Riker’s blue eyes flashed concern, anger, desperation. “Your world needs you now. So you need to help mehelp you!”
The news chilled Harn to the marrow. He allowed his gaze to drop again to the deck for a measureless time. Then he looked straight into Riker’s impatient, oddly hued eyes.
“What must I do?”
STARDATE 57037.2
Melora Pazlar felt apprehension twisting in the pit of her stomach as she and the others listened to Commander Tuvok. Fifty-three specialists had been hastily assembled in the launch bay, including among them every available security officer, most of the medical staff, those with piloting capabilities, several engineers, and various members of the exobiology department.
“What makes our shuttles any more resistant to the protouniverse’s energy discharges than the Neyel vessels?” Lieutenant T’Lirin asked. Pazlar saw others nodding in agreement with the Vulcan security officer’s entirely logical question.
“While the actual physical threat to our shuttles is as grave as that facing the Neyel craft, our technological capabilities are significantly more advanced than theirs,” Tuvok said. “Our sensors will allow us to pinpoint in advance the likeliest sites of energetic interactions between the protouniverse and normal space. Even those few moments of forewarning should give us sufficient time to take appropriate evasive maneuvers and reinforce our shields as necessary.”
Pazlar could only hope that Tuvok was right about that, though she already had her doubts as to how much protection any deflector shield system could provide. After all, space itself—including, very possibly, the space occupied by Titanand her eight shuttlecraft—was actually breaking down. She knew she was about to face a trial by fire.
Of course, today wouldn’t be her first such experience. In addition to her skills as a stellar cartographer, Pazlar had maintained excellent pilot credentials over the years. She was used to evac missions, having flown in nine of them while stationed aboard the Aegripposduring the Dominion War. But in those days, her chief worries during her rescue assignments had been enemy ships and their firepower; here, today, she was going up against an entity more powerful than anything ever encountered by either side during the war.
Lieutenant Bowan Radowski moved forward in response to Tuvok’s curt nod. “Coordination of the transporters from the shuttlecraft to the Vanguard habitat will be handled as much as possible from aboard Titan,aided by three of the Romulan ships that will be dedicated solely to this task,” he said. “However, when you’re in the thick of things down on Oghen, we will likely be unable to help you. The catastrophes that are occurring all over the planet will compound the problems for your rescue efforts. Because of the subspace interference being generated by the protouniverse, we’re expecting to have a difficult time achieving transporter locks on targets entirely from orbit. That’s where you shuttle teams come in, identifying en masse targets at close range and relaying the transporter locks to the orbiting rescue fleet ships. At the same time, you’ll be using your shuttlecraft’s own transporters to round up stray refugees; if the best you can do is to grab a few individuals at random, then that’s what you’ll have to do.”
Pazlar felt yet another pang of anxiety, but didn’t voice the question that gnawed at her. How do we decide who to save and who to leave here to die?She could see from the pained, somber expressions all around her that others were likely wrestling with the very same question.
It was a huge question, she realized, and answerable only in that it was patently unanswerable. She had to make a conscious decision not to listen to the small voice inside her that continued to ask it, and hoped everyone else could do likewise. Otherwise, we’ll be paralyzed with indecision. And if that happens, how can we rescueanybody ?
“Once your shuttles are full, break every speed record you can to return to the Vanguard habitat,” Radowski said, his dark-skinned features looking strained and serious. “Since the transporters aboard your shuttlecraft may not be powerful enough to penetrate Vanguard’s crust, we’ll use Titan’s transporters and those of the Romulans to offload every survivor you have, so you can get back to the surface of Oghen as quickly as possible.”
Ranul Keru stepped forward as Radowski finished. The security chief clearly wasn’t operating at full bore—his skin still had an ashen tone, and Pazlar could see bulky bandages underneath his loose-fitting uniform tunic—but she had to admire his tenacious devotion to his duties.
“The main reason that we’re having security aboard the shuttles—besides providing additional hands to carry out the rescue efforts—is that there will be no time to warn the Neyel or the other species down on Oghen of our efforts. As far as many of them know, we could be invaders who are kidnapping them to enslave them, or we could even be the cause of the disasters they’re facing.”
Aren’t we?Pazlar thought.
Keru continued: “Therefore a big part of your job will be to contain and calm the crowds as they’re rescued, whether they trust you or not.”
As Keru spoke, Pazlar saw Tuvok exchange a look with Mekrikuk, the Reman who had, until minutes ago, still been confined to sickbay. For some reason that she found unfathomable—and which hadn’t yet been explained to anybody present—Tuvok had brought the Reman with him to the briefing.
Her gaze moved again, this time to Admiral Akaar, who stood to one side, apparently listening intently. Pazlar wasn’t at all certain why he was present, since he hadn’t opted to take direct control of any of the ground rescue missions. Perhaps he was the kind of man who could never be content to wait idly for the reports of subordinates, even when there was little he could actually contribute to the mission at hand.
The tall, gray-haired Capellan had been a paradox during the brief time she had known him so far; while she hadn’t appreciated his commandeering of the stellar cartography labs in Titan’s pre-launch phase and the early days of their first mission, he had been nothing but charming and deferential to her and most of the officers with whom she had seen him interacting. The only friction she had witnessed at all seemed to be directed at Captain Riker and Commander Troi, and even that seemed to have lessened greatly over the last week or so. Pazlar assumed that Akaar was present now in order to ascertain that Starfleet protocols were being followed to the letter, since the admiral wouldn’t be participating directly in the evac mission.
Keru finished speaking, and Tuvok began handing out specific shuttle assignments. All eight of the type-11 shuttles were being deployed. Pazlar was given the shuttlecraft Gillespieto pilot, along with a crew compliment of six: Lieutenant Pava Ek’Noor sh’Aqabaa, an elite member of the security force and an Andorian; Lieutenant Eviku, the Arkenite exobiologist; Ensign Vanda Kaplanczyk, a human conn officer who would act as Pazlar’s second; Dr. Ree, Titan’s Pahkwa-thanh chief medical officer; and Cadet Torvig Bu-kar-nguv, a Choblik engineering trainee.
As her team assembled around her, Pazlar wondered how many of the doomed Neyel and other races they would actually be able to save.
STARDATE 57037.3
“When are you going to tell her, Will?”
Standing beside his command chair, Riker regarded Deanna with a slight scowl. He wasn’t certain how best to break the news to Donatra that their plan to halt the advance of the protouniverse might involve the destruction of a good number of her fleet’s ships.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “When I think the time is right. For now, our immediate concern is making certain that the rescue operation goes well.”
He knew he wouldn’t be able to rely on his wife to help him identify that “right moment.” She was going to be on the Vanguard habitat, along with Christine Vale, a dozen engineers and other crew, and the Neyel soldiers he had deputized as officers of the peace. The hope was that they would be able to get the habitat out of mothballs and spaceworthy enough to be towed back to the spatial rift without killing the hordes of refugees that were about to be crammed aboard her. Fortunately, Jaza had determined that Vanguard still contained an acceptably breathable, if stale, atmosphere.