Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages (27 page)

“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.
”

“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?”

“About a hundred meters,” Spock said. But they might as well have been a hundred light-years away, for this corridor was the most fiercely held of any they had come down yet. The Rihannsu at the far end of it doubtless knew that if they could only hang on a little longer,
Battlequeen
’s people would arrive in force—and there would be an end to fighting, and a beginning to an interesting evening of tortures.

“Captain,” she said, “we cannot hope to break out of here! We are almost out of weapons, those few we still have are almost out of charge, we are almost all wounded, even the poor rock can barely move—”

“Hope,” Jim said, still looking around him for possible options, “
is
illogical…. Still, it has its uses. Spock?”

“The commander’s summation, while emotionally delivered, is quite correct,” Spock said. “We are pinned, and scan shows another group of Rihannsu working around to join those presently attacking our rear. They do not have to do much to us, Captain. They can easily contain any attempt we might make to break out of this area.”

“Noted. However, Mr. Spock—if it becomes plain that this is a non-survival situation—we will not be taken without a fight.”

“Yes, sir.”

And having decided that, they began to look around them for ways out again. Ael shook her head slowly, feeling shamed by their courage and privileged to have seen it. “Gentlemen—”

Jim’s communicator beeped. “Kirk here.”

“Captain,”
Mr. Scott’s voice said,
“we’ve got a problem….”

“The shields, I would imagine.”

“They’re holding, sir. Barely.
Helve
and
Lahai
are whittling away at them—
Battlequeen
’s not in range yet. Sir, that ship looks like one of the new-model Klingon destroyers. We’re going to be in deep trouble if it gets here…and I don’t see any way to stop it.”

“Mr. Scott,” Jim said, “under no circumstances are you to allow my ship to be taken.” His eyes flickered to Ael, asking her silently about her crew. She simply nodded. “The commander concurs as regards
Bloodwing
personnel aboard the
Enterprise;
you had better let them know. And should things come to that pass, blow
Intrepid,
and the station too.”

“Understood,”
Scotty said.
“What the devil—”

“What’s wrong, Scotty? That hasn’t gone wrong already, anyway.”

“Ach,”
Scotty said, sounding disgusted,
“it’s that
Bloodwing,
Captain;
she’s
firin’ at us now, pointblank!”

Ael shook her head miserably and leaned it against the fire-blackened wall, sick at heart.
“Something odd about that, Mr. Scott,”
she heard Mr. Chekov say in the background.

“What then, lad?”

“Her phasers are firing at minimum intensity, Mr. Scott,”
Chekov said, his voice sounding very odd—almost jubilant.
“No effect on our screens—”

“Give me a power consumption curve on her.”

“Normal, Mr. Scott! No damage to
Bloodwing,
no engine trouble and she doesn’t have her shields up—”

“Scotty,” Jim said urgently, “hail her!”

“Uhura—”

In the background they could hear Uhura opening a frequency, challenging
Bloodwing.
“On screen, Mr. Scott—”

“Enterprise,”
came a familiar voice—Aidoann, frantic, but thinking as usual. The sickness about Ael’s heart came undone, and she sat up straight.
“Mr. Scott, where’s the commander?”

“Scotty,” Jim said, “patch me through! Aidoann, this is Kirk, the commander’s with us and well—”

“Captain,”
Aidoann said,
“you must get out of there! We can’t keep up this pretense much longer, the other ships will be within range to read our status on sensors—”

“Energize, wide scan!” Ael cried. “You can take us in three groups, four at the most! Beam us over to
Intrepid!
Captain, where? Their rec room?”

“Yes—! Spock, warn everybody—Scotty, give
Bloodwing
our coordinates, take everybody with a translator installed, the Vulcans have them too! Hurry it—”

The phaser fire broke out close behind them. People threw themselves in all directions, firing back—

—and the world dissolved in a storm of crimson dazzle, the form of fire that Ael decided right then she would always like best—

O, by my Element!!
she thought, as
Bloodwing
’s transporter let go of her and dropped her six feet to the carpeted floor. The carpet was no help; she heard various
Enterprise
people complaining about the drop, though the Vulcans all somehow seemed to come down on their feet. “Move it,” Jim was shouting, “get off the coordinates, there’re two more groups coming—!”

People scrambled desperately for the walls. Ael ran with the rest, pausing only long enough to scoop up Dr. McCoy in the process and drag him along with her; he had been trying to stand and failing. Now he was testing his left leg for breaks and saying a great many things that her translator flatly refused to render. She dropped him more or less against the wall, looking frantically around her to see how her people were doing. In midair another great group of people materialized and,
slam!,
fell to the floor. “Never complain about our transporters again,” McCoy was growling behind her, “
yours
are even worse!”

“Physician,” Jim said, kindly but hastily, as he came up behind Ael, “stuff thyself. Better still, get down to the sickbay with Dr. Seiak and start healing some of these people.” He paused, watching the third group materialize and go
slam!
; then lifted his communicator again. “Scotty, is that it?”

“It is, Captain,”
Aidoann said.
“We’ve got to put our screens up; and they’re getting close enough to hear our ’com.
Enterprise,
we’re with you!”
—and she closed her channel down.

