CHAPTER ONE

“Arrrrrgh!” Christian Basile pulled back his freshly bleeding hand. He gritted his teeth and protectively pulled his wrist toward his chest.

“What happened?” Maria came running up the stone corridor. “What did you do?”

Christian grunted. “I was trying to seal a coupling and my hand slipped. The damn backup generator was down again. I got ‘er going but-at a cost.” He tentatively showed her his blood-covered hand.

“Oh, my.” Maria’s eyes widened at the sight of the gash on her husband’s hand. She took off her scarf and wrapped it tightly around his palm and the base of his fingers. “We need to let the doctor see that.”

He shook his head. “Later. Now that the backup is online again I want to make sure she stays that way.” With his good hand Christian pulled a tricorder from his overalls and flipped it open.

As it chirped alive, Maria took the tricorder from him and put it in the back pocket of her work belt. “You’re going to see the doctor.”

He ignored her and pushed passed to the computer console at her left. “I think-” He made the mistake of touching the control board with his bad hand. “Arrgh!”

“Don’t do that!” She rushed forward and pulled his arm back.

“Excellent advice,” he said through clenched teeth, but had finished pulling up the data he needed. “I think we’re going to be okay for a while.”

Maria tentatively guided him toward the center of the mining complex. “Until it breaks down again.”

“Yes, until then.” He shook his head and let her guide him. “She’s a finicky one.”

He sensed playfulness in Maria’s mock-frown. “Why do you keep calling it a she?” she asked.

“Because she has me up at all hours tending to her every need, and I spend the longest time trying to please her, only to get a tiny bit of happiness in return. She’s the definition of ‘high maintenance.’ What else could she be, but a she?”

Maria groaned. “That’s mind-numbingly sexist.”

“It’s the Ferengi in me,” he said, chuckling.

“You’re from Alpha Centauri,” she reminded him unnecessarily. “Not a very sexist culture. And you do not have any Ferengi in you.”

“You said you’d never hold my small lobes against me.”

She laughed. “Listen to me and get this straight,” she said, stopping them both and pulling him to her. “If lobe size mattered, I’d never have married you in the first place.” She kissed him.

“I know,” he said around the kiss.

“I know you know,” she mumbled, touching his lips, then his chin, then his cheek.

“So … you don’t really think I’m a sexist?” By now he’d mostly forgotten his throbbing hand. He kissed her again.

Maria pulled back just long enough to answer. “You don’t taste like a sexist.”

“Neither do you,” he mumbled, then grunted in pain-she had pressed against his hand.

Her brows knitting, she gasped and saw her scarf was now soaked with blood. “We have to get that looked at.”

He nodded and they continued walking. “I’m hoping the doctor recommends bed rest,” he said, and winked at her.

“You’re hoping bed, but not rest.”

“Yes, I-“

A chirping alert from the tricorder cut off his thought and he quickly stopped to check it, pulling it clumsily from Maria’s belt.

“It’s the backup generator again.” Closing the tricorder, he handed it back to her. “Something else this time. How are we on batteries?”

Maria sighed and brushed a strand of dark hair from her eyes. He loved her hair, her olive skin … he should be thinking of the reactor.

“Last I checked we had forty-three percent charge.”

“I wish we could increase the rate of charge,” he said, “but I think we’d blow the circuits again.”

“Can you fix the new problem? What is it?”

“Overload because the mix isn’t clean on the reactor. I’m going to fiddle with the mix again and reset.”

“Of course.” She nodded. “Do you need-?”

“A hand?” He raised his bad paw but shook his head. “Tell the doctor I’ll stop by the infirmary when I’m done.”

She nodded. He could tell she didn’t like letting him work on the generator before seeing the doctor, but she also knew how important it was to keep power running on a class-D planetoid.

“I’ll let people know the power will be back soon.”

“And see if you can reach the da Vinci again,” Christian added as he trudged back toward the reactor section. “We’ve got to get the replacement parts, or we’re all going to freeze … if we don’t suffocate first.”

“We’ll keep it together,” she said encouragingly. “And they’ll be here soon.”

“Shields!” Captain Gold bellowed from the command chair just as the first volley of phaser fire crackled across the da Vinci’s bow. “Red alert.”

“They’re coming around again,” McAllan called from tactical.

Gold nodded. “All hands, battle stations. Evasive action, Wong.” He gestured to ops. “Ina, try to hail them.”

“They’re jamming all the channels, sir,” Lieutenant Ina Mar replied.

“Did our message to Starfleet make it out?” Gold asked.

Ina shook her head. “I’m not sure, Captain.”

McAllan huffed out a frustrated breath. “Let’s hope so. I’m reading two more ships coming in.”

“Who the hell are they?” Gold barked.

“Checking configuration.” David McAllan’s voice was unwavering in the heat of the battle. “Mid-size cruiser … design used by the Munqu. We have a file on them, but I’ve never seen one.”

An explosion rattled the bridge and sent a shudder up everyone’s spine.

“Well, now you have,” Gold said. “With this reception, I could have waited.”

“Battle stations! All hands, battle stations! First officer, report to the bridge!” Not a call often heard on the da Vinci, Sonya Gomez thought as she hurried to the turbolift. Battle stations? Who’d be attacking us? Starfleet Corps of Engineers ships weren’t usually called into battle-hers was the type of ship that went in after a battle, to clean up the mess left behind.

