by Diane Duane
Chapter Eighteen
“Tafv did what!”
Ael stared at Jim and Spock, and her heart hammered in her gut as if she had been wounded again. Suddenly the phaserfire all around, the sound of explosions, meant nothing to her at all. “But, but he—”
“They don’t know exactly why he did it,” Jim said, looking as angry as Ael did. “He’s in sickbay, unconscious from injuries. The people he brought with him are almost all dead. But Ael, we don’t have time for it now! We’ve got other problems.”
“Battlequeen is up there, Commander,” Spock said, “with two other ships, and they are firing at Enterprise. Your friend LLunih may have found the help he was looking for despite our best efforts.”
It was easy for them to say that they had no time for other problems. Ael’s rage at her own blindness and folly was terrible. The one spot she had reckoned her strongest, the one person she could trust above all others, suddenly betraying her—And her honor was truly in rags now, she was disgraced before her own heart and the Elements forever—Bitter pragmatism reasserted itself, though, the old habit ingrained by so many other defeats. “How close are we to the transporters?”
“About a hundred meters,” Spock said. But they might as well have been a hundred light-years away, for this corridor was the most fiercely held of any they had come down yet. The Rihannsu at the far end of it doubtless knew that if they could only hang on a little longer, Battlequeen’s people would arrive in force—and there would be an end to fighting, and a beginning to an interesting evening of tortures.
“Captain,” she said, “we cannot hope to break out of here! We are almost out of weapons, those few we still have are almost out of charge, we are almost all wounded, even the poor rock can barely move—”
“Hope,” Jim said, still looking around him for possible options, “is illogical…. Still, it has its uses. Spock?”
“The commander’s summation, while emotionally delivered, is quite correct,” Spock said. “We are pinned, and scan shows another group of Rihannsu working around to join those presently attacking our rear. They do not have to do much to us, Captain. They can easily contain any attempt we might make to break out of this area.”
“Noted. However, Mr. Spock—if it becomes plain that this is a non-survival situation—we will not be taken without a fight.”
“Yes, sir.”
And having decided that, they began to look around them for ways out again. Ael shook her head slowly, feeling shamed by their courage and privileged to have seen it. “Gentlemen—”
Jim’s communicator beeped. “Kirk here.”
“Captain,” Mr. Scott’s voice said, “we’ve got a problem….”
“The shields, I would imagine.”
“They’re holding, sir. Barely. Helve and Lahai are whittling away at them— Battlequeen’s not in range yet. Sir, that ship looks like one of the new-model Klingon destroyers. We’re going to be in deep trouble if it gets here…and I don’t see any way to stop it.”
“Mr. Scott,” Jim said, “under no circumstances are you to allow my ship to be taken.” His eyes flickered to Ael, asking her silently about her crew. She simply nodded. “The commander concurs as regards Bloodwing personnel aboard the Enterprise; you had better let them know. And should things come to that pass, blow Intrepid, and the station too.”
“Understood,” Scotty said. “What the devil—”
“What’s wrong, Scotty? That hasn’t gone wrong already, anyway.”
“Ach,” Scotty said, sounding disgusted, “it’s that Bloodwing, Captain; she’s firin’ at us now, pointblank!”
Ael shook her head miserably and leaned it against the fire-blackened wall, sick at heart. “Something odd about that, Mr. Scott,” she heard Mr. Chekov say in the background.
“What then, lad?”
“Her phasers are firing at minimum intensity, Mr. Scott,” Chekov said, his voice sounding very odd—almost jubilant. “No effect on our screens—”
“Give me a power consumption curve on her.”
“Normal, Mr. Scott! No damage to Bloodwing, no engine trouble and she doesn’t have her shields up—”
“Scotty,” Jim said urgently, “hail her!”
“Uhura—”
In the background they could hear Uhura opening a frequency, challenging Bloodwing. “On screen, Mr. Scott—”
“Enterprise,” came a familiar voice—Aidoann, frantic, but thinking as usual. The sickness about Ael’s heart came undone, and she sat up straight. “Mr. Scott, where’s the commander?”
