Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:20:27 GMT In: alt.startrek.creative From: "Jay P Hailey" Title: Star Trek: Outwardly Mobile Author: Jay P Hailey (JayPHailey@hotmail.com) Series: MISC - TNG OCs Codes: None Part: 25/335(?) Rating:[PG] Archive: Fine with me, just tell me where. Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Star Trek. I claim Original Characters and Situations for me. Webpage HTTP://jayphailey.8m.com The Other By Jay P. Hailey And Dennnis Washburn (Stardate 45115) The buoy's last message was "Do not approach Gerard's World." That was all. I looked at Harksain Varupuchu, my Andorian Chief of Operations. He looked back calmly. "Could the rest of the message have been lost?" I asked him. "I doubt it, Captain. The buoy shows no sign of tampering, or damage. The message has an internal integrity check, which would show if the message had been altered." The buoy belonged to the Gallowayans, a race of space traders who frequented the area. They used the buoys as bulletin boards, posting messages about hazards or technical details of travel in the region. Sometimes there were personal messages for the crew members of other Gallowayan starships. There was never any information of a commercially valuable nature. Generally storm warnings were clear cut, and included scans. Legal warnings usually contained the text of the questionable laws that might affect commerce in the area. This buoy had no specifics, just the warning. "Tillean, please direct long range scans at Gerard's World." I said. We had pulled up along side the buoy when we first received the message, and were attempting to clarify it. "Captain, I can't get a clear reading from here. There is some sort of radiation interference with our subspace scanners." "Hmm. Could that be the reason for the warning?" I wondered. "Possibly" Tillean ventured. "Does the radiation field pose any danger to the ship?" Li'ira asked. "Not at the strength I'm reading, Commander." Tillean said. "Perhaps we could help them out?" I wondered again. Varupuchu looked at me with a wintry look. "Do you think it's worth the risk?" Li'ira said. "Yes. I do." I decided "Helm take us on towards Gerard's World." I turned to Tillean. "Keep a sharp eye on that scanner and let me know if anything changes." -*- It took us four more days to reach the Gerardian System, and by that time the story had become clearer and much less pleasant. The planet of Gerard's World had not been enveloped by radiation; it was the source of the radiation. The natives had nuked themselves to death. I continued the approach, anyway. Now, it was painful, grotesque archaeology. Some worlds made it through their atomic period and some didn't. The reasons why were a mystery to the Federation, and a source of some debate. I didn't tell myself that we might find survivors. I didn't think of what I might do if we found any underground enclaves or small groups of survivors. I had already decided to try save them if we could. -*- We made orbit around Gerard's world and it was worse than it looked. We couldn't get as close to the planet as a standard orbit, because of fallout. They had detonated a doomsday bomb on the southern pole of Gerard's World. It had blown a significant portion of the atmosphere off the planet and into the surrounding space. All of the gaseous wreckage was radioactive. Nothing survived southern side of the planet. Isolated shelters had survived, in the northern hemisphere and were now calling for help on their radios, because there wasn't anything else for them to do. I thought we might have found our survivors, except that the shelters averaged forty thousand inhabitants. They had spent a mind-boggling amount of effort to insure the survival of their people past the end of their world. Each of the huge shelters was the size of Earth's Spacedock, armored and self contained. They appeared to be atomic powered arcologies, able to recycle air, water and food for hundreds of years. Their war was worse that they had expected. The shelters that survived were being inundated by much more radiation than their designers could have planned for. The population of Gerard's World was doomed and there was simply nothing to be done. -*- After a day of scanning, I called it off. "This is too depressing. There's nothing we can accomplish here. Mr. Spaat, set course for Starbase Twenty-Four and engage, impulse only until we're out of range." Solemnly the crew began the functions to resume our voyage. "Is there nothing we can do?" Li'ira whispered to me, not wanted to bring the question up in front of the crew. I shook my head and keyed up a schematic of one of the shelters on my chair mounted screen. "Can you imagine how much that thing must have cost? A fraction of that effort into peacemaking or diplomacy might have saved them." Li'ira just looked depressed and said nothing. I didn't blame her. It was a depressing situation. The Harrier broke orbit and moved away from Gerard's World. -*- "Contact, Captain, coming out of warp now!" Varupuchu said, excitedly. "On screen. Identify." "Dear God! Level twelve power generation!" Stephanie said Li'ira barked "Double check your scanners!" A level twelve energy field was the same as a small star. Nothing that moved at warp speed could generate that much energy, except for one object. V'Ger had come to Earth nearly one hundred years ago, and had rattled Earth's self confidence badly. A being of godlike power, nothing could even slow it down. The starship Enterprise had stopped it minutes before exterminating all life on Earth. I'm told that the reaction on Earth hadn't been nearly as bad as when the Borg came to earth a while ago. Nobody had any time to understand what was happening until it was a done deal. Nearly all life on Earth would have died wondering what the light show was. This object didn't look anything like V'Ger. No huge energy cloud, no miles and miles of super-technology starship. "Confirmed, level twelve energy field." Tillean said. "Here it comes." Varupuchu said. From the side effects it must have been doing a pretty good clip. Well in excess of warp nine. It wasn't anything much to look at, physically. It looked like a pile of junk, compressed together tightly. Nevertheless, the power readings were still the same, and a lot of what our sensors were telling us didn't make much sense. "Open hailing frequencies." I said Stephanie opened the channel and I stared to speak "This is the Federation Starship USS Harrier. We are on a mission of peaceful exploration and contact. Please talk with us." The pile of junk stopped dead, and smoothly matched courses with the Harrier. There was no hint of how it accomplished this. There was no thrust or energy fields or anything. Just motion. "You aren't from the planet ahead." The figure on the bridge said. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.588 / Virus Database: 372 - Release Date: 2/13/2004 -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. Comments and feedback should be directed to alt.startrek .creative or directly to the author. Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ASCL/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ASCL-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From ???@??? 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