As she made her way back to the command center, Theena wondered how she’d ended up here. She thought of all the moments when she might have been able to stop Vykul, all the internal doubts she’d squelched, all the questions she chose not to ask… all the opportunities she’d had to break the chain of events that led to this looming confrontation. Where was that big brain of yours when you really needed it?

  Disclosing her implacable opposition to Vykul’s delusional plans had been a stupid, stupid mistake. She was now an object of suspicion, limiting any chance she might’ve had to sabotage the weapon. Despite the fact that Theena knew more about it than anyone else, Vykul made it clear he was blithely determined to use it with or without her cooperation- no matter the risks. That left her with two awful alternatives: apply her knowledge and expertise to make sure the weapon was used as safely as possible to advance a cause in which she no longer believed… or walk away, knowing that no one else would be able to fend off disaster if the temperamental weapon became unstable.

  If she believed her absence would assure Vykul’s defeat, even if she and her erstwhile comrades would die in the aftermath, she’d have chosen that course without hesitation. But in reality, leaving the operation of the weapon in less skilled hands simply increased the likelihood of triggering a cosmic catastrophe of almost unimaginable proportions. Even she was uncertain of the theoretical extent of potential damage to the fabric of subspace. It was her responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen, no matter how much she’d have preferred curling up in a ball of ignorance.

  “James,” Raya said, looking Kirk in the eye, “what are we going to do when we find them?”

  Kirk gazed down into the depths of his coffee mug for a long moment. He and Raya sat at a small table next to a window in the recreation lounge. Out in the star-strewn darkness, the Klingon battle cruiser kept pace. “We’ll do what we have to do.”

  “Does that mean destroying the Torye ship?”

  Kirk finally looked up at his friend. She looked tired and worried. “Raya, that’s never my first choice. But we’ve seen what that weapon can do. Do you want them coming home to Mestiko and using it to overthrow your government? Getting your world into wars of conquest?”

  “I keep hoping Theena can find a way to talk some sense into Vykul… or beat it into him.”

  Kirk managed a smile. “Either way would be fine with me.” He glanced out the window at the Klingon ship in the distance. “We’ve both got friends in trouble.”

  “I’ve got a whole planet in trouble. There’s a political firestorm brewing. Opposition parties are going to see this as their big chance to knock us down. It’s not even about governing to them, it’s all about winning. But there are also going to be honest questions about how we could let research like this go on without controls and oversight… about funding priorities… about the very existence of the Discovery Center.”

  “And you’ll have honest answers. You always do.”

  Raya shook her head sadly. “What if I don’t? This happened on my watch. I’m responsible. And if we get out of this mess, I need to know how something like this happened… and I need to make sure it never happens again.”

  “Then that’s what you’ll say. Good leaders are secure enough to admit when they don’t have all the answers, and then they get on with searching for them.”

  The intercom whistled, followed by Uhura’s voice: “Bridge to Captain Kirk.”

  Kirk slid out of his seat and walked to a nearby comm panel. “Kirk here.”

  “Captain, we’re receiving a message… from the Torye.”

  “On my way. Kirk out.”

  Kirk and Raya strode out of the turbolift onto the bridge, and Uhura played back the message on the viewer abover her console. It was Vykul, seated in an unfamiliar control chamber. He rambled on for a stretch, answering his own questions about how the Torye were leading Mestiko into a future of limitless possibilities. He heaped magnanimous praise on Raya and her government for all the progress made in recent years, with special acclaim for the concept of a center devoted to unimpeded research and learning. “Without it, this great leap forward would not have been possible. We share the credit for our achievement with you, Raya.”

  Raya rolled her eyes and muttered a curse. “Just what I need.”

  “We’ve used the new weapon to annex a Klingon battle base. Why? To lead Mestiko to its rightful position as an independent power in firm control of its own destiny. We stand on the shoulders of giants, and reach toward a new golden age for all our people.”

