"She's stabilized, sir," Karissa heard a female voice say somewhere to the side of her.
"Good," came Ryan's voice. She could sense and hear the relief in it. "Thank you."
Had something happened to her? Her mind was fuzzy. She couldn't remember anything. With great effort she opened her eyes. She saw Ryan looking down at her. She was lying on the deck.
"What happened... How did I..." Suddenly an image flashed in her mind. It was an image of a Kelvan. "The Kelvans!" She went to sit up, but he reached to steady her.
"Whooah there... not so fast." said Ryan helping her up. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm not sure," she replied. She shook her head, trying to clear the cloud she felt lingering there. "Its like I'm having a hard time remembering what just happened... Like my mind is trying to come out of some kind of... fog..." She exhaled sharply with the disconcerted feelings it brought with it. Then she grunted softly as the babies kicked. "At least I know they're okay..." Gently she caressed her swollen abdomen.
"Captain, I hate to interrupt...," began Talsmin. "But we just got sensors back online. Seems that we didn't do quite as much damage as we had thought we would."
"How do you mean?" asked Ryan getting up and moving to the ops station
Talsmin pulled up a little diagram showing the Kelvan planets.
"You see, the moon we took out disabled their ability to use their beam weapon. *However,* we only took out that moon, the others and the planet are still fully operational. We underestimated their shields."
Ryan sighed as the information hit him. *That shockwave almost destroyed the ship. How are we going to defeat them?*
"Karissa, can you sense anything from the Kelvans now?"
She took a deep breath to steel herself for what she had to endure; she closed her eyes and focused. She allowed her mind to reach out. Again, she was hit with the onslaught of several strands of thoughts at once and she weeded through them. But instead of sensing direct battle plans, all she could sense was hatred, anger... Domination... They were as intent on their plans as before. They'd failed. She had failed...
As her eyes opened, tears misted
them. "I'm sorry, Ryan... I'm sorry... They're still intent on their plans...
They aren't making any plans to alter their time table," she said. "I
failed you," she added quietly, a tear
escaping the corner of her eye.
"You didn't fail us at all." said Ryan rushing to her. "You've done more than anyone expected of you and we're all grateful for it."
"I was so sure..." she said, as she finally sat up slowly. Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and wiped away the tears. She looked around the bridge and asked, "So what do we do now? What are our options?"
"I think Captain, we both know the answer...," said Pike.
"The Doomsday Device?" asked Ryan.
Pike nodded. "Before, in the Talosian illusion, we had a Genesis torpedo.... And as dirty and unethical a weapon as that device is, it was still a much cleaner and safer way to eliminate the Kelvan threat than what Starfleet has sent us this time. Still, I don't know how we can take out two Battle Planets *without* using it."
"What?" Karissa asked, not liking the sound of it. "Just what is the Doomsday Device, or do I need to ask, Sir?" she directed at Pike, since he seemed to be he holder of the key on this one.
"I think we should step into my ready room," said Ryan. Pike went on in. "I'd tell you if it were up to me" he said. "Have Kira come to my ready room too. And Lieutenant Benton," he added as an afterthought, and then Ryan followed Pike in.
"Admiral," protested Ryan as he entered. "There *has* to be another way! This is far too dangerous. We're not just talking about destroying the Kelvans here, but 100 light years of sub space! If we use the doomsday device, we'll stop the Kelvans here for sure, but we'll be trapped here too, with no hope of rescue."
"Subspace will be destroyed for a hundred light years in all directions. But we're talking the *Galaxy*, Captain," Pike pointed out. "If there were another feasible way, I would consider it, but at this point, I feel we have exhausted all of our options except this one. This is our last card to play and I believe we need to play it."
"If only there were a way to limit the explosion...." Ryan said deep in thought.
As if in answer to his question, Kira and Benton entered. Benton just walked over to the side of the room and leaned on the wall and began inspecting his fingernails, but Kira said, "You wanted to see me?"
Ryan and Pike looked at each other and smiled.
"Kira, Benton, what we are about
to tell you is information for Starfleet Captains and higher. Under normal circumstances,
we wouldn't be having this conversation." began Ryan. "In this universe,
there exists a particle so destructive that if allowed to become unstable, has
the potential to destroy
subspace for hundreds of light years around. This particle has been classified
'Omega' by Starfleet." Kira looked at his Captain, not fully understanding
yet, how this particle fitted into their current situation.
Sensing Kira's confusion, Pike reached
over to Evan's console and keyed in a few commands, which immediately brought
up a standard Star Fleet security insignia. After Pike entered his authorization
codes he downloaded a selected file from the system into a nearby PADD and tossed
it over to Kira
once it had completed the download.
