Star Trek - TNG - 63 - Maximum Warp, Book Two

by Dave Galanter

  "I have no faith in that man," Folan said. "How can I?"

  "I would not ask anyone to indulge in faith. But trusting the data of sense experience is key for any scientist. You must reconcile the facts with your values. I ask you to examine the premises of those values."

  She shook her head. "You're asking me to betray my people. How can I do that?"

  "I'm asking you to save all people, yours included." Fatherly--in fact, Spock did remind Folan of her father --he gently touched her chin with a finger and lifted her gaze toward him. "How can you not?"

  "I--I don't know."

  "I believe we are of a mind on this matter," he said, and she felt his words and force of will wash through her.

  "You have complicated this matter," she said, and felt such a connection to him that she wondered if she was being a complete fool to have such confidence in him. "I respect you. I am wont to trust you."

  He nodded and folded his hands back together behind him. "The situation is grave. Captain Picard will come soon. You must decide."

  Never in her wildest imaginings had Folan thought she'd be making such decisions. Even when she took command after J'emery died, she only conceived of having dominion over the most limited determinations. But this ... where perhaps the fate of the galaxy was ensnared with her next choice ... "I'm sorry," she whispered to herself, and stepped down to her command chair. "Address inter craft

  The communications officer nodded and keyed in a code to her console.

  Folan pulled in a deep breath and began. "Attention, all hands, all loyal comrades of the empire. This is SubCommander Folan. As acting commander of this vessel..." She took another breath and then continued. "I am now invoking the Master Dominion Pandect for Martial Crisis. My orders are to be followed completely, and questioned only under penalty of death."

  Across the bridge, only Folan and Spock did not gasp, and even Folan thought she might. The gravity of her action, by executing a widely known but rarely used Praetorian mandate, shocked her own sensibilities. It shocked everyone's. But no one would call it treason, as she would legally be obligated to kill them on the spot.

  "Stand by on disrupters and torpedoes," she ordered, and the command was followed instantly as she turned to Spock. "We will wait for the Enterprise, and protect her from harm with our lives. Should Medric repair his vessel in enough time to join us as he has been ordered, we will... do what we must to forestall his attack on your captain's vessel."

  "Sir, it's been an hour."

  Indeed it had, Picard thought, and quite a long one. "Course plotted?" he asked Rossi.

  "Aye, sir."

  "Break radio silence. Get me the lead Klingon ship."

  Chamberlain nodded. "On screen, sir."

  As the main viewer flashed to life, as was his habit, Picard straightened his tunic. "Parl."

  "Captain," Parl greeted. "I did not wish to contact you under the communications blackout, but our second ship dropped out of warp for repairs more than seven hours ago. They maintain their cloak, but I fear they will not be able to join us in battle."

  Picard frowned. As it was he didn't know into just what situation he was venturing. "I assume that will mean your one ship will fight all the more vigorously."

  "Of course." Parl nodded solemnly. "I trust Governor Kalor is well."

  "He is recovering on schedule." There was an odd silence where neither man seemed to know what to say, so Picard fell back on procedure. "I will send back a communications buoy in fifteen minutes. Should you not see one, you'll have to try on your own. I'm transferring to you all the data we have, as well as our intentions."

  Parl glanced down at something off screen, supposedly a monitor which showed the data transfer. "Understood. We are ready."

  "Picard out."

  The captain looked out across his bridge. It was his universe, the embodiment of his vision of life. People of all races working of their own wills toward a common goal, building something as pristine and majestic as his ship. And before him lay its destruction, should he not succeed in his mission--a mission the details of which were vague as could be.

  No matter--all his other alternatives were invalid. He had to act, and do whatever he could.

  "Ahead, one-half impulse."

  Comforting vibrations moved through his feet and fingertips as the Enterprise pushed itself forward.

  Within moments Ensign Rossi reported, "We're entering the null sensor zone."

  Geordi moved between consoles at the engineering station. "Power levels are fluctuating ... no apparent net loss."

