Chapter 5 - Vengeance Is Mine
25 December 2378…
Jack McCall straightened his uniform for the fifth time in the last ten minutes. He knew his hesitation had nothing to do with the clothing he kept fussing with.
"I doubt the G'voda will be moved one way or the other by how your uniform looks," Melissa said as she walked next to him.
Jack backed away from the mirror. "This might be the last time I ever get to wear this thing," he said. "I'd like to get it right at least once."
Melissa adjusted his rank pins. "If you keep this up, Negev will have to command the ship during the battle."
"That might not be such a bad idea," Jack mumbled.
Melissa frowned. "Have you always been like this?"
He turned to her. His face displayed a seriousness she'd never seen. "When it comes to leading people into battle, yes," Jack said.
He turned back to the mirror and his uniform. "Maybe it would be better if I wasn't up on that bridge."
Melissa pulled him around to face her. "The day it's easy for you to take this ship into battle is the day you don't belong in the center seat," she said.
Jack gave her a quick kiss. "I suppose we ought to go."
"I have faith in you, Jack," Melissa said with a gleam in her eye. "I always have when we've been on the bridge together."
A grin came to his face. "Only on the bridge?"
She smiled. "I don't need faith when we're together other places... I've got experience to tell me you know what you're doing."
Melissa returned his kiss, then stepped away from him. "Shall we go, Captain?"
"After you, Commander."
***
Admiral Fergus Simmons stood on the bridge of the starship Venture and watched the tactical display on the main viewscreen. He did his best to stay out of the way of Captain K'lremi and her crew as he waited for the battle to begin.
Cyrus Wakernaggle walked up beside him. "Good morning, Admiral," he said in a far too upbeat voice. "I assume everything is going according to plan."
"It usually does up to the point when hostilities begin," Simmons said.
"Well, I have no doubt we shall succeed," the ambassador stated. "We do after all have the Oceana class ships with us."
Simmons frowned. "I had vowed to never allow those ships to be used like this, Ambassador," the admiral replied. "I hope that is the only regret I have at the end of this day."
"Necessity usually doesn't indulge our wishes," Wakernaggle said. "Those four ships will finally prove their worth."
"Or prove the fears held by myself and a number of others," Simmons said, returning his eyes to watch the tactical display.
"Do you fear success?"
"I worry that each time we use the full force of the Oceana class it will only become easier," Simmons told him. "Until one day an entire fleet of them will be built, turning Starfleet into a destructive force to be feared by the rest of the Galaxy."
***
Jack walked onto the bridge of his ship with Melissa and moved quickly to stand in front of his command chair while she took her place at the operations station.
"We are seven minutes from dropping out of warp, sir," Negev stated. "Commander Falco signals he is standing by aboard the Abdiel."
"Very well," Jack acknowledged. He turned to Kristen Bishop at the engineering station. "Have the weapons systems passed their final tests, Commander?"
She turned to him and smiled. "All modifications have been verified as operational, Captain. They even passed Mr. Evans' scrutiny."
Jack glanced over at his old friend behind the tactical station. "Imagine that," he said with a grin.
"We'll see how they perform," Hank said with a smirk. "I still won't believe it until I see it work in a combat situation."
Jack sat down and touched a control on the arm of his chair. "Mr. Falco, you may proceed."
Over the intercom Falco's voice said, "We'll give them a pounding they won't soon forget, sir. Falco out."
Jack looked Melissa's direction.
"The Abdiel is away, sir," she informed him.
"Any sign we have been detected yet, Mr. Hoffman?"
"No indication of any active or passive scanning," Kyle said, looking over his display at the science station. "No sentinel buoys or other reconnaissance devices."
Jack frowned. He didn't like how easy things were going. Usually a battle that went well early on overflowed with hell by the end. If this one went bad, it would go extremely bad.
Jack glanced again at Melissa. She turned to him and smiled. Their life together had been good the last three weeks despite the way this day had loomed over them.
