Where Time Stands Still Read online

  “Good,” the captain replied. “Transmit the signal.”

  Tapping a sequence of commands to the touch-sensitive console before him, the engineer said, “Transmitting now.”

  Gold rose from his seat and turned to Abramowitz and Royano. “Guardian, I’m pleased to inform you that we’ve arrived on schedule, and if all goes well we should be receiving approval for passage anytime now.”

  The Valzhan bowed his head in response. “On behalf of all my people, Captain, I thank you once again for all you have done to assist us in this matter. It is indeed a great service you are providing.”

  Smiling, Gold replied, “The privilege and the pleasure are mine, sir, believe me.” To the rest of the bridge crew, he said, “Congratulations, people. We’re about to venture where no Starfleet vessel has gone for more than a hundred years.” Abramowitz thought she detected an almost boyish thrill in the captain’s voice. “For us, at any rate, this is likely to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Casting a look of warning toward Stevens, he added, “Let’s try to behave ourselves, shall we?”

  “Best behavior, sir,” the engineer replied, maintaining a stern expression while placing a hand almost reverently upon his chest. A beeping sound from his station caught his attention, and he moved to check the console. “We’re receiving an incoming hail, Captain.”

  “On-screen,” Gold ordered.

  After a moment, the image of empty space on the main viewer was replaced by that of a striking green-skinned woman with dark hair and exotic features, whom Abramowitz recognized as being of the Orion race. The woman said nothing at first, appearing instead to study the bridge crew with a gaze that, even to the cultural specialist, seemed to border on the hypnotic.

  “Greetings, crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci,” the woman finally said. “I am Devna, representing the Elysian Council. Welcome to…”

  Chapter

  2

  Stardate 5309.3, Earth Year 2268

  “…the Delta Triangle.”

  Even as he spoke the words, Lieutenant Commander Mahmud al-Khaled could not suppress an almost dismissive shrug. “It just doesn’t seem all that mysterious, does it?” he asked, more of himself than anyone else. Studying the main viewscreen on the bridge of the U.S.S. Lovell, al-Khaled saw nothing about the region of space displayed before him that differentiated it from anywhere else he had traveled during his Starfleet career.

  “Come now, Mahmud,” said a gently teasing voice from behind him, and al-Khaled turned to regard his commanding officer, Daniel Okagawa. A wide grin brightened the captain’s face. “Do I sense a certain jadedness?” Okagawa rose from his chair at the center of the Lovell’s circular bridge and crossed the command well to where al-Khaled stood at the forward railing. “Surely, even after all your years in Starfleet, there must be something out here that can still impress you?”

  Al-Khaled nodded in conceit, offering a smile of his own. “Of course, sir.” Shrugging, he added, “What I meant was that, given everything we’ve heard about this area over the years, I just expected to see something more dramatic, I suppose.”

  Shorter than the engineer, Okagawa was a stocky, barrel-chested man who looked up at al-Khaled and chuckled as he ran a meaty hand through his close-cropped black and silver hair. “Well, we’ve still got time. Perhaps the Triangle will honor your wishes before we leave.”

  Standing near the weapons and defense control station on the starboard side of the main viewscreen, Commander Araev zh’Rhun turned and cast a sarcastic frown in their direction. “You’ll forgive me, Mr. al-Khaled, if I don’t await that occurrence with your level of enthusiasm.”

  Bobbing his eyebrows with a hint of mischief as he regarded the Lovell’s first officer, al-Khaled replied, “I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I’m just not that lucky, Commander.”

  “Well then,” the Andorian said, keeping her voice level even as her antennae twisted independently of each other to point in the engineer’s direction, “may your lack of good fortune continue unchanged until we are well away from here.”

  Okagawa exchanged smiles with al-Khaled in response to the commander’s comment. “You know how she is, Mahmud,” the captain said. “She’s not happy unless we’re at red alert and the phasers are fully charged.”

