Maximum Warp Part 7

"If it is Spock," she said, "perhaps it's the first real sign of Vulcan humor rearing its head."

He smiled, then caught himself and pursed his lips.

Deanna leaned forward. "You don't want to smile." It wasn't a question.

He thought on that for a moment anyway, then decided, "No. How can I smile? We might have lost a Starfleet legend ... and we can't even depend on s.p.a.ce itself anymore. Any other time I'd want to be the one leading this mission ... but right now, this ... these dead zones ... there's something unnatural about them. That's the mystery I want to see through. Not whether or not this is a trap."

Deanna nodded lightly. "But if Spock's presence has been compromised and he was captured-"

"They wouldn't be able to get information out of him," Picard said gravely. "They'd kill him."

Romulan Warbird Makluan In Orbit. Merterbis colony Romulan Empire Folan watched as delicate threads of power, invisible to the naked eye but given shape and form by computer enhancement, unraveled from the planet below. On each of five monitors, one warbird apiece, the energy beam connected.

"Impressive, is it not?" Folan asked of T'sart. Too enveloped in her own satisfaction to keep the pride from her voice, she smiled and watched, as if atriumphant general who'd won the final battle of the final war for all eternity.

She glanced back at T'sart. He seemed to look her way only at moments their gazes met, though she was not certain of this. His was an enigmatic visage ofttimes, and today was no different. As his student, Folan had frequently searched his dark eyes for a hint of regard for his student. And occasionally he had some. But it never seemed enough.

"Yes," T'sart said, and tilted his head into a nod. "This day has been well-planned."

He smiled, and at first that elated her, and then she felt its coolness descend over her like a thick, suffocating fog.

Folan nodded back. "Thank you," she murmured, and felt her brow furrow just the slightest bit. As he turned toward a console, probably to check some sensor readouts, she turned slowly back to watch the bridge's main viewscreen. "Initiate the combat tests."

The centurion nodded, and issued the order to the other vessels.

On the tactical display, a row of the Praetor's finest warbirds swooped down to attack the lead vessel. A vessel that now received its power directly from the planet below. They all did.

This was the future of planetary defense, Folan thought as disrupters pounded into s.h.i.+elds that wouldn't weaken. She was the architect of that future, and she alone.

One pursuit at which her people excelled was the art of war. The games they played today were with full weapons at point-blank range ... and Folan's power transfers were holding up. As if each vessel had the defensive-and offensive-power output of an entire planet.

Already she was considering upgrading the computer subsystems to help reduce a power fluctuation she saw on one monitor a few moments ago. At the same time, Folan was imagining her speech in the Senate as she accepted the Praetor's Military Excellence Award, a decoration that T'sart had been the only scientist yet to receive. As well, she was planning to research the possibilities of creating a power network that would protect not just a planet, but an entire solar system.

If that was even necessary. This feat alone should be enough to make Folan's life a boon. From this point forward, any planet the Praetor chose to defend would be impervious to attack. Taking a planet into the Empire would mean keeping it. Ground would be gained, and never lost, so long as there were planetary power plants to feed the battles.h.i.+ps above. Enemies would fire, and s.h.i.+elds would not fall. Disrupters would strike, and never lose their bite. The possibilities-and her future-seemed limitless.

And then it all toppled.

The lead vessel, the P'tarch, suddenly pitched to one side, her s.h.i.+elds bubbling with energy. Electrical fire crackled back and forth in waves that rolled over one another.

She had not been fired upon. Something was wrong.

The centurion at the helm turned toward Folan. "Power overload on the P'tarch."

"Discontinue energy extraction!"

"Overrides are not working, SubCommander!"

The display monitors flashed overlapping problems. All that could go wrong, had.

Folan hunched over her interface to the main computer. She gave commands and cross commands. She tried the most basic of contingencies, and the most outrageous. Many of them should have worked. Some of them didn't have a chance. None of them helped. Panic filled her lungs as if she was drowning. She gasped for an answer.

For a brief moment, she looked back to T'sart. Seeking advice. Perhaps his counsel held a solution, an inkling of an idea. A hint. Anything.

He stood tall in the thunder that was the bridge, an experiment in chaos. Of course he stood tall and unmoving. He was her teacher, and always would be. Within her, she almost wished he would admit this was a simulation and that, while she had failed, she could take the test again.

All too real, and perhaps almost with surreality, he did nof answer her pleaful gaze. All he did was glance back, and then finally say: "Even the unplanned is planned by all our actions."

A flash of light pulled her back toward the main bridge viewscreen.

On the display, the P'torch seemed to arch its hull in an explosion. It began a steep fall toward the planet, and was quickly lost in a ball of fire.

Another s.h.i.+p had sped toward the first, attempting a tractor beam. That failed, and yet a third s.h.i.+p joined when it was too late.

"The other s.h.i.+ps!" Folan screamed, as the easy threads of energy that connected them with the planet became thick bars of power. Rolling and shuddering with electrical flame, each vessel ruptured and split. Two singular explosions from within two bright star flashes, that were gone as quickly as they'd come.

Their debris spread out, some into the planet's atmosphere, some toward the Makluan and in all directions.

"s.h.i.+elds!" Folan said with too much hesitation. She'd forgotten that not only was she in command of the experiment, but in command of the s.h.i.+p as well. She didn't want that. She wanted to deflect command to someone else. With most of the s.h.i.+p's officers planet side and the rest under her authority for this project... there was no one to whom she could surrender control.

