Vectors 7

Pexlini

"I love it when a plan comes together," I say, as I pick myself up off the concrete floor. Hal Welti, the human who's backing me up on this one, shoots me kind of a worried look. "I mean, in general. I mean, I probably would, if a plan ever did come together."

Another explosion splits the air, this one a bit further away, so we both manage to keep our feet. Hal checks his tricorder, his dark face, already creased with age, sprouting new worry lines with every second that passes. I lean back against the wall of a warehouse. It doesn't collapse, which is something.

"I'd guess that's our allies," I say. "They reckon we didn't make it in past the blockade, so they've got some raiders through to make strafing runs of their own. Damn it, I'd hate to be shot by the wrong Kazon."

"My ambition," says Hal, in his gravelly doleful voice, "was always to die in bed."

"Well, there must be a bed round here someplace." I stand up. "How are we on the spatial charges?"

Hal checks his backpack. The backpack doesn't actually carry explosives, it holds a nice big modified transporter buffer, and that carries the explosives. Hopefully. If the patterns haven't been scrambled. Hal looks fractionally less miserable than usual, though, so maybe they haven't been.

His answer to me, though, is drowned out in a thunderclap of noise, accompanied by a flash of light that makes the whole storage depot bright as day for an instant. "I think someone just got hit," I say, once my ears have stopped ringing.

"Confirmed," says Hal. "Kazon-Wolva raider, just like you thought - heading for the stratosphere and leaking warp plasma like crazy." I can see the streak of fire, rising into the night sky. I can see bright dots moving towards it, too.

"Now might be a good time to lie down and cover our eyes," I say, and suit actions to words.

Even when I'm facing the concrete, the flash as the raider's warp core goes is bright enough to hurt my eyes, and I make quite sure not to stand up until after the sound hits, a terrific bruising rumble that pushes us both flatter against the ground. Took a while. High in the stratosphere when the core went up - with big doses of hyronaline, we should both get over the radiation exposure.

"At least it was a distraction," I mutter.

Hal rummages in one ear with his little finger, says, "What now?"

"Stick to the plan." We did have a plan. It might need to be sort of adapted, but I'll deal with that when I have to. "First charge needs to be set -" I get my bearings. The fading glow from the destroyed raider kind of helps, actually. "Over there. 'bout a hundred metres. Let's go."

We lope off, sticking to the shadows as much as we can. Bits of destroyed raider are still lighting up the night sky, and there are flashes from farther away, too, as the fighting in orbit continues. There is a lot more fighting in orbit than we'd planned on. A lot more.

We reach the corner of another warehouse, and my combadge beeps at me. I really should've put it on vibrate or something. "Pex," I say, slapping it.

"You all right?" Umaro Ajbit's voice.

"Yeah, sure, for now. Proceeding on plan, setting charges." We've found the first point, anyway. Hal fiddles with the backpack, and a spatial charge materializes on the cornerstone of a big building. I sort of throw a nearby tarpaulin over it. Anti-tamper mechanisms should blow it anyway if someone spots it and tries to defuse it, but every little helps, right? "What's things like upstairs?" I ask.

"Intense," says Ajbit. "A lot more intense than Rai Sahen said it would be."

"Many things go muchly bang," I hear Veb say in the background.

"Well, it figures." One thing we all know by now, everyone's favourite Romulan spookette's plans never quite work out the way she means them to. "We've got three more charges to place. Can you hold out till then?"

"We'll try, sir, but the Kazon-Nirriz are putting up one hell of a fight. What about ground security?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. If you hear screams, they got us. Gonna do this now. Pex out."

"In space," Hal says gloomily, "no one can hear you scream." I think it's a quotation. Hal's into classical literature and stuff.

I look around. Kazon-Nirriz security is mostly predicated on the general Kazon principle of "I can't be bothered with scut work", but with armed ships from a rival faction in orbit, they might well wake up and get themselves organized a bit. On the other hand, that raider bit the dust, doing that strafing run, and the Nirriz may be running around high-fiving each other and not paying attention to little us. You pays your money and you takes your chance, I guess.

"Next one," I say to Hal, and point. We have a reasonably clear run between two decrepit looking storage buildings. There is a very visible surveillance camera on a post, but my tricorder says it's not working. So we run down the alleyway and don't worry too much about that. I try to keep an ear out for noises, but with the fires and general hoo-ha started by the Wolva's abortive raid, there's a lot of noise around and I can't sort it out, much.

We get to the second site, and plant the second spatial charge. This one should knock down one corner of the warehouse we've put it on, and the building we set the first charge on should come down on top of this one, and really the next two charges are just insurance, but we need insurance for this job anyway, and I'm starting to ramble again, which I tend to do when I'm worried. I'm one of those people who talk a lot when they're nervous. I really hope I never get interrogated, for all sorts of reasons, but that's one of them. It isn't hard to get me to talk, is what I'm saying.