  Both men resisted the urge to laugh as zh’Rhun turned her attention back to checking over each of the console’s readouts without saying anything else. Contrary to Okagawa’s remark and despite her heritage and the array of volatile emotions that normally characterized her species, the Lovell’s first officer was the very model of a Starfleet commander, with steadfast bearing and poise. Even on those occasions when the ship or its crew encountered dangerous situations, zh’Rhun had always proven unflappable. Her imposing image was enhanced by her habit of opting for the standard uniform trousers and gold tunic instead of the short skirt variation favored by many female Starfleet officers and enlisted personnel.

  If that was not enough, the commander’s reserved deportment also lent itself to a droll, deadpan sense of humor that she often used to her advantage when dealing with subordinates and superiors alike.

  “Somehow,” al-Khaled said as he turned to study the main viewer once more, “I get the feeling it’s her wish that will be granted.” All the available evidence certainly seemed to point to that conclusion. The Lovell had been navigating this area of space for nearly two weeks but had encountered nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly none of the odd occurrences that had long fueled the legends surrounding this region of the galaxy.

  Ah, but that’s the rub. The beauty of the Delta Triangle, as well as its inherent danger, al-Khaled reminded himself, lay in its apparent harmlessness.

  The U.S.S. Enterprise, along with the Klingon battle cruiser Klothos, had barely succeeded in escaping from the mysterious triangle and the equally peculiar rift in the space-time continuum it was now known to harbor. Inside the odd stellar anomaly, the Enterprise had discovered a vast collection of vessels representing over a hundred spacefaring species. Ships from Earth dating back more than a century could be found there, along with those from civilizations both familiar and previously unknown. All of the ships had been stranded within the rift by an unexplained dampening field that permeated the region and drained their power systems.

  This same phenomenon had nearly succeeded in disintegrating the Enterprise’s dilithium crystals and marooning the starship inside the Triangle along with the rift’s other inhabitants. The people who had once traveled in the spaceships now ensnared within the Triangle, many of whom represented civilizations that had been and still were at odds with one another, had over time forged a joint nation within the confines of the rift. Such unity had proven a necessity for the society of Elysia, as it had been named, due to the region’s other astonishing property. According to the report submitted by the Enterprise’s science officer, time flowed at a different pace inside the Delta Triangle, far slower than outside it. For those who lived there, a century was nothing more than the blink of an eye.

  Confronted with the chance to acquire firsthand knowledge not only of Earth’s first deep space exploration efforts but also the histories of dozens of races never before encountered by the Federation, Starfleet had dispatched a science vessel to study the phenomenon more closely. Arriving on site only three days earlier, the U.S.S. T’Saura and its dedicated team of astrophysicists had been given the assignment of understanding the region’s debilitating properties while finding a way for ships to enter and exit the rift without suffering those ill effects. Al-Khaled was also certain, although it had not been stated openly, that Starfleet Intelligence was also very interested in learning if the energy-draining properties of the Triangle could be reproduced artificially.

  Nodding in the direction of the main viewer and, by extension, the mysterious void that lay beyond, Captain Okagawa said, “You never know, Mahmud. Our friends on the T’Saura might well find a way to control passage in and out of there. If that happens, then your friend
Mr. Scott will be the one who’s jealous while you get a guided tour of some of those ships.”

  The notion elicited another smile from al-Khaled. “Well, one in particular, anyway.”

  He had read his friend’s report on the wondrous array of space vessels the Enterprise had found inside the Triangle, some of which had been trapped there for more than a thousand years. Included among the more recent additions was the U.S.S. Bonaventure, a piece of engineering history if ever al-Khaled had read of one. The first Earth vessel equipped with the second generation of Zefram Cochrane’s warp drive and assigned to the planet’s budding space fleet, the ship had been reported lost early in the twenty-second century during her third patrol mission.

  At the time, it was generally believed that the Bonaventure had fallen victim to a design flaw in its warp engine, a theory Cochrane himself would continue to dispute vehemently until his eventual disappearance only a few years later. Still, the incident seemed to amplify the man’s desire to push the boundaries of the technology he had pioneered for humanity, driving him to establish the Warp Five Complex and create the foundation for interstellar travel capability that many, including al-Khaled himself, now took for granted.

