DANGER CLOSE
HB22147-a, High Orbit
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
Stardate 2261.28
- 1236 hours -
Fire Team Alpha squatted down in the airlock and tucked their phaser rifles into the storage racks on the bottoms of their backpacks, leaving their hands free to work thruster controls. All five of them - Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Rand, Ensign Reims, Ensign Barnheisel and Lieutenant Loganoff - were wearing the euphemistically named "Hazardous Encounter Suits," each with its own built-in overshields, thrusters, sensors, life support systems, even an enclosed transparent aluminum helmet with a heads-up display. The suits' inner layer had its own elastic pressure bladder that squeezed every inch of the wearer's body to maintain standard atmospheric pressure even in the vacuum of space, and with the combination of ballistic materials in the outer layer, overshields and shock absorbers, it could protect a Starfleet officer from from anything short of a thermonuclear explosion.
The other three fire teams were standing by in the other emergency airlocks in the neck of the ship and the shuttlebay further aft. One man in each fire team had a quad-pack of photon grenades clipped to his belt, while a second carried the football-sized casing of a portable deflector unit that could be used as a barricade if the team got cornered. Encounter suits were specifically set aside for situations that involved heavy combat in zero gravity and/or the total vacuum of space; apart from Rand, there were only a handful of people on the entire ship who were trained for this kind of mission, and all but three of them were waiting in the airlocks now.
Hopefully, Kirk thought, they wouldn't need to be replacing any of them today.
His communicator chirped, and instantly the voice of Lieutenant Sulu spilled out of the speaker in his helmet, "Captain, we're coming up alongside the Grazine at ten thousand meters. I have command of airlock purge protocols. Standby for jettison."
By the tone of his voice, Sulu was feeling as nervous about this as she was, maybe more so, because he knew that if anything went wrong with this part of the operation Kirk's team might not have enough propulsive power to correct their course. If he released them at the wrong time or on the wrong angle, they might also not have enough thrust to stop themselves before slamming into the ship's armored hull at hundreds of meters per second.
"Standby," Sulu said again, "Stand... by..."
Kirk never actually saw the hatch open. He thought he felt the ground drop away from his hands and feet, and then he was suddenly aware of the fact that he was in space, tumbling end-over-end in a fetal position that more or less mirrored the crouched position he'd had an instant ago. Training took over from here: he tapped the thruster controls in the palm of his glove and steadied himself, then waited for the display compass on his helmet to tell him where they were going.
The Cardassian warship was just up ahead, just ten kilometers away and closing fast. Behind him, Enterprise was banking hard over to port, counter-thrusting with its impulse engines and thrusters to kill its relative velocity and match the Grazine's orbit. He could almost smell the tension in the air as the bridge crew focused their efforts on keeping other aliens from interfering with this mission, illogical as that thought may have seemed to Spock.
He saw a trickle of motion on the Grazine's hull and watched several large gunports slide open, revealing turreted weapon mounts and missile launchers and other assorted unpleasantness. With their main engines disabled the ship probably didn't have enough power for its laser-based defenses, but Kirk understood that some of its smaller weapons were chemically-fueled slugthrowers that might just be good enough to repel a boarding action. Fortunately, they were too close to the Grazine for them to try shooting nuclear weapons at them... "Away Team, Actual," he announced, "Objective is non-cooperative, repeat, objective is non-cooperative. Take appropriate countermeasures now." Then he took his own advice: he reached down and tapped the control pad on his arm band, toggling the suit's built-in functions until he found its ECM settings. Like the standard tricorder used by away missions, the sensors on the Encounter Suit could modulate their impulses to jam hostile devices and communications. Unlike the standard tricorder, the Encounter Suit was powerful enough to scramble even the detection systems of some starships at all but suicidally close range.
"Enterprise to Away Team," Sulu again, calling from the bridge, "You have incoming fire. Recommend adjusting your entry point seven point five degrees towards the aft quarter to achieve high deflection angle on enemy weapons."
