“Right,” Pike said, having definitely remembered. “You two did good work at Sirsa III.”
“As . . . ordered.”
Pike nodded. “That was it? No catching up?”
For moments, only static.
“Captain . . . I have a request.”
I bet it’s no more nosy questions. But it was a start. “What can I do for you?”
“In my quarters . . . there are tomes of Vulcan philosophy.”
Pike nodded. He could see Spock wanting them. “Are there copies in the ship’s computer?”
“No. The elders feel . . . sacred meaning cannot . . . survive digitization.”
“Understood. Maybe I could read them to you.”
“You would not understand them. So I ask . . . please image the pages.”
“Sure. And your elders?”
“Are currently . . . not here. Spock out.”
The abrupt cutoff startled Pike—and the nature of the request worried him. He shut the slate off and toggled the internal comm system. “Pike to Galadjian.”
The man sounded as if he’d been awakened. “Yes, Captain?”
“I just ended a call with Spock, Doctor.”
“How is he?”
“Out of time. If you have a plan, Doctor, get it ready. Because whatever it is, we’re doing it.”
54
* * *
Logistical Support Station 539
Near Varadah
“Human, wait!” Baladon clanked up the hallway, trying to catch up with Connolly. “I’ve never seen such an intemperate young fool—that wasn’t of my own blood, at least. Are you sure you’re not a Lurian?”
Connolly stopped and swiveled, an armored finger in front of Baladon’s nose. “Stow it, ‘Captain’!”
Baladon blinked. “I have killed people for less,” he said aloud to himself. “Why can’t I kill him?”
“Because I know what I’m doing.” Connolly turned. “But I also know what I’m not doing.” He looked from doorway to doorway. “Where the hell is Kormagan?” He reactivated his headgear just long enough to see the leader icon appear on the interface map.
LSS-539 was the largest single vessel affiliated with Kormagan’s wave: a floating foundry and shipyard, with significant sections devoted to research and development. He had already seen dozens of tech workers toiling in one sector; almost certainly, some of the other members of Enterprise’s science crew were there. He would have given anything to talk to them, to see how they were doing—
—but he had a more important mission. Connolly rounded a corner and entered a vast chamber. “Kormagan!”
Standing before the future Aloga-One troop module, the wavemaster did not look back. Connolly had no doubt that she was aware of his presence; Kormagan stayed buttoned up much of the time, and he would have displayed in her interface. But she continued to confer with those around her until Connolly, Baladon in tow, barged into the gathering.
“We had a deal,” Connolly said, confronting her.
“I am busy, Opmaster. And even if you can’t keep your head in the game,” she said, using a common expression for remaining in headgear, “you ought to be able to recognize another wavemaster.”
The armored figure nodded. “Quadeo, of the Fifty-Twos.”
“Connolly, Enterprise.”
“So you’re the one,” Quadeo said, sounding impressed. “Kormagan’s traded half your catch next year for the impulse engines for this ship.”
“Yeah, well, don’t count on it.” Connolly only glanced at the thrusters going into place. “I said I’d do what you asked, Kormagan. But I’m not going to let you spread this nonsense of yours any further!”
“Dreston, talk with the wavemaster. I need a minute.” Kormagan took Connolly aside. “Now, what are you talking about?”
He pointed to Baladon. “He said our next mission was in the Wenavee Notch. I checked the star map. That’s not in the Pergamum!”
“In the what?”
“It’s what outsiders call the nebula,” Baladon said, stepping closer. “And the reason it’s not in the nebula is because it’s in a notch. I should think that would be self-explanatory.”
The gap was on the far side of the nebula from where Enterprise had entered; odds were that if he had gone, Connolly wouldn’t have been able to get a distress signal back to Starfleet from there. That wasn’t the issue. “You told me your kidnappings have always been in the nebula. This is not in the nebula.”
“I never said that,” Kormagan replied. “We’re at war. I’ll cross the galaxy if I have to.”
