Looking up from his console, the tactical officer’s face was pale as he said, “It’s the Tholians, Commander. Long-range sensors have just picked up six ships heading this way at maximum warp, and . . .”
“And what, Lieutenant?” Duffy looked down at the console’s tactical viewer, which depicted six solid blips, representations of Tholian ships, flying in a hexagonal configuration. Amid the configuration was something that Duffy had a hard time discerning from the viewer.
“Sensors read it as pure energy,” McAllan reported. “It’s fluctuating slightly in intensity, but keeping pace with the Tholian ships.”
Judging from the readings, Duffy saw that the energy output was intense, incorporating the power of a dozen photon torpedo explosions in a stable field or cloud. . . .
Or a web
. Stevens elbowed his way past Duffy to get a look for himself, tapping a few commands on the console’s smooth surface and pausing to read the streams of data now scrolling next to the tactical image. He laughed in spite of his assessment of it all.
“Now that’s pretty clever!” Stevens looked back up at Duffy, his smile evident but quickly fading. “Clever strictly from a tactical point of view, I mean. Sorry, Duff.”
Duffy decided not to dampen Stevens’s enthusiasm. It was just that kind of appreciation for the enemy that would motivate the tactical expert to calculate the appropriate defense against them. “Fabian, is that what I think it is?”
“It is, if you think it’s an energy field capable of frying the systems of several starships at once.” Stevens studied the tactical viewer once more and nodded. “Those ships are generating a net of power that’s a thousand meters in diameter, Duff. Think of it as a massive butterfly net, and guess who the butterfly is.”
Duffy weighed his options for the da Vinci: Hold the ship’s position and become ensnared in the Tholians’ deadly web, or retreat and lose their fix on the interspatial rift, as well as their away team, for good.
“How much time do we have, Fabian?”
Stevens’s expression was grave as he consulted his console one last time. “If they maintain their speed, the Tholians will be here in about an hour.”
CHAPTER
5
“Captain’s log: stardate 5683.9. My engineer and science officer have spent the past twelve hours examining the alien object recovered from the destroyed Klingon colony on Traelus II. They theorize that, when combined with other similar devices we found deployed at equidistant positions around the colony’s perimeter, it generated an energy field enshrouding the entire settlement. Residual energy traces recorded by the landing party indicate the field was lethal to any living being within its sphere of influence. Judging by the condition of the Klingon bodies we found, it wasn’t a particularly pleasant way to die, either.”
David Gold could almost feel his blood chill as he once again regarded the image of Thomas Blair, the late captain of the Defiant. Unlike the log entries they had reviewed earlier, the Blair in this excerpt didn’t possess the haunted, exhausted expression that would dominate his features in those later recordings.
Then again, Gold mused soberly, he didn’t know he was going to die at this point.
“Well,” he said, “this would certainly go a long way toward explaining why the Tholians were so upset earlier.”
Gomez replied, “So the Defiant crew found the colony, took the web generator for study, and then fell into the rift while evading Tholian vessels and trying to get the evidence back to Starfleet Command.”
At the science station, Soloman said, “There is no evidence to . . . suggest that the Tholians had knowledge of the Defiant’s actions before it became . . . trapped in the rift.”
Gold shrugged but nodded in agreement. “Perhaps. It’s never been discussed in an open forum, that’s for sure.”
“It would not be a . . . wise course of action,” the Bynar replied. “According to sensor data I have examined . . . along with reports filed by the . . . landing party, the colony was defenseless, particularly by . . . Klingon standards. The Tholians attacked a . . . group of unarmed civilians.”
From where she knelt next to a seated and now conscious P8 Blue, Dr. Lense looked up from tending the Nasat’s head injury. “Why would they do that? I mean, the Tholians are aggressive, but isn’t that a bit extreme?”
Gold shook his head. “We know that the Tholians have always been fiercely protective of their space. I guess we just didn’t realize at the time to what lengths they would go in the interests of that protection.”
