"Ja, Herr Major," said the broad-shouldered Austrian.

Behind the two flight officers, the rest of the MACOs perched like gargoyles along the lip of the penthouse's roof, which was a jumble of odd shapes and angles. It was lunchtime, and the men were all snacking on small pieces of fruit, as well as on sticks of dried, synthetic meat that they had conserved and rationed from their provisions for the past few months. The switch to a predominantly vegetarian diet had given all the members of the landing party a distinctly lean and hungry look.

"I wish there was some satisfaction in being able to say I told you so, Lieutenant, but there isn't." Foyle sighed and turned back toward the faraway range. "If Captain Hernandez isn't willing to use force to secure our freedom, then I have to question her fitness to command." At the edges of his vision, he saw Graylock and Thayer stake out positions on either side of him, leaning on the terrace's railing. "If I place this mission under military authority, will I have your support?"

"Absolutely," Thayer said.

"Jawohl," said Graylock. "It's why we came to you."

The major nodded. "And the others?"

"Nein. They won't go against the captain."

"I'd suspected as much," Foyle said. Turning his head toward Thayer, he said, "Tell me about your diversion."

There was excitement in her eyes as she detailed the plan. "It entails coordinated strikes on the 'apparatus' in two of the other cities, preferably ones as far as possible from Axion."

"I don't have that much manpower," Foyle argued.

She pulled a hand scanner from her jumpsuit's leg pocket and handed it to him. "We only need to seize one node of the apparatus in person. In the second city, we'll use a timer-detonated munition to blow up a different node while it's all juiced up for their big experiment. The tachyon pulse alone should be enough to collapse the scattering fields worldwide."

"For how long?"

Thayer glanced at Graylock, who said, "No idea. We hope it'll last for at least six minutes so we can beam back to the ship and break orbit."

Foyle considered the power that their captors had already displayed on the planet's surface. "Once we're on the ship, what then? Do we really think we can outrun the Caeliar at impulse?"

"We may not have to," Graylock said. "The technology they're using for their 'great work' could be modified to send us back home in a snap."

The major gritted his teeth and twisted his mouth into a rueful grimace. "Let's remember what the good captain said about our hosts' bad habit of 'displacing' entire civilizations. Do we want to risk bringing that kind of attention to Earth?"

Graylock smirked. "If we do this properly, Herr Major, the Caeliar might never know we were here."

"That's the other proposal the captain rejected," Thayer said. "The Caeliar's machines can move us through time and s.p.a.ce. We'd have to run afoul of the predestination paradox, and deal with meeting ourselves, and about a dozen other temporal no-nos...but we could go back, warn Earth about the Romulans, and save ourselves from getting stuck here in the first place."

From behind the trio came the scuffle of men climbing down from the rooftop. Foyle and the Columbia officers turned to see Pembleton and Yacavino stride toward them, while Crichlow, Mazzetti, and Steinhauer scrambled over the edge and sought purchase with their hands and feet.

"Did I just hear that?" asked Pembleton. "We can go back? I can see my wife again and watch my boys grow up?"

"In theory," said Graylock.

The MACOs gathered around, a wall of intense focus and dark forest camouflage, as Foyle asked the engineer, "What will it take to make your theory a reality?"

"Phase two of the plan," answered Thayer. All eyes turned to her, the only woman on the terrace, as she continued. "Karl has a good idea what the Caeliar's machines are capable of, but he doesn't know how to make them do what he wants. I think the Caeliar do know how, and if they're properly motivated, they might be...persuaded to a.s.sist us."

Pembleton threw a sidelong stare at Foyle. "That does sound like our specialty, Major."

Foyle was torn. Mucking about with time was dangerous business, no matter how cavalierly his men embraced it. He hadn't been trained for decisions such as this. Small-unit tactics, SERE protocols, psyops, boarding procedures-those were his areas of expertise. Altering the flow of history had not been covered at the war college in Credenhill. But the human cost of his decision was staring him in the eye. This was a chance to reunite his sergeant with his family, bring his men and the crew of the Columbia home to their friends and loved ones, and spare all those people back on Earth the grief of believing the ship and its crew lost in action.

A chance to go home to Valerie. To his life. Their life.

For all I know, the Romulans conquered Earth because we couldn't get a warning out, he brooded. What if everyone we care about is gone because of that mistake? What if our going back in time is Earth's only hope?

He climbed up from the deep well of his thoughts to find everyone staring at him and waiting for his answer. "Graylock, if my people get you into one of those machines and compel the Caeliar to cooperate, are you sure you can pull this off?"

"I'm certain it's our only chance, Herr Major."

Foyle studied Thayer's eyes, looking for the resolve of a soldier. He asked her, "When this turns ugly-and I promise you, it will-can I count on you to go the distance?"

