"Don't be a stranger," La Forge added.

"Make good use of the data," Gomez called back, as she headed in the direction of the transporter room.

Scotty, Vol, and La Forge looked at each other, and at the holographic display. "What do you think?" La Forge asked Scotty after a few long moments.

"I think I'd like to hear Leah's opinion on this." That was a request with which La Forge heartily agreed.

La Forge looked out through the window in his ready room just in time to see the da Vinci da Vinci bank away and leap to warp. Across his desk, Leah leaned forward, going through the data. bank away and leap to warp. Across his desk, Leah leaned forward, going through the data.

"This subs.p.a.ce granulation doesn't quite quite say slipstream to me, but there is an element . . ." say slipstream to me, but there is an element . . ."

"You're the expert on quantum slipstream. If you don't think it's that, then I guess we have to look at other explanations."

Leah held up one hand in a "halt" gesture. "Like I said, there's an element of the slipstream matrix that's . . . hinted at by this granulation. But a slipstream drive as we understand it couldn't have caused this. Certainly not on its own, and certainly not over time."

"That's something I've been thinking about."

"The time scale?"

"Yeah." La Forge sat down behind his desk. "If it's damage that's built up gradually over two hundred years, I'm wondering if it could actually be a buildup of damage from warp engines of a couple of generations back."

"Definitely not. As you can imagine, the symptoms of that kind of subs.p.a.ce damage are something that's deeply ingrained in those of us who design and develop starship engines."

"What about some kind of natural phenomenon?" Geordi asked.

"I don't know. There's a lot about subs.p.a.ce that we still don't know. Anything's possible."

"What would you think best fits the facts?"

Leah was silent for a long time, and La Forge knew that, given the choice, she'd prefer not to jump to any conclusions, but to arrive at them logically and correctly. "Traffic of an unknown type, with an unknown engine profile."

"Unknown?"

"And totally new." She pushed the screen away, and met his eyes. "You were right. This looks like a totally new form of propulsion, and the traffic powered by it uses the Bolus Reach for navigation."

La Forge had already come to the same conclusion, and it seemed obvious what his next move should be, if he wanted to learn more about the wakes and what caused them. He moved to the communicator switch on the table. "Bridge, this is the captain." d.a.m.n but it still felt unreal and disturbing saying that. "Set course for the star system G-231. Warp six."

27.

Captain K'Vadra stomped onto the bridge of the I.K.S. Iw'Bat I.K.S. Iw'Bat, a B'rel- B'rel-cla.s.s Bird-of-Prey, and received the salutes of his tactical officer and helmsman. "Report!"

"Sir," the tactical officer growled, "a subs.p.a.ce distortion has been reported near a pulsar in the Garath system. It seems someone is probing our borders."

K'Vadra licked his lips hungrily. "Intercept course!"

The Iw'Bat Iw'Bat banked, her wings dropping into a combat configuration, as her crew probed the source of the mysterious energy ripple in subs.p.a.ce. As they drew closer, the ripple faded, rather than growing stronger, which puzzled K'Vadra. banked, her wings dropping into a combat configuration, as her crew probed the source of the mysterious energy ripple in subs.p.a.ce. As they drew closer, the ripple faded, rather than growing stronger, which puzzled K'Vadra.

"Whatever it was has gone," the tactical officer confirmed.

"Or has cloaked?" Cloaking probably meant Romulans, and K'Vadra hadn't fought a Romulan for years. It was a pleasure he missed.

"Possibly."

K'Vadra paced the bridge, too excited to sit in the command chair. It wasn't long before they reached the coordinates where the distortion had originated. There was nothing in sight, except for a strange reading at the very edge of sensor range. It was almost as if the sensors were pa.s.sing through something; as if whatever it was wasn't just hidden by a cloak, but wasn't really there. Whatever it was was also huge, but K'Vadra didn't mind that, as he knew the Romulans had some very large ships.

"What is that?" He hoped for the name of a Romulan ship cla.s.s.

The tactical officer wasn't giving the results he hoped for. "Unknown, sir."

K'Vadra scowled, more disappointed than anything else. "Check the tactical database."

"Checking . . ." She straightened, spitting a curse. "Impossible!"

"What is impossible?" He wanted facts, not opinions. Whoever was out there was in Klingon s.p.a.ce without permission, and would learn the error of their ways at the earliest opportunity. He didn't want to hear how unlikely the situation was.

"The computer says it is a Chariot of the Fek'lehr."

K'Vadra spat. "I said check the tactical database, not the literature-"

"This is is the tactical database." the tactical database."

