“Warp drive?” asked Garsee doubtfully. “In the boneyard?”
“Going to warp would put our gravity back to normal,” explained La Forge. “The velocities are so high that artifical gravity is maintained by the warp subsystem, so it’s a natural bypass of the affected circuits.”
They heard a banging on the bulkhead somewhere above their heads, and looked uneasily at one another. Unseen attackers, probably Ontailians, had been trying to break into engineering for the last half hour, and sounded as if they were getting closer. Unfortunately, La Forge’s crew was trapped in their workspace as long as they had to keep containment measures going.
“Determined buggers, aren’t they?” asked La Forge. “Well, the same goes for me. The way we’re picking up speed, I think we’re headed out of Rashanar. Once we get into open space, I’m kicking it into warp manually…but going a very short distance.”
Geordi heard more commotion, and saw that his handful of engineers were getting accustomed to walking again. “Everyone,” he called, “go to the weapons locker and get a phaser! I have a feeling we’re going to need them.”
The furry appendages that were wrapped around Riker’s nose and mouth were beginning to stink, and more than anything he yearned to tear those foul limbs off his face and break them in half. But he doubted whether any of his bridge crew would survive a battle to the death with the Ontailians in zero gravity. Fristan kept his phaser trained on Riker, when he didn’t have it pointed at Data, who calmly piloted them through the deadly obstacle course of Rashanar.
From what he could see on the viewscreen, it was clear that they were in the outskirts of the graveyard, which was now expanding rapidly since the demise of the gravity source at the center. He supposed they should be thankful that the Ontailians hadn’t destroyed them outright after taking over the ship. Still it was maddening to be in command of the Enterprise, then have it stolen out from under him. Then to see his crew trussed up made him angrier…more determined to get revenge. True, the Ontailians were headed out of Rashanar, but they had better turn them loose after that—or Will Riker would extract his pound of flesh from these treacherous thieves, especially Fristan.
They zoomed past scorched hulks drifting a safe distance away. Riker could see at least two of the narrow silver Androssi ships waiting for them. A moment later the flagship Yoxced cruised into view, and it seemed as if the gang was all here.
“We have reached the edge of Rashanar,” said Data.
“Yes, yes!” crowed Fristan happily as he gripped the hatch of the Jefferies tube in order to keep from floating away. “Now turn on your distress signal.”
That caused the android to whirl in his chair. “Turning on the distress signal will attract the demon flyer.”
“Yes, we know,” answered the Androssi, lifting his phaser. “Get ready to expel your antimatter too. Do it, android, or I’ll vaporize you, I swear I will!”
“For either of those actions, I would need a direct order from my commander,” replied Data, placing his hands in his lap.
Fristan chittered and whistled to his Ontailian conspirators, and they finally released Riker’s mouth and face. Without hesitation, Will shouted, “I’m not going to let any of my crew get killed! Before you use this ship as bait, I want them all evacuated.”
“Says you!” scoffed Fristan. “I can’t restore gravity and let your crew run loose. They’d fight us.”
“Not if I ordered them off the ship,” declared Riker. “Let us cooperate with you. It isn’t necessary to do it this way.”
Fristan seemed to mull it over; then he waved his phaser menacingly. “No, I have my orders! No one leaves the ship but me. Data, turn on the distress signal.”
Riker noticed that Data cocked his head in a quizzical fashion, as if seeing something very unusual on his board. A moment later, there came an odd tingling. The viewscreen blurred. Riker went plummeting from the air to the deck. Fortunately, the Ontailians wrapped around him broke his fall, and they had already loosened their grip around his head. With both hands, he gripped the octopus-like head of a slippery Ontailian and choked it with all his strength. Writhing and lashing him, the thing struggled until it went limp.
Fristan tried to shoot, but the sudden gravity doubled him over. The beam barely missed Data. The android dashed from his seat and kicked the Androssi in the mouth. Fristan dropped into the Jefferies tube. They heard his bloodcurdling screams all the way down. The door of the turbolift flew open, and La Forge led a charge of armed engineers onto the bridge, firing phasers. The low stun setting had little effect on the humans; however, the Ontailians curled up in sleep whenever a beam struck them. Within a matter of seconds, order had been restored to the bridge.