  "Sensors are stable but reporting meaningless data, sir," Shapiro reported from ops. Data's position. Picard wished the android were there. Regrets had little place in his mind now--they wasted energy and time. He had to push all from his mind but the task at hand.

  "Veer off," he ordered. "Take a course separate from Spock's. If someone found him, they may be expecting us to follow his trajectory."

  Rossi reacted quickly. "Veering off."

  "Come to ten degrees port."

  "Ten degrees port, aye."

  Enterprise twisted gracefully, then straightened herself.

  The captain nodded his approval. "Maintain for two hundred million kilometers, then veer back and through."

  "Aye, sir ... perimeter in ten seconds."

  "Shields," Picard ordered, and leaned forward expectantly in his seat.

  "As anticipated," said Chamberlain, "shields are non responsive."

  The choice to proceed was cast and the captain nodded.

  "Ahead full."

  Chapter Sixteen

  IT BEGAN WITH TWO AGAINST ONE.

  Chamberlain at tactical: "Two warbirds, 122 mark 15, 125 mark 7."

  Picard: "Battle stations! Mr. La Forge, get our shields up."

  La Forge from engineering: "Working on it, Captain!"

  Everyone at their posts. Except Data, Riker, and Troi. And what had become of Spock?

  "Evasive pattern theta," Picard ordered, and gripped the arms of his command chair.

  "One of the warbirds is vectoring toward us, Captain. They're hailing."

  If Picard paused at all, it was but a moment. Still, he was stunned that they wanted to talk. Romulans were generally tight-lipped when they sought their prey.

  "Put it through."

  The main viewer flashed alive, Spock's static-cracked visage filling the screen. "Captain, I am well. SubCommander Folan has pledged us her help. We will defend your flank, but you must stop the Romulan vessels in orbit of the fourth planet. They seek to destroy an alien installation important to our predicament."

  "Captain," Chamberlain reported, "they are, in fact, firing on the other warbird."

  Suppressing a shudder of adrenaline and exuberance, Picard replied with a snapping nod. "Understood. How many ships?"

  "Three."

  "Well, then the odds are almost even," Picard said dryly.

  "/ am transmitting what we know. Should they succeed in destroying the installation, the ramifications could destroy the known galaxy."

  Picard glanced down, made certain he'd received the data, then pushed himself from the command chair and toward the helm. "Ensign, set a course toward the fourth planet and engage. Ahead full."

  "We will attempt--" Spock paused as an explosion shook the warbird and its transmission. "--resolution at this end."

  "Good luck, Mr. Spock, and my gratitude to SubCommander Folan. Yet again."

  Folan, standing just to the left of the Vulcan, acknowledged him with a nervous nod.

  The captain returned the gesture. "Picard out." He pivoted to Chamberlain. "Tactical?"

  The lieutenant shook his blond head. "Hazy, sir."

  "Sensors?"

  Shapiro dabbed at his console. "Nominal."

  Picard marched to the ops console and leaned down over the controls. "Focus the scans. We'll still need a working tactical display." Working together, Picard and the officer swiftly reprogrammed the board and its scanning algorit
hms.

  "It's working, sir."

  As the graphic representation of the planet flashed onto the main viewer, the captain returned to the command chair. "Where are the Romulan ships?"

  "Must be other side of the planet, sir," Chamberlain offered. "I--Captain, the information the ambassador sent contains better tactical information. Verified it's from Spock, sir."

  Shaking his head in astonishment at the Vulcan's skill, Picard breathed, "Well done, Mr. Spock." He motioned toward the main viewer. "On screen."

  With Spock's data added to the mix, a grid display of the planet twisted before them. Caltiska IV, class M. Three Romulan warbirds huddled opposite the mass of the planet from them. Without Spock's information, Picard would never have known where they were--sensors were just too impeded by the spatial disruptions in the system.

  "Other side of the planet indeed," the captain said. "Any way we approach they'll see us coming far off." He leaned an elbow on the arm of the command chair and stroked his chin thoughtfully with a thumb. Suddenly, he stood. "Picard to engineering. Mr. La Forge, tell me about the shields."

