by David Mack
For the moment, the center viewscreen displayed an image of Ganz’s ship, which was cruising directly toward Vanguard.
Nogura was impatient to know what the hell Ganz was doing. “Hail them,” he said, and Cooper delegated the task to the senior communications officer, Lieutenant Judy Dunbar.
The curly-haired brunette started to key the command into her console but stopped. “Admiral,” she said, “the Omari-Ekon is already hailing us.” She swiveled her chair to face Nogura. “It’s Mister Ganz, sir. He’s asking to speak directly with you.”
Looking at his senior staff to gauge their responses, he was met by a series of near-identical wide-eyed stares. He frowned. “Put him on-screen.”
Buttons were pushed, and one of the center’s three massive screens was filled with the dark green face of the locally notorious Orion crime lord, Ganz. He flashed a smile of immaculate white teeth. “Admiral,” he said. “There’s no need for you to aim weapons at my ship. Our shields are down, and our weapons are not charged. We come in peace.”
“You shouldn’t have come at all,” Nogura said. “I warned you what would happen if you brought your traveling crime spree back into my jurisdiction.”
Ganz lifted his broad, thick-fingered hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Let’s not resort to threats when I’ve gone to the trouble of bringing you a peace offering.”
Intrigued, Nogura lifted one eyebrow. “And what might that be?”
The burly Orion gestured to someone off-screen. He leaned to his right, out of frame, and returned holding up his hand.
Resting in his palm was a perfectly clear, twelve-sided crystal roughly the size of a human skull. It was identical to the Mirdonyae Artifact, except it appeared to be empty.
“I believe you already have one like it,” Ganz said. “But I hear you might be interested in acquiring another.”
Nogura was so livid he could barely move. When he tried to speak, his jaw felt as if it were wired shut with anger. Recovering his composure, he asked in a tense, low voice, “Where did you get that?”
His question broadened Ganz’s grin. “That,” said the crime boss, “sounds like an invitation to begin negotiating my ship’s return to a semipermanent docking slip on your starbase.”
“The hell it is,” Nogura said. “I’m not going to let you dictate terms to me, Mister Ganz. If you want to discuss financial remuneration for your discovery, fine. But if you think that hunk of rock gives you some license to—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” grumbled someone on Ganz’s ship who shouldered his way into the frame beside the crime lord. The angle of the transmission adjusted to compensate for the new visual subject, and Nogura’s iron jaw went slack as he saw who was standing beside Ganz.
Diego Reyes scowled at Nogura and said over the comm, “He already knows you have standing orders to acquire anything and everything related to the Shedai, and at all costs, so cut the shit and just make a deal with him already.”
Nogura coped with his surprise by mustering a thin, taut smile. “Well,” he said to Reyes, “this is certainly going to make things more interesting.”
Then he heard Lieutenant Jackson whisper to Captain Desai, “I think you owe me dinner.”
59
Ming Xiong lowered the second artifact onto a new octagonal interface pad inside the Vault’s central experiment chamber. Even through the gloves of his hazmat suit, he could feel the icy coldness of the crystal polyhedron.
“Stand by to patch in the baryonic array,” he said to Dr. Marcus, who was in the chamber with him and also garbed in bright yellow hazmat gear. Their voices sounded flat and mechanical through their suits’ external speakers.
She checked the new interface’s connections to the lab’s consoles and then gave him a thumbs-up. “All set.”
He checked the readings on the command console for the second artifact’s interface. “Looks good so far,” he said. “Let’s connect the chroniton gauge.”
Though he was trying to stay focused on their checklist of tasks, he felt the weight of two dozen pairs of eyes staring at him and Marcus while they worked. The delivery of the first artifact’s empty twin—by a Tholian expatriate named Ezthene traveling on Ganz’s ship, no less—had set the lab abuzz with rumor. Xiong was hardly immune to gossip’s pull; he was just waiting for the right moment to ask Dr. Marcus what she’d heard.
