Chapter 10 - Heart Of Madness
Hel'yra's sun still shined above the edge of the mountains surrounding the enormous structure built by the Ancient Progenitors, but soon it would set, letting the night engulf this side of the planet. With that darkness would come a cold worse than any lack of heat. It was the cold of things best forgotten.
Jack McCall, his wife Mei-Wan, Duncan Zachary, Hank Evans, and young Ensign Fowler walked through long shadows toward the entrance to a structure older than the DNA in their cells. Jack had reservations about this little trip, yet he had to know what secrets lay beneath the dead soil of this world.
The Chamberlain had gone to a much higher orbit and Counselor Wilmarza assured him the mental background noise had been greatly reduced. As an added precaution, he sent the Abdiel out of the nebula much to Falco's pleasure. The commander of the Defiant class ship had gone stir crazy orbiting the planet. Now Jack only needed to make sure no one on the surface succumbed to the emanations responsible for the deaths of Uduff and Ramirez. Jack hoped Doctor Preston could find some answers with his examination of the dead security officer's body.
All of them stepped into the large central chamber where they had first encountered the message from their humanoid ancestor which still defied translation. Mei-Wan and Fowler each pulled out a PADD and approached the wall panel that had earlier activated the holographic imaging system. Jack and Hank scrutinized the rest of the chamber for anything that seemed out of place or odd.
Zachary stared at Mei-Wan and Fowler and groaned, "We've been all over that panel, Lieutenant. It only activates the message system."
Mei-Wan glanced over her shoulder at Zachary and smiled. Fowler showed her an image on one of the PADDs and Mei-Wan placed her left hand in the center of the panel. Zachary smirked as nothing happened.
"Everyone, standby," Mei-Wan said. She placed her right hand on the red glowing text which had before activated the hologram. This time there was no message.
Text illuminated all over the panel and everyone felt a low, gut-wrenching rumble one might expect from a tectonic plate shifting its position as a section of wall separated. Jack thought the entire structure had begun to collapse until he saw that the wall moved evenly. From the floor to the ceiling the curved wall separated until a forty foot wide opening stood before them.
Mei-Wan smiled and she and Fowler picked up their equipment and moved toward the opening.
Hank quickly blocked them and Mei-Wan turned to her husband.
"I thought the point was to investigate," Mei-Wan protested.
Jack crossed the chamber to join Hank. "We need to make sure it's safe before we jump headlong into some dark tunnel."
At that moment the massive corridor illuminated with the brightness of the noonday sun.
"You were saying, sir?" Mei-Wan asked with a grin.
"We need to move with caution, Lieutenant."
"If we stand around letting you and Hank check for this, that, and the other every time we come across something new we'll never get to where we're going in the three hour time limit you insisted on," Mei-Wan stated.
Jack turned back to Zachary who stood over the panel staring at it. "Mr. Zachary, you intend on joining us?"
Zachary spun around startled. "Aye, sir."
As his Science Officer joined them, Jack waved his arm forward. "Lead on, Lieutenant."
Mei-Wan and Fowler scanned the passage with their tricorders and stepped off leading the three men between walls of a polished shiny metal that defied analysis from the small scanning devices. Light seemed to come from beneath them, but the floor was a pale gray color that appeared more like rock than a lamp.
"Why would they build so large?" Zachary asked.
"Why not?" Fowler replied.
Zachary frowned. "These Ancient Progenitors appear to be about the same proportions as us. Why would they build hallways and chambers so large?"
"Maybe they liked open spaces," Hank said.
"Or perhaps they didn't build it for themselves," Fowler added.
Jack glanced over at Mei-Wan. His face assumed the look of a man wanting answers, but Mei-Wan could only shrug her shoulders. He smiled and looked down at the chronometer on his left wrist. Jack held it up for her and she saw the 1314 it displayed.
"I guess our lunch appointment is shot."
Jack nodded. "Figures."
They neared the end of the large hallway where a seamless wall panel blocked their path.
"Now what?" Zachary inquired.
Mei-Wan enjoyed Zachary's helplessness. Here he was the Science Officer and it was one of his subordinates who led them where no one had trod for more than four billion years. She reached up to the center of the panel and a small section of the same strange text illuminated on the wall. A single vertical seam formed and split open.
"I'd say we go this way," Mei-Wan said.
All of them stepped into a small ten foot cube.
"Maybe one of us should stay behind in case something goes wrong," Zachary pleaded.
