We can’t keep this up for long, Connolly wanted to say, knowing he wouldn’t be heard. But then two powerful disruptor blasts rendered the warning unnecessary.
Malce stepped up to the motionless Rengru, rifle in hand. “I . . . didn’t do that on purpose,” he said.
Spock moved back to Baladon, who had not moved since the attack. “He is in cardiac distress.”
“I would be too,” Connolly said.
“Armor . . . helping,” Baladon said. They’d been told that the battlesuits could play medic when needed. “Just need . . . moment . . .”
There was no moment. “Fall back!” Kormagan commanded from afar. “Troop module evac to the rally points, now, now, now!” Connolly looked back to the depot to see that the assault wave had been completely repulsed. Boundless warriors, whose jetpacks were of limited help on planets with significant gravity, were using them for all they were worth, trying to retreat across ground teeming with Rengru.
Connolly saw a blinking arrow appear on his visual interface, pointing to the left. He turned to see a flashing marker superimposed over a hill—clearly his pick-up point. A timer and distance meter had numbers in motion, depicting how far away Troop Module Aloga-Five was from the site. Malce, in control of his legs or not, was already on the way there. But Spock was trying to help Baladon up.
“Spock, let’s just get out of here!”
“We cannot escape on this planet, Lieutenant. Our prison is the only sanctuary.”
“But he would’ve sent Malce to his death. He was about to send us!”
“He is a prisoner, just as we are. Captain Pike would not leave anyone. Neither will I.”
Spock was right, of course. Connolly helped Spock get Baladon on his feet.
Aloga-Five appeared above, heading for the rally point. They had only gotten a few dozen meters toward it when a disruptor bolt from one of the depot’s cannons struck it amidships, sending it crashing down. Connolly and Spock shoved Baladon into a blast crater and dove in after him.
Shivane shook around them—and soon the rain of debris began. The flashing marker—indeed, all the telemetry Connolly had been receiving from aloft—disappeared.
Connolly plopped down, his armored butt on the ground. “What do we do now?”
“New . . . rally point,” Baladon said between coughs.
“How do you know?” Spock asked.
“Subalterns get . . . a different data stream.”
Sure enough, new telemetry loaded—and Connolly saw they’d been reassigned to Aloga-Three, currently making its way to a clearing nearby. Outside the pit, he saw Kormagan leading a firing line screening the approach; one by one, Boundless warriors escaping the failed assault made their way safely through it.
They moved with Baladon to the evac area. There, already, was Ghalka, with the Red Squad subaltern; astoundingly, so was Malce, who had just missed being killed earlier by the crashing transport. As Aloga-Three came into beautiful sight, Connolly heard Kormagan—but not over the transceiver.
“The Starfleet crew,” she said, stowing her weapon as she approached. If she was wearied at all, there was no way to tell. “Looks like you made it. Not bad for your first day.”
“Not bad?” Connolly blurted. “It was a massacre!”
“That just means it’s time for more recruits.” Anything else she said was lost in the din of the transport’s engines.
23
* * *
U.S.S. Enterprise
Pergamum Nebula
It had haunted him all day. A simple phrase, part of a conversation Pike had overheard that morning in the galley at breakfast.
“Calling off the search.”
They were among the worst words in the language to Pike, almost always the end of hope. He couldn’t remember ever hearing the phrase in association with a happy ending. When Hondo had died, the emergency crews had known just where in the mountain to look thanks to Pike’s information—and yet it still took them time to scan the ridge and definitively locate his corpse. He had heard the phrase then.
Pike had resolved never to say the words in association with the Susquatane attackers. Yes, Enterprise was making its way toward the Acheron Formation and its exit from the Pergamum, effectively ending his search; and yes, he still felt he would be forced to resign. But if Starfleet wanted him to reenter the Pergamum and continue searching for the murderers of most of his science team, he was willing to become a permanent resident. He would search until Hell froze over.
He didn’t think he would be allowed to do that—and, clearly, neither did his crew. No one had protested to him directly; they were too professional, all fully certain that Pike shared in their mourning. They also understood that such a major incident had to be reported. If the attackers were in any way affiliated with the Klingons—if they were Klingons—they posed a significant danger to the Federation. That could not be done from within the nebula; the Enterprise simply had to leave.
And yet—as at breakfast—he saw only sullen faces, averted when he looked. And the words, in hushed tones.
“. . . never find them . . .”
“. . . got away with it . . .”
“. . . didn’t do anything . . .”
“. . . gave up.”
Pike heard them all again in his mind as he awaited the turbolift. He stared at the deck, fist and teeth clenched. Somebody, he thought, give me a reason to stay.
The turbolift doors opened. Mia Colt smiled at him. “Captain!”
“Yeoman.” He stepped inside. “You’re happy.”
“Something interesting down in science.”
“Is that so?” He had seconded his assistant to the science team, to help cover some of the jobs done by the departed. The move had the side benefit of giving Pike more time to stew alone without someone always asking after him. Colt had changed a lot from the green yeoman he used to know, but her devotion to him hadn’t altered in the slightest.
“It’s better to show you. I’m headed to the cargo bay.”
