Demands of Honor (16 page)

Even as Fuller fired, he realized that the Klingon was moving just slightly faster. But a fraction of a second before Fuller fired, he saw another beam lance out from next to him. The Klingon fired. Then another phaser fired. The four weapons in the small room discharged nearly simultaneously, and Fuller actually saw the disruptor bolt that nearly took his head off, missing him by inches.

A moment later the Klingon slumped to the floor, after taking a phaser beam to the chest. The shot had come from Fuller's right: Quatrocchi.

“Thank you, Ensign,” Fuller said.

“My pleasure, sir.”

Immediately, the three men turned and took positions on either side of the door, Fuller and Parmet on one side, Quatrocchi on the other. From their semiconcealed positions, the three men started firing down the corridor at figures that dashed from side to side, firing back.

A bolt tore into the deck in front of the door, and Fuller realized that the Klingons had not set their weapons on stun, or anywhere near it. The bolts were not enough to dematerialize a person, but they would do heavy damage to any body they touched. The disruptor bolts posed another danger. A wild shot could easily hit the forward window of the ship. At that power, a hit on the window would mean an immediate hull breach and a fast decompression of the control room.

The Klingons moved forward, getting more aggressive as they neared their enemy. The fire was nearly endless, and more than one shot hit the control panels behind Fuller's team. Another shot tore into the body of the Klingon that Quatrocchi had stunned, and Fuller could see that the damage was immediately fatal.

It was a game of inches now and the Klingons had the advantage. Well, if Fuller, Parmet, and Quatrocchi could hold out a little longer, there was hope that the other teams could accomplish something.

A moment later, Fuller heard shouting that sounded distinctly human, and instantly the fire on their position stopped. Yet he could hear the sound of disruptor fire continuing and could see flashes of green through the smoke. No, not just green. Blue. The blue of phaser fire.

Someone had come up behind the Klingons and was hitting them pretty hard. The sound was nearly deafening, with human shouts met with Klingon war cries. Then, the sound of disruptors quieted and there were only a few phaser blasts. And then silence.

After a few seconds a female voice called out, “Fuller?” It was McCalmon.

“Here,” he said. “Is Jawer with you?”

“Yes, sir,” Jawer's voice said.

A few moments later, Jawer and McCalmon appeared out of the smoke. “We thought you might need some help up here,” she said.

“We did, thank you,” Fuller replied. Then he could hear a series of weapons blasts and then more silence.

“Baxter? Jameson?” Fuller called out, and both men appeared in the corridor as if answering his summons.

“I think we got them all,” Jawer said.

“We counted ten in the corridor,” McCalmon said.

“We took down one by the air lock and one in here,” Fuller said, gesturing to the dead Klingon in the pilot's seat.

“And there were four near our air lock. They had us pinned down for a while,” Baxter said.

That was fourteen, about right for a ship of this class.

“Let's not take any chances. We go door-to-door and check every inch of the ship. I don't want any surprises. Baxter, you and Jameson collect the Klingon bodies and put them all in one of the rooms by the air locks. If you even suspect one might be waking up, stun him twice.”

The two men acknowledged and were off.

“There was no one in the cargo area. And I don't think there could be anyone hiding in the containers. They had pretty heavy-duty security seals on them,” Jawer said.

“Probably because they're carrying precious cargo or military equipment,” Fuller said. “Or both.” From what little Fuller knew of the Klingon merchant cargo business, it was often marked by disputes over cargo inventories and value. Whatever the cultural reasons, it made trade between the Federation and the empire (when that was still possible) thorny at best.

They checked the upper level first and did it quickly. It carried stores for the crew, extra equipment, and the small engineering section. All of the rooms and compartments were empty. They headed down a ladder and quickly reached the lower level, which usually included a cargo ship's crew quarters, galley, and recreational facilities. It was also where the hostages would likely be kept, if they were still alive.