Baladon shrugged. “It was my idea. That region’s always been good pickings for the Lurian privateers before—always prospectors wandering around. It’s available and it’s close. I chose it while the carrier was in for service—and the human went berserk.” He clapped a hand on Connolly’s shoulder. “I really think it would be for the best if you let me kill him.”
Connolly gawked at him. “I’m your only friend!”
“So it would be a sacrifice for the good of the service.”
“Enough!” Kormagan pointed to Quadeo, over with her other staffers. “I have that one trying to swipe my veterans and sniping—not behind my back, but in front of me—to the other wavemasters. I have a roving bloodbath going from one planet to another in this infernal star system. I lost so much prestige with the Enterprise blunder that I’m surprised I’m not carrying dead Rengru. And I have you two debating about where it’s right to recruit from!”
“I’m not debating,” Baladon said. “Really, I don’t even have to kill him. Knocking people around is quite effective. I do wish you’d let me try it.”
Kormagan threw up her hands. “I don’t have time for this.” She turned back toward the others.
“We had a deal,” Connolly said, tromping after her.
Baladon followed. “I told you, you’re just going to antagonize her if you—”
An alarm sounded in the chamber. Every warrior whose headgear was deployed froze; something was coming in over their interfaces. Connolly and Baladon quickly buttoned up.
“The Rengru,” Kormagan said, thunderstruck. “They’re all leaving!”
Quadeo echoed her surprise. “My ground forces on Varadah VIII say the Rengies just took off in the middle of a fight. A fight they were about to win!”
“To operations,” Dreston said over his armor’s public-address system, a necessity since he could not breathe without his headgear deployed. He pointed to an aperture across the factory floor. The wavemasters led the way. No one minded that Connolly followed; nobody was paying attention to anything beyond the baffling news.
The place was like Kormagan’s sanctum, only with dozens of Boundless working the spherical staging room, studying the great enemy’s latest moves. And these made no sense whatsoever.
“A complete evacuation,” Dreston said. “And not back through the Varadah Gap.” In a bewildering move, the Rengru mother ships and fighters weren’t falling back to the nebular corridors leading to K’davu and the Nest. They were diving headlong into a massive cloud complex.
“That’s a dagger to nowhere,” Quadeo said. “It’s madness. We’ll be able to consolidate here and pick them off as soon as they return.”
“If they return,” Kormagan said. She hadn’t said much, Connolly noted. Instead, the wavemaster stared at the movements represented above, trying to make sense of it all.
“Who cares if they return?” Quadeo pumped her armored fist. “Such a blunder!”
“The other wavemasters are calling in,” Dreston said. “They say it’s a chance to make sure the Rengru never take the Varadah Gap again!”
“It’s even more than that,” Quadeo said. “The dilithium here alone is enough to supply our waves for a century—free for the picking!” She moved to leave, pausing to slap Kormagan’s shoulder. “Don’t be the old fool who gets left out!”
Quadeo departed, and several warriors followed. Dreston stared at Kormagan. “She
’s right, Wavemaster. We can’t miss this. Orders?”
“This is wrong,” Kormagan said. She pointed. “What’s that small force over there?”
“Over where?” Dreston asked, a little irritated. “Oh. That’s the remnants of the Rengru force that hit us at Little Hope.”
“That was months ago. What are they after?” Looking up, Baladon squinted. “It doesn’t seem like we have anything over there.”
“We don’t. The probes say they’ve been blundering about ever since, K’davu knows why.” Dreston appealed to Kormagan. “Come on. Let’s pick a planet, before they’re all gone.”
“No,” the wavemaster said. “Look at the Rengru force, the one that just left Varadah. They’re cutting through to Little Hope.”
“There’s nothing there either!”
“The Rengru disagree.” Kormagan walked under the artificial nebular clouds. “That other probe data is delayed. I’m betting those other ships that have been looking for something have found it—and it’s at Little Hope.”
