Rise Like Lions

by David Mack

“Yes, Lord Regent.”

  “And do not bother me again before morning unless Qo’noS itself comes under attack. Understood?”

  Goluk sounded duly rebuked. “Yes, My Lord.”

  As soon as the channel clicked off, Duras deactivated the comm system completely, and then he barred the door to his bedchamber. As soon as he was certain he was alone, he retrieved his quantum transceiver from its hiding place inside the grip of his bat’leth. The precious Memory Omega communications device had been given to him only weeks earlier, by a middle-aged Vulcan woman who had declined to share her name with him, in preparation for his bid to replace the megalomaniacal Klag as regent. Using the device as she had taught him, he first scanned his room for surveillance devices and was unsurprised to detect five of them. Next, he disabled the bugs and established a field of white noise as a defense against eavesdroppers at his door. Then he opened a channel to Memory Omega and hoped that his warning would reach them in time to prevent Bajor and its people from sharing Ferenginar’s tragic fate.

  33

  The Hour of Fire

  Mac strode into Excalibur’s nerve center at a quick step, followed moments later by Soleta. The pair of them were still coitally rumpled, having been roused from their bed by McHenry’s urgent telepathic summons. “Report,” Mac snapped as he moved toward his chair.

  Jellico studied Soleta and Mac through narrowed eyes, and Lefler seemed unable to conceal the ghost of a smile as she looked their way. Selar arched one eyebrow into a curve of elegant jest. “Forgive us, Captain,” the Vulcan woman said. “We did not realize the two of you were—”

  “Resting,” Soleta cut in. “We were resting.”

  “The urgent message, Robin,” Mac said. “On-screen. Now.”

  Lefler worked her console. “Courageous is relaying a signal from Erebus Station.” She looked up with anticipation at the main screen. “Here it comes.”

  Saavik’s face replaced the image of Earth’s northern hemisphere on the Excalibur’s forward screen. “Thank you for joining us, Captain Calhoun. General O’Brien and Captain Picard are also on this transmission.” The screen divided into three equal, vertical panels. O’Brien and Picard bookended Saavik. “Minutes ago, we received a priority alert from Regent Duras. He informs us that a rogue battle group of Klingon warships led by the Ya’Vang is preparing to destroy the star B’hava’el just as it annihilated Ferengal—which means every living soul on Bajor is minutes away from extermination.”

  It was easy for Mac to recognize the anguish in O’Brien’s eyes as he heard the news. The human’s horrified stare was the same one Mac had seen in the eyes of every survivor of the Klingon-triggered holocaust on Romulus. Glancing to his right, he caught Soleta’s fleeting wince of remembrance, as well. I’ve seen the Alliance burn too many worlds, Mac decided. No more.

  Picard said, “Enterprise is starting calculations for a jaunt to Bajor. We can have our fleet there in two minutes. Courageous and Ardent have begun their own calculations.” He looked away for a moment, then asked, “What do we know about these trilithium weapons the Klingons are using? How do we stop them?”

  “Once they strike their target, the chain reaction is irreversible,” Saavik said. “Our only hope of preventing a catastrophe is to either destroy the Ya’Vang before it fires a trilithium weapon, or intercept the torpedo in flight to its target.”

  That suggestion left O’Brien aghast. “Shoot down a warp-capable torpedo in flight? That’s practically impossible!”

  “Then I suggest you concentrate on identifying and destroying the Ya’Vang as quickly as possible,” Saavik said. “We are sending you the last recorded energy signature for the Ya’Vang, but it might no longer be accurate.”

  Mac nodded. “Understood. Captain Picard? General O’Brien? I think our best bet is to deploy our fleet in a dispersed blockade along the Klingons’ most likely vectors to the star. If we emerge from our wormholes within fifty million kilometers of B’hava’el, we should be able to get ahead of the attack.”

  “Generating a wormhole that close to a star can be highly dangerous,” Picard said. “However, it seems we have no other choice.”

  O’Brien was openly skeptical. “Defending Bajor would be hard enough—its star is a million times bigger. How are we supposed to guard every possible attack vector the Klingons might use?”

  “We don’t,” Mac said. “Most of our fleet will have to engage the Ya’Vang’s escorts. The Excalibur will stop the Ya’Vang, one way or another.”

