by Peter David
The entire encounter had taken no more than a couple of seconds. Sulu, who had instant mastery over the steering and operation of the Peregrine's engines, had taken a moment or two more to locate something as simple as the mechanism for closing the shuttle's door. But he found it now, activated it, and the door swung shut with a hiss.
The Peregrine shuddered as something struck in a concentrated blast. Sulu recognized it immediately for what it was: a disruptor, being shot directly at the vehicle. Fortunately enough for them, handheld disruptors—while devastating against human bodies—were less so against heavy-duty inanimate objects such as shuttles.
Pedestrians scrambled to get out of the way as the Peregrine roared down the main street. Sulu quickly glanced at the exterior monitors, surveying the area around them. Then he afforded a quick glance at Ling Sui. She was staring resolutely straight ahead, finishing the process of belting herself in to her chair. Her face was slightly flushed, but otherwise she had composed herself very quickly.
For Sulu, it wasn't quite that simple.
He had leaped to a conclusion the moment that Kelles's head had exploded onto him. But it was not one that he had fully assimilated until just this moment as he scrutinized Ling Sui.
"That man was dead. Really dead."
"I know," said Ling Sui tightly. "Damn him, I warned him. Warned him." In anger she slapped the control board in front of her. "He got too damned self-confident. Even so, he deserved better than that."
"Really dead."
She looked at him with mild confusion. "Not to sound insensitive, but you must have encountered the occasional corpse before."
"But I thought this was all a—"
But then he stopped talking as he noticed something on the monitors. "Oh, no," he said.
"What?" She leaned over to see what had elicited his worried comment.
There were pursuers. Four of them, clinging fiercely to high-speed stratopods. They were small, one-man, high-speed vehicles, oblong in shape. Sulu had had one in his youth. He'd been fairly adept at steering it, and knew how maneuverable they were. Far more maneuverable than a Peregrine inner-city shuttlecraft.
For a moment he thought that perhaps they were the authorities. That being the case, Sulu would immediately bring the Peregrine to a halt, get out and explain the situation. . . .
Although that was somewhat problematic. Explain the situation and say what, precisely? That his female companion was involved in some sort of shady dealing? That he was involved as well, except he'd thought it was an elaborate setup?
It quickly became moot, however, because Sulu suddenly recognized one of their pursuers as the gunman from the rooftop who had, only moments ago, redecorated the front of Sulu's jacket.
All around them, people were scrambling to get out of the way. Some weren't fast enough, knocked aside by the stratopods. The drivers of those small vehicles clearly weren't concerned about whatever damage they might do. If matters continued in the current way, civilians were going to be injured, even killed. This was an intolerable situation.
In the depths of space, Sulu had instrumentation to tell him where he was and where he was heading. That, however, really served as little more than backup to his own innate ability to determine such things. With the briefest of glances at star groupings, Sulu could easily locate himself and the Enterprise in relation to all the many systems that he carried around in his head.
So determining where he was now in relation to the rest of the city was, comparatively, child's play.
A map of the city sprang into his mind, and he immediately "saw" where he was relative to the rest of the environs. He also quickly determined his only option.
"Hold on!" shouted Sulu.
Ling Sui did so, gripping firmly the sides of her chair even though she was belted in.
Sulu cut hard left. The Peregrine angled sharply, its rear swinging around and slamming against the corner of a building before the shuttle continued on its way. The stratopod drivers course-corrected instantly and maintained pursuit, but without managing to close the distance.
"Where are we going?" demanded Ling Sui.
Sulu replied with an inclination of his head. Ling Sui looked ahead of them and gasped.
Large entrance gates to the city of Demora loomed squarely in front of them. They were several stories tall and made of synthetic wood. They were more than adequate to repel the attacks from fake desert raiders.
Whether they could, however, withstand a direct hit from a fast-moving shuttle was another question. Ling Sui was somewhat appalled to discover that they were going to get the answer firsthand.
