FanFic - DP/UF - Crossroads [14]

[MegaZone]

--------------------------------------------------------------FOURTEEN

"I've been dead once already."
--Captain Spock

Within instants of materializing in the Wandering Child's
number-four transporter room, ReRob was on his way to Engineering at a
dead run. There wasn't much time. At the door to the engine room, a
technician handed him a radsuit; murmuring thanks, Rob stripped off
his uniform tunic and boots and hauled the suit on over his trousers.
There was no time for a proper change.
Before him stood the fold drive, a massive rectangular prism
of metal the size of an office building laid on its side. Normally,
were it operating at optimum levels, it would be thrumming at a nearly
subsonic level, resonating with the Reflex furnace that could be heard
and felt throughout the vessel, and bathing the whole chamber in a
pleasant blue glow. Now, it was dead, dark, silent, and cold.
"Damn," Rob cursed under his breath; worse than he had
thought. He yanked open an access panel and got to work.

Up on the bridge, Zoner watched the feed from one of UP's
outer sensor arrays as the battle began. Massed Federation-style
ships, mostly Constitution and Excelsior class, converged on one of
the star destroyers, unleashing a firestorm of photon torpedoes and
phasers from their combined weaponry. The destroyer's shields strobed
red with the hits; finally, after one particularly hard-hitting salvo,
the portside shield generator globe imploded in a column of flame.
Instants later, a spread of torpedoes from the lead Excelsior's tubes
blasted through the bridge windows, gutting the entire bridge module.
Very quickly, though, the destroyer's gun crews overcame their
surprise and concentrated their attacks; turbolaser bolts hammered one
of the Constitution ships, which the UP computer identified as the WDF
Hood. The Hood turned to port, her impulse engines flaring as her
captain tried to evade, but the GENOM ship's Buma crew had her marked.
As her shields collapsed, the vessel began to heel hard to port, her
helmsman overturning. Energy blasts and missiles ripped great holes
in the proud ship's hull as the other WDF vessels fled at full impulse
power. The portside warp nacelle burst into a violent conflagration
as the entire pylon collapsed. Out of control, the Hood's twisted
wreckage slammed into the foredecks of the star destroyer, and then
her antimatter containment fields let go.
The resulting fireball whited out the monitor for a second.
MegaZone discovered that he was shuddering, and sweating cold; he had
seen battle before, hundreds of times--but never like this! The
combat was primal, almost savage, the vessels tearing at each other
like animals. Here a Battlestar and a star destroyer traded
broadsides, both of them burning at various decks, terribly wounded
yet refusing to give up the fight; there a Klingon D-7 class cruiser
(crewed, he was told, by actual Republican Klingons), her engine room
on fire, rammed an Ikazuchi amidships, taking both ships to hell in a
fiery mess.
Suddenly, one of the great Yamato class battleships spoke, her
helix cannons ripping one of the hourglass carriers in half. A star
destroyer turned to confront the vessel, which, the UP computer told
Zoner, was the class vessel Yamato, captained by none other than the
legendary Salusian Admiral Halcyon, on loan to the WDF for this
battle. Bolts from the destroyer's turbolasers holed the Yamato's
