The Face of the Unknown

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Now, don’t argue, Linar. With what’s at stake, the ­Fesarius can’t sit on the sidelines any longer.”

  “I understand that, Commander. But what about the other Dassik?”

  Balok blinked and traded a surprised look with Bailey. “What other Dassik?”

  The voice of Almis, Balok’s chief science and medical officer, took over. “Commander, we’ve detected a sizeable number of Dassik warships heading for Cherela. At least six vessels. They’re less than an hour away, at best.”

  Bailey frowned. “The interference from the bombardment must be blocking the Web’s sensors. And the Enterprise is too busy defending the planet.”

  The Linnik captain needed only a moment to think. “New plan, then, Linar. Move to intercept the incoming Dassik force. Send ahead as many buoys as you can to delay them. We should be able to rendezvous with you before they arrive.”

  “But—” Again, Linar stopped herself. “Yes, Commander. But you’d better get here soon, you old trickster.”

  “Leave a light on for us, Linar. Balok out.”

  Bailey turned to the captain. “Will those buoys hold them for long? We were able to blow one up with one shot.”

  “Only because I let you. With their defensive screens up, they can last a while longer.” Balok’s uncertainty made him look more childlike than Bailey had grown ­accustomed to perceiving him. “At least, I hope so. And if Cherela’s secret is out . . . then anything we do may simply be delaying the end.”

  * * *

  Kirk was caught in the middle of a stampede.

  The Tessegri were an intelligent, reasonable people most of the time, but like most other species, they could succumb to blind panic, and that was what had happened here. If anything, the Tessegri world module had suffered less than many others: The Enterprise had successfully deflected the cube missile that would have detonated near it, and though the planetary-scale thunderstorms outside were growing stronger than ever, they were inflicting little direct damage on the module. But the psychological ­effect of the storms, in combination with the swaying and gravity shifts within the module and the reports of the devastation befalling other habitats around the Web, had spooked this population of intense, energetic ­beings into a frenzy. They were racing madly through the wide boulevards between arcologies, not knowing where to go, just succumbing to their species’ instinct to run. ­Hundreds of Tessegri, Linnik, Kisaja, and others had been trampled to death already, and even as Kirk watched, he saw others being pushed off the edges of raised ­boulevards to plummet into the crowds below, probably causing other casualties on impact.

  Beside him, Aranow was shouting, “Everyone, please stay calm!” as loudly as she could, but with little effect; she was barely audible over the tumult of the mob, and they weren’t inclined to listen anyway. He could see the tension in Aranow’s lean frame, the struggle to resist succumbing to the instinct herself. Nisu had tried spearing groups of Tessegri with her stupefying Kisaja gaze, but those groups had merely been left as sitting ducks for trampling by those behind them, and she’d quickly had to stop trying.

  Only Aranow’s quick reflexes and Nisu’s ability to sense approaching minds had enabled the group to dodge the panicking crowds until they reached their destination arcology. Within, things were better only to the extent that the occupants had already fled for open ground. But those thousands who remained were still in the throes of panic. Doors were smashed open, indoor trees and gardens trampled to ruin. Bodies were strewn on the ground, some moving, others not.

  Kirk looked around, seeing large overhead screens futilely projecting what he assumed were instructions not to panic, though he couldn’t read the script. He caught Nisu’s gaze and shouted, “If we get to a transmitter, can you project your gaze effect over the screens?”

  “No,” she replied without shouting; he heard it in his mind as much as his ears. “Only face-to-face.”

  “Damn it!” He looked around, caught sight of one of the massive spiraling ramps that led to the upper levels of the arcology. Tessegri were falling from it too, but its low gravity diminished the damage so long as they didn’t fall too far. Which was little comfort for those who did.

  “We’re here!” Aranow cried, pointing at a self-­contained, miniature glass ziggurat within the open space of the arcology. She ran toward it, dodging her panicked conspecifics, and Kirk led Nisu after her, his mind racing.