Riker staggered to his feet and wiped the fur from his face and hands. Then he helped Troi while Beverly Crusher checked a gash on Kell Perim’s forehead. “Geordi, you got here not a moment too soon,” panted Riker. “I don’t know what you did, but good job.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said La Forge at his engineering console. “Because they’re members of the Federation, the Ontailians know a lot about our systems. They did a number on our life-support.”
Suddenly a bright flash ricocheted off their bow, and the ship bucked.
“Shields are holding,” reported Data.
“Captain, we still haven’t got full computer control,” said La Forge. “We can’t outrun them or out-fight them.”
“All right.” Riker made the difficult decision. “Data, put on the distress signal. Let’s try to convince the ones on the ships that Fristan is still in charge.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If we’ve got to go down fighting this thing,” said Riker, “let’s do it with minimum losses.” He gave Deanna a hug. She looked curiously at him as he let go of her shoulders and walked to his command chair.
Riker tapped the companel on the arm of the chair and announced, “Attention, all hands, this is the captain. All personnel not currently on bridge or engineering duty are ordered to report immediately to the shuttlebay to evacuate the ship. And I mean all personnel. Riker out.”
“Captain,” said Dr. Crusher, swabbing blood from Perim’s forehead, “Lieutenant Perim should be evacuated, too.”
“Please take her to the shuttlebay,” ordered Riker. “Do what you can to organize the evacuation. You’re going with them, Doctor.”
“But Wes…and Jean-Luc?” she asked hesitantly.
“Since they’re not here, we’ll have to proceed as if they’re not coming back.” Riker grimaced as one of the Ontailians began to squirm on the deck. He pinned the creature with the heel of his boot and tapped his combadge. “All security officers report to the bridge immediately. Bring rope and nets with you.”
“Captain,” said Data, “the Ontailian vessels have backed off two-point-five kilometers from our position.”
“La Forge, I want full control soon.”
“I’m working on it,” promised the engineer. “I could use Data’s help.”
The android looked at his captain, and Riker nodded. Soon both of them were working at adjoining consoles. Deanna Troi took Data’s vacated seat.
“I’m not leaving your side,” she declared.
Riker gave his Imzadi a loving smile. “I never thought you would.”
“I’m picking up a distress signal,” reported Christine Vale at the helm of the Orion salvage ship. Her eyes widened, and she looked at Captain Picard with horror. “It’s the Enterprise.”
“Take us there,” ordered the captain.
“But the Ontailians?”
Picard’s jaw clenched, and his lips thinned. “If the Enterprise is in trouble—or trying to attract the demon ship—we need to be there.”
Slowly the Orion scow pulled out from the cover of the Vulcan derelict, making its way toward the edge of the graveyard. Finding the Enterprise was no difficulty, especially when her shuttlebay doors were wide open, disgorging a steady stream of small ships. Every shu
ttlecraft, shuttlepod, and escape pod was apparently launching; Picard even spotted their spare salvage tug pulling away from the mammoth starship.
“They must be evacuating,” said Picard. “The Ontailians don’t seem to be interfering.”
“No, they don’t, sir,” answered Vale. “They have three ships in weapons range, but they’re just watching.”
“In all that shuttle traffic, I think we could slip aboard. Lieutenant, pull close to the stern, then wait for a chance to enter the shuttlebay.”
“Yes, sir.” Vale plied her controls.
Wesley Crusher hovered in space, partially obscured by a glittering mass of rubble. From his unique perch, he watched the demon flyer slowly rebuild its strength by absorbing the antimatter from the remains of the Androssi salvage ship. There was nothing left for the entity to mimic. It seemed content just to rest and recuperate in the vast field of death and destruction…still maintaining the vague outlines of the Pakled overcruiser, but having lost its yen for perfection.
Like me, thought the Traveler, still possessed of all its powers but aimless and pointless. Its reason to exist is gone.
