by Neal Jones
"Aye, ma'am! Already on it!"
The small screen attached to the right arm of the command chair fed the captain data from all the major stations of the bridge, and she called up the latest tactical readout. Reyes was right. The latest pair of weapons drones had appeared from behind the gateway, from the direction which the Dauntless had come. Their trajectory suggested that they were launched from the surface, or at the very least, were in a low orbit, hiding in one of the dense pockets of radiation where the ship's sensors couldn't detect them. It was her desperate hope that once the Dauntless was out of orbit, the drones wouldn't follow.
The delta class warship turned with agonizing slowness as the main engines were brought on line. There wasn't time for the hornets to dock, so they fell into formation beside and beneath their mother ship, while the six weapons spheres continued their relentless barrage.
"Deflector strength at thirty percent!" Reyes was rapidly punching commands into his console. No matter what he threw at the enemy targets, they never wavered, never lost their defensive strength. It was just like fighting the Haal'Chai raiders. Tactical analysis showed that, individually, the tiny spheres were putting out a level eight force rating, twice as much as expected for something of their size and build.
"Firing up the stardrive!" Voorhees, too, was inputting commands, his fingertips flying over his panel as he locked in a course.
McKenna sent another silent prayer to Hera that the drones hadn't disabled the Dauntless' FTL drives. If the ship wasn't able to form a Zabrenski bubble, then there was no hope of escape. She also prayed that the drones' only objective was to protect the planet and that there wasn't a separate army on the surface who was targeting the survivors.
"FTL is on line! Stardrive engaged!"
Voorhees was whooping with unbridled delight, and McKenna expelled the breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding.
The Dauntless abruptly vanished in a flash of light and thunder, leaving behind a battlefield that was populated only by six small, dark spheres. As soon as their target disappeared, they ceased fire and retreated into the planet's atmosphere, fading like ghosts into a muddy, crimson mist.
( 2 )
Commander Decev raised her head to look into the murky, reddish-gray sky, searching for the object which the Apollo's sensors had said was in the atmosphere. At first, she couldn't see anything, but then a tiny, dark spot appeared, and it slowly expanded into a blob the size of her fist. As it descended, it grew larger still and she was actually able to make out the craft's design. It was an EarthCorps shuttle, type three, and its angle was steep. It was headed for a spot that couldn't be more than a dozen kilometers from the Apollo's crash site, although the shuttle's landing was going to be a hell of a lot rougher than Decev's had been. She tapped her commlink.
"Endari and Costello, get your suits on and get out here ASAP! We're going after that shuttle. Bring three oxygen packs with you. Carter, get me an exact location and activate the cardon field within a one kilometer radius." Decev hated the way her voice echoed inside her EVA helmet, how it sounded tinny and small. She also had an itch on her right cheek that she couldn't scratch, and she hoped that this wasn't going to be a long rescue.
It was another ten minutes before Endari and Costello appeared at Apollo's airlock, an anti-grav sled hovering between them. On it was an emergency medical case, an engineering tool kit, and the trio of spare oxygen packs. As they walked to Decev, Carter's voice spoke into her right ear.
"Crash site is fourteen-point-six kilometers east of our location. Scans show four bio-signs, all of them strong. I'm activating the cardon now."
"Good." Decev terminated the link and turned to face east. The cardon field appeared, a large, circular door whose technology was based on the same principles as a wormhole. It "folded" the space and distance between two points on a physical plane, allowing one to cross several hundred kilometers in a single step. Through the portal was a grassy area which had probably been a courtyard at one time. Decev checked her scanner as she crossed the field's threshold, and then turned northeast. Once Endari and Costello had stepped through the field, it vanished without a sound, disappearing like a mirage.
