It was another storage chamber, as Echevarria had indicated, but it was a lot bigger than the others and a lot more crowded with heavy metal supply containers. It was also seething with phaser fire, beam after crimson beam searing the air.
Vigo squeezed off a burst as he dove for cover behind the nearest cluster of containers. Then he poked his head out and tried to get a sense of the rebels’ positions.
It seemed to him there were at least six of them, probably more. Obviously, they hadn’t had any tactical training, because they had allowed themselves to be cut off from the door—their only means of escape.
Also, the rebels seemed to have gathered into two distinct groups—one in each of the room’s back corners. That made it easier for Vigo to deal with them.
It also presented him with an opportunity—because there was a tall stack of containers in the back left corner, just behind where the rebels seemed to be hiding.
A directed-energy poke in the right place and that heavy metal stack might be encouraged to topple. And if it did, it would topple on the rebels.
Sebring and Runj, who were hunched behind a collection of containers off to his left, might have seen the possibility too. But it didn’t matter. Only Vigo had the angle.
He waited for a respite in the storm of red fury coming from the rebels. Then he raised himself high enough to look over the tops of the containers in front of him, took aim, and fired a beam across the room.
It was answered instantly with another barrage, [205] forcing him to duck again. But Vigo’s beam had done its work, knocking one of the lower containers askew.
A moment later, he heard cries of surprise and apprehension as the other containers in the stack came crashing down.
Vigo ventured a look in that direction and saw that it was quiet. No phaser beams stabbing at him, no glimpses of movement. Apparently, his maneuver had worked—leaving only one nest of rebels to contend with.
Then—perhaps out of fear that the weapons officers would try the same thing on them—two other rebels darted from cover and tried to make a break for it.
Vigo fired, but failed to stop them. Fortunately, either Runj or Sebring had better aim, because one of the rebels was knocked off his feet.
But the other one made it through the open doorway. As it happened, he was the most dangerous one, the one they could least afford to overlook.
Kovajo, Vigo thought.
The rebel leader was fast, and he hadn’t been battered the way the weapons officer had been battered. But Vigo wasn’t about to let that difference deter him.
Swinging out into the corridor, he fired at Kovajo’s retreating figure—and missed. But in avoiding the blast, the rebel stumbled and went sprawling.
Certain that he had Kovajo where he wanted him, Vigo extended his weapon and pressed the trigger again. But nothing happened. No narrow red beam, powerful enough to stun the rebel leader unconscious. Not even a spurt of energy.
Nothing.
[206] Either the phaser had malfunctioned or it was out of power—Vigo didn’t care which. All he knew was that Sebring and Runj were still exchanging blasts with the rebels in the storage room, and he couldn’t let Kovajo get away.
Putting his head down, he charged down the corridor and went flying in Kovajo’s direction. The rebel whirled and got a shot off, but all it did was plow a long, black furrow in one of the walls.
Then Vigo was on top of him. But as he landed, Kovajo smashed him in the face with his phaser.
Though it stunned the weapons officer, he couldn’t let Kovajo get the upper hand—not while there was still a working phaser in it. Grabbing the rebel’s weapon, Vigo tried to twist it out of his grasp.
As they struggled, the phaser went off—and gouged a dark, fuming hole in the ceiling above them. Vigo gritted his teeth as he tried to make sure the next hole wasn’t in him.
“You can’t win,” Kovajo told him. “You’re soft, just like the rest of your kind.”
Determined to prove him wrong, Vigo found some leverage and pried the phaser free. It went skittering down the corridor where neither of them could reach it.
With a cry of rage, Kovajo pulled his fist back and drove it into Vigo’s chin, snapping his head back. Then the rebel followed with another blow, and another.
“You’re weak,” he insisted with a snarl. “Used to getting everything you want.”
Then Kovajo struck Vigo again, making the light dance in front of his eyes. The weapons officer struggled desperately not to let consciousness slip away.
