He smiled at Shelzane. “I think I’m going to like this job.”
The ensign looked thoughtful. “It’s fortunate that Benzites require little sleep.”
“Good, then I’ll let you take the first shift.”
Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the cockpit of Shuttle 3, going over the preflight checklist. In the cavernous interior of the asteroid, it was still eerily dark, and the windows of the shuttlecraft looked opaque. Without passengers and cargo, the cabin almost looked spacious, and Riker wished it would stay that way for a while. However, it was not to be.
The hatch opened, and a security officer stuck his head in. “Lieutenant Riker, are you ready to receive your passengers?”
“Sure. I hope they’re not expecting a starship.”
“This is better than they’re used to.” The security officer stepped aside, allowing two small Bynar children to enter the cabin. Whether they were actual siblings was hard to tell, but the two of them had bonded in their desperate situation; they held hands as if they were inseparable.
“Sit up front,” Riker told them with a smile, “so you can watch Ensign Shelzane pilot the ship.”
“Thank you,” they replied in unison, speaking so softly they could barely be heard. They both squeezed into one seat, and Riker didn’t bother to separate them.
The Bynar children were followed by two females, both obviously in the advanced stages of pregnancy. One was Coridan, judging by her distinctive hairstyle—half of her head sheared and the other half with straight, black hair down to her shoulder. She looked morose, as if resigned to some horrible fate, and she slouched to the back row of seats without a word. He guessed that the other woman was human, until she smiled at him and shook her head.
“Actually I’m a Betazoid,” she said.
“I’ve always gotten along well with Betazoids,” he replied.
“I can tell you have great affection for us.”
Their conversation was cut short when a young Tiburonian couple entered the cabin, holding hands as tightly as the Bynar children had. With their bald heads and elephantine ears, they looked more alien than the others, and Riker recalled that Tiburonians had a reputation for being brilliant but difficult. These two looked wary.
“We were told we’d be going to a large starship,” said the male.
“You will be, as soon as we get there,” answered Riker. “I understand you have some intelligence to report.”
“But only in a face-to-face meeting with an admiral,” insisted the female.
“I’ve found admirals highly overrated, but we’ll find one for you. Have a seat, please.”
Once all the passengers were situated, Riker turned to address them. “I’m Lieutenant Riker, and this is Ensign Shelzane. I know all of you have had a tough time, and I would like this trip to be as pleasant as possible. But we don’t have many amenities on this shuttlecraft, and the quarters will be tight. In other words, you’ll basically have to sit there and not make demands on us. If you do that, I promise we’ll get you to our starship as quickly as possible.”
“How long will the trip take?” asked the dour Coridan.
Riker glanced at Shelzane, who consulted her computer screen. “If the Gandhi stays on course and schedule, it should be about twenty-six hours,” she reported.
“The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll arrive.” Riker tapped the comm panel. “Shuttle 3 to operations, requesting permission to leave.”
“You are cleared,” replied a businesslike male voice. “Please maintain subspace silence in the vicinity of the station.”
Beacons suddenly illuminated the depths of the great chasm, and hydraulics whirred as the docking mechanism retracted from the hatch. Riker sat back in his seat and smiled at Shelzane. “Take her out, Ensign.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the Benzite, sounding eager to prove herself. With considerable skill, she plied her console, and the tiny craft lifted off the dock and moved gracefully through the neon pit. Riker crossed his arms and closed his eyes, planning on getting a little shut-eye.
Once the tiny shuttle had cleared the opening of the chasm, the brilliant lights abruptly went off, and Outpost Sierra III again looked like nothing but a craggy rock floating in the vastness of space.
Thomas Riker laughed and shook his head, then he put the computer padd down. For the third straight time, the Bynar children had beaten him in a game of three-dimensional tic-tac-toe. “You guys are too good for me.”
They gave him identical, enigmatic smiles and looked at one another with satisfaction. “We thank you,” said one.
“For the game,” finished the other.
“Would you like to play each other?” he asked.
“That would be—”
“Pointless.”
Riker nodded and looked back at the other passengers on the shuttle-craft. They were a surly lot, except for the pregnant Betazoid, who occasionally flashed him a smile. The rest of the time she sat in contemplative silence with her hands folded over her extended abdomen. He didn’t expect refugees who had been driven from their homes to be exactly cheerful, but they might be a bit more grateful for the ride back to Federation space.
Then again, maybe they didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Most of them had probably been born in what was now the DMZ, and they had lived all their lives there. To them, the Federation was a nebulous concept, especially now that it had seemingly deserted them. He wondered whether the two pregnant women had spouses and families to help them, or whether they were as alone as they appeared.
“You’re wondering about me,” said the Betazoid woman with a wan smile. “I happen to be alone, although not for long.” She patted her ample girth.
“I’m sorry,” said Riker. With the others watching and listening, he wished he were also telepathic, so they could continue this conversation in private. But privacy was hard to come by on Shuttle 3.
“I’ve never seen Betazed,” said the woman. “Have you?”
“It’s beautiful,” he assured her. “The garden spot of the Federation, with the friendliest people I’ve ever met.” He paused, thinking about Lwaxana Troi. “Even too friendly.”
