The compound was sprawled over ten square miles, and so it was that the group of escaping prisoners was nowhere near a Romulan attack vessel when it made its way into the camp. This was actually fortunate since, if they had been, they might very likely have been killed instantly due to the unorthodox nature of the vessel’s entrance.
Mudak, unfortunately, happened to be much nearer and, as a result, nearly lost his life. As he raced across the compound, heading toward the defense tower, he suddenly became fully aware that the ground was not simply vibrating in response to the pounding from overhead. Instead it seemed to be responding to something coming from underneath. What had occurred to Riker and Saket some minutes before now finally registered on Mudak, who, to be fair, might have realized it sooner were he not distracted by the assault from above. Then again, that was the entire purpose of the aerial attack: to draw attention from the true means of assailing the compound.
The ground began to buckle only ten feet away from him. The vibrations knocked Mudak off his feet and he fell heavily onto his back. He kept a firm hand on his weapon, but even as he did so he scrambled backward, pulling himself along on his elbows as he watched with sheer incredulity an assault plan that was breathtaking in its simplicity.
Dirt and debris exploded upward, fountaining, geysering as if someone had set off a depth charge. Mudak, realizing that he couldn’t get away in time, curled up defensively in a ball, tucking his head down and in, as dirt rained upon him. The dirt storm effectively buried him, obscuring him from casual view. He was, however, able to keep enough of the soil away from his face that he could clearly see what was happening.
From out of the hole emerged a vessel such as Mudak had never seen, but he was quickly able to discern its purpose. It was a core driver, a normally land-bound vessel that was used in—ironically, considering the circumstances—terraforming. On particularly hostile worlds, it enabled colonists to fashion subterranean storage and even, in a pinch, residential facilities. It was equipped with a series of rotating proto-dischargers, arranged in a large wheel on the front of the vehicle. As the wheel spun, the dischargers literally dissolved the dirt in a widening circle while at the same time hardening the resulting tunnel by reinforcing its molecular structure to nearly diamond-hard durability. Passages, even caves, could be carved out in a matter of minutes.
But this was no ordinary core driver. Someone had taken it and, through resourcefulness that bordered on the diabolical, mounted the entire thing on a warp sled. The vehicle, now spaceworthy but too small to be detected by any early-warning device, had made its own approach to the planet, simply entered the planet’s surface at a point that was unprotected by the force shield, and burrowed underneath the shielding. The shielding didn’t extend below the compound on Lazon II; it ended at the surface level. It was an oversight of which the Romulans (according to Saket) had taken full advantage.
Lazon II was at that point officially a madhouse. The explosions from beneath had completely unnerved others of the prisoners, and now everyone was running amok. Guards had no idea where to concentrate their efforts: on the intruder, or on the would-be escapees.
“Form ranks!” shouted a senior guard. The guards who were within earshot heard him and lined up, forming an extremely makeshift firing squad. The only question was where to aim. The senior guard immediately settled the matter by shouting, “Squad One, quell the prisoner uprising. Squad Two, fire on the intruders!”
Squad One had considerably more success as they opened fire on the fleeing prisoners. Two were killed instantly, far more sustained terrible wounds.
The core driver, for its part, trembled under the assault. It was not a combat vehicle, and its hull was simply not designed to take that kind of abuse, even from handheld weaponry. The vehicle shuddered and veered, its warp-sled propulsion system hammered. The driver had, for a few moments, been in the air, but a renewed attack flipped the entire vehicle over. Beneath the dirt, Mudak saw it coming his way. His breath caught as it rolled across the ground, and he braced himself for the impact, anticipating it running right over him and flattening him.
Instead, at the last second—as if Mudak were leading a charmed life—the wreckage took one final flip and sailed right over him. It slammed to the ground several feet beyond him, tumbling end over end and leaving a thick smoking trail behind it.
