Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire

by David R. George III

  “Photon torpedoes, now!” Sisko yelled. “Wide spread.”

  For a moment that seemed to stretch interminably, nothing happened, but then Sisko saw a series of red flashes scream toward the marauder. At the last instant, the Tzenkethi ship swung around, making a turn that should have been too tight for so large a vessel. Okinawa’s phasers streaked past it, off into space, before ceasing. The solar-hot beam of the plasma cannon broke off as the marauder’s flight carried the weapon’s emitter out of sight. The first photon torpedo went wide, and the second, but the next three traced a dotted line across the teardrop hull. The Tzenkethi deflectors flared, then faded.

  “Their shields are down,” announced Snowden.

  Offer your surrender, Sisko thought, but he knew that the Tzenkethi could do that in only one way: by standing down completely. There could be no subspace contact, as the first attacks of Okinawa and Assurance had successfully taken out the communications arrays of the marauders. The Tzenkethi couldn’t be permitted to bring more ships to the Entelior system before Starfleet’s reinforcements arrived.

  As Sisko watched, another dark square appeared on the hull of the marauder as a panel slid clear of whatever it protected. He hoped to see escape pods, but then a collection of white-hot strands shot toward Okinawa. Sisko felt the ship shake violently beneath him.

  “Shields down to forty-five percent,” Snowden called. Okinawa jolted suddenly, and Sisko turned to his console. He raised the schematics for the ship’s active power matrix, and saw that they’d lost one of the impulse reactors. “Shields down to thirty-seven percent,” Snowden said, and Sisko realized that the reactor must have exploded, taking out part of the hull and attacking Okinawa’s deflectors from within.

  “All weapons, fire!” cried Captain Leyton. “Maximum spread.”

  Sisko heard the sounds of the ship’s phasers being fired, and felt the almost imperceptible rattle of photon torpedoes being launched. On the viewer, the marauder veered sharply again, but it could not escape the massive onslaught of Okinawa’s weaponry. The plasma cannon halted as the phaser blasts landed, dark patches erupting on the Tzenkethi hull. The first photon torpedo sailed past the marauder, but the second exploded near the plasma cannon. The detonation ripped a hole in the ship, sending a shower of fragments spinning off into space.

  The third torpedo did the same, and the fourth started a chain reaction. Explosions bloomed seemingly everywhere on what remained of the marauder’s hull, until the intense light of destruction hid the ship from view. When it cleared, the Tzenkethi vessel was gone.

  For a few seconds, Sisko stared at the area where a ship had just been. Where a crew had been, he thought. He had come to fear and despise the Tzenkethi, who had destroyed the Starship Lewis & Clark, who had wiped out the colony on Raville II, who had instigated yet another unprovoked campaign against the Federation. He understood and agreed with the need to defend against the Tzenkethi Coalition, to battle them and prevent them from sowing destruction across the quadrant. But he didn’t have to enjoy being a part of that defense, being a part of the effort that took lives, even those of hostiles.

  “Damage report,” Sisko said, so quietly that nobody on the bridge could have heard him. He waved away the smoke again, cleared his throat, then repeated his order.

  “Checking,” said Snowden. “Weapons and warp drive intact. Shields at thirty-five percent. One impulse reactor down. Tractor beam and secondary sensor array offline. Hull breaches on decks seventeen through nineteen aft, structural integrity fields in place. Radiation leaks on the primary hull aft, damage-control teams responding.” She tapped at her controls, and then, in a quieter voice, said, “Eleven dead, thirty-nine wounded.”

  Captain Leyton got up from the command chair and stepped forward, to where Thiemann and Lafleur crewed ops and the conn, respectively. Leyton put a hand atop Thiemann’s shoulder. “Show me the Assurance.”

  The lieutenant worked her panel, and the Assurance came into view. Irregular black patches marred several locations on its hull. It hung in space not far from the second Tzenkethi marauder. The reddish form of a barren, ringed planet, the fourth world in the Entelior system, afforded the panorama a vivid background.

  “Take us there,” ordered the captain, and Ensign Lafleur complied. Then, to Snowden, he said, “What’s their status?”