She nodded eagerly. “I always meant to go there one day. I didn’t think it would be…under these circumstances.”
Unable to say or do anything that would change the circumstances, the lieutenant turned to his co-pilot. “How are you doing, Ensign? Getting tired?”
“It’s only been three hours,” answered the Benzite. “Perhaps in two hours more, I could use relief.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready. That short nap refreshed me.”
The young Tiburonian male rose to his feet. “Is it all right if I stretch my legs?”
“Sure,” answered Riker, “but there’s not much place to go.”
“I realize that.” With two steps, he stood behind Riker and Shelzane, gazing with interest at the ensign’s readouts. “Where are we, approximately?”
“We have just passed the Omicron Delta region,” she answered.
“Then we’re still fairly close to the DMZ.”
“Yes. That is where the Gandhi is patrolling.”
“Are you a navigator?” asked Riker.
The Tiburonian nodded. “In a way, I am. I was studying stellar cartography at the university on Ennan VI…until the Cardassians burned it down.”
“I’m sorry,” said Shelzane.
He scowled. “If you two keep saying you’re sorry for every wrong committed against us, that’s all you’ll ever say to us. At some point, we have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get on with life.”
“That’s a good attitude,” replied Riker, giving him a sympathetic smile. “We’ll do what we can to help you.”
“I know you will.” The Tiburonian again studied the readouts with a scholarly interest. “Our speed is warp three? That’s very fast for a craft of this size.”
“Common for a Type-8 shuttle,” answered Shelzan
e.
The Tiburonian sighed. “Where I come from, we only had impulse shuttles. Had we ships like this, more of us might have survived.”
“Kanil,” said the female Tiburonian, “there’s no sense talking about it.”
“No, I suppose not.” His shoulders drooped, and he turned to Riker. “I don’t suppose you have any food on board?”
Before the lieutenant could answer, there came an awful groan from the rear of the shuttlecraft. He whirled around to see the pregnant Coridan gripping her swollen stomach and writhing in her seat. The Betazoid woman staggered to her feet and tried to comfort her, as did the female Tiburonian, while the Bynar children looked on with eerie calm.
Immediately, Riker reached under his console, opened a panel, and grabbed a medkit. His worst fear was that he would have to deliver a premature baby, when he knew very little about delivering babies and less about Coridan physiology. But a groaning, pregnant woman demanded action. He glanced at Shelzane, who gave him a nod, as if to say she would handle the shuttle while he handled the medical emergency.
He vaulted to his feet and muscled his way past the Tiburonian male, who seemed rooted to the spot, unable to move. When he reached the distressed woman, she was panting, and her eyes rolled back in her head. The other women stepped away to allow him room, although what he was going to do for her he didn’t know.
“Are you in labor?” he asked urgently. “How far along are you?”
“Not…far…enough,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “The pain…the pain!”
“I can do something for the pain.” Riker opened the medkit and reached inside for a hypospray. While he loaded the instrument with a painkiller, he felt a slight shudder, as if the shuttlecraft were coming out of warp. He turned to tell Shelzane that she didn’t need to leave warp—it was better to keep going. That’s when he saw the Benzite lying unconscious on the deck, with the Tiburonian seated at the conn.
“What the—”
He never finished the sentence, because the Coridan grabbed him by the shoulders with incredible strength and forced him headfirst into her lap. He struggled, but the young Tiburonian woman also attacked him; the two of them forced him onto his back and jumped upon him like women possessed.
Riker didn’t like hitting women, but his instincts took over. He lashed out with his fist and smashed the Coridan in the mouth, sending her oversized body crashing back into her seat. Then he gripped the Tiburonian by the throat and tried to push her away, while she clawed at his face.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Betazoid fumbling in the arms locker, pulling out a phaser pistol. Whose side was she on? Or were they all hijackers! He didn’t have time to figure it out.
Riker grabbed the Tiburonian and yanked her around like a shield just as the Betazoid fired at him. The young woman took the full blast of the phaser set to stun, and she fell upon him like a dead weight. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, Riker tossed her off and scrambled to his feet, just as another phaser blast streaked past his head. He saw the Bynar children crouched behind their chairs, watching with wide eyes.
“Don’t resist!” ordered the Betazoid, aiming her weapon to get another shot. “We won’t hurt you!”
The only weapon at hand was the medkit, and Riker threw it at her with all his might. His aim was good, and the metal box bounced off her head with a thud, causing her to collapse to the deck. Riker dove for the discarded phaser and came up with it just as the Coridan jumped on his back. She was as determined and as strong as a sumo wrestler, and she shoved his face into the deck. Twisting around, he smashed her in the mouth with an elbow, and she slid off his back with a groan.
Riker crawled out from under the dead weight and staggered to his feet. He checked to make sure that the phaser was set to low stun before he fired at both her and the Betazoid.
With all three women immobilized, he turned his attention to the Tiburonian male, who was furiously working the shuttle controls. “Move away from there!” he ordered hoarsely. “Or I’ll shoot!”
