by David Mack
“Yes, sir,” Braddock said, clearly disgruntled about going into action with most of his options unavailable.
Spitale was the next to lift her hand. “Lieutenant, if we’re using subspace signal jammers, how will we get our orders from Captain Picard? Or stay in contact with each other?”
Taurik piped up with the answer. “We encoded a harmonic subcarrier into the jamming pulse that will let us communicate with one another and the Enterprise on a special frequency. It will also protect our tricorders.”
Spitale nodded at the Vulcan engineer. “Okay,” she said, and let the matter drop.
Picard’s voice echoed from the com speakers high above on the hangar ceiling. “Bridge to Commander Riker. We’re ready to proceed.”
“Acknowledged,” Riker said. “We’ll let you know as soon as we’re ready to deploy. Riker out.” The first officer regarded the strike teams with a resolute expression. “Any more questions before we board the Taj?”
For the sake of morale, Vale decided not to ask him if it was too late to request a transfer.
A few seconds later, no further questions having been raised, Riker ended the briefing. “Suit up. Team leaders, check your team’s suits. Security personnel, check your team leaders’ suits. Make sure the implanted transponders are working. They’ll help you find each other if you get separated and keep you from hitting each other with friendly fire.”
The group moved in an orderly fashion to don their gear and begin the premission check of their weapons and equipment. Vale led her trio of specialists to their pressure suits, which had been modified with extra air supplies. In addition, grafted onto the matte black outer skins of the suits were webs of jury-rigged coils that she recognized from the Starfleet Survival Guide as an improvised structural-integrity field system.
Spitale held her suit at arm’s length and eyed it suspiciously. “Will these work at ten kilometers?”
Lieutenant Fillion looked at the athletic young blonde and shrugged. “You’re the engineer,” he said. “You tell me.”
“Relax,” Vale said, pulling off her uniform jacket. “It’ll work. It’s a marvel of modern engineering.”
“Wow, a marvel,” Fillion said, sounding unconvinced. “Imagine what we could do with two hours’ notice.”
Vale had to give the man credit: He’d developed a healthy cynicism for the logistical prowess of Starfleet. “Just suit up,” she said, shimmying out of her trousers and grabbing her pressure suit. “If you don’t like it, you can exchange it.”
“For what?” he said.
“A court-martial,” Vale said.
As Fillion scrambled out of his uniform and into his pressure suit, Vale concealed her amusement: Never in a million years would she have thought she would need to resort to the threat of a court-martial to get a man out of his clothes.
Chapter 21
U.S.S. Enterprise-E—Bridge
KELL PERIM PRACTICED a series of high-impulse maneuvers as she acclimated her fingers to the helm controls of the I.K.S. Taj. The Klingon ship had sustained serious damage during the Tezwan sneak attack, but the Enterprise engineering staff, using Klingon starship-repair schematics from the Dominion War, had quickly restored the cruiser’s impulse power and warp engines and outfitted the Taj with hardware that let Perim remote-pilot the ghost ship from the safety of the Enterprise bridge.
With Riker, Data, and Vale all absent from the ship, the young Trill lieutenant was the acting first officer. She could have assigned the beta-shift conn officer to pilot the Taj on this, its final mission; after all, Lieutenant Magner was a good starship pilot—very good, in fact. But from the moment Perim had piloted the Klingon warship through a simple evasive pattern, just to test the remote-command system, she’d found herself unwilling to relinquish the controls.
Perim had never piloted a Klingon vessel before. Even though the sensation was dulled by the long-distance nature of the experience, she could tell, even from the cold telemetry readouts, that the dark starship had a deadly grace unlike anything else she’d ever flown. True to the destiny of violence it had borne since the moment its keel had been laid, the Taj cut through space like a warrior’s blade. It responded like a lover to Perim’s touch, turning and yawing and accelerating at her slightest whim. It was, in a word, magnificent.
