Текст книги "Serpents Among the Ruins "

Автор книги: David George

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Around a corner in the conduit, the beam of Harriman’s beacon picked out a maintenance hatch just a few meters ahead, where he’d expected to find it. He crawled forward, anxious both to be free of these restrictive surroundings and to meet the threat of the Romulans still on board. Since he had first conceived of this plan so many months ago, and through the more detailed plotting that had begun after the Romulans had taken the world of the Koltaari, this had always been the stage most susceptible to failure. Had the entire crew abandoned ship, the flight to the Neutral Zone would likely have been uneventful, but now…

Harriman could only hope that the Romulans in the escape pods knew nothing of the special ops team aboard their vessel. The timing of events suggested that to be the case, but if not, then all had already been lost. Providing he, Gravenor, and Vaughn could subdue the remaining Romulans, he could take the ship back to the escape pods and allow the containment field to fail. The result would be the deaths of all of them– Tomed’s crew and the special ops team. But even if Harriman could find the justification to take such an action—and he did not know that he could—such an uncommon accident occurring within Romulan territory, after Tomed’s close contact with Enterprise,would rightly be construed by the Empire as an attack by Starfleet. In that circumstance, Ambassador Kamemor might well come forward to confirm what little she knew of the plan, and how she had been duped by Harriman. Again, the outcome would be war, with the Klingons siding against the Federation.

No. The only course of action he could take right now would be to attempt to complete the mission.

Harriman arrived at the hatch. He set his beacon down and reached for the tricorder hanging at his waist. Using the device to scan for life signs would reveal his position, but better to risk that than to open the hatch and find a disruptor pointed at his head; he would not be staying in this location anyway. He performed a sweep of the surrounding deck. No life signs registered.

He deactivated the tricorder and returned it to his waist, along with the beacon, exchanging them for his phaser. The hatch opened beneath a heavy push, and Harriman scrambled out of the conduit. As he dropped onto the deck, he ducked low, flattening himself against the near bulkhead. Despite what the tricorder had told him, he looked hurriedly from side to side, ensuring the absence of any Romulans here.

Although he saw and heard nobody, the corridor in which he found himself left him feeling vulnerable. It ended at a T-shaped intersection a short distance to his left, but it stretched a long way to his right—the direction he needed to travel. Perhaps seventy meters long, it crossed several other corridors and afforded few places for concealment; he glimpsed what appeared to be a couple of recesses along the way, but hatches, access panels, and equipment—rather than doors—lined the bulkheads. If he had not left here by the time the Romulans arrived to investigate his tricorder signal, he would probably not be able to hide from them.

He pushed the hatch closed and proceeded cautiously down the corridor. He stayed low, hugging tight to the bulkhead, his phaser raised before him. As he approached the first intersection, he paused, choosing not to scan again, but listening intently. He heard nothing but the rhythms of Tomed’s warp drive.

Just as he started forward again, though, a sound reached him, like a foot shuffling along a deck, or a shoulder brushing against a bulkhead. Harriman froze, then aimed his phaser toward the intersection, toward the corner nearest him. He waited…one second…two…and then a Romulan emerged from the cross-corridor, a disruptor in his hand.

Harriman’s arm tensed, even as the inconsistency struck him. Only a moment ago, his sensor scans of the area had detected no life signs. And as the Romulan glanced in his direction and spotted him, Harriman hesitated.

“Vaughn,” he said in a hushed tone resembling a stage whisper, just loud enough to be heard above the background hum of the warp engines. As Harriman lowered his weapon, it occurred to him that the lieutenant no longer looked silly in his Romulan masquerade, but threatening. He had no idea how he’d managed to avoid firing on Vaughn.

“Captain,” the lieutenant said, trotting over, his sensor veil obviously still functioning. “I’m on my way to the shuttlebay.” Harriman nodded. He knew that had been the plan, of course, but the statement confirmed for him that nothing had happened to prevent Vaughn from undertaking his tasks there. “The access ladder to the next deck is this way,” the lieutenant said, hiking a thumb back over his shoulder.

“I know. I’m headed past there,” Harriman said, glancing around to make sure that the corridor remained clear.

“We have to go now though. I just used my tricorder, so the Romulans will be here soon.”

