by Various
"Clam up, Ring. Just clam up."
"Flirt."
"Both of you ... this is unhelpful." Shucorion didn't enjoy interrupting Ring and Bonifay in their prickled communion, or in particular conversing at all. On the main screen, a view of the grave ship and the gateway's flicker had become a torturous mock, and somehow worse than anything he had ever endured. A large statement, considering all.
Nick Keller was in a horrible place and to their nearest calculation he had been there more than a year. What could possibly take so long? Was he dead? Was he trapped?
On the sci-deck, Savannah Ring maintained constant contact with Riutta on the grave ship, monitoring the energy output to the gateway. As Shucorion watched her shoulders tighten and her body shift from foot to foot with nervousness, he realized how deeply this tragic decision dug into them all.
"We're down to the last chamber of zombies," she reported, sensing his gaze. "Any one of those corpses could nourish a power system on our side for months. But to keep that gateway open, we're pouring them in like penny candy."
She didn't look down at him, or acknowledge that he heard her.
Shucorion clasped his hands tightly, very tightly. What should he decide, and when?
He crossed the deck to the starboard rail. At the impulse/mule desk, Zane Bonifay indeed made a pathetic sight, his face hot and wet, throat tight, his hands dug halfway through his black hair, both elbows planted in frustration upon the pulpit's wrist roll. His reddened eyes were fixed on one of the dozen small screens, each of which was crammed from frame to frame with numbers, several of them running complex data in some kind of computer panic.
"I can't do it..." His voice caught hi his throat. He was a child again, helpless to affect what he saw. "There's no way to replicate or match then- power levels. It's ... it's time-compressed somehow. This is like cramming a whole year's worth of starship power into one day. The grave ship's still working on other-universe time."
"We can't keep the gateway open then," Shucorion concluded.
"Not a chance," Bonifay mourned on a sob. "We have the energy, but we can't time-compress it" He slumped further, and pressed his hands to his face and finger-painted with his own tears. "Can't we go after him?"
"No."
Bonifay pivoted sharply. "Why not? Because you won't take a risk?"
"Because he ordered us not to go."
Perhaps Bonifay saw the misery in Shucorion's own expression, for he retracted his contempt and went back to simple suffering.
Shucorion pressed his elbow to the rail, leaned there, and peered at the gateway. "I should never have let him go-Behind him, Bonifay mumbled something in a dull tone. The words were lost.
Shucorion turned. "Something?"
With an agonized sigh, Bonifay slumped against the useless readout board. "I said ... it's not your fault."
"My thanks. I don't know my role here yet. Thus, I fail."
"You're in command now. That's your role." Bonifay gathered his emotions somewhat and turned back to his miserable attempts to widen this narrowing tunnel they were in.
The turbolift hissed. When Shucorion turned, Delytharen stood on the quarterdeck, unhappy and stern.
"Avedon," Shucorion greeted.
"I have come for the criminal," the Blood commander announced.
"Mr. Keller has not yet returned."
"He never will return. The gateway has consumed him. I offer my sympathies."
"Your sympathies!" Grief boiled out of Bonifay. He pushed up from his chair.
Shucorion raced to the aft steps and got between them in time to block Bonifay's charge. Delytharen, though missing an arm and twice Bonifay's age, would easily have turned the bosun to pulp. In fact, the other Avedon did not even flinch at the attempted threat.
"He is in my custody," Shucorion said, holding Bonifay behind his arm. "The agreement will be satisfied."
Delytharen tilted his head and scolded, "You know better than this ..."
"I do, but I'm stalling."
Bonifay relaxed his pressure on Shucorion's arm. "Subtle."
"You must realize Keller is wrong to protect him," Delytharen attempted. "Belle Terre needs Blood Many, and we will not help them if Keller refuses to punish this man."
"Questions have arisen," Shucorion said. He heard uncertainty come out in his tone and knew Delytharen heard it too. "Flexibility may be required from Blood Many."
"Never." Delytharen shifted and gazed at him. "You will topple us all with these caprices. You should be the bulwark here. Instead, you flex."
"He's a rebel," Bonifay commented. "Rebels flex." The anger seemed to have gone out of him, or something else had taken over. He moved back, away from Delytharen and Shucorion, folded his arms, and sadly leaned against the burbling consoles at the communications station.
"I will take him," Delytharen quietly claimed.
Shucorion shook his head. "Not until - "
"Activity!" On the sci-deck Savannah Ring bolted to the forward rail. "Oh, please!"
At the helm and nav stations, Creighton and Quinones popped to renewed life, to new tension. Zoa stood up at tactical, staring forward.
"Sir, I'm readying metallic objects!" Creighton cried. "Could it be ships?"
At the helm, Quinones blurted, "Should we go and meet them? Should we?"
Dropping from the quarterdeck to the main arena, Shucorion felt his chest tighten. "I will never doubt him again if he has done this thing ..."
