The Antares Maelstrom

by Greg Cox

  “Take a gander at Town Hall. It was the first permanent public structure erected on this colony, more than two generations ago. It’s still the center of the colony, even if we’ve also done our best to upgrade its tech over the years. That’s Baldur III in a nutshell: proud of our past, but looking forward to our future.”

  “Spoken like a politician,” Cahill said. “Give me the past any day. Before all this craziness.”

  “More like a pragmatist,” she retorted. “Baldur III is changing, whether we like it or not. The smart thing is to make the most of it, while preserving what really matters.”

  “The promise of a new and better future is precisely what drew so many of my people to Baldur III in the first place,” Navvan said. “Some aspects of yesterday are best left in the past.”

  Kirk had witnessed firsthand the way the Troglytes had been treated on Ardana. That past was nothing to hang on to.

  “In any event,” the mayor said, “it’s getting a bit nippy out now that the sun’s going down. How’s about we move this indoors?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” McCoy massaged his arms to keep warm. “These Starfleet uniforms are good for most climates, but I’m kind of wishing I’d brought a sweater.”

  “At least you’re not wearing a skirt, Doctor,” Landon quipped.

  The blond young yeoman, who had been with the crew for three years, was along to record the meeting for posterity, while also being on hand to help out as needed. Kirk knew that she could hold her own in a fight, just in case a brawl broke out in the overcrowded boom town. Not that he expected violence, for certain, but you never knew. This was the frontier, after all.

  “Always preferred trousers myself,” Poho said, “but to each their own.”

  She led them into the building. An antique cage elevator brought them to the fourth floor, where a conference room proved a mixture of old and new. Handcrafted wooden furniture, which Kirk assumed to be carved from lumber native to the planet, was supplemented by a modern computer terminal, a viewscreen, and a convenient food slot. The latter quickly produced several mugs of steaming hot cocoa.

  “To take the chill off,” Poho explained as they all sat down at the conference table. “By the way, Captain, I liked the way you handled that standoff in orbit earlier. Thanks for backing up our folks at the spaceport . . . and giving those hotheaded captains a good talking-to.”

  “You heard about that?” Kirk asked.

  “Don’t let my good looks fool you,” she joked. “I stay on top of things. Listened to that recording a couple of times, to be honest. Did my heart good.” She blew on her cocoa to cool it down. “Seriously, just having the Enterprise up there to keep the peace goes a long way toward stabilizing the situation up above.”

  Kirk had left Spock in command aboard the ship for that very reason. Considering how volatile matters were beyond the planet’s atmosphere, he’d wanted the coolest head he knew keeping watch over the overcrowded orbits.

  “Glad you approve,” Kirk said.

  “I did and do,” Poho said. “Here’s hoping you can make a difference down here too.”

  She shot a warning glance at Cahill, who refrained from comment. Foaming cocoa discolored his snowy-white mustache.

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Kirk said. “Perhaps you can begin by telling us where you’re most in need of—”

  The overhead lights dimmed for a moment before coming back on. The computer terminal beeped as it powered up again. Poho sighed in exasperation.

  “Did I mention the brownouts?” she said wryly. “Our power grid is strained to the breaking point, what with all the new buildings and people, or so our engineers tell me. We’ve even had a few blackouts here and there. Nothing too serious yet, but folks are already getting tired of the random fluctuations and outages.”

  “I don’t understand,” McCoy said. “Isn’t pergium used for generating energy?”

  “Down the road, sure,” Poho said. “But first the raw ore needs to be refined and processed, power plants need to be built, the necessary infrastructure put in place.” The lights flickered again, earning a dirty look from the mayor. “Eventually, we’ll have energy to spare, but right now we’re still playing catch-up, and the sudden influx of newcomers is outpacing energy production.”

  “Wasn’t a problem before all these offworld prospectors started pouring in,” Cahill said.

  “Because you were just a backwater,” Navvan said. “Times are changing.”