The guards let out a roar of triumph. Mudak had, by that point, managed to dig himself out. His sudden appearance caught a number of the others by surprise as he pushed free of the debris and stumbled toward the core driver. The skid along the ground had ripped open the cockpit, and Mudak—who, miraculously, was still holding his weapon firmly—brought it up and aimed it squarely at the control seat of the core driver.
It was empty.
Mudak rubbed dirt from his face as if improving his vision might put someone in the way of his weapon. Other guards assembled around him, and they likewise stared uncomprehendingly. “Well…well, where is—?” one of them said.
Mudak’s gaze caught a blinking panel on the vehicle. He recognized the auto-drive mechanism that had been attached, enabling the core driver to either be placed on autopilot or be operated by remote control….
Suddenly Mudak understood. “The hole!” he shouted, whirling towards the point of entry. “Fire on it! Close it up! Hurry—!”
It was too late.
The Romulan fighter craft exploded out of the hole that the core driver had created. As was common for other Romulan vessels, it had birdlike markings, but it was leaner and more vicious looking than its larger warbird cousins. Starfleet intelligence reports had classified it as a “Peregrine.” And as opposed to the core driver, which had moved like a pig since its warp sled was useless in a confined area, the Romulan fighter was equipped for rapid-fire maneuvers and pinpoint turns. That quickly became evident as the Peregrine angled around and headed fearlessly toward the defense grid.
The pulse-blasters immediately came on line, their sensor-locking systems targeting the Peregrine. The cannons opened fire, and conventional wisdom said that the Peregrine didn’t have a prayer.
The pilot of the Peregrine, however, apparently didn’t know that. The ship weaved and darted about, the air exploding around it. Once or twice the cannons came close to nailing it, but only close. The Peregrine’s own weaponry came on line and returned fire, pummeling the defense grid. The massive tower trembled, cracks appearing in its foundation. The grid wasn’t designed to withstand a direct assault—not only was the force shield supposed to provide the first line of defense, but there was no way that a ship was supposed to get close enough to have a direct impact with weapons fire.
It seemed, however, that no one had informed the pilot of the Peregrine of those facts. The ship swooped down and around, dodging through the hail of fire around it and continuing to blast the towers.
And then the Cardassians got lucky. A ground-fire team, headed up by Mudak, manage to clip the Peregrine, knocking out its rear stabilizers. The Peregrine spun on its axis, and Mudak fully anticipated that it would crash at any moment. As it turned out, he was wrong. Through a feat of piloting that defied description, the Peregrine managed to hold its course steady even as it spiraled in a manner that would have spelled instant death for anyone else. It lurched for one moment toward the ground and then gained altitude and held on to its target…namely the defense grid of Lazon II.
“It’s going to hit!” shouted Mudak, and from both the words and tone of his voice there was no necessity for going into the details of what that meant. The pulse-blasters struck the fast-moving Peregrine, and the rear section of the fighter transformed into a rapidly building ball of flame. But it was too little, too late, for there was no time for the blasters to accomplish anything else. The Peregrine was upon them.
A split instant before the small ship collided with the defense grid towers, anyone with exceptionally sharp eyes would have noticed what appeared to be a small figure bailing out of the cockpit. The canopy had been jettiso
ned and the pilot—and, it appeared, sole crewman—was ejected into the air, barely clearing the area before the Peregrine smashed into the defense grid. The explosion was deafening, and a ball of fire immediately enveloped the lower half of the tower and licked its way eagerly up the rest of the structure. It set off a series of smaller explosions which rapidly built in intensity, the ground shaking all the more violently. Within seconds the entire defense grid erupted, sending a column of thick black smoke spiraling skyward.
By this time the compound was in complete disarray, people running in all directions. Mudak was never quite sure how he found himself flat on the ground. All he knew was that a tremendous blast of heat had picked him up and thrown him off his feet, sending him sprawling on his back many yards away. His world seemed to be filled with nothing but running feet. He had no idea which way to look.
