Текст книги "Well of Souls"

Автор книги: Ilsa J. Bick

Соавторы: Ilsa J. Bick
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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

At the sound, Chen-Mai jerked his weapon up and fired.

The blast burned through the Vulcan’s suit, through his flesh, and into his lungs, and the force sent Sivek hurtling against the far wall. The Vulcan never had a chance to shout, not that it mattered. He slammed against the wall with a solid thud and collapsed, his body slithering down the wall.

In the next instant, Halak leapt through the entrance, Sivek’s phaser in his hand.

“Watch it, Halak!” Garrett shouted, her shock turning to urgency. “He’s got a phaser!”

Without breaking stride, Halak dove for cover behind a boulder, firing as he went. His phaser shot lanced across the cavern, exploding into the rock above Chen-Mai’s head, sending down a rain of gravel and pulverized stone. Turning, Chen-Mai fired once, a wild shot, and then bolted for the corridor at the far end of the chamber. Jase threw himself forward, but the stocky man was much stronger and threw the boy aside like a rag doll before disappearing down the corridor.

Garrett pushed to her feet. “Let him go!” she said to Halak, who had started after.

“You picked a hell of a good time to play cavalry,” Stern observed. She was still squatting by Kaldarren but hooked a thumb toward Sivek’s body. “How did you figure it out?”

“Later,” said Halak. He trotted over to Garrett. “Captain?”

“I’m fine,” said Garrett, pushing her hair from her face. She looked around wildly. “But, Jase, where’s Jase?”

Jase dodged around Halak. “Mom,” Jase said, throwing himself into her so forcefully that Garrett staggered back. Halak caught her by the elbow and steadied her.

“Oh, Mom,” Jase said, “Mom!”

Garrett gave him a fierce hug, held her son’s face between her hands, and said shakily, “If you weren’t too old…”

“Rachel.” Garrett turned around. Stern was running her tricorder over Kaldarren’s prostrate form, but when she raised her eyes to Garrett, her face was grim.

Heart sinking, Garrett knelt by Kaldarren. “Ven,” she said. She swallowed hard and ran her hand, still gloved, along his brow. “Ven, can you hear me?”

She had to call his name twice more before he responded. “Rachel,” Kaldarren said, his voice breaking. The muscles of his face twitched and danced. “Rachel, you have to leave…you have to take Jase away…away from here.”

“Sshh,” said Garrett, blinking back sudden tears. In an instant, the years of hurt and disappointments, all the acrimony and recriminations, were erased, and she saw only the man she had once loved with all her heart: the man who had been her lover, her steadfast friend, her most ardent critic. The father of the son they both loved. “Ven, let us try to help you, let us…”

“You can’t.” Kaldarren’s head rolled back and forth in weak protest. “You…can’t. They’re inme and I can’t breakaway, I can’t…”

“Don’t talk. We’ll get you aboard the ship.”

“Rachel.” Stern reached out and gripped Garrett’s wrist. “Rachel, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”

“What?” Jase cried.

Halak put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, but Jase didn’t seem to notice. His face was a mask of anguish and disbelief. “You have to help him!” Jase cried. “He’s my dad!”

“Tell me, Jo,” said Garrett, her heart swelling with dread. “Just tell me.”

Stern exhaled her breath in a long sigh. “I’m sorry. God, I’d give anything to tell you differently, Rachel, but the fact is I don’t even know where to start. His brain wave patterns are changing; these things are like a wave propagating on itself and getting stronger and stronger by the minute. His cortical activity has jumped threefold; the levels of serotonin, epinephrine, GABA, PGBC, they’re going through the roof. He’s fighting, but these other thingsare just getting stronger, chipping away at his mental defenses. Who knows where this will end, or how strong he’ll… they’llbe at the end. Or what he’ll become.”

“So what are you saying?”

“You know already. You can’t bring this aboard the ship.”

Garrett could only gape. “Leavehim here? But you said that only telepaths were affected.”

“Only telepaths can hostwhatever this is. But you have no idea how powerful he’ll be when the transformation is complete. For that matter, you don’t know that they won’t find someone more compatible aboard Enterprise.”

