by Various
The trick was going to be staying alive long enough for the virus to take effect.
Time to stall, Picard thought. At the same time, he shut down Stargazer’s linked computer network, switching to manual control.
He hailed the other ship. “What’s the matter, Madred? Don’t you recognize that probe? I thought you were a scholar and historian?”
The Cardassian’s face reappeared upon the screen. “Explain yourself, Luc!” he demanded. Behind him, the Klingon was bellowing orders at subordinates. “What is that thing out there?”
“You’re the one with the priceless collection of ancient artifacts,” Picard said mockingly. “You figure it out.”
Madred’s face purpled beneath his scales. “I’ll get my answers from you, Luc. One way or another.”
“Try and catch me,” Picard challenged him. The runabout pushed its impulse engines to the breaking point as it zoomed above Iconia, clinging to the planet’s orbit as though hoping to place the dense rotundity of the world between itself and the pursuing warship. The strain on the engines set the cockpit rattling around Picard; he could feel the vibration in his bones. The tips of the warp nacelles began to glow ominously, hinting at a risky FTL departure. In fact, he had no intention of fleeing the system. He just needed to give the Iconian computer virus time to work its high-tech magic.
“Don’t think that you can escape me, Luc,” Madred threatened him. “You’re only delaying the inevita—” He looked up in surprise as the overhead lighting aboard his bridge flickered unexpectedly. Early evidence of the virus’s progress through the Hebitia’s systems? “Halt that ship!” Madred barked. “Don’t let him get away!”
Stargazer’s warp core was located along the top of the runabout, with the deuterium tank located at one end and the antideuterium at the other. Picard gulped as he felt a disruptor burst strike the roof of his ship. “Warning,” a computerized voice announced. “Warp containment field failing. Estimate total containment collapse in eleven-point-three-zero seconds.”
“Damn!” Picard cursed. With only heartbeats to spare, he ejected the warp core before the entire runabout could be destroyed in the imminent matter/antimatter explosion. Was it too much to hope that the detonation would take out the Cardassian battleship instead?
A disruptor blast from the Hebitia quickly squelched that feeble hope. The beam ignited the warp core well ahead of the larger ship’s path. Protected by its formidable shields, the starship cruised unscathed past the explosion, even as a tremendous shock wave buffeted Stargazer, jarring Picard in his seat.
So much for my warp drive, he realized. The runabout wouldn’t be exiting this system any time soon, at least not via a working warp core. And even his impulse engines were starting to falter. Propulsion came and went in hiccups as Stargazer jerked forward erratically, gradually slowing to less than one-half impulse power. Picard reluctantly eased up on the engines to avoid burning them out completely. The runabout listed to one side, suggesting that the port engine was all but shot. Picard had to reduce power to the starboard engine to compensate. At this rate, he’d be dead in space in no time.
But the Hebitia appeared to be having problems of its own. Chaos spread on the starship’s bridge, visible on the screen before Picard’s eyes. The lights above the command area dimmed once more. Electronic snow blurred Madred’s image. A data padd floated across the screen as the ship’s artificial gravity failed. A pair of turbolift doors behaved like chattering teeth, opening and closing at a rapid pace. Agitated voices babbled in the background. The Klingon instinctively drew his disruptor pistol, but the weapon was of no use against the invisible foe sabotaging their ship.
“What’s happening?” Madred snapped irritably. He had to grab onto the armrests of his seat to keep from drifting upward. Static distorted his voice. “Somebody fix this before I have you all charged with criminal incompetence!”
Picard was impressed by the speed with which the Iconian virus was undermining the Hebitia’s operations. Cardassian computer systems seemed to be exceptionally vulnerable to the insidious virus, which was tearing through the ship’s computer firewalls and antivirus protections as though they barely existed. No surprise there; compared to the immeasurably advanced Iconian program, twenty-fourth-century software was like a child’s early attempt at finger painting. Modern security measures were hopelessly outmatched.
It’s only a matter of time now, Picard thought.
“It’s that accursed probe!” Madred realized belatedly. His face livid, he yelled at an off-screen tactical officer. “Destroy it at once.”
Told you so, Picard gloated silently. You should have listened to me.
