“All right,” he told them, his voice cracking like a whip in the close environs of the bridge. “I need options and I need them now.”
Chapter Ten
“WELL?” Kirk prodded.
Finally, Lynch sighed and took the lead. “Obviously,” he observed, “we can’t go back in and pick off the satellites one by one. Not when they’re programmed to respond in concert.”
“Absolutely,” Jankowski chimed in. “We need another option.”
“There’s got to be a way to keep the stations from working together,” Gary asserted. He frowned as he weighed the possibilities. “Maybe we can screw up their communications protocols.”
“Yes,” said Gaynor skeptically, “but how? We’ve already tried to jam their signals without any success.”
No one seemed to have an alternative in mind. Kirk racked his brain, but he couldn’t come up with one either.
“We’re operating in the dark,” Velasquez pointed out. “We need to know more about the stations and how they work … together and separately. That’s the only way we’re going to make any headway.”
Borrik held up a long, striped finger. “If I may point something out …” he began.
“Please do,” said Kirk.
“According to my sensor data,” the Dedderac told them, “the station we assaulted earlier is extremely vulnerable. Its shields are operating at forty-two percent of capacity.”
“That low … after one strike?” said Lynch.
“That low,” Borrik confirmed.
Kirk stroked his chin. “In other words,” he concluded, “with a little more effort, those shields could be eliminated altogether.”
“Damned right,” said Velasquez. “And with the satellite’s shields out of order, our computers can download its operations profile.”
“Not necessarily,” the Dedderac pointed out.
“Why not?” asked Gary.
Borrik gestured toward one of the monitors, where a red and black graphic indicated the opposition’s locations. “These satellites have surprised us more than once already. Who knows what will happen when we link our computers to theirs? Maybe it’s the Constitution’s files that will be downloaded.”
Kirk nodded, seeing the sense in the remark. “The lieutenant’s right. We can’t risk it.”
“Of course,” said Borrik, “there is another way.”
“What are you suggesting?” asked Lynch, eyeing the Dedderac from across the bridge.
“He’s talking about a reconnaissance team,” Gary interjected. He looked at the communications officer again. “Isn’t he?”
“That is correct,” said Borrik. “Once the station’s shields are down, we must beam a team over and download the data onsite, then transmit it to our computers. That is the surest and safest way to obtain the information we require.”
Kirk nodded to show his understanding. “And when we’ve got the information in hand, we’ll know what steps to take next.”
Gary leaned back in his chair. “Of course,” he noted, “we’ll have to get within forty thousand kilometers of the station to effect a transport.”
“And we’ll have to drop our shields,” Jankowski added soberly. “That means leaving ourselves open to the stations’ energy weapons.”
“It’ll only be for a few seconds,” the second officer pointed out.
Lynch grunted. “From what we’ve seen, those stations can do a hell of a lot of damage in a few seconds.”
The science officers’ words echoing in their ears, the bridge contingent considered the danger. As before, the only sounds were the low throb of the engines and the warbling of the consoles.
Finally, Kirk spoke up. “It sounds like an acceptable risk,” he told the others. “Especially when you consider the increasing severity of the situation in the capital.”
Jankowski, on the other hand, didn’t seem so sure. She looked at Lynch, who looked at Velasquez, who looked at Borrik. Had Captain Augenthaler made the very same decision, they would no doubt have placed their confidence in it. But an untried and untested second officer … that was a different story entirely, and Kirk knew it.
He needed a vote of affirmation—and not just from a lieutenant j.g. with even less experience than he had. He needed one of Augenthaler’s veterans to step forward and support his plan.
One did.
“The man’s right,” said Gaynor. “We need to move quickly, and this is as good a strategy as any.”
Velasquez frowned. “Jack … there’s no telling what a landing party will encounter on that station.”
“True,” the security chief replied forcefully. “But isn’t that why we all signed on with Starfleet in the first place?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the viewscreen. “To explore the unknown? To encounter things no one has encountered before?”
Once the problem was placed in that light, it was hard for anyone to argue with Kirk’s decision. In fact, Jankowski broke into a grin.
“Count me in,” she said.
Lynch nodded. “Me, too.”
“What the hell,” Velasquez added. “It’s unanimous.”
“I’ll remind you that this is not a democracy,” said Kirk. “Nonetheless, I appreciate your support.”
He glanced at Gaynor, whose support he appreciated most of all. The second officer recalled Borrik’s advice about the security chief—that he wasn’t “as big an idiot as he appeared.” Apparently, the Dedderac’s assessment had been an accurate one.
When it came to performing his duty, Gaynor seemed to put his personal likes and dislikes aside. Kirk was glad. It was hard enough to command a vessel without having to watch one’s back at the same time.
The second officer thought for a moment. Then he made his decision. “Lieutenant Lynch and Lieutenant Jankowski,” he said, “gather whatever equipment you need and report to the transporter room.”
The science officer absorbed the information with equanimity. “Aye, sir,” he told Kirk.