Except T'sart.

Folan turned again to the aft bridge. He was the ranking office rAnd he was also gone.

She spun around, stumbling from her seat.

"SubCommander!" the centurion called. "Your orders?"

She pivoted back, saw the large spread of debris that rushed toward the main viewer. "Evasive," she roared. "Full deflectors!"

Another order given too late, she thought, by someone not practiced enough to give it.

Metal crunched through the s.h.i.+elds, and then against the hull.

Darkness followed a flash of light, and smoke filled her lungs.

Folan's future was no more.

Chapter Nine.

U.S.S. Defiant, NX-742O5 Federation Sector 46 Near the Bajoran System "defi ... come in! we've all main ... wer. Do not.. Doy... read?"

Commander Tins last turned toward Lieutenant Nog at ops. "That barely even sounded like Colonel Kira. What's wrong with the signal?"

Nog shrugged nervously and sounded overly excited. "I-I don't know. Something's wrong with the signal at its origin." Nog had often been nervous in last's presence. Strange, since Ferengi and Bolian had worked together before with some success.

"Calm yourself, Lieutenant," she said. "Try to raise Deep s.p.a.ce Nine again."

"Yes, ma'am."

The turbolift doors parted, and Dr. Julian Bas.h.i.+r strode onto the bridge. "Are we having a problem with communications? I was downloading something from the station database and suddenly lost my datalink."

"It may be related," last said, then held up her blue hand to stop the doctor from further utterance. "Helm, set a course back to the station," she ordered.

Bas.h.i.+r waited a long moment, then finally asked, "May I speak now?"

She thought his tone might have been somewhat annoyed. If so, he was too easily irritated. "Yes."

"If there's a problem at the station, perhaps we shouldn't just change our course, but increase our speed?"

Jast turned toward him fully by swiveling the command chair. "By the time I finish explaining this to you, we will be fifty-three seconds from minimum scanning range of the station. Before making any tactical decisions, I must know the facts of the situation. I know two facts-that we've lost contact with the station, and they were trying to order us not to do something. That could have been, "Do not return to port.""

Bas.h.i.+r sighed. "And if I don't reply at all, thereby ending this discussion, when will we be within scanner range?"

"There is no discussion. I explained my position, and expected you to disagree, but I didn't intend to debate it further. We will now be within scanner range in forty seconds."

The doctor shook his head and sat down at one of the bridge science stations. "Aye, aye, sir," he said.

"Lieutenant, scan the station," last ordered when enough time had elapsed.

"Scanning..." Nog bent over one of his sensor consoles. "Readings are faint, Commander. Null power output from the main reactors. I am reading battery power active."

"Signs of other vessels?"

Nog hesitated as he pored over the screens. His voice was calm now, but soaked in perplexity. "Same vessels as when we left port," he said. "But I know that two freighters were scheduled to leave half an hour ago, and they're still on Upper Pylons 2 and 3."

"Slow to impulse power."

The conn officer nodded and tapped at her controls. "Aye."

Bas.h.i.+r leaned toward the command chair. "Now we're slowing?"

"Do you have any idea what's going on, Doctor?" last continued to look from the forward viewer to one of her own command chair screen readouts.

Seeming taken aback by the question, Bas.h.i.+r hesitated. "No. I don't. But I'd like to find out."

"As would I," she said. "But rus.h.i.+ng into what could be harm's way, when Colonel Kira was likely warning us away, would be inadvisable."

"Of course," Bas.h.i.+r said. "You're right. I'm sorry."

last gave him a slight smile. "It's-I understand."

They both nodded at one another, and then last turned toward Nog. "Continue scans as we approach."

"Aye-" Nog stopped in mid-sentence and mid-jab on his console. "Wait, what's wrong?"

The normal hum of the Defiant's systems slowed and then stopped. Lights clicked off for just a second before emergency lights flashed on.

"Report."

"Impulse power is gone." Nog slammed commands into his console, but to no avail. "So is warp. We've lost main power."

"last to Engineering."

There was no reply.

She tapped her comm badge. "Engineering, this is the bridge." Silence, and last didn't try again. "Sensors?"

"Trying to re-calibrate now, Commander," Nog said.

"And try to raise Starfleet Command. Something is very wrong here."

Station Deep s.p.a.ce Nine Federation Sector 47 Bajoran system "We don't know what's wrong, Quark." Kira jabbed at her desktop computer screen but didn't look up at the Ferengi who refused to leave her office. "If we knew, we'd fix it."

"In the meantime," the Ferengi asked, "can we at least put the Promenade back on battery power?"

Kira growled. "No."

"How do you expect me to run a bar without power for replicators or holosuites or even the dabo wheel?"

Kira sighed. "Quark, I'm unimpressed. We both know you're not this stupid."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, granted, I've had my doubts in the past," she mumbled to herself.

"What are you talking about?" Quark looked almost wounded.

"You don't think for a minute I'd take battery power away from docking clamps and life support. You're just here to learn what you can about what's going on. I commend you, really, I do, but..." She looked up at him and raised her voice. "I don't know what's going on. Get it?"

Now Quark smiled. "Got it."

She nodded. "Then get out."

Chapter Ten.

Romulan Warbird Makluan Decaying orbit around Merterbis colony Romulan Empire Folan tried to latch onto the normal sounds that would tell her she was still on the bridge. She couldn't. The din of destruction crashed down on her. Little could be made out of the chaos that was her vessel exploding around her.