We have met your kind before,Deanna sent back, a long way from here in space and time.She looked around, found Deneb in the sky and focused her attention on it. There,she thought, and gave them her memories of Farpoint.
Yes—our cousins sang of you! Listener and Liberator [great joy/gratitude]. Not so far from here, though.
We wish to get to know you, be your friends,she projected. She hesitated to send the next thought, since it might commit her a bit too much; but this was a bond of emotion, and it just felt right. We believe we can help you with a problem.
Chapter Six
Christine Vale had been staring at Jaza Najem for over a minute now, while he stared in turn at his console. The Bajoran was so enthralled in his studies that he didn’t even realize she was studying him—his warm coffee-colored skin, his wide dark eyes, his high, intelligent forehead, his expressive lips, the way the ridges between his eyebrows gave him a perpetually thoughtful look.
Knock it off,she thought. Yes, he was handsome. Yes, he was intelligent and thoughtful, and an extremely generous lover… Stop that.That was something that needed to remain in the past, and not affect her job. She was the first officer, he was the science officer, and that was all there was to it. So if she wanted to go up to him and ask for an update on his researches, she should just do so. As simple as that.
Sure.
So she just stood there and kept staring.
“You don’t have to feel guilty, you know.”
Jaza didn’t even look up from his console, so it took Vale a second to realize he was addressing her. “What?” she asked, coming close enough that they could talk in private.
Now he did look up, and smiled. “I told you I understood, and I meant it. I don’t begrudge you going back on an impulsive promise made in the heat of passion. I’m a scientist, remember—which means not only that I place a premium on rational thought, but that I understand the value of admitting one’s mistakes. So it’s not a problem.”
“Well…good. Of course. Didn’t need to be said.” He smiled and nodded. After a second, she sidled closer. “Not that I think it was a mistake to…do it at all. Just…”
“Right. To follow up on it.”
“And it’s not like I don’t wantto, you understand. Not that I wouldn’t like to.”
“I get it.”
“It just wouldn’t really…”
“Work, right. And I respect that.”
“Good.” She cleared her throat. “So…you seemed pretty enthralled by those energy-beings just now.” A short time ago, while Counselor Troi and the others had been starting their seance or whatever it was in stellar cartography, Jaza had detected yet another new cosmozoan species in a small HII region half a light-year away. The bright magenta cloud of excited hydrogen was inhabited by thousands of discrete plasma-energy matrices which demonstrated lifelike behavior. They fed off the hydrogen-band energy emissions in the cloud, competing for the best feeding locations, on the side facing the young A-type giant star whose radiation fuelled the emissions, but not so close to the surface of the cloud as to be disrupted by that radiation. “Are they showing any signs of intelligence?”
“No, not a trace. But I’ve discovered a secondary feeding behavior. They can disrupt the molecular bonds in carbonaceous asteroids, absorbing the released binding energy.”
“Oh. That’s…very interesting.”
Jaza smiled. “I suppose it doesn’t sound that way. It’s just that…well, it’s somewhat unusual in the annals of Starfleet to come across energy beings that can be studied at leisure rather than trying to kill you, take over your body or subject youto testing.”
They shared a laugh, which was bigger than the comment deserved but then trailed off into an uneasy silence. After a moment, Vale found herself speaking in spite of herself. “So…do youwant to? I mean…would you, if it weren’t…”
He smiled at her, knowing she wasn’t talking about studying incorporeal beings. “Of course I would. But…most of all, I don’t want you to feel we can’t be friends.”
That made her blush more than the rest of the conversation had. He deserved better than the silent treatment. But just as she opened her mouth to speak, Jaza’s console began beeping. “What is it?”
He studied the data. “A school of armored star-jellies has just come out of warp next to the HII region.” After another moment, his eyes widened. “They’re firing on the creatures.”
Vale tapped her combadge. “Captain Riker, to the bridge, please.”
A moment later, Riker emerged from his ready room. “Report.”
“A group of armored star-jellies has engaged the energy beings in the nebula, sir.”
“On screen,” Riker ordered. Jaza hit the transfer controls to uplink his console readouts to the main viewer. The bridge crew watched for a moment as the distant saucers flew into the hydrogen cloud, lighting it up with their plasma stings, whose color almost matched its own. The energy beings, localized shimmers of light within the depths of the cloud, grew more frenetic in their movements. Soon there were brighter discharges of light within the cloud, vast searing arcs that struck the saucers.
“The energy beings are harnessing the cloud’s electrostatic potential as a defense,” Jaza said. “The potential energy contained in a nebula is immense—it makes for a devastating weapon. The attackers are taking significant damage despite their armor. One of them is spinning away out of control, leaking air and fluids…it’s done for.”
“Are they Pa’haquel or live jellies?” Riker wanted to know.
“Hard to get bioreadings at this range,” Jaza said. “But looking at the subspace emission spectra from their warp emergence…yes, there’s a subtle difference in their warp signatures. It wouldn’t be detectable with standard sensors, but yes, these are Pa’haquel ships.”
Ensign Kuu’iut spoke from tactical, his voder interpreting his chirping speech. “Judging by their number, sizes, and surface details,” the Betelgeusian said, “it’s the same pack that we encountered before. Including their recent kills.”
“Did they follow us?” Riker asked.
“Their warp emergence vectors suggest they came from 308 mark 41, sir.”
“More or less ahead of us,” Vale interpreted.
Kuu’iut’s hairless blue head nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“More than likely,” Jaza said, “they just thought the same way we did—the closer to Vela, the more cosmozoans they’re likely to find.”
“But why attack the energy beings?” Vale wondered aloud. “What possible use could they have for them?”
“Hard to say,” Jaza said. “The beings they kill lose cohesion—their energy dissipates into the cloud. Maybe they intend to use the energy as a fuel source. Live jellies feed on energy, after all. But I see no sign that they’re absorbing the dissipated energy. Maybe that comes later.”
“Or maybe they just do it for sport,” Riker said coldly.
“Either way, they’re winning,” said Kuu’iut. His feeding mouth snarled in excitement as he spoke through his beaklike upper mouth. “They’ve disrupted hundreds of the creatures and they aren’t slowing down. I don’t think they intend to leave any of them alive.”
Riker stared at the screen for a moment. “Could that be why we haven’t found this kind of spacegoing ecosystem in other star-formation zones?” he said heavily. “Because somebody hunted the life there to extinction?”
Just then the turbolift doors slid open and Counselor Troi emerged, followed by Tuvok and Ree. Vale saw Troi stare at the viewscreen for a moment and then meet Riker’s eyes. It seemed to Vale as though there was more passing between them than a significant look. “How far are they?” Troi asked at last, seeming to confirm that impression. Vale frowned slightly.