Not to mention themselves.
Chapter Sixteen
VANGUARD
K’chak’!’op felt completely at home within the Vanguard habitat. This discovery greatly surprised her. She had been among the first set of Titancrew members to be dispatched to the artificial world, alongside Deanna Troi, Christine Vale, Engineer Crandall, Counselor Huilan, Dr. Cethente, and about a dozen others.
Frane, Titan’s most prominent Neyel guest, had hand-picked a number of the Neyel military personnel who had accompanied them as well, and now everyone was busy trying to revive the sleeping world. The previously uncooperative Neyel commandos had apparently been much easier to convince to help once they had been shown the destruction taking place on Oghen, and the specific plans that Titanand the Romulans had formulated to save as many of its inhabitants as possible by transporting them to the Vanguard habitat.
K’chak’!’op worked steadily at the ancient computers, utilizing her foremost pair of legs, and all twelve of the tentacles that protruded from her head segment. The system was so archaic as to be laughable; it would be up to her and the team of engineers to retrofit the habitat’s internal structure as quickly as possible to make certain it was up to the stresses of towing, warp travel, and passage through the spatial rift through which Titanhad initially arrived here.
According to the chatter on the comm system, another huge wave of Neyel refugees had just been beamed in from Titanand Donatra’s fleet, meaning that probably not many more mass transports would be necessary before the habitat teemed with a million or more sentients. The shuttle teams conducting their targeted rescues, and the transport engineers across the rescue flotilla, appeared to be doing their jobs very well indeed.
K’chak’!’op’s attention was drawn to a cheer she heard coming over the comm system. This wasn’t coming from inside the asteroid habitat, but rather from another source: it appeared that the shuttlecraft Holliday,the shuttlecraft Marcellis,and three Romulan craft had just arrived from the surface, carrying between them scores of Neyel and other natives who hadn’t been reached by the last round of mass beam-ups. The exact information was too garbled for her translator/voder to accurately parse, but she gleaned enough good news from the transmission to buoy her spirits considerably.
She felt a tug against her mid-leg, and turned her head around to view whomever had interrupted her. She was surprised to see the multipartite member of the Seekers of Penance—Lofi, if she recalled the sentient’s name correctly—and the almost bovine-looking companion of the independently-segmented creature.
“We wish to aid you,” Lofi said. “However we can. I have some experience with Neyel computers, and Fasaryl was a cro’loog’fin’shalfor his people before his apprin-dining.”
K’chak’!’op wasn’t quite sure what Lofi had just said, but she assumed she should be grateful for the offer. “Whatever help you can offer will be received gladly,” she said, her undulating tentacles signing her words, which her translator/voder dutifully rendered into what she hoped was passable Neyel.
And though the space around her had become slightly more cramped with the arrival of the two Seekers, K’chak’!’op felt comforted to be working alongside two others whose hearts and minds were sure to be as focused as hers was on the task at hand.
SHUTTLECRAFT BEIDERBECKE
To his credit, Hachesa had managed to activate the navigational deflector and raise the shields just prior to the shuttle’s inundation and submersion. The cockpit bulkhead had automatically sealed as well, protecting the forward cabin both from the elements and the frantic refugees.
Fortunately, the Beiderbecke’s shields had held, keeping the deluge outside at bay; the fact that everyone on the shuttle other than the pilots was also being kept out of the cockpit was a side benefit that gave desYog and Hachesa a few valuable moments to collect themselves.
DesYog scanned the instrument panels, ignoring the murk-filled forward windows in favor of the images on the monitor screens set into the panel below them. What the screens showed was hazy at best, however; all desYog could tell was that multiple indistinct objects were tumbling through the brine toward the shuttlecraft.
“We’re definite upside-down,” Hachesa said, running his hands over the companels again. “That way is up,” he added, pointing toward the deck.
The artificial gravity, which had kicked on automatically when the shuttle had rolled onto its back, was so comforting it almost disoriented him. But desYog knew that the feeling was illusory. He entered some commands into the computer, and felt the ship begin to move around him.
Suddenly, something large and dark smashed into the forward window. It appeared to be a piece of a building, but it was difficult to tell given the dim illumination in the water. Sparks shot out of one of the upper panels, alighting on desYog’s wings, which were folded neatly behind him.
I can’t worry about a few singed feathers,he thought, glad that his outer flocking lacked neural sensation. A quick glance at the console displays confirmed what the sparks had announced: The shields were failing.
“Shields are down to thirty-seven percent,” Hachesa said. “We’ve got to get out of here. I think we can survive long enough to reach the habitat, but we can’t take this water pressure much longer.”
The companel crackled to life. “DesYog, Hachesa, are you there?”Sortollo’s voice was nervous, rattled.
“We’re fine, Lieutenant,” desYog said. “We’re attempting to get the Beiderbeckeout of here now.”
He pushed the controls and felt the craft shudder slightly as it rose through the crushing weight of water. Something dark came at them from ahead, and he pushed the shuttle even harder. They skimmed over the dark thing, narrowly avoiding it.
A bovine body slammed into the forward window with a sickening thud, then vanished into the receding murk. DesYog tried not to think about all the dead and dying they were leaving behind. All the ones they had failed to rescue.
“Ten meters to the surface,” Hachesa said. “Looks like we’ll soon be in the clearly.”
DesYog decided to allow his relief over the team’s survival to distract him from the Kobliad’s irritating abuse of Federation Standard.
The Beiderbeckebroke the surface and pushed upward, into the dusky, smoke-clogged skies of a dying planet.
U.S.S. TITAN,STARDATE 57037.8
Akaar watched the monitors in the aft section of Titan’s bridge as the shuttlecraft Handyhovered near the Vanguard habitat, matching velocities with it. Tuvok’s ship had returned from its third trip with another dozen survivors, after having assisted Titanand the Romulan fleet in locking onto and beaming up thousands more.
The Vulcan also related some surprising news.
“A refugee group we contacted has refused to listen to logic, Captain,”Tuvok said from the main viewscreen at the front of the bridge. “Apparently, their religion forbids them to use any sort of high technology. We were forced to go to another relatively undamaged settlement to rescue others instead.”
“Then there’s nothing more we can do to help them,” Captain Riker said, his voice grave. “Continue toward the next target. Your team has still been more successful than most, even with this setback.”