by Diane Carey
T’Cael turned to this forthright man and regretted his own words. “You’ve destroyed a Swarm,” he reminded with a warning edge. “They will not treat you lightly, Captain. They’ll be ready to fight. To die if necessary.”
April fully knew what the Romulan was saying. Forget altruism. Be ready to kill. His brow knitted at the distasteful idea of continuing this rampage. He gripped the arm of his command chair and gazed at the viewscreen’s image of the mothership, now appearing in the enhanced distance as a gigantic boomerang feathered with preybirds. If he interpreted t’Cael’s description correctly, the mothership had collected her Swarms before answering the call to war, and she was utterly ready.
“I know what we can do.” George stood up, stiff and angry at April’s side, as much asking as telling. “We’ll use the one weapon we have that they don’t have.”
It was intriguing, the way he said it.
April looked at him. “What’s that, George?”
Sanawey flexed his aching shoulders as he bent awkwardly over his readouts. “They have deflectors set to repel particle rays and light amplified beams ... their shields are strongest around the fore of the ship and in the drive areas, all polarized-wave reversion type—”
[287] “What?”
Sanawey paused to rephrase his jargon as the first officer bent over the board beside him. “Shields have to be able to let some things in and keep some things out. Light has to come in. So does communication. These guys have deflectors set to repel heat, impact, and high-intensity contracted light, like lasers.”
“But not ...” George looked at him hopefully.
“Right. I think we can do it, Mr. Kirk. They can’t deflect molecular transfer.”
“Why should they?” George said, rather smugly. “They’ve never had to before.” He stepped to the helm and tapped the intercom. “Kirk to engineering. Have they got it yet?”
“They’re maneuvering it down out of retrieval now. Couldn’t be much farther away from us and still be on board, you know. They gotta be careful, pinky.” Dr. Brownell’s voice cut upward through the ship’s relays, evidently unaffected by the gravity of the situation.
“The name’s Kirk,” George reminded, stiff-jawed.
“You wanna do this by yourself?”
The total lack of impression George had made on the crustacean he was talking to made him back off. “It’s got to be in the nearest transporter room in sixty seconds.”
“You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“They sent us a present. We’re going to give it back. The reanimation code is all laid into the casing. Tell them to hit the blue button as soon as they get it into the chamber.”
“Warp power’s on. Why don’t we just get out of here?”
“Because nothing stops them from following us, that’s why,” George said, raising his voice.
April saw George’s cheeks redden and tapped in on his own intercom. “Dr. Brownell, this is the captain. We’ve got a situation here. You and your engineers are simply going to have to buckle down and hold on. Make sure everyone’s prepared down there. It may be a rocky ride.”
“August,” the wintry voice returned, “why do you think we put all these systems together? You got a fighting machine here. Use it.”
April squirmed. “Thank you, doctor. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Just use it.”
“Yes, April out.” He cut off the relay before Brownell could say any more.
George listened from the walkway. Brownell’s abruptness had come [288] across all too clearly. He saw the pain in April’s face, and saw the captain dredge up the kind of courage that outshines any mere battlefield bravery. Suddenly he hated the idea that Robert might think some of this was his own fault.
Biting his lip thoughtfully, he stepped down to April’s side.
“Robert,” he said privately, “it may not come to that. I think this can work. And we’ll get out of here while we can.”
April sighed. “Thank you, George. Prepare for warp speed.”
As George moved to the helm beside Florida, all he felt was a sensation of abandoning April to the isolation of command. “All systems prepare for hyperlight. Deflector shields double-front. Set a course for that incoming ship.”
Sanawey stood up quickly and reminded, “Sir, transporters don’t have the range our weapons do. It’ll have to be a tight pass.”
George nodded, then signaled toward Florida, but the navigation engineer was already adjusting his course for a close-range approach. Good. George didn’t want to have to say it.
“Engage warp speed, helm,” Captain April ordered, his voice heavy. “We’ll meet them head-on.”
And get this over with.
Though the addendum went unspoken, they all heard it. And added further: or die trying. Each knew, though the knowledge was a thorn to people who had never thought their careers would lead this way, that it might be better for the Federation’s children and grandchildren if they did die, pulverized inside an obliterated ship, all evidence of the starship erased here and now, before its existence fomented the very war they now raced to deflect.
Responding to the touch of human hands, the starship hummed. She sang a deep song of energies coming together that had never been meant to merge. On the viewscreen before them, space changed.
Warp speed had a good name for what it did. What had been minutes became seconds. The mothership was upon them, and they upon it. They saw with some gratification that the big wedged ship was missing a few feathers thanks to the destruction of one of those all-important Swarms.
From where he stood beside the captain’s chair, t’Cael’s experienced eyes easily picked out the Raze, which had reattached herself to the mothership’s spine and was even now funneling information to the Grand Primus. But there would be no time to act if Kirk’s plan could be implemented quickly enough. No one aboard the mothership [289] would expect what was coming, for none of them imagined such technology.