  "Firming up, Captain, but we're having problems with--well, space itself, sir. Waves and waves of space time distortion that make it difficult to configure a stable shield matrix."

  Picard nodded and wagged a finger at nothing in particular. "I need them strong enough to withstand taking the Enterprise through an atmosphere."

  A pause, then: "Come again, Captain? Tell me you're not thinking of landing the Enterprise."

  "No, Mr. La Forge." Picard smiled inwardly at his own idea. "But we will be flying low."

  Sighing, the chief engineer said, "/'// batten down."

  "Rig for aerial running," Picard ordered as he lowered himself back into the command chair.

  "Aye, sir."

  The din of orders and status checks, confirmations and reports, filled the bridge.

  "Transferring power to structural-integrity fields."

  "Forward deflector and fore shields reconfigured."

  "Support struts, fore."

  "Confirmed."

  "Support struts, aft."

  "T-fifteen."

  "Plate shielding."

  "Ninety-seven percent."

  "Secure interconnects and confirm."

  "Secured ... confirmed."

  To some it might have seemed a garbled mess, but to Picard it was a kind of music that he was somehow able to comprehend. He heard every order--on a certain level--and would know instinctively had something

  been missing. There was not, however, and his crew was well studied in their duties.

  That didn't mean they were without doubt. "Captain?" Chamberlain asked. "If I may, just what are we going to do?"

  Picard pursed his lips and felt his muscles tense. Mentally, physically, he was readying for battle. "We're going to surprise them, Mr. Chamberlain. If our ship holds together for it."

  Folan could only imagine Medric's surprise and anger--mainly because the first system she was sure to disable on his already damaged warbird was not his weapons or shields, but his communications array. She didn't want him contacting the Tal Shiar command in orbit of the planet. She wanted him silent.

  What disturbed her, even as they both battled to disable one another's vessels, was that she hated herself for the decision, and yet knew in her soul it was right. No--that wasn't accurate. Her soul had told her to defend her people. Her mind had shown her the way. The Tal Shiar might have been powerful, and even very smart in the way they manipulated politics and society to their will. But they had a lust for power that corrupted and destroyed, and she knew that the death of the galaxy would be the price of their avarice.

  Spock silently worked at the science station as she ran the battle. She'd been a pawn, first of T'sart's, then Medric's, and now this Vulcan's. Perhaps that was when she was most content--following the orders and the rules others set down. And yet, she'd invoked the

  Pandect. She decided to dominate by fear: her means justified by Spock's and the Federation's ends.

  There was a plasma leak in engineering, and she ordered it fixed. There was an overload in one disrupter bank, and she had power transferred to another. The ship's doctor reported casualties ... she noted it. She ran the battle, but was numb. Rock on one side, hard place on the other, Folan felt crushed by fate.

  She was killing, most surely, Romulans on Medric's ship and on her own. Killing some to save many. Math had been a refuge as a scientist. Now it was a rationalization for an action she couldn't believe she'd taken.

  "Sub-Commander," the helmsman called, "spatial disruptions are weakening the shields at an increasing rate. We must try to keep the greatest distance possible from the sphere."

  Folan nodded. "Yes, try to lead them away."

  At first she liked the battle, when she was filled with rage and hate toward T'sart and Picard. Now she simply wanted it all to end.

  And though she knew Spock was right, she wondered what her life would be like should they succeed. Would she be a hero, or an outcast forced to live in an alien culture to avoid execution?

  She didn't know ... and she wondered just how she could win a battle for the life of her ship and the galaxy, when she didn't much care for her own.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "we're n-not s-supposed t-to be d-d-doing this, y-you know, sir." Geordi La Forge hung on to the bridge engineering console as the Enterprise vibrated around him.

  On the main viewer, little could be seen past the burning atmosphere as friction against the shields created a fireball that Enterprise rode across the planet.

