Lieutenant Commander Kriss ordered, “Red alert! Inform Captain Picard, Lieutenant. Helm, set a course for the Amargosa Observatory, warp five.”
Moll Enor hoped it wasn’t a false alarm. All of the senior officers were in the holodeck, celebrating Lieutenant Commander Worf’s new rank.
But she didn’t expect them to return to the bridge wearing intricate costumes of blue, red, and white. Moll didn’t realize she was staring at Worf’s bell‑shaped hat until the officer removed it and gave her a reproving shake of his head.
“Just do it!” Captain Picard ordered Commander Riker. Everyone on the bridge instinctively jumped at the unusual sound of Jean Luc Picard losing his temper.
Moll Enor felt as if she had been slapped back to duty, and she instantly looked to see what disaster had occurred during her moment of inattention. But Data took ops, and Lieutenant Meg’han came back to mission ops, bumping Moll to the only panel left on the bridge–environmental systems station. It was either that or leave the bridge, and since they were in emergency‑response mode, she took the station and began monitoring life‑support activity.
Since environmental systems didn’t really need her attention, she listened as data was relayed from the sensors, indicating that the Amargosa solar observatory had been attacked. There was no response from the crew–a compliment of nineteen scientists.
When they reached the observatory and there was still no communication from the scientists, most of the senior staff joined the away team to the station.
Moll Enor moved back over to missions ops, and there she had a bird’s‑eye view of the action. Mission ops was responsible for monitoring the telemetry and tricorder data from away teams as it was relayed to the proper departments. She watched the inflow of data, wincing at the readings of the dead humanoids who were part of the observatory team. In all, there were twenty dead, and one injured Federation scientist, Dr. Tolian Soran.
She recognized the patterns of two of the medical readings because of a chart she once saw in Jayme’s medical tapes. Her remarkable memory was the only reason she knew, moments before the word came in from the away team, that they had found two dead Romulans.
Nev Reoh worked late in the geophysics lab on the unusual readings, helping pinpoint what the Romulans were after. It was trilithium, an archaic substance used as an explosive. Trilithium resin was made by exposing dilithium to matter/antimatter reactions, but it was highly unstable and therefore difficult to identify. But the geophysics lab did identify it, and after Lieutenant B’ll ran their analysis up to command, the entire lab decided to go to Ten‑Forward to celebrate their intensive, successful effort.
They had just entered the lounge when someone nearby whispered, “There’s Captain Picard.”
Reoh strained to see the captain among the room full of off‑duty personnel. Then he caught sight of the dignified figure in red having an oddly tense exchange with a white‑haired man. Someone else identified him as the sole surviving scientist from the observatory. After a few seconds, Captain Picard left as quickly as he had come. Soon after, the scientist left in the other direction.
Nev Reoh rarely entered Ten‑Forward. A couple of times he had met Moll Enor here, but the Trill didn’t seem comfortable in the crowded, merry atmosphere. Reoh didn’t know many other people, so he usually ventured out to the crew lounges near his quarters–to the ones on the interior of the ship.
The main reason he avoided Ten‑Forward was the enormous window. It currently offered a panoramic view of the observatory and the Amargosa sun, which was bigger than the size of his hand held out at arm’s length. Reoh put his back to the sight and concentrated on enjoying himself with his friends.
Reoh had been on board about six months, but he still felt like it was a mistake, his being here. He wasn’t exactly comfortable knowing he was always on a ship, flying through space. It seemed very dangerous to him, and he had finally given in to his feelings and requested interior quarters without windows. It wasn’t an uncommon experience, Counselor Troi had assured him, for people to take a while to get their space legs. Reoh hadn’t mentioned it to anyone for months, but he still felt very uneasy.
It was all right for the first two rounds, then more people joined them and he had to shift chairs. Suddenly he was facing the window, practically right next to it. He could hardly pay attention to the conversation anymore, keeping a wary eye on space.
It didn’t really bother him when he was on a journey, getting from one point to another. But why would anyone choose to live on a ship? Even in Starfleet, while most people equated duty with living on board a starship, he had come to associate it with the Academy and starbase duty. Even a space station didn’t seem as riskyto him as space travel.
Nev Reoh had a ringside seat when a spark left the solar observatory and flew directly toward the sun. He rubbed his eyes, thinking he was seeing things. But the sun flared dark orange as a rippling, burning pattern coursed over the surface.
Suddenly a blue white, blinding burst of light emanated from the star. Even as it receded, Reoh saw spots in front of his eyes from the quantum implosion.
Officers immediately began pushing their way out of Ten‑Forward as red alert sounded. Nev Reoh couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. But the duty of a geophysicist during alert situations was to remain in a secured area until notified that he was needed for an emergency team.
“What’s happening?” someone nearby asked with a nervous edge to his voice.
“B’ll, the senior geophysicist, answered, “It looks like all nuclear fusion is breaking down. The star will collapse within a few minutes.”
“Look, a shock wave,” someone called, pointing to the elliptical halo of light that was ripping through subspace, creating a visible distortion.
“It’s coming right at us,” Reoh said, pushing back as far as he could from the window until the table blocked him from going further. It had to be at least a level‑ten shock front.
“We’ve got a few minutes until it reaches us,” the senior geophysicist muttered.
“Why isn’t the ship moving? It should . . .” Reoh began to gasp.
An inarticulate exclamation from a Gagarin IV scientist cut him off.
“Ah . . . ah . . .” Reoh choked, also pointing back at the window.
A Klingon bird‑of‑prey fully materialized from its cloak off the port bow of the Enterprise, positioned right next to the Amargosa solar observatory. It glimmered a sickening green, like nothing else Reoh had seen on their travels.
Voices rose from those closest to the window, and for a few moments, Reoh felt as if he was trapped in a bad holonovel. Surely this many things couldn’t go wrong at once–
He lurched as the warp engines engaged, overriding inertial dampers for a millisecond. Reoh hung on, helplessly watching through the window as the Enterpriseswung around to run from the shock wave while the Klingon ship took off at a different angle.
As the ship reached warp speed and the stars began to turn into light streaks, the subspace distortion hit the Amargosa solar observatory. The impact blew it apart, sending electric discharge in every direction. Nev Reoh could hardly breathe as the Enterprisebanked and raced away just on the edge of the shock wave.
Titus’s duty roster the next day said the Enterprisehad re‑entered what was left of the Amargosa system, and that he was to continue his normal duties. The official explanation was that Tolian Soran, a Federation scientist, had blown up the Amargosa star.
Titus rummaged around and gathered some ship’s gossip: that Soran had been on the El‑Aurian ship, the Lakul, that had been destroyed by an energy ribbon in 2293. Soran–along with forty‑seven other El‑Aurians, including Guinan–had been saved by the Enterprise‑B. That was the mission that had killed James T. Kirk.