Dreadnought!

by Diane Carey

  “Terry, where are those secondary screens?”

  “Almost … got ‘em! You want them up?”

  “No!”

  She looked at me.

  “No,” I repeated, stretching out my fingers, sculpting events as best I could. “Hold on that … keep your finger on it … let them think we’re broken. Hold … good … good …”

  I sensed more than saw the other ships gathering themselves to fire on us. There was an infinitesimal glow on Pompeii’s bow … or was there?

  “Shields!”

  “Shields up.”

  The ships fired. Lids drifted over my eyes. I waited.

  The next sound, breaking out during the rocking of the Star Empire beneath us, was the voices of Broxon, Hopton, and Li raised in a hat-throwing victory shout.

  “Look at that!”

  “It’s bouncing off!”

  It was. Phaser fire was dancing in a corona of electrical jag-tooths around us, but our doubled shields held, and we still had trinary shields to go to if we needed them.

  What a ship. “Rittenhouse,” my teeth vibrated, “take this. Fire!”

  The auxiliary monitors and the main viewscreen flashed with blue lances spidering out from several points on Star Empire. I felt like they were coming out of my very eyes. Each made good strikes on vulnerable points on Pompeii, Lincoln, Hornet, and Potempkin, although the beams that hit Potempkin were glancing.

  “Again!”

  The spider shots branched a second time.

  “Lieutenant!” Li called. “Enterprise is firing. She’s looping in and out like a fly, distracting the two ascent-plane ships!”

  More cheers rose from us as Enterprise swooped past our bow at full sublight, potshotting until Hornet and Lincoln veered away from us.

  “Damn, he’s good,” I muttered. “Cease fire. Take it easy, Sarda. I don’t want to kill anybody. I want to discourage a fight, not insist on one.”

  “Agreed. Most wise, Lieutenant.”

  “That’s the hard part, isn’t it?” Terry asked. “They want to blast us, but we don’t want to blast them.”

  “Well … I don’t know about Captains Leedson and Tutakai or Commodore Nash, but Rittenhouse had blood in his eyes. He wants the Klingons, but Burch arranged it so he has to get us first. Damn political upheavals … wasting lives, resources …”

  “It’s real big, isn’t it, Piper?”

  I looked at her, absorbing the uneasy awe in her face, and suddenly I realized how young she was … how young we all were. I felt like an older sister.

  “It’s a major shakedown.” I couldn’t lie to her. “There’ll be plenty of courts-martial. Star Fleet against Star Fleet … things won’t be the same.”

  She shivered, and quit asking questions.

  Distraction. I inhaled slowly. “Status?”

  “Secondary shields two through sixteen are pretty mucked up.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything, Broxon.”

  “Drained sixty-five percent. Also, flank shields and shield twelve amidships down forty percent.”

  “What do we do now?” Hopton grumbled, staring into the screen. “How do you handle a standoff? I mean, what if they don’t give up?”

  Frowning, I hunched my shoulders and hoped for direction. If only I could get communications back. Kirk, I need your voice right now. I need to know what to do. What would you do?

  “I know….” My throat was dry. “You tip the odds, that’s what.”

  That in itself was a question. Out in the star-rutted fabric of space, parts of the Lincoln were fading from white-hot to Antares red, metal flowing like lava where we had made our most direct hits.

  “Let’s surround them,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me as though I’d grown a third ear.

  “Surround them?” Terry repeated, incredulous.

  “Sure. We’ve got them outnumbered two to four.”

  “They’ll laugh in our faces,” Li Wang decided.

  I wrinkled by nose. “Hell, they’re eighty percent water, just like the rest of us. Move us to the outer perimeter, opposite Enterprise. Box them in between us and Kirk.”

  Wondering if I had slipped out of sanity’s questionable noose, Terry and the ensigns doubtfully obeyed. Soon we had Lincoln, Pompeii, Hornet, and Potempkin hovering in space between ourselves and Enterprise. Now to salt the clouds.

  “Arm photon torpedoes.”

  Once again, many eyes touched me. This time they were filled with apprehension. They didn’t want to kill any more than I did.

