War Stories: Book Two Read online

  “Enemy vessels closing in at full impulse. They’ll be in weapons range of the Appalachia and the Sloane in two minutes.”

  Gold looked at the recent Academy graduate at the conn station and struggled to remember his name. Finally, it came to him. “Wong, position report.”

  Wong turned to face his captain. He didn’t look old enough to shave. “Holding position at thirty thousand kilometers from the relay, sir.”

  Turning to the redheaded Bajoran at ops, Gold asked, “Ina, what would be the effect of extending shields around the relay?”

  Ina ran her fingers over her console, then said, “Shields’ effectiveness would be reduced to sixty-five percent.”

  Damn. If these were just the Cardassians, that might be enough, but Jem’Hadar ships were just too damned powerful to go in with that much reduced shield effectiveness. “So much for that idea. Wong, keep your fingers nimble. We have to keep that relay intact, clear?”

  “Crystal, sir.”

  “Good.”

  “ Appalachia to da Vinci. ”

  Gold had been expecting to hear from either Don Walsh or Ahmed al-Rashid before long. I guess Ahmed won the coin toss.“Go ahead, Appalachia.”

  “We shall do our best to keep the enemy at bay, David. How soon will your team be finished?”

  In response, McAllan said, “Sir, Commander Salek is signaling for beam-out.”

  “There’s your answer, Ahmed. We’ll hold position, try to keep the relay in one piece.”

  “Excellent. It would be more so with a Sovereign -class vessel or two at our backs, but we must make do with what we are granted.”

  “Sad, but true. Go get ’em, Ahmed. We’ll watch your back. Da Vinci out. McAllan, lower shields.” He opened an intercom channel, then. “Transporter room, get the away team back here.”

  “Aye, sir,” Feliciano said.

  “McAllan, get the shields back up as soon as they’ve materialized, and put the tactical display on the main viewer.”

  The screen changed from a view of the comm relay to a computer-generated overview of the battle arena. On the left-hand side of the screen, the two Steamrunner-class ships. Coming in on the right-hand side, two Cardassians and one Jem’Hadar. And at the bottom, the communications relay and the da Vinci itself. Small text next to each vessel indicated the status of each ship—shields, weapons, life support, etc.

  Here we go, Gold thought, forcing himself to sit up straight.

  As the first exchange of phaser fire among the combatants began, Gold wondered how long this would go on. Over his five decades in Starfleet, he’d seen plenty of combat, but nothing like what he’d had to endure against the Dominion.

  One of the Cardassian ships was trying to maneuver around toward the comm relay, but Appalachia cut them off, taking quite a few hits into the bargain.

  Gold’s most fervent desire, of course, was to die in bed, surrounded by as many of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as were still alive and could fit in the room. However, he knew that such a fate was not terrifically likely—and had become somewhat less likely since the likes of the Borg and the Dominion came along, not to mention those skirmishes with the Klingons during the year and a half that the alliance with the Empire broke down. It was, in fact, during that eighteen-month period that Gold had seriously considered turning in his combadge for good. One of his oldest, dearest friends, Captain Mairin ni Bhroanin of the Starship Huygens, had been killed in action against the Klingons, and he told his wife, Rabbi Rachel Gilman, that he was considering retirement.

  The Appalachia let loose with a phaser barrage on one of the Cardassian ships. “The Appalachia’s penetrated their shields,” McAllan reported. “Hull breach.”

  Ina added, “Jem’Hadar moving in on Appalachia’s position.”

  “C’mon, Ahmed, move your tuchis,” Gold muttered.

  Ironically, given that she would be the greatest beneficiary of having her husband home on a permanent basis, it was Rachel who had talked him out of retiring. Probably, he thought ruefully, because she saw how miserable I was when I was assigned to Earth. After Gold’s first command, the Schiaparelli, was decommissioned, he requested an administrative post on Earth in order to be near his family. That lasted about six months.

  “You belong in space,” Rachel had said at Mairin’s funeral.

  “I belong with my family.”

