Chapter Twenty-Two

PICARD TURNED TO BEN ZOMA. “A second ship?”

They had been expecting only one ship when they went after the White Wolf. If there were two or three of the pirates or perhaps even more, it would mean trouble.

Ben Zoma frowned. “Doesn’t sound good.”

“Evasive maneuvers,” the captain told Idun.

But as the Stargazer began to swing around the White Wolf, Paxton spoke up from his comm console.

“They’re hailing us,” he informed Picard.

The captain felt a muscle spasm in his jaw as he considered the situation. “Discontinue maneuvers,” he told Idun. “But be ready to resume them on my command.”

“Aye, sir,” came the helm officer’s response.

Picard glanced at Paxton. “Return their hail, Lieutenant.”

Paxton turned to his console and did as he was told. A moment later, he turned around again, an unmistakable look of disbelief on his face. “Sir,” he said, “it’s the Cochise.”

Picard wasn’t ready to believe it. “Are you certain?” he asked his comm officer.

Paxton shrugged. “That’s what they claim, sir.”

“Then they should be able to show me Captain Greenbriar,” the captain concluded. “Tell them I want to see him. Now.”

Paxton went to work again at his console, and before Picard could draw another breath, the craggy visage of a Starfleet captain filled his viewscreen. It was static-riddled and it wavered occasionally, but there was no question that it was Greenbriar.

“Picard,” he said, “are you all right?”

“I am,” the captain told him. He looked around his bridge at the damage it had taken. “Though somewhat the worse for wear.”

“And the White Wolf?”

“Disabled, apparently. We were about to put together a boarding party when you arrived.”

“That’s good news,” said Greenbriar.

Picard should have been happy to see his colleague, happy to have a little support in such a perilous setting. But something about the Cochise’s presence here felt wrong to him.

Before the Stargazer, no one had ever managed to get this far. Not in dozens of previous attempts. No one.

Yet here was the Cochise, basking in the proximate, ruddy light of Beta Barritus. It seemed like an awfully big coincidence—a little too big for Picard to swallow.

“I hadn’t expected to see you here,” he told Greenbriar.

“I hadn’t expected to be here,” Greenbriar replied in a comradely tone of voice. “At the last minute, Admiral McAteer changed his mind and dispatched us to back you up.”

“Yes,” said Picard, “I knew that. I meant I didn’t think you would be able to penetrate this far into the system.”

As he spoke, his mind raced headlong. What is going on here? he demanded of himself.

Picard’s friend Corey Zweller had warned him that McAteer wanted to see him fail, so that Admiral Mehdi could be seen to fail as well. But how badly did McAteer want it?

Badly enough to take the lives of Picard and his crew?

And if the Stargazer and all its hands were to be lost here, in this dangerous place, who would question it? Who would know that the Cochise had followed her in?

No one but the captain and crew of the Cochise—and Admiral McAteer, of course.

Suddenly, the captain realized what he was saying—and rejected the idea. I’m being paranoid, he thought. I’ve been on edge so long, I’ve begun tilting at shadows.

McAteer might have been a lot of things, but he was also a high-ranking Starfleet officer, a man trusted implicitly by other men of good judgment. It was unthinkable that he would sacrifice the Stargazer just to further his personal ambitions.

Wasn’t it?

As he asked himself that question, he noticed Ben Zoma leaning over Gerda’s console. A glance told him that Greenbriar’s ship had come within their limited sensor range—although it wasn’t as limited as the Cochise’s sensor range, since Greenbriar’s instruments hadn’t been enhanced by the Stargazer’s Chief Simenon.

Ben Zoma was scrutinizing the Cochise intently, examining her power levels, her structural integrity, her crew, anything that might have told him something was wrong. And Gerda was following his every move.

Inwardly, Picard smiled. It seemed he wasn’t the only one wary of Greenbriar’s appearance here.

“How did you make it this far?” he inquired of Greenbriar.

“The same way you did, I expect,” came the man’s reply. “We warp-jumped the debris field, then altered the polarity of our shields to make it through the vortex belt. And when we couldn’t see in this muck, my chief engineer came up with the idea of—”

Without warning, Gerda whirled in her seat. “Captain,” she said, her eyes hard and angry, “the Cochise is powering up her weapons!”

Picard didn’t even have time to utter a curse. “All available power to the shields!”

They made the adjustment just in time to ward off a blinding red phaser barrage. Nonetheless, the impact sent everyone on the bridge reeling hard to starboard and tore one of their plasma conduits free of its moorings.

“Return fire!” the captain bellowed as the conduit whipped back and forth capriciously, spraying superheated plasma at a bulkhead.

Vigo punched back at the Constellation-class Cochise with his forward phaser banks, but Greenbriar’s ship was already executing evasive maneuvers. Only one of the energy beams managed to strike her.

