“Range in one minute,” said Weeks.
The words had barely left the weapons officer’s mouth when the enemy squadron began to split up. The captain frowned.
“Stiles to Hagedorn. Looks like they’re on to us.”
“Looks that way. Let’s go after the two nearest ships first, then worry about the other two.”
“Agreed,” said Stiles.
He pointed out one of the vessels on his screen. “That one’s ours, Urbina. Get us in range.”
“Aye, sir,” the helm officer returned, her slender fingers dancing over her control console.
The Gibraltar veered hard to port and locked onto the alien’s tail. It wasn’t long before she began to gain on her prey, which seemed incapable of full impulse.
“Range?” asked Stiles.
“Twenty seconds,” said Weeks.
“Target lasers,” the captain ordered.
“Targeting,” the weapons officer confirmed.
The Starfleet vessel continued to narrow the gap. Stiles remained as patient as he could, the muscles working in his jaw. Finally, he got the word he had been waiting for.
“Range!” called Weeks.
“Fire!” the captain barked.
Twin bolts of blue energy stabbed through the void. But somehow, the alien ship eluded them. And as it curled back around, it spewed a string of fiery crimson packets at the Gibraltar.
The charges loomed on Stiles’s viewscreen until all of space seemed to be consumed in ruby-red fire. He took hold of his armrests, expecting the aliens’ volley to send a brisk shudder through the Gibraltar’ s forward shields.
Instead, the impact sent his ship heeling steeply to port and nearly tore him out of his chair. Amazed, he turned to his helm officer and called out, “Evasive maneuvers!”
Urbina sent them twisting away from the enemy, allowing them to escape a second blazing barrage. But before they knew it, another alien vessel had slid onto their viewscreen.
“Target and fire!” the captain snapped, instinctively grasping an opportunity to reduce the odds against them.
But the enemy was quicker, unleashing a stream of scarlet energy bundles that slammed into the Gibraltar with skull-rattling force. The Federation vessel reeled and a plasma conduit burst above the aft stations, releasing a jet of white-hot gas.
“Report!” Stiles demanded.
“Shields down eighty-four percent!” Rosten barked.
The captain swore beneath his breath. The enemy’s weapons were more powerful than they had a right to be. One more hit like the last one and their hull would look like a sieve.
“What about the enemy?” he asked.
“No apparent damage,” said the navigator, her expression one of disappointment and disgust.
Abruptly, the triangular shape of an alien ship swam into their sights again. But this time, Stiles wasn’t so eager to confront it—especially when he sensed he was about to become the target of a crossfire.
“Move us off the bull’s-eye!” he told Urbina. Then he leaned toward his comm controls. “Captain Hagedorn!”
As the Gibraltar swung sharply to starboard, avoiding another alien barrage, the other man’s voice came crackling over a secure channel. “I’m here. What’s your status?”
“Not good,” said Stiles. “Shields are down to sixteen percent, and we haven’t done any damage ourselves.”
“We’re taking a beating here, too,” Hagedorn confessed. “We need to break off the engagement.”
The idea of conceding defeat was poison to Stiles. During the war, his squadron had only done it twice—and on both occasions, they had been facing vastly superior numbers. This time, the odds were only two to one.
But the aliens hit harder and moved faster than any Romulan ship ever built. The Starfleeters didn’t have any choice but to slink away with their tails between their legs. . . .
At least for now.
“Get us out of here!” Stiles told his helm officer, each word like a self-inflicted wound.
Suddenly, the Gibraltar hurtled away from the battle, going back in the direction from which she had come. On her starboard flank, Hagedorn’s ship followed a parallel course.
Stiles wasn’t the least bit certain that the enemy wasn’t going to come after them. But as it turned out, the aliens were perfectly content to let their adversaries escape.
For a moment, the triangular ships just cruised back and forth, as if defending an invisible border. Then, after the Federation vessels had put some distance between themselves and the aggressors, the aliens recreated their original formation and resumed their course.
