“Mmm. That’s your doing too. You remember the talk we had on your return to Varadah III?”
I remember I was terrified to be back there. “Refresh my memory.”
“That we could commoditize prospective recruits, making them into assets for trading.”
“Draft picks. What are you getting for Captain Gallous?”
“The second, third, and fourth ability-test scorers from their first five exfiltrations. Fifteen soldiers for an old campaigner!”
Connolly remembered what he had been babbling nervously about that day. “Remind me to speak to you about free agency some time.”
“You’ve turned yourself around, Bluesub—or Connolly, if you prefer.” She’d never called him by his name before. “I don’t think it’s just because you hate the smell of burning Rengru.”
It wasn’t. He had not fully accepted that Enterprise had been destroyed, of course; unlike the Boundless, he knew what saucer separation was. His fellow Starfleet officers apparently hadn’t let the cat out of the bag about that capability either, given how Kormagan and Baladon were acting. But he had seen the Rengru tearing at both halves of the starship, and the creatures still controlled Little Hope. If either part of Enterprise yet existed, the chances for anyone aboard either section were poor.
It baffled Connolly that so many starships wandered into the Pergamum, given the reputation of the place—but the phenomenon was familiar. People still wandered into the Delphic Expanse even though they knew better. He had concluded the Boundless were the lesser of the evils awaiting such travelers—and that humane treatment could go a long way toward keeping the army’s victims from harm, at least in the beginning. As the only human on Krall-Three, he’d appointed himself director of the concept.
It was, of course, a dodge, an attempt to live with his conscience amid an intolerable situation. “Gently enslaving” was no different from enslaving; those he captured were still sent off to face possible death. But they had a better chance than if the Rengru had found them.
His efforts had made him a subaltern two months earlier—and now, he learned, something else.
“Baladon is going to Urdoh,” Kormagan said, “and so are you. I’m appointing you opmaster of troop module Urdoh-Two, strictly in charge of recruiting. No more stops back here to fight the Rengies—barring the unexpected, of course.”
Connolly was glad she couldn’t see his face within his headgear. “You’re giving me a ship?”
“I’m not worried about your past. Opmasters can’t run off with the troop modules—they’re just barely warp capable, and as you know, the modules have their own flight crews. But you’ll run a platoon of twenty-five—and get me some of those ‘future draft picks’ I need. I’m bartering for the resources to get the new Aloga-One into service faster.”
Connolly stared at the projections of stars, bewildered. He’d been in the Boundless the better part of a year, and in that time had made more progress through the ranks than he had in his whole Starfleet career. It was just in a service he’d never intended to join—and doing something that offended him. “Can I say no?”
“Of course,” she said. “You’ve faced the Rengru—you’ve earned that right. But I would be disappointed if—”
“I have two conditions.”
Kormagan laughed. “What is it with you Starfleet people and bargains? Spock didn’t keep to his. Why should I accept yours?”
“Hear me out,” Connolly said. “One, my ship won’t attack any Federation vessels. Period.”
“I thought you were going to say ‘Starfleet’ vessels. Is there a difference?”
“It’s hard to explain. Kind of military versus civilian.”
It was clear Kormagan didn’t understand that difference either, which was no wonder. But she considered the offer. “You wouldn’t have been sent after any Starfleet vessels. I trust you, but not that much.” She leaned over in her chair. “You do realize I would simply send other units against such ships?”
“Yes, I expect that.” They’ll just do it anyway, Connolly thought.
“Agreed, then. Your other?”
“I want to know exactly what the hell this whole war has been about. I think Baladon knows more than he did, but he’s not saying anything.”
“Ah! As opmaster, you’re entitled to that.” Kormagan waved her hand—and Connolly’s jetpack activated, lifting him up to her platform. She rose and walked to the railing. “Listen well, brother-in-arms, for it is a story handed down by the generations. Why we fight . . .”
50
* * *
Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga
Varadah System
“ ‘Your duty honors all of us,’ ” Connolly read from the message Kormagan had introduced onto his interface. “Who was Eudah again?”
“One of my greatmothers—female ancestors.” Kormagan gestured. “She lived long ago, in a place I have never been. But we all remember.”
The words disappeared from before Connolly’s face—and, in their place, he saw the nebula rotate and move, expanding around him as if he were traveling. All along the way, Rengru symbols infested the clouds. At last, an opaque bank swelled to consume Connolly’s platform, revealing what lay beyond: a single white star and a multicolored world.
Kormagan spoke with reverence. “You wish to know the meaning. There it is: K’davu.”
So that’s it. The planet looked huge, with several colossal supercontinents divided by narrow oceans. “I’ve heard the name. I thought it belonged to a person, a god.”
“Some see it as such. In a sense, they’re right. We are its creations.”
“It’s vast.”
“Not large enough. Six sentient species arose on K’davu. The Rengru rose first, on the Northern Mass. They had already developed advanced technology by the time the other peoples of the world achieved intelligence.”
