Maximum Warp Part 16

"You understand what I mean, Kalor."

The Klingon nodded, but was still staring out the window. "We found a cure for ourselves. The virus is changed now."

"Give me the data on how." Picard stepped toward him. "Give me the antidote you created."

"You don't understand. Still. I cannot help you."

The captain took another step closer and reached out with his hand, turned Kalor toward him. "You're going to. Even if I have to force you."

Kalor snorted and took a swig of his drink. "Those are my s.h.i.+ps that have you tractored and are towing you to my planet, Picard."

"Because I'm letting them, Kalor." He squeezed his fingers, not that Kalor would feel it through his thick tunic. "We could snap that tractor beam like a cobweb."

Kalor jerked away, spilling some of his drink as he did. "Then why don't you?"

"Because now isn't the time."

"You're waiting to repair yourself." The Klingon snorted again. "But we won't give you the two days-"

"The s.h.i.+p has been repaired for twenty minutes and will be ready for warp in another ten. But if T'sart dies, it may all be for nothing."

Kalor growled a low growl, more frustration than anger.

"Do you believe us?" Picard asked. "About the dead zones?"

The Klingon set his drink on the sill of the window and shook his head. "It's not a matter of believing you or not. It's a matter of what is acceptable and expected. I cannot help you."

"I'm..." Picard hesitated. How much should he say? How much shouldn't he? "I'm not acting on orders here, Kalor."

"You?" Thick brows raised in surprise, Kalor almost laughed. "We haven't time for orders, or what is appropriate. When a dead zone hits a populated area, people will die. Everyone dependent on advanced technology will die. And later, when even batteries and electricity won't work... We're talking about collapsing back to preindustrial civilization. How many Klingon cities can last without power, Kalor?"

Kalor waved his hand dismissively. "Dramatic, but all we've had are a few s.h.i.+ps fall into these zones. A few small incidents. How am I to know that this isn't all a trick? A plot by T'sart? They will end when he does, and that will be soon."

Ready to respond, Picard was interrupted by a comm signal.

He tapped at his comm badge. "Picard here."

"Spock here, Captain. We have a problem."

"On my way."

Kalor followed Picard onto the bridge. A security guard stood close by the Klingon as the captain strode toward the Vulcan and the science station.

"Something, Spock?"

"Based on readings I could recall from T'sart's data, I've begun scanning with a subs.p.a.ce resonance pulse. It has stopped echoing back to me."

Picard felt his face grow cold. "A dead zone?"

"Likely."

"Where?"

Spock pointed toward a monitor. "In our path, if we maintain this course."

"Intersect point?"

"Two minutes, fourteen seconds at current speed."

Picard swung around, pointing toward the helm as he made his way to the command chair. "Break the tractor beam." He slapped at his comm badge. "Bridge to Engineering. Geordi, I need warp power now."

"You got it, Captain."

"Helm, full reverse thrust."

"Aye, sir."

"Mr. Chamberlain, raise the Klingons." The captain pivoted toward Kalor. "Tell them to stop, now."

The Klingon commander hesitated. "I-are you sure?"

"Spock?"

"One minute, forty seconds," Spock said. "For the lead Klingon s.h.i.+p, fourteen seconds."

"Channel open," Chamberlain said from tactical.

"This is Kalor. All vessels, stop!"

Chamberlain shook his head. "They're not responding."

"Regulations," Kalor grumbled. "By taking me into custody, you've negated my command. They'll a.s.sume me under duress."

"Three Klingon s.h.i.+ps now within probable dead zone," Spock called, bent over his scanner. "Falling out of warp."

"Fire phasers," Picard ordered. "Break that tractor! Fire!"

At Picard's command, a thin orange line traced a path toward the vessel in Part's control. There was a bright explosion, a hum in the engines as they suddenly s.h.i.+fted acceleration, and a shudder as inertia! dampers struggled to compensate.

"We're free," Spock said. "Decelerating from warp. We are still clear of the dead zone." He looked up from his sensors. "The Klingon s.h.i.+ps were not as lucky."

"Can you raise them?" Chamberlain again shook his head.

"Probably not on subs.p.a.ce channels," Spock offered.

Picard nodded. "Try non subs.p.a.ce communications."

"Aye, sir. Picking up something on radio frequencies."

"On speakers."

"-demanding any s.h.i.+p within reception contact Defense Force Command and Governor Kalor. Seventeen large vessels and forty smaller craft are stranded in orbit. All seven power generation plants on the surface have ceased functioning. Battery power will last only three more hours..." "This ... this is coming from my planet? From the Malinga colony?"

Picard nodded. "Only on battery backup ..." he murmured. "When those fail, the matter antimatter magnetic containment will collapse in each power plant-"

"Causing widespread destruction." Spock finished what Picard could not.

Kalor staggered toward Picard. "There's enough antimatter in those seven power plants to tear the atmosphere from the planet." His mouth was agape. "Nineteen million Klingons ... we must get to them."

Picard spun toward the helm. "Distance?"

"Twenty billion kilometers."

