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This story is dedicated to the loving memory of my parents, especially my mom who recently passed away on March 15th of 2006. Both mom and dad will be greatly missed.
| Burton R. Gwinn Jr. | June 5th, 1945 — April 12th, 2005 |
| Patricia Ann Gwinn | May 18th, 1948 — March 15th, 2006 |
Captain’s Personal Log, Stardate: 9703.1
A captain’s world can turn completely to hell in just an hour or two.
That thought keeps running through my mind. It’s been four days since
our engagement with the Gorn. The battleship and its escort under tow
have out-paced us. Even though they’ll have to maintain low warp, we
have no hope of tracking them to get out of this region of plasma. We’ll
just have to trust our own navigational abilities to find a clear path
to normal space. The paths we entered from are completely closed now.
Most of our injured crew are back up on their feet with about twenty
back on duty. Gravest among the injured was the XO’s case. Mister Thomas
sustained grievous injury to spine and cranium, and also breathed in
infectious microbes when his pressure suit was breached. Doctor Keller
is doing what she can, but he needs Starbase facilities. If the swelling
in his body doesn’t abate, he’ll never regain the use of his legs. Ben
is my friend as well as my exec. His pain is my pain. When contact is
restored with Fleet Command, I’ll log an official protest through
diplomatic channels. That Gorn captain was out of her bounds… and
her mind…
Damage to the hull has almost been entirely repaired. Engineering says
that we should get our aft phasers back later today and our aft shields
should be online again any minute. Warp drive appears hopeless at this
time. Ten of the twelve coils in the starboard nacelle were cut in half
by direct hits from rail cannon projectiles. We have a few ideas about
how to proceed, but I believe an allied space tow is our best option at
this time. I am about to head to engineering to confer with Lieutenant
Commander Tolin.
End of log.
Captain Chevis D. Ford allowed the gentle motion of his fall continue as the section of the ruined nacelle drew nearer. Beside him was his chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Tolin. He and the Andorian officer had been out here, packed into EVA suits for the better part of an hour as they examined the damage to their engine from afar. The Gorn had hobbled them with but a single burst from their secondary armament.
Far across from them as they free floated the distance sat the unblemished port nacelle. Its long silver-grey expanses of unmarked metal gleamed in the ionized light play about them. The long radiator strip of cooling machinery wrapped around the tubular engine in its entirety, bisecting the silver alloy with a line of black. In contrast, the shambles that the officers floated down toward was a disaster.
Ford set his magnetic boots to standard and bent his legs to absorb the light shock of his landing. Tolin did likewise. Both stood now at the forward curvature of the wrecked engine, abaft of the saucer. The captain could see his men within the many windows, going about their duty as the great ship slowly crawled through plasma-filled space.
Before them was an expanse of torn and twisted metal and polymer. The intercoolers were rent to shreds and the curved alloy protecting the driver coils within had been penetrated by no less than fifty projectiles. The damage was no less than that of two full phaser blasts delivered at close range. And the effect was the same. No warp drive.
Ford eyed the scene in dismay as his engineer scanned it in detail with her tricorder. All of this had been scanned before. And by many teams before them. This tour was for the captain’s benefit only. He’d just had to see it. Now he stood with fists crammed into the fabric protecting his hips and growled.
“Well…” He mumbled, “There’s something to be said for simpler technology…”
“Yes,” Tolin’s accent almost sounded like a lisp at times. Her particular brand of speech did nothing, however, to camouflage the seething hostility beneath. “Their tritanium bullets were very effective at tearing my engine apart.”
There was no chance of repairing the injured coils, so Ford didn’t bother asking. They were fragile devices and full of fractures down to the microscopic level. The engineering staff would never be able to seal them all. Only two coils escaped harm; both in the far aft section. Neither coil had power; their leads were severed. The plasma flow to them could not be restored unless the other coils were repaired, or removed.
“Propulsion on a single nacelle is lookin’ like our best bet, Chief.”
“It would be a long shot, Captain,” her voice returned through his helmet comm with skepticism. “Our coils are not arranged for such use.”
“It’s been done before.” He reminded. He knew all to well what her response would be.
“Indeed, Captain. But each time at a high degree of risk. And two ships met a bad fate in their attempt to reach home.”
“The Exeter and the Aurora.” Ford remembered them well. Both had tried to get back home to their respective bases and both had plowed into the surface of the planet they had been orbiting. The Aurora had met her doom only seven years ago while he’d commanded the Gibbons.
“The warp field generated by a single set of port aligned coils would be highly unstable. Piloting the ship in this tight field of plasma would be suicide.” Tolin objected further.
“It would be a long shot…” Chevy agreed, his tone empty of emotion. There were so few options. “How about the idea of tearing out the wrecked coils and swapping some of the port assembly for them?”
Tolin’s suit bobbled as she nodded her head. Ford imagined she was very uncomfortable with her antennae packed into that small helmet. He started trekking for the nearest EVA hatch in the interests of alleviating her the discomfort. He’d seen all he needed to.
“The coil interchange would be the most effective course, sir.” Tolin said as she followed. “However, we should hold off till we exit this denser field of string phenomena. Should we encounter another adverse gravity sheer or a front of hard radiation, the EVA crew would face—”
An emergency squawk emitted from their comm units. Commander Davenport’s voice came through immediately on its heels. “Hate to cut y’all’s field trip short, Cap’n. But we’ve got a wave of hard radiation incoming from starboard. Prepare for transport.”
Ford and his engineer drew still as they awaited their beam-out. Frustration swelled in the captain. He was still incensed at being attacked by the Gorn, and still further perturbed at their inability to make repair. This wave of rads, and its impeccable timing, just showed him how much longer they would likely be delayed in getting the Endeavour mobile again. He was silently cursing to himself even when the blue transporter field swept him from the hull.
Lieutenant Commander Ronald Davenport leaned closer to the briefing room table as he addressed the captain. The room was filled with the department heads representing each section of the ship. Each was in their full, standard uniform. Many of those uniforms had their maroon jackets open; a sign of the tiredness and strain that had been on them for some time now. Today, Ron sat in the XO’s unoccupied seat. He was not comfortable there, and so long as Mister Thomas was still aboard this ship, he never would be. He cleared his throat before he spoke.
“Yes, Cap’n. I think our best, fastest route is to arrange ourselves a space tow.”
Ford crinkled the side of his ruddy face with a smirk. Ron’s own face was round and at times jovial looking. He was and easy going man whom did things at his own pace. But today, as on many others, he was dead serious. The captain respected the ops chief’s effort to put himself before his fellow officers and propose an idea to the captain. Ron had been just as uncomfortable looking back when he was chief engineer. He did not like being in the limelight. But he did what he had to, just as he always had. Ford decided to help him out a bit by speeding it up.
“You’re about to ask me to let you go out there in a shuttle and hail Starbase Twenty-Three.”
Davenport nodded.
“That’s right.”
Ford sat back, inhaling a slow breath of consideration. He chewed the inside of his lower lip. The dangers were apparent to every one present. A shuttle was ill protected to venture out there amid all that plasma. One good shift in the string patterns would fry them, either with a wave of radiation or a concentrated string of roiling plasma.
“That’s a risky venture, Ops.”
Ron nodded again. He knew it very well indeed.
“I’ll have our best pilot at the helm.” He cocked his head toward the thin, tall Mister Bronstien. The young lieutenant nodded his own ascent to the notion. He was ready for something daring. Ford looked between them as he ran a hand over the smoothness of his bald head. He had several options before him. None was great. He could wait till they found a clearance in the storm, praying it didn’t suddenly get worse, and allow Tolin’s men to effect the coil swap plan. This was what he’d decided upon up till now, but waiting weeks to reach and area where repairs could be made and then having this region shift and ruin it all for them did not seem so appealing. He could also chance warping to a safer region on the one nacelle, but as the engineer had counseled him, that was too great a risk. Or… he could send this shuttle mission…
“I won’t say I haven’t been tempted to order such a mission. But the danger is almost as great as trying to send a repair team to the outer hull. He glanced over to his chief science officer. The olive skinned Vulcan met his eyes with hers. Ford was coming to depend on this young woman quite a lot. “Surall, how far does your astrometrics department calculate this denser region stretches out to?”
