Eyes fixed on the viewscreen image of the enemy formation, ch’Shonnas locked in his targeting solution. “Weapons ready.”

Gannon reached down and opened the intraship channel. “Bridge to Mr. Judge. Report.”

“A few more seconds, Captain. We’re patching in the emergency batteries now.”

Seconds later, ch’Shonnas turned and nodded to Gannon. “Phasers at full, Captain.”

Gannon switched channels. “Bridge to torpedo room.”

“Torpedo room here,” a man’s voice said.

“Mr. Vanderhoven, if you lose contact with the bridge, continue to fire at will. Concentrate your attacks on one enemy vessel at a time.”

“Acknowledged.”

Closing the channel, Gannon straightened her posture. Blood dripped from her chin and speckled the front of her gold uniform dress. “Helm, all ahead full. Weapons, fire at will.”

D’Amato engaged the impulse drive. The Bombay lurched forward, then accelerated swiftly on a course straight for the lead Tholian cruiser’s center of mass. Luminous blue phaser beams streaked ahead of them, followed moments later by a trio of photon torpedoes. The barrage lit up the normally invisible defensive cocoon of energy that surrounded the vessel, which grew steadily larger on the main viewer. Flickering erratically, its shields dimpled. As the secondary phaser banks hammered them, the dimpling turned to buckling.

The captain pointed at it. “Hit them again!”

“Its wingmen are coming about,” ch’Shonnas said, firing another phaser burst.

“Stay on the leader.”

On the main viewer, a pair of Tholian ships broke formation and reversed direction, toward the Bombay. They accelerated forward, making tempting targets of themselves, no doubt to entice Gannon into dividing her attack. But they also were separating, to either side of the Bombay. “They’re flanking us,” D’Amato said.

“Steady,” Gannon said.

“We’re heading into a crossfire.”

“Hold your course.”

Three more torpedoes streaked away from the Bombay and pummeled the Tholian battle cruiser. Two more of its escorts began breaking formation, pivoting around to face the Bombay’s oncoming assault. The first two, meanwhile, closed to optimal firing distance on either side of the Starfleet frigate as ch’Shonnas unleashed another phaser barrage on the lead cruiser.

Warnings blinked on D’Amato’s console. She turned toward the captain. “The escorts are locking weapons!” Her hands hovered over the controls, desperate to begin evasive maneuvers.

Gannon’s tone was firm. “Hold your course.”

The lead cruiser loomed large on the main viewer.

Panic rose in ch’Shonnas’s voice. “They’re firing!”

“Steady!”

The Bombay pitched violently as the Tholian counterattack hit home. Static frizzed across the main viewscreen.

Clutching the back of D’Amato’s chair for support, Gannon shouted over the pounding cacophony, “Damage report!”

“Direct hit, port nacelle,” ch’Shonnas said.

Nave stood at ch’Shonnas’s regular post. Staring into the blue glow of the sensor hood, she called out, “Hull breaches, decks eight through twelve, damage to—More incoming!”

The sound and the shock-tremor were unlike anything D’Amato had ever heard before—crushing booms, hollow crumplings, groans of distressed metal, roars of explosive decompression. She knew, instinctively, that it was the sound of sudden death in space. Her white-knuckled fingers clutched the edge of her helm console, which stuttered between light and darkness.

From belowdecks, the angry screech of phasers and the echoing ring of torpedo launches continued. Even before ch’Shonnas made his report, D’Amato saw the Tholian battle cruiser’s shields collapse, and a volley of photon torpedoes slam into it amidships. “Direct hit on the lead cruiser,” ch’Shonnas said. “Heavy damage.”

“Again,” Gannon said, pointing at the crippled enemy ship. Phaser beams sliced through the Tholian vessel, whose image filled the main viewer from edge to edge. “Break off,” Gannon said. “Hard to port! Fire aft torpedoes, finish her!”

