With astounding dexterity, Calhoun manipulated the controls and the freighter leaped forward even faster, half-turning sideways and sliding out just before the bay doors slammed shut.
“You did it!” shouted Lodec. “That…that white stuff! That mist! What was that?”
“Cyro-mist. Put them into temporary suspended animation…uh oh.”
“Uh oh? What is…uh oh?” Lodec asked, scrambling to the front of the freighter.
Then he saw it. There, tracking on the screen, were two plasma torpedoes, coming in fast. They’d been launched by the prisoner transport, and they were going to overtake the freighter in no time.
Calhoun didn’t appear to be the least bit concerned. Instead he flipped open a panel and tapped a blue square inside.
The freighter shuddered slightly and an alarmed Lodec said, “Are we hit?!”
“If we’d been hit,” snorted Calhoun, “you wouldn’t be here to ask that question. Those were torpedo counter-measures. Watch,” and he tapped another panel.
The viewscreen showed a rear view of the vessel, and the transport was clearly in evidence. And then, to his astonishment, he saw the plasma torpedoes that had been pursuing them…streaking straight back toward the transport. “There’s something small…leading them…” Lodec said after a moment.
“You’ve got good eyes,” Calhoun admitted. “That’s the counter-measure. It’s a false beacon. Draws the torpedoes away from the intended target and toward one that I far prefer. Such as…”
The torpedoes slammed into the rear of the transport. The ship shuddered under the horrific impact. The transport had shields which it had barely managed to get up in time, but it was not designed to be a combat vessel and the shields were minimal at best. The first of the torpedoes didn’t get through, but it did damage the shields sufficiently that the second one blasted into the hull. Plasma tore through the bulkhead, and the ship sparked furiously. All along the transport vessel, the lights went out and within seconds the entire ship was dark.
“That should take them some time to repair,” Calhoun said calmly. “If it’s repairable at all, that is. In the meantime, they’ll be the ones who are floating in space. Let’s hope that anyone who comes upon them will be a bit more generous than they were going to be with me.”
“There was never any latinum on this ship,” Lodec said.
“That’s right.”
“And you were never actually crippled. This ship, I mean. It was a lure to get aboard the vessel.”
“Also right. You pick up things quickly.”
“So all of this…was to get me out of there.” He paused and then asked, with a sense of dread, “Why?”
“Because someone wants you out. That’s all you need to know at the moment. That, and the fact that we rendezvous at Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet.”
“A desirable rendezvous point if ever I’ve heard one.”
The freighter, under Calhoun’s guidance, surged forward and leaped into warp space, leaving the crippled prison transport far behind.
Out of range of the transport, the manacles were no threat to Lodec. He looked around the interior of the freighter with interest. “Is this your ship?”
“It is now,” said Calhoun. “I’ve used it from time to time, but it’s been out of commission for a while. It’s good to be back, though.” He patted the console in what almost appeared to be the type of gesture that a person would use with a pet.
“Listen…I suppose I should—”
“Don’t.” As if reading his mind, Calhoun briskly cut him off. “Don’t thank me. Don’t give me gratitude. I don’t want it, I don’t need it. I know who you are. What you are. Just as you know who and what I am.”
“M’k’n’zy the Destroyer,” Lodec said softly. “M’k’n’zy the monster.”
“Those and many other names,” Calhoun agreed readily. “I’d like to think I earned them all. And I do not suggest you press me about old times, because I assure you the years have not made me think more kindly about your race. There’s little forgiveness in my heart.”
“In your heart?” scoffed Lodec. Part of him screamed a warning, that engaging in discourse with this man could result in a very quick and painful death if Calhoun were so inclined. But Calhoun was clearly operating on someone else’s behalf, and it was obviously in Calhoun’s interest to bring Lodec back in one piece. That gave Lodec a certain amount of boldness. “In your heart? You were personally responsible for the deaths of friends of mine. Good friends, good men, who deserved better than to die on some damnable foreign planet at the hands of barbarian heathens. Do you think that we…”
“What?” Calhoun cut him off, and there was danger in his eyes. “Do I think what?”