In the quick maneuver that took the mothership out of the starship’s path, t’Cael saw the surprise of the home crew. He knew each member of each Swarmbird’s complement was scrambling to compensate for attack when they had expected and planned for a chase.
Not easily taken unaware, the mothership’s commanders saw what was happening and ordered high firepower.
Brackets of destructive energy pounded out from the tips of the mothership’s wings and slammed across the double shielding over the starship’s bow as the two ships passed each other at unimaginable speed. Only computers could have managed responses that sudden and accurate at this speed.
The starship rocked when the bolts struck, but she held her course. And the library computer was ready too. Deep in the core of the primary hull, the transporter room systems came on, and the ship’s shields lowered for one microsecond. Matter buzzed into energy, hurtling through space toward the Romulan ship. It reassembled in the center of the mothership’s main intermix reactor chamber, a conical device never meant to sit where it was sitting now.
“Transportation complete, Captain,” Sanawey shouted over the sound of enemy fire striking the shields and the whine of compensatory systems.
“Let’s get clear, Carlos, hurry,” April ordered.
Her shields ragged from the badgering of enemy fire, the starship rolled wide of the mothership and sped into open space. On her large forward viewscreen, the mothership was just turning to follow.
George watched; they all watched, barely breathing.
A soundless tongue of burning fuel and ionized matter spewed from the aft center of the wedged ship, a great, mile-long orange geyser of energy from an explosion in the ship’s bowels. The force turned the mothership up on a wing, and she hung in space, powerless, turning like a moth caught in a spiderweb. Her wings were scorched and blackened where the explosion had caused a chain reaction through the systems that channeled energy from the Swarm ships on her back.
From his position, t’Cael could see the
energy readouts on Florida’s monitor. Erratic fluxes showed the damage they’d done with their little trick.
“Astonishing ...” he murmured, caught between admiration and sorrow.
[290] “Reduce to sublight,” April said, standing up for the first time in quite a while. “Mr. Sanawey, what do your sensors tell you?”
Sanawey shook himself and bent over his board. “Massive power failure. Seems to have affected the birds she’s wearing too. They can’t channel enough energy to launch the little ships anymore. I’m getting readings of repercussive explosions throughout the ship. They’ve lost warp power, shields, weapons, communication—” He paused, tapping at his controls to home in on something he thought he was reading and didn’t want to report incorrectly, but his instruments were right, and he was reading them right. After a moment he had no choice but to say what he saw. “And life support.”
April turned to him. “Oh, no—are you sure?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sure.”
“God, I didn’t want that to happen. Claw, try to get through to them. Offer to take their crews on board here—”
He stopped. T’Cael’s hand was on his arm.
T’Cael waited several seconds before speaking. He didn’t want to point out the obvious—that several hundred Rihannsu warriors would be impossible to keep prisoner on a ship so underpopulated as the starship was now—but there was an even more distasteful fact. Odd—t’Cael had never thought of it as distasteful, until now, until he met Robert April.
“Captain,” he began, “I’m sorry to tell you this. But they will not—”
The screen lit up like a sun. A flash so intense that it left them stunned for several seconds, even those who hadn’t been looking at the viewer.
“Oh, God—” April choked, blinking as he held up a hand against the electrochemical explosion. “Oh, my God ...”
“I’m sorry,” t’Cael repeated, not looking at the screen, knowing intimately the ethic behind the suicide they witnessed. The ethic had always seemed sensible. He had never thought of it as April—who felt responsible—did, but now all he could feel was April’s sympathetic anguish. “It is an ancient code among my people. It has nothing to do with you.”
On the screen now, glowing debris radiated from an empty centerpoint where the mothership had been.
April started into it, his eyes glazed. “How can you say that?” he murmured.
“Please believe it. My Empire didn’t wait for this vessel to appear [291] before they began such a practice. I’ve seen it many times in my career.”
“My God ... how wasteful ... all those lives ...”
“Wasteful it is,” t’Cael agreed, hoping he had eased the captain’s self-recrimination.
April steadied himself and valiantly fought to accept what he had just seen. “Do you think anyone else knows we’re here? Had they the chance to notify your fleet?”
T’Cael wished he could provide the wanted answer, but even to comfort April he couldn’t manage a pretense. “Yes,” he said, “and assuredly did. Visuals of this vessel are probably on every viewer in the command line.”
April shook his head and watched the viewscreen, captivated by his own plummeting hopes. “So the entire Romulan Empire thinks the Federation has created a gigantic terror device. Here we sit, hopelessly misinterpreted.” He folded his hands disconsolately, still gazing into the emptiness of space. “It’s all my fears rolled into one incident. God ...”
George waited a moment before speaking. “Let’s go home, Rob-en.”
Slowly the captain nodded. “Yes, home. We’ve stayed long enough to guarantee war. Let’s go before we do any more harm.”
A sad relief came over the bridge crew. Each felt the keen responsibility for their presence in this space, but each also felt the helplessness so succinct in the captain’s voice. All they’d wanted to do was save a shipload of accident survivors. Why had such a simple desire turned so sour? They would go home now, go home and wait for the war.