No one else spoke as they watched the gateway's insides smolder, brighten like a spotlight behind smoke, and ultimately spew a single bulb-shaped ship made entirely of brass. The new ship was alone for only seconds before four more ships came behind it, then four more, and more and even more after those, until a swarm of brassy ships crowded space around the frigate.
"Those are transports if I ever saw one!" Creighton said, shivering with excitement. "Bet there's a thousand people on every one!"
The crew rose in a singular cheer that charged Shucorion to the depths of his being, but he could not react himself except to stare with a daring anticipation at the oncoming ships.
"Should we hail them?" Quinones asked.
"No," Shucorion countered. "We'll give them - "
A dot of light appeared on the port side.
"Stand back!" he snapped to Quinones at the helm, then wasn't satisfied and physically pulled her out of the way.
From the dot of light, a micro-gate spun itself into presence, a hole in the air that led to heavily draped surroundings of silver and brass curtains.
"No, stay put."
It was Keller's voice! Nick Keller's voice speaking inside the micro-gate!
Shucorion almost stepped through, so magnetic was the sound of that voice. Only the greatest self-control prevented such action.
And to the good - a hand appeared on the edge of the micro-gate. A moment later, Nick Keller himself appeared - or a frazzled version of Nick Keller.
His hair, once sand-brown and casually tidy, now was beaten to a crispy shag about his shoulders, blackened at the ends as if burned. His friendly face was leathery from exposure, his clothing a perfect nightmare. He wore his regular trousers and burgundy crew sweater, but they were gaudily patched with interwoven segments of chain mail where some catastrophe or other had torn them. The left sleeve was entirely mail now, and it had brass patches on the silverwork. More than one catastrophe, apparently. What must it be like through the gateway?
Fighting thoughts of his father's last years, Shucorion's heart hammered as he forced himself to stand still, to let their prodigal regain his bearings.
Keller seemed to be having trouble with his eyes. He blinked around, put out a hand to steady himself, and stepped onto the bridge. Shucorion reached out to him, to offer help if he needed it. Now Keller stepped more confidently forward. He seemed to know who had him.
The micro-gate withered and winked away behind him. He didn't give it so much as a glance.
"That you up there, she
-devil?" He peered up to where he knew the sci-deck was. Perhaps he recognized the shape of Savannah Ring, or could see the dark red of her hair.
"Right here, sheriff," she managed, controlling herself valiantly.
'Tell Riutta to stop powering the gateway. There's nobody left on the other side. We'll need the grave ship's system to move these freighters. There's no more power coming from the other side. Just let the damned hole close up for good."
"Sure," she rasped. Relief poured out. "Good idea. I can cure interstellar post-nasal drip - why not?"
"That's the spirit." Keller inhaled deeply and seemed to be tasting the air. He shielded his eyes with one hand for a moment, then focused on Shucorion. "Hey, shadow," he greeted.
On a ragged breath Shucorion asked, "Where are... the ... others?"
"They're all over on those ships, pretty much panicking." Keller pressed a hand over his eyes to block out the blaze. "And I don't blame 'em..."
Shucorion grasped his arm. "Are you all right?" "Uh-huh, but you wouldn't believe what I'm seeing! What senses forget in a few months... I'm just... dazzled!"
"I understand. I once went to the mountains on my planet to search for ore vanes. When I returned, the land looked so flat... I could scarcely breathe." Keller held up a finger. "That's it, you got it." He lowered his hand to Shucorion's arm and they held on to each other as if they might stumble without support. He looked around, adjusting, and reveled in what he saw - the quatrefoil-cut spark shield on the sci-deck, the cobalt-obsidian dome overhead, the multitude of flickering data screens, the carpet, the rail. "This bridge is ... beautiful!" Now he turned his fatigued gaze to Shucorion, to Savannah, Quinones, and Creighton, and finally to the quarterdeck at Zoa and Zane, and even Delytharen, indulging in a moment's communion with each. After all, he hadn't seen them in more than a year.
"You're all beautiful," he sighed.
Suddenly overcome, Zane Bonifay skipped down the deck steps, shot past Shucorion, and flung his arms around Keller. He tried to speak, but couldn't. The embrace spoke well enough. He had been lost to them, and they knew how long the time had been and how small the chances for this moment to have arrived at all.
"Aw, the famous Bonifay true-blue cryptomorphic gypsy campfire bearhug," Keller murmured. He smiled genuinely. The reddened skin on his cheeks and around his eyes crinkled into patterns. "Home on the Range."
"Delytharen, how are ya?"
"Mr. Keller. My congratulations on your mission."
"Thanks."
"We have an agreement."
"I know we do. Give me another minute."
"I have already - "
"You can wait another minute. Zane, come here."
