“That puts them roughly three hundred light-years away,” Nassir said.
T’Prynn replied, “Three hundred fifteen-point-seven, Captain.”
Khatami looked confused. “That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“No,” Xiong said, “because one of those red dots”—he magnified the center of the map until it showed one red dot, one blue dot, and a green dot—“is right here.”
Nogura’s eyes widened. “Please tell me we are not the green dot.”
“Unfortunately, we are.” Xiong added annotations to the image. “There’s a Shedai lurking just outside the range of our tactical sensors, and it’s got a previously unknown Conduit with it. According to intelligence gathered over the last couple of years, the only Shedai that’s known to be able to move freely through interstellar space is the one we captured—and lost—last year.” He gestured at the wall monitor. “Well, it looks like you were right, Admiral. She’s been holding a grudge, and now she’s back.”
That news seemed to hit Nogura hard. He walked up to the screen and stared at it, point-blank, as if it would give up secrets if only he looked closely enough. “Options.”
“What’s there to talk about?” asked Nassir. “We know where it is, let’s go and get it.”
The admiral shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
Nassir verged on raising his voice. “Why not?”
“Because the Endeavour’s still under repair,” Nogura said. “And while your ship is an excellent scout, it’s hardly suited to combat.”
Xiong added, “Besides, Captain, we don’t even know if our weapons have much effect on the Shedai. The last time we tangled with this thing, we barely scratched it.”
“It is also worth noting,” T’Prynn said, “that when this Shedai last fled from here, it did so at speeds the Sagittarius was unable to match—or even detect. If we attempt to attack it by means of a direct starship assault, there is nothing to prevent it from escaping unscathed.”
Khatami seemed to share Nassir’s frustration. “So, we do nothing? We just sit and wait for it to take the initiative? For the record, I am not okay with that.”
“We will act, but not with starships,” Nogura said. “This Shedai has committed a tactical blunder, and I don’t intend to waste it.”
Nassir asked, “What blunder would that be, sir?”
“It chose us as its first target.” He returned to his desk and sat down. “If we go out there with starships, all we’re likely to do is scare it off. And there’s no guarantee its next attack will be here. It could just as well build its next Conduit on a Federation planet. That’s not a chance I’m willing to take.” He looked at Xiong. “Has there been any evidence of contact between that Shedai and the others?”
“Sporadic bursts of energy between their two Conduits,” Xiong said. “Our analysts think the Shedai are testing the new Conduit before putting it into full operation.”
T’Prynn asked, “How close do they seem to be?”
“Very. They could be ready to strike any time now.”
Nogura nodded. “Excellent. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.” He stood up. “Arm the array, Lieutenant. Now we attack.”
The array’s steady rhythm of pulsing sound and its macabre violet aura entranced Theriault, Klisiewicz, and the other Starfleet scientists as they helped Xiong activate its protocols. The air inside the Vault felt charged with their commingled excitement and fear as one monitoring station after another confirmed the array’s fully ready status.
“Locking in the coordinates of all Shedai energy signatures,” Klisiewicz said. “Calculating resonant attraction frequencies.”
“Acknowledged,” Xiong said. He looked left at Theriault. “Containment?”
“Node One is secure. Preparing unique node assignments for new signatures.”
Xiong checked his master panel. “All signals are clean, no interference. Heffron, ping the Conduits. Verify we have contact on all points.”
Beyond the protective barrier, Ensign Heffron keyed in commands. “Transmitting.” Several seconds later, she added, “All Conduits responding. The network is active.”
Klisiewicz made his final adjustments on his panel. “Resonant frequencies ready.”
Theriault added, “Nodes assigned. Containment protocols ready.”
A grave nod from Xiong. He wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his shirt, then thumbed open a secure comm to Nogura’s office in the operations center. “Admiral, the array is ready. We can initiate Operation Flytrap as soon as you give the word.”
“The word is given, Lieutenant. Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll have a report for you shortly. Xiong out.” He closed the channel and took a deep breath. Theriault heard him mutter under his breath, “Now all we have to do is make ourselves an irresistible target to every Shedai in the galaxy. . . . What could go wrong?” Xiong blinked, cracked his knuckles, and set his hands on the master power controls. “Okay, everyone, it’s game time. Stand by to execute in . . . ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
Much to Theriault’s dismay, as she listened to Xiong continue the countdown to the activation of the array, she was able to think of a great many things that could go wrong.
Then Xiong said, “Three . . . two . . . one. . . . Execute!”
She and Klisiewicz flipped the final switches on their respective panels.
And the array started screaming.
The mind of the Progenitor stirred in the endless silence, a lone presence in the immeasurable darkness of thought without sensation, existence without form, time without end.
His accursed isolation, his exile into a limbo of his own consciousness, was disturbed by a shriek of primal force and a disorienting flurry of light and energy. It was inchoate, nothing but noise bereft of significance, a howling torrent of madness and desire.
Quickly, the chaos was marshaled into order and forced into shape. The Progenitor dared to indulge a fleeting instant of hope. Had the Wanderer returned to honor her pledge? Was freedom at hand? He imagined the unfettered joy of exacting his revenge upon the Telinaruul. . . .
Then came the agony.
Pain with no physical analog reduced the Progenitor’s universe to one of horrific psychic torment. It was as if his entire essence were being ripped asunder, his every thought rent to pieces, his very being torn in a million directions at once. Never had he known such grotesque suffering, not even when he’d been condemned to this private pit of despair.
All he could do was surrender to the brutal energies that assailed him and let their wild surges of power course through him and bear him away, one mote of consciousness at a time, wearing him down to nothing, as flowing water reduces a boulder to a pebble with the passing of ages. He wondered if this was, at last, his end—being condemned to vanish in a final tide of punishment, flayed to his last iota of existence by a torment beyond his ken to describe.
For the first time since his moment of self-inception, the Progenitor was afraid.
Cold and silent, the Wanderer hovered in space above her newly made Conduit. She reached out with her thoughts to perfect its final details and make it a flawless portal for the subtle form of liberated consciousness. Its link to the universe’s boundless reservoir of dark energy was complete, and already she felt the Conduit’s steady emanations of power and harmony.
Soon it would be time to summon the Shedai to take their vengeance. Before that hour of reckoning, however, she needed to move the Conduit closer to the space fortress. It would be an arduous process, and it would require great patience and stealth on her part not to alert them to her presence. Because the other Serrataal lacked her ability to traverse space by will alone, it would be up to her to place the Conduit in contact with the exterior of the Telinaruul’s fortress, penetrate its fragile metal skin, and then usher her kin inside. Then they would cleanse its interior of its vermin creators—a prelude for the galactic culling to come.