He couldn’t tell for sure, but he had an uneasy feeling that it knew he was there. In the past, it had destroyed anything it couldn’t use. Now mere survival was the only instinct it had left, and the Traveler was no threat to it. Both of them were relics of some grand design that had ceased to be important.
The young man lowered his head and felt like crying. His heart, which had been full of love and hope, was as dark and empty as the graveyard around him. He wondered if he would ever leave this place, or would he just languish until his powers left him? Maybe godlike beings didn’t die; they just faded away.
Suddenly the running lights on the phantom ship blinked on, and neon stripes ran down the length of its sleek hull. Lights glimmered on the empty bridge. Replicated impulse engines fired in the stern, as if testing. The entity is going to go back on the hunt, thought Wesley. What would lift this monster out of its lethargy? A distress signal from a starship full of antimatter.
Wes groaned, because this could only mean carnage, and he didn’t really think he could stand to see any more of that. However, when the reenergized replicraft took off, the Traveler followed a safe distance behind. There weren’t many vessels among the scavengers and traitors in Rashanar who really deserved saving. He figured he should see if this was one of them.
The Traveler was surprised when the demon ship reached the outer layer of wrecks in Rashanar without finding what it sought, and even more so when the lethal look-alike actually left the boneyard. This is not good. There is not a lot I can do about it.
Instinctively he looked for the Enterprise. His eyes found her before his acute Traveler senses. The majestic starship was waiting in the void outside the newly freed herd of derelicts, her shuttlebay door open, an escape pod shooting off from her saucer section, and distress signal blaring. The ship was helpless as the demon flyer swooped down upon her.
Chapter Fourteen
CAPTAIN PICARD STEPPED off the turbolift with Christine Vale right behind him onto the bridge of the Enterprise. They were met with shocked expressions, then smiles, although only Riker, Troi, La Forge, and Data were present.
“Captain, good to see you,” hailed Riker as his attention was diverted to the viewscreen in front of him. “Is that a ship bearing down on us?”
Deanna Troi gasped and pointed beyond Picard. “Wesley!”
Picard whirled around to see Wesley Crusher in his gray Traveler’s garb, looking ten years older. Before anybody could gather their wits, blinding beams of energy flashed across their bow. Everyone scurried to their positions. Vale went to tactical. Troi jumped up to give the conn to Data. La Forge stuck to his engineering console.
“Captain,” reported Data, studying his board, “there’s a Pakled cruiser bearing down on us, but the Ontailian ships are firing at it. The cruiser has been slowed but not diverted.”
“Close shuttlebay, shields up,” ordered Riker. “Evasive maneuvers.”
“That’s the mimic ship,” said Wesley. “Head to deep space.”
“We don’t have warp,” La Forge warned them. “It’s already affecting our antimatter stream in the reaction chamber. We still have impulse.”
“Get us out of here, Data,” barked Riker. “Full impulse.”
“Yes, sir.” The starship banked gracefully to escape from the new battle zone outside Rashanar. It looked to Picard as if the Ontailian bombardment was having no effect on the mimic ship.
“Captain,” asked Riker, “would you like your command back now?”
“Not especially,” he answered. “You’re doing fine, Number One. It was a good idea to evacuate.”
Wesley stepped between them. “Listen, we only have a few seconds. The Ontailians won’t stop it. I can think of only one way to destroy the mimic ship. Fristan gave me the answer. If it duplicated the Enterprise at the exact moment we were going through an autodestruct sequence, perhaps that would be duplicated as well. It’s during that scanning/replicating phase that it’s vulnerable. But someone will have to go on board the mimic ship to make sure that it doesn’t have a chance to destroy the real Enterprise. The only one who can do that is me. Even Data would be deactivated. The rest of you have to get off the Enterprise.”
Riker was not pleased. “Is this really the only way?”
“I’ve watched it…I think I understand it.”
“Captain Riker,” said Data, “two Ontailian vessels have been destroyed by the mimic ship. The third has broken off the fight. The false Pakled cruiser is in pursuit of us.”
