Section 31 - Disavowed

by David Mack

  “Lay in the course and execute immediately.” The Founder faced Picard’s larger-than-life visage on the screen. “We will do our best to waylay your stolen vessel, Captain. But if its hijackers turn its weapons against us, we will defend ourselves.”

  “Understood. We’d rather see it destroyed than stolen.”

  The transmission ended, and the Founder looked at Taran’atar. “Prepare for battle.”

  * * *

  Warp-streaked stars retracted to cold points of light as the ShiKahr dropped back to full impulse. Thot Trom leaned forward in the command chair. “Time to the wormhole?”

  “Thirty seconds,” Yoab said from the helm.

  Good fortune was a rare commodity in wartime, and Trom meant to make the most of it. His team’s backup plan for returning to their own universe involved using a known and proven method for triggering a dimensional jump inside the Bajoran wormhole. Though it was commendable of Solt to have theorized a means of making the same jump using the jaunt ship’s artificially generated wormholes, Trom was grateful not to have to put that notion to the test.

  Ahead of the ShiKahr, the wormhole unfolded as if from nothing, a midnight-blue flower blossoming in the cold night of space. Light poured majestically from its dilated mouth, and a faint tremor of gravimetric distortion shook the jaunt ship as it approached its destination.

  “Take us in, Yoab. Crin, alert all decks to brace for turbulence. Rem, stand by to—”

  A coruscating burst of light washed out the details on the viewscreen. When the blinding glare abated, the Dominion command ship filled the screen. It was a gunmetal leviathan that completely obstructed the ShiKahr’s flight path to the wormhole.

  Karn looked up from tactical. “Their shields are up, all weapons have been armed. They’re locking onto us and”—he paused to silence a new alert tone—“they’re hailing us.”

  “Put them on-screen.”

  A Jem’Hadar’s terrifying visage glowered back at Trom. “Attention, Commander, ShiKahr. I am First Taran’atar. Drop your shields and surrender your vessel.”

  Trom stood and stepped forward. “Let us pass, First. Our battle is not with you.”

  “You are mistaken. Yield in ten seconds or be destroyed.”

  So much for the Dominion staying out of this.

  Trom signaled Crin with a subtle gesture to mute the channel. “Karn, target the known vulnerabilities of the command ship.”

  “I’ve already tried,” Karn replied. “Their ship isn’t the same as the ones in our universe. I can’t find the same weak spots. It might not have any.”

  Rem swiveled away from the sensor console. “The Enterprise is inbound at warp eight.”

  Karn shook his head. “Even if I find a chink in the Jem’Hadar’s armor, we can’t fight them and another jaunt ship at the same time.”

  Their ten seconds of grace from the Jem’Hadar were about to expire. Trom let go of his delusions of good fortune and chose to face the bitter truth. “Close the channel. Helm, full evasive. Get us away from the command ship and take us back to maximum warp.”

  With one hand, Yoab accelerated the ShiKahr into a rolling, diving turn beneath the Jem’Hadar battleship; with the other, he started plotting warp-speed coordinates. “Heading?”

  Trom returned to his command chair. “Anywhere but here.” He glanced at a star chart on the monitor beside his seat. “Head for Klingon space—maybe they won’t follow us.”

  “Laying in the course and jumping to warp . . . now.”

  On the viewscreen, the starfield stretched into blurred streaks.

  Crin moved to Trom’s side. “The Jem’Hadar are still at the wormhole, but the Enterprise is right behind us. If they call in reinforcements before we get the jaunt drive online—”

  “I know. Get down to engineering. Tell Solt he has to break the lockout right now. Then he has to rig the drive to get us home. Otherwise, this entire mission’s been for nothing.”

  * * *

  Impatience was a fault to which Picard rarely succumbed, but watching the stolen jaunt ship hurtle away by an ever-growing margin had him at wit’s end. “Helm! Time to intercept?”

  “Intercept?” Looking back, Tolaris protested, “Sir, we can barely keep pace.”

  Picard shot a look at K’Ehleyr, who knew what his pointed glare was asking. “Barclay’s doing all he can. He says he can get us up to warp eight point eight in a few minutes.”

