Missing in Action

  The ship loomed large on their viewscreen, and yet she felt as if they weren’t getting any closer to it. Suddenly the saucer section of the Trident cut right in front of them, so close that the “T” in the ship’s name looked enormous. Soleta cried out even as she cut hard to aft, and the Spectre came within a whisker of colliding with the saucer before the two of them passed each other.

  “That would have been ironic,” Lucius said with remarkable sangfroid.

  Soleta ignored him, instead recalibrating the attack course in a heartbeat and then sending the Spectre howling toward the larger ship.

  All this time it had seemed distant, and abruptly the opposite was true: Soleta felt as if it was all around them. The bizarre molecular shape of the vessel made penetrating its inner sections that much easier. The blasts from the other ships dropped away as the Spectre, running silent, penetrated far more deeply into its opponent than anyone could have anticipated.

  It loomed around her, majestic, like something left over from ancient times. In the heart of the ship, surrounded by its many cross-tunnels and passageways, Soleta felt as if she had stepped into the heart of creation itself. “There were giants in those days,” whispered Soleta.

  “Commander…”

  “Yes. Of course.” She shook off the growing sense of awe and said, “Are you getting a reading off any particular section of the vessel? Something that could indicate an energy or power center? Engines, perhaps, that we can destroy and thus cripple it?”

  He shook his head, and although he was far too experienced a warrior to let frustration show, she could tell it was there all the same. “Nothing. There’s a uniformity to it, such as I’ve never seen.”

  “All right, then. I suppose we have to start somewhere.” She studied the ship’s structure and then, taking her best guess, propelled the Spectre as close to an intersecting joint as she dared get. “That’s your target, Tribune. Full array of disruptors and torpedoes.”

  “Locked in and awaiting your word, Commander.”

  They exchanged a look, each knowing that the moment they decloaked so that they could have energy for their weapons system they would be visible and vulnerable to the beings within the ship.

  “The word is given, Tribune.”

  U.S.S. Trident

  “I’ll be damned!” Mueller cried out.

  From her vantage point aboard the saucer section of the Trident, Mueller couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. “Arex, forward sensor sweep! Is that—?”

  “It’s Soleta’s vessel, yes,” said Arex. “They just decloaked.”

  Gold said, looking at his navcom, “Considering the angle they must have come in at, we’re lucky we didn’t collide with them.”

  “They’re opening fire on the vessel, Captain!”

  Sure enough, the Spectre was letting the larger vessel have it with everything in their arsenal. The interior of the vast ship was illuminated by the display of firepower as the Spectre let fly.

  “They’re targeting several junctions all at one time,” M’Ress said from the science station.

  “Any effect?”

  “Scanning now, but it’s difficult to say, Captain.”

  “Find a way to say it.”

  M’Ress studied the sensor sweeps, then looked up at Mueller with a flash of hope. “Some structural damage, yes. They’re making some headway…”

  Suddenly the Spectre vanished from the screen, mere seconds before the larger ship returned fire. One of those devastating corkscrew blasts ripped through space right where the Spectre had been, and Mueller was on her feet. “Did they hit it?”

  “Unable to determine—”

  She rounded on M’Ress. “Don’t you dare tell me that. I don’t want ‘unable to determine.’ I want ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ ”

  “Captain!” shouted Arex.

  Instantly Mueller knew what was happening. “Evasive maneuvers!” she shouted, bounding back to her chair.

  The saucer angled away, just as another blast from the ship cut across, nearly creasing the starboard side. Judging from the strength of the other shots, it would have ripped a gaping hole in the saucer if it had made contact.

  “There!” M’Ress said. “Got them on sensors, at 214 mark 7! They’re attacking again!”

  She was right. The Spectre had reappeared, looking entirely whole, and it was firing once more at the same juncture points.

  “Arex. Target those same points and open fire. Full torpedo array.”

  “Aye, Captain. Torpedoes away!”