“All this time,” Gomez said, “the Defiant held the key to a terrible secret.”
“It still does,” Gold replied. “The Klingons never found out what happened at Traelus II, and by all reports they were more than a bit upset over the incident. If word of the Tholians’ involvement reaches the Klingons now, some in the Empire may well want vengeance.”
“So the Tholians try to destroy us, only we get pulled back into the rift,” Lense said. “Lucky us.”
“What about the da Vinci?” Pattie asked, her voice weak and tired.
Gold strolled around the bridge’s upper deck in the Nasat’s direction, talking as he went. “Well, either Mr. Duffy followed orders and evacuated the area, or he was forced to fight. In that case, the da Vinci disabled the Tholian vessel . . . or she didn’t.”
The statement hung in the air for several seconds, with no one on the bridge wanting to respond. Realizing the somber mood he had inflicted on his people, Gold rallied quickly.
“At any rate, I’m afraid we have more pressing concerns.” Turning his attention to P8 Blue, he asked, “Pattie? How are you feeling?”
Pattie nodded slowly. “I will recover, Captain.” Turning to Lense, she added, “Many pardons for the trouble I caused you, Doctor.”
Lense patted the Nasat on the nearest of her eight limbs, then rose to her feet to face Gold. She ran a hand through her matted hair, thankful for finally being able to remove her environment suit’s helmet.
“I’ve treated her concussion, Captain. She’ll have a headache for a bit, but it’s the best I can do until we get her back to the da Vinci.”
Gold nodded. “We’ll see to that as best we can, Doctor.”
The attention of everyone on the bridge was caught as the overhead lighting dimmed and the displays on the various consoles flickered. Gold could even hear the mild hiss of the air-circulation system fade momentarily.
“What’s that about?” he asked.
Soloman was already examining the sensor data being relayed to the science station. “We are experiencing . . . a power fall-off. It is affecting all . . . of the generators we brought with us from the da Vinci.”
“How bad is it?” Gomez asked as she moved to the bridge’s engineering station.
“At the current rate of drop-off,” the Bynar replied, “the generators will be completely drained . . . of power in less than two hours.”
“Damn,” Gomez spat, drawing a questioning look from Gold and the others. With an embarrassed expression on her face, she said, “Kieran suggested that we bring along backup power supplies for the generators, but I decided against that.” She shook her head in disgust. “The generators can normally operate for days without interruption, and I figured we’d be here for eight to ten hours at most. By then, the da Vinci would have pulled us out of the rift.”
“Something tells me that Mr. Duffy will have plenty of colorful observations about all of this when we get back,” Lense said. Looking at the viewscreen and the matte of darkness that had once been the opening to the rift, she added, “That is, if we get back.”
“Enough of that,” Gold snapped. “We’ve just been given a deadline for getting out of here, people, and we can’t afford to waste time with defeatist gabbing.” Turning to the science station, he asked, “Soloman, can you calculate the time until the next interphase?”
The Bynar spent several moments peering into the console’s viewfinder before turning back to t
he group with a troubled expression on his face.
“According to the data I have . . . at my disposal, the next interphase should occur in . . . three hours and twelve minutes.”
Gold absorbed the report. It was simple to understand, really. The power supplies of the generators would be exhausted more than an hour before the next interphase.
“Why didn’t we register the power drain before?” he asked.
It was Gomez who replied. “Up until the attack, the Defiant was always on the threshold of the rift. Now that we’re completely enveloped in interspace, the negative effects associated with it must be intensified.”
“What about the power cells in our suits?” Pattie asked. “They should be affected as well.”
Gomez activated her tricorder and quickly scanned her suit’s control panel, located on her left sleeve. “There is a minor power drain, but it’s not alarming.” She frowned at the tricorder readings. “They should be fine at least until the next interphase, but I’m not sure I’d bet on them.”
