Part 14 (1/2)

Picard recoiled slightly. ”A thalaron weapon,” he muttered. ”Rebuilding such a device would antagonize every power in the quadrant-an outcome your predecessor died to prevent.”

”I'm aware of that, sir,” Kadohata said. ”However, a cascading biogenic pulse powered by thalaron radiation would, in theory, be able to destroy the Borg's organic components. Without their drones or the organic portions of their s.h.i.+ps-”

Picard cut her off with his raised hand. ”Point taken, Commander,” he said. Then the port turbolift door opened, and he saw Worf step onto the bridge. ”We'll continue this another time.”

”Aye, sir,” Kadohata said, and she turned and walked back to ops. As Kadohata settled in at her post, Worf offered a discreet nod of greeting to Lieutenant Choudhury at tactical, then sat down in his chair beside the captain.

”I talked to Captain Dax,” Worf said.

”And...?”

”She declined to approve my transfer,” Worf said. ”And she is proceeding with the attack.”

Picard breathed a disappointed sigh. ”Of course she is.”

”You do not approve of her plan,” Worf said.

”It's not up to me to approve or disapprove, Mister Worf,” Picard said. ”I simply lack Captain Dax's confidence in her odds of success.”

Worf s.h.i.+fted his posture, straightening his back. ”I reviewed her attack profile,” he said. ”It is bold, but I believe it has a reasonable chance of securing the Borg probe.”

”Yes, but what then, Number One? Does pitting Captain Hernandez in mortal psychic combat with the Borg Queen strike you as a viable strategy? Or as yet another in a long line of hopeless delaying tactics?”

Undaunted by the captain's pessimism, Worf replied, ”I will not know until I see how the fight ends.”

”That's what I'm afraid of, Mister Worf.” Picard frowned. ”Are you certain you tried every argument to dissuade Captain Dax from going forward with this?”

”She did not give me the chance,” Worf said. In a more diplomatic tone, he asked, ”May I offer some advice, Captain?”

”By all means, Commander.”

”A lesson I learned while I was married to Jadzia remains just as true today about Ezri: She is a Dax. Sometimes they do not think-they just do.”

16.

Ezri Dax took a breath and settled her thoughts. Within moments, she and her s.h.i.+p would plunge headlong into the chaos of battle. She was determined to take one brief moment of quiet before the storm in order to steel herself for whatever followed.

Months earlier, when Captain Dexar and Commander Tovak had been killed, Dax had stepped up to fill the void at the top of the Aventine's chain of command. That moment had inaugurated her captaincy. The one that was about to unfold-an arguably insane, all-or-nothing a.s.sault on which depended the survival of everything she had ever known-would define her captaincy.

On the main viewer, stars stretched past, pulled taut by the photonic distortions of high-warp travel.

She wiped the sweat from her cold palms across her pant legs and set her face in a mask of resolve. It was time.

”Helm,” Dax said, ”engage slipstream drive on my mark.”

Erika Hernandez keyed the commands into the conn and answered, ”Ready, Captain.”

Dax looked at Bowers. ”Sam, tell the transporter rooms and strike teams to stand ready. Tactical, raise s.h.i.+elds and arm torpedoes.” She lifted her voice. ”Three. Two. One. Mark.”

Hernandez patched in the slipstream drive.

It was like being shot through a cannon of blue and white light or a faster-than-light patch of whitewater rapids. A peculiar, quasi-musical resonance filled the s.h.i.+p, like the long-sustained peal of a great iron bell but without the note that started it ringing. Dax detected no real difference in the sensations vibrating the deck under her feet, but adrenaline and anxiety were enough to crush her back against her chair.

Then the rush of light became the black tableau of s.p.a.ce, and at point-blank range in front of the Aventine was the Borg reconnaissance probe. As promised, Hernandez had guided them out of their slipstream jaunt with surgical precision, into a perfect ambush position against the Borg.

Dax sprang to her feet. ”Fire!”

”Torpedoes away,” replied tactical officer Kandel.

Three electric-blue streaks arced toward the Borg s.h.i.+p and flared against its s.h.i.+elds, and a fourth sailed through with no resistance and hammered the long, dark vessel amids.h.i.+ps.

Kandel reported, ”Direct hits! Their warp field's collapsing!”

”Stay with them, helm,” Dax said, before she realized that Hernandez was already compensating for the changes in the Borg s.h.i.+p's velocity. Not bad for a person who learned to fly stars.h.i.+ps in a different century, Dax mused.

Hernandez matched the Borg's course and speed almost perfectly, then said, ”We're at impulse, Captain.”

”Strike teams, go,” Dax said.

Gredenko relayed the order from ops to the Aventine's twenty transporter sites, which included four upgraded cargo transporters and six emergency-evacuation transporters. More than two hundred Starfleet security personnel were, at that moment, being beamed inside the Borg probe. If the estimate of the s.h.i.+p's drone complement was accurate, her people could expect to outnumber the enemy by a ratio of four to one.

Dax hoped that it would be enough, because once they were deployed, there would be no reinforcements-and no turning back.

”Transports complete,” Gredenko said.

”Helkara, activate the dampener field,” Dax said.

The Zakdorn science officer keyed in the command and replied, ”Field is up and stable, Captain.”

She nodded. ”Good work, everyone.”

Bowers watched Dax as she returned to her seat. Once she had settled, he said, ”Now comes the hard part: the waiting.”

The single drawback to Dax's plan lay in the dampening field that the Aventine was projecting toward the probe. By using the Hirogen's tactics, her crew had neutralized the Borg s.h.i.+p's weapons, s.h.i.+elds, communications, and ability to repair itself. However, the field also prevented contact with the strike teams inside the vessel, and it made it impossible to beam them out or to send reinforcements. Unless and until the strike teams gained control of the s.h.i.+p and established visual contact with the Aventine, there would be nothing for Dax to do but sit and wait-and keep a volley of transphasic torpedoes armed and ready to fire, in case her captaincy's defining moment turned out to be a historic blunder.

The s.h.i.+mmering haze of the transporter beam dissolved into the darkness of the Borg s.h.i.+p's interior, and Lieutenant Pava Ek'Noor sh'Aqabaa felt her antennae twitch with antic.i.p.ation.

Heat and humidity washed over her. ”Flares!” she ordered, bracing her rifle against her shoulder. ”Arm dampeners!”

Ensign Rriarr moved half a step ahead of sh'Aqabaa and snapped off several quick shots from the flare launcher mounted beneath the barrel of his T-116 rifle. Pellets of compressed, oxygen-reactive illumination gel made glowing green streaks across the deck, bulkheads, and overhead of the Borg vessel's frighteningly uniform black interior.

Clanging footsteps echoed around the strike team of t.i.tan security personnel, and the ominous footfalls grew closer. Through tiny gaps in the s.h.i.+p's interior machinery, sh'Aqabaa caught sight of drones advancing on their position at a quick step. Red beams from Borg ocular implants sliced through the dim and sultry haze. ”Activate dampeners,” sh'Aqabaa said.