  The photon torpedoes flashed out from the saucer’s underbelly and streaked across space. Earlier attempts along those lines had been thwarted as the torpedoes had bounced harmlessly off the larger vessel’s hull. This time, however, the photon torpedoes found their mark and crashed into the juncture points just as the Spectre’s own blasts did.

  The larger vessel swung around, and the sector under direct assault from the blasts actually looked as if it was starting to bend under the pounding it was taking. The Spectre pivoted, dove, and darted under yet another blast and opened fire a third time upon the same area.

  “Are we damaging it, Arex?” demanded Mueller.

  “Some structural damage in evidence, yes.”

  “Keep firing! Contact other vessels, give them the coordinates! Tell them to concentrate whatever fire they can! It’s too far in for standard phasers to be of much use,” she added, knowing of their own frustrations in that regard. “Torpedoes only!”

  “But why that specific section, Captain?” asked M’Ress.

  “Soleta’s in command of that ship, Lieutenant,” Mueller reminded her. “One of the most brilliant scientific minds I’ve ever known. She’s got her reasons, I’m sure.”

  The Spectre

  Soleta had no idea what she was doing.

  This, she thought, has to be the most half-assed battle strategy I’ve ever come up with. Then it occurred to her that she hadn’t actually come up with all that many battle strategies. She’d spent most of her career as a science officer, and when she assumed command of the Spectre, her main job had been to stay out of pitched battles such as this one.

  She wasn’t giving thought to anything except staying out of the way of the return blasts from the larger ship and trying to keep her own vessel on course. Then Lucius called out, “We’re getting company, Commander. Other vessels now firing on the same target we are!”

  “Why? We picked it at random. It was the nearest thing to us.”

  “Perhaps they think we knew something they didn’t!”

  “Wonderful,” muttered Soleta. “So we’ve got the bulk of this assault force firing on what they assume is a vulnerable point when, for all we know, it’s the enemy’s lunchroom. Meantime it’s all we can do to keep out of their way as well.” Even as she spoke, she sent the Spectre diving to one side, blasts exploding practically over their heads. “This is insane. We need to tell them to pull back, to try and find some sort of—”

  And that was when a huge plume of flame erupted from the vessel. It blew out of the section that they had been assaulting, and the round section that had been anchoring the long tubes flew apart. The entire vessel lurched as the connecting tubes crashed together, and then more flames, fueled by internal energies, began to appear all along the ship’s lower half.

  A chain reaction. I don’t believe it, thought Soleta, even as she shouted, “Cloak us! I’m getting us out of here!”

  “Cloak activated! We’re running silent!”

  The Spectre banked hard, down and away from the source of the explosions, which seemed to be spreading by the second. Lucius had obviously been correct in his guess that the larger ship required a target to aim at in order to shut down an opposing vessel. The Spectre’s cloak had kept it from making itself an easy target, and during the times it had been visible, it had kept up too steady a stream of fire for the now-beleaguered larger vessel to fire back.

  Soleta kept the ship moving as quickly and as deftly as she coul
d, swinging the vessel around in a random pattern to avoid any chance of the larger ship getting a bead on them somehow. Seconds later the Spectre emerged from under the vast cover of the invading vessel, whipping back around and decloaking as they approached the Trident.

  “The Trident is instructing all vessels to fall back. They anticipate an explosion is imminent!”

  “It can’t be that easy. It can’t,” muttered Soleta, even as she piloted the Spectre on a course away from the massive ship.

  And yet it seemed that it was indeed going to be just that easy. The vessel was shuddering, explosions continuing to burst forth along the surface. Soleta held her breath even as her ship and the others drew to a safer range. She could only imagine the panic that must be ensuing on Priatia at that moment as their protector seemed on the verge of…

  …of…

  “Shit.”

  The flames were snuffing out. All along the surface of the vessel, the shuddering was ceasing.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Lucius.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” she said grimly. “For starters, there’s no air in space to feed the flames. If they cut off whatever was fueling the fires, naturally the flames are going to snuff out.”

