“Shields up,” he snapped, allowing his anger at what had been inflicted upon his ship and crew to seep into his voice. “Target all weapons on that thing and prepare to fire.” Before his order was acknowledged, he saw the black mass on the screen lunge out of the debris field it had created. At the same time, another alarm wailed across the bridge.
“Proximity alert,” reported his weapons officer, Lieutenant Jessica Diamond. “It’s coming straight at us!”
The next instant, the Lovelltrembled and the image on the main viewscreen scrambled and flashed blue as something impacted against the ship’s deflector shields. This prompted yet another alarm, which Okagawa ordered silenced. “Fire!” he shouted.
“I can’t get a lock,” Diamond called out. “It’s too close!” Then her voice seemed to raise an octave as she added, “Shields are failing!”
Feeling powerless as he watched the black form spread and expand to fill the viewscreen, Okagawa felt the ship quake around him as the Shedai broke through the deflector shields and slammed itself into the Lovell’s hull. The deck lurched beneath his feet, and he stumbled backward and fell against the side of his chair. Multiple alarms erupted around the bridge and Okagawa saw status indicators at different stations begin to flash bright red. Somewhere beyond the ship’s multiple layers of hull plating, he heard the unmistakable groans and shrieks of metal being torn asunder.
“Multiple breaches across the front of the hull!” Diamond shouted from where she was holding on to the edge of her console in order to remain on her feet.
“Evacuate those sections!” Okagawa ordered. As he tried to figure out how many seconds remained before the Shedai punctured the hull, the captain realized he had one last card to play: the self-destruct protocol. Would it be enough to take the Shedai with them? There was only one way to find out, but only if the alien granted him the time needed to carry out the last-ditch act.
One way to find that out, too.
Another indicator tone sounded from Diamond’s station, and the weapons officer said, “Captain! It’s the Sagittarius!”
Before Okagawa could respond to that, the image on the viewscreen shifted yet again, and this time the Shedai seemed to be reacting to something. It jerked violently, pulling itself away so that stars along with the wreckage of the Lovell’s engineering hull once again were visible. Then bright blue beams cut across the screen, striking the Shedai and sending it tumbling away from view.
“Track it!” Okagawa snapped, and the image shifted to maintain the Shedai at its center as it continued to writhe from the assault on it. The phaser beams were hitting it in rapid succession now, strike after strike, with each blow inflicting noticeable distress on the entity. “Fire all weapons!” he ordered. At the helm, Sasha Rodriguez stabbed at her weapons controls and the Lovell’s phasers joined the fray. Like those of the Sagittarius,the Lovell’s phasers had been retuned in accordance with specifications provided by the small scout vessel’s chief engineer. According to Captain Nassir, the refinements had been developed after the Sagittarius’s encounter with a Shedai on Jinoteur IV. Whatever the engineer had devised, it seemed to be working.
“It’s weakening!” Diamond shouted, but then added, “Some, that is, but the phasers are having an effect.”
“Maintain firing,” Okagawa ordered, taking a small bit of un-wonted satisfaction each time a phaser strike impacted against the Shedai’s body.
Then, the Shedai disappeared. There was no flash or explosion; it simply was gone.
“What the hell just happened?” Okagawa asked, not turning from the screen as he searched for some signs of the entity.
“I don’t know, sir,” Diamond replied, and the captain heard the confusion in her voice. “It’s just gone.” She tapped several controls on her console before looking up from her station. “I think it fled, sir.”
Frowning, he turned to regard his science officer. “Fled?”
Diamond nodded. “Yes, sir. Sensors did detect its departure from the system, but it was moving so fast there was no way to track it.” She glanced toward the viewscreen before returning her gaze to Okagawa. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Waving away her apology, Okagawa returned his attention to the viewscreen. “Nothing you could have done, Lieutenant.” After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder toward the communications station. “Ensign Pzial, hail the Sagittariusand offer Captain Nassir my thanks, and tell him to let his chief engineer know that he is one talented bastard. I’d love to have him if he wants to jump ship.”
For whatever’s left of this one.
The thought was enough to redirect his gaze to the screen, where the expanding cloud of debris that had been the Lovell’s secondary hull drifted. His mind turned to questions of the being that had caused such destruction. Where had the Shedai gone? More important, when would it be back? Okagawa did not know, and answers likely would not be forthcoming today. For now, there were more important things to do, such as pausing to reflect and appreciate Araev zh’Rhun and Kurt Davis, who had given their lives in order to save their shipmates.
“Thank you,” Okagawa whispered.
37
Free!
The Shedai Wanderer drove herself deeper into the void, away from the Telinaruuland her cursed prison. She felt nothing but the boundless energies of the cosmos itself. The weakness and pain inflicted by the Telinaruulweapons was already beginning to fade, further displaced with every passing moment by the power she had longed to regain. Temptation surged within her, willing her to reverse her course and continue the retribution she had only just begun to inflict now that she was regaining her strength.
No, she decided. Despite their limitations, the Telinaruulwere never again to be underestimated. They had succeeded in seizing some imperfect yet adequate control over technologies that they would never possess the capability to fully understand, and they still held the Progenitor captive, though the Wanderer was certain the parasites were ignorant of the prize in their midst. For that alone, they deserved annihilation. Even with their meager comprehension, the upstarts still posed a threat. Given sufficient time, they might well improve their awareness of the power in their grasp. What then? Would they come after her, and those Shedai that still remained? What had once seemed implausible whimsy now carried a seed of possibility. That alone was sufficient not to risk further misjudgment of their intellect and ability. After all, it was such arrogance and self-assurance that generations ago had forced the Shedai to seek their self-imposed exile. Such mistakes could not be repeated, not if her people were to return to their former glory. It was the destiny of the Shedai to rule, to force the galaxy to bend to their will.
In order to succeed, the Wanderer knew from this point forward that she must cease thinking of these Telinaruulas minions, and embrace them for what they truly were: the enemy. The danger they posed was significant. They were adversaries to be respected, if not feared. They must be viewed as skilled, if not superior. Her options were few, but not exhausted, and victory would be difficult, but not impossible.