Star Trek: Vanguard: Storming Heaven (17 page)

“Everybody into the rovers! Now!” As the landing party sprinted back to the ATVs, Terrell closed and secured the partially full container on the back of Ziggy, then he hopped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Another quake trembled the vehicle and fissured the landscape between the Pit and the
Sagittarius
. He looked over his shoulder at his staggering landing party, who fought to keep their balance as they crossed the last few meters to the rovers. “Move it, people! Time to go!” Threx and zh’Firro piled into the back of Terrell’s rover as Razka and Theriault clambered aboard Roxy with Ilucci. As the passengers raced to strap themselves in, Terrell stomped on Ziggy’s accelerator. “Punch it, Master Chief!”

The two vehicles were off like shots, swerving and fishtailing through the superfine dust on the statite’s surface as the ground rocked and the stars wheeled precariously overhead.

Over the helmet comms, Threx shouted,
“What’s happening?”

He was answered by a distant, eerily silent eruption of broken rock and twisted metal riding a plume of orange fire and blinding light, and then another explosion, and another, each closer than the last. As jets of fire tore up the ground between the rovers and the
Sagittarius,
Terrell and Ilucci were forced to swerve apart and chart new slalom routes back to the ship.

“Either we tripped a self-destruct switch,”
zh’Firro replied while hanging onto Ziggy’s roll cage for dear life,
“or someone’s shooting at us.”

Smoldering, glowing debris rained down and littered the path ahead of the rover, and Terrell fought to keep the vehicle from rolling as he swerved madly around one obstacle after another.
Huge chunks of superheated rock and metal rolled erratically, cutting deep gouges in the ground that threatened to snare the ATVs unless they were traversed at just the right angle. A steep dip into one smoking trench was followed by the scrape—felt but not heard—of Ziggy’s front bumper striking the far slope and being torn off in the bargain. Two quick jolts shook the ATV as it ran over its own shed parts, leapt clear of the trench, and sped toward home.

The open aft ramp of the
Sagittarius
was less than fifty meters away, and the two ATVs were closing in fast—but so was a series of explosions that looked like chain reactions, tracing a fiery path across the shadowy surface toward the ship. Boulders trailing smoke slammed down onto the
Sagittarius,
denting its primary hull and warp nacelles.

Then a massive flare of light burst over the far horizon, and for a moment the terror of being exposed to the pulsar washed away every other thought in Terrell’s mind. Then he saw the expanding debris cloud that followed the flash and realized what he was seeing was the destruction of three of the statite’s solar sails. It took half a second before he asked himself why the
Sagittarius
was no longer between him and the horizon.

Twisting to his right, he realized that Ziggy, Roxy, and all their occupants had been sent aloft by a sudden interruption of the statite’s artificial gravity. Both rovers were floating away into space, and their strapped-in passengers were along for the ride, wherever it might lead.

Watching the ground and the
Sagittarius
recede, Terrell hoped Captain Nassir would embrace cold reason, abandon the landing party, and save the ship. But as towers of flame ripped apart the statite around the stationary starship, Terrell feared it might already be too late.

Distant explosions flashed on the
Endeavour
’s viewscreen. Watching with her fists and jaw clenched in fury, Khatami felt like an overwound spring being twisted tighter by each new bit of
bad news her bridge crew reported, torqued one step closer to breaking by every crimson bloom the Tholians’ weapons ignited on the statite. Then, all at once, the Tholians’ massive barrage ceased—but the statite continued to fracture and flare with internal eruptions.

“What am I looking at?” she demanded.

Klisiewicz stared into the blue glow of the sensor display. “The Tholians have deployed six devices onto the underside of the statite. The devices have embedded themselves on the surface at roughly equidistant points from the center, approximately sixty degrees apart.”

She eyed the magnified image on the forward viewscreen. “What are they?”

The science officer straightened and turned toward her. “There’s nothing like these things in the memory banks. They’re generating harmonically reinforcing interphasic distortion fields. In about five minutes those things’ll rip the statite to shreds.”