"Whatever it takes, sir," Thayer said. "I refuse to die as a prisoner, here or anywhere else."

That was an answer Foyle could accept and respect. "All right, then," he said. "Forget what Captain Hernandez wants. If we're going to make a go of this, we have to hit the Caeliar where it'll hurt them most." He worked his way around the circle with speed and certainty. "Yacavino, you and Crichlow get munitions in place before they start their big experiment. Have Lieutenant Thayer tell you which site to mine. Pembleton, go over the scans of the Caeliar with Lieutenant Graylock and see if we can bring them down to our level and hurt them once we get them there. Mazzetti, Steinhauer-you're both with me."

Yacavino looked worried. "What will you be doing, sir?"

"I expect Captain Hernandez will object to our plan," Foyle said. "She and the other flight officers will have to be kept in sight and out of the loop. When it's time to attack, they'll have to be contained until we're ready to beam up." He saw Yacavino's expression of concern mirrored on the faces of Thayer and Graylock. "Trust me," he added. "She'll thank us after we all get home." That seemed to mollify the three lieutenants. Foyle snapped everyone into action with a clap of his hands. "We have a lot to do. Let's get to work."

The group moved off and segregated into duos according to the a.s.signments that Foyle had made. The lone straggler was Sergeant Pembleton, who waited until the others were out of earshot before he confided to the major, "You know containment won't be enough, don't you? She won't stand for it."

"I know," Foyle said. "And we can't take a chance on her alerting the Caeliar before we break orbit." He patted the taller man's shoulder. "I'll handle it."

"One more thing bothers me, sir," Pembleton said. Foyle nodded for him to continue. "What if the Caeliar have taken the rest of the ship's crew prisoner? What if there's no one up there to beam us aboard?"

Foyle looked to the horizon. "Then we're already dead."

2381.

18.

Commander Geordi La Forge walked through the mechanical jungle of a.s.sembly lines that occupied three converted cargo bays on Deck 23 of the Enterprise. A tang of overheated metal filled the ozone-rich air, and the long, open s.p.a.ce buzzed with the hum of motors, plasma welders, and industrial replicators.

The death factory. That was La Forge's secret nickname for this hastily erected manufacturing complex. Here was where the crew struggled to produce a steady supply of the one weapon that so far had proved consistently effective against the Borg: transphasic torpedoes.

Flashes of light from the welding teams pierced the blue haze that lingered between checkpoints on the line. Lighting in the munitions plant was kept glare-free and diffuse, to avoid hard shadows and reduce eyestrain. Most of the line was powered by antigravs, which kept the noise to a low rumble.

For those who toiled here, the only relief from the monotony was to be rotated between different stations each day. Watching the dull routine, the grind of repet.i.tion, La Forge found it hard to believe that it made much difference. One set of rote tasks was as mind-numbing as another.

He stopped to check the phase variance circuit on a finished warhead that was awaiting delivery to the forward torpedo room. He used the warhead's built-in touch-screen interface to perform a quality-control inspection of its internal systems. The data was still crawling up the screen as he noted someone approaching from his left.

"Geordi," said Beverly Crusher, who had a medical satchel slung at her hip. She stopped beside him and noted the inspection in progress. "Am I catching you at a bad time?"

It was a terrible time, but the chief engineer shook his head and replied, "Not at all. What can I do for you?"

"Actually, I'm here to do something for you," she said, opening her satchel. She removed a small gadget that La Forge recognized as a recalibration tool for his ocular implants. "I'm sorry I didn't have time to tend to your injuries personally when you came to sickbay." Lifting the device to his temple, she continued, "Dr. Tropp said you left sickbay before he could fix the damage to your implants."

La Forge tried to dismiss her concern with a halfhearted smile. "It's no big deal, Doc. Just some false-spectrum artifacts in the ultraviolet range. I just tune it out."

"Mm-hmm," she mumbled, adjusting the calibrator's settings. "I'll have it fixed in a few seconds, so just hold still." With a mischievous gleam she added, "And don't say I never make house calls."

As promised, the distortion cleared instantly. Crusher switched off the device, and he nodded to her. "Much better. Thanks." He turned to resume his diagnostic of the warhead he'd been inspecting when she came in. A moment later he noticed that Crusher didn't seem to be making any move to depart. Over his shoulder, he asked, "Want to tell me why you're really here?"

"Because I don't know who else to talk to," she confessed.

He turned and folded his arms. "This sounds interesting."

Now that she had his full attention, Crusher looked very self-conscious. "It's about the captain," she said, copying La Forge's guarded stance, arms crossed in front of her chest. "I'm worried about him. About what this mission is doing to him."

