by Peter David
Laughter echoed around the room, although Worf was naturally somewhat restrained. Even Data, thanks to his newly installed emotion chip, was able to laugh in appreciation. Suddenly Geordi immediately stopped laughing as he looked at something over Riker’s shoulder. Riker turned and promptly fell silent, as did the others.
Jean-Luc Picard was standing there. It was impossible to tell how long he’d been there, for he’d entered fairly quietly and everyone had been engrossed in the joke. It was also impossible to tell what was going through his mind. He had a small, enigmatic smile, but that was no indicator. Picard had a standing invitation to join them for poker, but he almost never took them up on it. And of all times, that was the moment he had chosen to make an appearance at the game.
They all waited.
And at last, without the slightest change in expression, he said, “I don’t think jokes about cowardly captains are very funny.” With that observation hanging in the air, he turned and walked out.
Then the room jolted under Riker, tossing Troi, Worf, Data and Geordi to the floor, and the recollection dissolved into reality.
It took Riker a few more moments to sort the confusing real world from his recollection of times past. The jolt had been rather sudden and, when Riker had been thrown from his chair, he had hit his head rather severely. It had dazed him and sent his mind spiralling back to a time with his shipmates where, somehow, things had seemed simpler. But then, didn’t times past always seem that way, no matter how complicated they were?
His lungs began to ache. He wondered why, and then the full realization of his situation imposed itself upon him. The bridge was thick with smoke.
The flame-retardant chemicals were already being released and were controlling the fire adequately enough, but that still didn’t help the wreck that the bridge had become. It had all happened so fast, so decisively, that it was difficult for Riker to fully grasp.
Then he saw Palumbo’s unmoving body slumped backward in the chair, with half his scalp torn away and a huge metal shard buried in his skull, and the full reality of it sank in quite quickly.
His immediate impulse was to stop, to mourn, to dwell on how just hours before he had been chatting in relaxed and casual fashion with this young man who had considered Riker someone to emulate. And now he was gone, just like that. No more aspirations, no more dreams. Nothing.
And the others, my God, the others. First Officer Morris was also gone, buried under a pile of debris that had broken loose from overhead.
Then Riker, from long practice, pushed such sentiments and concerns aside. There would be time enough later to mourn…presuming there was, in fact, a later.
Mankowski wasn’t moving either, tilted back in his seat, his head slumped to one side. But he seemed to be breathing at least, albeit shallowly, and he was moaning softly. There was a streak of red down the side of his face, but apparently the wound was under his hair because Riker couldn’t immediately discern it.
As for the captain…Garfield was unconscious. He was slumped over the ops console, and Riker realized that Garfield must have tried to take over when Palumbo went down. But there was only a blackened shell where the ops console had been. Apparently the entire thing had blown up in Garfield’s face. His uniform was torn, his face was blackened, and there was blood everywhere. That Garfield was breathing at all was nothing short of miraculous.
“Commander…”
The voice came in a croak. Riker turned and saw Monastero, the security chief, rising from the wreckage like a ghost. “We’ve…got to get them out of here…”
“Report, Lieutenant,” Riker said through cracked and bleeding lips. “Where are the attackers.”
“We have to get out!” Monastero repeated.
“Give me an update, Mister!” Riker was starting to become irritated. Monastero appeared to be in shock.
“A report.” Monastero pulled himself together and then fired a dark glare at Riker. “Sensors are down. We’re dead in space. Impulse engines off line. Emergency distress signal has been activated. And thirty seconds ago, we got word from engineering that there’s a warp core breech.”
“What? Riker to engineering.” He wasn’t quite sure that Monastero, who had a dazed look in his eye and appeared to have gone several rounds with a brick wall, was fully reliable. On the other hand, he was the only person still coherent on the bridge.
There was no response to Riker’s hail. But at that moment, the computer voice of the Independence said with its customary sang froid, “Warp core breech reported. Four minutes, eighteen seconds to final detonation. Evacuation of ship proceeding…”
Monastero spread his hands in a “Told you so” gesture.
It was not a situation that gave Riker a warm, squooshy feeling. Outside the ship was an array of Romulan vessels, and he was quite certain that they weren’t about to be sporting about the emergency situation. The only hope they had was that the Romulans had moved off upon detecting the rupture of the warp core. The explosion was going to be rather intense, and nobody wanted to be in the vicinity when it happened.
Of course, that included the crew of the Independence.
“Are the turbolifts functioning?” Riker asked. Monastero’s look said it all. “No, of course not. That’d be too easy,” Riker continued, answering his own question. “All right then.” He hauled Mankowski out of the chair and draped him over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. “The captain. Get the captain.”
Monastero was already ahead of him. He draped Garfield over his shoulder and headed for the emergency exit. Riker followed quickly, while the computer calmly informed them that in just four minutes, the ship they were presently residing in would be nothing more than a large patch of space dust.
When the Enterprise had suffered a warp breech, they had been able to separate the saucer section from her and make their escape that way. But that option was not open to the Independence. With the impulse drive down, the saucer section would have no means of propelling itself away from the blast area. They’d go up in a ball of fire the size of Topeka. The only hope they had was the individual escape pods which would be able to hurtle away from the ship with sufficient speed to reach a safe distance from the explosion. At least, that was the theory.
