Connolly understood why. It had been the reason behind all the Enterprise abductees remaining silent all year: every technological capability the Boundless learned about made it all the more likely that they would redouble their pursuit of the starship. Since Connolly’s months with Baladon’s traveling press gang, he had come to think that transporter technology would be the worst thing in the universe for the Boundless to get their hands on. They would kidnap at will, then, whole populations from ships and settlements—and possibly beyond the confines of the Pergamum.
So he had tried his best on the flight back from Little Hope to make it seem like Baladon was telling a tall tale—until it became clear that was no longer tenable. Baladon had noted that a little general information about transporters had been in the database from his pirate ship. While Kormagan had sworn that her people analyzed everything, she’d concluded, after checking, that Baladon was telling the truth.
“They didn’t look very carefully,” she had said, upset with her team. “They weren’t very impressed with you.”
“I am wounded,” he had replied.
Knowing there was no way to deny the existence of transporters—and that a supreme meeting was coming up, Connolly had realized there was another play. One that required him to stop his denials and start selling instead.
As a soldier, Connolly had seldom seen the carrier’s briefing room; the Boundless method was to throw troops at trouble and instruct them on the way, if it told them anything at all. Designed for a platoon of twenty-five, the carrier’s briefing room, by all accounts, had never seen so much brass. Insignias announced the leaders of waves from the venerable Thirty-Twos—which existed almost in name only, now—all the way up to the latest outfit, the Six-Ohs.
Connolly was on display—and Baladon—as Kormagan made her case. She had stowed her headgear, for a change, so as to more emphatically make her case—and so had several of the listeners whose anatomies allowed it. It made it all the easier for Connolly to tell that not one of her colleagues wanted to be there.
“After Little Hope, I’d think you’d be afraid of more boondoggles,” declared Gavlor of the Fifty-Sevens. “You’re telling me that these Starfleet people have on Enterprise the ability to move matter—”
“Including living beings,” Kormagan said.
“—including living beings, from one place to another, by converting it to energy and beaming it through space. Why is this the first I’ve heard of it? We’d have gone with you on that operation months ago!”
“We all would have,” said another.
“I was there, and I didn’t even know,” Quadeo said, pointing accusingly at Kormagan. “I think she was going to keep it for her own wave!”
Intimidated before, Connolly spoke up. “She didn’t know about it because I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want you to capture Enterprise. If you’d succeeded, you’d have found out about the transporters anyway.”
Old Barson from the Thirty-Twos was skeptical. “Can this really exist? In all the ships we’ve captured, we never heard of it before.”
“We invented it back in the last century,” Connolly replied. “It was only in our most advanced ships for a long time.”
“It’s really very unfair of them to hog it,” Baladon said, standing off to the side. “The privateering profession would be far more civilized if you’d share.” Kormagan gave him a bad look.
“This is nonsense,” Quadeo said. “Kormagan, you’ve finally lost your mind. You have brought us here with no evidence, wanting us to listen to the fantasies of these people. You might as well surrender your charter, because when word gets out about this to the rest of your crew—”
“And how will that happen, I wonder?” Kormagan asked.
Connolly clapped his hands together. “Hey, wait. I just remembered something. I can prove it.”
Kormagan regarded him warily as the human called upon his armor to produce the compartment with his personal effects. His clothing from Susquatane was there, as were a couple of his scientific instruments. And something else. “This device takes visual recordings,” he said. He looked to a forward screen. “Does that interface with the armor systems?”
A quick connection later, they were all looking at a field of snow. “My friend Ghalka took this on Susquatane the day before you all—er, dropped in.”
Kormagan frowned. “What are you doing there with that stick?”
“I’m—uh—driving snowballs to center field. I was going to show my friends back home that I was still keeping in shape for the season.”
“What season?”
“That’s what I’ve been saying. I missed the whole thing this year. Just watch.”
The image showed Connolly throwing snowballs into the air, striking them. Some went farther than others; some disintegrated. After a couple of swinging miscues, Quadeo asked, “Are we supposed to be impressed by this?”
“Hey, it’s just a fungo bat. But Susquatane’s snow worked pretty well.” He pointed. “Now, here it is.”
Connolly’s past self smacked a fly ball high into the sky. The person taking the video turned the imager to follow its motion—and captured a living being, materializing out of nowhere: Spock. Noticing the snowball falling toward him, the Vulcan snatched it from the air. Wearing a wooden expression, he pointed toward the imager.
“I guess I’m out,” Connolly said, embarrassed.
“What just happened there?” Quadeo said. “Is that a trick?”
“No trick. See?” The video continued to run, showing Ghalka handing the imager to Connolly. He pointed it at her just long enough for it to record her dematerializing. “She had to go back up to Enterprise. It was a shift change.”
A sea change is what Connolly saw when he looked back at the others. Mouths hung open—and within seconds, the room was abuzz with heated conversations. Connolly shut off the recording and smirked. “So I guess you believe me now, huh?”