They acted as if there hadn’t been a battle at all . . . as if Stiles and Hagedorn weren’t even there.
On Stiles’s viewscreen, the enemy ships diminished rapidly with distance, shrinking to the point where they were barely visible. But the captain didn’t have to see them to remember what they looked like.
Or to promise himself that they would meet again.
CHAPTER
19
HIRO MATSURA HAD RETRIEVED HIS POD AND WAS ABOUT to break orbit when his navigator notified him that the Maverick was in the vicinity.
Matsura hadn’t expected any company at Oreias Seven. “On screen,” he said, settling back into his center seat.
A moment later, Connor Dane’s face filled the forward viewscreen. He didn’t seem pleased.
“Tell me you had better luck than we did,” said Dane.
Matsura shook his head. “My team didn’t find anything of significance.”
Dane scowled. “Maybe we’ll figure something out when we compare notes with Shumar and Cobaryn.”
Matsura couldn’t keep from smiling a little. “You really think so?”
Dane looked at him. “Don’t you?”
“With all due respect,” Matsura told him, “I think we can sit and compare notes until the last days of the universe, and we’ll still just be groping in the dark.”
Dane’s eyes narrowed. “And you’ve got a better way to dope out what happened?”
“I think Captain Stiles had the right idea,” said Matsura. “The only way we’re going to find the aliens is by going out and looking for them.”
“It’s not that big a system,” Dane responded. “We don’t all have to be looking for them.”
“It would speed things up,” Matsura noted.
“Or slow them down,” said Dane, “by putting all our eggs in the wrong basket. Depends on how you look at it.”
Matsura was surprised at the man’s attitude. “I didn’t know you had such deep respect for research scientists.”
Dane’s mouth twisted at the other man’s tone. “You mean butterfly catchers, don’t you?”
Matsura found himself turning red. “I don’t use that terminology.”
“But your buddies do,” the other man observed. “And don’t insult my intelligence by claiming otherwise.”
“All right,” said Matsura, “I won’t.”
That seemed to pacify Dane a bit. “At least you’re honest,” he conceded.
“Thanks. Now, I’m sorry you took the trouble to fly all the way over here, but I’m leaving to try to hook up with Stiles and Hagedorn. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”
Dane snorted. “I’ll put my money on Shumar and Cobaryn.”
“Suit yourself,” said Matsura. “I’ll—”
Suddenly, his navigator interrupted him. “Sir,” said Williams, her face drawn with concern as she consulted her monitor, “we’re picking up a number of unidentified vessels.”
The captain saw Dane turn away from the viewscreen and spit a command at one of his officers. He didn’t look happy.
For that matter, Matsura wasn’t very happy either. “Give me visual,” he told Williams.
A moment later, Dane’s image vanished from the viewscreen, to be replaced by that of three small, triangular vessels. They were gleaming in the glare of Oreias as they approached.
The aggress
ors, Matsura thought. It had to be.
“Raise shields,” he announced. “Power to all batteries.”
“Raising shields,” Williams confirmed.
“Power to lasers and launchers,” said his weapons officer.
“You still there?” asked Matsura over their comm link.
“Yeah, I’m here,” came Dane’s response. “But I’ve got to tell you, I’m not much of a team player.”
No big surprise there, Matsura told himself. “I’ll try to work with you anyway. Leave your comm link open. If I see an alien on your tail, I can give you a holler.”
“Acknowledged,” said Dane.
Then the enemy was on top of them. Or rather, the triangular vessels were plunging past them—so intent on the colony, it seemed, that they were ignoring the Christophers above it.
Matsura took the slight personally. “Lock lasers on the nearest ship,” he told his weapons officer.
“Targeting,” said Wickersham, a bearded man with a narrow face and deep-set eyes.
“Fire!” the captain commanded.