“Yes, sir,” Vaughn said.

Harriman began down the corridor again, and Vaughn fell in alongside him. When they reached the first intersection, they peered carefully around the corners. “Take cover here,” Harriman told Vaughn. “If we encounter Romulans now—” He motioned down the long corridor that lay in front of them. “—I don’t want both of us at risk.” No matter what happened, at least one of the special ops team needed to survive and remain free long enough to complete the mission.

“Yes, sir,” Vaughn said. He took a position off of the main corridor, where he could look around the corner to follow Harriman’s progress.

Phaser in hand, Harriman moved swiftly, staying low to the deck and close to the bulkhead. He stopped twice before intersections, traversing them guardedly, and then a third time at an equipment recess, where he ducked out of sight. Across from him, in a small bay, stood the ladder leading to the next deck, and just a few meters to his right, a corridor reached away in both directions from where this one ended.

Leaning out of the recess and peering around, Harriman waited several seconds, listening for the sounds of anybody approaching. Hearing nothing, he reached his empty hand out and gestured toward Vaughn, waving him forward. The lieutenant rounded the corner immediately and began down the corridor. After he had navigated the first intersection, and then the second, Harriman held up his hand, palm out. Vaughn stopped, allowing them both to look around and listen once more for any Romulans who might be heading this way.

Finally, Harriman signaled to Vaughn by pointing across the corridor. The lieutenant’s gaze seemed to take in the ladder, and then he lifted his own hand and pointed toward the end of the corridor, obviously asking about Harriman’s own plans. Harriman nodded and stepped out of the recess. He offered the lieutenant a final look, feeling a solidarity of purpose with him. Then he turned and continued on toward his objective, knowing that Vaughn would do the same.

Harriman sped through a half-dozen more corridors, pausing only before intersections. Doors eventually replaced the equipment and hatches and access panels, reminders of the crew who had recently stridden these decks. Still under power, the beat of its engines still permeating the hull, the ship seemed eerie for its emptiness. Despite knowing what had taken place here, Harriman recalled the centuries-old Earth tale of Mary Celeste,a sailing vessel found abandoned in midvoyage. This somehow felt like that—mysterious, and even haunting. Except that whatever presence leaped out at him here would be far more dangerous than some imaginary specter.

When he neared his objective, he began reading the rectangular plates set into the bulkheads beside the doors. The rounded-block forms of the Romulan characters identified an auxiliary-computer control site, a life-support monitoring station, a conference room, and finally, his destination.

Clutching his weapon before him, Harriman darted toward the doors. As they parted and he traversed the threshold, he tucked and rolled. Across the small room, he come up onto one knee, his phaser held up in one hand and steadied by the other. His eyes rapidly scanned his surroundings, right to left, from a circular platform, to a freestanding console, to a bulkhead faced with displays, controls, and access panels. Like most of the rest of the ship, the room was empty.

Harriman rose and moved to the console, a long, arcing station supported by a narrow column reaching up to its center. He examined the Romulan markings there, familiarizing himself with a layout slightly different from the one he had seen in intelligence briefings. When he had distinguished all of the controls that he would need, he set his phaser down atop the panel and activated the sensor matrix. He scanned the ship for life signs—doubtless giving up his position once more—and located the six Romulans still aboard Tomed.Two roamed near the maintenance junction that Gravenor and Vaughn had left not long ago, while a third moved inside the junction itself. A fourth rode in a descending turbolift, and Harriman guessed that they were headed either for main engineering or for the shuttlebay. The final pair of life signs emanated from the bridge; he targeted those two first, assuming that one of them would be Admiral Vokar, who surely would have been the last to vacate the flagship.

Moving his fingers deliberately across the transporter console, Harriman locked on to the two Romulans. He specified the remainder of the settings, verified them, and then engaged the activation sequencer. A series of lights running laterally across the panel illuminated one after another as a deep buzz rose in the room. After he had beamed the first two Romulans into—

Nothing happened.

The whirr of the transporter faded to silence as the chain of lights, all of them glowing, winked off. Without delay, Harriman ran through the preparations a second time, confirming the operation of the console and the two sensor locks. He reviewed the rest of the settings, then initiated the activation sequencer once more. Again, the row of lights began to brighten one at a time, and the drone of the transporter grew out of the silence. But he already knew what would happen: nothing.

