STAR TREK: NEW EARTH - CHALLENGER

by Diane Carey

  The turbulence didn’t stop as it ordinarily should even in a battle. Instead they were hit again, and immediately again, as if the ship were vomiting out of control, unable to stop. Dread catapulted through the crew.

  On the main screen and most of the auxiliary monitors and sensors could deliver only shadows and faint broken graphics of the enemy ships haunting the edge of the woods, appearing only in sketchy flashes from moment to moment, their brick-red hulls and lobster-clawed prows peeking like tigers in tall grass.

  Because he had chosen to drive the ship instead of command it, Roger Lake forgot the most important order for such a time. Keller plunged forward and slapped his hand flat to the helm to get the captain’s attention.

  “Roger, let me give the order!”

  “Nobody’s stopping you.”

  “Red alert! Battle stations!”

  The amber flashes of yellow alert turned to bright red and the whooping klaxon began to sound through the Peleliu’s corridors and arteries. Lighted panels went to scarlet. All over the ship, crewmen shifted positions, went to fighting mode, rearranged priorities. All hands on deck. Automatic mechanical systems also changed, shifting power flows to more internal routes, raising defensive grids around critical hardware, and the ship’s shields popped on in full-battle readiness. Any Starfleet ship always had some nominal deflectors up to ward off space matter, but battle shields were something completely different. They siphoned tremendous power from the reserves and had to be used with discretion.

  This was definitely the time. Instantly the cruiser, compromised though she was from the battles of short days ago, bristled to defend herself again.

  “Threat vessels approaching on two sides and overhead, sir,” Hurley squeaked, his throat in a knot. “I can’t trust these readings.”

  Lake instantly added that up in his head and selected a course of action. “Port forward phasers, azimuth two-one, target twenty kilometers! Fire!”

  Twenty kilometers. Was he right? Were they that close?

  “Captain, there’s damage to the drive coils,” Engineer Lewiston reported, climbing back to his post. The other engineer was down on the deck, holding his knee.

  “Raise the deuterium temp and flush it through,” Lake said. “Then route it through to thruster power. Makarios, take your post, kid. Drive us out away from the sun, in case we lose power. Get as far out as you can. I don’t want to fight the sun’s gravity.”

  Good—he understood that he couldn’t pilot and engage in strategic command at the same time. While jarring hits pummeled the ship from several directions, Lake barked orders and swung the vessel this way and that, taking shots that efficiently answered each hit, even though he couldn’t see who was firing at them or with what.

  Cranking on impulse drive, the tormented Peleliu heaved through bouts of agony. With every turn, her captain’s voice cut through the alarms and bloodcurdling cracking noises and ruptured matrices quailing for attention.

  “Captain, the shields are slipping!” Lewiston shouted. “I can’t correct it! I can’t stop it! Sixty percent . . . forty—”

  “Stabilize the damn things,” Lake snarled.

  “Trying, sir!”

  “Makarios, vector nine, hard starboard. Hurley, aim azimuth six-two-two and fire! Come about!”

  That maneuver put their strongest remaining shields in the direction of the shots. No matter his state of mind, Lake was a battle-savvy captain and he had guts. Nobody could deny that. This wasn’t cowardice at work, but something completely else.

  “Shields still dropping,” Lewiston suffered. “Only ten percent now, sir, barely holding.”

  The crew did their best, but they’d lost confidence in him. Only the structure of orders and responses kept their actions flowing together, but Keller noticed they were faltering. With every order there was a critical moment of interruption before someone managed to follow it. They didn’t believe in Lake anymore. They knew he’d gotten them into this. They knew the operative wisdom in this situation was to retreat, hide in the sensor darkness, confound the ambush by ducking it.

  Lake wasn’t retreating. In his feral savagery he was trying to fight, even with his sight masked and his arms bound behind his back. His actions demanded that the crew do the same. He’d lost his connection with wisdom, as Bonifay had suspected, and was trying to show it in a completely befouled manner.

