like everything else in the sleek vessel, it was well designed, and although it wasn’t as adaptable as a Federation interface, she was certain she could manage it. She sat in the chair, and closed her eyes for a moment, just getting a feel for the intimate Bridge, which seated two comfortably, but certainly closely.
She felt Zahir approach, and as always her senses picked up his desires first: to leave, to travel, to explore, to be with her while he did so.
She turned in the chair, and Zahir regarded her with those exceptional blue eyes of his.
“Your Lieutenant Stadi says the others aren’t feeling their urge to leave any more,” he said. A wave of something unusual for Zahir—or at least in her admittedly short time with him—accompanied the words: hesitation, and worry.
“You’re wondering if I feel the same way,” she said. “Whether the influence of subconsciously something was wrong was the reason I was so willing to join you?”
Zahir sat behind the pilot’s seat. “I was. I am.”
Gara regarded him frankly. So handsome, so full of a drive and joy and desire to see and explore. Moreso than anyone she’d really met, truly. “It’s possible it was influencing me,” she said. “I need to admit that. But it wasn’t the whole reason. I have been wondering what the next step of my life is for a while now, and…” She smiled. “Well. I don’t know if this is my next step in life, but I don’t have to know that to explore the option. Commander Ro approved my leave. If the offer still stands?”
Zahir’s broad smile—and the rush of warmth, affection, and, yes, attraction—was already answer enough, but he leaned forward and tapped on a small console in the space between their two stations.
“Landing control, this is the Zahir-Gara,” Zahir said, his eyes not leaving hers for even a moment. “Requesting permission to launch.”
*
At the largest table in the Lodge, Stadi sat with Nakhan, three other Mikhal Travelers, as well as Captain Cavit and Lieutenant Honigsberg.
“You’re saying it was a fluke?” The oldest of the Travelers said, a woman named Illinne. “A quirk of mineralogy?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Honigsberg said. “Polaric power systems can be initiated through a variety of methods, and one of them is by passing ions through certain crystalline mineral structures, and…” He waved a hand, seeming to understand he was losing his audience. “The point is, there was a small vein of that exact material embedded near the power transfer coils, and it was just enough for some of the ions to take on a polaric resonance.”
“His team removed the mineral,” Stadi said. “And it doesn’t seem to appear anywhere else on your planet.”
“And it just happened to be where our power system was?” Nakhan said.
“That’s what it looks like,” Honigsberg said. “It might have been the remnants of a meteoric impact, or…” He shook his head. “There’s no way to know.”
“And unchecked?” Illinne said.
“It would have exploded,” Cavit said.
“It was lucky you were here, then,” Illinne said, turning to Stadi. “Your sense of the imminent danger saved all our lives, Lieutenant.”
Stadi nodded politely. “I’m glad to have helped.” In truth, though, she was more convinced she’d picked up that sense from the Ocampa, but her Betazoid paraconscious had done a better job of letting her conscious mind know it had happened.
Their group broke up, and Cavit stayed with the Travelers, speaking quietly. Stadi moved away from the table, ready to beam up now her shore leave was officially over, but glanced up when Honigsberg approached.
“You okay, Roni?” he said.
“I think so,” she said. Then she regarded him face-on. “You’re sure it was just bad luck? Because I feel like you maybe weren’t entirely convinced.”
He rubbed his goatee. “Because I wasn’t. Captain Cavit is handing over my full report to them, but…” He exhaled. “I’m not a fan of coincidence, but that rare mineral, in that density, beside the specific component necessary to cause that kind of reaction, on a planet that doesn’t otherwise have that mineral, and didn’t know anything about polaric power…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t find evidence of tampering. If someone had buried it there, it would have taken an incredible amount of time and effort to do it to leave no traces, but…”
“But?”
“If it was as simple as the mineral, I find it odd that it didn’t happen until now. That power transfer has been running through there for years.” He shrugged. “It’s possible the refraction only started recently, but it’s also unlikely. But when it comes down to it, what would be the point of purposefully setting up something so… unlikely?” He sighed. “Maybe I’ve been spending too much time with Scott. I’m ascribing nefarious purposes.”
“Maybe,” Stadi said. The sense of anticipation she’d had made sense for her mind interpreting an Ocampan flash of the future. But there’d also been malice. Antipathy. “Maybe,” she said, again. She wasn’t sure she’d convinced herself, but the Captain would warn the Travelers, and that would have to be enough. If nothing else, they’d take precautions to make sure nothing else could happen to their power system.
“The important thing is no one got hurt,” Honigsberg said. “We were here doing some maintenance anyway, and caught it in time. If we’d already left, we’d never have even known it had happened.”
“Right,” Stadi said.
*
Stiles stowed his camping gear away, putting it back in the chest where it lived most of the time, and straightening. He’d just picked up a PADD when his door chimed.
“Come in,” he said.
The door opened, and Russell stepped in, already back in uniform, clean-shaven and tidy. “I just wanted to stop by and say thank you,” Russell said. “I’ve got the night duty shift on the Bridge.”
“No rest for the hero of the hour?” Stiles said.
Russell laughed. “Hardly a hero.”
“You stopped a planet-devastating explosion with my phaser, Dennis,” Stiles said. “I think you can call that one heroic.”
Russell smiled. “Well.”
“I’m sure that’s how Pablo will think of it,” Stiles said, with a sly smile.
“Don’t start,” Russell said. “I get enough of that from Lyndsay.”
“Fine, fine,” Stiles said. He paused, though, PADD in hand, regarding Russell. “Do you have any idea of what you’re going to write in your report, for the Captain?”
Russell nodded. “I do. I think I needed to take a step back from it to gain some perspective. Thanks to you, I did.”
“Any time,” Stiles said. “I mean it.”
Russell nodded. “Next shore leave, then. I enjoyed the hiking, and the camping. But I’ll bring my own phaser.”
Stiles laughed. “It’s a deal.”
Russell left him then, and the door closed behind him.
Stiles lifted the PADD, tapping on it to activate it.
Whether or not it would ever be delivered, he’d decided to write his sons another letter. But this time, it wasn’t going to be apologies, or requests for forgiveness.
This time, it was going to be every story he could remember about their mother.