by Ilsa J. Bick
Garrett’s teeth gritted. “You need to tell me this?” she grunted, wrestling with the controls. “We’re going to break apart.”
Then she heard Stern gasp. “Oh, my Lord.”
Garrett looked up. “Oh, God,” she said, going numb with horror. “Oh, my God.”
There, like some phoenix arising from the ashes, was the Cardassian. The scout barreled through the firewall and, although Garrett thought it couldn’t possibly not be damaged in some way—for God’s sake, that was the equivalent of several thousands of megatons going off—the Cardassian wasn’t hurt enough.
She felt Jase’s hand on her shoulder. Garrett slid her arm around her son and pulled him tight. “I’m sorry, son,” she said.
Jase’s face was pale but calm. “It’s okay, Mom.”
Garrett pulled Jase’s head down to her chest. “Don’t look, baby. Don’t look.”
The Cardassian filled space until that was all Garrett saw.
Dear God. Garrett uttered a silent prayer. Make it quick, make it ...
In the next instant, there was a bright flash, and then space blew apart. And then the Cardassian was spinning out of control.
“Phasers, fire!” Bat-Levi shouted.
“Aye!” Glemoor’s voice was gleeful.
They watched as the Enterprise’s phasers lapped at the space around the Cardassian, setting off another plasma burst.
“Report!”
“That got their attention!” Glemoor’s voice was taut with excitement. “Breaking off pursuit, coming around. Impulse engines only! I read that their axial stabilizers are down fifty percent.”
“Those impulse engines,” Kodell said from his station, “they’re fluctuating.”
“Damage?”
“Very likely.”
“Mr. Glemoor, are they still with us?”
“On our tail!”
“I like this better and better,” said Bat-Levi. She took the command chair. “Bulast, hail the captain—and try to raise the T’Pol. Mr. Castillo, bring us about. Head directly for the brown star.”
“For it?” Castillo twisted his chair around. “Commander, with all due respect, don’t you want to lead them away ...”
Bat-Levi silenced him with a look. “Full. Impulse. Now. Kodell, reinforce those aft shields, those Cardassians are likely ...” She was interrupted as the ship vibrated. “Likely to fire,” she finished wryly. “Damage report, Mr. Glemoor.”
“Disrupter cannon fire. Aft shields at ninety percent. Minor hull damage, Decks 15 and 18.”
“Order evacuation of all personnel away from the outer hull areas. Kodell?”
“Already doing it,” said Kodell. “Reinforcing aft shields. The problem is, it goes both ways. We try to burn up space around them ...”
“And they try to do the same to us,” Bat-Levi said. “Understood. Steal me power and buy me time, Kodell. Mr. Bulast, they getting off any distress calls?”
“Not that I read, but I’ve got the captain.”
Bat-Levi spared Kodell a quick glance. “On audio.”
Garrett’s voice sputtered through static. “Enterprise, just what the hell are you doing?”
“Disobeying orders, Captain.” Bat-Levi couldn’t help it; she grinned, insanely, and wondered what Tyvan would say about that as a manifestation of her anxiety.
“You are not to engage the Cardassians! I repeat you are not to engage!”
Bat-Levi raised her voice. “I’m sorry, Captain, you’re breaking up. What’s your status?”
“They’re firing again!” Glemoor shouted.
“Evasive maneuvers! Hold your fire, Mr. Glemoor!”
The ship rattled and lurched. “Keep those stabilizers online!” Bat-Levi ordered.
“Switching to backup systems,” Kodell reported, “firming up.” Then he shook his head. “Stabilizers read nominal but those aft shields, they’re at eighty percent. It’s not the Cardassian himself; it’s what he can do with the plasma. Hull breach reported on Decks 23 and 24. Force fields up, damage control parties en route.”
Then Garrett’s voice came back. “I heard that.” There was a moment of dead silence, and Bat-Levi thought they really had lost contact. She was about to order Bulast to get Garrett back when Garrett continued. “You get this, Commander, loud and clear. You are not to engage. Do you copy?”
Garrett’s tone was ominous, her meaning crystal clear. Bat-Levi swallowed. “Perfectly. And I promise: I won’t fire a shot at them. Now, please, what’s your status?”
