Chapter Five – Chase, Choice, Chances

“Captain to the bridge.“

It took Dar Enikal a moment to realize that the call had been directed at him. “I am on my way.” He cast a swift glance around, but nothing in the ready room made him feel like the captain he had been for two weeks.

“What is it, Rishana?”

“We have just received a distress signal from the San Marino.” Her fingers hovered close to the helm controls, ready to execute the course change she had already lain in.

“Damn,” Dar muttered under his breath. The San Marino would have met with the Valkyrie in a day, but that was all he knew. Operational security dictated that ships in the Bajor sector kept com-activity to a minimum, so there had been no direct contact between the Valkyrie and the Miranda-class cruiser. “All right, get us there, Rishana, maximum warp.”

Commander Enikal lowered himself into the captain’s chair and looked over his shoulder at the tactical station. ‘That should be my place right now.’ “What’s the nature of the emergency?”

“Unknown, Sir. The distress call is on automatic repeat, but it’s pretty garbled. All I can make out is that they have lost main power and may be forced to abandon ship.”

“Try to clear up that interference. We need as much information as we can get.” Dar turned his attention to the forward stations. “Any other ships in the vicinity, Lieutenant Meigs?”

“Yes, Sir. Long-range sensors show two Cardassian cruisers, Galor-class, near the San Marino’s position. So far there is no sign they have picked up the distress call.”

“Let’s hope it stays that way. Rishana, how long before we reach the San Marino?”

“Four and-a-half hours.”

Dar activated the holographic display and ran some calculations in his head. If the Cardassians didn’t pick up the distress call within the next thirty minutes they wouldn’t reach the San Marino before the Valkyrie.

“Commander Tucker, is there any way to increase our speed?”

“Yes and no,” Ben reluctantly replied. “I can cut down our flight time by twenty, maybe thirty, minutes, but we’d risk burning out half our plasma conduits. Unless you want to risk stranding us at the San Marino’s position I see no way to increase our speed much. And no, don’t ask,” he stated. “When you order maximum speed you get it. Even the best engineer can’t change the laws of physics.”

“Noted,” Dar replied. “But if you can’t do the impossible, perhaps you can do the improbable and get us something more than we already know from the distress call.”

“I’ll try, but the signal is pretty weak and they are close to the badlands, so we are picking up a lot of background interference. It will take time to find a way to clear the signal.”

When someone at the science station cleared her throat Ben and Dar turned their heads. “Yes, Cadet?”

“I just thought... there are several algorithms in our database that we use to clear up sensor signals under similar circumstances,” Tori Xedon offered. “Sensor return isn’t the same as a com signal, but perhaps we could adapt one of those programs?”

Dar rose and walked up the ramp to the rear stations. “Good thinking, Miss Tori. Please assist Commander Tucker in any way you can.”

“Me, Sir?”

“Yes, of course. It was your idea, so I take it you are familiar with the algorithms you mentioned. That makes it your job, unless you think you can’t handle it?”

Tori Xedon looked up with a small shy smile. “I’ll get right to it, Captain.”

“Good. But if you need more help, don’t hesitate to tell Commander Tucker or me. I am not expecting miracles from you.” He turned to the tactical station without waiting for a reply and glanced over Lieutenant Alakondra’s shoulder at the sensor readouts. ‘Just a little longer, just a little...’

“Sir!”

“I see it,” Dar snapped back and barely refrained from pushing the Lieutenant out off his way and take the tactical station. The Cardassians had changed course and gone to warp 9.5, the best sustainable speed of the Galor-class. “Rishana?”

“At current speeds the Cardassians will reach the San Marino fifteen minutes before we do.”

Commander Enikal swallowed a curse and took a step back from the tactical station. “Lieutenant Alakondra, hail the Cardassians. Tell them that their help is not required and that we are on our way to assist the San Marino.”

After a few seconds Liz Alakondra turned to her CO. “Message sent, Captain, but I doubt they will reply.”