"Are you crazy?!" she demanded.
"We've got no choice," he shot back. "I'm not putting innocent people at risk."
"What about us?"
"We're already at risk! Brace yourself!"
One moment the gate seemed to be at a great distance, and the next they were on top of it. Sulu had a brief glimpse of people trying to wave him off, and then they were clearing the hell out of the way.
Sulu resisted the reflex to slow down and instead sped up even more. The Peregrine smashed through the gate, synthetic wood shattering under the impact with an earsplitting crack. The shuttle roared forward and out into the desert.
The stratopods, not slowing, kept in tight pursuit.
Chapter Ten
SULU SHOVED THE PEREGRINE to its maximum speed, hoping that, whatever that might be, it would be faster than their pursuers. Ling Sui had lapsed into silence. She was, however, gripping the armrests so tightly that her knuckles were dead white. She stared resolutely out the smoked front windshield, watching the ground race past them at dizzying speed.
"Don't worry," said Sulu confidently. "This is a lot smaller and a lot slower than a starship. If I could helm that, I can certainly handle this."
"I think you should know," she said slowly, "that I have a fear of moving at high velocity."
"No reason to be concerned about going fast," he told her.
"I know, I know. It's the abrupt stops that should concern me."
"Exactly."
It was odd. With all the insane events in the past hours (again, it was hard to believe that it had all happened so quickly) he had remained confident. It was a confidence built on an incorrect belief on his part … a belief that he had nothing to worry about, because all the jeopardy was manufactured.
Yet now that he knew, beyond any doubt, that the danger was real—that his life and that of his companion were at risk—he felt no less confident. Because he was at the helm. He had his steady hand managing his fate, and he had utter belief in his ability to be master of his own destiny.
He had the conn, and when that was the case he knew he could certainly steer the ship to safety.
There was a heavy impact against the side of the shuttle, and the vessel rocked slightly under it. Sulu glanced at his monitors and, sure enough, the stratopods were closing. He could see the four pilots crouched, strapped in, controlling their trajectory with one hand and gripping disruptor guns in the other.
The city of Demora had already been left far behind. In front of them stretched endless vistas of the desert—unchanged, unspoiled. The Peregrine hugged the curve of the land as it swooped and dove, shooting up one sand dune, hurtling down another. The stabilizers kept the shuttle relatively even, but the sensation of forward motion was steady and, in Ling's case, apparently somewhat daunting. Despite the peril they were in, Sulu found it a bit amusing that this capable, resourceful, and intelligent woman had a bit of a weakness. It made her seem more accessible somehow.
The stratopods were closing and the riders fired again and again. The collective barrage was starting to take its toll. The last couple of hits caused the Peregrine to buck under Sulu's steady hand, and the helmsman came to the realization that simply moving wasn't going to be enough. He was going to have to attack somehow.
The thought of possible loss of life wasn't of major concern to him. Certainly he had launched eno
ugh photon torpedos, targeted enough phasers, so that the prospect of having to kill an opponent was not a daunting one. It was a necessary evil, but if it was a question of who was going to survive, then as far as Sulu was concerned it was no question at all.
The only problem was that the Peregrine had no weapons. Nor was Sulu himself armed. Nor was …
He looked at Ling. "Do you have a weapon on you?"
"I wish."
Okay. So much for that.
She looked at the monitor. "Here they come."
They were coming in a two-by-two formation, moving faster than Sulu would have thought possible. His first instinct was to activate deflectors. His second was to open fire. He had to remind himself that neither option was viable.
"All right," he said. "I suppose we're going to have to get innovative."
There was something in his voice that prompted her to glance at him. She saw where his hand was hovering. "Excuse me … that's the door," she said, trying not to sound patronizing.
"I'm aware of that," he said. There was one good thing about maneuvering through the desert; there were even fewer obstacles than steering through space. He watched the monitor steadily, gauging the speed of their approach. Closer they were coming, and closer, and still his right hand remained poised unflinchingly over the door button. One could have balanced a glass filled with wine on the back of his hand, and there wouldn't have been so much as a ripple in the surface of the drink.
