However, it will also make it that much more difficult for the Morak to land a shuttle.
The seismic instability Seven's instruments had detected were, to her Collective-trained mind, a greater hazard than the Morak. After all, one could neither kill nor assimilate a quake.
Ensign Kelvan, studying her instruments frantically, complained, “Static! All those crystals . . .”
“Keep searching,” Tuvok told her.
The ground shook, sending pebbles rattling down the sharp slopes, then abruptly stilled.
“Prudence,” Tuvok said with Vulcan calm, “would dictate standing away from the cliffs.”
Another tremor shook the ground, stronger this time. A boulder came crashing down, showering them all with rock splinters.
Andal groaned. “It feels as though this moon is building up for a big quake. If Lari's hiding in one of those caves . . .”
The anguish in his voice . . . “Get underneath the desk, Annika, hide,” said the tall man. “I won't let them hurt you.” Seven blocked the unwelcome flash of memory. “Lari's ability to teleport will enable her to escape.”
“Not if she's hit on the head, or—”
“Commander!” Ensign Kelvan said suddenly. “I'm showing life signs at zero-three-fifty mark five. Over there!”
“Lari!” Andal gasped, and started forward. Seven tackled him, and they both crashed to the ground—as an energy beam sizzled by where they'd been a moment before: too near a miss.
“That was not Lari,” Tuvok said laconically as the team dove for cover.
“The Morak!” Andal cried. “If they have her . . .”
“They would have no need to shoot at us,” Seven finished.
“We don't know that! Let me go!”
Light-boned though he was, Andal was frantic enough to tear free and run—only to cry out as a second beam struck him. As he crumpled, Seven, bent double to avoid presenting a target, raced after him.
“Get him into cover!” Tuvok shouted at her. She saw the rock he was pointing at, shouldered Andal, and ran for it.
“A flash burn,” she called to Tuvok after a quick examination of the T'kari. “Not fatal.”
The chief risk would be shock, so Seven pulled off her jacket and wrapped it around the half-conscious Andal to keep him warm, trying not to jolt his wound.
Could he hear her? Not certain why she should feel it necessary, Seven told him, “We will bring her home.” Then, she remembered the magic words, the ones her father had almost never used, but meant every time he said them. “I promise,” she added.
Seven touched her combadge, about to order that Andal be beamed up to Sick Bay—
She heard nothing but static.
* * *
“Trouble, Captain,” Tom Paris said suddenly. “The Morak are opening their gunports.”
They can't possibly believe they can take us. But Seven had also said something about “rigid determination.” Translate that as “pigheadedness,” Janeway thought. But that didn't mean the Morak might not do some damage. And with an away team on that moon, it was a risk she couldn't afford to take.
“Red alert,” Janeway ordered. “Shields up. Open a hailing frequency,” she added. “Let's see if we can't keep them talking . . . ah, yes. Captain Janeway to Morak captain . . . Arwaig, is it?” No answer. “Janeway to Morak captain: I know you're receiving. I also know that for you to fire on Voyager would be a bad mistake on your part.” No answer. “Come now, Captain, think about this. Let us talk about the relative size and strength of our ships, shall we?”
“They're firing!” Paris cut in.
“I'll take that as a ‘no.’ ”
Voyager rocked slightly as a bolt of orange energy dissipated against its deflector shields.
“Shields holding, Captain.”
“No damage, Captain.”
Wonderful, just wonderful. The Morak look like uninspired fighters, but stubborn enough. Still, we can take anything that ship throws at us. We're safe enough—unless this Captain Arwaig calls in reinforcements. We could blow him out of space, but I'm not about to commit murder, or risk my own people.
I already have enough of my own people at risk. While we have shields raised, our away team is trapped down there—alone with the Morak.
Tuvok listened intently to the message crackling from his combadge, then said, “I could not receive a clear signal. But it would seem that the Morak have begun firing upon Voyager.”
Andal stirred weakly. “It's our fault,” he moaned. “Your poor ship . . . and how many of your people have those murdering thieves killed?”
