Of course, there was always the possibility that Greenbriar would find a way to defuse the situation. That was his preference, as always. But in case he couldn’t handle the encounter peacefully, he wanted to be prepared for the alternative.
“Red alert,” he said, and watched his bridge take on a crimson hue. “Shields up. Power weapons.” He turned to Moy again. “Keep trying to establish contact.”
“Aye, sir,” said the com officer.
“Distance?” Greenbriar asked.
“Ten billion kilometers and closing,” said Cangelosi.
A minute and a half, the captain thought. That was all the time they had to figure this out. Then the mystery vessel would be in range of the Starfleet ship’s photon torpedoes—and more than likely, vice versa.
“Still no response,” said Moy.
The strange vessel was looming larger and larger on the viewscreen. Greenbriar frowned. His first officer had gone to sleep only a couple of hours earlier, but he would want to know what was going on.
Looking up at the intercom grid, the captain said, “Commander Dolgin, wake up. You there, Alex?”
A moment passed. “Dolgin here,” came a tired voice.
Greenbriar described the situation as concisely as possible. “I thought you’d like to know.”
“On my way,” snapped the first officer.
“Five billion kilometers,” said Cangelosi.
Next, Greenbriar interrupted the ambassador’s meditation. Diplomatic types often got in the way at times like these, but all Surat did was acknowledge the captain’s warning.
Vulcans, Greenbriar mused. You’ve got to love them.
Just then, the turbolift doors hissed open and his first officer emerged. Alexander Dolgin was a short, wiry man with a receding hairline and a head for starship operations. As he advanced to the captain’s chair, Greenbriar said, “That was record time.”
“Imagine if I hadn’t stopped to take a shower,” said the first officer.
“Two billion kilometers,” said Cangelosi.
Moy sighed with frustration. “Still nothing, sir.”
That was it, then. Those in the mystery vessel were determined to start a fight, and Greenbriar and his crew had no choice but to defend themselves.
Fortunately, they had gone toe-to-toe with marauders many times before, and they had always come out on top. The captain had every confidence that they would do so this time as well.
“Range,” said Bolaris, his Andorian tactical officer.
“Their weapons are charged,” Cangelosi noted.
“Stand by,” said Greenbriar.
Despite appearances, there was a chance the mystery vessel was just trying to intimidate them. That happened sometimes. So the captain would give his adversary a free shot, if that was what it came to. He wouldn’t authorize a volley until his adversary released one first.
Greenbriar took a breath and let it out slowly. Come on. Don’t make me rip you apart. Show some sense.
And for a moment, it looked like the mystery vessel might do that. Then Bolaris yelled out, “She’s firing!”
Suddenly, a mess of pale green beams erupted at them, coming from half a dozen recessed weapons ports. It was an impressive-looking barrage—the type of firepower the Cochise herself might have displayed if Greenbriar had been intent on turning an enemy into space dust.
“Evasive maneuvers!” he called out.
Hohauser reacted as brilliantly as ever, getting every last bit of speed and maneuverability out of the Cochise. He couldn’t escape the mystery ship’s beams entirely, but at worst they would take a glancing blow.
Or so it seemed to Greenbriar—until he felt a violent shudder run through the ship, as if she had been slapped by a giant hand.
What was that? he wondered, hanging on to his armrests. The way Hohauser had slipped the brunt of the attack, they should barely have felt a thing.
“Sir,” said Cangelosi, a strain of puzzlement in her voice, “shields are down eighteen percent.”
Greenbriar was puzzled as well. He got up to confirm Cangelosi’s reading and saw that she was right. Eighteen percent—when they had barely been grazed? It didn’t seem possible.
Judging by the look on Dolgin’s face, he didn’t think so either. And Dolgin wasn’t an easy man to impress.
“Return fire!” Greenbriar commanded, and the Cochise unleashed a directed-energy barrage of her own.