Surall did not refer to the notes she’d brought along with her on her PADD. Vulcans really didn’t need to take notes, even though they always seemed to… “Our long range array has been able to ascertain that the most dangerous area of this phenomena radiates out from us for at least another sixteen light days from our present position. At maximum impulse velocity, we will not reach a clear area for eighteen point three-six-four days. Barring further hampering changes in course during such time, that is.”
“Eighteen days,” Ford repeated. “If we don’t have to back-track.”
Ron caught Ford’s gaze and delivered his most reassuring look.
“The shuttle Patricia can make it out of this region entirely within the next four days. A tug can reach us in five more. And we wouldn’t have to risk a hazardous EVA repair.”
Ford’s expression turned to a playful kind of humor.
“Sparky, you remember what happened the last time I let you play with a shuttlecraft…”
Ron shrugged with feigned innocence.
“That mountain got in my way, Cap’n. I swear it! This time there won’t be a planet or a mountain for light years!”
The gathered senior officers sitting near to them chuckled in a needed, soft laughter, with the sole exception of Surall. This was how a good crew operated. And Ford had one of the best. In the last few weeks, they had really meshed into a cohesive unit. Those who were familiar with each other already acted much as a family. They would protect each other as one.
Ford stood up from the rounded silver table. “Alright, Sparky. You got your shuttle. I’m gambling you’ll get help here and return safely before our situation gets any worse. Endeavour will continue on her current course at best speed. You’ll refit the Patricia with the best shields we can slap on her and go for help. Once you send your message, remain outside the string region time the tug comes and dock with her. I don’t want you chancing the storms twice. Draw up your plan and report to me within the hour on the details.”
Lieutenant Commander Davenport lowered the data PADD he’d been perusing and eyeballed the senior helmsman as he exited the shuttle parked in the center of Bay One. Lieutenant Bronstien was just as tall as the ops chief, which was saying something. He was half as wide though, and this made Ron feel overweight despite his grade-passing build. The dark haired boy held an air of menace in his eye as he gazed at the senior officer.
“Does the shuttle meet with your expectations, Mister Bronstien?” Ron drawled.
“Indeed it does, Mister Davenport.” Johnathan responded. He bobbed a bit on the balls of his feet. The kid was itching to get out there and ride the ionized rapids. Davenport had never been such a daredevil. He considered this lad to be a bit touched.
“The deflector generators are all tied in. All we need now are the final provisions and the skipper’s okay.” He told the young LT. Bronstien nodded and looked the Patricia over. She was a Type J cargo shuttle, which had been modified again and again over the last six years. Her warp drive was good for sustained warp for longer duration than any craft currently aboard ship. She had racks for mounting capital ship-grade phaser emitters and an extensive sensor refit. Now she had three new heavy shield generators to go with her numerous other additions.
The after main hatch opened with a loud drone of machinery. In from the causeway beyond came several enlisted ratings bearing antigrav units laden with supplies. Right behind them slumped their tired captain. Ron waited silently till the men closed in and began onloading their wares onto the shuttle. Ford handed Ronald a manifest.
“One emergency long-range comm unit, seven cases of field rations, three complete field medkits, four EVA suits, one emergency life support generator and ten pounds of coffee with a battery powered coffee maker.” Ford rattled off as Davenport smirked over the last entry.
“Ten pounds of coffee, huh? Think that’ll be enough for two weeks?”
Ford made pained face. “You’ll just have to make it stretch, Mister Davenport…”
The operations officer shrugged whimsically. “Oh well, when I get down to about four pounds, I’ll just dump a man out the airlock for every pound we use after that.”
Ford chucked his friend on the shoulder.
“Officer’s thinking, Commander. I knew I promoted you for a reason.” Ford watched for a moment in silence as Lieutenant Bronstien and Smith checked off the provisions aboard the craft. “You just don’t get killed out there, Ron. We’ve lost enough people out here on this mission. And none of them for any good reason.”
Ron nodded, saying nothing. All those deaths were riding heavily on Ford’s mind. The ops chief carried his own angst for his treatment by the Gorn. They’d shot him down like a dog after he’d rigged up life support for their unborn children. Everything that they were struggling with now was the result of a rash captain’s bad judgement.
“I almost wish I’d accepted the Gorn’s offer for a tow…” The captain eyed Davenport searchingly. He wanted to know how his friend felt about the decision. If they had accepted the tow, they would be out of the string region and well under way toward help by now. Ron clasped Chevy on his drooping shoulder.
“I’d have made the same choice, Skipper. That captain wasn’t… trustworthy.”
Ford looked away, mulling that over in his mind.
“Just make sure you get your people back home, Commander.”
He walked away then, leaving Ron to finish outfitting the Patricia for the trip.
The portside main door to Shuttle Bay One reeled slowly open before the Patricia. Ron watched it open through the tinted barrier of the forward porthole and keyed the main comm. “Bridge, this is Shuttle Seven. Ready for launch.”
“Understood, Shuttle Seven,” Came back an unfamiliar voice over the speaker. “You are cleared for departure. Good luck.”
It’s bad luck to wish someone good luck, Ron thought to himself. He might not believe in all superstitions, but he certainly kept track of them. He sighed as he began to key a series of controls. “Thank you, Bridge. Seven out.”
The ops chief gave a gesture to his pilot. Bronstien plied his hands about the console before him and their tiny ship lifted. They passed through the bluish forcefield holding in the bay’s atmosphere and began to slowly traverse the distance beneath the slope of the saucer section’s bottom. Once clear of their home ship, the helmsman poured on more speed to take them off toward their journey.
“We’re clear, Commander.”
Ron was silent a moment, going over lists and considerations in his mind. Then he nodded to himself. “Alright, Lieutenant. Set me a course of 047 mark 085. Accelerate to warp factor one till we reach the first way point and then edge her up to maximum warp.”
Only a few days ago, Bronstien had kept Davenport teetering on the edge of his seat by flying at impulse power through all this soup about them. Now they were in a much more fragile ship, and he was ordering the kid to fly them through the same stuff at faster than light speeds… Ron appreciated the irony of the situation. He still wasn’t comfortable with this, however.
Johnathan caught the flicker of nervousness in the other’s hands as he keyed the warp drive. Holding a straight face, he looked suddenly at a phantom display. “Uh-oh!”
“’Uh-Oh?’” Ron parroted back, eyes wide. “What uh’-oh?’”
“Oh, it’s nothing…”
“You let me decide what’s nothing!”
The flash of subspace penetration pulsed before their porthole and they were off.
Captain Ford paused before the doors that would allow him entrance into the interior of sickbay. He still was not used to this. Coming here every day and seeing his oldest friend laid up on that damned bed, immobile, was a trial. To be sure, the captain’s anguish was nothing compared to what Thomas himself was dealing with. But it was taxing none the less on an already burdened starship commander.
Ford took a deep breath, and allowed himself to center his thoughts. Once prepared, he forced himself over the invisible mental barrier and entered the medical ward. The main admissions center of the circular constructed complex was a warm, fuzzy shade of Fleet blue and thickly carpeted. The waiting chairs matched the floors and the walls, and the end tables placed here and there were faux wood. The nurse’s desk faced the captain, and Nurse Galloway nodded kindly to her skipper upon recognizing him. She said nothing to Ford as he quietly made past her station and entered the recovery/observation ward.