Fuller split his people into two groups. He, Parmet,
and Quatrocchi checked the port side, while McCalmon and Jawer checked the starboard. They were nearing the very rear of the ship and Fuller was worrying that there might be no hostages on board when Jawer said. “Sir, I have a locked door here.”

A dozen steps later, Fuller found Jawer and McCalmon standing in front of an ordinary door. Jawer had pulled open a control panel and was obviously trying to open the door. Fuller pulled him away with a tug, aimed his phaser, and fired.

The control panel disintegrated and the door slid open immediately. Fuller half-expected to be facing down the business end of a Klingon disruptor. Instead, he saw four people lying on the floor of the tiny room, one man and three women. At first, he thought they were dead, but a woman raised her head to look at them and the others stirred.

He recognized the people, at least the expressions on their faces. They had the look of people who had spent too long inches from death and far from hope … survivors. They looked haunted and dazed. They were also dirty, and each had slowly healing cuts and bruises. Their clothing, what little they wore, was torn and barely holding together.

“I am Michael Fuller of Starfleet. We're here to take you home.”

Three of the people looked at him dumbly, while the woman who had first lifted her head started to cry. He heard a few throats catch next to him. Jawer was looking on, pain on his face. McCalmon had tears in her eyes when she stepped forward and said, “Do any of you need medical attention?”

The crying woman started to get up and gestured to the man next to her. Crude splints were on each forearm, and Fuller could see that the bones were broken and had been badly set, if they had been set at all. Fuller helped up the woman, whom he immediately thought of as the one in charge.

“Can any of you walk?” he asked.

“I can,” the woman said.

The other two women grunted something and started to stand with help. The man simply nodded. It took two people to get him on his feet, but he was able to stand.

“Jawer, see if you can get their transporter online. Parmet, go back to the shuttle and get us four more suits, just in case,” Fuller said, and the two men sprinted off to their tasks.

Fuller, McCalmon, and Quatrocchi started leading the people to the ladder. The first step was to get them to the upper deck. The man with the broken arms was having trouble walking. McCalmon had only the standard medical training, but since she carried the medical kit, she was their medic. “I can give you something for the pain,” she said, and the man nodded. A moment later, she had a hypo spray out and administered it.

The man straightened immediately.

“My name is Christine,” the woman said, seeming to gain strength. “This is Alan, and this is Cyndy and Arleen.”

Fuller introduced himself again as well as the others. Just as he reached the ladder, Fuller's communicator beeped. It was Jawer.
“Transporter is fried, sir. I'm sorry.”

“Fine, meet us in the control room. Fuller out.”

“No transporter?” Christine asked. “Are we going to be stuck here?”

“No, we have a shuttle, but we're going to have to get you into space suits to get you there,” Fuller told her.

Christine looked worried. Fuller smiled and said, “This is what we do. We'll have you out of here in no time. There's a starship standing by.”

That seemed to satisfy her. Of course, the transfer would take some doing, particularly for the injured man. These were civilians with no zero-g or vacuum survival training. For a moment, Fuller considered sedating them, but decided against it. He couldn't risk strong drugs on their clearly weakened bodies.

Getting them up the ladder was difficult. Again, especially for the man. On the upper deck, Jawer was waiting. “Parmet's waiting with the suits,” he said.

Fuller sent Quatrocchi and McCalmon ahead with the survivors with orders to get them to the shuttle. When they were gone, he said to Jawer, “I need you to completely disable the warp and impulse drives, as well as any long-range transmission capability.”

Jawer nodded. “The warp drive's already done. The shuttle phasers took care of that. I can finish the impulse drive for good quickly.”

“Good. Then I want you to check the ship's computer. Find out what they're carrying.”

Jawer nodded and went right to work. Fuller headed to Baxter and Jameson, who were guarding an open door. Looking inside, Fuller saw that the Klingons were lying on the floor, unconscious—though one of them was starting to stir.

“They've been quiet,” Baxter said.