Connolly noticed something in his peripheral vision. Turning, he saw five figures approach him from the darkness, walking on nothing. One resembled Kormagan without her headgear; another, the armorer Jayko. Two of the others represented species he had seen while with the Boundless. But the fifth, a nearly transparent bipedal being with a glowing heart, was unfamiliar. “Who is that one?”
“She is of the Taaya, whose domain was the oceans.”
“I’ve seen the others with the Boundless, but none like that.”
“They are with us. Dreston is one. The Taaya cannot remove their headgear. You must have noticed he communicates over his armor’s public-address system in person.”
Connolly nodded—and wondered. As trapped as he had felt in his armor during the year, at least he could come out of his shell for a breath once in a while. Dreston and those like him were entombed.
“The other species ruled the southern lands,” Kormagan said, directing attention back to the globe. “And not very well. We five developed technology for one purpose: to fight with one another. We did so for millennia, while the Rengru watched and did nothing.” She paused. “It turned out they were waiting.”
“For what?”
“For their chance, I suppose. One day they left their domain and attacked. Not just my kind, who lived nearest in the tropical zones. But under the seas too—and as far away as the polar icecap. And in all cases, they acted as they do now. I will not show you images of that.”
Connolly didn’t need to see any. “The same thing? Enveloping—and the stab to the back of the neck?”
“Only our people were not armored. Not yet.”
Connolly’s eyes narrowed. “I always wondered—after they envelop their victims, what happens after that?”
“There is no after that.”
“Do they devour them? Take their knowledge somehow? Use them for—”
He stopped as he saw Kormagan step away, offended. “Don’t be obscene. We don’t care what they do. They end our people’s lives. That’s enough.”
Connolly understood. He’d had to fire on a number of Rengru-compromis
ed warriors himself during his service. He could only imagine the carnage the creatures could wreak on so large a world of civilians.
“The conflict united the Five. We collaborated, shared what we knew—using a new language, created to honor our shared love for K’davu. We stole technology from the Rengru, to modify our own.”
So that’s where that habit started, Connolly thought.
“But there was only so much we could take—or invent for ourselves. The situation reached a stalemate. Our past intramural squabbles had never threatened to destroy the beauty of K’davu before; against the Rengru, they did. And so began the Great Project.”
“The one Eudah talks about in her message.”
“Correct. The Rengru had both spacefaring and warp technology, but had never used it for some reason,” Kormagan said. “If you ask me, they were waiting until they had finished us off. But our people acted first. We stole that tech—and set off in search of more.”
Connolly watched as five starships launched from various locations on K’davu. They did not resemble the current Boundless carriers, but he could see some similar influences. “Wave One,” he said.
“Wave One,” she said, voice full of pride. “Eudah’s daughter—and so many more of K’davu’s children—set out looking for an edge, something that would vanquish the Rengru without destroying the homeworld. But, of course, the menace followed.” Rengru vessels, large and small, lifted off from the northern continent in pursuit.
Connolly’s view followed them—and as K’davu grew smaller, he now saw something that hadn’t been there earlier: masses of Rengru orbital shipyards with armed space fortresses.
“The Nest began as a Rengru attempt to bar Wave One from returning. The blockade has grown and grown. But so have we, replenishing our numbers through childbirth and recruiting, building ships and dividing into new waves.”
“You became the Boundless.”
“And we bound our enemies. Over the years, we’ve contained the Rengru to the inner regions of the nebula, surrounding K’davu. We may never retake our world, but we will see that the Rengru are never unleashed upon the universe.”
Connolly took a deep breath as he gazed again on the sea of markers indicating the current positions of the Boundless waves and the Rengru emplacements. Would this be what became of the Federation, if the Klingon War continued and metastasized? Surely there was another way. But he could not help but feel that if there was a correct side, the Boundless were it.
She looked to him. “You understand now.”
“I do.”
“Would your Starfleet be willing to help our crusade?”
He flinched. “They’re not big on crusades. It’s not really a good word in our culture. Bad history.”
“We live with our bad history every day.” She took her seat and pointed to the deck below. “An opmaster should be able to find his own way down. Report to Baladon and join Urdoh.”
Connolly looked at the star map one more time before jetting gingerly to a soft touchdown. Before he left, he asked another question. “What happens if you win?”
“What?”
“If you exterminate the Rengru, take K’davu back. Will you release us all then?”
Atop her platform, Kormagan sat motionless. At last, she responded, “Ask us then.”
51
* * *
U.S.S. Enterprise
Saucer Section
Defoe
“I’d like to say it feels good to be back in the captain’s chair,” Pike said. “Or, rather, somewhat adjacent to it. But this is pretty strange.”
It was a scene no Starfleet training exercise had ever prepared him for. The three officers in the command well dangled, suspended, meters in the air near their upside-down seats and controls. Workers had fastened bungee harnesses to the deck over their heads, and at multiple points to the frame of the dome below. Bobbing, even in low gravity, over a big transparent opening to the sea was unnerving, at best.
“Carabiners holding,” Amin said at the helm.
Suspended near the other seat, Nhan asked, “Why am I doing this again?”