"The Abdiel has joined the other Defiant class vessels," Negev said. "They are on course and on schedule."
"It won't be long now," Hank whispered behind Jack.
"Don't sound so pessimistic, Mr. Evans," Jack chided playfully.
"You're not the one just a week away from retirement," Hank said. "That's when guys like me always buy it."
***
Seven minutes later the Abdiel and her sister ships came out of warp only thirty thousand kilometers from Nybiros. As planned, they quickly moved towards the orbital emplacements high above the metal surfaced world.
***
"Raise shields and arm all weapons," Falco told his young Bajoran conn officer. "Let's move to our first target."
Falco watched the main viewscreen as they maneuvered through a winding, evasive course. A shining metal satellite, larger than his own vessel and bristling with long spires, moved to the center of the display.
"Fire!" he ordered.
A set of five quantum torpedoes left the Abdiel and quickly covered the distance to the G'voda weapon. They flared as they impacted the surface of it.
"Status?" Falco asked.
"It's hull shows some surface damage, but little else," the tactical officer replied.
"It's moving!" the young conn officer informed them.
"Evasive!" Falco ordered.
The Abdiel banked to starboard moving out of the way moments before the orbital emplacement fired a blinding green energy beam.
"The Laran has been hit!" Lieutenant Karsila, their communications officer, stated.
"How bad?" Falco asked.
"They're gone, sir," his tactical officer stated.
Falco tightened his jaw. "Bring us around again."
"But sir, we were supposed to make our attack and go," Karsila said.
"We're going in again," Falco said firmly. He turned to the tactical officer. "When we're in range, hit it with everything we have."
A minute later, the Abdiel fired again, but this time with phasers and torpedoes. The orbital weapon attempted to target them, but before it got the Abdiel in its sights, the last of the torpedoes hit, fracturing its hull.
"That's more like it!" Falco shouted.
A moment later, the emplacement burst into a ball of expanding plasma.
Falco turned to Karsila. "Inform the fleet our weapons have destroyed one of the emplacements and we are going to warp."
She smiled. "Aye, sir."
***
Jack sat in his chair smiling as Arthur Conrad relayed the report from the Abdiel.
"Now that our chief engineer's new weapon has been field tested, how about we go put it to good use?" Jack asked, turning to Negev who was also smiling.
"Mr. s'Felis," Negev said, addressing their conn officer. "Take us in."
Hank Evans looked over at Kristen Bishop and gave her a nod of approval.
"I told you not to worry, Hank," she told him.
"It's my job to worry," he responded.
***
On the surface of Nybiros, Cilda walked down a wide street filled with other G'voda. She had decided within the next several days she would make an attempt to revive the creature within the stasis unit, but since as far as she knew, no sentient creature had ever been kept in stasis before let alone revived from it, she was uncertain if she would get the answer to her question or kill the one opportunity she had.
But she couldn't stand waiting any longer. If the creature was still alive, all she would have to do is parade it around before Syronus and his cadre of maniacs and let the impact spread across Nybiros. While the meaning for her own existence would be the same, she still relished the thought of watching the G'voda suffer the agony of the truth of their existence, or as she suspected, non-existence.
Suddenly, a sound she had never heard before filled the air. If she hadn't believed it impossible, she would have assumed from the tone of the noise that it...
Several sets of information were quickly transmitted into her mind. These days she feared any intrusion the G'voda made into her consciousness. If they detected her plan concerning the stasis unit, Syronus would have it and her destroyed to keep the secret from getting out. She half suspected he knew already.
Cilda stopped. In the five hundred years she had lived as a captive of her people's conquerors, she had never been sent the signal now entering her mind.
Nybiros was under attack!
Cilda's mind exploded with glee. Someone was assaulting the homeworld of the G'voda. How she hoped it was her own people finally retaliating against their enemy.
But wait! Her mind raced through all of the possibilities before her. The one constant of battle is confusion. If I were to take advantage of this, I could...
But the risk was so great if she was caught.
When was the last time I risked anything? she asked herself.
