Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven

by David Mack

  His workstation display flashed with alerts as he struggled to refine his control over the array by making a few final tweaks to Klisiewicz’s command interface.

  “We need to evacuate,” pleaded Ensign Heffron. “Now, before the turbolifts are gone!”

  “Just a few more seconds,” Xiong said, keying in new lines of code as quickly as he could. “Humberg, do you have that frequency yet?”

  Lieutenant Christian Humberg, a thirty-something applied quantum physicist with a compact build and a full head of prematurely gray hair, grimaced as he wrestled with his own set of high-complexity calculations. “I’ve almost got it,” he said. “There! A modulated subharmonic that should enable us to control entropic effects on the quantum level.”

  “Send it to Heffron.” Looking across at the blond ensign, he added, “Kirsten, reset the main emitter to resonate on that frequency. I’m loading the updated command interface into the system now.” As he waited for the new software to complete its installation, he looked up at the ominously radiant crystals of the array inside the isolation chamber. He had grown so used to seeing it all from several meters away, through the wall of transparent steel sprayed with a clear compound that acted as a polarizing filter, that he had forgotten how unnerving it could be to stand in the shadow of such awesome, barely yoked power.

  “Emitter reset,” Heffron said.

  Xiong knew he likely would get only one chance to make this experiment work. He hoped for the sake of millions of unsuspecting innocents that his calculations had been correct. “Interface is loaded and stable. I’m bringing the array to full power.”

  Prismatic ribbons of energy danced over the screaming machine, and a tingle that was part static electricity and part fear crept up Xiong’s back. A deep, almost subsonic throbbing pulsed through the deck like a leviathan’s heartbeat. Xiong imagined this might have been how it would have felt to be the first mortal to receive the gift of fire from Prometheus.

  He engaged the command interface as Heffron and Humberg looked over his shoulder.

  Heffron asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Pinging all the Conduits in the Shedai network,” Xiong said as he worked.

  As if fearful of the answer, Humberg asked, “What for?”

  Xiong activated the new subharmonic function. “For this.”

  On his workstation monitor, the constellation of several thousand blue dots began to dwindle, a few at a time at first, then by dozens, and then by scores. Heffron and Humberg both looked perplexed. She pointed at the display. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” Xiong said with ruthless satisfaction, “that my program works.” He turned and met the bewildered stares of his peers. “Right now, all across the Taurus Reach, all the Conduits the Shedai ever made are self-destructing, shattering into dust. In a few minutes, there won’t be a single node of their former network left in the galaxy.”

  Heffron looked horrified. “But what about all those planets?”

  “It’s all right—with the array I was able to target just the Conduits. The planets are fine.” He ushered them toward the exit with broad movements of his arms. “Now go, both of you. Get to the beam-out point on Level Twenty, before the turbolifts fail.”

  Humberg held Xiong at arm’s length. “Wait, what about you?”

  “I need to shut down the array,” Xiong said. “I’ll be right behind you, I promise. Go.” Reassured by his lies, Heffron and Humberg scrambled out through the main hatchway and started running. Xiong locked the hatch behind them.

  Alone at last with the array, Xiong regarded it with awe and contempt. He had spent years plumbing the secrets of the Shedai, plundering their legacy for the benefit of Starfleet and the Federation, and the end result had been this machine, a device of unimaginable power that he could wield to destroy distant worlds, but whose principal function stubbornly eluded him.

  He had not yet figured out how to make it destroy its Shedai prisoners.

  Realizing he wouldn’t have time to unravel that mystery in the scant minutes remaining to him, he returned to his workstation and armed the Vault’s self-destruct system.

  Inside the terrestrial enclosure, the sky was burning.

  Smoldering cracks marred the twilight, belying the illusion of placid heavens. Then the dusk flickered and faltered, revealing the gray metal interior of Vanguard’s upper saucer hull and its latticework of holographic emitters. A white-hot blister of half-molten duranium drooped inward, but there was no one left on Fontana Meadow to see it, no one left to hear the stentorian groan of hundreds of tons of overstressed metal, the incessant thunder of high-power detonations tearing their way through the 800-meter-wide dome.

