Fortis glanced off to her left at something not visible from this angle. For a moment her mask of perfect calm shattered and her terrible grief showed through.
“Me paenitet,”she said softly. “Formidolose me paenitet.”
In addition to everything else, the translation matrixes were obviously malfunctioning. No one on Titanneeded the help. Charonwas done. Fortis knew it and so did they.
The image spasmed as Charonwas hit by another powerful jolt. Fortis winced, grimacing as she was forced to grip the arms of her chair to maintain her upright position.
When the shaking subsided and she turned back to the viewer, her mask had returned. If one could ignore the blood on her face and the carnage all around her, it was easy to see the slender patrician woman taking her ease in some lecture hall or at the symphony instead of captaining the graveyard her ship had become.
“I am using the time we have to broadcast the required warning messages to prevent this happening to another ship,”she said. “Our nearest sister vessel isTitan, captained by William Riker. I ask that any sentients who receive and understand this message communicateCharon ’s fate to him. We believe this dangerous phenomenon to be expanding. If so, the consequences for any life-forms in its path are…”She faltered again and recovered. “This was not the result of an attack or any hostile action by any species known or unknown. It is simply our fate. I am Bellatora Fortis, daughter of Atheus and Cerisan. Parata mori sum. Fortunam meam complexo.”
There was another rainbow flash, accompanied by a short burst of static, and then the screen went black. It seemed an eternity of silence followed, during which time on Titanstood still.
“Catastrophic shield failure in one hour, fifty minutes,”said Titan’s computer.
“ Charonis gone, sir,” said Tuvok. “I cannot establish a sensor lock.”
“What was that we just saw?” Bohn asked, trying to come back to the situation at hand rather than dwell on all those deaths. “Some sort of time-delay glitch in the broadcast?”
“I don’t think so,” said Lavena slowly. “I think it was live.”
“It was, Ensign,” said Tuvok.
“But how can that be, sir?” said Bohn. “We came here looking for Charon, didn’t we? She only just got here.”
“The space-time distortions have damaged normal causality in this region,” said Tuvok. “The message Captain Fortis just broadcast is the one that Titanreceived four days ago.”
Four days, thought Riker. Have we only been at this for four days?It didn’t seem possible. Staring at the flat black panel of the main viewer, feeling his own vessel buffeted both by the ongoing chaos outside and the slowly contracting Orishan grappling field, all he could hold in his mind was that what had happened to Charonhad also happened to the Ellington. That and the people who were responsible.
“Captain Fortis was correct, however,” said Tuvok. “This flux effect is expanding. It will grow past the boundaries of this system within three standard days.”
“Tuvok,” said Riker after taking time to digest the full meaning of the Vulcan’s words. The particular timbre his voice had acquired mandated silence in the bridge personnel. “I want to talk to the Orishan captain.”
“Channel open,” said Tuvok.
“This is the captain of the Starship Titan,” said Riker, standing and facing the flickering image of the Orishan vessel that had appeared on the main screen. “We didn’t come here to fight you, but if you don’t stop your attack on my ship I will be forced to respond in kind.”
He waited precisely ten seconds for the response he knew wouldn’t come.
“Catastrophic shield failure in one hour, forty-five minutes,”said the computer.
“Right,” he said. “Your choice.” He signaled for Tuvok to kill the broadcast and contacted the sensor pod.
“Roakn here. Go ahead, sir.”
“Tell Cadet Dakal he can launch when he’s ready.”
“ Yes, Captain,”said Roakn.
Riker swiveled to face Tuvok. “I’ll want to see this,” he said.
The Vulcan, recognizing the expression on his captain’s face and its promise of a bleak future for their assailant, tapped the appropriate keys to display the probe telemetry on the main viewer.
“If this works,” said Riker in a glacial tone that none of them had ever heard or hoped to hear again, “that thing is either going to be shunted fully into whatever dimension it’s straddling or it’s going to become solid and be subject to the same effects that have been hitting Titan. Either way, we’re finishing this.”
“Your hypothesis is sound, Captain,” said Tuvok. “As is your attack strategy. However, it is my duty to remind you that disrupting the systems of a vessel utilizing so much unknown technology may have unforeseen consequences.”
If the captain heard Tuvok’s warning, he gave no indication of it. “I want a boarding party ready to beam over to that ship the second it’s in phase,” he said in that same iron voice. “Then we’ll show them some consequences.”
“I presume the captain will be leading this team?” said Tuvok.
“You’re damned right he is,” said Riker, and in his mind, the image of his wife as she died screaming played over and over.
Chapter Fourteen
In the centermost eave, nestled safe in webbing that linked her body with that of the great vessel around her, A’churak’zen watched the approach of the tiny metal object through the lens of her despair.
Even as she marshaled the waves of the vessel, closing the fist she had formed around those who had caused Erykon’s wrath to fly howling and burning down on her people, she sent other waves out into the void to search for a sign that any of them might have survived.
It was the eleventh time she had done so since Orisha had been consumed, and with each failure to find even a single breeder male or larva sac floating in the aether, her despair darkened and grew.
She was only two things now: rage and sorrow. At first the rage had driven her and she was happy to do as it commanded. She had seen the wave, one bigger than anything anyone had ever conceived, explode out from Erykon’s Eye, consuming everything in its path.
Its first meal was the little metal box that had served as a home for those newcomers whose blasphemous work had woken the eye from its ten-thousand-cycle slumber. It and the creatures inside had been sucked up into the vortex of wrath in less time than it took to imagine.
That was Good and she had rejoiced in its Goodness. Erykon’s judgment was final and Just in all ways. This thought pleased her briefly and so she flexed the bit of her mind that controlled the wave around the thing called Titan, increasing the pressure on the spindly sheet of protection it had managed to erect.
Why Erykon had spared them the worst of the destruction was a mystery, but it was not her place to question the ways of her god. Erykon’s will, Erykon’s wish, Erykon’s judgment, Erykon’s wrath all were the same and all were equally perfect and immutable.
Though she had questioned in the past, hadn’t she? She had questioned everything early on and had been punished whenever those questions ranged too far. She had spent too much time with the Dreaming caste before being taken by the Guardians and the center of the Dreaming was the questions.
How does this chemical reaction progress? When was thathukka vine first fertilized? Where is the heart of creation?
So many questions, and often, even more answers, but when the question was Why?The answer was always the same.
Why does the Daystar shine? Erykon’s will.