Star Trek: Pantheon (41 page)

“Commander Leach!” Picard hollered into the miasma of fireshot smoke.

There was no answer.

Leaving Ruhalter’s side, the second officer made his way forward. He had last seen Leach at the engineering console. With luck, the man would still be there.

But when Picard reached the spot, he couldn’t find any sign of the first officer. He looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of him—and instead saw Gerda Asmund hunched over near her navigation console.

His first thought was that the woman had been hurt. Then, as he got closer, he saw a body stretched out on the deck beyond her. Gerda turned and looked up at the second officer.

“It’s Leach,” she told him, her concern evident in the knot of flesh at the bridge of her nose.

Picard moved around her and saw the first officer. His eyes were closed, his features slack, and there was blood seeping from a gash in his smoke-blackened temple.

“Dead?” the second officer said numbly.

Gerda shook her head. “No. He still has a pulse.”

“Get him to sickbay,” Picard told her. “And send some hands up here to see to the captain.”

“Aye, sir,” said the navigator.

Picking Leach up with athletic ease, she headed for the turbolift. The second officer watched her go for a moment, open plasma conduits and flaming consoles illuminating her passage.

As the lift doors opened, Picard felt another impact. But like the last one, this one had been tolerable.

He looked at the officers still left to him. Idun, who was battling her controls to keep them in one piece. Paxton, who had returned to his post at communications. And Werber, who looked eager to fire again if only someone would give him the order.

With Ruhalter and Leach victims of the Nuyyad, Picard would have to be the one to do that. In fact, he would have to give
all
the orders.

“Mr. Paxton,” he barked, “take over at navigation.”

“Aye, sir,” the communications officer replied, and moved forward to do as he was asked.

Picard turned and gazed at the viewscreen, where a reverse perspective showed the Nuyyad ship clinging to them in pursuit. It only took him a moment to realize that there was something curious about the sight—and another moment to figure out what it was.

The enemy vessel was slightly atilt as it sped through space, slightly off-line relative to the axis of its forward progress. Picard knew enough about propulsion systems to understand the reason for such an aberration.

One of the Nuyyad ship’s warp nacelles was misfiring. The one on the port side, it seemed to him. That suggested a weakness of which his helm officer could take advantage.

“Lieutenant Asmund,” he said, “the enemy will have difficulty turning to starboard. Reprise Pattern Epsilon on my mark.”

“Aye, sir,” the helm officer replied.

Next, the second officer turned to Werber. “Target photon torpedoes.”

“I’ve been doing nothing
but
targeting,” Werber told him.

Ignoring the man’s tone, Picard eyed the screen again. “Lieutenant Asmund—execute your maneuver. Lieutenant Werber—fire when ready.”

The words had barely left his mouth when the Nuyyad spewed another wave of green fire at them, trying to finish off the
Stargazer.
But by then, Idun had gone into her turn.

The vidrion assault shot harmlessly by them. And as the Federation vessel continued to perform her maneuver, the enemy shot by as well—much to Werber’s delight. Cheering beneath his breath, the weapons officer released a hail of golden photon torpedoes.

The first wave ripped into the Nuyyad’s flank, shredding what remained of her shields. The second wave clawed chunks out of the vessel’s hull. And the third penetrated to the very heart of the ship, finding and obliterating critical power relays.

A moment later, Picard knew that at least one torpedo had reached the enemy’s warp core—because the Nuyyad ship tore itself apart in a ragged spasm of bright yellow fire.

The second officer watched the fragments of the shattered craft pinwheel end over end through space, expanding outward from the point of the explosion. There was a macabre grace to the scene, a feeling of something strangely akin to serenity.

He looked back over his shoulder. Ruhalter’s corpse was gone, having been spirited away while Picard was busy with the Nuyyad.

But his work wasn’t done yet. They were still in unfamiliar territory, with wounds to lick and the ever-present threat of another attack—not to mention some serious questions to answer.

And his bridge was on fire.

As Werber, Paxton, and Idun Asmund watched him, Picard moved to the rear of the bridge and found the fire extinguisher he had used before. Then he began spraying down the ruined remnants of the nearest console.

Carter Greyhorse ran his sleek, palm-sized regeneration unit over the flesh of Lieutenant Cariello’s bare shoulder, creating a few more healthy, new cells to replace the ones she had lost to a white-hot spurt of plasma.

