by Kevin Ryan
According to Parmet’s Academy record, Fuller’s roommate had struggled through his physical training, but had scored at the top of his class in every academic area. That raised questions for Fuller. Why would someone as smart as Parmet, who was obviously suited to computer work or the sciences, choose security? Some of the most intelligent people he had ever met were security officers, but usually people with Parmet’s particular mix of gifts sought other assignments.
Fuller found he was curious, but not curious enough to ask Parmet—it was simply not worth the conversation that would follow. Parmet had been respecting Fuller’s privacy, and Fuller did not want to initiate any closer contact. He had even considered declining when Parmet had asked him to go to the gym to pick his brain on hand-to-hand combat. In the end, Fuller had gone simply to avoid staring at the walls of his empty quarters. Now, he realized that he would be able to teach Parmet a few things that might actually save his life.
“Listen, Ensign, have you heard of Krav Maga?” Fuller asked.
Parmet shook his head.
“It’s a martial art developed by the Israeli Defense Force in the twentieth century. It’s excellent for developing your speed and coordination. Would you like to learn a few basic movements?”
Parmet nodded eagerly and Fuller had to look away from the excitement in his face. Then he began. Of course, Parmet would need weeks or months to make any real progress, but anything he learned in the meantime would only help him.
Given the time constraints, Krav Maga was a good choice. The point of the art was to finish a fight fast by quickly disabling an opponent. Even a few moves would give Parmet a much better chance against a Klingon warrior. And a few moves might be all they had time to cover.
Considering the way things were now, Fuller had a feeling that the chances that he and Parmet would both be alive to complete any real course of training were slim. At a different point in his career, he might have done something like this as an act of faith. Now, it was just a way to pass his off-duty time.
Chapter Fourteen
U.S.S. ENDEAVOUR
DONATU SYSTEM
2242
FULLER AWOKE INSTANTLY, going from unconscious to alert in less than a second. Even before he could see properly, he tried to get to his feet. As his eyes began to clear, he felt a hand on his back. Someone was helping him up, he realized.
And I’m not dead, he thought with genuine surprise.
As his vision cleared he heard a voice. “Michael,” someone said. It was Andrews. Fuller turned to see his friend and roommate looking at him with concern. “Are you okay?” Andrews asked. Fuller nodded. His shoulder burned a bit from where he had been hit, but otherwise he felt fine.
He had been hit by a Klingon disruptor. But he thought their weapons didn’t have a setting for stun. Obviously they do, he realized.
“We’re in the cargo bay,” Andrews said, as Fuller’s eyes registered the same information. By the look of things, more than half the crew was there as well. He noted there were few security people in the large room, and none above the rank of ensign.
“Rizzo? The others?” Fuller asked.
Andrews shook his head solemnly. “I don’t think any of the others made it.” Then, after a moment, he added, “We were lucky.”
It was true, the entire squad had fallen through the deck into a fortified Klingon position. By all rights, he and Andrews should have died too. Scanning the room, Fuller saw a group of Klingons guarding the two large entry doors in the front of the cargo area. They carried weapons Fuller didn’t recognize: long, curved blades that looked very heavy and very deadly. They also wore large knives that looked equally dangerous.
Looking around him, he noted that many of the crew had sustained injuries that looked like cuts and puncture wounds. Yet, like himself and Andrews, they had all been left alive.
“How long was I out?” he asked.
“Just a few minutes more than me, and I woke up as they were dragging me in here.”
Moving slowly through the crowd, he took a closer look at the Klingon guards. On average, they were taller than most Starfleet crewmen—though most of the Klingons were not as tall as Andrews.
Their attackers had known the Endeavour was coming and had waited to launch a sneak attack. The Klingon battleships had lain in wait for the Endeavour and had struck by surprise.
No Starfleet vessel would ever have done such a thing, no civilized or human ship would launch a sneak attack. Clearly the Klingons were not human. They were—quite literally—inhuman.
Stepping as close as he dared, Fuller glanced at the Klingon guards. He saw that they all wore disruptor sidearms. That was unfortunate. The Starfleet personnel in the cargo hold outnumbered the half-dozen guards by a large margin. If not for the disruptors, the crew would have a chance at rushing the intruders.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Andrew whispered. “I had the same idea, but those disruptors could cut us all down before we did any damage.” Then he seemed to read Fuller’s mind and answered the question that was there. “They haven’t said a word to us. No announcements, nothing about what they want.”
“They haven’t killed us,” Fuller said. This was not a small point. In Starfleet, one of the most frequently repeated notions about the Klingons was that they did not take prisoners.
“They haven’t killed us yet,” Andrews said.
Fuller watched the guards carefully, studying his enemy for anything they could use to their advantage—though advantage was hardly a term that applied to their current situation. Immediately, he admonished himself for defeatist thinking that ran counter to his training and flew in the face of what he had seen a small group of engineers accomplish not long ago. For Woods and his staff, if for no one else, Fuller would keep hope alive within himself. And he would use every last second of his life to try to turn this defeat into a victory.
The guards were alert and rarely spoke to one another, and when they did it was at a whisper. Clearly, they knew their jobs and wouldn’t make any obvious mistakes.
