Then he turned toward the door, planning to head back to Tom Walker’s place, and found his path blocked by T’Prynn. “If you are searching for Mister Quinn, he has already gone.”
“Gone where? When’s he coming back? We have to get out of here!”
She stepped forward and gently took him by his forearm. “He will not be coming back, Tim. He has already left the station.” She led him toward the door. “It’s time for you to leave, while you still can.”
He pulled his arm free. “You’re sure? That he’s safely away?”
“I give you my word: Mister Quinn is well away from here. Now please go.”
“I’m going,” he lied, jogging away from her. He would make it to his transport; he had enough common sense and desire for survival not to screw that up. But before he left Vanguard, there was one last farewell he needed to make.
Captain Nassir poked his head down through the ladderway to survey the cargo hold of the Sagittarius. It was packed from bow to stern and port to starboard with Starfleet personnel from the station who had piled aboard minutes earlier in search of a ride out of harm’s way.
Noting the density of their accommodations, Nassir asked, “Everybody tucked in?” There were general murmurs of assent and agreement. Nassir figured this was as good a time as any to break the bad news to his unauthorized passengers. “I think it’s only fair to warn you all that this won’t be a smooth ride home, folks. This ship’s been ordered to help Endeavour hold the line, which means we’ll be taking fire. Conditions down here can get ugly real fast, so if you have second thoughts about choosing my boat as your ride, you’ve got thirty minutes to bail out.”
He left them to think that over while he climbed the ladder up to his ship’s truncated engineering deck and transporter bay. Ilucci and his engineering team were all engaged to one degree or another on repairs to various components of the scout ship’s warp core. Nassir caught Ilucci’s eye and asked, “What’s the word, Master Chief?”
“Five minutes away from being five by five, Skipper.”
“Well done. When you finish, go help the Endeavour team. They yanked out their main phaser coupling, and they’re running late getting a new one put in.”
“Two miracles before dinner?” The portly chief engineer traded amused looks with his run-ragged crew of enlisted mechanics, then cracked a reassuring smile. “Good as done, boss.”
The captain pivoted about-face toward the ship’s sensor probe launcher—technically a misnomer, since it was equally capable of launching photon torpedoes. Because of the ship’s limited storage space and the difficulty of moving bulky elements from the cargo deck to the engineering deck, it usually carried only probes and no torpedoes. The rationale for that decision was that the Sagittarius was not designed for heavy combat. Any threat serious enough to merit a photon torpedo was likely one the Archer-class scout ship ought be outrunning.
That afternoon, its entire complement of six sensor probes had been replaced by torpedoes. Junior recon scout Ensign Taryl inspected the new ordnance with her tricorder.
“Do our fish check out, Ensign?”
The Orion woman turned a confused look toward Nassir. “Fish, sir?”
“An old Terran nautical term for torpedoes. I picked it up at the Academy.” Waving off the mismatch in their jargon, he inquired, “Are they ready to go?”
Taryl checked her tricorder one more time, then switched it off. “Ready, sir.”
“Good. Load one into the tube now. When Vanguard gives the order, I want to be ready to come out swinging.”
Ezekiel Fisher haunted the open doorway of his no longer private cabin aboard the Lisbon. He had expected to share his accommodations from the moment the evacuation order was sounded, and he had been right: his VIP cabin for one had become a steerage berthing for six. The once antiseptic-smelling compartment had become a sauna of bad breath and sweaty bodies pressed much too closely together.
The loss of comfort and privacy didn’t really bother him. He had also taken in stride the news that his personal effects had been removed from the cargo hold and abandoned to make room for noncombatant Starfleet personnel who would be coming aboard at the last possible moment. Only monsters value things over lives, he told himself to lessen the sting of the news.
One enlisted crewman after another packed into every free space inside the Lisbon. Some of them claimed corners of the mess hall; others staked claims to slivers of space between hulking blocks of machinery. Other than that, there wasn’t much talking. Apparently, most of those running for their lives seemed to think there wasn’t much left to say.
The tense but muted atmosphere inside the transport was split by the squawk of Captain Boonmee’s voice over the ship’s PA system.
“Attention, all crew and passengers of the Lisbon, this is the captain. Admiral Nogura has just sent a priority comm to all ships still docked at the station. Vanguard is asking for trained medical personnel, preferably with trauma experience, to stay and tend the wounded if necessary. I’ve been asked to emphasize that this call for doctors, nurses, and technicians is strictly voluntary. FYI, we’ll be taking off in fifteen minutes. That’s all.”
Moments later, Fisher saw two people struggling against the tide in the corridor, blading and shouldering their way toward the exit. One of them he recognized from Vanguard Hospital—a Caitian nurse named Kiraar. The other was a human-looking male civilian of middling years whom Fisher didn’t recognize, but the man carried a telltale black medical bag.
Watching those two force their way upstream against the evacuation filled Fisher with guilt. For several painful seconds he wrestled his conscience, fighting the urge to run toward the crisis as he had for most of his adult life. I’ve given Starfleet more than fifty years, he rationalized. That should be enough, shouldn’t it? Part of him wanted to believe that, but the better angels of his nature reminded him of what he knew all too well. If I turn my back now on people in need of a doctor, the last five decades of my life will have meant nothing.
Fisher dodged past his cabinmates to his bunk, retrieved his medical satchel, and slung it over his shoulder. Then he pushed his way out into the corridor and began his own upstream battle back toward the station he thought he’d left behind.
“Dammit, Admiral, that’s a suicide order, and you know it! There’s no way I’m doing that!”
Nogura was not one to tolerate direct repudiation of his orders by a subordinate, much less in such a vociferous and disrespectful manner, and absolutely never in front of others—and Captain Telvane of the Starfleet cargo transport U.S.S. Panama had just committed all three offenses at once, on the supervisors’ deck in the middle of Vanguard’s operations center.
A sudden shocked hush fell like a curtain as every person in ops turned to see what would happen next. Nogura stepped out from behind the Hub and prowled toward Telvane. The burly, square-headed, lantern-jawed, sun-browned freighter captain towered over the admiral, and yet it was the larger man who seemed to lean ever so slightly away as Nogura confronted him. Rather than raise his voice to match Telvane’s outburst, Nogura made his reply cold and quiet.
“This is not open for discussion, Captain. Deploy your ship as ordered.”
Digging deep to dredge up the last of his courage, Telvane protested, “My ship doesn’t belong with a battle group, Admiral. We should be escorting the civilian convoy.”
Nogura roared, “Captain! Your ship has a Starfleet registry and a phaser bank! Get back to your bridge and take your ship into battle, or I’ll find someone who will!”