Star Trek: Typhon Pact 03: Rough Beasts of Empire Read online

  To Cavanagh, Sisko said, “What’s their formation?”

  This time, the lieutenant didn’t need to check the tactical displays. “Two cubes in front, two in the middle, two in the rear.”

  Sisko nodded again, calculating that the Borg would not attack in such a configuration. “Maintain sensor contact, Lieutenant,” he said. “I want to know when they break formation and how. I also want to know the instant they drop to impulse speed.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Sisko strode to the center of the Nebula-class starship’s compact bridge, to where the command chair perched at the front of the raised, upper section. Before him, past the crew seated at the conn and ops stations, a great purple-and-white arc filled the bottom of the screen, the world of Alonis, crowned by a panoply of stars. Off to port, sunlight gleamed off one of the two starships that had accompanied New York on its mission.

  Reaching down to the right arm of the command chair, Sisko tapped a control surface, silencing the klaxon. “Sisko to engineering,” he said, voice slightly raised. Not for the first time, he couldn’t call to mind the name of the ship’s chief engineer. He had no trouble recalling his appearance, though: a roughly cylindrical body nearly two meters tall, tapering slightly in the middle almost like an hourglass, colored a rich green, with a row of fingerlike tentacles a third of the way up, and a second row of longer, wider tentacles a third of the way down. Prior to Sisko’s assignment to New York, he hadn’t known that any Otevrel had joined Starfleet.

  “Engineering,” responded a tinny, mechanical voice, clearly the result of filtering through a portable translator. “Relkdahz here. Go ahead, Captain.”

  “Commander Relkdahz,” Sisko said, intentionally addressing the chief by name in an attempt to impress it upon his memory. “How many photon torpedoes have you upgraded?” In the hours since the Borg had launched their invasion and had begun to overrun Federation space, Starfleet’s commander in chief had disseminated plans for the modification of weapons and defensive systems. Though perhaps a case of too little, too late, the changes—at least in initial, limited use—had proven effective for other ships as they fought the relentless enemy.

  “Five, sir,” Relkdahz said.

  “Just five?” The words escaped Sisko’s lips before he could suppress them. He at once regretted the question, which would hardly rouse confidence in the bridge crew.

  “The transphasic modifications are complex, Captain, and we’re understaffed down here,” Relkdahz explained.

  Understaffed and inexperienced, Sisko thought. The terrible incident that had claimed the life of New York’s captain six weeks ago had also killed seven others and seriously injured nearly half the engineering staff. Their replacements had been both fewer in number and culled primarily from the ranks of Starfleet personnel only recently graduated from the Academy. “Understood,” Sisko said. “Good work,” he added, trying to mitigate the disappointment he’d voiced.

  “We did complete the upgrades to the shields,” Relkdahz said.

  Sisko felt his eyebrows lift in surprise. “Excellent,” he said, genuinely pleased. Anything that enhanced the New York crew’s ability to sustain combat against the Borg could make a difference. “Sisko out.” He descended the two steps to the front half of the bridge, where he stood between the personnel at conn and ops. “Commander Plante,” he told the operations officer, “raise the Kirk and the Cutlass.” Intership communications normally would have fallen under the purview of tactical, but Sisko wanted Cavanagh’s attention fully on the Borg.

  “Yes, sir.” Sisko watched as Plante called up a comm interface onto her panel, then worked it to complete his order. He peered up at the main viewer and waited. There, the world of Alonis hung in space, a beclouded indigo jewel in the night. Beneath its violet waters, Sisko knew, teemed a civilization of billions. The Alonis had joined the Federation four and a half decades ago.

  And I’ve been sent here to save them, he thought. As though helping for years to protect and preserve Bajor and its people hasn’t been enough for one career, one lifetime.

  Sisko recoiled from the bitterness he suddenly felt, uncertain to whom it had even been directed. After a moment, a split-screen view of the commanding officers of U.S.S. James T. Kirk and U.S.S. Cutlass appeared on the screen, the image of the planet vanishing. Sisko could only hope that when the Borg finally arrived, the actual world of Alonis didn’t disappear as readily.

