As with most of the objectives on this foolhardy mission, this one wasn't going to come easily, because sitting between them and their target was a Jem'Hadar attack ship. They had seen enough of these craft in the last few days to know exactly her capabilities and strengths. Making a frontal attack on the mining ship would be suicide, especially with two torpedoes.
They had already tried stealth and guile, by telling the Jem'Hadar that they were a Bajoran scientific mission sent to study the Eye of Talek. The Jem'Hadar had told them to go away. Now they were just outside weapons range, knowing that the Jem'Hadar had undoubtedly meant for them to go farther away than this. Would the watchdogs feel threatened by the small transport, or would they leave them alone?
Picard frowned at the enemy ships on the viewscreen. "We have to act quickly. Mr. La Forge, can we shoot a torpedo from this range and know that it will eventually make it to the black hole?" "We could," answered the engineer, "but it would have to be sublight speed, and they would have time to take evasive maneuvers. Then the black hole's gravity would throw off the torpedo's guidance system." "And we'd be dead thirty seconds later," added Ro.
"Is there something we could do which would be undetectable?" the captain asked hopefully. "Can we make use of the black hole and its side effects?" With his ocular implants, La Forge scanned quickly between the screen and his readouts. "Maybe there is something we could do. What if we caused a rock slide?" "A rock slide?" asked Picard.
"Yes. We passed an asteroid belt about three hundred thousand kilometers back. In a bunch of years, those asteroids will find their way into the black hole, anyway, but we could speed up the process." Ro leaned over him. "How?" "Collect as many as we can in a tractor beam," answered La Forge, "then take off at low warp speed.
We cut the tractor beam and come out of warp, leaving the rocks to go on their way. Sort of like a giant slingshot. At near-warp speed, they won't know what hit them." "I used to throw rocks at Cardassians as a kid," said Ro. "Sometimes they can be very effective." "It's the shotgun approach," admitted La Forge with a shrug. "We might miss, but we won't have to use any of our torpedoes. There's nothing that will divert those rocks from that black hole--no shields, no phasers. You can blast them into smaller bits, but they'll just keep coming." Picard tugged thoughtfully on his earring, then he nodded. "Make it so." Leni Shonsui was probably the oldest member of the Tag Garwal crew, and the Terran had a tough, nononsense attitude about life. She had taken the accident with the first probe personally and had withdrawn from the rest of the crew. She was of Asian extraction, thought Sam, and she might have been very beautiful in her youth. Now she was attractive but much embittered by captivity.
Nevertheless, what she had managed to do with the Cardassian technology was quite impressive, despite her one lapse.
Sam didn't want to leave seeing her alone to chance, so he purposely called a shipwide meeting in the mess hall for everyone to discuss the probe situation, only he summoned Shonsui to the bridge one minute beforehand.
After the small woman had climbed out of the hatch, he quickly locked it shut behind her. "Leni," he said, "I won't waste time. You know what we have to do--we have to escape. Now we know that the Jem'Hadar will come into transporter range and lower their shields to save us, and you have to disable them so that we can get away. Any ideas." The woman took a sharp breath. "What about Grof?." "We'll get somebody to neutralize him." "Okay." She lowered her voice and stood on tiptoes to reach his ear. Her trembling hands gripped his forearm. "Let me beam some of that Corzanium into their warp coil. I grabbed a chunk for myself.
Anywhere I put it is bound to cause a problem, even if I miss a bit. We must have schematics of an attack ship on board." "Yes, I've already located them," answered Sam, pointing to his console. "You take over here on the bridge while I go to the meeting. We'll use the notification icon on your readouts. When I give you the signal, that means we're within transporter range.
You have about a minute to do your part. Don't worry about how I get them within range." "But we won't go into the hole?" asked Shonsui with concern.