[207] The rebel grinned, his face swimming in front of Vigo’s. “You’ve had it good for a long, long time. But that’s going to change.”
And he cocked his fist to do some more damage. But this time, it didn’t have a chance to land—because Vigo reached up and grabbed his tormentor by the throat.
His air supply cut off, Kovajo seized Vigo’s wrist and tried to pry it loose. However, the weapons officer had learned a few things about windpipes in his Academy hand-to-hand combat classes, and none of them were good news for Kovajo.
“Damn you—!” the rebel croaked.
You’d like to, Vigo thought.
But he didn’t let go.
Kovajo’s face darkened by degrees. His eyes looked as if they were trying to pop out of his head. And with every second that passed, Vigo gained more control over his senses.
Finally, the rebel managed to free himself from Vigo’s grasp. He sat back and drew in a long, wheezing breath, eager to get air back into his starving lungs.
But by then, the weapons officer was ready for him. With a jerk of his body, he thrust Kovajo off him. Then, scrambling to get his legs underneath him, he hit the rebel as hard as he possibly could.
The Virtues relegated against his taking satisfaction in a victory, no matter how hard fought. But just this once, Vigo ignored the Virtues.
He savored the feeling of his fist plowing into Kovajo’s jaw, and the sight of the rebel’s head bouncing off [208] the wall behind him, and the sound Kovajo’s skull made when it struck the unyielding metal surface.
Just this once, Vigo thought, as he watched Kovajo slump to the floor, unconscious.
“Good for him,” someone said.
Vigo turned and saw Ejanix walking toward him. He looked as satisfied as if he had knocked Kovajo out himself.
The weapons officer staggered to his feet and held up his hand for his friend to stay back. “They’re still fighting in there,” he said, indicating the storage room.
“Not anymore, we’re not,” said Sebring.
Turning, Vigo saw the human and Runj emerge from the chamber, looking wrung out with the intensity of their effort. But at least they were whole and unharmed.
Vigo retrieved the phaser Kovajo had dropped. Then, together, they went back to see to Echevarria. Fortunately, she was still alive—and would remain so if they got her medical help before too long.
Ejanix wrapped his hand around his friend’s arm. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “You were right about Kovajo.” His eyes screwed up in their sockets. “He killed Riyyen—beat him to death.”
Vigo was saddened by the Dedderac’s death, but relieved to hear Ejânix’s expression of remorse. “It could have been worse,” he said, “if you hadn’t helped us when you did.”
His mentor sighed. “I just wish—”
Whatever he was about to say, it was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Vigo tracked them to their [209] source—and saw a rebel at the opposite end of the corridor.
No one else had noticed him yet, but the rebel had noticed them. In fact, he was aiming his phaser at them, meaning to destroy them.
Vigo was the closest to him. But worn down as he was by Kovajo’s blows and sheer weariness, he couldn’t move quickly enough to fire first.
All he could do was cry out a warning.
And yet, miraculously, the rebel’s beam never reached him—because someone interposed himself between Vigo and his adversary, taking the full brunt of
the deadly energy emission.
Then, before the rebel could fire again, he was slammed from the side by another phaser beam. The security officers, Vigo thought numbly.
But by then, he was looking down to see who had saved him from certain death—and selflessly forfeited his own life in the process.
No, Vigo thought, as his eyes supplied the answer to his question. By the Virtues, no ...
It was Ejanix.
Dropping to his knees beside his mentor, Vigo surveyed the terrain of his friend’s face. There was dark blue blood bubbling from the corner of the engineer’s mouth, a hint of what had to be massive internal injuries—injuries that should rightly have been Vigo’s instead.
“Ejanix?” he whispered.
His mentor opened his eyes and saw him. “Yes?” he asked with gentle patience, sounding very much like Vigo’s instructor back on Pandril.
[210] The weapons officer shook his head. It didn’t seem fair. Ejanix had seen the error of his ways.
