Tylha's expression is stricken. The gaunt Borg woman's face could get no paler, but it is frozen in shock, the one organic eye the only thing moving in it.
I can't blame them. It was a shock to me, when I saw it. There was a time, of course, when any patriotic Romulan would have been glad to see the Federation tear itself apart... but not now. Not now.
Tylha finds her voice. "We need to get this," she says, shakily, "to the Federation Council, to Starfleet Command, and to Andoria itself, first. Then -" She breaks off. Her eyes widen.
I turn. Behind me, the transparent wall gives an excellent view of the interior of Earth Spacedock, and the starships moving slowly within it. I see at once what has claimed Tylha's attention. Two ships - a large Nebula-class cruiser and a smaller Griffon-class warship - are moving too close together. Even as I watch, the two of them collide, white hulls crashing together with seeming slowness that belies the violence of the impact.
Alarms sound. Tylha is on her feet. The Nebula is spinning across the cavern of the docking bay; it sweeps past us, the massive hull blotting out the view for an instant as it swings by the window, a huge curving mass of metal. I lose sight of the other ship. The Nebula wobbles for a moment, reaction mass spurting desperately from its thruster assemblies. Then one nacelle sweeps irresistibly across a cupola protruding from the docking bay wall, leaving nothing but crumpled wreckage and gouting air in its wake.
"That was docking control!" Grau yells.
"This shouldn't be possible," Tylha says. "There are too many safeties in the system - things like this shouldn't happen -"
A dreadful possibility occurs to me. "Maybe someone made it happen," I say.
"Sabotage?" I can almost see Tylha's mind racing. "Then we need to preserve the information. Ronnie!" The Borg woman snaps to attention. "Your ship has full transwarp capacity, right? Take Stileg and the data chips, get them direct to Andoria. I'll be right behind you. Move!"
Grau seizes Stileg with one hand; I press the data chips into her other one. Tylha's decision makes sense - with Earth Spacedock in a state of emergency, too much of Starfleet's communications around Earth will be compromised. Better to alert the Federation from a relatively stable location - and to alert the Andorians to an impending attack.
And Spacedock is quite clearly in a state of emergency. I can see, now, what has happened to the second ship; it has collided with the central pillar that runs through the docking bay - the pillar which forms the central core of the spacedock itself. Little shudders run through the deckplates, and the wailing of alarms is insistent. The Nebula has slowed and steadied, but a baleful green light is leaking from its damaged nacelle.
"There's an auxiliary control room near here," says Tylha. She looks hard at me. "I suppose you know more than you ought to about ESD's systems?"
"I can learn fast," I assure her.
"Then let's move." She leads the way, through corridors that bustle with purposeless, panicky crowds. I follow her as she reaches a door, thumbs the biometric lock, and dashes inside.
The auxiliary control room is little more than a cubbyhole with a viewport; there is just room for the two of us to work at the consoles built into the walls. Tylha starts tapping into the comms net, while I set to work on the systems panel. Alarm lights are flickering... except on one bank of controls, which stubbornly register an all-clear. Sabotage, or merely error? I cut them out of the circuit, and start to take stock. The controls are not unlike the ones at the Vulcan assembly yards....
"Command and control are still routed through the main station," Tylha mutters. She punches a control switch. "Docking bay control now patched to substation 37-2-D, authorization code Shohl Delta Tango Two Four Niner." Panels suddenly light up and come alive under my hands. A 3-D display shows the interior of the bay, marking the positions of the starships within it. Two icons are ringed by flashing red warning symbols. "USS Trifid, Nebula class... USS Marengo, Griffon class," I call out.
Tylha touches another control, and voices fill the air.
