Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (18 page)

“Any way to blow those into smaller pieces?”

“Weapons are still down—and we need what power and maneuvering we have just to make orbit. And the shuttles don’t have the power.” It clearly galled the competitive Betelgeusian to admit defeat, but that didn’t stop him. “I’m sorry, Commander Vale. There’s nothing more we can do.”

SHUTTLECRAFT GILLESPIE

Melora Pazlar gazed at the sensor readings on the shuttle console in horror. Not only had
Titan
failed to prevent the impact, but…“Pazlar to Riker,” she called. “The angle of impact has changed. The rock’s not coming down where we put the klaxon!”

“Not that they were willing to evacuate the area anyway,” Ra-Havreii said. The squales’ big bruisers had destroyed their second klaxon as well. Pazlar wasn’t surprised that trying to scare them out of a particular place had just made them more determined to stay there. It was downright humanoid of them.

“And it’s worse, sir—the impact zone’s a lot closer to you now. You’ve got to get out of there! Head west as fast as you can! We’re coming to get you, but we may not get there in time.”

“Make best speed, Commander. The squales aren’t letting us go anywhere, and I’m reluctant to use force on them.”

“Captain, you may have to. A stun beam won’t kill them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Riker out.”

Melora turned to Xin. “Is there anything else we can do?”

He sighed. “Not unless you have a containment field big enough to hold sixty billion cubic meters of water, a tractor beam strong enough to lift it all, and a transporter powerful enough to beam out any squales it contains before flying it into the asteroid’s path to vaporize it before it hits the ocean. Oh, and a death wish.”

“Sorry,” she said without humor. “Fresh out.”

“Good,” Xin said. “Because spending the rest of my life with you was
not
on my agenda.”

Melora glared, hurt and angry that he would hurl such a barb at a time like this. But then she turned back to her instruments, pushing it aside. Maybe he was petty enough to dwell on their personal issues when a disaster was going on, but she was going to focus on what was important.

Damn him.

Ra-Havreii was rather relieved that his suicidal plan had not been technically viable; that way he didn’t have to feel guilty about not wanting to sacrifice his life for a few hundred dexterous calamari. To be sure, he appreciated the intricacies of their language and was impressed with their technical achievements, but it wasn’t as if their civilization was about to be destroyed. Ra-Havreii had seen that happen multiple times in the past year and a half, had just recently had it nearly happen to his civilization; so however insensitive it may have seemed, he couldn’t entirely build up as much horror about this as he saw on Melora’s face.

What troubled him more, though, was the pain on her face at his unthinking words, the tears she blinked away as she forced herself back to work. He’d assumed she felt the same way he did, that she would take the comment in stride as playful banter. Or had he? Either way, he was sorry if he’d caused her genuine pain, but in the long run it was for the best that she cast aside any fantasies of commitment. His words had been inappropriate, but only in the sense that they both had far more important things to concentrate on.

It was an awesome spectacle when the asteroid chunks finally drilled into Droplet’s atmosphere some ten minutes later. Melora had taken the shuttle up into the tenuous outer fringes of atmosphere to avoid the effects of impact, planning to dive back down to retrieve Riker and Lavena. Ra-Havreii’s eyes were glued to the aft sensor display as the first chunk cut a fiery swath through the atmosphere at startling speed and then became a blinding fireball at the bottom of its dive. When the light faded, an enormous cloud of pulverized and vaporized rock and water was expanding into the air, with one long pillar of dust streaming out beyond it, sucked up into the tunnel of vacuum the asteroid had carved into the atmosphere. Spectacularly, the second chunk came in just behind it, colliding with the outcoming chimney of dust and splashing it outward. A string of brilliant flashes strobed through the dispersed pillar, a mix of lightning within the dust and explosions as the force of the impact vaporized parts of the asteroid and detonated its heavy elements. The third, smallest chunk came in close on their heels, vanishing from view before the light of the second impact, and then creating its own smaller blast of light seconds later. Then there were only the turbulent clouds of dust and vapor spreading through the atmosphere at multiple levels, billowing out from the disrupted vacuum chimneys.

