“Aye, sir,” the Bolian replied, snapping into action.
“Commander,” the female at the helm console called out, “they’re coming around again.”
“Continue evasive,” Easton ordered before looking to Reyes again. “They can carve this ship up like a holiday roast. The only question is why they haven’t done it yet.”
Ket reported from the aft bridge station. “Channel open, sir.”
Casting aside his current status of prisoner and once more embracing the persona that had defined him for his entire adult life, Reyes cleared his throat. “Unidentified vessel, this is Commodore Diego Reyes, commanding the U.S.S. Nowlan.” He shrugged, mouthing an apology to Easton before continuing. “We are on a peaceful mission and pose no threat to you. Please state your intentions.” He waited with the rest of the bridge crew for a response, wondering just what the hell he might say if and when anyone actually answered him.
The reply to his query came in the form of another salvo rocking the transport. Reyes was thrown to his right and reached for Easton’s command chair to keep from falling. Easton grabbed the back of the sensor officer’s chair, and everyone held on as lights, monitors, and consoles across the bridge flickered in the face of widespread power disruptions.
“Shields are down,” reported the man at the sensor console. “Forward phaser banks are offline.”
Another salvo slammed into the ship, this time throwing the helm officer from her chair and slamming her to the deck. The alarm sirens wailed once more, deafening within the compact bridge. Still gripping the center seat, Reyes kept his feet and, without thinking, lunged for the helm, his eyes rapidly taking in the console’s various status readings.
“Damage report!” Easton ordered from where he knelt next to his fallen helm officer. Reyes glanced down at her, unsure if she was unconscious or dead. The odor of burnt circuitry assailed his nostrils, and he glanced around the bridge in search of the source. Nothing presented itself, but Reyes was sure that the last attack had overloaded systems across the ship. Without shields, the Nowlanmight survive one more salvo, but Reyes doubted it.
The rattled lieutenant at the sensor station replied, “Hull breach on Cargo Deck Five, but it’s contained. I’m also reading a coolant leak in engineering.”
That would explain them not responding,Reyes knew. A coolant leak almost certainly meant an evacuation of that entire area of the ship, at least until the engineering crew could don oxygen masks, if not full environment suits.
A crimson indicator flashed on his console, and he called over his shoulder, “Here they come again.” It took another few seconds before the lieutenant manning the sensors looked up from his station and said aloud what Reyes’s gut was already telling him.
“All of their weapons are hot.”
“No response to our hails!” Ket shouted over the Klaxon from the rear of the bridge. “I’ve tried sending out a distress call, but they’re jamming our signals!”
This is it.
The lone thought echoed in Reyes’s mind as he watched the mysterious, unidentified ship growing larger on the main viewer, its blunt bow dominated by a pair of disruptor banks glowing fiery red.
“Here it comes!” Easton shouted. “Brace for impact!”
An instant later, the warship’s disruptors flared again, spitting forth hellish new spheres of barely harnessed energy, which filled the screen a heartbeat before the twin blasts struck the Nowlan’s unprotected hull.
When the ship trembled this time, Reyes knew it was the beginning of the vessel’s death throes and the end of everything else.
53
The words on the data slate taunted her. They danced before Desai’s eyes, remaining sharp and distinct as they hovered defiantly before her, refusing to be washed away by her tears.
TransportNowlan destroyed. Suspect attack by pirate vessel. No survivors.
It was a preliminary report, received from the Federation News Service, courtesy of the station’s main computer, and offering no details about the identity or allegiance of the attacking vessel. Admiral Nogura had arrived at her door before she read the article, to inform her personally about what had happened. Unfortunately, he had possessed only slightly more in the way of helpful information. The Nowlan’s disaster recorder buoy had been detected by the U.S.S. Gloucester,a Starfleet ship on long-range patrol in the Taurus Reach, its contents transferred to the vessel and then transmitted to the nearest Federation starbase—Vanguard. As for the recorder, the last log entry captured by the recorder before its launch from the ill-fated transport had been entered by the ship’s commanding officer. It contained no clues to the reasons for the attack.
Nogura departed at her request to be left alone. Desai lost count of the number of times she had read the FNS article. Her entire world shrank to nothing more than the compact screen before her, time ceasing to have any meaning as she commanded the device to provide new information. Instead, the data slate tortured her with the same soulless words and callous turns of phrase.
No survivors.
Tears streaming down her face, Desai threw the data slate across the room, and its molded polymer housing splintered as it slammed into the far wall before dropping to the carpeted floor of her quarters. She brought her knees to her chest and rolled to one side on her sofa, curling into a protective fetal ball.
Diego.
It was ludicrous, but she was certain she still smelled him, on her clothes, in her hair, on her skin still damp with sweat in the wake of their final night of passion. Raising her head, she looked to the end table next to the sofa and saw the framed photograph she had taken of him months earlier. She had caught him in a rare quiet moment, sitting on the grass somewhere in Fontana Meadow—part of the station’s terrestrial enclosure—looking down at something that had caught his attention. The corners of his mouth were turned upward in a wistful smile, as though he was enjoying a private joke. It was one of the few occasions when he had not appeared consumed by the burden of command, awash amid the dozens of decisions that had seemed to dominate his every waking minute. Desai never had asked him what he had been thinking just then, electing instead to allow him that fleeting moment of peaceful inner reflection.
And now, of course, she never would know.
Desai buried her head in the sofa cushion, unrelenting emptiness reaching out to grip her. It crushed her heart, driving her into a vast pit of darkness. She was alone here, plummeting ever deeper and making no effort to arrest her fall. What was the point? There was no one to save her and no one waiting for her upon her salvation. So be it.
The door chime sounded, intruding on her grief.
“Go away.”
A second chime echoed, wailing for attention. She repeated her call to be left alone, but the door only offered a third signal. Then the door opened, and Desai snapped to a sitting position, her anguish replaced—for the moment, at least—with anger.
“What the hell do you want?”
It was not until she hurled the question across the room that she realized who stood in her doorway. Ezekiel Fisher regarded her from the threshold, his dark eyes narrowed in concern, his mouth pressed shut in an expression of resolve.