"No. Leave that to me. I'm counting on you, Leni, and not a word to anybody. Basically, you and I can make this happen." "Okay, Captain," she answered with a grin. "And we get to kill a lot of the enemy in the bargain." "Yeah," answered Sam with somewhat less enthusiasm. Sometimes when he looked at his fellow prisoners, he forgot that they were damaged goods, driven beyond endurance by their captors. He tried to remember all the details he had to attend to.
"We'll fix them," promised Leni, sitting at the conn. "I'll be ready when I get your signal." "Thank you," breathed Sam as he backed toward the hatch. Now he was certain that he would really have to go through with it. The one person who might have talked him out of it had embraced his foolish plan wholeheartedly.
Sam stepped down the ladder with a feeling of dread. In a short while, he was either going to escape this hell, or he was going to commit suicide and take his fellow prisoners with him.
Will Riker was jolted out of a deep, contented sleep by a piercing, frightened scream. He rolled out of bed, momentarily uncertain where he was.
Turning, he saw Shana Winslow thrashing her fists in the air, sobbing pitifully. With her eyes screwed shut, she still seemed to be asleep, but she was also in some kind of torment. Riker felt he had to wake her up.
"Shana! Shana," he said, gently shaking her. "Wake up." With a gasp she opened her dark eyes and stared at him. For a moment, she didn't seem to know where she was either. Finally she focused on Riker's face; then she gave him a desperate hug, gripping him as if he were the only real thing in her life.
"Oh, Will! Am I crazy? I see my death every night--the one that didn't happen. I was supposed to die on the Budapest--I know itmbut they pulled me back from death." Her fingernails dug into the flesh of Riker's back, and she stared past him. "I see them all--the ones who did die! My husband, the captain, the first officer--" "Hey, it's all right to see them," said Riker soothingly. "It's just survivor's guilt. Your dreams may take you back to the past, but you're really here in the present--with me. We're alive. I don't know for how much longer, but we're alive now... and we're together." "That's right," she breathed. "We're alive, and they're dead. Don't know how long--" In the darkness of a modest cabin on Starbase 209, surrounded by war, refugees, damaged ships, and cold space, the acting captain held the grieving woman in his arms. Riker knew all about survivor's guilt; he was feeling it himself, certain that the captain, La Forge, Data, Ro, and all the rest were dead. He gripped Winslow's fragile body until her shaking stopped.
"Let's do it!" said Sam over the ship's comm.
"Prepare to launch the probe." "That's the spirit," bellowed Grof, standing behind him. He looked uncertainly at Taurik, who was now on tactical. They had gotten used to having the Vulcan belowdeck, filling in where needed, but Sam wanted him here--for this run.
"Whatever happened to that other ship?" asked Grof, sounding as if he were making nervous small talk.
"They left," replied Taurik, "approximately one hour ago." "Probe ready," announced Woil from below.
"You're on ops, Grof," ordered Sam, slipping casually into his seat at the conn.
"No, wait a minute," blustered the Trill. "With Taurik up here, I'm needed belowrowe're shorthanded." "Nonsense," answered Sam. "Lately the problems have been up here, not in the hold. I'll let you shoot the tachyons. Please, I want the crack team on the bridge, just for a while." He thought that appealing to Grof's ego would win him over. The large Trill sunk into the seat at ops and mustered a put-upon smile. Sam nodded gratefully.
"Captain to crew," he announced. "Launch probe when ready. Stand by on tractor beam." Despite the disaster of the last probe and the bizarre circumstances, they knew the routine after a dozen successful runs. They were professionals, doing the jobs for which they had trained and lived.
The probes may have taken a beating, but the tanker and her crew were still in prime condition, a fact which Sam was co
unting on. This ignoble craft had to make due as their escape pod back to the Federation.
Without incident, they captured the probe with the tractor beam and lowered it to the brink of the black hole. With a halo of dust flowing into its unquenchable emptiness, the Eye of Talek looked aptly named--a window into the soul of a monster. Its primitive force made the war, the Dominion, and a handful of prisoners seem like plankton to a whale.
Worst of all, the hole still looked hungry.