“You’ve got to leave now,” insisted Crusher.
“Wes, there’s a problem,” said Riker. “You need both me and Data to initiate the destruct sequence.”
Picard broke in, “It’s all right. The Orion salvage ship has a transporter, which we can now use. We’ll get you off, Number One. I think Wesley has given us the only possible way to kill it.”
“However,” said Data, looking up from his console, “we have seen that the entity can be scattered into bits of antimatter. These may coalesce into a new entity as before, unless there is sufficient matter present to annihilate them.”
La Forge snapped his fingers and said, “We can blow hydrogen out the ramscoop. Wes, you can do that.”
“Yes,” agreed the young man. “Please, Captain Picard, you’ve got to go. Take everyone but Riker, Data, and me. Transport them as soon as we signal you.”
“If we’re wrong about this—” Picard warned.
“Everybody will be safe but me,” countered Wes. He pointed to a blip on the viewscreen. It was the only object on the screen that was gradually getting larger as it escaped from the swirling morass of Rashanar. “If we don’t stop that thing now and it gets into Federation space—”
“All right, Mr. Crusher,” said Picard, mustering an encouraging smile. “It’s your show. We’ll have to send Riker back to stop the destruct sequence.”
“No, sir, autodestruct will shut down when all the other systems go down. I’m counting on that. When I get inside the duplicate, I’ll set a core overload in addition to the self-destruct. As soon as you see the mimic ship explode, Captain Riker will have to get back to this bridge, although it may be dead.”
“If need be, the Orion tug can tow the Enterprise,” said Picard.
Wes asked sheepishly, “Does anyone know where my mom is?”
“She was leading the evacuation,” answered Troi. “I know where we can find her when we get done. I’m worried…if there’s a problem locking on with the transporter—”
“I’ll drop the commanders off on my way to the mimic ship,” answered Wes. “Now all of you must get going.” He glanced at Riker. “Except for you and Data, sir.”
“I sure picked a good week to be captain of the Enterprise,” joked Riker. He gave Deanna a hug, as she tried unsuccessfully to hide her emotions.
“Vale, Troi, La Forge, you
’re with me,” said Picard, heading for the turbolift. As he saw Wesley slip into the conn station, he wondered if this desperate plan would work. Pausing in front of the turbolift, the captain turned to see the silver object in the viewscreen zooming closer. He could almost make out the faux outlines of a Pakled cruiser.
Wes is right. There is no escape—we’ll have to make a stand here.
“Initiate autodestruct sequence,” said the captain, pressing his palm to the dermal recognition pad. “Riker, authorization alpha-alpha-zero-theta-nine.”
“Riker identified,” said the computer.
Now Data put his hand on the pad, although the android stole a glance at the viewscreen, where they could see the Pakled cruiser firing thrusters to stop. “Data, authorization alpha-alpha-two-gamma-six.”
“Data identified,” repeated the computer.
“Set autodestruct sequence, five minute delay,” ordered Riker. “Commence countdown now.”
“Autodestruct sequence set,” replied the computer calmly. “Four minutes fifty-nine seconds and counting. Four minutes fifty-eight seconds. Four minutes fifty-seven seconds.”
“Expelling hydrogen from the ramscoop,” reported Wes as he worked the ops console. The computer droned on. The lights began to flicker on the Enterprise bridge. The young man hit the com panel and barked, “Crusher to Picard, energize now!”
“Good luck,” said Riker as his solid form began to dissolve into a column of sparkling molecules. Data nodded encouragement as well. Wesley felt great relief when his shipmates were finally whisked off the bridge, leaving him alone. He didn’t want to face this threat by himself, but he was the only one who could.
His feet floated off the deck as artificial gravity died, quickly followed by the rest of the ship’s systems. The computer’s voice wound down like a phonograph record losing speed. Wesley began to feel light-headed. He willed himself some distance away from the mimic ship and its large, helpless prey. The entity was already folding inward and outward, like a deck of cards shuffling itself and expanding as it did.
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