Vokar,Harriman thought, certain that it had been the admiral who had thwarted his plan. A long time ago, Harriman had utilized a transporter to defeat Vokar. Clearly the leader of the Romulan Imperial Fleet would not allow such an occurrence to happen a second time.

Harriman grabbed his tricorder and scanned the sections of the deck surrounding the transporter room. He read one life sign, Romulan, moving away from the maintenance junction and seemingly headed in this direction. They were still far enough away, though, that Harriman would have time enough to escape.

Snatching his phaser from the console, he rushed for the doors. At the last instant, as they failed to open, he rolled his shoulder forward, absorbing the impact with his upper arm. He stepped back and looked to either side of the doors, spying a small control panel in the bulkhead to the right. He hastily pulled it open, searching for a manual override. A lever promised freedom, but failed to work. Obviously, the transporter room had been completely locked down from another location, probably the bridge.

Harriman checked the tricorder again. The Romulan would be here shortly. He peered around the room, but saw no place to conceal himself. He could take a position behind the transporter console, but standing on its slender base, it would provide him little protection.

With no other choices, he retreated across the room. He stood opposite the doors, with his back against the bulkhead. Then, keeping his eyes focused on the tricorder display, Harriman raised his phaser and waited for the impending confrontation.

Sublieutenant Alira T’Sil stood outside maintenance connector forty-seven, uncomfortable with the feel of a disruptor in her hand. Although she served as an officer in the Romulan Imperial Fleet, she considered herself an engineer and not a soldier. In her nearly seven years of duty, she had never fired a weapon outside of compulsory drills. She found herself far more anxious now than when she’d been aiding in the attempted repair of the singularity containment field only moments before it had been expected to collapse.

Ahead of her in the corridor, Lieutenant Elvia operated a scanner, searching for indications of the intruders on the other side of the closed maintenance hatch. T’Sil watched the rangy engineer take sensor readings, the lieutenant’s fingers moving across the controls of the scanner with such fleet precision that they almost seemed choreographed. Beside T’Sil, Sublieutenant Valin also watched, a disruptor drawn awkwardly in his hand.

“I’m not picking up any life signs,” Lieutenant Elvia said, studying the display on her scanner.

“Admiral Vokar said that the intruders couldn’t be directly detected using sensors,” T’Sil offered.

“I know what the admiral said,” Elvia snapped. T’Sil knew Tomed’s lead engineer well enough to understand the target of her discontented tone. The lieutenant aimed her frustrations not at T’Sil for her comment, but at Admiral Vokar for having ordered engineers to take on the mantle of security.

Elvia stepped back from the maintenance hatch, taking hold of the disruptor hanging at her hip. “All right,” she said, looking over at T’Sil. “Open it.” The lieutenant lowered her scanner and raised her weapon.

T’Sil attached her own disruptor to its place on her hip, then moved over to the hatch. The rectangle of burnished, lightweight metal extended about as broad as her shoulders and half her height. She took hold of the handles on either side of the hatch, facing her reflection in its glossy surface. Her rounded cheekbones, delicate nose—turned slightly upward at its tip—and straight black hair seemed familiar, but the unconcealed look of fear in her eyes did not.

“To the side,” Elvia said, as though T’Sil might have been oblivious of the situation, opening up the entrance to the maintenance connector while staying in the line of fire. T’Sil said nothing, though, as she tightened her closed fists about the handles and pulled. The hatch came free with a pair of metallic clicks, and she swung her body around, flattening her back against the bulkhead. In front of her, Elvia glared into the access port, her disruptor a minatory sight at the end of her outstretched arm. T’Sil tensed as she anticipated the shrill scream of the weapon, waited for blue packets of lethal energy to streak past her and into the maintenance connector.

Instead, Lieutenant Elvia paced across the corridor to the open hatch. She peered inside for a few seconds, then dropped her disruptor to her side. “There’s no one here,” she said. As Elvia moved to hook her scanner and weapon to the waist of her uniform, T’Sil turned and set the hatch down on the decking, leaning it against the bulkhead. “Come with me,” Elvia said to T’Sil, then looked back over her shoulder at Valin. “Stand guard, Sublieutenant.” Valin nodded.

