by Diane Carey
Sixteen days . . . had they actually succeeded in building and launching a ship in sixteen days? Or was this some kind of big illusion, just a parade balloon with nothing inside?
Maybe that would do. If the incoming ships saw that somebody, anybody, had risen to the defense of the colony, maybe the sheer determination to make a showing would serve its purpose.
At the same time, Keller couldn’t imagine himself being so easily fooled. With just one ship facing him down, he’d at least have to take a few hits before he believed what he saw.
Why did he hope they’d be so easy to fool? The Kauld weren’t as advanced as the Federation, but they weren’t any stupider.
“Reaching the ionosphere,” Shucorion reported. “I believe we can engage forward thrust now.”
Ticking off a few more seconds until he saw the darkness of space instead of a haze of cloud, Keller rubbed some blood back into his lips. “Go ahead . . . forward thrust, point zero five sublight.”
Sssssshoooom! The frigate surged forward as if shot out of a cannon.
The automatic gravitational system didn’t compensate fast enough. Keller found himself flat on his back, on the deck, with his head butted against the foot of the command chair and his legs in the air on the nav seat.
On the upper deck, Bonifay was thrown all the way back to the turbolift box. Savannah ended up under the ventilator hood. Zoa was under Mr. Scott’s pulpit, and Shucorion was draped over the command chair and just now recovering.
“What the hell—!” Keller gasped as he pulled himself to a sitting position.
“Those are the mules,” Scott said. He had managed to stay seated at engineering. “Sheer sudden power. The gravitons aren’t compensating fast enough. You’ll lose a couple of seconds before the gravity catches up to the thrust.”
“Now you tell me!”
Scott threw up a hand. “Wasn’t sure.”
“If we go to warp speed, are we going to crash through the aft bulkheads?”
“We might.”
“Let’s just increase speed with some care after this.” He looked at Shucorion meaningfully as they settled back into their seats. “Go ahead and bring us up to one-quarter sublight . . . slowly.”
Cracking along at sublight, the frigate tolerated barrier after barrier of increase, spearing past the planets and belts that decorated the Occult system.
It really was a pretty solar system, with plenty of local attractions and color. Like Earth’s solar system, it had a large scrubber planet that swept the system clean of most dangerous asteroids and debris, allowing life to exist in relative safety on Belle Terre.
Amazing—how really fast sublight speed was. After months traveling at warp speed, Keller had almost forgotten how powerful impulse engines really were. The ship barreled through the solar system in just a couple of minutes.
“Clearing the last planet,” Bonifay announced, hunched over the science station. He hadn’t settled back into his chair, but he was hanging on to the rolled edge of the console. “I’m getting readings of the incoming fleet. I’m reading twelve . . . thirteen vessels.”
“Thirteen,” Keller murmured. He tried to add up the relative power of Kauld ships compared to what he had under him, or at least what they might imagine he possessed. The frigate was such an unknown quantity—if only he knew what she could do, he could add up the comparison numbers and calculate the odds. For now, he could do nothing but hope to puff his feathers and look nasty.
“We’ll never get there at this speed,” Scott recommended. “Better to meet them in interstellar space than right on our own doorstep.”
This was Scott’s not-so-subtle manner of telling Keller he’d better give that one big order.
Okay. Time to give it. Real soon.
Right now. He nodded in agreement with himself, and his mouth went completely dry.
“Warp factor . . .”
When he gave the order, the ship would blow itself into a trillion microbits, sparkling all over the place and making a real nice light show. Matter and antimatter everywhere, glowing shards racing through space, and little bits of Nick stew splattered across the enemy screens, along with some of Zoa’s toenails and the comb Zane always kept in his pocket for hair emergencies.
“Go to warp factor . . .”
Would the nacelles rip off? Would the core explode? Would the computer throw a snit?
Picking up the catch in Keller’s voice and the pallor in his face, Shucorion leaned slightly toward him.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
The question snapped Keller out of a shudder. “It’s nothing. Just a minor coronary. . . .”