“My thoughts exactly, Lieutenant, but it can’t hurt to remind them that we are en-route and that they will have to deal with us, regardless of what they do to the San Marino.”

“And voicing it like this will allow them to withdraw without us threatening them and give them an opportunity to present their actions as a rescue operation, not an act of aggression.”

“Yes.” Dar turned to the aft stations again. “Cadet, you and Lieutenant Alakondra start working on that com signal. Ben, I don’t care how you do it, but we need more speed. If you have to overtax our engines I don’t care, as long as we are still in one piece when we reach the San Marino.” He raised a hand at Commander Tucker for a second, before he ran it over his head with a sigh. “Don’t say it. I know I may be asking the impossible. Just do your best.”

*****

Reto Kevas found Captain Veal on the Tiger’s bridge. She was staring down at the course plot and to Kevas it looked like she was trying to force things to turn her way by sheer force of will. “Captain, may I have a word with you?”

“Of course. Go ahead, Kevas.”

A few heads on the bridge turned to them in surprise. The familiar tone Tarin used with her crew still surprised some of the privateers.

Kevas shuffled his feet uneasily, aware of the sudden attention. “Perhaps this isn’t the best place to talk, Ma’am.”

“Agreed.” Tarin glance at the navigation display once more, but nothing had changed in the last ten seconds. The Tiger was still in a holding pattern, far enough from established trade routes to avoid any attention. Until Tarin made her decision where to go to next, that wouldn’t change.

She motioned for the door Kevas had just come through and followed him into the Tiger’s central corridor. “What it is?”

“Well...” Kevas leaned against the wall and looked away. “There is something we could try,” his hushed voice explained, “a source of information I haven’t suggested before, but...”

Tarin placed a hand on Kevas’s shoulder and gently steered him away from the ladder that led down to the lower deck, until she was certain no one could overhear their conversation. “What’s the problem, Kevas?”

“I am... There is no problem, Captain. It’s just that...” He turned away and starred down the corridor. “I have to go there alone.”

“I see.” Even with his head turned away, Tarin noticed the Bajoran’s expression brighten a little – which changed as soon as she added: “I see that you want to go it alone, but I won’t allow it.”

“No, Captain, there is no way...”

“Yes there is! There is always a way. All you have to do is find it.” She took hold of Kevas’s shoulder and turned him around to face her. “I think I know why you don’t want anyone there, and I respect your reasons, but I just can’t allow it.

“I will stay in the background, and not interfere unless I have to, if that’s what you want. But you are part of a team now and that means you will never have to face anything alone.”

*****

“Somebody shut off that damned noise!” Lieutenant Blackman bellowed.

A second later the blaring of the klaxon finally stopped, but the flashing lights all around the engine room still bathed the room in a blood-red glow.

Blackman leaned against the railing surrounding the warp core and closed his eyes, as he listened to all the unfamiliar sounds around him. The hissing and puffing of the hand-held fire extinguishers that put out the last of the small fires that had erupted all around engineering. The high-pitched whine of emergency generators that struggled under the demand of keeping a hundred different systems running.

Briefly he concentrated on the voices all around him -  some calm and confident, others frantic and scared, some alternating between both extremes. When he tried to put faces to the voices Blackman was stunned. It was the youngsters – junior officers and enlisted – that kept their wits about them. But the old space-hands – senior officers like himself – suddenly lost their cool. Perhaps the senior officers had become too complacent, he thought, perhaps the younger people better recalled the countless hours of training Starfleet had run them through during their training days.

‘And here I am, thinking I was an old space-hand myself. But this is still my engine room, my people, my responsibility. No matter what, these are my people.’

He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to his crew. “All right people, let’s have some order here,” he shouted over the voices filling main engineering.

Bob Blackman’s sharp and steady voice cut through the chaos around him as he gave his orders. He sent a two-man team to the bridge, detailed a party to reestablish internal communications, tasked one of his engineers with assessing the damage to the main computer, gave everyone something to do. As the room cleared Blackman concentrated on the one sound he didn’t hear, the one thing that had always been present in his engine room during the two years he had served as the San Marino’s chief engineer.