  It was a strategy no one could remember anyone having employed. It wouldn't have worked at any normal time, but with sensors bordering on useless, the Romulans wouldn't be looking for--and wouldn't have seen--a Federation starship approaching from on the planet itself.

  "S-sometimes," Picard said, through gritted teeth as he too grasped onto what he could for support, "one must fabreak a few regulations to make the day, Mr. La Forge."

  "A few regs, a few teeth--" Above them a loud creak

  went through the upper bridge deck. La Forge eyed the ceiling suspiciously. "A few starships ..."

  Starships were majestic in their looks, aerodynamic in their lines, but that was aesthetics, and usually not for pragmatic purposes. They were held together more with forcefields than rivets and alloy molds. The Enterprise could travel in an atmosphere, but she wasn't supposed to fight there--that wasn't her purpose. Today, she must.

  Chamberlain stood, nearly hugging the tactical console. "I had a dog who would've loved this--open a p-port and let him stick his head out the window."

  "A-at this speed, his head would have ripped off." Rossi at the helm was now getting into it.

  "Well, he'd have died happy," Chamberlain said.

  Laughing in death's face was one tactic, but this wasn't it There was, however, after so much time doing so little, an exuberance in doing something active and new. Even if they were not sure success would be the result.

  "They s-should be above us now, sir." Despite iron grips to a ship that was trembling around them, Chamberlain and all of them were still doing their jobs.

  "Veer straight up, Rossi," Picard ordered, and noted the oddity of the command. "Straight up" didn't really exist in space. But for the next few seconds, they weren't in space.

  Enterprise smashed through the stratosphere, rending upward until finally she tore up and over the exosphere. She wrenched a tail of burning, bubbling air winding behind her as the sensors cleared--somewhat-and with it the main viewer.

  Three warbirds, just where they should be--their underbellies open and waiting. The fight was new.

  "Weapons range in five..." Chamberlain began the count.

  "Shields didn't make it, Captain!" La Forge ducked a shower of sparks that lit up his console and sizzled onto the bridge.

  "Three--Target lock unavailable."

  Picard's fists tight to his sides, he eyed the warbird
s intently, as if he could focus the weapons himself. "Point blank, Mr. Chamberlain, and fire!"

  Column after column of hot, orange fire plunged from his ship and into the waiting prey.

  First one, then the other, fell away under the force of the phaser blasts. But the third--she moved, swooped around, turning to fire.

  Enterprise rocked, disruptor concussions walloping her unshielded hull plates.

  "Damage decks two, three, five, nine." La Forge had moved to the secondary engineering console, the primary a charred hulk.

  "Damage-control teams." Picard shifted in his seat. "Shields?"

  The chief engineer huffed and shook his head. "Snowball's chance, sir."

  Gritting his teeth, Picard motioned to Chamberlain. "Tractor beam. Full force."

  "Captain?"

  "Swing them out of the way, into one another if you can."

  Picard had never savored battle, and didn't now--but

  it was action, it was moving forward, or at least seeming to, when the last several days had not been.

  The lieutenant's hands danced over his tactical console. "Aye, sir."

  Spiderwebbed threads of energy entangled the nearest enemy vessel as Enterprise sped out of orbit, then back in, tugging the warbird with it as she went.

  "Torpedoes, fire!" Picard ordered, and as the orange orbs darted into one ship, then another, finally Chamberlain released the tractor beam and the warbird was sent spinning toward the planet.

  "One enemy ship disabled, Captain."

  Enemy. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Peace, so fragile, and he was trying to save it with his weaponry. No--it wasn't the peace he tried to save now, but life itself. There was never any peace without life first.

  "The others?" Picard asked, wishing for an active tactical display. He'd know not only how his own ship was doing, but Folan's as well.

  "The other two vessels have suffered damage, but are coming around," Chamberlain reported.

  Shots and counter shots disrupters against phasers, torpedoes cracking across orbit as the battle waged on.

  "We need to protect the installation--keep them busy." Picard found himself stalking the upper bridge, giving orders, watching Chamberlain's tactical board as well as La Forge's engineering console.