Elvia leaned against the bottom of the hatchway and swung a leg across it, then stooped and climbed inside. As the lieutenant disappeared from view, T’Sil glanced over at Valin, exchanging a look with the stout engineer—a slight shifting of the eyes, a slight raising of the eyebrows—that told her that he felt as uneasy as she did about this duty. Then she followed Elvia through the hatchway.

Inside the small, circular compartment, T’Sil saw the dozen or so equipment conduits accessible here—some high on the bulkhead, some low—and she realized just how many places for concealment Tomedoffered. Elvia moved to one of the conduits and peered into it. She had drawn her disruptor again, T’Sil saw, but she held it at her side, unprepared to fire even if she spied one of the intruders.

T’Sil looked around the enclosed space and saw no evidence that anybody—intruders or crew—had been here recently. “I’ll check the equipment,” she said as Elvia moved from one conduit to another. T’Sil turned to the bulkhead, bent down, and reached for the nearest access plate. Pulling it clear and putting it down on the deck, she studied the layout of circuitry revealed. Nothing seemed amiss, at least not from a visual inspection.

She replaced the panel and moved to the next. She’d examined four equipment configurations when Elvia said, “There’s nobody here.” A mixture of disappointment and relief seemed to lace her voice. T’Sil peered up at her to see that she had circled the compartment, obviously having checked each of the conduits. “What about there?” Elvia said, nodding toward the exposed circuitry.

“No indications of any tampering so far,” T’Sil said. “Not that I can see, anyway.”

“Complete a visual assessment,” Elvia said, waving one finger in a circular motion, clearly indicating all of the access panels within the connector. “If you don’t find anything, we’ll use scanners to do a thorough examination. I’ll assist after I contact the admiral.”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” T’Sil said.

She sidled over to the next access plate as Elvia started through the hatchway. Before she’d made it back into the corridor, though, the stern voice of Admiral Vokar suddenly filled the maintenance connector. “Vokar to Elvia,”he said. Not long ago, T’Sil had heard him contact the lieutenant to inform her that the deterioration of the containment field had been slowed, a claim borne out when the predicted moment of its complete failure had come and gone without incident. And yet T’Sil now imagined that he would retract that information, letting the engineers know that they were once again just moments from death.

Still inside the compartment, Elvia sat on the threshold of the hatchway. She reached up and, with a touch, activated the communicator wrapped about her wrist. “This is Elvia,” she said. “I was about to contact you, Admiral. We’ve entered maintenance connector forty-seven and found it empty. We’ve also seen no evidence—”

“Lieutenant, we’ve located at least one of the intruders,”Vokar interrupted. “They’re in transporter room three, and the room has been secured. Proceed there immediately.”

“Yes, sir,” Elvia said, although she seemed less than enthusiastic about the order. “Do you want me to detain the intruders there, or elsewhere?”

“Detain?”Vokar asked, irritation plainly coloring his voice. “I want you tokill them.”

Elvia looked over at T’Sil, stricken. The lieutenant had paled, the yellowish tint of her flesh completely drained away. But she said, “Yes, Admiral.”

“Vokar out.”

Elvia remained motionless on the edge of the hatchway, her face now expressionless, though her dark eyes betrayed the distress she felt. T’Sil thought the lieutenant might talk to her about the orders she had just been given, but she only said, “Keep looking for sabotage. I’ll be back.” Elvia then left the maintenance connector, and T’Sil heard her tell Valin to continue to stand watch in the corridor.

With difficulty, T’Sil returned her attention to her task. She pulled open the next access panel and peered inside the bulkhead at the circuitry there. All appeared as it should, and she covered the equipment back up and started for the next panel. It was bad enough that the ship had been sabotaged and the crew endangered, but to learn that the saboteurs remained on board, and that she and the other two engineers would have to function as security, and even have to—

As she removed the next access panel, T’Sil saw a batch of fiber-optic lines jammed haphazardly inside. The lines clearly did not belong here. She traced a finger along them until she reached their ends, many of which had been broken off, and none of which connected to anything. T’Sil leaned into the panel for a closer look, and spotted fiber-optic fragments protruding from several pieces of equipment. The lines might not have been connected to anything right now, but it appeared that they had been—connected, and then ripped out.