  “You’ll always belong with your family, but for now you also belong in space. Someday, it’ll just be the one. Then you come home.”

  Ina interrupted Gold’s reverie. “One of the Cardassian ships is moving in on our position.”

  “Steady, Wong,” Gold said. “Keep us between the Cardassians and the relay.”

  Luckily, Gold’s continued ability to survive to retirement was aided by Starfleet’s decision to give the S.C.E. a better class of ship. For a long time, the S.C.E. had only the use of half-refitted decommissioned ships, held together with little more than selfsealing stembolts and happy thoughts. Later, they were given more current vessels, but still very much bottom-of-the-line. With Starfleet’s recent focus on ships better able to defend themselves, prompted by the Enterprise’s encounter with the Borg nine years earlier, Starfleet had set aside four of their newest ships—the Saber class, intended mainly as a small, maneuverable combat vessel—for the S.C.E.’s use, knowing that sometimes they would need to do more than just crawl around alien wrecks.

  Like right now, Gold thought irritably as Cardassian phasers plowed into the da Vinci’s shields. “Return fire, full phasers!”

  “Firing,” McAllan said.

  “Ready quantum torpedoes, fire on my mark.”

  Ina said, “Sloane firing on the Cardassians—they’re moving off.”

  “Phaser fire ineffective,” McAllan said.

  “Fire torpedoes.” Gold clenched his left hand.

  “Firing.”

  “Sloane is continuing to fire,” Ina added.

  McAllan sounded a bit more triumphant as he said, “Cardassian shields are down!”

  The Sloane’s phaser fire combined with the da Vinci’s torpedoes to destroy the Cardassian ship.

  Gold took no joy in the destruction of the Cardassian vessel. He wouldn’t have done a single thing differently given the chance—the Federation was at war, after all—but he saw no reason to take any pleasure in death. One of the reasons why he jumped at the assignment to the S.C.E. when Admiral Sitak offered it to him was that the Corps of Engineers’ purpose was to fix things.

  So why do we always wind up in the position of destructor?

  He put aside such philosophical musings, as they were pointless in times of war, and focused on the tactical display. Again, he clenched his left fist—the Appalachia had suffered considerable damage, though they’d also done likewise to the other Cardassian ship.

  Most depressing was the display that indicated a total lack of significant damage to the Jem’Hadar, who were the more worrisome of their foes.

  “Hold position, Wong. And let’s hope Don and Ahmed can keep this up….”

  * * *

  Fabian sat on his bunk in the incredibly dull quarters that he shared with Chan Okha. The linguist himself sat on his own bunk, reading a padd. Fabian had made three attempts to start a conversation, which were met with one-word answers.

  I need to do something.

  He went over to the computer terminal on the small desk near his bunk. The quarters were slightly larger than the cabins on the Defiant, but only slightly, and at least he hadn’t had to live permanently there—his quarters were on Deep Space 9. Living full-time in these cramped confines was going to be more of a challenge.

  Calling up the tactical display from the bridge, he saw that the battle was going decently, but not great. The da Vinci was still in one piece, as were the Jem’Hadar, but the other four were taking a beating.

  Looking over the field, as it were, it was obvious that the two Steamrunner s were an even match for the two Galor s. No, make th
at one Galor, he thought as a combination of da Vinci torpedoes and Sloane phasers took out a Cardassian vessel. But still, the Appalachia had taken a massive pounding, and wasn’t going to be a player in the fight for much longer.

  And in an even fight, we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell against a Jem’Hadar ship. Which means we have to even the odds a bit. Do something to modify the weapons or improve the shield frequency, or use something—

  Fabian smiled. Or use a weapon they don’t know we have.

  Standard procedure notwithstanding, Fabian headed to the doors to his quarters.

  “Where you going?” Okha asked.

  “Lab. Want to try something.”

  Okha shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to avoid,” Fabian said as he walked through the doors.

  He got to the lab door and saw Drew and one other security guard standing outside the door. Fabian started mentally rehearsing how he was going to justify his presence at the lab.