  But their path to the control center was blocked by a crowd of Tessegri, Linnik, Bogosrin, and others who were trying to force their way inside, perhaps in some desperate attempt to fix the problem or save themselves. “Please let us through!” Nisu called.

  Some of them jerked around warily. “Get away! We were here first!”

  “We have a plan to protect the Web,” Kirk told them. “But you have to let us inside!”

  More were turning to face them, eyes widening at the sight of the human. “It’s Kirk!” one of them cried.

  “Kirk?” The others echoed the name one by one, turning away from the control center and focusing on him. “The world-killer!”

  “This is your doing!”

  “You brought the Dassik down on us!”

  “Get him!”

  “Kill him!”

  The group closed in on the trio, shouting angrily. Kirk was shocked by the barrage of hate; he’d felt the same hostility from Warden Mure and the prison staff, but he hadn’t realized until this moment just how widely Tirak had spread his message of xenophobia.

  “Stand down!” Nisu shouted, bringing her gaze to bear on the crowd. A few of them slowed, but there were too many, and they were too angry. They surged forward around the ones in her eyes’ grip, knocking her over. Kirk caught her and pulled her back to her feet.

  “Protect the transmitter at all costs!” Kirk cried. He grabbed the first Tessegri and tossed him aside with a judo throw. A Bogosrin swung at his head; he ducked and threw a sharp kick at his attacker’s shin. Nisu stunned the Bogosrin; as the ursine alien staggered, Kirk slammed shoulder first into his chest, knocking him back onto two of the attackers, immobilizing them. Nisu stunned them before they could drag their limbs and tails out from under the Bogosrin’s bulk.

  More Tessegri were charging Kirk, and his attempt to dodge them was hampered by a couple of Linnik pounding feebly on his thighs. One Tessegri’s bullwhip tail caught him in the flank, a glancing blow that sent him tumbling. Once again, he was amazed by how fast they could move. He staggered to his feet, the intense pain in his side telling him he’d probably bruised a rib.

  “All of you, stop this instant!” Aranow cried. “That’s an order! I’m a triumvir! Really!”

  But they were past listening, or maybe they blamed the Triumvirate as much as Kirk for the current danger. Jim pulled her back out of the path of a Tessegri attacker’s kick, then surged forward with a roundhouse punch that sent the attacker down for the count. Another Tessegri sent a high kick at his head, but he leaned back enough that it only grazed his scalp. It dazed him for a moment, but he’d been through worse many times before, so he shook it off and lunged at the kicker, felling him with a fist to his gut and another to his jaw.

  All legs and tail, he realized. They aren’t used to fistfights. Good to know.

  Unfortunately, not all the attackers were Tessegri. A more humanoid mob member, red-skinned and spiny-headed, got him in a headlock and wrenched his head back. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed the humanoid’s teeth were going for his throat. Then a sharp shock went through the attacker’s body, knocking Kirk’s remaining breath from him as well, and the red-skinned man sank to the floor. Kirk saw Aranow standing there, panting and lowering her tail. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Owed you. Duck!”

  It went on like that for a while, but between Kirk’s fists, Nisu’s stunner and eyes, and Aranow’s increasingly attractive tail, they managed to make it to the entrance of the
control center, whereupon Nisu’s codes got them inside. They were all bruised and bleeding, but essentially intact. Most importantly, so was the transmitter.

  Once he’d caught his breath, Kirk turned to the females. “Can we cancel Cherela’s gravity completely? Keep everyone floating in midair so they can’t run and fall?”

  Nisu shook her head. “It would take too much power. And if the antigrav system failed . . .”

  Kirk nodded, then closed his eyes and winced. “Then we have to reduce its power. Turn up the gravity, everywhere but here. Make everyone so heavy they can’t move.”

  Aranow’s eyes widened. “But . . . those who fall, or those buried under bodies . . .”

  “I know. But it’s the only choice!”

  Eyes glistening, Aranow nodded. “You’re right. Nisu, do it.”

