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Unfortunately, its momentum was still carrying it through the air, and it landed right on top of me.

As bad as the pain in my side was before, it was a thousand times worse now. I cried out in agony.

But the good news was that the shii was just a dead weight on top of me.

A very heavy weight. I managed to push the thing off me—and it still didn’t move—and tapped my combadge. “Computer, time.”

The grating, atonal voice of the Nalori computer said, “The time is 0014 hours.”

I had cut it close—the quasar/pulsar window would close any minute. If I didn’t do this now, I wouldn’t be able to for fourteen hours. “Computer, activate ACB.”

I now had two minutes to get to the center of the dish before the annular confinement beam reached full power. . . .

Excerpt from a letter from Razka on Sarindar to Marig on Nalor, sixteenth day of Sendrak, twenty-third year of Togh

. . . I had thought that everything was fine. The monster was stopped as planned. Commander Gomez was activating the beam that would stop it. And now she was moving toward the center. I, too, moved toward escape. Her route would take her to the underside of the dish. Ironically, the door she was using was the same one that I had guarded at the secondary hospital. My own route was simply back the way I came.

Then I saw that the monster had started to move. And Commander Gomez hadn’t reached the hatch yet. I reached for the tricorder, hoping I might be able to stop it. Unfortunately, I fumbled with the device and dropped it. It fell dozens of meters to the ground. So, instead, I called the commander’s name . . .

First officer’s log, supplemental

. . . and it was a good thing he did, because I was able to whirl around and fire one last time at the creature. Unfortunately, doing so seemed to rip open my wound, and I cried out.

Then I heard the steady thrum that indicated the ACB was about to come on-line. If I stayed where I was, I would be reduced to my component atoms inside about half a second.

I dove for the hatch . . .

Excerpt from a letter from Razka on Sarindar to Marig on Nalor, sixteenth day of Sendrak, twenty-third year of Togh

. . . and then I started climbing madly down the ladder. I had no idea if Commander Gomez had heard me or not. My main concern at that point was my own survival. That, and the death of the monster shii.

I heard the sound of the mighty engine that powered the dish. Forces that were intended to displace atmosphere and create a vacuum sliced through the air. The noise was deafening. The light was blinding. When we had first tested the beam, I had been standing at a safe distance. Now I was at anything but. I don’t think that my ears will ever cease ringing. Nor do I believe that the spots will ever disappear from in front of my eyes.

But I have to say it was a spectacular view. The nearby crystalline trees reflected the shimmering beam, which shot into the night with such intensity that I thought it would bisect the entire galaxy.

A lifetime later, the beam finally ceased. There was no sign of either Commander Gomez or the monster shii.

Second officer’s log, Lt. Commander Kieran Duffy, Shuttlecraft Archimedes, Stardate 53291.0

I’m on final approach to the planet Sarindar. According to the Nalori Republic representative that Captain Gold talked to when the da Vinci entered Nalori space two hours ago, all contact with Sarindar was lost several days ago. They had come across the transport ship, the Culloden, that had been assigned to the project. The Nalori had assumed that everyone else on the planet had been killed, but the testimony of the workers on the Culloden, combined with sensor readings the da Vinci took, show that the interference around the planet has gotten too heavy for even com signals to get through.

I just hope that Commander Gomez is okay.

Personal log, Lt. Commander Kieran Duffy, Shuttlecraft Archimedes, Stardate 53291.1

I landed on Sarindar to find the remnants of a tent system, some broken-down machinery, a very large concave dish—

—and Commander