" - declaring an emergency, I have SI compromise and possible warp core destabilization - "
" - medevac units to assembly points Delta through Juliet - "
" - vacuum warning in docking control, repeat, vacuum warning in docking control - "
" - anyone seeing this? Radiation spikes across the spectrum - "
" - God! Medical to transporter room, we have scramble cases! - "
Tylha and I both wince at that last one. She hits another control and speaks, and her voice echoes back from the public address system. "All stations, this is Vice Admiral Shohl. Main docking control is down, I have command functions running from a substation. USS Trifid, you are leaking warp radiation from your damaged nacelle, go immediately to cold shutdown, we will tractor you in. USS Marengo, report your status on Channel Red. All other ships, hold station, stand ready to assist."
She sounds clear and calm, which will help a lot. I check my controls and displays. "Docking port 32-C is clear," I say, "and I think I can get the Nebula in there." The docking bay boasts a formidable internal array of tractors and repulsors, enough to juggle starships like toys. I hope.
"Do it," Tylha says. "Don't worry too much about neatness. So long as they've stopped moving and stopped leaking - "
"This is Captain Willis on the Marengo," a voice breaks in.
Tylha turns back to the comms board. "Status?"
"Not good, sir." Willis sounds worried. "We have major structural damage, and we seem to be hung up on something at the central core. I don't think I can pull her loose on thrusters alone. And we took a power surge along the EPS grid, and I think it's destabilized the intermix chamber. My engineer reports we may lose AM containment."
A core breach. In a Federation ship, that means the antimatter fuel supply leaks out of its containment fields, to interact with the normal matter of the ship - with explosive results. My heart is in my mouth. If the breach cannot be contained - Normally, a ship can eject a malfunctioning core and move off on impulse drive to outrun the resulting explosion. But, in the confined space of the docking bay - an ejected core would not just wreck everything inside, it would set off a chain reaction with the cores of other ships, with the spacedock's own stores of antimatter and deuterium fuel.
If the Marengo's core breaches now, Earth Spacedock will become, briefly, a second sun in Earth's sky.
All this flashes through my mind as my fingers move, automatically, on the tractor controls. The beams reach out, grab the inert bulk of the Trifid, guide her towards the docking port. The Federation interface is - not wholly unfamiliar. The Trifid makes contact, albeit with a jar that must have knocked everyone aboard off their feet. But the status light on the docking seal flickers and turns green - the people on that ship, at least, are safe.
For the moment. Tylha is frowning intently at the telemetry coming in from the Marengo. "Get me a read on that obstruction," she snaps - perhaps to me, perhaps to the captain. I call up the schematics anyway. "Comms are snarled again," Tylha mutters. "Can't contact main admin - not that Quinn or any of the others could do more than we can -"
The situation with the Marengo takes shape in my schematics viewer. It is an awkward one. One flange of the warship's upper hull is wedged hard against a major structural member. On the screen, it looks a simple enough thing to deal with; one hard pull and the ship comes loose. But in reality, we are dealing with thousands of tons of metal, already crushed and deformed by the impacts.
I run the numbers in my head, and turn to Tylha. "We can tug her loose with the tractor arrays," I say, "but not without compromising her structural integrity - unless we can take several hours to do the job slowly and steadily."
"We don't have that much time." I had already worked that out, from the plummeting graphs I can see on Tylha's screens. She takes a deep breath before she hits the comms panel again. "Captain Willis. There is no way to salvage your ship before a core breach. On my authority, my responsibility, Captain - abandon ship. That is a direct order."
There is a long moment's pause, then Willis replies, "Aye, aye, sir." There is naked pain in the man's voice.
"Transporter ops will be safe now the Trifid is no longer radiating," Tylha says. "Get your people off, and slave your controls to my remote access. As soon as we read no life signs aboard your ship, we'll get to work." Her voice softens a little. "You did the best you could, Captain, now go."
She cuts communications. I'm already readying the tractor arrays. If we can pull the crippled ship off the central pillar, out through the docking bay doors - if we can hold her core together by remote control long enough to do that -
The lights flicker. Tylha swears. "EPS fluctuation. Marengo's warp plasma must be interfering with the central lines - Damn it. Lost Spacedock door functions."
I glance at the viewport, at the hectares of solid metal that close the docking bay off from space.
