"Boy, up close, it must be the eighth wonder of the universe," said the officer on ops.
"I'm glad we don't have to take it out," answered Ro.
But she wondered if this terrible threat could be resolved as easily as all that--by just destroying a mining vessel outside a black hole. Thus far, the pirates' information had proven correct, so perhaps this incredible structure did have a weak spot. Still, it was hard to imagine that the Dominion's most important project in the Alpha Quadrant would turn out to be nothing but a white elephant, useless for lack of the right building material. But now they had seen itm the artificial wormhole really existed.
"Can we take a holoscan of it for Will Riker?" she asked.
Picard smiled. "I don't believe that will be necessary. He'll be more than happy to apologize when we get back." "I'm not sure I'll be going back," said Ro. "I'm not that fond of prison." Picard's jaw tightened. "I'll do everything I can to get your situation squared away, I promise. In fact, I can even see about getting you your commission back." "One step at a time. First, let's make sure there's a Starfleet to go back to." Ro started toward the rear of the bridge and paused in the doorway. "If you want to talk about it, Captain, I'll buy you a drink." "All right. I think things are under control here." Picard rose from the tactical station and motioned to a junior officer to relieve him. The young crew members were all too eager to resume their stations now that they were away from the unpredictable dangers of the Badlands.
"We should have someone check on those fruits and vegetables in the hold," suggested Picard. "Let's dispense them to the crew before they start going bad." "Good idea," replied Ro. "Henderson, you have the bridge. Send a detail to the cargo bay--we'll be in the mess hall." "Yes, sir." Ro followed Picard out, and the Bajoran felt a weary sense of satisfaction as they strolled down the corridor. She finally felt as if she had earned the trust of her unfamiliar crew. She'd had Captain Picard's trust all along, but the others didn't know her and what she could do. Now they did.
Picard stopped at the turbolift and smiled at her.
"Do you mind if we ask Mr. La Forge to join us? He could probably use a break, too." "That's fine," answered Ro. In reality, she was too weary to make much small talk, and she knew the gregarious engineer would fill in the gaps in the conversation. Also she wasn't ready to commit to going back to Starfleet, even if they would have her.
Ro knew she ought to sleep, but she was too wired for that. Just a chair, a glass of juice, and nothing to do for a few minutesmthat sounded manageable.
Picard tapped his comm badge. "Boothby to La Forge: can you meet us in the mess hall?" "Sure," answered the engineer. "Let me assign my relief, and I'll be right there. Out." Picard and Ro wended their way down a spiral staircase to the lower level, then strolled along a deserted corridor.
"I was serious about what I said," began Picard, "about getting you back into Starfleet." "I know you were," answered the Bajoran, "and I appreciate it. But if my people really are neutral in the war, perhaps I should be, too. That would be a change of pace for me--I'm always partisan." "I know," said Picard with a smile. "Well, you have our gratitude. Without you, we wouldn't have known about the Dominion's plans until it was too late.
Apparently we're here in time to stop them." Ro led the way into the mess hall. "Let's hope so." A moment later, they sat down in a small, austere dining room, decorated in tasteful beige colors and subdued lighting. All the rest of the young crew were either working or taking their sleep shift.
"What would you like to do when this is over?" asked Picard. "Providing it ends the way we hope it will." "Maybe I'll help refugees. There are bound to be millions of them." She held up her hand, cutting him off, she hoped not too abruptly. "I know, there are positions like that in Starfleet, but I have a hard time thinking that far ahead. Whenever I make plans to have a normal life, things go haywire." "I know that feeling," replied the captain wistfully.
"You think you can escape from the pressures, but they always come after you." La Forge strolled jauntily through the door, still looking rather roguish with his earring, nose ridges, and pilot's goggles. "Hello, Captain Picard, Captain Ro," he said cheerfully, stopping at the food replicator. "What's your pleasure?" "Hello, Geordi," said Picard with an uncharacteristic yawn. "Tea, Earl Grey, hot." "Knowing that replicator, I think you might have to settle for Bajoran tea," said Ro. "I'11 have the juice cocktail." La Forge repeated their orders a few times into the recalcitrant repticator until it was finally able to produce their beverages. He delivered their drinks to the table, then went back to get his glass of milk.
"So, is it clear sailing from here?" asked the engineer, pulling up a chair.
"Theoretically," answered Picard. "If we can delay them by destroying the shipment of Corzanium--and we can get back to our lines and tell everyone what we've seen--maybe we can mount an attack against this thing. A few distractions here and there along the line, and a sizable attack force could slip through to the Badlands. At least we found the wormhole before it's operational." "I wouldn't mind playing with a verteron collider that huge," said La Forge wistfully. "It's really too bad that we've got to destroy it, or at least make sure it never works. A completely stable artificial wormhole that we have total control over--it sounds like a dream come true." "Or a nightmare, depending on which side you're on," muttered Picard. He took a sip of tea.
