“Had to make sure they were preoccupied,” Trip replied, smiling.
T’Pol chose not to comment as she handed the other weapon to Reed.
“You positive you’re willing to do this?” Trip asked the lieutenant. “It could get pretty ugly.”
Reed understood the gravity of what Trip was implying. “I’m positive,” he said, knowing there was no other choice and no other person on the ship he would allow to take his place.
“You’ve got thirty minutes,” Trip said.
“Good luck,” Reed said. Before anyone could wish him the same, he exited back into the corridor and made his [205] way to the turbolift. Every part of their plan was dangerous. His was just a little more personally so.
Once Reed was safely on his way, T’Pol handed the pair of hyposprays to Hoshi. “If they regain consciousness,” she said, indicating the Suliban, “don’t hesitate to use these.”
“Don’t worry,” Hoshi said, with a sense of conviction.
Trip peered out the door confirming that Reed was gone and no one else was coming. He turned back to T’Pol. “Let’s go.”
The pair moved out into the corridor, heading in the opposite direction as Reed. Hoshi watched as they turned a corner and were gone. She closed the door and took a seat on Trip’s bunk, clutching the two hyposprays and keeping an eye on the unconscious Suliban.
Reed was on the move, cautiously making his way through the corridors of E-deck, Suliban weapon in hand. He heard footsteps as he approached an intersection and paused. There was no place to hide in the corridor he was standing in. He was too far from the turbolift and the Suliban would most certainly hear his hurried footsteps. Reed saw an escape route in the bulkhead beside him and, taking a page from Hoshi’s book, pulled open a hatch in the wall.
The lieutenant squeezed himself inside the tight space and pulled the hatch shut. The door clicked softly a moment before the Suliban turned the corner. Reed listened as their footsteps moved off down the corridor. He [206] thought he heard the whoosh of the turbolift doors opening and closing in the distance.
The corridor was silent once again.
Reed waited a moment and carefully reopened the hatch, peering into the corridor. It was empty. Pushing the metal away, he stepped back into the hall with a sigh of relief. If he’d been caught before he arrived at his destination their entire plan would have been blown.
The corridors were mercifully empty as he continued around the corner. He remembered back when he had made the same walk with his captain just a few days earlier, and wondered if he would ever walk the decks of the ship with Archer again. The cabin they’d gone to was just ahead; Reed could see the shining red light on the mag-lock.
Reed punched in the now familiar code and the lock disengaged with a click. The lieutenant immediately froze to listen for footsteps. It hadn’t been a loud noise, but to Reed it had echoed throughout the deck. Satisfied, he removed the lock and tapped on the panel to open the door. It swung away with a hiss.
The dimly lit room looked exactly as it had the other day when he and the captain had retrieved the device with the designs for the Suliban stealth-cruiser. He assumed that the Suliban had given up on getting into the room when they were unable to open the lock. Their scanners would have told them that the captain was not inside, so they probably just left it alone.
Reed entered the quarters and set the mag-lock down on the nearest table. The door closed behind him, sealing [207] him safely into the room. Once again, he found himself in the place that he knew to be a virtual treasure trove of future technology. But the temptation to explore it was muted this time. He had a very specific task to carry out.
The locker looked no different; standard Starfleet issue. The contents, however, were anything but. He opened it revealing the same garments he had seen the last time he had been in there. The T-shirt the captain had briefly removed from the top of the device they had gotten before was once again resting on a shelf. Nothing that looked out of the ordinary.
Carefully, Reed checked the inside of the locker door. It was easy to find the latch on the thin metal casing. He slid the release mechanism aside and opened a hidden compartment obviously added after the ship had left the spacedock. Reed reached his fingers into the compartment. Then his whole hand. Then part of his arm. He felt around the empty compartment, trying not to worry about where his hand actually was at the moment. The metal door was only a couple of centimeters thick, and his arm had been inserted much deeper than that.
Suddenly, he felt the device under his palm and grasped hold of it. It was slightly larger than a padd and not very heavy at all. Reed pulled it and the missing part of his arm out of the thin metal door. It was exactly where the captain had told T’Pol it would be.
With satisfaction, he closed the locker and picked up the mag-lock. He stepped back into the corridor and gently replaced the lock on the door. A sense of accomplishment [208] overwhelmed him as he held the device. The easy part of the plan had succeeded. Now comes the fun part, he thought sarcastically.
As if to prove himself right, Reed turned and found a pair of Suliban soldiers standing about three meters away. Their weapons were trained directly on him. There was nowhere he could hide.
Chapter 21
Although he was sitting in the captain’s chair, Reed found it difficult to sit up straight. His back ached from the blows he had taken, but he wasn’t sure if that hurt any more than the ache in his gut, his ribs that were definitely cracked, or the pain in his jaw. There was blood coming from some part of his body, but he couldn’t be sure from where. All he knew for certain was that his uniform was stained at the wrist. It was possible that the blood had soaked through from an injury to his hand or arm—or it might have gotten there when he had wiped his forehead. Now that he thought about it, his head ached as well.
