We were massive, barely maneuverable, and we accelerated slowly. Enda angled us away from the ship, but not much; the quickest way to put distance between us and the alien starship was running the length of the Enterprise.680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM4ZZyfaqlT
The Columbus was still accelerating, growing smaller on the monitor as it left the Enterprise behind. From the pilot's cabin we could see its bright tail flaring, a tiny circle of fire against the black sky, like a comet blazing away.
As he'd promised, Jean-Luc left the command channel open, and now his voice came over it.
"Engage warp-drive engines," he said.
We were nearing the rear of the Enterprise, the warp engines coming into view---black and red and massive, the metal surfaces pocked and streaked and scoured by the detritus of space. They began to glow and shudder.
"We're too damn close," Shirl said.
"Got it," Enda said.
The harvester was slow to respond, slow to change direction. The engines seemed to strain, becoming unbalanced under Enda's commands; the entire structure of the harvester appeared ready to give. But the Enterprise began to fall away from us just as we were approaching the warp engines now building up their energies.
"Number four!" Hernandez called out. "No, no, it's---something different this time, I don't know...."
The alien ship was aglow, the silvery skin encasing it; everything seemed to be warping, distorting. Then suddenly a mass swelled up from the ship; it quickly differentiated into twenty or thirty spheres which burst forth like a star exploding.
"Shut it down, Enda! Everything, dammit!"
Enda's fingers danced across the console, cutting the engines and power. We were moving forward fairly quickly now.
"Full acceleration," ordered Jean-Luc.
The spatial distortion from the Enterprise warp engines reached us just before the first of the spheres. The harvester rolled and swayed, metal buckling. Nausea drove into my belly as I lost my sense of balance.
"Hang on," said Shirl. "Just hang on."
A sphere burst through us, followed a few seconds later by two more bursts. I felt electrified, and the sweat that broke out all over my skin seemed to burn, a frozen, charged, and invisible searing.
"Captain," Hernandez said. "A dozen objects have just launched from the alien ship."
"Shields up!"
There was a long silence. We were flying mute and almost blind, the engines still offline.
"Shirl?" Enda asked.
"Don't do anything," she said. "Let them think we're dead."
We still had plenty of speed, though, and the two ships were receding from us; even faster now, I realized, because the Enterprise was accelerating, though with the combined mass of the two ships they would be gaining velocity slowly at first. I swiveled my seat around, but we were at an odd angle, and I could only see parts of the Enterprise and the alien ship.
"I'll be damned," Hernandez said. "The shields stopped all of them, whatever they were."
"Jump coordinates set?" Jean-Luc asked.
"They're locked in, Captain. Nothing's changed."
"How long until we've got the velocity?"
"Checking now."
A long tense silence. "We can do it in thirty-seven minutes if we maintain full acceleration."
"Make it so!"
"Captain." Someone else's voice. One of the crew?
"Yes, Mr. Gonchoff."
"I think they're bringing up their own drive engines. We're picking up massive field distortions from the far side of their hull. Not the same kind we produce, but it could be their drives."
No response from Jean-Luc. Hernandez finally said "Shit," in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
"What is it?" Sulu asked.
Enda shook his head. "If they get their warp engines up, and if they're on the far side, they can counteract the acceleration of the Enterprise. They might be able to prevent the Enterprise from gaining enough velocity to go to warp. Or delay it long enough to attack in some other way. Something."
"Cornelius," Shirl said, "how are the batteries?"
"Full reserve," he said. "We've got hours."
"Okay, bring the monitors back up."
In addition to the bad angle, the two ships were getting smaller and smaller so we could barely make out anything. The monitors came up, and Cornelius brought in the transmissions from the Enterprise. The harvester's cameras, even at full magnification, didn't show much more than we could see with our own eyes, but the Enterprise cameras were still transmitting clear signals.
The alien ship looked dead again, although was slightly obscured by the deflector shields. But the Enterprise was definitely alive, the drive engines ablaze with blue and white fire, surrounded by a corona of distortion.
