by David Mack
First officer’s log, supplemental
… the pain in my side was the worst I’d felt since that mugato sliced me open on Neural five years ago, but I managed to crawl the twelve meters to where the rifle was going to wind up. Razka wasn’t a fighter, and I respected that—I just wished he had realized it before that thing sliced me open.
Speaking of which, it was still trying to maintain its grip on the dish, and was hoping to use me as an anchor. It dug one claw into my boot heel as I was crawling over toward the rifle. I managed to yank my foot out of the boot, which sent the thing sprawling back down toward the center, once again trying to get some kind of footing.
The salty taste of my own blood from the two cuts on my cheeks, pain slicing through my entire torso like a phaser set on burn, I grabbed on the sonic rifle, rolled painfully onto my back, and saw the shii getting ready to pounce on me again.
It was almost funny—as it leapt through the air, I saw that my boot was still wedged in its claw.
I fired the rifle.
The shii was immobilized.
Unfortunately, its momentum was still carrying it through the air, and it landed right on top of me.
As bad as the pain in my side was before, it was a thousand times worse now. I cried out in agony.
But the good news was that the shii was just a deadweight on top of me.
A very heavy weight. I managed to push the thing off me—and it still didn’t move—and tapped my com-badge. “Computer, time.”
The grating, atonal voice of the Nalori computer said, “The time is 0014 hours.”
I had cut it close—the quasar/pulsar window would close any minute. If I didn’t do this now, I woudn’t be able to for fourteen hours. “Computer, activate ACB.”
I now had two minutes to get to the center of the dish before the annular confinement beam reached full power …
Excerpt from a letter from Razka on Sarindar to Marig on Nalor, sixteenth day of Sendrak, twenty-third year of Togh
… I had thought that everything was fine. The monster was stopped as planned. Commander Gomez was activating the beam that would stop it. And now she was moving toward the center. I, too, moved toward escape. Her route would take her to the underside of the dish. Ironically, the door she was using was the same one that I had guarded at the secondary hospital. My own route was simply back the way I came.
Then I saw that the monster had started to move. And Commander Gomez hadn’t reached the hatch yet. I reached for the tricorder, hoping I might be able to stop it. Unfortunately, I fumbled with the device and dropped it. It fell dozens of meters to the ground. So, instead, I called the commander’s name …
First officer’s log, supplemental
… and it was a good thing he did, because I was able to whirl around and fire one last time at the creature. Unfortunately, doing so seemed to rip open my wound, and I cried out.
Then I heard the steady thrum that indicated the ACB was about to come on-line. If I stayed where I was, I would be reduced to my component atoms inside about half a second.
I dove for the hatch …
Excerpt from a letter from Razka on Sarindar to Marig on Nalor, sixteenth day of Sendrak, twenty-third year of Togh
… and then I started climbing madly down the ladder. I had no idea if Commander Gomez had heard me or not. My main concern at that point was my own survival. That, and the death of the monster shii.
I heard the sound of the mighty engine that powered the dish. Forces that were intended to displace atmosphere and create a vacuum sliced through the air. The noise was deafening. The light was blinding. When we had first tested the beam, I had been standing at a safe distance. Now I was at anything but. I don’t think that my ears will ever cease ringing. Nor do I believe that the spots will ever disappear from in front of my eyes.
But I have to say it was a spectacular view. The nearby crystalline trees reflected the shimmering beam, which shot into the night with such intensity that I thought it would bisect the entire galaxy.
A lifetime later, the beam finally ceased. There was no sign of either Commander Gomez or the monster shii.
Second officer’s log, Lt. Commander Kieran Duffy, Shuttlecraft Archimedes, Stardate 53291.0
I’m on final approach to the planet Sarindar. According to the Nalori Republic representative that Captain Gold talked to when the da Vinci entered Nalori space two hours ago, all contact with Sarindar was lost several days ago. They had came across the transport ship, the Culloden, that had been assigned to the project. The Nalori had assumed that everyone else on the planet had been killed, but the testimony of the workers on the Culloden, combined with sensor readings the da Vinci took, show that the interference around the planet has gotten too heavy for even com signals to get through.
I just hope that Commander Gomez is okay.
Personal log, Lt. Commander Kieran Duffy, Shuttlecraft Archimedes, Stardate 53291.1
I landed on Sarindar to find the remnants of a tent system, some broken-down machinery, a very large concave dish—
—and Commander Gomez and a Nalori getting very drunk on Saurian brandy.
As soon as she saw me, the commander ran toward me and leapt into my arms. Before she did, I noticed that her uniform was torn in dozens of places and looked (and smelled) like it hadn’t been laundered in weeks, she had two nasty cuts on her face, and she was clutching her right side as she ran.
Then she kissed me.
I would say that the commander is alive and well and doing just fine.
Personal log, Commander Sonya Gomez, U.S.S. da Vinci, Stardate 53291.5
I had been quite convinced that Razka and I were going to get completely plastered long before anyone rescued us. But I didn’t care. I was so giddy from actually defeating the shii and knowing that I was going to live, that the fact that we would probably starve to death if someone didn’t show up soon wasn’t something either of us wanted to think about.