Cilda turned and walked the opposite direction from where her duties took her. No matter how the day unfolded, she had decided when it was finished she would no longer serve the G'voda.
***
The bridge of the Chamberlain rocked violently. It took Jack several moments to regain his bearings.
"Status!" he demanded.
"Shields down to thirty percent," Hank Evans said as the lights slowly came back on. "That last one got us good."
While there were only nine of the orbital emplacements remaining, the G'voda had changed their tactics to focus on the largest of the Starfleet vessels. The Hyperion's shields had already failed and the ship had gone to warp leaving the system. Jack feared the Chamberlain wouldn't be very far behind at the rate things were going.
The smaller ships were now being left alone by the emplacements, but that was only after a Sovereign and two Nebula class vessels had suffered severe damage. One of the Nebulas, the Hopkins, was adrift and having its crew transferred to the Tethys.
Jack figured it wouldn't be too long before Admiral Simmons called it a day, but Jack wanted those last nine weapons platforms.
"Emplacement number nineteen targeted," Hank said.
"Fire!" Jack ordered.
The Chamberlain sent a barrage of torpedoes and let loose its primary weapon system on the orbital station. In moments the platform shattered in a blaze of hot gas and metal.
***
Cilda activated the anti-grav device on the bottom of the stasis unit and pushed it out of the storage room it had been in for months. As she made her way down a long underground corridor, she did her best to act like she was doing what she was supposed to while other G'voda ran past her.
She wanted to feel sorry for them. She knew what it was like to live with the belief that one's world was completely safe from harm only to have that illusion shattered by an attack. Her mind thought back to the day when the ships came down out of the sky and killed so many of her people.
It was then any sympathy left her. The G'voda deserved everything they were getting as far as she was concerned.
Let them all burn! her mind shouted.
Ten minutes later she passed the last set of doors on the way to a shuttleport and freedom.
"Where are you going with that?" an electronic voice from behind her asked.
Cilda turned and found a large two meter tall sentry approaching. The bulky, four legged machine stopped a short distance from her. She had to think of something and quickly.
"I was ordered by Syronus to prepare this for transport to the world the masters have gone to," she said. "One of them has chosen to inhabit the creature's body."
The sentry moved slowly toward the stasis unit and peered into the transparent section revealing a small creature which appeared sleeping or dead. "I heard nothing of this."
"I have never known Syronus to consult a sentry before doing something," she said. "But if I am delayed much longer the power system of this unit will fail before I can get it to where it's going and the body will begin to decompose."
She took a step nearer the taller machine. "Leaving you to explain to Syronus why you felt it necessary to detain me."
The sentry's head leaned closer to her.
"Go," it said and quickly turned away. "Make sure you receive authorization to depart. You don't want to run into the defense shield, little one."
Cilda almost blurted out an insult at the larger machine, but decided she'd soon make it and the rest of the G'voda pay for every slight she'd suffered from them.
She quickly pushed the stasis unit into a nearby shuttle.
Now, only one thing remained.
Cilda went to a communication console twenty feet away from the shuttle and placed her metal hand on it. Her eyes changed color from red to bright blue as she began accessing the G'voda information network. Every aspect of the planet's functioning could be found, with the most important systems requiring a number of codes and verification.
But Cilda had had five hundred years to plan, and learn, and investigate. She had originally thought when she had discovered the control to the planetary defense shield that one day she would turn it off just as a prank, something to merely upset the G'voda. Escape had never entered her mind because a lone ship leaving the surface, even if it could get past the shield, would be quickly retrieved.
And the punishment she knew would await her was far too horrible to ever risk.
But this day, was unlike all of the thousands upon thousands of days she had known since being forced to live on Nybiros. This day, the G'voda would be occupied with an attack she hoped was teaching them a lesson in humility.
There! she thought as her mind traversed the maze of commands, codes, and interfaces. The defense shield control system was where she had found it two hundred years ago. Now she only had to send a combination of commands and wait to see if she had been as smart as she believed she was.
