Chapter Seven

O N THE BRIDGE of the Enterprise, Captain Picard looked grimly at the Excelsior-class starship trapped in an inferno of pulsing energy. What looked like lassos of lightning were racing around the stricken starship, and the Juno couldn’t pull back. She had rammed a Klingon shipwreck and was locked at the hull, taking tremendous damage with shields down. If he didn’t act fast, they would be adding to the grisly toll of Rashanar.

He stepped smartly from one bridge station to another, issuing orders. “Conn, get us to tractor-beam range and prepare to lock on. Tactical, tell transporter rooms to stand by and notify the Ontailians to cut off that force of Androssi ships. Ops, alert sickbay that we may be taking on injured. Any answer to our hails?”

“No, sir,” answered Vale.

Picard crossed down to the ops station and asked, “Did we get a read on where that torpedo came from?”

“No, sir,” answered the Deltan Jelpn, shaking his bald head and working his board. “However, there was a shuttlecraft in the area. I don’t have much data on it, but I’ll double-check everything.”

“Make it fast,” said Picard. “Counselor Troi, will you contact Data and La Forge on the Hudson and let them know what’s happened. Tell them to abort their mission at the gravity sink and get back here.”

“Aye, sir,” said the Betazoid, scurrying to an auxiliary station.

“Captain, we’re in tractor-beam range,” announced Perim at the conn.

“Drop shields and lock on,” ordered Picard, “and get the Juno out of there.”

“Aye, sir,” answered the Trill with grim determination on her face.

“Captain,” said Vale, “with shields down, we might take-“

They were rocked by a blinding energy spike, and Picard staggered on his feet and answered, “Damage. Yes, I know.”

“Locked on,” said Perim, deftly working her board. Just when Picard thought they would be moving, she said, “I can’t isolate the Juno with the tractor beam! We have to separate them from the wreck.”

Every second, the blackness of space erupted with blazing, twisted flashes of light, and the Enterprise shimmied eerily under Picard’s feet. It seemed as if the two living starships would never extricate themselves from the white-hot lightning…or the jagged clutches of the Klingon derelict.

“Ready a test torpedo,” the captain told Vale. “No charge. Target the bridge of that Klingon cruiser.”

“Aye, sir,” she answered, working her controls.

The Enterprise was jarred several more times, and a power conduit exploded at a spare console. “Fire when ready,” said Picard.

“Torpedo away,” announced Vale, lifting her eyes to look at the viewscreen.

The captain looked, too, and they saw their dummy torpedo hit the jutting bridge of the wrecked ship, only a few meters above the hapless Juno. The attack cruiser crumpled from the impact and recoiled a few meters. That was just enough to put some distance between the Juno and the once-proud relic of the Klingon empire.

“Locking on with tractor beam,” announced Perim. “Reverse half impulse.”

The energy ripples grasped the Juno for a few more seconds until they cleared about a kilometer between them and the wreckage. Then most of the errant discharges veered to a closer clump of debris.

“Well done,” said Picard to Vale. “Ambassador Worf couldn’t have done it any better.”

“Thank you, sir,” she answered with a satisfied smile.

Picard turned his attention to the conn. “Steady as she goes. On my mark, cut the tractor beam and put up our shields. The Juno can drift while we reposition.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Perim.

He waited until a lull between the crackling bows of energy, then barked, “Mark!”

Suddenly the larger starship broke free and veered off, as her shields deflected a sparkling burst. The crippled Juno drifted toward a void in the graveyard, finally free of the lightning that had bedeviled her.

“Captain,” said Jelpn at ops, “there was a Starfleet shuttlecraft in the vicinity, but its ID marker was deactivated. I’m going to lose them soon, but they’re leaving this area and flying toward the center.”

Before the captain could respond, Counselor Troi interjected, “Captain, I’ll tell the Hudson to look for them.”

“Make it so,” replied Picard, turning his attention back to the stricken starship on the viewscreen. “Any answer to our hails?”

“Not from the Juno,” answered Vale, “but the Ontailians have responded and are blocking the escape routes on this side. They’ve got five vessels en route to help them, including two of our shuttlecraft. The scavengers will have to double back or try to break out.”

