The captain stopped speaking. “What is it, Dreston?”
“They report that Enterprise’s shields are down.”
“See if we can get secondary confirmation without being detected,” she said. Shields down while stalking? She couldn’t imagine that the Starfleet captain was that foolish. Spock had seemed to hold him in some regard. She had allowed the Vulcan to contribute ideas during the preparations for the assault, including finding something innocuous to name the region in the records of the probes Enterprise was expected to intercept. Were Starfleeters so trusting that a mild word on a map could move them?
That seemed unlikely. Maybe there was something wrong with the starship’s shields after being battered for a year in the nebula. If so, it would make her comrades’ mission much easier.
“Something’s happening,” Dreston said. “Hail from Wave Five-Four-Four.”
“Put it through.” She looked to the tactical map ahead of her—and the name of the wavemaster of the Forty-Fours appeared in her helmet interface. “What is it, Hemmick?”
“Something just materialized behind us and blew my thruster mounts all to hell!”
What? She looked at the display ahead of her. The lead carrier in Hemmick’s wave blinked red, but it was not alone at its position. “You’ve got Urdoh off your bow. Order them to target the—”
“Target what?” Hemmick cried. “It’s already gone!”
Her fellow wavemaster had only started to swear when Dreston broke in with another hail. He patched it through.
“This is Five-Five-Two-Dezik!” said a female voice. “We’ve been hit—multiple high-energy bursts, aft!” Kormagan had to turn ninety degrees to the right to see the ship’s icon blinking. It was just off the far end of Little Hope.
“Shields up, all carriers!” she commanded. “You hear me, Dreston?”
“Wavemaster, in this soup, that could give our locations away.”
“I think that’s not a concern right—”
“Another hail,” called Dreston, the ice in his voice cracking a little. Kormagan saw another of Hemmick’s carriers start to blink—and then felt a barrage shake her own vessel.
“Dreston, how bad is it?” she shouted. The strategic interface wasn’t updating fast enough; Enterprise hadn’t even been plotted on the map yet.
“Our shields went up just in time. Can’t speak for the others yet.” Kormagan saw that more carriers in her strategic display were reporting strikes than not—and several of the early victims looked as if they would be unable to advance. Dreston spoke again. “Hail coming in!”
“I can see what’s happening,” Kormagan snarled. “I don’t need to hear—”
Dreston piped it in anyway. The voice was human, like Connolly’s—but older, more confident:
“Attention, Boundless. This is Captain Christopher Pike. I have you surrounded. Surrender!”
33
* * *
U.S.S. Enterprise
Little Hope Boundary Region
“Jump fourteen,” Pike called out. “One-thirty mark two.”
“One-thirty mark two, aye,” Raden repeated.
“Confirm tsakat orientation.”
Galadjian responded. “Shields are shaped and ready.”
“Warp two point five. Engage.”
Enterprise lurched, another short hop in a series. While the Hellmouth was a relatively small local region by Pergamum standards, the feature’s outer boundaries covered a significant area. The starship’s first jumps across to the clouds on the other side had been blind, but each crisscrossing trip afterward had revealed more information about where the Boundless ships were.
Moments later, Enterprise was across the stellar graveyard, amid the clouds on the other side. Before Pike could make sense of any features on the main viewer, Amin shouted, “Boundless hostile detected, two-seven-five mark one.”
“That’s our one from jump five,” Pike said. “Bring us around, Mister Raden.”
Pike sat back. So far, they’d seen ten starships, twice the force at Susquatane. He’d considered the vessels there to be battleships, but now he knew them to be carriers. Several of the heavily armed vessels had large modules attached lengthwise to their flat sides; excursion vehicles of some kind, likely able to carry forty or fifty. A couple of the carriers had five of the things attached, covering all the free sides, making him wonder if the other ships’ modules existed. Might they be elsewhere? He hadn’t seen any floating loose.
“Phaser range,” Nhan said. “Targeted.”