“I assure you, Voyager finds the Morak less intimidating than you do. And,” Tuvok added, looking about sharply, “less formidable than we will find an armed landing party. The ship will have raised deflector shields, and until it can safely lower them, we cannot expect to return.”
“Then we must act on our own,” Seven said.
She slipped around the base of the rock toward Ensign Kelvan's shelter, checking the tricorder reading against the cliffs, which were pockmarked by caves. Third cliff to the left, two levels up— or the mountainside equivalent thereof— almost like a hive of the Collective, Seven thought. Challenging enough for a frightened child to climb and consider herself safe: Simple enough for Seven to follow. Simpler still if she need not concern herself with quakes and Morak fire.
Something stirred within the cave and moved forward. Seven saw a flash of red. Lari!
“She is attempting to climb down.”
A blaze of blue-white fire struck the cliff. Seven looked away, her Borg vision recalibrating itself. To her bewilderment, her heart was racing. When she looked back, the impact zone glittered, fused to glass by the Morak energy beams.
“Lari . . . ?” Seven searched the cliff. “There! She is crouching in the mouth of the cave.”
“Apparently,” Tuvok observed, “the Morak have decided that if they cannot have Lari, no one can.”
“Unacceptable,” Seven snapped.
There was no point in asking permission of Tuvok that he would not grant. She had been wise to shed the cumbersome jacket. She could run much more efficiently without it.
Behind her, Seven heard Tuvok shout, “Keep firing! Cover her!” She lunged forward, crouching, darting from rock to rock, then hurled herself at the cliff face. Finding footholds and handholds by touch and fierce will, Seven forced herself up and up again, Morak fire blazing and crackling about her. Suddenly her hands were closing about the lip of the cave, and she pulled herself inside, pouncing on Lari and pushing the girl away from the cave's mouth.
Nothing happened, other than Lari's inexplicably choosing to throw both arms about her and cling. Inexplicable, yet . . . not unpleasant.
For now, Seven decided, they were safe.
Then the ground shook, and she revised her opinion. Rocks crashed down from the roof of the cave, and Seven hunched over Lari to protect her, grunting at the impact as she was pelted with stones. The tremor ended, and she straightened, doing a quick self-examination.
“Are you all right?” Lari's voice was shrill with fright.
“Yes. Contusions and scrapes, no serious damage. But it is only a matter of time,” Seven said, “until this cave becomes more dangerous than the Morak.”
“But you shouldn't be here! It's my fault they want to hurt you!”
“If we remain here, the issue of blame will become irrelevant. Lari, can you push us back to Commander Tuvok? Or push yourself back to the ship?” Once the child was out of danger, Voyager's crew could efficiently defeat the Morak.
Lari squeezed her eyes shut until her face contorted.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you're too big! And there's a . . . a wall blocking me from the ship.”
The child's talents clearly did not yet extend to more than her own body mass. And clearly, they were impeded by Voyager's deflector shields.
The ground trembled again, and a crystal crashed down from the cave's ceiling like a glass kn
ife, sending sharp slivers flying.
But . . . a crystal. . . . A sudden surge of Borg knowledge told her that crystals were natural resonators. Did immense crystals like these have immense natural resonating capacity to match? Quickly, Seven activated her tricorder, scanning with Borg swiftness. . . .
“They're coming!” That was Tuvok's voice, echoing up among the cliffs.
The resonance should be strong enough. Barely.
“Come, back in here, Lari. Where the crystals are most densely concentrated.”
“They'll break! They'll cut us!”
“We must take the risk. I need you to push now, as hard as you can. Push for both of us. The crystals will focus and intensify your strength, and let you break through the wall you felt.”
Seven heard scrabbling one cave-level below them: The Morak were climbing.
“Hold fast to me,” Seven ordered. “Very well now. Push!”
The ground shook beneath them. “I can't!” Lari wailed.
“You can,” Seven insisted. “Fear is irrelevant. Push!”