Mister Thomas was laying on the very last biobed in the ward. A small meal table had been erected over his torso and he’d propped himself up to better look at the contents thereon. Ford smirked at the sight of what his XO was doing with that table covered in data PADDs and took a swift step that way to join his companion. The blonde form of Doctor Andrea Keller was soon blocking him.
“Doctor.” He greeted her. The slim, short woman wore a typical white medical coat over her olive green duty tunic. Her shirt boasted the older turtleneck collar that Ford had hated so much over the last twenty years. He was ever so glad to finally have the optional slim collared tunic.
“Captain, might I have a word with you about your Number One?”
“I went to the head before I got here, thanks.”
Keller’s eyes clenched so much at Chevy’s attempted joke that he believed they might cross. He stepped back and forced himself to relax a bit more. His gaze centered fully upon hers. “Alright, Doc. What about the XO?”
“He has been ordering the yeomen and deck attendants to bring him data work to go over. As you can see, he has quite a pile of them.” She complained her voice low. She was doing her best to keep from being over heard, but Ford saw his XO glance over a raised PADD and smile. Ford kept his own grin at bay.
“Well… whatever keeps him happy…”
“That’s just it, sir.” She pressed, making a halting gesture with the palm of her hand as though she believed he was about to bolt past her any second. “I would prefer it if the Commander found something more relaxing to bide his time. He is supposed to be on the mend, you know. Data work is not what one reviews for fun.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Anything. He could use those PADDs to read a book or galactic news…”
“I’m not sure Thomas even knows how to read.”
“Sir…?”
Ford looked over the round-faced doctor and motioned to his friend.
“Hey, Ben. You know how to read?”
“Nope!”
Ford looked back to the doc with a playful shrug. “See there, Doctor. Can’t read a lick.”
Keller’s hands found their way to her slim hips. “Then how is he doing all that data work?”
“Mostly he just amuses himself with the graphs we make him and all the pretty pictures. Then he just puts his thumb up to every yellow box he sees… Which got him in trouble with the yellow skinned women on Triannus Three. Thank you, Doctor.” Ford moved past Keller, whom he left in such a confused state she just stared after him.
Ford went to settle into what had become his customary chair beside the narrow bio platform Ben rested on. Thomas lowered his PADD just enough to eye his captain conspiratorially. “You know I only had the yeoman department bring me these to keep her from hovering over me all the damn time.”
Chevis made a false frown and shrugged. “I know how you just love paperwork.”
“How’re repairs going?”
“They’re not, really. The whole area around Endeavour is currently saturated in heavy radiation. I can’t send any hull teams out. I’ve ordered full impulse, so maybe we’ll get to clearer space soon.”
Ben thought about the news in silence.
“I’m wishing now that I’d pulled my team back before we contacted the Gorn.” Seeing the captain’s face immediately darken, Thomas swiftly changed the subject. “Any report on our shuttle team?”
Ford nodded. “Davenport reports they’ve reached the first planned waypoint. Ten hours till the next, then they’re off our scopes.”
Ben’s expression sagged upon his broad, husky face.
“I’d give anything to be on that mission with ‘em.”
Ford could see the wetness welling within the exec’s blue eyes. His own heart sank at the pitiful sight. He wanted to club that Gorn captain down… beat her bloody… This was his friend! Did the Gorn even recognize friendships? Did they have the basest idea of the concept? Surely. But how could that captain have been so blatantly out of bounds? Had she been insane? She’d brought on the deaths of numerous Starfleet crewmen and officers, and lost several of her own men in the violent boarding of this ship. What had it been for?
There was a deathly real chance that Benjamin Thomas might never walk on his own again. Dying in the line of duty was one thing, and readily accepted as part of the service. But being made lame… crippled… That would be hard to live with. Science could cure many afflictions, but some things were beyond even today’s medicine. Only luck and a load of carefully monitored antibiotics could help Ben now.
Ford looked up at his XO. He grasped the larger man’s shoulder. Thomas barely felt it. He was tingly from the neck down. He smiled back anyway. There was nothing they could do to alter the past. They could not track down the Gorn and exact revenge. They had neither the motive capacity nor the lack of principle to do such.
“As with every thing else in our Starfleet lives, Mister Thomas…” Chevy told him, “We’ll fight our way back to right. This is only temporary.”
Ben closed his eyes for a long time. And when he felt controlled enough to open them back up, Captain Ford was still there. Just like he always had been.
The low, rhythmic strumming of Lieutenant Bronstien’s acoustic guitar filled the cabin space within the cargo shuttle. Commander Davenport lay stretched out on the narrow bunk in the cargo compartment and listened to the lieutenant’s talent. The kid wasn’t a professional. But he could be if he could find the time to develop his skill further. Ideas wafted through the operations officer’s mind about starting a ship’s band. Many vessels boasted groups of musicians who performed for their crews.
Johnathan continued on in a slow rendition of a hard rock song from twenty years prior. Ron was no fan of hard music, but he believed the song belonged to Sable Riot… They’d been and old school kind of metal band modeled after various bands of the late twentieth century. Davenport had to admit, however, that once slowed down, their tune was quite rhythmic.
In the cockpit section, Lieutenant Smith and Engineering Specialist McCoy manned the controls till their next course change. Neither was a specialized helmsman, but both were trained shuttle pilots. Bronstien had relinquished the controls about four hours prior upon entering what he called ‘safe’ space. Ronald could hear the two younglings discussing family lineage as the engineering rating tried to convince the star struck officer that she was not related in anyway to any Starfleet medical officers aboard Enterprise. This discussion had been escalating now for some time and had both Davenport and Bronstien smiling.
“I swear it, I am not from Georgia and I don’t have an uncle named Leonard. Now give it up! Sir!”
Ron leaned off his small rack. “Hey, now kids, don’t make me pull this ship over! I’ll tan both your hides!”
“Sounds kinky!” Johnathan remarked from his side of the aft cabin. Ron shot him a mock-bemused expression.
“Don’t you start in, Mister. I’m supercharged on Juan Valdez and ready to scrap.” He held up his ever-present coffee mug for emphasis. The lieutenant grinned back. An alarm from the nav computer drew both their gazes and halted John’s constant strumming.
“Coming up on second waypoint, Commander.” Noah called back from the operations seat. Johnathan set his guitar down and moved forward to replace McCoy at the helm. Ron moved close to the cabin bulkhead and leaned into the control space.
“Hail the captain.” Davenport said.
Smith tapped several keys in succession and nodded.
“Endeavour, this is Shuttle Seven. We are nearing Waypoint Two, over.”
Static rolled through the open comm line. Finally, a scratchy rendition of Ford’s voice became audible. “—erstood—losing radio con—. —trying to boost gain but—will be out of sensor—”
Ron eyed the boy at the operations seat. Smith was already trying to clear up the transmission, but having little success. The blonde headed kid looked back at him with a frown.
“Best I can do, Commander.”
Ronald nodded and cleared his voice.
“Roger that, Endeavour. We can barely read you. Sensors show the way to be reasonably clear for the next two light days of our position. Do you copy?”
“Affirmative— Seven. After — you will be out of comm range— Try not to get dead—”
Ron smirked at the comment.
“Copy that, Cap’n. Thanks for the sentiment. Seven out.”
Ronald smiled a small smile to himself as he watched the tightly packed cloud patterns flow by. Were this not such a dangerous place, it would have been relaxing. He hunkered in the hatchway for a time longer, sipping black coffee and enjoying one of nature’s most beautifully hazardous formations.
Another alarm was soon screaming, this one an emergency proximity siren. Ron looked over to Johnathan, his serene moment broken all to hell. “What the hell’s that, Lieutenant?”