  “Captain,” he heard a gruff voice say, and both he and Okagawa turned toward Lieutenant Xav, the Lovell’s science officer, seated at his station on the starboard side of the upper bridge. The stout Tellarite’s heavy brow, large porcine nose, and recessed eyes gave him a perpetually sour expression, which he now directed at the two officers. “Engineering reports that the last of the navigational beacons has been deployed.”

  Unlike the enviable assignment given to the science crew of the T’Saura, the Lovell’s task was much less glamorous although equally necessary: Establishing a network of subspace beacons to act as navigational hazard warnings for other ships traversing the area. Though two weeks spent deploying the devices had given Xav and his own small science contingent plenty of opportunities to record volumes of sensor data about the region, the mission had provided little else in the way of excitement for the rest of the Lovell’s crew.

  Nodding to the science officer, Okagawa said, “Excellent.” He waved to the viewer. “Let’s have a map of the area, Mr. Xav, and see why the Delta Triangle got its name.”

  The image on the screen changed from a view of empty space to a computer-generated map of the region. Al-Khaled watched as a line of blue dots began to materialize, outlining a triangular area on the two-dimensional schematic anchored at two points by the stars identified in Federation stellar cartography databases as Kessik and Bellatrix. The third position was the most recent entry to the catalogue, possessing only the unflattering entry number FGC-82659. A small crimson indicator denoted the location of the Lovell, currently traveling within the area defined as the Triangle.

  “All of the beacons are functioning normally, Captain,” Xav reported from his station. “I will have my final report for Starfleet Command ready for your review by the end of my duty shift.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Okagawa said. He continued to regard the schematic for a moment before pointing toward the upper left-hand corner of the viewer. “If my memory hasn’t started to fail me, we’re not all that far from the last known position of the Courageous.”

  Al-Khaled nodded in agreement. He had recently studied Federation star charts of the area and recalled the notation about the vessel. One of the early DY-500 class of ships designed for long-duration travel within Earth’s solar system and launched before the start of the third world war, the Courageous suffered a failure in its propulsion system that made the ship unable to decelerate or deactivate its engines. The vessel continued on its trajectory out of the Terran system, and support stations on Earth and Mars continued to receive periodic communications for years afterward, both from the doomed ship itself and from recorder markers left in its wake.

  “Their last marker buoy was recovered twenty-six years ago,” al-Khaled said. Incongruously enough, it had also been found less than fifty light-years from the Lovell’s current position and nowhere near the projected trajectory for the ship that had been computed by various historians, astrophysicists, and assorted “lost ship” enthusiasts. The message stored in the marker’s tiny communications system was dated only thirteen months after the accident that had sent the Courageous on its ill-fated journey, and years before Cochrane’s inaugural warp-speed flight from Earth. Most people believed that it had probably encountered a wormhole or similar stellar phenomenon, and speculation also abounded that it might in fact be yet another prisoner of the Delta Triangle. However, nothing about the vessel had appeared in any of the reports submitted by Captain Kirk following the Enterprise’s escape from the region.

  Well, maybe we’ll have a chance to find out for ourselves, al-Khaled mused, feeling his pulse quicken in anticipation of the unparalleled opportunities that this part of space offered.

  “It is our proximity to the Gorn border that makes me uneasy,” zh’Rhun said. “They are almost certainly aware of our presence, even if they have not yet done anything.”

  Starfleet’s first and only encounter with the reclusive, violent reptilian race had come nearly a year previously, when a Gorn vessel attacked and destroyed a Federation outpost on Cestus III, a planet claimed by them as being within their sovereign space. They had subsequently rejected all attempts at diplomatic overtures, instead offering repeated warnings that all future violations of their space would meet the same fate.

  “We’re still outside their territory,” Okagawa replied, “and they’ve made it clear that so long as we leave them alone, they’ll return the favor. With that in mind, let’s see if we can’t find something more immediate to concentrate on.” He turned from the railing and made his way back to his chair at the center of the command well, pointing to the young Rigelian officer on duty at the communications station near the turbolift at the rear of the bridge. “Ensign Pzial, open a channel to the T’Saura.”