"The trailing probe was launched," Cornelius said quietly, as if we had to be careful even with the transmission locked out. Maybe we need to be; what did we know?
We looked at the monitor screen dedicated to the trailing probe's video transmissions---we had a perfect view of the two ships, filling the monitor. The probe was trailing the Enterprise, but far off to the side, so the images weren't washed out by the warp engines.
"Anything yet, Mr. Gonchoff?" Jean-Luc again.
"Negative, Captain. The field distortions persist, but there seems to be no acceleration, no thrust of any kind in any direction. Maybe it's not a drive."
I could hear Jean-Luc sigh over the channel. "It may not be a drive," he said, "but it's got to be something."
"Twenty-nine minutes," Hernandez said.
Silence for a minute, maybe two. Maybe even longer. Time was distending, becoming impossible to gauge. There was nothing to do or say. But the Enterprise engines continued to burn.
"Captain." It was Hernandez. "Do you see that?"
No immediate response, then: "Yes. What....?"
"Look at that," Sulu whispered, pointing at the monitor.
"Cornelius, bring that over to monitor one."
The video from the probe was switched over to the largest monitor, and now we could see better what was happening. There seemed to be a fracture forming in the alien ship, the gap flaring with a pale blue light. Then another fracture appeared on the other side so they were flanking the Enterprise.
A booming sound came over the command channel, but no voices. Then Gonchoff's voice came back, panicky. "Something's coming out.....!"
And then we saw it, a dark, curling extension from the alien ship. It seemed to a massive cable of some kind, extending, lengthening; then it whipped around like the tentacle of a monstrous ocean beast. There was a brilliant flash as it penetrated the deflector shields and wrapped itself around the hull of the Enterprise, another boom sounding, this one louder, more violent.
Alarms blared over the command channel.
"Shields are down!" Gonchoff shouted. "And we've got hull breaches!"
There was another boom like the first; then a second cable or tentacle emerged from the other crack in the alien ship, whipping through space before it struck the Enterprise and wrapped itself across the hull, overlapping the first.
Leviathan, I thought, wondering if the bishop was watching this. Did he know what was happening? If so, I'm sure he was convinced that damnation was coming for him.
"More hull breaches, Captain!"
"Shut off the alarms, dammit! Engine status, Macha?"
The alarms ceased abruptly. Then another came on for a moment before it, too was shut down.
"Engines are fine," Hernandez reported. "Shields are down and they won't come back up, but the engines are completely undisturbed. We're still accelerating."
Two more booms sounded, and two more of the cables emerged from the alien ship, slamming across the Enterprise hull. No alarms sounded this time, but Gonchoff announced there were ten more hull breaches.
"Time?" Jean-Luc asked.
"Fifteen minutes," Hernandez replied.
The Enterprise now looked like prey in the clutches of its predator. There were no more booming sounds, no more cables. There was no change at all for longer than I could stand.
"Captain?" It was the bishop.
"Get off this channel, Michael. We don't have time for this."
"We've got all the time in the universe, Captain. Don't you understand what's happening to us? Don't you understand....?"
He was cut off in midsentence. "Thank God he's not here on the bridge," Jean-Luc said.
"We've got movement," Gonchoff broke in.
"What the hell do you mean, movement?"
"Inside the ship. I'm trying to pick up something on video. It's in several areas, near the hull breaches."
"You're sure it's not our own people?"
"No, I 'm not sure, but there shouldn't be anyone near those areas."
A tense quiet followed. More seconds, then minutes stretching out. It was agonizing being unable to do anything, unable to help.
"Damn, most of the security cameras are dead around there, probably damaged during the breaches."
"That's all right," Jean-Luc said. "Just keep trying."
"I am----wait. Here. Here's something. The light's not good, though..." His voice trailed away, and there was more quiet.
"My God," Gonchoff whispered. "Look at that thing..."
I looked from one monitor to another, just as the others were doing, but we had no interior shots. Whatever video Gonchoff had picked up wasn't being transmitted.