  A fearsome bolt of blinding energy burst through the hull, raining twisted slabs of scorched metal and charred bodies around its point of impact, just shy of Stars Landing. A shock front of superheated, ultracondensed air vaporized the cluster of buildings in a flash and scoured the deck of its manmade lawn. Driving a ring of debris ahead of it, the shock wave slammed against the station’s inner core and blasted in hundreds of transparent aluminum barriers.

  Half a second later, the hunger of the vacuum asserted itself and tore the firestorm and every bit of loose matter out through the enormous, glowing-edged gash in the hull. Silence reigned within the sterilized interior of the saucer’s upper half, even as another half dozen shining blades of fire ripped through the hull and began carving it into scrap.

  “Last torpedo’s away!” Terrell called out as he turned from the auxiliary tactical console to face the main viewer. The last photon torpedo aboard the Sagittarius streaked away and detonated in the midst of a tight formation of Tholian cruisers, whose course Terrell had deduced while watching them flee from Vanguard’s thinning barrage of phaser fire moments earlier. When the conflagration faded, nothing remained of the four ships except debris and ionized gas.

  “Good shooting, Clark,” Nassir said. Then the image on the screen pinwheeled as zh’Firro steered the slowing scout vessel into another round of complicated evasive maneuvers.

  The air in the bridge was thick with the sharp odor of burnt wiring and overheated circuits, and the normal low vibration imparted to the decks by the impulse engines had become a disconcerting clattering and banging, as if they were literally flying the ship apart, one hard turn at a time. Terrell headed aft to check Sorak’s targeting protocols and help the old Vulcan coordinate with Lieutenant Dastin, who was using the ship’s tractor beam to tow debris into enemy ships and drag enemy vessels in front of Vanguard’s still operational phaser batteries.

  Theriault cried out, “The Panama’s breaking up!”

  Turning on his heel, Terrell looked back in time to see the cargo transport splinter with fiery cracks, then break apart amidships before vanishing in a reddish-orange flash. Secretly, he was amazed they—and the Sagittarius—had lasted this long. The only reason we’re not dead yet is that the Tholians are throwing everything they have at the station, he reasoned.

  Nassir sprang from his chair to stand over zh’Firro at the forward console. “Swing us around on a wider arc,” he said, leaning with one hand on the back of her chair. “We’ll need to cover the zones the Panama was—”

  “Incoming!” Dastin cried.

  Total darkness and a sound like the end of the world. Terrell felt himself hurled through the air, as if he’d leapt from a cliff. A blinding eruption and a thunderclap sent him hurtling back in the opposite direction as heat scorched his hair and shrapnel bit into his torso and limbs. He came to a halt when he struck something that he realized moments later must have been another person between him and a bulkhead. Darkness fell again, accompanied by a deep and muddy wash of indiscriminate sounds he couldn’t name.

  He awoke in a daze to a faraway voice repeating, “Commander! Wake up!” The voice grew closer, louder, and sharper until he recognized it as Doctor Babitz’s. Struggling to push through the crushing ache in his skull, he blinked and saw the blond physician kneeli
ng over him, her face lit by the glow of her medical tricorder. “The good news is, you don’t have a concussion. The bad news is, the rest of your body looks like it’s been through a blender.”

  Behind her, Theriault watched over her shoulder and held a chemical emergency light stick whose green radiance made the bloody wounds on the left side of her face look black. “Sir, are you okay?” The science officer sounded frightened, but he couldn’t say if she feared for him, herself, the ship, or all of them at once.

  “Help me stand up,” Terrell said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Babitz said.

  “It’s an order.” Theriault grabbed his right arm, and Sorak took hold of his left. Together, the petite Martian and the elderly Vulcan hoisted Terrell upright and leaned him against the aft bulkhead. Looking around as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw little at first except smoke hanging low and heavy over the bridge. The main viewscreen was gone, the forward bulkhead a charred mess. Then he saw the twisted, burnt remains of the helm console, and the two bodies lying on the deck beside it, both draped with blue emergency blankets: Nassir and zh’Firro were dead. He tried to swallow, only to find his mouth parched and tasting of ashes. “Damage report,” he croaked as he staggered to the command chair.