Dreston stood motionless. “I should have gone with Quadeo.”
“What a display of loyalty,” Kormagan said. “Fine. Take the rest of the wave and occupy a planet.”
“That’s more like it! Which one?”
“I don’t care.” Kormagan turned to Baladon. “Your ship is at the closest carrier dock, right?”
“Huh?” Baladon said, startled. “Er—yes. I find walking overrated, armor assisted or not.”
“Fine.” Kormagan pointed to Connolly. “You got your way. You’re not going to the Notch.” She saw Dreston off and hurried toward the exit.
Baladon and Connolly turned to follow. “Would you be so kind as to explain to me what’s going on?” Baladon asked.
“Kind?” Connolly blurted. “You were just talking about killing me.”
“The mildest of japes. Humans have no sense of humor.”
But within his headgear, Connolly was smiling. The Rengru knew something—and Kormagan thought she knew what it was. He did too.
Enterprise was still out there. And if it was, there might just be a chance to save it.
55
* * *
U.S.S. Enterprise
Saucer Section
Defoe
“I do not violate any code of Starfleet conduct by saying that this idea stinks,” Pike said from the command chair. “And regardless of what may happen in our future careers, know that we have provided the service with jokes for centuries.”
With the thrusters ailing from their earlier escapade, another solution had been required. Defoe’s gravity was weak enough that the saucer didn’t have to launch vertically, like a rocket, but the impulse engines did need to be angled downward for a launch to be effective.
Thus, the plan. Strictly speaking, they did not intend, as Nhan had bluntly put it, “to ride a flaming fart to orbit.” Defoe’s methane sea would not, could not, burn without something to react with. But it could be vaporized, made to expand by an energy source no one aboard the saucer section had considered before Galadjian: the ship’s phaser banks.
Pike looked over to the engineer. “It’s your boat, Doctor.”
“The sea is fine today, Captain,” the engineer said. “Let us discover if this boat can fly. Mister Raden, impulse drive at one percent.”
A mild jolt from behind.
“We’re moving—barely,” Raden said. On the main viewer, the placid chilly sea responded with the lightest of wave reactions.
“Commander Nhan, as helm boosts the impulse power, fire the ventral phaser banks in a dispersal spray downward and forward, increasing in intensity according to the guidance I have provided.”
“Happy to,” Nhan said, glancing at her instructions. “I’ve wanted to shoot at something for months. This crappy moon is an excellent choice.”
Pike had seen Galadjian’s notes to Nhan and Raden; he had characteristically boiled down a mass of imposing equations to something simple for wider consumption. “Mister Raden,” Galadjian said, “you may increase power according to the program.”
Another boost from the impulse drive—and Nhan fired the phasers. For several seconds, Pike noticed nothing.
“Five percent,” Raden called out. “Surface is getting choppy.”
“The phasers are shaping a channel of aerosolized methane beneath and ahead of us,” Galadjian said. “Can you confirm, Ensign Dietrich?”
“It’s there,” she called from the science station. “And expanding, just as predicted.”
“Excellent. Continue with the procedure.”
As the saucer section pushed harder across the surface, Pike saw the static line of Defoe’s horizon cloud up and disappear. Then he felt himself tip back as the vessel’s bow gently angled upward.
“It’s working, Doctor,” Raden said. “We’re starting to break surface tension. Pitch elevation, three degrees.”
“We’re surfing the gas. How’d you ever think of this?” Pike asked.
“We use phaser-powered analytical nebulizers in modern plasma spectroscopy,” Galadjian said. “Here, we create our own nebula to return to another!”
“Constant fire continuing,” Nhan said.
“Impulse ten percent, pitch six degrees.”
The saucer section shook as it surged across the dense, endless ocean. Pike had been aboard a speedboat once where the bow had risen into the air; he’d felt then as if the craft was about to launch into space. With a ramp of expanding methane to angle the impulse engine downward, the saucer section had a chance of doing exactly that.