They were drawing up right alongside the speeding shuttle. With any luck, that would prove to be a tactical error. "Just keep steady," he said under his breath to the pursuers, although naturally they couldn't hear him. "Three … two … one …"
He activated the door.
Obediently it swung upward, slamming into the stratopod driver who had, at that very moment, pulled alongside the Peregrine. It slammed him to the side and he lost control of his vehicle, the gyros smashed by the impact of the door. On the monitor Sulu had a brief glimpse of his face, twisting in a soundless shriek, and he recognized him as the man who'd been on the roof. The stratopod spiraled and then hit the ground, shattering and turning from a vehicle into a twisted mesh of metal. By the time it stopped rolling, the shuttle was long gone and Sulu was already concentrating on the other three.
He had already slammed the door shut again, reasoning that there was no way they were going to fall for such a stratagem again.
They were straddling the shuttle, pacing him on either side (although the fellow on the right, as Sulu had surmised, was keeping back from the door).
"Hold on," Sulu told Ling again. This time she didn't utter any word of protest, made no snide comment. Instead she simply nodded, and a smile had crept across her face. She seemed in the process of reassessing him.
The Peregrine lurched wildly from side to side as Sulu tried to send the shuttle slamming into the pursuers. He clipped one, but the operator recovered with more adroitness than the one whom Sulu had already managed to dispose of.
Sulu wished desperately that the Peregrine could go at a higher altitude, but it simply wasn't designed to maneuver that way. It had to be within a few feet of ground for the antigrav to function properly.
There was the shriek of weapons fire again, and this time the wall right nearby Sulu's head dented. He snapped his head back reflexively and cast the wall a worried look.
"All right," he said. "This is going to be tricky. I hope you don't get dizzy easily."
"What do you mean by th—?"
She didn't have time to finish the question, nor was it necessary. Sulu quickly demonstrated precisely what he meant.
He sent the Peregrine into a spin. The shuttle whirled, sailing to the left and moving like a buzz saw. It slammed into one of the stratopods, crushing the pod and driver instantly. The stratopod overturned and smashed into another one of the drivers. The driver howled in fury and overturned, colliding with the rear of the still-twirling shuttle. The stratopod erupted in flame, hitting the ground and leaving a skid mark thirty yards long.
Sulu felt the jolt, glanced at the controls. He'd lost some power to the engines from that last impact. He fought to pull the shuttle out of the spin. Ling Sui, for her part, gripped the sides of her chair firmly. Her jaw was set, giving her a very determined air, although Sulu suspected that most of the determination centered around not wanting to vomit.
The last of their pursuers had clearly decided to give them considerable distance. He was hovering meters away, keeping a safe distance from the wildly pivoting shuttle.
Sulu fought desperately with the controls, trying to bring the shuttle on line. The vehicle was within a hairsbreadth of flipping completely over, tearing up a large stretch of the desert sands. Sulu battled and pulled the vehicle back into line. It bucked slightly and then roared forward.
Another disruptor blast, and another, rocked the Peregrine. It was all Sulu could do to hold it on course. He checked the engine readings and didn't like what he saw at all. Then he looked at the monitor at their lone remaining pursuer, and he liked it even less.
For now he could clearly make out what he hadn't before; the man who was after them was Taine, his face twisted into an infuriated snarl. He brought his disruptor gun up and squeezed off a shot.
And then, suddenly, the shuttle shuddered under more disruptor fire and the monitors blinked out. Taine, resourceful fellow that he was, had managed to knock the exterior cameras out of commission. Except for visibility through the front windshield, they were flying blind.
Sulu surveyed their options and didn't find too terribly many. The hull of the Peregrine whined in protest. The vehicle was designed for travel, not combat, and Sulu had already pushed it to the limits of its structural capacity. Maybe even beyond the limits.