"Copy that, Enterprise. Away Team, Actual. Work your way aft a bit to throw off their shooters..."
The gun emplacements on the Cardassian hull started to flicker and a salvo of dim orange bolts raced away from the ship. Kirk fired his thrusters and slipped sideways, shifting his aiming point further aft; a stream of tracer rounds cut through space close to where he'd been a moment ago. Again on the thrusters, back and forth in random motions to keep the Cardassian gunners from guessing at her position. Their sensors couldn't completely resolve his course and speed, and all they could do now was fill the sky with bullets in the hope that he'd blunder into their path. And even if he did, his overshield would handle at least one direct hit.
All the while, Kirk watched the helmet display count down the distance to their target. At eight thousand meters, the Grazine looked like a skyscraper turned on its side, and Kirk actually tilted himself sideways to reinforce this impression. At four thousand meters, he realized that this perception was essentially correct: unlike every other starship he had ever seen, Grazine's deck plan was arranged perpendicular to its impulse drives so the crew could experience a semblance of gravity as long as the ship was under thrust. He made a note of that for later: despite the ship's angular silhouette, even without artificial gravity, this would be more like trying to take a very tall tower than a very long spacecraft. As it stood now, they were moving towards the base of the tower where the Enterprise's phaser blast had torn open the drive section. The climb through layers upon layers of Cardassian defenses promised to be interesting to say the least.
Just short of two thousand meters, Kirk felt something slam into his legs and felt himself tumbling in space. He used the hand jets in the suit's forearms to steady himself, and then checked his overshield to make sure it was still active. It was, but the power cells were drained to ninety percent. Kirk made a few small, sharp evasive moves to avoid further hits, and a second later was struck again, this time in the middle of his chest. The high-explosive shell knocked him almost completely off course and drained almost half his overshield; without the shield, it would have blown him to pieces.
The flak from the Grazine was getting thicker. Streams of tracer rounds zipped past him as he flew, passing over and under him, bracketing him on all sides. Smaller, short-range projectile weapons had started opening up too, and Kirk realized that somewhere down there the Cardassians must have sent some of their people out in space suits to try and repel what they now knew to be a boarding action. The small-arms fire wasn't quite a accurate as the heavier flak, but the Cardassians were firing so much that it didn't really have to be.
Kirk saw a stream of thick, grapefruit-sized tracers pass underneath him and then heard an electric snap on his radio, the power surge as someone's overshield revved up. "Rand to actual... I've been hit. My shields are down to seventy percent."
"They're putting it on thick, Captain," Loganoff said, "It's gonna get worse the closer we get..."
"Tighten up your formation and use the deflector pod," Kirk ordered, and again took his own advice. The six members of fireteam Alpha all formed a spherical formation around Lieutenant Loganoff, who immediately activated the portable deflector pod as soon as they were within range. An invisible sphere of repulsive energy now formed around them; Kirk saw the storms of burning projectiles being thrown at them with increasingly deadly accuracy, only to veer off at the last second and speed uselessly into space, harming nothing. The deflector pod wouldn't last very long, but it would get them the rest of the way there.
At five hundred meters, Kirk ordered, "Break cover, let's get in there," and, tapped the thruster controls and applied braking thrust, cutting his velocity by half. He covered the rest of the distance in half a minute and his suit thrusters slowed him to a speed comparable to a fast jog just before he pulled up his feet and planted them on the Grazine's armored hull. Three Encounter Suited figures landed in a loose pattern around him, and then the group of them were immdiately hit from all sides by gunfire from a dozen space-suited figures that had been waiting for them. Their shields registered the hits, the bullets deflected off into space; Kirk brought up his phaser and methodically shot them down after another, as did the rest of the team in turn. Their phaser blasts wouldn't penetrate through the Cardassians' heavy space suits, but bursting their pressure layers put the wearers very much out of the fight.
