by David Mack
“No, I’m all right.” She forced herself to push through the shock of their narrow escape from death, so that she could focus on what needed to be done. “Let’s get to safe ground. I think we’re in for a long night of coordinating emergency response.”
“Yes, Madam Tribune.”
She knew there wasn’t much they could actually do; any efforts they might make now would be tantamount to spitting at a wildfire. But it was better than admitting what she had just seen with her own eyes: If Doctor Kavalas’s dark energy generator didn’t kill Anura, the unstoppable tide of fear it had spawned in the general population would.
13
“Repeat: Sagittarius to Captain Terrell. Please respond.” Theriault stood by the communications console and listened to the weak crackling static of cosmic background radiation. She aimed a worried look at Razka. “Chief, can you boost the gain?”
“We’re at maximum power, sir. Unfortunately, we are also at maximum comm range.” His scaly digits flipped switches and toggles on the console. “Let me narrow the transmission beam. It might compensate for long-range signal dispersion.” He finished his adjustments and looked up at Theriault. “Ready for another try, sir.”
She pressed the transmission button. “Sagittarius to Captain Terrell. Please respond.”
The captain’s answer came back through a heavy scratching of noise. “Terrell here. What’s the ship’s status, Number One?”
“Scuffs and scrapes. Nothing a bit of paint won’t hide. How’s the landing party?”
“Worse for wear but unhurt, thanks to your warning. We just finished rendering first aid to some injured civilians at the impact site and summoned emergency medical help for them. Now we’re back on the road, heading north toward the dark energy facility.”
“Going forward, you might want to ignore your charitable impulses. Before we broke orbit, Razka picked up several transmissions from civilian sources on the surface that are blaming us, and you, for the ongoing weirdness sweeping the planet. The next time you run into the locals, they might not be happy to see you, so be on your guard.”
“Another timely warning, Number One. Thank you.”
“All part of the service.”
“Speaking of service, how are your guests holding up?”
An alert tone from the sensor console on the other side of the bridge distracted her for a moment. Dastin leaned over the sensor hood to investigate the cause of the alarm, so Theriault resumed her conversation with Terrell. “They’re fine, considering they all came within minutes of getting pulverized. Right now they’re in the mess hall, trying to find something in our food synthesizer that they’d consider palatable.”
“If they do, they’ll be the first.”
His quip made her smile. “I told them to lower their expectations.” A howl of electronic noise flooded the channel. When it ceased, Theriault continued, “Captain? Are you still there?”
“Still here, Number One.” His tone turned more serious. “First, let me commend you and the rest of the crew for your rescue of the station’s team. Second, don’t do anything like that again. When I ordered you to keep the ship away from the distortion field, I meant it. No more unnecessary risks. Understood?”
“Aye, sir.” Theriault aimed a reproving look at Sorak, who she hoped would appreciate her omitting from the log his daredevil thruster-pack rescue of the station’s commander. For his part, Sorak responded to her keenly arched eyebrow with one of his own. Affecting her most humble demeanor, she asked the captain, “What should we do with our rescued astronauts?”
“Treat them like honored guests and keep them safe. Which, for now, means not bringing them home unless you get the all-clear from me or another member of the landing party.”
His order troubled her. “What if that all-clear never comes?”
“Keep the ship out of the danger zone for the next two hours,” the captain said. “If we don’t check in by then, assume that our mission to the generator has failed, and take the ship out of the system to summon help. But under no circumstances should you approach the planet.”
“Copy that, sir. We’ll—” An intraship channel beeped on Razka’s console, flashing red to signal an urgent message. “Hang on, sir. I’ve got bad news coming from engineering.”
“Do they know any other kind?”
She thumbed open the intraship channel. “Bridge here.”
Threx’s voice spilled from the overhead speakers. “Sir, we need to fall back farther than we thought. Even at this distance, we’re still feeling the effects of the distortion field.”
“What effects are you seeing?”