“Mom.” Garrett twisted around to see Jase, the tears streaming down his face unchecked. “Mom, don’t let her do it! Don’t lether!”

“Son,” said Halak, reaching for Jase’s shoulder. “Don’t make this harder for your mother than it already is.”

“What do youknow?” Jase batted Halak’s hand away. “How do you know what’s hard?” he shouted, his face contorted with his grief and fury. “How do you know?”

“I know,” said Halak. “Sometimes love means making hard choices because that’s all there are.”

Halak’s eyes drifted to Garrett’s then back to Jase. “Mourn your dad. Grieve for him. But take a good hard look at your father and then tell me that your mother’s wrong.”

“No, no,” Jase moaning, his chest convulsing with sobs, “he’s not dead, I’m not ready, I’m not ready for this, I don’t want to seethis. It’s not fair.” Jase turned aside and buried his face in Halak’s chest. Jase began to cry in that open-mouthed despairing way of young children when their heart is breaking. “It’s not fair, I’m not ready, I’m not ready!”

“It’s all right,” said Halak, wrapping his arms around Jase’s shoulders. He held the boy. “It’s all right.”

Garrett’s vision blurred with tears. She felt Kaldarren’s fingers scrabbling at her wrist. She turned back; Kaldarren’s dark eyes were fixed on hers.

“Listen to your doctor,” he said, his voice hitching. A spasm of pain made his face twist. “She’s right. If I go aboard your ship…if they find…a more compatible match, they will…will hop. Rachel, they can’t die, and they are more of them here, they’ll bring others, they’ll… forcethem, and I’m not sure how…how much longer I can…I can…”

“Don’t talk,” said Garrett, hot tears tracking down her cheeks. She clutched his hand to her chest. “Ven, please, please, don’t talk.”

“No,” Kaldarren hissed. “You have to listen. My data…my data.”He subsided, took a deep breath, and seemed to gather the last of his strength. “Tricorder has it all. Take that with you. Don’t let this be…be for nothing. Don’t…” His back arched, and his teeth clenched in a sudden spasm. “Don’t!”

“Ven!” cried Garrett desperately. To Stern: “Dosomething! Anything!”

Face set, Stern fitted a hypo and jetted the solution into the angle of Kaldarren’s neck. Almost instantly, Kaldarren’s muscles relaxed; his head lolled to one side.

Garrett looked up, apprehension etched into her features. “Did you…?” The words died on her lips, but her meaning was clear: Did you kill him?

They had known each other so long Stern read Garrett perfectly. “Not my call to make, Rachel. That was just a strong painkiller.”

Stern replaced her hypospray, then pushed up and bent over Pahl. There was an atonal whirling sound as she ran her tricorder over the boy. “This one, we can help. Jase was right; there’s nothing here. Far as I can tell, his brain’s shut down, that’s all. Traumatic withdrawal. The sooner we get him aboard, the less psychological damage there’ll be.” When Garrett didn’t respond, Stern continued, “Rachel, we don’t have much time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Halak. Jase had quieted, but he still held the boy in his arms. “What’s going on, Captain?”

“One word,” said Stern, pushing to her feet. She winced as her knees cracked. “Cardassians.”

The color drained from Halak’s face. The face he turned to Garrett was grave. “Captain?”

Without looking up, Garrett nodded. “In a minute. Jase.”

Halak felt Jase stir, and in another moment, the boy lifted his face from the hollow of Halak’s chest. Jase’s face was splotchy and swollen from crying, but his eyes were dry now, his tears spent. Without another word, he disengaged himself from Halak’s arms, and Halak let him go.

Jase dropped to his knees. Put his arms around his father’s neck. “I love you, Dad,” he whispered into Kaldarren’s ear. “I’ll always love you.”

There was no indication that Kaldarren heard, and after a few seconds, Jase kissed his father’s cheek and stood. He backed away until he stood a few inches from Halak.

Halak didn’t touch him. He said only, “It’s hard, son.”