“Well, it’s all we have for now,” Gold said. “So rather than worry about it, I think we’d be better served by finding a way out of here.” Looking over at Soloman, he said, “Give me a scan of the rift opening, or at least the area where it used to be.”
Soloman turned to the sensor displays once more, his small hands playing over the controls of the science station. Gold noted with satisfaction that the Bynar had become so fluent with the antiquated control panels that one would think he had been born to serve on this ship. Soloman seemed quite at home there, the da Vinci captain thought, toiling away at the science station with the viewfinder’s telltale blue glow washing over his face. It was in stark contrast to the rest of the bridge illumination that reflected off the back of his pale, bald head.
The Bynar’s head . . . so small and fragile. Gold imagined he could feel the smooth texture of Soloman’s skin beneath his fingers, could almost feel the curve of his skull as he at first caressed, then pressed harder, yearning to hear the final satisfying crack of the slim neck supporting—
What?
Gold wasn’t aware that he’d fallen until his tailbone struck the deck and the back of his head smacked against the side of the captain’s chair. The dull ache from the dual impacts had barely begun to assert itself before he felt a hand on his arm.
“Captain, are you all right?” Lense asked, already waving her tricorder near the area of his head that had struck the chair.
Reaching up to wipe his brow, Gold blinked several times in an attempt to reorient himself. He looked up to see the entire away team staring down at him, nearly identical expressions of concern etched on their faces.
“Am I? I . . . I don’t know,” he said, his voice unsteady. “One minute I was watching Soloman working, and the next I was . . . I was imagining . . .” The murderous anxiety he had felt only seconds before threatened to wash over him again, and he bit down on the rest of the sentence, leaving the remaining words unspoken.
Lense lowered her tricorder. “The theragen in your system has begun to lose its effectiveness.” She retrieved a hypospray from her medical kit and checked its setting. “It’s as if we’re all building up a tolerance for the drug.” Shaking her head, she added, “I’m going to increase the dosage for all of us, but at this rate, my supply won’t last more than a few hours.”
Gold cast a final, guilty look at Soloman as he drew a deep breath to calm himself. The horrid vision that had filled his mind only moments before continued to burn in his memory. Even as the theragen took hold in his bloodstream and he felt the anxiety that had gripped him begin to dissipate, he knew that the image of his hands closing around the Bynar’s head would haunt him long after this mission was over.
“Soloman,” he said in a subdued voice, “what did your sensor scans reveal?”
“There are . . . residual energy traces indicating the rift’s entrance, sir,” Soloman replied. “I am able to determine the boundaries of the opening.”
“If we can detect it,” Gomez said, “then maybe we can find a way to force it open.”
Rising from his seat, Soloman said, “Opening the rift may not present . . . much difficulty, Commander. A great deal of force may not . . . be required.”
“How so?” Gold asked.
“I see what he means,” Gomez cut in. “When the da Vinci’s deflector and tractor beams were locked onto us, the interspatial pocket seemed to react in the opposite direction, exerting more and more force to hold us here. But we might be able to overcome that resistance by pushing ourselves through the rift from within.”
Gold frowned, not entirely convinced. “With what? The Defiant’s maneuvering thrusters couldn’t possibly be strong enough to push us out.”
It was Pattie who provided one possible solution. “Perhaps the warp drive could be used.”
Gomez made no effort to hide the skepticism on her face as she regarded the Nasat. “The warp engines are as cold as ice, Pattie. The dilithium crystals have decayed to nothing, and even if we had one, we’d still have to find the right intermix formula. It would take at least thirty minutes to initiate a restart of the warp core. And then there’s always the possibility that the engines won’t stand the strain of restarting and will buckle completely.”
Pattie shook her head as she rose from her seat at the bridge’s communications console. “No, no. My apologies for not explaining myself. I was thinking that we could use the generators we brought with us to provide a quick start to the warp drive. The action would almost certainly drain the generators within seconds, but it should be enough to provide a short-duration warp pulse that could push us through the rift.”
