Текст книги "Orion's Hounds "

Автор книги: Christopher Bennett

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“I daresay clothing will not enter into them at all.”

Glaring at him, she extracted her hand from his. “Good night,Doctor,” she said, and strode away. Once she heard the door slide closed behind her, she dropped the stern act and let out a chuckle. She’d actually found his flirtations rather amusing—purely as entertainment for their own sake, as he’d said—but she hadn’t wished to encourage him.

The chuckle turned into a long, massive yawn, and Deanna decided it was time to get back to bed with Will. I think I’ll file this conversation under doctor-patient confidentiality,she said to herself. Will might be very tolerant of cultural differences, but there were limits.

And this was supposed to be a quiet, late-night stroll,she thought. Serving on this ship is going to be quite an adventure.

Chapter Two

STARDATE 57146.4

Melora Pazlar had decided that the stellar cartography lab was her favorite part of the ship. There was no other place on Titanwhere she could feel so free. True, in the privacy of her quarters the Elaysian lieutenant could escape the ship’s oppressive gravity, shed her motor-assist armature and cane, and drift in the cozy few centigees of her homeworld. But that was a small, enclosed space, comfortably vertical but without the airy openness of home. She’d decorated it with crystal sculptures evoking Gemworld’s lapidary spires, but that didn’t diminish her awareness of the walls, or of the crushing weight beyond them.

In stellar cartography, though, she routinely left the gravity off completely, the better to soar among the simulated stars. In this holographic realm, the walls and the ship could be completely forgotten, and Melora could drift unencumbered through the heavens, dancing gavottes with planets, bathing in nebular mist, cradling newborn T Tauri stars in her hands, communing with the eloquent silence of space.

Except at times like now. “ ‘Gum,’ ” said Kenneth Norellis, breaking her train of thought. “What kind of name for a nebula is ‘Gum’?”

Melora sighed and threw a look at the boyish astrobiologist, who stood on the control platform with the Irriol cadet Orilly Malar, both held there by a gravity field about twenty percent of standard. At first, the whole holotank had been routinely kept in freefall for Melora’s benefit—except for that two-week stretch when Admiral Akaar had taken it over as a command post prior to the Romulan negotiations—but some crew members had found it difficult to adjust to the free-fall environment, so this refinement had been added. It took advantage of the fact that Starfleet gravity stators emitted virtual gravitons which could be calibrated to decay at short distances, so that starships’ internal gravity fields would not disrupt their warp-field geometry. That principle had already enabled her to soar free here or in her quarters unaffected by the gravity from the decks below; it had been simply enough to tweak it so she could do so unaffected by the balcony’s local field. “It’s named after the human who discovered it. It’s just a name, like any other.”

“Yeah, but…‘Gum.’ It’s kind of an unimpressive name for something so, so huge.”

Melora figured she could see his point. The Gum Nebula was one of the largest astronomical landmarks in the Orion Arm. It was a gigantic supernova remnant, a shock front from the death of a star over a million years in the past. It was now over a thousand light-years across and expanding, highly attenuated but still impressive in scale. The volume inside it was large enough to hold the entire Federation and its neighbors with room to spare—and almost all of it was terra incognita. Its nearer reaches had been ventured into by the Catullans and the Klingons, and impinged on by earlier Starfleet vessels on Beta Quadrant surveys, such as Excelsiorand Olympia.But the majority of this vast bubble of space (she’d heard some crew members joking that it should be the “Bubblegum Nebula,” though she’d needed the reference explained) had never been systematically explored—until now. Titan’s mission was an open-ended survey of the region within the Gum Nebula—or rather, the coreward half, with her sister ship Ganymedetaking the rimward half. The ship was now several dozen parsecs past its edge, and the holotank displayed the surrounding space from that vantage point, so that the faint wisps of the Gum Nebula, enhanced for the display, surrounded them in all directions.

Melora had trouble seeing why this region was still uncharted (at close range, that is, rather than telescopically), since it was an astrophysicist’s dream. A lively, turbulent region of active star formation, it encompassed numerous lesser supernova remnants, stellar nurseries, HII regions, OB-star associations, cometary globules, the whole celestial bestiary. At its heart was the Vela OB2 Association, one of the biggest, liveliest star-formation zones in the Orion Arm, and the source of the energy which excited the Gum Nebula’s hydrogen into luminescence, like the candle inside a Japanese paper lantern. Though she supposed that might make it a bit less of a priority for Starfleet, which was generally more interested in seeking out new life and new civilizations. Star-formation zones were extremely turbulent; the birth processes of stars—and the death throes of the short-lived, supermassive stars that died before they could travel very far from their birthplaces—gave off intense radiation, interstellar-medium shock waves, and subspace disruptions, all of which could prevent habitable planets from forming in the first place or wipe out those nearby biospheres that did happen to form.

