The Rings of Tautee (3 page)

He nodded, glancing around at the empty, blank screens and the destroyed control panels. "We just need to let them know we're still down here."

Maybe if she talked to him, she could get him to abandon this new delusion. She stared at the hole in the screen before her, the one made by the floating computer. But what was the point of 22 THE RINGS OF TAUTEE destroying his illusions now? So that he could die as miserably as she would?

"Prescott?" he asked softly.

She turned her gaze to him, smiled at him, and ran her knuckles along the soft skin of his face.

One of them deserved to hope. If he kept busy, then maybe he wouldn't be frightened when the end came.

"Are any of the shafts to the surface still open?" she asked.

"No," he said, as if it didn't bother him.

"They're all blocked. But we might be able to clear one. Twenty-zee-one seems to be blocked in only four places."

She shook her head sadly and turned to the blank screens. The moon base had never been designed to withstand the moon breaking up. Who could have foreseen such an event? It was a marvel that they were even still alive.

She punched a few dead buttons that before would have let her see the incoming ships. Sometimes it frustrated her more that everything was broken, that nothing worked. It seemed like such a metaphor for the experiment itself.

"You know, Folle," she said, "I just wish I could get one more glimpse of the stars."

"You want me to send a crew here to try to get a camera up and running?"

She shook her head. It would just be more busy work.

She knew that seeing the surface wasn't going to be possible. The moon's breakup must have destroyed all the cameras on the surface. And severed the connections between here and there. 23 Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch No, the only chance she had of getting out of this grave was to put on a surface suit and somehow dig her way through a kilometer of collapsed tunnels to what remained of the surface. And at the moment she just didn't have that much energy.

"You don't think we'll be able to repair that tunnel, do you?" he asked.

"I think this section of moon is staying together with spit, string, and a massive amount of luck," she said. "And I'm afraid that if we mess with it, we'll make matters worse."

He frowned, caught a chunk of floating steel, and shoved it in his pocket. His pockets were bulging.

He must have been doing that everywhere he went. She wondered what he did with the steel when his pockets were full.

"Can we at least try rigging up an emergency signal?" he asked.

She swung her chair around and looked him in the eye, being careful in the light gravity not to move too fast. He needed her permission. He was acting as if they still had a mission, as if she were still in charge of something important.

She signed. "Go ahead if it'll make you happy. Gather up a crew and I'll come to the communications room to check on the progress."

Folle grinned, the dirt on his face showing lines she had never seen before. "Thanks.

Give us an hour," he said. He turned and jumped carefully toward the entrance.

"Take your time," she said.

She turned back to face the blank screens.

Sending an emergency signal was as useful as pressing 24 THE RINGS OF TAUTEE the buttons on the control panel before her. She let her fingers dance over the dead buttons. Try as she might, she couldn't make the surface cameras work.

And no matter how strong the signal, Folle would be shouting into emptiness. Except for a few hundred people trapped in the remains of a moon, the universe was dead.

No one would rescue them, because no one was out there.

Chapter Four AS PER SPOCK S RECOMMENDATION, the Enterprise came out of warp farther away from the Tautee system than normal. Spock's point, which was extremely valid, was that if all fifteen planets had been destroyed, then there might be a great deal of debris, and the Enterprise didn't want to come out of warp in the center of it.

They had missed the main debris fields, but not by very much.

Kirk leaned forward in his chair, one booted foot pressed against the chair itself, the other braced beneath him. He had seen schematics of the Tautee system. It had looked like a thousand other systems[*thorngg'a yellow sun and fifteen major planets, three of which were gas giants.

The only remarkable thing was that four of the

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE inner planets were in the band of life and had atmospheres capable of sustaining life. Two of the planets were class-M planets, very similar to Earth. Usually a solar system had one or two such planets at the most, but this system was blessed with four.

The last report from ten years ago was that the Tautee system supported a humanoid population that had started on the fifth planet and spread through the system. The report stated that they were at least fifty to one hundred years from discovering warp drive and leaving their system.

In other words, there had been nothing remarkable about the Tauteeans. They were evolving just as hundreds of other young cultures were doing throughout the sector, slowly making their way up and out into the stars.

Until now.

"All stop," he said Slowly he pushed himself out of his chair, his gaze never leaving the screen. This wasn't possible.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sulu and Chekov staring as he did, mouths open.

He had only seen something like this once be-fore.

When the Planet Killer had swept through the galaxy, chomping planets. And even then, it hadn't left this kind of debris.

All fifteen major planets orbiting the Tautee sun had broken apart, leaving nothing more than chunks of floating rock and debris in ever-expanding rings. The screen couldn't begin to encompass al l the damage.

The outer rings from the destruction of the larger, gas giants were already awe-inspiring, and 27 Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch horribly, horribly beautiful. If he had come upon this without knowing about the way the system had been, he would have stopped the ship and studied everything, just because the sight was so incredible.

But he did know what had been here before. An entire civilisation had been here, spread across four of those planets. Billions of lives that were now vapor in the growing rings.

What had happened here?

What had gone wrong?

"Mister Spock," he said, his voice not at all steady. He turned toward his science officer, hoping that Spock's inscrutable Vulcan features showed a hint of what he was thinking. "Are there any survivors?"

But Spock had his head down, eyes pressed against the scanning device. Kirk understood. It was Spock's way of covering his own shock at the devastation.

"Mister Spock?"

"I am sorry, sir. I was double-checking my readings." Spock swiveled his chair and faced the captain. Although somber, Spock's expression was no different than it had been before they left warp. Maybe he wasn't covering anything at all.

"It would seem unlikely that there would be any survivors," Spock said. "Although the society had space travel, it was pre-warp. Ships that primitive could not survive this type of devastation."

"Billions of people, Spock. Could anyone have survived?"

