The image on the bridge’s central viewscreen shifted. It had been displaying Romulus in the center, along with images of the Federation relief ships and their Klingon escorts; the scene now displayed a map overlay of the planet, which swiftly zoomed in on a sparsely populated area just outside the capital city of Romulus. As the image zoomed in further, Riker saw a large circular facility in an aerial view, and recognized it as a highly secured, bunkerlike facility.
“Tuvok appears to be inside Vikr’l Prison, which is located within one of the outlying districts of Ki Baratan,” Jaza said. “The readings are pretty thready, though. I’m picking up indications of kelbonite and fistrium inside the prison walls. Not a lot, but enough to cause some interference with our scans, even with the new high-res sensor nets. We might have better luck if we could get our sensors closer to the prison.”
“Seems like quite a stroke of luck that you happened to find him,” Vale said as she rose from her chair and approached Jaza’s science station.
“He may have been located in a deeper section of the prison before now,” the Bajoran said, frowning as his fingers moved deftly across the console in front of him. “If he’s just been moved toward the perimeter, that might explain why the scanners couldn’t find him until now.”
“Can we get a transporter lock on him?” Riker asked.
Ranul Keru spoke up from the tactical station, aft of the captain’s chair. “I’m afraid not, sir. The prison appears to be equipped with wide-dispersal transporter scramblers. All we’d get back would be a pile of protoplasmic sludge.”
Riker studied the image on the viewscreen, his eyes narrowing. If I send a rescue team down there, I put the Romulan-Reman power-sharing negotiations in jeopardy. I’d risk giving Durjik and his followers a real reason to reject the Federation. And it didn’t help matters that the prison was so close to the capital city of the Romulan Star Empire.
“Sir, I’m also detecting what appear to be weapons discharges within the prison perimeter,” Keru said. “The Romulan and Reman life signs we’re reading are all moving around quite a bit.”
“A prison riot?” Vale said, looking up from the data she was reading at Jaza’s station.
Which means this may be our only opportunity to get Tuvok out of there alive, Riker thought. As wary as he was, he knew he couldn’t afford to delay taking action any longer.
“Commander Vale, Commander Keru, assemble an extraction team,” Riker said, an edge in his voice. “I want your best people on this. Go in, get Tuvok out, and don’t get caught. I do not want anyone to know that Starfleet was ever there. Use the Handy. She’s already been outfitted for this sort of thing.”
Vale’s eyes widened, but she nodded crisply. “Yes, sir.” A moment later she and Keru were sprinting to the turbolift. Keru was already calling into his combadge for his security team.
Riker felt a twinge of regret; had this been the Enterprise, he would have been the one leading this rescue mission. But now, he had larger responsibilities. Despite his half-joking promise to Captain Picard that he intended to ignore the advice of his new first officer, he understood the wisdom of keeping a ship’s captain on the bridge.
“Mr. Jaza, patch everything over to my ready room, and then take the bridge,” Riker said, rising from his chair. “Inform Dr. Ree that we may have injured coming within the hour. Lieutenant Rager, I want you to monitor the Romulan communications channels. Find out everything you can about this riot, and get the information directly to the away team, encrypted and scrambled.”
Riker moved toward his ready room, tapping his combadge as he walked. “Admiral Akaar, Commander Troi, to my ready room, please.”
Dusk was deepening into night over the Romulan capital city. The shuttlecraft Handy dipped through the low-rolling clouds toward Vikr’l Prison. The sleek type-11 craft was the only one of the ship’s complement of eight that Admiral Akaar had authorized—illegally—to be equipped with a cloaking device.
Vale and Keru both agreed with the unorthodox decision, especially given the potentially volatile nature of their interaction with the Romulans. Vale thought it made little sense that both the Romulans and the Klingons were permitted cloaking technology, while the Starfleet convoy was hampered by decades-old agreements with a Romulan government that no longer even existed.