Jack shook his head as they stood motionless. The opening sealed back to its closed state as Mei-Wan and Fowler watched their tricorder displays.
"We're descending," Fowler stated.
"How far?" Jack asked.
"We've gone about four kilometers down already," Mei-Wan said.
Hank leaned against one of the walls. "I really hope this isn't some trap designed to retrieve sample lifeforms."
Jack turned to his friend and grinned. "Always the optimist."
"Somebody has to be."
Zachary looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes and mumbled something.
"What was that, Mr. Zachary?" Jack asked.
"Nothing at all, sir."
Suddenly the wall again split open, revealing another passage way. This area was not nearly as illuminated as the one they had come through a few minutes before.
"We're twenty kilometers beneath the surface," Mei-Wan told them.
Jack and Hank cautiously left the confines of their elevator and came to a sudden stop. Mei-Wan, Fowler, and Zachary quickly did the same as they each tried to comprehend the sights their eyes communicated to their limited primate brains.
A large array of luminous spheres hung from the ceiling more than two miles above their heads. The expanse before them stretched out for miles in every direction full of machines that flashed displays of alien information and moaned with sounds never heard by human ears. The rows and rows of mechanical contrivances disappeared in the mist of ancient air far in the distance and into the height above. Every color of the spectrum flashed onto the Starfleet Officers as they took small tentative steps toward the devices of their Progenitors.
"My god, would you look at this," Hank murmured.
Mei-Wan moved to the nearest collection of display panels and pointed her tricorder at them to record the information presented in the ancient text.
"Probably support machinery," Fowler offered.
Zachary snarled. "Impossible. Mechanical devices like these could not possibly function after four billion years. Someone must still be here or at least come by from time to time to make repairs."
Mei-Wan turned to face Zachary. "Not if the machines were intelligent and repaired themselves. With the nearly limitless power supply available I think we need to be careful in assigning any limitations to what we find here."
Zachary frowned and walked away.
Jack looked over at Mei-Wan. "Being a little rough on him aren't you?"
Mei-Wan watched Zachary, now almost thirty feet away. "I'm trying to be good, Captain."
"Any idea what these things are doing?"
Mei-Wan checked her tricorder. "If I could translate the language I might be able to answer that. My best guess would be most of this maintains the facility and probably the wormhole that connects to the star."
"But what is it all being maintained for?"
Zachary rushed back to them. "I think you should see this, sir."
The others followed the Science Officer to the side of a large machine, but instead of a wall there was a long dark passage at the end of which glowed a pale blue light. Fowler yawned and checked her tricorder.
"I think that's the center of the sub-space field you detected," the ensign said.
Zachary quickly walked down the narrow corridor. Hank and Fowler followed him.
"Is the field dangerous, Mei?"
Mei-Wan watched the display on her tricorder. "Apparently not, though a field of this magnitude should be like standing next to a thousand warp drive units at full output."
Jack took a deep breath and the couple followed the other officers.
At the end of the passage they came into a large two kilometer spherical chamber with a thirty meter wide walkway around its circumference. In the open center of the chamber a glowing mass of convulsing energy hung weightless twisting and folding in on itself. It seemed near to tearing itself asunder, yet a moment later it would settle into a near perfect and uniform sphere only to return again to its torment. No other light but that from the glowing mass illuminated the chamber.
"What is it?" Hank asked.
As if on cue, a holographic image of the same Ancient Progenitor they had seen before appeared near by. The humanoid female spoke in the same indecipherable language, yet with more urgency than the previous message.
Mei-Wan nodded to Fowler who quickly turned her tricorder to record the message for later study.
Zachary stared at the luminous mass as if mesmerized by the patterns of twisting energy. "Imagine what the Federation could do with power like this."
Jack took a breath. "I could imagine if I knew exactly what this was."
His Science Officer turned to him. "This is space-time folded in on itself, Captain. A small universe of its own locked away in this chamber. The implications of this are incredible."
Mei-Wan stepped next to Jack. "It means the Ancient Progenitors had the ability to alter the very structure of existence and use it the same way we manipulate matter and energy to produce power for warp drive, or the replicators, or a hundred other things we take for granted on a daily basis."
Jack glanced back at the glowing impossibility before them. "But if they had power on that scale, where are they? Where did they go?"
"Maybe they're in there."
Mei-Wan turned to Hank. "Inside that thing?"
"Zachary said it was a small universe. Why not?" Hank replied.
