Story:Bait and Switch/Asymptotic to Death

Warp speeds are a little on the strange side. Cochrane’s Fourth Law, at least following the 2312 speed scale recalibration, dictates that up to warp nine, your speed is equal to the speed of light times your warp factor to the ten-thirds power. This puts travel speeds for the average journey at a Starfleet vessel’s usual cruising speed of warp seven at a little less than 1.8 light-years per day.

Above warp nine, however, the game changes. Here the graph becomes a vertical asymptote, approaching infinite velocity as you close on warp ten. Actually reaching warp ten is impossible, of course. Even transwarp conduits and the quantum slipstream drives they’ve got on some of the newer ships in our arsenal only add digits after warp nine’s decimal point. And if there’s one commonality between a warp drive and hoofing it on foot, it’s that the faster you want to go, the more energy you consume, and the greater the strain on your engines. Push them too far, and Bad Things happen.

It’s for this reason that when Bynam calls the bridge at T minus two minutes, he’s worried. “Skipper, are we there yet? Because we’re past redline on the warp core. The ship can’t take this much longer.”

Taking the jumja stick out of my mouth, I reply, “We’re nearly there. 160 seconds out.”

“Good, because I’m going to have to take the whole system offline for at least four hours afterwards.”

“Effects on a combat mission?”

“Without the warp core? Assuming this is a combat mission, I can get you 90 percent power if we go to 110 on the fusion reactors and kick in the auxiliary generators.”

“Tess?”

“90 percent just sets us back to the level of an ‘80s vintage Galaxy, Skipper. That should still be more than enough to outclass almost anything short of a cube.”

I shudder at the thought. After Vega Colony and their subsequent raids all over the Alpha Quadrant I’ve seen enough of the damned boltheads to last a lifetime, and if it is the Borg there’s nothing we can do. Not since they started sending dozens of cubes at a time, under escort no less, instead of just a lone cube. “Start the emergency power systems, Bynam.”

“I’m on it. Engineer out.”

“Master Chief, we picking up anything?”

“Subspace is a mess, Skipper,” Wiggin reports. “Too much interference; I can’t see a thing.”

“Source?”

“Couldn’t tell you for sure, but my gut says somebody’s got some serious jamming.”

Electronic warfare. That would explain the distress signal being garbled. Who is it, though? Pirates? KDF? Worse?

Whatever it is, it’s probably good that we had time to get everyone into vac-suits this time.

“Skipper,” JG Park, “coming out of warp in five, four, three, two, one.”

The stars redshift and the Bajor rapidly brakes to 0.2c as it approaches Dreon VII. “Master Chief,” I say, “run a scan of the area.”

“Hold on,” Wiggin responds, “I’ve got something on passive sensors. What are you?” he whispers into his console as we close on the planet. Then, “Gotcha. Captain, I’m reading impulse engines, probably Orion based on the emissions profile. Three corvettes and a flight of interceptors, dead ahead. Range, two thousand klicks and closing fast.”

Tess taps a command and the tactical hologram flickers back into existence. “Comms,” I order, “burst message to DS9. Begin transmission. ‘Have engaged Orion Syndicate ships over Dreon VII.’ End transmission.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Esplin says in a panicky tone, “they’re jamming every subspace radio frequency there is!”

“Steady there, Ensign, we’re not in trouble yet. Conn, straight at ‘em.”

“Straight at ‘em, Skipper,” Park confirms.

“I have a lock,” Tess coolly reports. “Firing forward phasers.” Six coherent streams of nadions erupt from the saucer at the oncoming ships. Two swat a fighter out of existence, the others slam into the oncoming corvettes. Tess sets the battery into rapid fire, but the greenskins are flying so close together they’re overlapping each others’ shields, reinforcing each other. I’m briefly impressed by their ship handling: not many can safely handle ships that close together. The greenskins return fire, charged particles lancing from their disruptor banks and dissipating against our forward shields. “Shields holding, 90 percent.”

“Come on, you idiots, flinch. Flinch.” If they don’t break off soon they’ll hit us. At two klicks they finally realize I’m not breaking off and scatter to all sides, fanning out over and around the Bajor’s saucer. “Biri, can you get a tractor lock on one of the corvettes?”

“This jamming isn’t making things easy! I’m working on it, trying to compensate for the flux patterns!”

“Torpedoes launched,” Wiggin states. “Fighters moving to hit us from behind.”

“Aft One to point defense,” Tess reacts.

The lights dim and the bridge jolts under a barrage of disruptor fire and torpedoes from the interceptors. “Damage report!” I order.