  “Who asked them to? Maybe some of us liked being a backwater.” He swept his gaze over all the assemblage, as though daring them to challenge him. “I was born and raised on Baldur III, and three generations of my family are buried here.” He nodded at the Troglyte leader. “How long have you and yours been here?”

  “Does that matter?” Navvan asked.

  “It does to me,” Cahill said, “and plenty of others I could name.”

  “But not to everyone,” Poho said firmly. “Don’t forget, Boyd. My roots here are dug just as deeply as yours, and I don’t think we need to keep Baldur III frozen in amber just to keep things exactly the way we remember them. Tomorrow tends to kick yesterday out the door, which is the way it’s supposed to work, and, as long as I’m mayor, everybody’s opinion matters, no matter whether they were born in these parts or not.”

  Navvan nodded. “Which is why you can count on my support, Mayor, and the rest of us ‘offworld prospectors.’ ”

  “Nothing personal,” Cahill assured him. “Just have to speak my piece, is all.”

  “Of course,” Poho said. “Why else do you think I keep you around?”

  Kirk sat back and observed the dynamics in play. Listening to Poho manage her advisors, he was getting a much better sense of the divisions among her constituents, particularly between the newcomers and the descendants of the original settlers. At the rate people were arriving, the former would soon outnumber the latter; Kirk didn’t envy Poho having to try to keep both populations happy.

  I need to avoid taking sides, he thought. If possible.

  “My chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Scott, may be able to assist you with your power issues,” Kirk said. “I’ll have him beam down to take stock of the situation. Knowing Mister Scott, he’s bound to have some suggestions . . . and will probably want to take a hands-on approach to the problem.”

  “And I’d like to find out more about how your medical facilities are coping with this crush of potential patients,” McCoy said. “I can’t imagine they’re any less overextended than your spaceport or generators.”

  “You imagine correctly, Doctor,” Poho said, “although I wish I could tell you different.”

  “So let me get this straight,” Cahill said. “The solution to having too many new people is to beam down even more new people to manage our affairs? Am I the only one who realizes how crazy that sounds?”

  “And what do you suggest?” Navvan asked. “That the rest of us pack up our bags and leave? That the mines be shut down so you and your fellow nativists can all go back to logging and farming or whatever? That you just pretend the pergium was never discovered?”

  “Well,” Cahill hedged, “I’m not sure I’d go that far, but . . .”

  “But what?” Poho asked. “The genie is out of the bottle, Boyd. Captain Kirk and his crew are just here to help us get a handle on it.”

  “Just saying that we need to make sure that handling the genie doesn’t mean turning the whole works over to the Federation . . . indefinitely.”

  “Would that be so bad?” McCoy asked. “The Federation is an alliance, not an empire. What’s wrong with joining together for the common good? Plenty of other worlds are thriving as members of the Federation.”

  “Good for them,” Cahill said. “But they’re not Baldur III.”

  “Baldur III is not the Baldur III you remember,” Navvan replied. “Not anymore.”

  “My point exactly!”

  Kirk let the men argue among themselves, while silently
hoping that the fractures in the community wouldn’t pose too much of a challenge in the days to come. From the look of things, he was going to have his hands full as it was.

  He finished off his cocoa.

  Five

  Approaching the Antares Maelstrom

  “Hailing Karisian vessel! You are placing your ship and passengers in extreme jeopardy. Turn back at once!”

  Sulu piloted the Allegra, a compact ship he had commandeered from the deep space station. He was in hot pursuit of the Tigris, a commercial freighter registered out of Karis Prime, under the command of a Captain Anwar Dryyde. The ship, which had more than sixty passengers listed on its manifest, had deviated from its flight plan and was heading straight for the Antares Maelstrom despite the warning buoy, just as Tilton had feared a ship was bound to do eventually.

  Risking dozens of lives for the sake of a shortcut.

  “Hailing Tigris. This is Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, representing Deep Space Station S-8. Please respond!”

  “Mind your own business, Starfleet!” the other ship responded. The transmission was audio only, so Sulu could only imagine the speaker’s surly expression. “I know what I’m doing . . . and I don’t need your permission!”