Bronstien shook his head. “Don’t know, Commander. Deflectors just snapped on. Sensors have detected…”
Noah interjected in a loud voice. “It’s a large ionic discharge, Commander! Approaching from 273 mark 068!”
Ron braced himself within the bulkhead hatch and motioned for the red headed engineer to prepare herself. McCoy strapped herself in to the small passenger bench aft and pulled a status monitor close. Ron looked down on the drawn face of his helmsman. “Evasive?”
“Too big.” Was the answer. Ron could see a frighteningly large sickle shaped torrent of energy coming into view at the port side of the viewscreen. From what little he could discern at this angle, it was still enough to chill his nerves. And so soon into the voyage, too…
Bronstien was putting the Pat into a hard starboard turn, hoping that he could reverse course before running out of time. Davenport did not place much hope in the maneuver.
“Can you out run it?”
“Too late!”
The viewport before them flashed alight in blue energy and the shuttle rolled. This was the last impression Davenport could gather from the impact before his vision faded out and darkness took him.
“Captain!”
Ford swung the conn toward the ops console and the enlisted rating manning it. The unfamiliar man’s voice carried in it a serious note of concern that made the captain’s heart plunge an inch or so. “What is it ops?”
“Sir…I’ve lost Shuttle Seven’s transponder signal.”
Ford swung his chair to face his most experienced sensor officer, Lieutenant Surall. Surall was already peering into her main scope; any order for her to confirm operation’s report was unnecessary. The brown skinned Vulcan’s brows knit into a clenched furrow. “Confirmed, Captain. I no longer read the Patricia’s coded signal.”
“Her warp signature?”
“Indications are negative. Reviewing recorded sensor data.”
Chevis stood up and slowly walked closer to the blue painted rail between the command section and the science console. Among the bullet riddled stations adorning the bridge deck, science was the only one completely restored to its original condition. Each and every other post surrounding the captain bore evidence of the Gorn’s violence. Even his conn was a battered and pieced-together jalopy of its former self. Ford had felt that science was first and foremost among the main duty stations. It served as the eyes and ears of the ship. Anything else could be handled from engineering or auxiliary control. But science was primarily nestled on Deck One, the main bridge. Finally, Surall looked up from her screens.
“Shuttle Seven appears to have encountered a sizable wave of ionized energy from the plasma front at bearing 347 mark 005. This string extends ahead of us as far as our sensors can detect. The energy levels of this wave are in excess of five hundred thousand Cochranes. I doubt the shuttle’s shields could have sustained even a fraction of—”
Ford jabbed a finger at her to cut her off. He’d have nothing to do with further reports of crew casualties. “Initiate a full sensor sweep of the affected area immediately, Lieutenant! Find that shuttle!” He turned on the communications spec manning the port-aft console. “Comm, hail the shuttle! Keep hailing till you get them!”
The young lady at the ravaged and barely operable station nodded and turned to her instruments. “Shuttle Patricia, this is USS
Endeavour, please respond. Shuttle Patricia…”
Several of the bridge crew had stopped to stare in concern at their captain, particularly among the ratings who were in the midst of repairs on the damaged bridge equipment. Ford ignored them all. He realized he was acting aggravated and frantic. But those were his men out there. Men he’d ordered out into harm’s way to do a job for his crippled ship. A ship which remained in a crippled condition because he had been too proud and angry to accept the Gorn captain’s offer of aid. He’d argued with himself over sending them out there. And he’d gambled on their ability to survive and bring home help.
To have those men killed so soon and so ineffectually was something he could not accept. Nor was he about to give up on them. His face was flushed and warm feeling. His chest felt as though an elephant were sitting on him. He wondered how many among the crew had noticed his discomfort, but only in a vague, analytical sort of way. His eyes bore down on his comm spec.
Finally she turned back to him, face downcast and eyes refusing to meet her skipper’s.
“Sorry, sir. No response from Shuttle Seven on any frequency.”
Ford whirled back on science. “Lieutenant?”
“The region is far too ionized from cloud activity to lock onto anything as small as a shuttlecraft. Without the aid of some kind of signaling device or an active warp signature, our chances of finding the Patricia are slim.”
Surall reported everything with all the unemotional detachment of a programmed machine. Ford knew Vulcans well enough to know that this was not meant to anger or dishearten, but it did both none the less. Ford stalked away from her, fists clenched. He felt ineffectual and lame. Much as his command was at the moment. He would have to remedy this.
“Continue scanning the area with all available instruments and send out a hail at regular intervals.” He paused at the port side of the bridge rail; eyes locked on the bullet holes in the blue turbolift doors before him. “Nechayev, you have the bridge. I’ll be in engineering.”
Lieutenant Commander Davenport collected himself from the grit-strewn deck of Shuttle Seven and breathed in a lung full of smoky, hot air. The coarseness of the air gagged him and set him to coughing. His hand clawed up the bulkhead beside him till he reached the flickering lights of the environmental control panel. He dragged his protesting body to eye level with the control board and tried to force his blurry vision to focus on the light generated readings. He could barely make out concrete details, but there was definitely a high concentration of plasmic exhaust within the compartment. Many of the primary controls showed blinking red warning labels beside them. On instinct, he killed the system and reactivated it, restoring its default programming. Beneath the deck, a series of small fans began to hum. He hoped this would be enough. His legs retained no more strength to hold him upright. Ron tottered to the diamond-plate deck, adding to the already fierce pounding throbbing within his skull.
After what seemed an eternity, and more than enough time to convince him he’d done the wrong thing, the air began to clear and level in temperature. Cool air chilled him and made the operations officer aware of the fact he’d been sweating profusely for who knew how long. Laboriously, Ron dragged sweet, clean air into his lungs.
The pain in his skull seemed less.
After a minute or two, Davenport swung himself up onto his posterior and took a groggy look about. A plasma terminal did indeed hang severed in the aft compartment of the cargo hold. The deck and starboard bulkhead near it had been seared by its output, turned a rusty brownish red by the heat. The crew was lucky to be alive. Thankfully, the output of that particular feed had been relatively weak.
At his left slumped Lieutenants Bronstien and Smith. Both remained seated at their previous posts, and both were breathing regularly. Noah’s face was red and puffy in appearance. Likely he would not have survived much longer. To Ron’s right Specialist McCoy lay in a slouched heap within her chair restraints. She looked no worse for wear, and was beginning to regain consciousness.
Davenport decided to let her come around on her own and stood up to examine the shuttle’s current condition. He stood, feeling a sudden vertigo. His vision swam, but regained focus swiftly. The effects of the gas were wearing off. He looked back to the environmental panel he’d worked earlier.
Life support was stable, with plenty of backup power remaining to feed it. The fact that it was being supplied by reserve sources concerned Ron, however. He turned round to look at the engineering panel. What he found there shot fright into his chest.
Status indicators were alight showing that the starboard nacelle had been blown completely away in the ionic surge. Their shield generators were fried and their impulse system was inoperative. The main plasma capacitance chamber read as being dry. No stored plasma. No fuel. The unconnected deuterium storage tank showed that it too had suffered damage. It retained less than ten percent of its volume.
This shuttle was adrift. And she was hopelessly far away from her base ship. At impulse power, it could take days for Endeavour to reach them out here. And they would likely have run out of power before then.
Beside him, McCoy stirred to wakefulness. Her hazel eyes looked up at Ronald. He tried to pass her a soft and reassuring smile, but worried it looked more like a fatalistic smirk. The spec unstrapped the belts that held her in and stood up. Her face flushed almost green and she stumbled into Ron. The commander grabbed her before she bounced off. She looked up into his eyes and sheepishly grinned back.
“Thanks, sir.”
“Don’t mention it, Crewman.”
