Star Trek: Vanguard - 009 - In Tempest's Wake Page 6

  “Hits on all four ships,” Sulu said, his attention divided between his controls and the tactical scanner that he had brought up from his console. “Their shields absorbed most of the damage, though.” A second later, the Enterprise shuddered yet again as the Tholians scored their own hits on the starship’s shields.

  Rising from his chair, Kirk moved to stand behind Chekov. “Continue firing. Concentrate on their forward shields. Don’t give them a chance to shore up their defenses.” He had no interest in destroying the enemy vessels unless left with no other option, but if one or two of the ships could be disabled, perhaps the others would be persuaded to break off their attack. “Scotty, how are the shields?”

  The engineer replied, “We’re down to seventy-six percent on the aft and port generators. I can up that a bit if we reroute.”

  “Do it,” Kirk ordered. “Take everything from the forward shields if you have to. I don’t plan on letting them get in front of us.” His plan was simple: keep the Enterprise moving forward and force the Tholians to match its speed, and hammer their forward shields until something punched through . . .

  . . . Before they do the same thing to us.

  Looking up from his sensor viewer, Spock said, “One of the vessels is decelerating.”

  “It took a direct hit!” Sulu added, peering into his own scanner. “That last strike took out its forward shields and impacted its hull.”

  When another strike connected with the Enterprise shields, Kirk felt the deck shift, and he gripped the back of Chekov’s chair to maintain his balance. Something popped at or near the environmental control station on the bridge’s port side, and within a few seconds the unmistakable odor of a circuit burnout assailed Kirk’s nostrils. A glance in that direction told him that the officer manning that station, Lieutenant Medeiros, already had the situation under control, ensuring that any fire threat was contained.

  “Damage report!” Kirk snapped.

  Scott replied, “Our aft starboard shields are buckling, and we’re getting reports of overloads across the ship. I’m rerouting power to reinforce them, but they’ll give way if they take a couple more hits like that last one.”

  “Remaining vessels are maintaining course,” Spock said, “though I’m detecting disruptions in the port deflector shields of the lead ship.”

  Kirk tapped Chekov on the shoulder. “Target him and fire.”

  “Aye, sir.” The ensign’s hands moved over the firing controls. Kirk watched the tactical readout on the main viewscreen charting the trajectory of the two torpedoes Chekov had dispatched, and a moment later the younger man pounded his fist on his console. “Both hits, sir!”

  Spock said, “Affirmative. The ship’s port and forward shields are down, and I’m detecting damage to the vessel’s hull. It is dropping out of warp.”

  “Captain!” Sulu snapped, and when Kirk looked up, the helm officer was pointing toward the screen. “The other two ships are veering off.”

  Pushing himself away from Chekov’s station, Kirk asked, “What about it, Spock?”

  “The two vessels are decelerating and changing course back toward their companions,” the Vulcan replied. “They may be attempting recovery operations.”

  “Sulu, bring us out of warp,” Kirk ordered. “Uhura, hail the lead ship and tell them we’re maintaining station and won’t interfere in any attempt to aid those ships, but we stand ready to assist if they request it.” Looking to Spock, he saw his friend offer an almost imperceptible nod.

  A moment later, Uhura swiveled in her seat, her expression one of concentration as she reached for the Feinberg receiver in her ear. “I’m picking up a response, sir, but it’s weak. Their communications array may have been damaged.” Her free hand played across her console before she added, “You’ll want to hear this, Captain.”

  “On speakers,” Kirk said. Uhura made the necessary adjustments, and the bridge’s intercom system flared to life with the sounds of a rather annoyed Tholian.

  “Maintain your distance, Starfleet vessel,” it said, in the high-pitched, filtered whine that was a characteristic of translated Tholian speech. “There is nothing you can do that will mitigate the damage caused by your ignorant meddling. You have ignored our every warning, and now you will pay for your arrogance. We will drive the Federation from this space and show no mercy. Flee, humans, for your time as a nuisance to us is at an end.” There was an audible snap as the transmission ended, and Kirk turned to Uhura, who already was examining various indicators on her console before she looked up and shook her head.