The third site is an EPS grid substation, and if I was running things around here, I'd have a guard on it. But the Kazon-Nirriz are running things around here, and they don't. Easy enough for Hal to hide the explosive charge in the works of the thing, and it will go muchly bang, as Veb might say. The noises are quieting down overall, though. Don't like that. Don't like it when the enemy is quiet, but not dead. We can't run our tricorders for more than brief bursts, too, or even Kazon security will spot the active scans -

So we trust to luck as we approach the last site, at the base of a sensor pylon whose collapse might mess up their forensic analyses of the blasts, if they even bother to try them - and our luck runs out as I dash out of an alleyway and up to the pylon.

"Halt!"

Oh, boy. Good news is, only one guard. Bad news is, not Kazon. Long leather trenchcoat, sharp, feral features, and that fleshy cowl that rises from the collarbones to frame the head -

The Vaadwaur levels his gun at me, and says with a sneer, "What are you doing here, Talaxian scum?"

I decide not to dignify that with a verbal response. Instead, I lash out with my foot, connecting neatly just where humanoid males appreciate it least. He feels it. He obviously has some sort of body armour on, but my mining boots are heavy.

The gun goes off, punching through my personal shield and blowing a neat hole in my vest. Fortunately, this loose miner's uniform covers a multitude of sins, and also - in my case - concealed Hirogen body armour. Sorta cut down from the original size, because the Hirogen are a bit big compared to me, but still effective. I feel the impact, very much so, but it doesn't put me down.

The Vaadwaur snarls and leaps for me. I meet his leap with a stiff punch to the throat, following up with a judo throw that knocks the remaining wind out of him. People like this guy never expect Talaxians to fight. They certainly never expect Talaxians to fight with advanced Starfleet hand-to-hand combat training. I wham him some more in the sensitive bits before he can get up, and then Hal comes out of the alley and kicks him scientifically in the head, and he goes all of a heap and lies still.

"Plant that last charge and let's get while the getting's good." I'm going to have one hell of a bruise where that shot hit me. Never mind. I whip out the tricorder and risk a fast scan.

"What's a Vaadwaur doing here?" Hal asks as he sets the charge.

I look glumly at the tricorder. "Playing with several dozen of his pals, from the looks of it. Kazon-Nirriz, we could handle, but with this many snakeheads, I wanna get out of here like yesterday." I hit my combadge. "Pex to Ostankino. Ajbit, you there?"

"Hanging on, sir."

"Fine. We have Vaadwaur down on the ground, in force. We're retreating now to minimum safe distance and blowing these charges. How soon can you get through and pick us up?"

"We'll start an approach run now, sir, but it'll attract attention. Could get rough." The night sky is still alive with transient flashes of light. Looks like it's plenty rough already.

"OK, see you soon. Pex out." I turn to Hal. "Let's get moving." I point. "No snakeheads that way."

So that's the way we move, and fast. Vaadwaur. Intelligence thought the Kazon-Nirriz were getting cosy with the Vaadwaur, and now we have proof for sure. Admittedly, the Vaadwaur Supremacy is kind of in disarray at the moment, what with its top leadership being exposed as puppets for the bluegills, and their main forces getting curb-stomped by the alliance at Vaadwaur Prime... but they are still trouble, and trouble big time.

And the Kazon-Nirriz, like so many Kazon sects, is on the lookout for strong alliances... fortunately, it took Intelligence only a few minutes to find a rival sect of Kazon who would act as cover while we pulled this little raid. Except this smooth in-and-out operation is proving anything but. Something is seriously amiss here, I think to myself. I don't let the thinking stop me running, though.

"Minimum safe distance," gasps Hal, "I think -"

"So let's find out." I hit the transmit icon on my tricorder, and stuff starts to happen.

First, the brilliant flashes of the spatial charges, and then the sound hits us, and I do mean hits. Once again, I'm knocked off my feet and sprawling on the concrete, which is jumping up and down as the shockwaves run through the ground. There is the rumble and the crash of falling buildings, and from my position flat on my back I can see that sensor pylon topple and fall - not, fortunately, in my direction. There are alarms. There is gunfire, though what anyone's shooting at, I couldn't tell you.

Then, the screaming starts.

I get to my feet, help Hal to his, slap my combadge. "Pex to Ostankino. Good news, it worked. Good news, the Nirriz really were getting biotech weapons from the Vaadwaur. Bad news, those weapons were ready to roll, and when we blew them, the goop got loose. I reckon we've got about two minutes before the all-new biological action digests us like a pair of stubborn stains, so, y'know, get a shift on, huh?"

"On approach now." Ajbit's voice. "Keep your comms channel open, and stand very still, because we're only going to get one shot at this."

The screaming in the distance is awful. And there is a whiff of something unspeakable in the air. Hal and I exchange glances. If this doesn't work, I hope the angry Vaadwaur get us before the bio-agent does -

Then everything sparkles with blue light and goes away, and I'm back, with a jolt, in the Ostankino's transporter room. "Yay!" I shout at Voesyy, who's handling the transporter. I take a quick glance - yes, Hal's there beside me, and yes, all of him's there. "Nice work, hotshot!"

"We have company," the Rigelian grunts at me. "Better get to the bridge."

