Errand of Fury Book 1

by Kevin Ryan

  “Captain,” Karel said.

  Koloth acknowledged his presence with a wave of his hand and then hit a series of buttons on his command chair. Then he stood and headed for the exit. “Come,” he said to Karel. When they reached Koloth’s quarters, the captain scowled openly and said, “We have an urgent mission, and we must set out in a few hours.”

  That caught Karel by surprise. They had been home for less than a day. The ship would not even have been completely refueled and resupplied. “An urgent mission, where?” Karel asked.

  “I have not been told.” Koloth was barely holding in his rage. “And I will not be told until we are under way.”

  That was not just unusual, it was unheard of. There were a dozen problems that Karel could see immediately. He picked the most pressing. “We are still awaiting replacement warriors.” The mission that had claimed Kell’s life had claimed a lot of warriors as well. The humans had fought as well as Klingons in defense of their starbase. The High Council would not admit it, but it was the truth and Karel would not deny it.

  “Oh, we will have additional crew in minutes,” Koloth said. That was impossible. The captain and first officer always had time to carefully choose replacement fighters. Seeing the question on his face, Koloth didn’t keep him waiting for an answer. “We will be transporting Councillor Duras. He has volunteered his own security forces to bring us up to full strength.”

  If it had not been Koloth speaking, Karel would not have believed it. He knew that members of the High Council often maintained large security forces of their own—and not unreasonably, considering how often they were attacked by political rivals. Yet those forces were not technically active warriors in the Defense Force. To put them into service on a ship like the D’k Tahg was unprecedented.

  Koloth waved off Karel’s next remarks. “I have protested, but our orders are clear. We do not have to like it, but we shall have to make the best of it.”

  Karel did not know of any tactful way to ask his next question, so he chose the direct route. “Captain, who will be in command of the D’k Tahg when the councillor is on board?”

  Koloth produced what Karel could only describe as a disgusted smile. “The High Council has graciously allowed me to remain in command of the ship, but Duras will be in command of the mission.”

  Immediately, Karel saw the essential problem here. A ship could have only one commander; warriors could have only one leader. Under the guise of directing this secret mission, Duras could assume command at any time. And even if Koloth and the crew of the D’k Tahg resisted, Duras’s security forces could back up the councillor’s authority. Add to that the fact that Duras’s mission was secret—something that made any Klingon of honor uncomfortable. Battle should be direct. A warrior who hid his true face was no warrior at all.

  That was one of Kahless’s teachings, one of his many gifts to the Klingon people. It was a lesson that Karel’s brother Kell had learned on his mission among humans. Karel’s blood called out a warning.

  Koloth nodded as if he understood Karel’s unspoken thoughts. “Make no mistake, we are in the nest of a Denebian slime devil.”

  “You have my blade, and the blades of the Klingons you command,” Karel said, hoping he meant it.

  Koloth smiled. “Good, if we are fortunate it may even be enough. Now, we must get ready to receive Councillor Duras and make final preparations to get under way.”

  Karel nodded. As first officer, he had much to do. He would have to speak to all of the department heads to make sure the ship was ready. He also made a mental note to have a special talk with Gash, the ship’s QaS DevwI’, leader of the troops on board.

  Karel had taken the big Klingon’s eye in a dispute when he was under Gash’s command in the port weapons room. At the same time he had somehow gained the QaS DevwI’s loyalty. Gash had fought at his side in the bloodbath that was the siege of Starbase 42. He trusted Gash now as much as he trusted any Klingon.

  And he sensed that he and Koloth would need every advantage they had in the days to come.

  Chapter Eleven

  U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

  STARBASE 56

  2267

  THE DRILL WAS OLDER than Fuller himself, and he suspected that it predated his own father’s service in Starfleet. It was an intruder alert simulation. New recruits were given phasers that were rendered harmless and told there was an intruder in engineering. They had no idea that it was a drill, and so they rushed to the engine room where they found themselves facing a large creature dreamed up by the engineering staff. In this case, the “creature” was a technician in a suit designed to look like a large reptilian alien. The illusion was convincing only in dim emergency lighting.

  Since Fuller had performed the drill many times as a security section chief, Parrish had arranged for him to be one of the first “casualties” when the squad reached engineering.

  He had fallen to the creature as he climbed the staircase to the upper level of the engineering deck. From his position lying on the floor, he could safely and secretly watch the rest of the squad’s performance. The emergency lights cast an eerie red glow in the engine room, but let him see clearly enough. As someone who had graded more of these exercises than he could count, he watched them with a professional eye. He saw that the squad remembered their training and were cautious.

  Then they began the cat-and-mouse portion of the exercise that always came near the end. The creature dipped behind the large control panels and led the five remaining squad members on a chase. Parmet and one of the others made clean hits on the creature, but, of course, the phaser fire from the altered weapons had no effect.

  Parmet surprised Fuller by immediately taking charge of the remainder of the squad. In a coordinated effort, they corralled the creature into a corner. Parmet quickly organized the others into a direct assault force, rushing the alien monster. Though Fuller knew it was only a drill, his heart rate went up and his breath came in short gasps.

