by David Mack
“I think we’re snagged on the kelp.”
“I told you not to say it.”
Tan Bao covered his eyes with one hand and massaged his temples. “I hate irony.”
Dastin struggled with the controls. “Let me try putting it in reverse, see if we break free.”
Hesh adjusted his tricorder. “Perhaps I can use this to create a subsonic pulse that, when propagated through the aquatic medium, will disorientate them long enough for us to escape.”
Theriault couldn’t take her eyes off the tactical display. “Five seconds to intercept! If someone’s gonna do something, now would be the time.”
They all looked up and around at one another. No one had anything to say.
Everything was quiet for several seconds. And then for several more.
Tan Bao looked up and around. “Oh-kay . . .”
Dastin glanced left, then right, perplexed. “What happened?”
Hesh stared numbly at his tricorder. “I think someone beamed up Nimur and the Wardens.” He adjusted the device. “Based on the specific residual ionization in the water, I think it was the Klingons.”
His news drew a cynical laugh from Dastin. “That’s twice today they’ve saved us by mistake.” The scout nudged Theriault. “Maybe we ought to thank them.”
“If we get off this rock alive, I’ll send them a basket of tribbles. Now break us free and get us moving, before something else down here decides to eat us.”
20
“Transporter room! Answer! What is your status?” Durak wanted results, but all he was getting from the Homghor’s transporter room was intermittent static punctuated by deep thuds. No one had answered his first two demands for information, and now the third was being ignored, as well. He skewered Magron with a look. “Find out what’s going on down there.”
His first officer snapped to attention. “I’ve confirmed the transport sequence was completed. Because of interference with the signal lock, multiple subjects were beamed aboard.”
“Don’t just repeat what the computer tells you! I could have a trained puQat do that. Take that petaQ Tegras and go secure the prisoners. Move!” He chased Magron off the bridge with his hateful glare, then turned his eyes back toward the enemy ship on the viewscreen. “Zuras! Hard about. Set attack pattern jav’negh, full speed. Volcha! Target the Starfleet vessel’s engineering deck. Disruptors at half power—Captain Kang wants them alive.”
Grunts of acknowledgment came back to Durak, and that was enough to satisfy him that his orders had been understood. Digits on his command screen counted down the dwindling qelIqams that separated the Homghor from the Starfleet scout ship. Victory was within reach, Durak was sure of it. He would strike the decisive blow against the interlopers, and then even Captain Kang would have to recognize him as a warrior worthy of honor and advancement.
“Twenty seconds to firing range,” Volcha said. “Locking—” He did a double take at his console. “Target has changed course and speed. Attempting to reacquire weapons lock.”
Durak watched the nimble little Starfleet ship twist and dart through the planet’s rings. Behind it, Kang’s cruiser pursued like a lumbering brute, blasting the rings with torpedoes.
“Helm, break to starboard! Keep us out of the Voh’tahk’s firing solution!”
Low curses fell from Durak’s lips. He had underestimated the Federation ship and its crew. Even though he had heard of how fast and maneuverable the Archer-class scout ships were, until now he had never faced one in action. The tiny ship exceeded its lofty reputation.
We’re never going to catch it if all we do is trace its movements. We need to get a step ahead of it and let it come to us. “Helm, hard climb. Take us through the rings and put us into a reverse orbit. I want to go nose-to-nose with the Starfleeters on the other side of the planet.”
“Executing hard climb,” Zuras confirmed. The planet’s rings dominated the viewscreen for several seconds as the Homghor shot through them. Once clear on the other side, instead of orbiting in the direction of the planet’s rotation, which was standard operating procedure, the bird-of-prey banked in the opposite direction and orbited against the planet’s movement.
It was a tactic whose chief advantage was also its greatest risk: surprise. It was unlikely the Starfleet ship would expect to see the Homghor rushing into a head-to-head confrontation; however, putting the entire planet between himself and his prey meant that Durak was flying blind into battle. He wouldn’t know his opponent’s position, attitude, or speed until the moment of engagement. This gambit could be either his triumph or his undoing.