He had become so accustomed to the deep steady pulse of the warp core that he had stopped consciously noticing it, but now that it was gone it served as an all-too-noticeable reminder that his ship was finished.

The San Marino was dead in space, her starboard warp nacelle a jagged mess that would never again propel the venerable cruiser through the vastness of space.

*****

“It’s done,” Ben said as he took a chair at the ready room desk. “We are at warp 9.84 and holding – for now. We should be able to sustain that speed just long enough, but the Cardassians have started to push their engines, too.”

“How much?”

“Not as much as they could. I guess they don’t want to risk losing the engines on one of their cruisers. If they want to take us on they need both ships and they know it.”

“Agreed.” Dar tipped his chair back and rested his chin on one hand. “Will we beat them?”

Ben frowned. “Your guess is as good as mine. Rishana was checking the numbers when I got here and it’s gonna be very close. There’s no way to tell who will win the race, but whoever it is won’t have more than two or three minutes lead.”

“I see. How much strain are we putting on our engines?”

“Oh the engines can handle it for a little while. The warp drive is designed with enough fail-safes to take the extra load. It’s the secondary systems I am worried about. I am taking power to keep up the EPS grid containment wherever I can find it. Should anything happen to our engines it could create a feedback pulse that knocks out half our auxiliary systems - including some of our back-ups you wouldn’t want to miss in a fight.

“But,” Ben added, “I don’t want to alarm you. I have engineering teams ready to deal with any emergency we may run into.”

Commander Enikal rose and stepped to the window. After thirty long seconds he folded his hands behind his back and turned to Ben Tucker again. “Have at least some of your teams stand down for now. We still have about three hours. If we have to fight the Cardassians I want everyone well rested, including your people – and you.”

“I see your point.” Ben Tucker drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “So you expect we will have to fight the Cardassians? I am not saying they can’t defeat us, but it would be risky for them to take us on.”

“Who knows? But if they thought the risk wasn’t worth taking they wouldn’t push their engines to beat us.” Dar turned back to the window and his contemplation of the passing stars. “In the end it all depends on our timing. If we arrive even one minute before the Cardassians we can intercept them well outside weapon’s range to the San Marino. That would allow us to use our advantage in long-range weapons to beat them off with minimal risk to ourselves.

“But if we have to take on two Galors on their terms to save the San Marino I will pull all stops to do it. That’s why I need you and every engineer and damage control party well rested.”

Ben slowly nodded, for a moment lost in his thoughts. “What about our away team?”

“What about them?”

“We may not come out of this fight in any condition to assist them, should they get into trouble. Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Yes. But have a look at this.” Dar gestured to the small computer sitting on the desk. Ben turned it around, and got look at the list of names Dar had stared on for over an hour.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the crew manifest of the San Marino.” Dar leaned against the windowsill, his eyes holding Ben’s. “There are eight Starfleet officers and about fifteen privateers on the Tiger, but the San Marino has a crew of one-hundred-ninety-two. The San Marino is in imminent danger, the Tiger is not. What do you expect me to do?”

“You know the answer, but do you want to blame me for worrying about Tarin and the others?”

“No... No, I won’t.” Dar looked over his shoulder out the window and tried to hide his anxiety from Commander Tucker. “Just try to get some rest while you still can. You have already done more than enough.”

“I’ll try.” Ben rose and took a step towards the door. “Perhaps you should try to get some rest yourself.”

“I wish I could,” Dar muttered, long after the door had closed behind Ben Tucker. He turned his gaze back to the stars passing by the Valkyrie. “I wish you were here to take all this responsibility off my shoulders, I really do.”

*****

“Fancy meeting you here, Doctor.”

“I am a bit surprised myself, Commander.” Theron Jascar gestured at a chair at his Ten-Forward table. “I expected you to be in engineering, keeping an eye on things down there.”

Ben sat his glass and a padd on the table before he took the offered chair. “Right now there is little I can do, and Dar told me rather directly that I should get some rest before we run into the Cardassians – or at least try.” He sipped his tea before he asked, “I guess that’s what you are trying, too? Getting some rest before we run into the next crisis?”

