by Dayton Ward
The battle had taken all of one minute.
Reed stumbled back, her jaw agape.
“My God,” Massey whispered, tears streaming down her face. She resumed the tactical station, quickly getting a read on their status. “Holding position, phasers standing down. Power diverting to the main weapons pod.”
Reed didn’t listen. She was already at the science station, clicking through a chain of interfaces until she found one that gave her access to the ship’s sensors. Releasing a wave of active scans, she trembled while she waited for the signals to bounce back. There, amid all the clutter, tentative life signs emerged from Celtic’s battered hull.
Survivors . . .
Reed obsessed over those readings, even as a powerful tremor welled up through the decks. She blocked out everything around her, even as the bridge swelled with a tsunami of coherent white light. And she dared not look at the viewscreen, even as she ran for the turbolift—because she knew the purpose of the terrible shriek that followed, and what the cutting beam would do to what was left of Celtic.
She had to stop it.
If it wasn’t already too late.
Ten decks below, the lift doors opened into a maze of swirling red lights and alarm klaxons. Reed plunged headlong into that chaos, phaser in hand, heedless of direction but unable to stop. She caught a glimpse of a deck plan against one of the bulkheads, and followed the arrows that pointed to the starboard computer core. By the time she reached it, Reed’s heart was banging against her ribs like some caged animal, her body racked by adrenaline tremors. Discharges of electric blue spilled through a window that looked into the core chamber, illuminating plumes of smoke that leaked out from underneath the closed doors—but a rusty odor and the sudden constriction of her lungs told Reed that this was no fire.
Krylex mist . . .
The gas sucked oxygen out of the air, making her double over and cough. Reed took one last deep breath and made a dash for the door, prying open the access panel and trying to disable the magnetic lock. She punched in the default code, her fingers shaking as she stole glances through the glass to see if anyone was still inside—but all she saw was a churning cloud of toxic chemicals, lit up like a thunderstorm in the black of night.
Until a dark mass launched itself at her.
Reed jumped back at the sight of it, her vision blurring as hypoxia started to creep into her brain, but even in her stupor she could see that its motions lacked reason or conscious thought. It raised one hand and clawed at the window, hooked fingers leaving behind smears of blood as it dragged itself off the floor. At first, Reed thought it was one of the Borg, from the pallid complexion of its skin to the thatch of veins that crossed its eyes—but then she suddenly recognized its features, concealed behind the breathing mask that covered its face.
Nick Locarno rolled away as Reed pointed her phaser at him.
She shattered the window with a short burst, shards of transparent aluminum raining down around her. Reed then crawled forward, grabbing Locarno by the arm and dragging him away from the lethal cloud. She propped him up against a nearby wall, his head lolling as he drifted in and out.
“Nick!” Reed implored. “Stay with me, Nick!”
“Celtic . . . tractor beam . . . triggered a defense routine.”
Reed shook him hard, trying to get through.
“Tell me how to shut it down, Nick.”
“Failsafe . . . didn’t work . . .”
“What do I do?”
Locarno slumped over, losing consciousness. Leaving him, Reed staggered back to the opening and stood there, krylex mist billowing all the way up to her waist. She was vaguely aware of the phaser still in her hand, of her thumb pushing the power up to maximum, but had no clue of where to take aim—or if it would do any good. All she could do was level the weapon at the largest component she could find, while a fury she had never known burned her from the inside out.
“Just DIE!” she screamed.
And mashed on the trigger.
Initiation
The turbolift doors opened onto the bridge—the post Jenna Reed had abandoned, something Evan Walsh would never have done. She already hated herself for that, even before the crew—her crew—turned their stares on her, just long enough to convey their awareness of her sin. Reed knew they wouldn’t forgive her, nor did she want them to. They needed their anger, just as she needed to maintain control—or at least the illusion of it.
Confronted with the horrors unfolding on the viewscreen, however, it was all Reed could do to keep it together. Shuffling forward, she joined the others in bewildered silence as they witnessed the final destruction of Celtic. The fires on board still burned, leaving trails of expanding smoke between the pieces of her hull, each section neatly severed from the others. They drifted apart slowly, rending the shape of the old vessel until nothing recognizable remained—just a collection of scattered parts meant for assimilation, deck lights flickering in the frozen dark as Celtic consumed the last of her remaining power.
Reed didn’t even presume to mount a rescue. The cutting beam had done its work.
Nick Locarno, who had remained behind in the lift, now emerged to see the damage for himself. His face was drawn, his eyes red, bloodied beneath the surface from ruptured capillaries—but still he managed to shed tears, the pain only heightening his disbelief. He rammed a fist down on the nearest console, drawing everyone’s attention—including that of Rayna Massey, who flew into an instant rage at the sight of him.
“You!” she hissed.
Massey slammed Locarno against the bulkhead before anyone could react, her fingers dug into the skin of his throat. Had she coordinated her attack, she might have killed him right there, but Massey just pounded on him, tearing at whatever she could find, scratching him deep before Reed and Thayer could pull her off.
“You son of a bitch!” she seethed, still lunging at him. “You did this!”
