Ghost of a Chance (27 page)

Tatel squirmed in her seat. “The probe is closing on us.”

Daket nodded affably. “Let’s not take any chances. Use the aft phasers to destroy it. Now.”

“Targeting probe,” Tatel said.

“Onscreen.”

The probe appeared as a negligible dot on the aft viewscreen.

“Firing.”

The cruiser’s thin energy beam touched the point in space that was the probe. A blindingly brilliant white flash filled the screen, and a chill shook Daket’s body. He opened his mouth to scream. He didn’t get the chance.

In the aft view displayed on the main bridge screen Janeway could see the halo of the antimatter explosion, a bright white glow that blossomed, then faded somewhere just beyond the moon’s horizon.

“Report,” she said, fighting a tightness in her throat.

“Massive damage to aft portions of the cruiser,” Tuvok said.

“Their shields have collapsed, main power is apparently off-line, propulsion systems inoperative.”

“Excellent, Captain!” Neelix declared. “It seems you’ve blown their backside off.”

“I believe I said that,” Tuvok remarked.

Janeway nodded, then took a breath. “Survivors?”

“I am reading life signs in the ship’s forward segments, but not many,” Tuvok answered. “Life support is failing.”

“We can’t just leave them,” Janeway said. “Mr. Paris, bring us around again. Tuvok, prepare an away team.”

“Are you sure they’re worth saving, Captain?” Neelix asked, his voice taking on a suddenly serious tone. “I get the feeling they would sell their own children if the deal looked good enough.”

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Janeway asked.

“If I may, Captain,” Paris said, “they would never go back for us,” Paris said.

Janeway looked at him. It wasn’t a joke, not coming from Tom.

He knew what it was like to have others give up on you, then to have someone pull you back. She tried to smile. “I’d like to think they might,” she said. “There are always a few good apples in the barrel, Mr. Paris. I’ve had to believe that.”

“I’d like to believe that, too,” Kes said, leaving an earnest silence in the air.

“Yes, sir,” Paris said. “I just meant—” “I know.” Janeway tapped her comm badge. “Captain to Sickbay.”

“Yes, Captain,” the doctor responded.

“You may have some new business in a few minuses.”

“We’re ready down here, Captain,” the holographic doctor said, “despite the fact that this is the first attempt anyone has made since we arrived in this system to inform me about what’s going on. Can I assume these new patients will be members of our crew?”

“No. Televek, actually.”

“Of… course,” the doctor said after a pause. “You know, that really is the sort of thing that makes difference to medical personnel.”

Janeway glanced at Chakotay, found him hiding a chuckle behind one hand. The doctor was right of course, that was the hell of it.

“Understood,” she said.

“We’re approaching the cruiser’s position again, Captain,” Paris announced. “We should match orbits in approximately—” “Captain,” Tuvok said, his fingers responding to a warning klaxon that sounded almost in concert with his words. “The Televek fleet is dropping out of warp, entering the Drenar system.”

***

Daket pulled himself up to a sitting position. He rested there a moment, trying to breathe, choking instead. Dim emergency lighting cast everything in purplish-blue as he looked about the bridge. Every control panel he could see had gone dark. The engines had been lost; he was sure of that. How they had managed to escape complete annihilation he could not imagine, but he did not intend to spend time questioning that small bit of good fortune.

He tried to stand and found that the effort produced intense pain.

Glancing at his right leg, he saw a wound just below the knee caused by a tangle of flying metal. He looked more carefully about the bridge, straining to make out details. He saw enough movement to tell him that most of the bridge crew had survived, but they were not on their feet, and the bridge itself was ruined.

“Tatel!” he shouted, gagging on the air as he tried to refill his lungs. The smoke was nearly invisible in the surrounding twilight, but it was thick, he decided. And possibly toxic.

There was no way to know for certain.

“Here,” Tatel said, a slim figure rising and stumbling toward him.

Daket realized the deck was pitched to starboard several degrees.

“How bad is the damage?”

“I don’t know,” she said, choking the words out. “Every system is off-line, including life-support. And we’re leaking air. I can hear it.”

