Corsi felt her way through the Orion’s forward torpedo room, inching toward the launcher assembly, where her tricorder indicated the Wildfire device rested on a loading rail. She searched the area with her palm beacon, struggling to discern the narrow, conical shape of the device from the wreckage of the collapsed ceilings and flooring. Then the beam of her palm beacon fell upon the tip of the device, which lay half-buried in a tangle of optical fibers.

Corsi tried to pull the fibers off the device. They resisted, caught fast on something underneath—a protrusion from the warhead casing, she surmised—and she tugged harder. Like kelp tearing away from the hull of a sunken ship, the cables came free, and she tossed them aside. As the trailing ends of the cables passed behind her, she saw that they had been tangled up in the corpse of one of the Orion’s crew, the skeleton of a male Andorian, whom she guessed was probably Lieutenant ch’Kelavar, the Orion’s second officer.

She scanned the Wildfire device and saw her tricorder was receiving no readings from it whatsoever—and remembered that the device was heavily shielded. She slowly ran her hand along its surface, feeling for its control panel. A few seconds later, she discovered the slight indentation in the device’s casing and pressed down. The surface of the device suddenly was wrapped in a shimmering, holographic cocoon, and through her helmet visor she could barely hear the standard, feminine Starfleet computer voice, heavily distorted by the dense, semiliquid gases that filled the compartment. The image of a standard interface panel formed on the outside of the device’s holographic shell. “Verify security clearance.”

Gold’s orders had been to give the device’s top-secret access codes to as few people as possible; for this away mission he had entrusted them only to Corsi. Corsi entered the project’s specific code sequence, followed by her personal authorization.

“Verified.”

The hologram changed again; now it displayed vast amounts of data, including the device’s current depth in the atmosphere, its target depth, its countdown preset and its operational status—which, Corsi grimly noted, clearly indicated it was armed. She keyed her comm.

“Corsi to Gomez. I’ve located the device.”

“Status?”

“Active. If it drops to its target depth, it’ll start its countdown automatically.”

“How long until—” The comm crackled with static, swallowing Gomez’s reply. Corsi tapped the side of her helmet, mostly out of frustration. The static persisted, with a few stray words slipping through intermittently: “—device…return to—” Then Corsi’s comm spat out a long burst of static.

“Commander? Your signal is breaking up. Please repeat. Commander, do you copy? Commander, do you—”

The static turned to silence, and Corsi paused as the room quickly grew darker. Her palm beacon dimmed rapidly, as did the small indicator lights on her pressure suit. She reflexively looked to her tricorder, only to find it had lost power, as well. Within seconds, the compartment was swallowed by darkness, and the only sound she could hear was her own breathing, ragged and loud inside her helmet.

She knew she was respirating too quickly. Remain calm, she thought. She concentrated on controlling each breath, keeping her lungs’ ebb and flow slow and even. Probably just an ionic disturbance in the atmosphere. It’ll pass in a few seconds, just stay calm.

Slowly, a violet glow of light returned and suffused the cramped compartment. There, no problem, just a simple—

She looked down and saw her palm beacon and tricorder were both still without power. Then she noticed her shadow stretching slowly across the Wildfire device. The light was coming from behind her, and it was getting brighter.

With great caution, she turned toward the light.

*  *  *

Stevens reached the aft end of the Orion’s secondary hull, looked up at the underside of the starboard nacelle, and shook his head in disappointment as he keyed the comm. “Starboard nacelle’s got multiple fractures where it meets the engineering section,” he said. “Any luck on port side?”

“Negative,” P8 Blue said. “Massive damage along the entire port nacelle assembly. I do not think this will work.”

“Want to do one more sweep forward before we—”

“Gomez to Work Bugs. We’ve lost contact with Corsi. Can you confirm all channels clear?”

Stevens tried not to think of worst-case scenarios while he checked his Work Bug’s comm relay circuits. Because the Orion’s main computers were offline, the away team’s communications were boosted through the Work Bugs’ onboard systems.

“Bug Two, all channels clear.”

“Work Bug One, all channels clear.”

“All right. I need visual confirmation that the forward torpedo compartment is still intact.”

“On our way,” Stevens said.

“Acknowledged,” P8 Blue said. “Reversing heading now.”

Stevens could just barely see Work Bug One, up above the Orion, as he rotated Work Bug Two for the return trip along the Orion’s underside. As he completed his rotation maneuver, he saw an incandescent, narrow double helix of energy that emerged from the deepest layers of the atmosphere and extended upward, disappearing into the underside of the Orion’s saucer section.

“Pattie, do you see that?”

“Affirmative.”

“Stevens, report,” Gomez ordered.

“Some kind of energy beam, Commander. Coming up from the planet and penetrating the ship’s saucer.”

“I am unable to lock scanners onto the phenomenon,” P8 Blue added, “but it appears to be entering the Orion ’s hull directly beneath the forward torpedo compartment.”

“Gomez to all away team personnel. Corsi might be in trouble. Who’s closest to the forward torpedo compartment?”

“This is Duffy. I’m on deck five, section twelve. I can reach her in two minutes.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Gomez said through the increasing static on the comm. “Everyone else, get to the emergency rendezvous point. Stevens, tell the da Vinci we might need to abort.”