“Scotty,” Jim said, “patch me through! Aidoann, this is Kirk, the commander’s with us and well—”
“Captain,” Aidoann said, “you must get out of there! We can’t keep up this pretense much longer, the other ships will be within range to read our status on sensors—”
“Energize, wide scan!” Ael cried. “You can take us in three groups, four at the most! Beam us over to Intrepid! Captain, where? Their rec room?”
“Yes—! Spock, warn everybody—Scotty, give Bloodwing our coordinates, take everybody with a translator installed, the Vulcans have them too! Hurry it—”
The phaser fire broke out close behind them. People threw themselves in all directions, firing back—
—and the world dissolved in a storm of crimson dazzle, the form of fire that Ael decided right then she would always like best—
O, by my Element!! she thought, as Bloodwing’s transporter let go of her and dropped her six feet to the carpeted floor. The carpet was no help; she heard various Enterprise people complaining about the drop, though the Vulcans all somehow seemed to come down on their feet. “Move it,” Jim was shouting, “get off the coordinates, there’re two more groups coming—!”
People scrambled desperately for the walls. Ael ran with the rest, pausing only long enough to scoop up Dr. McCoy in the process and drag him along with her; he had been trying to stand and failing. Now he was testing his left leg for breaks and saying a great many things that her translator flatly refused to render. She dropped him more or less against the wall, looking frantically around her to see how her people were doing. In midair another great group of people materialized and, slam!, fell to the floor. “Never complain about our transporters again,” McCoy was growling behind her, “yours are even worse!”
“Physician,” Jim said, kindly but hastily, as he came up behind Ael, “stuff thyself. Better still, get down to the sickbay with Dr. Seiak and start healing some of these people.” He paused, watching the third group materialize and go slam!; then lifted his communicator again. “Scotty, is that it?”
“It is, Captain,” Aidoann said. “We’ve got to put our screens up; and they’re getting close enough to hear our ’com. Enterprise, we’re with you!”—and she closed her channel down.
Ael began holding her breath.
“We’ve got a hole card, Mr. Scott,” Jim said, as jubilant as Chekov had been. “We’re going to get this creature going—”
“But she’s cold! It’ll take fifteen minutes, Captain—”
“Hold as you can, Scotty. If the situation becomes unsaveable, my earlier orders stand. No more communication, or you’ll give away the fact that there’s someone on this ship.”
“Aye. Good luck, sir—”
“Same to you, Scotty. Out.”
Sehlk and T’Leiar had found Jim. “Sir, we have a problem—”
“Where’s Captain Suvuk?”
“Still out, in sickbay. Captain—”
“I know. Cold engines.”
“It would not be a problem,” Spock said from behind Jim, “if we had some ‘hot’ antimatter to seed the reaction.”
“Too late for a jumpstart,” Jim said. “Enterprise and Bloodwing both have their screens up, and they can’t drop them—”
—and Ael let out the breath she had been holding at the sound and sight of a final shimmer of Bloodwing transporter effect in the middle of the room. The forms solidified: Tr’Keirianh and t’
Viaen from her engine room, and between them a magnetic bottle in an antigrav mount. Her two crewfolk fell and got up again, complaining softly. The bottle in the mount just hovered there.
“Captain,” Ael said, “you were saying you needed some antimatter?”
He stared at her.
“I ordered it readied after the question of cold engines came up in the briefing,” she said. “Unfortunately things got so busy—”
“Lady,” he said, once again with that peculiar courtesy—and then stopped, and shook his head. “Never mind. Mr. Spock, Mr. Sehlk, come along. Sehlk, we’re going to do something illogical and very effective to T’Leiar’s engines….”
The bridge of the Intrepid was if possible even lovelier than that of the Enterprise—bigger, more open and modern. And at the moment it was rather livelier, with T’Leiar holding down the center seat, and people and communications crackling in all directions. It amused Ael that while down in the station, under the worst possible circumstances, the Vulcans had seemed so very marvelous—and now, back on their own ship and theoretically in worse danger than before, they were all immersing themselves in an (apparent) calm that was utterly prosaic by comparison. Territoriality, Ael thought, as strong as a Rihannsu’s. They are a lot more fun when they’re in trouble. Look at T’Leiar, she was like a mad thrai when she was fighting; now there’s nothing left but a businesswoman—
“Transporter room?” T’Leiar was saying, “report! Is the transportation of the genetic material complete?”
