by Dayton Ward
Wait.
Again, something seemed to summon her from the depths of the rift that held her prisoner, and once more she listened. Unlike the previous call, this one carried with it an element of familiarity. It, like her, was Shedai, but older—much older—than the Wanderer herself.
Where are you? Who are you?
The other consciousness, which the Wanderer had detected for but the briefest of moments, was gone, but in that infinitesimal interval she had sensed its power. When she had attacked the Telinaruul and their fragile habitat, she had believed one of the ancient crystals in their possession to be harboring one of the enumerated—one of the Serataal. There had been no time to verify that before she had been taken captive. As the other mind she had sensed began to coalesce into existence a second time, she reached out with whatever feeble wisps of perception she still commanded. Now, there was a connection. It was faint, but there, and once again she detected the extreme age and greater power of the other mind. She also sensed something else. Anger? Exhaustion? Then, realization dawned. This other, unknown Shedai seemed to be undergoing the same stresses of captivity that the Wanderer currently endured. Focusing her mind, she stretched across the abyss separating her from this new presence, searching for a stronger link. Was the other entity too weak to respond, or simply unwilling? Was it enemy, or ally?
Then, the connection was broken and the other mind faded once more into the maelstrom of energies, returning the Wanderer to her prison of solitude.
No!
Once more, there was nothing for her to do but wait. All she could bring to bear was her patience while preserving her limited strength and watching for an opportunity to act. She was certain that, sooner or later, her captors would have to reveal themselves.
Whoever or whatever they were, the Wanderer would destroy them.
12
Thomas Blair stopped himself from trying to force the turbolift doors to open faster, willing himself to stand still until they parted enough for him to exit the car and step onto the Defiant’s bridge. The first thing he noted was that the entire room was bathed in the harsh crimson lights that signified a Red Alert status. In keeping with Blair’s personal preferences, the audible alarm had been muted on the bridge as well as in turbolifts.
“Status report,” he called out, nodding to Commander Mbugua as the first officer vacated the captain’s chair. Rather than head for the center seat himself, Blair made his way around the upper bridge deck toward the science station.
“We’re approaching the coordinates of the sensor contact,” Mbugua replied, moving to stand in front of the helm and navigation consoles at the center of the bridge’s command well. Leaning back against the joint console, the muscled officer crossed his arms and nodded toward the main viewscreen. “Whatever was happening here before, it’s over.”
“Anything new with the sensor contacts?” Blair asked as he stopped behind Lieutenant Commander Nyn at the science station.
Without turning from her workstation, the science officer replied, “Nothing active now, sir, though I’m still picking up residual energy readings from what look to be particle weapons, Klingon disruptors in particular, along with something that could be Tholian.”
Blair frowned. “Could be?”
“It’s hard to be sure, sir,” Nyn said. “The Klingon energy signatures are pretty easy to pick out, and the readings I’m seeing as Tholian aren’t entirely consistent with what we have on record for the particle weapons normally installed aboard their ships.”
Perching himself on the railing opposite her station, Blair positioned himself so that he could divide his attention between Nyn and the viewscreen. “What about the ships themselves? Did everybody just bug out of here?”
The science officer replied, “Hard to say, sir. The area’s saturated with residual energy readings, making things tougher for long-range scans to make sense of it all. Whatever happened here, it at least included what looks to be one hell of a firefight, but if I had to guess? Whoever was doing the fighting is long gone, assuming their ship wasn’t destroyed.”
“But you’re not sure,” Blair said.
Nyn shook her head. “Not at all, sir.”
“Which is why we’re at Red Alert with shields up and weapons hot,” Mbugua added.
Nodding in approval at his first officer’s decisions and actions, Blair said, “Works for me. Restore normal bridge lighting, but let’s leave everything else as is for the time being.” He sighed. “Looks like we’re showing up late to the party again.” He had known that would probably be the case from the moment Nyn contacted him in his quarters to report her initial long-range sensor contacts of what she had described as a likely combat action taking place. The Defiant had been too far away for its scanning systems to record anything detailed, but Nyn still had acquired enough information to make an educated guess that Klingon and Tholian vessels looked to be taking part in the action. Her suspicions were only strengthened after Blair ordered a course change to investigate, since the fight—if indeed it was a fight—while taking place in an area of space that at present was not claimed by either the Klingons or the Tholians, was close enough to the Tholian border that the Defiant’s captain had to wonder whether the Klingons finally had rubbed someone the wrong way.
Blair’s attention was caught by an alert tone coming from the helm, and he turned as Lieutenant T’Lehr looked up from her console and reported, “We will be in visual range in less than ninety seconds, Captain.”
“Slow to impulse,” Blair ordered, rising from his perch on the red railing and stepping down into the command well to take his place in the center seat. Beneath his feet, he felt the reverberation in the deck plates as the Defiant dropped out of warp and the star-ship’s powerful impulse engines took over.
A string of indicator tones sounded from Nyn’s workstation, and the science officer turned to regard Blair. “Captain, I’m picking up four distinct signatures, all consistent with Tholian propulsion systems, heading away from this location on a direct course for their border.”
