“All functioning beams at maximum spread,” Joel Randolph reported, touching the earpiece receiver he was using to monitor reports from the other ships and stations participating in Earth’s orbital defense. “But the coverage is no more than twenty-eight percent.”

Jangura let out a short, hissing breath, blinking his bulbous eyes. “Nobody’s thought of a last-minute miracle for improving that?”

“This is as good as it gets, sir.”

“Then make sure we maintain it, Commander.”

“Aye, sir.”

Randolph circled the bridge, checking the stations and giving nods and words of support to the crew. When he reached the science station, Chekov spoke to him softly. “Too bad we can’t make an inboard verteron field and an outboard verteron beam at the same time. We may protect people down on Earth, but it’ll be rough up here.”

The first officer sighed. “You haven’t changed, Pavel. Always the pessimistic Russian. How do you live with so little faith in the universe?”

Chekov thought about Uhura, Scotty, and Spock, and what they were attempting right now at the heart of the storm. “By having faith in my comrades.”

U.S.S. Enterprise

“I’m getting something!” Shastri called. “Compiling now… They’re pinging back, trying to confirm, but it’s hard to lock on through the interference! Keep going! Aahh!”

His cry was in response to the deafening crack of a microflare passage, the second in as many minutes. The console sparked and a display screen blinked out, but for now all the vital status lights remained green. Uhura knew that wouldn’t last long, though. At this rate, either the equipment would be struck or one of them would.

So she did her best to ignore it, like a true performer, and focus only on finishing the song.

Oh, we can defeat our fear.

All we need is with us right here.

No panic withstands if we just join our hands,

Yes, my dear…

Drawing near…

A-and we’re…

Finally here!

Shastri ducked another microflare, then grinned and gave her a thumbs-up as she belted out the final refrain:

Two moons racing for the stars;

If we chase them long enough they could be ours.

No more fear or panic, just the force of our love.

The sky belongs to us—we are the two moons up above!

Even as she sang, the screens lit up with new data streams and subspace spectrographs. Finally, they had connected!

As soon as she finished, Shastri checked his board and crowed in confirmation. “This is it! A two-way channel, just like we had on Argelius! Signal is pouring through from their end!”