But the captain couldn’t imagine giving it to anyone else. “You will figure it out,” he said. “I know you will.”
The second officer smiled. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“It is well founded,” Picard assured her.
At least she didn’t have to go over reports for the third time. Of everyone on the Stargazer, Wu was the only one who still had an unfinished assignment.
He almost envied her.
Ben Zoma and his team had been downloading information from the aliens’ data node for almost three minutes when McAteer clapped Garner on the shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“I’m not finished,” the security officer told him.
“Yes, you are,” said McAteer.
“But, sir—” Garner started.
The admiral raised a hand to cut her off. “I don’t think it’s wise to push our luck, Lieutenant. We need to get out of here before we’re discovered.”
Garner obviously disagreed, but it wasn’t her place to say so. Instead, she looked to Ben Zoma.
“There’s a lot more data to be gathered,” the first officer pointed out, keeping his tone reasonable so as not to antagonize McAteer. “We’re only going to get one shot at this. We may as well get everything we can.”
The admiral stared at him. For a moment, Ben Zoma was certain that McAteer was going to put his foot down. Then something seemed to soften in him.
“All right,” he said, “have it your way, Commander. We’ll keep going for a while.”
Ben Zoma nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
He woke up in the heavy, pulsating darkness, his skin clammy, his heart pounding. Before he knew it, he was sitting bolt upright, waiting for awareness to come.
But it didn’t. There was only the starless night, always and forever. He couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t there, when he knew something hard and real to hang on to.
And who was he, in that stark, black night? What was his name, his parentage, his place in the universe?
He didn’t know—either who he was or what he was doing there. He didn’t know anything.
I am someone, he insisted. I have a name, a body, a face. I come from somewhere.
All he had to do was dredge it out of the depths, drag out the answers that would create his world piece by piece. All he had to do was remember.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the darkness relented. Things took on shape and substance around him. The bed he was sitting in, drenching the covers with his sweat. A chair. A set of clothes draped over the back of it.
And outside, someone. A person, like himself. A female. As he watched, she turned to him.
“Lieutenant?” she said.
Her tone was one of concern. But more than that was what she had said. Lieutenant. He was a lieutenant.
Yes…on a ship. With other crewmen, a great many of them. He could see them in his mind’s eye, walking the corridors, dressed in red and black uniforms.
Then it came to him—what he was, where he was. Who he was. My name is Ulelo, he told himself. Dikembe Ulelo. I’m a communications officer on the Stargazer.
But no…he was more than that, wasn’t he? He was a plant, a spy who had come to the Stargazer to transmit information about the ship to his comrades.
And who were they, again? He couldn’t remember. It was insane. He had sent out that information at great risk to himself. Whom had he done it for?
And why? For the love of reason, why?
Ulelo had no answer—though he had a feeling he had posed the question before. It was as if there were a great, dark abyss at his feet, an echoing, bottomless gulf that swallowed everything he needed to know.
Suddenly, he saw it—the abyss, as if it had always been there. It was immense, a universe unto itself. He could feel the chill rising from it, smell its fetid breath.
And it wasn’t just his memories that it craved, sucking them down into its depths with infinite hunger. It was Ulelo himself—because without his memories he was nothing…
Nothing at all.
He felt empty in the presence of all that darkness, so empty. There was no substance to him, no weight, nothing to keep him anchored to the ground. And the abyss was so hungry, so insistent on having him.
Ulelo didn’t want to be drawn in, but he had no strength to stop himself. He could feel himself falling, twisting in a decay-breath of wind, surrounded by it, engulfed by it….
No! he screamed, frantic to get back to the brink where he had stood. But it was soaring up and away from him, more impossible to reach with every breathless second.
No! he shrieked, his cries consumed by the rush of darkness all around him. Nooo…!
Chapter Fifteen
GREYHORSE DARTED INTO THE BRIG, a med pack slung over his shoulder. At the end of the short hall where Ulelo’s cell was situated, the electromagnetic barrier was down, and Joseph and Pierzynski were attending to the prisoner.
“What happened?” asked the doctor as he forcibly moved Pierzynski out of the way.
“He just started yelling,” said Joseph, who stood back of his own volition. “No warning or anything. Then this.”
Ulelo was twitching, his eyes had rolled back into their sockets, and his tongue was lolling uncontrollably in his mouth. It was clearly a seizure of some kind.
Scanning Ulelo with his tricorder, Greyhorse consulted its readout. It was a seizure, all right, and a serious one at that. Ulelo needed to be sedated before he swallowed his tongue or otherwise injured himself.
Pulling a hypospray out of his pack, Greyhorse punched in a formula and held the device against Ulelo’s neck. Then he released the hypospray’s content into his patient’s carotid artery.
The medication shouldn’t have taken more than a moment to start working. But after three or four seconds, the doctor didn’t notice any effect.
Some people were more resistant to certain drugs than others, but Greyhorse had called for a rather large dose. Frowning, he programmed a different formula into the hypospray and applied it again to Ulelo’s neck.