Good thing the Ostankino's a small ship, but she shakes several times as I charge up to the bridge. I vault into the command chair almost before Ajbit's out of it. "Let's have the news."

"Kazon-Wolva forces are regrouping in high orbitals," Ajbit says tersely. "They seem to be getting the better of it now, but there were easy twice as many Nirriz ships as we expected. We picked up a Nirriz carrier on our tail when we came in, but I think we lost it -" The ship rocks from a sudden impact. "Or not," Ajbit adds in sour tones.

"OK, let's go play with the big boy. Hard about, one seven niner mark two, and ready all cannons!"

Ajbit looks at me, concentrating on the singed hole over my heart. "You up to this?"

"Oh, slightly shot, scorched, shaken and irradiated, but it'll keep." I punch up the tactical display on my armrest console. We are altogether too close to a walloping great Kazon-Nirriz carrier, right enough, and it is already sending its own raiders out to give us a hard time. "Reinforce forward shields, set rapid fire on the cannons, get ready to roll the fun stuff."

The carrier's forward beam arrays lash out towards us, a volley of energy that should smash a normal Kazon raider into a billion flaming pieces -

The beams hit our Starfleet-standard Aegis shields, and splash almost harmlessly away. Ostankino judders, and a few flash-bangs go off on the bridge, but nothing we can't handle. "Attack pattern omega! Cannons, open fire!"

Corrosive plasma bolts yammer out of our forward cannons, burning through the carrier's shields, slamming into its side as it turns to present its energy broadside to us. The bolts are tuned to interfere with structural integrity fields, and under their impact huge sections of the carrier's outer plating buckle and break away. Another volley, and we've darn near carved another docking bay out of the Nirriz ship. Not that I want to dock with it. But it is a nice place to send a quantum torpedo, straight through shields and armour and into the carrier's guts.

"Three eight zero mark three seven! Vent theta radiation! Turrets to independent fire!"

Sickly green murk floods out of the Ostankino's belly, swallowing the stricken carrier in a destructive fog of charged particles, engulfing two raiders that were coming in close on our tail. A third one crosses our path, and Veb nails it with the forward cannons, spraying the wreckage of it across space. More impacts, more flash-bangs, more damage lights.

One raider down, two wallowing in the murk, there should be a fourth somewhere - that carrier may be hurt, but it's still shooting - I spot the fourth raider. "Steer three seven mark three two four, target that last raider, hit the isometric charges!"

Ostankino turns and swoops, the Aegis shields flaring under the barrage from the Kazon ships. The last raider whirls into the targeting reticle on my display, and Veb lets fling with both the cannons and the isometric charge. The Klingon-designed weapon lights up the sky with its electrical flickering, and it leaps, from one target to another -

The raider in the viewfinder explodes. The two in the theta cloud suddenly find that greenish fug lit up by clean white electrical light, and then they explode too. And the combination of theta radiation, and the mauling we gave it, and the nearby warp core breaches - it's all too much for the carrier, and the cloud of charged particles is suddenly blown away as that goes up, too, in a blast of flame.

"Muchly bang," says Veb with satisfaction.

"Pex." It's Goyar; I turn around and give him a cheery grin. "Got Maje Galvik on comms for you."

"On screen." The leader of the Kazon-Wolva appears on the main viewer. He looks, well, like any other Kazon, actually. A species so grubby even the Borg wouldn't take them. Galvik has tried to improve his appearance by tying a lot of parti-coloured feathers to his matted hair. He's failed.

But he's a happy Kazon, anyway. "Victory!" he shouts. "The Nirriz filth are in full retreat! The Kazon-Wolva prove their strength! Victory!"

"Great news, Maje Galvik," I say tactfully. I'm all about the tact. "And we've accomplished our objective on the ground - and given the Nirriz a bloody nose there, too. We couldn't have done it without your help." Which is true enough. I decide not to mention the idiot who did the strafing run and nearly got us killed. Tact, again.

"You fought well, for a Talaxian," Galvik says. There is a noise behind him on his bridge. "We will fight together again! Now, I celebrate with my warriors!"

"Glad to hear it, Maje," I say. "Good for you." The screen goes blank. I fiddle with the console, and the tac display comes back. The Kazon-Nirriz are cutting their losses, from the looks of it. Their remaining operable ships are warping out of the system in every direction. The Wolva cruisers are closing in on the non-operable ones... and I am very glad I'm not aboard one of those ships right now.

"Sickbay," Ajbit says firmly. "What was it, shot, scorched and irradiated?"

"You forgot shaken," I say. I stand up. "OK, sickbay. And, well, it's not for my own sake, y'know, it's for a friend... but I better have a chat with someone about incontinence, too."

"What?" says Ajbit.

"Incontinence. You know. Leaks." I give her one of my serious looks. "Twice as many Nirriz ships as we expected, and a ground detachment of Vaadwaur at the weapons depot. That sounds like precautions to me, precautions you don't take unless you know something's coming. Someone on the bad guys' side knew this operation was in the works. Maybe not the details, not enough of the details to stop us... but they knew, all right."

"We'll call him Gerald," says Hal Welti, "it's just a name." I think it's another quote.