  Soleta discreetly clutched Mac’s arm and whispered, “Mac, what are—”

  “Trust me,” he whispered back. McHenry, I’ll need you at your best.

  You’ll have it, Mac.

  “Time’s wasting,” Mac said. “Let’s get moving. Excalibur out.” The screen switched to a view of the free starship Courageous spinning up a new artificial wormhole, and Mac returned to his seat. “Soleta, sound general quarters, all hands to battle stations. We’re going hunting.”

  Defiant emerged from the wormhole generated by the Ardent, which by necessity would be the last vessel in O’Brien’s battle group to make the jaunt to the Bajor system. As soon as Defiant cleared the wormhole’s event horizon, O’Brien began checking the updates on the command screen beside his chair.

  So far, so good, he assured himself. All the active ships under his command had completed the jaunt while remaining in formation, and the Ardent was following close behind them, pulling shut the wormhole behind it.

  “Perez,” he said, snagging his weapons officer’s attention. “Are Picard and Calhoun here yet?”

  “Yes, sir.” She routed data from her screens to his. “Bearing two-three-two mark four, range nine hundred thirty-six thousand kilometers.” She added over her shoulder, “Their fleets are moving into battle formations.”

  O’Brien frowned as he examined the deployment pattern. It was far too widely spaced and riddled with gaps for his comfort, but it couldn’t be helped. Recapturing the former core worlds of the Terran Republic had taken a heavier toll on the rebellion than it had let on. Memory Omega’s amazing wormhole-driven ships were fast and powerful but far from invincible. Several had been lost in the battles for Vulcan and Tellar, along with dozens of vessels from Calhoun’s and O’Brien’s fleets. Most of the rebel starships that had survived those battles now were docked at Erebus Station, undergoing extensive repairs and refits.

  This is the worst possible time for us to be forced into a major battle, he thought with grim anticipation. If it was any world other than Bajor… He caught himself. You’d be doing the same damned thing, and you know it. “Ezri, signal our fleet to cover sector grids twenty-five through fifty,” he said. Poking at his command screen, he wondered if it was malfunctioning, or if he was simply reading it incorrectly. “Perez, where’s the Excalibur?”

  “No idea, sir,” said Perez. “We had her on sensors for a few seconds when we first arrived, then she went dark.”

  “Must be in stealth mode,” Tigan said. “What’s Calhoun doing?”

  O’Brien smiled. “Lying in ambush for the Ya’Vang.”

  Tenmei turned from the helm. “Won’t Ya’Vang be leading the attack?”

  “Of course not,” O’Brien said. “She’s the one carrying the trilithium warheads. She won’t show herself until she’s ready to fire.” New orders from Picard arrived on O’Brien’s command screen. “In the meantime, here comes her battle group to punch a hole in our blockade. Shields to maximum, set attack pattern Oscar-Delta. And Perez, remember: zoned firing solutions. Don’t try to target the Klingons as they uncloak, you won’t have time. Just use the phasers to make a nofly zone between us and the Takagi.”

  Perez nodded. “Got it.”

  Seconds passed with excruciating languor as O’Brien watched the main viewscreen for any sign of activity. The sensor readings said the Klingon fleet was out there and coming in fast, but all he saw were stars.

  Then came a blur of gray-green metal and a crimson flash of disru
ptor energy. Defiant pitched and echoed from a thundering impact against its shields.

  And away we go. “Fire at will!”

  Pulses of phaser energy tore away into the endless night, in what seemed like a futile display. Tenmei pivoted and yawed the Defiant while Perez laid down a wide arc of suppressive fire. Then flashes of contact brought Klingon cruisers and birds-of-prey stuttering briefly out of their cloaks and into view for a few seconds before they veered off, away from Defiant’s free-fire zone.

  The hits rapidly became less frequent, then stopped. O’Brien couldn’t see the Klingon fleet, but he could feel its commanders adjusting their tactics to undermine the zone defense. “Attack pattern Whiskey-Alpha!” he called out, sensing disaster at hand. “Come about bearing two-seven-one—”

  Defiant pitched violently as a thunderstorm of impacts rocked its hull. Fighting to maintain her balance, Tigan staggered to the engineering console. “Heavy damage to the ventral shields,” she reported. “Main power dropping!”

  “Helm, dip the nose ninety degrees! Perez, return fire!”