McCoy looked at the status board. What she saw there made her wince. “Please tell me it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“I’d be lying if I did. It’s bad.”
The young woman leaned in and away from the commander. Her eyes took in every facet of the bad news. “We have less than thirty-two hours of life-support energy left. And that’s only if we set the generator to half power.” The auburn-headed engineer’s small shoulders drew in on themselves as fear took her. Her body quaked visibly and her mouth dropped open. She just leaned there, over the board and said nothing.
Ron stepped closer to the young crewman and laid a comforting hand on her back. She was inexperienced, having only been in starships for a few months. This was her first deep space tour. No matter what your previous experience in training, deep space frightened a first timer.
“We’re gonna be alright, Kim. The captain knows we’re hurt by now and is doin’ something about it. And we haven’t even started to fight. Trust me, we’ll be fine.”
“Who’s fine?” Came a groggy reply from the cockpit. Davenport glanced away from the shocked engineer to see both Smith and Bronstien rousing from their slumber.
“We will be,” Ron answered them, “Now that I can get some work out of you. Did y’all enjoy your little naps?”
Lieutenant Commander Tolin shook her head at what the captain had just requested of her.
“This plan of action is highly ill-advised, sir. Taking the ship in there, at warp, on one nacelle with all of that high energy ionic activity going on is suicide.”
Ford was glad to have called the chief engineer into her office compartment. The crew did not need to hear him arguing this plan out with their senior officer. He looked up from the warp field diagnostic screen on the desktop computer and nailed her with a glare. “I thought you were the best engineer for this ship, Commander.”
Tolin cocked her head as she returned the look.
“Notwithstanding, Captain. This ship is poorly situated to propel herself with only a single nacelle. The coils are not aligned for the operation and the warp field has not been configured—“
“You’re about to start working on that.” Chevy swung the computer panel around to face her. The Andorian looked down at it and visibly blanched. She was going to resist this crazy plan to the best of her capacity.
“Even if I were to adjust the warp field dynamic, with the coils physically out of alignment, it would be like trying to drive a ground automobile at high speed on nothing but its rims. There would be almost no control and your best pilot is lost in a shuttlecraft!”
“You let me worry about that.”
Xia shook her shaggy, white-haired head. “This will not work!”
Ford advanced threateningly. He was almost at his wits-end with meeting resistance. He had a mind to yell and to take Tolin by the throat, but satisfied himself with glowering at her with smoking brown eyes. “Engineer, you are hereby ordered to make the required modifications to the ship’s warp field coils. You will have them ready by no later than oh-six-thirty tomorrow. Take any and all precautions you see fit to better prepare this ship for its trip.”
Without waiting for a reply, Ford rounded the bulk of the desk and exited her office. Tolin stared after him, not altogether sure how close she had been to physical harm. She stood motionless for a moment more, catching her breath and looking out the wide windows for any hint that the crew had witnessed what had transpired. All of them seemed to be going about their duties, and none were stealing glances her way.
After her nerve had returned, she turned around and sat behind her desk, turning the small computer monitor back around to face her. She had a great deal of warp field geometry to rework here. This had never been attempted with an Excelsior-class starship before, and there was no text book example to draw upon. Creating a stable subspace field with two nacelles was considered miracle enough, but to remove one from the equation was like trying to walk on one leg.
Xia breathed in deeply and set to work.
“So, basically we’re screwed.”
Ronald nodded back to the senior helmsman. “In a nut-shell, Lieutenant. We’ve got little power, and no means of generating any.” He looked pointedly at the comm officer. “Any luck with that array?”
Smith glanced out from under the ops console he’d torn into. Both the chair and the access panel that went to that station lay in the aft hold. “Negative so far, Commander. I’m getting no current from the EPS grid or my bypass. Maybe if I run a more direct feed to the battery.”
Ron looked up at the overhead. Not for the first time, he wished the emergency comm unit the captain had supplied them with had survived the turbulence of the impact. Sadly it had been flung from the safety netting in the aft hold. The dented shell of the machine lay uselessly beside him as he judged what materials were to be had above him.
“You’ll have to scrounge up the conduit you need. I don’t know how much of it’s gonna be the right output.”
“Probably none of it.” Kimberly McCoy answered for them. “The Type J and K series shuttles aren’t known for parts interchangeability.”
The engineering spec stood, wringing her hands to restore warmth to them in the cooling cabin air. She had finally shed her phantoms and was now eager to help get them all home. She went to stoop beside Smith. “Maybe I can rig a amperage converter for you while you do the scrounging, Lieutenant.”
Smith climbed out from under the console.
“Thanks, Kim.”
McCoy slid into the space the comm officer had occupied leaving the guys to prizing open more access panels and revealing opti and EPS cable. Noah described what was needed and Ron helped them pull several long runs of feed free while telling them what not to yank out. While they salvaged, Bronstien voiced a concern.
“The draw on the comm array is about twelve Cochranes, right?”
“Yeah,” Smith answered, “Why?”
“How much have we got left in the battery?”
Ron stopped pulling on the two-meter long strip of EPS line had held. “Less than seven.”
“So, is Endeavour even going to be able to hear us when we try this message?” The helmsman asked, “And, if so, will it help them get here any faster?”
Ron nodded to the last part.
“If the Captain knows where to look, he’ll find us faster.”
“But Endeavour will take a week just to get here at impulse…” Noah pointed out.
Davenport shrugged as though completely assured and continued to pull on the lead.
“The Cap’n’s gonna go to warp.”
Johnathan looked at the ops officer with an incredulous glint in his eye.
“How do you know?”
“I know the Captain. He ain’t gonna let us down. Warp speed is the best way to get to us in time.”
Bronstien believed Davenport was telling the truth. Ron held no trace of bull in either voice or continence. But he found the idea hard to swallow. “That’s crazy.”
“Cap’n won’t care. He’s coming to get his people.”
Commander Thomas let the silence hang for a moment or two after hearing what his friend had told him. Ford looked at the deck beside them, unwilling or unable to look back at his XO. The captain carried the weight of the entire ship on his shoulders. Death weighed heavily upon many a skipper, some more than others. That weight grew heavier when there had been a way to prevent it from happening. And Ford believed his men weren’t dead yet.
“It’s a hell of a gamble you’re takin’, Chevy. Risking the seven hundred eighty crew of the ship to rescue four men.” The big man’s voice overrode every sound in the empty sickbay room. Only the white walls and blue furniture were witness to their conversation.
Ford looked over at his friend, searching his face to see if the comment was meant as disagreement. He found none such there. Thomas merely echoed what had already been said in the captain’s own mind. The captain relaxed a bit in his chair.
“Yeah, Mister Thomas. It is. But, I’m not losing any more men on this mission.”
Ben looked at Chevis as seriously as possible. “You can’t guarantee that. We’re a long way from Starbase 23.”
Ford’s eyes drew narrow, showing the resolve that the XO was accustomed to. “I’m not losing these men!”
Ben gave his friend one single nod. “Then go get ‘em, Cap!”
Ford patted the huge man on the shoulder as he stood and strode away. Ford was a damn good skipper, Thomas believed, but even he needed a boost every now and again. He was glad to provide even that. Trapped within this recovery room, the exec felt less than useless. He watched after his friend rounding the final corner to go out the door and wished he were by the man’s side, going to solve today’s problems.
The unidentified bacteriological infection raging within his nervous tissues were thus far continuing unabated by the serums attempted by the ship’s doctor. More advanced diagnostic equipment was needed to determine the precise nature of the bacteria’s workings and discover a way of eradicating it. Till then it was unlikely Ben would be getting up to help his captain ever again. Thomas just prayed they got to starbase in time…
“You’re sure this is gonna work?”
Commander Ronald Davenport looked up from the exposed workings of the shuttle’s energy capacitors and raised his phaser pistol to eye level. “Well, Scotty did it.”