Ael began holding her breath.

“We’ve got a hole card, Mr. Scott,” Jim said, as jubilant as Chekov had been. “We’re going to get this creature going—”

“But she’s cold! It’ll take fifteen minutes, Captain—”

“Hold as you can, Scotty. If the situation becomes unsaveable, my earlier orders stand. No more communication, or you’ll give away the fact that there’s someone on this ship.”

“Aye. Good luck, sir—”

“Same to you, Scotty. Out.”

Sehlk and T’Leiar had found Jim. “Sir, we have a problem—”

“Where’s Captain Suvuk?”

“Still out, in sickbay. Captain—”

“I know. Cold engines.”

“It would not be a problem,” Spock said from behind Jim, “if we had some ‘hot’ antimatter to seed the reaction.”

“Too late for a jumpstart,” Jim said. “
Enterprise
and
Bloodwing
both have their screens up, and they can’t drop them—”

—and Ael let out the breath she had been holding at the sound and sight of a final shimmer of
Bloodwing
transporter effect in the middle of the room. The forms solidified: Tr’Keirianh and t’Viaen from her engine room, and between them a magnetic bottle in an antigrav mount. Her two crewfolk fell and got up again, complaining softly. The bottle in the mount just hovered there.

“Captain,” Ael said, “you were saying you needed some antimatter?”

He stared at her.

“I ordered it readied after the question of cold engines came up in the briefing,” she said. “Unfortunately things got so busy—”

“Lady,” he said, once again with that peculiar courtesy—and then stopped, and shook his head. “Never mind. Mr. Spock, Mr. Sehlk, come along. Sehlk, we’re going to do something illogical and very effective to T’Leiar’s engines….”

The bridge of the
Intrepid
was if possible even lovelier than that of the
Enterprise
—bigger, more open and modern. And at the moment it was rather livelier, with T’Leiar holding down the center seat, and people and communications crackling in all directions. It amused Ael that while down in the station, under the worst possible circumstances, the Vulcans had seemed so very marvelous—and now, back on their own ship and theoretically in worse danger than before, they were all immersing themselves in an (apparent) calm that was utterly prosaic by comparison.
Territoriality,
Ael thought,
as strong as a Rihannsu’s. They are a lot more fun when they’re in trouble. Look at T’Leiar, she was like a mad
thrai
when she was fighting; now there’s nothing left but a businesswoman—

“Transporter room?” T’Leiar was saying, “report! Is the transportation of the genetic material complete?”

“The last load is coming aboard now, Commander.”

“Are you quite certain everything’s there?”

“Commander,”
said the serene Vulcan woman on the other end of the conversation,
“we have beamed up every piece of archival copy, of any sort, in the entire station. Tapes, paper, film, metal—nothing was missed. Number four cargo hold was filled entirely with the papers and tapes alone. The genetic material took up six and nearly all of seven….”

“Very well. Engineering,” T’Leiar said. “Captain Kirk?”

“Kirk here. Five more minutes, T’Leiar—the warp engines are in restart cycle now, and Spock and Sehlk are in decontamination. Sihek says you can have impulse, though, if you want it.”

“Excellent. Si’jsk, take us out at maximum impulse. Advise
Enterprise
and
Bloodwing.
”

“T’Leiar,”
said Jim from engineering,
“have them lay in courses for eta Trianguli—but have them depart this area in three different directions.”

“Sir,” T’Leiar said politely, “there are only two of them.”

“Noted, Commander, but I want
you
to do it too….”

“That is what I thought you meant, Captain. But ambiguity might—”

“Yes, I suppose it might. Is Commander t’Rllaillieu there?”

“Here, Jim,” Ael said.

“I forgot to say thank you.”

“For what?”

“The antimatter.”

“No matter,” Ael said. “Perhaps I’ll borrow a cup of it from
you
some day.”

Jim chuckled.
“Oh, oh. Sorry, T’Leiar, Terran error creeps into calculation again. No warp engines in five minutes.”

“No, Captain?”

“No, warp capacity
now.
And here come Spock and Sehlk early.”

“Noted, sir. Lieutenant T’Kiha, how far are we from this system’s primary?”

“Three hundred million kilometers, madam. Well outside the warpflight boundary.”

“That’s well. Warp two immediately, accelerate to warp six as soon as feasible. Advise
Enterprise
and
Bloodwing.
Mr. Setek, arm photon torpedoes and report when phasers are ready.”

“Photon torpedoes charging now. Phasers ready—”

“Good. Pursuit, T’Kiha?”

“
Lahai
and
Helve
are in pursuit, but not keeping pace,” said the helm officer. “Slipping behind. Also,
Enterprise
reports dropping its last jamming buoy.”

“Excellent. What is
Battlequeen
’s status?”

“Gaining on us, madam. Warp six and accelerating rapidly.”

T’Leiar’s face, for all its immobility, indicated that she did not consider
that
excellent. “Evasive.”

“Commencing.”

Ael sat down at a side station. It was good evasive action, but not as inspired as Mr. Sulu’s—and
Battlequeen
was still chasing them. “Commander T’Leiar, may I suggest something?”

The bridge doors hissed open. “You snake,” Jim said, “what have you got in mind this time?”