  Captain Elias Vaughn sat in the command chair aboard U.S.S. James T. Kirk and acknowledged his orders from Captain Sisko, the officer in charge of the defense force. Vaughn had ordered the klaxon off and the lighting returned to normal, but red alert panels continued to pulse on and off around the bridge. On the main viewer, Sisko stared back at him from the left half of the screen, Captain Rokas from the right.

  Vaughn detected a distinct difference in the aspects of the two starship commanders. While both projected a seriousness of purpose, Rokas exuded a quiet self-assurance that, if not entirely justified in light of the imminent Borg attack, at least seemed a healthy conceit. The slight flush of her blue skin, the almost imperceptible tension in the bifurcated ridge that ran down the center of her face, bespoke an adrenal rush as she anticipated leading the Cutlass crew into battle.

  “Yes, sir,” Rokas said, also acknowledging her orders. “We’ll stop them,” she added, underscoring her obvious confidence that the trio of Starfleet crews would find a way for their vessels to protect Alonis and its people. Ben Sisko, on the other hand, appeared—

  Lost, Vaughn thought, unable to come up with another way to describe the faraway expression deep in his friend’s eyes. He doubted anybody else could see past Sisko’s commanding presence and sober manner, but Vaughn could, and what he saw troubled him. He hadn’t spoken to Sisko on a consistent basis over the past two years, since transferring out of the Bajoran system, from Deep Space 9 to Kirk. They’d occasionally exchanged subspace messages in that time, and they’d seen each other once, about a year ago, during that bad business on Bajor’s first moon. Back then, Vaughn had noted an undercurrent of anxiety in his friend, but he’d ascribed that at the time to the necessity for Sisko to function during the incident as the Emissary of the Prophets.

  On the main viewer, Sisko said, “Stick to the plan as best you can, for as long as you can. We’ll only get one chance at this.”

  Vaughn knew that almost a decade and a half ago, at the Battle of Wolf 359, Sisko’s first wife—not to mention his captain and many of his shipmates aboard Saratoga—had perished at the hands of the Borg. Vaughn understood that pain all too well, having lost Ruriko, the mother of his daughter, to the Collective. Given the present situation, it seemed reasonable that those terrible memories, that anguish, could explain the distance he perceived in Sisko, but he didn’t think so. Nor did he believe that his friend simply missed and worried about his family. Vaughn might not have known Sisko for that long or spent that much time with him, but they’d shared some intensely personal experiences. Consequently, they’d grown close, coming to know each other quite well. Something else troubled Sisko—something more, even, than the looming Borg onslaught.

  And if we survive this, Vaughn thought wryly, I’ll be sure to ask Ben about it.

  “Good luck,” Sisko concluded before signing off. The main screen reverted to a view of Alonis, with New York and Cutlass suspended silently in space above it. Vaughn also discerned one of the half-dozen defense platforms orbiting Alonis. All around the Federation, such planetary protections had failed utterly to repel the Borg, quickly reduced to slag by the advancing cubes.

  In the distance, sunlight glimmered off other metal surfaces that Vaughn couldn’t differentiate but that he knew belonged to a flotilla of Alonis civilian craft, hanging back as a last line of defense should the Starfleet crews fail in their mission. Those small ships, with minimal defenses and little or no armaments, would be wholly unable to slow the Borg even for a moment. Still, Vaughn understood the need for those Alonis crews to
make their stands. In the right circumstances, everybody tilted at windmills.

  Beside Vaughn, Commander Rogeiro stood from the first officer’s chair. “Adjust screen,” he said. “Let’s see the Borg approach.” His words came cradled in his light but distinctive Portuguese accent.

  At the tactical station situated on the rear, elevated arc of the bridge, Lieutenant Magrone tapped at his controls. On the viewer, an empty starfield replaced the planet, platform, and ships. “Two minutes, ten seconds from their probable arrival,” Magrone noted. “Transphasic torpedoes prepped and loaded for launch. Shields up, transphasic shields at the ready.” While the New York crew had cobbled together five upgraded torpedoes, and the smaller complement of Cutlass had managed just four, the Kirk engineering team had churned out an even ten.