His mouth started to form words, but Ling beat him to it. "Let me guess: 'Hold on,'" she said.
"Exactly," he replied. He watched as Ling Sui braced herself once more. She looked at him with an expression that held utter confidence. It was fortunate she had it in him, because his own confidence was starting to waver ever so slightly.
"Here we go," he murmured, and slowed the shuttle's forward motion by half.
The stratopod shot right past it, Taine's head whipping around as he realized his target was no longer beside him. Sulu, banking on his reactions, counted on him to slow down out of reflex.
Which was precisely what he did.
And as he did that, Sulu immediately gunned the shuttle. As a result, the Peregrine leaped forward, roaring past the stratopod.
Leaving the next move as the trickiest. Sulu, one step ahead of his opponent, deduced that Taine—suddenly finding himself left behind—would immediately try to speed up once more. In anticipation of the move, Sulu slammed the shuttle to a complete halt … but at a ninety-degree angle relative to its previous position. Basically, he had just turned the Peregrine into a roadblock.
It all happened so quickly that Ling Sui didn't even have time to question what was going on. The result of Sulu's maneuver was exactly what he figured it would be: a loud thunk and a shudder as the accelerating stratopod collided broadside with the shuttle. In front of them, a twisted and empty stratopod fell away.
There was deathly silence for a moment … a moment to contemplate how fortunate they were that the monitor was down, so that they didn't have to stare at the sight of the stratopod's former occupant smeared all over the exterior of the shuttle.
"You … you did it," Ling Sui managed to say.
Then the windshield cracked, accompanied by the now-familiar whine of a disruptor.
It was the only warning that Sulu had. Hopefully it would be enough as Sulu sent the vehicle flying forward.
"He's on the roof! The bastard's on the roof!" shouted Ling Sui.
She was right. Sulu heard a thudding from overhead, the sound of a body tumbling. But it hadn't necessarily fallen off.
And then it happened. Repeated blasts from overhead, the ceiling denting in and then ripping open. Su
lu tried to steer the shuttle violently enough to throw off their dedicated pursuer, but there were spiders who were less tenacious than this.
All that was visible was Taine's hand clutching the disruptor as he shoved it into the cabin of the Peregrine. He fired blindly as Sulu leaped away from the controls barely in time. The blast struck the control board, sparks flying from it, the board starting to melt into rivulets from the impact and the impending fire.
"Take over!" shouted Sulu as he lunged for the intruder's arm.
Ling looked helplessly at the ruined control board. The shuttle's forward motion had not diminished; if anything, it was picking up speed. "Take over what?" she shouted in exasperation.
Sulu wasn't exactly in a position to reply at that moment. He had barely dodged another blast, and now he had grabbed the wrist of their assailant and was struggling desperately, trying to pry the disruptor loose from his hand.
The hole in the ceiling ripped wide, and Taine tumbled down and through into the cabin. He was still clutching the disruptor with single-minded determination.
For all the battering he had taken, Taine did not seem to have been slowed down in the least. He nearly lifted Sulu off his feet as he slammed him up against a far wall.
Ling desperately tried to reroute control functions back through the main board, but there was nothing she could do. The shuttle was completely out of control, lurching wildly. Smoke was starting to pour from the ruined panels, blinding her. Then she heard Sulu's alarmed voice shout "Get down!" and she did so as a disruptor bolt ripped just above her head and blew apart the already-stressed windshield. Wind blew in, accelerating the spread of smoke through the cabin.
Sulu was still struggling hand to hand with Taine.
"You idiot!" snarled Taine. "I don't know what kind of game you think this is … but you're going to lose it!"
Sulu didn't bother to respond. What was there to say? He had thought it was a game. He pushed away from his mind the realization that he had been incredibly lucky thus far. Here he hadn't been taking the threat of Taine and his thugs seriously, and he could easily have been dead before realizing that he was in any true danger.
