Destiny: The Complete Saga: Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, and Lost Souls

by David Mack

  “Aye, sir,” Bowers said. “Tactical, arm phaser cannons one and two, stand ready on quantum torpedoes. Helm, set attack pattern Alpha-Tango … and engage.”

  Dax settled into her chair and stared at the ominous mass of black metal that filled the bridge’s main viewscreen like a spreading cancer. She wondered how close the Borg would let the Aventine come before the cube opened fire.

  Then a searing flash of green light shot from the cube to the Aventine, and the Vesta-class explorer lurched forward like a ship at sea running momentarily aground over a sandbar. When the percussive din of impact finished resonating through the hull, Dax pushed herself fully back into her chair and said to her XO, “I think they’re in range now, Sam.”

  “We’ll only get one shot, Captain,” Bowers replied. “I plan on making it count.” He nodded to Kedair. “Fire at will.”

  Deep droning hums swelled rapidly in pitch and volume and ended in rushing thunderclaps of release as the Aventine’s experimental Mark XII phaser cannons fired their peculiar mix of supercharged high-energy particles at the Borg cube. The enemy vessel’s shield bubble flared violet for a half second before it buckled. A series of blasts punched through the cube’s hull and left fire and molten metal in their wake.

  A volley of quantum torpedoes arced in alongside the phaser blasts, punching more holes in the Borg ship’s dark exterior. Then the last two torpedoes impacted harmlessly against the Borg’s resurgent defensive energy screen. Two more bursts from the phaser cannon were absorbed by the protective field.

  “Hard to port,” Bowers ordered, “full evasive!” The whine of the impulse engines grew louder as the Aventine veered away from the Borg ship. Bowers wore the slack expression of a man who knew all too well what would happen next. “Here’s where the real fun begins,” he said.

  Then the Borg started shooting back.

  * * *

  Commander Geordi La Forge dodged through flames and smoke in the main engineering compartment of the Enterprise, trusting the enhanced-spectrum view provided by his cybernetic eyes to keep him a step ahead of the next catastrophe.

  He grabbed the sleeve of a passing engineer and spun the dark-haired human woman back to face him. “Granados,” he said, “shut down the starboard EPS tap, it’s overheating!”

  “The gauges read normal,” the ensign protested.

  “Maureen, they’re wrong,” La Forge shouted. He let go of her arm and pointed at the auxiliary control panel a few sections away, down the corridor. “Shut it down, now!”

  She nodded. “Aye, sir.” As she sprinted toward the control panel, La Forge continued on his original path and weaved around a running damage-control team in pressure suits.

  The din of system-failure alarms, panicked voices, cries of pain and fear, and running footfalls all were drowned out by the overpowering percussive rumble of an energy strike against the ship’s hull. A hurricane-force gust hurled La Forge several meters through the air for a few seconds, then it fell away and dropped him to the deck as emergency force fields and bulkheads engaged to isolate the breached compartment a few sections away.

  A flash accompanied another ear-rending blast, this time from the already overtaxed electroplasma system energy tap, which routed power from the main reactor to the ship’s internal power grid. Its magnetically sealed protective housing cracked and blew apart. The superheated plasma inside it jetted like lava from a volcano, engulfing a team of engineers who had been trying to prevent exactly that disaster. Even from a distance, the heat overpowered La Forge.

  The lucky ones nearest the rupture were vaporized instantly, transformed into gases and trace atoms. The handful of technicians and mechanics who had been behind them were fighting to pull their maimed, burned bodies away from the fiery mess. Most of them had lost their legs in the first half-second of the explosion, as the falling tide of plasma cut their feet out from under them. One of them, a Benzite, had lost an arm.

  Another hazard-suited damage-control team sprinted in from an adjacent compartment. La Forge pointed to the rupture. “Seal that breach, and raise the force fields!” His skin tingled with pain. Great. Now we’ll all need anti-radiation shots.

  When he turned around, he saw a lot of young enlisted engineers and fresh-faced junior officers staring at the wounded and the dead, and only a few of his more experienced people minding their posts. He stepped between the young gawkers and the horrifying spectacle and started snapping orders.

