The Last Stand.

by Brad Ferguson.

Prologue.

IT WAS A BRIGHT, BEAUTIFUL MORNING, the sun blazing hot and white in a cloudless green sky. His hands clasped behind him, Kerajem zan Trikotta stood at the east window of his elaborately appointed office atop Government Tower. The seven members of the Council of Ministers sat silently in comfortable chairs around the room, each alone with his thoughts.

The ministers had been there all the previous day and through the night. They had talked endlessly of peace and war, of good and evil, of life and death. They had argued with each other until their voices had gone, along with their patience. The room air was stale with the sweat of their effort.

Now it was midmorning of the next day, and time was nearly up. The First Among Equals had a decision to make, and so Kerajem was being left to himself for the few moments left.

Kerajem looked down forty-one flights to the busy streets below. It seemed that everyone in the world must be outdoors today, enjoying the suddenly fine weather. Kerajem knew that most of the people down there were government bureaucrats who should have been at their desks on this workday. He smiled slightly. If the smaller wheels who drove the ma.s.sive machinery of government wanted to take an hour or so off to enjoy the sunshine, then why not? It had been a long, hard winter, and this was the first truly pleasant day the capital had seen in months.

The facts were what they were, and they would not change. That had not stopped several of the ministers from arguing, bargaining for time, hoping against hope that things would work out nevertheless, and that a way out of the crisis would be found.

Kerajem looked up toward the eastern horizon. It was so clear today that he could see all the way to the mountains, which were still white with snow and ice. The mountains were the foothills of the great Kajja Kojja, the range that divided the eastern coast of this continent from the interior plains.

Kerajem knew those mountains well. He had been born among them, in one of the old mining towns. It had been a hard life back then. Kerajem had been drafted to work in the mines at the age of six, as the laws had then required. Children of both s.e.xes were sent into the mines because, being small, they could scramble and wiggle and force themselves into dark, narrow places where grown men could not go. It had been highly dangerous work that provided only the most meager reward to the children's families.

"You came from there, too, Rikkadar," Kerajem said over his shoulder. "The mountains. You remember how it was."

"Yes, First," the finance minister replied from his chair. He was the only other man in the room above the age of sixty, and he was the only one there who Kerajem thought of as a friend. "That was a long time ago."

"Not very. A mere matter of decades." Still facing the mountains, Kerajem looked at his hands. He could not remember a time when he had possessed all ten of his fingers. He might be who he was now, but the mines always found him again whenever he tried to hold a cup or sign his name.

It had been Kerajem's generation which, when it had come to maturity and power, had at last eased the relentless preparations for war inst.i.tuted and maintained for millennia by their forefathers. Kerajem himself had helped to form the more liberal policies of modern times when he was younger. There had been great opposition, mostly by the old, the self-interested, and the superst.i.tious, but reform had finally come. As a result, living conditions for the people were generally much better than they had been when Kerajem was a boy.

Social reform had finally come in the conviction that the old stories of doom and destruction had been merely the exaggerated stuff of h.o.a.ry legend, tales of horror believed only by the stupid, the gullible, and the obsessed. However, the world had discovered the terrible truth just thirty-three years before, when the first signals from s.p.a.ce had been detected and the first probes intercepted. Those who would destroy the world were real, and they were coming. Now they were almost here, and they promised that everything Kerajem knew and loved would soon end in fire and blood and death.

That promise did not leave the First Among Equals much choice.

There was a transmitter on Kerajem's desk, a direct line to the War Room. It suddenly beeped politely for his attention. Kerajem crossed the room and, thumbing a b.u.t.ton on the side of the unit, spoke into the pickup. The eyes of everyone were on him.

"General, this is the First," Kerajem said, seating himself at the desk, impossibly trying to make himself comfortable. "You are speaking to the entire Cabinet."

"Yes, sir. I have a report."

"Go ahead."

"The test schedule has been completed. Results are nominal."

"Very well," Kerajem said quietly. "Please stand by."

The First took a last moment for himself and then made his decision. Rikkadar saw the promise of doom in his friend's haunted eyes. "Plan Blue doesn't even represent a real defense," the finance minister said, his voice cracking. "Bring them back, Kerajem. Recall them before it's too late."

"Blue sets a high price for our demise," said Hattajek, the minister for defense. He rubbed his eyes wearily. "We've been all over this, First."

"Indeed we have, Hatta," Kerajem said gently, "but I would be disappointed if this order were to be given without objection."

There were several small, neatly framed photographs set in a group near a far corner of Kerajem's cluttered desktop. The foremost photo was a nice portrait of Kerajem's only granddaughter-ravenhaired, freckled, unscarred by life and fate. Little Kara and her contemporaries had never known the inside of the mines and the factories. Kerajem and his fellow reformers had at least accomplished that much.

Of course, it was not nearly enough.

The First gazed at Kara's picture for another moment and then he gave the order. "General, execute Plan Blue Ultimate according to schedule."