Riker just prayed they were still functioning. The escape pods were on a separate, emergency system from the mainline computers, just for this sort of emergency. Still, with everything else down, who knew for sure? But there was no other option. It was either the escape pods or blow themselves out the photon torpedo tubes and pray that they suddenly developed the ability to breathe in a vacuum.
Climbing through the emergency hatchways under ordinary circumstances was problematic enough. Doing so with the slumped body of Mankowski over him was particularly challenging. Every so often Mankowski would flutter on the light side of consciousness, muttering something incoherent—once it was something about a beautiful waltz, another time it related to triangles—before passing out once more.
Monastero, for his part, was utterly stoic. He hauled his captain to safety without complaint or even the slightest grunt. One would have thought he was carrying a bag of katha chips for all the effort he was displaying. He was definitely stronger than he looked.
They arrived at the lower deck which led to the nearest set of emergency pods. “Let’s hope there’s some left,” said Riker.
“Let’s hope a lot of things,” replied Monastero.
They stumbled down the corridor, and Mankowski had recovered enough of his wits to be able to haul his own weight. Garfield was still out cold. His col-or—what was discernable of it beneath the burns—did not look good. Riker was no doctor, but he gave Garfield a fifty-fifty chance at best. Then he spotted the sign, glowing in the half-light of the hallway, pointing the way to the escape pods. “There! This way!”
“I know that! It’s my damned ship!” shot back Monastero.
They made it to the pods. Other crewmen were
hurriedly launching themselves into space, but when they saw the captain was there, several of them stopped what they were doing and helped load him into a pod. It was a gesture that Riker couldn’t help but appreciate. They were placing the survival of their commanding officer above their own. That was a true measure of the mettle of Starfleet officers, particularly in a time of crisis. Riker wished that the remaining pods allowed for more than one person; in his condition, the captain could really have used someone with him. But it simply wasn’t an option.
“Captain away!” called Monastero. But rather than jump into a pod himself, he helped Riker load Mankowski into an escape pod. Only after that had been fired off into space did Monastero turn to head for his own means of escape. He paused for a moment, however, turned to face Riker, and—despite the fact that such gestures were all-but-unknown anymore—snapped off a crisp salute to Riker. The commander returned the gesture and then climbed into his own pod. He ran through the launch protocol as fast as he could, trying not to think about the dwindling time left to him. The seal slid into place, and Riker engaged the “eject” sequence. Seconds later, the escape pod shook violently around him, and the next thing Riker knew, he was watching the Independence spiral away from him.
Through the small viewing porthole of the pod, he couldn’t believe the damage he was seeing once he was outside. There was scarcely a section of the ship that hadn’t been scored or ruptured. Warp core breech? The amazing thing was that the starship had held together for as long as it had. One warp nacelle had been blown away completely, and was hanging like a severed limb nearby the ship’s hull. Air was venting into space, the seals having failed. Even the ship’s name, etched proudly on the saucer, was covered with carbon scoring and was barely visible.
“Bastards,” breathed Riker.
Then he saw the ship begin to tremble violently, and he realized that the moment of total destruction was very close. Unfortunately, so was he. The escape pod was moving quickly, all right, but he wasn’t confident that it was quick enough to put enough distance between himself and the ship.
And then, with a final shudder, much like a death throe, the engineering section of the Independence erupted. Riker looked away, partly from the emotion involved in seeing such a magnificent vessel destroyed, and also simply because such a detonation was blinding.
The unleashed energies of the all-consuming warp core enveloped the remains of the Independence like a high-speed cancer, and seconds later the ship was gone. In its place was a massive, dazzling blast, with a shock wave radiating from the midst of it that was overtaking Riker’s escape pod with horrifying ease.
Riker braced himself, and then the wave overwhelmed the escape pod. It propelled him, faster and faster, and Riker set his jaw and didn’t cry out. He wasn’t entirely certain why he felt the need to keep it in. It wasn’t as if there was anyone around. But he kept his mouth sealed just the same, closing his eyes against the spin of the pod.
Throughout all of it, he was struck by the silence of it all. The blast happened in relative silence, and as he spun about in space, caught up in the force of the detonation, the main sound he was able to hear was that of his own breathing…and possibly the pounding of his own heart. He braced himself within the pod, grasping the grips on either side to steady himself. He felt his gorge rising and pushed it back down. The last thing he needed to do was vomit in the confined space of the escape pod.
The momentum continued to carry him as he rode the crest of the wave, tumbling end over end, and the incandescence was simply overwhelming. He was shoved along, a pebble at the edge of a wave. Images flashed before him, people he loved, people he’d worked with, people long gone and people he wondered if he’d ever see again. He realized his life was flashing before his eyes and all he could think was, How terribly clichéd.
It was only belatedly that he realized the light was fading. He peered through the viewport and saw that the explosion was dissipating. He had made it, had tumbled beyond the blast range. There were some other pods within his field of vision, but it was impossible to tell who it was or how many of the crew had survived.