"Are you sure I'm the right one to talk to?" he asked. "If it's a command issue-"

"It's not," she interrupted. "And it's not something for the counselors, or for Starfleet Command. I don't even want to take any action, I just want to talk to someone about it. Someone who won't have to file a report."

Crusher didn't mention Worf by name; she didn't have to. All at once, Geordi understood her dilemma. Worf, by nature, would always err on the side of supporting his captain, and if Crusher raised an official concern, Worf would be required to note it in his log. The same would likely be true of the ship's staff of counselors. With the recent departures of so many of Crusher's longtime friends on the senior staff-including Will Riker and Deanna Troi-La Forge was probably the last of the "old guard" whom she felt she could trust to lend a discreet and sympathetic ear to her concerns.

He conveyed his understanding with a single, slow nod. "If anyone asks, this conversation never happened."

"Thank you," she said.

He gave a final glance at the warhead's data readout and was satisfied that all its ratings were nominal. He shut it down and moved on, walking between two long lines of automated machines cranking out a steady parade of warhead casings. Crusher followed along. As she fell into step beside him, he asked, "So what is it we aren't talking about?"

"Obsession," she said. "Specifically, Jean-Luc's fixation on eradicating the Borg. I guess I'm worried because I'm hearing him advocate strategies that I never thought he'd endorse."

La Forge rolled his eyes at the understatement. "I know what you mean. Every line I think he won't cross, he goes over in a broad jump. Truth is, it's starting to scare me."

She reached out and touched his arm in silent affirmation. "Me, too," she said. Gentle pressure from her hand brought him to a halt with her as she continued. "One minute he seems ready to surrender, just throw himself on his sword, and the next he's channeling Henry the Fifth, 'once more unto the breach,' and all that. And neither seems like him."

"Except when he deals with the Borg," La Forge corrected her. "Then everything he's ever done and said goes right out the window. Logic, discipline, principles...he burns 'em all when he's up against the Collective."

"I know," she said. "When he fights them, he becomes like them-an extremist. A conformist one moment, a radical the next. And I feel like he's pushing us and Starfleet into a full-scale confrontation, no matter what the cost. He keeps talking about a 'clash of civilizations' as if it's inevitable, but then he says we can't win that kind of war with the Borg. So what is he trying to do? Is he just looking to end it, even if it means dying and taking the Federation down with him?"

La Forge resumed walking, and Crusher stayed by his side. "I wouldn't say the captain has a death wish," he said. "Not yet, anyway. But I look at this place"-he gestured around them at the munitions plant-"and I feel like he's already decided there's only one way the war can end, and it's in fire."

"It's not like the Borg are giving us much choice, Geordi, especially now that they're bent on extermination instead of a.s.similation. Shutting down the Collective might be our only chance of survival."

A gust of heated air washed over them as they kept walking. Shielding his face, he replied, "It's not as simple as shutting them down, and you know it. The Borg aren't just machines. Most of the drones in the Collective used to be individuals, just like us." La Forge raised his voice as they pa.s.sed a noisy bank of plasma cutters. "We've seen drones come back from that-Hugh, Seven of Nine, Rebekah Grabowski, even the captain himself. No matter what the Borg look like on the outside, there are still people in there, Beverly-people who've been enslaved. I know the Collective's the enemy, but I can't help but feel like killing the drones is just punishing the victims without getting to the source of the problem."

They turned left at the end of the aisle and circled around to walk past a row of specialists who were performing precision calibrations on magnetic containment cores for variable-phase antideuterium. One mistake here could spark a blast that would destroy the Enterprise in a microsecond. Ion fusers in constant operation cast dull, ruddy glows beneath thick, rodinium glare shields while technicians monitored their work via nanocams.

Crusher walked with one hand pressed protectively over her abdomen. The sight of Beverly, as the bearer of a new life, surrounded by instruments of death and destruction made La Forge want to hurry her out of the munitions plant and as far away from these infernal machines as possible.

She sounded worn out as she asked, "What are we going to do if Jean-Luc loses control, Geordi? Where do we draw the line?"

"I don't know. I'm not even sure I'm qualified to say if or when he's crossed it. He's always been hard to gauge when it comes to the Borg. One minute he's ready to kill them all, the next he says wiping them out is wrong...and then, when you least expect it, he turns himself back into Locutus." He stopped next to one of the photon chargers and stared into the rhythmic workings of the a.s.sembly line until his sense of depth flattened and its details fused together. "I'm just afraid we won't know which Captain Picard we've got this time until it's too late."

"Whatever we're flying toward, it's big," said Miranda Kadohata, "and eight minutes ago it started jamming all known subs.p.a.ce frequencies within thirty light-years of the Azure Nebula."