  Captain Dryyde, Sulu presumed. “I beg to differ, Captain.”

  In fact, the jurisdictional issues here were a bit murky. The Antares Maelstrom had been declared hazardous by all sensible spacefaring civilizations and coalitions, but Sulu wasn’t sure if, strictly speaking, he had the authority to prevent foolhardy vessels from daring it. That being said, he wasn’t about to stand by while dozens of lives were on the verge of being thrown away out of greed and impatience. Let the bureaucrats sort the legalities out; he knew what Captain Kirk would do.

  “Hold on tight,” he advised Ensign Peggy Knox, who was riding shotgun beside him in the copilot’s seat. Fresh out of the Academy, the redheaded crewman was young and energetic. A constellation of freckles gave her face character. The rest of his security team was back on the station, still providing backup for Grandle and her people.

  A sudden burst of acceleration overcame the inertial dampers, throwing Sulu and Knox back against their seats, as Allegra sped after Tigris, pushing its engine to the limit. The other ship had a head start on them, but Sulu was determined to catch up with Tigris before it entered the Maelstrom, even if that meant exceeding the ship’s recommended cruising velocity. Warning lights flashed on the flight controls, a fact that did not escape Knox’s notice.

  “Lieutenant . . .”

  “I see them, Ensign. Just think of those as suggestions.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  The race was on, not just against Tigris, but against time as well. Sulu could see the Maelstrom up ahead: an immense, kaleidoscopic region of swirling plasma currents many parsecs across, too vast to easily circumvent. Luminous streaks and swells, varying widely in hue and intensity, produced an almost psychedelic effect. Viewed from sectors away, Sulu knew, the Maelstrom was basically an enormous pinwheel, rotating so fast on its axis that it appeared to be a blurry sphere; this close, it filled up the horizon for as far as the eye could see. And long-range sensors fared no better than the naked eye; surging energies hid whatever dangers and mysteries might be hiding within the Maelstrom’s perilous depths.

  “Damn it, Dryyde,” Sulu said, losing his temper. “Do you want to kill your passengers and crew? Change course before it’s too late. Baldur III will still be there if you take the long way around.”

  “Sorry,” the captain replied. “Not getting paid to take the scenic route, but you’re free to turn back if you haven’t got the nerve.”

  “This isn’t about courage.” Sulu feared he was wasting his breath. “It’s about being responsible for the passengers in your care!”

  Dryyde snorted over the channel. “Whose idea do you think it was? See you on the other side, Starfleet, if you can find the Passage! Tigris out.”

  “Dryyde? Dryyde?” Sulu tried to restore the transmission, but his hails went unanswered. Empty static taunted him. “Hailing Tigris. Please respond!”

  “Seems like he’s done talking, sir,” Knox commented.

  “Agreed.”

  Knox’s assessment of the situation was dead-on. Sulu realized that common sense and persuasion were not going to be enough to save Tigris and the lives aboard her.

  “Let me know when we’re within target range of the Tigris,” he instructed Knox.

  “Will do, sir.” She monitored the sensor readouts. “Are we thinking tractor beams?”

  “I wish,” Sulu said. Allegra’s tractor beams were strong enough to tow a disabled vessel if necessary, but not enough to capture a speeding ship that didn’t want to be detained. “At best, our beams could only slow Tigris down a little. Arm the phasers instead.”

  Knox nodded. “Aye, sir.”

  They were gaining on Tigris, which was nonetheless getting way too close to the outer fringe of the Maelstrom. This was going to be close.

  “Do we follow them into the Maelstrom if we have to?” Knox asked.

  Good question, Sulu thought. “We’re not going to let it come to that, Ensign.”

  The ship was equipped with a basic phaser array for self-defense. No photon torpedoes, as on the Enterprise, but Sulu didn’t need that kind of firepower anyway. He wasn’t out to repel a Klingon battle cruiser, just to stop a reckless captain from committing suicide along with the lives in his care.

  “Coming within phaser range, sir,” Knox reported.