“Maintain alert status,” Mbugua said, as he moved from in front of the helm and took up a position to Blair’s left. “Just in case they decided to double back, or they have friends out there somewhere.”
Her attention once more on her console, Nyn called over her shoulder, “Definitely picking up traces of at least one vessel now, probably two. Configuration doesn’t look right, but the metallurgy suggests Klingon construction.”
“Let’s have it on screen, Nyn,” Blair ordered. As the image on the main viewscreen shifted, he saw a pair of indistinct shapes that might have been space vessels, though their silhouettes did not look familiar. At least, not at first.
“What the hell?” Blair asked, more to himself than anyone else as he pushed himself out of his chair. “Magnify that.” An instant later, the image shifted to bring the unidentified objects into sharp relief, and the captain could not help the gasp of surprise that escaped his lips.
“Oh my god,” Mbugua said, his voice low enough that Blair almost did not hear him. “Those are supposed to be … Klingon ships?”
Turning from her station, Nyn said, “According to our sensors, that’s what they were, sir.”
The pair of derelicts drifted in an expanding cloud of debris, one wreck tumbling end over end while the other was trapped in an endless roll. Despite the incredible damage inflicted upon the pair of vessels, Blair was able to make out the crushed shell of what had been the primary hull of one Klingon battle cruiser, its distinctive bulb-shape design still recognizable despite massive buckling and a number of missing hull plates. He was able to identify the other ship by the shape of one of its warp nacelles and the section of secondary hull still attached to it and bearing the bold trefoil of the Klingon military. There was very little beyond that to distinguish either vessel, which to Blair looked more like oversized fusions of scrap metal than spacefaring ships of any kind.
“What happened to them?” Blair aske
d, his gaze still trans-fixed by the ghastly image on the viewscreen. “Some kind of collision? Maybe an internal explosion?” Even as he posed the questions he knew that those were not valid explanations. Neither event was consistent with the type of destruction now on display before him, and it was an opinion that was only strengthened by his science officer.
Nyn replied, “I’m not detecting any residual energy traces that would be consistent with an engine overload, sir. Besides, given their proximity, if either of the ships’ warp cores had breached, the resultant matter/antimatter explosion would have been more than sufficient to vaporize both vessels.”
“What about collision?” Mbugua asked. “As crazy as I know it sounds, could this be the result of some kind of huge accident?”
Again, Nyn shook her head. “Doubtful, Commander. Such an event would require extreme neglect not only on the part of each vessel’s helm officer, but also in automatic evasion protocols and the ships’ deflector and shield systems.” She paused, nodding her head in the direction of her workstation. “There’s also one other thing, thanks to the computer having more time to chew on the sensor data we’ve been collecting. According to the readings I’m getting, something looks to have crushed the hulls of these ships. Stress fractures and buckling all along both vessels’ spaceframes indicate a massive force enveloping the entire ship and drawing inward. It’s almost as if they were squeezed by a giant vise.”
“Or the hand of a god,” Mbugua muttered, and it was only when he noticed Blair looking at him that he seemed to realize he had spoken the comment aloud. Clearing his throat, the first officer added, “Sorry, Skipper. It’s just that Nyn’s description made me think of a report I read last year, about the Enterprise encountering an alien who once passed himself off as one of the Greek gods on ancient Earth. He stopped the Enterprise dead in space with an energy field shaped to resemble a giant hand.”
Blair nodded, recalling the report, one of many odd mission logs recorded by the Enterprise’s current commanding officer, James Kirk. “Commander Nyn, please don’t tell me we’re dealing with something like that here.”
“I don’t think so, sir,” the science officer replied, unable to keep the hint of a smile from playing at the corners of her mouth. “For one thing, the energy signatures our sensors are picking up didn’t match against anything on file in the computer banks, which would include anything the Enterprise scanners recorded during its encounter with … whatever that was supposed to be.”
“Well,” Mbugua said, “I suppose we can give thanks for small favors, then.”
Nyn answered, “That might be the end of the good news, sir.” She gestured to the array of eight status monitors positioned above her console, then waited until Blair and Mbugua returned to stand behind her before pointing to one of the monitors. “While the residual energy readings I’m finding here don’t match anything exactly, there’s still a hint of something similar to Tholian energy weapons.”
“How could a Tholian vessel do that?” Blair asked, waving toward the viewscreen. “Everything we know about their ships tells us they’re outmatched by Klingon D7s, as well as our Constitution-class ships. The only way they have a chance in a stand-up fight is if they bring enough ships to the fight in the first place.” He had read the report of the U.S.S. Bombay’s destruction more than three years ago at the hands of six Tholian ships. The enemy vessels had employed their greater numbers and maneuverability to overcome the Starfleet ship’s greater size and more powerful weapons. They had inflicted sufficient damage that the Bombay’s captain, Hallie Gannon, had ordered the ship’s destruction in a last-ditch attempt to take some of her ship’s attackers with it.
Mbugua said, “Maybe it’s a new weapon—something they’ve managed to keep secret from us. If the Tholians excel at anything, it’s playing their cards close to their vest.”