“You don't understand! You don't understand anything!” “Do you want the Morak to catch us?”
“No! No-o-o-o!”
The cave shook. All about her, crystals snapped and shattered, a world of shining, dazzling light—
—nothing—
And then there was . . . Voyager.
The gleaming walls of Voyager's bridge surrounded them. All around them, people were crying out in astonishment.
Beside Seven, Lari struggled to her feet, staggering. But then the child froze, face white with horror and exhaustion, staring at the Morak ship on the viewscreen, staring at the energy blazing from its weapons. “No, no, no!” she screamed at the Morak. “I don't want any more of this. Go home! Just— go home!”
The Morak ship shot away as though at top warp speed, almost instantly shrinking to a dot on the viewscreen.
“What the hell . . .” Paris breathed.
“Captain . . .” Kim stopped, then tried again. “I don't know how she did it, but . . . the Morak are out of range. Well out of range.”
With the softest of sighs, Lari collapsed.
“Doctor to the bridge,” ordered Janeway. “Stand down from red alert. Transporter room: Four to beam up.”
The Doctor shook his head, his most disapproving frown on his face. “Captain, I really must protest the way everyone in this Sick Bay seems determined to suffocate my young patient.”
“Sorry, Doctor.”
Janeway took a step back and bumped into Seven of Nine, who had dismissed suggestions that she might need to regenerate in her alcove. Seated on a biobed, favoring his shoulder, was Andal, watching his adopted daughter's face as she slept. Elder Inarra shuffled her Destiny Tarot from hand to hand, while the other T'kari crowded in behind her.
Relenting ever so slightly, the Doctor added, “Children of all species are amazingly resilient. Lari just needed to have her sleep. But now that we're in orbit around Avan-aram, I suppose no harm will be done if I wake her.”
Janeway heard the hiss of a restorative, then the whimper of a child awakened too early.
“It's all right, Lari,” she soothed. “You're among friends.”
“Among family,” Elder Inarra said firmly.
Lari looked warily about, sat up, then hurled herself from the bed like a small meteor, hugging Janeway, Andal, Inarra, even the stunned Seven.
Inarra sighed. “I suppose every family has a member who is both valuable and a menace.”
“Your fears are baseless,” Seven said. “Lari will assimilate her gift properly with time.”
Will she? Janeway wondered, and moved to Lari's side, kneeling beside her. “Lari, we need to talk about something.”
“My . . . my gift.”
“Exactly. It isn't always easy growing up, and it isn't always easy to remember to do the right thing. But you can do something most people can't. You'll always have to think before you use it, and be careful to use it only to help people.”
Lari winced. “I . . . I know. I was mad enough to push the Morak ship into the sun. But I . . . well . . . I could hear them before I pushed. They were scared. I—I couldn't hurt them after that.” She paused. “Do you hear them being scared when you fire the ship's weapons?”
Janeway looked into the child's eyes. They were much too wise for such a little girl.
“Every time,” she said. “Every time.” She took a deep breath. “Keep thinking like that, and you're definitely on the right track.”
Janeway got to her feet. “Now, everyone,” she said, “Elder Inarra says that you're all going to sing for us. I, for one, have been looking forward to this!”
Janeway and Seven stood on the observation deck watching the Avan-aram system recede.
Janeway grinned. “You enjoyed the performance, didn't you, Seven?”
“The level of energy expenditure focused solely on entertainment is irrational.”
“Really? Then why did I catch you tapping your foot in time with the drumbeat?”
“The rhythmic patterns intrigued me,” Seven replied with frosty dignity. But then, to Janeway's surprise, Seven added, “Will the T'kari be safe?”
“I think so. Inarra told me that Avan-aram values entertainers and likes the T'kari. They'll be able to earn a new ship and keep on traveling—away from the Morak, of course.
“Now, I'm going to tell Master Leonardo about the T'kari. Care to join me?”
