“I disagree!”
The female shook her head. “What you’re talking about would only duplicate what the Breg’Hel did at the start . . . it would agitate the leviathan even more!”
“Your thinking is limited,” Tormid sniffed, annoyed that the offworlder could not see his intention. But a flicker of understanding in the Vulcan’s eyes told him that the Enterprise’s science officer did see the line of his reasoning.
“The neurocrystalline structure of the creature’s brain resonates on a specific subspace frequency. I suspect what Tormid is suggesting is nothing less than broadcasting an overpowering signal on exactly that rate. A signal powerful enough not to simply enrage the leviathan . . . but to destroy its neural structure.”
“That . . .” The woman’s expression shifted to one of pure shock. “The power output to do that would blow out the deflector dish, not to mention overloading the systems of the relay ships! You’d destroy the Breg’Hel ships and your own as well!”
“A few more deaths.” Tormid shrugged. “Unavoidable. But I have faith that the steadfast Captain Kirk and his crew will be able to escape with the Enterprise more or less intact.” As he spoke, he was already planning his way off the Starfleet vessel and his explanation to the Assembly. Who would be believed, the offworlders who had brought chaos in their wake, or the embattled but heroic explorer? In the confusion, it would be easy to rally his supporters and decry every alien as an invader. Without their monster, the Breg’Hel would be vulnerable, and Tormid did not believe for one moment that this irresolute Federation—with all their self-defeating rules and high-handed morals—would dare to risk firing on Syhaari ships.
Yes, he told himself, I can still emerge from this as a victor.
“We will not assist you in any way,” the male said flatly.
A chime sounded from one of the panels. “Incoming message from Ead’Aea,” said the female. “Reporting that the second Breg’Hel ship is in position and deploying their relay.”
“If Lieutenant Uhura does not respond to the Breg’Hel immediately, they will become suspicious,” said the other offworlder. “You must allow her to do so.”
“No,” Tormid said with an airy shrug. “I have been observing your kind since we first met, and I know you believe you are more intelligent than my species. You will attempt some sort of subterfuge.”
Uhura scowled at him. “We’ve never once said or done anything that proves we look down on the Syhaari! The Federation has treated you like equals from the start!”
“Debatable,” snapped Tormid, “at best.”
“Not so,” Spock offered. “But it is an understandable emotional reaction from a being suffering from an acute sense of inferiority. Your outward persona would appear to fit within that type, sir. It is easier for you to justify your own actions to yourself if you can characterize us as your antagonists.”
It was the wrong thing to say to Tormid, and he bared his teeth in a snarl. “I have no need to justify anything I have done!” He jerked the phaser. “Step away from the controls. I am perfectly willing to silence both of you if my patience is tested!”
Reluctantly, Spock raised his hands from the controls in front of him. “Do as he says, Lieutenant,” he ordered.
* * *
“Zond’s and Rumen’s rangers are locked in and broadcasting the counter-wave,” purred M’Ress.
Kirk nodded. “What’s the status of the Breg’Hel ships?”
“Ret’Sed’s craft is in position,” reported Haines. “Still awaiting the go signal from the other vessel, sir.”
Kaleo sniffed warily. “This is taking too long.”
“Captain”—Scotty shot him a worried look—“if we don’t have a symmetrical transmission coming from the flotilla, it’ll disrupt the whole counter-wave. It’s all or nothing here.”
“Understood,” Kirk replied. “Ensign Haines, what’s the problem?”
The young woman frowned at the readout on her display. “I’m not sure, sir. Ead’Aea’s technicians have deployed their relay antenna, the signal from the Enterprise should be synchronized with them . . . but it’s not.”
“Aye, the lassie has it right,” Scott confirmed. “The problem is at our end of things, not theirs.”
A sudden flash of yellow fire blazed over the viewscreen as an energy discharge cut across the cavern. “The leviathan’s agitation is turning inward,” said Kaleo. “It’s trying to dislodge us, pick us out as if we were ticks beneath its fur.”