The Science Officer nodded. "It is entirely possible."
"Why go to all this trouble to produce a universe less than two kilometers in diameter?" Jack asked.
"In there," Zachary started, "The laws of physics might be vastly different than what we know. There might be billions of galaxies inside what appears to us hardly large enough for a small town."
Mei-Wan smiled. "Imagine the possibilities, Jack. You could create a universe where entropy didn't exist. There'd be no need to find cures to disease or fear death. You might even fine tune such a universe to make your every thought come to pass."
Zachary's eyes were wide. "No sorrow, no pain, no death."
"Horse hockey," Hank said loudly. "I bet we find out all that's in there is someone's junk. Sentimental trinkets that meant something to the woman in those messages, but not a thing to anyone else in the Universe."
"Could be an advanced form of a food storage unit," Jack said.
Hank laughed. "We could open it and have a few cold drinks."
Mei-Wan shook her head. She knew Jack and Hank like many Starfleet Officers found it difficult to admit that beings far more advanced than the Federation existed. They did not want to accept the implications of what stood before them.
Mei-Wan realized something was not right. She had been so absorbed with the sub-space mystery before them that she had completely forgotten Fowler. Mei-Wan would have expected the Ensign to be as impressed as she was.
"Jack, Fowler's gone."
"Where is she?" Zachary asked.
Mei-Wan took a deep breath and adjusted her tricorder. After a moment a small flashing indicator appeared on the display.
"She's out there," Mei-Wan said as she stepped briskly toward the passage they came through.
"Mei, now wait a… " Jack started.
Jack and Hank followed Mei-Wan. Zachary returned to gaze at the glowing mass of energy.
Jack found Fowler grasping Mei-Wan's throat from behind with one hand and pointing a phaser with the other hand at him and Hank who immediately pulled his own weapon.
"Deactivate the device, now!" Fowler shouted with a resonant voice that her small frame was never meant to utter.
"Calm down Ensign and let her go," Jack said as calmly as he could.
Hank moved slowly around for a better shot while Jack held Fowler's attention. The ensign did not miss the tactic. She turned her weapon to Hank and fired missing him by inches as he dove for cover behind a machine.
"You pathetic creatures sicken me! Do as I demand!"
Fowler adjusted her phaser to full strength and with a snarling smile that sent a blast of fear through Jack, she pointed the weapon at Mei-Wan's head.
"Do as I say, or watch this frail thing die," Fowler spat.
At that moment Zachary walked out of the passage and the thing Fowler had become fired at him. Jack leaped and tackled his Science Officer to the ground preventing the man's brain from being instantly vaporized.
Fowler returned the weapon to Mei-Wan's head.
"Fowler," Mei-Wan forced out with the little breath she had. "You know I can do what you ask. They can't help you, but I can."
Fowler looked down at her captive and seemed lost in thought. Her eyes closed and for a moment appeared near tears, but that moment passed.
"Yes. You will do as I demand."
Fowler turned Mei-Wan around, releasing the hold on her neck and grabbed her by the shoulder instead.
Mei-Wan took in large breaths to replace the stale air in her lungs.
"I need to go to the machine over there," Mei-Wan said and pointed to a device twenty feet away.
Fowler almost dislocated Mei-Wan's shoulder as she pulled her captive toward the machine.
Jack turned to Hank and nodded. He knew this might be their only chance.
Fowler shoved Mei-Wan against the display panel.
"Now, you will…" Fowler started.
Mei-Wan pushed against the panel with all the might she could deliver and threw herself back into Fowler. She knocked the young ensign to the ground.
Jack and Hank leaped forward and fired their phasers hitting Fowler. The woman staggered a moment, but rose to her feet and fired her weapon in Jack's direction. The blast missed him as he hid behind another machine.
Mei-Wan dropped to the ground and swung her legs around and kicked the phaser out of Fowler's hand.
"NO!" Fowler shouted as she moved to strangle the life out of Mei-Wan. Fortunately for the wife of Jack McCall, Hank Evans fired continuous energy from his weapon stopping Fowler's attack. After ten seconds, the ensign collapsed to the ground.
"She's down!" Hank shouted.
Jack ran to Mei-Wan and helped her up.
"You okay?" he asked.
Mei-Wan smiled as she rubbed her throat. "Assuming my windpipe isn't crushed, I think I'll be fine."
Hank picked up Fowler's phaser and pulled out a pair of hand restraints. He quickly bound her hands.
