With Narv’s assistance, they had trapped all of the seven spheres located throughout the rest of the ship. Psilakis had finally realized, once they were subdued, that had they traveled much farther, they would have formed a perfect line every five decks and that, had they detonated simultaneously, they would have easily destroyed the entire ship. It was a nice bullet to have dodged, but the two remaining spheres would reach engineering in less than thirty seconds.
Sweat drenched the back of his neck. The blows he had sustained during the initial attack made his body a mass of aches and sharp spiking pains.
Psilakis didn’t care. All he knew now was that his ship would survive or would be destroyed in less than one minute.
It was the loneliest minute he had ever known.
“Two hostiles and eight escorts are approaching your position, Captain.”
Phinn ignored the report. Two circuits remained to be tested before he could safely bring the drive on line. He had preloaded terminal coordinates approximately twenty light-years from their present position. It would be a short jump, but he couldn’t safely plot a longer one without additional astrometric data he did not currently have time to feed into the navigational array.
“I know,” he heard the captain reply to Psilakis’s report.
“A few more seconds, Captain,” Phinn called, worrying that he didn’t have them.
“Best possible speed, Lieutenant,” she replied.
A warning sensor sounded, and Phinn took a precious second to see the emergency force field Ganley had erected around the core begin to overload. It would fail within seconds. He forced himself to ignore it as the computer confirmed that the navigational circuits were finally functional.
Phinn activated the shipwide comm. “All hands, prepare to go to slipstream velocity on my mark.”
“Five … four … three …”
Phaser fire erupted from the main entrance. Captain Farkas had clearly engaged the approaching hostile force.
Two spheres darted into Phinn’s peripheral vision, followed instantaneously by the bright flash of suppression beams.
“Two … one …”
Consoles near the entrance began to explode and debris rained down all around him.
“Mark.”
Phinn felt the deck leave his feet and his back hit a wall with enough force to send a flurry of stars exploding before his eyes.
Wondering at their brightness, he thought he saw another shimmer of light and had time to pray it was Captain Farkas making her escape before darkness finally took him.
Chapter Thirteen
STARDATE 58455.5
U.S.S. VOYAGER
Chakotay’s stomach tensed as Ensign Gwyn brought Voyager out of slipstream velocity. He honestly didn’t know what he hoped most to find. It would have been overly optimistic to believe they’d simply arrive and see all three ships waiting there. Though much of his internal sense of order and peace had been restored in the last month, he knew he couldn’t rely on the universe to make anything that easy for him.
Traveling through a slipstream corridor, it was impossible to engage long-range sensors, which at least would have given him a sense of what to expect. The biggest disadvantage of this marvelous technology, at least from a tactical perspective, was that you reentered normal space effectively blind.
In the event that whatever had befallen Quirinal, Planck, and Demeter had occurred this far from the known territory of the Children of the Storm, Chakotay had ordered the ship to Yellow Alert in anticipation of their arrival. As the slipstream tunnel dispersed, revealing calm open space, one part of Chakotay relaxed as the rest of him realized that the hard work was about to begin.
“Ensign Lasren, engage long-range sensors,” Eden ordered before Chakotay had the chance. As she technically outranked him, this was her prerogative, though he wondered if in her place he would have so quickly asserted his authority.
“Aye,” Lasren replied.
“Lieutenant Kim?” Chakotay asked, knowing Harry would already be compiling a tactical report.
“There are no alien contacts present,” Harry began. “Slight gravimetric variances suggest the presence of slipstream distortions.”
“Other than ours?” Eden asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Harry replied. “The variances diminish over time, and the ones created by our arrival are distinctly higher than the traces I’m reading.”
“So they made it this far,” Eden directed toward Chakotay.
“It would appear so.”
Eden rose from her seat and moved to the upper ring of the bridge to stand beside Harry. Chakotay doubted she questioned his findings; rather, her pent-up anticipation needed a little release, but pacing openly before the bridge crew wasn’t going to do much for anyone’s nerves.
“According to their mission profile, they were to group here and then Quirinal and Planck would move approximately two light-years from the debris ring surrounding the Children’s system to begin their investigations,” Eden went on. “But Demeter was supposed to remain here for the duration of their stay in this sector.”
“Captain?” Lasren said, his voice low.
“Yes?” Eden and Chakotay replied in unison.
“Sorry,” Lasren said immediately. Until a few days ago, Eden had been the only captain on the bridge, and whatever he had found had clearly thrown him far enough off his pins to forget to address Eden as Fleet Commander.
“It’s all right, Ensign,” Eden said evenly. “What is your report?”
“I’m picking up debris approximately two light-years from the debris ring.”
Chakotay’s heart sank, and a familiar heat began to rise to his face.
“What kind of debris?” he asked, forcing his voice to remain calm.
“It’s definitely of Federation origin,” Lasren replied with unmistakable regret.
“Can you be more specific?” Eden queried.
“From this distance, all I can confirm is its presence, but there isn’t enough of it to account for all three ships, ma’am.”
