“Certainly, sir. The micro-wormholes in the vacuum flares—they’re basically churned up by the turbulence created in the quantum foam on our end when those plasma folks pour energy into it from their end. So if we could permeate that volume of space with something like, oh, a dense field of polarized verterons… it might overwhelm the fluctuations creating the turbulence, damp them down like spreading oil on stormy water.”

Spock was nodding now. “Yes. While the analogy is crude—no oleaginous wordplay intended—the principle is sound. It would be unlikely to prevent the flares, not at their current level of intensity, but it could ameliorate the intensity of a flare outburst, with fewer, less energetic microflares emerging in the affected area.”

President Lorg snapped his thick fingers. “Verterons. Back about a century ago, the early Martian colonists used verteron arrays to divert comets to Mars for terraforming. If there are still some of those around, could they create a big enough field to protect a planet?”

“Doubtful,” Spock said. “Any protective effect would be limited in range and efficacy; the wider the field, the weaker the damping.”

“Still, any damping is better than nothing,” Cartwright said. “At least we could try to protect vital areas, like the capital and Starfleet Headquarters.”

Scott spoke up. “I think I can rig the Enterprise’s warp reactor to generate a verteron field inside the ship.” He shook his head unhappily. “I don’t like what it’d do to the warp coils, though.”

“Mister Scott,” Spock pointed out, “if we were in the midst of a vacuum flare, we could not engage a warp field in any case.”

“We might not be able to afterward either, Captain.” He sighed. “But if Earth is to be our last stand, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

On the screen, Cartwright straightened. “Transmit your engine modifications once you’ve computed them, Mister Scott. Hopefully they’ll let the patrol ships last longer if they have to fly into a flare for rescue ops.”

“Aye, sir!” Scott’s eyes gleamed in a way Uhura knew very well.

“This is encouraging news,” Admiral Morrow put in. “But there’s one more serious problem we need to address. Our physicists have detected some alarming effects on local subspace as the flares have gotten larger. Instabilities are forming, as if subspace is being eroded by the flares. If they continue to grow and get more energetic, the damage could become great enough to tear open rifts in the fabric of space. Not unlike what happened about a decade ago with Professor Kettaract’s botched experiment in the Lantaru sector. You were there, weren’t you, Captain?”

Spock nodded. “Indeed. Such a permanent disruption of subspace could render warp travel, subspace communication, and transporters unusable within the affected portions of the Sol system.