“Disruptor controls not responding!” a panicky voice reported. “I’m completely locked out!”
“Then use the torpedoes, you fool!” Madred shrieked. His cool, condescending manner had disintegrated entirely. The imperious gul was exposed as what he truly was: a small, pitiable man who hid his lack of character behind the trappings of authority. “Do I have to think of everything myself?”
“Launching torpedoes,” his underling reported. “Targeting…wait! Something’s wrong! The torpedoes didn’t launch!”
A series of violent explosions tore apart the Hebitia as the armed torpedoes went off inside their own launch tubes. Gul Madred, the unnamed Klingon, and everyone else aboard the starship perished instantly as the Hebitia’s own warp core detonated spectacularly. Jagged pieces of scorched duranium rained down on Iconia, contaminating the two-hundred-thousand-yearold ruins on the planet’s surface. Picard mentally apologized to his fellow archeologists.
Beyond that, he had no regrets.
But what about the probe itself? Picard scanned for the glowing orb, hoping that it had not been consumed by the conflagration. He breathed a sigh of relief as the radiant blue sphere appeared on the viewscreen. Thankfully, Madred had not managed to destroy the probe with his torpedoes, which meant that Picard didn’t have to wait for another probe to be launched from the Iconian base.
This one will do just fine, he thought.
The probe hovered in space not far from the site of the Hebitia’s fiery demise. Picard guessed that he had only a few moments before the probe turned its attention to the runabout. Moving quickly, he snagged the probe in a stasis beam. Heavy layers of kelbonite shielding guarded Stargazer’s computer core, but he kept the runabout on manual control just to be safe. “Got you!” he muttered. Now he just needed to get the captured probe to where it was needed, without a warp drive or any other computerized propulsion system.
As was so often the case, the answer lay in the distant past. Rising from his seat, he pulled down a lever embedded in the ceiling of the cockpit. Outside the ship, metal panels slid away, releasing an array of delicate solar sails from concealed compartments built into the runabout’s hull. The filmy golden sails unfolded both above and below the tiny vessel, swelling and rippling beneath the subtle pressure of the tachyon eddies swirling across the void. The reflective sails resembled the wings of some alien butterfly, with a smaller jib sail sprouting between them like antennae.
Over eight centuries ago, the ancient Bajorans had employed similar sails to explore vast reaches of interstellar space, even reaching Cardassia Prime many light-years away. Alliance propagandists regularly trumpeted this accomplishment as proof of the historic bond between Bajor and Cardassia. Picard had chosen to focus instead on the solar sails as an elegant way of bypassing the Iconian computer virus.
His original plan had been to use the solar sails to reach the surface of Iconia, where he’d hoped to explore the tantalizing ruins dotting the planet. His priorities had changed, however, so instead he tacked against the astral winds, charting a course back toward Alliance space. His tractor beam dragged the Iconian probe behind him.
To cut down on his mass, he jettisoned the useless warp nacelles. They’d cost a pretty penny to replace someday, but he couldn’t afford to worry about that now. A subatomic stream of faster-than-li
ght particles swept Stargazer forward at an ever accelerating rate. He caught a powerful eddy just outside the Iconian system, and soon the runabout was sailing through space at nearly warp six. Picard searched the runabout for more nonessentials to jettison. A spare deuterium injector, a secondhand environmental suit, three bars of gold-pressed latinum (courtesy of Gul Madred), a chest of contraband Denevan crystals (ditto), a defective flow regulator, a supply of Alliance-issue water packs, drained neodymium power cells, and a case of Ktarian merlot were all beamed out into space, just to increase his speed. All that mattered was whether he could get the ship going fast enough to make a difference.
He had an appointment with the Borg.
Stargazer’s walls had nearly been stripped bare by the time he intercepted the Borg. Tracking the relentless invader had proved no challenge at all. The Borg diamond was making a beeline for the Klingon homeworld, leaving a trail of devastated colonies and bases behind it. Beta Thoridar, Khitomer, and Morska had all fallen before the Borg’s ceaseless onslaught. Picard just had to follow the distress signals:
“Mayday! Mayday! W’Nakki Central—the entire city—was just yanked into space. Survivors require immediate assistance. Please respond!”
