Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [44]
“Xhaldia’s your homeworld,” he said.
The lieutenant nodded. “Yes, sir. It is.”
Riker frowned. “If I can tell you what’s going on, I will,” he said.
Sovar looked at him. “Thank you, sir.”
The first officer clapped him on the shoulder. Then he returned to his seat in the command center.
The security officer sighed. At warp nine, it wouldn’t take them long to reach Xhaldia. A day, at most. For the moment, he would have to embrace that small consolation …
And hope the emergency drawing the Enterprise there wasn’t as dire as it might have seemed.
Chancellor Amon considered the image of his security minister on his monitor. “I think you made the right decision,” he said.
Tollit frowned. “Albeit reluctantly. I truly believed we would be able to find and recapture the transformed—in Verdeen, at least, if nowhere else.”
“But they have proven elusive,” Amon noted, “difficult to pin down. And on those occasions when you have managed to corner one, it has been an unhappy experience for your guardsmen.”
The minister nodded. “As you say, it was the right decision to bring in Starfleet. I only hope they will be gentle with the transformed. After all, they are still children, powerful as—”
Suddenly, Tollit’s image disappeared—to be replaced with the corpulent visage of Morna, Xhaldia’s minister of global communications. Morna looked as worried as the chancellor had ever seen him.
What now? Amon asked himself. What else can go wrong?
“We have a problem,” said the communications minister, dabbing perspiration from his forehead with a pocket cloth.
The chancellor leaned forward again. “A problem of what nature?”
Morna scowled. “I believe we are under attack.”
Amon looked at the man, dumbfounded. “Attack?” he echoed. “But why would anyone attack Xhaldia?”
In the twenty-eight years since the chancellor’s people had ventured into space, Xhaldia had never had anything but friendly relations with its neighbors—and for good reason. The planet wasn’t strategically important to anyone, and none of its resources were in great demand. The Xhaldians had never even built a defense fleet, relying instead on their world’s natural defenses and their alignment with the Federation to keep troublemakers at bay.
“I don’t know why,” said Morna. “But a little while ago—ten minutes, perhaps—our sensor net picked up the approach of a large, unidentified vessel, previously concealed from us by the moon. We hailed them, in accordance with regulations. At first, there was no response.”
The minister dabbed at his forehead again. He was doing his best to remain calm, but it wasn’t working very well.
“And then?” Amon prodded.
“Then they responded after all—by destroying one of our booster satellites.”
The chancellor was aghast. Because of the naturally occurring energy fields permeating Xhaldia’s atmosphere, his people had constructed a series of satellites to facilitate communications with entities in space. Without those satellites, they would be cut off from the Federation and anyone else capable of speaking with them.
In short, they would be alone.
“Song of the ancients!” Morna breathed. He was looking wide-eyed at one of his monitors.
“What is it?” asked Amon.
The minister turned to him again. “They’ve destroyed two more satellites. That leaves only one.”
The chancellor bit his lip. One thing was clear—they would have to get off another message to the Federation before the last of the satellites was destroyed. They would have to let their friends know that the situation had become more urgent.
“Send out another distress call,” he told Morna. “Tell the Federation that we are under attack from alien invaders. Do it now!”
The minister did as he was told, sweat pouring down both sides of his face. Like Amon, he was hoping desperately that his efforts were in time.
Suddenly, Morna’s mouth fell open.
“What is it?” Amon demanded.
The minister swallowed hard. “They’ve destroyed the last satellite,” he reported miserably.
“What about the message?