  However, upon seeing him, Drew simply said, “Figured I’d see you here before too long. The Bynars and Commander Duffy are already in there.”

  “Ah.”

  Drew smiled a knowing smile. “You were expecting me to give you a hard time and say that the lab was off-limits while we were at red alert, right?”

  Fabian smiled sheepishly. “Yeah, kinda.”

  “Only way to enforce that on this ship is to stick all of you in the brig until the red alert’s over. Mind you, Core-Breach probably considered that….”

  Laughing, Fabian said, “I believe it.”

  He entered to see, as Drew had indicated, 110, 111, and Duffy standing around the golf ball.

  Duffy looked up. “Ah, the new guy joins us. Couldn’t keep away from the gizmo, huh, Fabe?”

  “’Fraid not, Commander. Besides, I just checked in with the bridge.”

  Growing more sober, Duffy said, “Yeah, I know. Salek’s up there now, giving the captain a hand. I thought I’d be more use down here.”

  “If we can get this thing to work for us, we might be able to use it on the Jem’Hadar.”

  Grinning, Duffy said, “That’s what I was hoping, too. Great minds think alike.”

  “And so do ours,” Fabian said, without missing a beat.

  As one, 110 and 111 looked up at the two humans. “We believe that—”

  “—we have come up with a way—”

  “—to defend our computers—”

  “—against the virus.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Duffy said.

  “We will program the virus protection—”

  “—into the da Vinci computer now.”

  “This protection will need—”

  “—to be programmed into all—”

  “—Federation and allied computers.”

  Duffy nodded. “Good work, guys. Get to it.” He turned to Fabian. “Meantime, we’ll see what we can do about getting the hang of our golf game.”

  Fabian smiled. “Let’s play through…”

  * * *

  “Shields down to forty percent.”

  Salek stood next to McAllan at the tactical station. “Damage control teams, report to deck six.”

  Gold pounded a fist on the command chair. The second Cardassian ship and the Appalachia had both been destroyed. He muttered a quick Kaddish for Captain al-Rashid, and wondered if he’d live to give Fayah and their children the bad news in person.

  The Sloane was limping along with no shields, weapons, or communications capacity, very little power, and life signs indicating that a quarter of the crew were dead. Gold hoped that Captain Walsh was one of those still living, if for no other reason than that Don still owed Gold a rematch for that chess game Gold lost last year at Starbase 96.

  Amazing the things you think of under pressure.

  “Captain, we cannot continue to trade blows with the Jem’Hadar.”

  Gold sighed at Salek’s statement of the obvious. “Have we done any damage?”

  “Their shields are down to sixty-five percent,” McAllan said. “Another hit, sir—our shields are at ten percent.”

  One more minute and I have to abandon to the comm relay.

  “Duffy to bridge. Captain, we’ve been able to gain control of the golf ball.”

  Smiling, Gold remembered why Starfleet engineers had reputations as miracle workers. “Can we use it on the Jem’Hadar?”

  “Definitely, sir. We can deploy it through the cargo bay. Stevens rigged a tricorder that can feed it instructions. The weapons’ll plow through their shields, and then we can hit ’em with the virus.”

  “I find it difficult to believe,” Salek said, “that the Jem’Hadar would not have a defense against their own computer virus.”

  “Sir, 110 and 111 think they can make it work for us. And even if they can’t, we’ll only need a few seconds of distraction to keep them from defending themselves.”

  Another shot from the Jem’Hadar hit. “Shields are gone,” McAllan said.

  “We’re out of options,” Gold said. “Get going, Duffy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Salek said, “McAllan, prepare all remaining torpedoes. Fire them when Duffy and Stevens deploy the weapon.”

  “Jem’Hadar coming in for another pass,” Ina said.

  Tapping his combadge, Gold said, “Now would be good, Duffy.”

  “Give us a sec, sir. We’re just getting into the cargo bay now.”