Silik and Raan stood in front of him, although he couldn’t tell one from the other through his bleary eyes. I might have a concussion. It didn’t much matter, though. They looked fine. No one had beaten the bloody daylights out of them today. But the day’s not over yet. Reed comforted himself with that thought.
[210] The device Reed had retrieved from Daniels’s quarters was nestled in Silik’s hand. The Cabal leader hadn’t laid a hand on the lieutenant. That had been work for Raan and a couple of the soldiers. They seemed to enjoy their jobs.
“Did you think we wouldn’t be watching Daniels’s quarters?” Silik asked in a rather cocky tone for someone who let others do his dirty work.
“I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Reed said defiantly, wincing through the pain. He could taste a thin trickle of blood in his mouth.
“I guess you weren’t,” Silik smugly agreed, turning over the device. “But you should be thinking now—thinking about what will happen if you don’t answer my questions.” He moved in closer. “Are you thinking about that, Lieutenant Reed?”
Reed nodded reluctantly. It hurt too much for him to come up with an appropriately smug response.
“Good,” Silik said as he held the device out to the lieutenant. “Now tell me what this is? What does it do?”
“I don’t know.”
Raan stepped up and delivered a fierce backhand punch across Reed’s jaw. The pain was excruciating. The bridge faded from view for a moment as Reed came close to blacking out.
“What does it do?” Silik insisted.
The battered lieutenant was having trouble speaking. Blood was flowing freely in his mouth now. “I don’t know.”
[211] Raan moved to strike again, but Reed shied away, covering his face.
“Please!” he begged.
Silik placed a hand out, stopping Raan. He leaned into his prisoner again. “Yes?” he asked with anticipation.
“I’m supposed to destroy it,” Reed said, looking as if he was trying to keep from breaking down entirely. “I don’t know what it does.”
Silik smiled. Anything the Enterprise crew wanted destroyed was definitely something his benefactor would
love to get his hands on. “Who told you to destroy it?” the Suliban asked.
Reed hesitated for a moment, forcing Raan to step forward again. The commander raised his hand menacingly.
“Captain Archer,” Reed spat out with a little blood. “Before he left. He didn’t want you to find it.”
Silik was even more intrigued. This was an unexpected surprise indeed. “And why would that be?” he asked.
“He said you would use it,” Reed explained, haltingly. “To contact someone. I don’t know who. I swear.”
The smile returned to Silik’s face. “Have the lieutenant returned to his quarters,” he ordered Raan. He looked down at the device, knowing that he had what he needed, and headed for the turbolift.
The atmosphere in engineering was far more sedate than that on the bridge. A trio of Suliban soldiers was stationed in the room. Two of them stood watch at [212] alternate sides of the warp engine. The third was on the platform maintaining the warp controls and learning whatever he could about the mechanics of the Earth vessel. The technology was slightly less advanced than what the Suliban possessed—and had been given—but there were a few elements to the engine that the soldier hadn’t seen before.
Suddenly the blast of a Suliban weapon cut through the stillness of the room, striking one of the two guards on the deck. As he fell to the ground, the other two Suliban drew their weapons and began firing toward the upper level in the direction from which the blast had originated. Before they could isolate their target, another blast knocked one of the soldiers off his feet.
The remaining Suliban saw Commander Tucker taking refuge behind a support beam. The soldier took cover while looking for a clear shot. He could see a good portion of the commander’s body from his angle on the ground and he took aim. As he prepared to fire, a hand snaked out from behind him and pinched him between the shoulder and neck. He fell to the floor unconscious.
Once she confirmed the Suliban would not be getting up any time soon, T’Pol moved to a nearby panel. Trip slid down the ladder from the upper deck of engineering to join her on the main level.
“Ready?” she asked.
Trip jumped onto the platform and pushed one of the unconscious Suliban aside. He worked quickly at the [213] controls, knowing it would not be long before someone came to look in on them.
Silik left Enterprise in Raan’s capable hands and took the futuristic device with him back to the Helix. He placed it on the circular platform in the temporal chamber, hoping to reestablish contact with his mysterious benefactor from the future. The controls on the instrument were foreign to him and he was having a difficult time activating it. But just when he began to believe his efforts were futile, a single light on the device started to blink, and it began to emit a low hum.
His face became animated with anticipation. He was finally going to make contact. Although he still did not have Archer, he hoped that the technology he now possessed was more valuable.
“Hello?” he asked, looking up at the platform. “Are you there?”
There was no response.
“I have wonderful news,” Silik announced into the air. “Technology from your future.”
Silik waited but nothing happened. He turned his attention back to the device. He had done something right; now it was just a matter of building on his success and getting the instrument fully operational.
The loud Klaxon of an alarm sounded on the Enterprise bridge. Raan and the Suliban crew reacted to the unknown warning, checking their monitors for some kind of [214] indication of what it meant. One of the soldiers called Raan over to the engineering station and pointed to the console. The commander looked over the information, unwilling to believe what it said.
He tapped a companel with extreme urgency. “Engineering,” he called into the air. “How did this happen?”
But engineering did not respond.
“Engineering?” he called again.