  Operational profiles—pictures of the innards of the ship, unaffected by the sensor darkness—suddenly went black. They were blind to whatever moved outside, but could no longer assess their own condition inside. Tactical and auditory feedback failed, causing alarms to go off all over the bridge, each board crying for help, assistance, power, attention, in fear for its life. The jangle was maddening.

  “Torsion relief’s failing in the main section!” McAddis called. “Phantoms are using some kind of solid ordnance, not just energy. We’re getting hull plates pierced all over, and its taking out local systems.”

  Keller pulled himself to the rail under Shucorion. “What are those things hitting us?”

  Shucorion held on tightly, one hand on the vestibule brace, and one on the engineering console’s edge. “Javelins, propelled from launch shafts.”

  “Metal?”

  “Yes. They’re forged from ruined bridges on both our planets. A very simple type of weapon, though usually we use them only for defense, at close range, as a distracting device—”

  A brain-twisting roar buried their communication. Through the side of the bridge, directly from space, bored a huge metal rod the diameter of a man’s arm—a real metal rod, not just a spear of energy—leaving a hissing hole in its wake. The javelin plunged right across the bridge to the other side, where it buried its point and half its shank into the tripolymer transparent wafer, peeling it like fruit rind and exposing page edges of the embedded sensor matrix. Over that console, six of the subprocessor terminals exploded. The whole starboard side was swallowed in sparks and smoke, even open flame.

  So much for Shucorion’s bothering to describe the javelins.

  The sheer impact drove Keller to the deck, onto his knees. Somehow he managed never to take his eyes off the horrifying presence of the javelin. Its blunt end wobbled with a metallic hum of dissipating energy.

  A thump on the deck beside him almost knocked him over. Shucorion grasped Keller around the body and hoisted him to his feet. “I don’t understand why Kauld would use javelins now,” he called over the pounding noises and sparking. “This is a move of desperation. They clearly have advantage over us.”

  “All the crossfeeds are down,” Tim McAddis called.

  Leaving Shucorion behind, Keller forced his screaming back and shoulder muscles to propel him across to the science side. “All of them?”

  “Every goddamn one of them.”

  “Yikes. Hold on.” He turned again, this time to Lake, and spoke as forcefully as he knew how. “We need a power reallocation, Captain! I need clearance!”

  “Given.”

  “RCS switch to manual, Tim.”

  “Switching. Thanks, Nick . . .”

  Keller climbed to the upper deck and helped enable the switchover, he knew what McAddis meant. He’d managed to manipulate Lake just enough to get the right things done. He could shout the orders himself and by the time Lake countermanded him things might change, but the danger of that was almost immeasurable. To have two people barking commands—a perfect formula for disaster on a ship.

  At his side, Bonifay made himself useful by turning the sealant foam to put out a fire where the javelin had sheared into the bridge’s hidden conduits and exposed hot electrical circuitry.

  “Nick!”

  The turbolift had opened. A gout of smoke puffed from its maw, carrying with it the ravaged, burned, and limping Savannah Ring.

  “Aw!” Keller bellowed his frustration and crossed in time to catch her as she collapsed. “What happened? Where were you?”

  “Sickbay—” she wheezed. “I was—I was—ju
st—walking out—sickbay got hit—Harrison—Harrison’s dead. . . .”

  The ship’s only doctor. Sickbay obliterated?

  “What about the others?” Keller demanded. “Nurse Mikolay? The interns?”

  Savannah tried to speak, but her raw throat closed and she gagged, crumpling in his arms. Her lips moved soundlessly. Her eyes, though, were shock-clear, and told the rest.

  Sickbay smashed. All the medical personnel dead.

  “Decks four and five—” she gagged, “ripped almost completely out! We’ve got—to retreat!” The words gulped from her gullet. Her fingernails dug into his arm.

  Lewiston hammered his controls, but from his expression all could see he was having no effect. “We’re experiencing almost total hardware and software collapse, Captain!”

  “We’ve got to move off!” Hurley cried from where he clung to the nav station. His chair had been reduced to a pile of splinters beside him, crushed by the javelin.