  “Gallivan, rebalance the power load on the starboard PTC. L’Sen, make sure the SIF is compensating for the hull breach. Newaur, stop chewing your claws and start patching that hole in our shields. The rest of you, back to your stations!”

  The engineers had just resumed work when another hit by the Borg roared and echoed inside the Enterprise. La Forge moved at a quick step down the line of consoles, glancing past his people at their work and assembling the glimpses of data into a mental picture of the ship’s condition.

  As he neared the impulse system’s power relays, he was intercepted by his assistant chief engineer, Lieutenant Taurik. The Vulcan’s uniform was torn and smudged, and his face was obscured by dark gray carbon dust. “Commander,” he said, “the targeting sensors have been almost completely destroyed. Rebuilding them will take up to a day.”

  La Forge cringed as a resounding boom shook the ship. He heard the crack of exploding consoles behind him a moment before he felt a blast of heat and the sting of shrapnel on his back. The impact knocked him facedown at Taurik’s feet.

  Within seconds, Taurik was lifting La Forge back to his feet. “Are you all right, sir?”

  “No,” La Forge said, gritting his teeth against the burning pain shooting through shallow wounds on either side of his spine. He turned and looked back at the damage. A quick scan in several different wavelengths revealed no other imminent overloads, but the body-heat readings of several downed engineers were alarmingly unstable. Pain and anger overpowered his sense of decorum. “Where are the medics, goddammit?”

  “Sir,” Taurik said, trying to lead La Forge away from the scene, “you need to get to sickbay.”

  La Forge threw off Taurik’s helping hand. “What I need, Taurik, is two more minutes of shield power. Focus on that.”

  The Vulcan betrayed no hint of umbrage at La Forge’s sharpness of tone. “Aye, sir,” he replied, and he walked quickly toward the engineering control center for tactical systems.

  La Forge limped in the other direction, one painful step at a time, back through the haze of toxic smoke and bitter dust, toward his fallen engineers. At long last, he saw a team of medics rounding the corner from the far corridor.

  Another pounding blow resounded through the hull.

  “Just keep it going a little longer, people,” he said, his mood grim and his voice strained by his fresh injuries. “One way or another, this’ll be over in the next two minutes.”

  * * *

  Helkara spun away from his console to report, “Sensors ready!”

  “Signal Enterprise,” Bowers said to Mirren.

  The slender ops officer tapped a ready key on her console. It flashed red twice before it turned green. Mirren replied, “Enterprise confirms. Torpedoes away in ten.”

  “Helm, all ahead,” Dax ordered. “We need to get in close and arm the warheads before the Borg realize what we’re doing.”

  Bowers threw a look at the captain that she recognized as one of apprehension. Putting the ship into easy firing range of the Borg was something her XO had wanted to avoid, but in this case it couldn’t be helped. To his credit, she thought, he kept his objections to himself and resumed directing the attack as if nothing was amiss. “Tharp, show the Borg our port side. Kedair, reinforce the port shields for the flyby.” He looked to the relief tactical officer, a Deltan woman named Talia Kandel. “Lieutenant, arm the Enterprise’s torpedoes as soon as they’re away, and lock them onto the Borg cube as fast as you can.”

  “Incoming!” called Kedair. Then an erratic series of hard
impacts scrambled monitors and companels around the bridge, which dipped deeper into shadow after each blow. The high-pitched whine of the engines began to fall. “Shields buckling,” the security chief said.

  “Six torpedoes away!” Mirren shouted over the clamor.

  “Acquiring control,” Kandel said as she worked.

  On the main viewer, Dax saw energy pulses from the Borg cube slice past the Aventine into seemingly empty space. She was about to be grateful for the missed shot when she saw the flare of a distant detonation.

  “We just lost two torpedoes,” Mirren said. “The Borg are locking on again—”

  Kandel cut in, “Torpedoes armed!” Her fingertips danced lightly across her controls as she added, “Target acquired!”

  “Resume evasive maneuvers,” Bowers ordered.

  The remaining four missiles became incandescent, shining bright and blue against the blackness of space. They traced corkscrew paths through the Borg’s defensive fusillade of energy blasts. A blinding pulse of light washed out the image on the main viewscreen, and a gut-wrenching sensation of collision lifted the bridge officers several centimeters into the air. Then the artificial gravity kicked back in and dropped everyone roughly on the deck.