Of course, if there was one thing two centuries of Starfleet exploration had proven beyond a doubt, it was that life always proved tougher and more resourceful than science generally supposed, and cropped up in the most unexpected places. Besides, the volume inside the Gum Nebula was immense; even with all those star-formation zones, there was still plenty of room for more hospitable planets. Plus there was a better-than-even chance that exotic life-forms would be found on planets bathed in radiation and racked by cosmic turbulence, employing weird and wonderful strategies to survive. That was why Norellis was here, accompanied by Cadet Orilly, who majored in exobiology. Their assignment was to identify likely places to search for life, and hopefully some less likely but more interesting ones as well.

Melora twisted gracefully about her center of mass, surveying the expanse laid out around them, and reached out to cup Avior in one hand. The simulation actually let her feel warmth from the shrunken red-orange giant. “I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t seem so huge from this vantage point. You really should come up here, give it a try.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Lieutenant, I’d rather keep my feet firmly planted.”

“Your choice, Kent. Though I’d have thought you’d learned your lesson about gravity.” Shortly before Titan’s launch, Norellis and gravity had had a difference of opinion in a vertical Jefferies tube, and as usual, gravity’s arguments had carried the greater force, earning the ensign some quality time with the ship’s medical staff.

“I did,” the human countered. “The lesson is, stay close to the deck.”

“Well, how about you, Cadet?” Melora asked, shifting her gaze to Orilly. If anything, the cadet seemed to be having a harder time than Norellis. Even though the Irriol’s paws gave her a solid quadrupedal footing on the balcony, the two trunks extending from the base of her wide, thick-necked head clutched the railing tightly with their four-fingered hands. The diamond-shaped armor scales covering her body, which Norellis had likened to those of an Earth animal called a pangolin, were slightly raised as if in alarm.

“No, thank you,” Orilly said in her quiet voice, emanating from the rounded mouth between her trunks. “Although this is a marvelous simulation, I am not comfortable with all this…space. It reminds me how far I am from…home.” Her golden-brown scales drooped.

“Come on, Malar, there’s more to life than home,” Melora said cheerfully.

“Not for Irriol. We are very empathic, with our own, at least. To be severed from the Whole, to be alone, it is…difficult.” Melora couldn’t read her expressions well, but she got the impression that Orilly had pulled back from a stronger word. “No offense to you or the fleet…but it is not something we endure by choice.”

“So why are you in Starfleet?” Melora asked.

When Orilly didn’t answer, Norellis stepped in. “I guess you don’t know about Irriol.”

Melora shrugged. “Plenty of species out there. Hard to keep track of them all.”

“If she’s off her world, it means she’s…well…”

“I am an exile,” Orilly finished.

“Oh!” She frowned. “Wait a minute…if your people can’t stand being offworld, then exile must be…”

“The worst penalty on their books,” Norellis said. “Irriol are a nonviolent people. No death penalty, ever.”

“No,” Orilly said. “Worse.”

“So you’re a criminal?!”

“Know that I would never do anything to violate my oath or my duty,” Orilly said in great earnest. “For only by serving my people well can I hope to be allowed back home.”

“Okay, I wasn’t questioning that.” She knew Starfleet would never have let her in the Academy if her behavior had been suspect. “But…can I ask what it was you did?”

Orilly’s trunks wriggled. “It is…difficult to explain to outsiders. And troubling for me to discuss. But it does not correspond to anything your peoples call a crime.”

“Was it some taboo you violated, then?”

“No, much more than that. I did true harm. I did not wish to, but I was foolish and irresponsible and…there was much cost to others.”

“But you didn’t kill anyone.”

She lowered her head. “Lives were lost…but not in any way that the laws or ethics of other worlds would find me culpable for.”

Lucky you,Melora thought. She couldn’t say the same about herself. During the crisis on her homeworld four years ago, she had been directly responsible for the death of a leading citizen, Tangre Bertoran. Starfleet had absolved her of wrongdoing, declaring it a defensive act, but Melora had been harder on herself, and had taken a leave of absence to atone in seclusion.