The Bajoran's comm badge beeped, and she answered, "Ro here." "This is Ensign Owlswing outside the cargo bay," responded a female voice. "Henderson sent us down to check on those vegetables and fruits in the hold, but something's wrong with the cargo-bay hatch. We can't get it open--it's locked and won't respond to the controls." Ro started to rise wearily from her seat. "We can override the lock, take it off the computer, and open it manually." "I know, sir," said Owlswing, "I just wanted your permission to try it." Ro sunk back into her seat and saw Picard smiling at her. "Yes, go ahead. Ro out." "See, it really is your ship," said Picard, "and your crew." "For a young crew, they've been relatively calm and levelheaded," conceded Ro. "Let's hope they stay that way, because we're not done yet." Picard sat forward and folded his hands in front of him. "That's true, and we've got to decide how we're going to destroy this mining vessel with our limited firepower." "If they're working in the vicinity of a black hole," offered Geordi, "it should be fairly simple to cause them to have an accident and get sucked inside.
Maybe it's something we can do from a distance, with a minimum of risk." From somewhere in the ship, they heard a muffled shout. Picard turned around at looked at the open door and the empty corridor beyond. "What was that?" Geordi shook his head. "I think it was just the welds groaning. No offense, Ro, but this ship is kind of a bucket of bolts." "No offense taken," answered Ro. "We're all aboard the Orb of?eace because we didn't have a lot of choice." Suddenly, they heard frantic footsteps on the spiral ladder, followed by a loud shout. A young female officer paused in the doorway, a stricken look on her face, as a beam of red light shot from behind her and drilled into her back. As she stood transfixed in the doorway, her eyes wide with horror, a glowing red splotch appeared on her chest, and she collapsed in a heap on the deck, her eyes staring straight upward.
Picard jumped instantly to his feet and rushed for the door as another young officer ran past. He, too, was consumed in the beam of a sloppy shot, which scattered sparks off the bulkhead. Before Picard could reach the wounded man, the doors slid shut on their own, blocking out the scene of carnage in the hallway.
The captain started to pound on the wall panel to open the portal when caution got the better of him.
They didn't have a weapon among them, and to rush into the line of fire was foolish, no matter what the horror.
Ro slapped her comm badge. "Captain to bridge!
What's going on?" A harried voice came on, "Intruder alert! Intruder on the bridge... aaggh!" His voice dissolved into a strangled scream.
Ro looked at Geordi, who ripped his goggles off and stared at her with alarmed, pale
eyes. He tapped his comm badge. "La Forge to Engineering--respond!
Engineering, come in!" No one answered his frantic call.
"It doesn't mean they're dead because they didn't answer," said Ro. "Communications may be down." "Then again," said Picard grimly, "if they hit the bridge and Engineering on this ship, they've hit it all." The Orb of Peace was indeed a tiny ship, which a small, determined party of armed intruders could capture from stem to stern in a matter of seconds. But who? Where had they come from? Ro didn't want to think that someone on their own crew could have mutinied against them, but she read that very thought in Picard's face.
Only a few seconds had passed since the attack started, but it was now deathly quiet on the transport.
The mess hall was about the most useless place to be during an emergency, as it contained no weapons, no equipment, and no computer terminals, except for the food replicator. There was also no escape, except for the door that Picard stood ready to open. Or perhaps he intended to keep it shut, in case the intruders tried to break in.
"I've got to go out there," said the captain.
"We'll all go," offered La Forge.
"No. You two stay in hiding. If worse comes to worse, you may have to take back the ship." "Sir, it's my ship," said Ro, brushing past the captain. "It's my place to see what's going on." He looked as if he wanted to argue with her, then thought better of it. "I'11 give you a few seconds' lead, then I'm going to see if they found the weapons storage in the dormitory. Geordi, we have to keep you in reserve. You've got the mess hall--see what you can do with it." "Yes, sir." "Let's hope it's not what we think it is," muttered the Bajoran as she slapped the panel and opened the door.
Ro stepped out into the corridor to see three dead bodies. The woman was slumped in front of the door, the man was crumpled against a bulkhead a few meters away, and another officer was sprawled across the top of the spiral staircase. Whoever the intruders were, they shot to kill.
She walked cautiously toward the stairs, knowing that she had to go to the bridge to find out who was behind this massacre. On the deck was a lump of silvery metal, which Ro recognized as one of their Bajoran phasers, melted by a blast from the intruders' weapon.
After stopping to remove her shoes, she started up the stairs in her stocking feet, hopeful not to unduly surprise whoever was on the bridge--whoever was now in command of her ship. Ro didn't enjoy walking into death, but she and death were old friends by this time. He had brushed awfully close to her lately, especially when he took Derek. Ro didn't fear death, but she was awfully angry about the way he toyed with her, and the way he exulted in this insane war.
After climbing the staircase, she found another dead body, this one blasted almost in two by beamed weapons. The destruction was so horrible that Ro wanted to look away, but she had to search the body for weapons, on the off chance that the assailants had missed collecting them.
After searching unsuccessfully for a handheld phaser, Ro strode down the corridor toward the open door to the bridge. She could hear muffled voices. On the bulkhead walls, storage cabinets had been pulled open and rifled through, and a pile of bandages lay strewn across the hallway. Another body--this one Henderson's--blocked the doorway. His petrified face gazed up at her, no longer looking so arrogant.