Her orders were to pilot the Taj into orbit over Tezwa, and, at the last moment before the planet-based artillery destroyed the Klingon cruiser, adjust its heading and velocity so that its debris would scatter across the widest possible area of the upper atmosphere. At the same time, Ensign Le Roy at ops would beam the strike teams off of the Taj and into orbit. The general idea was that the ship’s debris, as it fell into the atmosphere, would mask the strike teams’ descent. However, if Perim’s controlled sacrifice of the Taj was off by even a tenth of a degree, she might kill all six strike teams instantly.
Adding to her anxiety was the fact that one of the teams was being led by Deputy Chief of Security Jim Peart, with whom she had, only two nights ago, shared a romantic dinner that had promised to lead to more dates, and more dinners, and who knew what else—assuming he didn’t go and get himself killed pulling another of his trademark crazy-brave stunts. And also assuming she didn’t accidentally leave him trapped in a lethal maelstrom of burning starship wreckage.
“Strike teams standing by,” Riker said over the com. “Routing the Taj’s transporter controls to the ops station.”
“Acknowledged,” Picard said.
“Transporter control verified,” Le Roy said. “Coordinates preset for low-orbit destinations.”
“Thank you, Ensign,” Picard said. “Helm. Ready?”
“Aye, Captain,” Perim said, even though her hands had begun to tremble.
“Lieutenant Wriede?” the captain said.
The willowy, dark-haired tactical officer looked dissatisfied. “The Taj’s weapons are offline,” he said. “Shields at sixteen percent.”
“Do the best you can,” Picard said, then turned his attention back to the main viewer. “Ensign Le Roy, patch in the Taj’s viewscreen. Let’s see what she sees.”
“Aye, sir,” Le Roy said as she keyed in the command. The only change was a barely noticeable shift in the starfield.
“Helm, take her in,” Picard said, pointing at the screen.
Perim activated the Taj’s warp engines. The stars on the main viewer stretched away from Tezwa, presently a single point at screen-center that rapidly grew larger and brighter.
“Ensign Le Roy,” Picard said. “Energize transporters on my mark.”
Perim watched the rapidly changing data on her console. A bitter pang of regret began to take hold of her heart as she realized the proud Klingon vessel was only moments away from destruction. “Ten seconds to orbit,” she said. The shimmering orb of Tezwa enlarged to dominate the viewscreen.
“Prepare to engage impulse engines,” Picard said. He walked forward and stopped between Le Roy and Perim at the front of the bridge. Behind him, officers at noncritical stations stopped what they were doing and turned to watch the end of the Taj.
Perim’s index finger hovered above the warp-power cutoff. “Dropping to impulse in three…two…one.” She pressed the key. The stars retreated to static points, and the curving horizon of the planet rolled until it stretched across the bottom edge of the screen frame.
“Evasive pattern Sierra-two,” Picard said. “Half-impulse.” Perim had finished the maneuver before the captain had finished giving the order. The warship was grace incarnate as it raced toward oblivion.
“The planet’s artillery is locking on,” Wriede said without looking up from his tactical display. “All guns charging.”
“All power to shields,” Picard said. Perim could almost sense the heat from atmospheric friction as thermal effects flared across the main viewer. Anguish tightened her throat.
“They’ve got a lock!” Wriede shouted.
“Helm,” Picard said, “ten degrees yaw, give them a good target.�
� He glanced at Le Roy. “Energize!”
“They’re firing!” Wriede said as Le Roy started the transport sequence.
“Steady,” Picard said.
Perim saw the barrage of artillery blasts converge toward the viewscreen. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Le Roy finish the transport sequence with a deft slide of her hands across the ops console.
The artillery blasts hit home. The main viewer whited out with static, then blinked back to a serene starfield.
“The Taj has been destroyed,” Wriede confirmed.
Perim blinked back her tears as she and Le Roy rose and stood at attention next to their consoles. I was its pilot for less than an hour, and it’s like losing an old friend, she brooded. I always fall too hard, too far, too fast. She thought of Jim Peart and the danger he now faced as he led his strike team toward Tezwa. One date and I was thinking about us having a future, she reflected. Now he’ll probably come home in pieces. Some future. She sighed. Better just not to get involved.
