Ragnarok (23 page)

“Old damage, Mr. Tuvok?” Janeway asked. “Emergency repairs that didn’t hold?”

“Rather, it would appear to have been sabotage,” the Vulcan said.

Janeway rose. “What sort of sabotage?” she asked, as she strode up the step to the security station.

“You think that our people might be responsible?” Paris asked.

“I do not have enough evidence to form a conclusion, Mr. Paris,” Tuvok said, “but yes, I would certainly consider it a possibility that Commander Chakotay is somehow responsible for the ship’s destruction.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Janeway said, as she studied the sensor readings.

“Look at what, Captain?” Paris asked angrily, turning in his seat to glare at her. “If it was Commander Chakotay, then he’s just blown himself up, hasn’t he? We weren’t there, ready to snatch him away with the transporter at the last second, this time.”

“He might have found some other way out,” Janeway said. “I want to see whatever’s left of that ship, Paris, and I want us there five minutes ago.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Paris said sarcastically. “I’d say that the shortest route would be right through the middle of the battle….”

“Mr. Paris, I am in no mood for your attempts at humor,” Janeway barked.

Chastened, Paris said nothing further, but laid in a course and engaged the warp drive.

Moments later, Evans reported, “The debris cloud from that particular explosion is badly scattered, Captain—much of it was caught in the perpetual cross fire, and it’s gotten blended in with the general dust.

However, there’s a large chunk that looks as if it might be our shuttlecraft, or at least most of it….

It appears substantially intact, but I can’t be sure….”

“Get a tractor beam on it,” Janeway ordered.

“Captain, it’s too far away,” Evans protested. “And it’s falling further in toward the battle.”

Janeway considered that.

“Are there life signs aboard it?”

“I don’t…”

“Use the sensors, Mr. Evans,” Janeway snapped. “That’s what they’re there for!”

“Yes, Captain,” Evans said. A moment later he confirmed, “Four humanoid lifeforms aboard—but one of them… well, life signs are very weak. Someone’s badly injured, maybe dying.”

Who? Janeway thought. Who was hurt?

What would the Maquis members of the crew say if Chakotay died out there, on a botched attempt at a hopeless diplomatic mission?

How could she carry on without a first officer?

What if poor young Harry Kim died? How could Janeway ever face his parents, when the Voyager someday found its way home?

Or Rollins, or Bereyt? The Voyager couldn’t afford to lose anyone.

It looked as if they’d lost at least one, though, if they didn’t do something fast.

“Mr. Tuvok, shields at full strength, please,” Janeway ordered.

“You’re free to return fire if anyone shoots at us. Mr. Paris, you’ve been known to brag about what a hot pilot you are, and you’ve done all right so far—well, here’s your chance to prove to us all just how good you really are. I want that shuttlecraft out of there and safely back aboard the Voyager, as fast as you can do it.”

“I didn’t prove it when I got us out of there the first time?”

Paris muttered to himself, as he judged the situation. “I have to do it again?” Then he called, “Evans, you’d better have that tractor ready, because here we go!”

The Voyager shuddered, then charged forward, back toward the battle.

Aboard the shuttlecraft, Chakotay looked over the diagnostics and frowned. They had shut down every system they could spare, to conserve power, and it wasn’t going to be enough. He let out his breath, and was dismayed to see a puff of vapor as he did.

“We’re still losing air,” he said. “If we don’t find some way out of here soon…”

Just then the entire craft jerked violently, sending Bereyt and Chakotay staggering; Rollins, seated, was able to stay where he was, and the unconscious Kim barely moved. Rollins punched a button, turning the sensors back on.

“It’s a tractor beam!” he called. “Got a good solid hold on us.”

“A tractor beam? Whose?” Chakotay asked. “Hachai or P’nir?”

“Neither, sir,” Rollins replied, grinning wildly. “It’s the Voyager!”

For a moment Chakotay stared at him in disbelief; then he shouted, “Get those engines fired up, Rollins! We’ll want to help them get us aboard!”

“Yes, sir!” Rollins replied.

Getting the Voyager back into the melee and getting the tractor beam locked on to the shuttlecraft was the easy part, Janeway thought; it was getting everyone out in one piece that was going to be tricky.