A heavy sigh caught in Chakotay chest.
“Is there any sign of the Children of the Storm in the vicinity of the debris?”
After a moment Lasren confirmed that there was not.
Eden looked to Chakotay, but it was clear her mind was already made up.
“I suggest we move closer to the debris at low warp,” Chakotay said. He shared her burning curiosity, but it would avail them nothing if they attracted the attention of the probable destroyers of one of their ships en route. “If there was a battle at those coordinates,” he continued, “it’s possible there are still scouts monitoring the area for the arrival of reinforcements.”
“Agreed,” Eden said firmly, though the pain in her eyes indicated how much this cost her.
“Seven of Nine to the bridge.”
Chakotay’s heart rate increased slightly. Seven would have been monitoring their arrival from astrometrics and probably would have had a clearer picture of what they were facing than Lasren, given the advanced capabilities of the tools at her disposal and the skill with which she wielded them.
“Go ahead,” Chakotay replied.
“I have located a Federation distress buoy a hundred thousand kilometers from the debris I do not doubt Ensign Lasren has already detected.”
Chakotay smiled slightly. It was a comfort to have Seven back and performing near her peak. Of course, her report complicated his initial assessment.
“What’s the vessel signature of the buoy?” Eden asked.
“It’s from Demeter,” Seven replied.
“I can take the Delta Flyer to retrieve it and be back in seven hours,” Tom offered.
Three weeks later, Chakotay wondered if seven hours would make a difference. Dangerous as it might be to move that close to the wreckage, he was no longer content to waste another second.
“That won’t be necessary, Commander,” Eden replied, obviously on the same page. “Ensign Gwyn, plot an
intercept course to the coordinates of the buoy at maximum warp as well as our return vector. I want us in and out of the area in less than three minutes. Lieutenant Kim, prepare to transport the buoy into our shuttlebay as soon as we’re in range.”
“Aye, Fleet Commander,” Gwyn replied.
“I’d like to oversee the recovery from the shuttlebay,” Harry added.
“Make it so,” Eden said with a nod, and Harry quickly exited the bridge as Tom rose to take his place at tactical.
Chakotay had spent the past eighteen hours mentally preparing himself for the worst. Now that those fears had been at least partially realized, he decided that eighteen years wouldn’t have been enough. Though the fleet wasn’t his to command, he felt that every member of it was part of him. Just because they weren’t serving on his ship, that didn’t make them any less significant to him.
Depending upon the contents of the buoy, he would soon learn exactly how many of them had lost their lives and by whose hand. He would then try very hard not to take pleasure in seeing that those responsible were made to account for their actions. It wasn’t revenge he was seeking. He already knew too well the bitterness of succumbing to wrath. But the warrior inside him demanded that whatever losses they had just sustained should not have been in vain.
As Eden returned to her seat beside him, her face was inscrutable. He took a moment to wonder how it was possible that she appeared to be taking this news better than he was.
Or maybe she’s just better than I am at hiding her emotions.
He wasn’t sure which idea disturbed him more.
The conference room was silent, and it was clear to Eden that all of the senior staff officers—Chakotay, Paris, Torres, Conlon, Patel, and Lasren—were sharing the same anxious thoughts. Finally, Kim entered with Seven of Nine and presented her and Chakotay with padds containing the logs they had downloaded from the buoy. Eden counted herself lucky that the retrieval mission had gone off without incident. In the few minutes they were there, Seven had used the astrometric sensors to take the widest possible reading of the area, and Eden hoped that once she’d had a chance to study them, they might reveal the location of two ships still counted as missing.
Kim began to speak.
“The buoy was launched on Stardate 58409.9,” he began.
“Two weeks ago?” B’Elanna asked.
Kim nodded and continued. “For the first several days of the mission, Demeter held position at these coordinates as planned. They then received a request from Planck to rendezvous in order to transfer food supplies. Up to that point and for several hours after they arrived, there had been no contact with the Children of the Storm, and apparently Captain T’Mar did not believe it likely that the ships would make contact.”
Chakotay said something softly under his breath. Though Eden didn’t catch the words, she doubted they were complimentary of T’Mar.
“Shortly after the supply transfer was complete, hundreds of contacts were detected approaching the three ships. Sensors didn’t pick them up until they were almost right on top of them.”
“What?” B’Elanna asked, obviously stunned.
“Without confirmation of this report from either Planck or Quirinal, I would hesitate to accept this as factual,” Seven said evenly. So many had spoken of Seven’s cool and placid demeanor, particularly under pressure, but until now, Eden hadn’t witnessed it firsthand. During the early weeks following Seven’s arrival, she had been wrestling with a personal issue that had clearly affected her deportment. Eden took her appearance now as further evidence that no permanent damage had been sustained by Seven in her transformation by the Caeliar.
“Why would Demeter’s computer report this but the others indicate something different?” B’Elanna asked of Seven.
“The fact that the sensors did not pick up the approaching vessels farther out suggests only that Demeter’s sensors were malfunctioning,” Seven replied simply.
