On the deck next to Berry, ch’Shonnas lay dead, half his beautiful blue face peppered with charred black shrapnel. Smoke rose from a gaping hole in the navigator’s console.

Nave was slumped against a post under the far railing, her face haunted by the same lifeless stare that D’Amato had seen minutes ago on Milonakis.

Captain Gannon crawled across the deck toward the helm console. She pulled herself up like she was scaling a rock face. Inch by inch, fighting for purchase, looking for another handhold. Her strength clearly was waning, but her defiant glare was undimmed. Peeking over the edge of the console, she stretched out her arm, flipped a sequence of switches, activated the tractor beam, this time on the damaged Tholian cruiser. Through the wavy lines and hashing static on the main viewer, D’Amato saw the beam lash out and grab the enemy vessel. Now the captain was reeling it in—and the two undamaged Tholian ships were once again moving to attack position. Gannon reached up and entered another sequence of commands into the console. She turned her head and glared at D’Amato. “Get over here, Lieutenant. I need you.”

D’Amato tried to stand, but her legs refused to obey. She followed the captain’s example and half-crawled, half-dragged herself across the dusty, debris-covered deck to join her commanding officer at the helm console.

“Computer,” the captain said. “Recognize Gannon, Captain Hallie Marie.”

“Recognized,” came the staticky, distorted reply.

Reacting to Gannon’s nod, D’Amato said, “Computer, recognize D’Amato, Junior Lieutenant Oriana.”

“Recognized.”

“Initiate emergency destruct sequence,” Gannon said. “Destruct sequence one, code one, one-D.”

“Verified.”

“Destruct sequence two,” D’Amato said, her voice growing hoarse. “Code one, one-D, two-A.”

“Verified.”

“Code zero, zero, zero, destruct zero. Thirty seconds.”

“Countdown initiated. Thirty…twenty-nine…”

On the main viewer, the damaged Tholian cruiser struggled to break free of the Bombay’s tractor beam.

Gannon’s body began to go limp, and her voice softened to a pained whisper. “Don’t let them get away,” she said…then slid down the front of the console and collapsed next to ch’Shonnas, her blank eyes gazing upward.

Alone on the bridge, D’Amato clung to her post, her blood-stickied fingers routing every last drop of power to the wavering tractor beam. The damaged Tholian ship was practically touching the Bombay. Only now did D’Amato realize that they hadn’t reeled it in; because the Bombay’s impulse engines were gone, they had pulled themselves to the enemy vessel, whose two reinforcements now were moving in to retaliate. Just when D’Amato expected the tractor beam to lose hold of the Tholian ship, its power suddenly increased. Someone in engineering had worked one final miracle.

Only a few more seconds, D’Amato knew. You’re not getting away, you faccia di stronzo!

Firing the Bombay’s navigational thrusters at maximum, she forced the trapped Tholian cruiser into a slow roll, turning it instantly into a shield against its allies’ counterstrike.

D’Amato had almost had time enough to congratulate herself for her ingenuity when the self-destruct system detonated.

Aboard the Tholian battle cruiser Nov’k Tholis, Commander Larskene [The Silver] enabled the subspace thoughtwave. Projecting his thought-colors into the Warrior Castemoot SubLink, he petitioned, via the Lattice InterLink, for an audience with the Ruling Conclave of the Political Castemoot. His salutation was met with warm tones of concordance.

The inter-voice of Falstrene [The Gray] echoed across the InterLink, deep with pensive undertones. Is it done?

All but the last. Larskene shared facets of memory salvaged from his caste-peers aboard the four destroyed vessels. First was the self-immolation of the Starfleet vessel, along with the Tik’r Tholis.

Velrene [The Azure] chimed into the InterLink, coruscating with dismay. Why was a Federation ship there?

Defending their outpost. Larskene skipped back along the memory-line to the bombardment of the planet. He highlighted sensing-unit transcriptions of the planet’s surface, which showed a humanoid settlement in the exact location of the target.

Crimson agitation swelled in the Ruling Conclave. Angry colors washed down through the thoughtwave InterLink to Larskene. The elite Castemoot’s discussion was closed to him. He heard only what they elected to share. The flare of rage in the topmost layer of the Lattice darkened with hues of suspicion and flickered as the collective debated.

Mellisonant tones overlapped as the InterLink reopened, and he was hailed by Azrene [The Violet]. Her soothing thoughtcolors lacked sincerity. What is the status of the fleet?

Dozens of points of view coursed upward through the InterLink, projected by Larskene, who had culled them from across the attack fleet’s private SubLink as the battle raged. Images overlapped of the lead Tholian cruiser, the Sek’t Tholis, succumbing to a prolonged barrage by the Federation warship. His own crew offered four distinct perspectives on the enemy’s engineered collision of the Tas’v Tholis and the Kil’j Tholis.

A bland gray hum signaled a momentary muting of the InterLink. Larskene took the opportunity to clarify his mind-line and infuse his Lattice-hue with a tint of confidence.

Dulcet tones called him back to loyal attention.

Yazkene [The Emerald] was shrouded in dark colors. The Federation has come too far to turn back. His images were simple and direct, the plan of action clear. When it is done, return to Tholia with the Vel’j Tholis.

Larskene radiated his understanding in steady pulses. So shall it be done.

The InterLink faded as the Ruling Conclave withdrew to its private environs at the Lattice’s apex. Larskene’s mind-line receded along its thought-path, out of the Warrior Castemoot, back into the sanctum of his own being. Before he powered down the thoughtwave transmitter, he sensed the rising tone of patriotism that brightened the Lattice’s Sub-Links. Elation was mingled with relief, but a new impulse festered in the collective mind-line of the Tholian Assembly.

For now, the Voice was silent.

But many voices from across the breadth of the Tholian Assembly now were calling for a war to keep it that way.

10

“Mr. Pennington,” Reyes had said over the comm, after waking the young reporter from a sound sleep, “if you want a major news story, get to my office. Now.”

For three months Pennington had been trying to secure a face-to-face interview with the commodore, to no avail. Now that an opportunity had presented itself, he had sprinted from his apartment half-dressed and barely finished pulling himself together by the time he stepped out of the turbolift into the ops center. A tableau of grim faces had put him on notice that the news which awaited him was not likely to be pleasant. Reyes’s tight-lipped grimace confirmed it.

He settled into a seat in front of the commodore’s desk. His interview recorder, tucked discreetly in his palm, was running. Not wanting to press his luck, he asked no questions.

Reyes didn’t look up at him. The older man stared down at a printed report in his hand, which trembled ever so slightly. Teeth clenched lockjaw-tight, he said, “The Federation starship Bombay was destroyed with all hands in the line of duty yesterday at 1746 hours, station time.”

Pennington stared at him, silent with shock.

There were dozens of questions that he knew he should be asking, but suddenly he couldn’t think of them. All his thoughts logjammed on her name: Oriana.

One horrific scenario after another played out in the theater of his imagination. Accident? Sabotage? Ambush? As he fought to rein in the mad flurry of half-formed notions running circles in his mind, his journalistic training reasserted itself. “How?”