Finding the controls, Aili activated the probe. The squales writhed in discomfort and retreated, and she sang apology to them. Soon, they came to rest at a safe distance, and she turned back to the input. “Lavena to anyone who can hear me. Repeat, this is Ensign Lavena calling anyone from Titan. Do you read?”
Even with the base’s inertial damping field on maximum, Christine Vale could feel the ground shuddering beneath her feet as the sharp-prowed leviathans rammed into the floater island over and over. The squales clearly meant business now, even attacking the island itself, and Vale was coming to realize that even this, the largest, most stable piece of “land” on the planet, was still a small, imperma nent thing. Beyond the field perimeter, though she couldn’t feel it, the cluster of linked floaters was rocking and warping like the ground during an earthquake as the icebreakers (as Vale had dubbed the creatures, wondering if they might actually have been bred for that purpose but not really caring at the moment) assailed it from multiple sides, including below. The squales were directing them purposefully, aiming them at the joins between the outer floater segments, the weakest points. She watched in shock as one segment broke free under a decisive blow and spun away. It was listing, taking on water through a gouge that a misplaced blow had left in its side. Closer to Vale, outside the base’s field perimeter, the small crustacean-and insect-like creatures that dwelled atop the island were retreating inland, along with other creatures that normally lived below but had climbed to the surface to flee the bombardment.
Sorry, folks,she thought, but I don’t think going inland will be much of a defense. They’ll tear this whole thing apart to get to us.And the force field would be small comfort if the icebreakers managed to hull the floater beneath her feet and sink it, base and all.
Hell, at least that way some of the probes will get sunk.Vale had ordered the crew to proceed with the deployment, despite the fact that doing so would subject them to squale attack. A choice between saving themselves and saving this world was no choice at all. But so far, success had been minimal. Only a few probes had avoided capture and beaching, and many of those were damaged or off course from glancing blows. At this rate, the percentage that reached the dynamo layer would be too low to make a difference. But they had to keep trying.
She struck her combadge. “Vale to Titan. Any luck with those transporters?”
“Commander, this is Torvig,”came the reply. “We’re unable to boost the confinement beam sufficiently to ensure a safe transport. I have an idea how to get around the problem, but Mister Radowski is resistant.”
“Radowski?” Vale called, knowing the lieutenant would be beside Torvig in the main transporter room. “What’s the problem?”
“Commander. He wants to rebuild one of the confinement beam emitters into a wormhole generator.”
“Not a wormhole per se, ma’am. More of a subspatial catenation.”
“Torvig, what the hell—” She took a breath. “Ensign, even if your…theory is sound, how long do you estimate it would take to rebuild and test the emitter? In practical terms?”
She heard the little purring hum Torvig often made when mulling over a problem. “Given current crew allocation, I’d say…about three weeks, ma’am. Assuming success on the initial test.”
“Do you perceive a snag in your proposal, then?”
A pause. “Ah.”
“Ah. Do you have any usefulideas?” You had to love Torvig, but his enthusiasm for his wild hypotheses often blinded him to their practical flaws, and at times it took some prodding to get him focused on the same consensus reality as everyone else.
“Is retrieval by shuttle still not an option?”
“The shuttles are needed to deploy the probes. We have to try to get someof these probes past the squale blockade.”
“Hrrmmm…An orbital phaser barrage around your position?”
“I’ll keep it in mind, Ensign. Keep thinking about how to boost the transporter— beforewe run out of island down here. Vale out.”
The island shuddered again, and a treelike stalk a few segments over snapped and fell over. It may come to using phasers,she thought. But she was reluctant to give the order. After all, she was the invader here, and her crew had done enough damage to this world. Ship’s phasers could be set on stun, but the effect was unreliable. A hand phaser had feedback sensors that could calibrate the beam strength and duration to the target’s metabolism to keep the effect nonlethal, but that kind of feedback wasn’t possible from orbit. That was why Starfleet policy discouraged the practice. Besides, given the squales’ unusual sensitivity to energy fields, Vale couldn’t be sure that even a stun charge wouldn’t have a more serious effect on them. Even firing to frighten them off might be a bad idea. Hell, the way things are going, it’d probably just make them madder.
As Vale heard the now-familiar sound of another floater segment being broken away behind her, she almost missed the hail on her combadge. “—salis to Vale. Come in!”
She tapped the badge. “Olivia? Is that you?”
“Yes, Commander!”Bolaji, calling from the Marsalis, sounded excited. “You need to hear the signal we just picked up! I’m patching it in.”A pause, then: “Go ahead, Ensign.”
A moment later, Vale’s’s annoyance at the distraction vanished when she heard: “Lavena to Vale. Do you read me?”
Her heart raced. “Holy shit, Aili, is that you?”
Laughter. “Oh, Commander, thank the Deep! I’m here, I’m fine. Captain Riker is alive, but he’s very ill. We need a rescue shuttle right away. He’s on a floater not far from my position.”
“Bolaji? How close are you to Lavena?”
“About six minutes, ma’am.”