"Maintain cloak. Steer seven five mark two."
Palatine swings around, aiming herself towards the nearer of the two Orion cruisers. I am hoping to decloak at point-blank range and catch the Dacoit before it has time to deploy its fighter screen. The Dacoits are not particularly powerful vessels - but they are dangerous enough, with support from the unknown quantity that is Thrang's ship.
"Get me what you can on that vessel," I add, probably superfluously. The blast of sensor noise as Thrang came out of warp was... alarming. It must have yielded some information, though.
"Unfamiliar design," says E'Maon. "Somewhere around a Risian corvette in size, but hull configuration is different... warp nacelles in vertical rather than horizontal configuration... engines are massive...."
"Optimum firing range in fifteen seconds," Kaxath interrupts. So far, things are going to plan. Orion interceptors are shooting from the Dacoits' launch bays, but they are staying close to the ships, protected by the motherships' shields... that will not last long... so, before it changes....
"Decloak and fire, maximum output."
Palatine shimmers into visibility with her plasma arrays blazing. The Dacoit has shields up, but they are not good enough, not against us, at this range. Our beams smash through to ravage the cruiser's hull. Interceptors scatter in random directions. Our torpedo strikes home against the Dacoit's rear hull, and fragments of vaporizing armour plate scatter through space.
"Hard about, one zero two mark zero. Arrays to independent fire."
Blasts of green-hot light stab out in all directions from the Palatine, swatting at fleeing Orion fighters. The Dacoit is shooting back, disruptor light snapping at our shields. The ship is badly damaged, though, its power levels dropping as secondary explosions and plasma fires propagate inside its hull. If this were a conventional action, I would take the time to destroy it.
This is not a conventional action. "Target the other cruiser! Support the Talaxian!"
Dechenchholing is wheeling around, trying to keep a targeting lock on Thrang's fast-moving ship. The white-gold bolts from the Hazari ship's cannons do not look any different, but I know they have been re-tuned to the emission frequencies needed to damage Thrang's exotic drive systems. If Pexlini can land enough shots with those guns, we can cripple the renegade and finish him at leisure. But it means the Dechenchholing's actual damage output is severely restricted. Our job is to keep Thrang's forces off Pexlini's back, long enough for her to finish the job.
Green fire slashes across space. The other Dacoit is at extreme effective range, but its shields still flare and flicker at the touch of our plasma beams. Palatine hurtles across the gap, closing to killing range. There is still disruptor fire coming from the damaged cruiser, from its surviving interceptors... not enough to hurt us, only to irritate our aft screen.
We will have to finish this before that ship makes repairs, though. "Singularity charge," I order. Palatine shudders as the charge fires. An incautious interceptor, blundering into the path of the destabilized singularity, vanishes in a spray of debris - and then the Dacoit is wallowing in a sudden storm of twisted space and random energies, as the charge strikes home. My plasma arrays flail at the cruiser's weakening shields.
"Something's happening," says E'Maon. "Thrang's ship has deployed... some sort of drones, I think."
Even at sublight speeds, Thrang's ship is fast - Pexlini is hunting him doggedly, but most of her cannon barrage is simply missing his ship, as it flits effortlessly between one evasion pattern and another. And now things are flying free from it, separating, turning towards Pexlini -
Disruptor beams scorch through space, and the Dechenchholing's shields flare under the impact. Whatever those drones are, they pack quite a punch.
"Steer three zero eight mark three seven nine. All arrays to independent fire. Clear those auxiliaries!"
The two Dacoits are badly damaged now, slow and hard to handle. If we can shoot down the fighters, we can draw Thrang away from the cruisers' support range, can engage him and finish him. My arrays blaze into life again. The interceptors are fast and nimble, but my gunners are good. Fighters explode in bursts of flame, or streak away towards the safety of the cruisers, trailing debris and leaking air from hull breaches.
Then there is an impact I feel, on my own bridge. The deckplates tremble, and a console spits sparks from a transient overload.
"We're being targeted by one of Thrang's drones," says Kaxath. "It's swinging round - on our tail - can't seem to shake it -"
"Reinforce rear shields! Coordinate aft arrays, finish the damned thing!"
These drones are starting to worry me. They are faster even than the Orion interceptors, and it is hard, very hard, to get a targeting lock. I switch to the tactical analysis screen on my console, but the readings do not make sense. "What are those things?" I snarl.
There is another impact, another flash of brilliant sparks on the bridge. "Trying to get a read now," says E'Maon.
"Aft shield at fifty-six per cent," says N'aina. "Some hull damage - structural integrity at ninety-five per cent, holding. Damage control teams away."
