Looking up from the bridge communications station, Lieutenant Commander Kyle shook his head in response to Clark Terrell’s question. “Negative, Captain. Nothing since the report that they were under attack.” Terrell could hear the worry in John Kyle’s voice. He remembered that the goateed Englishman was an Enterprise veteran, though not as recently as Chekov and Nizhoni.
Terrell turned and moved aft to the science station, where Chekov was running a radiometric scan. “Anything showing up on long-range sensors?”
Chekov worked the controls to refine his wave analysis, conferring briefly with the crewman at the telemetry subsystems monitor beside his station to verify that the subspace sensor antennae were functioning optimally. “At this range, I can’t read anything for sure. But there’s no subspace pulse or radiation signature consistent with an energy release massive enough to destroy four whole vessels at once.”
“They mentioned only one fairly small Naazh ship,” said Commander Azem-Os, who stood in the command well on the other side of the bridge railing, looking up at Terrell. “Hard to believe it could take out even one starship, especially one commanded by the likes of nd’Omeshef or Spock.”
“Both are impressive officers,” said Thelin th’Valrass, leaning forward on the aft bridge rail. The newly minted captain of the U.S.S. Charas had come aboard to arrange for the transfer of several dozen New Human refugees to his ship so as to relieve the crowding aboard the Reliant, but then the distress signal from the Enterprise had put that on hold. “But it took only a handful of Naazh to exterminate the entire surviving population of pure-blooded Aenar, despite the best efforts of many of Starfleet’s finest. If their individuals are able to wreak destruction in such extreme disproportion to their numbers, it would be unwise to underestimate their starships.”
Terrell held out his hands. “Now, let’s not go jumping to conclusions just because of a comm blackout. Like Chekov said, there’s no evidence of destruction. Maybe the Naazh are jamming the signal so the convoy groups can’t coordinate.”
“What about the Euryale?” Azem-Os asked, referring to the Medusan diplomatic transport that had joined them not long before the Charas had. “We know the Medusans’ navigational sensors surpass ours—maybe their other sensors and communications do as well.”
“Good idea,” Terrell said. “Kyle, hail the Euryale and see if they have better luck. In the meantime, Chekov, I want continuous local sensor sweeps for any hint of subspace distortions or dimensional rifts. Anything that might be a Naazh battleship.”
“Aye, sir,” Chekov replied, with only a hint of dismay at being ordered to find a kind of ship he’d never seen before.
A few moments later, Kyle reported their answer. “All they’ll tell me is that they’re confident whatever danger the other ships were in has passed, sir. They suggest we continue toward Medusan space as planned.”
“That’s very vague,” Terrell said. “You couldn’t get any specifics from them?”
“They’re a cryptic lot, sir. Probably comes from living alongside Medusans. Must change one’s perspective quite a bit.”
Terrell frowned. If the Medusans had some extra source of knowledge of the other ships’ situation, whether through advanced sensors or by psionic means, then that was really something they should share with the rest of the class. “I’m always up for broadening my perspective, Mister Kyle. Hail them again and tell them I want to speak to—”
“Sir!” Chekov called as a detection alarm sounded. “That dimensional rift you wanted? It’s opening nearly on top of us!”
Why do I never get service that fast when it’s something good? Terrell wondered. “Red alert. Shields up.” As Terrell moved to his chair, he noted Thelin speaking into his communicator, giving the equivalent orders to the Charas crew.
The Naazh ship on the viewer looked like a commonplace Class-J transport—a small civilian runabout with a gray-hulled, teardrop-shaped fuselage and a pair of nacelles slung underneath on angled pylons. But this one had been heavily modified, plated in chitinous armor and crystalline encrustations that looked like weapon ports.
Indeed, the crystal protrusions flashed with plasma fire barely after Terrell had the thought. To his surprise, though, the fire was directed at the Euryale, strafing it along its aft dorsal hull—the Medusan habitat section.
“Why are they after the Medusans?” Azem-Os wondered. “They’ve never shown them hostility before. And the Euryale poses them no threat.”
