Star Trek: The Next Generation - 119 - Armageddon's Arrow by Dayton Ward Page B

Federation’s Department of Temporal Investigations even had a special group, “Section 1701,” dedicated to nothing more than dealing with the fallout of these encounters. While there was no evidence to prove such assertions and Chen had always rejected such fanciful gossip, there was no denying that the current Enterprise and those which had come before it had endured their share of odd experiences, with time itself as much as anything else.
    “Assuming we’re right and this ship did travel through time,” Chen said, “you don’t suppose DTI will come all the way out here to investigate, do you?”
    Shrugging, Elfiki replied, “Who knows? If those people are anything, they’re unpredictable.”
    “Maybe they’re on their way here and they’ll be here yesterday,” Chen said.
    Cruzen groaned. “You’re not allowed to make jokes for the rest of this mission. I’m going to ask the captain to make it official when we get back.”
    Having maneuvered herself into one of the seats, Elfiki was using her tricorder to scan the console’s interface. “The translation protocols are making some decent headway,” she said after a moment. “I should be able to get started on some decryption protocols soon, and hopefully then we can access their computer’s database.” Guided by her tricorder and the information it was processing both from its own scans as well as data sent back to it from the Enterprise , the science officer began pressing controls and moving her fingers across touch-sensitive panels in a sequence which to Chen seemed almost arbitrary, but after a few moments Elfiki looked as though she had been working the console all her life.
    “Well, Commander La Forge was right,” Elfiki said. “A lot of the files I’m finding are protected by security lockouts, but there’s still enough here to confirm what we were thinking from the beginning. This ship has one purpose, and it’s to blow up stuff.”
    “What kind of stuff?” Cruzen asked.
    Instead of replying, the science officer brushed her fingers across one of the console’s flat surfaces. In response to her movements, the screen at the center of her workstation activated, depicting what Chen saw was a moon or planetoid.
    “I found this recording in one of the unsecured files,” Elfiki explained. “From what I can tell, it’s one of the last entries in the database. According to notes appended to the footage, this is a test of the primary particle weapon.” She pressed another control, and an instant later the moon was consumed by a wide, bright beam of white fire which surged forward to strike it. The assault continued as a wave of energy washed over the moon’s surface, and with all three officers watching in stunned silence, the planetoid broke apart.
    “Dear god,” said Cruzen, her voice all but a whisper.
    Elfiki halted the playback and the screen went dark. “I’m still sifting through files, but pretty much everything about this ship is—or was—a secret, and it was built to be a first-strike weapon.”
    “You mean a last-strike weapon, right?” Chen asked.
    Shrugging, the science officer replied, “That’s another way to look at it. The people who built it call themselves Raqilan, and two of them are sleeping belowdecks, and from what I’ve been able to pull out of the computer, they’re at war with another race called the Golvonek. They live on different planets within the same solar system.”
    “Like the one we were heading for when we changed course to come check out this ship?” Cruzen asked.
    Elfiki nodded. “Looks that way.” She tapped controls on her tricorder. “I need to start sending this data back to the Enterprise . Captain Picard’s going to want to see it.”
    “I’m going to have a look at some of the other systems,” Chen said, maneuvering her way to one of the other workstations and settling herself into its seat. It took her a moment to figure out the chair’s restraint system but in short order