“Acknowledged.” Stevens stared at the shimmering ribbon of light piercing the Orion’s hull, thought of Domenica Corsi being on the receiving end of it, and again tried not to imagine the worst as he activated his Work Bug’s emergency channel. “Stevens to da Vinci, priority one.”

*  *  *

Corsi stared in awe as the lattice of light emerged from the floor, creeping upward like a vine ascending an invisible wall. Each tendril was made of small beams of energy, some only a few centimeters long while others stretched vertically for more than a meter. Every beam was either parallel or perpendicular to another beam, and they built upon each other, new tendrils of light appearing through the floor, pushing the ones above upward, like a twisting ladder. It extended through the bulkheads on either side of the torpedo room, and was several meters deep from Corsi’s point of view—which meant it was blocking her only avenue of escape.

The structure stopped moving upward and began growing outward, toward Corsi. She backed away from it, but after a few steps she had no more room to retreat. The wall of light pushed in and enveloped her.

She convulsed violently as an electrical shock coursed through her nervous system. Her fingers curled into a rictus, and a metallic taste filled her mouth as her teeth clenched with enough force to crack their enamel. Her face twisted into an excruciating, death’s head grin.

She struggled to keep her grip on consciousness. I won’t go out like this! The nausea was overwhelming. Her skin felt like it was on fire. Can’t panic, can’t panic, can’t panic, can’t panic….

She became dizzy, then thought she might be floating, but since she couldn’t feel her feet she couldn’t be sure. The edges of her vision began to fade and push inward, and she felt herself sinking into the comfort of oblivion.

No! Fight, damn it! Fight!

The tunnel bordering her vision grew longer with each moment, and her desperate inner voice felt small and impotent against the promise of darkness.

Not like this…not like—

*  *  *

Gold strained to see the double helix of light through the constantly shifting wash of static that dominated the da Vinci’s main viewer. “Ina, can you clean that up?”

“Filters are at maximum, sir,” Ina said.

“McAllan, what are we looking at here? Is that beam coming from a weapon?”

The tactical officer studied his console and frowned at the lack of information it offered him. “Not sure, sir. The beam is absorbing all our scans, and we can’t look deep enough into the atmosphere to find its source.”

“I’m going to need more than that to—” Gold stopped as the main viewer showed the mysterious tendril of energy dim and fade away beneath the Orion, vanishing like a phantom into the swirling hydrogen mists. “That’s either very, very good,” Gold thought aloud, “or very, very bad.”

*  *  *

Duffy slogged down the flooded corridor at the fastest pace he could manage, his muscles burning with fatigue as he forced himself forward through the thick semifluid hydrogen. His hot, ragged breaths fogged the transparent aluminum faceplate of his helmet as he stumbled across the walls and ceiling, and broke his constant, sideways falling with his arms while the ship rolled slowly around him. To move more quickly, he had reduced the settings of his magnetic boots to the minimum he needed to keep his footing, and he had decided that whatever the planet’s gravity said was “down” was fine by him.

He reached the intersection closest to the forward torpedo compartment at the same time as Gomez, who had adopted the same tactic for moving through the corridors. He fell into step behind her as they approached the open door to the torpedo room. It was still open, and the compartment beyond was completely dark. Gomez and Duffy moved quickly inside, the beams of their palm beacons crisscrossing in the reddish amber murk.

Gomez gestured with her tricorder toward the back of the room. “Back there,” she said, her voice echoing inside Duffy’s helmet. Corsi was slumped in a sitting position against the far wall. Duffy shone his search beam into Corsi’s face. The blond security chief was unconscious. Gomez continued scanning with her tricorder. “She’s alive—barely. Let’s get her out of here.”

Duffy and Gomez each grabbed one of Corsi’s arms, pulled her to a standing position, and began pulling her toward the corridor. “Gomez to Stevens, report.”

“I’m docked at the rendezvous point,” Stevens said. “Soloman’s aboard and Pattie’s standing by to dock Bug One as soon as I’m clear.”

“Tell Soloman to take Bug One with Duffy. You’ll be bringing Corsi and me back to da Vinci.”

*  *  *

Work Bug Two bobbled and rolled violently as it sped toward the da Vinci, now less than a kilometer away. Stevens was making no effort to fly smoothly or gracefully—just as quickly as the Work Bug’s engines and the planet’s atmospheric turbulence would allow. Forks of neon green lightning sliced past the cockpit windshield, but Stevens’s only fear right now was time—or, more precisely, how little of it Domenica might have left unless she reached the da Vinci sickbay.

A violent upswell spun the Work Bug nearly two full rotations around its forward axis, its thrusters screeching as Stevens fought to regain control. The utility craft had barely recovered its heading before Stevens once again pushed the thrusters to full-forward.

“Stevens, go easy,” Gomez said. She was kneeling over Corsi, doing what little she could with a first aid kit to help the fallen security chief, who was in deep shock—or worse.

No, not worse, Stevens told himself. She’ll be okay. Just keep going. Just get there.“I’m all right, Commander,” he said, not believing it at all.

Through the swirling haze Stevens recognized the familiar shape of the da Vinci, less than four hundred meters away.

With a little luck, I can have us in the shuttle bay in ninety seconds. He stole a quick look back at Corsi, whose porcelain-smooth skin had become terrifyingly pale. He hoped that for her the next ninety seconds wouldn’t equal a lifetime.