  More blasts shook the Defiant, and the lights on the bridge flickered and dimmed. O’Brien caught the sharp bite of smoke in the air. “Damage report!”

  “Power overloads,” Tigan said. “Bridge to engineering! Quiqué, we’re losing power to the phasers!”

  “Nothing I can do, bridge,” Muñiz shouted back over the clamor of panicked voices and wailing alarms. “The plasma relays are slagged!”

  Another brutal hit overloaded the ship’s inertial dampers and all but launched O’Brien from his chair. He scuttled across the deck and pulled himself up with both hands on his command screen. Glancing at the display, he caught short blips of Klingon ships uncloaking during their fly-by assaults, each of which dealt the Defiant another pummeling blow. “Dammit, get me defensive fire!”

  “Phasers are at half power and falling,” Perez snapped. “The Klingons are too fast for me to lock torpedoes!”

  Tigan lunged across the bridge to loom over Perez’s shoulder. “Look at their attack pattern!” She pointed at two points on the targeting display. “With those speeds and headings, they’d need to regroup somewhere between there and there. Give me a full launch of torpedoes right there, spread pattern Victor.”

  Perez locked in the target and fired. “Torpedoes away!”

  The projectiles streaked away, twisting and spiraling as if at ghosts—then they all detonated at once, and half a dozen Klingon ships were knocked out of cloak and left shattered and smoldering, adrift in space. Tigan patted Perez on the back. “Target those ships and fire at will.”

  As Perez blasted the hobbled Klingon ships to bits, Tigan returned to O’Brien’s side. “That’ll buy us fifteen seconds while they regroup.”

  “We need to close ranks or we’ll get killed,” O’Brien decided. “Prynn, move us closer to the Enterprise. She’s got damage on her port side, and we’ve got a breach to starboard. Let’s see if we can give each other some cover.”

  Tigan hurried to the comm station. “I’ll alert Picard.”

  Tenmei acknowledged from the helm, “Coming up alongside Enterprise.”

  A massive explosion behind the Enterprise silhouetted the majestic vessel. Seconds later, maydays from three different vessels overlapped on the rebellion’s encrypted subspace channel. “What happened?” O’Brien demanded.

  “Courageous is gone,” Perez said. “Ardent just lost her shields, and the Uzaveh is losing antimatter containment.” Checking her readings, she added, “Five Klingon ships just uncloaked and are starting an attack run on Enterprise.”

  “Helm, hard about,” O’Brien said. “Weapons, target the lead Klingon ship.”

  “I can’t,” Perez said. “Ardent’s in the way.” She shot a horrified look at O’Brien. “They’re on a suicide run!”

  “Helm, put us between Ardent and the Enterprise, and roll on the z-axis to show them our topside. Ezri, match Enterprise’s shield frequency! We have to take the hit or else it’ll rip that breach in their hull wide open.”

  No one protested or questioned O’Brien’s orders, and for that he was proud.

  Tigan sounded the collision alarm. “Brace for impact!”

  On the main viewer, the Ardent rammed the attacking squadron of Klingon cruisers head-on. The sleek Memory Omega starship exploded and consumed three of the Klingon ships entirely while leaving the other two tumbling away erratically into the void. Moments later, huge chunks of twisted, blackened starship debris slammed against the Defiant, which shuddered and pealed like a church bell as each slab of duranium made impact, one after another.

  “Damage report,” called O’Brien. “Talk to me, people.”

  Tenmei slammed her palms in frustration on the helm. “Warp drive’s gone, helm’s not responding!”

  O’Brien glared at Tigan and tilted his head toward Tenmei. The first officer took the cue and scrambled forward to help the novice pilot patch in the auxiliary helm controls. That’ll get us back in motion, he knew, but it won’t fix the warp drive. He opened a channel to engineering. “Quiqué! How long for warp?”

  An unfamiliar male voice answered. “Chief Muñiz is dead.”

  “Who’s this?”

  The engineer answered in a halting voice, “DeCurtis, sir.”

  “Well, listen up, DeCurtis. We need weapons and warp speed on the double, or we’re all dead. We’re counting on you now, so find a way, and get it done.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bridge out.” O’Brien closed the channel with a jab of his thumb. That was the worst pep talk in history. We’re all gonna die. “Tactical, report.”