But Cilda had no idea what she was actually putting in motion. There was no way she could know.
***
Jack McCall watched the main viewscreen on the bridge of his ship as the battle went from bad to worse. In the last five minutes, fighter sized craft had left the remaining G'voda orbital weapon emplacements and begun assaulting the smaller Starfleet vessels. There weren't many of the small G'voda ships, but they made up for their lack of numbers with weapons the Federation ships could barely defend against.
Only seven of the emplacements remained, but they had just lost another Nebula class starship in addition to the five ships already destroyed. Fortunately, the Oceana class ships had been able to get the personnel off those ships before they were completely lost.
The Chamberlain itself wasn't far from having to disengage. He knew the Oceana was in about the same shape.
They wouldn't get all of the remaining weapons platforms.
"Transmission from the Venture, sir," Arthur Conrad informed him. "Admiral Simmons will address the fleet in thirty seconds."
Jack suspected it would be the order to withdraw.
I'm sorry Mei, he thought. I wish I could have done more for you today.
Jack looked over at Melissa and could see the disappointment in her eyes. Though he doubted she blamed him for their lack of total success, it was hard for him not to take it that way.
"Uh, Jack..." Hank stammered from the tactical station.
Jack turned around to face his tactical officer. "What is it?"
"You may think I've lost it, but..." Hank looked up. "Their planetary defense shield is down."
Jack stood frozen for a moment. Of all of the things he had expected to hear, that wasn't even on the list.
"Say again," Jack ordered as everyone on the bridge turned to Hank.
Evans double checked his scans. "The G'voda planetary defense shield has just gone down, Captain," Hank said with a wide grin.
"Confirmed," Hoffman stated from the science station.
"What?!" Jack asked. "Are you sure?"
Hank again looked over his scans. "Yes, it's down!"
Jack took a quick breath. He had to calm himself. There was no reason for the G'voda to lower the defense shield around Nybiros. It had to be a trap.
"Do you pick up any other activity?"
"None," Hank said. "No ships coming from the surface, no weapons powering up, nothing."
As much as he suspected a trap to get them away from the orbital emplacements, Jack couldn't ignore this.
"Hail the fleet!" Jack ordered his communications officer. "Helm, alter course."
Jack sat back in his command chair. "Take us in."
***
On the Venture, Admiral Fergus Simmons had been watching the tactical display and as proud as he was of those under his command, it was clear they would not be able to finish their mission--- at least not without far more loss of life.
He was sure the Council would see it differently, but they had delivered a clear sign to the G'voda that the Federation would not sit idly by and be attacked. They had destroyed two thirds of the defensive systems in orbit of the planet. For Simmons, that was enough.
He moved to stand directly in front of the viewscreen.
The Venture's communications officer turned to him, "Admiral, you are on fleet wide..."
The bridge speakers blurted out the chime which indicated a message was being received.
"This is Captain McCall," Jack's voice began. "Their shield is down, repeat, the planetary shield is down. Target power sources. Fire at will."
Everyone looked at Simmons, knowing he was about to give the order to withdraw.
K'lremi turned to him. "Admiral?"
Wakernaggle walked up to just a few feet behind Simmons.
"Put me on," Simmons said.
The communications officer nodded to him.
"This is Admiral Simmons, all able ships follow the Chamberlain," he said with no hint of emotion. "Target power sources and weapons systems only."
"Good boy, Jack," Wakernaggle whispered with a wide grin.
***
"Primary online!" Hank Evans said.
"Fire," Jack said quietly.
***
The Tethys and Oceana followed the Chamberlain toward Nybiros as the reactive quantum plasma emitters on each of the ships glowed a moment and then unleashed a hellish fury toward the surface of the metal covered world.
***
The sky parted on Nybiros and the might of the U.S.S. Chamberlain and her two sister ships struck the surface with the wrath of an angry god whose patience had come to a brutal end. A flood of light and energy erupted from a power station 2 kilometers from the center of the capital city. The G'voda on the streets looked on, unable to believe the surface of their world was under attack.