“No positives there,” Daket moaned, shaking his head.

“We must assume that much of the stern is destroyed, along with the landing bays. I don’t think there is anyone alive beyond section three. My concern is that the ship might break up.”

“We have to get out of here,” Daket groaned.

“We should be able to reach the forward emergency pods,” Tatel offered.

“Can you move?” She was looking down at his leg.

“I’ll have to,” Daket said, gritting his teeth. If they could actually reach the pods, and if they could get aboard before the cruiser broke up, and if the pods would launch, and if the Federation ship did not attack the pods and destroy them as soon as they were launched—which was precisely what a Televek commander would do, what Daket himself would likely do, he thought grimly, all things being equal—if all that happened, it would constitute the first thing that had actually gone well during this entire venture…

The other four members of the bridge crew were limping or crawling away now, following Daket’s overheard advice. As they began to move, a deafening groan issued from the cruiser’s ruptured hull, metal tearing at metal. The sound was felt as well as heard. Daket hastily tried to scramble up as the others around him vanished through the bridge’s forward hatchway, scurrying toward the pods. The pain in his leg stopped him cold.

He winced and eased himself back down, listening to the bulkheads twisting apart. When he looked up, he saw Tatel coming back toward him. The groaning had stopped, if only for a moment.

“I will help you,” Tatel said, reaching down, grabbing Daket’s large frame beneath his arms, and hoisting him up. She was apparently stronger than she looked.

Daket said nothing, but he did not object. In fact, he was quite grateful for the assistance as they made their way through the open doorway into the corridor beyond, then began to navigate the fallen beams and rubble and smoke. For the life of him, though, he could not figure Tatel’s angle, her motivation, for such a foolish act of bravery. But then, not everyone had commercial command potential, something Daket himself had always known he possessed. It followed that in order for him to be “more,” someone else clearly had to be…

“less.” Not all Televek were created equal, after all. And in any case, he suspected Tatel wasn’t quite right. As she pulled him into one of the pods Daket decided Tatel was simply a technically proficient but hopelessly provincial fool.

***

“Put a full tactical display of the Televek fleet onscreen,” Janeway said. “Include our position. How long before they’re on top of us?”

“Approximately two minutes, eleven seconds,” Tuvok replied.

“Captain,” Kes said, her expression making her seem to have lived all of life in the last few moments, “I think you should listen to Neelix now. Your only alternative may be to leave.”

An obvious statement, Janeway thought, but after so much, having no choice left but to abandon Drenar Four was a hard thing to accept. She could only assume that Kes knew this, and knew as well that, coming from her, the words would be easier to hear, Janeway could see it in the young Ocampa’s eyes.

“Bridge to Engineering,” Janeway said loudly. “Lieutenant Torres.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“How long will it take to reconfigure the warp drives?”

“At least fifteen minutes.” Torres was silent for a moment, as if she had lost her breath. “And that’s if we don’t run into problems,” she added finally. They both knew that would not be enough time.

“Get right on it,” Janeway said. “Do the best you can.”

“Our problems are about to be compounded,” Paris said, glancing up at the main screen, “unless we get moving.”

“Agreed,” Janeway said. Paris was carrying out orders, bringing Voyager around the nearby moon once again, just approaching the position of the cruiser that had paced them here. Paris would find the derelict, or he would do whatever he could to take Voyager to safety.

The problem with the latter was that no safe place existed. The combined Televek fleet could outgun and outmaneuver Voyager many times over, rendering any tactical attempts to hide behind planets or moons quite hopeless. Yet if they lingered here, Voyager’s future would certainly consist of only minutes.

“Abandon the rescue attempt,” she said at last. “Helm, plot a course toward the outer gas giants. Mr. Stephens, try hailing the Televek fleet. With a little luck, I may be able to buy us some time.”

“The Televek are not responding,” Stephens said after only a moment.

“The fleet continues to approach at nearly full impulse.”

Tuvok said, “Their heading will bring them directly to us. I estimate they will intercept in fifty-nine seconds.”

“If we leave the system without warp capability we’ll be sitting ducks,” Chakotay said.