With that, the Klingon who had been moving shot to his feet. He stood up and faced them. “Earther! You dare to attack us? I will destroy you, you cowardly scum—”

Fuller's phaser was immediately in his hand, and a blue beam knocked the Klingon back to the ground. He was immediately silent. Then Fuller hit the control to lock the door.

“Watch them until we're ready to leave,” Fuller said, and headed to the port air lock.

Parmet and Quatrocchi were helping Christine and another woman into a suit. Beyond them, he could see two of his team inside the air lock itself as the outer door opened. They helped one of the other survivors outside and to the shuttle door. A moment later, they had her inside and were returning to the air lock.

Two more left,
Fuller realized. They were moving quickly.

His communicator beeped and Jawer said,
“Sir, you had better come see the cargo.”

Less than a minute later, Fuller was looking down an open hatch at a stasis chamber full of worms. “The computer called it
gagh,
” Jawer said. “There's also something called bloodwine, and
rokeg
blood pie.”

Fuller knew what that meant. “Turn the stasis fields off.”

“I can do it, sir, but it's just food.”

“Out here and in these quantities, the only ones who would see this food are Klingon warriors. This is food from home, given to soldiers to keep their morale high. See that it's no use to them when they find it.”

“Easiest to just disengage the cargo containers entirely. That will cut the power,” Jawer said.

“Good, we need to lighten the ship before we go.”

A few moments later, Parmet reported that the last survivor was on board. Fuller ordered everyone but Jawer and Baxter back to the shuttle. He left Baxter guarding the door and took Jawer to the control room.

They had to push aside the dead Klingon to get to the controls, but Jawer was able to quickly release the cargo containers. “That's it. They have battery power and life support, but no ability to move or communicate.”

The last step was an improvised time lock on the door holding the Klingon crew, who had seemed to have woken up and were shouting and banging on the walls. Jawer had modified one of the electronic lock breakers they had used to enter the ship and placed it on the door.

“Give them, say, six hours in there,” Fuller said.

“Sure,” Jawer said.

They quickly made their way back to the shuttle, which was fairly crowded. Nevertheless, to Fuller, it seemed like home. They quickly repressurized and Fuller was glad to have his helmet off again.

While the others gave the survivors water and emergency rations, Fuller told Quatrocchi what they needed to do. Fuller turned on the shuttle's tractor beam, which grabbed the command and propulsion module of the Klingon ship while Quatrocchi began to slowly accelerate. They had to do it slowly, taking precious minutes, because it was a lot of mass for the shuttle to be pulling, and because too fast an acceleration could easily overload the relatively low-powered tractor beam.

“What are you doing?” Christine asked.

“We're towing the ship on a course into populated
Klingon space. They will be picked up in a few weeks, or a few months,” Fuller said.

Nearly twenty minutes later, they were close enough to light speed for Fuller to release the ship. He shut off the tractor beam and Quatrocchi veered away. For a few seconds, Fuller watched the cargo ship as it coasted away behind them. Free of its burden and pointed toward the
Enterprise,
the shuttle quickly accelerated to top speed.

“You could have just left them,” Christine said. “You'd have gotten no argument from me.”

“That's not what we do.” But Fuller was uncomfortable for a long moment. He had strongly considered doing just that.

“You're a real humanitarian,” the man said, speaking for the first time.

Fuller didn't know what he meant, but he understood the tone and ignored the comment. They still had nearly two hours to go before he could even signal the
Enterprise.
Fuller tested his equipment and saw that the scanners were back online. They must have overloaded during the battle and then reset themselves when they finally cooled down.

Even though they were still in Klingon space, Fuller found himself relaxing by degrees. The mission had succeeded. And incredibly, they had not lost a single hostage or officer. That was a hell of a lot more than luck; it was practically a miracle.

U.S.S. ENTERPRISE

FEDERATION-KLINGON BORDER

“C
APTAIN,
I
HAVE THE SHUTTLE,
” Uhura said.

“Put them on audio,” Kirk said.

A moment later, Michael Fuller's voice came through the system, and Kirk felt a wave of relief. “Galileo
to
Enterprise.”