by Peter David
“Zek, you’re heading into an ambush,” O’Brien said. “The Alliance is waiting for you. Stay under cloak, turn around, and head back to Terok Nor immediately.”
All around Zek, the other rebellion leaders were looking at each other. A mixture of alarm and incredulity defined the mood. For his own part, Zek was flabbergasted at the audacity of the two Terrans’ request. “Have you two lost your minds? Where did you get this ridiculous story?”
“An anonymous tip,” O’Brien said. Eddington nudged him. Reluctantly, he added, “From someone in the Alliance.”
The more they said, the less Zek believed them. “Someone in the Alliance told you that they were going to ambush my ship?”
“Not exactly,” Eddington admitted. “The tip said they were targeting Terok Nor. But we think that was a ruse, meant to—”
“Are you kidding me?” Zek got angrier as he went along. “Someone threatens you, and you think that means they’re out to ambush me? Have you two been drinking? Or are you just too proud to call for reinforcements?”
“We’ve already scanned the Bajor system,” Eddington said. “There is no attack on Terok Nor. But our analysis suggests that the Alliance wants us to move ships and personnel here, so that we’ll have to leave… other assets undefended.”
From the tactical station, Cal Hudson said, “I’m running a long-range scan now, Mike. If there’s an ambush in silent-running mode out there, I’ll find it.”
Zek sat back in his too-big-for-comfort chair and sulked. All the years that he and Bashir had worked to take command of the rebellion, so that they could fight this war the way it had to be fought, suddenly felt as if they had been spent in vain. Once again the others were taking their cues from O’Brien and Eddington. Bashir cast a simmering sidelong look at Zek that made it clear he was harboring the same sense of resentment.
“This is so like you, O’Brien,” Zek said. “On the eve of victory, you find a way to hand us defeat. Cut and run, cut and run—don’t you know any tactics besides retreat?”
O’Brien shook his head. “Don’t be a fool. If the Alliance has an ambush ready, you’ll be sitting ducks. This is why I didn’t want everything in one place.”
Propelled by animosity, Zek sprang out of the captain’s chair to his feet. “Why do you have to be so negative all the time? Everything’s doom and gloom with—”
“I have something,” Hudson said. “On the edge of the system. Looks pretty big.” Zek, Bashir, and Yates all crowded behind Hudson as he worked at analyzing the sensor data. “Based on the configuration and hull composites, I’d say it’s a Klingon warship. Probably a Vor’cha-class battle cruiser, running in low-power mode.”
Shaking his head, Zek said, “That could be anything! A derelict ship, a warp shadow, a sensor malfunction—”
“Get out of there,” O’Brien said. “Have your people on the station set their ships’ self-destruct packages before they go.”
Zek shrieked, “Self-destruct packages? Defang the rebellion when it’s finally ready to hunt? Have you gone insane?”
“We can’t let the Alliance capture our cloaking devices,” O’Brien said. “If they reverse-engineer it, our cloaks’ll be as worthless as theirs.”
From the sensor post, Hudson said, “I’ll run an active scan to confirm our readings.” A moment later, he reported, “It’s definitely a Vor’cha-class cruiser.”
“Retreat,” O’Brien said. “Arm the self-destructs on the ships in port, then beam as many of your people off the station as you can in one shot, because you won’t have time for two.”
Fearful eyes looked up at Zek from every station on the bridge. He hadn’t come this far just to let O’Brien bully him into sacrificing everything he’d worked to build. “Hudson, Yates: you’re relieved. Take the other captains and report to the transporter bays.” The other rebel leaders except Bashir filed out the aft doors. Half of them continued farther aft, to transporter bay one, while the others headed toward the forward turbolift to transporter bay two. Bashir remained at Zek’s side.
“Zek,” O’Brien cut in, “what are you do—”
The old Ferengi cut the channel and continued issuing orders. He keyed the intraship comm from the command panel next to his chair as he sat down. “Zek to alpha-shift bridge officers! Report for duty.” Keying in a different, secure external channel, he hailed the ops center on Empok Nor.
A male voice answered him. “Go ahead.”