  “Yes, Triumvir,” the Kisaja said solemnly.

  It was an incongruously simple operation, the press of a few buttons, the entry of a few override codes. Within thirty seconds, all the Tessegri, Linnik, and others outside were pressed to the ground, immobilized by their own weight. They screamed in panic, but most of them were safe . . . for now.

  Loud groans echoed through the vast indoor chamber as the arcology settled under its augmented weight. “Aranow, get on the public channel, try to keep the people calm. Tell them they’ll be okay.”

  She nodded. “Lie. Got it.”

  “Nisu, let’s get the transmitter in place and get this done,” Kirk said, “before one of the boulevards gives way.” He looked up. “Or something else.”

  * * *

  The bridge of the Enterprise trembled under a barrage of Dassik disruptor fire, thunder crashing with the impact of each plasma bolt. Montgomery Scott strove to ignore it, resisting the temptation to bolt from the command chair and race down to the engine room where he belonged. He reminded himself that it was sound and fury signifying nothing—well, nothing that couldn’t be easily absorbed by a spaceframe and inertial damping system designed to handle the intense accelerations of spaceflight. The noise and vibration that got through were little more than the shield and damper generators belching after swallowing the energy of impact, or the rattling of the hull as the plasma bolts’ heat flash-vaporized the surface molecules of its protective coating. No, the real signs of peril were in the monitor readouts on the engineering stations to Scott’s left, displaying the status of the deflector shields, dampers, power systems, and the like. It was those readings that conveyed the true borderline chaos and showed how close the Enterprise was to disaster.

  “Rahda, bank sixty degrees to port,” he ordered. “Keep our narrowest profile to them. Gabler, full power to starboard lateral shields! Try to get the dorsal saucer grid reinforced in the meantime, they’re bound to go after it again!”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Rising into space had made things easier at first. The range of their phasers and torpedoes had become practically limitless, allowing them to pick off the infalling fusion charges like ducks in a shooting gallery—though it had forced them to abandon pursuit of several remaining charges in the atmosphere, and Scott could only pray all of those missed their marks. But their need to concentrate on the remaining charges had left them more or less sitting ducks themselves. The Dassik had quickly divined their intentions and reacted, one warship continuing to deploy charges while the other came about and began firing steadily on the starship, which could only do so much to evade or counterattack without letting the charges through. With the phasers and torpedoes mostly dedicated to intercepting the depth charges, the remaining phaser banks weren’t able to block every incoming beam and missile, and two had already fallen to enemy fire, leaving gaps in the ship’s coverage. The Dassik had concentrated on those gaps, and the deflector grids in those sections were taking quite a pounding. Scott’s teams below were diverting what power they could to those sections, but resources were limited and some rerouting options were off the table due to the unfinished repairs.

  And that didn’t even take into account how close the starboard warp nacelle was to catastrophic failure. The repairs to the coolant system and plasma flow regulators were still incomplete, meaning that if the nacelle came under heavy fire, it could trigger a backflow of superheated plasma that might overload the conduits throughout engineering and blow out half the secondary hull from the inside. Scott had teams riding herd on the plasma flow rates, manually keeping them steady and venting them when necessary, and Ensigns Gardner and Davis were working on a software patch that would take over the job automatically. But Scott didn’t need to be down in engineering to know that it was tough going for his people when the Dassik barrage kept knocking them off their feet and triggering overloads in vital systems, distracting them from the business of keeping themselves whole. He wished he could be down there with them, but Scott knew that the best thing he could do for them was to focus on his task up here on the bridge.

  At least most of the phaser banks and torpedo tubes were still working, successfully protecting the Web from further bombardment. But those walking scarecrows were determined sorts. “Sir,” Ensign Haines announced, “the lead ship is pulling ahead. It’s trying to put the limb of Cherela between us.”

  “The atmosphere’s refracting our phasers,” Rahda added a moment later, frustration in her voice.