Spock shook his head. "If they did not know this was coming, they would not have survived. The 28 THE RINGS OF TAUTEE Tauteeans lived mainly on the two class-M planets. When the planets broke apart, their atmospheres were scattered into space. People on the surface would no longer have air to breathe or sufficient gravity to hold them against that surface."

Kirk's fists clenched. Billions of lives lost.

Billions.

He had seen destruction before and knew that the numbers didn't tell half the story. Each of those lives had had loves and hates, goals and dreams, successes and failures. All rendered meaningless in the space of a few days.

What awful days they must have been.

There was a loud groaning sound, as if a billion ghosts had moaned at the same moment; then suddenly the Enterprise was rocked as if something huge had collided with it.

Kirk went sprawling to the right. He quickly tucked his shoulder and rolled with the fall.

Ensign York rolled past him and slammed into the wall.

Kirk rolled once more and then caught himself quickly. He came up on one knee, holding on to the engineering console. "What's happening?"

"I am uncertain, Captain," Spock shouted over the rumbling and moaning as he held on to his science console with one hand while punching in commands with the other.

Sulu had been knocked from his chair, but had quickly regained it. His fingers were flying over the board in front of him, trying to stabilise the ship.

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch Chekov had managed to stay in place and was studying his instruments while holding on.

The shaking and all the noise subsided and Kirk stood slowly, straightening his shirt and brushing off the dust on his arm. Ensign York shook himself and stood carefully. Uhura picked up her chair, tugged on her skirt, and sat down, replacing the receiver in her ear as she bent over her console.

"It seems," Mr. Spock said slowly, "that the Enterprise was hit by an intense subspace disturbance."

"The same kind as the ones we picked up be-fore?" Kirk kept a hand on his chair as he made his way to the science console. Two-dimensional oscillations showed up on the science computer screen.

They obviously meant something to Spock, but Kirk had not seen them before.

"The very same, sir," Spock said, "Only this is a thousand times more intense.

"Where's it coming from?" Kirk understood the oscillations on the screen now. They were a representation of the disturbance, moving like ocean waves in space in ever-expanding rings from the Tautee system.

Spock never took his eyes off the instruments in front of him. "I have yet to discover the origin of the disturbance." His voice had a troubled sound to it.

"Well, find it," Kirk said. He stepped back toward his chair, and tapped the comm button for engineering. "Mister Scott. Any damage?"

"Nothing to speak of, sir." Scotty's voice came back strong.

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE "Keep me posted. Kirk out." He looked up at the screen, at the damage floating in ever-widening rings where planets used to be.

Whatever happened here was still happening. There was no doubt at all about that.

"Sir, I am picking up a very faint radio distress signal," Uhura said.

Radio? Ancient technology. "Pinpoint it, Lieutenant," Kirk said. He leaned against the arm of his chair. A distress signal. To what point? The survey team had said this was a pre-warp culture. Who was the distress signal meant for?

"Mister Spock, I thought you said there was no chance of survivors."

"On the contrary, Captain," Spock said, "I believe I said that it was unlikely there would be many survivors."

"Do you care to explain the distinction?"

"The term "unlikely" means that there is a chance someone did survive. However, an entire series of circumstances would have had to occur. The chances of those circumstances happening at this opportune time would be[*thorn]" "Unlikely, yes, I know, Mister Spock."

Kirk shook his head and turned back to Uhura.

"Can you pinpoint the signal?"

"The distress signal is coming from a large asteroid in the debris of the fifth planet," Uhura said.

"Mister Spock, are you finding any signs of survivors in that area?"

"I find it impossible to determine at this distance, Captain. But the asteroid is large enough to

Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch sustain a significant number of people. I am quite certain we have survivors there."

"Quite certain, Mister Spock?" Kirk didn't want to hope without any reason. "And what is this certainty based on?"

"The fact that the distress signal just started."

Spock quirked an eyebrow at him.

Kirk got the uncanny feeling that Spock was making An of him.

Kirk rounded his chair and was about to order Sulu to take the Enterprise to that asteroid when Spock added, "However, I do not believe we should approach the asteroid. The subspace disturbances that appear to have broken these planets apart may possibly be more intense in that region. With that much planetary debris, the ship would not survive."

Kirk glanced at Spock, who was again monitoring the oscillations on his screen. "What do you suggest, Mister Spock?"

"Holding on," Spock said. "We are about to be hit by another subspace wave."

Almost before Kirk could grab his captain's chair, the ship rocked and shuddered. As the lights Dickered, he glanced around. This time, with Spock's warning, the bridge crew were staying at their stations.

As the wave passed and the lights came back up, McCoy's voice came over the intercom. "You want to tell me what in blazes is going on? I have patients bouncing all over down here."

Kirk punched the comm button. "We'll tell you just as soon as we know. For now, just hang on.

Kirk out."

THE RINGS OF TAUTEE Mr. Chekov turned around. "Captain, we have company."

"On screen, Mister."

Kirk let go of the command chair and turned to face the main screen as the view of the destroyed planets disappeared and was replaced by four Klingon cruisers.

They floated there as if they owned the space.

"Red alert," he ordered.

As if they didn't have enough problems already.

Chapter Five CAPTAIN KELLY BOGLE stood in front of the main viewscreen on the U.s.s.

Farragut. He had come out of warp at the edge of the Tautee system to find himself with two separate problems. The strange destruction of fifteen planets, and his sister ship, the U.s.s.

Enterprise, surrounded by four Klingon cruisers.

Bogle knew that Kirk could handle the four Klingon ships[*thorngg'he'd seen Kirk handle bigger problems[*thorngg'b Bogle didn't like the implications. Four ships to one Federation vessel, a destroyed star system all around them.

That special Klingon weapon he'd heard about must have been a doozy.