  “Stations,” Dax said, the edge in her voice cutting through the daze and shock of the direct hit. “Mirren, get the viewer back on. Tharp, new evasive pattern. Kandel, report!”

  It took a few seconds for the Deltan woman to coax her console back to full operation. “The Borg neutralized three of the torpedoes while we were down. Adjusting the last torpedo to compensate.” The main viewer flickered back to life as she added, “It’s through their shields—direct hit!”

  Sapphire flames blazed from an erupting rent in the cube’s patchwork hull, and fissures traveled with surprising speed and ferocity across all its surfaces as it began to tumble through space like a cast die. Explosions peppered its surface, ejecting chunks of its exterior in its wake.

  Bowers turned and said with dark satisfaction to Kedair, “Feel free to have a little target practice, Lieutenant.”

  “With pleasure, sir.” Seconds later Kedair opened fire with the Aventine’s phaser cannons and quantum torpedoes. Piece by piece, she vaporized the debris of the disintegrating Borg vessel, which now looked like a hollow shell; it had been all but consumed from within by the transphasic warhead’s electric-blue fires. Staring at the gutted hexahedron, Kedair said, “Permission to finish the job, Captain?”

  “Permission granted,” Dax said, noting a subtle nod of agreement from Bowers. They both watched as a volley of ten quantum torpedoes plunged into the smoldering wreckage of the Borg ship and obliterated it. Watching the fire cloud disperse into the unforgiving vacuum of space, Dax noted the heavy odor of scorched metal and burnt optronics that permeated her bridge.

  Mirren silenced a beeping alert on her console. “Enterprise is hailing us, Captain.”

  “On-screen,” Dax said.

  Captain Picard’s visage filled the screen. “Captain Dax,” he said. “My thanks and compliments for a fine rescue.”

  “The pleasure was all ours, Captain,” Dax said. “We’re still licking our wounds over here, but I have medics and damage-control teams standing by if you need them.”

  Picard sighed softly and nodded once. “We’re not too proud to say we’re in need of assistance. Any help you can offer will be gratefully accepted.”

  “Understood,” Dax said. “Send us a list of any parts or equipment you might need. I’ll have my chief engineer take care of the details.”

  Nodding, Picard replied, “Very good. My second officer, Commander Kadohata, will apprise your crew of our needs. In the meantime, Captain, I’d like to invite you and your first officer to meet with me privately aboard the Enterprise. We came to the Azure Nebula on an urgent mission, and now that you’re here, we need to ask for your help in completing it.”

  “Of course, Captain,” Dax said. “Commander Bowers and I will beam over as soon as you’re ready to receive us.”

  “At 0230, then,” Picard said. “Enterprise out.”

  The main viewer blinked back to the serene vista of deep space. Dax turned to Bowers. “Enterprise took some heavy damage in that fight, Sam. Make sure Mikaela knows to make their repairs a priority.”

  “Will do,” Bowers said. Quietly, he added, “I guess it would be awkward to ask if they could loan us a few of those transphasic torpedoes, wouldn’t it?”

  “Not as awkward as it’ll be for me seeing Worf again,” Dax replied. “With all that’s been going on for the last five weeks, I haven’t had a chance to talk to him since my promotion. Last time I saw him, I was congratulating him for accepting the XO billet on the Enterprise. That was before I transferred here, when I was still a lieutenant commander. Now I outrank him.”

  Bowers shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, Captain. Maybe he’ll just be happy for you, as a friend.”

  “Maybe,” Dax said. “But you know what they say: Rank is like sex—it changes everything.”

  * * *

  Dr. Beverly Crusher moved quickly from one biobed to the next, supervising her staff of surgeons, nurses, and medical technicians as they tended to the scores of grievously wounded personnel being portered into sickbay by security officers, paramedics, and damage-control officers.

  At one bed, Dr. Tropp, her Denobulan assistant chief medical officer, was already deep into a surgical procedure, trying to stabilize the vital functions of a Bajoran woman whose legs were gone, sheared away halfway between the waist and the knees, cauterized black and smooth by some hellish trauma.