The captain nodded with satisfaction, then asked, “Are you sure all those messages are legitimate?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Vale with a sheepish smile. Suddenly her eyebrows lifted, and she made a triumphant fist. “Sir, I’ve got Captain Leeden onscreen!”

The captain let out a breath and turned toward the screen with a smile on his face. When he saw the smoke and chaos on the Juno’s bridge, his grin started to slip, but Captain Leeden hardly looked ruffled by her ordeal.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said. “I would like to know why you initially broke off pursuit of the Androssi.”

“We detected one Starfleet vessel chasing them, and an Ontailian ship reported that it was also in pursuit. If this was a mistake, we’re sorry, but this looked like one of a dozen chases we break off every day. How badly damaged is your ship?”

She shrugged and grinned. “We’ll probably be in pursuit of them before you.”

The captain tried not to react to her gibe; instead he focused on the task at hand. “We detected a photon torpedo-is that what hit you?”

“As far as we can tell, yes,” she answered. “They got lucky. It hit us just as our shields were dealing with a massive energy spike, and it started a chain reaction. We’re going to find whoever attacked us.”

“Shortly after the attack, a shuttlecraft headed away from here toward the center of the boneyard,” added Picard.

He glanced at Counselor Troi, who nodded in confirmation of her recent actions. The captain turned back to the viewscreen and said, “I’ve got Commanders Data and La Forge on the Hudson pursuing this mystery shuttlecraft. And the Ontailians have cut off the escape routes, to force the Androssi back.”

“Very well,” said Leeden. “I’ll bet you five buckets of deuterium that the Hudson will find your missing yacht.”

“Let’s hope so,” answered Picard. “But my yacht doesn’t have photon torpedoes.”

“Don’t underestimate the Androssi,” warned Captain Leeden. “I’d like to capture them alive, but it isn’t necessary. By the way, Captain, that was quick thinking with the dummy torpedo, although you had us scared for a moment.”

An underling handed the Juno’s captain a padd, and her face sagged as she read it. “We can handle our wounded, but we’re going to need some spare parts and several technicians.”

“We’re at your service,” answered the captain with a polite bow.

 

“Hmmm,” mused Geordi La Forge as he read the latest missive from the Enterprise; it had been sent by subspace even though they were only two hundred kilometers away from the Enterprise. “Somewhere out there is a Starfleet shuttlecraft with no ID, ” he told Data, who sat beside him in the cockpit of the shuttle Hudson. “And we have to find it. They think it could be the missing yacht, and it may have attacked the Juno.”

Data cocked his head quizzically. “The Calypso does not have a weapon system.”

“I’m just repeating what Troi told me,” answered La Forge. “I wish she had told us where it is.”

The engineer lifted his head and stared out the window of the shuttlecraft into the grim spectacle of the ships’ graveyard. To his ocular implants, the dusty hulks were blue shapes of cold metal, and the pulsing arcs and spikes were vivid streams of orange fire. The myriad gas clouds and dust particles lent a transparent pastel filter to the scene, and he could make out more of these wispy features than even his companion, Data. But he didn’t see anything that looked like a living, working shuttlecraft, except for their own.

“We go from searching for a needle in a haystack to searching for a toothpick,” he muttered.

“Is the Enterprise certain they were headed this way?” asked the android.

La Forge nodded. “Toward the center, and that’s where we came from. It’s too bad we didn’t have time to finish our experiment-I think those probes are still active, but their signal is being dampened.”

“When we find this suspected Androssi ship,” said Data, “what are we supposed to do?”

“Since they have weapons and we don’t,” answered Geordi, “I say we keep them under surveillance until the Enterprise gets here. But we have to find them first.”

Data nodded sagely. “If they attacked a much larger ship and are fleeing, then they will be taking evasive actions, even hiding.”

“Right,” answered La Forge, not sure where his android friend was headed with this line of reasoning.

“They will be looking for shuttlecraft looking for them,” said Data, “and if they spot us first, we will lose them. I suggest we shut down all systems, except for sensors, and drift as if we are part of the debris.”

“All systems?” asked La Forge hesitantly. “Including life-support?”

“Yes,” answereed Data, “I am increasing our speed to get momentum before I cut engines. You may put on your environmental suit.”

Geordi nodded. “All right, just give me a moment.”

