This could not be happening.

Tev frantically punched up data readouts and yet each contained the same information. As the crew scrambled to secure the ship and the pounding it was taking from the horrible backsplash of gravimetric waves, Tev sat as an island of one, wholly concentrating in an effort to save his beautiful, ordered plan. The gravitational anchor that he had snared, uprooted, was loose, and slipping through subspace as it clawed for purchase. Tev fought to reestablish a hold on it with his dekyon grapple. Missed.

The captain’s call to him finally intruded on the third try and Tev turned to look in Gold’s direction.

“What happened?!” The discourtesy of the yell did not even penetrate.

“I do not know, Captain.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“One moment, the dekyon beam and the energy grid through the probes inside were stable and the next…chaos.” For the first time in his life, Tev stared defeat in the face and it left him speechless.

“Tev!” the captain yelled once more to overcome his shock. “This is why you are here. You’re the only one who can tell us what happened. You! No one else.”

The praise sank in and stuck, pulling enough of him out of the stupor to ignite his fierce intellect.

Fingers once more probed for electronic answers. They had to be here. The fluctuations he’d seen were not from the ship. He could not verify that they did not originate from the station, but if he assumed competence on the part of Commander Gomez…

Tev hardly noticed another breaking wave of gravimetrics that tossed the ship about like a cork in the surf, sending Lieutenant Shabalala straight into a bulkhead.

If not the ship and not the station…Tev remembered the captain’s conversation with tactical. He reset his parameters, searching…found it!

“Captain,” Tev said.

“What?”

“I’ve found the anomaly.”

“And?”

“The Resaurian ship, Captain. Its tractor beam is attempting to latch on to our ship.”

The da Vinci tumbled, and an EPS conduit blew sparks out from beneath the operations console. Ensign Haznedl fell out of her chair, her uniform scorched and torn.

Gold hung into his seat with white knuckles and a furious glare for the cause of this chaos. “Did they cause this?”

“I think it could be,” Tev said. The admission was difficult. This fit the parameters, but he couldn’t be certain. “Such interference could easily have shattered the dekyon beam.”

Rage suffused Gold’s face. As the captain dealt with that news, Tev turned to a strident alarm from his interface; the anchor was slipping farther into the gravity well, toward the photon sphere.

Which meant that the space station was falling toward the Demon’s event horizon.

Power failures began in the jury-rigged communications station, cutting Sonya off from the da Vinci. She had all of three seconds’ warning. Enough time to begin, “I think there’s something—” and then a shower of sparks exploded from the primary power relay being guarded by P8 Blue.

The Nasat chirruped an alarm, sprayed down the junction with fire retardant chemicals, and then leapt for the secondary relay to work on a quick power transfer. It blew up just about in her face, shooting flame and globules of hot molten steel toward her eyes. Pattie curled up into a protective ball, and was still.

Resaurians reacted quickly, shouting for S’eth and swarming toward the gravitational anchor controls as well as to either exit. Corsi disappeared within a rush of snakelike bodies, carried with them into the corridor beyond. S’eth was one of those congregating around the anchor controls, worried that the overloads might dump power to the most critical system on the station.

Fabian stayed with him, monitoring, calling out the shift in shield harmonics. “Down ten percent…twenty-five…forty!”

Which meant the anchor characteristics were changing by the second, as was the station’s subjective displacement. Sonya had turned toward Pattie, but Lense was faster and she was needed here, to get back in touch with the da Vinci. Yanking open the maintenance access cover, she reached in to grab hold of her team’s work.

Which was when the first gravimetric wave slammed sidelong into the station, bucking the deck beneath Sonya’s feet. She stumbled, fell sliding. Lights died all across the operations center.

Slamming against the corner of an abandoned workstation, Sonya caught the edge against the side of her head, and stars exploded in her vision.

Resaurian alarms rang out over the bridge, sounding like metallic rattles. The Resaurians themselves slithered and ducked about in the near total dark, backlit only by one of the small electrical fires or the main screen that still, with all the failures, showed the bright circle of stars clustered at the top of the Demon’s gravity well.

Another gravimetric wave shook the station roughly. Sonya’s sense of balance swam before her eyes, and she felt heavier, awkward. Gravity fluctuated—or maybe that was just her head that pounded to the sound of large spikes being driven into her brain, burning where she had clipped the station corner. Rolling to her hands and knees, she tried to shake her head clear.

Nearly fainted.

“Commander!”

Rennan’s yell was close by, but she couldn’t see him. Blood oozed from the wound, trickling past her ear and down into her hair, over her face. A smear burned at the corner of her left eye. The sound of shots, phasers, welders. She smelled the acrid scent of hot metalwork, looking up in time to see one of the bridge’s welded doors spit a fury of angry sparks around three sides. It fell inward with a large crash, and more Resaurian bodies crashed through into S’eth and Fabian.

Then rough hands seized her, hauling her forward.

And nothingness finally claimed her.

They had lied to Gold on his own ship and now the Resaurians had apparently doomed seven more of his crew to die. Captain David Gold did not entertain violent thoughts; few Starfleet captains did, or they’d not be in command of a vessel. But at this moment, as he suddenly found himself facing Galvan VI all over again, the idea of several photon torpedoes was somehow comforting.

“Captain.” Tev interrupted his bloody fantasy. He turned and shucked himself of such delusions. There would be time for recompense later. Rational recompense. Right now, he had to rescue his crew.

“What have you got, Tev?”

“The anchor has completely torn away. The station is falling.”

Not on his watch it wasn’t! “Is there any way to grasp the anchor before it vanishes beyond the photon sphere?”

“No, Captain. A dekyon beam is not a lasso to grasp a moving target. It was only a viable option against a rock-steady target.” Tev snorted. “Even then, it really was only viable because of the addition of the probes and their dampening effect. There is nothing to stop the fall of the station.”

Gold nodded, his mind working furiously. A shadow walked across his grave, and he shuddered, knowing what he had to do.

He stood like a sailor of old, rock-steady on his deck as his ship bobbed among the gravimetric waves and he stared his nightmare in the face. His granddaughter had never been in danger. All along it had been he who faced death. Of course he had always known and accepted that, but never had it seemed more personal than right this moment. Gold might never see any of his grandchildren again. Might never see his beloved Rachel again, or listen to her harsh but loving ribbing.

For an instant, he wavered. He’d lost twenty-three of his crew not so long ago and he’d be damned if he’d lose seven more. If that meant he never saw his own loved ones again, then so be it.

Such was the price of wearing the red.

“Tev, we need to cross the photon sphere.”

To his credit, the Tellarite slowly blinked without a word, as he considered all the ramifications and other possible solutions before nodding. “It is the only way to secure the station and recover the crew,” he agreed.

Gold breathed deeply. For a brief moment he’d hoped that Tev might have another plan. Another idea that would save them from this. But there wasn’t.

There was only the Demon and the best damn crew he’d ever had the pleasure of commanding.

Looking around the bridge, his eyes came to rest on Wong, who looked expectantly over his shoulder at him. Gold saw no doubt in the young lieutenant’s eyes.

“Take us in,” he said. “Straight into the maw of the Demon.”

TO BE CONTINUED…