Vectors 32

Rrueo

"Approaching rendezvous coordinates," K'Rokok announces.

I gaze moodily at the status board. The repairs were completed... more quickly than I would have liked, truth be told. The power curves for the starboard nacelle are not aesthetically pleasing. It functions - for now - but that is all. One more shot on that engine, and we could lose warp drive again.

"Ships on sensors," Toriash calls out. "Two only. Timor, and Ostankino." He shakes his massive head. "I do not like the look of the Ostankino...."

"Hail them," I snap at Oschmann. "And get me a visual."

Timor is still damaged after the fight at the planetoid, though M'eioi has evidently completed all immediately necessary repairs. Ostankino... the little raider's warp field is wavering, the shields are below full strength, and there are worrying fluctuations in the deflector output. When the visual comes up, I do not wonder at them. The Ostankino is battered, patched, its hull armour blistered, its prow looking as though it is half melted.

"Channels open to both ships," Oschmann says.

"On screen."

M'eioi looks tired; her fur is matted, almost bedraggled. Pexlini has a healing gash on her head and appears even more bruised and beaten than she did before. Both of them, inexplicably, look cheerful.

"Where are your Hazari escorts?" I ask.

"Uh, yeah," says Pexlini. "The survivors from mine are mostly in my sickbay. Kinda crowded down there, gotta admit. M'eioi's escorts lit out when they got a whiff of the Borg. Nobody's impressed by that. Y'Nadan says he's gonna kick N'Larl's backside, though I guess that'll have to wait till the docs have fixed him up with new legs. Anyway, no Hazari."

"Then it is just us." I glare at the tactical display. "Rrueo hopes our ships are still capable of stopping two undamaged Hazari destroyers."

"Yeah, well," says Pexlini, "don't sweat it too much. Way I figure it, we just have to... slow 'em up a little."

"Rrueo admires your optimism. Do we have an intercept point plotted?"

M'eioi speaks. "Coming through on your data feed now."

I look at the tactical plot. The Borg communications node is a massive structure, surrounded by shields and patrolling spheres and probes... but, over the decades or centuries of its operation, it has developed a weak point of its own. Outgassing, ejection of debris, and various low-level gravitational interactions have created a sort of nebula trailing from it, and in that cloud of gas and particulate fragments, ships can move... if not undetected, at least with a chance of getting close enough.

It would not be enough for a full-on assault on the node - that would take a fleet of ships, one far too large to hide. But, for what Nessick is planning... it offers his best chance to make an approach, to infiltrate and to launch his holographic poison into the Borg's networks.

The nebula extends light-hours from the Borg complex... we are well outside the range of its patrols. It is here, though, that Nessick must begin his infiltration. So, it is here that we must stop him.

"Brathana remains the most potent military asset at our disposal," I say firmly. "Rrueo will issue the demands, here. A Starfleet science vessel would not be... credible. Nor would a Kazon raider."

"Uh, yeah, sure," says Pexlini. "You do the talking, right, fair enough." She exchanges glances with the Caitian. These two know something....

"Sensor contacts inbound," Toriash says. "Running comparison checks... ID confirmed. Ge'Sirn's and N'Drask's ships."

Now with Octanti crews. "Hail them," I order. "Red alert. All weapons to ready status."

Brathana comes about, aiming herself at the approaching Hazari ships, standing between them and the nebula. Behind me, Timor and Ostankino swing around to support me.

"Hailing frequencies open," Oschmann says.

"On screen."

The Octanti scientist appears... nondescript, inoffensive. He is thin and stooped, and wears shabby civilian clothes. I am not deceived. This is Tuarak's shadowy associate, and from what I have gathered, he is the directing intelligence, where the Vaadwaur commander was all brute force.

"Rrueo-Captain, Rrueo-Thinker, commanding IKS Brathana," I say. "You are to stand down and surrender the stolen Hazari technology."

He shakes his head, his antennae quivering. "No, no," he says, "I do not think so."

"You do not know what you are doing," I hiss at him.

"You are wrong," he answers, with the quiet calm of a fanatic. "My calculations are precise, quite precise. We will deliver a blow today that will break the back of the Borg menace."

"Indeed, Rrueo thinks you might do that. But you could destroy half the quadrant in the process! Listen to Rrueo. Protomatter is inherently unstable, its effects are not predictable. Your device might work as you intend it, or it might fail completely - or it might destroy everything in range of the Borg subspace network! You cannot take that risk!"