K'Vadra leapt over to the tactical console and pulled her aside so that he could enter the query himself. "Idiot! I shall-" He broke off, as the computer responded to his own question with the same result. "Qu'vatlh!" "Qu'vatlh!"

He let go and stepped down to his command chair, overlooking the helm and ops pit. "Well, if it's the Chariot of the Fek'lehr, he's in the world of the living without my permission, or that of the High Council, so let's send the b.a.s.t.a.r.d back to Gre'thor where he belongs." He pointed a finger at the screen. "Helm, intercept course."

The Iw'Bat Iw'Bat swooped down upon the distant vessel. K'Vadra took the tactical console himself. "Give me a mark when we're in firing range." swooped down upon the distant vessel. K'Vadra took the tactical console himself. "Give me a mark when we're in firing range."

"Firing range in nine thousand," the helm reported. "Closing."

On the angular main screen something suddenly appeared, but the stars were still shining through it. "Firing range!" K'Vadra loosed a single torpedo and a short burst from the wingtip disruptors, neither willing to waste energy at this range, nor to wait until he was closer. The torpedo ran true, and went clean into the heart of the shark-like form ahead.

To K'Vadra's amazement and delight, the leviathan disappeared in a flash. His pleasure lasted only a moment, however, as he realized that the torpedo had gone straight through it without detonating, and would soon self-detonate.

He thumped the console with both fists. "Where did it go?"

"Unknown, but that subs.p.a.ce distortion is back, and off the scale. It's as if there was a waveform or . . ."

"A slipstream ship? Federation?"

"No, but . . ." The tactical officer looked up, her face a mask of puzzlement. "There is some similarity to slipstream spoor, but far beyond anything we know is possible. There's something else. The computer reports that any sightings of this type are to be reported to the High Council immediately."

K'Vadra thought about that for a moment. Perhaps there was some kind of new Romulan ship, one with its own slipstream drive . . . That would certainly be of great importance to the High Council.

"Report it, then." He turned to the helmsman. "Return to our patrol course."

La Forge didn't know who to expect when his door chimed. "Come in," he called. He was off duty and in civvies, ready to take Leah to Nelson's for a proper meal, but he had a few minutes to spare while she got ready.

Qat'qa entered, proffering a padd. She was the last person he would have expected. "I received this from the High Council. It is a report of an attack made by a Bird-of-Prey upon a supposed vessel in Klingon s.p.a.ce. Scans made at the time show signs of the subs.p.a.ce distortion we're searching for."

"Why did they pa.s.s it on to you personally, rather than forwarding it through channels?"

"Because family is quicker than bureaucracy."

"I can't argue with that. Thanks, Qat'qa."

It was another two days before the official version report from the Klingon High Council filtered through to the Challenger Challenger. Carolan brought it to La Forge's attention in his ready room, during the regular morning status meeting.

"What's this?" he asked, when she handed him the communications file.

"A collation of reports of trans-slipstream wakes detected in various parts of the Alpha Quadrant over the past few weeks. That Klingon sighting is in there, one from the Aventine Aventine, and even a report from Carda.s.sian s.p.a.ce."

"Carda.s.sian s.p.a.ce?"

Carolan shrugged. "Apparently so. Something disturbing a communications relay in an otherwise uninhabited system. The Klingon one's weird though."

"Weird how?"

"They're pa.s.sing it off as some kind of . . . folklore in action. Calling it a sighting of D'Vey Fek'lehr." D'Vey Fek'lehr."

"A . . . devil ship? You mean like a UFO sighting on Earth, or the Loch Ness monster?" Geordi didn't think the Klingons were big on seeing things.

"Close enough," she said with a shrug.

"Well, I guess we asked for these. Call a senior staff meeting in five minutes. We'll see what everybody thinks."

"Aye, sir."

Scotty, Leah, Vol, Nog, Barclay, and Qat'qa joined them around the obsidian-topped table in the conference room, and Carolan repeated her information about the list of trans-slipstream wake sightings from Starfleet.

Taking the floor, La Forge said, "I guess the next question is whether all these sightings give us enough of a pattern. Something that might lead us to where we can monitor these wakes for ourselves."

"That's easily done," Barclay said, as he brought up a holographic star chart above the table. "If I download the locations and vectors of all these sightings to astrometrics . . ." a series of flashing points appeared, joined by faintly glowing lines that crisscrossed in several areas, most of which were systems with high-ma.s.s, high-gravity objects. "There."

"It looks like a power flow chart," Leah commented.

"Adjusted for the times of the sightings, it's clear that some of them"-Reg touched a control, and a few of the lines turned red-"are some kind of . . . spoor, all of the same thing, proceeding from one location to another in a downright impossible timeframe."

