Long Shot

by David Mack

  Exhausted, demoralized, and out of her depth, Cahow turned a despairing eye toward Torvin, then looked back at the first officer. “I never claimed to be a miracle worker, sir. Just a tool-pusher. But if there’s a way to restart these engines, I give you my word: I will find it.”

  “I know you will.” Theriault patted Cahow’s arm. “I believe in you, Karen.”

  She masked her terror with a smile. That makes one of us, sir.

  19

  Bearers of bad news arrived in battalions, one after another, in Tribune Saranda’s adopted office. Tosc, her chief of staff, did his best to stanch the flow of calamitous reports, but the few hard lines that were still working in her top-floor suite at the Nismul Hotel buzzed nonstop. The whole world had devolved into panic when the news services broadcast vids of the Executive Complex being leveled by a firestorm from the sky. Half the world feared the government had been eradicated with its symbolic edifices, and the other half of the world hoped it. Saranda’s job was to reassure them all that she and her government were alive and doing their best to maintain order in the face of unstoppable chaos.

  Tosc handed her his mobile comm. “It’s the governor of Turacol. He says all the rivers in his province are flowing backward.”

  “Tell him to reverse the polarity on his hydroelectric plants and muddle through like the rest of us.” She pointed at the buzzing phone on the desk. “Any idea who that is?”

  He glanced toward it. “It’s line four—the media.”

  “Cut them off. If they call back, blame the distortion field.”

  He took care of scuttling the press inquiry while one of their interns, some eager youngster whose name Saranda had forgotten along with a hundred others over the years, hurried into the suite holding up a data tablet as if it held the secret to life and death. “SkyWave is running observer-­scope footage of the asteroid strike that destroyed Station Xenopus.”

  Cynicism compelled Saranda to ask, “Are they blaming us for it?”

  The nameless intern trained a puzzled look on the tablet. “Not yet, Madam Tribune.”

  “Then I don’t care what they’re using to fill airtime. What’s next?”

  Tosc pointed at the grid of vid screens that had been set up along one wall of Saranda’s commandeered suite. “A wave of brownouts and blackouts is working its way around the planet even as we speak. We’re losing grids in every major city.”

  “That’s been happening all night,” Saranda protested.

  “This time they’re staying out.” Tosc switched one screen to a technical diagram of the planet’s integrated power network. “Reboot attempts have failed at seven major plants so far, and it’s spreading. The engineers are saying it’s like the laws of physics don’t apply anymore.”

  It was a nightmare scenario come to life. “Tosc—if all those grids are down, how are we getting word from those districts?”

  “Battery-powered comms,” he said. “But those are failing fast, too.”

  As if he had summoned trouble by speaking its name, all the lights in the suite stuttered and went black, along with the wall of vid screens and their handful of computers. The only solace in the gloom was the sudden silence of the comms.

  Saranda suppressed her mind’s primitive urge to sink into panic and paralysis. She turned toward her chief of staff, who now was little more than a dark shape in the shadows cast by the twin moons. “Tosc, dig up every bit of power you can find. Keep our comms up, no matter what it takes. We need to know if Doctor Kavalas and his team make any progress at the generator.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Madam Tribune.” Tosc slipped away and delegated the legwork of his orders to his gang of subordinates, who scurried into action at his whispered commands.

  Isolated by privilege and darkness, Saranda took up a vigil at the suite’s largest window, which faced east. Beyond the horizon lay the promise of daylight. But for the first time in her life she took no joy in the coming dawn, because now the arrival of the new day would also mean confronting the sun—which, according to the crew of the Sagittarius, was building up to a coronal mass ejection that would transform Anura’s parent star into its fiery ­executioner.

  • • •

  Every passing moment spent adrift made Theriault’s dread more palpable. She watched the stars lie static on the main viewscreen. From the command chair, she was expected to project steady authority, but all she wanted to do was curl in upon herself and deny the facts in evidence. The ship was critically impaired. They were sitting in the path of a looming disaster. And no matter what they did to fix things, it felt as if the deck were stacked against them.