A few minutes later, they were immersed in darkness, except for the frequent flashes of wild energy and the occasional glint of starlight off a nearby derelict. Data had placed the auxiliary station on audible alert status, to signal whenever a warp signature, impulse engine, or power source was detected. The android had put them on as safe a course as he could, away from the larger chunks of wreckage, but they were still without shields. It was disconcerting to Geordi to hear rubble pepper the hull of the Hudson, but Data was oblivious. The android kept his fingers on the controls to correct course the moment something too large headed their way, but it was still a nerve-racking glide through the boneyard for the human.

Although they were able to talk as they sailed along, the environmental suit inhibited La Forge. Stuck in this now-dark and powerless metal can, hearing nothing but the hollowness of his own breathing inside his helmet, the engineer began to feel like a part of the debris as they drifted within it. He had seen lifeless starships abandoned in space many times before, but the sheer number and wretched condition of these derelicts put them in another category. It felt as if he were in an art gallery of abstract sculptures, crafted and hung by giants in some long-dead civilization. There was a timeless, ageless quality that made this feel like a graveyard from eons in the past, not just a couple of years ago.

Finally, the eerie silence was broken by a sharp beeping at the auxiliary station. Both La Forge and Data turned their attention to the sensors.

“You fly the ship,” said La Forge. “I don’t want to run into anything.”

Before he could even get a good look at the screen, the beeping stopped. The signal was gone. Geordi frowned and said, “There was a blip at bearing thirty-four mark one hundred ten, but it’s gone now.”

Data sat back in his seat without touching his controls.

“Aren’t you going to change course?” asked La Forge.

“No,” answered the android. “They are apparently drifting with no power, as we are. If they have detected us, they will flee, and we will have difficulty keeping them in sensor range. If we have not been detected, we are still getting closer to them. The last thing we want to do is to be detected before we can locate them.”

“Make them blink first,” said La Forge.

Data cocked his head. “I do not believe the Androssi blink.”

“Just an expression,” said La Forge, gazing through the faceplate of his helmet at the quiet view of decimated starships. “It may have been just a sensor phantom, or it could be a legitimate Starfleet shuttle on legitimate business. You know how they come and go here.”

“I do,” answered Data. “It is like Grand Central Station in here.” He gave Geordi a quizzical smile and added, “An old Terran transporter nexus.”

The beeping sounded again, making Geordi jump, and he turned his attention to his suddenly active screen. “They’re on the move,” he reported. “Bearing thirty-five mark one hundred twelve.”

“If we can track them long enough to determine their course, we can intercept them,” said the android.

“I’m getting a fix,” said Geordi, studying his readouts. “They’re on a course that will take them near the gravity sink. They must be trying to get to the other side of the boneyard, or they’re going to try to hide in that same sensor dead spot that got our probes.”

“Either way, we will be able to follow them,” said Data, “because we will become harder to detect when we-“

From nowhere, a bolt of energy flashed across their bow, jolting the shuttlecraft and whirling it like a gyroscope. La Forge was thrown against the bulkhead by centrifugal force, and Data furiously worked his controls to compensate. When he activated the shields, most of the energy spikes were deflected elsewhere, and the android finally regained control of the small craft.

When Geordi staggered back to his feet, he went immediately to his controls, which registered nothing but gibberish. “We lost them,” muttered the engineer.

“Then we will have to catch them,” said Data. At once, he reactivated the shuttlecraft, and it streaked through a sheen of glittery rubble and plunged deeper into the boneyard.

 

“Captain Picard,” said Vale from her rear station on the bridge of the Enterprise. “I’ve just received word from the Ontailians.”

The captain stopped his pacing and turned to face his tactical officer. “Good news, I hope.”

“Mostly,” answered the lieutenant. “Near gateway four, they intercepted the Androssi convoy and found them towing a big Romulan warbird, the Rom’drex. Apparently, they were trying to make off with the whole ship.”

“That was ambitious,” said Picard with begrudging admiration. “What happened?”

“One Androssi ship opened fire on the Ontailians and was destroyed,” answered Vale. “The other three Androssi ships abandoned their prize and fled back into the boneyard. Now they’re headed in our direction again. Our shuttlecraft Cortez is with a task force that is pursuing them toward us. The Ontailian battle cruiser, Vuxhal, is also with them.”

