Star Trek-TNG-Novel-Imzadi 1

  enjoy dealing with. All right, Gart ... tell her

  that she should let us know the moment that the Sindareen

  start moving for their ship. Tang, I want your people

  deployed--"

  "Already done, sir." Tang pointed to several

  different locations.

  Riker looked around and smiled grimly. The

  security personnel gathered in the street served

  as a distraction. In the meantime, more of them had been

  deployed to strategic points in

  surrounding buildings, crouched on rooftops or

  poised in windows. They had phasers armed and

  targeted on the rooftop where the Spider perched like

  an oversize predator.

  "Problem is," continued Tang, "the Sindareen

  may not look it, but they're pretty tough.

  Phaser blasts can stop them, but not on lower

  settings. Ranges that stun the Sindareen can

  severely injure, even kill other

  humanoids."

  "Humanoids such as Betazoids," said

  Riker slowly.

  "Right. Which means if they bring any of the

  hostages along as potential shields ..."

  "You'll have to work around it, Sergeant. Alert

  your marksmen to take extreme care. We're not

  going to lose these raiders, under any

  circumstances."

  "Yes, sir. And just in case they do make it

  to their ship ..." Tang gestured to one of his

  security team. He was lugging a large case, and

  he staggered over with it to Tang and placed it at his

  feet. Tang snapped it open and Riker saw

  within the case the formidable Level 10,

  shoulder-mounted phaser cannon, Model II.

  Tang hefted it out of the case, and Riker was

  impressed again by the display of strength on the part

  of the smaller man. As he had before, he patted it

  affectionately and said, "Believe me,

  Lieutenant ... they're not going to get away."

  "That's good to hear. All right, Sergeant.

  Apprise your people that we definitely have nine

  Sindareen in there. I don't want any,

  repeat, any shots fired until we've counted

  nine of them emerging and approaching the ship. As

  soon as the last one is out, which means the hostages

  are unguarded--start firing. If they manage

  to get airborne, I'll be counting on you to bring

  them down. I do not," he reiterated, "want

  to see them get away. We're going to be sending

  a message to them and all of their kind, and we're

  sending it now."

  "Understood, Lieutenant."

  "Good. Oh ... and watch your aim,

  Sergeant," Riker cautioned. "You miss them and

  hit the Betazed moon, and we'd have a problem on

  our hands."

  "I won't miss, Lieutenant. Count on

  it."

  The cases were loaded and the other Sindareen were

  bringing them up toward the roof. Maror stood in

  front of the Betazoids, studying them

  appraisingly for a moment.

  "As charming as this has been," he said, "we

  really have to take leave of you now. However ...

  it's my concern that the Federation men might decide

  to give us problems upon our departure. And so, just

  for some added protection, I'd like one of you

  to accompany me. Ideally, I'd bring all of you

  ... but our ship is small, and we're heavily

  loaded already. So it's going to have to be one. Now,

  let's see ..." He scanned them briefly,

  and then, tucking his weapon under one arm, he said

  firmly, "y. You're wounded anyway, so you

  won't give any trouble." And he reached for

  Chandra.

  "ationo! Leave her alone!" shouted Deanna

  as Maror grabbed the frantic Chandra by the arm.

  Deanna leaped forward, her fingernails raking

  across Maror's face, and Maror howled in fury

  as lines of blood welled up on his pale

  cheek. His face contorted with rage, he hurled

  Chandra to the parquet floor, and her head cracked

  with explosive force against it.

  Deanna instinctively turned toward her friend,

  but Maror grabbed her and swung her around. He

  yanked her forward and snarled in her face, "You

  know, I thought you had nerve. And intelligence. Out

  of respect for that, I was going to leave you be. But

  you weren't intelligent enough to know when you were getting

  off lucky. So now, foolish little Betazoid

  ... it's going to be you."

  Xerx actually gasped in fright and staggered

  slightly. Riker put a hand behind him to steady him

  and was almost afraid to ask what had happened.

  He didn't have to ask as Xerx said, "I've

  lost contact. Chandra's unconscious." Riker

  waited for Xerx to pull himself together sufficiently

  to provide more information, and Xerx did so. "There was

  something ... they--the Sindareen--were going to take

  one of the hostages with them. For a shield. And they were

  taking Chandra. And she struggled and fell ... and

  now I have no sense of her. Lieutenant ..."

  And there was pure terror in his voice.

  Tang's comm unit crackled to life. "This

  is Sommers at Gamma Point," snapped a

  voice. "I have a visual. They're coming out,

  sir!"

  "All units are to wait for my signal!"

  barked Tang. "Repeat, not a shot is to be

  fired until you have the clearance from central command!"

  He looked to Riker. "You're the CO,

  Lieutenant. Gonna be your call."

