“QaleghmeH Qaq DaHjaj,”Riker said with a small wry smile. “Nice to see you, too, Captain Tchev. Thanks for keeping the porch light burning for us, by the way.”
Despite his good-humored banter, Riker found that he had to push back a small feeling of resentment; he reminded himself that Tchev’s refusal to assist in the Oghen evacuation stemmed from the horrendously damaged condition of his ship rather than from cowardice. Donatra hadn’t been wrong when she’d pointed out that the Dughneeded far more help in getting home than Tchev could contribute.
“We would not have waited for you much longer, Captain. The local spatial effects are becoming more intense by the hour.”
Riker wondered whether the Dughcould have survived another crossing through the anomaly on its own, but declined to speculate on the matter aloud. If Tchev needed a tow, Riker would see to it without going out of his way to humiliate the Klingons.
“Then we won’t waste any more time getting our ships under way,” Riker said.
Tchev grunted just before he and Dekri vanished, their images supplanted by that of the roiling spatial rift. Riker supposed that the Klingon captain’s surlier-than-usual mood had been inspired by the Dugh’s present vulnerability, and its unaccustomed reliance on outside aid. My old friend Klag got used to having just one good arm,Riker thought. So I think you’ll get over having your ship towed home, Tchev. Eventually.
“Incoming hail, Captain,” Dakal reported crisply. “It’s the Valdore.”
“On screen, Cadet.”
A moment later, Riker’s Romulan counterpart regarded him from the center of the viewscreen. “Captain Riker. My apologies for not calling you in time to offer my regards to Captain Tchev.”
Though her face was impassive, something smoldered behind her dark eyes. At that moment he had never wanted Deanna at his side more badly. Donatra was listening in on my conversation with Tchev,he thought. And she doesn’t mind letting me know about it.
He forced those dark thoughts aside; it was time to get down to business. “Titanis ready to move out. We’ll take the Dughin tow, since your fleet is already doing so much of the work of moving the Vanguard habitat.”
Donatra slowly shook her head. “I am concerned thatTitan may stretch her resources too thin by towing theDugh , Captain.”
“It’s nothing my chief engineer can’t handle.”
“But the lives of my crews depend on your enhanced sensing equipment keeping us clear of spatial disruptions. As well as the lives of the millions aboard that asteroid colony.”
Riker couldn’t find fault with Donatra’s logic. With so many dozens of powerful Romulan tractor beams drawing Vanguard and the Dughtoward the spatial rift, the absence of Titan’s tractors wouldn’t make much difference; the energy necessary to run them would indeed be better applied to warning the convoy of the potentially lethal spatial distortions and zero-point discharges that kept popping up from moment to moment.
“All right, Commander,” Riker said. “I have no objection to your fleet towing the Dugh.Captain Tchev might not agree, though.”
“He would appear to have few viable alternatives, Captain. Unless he is more eager than I think he is to fly straight into whatever afterworld his people believe in. At any rate, my fleet will be ready to enter the Great Bloom”—she turned away momentarily, apparently to consult with a subordinate— “in five of your minutes.Valdore out.”
Donatra abruptly vanished. In her place on the viewscreen appeared the Red King’s long energy tendrils, brilliant against the stygian blackness of Magellanic space. They seemed to beckon Titanforward, toward the phenomenon’s dark central maw.
Or perhaps they were trying to warn her to stay away.
VANGUARD
“We’re all going to die here, Frane,” Nozomi said, her lovely, gray face shadowed and haunted in the habitat’s dim interior illumination. With over two million people now dependent upon Holy Vangar for their survival—a far greater number than had ever before ridden aboard the Sacred Vessel—all resources were at a premium, including energy for the lights.
At that precise moment, Holy Vangar shuddered and rocked like a gigantic bell struck by an equally colossal clapper. The lights dimmed even further, and Frane could feel the intense vibrations rising into his legs and hips through his bare feet, which were splayed on the cold stone floor. He reached out and grabbed Nozomi, preventing her from falling as his tail reached out to anchor his body against one of the ancient public gallery’s many metal railings. Shouts and cries spread through the crowd like a chill stormwind blowing through stalks of grain.
Somewhere, lost inside that increasingly agitated multitude, were Lofi, g’Ishea, and Fasaryl, the three non-Neyel members of Frane’s Seekers After Penance prayersect. Hours after the chaotic mass motions of the crowd had separated Frane and Nozomi from their spiritual brethren, Frane could only hope that they were still all right.
Watching the milling throng of confused and bedraggled refugees—Frane supposed there were thousands of Neyel of all ages present in this gallery alone, mixed with what might have been dozens or perhaps even hundreds of Oghen aboriginals—Frane was hard-pressed to tell Nozomi that she was wrong. If these people succumb to panic,he thought, then we’ll all be just as doomed as if Vangar had collided with a neutron star.
Frane took both of Nozomi’s hands between his own. He spoke soothingly to her, as though by calming Nozomi he might also comfort all two-million-plus of the lost, homeless souls who now clung to life within the very same habitat that had brought the First Neyel to the Coreworld of Oghen centuries ago.
“We didn’t survive the destruction of the Coreworld only to die in the Sleeper’s shadow,” he told her, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt. “Riker will see us safely beyond His reach.”
“How can you be so certain of that?”
He wasn’tcertain, not in the slightest. But if he didn’t cling to hope, then what did he have left? He considered mentioning a Starfleet mission report he had listened to shortly after he had first come aboard Titan;the translated audio recounted how a much smaller number of vessels had successfully tractored an enormous space station across an interstellar distance. There was no reason to doubt that Titanand the Romulan flotilla could accomplish the same feat with Holy Vangar.
As he gazed silently into her deep, dark eyes, a sudden inspiration seized him, prompting him to put aside the space station tale. Instead, he raised his right hand, allowing the sleeve to draw itself back in Vangar’s gentle, spin-generated artificial gravity.
“I’m certain we’re going to make it because I still have to take thisback to where it belongs,” Frane said, holding his story bracelet up and turning it into the dim light so she could see it clearly.
“Your father’s wristlet?” Nozomi said, clearly puzzled. “But there’s no way to bring it home, Frane. The Sleeper has swept the Coreworld away.”
His answer was interrupted by a low rumble that he felt coming up from beneath the stone floor—“down” being the direction of Holy Vangar’s outer crust—just before he actually heard it. Then came a roaring detonation whose report swiftly reached deafening proportions even as it rocked the Holy Vessel far more roughly than any previous blow the habitat had sustained.
An alarm klaxon, unused for ages and nearly inaudible beneath the rising din, echoed across the cavernous gallery.