Picard regretted that he could not pause to offer succor to the shell-shocked victims. Until the Borg were stopped, no one in the Alliance was safe.
I’ve got enough on my plate already, he thought. Those poor souls are going to have to fend for themselves.
Sailing toward Qo’noS, he encountered a flood of refugee ships heading in the opposite direction. All manner of freighters, shuttles, scout ships, and other transports were taking part in a frantic exodus from the Borg’s path of destruction. Abandoning the Beta Quadrant altogether, the frightened civilians warped past Stargazer as they raced toward Cardassian space. Picard felt like a Terran salmon swimming upstream.
“You’re going the wrong way, you damn fool!” a Bajoran vedek hailed him from a fleeing Antares-class carrier. Picard glimpsed a cargo bay full of weeping orphans behind her. “The Day of Reckoning is upon us. Save yourself if you can!”
Picard appreciated the warning, even if he had to ignore it. “Thanks,” he said gruffly, “but I know what I’m doing.”
I hope.
“Then may the Prophets preserve you,” the vedek said. Picard was aware that some of her order ran an “underground spaceway” that helped smuggle Terran slaves to freedom outside the Alliance. “And shield you from damnation.”
Her distraught face blinked off the screen. The orphan ship vanished into the distance.
“You, too,” Picard muttered. He had never been a religious man, but he accepted the vedek’s blessing without complaint. Against the Borg, he was going to need all the help he could get.
By all indications, the Alliance was making its stand in the Kowletz system, near Rura Penthe. The frozen prison planet was known throughout the galaxy as “the alien’s graveyard.” Count-less rebels and dissidents had met their end on that frigid planetoid. Would it now become the site of the Alliance’s demise as well? There would be a certain poetic justice in that.
A full-scale battle was already under way as Stargazer glided into the system. Picard was impressed despite himself at the massive armada aligned against the oncoming Borg diamond. Klingon birds-of-prey and battle cruisers, Cardassian warships, Bajoran assault vessels, and even a few Ferengi marauders swarmed around the gigantic diamond like angry wasps, strafing the Borg ship’s hull with phasers and photon torpedoes. Fiery explosions blossomed against the diamond’s technology-encrusted faces, but did not appear to be inflicting any significant damage. Ruptured bulkheads repaired themselves with unnerving speed. Force fields deflected disruptor beams of varying hues and intensity. Lethal pyrotechnics lit up the darkness.
No Romulan ships, Picard noted. The Star Empire was letting the Alliance take on their common enemy alone. That could be a tragically shortsighted decision.
He saw at once that the battle was going badly for the Alliance. Although severely outnumbered, the Borg ship was cutting a deadly swath through the assembled fleet. Incandescent ruby beams targeted the attacking starships with merciless efficiency. Not a single shot was wasted; every beam struck home. The searing lasers punched straight through the shields of both Cardassian and Klingon warships. Superheated plasma gushed from gaping wounds in the ships’ fragile hulls. Picard watched in horror as an unlucky marauder was split right down the middle, spilling a crew of murdered Ferengi into the vacuum of space. The Divine Treasury just got a little more crowded, Picard thought. It’s going to be a seller’s market at the Celestial Auction.
His comm system picked up snippets of agitated voices:
“…situation urgent. Require immediate reinforcements!”
“Casualties at ninety percent, deflectors off-line!”
“Rotarran is gone! Repeat, Rotarran is gone….”
“…this is Glinn Telle, assuming command. Request fresh instructions….”
“Who is in charge here? We need a new strategy!”
“…shields failing…multiple hull breaches on levels delta through…”
“Execute attack sequence thirty-seven-zee…now, damnit!”
“…it’s firing again…attempting to eva—”
“Somebody stop these honorless baktags !”
“Fire at will!”
