Chapter Nine
"No. Like this. See? Try it. That's it. Now, when the yoyo is spinning at the end of its string like that we say it's 'asleep'. If you put the 'sleeping' yoyo against a flat surface, like so, see how it rolls along? That's called 'walking the dog', one of the simplest tricks. Now, Sarn, you try it."
"I've lived for eons, and this is the first time I've ever given anyone a yoyo lesson," remarked a grinning Kana.
The Vulcan was an adept pupil, and Kana was enjoying playing tutor. They were both in the cockpit, the stars hurtling by outside. Sarn didn't need to sleep as often as her human crewmates did, and Alex had given control of her body over to Kana before napping for a couple of hours, leaving her feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the Orion threat.
"I'm curious as to why you bought that little toy, Sarn. Isn't fun illogical? A human weakness?"
"You claimed to find this relaxing. An aid to clearing your mind. I am simply testing your theory."
"I see. And what have you decided?"
Sarn drew the yoyo back up its string and caught it at the height of its rise. "I am still gathering data."
"I see."
It was about more than one thing that Sarn was gathering her information. The ancient statue of the two Alex Nains was still firmly in her mind. Even before she had seen that statue she had observed that there seemed to be two sides to the helmsman. There was the regular Alex, happy and energetic, and then there was a darker, more serious Alex. The two were quite different in how they behaved and spoke, even their voices changed. They were more different than a simple change in mood could account for, but until she had seen the statue Sarn had allowed herself to be convinced that that was all it was. Now, she studied her shipmate more closely, and she was starting to think of Nain as two different people: Alex and Dark Alex.
Right now, she was most assuredly in the company of Dark Alex.
Lights started to flash on the flight console. Alex's yoyo shot out of control and she swore as she hastily balled up the string and struggled to remove the toy from her finger. Sarn watched closely. This was the regular Alex back again, the wide, cheerful eyes were all the proof that she needed of that.
She found it interesting that Dark Alex was such an expert with a yoyo, and yet Alex herself was incompetent with it. What could account for that?
Alex dropped the yoyo onto the vacant engineering position chair and took the helm. Sarn stood over her shoulder and asked, "What is happening?"
"Those alarms mean we're approaching our destination. We'll come out of warp in a few minutes. Hang on, I want to check on the Orions." She pressed a few buttons and a new graphic appeared on one of her monitors. She grinned broadly. "Excellent! Looks like they fell for my decoy. They're several hours behind us. That'll give us more time to set up our trap."
"I am interested to see what kind of trap you hope to make from a collection of derelicts, Alex."
"Then stay up here and watch closely," smiled Alex. "I think you'll find it fascinating. In fact, we might as well all be gathered up here. I'll have to tell everyone the plan at some point. It might as well be now." She pressed the comm. "Everyone, get up to the cockpit. Quick as you can."
Drake arrived almost immediately, while the three civilians took a while longer, and Susan came in rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Alex smiled at them all and said good morning, before outlining the situation. "We're about five minutes from the Graveyard. The Orions are hours behind us, which will give us plenty of time to prepare. This region is the remains of an ancient space battle, fought by starships hundreds of times more powerful than the Endeavour. Now, damage and time has pretty much ruined these ships, but there is one, a destroyer, that is still partially operational. My plan is to land on that ship, activate its weapons systems, and use them to wipe out the Orions."
"Risky plan," said Drake. "If the destroyer has suffered more damage than you think we could be in trouble."
"If only one of its point defence turrets works that'll still be more than enough to take out four Orion Hunters. Trust me, Will, you don't know how tough these old juggernauts were. But…you're about to see for yourself. Hold on, we're coming out of warp."
There was a slight lurch as the craft decelerated, and Alex apologised for not maintaining her inertial dampeners as well as she should. No one listened to her, though; they were all too busy staring at the forward view screens and out of the windows.