hull repeatedly as the smaller vessel blasted away with her helix
cannons, ripping great hunks out of the destroyer's sides; Zoner
turned away, sensing the inevitable outcome of this battle, but his
eyes were drawn back to the screen by some morbid fascination.
The fire from Yamato ceased; Zoner took this to mean that the
vessel was dead, her power plant destroyed, perhaps her crew slain.
The star destroyer continued to salvo for a moment--
--and then the bow of the Yamato vomited forth a stream of
energy so brilliant it made the viewer go dark for an instant. The
beam punctured the destroyer straight through, and as the GENOM vessel
twisted on its axis from the impact, fires began to erupt all through
her structure. In just moments, the vessel had reduced itself to
smoldering junk.
"The wave motion gun! They actually got it to work!" Zoner
exclaimed. He had been so busy learning about fleet operations, he
hadn't had time to get to all the technical readouts; the Yamato class
was one he had missed. Still, he thought in retrospect that he should
probably have figured as much.
"Admiral," came a voice from the back of the bridge. Zoner
spun in his conn.
Asrial, Queen of Salusia, was standing in the rear of his
bridge, looking not a day older than when they had first met at the
WDF's first reorganization in 1992. She wore a Wedge Defense Force
uniform: the undershirt's visible collar was command-branch white. the
stripe down the trouser seams red to denote the WDF Navy. Her tunic
was the Strategic Fleet's blood red, and was outfitted with a
Wandering Child commbadge. Her rank, Zoner was puzzled to note, was
Commander.
"Your majesty--what are you doing here? This is an extreme
danger zone--"
"I am here because I will it," Asrial replied, smiling. "As a
Salusian of Imperial birth, I may claim that right. This is your
ship, however, and I respect that--permission to come aboard?"
"Granted," Zoner replied, "but you haven't answered my
question.,"
"I am here, Admiral, because you require an executive
officer."
Zoner was momentarily very puzzled. Then, smiling, he
indicated the station to his right, for so long crewed by Gryphon on
the old SDF-17. "By all means. I think Gryphon would agree that his
post is in good hands."
She took the seat and began to familiarize herself with the
control layouts, then reported in a cool, professional voice, "All
systems are optimal except fold control and Reflex systems. Captain
Mandeville is currently working to correct the fold drive malfunction
and get all high-energy systems back online. He estimates five
minutes before we are ready to deploy."
Zoner looked back at the main viewer; the Concordia's
familiarly squat naval profile was locked in a running gun battle with
the GENOM flagship. Her shields were flaring red and her weapons were
apparently having no effect on the huge vessel--and Zoner knew why.
"q, open a channel to the Concordia, now!" Gryphon's bridge
materialized in a corner of the viewer pit. "Gryphon, this is Zoner!
I read the reports--Dreadnaught was equipped with phase shields, your
weapons aren't having any effect!"
"I noticed that, Admiral," Gryphon gritted as he fought to
hang onto his seat, Concordia's deck shuddering underneath him with
the force of Dreadnaught II's weapons. "Situation is under control.
Please don't distract us. Concordia out." The bridge projection
vanished.
Zoner looked miffed.