“Fire.”
She did. “Their shields are raised, Captain. That’s two in a row. They’ve wised up.”
“So they can talk to each other, even if they’re not answering us,” Pike said. “Switch to photon torpedoes for the next ones—let’s bust those shields.”
Amin looked back. “I have jump fifteen calculated, sir.”
Pike looked to Galadjian. “Doctor?”
The gray-bearded man gave a thumbs-up. He seemed to be having the time of his life.
Pike smiled. “Jump fifteen . . .”
Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga
“What’s going on here, Kormagan? What have you led us into?”
Kormagan fought the impulse to mute the transmission from the leader of the Fifty-Twos. Decades her junior, Quadeo ran one of the newer waves; she had an answer for everything, which seemed to be the way with the current generation. Kormagan had seen a dozen others like Quadeo rise through the ranks just to die horribly, smothered by their own hubris. Kormagan wouldn’t have minded so much if the commanders were the only ones who died on those occasions.
“Answer me,” Quadeo said. “You said we were just after one starship!”
“We are,” Kormagan replied, her eyes scanning the data from the map displays ahead of her. She was not entirely sure her answer was the truth. Pike’s “surrender” message had gone on to demand the return of his officers; clearly he had figured out what had really happened on Susquatane. Could he have brought in reinforcements?
No. Something was amiss, and Kormagan knew it. “How far away are they when they appear and fire on our carriers?”
“How far? How should I—”
“Mute Five-Five-Two.” Kormagan cleared her throat in aggravation. “Dreston, do you know?”
She waited a few moments while he formed a response. “It varies. Sometimes they’re close. Sometimes far. But every one they’ve hit twice has been from closer range the second time.”
Kormagan nodded. “That’s what I thought. They don’t know where we are. They’re jumping, then sighting.” She opened her channel again to the other two wavemasters. “All carriers, fire photon torpedoes aft at random intervals.”
Hemmick, amid sounds of confusion, objected. “There’s no target there. We’re just going to be knocking dust around.”
“We’ll put them off this tactic. And maybe we’ll get lucky!”
U.S.S. Enterprise
“Jump sixteen,” Commander Una read from her screen. “Modulation change, six point seven, deflector beam protocol Tsakat-Four.”
“Tsakat-Four, aye.” Trina Mann, the bun-haired tactical officer, made her change to the shield systems and then stepped away, allowing Colt to squeeze past to her console. “Excuse me, Ensign.”
“Feels like we’re dancing,” Colt said, getting back to work.
Sandwiched behind the deflector array and forward from warp control, the auxiliary control engineering station was beyond cramped, but it was the closest thing the Constitution class had to a secondary bridge. In case of emergency, Una could manage many parts of the stardrive section from here, but it fell well short of being a full working command center. It was too small, with no main viewscreen. Just the monitors at a small number of workstations, all currently in use making sure Galadjian’s shield scheme functioned properly.
Which was easier said than done, given that Enterprise was going to warp, turning hard about, engaging an enemy, shifting orient
ation, and going back into warp at roughly ninety-second intervals. Each of which required a completely new calculation of the motion and shape of their forward shields due to the hostile environment—and almost more concentration than even the Illyrians who taught her could muster.
But she had to do it. Spock had been here during the Acheron transit, doing similar work. If he could do it then, she could certainly do it now if there were a chance of saving him.
“There we go again,” Colt said, leaving her station quickly to allow Mann to sit. Farther back in the stardrive section behind them, the intermix chamber churned—and Enterprise lurched again.
When Colt had told her Pike’s plan earlier, Una had barely believed it. While it would have been nice to have been present on the bridge for the captain’s decision, she knew she would have endorsed his move. There was a fine line between advising and second-guessing; Enterprise had only one captain.
And Pike wanted to be her captain again. That made this a welcome moment—if they survived it.