Four days earlier, the commander had successfully landed the Apollo, and the only severe damage was to the main engines. After crawling inside the ductwork of the primary core housing, Endari's diagnosis wasn't good. The initial barrage of enemy fire had punctured the aft deflector grid and fried most of the primary housing. In order to repair the engines, the facilities of a shuttledock maintenance bay were required. For the last four days, Decev and her crew had kept themselves locked in their ship, protected from the radiation poisoning which permeated every molecule of air on this planet. The crash landing had not damaged the structural integrity of the Apollo, thank god, and only on two separate occasions had Decev sent out teams to explore the surroundings.
They were in the heart of what had once been a thriving, sprawling metropolis. It wasn't hard to imagine what the vast city must have looked like before the apocalyptic disaster that had turned it to rubble and ash. Skyscrapers had towered over the landscape like guardians of glass and metal, while roads and train lines had wound themselves through the city like convoluted ribbons of asphalt and steel. Apartment complexes, shopping malls, markets, business districts, government domes, and everything in between had been built on top of one another, the old making way for the new, and it was a safe assumption that Decev has set the Apollo down in what used to be the oldest section of the city.
Now, there was only crumbling ruins, echoes of what had once been a mighty empire. Thick, dark vines and other vegetation had long ago punched their way through the asphalt, cement and rusted steel to reclaim the manmade creations. Because of the level of industrial pollution in the atmosphere, it was hard to tell day and night apart. Thick, stratus clouds were piled on top of one another like ash colored blankets, never allowing more than a few rays of sunlight through them. This morning there had actually been a break in the cloud cover, but it hadn't lasted for more than an hour, and the faint light had only made the city ruins look even more bleak and empty.
There was very little animal life here, much less than Decev had expected, but it was probably due to the high concentrations of radiation. Over the last couple days, Costello and Decev had conducted detailed scans of their surroundings, and the only detectable animal life was a few rodents and insects. Nothing large enough to pose a threat to the ship and its crew. Decev was also relieved to find only pollutants in the air sample she took three days ago. There was no live viruses, at least none that the Apollo's bio-scanners could detect, although there was a handful of particle types which the medical database couldn't identify. The commander assumed these to be varying types of radiation.
As she trudged along what had once been a six-lane avenue, Decev swept her gaze in all directions, her eyes probing every shadow, every crevice, every crumbling foundation. The sun would be setting in less than three hours, and she wanted to make it to the other crash site by then. She had kept her crew safe in the Apollo at night, just in case, but it looked like tonight was going to be the first evening that they were going to be forced to explore the ruins after dark. The fact that the ship's sensors hadn't detected anything more than small animal life did nothing to dissuade Decev of her fears. With the levels of industrial pollutants and radiation which saturated this world's atmosphere, it was quite possible that there were creatures lurking in these dilapidated buildings and behind these crumbling walls who, for whatever reason, might not emit standard bio-signs. After all, ship's sensors could only look for that which they were programmed. The universe was a vast and unexplored expanse, and it stood to reason that there was any number of lifeforms that weren't carbon based.
In addition to the sensors, Decev had also used her telepathic ability to search her environment for any threats. Thus far, the only minds which she had detected were those of her crew. Even now, as she walked as fast as the EVA s
uit allowed her, she carefully opened her mind and probed the deepening shadows. Still nothing. There was a faint rustle here, a clatter of pebbles there, but one glance at the scanner showed a bio-sign belonging to something that could only be a rodent. Decev kept moving, and so did the two officers behind her. They were less than a hundred meters from the crash site.
( 3 )
Commander McCoy coughed as he raised his head and surveyed the cockpit. He was still buckled in his seat, and so was Lieutenant Commander Benson. But she was unconscious, her head laid back, a trickle of blood seeping from a shallow cut just above her left eyebrow. The shuttle's main systems were still functioning, and McCoy initiated a complete systems diagnostic from his console.
"Commander?" There was no mistaking Zamora's bass tone.
"I'm okay." The Dauntless' first officer deactivated his seat belt and hauled himself to his feet so he could turn to face the rear of the cockpit.