"Yes, sir."

"I'll be there shortly with Minister Hattajek." Kerajem broke the connection. "Thank you all," he said to the ministers, dismissing them. "Hatta, you go on ahead. I'll be along presently."

"Yes, First." Hattajek left and, one by one, the others began to drift out of the room after him.

Rikkadar was the last to leave. "Are you sure about this, Kerajem?" he asked softly, when they were alone. "Are you really sure?"

"Of course not, Rikky," the First answered kindly, "but it's all we've got."

Rikkadar sighed. "I suppose so. I wish it were otherwise."

"So do I. Go home. Get some sleep."

"So should you, Kerajem."

The First Among Equals shook his head. "I have to go to the War Room now," he said quietly. "We're at Blue Ultimate. I ... won't be home again for a while."

"All right," Rikkadar said, "but I'll be back here later today. Sooner if you need me, of course."

"Of course."

"Be well, my friend." Rikkadar closed the door gently behind him.

Kerajem was alone now. Closing his eyes, he reached far back into his childhood and muttered what little he remembered of the prayer his mother had taught him to keep him safe in the mines. Only a miracle could save the world. Though he did not believe, Kerajem bowed his head and prayed to his mother's G.o.d for a miracle.

Chapter One.

Captain's log, stardate 45523.6. Our survey of this previously unexplored sector is now well into its second week. We have departed the star system we have temporarily designated 30452 Federation Astrophysical Survey and are on course for the next system on our list.

I am about to begin going over the various summaries of preliminary findings that have been filed by our department heads concerning 30452 FAS. Given the results of this survey so far, we are certain to make a rather hefty deposit in the bank of cosmological knowledge.

The work of our Science Division people is providing not only revelation, but respite. Many of those aboard who are not directly involved in survey work are taking advantage of this admittedly welcome lull in our usually hectic routine to relax a bit-oh.

THE DOOR SIGNAL SQUEEPLED, and Jean-Luc Picard put his log entry on hold. "Come," he called, and the door to the ready room slid aside. "Ah, Number One. What brings you here?" Picard greeted him. "Isn't this your off time?"

"I've been keeping busy, Captain," Will Riker said, handing Picard a padd. "Here's the correlated environmental data on the third and fourth planets of '452. Thought you might want to see this sooner rather than later."

Picard smiled, took the padd, and leaned back in his chair. "Thank you, Will," the captain said as he began to scan the display. "With the ton of work we've yet to get through, I didn't feel right in making this a priority item. It was thoughtful of you to run this on your own." He tapped the padd with a finger. "Ah, here's what I was hoping to see."

"Let me guess. The ambient radiation spike on Planet Three?"

Picard nodded slowly. "Precisely. As we thought, it's coincident with the date of the formation of the ruins, within the margin of error-that is, the spike agrees closely with the date we've established through other evidence. Whoever wiped out this civilization came quickly, struck hard, and didn't leave much behind."

"Everything suggests that Planet Three suffered a ma.s.sive thermonuclear bombardment from s.p.a.ce," Riker agreed. "Whoever it was used weapons designed to scatter as much killing radiation as possible. Everything on Planet Three was intended to die, and the planet is dead for all practical purposes. All that's left are bacteria and insects, a few hardy plants, and not much else."

Picard read further. "We estimate that it has been six thousand years since the bombardment," he said, "yet the planet is still badly contaminated. What remains of the ecosphere is extremely fragile." The captain picked up one of the padds on his desk and handed it to Riker. "The geological survey has identified several areas that could have been the sites of ground-based launching facilities on Planet Three," the captain told him. "s.p.a.ceports, more or less. Large ones."

Riker read the display. "I agree," he said. "They had to have been launching facilities, given their size and proximity to the sites we've established for Planet Three's major cities. Think the natives could have escaped?"

Picard shook his head. "The ruins suggest a native population of more than two billion humanoids at the time of the bombardment. The launching facilities-if that's what they are-would be inadequate to handle that number in anything like a reasonable time, and I doubt the natives had time. What do we have on Planet Four, Will?"

"Our a.n.a.lysis of the ruins there confirms that Planet Four was not as technically advanced as Planet Three," Riker said. "However, the natives of Planet Four seem to have had s.p.a.ce travel of some sort. As for the plague virus we found during our orbital bioscans, Dr. Crusher's still working up the schematics," Riker replied. "To quote the doctor, 'I'll have it soon. It's complicated. Please go away.'" He grinned and then grew serious. "Beverly's theory is that the virus might have been tailored to kill off all higher animal forms on Planet Four."

"Tailored, you say? It was purposefully designed?"

"She says it might have been, sir," the first officer said. "The virus is still present in Planet Four's ecosystem, and its effects remain potentially devastating. Beverly says, from what she's already seen, that the odds against a virus like this one evolving naturally and then remaining relatively stable for six millennia are prohibitively high. Viri just don't work like that."