Then I saw the Archimedes come swooping down out of the atmosphere. It was the most glorious sight I’d ever seen. (Razka said it was the second-most glorious, as he gave first prize to the ACB wiping out the shii. Sadly, I didn’t get to see that, as I was under the hatch at the time.)
Part of it was the brandy, part of it was euphoria—and part of it was sheer stupidity, given my torso wound—but a big part of why I ran into Kieran’s arms was simply because I didn’t want to ever let go of him.
I learned a lot on this mission, and found out a lot of things about myself that I didn’t like. Primary among them was that life is too damn short to let the good things get away.
What Kieran and I had on the Enterprise was a good thing. There are probably dozens of good reasons why we shouldn’t start up our relationship again, but right now, I can’t think of a single one of them.
Now we’re back on the da Vinci. I’ve been in touch with Senator Moyya, and he actually apologized to me. Apparently he wasn’t showing the recordings I sent along to the rest of the senate because he believed they were fakes. One of his fellow senators insisted that he look at the full communiqués from Sarindar, and suddenly the senate thought that maybe their initial reaction was a bit on the harsh side.
Unfortunately, by the time the senate had realized their mistake, all communication with Sarindar had been lost, thanks to worse interference than usual from the quasar/pulsar combination. That’s also why the da Vinci’s com signal was so patchy. They had, in fact, dropped their mission to Trivas like a hot potato and come to rescue me.
The current plan is to assign new workers to the camp, with Razka now in charge, at my recommendation. He will follow the work schedule I laid out, and—without the two shii to terrorize the workers—the SA should finally be finished. The senate has also promised that Starfleet will be allowed to aid the team that studies and harvests the chimerium—and, best of all, they’re willing to talk about allowing Starfleet safe passage through to Sector 969. Which means that the mission Captain Scott gave me back
on Earth has actually been fulfilled.
This should be good news. I just wish it hadn’t come at the expense of so many lives.
I was seriously tempted not to have Dr. Lense get rid of the two scars I got. Razka said that they made me look like a Nalori who’d gotten his coming-of-age scars, and, in a sense, he was right. But I decided to get rid of them anyhow. Keeping scars is an affectation, suffered mostly by people with more mental difficulties than I’m willing to put on display. I did it after Captain Gold debriefed me and I had talked to Senator Moyya.
Now I’m in my quarters, having been instructed by both Dr. Lense and Captain Gold to relax. But I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about Zilder and Kejahna and J’Roh, and the score of others who died under my command.
I guess the only way I can make their deaths have any meaning to me at all is to live.
And I intend to do just that.
“Gomez to Duffy. Please report to my quarters.”
End log entry.
About the Authors
David Mack is a writer whose work for Star Trek spans multiple media. With writing partner John J. Ordover, he co-wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Starship Down” and the story treatment for the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “It’s Only a Paper Moon.” David and John also penned the four-issue Star Trek: Deep Space Nine/Star Trek: The Next Generation crossover comic-book miniseries Divided We Fall. David’s solo writing for Star Trek includes the Star Trek: New Frontier Minipedia and the forthcoming Starfleet Survival Guide, as well as behind-the-scenes contributions to several Star Trek CD-ROM products. Invincible is David’s first novel.
* * *
Keith R.A. DeCandido is the co-developer of Star Trek: S.C.E. with John J. Ordover, and also wrote several other S.C.E. titles (Fatal Error, Cold Fusion, and the upcoming Here There Be Monsters). Keith’s other Star Trek work includes Star Trek: The Next Generation: Diplomatic Implausibility (the first novel featuring Ambassador Worf), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Demons of Air and Darkness (part of the Gateways crossover), the two-book series Star Trek: The Brave & the Bold (which features all four TV shows, coming in 2002), and the comic book Star Trek: The Next Generation: Perchance to Dream (reprinted in the trade paperback Enemy Unseen). He has also written best-selling novels, short stories, and nonfiction books in the worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Farscape, Marvel Comics, and Xena. Learn more than you needed to know about Keith on his Web site at the easy-to-remember URL of DeCandido.net.
COMING NEXT MONTH:
Star Trek®: S.C.E.
#9
THE RIDDLED POST
By Aaron Rosenberg
The dilithium mining outpost on BorSitu Minor is an understaffed, uninteresting, unspectacular place that is full of miners, engineers, and scientists who have never done harm to anyone, nor do they have anything of value.
Yet the outpost has been devastated by a brutal assault, with almost all hands lost—and the survivors have no idea what attacked them. Worse, the weapon used appears to have the power to penetrate the outpost’s powerful shields. Any weapon that can do that is one that has the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci worried, as it could destroy a starship without difficulty.
Now the S.C.E. team led by Commander Sonya Gomez must find out the truth behind what ravaged the outpost, and pray that someone hasn’t unleashed a weapon that could destroy them all!
COMING IN OCTOBER
FROM POCKET BOOKS