by Andy Mangels
Something not quite identifiable disturbed the tranquil surface of her features, like a tiny pebble tossed into a still pond. “Captain, some things are…larger than logic.”
He smiled at her. “I promise not to spread around what you just said.”
T’Pol nodded in quiet dignity, then rose from the sofa. She walked directly past him and came to a stop at his desk, where she placed her hand beside the desktop comm button.
She turned and regarded him with a deferential expression. “If I may, Captain?”
He made a simple be-my-guest gesture toward the desk.
She punched the comm button. “T’Pol to Mayweather.”
“Mayweather here.”
“Ensign, bring the ship about. Set a course for the Coridan system. Maximum warp.”
“Aye, Commander.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Archer thought as he and his first officer moved toward the ready room door. Both of us.
Whatever happened, they would face it together.
Forty-Four
Sunday, February 23, 2155
Enterprise NX-01
“THERE!” Malcolm Reed cried.
Archer turned his command chair toward the tactical station, watching his armory officer’s intense expression as the lieutenant moved his hands rapidly across his console.
“Put it up on the screen, Malcolm.”
Looking forward over Travis Mayweather’s shoulder toward the main viewer, Archer saw a computer-rendered diagram of the ten planets of the Coridan system. A deceptively delicate red line was rapidly inscribing itself across the diagram, beginning outside the system, from the general direction of the Romulan Star Empire.
As the line grew, extending itself forward, the gentle parabola it described put it on a direct course for the most populous world in the system.
“No answer to our hails, Captain,” Hoshi said, seated at her communications station on the bridge’s port side. “No sign of an identification beam. No navigational beacon, either. Whoever they are, they don’t want anybody to know they’re coming.”
Belligerency confirmed, Archer thought, gripping the arms of his command chair tightly as he studied the tactical diagram on the screen. This was the engraved invitation to war that Admiral Gardner had evidently been waiting to receive. The attack on Coridan Prime had come, just as Trip had warned him two days earlier.
“Intercept course, Travis,” Archer said. “Maximum warp.” He felt in his gut that they were probably too far away to stop the attacker, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying.
“Aye, Captain,” Mayweather said as he hastened to enter the appropriate commands into the helm console. The vibration of the deck plates suddenly intensified, growing more urgent as Enterprise responded obediently to the ensign’s spurs.
“That thing is moving fast,” Mayweather said, studying his console’s readouts. “My navigational sensors are still having trouble clocking it accurately.”
Archer rose from his command chair and faced Malcolm again. “How fast is it going?”
Reed consulted his displays. “It’s definitely superluminal. If I hadn’t been scanning for it in the subspace bands, I wouldn’t have been able to make sensor contact with it at all.”
“So it’s definitely a ship,” Archer said. “I’ve never seen any natural phenomenon that could break the warp barrier.”
T’Pol rose from the science station, where she had been hunched over her hooded scanner a moment earlier. “The object is moving at nearly warp five,” she reported.
Slightly less than Enterprise’s maximum speed. So there was still at least a theoretical possibility of intercepting it.
“Can you identify it?” Archer said.
T’Pol briefly consulted her scanner’s display once again, then said, “Negative, Captain. This ship’s configuration and warp signature match nothing currently in our database, including anything known to be used by the Romulans.”
Damn, Archer thought. This ship must have come from some Romulan client world whose ships we’ve never encountered before. These sneaky sons of bitches really can do a fine job of covering their tracks.
Archer turned back toward the helm. “Travis, how soon can we engage the intruder?”
Mayweather glanced down at his console. “Approximately two minutes and fifteen seconds, sir.”
Glancing back toward the science station, the captain saw T’Pol shaking her head bleakly as she anticipated his next question. He slammed his hand on the intercom button on his chair. “Archer to Burch.”
“Burch here, Captain,” answered the interim chief engineer.
“Lieutenant, I want you to give me all the power you’ve got.”
“Aye, sir.”
But even as he listened to the escalating whine of the engines and felt the increasingly agitated quaking of the deck beneath his boots, he knew he was engaging in a useless exercise. Enterprise simply wasn’t going to reach Coridan Prime in time to stop what was coming.
All he could really do was watch.
He knew that he had tried his best, just as Trip had done. Just as every member of this crew had done, as always.
Only this time, everyone’s best simply wasn’t going to be good enough.
Centurion R’Kal i’Rrhiol ch’Chulla finished locking down the S’Task’s helm controls with shaking, sweaty hands. Then she said a final prayer to all the gods of Erebus.
Now there could be no turning back, no matter how strongly her fear assailed her. Her duty to the Empire discharged, R’Kal quietly committed her daeinos aehallh—her immortal soul—to the sacred destination that awaited it in the next world….
Unencumbered by the ceremonial mask that tradition demanded he wear at all diplomatic functions, Ambassador Lekev sagged wearily against the railing in one of the small, private observation chambers aboard the Coridan Defense Frigate Krekolv. For the duration of the current crisis, Lekev and other key officials in Coridan Prime’s government—including Chancellor Kalev herself—would remain aboard the Krekolv, high above the devastation that could rain down on Coridan Prime at any moment.