"But Planet Four is ecologically stable at present," Picard pointed out. "It actually seemed quite lovely."

"Yes, sir. Higher forms of animal life are not present on land, but lower forms are prospering, and plant and marine life seem to have been completely unaffected."

Picard read quickly through the report from the exobiology section. "What about that lifeform Bergeron located just before we left?" the captain asked. "That brightly colored slithering thing that looked a bit like a Centaurian bhobb? It seemed to be the most highly evolved land-based lifeform left on the planet. Any worthwhile findings?"

"Nothing much, Captain," Riker replied. "Hibberd replicated the thing before we left, returned the original to its habitat, and dissected the duplicate. There was some initial hope that the creature might be sentient, but Bergeron says, quote, 'If you give it ten million years, it might amount to something, emphasis on might.' Unquote."

Picard nodded. "I see. Too bad."

Riker continued. "All in all, Planet Four seems the next best thing to a paradise, in some ways-except, of course, that the natives are all gone, their cities and other artifacts have been crumbling into dust for six millennia, and we would die within fifteen minutes if we beamed down to the surface unprotected."

Picard shook his head. "I wonder who came through here and did all this, Will. Two planets devastated, one apparently irredeemably. It seems incredible-"

"Worf to Captain," came a distinctively deep voice.

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

"Sir, sensors have detected a warp-field generation pulse, eighty-seven point three light-years off, bearing four hundred ninety-five mark twenty-three. Duration was zero point one seven seconds."

"Any sign of a ship in that area?"

"No, sir. Wait-there it is again. Same range and bearing. The duration was zero point five eight seconds."

"Commander Riker and I will be right there," the captain said. "Picard out."

"Now that's odd," Riker said, climbing out of his chair.

"Indeed." The captain rose and, adjusting his jacket for the umpteenth time that day, glanced at the survey summaries that still lay, unread, on his desk. They say there is no such thing as a useless fact, Picard thought, but sometimes I wonder.

The captain and first officer left the ready room and stepped directly onto the bridge. Ensign Ro Laren was in the captain's chair. "Captain, Commander," she greeted them as she rose. Her tone was as formal and correct as ever. Without another word, Ro moved away from the conn and relieved her replacement at the flight control console.

"Any indication of warp-field strength, Mr. Worf?" Picard asked as he took his seat. Riker plopped down to his right.

Worf shook his head and frowned at his Tactical panel. "Neither pulse lasted long enough to be able to tell, Captain."

Riker spoke up. "A bit over eighty-seven light-years from here at that bearing-isn't there a system near those coordinates, Mr. Data?"

"Yes, Commander," Data replied, nodding. "There is a system with a G0-type star at that location." The android paused for a moment, awaiting the results of a long-range sensor scan. "Sensor readings coming in now. The system in question has eleven planets. The third and fourth may be cla.s.s-M. The system lies well off our course through this sector, and so it was not included on our survey list."

"That may change," Picard said dryly. "Anything else, Mr. Data?"

"I am not sure, sir. The star seems to be generating more interference in midrange s.p.a.ce-normal EM frequencies than might be expected."

"Oh?" Picard thought about that for a moment. "Is there anything about the nature of the interference that might be considered unusual?"

"No, sir," replied Data, shaking his head. "There is simply more of it than I would expect to see from this type of star."

"Captain," Worf called. "There has been a third pulse. Same bearing, same range, duration zero point eight three seconds. This pulse lasted long enough for us to derive a reading of field strength, sir. It was sufficient for warp factor one."

That was more than enough for Picard. "Ensign, set course for that system, warp factor three."

"Laid in, sir."

"Engage."

Chapter Two.

Captain's log, supplemental. The Enterprise has just crossed the orbit of the outermost planet of the star system we have designated as 30453 FAS. As we have drawn closer, we have determined that the extra electromagnetic interference that we thought was somehow being emitted naturally by the star is actually coming from the third planet of that system. Therefore, the interference cannot be natural. Someone must be transmitting it on purpose, but who-and to what end? And who is responsible for generating the warp-field pulses we detected?

I intend to find out before we leave here.

We will drop out of warp just inside the orbit of Planet Five, a Jupiter-cla.s.s gas giant that is very nearly in opposition to Planet Three at this time. This will place us some six hundred fifty million kilometers from Planet Three. We'll then head in for a look about. I do not intend to attempt contact with the natives of Planet Three-if any-at this time.

THE E NTERPRISE DROPPED OUT OF WARP precisely on schedule, and Data studied the readouts on his Ops panel. "Captain," he reported, "short-range sensors have detected meta-cetacean lifeforms inhabiting the upper atmosphere of Planet Five, as is typical for gas giants of this cla.s.s. The planet possesses fifteen major natural satellites and a cla.s.s-two ring system. Diameter is approximately one hundred forty-five thousand kilometers. Typical, sir."

"Any signs of habitation on the satellites?" Picard asked. "Colonies or mining operations, perhaps?"