Their world!
It was impossible!
Not since the days of the great battles between their masters and the Beota had they known such utter, desperate helplessness.
Cilda looked out the forward viewport of her shuttle as it took to the sky. She also could not believe what she saw, but her reaction was the exact opposite of those on the surface. She was elated beyond measure. It was the single best day she had experienced in five centuries.
As her craft gained altitude, Cilda, the former prisoner of the G'voda cried out with a joy her metal body with its circuits and neural pathways could hardly contain.
I am free!
***
Deep in the city, within a large control center, a G'voda commander went to a never used panel and did the unthinkable.
***
Hank Evans looked down at his tactical station. "I'm picking up a signal, Jack. It's from the surface."
Jack smiled as his ship continued to destroy major power systems on the surface. "A distress signal. Their fleet will be coming."
"Even with their wormhole technology, it will take them a bit of time to get here," Hank said.
"I'd like to be gone by then, Mr. Evans."
***
On the Venture's bridge, Simmons and Wakernaggle stood watching as the Oceana class starships pounded away at the surface of Nybiros.
Wakernaggle stepped forward. "The cities, Jack," he whispered. "Hit the cities! They're only machines!"
Simmons slowly turned to give the Ambassador a concerned look. "What was that, Ambassador?"
"You and your captains need to be mindful of the goal here, Admiral."
"According to my orders, the goal is to show the G'voda we could defend ourselves and strike back at them," Simmons said. "Was there something I missed?"
Wakernaggle frowned and turned his gaze back to the viewscreen.
***
"The capital city's central power is down," Hank Evans told Jack. "The Tethys is hitting a number of smaller power stations farther out. The remaining Nebula and Sovereign class ships are taking out every weapon system on the surface we can identify."
"Mr. Hoffman," Jack asked, turning to his science officer. "Any spatial distortions?"
"Nothing yet," Hoffman answered, looking at his scanners. "I'm increasing the range of my observations."
"I doubt they'll arrive too far from the planet," Negev said with a grin.
"Think they'll be surprised by what they find when they do get here?" Melissa asked.
"Let's hope so," Jack said.
"Jack," Hank said, his voice lowered. "If we target the center of their capital we could end this problem permanently."
It took Jack a moment to realize what it was Hank was suggesting. "I can't hit a city that has little to no military..."
"We're not talking about people for god's sake," Hank insisted.
Jack McCall looked at the destruction he was raining down upon the world below and wondered if Hank had a point. The G'voda were a group of mechanical mad dogs who had brought death to at least six Federation worlds. They hadn't left many survivors in the wake of their murderous rampage. Perhaps they needed to know what their victims had gone through... what he had gone through.
Jack's mind drifted a moment back to a day more than two years ago. A day he held the power of life and death over someone else who had shown no remorse or compassion for his victims.
"Revenge, Jack?" Mei-Wan had asked him aboard the shuttle as he grabbed the commander of the prisoner of war camp they had been held in. "Is that all you have left? Revenge?"
"He deserves to die!" Jack had shouted back at her as he neared the airlock. "For what he did to my crew, for what he did to Robin, and for what he did to you and I!"
Mei-Wan had put her hand on his. "Maybe so, but you're better than revenge, Jack. Let him face justice the right way."
"This has nothing to do with being better! He needs to pay for what he did! I'm not going to let a bunch of damned diplomats set him free!"
She had stood silent for several moments, then looked up at him. "Then I'll do it." She had then walked over to the airlock controls on the shuttle they were on.
"I'm the one who has to do this!" he'd said.
"Why, Captain? What does it matter who kills him?"
"Get away from those controls, Lieutenant Lau," Jack had ordered her.
But Mei-Wan, as on so many occasions after that, had been stubborn to the end. "No."
"Mei, I know you, you can't kill him, it would..."
"It would what, Jack? Would it turn me into a monster like Abolas? Is that what you're afraid of? Would it turn me into a cold-blooded killer?"