Hunks of debris the size of the Starship Endeavour turned slowly above and below them; the ruined remnants of a ship that had once dwarfed Mansfield station floated to starboard, so close and so massive that all they could see was a great wall of dark metal. This part of space was light years from any active star, and the only light came from the Shadow Wing's lanterns. The beams played across the rubble and the husks, plucking out tiny bits of detail against the sides of the immense ships.
"You weren't kidding about these things," said Lance.
"Nope. That really big thing on our right is a carrier. It had tens of thousands of fighters and corvettes in its bays; it even carried a small fleet of frigates docked to its outer hull. But even that thing's small potatoes compared to the two flagships."
"How big were they?" Drake asked.
"Each flagship carried two carriers."
Both Drake and Lance muttered something that Susan really shouldn't have heard.
"The ship we're heading for is a little smaller," Alex continued chirpily, steering her ship through the Graveyard. "It was a light destroyer. From what I've been able to work out, it was pounded by wave after wave of bombers from that carrier we've just passed. The destroyer captain wasn't as smart as you, Will; he got too close to a superior enemy and didn't have any backup. He got wasted, and not the good kind that involves booze."
A few minutes later, the destroyer came into view. Sarn could see what Alex meant about it having taken a pounding; most of the ship's hull had been blasted away, leaving just the blackened and warped superstructure. There was only a small intact section left, around an auxiliary control centre according to Alex. Small was a relative term with vessels of this size, of course – the surviving section was almost the size of the Endeavour's spherical hull.
"That thing's a wreck!" Exclaimed Lance. "It's even more broken than the other ones we've passed. There's no way you can get that working."
"I already have."
"Huh?"
"Years ago. I found this place long, long ago, before I even met you, Will. I spent months crawling through these derelicts, scavenging what I could, trying to get one of them to work again. This destroyer was the easiest to fix up. Its engine core and primary computer were largely undamaged. A bit of rewiring, some spare parts, and I got a few systems back online."
Drake looked doubtful as well. "You're sure it wasn't a different destroyer?"
"You'll see when we land. Oh, which reminds me; I powered down the ship before I abandoned it last time, so there won't be any atmosphere over there. We'll have to go aboard in space suits."
"Do you have a child's suit for Susan?" Asked Miranda, not without sarcasm.
"Nope. Okay, here's what we'll do: Will and I will go aboard in suits. We'll power up the ship and restore life support. Then the rest of you can beam over using the Wing's transporter."
"The transporter?"
"It's perfectly safe."
"Says the person not using it," remarked Lance.
Alex chuckled, but it was more because of the rather inappropriate comment that Kana had just made than it was out of patience with Riker. She didn't like having her plans questioned. From Kana or Will, or even Sarn, she would be tolerant, but no one else had the right.
The Shadow Wing ducked in through one of the hull breaches and berthed in what had once been an ammunition storage bay. There were still hundreds of ancient torpedoes loaded on racks, but most of the ordinance had long since floated out into space. Alex secured her ship with a low-power tractor beam and shut down the engines.
A few minutes later, two spacesuited figures floated out of the ship's starboard airlock. Alex led the way, using little taps from her suit's thrusters to ease her in the direction of the bay's door. It was locked down and sealed, but she had opened it before, the last time that she had visited this derelict. She removed a panel next to the door and played with something behind it; the locks silently popped out of place, and with Drake's help she was able to force the door open. They resealed it behind them.
"How far to the control room?" Asked Drake, who was thinking of the Orions. They were still hours away, but that was far too close for his liking. No matter what Alex said, he couldn't believe this ruined starship would ever pressurise again, let alone fight again.
"It's at the end of this corridor." She floated down the gravity-less passageway, pushing against the walls to propel herself forward. Drake was impressed by her easy way in zero gravity. The last time he had experienced free fall had been during his Starfleet training, many years ago now. He was pleased that he remembered enough not to embarrass himself.