  “Not good enough, damn it! Not good enough! They could be gone by then!” Picard got up and stalked over to Troi’s console. “Are we close enough to use quantum torpedoes?”

  She shared his disappointment and frustration. “They’re just out of range.”

  He breathed an angry sigh and paced along the aft duty stations. As he passed Saavik and her guests, Bashir spoke up. “Captain? Your ship has subspace transporters. Perhaps you could beam a strike team aboard the ShiKahr.”

  It was so preposterous an idea that it made Picard angry. “Are you mad? Subspace beaming between two points moving at different warp factors?”

  The Enterprise’s senior science officer, Lieutenant Kell Perim, joined in the mocking of Bashir. “We might as well just cremate you and eject your ashes from the shuttlebay.” The Trill turned back to her console as she added, “We’d use less energy and get the same result.”

  Picard looked over Perim’s shoulder. “Any luck restoring subspace comms?”

  “Almost there, sir. Just a few more minutes.”

  “Tell me the moment they’re back online.”

  He left her to her work and returned to his chair. He couldn’t catch his foes, attack them, or summon reinforcements. All he could do was watch the ShiKahr slowly widen the gap between itself and the Enterprise. He promised himself the Breen would pay for this—and that he would be the one to collect the debt.

  Thirty-one

  If there was any rhyme or reason to the design of the jaunt drive, it eluded Solt. The Spetzkar engineer stood surrounded by the mind-boggling amalgam of technologies that had been united to create the Commonwealth’s marvel of propulsion. Some of its components looked as if they were of Romulan design; others evinced classically Cardassian aesthetics. A few discrete elements showed evidence of Tzenkethi origin. More than a dozen were so bizarre that Solt had no idea where they had come from, or how they had been compelled to work in concert.

  This engine is the work of a madman.

  Ominous rumblings underscored a jolt of impact that rocked the ShiKahr. Solt grabbed hold of a load-bearing strut and braced himself.

  A few of his engineers were slower to react and ended up in a tangled pile on the deck at his feet. One of them did a double take as another blast shook the jaunt ship and made its hull ring with violent percussion. “What was that?”

  “We’re being torpedoed,” Solt told his men. “Get up, all of you. We need to find a way to override the lockout and bring this drive online.”

  He opened an access panel and was dismayed by the high-tech puzzle it contained. There had to be a logic to it. It was all geared toward a single shared function—the generation and maintenance of a stable artificial wormhole. He knew that a team of dedicated engineers could reverse-engineer this perplexing jumble of hybridized parts. All it would take was time.

  More blasts hammered the jaunt ship’s shields.

  Time, Solt fumed. The one thing we’re fast running out of.

  “Does anybody see anything? Talk to me!”

  Lar, a mechanic’s mate, waved his free hand. “Over here!”

  Solt pushed past the other engineers between them. “Report.”

  “I think this might be the core command relay.” Lar reached in and laid his gloved hand on a dodecahedronal module. The head-sized device had one unobstructed facet, which served as its interface panel. The other nineteen facets were festooned with cables and hard connections. At a glance, Solt saw the unit was linked into nearly every other part of the jaunt drive.

  “Good work, Lar. Step
clear.” He reached in to activate the interface. Another salvo of enemy fire quaked the ship and knocked Solt off balance. Lar and another engineer caught him and set him back on his feet. He promised himself he would thank them later; for now they had more pressing concerns. A few quick taps activated the node’s command interface. All its options were dimmed, and a red overlay contained flashing alphanumeric symbols in some alien language. Half a second later, the translator circuit in his helmet’s holovisor parsed the warning: COMMAND OVERRIDE—LOCKDOWN IN EFFECT.

  The junior engineers pressed closer, crowding Solt. Lar peeked over his shoulder and asked, “Can you break the lockout?”

  “With finesse? Not a chance.”

  Solt pulled loose a power cable from an adjacent noncritical system. Using his free hand, he drew his knife and pried open the interface facet of the command node. Nothing inside the unit looked familiar, so he made an educated guess as to which component was its main bus capacitor. Then he jabbed the exposed end of the power cable against it.

  Sparks blasted upward, and a burst of light shorted out the holovisor in his mask for a split second. Then his holovisor reset—and so did the interface screen of the command node.