Lodec laughed softly to himself and shook his head. “Do you think…that we wanted to be there? Most of us didn’t give a damn about Xenex. We did what we were told. We followed orders.”
“The oldest excuse in the universe.”
“It works for Starfleet officers.”
“Yes. It does. Notice that I’m not one,” Calhoun pointed out.
Lodec’s back was against one of the bulkheads. Suddenly feeling all the strength ebbing from his legs, he allowed himself to slide to the floor. Drained, he said, “It was all…a very long time ago. And I suppose none of it matters anymore.”
“No,” said Calhoun. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
And then, after a long pause, Lodec said, “Thank you anyway. For getting me out of there.” And after a hesitation, he added, “You don’t have to say ‘you’re welcome.’”
Calhoun didn’t.
XIV.
THE SITUATION IN THE ENGINEERING ROOM of the Excalibur had not come close to panic…but it wasn’t all that far away from it, either.
Burgoyne 172 and Ensign Beth were sorting through the isolinear chips with a finely controlled franticness. Throughout the engine room, the rest of Burgoyne’s people were checking every circuit, every possible route that might explain what in hell had just happened to cause the ship’s computers to come tumbling around their ears.
S/he held a stack of the thin, hard chips in hir hand. “These things are useless…useless,” Burgoyne said, the “s” in “useless” extending to a snake-like hiss. “The only way we’re going to get things back on line is to bypass the computer altogether. Everything’s got to be done manually.” S/he glanced in the direction of the warp core. The power emanating from it was still comfortingly humming away. “At least power still exists in the ship. Thank the Great Bird for that. If the engines were out and we had to do a cold start…”
“If there’s power, then why isn’t it getting to the rest of the systems?” Beth said, her frustration mounting. Even as she complained, though, she was rerouting systems to get around the stalled computer. “Henderson! Camboni! Punch this pulse through subsystems A1 through A7!”
“It’s like a body that’s had a stroke,” Burgoyne said as s/he started reracking the isolinear chips in hope that s/he could find some sort of short cut s/he hadn’t spotted before. “The brain is functioning fine. The rest of the body may be in perfect shape. But the connectors have been cut. If we can—”
Suddenly they heard the sound of transporters. And there, materializing not ten feet away from Burgoyne, were four Romulans, heavily armed and clearly ready to take possession of the engine room.
Burgoyne had no weapons on hir. S/he hadn’t been expecting trouble. The Romulans, for their part, looked prepared to start shooting the moment they finished their materialization. Immediately what came to the forefront for the Hermat was concern about the safety of hir ship and the safety of hir people. Hir crew, hir engineers who looked to hir for guidance and leadership. And these no-good Romulans were going to show up and wreak havoc in hir engine room?
Not bloody likely.
At first glance, Burgoyne did not look particularly daunting. One would not readily appreciate hir strength and speed until one found oneself in a dire situation…which was more o
r less what the engineering crew of the Excalibur had on its hands. Burgoyne, however, did not hesitate.
S/he snatched an assortment of isolinear chips from their receptacles. And the moment that the Romulans materialized, s/he let fly, one after the other, in rapid succession.
Several years ago, Burgoyne had seen a magician, a card master who billed himself simply as Jay, entertaining at a local pub during one of hir pubcrawling expeditions. His mastery of simple pasteboard cards had been nothing short of astounding. Claiming to be descended from a long line of master cardsmen stretching back centuries, the most impressive stunt that he had pulled was hurling playing cards with such velocity that they had actually lodged in solid objects, such as fruit. Burgoyne had been incredibly fascinated by the stunt, and with hir long fingers and quick-snap wrists, had long felt that s/he would be eminently capable of imitating the act. And so s/he had taken up card flipping as a hobby, developing superb accuracy so that s/he had been able to hit a target from a reasonable distance away.