“Carlotti’s orders,” Pike said. “She doesn’t want Raden on any thrill rides, so Jamila’s covering for him. And I’m not lighting engines without someone at navigation.”
“And, oh, yes. I volunteered,” Nhan said. “That’ll teach me.”
Only one other person was on the bridge—or rather, on the bulkhead. Galadjian was netted sideways to the wall, just beneath his engineering station. Looking up, he could monitor it. “I’m not sure what the awards committee would think if they could see me now,” he said.
His was the low-tech solution they’d chosen for many of the ninety-nine aboard; officers were slung, snugly wrapped, in sleeping bags or other fabric envelopes affixed to the bulkheads. All the efforts were to prevent another round of injuries from up becoming down suddenly. Pike didn’t want the weak gravity to lull them into a false sense of security; sudden acceleration and a rough stop were expected.
“All decks sound off,” Pike said. He listened for and received the desired responses—and then made one direct call. “Carlotti, are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” Further along in her pregnancy, she was strapped into the most elaborate mechanism they’d fashioned, a gyro chair affixed to a column in sickbay.
“Let’s roll, Jamila.”
“Aye, Captain.” Amin touched a control—and for the first time in months, engines on the saucer section activated for more than a second-long test.
“Thruster engine warm-up complete,” Galadjian said, looking up at his interface. “Readings nominal.”
“Configure boosters,” Pike said. According to Spock and Raden’s plan, they needed to activate specific ones, oriented upward and downward, in order to flip the ship. “Ten percent power, Lieutenant.”
“Ten percent power, aye.”
The saucer rumbled around them.
“Still stuck,” Amin said.
“Twenty,” Pike said.
“Twenty, aye.”
Pike made the mistake of looking down; below, the frigid methane heaved and churned. It was what he was afraid of: breaking the surface tension would require more oomph than might be healthy for his passengers, considering that he intended to instantly crash-land again.
“Ventral thrusters thirty percent, dorsals twenty. Alternate every second. Let’s shake this thing free.”
Amin did as ordered—and the saucer section groaned and rocked. “I think it’s working,” she shouted over the din.
Pike’s body pitched sideways along with Enterprise as a wretched creaking sound assaulted his eardrums. “Fifty percent to both—and hang on!”
The saucer continued to tip—momentarily bobbing on its side, a movement that jerked Pike away from his chair and its controls. Methane streamed down the exterior of the skylight, which allowed in light for the first time in months. Amin, barely clinging to her control station, shouted something inaudible and punched a key.
A sudden lurch—and Enterprise slammed back into the sea, right side up. Bouncing in his personal suspension system, Pike called out, “Cut thrusters!”
The engines juddered and died. Quiet came more quickly than Pike had imagined possible. He hadn’t been conscious for the saucer section’s stone-skipping landing on Defoe months earlier; it had been violent, from what Nhan had said. This time, the woman looked a little green—but otherwise okay.
“That was amazing, and we did it,” Nhan said, pulling at her harness. “And as soon as I get out of this thing, I would like to be excused.”
Cheers wafted up from down the open turbolift shaft. “All decks report,” Pike said. As the responses came in, he couldn’t help but smile. A small thing, in the larger scheme: flipping over a bug that had been on its back, flailing. But now, they again had the chance to go somewhere.
Or not. “I wouldn’t count on the thrusters for much more,” Amin said. “Not until we get back to spac
edock.”
“But they fired, didn’t they?”
“Not exactly their standard operating environment.”
“It may not be necessary,” Galadjian said, struggling with the wrapping he was suspended in. “Now that we have righted the saucer, we can finish the repairs on the fusion reactor that powers the impulse drive.”
“What good does the impulse drive do?” Amin asked. “It’s not multidirectional—it just points aft. We need to go up, not forward—and the thrusters alone may not be able to hack it.”
“Enough,” Pike said, detaching himself. “We’ll move on that next. For now, let’s take the win.” Then he placed his feet on the deck—and sat in his chair.
It felt marvelous.
Skon’s World
“You wouldn’t believe the difference,” Pike said over Spock’s comm system. The captain was ebullient over the righting of the saucer section, and excited to be broadcasting from his bridge, now the uppermost portion of the vessel. “I don’t know what it is,” Pike said, “but I’ll take weightlessness in a heartbeat over living in a ship where down is up.”
Spock might have made some comment about the phenomenon, but he was marveling at a discovery of his own. Skon’s World’s tallest mountains, a kilometer high, loomed ahead of him across a glacier flow field rich in nitrogen ices. It had been his destination for months, but finding a route had been difficult given the changeable and sometimes treacherous landscape. Nothing posed a danger to his battlesuit, but he had been forced to rethink his path many times.
Summer was coming for Skon’s World, and the moon’s close approach to the gas giant had brought subtle but detectable changes. The glaciers were shifting—and his sensors detected ever more quakes. Earlier, he had thought it ironic that he was using Boundless technology to take the same kind of seismic readings that he had been taking before his capture. He didn’t have as many thoughts about the Boundless anymore, although Pike often found subjects that were tangential.
“Hey, did you finish Crusoe?” Pike asked.
The Enterprise War Page 25