T’Sil carefully grasped the fiber-optic bundle and pulled it toward her, searching for the other ends of the lines. She quickly found them, also not connected to anything, but their perfectly intact tips suggested that they might at some point have been linked to an external device. It occurred to her that some sort of system reconfiguration might have been executed from here. She read the identification markings on the equipment and saw that helm and navigation functions routed through this panel.

The significance of that pushed T’Sil immediately to her feet. Not only had singularity containment been damaged, but the intruders might well have taken control of the ship’s course and velocity. Needing a scanner and other equipment both to determine the extent of what had been done, and then to attempt to effect repairs, she crossed the maintenance connector and maneuvered through the hatchway. In the corridor, she raced up to Sublieutenant Valin, who stood several strides away.

“Alira,” he said, obviously concerned by her agitated manner. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve got to get some equipment from main engineering,” she told him.

“Ah…I think Lieutenant Elvia wanted us to remain together,” he said.

“Rennis, I’ve discovered modifications to the helm and navigation systems,” she said. “I need to find out exactly what’s been done, and then try to undo it.”

“All right,” he said. “But when you…” His voice trailed off, and she saw him look over her shoulder in confusion. She turned and followed his gaze down the corridor. A Romulan officer, small in stature, marched in their direction. T’Sil did not recognize her. That was not unusual in itself– Tomednormally carried hundreds of crew—but the woman wore the dark blue sash that denoted engineering, and T’Sil doubted that there was an engineer aboard whom she didn’t know—particularly an officer.

T’Sil looked at Valin. She saw him begin to raise his weapon, and she realized that he must have come to the same conclusion as she had. The shriek of a disruptor suddenly filled the corridor, confusing T’Sil for a moment, because Valin had not yet aimed his weapon. But then a flash of electric-blue light surged past her, and Valin flew from his feet, sailing backward several meters. He landed with a dull thud, his arms and legs askew, his disruptor skittering along the deck beyond him.

T’Sil turned to face the unfamiliar officer, who now held a weapon in her hand. The woman came abreast of the open hatchway and peered inside, momentarily pointing her disruptor in that direction. T’Sil took that instant to reach for her own weapon. She had actually raised it up to fire by the time the wail of a disruptor blared once more. T’Sil had just enough time to register the visual sensation of brilliant blue light before she hurtled backward herself.

And then blackness took her.

Vaughn ran toward the large, reinforced doors at an angle, cutting diagonally across the corridor. They opened at his approach, and he sprinted into Tomed’s shuttlebay, his disruptor held out before him. He scanned the room with his eyes as he moved, searching for any of the Romulans who had remained aboard after the rest of the crew had abandoned ship. Of those six, none had been near the shuttlebay when Commander Gravenor had executed her sensor sweep in the equipment junction, but Vaughn could not afford to assume that nothing had changed since then. In fact, with Tomed’s external communications down, the comm systems in the shuttles seemed an alternative to which the Romulans could reasonably be expected to turn.

When he reached the lateral bulkhead without seeing anybody, Vaughn stopped and surveyed his surroundings. The shuttlebay stood two decks tall, with an observation platform overlooking the landing stage on either side. A control room sat behind a transparent wall on the near platform.

The facility housed four full-sized shuttles, he saw, along with twice as many smaller craft. The two-person pods probably functioned as maintenance vehicles, allowing Tomed’s crew to perform inspection and repair of the ship’s hull and exterior equipment. Boxy, with viewing ports in their curved fore and aft bulkheads, the simple, basic pods did not interest Vaughn. Although speculative as to whether or not a shuttle could survive the end of the mission, simulations had demonstrated conclusively that the pods could not.

Vaughn started toward the outer bulkhead, heading for the great clamshell doors that separated the shuttlebay from the unforgiving vacuum of space. He studied the vessels as he walked, still alert for the presence of any Romulans. In contrast to the pods, the shuttles had been designed not only to satisfy function, but to complement the distinctive bird-of-prey style of the Romulan fleet. The long, sleek hull, colored the characteristic grayish green of most Romulan vessels, tapered to a point in front of the forward viewing port, an effect evocative of a beak. The small-scale warp nacelles, capable of achieving warp two, sat atop graceful, arcing pylons that swept upward from the main body, like the wings of a bird swooping down from flight.

