by Carey, Diane
“Until we contact the mothership,” Idrys said, “we have no way of knowing what our spies might know about that shape.”
“The Empire is afraid even to tell itself what it knows,” t’Cael told her, rather mournfully. He paced in front of the viewscreen as though he could circle that unknown vessel and choke an identity out of it. “We besiege a ship that may not be unknown to the Council at all, yet it’s unknown to us. How can we know? They’ve done nothing more threatening than appear. We may be putting our guard up against a potential ally.”
“Or an enemy so great the Supreme Praetor is afraid to tell of its existence,” Idrys added.
Ry’iak, quivering with fury, swung out from his hiding place behind the strut. “The Praetor fears nothing! And who could keep a vessel of that kind a secret?” He swung his hand toward the viewer, and indeed there was a plume of truth in his words. Even the Praetorate would not be able to hide the existence of that big and powerful a ship.
Idrys came close to t’Cael and spoke in a tone that was private, yet not a whisper, for a whisper would draw suspicion. “We must appear strong, even though we are one ship. Do we fire on them? A warning burst?”
“Is that your recommendation?” t’Cael asked her.
She thought about it, then made her answer slow and deliberate. “No. I recommend communication. Try to find out their intentions. Why they invade our space, and how so suddenly.”
“I concur,” t’Cael said. “Prepare a dispatch to the intruder. Demand identity and declaration of intentions.”
“Language, sir?”
Problem on top of problem. Was it safe to assume the interloper knew it had come deep into Rihannsu space? There was no more widespread language than that of the Homeworlds, not for hundreds of light-years. And Raze was hardly hiding its identity, with its glossy black hull and preybird feathering.
With a slight pursing of his lips, t’Cael decided. “Rihannsu common,” he said. “And hurry.”
• • •
The bewitching lethargy of unconsciousness was hard to shake. George heard the thump-thump of pain in his mind, but he couldn’t find it. For a while that was all right, like coming out of one dream and going into another. With the second dream there were other sounds—groans. His own or someone else’s? And the whimpering of the starship—bleeps and whirrs and mechanical sounds that flooded his heightened senses.
The first sense to return in full was sight. A blur of slow movements inside a haze, then, gradually, there was focus. And the pain was there too, pain in his right shoulder. He put his mind into his shoulder and clung to the stab of wrenched muscles and bruised bones. Then the things he saw began to make sense.
Carpet, only inches away. Though he thought he’d been flat on his back, he found himself on hands and knees, his head hanging and his neck aching. He tried to raise his head.
Across the bridge, Engineer Hart was trying to pull Florida to his feet, but she hadn’t found enough strength in her own throttled body to do it yet. Struck by the valor of her effort, George forced himself up onto his knees.
Moving cleared his head a little more. The bridge looked all right; nothing burning or crackling. Except for the main viewer—it was out completely, a blank gray screen.
Then he saw Drake, huddled on the lower deck against the bottom of the command chair. George pressed his knuckles into the carpet and pushed himself up. Grasping the hand rail for support, he stumbled down the bridge steps.
He ended up on one knee again, but strength was flowing back to him with each breath and each movement. He grasped Drake’s shoulders and pulled him up a little more so that he could get a good look at him. “Hey, Creole? You all right?”
Drake held on to George and blinked his eyes, breathing in shallow gasps. “Mere . . . brain fracture . . .” Beneath his dusky complexion, the ashiness of shock was retreating. His eyes focused on George and stopped blinking. “You certainly drive very rough, George.”
Beneath his hands George felt a tremor run down Drake’s arms, and Drake suddenly took a deep breath to steady himself.
“We’ve got to get up,” George said, and almost laughed because it sounded like such a casual suggestion. His own voice didn’t sound all that steady. And the laugh never came.
“Yes,” Drake said hoarsely. “I’ll help you.”
He clutched George’s arms and leaned on him. George rearranged his center of balance to get both himself and Drake upright. His own legs quivered and he felt Drake tremble again, so he steered him into the command chair and pushed him down. That took the strain off both of them. Unfortunately, it also gave George a full view of the back of the bridge. He froze in place, and stared.
A streak of blood smeared the oyster-white wall beside the turbo-lift. Like a gory arrow of graffiti scrawled by some nightstalker, it led downward, surely and directly, to a terrible sight.
“Oh, no,” George choked. “Robert . . .”
He pushed himself past the command chair and vaulted to the upper walkway. There he knelt beside the motionless form of Captain April. His hands trembled as, against better first-aid judgment, he gently turned April over.
April’s face was almost colorless, his lips drained of blood—and no wonder. All the blood in the world was pouring out a gash in the side of his head, plastering his hair into a dark wet cake. His eyes were open just a crack.
By now Hart and Drake were kneeling beside George too. Both looked wan and afraid. George was the only one with the nerve to touch the captain.
“Robert,” he spoke out. He gritted his teeth to keep control. He held April’s hands and assured him, “It’s all right . . . just don’t move.”
Above them, Sanawey was bending over the communications station, speaking quietly but urgently. “Bridge to sickbay. Medical emergency. Repeat, emergency.”