Locarno slid to the floor, wheezing. Nicole Carson rushed over to his side, opening up his collar to help him breathe, but he refused the help. From his haunted expression, Reed could tell he also blamed himself.
“You routed tactical through the computer core!” Massey shouted. “You let that thing cut loose with full phasers against our ship!”
Reed lowered her head. “That’s enough, Rayna.”
“Why’d you do it, Locarno?” Massey goaded, showing no signs of slowing down. “You have some kind of beef with the old man? Was this your way of settling the score?”
“I said, that’s enough.”
“Or maybe you just like getting people killed. Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”
“That’s an order, Massey!”
Reed had no idea where her voice came from, but it slapped Massey hard, demanding no less than total compliance. She drove the point home with an acid stare, while everyone else stood by and held a collective breath. Reed wasn’t even sure what she would do if Massey refused to back down, though the hand that reached for her phaser suggested otherwise.
“Look at him!” Reed snapped, motioning toward Locarno and all his wounds. “The core damn near suffocated him when it flooded the compartment with krylex mist. That’s what happened when he tried to pull the plug.”
Massey didn’t appear convinced. Reed, for her part, didn’t care.
“I don’t need a loose cannon, Massey,” she finished. “Not here, not now. The way I see it, you got a choice to make.”
Reed gave it a minute, then let the tactical officer go. She nodded at Thayer, and he did the same. Massey shook them off, retreating a short distance while she weighed her options. Reed could tell that the woman was gauging the others, to see whose side they would pick—but everyone was still in limbo, reeling from Celtic’s death spiral. They weren’t about to take that kind of step.
At least not yet.
Massey folded her arms and turned away. It was a truce, of sorts, though Reed doubted it would last very long.
“Anyone else?” Reed ask
ed, daring each member of her crew to answer. When no one did, she projected the best image of authority she could muster. “Right now, I don’t give a damn about who did what. We need to focus on the problem—which means I need all of you clear and thinking. Is that understood?”
No one objected. For Reed, that was enough.
“Very well,” she said. “Where do we start?”
Locarno got back on his feet and cleared his throat.
“We have about fifteen hours before Starfleet arrives,” he said quietly. “After that, it won’t take them long to find us.”
“That’s good, right?” Carson asked, eager for any kind of hope. “All we have to do is hold out until they get here.”
“And take us into custody,” Thayer finished. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t hand us over to the Klingons when they’re done.”
Reed saw Locarno shake his head. She knew exactly what he meant.
“It’s not that simple,” she informed them. “There won’t be any arrests. Starfleet will destroy this vessel the moment they find it.”
“What?” Carson gasped.
“This ship is a Borg relic,” Locarno explained. “They’re not even allowed to attempt contact. Once they see what we are, they’ll blow us out of the sky.”
“But if we send them some kind of signal,” the medic stammered. “Let them know that we’re on board—”
“It won’t make a difference,” Locarno said, withdrawing. He paced all the way across the bridge, where he hovered far away from the others. That left only Reed to handle the crew, every last one of them looking to her to make a decision.
Even if it’s the wrong one?
“Vector,” she said, raising her voice enough for Locarno to hear it. He picked up on her use of his grid handle, which cut through the fog of his recriminations. “What’s our status with the cores?”
“Starboard is a complete waste. That leaves two more.”
“Can we maintain control if you bring them online?”
“I don’t even know what happened yet,” Locarno admitted. “If I had the time to make a close study of the wider system, maybe I could pinpoint the cause—”
“Can you do it?” Reed cut him off abruptly. Locarno got the message, and stopped making excuses.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Then get to it, mister.”
He nodded, and walked back toward the lift. Along the way, he passed by Massey, who made a point of bumping against him hard. The two of them locked eyes for a heated moment.
“Watch your back, gridstalker.”
Locarno didn’t respond. He just left, disappearing behind the turbolift doors. With no other target, Massey turned her stare on Reed, saying nothing, but confirming more than ever that Reed had lost her.
And if that poison infects the rest of the crew . . .
“Resume stations,” she ordered. “Mister Thayer, best speed out of here.”
On thrusters only, Reston limped away from the scene. Reed waited until the last pieces of Celtic passed into the hazy distance, then stood up and advised everyone that she would be in engineering. Tristan Harlow already knew what happened—whispered chatter between the engineer and Rayna Massey assured that much—but that didn’t change Reed’s duty to inform him personally. Next to her, no one else had been closer to Evan Walsh. Harlow really needed to hear that the old man had gone down fighting, his hand on the helm. Some lies, as Reed discovered, were better off believed.
She prepared herself for the worst, but Harlow remained stoic in that unsettling way of his—forcing his grief back in on itself, like a fire smoldering behind a closed door, then focusing immediately on the task at hand. He returned to work without another word, leaving Reed to speculate how much he actually blamed her. There were no such doubts with James Casari. The way his eyes followed Reed, radiating the same anger as Massey but dosed with a cold shot of fear, set up a dangerous dynamic between them. She only hoped that Harlow retained enough of his loyalty to keep him in line.
If not, it would all come apart long before Starfleet arrived to kill them.
