Collective Hindsight (Book 1) - Aaron Rosenberg [19]
“We’re good here, sir,” Pattie replied over the communicator from the Cardassian vessel. “Activating tractor beam—now!”
A wide beam of dull yellow-green energy struck the Dancing Star, and Fabian felt the ship lurch slightly as the two vessels became linked together.
“Got it, Pattie. Good work. Now beam back. We’ll meet you in a minute.” Kieran glanced over at him, and Fabian tried not to let his own face show how awful his friend looked. “Ready to send this ship off on its final voyage?”
“Let’s do it.” They tapped in the commands, and the Dancing Star’s engines powered up. Without the collectors, and with all the energy it had recently released, the ship had little power left, but it would be enough. It wasn’t going very far.
“That’s it, then,” Kieran muttered, and turned away. “Let’s head back.” He tapped his communicator. “Beam us back, Diego.”
As the transporter took them, Fabian couldn’t help a final glance back, at the spot he and Kieran had both avoided on the bridge. The captain’s chair—and the small pile of ash resting upon it.
Chapter
5
Stardate 53851.9
Sonya blinked and stretched, not surprised to realize that her back had gone stiff. Her eyes burned, partially from the strain of watching the screens so closely and partially from the tears she’d angrily brushed away. Those last few moments of the battle, when Kieran’s anger and sorrow had come through so clearly—when he’d been both grieved at Salek’s death and also furious that his commander had made such a momentous decision without him—had been too much for her. She’d had to pause the program for a moment and let her own feelings pour out, weeping uncontrollably and cursing the universe’s sense of irony. But at last she’d gotten herself back under control, and had been able to watch the final portion of the reports with little more than a subdued sob.
Before her, the viewscreen still showed several panels of information—the last words of Kieran’s official report, the schematics of the Dancing Star, and some theories on how the engines worked. But all she could see in her mind’s eye was that gout of flame leaping from ship to ship, and the way both the Dancing Star and the Grach’noyl had glowed from within, like massive beacons in the night.
Salek had done the right thing, of course—the only thing he could have done, really. The ship had been powering up again, and in another two hours it would have overloaded, taking the whole star system. He’d needed to vent that energy a second time, and it had to be internal to protect the da Vinci and the outpost. So he’d made the choice to do it himself. He could have programmed the ship to vent, of course, but that would have left the da Vinci to face the Cardassians, and they would have been destroyed. So first he had used some of the ship’s power supplies to weaken the Cardassians and knock down their shields. Then he’d set the da Vinci’s transporters to beam the contents of the Dancing Star, minus himself and any physical architecture, onto the Grach’noyl. And then he’d let the energy loose.
A lot of it had been beamed into the Cardassian ship, enough to kill everyone on board and to fry all of the ship’s systems. But transporting energy wasn’t an exact science, and a fair bit had still flooded the Dancing Star. Salek had known that it probably would, and that most likely the remaining amount would still be lethal. But it was still the best course of action. He’d died instantly, too fast to feel any pain, and had saved the rest of his team, the da Vinci’s crew, and the outpost.
The irony of it was that the Dancing Star itself had barely been damaged