  "We stick with the plan. When all nine are

  exposed, we open fire," said Riker firmly.

  "My daughter! Gods, Lieutenant ... you

  can't shoot my child!"

  "They'll shoot clear of her, Gart," Riker

  said, looking to Tang for confirmation.

  Tang nodded his head in agreement. Then from his

  supplies belt, he removed a small pair

  of electronic sensor binos and, putting them

  to his eyes, studied the rooftop.

  "Get me one of those," ordered Riker.

  "Binos for the lieutenant!" snapped Tang,

  not removing his gaze from the rooftop. Moments

  later, Hirsch reappeared and handed a pair of the

  instruments to Riker. Now he had the roof under

  close scrutiny as well.

  At first there was no movement at all, andfora

  moment Riker toyed with the notion that this was all some

  sort of scam--t, in fact, another means of

  escape was all set up, and the ship was simply

  there as a distraction. But then he saw the door to the

  roof slide open and the first of the Sindareen appeared

  --two of them, lugging a large crate between them.

  "Hold fire," said Riker softly, and the

  order was repeated by Tang. It wasn't necessary,

  really. Everyone knew what their orders were and what

  they were supposed to do.

  There was an eerie silence over the area. When

  Tang had been in similar situations, the buzz

  of the crowd was positively deafening, and sometimes

  came close to interfering with the job. Whatever was

  going through the minds and hearts of the Betazoids, they

>   were having the exquisite courtesy to do it

  quietly.

  More of the Sindareen appeared, lugging more crates.

  Riker counted them off softly to himself ... five

  ... six ... and then he said, "Have we got them

  targeted, Tang?"

  "Target report," said Tang into his comm

  unit.

  "Alpha Point, target acquired," came

  the first reply. The snipers had chosen their

  targets in order of appearance based on their

  designation: Alpha took the first target

  to appear, Beta took the second, and so

  on.

  One by one the rest of the snipers reported in.

  All of them had targets in their sights.

  Eight of the Sindareen had made themselves visible.

  Riker muttered a low curse. The lead two were

  approaching the confines of the ship. Sure enough, a

  second later one of the snipers reported, "This

  is Alpha Point. About to lose target

  acquisition. Awaiting instructions."

  Riker could envision the finger of the sniper, poised

  over the trigger. He wanted to give the order

  to cut loose, and he could feel Tang's gaze

  upon him. But there was no way that he could give the

  clearance ... not when the ninth raider was still

  unaccounted for.

  Then there was more movement, and the final member of the

  Sindareen raiding party made his appearance.

  In his right hand, he was cradling a blaster. His

  head was turning slowly, clearly trying to spot

  whatever Federation people might be trying to target him.

  His left arm was curled around the throat of a

  woman.

  "Deanna," breathed Riker.

  He zoomed in on her face. Her jaw was

  set, her eyes unblinking. If she was afraid,

  she was making a great show of keeping her feelings

  to herself.

  "That's nine," said Tang.

  "Lieutenant--?"

  "They have a hostage," Riker said tonelessly.

  "I know that, sir."

  Riker was silent. "Who's your best

  marksman?"

  Tang anticipated the request and tapped his

  comm unit. "Sommers. Shift target to the

  Sindareen in the rear. Lorie, pick up

  Gamma's target."

  "Acquired," came Lorie's voice from

  Alpha Point.

  This was immediately followed by Sommers saying,

  "Got him in my sights."

  "Clear shot?"

  "Negative," replied Sommers, "repeat,

  that's a negative. Target's moving too much."

  Riker saw immediately that Sommers was correct.

  Maror was too experienced at this. He kept

  shifting his position, swinging Deanna around so that

  she was constantly in the way.

  Riker pressed the binos so hard against his eyes

  that he thought they were going to come out the back

  of his head. He knew what he should do. The vast

  majority of the hostages were already in the clear.

  Only one was left ... one who might still

  survive if everything fell right. But if they

  made no move, then the raiders would escape, and

  more people would pay down the line.

  Deanna, he thought bleakly.

  At that moment, Deanna was swung directly

  into Riker's sight line ...

  And she looked straight at him. Straight and

  proud and unafraid.

  Two ^ws rang in his head.

  I understand.

  "Take them," said Riker.

  "Take 'em," Tang ordered. "Take

  'em."

  Deanna flinched.

  From all around, phasers blasted outward,

  enveloping the surprised Sindareen in coronas of

  energy. Several staggered and went down. One of them

  managed to survive the blasts and tumbled into the

  ship.