The boy nodded but didn’t turn around. Wordlessly, they watched Garrett.

Still kneeling by Kaldarren’s side, Garrett pulled first her right then her left hand from their respective gloves and let her bare fingers trail over Kaldarren’s features. She closed her eyes. This is what it’s like to be blind and so you memorize the face of the person you love and you pour all your love into a single touch.

Garrett touched Kaldarren’s face again and again: tracing his broad forehead, that fine nose, his high cheekbones. And something extraordinary happened. With every pass of her hand, Kaldarren’s face softened beneath her fingers; the deep lines etched on his face smoothed; and she heard his breathing grow less labored and more like sleep. At last, Kaldarren exhaled a long, deep sigh.

It’s his soul.Garrett knew this was absurd, but the thought sprang to her mind anyway. He’s letting go, but I’m here, I have him, and I’ll carry his soul like memory.

Finally, Garrett ceased. She opened her eyes, sat back on her heels, and let her hands rest on her thighs. She stared down at Kaldarren for a long moment.

Good-bye, my love.Kaldarren’s face wavered in her vision, and the hot burn of tears pricked her eyes. Good-bye.

She stood then, her heart full of grief, her will stronger than steel. “I’m ready,” she said, cupping Jase’s hot cheek with her right hand. Their eyes met, and for an instant, she imagined that their minds joined, and that Jase knew what his parents had shared. Or maybe it was just an illusion.

Then Garrett pulled on her gloves and retrieved her helmet. She clipped her helmet to her waist, and the snap was crisp and sharp. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Chapter 35

The problem with a stationary orbit, lunar or otherwise, is that it’s very boring. Same scenery, same bunch of coordinates. Same old, same old. Talma yawned. Well, at least, she was comfortably bored.

Only one real glitch so far: an odd signature about an hour ago. At first, she’d thought nothing of it. It had been a simple variance in the far end of the electromagnetic spectrum—there briefly and then, just as quickly, gone. Hunkered down behind the planet’s larger moon, she had no way to study the blip further. Sure, it could have been a ship, but then where had it gone? Her mind drifted to the Cardassian scouts she was sure were only hours away, if that. But a Cardassian scout ship would have continued its sweep, and she would have seen the ship on sensors as it came out of her blind spot. So, probably just a glitch and this was understandable, what with all the junkin this system. Talma smiled. How apt.

And speaking of Vaavek: Talma rechecked the ship’s chronometer, saw that it was only five minutes later than when she’d last checked, and cursed. He was late.

Why? Two possibilities: Either Vaavek had found the portal and was simply delayed, or he hadn’t. Following from those conclusions, if Vaavek had found the portal, Halak was dead. If he hadn’t, Halak was still alive but wouldn’t be for long. Ditto for Vaavek, actually. (Her mother always said she never hadlearned to share.)

Of course, if she was planning on vaporizing Vaavek, likely the Vulcan had worked out a way to do the same to her. She’d have to be careful around him—doubly so if he’d found the portal.

She’d manage. That was the problem with Vulcans; they could exaggerate, but they weren’t devious. So Talma doubted that Vaavek had bothered to sabotage the T’Pol’s engines the way she’d sabotaged the shuttlepod. If they hadn’t found the portal and Halak was still alive—something she could ascertain in a flash before the shuttlepod even got close—all that would be required was one phaser hit in just the right spot…

Her concentration was broken by a shrill bleat from the T’Pol’s comm. Talma started, her heart ramping up a beat or two as a squirt of adrenaline coursed through her veins. The bleat came again, and Talma confirmed: Vaavek’s signal, all right. Set on a prearranged frequency, piggybacking onto the periodic signal emitted by the neutron star. Any ship in the vicinity (a Cardassian scout, say) wouldn’t hear or suspect a thing, not unless it knew what to look for. Vaavek was on his way back, with the goods.

A signal within a signal: again, simple. Elegant. Clean. Just the way she’d done with the Enterprise,coning her signal inside another signal. A grin tugged at the corners of her lips. Those dopes. Out-thunk by a dirt-poor kid from one of the roughest planets in the galaxy.

