Atish Khatami winced at the sound of Ming Xiong’s voice calling out from several meters behind her in the corridor: “Captain! A moment, please!”
The svelte commanding officer of the Endeavour halted and forced herself to exorcise any intimation of irritation from her face. Then she turned to confront her high-strung guest. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
He caught up to her and stood a bit too close for her comfort. “Why wasn’t I told your crew loaded trilithium ordnance onto the Dulcinea?”
She grabbed Xiong’s arm and pulled him toward the door of a nearby maintenance bay. It slid open ahead of them and she shoved him through the doorway. On the other side, a pair of enlisted mechanics looked up from their precision welding. Khatami’s voice was sharp and cold: “Give us the room.” Tools clattered across the compartment’s workbenches, dropped without question by the mechanics, who were out the door before Khatami had to ask them again.
As the door hushed closed, Khatami poked a finger against Xiong’s chest. “First, never take that tone with me on board my ship. Next, never discuss classified ops in the middle of a passageway. Last but not least, you weren’t told because there was no reason you needed to know.”
“No reason? In case you’ve forgotten, Captain, I’m in charge of all field missions directly related to Operation Vanguard.”
“Unless I’ve missed a memo from Starfleet Command stating that you’ve been promoted to the admiralty, I don’t give a damn what your billet is. My orders are to provide you with facilities, communications, and regular updates, and to offer tactical and material support to SI’s operatives in the field.”
Xiong paced angrily and pushed a hand through his black, brush-cut hair. “We’re so close, Captain. So close to unlocking all these mysteries, all these technologies, all this pure knowledge. The last thing we ought to do is risk blowing it all to hell because some fool with more brass than brains tells us to.”
“I don’t see why you’re getting all worked up over this. It’s no different than the self-destruct package Starfleet builds into every starship and starbase.”
Arms raised and fingers curled with suppressed rage, Xiong looked ready to explode. “It’s completely different! Sacrificing a ship or a starbase only means losing matériel, fuel, and personnel.”
Khatami was aghast. “Oh, is that all?”
“Listen to what I’m saying. Starships can be replaced. Starbases can be rebuilt. Lost lives are a tragedy, but others will continue what they’ve begun.” Once more he stepped too deep into Khatami’s personal space. “But if we destroy unique artifacts of the Shedai, there’s no guarantee we’ll ever see their ilk again.”
She pressed her palm to his shoulder and nudged him back half a step. “And what if the Klingons capture one of those unique artifacts? What do you think they’ll do with that kind of knowledge, Ming? Develop it in peace for the good of the galaxy at large, or turn it into a weapon that’ll wipe us off the map?”
“I’m well aware of the destructive potential of Shedai technology, sir.”
“Then you ought to know why we can’t ever let the Klingons have it.”
He shook his head. “I can’t condone the destruction of antiquities. Not even for national security. These are pieces of history we’re talking about, Captain.”
It was Khatami’s turn to shake her head. “Wrong, Lieutenant.” She shouldered past him, and the maintenance bay’s door opened ahead of her as she made her exit. “What we’re talking about is cultural survival.”
Bridy stood behind Quinn’s chair, looked through the Dulcinea’s cockpit canopy, and saw nothing but a placid starscape. She glanced at Quinn. “Where is it?”
“Trust me, darlin’, it’s out there.” He tapped a few instructions into the forward console, and a holographic wireframe appeared as if conjured outside the ship. It depicted the profound curvature of local space-time into a funnel shape. “The Orions’ sensor data says it’s right there—larger than life and twice as ugly.”
She threw a confused look at Quinn. “What does that even mean?”
“Just a cute way of sayin’ it’s really big.”
“Mm-hm.” She turned her attention back to the stars. “There’s supposed to be a wormhole less than a quarter million kilometers away, but we aren’t seeing any distortion in our view of the stars. Does that mean it collapsed?”
Quinn shrugged. “It might. Or maybe it only opens once in a blue moon.”
“Or when something crosses its event horizon.”
Bridy settled into the copilot’s seat and accessed the subspace comm. “Start plotting a course. I’ll send our coordinates to Endeavour on a coded channel.”
“Hang on, whoa, stop. Are you out of your mind?”
Continuing to prep her message to the Endeavour, Bridy said, “We need to know if the wormhole’s still there, and if it is, we need to be sure it’s stable.”
“By flying into it? Sorry, no.” He leaned back from the helm and crossed his arms. “I think we oughta just hang tight and wait to see if it reopens on its own.”
She shook her head. “Not good enough. For all we know, this thing’s on a cycle measured in centuries, or even longer.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m a patient man.”
“One, I know that to be a lie. Two, even if you’ve learned to be patient, the Klingons haven’t. We need to confirm this find and plant our flag right now.”