"Impossible by any current technological standard, you mean," Leah pointed out.

"That's impossible enough for me," La Forge said.

"And so is this." Leah stuck her hand into the hologram, drawing a curved line with her fingertip.

"A projection of where they came from?" Vol asked. Leah nodded an affirmative.

"Outside the galaxy," Qat'qa whispered, as the trail went past the limit of the display.

"What?" Scotty was astonished.

"They must have come from outside the galaxy if those vectors are correct, unless they just appeared out of a different time," Qat'qa stated.

Barclay deleted the image of one trail going outside the galaxy. "That wouldn't surprise me. Maybe they're using those high-gravity objects for a temporal slingshot."

La Forge couldn't take his eyes off the display. "It's always possible, but it strikes me that it would be a coincidence that stretches credulity too far for whoever this is to always arrive in our time and in a place that looks exactly like they flew in through the galactic barrier." He touched a marker for a dense neutron star at the conflux of several lines, and it flashed obligingly. "These points where the lines cross . . . I'm willing to bet that we'd find subs.p.a.ce granulation there."

Leah met his gaze. "I'd be surprised if we didn't," she agreed.

"And if you're traveling into a galaxy, the higher the ma.s.s and gravity of a point, the better a marker it would make from outside the barrier," Vol said.

Qat'qa threw up her hands. "They cannot have just-"

"We couldn't, but we don't have this . . . trans-slipstream," Barclay said. couldn't, but we don't have this . . . trans-slipstream," Barclay said.

"The galactic barrier," Scotty mused. "I wouldna say it was impossible to cross, seeing as I've done it a few times, but it's b.l.o.o.d.y hard, and even more b.l.o.o.d.y unwise."

"How did you cross it, back in the twenty-third century?" Leah asked.

"Unintentionally. Oh, we tried it on purpose the once, but even with the warp engines perfectly balanced at their maximum output, and the shields specially uprated, it wasna' quite possible to do it under our own steam."

"It took something more? Alien interference?" Leah asked.

"Exactly. One time, these scunners from the Andromeda galaxy-they called themselves Kelvans-hijacked the Enterprise, Enterprise, and modified my puir wee bairns to force them through the barrier, by usin' a machine they'd brought along themselves." and modified my puir wee bairns to force them through the barrier, by usin' a machine they'd brought along themselves."

"And how did it work?"

"How does it work, Scotty?" James T. Kirk asked.

Scotty looked helplessly at the chrome and shining mechanism that had been implanted into the control room that overlooked the main engineering floor on the U.S.S. Enterprise U.S.S. Enterprise. He fought back the nausea and headache that were a.s.sailing him from the previous night, when he'd had to consume far too much alcohol in the name of duty.

Four Kelvans, aliens from the Andromeda galaxy, had taken on human form and hijacked the Enterprise. Enterprise. They had modified the engines with a device of their own, which had also been capable of reducing most of the crew to desiccated polyhedrons, and crashed through the vast energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy, in an attempt to return home. Scotty had drunk one of them under the table in order to steal his control for the device, and now he was paying the price. They had modified the engines with a device of their own, which had also been capable of reducing most of the crew to desiccated polyhedrons, and crashed through the vast energy barrier at the edge of the galaxy, in an attempt to return home. Scotty had drunk one of them under the table in order to steal his control for the device, and now he was paying the price.

Thankfully the Kelvans had discovered that they had adapted to being human too well to be able to return home, and turned the Enterprise Enterprise around. around.

"It works . . . too b.l.o.o.d.y well, is how it works, Captain."

Kirk grimaced, and Scotty knew that he had been expecting an answer along those lines. Mister Spock, however, wasn't going to let it lie. "Mister Scott," he said heavily, "if the Kelvan device can be reverse-engineered, it would be a great technological boon."

"Plus," Kirk said, "it would mean we would have a lot more control over our trip home."

Scotty understood his feelings well enough. He wasn't exactly looking forward to pa.s.sing through the barrier again. Although he was glad that, this time, the Kelvans' desiccation of the crew had meant there were no opportunities for anyone to develop rogue psi abilities like poor Gary Mitch.e.l.l and Elizabeth Dehner had done when the ship first tried to penetrate the immense and incomprehensible waves of energy that enfolded the galactic rim.

Truth to tell, sitting in the conference room of the Challenger Challenger over a hundred years later, Scotty liked the idea of tangling with the galactic barrier again even less than he had back on the over a hundred years later, Scotty liked the idea of tangling with the galactic barrier again even less than he had back on the Enterprise Enterprise. Even with all the advances in technology, it was still a potent force.