The older Pandrilite managed a semblance of a smile. “Imagine,” he said, “being killed ... by a mere Type-Two phaser. Talk about irony ...”
Then he coughed up blood, shuddered, and went limp. And Vigo knew that his friend was dead.
He knelt there on the floor for an indeterminate amount of time, doing his best to understand what had made his mentor change—and then change back. And he would have knelt there longer except he felt a hand on his shoulder.
Looking up at the face that went with it, he saw that it belonged to Sebring. The human looked sorry to interrupt.
“The security people say the engineers are okay,” Sebring noted, “but some of the rebels are still on the loose.”
Vigo nodded and dragged himself to his feet, his weapon still in his hand. “Come on,” he said, leaving his friend’s remains. “We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter Eighteen
NIKOLAS SAT ON THE EDGE of his bed, knowing full well he was supposed to be on his way to engineering.
Simenon had asked for another pair of hands to help during their imminent battle with the Balduk, and Picard had tapped Nikolas for the assignment. When the captain sent someone somewhere, he expected them to go.
But the ensign couldn’t make himself follow Picard’s orders. He was too torn apart by the knowledge that once Gerda Idun set foot on Refsland’s transporter pad, he would never see her again.
With the morning, Nikolas had grudgingly done what Gerda Idun asked of him—he left her quarters, promising never to come back. At the time, he had deceived himself into thinking he might somehow be able to keep that promise.
But he couldn’t. He saw that now with crystal clarity. [212] Gerda Idun had gotten into him in a way no one else ever had.
It made all the sense in either universe for her to go home alone, and for him to stay where he was. But Nikolas no longer cared what made sense. All he cared about was being with Gerda Idun, now and always.
Planting his elbows on his knees, he ran his fingers through his hair. The captain had told him there might be a promotion in store for him—the kind that might ensure him a future in Starfleet, making fools of all those who had said Nikolas would never make it.
But if he failed to show up in engineering, he could kiss that future good-bye. Hell, he would be lucky if he wasn’t court-martialed for insubordination.
No one in his right mind would consider what he was considering—especially for a woman he had met only a few short days ago. No one in his right mind would throw away everything he had worked so hard for and make his way to Refsland’s transporter room.
But then, the ensign told himself with a tortured chuckle, no one had ever accused him of being in his right mind.
Picard’s forward viewscreen showed him just what he and his crew were up against—the same nine Balduk warships they had detected via sensors.
The Coordinator, a fully outfitted warship bristling with armaments. Its Satellites, considerably smaller but clearly decked out for battle as well. And the Independent, which had already proven herself a match for the Stargazer.
[213] A formidable array, to be sure. If anything went wrong, the Federation vessel would be cannon fodder.
But Picard had reviewed his strategy a dozen times. He was confident that it would work.
As for the purple bruise in the flesh of space that was the anomaly ... it was diminishing, just as Lieutenant Kastiigan had noted. But it appeared to the captain that there was enough left of it to suit their purposes.
“Picard to Transporter Room One,” he said.
“Refsland here,” came the reply. “We’re all here, sir—myself, Chief Simenon, Chief Joseph, and Lieutenant Asmund.”
It made sense for Simenon, who had made the alterations to the transporter system, to be on hand in case anything went wrong. For Joseph, it was just a matter of seeing the woman off.
“In that case,” said Picard, “good luck—especially to you, Lieutenant Asmund.”
“Thank you,” came her reply. “You have my gratitude.”
“You’re a little premature,” the captain told her. “First, let’s make sure this works. Picard out.”
“Six hundred thousand kilometers,” Idun reported.
They were nearing the point at which the Balduk broke off pursuit when they clashed earlier.
Picard glanced at the com station, where Paxton was waiting for the word to do his part.
“Ready?” the captain asked.
Paxton nodded. “Ready, sir.”
Picard drew a deep breath and regarded the viewscreen. “Take us in, Idun.”
