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  “So don’t judge a storm by its flicker,” Blake said. “That covers what it isn’t. George,” she said to Chung at the helm, “bring us in closer so we can try to narrow down what it is.”

  “Ah, Captain,” Chung advised, “the way the flare-ups are jumping around unpredictably, I’m not sure how close we can safely come.”

  “Feliki,” Blake told the Ithenite navigator, “plot their positions up to now and draw up a probability curve. George, stay outside the three-sigma line.” Both officers acknowledged her order. Uhura found her reasoning sound; the probability of an outburst forming more than three standard deviations from the mean position would be less than one percent.

  “Preliminary readings track with Reliant’s,” Uhura reported. “Signatures consistent with microscopic quantum wormholes produced by anomalous spikes of vacuum energy. Except…”

  “Commander?” Blake asked.

  “The data from Deneva show that the outburst began three hours ago. The previous vacuum flares had begun to subside by then. This one is persisting—no, more than that. It’s still expanding!”

  Blake turned to the helm. “George, slow us down. How close are those other two ships to three-sigma?”

  “T’Viri is well clear,” Chung reported. “Meitner is cutting it close, but it should be— No, belay that! Her shields just went up.”

  Uhura could only watch with concern as a new surge of actinic pinpoints began to form directly in Meitner’s path. The small science vessel attempted evasive maneuvers, but not soon enough; it passed through the outer fringe of the still-expanding field of micro-wormhole bursts. The ship’s momentum carried it beyond them soon enough, but its running lights guttered and its nacelle heat sinks began to dim.

  “Distress signal coming in,” Tarha said a moment later.

  “On audio,” Blake ordered.

  “… requesting assistance. We have sustained significant internal damage and multiple injuries. But keep clear of the flare at all costs! Shields had no effect. Repeat, deflector shields had zero effect on the phenomenon. The bursts formed directly inside the ship.”

  “T’Viri is closing on them,” Chung said. “They’re nearer than we are—and that thing is between us and them.”

  Blake grimaced. “Then we’ll trust them to do their part and we’ll do ours. Keep studying the vacuum flare. Learn everything you can.”

  “It’s finally starting to subside, Captain,” Uhura reported.

  “That’s good. But if this one got so much bigger and more dangerous than expected,” Blake wondered, “then what about the next one?”

  U.S.S. Reliant

  By the time Reliant made it back to the Federation’s core sectors nearly three weeks after the Deneva incident, two more vacuum flares had occurred, in the Cygnet and Makus star systems. Both had been in empty parts of the respective systems, doing no damage except to a passing comet in the latter, but both continued the pattern of growing larger and lasting longer than the previous ones.

  “Starfleet is taking this as a serious threat,” Captain Terrell told the assembled command crew in the main briefing room. “Every one of these vacuum flares has occurred in a major Federation or allied system. At this point, it’s unlikely that it’s random.”

  Terrell’s first officer, Rem Azem-Os, flexed her green-and-gold wings thoughtfully. “Every one we know of,” the venerable Aurelian replied in her fluting voice. “If it’s happening in uninhabited or precontact systems, we might simply be unaware of it.”

  Chekov shook his head. “The major Federation observatories have been scanning for similar bursts. The gravimetric surges would be detectable on subspace bands, but there’s been nothing, except from these five systems.”

  “So is it some kind of attack after all?” asked Lieutenant Mosi Nizhoni, the chief of security.

  Commander Beach spread his hands. “Not necessarily,” the helmsman told the younger Navajo woman. “For all we know, this could be some kind of natural phenomenon resulting from repeated warp travel in those regions. Maybe we’ve worn potholes in subspace.”

  “There’s been far more warp travel around Earth, or Vulcan or Andoria,” Chekov countered.

  “What is it that these five systems do have in common that others don’t?” Terrell asked, impatience tingeing his voice. “Argelius, Altair, Deneva, Cygnet, Makus. What’s the common denominator? How can we predict the next system to get hit?”