It would have been beautiful, Ra-Havreii thought, if he hadn’t been in that exact spot less than half an hour earlier. As always when he had a close brush with death, he found himself dwelling on what might have happened, his keen mind letting him imagine it all in vivid, clinical detail. It would have been quick this time, perhaps taking him be
fore he even realized it. His whole brilliant life cut off in its prime, with so many problems unsolved, so many ambitions unrealized, so many regrets…

“Melora?”

“Mmm?”

“I love you.”

It was a moment before he realized she was staring at him, which in turn led him to realize what he’d just said. Had that really come out of his mouth?

“I love you too,” she said, and that confirmed it.

Their hands clasped, and they turned back to monitoring the impact.

DROPLET

The squales remained deaf to Lavena’s desperate pleas until the horizon lit up with a series of bright flashes. “Now do you believe us?” Riker called. Not waiting for the unlikely event of an answer, he decided to take advantage of their confusion, bringing the gig’s motor to full power and running the distracted blockade as soon as she was back in the boat. He had to swerve between two squales’ tentacles, but the creatures were taken by surprise and made only a token effort to snatch at the boat.

“Can we get far enough in time?” Lavena called over the rush of the waves as she pulled her hydration suit back on.

“No way of knowing. But if we’re too close now,” he admitted, “that’s not likely to change. I’m basically trying to gain enough speed to ride the wave.” He threw her a
glance, noting her unease. “Wish you could just dive down and swim away?”

“With that shock wave hitting me? I’m safer in the air.”

“Don’t be so sure. There’s going to be a hell of a hot wind blowing our way—and that’s after the atmospheric shock wave hits. Try to cover your ears.”

Lavena looked worried. “Captain…if storm winds can kick up heavy waves…then what…”

“Say no more,” he said, pushing the engine to its limits.
So much for riding the tsunami.

The airborne shock wave came first, thunder pounding into them with the force of a phaser barrage. He almost lost control of the boat. He wasn’t even sure when the noise passed, for the ringing in his ears was nearly as deafening (not literally, he prayed, though that was the least of his worries). Within a few minutes, he felt the first surge of hot wind from behind. “Here it comes!” he cried, barely hearing himself. He looked back and saw a turbulent wave racing toward them, spanning nearly half the horizon and looming higher and higher as it drew near. And it would just be the first. “Brace yourself!” he cried. He hoped that at the right time he’d be able to angle the boat sideways, to ride along the swell lengthwise like a surfer.

But he didn’t have a chance. Darkness loomed over the boat, darkness that hauled back and kicked the whole gig into the air, and the next thing he knew, he was in the water, turbulence spinning him, disorienting him. The roaring noise tore into his head, pummeled his body like fists. A cloud of red billowed out from over his eyes. Trying to right himself, he saw the gig well out of reach and being carried farther along the front of the swell. But it was inverted,
empty. A moment later he thought he saw Aili’s form flailing in the water, unwieldy in its hydration suit. He thought her hands were clamped to her ears, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t hold on to any perception, any thought, for more than an instant before the roaring washed it away. He couldn’t hold on to…

Breath…

Knocked from his lungs on impact…He tried to stop his body from gasping for air, but it was already too late…water choked him…choked his thoughts…

Imzadi!

TITAN

“Will!”

Deanna jerked awake, knowing she was in sickbay, but she was somewhere else too. In the water, drowning…

“Counselor, what is it?” Tuvok was in the next bed, looking at her sharply. He understood the bond she had with her husband, knew her cry was no nightmare.

“Will’s in danger, on the planet. We have to…”

Ree had arrived, his fearsome hands closing gently on her shoulders as she tried to rise. “Easy, Counselor. I advise against undue strains.”

“Will’s in danger,” she repeated. “Tell the bridge.”

The ship shuddered, and Deanna’s heart raced, still on edge from the explosions before. “I fear we are in some danger as well,” the doctor said. “Our maneuvering ability is limited, and we are currently in the outer atmosphere and attempting to remedy the situation.”

“But Will…” His voice was gone, an echoing void remaining.