“Yes. Knowing when my skills will be required and having ample time to prepare is a luxury I don’t often enjoy.”

“You sound pretty relaxed about it, considering that in a few hours you may have dozens of wounded to deal with,” Ben grumbled, before he realized how he may have sounded. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you take these things lightly.”

“You didn’t,” Theron answered with a lopsided smile, “at least not to me. I guess finding a way to change between on-duty and off-duty modes is just part of keeping your sanity when most of your work is dull routine mixed with life-or-death situations.”

“Yes... I guess that makes sense in your line of work.”

After a minute Theron was certain Ben wouldn’t pick up the conversation again and he pointed at the padd the Commander was reading. “What’s it you are reading?”

Ben pushed the padd halfway across the table. “Achek Athrun’s War at Warp.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Neither had I, until a few weeks ago.” Ben sipped his tea, as Theron skimmed through the index on the padd. “It’s over two-hundred years old, but still considered one of the seminal works on interstellar strategy.”

Doctor Jascar looked up from the padd, surprise spreading over his face. “Not what I expected you to read.”

“Well, I thought that if Starfleet keeps sending us into war zones I might as well start catching up on strategy and tactics. If there’s one thing besides engineering Starfleet Academy taught me it’s trying to be prepared for everything.”

“True.” Theron thoughtfully nodded. “But does it help you to relax?”

Ben snorted. “Hardly! But if I can’t relax I might as well make some use of the time I have. And when the CO orders me to stay out of engineering for a while, who am I to argue?”

*****

“What have you got?“

“We managed to clear up the distress call, but we haven’t been able to decipher all of it.” Lieutenant Alakondra stepped aside and let Commander Enikal get a look at the readout. “The San Marino came under attack by unknown forces. One of her warp nacelles has been destroyed and main power is down. I doubt they are in any shape to withstand a Cardassian attack for any length of time.”

“Have you tried to establish contact?”

“Yes, Sir, several times, but we got no response. I suspect their main com array may be down as well. The distress beacon is weaker than I’d expected, and the only explanation I can think of is that they are using the transponder in an escape pod or shuttle.”

“Possible,” Dar agreed. “And if their damage is extensive as it sounds they may have their hands full with damage control instead of paying much attention to the transponder.”

He took a step back and nodded at Liz Alakondra and Tori Xedon. “Well done, both of you. Keep at it and inform me as soon as you find out more.”

“You know,” Rishana whispered, after Dar had taken position behind the helm-console, “there is another possibility why they don’t answer.”

“Yes, I know,” Dar replied in an equally hushed voice, “they could all be dead by now. But in a little over two hours we will all be risking life and limb on the assumption that there are survivors on the San Marino.” He leaned closer, lowered his voice further. “What would you have me tell the crew? That it may not be worth the effort?”

Rishana brushed a strand of hair from her face, trying her best to present a casual face to the bridge crew. “No, of course not. But it may be a moot point. If nothing changes we will arrive two minutes after the Cardassians.” She looked up to the Bolian standing by her side. “And before you ask – I ran the numbers five times. If Ben can’t give us a little more speed there is no way we can beat the Cardassians.”

“I wish he could. Or maybe I just wish I could take the risk of increasing our speed, but I have to trust Ben on it. The San Marino may or may not be able to hold out two minutes against two Galors, but if we burn out our engines on the way that becomes the moot point.”

Dar Enikal straightened and focused his attention on the stars streaking through the main viewer. “Get some rest, Rishana. I want you at the helm when the shooting starts, but there is no reason for you to be here during the next one or two hours.”

After Rishana had reluctantly left, Dar settled into his chair and started to study every shred of information he could find on the Cardassian Galor-class, but it was useless. He already new what the files would tell him – the Valkyrie stood a good chance if she stayed at long range and peppered the Cardassians with torpedo fire, but that was the one course of action he could not take if he wanted to keep the enemy away from their wounded prey.