  “The second Tzenkethi ship has lost shields and weapons, and their life support is functioning at minimal levels,” Snowden said. “The Assurance has lost its impulse engines, and their shields are completely down, but otherwise they’re not in bad shape.”

  Leyton glanced over at Sisko, and the first officer left his station and joined the captain at the center of the bridge. “We’re going to be hard-pressed to accommodate hundreds of Tzenkethi prisoners,” the captain said.

  Sisko blinked, unsure of the implication of Leyton’s statement. “We can’t fire on an unarmed crew,” he said, declaring the obvious.

  “No,” Leyton said, though he did not sound completely convinced. “Recommendations?”

  “The third planet in the system is Class L,” Sisko said. “Marginally habitable. We could—”

  “Captain!” Thiemann cried, and Sisko and Leyton both looked at the lieutenant, who pointed forward. Sisko peered up at the main viewscreen, where the Tzenkethi marauder darted toward Assurance on what seemed like a weapons run.

  “I thought you said the marauder’s weapons systems were down,” Sisko said to Snowden.

  The lieutenant checked her panel. “Verified,” she said.

  “They’re going to ram the Assurance,” Leyton said.

  The crew of the bridge stared at the unfolding scene on the main viewer. At the last moment, the Tzenkethi vessel slammed to a halt, then yawed on its axis. The tapering aft section of the teardrop-shaped hull swung around in an impossibly fast maneuver that must have overwhelmed the ship’s inertial dampers. Sisko couldn’t believe that the marauder didn’t tear itself apart.

  The tip of the Tzenkethi ship sliced through the pylon supporting Assurance’s starboard warp nacelle. An explosion bloomed outward, the fire and gas swallowed in the next instant by the emptiness of space. Sisko watched in horror as the nacelle went spinning off in one direction while Assurance tumbled away in another.

  “Weapons,” said the captain. “Open fire as soon as we’re in range.” But as soon as the Tzenkethi marauder steadied after its attack on Assurance, it streaked away. “Initiate pursuit,” Leyton said, throwing himself into the command chair.

  “Sir,” said Sisko, still gazing at the viewscreen. On it, Assurance plunged toward the planet.

  “Get me Walter,” the captain said.

  The scene that appeared on the main viewer contrasted radically with the one Sisko had seen earlier. Captain Walter, disheveled, his uniform sliced open down the right side of his chest, looked beaten, the bridge around him charred and smoky.

  “Captain,” he said, breathless, “we’re falling into the atmosphere and our impulse engines are down. My chief engineer and half her team are dead or wounded. We need assistance.”

  To Sisko’s surprise, Leyton hesitated, then turned toward Snowden. “Lieutenant, speed and heading of the marauder.”

  Snowden took a beat to find the information. “They’re traveling at warp five, on a direct course back to Coalition space.”

  Leyton turned back toward the viewer. “Where they’ll inform the Tzenkethi fleet what’s happened here,” he said. “They’ll bring back an armada, and it’s a certainty that they’ll locate the bilitrium.”

  “Pull us out of the atmosphere and then go after them,” Walter said.

  Again, Leyton hesitated. “Out tractor beam is down.”

  A shadow seemed to cross Captain Walter’s face as he realized the implication. A rush of thoughts swirled through Sisko’s mind. He considered the crew of Assurance activating their ship’s tractor beam, and having Okinawa travel into the beam to connect the two vessels and then haul it back into space.
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br />   No good, Sisko thought. It would be too great a risk for Okinawa, but—

  “Go after the Tzenkethi,” Walter said evenly, though the color had drained from his face. “You have to prevent them from reporting back to their fleet and coming back here in force. The bilitrium . . .”

  “George—” Leyton started to say, but Sisko interrupted him.

  “Captain, give me three shuttles and I can pull the Assurance out of there,” he said. “That way, you can stop the Tzenkethi.”

  This time, Captain Leyton didn’t hesitate.

  “Go.”

  Sisko sat at the operations console aboard the shuttlecraft Naha. Beside him, Master Chief Petty Officer Kozel, one of Okinawa’s highest rated pilots, worked the conn. Through the forward ports loomed the ruddy form of Entelior IV, and somewhere below, the Starship Assurance and its crew of seven hundred plummeted toward destruction.