“Never mind why,” Terrell said. “Nizhoni, target the hostile ship and engage, free fire. Whatever it takes to neutralize them. Beach, move us in, try to keep us between them.”
As his officers acknowledged, Thelin ordered his own bridge crew to harry the Naazh ship as well. But even though both ships were heavily armed, their combined fire barely made a dent in the modified transport’s armor. And the Naazh had boosted the small ship’s speed and maneuverability as well as its strength. It was able to swoop around their interference and counter their fire, inflicting damage on both ships. In the meantime, it continued laying down fire on the Euryale, striking its warp nacelles and ventral sections hard.
“Sir,” Kyle reported as Reliant rocked under a forceful hit, “the Euryale is reporting an imminent reactor breach. They’re requesting evacuation for their humanoid crew, twelve in all.”
Terrell turned to stare at the dapper blond officer. “What about the Medusans?”
The Englishman struggled to maintain his stiff upper lip. “They report … there are no longer any Medusans on board to save.”
Terrell allowed himself only a moment to take that in. “Bridge to transporter room. Lock on to all remaining personnel aboard the Euryale and beam them aboard.”
“McNair here, Captain. Half the beam conduits are out and the pattern buffers are losing synchronization. We need time to reroute and rebalance the system.”
“I can’t give you much time, Tom,” Terrell told the transporter chief.
“Sir,” Chekov said, “I can reroute manually from the transporter room.”
The captain nodded. “Go.” Chekov rushed from the bridge like the eager boy he still so often seemed to be, and Terrell hoped his confidence was warranted. The people remaining aboard the Euryale were depending on it.
* * *
Because of the damage to the conduits and buffers, the large emergency transporters would take too long to restore to functionality, so Chekov had chosen to split the twelve evacuees between the main transporter room and the one adjacent to it within the G-deck transporter complex, slaving the other room’s platform to his console with the transfer controls.
“Molecular synchronization still fluctuating,” called Chief McNair from the circuitry bay adjacent to the transporter platform.
“Reset and cross-circuit to D,” Chekov instructed as he fine-tuned the vector settings, using a few tricks he’d picked up from his early engineering apprenticeship under Montgomery Scott.
Finally, the synchronization lights on the operator booth’s overhead panel all lit up. “Target lock on!” Chekov called. “Energizing!”
It seemed he had inherited Scott’s gift for dramatic timing as well, for no sooner did he get confirmation of twelve successful dematerializations than the vector panels all flashed red and the malfunction warning indicators lit up. As he wrestled with the feedback surge in the confinement beam, Terrell’s voice over the bridge channel told him what he could already see: “Chekov, the Euryale is gone! Did you get them?”
“They’re in the buffer, sir! Stabilizing now!”
The energy surge had corrupted much of the pattern data, but fortunately, all twelve signals in the buffer retained enough coherent qubits for quantum error correction to reconstruct the rest. It took a few more seconds to complete the syndrome measurement, and then the transporter platform lit up with six beams of snowy shimmers that resolved into humanoid figures, crouched down and covering their heads.
The two in the front straightened up, and C
hekov saw they were of an unfamiliar bipedal species, dressed in simple gray jumpsuits. Their heads were eyeless, covered in pale blue fur, and they had multiple slitted nostrils as well as large, intricately ridged shell-like ears. The one on the right, apparently male, reached out his furred hands nonthreateningly. “Do not be alarmed. I am Eren, commander of the Euryale. My people, the Reon-Ka, are members of the Medusan Complex.”
Chekov stepped out from the booth to greet him and the others. “Welcome aboard the Reliant. I’m Lieutenant Commander Pavel Chekov, and—”
He broke off at the sight of the other four Euryale crew members who had now come to their feet. Two were of another unfamiliar species, bearish bipeds with slitted, red-tinted visors securely affixed over their eyes. But the other two …
The other two were Aenar.
As Chekov stared dumbstruck, a rational part of his mind offered up the logical explanation. The Medusans had dealt with the Aenar more than a dozen years before, attempting to recruit some for their navigational program. While that apparently hadn’t worked out, perhaps some Aenar had gone to live with them for some other reason. They were a private people, so perhaps they had wished to keep this to themselves—especially after the rest of their kind had been slaughtered on Andoria and aboard the Enterprise.