Kirk leaned forward, reaching to tap the intercom button. “Bridge to deflector control, do you read?”
After a moment, M’Ress tapped the remote receiver in her ear. “No answer down there, Captain.”
“Spock!” called Kirk. “Uhura! Respond—”
The sharp hiss of the turbolift doors cut him off before he could finish his sentence, and from the corner of his eye, the captain glimpsed a pale figure in a blue uniform tunic stagger out, on the verge of falling to the deck.
* * *
Uhura obeyed the first officer’s command, allowing her dislike of the order to show plainly on her face. “This won’t end well for anyone,” she told Tormid. “You most of all.”
“I am willing to take the chance,” growled the Syhaari. “I have always been willing to risk my life for the sake of my species. A pity that so few have been able to understand that.” He moved to Spock’s console and flicked his gaze over the display. “Yes. I see how this works. Clever. And simple enough for me to co-opt for a different outcome.”
“You are highly intelligent,” Spock allowed, moving slowly and carefully, but never beyond arm’s reach. “That is clear. However, I question if your morality is as sophisticated as your intellect.”
“Your morals are as alien as you are, offworlder,” Tormid said dismissively, making a few experimental taps on the controls.
Uhura refused to allow that to pass unremarked. “That’s not true,” she argued. “I’ve met enough of your people to know that the Syhaari are not a cruel race. Captain Kaleo, Rumen, Zond, and Duchad. I’m a good judge of character, and each of them seemed like decent people to me.”
“How kind of you to grace us with your praise!” Tormid snorted with derision. “And fitting that you pick those with the clearest lack of will to give it to!”
“What you consider a deficiency of resolve, we see as compassion,” Spock replied. “And compassion is a core tenet upon which the United Federation of Planets was founded. You will forgive me, sir, if I say I hope that you are the exception to commonality of your species, and not Kaleo and the others.”
“The Syhaari respect strength,” said Tormid. “And while some of them may have mistaken your technological prowess to be that, it is clear to me now that your Federation is lacking. You have power, but you balk at employing it.” He weighed the stolen phaser in his hand. “This device alone has the power of ten of our beam guns . . . and this starship?” The scientist pointed at the walls. “On its own, you could have brought us to our knees with it. But instead you came with diplomats and you talked.” He directed a sneer toward Xuur’s fallen form.
“Bridge to deflector control, do you read?”
Captain Kirk’s voice blared from a speaker on the panel, and it caught Tormid by surprise. He spun, almost as if he expected to see the Enterprise’s commanding officer there in the room with them.
Tormid’s moment of confusion was exactly what Spock had been waiting for. Uhura saw the Vulcan rock off his heels, instantly moving from stillness to action. He shot toward the Syhaari and grabbed his arms, forcing the phaser up and away; but Tormid was prepared for the attack, having learned the hard way about turning his back on a Vulcan down on the hangar deck. They struggled for a moment, Spock’s innate strength matched evenly against the dense, ropey musculature of the simianoid.
Uhura hesitated for a fraction of a second. Part of her was compe
lled to rush to Envoy Xuur’s side and make certain the woman was still breathing—a heavy stun blast could still be very dangerous—but another, more logical part of her knew that unless the alarm was raised, Xuur’s life would be forfeit along with that of everyone else.
“Spock! Uhura! Respond—” A second shout from the intercom, abruptly cut short, spurred her to action. The lieutenant dove toward the sound of the voice, reaching for the emergency alert button.
As she got to the console, Uhura heard a violent grunt of effort and a crash of noise. Tormid had turned a foot in against Spock’s leg to throw him off balance. Like all his species, the Syhaari’s lower limbs ended in something more like hands than feet, and thick finger-like toes gripped and pulled, robbing the Vulcan of stability.
Uhura turned to see Spock desperately scrambling back up from where he had fallen, but Tormid was already spinning about, turning to aim the phaser across the compartment at her. Time seemed to thicken and slow, and everything in the moment became unnaturally sharp. Tormid’s snarling face, the alert button just beyond her reach, the strange artificial chorus of the counter-wave signal.