The doctor took a moment to examine his work. Satisfied with it, he checked Cariello’s vital signs on her biobed’s overhead readouts. The lieutenant’s systems were all stable, he observed. In a day or so, after she had gotten some rest, there would be no indication that she had been within minutes of losing her life.

Activating an electromagnetic barrier around Cariello to guard against infection, Greyhorse moved to the next bed in line. Lieutenant Kochman was lying there in a stasis field, outwardly unharmed but inwardly suffering from broken ribs, ruptured organs, and considerable hemorrhaging.

He would require a good deal more work than Cariello, the doctor reflected. But at least the man was alive.

Greyhorse glanced at the corpses laid out under metallic blankets in the corner of his sickbay. There were four of them in all. Barr, Janes, Harras…and, of course, Captain Ruhalter.

If the chief medical officer had had more than twelve biobeds at his disposal, he wouldn’t have subjected the deceased to the indignity of lying on the floor. But to his chagrin, he didn’t have more than twelve beds—and his priority had to be the living.

Greyhorse was on the verge of deactivating Kochman’s stasis field when he heard the sickbay doors hiss open. Glancing in that direction, he fully expected to see someone bringing in another casualty.

But this time, it was different. It wasn’t just anyone being brought in. It was
her.

At least, that was the way it looked to the doctor for a split second. Then he realized he was mistaken, and a wave of relief washed over him. It wasn’t Gerda Asmund who was being carried into sickbay. It was Gerda who was doing the carrying.

And it was Commander Leach wrapped up in the woman’s arms, Greyhorse realized—Commander Leach who was lying as limp and pale as death. Clearly, the first officer’s condition would have to take precedence over anyone else’s for the time being.

Leaving Kochman’s side, the doctor crossed the room to the bed containing Ensign Kotsakos, whose injuries weren’t nearly as severe. Deactivating the protective field around the ensign, Greyhorse picked the woman up as gently as he could and deposited her on the floor beside the bed.

He would have preferred to give her the benefit of the field for the next several hours. That would have been the ideal approach. However, Kotsakos would survive without the field. He couldn’t say the same for Leach.

“Put him down here,” Greyhorse told Gerda.

She did as he said, easing the first officer onto the biobed.

The doctor looked up to study the bed’s readouts. Clearly, Leach was in bad shape—even worse than the ragged gash in his temple suggested. His vital signs were badly depressed.

“What can I do?” asked Gerda.

Greyhorse looked at her with the same longing and admiration he had felt the other day, when he had checked her ESPer capacity. But this time, he wasn’t tongue-tied in the least.

“Check the other beds, one at a time, and call out their readings to me.” He pointed to Kochman. “Starting with that one.”

“And Leach?” the navigator asked.

“I’ll take care of him,” the doctor assured her.

She hesitated for just a moment, as if there was something else she wanted to say to him. Then she left the first officer in his capable hands and went to see how Kochman was doing.

Greyhorse drew a deep breath and wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. In that moment when he thought Gerda was injured, he had gone through an eternity of hell in a single second.

He didn’t like the idea of people getting hurt. He was a physician, after all. But if it came down to the navigator or someone else…he was glad it hadn’t been Gerda.

As the turbolift doors opened, Ben Zoma emerged from the compartment and made his way down the corridor—phaser in hand.

He had good reason for concern. The moment the battle with the Nuyyad had ended, he had tried to contact the officer on duty in the brig. But there hadn’t been any response—not a promising sign by anyone’s reckoning.

And with the battering the
Stargazer
had taken, power conduits had been compromised on every deck. There was no guarantee that the brig’s electromagnetic force field was still in place.

Which meant Serenity Santana might be free to go wherever she wanted.
Do
whatever she wanted.

That made Ben Zoma nervous, given the fact that the woman’s motivations were still in question—maybe more so now than ever, considering they had followed her directions straight into the sights of an enemy battleship.

He hadn’t been particularly suspicious of Santana when Captain Ruhalter brought her aboard. He had believed they were doing the right thing by checking out her warning. And even now, he wasn’t convinced that she was in on the Nuyyad attack.

But he was the ship’s security chief. With hundreds of lives at stake, he had to believe the worst of everyone.

Striding purposefully, Ben Zoma negotiated a bend in the corridor and came in sight of the brig. The first thing he saw was a body laid out on the deck. He recognized it as Pug Joseph, Santana’s guard.