62
* * *
Combat Module Carrier 539-Urdoh
Varadah Gap
“This is a calamity!” Barson declared. “The worst of all disasters! What could the Rengru do with this?”
Baladon snorted. “What couldn’t they do? If they knock down our energy shields, they can put Rengru aboard this very ship.”
“Yeah,” Connolly said. “That’s right. We board other people’s ships all the time using the transporters.” He pointed to Baladon. “That’s why the captain here didn’t stand a chance against us. He had to do things your way, punching holes through hulls. We could have beamed right onto his bridge.”
Baladon nodded. “It would have meant less property damage.”
“The Rengru could board our vessels,” Quadeo said, less vocal now. “But we have shields.”
“The Rengru manage to breach your shields all the time,” Connolly said. “And as soon as they’re breached?” He made a whoosh sound and waved his hand. “They could beam you out into space or into a sun. Or into their ships—where they’d be waiting.”
“This device works through starship hulls,” Gavlor said. “Astounding.”
“Of course. It’s the whole idea. And transporters can send other things too. Back last year, Baladon was firing his little photon torpedo at us. We could have beamed one into his lap!”
Baladon laughed. “You know that Starfleet is too weak willed for that.” He faced the others. “But yes, they could become potent weapons—in the right hands.”
“Or the wrong ones,” Kormagan added.
Connolly saw an opportunity to press. “It’s not limited to starships either.”
“What do you mean?” Quadeo asked.
“The transporters can be installed anywhere. I had one down the hall from my room at the Academy.” He gestured grandly. “Think of it. You put together another of your wonderful ground assaults, perfectly executed. And as soon as your forces are near enough—”
“Can I make the noise?” Baladon asked.
Connolly igno
red him. “Suddenly you’re out of your armor altogether. Maybe you’re a kilometer in the air, or in the middle of a room full of knockout gas.” He stared directly at Quadeo. “Or full of Rengru, if you prefer.”
She put up her hands. “Stop. Our armor has energy shields too.”
“Great! You’ll be able to look around longer when they beam you into an active volcano.”
Quadeo’s voice quavered. “You have this power, and you don’t use it as a weapon?”
“Of course not,” Connolly said. “It’s called a transporter.”
“I take back everything I’ve ever thought about the Lurians. You are the dumbest people I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah, well, we invented it, you didn’t.”
Kormagan faced Connolly. “How would they exploit this thing? Is it a device that can be removed? Replicated?”
“Not easily,” he said. “It’s a room. The Rengru could wreck it if they’re not careful. So could you.”
Gavlor shook his head. “I’m convinced. We can’t let the Rengru have this thing. Where are they now?”
Kormagan looked to Dreston, who spoke up. “Our probes in Little Hope say the convoy just entered Cloud Complex Zedra, at the far end.”
“They’re going slowly. Why?”
“The saucer section only has impulse engines and thrusters,” Connolly said. “Besides, this nebula of yours tears the hell out of our shields—and Enterprise didn’t have any, back when you attacked it before. Maybe it still doesn’t.”
“That means she can be boarded,” Kormagan said. “What are the odds the Rengru can exploit this thing?”
“I don’t know,” Connolly said. “It looks like they’ve gotten the impulse drive working, but this would be totally new to them—and a foreign ship’s data system, to boot.”
“The Rengru control the ship,” Quadeo said. “Maybe some of your people bartered its secrets for their lives.”
“The Rengru don’t barter,” Kormagan said.
“And my people wouldn’t either,” Connolly said. “Our practice is to scuttle ships before they’re exploited by others.”
“Clearly, they failed.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t.” Connolly had wound up. It was time for the pitch. “I’ll destroy the ship—but not until after I get you the keys to K’davu.”
The room went quiet at the word.
“Excuse me?” Kormagan gawked at him. “I was going to recruit the others to hunt and destroy Enterprise, just as the Rengru had attempted to do. What are you proposing?”
He gazed coolly upon her. “You asked me once before if I’d give you the secrets of Enterprise.”
“And you wouldn’t do it because you weren’t one of us. Not yet.”
“I never will be. But I don’t have to be one of you to think that the Rengru winning is a bad thing. I can do something about that. Like I told you again and again, I’m a scientist. I understand transporter technology pretty well—”
“You can build one for us!”
“Not that well. My work’s in a different discipline. But if you find me a few of my fellow Enterprise crewmates, we might be able to get aboard, download the transporter schematics, grab some of the relevant equipment, and blow up the ship, right under the Rengru’s nonexistent noses.”
“Why would you do this?” Barson asked. “It hasn’t sounded to me like you’ve much loyalty.”
“Oh, I have plenty—just not to you. But it happens that our interests are aligned here.”
Kormagan frowned. “Spock tried to work a similar deal, to save the people aboard the ship. They’re almost certainly gone now. What would you want? Freedom for your crewmembers, I assume?”
“Yes—but it won’t be like that. We’ll help you figure out the transporters—and use them against the Rengru. On one condition.” He crossed his arms. “Win this war—then come help us with ours. You want us to help you to defeat the Rengru? Promise you’ll help us defeat the Klingons!”