And a moment or two later, Picard’s colleague came about for another pass at him.

“Shields down fifty-four percent,” Gerda noted.

The captain absorbed the information. His ship was at a distinct disadvantage. She had already been battered by the White Wolf, whereas Greenbriar’s vessel was all but unscathed.

And Greenbriar himself was one of the most experienced captains in the fleet, while Picard had been given command of the Stargazer only a few short weeks ago.

A lopsided match if ever there was one, Picard thought. He had to find a way to pull off an upset.

“Evasive maneuvers,” he told Idun. Then he glanced at Vigo and said, “Fire at will.”

Picard’s helm officer moved them off the bull’s-eye, giving the Cochise a running, twisting target. And as soon as Greenbriar’s ship came within range, Vigo greeted her with a sizzling phaser salvo.

But the Stargazer was brutalized as well. The captain was thrown back into his chair as an aft control bank erupted in flames.

“Shields down seventy-six percent,” Gerda reported.

“Casualties on decks seven and eight,” Paxton added. “Sickbay is sending out teams.”

Picard felt a familiar hand on his shoulder. “We can’t just trade volleys with them,” Ben Zoma said, his voice so low that only his friend could hear it. “That’s what Greenbriar wants us to do.”

The captain frowned as he considered his options. In the meantime, the Cochise wheeled and came at them again with full fury. As before, Idun made it difficult for Greenbriar to hit them, but he still got in a solid phaser shot.

“Shields down eighty-seven percent,” Gerda announced, a hint of frustration in her voice.

And the Cochise, her captain undaunted, was coming about for another charge at them.

The Stargazer could withstand only one more barrage before she lost her defenses altogether. If Picard was going to turn the tide, this would be his last chance to do so.

Perspiration collected in the small of his back. He had to do something. But what?

And then it came to him. Of course, he thought. It was so simple, he was amazed that he hadn’t thought of it before.

“Mr. Vigo,” Picard said.

The weapons officer turned to him.

“Target the center of the Cochise’s navigational deflector and hit it with the narrowest, most intense beam you can manage. And don’t let up until I tell you.”

Vigo smiled, a sign that he had some idea of what his captain was up to. “Aye, sir.”

The captain glanced at his helm officer. “Give us a good look at our target, Lieutenant.”

Idun nodded, as steady as ever. “I will, sir.”

As they closed with Greenbriar’s ship, Idun banked sharply and unexpectedly, taking the Stargazer across the Cochise’s bow. It seemed like a reckless move in that it exposed their flank to their adversary’s phasers for an awkward amount of time.

And the Stargazer paid for it.

Raked by Greenbriar’s directed energy beams, she lost more than what was left of her shields. She suffered hull breaches and severed power linkages and ceased to function in a thousand small ways.

Picard didn’t need to hear the damage reports. He could feel what had happened in his bones.

But Idun’s maneuver also gave Vigo the opening he needed. The Stargazer’s powerful crimson phaser beams plunged mercilessly into the heart of their adversary’s navigational deflector, cutting through layer upon layer of graviton-contained spatial distortion in the merest fraction of a second.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to take out the entire deflector. Their objective was the small, long-range signal emitter at the center of it, a shallow, bowl-like structure currently being used for one purpose and one purpose only . . .

To transmit the special-frequency radio waves that drove Greenbriar’s radar system.

As Obal rushed into the shuttlebay with the other members of his security team, he took in the scene as calmly and objectively as his Academy trainers had advised him to do.

There were three crewmen down. No, he thought, as he came around a cargo shuttle and saw another pair of legs protruding beyond it, make that four crewmen down.

Racing across the bay as fast as he could, he reached the unidentified legs and saw the body to which they were attached. It belonged to Lieutenant Chiang, the chief of this section.

The man was unconscious, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. There was blood on the shuttle next to him as well. Apparently, Chiang had struck his head on it during one of the phaser impacts the Stargazer had suffered.

It was Obal’s job to get him out of here, just as his comrades were removing the other crewmen in the bay. Of course, Chiang was much bigger and heavier than the Binderian, but he believed he could manage.

He had already hooked his hands under the man’s armpits and begun to drag him toward the exit when he noticed something—a red light on the lonely-looking console not twenty meters away.

It gave Obal pause. If he recalled correctly, a red light only came on in case of trouble, and very specific trouble at that. It signaled that the semipermeable force field between the bay and the tinted sea of gases outside was about to fizzle out.

If that happened, all the air in the bay would rush out into interplanetary space. And along with it would go any crewmen and equipment that happened to be present at the time.

Could the light have gone on due to a circuitry malfunction? It was certainly possible, with all the punishment the ship was taking.