Anticipating glory, he grinned. War holds no honor for the timid.
Volcha’s eyes were wedded to his display. “Estimate target intercept in ninety seconds.”
“Look sharp, my friend. We’ll have the advantage, but only for a moment. You’ll need to take a snap shot as soon as we have sensor contact. Make it one worthy of a song.”
The weapons officer nodded. His finger hovered over the firing switch. “I will.”
Durak thumbed open a channel to the transporter room. “Magron! Report!” His demand was once again met by silence. He opened an intraship PA channel. “Bridge to Magron!”
There was no response. What in the name of Fek’lhr is going on down there?
Behind him, the hatch to the port-side corridor slid open. Magron—bloody and battered almost beyond recognition—staggered through it and fell face-first to the deck. Somewhere far aft, hidden in the ruddy shadows, Klingon warriors screamed in agony. Everyone on the bridge turned to face this new threat from within. Durak leaped from his command chair to Magron’s side and pulled the first officer over the threshold onto the bridge. “Report!”
Magenta spittle dribbled from Magron’s split lips. “They’re coming.”
“Who? The novpu’?”
Magron shuddered and coughed up a mouthful of blood. “The mIgh’Qugh.” As soon as he’d forced out the words, Magron expired with a long, rasping rattle of weak breath.
Durak dropped the empty husk of what had once been a warrior. “Secure the bridge and seal all interior hatches. Zuras, Volcha, continue with the attack.” He pointed at the communications officer. “Kazron, get over here and help me guard the entrances.”
“Shouldn’t we hail Captain Kang?”
“We’ll hail Kang when I say so, not before. Our first duty is to defend this ship. Now draw your disruptor and defend the starboard hatch.”
“Yes, sir.” Kazron stood and moved aft to stand on Durak’s left. The two Klingons drew their disruptor sidearms and stood facing the sealed hatches, waiting to open fire on anything that dared to breach them that wasn’t a Klingon.
Echoes of pandemonium resounded through the hull from beyond the locked duranium barriers. Durak had heard such blood-curdling clamor only once before, as a junior officer on a cruiser whose hull had been breached in combat. It was the sound of bulkheads rupturing under strain, hatches being torn from their frames, a starship’s guts being torn out by a force of nature.
By the time Durak began to suspect that Doctor Tormog’s warning had not been an exaggeration, the hatches to the bridge were buckling inward, one ear-splitting impact at a time, as if the long-dead gods of Klingon antiquity had risen with a vengeance. Sparks flew from both doors’ magnetic control systems, and then with a final booming roar the hatches flew inward. The starboard hatch slammed into Kazron and pinned him to the deck. Durak dodged the port-side hatch by a whisker and fired a wild barrage of disruptor blasts down the corridor.
He watched, horrified and enthralled, as a female novpu’ walked with preternatural calm onto the Homghor’s bridge. Long silvery tresses framed her aqua face, whose sides were marked by golden spots that continued down her neck and underneath her primitive garments. She seemed oblivious of the fusillade of disruptor pulses Durak fired at her. They all seemed to be absorbed into her without inflicting any damage to her or her clothing. By the time she confronted Durak, he had cea
sed firing. All he could do was stare at her, awed and agape.
Her voice was rich and melodious. “I am Nimur. What is this place?”
Durak stammered, “It’s—it’s the I.K.S. Homghor.”
“I do not understand. Explain.”
“It’s a ship.”
Several other novpu’ from the planet followed Nimur onto the bridge as she stepped past Durak. She stared, bewildered, at the main viewscreen, which showed the darkened side of her planet. Then she turned back to face Durak. “What is that?”
“That’s your world.” Her reaction revealed she didn’t understand. “As seen from space.”
“From what?”
“From very high above.”
She looked around the bridge. “How can a ship travel where there’s no water?”
He remembered she was a primitive. “It travels in the darkness between the stars.”
Comprehension dawned quickly in Nimur’s eyes. “Incredible.” She looked around at the remaining bridge crew. “You will make this vessel obey my commands now.”
Volcha rested his hand on the grip of his disruptor. “We don’t take orders from you. We are sworn to obey Captain Durak—and no one else.”
