“What’re you going to do? Court-martial me?”
“No, I’ll shoot you dead where you stand.” Nogura drew his phaser and held it casually at his side, aimed at the deck. “Make your choice, Captain.”
Telvane backed away, a disgusted scowl on his swarthy face. “Looks like I’m dead either way. I hope you can live with yourself, Admiral.” He turned and headed for the turbolift.
Nogura holstered his phaser. He didn’t worry whether he would be able to live with his decision. He was too busy worrying whether he would live through the next hour.
Pennington sprinted the last several meters to the Denevan dogwood on Fontana Meadow just as a trio of Starfleet botanists, two men and a woman, inserted small, high-tech devices into the soil all around it. “Wait!” he cried. “Not yet!” The three blue-shirted young officers looked askance at him as he stumbled to a halt in their midst and reached for one of the tree’s lower branches.
The taller of the men seized Pennington’s wrist. “What the hell are you doing?”
“It’s all right, mate,” Pennington said, raising a small pocket knife in his other hand.
The other male botanist grabbed Pennington’s knife hand and told his female colleague, “Call security!” She reached for her communicator and flipped it open.
Struggling to break free, Pennington shouted, “Let go, you wankers! I just want one of the flowers!”
The woman lowered her communicator and looked into his eyes. “Why?”
There was no time for lies. “I lost someone I loved on the Bombay. I want the flower as a memento. I don’t have anything else.”
She put away her communicator and said to the men, “Let him go.”
The big man blustered, “Are you crazy? He—”
“That’s an order, Ensign.” Pennington noticed the two men’s shirts had no braid on their cuffs, but those of the woman’s minidress did—a solid stripe. The men let him go. Not wanting to press his luck or test the lieutenant’s patience, he snipped a yellow-centered white blossom from the dogwood’s lowest branch, pressed the flower carefully inside his bifold wallet, and tucked it into his jacket’s inside pocket. He offered the lieutenant a sad smile. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now stand back.” Pennington did as she said, and the other two men did the same. The lieutenant opened her communicator. “Bernstein to Endeavour. Ready for transport.” She backed up three steps. Seconds later, the tree vanished in a sparkle of transporter energy, leaving behind a perfectly smooth divot in the ground.
From the communicator, a man’s voice said, “Transport complete. The tree’s safe inside our arboretum. But you three had better hurry up and head back, because—”
The station’s Red Alert resounded ominously inside the vast terrestrial enclosure. The botanists, and every other person Pennington could see, sprinted for the turbolifts. He ran like hell to keep up and prayed his transport didn’t leave without him.
32
“All hands to battle stations,” Captain Khatami announced over the Endeavour’s PA system, her manner cool and efficient despite the flashing red panels on the bulkheads and the fearful mood that pervaded the ship. “This is not a drill. Damage control teams to alert stations.” She closed the channel with a quick jab at the button on her command chair’s armrest, then watched Airlock 2 and the surrounding infrastructure of Vanguard’s main hangar recede on the bridge’s main viewer as her starship navigated in reverse on thrusters.
Lieutenant Neelakanta made some fine adjustments at the helm and keyed the switch for the station’s comm channel. “Vanguard Control, Endeavour. We have cleared all moorings.”
A woman’s voice responded from the helm’s speaker. “Endeavour, this is Vanguard Control. Outer doors are open, and you’re clear to proceed.”
“Acknowledged,” the Arcturian helmsman said. “Clearing bay doors in ten seconds.”
Departure from spacedock normally took twenty-five seconds, but Khatami had seen fast exits such as this many times over the years. Within seconds, the gray curve of the lower half of Vanguard’s massive saucer hull dominated the viewscreen from the edges in.
“Endeavour, you have cleared bay doors. The lane is clear, and you’re free to navigate.”
“Helm,” Khatami said, “bring us about, bearing nine one, mark one five. Lieutenant McCormack, raise shields and arm all weapons.”
“Shields up,” McCormack confirmed. “Phasers and torpedoes armed.”
“Charge up the tractor beam, too, Lieutenant,” Stano added as she moved to stand beside Khatami’s command chair. “It might come in handy.”
Khatami looked up at her first officer. “Brushing up on starship combat tactics?”
Stano smiled nervously. “Always worked when I crammed for tests at the Academy.” Her forced joviality vanished as the image on the main viewer panned in a swift blur to reveal the Sagittarius emerging from the Bay 3 doors directly ahead of Endeavour—and, in the distance, a vast swarm of tiny gray specks moving amid the cold brightness of the stars.
Hector Estrada held one hand over the transceiver protruding from his left ear and swiveled his chair to face Khatami. “Captain, the Panama and the Buenos Aires confirm they’re in position and awaiting your orders.”
Neelakanta chimed in, “Sagittarius is clear of spacedock and moving into a defensive posture on our aft port quarter.”
“All ships, proceed to first coordinates as planned,” Khatami said. “McCormack, make sure the rest of our battle group has the latest update on Vanguard’s firing solution. We need to stay out of their crossfire and force the Tholians into it. Neelakanta, ahead full impulse.”
“Full impulse, aye,” Neelakanta said over the rising hum of the ship’s engines.
Khatami turned toward the sensor console. “Klisiewicz, how’s the evacuation going?”
“Ten minutes ago, it was a crisis. Now, it’s officially a disaster.” To McCormack, he added, “Aft viewer, please.” McCormack switched the viewscreen to an image of the steady stream of civilian vessels pouring like a flood from Vanguard’s open docking bays and leaping into warp—but there were several vessels still docked at the lower pylons. “Sensors show way too many people inside the station. I think a lot of people just missed their rides.”
Stano looked at Khatami. “I’ll have all transporters stand by to beam out survivors on your order.” She got the captain’s nod of approval and stepped away to make it happen.
“Forward angle,” Khatami said, and McCormack returned the screen to its default view. The elegant Miranda-class frigate Buenos Aires and the stout Equus-class cargo transport Panama were directly ahead, holding position between Vanguard and the incoming Tholian armada. “McCormack, have Sagittarius cover zones one and two with the Panama. Buenos Aires can cover three and four. We’ll defend five through eight.” She turned and looked back at the communications officer. “Estrada—send the message packet.”
Estrada nodded and transmitted a vital signal back to Earth in a coded subspace radio burst: a packet of prerecorded messages by the Endeavour’s crew and officers, final missives to be delivered to their loved ones by Starfleet Command in the event that they or the ship did not survive the battle to come. It wasn’t the first time Khatami had recorded a possible farewell to her husband, Kenji, and daughter, Parveen, nor was it the first time she had served aboard a ship whose crew had all prepared parting sentiments on the eve of battle. But until now, she had never actually taken the extra precaution of sending the messages home for safekeeping.
That was because, until now, she had never been asked to face down an enemy armada with two warships, a scout vessel, and a freighter.