Having overstayed her welcome, Reed got out of there. She made it almost halfway to the turbolift before she broke down and cried, the tears coming hard and fast from a place she never knew existed. Walsh, for all the years he spent drilling the emotions out of her, had somehow missed this one: a deep, murky well where she sent the demons to drown, only to have them gather strength to wreak havoc another day. The Borg drones around her, even in life, never had to deal with those demons—and for that, among other things, Reed envied them.
Reed let it go for a few moments, then steadied herself. Wiping her face clean, she continued down the corridor, stopping when she saw Nicole Carson. The medic hovered at the fringes up ahead, as if she didn’t want to be seen, before finally stepping forward. She had probably heard Reed’s outburst and didn’t want to intrude. Reed quickly changed the subject.
“Everything okay on the bridge?” she asked.
“Fine,” Carson replied. “As those things go.”
“We’ll get through this, Nicole.”
“I know,” Carson said. “I just got to feeling like a fifth wheel up there, with everybody doing their jobs. Thought I might check out sickbay—you know, just in case we need it.”
“I think that’s back up on Deck Seven.”
“I should read the signs.”
Reed smiled. “It’s a big ship. Come on, I’ll take you there.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Carson blurted—then immediately tried to make light of it. “I mean, I think I can figure it out. Besides, I could use some time to clear my head.”
“Yeah,” Reed said, more dubiously than she wanted to. “Don’t stay out here too long, though. It’s probably best not to wander around alone.”
“Of course. See you back on the bridge.”
With that, the medic excused herself and went back the way she had come. Reed frowned, not quite sure what to make of her. Friend or foe seemed to be the only two choices, which made it even harder for Reed to beat back the mounting paranoia she felt. All she really wanted was an ally—and so far, nobody was willing to commit. That only left one person, whom the others viewed with even greater suspicion than they did her.
She went down to the lower computer core, and found him ensconced there.
Locarno seemed almost one with the interface, which he operated with such skill that it was hard to tell where the man ended and the machine began. Shadows rendered his expression into a gaunt, inscrutable cipher, lit from below by the random electrons of a floating display. His eyes reflected the complex pathways of the Borg program matrix, which he followed deeper and deeper into the hole of their programmed consciousness—the same barren intellect that had deemed Celtic a threat and destroyed it.
“You must be running out of friends if you ended up here,” the gridstalker said, never shifting his gaze from the display. “Take a load off. You can help me decompile some of this code.”
Reed sat on the edge of a nearby console.
“You getting a feel for it?”
“Enough to know that I’ll never understand it. You could spend years picking it apart and not even scratch the surface.” Locarno killed the construct and sank back into his chair. “There’s some good news, though. I know why my failsafe didn’t work.”
“Bad luck?”
“That’s the least of it. This matrix is based on some kind of phased dimensional scheme—exploiting differentials between quantum states to propagate data faster than light, instead of the subspace architecture in the original design.”
Reed caught on to his line of thinking. “The failsafe employs a subspace pulse . . .”
“Which wipes the pathways,” Locarno finished. “No pathways, no fireworks. I could have been using harsh language, for all the good it did.” He stared into the blank display. “I should have known.”
“That’s a tall order, Nick.”
“Then I shou
ld have guessed,” he retorted, his eyes lighting on some distant memory. “But that’s me—always rolling the dice.”
Reed shook her head and smiled knowingly.
“You were trying to impress Walsh.”
“Doesn’t matter who,” Locarno said. “Whether it’s him or the Academy flight board—people end up just as dead.” His face set into a scowl at the mention of it, his breathing forced and steady—probably replaying the accusations that Rayna Massey had hurled at him, because they carried the sting of truth.
“You were Starfleet,” she observed. “I kind of figured.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“You let a few things slip—spending time at the Presidio, for one. Then there’s your knowledge of Federation starships.” She paused for a long moment, considering whether or not to press him on it. “So what happened?”
“Same thing that always happens. I took things too far.”
“And somebody else paid the price.”
“That’s how I work.” Locarno dropped his guard just a little, but trod cautiously with the details. “Senior year, I was captain of Nova Squadron. Even led the team to a Rigel Cup, if you can believe it—so you can imagine what a cocky bastard I was.”
“You never struck me as the flyboy type.”
“Back in the day.” His tone wandered off into painful territory, the kind of wound a man kept opening to punish himself. “By the time graduation came around, all of us were looking for some way to top ourselves, so I came up with an idea to go out with a real bang.” He gave Reed a sidelong glance. “You ever see a Kolvoord Starburst?”
Reed shook her head.
“You don’t forget something like that,” Locarno said, his tone as far away as his expression. “Unbelievably dangerous—but you never saw a more beautiful thing in your life. Not a dozen pilots in Academy history could pull it off.” His head sank. “But we were Nova Squadron. We were immortal.”
Pain materialized between them, the kind that can be stifled but never fully contained.
“How many did you lose?” Reed asked.
“Just one,” he replied, a slight tremble in his voice. “We were at the Saturn Proving Grounds, making a practice run. Josh clipped my starboard wing during a close pass and lost control of his ship. We were in such tight formation that it caused a chain reaction. Four of us managed to eject.” He paused for a long, sober moment. “Josh didn’t.”