  Walking down the row of biobeds, Crusher saw only more of the same: the burnt and the broken, the amputated and the paralyzed. Her normally antiseptic-smelling sickbay was rich with the charnel perfume of scorched flesh and spilled blood. Pitiful moaning, wails of agony, the hoarse exhortations of the suffering and the dying dispelled the quiet ambience she had always taken for granted.

  A woman’s voice called out, “Doctor Crusher!” She turned and saw Dr. Rymond, a chestnut-haired female surgical intern, beckoning her into the triage center adjacent to sickbay. Crusher dodged past a pair of medical technicians carrying a wounded officer on a stretcher to the O.R., brushed a few sweat-soaked strands of her red hair from her face, and joined Rymond.

  The patient, a youthful-looking man, lay on his side, facing away from Crusher. A jagged length of what looked like a fragment of a metal support beam skewered his torso. “Fill me in,” Crusher said.

  “Fell onto a broken railing segment,” Rymond said. “The DC team cut him free and left us a few centimeters to grab on to, but it’s stuck tight. He’s in shock and fading fast. Pulse is one-forty and thready, BP fifty over thirty.”

  Crusher grabbed one end of the man’s stretcher and nodded to Rymond to take the other. “Okay, front of the line, let’s go.” They carried him into sickbay, toward a biobed that had just been vacated. “Does our lucky friend have a name?”

  “Lieutenant Konya,” Rymond said as they set him down.

  Hearing his name enabled Crusher to see past the blood and grime on the wounded man’s face and recognize him. He was the ship’s deputy chief of security. “Get a breathing mask on him. Try and bring up his pulse ox while we get a clearer picture of the damage. And watch his EEG, he’s Betazoid.” She called over her shoulder, “We need a surgical arch over here!”

  She lifted her medical tricorder, which she kept holstered on her belt during crises like these, and began an exploratory imaging sequence of Konya’s torso. “Damn,” she muttered. “It’s straight through the inferior vena cava.” To the unconscious Betazoid she added, “You had to make it difficult, didn’t you?”

  A pair of technicians, one an Andorian thaan and the other a female Saurian, hurried over with a surgical arch for the biobed. They slipped past Rymond and Crusher, fitted the arch into place, then rushed away as Dr. Tropp called from across sickbay for a new pack of hyposprays.

  Crusher p
owered up the arch, calibrated its settings for Betazoid male physiology, and downloaded Konya’s medical history from the ship’s computer, to serve as baseline data. “Activate the delta-wave generator and monitor his vitals for me,” Crusher said. “I’m about to open the pericardium and put a circular constrictor field around the auricle of his right atrium.”

  Her touches on the arch’s interface pad were delicate and precise. Its noninvasive surgical protocols were state-of-the-art medicine, but only if one knew how to use them. This seemed to Crusher like a good opportunity to pass on some of that skill to her fresh-faced intern. “Watch closely,” she said to the younger woman. “We’re going to constrict the auricle and create a virtual venous-return catheter from there to the IVC.”

  The procedure went exactly as Crusher hoped, with the surgical arch manipulating force fields and tissue regenerators in an intricately programmed sequence. “As soon as I detect resistance from the fragment, I want you to use the controls on your side to dematerialize it.” She watched Rymond initialize the interface on the other side of the arch. “Ready?”

  Rymond nodded and kept her eyes on her controls.

  “Okay,” Crusher said, watching the resistance gauges creep upward for the constrictor field, “now.”

  Rymond tapped in the micro-transporter sequence and removed all traces of the intruding metal fragment.

  As soon as the transporter sequence ended, Crusher finished closing the constrictor field. “All right,” she said. “The auricle’s sealed, the catheter’s functional, and we can start doing some repair work.” She looked over at Rymond. “Feel up to finishing this one on your own?”

  “Yes, Doctor.” The young surgeon glanced at the display screens on the arch. “I’ll need to transfuse him first.” She turned her head and caught the eye of Nurse Mimouni, who was passing by. “Nurse, prep eight units of J-neg and two units of Betazoid plasma, stat.” Mimouni nodded her acknowledgment without breaking stride.

  “Let me know if you need a hand,” Crusher said. Rymond nodded and continued repairing Konya’s wounds as Crusher moved on, back through the chaotic hustle of bodies and equipment.