Sarah Poole’s voice was tight and angry when she responded, “Bridge, this whole ship is a medical emergency. You’ll have to bring that down here yourselves.”
Her words drove George to outrage. He flew from April’s side to the communications panel and snarled, “Goddamn you, doctor, you’re not dealing with cattle! The captain’s hurt! Get up here!”
There was a terrible pause on the other end. When Dr. Poole’s words came, they were stiff and mechanical.
“What kind of hurt?”
“Head injury.”
“Open?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t move him. I’m coming.”
“Small favors,” George grumbled, and dropped back to April’s side to grasp those bloodless hands again.
April’s hands twitched under George’s, and he moaned faintly. “George . . .” The single word took all his strength, and his whole body shuddered suddenly.
“I’m right here, Rob. Don’t move. Don’t move.” He clutched the captain’s hands tighter, probably more tightly than was safe, and turned partially around. “Hart, get back to your station. Find out what happened to us and what shape we’re in. Florida, where are you?”
“Here,” Florida answered weakly from somewhere behind him. “Right here, sir.”
“Help her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sanawey, get on the sensor systems and find out where we are.”
“Right away, sir,” the big man answered, and even his deep voice shook.
George detached himself from the ship’s business and the reassuring tune of mechanical twittering as the bridge crew got to work, and concentrated on April. He leaned over the captain, seeking that old light April’s eyes always held. He couldn’t find it. “Robert?” he called softly.
“Ship . . .” April’s breath carried only the echo of the word, and another shudder of effort moved through him.
“Don’t worry about the ship. Understand? Don’t worry. Everything’s all right. Sarah’s on her way.”
The last part apparently gave April comfort. His shuddering stopped and he relaxed under George’s hands. George watched as his captain slippe
d into unconsciousness.
“Damn,” he whispered. George felt Drake’s hand on his back, but his touch brought no comfort.
The turbo-lift opened and Sarah Poole rushed out with two med techs. Her face was flushed and tear-stained. Evidently the trip up from sickbay had done more to her than just get her up here. She stepped over April and swatted George’s shoulder with the edge of a medical kit. “Get away from him!”
Drake pulled George back to give the medics room. Sarah immediately dropped to the captain’s side and sniffed back her tears while she fingered his head wound. One medic was reading vital signs with a mediscanner while the other maneuvered a gurney out of the lift.
George watched her in grim fascination. She looked different. Her face was flushed, and her eyelashes, spiked with moisture, suddenly looked much longer. Her lips were pursed and her thin brows flattened as she tenderly examined April’s wounded head.
“How bad is it?” George ventured.
“Bad enough!” Sarah snapped. Tears drained down her cheeks freely now. She applied a pressure bandage to the side of April’s head and a tiny sob crushed out. She muttered, “Just leave him to me.”
George felt Drake’s curious gaze on him, and the uncomfortable glances of others from around the bridge, but he didn’t care. It didn’t matter how she treated him as long as she took care of April. Nothing else could possibly matter more.
When she had the bandage in place, Sarah motioned the two med techs to put April on the gurney. In seconds he was up there on his side, and she covered him with a thermal blanket. “Go on,” she ordered, flicking her hand at the techs. Without turning, she followed them into the turbo-lift.
“Keep me posted, doctor,” George called after her.
She spun around, gripping the edge of the gurney. “You leave me alone! You leave him alone!”
The turbo-lift doors closed between them.
“Good gravy,” Drake murmured in disbelief, staring at the closed lift door. “What was that?”
George contained a shiver. “I don’t care what it was,” he said, “as long as she takes care of him.” He grasped his throbbing shoulder and turned. “Hart, where’s that status report?”
Bernice Hart straightened from her examination of the engineering console, wincing in pain at what was apparently a twisted leg. She put her weight on the other foot and shook her head. “Not sure yet, Mr. Kirk. It looks like it might have been a malfunction in the gravity compensation system. That would account for slamming us up against the bulkheads and the sudden loss of pressure that caused us to blackout. The gravity systems are running on standby power, so we can assume there was a problem with the system.”
“Is it stable now?”
“Yes, it reads positive.”
“What happened to us? What made the ship do what it did?”
“Sir,” Florida called from an open access panel on the deck, “if you recall, it happened just after we engaged warp power.”
“Right,” George growled. He stepped down to the command chair and struck the intercom. “Engineering, this is Kirk. What’s the status down there?”
For a moment there was no answer. Then someone—sounded like Wood—came on. “Engineering here. Um . . . we’re a little frazzled. Can you give us a few minutes to lock down an analysis?”
“Give me a guess.”
“The engines are off line, sir,” Wood reported. “No warp power right now.”
“Why not?”
Wood hesitated. “I think because the power surge was too much for the system to take and it knew it, so the safety shutdown took over.”
“Where’s Dr. Brownell?”
“He’s . . . not able to work right yet, sir.”
“Is he dead?”
“No, sir, just incapacitated.”
“Well, capacitate him!” George barked. “Make it a priority!”
“Yes, sir, you bet I will.”
“Bridge out! Hart!”
She turned to face him, obviously exasperated. “Yes?”
“Why would all the systems shut down?”
