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Captain's Log, USS Bedford NCC-92570
Captain Grunt recording.
While surveying a remote section of the Alpha Trianguli sector, we encountered an odd phenomenon. Subspace, or at least the subspace domain our engines use, is almost flat here; it's been five days, and we haven't been able to form a warp bubble. Scans indicate this area is several light-years across, so getting out on impulse alone is obviously out of the question. Roclak and Vonovek have been working on a solution, but no luck yet.
Also, it might just be because we're stuck here, but everyone on the crew has been reporting nightmares - even the Vulcans, and I wasn't even sure they dreamed. Most of us have been having a hard time sleeping because of it. LLunih's reporting a record number of personnel requesting sleep aids. And then there's poor Shelana, and the way things are going, she's just going to be the first. I'll be checking on her shortly.
Grunt ran down the corridor, the padding of the fangcat uncomfortably close behind him. Thirty meters, he panted silently to himself, his heart jackhammering in his chest. Thirty more meters, and I can lock myself in my quarters...
"You'll never make it, you know," the oily voice hissed. The twisted smile lurked in Grunt's peripheral vision.
"Gonna... make it... 'sides... you... you're not real..."
"Of course I'm real, silly boy. Mumsy and Daddy always warned you about making deals with the Smiling Friend. How could they have warned you if I weren't real? Oh, but then you've turned your back on them, haven't you?"
"Never.. turned... back..." Grunt panted angrily.
"You turned your back on them, just as you turned your back on what it means to be Ferengi, when you made that deal with that smiling Starfleet recruiter. You sold them out, you left them in that swamp and went to the stars. Oh, and it's certainly been an adventure, hasn't it? You've been brave, and selfless, and self-sacrificing, and you turned away from your people! You're going to die out here, alone and unmourned and unsold and poor, headed straight into the Vault of Eternal Destitution!"
"No! NO!!" Grunt screamed, but in his lobes he knew his fate. Only a few more meters now, though, and he was safe--
The fangcat leapt from behind, knocking him to the cold hard deck, and as its claws ripped into his abdomen he could hear the Smiling Friend laughing at him...
Grunt sat bolt upright in his bed, his throat still raw from screaming. Shakily he pushed aside the covers, and saw his belly still whole, marked only by the scar he'd picked up during a fracas a few years earlier. He was fine, he was safe, this was the captain's cabin of the starship Bedford, and it was just a nightmare. In his mind's eye, though, he still saw the furred beast tearing his intestines out through the great gouges it had dug in him... He climbed out of the bedclothes, now soaked with his sweat, grabbed a robe, and headed for the door.
********
Grunt padded into Sickbay, unusually busy for this time of the ship's night. Dr. LLunih tr'Dalen looked up from a young crewman he'd just given a hypospray to. "Good evening, Captain," he said sourly. "Let me guess - bad dreams?"
Grunt shuddered. "You know it. How's Shelana doing?"
The Romulan doctor glanced at the biobed at the end of the room, where an Andorian female lay under the sensors. "Maintaining a medically-induced coma. Until we solve this night-terrors issue, even letting her close enough to consciousness to dream could be fatal. Possibly even to her."
Grunt nodded. Two days earlier, Shelana had emerged from her quarters with her custom bat'leth, screaming about "monsters of ice" attacking. Seven crewmen had been wounded before she could be stunned. LLunih had first tried restraints, but she had almost torn her own arm off trying to escape. Since then, he'd been keeping her too deep to dream - the source of everyone's trouble lately.
"You, on the other hand," LLunih went on, "haven't come out of your quarters armed - yet, at least. How are you holding up?"
Grunt smiled half-heartedly. "I could ask the same of you. It takes a lot to make a Ferengi go crazy. How about a Romulan?"
"Oh, we're already all of us about half-crazy, so it's kind of hard to tell. I've got my nurses keeping an eye on me, with instructions to drug me into insensibility if I start to crack. I'm a little worried about the rest of the crew, though - three more came in for restraint today. If we don't start getting some solid sleep around here soon, Shelana's going to have even more company. Any word about getting the ship moving? I'd be happier if we could be backed up by a starbase."
Grunt rubbed his nose ridges. "I know the feeling. It's pretty close to my shift time - I'll go talk to Vov, see if anything's come up."