  And that’s where the message ended, leaving Raya with her head bowed as she tried to rub the tension from her long neck. “He almost makes it sound reasonable,” she said.

  “Almost,” Kirk reminded her. “Saavik, do we have a fix on the origin point of that message?”

  “Affirmative, sir. They made no effort to hide their location.”

  “Yes,” said Kirk, “walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.”

  Raya gave him a quizzical look.

  “One of my favorite old children’s poems,” he said. “They want us to know exactly where they are. Vykul figures the sooner we find them, the sooner he defeats us and starts his ‘golden age.’ Let’s accommodate him. Saavik, confirm coordinates with the Klingons and change our course.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Theena arrived at the command center and took a deep breath before entering. Vykul looked up. “Is everything ready?” he asked.

  “Not quite everything,” she said as she assumed her post at the weapons-control console. “But we have about seventy-five percent engine power available to us, which is at least three hundred percent more than we had with our ship alone.”

  “Will that be enough to overwhelm any augmented deflectors on the starships?”

  “Impossible to say for certain, since we don’t know what countermeasures they may have initiated. But I’d rather be us than them when the subspace distortion matrix hits.”

  Vykul nodded. “Well, we find out soon enough.”

  From the tactical console, Fiota said, “Vykul, two ships just appeared on long-range scanners.”

  “Good. Then everything we’ve worked for is within our grasp.” Vykul smiled as he activated the internal comm system and addressed his crew. “Red alert. All hands to battle stations!”

  Those words made Theena’s blood run cold. Vykul’s scheme, unfolding with her right smack in the middle, would not have been possible without her complicity. This is all my fault. How will you ever be able to make up for it, Theena? Wrap your big brain around that .

  Chapter Fourteen

  On the outer ring of the Enterprise bridge, Kirk perched on the rail and studied the star chart on the screen above Saavik’s science station. Two decades ago, Sector 418-D had been an Alpha Quadrant backwater. Then one rogue pulsar changed everything. Look at it now, he mused. One little sector encompassed the troubled planet Mestiko, a swatch of the Federation-Klingon Neutral Zone, the key Klingon colony of Tiranax, and a ribbon of Klingon-Romulan border sufficiently contentious for the Klingons to have deployed their new battle base there. It was if all sides had heedlessly tossed discordant ingredients into the same pot, disregarding the noxious stew boiling up inside. And now the lid was about to blow.

  If he and Kang were going to prevent that, they’d need a unified strategy- easier said than done. Kang’s impulse was to sweep in like the avenging Sword of Kahless and obliterate the battle base and its conquerors in one stroke. With McCoy and the rest of the bridge crew watching, Kirk reminded his stern Klingon counterpart that destruction of the battle base wasn’t an option, since excessive destabilization or uncontrolled shutdown of the weapon had to be avoided at all costs. Hovda elZana stressed that they simply had no way of knowing how much damage that might do to the very fabric of subspace.

  When Mara reminded Kang the base was still a valued Klingon military asset which might yet prove useful in defense of the empire, he dismissed it as an abomination created by the fevered minds of a High Council gone mad. I actually agree with him there, Kirk thought. How about that?

  Kirk contended that their initial attack should probe for weakness and avoid exposing their own strengths and vulnerabilities. Kang was impressed (and more than a little surprised) when Kirk quoted an ancient human warrior-philosopher named Sun Tzu: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

  “Kahless said the same thing,” Kang replied. “I did not know that any human possessed such wisdom when it came to the art of war. What else has this Sun Tzu taught you?”

  After a moment of thought, Kirk recalled a relevant passage: “’You can be sure of succeeding in your attacks if you attack only places which are undefended.’ We already know what the subspace weapon can do. But the Torye haven’t had a lot of time to integrate it with the battle base. We need to find their undefended places.”

  Kang agreed. “Kahless said, ‘The prepared warrior waits to take the enemy unprepared.’ Our first attack will measure our enemy. Our second will vanquish him.”

