Suddenly Chief Engineer Azleya’s pleasant voice sounded from the intercom. “Azleya to the captain.”
“Stand by, please, Commander,” Sulu said, pressing the mute button. The last thing he needed was for Azleya to let Yilskene know about their escape contingency plans.
“Then let the record reflect that the truthcombat challenge has been lawfully given and accepted,” Yilskene said. “My communications specialist will send you the precise coordinates to program into your transporter. I will see you at the appointed time, and will furnish the weapons.
“You will be remembered long in the Tholian Assembly, Captain Sulu,” he added. “I shall see to that personally, following the destruction of your ship and the invader vessel.” And with that, he vanished from the screen, leaving a view of the Tholian colony world in his place.
“He sounds pretty confident about winning,” Sulu said. “Maybe too confident.”
Still standing at Sulu’s side, Hopman nodded. Speaking barely above a whisper, she said, “He’s not the only one, sir.”
Doesn’t anybody on this ship think I can win this? Sulu thought. Whispering also, he said, “You’ve sparred with me plenty of times, Pam. You know I can handle a blade. Why the pessimism?”
“I’m not questioning your skills, Captain. They’re world-class, and I’m not just saying that to sweet-talk you into promoting me. It’s just that you’re about to compete in a very [268] different ‘world.’ We’re not talking about the Inner Planets championship here. And a monoblade is a whole lot less forgiving than an épée.”
“Touché,” he said. “But I still have to go ahead with this. I’m committed now.”
Azleya’s quizzical voice returned to the intercom, evidently over an alternate comm channel. “Is everything all right up there, Captain?”
He pressed another button. “Sulu here, Commander. Report.”
“We’re all set down here, Captain. The tractor beam and deflector grid are powered up, and Excelsior’s shields are ready to be extended around the Neyel vessel. Once you give the word, I’ll have both ships out of the web and across the rift before Yilskene can react.”
“Acknowledged, Commander,” Sulu said, smiling. “Good work. Continue standing by, however. We’re also working on an alternate plan.” He clicked off the channel.
“Captain?” Chekov asked. “Now that we can get both Excelsior and Oghen’s Flame to safety, there’s no need to follow through with the duel.”
“We must also consider the crew of the Neyel vessel,” Tuvok said. “Leaving their fate to be decided by the outcome of a one-on-one physical altercation may needlessly cause their deaths.”
“We can’t run now, not after I’ve made a lawfully accepted truthcombat challenge,” Sulu said, shaking his head. “If we do that, then Yilskene will only have further reason to think the worst of us.”
“That’s not necessarily so,” Hopman said. “We won’t be in violation of the laws governing truthcombat until and unless you fail to show up for the contest. I found nothing in Tholian law to suggest that we couldn’t take a little side trip in the meantime.”
“Well, then,” Sulu said, heaving a sigh. “That calls for a [269] change of plans.” He looked carefully around the bridge at Chekov, Rand, Akaar, Tuvok, Hopman, Burgess, and Lojur, who was silently running the forward navigator’s station. All of them, save for Hopman, seemed visibly relieved.
That’s because Pam understands that I haven’t actually canceled the match. I’ve only postponed it.
Turning toward Rand, he said, “Inform Drech’tor Joh’jym that we’re nearly ready to make for the rift.”
“Aye, sir.” Her hands moved across the console with the skill of a concert pianist.
Sulu punched one of his chair’s comm buttons. “Sulu to Azleya.”
“Azleya here, sir,” the engineer said, sounding eager. “Is the word given?”
Sulu smiled at the chief engineer’s can-do demeanor. “Affirmative, Commander. Coordinate with your counterpart on Oghen’s Flame, and make for interspace as soon as you’re both ready. Alert the bridge before you hit the switch.”
We’ll be fine, Sulu thought. Just as long as Excelsior gets back here within three and a half hours.
Chapter 23
“I think that about does it,” said Lieutenant Commander Terim Azleya, grinning as she watched the flow of diagrams and numbers that scrolled continuously across her screens. Along with the data describing the output of Excelsior’s warp drive, tractor beam, and shield generators, as well as the deflector-grid throughput, she was monitoring corresponding telemetry coming via a subfrequency scramble directly from the engine room of Oghen’s Flame.