The Romulan coughed delicately. "You, ah, might want to stop by your quarters on the way, at least if you're going on-shift afterward..."
"What do you mean?" Grunt looked down. "Oh, the robe, right. It'd probably look better on the record if I wore a uniform."
****************
Main Engineering
Roclak and Vovonek were bent over the main control console in the warp intermix chamber when Grunt arrived. Neither one appeared to have slept recently - the Klingon's once-proud mane of hair hung limply, and stubble could be seen on the half-Pakled's forehead where he habitually shaved his eyebrows.
"Any news?" Grunt asked, as jauntily as he could manage.
Vovonek looked up at him. "It won't go," he said hollowly.
Grunt started to grin at his engineer's old joke, but something about Vovonek's face told him it wasn't funny this time. "How about you, Rock?"
Roclak thumped the console in annoyance. "This tu'HomIraH piece of veQ can't tell me a ghuy'cha' thing I don't already know! The Cochrane fields are generated, but the warp bubble collapses the moment it is initiated! And something about this space deranges the mind, and won't let me sleep!!" He hit the console again, hard enough to crack the plasteel cover. "It is most displeasing!!"
"Like I said, it won't go," Vovonek repeated.
Grunt stifled a yawn. "Damn. I'd better get to the bridge - you guys stay on top of this, and let me know if you figure anything out."
The Klingon growled at Grunt, which he took as a farewell, ducking into the turbolift again.
*******
Grunt emerged onto the bridge. "Looks like we're still stuck here, gentlemen. Anything new?"
"I've found something, sir," replied Lt. Manalang, the comms officer. "A repeating pattern with variations, on a theta sideband of standard subspace radio frequencies. Not sure what it means, but it's definitely something. I've got Mycroft running an analysis."
Lt. Turing turned around from his station at Ops. "Intriguing, sir. It is hypothesized that theta-frequency subspace transmissions may have an effect on the subconscious level of organic minds. Research is ongoing, but inconclusive thus far."
"Intriguing indeed. Can anyone raise Mr. Brel?" Grunt was hoping his ship's counselor could shed some light on the situation.
"Lieutenant Commander Brel is in his office, sir, but he is not responding to hails. Interesting. There is no record of Lieutenant Commander Brel having any appointments this morning."
"Thank you, Mr. Turing," Grunt acknowledged. "Please have someone from Security check up on Tan."
The android turned back to Ops.
"Meanwhile," a voice broke in from the ceiling, "I have reached some disturbing conclusions, Captain."
"Let's hear it, Mycroft."
A holographic Human coalesced next to the captain's chair. The AI continued, "You are aware, sir, that I was originally configured for SIGINT - SIGnal INTelligence. I've been analyzing the pattern of the theta-band transmission, and I am unable to avoid the result - the signal is purposeful. I believe it may be inimical, as well."
"You mean someone's doing this to us on purpose?"
"It would seem so, sir. What's more, the amplitude of the signal has been increasing. If we don't get out of here soon, the nightmares induced by the transmission might begin occurring during waking hours - as has already happened with Commander Shelana, Lt. Jermons in Engineering, Ensign Vaughn in Astrometrics, and Able Spacer th'Trygan on the hangar deck."
"Great. It's going to make us crazy if we don't leave, and we can't leave. Suggestions, anyone? Gydap?"
"I've been trying to think, sir," the Andorian helmsman replied, his voice thick with exhaustion. "I remember reading something somewhere about a ship caught like this, and the crew not being able to sleep, I think, but I can't seem to recall..." He trailed off.
"All right, let's try it this way. Computer, search parameters 'starship caught no warp crew can't sleep'. Search."