It struck the alien vessel amidships, delivering an impact that should have made her commander think twice about continuing the fray. But the enemy didn’t seem daunted in the least. In fact, she came after the Cochise a second time, her weapons ports blazing with redoubled fury.
This time, the captain didn’t have to call for evasive action. His helm officer was already on it, wrenching them hard to port.
Again, the enemy’s beams barely grazed them. And again, Greenbriar felt his ship shudder as if it had been pounded.
What’s going on here? he asked himself. Then, because he couldn’t come up with an answer, he posed the same question out loud.
But no one else had an answer either—not even Dolgin, who was known to have an answer for everything. And before they could give the matter any real thought, the enemy placed the Cochise in her sights again.
This time, Hohauser wasn’t able to give them the slip. When the energy barrage hit, it jerked the deck out from under Greenbriar’s feet, sending him staggering into a bulkhead.
Thrusting himself off it, he saw one of the aft consoles explode. Fortunately, his science officer was no longer sitting in front of it, since she had been slammed to the deck.
A cloud of sparks and black smoke rose from the console, drawing the attention of a crewman with a fire extinguisher. But the bridge was already filling with the smell of burning conduits.
“Shields down seventy-eight percent!” Cangelosi barked. “Hull breaches on decks eight and nine!”
Greenbriar muttered a curse. In the past, his deflectors had held up under worse punishment. What made the aliens’ fire so damned effective against them?
“Casualties?” Dolgin asked.
“Coming in now, sir,” said Moy. “Crewmen down on decks eight, nine, and ten. Medical teams are on their way.”
Greenbriar watched the enemy ship on his viewscreen. She was dogging them but holding her fire—as if she knew she could take out the Cochise whenever she wanted.
The captain was determined to show the aliens the pitfalls of overconfidence. “Give me a full torpedo spread,” he ordered his weapons officer.
“Aye, sir,” came Bolaris’s reply, his antennae twitching. And a moment later: “Ready when you are, sir.”
Greenbriar didn’t hesitate. “Fire!”
The Cochise’s torpedo launchers sent their matter-antimatter payloads streaking across the void like a swarm of golden arrows. And Bolaris’s aim was perfect. The missiles struck the enemy dead-on, the spectacle of their impact causing Greenbriar to lose sight of his adversary for a moment.
That’ll teach them, he thought, and returned to his chair.
But when the light display faded and the enemy was visible again, it was obvious that she was still intact. No—better than that, Greenbriar mused bitterly. She hadn’t even been scratched by the torpedo barrage.
The captain wasn’t often given to profanity, but he swore under his breath a second time. This was insane. It reminded him of a nightmare he had had once, where he was fighting a boyhood adversary but none of his blows had any effect.
But why should that be? What made this vessel different from any of the others Greenbriar had encountered over the years? What was her secret?
He would have dearly loved to know the answer to that question. But the way this battle was going, he didn’t dare allow the Cochise to linger a moment longer.
“Get us out of here,” he told Hohauser.
The helmsman wasn’t used to hearing those words from Greenbriar, but he took them in stride and brought the Cochis
e about. Then he accelerated to warp eight.
However, the mystery vessel didn’t seem willing to let them off the hook. She came about and matched the starship’s speed, remaining in weapons range.
The captain eyed the viewscreen, which showed him a rear view now. His adversary seemed content to keep pace for the time being, but he didn’t expect that situation to prevail much longer.
“Full power to rear deflectors,” he said, anticipating the worst. And a moment later, he got it.
The barrage that blossomed from the enemy’s weapons ports was as beautiful as anything Greenbriar had ever seen. The screen filled with its splendor.
The captain braced himself against the impact, but it didn’t help. He was shot out of his chair as if by a catapult. Somehow, he managed to avoid hitting anything except the deck, but even that was enough to stun him for a moment.