S/he had never, however, been able to get sufficient velocity for the cards actually to pierce anything…even a fruit. However, s/he had never had quite the incentive that s/he had at that moment. Furthermore, isolinear chips were harder and nastier than playing cards.
Consequently, as s/he tossed the chips with a vicious sidearm snap of hir wrist, the things shot across the distance like bullets, and had about the same devastating effect. The chips were relatively harmless when they were stationary. When they were hurtling at high speed, however, they were astoundingly nasty.
One Romulan took one square in the base of the throat. He choked on his own blood while the second turned and got one right in the eye socket, and went down, shrieking. The third took a step in Burgoyne’s direction while bringing up his gun, which proved to be a mistake…not the motion of the gun, but the movement toward Burgoyne, because the increased proximity resulted in the thrown chip literally cleaving straight into the Romulan’s skull. He went down without a whimper. It had all happened to fast, all within split seconds, that the fourth Romulan’s jaw dropped open in amazement. This proved to be a spectacular blunder as the chip sailed through his open mouth and lodged in the back of his throat. He went down gagging.
Four appeared, four dropped, in less time than it took for the engineering staff to fully comprehend that they were under attack. Beth turned pale as she saw the Romulans piled up, one atop the other on the floor. The only one who was still alive was the one with the chip in his eye, and then he stopped moving a moment later, apparently dead from shock.
Burgoyne regarded them with remarkable calm and then glanced at the chips remaining in hir hand. “Hunh. I was wrong. These things were useful after all.” Then, without hesitation, s/he shouted, “Shields and warp drive, first and second priorities! We want to stop these bastards from beaming on, and we want to get the hell out of here! Move!”
The largest raiding party, composed of about twenty Romulans, had materialized in deck 10. There had followed a furious pitched battle with an Excalibur security team which had resulted in casualties on both sides. The security crew, which had been far outnumbered, had managed to whittle the Romulans down to twelve, but the Excalibur team was hurt far more badly, and with only three of them still alive, had gone into full retreat. The Romulans, sensing victory, had gone in pursuit, and the trio of badly wounded, barely alive security guards had been certain that their time was up.
They had rounded a corner, hearing the pounding of the Romulans right behind them…and then they had come upon Si Cwan. The Thallonian noble was simply standing there. His palms were pressed together, his eyes closed, and he looked as if he were delving deeply into some sort of inner strength.
“Go,” he said softly. “I will hold them.”
The security team was in no shape to argue. One of them tried to thrust his phaser into Si Cwan’s hands, but Si Cwan waved it off. “I don’t like weapons,” he said. “One tends to rely on them too much. Go. I will be fine.”
Moments later, the attacking Romulans came around the corner, and Si Cwan was still standing there, just as calm as he’d been moments ago. The fact that a dozen Romulans had weapons angled squarely at him did not seem to bother him particularly.
He put his hands over his head in complete surrender. “I’m not one of them,” he said, walking slowly toward the Romulans. “I’m just a passenger. In fact, I’m…” he started to stammer. “I’m a rich passenger. Rich and influential. See? I’ve…I’ve no weapons. No way of hurting you. Please…don’t kill me…please…take me prisoner…”
“Romulans,” said the foremost one in the group, “don’t take prisoners.” And he aimed his weapon at Si Cwan.
Si Cwan, hands over his head, was still several feet away. It did not, however, matter. He leaped straight up, swinging his legs upward as he did so. In one smooth movement, both of his feet caught the closest Romulans squarely in the pits of their stomachs. They doubled over. He had barely landed before he jumped again, this time nailing them squarely in the face. Both of their weapons flipped into the air, and Si Cwan caught them on the way down. He crisscrossed his arms and opened fire.
It was true. Si Cwan generally preferred not to use weapons. However, he prided himself on his adaptability.
Within seconds, six more Romulans were lying strewn about the floor. The remaining half dozen opened fire on Si Cwan, but he grabbed up the fallen body of the nearest Romulan and used it as a shield. A disruptor shot disintegrated the top half of the Romulan, and then Si Cwan hurled the remainder of his carcass, knocking down two more of the Romulans.