  Vaughn knew that many captains claimed their crews were the best in the fleet, and he assumed that a majority of those probably even believed it. Vaughn never made such statements about the personnel aboard James T. Kirk, but then he didn’t have to: the Akira-class vessel carried with it a reputation worthy of the heroic and wildly successful twenty-third-century starship captain whose name it bore. For years, even before Vaughn had taken command, the crew had recorded one achievement after another, from exploratory missions, to diplomatic assignments, to military engagements. With Kirk as part of the task force, Starfleet might just save the Alonis.

  Vaughn glanced to his left, to where Counselor Glev sat. The gaze of the Tellarite’s deep-set eyes met his own. “The crew are ready, Captain,” he said, without Vaughn having to inquire.

  During the two years of Vaughn’s command of Kirk, the crew had continually adjusted to him, and he to them, so much so that they often foresaw his orders before he issued them, surmised his questions before he asked them. Indeed, he’d even recently taken to facetiously accusing his executive officer of possessing hidden telepathic talents. In a Starfleet career that had spanned more than eight decades and comprised hundreds of assignments, Vaughn’s time aboard Kirk had ended up the most satisfying of all.

  “Short-range sensors now picking up the Borg,” Magrone announced. “They’re decelerating. Estimating fifty seconds to contact.”

  “Formation?” Vaughn asked.

  “Unchanged,” Magrone said. “They are—wait. They’re altering course . . . stretching out into a single line . . . the cubes are spreading farther and farther apart.”

  Of course, thought Vaughn. That way, the three Starfleet ships wouldn’t be able to attack the cubes en masse. Where the Borg had once sought to assimilate Federation vessels and crews—to assimilate the whole of the UFP, really—they now apparently intended only to destroy it. The Collective had always maintained the futility of resistance to it; in its contacts with the Federation, it evidently had reached a threshold beyond which it had replaced its imperative of assimilation with that of extermination. The cubes arriving at Alonis would doubtless confront Kirk, New York, and Cutlass as necessary, but they had come bent on the destruction of the civilization on the planet.

  “Attack plan delta,” Vaughn ordered. When the Borg ships had initially appeared on long-range sensors, exposing their numbers, the captains of the three Starfleet vessels had coordinated their tactics, formulating several plans, the choice of which to use dependent upon how the cubes deployed.

  “Plan delta, aye, sir,” replied Lieutenant Commander T’Larik from the conn, even as she worked her controls to bring the ship about. Kirk sprang to life as the thrum of the impulse drive spread through the deck.

  Vaughn stood up beside Rogeiro. “The timing’s got to be perfect,” he told his exec. “The transphasic torpedoes may only work the first time.”

  The commander nodded, then turned and strode up the starboard ramp toward the tactical station. “Are you tracking each cube’s course and velocity?” he asked. “How far apart will they be when we meet them?”

  “Far enough that we’ll only be able to cross the path of one before reaching a second,” said Magrone.

  “Calculating the drop now,” announced Lieutenant Dunlap from the operations console.

  “The Cutlass and the New York are making their runs,” Rogeiro said, reading from the tactical station. “The Cutlass is headed for the sixth cube, New York for the third.”

  Vaughn peered at the main viewscreen. The stars moved left to right as Kirk continued its long sweep to port. He could not see any of the Borg vessels, but the presence of the relentless enemy seemed palpable. Several moments passed in silence.

  “Nineteen seconds to intercept the second Borg vessel,” said Magrone. “Ten seconds until we cross the path of the first.”

  “Initiating high-frequency burst,” Dunlap said. “Preparing to drop transphasic torpedoes.” The silver-haired operations officer counted down from five. “Torpedoes away,” he said, “seeded behind us.”

  On the viewer, looking ahead of his ship, Vaughn spotted movement, a distant, shadowy image streaking opposite the direction of the stars. As Kirk neared, the form resolved into the peculiarly generic shape common to most Borg vessels. “They’re powering weapons,” Magrone said.

  “Commence shield nutation,” Rogeiro said. Although the engineering teams aboard Kirk had modified the shields to employ transphasic harmonics, Captain Sisko had elected to hold the advanced defenses in abeyance at the start of the conflict. Instead, they would utilize a method of shield projection that had in the past stopped the Borg—at least for a short time.