Garrett rattled off her damage. “And my maneuvering thrusters are gone. Shields were too, but we’ve managed to coax fifteen percent. Life support’s fine, for all the good it does.”
Kodell spoke up. “Captain, if you shut down life support and get into your suits, you can steal power to reinforce your shields.”
“Will I need them?”
He and Bat-Levi exchanged glances. “I’d recommend it for the time being,” he said. “Can you relay to the commander?”
“Yes.” Another pause. “Bat-Levi, tell me you have a plan.”
“Yes, Captain, and ...” Bat-Levi laid the plan out. She waited in an agony of suspense then, her lips dry, her heart racing. If the captain didn’t agree, Bat-Levi wouldn’t do it-even if the captain said great, fine, do it, but forget that near-warp transport stuff, are you crazy—because, quite simply, she wasn’t about to kill her captain.
After a few seconds that seemed like days, Garrett’s voice, tinged with static, came on. “Take care of my ship, Bat-Levi. Anything happens to her, I swear that when I get back aboard, I’ll bust you down so fast you’ll think you’ve been greased.”
Bat-Levi didn’t even have time to feel relief. “Aye. Enterprise out. Mr. Bulast, any response from T’Pol?”
“Negative, Commander. She’s receiving, but she’s ignoring us.”
“Damn. Keep trying; we’ve got to get her to talk to us.” Bat-Levi spun the command chair back toward the helm. “Mr. Castillo, distance from Cardassian scout.”
“Seven thousand kilometers, and closing. Shall I accelerate?”
Bat-Levi breathed in deep. “Negative. Cut speed to one-half.”
Castillo’s back stiffened, but he complied without a word of protest. “One-half impulse, aye.”
Bat-Levi punched at the command companel. “Transporter room, reroute transporter control to the bridge.” She looked back at Kodell. “You can handle both ships? All three, if we raise T’Pol?”
“The captain and Halak do their job,” said Kodell, his hands flying over his controls, bringing the transporter online, “I’ll do mine. Like you said, I’m good.”
“Excellent.” She turned away as Kodell ordered a medical team to the transporter room. “Bulast?”
“Still nothing from T’Pol.”
Bat-Levi debated a half second. “It can’t be helped. We don’t have the time to waste. Mr. Kodell?”
“Vent tubes five, seven, and eight at maximal capacity.”
“Stand by to vent. All available power to the shields, Mr. Kodell, I don’t want them to so much as burp. Glemoor, arm photon torpedoes one and four. Proximity detonation.”
If the Naxeran had any reservations, he didn’t show them. His movements were quick, economical. “Photon torpedoes armed. Three-second delay.”
“Mr. Castillo, on my mark, bring the ship about, hard starboard, reverse course, and accelerate to warp two. Take us right down their throat, Mr. Castillo.”
She saw Glemoor nudge Castillo and wink. “Hold onto your hat,” Glemoor said.
“Uh-huh,” said Castillo, his tone clearly indicating that, perhaps, he ought to kiss his ass good-bye instead.
On the viewscreen, Bat-Levi saw the brown star loom closer and closer. The plasma streamers, the ones created by the tug of the neutron star, unfurled like the thick bodies of twin serpents.
“Almost,” she said, and her good hand gripped the arm of her command chair. She felt the hard edge of plastic polymers bite into her skin,
but the pain was good.
“Cardassian’s closing,” said Glemoor. “Six thousand five hundred kilometers. Six-three.”
The ship hobbled, righted. “Passing into gravity well,” said Glemoor. “Cardassian right behind, four thousand nine hundred kilometers, taking the bait, pushing his speed up! Three-eight, two-nine ... he’s close enough for a shot! One thousand kilometers!”
“Now!” Bat-Levi was on her feet. “Kodell, vent tubes five, seven, eight! Drop shields!”
“Venting! Dropping shields!”
“Bulast, signal the captain and Commander Halak! Glemoor, fire photon torpedoes, proximity detonation!”
“Torpedoes away!”
Bat-Levi’s teeth were bared. “Kodell, activate transporter! Mr. Castillo, hard starboard, go to warp two ... now!”
“Aye, hard starboard!” Castillo reflexively grabbed onto his console. “Reversing course! Warp two!”
