Approaching the Antares Maelstrom
“Hailing Karisian vessel! You are placing your ship and passengers in extreme jeopardy. Turn back at once!”
Sulu piloted the Allegra, a compact ship he had commandeered from the deep space station. He was in hot pursuit of the Tigris, a commercial freighter registered out of Karis Prime, under the command of a Captain Anwar Dryyde. The ship, which had more than sixty passengers listed on its manifest, had deviated from its flight plan and was heading straight for the Antares Maelstrom despite the warning buoy, just as Tilton had feared a ship was bound to do eventually.
Risking dozens of lives for the sake of a shortcut.
“Hailing Tigris. This is Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, representing Deep Space Station S-8. Please respond!”
“Mind your own business, Starfleet!” the other ship responded. The transmission was audio only, so Sulu could only imagine the speaker’s surly expression. “I know what I’m doing . . . and I don’t need your permission!”
Captain Dryyde, Sulu presumed. “I beg to differ, Captain.”
In fact, the jurisdictional issues here were a bit murky. The Antares Maelstrom had been declared hazardous by all sensible spacefaring civilizations and coalitions, but Sulu wasn’t sure if, strictly speaking, he had the authority to prevent foolhardy vessels from daring it. That being said, he wasn’t about to stand by while dozens of lives were on the verge of being thrown away out of greed and impatience. Let the bureaucrats sort the legalities out; he knew what Captain Kirk would do.
“Hold on tight,” he advised Ensign Peggy Knox, who was riding shotgun beside him in the copilot’s seat. Fresh out of the Academy, the redheaded crewman was young and energetic. A constellation of freckles gave her face character. The rest of his security team was back on the station, still providing backup for Grandle and her people.
A sudden burst of acceleration overcame the inertial dampers, throwing Sulu and Knox back against their seats, as Allegra sped after Tigris, pushing its engine to the limit. The other ship had a head start on them, but Sulu was determined to catch up with Tigris before it entered the Maelstrom, even if that meant exceeding the ship’s recommended cruising velocity. Warning lights flashed on the flight controls, a fact that did not escape Knox’s notice.
“Lieutenant . . .”
“I see them, Ensign. Just think of those as suggestions.”
“Understood, sir.”
The race was on, not just against Tigris, but against time as well. Sulu could see the Maelstrom up ahead: an immense, kaleidoscopic region of swirling plasma currents many parsecs across, too vast to easily circumvent. Luminous streaks and swells, varying widely in hue and intensity, produced an almost psychedelic effect. Viewed from sectors away, Sulu knew, the Maelstrom was basically an enormous pinwheel, rotating so fast on its axis that it appeared to be a blurry sphere; this close, it filled up the horizon for as far as the eye could see. And long-range sensors fared no better than the naked eye; surging energies hid whatever dangers and mysteries might be hiding within the Maelstrom’s perilous depths.
“Damn it, Dryyde,” Sulu said, losing his temper. “Do you want to kill your passengers and crew? Change course before it’s too late. Baldur III will still be there if you take the long way around.”
“Sorry,” the captain replied. “Not getting paid to take the scenic route, but you’re free to turn back if you haven’t got the nerve.”
“This isn’t about courage.” Sulu feared he was wasting his breath. “It’s about being responsible for the passengers in your care!”
Dryyde snorted over the channel. “Whose idea do you think it was? See you on the other side, Starfleet, if you can find the Passage! Tigris out.”
“Dryyde? Dryyde?” Sulu tried to restore the transmission, but his hails went unanswered. Empty static taunted him. “Hailing Tigris. Please respond!”
“Seems like he’s done talking, sir,” Knox commented.
“Agreed.”
Knox’s assessment of the situation was dead-on. Sulu realized that common sense and persuasion were not going to be enough to save Tigris and the lives aboard her.
“Let me know when we’re within target range of the Tigris,” he instructed Knox.
“Will do, sir.” She monitored the sensor readouts. “Are we thinking tractor beams?”