Several junior and senior engineers, including a pair of awkward-looking but surprisingly graceful Neyel, looked on, the rhythmic switching of their tails the only evidence that they might be at all nervous about what was to come. Nodding to the assembled technical personnel, the chief engineer signaled that she was at last satisfied that all was in readiness.
“Bridge,” Azleya said after touching a companel on the bulkhead. “Confirming that all is green for ‘go.’ ”
“Acknowledged, Commander,” came Sulu’s smooth bass voice in response.
A moment later, the ship lurched slightly.
Sections of one of the bulkhead suddenly looked transparent. She wondered whether the shot Chapel had given her was affecting her mind; either her eyes were playing [271] tricks on her, or else Excelsior had just roared straight down into the gullet of interspace.
“Admiral! They’ve vanished!” exclaimed Ruskene [the Sallow], the Officer of the Watch in the main cryoneural cluster, the command center of the Tholian Assembly Flagship Jeb’v Tholis.
Yilskene found the discordant quality of Ruskene’s voice-chorus alarming. It evoked cascades of fear colors, yet conveyed no more content than the barking of the gray savages the humans had dubbed Neyel.
“Speak intelligibly. What has vanished?”
The fear colors oscillated, brightening and darkening by turns. The emotional chiaroscuro was beginning to affect Yilskene’s own equanimity.
Ruskene [the Sallow] began to regain some composure. “Both of the captive vessels, Admiral. They are gone. And their disappearance coincided with momentary gaps in the energy web. Perhaps they disrupted it in some manner, and then escaped.”
Yilskene blazed in rage colors. Human deceit. The Terrans and the Neyel are indeed alike.
He decided that Captain Sulu should not have to wait any longer for his appointment with death.
“They must be heading for the rift into the OtherVoid at the system’s edge, with their invader allies,” Yilskene declared, his bodyplanes grinding against one another in outrage. “Inform the fleet. We shall mount pursuit.”
Let’s hope this works, Sulu thought.
The bridge lights dimmed as Excelsior’s deflector grid brought the output of the mighty starship’s warp core, tractor beam, and shield generators to a sharp focus on four of the energy web’s nearest vertices. With Oghen’s Flame securely enfolded in both her shields and tractor beam, Excelsior [272] surged forward at high warp, suffusing the bridge with a deafening whine of labored systems and the smell of ozone.
On the main viewer, the nearest portions of the Tholian web curled away and vanished, like leaves caught in a gale. At Sulu’s order, Akaar changed the image to an aftward view, confirming that the oblate cylindrical shape of the partially repaired Oghen’s Flame was following about ten kilometers behind Excelsior, riding on a slender beam of refulgent tractor-beam energy.
“We’re coming up on the interspatial boundary in ten seconds, Captain,” reported Lojur from the forward navigation console.
Precisely ten seconds later, Sulu experienced a brief sensation that was not unlike freefall—only the effect seemed to be confined primarily to his stomach. With merciful swiftness, the discomfort passed.
“Status report,” Sulu said, leaning forward in his command chair.
>
In front of him, Lojur swiveled his seat backward and met Sulu’s gaze. “Navigational monitors confirm we have entered interspace,” the Halkan said impassively. “At this velocity, we should make contact with the far terminus of the interspatial rift in approximately seventy seconds.”
From the Tholian back forty to the Small Magellanic Cloud in just over a minute, Sulu thought, sparing a moment to marvel at the feat his crew had just performed. Not bad at all.
From tactical, Akaar said, “I read positive tractor beam contact with Oghen’s Flame. Shields are holding, though they are attenuated because of their coverage of both ships.”
“Well done, people,” Sulu said, speaking to the entire bridge. He felt a surge of pride, but put it aside. The ship was by no means out of danger.
Turning his chair toward starboard aft, he addressed Tuvok and Rand simultaneously. “I want an aft sensor [273] sweep. Check for signs of pursuit. Monitor any Tholian comm traffic that might be spilling into the rift.”
“Aye, sir,” both officers said in tandem, reminding Sulu of the way the universal translator rendered Tholian speech.