She turned toward the corridor, then paused. Seven was still gazing downward, her expression unreadable. With a silent sigh, Janeway returned to her side. “No, Seven, nothing's ever neat and simple in life. But . . . maybe one day Lari will come and find us. She'll be older and stronger then.
“Who knows? Maybe she'll even be strong enough to give us a push . . . all the way home.”
The Space Vortex of Doom
By D. W. “Prof” Smith
Captain Proton fought the controls of his spaceship like a cowboy trying to control a bucking horse—hard at times, then gently, then hard again as needed. The levers moved under his sure hands: back and forth, back and forth.
But the ship seemed to have a mind all its own, fighting him, slowing as if it were caught in thick mud.
“Turn on the Imagizer!” he ordered.
A gray vision filled the panel in front of him. The grayness seemed to be alive, swarming, surrounding the ship.
Constance Goodheart screamed!
“We're doomed!” Buster Kincaid exploded.
The Imagizer in front of Captain Proton showed nothing but a gray fog, thicker than any soup. No sign of open space at all.
But Captain Proton knew this was no fog. “Minions!” he exclaimed, fighting even harder at the controls, trying to force the ship by sheer will through the mass that surrounded them.
Push!
Shove!
Yank!
His hands worked the spaceship's controls.
Nothing!
No instant response like he normally got from his ship. No banking turns, no feeling of thrust into the ether.
“It's not working!” Buster Kincaid shouted. “They've stopped us cold in space!”
“Keep the engines on full speed ahead!” Proton ordered his trusty friend and ace reporter. “We'll make them work to keep us here.”
“Engines on full!” Kincaid said. “Still not moving!”
Captain Proton knew why, too. Standing at the control panel, he braced himself and kept his hands firmly on the controls, hoping for a slight opening in the gray, squirming fog that covered the Imagizer in front of him—anything at all that might give them a chance to escape from the dreaded cloud of Minions.
Each Minion was an ant-sized flying creature with a smooth forehead and almost no brains. But the Minions had the ability to work together through telepathic means. And the ability to fly in space. Individually, they were nothing more than annoying bugs. But working together, in clouds of billions, they could stop a sp
aceship dead in the void, just as they had just done to his ship.
Within an hour, they would crush the ship. As far as Captain Proton knew, no one had ever escaped a cloud of Minions. Despite their tiny size, they were the most feared creatures of the spaceways. Normally they kept to their own system—but now they were a long way from home, surrounding his ship. Captain Proton didn't like that idea at all. It meant something had changed about them, or someone was controlling them.
Suddenly the Imagizer flickered, and the gray fog of Minions was replaced by the devilish face of Dr. Chaotica, the meanest man in all of known space. Chaotica's stated goal was to control the entire Galaxy, and he would use any means to do so. The only things that stood between him and Galaxywide domination was Earth, the Incorporated Planets, and the Interstellar Patrol, of which Captain Proton was a member.
Captain Proton knew immediately who was controlling the Minions.
Dr. Chaotica laughed—a long, evil sound that made Captain Proton's blood run cold.
Constance screamed again.
“What do you want, Chaotica?” Proton demanded, taking his hands from the controls and placing them on his hips in a show of defiance.
“It seems I have what I want,” Chaotica said with a wicked laugh. “You are trapped by my Minions. You will soon be crushed. And to make my day perfect, my Blaster Ship is finished.” Again his laugh filled Captain Proton's ship, leaving its evil touch on every surface, every dial, every button, like a film of scum.
Captain Proton could feel the blood in his face draining away. The Blaster Ship that Chaotica referred to was the only one in all the Galaxy. It was huge and powerful. The rumors said it was powerful enough to move entire suns. Proton knew that Chaotica's Blaster Ship, if it was finished, would be death to Earth and the Patrol. His mission had been to make sure it was never finished.
Chaotica had just told him he was too late.
Captain Proton forced himself to stare back at Chaotica. “I'd say there is still some time left in this day,” Proton said defiantly. “We shall see who smiles at the end of it all!”
The Amazing Stories Page 13
