by Diane Duane
He finished turning first. Chekov was having even more trouble, being bigger than Hikaru, and poor Khiy, the largest of them, was in torment; but there was nothing Hikaru could do for either one. “Pavel,” he said, “the clock’s running. I’ve got to take some of those guns and go ahead.”
“Go on,” Pavel said. “Hurry. We’ll catch up. Khiy, try it again, you’re close, but this time don’t put your boot in my eye!”
Hikaru headed back the way they had come, crawling on raw hands and elbows, pushing four or five phaser rifles ahead of him and trying to ignore the renewed pain of all the phasers and grenades hung about them as they dug into his ribs and belly. He had never been fond of tight enclosed spaces; they were becoming positively hateful to him now, and he suspected he was going to have to have a long talk with Dr. McCoy at the end of all this. If there was an end to it that would leave any of them talking.
He bit his lip, watching for the turning he wanted as he went. The prospect of death had faced him often enough before; but it had always seemed oddly tolerable with his helm console in front of him and his friends and superior officers around. Suppose something should hit us right now, he thought miserably. For all our trying, we die right here, crawling through a hole in the dark—or in a hundred other stupid ways, all over the ship. No battle, no valor, everything wasted, and no one will ever know what happened….
There was a peculiar horror in the thought. Theoretically Hikaru knew perfectly well that courage was courage whether anyone saw it or not; it was of value, and the universe lived a little longer because of it. Well, there was no proof of that last part, though it was still what he knew. But theory and that calmer knowledge, so often his in meditation, were a long way from him now. What he mostly felt could have been summed up in a single thought: If I have to die, let me do it with my friends, and in the light!
That turning—Hikaru wriggled around the corner, pushing hard, hurrying. He was close. There was sound here, too; not disruptor fire, but rather the low murmur and rumor of many voices, reflecting vaguely through the ducts. A lot of people, he thought, and at the prospect of being about to do something besides crawl, he forgot his horror. He hurried faster.
The voices had a sound he had never heard aboard Enterprise before—the sharp rasp of many, many people being angry all at once, at the same thing. It infected him; grinning, he practically shot the last twenty or thirty meters down the duct and came up hard against the grille at its end. Oh, the lovely light, the pale gray walls of the rec room, seen from right by its ceiling; and the big windows of the observation deck above, and through them, the stars….
He pounded on the grille. It wouldn’t give, and he didn’t think any of the hundred or so people milling around down there could hear him. Oh well, he thought with nearly cheerful desperation. He backed away down the duct, picked up one of the phaser rifles, and blasted the grille away.
He didn’t bother waiting for the smoke to clear, or the floor and walls of the duct to cool down—just scrambled forward again. And nearly got shot for his pains; just before he reached the spot where the grille had been, phaser fire came lancing up at him and hit the roof of the duct. He convulsively covered his head and eyes, but there was nothing to be done about the burns he took on the back of his scalp and the backs of his hands. “No, you idiots, don’t shoot,” he yelled, for the moment forgetting courtesy and discipline and everything else, “it’s me, it’s Hikaru Sulu!!”
There was a moment’s silence from outside. “Move forward very, very slowly,” said a stern voice, “and let’s see.”
Very slowly indeed he poked his head out and looked down. There stood Harb Tanzer, at the head of those hundred people, aiming a phaser at the duct. He was the only one of them armed with anything deadlier than a pool cue or a bowling ball; but Romulans and Enterprise people alike, they all looked quite ready to do murder. Until the Enterprise folk recognized him. Then there was cheering.
“Oh God, I could have killed you!” Harb said, tossing someone else the phaser. “Come down from there, man. Hwavirë, how long are those tentacles of yours? If you stand on something, can you reach? Get that table over here and put that other one on top of it—”
It turned out to be rather more difficult than that. At the end Hikaru was simply glad that he knew how to fall properly. He added several bruises to his collection, but even so couldn’t care much about them when he found himself lying on a heap of his friends, and still hugged tight in the tentacles of one of his Sulamid junior navigators, Ensign Hwavirë. “Didn’t know you cared, Hwa,” he said. “Thought we were just good friends.”