As Kira began to read the contents of the PADD, Pike continued Evan's previous line of thought and began to speak in his place. "The Omega particle was found by Star Fleet over 100 years ago by accident. The molecules can exist naturally across the universe, but they are highly unstable, and thus are rarely found. They can be created artificially, however, and a group of physicists managed to do so well before the great Admiral Kirk had even boarded a starship."
As the others in the room continued to be spellbound by Evans and Pikes discourse, Kira managed to break the spell of concentration in surprise over what was contained in the PADD. "Seti Alpha 8???" exclaimed Kira in an alarmed tone. "They told us that warp drive wasn't possible around the outpost because of a subspace anomaly. You're saying that an explosion of a few Omega particles caused warp travel to be unavailable for nearly half a parsec around the station???"
"Yes, Commander," said
Evans in response to Kira's outburst, "the scientists at Seti Alpha 8 were
responsible for destroying subspace around the outpost all those years ago and,
the explosion at the time managed to destroy any ship's ability to enter warp,
and for that matter transwarp, for a distance
of half a parsec." Evans paused for dramatic effect and continued his discussion
with the rest of the members of the crew in his ready room. "As the Commander
said this explosion was the result of a *few* particles, 10 of them to be precise.
Imagine what a sample of one hundred, a thousand, or
even a million of them could do to subspace."
"The Doomsday device aboard
the *Bounty*, is an Omega bomb and we are now forced to use it against the Kelvans."
Said Pike immediately following the conclusion of Evan's speech. "We've
brought you in here and given you this data in the hopes that you'd be able
to find a way to limit the explosion
caused by an Omega bomb to say ten or twenty light years..."
As the eyes of all those in the room
looked to Kira, he tried to furiously complete reading the information in the
PADD that Pike had given him. After a brief moment he responded, "I'm not
entirely sure Captain, if the explosion is energy based, then in theory I should
be able to limit it. But I would need to channel the energy into something else..."
Kira looked at the data in the PADD pertaining to the amount of energy released
per Omega particle and then looked at the schematics of the Omega bomb that
happened
to be at the very end of the PADD's data, "something very big..."
"Such as... ?" Pike asked for more clarification, not leaving anything to possible misunderstandings.
"If we're talking the amounts of energy I think we are..." Kira paused again to squint as he calculated the amount of energy in his head, "a sun would about do it."
"What?" asked Evans as with that one interjection he voiced the whole room's surprise over Kira's statement. "You can do that?"
Unswerving in his resolve Pike continued "Then maybe this will be do-able - doing what needs to be done, but limiting the extra damage beyond..."
Ryan, after a brief look at Kira that bordered between shock and admiration, was still unconvinced. "This is all very well... *but* if the Kelvans are as intent as we are led to believe then they will continue on impulse power. Then, in however long it takes them to get out of there, the Federation of the future is going to have the same problem as we do now."
"Captain, if I can pull this off then no one will need to worry about the Kelvan threat again." Said Kira. "The sun that will be created will not be a stable one, it will probably go supernova in a few days at most." As Kira looked around the room he caught a glimpse of a small smile from Pike. "Even I'm not perfect Admiral. But, fortunately perfection isn't the goal here, destruction is. The resulting explosion from the sun going nova will leave those battle planets as nothing more than space dust."
"So we need to send the *Bounty* about twenty light years ahead of the Kelvans along their flight path, and detonate Omega bomb when they pass," reasoned Pike. He turned to his 'Kelvan expert' and asked, "Lieutenant Benton. What is the Kelvans' likely reaction to our presence along their flight path? Will they deviate from their course, or try to fly straight through us?"
Benton gave one last look at his fingernails, then casually paused before answering Pike. "The Kelvans are completely confident in their superiority to all other life forms. To them, we are insignificant. Even though we've destroyed hundreds of their fighter craft, their total fleet numbers in the hundreds of thousands. The damage we've done them so far is inconsequential."
"In other words, they won't deviate from their course," said Evans.
"That is correct."
"We'll only have one shot at this, Kira... Are you sure this will work?" Pike asked, looking the Commander over.
"I'm pretty sure I can do it... it shouldn't be that much more difficult than when I sent us back in time" he grinned. "I'll need some time to prepare... look over data on the omega particle and the doomsday device. I'll go down to engineering. I'll let you know when I'm ready."
"Very good, dismissed," Pike said with a grin.
"Let's get O'Neal and the others
off of the *Bounty* and make the preparations." Ryan said. "Looks
like we're not out of the game yet"