Lekev looked out the wide window at the planet far below. For now, Coridan Prime clung to its familiar appearance of serenity. As ever, the cloud-streaked blue world continued turning slowly on its axis, basking in the rays of Coridan’s single red dwarf star. But the planet, neatly bisected by its nightside terminator so that half of the hemisphere facing Lekev was draped in darkness—relieved in tiny bright spangles and glowing gossamer streaks by the lights of distant cities and high-ways—seemed to be holding its collective breath, as though anticipating the unthinkable.
Almost directly between the planet and the Krekolv lay the complicated array of interlocking modules, docks, and mechanical armatures that comprised Coridan Prime’s principal starship construction and repair facility. Several vessels, ranging from small to quite large—all of them evidently not being used in the current planetside evacuation efforts because they were either under repair or still being built—were currently docked at the huge complex, which was slowly drifting across the terminator toward the planet’s night side as Lekev watched.
Lekev had never been so weary before in his life. But he had also never before felt as though his labors had been so thoroughly worthwhile. Ever since Jonathan Archer’s warning of an imminent, massively destructive Romulan attack had reached the news media and Coridan Prime’s Chancellory, Lekev had become an integral part of Chancellor Kalev’s defense and evacuation team. He had spent the past two days helping to coordinate the government’s evacuation efforts, personally herding thousands of children, women, and elderly people onto transports for much of that time.
Of course, even a world as wealthy as Coridan Prime lacked the resources to conduct a full-scale planetary evacuation in a matter of mere days. The central world of the Coridan system, which supported more than three billion people, was simply too populous to allow such a plan to be carried out effectively. However, i
t was at least conceivable to move many millions of people to the regions of the planet considered least vulnerable to the aftermath of a catastrophe like the one about which Archer had warned them.
Though he felt some justifiable pride in the government’s alacrity in handling the crisis, the ambassador was well aware that factors other than the welfare of Coridan’s people had influenced the chancellor’s quick response to the looming disaster. With her government now on extremely vulnerable footing because of Coridan’s ongoing civil upheavals, Chancellor Kalev had no choice other than to appear to be decisive and strong.
And although Lekev wasn’t at all sanguine about Chancellor Kalev’s self-serving political motivations—Lekev had always considered her an inveterate opportunist, forever pandering to her people’s lowest common political denominator—he harbored no doubts about his own purpose: he had simply been determined to do everything he could to save as many lives as possible.
“Ambassador.”
Lekev turned toward the voice, leaving Coridan Prime slowly turning behind his back.
“Yes, Chulev?” the ambassador said to his unassuming young assistant, who seemed to have conjured himself out of thin air just inside the observation chamber’s door.
Chulev bowed his head deferentially. “The last of the chancellor’s cabinet members are finally on board, Mister Ambassador. Captain Solnev plans to move the ship to a higher orbit now, as a safety precaution.”
“Thank you, Chulev.”
“Sir, do you think the Coridan Defense Fleet stands any chance at all of intercepting the attack?”
Lekev offered his aide what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “There’s always a chance, Chulev.”
Certainly there was a chance of detecting and stopping this lethal but so far invisible threat that was now headed straight for Coridan Prime at many multiples of light-speed. A threat that could arrive at any moment, and from any direction, far faster than any eye could register it.
There was indeed a chance. But even with two full days of advance warning, that chance was as infinitesimally small as the Coridan system was gigantically large.
“Is there anything else, Chulev?” Lekev said.
Chulev nodded. “I also came to see if there was anything further you required of me before I retired for the evening.”
Lekev hadn’t thought about it until just now, but he imagined that faithful young Chulev had probably not gotten any more sleep than he himself had over the past two days.
“No, no, nothing, Chulev. Thank you. Go now, and get some rest.” If you can, he thought.
Chulev nodded again, then turned back toward the door.
Another thought suddenly occurred to Lekev. “Wait, Chulev.”
Chulev paused in the doorway. “Yes, Mister Ambassador?”
“Your family, Chulev. Do you know if they were able to get out of Uridash City?”
Chulev’s normally bland, businesslike mien grew bleak. “I haven’t been able to reach them, sir. I can only hope they made it onto one of the evacuation transports and got themselves to safe ground.”
Safe ground, Lekev thought. The phrase referred to the relatively few land regions on Coridan Prime’s surface that weren’t so laced with subsurface deposits of dilithium, pergium, and other energy-rich minerals as to become potential deathtraps when the attack finally came.
“You and your family have my hopes as well, Chulev,” Lekev said before dismissing his assistant again.
Once more alone in the observation chamber, Lekev turned back toward the world of his birth, with nothing to do except wait.
He didn’t have to wait long.
The next instant, a klaxon blared at an earsplitting volume. Lekev recognized the sound from Captain Solnev’s security briefing. It meant that something unauthorized had just passed sunward through at least one of the Coridan system’s two outlying asteroid belts, and at multiwarp speed.
He couldn’t remember whether that meant that death would come to Coridan Prime in the space of heartbeats, or sooner still.
Centurion R’Kal’s heart raced as the S’Task’s computer read off the final countdown. Her mind cast back to memories of a man with hair and eyes as black as space, and the plump, laughing girlchild she had created with him, both of whom First Consul T’Leikha had promised lives of privilege and wealth for the rest of their days.