“The last load is coming aboard now, Commander.”
“Are you quite certain everything’s there?”
“Commander,” said the serene Vulcan woman on the other end of the conversation, “we have beamed up every piece of archival copy, of any sort, in the entire station. Tapes, paper, film, metal—nothing was missed. Number four cargo hold was filled entirely with the papers and tapes alone. The genetic material took up six and nearly all of seven….”
“Very well. Engineering,” T’Leiar said. “Captain Kirk?”
“Kirk here. Five more minutes, T’Leiar—the warp engines are in restart cycle now, and Spock and Sehlk are in decontamination. Sihek says you can have impulse, though, if you want it.”
“Excellent. Si’jsk, take us out at maximum impulse. Advise Enterprise and Bloodwing.”
“T’Leiar,” said Jim from engineering, “have them lay in courses for eta Trianguli—but have them depart this area in three different directions.”
“Sir,” T’Leiar said politely, “there are only two of them.”
“Noted, Commander, but I want you to do it too….”
“That is what I thought you meant, Captain. But ambiguity might—”
“Yes, I suppose it might. Is Commander t’Rllaillieu there?”
“Here, Jim,” Ael said.
“I forgot to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“The antimatter.”
“No matter,” Ael said. “Perhaps I’ll borrow a cup of it from you some day.”
Jim chuckled. “Oh, oh. Sorry, T’Leiar, Terran error creeps into calculation again. No warp engines in five minutes.”
“No, Captain?”
“No, warp capacity now. And here come Spock and Sehlk early.”
“Noted, sir. Lieutenant T’Kiha, how far are we from this system’s primary?”
“Three hundred million kilometers, madam. Well outside the warpflight boundary.”
“That’s well. Warp two immediately, accelerate to warp six as soon as feasible. Advise Enterprise and Bloodwing. Mr. Setek, arm photon torpedoes and report when phasers are ready.”
“Photon torpedoes charging now. Phasers ready—”
“Good. Pursuit, T’Kiha?”
“Lahai and Helve are in pursuit, but not keeping pace,” said the helm officer. “Slipping behind. Also, Enterprise reports dropping its last jamming buoy.”
“Excellent. What is Battlequeen’s status?”
“Gaining on us, madam. Warp six and accelerating rapidly.”
T’Leiar’s face, for all its immobility, indicated that she did not consider that excellent. “Evasive.”
“Commencing.”
Ael sat down at a side station. It was good evasive action, but not as inspired as Mr. Sulu’s—and Battlequeen was still chasing them. “Commander T’Leiar, may I suggest something?”
The bridge doors hissed open. “You snake,” Jim said, “what have you got in mind this time?”
“Why, only this—” She saw Jim wince, and laughed, considering that they were still living with the results of the last time she had said those words—and might yet die of them. “Jim, there’s Battlequeen coming—”
“So I see,” Jim said, annoyed. It was hard to miss that ship. “Even with Intrepid’s new engine refit, I don’t think we can outrun one of those things. And I know Enterprise can’t. So?”
“Well.” Ael reached into her pocket and pulled out a logic solid.
“You want us to fake a Romulan ID?” Jim said, half teasing, half annoyed. “Ael, this is no time—”
“Of course it isn’t, you fool.” Heads turned around the bridge, and Ael ignored them. “Before Spock started infecting the Levaeri computers, I was looking through the system and stumbled on something interesting.” She juggled the solid lightly in one hand. “The Sunseed program.”
He stared at her blankly.
“Sunseed!” Ael said. “They had to have it to catch all those little Vulcan ships, Jim.” She held it up in front of his face. “Wouldn’t you like to start your very own ion storm—and leave those three ships to founder in it? Here’s the program.”
“Oh my God,” Jim said. “Sehlk!”