  Babitz employed her most motherly voice. “Sir, you need to get to sickbay.”

  “Later. We’re still in combat.” When he noticed the doctor’s challenging stare, he added with an extra measure of authoritativeness, “You’re dismissed, Doctor.”

  The chief medical officer scowled as she walked away. “Fine,” she sniped, “but don’t come crying to me when you bleed to death.”

  Terrell watched her go, then continued trudging to the command chair. “As I was saying: damage reports, people. Let me have ’em.”

  “Lieutenant Dastin is rerouting helm control to the auxiliary panel,” Sorak said, directing Terrell’s attention toward port, where the Trill lieutenant was coaxing a damaged console back to life. “Until he does, we’re adrift. Shields and phasers are off line, and the tractor beam is down to one-quarter power.” A tremor that felt like the result of a glancing attack rocked the ship.

  Terrell lowered himself with gingerly care into the center seat. “Communications?”

  Theriault replied, “Master Chief’s working on them right now.”

  “I’ve got helm control,” Dastin declared. “Impulse and warp drive both available.”

  Pale emergency illumination flickered on around the bridge, and a few seconds later the main bridge lights returned to life and gradually increased to half their normal levels. Ilucci’s gruff voice barked from the overhead speakers, “Hey, bridge. Can you hear me now?”

  “Affirmative, Master Chief,” Terrell said. “Report.”

  “Short-range comms are up, and Captain Khatami wants a word with you.”

  Apprehensive looks passed between Terrell and his three remaining bridge officers. “Patch her through, Master Chief.”

  The next voice from the speaker was Khatami’s.

  “Endeavour to Sagittarius. Do you copy? Please respond.”

  Thumbing open the reply circuit from the command chair, Terrell said, “We read you, Endeavour. Go ahead.”

  Over the channel, he heard the sounds of battle filter through behind Khatami’s voice. The Endeavour, at least, was still in the fight. “What’s your status?”

  “No shields or weapons, but we’re still mobile.”

  “Then you need to fall back. Break off and regroup with the convoy.”

  “Captain, we can still—”

  “That’s an order, Sagittarius. Regroup with the convoy. Endeavour out.”

  The channel closed, leaving Terrell with no choice but to abandon the Endeavour and the Buenos Aires to the battle. As a soldier, it galled him to be forced into retreat, but he also knew the choice was not his to make—it was Khatami’s, and she’d made her decision very clear.

  “Helm,” Terrell said, “set course for the civilian convoy. Maximum warp until we overtake them, then reduce speed to match them. Engage.”

  “Aye, sir.” Dastin plotted the course and jumped the ship to warp.

  “Lieutenant Sorak,” Terrell rasped. The Vulcan came to his side. “It seems Doctor Babitz was right. I am bleeding rather profusely. I need you to carry me to sickbay, please.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Sorak replied, reminding Terrell that he was no longer the first officer of the Sagittarius but its de facto commanding officer. The Vulcan hoisted Terrell forward and out of the chair, then draped Terrell’s right arm across his shoulders.

  Teetering on the edge of consciousness as he was assisted off the bridge, the acting captain looked back at the shell-shocked Theriault and smiled.

  “You have the conn, Number One.”

  She smiled back as best she was able. “Aye, sir.”

  Khatami had stopped asking for damage reports when they started coming in every few seconds on their own. The warp drive was down, along with the ventral shields and half the phaser banks. Disruptor blasts and plasma charges struck the ship every few seconds, making it impossible to cross the bridge without being thrown around like a rag doll. The Endeavour had become like a punch-drunk fighter: pummeled to within an inch of its life, the only thing that seemed to keep it going was the battle itself.

  “Sagittarius made the jump to warp,” Klisiewicz confirmed.

  McCormack waved away the tattered curtain of black smoke drifting between her and the navigator’s console. “The Buenos Aires is taking heavy damage!”