It struck her that Orilly, in her own way, was also atoning in seclusion, perhaps in some ways a more profound seclusion than Melora could grasp. She wished she could understand the nature of the offense, the better to offer her support to the troubled-seeming cadet. Maybe with time, she could.

“Well, tell you what,” she said. “Let’s get to work, take your mind off things. Computer! Overlay sensor data. Display possible biosigns.”

The computer complied, breaking down the various biosignature types by color coding and labels: spectroscopic results suggesting molecular oxygen and respiratory gases, thermal signatures and energy curves consistent with life processes, Fourier extractions of possible neural EM signatures, and so forth. Titan’s cutting-edge sensors gave them greater clarity over greater distances than Melora would’ve thought possible. The virtual sky around them teemed with signatures; even if half of them turned out to be false alarms, there was enough life showing up in this preliminary scan to keep them busy for years.

“Aah!”

The cry came from Norellis. Melora spun to face him. “What is it?”

He looked embarrassed, and pointed at a sensor reading that hovered next to his head. “I turned my head and there it was, right in my face. Startled me.”

Melora worked the control padd in her hands, telling the holotank’s forcefields to push her gently toward the image. “What is that? There’s no planet there. It’s very close to us….”

“Maybe a ship!” Norellis peered closer. “Or multiple ships. Hard to make them out.”

“Here, let me increase the scale….”

She was interrupted by a keening wail from Orilly. “No!!”the Irriol cried, rearing up on her hind legs and stepping back as though in fear. She bumped into the balcony and lost her balance, toppling out into the free-fall zone beyond. It worsened her panic, her six limbs flailing as if in a futile attempt to flee from… something.

“Cadet!” Melora worked the padd, using the forcefields to catch Orilly and guide her gently back to the balcony. Taking a second to switch on her support armature, she took a deep breath and climbed over the rail into the gravity zone so she could come to Orilly’s aid. But the Irriol’s flailing trunks made her pull back; her bones were somewhat more fragile than those of beings raised in planetary gravities. Norellis moved in and tried to hold her down, but just got knocked aside for his troubles. “Malar, what is it? What’s wrong?” Melora cried, striving to catch her gaze and get through to her.

Orilly met her eyes for a moment, but there seemed to be no recognition there. “Help us!” she cried. “We are dying!”

Will Riker had known something was about to happen before it started.

It wasn’t due to any great captain’s intuition, though. He just knew Deanna Troi, knew her every nuance of expression better than he knew his own. So when she’d abruptly grown distracted as they engaged in light banter with the rest of the bridge crew (well, all except Tuvok—the middle-aged Vulcan tactical officer wasn’t the bantering type), he’d realized that she was sensing something, and readied himself for what she might say or do next.

What he hadn’t expected was that Tuvok would be the first to react. Hearing a strangled baritone cry from the tactical station, Riker whirled to see Tuvok gasping and clutching the console for support. His teeth were clenched and he was clearly struggling for control…but his eyes showed panic and dread. Glancing over at Deanna, Riker saw the same emotions in her eyes, though she seemed to be controlling it better. “Mr. Tuvok, report,” Riker snapped, hoping the appeal to discipline would help him focus.

“I am…receiving telepathic impulses…raw emotion…terror! Pain! Aahh!!” He wrenched his eyes shut, fighting the panic.

As Riker moved closer to Tuvok, Deanna came up behind him. “I sense the same things. Fear, agony, loss…also anger.”

“Why is it hitting him harder?” Vale asked.

Deanna looked away for a moment. “I’ve…had reason to learn to strengthen my shields against mental intrusion.”

Riker winced at the reminder of Shinzon, and of the other mental incursions Deanna had been subjected to over her career. But this was a time for business. “Is this the same thing you sensed the other night? The nightmare?”

“I think so.”

Tuvok was still struggling. If anything, he seemed embarrassed by Troi’s superior control. “Bridge to sickbay,” Riker said. “Dr. Ree, we could use you up here.”

“I was just about to call you,”came Ree’s growling tenor. “Several crew members have just come down with severe panic attacks. Cadet Orilly, Lieutenant Chamish, even Ensign Savalek and the Lady T’Pel. All psi-sensitives, sir. I imagine Commanders Troi and Tuvok are reacting similarly, are they not?”

“I’m managing it, Doctor,” Deanna told him. “But Tuvok is having a harder time coping.”

“If you will have him brought to sickbay, I should be able to suppress his telepathic senses.”