  “Nago and Chatan signal that they’re in formation and ready, Chief,” Sisko told Kozel. “Take us in.”

  “Yes, sir,” hissed the Saurian as his claws raked across his panel.

  At once, Entelior IV seemed to rise outside the ports as Kozel aimed the shuttle’s nose toward the planet’s surface. Sisko checked the sensors and saw Nago and Chatan following closely behind, one off to port, one to starboard. Scans also picked out Assurance, thousands of kilometers below Okinawa’s trio of auxiliary craft.

  Sisko reached up and opened a channel. “Shuttlecraft Naha to Assurance.”

  “Assurance, Captain Walter here,” came the immediate reply. “We don’t have much time, Commander.” Sisko perceived tension in his voice, but not panic.

  “I know, sir,” Sisko said. “We’re on our way. Activate your tractor beam now, at its maximum power and widest dispersal.”

  Sisko thought he heard Walter issue the order in the background, and then the captain said, “It’s done.”

  “Hold on tight, Captain,” Sisko said. “We’ll get you. Naha out.” He closed the channel, then studied the sensor readings of Assurance. He could see an alteration in the starship’s flight dynamics—if you could call an unpowered, uncontrolled descent a flight—as the tractor beam wrestled with the atmosphere through which it passed. Temperature readings for the meteor that Assurance had become continued to rise, portions of the hull measuring upwards of twelve hundred degrees.

  Sisko peered through the ports. “I see it,” he said. Even against the red surface of Entelior IV, the blazing form of Assurance stood out.

  Kozel did not even glance up once, his gaze fixed on his console. As the shuttle drew nearer the falling starship, he said, “I read the tractor beam. Plotting an entry course.”

  Sisko pulled up a navigation readout on his own display and watched as the flight plan for the shuttle took shape, calculated by computer and manipulated by Kozel. “I’m signaling Nago and Chatan that we’re almost ready,” Sisko said. He waited as Assurance grew ever larger. Beyond it, the surface of the planet filled the ports.

  As the seconds seemed to elongate, Sisko wondered about Assurance’s transporters. If they still functioned, they could theoretically transport the crew to safety. That would mean donning environmental suits in order to survive the hostile environment of Entelior IV. But there would have been enough time to beam down only a fraction of the seven hundred souls aboard the ship. Who would Captain Walter choose? How would he choose? How do you tell a young girl or a young boy that you saved somebody else’s mother or father, but not their own?

  Sisko could not help but think of his own son. Jake would turn seven soon, and Sisko missed him terribly. The thought of never returning to him, of his son having to grow up without knowing his father, was almost too much even to consider. And Jennifer—

  Sisko squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He missed his wife so much, and to imagine her having to go on without him, having to raise Jake by herself, seemed cruel. It made him despise the Tzenkethi even more for the war, which had necessarily taken him away from his family. If he should—

  “Course laid in,” Kozel said.

  Sisko opened his eyes and examined his mirror navigation display, highlighted the course, then transmitted it to Nago and Chatan. First one and then the other signaled their receipt and implementation of the course.

  Just ahead, an explosion startled Sisko. He felt as though an electric shock had coursed through his body as he imagined Assurance crashing into the ground. “Hold on!” Kozel yelled, and the shuttle decelerated rapidly, for a moment overpowering the inertial dampers. Sisko braced himself and kept his seat as he saw the other two shuttles shoot past Naha.

  “What—?” Sisko said, but then another object appeared spinning through the sky. Sisko had just enough time to recognize it as Assurance’s other warp nacelle before Nago slammed into it.

  The shuttle exploded.

  Kozel veered to port and accelerated, outrunning the wreckage as it too now fell toward the planet. Sisko looked around wildly, finally seeing Chatan continuing its own flight. Quickly, it fell back into formation.

  “Implementing course,” Kozel said as they finally reached Assurance. The shuttle hove to port and headed for the blue-white light emanating from the forward section of the primary hull. As Sisko watched the tractor beam, he began to feel dizzy, and he realized that he shouldn’t look at the wheeling coruscation of light. He focused instead on his console.