“Aft shields at 80 percent, starboard at 67,” Tess replies. “Minor damage to EPS systems in starboard nacelle. Damage Control is responding.”

“Conn, come right two-three-zero, forty up. Bridge to Engineering, dump warp plasma from the nacelles. Maybe we can keep them off our backs.”

“Wasn’t using it anyway, Skipper,” Bynam replies through the intercom. “Venting plasma.”

A greenish cloud of ionized gas streams aft from the nacelle vents, catching four of the remaining five fighters on an attack run. One explodes outright, one is immobilized, the rest damaged. “Aft phasers locked,” Tess says, making an adjustment on her console. “Firing.” The stern battery spits lances of bright orange particles into the fighter swarm. One pierces the leader’s shields amidships and hits something important enough for a secondary explosion to rip the ship to pieces. Another two slam into reinforced shields that buckle enough under the stress for a third to penetrate and punch into the crew compartment; the interceptor goes careening onto a ballistic course, out of the fight.

“Contact C2 coming about,” Wiggin calls. “Reading weapons locks. Ma’am, they’ve dropped their aft shields!” Far strengthened disruptor fire smashes into our port sidewall, followed closely by a spread of photon torpedoes. The shields buckle and a single torpedo penetrates and strikes a glancing blow 200 meters off the bridge. A console explodes to my right, sending an ops noncom flying from his chair.

“Medical team to the bridge!” I order. “Damage report!”

An engineering senior chief responds, “Hull breach, Holodeck Five and Compartment Ten-Sierra! Casualties in Planetary Sciences! Damage control and medical responding!”

“Defensive pattern Kirk Alpha! Roll ship!”

Park starts the ship into a barrel roll and begins bringing the saucer to bear as Tess returns fire against the corvette. “Torpedoes locked. Launching a spread, dispersal pattern foxtrot.” Five quantum torpedoes erupt from the forward launcher and home in as our phaser strips spit fire at the corvette. Two missiles miss completely and careen off into space. One more impacts the shields at the same time as four beams strike home. The barrier collapses and the last two torpedoes collide head-on with the corvette and its entire front half shatters. “Won’t be seeing him again, Skipper!”

“Good shooting,” I agree. “What about the others?” Disruptor beams strike the aft shields. “Never mind. Tess?”

Biri responds instead. “I’ve got a lock! Aft tractor beam coming up!” Contact C3 isn’t frozen but Biri is able to redirect its course straight into our dissipating plasma cloud which rapidly eats away at its shields. It also renders it a perfect target for a full broadside, which Tess is only too happy to give. Their aft shields overload almost instantly, setting off a secondary explosion that rips a gash in the hull above the port nacelle. A second broadside, off-axis as the Bajor comes about to bring the forward launcher to bear, hits all over the unprotected hull, including against the port maneuvering fin, which snaps loose and smashes into the vessel amidships.

“Forward launcher locked and firing!” Tess crows. Another torpedo races out the tube and detonates. “Direct hit!” The greenskins’ warp core explodes and the ship vanishes in a single eye-searing flash.

More disruptor fire to our stern from contact C1. “Fektal thras merka,” Tess grinds out in Andorian, glaring at her console as if it just insulted her mother. “She’s playing it safe, staying above the launcher’s targeting arc, and we’re not doing enough damage with the aft phasers. Conn, you’ve got to give me an Ivan.”

“Always wanted to try one,” Park replies. He sounds cheerful but I can hear a tinge of concern in his voice. “Accelerating to full impulse to get some distance on him.” The distance opens a bit but the corvette stays with us and that last interceptor comes in low to port on another attack run. The ventral phaser strip fires and rakes the fighter stem to stern, ripping off a wing and killing an engine. It goes into a flat spin and quickly disintegrates. “Crazy Ivan in three, two, one, firing thrusters!”

As much as you’d like it to sometimes, a 4.5 megaton cruiser doesn’t turn on a dime. Instead, blue-hot fire erupts from the port bow and starboard side of the saucer and the Bajor slews to port as it rotates, the inertial dampers allowing just enough of the g-forces through to be able to feel it. As the ship passes through 100 degrees, Tess announces, “I have a shot!”

“Emergency power to phasers!” I order. “Target the bridge!”

“Firing!” Five searing streams of particles lance out and slam into the greenskins’ shields. “They’re at twenty percent!”

“Hit ‘em again! Park, tilt us!”

“Pitching ship!” Park shouts.

