WildFire Book Two

by David Mack

  “You call that lucky?” Ina said, wiping sweat from her forehead. The temperature inside the ship was climbing rapidly, and so far only P8 seemed physically equipped to handle it. Ina silently envied the insectoid engineer.

  “If her hull had been intact, she would have cut us in half,” P8 said.

  Ina raised her hands in concession. “Continue,” Ina said, breathing a bit more raggedly than usual.

  “That initial impact ruptured several sections on our lower decks and cost us our warp core—which, in turn, caused an overload that destroyed our impulse systems.”

  P8 flipped to an image from late in the sequence. The broken husk of the Orion was barely visible, shrouded in atmospheric vapors and blurred by rapid motion. P8 touched a key on her tricorder and over-laid a wireframe representing the structure of the Orion. “This is how much of the Orion survived the impact,” she said. “This is only a visual log, so we have no guarantee that its hull was strong enough to hold together after it entered the thermal vortex. But if it did, her engineering hull appears in this image to be mostly intact—and Lt. Commander Duffy reported that the Orion’s warp core seemed to be undamaged during his inspection a few hours ago.”

  Ina raised her eyebrows disparagingly. “Pattie, are you suggesting we—”

  “Locate the Orion and salvage her warp core,” P8 said. “Yes.”

  Ina looked at Gomez and Duffy. “Will that work?”

  Duffy shrugged. “It’s not impossible,” he said. “The Steamrunner-class ships were built at the same shipyard as the Saber-class. Same warp core design.”

  “That,” P8 said, “was our other lucky break.”

  “Even if Orion’s warp core is intact, the odds of finding it down here would be astronomical,” Ina said. She fought to keep her eyes open and her voice steady. The heat and the stench were making her light-headed. “It could be anywhere.”

  “Actually,” Duffy said, “she probably isn’t far from us at all. Assuming the Orion was pulled down with us…” Duffy advanced the image sequence on P8’s tricorder to show the twisted spaceframe of the Orion sinking into the darkness alongside the da Vinci. “She probably got caught up in the same equatorial current we did.”

  Gomez nodded.

  Ina continued to play Devil’s advocate. “We still don’t have sensors,” she said.

  “I’ll talk to Fabe,” Duffy said. “This reminds me of one of his war stories.”

  “Even if you find the Orion,” Ina said, “do you really think you can reach it, salvage its warp core, install it on the da Vinci, and restore main power in less than two hours?”

  Gomez and Duffy looked at one another and shrugged. “It’s so crazy,” Duffy said, “it just might work.”

  I hate when he says that, Ina thought with a scowl.

  Chapter

  5

  Duffy and Stevens stood on opposite sides of the spread-open innards of a Class-Four atmospheric probe.

  “This really brings back memories,” Stevens said, clicking off his dynospanner as he pulled out the probe’s passive-sensor assembly and tossed it aside.

  “If you start telling your Defiant story again, I’m gonna space you,” Duffy said, only partly kidding. He twisted his wrist into a position he wasn’t certain it could go, reached under the power core, and decoupled the probe’s magneton scanner. He set it on the deck as Stevens began adjusting several small components in quick succession.

  “Modifying this thing to circle the equator and send out active tachyon pulses to ‘ping’ the Orion is the easy part,” Stevens said as various subsystems inside the probe hummed to life. “Problem is, with our comm systems down we won’t have any way of getting the data back from the probe.”

  “I already thought of that,” Duffy said. “You’ll need to patch a tricorder into one of the da Vinci’s small passive sensor arrays. We’ll divert just enough power to the array to receive a narrow-band signal from the probe.”

  “A tricorder won’t be able to parse the signal without—”

  “—a subspace transceiver, I know,” Duffy said. “If you can’t find one around, use the one in your combadge.”

  “Good idea. I mean, why would I need my combadge during a crisis, right?”

  Duffy glared at Stevens.

  “Combadge. Right. Yes, sir,” Stevens said.

  Duffy sighed and resumed modifying the probe.