  Sarda carefully said, “Piper … may I point out that photon salvos the strength of Star Empire’s, fired at so close a range, would disintegrate ships as damaged as Lincoln and Hornet presently are.

  Disappointed in me, my friend? Do you think you’re the only one who is forced to take life with your personal gifts?

  “I know,” I told him. “Arm photons anyway. Their sensors will pick up the energy flux and they’ll think we’re crazy or desperate enough to fire on them, even to the death. I want the upper hand, Sarda. I want them scared of me.”

  The respect that mellowed his face was empowering. He murmured his approval. “An inspired tactic.”

  Deeply honored, I whispered, “Thanks.” My voice cracked, though.

  It worked. As we watched, Hornet and Potempkin retreated, trying to put distance between us. Lincoln couldn’t move as fast, but limped slowly away. Even in crippled condition, slipping away to tend their wounds, the starships, any starship, were cathedrals of lights and beauty, given character by their battle wounds. Too bad the wounds hadn’t been won honorably.

  “Honor’s everything.”

  “I’m sorry?” Sarda queried. “You said something?”

  “Who, me?” I responded, savoring the image of those ships’ bridges and the panic I was causing. “I never say anything. Terry, keep us moving. Follow them. Let them be the prey for a change.”

  With catlike smoothness, Star Empire surged through space in pursuit of the retreating ships.

  Sarda appeared at my side. “I must advise caution,” he said in a low voice. “It may be unwise to push too far.”

  “But they should know we will push.” The tapestry of starships was breaking up before us, disbanding or regrouping, questioning their motives, I hoped, and getting a taste of the rank corruption they had taken part in. “Taste it, you slugs, you captains … look what you’re wasting. Analysis, Sarda … are they giving up?”

  “My response could only be an assumption, and I prefer not to do that,” my Vulcan colleague said as casually as if we were discussing cultures in a petri dish. “It does seem that we have put them into a degree of disarray.”

  “Does it seem satisfying to you?”

  He couldn’t keep a nibble of honest pride from seeping into his response. Between us and Potempkin, two bits of flotsam collided and blitzed into a florescent arm, then died. “I admit to a sense of success. Still, it would be premature of me to—” He froze, staring.

  Broxon jumped to her feet. “Piper! Look!”

  From well below our viewscreen swung the battered sleekness of Pompeii, coming about bow to bow with us, gathering herself for—what?

  Was Sarda right? Had I pushed Rittenhouse too far? Pushed victory headlong into menace, with us as the menace? I understood now about winning with dignity—this might’ve been Kirk’s lesson to me when he refused to pursue that Klingon vessel once he’d damaged it. Lose with dignity, but win with dignity too.

  I stared in horror as Pompeii wheeled up on her rim, leveled off at an angry slant, and leaned through space toward us.

  “He’s on collision course!” Terry’s voice cracked.

  Hopton gasped; Novelwry stumbled to the turbolift and fled the bridge entirely.

  “Sarda—”

  “Confirmed. Collision course.”

  “Lunatic!” I gasped as Pompeii increased speed. “Quick, Terry, how does transwarp work?”

  “How do I know?” Her f
ace screwed up in agony of desperation.

  “Find out!”

  “I can’t …” She started crying, fingers tumbling hopelessly over a board now inert with complication. “I can’t find it! Oh, God!”

  Pompeii angled straight in at full sublight. Suddenly the truth dawned; I could fight, but I couldn’t kill. Not yet. He could…. Rittenhouse had chosen and kept Pompeii as his flagship, now I knew, because that was the ultimate purpose of destroyers—suicide when necessary. Triple shielding … miracles … nothing would deflect the force of a thundering destroyer.

  “Not now….” It was a dead whisper. A small sound, maybe a sob, caught in my throat as I put my hand on Terry’s console keyboard and tapped out an emergency automatic comsync.

  TO …

  Pompeii veered in, damage crackling.

  DIE …

  My eyes squeezed shut as Pompeii swelled in our screens.

  WELL.