“I won’t take over,” Scott warned from up there.
Keller hunched to his purpose. “We’ve heard that one before. Warp . . . factor . . . one.”
Everyone held on this time. Crack—shoooom—a bright flash momentarily blanked out the forward screen, which then instantly settled back to a view of space, but now at hyperlight speed. Perfect! Something had finally gone right! An important something, the most important one so far.
“Very pretty,” Scott commented. He looked at Shucorion. “Good antimatter core you got there, mister.”
“Thank you,” Shucorion quietly said. “It was a gift.”
Savannah looked up. “Nick, all the lights just turned off on deck eleven!”
Keller looked over his shoulder. “You mean that’s going to happen every time we go to warp?”
“Looks like, until we figure out why it happens. There aren’t any battery lights rigged in the engineering section yet. The crew on deck eleven wants a recommendation.”
“Tell them to go up to deck ten and borrow a cup of electrons.”
“You should also know,” she continued while she had the chance, “there aren’t very many safeties working on board yet. People could open a hatch and end up in space. There’s no automation to stop it from happening.”
“Aw, great snakes . . . what else?”
“Some of the decks aren’t pressurized, and some don’t have oxygen flowing yet.”
He swiveled his chair in her direction. “You better get the word around for everybody to be extremely careful. Don’t just run through a doorway or open a hatch. Work the lifts and doors manually. Check pressurization before they open anything—” Now he swung back and looked in the other direction. “Zane, I wish you’d told me about this earlier.”
“What could you have done about it?”
“I—I could—get—a running start on panic, I guess, I don’t know.” He rubbed his icy hands again, then moved up to his bare arms under the T-shirt sleeves. “Boy, it’s cold. I left my jacket outside.”
“We’ll find you a jacket,” Bonifay promised.
“Open that starboard deck box right under the life-support station, there, ah—lad,” Scott said, apparently forgetting Bonifay’s name.
Bonifay crossed the bridge and pulled open one of the gray panels. Inside were stacks of tightly knitted sweaters about the same color as the burgundy carpet. Beside them were some of the same design that were navy blue, and a few the color of dried moss.
“Perfect,” Bonifay said. “You look like a medium.”
He pulled one of the burgundy sweaters out, shook it free of its folds, and tossed it to Keller, who asked, “Are these Starfleet issue?”
“They are now,” Scott said, “because I’m issuing them to you.”
He had a point. Standing there in his blood-colored Starfleet tunic with the snappy black lining and belt and the delta-shield buckle and all, he was the supreme local symbol of that far-reaching authority that Keller so much hoped would carry weight way out here, on the spin of reputation alone.
Scott pointed at the lower carpet and added, “They match your rug. I found the red ones in a locker on the Beowulf, and the blues and puke-greens came in from one of the privateers. I think they’re Starfleet commando surplus, but don’t swear me in. Pull it on.”
“Yeah, pull it on,�
�� Savannah said. “It’ll match your face if you turn any redder.”
Shored up by her excuse for a joke, Keller tugged the burgundy sweater over his head. It had a comfortable turtleneck that made him feel warmer immediately. Yes, this was better. Now that he wasn’t so cold, he began to feel less vulnerable and was able to think more clearly. Funny how that worked.
On the nav board before him, the proximity sensors showed a display graphic of thirteen ship forms, not much more than blips, making a course adjustment and turning crisply toward the freckles on Keller’s nose. They must see the frigate by now.
Go to warp two? Did he dare? Would he be pushing his luck?
Something was bumping his right shoulder. He reached up to scratch it, but found instead that Bonifay was standing beside him. When Keller looked up, Bonifay quietly said, “Let me take the nav. You shouldn’t have to do this.”
Immediately he felt as if he were being scolded. Defiance flared, and instantly died. He had no right to be insulted. The moment rushed back when Lake had taken the helm on Peleliu, making him and the whole crew very nervous. When Lake was doing the helmsman’s job, then he wasn’t doing the captain’s job. Now Keller was making the same mistake.