  Yesterday we were on a beautiful planet. Life was good. Now we’re counting down the minutes to our own destruction. Why didn’t Starfleet advertise this on its recruitment posters?

  Cahow’s voice spilled from the overhead speakers and interrupted Theriault’s maudlin brooding. “Commander? Torvin and I can’t get the impulse reactors or the warp core working. All we can give you is battery power, as long as you don’t push it.”

  It was discouraging news. “Will it be enough to get us clear of the CME?”

  “Depends. How much time do we have?”

  “Less than an hour.”

  “Then I’d have to say probably not.”

  Theriault stood and stepped forward to lean over Nizsk’s shoulder. “Nizsk? Can you make an emergency landing on battery power and thrusters?”

  Nizsk sounded pessimistic. “That would be rough, sir.” She pointed at gauges on her console. “The thrusters are designed for minor maneuvers in vacuum, not full flight control in atmosphere. Even with battery power for the navigational deflector, a landing would be risky.”

  Dastin left his post to stand at Theriault’s side. “Do I even want to know why you’re asking Nizsk about landing the ship on thrusters and batteries?”

  She met his anxious stare with a hard look. “Do I want to know why you think you have the authority to question me about command decisions I haven’t made yet?”

  He pointed at the viewscreen. “If we can risk attempting a landing, we have a shot at dodging the coronal mass ejection.”

  “I don’t think we do.” She noted out of the corner of her eye that Sorak had risen from his post and was moving to join their hushed conversation. When he took up a position opposite Dastin, she continued. “The effects of the distortion field are getting worse every few minutes. If we’re counting on the systems we still have to carry us out of its range, I think we’re wasting our time. Now that we’re in this statistical Sargasso Sea, I think we’re in for the duration.”

  Sorak arched an eyebrow. “I have to agree with the commander. Considering the nature of the phenomenon that confronts us, trying to limp away would seem an ill-advised strategy.”

  Dastin was flabbergasted. “Ill advised? I think it’s the only logical course of action we have! If we can dodge the CME, it’ll hit the planet and frag the dark energy siphon. Once that happens, this lunacy will be over, and we can finish our repairs and go home.”

  “Maybe,” Sorak said. “Unless the nonlinear aspects of the phenomenon continue to plague us and this region even after the device’s destruction. The collision of the coronal mass with the planet’s surface might unleash an even greater threat force when the dark energy siphon is destroyed. As appealing an option as retreat might appear, it might be the wrong choice.”

  Being confronted with a dryly unemotional counter­argument only stoked Dastin’s hysteria. “Are you kidding? Dodging the punch is a bad idea? What’s next? Are you gonna tell me up is down? Hot is cold? That the best way to escape this mess is to charge straight into it?”

  He had spoken in jest, but his words gave Theriault an idea. She turned away from him and Sorak to look at the main viewscreen. “Nizsk, magnify the image of Anura, then overlay our scans of the distortion field’s areas of effec
t.” She, Dastin, and Sorak watched the image onscreen shift to an enlarged view of the Austarans’ homeworld, over which was quickly superimposed a series of computer-­generated field grids. “Zoom in on the dark energy ­siphon.”

  Again the screen changed, pushing in closer on the planet’s surface. The computer-generated lines traced new shapes—this time outlining the perimeter of the generator facility. Nizsk rotated her chair to face Theriault, Dastin, and Sorak. “I feel it prudent to point out, sirs, that while the diagram of the distortion field suggests a region of calm around the generator, that eye in the storm, if you will, is spherical in nature. The distortion effect surrounds the facility in three dimensions, including from above and below.”

  Energized by an idea, Theriault smiled and nodded. “But not as densely as it does from a lateral vantage, does it, Ensign?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Helm, set course for Anura. Plot landing coordinates just outside the generator facility. Make our approach as direct as possible to minimize our exposure to the distortion field.”