Zamora was bending over Lieutenant Simon. The young woman's face and torso was burned and bloody. She had borne the brunt of the explosion from the overloaded tactical console in front of her. Zamora dug out the medkit from its compartment behind Simon's chair, and he passed the scanner over her. He looked up at McCoy and shook his head.
The shuttle's only other team member was Ensign Mitchell, and he was still buckled in his seat, gritting his teeth and gently probing a wound on his right arm. A small piece of shrapnel from Simon's console had embedded itself in Mitchell's shoulder, and Zamora quickly set to work removing it and repairing the wound. McCoy turned back to Benson and gently slapped her cheek.
"Karri! Karri, wake up!"
The science officer coughed as she came to, blinking as she slowly raised her head. "We made it?"
"Yeah." McCoy sat down in his seat and checked the progress of the systems diagnostic. "Just barely, though. We got lucky because we still had thrusters."
Benson dabbed at her wound, then unbuckled herself and walked to the medkit. She wiped away the blood and used a dermal regenerator to heal the wound.
"Oh, shit!" McCoy's expletive caught everyone's attention and all heads turned his direction.
"What?" Benson demanded, coming up behind him to look over his shoulder.
"There's a breach to the reactor core housing. The core itself was damaged, and we've got exactly ten minutes and twenty-two seconds to a full containment breach." He stood and motioned to the rear of the cockpit, where a bank of lockers held the EVA suits as well as various forms of equipment which one might need on a planetary expedition. "Kad, since you're closest, you get to hand 'em out. Karri, conduct a scan of the outside environment. I want to know exactly where we are, and where we can take shelter."
While she obeyed, McCoy accepted the suit handed to him by Ensign Mitchell, and the men began pulling them on. Karri grabbed hers after inputting the commands into her console, and they didn't have to wait long for the results.
"We're in a large field, with open space for half a kilometer in all directions. Looks like the remains of an amphitheater or maybe a sports arena. Beyond that, there's several buildings which are partially intact. We shouldn't have a problem finding a spot to take cover."
McCoy finished fastening the clasps on the front of his suit and reached for his helmet. "Pick a set of coordinates for the cardon field and activate." He put on his helmet and pressed the command into his arm panel to seal the suit.
The location that Benson had picked was the courtyard in front of a skyscraper that no longer had anything above the fourth floor. The four officers stepped out of the field and Karri shut it down. Each member was carrying a pair of cases which held emergency supplies and ration packs. They each also had a spare oxygen pack, and Ensign Mitchell set about stacking everything against the building's front wall.
Benson activated the holo-display of her arm panel. A timer was counting down to the reactor breach. "Four minutes and seven seconds."
Zamora had also activated his holo-display, and a trio of green blips appeared in sensor range. "I've got three EarthCorps signatures." He inputted a second command to bring up more details. "It's Commander Decev, Lieutenant Endari, and Lieutenant Costello. They're sixty meters that way." He pointed west.
McCoy activated his commlink. "This is Commander McCoy to Commander Decev. Do you copy?"
"Copy, commander. Good to hear your voice."
"We had to abandon our shuttle. Have you got a fix on our location?"
"Affirmative. Stay put. We're almost to you."
"Understood. McCoy out."
"Two minutes," Benson said.
It was seventeen minutes after the core explosion that the two teams were finally united.
( 4 )
"All stop," McKenna ordered. "This should be far enough."
"No sign of pursuit," Reyes said.
"Stand down from red alert." McKenna unbuckled herself and paced slowly to her customary spot behind Voorhees. She stared at the field of stars on the forward viewscreen, a vista which she ordinarily found soothing, calming. But this time the captain was gnawing the inside of her cheek, arms crossed over her chest, as she reviewed the situation. Behind her, her bridge crew was doing the same thing, poring over tactical readouts and sensor data, analyzing the battle which had lasted for less than fifteen minutes, yet seemed far longer. She expected Reyes to be the first to speak, but it was Voorhees who broke the silence.