  “From Kang’s mouth to God’s ears,” McCoy whispered to Uhura, “and that’s a phrase I never thought I’d utter.”

  The Enterprise appeared to be alone as it approached the battle base and fired its first salvo of photon torpedoes. The Torye immediately unleashed the subspace weapon, and its cascade of scintillating energy rippled rapidly out in concentric spheres, flooding over the Enterprise. Just as Vykul wondered about the absence of the Klingon ship, K’tanco decloaked on the opposite side of the base. A spread of Klingon torpedoes sliced through the distortion matrix and exploded sequentially along the base’s armored flank. The armor plating seemed almost sentient, shimmering, flexing, and settling once the blast energy had dissipated.

  As the distortion matrix smothered the Enterprise, power generation took a precipitous plunge (much to Mr. Scott’s alarm). As his starship twitched, Scotty held his breath. But the shields held, power surged, and the Enterprise escaped the subspace weapon’s domain.

  The K’tanco weathered the same rough ride and also slithered away, and the two ships met up again at a safe distance. Both crews immediately set about analyzing the wealth of sensor data gleaned from their sortie. Neither commander had to wait long for the results. The subspace weapon registered at twice the intensity of their first encounter, and the additional energy enhanced the distortion matrix’s stability. Saavik felt compelled to make an inconvenient point: They had no way of knowing if the Torye were utilizing maximum power, or holding something in reserve.

  However, it appeared that the power demands of the subspace weapon precluded simultaneous use of the base’s disruptors. As Scotty put it, “There’s only so much energy to go around.” And not only were the battle base’s warp engines fueling deflectors and the subspace weapon, they were also providing power to its unique adaptive armor. As Saavik and Chekov reported, unlike typical passive plate armor or energized force-shields, this defensive shell was constructed of an energy-infused alloy able to shuffle its molecular structure in response to attack, giving it an unusual capability for refraction and absorption of offensive energy.

  Kang insisted he knew nothing of the development of this revolutionary armor. General Navok might have known about it, but he was dead. Kirk was privately certain only that they’d witnessed the application of a new and worrisome technology that could give Klingon ships a huge advantage in future battles.

  The modified torpedoes had worked well enough, unaffected by the subspace distortion- but with the diversion of destructive capacity into shielding, they’d barely made a dent in the combined protection afforded by the base’s deflectors and reactive cladding. Faced with one level of protection or the other, the torpedoes might inflict more damage, but against the combination they were unlikely to prove decisive.

  Mara was the first to locate a ray of hope, which Saavik quickly confirmed: There were a few gaps in the base’s deflector coverage- an indication that some of its shield emitters were either inoperative or improperly aligned. Though admittedly small, those gaps might be the fatal flaw Kirk and Kang had hoped to find- if they could figure out a way to exploit it.

  They could try firing torpedoes through them- but that courted the risk of catastrophic destruction while the subspace weapon was deployed. One gap appeared large enough for a shuttle carrying commando teams to dock, but would they be able to breach the armor and get inside? Even if they could, that would take time, during which the shuttle would be vulnerable.

  “Could we beam people through one of those gaps?” Kirk asked.

  Everyone looked at Scott, who appeared dubious. “Captain, we’ve no idea how that subspace distortion could affect the transporter. If it disrupts the annular confinement beam, our people could arrive as puddles of protoplasm- if they got there at all.”

  “What if we minimized the distance?”

  “Aye, that’d help- but it’d have to be point blank. And droppin’ our shields at close range? If they have torpedoes, we’d be sittin’ ducks, sir.”

  “Not if one ship does the beaming while the other provides cover.”

  “Jim,” McCoy said, “it could be a suicide mission. We have no idea what they’ll run into over there.”

  “I’m aware of that, Doctor. But this could be our best- and only- chance to retake the base and shut down that weapon.”