The signal came again.

Engaging her sensors at maximum– the better to avoid unpleasant surprises in Cardassian trappings, my dear—Talma nudged T’Polfrom lunar stationary orbit. She was delighted that the scenery was about to change.

“Got something,” said Glemoor.

Bat-Levi, who was seated in the captain’s command chair, leaned forward. “What?”

“Movement,” said Glemoor, and he was reminded of his perusal of old Earth history: literature of submarine battles and then of classic Starfleet maneuvers. James T. Kirk, as he remembered rightly: a splendid warrior, Glemoor decided, and superb tactician. Kirk’s first run-in with Romulans, for example: a classic and required reading for any tactical officer interested in the principles of stealth warfare.

“Movement?” Bat-Levi echoed. She stepped down from the command chair and hovered behind Glemoor’s left shoulder. “What? A warp signature? Impulse engines?”

“No,” said Glemoor. “I mean, movement.”

Castillo, who had called up the same display on his station, shook his head. “I don’t see anything.”

Bat-Levi’s eyebrows mated as she bent to study Glemoor’s readings. “He’s right. There’s nothing there.”

“No, there is. It’s simply that you don’t know what you’re looking at.” Glemoor’s tone wasn’t smug; he was just imparting facts. “There’s too much interference in this general vicinity to distinguish easily between true vessel signatures, or plasma trails and ambient ionized plasma. So, in addition to my usual sensor scans, I’ve calibrated the sensors to detect changes in the wave particle fronts surrounding both the planet and its moon, on the theory that a ship might be hiding there.”

In response to Bat-Levi’s quizzical expression, Glemoor added, “Think of it as trying to scoop up a cracker from a bowl of thick soup. If you chase your cracker, you set up a displacement of the soup itself.”

Castillo brightened. “I get it. There’s so much stellar soup out there you looked for compression of wave fronts.”

“All right, I’m impressed,” said Bat-Levi. “So, is it the T’Pol?Or a Cardassian?”

“The T’Pol,I think. The degree of displacement is too small for a Cardassian.”

“Shall I plot course for intercept?” asked Castillo.

“What about that, Glemoor?”

“Nothing from the planet’s surface yet, Commander.”

“But there must be something,” said Bat-Levi, “otherwise, the T’Polwouldn’t be moving out.” She glanced over her shoulder at communications. “Bulast?”

The Atrean shook his head. “Nothing.”

Bat-Levi pursed her lips. “Then why is she moving? There’s got to be something…”

“Wait,” said Bulast, suddenly. His fingers stroked the controls at his console. “Got it. Same trick she used before. Coned inside the periodic bursts from that neutron star. A signal.”

Glemoor cut in. “Something else, Commander.”

“The captain?”

“No,” Glemoor said. “On long-range sensors. Company, closing fast.”

Seated in the pilot’s chair of her shuttlecraft, Garrett opened a channel to Halak in the Vulcan shuttlepod. “Think she got it?”

“Positive.” Halak’s voice was marred by pops and crackles of static. “She ought to be moving out from behind the larger moon any minute now.”

“Let’s hope.” Garrett looked over at Stern who sat in the co-pilot’s chair. “Well?”

“Too much damned interference,” Stern muttered, twiddling with the shuttle’s sensors, “like pea soup, I don’t see how you expect me to look for Cardassian scouts, they’d…ah! Got ’em.”

“How many?”

“Two. Closing fast. They’ve got a bug up their thrusters, all right.”

“That bug would be us,” said Garrett, bringing the engines on-line. “Or the T’Pol.Let’s hope it’s the latter. What about the Enterprise?”

“Still nothing. She’s gone, all right.” Stern gave Garrett a narrow look. “You sure you don’t want to just sit this one out?”

“We’ve got a much better chance if we’re moving. Hunker down here, and we might as well hand out invitations for those Cardassians to take potshots.”

“We’re not exactly fast, you know. And our range…”

“Let me worry about that. Besides,” Garrett plotted a course out of the system, “there are two of us. With the T’Pol,that makes three. If I were those Cardassians, I’d go for the bigger ship because I’d know there’s no way a smaller ship would get far.”