  Sulu gave Dryyde one last chance to come to his senses. “Sulu to Tigris. This is your final warning. Return to your original flight plan or face the consequences.”

  He kept the threat vague—for a reason.

  “Back off, Starfleet!” Dryyde responded, breaking his silence.

  “Lieutenant!” Knox said. “He’s firing up his weapon batteries.”

  “Figured he might,” Sulu said coolly. “Raise shields.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  A violet disruptor blast, fired from the stern of the Tigris, rocked the ship. Sulu smiled slyly. “And there it is. Good.”

  Knox gave him a puzzled look.

  “They fired first,” he explained, “on a Federation vessel no less. Think we’re entitled to defend ourselves now.”

  So much for the legal niceties.

  “Damage?” he asked.

  “Nothing serious,” Knox stated. “Yet.”

  Sulu wasn’t surprised. He suspected that Dryyde just wanted to discourage his pursuer, not destroy them; that had been more of an angry outburst than an attack. Still, Sulu had no intention of taking any further fire. Tigris got one free shot, that was all.

  “Taking evasive action.”

  He yawed sharply to port, then oriented Allegra so that it presented a smaller target to Tigris. He scrutinized the other ship, guesstimating the range and sweep of its disruptors. Sulu wasn’t one hundred percent familiar with this particular model of freighter, but he’d studied enough similar vessels to have a pretty good idea where its limits were in terms of its weapons and targeting capacities. Swooping in toward the Tigris, he maneuvered the ship into a sweet spot where the freighter’s disruptors couldn’t be aimed unless Dryyde did some tricky maneuvering of his own.

  We’re the itch you can’t quite reach, Sulu thought.

  He gambled that Dryyde had no real desire or stomach for a fight; the other captain was in flight—not fight—mode. Tigris just wanted to get to the Maelstrom unobstructed.

  Sulu wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Not that there was an easy way to stop Tigris. No matter how surgical a strike, phasers were destructive and violence always carried risks. Sulu didn’t want to destroy the freighter in order to save it. He needed to minimize any chance of casualties.

  “Scan that freighter,” he ordered Knox. “Find me a vulnerable spot that won’t trigger an explosion or compromise life-support.”

  “Aye, sir.” She quickly summoned the ne
cessary graphics. “We could target one of its warp nacelles.”

  Sulu shook his head. “Too much danger of triggering a catastrophic plasma cascade.” An idea occurred to him. “What about its external sensor array?”

  She scanned the schematics. “That could work. They’re not tied directly into the life-support or propulsion systems.”

  “Target that specific area,” he ordered. “High-intensity beam. Narrow focus.” He carefully stayed within the sweet spot, trying to maintain a consistent distance and position with regard to Tigris. “And, Ensign, precision counts.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  A single crimson beam shot from the ship’s nose to strike Tigris at the sensor bulb atop the freighter’s prow. Azure energy flashed where the phaser beam collided with the freighter’s shields, which successfully deflected Knox’s initial blast. Reacting to the attack, Tigris veered away, attempting evasive action of its own, while remaining on course for the Maelstrom, which stretched before them like a galactic barrier. This close, it loomed ahead regardless of any evasive zigs or zags.

  “Again,” Sulu ordered. He had never expected a single shot to do the trick. The ship zoomed after Tigris, matching its twists and turns as Sulu worked the helm, determined to keep the freighter’s external sensors in Knox’s sights. “Keep it up!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The phaser beam battered Tigris’s shields as Knox did a good job of keeping it focused on the desired area, despite the moving target. Sulu appreciated the challenge facing her in that she needed to hit Tigris hard enough to penetrate her shields without punching a hole all the way through the freighter’s hull.

  “Nice shooting, Knox.”

  “Nice flying, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  A final flash of bright-blue energy signaled the collapse of Tigris’s shields. Vapor issued from the sensor bubble as the ship’s phaser reduced it to slag. Knox ceased fire before breaching the hull. She studied the scanner readings.

  “Their sensor array is toast,” she reported. “They’re flying blind.”