  “They severed the link, sir.”

  Spock added, “Sensors are picking up indications of transporter activity, Captain. So far as I am able to determine, neither damaged Tholian vessel suffered any casualties.”

  “I suppose that’s something,” Kirk mused, more to himself than anyone else. His thoughts were focused on the terse message transmitted by the Tholian leader. Drive the Federation from this space? “They were on a course for Vanguard,” he said as he stepped toward the railing separating him from Spock’s station. “Their message can mean only one thing: the Tholians really are planning to attack the station. Nogura knows about it, which is why he called us back.”

  Nodding in apparent agreement, the first officer turned from his console and clasped his hands behind his back. “Such an act would require a sizable offensive force. Perhaps the ships we encountered were traveling to join with such an armada.”

  Kirk, already resting his hands on the railing, felt his grip tightening as he contemplated the possibilities. Starbase 47, though possessing considerable defensive capabilities, was still a stationary target a long way from home. Support from other starships would be limited, at best, and that was if Admiral Nogura’s people had been able to effect repairs to the Sagittarius and the Endeavour, both damaged during their flight from the Iremal Cluster. If the Tholians were massing an attack force to throw at Vanguard, nearly every other Starfleet ship with the realistic ability to come to the station’s assistance would be too far out of range.

  Except one.

  “Mister Sulu,” Kirk said, new resolve beginning to well up from within him, “get us back to Starbase 47. Maximum warp, Scotty, until we get there, or we blow apart.”

  EIGHT

  Stardate 5829.6

  Starbase 12

  Kirk watched as Nogura, apparently needing a change of pace from the Saurian spirits they both had enjoyed to this point, retrieved a saucer holding a cup of steaming tea from the food slot at the rear of the office. Lifting the cup from the saucer, Nogura brought it to his nose and inhaled the tea’s aroma, and his expression softened as a sigh escaped his lips.

  “Last chance before I sit back down,” Nogura said, prior to taking a sip of the tea.

  Holding up a hand, Kirk shook his head. “No, thank you, sir.” Despite its allure, he also had opted against enjoying any more of the admiral’s exquisite brandy, not wanting to risk any real compromising of his faculties. Perhaps Nogura felt the same way, though Kirk suspected the older man never would admit any such thing.

  Nogura again sipped from his cup before moving toward his chair behind the desk. “As you rightly surmised, we were well aware of the potential for the Tholians to attack the station. What we didn’t count on was bringing them down on our own heads.” Reclaiming his seat, he placed the cup and saucer on the desk. “Xiong discovered that activating the array and trying to direct its power had one major side effect: it transmitted a signal in such a manner that it was heard, or received, or felt by every Tholian, everywhere. From that, they knew what we’d done, and what we were capable of doing.” Shrugging, he added, “Neat trick, considering even we didn’t know what we might be able to do with the array.

  “Xiong was against the experiments, of course, worried that we were exploiting a sentient race against their will for our own ends.” Nogura shook his head. “Even when things were at their worst, Xiong still looked for some way, any way, to find a peaceful solu
tion and a means of somehow communicating with the Shedai. He was against the notion of simply plundering their technology, at least not so long as there were representatives with whom we might share a dialogue.” Blowing out his breath, Nogura leaned back in his chair. “I’m as realistic and even cynical as the next person, but if he’d been given enough time, I’d like to think he would’ve succeeded.”

  Kirk nodded. Though his interactions with the young lieutenant had been few and infrequent, they still were sufficient for him to form an opinion on the man’s character. “We’d all probably be better off with more people like Ming Xiong.”

  “Damned right,” Nogura replied as he reached for his tea. “Unfortunately, most of the people currently running Starfleet are like me, and we have only ourselves to blame for what happened in the Taurus Reach.” As Kirk opened his mouth to respond, the admiral held up his hand. “Yes, our motives may have been pure, but our methods left much to be desired. Some of the decisions we were forced to make may have been inescapable, but the circumstances that led us to those decisions were of our own creation. Whether blinded by hopeless optimism or boundless arrogance, we made our bed out here.”