“Well, we know they’ve got some of the best poker faces around, at any rate,” Blair replied, punctuating his indiscreet observation with a humorless chuckle. “Okay, enough of that. Nyn, prep a briefing packet for Admiral Nogura and his intelligence people back on Vanguard. Include all of your relevant sensor data about the energy readings. Let’s see if they can’t connect some of these new dots.”
Turning from the science station, Blair made his way around the bridge until he stood in front of the main viewscreen. He shook his head as he took in the sight of the destroyed Klingon ships, marveling at the power it must have taken to inflict such damage on the vessels. What might such a weapon, whatever it was and however it might work, do to the Defiant?
Not that I’m in any hurry to find out.
One thing Blair knew—and it was a fact that definitely would be playing into the ever-evolving and always fragile nature of the Taurus Reach’s interstellar diplomatic situation—was that the Tholians appeared to have had quite enough of the Klingons or anyone else pushing them around. Certainly the Klingons would argue that any tolerance the Tholians had shown in the past would seem to be coming to an end. Might the simmering yet still deteriorating relations between the two powers finally be coming to a full boil? Sooner or later, the Federation would be forced to act, if for no other reason than to protect its own interests.
Blair sighed, knowing that when the time for such action finally came, it probably would not be good for anyone involved.
I wonder if it’s too late to retire?
13
Feeling more than a bit exposed, Diego Reyes tried not to look too curious or nervous about the number of patrons inhabiting the bar of the Omari-Ekon’s gaming deck. Though the ship had its slack periods—so far as visitors to its casino, bar, and even its bordello were concerned—it was never truly empty of passengers and other guests, even at this hour in the middle of the day.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” he whispered, covering the act of speaking by rubbing his nose and trying to move his mouth as little as possible. The deception was easy to carry off, mostly due to the noxious odor of cigar smoke coming from a portly Tellarite sitting in an adjacent booth.
Thanks to the subcutaneous transceiver supplied to him by Doctor Fisher, he heard T’Prynn’s voice in his mind as she replied, “Given the nature of your current environment, this is our best option for making a covert entry into the Omari-Ekon’s central computer in order to gain access to the ship’s navigational logs.”
“But you didn’t say whether you thought it was going to work,” Reyes said as he regarded the gaming console set into the table at which he sat in one of the booths along the bar’s rear wall. Like most of the other tables, the system before him allowed a customer to play computerized versions of the various games of chance available in the Omari-Ekon’s casino, either alone against the computer’s simulated dealer or against players sitting at other stations in the bar. The interface was a simple, graphics-driven affair that allowed some customization with respect to presentation, such as the player’s native language. “I don’t see how playing blackjack is going to help us here.”
“I have created a method of infiltrating the central computer via the gaming subsystems,” T’Prynn replied. “A shell program will be running at the same time, providing cover for your activities and appearing to anyone who might be remotely monitoring you that you are simply partaking of one of the games.”
This entire scheme had been of T’Prynn’s devising. Reyes knew that attempting to access any of the regular computer terminals aboard ship carried far too much risk, and using the terminal in his quarters for anything short of ordering room service was suicide. Ganz had him under almost constant surveillance, affording Reyes little privacy. What T’Prynn had proposed—accessing the Orion vessel’s computer system via an otherwise innocuous entry point in full view of anyone and everyone in the Omari-Ekon’s bar—was just brash enough to work, Reyes decided, provided he did not do anything to attract unwanted attention.
Wonder if T’Prynn’s computed the odds of that happening?
“I suppose this is as
good a time as any to say that I don’t read or speak Orion,” he said after a moment.
T’Prynn replied, “There is no one single Orion language, Mister Reyes, but that should not present a problem. The gaming interface we will be exploiting contains an automated translation matrix, in order to provide patrons with simulations in their native language. It is my intention to utilize this feature as we transfer to other parts of the system.”
Her use of “Mister” when addressing him bothered Reyes, though he knew it was not anything the Vulcan was doing as a deliberate attempt to insult him. Her professional demeanor and sense of decorum required her to refer to him in nothing less than a formal manner. Still, every time he heard the title it only served to remind him of what he had lost—what he had given up, and what had been taken from him. He harbored no ill feelings for anyone with respect to the decisions he had made and the actions he had taken which had brought him to this point, and held no one accountable save himself. That included the person now acting as his guide and perhaps even his guardian angel of sorts.
“T’Prynn,” he said, making a show of scanning the selection of games offered by the tabletop console, “I’m glad you’re okay. I’ve heard bits and pieces about what you went through, and I know how much that had to be affecting you while you were working for me. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help.” Tim Pennington had offered him some of the details regarding his journey with Doctor Jabilo M’Benga and the comatose Vulcan to her home planet, where she had been treated for her neurological issues. M’Benga had later received orders assigning him to star-ship duty as the assistant chief medical officer aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, whereas Pennington had accompanied T’Prynn on what could only be described as a circuitous voyage back to Vanguard. It was during that journey that the former intelligence officer, operating on her own, had determined Reyes’s status as a “guest” of the Klingons aboard the I.K.S. Zin’za, and had relayed that information to Starbase 47, perhaps even setting into motion the events that had brought him here, working with her.