“No, Captain,” Tuvok said, gathering himself with an effort. “The initial shock…has subsided. I am…in control.”

“I still want the doctor to look at you,” Riker said. He had an ulterior motive to the offer, thinking Tuvok might welcome an excuse to be there for his wife, T’Pel. When Tuvok had accepted the post of tactical and second officer, it had been with the provision that his wife be allowed to join him aboard the ship. After being separated from her for seven years by Voyager’s abduction to the Delta Quadrant, and facing the prospect of a similar separation twice in recent months (first by imprisonment on Romulus, then by Titan’s stranding in the Small Mag Cloud), he had expressed a wish to have her with him aboard the ship, and she had assented to come.

But if Tuvok was concerned for his wife, he showed no outward sign. “No! I…believe this to be a distress call. If so, the insights I can provide may be needed. They are only emotions…I am their master.”

Riker turned to Troi. “Do you agree? A distress call?”

“I do,” she answered without hesitation. “Something out there is pleading desperately for help. Something with a very powerful mind.”

And what could terrify something that powerful?Riker wondered. Whatever it was, they would need to be ready. He looked over at Tuvok, gauging his mental state. The Vulcan’s reputation as one of the fabled Voyagersurvivors had preceded him, but Riker still didn’t know the man well enough to tell whether he was really in control or simply putting on a brave front. But he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “All right. You’re relieved from tactical, Commander—” He cut off Tuvok’s protest with a look. “But you can remain on the bridge to advise.”

Tuvok nodded stiffly. “Acknowledged.”

“Mr. Keru, take over tactical.” The big Trill worked his security station’s controls, slaving the tactical console to it. Riker turned to the tan-skinned Bajoran at the science station. “Mr. Jaza, scan the area for life signs, psionic energy, any unusual phenomena. Let’s see who’s trying to spread around their bad mood.”

Jaza replied promptly. “Stellar cartography reports strong life signs at bearing 282 mark 20, range point-one-two light-years.”

“Is there a star system there?”

“Negative, sir; they’re in open space, moving at high impulse. Hold on…. I’m getting energy discharges.”

“A battle?” Christine Vale asked.

“Hard to tell. The discharges seem bioelectric.”

“Let’s find out. Ensign Lavena—set an intercept course, warp eight, and engage.”

“Aye, Captain. Estimate arrival in three minutes.”

As the ship jumped to warp, Riker moved back to Deanna’s side. “Do you still get the sense of familiarity?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, maintaining proper discipline while they were on the bridge. “It’s extremely alien, yet it’s something I’ve been in contact with before…a long time ago, I think. I’m trying to remember.”

“I believe I can get a visual on long-range sensors,” Jaza reported. “Just a moment…there.”

Riker turned to the screen. At first all he saw was a group of pearlescent blobs of light, little more than pinpoints at this range. They were moving quickly, on erratic, independent courses. As Jaza worked his console, a set of crosshairs targeted the nearest blob and the screen zoomed in, tracking it. It was a translucent, rounded shape, apparently lenticular, with one face turned nearly toward their vantage point. “It reads over a kilometer in diameter,” Jaza said. It was illuminated from within by a bluish glow and by numerous points of reddish light arranged in concentric rings. Faint radial striations subdivided its surface into eight wedges. Riker felt the same sense of uncertain familiarity that Deanna described.

Then it angled sideways and Riker recognized it instantly. The eight long, feathery tentacles that trailed behind it, giving it the aspect of a vast jellyfish swimming through the lightless depths of the ocean, made it instantly recognizable. “The Farpoint creatures!”

Vale turned to him. “Sir?”

“We encountered them on our very first mission on the Enterprise,Deanna and I,” Riker explained. “Sixteen years ago, in the Deneb system. I think we ended up calling them ‘star-jellies.’ They’re shapeshifters, and more than that. They could read thoughts and synthesize any object you could think of, like living replicators. They even have transporter capability.”

“They sound more like ships than living beings,” Jaza opined.

“They’re definitely life-forms,” Troi told him. “Immensely powerful telepaths and empaths. I’ve never felt such overwhelming emotions. That first time, whenever I lowered my mental shields, it was like I became a conduit for their emotions, feeling them as if they were my own, and unable to resist them.”

“I can…verify that assessment, Commander,” Tuvok said stiffly.

“That would explain what’s happening to the crew,” Vale observed. “But what is it they’re so afraid of?”