Cargo bay? Pike followed.
Far aft in the stardrive section, Pike and Colt descended the stairwell into the cargo transporter complex. There, they found Ensign Dietrich and Nils Pitcairn huddled over the control consoles. “You’re right. It’s out there,” the transporter chief said. “Just on the edge of what we can pick up.”
Pike approached. “What’s out there?”
Dietrich showed him a small dot on the interface. “You remember, Captain, the probe we spotted just before the third nuclear blast? Colt and I have been scanning every formation we pass through.” She brought up magnification. “That reads as a probe—and it’s not one of ours.”
“Has it responded to our scan?”
“No. But it’s about to pass out of range.”
I can fix that. “Pike to bridge.”
Number One responded. “Bridge.”
“Full stop.”
“Full stop, Captain. Are there further orders?”
“Stand by.” Pike looked at the others before the console. “You want to approach?”
“No, sir,” Pitcairn said. “That did it. I think I’ve got it now.”
“Scan for hazardous content. I don’t want to bring aboard a mine.”
Pitcairn nodded. That was part of the usual protocol anyway.
A high whine followed—after which a large, gangly device materialized on the cargo transporter pad. Heavily scored by impacts during its nebular transits, it didn’t look much like anything that attacked them at Susquatane.
Colt walked around it. “It’s Lurian.”
Pike’s eyes widened. “Lurian? How do you know?”
She waved him around. The opposite side of the probe bore the words:
PROPERTY OF THE KINGDOM OF LURIA
PLEASE RETURN
“That’s helpful,” Pike said. “Looks like the words ‘Kingdom of Luria’ are crossed out.”
“With a knife.”
“A dull one.”
Di
etrich approached with a tricorder. “No explosive aboard. Just an exhausted dilithium crystal. I’d say our foundling ran out of steam.”
“When?”
“I ought to be able to tell from the decay rate,” she said, adjusting her device.
Before she could follow up, Nicola called from the bridge, which was still on standby. “Captain, we’re receiving a transmission.”
Pike looked up. They hadn’t gotten a message from Starfleet in a long time—and he sure wasn’t expecting to pick one up deep in a cloud. “Where’s it coming from?”
“From there, sir. Whatever you brought aboard is broadcasting. It’s a very weak signal—I don’t know that we’d even notice it if we weren’t carrying it.”
Pike looked to where Pitcairn was stationed. “Nicola, pipe whatever it is to the terminal down here.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Pike and Colt stepped over and saw a sequence of images appear on-screen. Most depicted nothing at all—but several near the end looked very familiar.
Colt pointed. “That’s us!”
“It sure is.” Pike shook his head as he framed through the shots. The earlier ones were hazy, Enterprise a dark blur amid nebular gases. Later images were much sharper. “How did it get that close without us seeing it?” Pike asked.
“We’ll want engineering to look at it,” Dietrich said, kneeling beside the probe. “But it seems to be conditioned both to function out here—and to do so stealthily.”
Like a Lurian pirate would want, Pike thought.
The final image was the clearest, and most surprising. It showed Enterprise orbiting Susquatane. “Is that from when our people were attacked?”
“Look at the icecap,” Colt said, still enlivened by her discovery. “That’s from our first visit there. The encounter would have been back last year, just before we found out about the Klingon war and turned for home.”
“That matches what I have over here,” Dietrich said. “The probe tried to follow—and seems to have died not long after sending its images.”
“Sending—to the Lurians. So they killed our people?” Pike wasn’t sure he believed his own words.
“What are Lurians?” Pitcairn asked.
“Small-time Alpha Quadrant operators. Out of the Ionite Nebula—not too far from here. They’re barely on Starfleet’s sensors. Maybe they’re very nice people, but they seem to generate a lot of petty crooks,” Pike explained.
“Could they have gone in with the Klingons?”
“They’d have to be pretty stupid to do that.” Pike shook his head. “I don’t even know if there have been any formal contacts with the Federation.”
Pike looked again at the image of Enterprise—and then stared for long moments at the probe.
“Are we staying, sir?” Colt asked, hopeful.
Pike frowned. “I need something more. Keep at it.”
24
* * *
Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga
Pergamum Nebula
Not long after Shivane had acquainted Spock and Connolly with Boundless combat, the two experienced what was apparently a post-battle ritual aboard Carrier Aloga: being berated by Jayko, the chief armorer.
“This might be the dumbest class of recruits I’ve ever seen,” Jayko said as Spock watched him circle Connolly’s armor. The explosion of Connolly’s chemical agent canister had charred his dorsal gear. “The Boundless I was born into had a policy,” the armorer said. “We only inducted intelligent life.”
Spock ignored the insult and focused on the tidbit Jayko had just revealed. “You were not pressed into service, as we were?”
“What did I just say?”
“Would you be of the same species as Kormagan, then?”
Jayko’s headgear split open and recessed into his battlesuit, revealing a yellow face with vaguely avian features. “Do I look like her kind?”
“No.”
“If I did, I’d want to stay buttoned up all the time too.” Jayko snorted and began tinkering with Connolly’s gear. Other staffers were doing the same, in one of the larger rooms Spock had seen aboard the carrier. It appeared to be part workshop, part sickbay—though it soon became apparent that for many, their battlesuits were already doing the medical work.