The space around the ship elongated then compressed upon itself as the warp bubble initialized. And then everything happened quickly and precisely the way Bat-Levi had imagined. The Enterprise hurtled starboard, its nascent warp field intensifying, expanding the gravity well of the brown star, and then the Enterprise wheeled about, shooting past the Cardassian and literally dragging gravity with it. The expanding wavefront slammed into the Cardassian; Bat-Levi watched the scout shimmy, stagger. And then, the coup de grace: The Enterprise’s photon torpedoes detonated. The plasma streamers whirling off the brown star ignited into a fury of red plasma flame that propagated forward and back. The brown star flared and bulged and began to break apart.
The Cardassian’s hull sheered, split—and then the Cardassian scout imploded.
“Yes!” Castillo cried, pumping his fists like a maniac. “Yes!”
It was the cue everyone on the bridge had been waiting for. The bridge erupted in relieved laughter, Bat-Levi’s included. Glemoor preened his frills over and over, and Castillo kept whooping, “Yes! Yes!”
But Kodell—Bat-Levi suddenly froze—he hadn’t said ... the captain ...
“Kodell,” Bat-Levi said, urgently, turning so quickly her servos squalled, and she almost lost her balance. “Kodell, report! Did we get them?”
“Commander.” Kodell was standing, hands clasped behind his back and quiet triumph written on his face. “Confirm transport, five individuals—alive and well.”
Oh, thank you, God. Bat-Levi felt weak and she backed up, groping blindly for the command chair, swiveling the chair so she could sit. With the smallest of sighs, Bat-Levi slid back, and her servos, for once, didn’t make a sound. She felt eyes on her, and she looked up—and into Kodell’s smiling face.
“Well done, Commander,” he said. “And all without firing a shot—more or less.”
Gaining. Talma had pushed the T’Pol engines into the red but still the distance between her and the Cardassian scout was dwindling by the minute. Gaining—she ground her teeth together—the Cardassian was gaining!
Just ahead, she saw the great dense ball of the nebula cloud, its pink and purple colors more intense, the entire cloud more substantial now so close to the neutron star whirling at its heart, being fed by plasma streamers coursing from the brown star.
The Enterprise hailed again, but Talma ignored them. She’d listened to their twaddle: something about her dropping shields the instant they went to warp so they could beam her aboard. She’d cut off the transmission, finally. What, did they think she was that gullible? Probably blow her out of space the moment her shields were down.
Well, she’d take care of herself, thanks. Talma found every spare ounce of auxiliary power and re-routed to the engines. If I can just get inside that nebula, I’ll lose that Cardassian, and to hell with Garrett’s ship. She wouldn’t have a lot in the way of sensors and her tactical would be fried, but the trade-off would be worth it. The Cardassian would be blind; and then she’d hang there and bide her time.
T’Pol edged past the outer fringes of the nebula; minute particles of dust and debris scoured her hull. The computer warned, in polite Vulcan, that the radiation level outside the ship would reach lethal levels in sixty minutes. Talma told it to shut the hell up then gave a more refined command, in Vulcan. She watched the random flashes of energy radiating through the nebula like the flow of neural energy through a network of nerves and dendrites. Almost there—her eyes fixed on the screen, as if willing the nebula closer would make it so—just a few more seconds, and I’m safe.
And because she’d told the computer to can it, and because her gaze was riveted upon her viewscreen, Talma didn’t see the other Cardassian scout disintegrate; she didn’t know that the Enterprise had gone to warp; and she most definitely did not register the flow of ignited plasma rippling from the exploding brown star and propagating itself along the plasma streamers being pulled toward the neutron star until the nebula was a ball of plasma flame—and that was much too late.
All she could do then was scream, and even that was lost as T’Pol flashed, vaporized, and was gone.
She would have taken some comfort in knowing that, a split second later, the Cardassian found that it was much too close indeed.
* * *
The wall of fire expanded. It tore through one planet. Then two. A few minutes later, the third planet shuddered and convulsed and died.
And on to the fourth.