“Rhi.
“Mne.
“Sei.”
A quick glance at her flight console told R’Kal that S’Task was moving at its maximum possible speed—and confirmed that her target remained squarely centered in the little vessel’s flight path. She had deactivated her viewer as soon as her target had come into range. She had no need—or desire—to see the sapphire world that lay at the end of her trajectory.
“Kre.
“Hwi.
“Lliu.”
The impact came so quickly that R’Kal never even saw the flash.
Lekev watched from the sky in fascinated horror as everything he knew and loved instantly changed forever.
The first thing he noticed was the silent orange fireball, the signature of the impact, as it began spreading quickly across the darkened half of Coridan Prime, setting the equatorial continent known as Idanev awash in furious amber flame.
The next thing he noticed was that the starship construction facility was gone. Not drifted out of sight, not lost in the darkness that marked the nightside terminator, not orbited over the horizon, but gone.
The Krekolv shuddered and lurched. Alarms shrieked. The captain’s voice came over the shipwide comspeakers, warning everyone to get to the reinforced sections deeper inside the ship. Lekev saw gleaming metallic debris spinning crazily near the observation port, and knew at once that this was all that remained of Coridan’s proud shipyards; whatever had just passed through two asteroid belts on the way to its deadly collision with Coridan Prime had taken out the orbiting facility on its way in, narrowly missing destroying the Krekolv—as well as virtually the entire central government of Coridan Prime—in the process.
Lekev ignored the shrieking klaxons and the captain’s warning to withdraw to the better-protected sections of the ship. He stood transfixed at the observation port, watching the fireball on the planet’s surface spread, no doubt fueled both by the antimatter stocks on the ship that had struck the Idanev continent—what could the missile have been, other than a warp-driven ship?—and by the extensive subsurface deposits of dilithium and other such ores for which Idanev had long been famous. As he watched, even the waters of the vast Idanev Sea seemed to ignite like dry kindling, touching off a blaze that rivaled the brilliance of Coridan’s great red sun.
The ambassador didn’t want to think about the sheer enormity of this horror, the scale of this act of pure murder, while he hovered above it all, safe.
Safe ground.
Lekev began to sob, and then to weep. He knew that the government’s response teams were on the move now, preparing to deploy rather deadly fire-smothering chemicals—materials that would not have been usable if not for the mass evacuations he’d worked so hard to carry out. But he also knew that the death toll would have to be in the hundreds of millions already, in spite of the evacuation program. Additionally, much of Coridan’s volatile, energy-bearing mineral wealth would doubtless be consumed completely by subsurface thermal chain reactions long before the spiraling ecological disaster on the ground could be brought to heel—if such an outcome was even possible now.
Lekev watched his charred, wounded world from space, and knew that no matter how hard he worked, it could never be the same again.
Forty-Five
The early twenty-fifth century
Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana
JAKE SETTLED BACK into his chair, his mouth hanging open. “So that’s the real story of what happened with Coridan?”
“If we believe this version of history,” Nog said, rubbing his left eye with the back of his hand. He was clearly tired, but seemed intent on finishi
ng the records. Jake knew that he himself couldn’t stop watching either.
“We knew that Coridan was hit hard,” Jake said, “but the records have always been vague about exactly how it happened. Although this certainly explains why the Coridanites did what they did during the Romulan War.”
“According to some of the files that accompanied this, there were news stories filed, but they were quickly pulled or denied,” Nog said.
“This is a cover-up of major proportions,” Jake said, looking over at the nearly empty wine bottle and silently deciding that he’d had enough. Between the late hour, the wine, and his age, he was barely keeping a clear head as it was.
“Maybe Gardner pulled some strings to save his own reputation,” Nog said. “Wouldn’t be the first time an admiral made a bone headed choice and tried to save face later. I mean, making the decision not to send Enterprise to Coridan is…well, stupid, at best.”
Jake nodded. “The whole rescue of the Aenar is missing from history as well. Was that Gardner, too?”
“I suspect that omission was probably a combination of work by the Andorians and Section 31,” Nog said, staring down into the wine at the bottom of his glass. “The Andorians had enough problems back then; they didn’t need the whole galaxy knowing that they had a race of powerful telepaths ripe for the picking. They’d kept quiet about them for generations, so why not continue to do so? And if Section 31 helped them, they might have had access to the Aenar when they needed them. We know they used telepaths in their later work. Perhaps this was the genesis of that.”
Jake sighed heavily. “It’s a shame what eventually happened to the Aenar.”
Nog nodded silently, a sad expression crossing his face.
“The most galling thing about all of this is that Tucker was erased from these events,” Jake said, steepling his hands under his chin. “Even the ones that haven’t been tampered with. I mean, he saved countless millions of lives on Coridan that wouldn’t have been saved otherwise. And it was his warnings—and his decision to help Section 31—that led Captain Archer to rescue the Aenar. Who knows what would have happened if the Romulans had developed a whole fleet of those drones? Or got their hands on a warp-seven drive, either from Ehrehin or the Coridanites?”
