He then noticed something new, and grimaced. “There’s fighting going on. Looks like your ship is under attack.”
“But who would attack us?” P8 Blue asked. “And why?”
“There’s only one possibility,” Elless said, turning back to face Corsi and her team. “Portlyn.”
“How did I know you were going to say that?” Corsi responded with a sigh. “Now he’s behind an attack on a Starfleet vessel? I suppose he beat up your friend Ramark, too?”
“Well, if he didn’t, I’m sure it was someone connected to him. Look, it’s the only logical explanation. As for why he’d have your ship attacked…my guess is, he somehow connected the time bombs and the explosion on Vemlar to us. And he found out that you came here.”
“You’re making him out to be pretty damned omniscient,” Corsi told him.
“With all of his connections, and all the operatives he has running around spying for him, he might as well be.”
Elless then paused. He looked as if he had bitten into the sourest of fruits. Finally, as if spitting out the words, he said in a voice dripping with bitterness, “Look, I know Rod Portlyn. I know how he thinks. I was his right-hand man here. I helped him build this place up…and watched helplessly as he ran it into the ground.” He glanced back at the schematic. “My guess is that the attackers are Orion mercenaries. Portlyn often uses them on a freelance basis.” He turned back to Corsi, his intense eyes boring into hers. “Portlyn can’t take the chance of the Federation finding out the truth about him, not if he wants to keep the Federation as his partner on Vemlar. Those mercs are here to blow your ship out of the stars.”
Vazga abruptly called out to Elless. She directed his attention back to the monitor, and the twelfth blinking dot that was closest to the planet.
“The freighter just launched something,” she informed him.
Elless swiftly adjusted the controls and studied the sensor readings. “A missile of some kind. I’ll see if I can augment the readings so we can determine exactly what it—”
“What?” Corsi prompted.
Elless’s voice sounded hollow when he finally answered. “The sensors say the missile is loaded with contagion—the same kind that Portlyn used on Vemlar. But much more powerful. In this form, it’ll wipe out all life on Phantas 61.” He turned away from the screen and looked at everyone in the room. “It all makes sense—he wants the galaxy to believe the da Vinci was destroyed by the Taru Bolivar. And to make sure no one can say anything different, everyone on this planet will be exterminated.”
“What about his investment in this world?” Corsi asked, hoping against hope that Elless was somehow wrong. “He’s going to just write it off?”
“Not at all,” Elless replied. “Phantas 61 doesn’t have to support life to be used as a dumping ground for space garbage.”
Corsi couldn’t argue with that. She had to face the very real possibility that Portlyn was far worse than even she had believed.
“Look, Elless,” she began. “We have to work together if we—everyone on Phantas 61 and the da Vinci—are going to have any chance of surviving this.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Do you have ground-to-air defenses?”
“No, we’re not that well-equipped.”
“If I may point out,” P8 Blue stepped in, “blowing the missile out of the sky would be most inadvisable. That would only release the contagion into the air.”
Okay, Corsi thought. That rules out all of my other ideas.
But then she had a flash of inspiration. “Elless, what kind of spaceship capability do you have?”
“We have a small fleet of ships that we’ve modified to act as escape vehicles and fighters.”
She nodded quickly. “Do they have tractor beams?”
“Yes, but not very powerful ones. They can only handle objects not much larger than a standard cargo container.”
“That’ll have to do.” Corsi turned to her team. “Hawkins, how’s your shoulder?”
“Uh, much better, Commander. I can do whatever you need.”
“Hawkins,” Corsi said to her deputy in a tone filled with skepticism.
The dark-skinned security officer frowned and sighed. “Okay, it’s still numb. And I can’t feel my fingers—yet. But I’m sure I can—”
Corsi cut him off. “Can’t risk it. You’ll have to stay here—no arguments, I don’t have the time. Powers, Pattie—you’re coming with me.”
She then turned to Elless. “Have a couple of your people stay here and try to find a way around the communications jamming. If they can, they should make contact with the da Vinci—our captain must be informed about what’s really going on here.”
Elless summoned over one of the Red Nasats and a small, middle-aged, humanoid woman with yellowish skin and frizzy, blue-tinted hair. “R1, Fila—I need you two working on this. Use smoke signals, if you have to.”
Corsi, stifling a smirk, turned back to Hawkins. “If they do make contact, I’ll want you to do the talking, Vance—the captain will need to hear this from someone he knows and trusts.” Hawkins nodded.
“Now, let’s get to those ships of yours,” Corsi told Elless. “And you’d better bring your best pilots—we’ll need them for what I have planned.”
Captain Gold felt both gratified and frustrated watching another attacker explode on the viewscreen after a bombardment of quantum torpedoes and a barrage of phasers at full power.
That’s two down…and eight more to go.
The attackers continued their hit-and-run maneuvers, zooming in close to the da Vinci to fire their weapons and then swiftly peeling away to avoid the Starfleet vessel’s retaliatory fire. The da Vinci managed to break out of orbit to gain more maneuvering room and hopefully turn the tables on the attackers. But the smaller ships managed to keep pace and surround the da Vinci, pounding at its shields.
