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“Autumn!”
“Go ‘way.”
“Autumn!”
“Go ‘way, Shar’n. ‘m sleepy.”
“Autumn, you have to wake up!”
“Wait. Shar’n?”
“Good, yes, it’s Sharon.”
“You’re dead.”
“Right.”
“Kay.”
“No, not okay! Not unless you want to end up like me!”
Autumn’s eyes opened. She was, where was she? She ought to know where she was, shouldn’t she?
“Where ‘m I?”
Your headquarters.
“This’s weird.”
You’re dying, Autumn. Dying’s weird as it gets.
“Oh.” Her eyes started to shut again.
No! Autumn, you need help.
“No, jus’ need t’sleep. Feel better,” she slurred.
If you fall asleep again, you won’t wake up! You need help!
“Who? You’re dead, Nour’s dead, Caitlin’s dead. You’re all dead. Hey!” A bit of animation returned to her voice. “You’re dead, I remember you’re dead.”
Uh-huh. You don’t have much time.
“This’s ‘portant. If you’re dead, why do I hear you?”
Got me. Autumn, who can help you?
“You can’t. You’re dead.” Now Autumn’s voice filled with sorrow for her lost friend.
I’m doing my best! Think, Autumn! Who can help you?
“Not you. Not Nour. Not Caitlin. She killed you!”
I know. I was there.
“She killed you!”
Let’s move on. It’s not something I want to remember.
“Kay. But she killed you!”
Yes. Who can help you, Autumn?
“Dunno. Mikki’s gone. Jordan, too. Mac. Nicole. All on a mission. Izzat important?”
Implants, Autumn.
“Yeah. Got mine. You didn’t get yours. You died too soon.”
Let’s get off my death. You have an implant.
“Tol’ you.”
If it were possible for a spectral voice to sigh, Sharon’s would have. As it was when she spoke next there was a definite edge of exasperation.
Use your implant to contact someone.
“They’re not here, they’re away, far away.”
The implant has the range.
“Oh, yeah. How do I do this again?”
For bog’s sake! Think!
“I gotta think,” Autumn echoed. “Why’s it hard to think?”
You’re dying. We covered this.
“Yeah. Dying. Not like I thought it would be. Kinda nice. Peaceful.”
You’re not done working yet, Autumn.
“But I’m tired!”
Think, Autumn! How do you send a message?
“Tha’s easy, I just think it.”
Then why don’t you do that?
“Who?”
Anyone!
Autumn’s eyes closed and she could see Sharon again.
“Hi Sharon!”
“No time for this now! Send a message, Autumn!”
Hey, Mac!
“Mac? Why her?”
“She’s the nicest.”
Hi Autumn, hey, I’d love to chat but we’re kinda in the middle of a mission, you know, and so if you don’t mind I’m gonna go back to it and we’ll catch up later, bye!
“She said she’s busy,” pouted Autumn.
“And you’re dying,” Sharon retorted. “I think that trumps busy. Message again, and tell her you’re dying.”
“You sure?”
“It’ll get her attention.”
Mac, I’m dying, Sharon says so.
Implants stripped all the emotional content from messages but the shock was clear in Mac’s response.
Dying, what do you mean dying, and Sharon can’t tell you anything!
She did, I swear! She says I’m dying. I just feel sleepy.
Hold on Autumn, I’ll see what I can do to get you some help, just don’t die, okay, promise me you won’t die.
Can I sleep?
No! No sleeping, no dying, not until you see me again, got it?
Bossy. And I thought you were so nice.
But Mac’s presence was gone.
“She said she’ll get help and told me not to die.”
“Good.”
“I can’t sleep, either, but I wanna.”
“I’ll keep you awake. More or less. Come on.”
A pair of comfortable chairs appeared and they sank into them.
“This is nice. This is dead?”
“No, this is dreaming. Sort of.”
Autumn frowned. “Gonna have to ‘splain that.”
“Well, it’ll keep you occupied,” Sharon said. “Okay.”
*
“IN POSITION, CAPTAIN.”
“Engineering.”
Lorelei answered. “Go.”
“Ready?”
“Ready. Safety interlocks off-line and emergency power routed to the tractor beam. We should be able to hold long enough.”
The plan was simple enough. The Endeavour, following Diana’s directions, would take position a hundred meters inboard from the starboard edge of the approaching plate. They’d match speed with the plate then engage the tractor beam. At first it would only be enough to lock them in position, but they’d then increase power to the beam while reducing their own velocity. According to Diana’s calculations they’d be able to create an imbalance in the plate’s trajectory and force it off-course.
