by David Mack
The away team hurried in pursuit of Brunt, a state of affairs that Sarai found both galling and surreal. As they caught up to him, she decided to make her feelings known. “Let’s get something straight, whoever you are. Those are Federation citizens the Nausicaans are—”
“Shh,” Brunt hissed with a raised hand.
Before Sarai could demand an explanation, more disruptor blasts flew past her and Brunt, forcing them and the rest of the away team to fall back a few meters. Then a deep rumbling blast rocked the Husnock warship, and the ship came alive with the creaks and groans of distressed metal, and the resounding booms of more internal collapses.
A hoarse voice rasped over the open frequency. “Starfleet! This ship—a death trap.”
Riker answered, “We’ve noticed. What’s your point?”
A delay preceded the next response.
“Starfleet make deal,” the Nausicaan said. “Save lives.”
“We don’t deal with terrorists or criminals,” Riker said.
Sarai gripped Riker’s arm and spoke to him on a private channel. “Admiral, if there’s even a chance we could talk the prisoners out of here alive—”
“Trust me,” Riker said to Sarai. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Not terrorists,” the Nausicaan said. “Freedom fighters. I am Slokar, leader of the Patriots of the Wind. We fight to make a new Nausicaa. To make Nausicaans great again.”
Riker switched back to the open frequency. “And how does murdering and kidnapping Federation citizens accomplish that?”
“Not your fight. Starfleet never understand.” Some unintelligible mumbling, then Slokar continued, “Your people. You want? Let us go, we give them to you.”
Sarai couldn’t stay quiet. “How do we know your prisoners are still alive?”
The next voice on the channel was a woman’s. “My name is Doctor Kilaris,” she said. “Doctor Pek and our Bynar colleagues are alive and well. Leader Slokar wishes me to negotiate safe passage for him and his men in exchange for my life and those of my peers.” After a pause, she added, “He also wishes me to inform you that unless we reach a satisfactory compromise in the next ten minutes, he intends to blow up this vessel—and all of us with it.”
Eleven
* * *
If there was one thing Sarai had learned from her years in Starfleet, it was that nothing good ever came from negotiations conducted under extreme time pressure coupled with the threat of a fiery death. Which probably explains the paucity of Nausicaans in Starfleet, she decided.
Hunched down in the smoking aftermath of their commando strike gone sour, she and Riker exchanged worried looks as he did his best to keep Slokar talking. “You’ve let us hear from Doctor Kilaris,” Riker said, “but can you offer us proof that the others are really alive?”
“Proof of life,” Slokar responded. “Talk now.”
New voices joined the conversation. “This is Doctor Pek.”
“Zero One Zero—”
“One Zero One, alive.”
Hearing the scientists reply gave Sarai at least a small sense of assurance that the admiral’s efforts weren’t in vain. Then Slokar continued, “Now you give us safe passage.”
Riker remained calm in the face of the Nausicaan’s intransigence. “My only concern is the safe return of the scientists. Let them go, and you can leave without resistance.” He noted Sarai’s appalled reaction at the prospect of letting the Nausicaans escape justice, but squelched her protest with a raised hand and a look that implied, I’m just saying what he wants to hear.
Slokar remained intractable. “Hostages stay with us. Resist, they die.”
Keru chimed in on the away team’s secure channel. “Commander? This is Keru. Pava and I are okay. We’re flanking the Nausicaans’ position.”
“Good work,” Sarai said. “As soon as you and sh’Aqabaa have clear shots, hit the whole group with wide-field maximum stun.”
“Including the prisoners?”
Riker gave Sarai a thumbs-up signal. She acknowledged it, then told Keru, “Affirmative. They’ll wake up with headaches, but they’ll be alive and free.”
“Copy that. Stand by.”
Growing angrier, Slokar rumbled, “Answer, Starfleet! Safe passage! Yes or no?”
There was genuine regret and weary resignation in Riker’s voice. “With all respect, Slokar, I can’t let you leave here with those prisoners.”
“Then we all die.”