"Nothing for it," says Tylha. She taps out commands on the panel. "Emergency override, condition red, keyword Open Sesame. Blow Spacedock doors."
Across the docking bay, brilliant flashes of light spark in a precise square around the door assembly - shaped explosive charges, cutting through the structural members, slicing the entire massive doorway out of the side of Earth Spacedock. The space station shivers, inertial dampeners unable to block out all the shock. More flares of light - one-shot solid-fuel rocket boosters, blasting the severed doors out and aside into the void.
"Marengo reads empty," Tylha says. "Let's do this."
I have already set up the sequence I need; now I start it. The full power of all the tractor beams I can bring to bear pulls at the Marengo, wrenching her on what I hope is the right angle to pull her loose. For a moment, the ship remains motionless, bathed in the blue glare of the beams -
Then she jerks abruptly and comes free, random jets of flame spurting from both the ship and the central pillar. No longer restricted, the Marengo hurtles towards the tractor assemblies. I switch polarity, turning the beams to repulsor mode, and again the whole station rings like a bell with the impact. Tylha is cursing steadily as she fights to retain whatever control she has on the ship's dying warp core. I can hear and feel the groaning of the dock's stressed members. The Marengo slows, stops, begins to move in the opposite direction. I shift the beams, switch in another array, nudging the ship in the right direction -
The lights in the room flicker, go out completely, come back on at low power. The control interface flashes gibberish at me before it clears.
"Another random power surge," says Tylha.
"I've lost beam focus," I say. "Trying to regain now." Right now, the Marengo is drifting towards another wall. I have to regain control, have to get her moving towards that empty doorway -
"Dumping everything I have to reinforce SI generators," says Tylha. "No time to be subtle. Hit it with everything you can, and I think I can keep her together till she's through the doors -"
The tractor controls are sluggish, erratic, unresponsive. Somehow, I get the arrays focused again, the beams reaching out to the doomed ship, slamming into her, knocking her onto the right heading. It is not gentle. The end of one nacelle comes loose, spinning freely across the docking bay. The Marengo is moving... is on the right course... is dwindling in the distance, into the square hole in Spacedock's side, and the black sky beyond -
The black square turns white, dazzling, eye-searing white. I close my eyes tight, reflexively, while fresh alarms wail and the deck rocks beneath me, tossed by a sudden storm.
It passes. I'm still breathing - always a good sign. The after-image fades from my tear-filled eyes, as I hear Tylha's voice, echoing back again from the PA system -
"All stations. All ships. We have had a warp core breach within minimum safe distance. We have radiation and debris hazards, and structural damage as yet undetermined. I am putting docking bay in shutdown and declaring Earth Spacedock a disaster zone. Relinquishing controls to Emergency Central now. All ships, all stations, follow your assigned disaster procedures. Substation 37-2-D out."
She takes a deep ragged breath. "I should stay and help with the emergency," she mutters. "But I think we've got another emergency." She touches a wrist communicator. I raise an eyebrow at that - Starfleet usually relies on its combadges. "Direct link to my ship. I've needed it, lately." She keys the wristband. "F'hon. Come in."
"Here, skipper," says a voice. "Are you OK? We saw the bang -"
"I'm fine. Get a lock on this communicator, though. I'm going to get near the outside of the station, and then you can beam me aboard. Once I'm there, we're going to Andoria, and fast. Did the USS Falcon get away yet?"
"Vice Admiral Grau's ship transwarped straight out of its docking cradle, some minutes ago. Traffic control's still screaming - Skipper, what's going on?"
"I'll explain once I'm back aboard, F'hon. Contact you again shortly. Shohl out."
"Tell your crew, two to beam out," I say. I look at her, levelly. "You will want my copies of the recordings, and my verification scans. And, very possibly, the firepower of the Messalina, too. My ship's transwarp speed can match yours." I fix her eyes with mine. "It's clear, now, that the Hegemony is your enemy, as well as mine. If we stand together... then we stand a chance."
She looks hard at me, then gives one sharp nod. "All right. Let's move."
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