Instantly, the security chief broke into a run. When he reached Joseph, he dropped at the man’s side and saw the blood running from Joseph’s nose and mouth. He also saw the burgeoning bruise over Joseph’s right eye.

He felt for a pulse—and found one. Tapping his combadge, he said, “Security, this is Ben Zoma.”

“Pfeffer here, sir.”

“I’m at the brig,” the chief told Pfeffer. “Joseph is down. I’ll need help getting him to sickbay.”

“Acknowledged,” said the security officer. “What about Santana, sir? Is the field still in place?”

Ben Zoma cursed under his breath and glanced in the direction of Santana’s enclosure. “Stand by.”

He had been so concerned about Joseph, he hadn’t taken the time to check on their guest yet. Getting to his feet, he approached the entrance to the brig cautiously, phaser at the ready. Stopping at the doorway, he craned his neck to get a look inside at Santana’s cell.

The force field was still in place, all right. But Santana was crumpled in the corner.

“Ms. Santana?” he called out, his voice echoing.

The woman didn’t answer. She just lay there.

The security chief sighed. “Santana looks like she’s in a bad way,” he told Pfeffer. “I’ll need help with her as well.”

“On its way, sir,” the officer assured him.

Picard gazed at Serenity Santana. She lay still and pale on the flat surface of the biobed, her raven hair spread around her head, her chest rising and falling mechanically.

The second officer wished the woman were awake—and not just because he hated to see her lying there like that, limp and helpless, when she had once been so charming and vibrant. Not just because she was, quite possibly, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

As Picard had indicated in the log he had filed only a few minutes earlier, there were questions he wished to ask Santana. Mainly, he wanted to know how the Nuyyad had discovered the
Stargazer
—because he didn’t believe for a second that the enemy had just stumbled onto them.

Space was a vast place, on this side of the galactic barrier as much as on the other one. The odds of two ships sensing each other even with long-range instruments were so slim as to almost be absurd.

And yet, they had barely penetrated the galactic barrier when the Nuyyad descended on them. If Santana had something to do with that, if she had betrayed them as Leach feared she would—

“You see, Commander?” called a deep voice.

Picard turned and saw Greyhorse coming toward him, his huge frame looking out of place in his lab coat. The doctor had been attending to an injured crewman on the other side of sickbay.

“As I indicated,” Greyhorse went on, “Ms. Santana has retreated into a deep coma. But at least she’s stable.”

The second officer gazed at the colonist again. Even in her debilitated state, she was a compelling sight.

“Will she come out of it?” he asked.

“That’s difficult to say,” Greyhorse told him.

“Because her brain is different from ours?”

“Among other reasons, yes.” The doctor pointed to the bed’s readouts. “I want to show you something. Do you see those lines, Commander? The two near the top?”

Picard nodded. “What about them?”

“Those are the patient’s brain waves,” Greyhorse explained. He pressed a keypad next to the readout and it changed instantly—the top two lines in particular. “And these were her brain waves when she first came aboard. Do you see the difference?”

He did—but he didn’t know what conclusion he was supposed to draw from the observation. “I’m sorry. I don’t see what—”

The medical officer held up a large, powerful-looking hand. “I didn’t expect you to draw any real conclusions. Let me walk you through it.”

Picard thought that would be a good idea.

“A woman in Ms. Santana’s condition should exhibit precious little brain activity. For example, she should have a very quiet cerebral cortex. However,” said Greyhorse, pointing to the topmost line on the readout, “we see that her cerebral cortex is anything
but
quiet. In fact, it’s busier now than when she was awake. The same goes for portions of her cerebellum.”

Picard mulled over the information. “So…you’re saying some parts of her brain are actually busier in her comatose condition than they were when she was conscious?”

“Exactly,” the doctor confirmed.

“And what do you make of that?”

The doctor shrugged his massive shoulders. “Again, difficult to say. The patient’s brain may have gone into some kind of healing mode. Or…” His voice trailed off.

“Or?” Picard nudged.

“If her brain works like those of other telepaths, the patient may have purposely emphasized certain functions at the expense of others—which would suggest the possibility that this is not a naturally occurring coma, but one she induced on her own.”

On her own?
Picard thought. He looked at Greyhorse. “I don’t understand. Why would she do such a thing?”

The other man returned his glance. “You are in a better position to know that than I am, Commander.”