The admiral regarded Sarai with a frown of disappointment. He squinted as he looked past her and then over his shoulder, searching the darkness with a confused expression before he asked over their private channel, “What happened to the Ferengi?”
Sarai mimicked Riker’s search and confirmed that Brunt was nowhere to be seen.
Oh, no.
It was an ironic state of affairs. As much as Kilaris did not care for having been violently abducted and forced by the Nausicaans to engage in slave labor breaking the encryption keys on a Husnock computer core, she had to admit that she and her colleagues were making significant strides in their understanding of the Husnock’s language and technology in a very brief period of time. Though it seemed unjust, she considered that there might be truth in the old adage: Sometimes we do our best work with a gun to our head.
Regardless, she still intended to kill Slokar and his men if afforded the opportunity.
She and Pek watched over the Bynars’ tiny shoulders as they brainstormed their way through the final stages of hacking the decades-dormant computer core, which continued to hum along in spite of the beating it had taken in the crossfire minutes earlier. Smoke lingered in the air, and a fresh coating of dust caked the portable control panels, but neither seemed to pose an impediment to the Bynars, whose communion with the alien computer continued to deepen.
“There,” Pek said, pointing at the console’s main screen. “That’s the system Slokar said he wants cracked.”
010 said, “It will take a moment—”
“—to remove the encryptions,” finished 101.
Interfacing with each other via the Husnock computer, the Bynars made swift work of the encrypted data. They unlocked the file, whose raw data they routed to the adjacent workstation, which was running Kilaris’s jury-rigged Husnock translation system. As soon as the new data arrived, the modified universal translator began its work.
Several seconds passed in tense silence as Kilaris and her colleagues waited to see whether their efforts would bear fruit. Then a flood of parsed data scrolled up the screen, a trove of Husnock security codes and command-access protocols, all rendered in the clear.
Kilaris experienced a moment of grim realization. With this, the Nausicaans could seize control of intact Husnock vessels and facilities. Armed with such vessels they could slaughter billions. Perhaps we should destroy this data before—
Pek exclaimed, “We did it!”
His outburst drew Slokar and Varoh to their side. “Good,” Slokar said. He handed Pek a data chip. “Copy data onto this.” Pek, finally realizing the magnitude of his blunder, hesitated. Slokar drew his disruptor pistol and aimed it at Kilaris’s head. “Copy data or Vulcan dies.”
Another hesitation. As recently as the previous century, some Tellarites might not have cared about whether a Vulcan lived or died. Kilaris hoped Pek did not harbor a secret animosity toward her species—or, if he did, that this was not the moment he chose to express it.
Pek put the chip into the console and copied the Husnock security codes and command protocols onto it. When the data was finished duplicating, he ejected the chip and handed it back to Slokar, his manner restrained. “That’s all of it. Please don’t hurt Doctor Kilaris.”
“Not kill you yet,” Slokar rasped. “Still need you as shields.” To Varoh he said, “Turn off their comms. Can’t let them plot.”
Before Kilaris or the others could protest, Varoh removed the transceiver relays from the outsides of their helmets, and he confiscated the cables that had let the By
nars link with the Husnock computer and each other. Now the four of them were each locked inside their own silence, waiting to see what atrocity the Nausicaans would visit upon them next.
Kilaris watched Varoh and the other subordinate Nausicaans. They moved quickly but methodically about the compartment, placing small devices topped with blinking lights.
Military ordnance was far from Kilaris’s area of expertise, but even she could tell what their captors were doing: they were planting explosives around the Husnock computer core.
This is not going to end well, she speculated.
Then a devastating storm of energy pulses ripped through the compartment, their point of origin hidden by the smoke and dust in the air. One of the Nausicaans collapsed dead at Kilaris’s feet, the faceplate of his helmet blown apart and his head cooked to a crisp inside. Another staggered to cover while gripping a smoldering-hot wound in his arm, his retreat covered by Slokar and Varoh, who in their haste to escape the blasts had left behind the prisoners.
