Flashback - Diane Carey [74]
"I can't get a fix on the Klingon ship," Lojur said, frustrated and tense even though he'd been warned that this might happen. "Dropping to full impulse speed, sir."
"Shields up. All right, now we're giving them something else to shoot at."
"Aye, sir!"
"Veer directly toward the Enterprise."
"Aye, sir."
Janeway tensed as a photon torpedo appeared out of apparently dead space and launched toward the Enterprise, which took the hit with a quick, last-second dodge to port, allowing the photon to strike a hard but glancing blow. Still, the starship held position and continued an almost leisurely arch of forward movement.
"The Enterprise is making itself a target," Lojur voiced. He turned to Sulu. "Why, sir?"
Sulu settled again into his command chair. "If I know Captain Kirk-and I do-it means he's fig-
ured out a way to tease the cloaked ship into revealing itself. Mr. Tuvok, you be ready to fire at the slightest opportunity. I don't care if you empty the banks with near misses."
"I understand, sir," Tuvok said, and glanced up at Janeway.
She nodded approvingly at him, and clenched her hands, aching to take physical part in this.
"Sir, they're firing on us!" Lojur called out as a bright ball of energy popped out of empty space and blew toward them.
"Evasive," Sulu said.
Lojur tried, but the bolt was too fast and thundered into Excelsior's primary hull just in front of the bridge. Janeway winced. Another few hundred feet, and there wouldn't be anything left to remember.
"All stations, stabilize or evacuate," Sulu said. "We'll clean up later."
Smoking and sparking, the Excelsior continued to close the distance between itself and the Enterprise and the ship nobody could see. As they approached, another bolt popped out of the fabric of space and streaked toward the Enterprise.
Tuvok stiffened. "Sir, the Enterprise's shields are severely damaged."
"The Enterprise is returning fire," Lojur called out sharply. "How are they targeting a cloaked ship?"
"Any way they can," Sulu droned. "Hold fire . . . wait a minute. Keep your eyes open, people. Mr. Tuvok-"
"Standing by, sir," Tuvok said with unexpected enthusiasm.
Janeway leaned toward Tuvok as they watched the Enterprise's photon torpedo speed through space. "Why did they fire? They can't possibly have a solution plotted for an invisible ship."
"Wait, Captain," Tuvok said.
As they watched, the glowing orange dot of the torpedo streaked into space as expected. Then, quite unexpectedly, it began to loop around, banking quite deliberately.
"That warhead's acquiring!" Lojur gulped. "How's-it's tracking the cloaked ship's ionization trail!"
Behind Janeway, Sulu smiled and murmured, "Mr. Spock . . ."
Janeway glanced at him, realized what he meant, then watched the screen with renewed fascination.
The orange dot drove back around the Enterprise as if framing the starship, curving artistically against the sun's distant shimmer, then lazily circled, but not a full circle. Soon it straightened its course and no longer acted erratic.
"Did it lose the cloaked ship?" Janeway asked.
Wisely, though, Tuvok didn't tell her.
"That Klingon ship stands between us and Khit-omer," Tuvok said instead, "where this same group of conspirators is about to attempt assassination of the president."
"If just one of these two starships can slip through-" Janeway gripped the back of Tuvok's
chair and fixed her eyes on the screen. She was suddenly glad not to know exactly what had happened at this moment in history.
The torpedo made one more course adjustment loop, then increased speed quite suddenly.
"Captain," Tuvok said quickly, "it might be inside the cloaked ship's neutron radiation sphere."
"It's surging for the hit!" Lojur gasped.
"Keep your eye on that warhead, Mr. Tuvok," Sulu said. "We'll only have a few seconds . . ."
"Aye, sir."