“Phasers are armed,” Picard said. Such weapons were not ordinarily standard on most shuttlecraft, but it would have been sheer folly to embark on a mission like this without them.
“The shields are still off-line,” Crusher warned.
“Fine. Then theirs probably aren’t working either.” He tried locking onto the nearest target, but the computer refused to accept the command. The atmospheric ionization was playing hell with the automatic phaser-lock.
Picard activated the manual targeting controls. Using the tactical screen, he displayed his manual-acquisition targets. A split-second later, a Chiarosan disruptor beam lanced out in their direction, barely missing the shuttle’s unprotected hull.
Picard returned fire just as his target drifted out of his makeshift sights. A clean miss. A second ship’s beam rocked the shuttle with a glancing blow. Luckily, the Kepler’s hull held together. But he knew their luck couldn’t last.
The battle reminded Picard of an exercise he had conducted decades ago, at the Academy. The cadets had been expected to cope with glitches and malfunctions of all sorts; one such test had involved the unexpected failure of a simulated starship’s computerized phaser target-lock. Picard had very quickly dispatched a pair of Tzenkethi raider ships using what Corey Zweller had admiringly called “dead reckoning.” For weeks afterward—and for reasons he still couldn’t fathom—Batanides had referred to him as “the Pinball Wizard.”
Just as he had in that simulation, Picard allowed his instincts to take over. A Chiarosan ship dropped into the path of his drifting manual target-lock, and he fired at it. The bright orange beam contacted the unshielded alien ship squarely, blowing it apart. He swung the manual target-lock to his far right and just as quickly dispatched another before resuming his rolling, swooping evasive maneuvers. The three remaining Chiarosan ships continued to buzz about undeterred, trying to encircle him.
Picard glanced at Crusher, whose somber expression reminded him that this was no simulation. People were dead, by his hand—and it would never be a thing he would take pride in. Without speaking, he looped back toward the coordinates of the invisible rebel base, hoping for an opportunity to beam the captives aboard and outrun his pursuers.
But the three Chiarosan fighters were quickly gaining ground.
Will Riker watched as Zweller held up four fingers, then three, then two, then one.
A split-second later, the orange forcefield that barred the cell’s only doorway crackled and vanished. The guard turned toward the silence and Riker leaped on the man, surprising him and knocking him to the stone floor. As they landed, Riker drove both of his knees into the Chiarosan’s stomach, then rolled onto his shoulder and sprang back onto his feet. The guard was already getting up, but he was winded and startled. Riker knew that he would be dead very soon if he failed to press that very slim advantage.
One of the soldier’s huge hands grasped a sword pommel just as Riker sent a flying kick toward the Chiarosan’s head. Wincing as his bootheel connected sharply with the other man’s skull, Riker almost fell over when he landed, his hip stitched with pain. The guard sprawled onto the floor heavily, and Riker landed a twohanded hammer-blow at the base of his skull.
The alien wheezed, then lay still.
A moment later, Troi and Zweller were standing in the corridor beside Riker as he panted with exertion. Ignoring the agony in his hip, Riker knelt beside the unconscious guard, taking his swords and removing a large, pistolshaped beam-weapon from the Chiarosan’s belt. He rose and handed one of the swords to Zweller, who hefted the weapon appraisingly. Riker gave the pistol to Troi.
“All right,” Troi said, examining the weapon’s controls. “We’re out of our cell. What’s our next move?”
“We find the rest of the hostages,” Zweller said, pointing his sword down the stone corridor. “Then we fight our way to the hangar and take one of the rebels’ flyers.”
“Oh,” Troi said laconically. “Is that all?”
Riker raised his sword before him, as though it were an anbo-jytsu staff. He was grateful for the chance to finally do something to end their confinement—even if it did seem to be a lost cause.
“If you’ve got a better plan, Deanna, I’m all ears.”
Troi nodded, conceding his point. “Lead on, Commander,” she said to Zweller, spinning her weapon by its trigger guard, in the manner of a gunfighter from the ancient American West.