“Disengage before we lose it, Lor.”
Her use of her wife’s nickname in public, officially, was testament to the strain Kiri was feeling.
“We’ll be fine.”
“Commander, she’s all yours.”
“Ensign Furber, confirm course and speed.”
“Matched, Commander.”
“Engineering, engage tractor beam.”
The invisible lance of gravitons reached from the ship and grabbed the plate.
“We have lock,” Ensign Cisneros reported from the bridge engineering station.
“Bring the power up nice and steady,” Sanzari ordered.
“Increasing power. Ten percent. Twenty. Thirty.”
“Hold at fifty for systems check.”
“Forty. Fifty and holding.”
There was a tense moment as Cisneros and Furber verified their respective numbers.
“Holding course and speed,” Furber said.
“Power holding steady.”
“Engineering?”
“All in the green. We are go for up to 120% power.”
Sanzari confirmed the next step with a glance to her Captain.
“You heard the Eng, Cisneros. Bring it all the way up.”
With only a slight hesitation Cisneros entered the commands, sending more and more power to the tractor system, locking them into their position relative to the plate.
“One hundred twenty percent, Commander.” Was there a hint of nerves in her voice? Possibly.
“Ensign Furber, reduce speed.”
The maneuver, to this point, had been nearly silent on the bridge. Now, with the physical strain of the attempt to alter the course of a hundred million tonnes of durasteel the bones of the massive starship groaned. Everyone on the bridge felt the pain of the ship through their seats.
“Status!”
“We’re not managing much,” Furber said. “It’s pretty well dragging us along.”
“Reverse power? Push, instead of pull?” Kiri suggested.
“Castor?”
“Calculating,” the AI answered. “Consulting with Diana. Concur. We will not achieve sufficient reduction in velocity, but may manage sufficient increase to achieve the desired result.”
“You heard the AI,” Sanzari said. “Ensign, let’s try one half sublight.”
“Aye, Ma’am.” As Furber reversed the direction of thrust the groaning died away.
Kiri cocked a crooked grin to Sanzari. “She’s happier about it, at least.”
After a moment which seemed to last hours, Sanzari asked, “Report.”
“Starboard edge is accelerating, current delta vee is 2.5 CPS,” Cisneros said.
“CPS?”
“Centimeters per second.”
“Oh, that’s frakking useless,” Kiri said. “We don’t have enough time to wait for this to build.”
“Aye, Captain. Ensign, go to full sublight.”
“Full sublight, aye.” Now the engines could be heard, faintly. Full sublight would, if they were unburdened, propel the Endeavour up to 80% of light speed.
“Effect?”
“Delta vee of 6.2 CPS and gradually increasing.”
“Castor?”
“Insufficient. We need to achieve at least 4.3 MPS delta vee.”
Sanzari looked to her Captain again.
“Suggestion, Number One?”
“Tie in warp power?”
“Find out if we can.”
“Engineer Stewart.”
“Go ahead, Candice.”
“Can we engage the warp drive to give us more push?”
The reluctance was evident in Stewart’s reply. “We can. It’s a risk; the drive isn’t designed to be used sublight.”
“We’ve got to do something,” Kiri broke in. “Otherwise we’re going to pancake Njord before we actually manage to divert it.”
“I understand. Give me a minute.”
The Endeavour continued to push against the plate, gaining a few more centimeters every second. Ensign Furber proved her exemplary abilities on the helm, keeping the ship within centimeters of the same relative position even as the plate began to veer.
“Ready,” Stewart commed. “Don’t exceed power for warp two.”
“Warp one, Ensign. Engage,” Kiri said without hesitation.
Furber ordered the jump into warp power and the Endeavour responded.
Then everything went to hell.
As the drive engaged the normal warp bubble began to form, spreading outward from the drive in a sphere as was normal. However, the calculations Roberts programmed for the warp field never anticipated a ship being essentially welded to an external object, an object with its own substantial mass and inertia. As the sphere expanded the mass of the ship was slightly ‘phased out’ of the universe, but the graviton beam connecting them to the plate was unaffected. The inertia of the plate transferred back to the Endeavour along the beam and wrenched it out of the precise alignment the warp drive demanded.
In response, the field collapsed.
The energy from the field fed back into the drive.
At that point the safety mechanisms engaged and cut the drive from the power circuits, saving them from a catastrophic failure.