“There’s a smaller cluster of objects closing on the, umm, school,” Jaza said. “They read similar to the jellies, but different.” He switched the viewscreen to a wider view. Harpoons of purple light were flashing through the school, scattering the star-jellies still further.

“Shields on standby,” Riker ordered Keru.

“Shields, aye,” the burly, bearded Trill acknowledged. “And weapons, sir?”

“Not yet,” Riker said as the attackers came into view. He recognized them as well: gray, lenticular metallic shapes, firing destructive blasts of violet plasma from their central concavities. “They’re another form of the star-jellies—apparently their attack mode.”

Vale frowned. “Have we stumbled into some kind of civil war?”

“It could simply be competition for food or territory,” Jaza suggested.

“Either way,” Vale went on, “I don’t think it’s something we have any business interfering in.”

Riker realized she was probably right, though it filled him with regret. There was something ethereally lovely about the star-jellies. He still remembered the sense of awe he’d felt when they’d revealed themselves at Deneb, when the one held captive by the Bandi had shed its imposed disguise as “Farpoint Station” and ascended into space, and reached out to caress its mate’s tendrils in a gesture whose simple poignancy transcended species.

“Why don’t they fight back?” Keru asked. Riker realized he was right; the attacks were entirely one-sided.

“Maybe they can only fire in the armored mode,” Jaza said.

“There’s more,” Deanna said. “Somehow they just…can’t. Or won’t.”

Just then, one of the jellies was struck a dead-on blow to its ventral side, between the tendrils. Two of the wispy appendages broke free and spun away. At the moment of impact, Deanna and Tuvok both convulsed in pain, and Tuvok let out a strangled scream. Vapor erupted from the wound, and the jelly’s internal lights flared, flickered and then fell dark, first the blue glow, then the rings.

“Counselor? Mr. Tuvok?”

“Apologies, Captain,” Tuvok said. “Not just…the creature’s death throes. The others…”

Deanna nodded. “The grief of the others, combined…it’s extremely intense. Even with my shields up I felt it.”

“Can you sense anything from the attackers?”

She shook her head. “But I can’t really probe without lowering my defenses, and I’m hesitant to do that.”

“Tuvok?”

“I…do not believe there is anything to sense, Captain. The creatures feel the attackers are… wrong…a corruption…there is a revulsion, as though toward a corpse.”

Deanna nodded. “Yes. These are like dead things to them, and yet they’re attacking, menacing. The jellies feel a sense of mortal dread, as though the attackers were…well, the closest analogies I can think of are the zombies from old Earth monster movies.”

Vale frowned. “Jaza, scan the attackers more closely for biosigns.”

“If I remember right,” Riker told her, “the Enterprise’s sensors couldn’t penetrate them. There are substances in their hulls…or hides…that resist scans.”

“We’ve learned a few new tricks in the past sixteen years, sir,” Jaza replied. It was an understatement; the Lunaclass carried prototype sensors beyond anything else in Starfleet. “Uh-huh, those hulls are well shielded, but just give me a moment to calibrate…There. The attackers show limited activity in some biosystems, including propulsion and defense…but no anabolic processes, and nothing that resembles cognitive activity. The walking dead indeed. But I’m also reading numerous biosignatures inside them.”

Riker looked up at him sharply. “What kind of biosignatures?”

“Just a moment, I’m refining resolution…. They seem to be endothermic bipeds, about our size.”

Riker exchanged a look with Deanna, then turned to Dakal at ops. “Cadet, try hailing them.”

“Hailing…No response,” the young Cardassian said.

“A crew?” Vale asked.

“I’ve been inside two of these creatures,” Riker said. “In at least some of their forms, they contain passages that resemble corridors, with a habitable environment inside. They certainly could be adapted into ships.”

“And we’ve encountered living ships before,” Deanna said.

“Except these people don’t seem to need them alive,” Riker said coldly. “Dakal, keep hailing. Ensign Lavena—put Titanbetween the attackers and the star-jellies. Mr. Keru, shields at maximum.” Vale threw him a look, but kept her counsel for the moment.

There were too many ships for Titanto block standing still. But she was light, fast, and maneuverable, and her pilot had grown up slaloming through Pacifican coral forests and dodging serpent-rays. Lavena flitted the ship around almost playfully before the attackers’ sights, keeping them from getting a clean shot and probably making them dizzy to boot.