  To al-Khaled he said, “Now that we’re done laying out street signs, maybe we can offer to help Captain Sivok and his people with their little project one more time.”

  “Considering his reaction the first time you asked,” al-Khaled said, “somehow I doubt he’ll be any more receptive this time around.” The science vessel’s Vulcan captain had been quite plainspoken in his belief that his people could handle their assignment without any outside assistance.

  Okagawa shrugged, the corners of his mouth curling into an impish grin. “He just doesn’t like the idea of getting help from anyone who travels around in an old rust bucket like ours.”

  It was a good-natured jab, al-Khaled knew, and one that the members of the Lovell’s crew only tolerated from one another. After all, they were proud of their little ship, the Daedalus-class vessel being one of three the Corps of Engineers had retrieved from the salvage depot at Qualor II. Removed from active service seventy years earlier, the Daedalus ships at one time had been Starfleet’s workhorses. Their basic spherical and cylindrical hull sections had been designed with ease of manufacture and replication in mind, as the still-evolving United Federation of Planets found itself in need of large numbers of ships to secure its rapidly expanding borders in the aftermath of the Earth-Romulan War.

  Now, however, the Lovell and her two sister ships were all that remained. Outdated and inferior in nearly every measurable sense to the more modern Constitution-class vessels that were the current pride of the fleet, they also suffered for the notable lack of replacement components available. The engineers assigned to the trio of craft therefore found their abilities and ingenuity constantly tested as they strived to keep their ships working at peak operational efficiency.

  “Captain,” he heard Pzial call out from the communications station, “we are receiving an urgent incoming message from Admiral Komack at Starfleet Command.” After a moment, she added, “It’s been encoded for us and the T’Saura.”

  Urgent? Given that any subspace message sent from Earth would t
ake three weeks to reach the Lovell’s current position, al-Khaled had to wonder about the nature of any such communication. Besides, there was the unavoidable fact that their ship, assigned to the Corps of Engineers, was simply not in the habit of receiving priority messages from Starfleet Command, or anyone else for that matter.

  “Let’s have it on-screen, Ensign,” Okagawa said, and the image on the main viewer shifted to show the weathered, lined face of Admiral Byron Komack, the staff officer in charge of all Starfleet operations in this sector of space. Seated behind a nondescript desk inside an equally austere office, Komack stared out at the Lovell’s bridge crew with the dour expression that had long been the admiral’s trademark.

  “Captain Okagawa, Captain Sivok,” he said, “a situation has arisen that requires your immediate attention. Effective immediately, your first priority is to work together to find a safe method of passage into the Delta Triangle.”

  Chapter

  3

  “Well, so much for Captain Sivok not wanting our help,” al-Khaled said, unable to suppress a grin.

  “As you may or may not be aware,” the recorded image of Komack continued, “the Federation recently welcomed a new member race, the Valzhan. Given their star system’s proximity to the Klingon border, you can imagine the significance of having an ally in that part of space.”

  Al-Khaled was indeed aware of the Valzhan’s admission to the Federation. According to the reports he had read, their civilization at one time had been quite advanced, having attained interplanetary travel capabilities before global war decimated their planet and the survivors spent centuries rebuilding. They had developed faster-than-light propulsion only within the last decade, but after their initial encounter with a Starfleet first-contact team, the Valzhan had shown great reluctance to accept an invitation to join the Federation.

  While not strictly a pacifistic race, the Valzhan nevertheless held deep-seated convictions against violence except in defensive situations—and then only after all other conceivable options had been exhausted. Though they understood that the military portion of Starfleet’s charter was not offensive in nature, they had expressed concern over being drawn into the Federation’s ongoing political tensions with the Klingon and Romulan Empires, which had at times in recent years threatened to spill over into full-scale war. It had taken years of negotiations on the part of the Diplomatic Corps before Valzhan leaders would even agree to discuss the possibility of allying with the Federation, let alone convincing them of the virtues inherent in accepting an invitation to become a member world.