Storming Heaven

Realizing he wouldn’t have time to unravel that mystery in the scant minutes remaining to him, he returned to his workstation and armed the Vault’s self-destruct system.

Inside the terrestrial enclosure, the sky was burning.

Smoldering cracks marred the twilight, belying the illusion of placid heavens. Then the dusk flickered and faltered, revealing the gray metal interior of Vanguard’s upper saucer hull and its latticework of holographic emitters. A white-hot blister of half-molten duranium drooped inward, but there was no one left on Fontana Meadow to see it, no one left to hear the stentorian groan of hundreds of tons of overstressed metal, the incessant thunder of high-power detonations tearing their way through the 800-meter-wide dome.

A fearsome bolt of blinding energy burst through the hull, raining twisted slabs of scorched metal and charred bodies around its point of impact, just shy of Stars Landing. A shock front of superheated, ultracondensed air vaporized the cluster of buildings in a flash and scoured the deck of its manmade lawn. Driving a ring of debris ahead of it, the shock wave slammed against the station’s i

Half a second later, the hunger of the vacuum asserted itself and tore the firestorm and every bit of loose matter out through the enormous, glowing-edged gash in the hull. Silence reigned within the sterilized interior of the saucer’s upper half, even as another half dozen shining blades of fire ripped through the hull and began carving it into scrap.

“Last torpedo’s away!” Terrell called out as he turned from the auxiliary tactical console to face the main viewer. The last photon torpedo aboard the Sagittarius streaked away and detonated in the midst of a tight formation of Tholian cruisers, whose course Terrell had deduced while watching them flee from Vanguard’s thi

“Good shooting, Clark,” Nassir said. Then the image on the screen pinwheeled as zh’Firro steered the slowing scout vessel into another round of complicated evasive maneuvers.

The air in the bridge was thick with the sharp odor of burnt wiring and overheated circuits, and the normal low vibration imparted to the decks by the impulse engines had become a disconcerting clattering and banging, as if they were literally flying the ship apart, one hard turn at a time. Terrell headed aft to check Sorak’s targeting protocols and help the old Vulcan coordinate with Lieutenant Dastin, who was using the ship’s tractor beam to tow debris into enemy ships and drag enemy vessels in front of Vanguard’s still operational phaser batteries.

Theriault cried out, “The Panama’s breaking up!”

Turning on his heel, Terrell looked back in time to see the cargo transport splinter with fiery cracks, then break apart amidships before vanishing in a reddish-orange flash. Secretly, he was amazed they—and the Sagittarius—had lasted this long. The only reason we’re not dead yet is that the Tholians are throwing everything they have at the station, he reasoned.

Nassir sprang from his chair to stand over zh’Firro at the forward console. “Swing us around on a wider arc,” he said, leaning with one hand on the back of her chair. “We’ll need to cover the zones the Panama was—”

“Incoming!” Dastin cried.

Total darkness and a sound like the end of the world. Terrell felt himself hurled through the air, as if he’d leapt from a cliff. A blinding eruption and a thunderclap sent him hurtling back in the opposite direction as heat scorched his hair and shrapnel bit into his torso and limbs. He came to a halt when he struck something that he realized moments later must have been another person between him and a bulkhead. Darkness fell again, accompanied by a deep and muddy wash of indiscriminate sounds he couldn’t name.

He awoke in a daze to a faraway voice repeating, “Commander! Wake up!” The voice grew closer, louder, and sharper until he recognized it as Doctor Babitz’s. Struggling to push through the crushing ache in his skull, he blinked and saw the blond physician kneeling over him, her face lit by the glow of her medical tricorder. “The good news is, you don’t have a concussion. The bad news is, the rest of your body looks like it’s been through a blender.”

Behind her, Theriault watched over her shoulder and held a chemical emergency light stick whose green radiance made the bloody wounds on the left side of her face look black. “Sir, are you okay?” The science officer sounded frightened, but he couldn’t say if she feared for him, herself, the ship, or all of them at once.

“Help me stand up,” Terrell said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Babitz said.

“It’s an order.” Theriault grabbed his right arm, and Sorak took hold of his left. Together, the petite Martian and the elderly Vulcan hoisted Terrell upright and leaned him against the aft bulkhead. Looking around as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw little at first except smoke hanging low and heavy over the bridge. The main viewscreen was gone, the forward bulkhead a charred mess. Then he saw the twisted, burnt remains of the helm console, and the two bodies lying on the deck beside it, both draped with blue emergency blankets: Nassir and zh’Firro were dead. He tried to swallow, only to find his mouth parched and tasting of ashes. “Damage report,” he croaked as he staggered to the command chair.

Babitz employed her most motherly voice. “Sir, you need to get to sickbay.”

“Later. We’re still in combat.” When he noticed the doctor’s challenging stare, he added with an extra measure of authoritativeness, “You’re dismissed, Doctor.”

The chief medical officer scowled as she walked away. “Fine,” she sniped, “but don’t come crying to me when you bleed to death.”

Terrell watched her go, then continued trudging to the command chair. “As I was saying: damage reports, people. Let me have ’em.”

“Lieutenant Dastin is rerouting helm control to the auxiliary panel,” Sorak said, directing Terrell’s attention toward port, where the Trill lieutenant was coaxing a damaged console back to life. “Until he does, we’re adrift. Shields and phasers are off line, and the tractor beam is down to one-quarter power.” A tremor that felt like the result of a glancing attack rocked the ship.

Terrell lowered himself with gingerly care into the center seat. “Communications?”

Theriault replied, “Master Chief’s working on them right now.”

“I’ve got helm control,” Dastin declared. “Impulse and warp drive both available.”

Pale emergency illumination flickered on around the bridge, and a few seconds later the main bridge lights returned to life and gradually increased to half their normal levels. Ilucci’s gruff voice barked from the overhead speakers, “Hey, bridge. Can you hear me now?”

“Affirmative, Master Chief,” Terrell said. “Report.”

“Short-range comms are up, and Captain Khatami wants a word with you.”

Apprehensive looks passed between Terrell and his three remaining bridge officers. “Patch her through, Master Chief.”

The next voice from the speaker was Khatami’s.

“Endeavour to Sagittarius. Do you copy? Please respond.”

Thumbing open the reply circuit from the command chair, Terrell said, “We read you, Endeavour. Go ahead.”

Over the cha

“No shields or weapons, but we’re still mobile.”

“Then you need to fall back. Break off and regroup with the convoy.”

“Captain, we can still—”

“That’s an order, Sagittarius. Regroup with the convoy. Endeavour out.”