"What do you think happened?" Jean-Luc asked. His voice remained calm.
"Boarded through the cable," Hernandez answered.
"How close is the nearest hull breach to us?"
"Let me see...." Gonchoff said, his voice still shaky. "Seven levels and eight sectors. I can't get any video at that breach, but sensors are picking up some kind of movement there."
"Engines?" Jean-Luc asked again.
"No change, Captain. Acceleration steady."
"Time?"
"Nine minutes."
"Good, then it doesn't matter, whatever they are. There's no way they can reach us in time to stop the jump."680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfxfQNkiaba
680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3dEDN61MFo
"But, Captain, look at it!"
I squirmed in my chair, both wishing I could see what Gonchoff was taking about, and at the same time, glad I couldn't. Glad we couldn't know what they would soon be facing.
"It doesn't matter," Jean-Luc repeated. "Besides, we've prepared, haven't we?"
There was a slight pause, before Gonchoff spoke again. "Sorry, Captain." The panic was gone, and he sounded composed.
On monitor one, nothing had changed. The two ships were locked together, and the drive engines continued to burn fiercely. But other than that, there was no movement on either ship.
We watched and waited in silence. Those on the Enterprise were silent as well, except for Hernandez calling out the time every two minutes. Finally, it was time.
"One minute," she said.
"Coordinates locked in?"
"Coordinates locked in."
"Start warp sequence."
"Warp sequence started. Good luck, everyone," Jean-Luc said.
"Lock down transmissions."
"Locking down."
The command channel went dead. So did all the video transmissions that we'd been receiving except for the one from the probe, which remained on monitor one. We all stared at it, waiting. Waiting.
I had never seen a jump from outside the ship, of course. None of us had. None of us knew what to expect.
The universe opened up and turned itself inside out.
A ring of distortion formed around the Enterprise. Space seemed to twist; even the shape of the two ships seemed to bend and flow, as if becoming unstable. Starlight curved around the ring so that the stars became like liquid mercury, elongated arcs that slowly spiraled. The starlight stretched out, took on an almost reddish hue in places, blue in others.
As the ring grew, it separated from the two ships, like a hole opening. In the gap between the ring and the ships was....nothing.
Black. A deep black that was darker than night. No stars.
An abyss. A true void. Discontinuity.
The curved starlight began to spin faster now, a whirlpool of colors bending and stretching with a ghostly sheen.
The harvester shuddered slightly, and I felt a queasiness rolling through my belly again.
"What's that?"
"I think we've been caught by the space distortions," Shirl said.
"We're decelerating," Enda announced.
The ring continued to grow, the vortex of starlight swirling still faster now.
"I'm not sure," Enda said, "but I think it might be pulling us in."
"We're too far," Shirl said. "It'll be over long before we reach them."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm not sure."
"Then let's start up the engines!"
"Let it go, Enda."
I looked away from the monitor and out of the cabin. Shirl was right, I decided. Everything looked close on the monitor, but now I could just barely make out the growing swirling ring far behind us. I turned back to the monitor to watch.
A cocoon of glistening white energy had started to form around the Enterprise. As the shimmering strands of light spun around the ship, they flowed forward and started to enclose the alien ship as well.
Suddenly the black cables were released from the Enterprise and began to writhe, whipping and slamming against the Enterprise, both ships shuddering with the violence.
"They're going to tear the Enterprise apart!" Cornelius cried out.
"They're trying to break free," Sulu said.
I think he was right. But it was too late for that. The cocoon grew and swelled, filaments spinning, engulfing both ships, and soon we lost sight of everything within it.680Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrjZ4Wtv3vv
The cocoon and the two ships moved through the swirling rim of the discontinuity, into the blackness. All the light from the energy cocoon was sucked away, and suddenly there was nothing but the black void surrounded by the vortex of twisted starlight.
The swirling of the vortex slowed, the starlight untwisting. Then it all collapsed in on itself, and the black night of space, spangled with the cold shining light of stars, returned to normal.
They were gone.
ns 15.158.61.39da2