"Working," the computer's vaguely feminine voice replied. "Two incidents. USS Defiant, NCC-1764, caught in a spatial interphase, stardate 5693.2. Crew rendered violently insane, leading to the deaths of all aboard. Also involving USS Enterprise, NCC-1701. Second incident, USS Brattain, NCC-21166, caught in a Tyken's Rift along with members of a telepathic species aboard another craft. The telepathic species attempted to communicate with the crew of the Brattain, which interfered with REM cycles. Lack of dreaming led to insanity; the sole survivor was rendered catatonic. Also involving USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, caught in the Tyken's Rift on stardate 44631.2. In the former incident, the Enterprise was able to depart, but her captain, James Kirk, was aboard the Defiant when it was entrapped in a Tholian web, and her crew refused to leave until Kirk could be rescued. The crew began experiencing aberrations in temperament, apparently induced by the nature of the local space. In the latter incident, the Enterprise-D was able to escape the rift by supplying hydrogen from her Bussard collectors, which combined with an element provided by the other ship, resulting in an explosion which threw them both clear."
"Yeah, that second one, that's the one I was thinking of," Gydap said. "This isn't a Tyken's Rift, of course, or we'd be out of it already, but maybe something similar could work."
"Maybe. Dammit, I can't think!" Grunt rubbed his head in frustration. "Turing, does anything suggest itself to you?"
"Possibly, sir. There appears to be a subspace rift in the approximate center of this region, about two million kilometers off our port bow. If three tricobalt torpedoes were to be configured for coordinated explosion, it could result in a temporary disruption of the field that is preventing our warp drive from functioning, permitting our ship to escape during the extremely brief interruption. The flaw in this plan is that this would require precise timing, and at this point none of the organic intelligences aboard would be capable of issuing the appropriate orders in time. I could pilot the ship out, or I could time the torpedo explosions; however, to do both would require that I use two separate consoles very nearly simultaneously."
"Hmmph. Great. A maybe solution, but we can't even try it. If we make it out of this, maybe we should look into a few emergency holographic officer programs."
"Sir," the android said, "I am not the only non-organic intelligence aboard. There is also Mycroft."
"Me?" Mycroft replied in astonishment. "I can't fire the torpedoes, or fly the ship - I haven't the authorization!"
"This is true. However, the Bedford was designed to have a ship's AI. With the authorization of the captain, the first officer, and the chief engineer, you can take that position."
Grunt nodded. "Sounds like a plan. You've been about as thoroughly vetted as a sapient program can be, Mycroft. Let's get Rock and Vov up to speed. Grunt to Engineering."
"Vovonek here."
Grunt quickly filled them in on the plan. "So we just need to provide the codes. The Captain concurs. Authorization Grunt seven aleph niner gree-worm yellow eight omega seventeen."
"The first officer concurs," Roclak growled. "Authorization Roclak gamma twelve orange targ escrima eight."
"The chief engineer... the chief... NO! NOT THAT!!" Vovonek began to scream incoherently.
"Captain!" Ruben called. "The theta-band signal has just jumped in amplitude by a factor of ten! I don't think they like what we're doing!"
Vovonek's screams across the intercom abruptly ceased. A new voice spoke up. "I am Lieutenant Commander Sorak. As Commander Vovonek has become incapacitated, I am hereby assuming the position of chief engineer. The chief engineer concurs. Authorization Sorak iota nine seven six delta epsilon green powder."
"Authorizations acknowledged," the computer replied. "Installing ship's artificial intelligence, utilizing program MYCROFT version twelve point four seven."
The hologram flickered, then steadied. "I acknowledge responsibility," Mycroft said.
"Sir!" Ruben screamed. "THE SIGNAL!!"
The deck beneath Grunt's feet abruptly yawned open, revealing a vast abyss toward which he began to slide. As he grabbed desperately at the arms of his seat, he could hear that oily voice hissing, "I told you, there's no escape from the Smiling Friend..."
"Not real! NOT! REAL!!" Grunt ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he opened them again, he could see the bridge of his ship, undisturbed save by the panicking life forms aboard her. Overlaid on that, however, he could still see the hallucination of the pit.
"Turing! Mycroft! Execute the plan now!"
Three orange sphere tore loose from the forward torpedo launcher, speeding toward their destination. As they erupted into violent light and a massive shockwave, Turing's hands danced on his control panel. The ship lunged, turned, and fled the devastation she had unleashed.
"I am pleased to announce that the maneuver has been successful," the android stated. "We are now clear of the phenomenon. I recommend the placement of a series of warning buoys, to prevent other ships from entering this space unexpectedly."
"That sounds like a great idea," Grunt said wearily. "See to it. Meanwhile, all off-shift personnel are to go to bed. Now."