  It was unusual to hear a flag officer, particularly one of Nogura’s experience and standing, ruminating in such a fashion. However, Kirk had known for some time that the admiral was not the typical bureaucrat of the sort that seemed to fill the halls of leadership and power, not only within the upper echelons of Starfleet Command but also the Federation civilian government. Far too many of those people—in Kirk’s opinion, at least—seemed more concerned with protecting their own careers and casting blame away from their areas of influence, rather than asking the hard questions that demanded difficult and often unpleasant answers. Kirk much preferred officers who presented themselves in the latter fashion, and though he and Nogura did not always agree, such as when they butted heads over security and Kirk’s need to know regarding aspects of Operation Vanguard—he found his respect for the admiral growing each time they met.

  “And the Tholians did their level best to make us lie in that bed,” Kirk said. “Though, as you say, we pushed them to that point.”

  Nogura finished his tea. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Given the usual Tholian xenophobia, it’s not as though we ever were going to be the best of friends, but that doesn’t mean we needed to go out and antagonize them, accidentally or otherwise. Once the link was discovered between the Tholians and the Shedai, and how sensitive they were to the entire situation, we could’ve backed off, or stopped altogether, or maybe—in a fantasy world—somehow enlisted their assistance. A few individual Tholians helped us along the way, after all. It’s too bad we couldn’t have expanded on that collaborative spirit.”

  Kirk shifted in his seat. “If the Tholians’ ancestors were slaves to the Shedai, it makes sense that they’d never want to risk that happening again.”

  “And yet here we were,” Nogura replied, “having captured the last of their ancestors’ oppressors.”

  Kirk recalled what he had read about Tholian culture and history, at least the little information that was available or collected in the brief time the Federation had enjoyed what passed for diplomatic relations with the cloistered race. After delving beyond the usual reports about their low regard for most humanoid species and their penchant for expanding and retracting their borders with no apparent rhyme or reason, there was one fact about their physiology that had fascinated him. “From what I understand, the Tholians are able to somehow share or experience the memories of their ancestors, which in turn are passed along with the memories of each generation to the next. However they do it, they seem actually able to feel as though they lived through such events themselves.”

  Nodding, Nogura replied, “It sounds crazy, I know, but there’s apparently some truth to it. If that’s the case, then it’s entirely possible that the current generations of Tholians possess memories of their forefathers living under Shedai rule, and for all we know it feels to them like it just happened yesterday.”

  Kirk grunted. “It sure as hell’s a unique explanation for holding a grudge.”

  “And that’s before we went and tried to use the Shedai trapped in Xiong’s array,” Nogura countered. He leaned forward, his voice growing quieter as though he suspected his next comments might be overheard. “We destroyed a planet with the damned thing, Kirk. Ursanis II, an uninhabited rock chosen just for the purpose. We crushed it to powder before making it disappear to who knows where. Remember the Jinoteur system? Imagine being able to do that at will.”

  Dread gripped Kirk as he recalled what he knew of the Jinoteur system, both from official Starfleet reports as well as the explosive feature written by that journalist, Timothy Pennington, for the Federation News Service. Believed to be the origin point for the Shedai, the system was the scene for what turned out to be a remarkable confrontation between members of the mysterious race and Starfleet. “The Shedai made the whole system disappear,” he said. “Whether they destroyed it or transported it to some other location or dimension is anyone’s guess.”

  “Exactly,” Nogura said. “And once the Tholians realized what we had and what we could do, there was no way they were going to let us keep it. They didn’t want it, and they weren’t going to risk us losing control of the Shedai and letting them escape. In their minds, that left one option: send the Shedai, the station, and everyone on it straight to hell, and God help anything or anyone who got in their way.”