The destroyer's auxiliary control centre was as large as the Endeavour's bridge, but far more cramped. Its consoles were arranged in rows, rather than built into the walls as the Federation ship's were, and the rows were as tightly packed as possible. At first the captain assumed that this meant these aliens hadn't had as efficient control methods as Starfleet, but then he realised that a ship as big and complex as this one would be exponentially more difficult to look after than his comparatively puny Endeavour.
Alex stopped herself above the only workstation that still had any power. Its screens were inactive, but the lights beneath its vast bank of buttons glowed softly. Drake couldn't read the characters painted onto the controls, and doubted that the universal translator would make any sense of them either, but after taking a moment to refamiliarise herself with the layout, Alex began to tap away rapidly, as easily as he might use a conventional QWERTY keyboard.
"This is the environmental control station. When I abandoned the ship last time I shut everything else down, and I put this console on standby. If none of the circuits have been damaged we should be able to…yes!"
The ship rumbled as it came back to life, generators that had been ticking over on idle ramping up to full power, lights flickered on throughout the ship, followed by gravity and life support. After a few minutes, Alex unsealed and removed her helmet. Drake followed suit. The air was dry and stale, but breathable.
"We're very lucky. The auxiliary life support tanks weren't damaged in the attack, but over the centuries their contents have slowly evaporated into space. A few more decades and they'll be completely empty. For now, there's enough air in the tanks to make this part of the ship habitable."
"What about the rest of the systems?"
"Let me check." She moved around to another console and spent a few moments studying the complex graphics on its screen. "Hmm…looks like the ship collided with a piece of debris since I was last here. Half of the gun banks have been wrecked. Still, there are still enough guns to cover us. Ah, now here's a bit of luck."
"What?"
"There are still some combat drones in the bay. They mustn't have had the chance to launch them all before they got knocked out of the old battle. If those still work they'll be a godsend to us. Okay, I'll check the drone bays if you'll organise getting the others over here. Tell them to beam over with as many weapons and as much food and medicine as they can carry."
"Why food?"
"Well, if any of the Orions get close enough they might torpedo the Wing to keep us from escaping. If that happens we'll have to sit around and wait for the Endeavour to pick us up."
"Good thought." He pressed his suit's comm and began to relay instructions to Sarn, while Alex slipped out of the control room and headed for the drone bay. Halfway down the corridor, she paused to strip out of her bulky spacesuit, which was impeding her movement horrible. Beneath it she wore only her underwear, but the ship's life support had already raised the ambient temperature to comfortable levels, and Alex had never been overburdened with modesty. Half naked, she descended through the ship's network of inter-level ladders until she reached the drone bay.
The destroyer's drones were each the size of a Starfleet shuttle, fitted with impulse engines, multiple gun ports and strong armour plating. They were designed to protect their base ship against fighter and bomber assault. As this ruin demonstrated, they weren't always sufficient.
"Are they functional, Kana?"
Her friend floated through each drone in turn, inspecting them with her inhuman senses. She returned to Alex and folded her arms. "Two of them are wreckage. The others are fully operational."
"Wicked. Five fighter drones. Let's get these things launched, shall we?"
"I think that would be a good idea, yes."
The launch tube was blocked, but Kana was able to clear it and they deployed the drones. Alex input the sensor signatures of the Orion ships as their targets, silently prayed that they wouldn't accidentally identify the Shadow Wing as a threat, and had them assume positions around the destroyer and then go into standby mode until they received a signal to activate. She would let the Hunters close with them, then turn on the drones when they were at point blank range.
When she returned to the control room the others were all present. She found Drake and Lance out in the corridor, building barricades from which they could shelter behind and fire at the Orions when they boarded. The women were in the control room. Sarn was studying the alien controls, while Miranda and Susan stood off to one side.
"This ship is fascinating," said Sarn. "After centuries in the void it should be destroyed."
"It was built to last."
"Evidently. Where does it get its power? It cannot run off conventional energy sources. Antimatter would have degraded into regular matter after such a long period of time."
"There's a quantum singularity at the heart of the engine core. Good for tens of thousands of years."