“Don’t tempt,” Hwavirë said, with a bubbling laugh, as he put Hikaru back on his feet. “Not bad looking for hominid.” And then they got to repeat the performance twice more, once each for Chekov and Khiy, with mad cheers from the Romulans for the latter.
“Get them coffee,” Harb said. “What’s your name—Khiy? Khiy, do you drink coffee? Never mind, we’ll find out. Satha, get the first-aid kit for Hikaru’s burns. You three, tell us what’s happening. Hurry.”
They did, interrupting one another constantly. “Scotty and Uhura can’t hold down the auxiliary bridge forever,” Hikaru said at last. “If we can make it to the bridge, they can transfer control to us there before Tafv and his people get at it. The Romulans stuck on the bridge are with us, they’ll lend a hand from inside if they can. But we have to get there first….”
“They’re all around us, Hikaru,” said Roz Bates, a tall broad lady from engineering. “Trying to break out seemed a little dumb before, when none of us were armed. Now, of course, the odds are a little more in our favor. But still—”
“Crawlways,” Mr. Tanzer muttered. “Incredible waste of time. If only we had the transporters—”
Chekov shook his head. “They’re all shut down, sir….”
Harb sat there, staring into the distance for a few seconds. “Yes, they are.” And then suddenly his eyes widened. “No, they’re not….”
“Sir?”
“They’re not!” He got up and left the group, heading across the room and stopping to stare down at the 4D chessboard. “Roz, get the tools out of my office, would you? Moira!”
“What’s the problem, Harb?” the games department computer said from out of the middle of the air.
“Moira, what’s the present maximum range for piece control in the chesscubic?”
“Ten meters, Harb. But no transits so large are needed.”
“I know,” Mr. Tanzer said. “We traded off distance for small-scale precision when we programmed the system. I want to arrange a different tradeoff.”
“Mr. Tanzer,” Hikaru said, caught between dismay and delight, “are you suggesting that one of us beam out of here via the table transporter? There’s not enough power—”
“Maybe so, maybe not. Let’s find out. Moira, think about it. Maximum transportable mass, over maximum distance, after in situ alteration, no new parts. All possible solutions.”
“Thinking, Harb.”
Harb bent over the games table, shutting down various of its circuits. “Besides, even if the table can’t handle a whole person’s mass—thanks, Roz, pop that other cover off, will you?—even so, there’s nothing to stop us from beaming smaller masses out.”
Chekov, beside Sulu, began to smile. “Take a grenade,” he said, “prime it, and beam it out into the middle of a crowd of Rom—I mean, a crowd of Tafv’s people—”
“Mr. Chekov,” Harb said, “I always knew you were a bright fellow. Not that solid, Roz, the next one. Don’t joggle that dilithium crystal, either. Moira, what’s taking you so long?”
“You always yell at me when I interrupt. Maximum mass with maximum distance, fifty kilos, eighteen feet. Maximum mass with minimum distance, eighty kilos, two feet. Minimum mass with maximum distance, zero to fifty grams, five hundred meters.”
“Try something a little heavier.”
“One kilogram, two hundred meters.”
“That’s more like it. Who’s got a tricorder? Harry? Good man. Start scanning. We won’t be able to tell which Romulans are ours, but—”
“Yes you will, Mr. Tanzer,” Khiy said between gulps of coffee, and held out his arm.
“My stars and garters,” Harb said. “Mr. Sulu, your assessment of my idiocy is accepted with thanks. Harry, scan for cesium-rubidium in the Romulans in the area. Pinpoint groups without it and note the bearings for me. Decimal places on those bearings, too! I don’t want to hurt the ship more than necessary; the captain’ll have my hide when he gets back, and Dr. McCoy’ll rub salt where it used to be. Who’re the best shots in here? Who’s got a good arm? Don’t give me that, Loni, I saw you with those darts last week. Have a grenade. Have several. Get off it, people; we’ve got work to do!”
Maybe five minutes later, Harry Matshushita had every one of Tafv’s parties on the nacelleward half of the primary hull pinpointed—most particularly two parties moving along deck seven, converging on the auxiliary bridge in a pincers movement. “They’re first,” Harb said, looking rather sorrowfully at the sonic grenade he held in one hand. “Ready, Roz?”