  NINE

  Stardate 5822.6

  U.S.S. Enterprise

  Despite full power to the Enterprise’s shields, the effects of the first barrage of Tholian weapons fire were strong enough to lift Kirk from his seat. He clutched the arms of his command chair and planted his feet on the pedestal to keep from being pitched forward, but not everyone on the bridge was as fortunate. In front of him, Chekov was bounced from his own seat at the navigation console and went tumbling to the deck. Kirk was already pulling himself from his chair in order to help him when the younger man rolled onto his side, saw his captain, and held up a hand.

  “I’m fine, sir,” Chekov said, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his station.

  “Maintain course and speed!” Kirk called out, his full attention already returning to other matters at hand. “Lock on targets and stand by to fire on my command!” Thanks to Sulu’s piloting skills, the Enterprise had dropped out of warp almost in the midst of the armada of Tholian vessels swarming about Starbase 47. The image on the main viewscreen was saturated with the signatures of weapons fire from the enemy ships, Vanguard’s considerable armaments, and—so far as Kirk could see—a single Starfleet vessel attempting to assist the station. His eyes widened at the sight of the damage inflicted upon the starbase. Dark pits and twisted hull plating marred its surface, and the flames from plasma fires belched from within as compartments were sliced open, only to be extinguished as those sections were exposed to space.

  Good God.

  Reports of a fleet massing at the Tholian border of the Taurus Reach had been distributed by Starfleet Command and Starbase 47 almost from the moment the U.S.S. Endeavour detected its inception weeks earlier. What remained a mystery, at least to most people, was the purpose or possible target of the mobilization. Nogura had informed Kirk of the deployment when he assigned the Enterprise to rescue the freighter Ephialtes near the Iremal Cluster, at the time adding that he was certain the target of any major Tholian offensive would be Vanguard. In the admiral’s opinion, it was not a matter of whether the Tholians would attack, but when.

  And when is right damned now. The thought taunted Kirk as he gazed upon the scenes of bedlam, with Starbase 47 at its center. Whatever Nogura and his people had done to precipitate such a response, there could be no mistaking the Tholians’ intent: utter annihilation of the station along with everyone and everything aboard it.

  “What’s the story, Spock?” Kirk asked.

  At the science station, the first of
ficer did not look up from his instruments as he replied, “The Sagittarius has sustained heavy damage and is on a course away from the station, and sensors are detecting debris from at least one Starfleet vessel, possibly the Buenos Aires. The Endeavour is the only other ship, and their course and evasive maneuvers suggest they are attempting to remain within transporter range of the station. Its shields are compromised and losing power.”

  “Trying to evacuate personnel, most likely,” Kirk said. If Captain Khatami was maintaining her ship’s position for that purpose, it would not take long for the Tholians to deduce that for themselves, at which time the Endeavour would be little more than a sitting duck, and that was before it dropped its deflector shields in the hopes of transporting survivors from the station. “Move us toward them, Mister Sulu.”

  “Aye, sir,” replied the helm officer, nodding without turning from his station.

  Behind him, Kirk heard Uhura say, “Captain, we’re being hailed by the Endeavour.”

  “On-screen,” Kirk ordered, and a second later the image on the main viewscreen depicting the chaos of battle was replaced by that of Atish Khatami. The Endeavour’s commanding officer seemed to be holding up well enough, all things considered, but he still saw the relief in her expression. Disregarding the usual greetings and other protocol, Kirk cut right to the point. “What’s your status, Captain?”

  Her voice crisp and controlled, Khatami replied, “We need cover so we can beam survivors off the station. Can you buy us five minutes?”

  Kirk’s mind raced through tactical scenarios. The Endeavour would have to lower its shields to employ its transporters. For the Enterprise to provide effective protection throughout that maneuver, it would have to be within close proximity to its sister starship. Very close proximity. He glanced at Sulu just as the lieutenant looked over his shoulder and realized from the other man’s expression that he already had surmised the situation for himself. Without saying anything, Sulu nodded, his expression one of utter confidence.