“Did you say ‘interphasic’ distortion fields?” The word jogged Khatami’s memory of a classified briefing disseminated recently to Starfleet captains throughout the fleet. The
Enterprise
had encountered an interphasic rift that had proved highly dangerous to navigation. Though a general alert would eventually go out to the public, so far the phenomenon was still classified as top secret while Starfleet investigated all its possible properties and effects. The report filed by the
Enterprise
’s captain had suggested the interphasic rift might be a natural anomaly, but if the Tholians were wielding such forces as weapons, this was valuable intelligence that needed to be relayed to Starfleet Command immediately. “Estrada, have you raised the
Sagittarius
yet?”

“Not yet, Captain. Still trying.”

From the forward console, Ensign Sliney declared, “The Tholians are powering up their weapons, Captain!” Seconds later, six of the Tholian ships launched another sextet of the unknown devices into the underside of the statite, targeting them precisely to reduce the spaces between them to thirty degrees. Around them,
the statite’s disintegration accelerated, and sensor alarms shrilled from numerous stations on the
Endeavour
’s bridge.

Returning to her chair, Khatami felt her pulse pounding in her temples. “Estrada! Hail the Tholian commander! Order him to cease fire and deactivate those devices immediately!”

Keying in commands, the communications officer replied, “Transmitting now.” The viewscreen flared momentarily as the Tholian fleet fired another barrage of charged plasma at the statite, which listed even more sharply off its axis. Then Estrada grimaced and swiveled around to face Khatami. “No answer from the Tholians, Captain.”

“Red Alert,” Khatami declared. “All hands to battle stations. Thorsen, raise shields. Sliney, move us into an attack posture.”

Stano interposed herself between Khatami and the view-screen. “Captain, if we fire on the Tholians, we might be starting a war.”

Khatami protested, “They fired
first
.”

“On an alien construct to which we have no claim. They can claim they didn’t believe the
Sagittarius
was there. They have diplomatic cover on this. We don’t.”

Precious seconds bled away as Khatami weighed the lives of the
Sagittarius
’s fourteen crew members, her own ship’s complement of more than four hundred personnel, and the potential casualties—military and civilian alike—that would be on her conscience if she gave the order that started a war. Then she look around Stano at Thorsen. “Target the twelve Tholian devices on the statite and fire phasers. Keep firing till they’re gone.”

“Aye, sir,” Thorsen said, already turning her command into action. The high-pitched whoop of the
Endeavour
’s phaser banks resounded through the hull as blue beams slashed through the darkness and began vaporizing the interphasic generators.

Firing on the Tholians’ weapons rather than their ships was a legal gray area. Khatami could argue her actions were not aggressive but defensive. If the Tholians chose to interpret this act as hostility and escalate this confrontation, the consequences
would be on their collective conscience, not hers—but she was hoping they would take the hint and back off.

Klisiewicz checked the sensors, then aimed a wary glance at his captain and first officer. “The Tholian fleet is coming about and moving into an attack formation.”

So much for hope
.

“That didn’t take long,” Stano said.

Khatami forced an empty smile. “Good. Now they have something new to shoot at. Keep them busy as long as you can, and let’s hope the
Sagittarius
can use this time to escape.”

Stano’s eyes widened as the Tholian fleet loomed large on the main screen. “Great plan, Captain. Now who’s going to rescue us?”

Before Khatami could lighten the moment with a witty retort, the Tholians opened fire, and then all she could hear inside the
Endeavour
was a roar like thunder.

“On the count of three!” shouted Terrell, watching the rover’s slow roll. “One! Two! Three!”

He and the other members of the landing party in his vehicle huddled together in the middle of the ATV’s passenger area and fired their environmental suits’ maneuvering thrusters straight up, holding open the thrust valves until he ordered, “Stop!”

Looking over the vehicle’s edge, zh’Firro exclaimed,
“It worked! We’re moving back toward the ground!”

Terrell exulted but kept his relief to himself. The rover’s descent was fast enough to get them back within less than ten seconds, but slow enough that the impact wouldn’t inflict serious damage on the vehicle or them. “All right, Master Chief,” he said over the open channel, “your turn. Look for a full burn of about six-point-one seconds.”

“Copy that, sir.”
To his passengers, Ilucci added,
“Look sharp, guys.”
Keeping one eye on the ground and the other on Ilucci’s rover, Terrell heard Ilucci start his countdown right on
time.
“Five. Four.”
He was just starting to say
three
when both rovers went into free fall.

