Adrenaline and fury powered her on, and the Kriosian slammed Valeris into the wall of the trench with such force that her head rattled against the inside of the faceplate. Valeris tasted the metallic tang of blood in her mouth and blinked away bright spirals of pain.
Gattin did not tire. She grabbed Valeris’s helmet in both hands and slammed it into the melt-smoothed rock, over and over. A spiderweb of fracture lines blossomed on the visor, and harsh red icons flared into life, warning of dangerous suit leaks. Valeris flailed against her attacker, but she couldn’t recover. She was dizzy and it was becoming hard to concentrate. I am losing air.
But then Gattin gave her one last shove and pushed her away, letting Valeris slump and collapse to the dusty floor of the furrow.
Over their shared comm channel, the Vulcan heard Gattin panting with effort. The Kriosian went to the open panel on the side of the isolytic device and adjusted a control. New threads of indicator lights blinked on, and in the visible core of the weapon, the power modules glowed brightly.
Valeris struggled to get up, but Gattin came back to her with a swift kick that put her down once again. “Death is the only coin for traitors,” she hissed. “And you’ve earned this a hundred times over.”
Gattin broke into a run and disappeared over the edge of the trench. Valeris felt the broken ribs across her chest move as she shifted. Slowly, she made her way toward the device, each breath she took like razors.
Vaughn saw the figure in the suit rise into the weak light and hesitated. He raised a hand. “Valeris?”
With everyone wearing almost identical Klingon military-surplus gear it was hard to tell who was who. The question was answered as the other figure drew a weapon from their holster and fired a fan of disruptor bolts at him.
The lieutenant scrambled into the cover of a low boulder, fumbling for his own weapon. The bulky gloves made it awkward to grip the pistol. He chanced a look up and let off a shot of his own, but his target had not stopped to engage him: the assailant was fleeing back toward the Chon’m.
Which could only mean one thing. Vaughn looked down at the tricorder module built into the spacesuit’s gauntlet. The sensor unit was reading a steady buildup of high-energy particles, growing with every passing second toward a point of critical mass.
Vaughn broke into a dash across the stony arroyo, half-running, half-stumbling, fighting the suit and the microgravity until he lurched down the furrow and skidded to a halt on the floor of the trench.
He found Valeris bent over the isolytic weapon, clinging to it with one hand, the other buried in a fist of torn-out cables and disconnected components.
“The weapon is committed,” she reported, breathy and fatigued. “The discharge chamber is moments away from activation.”
He reached out. “We’ve got to—”
She looked at him. “I cannot stop it.”
21
Praxis Ring
Qo’noS Orbit
Klingon Empire
Vaughn could hear the building energies inside the isolytic device as a humming drone crackled across the open circuit of his helmet communicator, the surging knot of raw power bleeding out to disrupt the functions of his environment suit.
His hands opened and closed, and a horrible sense of powerlessness washed over him. Vaughn had never really believed that he would end his life like this, on some drifting shard of dead rock, his existence erased from the universe in one single blinding flash of force. This isn’t how it is supposed to go, he told himself. I’m supposed to make a difference. Isn’t that why I’m here? Isn’t that the reason for all of this?
The motion of light and shadows drew his attention away for a moment. He looked up to see the bird-of-prey lifting off from the planetesimal, its wings dropping to flight mode. It turned and vanished over the jagged hillside, impulse engines flaring.
Vaughn looked back at Valeris. She seemed pale and weak, and belatedly he noticed the damage to her suit. He pulled the emergency patches from the utility pouch on his chest plate, but the Vulcan waved him away.
“I will . . . not live long enough to suffocate.”
His throat became arid as his gaze was inexorably drawn back to the weapon. “How much time?”
“I estimate less than seventy seconds.” She held out her hand. “Give me your disruptor, Lieutenant. Mine became lost in a struggle with Gattin . . .”
He drew the pistol, holding it by the barrel. Vaughn’s blood ran cold as his mind filled in her reasons. “Are you . . . ? I mean, do you want me to . . . ?” He couldn’t finish the thought.