When the man didn’t move immediately, the lieutenant drilled him in the back with the phaser, and he sprawled over the conn. From the stationary stars visible through the window, Riker realized that they must have come to a full stop.
The only ones left to subdue were the Bynar children, and they seemed content to stare at him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. What kind of world is this? Panting heavily, Riker stumbled into the cockpit to see how much damage the hijackers had done. He knew the Maquis were desperate, but to hijack an unarmed shuttlecraft was ridiculous!
He bent over Ensign Shelzane to check for a pulse and make sure she was still alive. She was, although a contusion on her skull was staining her blue skin with violet blood. Lying on the deck beside her was a length of metal pipe, obviously the weapon the Tiburonian had used to disable her. At least he had put down the hijacking and gained control of the ship—for the next several minutes. He had to act fast before the attackers came to.
Keeping an eye on the Bynar children, he set down the phaser pistol and grabbed the medkit to attend to his wounded comrade. Just as he loaded a hypospray with a coagulant, Riker felt a peculiar tingle along his spine. In the next instant, he realized it wasn’t peculiar at all—it was a sensation he had felt many times. A transporter beam had locked onto him!
Riker reached for the phaser pistol, but his hand had already started to dematerialize—he couldn’t close his fingers around it. Helpless, he stared at the Bynar children, and they stared back like porcelain dolls, until everything in the shuttlecraft faded from view.
Chapter Four
LIEUTENANT RIKER MATERIALIZED not on a transporter pad as he expected, but directly inside an old-fashioned brig, with bars across the door. He charged forward and smashed into the bars, rattling them but not doing any real damage. The outer door whooshed open, and a wild-eyed Klingon woman entered, wielding a Ferengi phaser rifle.
At least she looked Klingon, although closer inspection led him to wonder, because her forehead ridges were not very pronounced. But the contemptuous scowl on her face sure made her look Klingon. “Back away!” she said with a snarl.
“Or what?” he demanded. “You’ll hijack my shuttlecraft? You’ve already done that. But maybe you want to torture me—see if I know anything.”
“The captain will be here in a moment,” she replied. “Just shut up until then.”
“What vessel is this? Are you Maquis…or something else?”
“This is the Spartacus,” said an authoritative male voice.
Riker turned to see a commanding figure in a tan jacket enter the brig. He stared, because it appeared as if the dark-haired man had a maze tattooed on his forehead. Whatever outfit this was, it sure wasn’t Starfleet.
“I’m Captain Chakotay,” said the man, meeting Riker’s hostile gaze. “And, yes, we are Maquis. Despite that, we mean you no harm.”
“People keep telling me that,” muttered Riker, “but somehow I don’t believe it. You cracked open my co-pilot’s skull, and you attacked us without provocation.”
“Your co-pilot is receiving medical attention right now.” Chakotay gave Riker a grudging smile. “And it sounds like you defended yourself fairly well. I’m glad we backed up our infiltration team, but we can’t afford to leave anything to chance.”
Riker shook his head in disbelief. “All this to hijack an unarmed shuttlecraft? If that’s the scope of your ambition, it’s a wonder Starfleet pays any attention to you at all.”
“Shut up!” snapped the Klingon woman, threatening him with the phaser rifle.
“Stow it, B’Elanna,” ordered the Maquis captain. “He’s got a right to be angry. Don’t worry, Lieutenant, it’s not you or your shuttlecraft we want. It’s your cargo.”
“What cargo?”
“Aren’t you carrying medical supplies?”
“We were, but we’re empty on our return trip.”
Chakotay scowled in anger and stepped over to a
comm panel beside the door. He slammed it with a clenched fist. “Chakotay to bridge. Do we have a report yet on what they found on the shuttle?”
“Yes, Captain,” answered a calm male voice. “We found only personnel—our own and the shuttlecraft’s co-pilot.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, sir. No supplies were found on the shuttlecraft, other than standard-issue medkits. The wounded parties have been transferred to the Singha for medical attention.”
From the captain’s clenched jaw, Riker assumed this was very bad news. “All that trouble for nothing,” he grumbled. “Chakotay out.”
“Not for nothing,” said the woman called B’Elanna. She glared at Riker. “We still have him and the shuttlecraft. And he’s a doctor.”
Riker shook his head. “No, I’m not—I’m just a medical courier who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I don’t get this—if your people needed medical attention, why don’t you just join the refugees? You could turn yourselves in.”
With a heave of his broad shoulders, Chakotay stepped closer to Riker. “It’s not us. We’ve got several million people in extreme danger who can’t be moved. B’Elanna, open the cell door.”
“What?” asked the Klingon in shock.
“Let him out. If we’re going to help them, the lieutenant has got to help us of his free will.”
Looking as if she disagreed wholeheartedly with this decision, the woman stepped back and pulled a lever on the other side of the room. She kept her phaser rifle trained on Riker as the bars retracted into the bulkhead.
“I’m not joining the Maquis,” declared the prisoner as he stepped forward.
“I’m not asking you to,” said Chakotay. “I’m asking you to help us save millions of lives. I presume that’s why you joined the medical branch—to save lives.”