  Sommers missed Maror. Deanna's

  instinctive, uncontrollable shiver,

  anticipating the barrage that was about to occur, had

  been enough to warn the Sindareen leader that something was about

  to happen. As a result he'd dropped to a

  crouch, dragging Deanna down with him. Sommers

  had been aiming high anyway, banking on

  Maror's exposing his head for the brief moment that

  Sommers would need. But it didn't happen, and

  now Maror dashed for the ship, dragging Deanna with

  him. The marksmen shot around him, steering clear of the

  trapped Betazoid.

  For a split instant, Maror's back was

  exposed, and Sommers fired. The high-power

  phaser beam, which would have severely burned and

  possibly even crushed Deanna Troi,

  staggered Maror. It caused him to stumble forward,

  almost falling atop his prisoner, but then he

  recovered and reached the inside of the ship, shoving

  Deanna inside ahead of him. The hatch

  rampway closed, with several crates of

  Betazoid art treasures--along with five of the

  Sindareen--left lying on the rooftop.

  "Dammit!" shouted Riker. "Dammit!" It

  was a totally un-Starfleet response. It was

  also understandable.

  With a roar of impulse engines, the Spider

  swayed into the air. Obviously whoever was

  piloting the ship was doing so in a god-awful

  hurry, not taking time to engage in proper

  navigational procedures, but instead concentrating

  only on getting the hell out of there.

  Riker didn't even have to look behind him to know

  what Tang was doing. The hard-bitten sergeant

  had swung the phaser cannon onto his shoulder and

  activated it. "Can you bring them down?" said

  Riker without turning.

  "I can blow them out of the sky. Quick and fast."

  "Can you cripple them?"

  "Trickier. Not as sure. And," Tang added

  quietly, "there's no guarantee she'll

  survive the crash. You may not be doing her any

  favors."

  "I know."

  The Spider had now gained the skies and was

  heading west, angling upward. In a moment it would

  pick up even greater speed and hurl itself far, far

  away from Betazed.

  "Cripple them," said Riker.

  Tang made an adjustment on the power and

  fired.

  The intensity of the phaser blast was beyond anything

  Riker had ever experienced directly. The air

  crackled around him, and he thought he was going

  to choke.

  The blast took out the starboard engine and the

  navigational instrumentation of the Spider. The ship

  lurched wildly, tried to regain control, and

  failed. It spiraled downward, leaving a trail

  of thick black smoke behind it miles long.

  "Where's it going to come down?" said Riker

  tonelessly.

  "Judging from the speed and trajectory,"

  Tang replied, "somewhere in the region known as the

  Jalara Jungle."

  There was silence for a moment, and then Gart Xerx

  said, "If she makes it through the crash, she has

  a good chance. The jungle has its dangers ...

  mud pits and such ... but there are few really

  dangerous animals to contend with."

  Riker turned and stared at him. "You're

/>   forgetting the most dangerous animals. They're the

  ones steering the ship."

  CHAPTER 25

  Maror didn't know what he was running from, or

  what he was running to.

  No. That wasn't precisely right. He

  knew what he was running to. He was running

  straight to hell. But if there was one thing of which he

  was resolved, it was that he was going to take the

  damned Betazoid woman with him.

  She sat on a rock nearby, and to his

  frustration she looked exactly as she had the day

  before, and the day before that. Even though her clothes were

  ripped and dirty, her face filthy, her hair

  hanging in stringy ringlets that had lost all their

  bounce in the moisture of the jungle. Even with her

  shoes gone, her prospects slim.

  Still, she had composure.

  He couldn't take it anymore. He wanted

  her to be like other women he had captured. He

  wanted her to beg or plead. He wanted her

  to whimper or moan. He wanted her to ...

  to something.

  He swung his gun up and aimed at her.

  "Ask for your life."

  With a small shrug of her slim shoulders, she

  said evenly, "Please do not kill me."

  He stared at her in disbelief. "You call that

  begging?"

  "No. I call that asking. To be honest, it's

  pointless. You'll kill me or not. I can't stop

  you. Begging will demean me and accomplish nothing.

  I see no advantage to it, and I won't do

  it."

  With a roar of unbridled fury, he stalked

  over to her and grabbed her by the back of her head.

  He yanked down hard, and the angle in which he

  pulled her skull made her mouth open

  involuntarily. He shoved the barrel of the gun

  into her mouth, angling it so that the ray blast would be

  certain to blow her brain up through the top of her

  skull.

  "I said beg," he repeated.

  Her eyes rolled up to regard him for the

  briefest of moments, and then up into the top of her

  head. Her breathing slowed, and her entire body

  went limp.

  For an instant he thought she'd passed out, but

  then he realized what she had done. She'd put

  herself into a trance, or into some sort of deep

  meditative state. When she was like that,

  nothing he could say or do would bring her out of it

  until she was ready to be brought out. He could blow

  her brains out and she would never know or feel it.

  So there he was, feeling like something of a fool.

  You couldn't threaten someone who wasn't aware of