Valeris arched her eyebrow and she briefly showed the same disdain he had seen in her on their first meeting. “I have no intention of taking my own life.” She took the gun from him and adjusted the beam settings. “The isolytic weapon will discharge no matter what we do. That event cannot be prevented.” She raised the disruptor and aimed it into the open frame of the device. “Only the outcome can be modified.”
Vaughn jerked forward as he caught on to what she was doing. “What the—?”
“I have an idea,” she said, with no hint of concern, “and if my hypothesis is incorrect, the only result will be that we will perish a few seconds sooner.” Before he could stop her, Valeris pressed the disruptor’s firing stud and released a pulse of light into the guts of the device.
Vaughn swore and flinched, bringing up his hand to cover the visor of his helmet as a massive shower of red sparks gouted from the isolytic weapon, cascading over the sides of the trench in a bright fountain. Streamers of plasma spurted into the vacuum and he saw lightning crackles crawling along the metal framework of the device. The buzzing howl of static was growing louder and louder, and even inside his suit, Vaughn could feel his skin prickling, the hairs on his flesh standing up.
“We should run now,” Valeris called, tugging at his arm. “We need to get as far from the unit as possible.”
He loped after her, up from the trench and across the clearing, toward a cluster of rocks in the near distance. His dumbstruck amazement at the Vulcan’s perilous scheme finally broke and he called after her. “What did you do back there?”
“This is hardly the time—”
“Tell me, damn it!” he panted, fighting the exertion.
He heard Valeris’s frown in her voice. “Isolytic weapons gather extreme particle effects into an energetic mass . . . in order to punch a hole through space-time to create a destructive effect. Once activated, that process cannot be stopped.” She stumbled, catching herself on a stone, and fell forward.
Vaughn caught her arm and arrested her tumble, dragging her back up. They were less than ten meters from the rocks now, and something made him look back toward the trench.
“I destroyed the emitter node,” she said as he scrambled after her. “Without a discharge method, the particle stream will remain trapped. It will enter an uncontrolled quantum flux state and cause . . .” Valeris ran out of breath and gasped. “It will cause—”
A spatial interphase effect. Vaughn remembered the term from his warp physics class at the Academy, and he remembered the look of dread on the face of the instructor who had explained what it could do to the fabric of reality.
He saw it happen. There was a momentary pulse of light, so bright that it burned a purple afterimage into his retinas; a visible discharge of the exotic radiation as it overwhelmed the pre-fire chamber inside the isolytic device. A thundering roar of static deafened Vaughn, and he shoved Valeris behind him, reflexively blocking her body with his.
He expected that the last thing he would see would be the wave-effect of a subspace discharge lashing out toward them, but the event he witnessed was something far stranger. Like a shimmering ripple across the surface of a lake, an orb of null-space energy emerged from the trench, bending the light all around them, twisting gravity and radiation.
Everything within the radius became gossamer and insubstantial. The rocks and the dust, the phaser drill and the bodies of the Thorn left behind by t
heir comrades, all were suddenly as ghosts. Vaughn saw through them, and he saw the field effect coming closer. He felt a stab of fear—he would not be able to outrun it. It would overtake him, absorb him, and leave no trace that Elias Vaughn had ever existed.
The quantum flux negated the isolytic blast, but instead everything it touched turned into an unstable version of itself. With nowhere else to go, the energy collapsed into the spaces between dimensions, becoming nothingness.
The growing sphere hesitated, stopped short—and then finally dissolved. Vaughn watched as the ground less than a meter’s length from him vanished. Suddenly he and Valeris were lying at the edge of a perfect bowl cut into the surface of the Praxis planetesimal. Everything in the arroyo had simply been taken away.
It seemed like hours before he got back to his feet, ignoring the flashing cascade of warning icons across the bottom of his visor. Vaughn helped Valeris from where she had fallen. “Did you know that was going to happen?”