"Why are you doing this?" he'd nearly begged.
She'd walked up close to him. "Maybe I'm afraid of the same thing you are. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Jack. I don't intend on living with a monster." She'd then pointed toward Abolas, the twisted creature cringing on the floor Jack had been trying to toss out the airlock. "Don't become him, Jack."
He knew he'd acted more out of love for Mei-Wan than principle that day. Now the Universe seemed determined to finally teach Jack the lesson he'd failed to comprehend more than two years earlier. This time he understood revenge was a lie. It lured one in with the promise of making things right again, but Jack knew that was impossible. The G'voda could be fought and defended against, but what they had done to Mei-Wan, his father, and the millions of other lives on the worlds they'd attacked was simply what was. It could never be made right.
Jack turned to Melissa at the operations console. He could see the worry in her eyes. It was the same look he'd seen in Mei-Wan's eyes on that shuttle years before.
Is that all you are, Jack? Revenge?
I don't know if I'm better than that, Mei, he thought. But I'm sure the hell going to try to be.
"Jack, this may be our only chance to hit them," Hank pleaded.
"We've made our point," Jack said, sitting back in his command chair. "Let's go home."
"They're only machines, Jack."
"I'm sure they refer to us as only organic," Jack countered.
Arthur Conrad turned from his communications station. "We are receiving orders from Admiral Simmons to withdraw, sir."
"Acknowledge the order, Mr. Conrad," Jack said.
"That should be all the proof you need!" Hank blurted out. "If Simmons thinks we should stop, then you can be damn sure we need to press the attack!"
Jack took a deep breath. "You've only got a week left until retirement, Hank. Unless you want to spend it in the brig, I suggest you power down our weapons and prepare to go to warp."
"This is a mistake, Captain," Hank said.
"Your opinion has been noted," Jack said. He turned to Negev. "Set a course for 238 mark 21."
"Aye Captain," Negev said. "238 mark 21."
***
"Are you insane?!" Wakernaggle yelled at Simmons as they entered the ready room on the Venture.
"Your status as an ambassador may afford you certain eccentricities, but I'm not sure addressing a Starfleet Admiral in that way is one of them, sir," Simmons responded dryly as he took the seat behind the desk.
Wakernaggle wasn't deterred. "You had them! With three Oceana class ships at your disposal you could have struck a blow against the G'voda that would have ended these attacks!"
"Or, it might have forced them into a situation where they had no choice but to mount a full out offensive against the Federation."
"Your orders were..."
"My orders were to attack the sentry satellites in orbit of Nybiros," Simmons shot back. "For the most part I accomplished that mission."
Wakernaggle glared at the Admiral. "Your lack of ability to adapt on the field of battle is astounding, Admiral."
Simmons merely stared at the ambassador.
"You know the President's intent for this mission," Wakernaggle said. "You had an opportunity to give the Federation a clear victory."
"I saw no such opportunity," Simmons said. "There were no military targets of significance left on the surface of that planet. All I saw were cities."
"Cities full of machines," Wakernaggle spat. "They are a menace! We must stop them before they destroy us!"
"If the Federation Council had wanted me to obliterate cities they would have given me orders to that effect," Simmons said looking up at the ambassador. "Of course, in that case I would have resigned and taken my concerns public."
Wakernaggle's eyes widened. "Doesn't the protection of the Federation and its people mean anything to you, Simmons?"
"Yes it does," the admiral stated. "But I'm also concerned about what kind of Federation I'm defending."
"It's not like you'd be slaughtering people!"
Simmons stared at him. "Didn't you read the report about the machine which came aboard the Chamberlain five months ago?"
"Yes, it was all very interesting."
"Their counselor certainly believed it possible that particular machine contained the consciousness of Mei-Wan McCall."
"And Jack destroyed it because it was necessary to save his ship and crew," Wakernaggle told him. "You had the same choice before you, Fergus, but unlike young Captain McCall, you failed."