To his amazement he was still holding on to his weapon. It was as if his fingers had developed a life of their own, a life that cried out in anger for vengeance over this indignity inflicted upon Lazon II. He spit out a large chunk of dirt, since apparently the force of the impact had driven his face directly into the ground. He felt a distant throbbing in his head, and touched the side of his face in order to realize that there was a large patch of wetness on his skin. With an almost amused attitude, he looked at the discoloration on his fingers and saw the blood on it, wondered whose it was, and then realized it was his own. He did not, however, choose to let it bother him, for he had larger concerns at that moment.
Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw movement. It stood out for him because, all around him, everyone else was running there and about as if they were madpeople. But this individual was moving with caution and a canny awareness of her surroundings. She was emerging from just behind the wreckage, moving in a sort of half-crouch that made her a fairly small target but did nothing to slow her down. She had short blond hair, and elegantly tapering eyebrows and ears. She was dressed mostly in black, with a tunic of silver that picked up the flickering of flame from the burning tower and almost made her look like a being of pure elemental fire. There was blackness smeared on her face, and for a moment he thought it was camouflage makeup before he realized that, no, it was soot from the fire and possibly from the crash.
It took him a moment to fully grasp who it was that he was seeing. It was the pilot of the Romulan Peregrine which had demolished Lazon II’s defense grid. Suddenly Mudak could think of nothing that was more important to him than tracking down that pilot and killing her where she stood. She had not spotted him, and that was all the incentive he needed to go after her.
From her attitude, it seemed to Mudak as if she were looking for someone. It became a top priority for Mudak, therefore, to make damned sure that she didn’t find whoever that someone was. Smoke was hanging thick in the air and she seemed to disappear into it. Mudak staggered to his feet, waited for the world to stop tilting around him, and then moved off in pursuit.
Some distance away, Saket slowed in his running as he caught sight of the amazing precision flying of the Peregrine. It took him no time at all to realize who was at the helm of the ship, and then he smiled and shook his head in amazement. Clearly she had not lost her knack for pinpoint maneuvering.
“I knew you’d come,” he said, and then he turned to Riker and said again, “I knew she’d come.”
But Riker was nowhere to be seen, and Saket realized that Riker had become separated from him in the confusion.
Suddenly there was a massive explosion. Saket’s head whipped around just in time to see the Peregrine enveloped in a fireball of such intensity that he could feel the heat even where he was standing. His momentarily elevated spirits sank as he realized he might have just seen the death of one of his best and most beloved pupils. He shook his head in grim denial. “No,” he said firmly, “no, she can’t be dead. I don’t believe it.”
He even started to take a step toward the blast. Smoke was starting to waft in their direction, and then Redonyem appeared out of nowhere and grabbed Saket by the upper elbow. “Wrong way, old man,” said Redonyem. His color didn’t look particularly good; his skin tone was distinctly pink, and that wasn’t the best shade for a Tellarite. Nonetheless he said grimly, “We’re heading this way.”
“But—” began Saket.
“Look,” Redonyem growled sharply. He had one of his blood-covered, meaty hands firmly over the large burn mark on his torso. “We don’t have time to play. You interceded once for me with the guards, and I pay my debts. Come now or stay behind, either way, it’s your decision, but make it now.”
Saket hesitated only a moment, and then he followed the Tellarite toward possible freedom, unknowing of what had happened to either Riker or the female who had flown so boldly.
Mudak ran as fast as he could, climbing over rubble and vaulting over cracks in the very ground beneath him. He was certain that the Romulan woman was unaware that she was being pursued by him, and he didn’t want to get off a shot and miss, because that would warn her that she was being followed and he would lose the element of surprise. Considering everything that was going on around them, it might have been the only trump card he had.
He was all too aware of the complete vulnerability of Lazon II. The forcefield was demolished. Whatever other ships were up there, ready to inflict damage on the helpless world, would be able to take their stab at the beleaguered prison planet. They were very likely on their way even then, larger Romulan ships descending from on high like scavenging birds of prey.