When the last of them were dispatched, Kirk looked down the length of the hull he could see the other two fire teams planting boots on the ship as well, picking off the hapless Cardassian defenders even before they made contact. It would take too long to check their status individually, and the team leaders knew to report in with coded beacons on their suits that reported their status as soon as Kirk looked for them. Every one of them reported: No casualties, ready for orders.
They'd be switching communications to coded channels now that they'd reached the ship. He gave them a few seconds to switch their communicators and then gave them their orders. "There's a jamming field active on this vessel, so we'll have to get inside it to get any sensor readings. Bravo and Charlie, breach forward and amidships and start your search there. Alpha team, we're going for their engineering section."
Lieutenant Rand chirped, "Have you seen their engines, Jim? Sulu peeled it like a banana."
"Which means there won't be any resistance there, will there? We'll breach aft and then work our way forwards until we run into somebody who complains."
"How are we supposed to breach the hull?"
Kirk reached behind him and took the phaser rifle off its storage rack on the bottom of his thruster back and dialed it up to full power in front of her. "How do you think?"
Rand was about to ask another question, but a bright rainbow-colored flash of light drew their combined attentions to the arrival of a Romulan battleship and a reminder that an even larger Klingon warbird wasn't far behind. This prompted the Lieutenant to pull out her own phaser rifle and gesture with one hand, "Engineering it is. Lead the way, Captain!"
.
- 1245 hours -
The rainbow-colored splash of a warp-driven starship exploded out in space, far off to starboard to form an almost right triangle between the Enterprise and the still-disabled Grazine. It was obviously the Kor'ah, even though Spock couldn't see its lines from this distance. He wondered if the Gorn ship was planning to join this melee, or for that matter even the Tholians...
"Picking up a disturbance," Uhura said from where she'd taken over the science console, as the viewscreen displayed a picture of a swirling apparition twisting against the star field like a black hole carving its way through the heavens. Then a flash of light, and suddenly the Gorn vessel was turning in space a few thousand kilometers off the Enterprise's bow, making a beeline for the nearby Grazine.
"Francium, Sir," Chekov said, in case there was any doubt.
"Small craft detected leaving the Romulan ship," Uhura added, "Heading for Grazine at high speed. I'm also detecting active weapon signatures from the Klingon vessel."
Spock's eyes narrowed in a moment of contemplation, "Are the Klingons targeting the Grazine?"
"No, Sir. They're locking their phasers on the Romulan ship..." a pause, then a puzzled expression, "I lost it... The bird of prey no longer appears on sensors."
"They must have cloaked. Fascinating..." Spock thought back for a moment as something else occurred to him, "They have cloaking devices small enough to hide their soldiers? Why isn't their shuttlecraft cloaked?"
"What if..." Uhura looked up brightly, "It has to be a decoy. Probably distracting the Cardassians from a cloaked shuttle at one of their airlocks."
"That would be the logical conclusion... what are the Gorn doing?"
Uhura adjusted the science console, slewing the navigational sensors towards the approaching Francium in the distance. What her scans revealed should have surprised no one, and yet, "Francium's releasing several small objects towards the Grazine at high speed. Look like smaller versions of their teleportation capsules..." then she flinched at a new reading on her scopes, "Transporter signals now. From the Klingon ship. Massive in volume... They must be beaming over by the hundreds."
Spock understood the implications immediately. Klingon sensors could no more penetrate the Cardassian jamming than their Starfleet counterparts, but the Klingons had thousands of troops on board their ship, every one of whom was deemed expendable. They were probably beaming blind, hoping that a few of their soldiers would materialize both intact and not inside of a bulkhead or an engine component. It was an ancient and well-known Klingon battle tactic: any defense, no matter how sophisticated, could be overwhelmed with a properly-structured swarm attack.
On the other hand, the Gorn presence suggested something Spock had only speculated about until now: the Romulans must have taken a few of their people as well, undoubtedly to discover whatever the Gorn had learned about the planet. It would have been difficult for them to do so without the abductions being noticed; they must have taken advantage of the confusion at Stonehenge.