"Can we now get the hell out of here, sir?" Hank asked.
Jack looked at Mei-Wan. "Well?"
"Without translating the two recordings or the displays there's really not much more we can do here. We should leave this place for the Archaeological Council."
Jack turned to Zachary. "As long as my Science Officer doesn't have any objections."
Zachary started to say something, but shook his head instead.
"Hank, let's get Fowler back to the shuttle," Jack said.
Hank rolled the ensign over and checked for a pulse.
"At least she's still alive," Evans said, relieved.
Jack looked into Mei-Wan's eyes. "Why did you tell her you could operate these machines? You can't can you?"
Mei-Wan smiled. "Of course not. Whatever was going on with Natalie it was still her. I knew how she looked up to me, so I played on that. Never underestimate the admiration an ensign has for their section commander."
***
The U.S.S. Chamberlain cruised through the outer sections of the nebula as it soared away from the planet Hel'yra and its subterranean mysteries. The repairs on the Port Side Gangway were completed making the ship once again whole.
Jack McCall tried his best to remain still on the biobed as Doctor Taylor Preston ran a medical device across the captain's forehead.
"Only very minor alterations, sir. I'll have that taken care of in just a minute," Preston told his patient.
"How about the others?"
"They're fine," the Doctor said as he attached a small device to Jack's head.
The tiny machine made a teeth-rattling noise that Jack could have gone his whole life without.
"We got lucky, Captain. If Akala Wilmarza hadn't caught this when she did, and if I hadn't done the extensive scan of Ramirez's brain that I did, we might have lost a third of the crew if we had remained another three or four days around that planet."
Preston removed the device and the captain of the Chamberlain sat up on the biobed.
"What exactly was going on, Doctor?"
"Best I can tell, some form of energy from the planet was altering the very chemistry of our brains, almost rewiring our neural pathways."
"That was causing the dreams and the homicidal behavior?"
"Again, as best as I can tell, yes. The nearer someone was to the source of the energy the worse the effect-- the old inverse square law. I'm still not quite sure why it seemed to kick in when someone fell asleep. Not that I'm in a hurry to run back to the planet and run experiments to find out."
Jack nodded. "Will the treatment you've come up with prevent the damage from occurring in the first place?"
Preston considered the question. "It could be developed to do that I think. I'd need several weeks to turn my current treatment into a preventative one."
Jack hopped off the biobed. "How's Fowler doing?"
"The treatment completely reversed her condition. She's over in the next exam room-- your wife's with her."
Jack sauntered over to the adjoining room and found Mei-Wan standing next to a smiling Natalie Fowler. They both turned to him.
"Captain, I want to apologize for my actions," Fowler said. "They were… "
"Not your own, Ensign," Jack finished.
Fowler nodded reluctantly as Mei-Wan smiled at her.
"I better get back to work on those recordings," Fowler stated. She walked out of the room leaving Jack and Mei-Wan alone.
They stood in silence for nearly a minute.
"Mei, I think we need…"
Jack was interrupted by the door sliding open and Commander Falco entering.
"You were looking for me, sir?" Falco asked.
Mei-Wan touched Jack's arm and walked toward the door Falco entered. After she was gone, Jack turned to the Commander.
"Yes, I understand the Abdiel is having some repairs done."
"Nothing major, sir. Being in orbit around that planet as long as we were had pretty much shot some of our sensor systems. She should be up and running again in a few hours," Falco said.
"Good. The Chamberlain is heading back for Kel-j'na and I want you to remain here and do a survey of the nebula. Your primary mission, however, is to keep anyone from entering the nebula and going to the planet at all costs, Commander. In a few weeks there should be a ship that will relieve you, at which time you will rejoin the Chamberlain."
Falco smiled. He had a real life and death mission at last. "Don't worry, sir. No one will get past us."
Jack nodded and Falco quickly glided out of the room.
***
Jack entered his quarters and found Mei-Wan sitting on a couch reading from a PADD. She smiled at him and set the device down.
"What are you working on?" he asked.
"Just some more data from Hel'yra."
Jack sat in a chair across from Mei-Wan. "Have you figured out why the Ancient Progenitors would build a device so elaborate and complex just to drive people to become homicidal maniacs?"
"I doubt that's what they intended, Jack."
He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "There is one positive result of all of this. The mind altering effect should keep anyone else from getting very far with the site before the Archaeological Council can send an expedition."
Mei-Wan nodded and watched her husband.