  “On-screen!” Khatami leaned forward as the viewscreen switched to an angle that showed the Miranda-class frigate making wild maneuvers in a futile bid to escape a three-way Tholian crossfire. “Target the ship on their starboard flank and fire!”

  “Phasers locked,” McCormack said. “Firing!” A scathing blue beam lanced upward from the Endeavour and destroyed one of the Tholian cruisers pestering the Buenos Aires, which veered clear of its remaining pursuers and swung wide to prepare for another attack run.

  A bone-rattling crash as plasma charges slammed through Endeavour’s primary hull and plunged the bridge into darkness. Half a second later, the lights surged back, but several display screens above the aft duty stations showed only static. Thorsen scrambled across the deck to an open panel beneath the affected consoles. “Hang on,” the baby-faced blond lieutenant shouted as he slithered inside the machinery. “I’ll have them back up in a few seconds!”

  Commander Stano called out, “Brace for impact!”

  The Endeavour pitched as if it had been struck by the hand of God.

  Sparks flew, lights and consoles flickered, and bodies seemed to tumble around Khatami in slow motion, their erratic paths stuttered by the strobing light. When the ear-crushing rumble of the blast abated, Khatami heard Thorsen’s screams of pain. She turned to see Stano and Estrada pulling the tactical officer clear of the maintenance area beneath the panels, which were crackling with flames and belching toxic smoke. The explosion had peppered the young lieutenant’s face with a flurry of metal shards and scorched it with second-degree burns. Thorsen seemed to want to press his hands to his face but couldn’t bear the slightest touch, so all he could do was writhe and scream and bleed. Estrada retreated in horror from his comrade while Stano belted out, “Medkit! I need a medkit, now!”

  Klisiewicz bolted from his seat, retrieved the first aid kit from the emergency locker by the turbolift, and ran it to Stano. The first officer pried open the case, pulled out a hypospray and an ampoule of medicine, and injected Thorsen via his carotid artery. Almost instantly, Thorsen ceased his agonized wails and drifted off into a deep and—Khatami hoped—dreamless slumber.

  The captain looked at Stano. “How bad are we hit?”

  “Pretty bad,” Stano said. “They just punched two holes clean through the saucer.”

  “Load all torpedo bays, and tell Buenos Aires to do the same, we’ll need them as a wingman when we—”
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  “Buenos Aires is in trouble,” McCormack said, drawing Khatami’s attention back to the forward screen. The badly damaged frigate took several hits in rapid succession—some from disruptors, some from plasma charges—to its warp nacelles and main engineering section.

  “Hector, hail them. Hurry!”

  “Aye, Captain,” Estrada said, scrambling into action at the communications panel. Seconds later, he turned back toward Khatami. “I have Captain Jarvis on audio.”

  “Put him on.” At a nod from Estrada, she continued. “Captain Jarvis, this is Captain Khatami. What’s your status?”

  Over the white noise of distress, Captain Andrew Jarvis replied, “We are officially FUBAR, Captain. We just lost shields, phasers, and warp drive.”

  “Withdraw, Captain, we’ll cover you. Come about on bearing two eight—”

  “Negative. We’ve still got torpedoes, and I plan to use them. Jarvis out.”

  “Captain! Belay that!” When she heard no reply, she looked to Estrada.

  He shook his head. “They’ve closed the channel.”

  Stano pointed at the main viewscreen. “Look!”

  The Buenos Aires made an abrupt course change and charged directly at the densest cluster of Tholian ships circling Vanguard. Moments later the frigate unleashed a steady torrent of photon torpedoes—and accelerated behind them.

  “My God,” Stano blurted out, “they’re on a ramming trajectory!”

  Khatami sprang from her chair. “Helm! Get us to the other side of Vanguard—now!”

  The thrumming of the impulse engines escalated to a high-pitched droning as Neelakanta accelerated the ship to flank speed while guiding it through a dizzying bank-and-roll maneuver.

  A brilliant cone of destruction blazed through the Tholian armada, which scattered along dozens of vectors. Phaser and torpedo fire from Vanguard tracked the ships as they were forced out of their holding pattern, and blasted them with ferocious zeal and intimidating accuracy.