Their electric-blue beams reached out and skewered the enemy vessel—failing to disable it, but getting its attention. It came about like an angry bee and returned fire, sending out a string of scarlet fireballs.
“Evade!” Matsura called out.
But they weren’t fast enough. The energy clusters plowed into the Yellowjacket, sending a bone-rattling jolt through the deckplates.
The aliens packed a punch, the captain realized. He had made the mistake of judging their firepower by their size.
“Another one on our port beam!” said Williams.
“Split the difference!” Matsura ordered.
At the helm console, McCallum worked feverishly. What’s more, his efforts paid off. The Yellowjacket sliced between the two triangular ships, preventing them from firing for the moment.
Suddenly, the third vessel loomed on Matsura’s viewscreen, its underbelly exposed, filling the entire frame with its unexpected proximity. He had never had such an easy target and he might never have one again.
“Target lasers and fire!” he commanded.
At close range, their beams seemed to do a good deal more damage. The enemy staggered under the impact.
“Their shields are at twenty-eight percent,” Williams reported.
A barrage of atomics might take the alien out of the fight, the captain speculated. But before he could launch one, the enemy was bludgeoned with blasts of white fury.
Dane, Matsura thought.
“Their tactical systems are offline,” his navigator told him.
The captain could have finished off the alien then and there. However, the vessel wasn’t in a position to hurt the colony anymore, and he still had two other marauders to worry about.
“Where are the others?” he asked Williams.
She worked at her console. “Right here, sir.”
A moment later, he saw the two still-capable triangles on his viewscreen. They were going after the Maverick with their energy weapons blazing, trying to catch her in a deadly crossfire.
Unlike Matsura, Dane didn’t make an attempt to dart between his adversaries. He headed straight for one of them, exposing his starboard flank to the other.
It was a maneuver that depended on the enemy’s being caught by surprise and veering off. But if that didn’t happen, it was suicide.
Had Matsura been fighting both the aliens on his own, he might have made an effort to do something similar. As it was, he found the move reckless to the point of insanity.
You idiot, he thought—and not just because Dane had endangered his own ship. By placing himself in jeopardy, he had made it necessary for the Yellowjacket to expose herself as well.
Matsura frowned. “Pursue the vessel to port, Mr. Wickersham! Target lasers and fire!”
Wickersham managed to nail the enemy from behind with both blue beams. He hit the triangle hard enough to keep it from striking the Maverick with an energy volley, but—unfortunately—not hard enough to cripple it.
As they dogged the alien ship, trying to lock on for another shot, the captain saw the other triangle peel off to avoid the Maverick—just as Dane had gambled it would.
But as surely as the Maverick had climbed out of the fire, the Yellowjacket was falling into it. As Wickersham released another laser barrage, the enemy to port looped around with amazing dexterity. Then it came for Matsura and his crew, its weapons belching bundle after bundle of crimson brilliance.
“Hard to starboard!” the captain called out, hoping to pull his ship out of harm’s way.
But it was no use. The alien’s energy clusters dazzled his screen and rammed the Yellowjacket with explosive force—once, twice, and again, finally wrenching Matsura out of his captain’s chair and pitching him sideways across the deck.
Behind him, a control console erupted in a shower of sparks. Black smoke collected above it like a bad omen. There were cries of pain and dismay, punctuated by frantic status reports.
“Shields are down!”
“Hull breaches on decks five and six!”
“Lasers and atomics are inoperable!”
Dazed, Matsura watched someone grab a fire extinguisher from the rack on the wall. Ignoring a stinging wetness over his right eye, he dragged himself to his feet and made his way back to his center seat.
On the static-riddled viewscreen, the battle had advanced while Matsura was pulling himself together. Somehow, Dane had incapacitated another of the enemy’s vessels because only the Maverick and one of the aliens were still exchanging fire.
Abruptly, the commander of the triangle decided to change tactics. The ship broke off the engagement and went hurtling out into the void. And just as abruptly, its sister ships departed in its wake.