“Acknowledged,” Jankowski responded.
Next, Kirk turned to the security chief. “When they’re ready,” he told Gaynor, “we’ll batter down what’s left of the satellite’s shields. Then we’ll effect the transport.”
The man didn’t say anything in response. He just nodded.
“I guess I’ll head back to sickbay, then,” said Velasquez, “and hope my services aren’t needed any time soon.”
“Permission granted,” said the second officer. He took in the others at a glance. “Any questions?”
There weren’t any.
“All right,” he said. “Then let’s move.”
* * *
Mitchell watched the forward viewscreen, where the damaged alien satellite was looming larger and larger as the Constitution bore down on it. Here we go, he thought.
“We’re in range!” he called out.
“Fire!” Kirk commanded.
As Gaynor worked his controls, two bloodred phaser beams lanced across space and raked their target. Mitchell could almost feel the satellite shuddering under the assault.
But a second later, the Constitution paid for her audacity. The other two visible satellites launched a counterattack, filling the screen with blue-white fury.
The deck shivered and the navigator was forced to hang on to his console to keep from being thrown out of his seat. Sparks erupted from one of the unmanned control panels near the turbolift.
“Damage report!” Kirk demanded.
“Shields down seventy-eight percent!” Mitchell responded. “Damage to decks three and four!”
“What about the satellite?” asked the second officer.
“Its shields are almost gone,” Borrik told him. “One more volley and it will be defenseless.”
Kirk looked encouraged. “Fire again, Mr. Gaynor!”
“Aye, sir,” bellowed the security officer.
Once again, the Constitution stabbed at the satellite with twin beams of destruction. This time, her target rolled u
nder the impact, its shields disabled and perhaps several other systems as well.
The communications officer’s voice resounded with triumph. “Its shields are down, sir.”
Before Mitchell or anyone else could react to the news, the viewscreen blanched with the ferocity of the satellites’ response. The Constitution groaned and lurched under the force of the barrage, making him feel like a rodeo rider trying desperately to hang on to his bronco. Then, just for good measure, another perimeter station exploded, exposing them all to a cascade of hot, white sparks.
“Shields down ninety-one percent!” the navigator cried. Dark, acrid smoke began to gather above the ruined console. “Damage to decks seven and eleven!”
“Transporter room is ready!” Borrik added.
Mitchell saw the muscles work furiously in his friend’s jaw as he leaned forward toward the view-screen. Despite the tense nature of their circumstances, despite the lives hanging in the balance, Kirk seemed sharper and more focused than ever before.
My god, the navigator thought. The instructors at the Academy were right. He really was born to command.
“Drop shields!” cried the second officer.
“Dropping shields!” Mitchell replied, his fingers crawling urgently over his controls.
Down in the transporter room, the technician on duty was taking note of the move and beaming Lynch and Jankowski across the void to the disabled satellite. Unfortunately, that would take a couple of seconds—and during that span, the Constitution would be utterly vulnerable.
The navigator stared at the screen, bracing himself for another white-hot burst of energy from the surviving satellites. Come on, he thought, his teeth grinding together. Come on.
After what seemed like an eternity, he heard Borrik’s voice again. “They’re on the satellite!”
“Shields up!” Kirk ordered. “Evasive maneuvers!”
Just then, Mitchell saw another blinding-white barrage blossom on the screen. For a moment, it seemed it would hammer the Constitution just as hard as its predecessors had. Then it seemed to stop growing, as if it were losing its enthusiasm for the task.
But the navigator knew that wasn’t happening—not really. Actually, they were withdrawing from the wounded satellite as quickly as they could, racing farther and farther away from the source of the energy beams in the hope that when they hit, they would do so with less intensity.
“Impact in two point six seconds!” Gaynor roared.
The navigator cursed beneath his breath and held on to his console again. A heartbeat later, the bridge shivered and lurched under the influence of the satellites’ energy blasts.
Still, Mitchell decided, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been—as bad as it surely would have been if they hadn’t tried to distance themselves from the satellites. Despite the flimsy state of their shields, ship and crew had managed to survive the bombardment.
And Lynch and Jankowski had been safely deposited on the disabled satellite. The navigator grunted with satisfaction. All was proceeding according to Borrik’s plan.
He turned to look at Kirk again. The second officer noticed and returned the look. So far, so good, he seemed to say.
* * *
Darick Lynch had always considered the transporter process the greatest marvel of his age. The present instance was no exception.
One moment, he was standing on the Constitution’s transporter platform with Chief Engineer Jankowski beside him, both of them sporting black shoulder bags full of equipment. The next moment, they found themselves bathed in a sickly green light, surrounded by a small, pentagon-shaped room with a high ceiling and an array of computer workstations that appeared to cover every square millimeter of wall space.
“Pay dirt,” said the engineer, smiling and moving eagerly to the nearest control panel.
Lynch took out his communicator, flipped it open, and raised the device to his mouth. “We’re in,” he reported back to the Constitution, “and we’re proceeding as planned.”