“Our shields are now at forty-two percent efficiency, Captain,” Haznedl reported.
Didn’t take us long to lose that fifty-eight percent, Gold thought grimly. The da Vinci endured several hits from all sides. He could almost feel the shields of his vessel weakening even further.
For this I argued to come to this planet?
“Phaser power starting to drop, Captain,” Shabalala called out.
Gold turned to Fabian Stevens, who was operating an aft bridge console that had been reconfigured during the battle to act as an engineering station. “Shut down all nonessential functions and divert every ounce of available power to shields, weapons, and life support.”
“Aye, sir,” Stevens replied as he quickly got to work. “But I’m afraid that won’t give those systems much more power than they already have.”
Gold bit his lip. As much as this wasn’t the appropriate time or circumstance, he couldn’t ignore the notion that suddenly rushed to the forefront of his mind—the notion that was lurking within ever since the aftermath of Galvan VI: If only he had another ship, a bigger, stronger ship. If he commanded such a vessel, it would have undoubtedly emerged victorious by now, instead of facing annihilation by a ragtag band of terrorists.
Chapter
9
Corsi braced herself as the small, snub-nosed, winged spacecraft she piloted abruptly lifted off the ground and began accelerating through a dark, spacious tunnel leading to the mouth of a cave outside the city. She was certainly no stranger to being behind the controls of a ship, and was relieved to find that this vessel flew well and was not too difficult to master, despite its somewhat ramshackle appearance and a control panel that was partially built from spare parts.
Elless explained to her before she climbed into the cockpit that the Taru Bolivar “fleet,” such as it was, consisted of vessels that were once shuttles, called “runners,” that transported the riches mined from Phantas 61 to larger ships for distribution across space. But when Elless and his comrades formed the Taru Bolivar, they completely reconfigured the runners and outfitted them with whatever defensive an
d offensive ordnance they could obtain.
Pretty industrious, these Phantasians, she thought as her runner exited the long tunnel and began climbing into the gray sky. She followed Elless’s ship, which was in the lead position. Behind her, six more runners headed up through the tunnel, each piloted by either a Taru Bolivar operative or a member of her own team. P8 Blue and Powers were each given a ship to fly, following Elless’s pilots, one of whom was Vazga. Corsi had since learned that the tough-looking woman she had thought of as “Buzz-cut” was Elless’s second-in-command.
Once all eight runners were in the sky, they accelerated together up toward the stratosphere, their sensors locked on the incoming missile. After several moments, the dart-shaped, ten-stories-tall projectile was in sight. The ships altered course to intercept it.
Corsi anxiously adjusted the controls of her runner so it would match the speed of the missile. She had to assume her fellow pilots were doing the same thing. With all communications still being jammed, there was no way for them to speak to one another directly, so all the details of Corsi’s plan were worked out in advance on the fly. Taking a quick look around through the windows of her cockpit, Corsi saw the other ships getting into the agreed-upon flight formation, so she immediately followed suit. The eight runners formed two parallel lines, four ships in each line. Corsi took the lead position in one of the lines, and she could see that the ship marked as Elless’s had done the same in the other. A wide opening was maintained between the two lines of runners, through which the missile could enter unimpeded.
The nose of the missile rushed through the opening. Corsi took a deep breath as she watched the nose slip past her. She waited until more of the missile’s body had entered the gap between the two lines of runners. She could feel her heart pounding through her chest, the veins in her forehead pulsing madly. The missile continued to rush through the gap.
Wait for more missile…just a little more…now!
She slapped on her tractor beam, then briefly glanced at the other runners through her cockpit window. They had all activated their tractor beams too, more or less at the same time. All eight beams were now fixed on either side of the missile, from the nose to the long midsection to the base of the propulsion unit, where Corsi’s ship was now located. So far, so good.
Considering the speed at which the missile had been traveling when they intercepted it, it was no surprise when the huge projectile continued its relentless descent toward the surface—or when it dragged the eight runners along with it. Corsi kept her cool and waited for any signs of a change. Slowly but surely, she began to detect a decrease in the missile’s rate of descent. The tractor beams were having an effect on it, however slight. Now all the runners would have to do is gain complete control over the missile and alter its direction before it hit the surface.
The runners kept their tractor beams fixed on the missile and remained in their parallel lines on either side of it. Then they began to rise in unison and pull on the projectile through the tractor beams, trying to nudge the missile’s nose up and gradually move the entire thing out of its downward trajectory.
The surface of the planet got closer and closer, but no great progress was being made.
Corsi hoped the others had come to the same conclusion as she: that it would be necessary to increase power to the tractor beams. She went with the assumption that they had, and began diverting some power from her runner’s shields and weapons systems. Glancing out the window, she could see the pale blue tractor beams generated by the other runners quickly become brighter, denoting an increase in power level. Good—they were all on the same wavelength.
With the tractor-beam power levels elevated, the runners made another attempt to pull on the missile and force it up and away from its descent. But despite a slight shift, it continued unabated on its headlong path to the surface. Corsi decided it was necessary to sacrifice even more power from the shields and weapons to boost the tractor beam, and made the adjustments.