Chasing the fleeing Nausicaans was a lone figure, a wild screaming Ferengi bearing a carbine disruptor rifle in each hand. He fired both weapons at once as he charged in relentless pursuit of his three much larger and better-armed opponents.
Wild shots from the Ferengi’s weapons ricocheted off a bulkhead and slammed through the deck plate beneath Kilaris. It creaked, then it sagged. She and the others tried to flee to more solid footing, but it was too late—the floor fell away beneath them, and from there the only thing Kilaris could see was a blur of shadows against a deeper darkness that swallowed them all.
Phaser blasts ripped past Riker’s head, all of them far too close for comfort and each one closer than the last. He had no idea who had fired first, who had fired at whom, or what in blazes was going on inside the Husnock wreck.
“Someone talk to me,” he demanded. “Who’s firing in there?”
Chaotic shouts and the shrieks of discharging weapons—that’s all he heard for a few seconds over the open channel. Then a reply came in on the away team’s secure channel. “Sir, this is Keru. The Nausicaans are in retreat, and we’ve reached the civilians.”
“Who gave the order to engage?”
“It was the Ferengi, sir. He just went berserk.”
Sarai asked, “Are the prisoners okay?”
“They took a spill, but they’re fine. But we’ve got another problem. The Nausicaans set charges on the computer, and we don’t have the gear to defuse them. We’ve got about five minutes to get topside or we’re all dead.”
“Evacuate the ship,” Riker said. “Skip the rendezvous point, head for the runabout.”
As Riker got up to lead the exodus, Sarai asked, “Sir, what about the Nausicaans?”
“One thing at a time, Commander. Run!”
With Sarai, Modan, and Sethe at his back, Riker sprinted to the nearest passageway marked by the Nausicaans, then he followed the painted guides through the smoky darkness, back to the transverse corridor that led to the break in the hull. As he and the others barreled around the last corner on their way to safety, they collided with Keru, sh’Aqabaa, and the four civilian scientists, who had come by an alternative path.
Keru asked, “Everyone okay?”
“All here,” Riker said. “Let’s—”
From the shadows behind them came the Ferengi, running so hard he nearly bowled over half the away team in his haste to escape the wreck. Riker grabbed the Ferengi’s arm. “You—!”
“Admiral! Thank me later, but we have to go! The ship’s—”
“Going to explode, I know. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“What your people wouldn’t. And before I forget—” He pulled a data chip from his belt and pushed it into Riker’s palm.
Riker held up the chip. “What the hell is this?”
Deadly serious, Brunt replied, “My bill.”
Brunt slipped from Riker’s grasp and continued his mad dash for open air. Sarai snapped at the away team, “Don’t stand there! Move!” The group ran for the exit and didn’t look back. Then Sarai turned toward Riker. “Sir, let’s go!”
“Lead on,” he said. He pocketed the chip and followed her out, with one notion festering in his thoughts every step of the way.
I hate Ferengi.
It wasn’t the longest run of Dalit Sarai’s life, but it was the most desperate. She was at the back of the group, making sure no one straggled or strayed as they retreated off of the ship’s hull and up the steep incline of sharp rocks. It would have been easy for her to sprint ahead of the others, take the lead, and guarantee her own survival—but she was the Titan’s first officer. Safeguarding the lives of her crew and the security of her ship were her chief duties, even if meant that she would be the one closest to—
A bone-shaking boom split the air as a blast wave flattened Sarai. She landed face-first, hard enough that a rock gouged a scratch across her transparent aluminum faceplate. Heat rolled over her back, and a cloud of ash, cinders, and dust roared over the away team and the rescued civilians, who all lay pinned to the slope, just like her.
She looked back. A black mushroom cloud climbed into the sickly green sky. Beneath it, the Husnock wreck collapsed into itself, its broken hull being consumed by a growing ball of fire unleashed by the Nausicaans’ munitions. As the fractured, sagging hull fell inward, it started to take a swath of the hillside with it.
Sarai sprang to her feet. “Up! Move! Now!”