  The message made Solt smile: SYSTEM REBOOT IN PROGRESS.

  “We’re in business. Set up the mods, just like we practiced! And be quick about it!” His technicians and mechanics scrambled away, rushing in all directions to modify key subsystems of the jaunt drive. The chief engineer activated his helmet comm. “Solt to Trom.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Lockout defeated. We’re modifying the drive now.”

  “How long to breach the dimensional barrier?”

  It was time to deliver the bad news. “Not sure. Still working on the equations.”

  “Work faster. Our shields won’t last much longer, and if the Enterprise calls in reinforcements, we’re as good as dead.”

  “Understood. Solt out.”

  He closed the channel, tuned out the roar of ever louder torpedo blasts, and struggled to program the jaunt drive to create an artificial wormhole with interdimensional topology.

  I guess this would be a bad time to tell Trom I only got an average rating in subspatial calculus. His hands trembled as he worked. Yeah, I’ll save that story for the medal ceremony.

  * * *

  There was little for Bashir to do on the bridge of the Enterprise but stand with Sarina and Saavik near the aft port-side turbolift and try to stay out of the crew’s way.

  Most of the bridge officers were hunched over their consoles, but K’Ehleyr moved from one to the next, offering suggestions and collecting updates as she went. At the end of her circuit she returned to Picard’s side. “This is our best possible speed, for now.”

  Her news vexed him. “We just need another tenth of a warp factor.”

  “We can fix only so much of the warp drive while we’re using it.” She threw an anxious look at the image of the fleeing ShiKahr on the viewscreen. “The good news is, they’re working with most of the same restrictions we are.”

  The captain looked at Troi, clearly hoping for better news. “Any luck accessing their command override system?”

  “None. We can’t establish contact. They’ve disabled their ULF subspace antenna.” She tapped a launch trigger on her console and fired another round of torpedoes at the ShiKahr. The five-missile salvo sped away in brilliant golden streaks; seconds later, they flashed against the other jaunt ship’s shields. “Our torpedoes are having only minimal effect.”

  “Continue firing. Their shields won’t last forever.”

  “Neither will our supply of torpedoes,” K’Ehleyr said. “And if we use them up on these long-range pokes at the ShiKahr’s aft shields, we could end up in real trouble if they turn around and decide to start shooting back.”

  It was sound advice, but Picard received it with a dark glare. “Very well. Cease fire.”

  Bashir leaned toward Sarina and whispered, “Should we tell them now?”

  “I don’t think they’re in the mood to hear it.”

  “I’m not sure we can wait.”

  Sarina held Bashir’s hand, perhaps to lift her own spirits as much as to buoy his. “Okay.”

  Together, they stepped forward. Then they halted in midstep as Lieutenant Perim sprang from her post and crowed to her shipmates, “All comms are back up!”

  In an instant, Picard’s bad mood evaporated. “Send a quantum signal to fleet command! Tell them the ShiKahr’s been hijacked and request assistance from all available vessels.” He stepped toward the viewscreen with clenched fists. “Let’s keep them busy till help arrives. Arm another volley of torpedoes and fire!”

  “Torpedoes away,” Troi confirmed as she tapped the launch trigger.

  K’Ehleyr noted that Bashir and Sarina had moved toward the center of the bridge. “Do you two want to contribute something?”

  A nod from Sarina encouraged Bashir to speak for both of them. “We need to warn you not to underestimate the Breen. These aren’t the usual privateers or mercenaries that operate outside their borders. The ShiKahr’s been taken by Spetzkar—elite commandos.”

  “We’re aware of that,” K’Ehleyr said. “What’s your point?”

  “They’re more than capable of breaking the lockout on the jaunt drive. And if they do, we think there’s a real risk they might use it to take that ship back to our universe.”

  His admonition was met with grave concern by Picard. “Is that even possible?”

  “It’s happened before,” Sarina said. “That’s why the Breen came here, remember? One of your jaunt ships crashed in our universe a couple of years ago. The Breen found the wreckage in Federation space and tried to salvage it. That failed, so they’ve come here to steal one directly.”

