Storming Heaven

There was little to be done for the most seriously wounded. In order to return gu

As Fisher bandaged a mechanic’s scorched hand, a young Andorian thaan in a command-gold jersey bearing a junior lieutenant’s stripes sprinted through the hospital’s main entrance. “We need medics at Phaser Control Delta!”

Doctor Robles, who had succeeded Fisher as Vanguard’s CMO, shouted back, “We only treat the ones who make it here, Lieutenant.”

The Andorian was on the verge of hysteria. “There aren’t enough people left to man that battery! Give me a medkit and send me back, but give me something!”

Fisher put away his bandage roll in his satchel and replied, “I’ll go with you.”

Robles shot a poisonous glare at Fisher. “You’re needed here, Doctor.”

“Sounds like I’m needed there, too,” Fisher said as he moved to join the Andorian.

“Get back on the line, Doctor!” Robles looked ready for an aneurysm. “That’s an order!”

On his way out the door, Fisher permitted himself a rakish smirk at Robles. “I don’t work here anymore, remember? Hold the fort till I get back.” The next ca

He offered the Andorian his hand. “Ezekiel Fisher. My friends call me Zeke.”

The Andorian shook his hand. “Fellaren th’Shoras. . . . ‘Shor.’”

“Nice to meet you, Shor,” Fisher said with a disarming smile. Under his breath he added, “I always make a point of knowing the people I might end up dying with.”

The Andorian nodded, as if the sentiment were not utterly morbid. “Most sensible,” he said. “If we perish together, I shall vouch for you before Uzaveh the Infinite.”

Fisher had no idea what else to say except, “Um . . . thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

After that, he figured it would be best to just stop talking for a while.

“One more adjustment,” Xiong begged his two remaining colleagues. “If we can equalize the quantum subharmonic frequency across all the nodes, that should do it!”

Sheltered inside the Vault, the most heavily shielded part of Vanguard, Xiong had at first barely been able to tell the station was under attack. Then a devastating blow to the station’s lower core had interrupted the supply of primary power to the lab. The secret research center had its own backup power generators, life-support systems, and computer core, but without main power, Xiong had no idea how long the array could continue to contain its Shedai prisoners. All his estimates for the lab’s minimum power requirements had been predicated on the simpler setup involving only two inhabited crystals. Now they had more than five thousand of the alien artifacts, all of them except the first packed with multiple Shedai life-forces.

He knew he didn’t want to be here when the array’s containment matrix failed, but he also knew that the consequences of that would be far worse than anyone outside of Operation Vanguard could possibly imagine. For their sakes, he had to finish this while he still could.

His workstation display flashed with alerts as he struggled to refine his control over the array by making a few final tweaks to Klisiewicz’s command interface.

“We need to evacuate,” pleaded Ensign Heffron. “Now, before the turbolifts are gone!”

“Just a few more seconds,” Xiong said, keying in new lines of code as quickly as he could. “Humberg, do you have that frequency yet?”

Lieutenant Christian Humberg, a thirty-something applied quantum physicist with a compact build and a full head of prematurely gray hair, grimaced as he wrestled with his own set of high-complexity calculations. “I’ve almost got it,” he said. “There! A modulated subharmonic that should enable us to control entropic effects on the quantum level.”

“Send it to Heffron.” Looking across at the blond ensign, he added, “Kirsten, reset the main emitter to resonate on that frequency. I’m loading the updated command interface into the system now.” As he waited for the new software to complete its installation, he looked up at the ominously radiant crystals of the array inside the isolation chamber. He had grown so used to seeing it all from several meters away, through the wall of transparent steel sprayed with a clear compound that acted as a polarizing filter, that he had forgotten how u

“Emitter reset,” Heffron said.

Xiong knew he likely would get only one chance to make this experiment work. He hoped for the sake of millions of unsuspecting i

Prismatic ribbons of energy danced over the screaming machine, and a tingle that was part static electricity and part fear crept up Xiong’s back. A deep, almost subsonic throbbing pulsed through the deck like a leviathan’s heartbeat. Xiong imagined this might have been how it would have felt to be the first mortal to receive the gift of fire from Prometheus.

He engaged the command interface as Heffron and Humberg looked over his shoulder.

Heffron asked, “What are you doing?”

“Pinging all the Conduits in the Shedai network,” Xiong said as he worked.

As if fearful of the answer, Humberg asked, “What for?”

Xiong activated the new subharmonic function. “For this.”

On his workstation monitor, the constellation of several thousand blue dots began to dwindle, a few at a time at first, then by dozens, and then by scores. Heffron and Humberg both looked perplexed. She pointed at the display. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Xiong said with ruthless satisfaction, “that my program works.” He turned and met the bewildered stares of his peers. “Right now, all across the Taurus Reach, all the Conduits the Shedai ever made are self-destructing, shattering into dust. In a few minutes, there won’t be a single node of their former network left in the galaxy.”

Heffron looked horrified. “But what about all those planets?”

“It’s all right—with the array I was able to target just the Conduits. The planets are fine.” He ushered them toward the exit with broad movements of his arms. “Now go, both of you. Get to the beam-out point on Level Twenty, before the turbolifts fail.”

Humberg held Xiong at arm’s length. “Wait, what about you?”

“I need to shut down the array,” Xiong said. “I’ll be right behind you, I promise. Go.” Reassured by his lies, Heffron and Humberg scrambled out through the main hatchway and started ru

Alone at last with the array, Xiong regarded it with awe and contempt. He had spent years plumbing the secrets of the Shedai, plundering their legacy for the benefit of Starfleet and the Federation, and the end result had been this machine, a device of unimaginable power that he could wield to destroy distant worlds, but whose principal function stubbornly eluded him.

He had not yet figured out how to make it destroy its Shedai prisoners.