“Captain ...”
T’Cael, if his voice was any witness, was struggling. He heard the hesitation himself. As April and Kirk turned, t’Cael saw with dismay that the captain and his combustible first officer had learned to listen to him when he started to speak, though this time he wished they weren’t so attentive. “Captain, you could run and get out, of course.” And again he paused, unable to find any words to make this easier. He paced a few steps around the command arena, feeling more and more caged. “I have many contacts,” he began again, “in the Romulan feet ... in the Romulan government. Many who would approve of a change in government. A drastic change.”
George stepped closer, reading the ominous words. “How drastic?” he demanded.
[292] T’Cael ceased pacing. “There would be pro-Federation sentiment. We could begin negotiations. Many are ready to pay the price. You will not be an attacking force—you’ll be a liberating force.”
“Your people aren’t behaving like a group that wants to be liberated.”
“Kirk, they don’t comprehend the wrongness of what they are becoming. When the day comes that they find no one else to prey on, they’ll turn upon each other. We can stay that pattern if we act now, today!”
“You’re pretty cavalier with that ‘we.’ ”
“You are two steps away from our governing planet. With the massive technology contained in this ship, you could change this death march my people have been walking!”
George started to turn away.
But t’Cael couldn’t bring himself to stop. He reached out and wrenched Kirk around with jarring force and held him. “Kirk, you could turn the pattern. Dislodge the Praetorate!”
“Just a minute,” interrupted a distinct sound. Robert April had stood up again and now stepped between them, giving each a fatherly glare as the hot conversation roiled in their ears. At last he faced t’Cael. “What are you saying? I can’t believe what you’re saying!”
Black eyes flashed. “I must say it. Truly I wish it didn’t have to be you, Captain. But I must say this.”
“My God, man, do you understand what you’re proposing?”
“You are the stronger.”
“This is more than a question of artillery!” April snapped back. He pressed a hand to his pounding head, holding in a pain that was more than blood and bone.
“Captain,” t’Cael started again, following him as he circled the helm, “I say none of this lightly. I have a deep agony when I tell you to destroy my government while you have the chance. This is the government I’ve served long and loyally. But I’ve watched it change. I’ve seen a cruel evolution, and now it spreads. Just as I fought to maintain the stability of my government, now I will help you bring it down.”
From the way he said it, there was no doubting his agony. It was there; in his face, in his voice. But so was his belief in this wild chance.
Reaching over the helm, George caught t’Cael’s sleeve. “Do you know what you’re talking about?”
T’Cael whirled suddenly and knocked the hand away. “Do I know? [293] I know of the vicious hunting that goes on when people can’t trust each other, even one’s own family members. I know what it means not to be allowed to make acquaintances because those above are afraid when two people speak for too long. I know what is coming—a slaughter so furious and so driven by fears that it will make the early wars look like a game. Do I know, Kirk? I’ve been at the center too long not to see clearly what is coming at the hands of my own people, and has now been triggered by your appearance here. I could describe to you a scene of extermination so vivid as to turn your stomach, and then send you home to live it yourself.”
George withdrew his hand, staring. All this sounded familiar. Hadn’t he said it all to Robert only a matter of hours ago?
“We can’t ...” he began.
T’Cael’s eyes flared wide. “You can!”
“We can’t! We can’t attack just because we have the power!” His hands shook with the crushing flood
of thoughts. He clamped his eyes shut and spun away from t’Cael, fists tightened into rocks at his sides. Seeing both possibilities struck him suddenly silent. Who would die? All those innocent people—never the truly guilty. A moral dilemma—did a governing system have the right to exist in spite of the people it governed? Did the Federation have the right to police the galaxy? Did it have the right not to?
So tempting ... so easy. To soar in and cut out the rotten core. What had he just been saying to Robert about fighting only half of World War II?
“It’s ... wrong,” he heard himself rasp, his fists clenched until they were hurting. “It’s wrong to be the first to fire.”
“But you carry weapons,” t’Cael reminded. “Why?”
“Defending yourself is different! It’s wrong to shoot first! Wars to prevent wars are what almost wiped out humanity in the last century. You don’t have any right to insist on this.”
The dark eyes of alien perceptions flashed at him. “Do I not?”
George moved in on him and erupted, “Some things are wrong no matter what the gain. Your society is aggressive, and you don’t like it. Now you want us to do the same thing?” He spun around, expecting to have April applaud him. A chill went through him when he saw the captain’s face.
April was listening. Waffling. Actually considering what t’Cael had said. Actually considering it.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” George choked, stepping toward him. [294] “Robert, what about all that talk about what this ship is supposed to represent? You were right! This ship has to stand for our best ideals first. Doesn’t it? You know me—you know what I think. But there has to be a line! There must be another way!”
T’Cael now moved in as well. “Despite all your efforts to communicate your ideals, the Swarm attacked you. Your way does not always work. If peace can be gained through example alone, why do you carry weapons? If your message is unconditional pacifism, then why?”