After a moment of quiet mourning for the ship they’d sacrificed, Picard broke the silence. “The strike teams?” he said, looking at Le Roy.
“Transport went perfectly,” the short-coiffed blonde replied. “They should be entering the atmosphere now.”
“Debris scatter?” Picard asked.
“Ninety-eight percent of optimal,” Wriede said.
Picard nodded, his jaw tight. “Well done, everyone,” he said. He moved back to his chair and sat down. “Lieutenant Perim,” he said. She turned to face him. “I believe you’re in the wrong seat.”
After a moment of confusion, she realized what he was saying and stood up. She felt terribly self-conscious for a few seconds, then walked to what she couldn’t help but think of as Riker’s chair. As Lieutenant Magner took over for her at the helm, she sat down next to Picard. “Sorry, sir,” she said.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Just get us ready to face the Klingon fleet.”
For a few minutes she busied herself requesting damage reports, ordering battle drills, and shifting the damage-control teams’ repair priorities. She was about to ask Dr. Crusher for an update on which personnel had been cleared to return to duty when Picard leaned over and spoke to her in a low voice.
“Are you all right, Lieutenant?”
The question caught her off guard. “Yes, sir.”
“You’ve seemed upset since the strike teams deployed.”
She stared at her feet for a moment before she looked up and answered him. “It’s the Taj, sir,” she said. “It’s just that…she was a fine ship.”
“Yes, she was,” Picard said. “But if her sacrifice serves a greater good, her loss won’t have been in vain.”
Perim had nothing else to say, so she just nodded. She knew the captain was right, and that the Klingon cruiser’s seemingly senseless end had made possible their one hope of stopping an invasion that would cost many millions of innocent lives. But even knowing why it had been necessary, she couldn’t deny her sorrow, or her guilt for being the one whose hands sent a ship so noble and beautiful to its lonely demise.
Chapter 22
Tezwa Orbit
TRANSPORTING INTO ZERO g had been brutally disorienting, and materializing so close to the explosion of the I.K.S. Taj had placed Riker and his strike team in the midst of a shock wave that left him feeling like he’d been kicked inside out.
As soon as he regained tactile sensation, he activated his orbital skydiving suit’s low-power deflector field. A few seconds later, a storm of blast-scattered particles rushed past him. A sizable chunk of the cruiser’s bulkhead tumbled by, a bit too close for the first officer’s liking, on its way to a fiery end in the atmosphere.
The other strike teams had materialized far enough away that Riker couldn’t see most of them. One small group of specks, which he surmised was Taurik’s team, was on its way planetside. They trailed behind a glowing shower of debris from the crewless Klingon battle cruiser, which he’d convinced Picard to sacrifice as a decoy to cover the beam-in of the strike personnel.
He looked around for his team. On his left and right, respectively, were engineers Tierney and Barnes. Razka had materialized in front of him, and was already angling himself toward the planet for his descent. Riker gestured to Tierney and Barnes, who signaled back that they were ready to make the dive. With a forward slash with his forearm, he keyed his suit’s thrusters and rocketed toward the nightside of Tezwa.
The planet was aglow with two kinds of light. The major population centers resembled webs of steady, artificial-looking illumination that radiated out from several points in the highlands and traced wide paths along the coastlines. But the more remote regions of the planet were still ablaze with the aftermath of the Klingon counterattack. Vast rural areas had been turned into what Riker could only guess were now killing fields of plasma fire and jet black glass. Wreaths of smoke and pyroclastic ash had already begun to smother the planet in a bleak and deadly shroud.
A chunk of the Taj painted a reddish streak of flame across the upper atmosphere as it fell toward the inferno below. Seconds later, several more slabs of the Klingon ship’s outer hull ignited as they struck the rarefied air. Riker adjusted his descent to follow the wreckage’s trajectory, then transmitted the new coordinates to his strike team.