  “Then pour on the torpedoes,” Scott said, trying to project calm and reassurance. “Aim them through the outer atmosphere, program their thrusters to compensate. If it shields them, it can shield our torpedoes too.” After a moment, he added, “And raise our orbit, try to regain line of sight.”

  “That will bring us closer to the second Dassik ship, sir.”

  The ship rocked again, and a moment later, Scott said, “Do it anyway. Give them a sporting chance for once.”

  The next few minutes were a struggle to hold the Enterprise together under the intensified fire from the second vessel. It took all of Scott’s discipline to keep his focus on taking out the cube missiles, even when it meant allowing his beloved starship to endure more damage. But finally, Chekov let out a crow of triumph. “That’s it! That’s the last missile!”

  “And glad I am to hear it, laddie,” Scott replied. But his elation only lasted for a moment, since now the other Dassik ship was free to turn its weapons on the Enterprise as well, and soon the engineering boards were showing even greater chaos in the ship’s systems. Deflector grids were burning out, phaser banks were overheating, computer circuits were being deranged by bursts of particle radiation penetrating the hull, structural members on the outer decks were exceeding their maximum loads and nearing failure. Two compartments had already blown out to vacuum—neither one occupied, thank heavens—and only the emergency bulkheads had prevented worse depressurizations. Even that sound and fury is starting to feel a wee bit significant, Scotty thought as he clung tightly to the command chair arms during a particularly fierce barrage.

  “Mister Scott,” Chekov called from the science station. “I hate to add to our problems, sir, but I’m detecting activity on the fringes of the system. Energy signatures consistent with Dassik engines and weapons—at least a half dozen ships, sir.”

  Och, not more of them! “Weapons, Mister Chekov? Who or what are they shooting at?”

  “That’s the good news, sir—maybe. They’re not drawing closer at the moment . . . and I’m reading radiation signatures consistent with First Federation buoys.”

  “Buoys, aye!” Scott’s mood was appropriately buoyed by the news. He’d experienced how effective those cubic contraptions could be at holding a ship in place. But how they came to be there was a mystery. The First Federation had done all it could to make Cherela’s star system seem abandoned, so it had no defensive perimeter of the sort they maintained around their overall territory.

  Which meant that these buoys must have been newly deployed—and Scott knew what type of ship was responsible for deploying the
m. “Ensign, scan for orbships.”

  Before Chekov could even complete his scan, ­Lieutenant Palmer spoke up. “Incoming hail, Commander. It’s from the Fesarius.”

  The bridge shook and the screen flickered as the incoming signal appeared. “Balok to Enterprise,” said the diminutive captain who appeared on the screen. “Ahh, Mister Scott. I see you’re having your own disagreement with the Dassik. I don’t suppose you expect to clear that up anytime soon? Because, you see, we have a rather larger Dassik problem heading our way.”

  “Aye, we’ve detected the incoming ships, Commander Balok. But if you’re askin’ for our help, I’m afraid that’s not an option. The Dassik here seem to have exhausted their depth charges, but they might have other nasty surprises to spring on us. We need to stay here to defend the planet. And our warp drive’s in sorry shape anyway. There’s no chance we could get out to you in time to make a difference.”

  Balok sighed. “I was afraid of that. Well, we’ll just have to do our best out here.”

  “What with? All due respect, Commander, as impressive as your ship is, she’s not built for war.”

  “Direct confrontation has never been our way, Mister Scott. I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve. There may be a way Starfleet can help us without needing to be here.”

  The ship rocked again. “Whatever you have in mind, Commander Balok, I wish you well. We’ll hold the line here as long as we can.”

  “You’re better friends to the First Federation than we probably deserve, Mister Scott. I hope more of my people will come to see that. Thank you.”

  Balok’s visage disappeared, replaced by the far bleaker sight of the Dassik warships still raining fire down upon the Enterprise. This wasn’t how Scott wanted it to end. If he had to go down with his ship, he wanted to be below­decks, tending to his precious engines until the last moment. The captain and Spock had better do something fast, he thought, or we’re all done for.