“Now we know what their plan was,” said Picard. “And that we stopped them.”

Vale looked intently at her console for a moment. “Captain Leeden is hailing us.”

“Put her onscreen,” answered Picard.

Looking gaunt and harried, the captain of the Juno appeared on the overhead screen. Behind her, the bridge of the Juno was teeming with activity, with technicians at every station. Half of them were from the Enterprise crew.

“Captain Leeden,” said Picard, “you seem to be making headway in your repairs.”

Jill Leeden replied, “Yes, but not nearly fast enough. We’re still five hours away from being mobile again. Did you receive the message from the Ontailians?”

“I did,” answered Picard. “They stopped the Androssi.”

“For now, but they’re still at large,” she said. “We’re dead in the water, so it will be up to you to stop them if they come this way.”

“Understood,” said the captain. “With any luck we can finish assisting you first.”

“There’s no time to wait for that,” she answered. “Even though you have a lot of personnel on the Juno, you need to break off from us and pursue these scavengers.”

Picard’s face expressed his concern. “You’ll be helpless…a sitting duck.”

“Let me worry about that.” Leeden picked up a padd and gazed at it for a moment, then said, “We’re supposed to have shields within the hour. When we do, you can go.”

Picard agreed with her assessment of the situation. He also realized that he had a short time to be prepared to deal with the Androssi ships headed his way. It had already been several hours since the attack on the Juno. An hour from now, he should be ready to meet them.

He nodded curtly. “We’ll be ready to go as soon as you regain your shields. Anything else, Captain?”

“Yes,” she said grimly, her dark eyes burning. “Get those bastards. What about the ship that attacked me?”

Picard replied, “We spotted them. Unfortunately our shuttlecraft was hit by a discharge and lost them. But we’re back in pursuit.”

“Don’t let them get away again. The dead need to rest in peace,” she said. “Leeden out.”

Picard let out a sigh, and his shoulders slumped.

He turned to gaze at the crippled Juno just off their bow; it looked uncomfortably akin to a number of derelicts visible in the background. He let out a worried breath. The last thing he wanted to do was add to the death and destruction of Rashanar. He was beginning to think that perhaps they should leave the bones to the vultures. It was better than wasting time shooing them off, or shooting them. Unfortunately, the stolen yacht was his responsibility, and he knew that particular craft had to be recaptured or destroyed, even if the other Androssi ships got away.

He turned to tactical and asked, “Any word from the Hudson?”

“None, sir,” replied Vale. “Shall I try hailing them?”

Picard shook his head. “No, I’m sure they’ll report when necessary. Keep your sensors trained toward gateway four. We should be getting hostiles from that direction.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Vale with determination. “We’ll spot them.”

Captain Picard nodded, thinking he had done all he could for the moment. Still he experienced an odd feeling of dread, not unlike that which Captain Leeden often talked about, and he felt a twinge of sympathy for the embattled captain of the Juno.

 

“Sensor readings are getting squirrelly again,” complained Geordi La Forge as they neared the region of the mysterious gravity dump in the middle of the boneyard. “The shuttle is going to be hard to find in here.”

“Perhaps we should let them find us,” said Data. He cut power to the engines. They began to drift among the ruins and wrecks, some of which were moving swiftly this close to the gravity. Thankfully, the plasma explosions and errant energy bolts seemed distant, although La Forge knew those deadly storms could find them quickly.

The human sighed and reached for the helmet to his environmental suit, which he was still wearing. “Are we going to play dead again?”

“Until we can think of a better plan,” answered the android. “From our recent readings, we know they are in this vicinity, and no other ships are present. They will have to move eventually, so we are back to whoever blinks first.”

“If only we had a way to flush them out,” muttered Geordi. Then his eyebrows lifted. He turned to look at the rear compartment of the shuttlecraft, which was filled with silver cases. “Wait a minute, we’ve got more probes!”

“But they are not weapons,” Data pointed out.

The human smiled. “But the Androssi don’t know that, and the sensor problems will disguise what they really are. By the time they spot them, they’ll look like quantum torpedoes.”

Data cocked his head and said, “Impressively devious.”