  However, Parmet did not know it was a drill as he led the assault on the creature. The five security officers all kept up fire and then, at the last instant, Parmet hurled himself at the monster. As he made contact, the lights went on and Parrish’s voice rang out, “End simulation!”

  Parmet hit the creature hard and drove it back into the wall. A moment later, an embarrassed Parmet was picking himself up off the ground and apologizing to the shaken technician who was removing the “head” from the costume.

  By now, Fuller was on his feet and heading down the stairs. Parmet looked at him and gave him a smile that was both proud and embarrassed. “Nice work, Ensigns,” Parrish said. “You dispatched our dragon in good time.” Then she smiled at Parmet and said, “Mister Parmet, interesting choice of weapon at the end, but I’m not sure I would want to get into a hand-to-hand combat situation with a creature of that size who is resistant to phaser fire.”

  Parmet nodded, then he sought out Fuller, who approached the group. Though Fuller tried to return his roommate’s smile, he found that he felt sick. The fact was that Parmet had performed very well. He had taken control of the situation and done all the right things to subdue a threat to his ship and squadmates. However, if the drill had been real, Parmet would probably not have survived the encounter.

  Parmet had courage. Fuller had known plenty of officers with courage—their names now covered a wall at Starfleet Command.

  Chapter Twelve

  U.S.S. ENDEAVOUR

  DONATU SYSTEM

  2242

  AS ANDREWS BANGED AGAIN on the turbolift wall, Fuller understood what he was thinking. He was angry that they were stuck here while good people in engineering were giving their lives to give the rest of the crew a chance.

  “Get me to the control panel,” Caruso said.

  “What?” Fuller replied.

  “The control panel, get me there if you want to live to see your baby,” she replied.

  Fuller turned and leaned over so that the lieutenant was facing the turbolif
t controls. It was awkward getting her into position because she was slung over his shoulder and was working upside down. Fuller had to bend his knees so that her hands could reach the controls.

  She tugged once at the panel, trying to pry it open. Fuller freed one hand and reached down to help her, but she pulled at the panel with a strength that surprised him—and immediately drew blood on her fingers. Caruso ignored the cuts as her hands raced across the newly exposed wires and internal control panel.

  “This might be rough,” she said. “There’s a chemical propellant under the lift that is activated in catastrophic emergency situations only.”

  Fuller knew that turbolifts could be used as lifeboats, but initiating the system would blast them through the outer hull of the ship and into the ship’s deployed shields. The ride would be very unpleasant and very short.

  “I’m going to turn on the system and then shut it off before we break the hull,” she said, the strain of the effort and the pain clear in her voice. “It might even work.”

  Then Fuller watched her grab a bare wire and use it to make contact with a circuit board.

  Nothing happened.

  She grabbed another wire and repeated the procedure. At once, the deck seemed to rush at him and he had to struggle to keep to his feet. They were moving up. Before the movement had fully registered, Caruso pulled the wire to break the contact. Nothing happened.

  Then, with amazing speed considering that she was seriously injured and working practically upside down, she reached into the control panel, grabbed a handful of wires, and pulled.

  Immediately, their ascent stopped. But where were they? They were still inside the ship because the artificial gravity was still holding them to the deck. Had they cleared the dorsal? Were they in the saucer section yet? He had no doubt that they would find out very soon.

  “I’m impressed, Lieutenant,” Fuller said. He thought that Caruso was someone he would like to get to know if they survived this day.

  Then the lift shook and Fuller found himself forced into the wall. Caruso cried out at the abuse of her broken legs. “That’s it. We’re separating,” she said. There was a steady vibration in the floor, then another jolt. “That was the last of the explosive bolts.”

  Then the floor was still. They had either made it up to the saucer section or were still in the engineering section. If it was the latter, their fight would be all over in a few moments. Woods would have very little time before the warp core went critical—just enough for the main hull to get a safe distance away. That meant one minute, maybe two.

  However, it was only seconds before he heard a noise outside the turbolift doors. Then he heard the screech of protesting metal as someone used clamps to force the doors open. Fuller found himself looking down at concerned faces and extended hands.

  They had made it.

  The turbolift had come to a stop a meter above the deck. Andrews put his injured man carefully down on the floor of the lift, jumped to the deck, and then passed the man to the medical personnel outside. Fuller did the same with Caruso, who gritted her teeth but was silent as they moved her. Then Fuller and Andrews jumped down and watched as Andrews’s man was loaded onto a waiting stretcher.

  “I have a pulse,” one of the nurses said, and then raced the stretcher down the hall.

  Two more nurses put Caruso on a stretcher. One of them leaned down and said, “We’re going to get you right to sickbay.”

  “No. I need to see,” she said, pointing to the observation room behind them. One of the nurses scanned her quickly and nodded, immediately understanding what she wanted and why.

  Suddenly, Fuller realized he needed the same thing. “I’ll take her,” he said, as he and Andrews pushed the stretcher into the observation room. Since they had entered the saucer section at the very rear of the ship, they had a good view of the engineering hull as it seemed to float away from them. The damage was horrific, and seeing it through the window was much worse than seeing it on a monitor. The nacelle was gone, and there was a large black pitted hole where it had been attached to the hull.