“Coming out of warp. Get ready,” Una said, raising her voice. She knew from experience she had to if she wanted to be heard; given their proximity to the weapons being fired, full volume was needed.
Only this time, when Enterprise slowed, the weapons fire wasn’t theirs—as Una’s team discovered when a jolt sent them all pitching forward against their consoles. There was no falling out of chairs or stations as aboard a larger bridge; there simply wasn’t room here, a small blessing. Una looked at her colleagues. Did we do something wrong?
Galadjian called down. “We emerged into the aftereffect of an antimatter detonation.”
“Damage report?” Una asked. It was information she could find from where she was, but the shield work kept her monitors occupied.
“The tsakat took the impact. A glancing blow. The captain is turning us about now.”
Mann frowned at Una. “It didn’t feel like a glancing blow.”
“Is a diagnostic necessary?” Galadjian asked.
Una called up. “Doctor, I think definitely that we—”
Pike broke in. “We’re under attack, Number One—with no shields. We’re going back to home base.” Back across the Hellmouth, that was the location Enterprise had started from. No Boundless ships had been present—at least, not then. “We’ll run the diagnostic then.”
“Aye, Captain.” Feeling the starship quaking from nearby detonations, Una agreed with the plan. She read the data for the new heading, piped from Galadjian above. “Jump seventeen. Modulation change, one point two, deflector beam protocol Tsakat-Five.”
“Tsakat-Five, aye.”
Enterprise went to warp again—and left it just as quickly, with a bang that threw the room’s occupants into the air. The narrow space was no help this time, its fixed furnishings giving painful landings to the officers present.
Seeing the state of her comrades, Una fumbled for her communicator. “Doctor Boyce to auxiliary control!”
His acknowledgment was drowned out by another call from the bridge over the comm panel. “What’s going on?” Pike asked. “We just dropped out of warp in the middle of the Hellmouth!”
Una worked her way back to the console. The data on the monitors didn’t make any sense. Her breath caught in her chest as she realized she knew what this particular brand of nonsense meant. “Captain, we have a failure in the field attraction sensors.”
Silence.
There was a reason for it. Housed outside in the three bulges surrounding the deflector dish, the sensors provided practically every fact the shields needed in order to operate.
The next words they heard were from Galadjian. “The tsakat appears to have distributed the shockwave from the torpedo earlier as feedback into the ship.”
“I agree. We have overvoltage failures in a dozen subsystems back here.”
“Can the system be reset?”
Una and Mann exchanged stunned glances. Of course it couldn’t.
“No,” she answered. “No field attraction sensors means no shields. I can’t tell you what else may be down. Stand by.”
She was starting to look when she noticed Colt behind her. The young woman had recovered from where she had fallen backward; now, she was struggling to exit. “I want to check on main engineering,” she said, “but I can’t get the damn door open!”
She knelt, activating the manual override. The door cranked open, admitting wafts of smoke high in the air. “Oh, that’s not good.”
“Where’s the fire?” Mann asked.
That wasn’t the only question Una had. “Why haven’t we heard an alarm?”
34
* * *
Combat Module Carrier 539-Aloga
Little Hope
“We got ’em!” Dreston called out. “Target’s position is on your display.”
Kormagan saw it. Enterprise had dropped out of warp and stalled, drifting, amid the mingled debris of a pair of failed stars. One was a brown dwarf; the other, a massive gas giant where fusion had fizzled out. And all around, dust and rubble. Just like the rest of Little Hope, the system was a wreck.
The wavemaster had a hunch that Enterprise might be one too. This was no calculated move, no planned place of cover to which the starship had retreated. She didn’t know what magic Captain Pike had been using to swiftly traverse Little Hope, heedless of the nebular material in his path, but he didn’t seem to be able to use it now. The trick was one more discovery she would pry from the ship. Perhaps Spock could explain it.
“The torpedo was ours,” Quadeo transmitted. “My carrier fired it!”