  Theriault walked back to the command chair, trailed by the stoic disapproval of Sorak and the fuming disbelief of Dastin. It was the Trill who spoke first. “Are you crazy?”

  “No, but you’re bordering on insubordinate.” She settled back into the center seat. “I have no confidence in the ship’s ability to outrun this nightmare, but I have to believe that we might be able to help make a difference if we go to the source of the problem. If we can help the landing party complete its mission, everybody wins. If not, we’re all as good as dead anyway.”

  Sorak clasped his hands behind his back. “I would be remiss in my duties if I failed to remind you of the captain’s orders to take the ship and our refugee passengers to safety.”

  “Then consider your duty fulfilled,” Theriault said. “But I don’t think the astronauts in our mess will feel much like living if their planet gets glassed. As for the captain?” She was unable to suppress a mischievous gleam. “If he’d wanted a first officer who never thought for herself, he wouldn’t have promoted me. Ensign Nizsk, is that landing approach plotted?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Then take us in.” She gripped the chair’s armrests. “And try to put us down in one piece if you can. Bucking orders I can explain to the captain. Breaking the ship? That’s another story.”

  • • •

  No matter which way Cahow turned, something was failing. Warning lights flashed on the master systems display, so many coming in rapid succession that she couldn’t track them all. A staccato beat of sharp pops and snaps announced the latest in a series of plasma relay overloads.

  Cahow coughed and searched for Torvin through dense clouds of stinging black smoke. She saw him at the battery panel, which was open. “Tor! More power to the integrity field!”

  “I can’t boost it without compromising flight control!” His hands disappeared inside the space behind the panel. “Maybe if I run a circuit patch!”

  A bone-jarring bang rocked the ship and sent them both tumbling forward, toward the dorsal launch tube. They landed splayed across the deck, which fell victim to a steady, violent shuddering. Through the hull and bulkheads came an eerie banshee wail of noise.

  Torvin traded a worried look with Cahow. They both knew that sound all too well. It was the scream of the Sagittarius ripping through atmosphere at speeds that would be dangerous even if the ship were at full power. Keenly aware that time was against them, the pair scrambled to their feet and sprinted in separate directions.

  He ran to a forward console. “I’ll reinforce the nav deflector!”

  “I’ll try to kick-start one of the impulse reactors!”

  She heard a sizzling hiss, then caught a whiff of burned optronic cable—half a second before a flash-crack explosion dropped an overhead panel on her head in a shower of sparks. Ducking and dodging, she batted aside the fallen hunk of lightweight metal, then brushed the glowing phosphors off her jumpsuit as she stumbled to the impulse core control panel.

  Come on, damn it! She keyed in emergency overrides and every field-expedient trick she knew, but the ship’s fusion reactors refused to engage. Frustration turned to rage, then to panic. She pounded her fist on the panel. You’re supposed to be state-of-the-art tech! Start! If the panel was listening to her silent plea, it gave her no reason to think so.

  And then it did. One of the starboard fusion reactors kicked in, its resurrection as random as its earlier failure. It fed power to the impulse coils, which groaned under the strain of slowing the ship’s free fall descent. Within seconds the lone reactor redlined. It was only one of four cores linked to the impulse drive, and it was being asked to bear a stress load that would have been a challenge for all four cores operating in tandem at full power. Danger signs multiplied as Cahow stared in a moment of terrified paralysis. Then she keyed open an internal channel. “Engineering to Bridge! Ease up! You’re gonna blow the only working core we’ve got!”

  “Too late!” Theriault hollered over a howl of noise. “We’re past the point of no return.”

  “I hope you’re wrong, ’cause we can’t take much more of this.”

  “Karen? I hate to tell you this, but we haven’t hit the distortion field yet. It’s coming in about fifteen seconds. So grab something heavy. Bridge out.”