“Scotty?” Repeated Smith.
“Captain Montgomery Scott, chief engineer of the Enterprise?” McCoy chided, still beneath her operations console in the fore compartment. “Thought you were up on all the Enterprise crew…”
“I’m a comm officer, not a historian.”
“Then how’d you know about Bones McCoy?”
“He lectured on xenobiology at the Academy my junior year.”
Bronstien coughed and edged forward toward the open trench of exposed machinery in the middle of the cargo compartment. “So… uh… what are you doing again?”
“I’m gonna drain the phased plasma from these phaser pistols into the EPS manifold and refuel the shuttle’s main fuel capacitors.” Ron told him with a deadpan expression. This caused Johnathan to run a thin hand through his black, short buzzed hair.
“Uhm… Wait a minute!” He pointed at the weapon in Ron’s hand. “How’s that…” His finger descended to the plasma flow manifold in the deck. “…gonna refuel that?”
Davenport shrugged as he maneuvered himself into a comfortable place to bend over the manifold in its sunken compartment. “Phasers and EPS drives both handle the same kind of energy. Plasma.”
John nodded, but was still nervous.
“Yeah, but EPS plasma is regulated to generate power or drive an engine. Phasers blow shit up.”
“I’ve set the manifold’s flow regulator to act as a converter to turn the phased plasma into a usable source of fuel.”
Johnathan nodded in an exaggerated manner than Ron only caught in his periphery.
“Easiest thing in the world, then.”
“Still don’t get it?”
“Nope.”
“Not up on technobabble?”
“Not really. I just fly spaceships and blow people up.”
“Everybody has their strong points.” Ron eased his phaser’s barrel into the waiting receptacle and squeezed the trigger. The blue-grey weapon squalled out its call and filled the shuttle with nerve-racking noise. It would take Davenport some time to drain the weapons into the power grid. By then, they would all be half-deaf.
Johnathan returned to the cockpit and knelt beside Miss McCoy. Kimberly looked out at him with a small smile upon her grease-smudged face. “Learning anything about engineering today?”
The helmsman nodded.
“Yeah. Learning I’m glad to be a pilot!”
“Hopefully Sparky’s improvisation will give us the power we need to get that comm signal out.”
“I’m just hoping to have enough power left to breathe after we send it.”
“We’ll see to that—”
A dull thump on the outer hull drew their attention. Bronstien stood immediately and looked out the viewport, followed just moments later by the remaining shuttle crew. None could see anything. But the sound came again. The view of the roiling plasma waves beyond began to spin before them. Shuttle Craft Number Seven was now slowly rolling…
“What’s causing that?” Came McCoy’s suddenly frightened voice.
Johnathan knew.
“Micrometeorites!”
Captain’s Personal Log, Supplemental.
Engineering is nearing the deadline I set for them to have the coil
modifications completed. I am continuing with my decision to try and
reach my men under warp power. To continue at maximum impulse power
still puts us at three days away, and we cannot maintain speeds in
excess of full impulse for nearly a quarter of that time. Our actual
arrival time puts us closer to a week away.
Some of the officers remain skeptical as to the possibilities of my
plan’s success. But they don’t have the responsibility for its success
or failure riding on them. Nor do they have the responsibility for those
officers and crewman aboard the Patricia. All of that is on my back.
I have considered sending another shuttle out to retrieve my men, but
I’m unwilling to risk more men out there in a less capable craft. The
Pat was the best I had. The others would get fried before they even
reached my men.
The Patricia still has yet to respond to our hails and we have not
detected her. I am becoming more and more concerned for my missing crew.
End of Log.
Captain Ford sat back in his small chair within the darkened recesses of his personal cabin, his hand stroking the back of his napping dog. He was fighting sleep, the demon that was even now pulling at the corners of his mind. He needed the rest, but was holding it off so that he could review the latest reports from Engineer Tolin. For all of her misgivings and outright resistance, Xia was holding up her end of the job. She had presented a field geometry for the unaligned coils that gave Ford much more confidence that his plan could work. He was still tempted to modify a shuttle with improved shielding and fly it out there himself. This way he would risk no one else, and Mister Thomas was in no condition to stop him.
There was still the issue of whom among his crew having the necessary helm experience to pilot Endeavour out there. Most of his candidates were second shift backups or men who’d transferred departments years prior. There was one man aboard he was leaning toward assigning to the helm, but he had thought better of it more than once. The individual in question was far too untrustworthy in his opinion to hand the ship over to lightly.
Finally, Ford lay his data PADD down on his lit desk, tucked his drowsy Pekinese under his arm and slowly ascended to his bunk. Sleep was now taking him, his battle lost to it. He’d make the final helmsman decision at oh-five hundred when he awoke in the morning. Something told him he’d have to trust that one individual… whether he liked it or not.
The cacophony of tiny mineralogical impacts against the hull continued to rise to an ear splitting intensity. Engineering Spec McCoy knelt near to Commander Davenport and held an oscolitic spanner for him to further open the manifold’s injection point as the officer fired his last remaining phaser.
At the helm, Bronstien held hands clenched to his aching ears and watched as the flurry of miniature meteors ate away at the forward viewport. The transparent screen was now very much brown from all the material it had lost. The console display showed it retained less than twenty percent of its strength and would soon breach. Their tiny shuttle was already in motion, coaxed up to a meager two thousand meters per second via the remaining RCS thrusters. But this would not likely carry them free of this three million-kilometer expanse of meteoric activity before they ran out of time. Johnathan looked back his CO’s direction.
“Any luck on that miracle, yet?”
“Almost done!” Called back McCoy. Davenport did not budge from where he was working.
“Will we be able to fire up the nav deflector? ‘Cause if not, we’re dead anyway!”
McCoy dropped the spanner she held and ran a step to the engineering display. She peered into its indicators and called up a new interface on the blue screen. “Navigational deflector is operable… sorta… It’ll last for a little bit.”
“You’re not helping my confidence here!”
Ron cut the phaser beam from his pistol and tossed the drained weapon to the deck. “Done!” He picked up the manifold cover plate and slammed it into place and turned the hand-crank. “Activate converters!”
Smith was swift to respond, hands dropping from his own ears and plying across the ops panel.
“Engines online!”
Lieutenant Bronstien slapped a waiting trio of yellow keys, firing the impulse drive and the deflector controls together. The beleaguered shuttle jumped ahead, suddenly propelled to a fraction of the speed of light. John and Noah were slammed hard into their acceleration seats as the inertial dampeners were overcome. McCoy was violently thrown into her waiting chair in the after compartment. Davenport was bodily thrown to the aft bulkhead and struck with a loud bang.
The thump and thud of a few stray meteor projectiles ended after a few moments. Then silence reined about that small craft. Johnathan killed the forward thrust after a time, turning and declaring to the crew, “We’re clear of the swarm, guys. I’m killing thrust to keep what power we have left.”
Ron sagged painfully at the aft hatch. “I’m billing you for my chiropractor, Mister Bronstien.”
“That’s fine. Just as long as we make it somewhere that has one.”
Smith turned from his own seat to look upon their technical wizards. “How much power did we burn?”
McCoy stood (Ron felt like lying there a bit longer…) and addressed her engineering screen again. “We’re down to eighteen Cochranes now. Enough to get our signal off…”
Davenport finished from there, now rising from the cold deck. Main life support had been off long enough now that his breath could be seen as he spoke. “But not enough to live very long if we make it a very powerful signal. Mister Smith, prepare a powered down signal beacon for Endeavour to trace. No more than moderate range expectancy, ten milliCochrans per minute.”