Nick Keller stepped forward on the bridge, away from everyone else, to a place near the stunning visions on the main screen where a bit of privacy could be culled off. He brought Zane Bonifay with him, and motioned Shucorion back.
Zane swabbed his eyes with his sleeve and made a heartwarming effort to regain officer demeanor. He wasn't too great at it, but he tried. He wasn't the type to care much about who saw his emotions when they bared themselves.
He leaned back against the end of the quarterdeck rail and took a couple of steadying breaths. "You look I different," he commented.
"Bet I do."
Keller marveled briefly at the wonders of Bonifay's doeskin complexion and navy blue sweater, but also controlled himself to say what had waited a year to be said.
"There have to be laws. You did understand your rank and obligation. It was disrespectful to act on your own. What if there'd been a hundred crewmen on that Plume? Would you have left?" "No, course not," Zane admitted. "The decision wasn't yours to make. We can't have two people on a ship making the same decision. For every man who acts on his own, there are a hundred more who think about it, and don't. We can't have crewmen rushing to escape when we ask them to stand. If every deck acts on its own, the ship falls apart."
Zane simply folded his arms and nodded. Apparently he had been thinking about this too.
"We live in what amounts to a logging town," Keller told him quietly. "Small towns are different from other places. We need help from Shucorion's people. They have to be able to trust me - "
"I get it, Nick." Offering a gaze of surprising candor and maturity, Zane unfolded his arms and stood straight. "I said I wouldn't die for nothing. I never said I wouldn't die for something."
The bridge winked and murmured its faint electrical song around them, so different from the disorderly crackle of Metalworld.
Deeply moved by this gallant change, Keller took a moment to appreciate Bonifay, and silently let him feel the admiration. That's the spirit.
He took Zane's arm and escorted him in some kind of personal propriety to the quarterdeck, to Delytharen.
"Avedon," he addressed, "your prisoner."
"My thanks." Delytharen reached down with his one remaining hand to draw Bonifay up the steps, but Bonifay pushed the hand away.
"Don't touch me. I'm a Starfleet officer and I'm coming with you. My word's good, and so's his." He nodded toward Keller.
Delytharen seemed to respect that. "Very well. Our thanks."
Keller turned to Shucorion. "You're going with him."
"I?"
"Yes." He jammed his finger into Shucorion's chest and warned, "Make sure it's fair. Make sure it's quick."
There was something in his eyes that rattled Shucorion to the bone, and made the others cold around them.
Keller knew he had come back changed. He just hadn't quite figured out which changes were permanent.
"What will you do with the Living?" Shucorion asked.
"I'll decide that later."
With all his crew watching him, he found his way to the command chair and ran his hand along the studded forest-green leather, which looked to him as if it actually glowed.
"Whatever happens," he said, "you can bet they'll hear the ring from hell to Belle Terre."
******
STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE
HORN AND IVORY
Keith R.A. DeCandido
Chapter 1
The ax nearly took her head off.
Its wielder was large by the standards of the Lerrit Army, but she still stood half a head taller. The plate armor he wore on his chest was too small for him, and it slowed him down, making it easier to anticipate his movements, and therefore just as easy to duck the attack.
That it still almost decapitated her spoke to how long she'd been fighting. How many hours had they clashed on this grassy plain just outside the capital city? She'd long since lost track, but however long it was, the fatigue was taking its toll. Her muscles ached, her arms and legs cried out for respite.
She ignored the pleas of her limbs and fought on.
The ax-wielder probably thought the sacrifice of movement was worth the protection his armor afforded. The problem was, it only covered his chest and groin, leaving his arms, legs, and head exposed: still plenty of viable targets. So as she ducked, she swiped her staff at his legs, protected only by torn linen. She heard bones crack with the impact - the staff was made from a kava tree, so it was as hard as they came - and the Lerrit soldier went down quickly, screaming in pain at his broken leg.
She stood upright and surveyed the battlefield. The smell of mud mixed with blood combined with the faint tinge of ozone left from the morning's rainstorm to give her a slight queasy feeling, but she fought it down with little difficulty.
As they'd hoped, the Lerrit Army's formation had been broken. As last stands go, she thought, this is pretty weak. The war had been all but won on the seas, after all. Lerrit had lost all control of the port, and without the port, there was no way they could hold the peninsula, even if they somehow were able to win today.
Based on the number of Lerrit Army bodies on the ground, that wasn't going to happen.
She caught sight of General Torrna Antosso, the leader of the rebel army for whom she fought, and who looked to be the victor this da
y. As she ran toward him, one man and one woman, both much shorter than her, and both unarmored, came at her with swords. She took the woman down with a swipe of her staff, but the man was able to strike, wounding her left arm before she could dodge the blow.
Gripping the upper part of the staff with her right hand, she whirled it around so that it struck her attacker on the crown of his head. He, too, went down.
Tucking the staff under her injured arm, she put pressure on the wound with her right hand and continued toward Torrna.