Then he saw something else. The respect in Bonifay’s face took him by surprise. He hadn’t really stopped to think anymore about how the crew judged him for his egregious actions and failures in the past few weeks, yet the message in Bonifay’s voice and in his expression were perfectly clear and enheartening.
The captain shouldn’t have to do this.
Keller pressed his hand to the nav desk and stood up, then moved out of the way.
“Thanks, Zane,” he said. “Thanks.”
Bonifay’s vote of confidence did almost as much for him as Shucorion’s words on top of the salvage mountain. If he could win those two over, maybe there was hope.
On the forward screen, he saw the magnified flickers that would within minutes grow into Kauld ships.
“Shields up,” he requested. “Let’s have red alert.”
Since Shucorion was at the helm, there was no acting first officer to repeat orders, and suddenly Keller got the feeling that might be all right on a smaller ship, with a smaller crew. Dispense with some of the racket. One watch, one officer. Might work.
“Red alert, aye,” Scott responded, and engaged the system.
The ship flushed with additional power. The lights on the bridge, and all over the vessel, switched over to the scarlet that would let their eyes work without adjusting. At least, human eyes. What happened to Zoa’s or Shucorion’s was anybody’s guess—
Then the science station started burping smoke.
“Circuit crossfeed!” Scott called. “Shut that down quick!”
“I’ll do it!” Bonifay blurted. Momentarily abandoning his station to the autonav, he dashed back to the starboard quarterdeck to handle shutdown, but made the mistake of bumping Zoa’s tactical pulpit just forward of the science station. Her pulpit moved firmly inward like a jackknife, giving her a squeeze she didn’t appreciate.
The pulpits were hinged!
Of course—so they could be swung out of the line of traffic in case of abandon ship. Smart!
It would have seemed smarter if Zoa hadn’t reacted to the inconvenience by nailing Bonifay under the ribs with her very skillful elbow. He let out a hard oof and crumpled, then rolled under the rail, stopped only by one of the mounting struts.
Keller rushed around the rail end, jumped to the quarterdeck and hit the safety shutdown himself. The alert immediately went silent and the science station settled down to a happy flicker again.
Then Keller knelt and kept Bonifay from falling off the ledge. “Zoa, don’t hit shipmates!”
She looked down at her handiwork, unapologetic as usual despite Bonifay writhing near her toenails.
“Can that desk be locked open?” Keller asked.
“Aye, or closed,” Scott said. “But the locks disengage during red alert.”
“You’ll have to give me a list of these things, sir.”
“If we live, lad.”
“Speaking of which—Zoa, arm phaser banks. We . . . do have phasers, don’t we?”
“Oh, aye,” Scott confirmed, “she’s bristlin’.”
Moaning under Keller’s hands, Bonifay gasped, “I’m all right—I’m all right—she’s pointy!”
“Poor kid,” Keller empathized. “Can you stand up?”
“Just drag me—to my chair—where I can die on—duty.”
“Come on. No hurry. Take it easy.”
But there was a reason to hurry. The Kauld ships, now clearly identified by their exhaust formula and their configuration, were coming in at their full speed. As Keller deposited Bonifay back in the nav chair, he noticed that there weren’t just the usual lobster-clawed Kauld battle barges, but other types of ships with them, configured completely differently. Some other kind of attack vessel he hadn’t heard about?
Didn’t matter. They weren’t coming in to have lunch.
“Nick, do it,” Savannah urged. “Hail them.”
“Yeah,” Bonifay said. “Give ’em hail.”
“I will flay them all!” Zoa bent to her weapons boards, furiously poking the targeting computer.
On sheer reflex Keller slapped his hand to the rail beside her. When she flinched and looked up, he clearly said, “Not without my order. Nothing without a direct order. Understand?”
She didn’t like it, but she understood. Keller held up a warning finger.