“You name it, we’ve got it. Irregularities in the matter-antimatter mix chamber, strange fluctuations in power output from the warp coils, and about two dozen minor malfunctions in everything from the impulse coil modulator to the plasma relays. And whatever you do, don’t go to warp speed—right now I can’t guarantee we won’t shred ourselves if we do.”
Theriault took a breath and concentrated on remaining calm and in control. “Understood. We’ll fall back at half-impulse. Let me know if the weirdness eases up. Bridge out.”
Before she could resume her conversation with the captain, she noticed Dastin crossing the bridge at a quick step, moving in her direction. “Commander, we’ve got a new problem.”
“Oh, good. I was worried we might not have enough to keep us busy.”
“Then you’ll love this: a dark comet, inbound on a stealth trajectory. Once it passes Anura’s larger moon, it’ll be on a direct heading to strike the planet’s central landmass.”
Sorak swiveled away from his console. “Confirmed, Commander.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Never a dull moment in this job. “How big is it?”
“A planet-killer,” Dastin said. “And it’ll hit Anura in four hours and nineteen minutes.”
“Not if we hit it first.” She turned back toward the communications console. “Captain, I assume you caught all that?”
“I certainly did, Number One. Sounds like you have your hands full up there.”
She loved his knack for understatement. “And then some, sir.”
“Then you’d better get to work, and we’ll do the same.”
“Aye, sir. We’ll check in as soon as we have news.”
“Acknowledged. Good luck, Number One.”
It took effort not to let her fear show through her mask of authority. “Same to you, sir. Sagittarius out.” She nodded to Razka to close the channel, then she returned to the command chair. “Helm, increase to half-impulse and move us beyond the range of the distortion field, then plot a course at full impulse to intercept the comet. Mister Sorak, Mister Dastin: Start looking for a way to cut that dirty ball of ice down to size—the faster, the better.”
• • •
It had been a long time since Clark Terrell had traveled a long stretch of lonely road. He had cruised North America’s famed Pacific Coast Highway one summer before joining Starfleet, and as a midshipman cadet he’d been a passenger on an overland drive through the breathtaking desert terrain that separated two of Vulcan’s largest cities. Neither had prepared him for the monotony of traversing a straight cut of road through a bleak inland plain on a moonless night.
The navigation system’s screen was angled toward Taryl. She remained alert and kept her senses sharp by shifting her attention, seemingly at random, between the road ahead, the rearview mirror, and glancing toward either shoulder of the empty, unlit highway.
Terrell cleared his throat with a muffled cough so that his voice wouldn’t startle her. “What’s our ETA, Ensign?”
She checked the navigation screen. “Ninety-one minutes.”
Ilucci leaned forward. “Maybe we could pass the time with a driving song.”
“If you so much as hum a bar,” Terrell said, “I’ll
have you court-martialed.”
“On what charge?”
Terrell threw a glare over his shoulder. “Trust me, I’ll think of something.”
The chief engineer took Terrell’s threat to heart, sat back, and closed his eyes.
Taryl squinted into the darkness, then did a double take toward the navigation screen. “Sir, I think there’s some kind of a structure ahead, off the right side of the road. The nav shows a lot of vehicles stopped in front of it.”
Her report made Kavalas sit up. “It’s a rest area. There aren’t many this far north, but there are always a few along every highway. For food, bodily needs, that kind of thing.”
An anxious look from Taryl. “What do you think, sir? Should we stop for a minute?”
It took only a moment’s consideration for Terrell to decide. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. If Commander Theriault’s right, we might not be very welcome there right now.”
Kavalas struck an optimistic note. “We are quite far north. It might be deserted.”
Hesh, who hadn’t spoken in over an hour, activated his tricorder. Its shimmer of sound filled the transport. Seconds later, Hesh turned the device off. “I’m reading several dozen life-forms at the rest area, sir. All register as Austarans. Based on the fact that many of them are in motion, I feel confident in my deduction that the majority are presently awake.”