But at the thought of that horrible day on the recreation deck, Chekov realized that he recognized one of the Aenar. Kinoch zh’Lenthar, the fiery political activist, had been a frustrating guest during her brief time aboard the ship, so Chekov had a vivid memory of her face—a face that was unmistakably gazing back at him now. Her eyes seemed different, not just pale but seeming to have a silvery glow. But he couldn’t concern himself with what was probably a trick of the light. A more important thought dominated his mind.
If the Naazh survived that blast … then maybe …
He barely remembered to say “Excuse me” as he dashed out the door and across the corridor to the opposite transporter room. Coming down from its platform were three more Reon-Ka, two Aenar … and one human woman.
Because of her glinting silver eyes, it took him a moment to recognize her.
“Marcella?” he gasped.
Marcella DiFalco smiled tightly at him. “Great to see you again, sir. We’ve got a lot to talk about, but right now we need to get to the bridge before the Naazh blow up this ship too.”
* * *
With the Naazh’s seemingly unmotivated destruction of the Euryale now complete, the modified Class-J transport had redirected its attention to the Reliant. Terrell clamped his seat arms securely over his legs to hold him in place as the ship rocked and the orange and red lights continued to multiply on the damage and repair station’s analysis screens.
At the recessed tactical station near the front of the bridge, Mosi Nizhoni yelled and ducked as sparks erupted from the power supply access panel behind her. For all that Starfleet strove to harden its power conduits against surges, there would always be weapons and cosmic phenomena of sufficient power to jump across any circuit gap or burn through any insulation, and the Naazh’s weapons were probably the most powerful ones Terrell had seen since his time in the Taurus Reach. “Lieutenant?” he asked.
“Just startled, sir,” Nizhoni replied. “But we’ve lost the force field, along with the ventral deflectors.”
“Stoney, don’t let them get below us,” Terrell told Beach. He turned to Azem-Os, who was handling the engineering station. “Rem, can we break to warp?”
“Negative, Captain,” the Aurelian replied sadly. “There are burnouts in the control circuits and one of the flow regulators is fractured. Repairs would take hours.”
“The Charas’s engines are disabled as well,” Thelin reported, his antennae curling back in frustration.
“We can help with that,” came an unfamiliar voice from behind Terrell. He spun to see Chekov emerging from the turbolift with two others, presumably evacuees from the Euryale. Both newcomers’ eyes had a silvery shimmer. One was a brown-haired human woman, and the other looked Andorian, but paler and with a higher forehead. At Thelin’s shocked gasp of recognition, Terrell realized she must be an Aenar.
A similar gasp came from Nizhoni at tactical. “Marcella?”
The ship rocked from another volley of Naazh fire. “If I may, sir,” the silver-eyed woman said, not waiting for Terrell’s permission before striding across the bridge to the tactical station. Giving the wide-eyed Nizhoni a reassuring smile, she fearlessly placed her hands on the still-sizzling power supply panel and concentrated. Electricity flickered around her body, and she grimaced and grunted but seemed essentially unharmed.
Nizhoni’s attention was torn between the inexplicable sight and the sudden status updates from the tactical console. “Captain! The … the force field is back to full power … twice full power! And increasing!” The thunder of the Naazh bombardment began to subside. The enemy ship’s fire was intensifying, if anything, but less of its effect was getting through.
Chekov had returned to the science station. “Sir … the field generators have been charged with massive amounts of psionic energy. Chief DiFalco must be somehow … tapping into the natural psionic fields around us and drawing their power into the ship.” Terrell appreciated that he’d managed to introduce the woman in the course of his explanation.
Thelin stared. “Are you saying she’s given the Reliant a telekinetic shield?”
The Russian shrugged. “Essentially.”
“Chekov, is this woman a New Human?” Terrell asked. “How does she have so much power?”
“She is, but she wasn’t this powerful before she … died. Or seemed to.”
The female Aenar spoke angrily. “Can’t you tell she’s suffering? We have to get your ships out of here.”