  Like a magnetic field Hurley’s words attracted the caustic poisoned glare of their captain. Lake’s voice was guttural and burned. “Don’t give orders, Hurley! I knew you were against me!”

  On the upper deck, Keller pulled Savannah to her knees, hoping the position would help her breathe, but she wasn’t looking for comfort. Pushing aside his attending hand, she all but struck him.

  “For God’s sake, Nick,” she choked, “take over.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t take over unless the captain’s out of commission.”

  The rest of the argument took place only in Savannah Ring’s eyes.

  Infused by the crashing of the universe around him, he pushed to his feet and promised her with a glance that he would try to change what was happening.

  He jumped over the wreckage now cluttering the steps and came around in front of the helm.

  “Roger, we can’t keep this up!” he shouted. “We can sink back into Gamma Night and let it protect us! They won’t be able to track us if we stop firing! You’re leading them to us with our own weapons fire!”

  “WARNING WARNING WARNING BRIDGE ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS ON FULL RESERVE WARNING WARNING”

  “Shut that off!” Lake snarled. He twisted his hands into Hurley’s uniform and pulled the navigator to him. “You’re trying to commit suicide, aren’t you? Go out in a blaze of glory? I won’t let you do it. I’m your captain! I’ll protect you from yourselves!” He threw Hurley to one side and turned on the rest of the bridge personnel. “Everybody, hands off the controls! Hands off! I’m taking over! Me and Nick’ll do it.”

  “Roger,” Keller bellowed, “the crew!”

  “Chan, get away from communications. Get up there and handle environmental.”

  Baffled, Chan stumbled up the ladder, to take a useless post. What was the captain thinking?

  Lake heard the coming protest before Keller could speak it. “Security, turn your phaser on any crewman who refuses to give up his controls. Shoot down the next bastard who puts his hand on a grid!”

  The two security guards stepped forward out of the lift vestibule, phasers drawn—as crazy as that order was, they were trained to follow it. They knew, had it drilled into them, that a million unexpected things might happen in space and the scaffold of rank orders would save lives and fulfill missions. Do as ordered. Don’t question. There are things you might not know. The questions happen at some other level, not yours. Keller hoped they would hesitate, but knew better than to expect them to.

  At this horrid moment a third javelin slammed through the bridge dome from almost directly above the helm. With a huge exaggerated twang it drove downward. Makarios was instantly and obviously killed. The javelin also raked Hurley’s left thigh, but missed killing him by millimeters. It also provided the ironic favor of yanking Hurley out of Lake’s grip and flinging him behind Keller.

  Lake started forward, toward Hurley. He was still fixed on blaming somebody for this.

  This time Keller stepped directly into the captain’s path and with a firm hand shoved him back toward the singing shaft of the newest javelin. “Stay away from him, Roger.”

  Pausing, Lake held out his sweaty hands. “Nick . . . not you too. I knew they were all getting sick. I didn’t think you’d catch it.”

  Keller locked his legs. Behind him, despite her own injuries, Savannah dragged herself down to Hurley and pressed the heel of her hand to the gash in his thigh, trying to stop the artery from bleeding him to death. Hurley’s gasps of pain were as forbidding as the hissing punctures left in the ship’s body by the javelins.

  As Keller watched the captain’s face, something changed. An appalling and gruesome alteration happened in the red-ringed eyes and perspiration-sheeted face. To watch it made Keller’s stomach drop.

  “Guards,” Lake began, “if Mr. Keller takes one more step, stun him.”

  Despite the battle going on around them and the ringing blows of enemy fire, Nick Keller and Roger Lake might as well have been on a lonely moon, by themselves, as the captain uttered a new vow in his deformed idea of gallantry.

  “I’ll protect you too, Nick, if I have to.”

  Security would back him up. He was the captain. They didn’t know the truth, the secret.

  Whatever might have happened next, no one would know. The gods descended from above and interfered. A sonorous cracking noise busted through the tension and installed pure terror in its place.

  Every face turned upward, to the cries of the bridge dome overhead.