"Fascinating."
"Yeah, it is. Sarn, I'd love to tell you all about this thing. Later. After we're all safe."
"Of course. Proceed."
"I've set up a drone screen," Alex told them all, Drake and Lance having followed her in. "Here's my plan: when the Orions arrive we'll play dead at first, to draw them in. Once they're within our optimum range – which is actually pretty short – we'll open up with the ship's turrets. If that doesn't convince them to back off, or blow them up, the drones are our second line of defence; they'll activate as soon as the Hunters get close enough. Should the Orions get past all of that lot, we'll be down to fighting them here, on the ship. Where we landed the Wing is the only place they can board. I've activated the ship's internal force fields, that will prevent them from beaming on board, but it won't stop them from physically invading. Will and Lance, those barricades you've set up could come in really helpful."
"We were thinking that. We've already got weapons and ammo laid out."
"On the subject, we should take a trip to the ship's armoury. These guys had some awesome handheld weapons. If any are still working we'll be able to waste the Orions easy."
"I love your optimism," said Lance.
"Let me show you the armoury and you'll see why I have it."
There were a lot of weapons in the destroyer's armoury, ranging from pistols to what looked like bazookas. Alex helped herself to a weapon that looked like a hollow tube, about half a meter long. She then spent close to an hour scavenging parts from other weapons and bits and pieces from around the ship to get it working. At one point it looked like she wouldn't be able to repair it, and when she finally did get it working her face lit up like a child's at Christmas.
"This," introduced Alex, "is a particle cannon."
She pointed it into a decayed crew cabin and pulled the trigger. A wide cone of bright blue light spat from the barrel and turned everything it touched into slag. Alex rested the weapon against her shoulder and grinned. "Cool, huh?"
After a short argument, it was decided that Drake should get the particle cannon, being a Starfleet-trained man who was used to handling exotic weaponry. Lance fancied the look of a very mean looking rifle in the armoury, but Alex didn't have the time to fix anything else; the Orions were getting closer.
"If they board, Sarn and the men are in the corridor," said Alex to Miranda and Susan. "They're our first line. I have to stay here to operate the ship's defences. If the Orions get past my friends and yours, I'll protect you as best I can. In case that's not enough, take this. It's a standard Federation phase pistol, set to kill. Just point it and pull the trigger. That's all there is to it."
Miranda took the weapon and held it tightly to her, scared but determined.
"Out of curiosity, if the Orions reach us will you let me take over?"
"What's the point in keeping a secret that costs us our lives? Of course I will."
"Then why give her a weapon?"
"Because if they don't get here I won't have to tell her, will I? And it will seem a bit odd that I didn't give her anything to defend herself with."
The Orion Hunters came out of warp in a line and advanced on the destroyer. They were needle-shaped ships, dull green, their tips glowing where their weapons were charged and ready to fire.
Alex shot first. The ancient warship opened up with its remaining broadside. The turrets were designed to intercept and shoot down incoming missiles. But the missiles they had been intended to destroy had been capable of taking out carrier-class ships; they were big, well protected missiles.
Much better protected than the Hunters. Caught completely by surprise, two ships were reduced to rubble by the opening salvo. The second wave of destructive golden light obliterate a third Hunter, but by now the others had begun evasive manoeuvres, and the damaged old turrets couldn't track them fast enough.
The fighter-drones, designed to slaughter top enemy aces, had much better luck. Two drones engaged the remaining Orion Hunters; one drone shot all three down.
"That was easy," said Kana, disappointed.
Miranda was shocked. "What…what happened to all of your dire predictions about them boarding us…fighting to the last?"
"Well…" Alex shrugged. "Always expect the worst. Then you can be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen." She grinned and clapped her hands together. "Right, that's that, then. All that's left to do is get you three back to the Endeavour. That's the easy bit."
The other woman shook her head miserably. "No. That's not it. There's still the bounty. They won't stop hunting us."
"Let me handle that."