Nimur was skeptical. “Are you all so loyal as this one?” She studied the rest of the crew’s reactions. Slow nods were accompanied by more hands moving toward sidearms. “Very well.”
A grotesque wet cracking noise filled the bridge. Durak winced for only a fraction of second—and when he opened his eyes, he saw that every one of his officers’ heads had been twisted around until their necks had snapped like brittle twigs. Only he remained standing.
Then an invisible hand gripped his throat and lifted him off the deck.
Nimur stepped in front of him, as calm as she was malevolent. “They would not obey me, Durak. You will—or else you’ll experience agonies more horrible than any you’ve ever imagined. Now . . . tell me how to use this ship. Tell me everything.”
• • •
It was all but impossible for Kang to see the Sagittarius through the storm of broken rocks and ice blurring past on the Voh’tahk’s main viewscreen. He was losing patience with his crew’s fumbling hunt of the Starfleet scout ship. “Mahzh, anticipate your target, don’t follow it. You’re just wasting torpedoes.” He keyed in a new dispersal pattern on his command screen and relayed it to the weapons console. “Box them in! Then finish them with disruptors!”
“Yes, Captain.” Mahzh set to work entering the new firing solution.
Their tiny prey darted through Arethusa’s rings like a prize fish that refused to be reeled in. In open space, it would be no match for the Voh’tahk, but in an environment rich with natural obstacles, it was proving more than elusive. If not for the impending arrival of a more pressing threat, he might have been content to pass the hours matching wits with the scout ship’s commander. To his regret, that was for the moment a luxury he could not afford. Keeping his eyes on the Sagittarius, he called out to his wife. “Mara, how long until the Endeavour arrives?”
Her own attention was steady on the sensor display. “Twelve minutes.”
There were too many variables in play for Kang’s liking. He needed to know if the Homghor had recovered the novpu’ targets from the planet’s surface. If Captain Durak—a consummate striver, if ever Kang had met one—had followed orders, both the Voh’tahk and its bird-of-prey escort could declare this mission completed and break orbit without risking an unnecessary confrontation with Starfleet. Kang knew some might question his honor for seeking to avoid a potential combat situation, but bitter experience had taught him the high price of war. He was in no mood to court its wrath without good reason.
He swiveled toward the communications officer. “Kyris. Any word from the Homghor?”
She shook her head. “Not yet, Captain.”
“Hail them. Tell Captain Durak I want an update right now.”
“The Homghor is currently out of contact, sir.” She noted Kang’s pointed stare of inquiry and elaborated. “They’re on the far side of Arethusa. We can restore contact in fifteen seconds.”
Kang was about to curse Durak, but then he reasoned out the younger warrior’s tactics. He’s trying to head off our prey and catch them in his own snare. The captain nodded to himself. He’s not as clumsy as I’d feared. Kang could only hope that Durak had been able to keep his infamous ambition in check long enough to obey orders and beam up the novpu’ before he’d committed his crew to his daring maneuver against the Sagittarius.
“Helm, move us above the rings and accelerate to full impulse.”
Mahzh looked up from the weapons console. “If we stay above the rings, the Sagittarius will just stay beneath them.”
“That’s what I want them to do,” Kang said. “And I suspect it’s what Captain Durak wants them to do, as well. Maintain harassing fire. Keep the scout ship’s attention on us.”
“Understood, Captain.”
Kyris turned from the communications panel. “Captain? I’ve hailed the Homghor, but it’s not answering.”
“Are you sure they’re receiving?”
“Positive. But they do not acknowledge.”
An intuition of danger stirred in Kang’s gut. “Mahzh, scan the Homghor.”
“For what?”
“Life-forms. Anomalies. Anything.”
Mahzh trained the Voh’tahk’s sensors on the bird-of-prey with a few simple commands. Then he shook his head. “Their shields are raised.”
His meaning was implicit: The Voh’tahk’s sensors could not penetrate the Homghor’s shields. They had no way of knowing what was transpiring aboard their escort ship. Kang stroked his goatee. “Is the Homghor on an attack vector?”
