"Captain," Lieutenant O'Shea reported from his tactical station. "Commander Jevor has signaled that the external sensors are now back on line."
"Excellent," Freeman replied, getting up from his command chair and turning to face O'Shea. "Scan the anomaly for the Perseus." O'Shea complied, but frowned at the results of his scan. "What is it Lieutenant?" Freeman asked.
"Well sir, I can't find the Perseus. There are bits of twisted metal, and an external mounting strut indicative of damage and comprised of materials used in the hulls of Federation Runabouts, but there's no ship." Freeman and Yilaan exchanged sullen looks. "I should also point out there's insufficient debris sir."
Freeman gave him a quizzical look. "What does that mean?"
"It means that, although it would appear the ship was indeed damaged, it wasn't destroyed. The debris present isn't enough to make up an entire vessel; barely two percent in fact," O'Shea informed them, leaning forward with his hands on the far edge of his tactical station as he spoke.
"I don't understand. What happened to the Runabout?" Yilaan asked.
"I don't know Commander, except there's something else here; something funny inside the anomaly. I can't quite pinpoint it with our sensors here. The same electro-magnetic interference that caused static in our earlier communications with the ship is interfering with my readings, but I'm definitely picking up something out of the ordinary," O'Shea replied.
Freeman rubbed his forehead. "Something that wasn't there before I take it? Before the battle with the Romulans?"
"Affirmative."
Freeman turned to the helmsman who had taken over for Lieutenant Hathaway and Commander Yilaan. "Lieutenant Johnson, prepare a Class One probe for launch into the anomaly. Maybe the telemetry from the probe will shed some light on this."
Johnson pressed a few buttons on her helm station. "Probe ready Captain," she reported after a moment.
Freeman and Yilaan both walked up to the back of the helm and navigation stations. "Launch the probe Lieutenant," Captain Freeman ordered. Everyone watched the viewscreen as the probe streaked away from the ship towards the center of the anomaly.
"Thirty seconds to anomaly edge," O'Shea reported.
The probe entered the gaseous form and sent its information back to the Bristol at regular intervals. "I'm receiving information from the probe sir. The computer is storing it," O'Shea reported. "Gravitational pull is increasing. Probe external temperature increasing." There was a pause of a few seconds. "Now what?" O'Shea burst out.
"Lieutenant?" Freeman said.
O'Shea's fingers flew madly across the controls. "Our readings from the probe are now off the scale sir! I've lost control of the probe; it's as though it's being sucked into a gravity well of some sort. And this; now there's a massive flood of energy....." O'Shea replied, but was cut off in mid-sentence by a brilliant flash of light from the anomaly, similar to the one that occurred during the battle. The Bridge crew reflexively covered their eyes until it dissipated moments later. "The probe is gone sir, but before it disappeared I believe we picked up a flood of temporal energy."
"Temporal energy? Are you sure?" Yilaan asked.
O'Shea nodded and crossed his arms. "I believe so, Commander."
"Lieutenant," Freeman said, pointing at O'Shea. "Bring the results of the probe's scan with you to the Observation Lounge; I believe a meeting of the senior staff might be in order. Lieutenant Johnson, you have the Bridge." The young woman at the helm turned around and nodded as the senior Bridge officers left for the Observation Lounge. By Freeman's summoning, Yilaan, O'Shea and he were soon joined by Commander Jevor from Engineering, and Chief Medical Officer Giovanni. All save O'Shea took seats as the lieutenant prepared the viewing screen.
"As we can see by the computer's recreation of the inside of that anomaly, there's little if any difference between this data and the original data sent to us by the Perseus," O'Shea began, showing the diagrams from various angles. "However, watch what happens when our probe closes in on the center; see it speed up? Now watch as an energy surge engulfs the probe and transmission ceases." O'Shea changed diagrams. "This chart shows the energy surge, and the levels of temporal energy released during the second or two it takes for whatever this is to pull the probe into it."
Yilaan looked on intently and got up from her chair when O'Shea finished his report. "Lieutenant let me see that chart again; can we run its time sequence side by side with the computerized representation of the probe's flight within the anomaly?" she asked, walking to the front of the room. O'Shea nodded and stepped aside for her to manipulate the computer as she saw fit.
After a few moments of study, Commander Yilaan nodded at the screen. "It's as I suspected. Captain, I believe these energy patterns here are indicative of a wormhole."
"A wormhole?" Freeman said with surprise, leaning forward in his chair.
"And no ordinary one at that," Yilaan replied. "This temporal energy seems to imply this wormhole not only traverses space, but time as well. A space vessel entering this might find themselves on the other side of the galaxy, and in a very different time."
"Is the wormhole stable?" Commander Jevor asked.
"There's no way to tell," Yilaan told him. "We don't even know if the location of other side remains constant or not; and with the gravitational component of this particular phenomenon, unmanned probes can't be used to test it. The probe's thrusters aren't strong enough to counter the effects."
"Do you think our people are still alive?" Giovanni asked, a strained note to her voice as she looked on intently. "Trapped on the other side of this thing?" Yilaan merely shrugged her shoulders and took her seat at the meeting table. "Well we have to find out," Giovanni insisted.
"Come on Doctor," Jevor replied. "We don't know where the thing will lead us; for all we know it could be a black hole and we could be sucked into nothingness."
Giovanni made a face. "And for all we know our shipmates are lying injured in a crippled ship on the other side of that thing."
"Doctor you don't sacrifice the ship for the good of four members of the crew, who quite frankly may already be dead," Jevor reproved.
"All right that's enough," Captain Freeman said quietly, silencing his argumentative officers. "This isn't going to be a group decision. Unless someone has something more useful to add, you're all dismissed." Freeman's officers replied with silence as they slowly got up to leave. "Commander Yilaan would you remain for a moment?" She did so as the other officers filed out.
Yilaan sat back down in her chair and eyed Captain Freeman inquisitively as he shut off the Lounge's monitor screen. The captain walked away from the monitor and stood in front of the Observation Lounge's windows, staring out at the unmoving backdrop of stars. "It would be a risk," Freeman said finally, continuing to look out the window.
"Yes sir, it would," Yilaan replied. "But I think it might also be the right thing to do. The chance of this thing being a void of 'nothingness' is low. Its more likely our people are trapped on the other side, waiting for us to help them."
"And what happens if that wormhole leads us to the Gamma Quadrant and it closes forever behind us after we enter it?" Freeman mused, turning at last to face his first officer.
Yilaan smiled at him, "It would be a risk, sir."
Freeman observed her intently for a moment before turning again to scrutinize the stars for his answer. At length he broke the silence, "Commander, prepare the Bristol to enter the anomaly. We're going in after our shipmates." Yilaan nodded and left the room, followed momentarily by Captain Freeman as well.
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