Silence.
Raan turned his gaze to the soldiers posted by the turbolift. They immediately understood the unspoken command and stepped to the lift to check the situation out. As they headed for engineering, Raan tried to do what he could using the bridge controls, having little hope that anything would work. Giving up, he reached for his communications device to get in touch with the Helix.
Silik leaned over the future device, intently working at the unfamiliar controls. Three lights were blinking now, although there was no other indication that he was making any kind of progress. A beeping sound broke through the silence, but the excitement it brought was dashed when Silik realized the noise was coming from a nearby station. He reluctantly left the device for a moment.
“What is it?” he said, tapping the companel with annoyance.
“The antimatter stream has been compromised,” Raan urgently reported from the Enterprise bridge.
[215] “Shut down the warp reactor,” Silik replied with the obvious response. He wondered why Raan had bothered him with such a simple problem to solve.
“Our people in engineering aren’t responding,” Raan reported. “I’ve sent soldiers.”
“Keep me informed,” Silik said as he terminated contact.
He knew that he should return to Enterprise. If they lost Archer and his ship, Silik wasn’t sure that any amount of technology would make up for it in the eyes of his benefactor. But the device drew his attention away. Once he made contact he would receive his long delayed instructions. For all he knew the plans could have changed and the mysterious figure could now want Enterprise destroyed whether or not the Suliban delivered Archer to him.
Engineering was in chaos with sirens wailing and steam venting from the warp reactor. The Suliban soldiers sent from the bridge rushed into the room to find their fallen comrades slowly regaining consciousness beside the sparking consoles. The few monitors still active flashed urgent warnings of a reactor overload.
The soldiers ignored their colleagues as they rushed to the control panel on the raised engineering platform. The technology was unfamiliar to them. But even if they had known what they were doing it would have been pointless. They desperately worked at the panel but the controls refused to respond. A small explosion at the far end of the room caused them to abandon their hopeless mission and [216] exit to the corridor without bothering to make sure the others were following.
Success. A golden glow was emanating from the instrument and rising about a foot into the air. It did not yet match the intensity of the shaft of light the benefactor figure usually stood in, but Silik assumed it was only a matter of time. As excitement rose, so too did his level of irritation when another interruption from the companel broke his concentration.
“Yes?” he snapped into the com.
“These humans are greater fools than I thought,” Raan’s voice came back at him. “They’d rather commit mass suicide than submit to us.”
Silik needed to get back to the device. “Did you correct the problem?” he impatiently asked.
“It’s too late,” Raan said. “The reactor’s going to breach.”
Silik considered his options and realized that he was only going to have the device to present to his benefactor. “We can’t endanger the Helix,” he simply replied. “Evacuate, and have Enterprise towed out of the nebula.”
“There’s very little time,” Raan replied with increasing urgency. “Will you alert the tractor teams?”
You’ve got an entire complement of soldiers, was all Silik could think. “You do it,” he replied, looking back at the waiting device. “I’m busy.”
Again he terminated the communication and returned to the golden glow.
“Where are you?” he asked aloud.
* * *
[217] Raan sounded the alarm to evacuate ship. With all the other warnings blaring throughout Enterprise, he worried that all of his crew might not make it. Of course, the pitiful human crew must be even the more concerned by the alarms. The idea brought a smile to his face as he hurried for the nearest docking port
.
The ship was trembling as Raan hurried through the halls past closed doors of worried crewmen. He could hear the sounds of distant explosions as he reached the airlock and found most of his men filing through the doors. It was likely that the same evacuation procedure was taking place at the other docking ports on the ship. Their quick evacuation was as much of a credit to their training as it was a personal goal of self-preservation. Once Raan confirmed that the cell-ship was fully loaded, he closed the airlock, literally sealing the fate of the Enterprise crew.
Good-bye, Enterprise, he thought as he watched the ship slowly fade into the nebula.
Two cell-ships passed Raan’s fleeing vessel. He watched as the green tractor beams shot out at Enterprise and the ships began the process of towing it away from the Helix. The beams had locked onto the saucer and allowed them to move it at a good clip. Plumes of plasma exhaust were trailing from both of the nacelles. He could imagine the sounds of destruction being absorbed by the vacuum of space.
* * *
[218] The golden glow of the mysterious device had changed into a hazy column of yellow light. Silik sat mesmerized by the beam waiting for it to take a more solid form. He stood back about a dozen feet preparing to make contact and report on his new find.
A darkened shape slowly began to form within the glow. Silik’s eyes widened with anticipation as the figure began to take on a humanoid shadow.
“Is that you?” he asked with excited anticipation. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
The shape continued to form.
The cell-ships emerged from the nebula towing Enterprise to a safe distance. Arcs of crackling blue and white energy jumped between the Starfleet ship’s nacelles. Plasma was now flowing freely from the ship, leaving a pair of trails behind that cut through the darkness of space. The arcing energy increased in intensity as small explosions occurred at points of impact on the ship’s exterior. Small scorch marks were forming on the hull as a prelude to its imminent destruction.
STAR TREK: Enterprise - Shockwave Page 16