“Oh, that’s comforting. Let’s hope the Enterpriseisn’t too far away.”

Otherwise, we’re on our own.Stern didn’t say it, but Garrett thought she might as well have. It had been Garrett’s call: getting the Enterpriseout of harm’s way if the Cardassians showed up (as they just had). If Bat-Levi had followed her orders, the Enterprisehad left the system at the first sign of the Cardassian scouts. So that meant her ship would be heading for the rendezvous coordinates: seven light years away.

She glanced back over her shoulder at Jase who huddled on a chair just behind her station. “Buckle up. I want to see that restraining harness on.”

“Sure.” Jase managed a wan grin. They’d bundled Pahl into restraints on a makeshift hassock aft. It would have made Garrett feel better if Jase were with his friend; Jase would be that much closer to an environmental suit if they had to evacuate. But Jase had refused, and Garrett hadn’t the heart to press it. They’d just take their chances together. On reflection, Garrett thought that was probably the way things were meant to be.

She watched as her son reached over his shoulders with both hands, grabbed the buckles of his restraining harness, and tugged them down. “Snug it. And hang on now, okay? It might get rough.”

“Promises, promises,” Stern grumbled, shrugging into her own harness.

“If we’re lucky, they’ll go after the T’Poland leave us be.” Garrett punched up the Vulcan shuttlepod. “On my mark, Halak.”

“Ready, Captain.”

“On three, two, one. Mark!” Garrett punched up her engines. There was a perceptible jolt, the rush of a red-hued landscape, and then the blackness of space, stars.

As one, the two ships rocketed up from the planet.

The way was dark as pitch. Chen-Mai blundered along, rebounding off rock walls, the round hump of his helmet banging against stone. He might as well be blind.

He was dead. Chen-Mai felt a bubble of panic pushing at the back of his throat and his chest heaved, trying to pull in air. Or as good as dead: He’d die down here if he couldn’t find his way back. My God, but the air was so close! He ran his naked hands along the rough stone; he’d pulled off his gloves because the fingers were too padded and once the light went, he needed to have more feeling. The walls, they were closing in, he couldn’t breathe! Chen-Mai’s chest was tight, and he struggled to breathe, breathe, breathe….

Hyperventilating. He was getting dizzy. The sour taste of bile filled his mouth, and Chen-Mai doubled over, vomited until his stomach was empty and all he could do was hack dry heaves. Sagged back against stone.

Calm, he had to be calm. Chen-Mai pressed the back of his left hand against his forehead. Sweating like a pig. Hot, so hot in here, the air so close. He had half a mind to get out of this infernal suit, then maybe strip Kaldarren or Mar—yes, Mar, because Kaldarren had something wrong with him, and Chen-Mai wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t take the chance—yes, he could strip Mar of his suit when he found the room again because he would find the room, he would.

But he might not. Chen-Mai turned his head aside and hawked up foul-tasting spit. There was more than way out of here, there had to be. So he had to keep his wits about him. But which way was out? He had a sense that he was heading down deeper, and that was wrong. That turn he’d taken a while back: He shouldn’t have done that. But he’d been certain he was circling back, to the chamber where he’d been, where that Kaldarren had tricked him….

He tripped over something—a rock lip, a stone perhaps—staggered. Pitched forward into the darkness. He managed to get his hands out in front and caught himself, but the tunnel floor was uneven and dropped a half-meter. Then the heels of his hands banged into the hard rock, and he heard something snap in his right wrist.

Chen-Mai screamed and then he screamed again. His scream bounced off the low walls and reverberated in the darkness. Rolling onto his left side, Chen-Mai cradled his shattered right wrist against his chest. He couldn’t see his wrist, wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he knew that it was broken.

Now, something else: something wet, warm on his fingertips, the fingertips of his left hand. And an odd smell, like wet metal, damp rust. Cautiously, he wormed the fingers of his left hand around his right wrist. Grazed against something sharp, and then moist fabric. Odd. Maybe he’d torn his suit and…

Bone. Chen-Mai’s eyes bulged in the darkness. The jagged ends of bone that had torn through his skin.