Kormagan was glad anyone had hit anything, though she knew this success would only make her rival more unbearable. It didn’t seem like a good time to remind Quadeo whom it was that had given everyone the orders to fire in the first place. There was more important business.
“All operational carriers, close in,” Kormagan said into her armor’s mic. “Assume positions to block avenues of escape. Disable shields if they come back online—otherwise, harassing fire to cover troop module approach and prevent the launching of shuttles. Troop modules, zero in on Enterprise and commence operations.”
Pike had fought with cunning, but his gambit had failed. It was just a matter of time.
U.S.S. Enterprise
“Captain, main engineering is on fire.”
It was not a thing captains—or anyone else aboard a starship—liked to hear. “What happened, Number One?”
“That feedback appears to have damaged the warp control systems. Some equipment exploded when we tried to jump.”
Pike heard shouts in the background. “The warp core. Is it intact?”
“Still trying to get close enough to evaluate. The fire retardant systems are offline.” More sounds of chaos. “Stand by.”
Pike hurried to the bridge support console. “Report.”
“Many systems appear to have gone into diagnostic safe mode,” Dietrich said.
“Even the safety systems?” Pike couldn’t make sense of the data he was seeing. Enterprise seemed to be speaking another language. “What do we have that’s up?”
“I’ve got tactical sensors,” Nhan said. “We’ve got inbounds. Looks like those modules that were attached to those carriers. Ten—maybe twenty of them.”
“What weapons do we have?”
“Phasers. Which would be helpful, if the plasma regulators were online.” The phasers were another new addition to Enterprise since Talos IV; some bugs were still being worked out. Without the regulators, Nhan had no way of controlling the intensity of the bursts they fired. She hammered at her interface in frustration. “Give me something that works!”
“I’ve got thrusters,” Raden called out.
Pike looked back. “Impulse?”
“Honestly, I’m afraid of it. I don’t like these readings. I don’t want another blowup.”
He trusted his helmsman. Impulse movement was out, at least until he got an update from below—and warp certainly was o
ff the table. “What kind of feedback would cause all this?” Pike asked. “I wouldn’t think ODN cabling could even transmit something like that.”
Hunched over his station, Galadjian stared at his screen. “Given the electromagnetic properties of the shielding systems and the energies generated by—” He stopped in midsentence and rubbed his temples. “I don’t know.”
Pike looked back at his chief engineer for a moment—until an intraship hail turned his thoughts to a doctor of a different kind. “Boyce to bridge!”
“Pike here. Where are you, Doctor?”
“I’m . . . in main engineering,” Boyce said between wheezes. “There are injuries from the sudden stop . . . and from damaged consoles.”
“Phil, are you all right? Is it the fire?”
“Nearly . . . under control.”
“But the way you—”
“Bulkheads didn’t drop . . . smoke retardation systems inoperative. Turbolifts out—tough getting to people.”
“Keep me posted.” Pike looked at the turbolift doors. “I guess we’re really not going anywhere.” He stepped back to the center of the room and turned to face the viewscreen. That was still working, at least—although he quickly saw that the Hellmouth didn’t look any more hospitable up close. They had dumped out of warp in a gravity well. A gas giant loomed; in the sickly light of a nearby brown dwarf, the sphere appeared as a colorless blot. All around, moonlets and asteroids tumbled aimlessly in the dust.
No—there were shapes with direction out there too. Heading Pike’s way. He looked back to his engineer. “No shields?”
“Or transporters.” Galadjian shrugged, palms open. “I have a dead board here. Useless.”
“You’re—” Nhan started, before closing her mouth. She shot a furious look at him and turned away. Wounded, Galadjian faced his station and looked down.
“Don’t do this,” Pike said with a pointed glance at Nhan. “Not now.” He couldn’t have the staff melting down, not under these conditions. “We pushed the limits. We shouldn’t be astonished that we found them. Sometimes even the best horse bucks.”
The Enterprise War Page 17