"Captain, shields are at seventeen percent and failing,"
Saavik reported in a...tense tone of voice. "WDF vessel closing from
portside aft to support. It's the Bismarck, sir."
"Vanessa, warn them off. We have the situation under
control."
The Bismarck, a Yamato class battleship, fired her wave motion
gun. The bolt of energy streaked forth and disappeared, banished by
Dreadnaught II's phase shields to a vacant parallel plane. The super
star destroyer's firepower shifted from the Concordia to the Bismarck,
which backed away at full thrust; momentarily the GENOM vessel's
interest shifted back to the Concordia.
"Vanessa! Get me a channel to the enemy vessel!"
"Sir?"
"Just do it!"
"Aye, sir...hailing frequency is open."
"GENOM flagship, GENOM flagship, this is Captain Benjamin D.
Hutchins of the WDF Concordia. Cease hostilities at once, or you will
be destroyed."
The main viewer sizzled to a view of the GENOM commander, and
Gryphon suddenly found himself looking at a twisted reflection of
himself.
"So. It's 'Captain' now?" the replicant sneered. "Not only
did you manage to get out of the trap I laid for you so carefully, but
you got a promotion in the bargain?"
The battle stopped as if someone had pressed "pause" on the
Universal Remote. Everyone's eyes, on both sides, were glued to the
split screen view of the two commanders. Kei sucked in a sharp breath
as the image appeared, and MegaZone gripped the arms of his conn a
little tighter. He punched a key on his chair arm.
"Engineering! ReRob, we need full power now! There's--"
"I see it, I see it," ReRob's voice replied. "I can't work
any faster than I am already. Give me three minutes."
Zoner sighed; there was nothing to do. "All right, Rob. Just
keep working as fast as you can. Bridge out."
Meanwhile, on the screens, Gryphon had replied with, "And you
managed to get out of the prison on Tantalus V and make your way to
your masters, who gave you command of this entire fleet? Largo is
still too much the coward to face us in combat when the odds are even,
is he?"
"Oh, the odds are far from even, my pathetic predecessor.
Your weapons cannot even harm my ship--and yet you threaten to destroy
me? An empty threat, I think."
"You know me," Gryphon replied. "You were fully briefed on
the man you were to frame. You know I don't make empty threats. I
possess the power to destroy your vessel, and if you do not surrender
and prepare your fleet for boarding at once, I mean to do just that."
Gryphon's eyes narrowed. "The animal side of me, who hungers for
revenge after what you put me through, wants to just push the button
now, but the Starfleet officer I was trained to be is giving you a
chance. I wouldn't blow it if I were you."
"Ah, but you are me," the replicant replied. "Did not all
your friends believe so? Did not the woman you loved believe so?
Tell me, Gryphon--if the people you love can think you so full of evil
and deceit as that, what kind of lovers and friends does that make
them? No, my friend, there will be no surrender today. Think about
what I have just told you, before I send you to the void. Then, think
on it for eternity." Gryphon's screen blacked and everyone else's
shifted to an exterior view of the Concordia and her adversary. The
super star destroyer opened fire again; all WDF personnel could see
the Concordia's shields beginning to buckle.
"Jamie...lock PT Control on target and await my command."
"PT Control is locked," Finney replied as her panel blinked
red. "In charging cycle."
The lights, already at combat red, flickered a bit, and the
thrum from under the decking took on a more urgent note. The vessel
shook under the pounding she was getting from the Dreadnaught II's
guns.
"Shields collapsing, Captain," Finney reported. "Front and
portside armor registering minor damage."
"Vanessa, get me a channel one last time."
"Open, sir."
"Last chance," Gryphon called.
"I'll see you in hell!" Gryphon's voice shrieked back.
"Recheck PT lock."
"Lock confirmed," Finney replied. "Charging cycle completed.
All systems locked in and green-light. The phase-transit cannon is
ready to fire."
"Fire!"
Finney pushed the control marked "MODE SELECT". The muzzle of
the weapon that formed the Concordia's very keel pulsed and crackled
with white energy, then spat forth a capsule of pure white power,
which grew in size as it streaked toward the Dreadnaught II. Zoner
groaned with the futility as he saw it unfold on his monitor; what did
Gryphon expect to accomplish? He watched the bolt as it closed on the
outer perimeter of the destroyer's shields, expecting it to wink away
any instant. On his bridge, the GENOM replicant of Gryphon folded his
arms and sneered, turning back to his gunnery officer to give the
firing order for his main turbolaser banks again. He was looking
forward to seeing the helpless Concordia reduced to slag.
Instead of vanishing, though, the bolt crashed through the
phase shields, rendering them visible for an instant as they
splintered and dissipated, and proceeded to rip into the upper decks
like a burrowing animal, shredding and melting a path of destruction
all the way back to the bridge module, which its upper edge blew away
as the lower part of the energy packet ripped through the engine room.
For an instant, before he was engulfed by the energies eating through
the bridge windows and converted into a large and rapidly expanding
cloud of free subatomic particles, the replicant of Benjamin D.
Hutchins screamed like a cornered animal.
Dreadnaught II burst into a trillion glowing bits, sheeting
off the shields of all the nearby ships and pockmarking the
Concordia's armored hide in a hundred hundred places.
"Excellent work, Jamie--now, Max, get us out of here,
someplace where we can recharge the shields and effect emergency
repairs. Even with their flagship down, I doubt GENOM will
surrender."
Gryphon was quite correct; maddened by the loss of their
commander, the GENOM ships struck back with a vengeance, their
concerted revenge knocking out a Battlestar and its Yamato class
companion almost instantly.