Chen-Mai threw his head back and howled.

At just about the same time that Talma spotted both the shuttle and shuttlepod—and before she had a chance to even wonder about why a Starfleet shuttlecraft was in the vicinity much in the less in the company of Vaavek’s shuttlepod—she also saw the Cardassians, barreling her way.

“Hunnh!” Her breath rushed out of her lungs in surprise. For a brief instant, she was absolutely frozen in place, her mind slamming on the brakes. She watched the Cardassian scouts get larger and larger, closer and closer…

She snapped out of her shock and tried to get her mind working. The Cardassians were here, now, early.But how?

Her forehead crinkled. Could it be the signal, the one Vaavek had sent, that alerted them? But no—as quickly as she had that thought, she dismissed it—the signal had come first, then the Cardassians appeared, and then…

Her eyes went round. ThenVaavek had lifted off the surface and inthe company of the shuttlecraft. Too far away for her to figure out where the shuttlecraft had come from, which ship, though she had a fair idea.

Garrett. The Enterprise.By God! Her fist slammed onto the console. But how had Garrett figured it out? When?

And no matter that: The order was wrong. She should’ve spotted it right away, but she’d let her greed get the better of her. The order was wrong.Vaavek shouldhave lifted off first thenactivated the signal. He—or Garrett—was counting on her moving out from behind the moon.

A decoy. Talma’s brown eyes slitted. Yes, that was it. Vaavek had sent the signal. He knew, somehow, that the Cardassians were there. Using that cold Vulcan calculus she’d come to appreciate, Vaavek would gamble that the scouts would either ignore the tinier shuttlepod completely, or lose it in the confusion of weapons’ fire. How he knew didn’t matter at the moment. Nothing mattered anymore except that Talma was a sitting duck. The Cardassians were faster, more maneuverable than the Vulcan warpshuttle.

Now her mind raced over her options. They were diminishingly few. It was either run, or run.

All right. Bringing the ship’s navigational computer back on-line, she barked out a command as her hands flew over the T’Pol’s weapons’ systems. All right, two could play at this game. They wanted a decoy? Talma’s lips split in a savagely triumphant smile. She’d give them a decoy.

She picked out the shuttlepod’s port nacelle, targeting manually as the computer chittered to itself in Vulcan, spitting out coordinates for taking the ship toward the neutron star. Talma listened with half an ear; her Vulcan was impeccable and she was confident the computer knew what it was doing.

She didn’t bring the weapons on-line. Not just yet. Lock on, and the shuttlepod might see, veer off. Or that shuttlecraft might warn Vaavek. Talma tracked the blip that was the Vulcan shuttlepod. One shot, she figured, then the Cardassians would be on her– unlessshe gave them something infinitelymore interesting to look at.

“Come on,” she urged under her breath, watching as the Cardassians sped toward them. The shuttlepod was nearly in range. “Come on.”

Five, four…the shuttlepod drew closer, closer and she saw that its shields weren’t up and that was very, very good…three, two.

“Now!” Talma shouted. “Computer, nu-at, weedawa! Nave-zehlek, klamacha thes!Dooohchat!

And because Talma’s Vulcan wasimpeccable, the T’Pol’s shields snapped into place, her phasers locked on target, and the computer fired phasers. Full power.

And, at that exact moment, the shuttlepod accelerated straight for her on a collision course.

Chicken. Halak barreled toward the T’Pol.He’d just play chicken and see which of them blinked first.

“Because I don’t trust you, Burke,” he said, his smile vicious and just this side of truly malevolent. “Because I think you’re going to try to blow me out of the quadrant before the Cardassians do. Because that’s what Iwould do.”

An alarm screamed, and Halak’s eyes jerked left. Cardassian scouts and, damn, they were fast!

“Captain, here they come, here they come!” Halak shouted. At the same instant, he saw the phaser lock from the T’Pol.Read that her shields had snapped into place.