  Chekov opened his mouth, but hesitated. Azem-Os caught it. “You have a thought, Commander?”

  “It’s… tenuous.”

  “That makes it no different from anything else about this situation, Pavel. Tell us.”

  “Well… I couldn’t help but notice that all five of these systems have been visited by the Enterprise.”

  Beach shrugged. “They’re major ports. Hundreds of Federation vessels have visited them.”

  “In reverse order?”

  That got everyone’s attention. “Care to clarify?” Azem-Os asked.

  “Here.” Chekov moved to the wall console and called up a listing of the Enterprise’s ports of call from 2266 to 2267, scrolling backward in pace with his commentary. “We took shore leave on Argelius on stardate 3614. About six weeks before that, on stardate 3378, we attended the inauguration on Altair VI. On stardate 3287, we rescued Deneva from the neural parasite infestation.” He faltered. “Well, not ‘we’—I was still on my engineering rotation, not yet part of the bridge crew. The fourth was just before I came aboard, when the ship laid over at Cygnet XIV for computer maintenance on stardate 3109. And finally—or rather, first—the Enterprise visited Makus III on a medical supply run on stardate 2826.”

  Beach shook his head. “Okay, that’s pretty wild. But it’s still not much to go on.”

  “There is more,” Chekov said, working the controls to call up orbital charts of the five systems, subdividing the screen into multiple windows. “Here are the current positions of the systems’ planets, and the locations of the vacuum flares.” He superimposed the latter.

  Azem-Os peered sharply with her raptor’s eyes, no less piercing for her age. “I see no pattern.”

  “But here are the orbital positions of those planets at the time of the Enterprise’s visits twelve to thirteen years ago.” He linked the windows to the dates he’d highlighted in the itinerary chart, and the planets realigned themselves to their earlier positions. While none of them aligned exactly with the vacuum flare positions, all five now came near enough to make the pattern evident.

  “They aren’t bull’s-eyes,” Nizhoni said, “but at least now it looks like they’re actually aiming at the dartboard.”

  Beach frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. “But if there is a pattern there, why would it be backward?”

  “And why target places the Enterprise has been?” Terrell added.

  Nizhoni shrugged. “We always were popular. Even before I got there.”

  “More to the point, why only those places?” Azem-Os asked. “Major interstellar ports visited by the Enterprise. Why not its other destinations? The frontier worlds it charted, the research outposts it resupplied? Why not Organia or Cestus III?”

  “Not only that,” said Chekov. “There are other major ports the Enterprise visited during that period that have not experienced vacuum flares. Just before Altair, we were at Vulcan. Shortly before Deneva, we were at Starbase 12. Just after Cygnet, the Enterprise had a two-week layover in the Sol system, to repair damage after a close call with the Black Star. That’s when I joined the crew, in fact. And between Makus and Cygnet, the ship visited Starbase 11 twice.”

  Terrell stroked his beard. “So we need to find some common ground uniting those five systems specifically. Something we can use to predict the next potential target. Either to get there ahead of time, or just to disprove this hypothesis. Chekov, can you think of anything the Enterprise’s visits to those systems share that the others don’t?”

  Chekov gave a feeble grin. “The only connection I can thi
nk of is that I took shore leave on the last two. But I had leave on Starbase 12 too.”

  “At least,” Azem-Os said, “the Enterprise’s itinerary narrows the list of candidates down to a finite number that we can monitor.”

  “Possibly.” Chekov consulted the list, reading the brief notations of the ship’s activities at its ports of call, since they were all from before his time now. “Maybe the Benecia colony, or Alpha Proxima II…”

  “Compile a list,” Terrell instructed, “and we’ll forward it to Starfleet. It’s thin, but at least it’s a possibility.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Terrell dismissed the briefing, and the crew began filing out of the room. Beach caught up with Chekov on the way out. “What is it with you Enterprise guys? You always have to be at the center of everything, don’t you?”

  Chekov took the teasing in good humor, as it was intended. “Just when I thought I was out.”