The doors hissed open. “Will I do, Captain?” said a mellow voice—and Captain Suvuk walked in. He looked wasted and tired, and the plast that McCoy and Sihek had put on him did little more than cover the worst of his facial wounds; the thought of what injuries lay hidden under the uniform was terrifying. But the man was all power and certainty, though he staggered, and had to support himself on the back of his center seat as he stepped down to them.
“Sir—” Jim said.
“I heard,” Suvuk said. “I have been listening from sickbay. Commander,” he said to Ael, “there would be a certain irony in turning against our pursuers the weapon they used on us. Am I correct in hypothesizing that we are going to need a star to make this work?”
“Yes, sir.” She and Jim followed Suvuk up to the communications station. “We would be stimulating the star’s corona not only with phasers and photon torpedoes, but our own warpfield. I understand that though it works well enough with one ship, it would do better yet with two, or three—”
“Two, I think, Commander,” said Suvuk. “I doubt Bloodwing could match the”—he paused to put the solid down on the comm station’s reading plate—“the warp eleven speeds that this requires. And we have little time to implement; the fewer ships we must coordinate in this maneuver, the better. I see that the parameters and frequencies for the phasers are adaptable to our standards. T’Leiar, pass this information on to Enterprise—”
“Already done, sir.”
Ael blinked. “Intrepid,” Scotty’s voice said, “this is Enterprise—”
“I’m here, Scotty,” Jim said. “Don’t stop for discussion. Do it!”
“Aye, sir.” And Scotty switched off.
“Timings, sir—”
“I am adding them now,” Suvuk said. The bridge doors opened and Spock came hurriedly in, followed by Sehlk. “Sir, what we are—” they both said, practically in unison, to Jim and Suvuk respectively.
“What a fascinating program,” Suvuk said mildly. “Mr. Sehlk, pass these phaser settings and photon torpedo dispersal patterns on to the weapons officer at once. Do you see the ingenuity of it, madam, gentlemen? The ionization effect propagates from the star’s coronal discharges, but in a spiral pattern like a pulsar’s series of ‘rotating’ wavefronts. Of course we shall have
to get quite close to that star, inside the warp boundary in fact; but paradoxically the stimulation of the corona will keep the stellar chromosphere from being overstimulated, a most elegant—”
“Sir,” Sehlk said, in a voice that sounded much more like Jim’s than like Spock’s; and Suvuk turned, looking calmly at his first officer with an expression more like Spock’s than like Jim’s. Ael raised one hand to hide her mouth. “Enterprise reports ready.”
“Mr. Sehlk, a word with my ship, if I may?”
Sehlk nodded at the ’com console, and the Vulcan communications officer looked up at Jim. “Scott here,” said that oddly-accented voice.
“Just this, Scotty. Be careful not to set up a backlash effect—this is not the time to go back in time twenty-four hours!”
“Aye, indeed, Captain,” Scotty said, as close to laughter as Ael had heard him in some time. “Good luck to you. And to Intrepid.”
“The same from them,” Jim said, looking at Suvuk’s calm face. “Out.”
“Battlequeen is closing in on us, Captain,” said Sehlk. “One light-minute and closing.”
“Implement the ion-storm maneuver, then,” said Suvuk.
The ship’s great warp engines began to roar. Ael, glancing at Jim, noticed that he had found himself an empty station and had closed the anti-roll arms down over his thighs: Spock was doing so on the other side of the room. Ael sat down at one of the security stations and did the same. Suvuk, hanging on to things all the way down, found his way to the center seat.
“Computer lock on the star,” Suvuk said. “Shut down ship’s sensors for the closest part of the pass. Screen off.”
It was just as well, for they were already closer to the Levaeri primary than Ael had ever wanted to be to any star; she could see its corona already beginning to flare and twist wildly at their approach. Unfortunately, there was now no telling except by report how Bloodwing was doing, or how close Battlequeen was getting….
Ael began to sweat. The thought of Lyirru blowing them all up was bad, but the thought of him getting hold of them and taking them back to ch’Rihan was worse still. O, Elements, she thought, if it has to be one or the other, let him blow us up! Then she rebuked herself; perhaps the Enterprise people would prefer to survive, on the grounds that while there was life there was hope. They may have something there, she thought. I have never seen such a lot of survivors….