Picard turned to Santana again, as if he hoped to find the answer written on her lips. Was it possible that she had shut herself down purposely, in order to avoid answering difficult questions?

Somehow, the second officer didn’t think so. Or was it just that he didn’t
want
to think so?

“Thank you,” he told Greyhorse. “You’ve given me much to think about. If there’s any change in her condition, even a small one—”

“I’ll be sure to let you know,” the doctor assured him.

Picard nodded. Then, with a last glance at Santana, he left sickbay and returned to the bridge.

Pug Joseph touched the itchy spot just above his right cheekbone and recalled Doctor Greyhorse’s orders not to scratch it.

In a day or so, his regenerated flesh would complete the healing process. Then no one would ever know he had hit his head against a bulkhead hard enough to knock himself out.

Fortunately, the security officer thought, he had suffered nothing more serious than a concussion. Otherwise, he would still be in sickbay along with Kochman and the other worst cases.

And they were the lucky ones, he reminded himself. The captain and some of the others hadn’t made it at all.

Removing his food from the replicator enclosure, Joseph placed it on his tray. First his meat, then his rice, then his vegetables, and finally his juice. Then he moved across the crowded mess hall in the direction of one of its few empty tables.

His crewmates, who were all working triple shifts on one repair crew or another, had gathered in clusters all around the room. They were obviously seeking comfort in numbers—taking the opportunity to vent their sorrows and air their concerns, of which they had many.

The
Stargazer
had been hobbled pretty badly in the battle with the Nuyyad. With key systems on the blink, people were worried about what they would do if another vessel showed up.

Joseph had thought about that possibility too, of course—and he probably felt the need to talk about it as much as anyone. But there were certain things he wanted very much
not
to talk about just then, so he had decided he would keep to himself.

Arriving at his solitary destination, he put his tray down and deposited himself in a chair. Then he pushed himself into his table and began to eat, mindful of the fact that he had to get back to work soon.

He was halfway finished when some of his crewmates walked in and took a table next to his. He recognized them as Lieutenant Werber, Chief Engineer Simenon, and a couple of the men who worked for him.

They didn’t acknowledge Joseph’s presence. In fact, they didn’t acknowledge anyone. They were too engrossed in their conversation.

Joseph didn’t want to eavesdrop. He was the kind of person who respected the rights of others, the right of privacy in particular. However, Werber and his companions were speaking so loudly, it would have been difficult not to hear them.

“—upstart is taking the captain’s place,” said Simenon. His expression was a distinctly sour one.

“And he was the one who convinced Ruhalter to trust Santana,” Werber pointed out.

“How do you know?” asked the chief engineer.

“Leach told me,” said the weapons officer.

Simenon shook his scaly head in disbelief. “The way that woman twisted Picard around her finger…it was disgraceful. And now we’re all going to pay the price for it.”

“You think she led us into a trap?” asked one of the other engineers, a man named Pernell.

Werber chuckled bitterly. “Is there any doubt of it?”

Pug Joseph swallowed and pushed his tray away. Suddenly, he didn’t feel like eating anymore.

It seemed to him that Werber was right. Santana
had
led the
Stargazer
into a trap. In fact, she must have begun plotting it long before she set foot on the ship.

But it wasn’t just Commander Picard whom she had hoodwinked. She had pulled the wool over Joseph’s eyes as well. If he had been his usual alert self, he might have figured the woman out in time and warned Captain Ruhalter not to trust her.

But he had allowed Santana to charm him, to draw him in. He had let his guard down. And as a result, they had lost their captain and their first officer, and come within inches of losing their ship.

Joseph promised himself that as long as he lived, he would never let someone like Santana fool him again.

Idun Asmund made a small course adjustment to avoid some space debris and watched the stars slide to starboard on the viewscreen.

Commander Picard, who was standing behind her, nodded approvingly. The hollows under his eyes gave him the look of a man sacrificing sleep and other creature comforts for the sake of doing what needed to be done.

But then, he was laboring under a great burden. He had already scoured the ship for survivors, gotten repairs underway on key systems, and moved the ship away from the coordinates of their battle in case other enemy vessels were on their way.

Truly, Picard was a warrior.

However, he seemed unequal to his task in one respect and one respect only—though he moved around the bridge like a caged
targ,
he refused to settle into the center seat.

Of course, the captain had perished less than fourteen hours ago. Quite likely, Picard still thought of the seat as Ruhalter’s and avoided it out of respect.