“Halak!” It was Garrett. “She’s got a lock! Get your shields up, get them up!”

“Shields! Taking evasive maneuvers!” Halak slammed his palm down upon his shield control as he brought the ship around in a tight, spiraling turn, port and aft. If there had been air, he imagined that he would hear it screaming past his window, feel the force of his acceleration flattening him into his seat, squeezing his chest. But his gravity was holding and so he felt nothing: saw only the dizzying stirring of the stars and ionized gases outside his window, the flickering beams of phasers licking past the ship.

Missed. But she’d fired again. Halak slid the shuttlepod Z-plus 50. Climbing, climbing…and where was she, where was the T’Pol?Halak’s eyes scrambled over his sensor displays. She ought to becoming around for another pass, leaping after him like a hound chasing a rabbit.

But no.Halak gawked. Scrubbed at his eyes to be sure. No, the T’Polwas headed in the opposite direction, toward the neutron star. Not after him, or the shuttlecraft. Probably thinking she could hide in the magnetic well, wait things out.

Then he saw something that made him bang his fists down upon his console in frustration. One Cardassian on T’Pol’s tail, but the other Cardassian was letting her go, at least for the moment.

Because you were so helpful, Burke, pointing us out.Halak punched in a channel. “Captain! The brown star! Make a run for it! Go, go, go!”

Without waiting to see what Garrett did, Halak jerked the shuttlepod around and bore down on the remaining Cardassian. Same game—his hand hovered over his phaser controls– we play the same damn game and let’s see if this Cardassian evenknows what a chicken is.

He managed to evade the first disruptor blast but not the second. For a split instant, the shuttlepod’s artificial gravity wavered, and Halak pitched forward, banging the point of his chin against the edge of his pilot’s console. Pain exploded along his jaw and shivered into his teeth. Blood filled his mouth, trickled down his throat, and he gagged. There was a sensation of spinning; the tiny craft whirling like a top…

I’m dead,thought Halak. The centrifugal force had him pinned in his chair, and he couldn’t move, but he didn’t think there was anything he could do anyway. I’m dead.

Then the gravity clicked back and Halak lurched forward, coughed out a spray of blood. Alarms screamed. With a vicious swipe, he silenced them. He knew how bad things were.

“Halak!” Garrett’s voice sizzled through static. Halak heard the thin high whine of a phaser discharge, then looked out his window and saw the space bloom around the Cardassian scout, watched as one of the Cardassian’s forward shields flared orange from a phaser hit. Instead of making a run for the brown star, Garrett had circled around and was trying to draw the Cardassians away from his ship. “Halak, answer me, damn it!”

“Here, Captain.” Halak coughed again, sponged blood from his jaw. The skin over his chin was split wide open and he was bleeding so much he could feel it pooling at his neck.

He toggled up his displays. “Shields fifty percent. And there’s something wrong with my engines. They’ve kicked out. I don’t understand, the disruptor blast wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t…”

Burke. Halak felt himself go cold. The way she hadn’t come after him. Somehow she’d rigged the engines so a phaser blast or a disruptor hit would take them off-line, would finish him. That’s why she’d only fired once.

But he had no time. He ground his teeth together. The Cardassians out there, angling around for another run, they’d finish him off, and he was out of time, there was no time, no time!

“Captain!” Halak grappled to bring the ship around. The shuttlepod was sluggish, the controls mushy, and Halak had the insane thought that he’d probably be better off getting out and pushing for all the maneuverability he had. “Captain, can you hear me? My navigational control’s shot! I’ve got nothing here! Do you copy? Captain? Captain?”

“Dead in space,” said Glemoor, his eyes taking in the scene from the bridge’s main viewscreen. He looked back at Bat-Levi. “Whoever’s on board that shuttlepod still has shields, but he won’t last another two, three passes.”

“Life signs? One of us?”

“We’re too far away. Too much interference.”

“So, nothing to lock onto, and no way to beam them out even if we could, what with that mess out there.” Bat-Levi’s jaw set. “Well, at least, we have an idea where the captain is. How’s the shuttlecraft?”