The turbolift doors opened to a much more chaotic bridge than Gomez was used to seeing. An aft console looked like so much slag and one of Chief Engineer Barnak’s noncoms was already working on it. Saber-class ships had cramped bridges to begin with, but for some reason, with the red lights of their alert status blinking and the burned-out console, it felt even more claustrophobic. Like most Starfleet vessels, the da Vinci had a circular two-level bridge, with the captain’s chair in the center on the lower level, the conn and ops positions right in front of him, tactical right behind him, and various science and engineering stations lining the wall, broken only by the turbolift to the captain’s left, a door to the captain’s right, and the viewscreen right in front of him.

That viewscreen presently showed what looked to Gomez like a Munqu ship firing on them.

“I thought the Munqu were pretty reclusive. Why are they attacking?”

“They seem to be coming out of their shell,” Gold deadpanned as another aft console exploded and they both cringed just the slightest bit.

“Do we know what they want?”

“They’re jamming communications,” Ina offered.

“We might have gotten a call out to Starfleet, but I’m not counting on it,” Gold told Gomez.

It made no sense. Who attacks such a small ship with a crew of mostly technical experts for no reason? The da Vinci was on a fairly simple mission to restock a mining colony and transport a mineral important to cure a Horta plague on Janus IV. Not exactly a covert mission to steal new cloaking technology or repair the engines of a disabled dilithium cargo freighter.

“Sir,” McAllan called, “shields are down to forty-seven percent. We seem to be more maneuverable, but they’re packing more of a punch.”

“Do we have any data on these ships?” Gomez asked. “Weak spots?”

McAllan shook his head. “Only what we’re scanning now. There’s nothing but the basics in the database.”

Gomez tapped her combadge. “Abramowitz, report to the bridge.”

Gold nodded. “Good call.”

Grunting as he pushed the ship this way and that, Ensign Songmin Wong spoke from the conn station. “Sir, I think they’re trying to disable us. Multiple shots at our port nacelle, where the shields are weakest.”

“Is this about our mission?” Gold thought aloud. “Why would the Munqu want to keep us from the Beta Argola colony? It’s the smallest of mining operations.”

“I was wondering the same. All I can think of is that we’re stocked to the struts with mining equipment,” Gomez said. “If they’ve scanned that, maybe they want it.”

“Badly enough to attack a Federation starship?” Yet another explosion racked the bridge, and Gold frowned at Wong. “Ensign, ‘evasive’ means evade.”

Nervously, Wong struggled with his console. “Aye, sir.”

Cultural specialist Carol Abramowitz entered the bridge and began to ask what was happening. With a raised arm, Gold held off her comment for a moment and turned to McAllan. “Continue to return fire. If we’re more maneuverable, let’s use that as best we can, people.”

“It’s three to one, sir,” McAllan said. “I can keep it up, but they’re gonna hit us here and there.”

On cue, phaser fire spread out across the forward viewer. A near miss. “I see that,” Gold said.

Best not to distract Wong, Gomez thought, and Gold obvi ously thought the same as he turned to the ops officer. “Ina, try to break through their jamming. At least to the miners. Maybe we can warn them, if this does involve them.” The captain then turned to Abramowitz. “What do you know about the Munqu?”

“Off the top of my head, not much, sir,” Abramowitz said, her close black hair seeming orange in the red alert lights. “First contact was around Stardate 43200, and has been limited to minor border disagreements. They’ve been classified as mildly xenophobic.”

Gold frowned and ran a hand through his thin white hair. “I’m thinking that way of life is being left behind.”

“That’s all I get.” Christian sighed. He re-coded the frequency scanner, then did it again, and then one more time. Nothing.

“Replay it,” his wife offered, and she cocked her ear toward the nearest speaker.

With his now healed hand, Christian tabbed at the console and replayed the sketchy subspace message.

Static crackled as it spat from the speakers. “-is the-ship da Vinci-…-attack-“

“That’s all there is.” He frowned deeply and Maria touched him lightly on the shoulder. Sincere if futile reassurance. She was always his strength in times thick with misfortune.

“I think I heard the word attack,” she said finally.

He nodded. “Me too.” That was why the message was a frightening one. Was da Vinci under attack, or was their going to be an attack on Beta Argola? And more importantly, why? Beta Argola was a nice mining colony, but there were surely others that were nicer. Heck, the thing was only two thousand kilometers from one end to another, and half as thick. Gravity was artificial-meaning expensive. If not for it having the element the Horta needed, Christian and his team would have chosen any number of others.

Lingering her gaze on what Christian knew was a cheerless visage, Maria finally said, “Let’s try and reach the authorities.”

Again, he nodded somberly. “Starbase 413 or wide-band to Starfleet?” Should they risk sending out a wide-band transmission if someone was gunning for them after the da Vinci?

“Both.” She began keying in the messages. “We should reach anyone we can.”

He nodded agreement. “What about replying to the da Vinci?”

“I’ve tried,” Maria said with a sigh. “No response.”

Christian had that sharp rock of concern that would sometimes jab his gut from the inside out. Concern for himself, for his wife, and the thirteen others on the small colony. He inwardly chuckled at calling it a colony. It wasn’t as if it was a permanent settlement with a lasting infrastructure and shields. They were pretty defenseless. They had non-military issue hand phasers and a few phaser-rifles, sure, but it was numbers that counted, and those were few. They had a protective dome, but that could be ruptured easily by a ship with disruptors or phasers … he didn’t even want to think what a photon or quantum torpedo could do.

He let his gaze settle on his wife, then moved it to the rock and dirt floor at their feet. Anti-matter blasting had cleared out their habitat caverns in a few weeks and since they moved from the cargo ship to the settlement, they’d made what felt like a home. While there was always a danger living in space, it was easy to become complacent.

But now? Now Christian was having a hard time not thinking they might die out here.

He rubbed the wish for sleep from his eyes. He was tired, very tired, and really didn’t want to think at all.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the time to stop thinking.