The Red King - Michael A. Martin [92]
“We’re fine, Lieutenant,” desYog said. “We’re attempting to get the Beiderbecke out of here now.”
He pushed the controls and felt the craft shudder slightly as it rose through the crushing weight of water. Something dark came at them from ahead, and he pushed the shuttle even harder. They skimmed over the dark thing, narrowly avoiding it.
A bovine body slammed into the forward window with a sickening thud, then vanished into the receding murk. DesYog tried not to think about all the dead and dying they were leaving behind. All the ones they had failed to rescue.
“Ten meters to the surface,” Hachesa said. “Looks like we’ll soon be in the clearly.”
DesYog decided to allow his relief over the team’s survival to distract him from the Kobliad’s irritating abuse of Federation Standard.
The Beiderbecke broke the surface and pushed upward, into the dusky, smoke-clogged skies of a dying planet.
U.S.S. TITAN, STARDATE 57037.8
Akaar watched the monitors in the aft section of Titan’s bridge as the shuttlecraft Handy hovered near the Vanguard habitat, matching velocities with it. Tuvok’s ship had returned from its third trip with another dozen survivors, after having assisted Titan and the Romulan fleet in locking onto and beaming up thousands more.
The Vulcan also related some surprising news.
“A refugee group we contacted has refused to listen to logic, Captain,” Tuvok said from the main viewscreen at the front of the bridge. “Apparently, their religion forbids them to use any sort of high technology. We were forced to go to another relatively undamaged settlement to rescue others instead.”
“Then there’s nothing more we can do to help them,” Captain Riker said, his voice grave. “Continue toward the next target. Your team has still been more successful than most, even with this setback.”
Tuvok nodded, gesturing toward something behind him. “I consider that due in part to the effect that Mekrikuk appears to have on some of the more emotionally volatile refugees, sir. He exerts an immensely calming influence.”
Akaar gritted his teeth and finally stepped forward. “Commander, what are the coordinates of the religious compound?”
On the screen, Tuvok raised an eyebrow, his gaze moving to the side as he took in the Capellan admiral. “Sending coordinates now, Admiral. However, atmospheric ionization over that region of the planet makes transporter use inadvisable. Would you like us to make another attempt to persuade them? I would have thought you would be in agreement with Captain Riker.”
Akaar sensed in Tuvok’s words something that was almost an accusation. Resentments now more than three decades old stirred again within him, but he tamped them back down. “No. Find another target. If they are determined to die for their cause, we must respect their wishes.”
He turned his back quickly, as his lips began to tremble. The rescue missions were becoming increasingly perilous as the protouniverse’s energy discharges became more frequent; one Romulan ship, the S’harien, had been destroyed, hulled directly through the engine core by a pair of simultaneous interspatial energy blasts that had appeared too quickly to be avoided. Another one of Donatra’s vessels was too damaged to continue, and would have to be taken in tow. Titan’s shuttlecraft had taken a beating as well; the Beiderbecke had apparently just barely avoided being crushed flat by a tsunami, and had just returned to the main shuttlebay for a quick inspection.
Akaar crossed to an unoccupied bridge console and examined the data Tuvok had transmitted. The coordinates for the religious compound were located in a remote desert area, a place that had so far remained mostly untouched by the ubiquitous calamities happening elsewhere on the planet. Apparently it had been relatively easy for these reclusive people to detach themselves from the dire necessity of taking action. Their decision to refuse assistance seemed ill-considered and selfish.
Was their decision the same one he had made back on Planetoid 437 all those years ago? The decision that Tuvok had thwarted, thereby effectively