  “Sorry, Fabe,” he said. “It’s been a long day…for all of us.” Stevens nodded and handed Duffy a magnetic caliper. Duffy was about to say he didn’t need it until he looked down at the component he was working on and realized he did need it.

  “Thanks,” Duffy said.

  “Don’t mention it.” The two men worked in silence for a few moments. Stevens glanced up at Duffy. “Have you had a chance to talk to her yet?”

  “To who?” Duffy said.

  “Who do you think?” Stevens said.

  “Not really. Hasn’t exactly been a good time.”

  “There’s never a good time, Duff. Sometimes you—”

  “Fabe, we’re less than two hours away from a fiery implosion. I’d call this a worse time than most.”

  Stevens considered that. He shrugged. “Touché.”

  They worked for several seconds longer. Stevens put down his tool and closed the panel he was working on.

  “I just thought of something,” Stevens said. “With the launchers offline, we’ll have to deploy this thing manually.”

  “We can probably use a Work Bug for that,” Duffy said. “Did you secure Bug Two after you brought Corsi back from the Orion?”

  “Yeah,” Stevens said. “Should be safe and sound in Bay Five.”

  Duffy nodded, picked up his tools, and moved toward the door. “I’ll get Bug Two ready,” Duffy said. “Finish refitting the tricorder and get it hooked up to the sensor array.”

  “Sure thing, Duff,” Stevens said. “One last thing?”

  Duffy paused in the doorway and looked back at Stevens.

  “You should at least get the ring back,” Stevens said.

  Duffy seriously considered spacing Stevens, then recalled that in addition to being his best friend, the enlisted engineer was the only one on the da Vinci qualified to pilot Bug Two and deploy the probe. Bug One, which had been fitted with modified seating customized for P8 Blue’s physiology, had been lost in the collision with the Orion.

  “I’ll take that under advisement,” Duffy said as he made a mental note to revisit the spacing of Stevens at a later time.

  * * *

  The bridge was silent and sweltering hot. Sonya Gomez crawled out from under an aft console, stood up, and felt her shoulders sag from exhaustion. Her hair was drenched in sweat, and her normally immaculate uniform was coated in grime and broad swipes of her own dried blood.

  The smoke that had earlier choked the bridge had dissipated and wafted out into the corridor beyond the bridge’s aft exit, but a thick haze remained. Gomez felt it catch in her throat as she tried slowly to draw a deep breath. She coughed raggedly, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.

  Ina and Wong had made as thorough repairs to the ops and conn stations as were possible under the circumstances. Small standby lights blinked dimly on both consoles, indicating minimal auxiliary power was still online. Gomez had finally restored basic functions to one of the auxiliary consoles, and routed to it a combination of engineering and science functions she thought would be necessary if the da Vinci got a chance to make an attempt to reach orbit.

  With one hand against the wall to steady herself, Gomez moved slowly toward the aft exit, being careful to monitor her breathing. The air supply was quickly running low and the temperature inside the ship was soaring. With replicators offline and most of the emergency water supplies lost along with the escape pods, dehydration was now as serious a risk as suffocation.

  She leaned in the open doorway and looked out at the dimly lit row of her sleeping shipmates, sprawled head to toe, parallel to the corridor walls. T
he few emergency air supplies Faulwell and Abramowitz had been able to find were given—on Dr. Lense’s orders—to Corsi, Piotrowski, Gold, and Shabalala. Their lives rest in Fabe’s and Kieran’s hands now, Gomez thought. The crew had done all they could without main power, and the best thing any of them could do now was rest and conserve air. Recovering the warp core from the Orion—if, in fact, it was still in one piece—was the da Vinci’s only chance of escaping the atmosphere before its integrity field collapsed.

  The worst-case scenarios paraded through Gomez’s mind, one after another: If Duffy and Stevens failed to modify the probe correctly…if the probe failed to locate the Orion…if the Orion’s warp core had been destroyed…if the da Vinci crew were unable to recover, install, or activate the salvaged core in time…Gomez’s morbid reverie was cut short by the chirp of her combadge, followed by Conlon’s voice. “Conlon to Gomez.”

  Gomez turned away from the aft corridor and stepped away from the open door. “Go ahead.”