That moment seemed as opportune as any other.
“Is it true Diego Reyes is on Ganz’s ship?” he asked.
Marcus scowled at him from behind a fall of her blond hair. “Keep your voice down,” she said. Whispering, she continued, “Yes, it’s true.”
Xiong echoed her hushed tone. “Then why isn’t he back in custody?”
“Apparently, as long as he stays on the Omari-Ekon, he’s outside Starfleet’s jurisdiction.” She flipped some switches, and a few more indicators on the interface panel turned green. “What’s next on the list?”
“Tachyon scanner,” Xiong said. “It should be on bus three.” As Marcus verified the connection, he lowered his voice again and asked, “If Ganz’s ship is docked here, how can it be out of our jurisdiction?”
“Because the Federation has no extradition treaty with Orion,” Marcus replied. “Interstellar law gives Ganz the right to grant Reyes asylum aboard his ship, and that’s exactly what he’s done. As long as Reyes doesn’t set foot on the station, Nogura can’t touch him.”
Shaking his head, Xiong said, “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s the law.”
“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Closing the lower half of the pedestal’s access panel, Marcus said, “All set here. How’s the board?”
“Green lights all the way,” Xiong said. “Ready to release the safeties and bring main power online, on your order.”
“Let’s do it,” Marcus said. She stepped around the pedestal to stand beside the young anthropology-and-archaeology officer. “I think we should run a full range of material tests. Since this artifact is empty, we might be able to get a clearer picture of its composition and internal structure.”
“Sure,” Xiong said as he began connecting the new pedestal to the Vault’s primary power grid. “I also want a look at its ambient energy signature. Having an empty artifact will let us make some baseline measurements that might tell us all kinds of things about the Mirdonyae crystal.” He sighed. “I just wish we could get Ganz to tell us where he got this thing. Until we find out where these things come from, we’re no closer to solving the riddle of who made them or why.”
Marcus gave him a comforting pat on the shoulder. “All in good time,” she said. “Right now, this new artifact is a gift. Let’s appreciate it for what it is instead of cursing it for what it’s not.” She threw an encouraging smile Xiong’s way. “Besides, sooner or later Ganz will need another favor from Nogura. When that happens, I suspect he’ll use the origin of these crystals as a bargaining chip.”
Xiong smiled and nodded in agreement. “It wouldn’t surprise me in the least.” He entered the final sequence of commands for activating the new interface. “Taking the last safety offline now. Main power is up and steady.”
“All systems appear nominal,” Marcus said. “Let’s go ditch these canary suits.”
“Roger that,” he said, following her to the airlock and radiation-containment portal for the experiment chamber.
A few minutes later they had stowed their hazmat suits in the equipment room. Xiong smoothed his blue uniform tunic while Marcus pulled her white lab coat back on. There was a tiny glint of mania in her eyes as she asked, “Ready to see what our new prize can do?”
“I can hardly wait,” Xiong said.
They returned to the main area of the lab and situated themselves behind a transparent safety barrier set back from the experiment chamber. “First,” Marcus said, pushing buttons and flipping switches, “let’s see if it reacts when we apply power to the Mirdonyae artifact.” She turned a dial and fed a st
ream of charged particles into the original artifact, which pulsed with eldritch light only a few meters from its inert twin.
“Nothing so far,” Xiong said.
“All right. Sending power to the second artifact …”
For one brief moment the new polyhedron was surrounded by a golden halo, and the first artifact’s aura of fear melted away.
Then the Red Alert klaxon wailed, and all Hell broke loose.
60
The first wail of the Red Alert klaxon was still fresh in Nogura’s ears as a thunderous jolt knocked him from his chair and left him wearing most of his cup of hot tea.
He was halfway back to his feet and scrambling toward the door to the operations center when another jarring impact dropped him back to the floor.