“Tell the ships in dock to get ready to receive their captains,” Zek said. The order was acknowledged, and he closed the channel.
The aft doors of the bridge opened with a soft hiss, and the alpha-shift bridge crew filed in and manned their posts. “Helm,” Bashir said, “put the station between us and the Klingon cruiser. Tactical, get ready to arm all weapons. Ops, stand by to drop the cloak and help the transporter bays get the captains to their ships.”
Everyone worked quickly. In less than a minute, the ship was in position. There was only one Klingon battle cruiser out there, and Zek had command of a fleet. Running away was not an option. Now I’ll show O’Brien what leadership really means, he gloated. “Drop the cloak,” he ordered. “Signal the station to begin transport.”
The cloak disengaged and the lights brightened. One minute later, the ops officer looked up and said, “All transports complete, the captains are aboard—”
“Incoming!” the tactical officer shouted. “The Klingons—”
“Shields!” Zek commanded.
Then the explosions started.
Captain Kurn watched the Empok Nor station on the main viewscreen of the Ya’Vang’s bridge. The anticipated hour of his targets’ arrival had come, but all appeared placid. No matter, Kurn told himself. Often the woods grow still and the wind falls silent before the prey appears. The hunter is patient. Readiness is all.
Krona, his first officer, had wisely taken advantage of the nine-hour hiatus, as well. As soon as Kurn and Kira had left the bridge, though it had not yet been time for the shift change, Krona had brought up the second-shift team to serve during the expected period of downtime. Now, on the brink of action, the first-shift crew had returned to duty. Ronak hunched forward over the helm, eager to make the instantaneous jump to maximum warp. Qeyhnor had just finished running a weapons drill and reported all hands ready for battle. Beqar studiously monitored the station’s signal traffic and general status.
Standing to the left of Kurn’s chair, radiant in her adopted Klingon uniform, was Kira Nerys. She remained silent and maintained minimal but obvious physical contact with Kurn. He was grateful that she was not inclined to try and fill this time with small talk, or inane questions, or pointless activity. Like a good hunter, she remained alert and quiet.
A low buzzing sounded on Beqar’s console. She checked it and studied the results for a moment. Kurn let the woman work. When she had something to report, she would say so. Half a minute later, she turned her chair and said, “An encrypted signal is coming in from Terok Nor. They’ve updated their codes. This one will take time to break.”
“Terok Nor is hailing its sister station?” Krona asked.
Beqar waved her hand side to side. “No. Empok Nor isn’t receiving.” She checked some more data on her console. “The signal is on an SLF channel.”
Kurn understood: super-low-frequency subspace channels were used for communications with cloaked vessels. Someone on Terok Nor was trying to reach the ship carrying the rebellion leaders, and they had sent the signal here, to the Trivas system. Though unseen, their prey had arrived. “Battle stations,” he said.
“Increased signal traffic,” Beqar said. “I can’t lock in the coordinates, it’s too well masked.”
Qeyhnor spoke. “Captain, passive sensors have picked up a minor increase in local charged particles. We’re being scanned, and not by the station.”
Krona looked to Kurn for direction. “Should we begin the attack, Captain?”
“Not yet,” Kurn said. “Let’s see if thei
r scan actually detected us.” Kira’s hand closed a bit tighter on his shoulder.
The reports started to come in more quickly. “I’m picking up short-range comm traffic between all eleven ships in dock,” Beqar said. “More signals between the station and another vessel close by—”
“I see it,” Qeyhnor said. “It’s the Capital Gain, sir. She’s decloaked on the far side of the station.” Working rapidly at his panel, he added, “All ships in dock are powering up their main reactors.”
“Attack,” Kurn said.
The first officer snapped into action. “Bridge to engineering: full power! Tactical, arm all weapons, target the station’s fusion core. Communications, jam outgoing comm traffic. Helm, maximum warp on my mark!” Krona looked to Kurn for the final command, and Kurn nodded his assent. “Go!”
Ronak jumped the ship to maximum warp. Instantly, the ship went from cold, dark, and quiet to pulsing with heat, light, and energy. The station swiftly enlarged on the forward viewscreen. Kurn stole a look up at Kira, who smiled back with the wild gleam of a Klingon warrior queen.