“Or that the Children of the Storm are even more formidable than we first suspected,” Paris added. “They might be able to shield themselves from our sensors in ways we don’t yet understand.”
Seven favored Paris with a hard glance, but said nothing further on the subject.
Kim cleared his throat lightly and continued. “Without Quirinal’s or Planck’s logs, it’s hard to say exactly how they chose to respond to the threat. Demeter reports that Captain Farkas ordered them to remain in formation to make protecting them easier. Though Demeter’s first officer notes that he disagreed with this assessment, he was not able to successfully plot a slipstream jump that would have moved them to safety between the time that the aliens were first detected and the moment they surrounded each of the three vessels.”
“Surely they fought back,” Paris said, as if offended on their behalf.
“It had been Captain Farkas’s intention to try and make contact with the Children of the Storm. Communications were lost between the three ships the moment they were surrounded, however, and Demeter could not confirm whether or not this contact ever took place.”
Kim paused, obviously struggling with intense emotions before he collected himself and continued.
“Approximately twelve minutes after the alien vessels arrived, those surrounding Planck and Demeter shifted their formation. The individual vessels merged, creating a massive single energy field around each ship. The resonance signatures of the field shifted, and less than one minute later, Planck was destroyed.”
“By an energy field?” Eden asked, seeking confirmation.
“It will take us several hours to examine Demeter’s readings and hopefully ascertain the exact mechanism of the attack,” Seven said, “but the short answer is yes.’”
“Is that how they destroyed the Borg?” Tom interjected.
“Possibly,” Seven replied, “though after one or two such attacks, I presume the Borg would have adapted their defenses accordingly. I find it hard to believe the same tactic would have destroyed so many Borg cubes.”
“If this energy field is that powerful, I can’t imagine we’re going to find an effective countermeasure,” B’Elanna offered tensely.
“One issue at a time,” Eden advised. “Lieutenant Kim?”
“Naturally Demeter expected to suffer the same fate within seconds of Planck’s destruction, but at the time the buoy was launched, all they could report was that the field surrounding their vessel was effectively locking them out of helm control but setting them on a course away from Quirinal and toward the debris field surrounding the system that we believe to be their territory. The last thing the log notes was that Quirinal was engaging the alien vessels with phasers and that for all of their obvious power, the alien vessels were vulnerable to phasers, even at relatively low settings,” Harry finished.
“Then Quirinal survived as well,” Tom said, the relief clear in his voice.
“Possibly,” Chakotay said, obviously unwilling to allow his hopes to be raised. Turning to Eden, he added, “We should begin analysis of the readings we took when we retrieved the buoy, as well as deeper study of these logs before we settle on our next move. In the meantime, we should consider a run at high warp to retrieve Planck’s remains. They might provide further necessary evidence.”
“Am I correct in assuming that there are no escape pods or life signs present in the debris of Planck?” Eden asked of Lasren.
“You are,” Lasren replied.
“Then while I agree that those remains might be instructive, I believe we should wait before endangering ourselves further in a retrieval mission,” Eden said, noting that Chakotay’s head jerked sharply in her direction when she countermanded his suggestion.
“You’re going to leave them out there?” he asked in disbelief.
“For now, Captain,” Eden said, emphasizing his rank. Cordial respect among senior officers was important, but she wasn’t going to argue right now about who had the last word.
Chakotay held her firm gaze for a moment before turning to Lasren
. “Harry said Demeter was heading for the Borg debris field. If they made it that far and were subsequently destroyed, would you be able to detect their wreckage among the thousands of cubes?”
“Yes,” Lasren replied, “but given the volume of debris, it would take a while.”
“Like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Kim said, obviously not relishing the thought.
“Well, start looking,” Chakotay ordered. “Seven, return to astrometrics and get to work on our latest readings. See if you can find any trace of Demeter or Quirinal. Tom and Harry, you’re responsible for Demeter’s logs. I want to know everything we can possibly glean from them about the Children of the Storm’s tactics as soon as you have it.”
Harry nodded as Tom replied, “Understood, sir.”
“I’d like a copy of the logs as well,” Conlon said. “I’d like to focus on the possible sensor malfunction, if there aren’t any objections.”
“I’m with you on that,” B’Elanna added. “The fact is, if it’s true, they could be closer to us right now than we’re aware, and I’m not going to feel safe within ten light-years of that system until we can detect them.”
“You’re not going to find evidence of a sensor glitch in a log,” Seven chided her gently.
“You’d be surprised,” B’Elanna replied, a note of challenge in her voice.
“That’s fine,” Chakotay said, ending discussion. “Patel, I’d like you to work with Doctor Sharak. We have more data now than Aventine collected to add to our profile of this species. I want your best analysis as soon as possible.”
“Yes, Captain.” Patel nodded dutifully.
Chakotay then turned to Eden. “Do you have any further orders?” he asked.
Star Trek: Voyager: Children of the Storm Page 18