He felt the temperature inside his suit begin to rise as he plummeted toward the smoldering darkness below. As the planet’s gravity pulled him downward with a merciless hand, he caught sight of another fragment of the Taj as it erupted into a short-lived cloud of sparks and then disintegrated.
Riker offered a silent but heartfelt salute to Captain Vekma and her crew as the last shards of their vessel faded into dust and billowed across the nightscape. He remembered the crush of her hand around his throat and the metallic odor of blood on her breath as she had cursed him for cheating her and her crew of honored deaths in battle. He doubted that Vekma or her crew would approve of the cause for which their ship had ultimately been sacrificed…but he hoped it would bring them honor in Sto-Vo-Kor all the same.
Chapter 23
Tezwa—Solasook Peninsula,
0200 Hours Local Time
DATA LED BRAVO TEAM through the dark canopy of storm clouds. He fell like a missile, his arms tight against his torso, his legs pressed together and feet extended. He checked the holographic display projected on his suit’s faceplate. Obrecht and Heaton were ninety-three-point-six meters behind him and gaining at a rate of point-two meters per minute, well within safety parameters. The android second officer calculated that he could safely withstand a landing at more than twice the planned velocity, but he knew that his human compatriots could not.
The telemetry indicated that they were nearing chute-deployment altitude, but there was no sign of a break in the cloud cover. The wind resistance was sharply rising and the temperature was steadily dropping to well below freezing. The numbers added up to a grim result: He and his team were descending into a blizzard.
He signaled his team to deploy their parachutes as they pierced the upper level of precipitation. He keyed his chute release. The carbon-nanofiber canopy erupted above him, unfurled with a roar, and slowed his descent with a violent snap.
Wild flurries of snow and sleet swirled around him, driven forward by a relentless wind. He couldn’t see the rest of his team, but based on the information he was receiving from their transponder signals, he knew that they had all activated their parachutes and were maintaining formation within fifty meters of him. From inside the heart of this winter storm, the view in every direction was identical. He focused his attention on the readouts from the suit’s built-in sensors, and on reacting to the brutal wind that was forcing him into an accelerating spiral as he neared the ground.
The altimeter rapidly dwindled toward zero. Data accessed his skills database and set himself in the textbook-perfect posture for a high-speed landing on a possibly hard and uneven surface. His feet broke through a top layer of icy crust and sank into
deep, soft snow. Adjusting his stance in less than two-tenths of a second, he used the natural cushion to his advantage and came to a stop standing upright, buried up to his waist. He unclasped the breakaway harness for his parachute, which fluttered to the ground behind him.
He turned and pulled his chute toward him, hand over hand, rolling it into a tight coil. When it was reduced to a compact bundle, he stuffed it beneath the snow cover. Using the control pad on the arm of his suit, he activated its camouflage circuit and selected the adaptive gray-and-white arctic pattern.
He keyed his suit’s secure internal com. “Data to Bravo Team,” he said. “Sound off, please.”
“Obrecht, here.”
“Heaton, here.”
“Parminder, here.”
“Lock on to my signal and regroup,” Data said.
Data waited for the rest of his team to rejoin him. One by one they emerged from the white curtain of the storm, vague shadows at first, then crisp outlines. Heaton reached him first, followed by Parminder and Obrecht. As they closed to within arm’s reach, he noticed that part of what made them so difficult to see was that they had also engaged their camouflage.
“Status,” Data said.
“Good to go,” Parminder said.
He made a twirling gesture with his finger to Obrecht, who turned his back to him. Data opened a side pocket of the engineer’s backpack and removed a tricorder. He scanned in the general direction of the firebase and adjusted the device’s settings until he had a solid fix on the target’s location. He turned toward the target, noted the topography of the terrain ahead, and judged it passable. He started the hard trudge forward through the knee-deep snow. “Follow me,” he said.
Chapter 24
Tezwa—Nokalana Sea,
1000 Hours Local Time