  “Orders, Commander?”

  Soleta’s mind raced, trying to determine what to do.

  That was when warning klaxons went off all over the Spectre, and Lucius’s voice rose in alarm for the first time in the entire encounter.

  “Commander!” he called out. “Off the port side! There’s—”

  “I see it!” she replied. Sure enough, there it was: Space itself was twisting and writhing upon itself, forming the same sort of whirlpool that had drawn in the Excalibur. Obviously the huge vessel had deployed its ultimate weapon.

  And it was going to pull in the Spectre and every other damned ship in the area to wherever Calhoun and his ship had been drawn into.

  Impossibly, even through the soundless vacuum of space, a roar enveloped them. The Spectre began to shake violently, and Soleta blasted the engines at full strength, trying to pull away, knowing it was hopeless…

  That was when she noticed something. “It’s backwards!” she shouted over the howling of the energy whirlpool.

  “What?!”

  “Get me the Trident! Now!”

  Seconds later, Mueller’s voice crackled over the subspace com. “I’m not sure this is the best time, Soleta! We’re trying not to be dragged into—”

  “It’s not trying to pull us in!” Soleta shouted back. “It’s turning in a different direction from the way it was when we last saw it! Don’t you see? It’s not pulling us in. Something’s coming out of it—!”

  And that was when energy erupted from the hole in space, so blinding that Soleta gasped in pain and threw her arms across her eyes to block it out. There was still a burst of brilliance seared into her retinas, as if she’d been foolish enough to stare directly into the sun. Then she blinked as, from the depths of another dimension entirely, a brand-new ship emerged.

  It was different in design from the one they’d been battling, but it was just as gargantuan. And it looked just as formidable, if not more so.

  “Oh joy,” came Mueller’s sarcastic voice. “We’re saved.”

  U.S.S. Excalibur

  “We’re through! Captain!” Morgan called from the conn. “We’re through! We’re back in our own universe!”

  A ragged cheer sprang up from the bridge crew, and Mackenzie Calhoun sagged into his chair like a balloon relieved of air. He rubbed his hand across his face and let out a heavy sigh before he murmured, “Grozit…I never thought it would work. Up until this very second, I was sure that Pontalimus had booby-trapped the Bolgar vessel…rigged it somehow so that the transwarp conduit would collapse in on them and us, smashing us to atoms.”

  “I believe I speak for the entirety of the bridge crew,” Burgoyne spoke up, “when I say that I’m pleased you decided to keep that to yourself.”

  “Uh-oh,” Kebron said. “Captain…sensors indicate we have an audience. A fairly large audience.”

  Kebron was correct. Below them was the planet Priatia, and all around them was a staggering assortment of vessels, big and small. The most commanding of them in terms of presence was the same vessel that had propelled the Excalibur into another sphere to begin with…the ship that he now knew was operated by the race called the Teuthis. There were other ships as well, ships he recognized as belonging to an assortment of races in Thallonian space. Plus there appeared to be the engineering section of a starship, devoid of saucer…no, wait. There was the saucer, all right, and it was…

  “The Trident, sir,” Kebron said. “It’s hailing us…”

  “Both halves are,” added Morgan. After a moment, she said, “I think you’ll want to take the engineering section first. It’s your wife.”

  “My w—?”

  He didn’t even have to tell Morgan to put that one through. The image of Elizabeth Shelby, standing on what was clearly a battle bridge, appeared on the screen of the Excalibur. She gasped, at first obviously unable to believe what she was seeing. There was a choking noise as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But she instantly composed herself, squaring her shoulders and saying, “Captain Calhoun. You certainly took your sweet damned time coming back.”

  “My apologies, Admiral,” replied Calhoun, forcing himself not to smile. “We had a few bumps along the way.”

  “So I see. And I see you brought a friend.”

