by Dayton Ward
Hearing the normally unflappable Terrell all but begging Khatami to take action was disconcerting, to say the least. Was he suffering some kind of concussion or other injury that could be impairing his judgment? Was he truly in any shape to be in command? “Clark, are you sure?” Even as she asked the question, she motioned to Neelakanta, who was sitting at his helm station and, like everyone else on the bridge, was listening to the bizarre conversation with wide eyes and a shocked expression. “Lieutenant, adjust our orbit and move us into firing position.”
“Yeah, I’m damned sure. You can put the responsibility for this call on me, but you need to blast that whole area, Atish. Now!”
“The second we start moving,” Stano warned, “Kang’s going to be all over us.”
Khatami nodded, retaking her seat in the command chair. “Then we’ll deal with him, too. McCormack, lock phasers and photon torpedoes on the bird-of-prey crash site and prepare to fire on my command.”
In front of her, Lieutenant Marielise McCormack, the Endeavour’s navigator, replied without turning from her console, “Aye, Captain.”
Her eyes fixed on the planet centered on the main viewscreen, Khatami watched as it appeared to rotate clockwise, its rings moving in a downward arc as the Endeavour adjusted its trajectory. She knew Kang and his crew would be aware of her ship’s every move, and they would know the instant her weapons homed in on their target. She guessed the Klingon commander would take no more than five seconds before he responded.
As it happened, Kang did not take even that long.
From the science station, Ensign Iacovino called out, “Captain, the Klingon cruiser is adjusting its orbit. It looks like they’re maneuvering to intercept us.”
“Warn them off, Estrada,” Khatami ordered, keeping her focus on the screen.
McCormack reported, “Weapons locked on target, Captain. Standing by.”
“The Voh’tahk isn’t responding to our hails,” Estrada added.
Hunched over the hooded viewer at her station, Iacovino said, “They’re coming right at us. They’ll be in firing range in less than two minutes.”
It’s about to get pretty lively around here.
Releasing a small sigh of resignation, Khatami gave the order.
“Fire.”
3
Nimur burned inside.
Perched on the rim of a smoking crater, she looked down at her soot-smeared form and realized that it offered only the merest hint of the fires growing within her. The heat billowed from her core and ignited her senses. She heard the pulse of the smallest insects and the slight breeze rustling the leaves of the tallest trees. Everything was visible to her, from the ultraviolet radiation of the high sun above to the blood coursing through the veins beneath her own skin.
She surged with the thrill of potential offered by the seemingly endless inferno roiling inside her. Since surrendering to the Change and directing but a fraction of the energy she now possessed toward transforming several of her fellow Tomol—people she once had called friends—into beings such as she had become, it was obvious to Nimur that fate had seen fit to charge her with altering the destiny of her entire race. Those fortunate few in whom she had been able to trigger the Change now knew the truth, and so too would the rest of her people in time. And why? Because she had refused to blindly submit to the ancient imperative forced upon them by the Shepherds and give herself over to the Cleansing. Upon reaching the age when the Change began to manifest itself within her, and as their predecessors had done for uncounted generations, Priestess Ysan and other village leaders had implored Nimur to cast herself into the pit of eternal fire before the transformation could claim her. They had described this ritual as a noble act of communal salvation, but Nimur now dismissed the law for what it was: the greatest lie ever foisted upon her people.
Standing before her fellow Tomol—some of them having fully embraced the Change thanks to her—Nimur felt a surge of pride radiating from those who now looked to her for leadership. Several of her new followers had gathered around her along the edges of the crater that in a very real sense was of her own making. It had been created from the destruction of the sky-ship commandeered from the alien captors who called themselves “Klingons”; she and a handful of her followers had defiantly ridden the wounded craft from far above the clouds down to the surface of Arethusa. Now it served as a landmark, a monument that would represent the very moment at which all things would become different for all the Tomol people. Reaching out with her mind’s heightened senses, Nimur grasped the uncertain storm of emotions clouding her followers’ thoughts. She understood their confusion, their anxiety, and their fear—but also their determination as they struggled to comprehend the possibilities the future now held for them.
Nimur also perceived embers of inextinguishable disdain smoldering within those among the group who had not yet embraced the Change. True enlightenment would continue to elude them until their time came, but for now she conceded that she would have to find some way to bridge the gap separating them from understanding. She studied them, sensing their distrust and fear as exhibited by their harsh blue auras, with none flaring with greater brilliance than that radiated by Kerlo, her mate and the father of her infant daughter.
His disapproval and regret taunted her, and Nimur found herself wrestling with a tempest of conflicting emotions as she writhed between love and contempt. She felt the pull of temptation as she imagined unleashing every iota of her newfound power upon Kerlo, along with everyone else who stood between the stagnation to which her people had been consigned and what she now truly believed was their destiny.
Why do you not act? The question nagged at Nimur. Was it love, for Kerlo as well as those she once had called friends and family? Perhaps, though such thoughts seemed to grow more muddied as time passed. Was it a by-product of the weakness her body was trying to purge as she moved ever deeper into the unrelenting embrace of the Change?