D’Amato fought with the sluggish, failing helm controls, practically willing the ship to turn as the captain ordered. They had made it two-thirds of the way through the turn when the beleaguered impulse engines began to falter. Then a Tholian plasma torpedo nudged them the rest of the way through the turn and, miraculously, seemed to spur the impulse drive back to full power.

On the edge of the main viewer, D’Amato saw the flash of the cruiser’s explosion batter three of its escorts, which now were in a triangular formation and closing fast on the Bombay. The captain pointed to the cruiser on the left. “Shal, all fire on that one!” She pointed at the one on the right. “Nave, tractor beam on that one!” D’Amato was about to protest that all power had been diverted to weapons when she recalled that the phaser mains and the tractor-beam emitter shared the same energizer coils.

The auxiliary phaser banks kept the left-side ship engaged while Nave snared the right-hand one with a tractor beam. The young communications officer announced with pride, “Got ’em!”

Gannon glanced at the tactical display between D’Amato and ch’Shonnas and made a snap decision. “D’Amato, bearing three-five-eight mark eighteen, flank speed!”

More blasts rocked the ship as D’Amato forced the impulse engines to their limits. The Tholian ships seemed slow to respond, likely because they had expected the Bombay to make an evasive turn rather than an attack charge. Sensors indicated that the two enemy ships on the Bombay’s aft quarter were equally off-balance but swiftly altering course to compensate. The strain on the Bombay’s engines was immense; they had been pushed far beyond their rated tolerance even before they started dragging the mass of the snagged Tholian cruiser.

Ahead of them, the cruiser that wasn’t bearing the brunt of the Bombay’s attack broke away in another attempt at a flanking run. Gannon pointed at it like she was thrusting a sword into an enemy. “Helm, hard to port, ninety-five degrees starboard yaw! Weapons, stay on the second one!”

As she executed the command, D’Amato realized what the captain was doing, and she made small adjustments in the maneuver to maximize its effectiveness. A bone-jarring concussion sent a flash-crack of light and heat rushing into the bridge. Sparks showered down from the rent ceiling. The tactical display hiccuped on and off for a second. When it settled, D’Amato permitted herself a moment of dark satisfaction: They had pulled the Tholian cruiser in their tractor beam into a broadside collision with the one that had just hit their main computer core. Both enemy ships had exploded into a cloud of superheated debris.

“Good work, D’Amato! Hard about!”

D’Amato swung the ship through a 180-degree turn. At the end of it, the cruiser onto which ch’Shonnas was still directing all weapons fire lay halfway between the Bombay and the damaged Tholian ship’s two reinforcements, which were closing at maximum speed. The battered Tholian cruiser was fleeing the Bombay, and its sister ships were moving to defend its retreat.

Gannon seemed hyperalert now. The gleam in her eyes had a feral intensity. “Helm, get in there. Don’t let them get away! Weapons, fire all phaser banks!”

For a moment, ch’Shonnas looked like he was going to protest the order, then he triggered a massive phaser onslaught against the escaping vessel. Multiple overlapping beams bombarded the Tholian ship, and its shields flared, then dissipated. A single photon torpedo slammed into its main engine.

Then the two cruisers behind it returned fire at Bombay.

The charged-plasma pulses seemed to drift languidly through space, only to speed up at the last second.

D’Amato shut her eyes. The shock of impact opened them again. Light and heat…sound and fury…the gruesome pantomime of bodies hurled like leaves in a storm. She plunged out of her chair, nauseated by a sudden sensation of weightlessness that just as quickly surrendered to the trauma of brutal deceleration when she hit a bulkhead. Facedown on the deck, she felt a throbbing ache inside her mouth bloom into agonizing pain. She reached up to her lips. Her guttural howls hurled blood and saliva over her fingers. Gingerly reaching past her slashed lower lip, she confirmed that several of her front teeth had been smashed out. Heaving sobs robbed her of breath; tears ran from her eyes.