Ro steeled herself for an odious job. In essence, she was poised to surrender her ship--her first command-to whomever was in charge of the bridge.
Considering the ruthlessness of the attack, she would probably join her shipmates in death, but she had to meet the new masters of the Orb of Peace first. She had lost the ship in the blink of an eye, while she had been relaxing, negligent in her duties. That was the most galling part.
Captain Picard jumped up from a crouch and dashed across the expanse of the dormitory room, where several score of hammocks hung from the ceiling like old moss. It was dark, and he dared not turn on any lights for fear of being spotted. As he neared the last row of hammocks, he stumbled over the dead body of a young ensign. By her loose clothing, he concluded that she had been ruthlessly cut down while she slept.
The war and a life fraught with danger had inured him somewhat to death, but it was still difficult to accept when the victim was a young person with so many years ahead of her. To see her cut down unexpectedly, for no reason, was a sinful waste. Even so, thought Picard, he had been willing to kill this same young woman instead of letting her be taken prisoner by the Dominion. He had killed and was prepared to do it again.
He tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Why had someone wanted this ordinary little ship so badly they had to kill for it? Their assailants seemed to know their way around the ship fairly well; they knew exactly where to strike. So Picard wasn't optimistic about finding their cache of hand phasers intact as he reached the rear bulkhead in the dormitory.
Sure enough, the cabinet had been stripped of its weapons. He heard a groan, and he whirled around to see a lump in the corner, twitching, groping for him.
"Help me!" rasped the figure.
Picard ran to the wounded man and tried not to gape at his wretched condition. "I'm right here," he told the dying man. "Please stop trying to talk. Save your strength." The man gripped Picard's shoulder, and the captain could feel him shivering, growing weaker. Both of them were obscured by shadows. "No warning," croaked the officer.
"Who was it?" asked Picard as he tried to straighten the man's limbs and make him comfortable.
"Romulans!" wheezed the officer with a violent shudder. Suddenly his shivering and twitching stopped, and he went limp in the captain's arms.
"Rest in peace," whispered the captain, setting the man gently onto the deck. His jaw set determinedly, Picard rose to his feet and looked around the dormitory for any object he could use as a weapon. He spotted a toolbox and quickly opened it. Among the tools was a heavy spanner, which he hefted in his hand with grim satisfaction.
What his plan was, Picard didn't yet know. He was in reaction mode, thinking of other ships, other times when intruders had taken over and forced him into guerrilla warfare on his own decks. Every time, his foe had been so ruthless as to leave him no choice.
Picard pounded the spanner into the palm of his hand, jumped up, and dashed back through the dormitory. It was deserted except for the ghosts.
Ro paused outside the door of the bridge. Still in her stocking feet, she had approached the hijackers unseen and unheard, and she could see them hovering over the consoles, oblivious of the butchered bodies that littered the deck. The streaked image on the viewscreen led her to believe that they were still in warp drive, probably still on course for the Eye of Talek.
She saw two of the victors and heard the voice of a third, all men and dressed in civilian clothing--not the Bajoran uniforms of her crew. At least it hadn't been a mutiny. To know so much about the ship, these intruders had to be connected to the pirates. Maybe they had boarded during the search of the ship, while she had been drugged. Chuckling and congratulating each other, they sounded elated over the success of their murderous assault.
At that moment, when she had intended to surrender to them, Ro knew she couldn't do it. Her fury at losing her ship and her instincts for survival forced her to back slowly away from the door. Suddenly she heard angry voices, and one of the intruders turned around and strode toward her. Although his uniform was unfamiliar, she identified his straight black hair and imperious bearing.
A Romulan!
He stared at her, scowled, and reached for a Klingon disruptor in his belt. Ro darted down the hall and vaulted over a body and into the spiral staircase. She plunged several steps as a disruptor beam vaporized the hand railing, scattering droplets of molten metal down on her.
Chapter Twelve
Ro CHARGED DOWN THE STAIRS, listening to the shouts and footsteps of her pursuer. She had no intent but to run like hell, which she did as soon as she hit the lower deck. Glancing behind her, Ro didn't see the first body sprawled across the corridor, and she stumbled over it. She crashed t
o the deck just as heavy footsteps bounded onto the deck behind her.
"Need help?" shouted a distant voice from above.
"No, no!" answered the grinning Romulan as he leveled his disruptor at Ro. "I've got matters in control." Expecting to be vaporized, Ro flinched, and she nearly missed seeing Captain Picard spring from behind the staircase and hit the Romulan across the back of his skull. His features contorted for a second before he collapsed onto the deck, sending the disruptor skittering across the floor toward Ro. She instantly pounced upon the weapon and aimed it at the top of the staircase, waiting for more of them to descend.
Picard searched the fallen Romulan but found nothing worth keeping. He motioned to Ro, and she picked herself up and scurried over. Picard pointed to the body and back down the corridor; then he gripped the prisoner's closest armpit. Keeping her weapon aimed at the Romulan, Ro gripped the other armpit, and together they dragged their prisoner back down the corridor toward the mess hall.
Star Trek - TNG - Dominion War 1 - Behind Enemy Lines Page 17