Satisfied that he was alone in the bay, Vaughn went to the shuttle nearest the outer doors. He read the name of the craft– Liss Riehn—printed beside the door in deep-red characters barely visible on the dark hull. The words translated as Blood Hawk.

Vaughn jabbed at a small panel beneath the name, and it opened with a click, swinging upward to reveal a control pad beneath. He studied it briefly, then reached up and worked the controls. A mechanical hum emanated from the craft, and a door appeared in the hull, pushing into the cabin and then sliding away to the left. Within, overhead lighting came on automatically.

He stepped up into Liss Riehn.The cabin ran the length of the shuttle, with no interior bulkheads providing any separate compartments. Two chairs sat before forward control panels, with two more chairs behind those. Benches had been built into the side bulkheads, accommodating perhaps another ten or twelve passengers. The cabin narrowed aft, with a short corridor reaching to a rear viewing port, set between two equipment columns in the corners there. One item that Vaughn did not see, but that he and the others had hoped to, was an emergency transporter.

Swapping his disruptor for the small case of tools hanging from the waist of his uniform, he moved to the forward stations. He set the case down there and examined the panels, scanning them once quickly, and then more carefully on a second pass. Confirming his observation, he found no transporter controls.

Wonderful,Vaughn thought. Just when I was starting to think this wouldn’t get any harder.

He strode to the rear of the cabin, to one of the two equipment columns. Vaughn pulled open a door that reached from the deck to the ceiling, exposing a maze of circuitry. He started at the top and followed it down, searching for what he needed. Not finding it, he moved to the second equipment column, looking out through the aft viewing port as he did so. The sight of the shuttlebay doors stopped him.

Eventually, those doors would have to be opened. The shuttle possessed only minimal armaments, he knew, probably insufficient to penetrate any section of the hull. But even with more powerful weapons, the special ops team could not simply blast through the doors; leaving them open would go unnoticed, but shooting a hole in them would produce a readily detectable energy signature, not to mention questions without satisfactory answers.

Vaughn returned to the forward stations and looked for the controls that would open up the shuttlebay, leaving only a forcefield between the landing stage and space. The original plan had called for the doors to be opened later, but it had also counted on the entire crew abandoning Tomed.With six Romulans still aboard, Vaughn felt that he could not risk waiting to open the doors, when he could potentially find his efforts blocked, without even the few minutes he would require to counteract the Romulan resistance.

The controls extended across the top of the port-side station, but Vaughn realized that he would not be able to lock the doors open from here. To prevent the Romulans from overriding his commands, he would have to reroute and reprogram the main panel in the shuttlebay control room. It would be a relatively simple matter to accomplish, but he needed to do it now.

Drawing his disruptor again, Vaughn stepped down out of Liss Riehnand jogged over to one of the two ladders that led to the nearer observation platform. He climbed at a brisk pace, heading for the control room once he had alighted. Inside, the landing stage and its dozen craft spread out before him on the other side of the transparent wall.

Vaughn set his disruptor down and examined the panel there. Only a few systems could be operated from this location, he saw: shuttlebay environmental control, forcefield, homing beacon, tractor beam, and the clamshell doors. As quickly as he could, he reprogrammed the OPEN/CLOSE controls, then pulled the panel up and removed the circuitry that would allow them to be operated from another location on the ship. He considered modifying the other controls for the other systems, but did not want to take the time to do so. No matter how much he had trained for this mission, he could not be sure how long it would actually take him to complete his assigned tasks here in the shuttlebay.

Vaughn worked the modified panel, then peered out from the control room. In the center of the clamshell doors, a dark line appeared, reaching from the top of the shuttlebay down to the decking. As he watched, the line widened. The two great doors folded into themselves, leaving only the forcefield in place, its functioning marked by a lighted blue ring rimming the opening. Stars became visible, seeming to stretch out into slender segments as Tomedpassed them, a result of the warp effect.