This time, it had the desired effect. The twitching stopped and Ulelo slumped peacefully in the doctor’s arms.
Joseph breathed a sigh of relief. “I don’t remember seeing anything about seizures in Ulelo’s file.”
“That’s because there was nothing there,” said Greyhorse. “He had no record of seizures.” Until now.
“Will he be okay here in the brig?” Joseph asked.
The doctor shook his head. “I wouldn’t chance it. He’ll have to be moved to sickbay.”
“That’ll require the captain’s authorization,” said Pierzynski.
Greyhorse shot a look at him. “Then get it.”
Nikolas had spent his fair share of time in the Stargazer’s Jefferies tubes, and never thought much of the experience. But then, he hadn’t seen the access tubes in the Iktoj’ni.
“You know,” he told Locklear as they descended a ladder built into the side of the tube, “it’s a good thing I didn’t have a big lunch. Otherwise, I might not fit.”
“I thought you Starfleet types never complained,” said Locklear.
“Who’s complaining? I’m just making an observation.”
“Just four or five more rungs,” said Locklear, who was leading the way down. “I can see the problem from here.”
They had been sent to repair a break in the internal sensor network—something that just never happened on a starship. But then, vessels like the Stargazer used new parts, not whatever the captain could get a deal on.
“Okay,” said Locklear, “I’m there. Pass the—”
“Don’t tell me,” said Nikolas, “I know.” He had become as conversant with the Iktoj’ni’s tool kits as anyone in the time he had spent on board.
Taking the leathery black bag off his shoulder, he pulled it open and selected the required device. Then he handed it down to his friend.
“Thanks,” said Locklear.
“He
y,” said Nikolas, “don’t mention it.”
“You know,” said Locklear, working on the sensor break, “you never told me what made you decide to leave Starfleet.”
“Didn’t I?” said Nikolas.
“Nope. But I’ve got my suspicions.”
“Do tell.”
“It was a girl, wasn’t it? It’s always a girl.”
Nikolas didn’t deny it.
“You met her on the Stargazer?”
Nikolas sighed—giving his friend all the answer he needed.
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.” It was no more than the truth.
Locklear looked up at him. “She got a transfer?”
“I suppose you could say that.”
Suddenly, Nikolas felt the ladder jerk beneath his feet. It was a disconcerting feeling, to say the least. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an unfamiliar one. He recalled it all too vividly from the time he spent in Starfleet.
“What was that?” Locklear asked.
Before he got all the words out, Nikolas felt a second jolt. And then a third.
“We’re under attack,” he said.
“You sure?” asked Locklear, who as a merchant crewman had never had the gut-churning pleasure of being pounded by an enemy’s weapons batteries.
“I’m sure,” said Nikolas.
That was when the lights went out in the tube. A moment later, they were replaced with the lurid red glow of emergency strips.
Locklear cursed. “We had to stay on course, didn’t we? The captain and her precious schedule…”
“Forget that now,” said Nikolas.
It occurred to him that they were a little too close to the Iktoj’ni’s weapons ports. Those were often the first targets in an encounter.
“Come on,” he told Locklear, and headed back up the tube.
“Where are we going?” his friend asked him.
Nikolas considered the question as he climbed. “Up to the bridge,” he decided.
“Why there?”
“It’s better fortified than most parts of the ship. We’ll be as safe there as anywhere.”
Besides, Nikolas had weathered a few space battles in his time. If the captain put her ego aside for a change, he might be able to put his experience to good use.
A moment later, he heard the clanging of the ship’s red-alert alarm, though the thickness of the tube took the edge off it. What took you so long? he wondered.
Kastiigan was on the bridge when word came: Yet another starship had stopped answering hails.
This time it was the Ch’cheri, commanded by Captain Callahan. And the vessel’s last known location had been directly in the path of the alien armada.
Kastiigan nodded. The report served as a confirmation of everything he had heard, everything he had been given to understand about the situation.
Their enemy was formidable—quite possibly the most powerful adversary the fleet had ever faced. There was no room for caution or half-measures here, no possibility of compromise. The Stargazer and her sister ships would either destroy the invaders or be destroyed themselves.
When the aliens’ armada appeared, the Stargazer would need the best from every member of her crew. And no one would serve more unflinchingly or courageously than Kastiigan. He would do whatever his captain and crewmates needed of him—no matter the effort required, no matter the cost.
He didn’t know what the outcome would be, but if Starfleet faltered, it wouldn’t be because of him. He would honor the vows he had made when he joined the fleet. And dead or alive, he would make his friends and relatives proud of him.
Ben Zoma whispered two words, “That’s it.”
They could have continued to download data. However, the first officer’s instincts told him it was time to go.
In fact, it was remarkable that they hadn’t been detected already. They had obviously stumbled on a part of the warship that wasn’t used as much as the others, but eventually someone would pass through and see a bunch of intruders standing around a data node.
And the iffiest part of their mission was still ahead of them. They had to get to the aliens’ small-craft bay, commandeer a vessel, and use its com capabilities to send off what they had gathered.