“Why does that sound as crazy as I think it does?” Lense asked.
But Gomez was nodding at the Nasat’s idea. “No, it’s not crazy. I’ve seen something like it done before, when I was on the Enterprise.” She quickly relayed the story of the time that Geordi La Forge, the Enterprise’s chief engineer, and the son of the ship’s doctor had devised a scheme to jump-start the warp engines of an eighty-year-old starship. They had used a minute amount of dilithium and some antimatter that the boy had retrieved from one of his ongoing science experiments. The “warp pulse” had lasted only two seconds, but it was enough to get the old ship out of harm’s way when a Ferengi marauder showed up and attempted to hijack the vessel.
“The generators might be able to provide the necessary power for such a pulse,” she said. “But even if we can manage that, is there any antimatter down in engineering?”
“Anything in the warp core itself would have been automatically ejected from the ship once power was lost,” Pattie replied. “But there may still be some in magnetic storage bottles.”
Gold had until this point stood silently, observing with unabashed admiration as his engineering specialists talked out their makeshift plan. Watching his people in their element always gave him the feeling that there was no problem they couldn’t solve, no obstacle they couldn’t overcome.
“What do you think, Commander?” he asked Gomez. “Can we do it?”
Gomez rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “We’ll need to use at least three of the generators to trigger the warp engine restart. That will leave two to provide power for the thrusters and the bridge systems.”
“We can use the thrusters to maneuver closer to the edge of the rift,” Pattie added. “The effect of the warp field’s abrupt activation should provide enough disruption to open the rift and push us through.”
Gomez shook her head slowly. “We’ll only get one shot at this, though. If the restart is successful and doesn’t shred the warp engines, it will drain the power from the generators within seconds.”
Gold liked the bold plan being presented by his officers. Given a choice between actively seeking a way out of their predicament or simply waiting for their power systems to deplete themselves, he preferred the more aggressive option. He had never been one to sit idly by and wait for fate or luck to visit him, not wh
en he had the opportunity to fashion his own course of action.
Besides, he wasn’t ready to abandon the Defiant just yet, not while any chance of salvaging her still remained. He knew that the ship held a political powder keg in its cargo hold, but he refused to accept that, after all they had ultimately sacrificed, the deaths of the men and women aboard the Defiant would amount to nothing more than the spark to ignite an interstellar war.
Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way.
The thought came unbidden, catching Gold by surprise. Did it mean what he thought it meant? Could he bring himself to destroy the evidence the Defiant’s crew had recovered and tried to bring home when fate had cruelly intervened?
It would be so easy to do, ordering the ship to travel deeper into the rift. Maybe they’d tumble into the other universe, forever lost to any recovery attempts from their own side of interspace. He could give the necessary orders, and he was confident that his crew would understand his reasoning. The greater political good would be served.
But not Captain Blair and his people, Gold reminded himself. They wouldn’t be served at all.
No matter the consequences, it would do the Defiant crew a tremendous disservice to cover up the details of their last mission for the sake of political expediency. Therefore, he would do everything in his power to see the vessel, and its crew, returned safely home.
Dismissing the troubling thoughts, Gold said, “Let’s get started, then. Gomez, take Blue and Lense to assist you. Soloman and I will remain here and guide the ship to the edge of the rift.” He smiled grimly at his team. “Work quickly, people. Time is most definitely not our ally today.”
“Like it ever is,” Lense said as she donned her helmet in preparation for the journey down to engineering.
Gomez smiled to herself as she added, “It just wouldn’t be an S.C.E. mission without a time crunch.”
CHAPTER
6
The last time Duffy had sat in the da Vinci’s briefing room, he had been thankful for Captain Scott’s words of advice. He’d also been buoyed by the captain’s attempts to buy them the time they needed to salvage their mission and come home from Tholian space with a lost starship, or at least with every member of the da Vinci’s crew. Now all Duffy could think was that the veteran leader of the engineering troubleshooters had wasted his efforts.
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