  The indicator light went dark, confirming the channel was closed. Cahow muttered a string of her favorite expletives, including a few alien vulgarities whose meanings she didn’t know but whose hard syllables channeled her fury to satisfying effect. Then she lifted her voice to pass along the XO’s warning. “Hang on, Tor! We’re in for some chop!”

  Lights and consoles stuttered on and off, along with the artificial gravity—hurling Cahow and Torvin off the bulkheads and into each other, rag dolls caroming in strobe-lit slow motion. Loose tools and bits of debris added sharp edges and blunt impacts to the equation, forcing the engineers to wrap their arms around their heads to shield their faces and throats.

  Free fall released them, and they plunged toward the bow of the Sagittarius, landing hard beside each other on the hatch cover for the launch tube. Then the ship’s artificial gravity snapped back on, overriding nature’s hold, and pulled them both face-first to the deck.

  Cahow spat out a warm mouthful of blood and grinned at Torvin. “Having fun yet?”

  He sleeved blood from his broken nose. “I should’ve been a musician.”

  “And miss all this?” She forced herself up and pulled him with her. Staggering like drunks, they hurried back toward the impulse control panel. She pointed him aft. “I’ll keep trying to boot up main power. Make sure the EPS conduits—”

  A fast, hard impact flattened her to the deck and knocked the breath from her lungs. It took her a second to realize Torvin had tackled her. She opened her mouth to curse him—and then he lurched forward and draped himself over her head. A flash of white light and blistering heat filled the compartment above them. Next came his yowls of pain, and she caught the stench of burning fabric and flesh. He rolled off her, and she saw his back was on fire.

  “Holy shit! Tor!” She leapt for the nearest fire-­suppression module and pulled it off the bulkhead. When she turned back, Tor was rolling on the deck, fighting to extinguish the flames, but he couldn’t—burning plasma had adhered to his uniform. Cahow triggered the extinguisher. A spray of white foam coated Torvin, dousing the blaze on his back, and his cries shrank to pained whimpers. She dropped the extinguisher and raced to his side. “Tor! You okay?”

  “I’m alive,” he said through gritted teeth, trembling, eyes shining with tears of pain.

  “How did you—”

  “Heard the”—he winced and groaned—“coil overload.”

  Over the years she had seen Torvin’s amazing auditory senses detect all manner of malfunctions and miscalibrations. This was the first time it had ever dire
ctly saved her life. She pressed a consoling hand to his cheek. “Hang on, I’ll get the doc.”

  He batted her hand away. There was a fierce light in his eyes. “Save the ship!”

  She nodded and left him to get back to the master systems display. Working with one eye on the panel and one on her wounded crewmate, she shouted over the din of buckling hull plates and straining engines, “Damn it, Tor! Don’t you die on me!”

  If he heard her desperate plea, he gave her no reason to think so.

  • • •

  Nizsk knew not to be distracted by the image on the main viewscreen.

  Its angle of view was limited, and its representation of near and distant objects could be misleading when traveling at high speed. Worse, in a turbulent atmosphere of bruised clouds riven by lightning, there was the risk of becoming hypnotized by the lack of a horizon. Without the tug of the planet’s gravity to cue her body’s natural sense of balance, diving into a bank of clouds looked the same as cruising through one during level flight. It could cause her to lose her bearings and delay her reactions at a crucial moment—an error no one on the ship would ­survive.

  Keep my eyes on the helm. Watch my instruments. Trust the readouts.

  No matter how many times she told herself that, it failed to convince her. Too many systems had malfunctioned because of Anura’s distortion field, and too many of her flight control readouts had become unreliable. How could she trust the ship and all the lives aboard it to automated gauges that could be telling her a different lie at every moment?

  Don’t look at the screen. Don’t look—

  Forks of violet lightning bent across the sky in a flash, then vanished. Thunderstrokes rocked the little scout ship as it pushed through the maelstrom. Nizsk stared at the sullen storm head racing up to meet them and tensed as if it were a mountainside. Then the ship arrowed through it, quaking from bow to stern, its hull plates rattling against one another.