“I thought they were our damned allies,” he growled. After all, hadn’t that been why Lazon II was at a low ebb in terms of ready troops? Because many Cardassian troops and their vessels had been enlisted as part of a Cardassian/Romulan mutual endeavor to obliterate the Founders? So what were Romulans doing now, attacking Lazon II? Had it all been part of some sort of massive scam on the part of the Romulans? At that point in time, there was nothing that Mudak would put past them.
She had stopped. It seemed as if she was trying to get her bearings. It was the perfect opportunity, and Mudak brought his weapon up and aimed it squarely at her. For a moment he couldn’t help but admire her from afar. She had a look about her that seemed almost animalistic, like a lithe stalking creature that was on the scent of prey. It was a clichéd sentiment, but he couldn’t help but feel regret that he had not encountered her under more pleasant circumstances, because he was certain that she would be one wild ride.
None of this, however, deterred him from preparing to blow her brains out.
He had a clear shot and could not miss. She was unaware that she was a target and, with any luck, she would be dead before she ever realized it.
He squeezed the trigger on his blaster and the weapon belched out its destructive force.
It ripped through thin air.
For at the exact moment he had fired, the Romulan woman had suddenly been beamed out. It had been pure coincidence; she’d had no idea that she was targeted. She had simply called for one of the unseen Romulan vessels overhead—which could now beam people to and from the surface—to get her out of there. For just a moment she realized, belatedly, the peril she had been in as she reacted to the blaster beam bisecting her. But the transporter beams had already taken hold of her, reducing her to little more than rapidly disappearing molecules.
Mudak spat out a curse.
It did not take a genius to figure out the purpose of this entire invasion. They were trying to stage some sort of breakout, most likely of Saket. If that was the case, and they hadn’t already managed to locate him, then Mudak was running out of time. Even if Lazon II was in flames around him, he would be damned if he allowed them to succeed in the goal of their mission.
Mudak knew every inch of the facility, and even in these less-than-ideal circumstances, he knew the way to the landing port. He dashed there as quickly as he reasonably could, circumventing pockets of fighting as he focused on the larger concern. He drew within range of the field and looked for s
ome signs of life in the guard bunker. Not spotting any, he immediately determined that one of two things had happened: Either they had abandoned their post (not impossible, but not likely) or they had been overcome by a group of prisoners, particularly Saket (not impossible and far more likely).
Mudak slowed ever so slightly in order to give himself a fraction more reaction time. Even at that reduced speed he still covered distance with remarkable speed. His hair was hanging raggedly around his face, and thick beads of sweat were collecting in the bone ridges of his face. His breath was ragged in his chest because of the heat caused by the explosions, but not only did none of that stop him…it was in fact all forgotten when he spotted three forms in the haze making their way toward one of the vessels in the landing port.
He did not hesitate, nor did he give them the slightest chance for surrender. Instead he opened fire. He had it set on full power, because he was simply not in the mood to fool around.
The first blast caught the Tellarite, Redonyem, squarely in the upper back. It was a killing blast, but Redonyem did not die immediately. It was the second major hit he’d taken in the course of the day, and still he refused to die. Mudak, however, had promptly dismissed Redonyem from his immediate concerns because he was already firing on Saket. Saket was in a half-turn, spinning about to see what it was that now threatened them, and if Mudak’s second blast had hit him squarely, Saket would have been dead before he hit the ground.
It was Redonyem who inadvertently saved him. Redonyem was staggering about, clutching at his chest, touching awful things that he didn’t want to think about and trying to shove them back into his chest cavity. When Mudak fired on Saket, Redonyem unknowingly stepped between the two. The blast ripped a gaping hole through Redonyem, blood and innards exploding from within him, and the blast continued through the Tellarite and struck Saket squarely in the side. However, Redonyem had absorbed the brunt of the blast, albeit unintentionally, and he collapsed upon Saket, his body weight now a dead mass that drove Saket to the ground.