Ring Around the Sky - Allyn Gibson [4]
“Wow,” said Fabian Stevens, the da Vinci’s tactical systems specialist. “I’d heard stories, but never thought I’d see it.”
Tev ignored him. “The structure you see is called simply ‘the Ring.’ It has no other name, and perhaps no other name would suffice. Until the discovery of the Dyson Sphere by the Enterprise-D eight years ago, the Ring was the largest and most complex artificial structure known in the Alpha Quadrant.” The camera closed in on one of the shafts. “These shafts are a functioning space elevator system, capable of delivering any payload—people, merchandise, raw materials—to and from orbit without resorting to transporters or shuttles. Cargo can be off-loaded at the port terminus atop each elevator, and then delivered to the base a few hours later.” The image panned across the shaft, zoomed out, and began moving toward the Ring at the terminus. “The Ring itself is inhabitable, essentially a space station one hundred and sixty thousand kilometers long, five hundred wide, fifty deep. In terms of living space, the Ring’s interior can support comfortably the population of this entire sector.” The view panned past the terminus, curved over the edge of the Ring, and zoomed in toward the outer edge, revealing massive docking bays. “The Kharzh’ullan Ring was utilized extensively during the Dominion War, both as a staging area for fleet deployments and as a drydock facility for damaged starships. The fleet yards here, if developed to their full capacity, would be capable of supporting tens of thousands of starships.”
Tev paused and regarded his audience. He then touched the computer console.
The image on the viewscreen changed dramatically. What had been a vibrant, functioning structure on the viewscreen—brightly lit and with starships in the drydocks under repair—was replaced by nothingness. The camera panned to one side and something metallic, frayed and twisted, came into view. As the camera moved onward, the image came into focus as the wreckage of what had once been the Ring. The camera pulled back, and perspective revealed itself. A section of the Ring simply was gone, destroyed.
Someone let out a gasp.
“What happened?” asked Dr. Lense.
Tev sighed deeply. “The Jem’Hadar.” The viewscreen image changed again, and the Ring returned intact to the viewscreen. “One month before the cessation of hostilities, the Dominion attacked the fleet yards. The attack force was small”—three Jem’Hadar warships appeared on the screen—“but Kharzh’ulla’s defenses were negligible, and what few ships were able to leave the drydock facilities to engage the Jem’Hadar attempted to defend the planet.” On-screen, starships that had been decommissioned decades before tangled with the Jem’Hadar cruisers, destroying one, disabling another. “With the battle turning against them, the commander of the undamaged Jem’Hadar vessel made an attack run on the Ring itself, rather than engage the defense fleet.” The image changed quickly, following the Jem’Hadar ship as it skirted the edge of the Ring. “The Jem’Hadar ship took several phaser blasts and photon torpedo hits. The ship lost control and crashed into the Ring’s edge.” The Jem’Hadar ship collided with the Ring, and the screen flashed white for several seconds. When the image cleared, a debris field radiated outward from where the Ring had once been.
The viewscreen image altered again, with the image of the shattered Ring changing to a high-angled schematic of Kharzh’ulla IV and its elevator and Ring system. Tev took one last look at the viewscreen, turned, and came to the end of the conference room table. “Not only did the Jem’Hadar destroy a large section of the Ring’s structure, they also struck at one of the elevators, cutting deep gashes