That included, across the room, Baladon. He bellowed something Spock could not make out. Jayko responded with a stream of epithets that crossed cultural boundaries and left Connolly’s side to deal with the Lurian.
Spock stepped close to Connolly, whose headgear was likewise not deployed. The Vulcan spoke quietly. “I saw the list of casualties from Shivane at the armorer’s station while he was working. It only mentions species typologies, not names—but I infer from it that none of Enterprise’s crew were among the fallen.”
Connolly let out a huge breath. “I was terrified. That planet was hideous.”
Spock looked around the room at the warriors whose battlesuits were being tended to. “There is apparently more than one core race to the Boundless. Like Jayko, not everyone we have seen has been abducted. I also believe some of Kormagan’s speech about the Boundless during our induction was aspirational, and not representative of true practice.”
“How do you mean?”
“Racial and status barriers still matter to them.”
As if cued by Spock’s statement, across the room, Jayko loudly proclaimed that Baladon and his people were a foul pestilence sent to ruin his laboratory.
“I see what you mean.” Connolly snickered. “I’ve been trying to get more data about the battlesuit’s systems, but it doesn’t have much. So much of everything around here is need to know.”
Needlessly, Spock thought.
“But the stuff I have figured out is amazing. If we could take one of these suits back to the Federation, it’d go a long way to evening up the score with the Klingons.”
“That is not a priority, Lieutenant. We must establish the status of the other members of our landing parties. Concurrently, we must locate Enterprise. When those two things are accomplished, our mission is clear.”
“Which is?”
“Escape.”
Connolly stared at him—and then winced, as he heard someone approach.
“The two of you, whispering there—I see you!” From behind, they saw Baladon’s lumbering approach. His face, uncovered, looked a little paler than they had seen it before—but he still had the energy to intimidate. “You two did a terrible thing. Don’t think I’ve forgotten it!”
“What,” Connolly said, “saving your life?”
“Forget that!” Baladon spat—a mistake, as his spittle struck the open collar of his battlesuit and stayed there. “I’m talking about my assault cannon. I lost it when the Rengies attacked—and you didn’t pick it up. I didn’t even get to use it!”
Spock did not always know when others were being serious—and to him, it seemed that Connolly could not tell either. But then Baladon broke into a smile. “But at least you got there before they punched a hole in me.”
“Malce did that.”
“I’m sure he regrets it.” Baladon pointed a thumb at Jayko too. “That one certainly does.”
Seeing the gesture, Jayko stormed back. “Would you like me to tell your squad what great injury felled their oh-so-great subaltern?”
Baladon shrugged. “I couldn’t stop you.”
“He had a heart attack!”
“That is what I thought from the readings,” Spock said. “But I was curious how it was possible. The battlesuits’ health management subsystems are designed to regulate our bodies, in combat and out.”
“That only works if you ever regulated your body on your own,” Jayko said. “The Lurians’ consumption habits have thrown all the modeling off. The feeder systems think they need more calories than a whole squad—”
“Don’t forget the drinking,” Baladon said.
“—and they consume so much alcohol that the battlesuits have started to assume that they need it for survival. He�
�s been walking around half-inebriated!”
Baladon patted his armored chest. “I only wish I had a suit like this when I ran my old crew. I guarantee I would never have settled for half-inebriation!”
Disgusted, Jayko tromped off.
Spock looked to Baladon. “You are recovering?”
“I will be back on the line the very next fight.” The Lurian smiled broadly; Spock began to feel that the Shivane episode had created a bond. “On the subject,” Baladon said, smiling, “did you enjoy your introduction to the Rengru?”
Connolly rolled his eyes. “It left something to be desired.”
Spock wanted answers. “What is the Boundless’s complaint against them?”
The question caught Baladon off guard. “I have no idea.”
“Do the Boundless desire the Rengru’s planets?”
“Just as places to fortify. They’re not like your Federation, always colonizing. They just fight.”
“But for what reason?”
“Since when is a reason necessary?” Baladon shook his head. “All I’ve heard is that maybe the Rengru did something to someone named K’davu.”
Spock’s and Connolly’s eyes met. The word sounded vaguely Klingon. “Who is K’davu?” Spock asked.
“I don’t know. Only the old-timers in the units ever say the word, usually to rally us. I never wondered much about it. A fight is a fight. I go where they say.”
“You do not mind being subservient after commanding your own ship?”
“It wasn’t much of a ship to command,” Baladon said. “I had hoped to start something new somewhere—perhaps my own settlement. But that requires finding a place to conquer and someone to conquer them with. In my case, the Lurian element was lacking.”
Spock listened. While brusque, Baladon increasingly struck him as a highly intelligent member of an often-brutal society, trying his best to succeed; that experience had evidently served him well in the Boundless so far. “Perhaps,” Spock said, “you could have tried it without conquest. I know of a planet the Vulcans abandoned that might be suitable for your people. There is an existing infrastructure on Garadius IV which may be of use to you in—”
The Enterprise War Page 12
