The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [98]
“Torpedoes ready, Captain,” Worf reported. “I am having difficulty locking onto the target. We are quite close to the local star.”
“Do what you can, Lieutenant. Time to generator reception of destruct code, Mr. Data?”
“Twenty seconds to zero, sir.”
“Mr. Worf,” Picard said tightly, “target that damned thing and fire!”
“No lock, Captain,” Worf said. “Firing in manual mode. Torpedoes away.”
Picard and everyone else watched the screen as the flight of four glowing red torpedoes coursed quickly away from the ship. The captain could almost feel Worf’s concentration as a physical force as the Klingon worked quickly and efficiently behind him.
“Ten seconds to zero,” said Data.
“Second volley ready, Captain,” Worf reported.
“One way or the other, Mr. Worf, a second volley will not be necessary.”
“Five seconds, sir,” Data said.
There was a flash of blinding white light from about forty-three thousand kilometers away, and then there was another.
“Target destroyed, Captain,” Worf reported.
“The count is zero, sir,” said Data.
They all paused for a moment.
“Well,” Troi said brightly, breaking the silence, “we’re all still here.”
“Indeed,” said Picard. “I suppose we got the right one, after all. Good shooting, Lieutenant. Harkey, get us back to Nem Ma’ak Bratuna. Maximum warp. I want to talk to Kerajem again before he decides to do something else insane.”
“Course laid in, sir.”
“Engage.”
It would not be long now. Kerajem wondered if he would have time to see the sky light up in amazing fashion just before the end. Probably not, he decided. Some of the scientists on Plan Blue Ultimate had gotten together to write a classified piece on what the nova would do to Nem Ma’ak Bratuna—blow off the atmosphere, boil off the seas, maybe even blow off the crust of the planet. At the core of the piece was the notion that no one would feel anything as the wave front engulfed the world.
That was good. Kerajem was tired of feeling.
With ten seconds left in his life, Kerajem suddenly heard a voice behind him. “Hello again, my friend.”
He whirled. “Picard?!? What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to try to talk some sense into you. No, your sun hasn’t gone nova. We stopped it.”
Kerajem went pale. “How?”
“Never mind. Killing everyone is an act of despair. There is still hope of peace. Is that understood?”
Kerajem nodded slowly.
“Good. Now please come with me. We’re returning to the Enterprise. Picard to Transporter Room Three. Two to beam up.”
Picard was again standing on the bridge, this time with Kerajem at his side.
“Let me make myself clear,” Picard told the Krann bureaucratic functionary who was on screen. “The First Among Equals and I will talk to Presider Hek within three minutes.”
“The Presider will speak to no one at this time,” the functionary said. “The Fleet is in a state of emergency.”
“The Presider will speak to me,” Picard said, “or the entire Krann fleet will be destroyed—not by us, but by the Lethanta. I promise you that they have the means. He had better talk to me.”
The bureaucrat looked doubtful. “The Presider has left orders—”
The transmission was interrupted. “Never mind,” came a familiar voice. The image of the functionary was replaced by that of Presider Hek. “I monitor all this claptrap, Picard, even during Fleet Congress meetings.” The Krann leader was standing at the lectern in the Great Hall. “You’re talking to the entire Congress this time,” Hek told Picard, and there was a chorus of cheers. “What do you want now?”
“I want you to listen to me, Hek,” Picard said. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. Unbeknownst to us, the Lethanta have developed a device that can explode their star. It is a doomsday weapon, and it is intended to destroy your entire Krann fleet, should you destroy the Lethanta, by exploding this star and catching you all in the wave front. Both races will perish, not just one.”
There was some muttering in the background from the members of the Congress, but Hek only laughed.