On the other hand, a Klingon wouldn’t have hesitated to sit down. In fact, Idun reflected with a secret smile, a Klingon might have put a dagger in his superior to secure such an opportunity.

The helm officer frowned, regaining her composure. She was a Starfleet officer, she reminded herself. She had sworn allegiance to the Federation and the ideals it held dear.

But she had been raised as a Klingon, and part of her still thought as Klingons did—which was why she couldn’t find solace in a leader who shied from leadership.

No matter the reason.

For the next hour or so, Picard continued to haunt the bridge, checking on this console or that one, stealing glances at the viewscreen every now and then. Then, apparently satisfied that the ship’s most critical needs had been met, he tapped his communicator badge.

“This is Commander Picard,” he said. “I would like the following personnel to meet me in the main lounge.” And he reeled off a list of names, which included all of the surviving senior officers.

A staff meeting, Idun mused. The commander was going to address the men and women working under him, just as Captain Ruhalter had addressed them when he was still alive.

Picard hadn’t yet deposited himself in the captain’s chair, the helm officer noted. He hadn’t yet seized the reins that had been turned over to him by default.

But at least he had made a start.

Picard surveyed the personnel seated around the lounge’s black, oval table, their faces turned to him with varying degrees of expectation.

There were eight of them there—Jomar, Ben Zoma, Simenon, Greyhorse, Cariello, Werber, Paxton, and Picard himself. Eight of them who would attempt to survive in an unknown part of space and salvage what they could from the embers of disaster.

Normally, Captain Ruhalter would have conducted this meeting, wringing the best out of each of them and making them more than the sum of their parts. But Captain Ruhalter, unbelievable as it seemed, was dead—and Commander Leach was in a coma from which he might never emerge. For better or worse, it was Picard’s meeting to conduct…Picard’s ship and crew to command.

The second officer hadn’t asked for this. He hadn’t imagined himself ensconced in a center seat until years later, when he would have had a good deal more experience under his belt. But the situation was what it was, and he was determined to do what it demanded of him.

“I called you here for two reasons,” he began. “One is to announce that, effective immediately, Lieutenant Ben Zoma will assume the post of acting second-incommand. At the same time, Lieutenant Ang will take over Mr. Ben Zoma’s duties in the security section.”

There were nods around the table, though not from Werber, Simenon, or Jomar. No surprise there, Picard thought. Ben Zoma had never been a favorite of Commander Leach or his friends.

“The second reason for this meeting,” the commander said, “is the difficult set of circumstances in which we find ourselves. As you all know, we have taken heavy damage to our primary systems. Still, it remains our duty to survive…and to warn the Federation that the Nuyyad are every inch the threat of which we were warned.”

No one seemed inclined to argue the point. However, he did receive some wary looks—predictably, from Leach’s camp.

“There are two options open to us,” Picard went on. “Two choices. We can make a run for the galactic barrier in our diminished condition and hope we don’t run into the Nuyyad again. Or, as an alternative, we can try to find Serenity Santana’s colony and seek replacement parts there.”

“Her
colony?”
Werber echoed, a look of disgust and disbelief crossing his face. “Are you insane, Picard?”

The second officer felt a spurt of anger. He swallowed it back. “You will address me as you would have addressed Captain Ruhalter,” he said in a clipped tone, “or I will find a weapons officer who can.”

Werber went dark with anger. “You want the respect accorded a commanding officer? Then exercise the
judgment
of a commanding officer. That Santana woman led us into a trap, Commander. She almost destroyed us. I wouldn’t trust
anything
she told us.”

Picard glared at the weapons officer. “Despite appearances, we do
not
know for certain that Ms. Santana engaged in any treachery.”

Werber looked at him wide-eyed. “Are you blind? She led us to the slaughter like a fat, little lamb. She—”

The second officer tapped the Starfleet insignia on his chest. “Security,” he said, “this is Commander Picard. I would like an officer posted outside the lounge immediately.”

“Right away, sir,” came the response.

The weapons chief drew in a breath, then let it out. Clearly, he didn’t relish the idea of being led away by a security officer. “What I
meant
to say,” he amended with an effort, “is that, under the circumstances, it would be imprudent to believe anything Santana told us.”

“I agree,” said Jomar, albeit without emotion. “Who knows? There may never have been any
Valiant
survivors in the first place. And even if this colony exists, Santana might not have divulged its true coordinates.”