He took several breaths and opened his eyes.
"Mei, I can't command this ship if you and I don't have things between us worked out. I can't have more incidents where you blatantly violate the chain of command, insult Zachary, or defy orders."
"Jack, this was a unique case. I doubt we'd ever have a situation like this again."
"You really think that?"
"Yes. Check my service record. I haven't made insubordination a habit."
He stood and walked behind his chair. "Mei, you have to follow the rules on this ship just like anyone else. I have to know that if we were to have a situation even remotely similar to this, that next time you would act the way regulations demand that you do."
Mei-Wan approached him. "It may be hard for you to realize this, Jack, but the fact that you're my husband doesn't really have anything to do with how I reacted. I've thought about this a lot the last several hours. If another officer had been my captain on this mission I would have done and said exactly the same things. Who my CO is doesn't change the fact Zachary is incompetent, nor does it change the importance of what we discovered."
Jack drew air deep into his lungs. "Another captain would have relieved you from duty."
Mei-Wan gazed at him. "Then perhaps that's what you should have done, Captain."
Jack lowered his eyes. "You know damn well I could never do that."
Mei-Wan shook her head. "The problem isn't you being my husband. You can't get past me being your wife."
Jack McCall stared at the ceiling. His mind did its best to run from the truth of her words.
Mei-Wan's features softened as she placed her hand on his chest. "Don't expect me to act differently because I'm your wife, Jack. I'm willing to pay the price for my actions. I have to fight for what I believe is the right course of action, especially with what we found on that planet. Even if it means I have to face disciplinary action from my captain."
"Then maybe… " He stopped. He couldn't get the words out.
Jack turned to face her again. "I can't believe I'm even thinking this, let alone saying it."
She took a step closer to him. "What?"
He looked down. He couldn't stand to see how the words would affect her. "I think we need to reconsider serving aboard the same ship."
Mei-Wan's breathing sped up as she fought back the emotions demanding to erupt from her. She walked away from him toward the bedroom.
Jack stood silently… alone.
***
Several hours later, on the yacht Bucephalus, Jack sat in the pilot's seat looking out at the stars beyond the forward viewport. He poured more scotch into his glass as his mind raced as it had for the past hour. He tried his best to get angry at Mei-Wan, but he couldn't.
As Jack took a sip from his glass he was unaware that at that moment another signal left his ship and radiated out into space as a deep range scan to anyone who might happen upon it--- except for its intended receiver. Three hours later, Melissa Vargas and Hank Evans would report the signal to him, but with no more information beyond that. Jack would yell at both of them, not because they had failed at their task, but because he simply had reached his limit. He would immediately apologize to them, but the anger over his and Mei's situation would have been thrown at them nonetheless.
Jack closed his eyes as he felt the scotch hit his stomach and send warm comfort through his entire body. He knew he might have to take an anti-intoxicant again if they needed him on the bridge, but he didn't care. All he wanted was a moment. Just a moment of peace.
The comm on the yacht chimed and Jack slammed his fist down on the unit. "Yes, McCall here."
"Captain," Melissa Vargas said through the speaker, "The Abdiel is requesting clearance for departure."
"Clearance granted, Commander," Jack said as he switched the intercom off.
He slid down in the chair and took a large drink from his glass, emptying it. He set the glass down on the panel in front of him and stared out the viewport. After a minute the Defiant class U.S.S. Abdiel soared past under the Chamberlain and into a wide orbit around the nebula.
As Jack's eyelids grew heavy, the view pivoted around toward open space and with a flash the Chamberlain went to warp speed and the once stationary stars began streaking past. His mind drifted away and all he could think of was Mei-Wan. He had never loved anyone the way he loved her.
His conscious mind fell away into a mist of random thoughts and finally into the cold embrace of sleep. Once there Jack McCall returned where he always went in the arms of death's brother.
The pounding.
The screams for mercy, the cries for life.
The desperation of endless agony.
Silence.
No.
As Jack McCall had for most of the past year, his mind took him to the time and place that had destroyed his view of himself and the universe he lived in. Jack could have stopped it all with just a few words. They only wanted a few words from him, but words he could not speak--- would not speak.
He watched the twisted body gasp its last breath and make its last movement. He saw the eyes as the last sparks of life evaporated away. Lieutenant Robin Nelson would never return from that eternity... an eternity which beckoned to Jack McCall's soul.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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Dark Horizon Story and Characters Copyright ©2002 Michael Gray
