Part 9 (1/2)
He looked at Ideene. ”Tactical?”
”Armed and ready, sir. Just say go.”
The atmosphere of preternatural calm on his bridge filled Terapane with pride in his crew. ”It's been an honor, friends,” Terapane said. ”Helm...engage.”
In a flash of warp-distorted light, the pinpoint of Deneva became the shallow curve of its northern pole, which sprawled beneath two Borg cubes unleas.h.i.+ng a cataclysm of emerald fire. The Musas.h.i.+ had dropped to impulse directly between them.
In one word, Captain Alex Terapane fell on his sword.
”Go.”
Ione Kitain's whole world was on fire.
Great peals of thunder overpowered the screaming that seemed to fill every corner of Lacon City. The street outside her residential tower heaved like a chest expanding with breath, and then it cracked and collapsed into itself, swallowing dozens of people who had been fleeing without direction.
Millions of people all around her, throughout Deneva's lush Summer Islands, were panicking, descending into a communal terror that a.s.sailed her keen Betazoid senses like a tsunami.
Every animal impulse in her brain told her to run, to seek shelter, but she knew there was no point. There were no hiding places to be found. So she huddled in the arched entryway of her apartment complex and focused her psionic senses through the maelstrom of fear to find her husband's mind amid the mayhem.
Sickly green pulses of energy fell from the heavens. t.i.tanic mushroom clouds billowed skyward at multiple points around the horizon, turning the dusk to darkness. Every detonation rocked the city with the force of an earthquake.
From high overhead, Ione heard the mournful whine of a failing engine. She looked up in time to see a damaged personnel transport spiral out of control and slam into a commercial tower, several blocks from her home. Its impact shattered the entire facade of the building, and the transport exploded in a flash, followed by gouts of flame. With the tower's center all but obliterated, its upper portion swayed like a wounded giant before it plunged at an angle, crushed the lower half, and toppled into the streets. A toxic cloud of pulverized debris, atomized bodies, and gla.s.s and metal shards spread through the artificial canyons of the urban center.
Lacon City reeked of smoke, death, and sewage.
The buzz of emergency-service aircars and other antigrav vehicles ceased all at once. At first, Ione thought they had gone-and then she heard the dull thuds and crunches of hundreds of vehicles falling to Earth and caroming off buildings and the elevated pedestrian walkways above the streets. Her best guess was that an energy-dampening field had blanketed the city.
That means our s.h.i.+eld's completely gone, Ione realized. It won't be long now. Fear began to cloud her thoughts and dull her telepathic senses. Then her husband's thoughts touched her own.
I am near, wife. I am at the fountain.
She bolted from the archway and sprinted through streets littered with broken, burning vehicles and mounds of smoldering debris. I'm coming, my love, she projected to her Imzadi.
Another blast, closer than all the others. A deathly silence washed over the street. Ione flattened herself against a pile of shattered asphalt and covered her head with her arms as the shockwave hit. It ripped through the upper sections of the buildings on either side of her. A delicate music of destruction lingered behind it and deluged the boulevard with a storm of broken gla.s.s. Most of it was sandlike, tiny abrasive granules, but a few substantial chunks gouged her back and thighs.
She tried to be stoic, to contain the sharp agony of her wounds rather than accost her husband's own telepathic mind with them, but her control was compromised by anguish and fear. Minuscule fragments of gla.s.s bit into her palms as she forced herself up from the ground. Then a pair of strong brown hands gripped her forearms and lifted her to her feet.
He'd found her.
”Elieth,” she said, smiling sadly at her husband.
He responded with typical Vulcan stoicism. ”We must move,” he said, pulling her into motion beside him. He ushered her out of the street and toward the s.p.a.ce beneath the overhang of an elevated promenade. His peace officer's uniform was ripped and stained with dust and blood. One of his ears was mauled and bloodied. She reached toward it in sympathy. ”You're hurt.”
”Quickly,” he said, applying gentle pressure with one arm on her back, until they were sheltered under the promenade. A moment later, she understood the reason for his urgency.
Bodies began falling into the street.
The sounds were more horrible than anything Ione had ever imagined. Her stomach heaved in disgust with every wet, m.u.f.fled impact, every dull slap of flesh meeting stone. Just meters from where she stood, the street became an abattoir.
When the grotesque percussion ceased, Ione realized she was weeping into Elieth's shoulder. At any other time, he would have radiated intense disapproval for such an overt exhibition of emotion. Instead, he imparted comforting thoughts.
Don't be afraid. The worst is over.
Staring out at the apocalyptic cityscape, Ione replied, I sincerely doubt that, my love.
Despite all the times that Elieth had argued to her that regret was a worthless emotion, Ione wished that they had been on the last transport out of Lacon City.
When the order had come from Deneva's president to evacuate the planet, however, she and Elieth had stayed behind to lend their expertise to the Civil Defense Corps. She had applied her skills as a particle physicist to improve the city's defensive s.h.i.+elds, to buy more time for the transports to be loaded and launched. Elieth's job had been to maintain order at the launch site and make certain that the most vulnerable citizens had been given priority, especially families with young children.
The plan had been to meet back at home after the last transport was away. Looking back, she saw their apartment tower being consumed from within by a raging blaze.
”We could have left,” she said, knowing it wasn't true.
”There was insufficient room on the transports,” Elieth said, calm in the face of calamity. ”We also did not fit the criteria for prioritized rescue.”
Spite and selfishness surged inside her. ”I'm a daughter of the Fourth House of Betazed, and you have a badge. We could have left.” As soon as she'd said it, she felt ashamed.
Elieth let her remarks pa.s.s.
A deep rumbling resonated in every solid surface, and the city was bathed in a terrifying monochromatic green radiance.
Ione trembled, and her heart pounded furiously. Adrenaline coursed through her, but she had no use for it. Embracing her Imzadi, she opened her mind to his. What will you miss most?
I will not be aware of any loss after I have ceased to exist, Elieth responded. So I will miss nothing.
Unswayed by his resolute devotion to logic, Ione shared, I'll miss music. And you.
It was only a blink, a micro-expression that vanished almost as soon as it manifested, but Ione saw the crack in Elieth's facade. Beneath his carefully trained discipline, he was grieving just as deeply as she was-and perhaps far more. He made a silent confession: If it were possible for one with no awareness to miss something...I would miss you most of all.
He tightened his embrace, and Ione shed grateful tears for that one last moment of proof that Elieth, youngest son of Tuvok and T'Pel, truly loved her.
Her tears cut trails across her grime-covered face. Then the viridian glow from above brightened, and she cringed. ”I didn't think it would end like this.”
Nor did I.
A pulse of light and heat penetrated every atom of the city, and then there were no more tears.
The sun was sinking below the horizon and painting all of Paris with a single shade of salmon-pink light, when President Nan Bacco heard her office door open behind her.
She turned to face her lone visitor, Esperanza Piniero. Tears ran in streaks from Piniero's dark brown eyes. The chief of staff crossed the room to the president's desk. Agent Wexler remained outside and closed the door behind her. By the time Piniero reached the desk, she looked too distraught to speak. She bowed her head and struggled to control her breathing.