La Forge moved closer to the controls. “You load a couple of probes for launching, and, based on our last sighting, I’ll try to pick the best place to rustle the bushes.”

After two minutes of work in the lower hatch, Data reported that two probes were ready for launch, and La Forge nodded with satisfaction. “There’s half a Breen warship over there,” he said, pointing a gloved hand to a severed green-gold starship visible in a corner of the viewport. “It’s putting out slightly stranger readings than the rest of them, including its other half over there, and it has a stable orbit. They might be hiding behind it. If we hit it head-on, maybe we can get some fireworks.”

“I am not sure fireworks are advisable in this site,” said Data, returning to his seat. “But I do not have a better idea. The probes are set to look for heat, so there is a chance they will tell us something.”

La Forge sat back, holding his hands up to let Data take over. “I suggest we double the shields, in case they fire back.”

“Very well,” answered the android, working his board. The Hudson banked around and took a forward angle at the sundered Breen ship. The shuttlecraft vibrated slightly, and a probe shot from her belly and streaked toward the derelict. “Probe one away,” said Data. “On target.”

A moment later, the Breen wreck was blasted off its lazy orbit and spun around as a spike of wild energy arced across space to strike it in the stern. The chain reaction was mild and lasted only a few seconds, but a living craft suddenly darted from a debris cloud in the area and flew away at breakneck speed. Geordi was thrown back into his seat as Data took off, and the Hudson was soon in hot pursuit of the captain’s stolen yacht.

“The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime,” said Geordi. “We’re going to pass the Asgard in a few seconds.”

Sure enough, they streaked past the blasted Galaxy class starship, where the Calypso had been hijacked only five days ago. The shuttle suddenly veered toward the center of the boneyard. Ahead of them, their prey also swerved erratically before they disappeared behind a pinkish plasma cloud.

Data quickly compensated, saying, “I hope the Androssi have a good pilot, because we are dangerously close to the gravity sink.”

“I should send our position to the Enterprise,” answered Geordi, opening a subspace channel. “There’s no doubt that’s the Calypso, is there?”

“Her actions are very suspicious,” answered Data. “Now that the target is coasting without power, we have lost her from sensors and visual again.”

“But she can’t go far,” said Geordi, grinning that his ruse had worked. He completed his message to the Enterprise and sent it via subspace, then gazed into the junk-filled heavens. “We’ve got a much tighter area to search for her…plus more probes. If they thought we were unarmed, wouldn’t they come out to fight?”

The android cocked his head, taking the question seriously. “Androssi are treacherous and clever but avoid direct confrontation. The way they stole the Calypso is more typical.”

For several minutes, they cruised the area with sensors wide open and shields up, since the debris was fast-moving and erratic down here. In the distance, they saw the deadly vortex, a churning pinwheel of broken nacelles, hulls, and unrecognizable chunks. La Forge shivered. The vortex could well be the future of every relic in the Rashanar Battle Site.

Suddenly his console began to beep steadily. Before Geordi could turn around in his bulky suit, Data said, “Distress signal. Perhaps our prey has run afoul of some wreckage.”

“You can pinpoint their location?” asked La Forge excitedly.

“Without problem,” said the android, “but we must be careful. It could be a trap.”

“At least they’re not going to go anywhere,” said La Forge, hoping that was true.

Battling the gravity pull, which seemed to ebb and flow like a rapid tide, the Hudson cautiously drew close to a smashed, rust-colored hull that might have been Tiburonian. La Forge could do little but peer out the viewport and trust Data not to take undue risks. Certainly, they couldn’t see anything that looked like a shuttlecraft about to fire weapons at them, so they slowly circled the rusty derelict with Data’s fingers poised on his controls. When they approached a huge gash in the sundered hull, Data stopped the shuttle and backed off a few meters.

“Are they inside?” rasped La Forge.

“That is the only possible explanation,” answered Data, “but we do not want to expose ourselves to give them a clear shot at us.”

“No,” agreed the engineer.

The android suddenly jumped to his feet and walked toward the rear of the shuttlecraft. “I am taking an EVA to the relic. Please maintain our position here.”

La Forge took a deep breath. “Don’t be gone long-I wouldn’t want to leave you here.”