Spock tapped the communications controls on the armrest, "Enterprise to away team. You have multiple boarding parties inbound on your position."
"Copy that, Enterprise," Kirk answered, sounding tired and a little shaken, "We'll try to hurry this up, but-"
Before Spock could ask for more information, the tactical display on the main viewscreen flashed a proximity warning, plotting the position of "verified hostiles" closing on their position. The distant Francium had fired a spread of its odd spinning torpedoes, several of which were now maneuvering to approach the Enterprise, but a few were veering off in the direction of the Kor'ah as well. Either the orbit commander was still running the show, or the deep space commander was too concerned about rescuing her people to bother sorting out friend from foe.
"Starboard tubes programmed for intercept," Sulu announced on reflex.
Nodding, Spock ordered, "Launch torpedoes on intercept pattern," before turning his attention back to the viewscreen, "Tactical display."
"Tactical plot on viewer," Chekov announced, and Spock watched the battlefield around them crystalize into clarity.
Kor'ah was maneuvering fast, banking sharply to starboard and then veering away from the Cardassian ship as the Gorn's torpedoes began to close in around it. Enterprise's six photon torpedo interceptors were moving fast to a pre-determined point ahead of the Gorn weapons; in just a few seconds, the two projectile formations met each other in space, and a titanic roiling mass of explosions ripped through space as they canceled each other out. Curiously, at least one of the Gorn torpedoes seemed to already be heading towards the Grazine, probably homing in on the signature from the lone Romulan boarding shuttle. Whatever else the Gorn wanted with the Cardassians, Spock thought, they wanted it all for themselves.
On the other hand, Spock couldn't care less what the Gorn wanted. With Kirk's team still aboard, his one and only priority was the rescue of his abducted crewmen and the safe return of the boarding party. Spock, more than anyone else, knew what the Gorn were capable of; he'd helped repel their merciless assault on the New Vulcan colony, and through a mind meld had watched them butcher Vulcan prisoners, subjecting the corpses - and sometimes the survivors - to horrific genetic experiments. The Vulcan in him reasserted that this was clearly a different faction, possibly the Gorn's equivalent of the Romulans; the human in him angrily screamed Remember Surok, and conjured up an image of T'Mar, chained and bleeding to death on a table in the Gorn flagship's engine room with a neural tap drilled into her skull. "Sulu," Spock began with ice in his voice, "Give me full impulse power, twenty eight starboard, up twelve."
"Coming around. Full impulse power," Sulu poured on the power and Enterprise surged forward in space, accelerating at a speed that - without inertial dampeners - would have flattened most of the crew against the nearest rear bulkhead.
First things first, Spock thought, and then gave the order, "Arm all photon torpedoes and give me sensor lock on the Francium." Then to the intercom, in hopes he wouldn't regret what he was about to do next, "Mister Scott, I seem to recall Captain Kirk asked you to arrange a power transfer to the main phaser bank?"
"Aye, Sir. But-"
"I will require warp power to phasers in approximately thirty seconds. Make all necessary preparations."
"Warp power available, Commander. But Sir, as I told Captain Kirk yesterday..."
"I am aware of the risk, Mister Scott. Make all necessary preparations. Bridge out." Spock saw a warning on the tactical display as Francium launched yet another salvo of its spinning ring-shaped torpedoes at them, with an impact time of under thirty seconds. With the Gorn launching first, they had the strategic initiative; logically, Spock knew he would have to time his counter-attack very carefully to change the tempo of this fight. "Range to Francium," Spock asked.
Chekov answered, "Three thousand kilometers, closing fast."
"Uhura, open a channel to that ship. Tell them our people have been abducted by the Cardassians and we are attempting a forced rescue operation. Ask them if they require any assistance recovering lost personnel or equipment."
Lieutenant Uhura switched modes on the science console and quickly composed the message, programming in a best-fit solution based on what was already known from the Gorn translation devices. Spock, meanwhile, watched the tactical display as the range to the Francium ticked down slowly. Under impulse power they were closing even faster now, down to fourteen hundred kilometers; close enough for torpedoes, but still just out of phaser range.