As they made their way down the empty corridor, Riker could hear shouts and the sounds of a struggle. He saw Troi frowning at her pistol’s electronic controls.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I can’t find the stun setting.”
“Chiarosans don’t believe in nonlethal weapons,” Zweller said, then led them around a corner.
They entered a wide chamber that contained five empty holding cells. In front of the cells, four Starfleet officers—who had evidently also made a bid for freedom once the forcefields had dropped—were grappling hand-to-hand with a pair of hulking Chiarosans. An officer, a human male, lay on the stone floor, either dead or unconscious. One of the Chiarosans sent a human woman sprawling with a single backhanded slap.
The second guard raised a heavy sword and prepared to skewer a very angry Tellarite. Instead of fleeing the blow, the Tellarite leaped forward, sinking his tusk-like teeth deeply into the soldier’s bare forearm.
With surprising adroitness, Zweller hurled himself into the melee, striking from behind and hacking at the first guard’s hamstrings. Roaring in pain, the Chiarosan fell to one impossibly flexible knee, twisting his torso almost backward to engage Zweller with two curved, scimitarlike blades. Riker rushed the second guard, parrying a downward sword-thrust aimed at the Tellarite’s thick neck. The Chiarosan shrugged the Tellarite off of him, sending him flying, gobbets of gray flesh trailing through the air behind him. Seemingly unaware of his wound, the soldier turned toward Riker, a death’s-head grin fixed upon his face. The guard rushed him, his blades twirling like the propellers of an ancient terrestrial aircraft.
Riker moved as fast as he could, sidestepping and parrying with his sword. But his hip, which was bonebruised if not sprained, was slowing him. Sparks flew as metal hit metal with a deafening clangor. Something nicked Riker’s scalp, and he felt a liquid warmth soaking into his beard and surging down his neck. The warrior paused, laughing in triumph.
“A little help here, Deanna!” Riker shouted.
The Chiarosan raised his blade, advancing with preternatural speed. Then his eyes went wide in shock and he flung his blades to the floor. Riker saw that the weapons had suddenly changed in color from silvery-gray to bright red. The blades of the guard Zweller had slashed struck the stone floor a moment later, and both warriors stopped moving, startled by their burned hands but bearing their pain stoically. For a moment, the room fell silent.
Troi stood a few meters away from the fracas, holding the pistol before her in a two-handed grip. “I won’t be aiming at your weapons next time, gentlemen,” she said icily. “Please don’t force me to fire again.”
It would have been easy for one or both of the guards to charge her, given their obvious strength and agility. But their muscles slackened and they backed away from her, apparently utterly convinced of her sincerity. Riker smirked, wondering for a moment if this was some new combat application of her empathic talents.
Zweller and one of the freed Starfleet officers—a man who wore a commander’s pips—began helping the injured to their feet. Brushing blood away from his ear, Riker was relieved to note that no one appeared to have suffered any serious injuries.
Zweller and the Tellarite disarmed the guards and escorted them into one of the holding cells, whose forcefields by now had become functional again. Zweller then began distributing the remainder of the Chiarosans’ weapons—swords, disruptors, and even a pair of Starfleet-issue phasers—among his crewmates.
“Commander Roget, one of those guards is cut up pretty badly,” the Tellarite told his super
ior. “He needs medical attention.”
“All right, Doctor,” Roget said. “But make it fast.”
Zweller spoke up. “Commander, the guard’s pride is the only thing that got hurt.”
“How would you know?” the Tellarite asked Zweller truculently. Riker assumed that the doctor was unaware of the commander’s alliance with the rebels.
“We have to get out of sight,” one of Slayton’s other officers said.
Roget looked convinced. Hefting a thick-bladed sword, he said, “Okay, then. We leave now.”
“Exactly how are we supposed to get off this base?” snorted the Tellarite. His piglike eyes narrowed as his gaze fell on Riker and Troi. “And who are our new friends?”
Riker and Troi stepped forward and exchanged brief introductions with the Slayton’s officers.
Looking impatient, Zweller handed a newly confiscated particle weapon to Roget and gave a second one to Riker. “With all due respect, let’s save the pleasantries for the debriefing. Right now, I need everybody to follow me to the hangar.”