The android nodded and quickly pulled on a jet pack that had been modified for use without a suit. Data popped the hatch at the the rear of the shuttlecraft and hurled himself into space. Even though Geordi had seen him do this before, it was never less than astounding, and he watched as the unprotected android used thrusters on his backpack to maneuver himself to the smashed hull. At the helm, Geordi had his hands full keeping the shuttlecraft close to the moving wreck without exposing himself to the ragged gash, where the enemy must be lurking. He adjusted course and backed off a few meters just as Data disappeared into a crater in the hull.

La Forge monitored his sensors. None of the readings were distinct, except for the distress signal, which was still broadcasting from a short distance away. A subspace message came in from the Enterprise, saying their message had been received. From the terse quality of the missive, Geordi figured the Enterprise was hip-deep in some sort of excitement.

In between nervous course corrections, he stared out the viewport, looking for Data or the signs of a fight within the dusty hulk. He expected to see the Calypso come bursting through the gash and zoom into space. None of those things happened. Finally, he spotted Data emerging from the wreck with several pieces of equipment in his arms. As the android flew toward him, La Forge lumbered to the hatch to help him in, along with his collection of equipment.

“This is a communications module,” said Geordi, looking at Data’s souvenir. “And power cells. Wait a minute, is this all that was in there?”

“Yes,” answered Data, taking off his jet pack. “We were tricked, and we have lost valuable time. The Androssi are quite inventive, and this was a clever way to elude us. However, now we can prove it was the Calypso, and they no longer have the ability to send distress signals or false messages.”

The android strode to the pilot’s seat, while La Forge rushed to close the hatch. Data announced that shields were up and a course had been laid, while Geordi scurried back to his seat. A second later, the shuttlecraft Hudson roared off into the graveyard of lost ships, looking for the only spacecraft that was trying to stay lost.

 

Ghissel laughed and slapped her slim thigh, gazing longingly at her pilot and lover, Boenmar. “We have done well, haven’t we?”

But the pilot of the yacht formerly known as Calypso was still intent on his instruments, looking unconvinced that the Starfleet spacecraft had been thrown off. “I might want to drift again without power,” he said.

“That’s fine.” Ghissel caressed his bald skull and the braid of black hair that hung down his back. They had snatched frantic bouts of lovemaking when they were hiding out, and the dangers lurking all around them had heightened the intensity, making Ghissel almost forget her grandiose plans and well-connected associates. Who cared if they hauled off some old Romulan wreck, when the lithe Androssi was having the time of her life? The thrills, the excitement-this was why she had joined the Androssi salvage fleet.

Boenmar brushed her hand away in order to concentrate on his board. “You’re insatiable,” he said with a smile. “They didn’t tell me this job would have such fringe benefits.”

“They didn’t know,” purred Ghissel, leaning forward to kiss his neck. He suffered the nuzzle while still working his controls. They veered slowly into a fairly empty section of the boneyard and began to drift among clouds of silver and golden debris, like so much space junk.

Boenmar cut the engines, then turned to devote some attention to his mistress. They embraced hungrily, kissing and fondling, oblivious of the rest of the universe. Suddenly, the colorful stretch of space in front of them began to shimmer and waver, coalescing as if it were an illusion about to reveal its true appearance. Ghissel noticed this anomaly first, and she uncharacteristically pushed her ardent lover away.

“Boenmar, what is that?” she asked, pointing toward the wispy curtain forming in front of them. It almost looked like the wall of a holodeck before it changed into an impossibly beautiful vista from some famed vacation spot. Before the pilot could answer her question, every system on the ship shut down, and they were plunged into blackness, except for the shimmering scrim that loomed before them.

“Where’s our power?” asked Ghissel, thinking she had better get her environmental suit back on. Suddenly a high-pitched whine sounded in her ears, and she bent over in pain. “What…is it?”

“Aaagghh!” screamed Boenmar. The Androssi gripped his head to try to suppress the agony, and when that didn’t work, he reached for his controls. But his hands trembled uncontrollably-he wasn’t able to even touch his board. As the piercing tone grew worse, both of the Androssi gripped their ears and tumbled out of their seats onto the deck.

Mercifully, both of them were unconscious a few seconds later, and they didn’t see the glittering cloud of space dust as it slowly engulfed the darkened yacht.