And then Si Cwan laid into the remaining Romulans. They fired at him, point blank…and missed. He scrabbled across the floor, moving like a gigantic spider, and then forward-rolled and came up with his feet planted in their faces. Just that quickly he was back on his feet, and he snapped the neck of another without slowing down, grabbed yet another and smashed him against the wall with such force that his face was little more than a red smear.
Blood jetted from his opponents as Si Cwan waded into them. His hands like spears, his movements economical and with machine-like precision, he bobbed and weaved through the increasingly frantic—to say nothing of diminishing—crowd of Romulans.
When Sela aimed the phaser at William Riker, she did not for one moment think that there was any question of missing.
She was also under the impression that the four Romulans she had with her would be able to handle matters. They were, after all, heavily armed. The average bridge complement was usually less than a dozen, and only one of them—the on-bridge security guard—was ever armed. Plus, she was all too familiar with the ways of the Federation. They liked to talk, to discuss, to debate. When they appeared on the bridge, “What do you want!” would be the first defiant words to leap from the throat of the ship’s commander—in this case, as delightful luck would have it, Will Riker himself. After that would follow a dialogue, a back and forth, vituperation, sneering and cutting remarks, and so on.
A substantial threat, though? That truly didn’t cross Sela’s mind. That was why she knew that she could execute Will Riker with impunity. The boldness, the viciousness of her act would be enough to completely paralyze the battle-unready crew. As his lifeless body tumbled, so would their resistance. She was absolutely positive of that.
Which was why it was all the more confusing to her when she heard the sound of tearing metal. She had no idea what the cause was. She didn’t have long to wait to find out.
As hard as it was to believe, she had not noticed the Brikar when she had arrived on the bridge. He had been crouched behind his tactical board. For a large individual, Zak Kebron had a surprising way of coming across as less substantial than he truly was. Now, however, he made no such effort. He emerged from behind his station, gripped the hand railing that ran across the upper section of the bridge…and pulled.
The railing tore out of its moorings. It took the Brikar no more than an instant to be clutc
hing the massive piece of metal, and the instant the Romulans were turning to see what in the name of the Praetor had caused that ear-splitting racket, Kebron was already swinging the railing like a baseball bat.
Sela saw it coming and ducked. The Romulan standing directly behind her was far less fortunate. The railing struck him squarely in the head. The humanoid neck is actually one of the weakest links in the body, the flexibility of the neck coming at a high price. Romulans shared the same weakness as humans. Consequently the Romulan’s head was sent flying from his shoulders. Sela jumped back, emitting a most un-Romulan shriek, and even as the horrified Romulans tried to react, Kebron took a step forward and shoved the jagged-ended metal railing squarely forward into the chest of another Romulan. A third Romulan let out yelp that was actually higher-pitched than Sela’s as the impaled Romulan crashed into him.
It had all happened within seconds, and Sela had been so distracted that she had actually forgotten about Riker. But she had a forceful reminder as Riker lunged forward, grabbed her gun hand, and shoved the phaser straight up.
He was strong, but she was no slouch either. Giving as good as she got, the two of them struggled hand-to-hand, and then with a grunt, Riker shoved Sela back. She tripped over one of the fallen bodies, sprawled…and that was when Riker spotted what appeared to be a small comm device on Sela’s wrist. He noticed that all of them were wearing similar equipment. “Get that thing off her!” shouted Riker.
At that moment, the fourth Romulan managed to open fire with his disruptor. He nailed Zak Kebron squarely in the chest. Kebron rocked back on his heels and then announced, “Ouch,” before getting the Romulan to drop the gun through the simple expedient of crushing his hand so that he couldn’t hold it ever again.
Shelby, meantime, moving with remarkable speed, literally hurled herself atop the fallen Sela. With a snarl, she got a grip on Sela’s arm and received a punch in the head for her trouble.