“Out of warp,” Ronak declared, “in three…two…one!” The gray mass of Empok Nor filled the main viewer. Inside its bulky blocks of scaffolding, the first glows of firing thrusters revealed themselves.
“Target locked,” Qeyhnor said.
And the hunter strikes. “Fire,” Kurn said.
Cal Hudson hurried onto the bridge of his ship with no name. “Report,” he bellowed to his XO, a Bolian man named Zim Brott.
“Firing up the warp core, sir,” Brott replied. “All hands are aboard except the medic.”
Hudson settled into his chair. “If he’s not aboard in the next thirty seconds, we go without him.”
“Her, sir,” Brott said with hesitation. “And she’s my wife.”
It was not an auspicious way to begin a working relationship. “Sorry…. Find her and get her aboard.”
“Aye, sir.”
As Brott stepped aside to the communications station, Hudson checked his command panels and confirmed that his ship was ready for action. “Helm,” he said, turning the head of the young Terran woman sitting in front of him. “We need to break free of this scaffolding quickly. Can you keep her steady backing out at quarter impulse?”
“Sir, the flight specs call for thrusters only.”
“Yes or no,” he hectored her. “Can you do it?”
She looked down at her control panel, then back at him. With a diffident shrug, she replied, “I don’t know. Maybe?”
His jaw clenched with anxiety. I’d relieve her of duty, but we don’t have anybody else. “Just do your best,” he said.
“Aye, sir,” said the soft-voiced woman, as she turned back to complete her preflight systems check.
A series of distant, rumbling explosions was all the warning that Hudson and his crew had. Then a final blast ripped through their nameless vessel from stern to bow, turning it to vapor and debris in a single incandescent flash.
“Captain on the deck!” called Yates’s first officer, a by-the-numbers Bajoran man named Tahna Los. Though the rebellion had no uniforms, he treated his own clothes as if they were his badge of office; they were always clean and pressed, and his shoes were diligently buffed and polished. His personal grooming was just as fastidious—he had the cleanest fingernails of any man Kasidy had ever met.
“Status,” Yates said as she sat down in the center seat.
Tahna snapped to attention beside her seat. “Warp core online,” he said. “All crew aboard and ready for action. Standing by to release docking clamps on your orders.”
“Take us out, Mister Tahna,” she said. “On the double.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said, then he turned and began issuing rapid-fire orders to the rest of Yates’s handpicked bridge crew: Sakonna, a female Vulcan flight controller whom Yates had seen pilot a hijacked outrider at full impulse through a post-combat debris field; Reese, a hardened, no-nonsense Terran, whose uncanny ability to predict enemy behavior had made him invaluable as a tactical officer; Sarina Douglas, a shy and reserved Terran woman who had a knack for breaking codes. They were some of the most talented people she’d ever met, and all had been willing volunteers for the rebellion.
With this ship and this crew, we can’t lose, Yates thought.
But in a flash of light and heat, they were gone.
“Incoming!” shouted Zek’s tactical officer. “The Klingons—”
“Shields!” Zek commanded.
Watching the main viewer, Bashir winced at the flash of torpedo detonations against the far side of the station’s fusion core, which disintegrated in a pulse of blinding energy that tore the station—and the eleven ships docked there—to pieces.
Deep, powerful explosions buffeted the Capital Gain and hurled Zek from the captain’s chair to the deck. His aged body landed hard, and the shock of impact left him disoriented.
The crackling static on the main viewer cleared enough for Bashir to see the Vor’cha-class battle cruiser race past them and begin maneuvering for another attack run.
Zek was still on the floor, moaning. Bashir realized that the old Ferengi would not be able to keep up with the situation erupting around them. It was time for Bashir to take command.
“Damage report!” he demanded.
“Warp core offline,” the ops officer responded. “Cloak offline. Comms are being jammed. Port shields buckling.”
Stepping over Zek to take the center seat, Bashir spoke quickly. “Helm, go evasive, keep the Klingons to starboard. Tactical, fire at will. Ops, reroute portside shield power to starboard and tell engineering we need warp speed now.”