“Screw that. Our orders were to steal the data and crack the code. We did that. We’re done now. Job over. It’s time to go home and start our new lives as boring, happy civilians nobody shoots at.”
Bridy sent her message to the Endeavour, then turned to face Quinn. “I don’t have time to argue with you. It’s the bottom of the ninth, we’re on the ropes, and I’m not gonna drop the ball when I have a shot at the goal. Do you get me?”
Quinn heaved an exasperated sigh. “Honey, if you want to keep using sports metaphors, you really need to learn something about sports.”
“Don’t change the subject. Just set the course and punch it.”
“And if I don’t?”
“It might shock you, dear, to learn that I know how to fly the ship.” She punctuated her point with a teasing smile. “So, what’s it gonna be?”
He frowned and laid in the course. “Lady, you’re a pain in my ass.”
The deck shivered under Bridy’s feet as the Dulcinea’s impulse drive kicked in. Then a burst of light flooded the cockpit. As it faded, she saw the majestic, blue-and-white whorl of a wormhole’s mouth spiraling open all around them. The ship’s hull rumbled ominously. “Gravitational flux,” Quinn said over the noise. Flipping switches, he added, “Compensating.” A momentary fluctuation in the inertial dampers made Bridy’s stomach jump into her chest for half a heartbeat. She swallowed hard and shook it off.
Quinn shot her a pleading look. “Last chance to change your mind.”
She gripped her chair’s armrests. “Take us in.”
“I hope you’re right about this,” Quinn said.
Then he guided the ship forward and plunged it through the wormhole’s mouth into the brilliant, twisting abyss that lay beyond.
Stephen Klisiewicz looked up from the sensor hood and turned toward the center seat of the Endeavour’s bridge. “Captain? Our listening posts on the Klingon border are picking up major activity.”
“Main viewer,” Khatami said. Klisiewicz routed his sensor feed to the forward viewscreen, making it available to all the other bridge officers. The captain looked left, toward the ship’s first officer. “Number One? Analysis?”
Stano stood with her hands folded behind her back and her dark hair swept back in a neat bob, a portrait of composure. “Looks like an expeditionary force from the Klingons’ Fifth Fleet, out of Q’Tahl.” She fixed her blue eyes on Klisiewicz. “How many ships, Lieutenant?”
“Hard to say, sir. At least three, all fast movers. They just hit warp eight.”
The captain nodded. “All right, so we know they’re in a hurry. Lieutenant McCormack, chart their heading and give me some idea where they’re going.”
“Aye, sir,” said the fresh-faced young navigator.
A soft chirp from the communications console heralded an incoming signal. Lieutenant Hector Estrada swiveled his chair toward the bridge’s command well. “Captain, we’re receiving a coded message from the Dulcinea. It’s marked ‘Priority Victor-Alpha.’ ”
Khatami rose from her chair. “Route it to Science Two,” she said, climbing the steps to the bridge’s upper ring. The captain and first officer converged on the backup science station and keyed in their security clearance codes. Tense seconds passed as the two women huddled over the console and conferred in whispers. Klisiewicz couldn’t hear what they were discussing, but he held a sufficiently high security clearance to know that Victor-Alpha was the current designation for matters related to Operation Vanguard.
Stano and Khatami turned toward the main viewscreen. “McCormack, report,” Khatami said.
“No populated systems on the Klingons’ current bearing.” The navigator added a projection of the Klingon ships’ course to the image on the forward screen. “They seem to be heading into deep space.”
The captain and first officer exchanged grim and knowing looks, then descended together into the command well. “Mister Estrada,” Stano said, “what was the time stamp on that message from the Dulcinea?”
“Nine minutes ago, sir.”
“Raise them on subspace, Lieutenant, priority one.”
“Aye, sir.”
Khatami sat down in her chair, and Stano stood ready on her right. The captain’s mien was serious, her voice stern. “Helm, set course, bearing one-six-one mark one-zero-four, maximum warp, and stand by to engage on my order.”
Lieutenant Neelakanta, an energetic young Arcturian, entered the new heading with speed and precision. “Course laid in, Captain. Standing by.”
The captain looked back at Estrada. “Report.”
“No reply, Captain. Repeating the hail.”
Anticipating the captain’s next request, Klisiewicz initiated a long-range sensor scan of the Dulcinea’s last-known position. Only then did he realize that the civilian ship’s last coordinates lay in the path of the approaching Klingon ships.
At the communications console, Estrada shook his head. “No response, sir.”
Klisiewicz glanced into the blue glow of the hooded sensor display, then looked up as Khatami turned toward him. “No sign of the Dulcinea, Captain.”
Stano and Khatami traded worried looks. The first officer asked Klisiewicz, “Is it possible they warped out of sensor range?”
“Not unless they can move at warp eleven.”
Khatami leaned forward. “Mister Neelakanta”—she pointed dramatically at the main viewscreen—“engage.”