The power had to go somewhere, though, and it raced through the rest of the conduits. Megajoules flowed through circuits designed to handle kilojoules, blowing some apart, fusing mechanisms together, in some instances arcing across bulkheads and corridors.
One of the components fused was the tractor beam controls.
The lights on the bridge flared then died. Emergency lighting rose nearly immediately.
“Report!” demanded Kiri to anyone.
“My console’s dead!” said Furber, diving underneath and ripping a panel open. “Attempting to bypass.”
“Mine too,” Cisneros reported.
“I’ve got sensors,” said Lieutenant Leard from Tactical. “We’re still where we were, I think. Working on it.”
“No response on comms,” Sanzari said. “Q-Net connection’s fried, too.”
She rose and went to a station on her side of the bridge and began pulling it apart. “I think I can bypass the dead system.”
“What is working?”
“We’ve got life support,” Zihal said from her science station.
“I’ve got the dorsal laser,” Leard added. “Ventral is non-responsive.”
“Castor?”
No reply from the AI.
“He might not hear us if the comms are down,” Sanzari said, wrist-deep in the console. “Ow!”
“PO Cox!”
The silver-haired petty officer grunted from where he had pulled a panel open at the rear of the bridge.
“I need a runner.”
“Aye, Ma’am,” he said, not moving. “But we’re not going anywhere if I can’t get the lift doors to open.”
“Damn, damn, damn!”
The screen flickered to life. The view of the plate ahead of them didn’t change; it was merely overlaid with some, but not all, of the data points which had been displayed earlier.
“Captain,” said Sanzari, still manipulating wires. “I’ve got some comms.”
“Engineering?”
“Can try.” More fiddling. “Should be open.”
“Lorelei?”
“Kiri?” Coughing. “Kiri, can you hear me?”
“I hear you,” she answered with only the slightest hitch. “What happened?”
“Something blew in the warp drive, though the safeties all kicked in and it didn’t melt down.”
“Anyone hurt?”
“Bruised and some smoke inhalation, a few electrical burns, but nothing major.”
“What about our sublight engines?”
“They’re dead, but I don’t know if they’re total junk or it’s just burnt-out circuits.”
“Find out.”
“Already on it. Oh shit.”
“Lor?”
“The tractor’s still engaged.”
“So?”
“We’re locked onto the plate, and with no engines we’re going where it goes. In about thirty minutes, that’s right into Njord.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly.”
*
THE DIREWOLVES WERE taking direction from the D2, using their lasers to target the engines on the ships. Most of them mounted at least two, so Cass had pointed out disabling one would cause the other to push the ship off-course.
Between the fighters, the missiles already en route, and the D2, the bulk of the threat had been mitigated.
“Because they don’t know you like I do,” said Kendra, carefully aligning her fighter with the target. “Brie?”
“Adjusting. You’ve got tone, Kendra.”
She fired; her target was the weld point securing the booster to the hull. The metal melted and vaporized and the engine, suddenly unburdened, accelerated away.
“Another one down,” she commed.
“Roger, 1314.” Lieutenant Wilder’s tone was lifeless.
“Wilder? What’s wrong?”
Kendra would have sworn she heard the Tactical officer sniffle. “The Endeavour’s mission.”
“What about it?”
“They failed; something went wrong, we don’t know what because we don’t have any comms with them, but they’re not moving away and the plate’s still on track for impact.”
“Crap. Out. Whitmore?”
“Not now, Kendra.”
“I need to know. Endeavour.”
“We don’t know. No communications, no Q-Net, nothing. Diana says their warp drive’s gone, she’s not picking up any emissions, and their sublight engines are dead.”
“Did they have any effect?”
“Not enough.”
“Options?”
“Not really any point.”
“Dammit, Davie, you don’t give up! You’ve never given up in your life!”
“Sooner or later every race ends, Kendra.”
“I refuse to believe it! There’s always an option, even if you have to choose the least shitty one!” She softened her tone. “Give me some options, Davie.”
“Diana gave me one.”
“Good, I like it. What is it?”
“A fusion bomb. They’re large enough to take out the plate, no problem, even in vacuum.”
“We don’t have any fusion bombs,” Kendra said, confused.
“And that’s where it all falls apart.”
Forcing a hopeful note, Kendra said, “Keep trying. Out.”
Cass was weeping, verging on a wail, and Kendra didn’t need to ask.
The girls were aboard Njord.