Picard eyed the savage fireworks warily. He hadn’t come all this way just to get caught in a cross fire. His sails flapped wildly as he tacked to windward. He skirted around the edges of the conflict, trying to get as close to the Borg ship as he dared. Wrecked starships, in varying stages of obliteration, cluttered the battlefield. Well-acquainted with the Alliance’s forces, as every savvy Terran needed to be, Picard recognized several of the derelict vessels. The B’Moth, the Groumall, the Vor’nak, the Ya’Vang, the Akorem, the Reklar, and numerous other warships drifted like flotsam across the smoky void. A Bajoran assault vessel, spewing sparks from its tail section, crashed into the arctic wastes of Rura Penthe, raising a cloud of snow and ice within the planetoid’s atmosphere. Seconds later, Picard had to tack sharply to the left to avoid colliding with a spinning fragment of charred tritanium. The jagged shard, which was at least twice the length of Stargazer, went whirling off into space.
Viewing the massacre, Picard had profoundly mixed feelings. If there was any justice, those two brutal guards from Celtris III had been aboard one of those ravaged battle cruisers. He was almost tempted to let the Borg reach Qo’noS, just to see the Klingon Empire brought to ruin. This was Vash’s most fervent dream come to life: the Alliance routed at last.
Too bad that dream was also a nightmare.
“Resistance is futile.” The Borg broke into the fleet’s babel of frenzied communications. “Lower your shields and surrender your vessels. We will assimilate your technology and biological distinctiveness. Your constituent species will adapt to serve us.”
The voice of the Borg sounded different, as though it was emanating from a single throat instead of the usual faceless multitude. It took Picard a moment to place the dull, uninflected tones.
Soong?
“The Klingon Empire will never surrender!” a guttural voice bellowed angrily. Picard traced the transmission to a battle-scarred bird-of-prey. The winged vessel swooped past the Borg diamond, unleashing a volley of photon torpedoes—to no avail. “We will die with honor first! So says Kang!”
His spoonheaded allies responded differently. “Alliance forces,” a cooler voice addressed the surviving combatants. “This is Gul Trepar. Pull back at once.” A battered Cardassian warship turned away from the fray, leading a retreat toward the Alpha Quadrant…and Cardassia Prime. “Regroup at the rendezvous point.”
Cardassian pragmatism won out over Klingon honor as the Cardassian and Bajoran vessels abandoned the fight, leaving only a handful of Klingon ships to carry on the battle against the Borg. “Cowards! Traitors!” Kang railed at his departing allies. His bird-of-prey took
potshots at the fleeing armada. “Your souls will swelter on the Barge of the Dead!”
Picard had to smile at the disarray. If the Alliance survived the next few hours, there would be some serious fence-mending to be done between the Cardassians and the Klingons. The High Council would demand that heads roll. Literally.
But first he had to save the Alliance.
“Klingon vessels,” he broadcast, announcing his presence. “This is Agent Galen on a classified mission for the Obsidian Order.” The truth would have taken far longer to explain. “Do not fire upon me while I take action against the Borg.”
He held his breath, waiting for the Klingons’ response.
“Understood,” Kang said. The grizzled face of an elderly Klingon warrior appeared on the viewscreen. A disheveled gray mane hinted that the veteran soldier was at least one hundred years old, while his face was clean-shaven, unusual for a warrior. Seemingly oblivious to the jagged gash upon his ridged brown, he scrutinized Picard. If he wondered why any human would be working for the Cardassian secret police, he clearly had more pressing matters on his mind. “All forces, hold your fire!” He nodded gravely at Picard. “Do what you can, Terran. At this point, I’d accept help from an army of tribbles.”
Likewise, Picard thought, relieved that he didn’t have to worry about friendly fire for the moment. For a Klingon, Kang seemed eminently sensible. On Picard’s viewscreen, the surviving birds-of-prey and battle cruisers pulled back to allow Stargazer a clear path at the Borg diamond. Picard took a deep breath before committing himself. There was no turning back now. It was time to cross the Rubicon…and hope for the best.
Towing the captured probe behind her, Stargazer sailed toward the oncoming Borg ship. Compared to the looming steel edifice, as well as the lurking Klingon warships, the compact runabout was easily the least intimidating vessel in the entire system. Good, Picard thought. Let them underestimate me.
His approach, however, did not go unnoticed. The Borg ship’s menacing image vanished from the screen, replaced by a colorless, black-and-white figure. Picard blinked in surprise, barely recognizing the man in front of him.