The one edge the Valkyrie had were her regenerative shields and all previous engagements, and a couple hundred simulations, told him they weren’t all that effective against Cardassian spiral-wave disruptors. Dar’s thoughts drifted to his absent captain and again he asked himself what Tarin would do, but all he could think of was that she would try her best to save the crew of the San Marino, just like he did.

‘But she would figure out a way that made a difference. Something I haven’t thought of, some way to combine her science and command training perhaps.’ The thought did nothing to relieve Dar’s dilemma, but it set his mind working at a frantic pace. ‘If Tarin can think outside the box, why can’t I? Am I too much of a tactical officer?’

He leaned back in the center seat and violently kneaded his lower lip, for the moment not caring how worried that made him look. ‘I have to go in at long range if I want to have any advantage at all, but I’ll have to close in on my terms, not theirs. How can I do that? What is it I may be overlooking?’

After several minutes of worried thoughts Dar suddenly jumped up and hit his com-badge. “Commanders Westmore and Tucker, report to the ready room.”

*****

“Please tell me you have some good news, Bob.”

“I wish I had, Carla, I wish I had.” Bob Blackman didn’t even look up from the console he crouched over. “We are trying our best to re-route command and control functions to engineering, but it’ll take time. The good news is that we have more than enough transmitters in our lifeboats and shuttles to send out a distress call. The bad news is that almost everything else doesn’t work.” He looked up at the San Marino’s executive officer. “How are things at your end?”

Carla Izquierdo let out a long sigh and leaned against the wall at Blackman’s side. “Just as bad. The doctors say Captain Sterling will make a full recovery, but they don’t want to risk waking him. We have a couple of wounded, but none in any serious condition.”

“Doesn’t sound too bad,” Blackman offered.

“No, it doesn’t, and when I left the bridge we had the Valkyrie on long-range sensors, so help may only be a few hours away. But the bad thing is we had two Cardassian cruisers on our sensors as well. And if they get here before the Valkyrie does...”

“Oh Christ!”

Blackman looked around, relieved to see that none of his engineers was within earshot of the sudden outburst. “What do you want me to do, Carla?”

“Try to bring at least some sensors online again. We need to know what’s out there. After that concentrate on shields and weapons.” She took a step away from the wall and tugged her uniform into shape. “I don’t know about you, Bob, but I am not going to spend the rest of my life in a Cardassian prison, that much is certain.”

*****

“ETA?”

“Four minutes thirty seconds.” Rishana sounded crisp. “The Cardassians will be in weapons range of the San Marino about one minute before we can engage them.”

“Still no word from the San Marino?”

“No, Sir. We have tried several times, but couldn’t get a response.”

Commander Enikal rose and straightened his uniform, before he turned to the ops station. “That changes nothing. Lieutenant Meigs, hail the Cardassians.”

A second later the viewscreen lit up with the image of a woman in Cardassian uniform. “I am Gul Okora. What is it you want?”

“Commander Enikal of the USS Valkyrie.” After a courteous nod Dar added: “What I want is for your ships to withdraw. We are well outside Cardassian space and I doubt you want to start a war over a single ship, do you, Gul Okora?”

“Oh no, Commander, a war between our people is the last thing I want. But we are in neutral space and you have no jurisdiction here. I – on the other hand – have reason to believe that the ship nearby has been used to spy on my people and I intend to detain that ship’s crew for... questioning.”

“And if they are unwilling to be taken into custody?”

“Now that,” Okora snarled, “would be most regrettable. But would you risk a war about such an unfortunate display of... ill-advised resistance?”

Dar Enikal turned away from the main viewer and faced the tactical station. He raised his hand to his throat before he looked back over his shoulder. “Yes. Stand down or face the consequences.” A sharp cutting motion later the Cardassian’s face vanished from the viewer and Commander Enikal settled back into his seat.

“Now that should give Okora something to think about for the next...?”

“Two minutes.”

Prologue        Chapter 1        Chapter 2        Chapter 3

Chapter 4        Chapter 5        Chapter 6