But another problem was almost immediately heralded by an alert from Chekov’s energy sensors. “A transport docked to the city is leaking gamma radiation! Looks like warp reactor damage. Containment fields weakening.”

“Confirming distress signal,” Rider added. “They’re unable to shut down or jettison the reactor. They’re evacuating back into the city.”

“It won’t save them if that reactor goes,” Randolph said, striding forward. “Merck, get us in there! Rider, have them release the docking clamps once the ship’s empty. I’ll tractor it away.” He took his position at gravity control.

Chekov kept working on the transporter problem, reorienting the targeting scanners to focus on the dock facility to which the ship’s crew was evacuating. They were the ones in most urgent need of rescue. Clenching his teeth, he went ahead and made Randolph’s proposed modification, hoping his old classmate was right about the odds.

“The ship is evacuated,” Rider reported, “but docking clamps are frozen!”

Jangura turned to the tactical station. “Chu, target phasers on the ship’s docking port. Blast it free.”

“Twenty seconds to core breach,” Chekov announced, even as he forwarded his final computations down to the transporter chief below. “Energizing all transporters now.”

“Phasers locked,” announced Molly Chu. “Firing!”

Chekov glanced at the main viewscreen, which Rider had focused on the transport ship and the adjoining docking module of Mizuki City. Both were engulfed in the fierce, eruptive sparkle of the vacuum flare, occasionally spitting out small jets of vaporized hull material or emitting brief, blinding flashes from inside their windows. A phaser beam sliced through the docking connector at the prow of the transport, and the blast of decompressing atmosphere, spent in a fraction of a second, pushed the ship into a slow, tumbling drift away from the station.

That tumble worried Chekov for a moment, but Randolph soon reminded him why he’d been the Academy’s top tennis star three years running. He snagged the ship in the tractor beam with flawless aim and flung it deftly away from the dock.

Even so, it barely made it a kilometer before it blew. Anyone left in the docking module would have taken an instantly lethal dose of radiation. Jangura turned to the science station. “Transport status?”

Chekov smiled at the report from the transporter room. “Module evacuated, sir. All passengers now aboard.”

“Very good, Commander. You think we can find room for a few hundred more?”

“As many as we can fit, sir.”

He glanced over at Randolph, who gave him a thumbs-up. He returned it, but his celebration was guarded. This was one small victory in a larger crisis—one whose duration he could not predict.

Even a pro like Joel couldn’t win every game.

U.S.S. Prospero NCC-1801

Malcolm Uhura slumped on the couch in the break room of the Prospero’s sprawling sickbay. “Eighteen hours straight,” he gasped. “I haven’t had a shift like this since my residency.”