More concussions rocked the station as he stumbled out his door and waded into the circle of barely restrained panic outside. He shouted to his XO, “Cooper! Report!”
Hanging onto the Hub with both hands as the deck pitched in response to the continuing attack, Cooper yelled back, “We can’t get a lock on who’s attacking us! All we’ve got are shield failures and inertial damper over—”
A new alarm cut him off. He flipped switches on the Hub as Nogura ran up the stairs to the supervisor’s deck, and looked up as the admiral joined him. “Hull breach,” Cooper said. “Main docking bay. We’re venting atmosphere!”
“Put it on screen two,” Nogura said.
The display on Nogura’s left snapped to a view of the interior of Vanguard’s main docking bay. An ugly rent had been torn in the thick gray hull, and a storm of loose debris was tumbling through the zero-g environment toward the core of the station. Chunks of broken and twisted duranium caromed off the hull of the docked U.S.S. Buenos Aires.
Pushing its way through the ragged gap in the hull was an amorphous dark mass. It moved like a fluid and spread through the docking bay like a black bloodstain. Tentacles shimmering with violet motes of energy sprouted from it and lashed out at anything in their path—automated repair robots, manned work-pods, industrial scaffolding mounted on the bay’s ceiling.
A Shedai was attacking Vanguard.
The Wanderer felt the abomination’s presence. She had followed its sickly emanations across a vast expanse, waiting for the Telinaruul to return to normal space-time so she could assess their vulnerability.
A hollow shell in the darkness. Apparently that was all the arrogant little sparks needed to make themselves feel safe. It was a flimsy construct, hardly equal to her fury.
She pierced its tender skin with ease.
Inside she found air surrounding a narrow shaft. Though the signal from the abomination was muffled, it was not silenced. The Telinaruul must not be allowed to tamper with it any longer, she decided. Forging ahead toward the structure’s core, her intention was resolved. This place must be destroyed.
Captain Atish Khatami stared in horror at Endeavour’s views-creen as the Shedai intruder smashed a wedge off the primary hull of the Buenos Aires.
“McCormack, arm phasers,” Khatami said.
Her first officer, Lieutenant Commander Katherine Stano, snapped at the navigator, “Belay that!” To the captain she added, “You can’t fire phasers inside a docking bay!”
“I’m not letting that thing on the station without a fight,” Khatami replied. “I’ve got a clear shot, and I’m taking it.” Leaning forward from the command chair, she said to Lieutenant McCormack, “Marielise, arm and lock phasers, now.”
The strawberry-blonde junior officer threw an apologetic look at Stano and keyed in the commands. “Armed and locked.”
“Fire!”
Blue streaks of phaser energy lanced out across Vanguard’s docking bay and struck the Shedai several times in its center of mass. The creature slowed for a moment, then crackled with energy and renewed its headlong plunge into the station’s core.
“No effect, Captain,” reported McCormack.
Khatami swiveled her chair toward her science officer. “Klisiewicz! Any idea how to stop that thing?”
The dark-haired young man looked up from his sensor display and frowned as he shook his head. “None, sir. It’s tearing through the station like it’s made of paper.”
From the aft quarter of the bridge, communications officer Hector Estrada interjected, “Captain! Vanguard control just issued an evacuation order.”
“Docking bay doors are opening,” reported McCormack.
Facing forward, Khatami said to her helmsman, “Neelakanta, clear all moorings and take us out, full thrusters. If this station goes boom, we don’t want to be here when it happens.”
A black blade was cutting its way to the heart of the station.
Haniff Jackson had never seen anything like it. The entity moved like liquid and sliced through decks and bulkheads with ease, leaving shredded metal and sparking power conduits in its wake. On every surface it touched, it left a residue that looked like dirty ice and spread like mold. Everything shook violently.
He flipped open his communicator. “Jackson to ops! Evac core sections nine through fifteen on all levels, now!”
“Copy that,” replied Commander Cooper. “Evac in progress.”