The tactical screen continued to count down, eighteen seconds to go. Enterprise' deflector screens would barely withstand one or two direct hits. Spock shot a glance at Uhura; she simply shook her head and sent the message again, this time ignoring the translator and dictating the message in English. Show me that you are different, Spock commanded to them in his head, almost with urgency, Show me that you're not the monsters I believe you to be. Give me a reason to spare you. Any reason will do. "Launch intercept."
"Torpedoes away," Sulu said, "Interception in... Six... Five... Four... Three... Two... One..."
This time the explosions were framed dead center in the middle of the viewscreen and flashed so bright that the screen automatically dimmed itself to avoid injuring the crew. Even so, the translucent tactical plot beneath it showed that three of the twelve torpedoes were still inbound. Sulu did something quick and subtle to his control console, and suddenly all three torpedoes vanished in a flaming tunnel of phaser fire.
"Closing to extreme phaser range," Sulu announced, as the last torpedoes vanished from the display, "Two thousand kilometers, closing fast."
"They're firing more torpedoes," Chekov said, gazing into his sensor screen, "Two distinct spreads of three each, converging from both sides. Impact in twenty seconds."
Spock squinted at the tactical screen and considered his next move for a heartbeat. Then, "Target the Francium. Torpedoes thirteen through eighteen, lock on and fire."
Sulu rolled his fingers across the firing switch and answered, "Torpedoes away," just as their projectiles became visible ahead. A spread of torpedoes raced away into space, homing on the distant Gorn vessel with their own sensors. "Should I launch interceptors after the Gorn weapons?"
"No," Spock said, "That will no longer be necessary."
Indeed it wasn't. The torpedoes the Gorn had launched at them a moment ago suddenly halted their attack heading and moved to a position in front of the Grazine. Three of them moved to physically intercept Starfleet's torpedoes, while the other three others projected holographic "dummies" as before. Some of the Enterprise's torpedoes began to change course towards the dummies, while the ones that remained on target new flew into the paths of the Gorn's interceptors.
"Impact in twelve seconds," Uhura announced, "Slightly less for the decoys."
Spock said, "Port ten degrees, maintain thrust."
"Port ten," Sulu said, and Enterprise began to turn, "Now fifteen hundred kilometers..."
Uhura looked up anxiously, "Reading an energy buildup in the Francium's drive systems. I think they're getting ready to transfer warp power to one of their torpedoes."
Spock had determined by now that those "charged up" torpedoes, though amazingly powerful, were very difficult to aim in a ship-to-ship engagement. They were probably meant to be used for planetary bombardment, or fired in frustration by a commander facing what seemed to be a well-defended opponent. Either way, just two direct hits from the Gorn torpedoes might severely damage the Enterprise, where a hit from a supercharged high-warp torpedo could easily vaporize the entire ship. "Ready port-side photons twenty through thirty," Spock said, "Turn starboard ninety degrees, bow up ten."
There was a split second hesitation from Sulu as he tried to make sense of this order. The first spread of torpedoes hadn't even impacted yet, and here Spock was ordering another spread armed before even assessing the effectiveness of the first. It seemed like a bit of overkill. Possibly, even a violation of regulations.
It also seemed far out of character. Captain Kirk was a creature of passion and action and never pulled punches unless he absolutely had to. But Commander Spock had a reputation for precision and control; he used exactly as much force as was needed and not a micron more. Was there a logical reason for this plan?
Of course there was. There had to be. "Starboard ninety, up ten," Sulu echoed and then a glance at his console told him, "Range to target is now five hundred kilometers and closing very fast-"
"Fire torpedoes."
"Firing..." Sulu armed a half dozen port-side weapons, gave them their target, and sent them off. All six weapons fired almost at once and began to home in on the Francium just as the first reached the walls of decoys and interceptors. Those first six torpedoes dove into the Gorn illusions and exploded on contact; one after another, the phantom Franciums flickered and ceased to exist altogether. The Gorn's interceptors moved to strike down the remaining torpedoes, but one photorp slipped through the chaos of explosions and dove right into Francium's starboard bow. The explosion ripped open the Gorn vessel like a popped balloon and sent it tumbling out of control.