Vale looked around the shuttle at the assault team that Keru had assembled. It included the Caitian lieutenant j.g. Rriarr; the Vulcan lieutenant j.g. T’Lirin; the Martian human lieutenant Gian Sortollo; and the Matalinian lieutenant Feren Denken. With the exception of their shuttle pilot, Ensign Olivia Bolaji, everyone aboard was outfitted in stealth suits and helmets. These garments, based on the isolation suits worn by Federation social scientists while covertly observing prewarp species, were utterly black on the surface. But when their internal systems were activated, they holographically duplicated the background behind the wearer, thus providing highly effective personal camouflage.
Even with their stealth systems turned off, the suits’ helmets not only helped disguise the identities of the away team members, but were also equipped with electronic auditory enhancers and heads-up in-helmet displays whose optical sensors provided what amounted to 360-degree vision. The suits also afforded their wearers a degree of resistance to directed-energy weapons, though field tests suggested that it wasn’t wise to allow oneself to take more than a single direct hit.
Vale listened as Keru went over the team’s mission profile and contingency plans yet again. He seemed extremely concerned about leaving any member of the team behind, no matter the reason, and assigned them to work in pairs. Keru was to go with Rriarr, T’Lirin and Sortollo were a pair, and Denken and Vale were to be the third duo.
Looking out the Handy’s forward viewport, Vale saw that columns of black smoke were wafting into the sky. As the cloaked craft drew nearer to the prison’s squat, gray structures, she caught sight of dozens of figures moving with frantic speed. Armed Romulan security personnel were scrambling throughout the outer levels of the structure, whose walls were arranged in three concentric circles. At the center of it all lay a massive complex that the shuttle’s scans—hampered as they were by seemingly random subterranean veins of refractory metals—revealed extended six or more stories underground; Tuvok’s biosignature was emanating from deep within that central structure. Vale looked toward the sprawling surface prison yard near the innermost circle; here a swarm of armed Remans was massed, firing at the walls of the surrounding structures—and at the guards who dared to peer over those walls or shoot back.
“I can get us over the prison,” Bolaji said. “But there’s no clear place to land that probably won’t be swarming with Romulan skimmers any minute. Jaza tells me seventeen of them are already en route.”
“And with the transporter scramblers operating, we still can’t beam Tuvok out, or beam ourselves in,” Keru said, looking at the forward window. “We’re going to have to get in there the hard way.” He turned back toward the others on his team. “Remember those swift descent air assault exercises we’ve been doing, folks?”
“How could we forget, O Fearless Leader?” Denken said with a lilt in his voice that didn’t quite conceal his nervousness. Vale nodded as the rest of the strike team made positive noises and double-checked their equipment.
Keru grinned through his helmet’s open faceplate. “Then it looks like it’s about time to put theory into practice.”
Vale couldn’t fault Keru’s plan. Though it was old-fashioned, she didn’t doubt it was the best way to enter the prison undetected—or at least as stealthily as possible under the circumstances. She pointed toward the top of one of the low buildings, where a handful of Remans had overpowered the guards near what appeared to be a landing bay for hover vehicles.
“Get us as close as you can to that rooftop down there, without crossing into the prison’s antitransporter fields,” Vale said. “We’ll beam directly to the dorsal hull, come down firing. Once we reach the roof we’ll have a high, d
efensible position. With a little luck, the Romulans on the outer perimeter will never even know we were here.” She turned back toward the others. “Phasers on heavy stun. Keep your beams narrow, and keep an eye on the proximity sensors in your helmets so we don’t hit each other. Watch your backs—it’s pandemonium down there.”
She pointed to one of the side viewscreens, then raised her wrist-mounted tricorder. “Tuvok’s biosignature is still coming in strongly, and I read two clear paths to reach him.” She was grateful that the fistrium and kelbonite Titan’s sensors had detected from orbit didn’t seem to be interfering significantly with the Handy’s sensors, or the away team’s tricorders, at close range. “Whoever reaches Tuvok first will signal the rest of the team. Then we’ll all get the hell out of there.”
Vale turned back toward Bolaji and caught her wincing and rubbing her protruding stomach. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Bolaji shot back tersely. “Just a kick.”
Let’s hope that’s all it is, Vale thought, then turned back to face the others. “Let’s move, people.”