Pexlini has deployed a drone of her own, a Hazari shield drone. She needs it - the Dechenchholing's shields are in tatters. And Thrang's ship is staying obstinately out of her primary arc of fire.
A dot on the tactical screen flashes and dies. "Got it!" says Kaxath, with a note of relief.
"Target Thrang!" I order.
I am not sure this is the right move. The Dacoits are making repairs, regaining their mobility; the remaining interceptors are falling into a battle formation. And Thrang still has one drone, hammering at Pexlini's shields. I am beginning to worry, now.
"I have an analysis," says E'Maon.
"Target in range. Firing," says Kaxath.
"Quickly," I tell E'Maon.
He nods. "They're based on Andorian cannon drones, but heavily modified. Confirm no life signs aboard, but tactical analysis shows intelligent, autonomous direction. They're AI-run weapons platforms."
Another reason to worry. Such things are well within the capabilities of Starfleet, the Klingons, the Republic... but most of us are understandably wary of building homicidal robots capable of independent thought. Thrang, apparently, has no such compunctions. And with no need for organic crews, these drones can skimp on inertial dampeners, do without life support... and use the space and power for extra weapons systems.
My plasma beams are stabbing at Thrang's ship. Close enough to work up a glow from his shields... not close enough to count as an actual hit. The Orion interceptors are closing -
Then the interceptors are caught up and tossed aside in a sudden flare of energy. A Hazari shockwave blast mine, evidently part of the Dechenchholing's weapons systems. It buys us time, time for my plasma beams to sear out again at Thrang's maddeningly elusive ship.
"Thrang is launching more drones!" Kaxath yells.
Two more icons separate from Thrang's ship, turn and dart away at incredible speeds. And he has another still active - and now, that one turns as well. Within a few seconds, it is apparent who the target is. Us.
Disruptors flame green against the Palatine's shields, and those shields are suddenly wavering, failing, energy levels dropping. Damage icons bloom across my console, and the lights on the bridge flicker, and the flash-bangs of overloaded consoles are blending into a solid roar. The drones are closing in, closing fast, on a random-walk pattern that defeats my targeting predictors. At this rate they will kill us in minutes.
I have one chance. "Reinforce shields!" Let them have, not minutes, but more seconds, to get closer. Try to ignore the wounds to my ship, the wailing of alarms, the indicators for damage and casualties. "Beam arrays to independent targeting... and.... Plasma shockwave now!"
Overspill energy from the singularity core, vented as high-energy plasma - vented in all directions, a short-range sphere of destruction that I do not even need to aim. Thrang's battle drones are knocked tumbling and flaming away - and, with their drives temporarily disabled, they are not tumbling randomly enough to evade my targeting, to escape the green beams of destruction that burn them out of space.
It works better than I had hoped. Thrang's ship is caught on the fringe of the blast - he has not been hit hard enough to cause significant damage, but he has been knocked out of his current evasion pattern. And before he can resume his drunkard's walk across the sky, Dechenchholing drops neatly into his rear arc, and unleashes a sustained barrage of white-gold cannon fire. Thrang's shields flare - and his hull. There are fires and flashing energy discharges from those oversized warp nacelles.
"We have him," I whisper.
Thrang's impulse engines glow brightly with a deliberate overload, flinging him clear of the battle zone. I need no instructions to pursue. The lumbering shapes of the battered Dacoits, the freighters quietly fleeing in the background - these do not matter. Only Thrang is important.
Thrang's nacelles flare again. He has gone to warp. "Follow him," I order. I am relieved to discover that is possible. My damage control board makes for sad reading, but my core systems remain operational - Palatine is still in the fight.
"Message from Dechenchholing," reports N'aina.
"On screen."
Pexlini appears on the viewer. "It worked," she said. "He's running at a shade under warp two, and spitting out a warp contrail you could track from here to Andromeda. We're reconfiguring weapons for normal firing mode now."
"Your plans?"
"Pursue at warp, generate a phase harmonic to knock him back out of subspace, then blast him up good and proper before he can deploy any more of those drones. Man, those things packed a wallop. You good for that?"
"We are still operational. The intention remains to take Thrang alive?"
"Thrang will surrender before it looks like he's getting dead. Guy's a pragmatist, he ain't gonna be king among the ruins if he's dead. Whatever that means." Pexlini glances off-screen. "Course projection says, intercept in two minutes. Ready?"
"Ready. Palatine out."
Thrang has a head start - but with his scrambled warp drive, we will overtake him in short order. I bare my teeth. I will pay the renegade back for the harm he has done - to my ship and crew, to the galaxy as a whole.
"I have him on sensors," says Kaxath. "That's interesting. He's heading for the transwarp gate."