Now that he was clear, he activated the pod’s propulsion system. It wasn’t as if the escape pod had a ton of maneuverability. To be specific, when compared to the propulsion and maneuver capacities of a starship, the pod was equipped with little more than a pair of oars. Then again, since the pod really was a glorified lifeboat, that was fairly appropriate.
The problem was, there wasn’t really any place for Riker to head to. He wasn’t situated near any plan-et…and even if he was, there wouldn’t be any guarantee that it would have been hospitable. Up to that point, he’d been more reacting than acting. The idea had been to get away from the dying starship rather than be concerned about getting to someplace. Now his main concern was steadying himself and returning to the other pods. If there were a hospitable planet in the area, then the smart thing to do would be to head there as quickly as possible, touch down, and wait for rescue. But with nothing around and Riker uncertain precisely where they were, the only reasonable thing to do was keep together as a group and hope that a ship responded to the rescue call that had been sent out…
Just as we responded to a rescue call, Riker thought ruefully. Well, this rescue mission had turned out just wonderfully, hadn’t it.
He saw a cluster of escape pods floating to his right, and was about to try and open up a comm channel so that he could discern who it was…
…and that was when a huge burst of light detonated. Reflexively he shielded his eyes. He didn’t even have to look, though, to know what had just happened.
They were moving in, vultures converging on a wounded and helpless herd. Two Romulan cruisers were coming in. Only two, he realized. Obviously the Independence had not gone out without giving a good account of herself. The other warbirds, as well as the ship they’d been pursuing, had either been destroyed or else so badly shot up that they had had to return to home base—wherever that was—for repairs.
Unfortunately, two warbirds were going to be more than enough to handle the life pods. In fact, considering that the pods were for life maintenance only and contained no offensive capacity, a single Romulan warrior with a phaser cannon could probably dispose of them handily. So two warbirds, in this instance, was overkill.
They were taking their time, the damned sadists. They began fine-tuning their shots; instead of disposing of a group of pods, as one of the ships had just done, they started picking them off one at a time. Target practice, thought an infuriated Riker. They want to drag it out, have some “fun.” Naturally they weren’t interested in rescuing any of them. Romulans habitually did not take prisoners. The only time they had that Riker knew of was the imprisonment of Tasha Yar which had resulted in the birth of Sela, and apparently that had been a rather unique set of circumstances.
He wondered if Sela was aboard one of the ships now, or whether she had been on one of the ones that was crippled or destroyed. “She’s there” Riker muttered. “She’s definitely out there, taking her time, making us suffer. That’s her style.”
Another pod picked off, and another still. There was no way for them to know who was in which pod. There was no mission to try and seek out particular individuals. It was simply an exercise in barbarism.
“Selaaaa!” Riker shouted, even though she couldn’t hear. Even though no one could hear. “Sela…I’ll find you! Even after I’m dead, I’ll still find you, and drag you kicking and screaming to whatever hell you’re destined for!”
One of the Romulan warbirds slowly started to turn in his direction. A more fanciful turn of mind would have prompted Riker to think that Sela was in that ship, and that she had heard him. And that she was about to give her reply in the form of phasers aimed right down his throat. At that moment, he thought about the joke. About being faced with a situation where the odds were utterly hopeless.
Never, in all his career, had Riker been as close to death as he was
at that moment. A Romulan warbird staring at him, her weapons fully charged and ready, and he had no means of escape, no ability to defend himself. Nothing. He was a sitting duck. And it was just he in the pod. He was faced with the moment of his death, and if he cried out, or sobbed, or broke down in frustration, or shouted out curses at the unfair universe that had left him in such dire straits…no one would ever know.
He levelled his gaze straight at the warbird’s gun-port…and then he straightened his uniform jacket, tugging down on the bottom to smooth it.
“Farewell…Imzadi,” he said to one who was not there. Then he tilted his chin slightly, like a prize fighter daring a challenger, and he said, “Take your best shot.”
It wasn’t a phaser that the warbird fired, as it turned out. It was a photon torpedo, and it streaked from the ship’s underbelly straight at Riker. There was absolutely no way that it could miss. Through the silence it came at him, and within a second or two, it would blow him to bits.
At least it would have…had not a phaser blast lanced down from overhead, spearing the photon torpedo with surgical precision and detonating it while it was still a good five hundred yards from the pod.
“What in the—?” said a confused Riker, which was no doubt what they were saying aboard the warbird as well. A shadow was cast over them as something blotted out the light from the nearest star.
Down the starship flew, normal space twisting and roiling around it as the mighty vessel leaped out of warp, firing as it came.
If the warbird could have let out a shriek of surprise, like a genuine bird, it would have. The warbird literally back-flipped out of the way as the new arrival unleashed another phaser barrage that clipped the warbird’s warp nacelles. Riker was impressed at the precision. Whoever was manning tactical aboard the starship unquestionably knew what he was about.
The other warbird peeled off from its steady annihilation of the life pods and opened fire on the starship. The warbird’s phaser blasts danced around the starship’s shields, even as the starship returned fire with a photon torpedo barrage that bracketed the warbird, leaving it no where to go, keeping it in position for another well-placed phaser blast.