Suddenly, they were slicing into the midst of the [214] Satellites, headed right for the Coordinator. The Independent tried to get in their way, but it was too late—the Stargazer was already surrounded by Satellites.
The captain pointed to his com officer. “Now, Mr. Paxton!”
It was a strange sight to behold—that of his enemies opening a clear and unobstructed path to his objective, when they should have been harrying him with every weapon at their disposal. Yet they were indeed opening a path for the Stargazer.
And the commander of the Coordinator had to be more surprised than anyone.
Picard darted a glance at Paris, who was manning the weapons console. “Full spread,” he bellowed, “phasers and photon torpedoes!”
Before the Coordinator could maneuver out of harm’s way, the Stargazer unleashed the spectacular and unrestrained fury of her weaponry. Phased emissions ripped through the Balduk vessel’s shields, leaving her naked to the savage force of the matter-antimatter projectiles.
The Coordinator tried to fire back, and a couple of energy volleys found their mark—but the effort was short-lived. In a matter of seconds, the Stargazer had reduced her to little more than a hulk floating in space.
Only then did the commanders of the Satellites seem to realize that they had been duped. But without the Coordinator to direct them, they couldn’t operate with a single intent.
They converged when they shouldn’t have, diverged when it was unnecessary, and even came close to hitting [215] each other with their weapons fire. Paris was able to take advantage of their confusion, picking them off one by one.
And little by little, Idun was able to move them closer to the dwindling anomaly.
Nikolas entered the transporter room expecting to surprise the hell out of everyone present—Gerda Idun included. As it turned out, he was the one who was surprised.
Gerda Idun wasn’t standing on the transporter pad as the ensign had expected. She was on the other side of the room entirely, fiddling with the transporter controls.
And Refsland, who should have been at the control console, was slumped against the side of it—unconscious.
Nikolas didn’t get it. In the moment it took him to get his bearings, Gerda Idun snatched up a phaser pistol and leveled it at him.
At that point, he got it even less.
“Hey,” he said, “it’s me.”
“S
tay where you are!” Gerda Idun snapped, her gaze hard and unwavering.
Nikolas shook his head. “What’s going on?”
“I’m going home,” she told him.
It was only then that Nikolas saw Simenon stretched out on the floor, his motionless form partly concealed by the control console. And it looked like someone else was stretched out alongside him.
The ensign moved sideways to get a better angle and saw that it was Joseph. No doubt, the security chief was where the phaser had come from.
[216] “What did you do?” Nikolas asked.
Gerda Idun continued to work the controls with her free hand. “I grabbed Joseph’s phaser and stunned him. Then I did the same thing to Refsland and Simenon.”
“But why?” he wondered.
She looked up at him, every bit as poker-faced as before. “Because Simenon’s coming with me. We need him.”
Nikolas didn’t know what Gerda Idun was talking about, but he knew it wasn’t right. “Don’t do this,” he said.
“I have to,” she insisted.
“You can stay here,” the ensign said. “With us. With me.”
“I can’t,” she told him. “My people are depending on me to complete my mission.”
“Shouldn’t Simenon have a say in this?”
Gerda Idun frowned. “Unfortunately, that’s not possible.”
Nikolas smiled sadly. “I wish like hell it was me you needed. I’d go in a second—I think you know that. But I can’t let you take Simenon.”
For just a moment, her gaze softened and she said, “I didn’t think you would.” Then she squeezed the trigger on her phaser pistol.
He had been expecting it, so he was able to avoid the full impact of the beam. Still, it spun him around and sent him crashing into the bulkhead.
When Nikolas finally forced his eyes open, the taste of blood thick and metallic in his mouth, he saw Gerda Idun making her way to the transporter platform. And she was pulling Simenon across the deck.
[217] His body sore and leaden from the punishment it had taken, it was hard for Nikolas to move even his hand. Still, he managed it—and reached for the combadge on his chest.
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