  The discussion drew Perim away from her station. “Hang on. You think the Breen might try to break through the dimensional barrier with a jaunt drive?” Nods of confirmation turned her slack-jawed surprise to wide-eyed horror. She turned toward K’Ehleyr and Picard. “Sirs, we can’t let that happen!”

  Picard adopted a calming manner. “We know the risks if they succeed.”

  “Never mind if they succeed,” Perim said. “I’m worried about what happens if they fail. They could unravel space-time as we know it—not just here, but across the galaxy. They might even cause a chain reaction that can unravel reality as we know it in this universe and theirs.”

  K’Ehleyr shifted her sidelong stare from Perim to Picard. “I won’t pretend I understand what most of that means, but I have to say, sir—it sounds pretty bad.”

  “I’m forced to agree.” Picard took a deep breath and looked at Bashir and Sarina. “But I still think we should wait for the rest of the fleet.”

  Bashir shook his head. “That might be too late, even the way your ships move. If the Breen are modifying that engine, we need to stop them now.”

  Picard’s temper frayed. “And how do you propose we do that, Doctor?”

  Sarina stepped between them. “With all respect to you and your science officer, you’re wrong about the limitations of the subspace transporter. It is possible to compensate for the effects of differential warp velocities. I’ve seen the equations. I can give them to you.”

  Everyone turned to face Saavik, who had come forward to join the debate. “What you propose is extremely dangerous, even if your calculations are correct. Anyone sent in this manner would run a high risk of dying in transit. Why should we risk it?”

  “We’re not asking you to,” Bashir said. “Send the two of us.”

  Dubious looks passed among the Enterprise officers. Before any of them could object, Sarina interjected, “These Spetzkar came from our universe, and we were sent here to stop them. This mission is our responsibility, so the risk should be ours alone.”

  Saavik betrayed neither hope nor skepticism. “What would you need from us?”

  “Two stealth suits,” Bashir said. “Weapons. A briefing on the jaunt ship’s wea
k spots.”

  “And an exit strategy,” Sarina added. “Just in case we live through this.”

  The old Vulcan looked at Picard. “The decision is yours, Captain.”

  “Number One, have Mister Barclay meet Doctor Bashir and Miss Douglas with their equipment in Transporter Room Three. Make sure he’s ready to brief them on their targets.” He turned toward Bashir and Sarina, and a small, grudging smile broke through his dour mood. “Let’s hope you don’t come to regret this sudden bout of heroism.”

  Thirty-two

  Time was the enemy now. Trom knew it. He felt it in his bones. His pilot Yoab was pushing the ShiKahr to its ultimate limit, coaxing every last bit of speed he could from the vessel. Down in the bowels of the ship, Solt was rebuilding the jaunt drive—the very prize they had come for—into the one thing that could take them home. All they needed was time—

  —but a brutal concussion of torpedo blasts made it clear the enemy had no intention of giving it to them. Trom hung on to the command chair. Consoles stuttered, and bodies fell through the strobing light in surreal slow motion.

  Crin stumbled across the pitching deck as another salvo hit the ShiKahr. He fell across his own chair, to the right of Trom’s. “Long-range sensors are reading new signals, sir.”

  “Klingon?”

  “Jaunt ships. Dozens of them. They’re jumping in all around us.”

  Trom kept his curses to himself. “The Enterprise restored its comms sooner than we expected.” He used the command interface beside his chair to open a channel to engineering. “Solt! We’re being surrounded. Are your modifications ready?”

  “Almost. We’ll be ready to cross the dimensional barrier in ten minutes.”

  “Keep me posted. Every second counts. Command out.” He closed the channel and looked at Crin. “We’re almost home. Divert just enough power from the aft shields to fire four rounds of torpedoes from the aft launcher. Let’s see if the Enterprise likes a bloody nose.”

  “Yes, sir.” Crin slipped away to relay the order to Karn.

  Trom looked forward to seeing his harassers swallow a bit of their own medicine, but behind his brave talk, he knew he had nothing but bluster. His ship was only minutes away from being trapped by a vastly superior force. Unless Solt proved to be a genius without equal in the field of starship propulsion, Trom and his men were on the verge of annihilation.