  Gold then said the words he’d been unable to say until now, but he had no choice. “Wong, evasive, pattern alpha, full impulse.” They couldn’t protect the comm relay if they were vulnerable. He just had to gamble that the Jem’Hadar would pursue the da Vinci and attempt to finish them off before going after the relay.

  That gamble, at least, paid off. “Jem’Hadar in pursuit,” Ina said.

  “We’re ready to go,” Duffy said.

  Salek said, “Fire torpedoes.”

  McAllan fired the torpedoes, a combination of photon and quantum, which managed to do a certain amount of damage to the Jem’Hadar’s shields.

  One torpedo did not hit the Jem’Hadar, however—mainly because it wasn’t a torpedo, but Duffy’s “golf ball.” Energy weapons fired from the tiny projectile right at the Jem’Hadar.

  “Enemy shields are down,” McAllan said, sounding surprised.

  “Their power signature is decreasing rapidly,” Salek added, “well out of proportion to the damage they have taken. Logic would dictate that the computer virus has infected them—and that same logic would suggest that we finish what it is starting. McAllan, fire phasers.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A moment later, the Jem’Hadar ship exploded, the victim of the da Vinci phasers.

  The bridge was silent for several seconds.

  “Sir,” McAllan said, breaking the silence, “we’re being hailed by the Sloane. I guess they got their comms working.”

  “Put it through.”

  “Nice job, David.”

  “Good to hear your voice, Don.”

  “Good to be heard. I don’t know what kind of magic your S.C.E. people worked, but I’m grateful.”

  “I just wish we could’ve pulled the rabbit out of our hat before we lost Ahmed and his people.”

  “Yeah, me, too. In any case, we’re gonna need a tow.”

  With any other crew, Gold would have thought Walsh was crazy to think that a Saber-class ship could tow a much larger Steamrunner-class vessel.

  With this crew, however, Gold just smiled and said, “We’ll get right on it. Gold out.” He turned to Salek. “Good work, Salek—and a big mazel tov to 110, 111, and the two new folks. Blue’s unique abilities got the relay fixed fast, and from the sounds of it, Stevens was a big help with Duffy.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Now let’s see what we can do about the Sloane.…”

  Androssi Vessel Overseen by Biron

  STARDATE 53679.3

  Biron finished rea
ding of the U.S.S. da Vinci’s retrieval and usage of the Dominion mobile weapon and was, despite himself, impressed. Once again, the crew of that ship had improvised and managed to defeat a demonstrably superior foe in the Jem’Hadar.

  Just as they had twice defeated Biron, also a demonstrably superior foe.

  He read the remainder of the log entries, including the account of the deaths of Commander Salek and Dr. Chan Okha. It had, he decided, been worth the expenditure of time to obtain these log entries. He had learned much about the crew of this vessel in his perusals: psychological susceptibility to the ravages of combat; inappropriate grieving over the deaths of lesser beings; relationships between workers and officers; all of these and more were vulnerabilities that Biron could exploit.

  He made several notes as to courses of action he could take that would cripple the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci and prevent them from interfering with his proper duties ever again.

  The first thing he needed to do was ascertain the location of Dr. Tydoan. The former chief medical officer for the U.S.S. da Vinci had resigned from service in Starfleet after the cessation of hostilities with the Dominion. Biron did not possess any record of his activity following his resignation, since such records were beyond the purview of what he had originally requested from the now-deceased Yridian.

  “Attention, Overseer. We have received a subspace communication from the sponsor. It requires your immediate attention.”

  The voice was Sub-Overseer Howwi’s. All thoughts of petty revenge against the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci fled Biron’s mind temporarily. His primary duty—indeed, his only duty—was to his Elite sponsor. A communication from him took precedence over anything else. Biron would locate Dr. Tydoan at a later date.

  However, the time would eventually come when the opportunity to take revenge on Captain David Gold, Commander Sonya Gomez, Lt. Commander Kieran Duffy, and the rest of the crew of the U.S.S. da Vinci would present itself.

  Biron found himself looking forward to that time with somewhat inappropriate, yet rather enjoyable anticipation.

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