She braced herself for the energy bolt that she knew was coming, wondering if she would ever wake again after the stun blast took her down.
There was a blue blur of motion, a shriek of a phaser discharge—and suddenly Uhura was watching Spock collapse, first to his knees, then down into a heap, his eyes rolling back to show the whites. He took the shot meant for me.
The first officer had thrown himself in front of Tormid, absorbing the blast point blank, and for his bravery he now lay silent and unmoving next to Xuur. Heedless of what might happen next, Uhura went to his side. Like the envoy, Spock was still alive, but his breathing was shallow, and his body still trembled from the shock that had gone through it.
She felt a hard prod at her back and looked up with barely contained fury in her eyes. Tormid stood tall over her, the phaser aimed at her head. “Get up, and do not test me again. A hostage will be useful . . . but only to a point.” He jerked the muzzle of the weapon away from his two fallen victims. “Move. Now.”
“Spock was right about you,” she said, slowly rising to her feet, her hands raised. “But you can’t see it. You’ll never accept the chance you might be wrong. That’s why you killed the Breg’Hel, that’s why you’re doing this.”
“You know nothing,” Tormid growled, and with one hand he gripped the power control sliders on the console, slowly easing the energy dials forward.
The tones of the strange chorus shifted, growing rough and strident. The sound hurt Uhura’s ears, and she winced as it became louder with each passing moment.
* * *
“Jim!” gasped McCoy. “I . . . couldn’t stop him. Had to warn . . .” Ashen and shaky, the doctor tumbled forward as his legs gave out.
Kaleo moved across the bridge in a blur of motion and caught McCoy as he fell from the turbolift, grabbing him before he could collapse. “I have you,” she said. “It’s all right.”
Kirk vaulted from his chair. “Bones! What happened?”
McCoy waved the question away. “Forget me. Xuur . . . he must have her.”
A sudden chill passed through the captain’s veins; there could be only one person his old friend was referring to. “Tormid.”
“Got out of the cell . . . power failed.” McCoy struggled to explain. “Ensign Lopez was down, tried to . . .” He sucked in a ragged breath. “Tormid knocked me down, hit me with a heavy stun. He’s loose, Jim. Had to get here . . . warn you.”
“If Tormid is armed and he has a hostage . . .” Kaleo’s words trailed off.
Kirk looked back at the silent intercom panel. “I know where he is.”
M’Ress grabbed an emergency medical pack from beneath her panel and guided McCoy to her chair. Too weak to complain, he let her fill a hypospray and inject him with a counteractive. “He’ll be all right, sir,” said the Caitian.
The ship trembled again as another energy surge shocked through the space around it, then a sharp tone sounded from the science station.
Haines spoke up. “Contact from the second Breg’Hel ship. They’re confirming they received the go signal from the Enterprise. Counter-wave is now being transmitted from all flotilla vessels.”
“Captain, something isn’t right.” Scott shook his head as he studied the wave forms on the screen before him. “The subspace frequency being broadcast, it’s all wrong. The power output is varying toward the upper bands when it should be dropping into the lower range . . .”
“If Tormid is doing this, then I dread to consider what he means to accomplish,” said Kaleo. “He must be stopped.”
“Can’t just cut the transmission,” Kirk muttered, thinking aloud. “No time. I’ve got to get down there, get it back on track . . .” He turned, beckoning his chief engineer. “Scotty! You can handle things up here without me for a while. Take the conn.”
The other officer nodded at the order. “Aye, sir.” Scott strode across the bridge to the command chair.
Kirk put a hand on his chief engineer’s arm and spoke quietly, adding, “You know what to do.” It wasn’t a question, but an affirmation. Scott, better than anyone on the bridge, knew that if the worst came to pass, the Enterprise might need to be sacrificed.
“Aye, sir,” repeated the engineer in a low voice. “I’ll do what has to be done.”