Just enough to find us if they get close, Ron thought to himself. This would give them a few days worth of life support. It also depended on his faith that Endeavour was about to roar in here at warp speed pretty soon. If she didn’t, and he had been wrong about his friend… Ron steeled himself to the fear creeping up his throat and forced himself to sit down on the starboard side bunk. He’d get some rest after all those hours of bending and draining those infernal phasers.
Something moving outside the main port caught his eye. Smith was facing away from it, eyeing McCoy’s form as she checked over the ship’s status. Johnathan had seen it too, and looked back in cold hard fear as Ron recognized what it was coming in at them. There was no mistaking the ramifications the huge mountain speeding toward them represented. As the ops officer stared at the behemoth screaming in at them, he reflected how hard it would be for things to get worse…
The bridge doors parted before Captain Ford as he strode swiftly down into the command section with renewed vigor. He halted by the conn and glanced left to engineering. Tolin herself was seated there, before a shining new console that had been swiftly made ready within the last day and a half. The lieutenant commander met his gaze and held it evenly. He was glad not to see resentment there. He wasn’t so sure he’d have been as forgiving.
“Warp drive?”
“Ready, Captain.”
Ford glanced back to Nechayev manning weapons. “Shields?”
“Ready at full power forward.” The man’s Slavic accent returned.
Ford gave then all a quick glance and a confirming nod. “Bring the port nacelle online.”
“Charging subspace coils.” Responded Xia, who spun to face the station and get to work. “Plasma concentration coming to one hundred percent and holding.” The deck thrummed with its power, but felt oddly off with one engine pod shut down.
Ford felt suddenly lop-sided.
“Tactical, signal Red Alert and sound the collision alarm.”
The lighting dimmed as both alarms called off alternately. Bathed in flashing crimson tracers, Chevy approached the helmsman and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Mister Millunzi, man the conn.”
The thirty-something CPO looked back at him with some confusion. The odd order only served to confuse him. Surely he’d been ordered here because of his years in the service. He was no primary helmsman, but he scored better than the remainder of the crew, from XO on down.
“I relieve you, Petty Officer. I have the helm.”
CPO Millunzi grinned back as realization flooded into him. There was one more man aboard with more helm time than he; the captain, who served as Admiral Sharp’s primary navigator for twenty years.
The petty officer slid smoothly from his post and offered Ford the blue chair. Both exchanged grins as the skipper sat down and drew the console close to him. “I stand relieved, sir.” The NCO said in military fashion.
“Enjoy my seat, Chief.” Ford shot back without looking. Still grinning, Millunzi figured he’d indulge in just that.
Ford scanned the face of the helm visually for a moment. This was nothing like the control face he’d operated for so long aboard the Constitution class starship, years prior. But he was familiar with it. He could do this. He set his hands at key locations to either side of the board, just as a typist might and readied himself mentally for this challenge. Almost on their own, his hands began to work.
“Engaging engine at warp factor one.” The chime coming from the panel was like a musical note beginning a very long concerto.
The rumble of the drive core began to build in the air as Endeavour started to slowly accelerate ahead. The take-off felt so sluggish. Ford felt a pang of remorse for his injured starship. This ship was a leading member of his family. Her pain, like Mister Thomas’s down in sickbay, was his own.
The flash of subspace radiation in the viewer’s center denoted their piercing the warp threshold.
“Warp one achieved, Captain.” Came Tolin’s alto voice from engineering. Ford did not respond, eyeing the main plot monitor. Their course, thus far, was stable.
“She’d holdin’ steady.” He called out. His hand raised to the velocity controls. “Increasing to factor two.”
Going from the speed of light to ten times that velocity had once been one of the most daring and hazardous ventures in mankind’s history. It had taken better than fifty years to establish the necessary techniques to bring Earth vessels to a speed where interplanetary travel was a real option. Now they were doing something just as dangerous more than a hundred years later.
The reactor core ramped up in output. The deck began to vibrate uncomfortably as the noise level increased. Several of the crew grabbed up a secure hold on their console to brace against the unexpected.
Ford himself was bracing himself against the sides of the helm.
“Speed holding steady at warp two.”
There was so little space to any direction of Endeavour’s flight path that it was akin to flying down a tight, irregularly shaped tunnel. Chevis has once driven a jet-wheeler down a dirt road. This feeling was much the same. The rush of looking up at the gasses rushing past on the viewer was mesmerizing. The captain had to admit some small part of him was beginning to have fun with this. But, much like that past, ill-advised stunt on the jet-wheeler, this instance could have deadly consequences… and not only for just himself…
Tolin swung from her repeaters. Several red indicators were winking at them both.
“We are experiencing a radial field oscillation in the forward envelope. Subspace shear increasing!”
Her report was punctuated by a startling slam from the bow. Several tiny alarms were barking at engineering. Tolin’s hands flew about her station as she and two techs tried to iron out the warp field. The turbulence within the deck continued to grow in ferocity. Ford glanced back at his plot display.
“We’re sluing astarboard!” He growled. This was where it would begin to get hairy… “I’m attempting to restore our course!”
Chevy manipulated the helm to resist the ship’s inclination to careen right and ram through a sheer wall of plasma. The long stream of super hot, billowing blue gas roiled and twisted before them on the main screen as they zoomed perilously closer. At last, the energy string fell away as though some puppeteer had dragged away scenery from his production. Ford hissed a small sigh of relief.
“Forward field stress returning to normal,” Xia called off, “But the dorsal radials are showing severe degradation. If I can’t corr—”
Endeavour jumped beneath them all. Aft, Lieutenant Nechayev fell to the deck and rolled away from tactical as the huge Excelsior abruptly began to climb out of control. The roar of the engine core was such that one could hear nothing else. Alarms and proximity warnings were assuredly blaring; no one could hear them. A flat sheen of shimmering energy showed before them on the main viewer and grew to fearful proportions with frightening quickness. Ford’s eyes gaped open and his hands fell to the RCS controls. He could do only one thing before their impending impact.
The image on the screen turned on its bottom as Endeavour rolled over on her back and accelerated away from doom. The deck beneath them was all but bucking under their feet. Parts of damaged consoles were clattering to the floor along with several dislodged crewers. The captain glanced down at the proximity sensors. They’d gained eleven thousand kilometers on the wall of plasma. But only sixty thousand remained to the next. He responded by pulling the same maneuver again, though at a slower, more measured pace.
The helmsman he’d relieved slid out of the conn with a gasp as the mounting centrifugal forces mounted within the compartment. Ford locked his feet beneath his chair so as not to lose his battle against gravity and inertia. “Get me some attitude control!”
“Attempting to stabilize field components!” Tolin gasped in her accented tone. “Stabilization not possible!”
“Then set up a predictable rotation pattern! I don’t need much control, just get me within twenty degrees of center!”
“Aye!”
The groan and rumble of the engines began to rise and fall, and then to stretch out into a slower and slower pattern. Waves of turbulence rushed through the hull with each burst of noise. Ford looked up now and then to the fore screen. The ship was now indeed stabilizing into a straighter course, mainly yawing, port to starboard. There was very little pitch in their movement. This made Chevy all the more wary.
“Report!”
“Field stability is still below fifty percent, Captain.” The chief engineer replied. She did not spare her captain any further looks. Her eyes were glued to her monitor now. “I would not advise higher speeds.”
Chevy nodded even though she was not likely to see it. In his mind he mentally calculated an ETA to reach his shuttle crew’s general location. At ten times c, they would traverse the four light days of distance in just over nine hours. This was much better than five days of high impulse travel, which would eat up almost all their deuterium reserve by breaching the ‘full impulse’ mark. But it would require a very patient and alert man to watch over the helm in the mean time. He glanced down to the CPO he’d sent to the conn. Millunzi looked back at him with a nervous but genuine smile from his new seat on the fore step.
“Chief, find a yeoman to get some coffee up here. Really strong, and lots of sugar!”