“I wish,” Sulu said. Allegra’s tractor beams were strong enough to tow a disabled vessel if necessary, but not enough to capture a speeding ship that didn’t want to be detained. “At best, our beams could only slow Tigris down a little. Arm the phasers instead.”
Knox nodded. “Aye, sir.”
They were gaining on Tigris, which was nonetheless getting way too close to the outer fringe of the Maelstrom. This was going to be close.
“Do we follow them into the Maelstrom if we have to?” Knox asked.
Good question, Sulu thought. “We’re not going to let it come to that, Ensign.”
The ship was equipped with a basic phaser array for self-defense. No photon torpedoes, as on the Enterprise, but Sulu didn’t need that kind of firepower anyway. He wasn’t out to repel a Klingon battle cruiser, just to stop a reckless captain from committing suicide along with the lives in his care.
“Coming within phaser range, sir,” Knox reported.
Sulu gave Dryyde one last chance to come to his senses. “Sulu to Tigris. This is your final warning. Return to your original flight plan or face the consequences.”
He kept the threat vague—for a reason.
“Back off, Starfleet!” Dryyde responded, breaking his silence.
“Lieutenant!” Knox said. “He’s firing up his weapon batteries.”
“Figured he might,” Sulu said coolly. “Raise shields.”
“Aye, sir.”
A violet disruptor blast, fired from the stern of the Tigris, rocked the ship. Sulu smiled slyly. “And there it is. Good.”
Knox gave him a puzzled look.
“They fired first,” he explained, “on a Federation vessel no less. Think we’re entitled to defend ourselves now.”
So much for the legal niceties.
“Damage?” he asked.
“Nothing serious,” Knox stated. “Yet.”
Sulu wasn’t surprised. He suspected that Dryyde just wanted to discourage his pursuer, not destroy them; that had been more of an angry outburst than an attack. Still, Sulu had no intention of taking any further fire. Tigris got one free shot, that was all.
“Taking evasive action.”
He yawed sharply to port, then oriented Allegra so that it presented a smaller target to Tigris. He scrutinized the other ship, guesstimating the range and sweep of its disruptors. Sulu wasn’t one hundred percent familiar with this particular model of freighter, but he’d studied enough similar vessels to have a pretty good idea where its limits were in terms of its weapons and targeting capacities. Swooping in toward the Tigris, he maneuvered the ship into a sweet spot where the freighter’s disruptors couldn’t be aimed unless Dryyde did some tricky maneuvering of his own.
We’re the itch you can’t quite reach, Sulu thought.
He gambled that Dryyde had no real desire or stomach for a fight; the other captain was in flight—not fight—mode. Tigris just wanted to get to the Maelstrom unobstructed.
Sulu wasn’t going to let that happen.
Not that there was an easy way to stop Tigris. No matter how surgical a strike, phasers were destructive and violence always carried risks. Sulu didn’t want to destroy the freighter in order to save it. He needed to minimize any chance of casualties.
“Scan that freighter,” he ordered Knox. “Find me a vulnerable spot that won’t trigger an explosion or compromise life-support.”
“Aye, sir.” She quickly summoned the necessary graphics. “We could target one of its warp nacelles.”
Sulu shook his head. “Too much danger of triggering a catastrophic plasma cascade.” An idea occurred to him. “What about its external sensor array?”
She scanned the schematics. “That could work. They’re not tied directly into the life-support or propulsion systems.”
“Target that specific area,” he ordered. “High-intensity beam. Narrow focus.” He carefully stayed within the sweet spot, trying to maintain a consistent distance and position with regard to Tigris. “And, Ensign, precision counts.”
“Understood, sir.”
A single crimson beam shot from the ship’s nose to strike Tigris at the sensor bulb atop the freighter’s prow. Azure energy flashed where the phaser beam collided with the freighter’s shields, which successfully deflected Knox’s initial blast. Reacting to the attack, Tigris veered away, attempting evasive action of its own, while remaining on course for the Maelstrom, which stretched before them like a galactic barrier. This close, it loomed ahead regardless of any evasive zigs or zags.