“Just about.”
“Good. Ladies and gentlemen and others—one word before we start.”
Hikaru looked up, with the others, from the readying of weapons.
“Don’t get to liking this too much,” he said. “Any other way of freeing this ship would be preferable—and should we find ourselves able within the scope of our oaths to allow our enemies mercy, I will expect it of you. Otherwise—protect the ship and your shipmates. And our guests.” His eyes flicked from place to place in the crowd, picking out the Romulans. Hikaru noticed that there was suddenly no more clumping of type with type—just people defending the same ship, and all wearing the same rather frightened expression of resolve.
“Good,” Harb said. “Roz, we’ll take care of those deck seven groups first, and then clear our own path to the lift core, and anything else this transporter can reach. I don’t care to use the ’com system as yet, but I bet our shipmates will look out to see what’s happening when they hear all the noise. Harry, give Roz new bearings for the auxiliary bridge, and project them a bit forward to allow for movement.”
“Done, sir.”
“Here, then,” Harb said, and pulled the patch on the sonic grenade, and laid it on the game table.
It sparkled with transporter effect, while all around Hikaru people were counting softly. He couldn’t remember a time when dematerialization had seemed to take longer—
—and then it was gone. And was that the slightest shudder in the ship, a booming of the air in the ducts?
“Bearings for the second group,” Harb said. “Roz, Harry, don’t give them time to react—”
“Ready—”
Harb laid down another grenade. It beamed out. Another shudder—
Harry paused to check his tricorder. “There’s nothing alive in that corridor now, sir,” he said softly. “Nothing very alive, anyway. A few weak life readings; no movement at all.”
“Next,” Harb said. Sulu noticed that he did not say “good,” though Harb always said “good.” “The bunch on deck four—”
All told, it took them about twenty minutes to decimate three-fourths of the force of seventy-three that had invaded the Enterprise. Some of the Romulans were out of the table transporter’s reach, in the forward half of the primary hull; but very few, enough for them to handle.
Their own corridor came last. Hikaru watched Harb keep checking, hoping that the Romulans besieging them would go away. But they didn’t. Harb put the last grenade down, took the controls from Roz, got a bearing from Harry, and beamed the shiny little egg out himself. All over the rec deck, things bounced and fell off tables and broke, and people grabbed one another for support.
“That’s done it,” Harb said, deadly quiet. “Weapons at the ready. Let’s go.”
They went to the main doors all together. Harb released the emergency lock and led them out into the hallway.
There was very little left out there to offer mercy to.
“We’ll separate,” Harb said. “Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, you’ll be needed on the bridge; take about ten people with you for security’s sake. About twenty of you, come with me down to auxiliary, we’ll see what the story is down there and have them release the lifts. Ten of you to the main transporters on six; ten of you to sickbay—make yourselves available to Doctors Chapel and M’Benga. The rest of you head out and see what’s to be done about the forward half of the hull. Go.”
“Yes, sir,” they all said, and headed off in their various directions. Hikaru and Chekov and Khiy headed off toward the lift together. It took about ten minutes, but at that point Khiy cocked his head. “I hear something—”
Sulu and Chekov listened for all they were worth, but didn’t hear a thing, at least not until the lift was about two seconds from arriving. The doors whooshed open for them, the obedient, wonderful doors that Hikaru had wondered whether he would ever see working again. They stepped in together, turned to look back the way they’d come—and wished they hadn’t.
“Bridge,” Hikaru said softly, and the doors shut.
The three of them pressed up hard against the walls of the lift before it reached the bridge, just in case anyone should fire at them from inside. It was a good thing that they had taken the precaution; several disruptor bolts hit the back of the lift as its doors opened. “No, no, Eriufv, it’s us!” Khiy yelled at the bridge’s occupants.