As Bolaji held the cloaked shuttle in position hovering over the rooftop, Keru began keying commands into the transporter console. T’Lirin and Sortollo activated their stealth systems and silenced gravity boots, turned invisible, then vanished in the shimmer of a transporter beam. Vale looked through the front window, though she could see no sign of either of them as they glided invisibly downward toward the rooftop.
As Keru and Rriarr repeated this maneuver and began their gentle descent, Vale saw two of the escaped Reman prisoners cast squinting glances toward the essentially invisible shuttlecraft. Damn, she thought, they must have heard the transporter or the gravity boots. Their ears are a lot more sensitive than we thought. Their weapons at the ready, Vale and Denken were next to materialize on top of the shuttlecraft Handy, toward which the Remans had already raised their rifles. Luckily, Vale and Denken managed to squeeze off the first shots.
Even as the stunned Remans toppled, the phaser blasts caught the attention of a dozen or so other prisoners who were already beginning to swarm onto the roof. But moments later, Vale’s proximity sensors revealed that Keru and Rriarr were down on the rooftop, crouching behind what appeared to be a large air-conditioning unit as they began spraying the angry Remans with phaser fire. Sortollo and T’Lirin had taken cover nearby, firing into the melee as well.
Moments later, Vale’s and Denken’s gravity boots touched the roof’s hard surface, where the rooftop rioters were all sprawled unconscious.
“Thanks for leaving some for us,” Vale said, grinning behind her face shield. The acrid smell of ozone hung in the air.
“You’ll get your chance to shoot at something soon enough,” Commander Keru responded, his deep voice sounding slightly tinny in her helmet.
As the team members forced open a door and cautiously lowered themselves into the prison facility, Vale had little doubt that Titan’s security chief was right.
“So much for stealth,” Keru muttered. He realized belatedly that he had badly underestimated the efficacy of the Remans’ nonvisual senses.
Four angry Remans were running toward them now. Though the away team had extinguished all the lights—and though the team’s stealth suits seemed to be functioning perfectly—the Remans were apparently able to locate them as though they were caught in a searchlight’s glare.
Rriarr leapt into the air, hissing as the large Reman approaching him swung a metal bar, narrowly missing his helmeted head. Grasping a pipe hanging from the ceiling, the Caitian flipped himself over and past his attacker and landed in a crouch behind him. A two-handed jackhammer blow to the base of the Reman’s skull drove the man down, making him lay still.
But Keru didn’t have time to watch Rriarr’s back at that moment; he was involved in a close-quarter combat situation of his own. They had entered a room that had scanned as empty, only to face an explosion from beyond the doors on the darkened chamber’s far side. The blast had knocked them both off their feet, tossing their weapons out of reach. A swarm of angry Remans immediately piled inside, and Keru’s night-vision visor revealed opponents who were armed, enraged, and numerous. Though the room was as dark as the night that was enfolding the prison yard, the Remans zeroed right in on Keru and Rriarr. Keru had never expected the darkness to slow down the Remans, who were born and bred to it; he merely hoped that it would conceal the away team’s presence from any Romulans they might encounter.
Already having downed three of the Remans with his hands, Keru was grabbed from behind by another of them. Unable to break the Reman’s grip, Keru pushed backward with his feet, slamming his attacker into a wall. As the blow loosened the bear hug, Keru stamped down hard on the upper arch of the Reman’s foot, causing the bone within to crack loudly.
The Reman released him momentarily, but Keru had to duck to avoid the swinging roundhouse blow of another club-wielding thug. He heard the club connect with flesh above him, then a bellow of rage as he sprinted to one side. He turned to see the larger of his attackers now pummeling the other Reman who had just accidentally struck him.
Keru looked around for the phasers they had dropped, and wasn’t surprised when he failed to find them. Then he noticed that a smallish Reman prisoner had scooped them up, and was, at that moment, attempting to fire at him. He moved quickly toward the Reman—who couldn’t have been more than a preteen—unconcerned. The phasers were specially tuned to the circuitry in the gloves of the stealth suits they were wearing. No one who wasn’t wearing the gloves could fire them.
