“Not yet, Captain. Still trying.”

From the forward console, Ensign Sliney declared, “The Tholians are powering up their weapons, Captain!” Seconds later, six of the Tholian ships launched another sextet of the unknown devices into the underside of the statite, targeting them precisely to reduce the spaces between them to thirty degrees. Around them, the statite’s disintegration accelerated, and sensor alarms shrilled from numerous stations on the Endeavour’s bridge.

Returning to her chair, Khatami felt her pulse pounding in her temples. “Estrada! Hail the Tholian commander! Order him to cease fire and deactivate those devices immediately!”

Keying in commands, the communications officer replied, “Transmitting now.” The viewscreen flared momentarily as the Tholian fleet fired another barrage of charged plasma at the statite, which listed even more sharply off its axis. Then Estrada grimaced and swiveled around to face Khatami. “No answer from the Tholians, Captain.”

“Red Alert,” Khatami declared. “All hands to battle stations. Thorsen, raise shields. Sliney, move us into an attack posture.”

Stano interposed herself between Khatami and the view-screen. “Captain, if we fire on the Tholians, we might be starting a war.”

Khatami protested, “They fired first.”

“On an alien construct to which we have no claim. They can claim they didn’t believe the Sagittarius was there. They have diplomatic cover on this. We don’t.”

Precious seconds bled away as Khatami weighed the lives of the Sagittarius’s fourteen crew members, her own ship’s complement of more than four hundred personnel, and the potential casualties—military and civilian alike—that would be on her conscience if she gave the order that started a war. Then she look around Stano at Thorsen. “Target the twelve Tholian devices on the statite and fire phasers. Keep firing till they’re gone.”

“Aye, sir,” Thorsen said, already turning her command into action. The high-pitched whoop of the Endeavour’s phaser banks resounded through the hull as blue beams slashed through the darkness and began vaporizing the interphasic generators.

Firing on the Tholians’ weapons rather than their ships was a legal gray area. Khatami could argue her actions were not aggressive but defensive. If the Tholians chose to interpret this act as hostility and escalate this confrontation, the consequences would be on their collective conscience, not hers—but she was hoping they would take the hint and back off.

Klisiewicz checked the sensors, then aimed a wary glance at his captain and first officer. “The Tholian fleet is coming about and moving into an attack formation.”

So much for hope.

“That didn’t take long,” Stano said.

Khatami forced an empty smile. “Good. Now they have something new to shoot at. Keep them busy as long as you can, and let’s hope the Sagittarius can use this time to escape.”

Stano’s eyes widened as the Tholian fleet loomed large on the main screen. “Great plan, Captain. Now who’s going to rescue us?”

Before Khatami could lighten the moment with a witty retort, the Tholians opened fire, and then all she could hear inside the Endeavour was a roar like thunder.

“On the count of three!” shouted Terrell, watching the rover’s slow roll. “One! Two! Three!”

He and the other members of the landing party in his vehicle huddled together in the middle of the ATV’s passenger area and fired their environmental suits’ maneuvering thrusters straight up, holding open the thrust valves until he ordered, “Stop!”

Looking over the vehicle’s edge, zh’Firro exclaimed, “It worked! We’re moving back toward the ground!”

Terrell exulted but kept his relief to himself. The rover’s descent was fast enough to get them back within less than ten seconds, but slow enough that the impact wouldn’t inflict serious damage on the vehicle or them. “All right, Master Chief,” he said over the open channel, “your turn. Look for a full burn of about six-point-one seconds.”

“Copy that, sir.” To his passengers, Ilucci added, “Look sharp, guys.” Keeping one eye on the ground and the other on Ilucci’s rover, Terrell heard Ilucci start his countdown right on time. “Five. Four.” He was just starting to say three when both rovers went into free fall.

Ziggy slammed to the ground hard, and Terrell, zh’Firro, and Threx held on to their unfastened harness straps as the vehicle tumbled sideways, tossing them like rag dolls in slow motion inside the roll cage before coming to rest upright inside a cloud of fast-settling dust. As the fine gray haze dissipated, Terrell saw Roxy lying on its side a few dozen meters behind them. Half-buried in the regolith were the unmoving forms of its passengers.

“Master Chief! Theriault! Razka! Someone respond!” Terrell tried to start Ziggy’s engine, but the rover’s controls remained dark.

Beside and behind him, Threx and zh’Firro stared mutely toward their fallen comrades. Then the burly Denobulan pointed. “They’re moving!”

Boosting the gain to his suit’s transceiver, Terrell said, “Master Chief? Are you mobile?”

In the distance, the portly chief engineer emerged from behind Roxy’s bent chassis. “I think we are, but Roxy’s toast.”

The statite’s horizon began to shatter and blow away in blinding flashes of light, one roughly every two seconds. Terrell shouted, “Back to the ship! Move!” He bailed out of Ziggy and forced his bruised, aching body to sprint toward the Sagittarius. In moments, zh’Firro had outpaced him, but Threx struggled to keep up; his beefy frame was made for power, not speed.

As they neared the ramp to the ship’s cargo hold, Terrell heard Captain Nassir’s voice crackling over the comm. “. . . to landing party, please respond!”

“We’re here, Captain,” he replied, gasping for breath as he followed zh’Firro up the ramp. “A few more seconds and we’ll all be aboard.”

Nassir, who almost never raised his voice, shouted, “We need to go, Clark!”

Terrell looked back and windmilled his arm, signaling Ilucci, Theriault, and Razka to hurry. The Saurian scout was well ahead of the science officer and chief engineer when the ground between them heaved upward and then erupted in a blast of light, heat, and molten rock. A wall of flames and superheated gas slammed into Razka’s back and launched him toward the Sagittarius. He landed, unconscious inside his smoldering environmental suit, mere meters from the ramp. Terrell ran to the fallen scout, grabbed him beneath his arms, and dragged him backward up the ramp into the ship. Threx and zh’Firro stood at the bottom of the ramp, both looking past Terrell for any sign of Ilucci or Theriault.

Over the comm, Nassir commanded, “Close the aft hatch! We’re taking off!”

“No!” zh’Firro cried. “Theriault and the chief are still out there!”

“Close that hatch! That’s an order!”

Terrell set down Razka and turned to see zh’Firro and Threx staring at him, their gazes feral and desperate, both pleading with their eyes for him to do something. Stealing a look out the open hatchway, he saw Ilucci and Theriault both down and not moving, surrounded by a hellscape of fire and fracturing ground. He made up his mind.

“The hatch won’t close, sir,” he lied. “The controls are jammed.”

Nassir replied, “Get inside, I’ll close it from up here.”

Terrell slapped Threx’s shoulder and pointed at a nearby locker for emergency gear. The senior engineer’s mate nodded, understanding Terrell’s intentions perfectly. Terrell motioned for zh’Firro to follow him, and she did so without hesitation. On his way down the ramp, he said, “Engineer Threx is fixing the ramp now, sir!” As he and zh’Firro hit the ground, Threx wedged a large, heavy tool into a critical segment of the ramp’s hydraulics.