As he regained his senses, he looked around—and saw Dolgin stretched out on the deck. Dead? the captain wondered disbelievingly, as he moved to the commander’s side. Or maybe just unconscious? He couldn’t tell—until Dolgin stirred, sending a stab of relief through his superior.
But Dolgin wasn’t the only one who had been injured by the blast. Cangelosi was cradling what looked like a broken arm as she tried to crawl back behind her console, and a stunned Moy was bleeding from a gash over his eye.
All around them, the bridge was a vision of hell, a roiling, spark-shot chaos. Consoles were aflame. The air was thick with smoke and getting thicker. And alarms were going off as if the ship herself were screaming in terror.
But as Greenbriar dragged himself to his feet, he saw that at least a couple of his officers were still at their stations. Hohauser was still bent over his helm console, trying desperately to outmaneuver the enemy, and Bolaris was still poking at his weapons controls.
“Fire at will!” the captain told Bolaris, his voice a smoke-parched croak.
The weapons officer shook his head, disappointment etched into his face. “I can’t, sir. They’ve disabled our weapons ports—phasers as well as torpedoes.”
“Shields are down too,” rasped Cangelosi. She was in the process of moving back behind her console, broken arm and all. “We won’t be able to take another barrage.”
Greenbriar’s jaw clenched. He just wished he knew what the aliens were after. He could reason with them then, maybe save some lives. But he was still in the dark.
“Captain,” said Cangelosi, looking up at him with smoke-stung eyes full of horror, “they’re beaming aboard!”
“Where?” asked Greenbriar.
“Decks five and six,” said the navigator.
Five and six? But there was nothing there except crew quarters. Obviously, the intruders’ sensors weren’t nearly as advanced as their tactical systems.
The captain understood Cangelosi’s reaction to the enemy’s presence aboard the Cochise. It was a natural enough response for someone who plied the void of space, and felt only as secure as the metal-alloy shell around her. But far from being horrified, Greenbriar was encouraged.
The aliens wouldn’t have beamed over if they meant to destroy the ship. That just stood to reason. So for a while, at least, the Cochise would be safe from another barrage.
All the captain would have to worry about were the boarding parties. But he felt confident that his crew could hold them off, there on their home turf.
Let them come, he thought. We’ll take our chances.
Looking up at the intercom, Greenbriar briefed his crew as to the problem. “All hands,” he said, “break out phasers. Take any measures necessary to defend yourselves and your ship.”
Fortunately, there was a phaser locker there on the bridge. Before the captain had finished advising the crew, Bolaris had opened the locker and begun distributing its contents.
By then also, a medical team had arrived to see to Dolgin and the others. But Greenbriar didn’t have the luxury of helping them pack his exec on a gurney. He had to get hold of a phaser and get himself down to deck five.
If his people were battling the invaders down there, he wanted to battle alongside them.
Paris sighed.
“Don’t worry,” said a voice, just loud enough to be heard. “She’ll still be there when you get back.”
The ensign turned to Ben Zoma, who was sitting beside him with a knowing smile on his face. Paris felt a hot rush of blood in his cheeks. How could the first officer have known that he was thinking about Jiterica?
“Sir…?” he said, not knowing what else to say.
Ben Zoma chuckled. “I’d know that sigh anywhere, Mister Paris. It’s an ‘I miss my girl’ sigh, an ‘I wonder what she’s doing right now’ sigh. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
The ensign looked back at the others. Chen, Horombo, and Ramirez were leaning back in their seats with their eyes closed—maybe asleep, maybe not. McAteer and Garner were going over a schematic in the rear of the craft, one of many the admiral had asked to see over the last few hours.
As far as Paris could tell, none of them was eavesdropping on Ben Zoma. The ensign was relieved.
Not that his feelings for Jiterica were any big secret, really. It was just that he had never had occasion to discuss them with anyone.
No, Paris thought, there’s more to it than that. He was concerned about how people would react. Jiterica was, after all, a low-density being, vastly different from anyone he had ever met. Once their relationship became common knowledge, it was bound to raise a few eyebrows.