Kirk nodded and dashed into the turbolift. As he twisted the activator control, Kaleo nimbly slipped in between the closing doors to join him. This time, he didn’t question her reasons for coming along, only nodded. Each of them understood the stakes at hand only too well.
“Deflector control,” he ordered, and the lift accelerated away.
* * *
With each new pulse from the Enterprise’s deflector dish, the soothing murmur of the counter-wave mutated, growing ever more jagged and brutal as it went on. Each pulsation echoed across the void inside the leviathan before being scooped up and rebroadcast by the smaller Syhaari and Breg’Hel starships. Their crews were starting to notice that something was amiss as the signal hit them with the force of a storm surge beating at a shoreline, worsening as it went—but none of them dared to close down their relays, all knowing what greater prize was at stake. Zond and Rumen, Ret’Sed and Ead’Aea, they and their crews had ceded their control to the Starfleet vessel, and by the time they realized what was wrong, it would be too late.
Uhura saw that dark end unfolding in her mind’s eye as she watched the wave form display shifting from calm and steady geometric patterns toward a frenzied mess of energetic spikes. The deck shifted under her feet as the Enterprise rocked in the wake of more furious discharges from the leviathan.
Somewhere out there in the cavern walls, the stony flesh of the living planetoid was resonating with a terrible vibration that shook and cracked the rock-skin. Uhura could almost sense the agony resonating through the titanic cosmozoan, and she remembered the sound of its subspace howls captured by Lieutenant M’Ress.
“You’re going to kill it,” she gasped.
“That is my intention,” Tormid replied. “Was I unclear?” He continued to push the power output controls toward the redline. “Soon your captain will have no choice but to abandon this idiotic act and flee.” The Syhaari waved toward the walkway leading to the lower levels of the compartment. “I have already severed the control linkages down there that allow your bridge to take remote command of this system. They will not be able to stop me.”
“You thought of everything,” Uhura admitted, moving slowly along the nearest panel. “And when you’ve murdered this creature, what then?”
“The extermination of a predator is not murder,” he replied. “It is required.”
Reaching by touch alone, never taking her eyes off the Syhaari, Uhura’s slender fingers slipped over the face of an intercom module, and she tapped the
activation stud. “And will you turn on me next? How much more blood are you going to shed?”
* * *
“Wait!” Kirk skidded to a halt in the corridor and held up a hand. “Listen!”
Kaleo stopped in an instant and stood there panting. They had both sprinted from the turbolift, but suddenly the Enterprise’s captain was cocking his head, waiting for something.
“I told you, you have value to me,” said a rough voice from a nearby intraship panel, echoing slightly.
Kaleo blinked. “That’s Tormid. What is he doing?”
Kirk waved her to silence as he went to the panel. “I will take one of those shuttle vessels of yours,” the scientist went on. “You come with me. As insurance against any more foolishness on Kirk’s part.”
“How are we hearing that?” Kaleo looked around the plain corridor, spotting the sealed door to the deflector control room up ahead.
“The captain is a lot of things, but a fool isn’t one of them.” Uhura’s voice, louder and clearer than Tormid’s, issued out. “He’ll stop you.”
“My communications officer,” said Kirk, in a low voice. “She’s very resourceful. She must have opened the intercom. We’re listening to everything going on in that room.”
As if she anticipated the next question on both their minds, Uhura went on. “You could have allowed Envoy Xuur and Commander Spock to leave. You didn’t have to shoot them. They both need medical attention.”
Kirk reached behind him and pulled a device from the small of his back. Kaleo recognized it as a smaller version of the beam pistols carried by the Starfleet crew. “What do you intend to do?” she asked.
A long, turbulent shudder ran along the length of the corridor, and alarmingly, Kaleo thought she saw the bulkheads of the vessel shift and flex. The bombardments of wild energy striking the Enterprise’s shields were worsening.
“Act fast,” Kirk replied, and moved carefully toward the deflector control room door.
The Latter Fire Page 25