Azem-Os began, “Our engines are in no condition—”
“We’re aware. We can deal with that too.” The silver-eyed Aenar stepped toward the Aurelian and reached for her head. Azem-Os reared back, splaying her taloned hands and spreading her wings in an intimidation display. “Oh, for— There’s no time for your timidity!”
“Forgive me,” Terrell said, “but I’ve encountered beings with powers like yours before, and they were not benevolent.”
“We’re not the ones trying to blow you up, you flatheaded fool!”
“Please, sir,” Chekov urged. “The Aenar are pacifists—despite Ms. zh’Lenthar’s manner. And I trust the chief.” He glanced toward DiFalco, concerned at her visible and audible distress as she continued to shield the Reliant against the Naazh’s fire.
Terrell sighed. “All right, Rem, let her do … whatever.”
With an unhappy ruffle of her green-gold feathers, Azem-Os relented. The Aenar—zh’Lenthar—put one hand on Azem-Os’s crested head and the other on the circuitry panel of the engineering station. “Show me the damaged components in your mind. Imagine their proper structure and function. Concentrate.”
The first officer complied, and she and zh’Lenthar stood together silently for several moments, their breathing becoming synchronized—and accelerating. Chekov worked his console. “Captain … I’m reading more psionic energy from her and from the other Aenar we beamed aboard, in resonating patterns.”
“I suggest you bring the other ship inside your shields and dock with it,” zh’Lenthar said. “We can’t repair both ships in time. DiFalco will let them through her shield.”
Terrell nodded to Thelin, who raised his communicator and gave his ship the order. After a moment, Commander Goetch reported from main engineering. “Captain! Somehow the damaged flow regulator is … healing itself. I don’t know any other way to describe it. The warp control circuits are coming back online as well, all by themselves. This is impossible.”
“Take the gift horse, Jim,” Terrell replied. “And get ready to ride it out of here, best warp speed, at my order.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Matter transmutation,” Chekov murmured. “The power required would be incredible! How can they channel
it all?”
A gentle bump shook the hull. “Charas is docked, sir,” Beach said.
“Mains are back online,” Azem-Os and zh’Lenthar said in eerie synchronization.
“Punch it!” Terrell ordered.
The Reliant shot to warp, accelerating swiftly. “We’ve lost them, sir,” Beach reported a few moments later. “No sign of pursuit.”
“Drop shields,” Terrell ordered. “Divert power to main engi—”
He was interrupted by the sound of DiFalco and zh’Lenthar collapsing heavily to the deck.
* * *
“So the explosion that destroyed the rec deck … it was a cover?” Chekov asked.
From her bed in the Reliant’s sickbay, DiFalco nodded. “Kollos knew the only way to save the last of the Aenar was to make the Naazh think they’d succeeded in killing them. When he showed them his appearance, he knew it would only temporarily disorient the hosts, since the Lords inside them would shield them from madness, as our Spectres did for us. But it gave him enough time to spirit us and the Aenar away with a dimensional warp, then trigger the explosion to cover the evidence. He had to make it look like we’d all been vaporized in the blast or sucked out into warp space, so the lack of remains wouldn’t be suspicious.”
“And just to be clear,” said Captain Terrell, who stood nearby with Doctor Wilder, “when the Euryale crew reported there were no Medusans left aboard to save, they didn’t mean that they were all dead, but that they’d already escaped the same way Kollos saved you?”
“Exactly, sir.”
Chekov’s mind reeled at what DiFalco had told him about the Spectre Lords and sleepers and the true nature of human and Aenar telepaths. Nearby, though, Commander Thelin just looked relieved as he stood by Kinoch zh’Lenthar’s bed, holding her hand. Chekov empathized with his joy that the Aenar were not extinct after all. It was a weight off of his own conscience as well, knowing that they had not been exterminated on his watch. And apparently the survivors from the Enterprise were not the only ones. The two Aenar ships believed destroyed during the first wave of Naazh attacks—the diplomatic mission and the group searching for a new homeworld—had both been teleported to safety by the Medusans as well.
The Higher Frontier Page 24