"Beginning tachyon bombardment," said Grof softly, as if taken by the solemnity of the occasion.
They were very close to the moment when they had been ambushed by fate the last time.
"Extending tractor beam," reported Taurik.
"Extracting Corzanium," came Tamla Horik's voice from below.
With his heart beginning to race, Sam turned slightly in his seat so that Grof couldn't see his movements. The Trill appeared to be fixated on his own console, as did Taurik, although he would need the Vulcan's attention very soon. After yesterday, Sam knew enough not to cause a problem while the tractor beam was still extended into the hole. But afterward, when they began to withdraw the probe back to a place where it could be safely transported-- that was the time to strike. Now it was time to plant the seeds.
"Grof," cut in Sam, "I'm still having to compensate for slight shifts in our trajectory. That anomaly has never been corrected." He leaned back and pointed to his display.
"Just compensate," growled Grofi "I believe you.
There must be spikes in the gravity or something.
Someday you can come back and figure it out. For now, just keep us on course." "If you say so," replied Sam pleasantly, doing as he was told.
Taurik cocked his head thoughtfully. "Perhaps this effect is caused by minute differences in the probes themselves. They may look identical, but they are not." "Could be," allowed Sam, silently thanking his friend for buttressing his claim. "Like the professor says, nothing to get upset about." After a few seconds more, Tomla Horik announced, "You were shaking things up in the cockpit, but it's full now. Reel her in." "Retracting tractor beam," said Taurik. "Stand by to--" Without warning, the Tag Garwal was slammed by a series of sudden jolts, like machine-gun bullets raking their hull. Luckily, Sam's eyes were on his controls, because he immediately fired thrusters to get them away from the black hole.
Sparks and acrid smoke spewed from a wall panel to his left, and Grof was shouting, "What's going on?
We've lost the probet" "Damage on level two," reported Taurik evenly.
"Hull breach, losing atmosphere--" Sam tuned out the noise, the voices, and the panic as he struggled with the helm, visions of yesterday's disaster swimming in his head. He had a slight jump, more distance, and no tractor beam to contend with, and his reflexes were poised for action. Sam stopped their descent at a safe distance from the event horizon, but he tried not to make it appear too safe.
Maybe this was the chance he had been waiting for.
Almost as an afterthought, he glanced at the status of the Jem'Hadar ship, and what he saw made him gasp. He put it on the viewscreen to make sure he was seeing it correctly. The attack ship was listing badly, with gases escaping from half a dozen breaches in her hull. Whatever had hit them, she had taken the brunt of it. Her sensors must have been malfunctioning; normally a Jem'Hadar ship could deflect just about anything. Her thrusters burned brightly, trying to escape the inevitable gravity, but she was on a slow descent straight toward the Eye of Talek.
"Shields up!" he ordered Taurik, thinking they might be hit by more of the invisible missiles, whatever they were.
Sam watched the crippled Jem'Hadar ship drift closer, until she was nearly in transporter range. His finger moved to the corner of his panel, where a special icon awaited his touch: it was the signal to alert Shonsui in the transporter room.
"Hold it right there!" barked Enrak Grof. Sam looked up to see the Trill glaring at him with hatred and suspicion in his piggish eyes--and a small hand phaser trembling in his hand.
"Where did you get that?" Sam demanded.
"Never mind! I don't know how you did it, but I know you're behind this. You're insane! Back away from the conn." "Professor," said Taurik evenly. "We are likely to die unless you allow Sam to pilot the ship. Now please excuse me, there are wounded below, and I am going to attend to them." While Grof was momentarily distracted by the departure of the Vulcan, Sam pressed his panel and sent the signal to the transporter room. Now it was a moot point. They might all die, but the Jem'Hadar would die first.
The burly Trill looked so angry that his spots were pulsing on his forehead. "Sam, I swear I'll shoot you!" "Then shoot me already! I was going to knock you out before we made a move, but then this happened.