“Thank you, Mister Hesh. Ensign Taryl, that’s our cue to drive on.”
Up ahead, a dim orange glow from the rest area became visible through a sparse patch of woods. Ilucci studied it with naked suspicion. “The XO said we were on the news, and the locals sound pretty keyed up about it. What if that crowd at the rest area’s been waiting for us?”
Taryl scrunched her face in confusion. “How would they know where we are?”
“Because I made us stop to render first aid to the victims of the meteoroid impact,” Terrell said. “Word must have gotten out by now.”
Hesh, as ever, tried to remain hopeful. “Perhaps they will not recognize us.”
“We’re about to find out,” Taryl said.
The transport sped past the rest area, which was packed with a variety of vehicles. A crowd milled about the fleet of personal transports. At first, no one seemed to pay any attention to the landing party’s transport as it streaked by in the dark.
Then someone pointed at them, and the mob scrambled into action.
Taryl frowned. “I think they recognized us.”
The blinding glare of headlights filled the road behind the landing party’s transport. It took less than a minute for the radiance to fill the rear window like a halogen sunrise.
Ilucci tried to look back, then ducked under the headlight beams. “How the hell are they catching up to us? I thought guided-nav transports were speed-limited.”
Kavalas looked back and swallowed hard. “You aren’t the only ones who know how to bypass the velocity governors. Our pursuers must also have asserted manual control of their vehicles after the grid started to fail.”
Shouts and honks assailed them from outside. Cracks of gunfire made Terrell flinch, and he felt his breath catch and his heart skip a beat when a projectile caromed off the transport’s rear window. He checked the side mirrors and noted chase cars creeping up on either side of their overloaded transport. “Mister Hesh, Doctor Kavalas, follow the Master Chief’s example and get down. Ensign, coax every bit of speed out of this thing that you can, and hold her steady.”
The trio in the backseat huddled on the floor, and Taryl hunched low in the driver’s seat as she pushed the accelerator to maximum.
Alarms pinged on the master control panel as Terrell unfastened his safety harness. He lowered his door’s window, drew his Type-1 phaser, and climbed out the window. Icy wind buffeted his face and made his eyes water.
Another crack of gunfire was followed by a bright metallic ping of contact as the shot ricocheted off his door. He sat on the bottom edge of the open window frame, held on to the roof’s edge with his left hand, and crossed his right wrist over his left to steady his aim.
One prolonged shot on high power. The crimson beam sliced a zigzagging wound in the pavement, which erupted into smoke as the asphalt turned to molten rock, blocking the road and halting the parade of would-be vigilantes behind a fresh-cut canyon of white-hot divots and crumbling pavement, while the landing party’s transport slipped away into the night.
Satisfied his work was done and that no one had been harmed, Terrell holstered his phaser and slipped back inside the car. Taryl helpfully raised his window for him, using the master control panel on her door, while he refastened his seatbelt harness.
The trio in the rear got up from the floor and settled back into their seats. Ilucci nodded in approval at his commanding officer. “Nice shooting, Skipper.”
Terrell accepted the compliment with a grin.
“That’s why they call it ‘riding shotgun,’ Master Chief.”
• • •
Theriault leaned forward in the command chair, her eyes locked on the image of the massive hunk of ice and rock that filled the main viewscreen. Nizsk had piloted the Sagittarius to within several thousand kilometers of the comet, then set the tiny scout ship into reverse while matching the comet’s speed, providing her crewmates with an optimal vantage for targeting. All that was left to do now was divert the gargantuan mass before it exterminated all life on Anura.
“Mister Sorak,” Theriault said, “lock weapons on target. Mister Dastin, stand by on tractor beams. Ensign Nizsk, be ready to engage evasive maneuvers. Once we start slicing up that comet, there’s no telling which way some of the pieces might go.”