  I forced my eyes open, refusing to be snuffed out without facing my enemy, presenting every semblance of honor left in me. To my left, there was a soft clicking as Sarda searched for a weapon that might save us, but he couldn’t find one, nor could he find it in himself to use it even if it was there. His thoughts reached to mine even over the few steps that separated us. We stood in a unity of souls, and waited to die.

  The screen went ice-white with brilliant destruction, then glassy with needles of blue-green energy and phosphorous gases. I braced for impact. Spine straight. Legs locked. Star Empire lolled beneath us as the main screen cauliflowered with mercury-rich fireworks.

  My hand closed around the arm of the command chair. Death wasn’t too bad after all.

  Look. This is a strange poetry. I begin to understand.

  “What?” I asked aloud. Sarda’s thoughts washed in my head, but he didn’t speak.

  “It wasn’t us….” Broxon whispered.

  It was Pompeii. Had been Pompeii. Now it was bloom upon bloom of matter-antimatter freed to destroy itself. Waves of aftershock rocked us.

  I stumbled forward, gaping. “Yeeeeoow!”

  When I landed on the deck again, the screen was clearing, decorated with flotsam as it sizzled and bumped our deflectors. Then, from low to starboard came the opalescent cream flanks of the starship Enterprise bursting through the eruption’s violent glitter.

  At the last second, the starship arced away, narrowly avoiding collision with us, and for a blessed few seconds our screen was filled with her passing service lights and insignia. She rolled away, vectoring to a gentle distance, and completed the roll for victory.

  “They did it!” I cried, pounding Terry’s shoulder.

  “Son of a gun,” Scanner buzzed from the bowels of the com system. “Captain Enterprise kicked his butt!”

  Within minutes, Hornet, Lincoln, and Potempkin were surrendering to James Kirk.

  All my bridge people but Sarda had slipped below decks to collect themselves. The two of us waited for more capable officers to take over. Evidently Sulu and Uhura had been launched in another Arco attack sled; they’d been waiting for a break in our shields, hoping to dock with us and come aboard. If only I’d had communications, it all would’ve been so simple.

  “Transporter room to Lieutenant Piper.”

  “Piper … here.”

  “Captain Kirk is on board with Mr. Spock, ma’am.”

  “Kill the ‘ma’am,’ will you? I’m really tired of it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Piper, this is Kirk.”

  I bit my lip. “Yes, sir.”

  “That was a very impressive display of resourcefulness and altruism, Lieutenant. I haven’t seen such a successful improvisation since … well, it’s been a while.”

  “Thank you, Captain. Do you want me to join you there, sir?”

  “No need,” he said softly, and his face formed in my mind. “Remain on your bridge. This time, we’ll come to you. Kirk out.”

  The com clicked off. I slumped, covered my face with clammy hands that felt detached from my body, and collapsed against the arm of the command chair. They could give me the goddamned ship before I’d crawl back into that chair.

  Shivers wracked my body, but I couldn’t cry. I tried, knowing I needed the release, but the episode wasn’t real yet. I couldn’t entirely give in. Not here, not on the bridge. Later, though, in the privacy of my quarters …

  There was a hand on my arm, and with it came a gentle wave of telepathic support.

  Sarda was standing with me, holding my elbow. His other hand was tucked behind his back, as though he dared make only half a commitment. My shivering abated, nerve by nerve. I put both feet on the floor.

  “Congratulations, Piper,” he said quietly.

  We shook hands solemnly.

  “And to you,” I said.

  Chapter Eleven

  “ … FOR CONSPICUOUS BRAVERY under fire, for loyalty and adherence to Star Fleet and its humanitarian code, and for innovative reasoning in a situation which defied standard policy. As Chief-of-Staff for Military Forces, I am honored to present you with the Federation of Planetary Systems Congressional Medal of Valor with star cluster, and confer upon you the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Congratulations. You’ve displayed the rare gift of uniqueness within the system. Star Fleet takes pride in your strength of individuality.”

  The image of Rittenhouse’s cottony hair and blue eyes dissolved before me and rematerialized into the leathery, dark-eyed, grey-framed face of Rear Admiral Baldridge.