Ziggy slammed to the ground hard, and Terrell, zh’Firro, and Threx held on to their unfastened harness straps as the vehicle tumbled sideways, tossing them like rag dolls in slow motion inside the roll cage before coming to rest upright inside a cloud of fast-settling dust. As the fine gray haze dissipated, Terrell saw Roxy lying on its side a few dozen meters behind them. Half-buried in the regolith were the unmoving forms of its passengers.

“Master Chief! Theriault! Razka! Someone respond!” Terrell tried to start Ziggy’s engine, but the rover’s controls remained dark.

Beside and behind him, Threx and zh’Firro stared mutely toward their fallen comrades. Then the burly Denobulan pointed. “They’re moving!”

Boosting the gain to his suit’s transceiver, Terrell said, “Master Chief? Are you mobile?”

In the distance, the portly chief engineer emerged from behind Roxy’s bent chassis.
“I think we are, but Roxy’s toast.”

The statite’s horizon began to shatter and blow away in blinding flashes of light, one roughly every two seconds. Terrell shouted, “Back to the ship! Move!” He bailed out of Ziggy and forced his bruised, aching body to sprint toward the
Sagittarius
. In moments, zh’Firro had outpaced him, but Threx struggled to keep up; his beefy frame was made for power, not speed.

As they neared the ramp to the ship’s cargo hold, Terrell heard Captain Nassir’s voice crackling over the comm.
“. . . to landing party, please respond!”

“We’re here, Captain,” he replied, gasping for breath as he followed zh’Firro up the ramp. “A few more seconds and we’ll all be aboard.”

Nassir, who almost never raised his voice, shouted,
“We need to go, Clark!”

Terrell looked back and windmilled his arm, signaling Ilucci, Theriault, and Razka to hurry. The Saurian scout was well ahead
of the science officer and chief engineer when the ground between them heaved upward and then erupted in a blast of light, heat, and molten rock. A wall of flames and superheated gas slammed into Razka’s back and launched him toward the
Sagittarius
. He landed, unconscious inside his smoldering environmental suit, mere meters from the ramp. Terrell ran to the fallen scout, grabbed him beneath his arms, and dragged him backward up the ramp into the ship. Threx and zh’Firro stood at the bottom of the ramp, both looking past Terrell for any sign of Ilucci or Theriault.

Over the comm, Nassir commanded,
“Close the aft hatch! We’re taking off!”

“No!”
zh’Firro cried.
“Theriault and the chief are still out there!”

“Close that hatch! That’s an order!”

Terrell set down Razka and turned to see zh’Firro and Threx staring at him, their gazes feral and desperate, both pleading with their eyes for him to do something. Stealing a look out the open hatchway, he saw Ilucci and Theriault both down and not moving, surrounded by a hellscape of fire and fracturing ground. He made up his mind.

“The hatch won’t close, sir,” he lied. “The controls are jammed.”

Nassir replied,
“Get inside, I’ll close it from up here.”

Terrell slapped Threx’s shoulder and pointed at a nearby locker for emergency gear. The senior engineer’s mate nodded, understanding Terrell’s intentions perfectly. Terrell motioned for zh’Firro to follow him, and she did so without hesitation. On his way down the ramp, he said, “Engineer Threx is fixing the ramp now, sir!” As he and zh’Firro hit the ground, Threx wedged a large, heavy tool into a critical segment of the ramp’s hydraulics.

Even through his suit, Terrell could feel the heat and radiation that were tearing the statite to pieces under their feet. Every running stride was a fight to stay upright as the ground buckled and sagged, then expanded and erupted. Walls of fire burst randomly from growing fissures, and Terrell knew that he and zh’Firro
wouldn’t be able to count on taking the same route back to the ship, because it likely would no longer be there.

They reached Ilucci and Theriault. The engineer was facedown in the dirt, and the lieutenant was sprawled on her back in an awkward pose. Terrell didn’t bother to check for vital signs. He’d come out here to bring his people home, dead or alive. He kneeled and hefted Ilucci over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He turned to see zh’Firro had done the same for Theriault. With a nod, he signaled her to lead the way back. The lithe Andorian wasted no time and began the hard run back to the ship.