“It’s a ship, Mr. Kirk, not a person,” she retaliated. “It doesn’t think all that discriminatingly.”
“What’s down? Specifically.”
“Specifically, the sensors, the warp drive, deflector power, life support on decks H, I, and L—”
“Damn it! Anybody down there?”
“No, there’s nobody there.”
“Seal those sections off and don’t waste power on them. What’s the count of casualties?”
“You’ll have to check with sickbay for that.”
George rubbed his hand over his bad shoulder and slumped against the command chair. “No thanks.” He winced as a muscle in his neck pinched suddenly, and made himself breathe deeply a few times. “All right . . . get with engineering and start working on the warp drive. Sanawey, what’s wrong with the sensors?”
The Indian’s uniform strained over wide shoulders as he looked up. “Just a lot of burned-out circuits, sir. I’m rerouting right now. Should have power for visuals in a few seconds.”
George pressed his knuckles to his lips and closed his eyes for a moment. “I don’t like this. This doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t sound right.”
Close beside him, Drake kept his voice down. “Try to relax yourself, Geordie. Everything seems to be back in hand,” he assured quietly. “I’m sure Captain will be hopping soon too. Empress seemed to know what to do to fix herself when she broke. She stopped the warp drive from going too far, didn’t she?”
“Warp engines aren’t that sensitive,” George complained. “They shouldn’t have gone crazy just because of an ion storm. Shut down, maybe. But not spontaneous warp like that. It just doesn’t sound right.”
“Sir,” Sanawey called then, his wide face crumpled in confusion.
George turned.
Sanawey frowned at whatever was coming through his earphone. “Sir, there’s . . .”
“What?” George prodded.
“There’s a message coming in on a high-gain hailing frequency. Not in English . . . I’m going to have to translate.”
“A message?” George moved across the lower deck and grasped the bridge rail beneath Sanawey’s station. “Where could a message be coming from?”
Sanawey touched his astrotelemetry controls and turned immediately to the big viewscreen as a hum of power swung up from the bowels of the bridge. “From them.”
George spun around, his movement echoed by Drake and Florida, and even Hart.
There, in midscreen, presenting a narrow silhouette to them, was a vulture crouching at their window.
And only the most ignorant human would fail to recognize the echo of the past painted on the black hull, against black space.
Chapter Twelve
APRIL FLOATED BACK to consciousness on the wings of a very soft bird. The first sound he heard was the reassuring bump-bump-bump of the cardiomonitor on the wall over his head. As long as he was alive it would continue to bump. If it stopped, he would worry.
He pushed air up through his throat to clear it and opened his eyes. Vision was a little blurry around the edges, but he saw what he had hoped to see—Sarah bending over him.
Her expression wasn’t completely out of a medical textbook; her lips were still tight and trails of dried tears streaked her face. “How do you feel?”
He thought about it. “I’m not entirely sure,” he admitted, feeling a little silly. The words were an effort; he had to work to keep his tongue from garbling them. “Weak. And . . . I have a headache rather worth noting. Did I—” He moved one of his hands to the side of his head.
“Yes,” Sarah said quickly, grabbing his wrist, “you used yourself for a club to hit the ship with. You bruised your whole brain.”
“Blood?” he asked, feeling a wet strand of hair.
“It was. We washed it. Now it’s just wet. Why don’t you just lie there and not complicate things.”
He tried r
aising his head. “How many others are hurt?” he asked.
Sarah sighed and tried to distract herself with readouts from a portable encephalograph. “Assorted bruises and bumps. A few fractures,” she murmured evasively.
“What about George?”
“What about him?”
“Is he all right?”
“Yes, your neo-Nazi is handling things on the bridge, never fear.”
April settled down into the soft pillow again, relieved. “Oh, good. Things’ll be fine, then.”
“That’s reassuring,” she grumbled.
“What happened to us? Have we got any reports on status yet?”
“Why don’t you just retire, Robert?”
He smiled at her in his soft English way. “Oh, come now, Sarah. I do have to ask.”
She wiped the stiff tear tracks from her cheeks and fought to compose herself even more, to retreat into the shell that kept her isolated from the things that could hurt her. “Somebody said something about gravity.”
April frowned in contemplation, then blinked and said, “Oh . . . the compensation system must have failed. Yes, that would explain it, of course. Dear, it could’ve been much worse, too.” He rolled over onto his back. The movement totally disoriented him, and he went limp.
Sarah bent over him and touched the side of his face. “Robert?”
“Still here,” he whispered. “Partly.”
She sighed and swallowed hard. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Few minutes.”
“How few, Sarah?”
She put a palm-sized encephalostat against his temple and adjusted the cauterizing beams for interior dural. “I’m not going to tell you.” Her hands were cold as she fought to keep control of her voice, to fight the urge to tell him everything that was happening on the bridge. Word had spread like a brush fire through the ship—Romulan territory, and no way to get out.
“You’ll have to get me back on my feet somehow,” Robert said then.
“Like hell I will.” Her eyes flashed with defensive anger and her pale cheeks flushed again. “You made me get Kirk for you so you’d have somebody who could take over in just this kind of situation. So let him take over!”