63
* * *
U.S.S. Enterprise
Saucer Section
Cloud Complex Zedra
Since Spock’s move to the intensive care unit—and without much else to do with Rengru piloting his ship—Pike had found himself keeping to the pattern he’d established when the two were separated by tens of thousands of kilometers. Only rather than sitting by a communicator, Pike sat by Spock’s bedside, talking.
Spock had not always been awake—and when he was, it wasn’t easy to tell. He had rarely said anything that made sense, continuing to mumble planet names and other things. It was incoherent. He’d sounded like one sweating out a fever—only Vulcans didn’t have sweat glands, and Spock’s vitals had stabilized long before. His body was back from Skon’s World, but not his mind.
For a change, Pike had news he hoped would bring it back.
“Enterprise is reunited,” he said. “Well, not really—we’re not able to put the sections back together, not out here.” It was far from an automatic process, Pike lamented; the designers had assumed any calamity great enough to require a saucer to separate would have resulted in a stardrive section that was either unusable or destroyed. “But we’re in the same place, and we’ve been transporting people back and forth.”
Fused with a Rengru, Una had somehow tapped into the life-forms’ collective intelligence and prevailed upon the creatures nearby to deliver the saucer section to her. Time was of the essence, she’d said, because the Rengru had intended to destroy both halves of Enterprise to deny them to the Boundless—and if other Rengru forces who weren’t in communication with her stumbled over the saucer section, they might stick with the original program. The Rengru seized the saucer instead, following her directives specifically—even to the point of offering assistance to any injured crewmembers aboard.
“That’s why they helped Galadjian walk you in here a few days ago,” Pike said. “I expect the ride was a little rough, but Carlotti says it might have saved your life.”
Spock turned his head on the pillow, continuing to mutter as he looked at the bulkhead.
The directives had included walking Pike to the transporters as soon as the saucer section entered Cloud Complex Zedra—and then stepping outside the room while he beamed across to the engineering hull. They’d followed that practice since, as others had passed back and forth between the sections. Una’s mind-sharing with “her” Rengru had not given it full access to her knowledge, and she’d decided to avoid introducing them to the idea of transporters while the subject could be avoided.
“All that she’s been through, and she’s still thinking about the Prime Directive,” Pike said. He looked at the back of Spock’s head. “I’m sure you’d do the same.”
No reaction.
“She told me everything, Spock—everything she thinks she knows about the Rengru and their fight with the Boundless. Galadjian was right. K’davu is the Boundless’s homeworld, the place they’ve been fighting to reclaim. But there’s something they don’t know about it—and they’ll never know, because to communicate, the Rengru have got to make physical contact—and hold it, for as long as it takes for the joining to occur. The Boundless are all armored. And like you told me, whenever anyone’s armor is breached by a Rengru, the Boundless blow them away.”
More to the point, Pike said, so much time had elapsed since the war had begun that even the Rengru themselves had forgotten about any need other than to fight it. Una had convinced them that they’d gotten an innocent bystander—and had offered her services to mediate. But first, she’d demanded delivery of the saucer section.
“I don’t know if that was a feint to get us back, or not—but the Rengru seem to be cooperating so far. She thinks they really do believe something has gone wrong, something in the basic order of things.”
“No. No.” Spock’s mutter grew more audible. “It has not happened yet.”
Pike looked to him. “What hasn’t?”
Spock returned to naming planets. Pike sighed.
Spock turned and fixed his eyes on the overhead. “Earth,” he said. “Qo’noS.”
“Spock, you have the key. Galadjian’s actually got engineers to work with now—they’ve certainly seen a change in him! But while they think they can get the unit juiced up again, the systems don’t respond to anyone.” He paused. “It needs to hear from you.”
“Vulcan. Vulcan. Vulcan.”
Pike looked down and shook his head. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Spock. I feel like I failed you. But we really need—”
“Vulcan,” Spock said more emphatically. He turned his head toward Pike. “It is . . . the keyword.”
He closed his eyes, let out a breath, and went to sleep.
64
* * *
Combat Module Carrier 539-Urdoh
Approaching Shennau Corridor
“I’m delighted to see you, Evan,” Ghalka said. Wiping away tears of happiness, she looked to her other three Enterprise companions. “I never thought I’d see any of you again. But what the hell is going on?”
Connolly smiled, happy to see her—as well as Gupta, the ensign who had been kidnapped from the polar camp. He had only encountered the other officers, Godwin and Haddad, once since their abduction, so he was glad to see they were in one piece—and more excited to tell them his news. “Didn’t the Boundless explain? They’re going to put a team on Enterprise—and you’re going with them.” He pointed to the glowing red light on all their shoulder assemblies. “You’re my squad,” he said.
“Enterprise?” Ghalka blurted, before looking nervously around at the other squads gathering on the carrier’s muster deck. “They told us it was destroyed!” she whispered.
The Enterprise War Page 30