An interesting question, indeed.
She turned her attention to the device she still clutched in her hand, studying its contours and blinking lights as she attempted to extract function from its form. How was such a small device able to capture her voice and propel it beyond the clouds to the sky people who hovered among the stars above Arethusa in their ships? Nimur supposed that the details did not matter as much as the result, in which the sky people had heard her proclaim the planet and its people as now being under her rule and that their trespasses were no longer welcome. As she pondered the declaration she had made, she felt the flames of determination stoking within her, driven by the clarity the Change had given her to see the path along which she would lead her people to the birthright they had been denied for so long. In this, Nimur vowed she would not fail, regardless of the sky people and any efforts they made to stop her.
And what of your own people? How much dissidence will you tolerate from them?
“So, Nimur,” a voice shouted. Nimur recognized it as Kerlo’s breaking the silence that had blanketed the air since she had finished speaking to the sky people. “Is this the truth you would have us accept? The great power you promised to share with us? Or do you now intend to keep it to yourself, in order to rule over us all?”
His words were like knives piercing her skin, and she felt anger well up from within her. “Stop, Kerlo! Silence your tongue. Do you not understand the threat that weighs on all of us?” She gestured toward the sky. “Above our world are ships that sail among the stars, and they carry people unlike any you have ever seen and power you could not hope to understand.”
“I understand more than you think, Nimur.”
As Kerlo spoke, Nimur heard a pain in his voice that she believed was veiled to all but her. “You always have thought me to be simple, but—”
“Unless you were with me aboard the sky-ship, none of you can understand what I have seen.” Nimur pointed toward the bottom of the crater. “If
not for the Change, we would not be standing here now. We would be dead, burned to ash in this hole. These strangers wish to ruin our world and take us from it. I will not permit that. I will say what our future holds because I have the power to guide us toward that destiny and to protect us all from them.”
Kerlo said, “Or, Nimur, perhaps it is these strangers who will protect us from you.”
Though impatience and frustration darkened her emotions, through that thickening cloud she sensed a new flicker of awareness sparking in her mind. Something ominous lurked just beyond her grasp, and she realized it was coming not from within her but from a point far away. Not here on Arethusa, but above, among the stars. The sensation was not unlike seeing kindling used to start a fire, flaring to life as the first sparks from metal against stone touched it. Then it blazed into a white-hot ball of fire, all but blinding her consciousness, but what was it? Instinct made Nimur look toward the sky.
“Wait!” she shouted to the Tomol gathered around the crater. “Now you will witness for yourselves the power the sky people wield, and you will know what I mean when I say I will save you all from harm!”
Blue-white light streaked down from the clouds as the gathered Tomol watched in helpless terror. Cries of fear and shock filled the air around Nimur as Kerlo and the others scrambled away from the scene of destruction. The light streaks rained down upon the wreckage, engulfing it in a shroud of energy Nimur could feel playing across her exposed skin.
There is more coming. Looking to the sky, she raised her hands and closed her eyes, reaching outward with her enhanced senses, searching for the light and trying to perceive its form and power. Something was there, but it eluded her attempts to influence it, and Nimur abruptly tasted a metallic tang and her body trembled as if shocked by lightning. Panic flooded her mind as she began to comprehend the horror carried by the light from the sky.
I am not enough for this.
She did not fear for herself, as she sensed her newfound abilities and inner strength would be sufficient to withstand whatever the sky people might rain down upon them, but she was less certain about those to whom she had so recently brought the Change. They still were growing and had not yet reached her levels of strength and clarity. There were also those Tomol who had not yet become Changed; there could be no doubt that their lives were in mortal danger.
“No!”
Channeling the power roiling inside her and longing for release, Nimur made a sweeping gesture toward those gathered near the crater, all of whom remained transfixed as they watched her. The energy flowed through her body, coursing the length of her outstretched arms and leaping from her fingers, warping the very air before her as it spread. It swept across the collected Tomol, Changed and otherwise, picking them up and flinging them in every direction away from the crater. Screams and shouts reached her ears as she fixed her attention on each of her fellows, guiding them past trees and through the surrounding brush. As the distance separating her from her charges increased, she sensed her control over them waning and she guided them to the ground. Nimur could only hope they now were far enough away to escape the otherworldly torment she knew was coming.
Alone and sensing the attack was almost upon her, Nimur flung herself down to the center of the crater. She clasped her hands and shoved them skyward toward the light, releasing the energies she had been holding at bay. Light and flame erupted from her hands, the intensity dwarfing even the most powerful of the Wardens’ fire lances as it thrust into the sky. The pulse ripped through the air, closing the distance within moments until a brilliant white-hot flash and a deafening, thunderous roar announced its meeting its target just above the tallest of the trees.
An invisible wave of tremendous force smashed Nimur into the glassy crust of the crater. She squeezed her eyes shut and cried out in shock as the concussive bubble of heat, light, and fury washed over her, its wrath unleashed into the bowl of earth beneath her and sweeping across the surrounding landscape. Reeling from the unrelenting bombardment, Nimur willed her thoughts to push past the assault and seek additional threats. Every trace of her being knew without doubt that what she had just endured was but a fraction of the energy and danger she had sensed.