Moments later they were all being pounded and hugged. Hikaru found himself being hugged by Eriufv—who was very pretty—and considered that there were certainly worse things that could happen to him. He hugged her back, but made it very quick. “We don’t have time,” he said to the group on the bridge as he stepped down to the center seat, and thought simultaneously (as always) how marvelous this was, and that he’d rather be anywhere else. “Eri, you held the fort real well—and now we have to get busy attacking. First, though, we need to talk to Mr. Scott.” She nodded, sat down at Uhura’s station and started flicking switches as if she had been there all her life. “Auxiliary control, this is the bridge—”
“Auxiliary,” said that wonderful Highland voice. “Scott here.”
“We made it, Mr. Scott.”
“Aye, so Mr. Tanzer tells me. Transferring control now.”
“Noted,” Hikaru said, as all around, the “executive” lights came on at the various stations. “Transfer complete.”
“Good lad. Uhura and I are on the way up. Call the captain and find out what the devil’s goin’ on down there. Oh, and Mr. Sulu—tell him we found Tafv down here. Just barely alive. He’s on his way to sickbay.”
Eriufv started up out of Uhura’s seat, her eyes glittering with rage. “I will go down there and kill him myself—”
“As you were, Eri,” Hikaru said, and said it so forcefully that Eriufv sat back down in the chair as if she had been pushed there.
“He’ll have to die anyway,” Eri said, more quietly, though her eyes were still angry. “There’s no punishment but death for treachery.”
“That’s the commander’s prerogative, and maybe the captain’s,” Hikaru said, “but not ours. I need you here. Anything else, Mr. Scott?”
“No, lad. Call the captain, and prepare me a damage control report; I want to see it when Uhura and I get up there. Out.”
“Pavel, take care of the report,” Hikaru said. “And while you’re at it, activate intruder control and flood the sections where there are still Romulans. Some of our people will take a nap, but it can’t be helped. Then get somebody from security and have them go in with masks and get the Romulans out.”
“Right, Mr. Sulu.”
“Eriufv, ship to surface. Enterprise to landing party, please respond!”
“Spock here,” said another very welcome voice. “Report, Mr. Sulu.”
“There was an armed uprising aboard ship, Mr. Spock. Subcommander Tafv led some seventy
Romulans from Bloodwing over here in an attempt on the auxiliary bridge and other key portions of the ship: motivation presently unknown. He seems to have timed his incursion simultaneously with your beam-out, when the shields were down.”
“Logical,” Spock said. “That was the only time we were vulnerable. Continue.”
“There was sabotage to systems, now under repair, and there have been numerous casualties. But elapsed time from first incursion to ship secure”—he glanced at the chrono and could not believe his eyes. The ten years he had aged had only taken—“seventy-eight minutes, Mr. Spock.”
“Understood.” There was the slightest grim humor to that. “We also have been busy, Mr. Sulu. Drop the shields and beam us all up; we have a great deal of large-scale transporting to do and our position here is untenable to say the least.”
“Acknow—” And Sulu looked at the forward screen, and stopped at the sight of something Chekov, now staring in horror down Spock’s hooded viewer, had transferred there. “Mr. Spock,” Hikaru said, “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Scan shows three more Romulan ships coming in fast; firing at us now. IDs read ChR Lahai, ChR Helve—and ChR Battlequeen.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Tafv did what!”
Ael stared at Jim and Spock, and her heart hammered in her gut as if she had been wounded again. Suddenly the phaserfire all around, the sound of explosions, meant nothing to her at all. “But, but he—”
“They don’t know exactly why he did it,” Jim said, looking as angry as Ael did. “He’s in sickbay, unconscious from injuries. The people he brought with him are almost all dead. But Ael, we don’t have time for it now! We’ve got other problems.”
“Battlequeen is up there, Commander,” Spock said, “with two other ships, and they are firing at Enterprise. Your friend LLunih may have found the help he was looking for despite our best efforts.”
It was easy for them to say that they had no time for other problems. Ael’s rage at her own blindness and folly was terrible. The one spot she had reckoned her strongest, the one person she could trust above all others, suddenly betraying her—And her honor was truly in rags now, she was disgraced before her own heart and the Elements forever—Bitter pragmatism reasserted itself, though, the old habit ingrained by so many other defeats. “How close are we to the transporters?”