“Here they come,” the tactical officer said. “Torpedoes away!” On the main viewer, the torpedo volley went astray. Only one of the four warheads found its target, and it flared ineffectually against the Klingon ship’s shields. “Firing phasers!” Raging trails of orange phaser energy lanced across the darkness, briefly strafed the Klingons’ shields. Then the enemy ship was off the main viewer.
Thunderous detonations trembled the ship, which felt as if it were pitching and rolling on a turbulent sea. Bashir tried to keep the panic out of his voice as he said, “Helm, keep them to starboard!”
“Starboard shields weakening,” the ops officer said. Then another scourging of disruptor fire made a terrifying screech as it raked the Capital Gain’s ablative-armor-clad hull. Fire spouted from sparking companels around the bridge, and the main overhead lights went dark. In the flickering glow of firelight, Bashir saw that the ops officer was dead.
“Shields are gone,” the tactical officer reported. “Phaser couplings are blown. Torpedo room’s offline.”
The flight controller rotated her seat to face Bashir, her visage one of barely contained terror. “Engineering just ejected our warp core,” she said in a quavering voice. “Main power’s gone. Impulse is gone.”
In front of Bashir, at his feet, Zek slowly pushed himself up from the deck, onto his knees. He looked around the bridge in shock. “Bashir, you idiot! What have you done to my ship?”
There was no point replying to Zek. His answer was about to come soon enough, either in the form of a final, catastrophic fury of conflagration, or a subspace demand for surrender. Please let it end in fire, Bashir hoped. Let it be quick.
To Bashir’s utter dismay, the next sound he heard was the chirp of an incoming comm signal. Resigned to the inevitable, he pressed the touch panel to acknowledge the signal and put it on the intraship PA.
Moments later, a voice, deep and rough-edged, cut through the spatter of static.
“Attention, officers and crew of the Capital Gain. This is Captain Kurn of the I.K.S. Ya’Vang. Surrender and prepare to be boarded.”
9
Kurn walked the decks of the Capital Gain hunched over and pulled in on himself. The captured rebellion vessel was every bit as spartan in its amenities as a Klingon ship, but its passageways were even narrower and its overheads lower. For Klingon
warriors accustomed to wearing armor with bulky, broad shoulder pads, navigating the interior of a Defiant-class ship was a slow and awkward process. For Kurn, who towered over many other Klingons, it was an even clumsier proposition.
Krona was in command of the boarding party, which had beamed over to the disabled rebel ship more than an hour ago and made quick work of subduing its crew. Only a few rebels had tried to put up a fight. Most had abided by their commander’s declaration of surrender. Now the prisoners were segregated in two holding areas; senior personnel—the rebels did not have officers, as such—were being held on the bridge, and rank-and-file personnel had been rounded up in main engineering.
Following in single file behind Kurn was a retinue that included, in order, Kira Nerys, tactical officer Qeyhnor, and a trio of armed shock troops. Ahead of Kurn, the portal to the Capital Gain’s bridge was open. He stepped inside.
At the front of the compartment were the rebel ship’s commanders and bridge crew. Their hands were bound behind them, and all were seated with their faces to the wall and their tied wrists visible to their two armed guards. First officer Krona and second officer Garvig bowed their heads slightly to Kurn as he entered and took stock of the situation. “Report,” Kurn said.
“The ship is secure, Captain,” Krona said. “All enemy personnel accounted for and disarmed. Chief engineer Hervog has command of the enlisted crew in main engineering.”
Kira slipped past Kurn and strolled slowly behind the prisoners. Kurn looked around at the charred companels. Smoke lingered along the ceiling, and a fine crystalline dust sparkled on the carpeted deck. Curious to know the value of this prize he was bringing home to the empire, Kurn asked, “How much of the ship is intact?”
“Severe damage to propulsion and tactical systems,” Garvig replied. “Hervog says most of it’s been slagged.”
Krona added, “And the rebels managed to wipe their computer core before we could access it.”
Kurn wondered sometimes if his men deliberately omitted the most important information he required as a subtle means of testing his patience. “What about the cloaking device?”