Still flying backwards the Bajor rears up like a stallion, bringing the forward launcher and ventral gun to bear. “Torpedoes locked! Firing everything!” Now all six banks fire and the tube spits ordnance. The corvette’s shields shatter under the barrage and five quantum torpedoes strike home. The first puts a crater where the bridge used to be. The second dives into the breach and detonates somewhere inside the ship. The third apparently strikes debris and blows prematurely. The fourth goes straight in and blows a hole out the other side. The fifth overpenetrates, detonating on the far side of the ship, but the damage is already done. Almost as an afterthought the warp core blows four seconds later, reducing the ship to a glowing cloud.

I let out a breath I never realized I was holding. “Good work, people.”

Chief Wiggin spoils my mood. “We’re not out of this yet. Still reading massive subspace interfer—Impulse engine! Heavy capital, looks like a Slavemaster-class battleship in low orbit, ten thousand kilometers astern!”

“Probably the ship pumping out the ECM. Park, come about and take us after them. Tess, casualties from the last fight?”

Tess grimly replies, “Doctor Wirrpanda reports four dead, twenty-seven wounded from the hit to deck ten. Two critical, ten serious, fifteen minor. Our shields are recharging.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see the turbolift door slide open and two medics rush in to begin tending to the injured petty officer. “He okay?” I ask.

“He’ll be fine, but we have to get him to sickbay. Three, two, one, lift!” They hoist him onto the stretcher and rush back out.

“Can we handle a Slavemaster-class like this?” I ask Tess.

“No rougher than taking on three corvettes simultaneously, Skipper.”

The Bajor makes its way down the gravity well towards the battleship, which comes to port to meet us. We’re still upside down relative to them as Tess opens fire. Coruscating orange lances reach out for the battleship, which returns fire. “I’m dropping all shields except the facing side and dumping the power onto that shield,” Tess says as the bridge shudders under their disruptor fire. I nod my agreement as we close. Orange and green beams crisscross between us. “Shields holding, 92 percent. Ditto the Orions.”

“We need to tip the odds somehow. Tess, put our phasers into random remodulation. Maybe we’ll hit the frequency they’re using for their shields. Meanwhile pull power from engines and dump to phasers.”

“Phasers remodulating,” she confirms.

Now instead of a solid orange the blasts from the forward batteries are rimmed in all colors of the rainbow. The battleship fires a spread of photon torpedoes. Tess swats two, three miss, but the rest collide with the shields and the bridge shakes hard. “Damage report!”

“Forward shields down to 70 percent, and I’ve got power fluctuations in Phaser Three.” She hits a key and says, “Damage control to Gunnery Three,” into her console mic.

I look back to the tac hologram. Disruptor fire and phasers continue to race back and forth as the distance closes, but as we close head-on I can tell these greenskins are braver than the last. “Conn, they’re not breaking off. Come port thirty so we don’t get run over.” Park bangs out a command and the Bajor swings clear of their heading with only hundreds of meters to spare.

“Switching to broadside and re-angling shield!” Tess says. Eight beams crash into the Orions’ facing flank. One green-tinged lance goes straight through and strikes something on the hull. A massive secondary explosion rips the battleship’s sidepod off, laying a dozen decks open to space. Air, debris, and bodies rush out of the breach. Tess gives an exultant whoop that leaves my ears ringing. “They felt that one!”

I press a palm to my ear. “A little quieter next time, Tess.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” she says, not sounding sorry at all. She’s in her element, and the joy of battle is in her blue Andorian veins as much as with any Klingon. I shake my head and divert more power to the phasers.

We race past the battleship, firing continuously. “Reading near-complete power loss to their facing shields!” Wiggin reports.

Tess responds, “Aft launcher locked. Launching full spread!”

Five torpedoes shriek clear of the aft tube. One is caught immediately by their ECM, its guidance crashes, and it goes straight off into deep space. The second and third are quickly targeted and swatted out of space by disruptor fire. One more impacts against their remaining sliver of shields. One gets through, hitting like the fist of an angry god against their unprotected hull. One of their impulse engines fails. A secondary explosion, probably a power system overloading, rips a gash in the dorsal hull. “Their shields are collapsing!”

“Tess, hold fire for a moment,” I order. “Comms, broadcast on all frequencies.” Esplin waves me on. “Orion vessel, your shields are dead, you’ve got holes in your hull, and there’s more quantum torpedoes where the last ones came from. Surrender now and—” Fresh disruptor fire comes in from their aft mounts and they start to roll to present what’s left of their shields. “Well, that answers that question,” I comment. “Help yourself, Tess.”

She gives a toothy grin and resumes pummeling them with the aft phasers. “Launcher locked and loading.” She pauses for a moment. “Firing.”