Roget turned toward the Tellarite. “Gomp, stay up front with Commander Zweller. If you smell anyone coming, give us a shout.”
Gomp nodded, his porcine nose twitching as he sampled the dank subterranean air. Then he inhaled sharply and issued a very loud, very moist sneeze. Someone behind Riker said “Gesundheit.”
Zweller and Gomp took the point, and Riker fell into step a few paces behind them, his disruptor pistol ready. Farther back, Troi helped support an injured but ambulatory woman—Xenoanthropologist Kurlan—while Tuohy, the planetary scientist, assisted Engineer Hearn, who was moving with a very noticeable limp. Roget watched for trouble from the rear.
“Hold it,” Gomp hissed, his flat nose snuffling loudly. Everyone stopped. “I think I smell—”
About ten meters ahead, a broad intersection suddenly began filling up with Chiarosans, some carrying blades, others clutching disruptors and phasers.
Riker saw that Grelun was standing at the forefront, a curved sword in each of his massive hands. The scowl on the Chiarosan leader’s dark, saturnine face seemed to lower the room’s temperature by five full degrees.
“—trouble,” Gomp finished, almost inaudibly.
The hull of the Kepler banged and shuddered. Picard halfexpected to be blown out of the cockpit and into the ionized darkness, but the shuttle somehow remained in one piece.
The tactical display fluttered, but not because of the atmospheric static. The system itself had apparently taken damage and was beginning to fail. Despite that, he could still make out the intermittent image of three Chiarosan attack ships. The pursuing vessels continued firing while Picard coaxed the Kepler into evasive loops that threatened to tear the small craft apart.
“Why aren’t we returning fire?” Crusher said, her voice carrying a carefully controlled edge of fear.
He had to shout to be heard over the roar of the turbulent atmosphere and the discharge of the Chiarosan weapons. “We can’t spare the power. We need it for the transporter and the structural integrity field.” If the latter system were to fail, the shuttle would quickly become thousands of dinnerplate-size pieces, spread across hundreds of square kilometers of the frigid Nightside.
“We’re going to abandon ship?” Crusher asked.
“There’s no other choice. We’ve taken too much damage to outrun our attackers. And we’ll never reach orbit in this condition.”
The doctor calmly eyed a readout on her console. “Jean-Luc, at these power levels, we’ll never be able to transport together. Only one at a time.”
Picard nodded curtly. “The rebel base is in transporter range again. Beam yourself down first. I’ll join you as soon as I can. And no arguments.”
Though Crusher looked unhappy about her orders, she began trying to lock the transporter onto a safe destination within the rebel compound. Suddenly, her fingers stopped moving on the instrument panel. Picard saw the frown that darkened her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s those tetryon emissions again. I’m having trouble establishing a lock. I’m trying to compensate . . .”
Picard swiftly rolled and yawed the Kepler until the shuttle was headed directly for the nearest of their attackers. He felt the seat harness biting into him as gravity in the cockpit shifted, the force of acceleration threatening to overwhelm the inertial dampers. The distance between the two craft evaporated swiftly.
“There,” Crusher said. “Ready for transport.”
“Energize,” Picard shouted. A moment later, he sat alone in the cockpit.
The ship he was approaching went into an evasive swoop, but Picard had no trouble staying on top of the other pilot. He stole a glance at the transporter’s energy indicator; there still wasn’t enough power in the unit for a beam-out, though the system’s capacitors were slowly building up energy. If he could continue evading his opponents for perhaps another minute or two, he still had a chance to beam out to wherever Crusher had sent herself—but only if he avoided squandering the shuttle’s limited energy on the phasers.
Fortunately, there was an alternative to the phasers. As the shuttle came within meters of the nearest Chiarosan fighter, Picard touched a release toggle, then sent his vessel into a dive. The Kepler lurched slightly, and the light of a fiery explosion flooded the viewport.
At close quarters—and with no shields—a shuttlecraft log buoy made quite a projectile.
On the tactical display, only two hostile vessels remained. Both were maintaining the chase. Glancing at his console, Picard saw that the transporter was still steadily recharging. But it wasn’t quite ready yet.