"There is no risk," Nessick says, in such a matter-of-fact tone that I almost believe him myself. "My calculations are exact, entirely exact. There might be a certain degree of collateral damage -" He straightens, and the tone of his voice deepens and strengthens. "But it will be worth it. To be free, free of the Borg -"

"You leave Rrueo and her allies no choice. We must stop you."

"You may try," says Nessick. "But I have sensor readings on your ships, I can see their condition, and -" He looks to one side, and stops.

"More inbound contacts," Toriash reports. "Reading... six vessels." He turns, and his mind-tone shows perplexity. "One Tholian Orb Weaver, one Tholian Recluse, with four Mesh Weaver frigate consorts."

On the screen, Nessick is clearly assimilating the same information. "Tholians? What do the Beta Quadrant crystal spiders want here?"

A strange feeling of lassitude comes over me; I slump in the command chair. It is almost as if, suddenly, I know I can afford to feel weary. I turn to Oschmann, whose face is contorted as if she is tasting something foul. "Do we, by any chance, know those particular Tholians?" I ask.

"I believe so, sir," Oschmann spits. "Receiving a general hail."

The next face on the screen is not that of a Tholian; it is that of a blue-skinned humanoid, with white hair, and antennae, and a looping scar on one cheekbone. "Octanti ships. This is Admiral Tylha Shohl aboard the USS King Estmere. We cannot permit you to continue with this course of action. Stand down and surrender your vessels, or you will be fired upon."

"No!" Nessick's quiet calm has vanished, the word is a screech. "No, you will not stop me! Tactical plan Theta Two!" And the channel to his ship cuts off.

On the tactical plot, the two Hazari ships separate, abruptly. It is not a move one would expect from the Hazari, who work in tightly teamed pairs. But now, one ship is plunging towards the King Estmere, weapons ablaze, while the other - Nessick's ship - flies out and free on a wildly diverging course.

"Tactical linkup with Starfleet," I order. "Keep a sensor lock on Nessick!" The nebula can fog Borg sensors, it can also fog ours. And if we lose Nessick in it.... We must not lose Nessick.

The other ship is a sacrificial lamb, and even as I watch, it fulfils its destiny. The Mesh Weaver frigates dart forward, and lines of blue light reach out from the Recluse carrier towards them... and then a blaze of blue smashes out from the frigates into the doomed Hazari ship; a coordinated tetryon barrage that tears its shields down to nothing, just in time for King Estmere's plasma weapons to fire. I had heard rumours that Tylha Shohl's ship was to be retired from service, after the damage it suffered during the Siohonin invasion. The way it blasts the Hazari vessel into nonexistence, now, though, suggests that it is still a viable military asset.

"Energy spikes from Nessick's ship!" Toriash shouts. "Sir, it's like -"

"The Genesis Wave," I spit. Nessick is using the augmented holo-projectors. "Warn Starfleet! If he can create something that will bypass our shields -"

"The matter is being attended to." A new voice, a new face; the impossibly prim figure of the red-haired Vulcan on the bridge of the Orb Weaver Tapiola. "Coordinating fire control with Timor now," T'Pia adds. Of course, M'eioi would call in a favour from her old commanding officer -

A captive singularity hurtles out from the Timor's projectors, and Nessick's ship rolls wildly in its radius of effect. But I can see exotic energies building as the protomatter device begins its work - I see space itself curdle around Nessick's ship, see forces reaching out -

To be caged, suddenly, in a net of golden shimmering lines, as T'Pia brings her Tholian web generators into play.

Whatever Nessick's device is generating, it reaches the bounds of the web, and recoils, in upon itself, feeding on the energy released by M'eioi's singularity, intensifying and reduplicating itself in a sudden feedback loop. Within the glowing icosahedron of the web, an entire new creation is born, energies and forces for which I have no names, developing in a network of fractal complexities - a new cosmos, confined in that tiny space, that races in seconds through its own history, from inception to final annihilation. To watch the data readouts, to see it on the screen... is to glimpse an almost mystical experience....

The web collapses in a shower of antiprotons. The new creation dies in a burst of random elementary particles. There is no trace of it... or of Nessick's ship.

I lean back in the command chair, and give a huge yawn. "Rrueo thanks Starfleet for that... timely assistance," I say. "Be certain, though, that Rrueo and her consorts had matters entirely in hand."

"I don't doubt it for a minute." Tylha's voice is dry. "Do you need help with repairs?"

I take another glance at the readings from that nacelle. "Rrueo supposes it would be unwise to reject the expertise of the Experimental Engineering group...."

"Hell, yeah," says Pexlini's voice, "we're gonna need all the duct tape you got spare. And there's still some loose ends to tidy up. Like, we're still not sure what happened to Tuarak...."