“Relax,” said Ben Zoma. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I thought anyone was listening.”
Paris felt comfortable with the first officer. Everyone did. But he still didn’t feel right discussing Jiterica.
“I was thinking about someone” was all he cared to admit.
The first officer nodded. “That’s what happens on these long away missions. Every minute seems like an hour, especially when you’re not going anywhere.”
True, thought Paris.
“And that person you’re used to seeing every day, several times a day, isn’t with you. Suddenly, it feels like she never was, and never will be again. But you’ll see her again, Ensign. Believe me.”
Paris relaxed enough to smile back. “I do, sir.”
When Greenbriar arrived on deck five, two of his people were sprawled motionless on the deck already, and two more had their backs plastered against the bulkhead with their weapons extended.
But there was no sign of the invaders.
Bolting across the corridor, he joined the two defenders. One was O’Connor, a pretty blond science officer. The other was Sasaki, a stocky, bald-headed engineer.
“How many?” Greenbriar breathed into O’Connor’s ear.
“Hard to tell,” she said. “Five, maybe six. We haven’t seen them for a minute or so, but they’re still there.”
“Did you get any of them?” he asked.
“Two,” said O’Connor. “But they were dragged back out of sight as soon as they fell.”
Before the captain could ask any more, the invaders spilled around the bend in the corridor like a flash flood filling a parched riverbed. As O’Connor had said, there were five or six of them, and they were firing green energy bolts.
Greenbriar couldn’t see the aliens’ faces, which were concealed inside black helmets with red-screened eye slits. However, there was no question that they were humanoid, with all the limitations and vulnerabilities that designation implied.
The captain took aim at one of the aliens and brought the beggar down, and Sasaki dealt a second one a glancing blow to the shoulder. But a moment later, O’Connor was slammed into a bulkhead, the victim of an enemy blast.
Greenbriar fired into the invader’s midst while he still could—but before he could tell if he had hit anything, they were on top of him, overpowering him.
The captain used what he knew of hand-to-hand tactics, but the aliens’ weight pinned him to the deck, and their helmets made it difficult to hurt t
hem. Meanwhile, he had no such protection. While one of the bastards held him down, another one bludgeoned him with the barrel of his weapon.
Greenbriar felt as if he were falling end over end, the taste of blood thick in his mouth. Then, all at once, he regained control of his senses.
But it came with the knowledge that a second blow would be following the first. If you don’t succeed at first, try again. The captain braced himself for the impact, clenched his jaw against it. But it never came.
Opening his eyes, he saw a corridor choked with bodies, only some of them those of his crewmen. And there were other crewmen kneeling among them, still alert and alive.
“Are you all right, sir?” one of them asked. It was Grolsch, one of the security officers who had arrived weeks earlier. “Do you understand me, sir?”
“Hell, yes.” Greenbriar propped himself up and looked for his phaser. He found one nearby, though it could as easily have been O’Connor’s or Sasaki’s. Laying claim to it, he dragged himself to his feet and faced Grolsch on rubbery knees.
“Report,” he demanded.
“They’re all over the place,” said the security officer. “And more are appearing all the time.”
As if to lend emphasis to Grolsch’s contention, Greenbriar heard the thud of heavy footfalls from somewhere down the corridor. He saw Grolsch and his fellow survivors exchange looks.
“Sounds like too many,” said one of them.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” said the other.
Grolsch turned to Greenbriar. “Sir?”
It was then that the captain realized he wasn’t going to win this one. The odds were stacked too high against him. It was just a matter of time before the aliens overran his ship.
The realization changed things. He no longer hoped to contain the invaders. His goal now was to get a message out to Starfleet—to let them know what had happened to the Cochise, so they could formulate some kind of plan.
Because if the aliens could do this to his ship, they could do it to a hundred others.
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