Spock ordered, "Ninety five to port, down eight. Thrusters at stationkeeping."
"Turning, Sir..."
"Range to target, three hundred kilometers. Second wave will impact in five seconds," Chekov announced. He didn't add that the first salvo had completely overwhelmed the Gorn's defenses and that her scans showed they were desperately trying to reload their torpedo launchers - whichever ones were still operational - in a last ditch effort to defend themselves. The Gorn wouldn't be ready in five seconds; if Enterprise did nothing else right now, Francium was finished.
"Lock phasers on target," was Spock's next order.
Sulu's eyes flew wide as saucers, "Uh... A-Aye, Sir. Scanning... Phasers locked."
Uhura looked up from his console, "Spock, they're in no position to-"
"Divert warp power to main banks. Fire all phasers."
This time, his hesitation was more than momentary. But Sulu was too well trained in his duty not to immediately comply.
The Gorn torpedo launchers hinged open just in time to swallow a storm of fire from the Enterprise's phasers. The burning energy beams sliced into the unshielded Francium and carved huge chunks out of its hull plating. An instant later, the forward main phaser bank fired a blast directly from the warp drive that sliced through Francium's engineering section like a flaming sword, smashing the rear third of the ship just moments before the next six photons dove into its already-crumbling hull. A ripple of explosions tore through the ship from bow to stern, bursting bulkheads and cargo hatches, scattering bodies and debris in all directions. Francium seemed to shake itself like a dog as its inner hull collapsed, and then the entire vessel simply disintegrated into a cloud of tumbling debris.
A stunned silence fell over the bridge, the sense of people who had just watched a horrible thing happening to an equally horrible person. The Gorn had hardly been a friendly force in this system, but they weren't entirely enemies either. Did they really deserve this?
The chirp of a communications link broke the silence and Commander Spock's voice filled the void, "Enterprise to away team. Status report."
Captain Kirk answered back, sounding both winded and pained yet somehow confident at the same time, "Enterprise, I think we've found our people, but we're encountering Romulan boarding parties and we're facing heavy resistance. I'm gonna to need a little more time here."
Spock swiveled his chair towards the science station where a slightly bemused Uhura was still scanning the tumbling wreckage of the slaughtered Gorn vessel, "What are the Klingons doing?" he asked.
It took almost an effort of will for Uhura to turn her attention away from her scanning beams and over to the main sensor console in the middle of the station. She located the Kor'ah almost instantly, but the answer to Spock's question took a few moments of careful examination. "Klingon ship is holding position seven thousand kilometers from the Cardassians. Still picking up transporter activity directed towards the Grazine."
Solve one problem, gain another. Spock clenched his fists, ever so slightly, before his emotional control returned and his logic again prevailed, "Where's the Romulan ship?"
"No sensor contact since it cloaked," Chekov said, "They could be anywhere by now."
Spock shook his head, "The cloaking device cannot hide their ship's gravitic displacement. If they had left the area at warp or high impulse velocities, we would have detected their passage on motion sensors."
"So you think they're still in the area?"
"Certain of it. In fact-"
"New sensor readings!" Uhura shouted, "Locator beacon from inside the Grazine!"
And an instant later, "Kirk to Enterprise! Emergency! We need starship fire support! My coordinates! Danger close!"
Spock's eyes flared at this signal. Kirk sounded as if his hair was on fire, and in the background of the signal he could make out a cacophony of phaser fire and a dozen voices all shouting at once. It was the sound of a man who had only a couple of seconds left to live and was clinging to his life with the white-knuckled determination one would expect from a man like James T. Kirk.
Nodding calmly, Spock answered, "Standby, Captain," and then to Sulu, "Secure warp transfer pathways and standby for support fire."