The P’nir ships that had been harassing the Voyager before were still back at the far end of the battle zone, where the Hachai were keeping them busy. Thanks to the wonders of subspace communication, however, the entire P’nir fleet knew what was happening, and a dozen other P’nir ships came surging up out of the heart of the battle, charging toward the Voyager as it approached.

“Return fire as necessary, Mr. Tuvok,” Janeway ordered grimly.

Even as she finished speaking, the foremost P’nir cruiser opened fire.

It was headed straight toward the Voyager, making no attempt to dodge or gain any positional advantage; Janeway could only guess that its captain was hoping to take them by surprise.

If so, the hope was vain. That direct course made it an easy target, and in short order Tuvok punched the phasers right through its shields and then through the full length of the ship itself, obliterating the P’nir ship’s bridge and collapsing its entire forward structure.

Janeway didn’t protest the inevitable loss of life; Tuvok had had no choice, with the ship coming straight at them.

The ruined cruiser sailed harmlessly past the Voyager, out into empty space, trailing wreckage and leaking a spreading cloud of atmosphere.

For a moment, Janeway wondered what would become of the surviving P’nir aboard the wreck; the phasers had destroyed the bridge and had surely killed the command crew, but the cruiser was large, much larger than the Voyager, and if the P’nir were halfway competent, they should be able to seal off the intact areas.

Would another P’nir ship try to rescue them?

Then she saw a Hachai dreadnought pull out of the melee in pursuit of the P’nir ship.

There would be no rescue, nor would those P’nir have a chance to try to reach safety.

Neither side, she realized, was going to risk letting the other attack its undefended worlds; no warship would ever be permitted to leave this battle in one piece, not even a broken one.

The P’nir ship’s shields had collapsed when the Voyager’s phasers took out its central structure, and the Hachai dreadnought was able to blast the remains to powder in mere seconds.

In return, a swarm of P’nir ships converged on the dreadnought, and the battle once again shifted to include a new area.

The Voyager was back in the thick of the war—but the tractor beam was locked on to the shuttle.

“Captain,” Tuvok called, “if either side realizes what we are attempting, the shuttlecraft will almost certainly become a target, and according to our sensors, the shuttle’s shields are virtually inoperative.”

“Then don’t let them know,” Janeway shouted.

“I do not see…”

Janeway didn’t wait to find out what the Vulcan didn’t see. “Mr. Paris,” she called, “put us between the shuttle and the P’nir!”

“Aye-aye.”

“Mr. Tuvok, blast any P’nir ship that goes anywhere near our shuttlecraft!”

“Understood, Captain.”

A sudden crackle of static drew Janeway’s attention.

“Chakotay to Voyager,” a familiar voice said, faint and half-obscured by interference. “What can we do to help?”

Janeway’s heart leapt. Chakotay was still alive and well!

That meant that it was one of the others who was hurt—Kim or Rollins or Bereyt—and she told herself she shouldn’t take any pleasure in that, but knowing that her first officer was still functioning was a relief, whether she wanted it to be or not.

“Just hold on,” she said. “We’ll be picking you up in a moment.”

“Captain,” Tuvok said, “we cannot take the shuttlecraft aboard until we leave the combat area.”

“I know,” Janeway said. “We can’t take it aboard while the aft shields are up.”

“And lowering the shields while surrounded by hostile craft would be suicide,” Tuvok said, completing her thought.

“So we’ll just have to get to somewhere safe…” Janeway began.

“Captain,” Paris called, “the P’nir are circling around, cutting off our retreat!”

“Keep us between the P’nir and the shuttle!” Janeway ordered, as she studied the viewscreen.

“But they’ll block off…”

“Let ‘em,” Janeway said. She pointed. “Head for that sphere.”

Paris looked up at the main viewer, and saw the mysterious spheroid directly ahead of them, adrift in the midst of the battle.

“But Captain,” Paris protested, “we don’t know what it is, or which side it’s on!”

“We wanted to get a look at it,” Janeway said, “and now we can.

Do it.”

“Captain, I must question the wisdom of your decision,” Tuvok said. “I do not see what good it can do us at this time to approach the unidentified object.”

“Tuvok, that thing isn’t a new arrival,” Janeway said. “It’s been in there a long, long time, by the look of it—at the very least, it’s been right in the thick of the battle since we first spotted it.”

