Reap the Whirlwind

On either side of him the walls became infused with dancing motes of energy and took on an almost liquid consistency. Huge heteromorphic creatures cleaved themselves from the walls and lunged at one another. Pe

He checked the tricorder reading. She’s close, he realized, less than four hundred meters away. A rib in the wall cracked and fell across the passage. He hurdled over it and coughed through a cloud of silicate dust as he kept on ru

24

Captain Nassir listened to the relentless, brutal cadence of the Shedai’s hammering exploration of the riverbed. Each impact arrived stronger and louder than the last and violently shook the Sagittarius. According to Crewman Torvin’s acute hearing, in less than two minutes the Shedai’s crushing assault would reach them and shatter the tiny scout ship’s unshielded primary hull.

Lieutenant zh’Firro was back at the helm, and Sorak ma

Another roll of deep, watery thunder trembled the ship. It was a race now. Either the engineers integrated the new fuel pod and brought back main power in time for a phaser shot to fend off the attack, or the Shedai would strike an unanswered killing blow.

On the edge of his vision, Nassir noticed someone walking stiffly onto the bridge. He turned and saw Lieutenant Commander McLellan taking one gingerly step after another. “Permission to return to duty, Captain,” she said, and flashed a taut smile.

“Permission granted,” he said, elated to see her whole again. “Good to see you, Bridy Mac.”

The slender brunette limped to his side and turned her gaze upward as another thunderstrike percussed the ship. Marshaling the same kind of deadpan gallows humor that Nassir had come to expect from Terrell, McLellan pointed upward and quipped, “Pla

Just as dryly, he replied, “Why? Is it bothering you?”

“I could do without it,” she said.

He shrugged. “Give it another minute. One way or another, I expect it’ll stop soon.”

“Good to know,” she said with a nod, and folded her hands behind her back to await the inevitable.

A vital thrumming resonated through the Sagittarius as the bridge consoles flared back to life and the overhead lights surged back to full power. “Go!” Nassir snapped at zh’Firro. Then he spun toward Sorak: “Fire at will!”

With a flurry of her hands across the helm, zh’Firro engaged the main thrusters and rocketed the Sagittarius vertically out of the water. On the static-filled main viewer, a colossal spiderlike monstrosity straddled the river, plunging two of its tentacles into the water in alternating strikes. It immediately recoiled as the Sagittarius emerged from the river.

The shriek of the phaser bank’s discharge was like music to Nassir. He watched its shimmering blue beam of energy slam into the gigantic creature’s body. The behemoth staggered, retreated for a moment, and snapped one of its tentacles forward like a whip. It elongated faster than Nassir could track, and only after the ship echoed with the ring of impact and heaved under his feet did he realize they’d been physically struck.

“Hull breach,” Sorak reported. “Sealing that compartment.”

“Sayna,” Nassir said. “Let’s get out of here.”

The Andorian zhen worked at her console and became visibly alarmed. “We’re being held, sir.” Fighting with another control, she added, “Correction: We’re being pulled toward the creature.”

They all looked at the viewer. The Shedai’s tentacle was still fully extended. “It harpooned us,” Nassir said.

“Another signal, Captain,” Sorak said. “A second Shedai.”

Palming the sweat off the top of his bald pate, Nassir asked, “I don’t suppose the phasers are still online?”

Sorak reviewed the gauges above his console. “The emitter overloaded, just as Torvin predicted.”

Nassir was about to consider the feasibility of actually using his ship to ram the Shedai holding it, when McLellan pointed at the main viewer. “Sir, look!”

The second Shedai, whose shape was constantly in flux, lashed out at the one that was holding the Sagittarius. It landed fierce, stabbing blows that impaled the spiderlike colossus, and fiery slashing attacks amputated the creature’s supporting appendages. Its “harpoon” retracted from the Sagittarius as the two titans collapsed in a writhing fury and sank into the muddy brown river.

“Free to navigate,” zh’Firro reported. Then she pointed the ship skyward and accelerated.

Nassir pressed a button on the arm of his chair and opened the intraship comm to the top deck. “Good work up there.”

“Thanks, Skipper,” Ilucci replied. “Main power’s up, but we’re still working on warp speed. You’ll have transporters in two, shields in five.”

“Hours?”

“Minutes, sir,” Ilucci clarified.

“Just what I wanted to hear, Master Chief.”

“Service with a smile, that’s us. Engineering out.”

The captain looked at McLellan. “Start looking for our people on the surface. As soon as we have transporter locks, I want them aboard.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, and walked with a stiff gait to the engineering console. While she worked sca

“Captain,” McLellan said. “Lieutenant Xiong’s on the surface. I have a lock on his tricorder.”

Nassir moved to her side at the engineering console. “What about Terrell and Theriault?”

“Commander Terrell’s aboard the Rocinante,” she said, pointing at an icon on a map above her station. “They’re in an area with a lot of signal interference.”

Confused, the captain wondered aloud, “What are they doing? Why haven’t they left yet?”

From the other side of the small bridge, Sorak opined, “The most likely answer, Captain, is that they are continuing the search for Ensign Theriault.”

“Bridy,” Nassir said, “can you hail them?”

“It’ll take a few minutes,” she said. “I have to filter out the interference at their end.” Adjusting the dials in front of her, she added, “If it wasn’t for their energy signature, I never would’ve found them.”

Nassir nodded his understanding. “Do what you have to,” he said. “In the meantime, send Xiong’s coordinates to Ilucci. Then signal the lieutenant and have him beamed up. It’s time to go home.”

Gaps began to form in the walls of the alien city, riddling it with impromptu shortcuts, crawlspaces, and nooks. Theriault was grateful for one of those gaps, because it was the only cover near the star-shaped multiple intersection where she’d found herself cut off by battling giants in every passage.

Each physical form that was destroyed seemed to intensify the combat. The hulking bodies slammed each other back and forth with wild abandon, shattering towering ribs in the walls that provided critical structural support. With each cacophonous impact, Theriault worried that the structure would come down on top of her. Fear kept her huddled inside the meter-wide fracture in the wall, out of sight but still close enough to the edge to keep watch in case one of the passages cleared.