  Chapter Four

  Starfleet Academy

  Zirani Kayros had a hard time looking away from the Warborn Arcturians as she and the other first-year cadets filed out from the assembly hall. From the chatter her large Tiburonian ears picked up, she wasn’t the only one. Admiral Kirk and Commander Rakatheema had introduced the twelve parthenogenetically bred cadets during the opening assembly that had just ended, explaining their unusual situation to the student body and encouraging the other cadets to welcome and bear with them as they adjusted to Academy life. So far, the process seemed to be off to a slow start.

  Some of the cadets looked as though they wanted to approach the Arcturians and say hello; but the twelve of them stayed clustered together as they strode from the hall with military precision, their gaze straight ahead. It was hard to see an opening for an approach.

  Maybe they’re just nervous, Kayros thought. You’d be too if everyone was staring at you. Give them time.

  Michael Ashrafi’s thoughts as he strolled alongside her were less generous and rather more audible. “No wonder people mistake them for clones,” the shaggy-haired, tan-skinned human remarked. “I don’t want to sound like… you know… but aside from the big muscley one, I can hardly tell them apart.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” The speaker was Targeemos, a natural-born Arcturian female who was also in their class. “To be honest, even we have trouble telling the Warborn apart. It’s the nature of their special genetics, or their fast development, or both. That’s why they wear those bandoliers and epaulets on top of their uniforms.” Kayros had wondered about those embellishments to the standard cadet dress code. The metallic pieces hadn’t struck her as very functional; the bandoliers in particular appeared to be merely loops of cable draped around the neck and right shoulder.

  “The color patterns show their regiments and serial numbers, which is how you tell them apart,” Targeemos went on. “At least until you get to know them well enough to recognize them, I suppose.” The ruddy, hairless humanoid fidgeted. “Not that I’ve ever met any before. They’re not even supposed to be created anymore. But my family has passed down stories about the Maltuvian invasion. My great-grandmother treated some of the Warborn who survived.”

  On Kayros’s other side, Vekal clenched his jaw; she could hear his muscles tensing and his teeth clicking together. “Breeding a whole subspecies purely to serve and die in combat is deeply unethical,” the young Vulcan said. “The Warborn program should never have been revived, no matter the provocation.”

  Targeemos looked offended. “I never suggested otherwise.”

  “I was not implying that you did. I was expressing my own objection.”

  Kayros stared at him. “So, what, you’re saying you don’t think those guys over there should ever have been born? What, do you think they should’ve been euthanized or something?”

  His brows shot up. “That was not my intent. I simply mean that their presence here raises questions.”

  “Like what?” Ashrafi asked.

  “The Warborn program was revived during a time of conflict with the Klingons, in the belief that they would be of value in the war. Now, relations with the Klingons again grow tense—the Romulans as well—and the Warborn are revived and enrolled in the Academy.”

  Ashrafi laughed. “You think this is some conspiracy to turn them into Starfleet infantry or something? Come on, you heard the admiral. They’re here to learn stuff other than fighting.”

  Kayros tapped the side of Vekal’s head. “Logic, remember? They already know how to fight, so if that were all they were needed for, they wouldn’t be at the Academy.”

  Vekal squirmed away from her touch. “It need not be their only role in Starfleet for it to be a potential role. And if Starfleet is open to it, then that suggests Starfleet’s emphasis may be shifting toward greater militarization. I do not wish to see it move in that direction. I joined to become a scientist, like Captain Spock.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” Targeemos said. “The Warborn… They’re a piece of our past we’re ambivalent about. We honor them for their sacrifice in defending the homeworld, but we see them as victims of an unenlightened practice, created to be exploited for our benefit. We’ve grown past that now.” She cleared her throat. “Or we like to think we have. I can’t believe the Arcturian government would have let them join Starfleet if they thought it would lead to them being exploited again. The people back home would never stand for it. We wouldn’t force them to fight.”