  “The Borg are firing,” Magrone said, raising his voice. “The—”

  If any words followed, Vaughn couldn’t hear them over the thunder of the attack. He lost his footing and tumbled to the deck as the ship shuddered. A spray of sparks erupted from somewhere along the aft curve of the bridge.

  “Shields down to eighty-three percent,” called out Rogeiro.

  “Stay on target!” Vaughn yelled, still sprawled on the deck. The lights flickered, went out, came back on again.

  Vaughn scrambled to his feet and lurched over to the conn, where Lieutenant T’Larik had somehow remained in her seat. As her fingers dashed across the controls, Vaughn peered at her navigational readout, which depicted the flight paths of James T. Kirk and its foes. As the first Borg ship neared Kirk’s impulse wake, the second converged with the Starfleet vessel itself. “Stay on target,” Vaughn said again, looking back toward tactical.

  Rogeiro stood there alone, Magrone no longer at his side. Behind the exec, along the bridge’s outer bulkhead, Vaughn saw that one of the supplementary stations had exploded. Shrapnel, Vaughn thought, automatically attempting to account for whatever must have felled his tactical officer.

  “Firing torpedoes,” Rogeiro called, and then warned, “Hold on.”

  The ship jolted again as another barrage landed. Vaughn grabbed for the conn station and managed to keep his feet. The lights went out again and this time did not come back, replaced instead with the red glow of emergency lighting. “Status of the first two Borg ships?”

  At tactical, Rogeiro searched for an answer. “The torpedoes worked,” he finally said. “The second ship was destroyed, and the first—” He operated a few more control surfaces. “Also destroyed,” he said.

  Vaughn almost couldn’t believe the report. Starfleet Command had detailed the efficacy of transphasic torpedoes against the Borg but had also cautioned that the weapons would probably fail in short order to withstand the Collective’s ability for rapid adaptation. The Kirk crew had sown four of their upgraded torpedoes in the path of the first Borg cube, masking them with a high-frequency communications signal. They then timed their assault on the second cube to coincide with the first cube’s collision with the weapons, providing the crews of neither vessel any time to adapt.

  “And the others?” Vaughn asked. With fewer torpedoes, the crews of Cutlass and New York had only enough to fire directly on the Borg ships, but they had coordinated their attacks with those of Kirk.

  “Scanning,” Rogeiro said. Vaughn girded h
imself for bad news, but then his first officer said, “The third cube has also been destroyed.”

  The portside doors in the aft bulkhead parted, revealing Ensign Ni-Jalikreii. The Efrosian nurse surveyed the bridge for a moment, then quickly moved over beside Commander Rogeiro. Ni-Jalikreii ducked down, out of sight, behind the tactical console, no doubt to tend to Lieutenant Magrone.

  “The sixth cube shows faltering shields, but it’s still operational,” Rogeiro said.

  Damn, Vaughn thought. Three cubes wiped out, but three remaining. And since the crew of Cutlass hadn’t destroyed the vessel upon which they’d fired, that likely meant that their attack hadn’t occurred simultaneously with those of Kirk and New York. However short the additional time it had taken for Cutlass’s torpedoes to land, the interval had allowed the rest of the Borg squadron to adapt to Starfleet’s new transphasic weaponry.

  “T’Larik, bring us about,” Vaughn said, gazing down at the conn officer. “Head us for the nearest cube.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said.

  Vaughn turned toward the main viewscreen to see the starfield whirling to one side. After a moment, the scene steadied on the orb of Alonis. A dark cube hung above it. As Vaughn watched, a fiery red beam streaked forth from the Borg vessel, aimed at the planet.

  “They’re firing on Calavet,” said Rogeiro.

  The third most populous city on the planet, Vaughn knew, Calavet housed more than thirteen million inhabitants. “Load unmodified photon torpedoes alongside the transphasics,” Vaughn said, since he knew that Kirk carried only two more of the upgraded weapons. “Ready on main phasers, random resonance frequencies.” At one time or another, the Borg had adapted to each of those weapon systems, but Vaughn hoped that hitting them with everything would make a difference.