The announcement by the ship's second officer added to the already grave mood of the emergency staff briefing. Dismayed glances were volleyed across the conference table, from Choudhury to Worf, and then from Kadohata to the captain. Absent from the meeting was Commander La Forge, whom Worf had excused so the chief engineer could give his full attention to making the ship itself ready for combat.

Worf decided to try and preserve a sense of momentum in the meeting. He asked Kadohata, "What is our ETA to the nebula?"

"Nine hours. We're following the sirillium traces from the Borg ship we destroyed at Korvat, but the jamming field is blocking our sensors. We could be heading into a trap."

Captain Picard sat at the head of the table and regarded the senior officers with his careworn frown. "I think it's safe to say that we'll be facing stiff resistance when we reach the nebula," he said. "We need to be prepared."

Lieutenant Choudhury replied, "The security division is good to go, sir. With your permission, I'd like to post extra guards on all decks, in case we get boarded."

"Granted," Picard said, "but you might find their effectiveness limited against the Borg."

"I'm aware of that, sir, but in combat, sometimes a few extra seconds make the difference. My people are ready to give you those seconds if you need them."

Worf noted the captain's dour nod of approval but no change in his mirthless visage. "Well done," was all Picard said to the security chief. Then he turned to Lieutenant Dina Elfiki. "Can you break through the interference at short range?"

"I think so," Elfiki said. The soft-spoken science officer-whose brown hair framed her tanned, elegant cheekbones and dark, beguiling eyes-looked younger than her years. "The subs.p.a.ce interference shouldn't stop us from finding transwarp signatures or anything similar. Once we close to within a few billion kilometers of the nebula, I can start my sweep."

"Good," Picard said as he got up from his chair. He seemed pensive as he paced behind it and laid his hands on top of its headrest. After a few moments, he said, "Before we lost communications, I received a message from Starfleet Command. It was a reply to my request for reinforcements to rendezvous with us at the nebula." He stepped to the wall panel and activated it with a touch of his hand. A starmap of the surrounding sectors appeared. "Starfleet's losses have been heavier than expected," he continued. "Less than an hour ago, a previously undetected Borg cube destroyed Starbase 24, along with the starships Merrimack, Ulysses, and Sparta. The only ship besides us in this sector is the Excalibur, and she's all but crippled after stopping the attack on Starbase 343. Which means we'll be facing this threat alone."

Tense antic.i.p.ation filled the room. Worf could almost smell the anxiety-he was too polite to call it fear-of his human shipmates. "The Enterprise is ready, Captain. As are we."

"Of that I have no doubt, Commander. But I need to make clear that combat is not our princ.i.p.al mission. Our a.s.signment is to find out how the Borg are reaching our s.p.a.ce undetected, and then deny them that ability. Furthermore, we, and this ship, are to be considered expendable in the pursuit of that goal." The captain looked at the faces around the table. "Clear?"

Everyone nodded in confirmation.

Picard's already serious manner turned grim. "I've made no secret in the past of my...unusual connection with the Borg Collective, or that it's as much a liability as an a.s.set." He strolled behind the officers seated on Worf's side of the table as he continued, talking as if to himself. "I can sense them now. The voice of the Collective is getting stronger as we get closer. There are at least three Borg cubes waiting for us. Maybe more." The captain avoided eye contact with everyone else as he paced around the far end of the conference table. "And they know we're coming. We won't enjoy the element of surprise." Returning along the other side of the table, Picard stared into some deep distance only he could perceive. "If we had the luxury of time, I'd wait for the fleet. But I can feel the fury that's driving the Borg. It's like a whip of fire on their backs."

The captain returned to the head of the table, eased his chair aside, and stood tall before the group. "We don't have long-hours, perhaps days-to stop this invasion before it goes any further. The Federation has suffered more casualties from hostile action in the past five weeks than in all the previous wars of its history combined. And it's only going to get worse, unless we put an end to it. This ship is the Federation's last line of defense, and nine hours from now we will have to hold that line, outnumbered by an enemy that doesn't negotiate, won't surrender, and never shows mercy. It's an impossible mission."

Picard's frown became a smirk as he added, "Fortunately, we have some experience with those here on the Enterprise."

19.

"Of course you don't like it," Vale said to Riker, Troi, and Ree. "I don't like it, either. That's how I know it's a good compromise: We're all equally unhappy."

Troi shifted uncomfortably on the end of the biobed where she was sitting. Riker stood beside her. They were both sullen, and their eyes searched t.i.tan's sickbay for everything except each other. Vale watched them, worried they might reject the agreement she had negotiated with Dr. Ree on their behalf.

Ree carried himself with an even greater aura of menace than usual. The dinosaur-like physician's tail waved behind him in slow, steady swishes, a Pahkwa-thanh affectation that Vale intuited was indicative of suppressed irritation.