“And if we stay, they’ll cut us off,” Janeway muttered. She looked up at the screen as the image changed to real space, magnified many times.

At least a dozen ships could be seen now, small shining dots like tiny stars against the black night of space. She stood up and stepped forward. There were words that needed to be said to the crew, both Starfleet and Maquis, men and women who had truly begun to work together and hope together.

She had always thought there would be time to say them. It wasn’t working out that way.

“Arm the photons and transfer all available power to the shields, including life-support. We won’t fire unless they do, but I want to be ready.” She looked around her, found Chakotay looking back. “We won’t go quietly,” she said. “I promise you.”

He returned a silent, solemn nod.

“Captain,” Tuvok said, his voice raised above his usual Vulcan monotone. “I am detecting multiple energy readings from the planet.

Similar to previous contacts, but stronger.” He paused.

“Much stronger. I’m also reading a massive buildup—” “In the cavern!”

Janeway said, eyes wide as she spun one-half turn to face the tactical bay. “How many individual readings?”

“Dozens, and all of the contacts appear to be headed toward space.”

“Put it up,” Janeway ordered.

The tactical display Tuvok had been monitoring appeared on the main screen. All eyes watched as a cloud of energy bursts swept up from the planet’s surface. They rushed past Voyager’s position in an instant, then continued out into space.

“Projected course?” Janeway asked.

Tuvok paused, verifying. “They appear to be on an intercept course toward the Televek fleet. Their individual power levels are continuing to rise to extraordinary levels.”

Janeway narrowed her gaze and watched the ghosts cross the screen, watched the Televek fleet bearing down on them, nearly arrived at Drenar Four, close to Voyager’s own position now.

“I’ll just bet they are,” she murmured, nodding to herself.

“The energy beings are attacking,” Stephens said.

“So it would seem,” Chakotay replied.

“The Televek do appear to be under attack,” Tuvok said. “Though the nature of the attack is not clear. No weapons have been fired by the energy entities. The Televek are firing, but their weapons are having no verifiable effect.”

Chakotay raised his eyebrows. “How do you know the fleet is under attack?”

“The Televek are having… technical difficulties. They are experiencing an extraordinary number of system overloads and failures.”

“I’ve got their ship-to-ship communications,” Stephens said.

“Let’s hear it,” Janeway said.

The speaker suddenly erupted in a jumble of voices and background noise. Most of the noise sounded like a series of small explosions.

Fire control and massive outages seemed to be of utmost importance to most of the voices being heard.

“It sounds as if entire consoles are shorting out, catching fire,” Chakotay said.

“Sensor and audio data indicate that all of the Televek ships are having similar problems,” Tuvok said. “The Televek continue to attempt counterattacks, but I have observed no effect on their targets.”

“That’s because they’re only chasing ghosts,” Chakotay said with a grin. He looked to the captain.

“Our ghosts, Commander.” Janeway smiled back.

The audio confusion was suddenly interrupted by a thundering voice, a female voice. “Withdraw!” the Televek commander shouted.

“I have a visual,” Stephens reported.

Janeway nodded to him.

The woman’s face appeared on the screen, a Televek not like unlike the others, though she was far older than anyone Janeway had encountered so far, and clearly she had wealth and stature beyond the dreams of most.

The bridge of her ship was like the court of a queen, gaudily upholstered and decorated with tapestries, glittering fixtures and fine, scrolled metal arches; her mantled uniform was exquisite in design and color—bright colors, Janeway noted, as if the whole of the universe was supposed to notice her.

“Try to open a channel, Mr. Stephens,” Janeway said, as she watched and listened to the Televek commander shouting in a frantic, yet somehow utterly authoritative voice. A cold intensity gleamed in her narrowed green eyes. Heads would roll, Janeway thought. One way or another.

“Captain,” Tuvok said, “two of the cruisers have lost all power.

Life pods are being launched. The first of those are at present being collected by neighboring vessels. Several of the other cruisers appear to be maintaining minimal power and control, but I am also showing massive systems failures on the lead ship. A reactor core containment failure is imminent.”

Janeway was still watching the woman who had threatened to cast doom on them all. “Any luck with that hail?”