Whatever happens, please don’t let us flip over again!
“Impulse fifteen percent, pitch . . .” Raden looked back. “Captain, we’ve reached our escape angle!”
Pike looked to Galadjian, who winked and pointed his finger in the air. It was time. “Raden, go!”
Raden increased power—and Pike grabbed his armrests. The saucer section wobbled, but righted as it went gradually skyward. “Hold on, people,” he said—and not just because of the thrust: he could feel the Defoe’s meager gravity lessening.
And then . . . space. And cheers.
“Fusion reactor is performing correctly,” Galadjian said. “Gravity plating coming online. It will be at full power in thirty seconds.” That was another fix that had taken months, completed just in time. “I hope you have all been doing your calisthenics.”
“You did it,” Pike said, speaking to the entire crew. Then he looked to Galadjian. “You did it.”
The doctor nodded—and leaned back in his chair, contemplating not the space outside, but his terminal.
“Thrusters seem to be cooperating a little better now that we’re out of the soup,” Raden said. “I think the manifolds fouled a little during the flip.”
“I like being able to turn around.” Pike looked at the main viewer. “Anybody see us leave?”
Nhan shook her head. “Doesn’t look like it. It’s not much of a vacation spot.”
Pike already had somewhere to go. “Set course for Skon’s World, full impulse. Let’s get Spock!”
Skon’s World
The cryovolcano erupted again, spewing its mix of ammonia, water, and methane in a colossal plume. For nearly half a year, it had been Spock’s destination—and as his resources ran low, he had feared he would not reach it. It was the last spectacle he was ever going to see, the last moment when nature would break from its quiet majesty to speak loudly and firmly, declaring the presence of the physical laws of the universe in a symphony of science.
It had also been where, during his time in space, he had last seen the red light of his waking dream. It had been only a spark by then, heading toward the mountainous region and then disappearing. By the time Spock had landed, the planet’s rotation had carried the volcano to the opposite side of the globe, necessitating his walk.
He had not decided how close he would want to get to the mount; his armor decided for him, its armatures finally giving out less than a kilometer fr
om the active cryomagma field. He had been losing heat for weeks, and his oxygen reprocessor was fouled to the point where the air in the battlesuit was little better than the thin, frigid haze that clung to the surface of Skon’s World.
Spock had always known what he would do next—and even debilitated by his ordeal, he did it.
With the governor not functioning, Spock found it easy to extract himself from the battlesuit. Like petals opening on a flower, the armor blossomed outward, hinged modules peeling away from him one at a time. A lobe of armor plate here, a stowed weapon there. He clambered out and fell on the snow, wheezing. His muscles carried their own weight for the first time in months; were it not for the weak gravity of Skon’s World, he might never have moved again.
But there was something else to do.
During his first conversation with Kormagan on the mobile processing center, Spock had learned that the clothing he was wearing on Susquatane was stowed amid his gear. Disregarding the vile condition of his Boundless-provided tracksuit, he quickly put it on.
Not for warmth; regardless of his attire, he would shortly freeze on Skon’s World, if he didn’t asphyxiate first. He had another reason. He was gratified to see his tricorder, but not surprised. Kormagan had said that, since it was not a weapon, it had been left with his personal effects. It was all he needed.
The battlesuit stood nearby, as if at attention. Spock stood too—rockily, uneasily, fighting for breath as he turned to face the volcano.
He would not meet death as a Boundless soldier, cast away. It would be as a Starfleet science officer, doing his job to the end.
He turned the tricorder on and started taking readings.
56
* * *
U.S.S. Enterprise
Saucer Section
Approaching Skon’s World
“Closing on Spock’s estimated position,” Raden said.
Pike was up and pacing. A hundred technical systems and subsystems aboard the saucer section had been impacted by the disaster at Little Hope. Three things had gotten most of their attention: survival, escaping the surface of Defoe, and defending against any Boundless or Rengru who might be lurking above.
The Enterprise War Page 27