Sulu pointed his chair once again toward the main viewer, which displayed an impressive hash of colorful static. He leaned forward again, resting his hand on his chin. “Clean that up for me, Rand. I want to get a good look at what’s out there.”
The static quickly rearranged itself, revealing a bland, gray expanse. They might have been flying through the interior of a storm cloud on Earth.
Then Sulu saw that the vista before him was not entirely devoid of detail. Randomly scattered dark shapes, no doubt visible only because of enhancement by Excelsior’s main computer, were becoming visible.
“Commander Lojur, increase magnification by a factor of ten,” Sulu ordered. A moment later, the dark spots became easier still to resolve against the gray background. He thought he could make out an assortment of wedge shapes, juxtaposed against long, roughly cylindrical objects. He knew at once what it was.
“It’s a graveyard of ships,” Chekov said from a secondary science station. “I’m reading dozens of Tholian and Neyel vessels. Maybe hundreds.”
“Increase viewer to full magnification,” Sulu said.
“Full mag,” said Lojur.
Almost at once, the drifting shapes of the fallen ships, a mass astrogational cemetery for two great cultures, grew even more distinct. It was a mute testament to the last several years of sustained Tholian-Neyel conflict, a war as old as the first contact between the two species.
Suddenly, amid the tumble of dead, forgotten vessels, Sulu found his eyes drawn to a still more distant, yet familiar, shape. It lay just on the ragged edge of his visual resolution, but for an instant he was utterly certain of what he’d seen.
[274] A saucer, connected by a narrow pylon to a bulbous secondary hell, from which depended a pair of graceful outboard nacelles. It betrayed no sign of light or life. For it had been wandering here, a tomb within another tomb, for three decades.
“Defiant,” he whispered, the pang of loss commingling with the exultation of discovery. For a fleeting moment, the Neyel and the Tholians were forgotten, lost in the desire to bring the long-dead starship home.
Two alarms blared almost simultaneously, from the main science and tactical stations respectively. The tumult prodded Tuvok, Chekov, and Akaar to frenetic activity.
“Two proximity alarms, Captain,” said Tuvok evenly.
“I read four Tholiàn vessels approaching us aft,” Akaar confirmed. “Yilskene must have decided to chase us.”
“Then we’d better lose him,” Sulu said. Defiant’s drifting corpse would have to wait for another day, another ship. “What’s the other alarm about?”
Chekov hunched over a hooded scanner at the secondary science station. “It’s about what’s ahead of us. A large grouping of Neyel power signatures. More ships than I can count. Far bigger than the Tholian contingent.”
Sulu grinned at his first officer. “Whatever else Yilskene may be, he isn’t stupid. Once his sensors pick up what’s ahead of us, I don’t think he’ll be bothering us for a while.”
But he also knew that this begged a more important question: How will the Neyel react to us?
The thoughtcolors of Ruskene [the Sallow] had grown even more offensively shrill and strident. “Sensing Units have touched additional invader vessel signatures.”
“Quantity?” Yilskene asked.
“More vessels than we possess. Many more. We are far overmatched.”
Yilskene’s righteous anger became viscous and fluid, like [275] the volcanic Underrock upon which Tholia’s three great continents floated. He tried to force the colors of calm and equanimity upon himself, but had little success.
“Turn Jeb’v Tholis about,” he said at length. “Inform the others that all vessels are to reverse course. And summon reinforcements. We will take up station once more at the rift aperture. Captain Sulu will not wish to live out his days in the remote places from which the invader infestation comes.
“Excelsior must return the way it came. And we will welcome it appropriately when it does.”
“Reaching the far interspace terminus ... now,” Lojur said, bracing himself against his console.
Sulu felt Excelsior lurch again, just as during the initial passage into interspace. He watched as the gray nothingness on the screen vanished, to be replaced almost instantaneously by a far more familiar-looking starscape. But against the velvet backdrop of trackless space, the stars were more densely packed than any other region of space Sulu had ever visited.
Then he noticed that some of those stars weren’t, in fact, stars at all.
“Ships. Neyel ships.” Sulu turned to Tuvok and Chekov. “How many are there?”