The captain's gut felt tight. "Four light hours."

"Several days on impulse," Chamberlain mumbled from tactical.

"It doesn't matter," Picard said. "Twenty billion kilometers with radio communications ... This transmission took four hours to get here. They've been dead an hour by now."

"And in three more hours," Kalor said, his voice gravel, "we will hear it happen to them."

Chapter Twenty.

U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC 1701E Klingon s.p.a.ce Malinga Sector within an hour it had begun. Those on the dying planet knew help wasn't coming. Transmissions, counter-transmissions: Klingon panic. Picard and his crew heard it all. The captain thought about taking it off the speakers, maybe just recording it. He couldn't. He listened. They all did. Helpless.

"Four vessels left in orbit. Seven were able to force themselves into s.p.a.ce. The rest grew cold in orbit and died, asphyxiated." Static crackled throughout, but the tired Klingon voice was otherwise clear. Picard knew enough of the Klingon language to listen past the translator and he could hear the fatigue. The man was struggling, mentally and physically. Probably a low-level communications officer on the planet Kalor most likely had never met him. That mattered not He was a ghost, and that thought was never far from anyone's thoughts. "Station batteries useless for tractor beams. All available power is being channeled to antimatter containment. Limited batteries now available. We must have a.s.sistance. Too late for evacuation. If you can hear this and can respond... it is probably too late for that as well Those with s.h.i.+ps that could escape the gravity, have. If they can avoid the blast wave when the plants... if they can..."

The man's voice trailed off. There was indistinct yelling in the background.

"He doesn't know what else to say," Kalor commented quietly.

Klingons with personal transmitters had clogged the frequencies. Most messages weren't pleas for help, but declarations about their deaths, for their families. Testimony of how honorable their bloodlines are... were... Somber self-epilogues, closing their lives with their own eulogies.

Real-time sensors wouldn't work within the dead zone, but light magnification, enhanced by computers, would show what occurred four hours ago, just as radio was picking up the broadcasts ... from twenty billion kilometers away.

Soon enough, they'd see the planet go.

Kalor sighed. "I'd like some privacy to... talk to my s.h.i.+p, Picard."

Picard nodded. "My office."

Kalor felt heavy. He struggled to remain upright as he moved to the replicator in Picard's office and ordered the machine to give him another drink. He'd given up on blood wine long ago and was downing a check "tluth. He took the drink and shuffled over to Picard's desk, where he fell into the chair before the computer.

He took a long drag on the steaming drink as he tapped into the console to open a local communications channel.

His aide appeared on the monitor.

"Parl."

"Governor."

Parl had been under his command longer than anyone. He was Kalor's most trusted a.s.sociate, and closest friend. They'd served together, been drunk together, chased women together, and fought together. They had the same strengths, and even the same weaknesses. "How drunk are you now, my friend?"

"Not nearly drunk enough, sir."

Kalor chuckled, but his chest was tight and it became a cough. "Neither am I." He coughed again, and took another sip of his drink. "We have been foolhardy."

A few lines of static snow broke the picture a moment, and Parl squinted. "There was nothing we could have done to save the planet."

"We succeeding in poisoning the monster," Kalor said. His voice sounded like gravel, and his throat was just as rough.

Parl's brows drew up and he spoke with deliberate slowness. "That is... not a good thing?"

Another cough before Kalor answered, and another gulp of his drink as well. "It is likely that he knows what causes these powerless areas in s.p.a.ce. I don't trust him. Picard doesn't trust him. But if he can end these... and we have killed him..."

"Honor-" Parl began.

Kalor cut him off, gesturing with his free hand. "Honor is a harsh mistress, my friend." He sighed. "Picard has a plan to save our s.h.i.+p and the others. When the Shockwave hits ..." He noticed himself having trouble p.r.o.nouncing the word for "shock-wave," and he looked down at his drink. He took another slug on it, as if that might help. "He wants to transfer power to each s.h.i.+p. Have you draw energy right off his tractor beam. Enough to keep inertial dampers online."

"We calculated that our dampers will fail. We are ready for that. At this point, death is a release..."

"Picard will try nevertheless." Kalor sniffed. The room felt stuffy suddenly.

"Picard is very trying," Parl said. It was an elegant pun for two men as drunk as Kalor and Parl were, and they both laughed.

"If Picard risks his s.h.i.+p for us, and he fails ... then we will have failed again, and whether the monster lives or not, Enterprise will not be able to see their mission through. We cannot let that happen."

"I understand, Governor."

Kalor raised his gla.s.s. It was empty, but he raised it anyway. "It has been an honor to serve with you, Parl."

"And with you."

"Doctor." Picard greeted Beverly as he entered the sickbay laboratory.

"Captain." She nodded, looking quickly up from her computer screen and then back down. T'sart was at a different console. He didn't glance away.

"Any progress?" the captain asked.

She shook her head. "Nothing so far."

Picard walked to the edge of her desk and touched it lightly with one hand. "I hate to interrupt you, but we'll need your people to prepare for possible Klingon casualties."