  “Partial life support restored in main engineering.” Conlon paused to catch her breath, then continued. “Maintenance bays are intact. Primary deuterium injector repaired.”

  “Good work, Nancy. You should get some rest.”

  “Not…” Gomez heard Conlon cough and fight to draw another good breath. She imagined that as hot as it was on the bridge, it had to be far worse for Conlon, who was working alone in main engineering, trying to effect repairs that usually required a full complement of engineers under even the best of circumstances. “Not yet,” Conlon said. “Still have to replace…the antimatter injector.”

  “What’s after that?”

  “Just…the easy part…. Installing…and cold-starting…a warp core…from a floating wreck.”

  “Just hang on, Nancy,” Gomez said. “As soon as the probe’s ready, I’ll send Duffy down to help you.”

  “Thanks, Commander…. Conlon out.”

  The channel closed with a barely audible click. Gomez slumped down into a chair in front of one of the gutted aft stations, all too aware that she and the surviving crewmembers of the da Vinci had just under two hours to perform a miracle.

  * * *

  The near-silent vibration of the medical tricorder in Elizabeth Lense’s hand woke her from a groggy half-sleep. She had set the tricorder to alert her if any of her critical patients’ vital signs changed significantly. She glanced at its display and saw a strong series of biometric readings from Captain Gold.

  Lense sat up quickly, then stopped as a wave of dizziness robbed her of balance. The air had become dangerously rich with carbon dioxide and left her light-headed. She put her air supply to her mouth, pulled a breath of clean oxygen/nitrogen mix into her lungs, and slowly stood up. She exhaled into the rebreather and took another breath as she walked slowly to Gold, who was sitting up against the corridor wall and cradling his left forearm. He stared down at the surgically neat, bandaged stump of his arm—or, more correctly, he stared past it, to where his left hand used to be. He looked up and took the emergency rebreather from his mouth as Lense crouched beside him.

  “Doctor,” Gold said, his voice rough and dry. He coughed.

  “Welcome back, Captain,” Lense said. “What’s the last thing you remember before waking up just now?”

  “I wasn’t hit in the head, Doctor,” Gold said, raising his left arm and wincing slightly at the effort. “My hand and my tactical officer both being crushed. I remember all too well.”

  Lense scanned Gold with her medical tricorder and nodded. “You lost a lot of blood, and you went into shock,” she said. “I just want to be sure you—” She paused as he used his right hand to begin pushing himself back to his feet. She stood and put a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?” she said sternly. He continued to pull himself back to a standing position. Unwilling to force her commanding officer back onto the deck, she relented and removed her hand.

  “Captain, please,” she said. “You’re in no condition to—”

  “Doctor, I just woke up in the corridor behind the bridge. I’m missing a hand, nearly half my crew is sleeping on the deck, and it’s so hot I feel like I’m living in my wife’s oven. I get the impression we’re still in trouble, and I’m going to the bridge to get a report from whoever has the conn. Do you have anything you need me to sign before I go?”

  Lense sighed. She reached into her shoulder bag, took out a small hypospray, and prepared it with a small dose of amber medicine. “You lost a lot of blood, and the ship’s air is going fast,” she said. “Let me give you our last dose of tri-ox. It’ll help you keep your strength up.”

  Gold nodded his consent. “That better not be a sleeper shot,” he said. Lense took it partly as a joke, but also as a warning. There was a soft hiss as she injected him.

  “Not a chance, sir,” she said. “I’m saving those, just in case.” Gold wrinkled his brow at her.

  “Just in case what?”

  She didn’t want to tell him she intended to sedate the crew if the implosion of the ship became imminent. She wouldn’t impair their faculties while there remained a fighting chance for survival, but if the plan she had overheard Gomez and Duffy hatching on the bridge failed, she intended to make the crew’s final moments as painless and peaceful as possible.

  “Just…in case,” she said. She closed her shoulder bag and moved aft to check on Corsi and Piotrowski. She felt Gold’s eyes linger on her back for a moment, then she heard his footsteps recede as he moved forward to the bridge.