  Kirk knew it was an option fraught with peril. But they had to do something, and time was one luxury they didn’t have, considering the destructive power now concentrated in unpredictable Torye hands. Advised by their senior officers, Kirk and Kang finalized a plan: A six-person tactical team combining Starfleet and Klingon personnel would be transported from the Enterprise while the K’tanco provided heavy covering fire. Then both ships would harass the battle base and distract the Torye crew while the boarding party attempted to shut down the subspace weapon and secure the base.

  Mara and Scott were assigned to lead the group of three officers from each ship. Their task: to take down the subspace weapon without blasting a disastrous hole in the universe. As they completed final preparations in the transporter room, Raya chipped in with her appraisal of Vykul and his crew.

  “He fancies himself a military leader,” she said, “but he and the rest of the Torye have no real experience at this. You people obviously do.”

  “Well, that’s something,” Kirk said. Then he turned to the boarding team. “But don’t forget: Fanatics can make formidable opponents. Good luck over there. Remember, you’ll have two starships doing our level best to give you the time you need to accomplish your mission.”

  From her console at the heart of the command center, Theena tracked the two ships as they wheeled around and began what looked like a side-by-side run at the battle base.

  “Status?” said Vykul, still exuding supreme confidence. He leaned back in the commander’s seat on its raised platform, his hands clasped comfortably behind his neck.

  Theena checked her panels. “All internal systems normal. Deflectors and armor battle-ready. Weapon system on standby.”

  “Phase two power?”

  “Ready.”

  One console to Theena’s right, Fiota peered intently at her tactical screen. “The Klingon ship remains uncloaked.”

  “They could engage their cloaking device anytime,” Theena said.

  “Or, maybe they’ve just decided on a refreshing frontal attack,” Vykul said. “They may have realized we have an overwhelming advantage and it doesn’t much matter what they do. This could be a suicide run.”

  Theena gave him a quick, queasy stare, not even bothering to conceal her apprehension. Did he really believe what he was saying? Was he actually unaware of all that could go wrong? Had he forgotten that the opposing warships had been able to escape from the distortion matrix this last time around? They’d obviously determined how to adapt their shields to put up greater resistance. So we’ve modified our tactics in response- but we can’t be sure it’ll work. What if it doesn’t? We don’t have any more tricks up our sleeves. Yet Vykul radiated blissful assurance, without a hint of doubt. Is he right- or insane?

  As Enterprise and K’tanco approached, Theena kept waiting for them to split up. But they stayed alongside each other, as if tethered together. Her hand hovered over the weapon trigger. Enterprise and K’tanco each fired a volley of torpedoes, but remained in tandem.

  “Deploy weapon- phase one,” Vykul ordered.

  Theena followed the command. “Distortion matrix engaged.” She paused while the fusillade of torpedoes exploded against the base’s armor like distant, rolling thunder. But the command center barely shivered. “Targets acquired.”

  Vykul leaned forward slightly. “Effects?”

  “Same as before. Fluctuations in their power output, but their warp drives are still online.”

  Suddenly, the two starships broke formation. Enterprise dove down, passing beneath the battle base, while the Klingon ship veered and came about sharply, unleashing a rapid-fire barrage of a dozen torpedoes in a matter of seconds.

  “Phase two,” Vykul said, “full power- now!”

  Theena engaged the rest of the warp reactors. For just a heartbeat, lights dimmed and the background ventilation hum muted; then it returned to normal. On the main viewscreen, the shimmering distortion field billowed out and flared brightly.

  “All warp engines… now at maximum,” Theena said in a hushed voice. Her eyes widened as she waited for circuits to overload and systems to blow. But, to her astonishment, nothing failed. The augmented subspace distortion matrix flowed over both starships from behind as they accelerated away- and both appeared to falter as the distortion field interfered with their propulsion output. Despite the fact that she hated what Vykul was doing, she felt a thrill seeing how her handiwork performed.