Cathedral by Michael Mangels (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

of them managed to get into motion. “Medical bay to security!” Ensign Richter’s voice played a note of controlled panic.

“Bowers here. Go ahead, Krissten.”

“The alien—Sacagawea—has just gotten into a highly agitated state. Maybe the fighting out there has spooked him, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“I’m on my way,” Bowers said, drawing his phaser, already at a run. Shar followed him out into the corridor and within moments the pair came bounding into the medical bay, where Lieutenant McCallum had also just arrived, phaser in hand. Bowers signaled with a quick shake of his head, and the lanky security officer stood ready to back him up.

Ensign Richter held a large hypospray in front of her. She had backed a few meters away from Sacagawea, who stood in the center of the chamber, gesticulating wildly with his spindly, insectile limbs. “Nothing is to fear now/presently,” the D’Naali was saying, repeating the phrase like a mantra. “Help/assistance is inbound/ coming. Soonfastsoon.”

Shar felt an odd tingling in his antennae, a sensation he’d felt only in the immediate proximity of either a shrouded Jem’Hadar soldier—

—or a powerful subspace transmitter.

His curiosity fully roused, Shar approached the tall, willowy being, raising a hand in the direction of Bowers and McCallum to silence their protests. Sacagawea was immediately calmed, either by the science officer’s mere presence or by his utter lack of fear.

“Are you saying that D’Naali ships are coming to assist us against the Nyazen?” Shar said, speaking slowly and distinctly so as not to overtax the universal translator. The ship shook and pitched again as yet another Nyazen salvo grappled with the Defiant’ s shielding.

“Affirm/aver this to be so,” said the creature.

Yes, Shar thought, glancing back at Bowers, whose eyes were beginning to narrow with suspicion. McCallum merely stood by, holding his phaser and looking bewildered.

“I would like to know why,” the tactical officer said to the D’Naali, “you seem so sure about that.”

Shar tapped his combadge. “Ensign ch’Thane to Commander Vaughn.”

“Vaughn here,” came the curt response. “We’re a bit busy at the moment, Ensign.” The ship shook yet again, as though to underscore the commander’s words.

Shar winced inwardly, recalling his zhavey’ s frequent tongue-lashings over far more trivial matters. “I don’t think this can wait, sir.”

“Then make it good, Mister.”

  *  *  *

After listening to Shar’s bare-bones report, Vaughn ordered Tenmei to fall back another twenty million kilometers sunward. Undeterred, the Nyazen flotilla continued its dogged pursuit.

“They’re rapidly closing to weapons range again,” Merimark said from the tactical station, her tone losing a bit of its customary professional detachment. “Pulse phaser cannons are still off-line from the last salvos.”

“Propulsion?” Vaughn asked.

“Warp and impulse both available,” Merimark reported. “As long as we don’t take any more damage, that is. Ensign VanBuskirk reports that the last hits effectively wiped out the cloaking-device repairs that were in progress.”

Vaughn wasn’t surprised. A working cloaking device would have been far too much to ask for. “Look sharp, Ensign Merimark. Ensign Tenmei, I want you to be ready to warp us out of this system on my order.”

Tenmei cast a quizzical glance over her shoulder. “Sir?”

“That’s only as a last resort, Ensign. I’m not abandoning our away team while there’s an alternative.”

“Captain, we can’t survive another sustained, simultaneous assault from all nine ships,” Tenmei observed with a frown.

Vaughn smiled humorlessly, recalling the discovery Shar had just related to him. “Somehow I don’t think we’ll have to.”

“I’ve got several more incoming bogeys on the long-range scanners, sir,” Merimark reported.

Vaughn hoped that was good news. “How many?”

“Eleven. No, twelve. They’ve just dropped out of low warp speed. Quickly closing on our position.”

Stroking his beard, Vaughn grunted in acknowledgment. “Let me see them.” An instant later, several long, gracefully tapered vessels appeared on the viewer.

D’Naali, Vaughn thought, picking out a particular ship from the group. Its distinctive pattern of hull scorches positively identified it as the vessel from which Sacagawea had come.

He heard the turbolift doors whoosh open behind him, and turned his chair toward the sound. Shar and Bowers stepped onto the bridge, flanking Sacagawea. The tall, insectile alien adopted a slouched-over, splayed-legged stance to accommodate the bridge’s relatively low ceiling.

“Keep a close eye on him, Mr. Bowers,” Vaughn said.

“The D’Naali are powering up their weapons,” Merimark reported, her tone wary.

A split second later the bridge viewer showed bright bluish pulses of energy issuing from the prows of several of the newly arrived vessels. But the Defiant wasn’t their target. The bursts struck the bulbous hulls of the lead Nyazen ships, who promptly returned fire. Compression disruptors again, Vaughn observed silently. Relatively low-power stuff, on both sides.

The battle unfolded quickly, and was decidedly one-sided. Although the weaponry of both sides was essentially equivalent, the newly arrived D’Naali fleet was stronger in both numbers and, apparently, in energy reserves.

“The Nyazen are breaking off,” Tenmei reported. “Most of them are now on a direct heading for the alien cathedral. Several of the D’Naali are pursuing.”

“Sometimes the cavalry really does come riding over the hill in the proverbial nick,” Bowers said, still standing vigilantly beside Sacagawea and Shar.

Vaughn turned his chair toward the tactical station. “Hail the D’Naali flagship, Ensign Merimark.”

Merimark was already listening intently to something on her earpiece. “Sir, the lead vessel is already hailing us.”

A moment later the buglike face of a D’Naali commander appeared on the viewer. Vaughn wasn’t absolutely certain this was the same being with whom he had spoken previously. They all looked remarkably similar, and Vaughn was willing to bet that they harbored precisely the same notion about humans.

“Thanking us not required/needful,” the alien began. “But your help/assistance we could accept/use in the now/futuretime.”

“How can we assist you?”

“Most impressed/astonished were we to discover/ learn of your mattermover, with which your crew/people came/went to/from our vessel—and later/subsequently gained cathedral/anathema ingress.”

Vaughn’s initial impulse was one of anger, but he reined it in, reminding himself that these beings weren’t human, or even humanoid. He had to make allowances for their culture, particularly in view of the difficulties that still existed in simply