The aft door slid open. Theriault swiveled her chair and turned her head to see the leader of the Austaran space station crew standing in the open doorway to the Sagittarius’s bridge. “I hope this isn’t an inconvenient—” His eyes flared at the sight of the comet. “What is that?”
Starfleet’s protocols dictated the alien visitor be denied access to the bridge, but Theriault doubted he would understand enough of what he saw for his presence to constitute a danger to Federation security or the Prime Directive. “That, Commander Beiana, is a large, fast-moving comet. Right now it’s on a heading that’ll crash it into your homeworld in less than four hours. If you don’t mind observing in silence, we’re about to do all we can to prevent that.”
Beiana stepped clear of the door’s proximity sensor, allowing the portal to glide closed. “By all means, Commander Theriault. Carry on, please.”
She swung her chair back to its forward-facing position. “Weapons, status.”
“Phasers locked on to key stress points in the comet,” Sorak said.
Theriault was troubled by what he’d left unsaid. “What about torpedoes?”
Sorak checked his console. “Still awaiting confirmation from engineering.”
Losing patience, Theriault thumbed open the channel to the top deck. “Engineering, Bridge. Where are my photon torpedoes?”
Cahow’s reply sounded strained. “Almost . . . there. Autoloader . . . failed. Loading . . . the launch tube . . . by hand.” Next came a heavy thump and a metallic clang. “Loaded!”
“Thank the Great Bird for minor miracles.” She looked at Dastin. “Are we far enough from the distortion field to use shields?”
He nodded. “All clear, sir. And tractor beam is standing by to autotarget based on the parameters you specified.”
“Good work, Lieutenant.” She turned toward the other side of the bridge. “Chief Razka, patch the feed from our viewscreen to the mess hall’s display, and tell Commander Beiana’s crew what they’re looking at. It’s their homeworld at stake—they deserve to know what’s happening, and what we’re doing about it.”
“Aye, sir.”
Commander Beiana acknowledged Theriault’s gesture of openness with a h
alf-bow she interpreted as a sign of gratitude. She answered him with a nod, then resumed her work. “Ensign Nizsk, angle our shields for maximum forward deflection.”
Nizsk’s claws worked the forward console’s controls with surprising speed and precision. “Shields raised, Commander. Multiple evasive programs ready, as well as manual response.”
Theriault used the armrest controls to open a shipwide channel. “All personnel, brace for impact. We’re about to break up the comet, and we might catch some blowback, so look sharp.” She closed the channel. “Mister Sorak, lock torpedo on the comet’s most likely fracture point. And just in case this crazy plan actually works, prepare to target the segments.”
“Torpedo locked, phasers charged. Give the word, Commander.”
“Fire torpedo!”
One tap by Sorak launched the photon torpedo, a compact self-propelled projectile with a matter-antimatter warhead capable of phenomenal destructive power on unshielded targets. A whoop from its thrusters resounded through the hull as it shot from the launch tube above the bridge. It streaked away from the Sagittarius, a crimson bolt against the dark backdrop of space, and disappeared into the shadowy maw of the comet.
Its detonation turned the viewscreen white for a half-second. When the blinding light faded, the interior surfaces of the broken comet’s now several pieces glowed bright red, still half-molten from the intense energies of the torpedo. Most of the largest pieces were already drifting apart, their individual trajectories having been altered by the force of the blast.
“Mister Dastin, how many of the remaining pieces still pose a threat to Anura?”
It took him a few seconds to coax the report from the computer. “The core remains on course to hit the planet.” He looked up from the sensor hood. “But if we nudge it a little . . .”
“Understood.” Theriault looked back at Sorak. “Phasers?”
“The tractor beam would be more effective.”
It was a riskier method, but Theriault trusted her crewmates to get it done. “Helm, take us to optimal tractor beam range. Watch out for loose debris from the torpedo blast. Dastin, I need an angle of attack that will make the greatest beneficial change in the comet’s heading.”