Fuller’s thoughts were interrupted by a beeping sound by the doors. He didn’t recognize the sound but realized what it was when one of the Klingons—the leader, he supposed—took some kind of communicator from his belt and spoke into it. Seconds later, one of the sets of doors opened and he saw six more of his crewmates being led into the cargo area by two armed Klingon guards.
Four of the officers were medical personnel and two were on stretchers. Fuller recognized Caruso and the burned man that Andrews had carried. Caruso was conscious and alert. The other patient was not, but Fuller was glad to see that he was still alive—otherwise, he would not have been brought here with the others.
Their appearance gave him hope. It meant that there might be more of the crew still out there. Perhaps the engineers in the impulse room were still safely behind the blast doors. Perhaps the Klingons did not have complete control over what was left of the ship.
None of the bridge crew were in the cargo area. Maybe Captain Shannon and the others were still out there, planning something. Well, if he could help them from here, he would.
The medical personnel were moving the stretchers to the rear of the cargo deck when the head guard yelled “Stop!” in perfect English. The foursome stopped, but Fuller could see reluctance in their eyes. Clearly, they wanted to get their patients as far from the Klingons as possible.
The officers came to a stop in roughly the center of the room, putting them less than five meters from Fuller’s own position. The Klingon leader and one other guard approached them. Fuller felt his body go very tense as he realized that the ship’s chief medical officer was not among the medical personnel there. He suspected that the ship’s surgeon would not be joining them anytime soon.
Two men and two women he recognized as nurses stepped in front of the stretchers, putting their bodies between the Klingons and the injured. This seemed to surprise the Klingon leader.
“Who are they?” he asked
, pointing to Caruso and the unconscious man.
“Innocent people attacked and injured by Klingons,” the male nurse said, clear defiance in his voice.
This seemed to surprise and then amuse the Klingon, who took a step closer to the stretchers. The nurses tried to block his way and Fuller heard Caruso say, “Don’t.”
What happened next happened very fast. The Klingon leader and the other guard grabbed the two nurses closest to them and shoved them aside. Then they did the same with the other two nurses. By now, Fuller was already on the move, heading toward the disturbance.
Before he took two steps, the Klingons had drawn their odd, three-pointed weapons and very quickly plunged them into the chests of both Caruso and the other man, whose name Fuller had never learned. Though shocked, Fuller kept moving and saw one of the male and one of the female nurses charge the Klingons, who quickly withdrew the knives from the two dying officers and swung them toward the nurses.
Fuller winced involuntarily as he saw the knives strike deadly blows into the chests of the two nurses. Then the two remaining nurses were on the move and others nearby were starting to react. Watching the two Klingons carefully, Fuller saw the subordinate reach for his disruptor. To Fuller’s surprise, the leader shouted something that sounded like “No.” Then he lifted his large weapon, the one with the double curved blades. The subordinate guard did the same.
The two Klingons swung their blades, the leader’s cutting one of the nurses across the stomach, causing him to clutch himself and fall to the ground. The other surviving nurse immediately began to help him. Fuller knew the wound was serious, but probably wouldn’t be fatal if he got medical attention reasonably quickly. However, that wouldn’t happen as long as the Klingons held them.
The other officers, including Fuller, immediately stopped their movement.
“Cowardly Earthers,” the leader shouted. “I have done you a favor and eliminated the weakest among you. Would any more care to join them?”
No one spoke and Fuller felt rage take hold of him. Weak? Caruso? Injured maybe, but she had had strength enough to save his and Andrews’s lives when they were in the turbolift. Still, he held his tongue and forced his rage back down. It wouldn’t help now.
“Weaklings, you will all die today,” the Klingon continued. “If you wish, you may challenge me now and I will take your lives in combat.”
No one moved. Fuller felt the blood pounding in his ears. The Klingon scanned the room, both a taunt and a challenge in his eyes.
Then he hung his long blade over his shoulder, while the other guard followed suit. Both Klingons kept their daggers out as they made their way back to the doors at the front of the room. The only other movement in the cargo hold was from the officers who stepped out of the way to give them room.
When the two Klingons had rejoined the four other guards, the leader turned and said, “You are all sniveling, bloodless cowards, and it will be my duty and my pleasure to rid the galaxy of you.”
Rage rose up in Fuller again, and again he forced it down. He needed his wits now. The Klingon had answered his most important remaining question: as prisoners, they would not be kept alive for long. He had also provided Fuller with another crucial piece of information.
He turned to see Andrews looking at him. The boil of emotions on his friend’s face told Fuller what he was feeling. And Andrews’s eyes told Fuller that he had caught the same small bit of data. The two men nodded to each other, and an idea began to form in Fuller’s mind.
Fuller and Andrews made their plans quietly, trying very hard not to draw attention to themselves—that would come later. Getting the information to the rest of the assembled crew required a simple solution that was both low-tech and would not arouse suspicion. Fuller and Andrews simply whispered the outline of the plan to two people and asked them to do the same. In just a few minutes, the crew would know what to do.