Three more torpedoes race out of the tube. Tess has angled them onto a parabolic course, sending them up and over and straight into the still-failed shields. A staccato series of brilliant white flashes, silent in the vacuum, and the battleship’s narrow neck shatters. The drive section rushes forward, spinning out of control, and smashes into the bow at a right angle, tearing straight through. The remaining engine goes out but somehow someone must be alive in their engineering section because Wiggin is telling me they’ve shut down the warp core. “Wiggin, scan for lifeforms.”

“Reading four in the engineering section, two a couple decks up.”

“Beam them directly to the brig and get medical teams there. What about the planet?”

He shakes his head. “This isn’t over, Skipper. Reading small arms fire coming from a small village in a mountain region on the southern hemisphere nightside. Looks like they got some ground platoons off before we got here.”

“We’ll have to beam down and take them out. Tess, Biri, you’re with me. Park, you have the bridge. Esplin, apprise DS9 of our situation and send a general alert to Starfleet Command.” I hit the intercom. “Dul’krah, I need four security officers to Armory Two for an away team.” The three of us run for the turbolift. “Armory Two.”

In the armory I peel off my vac-suit and pull on the body glove that goes on under my battle armor. Robot arms assist with locking the greaves, cuirass, pauldrons, gauntlets, boots, other sections I’m not sure of the names of, securely into their places. The power assistance comes online and I flex my arms and hands, hearing the quiet whir of the servos.

I walk forward to the weapons locker and withdraw a belt of photon grenades. A Type 2 phaser pistol. A Type 4 rifle. A G23 grenade launcher. I turn around to check on the rest of the team. As usual Tess looks even more buxom and curvy than she does in uniform, given the tight fit of the body glove and armorweave plates. But what attracts my attention more is her weapon, which is almost as big as she is. “Tess, what the phekk is that?”

“Phased polaron minigun,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Don’t remember requisitioning that.”

“Bought it from a Ferengi trader while we were at DS9. He supposedly got it from the Dosi.”

“You really think we’ll need that SAW?”

“Says the woman carrying a grenade launcher,” Biri points out, making an adjustment to her Type 4S.

Four members of our security contingent arrive and begin suiting up. I look around to identify them. Lieutenant K’lak, the mustachioed Klingon who was nearly in that bar fight back at DS9. Ensign Kate McMillan, a sweet, friendly redhead who’s up for promotion in a couple weeks. Senior Chief Athezra Darrod, a Bajoran from the capital who came aboard at our last port. Crewman Cdebaat, a rough, gruff Tellarite.

My combadge chirps. “CMO to Cap’n,” comes the tenor voice of Doctor Warragul Wirrpanda.

I slap the badge. “Go ahead, Doc.”

“My team’s got the prisoners from the brig. One of them was impaled by a spar before you beamed him out and he flatlined before we got to him. A second is missing a leg. The others are mostly okay.”

“I care more about the casualties from Deck Ten, Doc.”

“I’ve still got Specialist Sebod on the table—no, hold the clamp there, damn it!—on the table with a sucking chest wound but the rest are stable, ma’am.”

“Keep at it but be ready, we may have more work for you in a few minutes.”

“Aye, aye. CMO out.”

The transporter room is located right across the corridor from the armory. “Tell me more about the target,” I say to the group as we walk in.

Ens. McMillan speaks up. “Village by the name of Tholis, population of less than 750 people, and it’s in a mountain range a good hour by aircar from anywhere bigger.”

“750 people? What could they possibly want with something that small?”

McMillan shrugs. K’lak adjusts the front sight on his sniper rifle and replies, “Orions may be best known for selling their own women but they also trade in non-Orions.” He looks disgusted. “Vile business. Not even the Ferengi will stoop that low.”

I grit my teeth as I take my place on the transporter pad. “I hate greenskins. Chief Bandicek, energize.”

The Benzite at the transporter station taps her console and I briefly feel an electric tingle, like the air right before a thunderstorm. Then I feel nothing.

Author's Note
Minus the name "Cochrane's Fourth Law", the warp speed explanation used in this chapter is straight out of the . Even transwarp and quantum slipstream drives don't allow you to break the warp 10 barrier. It's a math thing: Warp 10 is infinite speed according to canon sources, and speed = distance traveled / time. If it took you a finite, non-zero amount of time to travel a finite, non-zero distance, your speed was not infinite, therefore you were not traveling at or above warp 10.

Tess and JG Park's exchange regarding a Crazy Ivan is a reference to the pilot of .