  As they watched, helpless, the bridge dome physically shuddered. A fissure appeared diagonally across the hood, first just a hair, then finger-width. Then its lips began to part into a ghastly smile. In the manner of a continent separating at a fault line, the two sides of the bridge dome began to move apart like tectonic plates. A vortex of atmosphere spiraled into the crack and raced for open space, whistling like demons.

  Over their heads, the bridge dome fractured. The saucer section of the Cruiser Peleliu began to split down the middle like a broken cookie.

  Chapter Fourteen

  UP ON THE SCI-DECK, mere inches from the dome, Tracy Chan screamed as she was lifted from her seat by the sudden suction of atmosphere fuming toward the finger-width crack in the bridge dome. Even though the gravitational compensators battled to hang on to each living body on the bridge, Chan was ninety pounds after a big meal. The crack just over her head, she soared like Peter Pan toward the overhead dome, struck the cracking sheeting with her tiny pointed shoulder, and the sheer force of the draw broke her body like ripe fruit. The dome opened its ragged lips and devoured her. She was gone—gone!

  Keller bellowed in agony, fingers clawing upward. From above he felt the drag of open space, from below the draw of gravitons as the ship fought to keep hold of him. Savannah and Zane Bonifay were entangled in the rail struts and also had him by both legs.

  The compensators shrieked. The ship wrestled with itself. Roger Lake held on to the command chair and stared up at the crack in complete horror. Above, the fissure grated its teeth and opened wide enough to see space, clear and black, and even a Kauld ship streaking by.

  Torn data membranes and microfoamed sheeting from the destroyed panels splattered upward and raced out the fissure. In his periphery Keller caught a maddening view of Zoa’s braids flapping as she too clasped the bridge rail and held on. The farther down they were, the better the ship’s gravity system could hold them. New air whined into the bridge, desperately replacing the oxygen being sucked out in frosty streams. Opposite Keller, Shucorion had one arm linked through a handhold on the bulkhead, and the other around Rick Lewiston. Both their faces were distorted into grotesque masks, their hair fuming upward like flames.

  Above, on the sci-deck, dangerously near the opening fissure in the dome, Tim McAddis let out a long howl—he was too close to the crack! The suction!

  Keller tried to cry out, but his voice was stolen away. McAddis lost his grip on the sci-deck rail and slammed spine-first across the crack in the dome. Wider in the sh
oulders and bigger boned than Chan, McAddis slammed diagonally across the crack and blocked the widest part of the gap, his arms splayed out to his sides, his face twisted.

  The whole bridge shook. Its two sides flexed independently from each other under Keller’s feet—the deck was fracturing! In mere seconds, the compensators would lose their fight and all of them would be sucked out.

  But Tim McAddis, pressed against the crack with his fingernails digging at the duranide, gave Keller precious seconds by blocking the suction. Twisting, Keller made a wild reach for the canister of sealant. His right hand failed, but his left closed around the hose. He dragged the huge tank to his chest and used its weight to stabilize himself against the two forces pulling on him from above and below. The nozzle fell into his hand, shaped like a phaser casing. He aimed it upward, fighting the swirl of air racing for space.

  He looked up, but hesitated.

  Pinned to the ceiling, McAddis screamed, “Do it! Do it! Doooo it!”

  Seconds to live. The oxygen compensators would lose their battle any instant. The bridge would saw itself in half.

  “Tim!” The nozzle in Keller’s hand was actually cold. He aimed it.

  McAddis screamed again. “Do it, Nick! Do it! Do it!”

  Hearing his own name caused Keller’s hand to close on the nozzle trigger. A narrow funnel of yeasty gray compound sprayed up at the dome structure. Each fleck swelled as it hit the ceiling, bonding until the long thin crack began to seal. Once begun, there was nothing to do but keep going, keep spraying the sealant up and down the crack, right over McAddis as he kept screaming, “Do it! Do—”

  His last syllable was cut off suddenly. He sucked the chemical bond down his throat and into his lungs, where the glutinous mass swelled and hardened. Between his fingers and eyelashes, follicles and pores, the bonding agent welded McAddis to the closing crack as he gave his life to save his shipmates below. Astonished, they watched him die at Nick Keller’s hands.