You want options, Grot'?. Here are two: shoot me and die, or escape with us to freedom!" Stricken by indecision, the Trill looked up at the viewscreen and the damaged attack ship. Now its thrusters weren't even firing, and the vibrant blue glow along its hull was gone, replaced by a dull, lifeless gray--like the skin of a Jem'Hadar.
Grof wailed, "They'll think we did this! They'll hunt us down from one end of the galaxy to the other.
You could save them, Sam--lock the tractor beam on to the Jem'Hadar. Do it, or I shoot!" Sam flinched, certain that in the next instant he would feel the phaser beam rip into his skin. But he ignored Grof and maintained steady impulse power away from the attack ship and the black hole which was about to claim it.
"I warned you," muttered Grof, aiming his phaser.
Chapter Fifteen
IGNORING THE PHASER pointed at his skull, Sam Lavelie gazed at the viewscreen and saw the Jem'Hadar attack craft go into a slow spiral in its inexorable descent into the Eye of Talek. He wondered if those stoic warriors showed any panic when confronted with imminent death. Sam himself was surprisingly calm, considering that death was all around him. The destruction of the Jem'Hadar ship had seemed like an act of God, and Sam was willing to believe that nothing would stop their dash to freedom.
"Grof," he said slowly, not turning around, "am I to assume you're not going to kill me?" Glumly, the Trill lowered his phaser. "I should, but I'm not going to." "Welcome back to the Federation," said Sam, mustering a wan smile. "And wave good-bye to your friends." The two crewmates, prisoners, and former enemies watched in stunned silence as the Dominion warship sank into the blackness of the Eye of Talek and disappeared. It was a terrible ending for any starship, thought Sam, as if space had consumed one of its own children.
"Now to set course," said the pilot, shaking off the willies and turning back to his controls. "Any ideas?" "We could--" Before he got a chance to finish his sentence, they were struck again by an unseen object. This time, the impact knocked Grofto his feet and threw Sam out of his chair, while sparks and smoke engulfed the tiny bridge. Sam glanced at the viewscreen long enough to see the crate-like Bajoran transport heading toward them, coming in for the kill!
Coughing from the acrid smoke, Sam staggered to his feet, vaulted over the unconscious Trill, and collapsed on top of the tactical station. With his last shred of consciousness, he opened the hailing frequencies.
"Their shields are gone," reported La Forge at the conn of the Orb of Peace. "The next one will finish them." "Target the last torpedo," ordered Picard grimly.
"Fire when ready." When he didn't hear his order repeated back to him after a suitable time, Picard turned to glare at Ro on tactical. "I said fire when ready." The Bajoran squinted puzzledly as she held an earphone closer to her head. "I know, sir, but... I'm getting a message from one of them. He says they're Federation prisoners." "Prisoners?" echoed Picard in amazement. "Ask him to identify himself." Ro gaped at the captain. "It sounds familiar-- Lieutenant Sam Lavelie?" "Lavelie!" The captain strode to Geordi's station and gazed over the engineer's shoulder. "Are we in any danger? Can they fire weapons?" "No, sir, they're unarmed." La Forge looked at him and frowned. "They're drifting into that black hole.
Unless we do something t
o help them, they're finished, anyway." "Very well, get down to the transporter room, and lock on to whoever's on that bridge. Beam one over, and if he's really one of ours, get them all." "Yes, sir." La Forge bolted to his feet and dashed off the bridge.
Ro hefted a phaser and checked the settings. "I'd better help him out." "Go ahead, I'll take over the conn. Ro, we've already got one prisoner, and I don't want to take any more, unless it's necessary." "Understood, sir." Her jaw set determinedly, the lanky Bajoran strode off the bridge, leaving the captain alone.
He slumped into the seat at the conn, watching the Cardassian mining vessel drift toward the same monstrous end as the Jem'Hadar ship. Now that he had seen the awesome black hole up close--and witnessed its dangers--he had no problem believing that the Dominion was using slave labor for this sort of work.
Star Trek - TNG - Dominion War 1 - Behind Enemy Lines Page 21