Then he checked the transporter lock, only to discover that it wasn’t working properly.
Damn. Tetryons again.
Picard knew well that tetryon emissions were a byproduct of certain Romulan technologies. If there was a “smoking gun” pointing to Romulan involvement with the Army of Light, then this was it. And the presence of Romulans—and their cloaking devices—would account for the rebel base’s complete invisibility from the air.
Suddenly, one of the Chiarosan ships increased speed, approaching the Kepler on an intercept course. And there were no more log buoys left.
A green light winked on in the transporter-power display. Relieved, Picard quickly compensated for the tetryons and locked the transporter onto the same coordinates Crusher had used.
Then, as he attempted to energize the transporter, every system in the Kepler’s cockpit went dead and dark.
Lack of time had forced Crusher to lock the Kepler’s transporter into the most easily detectable tetryon-free area in the rebel base—which was, ironically, located at the center of a tetryon-rich area. The eye of the storm, she thought as the transporter beam began disassembling her, molecule by molecule.
When the transporter’s shimmering light faded, Crusher found herself standing in a narrow, teal-colored chamber. A sign on one of the bulkheads bore several characters of angular, alien script.
In the center of the chamber, two men and a woman, all wearing gray uniforms, busied themselves around what appeared to be a partially disassembled warp core.
A Romulan warp core, Crusher thought, just as the woman turned toward her, a disruptor in her hand.
At least two dozen pairs of iridescent Chiarosan eyes stared balefully from across the wide, branching corridor. Riker seriously doubted that he and his companions could survive a firefight against so many determined opponents.
The troopers were holding their fire, apparently awaiting orders from Grelun, who stood in their front ranks. The Chiarosan leader seemed to be staring intently at Zweller.
Riker heard Zweller hissing at Gomp, the Tellarite. “I thought Tellarites had keen noses! How could so many of them slip right past you?”
Gomp snorted unhappily, wiping his snout with one of the sleeves of his soiled uniform. “I’m a doctor, not a tricorder. Besides,” he snuffled, “I think I’m coming down with a cold.�
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“Disarm, or die,” Grelun said.
Riker stepped forward, his weapon lowered in what he hoped the Chiarosans would see as a nonthreatening gesture. He stopped beside Zweller and Gomp.
“Grelun,” Riker said calmly. “We have to talk.”
Grelun sneered. “Falhain should never have trusted you Federation folk. Particularly that one.” He twirled one of his blades, then aimed its point straight at Zweller. “The man who tried to betray us to Ruardh.”
Riker heard surprised mutters among the Slayton survivors, which receded slowly after Roget gave a terse order for silence. All eyes were upon Zweller now, and none looked very friendly.
Apparently oblivious to everyone in the chamber except for Grelun, Zweller was still holding his particle weapon, his arms at his sides. In a steely voice, Zweller said, “Not true, Grelun. I could have done a lot more than just tamper with your communications and security systems. I could have sabotaged the cloaking devices that keep this place hidden from your enemies. But I didn’t do that.”
Cloaking devices. The words echoed in Riker’s mind. Looks like the Romulans have been stacking the deck, after all. He saw from Troi’s expression that she must have come to the same conclusion. But what, he wondered, did the Romulans have to gain?
Zweller continued: “And do you know why, Grelun? Because I believe in your cause. I want to help you stop the slaughter of your people.”
Grelun appeared unmoved. “You outworlders and your schemes. You plot and you plan. You manipulate us as though we were but pieces in a game. And who suffers? Those who dwell in the provinces you conquer.”
“We’ve never ‘conquered’ anyone, Grelun,” Riker said. “And I would like a chance to prove it to you.”
“How, human?” Grelun said.
“I offer you a neutral place to meet with us: aboard our starship, the Enterprise. There, you can learn more about our history.”
Grelun laughed, then said, “The writing of history is ever the privilege of the conqueror. Life here was far better, far simpler, before outworlders came among us. Then, only Ruardh and her death-dealing minions stood against us.”
Rogue Page 15