"Perhaps he has the command codes for it - it would not surprise me. He will not reach it, though."
"General hail on subspace from Dechenchholing."
Pexlini's voice comes through, slightly raddled by subspace static. "Kalevar Thrang. Remember you made me a proposition? I'm gonna make you one back, now; surrender, and you'll get a fair trial." Oh, that Starfleet idealism.
"In position to generate phase harmonic in ten seconds - wait." E'Maon checks his console. "Thrang is dropping out of warp."
Trying to save any further damage to his drives from the phase harmonic? How can that benefit him? "Drop to sublight. Lock weapons and stand ready," I order.
Even at low warp speed, we have covered much ground - I can see the icon for the transwarp gateway, blinking at extreme range. Thrang's ship is headed for it, at high impulse speed. But Pexlini is good, better in fact than I had thought. She holds her nerve, stays at warp for just the tiniest fraction of a second longer - just long enough to drop out of subspace between Thrang and the gateway.
The renegade is bracketed between our two ships. He has nowhere left to run.
"Incoming hail," says E'Maon.
"Put it through."
It is the first time, I think, that I have actually heard Kalevar Thrang's voice. "Nicely done," he says, and his tone is actually pleasant. "However, I don't think surrendering quite fits in with my plans, so I'll have to decline. But you've played the game so well, I think you're owed a consolation prize, anyway. I don't really need it any more. You still do, though."
Something emerges from the side of Thrang's ship - something small, so small it would not even be detectable, were it not for the beacon attached to it, sending regular pulses on conventional and subspace radio. Whatever it is, it moves away from Thrang's ship, at considerable speed, its course varying occasionally, randomly.
"And there goes the Rehanissen Archive," says Thrang's voice. "That beacon will last about fifteen minutes - and, yes, there's a self-destruct rigged to blow it after that time. You've probably realized by now what I've been doing with the archive, but knowing isn't enough, you need the original in order to prove it. I'll talk to you later." His impulse drive glows; his ship is moving.
"Get me Pexlini," I order. Someone was anticipating me; the Talaxian's face appears at once. "You take Thrang," I tell her. "I will recover the archive."
She nods. "On it."
The beacon is moving fast, but not so fast that my ship cannot catch it. "Bomb squad to transporter room three," I order. We will beam it aboard, defuse the self-destruct, possibly be quick enough to help Pexlini finish off Thrang -
"Oh, oops, I almost forgot." Thrang's voice on the comm again. "You'll need the key, of course."
And another beacon emerges from his ship, on a wildly divergent course. I curse, and open the channel to the Dechenchholing. "Get that one," I tell her.
"He'll make it to the gateway -"
"And the next. But he will not have time to repair his drive, and we have the codes for the network, we can follow him and catch him again. But he is right, we need the archive. Get that key!"
Pexlini pulls a sour face. The Dechenchholing twists away in a tight spiral, pursuing the beacon. Thrang's drives are burning brilliantly as he bolts for the gateway.
Palatine quests after the beacon. It is slow, but it evidently has evasion routines programmed - it slips away, time after time, from our questing tractor beams. In the distance, I can see Pexlini's ship twisting and turning on a similar hunt. I regret, very much, that I will not have the chance to take my frustration out on Kalevar Thrang's hide.
"Tractor lock!" says N'aina exultantly. "Transporter lock - active! Got it!"
Thrang's ship reaches the transwarp gate. Energies gather and release, flinging the vessel on a short-cut through subspace across dozens of light years -
Something is wrong. I curse. The energies are not releasing properly - they are continuing to gather -
The kilometres-wide hexagonal frame of the transwarp gate is visibly quivering, flickering with sudden electromagnetic discharges. It is beginning, I realize, to glow. Static flashes across my screen - sensor noise from the massive forces gathering within the gate.
Thrang must have fired some phase harmonic of his own, when he passed through the gate. Of course, he had his exotic drive systems to hand... and we know that he is a consummate expert in warp theory....
The gate is burning brilliantly now, lit from within by millions of kilometres of fusing warp coils. The outer plating is disintegrating in showers of white-hot sparks. Then the structural integrity field goes, and the gateway is suddenly only a roughly hexagonal cloud of white flame... fading through yellow, to red, to the dark of space itself as the wreckage cools.
Pexlini appears on my screen. The universal translator refuses to process the first few phrases she utters. "Out-thought," she says, after a while. "He out-thought us again."
"Never mind," I say. "We have the archive, at least. Let us see what we can make of Thrang's... consolation prize."
But there is little comfort to be gained from that thought, I find. Because I cannot believe Thrang would give that thing up... if he still needed it.
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