"Captain, my nav database can't pinpoint our location. There's no recognizable spatial phenomena in sensor range."
"You have no idea where we are," McKenna rephrased.
"Yes, ma'am. We're holding at three-twenty-one-point-eight kilometers from the planet.
"Our deflector strength is at twelve percent," Reyes added. "There's also minor damage to our stardrive subsystems, as well as the secondary PDR assembly."
Juarez pressed a finger to his earpiece. "Casualty report coming in now. No fatalities, no major injuries. Total casualty count so far is thirty-one." He paused as another report came in. "Engineering reports that, while we still have stardrive capability, Lieutenant Wolfe advises against any speed above level five."
"We're not going anywhere just yet," McKenna said quietly. "There will be a staff briefing in twenty minutes. Lieutenant Ross, you have the conn."
"Aye, ma'am."
The captain exited to her ready room.
( 5 )
"Report." McKenna leaned forward, elbows resting on the table, hands folded. Facing her from their assigned seats around the oblong table was the senior staff, sans Lieutenant Ross who still had the conn.
"They ignored our stingers," Reyes said, breaking the tense silence. "I propose we launch a squad and send them to the planet's surface. It's possible that they could find the source of whatever's controlling those drones. It's also possible that McCoy's team has already joined with Decev's and they're searching for the control source."
"You're assuming that our initial scans of the planet's surface are accurate," Juarez replied. "The atmosphere is nothing but radiation soup. It's possible that our people aren't the only ones alive down there." The ensign consulted his compad which contained the information that Lieutenant Ross had given him to relay to the others.
"If those drones ignored the stingers, then they'll probably ignore a shuttle," Lee remarked. "If we use the Dauntless as a distraction, we could get a team to the surface. With a working shuttle, it wouldn't take long to search for the source of the drones' control, assuming that it's automated. All the team would need is to track the radio transmissions."
"But you're also assuming the planet is uninhabited. If we're wrong, we send one more team to a crash landing, and this time they might not survive." Joanna Burke was twenty years older than most of her crewmates, and, because of her position as the Dauntless' chief medical officer, she often played the role of mother hen to her fellow officers. There was an underlying tone of worry and concern to her words.
Of all her senior officers, McKenna like Burke the best,
and she had been the one with whom the captain had formed an instant bond the moment they met. Now, Jo – as she liked to be called by her crewmates – was saying exactly what was on McKenna's mind, and there was no way around that particular conundrum. From the looks on everyone else's faces it was clear that they agreed with the doctor, but no one was willing to just sit by and allow the planet's defenses to keep them from rescuing their comrades. Or from getting back home.
"What about our scans of the drones themselves?" the captain asked. "Is there some other weakness we might be able to exploit?"
Reyes shook his head, his mouth drawn into a grim line. "It was just like fighting the Haal'Chai raiders. No matter how hard we punched at them, they simply absorbed our disruptor energy like it was water in a desert. In the meantime, they hit us with a combined force rating of thirty-two. If we go back now, we won’t last for more than ten minutes. Not without some kind of ace up our sleeve." His expression turned even darker as he was forced to admit this, and it seemed that none of them was willing to admit defeat even though they were all out of ideas. Reyes was right. Without something to successfully shore up deflector strength, or, at the very least, combat the drones, the situation was hopeless.
"What about alternating the frequency of our deflector harmonics?" Lee suggested.
Reyes glanced at Wolfe, handing the floor to the chief engineer.
"It wouldn't make a difference. Those drones overloaded our deflector screens with the power of their combined force rating. Rotating the harmonics wouldn't change anything."
A depressed silence fell upon the group after hearing this, yet McKenna refused to give up so easily.
"How long until repairs are completed?"
"Give me twelve hours," Wolfe replied. "It might not take that long, but if we're going back to the wolves - no pun intended – I'd like to make sure we're as battened downed and shored up as possible."
