The Vulcan glared at him from the screen. Then McCoy announced that the Vulcan ship to starboard was moving in at high speed, and just as quickly as that had positioned itself directly at the midpoint between the Belle Reve and the Enterprise, blocking the laser link between the two craft.
Picard tapped the control that cut viewscreen communications. “Is he where we need him to be?”
“Precisely,” Spock said.
“Fire,” Picard ordered.
For the first time since the war with the Totality had begun, light-matter life fought back.
The attack was crude, the weapon of choice imprecise.
Had the Enterprise and the Belle Reve attempted such a tactic on a Romulan warbird, after a few seconds of confusion the Romulans would have laughed and adjusted their shields to make themselves impervious to further annoyances.
But a few seconds was all that Picard and Riker needed.
So far from the Vulcan sun, there was little to see in the darkness of interstellar space.
The Belle Reve and the Enterprise could be noticed only by their running lights, effectively invisible against the vista of stars.
The Vulcan cruiser might have been glimpsed, traced by the glow of its impulse engines as it dropped into position between the two Starfleet vessels. But once it was in place, its running lights and the soft illumination from its viewports were lost against the tens of thousands of other points of light that made up the galactic band of stars.
The energy that the Enterprise and the Belle Reve directed against the Vulcan ship was equally invisible.
Each ship altered its artificial-gravity generators to project toward the other, out of phase. The phase shift was precisely tuned so that the peaks of the Casimir wavelengths met at the coordinates of the Vulcan ship, where they amplified each other, creating a dramatic increase in local gravity.
At this point in the attack, an observer might have seen flashes of light as interior conduits collapsed within the Vulcan ship and multiple explosions strobed behind its viewports. A few more seconds, and the ship was easily discernible because of the detonation of its port nacelle.
Then the heavens were ignited by multiple quantum-torpedo bursts and phaser fire from the second Vulcan cruiser.
But the light show didn’t last long.
The second cruiser made the mistake of coming to the assistance of the first. When it was between the two Starfleet vessels, it was also caught in the gravity waves.
More explosions followed.
The cruisers were crushed.
And when they were scanned, no evidence of any physical bodies was found, because there had been no real Vulcans on board either ship. Only projections of the Totality.
The Federation strategy was a success.
As soon as Leybenzon confirmed that there had been no casualties, cheers erupted on the bridge of the Enterprise.
“Break radio silence,” Riker told Worf. “Send a message to Admiral Janeway: It worked.”
Picard appeared on the viewscreen, definitely pleased. “Well done, Will.”
“To us both.”
“Ready for round two?”
“I’m ready for as many rounds as it takes.”
Picard grinned. “See you at Vulcan,” he said.
Explosions still erupted from the tumbling ruins of the Vulcan cruisers as their fuel and energy systems broke down and consumed themselves.
But even those small, sporadic flashes were eclipsed by the sudden glowing starbows of two ships jumping to warp.
The first skirmish in the battle of Vulcan had been fought.
It was not the last.
34
THE TOTALITY
STARDATE UNKNOWN
There was something Kirk knew he was forgetting.
He heard water rushing, and at least that sounded familiar.
He turned to see a stream curving gracefully through a grove of shade trees. He looked up to see the sun, saw a domed roof instead, hundreds of meters high, studded with lights.
I’ve been here before, he thought.
There was so much that was green and growing. The scent of life was strong, comforting.
He took a deep breath, reveling in the sensation.
And then he remembered.
His rib had been broken.
His finger had been snapped.
But he felt no pain.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Norinda asked.
Kirk wheeled to face her and saw instead a Reman, towering, gray and cadaverous, with fangs and batlike ears.
“I’m on Remus,” Kirk said. He remembered now. It was just last year. The Federation thought Spock had died in an assassination attempt. Kirk had come to find the truth.
But he couldn’t remember if he had found it or not.
The Reman who was Norinda stared down at him with curiosity. “What is truth, James?”
“Not this,” Kirk said, and he rejected the illusion.
The Reman exploded into black sand.
Kirk covered his eyes with his arm, and when he looked out from cover again-
– it was dawn, bloodred, long black shadows like clawed wounds carved through the mound of scattered debris and small fires.
I’ve been here, too, Kirk thought. And though his body still felt no pain from his injuries, his heart ached as he stared at the destruction around him. He tried to remember why that should be so, why this landscape should cause him such anguish.
Two figures approached, shadows against the rising sun.
He thought of Bajor then. Of how, two years ago, he and Picard had marched across the desert by the Valor Ocean. But this wasn’t Bajor, and this moment was earlier.
He wondered how he knew that.
The figures came closer: a young Vulcan woman, an old Ferengi male.
But he wasn’t a Ferengi, Kirk remembered.
He was… he was…
The old Ferengi coughed and pointed a black-nailed finger at Kirk. “If I were a Preserver,” he laughed, “given the task of educating an entire galactic Federation to prepare for its future among a universe of other federations…”
