Star Trek: Mirror Universe 05 - Rise Like Lions by David Mack

Author:David Mack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Packet Books
Published: 2011-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Mac was faced off once again with the two human men from the Defiant, in the Excalibur’s officer’s mess. He was starting to question why he had ever wanted to join the Terran Rebellion; in his opinion, people this stupid didn’t deserve his help. “Why the grozit are you fighting me on this, O’Brien? Can’t you see I’m trying to save your asses?”

“Nobody bloody asked you to save anything, you puffed-up sack of—”

“I think we’re getting off topic here,” Eddington interrupted, drawing angry stares from O’Brien and Mac. “Maybe there’s some way we can work out a power-sharing agreement, or divide the responsibilities for—”

“Forget it,” said Soleta. “What you’re describing is a fine way to run a government, but a battle fleet is no place for a debate.”

Hiren nodded. “She’s right.” He directed an imploring look at the humans. “Look at me. I used to be the praetor of an empire. But I lost my homeworld, and with it my right to assert power. It galled me to surrender my authority to Calhoun, but this is his milieu, and in it there can be only one leader. One commander. Any other path leads to chaos—and defeat.”

“That’s fine,” O’Brien said. “When he’s ready to follow, I’ll lead.”

Mac tossed up his hands, fed up with the humans’ posturing. “This is insane. What’s it going to take to make you see reason? You have barely enough ships to stage a hit-and-run raid on a soft target. You’re on the verge of being exterminated. Is that what you want? To be erased from history?”

“It can’t be much worse than being a footnote in a chapter written about you,” O’Brien grumped. “And spare me your rant about how you can face the Alliance and we can’t, because that’s a pack of lies. You’re not in the fringe territories anymore—these are the core systems. We can’t just hit-and-run and skip back into friendly space, because there is no friendly space.” He raised his hand as if to point at Mac, then thought better of it and made a fist, struggling visibly to keep his self-control. “Name three strategically significant targets in this quadrant aside from Cardassia.”

“Qo’noS. The dilithium mine on Elas. The—”

“Wrong quadrant,” O’Brien cut in. “Try again.”

It took a few seconds for Mac to dredge up his memories of the Alliance’s possessions in the Alpha Quadrant. This region of space was more than two hundred light-years from anything he had ever cared about, and until now he hadn’t spent much time thinking about it. He decided to buy himself time by naming the most obvious target, which was the only one he had been able to think of so far. “Raknal Station, inside the Betreka Nebula.”

“That’s one,” Eddington said. “There are plenty more to choose from.”

McHenry’s voice murmured in Mac’s thoughts. Excuse me, Mac, but—

Not now, McHenry. I can do this on my own.

The Excalibur’s peculiar navigator was unusually persistent. I’m certain you can, Mac. It’s just that I—

Please just let me think, McHenry! Mac

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.