Running footsteps announced the arrival of his backup, but he feared it would be too little, too late. “Set phasers to full power, narrow beam,” he commanded the five security guards. He lifted his own phaser and aimed at the iridescent surge of dark matter blocking the corridor ahead. “Fire on my mark! Three …”
As quickly as the creature had appeared through one bulkhead, it vanished through another, leaving only the empty tunnel it had bored through the station’s infrastructure. Wind rushed past Jackson with a great roar, and the escaping air carried tiny bits of debris back the way the entity had come.
He lifted his communicator and said, “Ops, this is Jackson! We’re venting atmosphere into the docking bay!”
“Roger that,” Cooper said, sounding distracted. “We’re on it. Stay after the intruder.”
“Acknowledged,” Jackson said. He waved for the security team to follow him as he charged through a gap in a bulkhead to pursue the invading entity, but he didn’t know how they would catch it, considering the rate at which it was moving.
A minute later he realized they had no chance of catching it at all. They reached the end of the creature’s tunnel through the core. It opened into the station’s central matériel-transfer conduit, an enormous circular shaft that reached from just below the operations center at its apex to just above the main sensor dish at its nadir. Peering cautiously over the edge into the vertiginous abyss, Jackson could barely see the intruder’s black mass making its rapid, unchallenged descent.
“Ops, the creature is inside the transfer conduit,” he said into his communicator. “And you’d better warn the folks in the Vault to get outta there—because it’s coming right at ’em.”
“Everyone out!” shouted Carol Marcus, herding her team of scientists toward the Vault’s three emergency exits, in a moment that seemed all too familiar. “Move it! On the double, folks!”
Horrendous booms of impact were followed by the shrieks and groans of wrenched metal. Each second it drew closer.
The lab’s overhead lights flickered erratically. Red warning lights flashed on every bulkhead, and gratingly nasal alarms split the air. Marcus tried to keep a running head count as her people hurried past her, but with bodies moving in three different directions there was no way she could keep up.
But she only had to be able to count to one.
One person had ignored the evacuation order and was still standing at a command console, feeding in data and activating systems inside the experiment chamber: Ming Xiong.
Marcus forced her way through a cluster of running bodies then ran to Ming’s side and yanked hard on his sleeve. “Do you have a death wish or something?”
He twisted free of her grip. “I’m playing a hunch,” he said, never taking his eyes from his work. “Go without me.”
> She looked around the room at the exits. The rest of her people were out and moving to safety. Only she and Xiong were left in the Vault, which quaked beneath a steady cadence of hammering blows that sounded as if they were right outside.
“At least tell me what you’re doing,” Marcus pleaded.
“Setting a trap,” Xiong said. With a dubious tilt of his head he added, “I hope.”
Something struck one of the Vault’s outer barriers with a crash of thunder, and an interior metal bulkhead fractured. Panels and monitors on that wall cracked and sprayed sparks across the room. A steady cannonade of impacts followed.
Moving to an adjacent control panel, Marcus shouted over the din, “What can I do to help?”
“No time to explain,” he said. “Just do what I say.”
She nodded. “Okay, go.”
“Patch in the data sequence from Gek’s terminal,” Xiong said as he dashed to a different panel and continued entering commands. “Then route all power from the first artifact’s reserve cell to the new artifact.”
Marcus worked as quickly as she could, and Xiong kept moving from one scientist’s terminal to another, apparently trying to slave them all to some arcane task.
As she completed her first two instructions, the inner bulkhead began to buckle inward from a steady brute-force assault. Over the cacophony she called to Xiong, “Done!”
“Last step!” he yelled back. “Lower the safety barrier! I’ll get set to open the main power relay!”
Despite her every survival instinct telling her not to do as Xiong had asked, Marcus keyed her override code into the Vault’s command console and entered the instruction to lower all the transparent safety panels around the two artifacts.