A thick patch of ring matter pelted the Enterprise and the swarm of flyers surrounding it. Repeated impacts rattled the bridge, but Spock was more concerned with Columbus and the other smaller spacecraft. He watched tensely as craggy chunks of ice, some nearly as large as the shuttle, invaded the already-crowded space outside the Enterprise. Lieutenant Schneider had her work cut out for her if she was going to avoid being struck by one or more frozen particles.
“Mr. Chekov,” Spock said. “Can you clear a path for Columbus?”
“Negative, Mr. Spock.” His fingers hovered over the firing controls. “There are too many other vessels in the way! I can’t target the debris!”
Without phaser cover, Columbus was on its own. The shuttle rolled out of the way of an oncoming iceball that flew past its upside-down landing gear to barrel into a compact prospector ship on the other side of the shuttle. The unlucky prospector was smashed to pieces in a soundless collision that killed at least two colonists. Flying wreckage added to the hazards threatening the flotilla. A hijacked lunar transport received a severe gash along its stern. Vapor jetted from the breach before someone inside sealed the wound. The transport lost speed and maneuverability, falling away from the rest of the pack. Spock wondered if it would attempt to return to Skagway.
Unlikely, he decided. Nothing waited for them on the moon but certain annihilation.
“This is just the warm-up act,” Sulu warned. “Sensors indicate that the main event is coming up any minute now.”
The refugees were not going to turn back, Spock realized. Circling the Enterprise, pleading for sanctuary, they could not possibly withstand the hazardous environment they had rashly thrown themselves into. So far, fatalities had been minimal, but that had been more happenstance than anything else. The vulnerable flyers were at the mercy of the storm.
Unless…
“Mr. Chekov, expand our shields outward by one hundred sixty percent.”
Startled, Chekov looked back at him. A baffled expression indicated that he was confused by his orders. “Excuse me, sir. Did I hear you correctly? Extending the deflectors that far out will severely diminish their strength and integrity.”
“That is correct, Ensign.” Spock knew that the shields had been designed to conform to the profile of the ship, adding a layer of protection akin to a secondary hull. Ordinarily, their protection seldom extended more than fifty meters beyond the ship’s exterior plating. But these were not ordinary circumstances. “You have your orders.”
“Aye, sir.” Chekov resigned himself to his task. “Extending shields.”
Spock moved to notify Engineering of his plan, but Mr. Scott responded even more quickly to the drastic change in the shields. An agitated brogue erupted from the intercom. “Mr. Spock, what sort of games are ye playing up there? I canna believe what my readouts are telling me.”
Spock took the engineer’s reaction in stride. It was to be expected. “No games, Mr. Scott. It has become necessary to expand our shields to encompass the space surrounding the ship.”
“But that’s not what they were built to do!” the engineer sputtered. “As Dr. McCoy might say, are you out of your Vulcan mind?”
Possibly, Spock thought. “Emulating the good doctor is unworthy of you, Mr. Scott. Please see to it that sufficient power is diverted to the task and that the deflector grid remains operational.”
“I’ll do my best, Mr. Spock, but that’s going to put a considerable strain on our resources. I’m not sure how long we’re going to be able to manage this daft stunt of yours… sir.”
“Your caveats are noted, Mr. Scott. Spock out.”
On-screen, the results of his tactic were already visible. A force-field bubble, roughly following the contours of the Enterprise, now extended for approximately four hundred meters around the ship in every direction. The bubble was invisible except where the ubiquitous debris struck it, which was almost everywhere. Brilliant flashes of Cherenkov energy lit up the screen, making Spock grateful for his protective inner eyelids.
“Dim luminosity,” he instructed. “Thirty-point-two percent.”
For the moment, the refugee ships were safe within the Enterprise’s shields, but Spock knew that this was only a temporary solution. He needed to take advantage of the opportunity while he could.
“Shield status?”
“Thirty percent and holding,” Chekov reported. “For now.”
That will have to be enough, Spock judged. He activated the intercom. “Transporter rooms. Lock onto shuttle crew and passengers.”
With the shuttle no longer outside the Enterprise’s shields, it was now possible to beam its endangered human cargo aboard. Unfortunately, this entailed abandoning Columbus and the last several evacuees waiting back on Skagway, but that could not be helped. The evacuation was over now. All that remained was to stand guard over Skagway until it reached its inevitable end. Spock hoped that those left behind would make good use of what little time they had left.
“Transporter rooms reporting, sir.” Uhura was visibly relieved by the news. “The shuttle crew and passengers have been beamed aboard.”
On the viewer, Columbus veered away from the Enterprise. Spock assumed that Lieutenant Schneider had set an automatic course that would reduce the chance of any unwanted collisions. The tugs and scouts that had been shadowing the shuttle broke away from it to stay close to the starship instead. Spock watched as Columbus headed away from both Skagway and the Enterprise before slowing to a stop against the force-field barrier. In time, it, too, would be sucked in by the planet’s fluctuating gravity. A minor loss, compared with the epic tragedy facing the lunar colony.
“Shall I keep the shields extended, sir?” Chekov asked. “Now that our people have been beamed aboard?”
An excellent question, Spock mused. He was reluctant to abandon the refugee flotilla to its fate but wondered how long the Enterprise could be expected to shelter the fragile craft beneath its metaphorical wings. “Shield status?”
“Twenty-eight percent,” Chekov said dolefully. “Eighty-five percent of generator output diverted to deflectors. Other systems operating below capacity.”
The shields were consuming an excessive share of the ship’s energy and resources. Spock decided to issue one final warning to the hijacked vessels swarming the Enterprise.
“Lieutenant Uhura, inform the refugees that no further evacuees will be brought aboard the Enterprise. Alert them, as well, that we will be withdrawing the protection of our shields in exactly ten minutes. They are strongly advised to return to the safety of the colony.”
“Such as it is,” Qat Zaldana said sadly.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Such as it is.”
He hoped none of the ships would attempt to ram its way through the Enterprise’s space doors into the landing deck. “Mr. Chekov, be on the alert for boarders. Fire on any vessel on an approach track for the shuttlebay.”
“Aye, sir.”
Proximity alarms sounded on the bridge.
“Mr. Spock!” Sulu called out. “I’m tracking a huge iceball… heading straight for us!”
He relayed the threat’s coordinates to the main viewer. An immense white object filled the screen, dwarfing the other missiles around it. At first, Spock thought that Sulu might have accidentally ordered full magnification, but a quick glance at the viewer settings, as displayed on his chair readouts, invalidated that theory.
“Bozhe moi!” Chekov blurted in his native tongue. “It’s as big as a house!”
“Distance two hundred meters and closing,” Sulu reported. “Azimuth twenty-one-point-six. Collision in one minute.”