  Vekal gazed at the Warborn, who had taken up positions in an open plaza and begun performing martial-arts exercises with strict, regimented precision, ignoring the wary spectators who gave them a wide berth. “Perhaps. But do they know that?”

  * * *

  It had made Portia uncomfortable to be paraded before the Academy’s other first-year cadets at the opening assembly. Ever since she and the others had been revived from cryosleep, the citizens of Arcturus had looked on them as outsiders, anomalies with no place in their world. She had longed to have an enemy to fight, a battle to be sent to so that she would not feel so purposeless. Now she finally had a mission—to attend the Academy, to integrate with the Starfleet community, to learn the ways of exploration and diplomacy. Yet being sent here had only worsened her sense of being out of place and unwanted.

  Not that she could blame that entirely on the cadets who scrutinized them warily, keeping an uneasy distance. In some ways, she felt just as out of place among her own group, unsure if she saw their mission the same way the others did. That became clear when she downloaded her course schedule and texts onto her Academy-issue data slate and began to look them over. Horatio was standing beside her, doing the same with his own slate, but he had always been inquisitive, so he looked over hers as well. What he saw made him frown, and he turned to confront Portia.

  “You are registered for Tactics 101? That is a combat course!”

  She stared at him. “Why shouldn’t I be? This is the core curriculum. We must take all its courses, regardless of the order we take them in.”

  Bertram stepped forward, facing down Horatio. “I’m in that course as well. Why not? It’s what I know.”

  Horatio was unimpressed. “We’re here to learn what we do not already know. Diplomacy, history, science.”

  Another male, Benedick, moved in alongside Horatio, nodding eagerly. “That’s right. There are so many fascinating new subjects here to learn, so many exciting new challenges. I had a hard time choosing among them. I want to master them all!”

  Portia chuckled. Benedick had gestated at the same time as the others, yet he always seemed more youthful and innocent.

  “Give it time, comrade,” she told him. “Better to start with the familiar, then expand from there. You want them to accept us, yes? Let’s impress them with what we can do. Maybe we can teach them a few things about combat.”

  Horatio clasped her arm. “We wish them to accept us, not fear us. They question the rightness of our being here, when we were made only for war. We must prove to them that we will not fi
ght, except to defend Arcturus.”

  Portia was growing weary of his self-righteousness. “It’s only unarmed combat, Horatio. Barely more than exercise. You worry too much about how others will view us.”

  “And you don’t? To many of these people—especially our own people—we are a mistake that should never have happened. We do not want to convince them they are right.”

  She pulled away from his grip. “Maybe I’m tired of worrying how others define me. If it was wrong to create us to serve others… then maybe we should start thinking about how to serve ourselves.”

  Starfleet Medical Center

  San Francisco

  Leonard McCoy pulled up short in the doorway to his office. In his absence, the desk had been converted into a makeshift picnic table, the traditional checkered cloth covered with a luxuriant spread of sandwich fixings, baked beans, cornbread, fresh fruit, and the like. “What the hell is this?”

  As he spoke, he spotted Jim Kirk standing at the window to his right. It came as no surprise; he’d concluded already that Kirk must have been behind this. Spreading his hands, the admiral answered, “We’ve been having trouble scheduling lunch lately, so I thought this would save you some time.”

  McCoy peered at him. “How much time did it take you?”

  “Only as much as it took to order a yeoman to do it.” He winked. “Rank hath its privileges.”

  “Speaking of rank, if the Head hears about this—”

  “Oh, she encouraged it. Says you’ve been working too hard and forgetting to eat.”

  “Tell that to the Icorians who’ll die of Synthococcus novae if we don’t find a vaccine for this new strain!”

  Kirk chuckled, then affected a gruff voice. “ ‘Jim, you’ll be of no use to anyone if you collapse from hunger in the middle of a crisis!’ Sound familiar?”

  McCoy grumbled, but he was already helping himself to some sandwich fixings. That smoked turkey smelled really good. “So what is it you want from me?”