“Again,” Sulu ordered. He had never expected a single shot to do the trick. The ship zoomed after Tigris, matching its twists and turns as Sulu worked the helm, determined to keep the freighter’s external sensors in Knox’s sights. “Keep it up!”
“Yes, sir!”
The phaser beam battered Tigris’s shields as Knox did a good job of keeping it focused on the desired area, despite the moving target. Sulu appreciated the challenge facing her in that she needed to hit Tigris hard enough to penetrate her shields without punching a hole all the way through the freighter’s hull.
“Nice shooting, Knox.”
“Nice flying, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
A final flash of bright-blue energy signaled the collapse of Tigris’s shields. Vapor issued from the sensor bubble as the ship’s phaser reduced it to slag. Knox ceased fire before breaching the hull. She studied the scanner readings.
“Their sensor array is toast,” she reported. “They’re flying blind.”
“What a shame,” Sulu quipped. He could readily imagine the panic on Tigris’s bridge right now as their viewscreens went blank along with their navigational readouts. He hoped Captain Dryyde was ready to see reason, now that he couldn’t see anything else.
“Sulu to Tigris. Do you require assistance?”
Static garbled the reply, suggesting that the phaser attack had damaged Tigris’s communications equipment as well. “Blast you, Starfleet! This was none of your business!”
“Your shields collapsed after only a few sustained blasts from our phaser,” Sulu pointed out. “How long did you think they were going to survive the Maelstrom?”
“The Passage,” Dryyde insisted, perhaps a bit defensively. “We’re still on course for the Passage. We just need to stay on track and we’ll be fine . . .”
“Seriously?” Sulu couldn’t believe how stubbornly irresponsible the man was. “You were willing to stake your ship on flimsy, substandard shields and a tall tale about a mythical safe passage!”
“It’s not a myth!” Dryyde ranted. “My passengers paid good money for the coordinates. They swear they’re legit!”
Sulu rolled his eyes. Dryyde was irresponsible and gullible, it seemed, and Sulu, frankly, was tired of dealing with him. I’m missing my dinner date with Helena for this?
“Ensign Knox, hit them with a reverse tractor beam. Just enough to spin them around a bit.”
“Will do.”
Switching to the tractor controls, Knox did as instructed. A rippling amber force beam slammed into the unshielded freighter, causing it to tumble end over end. Sulu got dizzy just looking for it; he hoped, for its passengers’ sake, that Tigris’s artificial gravity was still working properly, otherwise they were likely to be experiencing some serious space-sickness.
“Stick to your previously plotted course,” Sulu challenged Dryyde. “You don’t even know which way you’re going anymore. Shut down your engines and let us tow you back to the station . . . unless you’d prefer to fly blindly without any sense of direction. Space is a big place, Captain. Pretty sure your passengers aren’t paying to get lost between the stars.”
A long pause preceded Dryyde’s reply. “You win, Starfleet. But you’ll be hearing from the Karisian Shipping Authority. You had no right—!”
Sulu cut him off. He glanced at Knox. “Tigris?”
“Powering down, sir.” She beamed in triumph. “You did it, Lieutenant. Saved all those people, whether they liked it or not.”
“We did it, Ensign. I’ll be requesting a commendation for you.”
Unlike Knox, he couldn’t bask in their victory without worrying about future crises. Tilton’s warning buoy was clearly not enough to discourage folks from braving the Maelstrom, especially with rumors of a safe passage circulating. They had managed to intercept Tigris before it entered the Maelstrom, but next time they might not be so lucky.
We’re going to have to patrol the border full-time, he realized. There was no way to truly block the route to the Maelstrom in three-dimensional space, short of employing a fleet of ships or an entire field of automated mines, but keeping Allegra on patrol between the station and the Maelstrom would prevent any future ships from getting a head start like Tigris had. Deploying the ship would leave the station a ship short, but Sulu didn’t see any way around it if they wanted to avoid another near disaster like this one. Now I just need to talk Tilton into it.
“Locked onto Tigris,” Knox reported.
“Music to my ears, Ensign. Let’s head back to port.”