  He felt the shuttle veer again, then jolt as it entered the field of the tractor beam. The cabin brightened within the illumination. He checked the sensors to see that Chatan had followed them inside.

  “We’re hooked,” Kozel said. “Pulling up.”

  The sound of the shuttle’s drive changed, grew labored as it struggled against the tractor beam. Sisko’s engineering background had allowed him to roughly calculate that three of Okinawa’s shuttles would be able to haul Assurance out of its fall. He didn’t know if only two would.

  Again he thought of Jennifer and Jake.

  The sound of the engines worsened, whining under the strain. Sisko checked the sensors. Assurance had straightened out, its bow now pointing toward the sky, but its velocity continued unchanged. After several seconds, though, it finally began to decelerate.

  But not enough.

  The starship continued falling toward the planet, pulling the two shuttles with it. “Keep going,” Sisko said, his eyes not leaving the velocity gauge. The three vessels, tethered together by the tractor beam, slowed more and more.

  Entelior IV raced upward at them.

  All at once, the light inside the cabin changed, the engines quieted, and Naha shot forward, up into the sky.

  “What happened?” Kozel asked, obviously surprised.

  Sisko examined the sensors. “They cut the tractor beam,” he said, realizing that Captain Walter had not wanted to haul the two shuttles down to the planet with Assurance. “Turn us around,” he said, even as he adjusted the sensors to scan the surface of the planet.

  Kozel brought the shuttle around and headed it down toward the planet. Chatan came into view for a moment as it followed Naha, and then Sisko saw Assurance. It lay on an open plain, the primary and secondary hulls flat on the surface, the dorsal connector between them shattered.

  Sisko keyed open a channel. “Naha to Assurance,” he said. “Come in, Assurance.”

  When he received no response, his heart sank. He desperately checked the sensors and, to his surprise, read life signs within the wreckage—many life signs.

  “Assurance to Naha,” came the voice of Captain Walter. Beside Sisko, Kozel threw his hands into the air in an obvious expression of joy.

  “Naha here, Captain,” Sisko said, unable to keep the smile from his face. “What’s your status?”

  “I don’t think Assurance will be headed back out into space anytime soon,” Walter said, “but thanks to you, most of my crew will.”

  Emotion filled Sisko, and he found himself unable to say anything.

  “The h
ull is pretty badly damaged,” Walter continued, “but we still have power, and that means life support and our structural integrity field, so we should be all right here for a while.”

  “We’ll put down next to you, Captain,” Sisko said, finding his voice again. “I hope you won’t mind a few visitors.”

  “Not at all, Commander,” Walter said. “I daresay there are some people here who want to thank you and your team.”

  “I’ll let you know when we’re ready to beam aboard,” Sisko said. “Naha out.” He turned to Kozel. “Take us down,” he said, and then contacted Chatan to inform its crew.

  As the shuttle approached the broken form of Assurance, Sisko thought about Nago. Crewman Butterfield and Senior Petty Officer Lintosian’a had been aboard. Sisko tried to tell himself that they had given their lives to save hundreds of others, but he doubted that would be much comfort to the people who loved them.

  Only later would he realize that their fast and painless deaths would make them among the luckier Starfleet personnel on Entelior IV.

  Sisko sat on the edge of the bed in the guest quarters assigned to him aboard what had once been the Starship Assurance, but which now amounted to nothing more than a temporary shelter. Enough of Assurance remained intact and functioning to keep the crew comfortable enough until Okinawa returned and effected a rescue. If necessary, they could even last the five days it would take for Starfleet reinforcements to arrive in the system. For the time being, they would not risk broadcasting a distress signal so close to Tzenkethi territory, but if no Starfleet personnel arrived within the next six days, they would have to consider doing so.

  Sisko looked down at the padd in his hand. Once he and Kozel and the crew of the other shuttle had set down beside Assurance, they’d transported to the ship, where they’d been greeted as heroes. Fortunately, Captain Walter had recognized the strain that put them under, and he’d quickly provided them quarters so that they could get some privacy and some rest.