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant,” came the transporter technician’s brief and efficient reply.
By then, Jankowski had taken out her tricorder and established a link with the alien computer system. Moving quickly, the science officer stowed his communicator and took out a portable transmitter. Then he stood it on its tripod and linked it to the engineer’s tricorder as well.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Ready,” said Lynch.
Her fingers stinging the tricorder keys, Jankowski got the download process started. “There,” she told her companion with an air of satisfaction. “Now all we have to do—”
Before she could get another word out, she was stabbed in the side by a series of slender, white energy pulses. They made her jump like a puppet on a string, her head lolling back and then forward again. Even before the engineer slumped to the deck, her body giving off wisps of black smoke, the science officer knew she was dead.
Worse, Jankowski had hit the transmitter when she fell, knocking the thing offline and terminating the datalink. And worse still, the energy pulses continued to shoot across the space between them, preventing Lynch from reaching over to correct the situation.
A backup system, he told himself. Of course. He had to let Kirk and the others know he had run into trouble.
Taking his communicator out of his shoulder bag, he flipped it open and said, “Lynch to Constitution. Come in, Constitution.”
But there was no reponse. The science officer cursed out loud. For all he knew, the station’s deflector shields had come back up and his signal hadn’t even gotten through.
He reached into his shoulder bag and pulled out his tricorder this time. Then he played it all around him. It showed him a force shield surrounding a good deal of the satellite—its heart, no doubt.
It wasn’t a very strong field, however—not like a deflector, by any means. It might scramble a voice signal or a transporter beam, but not a high-integrity data transmission. And it wouldn’t prevent Lynch from leaving the room via its single door and contacting the Constitution from another part of the station.
If he did that, he reflected, he could get out of there in one piece. He could survive to tell everyone what had happened.
But that wasn’t his mission, was it? The science officer glanced at his colleague, who was lying on the deck with her mouth gaping and her dead eyes staring at the ceiling.
“No,” he said out loud, answering his own silent question. It wasn’t at all what he and Jankowski had come here to accomplish.
Lynch forced himself to look at the bright flashes of energy that still traversed the space between him and the engineer. It seemed to him they didn’t cover the entire area, the way a true energy barrier would, though it was difficult to tell because the pulses were intermittent.
Biting his lip, he considered the idea of just sticking his hand out at the right time and trying to right the overturned transmitter. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything, really; the science officer needed to restore the datalink as well.
Besides, if his timing was off, he would absorb a pulse. He didn’t know if just one would be enough to kill or even disable him, but he couldn’t take the chance with so much riding on his efforts.
No, Lynch decided calmly. He wouldn’t just reach out and depend on his sense of timing. He would track the pulses on his tricorder and try to judge the distance between them. And if there was enough space there, he would take the next step.
It took what seemed like a long time for his tricorder to do the job. Finally, however, it showed the science officer what he needed to know. The interval between the height of one pulse and the next was almost seven and a half inches.
It was more than he would have guessed from observing the phenomenon with the naked eye. Substantially more, in fact.
Lynch looked at his arm, which couldn’t have been more than five or six inches in diameter at its widest point. If he could slip it between the lowest pulse and the floor, he might be able to reac
h the transmitter, restore the link, and retract it unscathed.
Of course, if he slipped more than an inch or so in either direction, he would run the risk of ending up like Jankowski. It was a chilling thought—but not so chilling that it deterred him.
To increase his chances of success, Lynch stripped off his uniform shirt, exposing his bare skin. After all, he didn’t want to lose his life because of a stray piece of sleeve. Then he took a breath, dropped to the floor, and reached tentatively in the direction of the transmitter.
It couldn’t have been more than two feet away, though it seemed like twice that. With the pulses sizzling past his eyes, ever more blinding as he edged nearer to them, the science officer extended his hand along the deck as far as it would go.
Fortunately, it was just far enough. The pulses shot by so close to Lynch that he could feel their destructive heat on his skin. Still, he was able to wrap his fingers around one tripod leg of the transmitter and pull the device back a few inches.
That was all the leeway he needed. First, he stood the thing up again. Then he reprogrammed it to speak with Jankowski’s tricorder, which was lying on the deck beside her.
A moment later, the science officer saw a light go on, indicating that the transmitter was doing its job again. He breathed a sigh of relief. Then slowly, carefully, Lynch pulled his arm back along the deck and retreated from the pulse field.
You did it, he told himself, leaning against the bulkhead behind him. You got it going.
Unless there was some other obstacle he wasn’t aware of, the Constitution would be receiving the station’s data again immediately. And with it, Lynch’s fellow officers would figure out a way to pull the Sordinians’ bacon out of the proverbial fire.
Lynch looked at Jankowski, whose skin was taking on a waxy look in death. If only you were still alive to see it, he thought sadly. If only you knew you hadn’t died for nothing.
Chapter Eleven
KIRK DRUMMED on the armrest of the captain’s chair with his fingertips, trying to be patient.
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