Or, Obal asked himself, a chill running down his spine, might it be that the light was working perfectly? In that case, the problem would be in the mechanism that maintained the force field.

“Lands of fire,” he breathed, invoking an image from his people’s most primitive belief system.

He couldn’t take the chance that it was a simple short circuit. He had to do something, and do it quickly.

Easing Chiang to the smooth, hard surface of the deck, Obal darted in the direction of the console. But even as he did this, he saw the barrier begin to buckle and spark, and felt the tug of something hideously powerful.

Was he too late? he wondered. Would everyone in the bay, rescued as well as rescuers, be sucked out of the ship?

No, he vowed. I won’t let it happen.

Gritting his teeth, Obal hunkered down and drove his slender legs as hard as he could. Little by little, he made his way across the bay to the freestanding control console.

He ignored the cries of his fellow security officers as they realized what was happening. He even managed to ignore the sight of Lieutenant Chiang sliding toward the failing barrier.

Slowly but insistently, Obal plied the last couple of meters of his journey and reached the console. Then he hung on to it against the pull of space as he surveyed its colored studs and touch-sensitive pads.

In his Academy class he had had no trouble remembering which stud did what. Now, with so much riding on his actions, he found the task a bit more difficult.

That one, he decided at last, singling out a square blue stud. And he pushed it down as hard as he could.

For a moment, Obal feared he had made the wrong decision. Then he felt a let-up in the force that had been tugging at him. Looking up in the direction of the force field, he saw by the silver gleam along its perimeter that the back-up emitters had been activated.

There was a second force field in place, stopping the air from leaving the bay—along with everyone and everything in it. Obal drew a deep breath and expelled it. He was just glad he had noticed the red light in time.

Releasing the console with an understandable reluctance, he returned to Lieutenant Chiang’s still-unconscious form. Then he began dragging the man toward the exit again.

Jean-Luc Picard looked around his bridge at the devastation he and his officers had endured—the flaming control panels and the clouds of black smoke and the persistent blasts of white plasma—and hoped it had all been worth it.

He turned to Vigo. “Did you get it—the signal emitter?”

The Pandrilite shrugged his massive shoulders. “I don’t know, sir. I think . . .” But he couldn’t finish his sentence. All he could do was shrug a second time.

Picard turned to Gerda’s control console, which had survived the battle to this point. Her radar monitor still showed the movements of the Cochise as a green blip.

But unless the captain was mistaken, the Cochise wasn’t coming around for another pass at its finally defenseless adversary. In fact, Greenbriar’s ship wasn’t going anywhere at all.

Picard looked to Gerda for confirmation. Looking up at him, she said, “They’re dead in the water, sir.”

And there could be only one reason for that. The Stargazer’s phaser assault had disabled the Cochise’s signal emitter. Greenbriar’s ship, though still well shielded and well powered, was completely and utterly blind.

Instinct, he thought. Either you’ve got it or you don’t.

The captain nodded in recognition of Gerda’s remark, then turned to Vigo. “Well done, Lieutenant.”

The weapons officer smiled at him. “Thank you, sir.”

Picard took in his other officers at a glance, settling on Idun last of all. “Well done, all of you.”

His helm officer nodded, a glint of satisfaction in her eyes. This was the sort of thing she lived for—she and Gerda both.

Finally, the captain considered the viewscreen, which had reverted to an image of the gas clouds surrounding them. “Mr. Paxton,” he said, “see if you can raise Captain Greenbriar.”

In a matter of moments, Greenbriar appeared on the viewscreen. For a man who had just lost a space battle, he didn’t look very disappointed. He seemed as pleasant and easygoing as if he and Picard were standing around the punch bowl at McAteer’s cocktail party.

“Good shooting,” Greenbriar told him. “My compliments to your weapons officer.”

Picard didn’t feel inclined to join in the jocularity. “What’s going on here, Captain?”

The other man frowned, accentuating the lines in his seamed face. “I guess there’s no point in trying to conceal it any longer.”

But Greenbriar’s tone of voice belied his expression of resignation. It suggested that he was stalling for time, still looking for a way to secure the victory.

Picard glared at him. He was through playing games, especially the sort that put the welfare of his ship and crew at risk. “The truth, Captain. And I mean now.”

Greenbriar regarded him for a moment. Then he nodded soberly, appearing to accept the fact that he was out of options.

“I’d appreciate it if we could speak in private,” he said.

Picard considered it for a moment. Then he turned to Ben Zoma. “I’ll be in my ready room. You’ve got the bridge.”

His first officer nodded, though he would no doubt have preferred to hear what Greenbriar had to say. “Aye, sir.”

Casting a last wary glance at the viewscreen, Picard repaired to his ready room.