  Beyond the slowly shrinking engineering hull, Fuller saw the two Klingon ships in battle formation, waiting with a patient menace. Then the engineering hull started to move, pitching and yawing. He could see the exhaust of thrusters. Was Woods trying to move the ship? Why? With the warp drive down, the hull had no propulsion other than the maneuvering thrusters, since the impulse engines resided in the saucer section.

  Again, the thrusters flared, and Fuller realized that they must have engaged as all systems began to fail. The misshapen hull shook.

  Then the hull moved slightly. At first, Fuller thought that it was coming apart, then he saw that it was definitely moving, or more accurately, its position was being adjusted, though he couldn’t fathom why. Thrusters wouldn’t get them anywhere. What they should be doing now, he realized, was getting to the escape pods while they still had a few seconds. In the pods, they would be sitting ducks for the Klingons. It would not be much of a chance, but staying in the dying engineering hull had even worse short-term prospects.

  Slowly, the hull began to spin. The movement might have been a product of the failure of various systems in the moments before the warp-core breach, but something told Fuller that that wasn’t it. There was something oddly deliberate about the positioning of the hull before the spinning began. Then, in scant seconds, the spinning became too fast to follow, making the hull and its single nacelle a blur.

  And then Fuller realized what was happening. For some reason, the chief engineer and his people had brought the warp core up to full power, or as near to it as the damaged systems would allow.

  Fuller was no expert on warp field geometry, but he knew that the enormous energy of the two engines and their warp field coils were delicately bound and balanced between a ship’s twin nacelles. When both nacelles were working, they pushed the ship’s center of gravity—and the ship itself—forward at faster-than-light speeds. Turn one of those nacelles off—or blow it into space—and you had an uncontrolled warp field that became incredibly elongated as it drove the ship into a spin.

  The rotational speed was incredible, yet Fuller had no doubt that the engineering hull’s artificial gravity and inertial dampers were compensating. He was certain that Woods and his staff were very much alive at that moment.

  He wondered what the Klingons were making of the odd movement of the dying hull. Because they didn’t fire at the ship or move out of position, he guessed that they did not see the danger they were in.

  Fuller did.

  Under normal circumstances, a warp core breach on an Icarus-class vessel’s main reactor would cause an incredible explosion and a subspace shock wave that would radiate in all directions. But Woods was creating circumstances here that were far from normal.

  In a few moments, the elongated warp field would focus the energy of the blast along the plane of the hull’s rotation. In this case, that plane of rotation was a direct line to the two Klingon ships. Clearly, someone in the main hull of the Endeavour knew what Woods was doing because he could feel a vibration in the deck that told him the saucer section was shifting position, taking it even farther from that plane of the engineering hull’s rotation.

  What Woods and the others were doing was damn clever, he realized. It would also be a small group of engineers’ last act in this universe.

  The hull was perhaps a few thousand meters from the Klingon vessels when it exploded in a brilliant flash, its blast radiating three hundred and sixty degrees along the plane of the hull’s rotation. The explosion was red-orange on the outside, white-hot in the center. Before he reflexively closed his eyes, he could actually see the circular shock wave moving out as it was fed by huge amounts of matter and antimatter annihilating each other instantaneously.

  Enough of the energy of the blast reached the main hull to make the deck rock under Fuller’s feet, and he opened his eyes to see the remnants of the explosion glowing brightly against the shields
of the two Klingon ships. No, not just glowing against them, it was enveloping them. For a crazy moment, Fuller hoped that the sacrifice would be enough and the Klingon vessels would be obliterated.

  Then the glow died down and he saw the ships were fine…no, not fine. They were intact, but the one on the right—the one closer to the explosion—was listing relative to the other ship. Fuller felt a glimmer of hope. Perhaps that vessel was out of the fight.

  Of course, one fully functional battle cruiser would—under almost any circumstances—make quick work of the saucer section of an Icarus-class ship. The hull that Fuller and the surviving crew now occupied was more a lifeboat than a fully functioning vessel. The saucer could operate at reasonably fast impulse speeds and did have shield capability as well as phasers. However, power to all systems was limited.

  Outnumbered as they were, their best chance would be to run. But the Endeavour’s warp capability was destroyed, as were the bravest people Fuller had ever seen in his life. Their only hope was that Woods and his people’s sacrifice had crippled the Klingons.

  Then, as if on cue, the listing Klingon ship righted itself. And Fuller saw a flicker of energy dance around the vessels. That told him that the Klingon ships’ shields were already back online. Yes, the explosion had hurt them, but not critically.

  “Come on,” he said to Andrews. Then he looked down at Caruso and said, “We’ll come see you in sickbay when this is over.” She nodded, and he gestured for the medical personnel to take her away. Fuller spared another glance at the Klingon ships outside the window. The lead ship was already moving. Fuller knew that it was coming into attack position.

  Watching the ship pull away from the other, Fuller was nearly hypnotized by the cold elegance of the maneuver. However, he didn’t need to watch to know what was going to happen next, and he had duties to perform—duties that were possible only because of the sacrifices of his crewmates. He would not waste this chance and whatever time Woods and the others had bought him.