There is more.
Another bolt of blue-white lightning slammed down upon her, this time the sky-ship’s devastating assault evoking pain that tore through her body and her mind unlike anything she could ever have imagined. Again Nimur screamed into the face of the maelstrom, directing all of her emerging powers to bear, but it was not enough to keep her from sliding from the light and into the silent and all-consuming darkness.
4
“Bring us about and take us out of orbit!” Khatami shouted over the Red Alert klaxon that had begun wailing across the bridge. “Full power to forward shields! Stand by all weapons and ready for evasive!”
Gripping the arms of her command chair, she watched the image on the viewscreen shift as Arethusa fell out of the frame and the Endeavour altered its trajectory to leave the planet behind in a bid to gain maneuvering room. It had been only seconds since the last round of phaser strikes was dispatched to the planet’s surface, engulfing the Klingon bird-of-prey’s crash site and the surrounding area in the weapons’ hellish effects. Khatami still had not had time to process all of the possible ramifications of what she had done at Terrell’s urging.
Later!
On the bridge’s main viewscreen, a computer-generated schematic showed the points of impact and the resulting destruction wrought on the target and the neighboring terrain. Despite repeated hails to the Voh’tahk apprising them of the situation and the rationale for her decision to fire on the wrecked ship, Captain Kang had refused to acknowledge the communication, let alone offer a reply. Instead, the Klingon commander’s response had come in the form of his ship altering course and arming its weapons as it began moving to intercept the Endeavour.
“I think you made him mad,” said Katherine Stano from the engineering station at the rear of the bridge and just over Khatami’s left shoulder.
Khatami released a small, humorless chuckle. “Looks that way.” Even without the detailed briefing Clark Terrell had promised, it was apparent to her that the Klingons had at least some idea of the Tomol’s true nature and likely were attempting to study or exploit the isolated race for military benefit. Now that Khatami had interfered with whatever mission Kang had been assigned with respect to this planet and its people, the Klingon was obviously not in a talkative mood.
“We’ve broken orbit,” Neelakanta reported from his helm console.
“Set a course for the rings,” Khatami ordered. “Increase speed to full impulse.” Scanner readings had revealed that the rings encircling Arethusa were composed of dense particulate matter as well as a mixture of planetary debris and ice.
Lieutenant Stephen Klisiewicz, who had returned from the transporter room in order to take over from Ensign Iacovino at the science station, said, “This soup won’t be enough to hide us from their sensors, Captain.”
“I know,” Khatami replied. Finding a hiding place for a ship of the Endeavour’s size was a tall order on the best of days. “But it might foul their targeting scanners just enough to give us an edge. Helm, get us through to the other side as fast as you can.”
“Aye, Captain,” replied Neelakanta as he set to work.
Despite artificial gravity and inertial dampening systems, which were as commonplace aboard ship as the air she breathed, Khatami always imagined she could sense the vessel banking and turning as it took up its new course. Far below them, the starship’s massive impulse engines were increasing power at a steady rate, their low, omnipresent hum rising in pitch with each passing second as Lieutenant Neelakanta guided the Endeavour into open space. Khatami glanced down to the astrogator positioned between the helm officer and McCormack and noted the ship’s position relative to the Voh’tahk. The rate at which the Klingon battle cruiser w
as closing the distance between the two ships was increasing, and the astrogator’s estimate tallied with Khatami’s guess that the enemy vessel would be in firing range in less than thirty seconds.
I hate being right.
“All of their weapons are active and they’re trying to target us,” Klisiewicz reported. “They’re maneuvering to get in below and behind us.”
“Let’s not show them our ass,” Stano said. “Keep us facing them, helm.”
“Be ready to reroute shield power on the fly,” Khatami warned, casting a quick glance to the first officer, who offered a knowing nod. “There’s no telling how crazy this is liable to get.”
“All set,” Stano replied. As she had no console or seat of her own on the bridge, Stano had long ago taken up the practice of manning the various stations on a rotating schedule, in order to remain proficient in each position’s function. During emergency situations such as this, her ability to operate any of the workstations allowed her to free up the person at that console for other duties. In this case, she was able to relieve the officer normally assigned to the engineering station so that she could return belowdecks to assist Commander Yataro and the rest of the Endeavour’s engineering staff.
“They’ve entered firing range!” Klisiewicz called out. “Locking weapons!”
Without waiting for an order, Neelakanta banked the ship to starboard, and Khatami saw the image of the rings on the viewscreen tilt upward as the Endeavour dove toward them. It took only seconds for the display to become clouded with dust and debris, the starship maneuvering through the field as its deflectors pushed aside or simply vaporized most of the fragments and other detritus.
Klisiewicz shouted, “Incoming!”
Her eyes fixed on the viewscreen, Khatami felt the ship shudder around her as the first salvo struck the deflector shields. A single alarm sounded at one of the forward stations, but the officer manning that console silenced it. The Red Alert indicator positioned at the center of the combined helm and navigation console was flashing, but McCormack had muted its warning tone, as well.