No easy task. Which was why they needed to get about it.
“All right,” McAteer said, with a glance at Ben Zoma. “Now let’s go.” And he started back down the corridor, Chen right behind him.
Ben Zoma waited only as long as it took Garner to put away her tricorder. Then he too followed the admiral.
As before, they found the way to the lift without incident. The doors opened and they crammed the compartment, and used its touch-sensitive map to program in a destination.
Four decks down, the doors opened and they stepped out again. But as soon as they did, they ran into trouble.
Luckily, the two aliens in the corridor were surprised to see them. They were cut down too quickly in a hail of phaser beams to get out their own weapons or call for help.
But for all Ben Zoma knew, an alarm had gone off somewhere. That’s what would have happened if there had been phaser fire on the Stargazer. So he picked up the pace as they headed for the small-craft bay.
En route, they ran into another alien. This one managed to at least draw his weapon before they stunned him. Stepping over him, they kept going.
Less than a minute later, they reached their goal. Ben Zoma positioned everyone except himself and Paris on either side of the doors, their backs to the bulkhead—in case the aliens within had been warned about them.
But as the doors slid aside, Ben Zoma saw that wasn’t the case. Neither of the figures he saw standing around the pair of small ships had any idea of what was coming. Advancing into the bay quickly but quietly, he took out one guard with a single burst.
The second one’s head turned as the first one went skidding backward, but there was nothing he could do about it. Paris’s beam slammed him into the ship behind him, knocking him out.
With a wave of his phaser, Ben Zoma let the others know they could enter. He went straight for the nearer of the two small craft, hoping he could gain access to it as easily as he had to everything else on the warship.
But as it turned out, his all-clear was premature. A green energy beam came out of nowhere, hitting Chen in the shoulder and spinning him around—but leaving McAteer unscathed.
Damn, thought Ben Zoma. There were only supposed to be two of them in here.
“Back there!” Paris barked, pointing to the second craft.
Ben Zoma wished he had the luxury of deploying everyone to eliminate the threat—but he didn’t. “Horombo, Garner!” he said. “Get that message off!”
Neither of them hesitated for even a second. Knowing he could put them out of his mind, the first officer concentrated on the alien who had nailed Chen.
The rest of the team was already going after him. Ben Zoma took the long way around the first craft, hoping to surprise the alien. But as he came in sight of his target, he saw someone else’s beam take him out.
And a moment later, Ben Zoma saw whose it was, as McAteer knelt beside the alien to make sure he was unconscious. Taking note of Ben Zoma, the admiral looked up at him, and Ben Zoma saw the pride in his eyes.
He had contributed. He had made himself useful. He had proven that he could still do the job.
Ben Zoma was happy for him, despite his problems with the man. However, he had more urgent matters to deal with. He needed to know what kind of progress Horombo and Garner were making.
He was circumnavigating the alien craft to find out when he heard a hiss—the sound the bay doors had made earlier. It seemed they had finally drawn someone’s attention.
“We’ve got company!” he cried out.
A moment later, he caught sight of the opposition—and his heart sank. There were at least a dozen of the aliens, their weapons ablaze with green energy as they swarmed into the bay. And there were more in the corridor, waiting at th
e edges of the entrance.
We’re not getting out of here, Ben Zoma told himself, the reality of it tightening his throat.
But they could still complete their mission. They just had to buy Horombo and Garner some time. And we will, he vowed.
Homing in on an alien, the first officer squeezed his trigger and bowled him off his feet. But as he took aim at a second one, he heard a cry to his left—and saw McAteer crumple, his phaser falling from his fingers.
Gritting his teeth, Ben Zoma turned back to the enemy and fired again. His burst was returned threefold, one of the beams missing his face by inches.
Ben Zoma plastered his back against the ship and took a breath. No one said this would be easy.
Then he poked his head out again and squeezed off shot after shot, not even bothering to follow their results. He just wanted to keep the aliens from going after Horombo and Garner.
And for what seemed like a long time, he did. Not just him, but whoever on his team was still firing along with him, filling the bay with a barrage of ruddy light almost as insistent as the enemy’s green one.
Then the situation went downhill—in a hurry. The other red beams were silenced, leaving Ben Zoma’s the only one. And there were so many of the aliens, he couldn’t hold them off all by himself.
Come on, he thought. Get that message out.
As if in answer to his imperative, he saw a beam strike the aliens from the other side of the small craft. It gave them something else to think about besides Ben Zoma. Then came another beam, and another, to which the first officer added some of his own.
It wouldn’t make a difference, in the long run. They couldn’t take down enough of the aliens to make good their escape.
But the unseen assistance told Ben Zoma something—that Garner and Horombo had sent what they hoped to send. Otherwise, they would still be in the ship, coaxing cooperation out of the aliens’ com board.
In a matter of minutes, the transmission would reach a Federation relay beacon, which would boost the signal and send it on. Then it would find another beacon, and another, until at last it reached a starbase.
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