“Wong, take us in.” Captain Gold couldn’t help the shiver that prickled his skin and left his fingertips tingling. Try as he might, he could not banish the nightmare that had been dogging him before this whole mess had even begun. However, though he liked to pretend he was not superstitious, he could almost hear his beloved wife putting on her rabbi voice to tell him it had nothing to do with superstition at all.

He’d been given a premonition, and shouldn’t he be thankful?

In his nightmare he had been worried about the life of his grandchild. Now, as the photon sphere approached, he knew the premonition had been for himself. Perhaps even for his crew. Or even for the da Vinci. He had to keep reminding himself that other starships had managed to escape the depths of black holes in the past. But with the ghastly mouth of the universe’s most awesomely powerful force ripped wide to savage anyone stupid enough to get caught in its maw…well, he found it difficult indeed not to feel very, very stupid right now.

But there were seven of his people across that fearsome barrier he would not let down.

“Yes, sir. I can only get one-quarter impulse right now, sir.”

“Then that’s what we’ll use.” Gold turned toward Tev and found the Tellarite with his nose buried in his instruments. Considering the devastated look on his face (which meant it had to have been a scream for a human, since Gold couldn’t read his face any better than he could a Vulcan’s) following the failure of Tev’s bootstrapping idea, he found such dedication impressive. Comforting. Even in distress this crew, even the newest member, pulled together.

“Tev, how does it look?”

Without his usual pause, or the need to be asked twice, Tev responded. “The gravity anchor appears to be holding, but I cannot say for how long. However, when I managed to spear it, it had almost reached fifteen Schwarzschild radii.”

Gold shook his head for a moment. “Remind an old man—Schwarzschild radii?”

Tev glanced up, snuffled, and said, “I’m sorry, Captain. One Schwarzschild radius is the size of the event horizon. For a black hole of this size, fifteen RS is four thousand five hundred kilometers.”

For a moment Gold almost didn’t hear what Tev had said as his surprise blocked it out. Tev had apologized. The captain tried to remember if he’d actually heard the Tellarite apologize before. He didn’t think so. Could he be coming around, finally? A member of the crew? Perhaps this hell would have a silver lining.

If they could get the away team home.

“The station?”

“With the loss of our probes during the backsplash, I cannot tell for certain; too many sensors are still off-line. However, I calculate the station is still a safe sixty kilometers above the Demon’s event horizon.”

“Safe!” Gold couldn’t help the guffaw.

“Why, yes, Captain. There is no reason to believe that the shields on the station are not still fully operational. It has held itself against the tidal forces for several centuries now.”

Gold smiled. Leave it to Tev to break up the tension. And do so without even knowing. “I trust your calculations completely, Tev,” he said, cutting the Tellarite off. He ignored those raised eyebrows that reminded him of the hairbrush his sister had used so many years ago.

The ship lurched and stopped, almost spilling him to the floor. He regained his feet quickly. “Wong, that didn’t feel like a gravimetric wave.”

“Captain,” Piotrowski interrupted. Gold turned.

“What?”

“It’s the Resaurians. One moment they’re holding off at a distance, and between one eye blink and another, they’ve closed and have us in their tractor beam.”

Gold was suddenly all business. “Are we certain this time?”

“Yes, sir, and they’ve got us tight.”

“Tev, the tractor beam. Can we break it?” Though Gold noticed a moment’s hesitation as he asked Tev to break his concentration in midstream and fly in a new vector, the Tellarite moved with the flow.

“Not right now, Captain. As I said, most of our systems are still off-line. Even if we could, they’ve a strange tractor configuration I’ve not seen before. If I took some time, I could break it.” He looked up expectedly.

Gold hid his smile. There’s the arrogance we’ve grown to love. “Get working on it, while I see if I can talk to our friendly neighborhood Resaurians.” He turned toward the viewscreen; he noticed peripherally that Ensign Haznedl had come at Tev’s call. “Piotrowski, get me that ship.”

“Hailing frequency open, Captain.”

“Captain S’linth, this is Captain Gold of the da Vinci. I would appreciate knowing why you’ve latched on to my ship with a tractor beam.” He knew full well why the captain had done it, but he remembered Carol Abramowitz’s briefing on the Resaurians’ trouble in trusting other races after being conquered by the Klingons. He tried to moderate his tone, keep it civil.

The viewscreen sputtered and then materialized to show the dim interior of the Dutiful Burden’s bridge. A crewman or two were in view, but Third Councilman Sha’a captivated the attention like a siren song. Regardless of how alien he might be, he’s got chutzpah. Power. Standing in his carmine robe, he had one hand casually resting on the back of the empty captain’s seat.

It took an instant longer for the import to set in. What’s this? Where’s Captain S’linth? The casual way Sha’a touched the captain’s seat could not hide his possessiveness. Gold finally spotted S’linth standing at the back of the bridge, head bowed but back ramrod straight. Gold’s job had just become a lot harder. The one Resaurian he might have been able to reach, one captain to another. Gold shuddered at the idea of a slimy politician seizing control of his own vessel.

“Captain Gold.” Once again Gold felt the revulsion most humans have for snakes. However, this time around, he didn’t feel shame. Not for this particular snake. “Captain S’linth will not be dealing with you directly at this time. However, I’m here to answer any of your questions.”

Politician’s words. “Why have you latched on to my ship with your tractor beam?” Gold didn’t feel like bandying words.

“I told you why. This is our station. Our internal affair. You have no right to interfere, Captain. I sympathize with your plight. You attempted to rescue a station you felt was in need and have crew there now. For such actions I thump my tail. However, I simply cannot allow you to go any farther.”

Gold felt his temper spike even harder. He glanced sidelong at Tev, and then shook his head. “We’ll see about that,” he said.

“We simply don’t have the power to break the tractor beam,” Tev said in a low, frustrated voice at Ensign Haznedl’s continued optimism. The sound of the captain’s voice, raised in anger, a static in the background.

“Okay. What about the dekyon beam? Could it be modulated to splinter the tractor beam? Or weaken it?”

“No, tractor beams don’t work that way. The dekyon would have no effect.” Tev snuffled. What did they teach at the Academy if this was an example of their education?

Then a thought bloomed within Tev, spreading like a virus and engulfing his intellect. Quick as firing synapses, he had the solution. “A second dekyon beam! We don’t have sufficient power for the warp drive to attempt a forced break. However, we do have enough energy to create a second dekyon beam, which can be modulated to ensnare a gravimetric wave on its sine toward the black hole.”

Haznedl blinked confusion, but then seemed to catch on. She began to calibrate a second beam.

Tev approved. “Captain,” he called back, and nodded once, decisively.

Gold interrupted the useless argument with the councilman to turn toward Tev. The Tellarite nodded once and Gold smiled. Tev may have been kicked, but now he was kicking back. Gold nodded in return; Tev would be ready.

He turned back toward the councilman. “Third Councilman Sha’a. This is my last warning. Release my ship, or suffer the consequences.”

“Captain, there is no reason to resort to fang-baring. We are both civilized. Nevertheless, you cannot rescue the station. It does not need rescuing.”

Gold didn’t know exactly what to expect, but just in case, he made sure he sat back down and held on. “I think, Councilman, if you asked those on the station, they just might have a different opinion from yours.”

“That is no longer a worry,” Sha’a said.

“But I think it is. Tev, engage.”

A slight keystroke and nothing happened.

If it were possible, Sha’a’s grin grew wider on his reptilian face. “As I said—”

Both ships lurched forward with horrific speed as the hand of the universe smashed them down into its maw.