“Vulcan-like,” he reminded again.
Zoa squared her bare shoulders and settled back in her chair. She would wait.
He turned again to the forward screen, taking a sustaining grip on the green leather arm of the command chair, even though he couldn’t bring himself to sit down. “Somebody put me through to them.”
Up on the sci-deck to Keller’s left, Mr. Scott handled the mechanics from the engineering remote. “You’re tied in.”
Keep it simple. He reached into his pocked and closed his hand around the shuttle coin with its gold rim and its spirit of hope, drawing strength from the encouraging face of Tim McAddis not too far back in his mind. He mentally flipped the coin, then decided what to say.
“This is Commander Nick Keller aboard the United Federation of Planets Composite Frigate Challenger. We’re prepared to defend this solar system. Stand down your approach immediately or we will open fire.”
And hope we don’t fall into a dozen pieces in front of God and Lucifer and everybody in the stands.
Chapter Twenty-one
“THIS IS Vellyngaith of Kauld. We come to speak, to confer. Will you speak?”
With a ship he didn’t know, Keller guessed the best plan would be a stand-still battle. He wondered if he could pull it off, maneuver the enemy into doing things his way. He tried to recall the images of classroom studies, battle plans by famous generals down through history, but his mind went blank. He wasn’t Caesar or Grant or Kirk or Vercingetorix, or anybody like them.
Then again, who knows? Maybe they started out puny and miserable too. Sure. Sure, they did.
“Shucorion, bring us to a stop,” he ordered. “All stations, stand ready for battle maneuvers.”
Vellyngaith had asked to talk. He just didn’t believe it. Even to hear that he was facing Vellyngaith himself shook him to the toes of his cowboy boots.
But now he saw something on the screen, on the lead ship. The ship’s rust-colored hull was patched with an arrangement of white plates, formed in a fluid rectangle, as if it were frozen in a wave formation.
He stepped forward to Shucorion’s side. “Is that a white flag broadcast on their hull? It can’t be. How are they doing that?”
“We’ve learned your symbols,” Shucorion confirmed. “It’s done with what you call holograph technology on certain specially made hull plating. We developed them for visual communication in the Blind.” He lowered his voice and warned, “He may not use it honestly.”
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The smallest of cynical grunts burst from Keller’s lips. “Any suggestions?” he requested.
“Broadcast a loud guffaw,” Bonifay muttered. “Maybe they’ll run away.”
“Shoot them,” Zoa contributed.
Shucorion pressed his lips and made a little shrug with his eyes. “Ask him.”
“Mr. Scott,” Keller addressed, “could you patch me through again, please?”
“Aye, sir, cough button off.”
Though his mouth opened and he had an idea of what to say, Keller abruptly choked on what he’d just heard. A “sir” from Montgomery Scott? When did he start deserving that? It was like being called “sir” by your dad!
He cleared his throat and tried to sound sir-like. “This is Keller. Do you know you’re broadcasting a symbol of truce?”
“Yes, truce. Surrender. Treaty. Anything! I am speaking from the official barge of our Common Cabinet, our ruling assembly. All our leaders are on board. We are turning ourselves over to you. Please do not kill us!”
Scowling so hard his face hurt, Keller stood up and hung his hands on his hips. “I don’t think Caesar ever faced a challenge like that. And something tells me we’re not quite that scary.”
Here was the frigate—what had he just named it?—coming up face-to-face with thirteen Kauld vessels of various makes and sizes racing in at them, and they were surrendering.
Forgot the question mark.
They were surrendering?
“Target phasers on the biggest ship,” he said, canting his head toward Zoa.
Suddenly Shucorion grasped Keller’s arm. “Wait!” He squinted at the forward screen as the Kauld ships slowed and came to a halt in front of the frigate. “Indeed that is their Common Cabinet’s formal vessel. It never flies without members aboard. Never.”
“Zoa, hold your fire,” Keller accommodated, then asked Shucorion, “Are you absolutely sure?”