“Of course,” she replied without hesitation. “But it appears my calculations were wrong.”
“Wrong?” He tensed at her answer, expecting the worst.
“Indeed.” The Vulcan nodded, frowning. “I had estimated that the interphase field effect would not dissipate until well after we had been drawn into it. Clearly, I was in error.”
“Clearly,” he repeated, a giddy sense of relief washing over him. Vaughn blew out a breath. “Come on. We need to find a way off this rock before we both run out of air. We need to find Kaj, if she survived.”
Valeris pointed up into the sky. “It would appear that may not be an issue for either of us.”
He looked up and cursed. An armored shape was turning back through the debris ring, heading down toward them. Gattin. She must know we sabotaged the device. “Maybe it’s another bird-of-prey?” he offered.
Disruptor bolts lashed down and smashed boulders into powder across the arroyo, the shots marching across the ruined landscape toward them.
“Unlikely,” said Valeris, diving into cover behind the rocks.
Vaughn went after her, heat washing over his back as the nimbus of a near hit turned the stone and powder into blackened glass. He fell as a black shadow passed over them, briefly blotting out the starlight.
The Chon’m moved off and made a lazy circle over the planetesimal’s saw-toothed hillside; a crimson glow lit the weapons maw on the bow as the ship readied itself to unleash a photon torpedo. Vaughn got to his feet, scowling. If I’m going to check out here, then I’ll damn well do it standing up.
“I am sorry, Lieutenant.” He heard Valeris say the words, unbidden.
“Yeah,” he admitted, watching the ship. “Maybe you are.”
The bird-of-prey angled toward the arroyo, picking up speed. The Thorn’s plan was ruined now, but Rein’s people had made a calling out of nurturing retribution, and Gattin was no different. Anyone else would have fled the system as quickly as possible, but Vaughn knew she was up there on the bridge of the Chon’m, glaring down at them, screaming for their blood from Kaj’s command throne.
But then a shadow, grey as tempered steel and broad as a stormhead, rose up behind the vessel. Emerging from the streamers of dust and rocky debris of the Praxis Belt, the massive D-10 battle cruiser resembled a war hammer swinging in to strike a killing blow.
The gunners on the No’Tahr did not miss this time: a blazing salvo of energy streaked across the darkness, spears of bright lightning piercing the downswept wings of the smaller vessel. A swell of detonations flared inside the hull of the Chon’m and consumed it in an orange-red fireball.
The blast effect sent an earthquake tremor through the fragment where Vaughn and Valeris stood, and they struggled to keep their footing. Pieces of the scoutship’s fuselage descended in a slow rain down all around them, trailing flaming streamers of gas.
“Major Kaj . . .” Valeris began. “Do you think she was on board the Chon’m?”
Vaughn shook his head. “She never struck me as the kind to go out the easy way . . .” He trailed off as the big cruiser drifted closer, looming overhead with stately menace. Caught beneath its shadow, Elias had a very sudden, very strong sense of his own scale against the threat he faced.
Across the scarred clearing, glimmers of crimson energy formed out of nothing. Scattered here and there, the columns of light gained solidity and became figures in armored space suits. These ones differed from the utility gear worn by Vaughn and Valeris: they were heavy-duty, power-assisted units, hulking things with built-in weapons modules and enhanced musculature capable of ripping an enemy limb from limb.
The soldiers spread out, some surveying the aftermath of the interphase effect. One group of four made straight for the two survivors, and as they came closer Vaughn saw that the leader’s armor was dressed with sigils denoting a warrior of high and exalted rank. The lieutenant’s heart sank as General Igdar’s glowering face peered out at him through a broad visor plate.
“You,” said the Klingon, turning the word into a curse. “A pair of Federation weaklings. It is no surprise I find you cowering in the ashes. I will make you wish you chose death along with the rest of your worthless compatriots!”
“I would think it likely that you do not have a full understanding of what has taken place here,” said Valeris, apparently unconcerned by how much her words would inflame the Klingon’s manner.