She felt a surge of terror, of grief, of despair. She knew it wasn’t fully hers—a pang went through Tuvok at her words, touching a deeper well of empathy than he would ever admit to—but she couldn’t help it, couldn’t focus her perceptions to discern between loss of consciousness and loss of everything. She could only feel dread certainty that Will was dead, as her child was dead…
my last child
…no, her first, the baby was still in her and silently wailing in resonance with her emotions…not born yet and already she knew grief…
Imzadi!

“This is no place for an unborn child,” Ree growled, bringing her awareness outside herself again. The doctor was agitated, his breath rasping, his yellow eyes darting ceilingward as the ship continued to shudder. “This is insane, letting infants face perils such as these! We have to do something.”

Contrary to his earlier actions, he began helping Deanna to her feet, cradling her against his large, strong saurian frame. “Come with me, please, Counselor. We must get your child to safety.”

She let him lead her, her mind and spirit numb, until she realized Tuvok was blocking the exit. “Doctor Ree. Where are you taking her?”

“Away from this ship of death! Away from this vile system!”

“Doctor, you are behaving irrationally. I suggest you release her.”

“So you can keep her here? Keep her child in danger? Stand aside!” Matching actions to words, Ree
flung the Vulcan into the wall as though he were a toy.

Nurse Ogawa rushed over to Tuvok, checking him, crying, “Ree, please, stop this! What are you doing?”

“Do not interfere, Alyssa! Nothing is as important as protecting this baby.
Nothing
.” The last was a predatory snarl, and Ogawa quailed in fear of her friend.

But when Ree dragged Deanna out into the corridor, draping her over his back as he launched into a run, she heard dainty footsteps following after and Alyssa’s breathless voice calling, “Ogawa to bridge! Send security…”

Tuvok had just been dazed, and Doctor Onnta was on hand, so Alyssa Ogawa had grabbed a medkit and headed after Ree and Counselor Troi at the best speed she could manage. Perhaps there was a personal bias involved; Troi had been a colleague of hers on the
Enterprise
for years, a bond that wasn’t easily broken, and Ree had been a good friend and trusted senior officer for over a year and a half. But there was obviously something wrong with the Pahkwathanh CMO that might threaten Troi and her baby. Personal or not, Alyssa saw her choice as a simple matter of triage.

After calling security, she quickly lost sight and sound of Ree. But from his rantings, it was clear he would be trying to leave the ship, even the whole system. That meant he was heading for the shuttlebay.

No security fields sprang up to stop Ree along the way; that system must still be down, like so many others. Ogawa caught up to him only because he was delayed by a security team. The team was headed up by Lieutenant Feren Denken, a large Matalinian male whose right arm was a biosynthetic replacement for the original lost during
Titan
’s
first mission. His religious beliefs had forbidden the use of prosthetic limbs, threatening to end his security career; but Counselor Troi had persuaded him to consider the possibility that
Titan
’s multiculturalism could go both ways, and that maybe there was room in his beliefs for interpretation. Captain Riker had helped by getting an old friend of his, then-Captain Klag of the
I.K.S. Gorkon
, to put in a good word. Klag had also lost an arm in combat and had been persuaded to accept an allograft from his deceased father, in defiance of any number of Klingon beliefs and traditions. His example had persuaded Denken to study his scriptures and realize that his reading of them had been too self-directed; he could better defend the integrity of the living by restoring his full capability to preserve numerous other lives.

But even with two good arms—the new one perhaps better than the old—Denken was no match for a determined Pahkwa-thanh, even one weighed down by a pregnant, struggling Betazoid. Ree’s heavy, rigid tail swung around and smashed Denken into the corridor wall, and Ogawa winced at the sound of a probable rib fracture. “I suggest you have that seen to promptly,” Ree told him.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Balim Cel, a purple-haired Catullan woman, leapt onto Ree’s back and attempted a Catullan neck pinch—actually more a sort of temporary psionic shock induced by touching the thumbs to the base of the skull. But it didn’t work on Pahkwathanh, or maybe Cel just had the anatomy wrong, since she went flying too, skidding to a stop before Ogawa’s feet. “Please, stay out of my way!” Ree growled. “You threaten the child!”

“I threaten
you
, Doctor!” It was Pava sh’Aqabaa, whose phaser was drawn. “Now put the commander down so I can shoot you, throw your fat tail in the brig, and talk this out reasonably.”