His throat was so dry he could barely draw a breath. Chen-Mai’s broken wrist throbbed, and he’d tucked it into his suit. But every step jolted bone against bone, and once he’d fainted, fallen. Awakened to find that he’d gashed open his forehead so that he had to blink blood out of his eyes. Still he dragged himself through the maze of tunnels and blind alleys, going by feel, groping along the walls with his good hand. And then, because he was so frightened, he started running, fell, clawed his way to his feet as his wrist screamed in pain, and then fell again. This time, he couldn’t get to his feet, because the ground was moving.
What was happening? The ground was alive; Chen-Mai felt the rock jolt, ripple as if composed of something liquid, not solid. An earthquake. No—Chen-Mai tried to get his mind to work rationally—not possible, the planet was dead, it was dead, the planet was dead!
Something sharp bit his cheek. Chen-Mai flinched, turned his face toward the arched ceiling of the tunnel. He heard the sharp pop and ping of compressed rock splintering, and then a long, loud roar as the mountain began to tear itself apart.
High above, the shock waves from the neutron star coupled with those from the brown star, and rolled over the fourth planet. In a few seconds, the landscape was flattened, the mountains collapsing in, falling toward the planet’s dead core.
And, deep underground, the rock groaned, opened beneath Chen-Mai’s feet. Screaming, he tumbled into the abyss.
And on to the fifth planet.
And, finally, into empty space.
Chapter 36
“I can’t imagine what you expect of me,” said Mahfouz Qadir, in an oily tenor. He tweezed a tiny porcelain cup rimmed with gold from an equally fragile saucer and took a delicate sip of strong, sweet coffee. “You can’t expect that I keep track of every nursemaid, housemaid, and slut on Farius Prime.”
Halak’s swarthy features darkened with a rush of angry blood. “Dalal isn’t a slut, Qadir, and you know it. Now Dalal and Arava are gone, and I want to know where they are.”
“Or what?” Qadir replaced his cup upon its saucer with a soft click of china against china. He squared the saucer on a low carved wood table inlaid with a mosaic of jewels before inclining his head up at Halak who towered over him. “Supposing that I knew and was unwilling to tell you, then what? Eh? Are you threatening me, Samir? You,” Qadir’s bright, black eyes flicked right, “and this pretty Starfleet?”
Oh, brother, thought Garrett. “You could say that.” She folded her arms across her chest. “About Starfleet, that is. Pretty, I couldn’t care less. This isn’t an official visit, though.”
“No? Then those uniforms, the
y don’t mean anything? The fact that your starship, bristling with armament, is parked in orbit, its weapons trained upon my home, this means nothing? You bring weapons to my house, weapons I must confiscate to ensure my safety, and then you make demands, and this is not official, not a threat from Starfleet? How am I to take this then? How would you, a reasonable woman, take this?”
Garrett wasn’t in the mood. “Don’t count on my being very reasonable. Frankly, you can take it any way you like, but the fact remains that one of your operatives posed as a Starfleet Intelligence officer, kidnapped my first officer, and endangered the lives of my crew. And you’re right; you’re damned lucky I don’t order my ship to vaporize this house of yours. Don’t think I’m not tempted.”
“You see?” Qadir slapped a palm against his thigh. “Threats. Where are your manners, Captain? You make wild accusations and demand information.” Qadir took up a silver tray of sweets and sugared dates that sat beside his coffee cup. “Captain, be reasonable,” he said, stirring pastries with one finger then plucking up a triangular date-filled pastry scented with rosewater. “I’m a businessman. Try to understand from my point of view. The first rule of business is quite simple. Nothing is free.” He popped the mamoul into his mouth and chewed with an air of supreme satisfaction. “Everything is for profit,” he said, around sweet date filling. “So I ask you: What do you offer in return?”
Ah. Garrett thought they’d get to it eventually. What was she willing to trade? “Information,” she said. “Pure and simple.”
Still chewing, Qadir replaced the tray of cakes. Swallowed. “What sort of information?”
“The Orion Syndicate.” She caught the flash of excitement in Qadir’s eyes and knew she had his attention.
“What of them?”
Garrett gave a faint smile, and she lifted a finger in admonishment. “No, no. This is the way it will go. You answer questions first. Then I give you information. Take it or leave it.”
“Hmmm.” Qadir considered. “What if I leave it?”