She glanced out the window as she strengthened her tractor beam again. She noticed that the ship being flown by Elless’s lieutenant, Vazga, which was in the other line of runners, was the first to follow her in this—its tractor beam suddenly grew even brighter.
But Corsi’s eyes widened in shock and dismay as she watched chunks of Vazga’s ship start to fall away—apparently it could no longer withstand the stresses placed upon it. Vazga’s runner dropped out of the formation and began gliding—then plummeting—toward the ground, like a bird suddenly stripped of its wings.
As if serving as an echo, the last ship in Corsi’s own line of runners began to break apart. Corsi frantically checked the identification marker on the vessel to figure out who was piloting it. She determined that it was one of her own: Powers. His crumbling ship followed Vazga’s out of the formation and into a steep downward glide toward the surface.
Corsi swallowed hard, determined not to let her concern for her subordinate be a distraction. She told herself there was a chance—however slim—that Powers and Vazga could survive their crash landings.
But as the missile continued its long plunge, and with two less ships to act against it, Domenica Corsi silently, regretfully concluded that her plan was doomed. She would go down fighting—simply giving up was not in her nature—but success was not going to be in the cards, not this time. She and the rest of her team, along with Elless and the Taru Bolivar, and every living thing on Phantas 61, would soon be dead.
And up above, in space, the da Vinci was fighting for survival against overwhelming odds—assuming it hadn’t already been destroyed. She thought of Fabian Stevens, wishing she could have at least had the chance to see him one last time, or even say good-bye over the radio.
Damn Rod Portlyn, she cursed bitterly. That smug, arrogant, greedy piece of slimy—
Suddenly, Corsi noticed a runner in the other line breaking off from the formation, and starting to descend toward the missile. She checked the ID marker, and determined that this ship was the one being piloted by P8 Blue.
What in the world is Pattie up to?
As P8 Blue brought her runner closer to the missile, she hoped Corsi was not being too hard on herself over the failure of her plan. The idea of using the runners to intercept the missile and alter its course was a good one, and definitely had the potential to succeed. It was unfortunate that the tractor beams simply weren’t strong enough to do the job, and that some of these tough little recycled ships could not hold up under the strain.
Corsi’s idea did have a positive effect, though—it got the runners up in the air. Had they not gone up, there would never have been a chance for Pattie to launch her own crazy scheme. With “Plan A” having fallen through and the situation even more desperate now, the Nasat did not doubt that what she was about to do would represent the very last chance to save everyone on Phantas 61.
She pulled her ship in so close to the side of the missile that it was practically touching the deadly projectile. Setting the ship on autopilot, she popped open the canopy of her runner, stood up in her cockpit, and hurled herself onto the topside of the missile.
With each of her eight limbs struggling against the staggeringly powerful winds, Pattie managed to crawl along the length of the missile until she came upon the hatch that she knew had to house the device’s computer guidance system. She devoted two of her limbs to prying off the cover of the hatch—the other six clung to anything on the missile’s surface that could be tightly grasped.
Pattie tugged on the hatch cover three times, using all of her strength, before it finally popped up and revealed the guidance system. A display screen and a small keyboard were set within a gold-colored panel. Each unit had wires and cables that ran through a central matrix in the panel, and then out of sight into the missile’s innards. Pattie quickly checked the coordinates that were flashing on the display as bright red numbers. She determined that the missile was programmed to strike right in the heart of the main city. Pattie looked up from the guidance
system to see the surface of Phantas 61 growing closer at an ever quicker rate. They were well below the stratosphere now.
Pattie turned back to the guidance system and tapped on the keyboard, trying to change the programming, but nothing happened. The coordinates were locked in, and could not be tampered with. She examined the wires connecting the keyboard to the display screen and to the central matrix. For a moment, she was paralyzed with uncertainty—she wasn’t absolutely sure that what she was about to do was the right way to go.
She then told herself, At this point, you have absolutely nothing to lose.
Pattie yanked out a yellow wire that had run from the keyboard into the display. She tapped the keyboard again, randomly.
The numbers on the display changed. She had removed the lock on the system.
Buoyed with excitement, Pattie did some quick mental calculations and tapped in a new sequence of numbers. Once she was done, she looked up again to see the heart of the main city rushing toward her, less than eight miles away now. They were fast approaching the point of no return, where even if the missile started to change direction, it would not have time or room to avoid crashing into the ground. She went ahead and pressed a tiny key marked “commit.”
Pattie looked around, taking everything in, just in case these were her last few moments of life. Her runner remained at the side of the missile, its tractor beam still locked on to the projectile. She saw that the other runners continued in vain to use their own tractor beams to try to pull the missile out of its dive. She placed her head down against the metal skin of the missile, knowing she had no choice now but to await the outcome of her efforts.
Was it wishful thinking, or did she suddenly feel the missile start to push itself upward? She looked up and still saw the planet’s surface looming ahead, much closer than it had been a few moments before—the tallest buildings in the main city looked as if they were rushing up to embrace her like a long-lost lover. And the other runners finally deactivated their tractor beams—there was no reason to keep them on anymore—and pulled away from the missile.
The Art of the Deal Page 7