The others were sluggish to react, no doubt stunned by the shock wave. She pulled Riker from the ground, then Sethe and Modan. By the time she reached the civilians, they were already scrambling up the slope, following Keru and sh’Aqabaa toward the runabout.
Behind them, the slope continued to erode and showed no sign of slowing its disintegration. Stumbling up the uneven ground, Sarai opened a channel to the computer on the Nechako. “Computer! Start engines! Override preflight systems check! Open port-side hatch!”
The runabout’s hatch slid open just before Keru got to it. He waved the others past him, and helped the civilians inside before directing them to the aft compartment.
Riker tripped over a jutting stone and landed hard on one knee. Sarai pulled him up, and then she let him run on his own once she was sure he could keep up. The admiral ducked inside the Nechako half a step ahead of Sarai, who knew the hillside’s vanishing edge was continuing to chase her. “Computer, fire vertical thrusters in two seconds!”
She counted down in her head and dived through the open hatchway a fraction of a second before the ship lurched upward—and the ground beneath it churned into a molten slurry.
Keru pulled Sarai inside and closed the hatch manually, then he reset the ship’s environmental controls. The HUD on Sarai’s faceplate confirmed that a normal atmospheric mix had been restored inside the Nechako. She and the others doffed their helmets, and then she made her way to the cockpit, followed by Riker.
Ensconced once more in the pilot’s seat, she asked Riker, “Orders, sir?”
“Back to the Titan,” he said. “I won’t risk another battle with civilians aboard.”
“And the Nausicaans?”
A look of determination hardened his features. “They won’t get far.”
Needles of fire shot up Slokar’s leg as he, Varoh, and Motar limped back to their ship. Pain did not matter. All that mattered was power, and the codes on the chip would give that to him. Give that to all Nausicaans, a people without a homeworld, a people in need of a new future.
He did not mourn the man he had left behind. Zallas was not the first to die for this cause. He would not be the last. But he had died a patriot. He was killed standing up for the Nausicaan people. Slokar vowed to make sure his name would be remembered, sung forever by his people and whispered forever by the Four Winds. Heroes deserved no less.
Motar’s arm dangled limp and paralyzed at his side; he had been the first casualty of the mad Ferengi. Only Varoh had escaped the Husnock wreck unscathed. Always the lucky
one—that was Varoh. But Slokar did not envy him. Who revered a veteran with no scars?
In spite of their wounds, they moved quickly across the harsh moonscape. It was good to be free of the prisoners. They had been necessary, but only up to a point. Had Starfleet or the Ferengi not interfered, Slokar could have done away with the mewling civilians as soon as they had cracked the Husnock computer. Free of their whining, he and his men made better time returning to their ship than they had on the outbound journey.
It was all for the best. Soon he and his men would be away, and once they took control of the Husnock’s mighty arsenal, the future would be theirs to bend to their will.
They crested a rise in the path. Slokar grinned at the sight of his ship, the Kaze’Noken, parked where they had left it. Imagining the roars of acclaim that would greet their triumphant return, Slokar straightened his back and mastered the burning agony in his leg. He would face his crew with strength and pride. He would show them how a Nausicaan conquers all.
He keyed his access code into the panel beside the outer airlock door. It rolled open, and he let Varoh and Motar enter ahead of him. Once they were inside, he joined them and secured the outer door. When the airlock finished restoring the air and sterilizing their suits, the lights changed color, and Slokar keyed in his code again to open the inner door.
The three returning heroes stepped out of the airlock into the lower operations bay, where the crew stored EVA equipment and supplies. There was no one there to greet them, but that was not unusual. Slokar and his men shed their cumbersome environmental suits and stuffed them back into their storage lockers. Then Slokar stepped over to a nearby companel on the bulkhead and opened a channel to the bridge. “Yereb! We have the chip! Prepare to launch!”
He waited for his second-in-command to reply and confirm the order. No response came. Slokar was about to repeat himself when he heard the ops bay door open behind him. He and the others turned to see Yereb standing in the doorway.