“Negative.” Mahzh switched to a tactical analysis screen. “They should have the Starfleet ship on their sensors, but they are not moving to engage.”
Something was wrong on the bird-of-prey; Kang was certain of it. But was it something that would sort itself out given time? Or was it a catastrophe in the making? He had a hunch he knew the answer—but if he was wrong, loyal soldiers of the Empire might die at his hands.
Unfortunately, if he was right, those loyal soldiers were dead already.
• • •
No one had laid a hand on Durak, but he was pinned to the deck as if he had been run through and staked down by half a dozen spears through his torso. Excruciating sharp jabs twisted in his gut, and he heard his ribs crack under his skin as they surrendered to the constant, overwhelming pressure from a vise he couldn’t see. He wanted to roar out his pain and fury, but he couldn’t draw enough breath to make a sound.
Nimur and her cadre had surrounded him. Their sea-green faces gazed down at him as he squirmed at their feet, helpless before their telekinetic assault. To the Klingon’s jaded eye they looked like scrawny children who would flee in tears from the least aggression, and here he was, humbled by them, writhing in agony and utterly helpless.
His pulse thudded in his ears, and the pressure in his temples made him delirious. He was sure that at any moment his heart would burst, or his lungs would collapse, or the novpu’ would tire of killing him by degrees, and he could finally give up his hold on his broken flesh and begin his journey to Sto-Vo-Kor. Death in battle would be a fitting end to his life’s pursuits, he decided; it would let him face his ancestors without shame. His only regret would be that he had failed to slay any of these filthy Ha’DIbaHpu’ in the bargain.
The pressure abated. Nimur made a lifting motion with her hand, as if she were a puppeteer pulling invisible strings that controlled Durak’s body. His limp and abused form levitated off the deck and hovered before the woman-child with eyes of fire. “We have shown you only a small taste of the horrors we can inflict upon you, Captain. How do we use this ship to make you and your kind leave us alone?”
Durak struggled to draw a breath. As soon as he had filled his lungs with air, he used it all to spit a mouthful of blood into Nimur’s face. He grinned
and laughed, and then he coughed hard enough to send fresh blades of pain through his flailed chest. He couldn’t help but be her prisoner, but he was determined not to become her pawn.
She wiped his spittle from her cheeks and forehead, then smeared her hand dry across the front of his uniform. “I admire your spirit. You do not grovel like your kinsmen on the planet.”
Before he could ask what she meant, the fingers on his left hand bent sharply backward at each knuckle, one by one. By the time his thumb splintered in two easy snaps, Durak was howling loudly enough to shake the Homghor’s bulkheads. His reddened vision cleared after seconds that felt like a lifetime, and he looked down at the mangled atrocity of his hand. It felt unreal, as if he were looking at something far removed from himself; he was going numb.
Not numb, he corrected himself. Into shock. Stay in the moment. Take the pain. He tried to follow his own advice, but it was too much to overcome. He couldn’t breathe.
Nimur made a circular gesture with her index finger, and Durak’s body slowly spun around to face the main viewscreen. A tactical schematic had been superimposed over the image of the planet. Automatic threat-detection software built into the ship’s sensor apparatus was tracking the Starfleet ship, which was coming into range, and standard-issue IFF—identify friend or foe—systems had flagged the Voh’tahk as an allied Klingon vessel.
The Tomol female’s breath caressed his ear as she asked in a whisper, “What is that?”
Durak was determined to remain silent, no matter how many of his bones she crushed. Then he felt a sickening pressure in his groin, coupled with a half-twist of his loD’HIch, and his courage failed. “Our ship can sense when others are near. The one circled in red is our ally. The one marked by a white triangle is an enemy.”
“Can your ship destroy its enemies?”
“If properly commanded.”
“Show us how.”
He coughed out another mouthful of blood. “It would take too long. My men trained for years to run this ship, and they were born warriors. I can’t teach you what they knew.” The congestion in his chest worsened. Each hacking cough grew wetter and rougher. He felt fluids pooling in his lungs. It would be only a matter of time before he drowned in his own blood.