  * * *

  Stevens guided an antigrav sled into the makeshift hangar the crew had set up for the two, industrial-size Work Bug utility craft they had brought aboard five weeks earlier. On the antigrav sled was the probe he had just finished modifying.

  Duffy was at the far side of the hangar, making final adjustments to Work Bug Two’s auxiliary harness so that it would be able to carry the probe, which was not a standard part of its equipment inventory.

  “Still a few things left to tweak,” Duffy said, glancing up from his work. “I thought you were going to comm me as soon as the probe was ready.”

  Stevens parked the antigrav sled next to the bulky, battered yellow spacecraft. “I was going to, but I had to scavenge my combadge’s transceiver to get the tricorder interplexed with the sensor array,” he said.

  “Good idea,” Duffy said. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

  At least he’s got his sense of humor back, Stevens thought. “Anything I need to know about launching this thing?” Stevens said. Duffy shrugged.

  “I linked the release mechanism to the welding circuit,” Duffy said. “That work for you?”

  “Sure, no problem,” Stevens said. “As long as the null-field generator holds out.” The Work Bug suddenly seemed far more beat-up and fragile than he remembered. He wasn’t looking forward to making another flight through the atmosphere. Although it was far less turbulent at this depth than it was above, the environment was still hostile and chaotic enough to make Stevens wary of overestimating his own piloting skills.

  “You’ll be fine,” Duffy said as he turned off his sonic screwdriver. “Either that, or we’ll all die hideous deaths.”

  “Have I ever mentioned that you inspire me?” Stevens said.

  “No, but I suspected as much.” Before Stevens could craft another verbal riposte, Duffy’s combadge chirped.

  “Lense to Duffy.”

  “Duffy here. Go ahead.”

  “Is Stevens with you?”

  Duffy shot a disgusted glance at Stevens. “Hey, Fabe, it’s for you.” Stevens raised an eyebrow, then leaned toward Duffy’s combadge and made an exaggerated show of speaking at the second officer’s chest.

  “Stevens here. Go ahead, Doc.”

  “The patient you asked about is regaining consciousness,” Lense said. Stevens had asked her to inform him if da Vinci security chief Domenica Corsi’s condition changed. Lense was one of only a handful of people aboard the da Vinci who knew of the
one-night stand Stevens and Corsi had shared months ago. She also knew that what had begun as a quickly forgotten tryst had recently started evolving into something entirely different.

  Stevens looked at Duffy, who was also among the small number of people who knew of the budding connection between him and Corsi. “You can hook this up by yourself, right?” Stevens said, nodding his head sideways toward the probe. Duffy frowned.

  “You have to launch it in less than ten minutes.”

  “I’ll be back in five,” Stevens said.

  Duffy sighed, then nodded. Stevens tossed the antigrav sled’s control padd to Duffy and jogged toward the door. “On my way, Doc,” Stevens said. As Stevens bounded out of the hangar bay, he barely heard from behind him Duffy’s string of grumbled curses, which were drowned out by the sound of a sonic screwdriver being pounded repeatedly against something metallic.

  * * *

  Not like this…

  Corsi’s last thoughts before losing consciousness aboard the Orion echoed in her mind as she shuddered awake. Her skin tingled uncomfortably. She was aware she was lying on the deck, and that her pressure suit had been removed. The heat was stifling and the air hazy. A standard-issue Starfleet emergency rebreather covered her nose and mouth.

  She tried to lift her right hand to remove the rebreather, but her right arm was numb. Not numb, she realized as her right leg also failed to respond to her efforts to stand. It’s paralyzed. I’m paralyzed.

  She concentrated on moving the fingers of her left hand. With great effort, she felt them slowly curl into a fist and uncurl. Her left arm was wrapped around something. She remembered that paralytics and amputees sometimes believed they could sense phantom limbs. Fearing the worst, she gently rolled her head to the left and lowered her chin.

  Looking down the line of her arm, she saw her family’s twenty-first-century heirloom firefighter’s axe, safe in its transparent aluminum case and tucked securely beneath her arm. She opened her left hand and closed it around the case. I’m back on the da Vinci, she thought. I’m home.