Matsura’s first instinct was to follow them. Then he remembered that the Yellowjacket was in no shape to pursue anyone.
Without shields and weapons, she was all but helpless. The captain looked around at his bridge officers. They looked relieved that the battle was over, especially the ones who had sustained injuries.
“Casualties?” Matsura asked, not looking forward to the response he might get.
Williams, who looked shaken but not hurt, consulted her monitor. “Sickbay has three reports, sir, but more are expected. No fatalities as far as the doctor can tell.”
The captain frowned. It could have been worse. “Dispatch a couple of engineering teams to see to those hull breaches.”
Williams nodded. “Aye, sir.”
Matsura turned to Wickersham, who was holding a damaged left arm and grimacing. “Tacticals are a mess, sir,” he got out. “I’ll see to bringing them back online, but it’s going to take a while.”
“First,” the captain said, “you’ll get yourself to sickbay.”
“But, sir,” Wickersham protested, looking even more pained than before, “we’re in need of—”
“Repairs? Yes, we are,” Matsura told him. “But they can be carried out without you.”
The weapons officer looked like he was going to put up a fight. Then he said, “Aye, sir,” and made his way to the lift.
Matsura was about to check on his propulsion system when Williams spoke up. “Sir, Captain Dane is asking to speak with you.”
His jaw clenching, the captain nodded. “Link him in.”
A moment later, Dane appeared on the viewscreen. “You look like you took a beating,” he observed. “What’s your situation?”
“The situation,” said the captain, doing his best to keep his voice free of anger, “is I’ve lost my lasers, my atomics, and my shield generators. And that’s just a superficial assessment.”
Dane grunted. “Tough luck. We suffered a little damage ourselves.” He began tapping a command into his armrest. “I’ll contact the others and let them know what happened here.”
Matsura’s mouth fell open. That was it? No thanks? No recognition that he had put his ship and crew on the line to bail out a reckless
fool of a comrade?
If this had been an Earth Command mission, Matsura’s wingmates would have been quick to acknowledge what he had done. But this wasn’t Earth Command, he reminded himself bitterly. It was something completely different.
And Connor Dane was still a Cochrane jockey at heart, taking low-percentage chances as if his life were the only one at stake.
Matsura was tempted to lash out at the man, to tell him how he felt; but he wouldn’t do that with two complements of bridge officers privy to the conversation. He would arrange a better time.
“You do that,” Matsura said. “And when you’re done, I’d like to speak with you. In private.”
For the first time, it seemed to dawn on the other man that his colleague might not be entirely happy with him. “No problem,” Dane answered casually. “I’ll tell my transporter operator to expect you.”
“Yellowjacket out,” said Matsura—and terminated the link.
A moment later, Dane’s face vanished from the screen, replaced with a view of his Christopher. Matsura studied it for a moment, his resentment building inside him.
Then he got up from his center seat. “You’ve got the conn,” he told Lieutenant Williams and headed for the Yellowjacket’ s transporter room.
As far as he knew, that system was still working.
“I’d ask you to pardon the mess,” Dane said, “but I might as well tell you, it’s like this all the time.”
Matsura didn’t say anything in response. He just frowned disapprovingly, looked around Dane’s cluttered anteroom, and found an empty seat.
Obviously, Matsura wasn’t pleased with him. And just as obviously, Dane was about to hear why.
Removing yesterday’s uniform from his workstation chair, Dane tossed it into a pile in the corner of the room and sat down.
“All right,” he told his fellow captain. “There’s something you want to get off your chest, right? So go ahead.”
Matsura glared at him. “Fine. If you want me to be blunt, I’ll be blunt. What you did out there a minute ago was foolish and irresponsible. Leaving your flank exposed, forcing me to go in and protect it... you’re lucky you didn’t get us all killed.”
Dane looked at him. “Is that so?”
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