“We’re receiving a hail,” Dakal finally reported. That was a good sign. “Hailing frequencies” were a standard first-contact handshake protocol, allowing two ships’ computers to begin with universal physical and mathematical constants and build a translation matrix in seconds, if their databases didn’t already have any languages in common. Any warp-capable species with any interest in talking to strangers eventually developed such protocols. The return hail meant that the attackers had at least the willingness to communicate, and that was a good start.

“On screen,” said Riker, turning to confront the attackers. When the screen came on, his eyes widened. He hadn’t expected them to be beautiful. The screen showed a number of delicate-looking bipeds, slim-boned and decked with downy, green-gold feathers. Hawklike eyes stared from above sharp-toothed, beak-tipped muzzles, and vivid-hued, feathery crests topped many of their heads. Their feathered coats gave them no need for clothing, but they wore protective gear on their joints and vital areas, plus various equipment belts or harnesses and assorted insignia or sigils. Behind them was a passageway of familiar design, triangular and round-cornered, its ribbed, cardboard-brown walls embossed with intricate patterns that seemed neither wholly organic nor wholly artificial.

“Flit off, for your own sake,”the one nearest the camera said curtly. He (the translator gave the being a gruff, nasal baritone) was far from the largest of the group, his headcrest was threadbare and faded, and there seemed to be considerable scarring beneath his feathery coat; but he carried himself with a casual yet undeniable authority. “Our quarry won’t linger if they have time to gather their warp fields!”

“I’m Captain William T. Riker of the starship Titan,representing the United Federation of Planets. I don’t know the nature of your conflict, but my people aren’t inclined to sit idly by when we see sentient beings dying. We don’t intend to take sides, but we’d be glad to offer our services as a neutral mediator in your dispute.” His voice carried more steel than his words; he only hoped their translators were good enough to render it.

“You talk against the wind,”said the avian, his matter-of-fact tone clashing with his poetic phrasing. “Toy with cosmic fire, and the Spirit’s not to blame for your burns. The Hunt must be!”His image faded, leaving stars.

“Captain, they’re firing on the jellies,” Keru reported.

“Block it, Lavena! All crew, brace for impact!”

Magenta fire filled the viewer. The blow badly rattled the ship and dimmed the lights. “Shields are holding,” Keru reported. “But power systems are being disrupted. I don’t know how it’s getting through.”

Another bolt hit, even harder this time. Riker had to clutch the arms of his chair to stay in it. “The discharges…” Tuvok said with difficulty. “Organic rather than technological…our shields may not be adequately calibrated.” A third hit rammed home the point. Console screens flickered as ship’s power systems compensated for an overload somewhere.

“Can we compensate?”

“We may not have to,” Jaza said. “The star-jellies have just gone to warp.”

“Attackers breaking off,” Keru said a moment later.

“Are they in pursuit?”

“Negative, sir. My guess is, they can’t track them at warp. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been so concerned about them getting away.”

Riker could barely imagine how organic beings could enter warp in the first place, though he’d seen it more than once. But there were other priorities. “Damage report!”

Vale was already coordinating the reports on her side console. “Minor casualty reports, nothing serious. We’ve had EPS blowouts on four decks. Synchronization failure in dorsal shield emitters. Several impulse injectors are fused. Warp is fine, but the navigational deflector’s offline. We won’t be moving anywhere for a while.”

“Bridge to engineering,” Riker called. “Estimated repair time for engines and main deflector?”

“At least six hours, depending on whether you want shields back too,”came Ra-Havreii’s voice. “Longer if you want me to spend time computing a better estimate.”

“Just do the best you can, Doctor.”

As he spoke, a bleep came from Ops. “We’re being hailed, sir,” Dakal told him. “Same ship as before.”

“On screen.”

The grizzled avian commander appeared once more. “I am Qui’hibra, leader of the fleet-clan Qui’Tir’Ieq. We see that you have suffered significant damage. I offer my regret for our part in causing it, but you were warned and chose not to heed. I pray that your misguided actions ended none of your people’s lives.”

Riker was taken by surprise; he’d been expecting something more bellicose. “No, thank you, Captain Qui’hibra. But I appreciate your concern.”

The avian seemed genuinely relieved, in a stern sort of way. “That is providential. The Hunt is risky enough for those who seek it willingly, let alone those whose lack of understanding places them in its path. Others have not been so fortunate in the past. You would be wise to keep that in mind in the future.”

“Captain Qui’hibra—”

“For the present, though, your ship needs repair. We will remain in the area for some time while we process our kills. If needed, we can spare the crew and resources of one skymount to assist in your repairs while we do so. But only one.”