“Aye, sir.”
“We are secured from warp speed.”
Ford released the helm he’d been hugging now for nine hours and twenty-eight minutes and struggled to stand up from the sloped seat. The chair was designed for maximum operator comfort, but any seat became torture after six hours. Stretching, he thanked Miss Tolin for the report and returned the helm to Millunzi.
“Kept her warm for ya, Chief.”
“Hellova pilot, Cap’n.” The senior noncom replied, smiling and shaking his captain’s hand. Even this hurt, leaving Ford flexing sore fingers as the chief took his post. Ford slowly paced to the conn, eyeballing his science officer.
Lieutenant Surall was, as always, rooted in place and glued to her scopes. Ford remained as patient as he could. But as minutes dragged by, he could no longer stand it. He stepped up to the rail.
“Lieutenant, your report?”
Surall stood, smoothing out her jacket, as she looked him squarely in the eye.
“Indications are that the Patricia has been destroyed, Captain.”
A cold, wet blanket dropped onto Ford. He just stared up at his science officer. Disbelief stoked up in his mind, even as a numb kind of calm came over him. He hadn’t done all this for nothing. He hadn’t risked every one to save people who were already dead. Anger stormed over the disbelief. He stalked around the rail and up the steps. “Keep scanning! Find ‘em, Lieutenant.”
Surall ignored his anger and unaimed resentment, simply nodding and bending back over her sensors. She switched on several of her repeater monitors to show her superior what she was scanning.
“The shuttle’s ion trail halts here,” she pointed at a set of coordinates on the graphic, then moved her long finger to another reading. “Here the lateral array shows a small field of debris, including half of a nacelle. I also read plasma residue which suggests a fuel leak.”
Finally, her hand pointed up to a separate, round screen that showed ionic decay rates in numerical values. A long line traced through the scanner’s field, several points of it labeled with very low numbers. “This reading is of a plasma trail well over twelve hours old. It ends at this point and I can discern no further proof of the craft’s existence.”
Ford ground already rounded teeth. Surall looked back at him with an expression that told him she understood his feelings. Chevy held her gaze for a second, then had to turn away. Behind him, Daniel Nechayev had to avert his own gaze from the visible grief in his captain. The tactical officer was no stranger to this kind of loss. Every one in the service encountered it. And they had suffered much of it in the last two weeks. Anger at Dath’mar’s Klingons, Jarn’s prison keepers and the Gorn threatened to darken their minds.
Daniel focussed on the monitors before him. A long series of numbers on the gravitic array drew his eye. He turned back to the tactical sensor console behind him and conferred with the NCO posted there. Alarmed, he looked back at Ford who was silently thumping to the center seat.
“Keptin, ve have an unidentified gravity reading, closing from aport!”
“A mass reading?”
“Yes, Keptin.”
“Reaffirm Red Alert!”
Ford took his chair without further preamble, his grief on the back burner. Before them, as the alarm klaxons again sounded, a wavering field of energy began to take shape on the main view screen. The shape of the distortion was immediately recognizable.
A Klingon battlecruiser.
“Prepare to lock weapons on target!” Chevy called out, voice raised in anger and confusion. What the hell were the Klingons doing here? Had they come just to heap upon his misery? What else could go wrong?
Ford’s brow arched in Vulcan fashion.
“Incoming hail, Captain.” Called out the comm officer. Ford found himself standing, a brief glimmer of hope beginning to build within him. Could he really believe…?
“Put ‘em on screen.”
A Klingon bridge appeared, dark and gloomy on the center visual. In its center stooped a tall, lanky Klingon in a nearly black Imperial uniform. The Jesus-like face was all too familiar.
“Dath’mar…” Chevis echoed everyone’s thoughts. The image on the screen stirred as though woken from a reverie. His single eye stared out in distaste.
“I have found something of yours, Captain Ford.”
Dath’mar motioned to men off screen. Four dirty, but healthy looking individuals filed into view. Commander Davenport smiled back at his captain from the forefront. “Howdy, Cap’n.”
“Ron… What happened?” The captain could not hide his amazement.
“Well… We were fighting to keep the Pat in one piece, and had just avoided a meteor swarm when the Pang found us. Captain Dath’mar opened up his bay and tractored us in. Just in time too. Another meteor swarm was bearing down on us. We wouldn’t have made it through that one.”
Ford looked from the image of Davenport to that of his former enemy. He could not fathom this turn about in behavior. Dath’mar was a murderer, not a savior. “Captain?”
Dath’mar stared darkly into the feed at the human.
“Captain, when last we met, I dealt dishonorably with you. I slew those who came to offer aid. I have been in your debt since that day.” The tall warrior stood and stepped down from his command dais. He did not look the part of a friendly rescuer. “That debt is now paid in full. I will tow your ship to the nearest safe zone within this region and leave you there.”
Ford did not know whether to smile or not. His face hovered between a grin and a look of incredulity. He shook the feeling off. “…Thank you…”
“Save your gratitude. Enjoy my hospitality while it lasts, Earther. When the peace movement fails, I will not be so gracious.”
The viewer returned to the image of Dath’mar’s new warship as it turned to lay a tractor beam down upon the Endeavour. Ford stared out at the vessel. He did not know what to say. His eye found many upon the bridge that were likewise. At length, he sat back at the conn.
“Secure from Red Alert. Shift deflector pattern to allow for towing. Stand by to recover shuttlecraft.”
“Bumpy-ass ride you took me on, Cap!” Thomas hollered out at his friend in a gravely voice. Chevy turned the remaining corner to see his friend red in the face and swollen in appearance. His trained response managed to hide his fright at Ben’s sudden turn. He continued toward his XO’s bed.
Ford could not help but note the look on the face of the monitoring nurse and the way she shifted from foot to foot while studying Thomas’s bio panel. The lady was as frightened by what she saw as the captain was. He acted as though he noticed nothing.
“You’re welcome.”
“Yeah, I look like shit, don’t I?”
Ford was caught a little off balance. Ben knew something was going wrong. He looked like he was burning up. “Has Doctor Keller been in to see you about this?”
“Yeah. She’s running blood cultures and simulations. The infection’s turning for worse.”
Ford could only stare blankly at Ben. “Feel alright?”
Ben harrumphed a bit.
“Hell no. Feel like I got pneumonia.” Ben saw his friend’s face fall like a ton of masonry. He forced a grin on his bloated, shiny red face. “But Keller says she can put my happy-ass into suspended animation if I get too bad off. I’m gonna be fine, Chev.”
Ford wished he felt sure of that. Ben pressed on, more than eager to change the subject.
“I hear we got a Klingon towtruck out there.”
This made the captain smirk at least. The image of a battlecruiser with a tow winch was one he’d like to draw a picture of. He nodded affirmative. “Yeah, Dath’mar makes a pretty good roadside service man.”
“Bullshit. We find a safe haven to effect repairs?”
“Yup. Be there in seventeen hours.”
“Good. I’m about ready to get the hell outta this plasma storm! Between deadly clouds of gas and your driving, this place sucks.”
Even in the face of danger and disease, Ben’s spirit was indestructible. Chevis Ford sat down at his friend’s side and held his arm at the elbow as they talked. They’d faced danger together over the years and even within the last few hours. A starship’s crew was a family, especially within the echelons of the bridge crew. They tended to stick together from assignment to assignment. He and the exec had been partners since joining the enlisted service decades before. When Ford had become an officer, so had Thomas. They’d grown up together, faced peril together and shared in all the fun. Now Ford would share in the fear and the grief of sickness with his friend. He’d stick by Ben much as he stuck by his lost shuttle crew.
They talked for hours as the severity of Thomas’s infirmity was discerned in the ship’s labs and their ship, their home, was pulled to safety by their former enemies.