  “Yes. The vessel that preceded us through the corridor is commanded by the Bolgar. And the one that was already here…that is a vessel of another race called the Teuthis. Their respective leaders are still aboard here, to ensure their mutual cooperation…although we did return his guards to their vessel as a show of good faith.”

  “I’m confused. Are they enemies or allies?”

  “Allies now,” Calhoun said with a weary smile. “Getting the two heads of their respective races to come to terms took…a bit of doing. But now they’re—”

  “Captain!” Morgan suddenly shouted. “The Bolgar ship is opening fire on the Teuthis vessel!”

  Shelby’s image vanished, to be replaced by a horrific vista: The Bolgar ship was indeed firing upon the Teuthis ship. Had the Teuthis been operating at full strength, they might well have been able to resist it. As it was, they had no chance whatsoever. Powerful blasts cracked apart the Teuthis ship, pounding it every which way.

  “No!” shouted Calhoun. “Morgan, get me Termic down in the shuttlebay! Right now!”

  It was too late. The Teuthis vessel tried to put up a fight, but it only got off a few random shots that bounced harmlessly off the surface of the Bolgar ship. And then, seconds later, the Teuthis ship blew apart, shattering and sending pieces flying off in every direction, spiraling away into the darkness of space.

  And then, seconds later, the Bolgar vessel swept back around and into the transwarp conduit, which had never actually closed and was now turning in the other direction. Then it simply vanished. Except for the floating pieces of debris that were left to mark the spot of the vessel’s destruction, there was no sign that it had ever been there at all.

  Priatia

  Kat Mueller hadn’t known what to expect when she beamed down to the continent of Nemosia, in the capital city of Cheng. She had never been there before. It had, however, been the exact spot where the false Kalinda had been stationed when the impostor had been fobbed off upon them. The coordinates had been given them by a Priatian named Keesala, who was, obviously, one of the masterminds behind the entire nasty business.

  Mueller had, however, taken the precaution of bringing a sizable security force with her, over two dozen strong, armored and armed for trouble. Furthermore, she was also accompanied by Calhoun’s son Xyon. Xyon had barely had to look at the impostor to know that she was a fake. If only Si Cwan and the others had listened to him at the time, a lot of death and blood could have been avoided.

  Still, even without
knowing what to expect…she certainly hadn’t anticipated what she found.

  Scattered all over the streets were the bodies of Priatians. They were simply lying there, staring lifelessly up at the night sky.

  “What the hell…?” said Mueller.

  “What happened here?” Arex asked.

  A voice that was all too familiar to Mueller spoke up from the darkness. “Isn’t it obvious? They killed themselves.”

  Moving slowly toward her, with a much smaller figure next to him, was Keesala. He looked weary and wasted. The guards leveled their weapons at him, but Keesala made no sudden move toward them. “The Wanderers are dead. Our hope is dead. Our future is dead. And many of us…chose not to live in a future that has nothing to offer us.”

  “And you?” demanded Mueller.

  “I am ambivalent.” He gestured toward the smaller figure as he said to Mueller, “I thought you would come to this place. I believe you’re looking for this.”

  He stepped back and Kalinda stumbled forward, wrapped in a cloak that was too large for her.

  “Keep back,” Mueller ordered her troops, and then nodded for Xyon to step forward.

  Xyon did so, approaching cautiously, studying her scrupulously. She had a stunned and distant look on her face, but then she seemed to focus upon Xyon for the first time. She stopped in her tracks, staring at him, and then tears began to run down her face.

  “Oh, Xyon,” she said, the words escaping like an agonized whisper, and she sagged into his arms. He picked her up, cradling her, and she sobbed, “You’re not Si Cwan…”

  “I know,” he said, having heard from Mueller the fate of Kalinda’s brother.

  “He never liked you.”

  “I know. But I always liked him.”

  “You’re lying. Thank you for lying,” and then she sobbed into his chest. He held her tightly against it, then turned toward Mueller and simply nodded, telling her what she needed to know: In his opinion, this was the genuine Kalinda.