“I fail to see…”

“Don’t you see?” Janeway said. “That means that Hachai and P’nir weapons can’t hurt it! If they could, it would have been blown to dust by now. We can use it to guard our backs while we get the shuttle back on board.”

“Understood, Captain,” Tuvok said. “I withdraw my objections.”

“Me, too,” Paris said. “Working my way toward the sphere, Captain.”

Janeway watched the battered shuttlecraft anxiously; the tractor beam had pulled it up close against the Voyager’s shields and was holding it there, off the starboard bow, while the Voyager herself twisted and dove through the blazing chaos of the battle.

Somehow, Tom Paris managed to keep that particular part of the ship always pointed at either empty space or a Hachai dreadnought.

At last, after five minutes that seemed like as many centuries, they neared the immense sphere.

“It’s got some mighty big holes in it, Captain,” Paris said doubtfully as they approached the derelict. “Are you sure their weapons can’t hurt it?”

“It’s still here, isn’t it?” Janeway said. “Mr. Evans, what can you tell me about it?”

“It’s an empty shell, Captain,” Evans replied. “There are P’nir cruisers inside it.”

“Maybe it’s one of their orbital fortresses,” Paris said. “If it is…”

Janeway shook her head. “No,” she said, “Don’t you recognize it?

From Starfleet’s first-contact records, in your history classes?”

“No, I…” Paris began.

“The First Federation,” Tuvok said. “It had indeed been hypothesized, when no further contact was made after that initial encounter, that Balok’s ship might have come from the Delta Quadrant.”

“But it’s just the ruined shell of one of their ships,” Janeway said.

“It doesn’t prove anything about the First Federation; it could have fallen through a wormhole or just drifted here.”

“I guess it proves that it wasn’t built by the P’nir, anyway,” Paris said.

Janeway nodded. “And that’s all we need, Lieutenant,” she said.

“Take us in through one of those holes.”

“Aye-aye.”

A moment later the Voyager, after dodging one final P’nir barrage, maneuvered in through a jagged hundred-meter hole in the derelict’s side.

The interior of the sphere was a maze of wreckage; chunks of metal glittered in the light of weapons fire and glowing, molten debris.

“Mr. Paris,” Janeway ordered, “do what you can to keep that clutter from hitting the shuttle.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

“Mr. Evans,” Janeway called, “open hailing frequencies—I want to talk to the P’nir.”

“Hailing frequencies open,” Evans replied.

Janeway stepped forward. “This is Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation starship Voyager,” she announced. “We are claiming the interior of this object for a period of one hour, and we will destroy any ship, either Hachai or P’nir, that ventures inside it during that time. This will be your only warning.”

She turned. “Mr. Tuvok, give them five minutes, and then carry out my warning—I want this sphere cleared.”

“Captain, shields are at fifty-three percent,” the Vulcan reported.

“If the P’nir launch a sustained assault on us, they will be able to keep us trapped in here, and eventually destroy us.”

“Well, then,” Janeway said, “let’s just hope they don’t launch a sustained assault.”

There were half a dozen P’nir ships inside the derelict, all of them relatively small; two of them fled immediately, but the other four fell into attack formation and swept toward the Voyager.

Tuvok proceeded to demolish the leader.

The other three broke off the attack and, after a brief hesitation, departed.

Janeway silently thanked whatever clever Starfleet designer had decided that it might be useful sometimes to use partial shields; the Voyager was backed up close to one of the hollow sphere’s interior walls, with the forward defenses at full power, while the rear shields were down, allowing the shuttlecraft to be maneuvered into the shuttlebay.

If the ship had still been out in the open, inside the ongoing sphere of battle, where enemy fire could come at them from any direction, lowering the aft shields like that would have been suicidal, but here, inside the First Federation derelict, the Voyager was relatively safe.

“Beam the wounded party to sickbay!” Janeway called, the moment the aft shields were down and the shuttle was clear of the lateral shields.

“Aye-aye,” Evans replied.

Seconds later, Kes’s voice said, “Harry’s here, Captain. The doctor thinks he’ll make it.”

Janeway let out the breath she was holding.

“Good,” she said. “Chakotay, get that thing aboard.”

A moment later the shuttle bumped once, then settled smoothly to the floor of the shuttlebay—in one piece, and back aboard, with all three lifeforms aboard still registering strongly.