  Perez fought to coax useful intel from her console. “We’re dead in space, the phasers are offline, and if we fire torpedoes, we’ll have to target manually.” Something began flashing rapidly on the long-range sensors. “Trilithium warhead signature! Range, ninety-three-point-five million kilometers.” Her face was bright with terror as she faced O’Brien. “It’s the Ya’Vang! They’ve targeted B’hava’el!”

  “Bloody hell,” O’Brien muttered, slumping in his chair. I hope to hell Calhoun knows what he’s doing, he fumed. Because without warp drive, we’ll be as good as dead if the Klingons set off one of those warheads.

  One Minute Earlier…

  Patience had never been Mac’s forte. Lurking millions of kilometers from the battle for B’hava’el and keeping the Excalibur in its minimum-power stealth mode was excruciating for him. As he watched his allies make one valiant sacrifice after another in their stand against the Klingons, bloodlust thundered in his temples; his fists curled white-knuckle tight and his brow knit with fury. He wanted to be in the thick of the fight, unleashing the full might of the Excalibur against its enemies.

  His command team mirrored his pent-up desire to wade into the fray. Soleta stood close at Mac’s shoulder, her fingers steepled and her unblinking stare fixed on the distant carnage pictured on the viewscreen. Jellico was hunched over his console, his thin lips all but vanished into a taut frown. Lefler was anxious and distraught, and even the normally unflappable Selar was perched on the edge of her seat, her countenance focused into a portrait of fierce intensity.

  A comm signal on Lefler’s console distracted her from the mayhem on the screen. “Ardent’s gone and the Enterprise has been hit,” she said, her voice a fearful vibrato. “Defiant’s in trouble, too.” She shut her eyes, unwilling or perhaps unable to take any more bad news from the battle.

  The rest of the crew looked expectantly at Mac, as if he might suddenly reverse his decision and plunge into the crossfire. “Be patient,” he said, projecting a calmness he didn’t feel. “The Ya’Vang waits for her moment. We wait for ours.”

  No one looked placated by his words, and he didn’t blame them.

  An alert buzzed from Jellico’s console. He reacted immediately and began punching in commands. “New energy signature! Trilithium warhead being armed! Bearing eight-five mark twelve, range one hundred sixteen
point one thousand kilometers.” He checked his data again. “Ship uncloaking—it’s the Ya’Vang, sir!”

  Mac cracked a gloating smile. Right where I knew she’d be. He sprang from his chair and stalked forward, feeling the thrill of the chase. “Full power, shields up! Lock all weapons and fire!”

  The crew turned Mac’s words into actions with speed and efficiency. The ship surged to life, emerging from stealth mode with a vengeance, and less than a second later the crew hammered the Ya’Vang with every ounce of Excalibur’s fearsome arsenal. Selar relayed new data to Jellico as the Klingon cruiser veered off into an evasive maneuver, and McHenry anticipated the Ya’Vang’s every turn and yaw, enabling Jellico to deliver one devastating shot after another. A barrage of return fire strafed the Excalibur’s shields, shaking the sleek warship but dealing it no serious damage.

  “Her shields are down,” Selar announced.

  Soleta pointed at the underside of the ship’s aft quarter. “Hit her main reactor, then her targeting array.”

  “On it,” Jellico said, launching a storm of torpedoes.

  Half a second later, the Excalibur’s crew cheered as multiple explosions tore through the Ya’Vang, breached her hull at multiple points, sheared away one of her warp nacelles, and set her adrift in an uncontrolled tumbling roll.

  That’s more like it, Mac rejoiced. He returned to his chair, lifted his chin, and put on his mask of stern command. “Lefler, send to Ya’Vang on all frequencies: ‘Attention, commander and crew of the Ya’Vang. This is Captain Mac Calhoun of the free starship Excalibur. Surrender and prepare to be boarded.’”

  “Sending,” Lefler said. A moment later, her eyes opened wide, and she looked back at Mac. “Captain Krona’s responding, sir.”

  “Put him on-screen.”

  The main viewer changed to a static-hashed image of the smoky, wrecked bridge of the Ya’Vang. Flames crackled in the background, framing the scorched visage of Captain Krona. He bared his teeth in a bloody, predatory grin. “You think you’ve won, Calhoun? You think I didn’t plan for this? Then you’re a fool.” A blast of static crackled over the speaker as the transmission broke up and ended. The viewscreen reverted to the image of the burning husk of the Ya’Vang.