As one, Igdar’s escorts raised their right arms, each suit sporting the barrel of a disruptor at the wrist.
“I understand what I see with my own eyes, convict,” spat the general. “It is as it was with the plot to murder Gorkon, the same schemes again! Turncoats and renegades, working with cowards within our own clans.”
“The House of Q’unat was never part of this,” Vaughn snapped, his reticence breaking in the face of the Klingon’s monumental arrogance. “They were a smoke screen. You have to know that.”
Igdar’s gaze grew colder. “That remains to be seen. I am certain my agents will find evidence of their involvement.”
“Even if it doesn’t exist?” Vaughn countered.
The general snorted with derision and folded his arms. “By all means, say your piece, human. With each word you utter, you bury yourself and your Federation a little deeper.” He pointed an armored finger at him. “Your presence in this place alone is cause to throw our so-called treaty into the fire! You have lied and misled the Klingon people on the orders of Starfleet Command! I always knew we could never trust the Federation. I warned the High Council that one day you would stab us in the back!”
“That’s not true,” Vaughn replied. “We stopped your homeworld from being obliterated.” He jerked a thumb at Valeris. “In fact, she saved it. The convict and the traitor.”
Igdar glanced at the Vulcan and sniffed as if he smelled something foul. “Speaking of traitors, where is the spy Kaj? In hiding?”
“The major is gone,” said Vaughn, the words coming to him without pause.
“Dead?” sneered the general. “A pity. I hoped to personally exact a recompense from her myself. She cost me a number of good men.” He approached them. “You will have to suffice. I cannot wait to see how your president will justify the presence of a convicted criminal and a Starfleet intelligence agent at the site of a terrorist attack.” The general showed his teeth as he smiled. “Such luck that I was here with my ship and able to intervene.”
“That’s how you’ll play it?” asked Vaughn. “You’ve been dragging this whole incident out, working the angles for your own advantage—and now you’ll come back as the hero who saved Qo’noS.”
“There’s no better alternative,” Igdar replied. “The Empire needs strength. An alliance with your kind saps it.” He prodded Vaughn in the chest. “So we will take your charity, human. And when we have had our fill, we’ll take everything else we want from you.”
“You do not make Imperial policy,” Valeris retorted. “The Chancellor—”
Igdar spat harsh laughter. “Azetbur won’t
last! And when she’s gone, I will still be there to make my voice heard. I will ride the victory you have handed to me into the halls of the High Council.”
“For that, you would require our deaths,” Valeris went on.
Igdar slowly raised his arm, the gun port on his wrist snapping open. “Quite so.”
“We are unarmed!” said Vaughn. “You’d kill two defenseless people under the eyes of your own planet?” He pointed into the sky, to Qo’noS overhead.
“I would slit the throat of Kahless himself if it was in the Empire’s best interests,” came the reply. “And as for witnesses? There are none. Our words will not carry beyond the Praxis Belt.”
“No.” Valeris shook her head, looking to the warriors the general had brought with him. “Are you going to stand by and let him execute us in cold blood, without . . . without honor?”
“Do not presume to speak to Klingon honor, Vulcan!” Igdar shouted. “My soldiers are pragmatists! They understand what is right for the Empire!” He slammed a mailed fist against his chest. “The council is full of dithering old women panicked by storm clouds and acid rain! They have made us look weak in the eyes of the galaxy!” He gestured at the rubble all around them. “Look at this! They have allowed a race of slaves to strike at the heart of our race! I will not let that stand!”
“Oh, General . . .” Vaughn flinched as he heard a familiar voice over the helmet communicator. “Your arrogance is monumental. As if it were only a scion of the House of Igdar who may guide the future of the Klingon people . . .”
“Kaj . . .” muttered Valeris, glancing around.
Igdar’s face became stormy. “That gutless witch . . . I knew she was too poisonous to die in silence! Show yourself, woman!” He cast around, glaring into every shadowed place and fallen rock, then snarled at his men, “Find her!”
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