  Applause rose behind him, rippling through the hangar bay of what was now my home ship. An honor, they said, to have the ceremony on board Enterprise instead of in the Academy Colosseum. I swear I felt “the honor” stick right through my uniform’s fabric and into my skin. A sea of dignitaries, both civilian and military, spread before me, flanking Baldridge’s crooked smile. They, in turn, were framed by a colorful line of government banners, seals, shields, standards, coats-of-arms, and signets from all the member-systems and trusteeships within the Federation. The air-conditioning breeze fluttered them, but I didn’t feel it at all. Behind me and to the right stood Sarda, Scanner, Brian, and Terry, each wearing a glittering Silver Palm and Star for Conspicuous Heroism. Behind them, Burch’s forty-odd crewpeople stood with their Bronze Clusters for Bravery.

  But the gazes I felt most strongly came not from them, but from the line of Enterprise officers directly in front of the podium. Somehow I had yet to summon the grit to thank them for this travesty. For the hundredth time I wished they’d told me their plans, instead of surprising me by recommending me to become the youngest recipient of the Federation’s second-highest award. Thanks, guys. Thanks a lot.

  My legs knotted. Baldridge’s cool, dry grip squished over my clammy palm and pumped my arm.

  Hardly audible, I rasped, “Thank you.”

  He cupped his other ancient hand over the broadcast link and confided, “You helped save Star Fleet as we know it, Commander, with your ingenuity.”

  “I … had help, sir.”

  He nodded, let go of my hand, and turned to the crowd. “I believe the caterers have finished setting up the buffet, so on this heroic note, let’s by all means indulge. There are two buffets, so if you’ll line up either on the port or starboard decks …”

  His instructions blurred to a senseless hum in my head. I remained at attention behind him, mostly because my legs wouldn’t unlock. At least I was in uniform this time. One particular face surged strength from the first row. Merete winked at me and smiled. A Silver Palm sat unused on the table. Her service log would read that she’d been recommended for the medal, but had refused it. Her decision was right for her. I’d asked them not to do this to me either, but they pushed me into it. Star Fleet needed it, they said. Something about morale. The fortitude to get through all the arrests and courts-martial about to happen. Solidify the fabric of the Fleet, they said. Okay, I said.

  As I meandered through the crowd, my only
real satisfaction came when I saw Sarda talking to Mr. Spock, speaking with a restrained Vulcan intensity as they headed for the tiered buffet tables. At least I’d accomplished that connection. The rest would be in Sarda’s hands.

  But my friend had taken one step, however nominal, toward home.

  The hangar deck became a cacophony of social congratulations for me, and I thank-you’ed my way along, feeling conspicuous. Everybody paused to admire the dazzling gold-and-platinum medallion hanging from its tricolored ribbon around my neck. Funny … there hadn’t been any pin after all.

  I endured the handshakes and shoulder thumps with surface grace. Enthusiasm was beyond me. They would have to live without it and be happy that I hadn’t retired my commission and hopped the first transport back to Proxima.

  “Tedious duty, Commander?”

  I turned, but Captain Kirk was already walking at my side.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t think you were talking to me.”

  He nodded, repressing a grin. “A change in rank takes a little getting used to.”

  “I’m not in any rush,” I grumbled, not meaning to convey my displacement to him. “Tedious? No, not at all.”

  His forefinger and thumb made a small sign between us. “Maybe just a little bit?”

  He caught my straying gaze and I felt a sheepish smile break across my lips. “Maybe a little.”

  Satisfied, he turned his light brown eyes away and scanned the well-dressed crowd of interracial representatives. Ambassadors, officials, bureaucrats, politicians, officers, each with his, her, or its own reason for making an appearance at the honors ceremony. Kirk watched them casually, and I would forever be grateful that he averted his gaze from me at that uncomfortable moment.

  “Captain,” I began, “I never thanked you for offering me the honor of piloting Star Empire into space dock.”

  He pursed his lips in a tiny shrug. “No call for embarrassment. After all, it’s no shame that you didn’t know how.”