Another Reman charged him. He crouched, using a martial arts technique that he had learned from one of the older Guardians in the caves of Mak’ala back on Trill. Keru struck two fingers up toward the Reman’s throat, sweeping one leg out at the same time. The Reman tumbled over his shoulder, carried by the kick and his own momentum, a strangled gurgle of pain replacing his guttural attack cry.
Keru stood and walked toward the Reman youth, who was now quaking with fright. “Boo!” he said, putting his gloved hands up. Panicked, the youth dropped the weapons and ran for the outer corridor from which the Remans had entered the room.
Quickly retrieving the phasers, Keru palmed one and whirled to face their remaining Reman attackers. Double-checking his helmet’s panoramic sensor display, he confirmed that none were left standing. Rriarr was crouched on all fours, breathing heavily, but in far better shape than any of the escaped prisoners who lay sprawled about the floor.
“Are you all right?” Keru asked.
“Just winded,” Rriarr said, his esses rendered slightly sibilant by his prominent canines. The Caitian’s helmet visor was raised, revealing golden, vertical-pupiled eyes that probably rivaled the night-vision system built into the stealth suits. “But if my tail weren’t tucked into this damned suit, I suspect there’d be another big chunk missing from it after that little dustup. Give me a second to catch my breath.”
Keru spoke into the mouthpiece in his helmet. “Commander Vale, how goes it?”
“Not good,” came the exec’s response. “We got ambushed in one of the corridors. They sliced Denken up pretty badly. I’m putting a field dressing on him now, but if we don’t get him back to Titan soon, I’m afraid he’s going to lose the arm.”
Stifling a curse, Keru let out his breath in a whoosh. “Sortollo, report.”
“We’re holding steady up here, but the Romulan skimmers have definitely arrived. Right now, they’re under heavy fire from escapees in the prison’s outer perimeter. But it’s only a matter of time before one or more of the skimmers makes for the roof you used to get inside.”
“I’m getting intel from Titan that confirms this,” Bolaji said, breaking in. “I’d say we’ve got five minutes, maybe less.” She paused for a moment, then came back on, her voice sounding strained. “Commander Keru, you’re positioned closest to Tuvok. My scans show he’s located two chambers past you, but something strange is going on there. We’ve got a group of
life signs approaching him, heavily armed.” She paused again, and Keru thought he heard a moan. “They’re coming up from underground. I’m feeding you the data now.”
Keru saw a rough electronic map flashing on one section of his helmet’s faceplate, and he turned to Rriarr. “Let’s go get him. Double time.” Into his mouthpiece, he said, “Commander, get Denken back to the Handy. Rriarr and I are going in after Tuvok now.”
In the corridors leading away from the first chamber, Keru and Rriarr found only unconscious or dead Reman prisoners and Romulan guards. As they neared the entrance to the second chamber, Keru felt his already-elevated adrenaline levels beginning to peak. I’m probably going to need anesthezine to get to sleep tonight, he thought. Assuming I manage to make it back to Titan.
Weapons at the ready, the pair burst into the final darkened room, firing at the first Reman prisoners that appeared on their night-vision displays. As the rioters began to fall under their phaser barrage, Keru saw a huge, battle-scarred Reman standing beside a shabbily dressed, dark-skinned Romulan on the far side of the ragtag cluster of escapees. Keru also quickly gathered from the Romulan’s actions and appearance that he was working with the Remans, a fellow prisoner rather than a captured prison guard.
“Hold fire!” Keru said to Rriarr as they both sought cover behind a stone pillar.
He shouted over the return fire, and the aggressive shouts of the Remans. “Commander Tuvok?”
A moment later, the Remans quit firing. “Who are you?” The voice that filled the sudden silence was shaky and hoarse, but clearly had not come from a gravel-throated Reman.
Still hunkering behind the pillar beside Rriarr, Keru quickly considered his options. No one at the prison knew that they were Starfleet officers, but to gain Tuvok’s cooperation, he knew he was going to have to reveal that fact. He hoped that decision wouldn’t come back to haunt him.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Ranul Keru, U.S.S. Titan,” he said. “I’m here to extract you, and I’m running out of time.”
Titan, Book One Page 22