But less than a minute later, four of the guards came through the crowd with their disruptors drawn. “Do not resist,” the Klingon leader said. Seconds later, the Klingons had reached the forward door of the cargo area. One of the guards hit the button that opened the inner airlock door to reveal the airlock. It was a relatively small space of maybe five meters square. The outer wall of the airlock was a reinforced door. Beyond that was the void of space.
Immediately, the Klingons began ushering crew members into the airlock. The group included the two nurses, with the injured one barely keeping his feet. Fuller felt a chill run down his spine as he watched it happen.
“Do not resist!” the leader repeated. In just seconds, twenty of his friends and crewmates were inside the small airlock space, looking at the rest of them through the window in the airlock door that shut them in.
One of the Klingon guards hit a button, and a force field crackled to life next to the airlock’s outer door. After the flash of energy, the force field seemed to disappear, but Fuller knew it was there, just as he knew what the Klingons would do next.
“Cowardly Earthers, one of your pitiful Starfleet vessels has arrived. You will soon go to meet it in person,” the leader said, addressing the crowd. Then the Klingon at the airlock control panel hit another button, and the outer door of the airlock flew open.
For a moment, Fuller was afraid that the twenty people inside the airlock would be blown into space, but it didn’t happen, and he realized that the outer force field was still protecting them from the vacuum.
Then Fuller saw it: another Icarus-class ship. Like the Endeavour, it had a primary and engineering hull, along with two long nacelles that rode just above the vessel’s saucer section. Help had arrived, and was now sitting a short distance away. He wracked his brain trying to remember which ships might be in nearby sectors. Quick mental calculations told him that the vessel was probably the Yorkshire.
Even as hope began to grow in his chest, he felt a cold fear for the twenty people in the airlock and a growing dread for what he thought was about to happen—what he feared would happen if he didn’t do something immediately.
The leader shouted something in Klingon to the other guards, and the one at the control panel hit another button. From that moment time slowed to a crawl.
He heard his own voice shouting, “No!” as he watched twenty of his friends and crewmates get lifted off the floor as if by some unseen hand and hurtled out into the void. His mind tried to reject what he was seeing. It was impossible…
Inhuman.
And it was also true. The Klingons had just tossed twenty living beings into space, to certain death. Even before that thought registered, he saw that the Yorkshire was in motion, executing a high-speed maneuver as it fired phasers at the Klingon ships. He saw a flash of energy that he hoped might be a transporter beam snatching up the unprotected crewmen. But it was hard to be sure because the figures themselves were carried almost immediately out of sight.
The Klingon vessels didn’t even try to strike the Yorkshire. When they fired their disruptors it was into what looked like empty space, but Fuller knew it wasn’t—they were firing at the people floating in the void.
He immediately saw the cruel cunning of the maneuver, because the Klingon ships then turned their weapons on the Starfleet vessel, pounding it with disruptor fire. The Klingons were tossing people into space, counting on the Yorkshire to try to rescue them. And rescue meant lowering the ship’s shields to use the transporters.
Fuller watched the disruptor fire strike the Yorkshire. Then he saw the Yorkshire returning fire as phasers lanced out at one of the Klingon vessels’ shields and felt hope rise in his chest. The captain and crew of the Yorkshire were good, very good.
Then there were shouts as the Klingons rounded up another group. This time, the Starfleet officers resisted. Some of the people fought, but there were quick flashes of movement and Klingon blades hit at least two people that he could see.
Another twenty-odd officers ended up standing by the inner airlock door. There was near chaos in the cargo room. Of a cr
ew of one hundred and sixty-one, there were now maybe eighty people left, including the twenty who were now by the airlock. If those twenty got thrown into space, there would be sixty…
Then forty…
It would not take long for the entire crew of the Endeavour to be completely wiped out, no matter what happened in the battle raging outside between the Yorkshire and the Klingon vessels.
He had to do something and do it fast.
The unmistakable sound of disruptor fire rang out through the cargo area. Like the others, Fuller was shocked and the cargo room fell silent. The leader of the Klingons spoke and said, “Cowardly humans, my warriors and I will kill you without hesitation. Do not resist. Hold on to your pathetic lives a little longer. Soon enough your deaths will come and serve the greater glory of the Klingon Empire.”
Fuller’s mental clock told him that the airlock would be repressurized in seconds. There was no time to get the word out on his and Andrews’s plan, let alone execute it. Well, he would have to improvise. He shot Andrews a look, and the larger man nodded.
“You take the two on the right,” Andrews said.
“Go,” Fuller replied. Giving a shout, he raced toward the airlock, aiming his body at the two guards on the right, while Andrews made the same move toward the two on the left. He heard shouts from behind him in Klingon, then he was launching himself through the air at the nearest of the two guards.
As he did so, he saw that the inner airlock door was opening. He hit the Klingon high, driving him into his partner. The move was crude, but he was pleased to see that it was effective. The Klingon had only had time to turn to face him before Fuller hit him with the full force of his body.
Physics took care of the rest and the Klingon fell backward, knocking into the other one. Fuller didn’t see what happened next, but he ended up on top of the Klingon he had hit. Both of them were on the ground. Moving quickly, he did two things simultaneously: he started to get up and he grabbed for the dagger weapon on the Klingon’s belt.
