There was no direct reply over the open channel, just the muted, muffled background sounds of powered tools in use and tired engineers grumbling profanities so harsh that they would make a Denebian slime devil recoil in fear.
On the main viewer, the change was subtle at first—a sense that the burning orb of the star called Jinoteur was growing closer, larger, brighter. Then its fiery presence was eclipsed, literally, by the collision of its fourth planet with all of its moons. A storm of planetary debris scattered from the apocalyptic impacts, revealing glowing orange volcanic cores. It was a terrifying but utterly compelling vision of destruction.
And it was expanding toward the Sagittarius.
“The Rocinante is safely away,” McLellan reported.
Beyond the rocky vista of a shattered planet and its broken moons, the star-flecked expanse of the galaxy distorted into bent streaks that continued to stretch, until they were well on their way to becoming endless rings of light.
“Mains online,” zh’Firro said crisply as she engaged the warp drive. Nassir thought the engines’ thrumming sounded off-pitch, atonal, sickly. He didn’t know if that was a product of the hasty repairs or of the distorted nature of the deforming region of space-time that they were racing to escape.
The ringlets of distorted starlight unbent and straightened into long, soft streaks. As the pitch of the engines normalized, zh’Firro said calmly, “We’re clear of the anomaly, sir.”
“Take us back to sublight,” Nassir said. “Xiong, keep scanning the Jinoteur system, I want as much data as we—”
“I can’t, sir,” Xiong said. “It’s gone.”
Nassir was not a fan of exaggerations. “The entire system can’t have been destroyed that quickly. Even if it was, studying the debris could—”
“There is no debris,” Xiong interrupted. He patched in an image on the main viewer: an empty starfield. “There’s nothing left. That wrinkle in space-time swallowed every planet, every moon, even the star itself. It’s gone, sir. Just…gone.”
Quinn sounded upset. “What do you mean, it’s gone?”
“As in, it’s not there anymore,” Terrell replied.
Pennington was arriving late to the conversation between Quinn and Terrell, who was looking even more haggard than he had when they’d found him. The two men were huddled around the navigation console, staring at a blank grid on the starmap.
Shaking his head and holding up his palms, Quinn turned away. “Please don’t explain. I don’t even want to know.”
Theriault entered the cockpit and stood beside Pennington. “Where’s the Sagittarius?” she asked with obvious concern.
“They’re fine,” Terrell said. “I just hailed them. They’ll be here in a few moments.” He winced and shifted in his seat.
The young woman moved to Terrell’s side. “Are you okay?” She recoiled at the sight of the black glass that permeated his abdominal injury. “What is that?”
“A little present from the Shedai,” Terrell said. “Don’t worry, I’m told Dr. Babitz has the cure.”
Instantly, Theriault lifted her tricorder to scan the substance—and she paused as a drizzle of dirty water seeped out of the device, which made a sickly buzzing crackle in her hands. Her lips tightened into a disappointed frown.
Terrell smiled at her. “Good instincts,” he said.
The subspace comm beeped, and Quinn put the incoming signal on the overhead speaker. “Rocinante,” Captain Nassir said, “this is the Sagittarius. Everybody all right over there?”
“We’re good,” Quinn said, “but your first officer needs more help than my first-aid kit can offer. I can mend a bone, but I can’t fix a gut.”
Nassir replied, “We need a bit of distance between you and the others to make sure we beam up the right person.”
“How much distance?” asked Quinn.
“A few meters,” Terrell said.
Pennington said to Quinn, “We could carry him back into the main compartment. That ought to do it.”
“Or,” Theriault cut in, “the three of us could just step out of the cockpit for a few seconds. It’d be easier and safer than trying to move him.”
“You had me at easier,” Quinn said. He led the way out of the cockpit. Pennington and Theriault fell in behind him and followed him to the ship’s main compartment.
Alone in the cockpit, Terrell said, “I’m clear for transport, Captain.”
Nassir’s reply over the speaker sounded faint from the remove of the main compartment. “Stand by. Energizing now.”
Seconds later a high-pitched ringing tone resonated inside the cockpit, and Terrell’s body became a speckled gold shimmer. He faded, became translucent, and vanished.
“He’s safely aboard,” Nassir said. “Theriault, get ready to beam back in sixty seconds.”
She faced Pennington and Quinn. “I guess you guys better get back in the cockpit. There’s no one flying this thing.”
Quinn smirked, nodded, and went forward to take his place in the pilot’s seat. Pennington lagged behind a moment. He stared at his still-damp shoes while trying to think of something clever to say. He was at a complete loss for words as Theriault lifted herself on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.
“Thanks for the rescue,” she said, backing away like a bashful child. The moment she stopped, the musical drone of a transporter effect began. She smiled. “See you on Vanguard.”
Then she shimmered and vanished, the warmth of her kiss lingering after her. It had been a simple gesture, almost innocent, more sweet than romantic. Nothing about it had suggested anything more than friendly affection and gratitude. Naturally, therefore, Pennington found himself utterly smitten.
He returned to the cockpit with damp and wrinkled clothing, squishing shoes, tousled hair, and an enormous grin on his face. Flopping into the copilot’s seat, he only half listened while Quinn verified a flight plan with the Sagittarius and plotted a tandem return journey to Vanguard.
As Quinn started flipping switches and powering up the warp drive, he fixed Pennington with a good-natured glare. “What is it with you and redheads?”
“Dunno, mate,” Pennington said. “Just lucky, I guess.”
27
The Lanz’t Tholis had set course for Tholia at its best possible speed after striking a decisive blow upon the Klingon vessel. Nezrene [The Emerald] felt the waves of confusion rippling through the ship’s communal thought-space SubLink. Many of the hundreds of crewmembers had expected to fire upon the Starfleet vessel as well, and dark scarlet pulses of resentment tainted the mind-lines of the ship’s rank and file.
Mutiny was all but unheard of on Tholian ships; the caste system clarified all roles, and every Tholian understood his or her genetic and social destiny almost from the first moment of solidification. But with no members of its leadership caste left alive after the brutal incarceration by the Shedai, there was a vacuum of authority aboard the Lanz’t Tholis—one that it was now Nezrene’s duty to fill.
Only a handful of the ship’s crew had been able to witness what she and the others who were yoked to the Shedai machine’s nodes had overheard. The others had all been trapped in the machine’s infernal core, isolated from the terrible voices that had reigned outside. Held in that excruciating stasis, they had been unable to commune or resist; raw suffering had been the whole of their existence while inside the burning prison.
Pyzstrene [The Sallow], the ranking engineer aboard the ship now that its lead engineer had been atomized by the Shedai, was proving to be the most vocal and pointed of Nezrene’s critics. It was the Federation’s incursion into the Shedai sector that brought this horror upon us.
Kaleidoscopic images, each facet of which represented another crewmember’s unique point of view, replayed the attack on the Klingon ship, followed by Nezrene’s order to hold fire when the gunners had trained their sensing units on the Federation vessel. Pyzstrene continued in fiery hues and bellicose tones. Why does Nezrene favor one of our foes over another? Their fight was not our concern. It would have been better to have fired on neither than to show favor to one.