“I am reading several dozen Neyel vessels, massed along the edges of interspace,” Tuvok reported, crouching over his scanner. “Long-range sensors show hundreds more in a nearby system. There’s a class-M planet there that appears to be the source of these vessels. The Neyel Hegemony must have established a substantial shipbuilding operation there.”
“Right near their side of the interspatial rift,” Chekov said, staring at the viewer’s magnified images of row upon row of armed, cylindrical vessels built along the same general lines as Oghen’s Flame.
“What better place is there for mounting a massive invasion than your mortal enemy’s backyard?” Sulu said.
[276] Akaar turned from his console. “Judging from the number of ships apparently still being assembled in orbit around the Class-M world, I would estimate this invasion to be mere weeks away. If not sooner.”
“If any Tholians have seen this, the Neyel must have prevented them from reporting back,” Chekov said. “Otherwise, the Tholians would have set up some fortifications on their side. And we’d have detected more than the occasional skirmish.” Chekov shook his head. “I’m certainly glad you ducked out of that sword fight, Captain. This looks much safer.”
Grinning at his exec, Sulu said, “Relax, Pavel. We’re among friends. Janice, please open a channel to Oghen’s Flame.”
“Aye, sir.”‘
A moment later, the gray faces of Joh’jym, Oratok, and Jerdahn appeared on the viewer. Fortunately, it appeared that Jerdahn had succeeded in hanging onto some pretty highly placed friends. Let’s hope his luck continues, Sulu thought. I have a feeling we’re all going to need it.
“Fortune has favored us,” Joh’jym said, a smile slightly bending his blunt features. “We have defeated the Devils’ snare. We owe you our thanks.”
“No more than we owe you, Drech’tor Joh’jym,” Sulu said.
“Would you return through the Rift to your home space?” Jerdahn asked.
“I’m afraid we must, Jerdahn. We can only stay here long enough to check Excelsior for damage. Then we’ll have to return the same way we came.”
“To face the Devils,” Oratok said.
“Alone,” added Joh’jym. He sounded wistful, as though Excelsio
r’s destruction at the hands of the Tholians were a foregone conclusion. Maybe it is.
“Perhaps death cannot be outrun, Hikarusulu,” Joh’jym said. “But there is no reason to rush into her grasp. Oghen, our Coreworld, lies only moments away at Efti’el speeds. I [277] would like you to see it—and the fleet that will avenge you shortly after you return to Devil space.”
Sulu realized that he still had more than three hours before his honor would be forever tarnished in Yilskene’s eyes. There would be time to visit, at least briefly, the planet the Neyel thought of as their homeworld.
“I would be honored, Drech’tor,” Sulu said, then ordered Lojur to follow Oghen’s Flame to its destination.
Excelsior settled into a standard orbit only a few kilometers away from Oghen’s Flame. Standing before the bridge viewer beside Chekov and Burgess, Sulu finally found a quiet moment to simply admire the tainted, yet still beautiful world that turned slowly some six hundred kilometers below.
The blue class-M planet that Joh’jym had called Oghen was obviously a busy place. From the brownish-yellow haze that stippled the atmosphere, Sulu concluded that the planet had been one of the Neyel Hegemony’s most heavily utilized industrial sites for at least a century.
And the scores of orbital factories and drydocks, and the thousands of partially-assembled warships he saw everywhere he looked made it abundantly clear to what use the planet’s abundant resources had been put.
War.
Using filters, Tuvok trained Excelsior’s visual sensors on the planet’s primary star, a hot F-type sun whose yellow-white surface rippled with frequent and violent flares and immense, horseshoe-shaped prominences.
Caused, Tuvok quickly theorized, by the close presence of a sizable aperture leading into interspace. Could the fact that this rift connected to the sectors of space controlled by the extremely suspicious, territorial Tholian Alliance be mere coincidence?
“No wonder the Neyel are so bent on destroying the Tholians,” Burgess said. “Maybe they think that the interspatial [278] rift itself is actually a Tholian plot to destabilize their stars and scour all life from their planets.”
STAR TREK: The Lost Era - 2298 - The Sundered Page 25