She could reach the habitat, no problem, but her Direwolf could hold two people. Period. It wasn’t a roomy ship; Daniela often referred to hers as a ship she wore.
Maybe, just maybe, they could fit both girls into one seat. Maybe even the treecats because the girls wouldn’t leave them behind.
So which of their mothers would give up her seat?
Kendra knew the answer to that, too, and rejected it utterly. She’d fought too hard, for too many years, to allow Cass to give up her life. But Cass couldn’t pilot a Direwolf, and Brie was programmed against autonomous flight.
“Admiral.” The comm signal brought Kendra back to the moment.
“Go ahead, Danni.”
“What’s going on? I can’t get any answers.”
Kendra started to explain, as best she knew, and Danni interrupted her. “My pilots deserve to hear this, too.”
Once the Direwolves were all tapped in Kendra repeated the explanation and expanded on it.
“So that’s it. Admiral Whitmore needs a fusion bomb, which we don’t have, or someone needs to come up with a brilliant idea.”
One of the pilots said, “We run on fusion reactors.”
“Lazy, what do you mean?”
“I mean, Commander, we’re essentially a flying bomb.”
“They’re reactors. They’re not supposed to go boom.”
Another voice: “They’re designed not to!”
Kendra tuned them out when Cass said, “I’ll bet I could figure out how to rig it.”
“Oh, Hades no,” Kendra said, turning as far as she could. “No way.”
“We have to save our daughters, Kendra,” said Cass, already tapping at the controls. “And the treecats. We can’t allow the first envoys from another star be killed because of a, a bully!”
Kendra bit back a hot retort.
She didn’t want to die.
She didn’t want Cass to die.
But.
What happened to, “Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor?”
Pretty words, but words meant less than nothing if they weren’t backed by actions.
Would their daughters understand? Certainly not now, no matter how smart they were, how mature they sometimes seemed. Maybe someday, if everything succeeded, if the spark she’d lit continued to grow, maybe they would. Maybe they’d be proud of their mothers and, while regretting their sacrifice, recognize the necessity.
Maybe.
And the thought of her daughters dying? It would kill her just as dead.
At least they’d live.
They’d inherit the Trust, and everything which went with it.
Davie would watch over Starfleet. Tamara, Autumn, and Kyra would guide the Federation. And all of their aunts – Mikki, Alley, Kiri, LJ, and more – would ensure the girls grew up loved.
In the final analysis, it was an easy decision.
“Do it.”
“Already halfway there.” Kendra could hear the tears. Funny. Her tears were silent. Weren’t they?
“Don’t blow us up before we get in position.”
“No problem.”
*
“THIS SUCKS!” SNARLED Corporal Crampton, reloading her pulse rifle.
“Shut up and keep firing!” ordered Gries.
The Artemis forces were determined to take back this corridor. Gries and company had been forced to give ground, inch by bloody inch, each of his Marines taking a half-dozen with them before dying.
But there were lots more of them than Marines. In fact, there were only three left.
“McGill!”
The only other Marine, prone behind a makeshift barricade of bodies and immobilized by her left leg missing below the knee, didn’t turn.
“Sir!”
“How’s your ammo?”
“Two charge packs left.” Each Marine had started out with fifteen, each good for fifty full-power shots.
“Crampton?”
“On my last one.”
“I have an idea.”
“It’s probably stupid,” she said, ripping another bolt down the corridor. Unlike lasers, which were invisible, the burst the pulse rifles fired superheated the air as they passed through, making them visible to the eye. It did make targeting easier.
“Probably. Give me a charge pack.”
She rummaged and tossed one to him.
“What now?” she asked.
“Simple. We have to close this corridor, and close it down for good.”
“I agree, but I’m all out of Octol.” They hadn’t brought any, a failing Gries planned to bring up with higher. If he survived.
“I’m going to place this charge as far down the corridor as I can manage without getting shot, then haul ass back here.”
“I don’t see how that closes the corridor. Sir.”
“Simple. I run, you and Crampton fire at the pack until it blows.”
There was more than enough energy in one charge pack to completely ruin the corridor for a few meters in every direction. He hoped it would collapse the corridor; failing that, he’d settle for a nice, deep hole the Artemesians wouldn’t try to jump over.
Or they’d all be dead sooner.
Choices like this sucked.
“Aye, sir.”
Crampton just nodded. He handed his rifle to her; she was going to need it more than him, no matter how this stunt turned out.
“Ready?”
“With all due respect, Lieutenant, how do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said with a grim smile.