A Time to Kill

by David Mack

  Data tapped into the base’s internal security network and observed the effects of his interference. The Tezwan core engineers hesitated, then stumbled over one another in a mad scramble to secure the reactor chamber and evacuate to a safer level. In response, the android hounded them with one phony failure alarm after another; cooling-system overloads, ventilator shutdowns, and radiation-shield malfunctions met them at every turn. After two minutes of unbridled chaos, one of the harried engineers did what any one of them should have done following the first core-breach alert: He sounded the evacuation alarm.

  Beneath its protective shield of snow and ice, the main portal into the firebase opened. Even from nearly one hundred meters away, and despite the fury of the blizzard, Data heard the Tezwans’ weapons blasting through the frozen barrier in their haste to escape what they believed had become a time bomb.

  “They’re coming out,” Parminder said.

  “Internal sensors show forty-nine personnel,” Data said. “Wait until everyone has evacuated.”

  “Acknowledged,” Parminder said.

  Data tracked the evacuees’ progress with the base’s internal security network. Individuals who seemed slow or reluctant to comply with the evacuation order inevitably found themselves shepherded out of the complex by a cascading series of key-system malfunctions. Whenever they turned in any direction other than the one that led out of the base, a new critical-system failure threatened their lives.

  Nine minutes later, Data confirmed that the last six Tezwan officers, most likely the base commander and his senior staff, were exiting the facility. “The last group is coming out now,” he said into his com. “What is their position?”

  A few seconds later, Heaton answered. “They’re congregating in the area immediately surrounding the entrance,” she said.

  “Ensign Parminder, are the Tezwans clear of your charge’s blast area?”

  “Barely,” she whispered, most likely exercising caution to avoid being overheard by the nearby enemy troops.

  “Detonate the charge.”

  A few seconds later, Data saw the golden-orange flash of the explosion a moment before he heard the crack of the blast wave. The plume of fire rolled majestically up into the sky, leaving behind an expanding cloud of thick, black smoke.

  “They’re retreating,” Parminder said, her voice pitched with growing excitement.

  “Lieutenants Heaton and Obrecht, stand by with your tricorders. Wait until the Tezwans pass your target markers.”

  “Here they come,” Obrecht said. “Clearing the markers in three…two…one…now!”

  “Activate tricorders.”

  The range of Data’s hearing was barely broad enough to detect the hypersonic frequency the tricorders were emitting. Before he could verify with his own tricorder that their sonic pulses were properly collimated, a deep, rumbling thunder of collapsing snow and ice confirmed the two lieutenants had successfully sprung the trap he had instructed them to prepare.

  “Report.”

  “Controlled avalanche went off exactly as planned,” Heaton said. “The entrance is clear, and all Tezwan personnel are alive and uninjured—and stuck on the other side of the snowfall.”

  “Well done,” Data said, disconnecting the optronic cables that linked his positronic brain, the tricorder, and the base’s subspace signal buffer. “We have approximately thirty-four minutes before the Klingon fleet arrives. Regroup at the entrance in ninety seconds.”

  Pushing ahead through the clinging snow and driving wind, Data knew that capturing the firebase without a single shot being fired or anyone suffering an injury—on either side—was the optimally desirable outcome. His compatriots aboard the Enterprise would call it an achievement to be proud of…but he was no closer to remembering the sensation of pride in a job well done than he had been five minutes ago.

  This did not seem unfair to him.

  I am, after all, functionally immortal, he reasoned. I will have time for pride later.

  Chapter 44

  Tezwa—Mokana Firebase,

  2350 Hours Local Time

  “I SAID, the operations center is secure. We can move up.”

  Riker focused his eyes on Razka, who was crouched right in front of him. The first officer took a second to choke back the bitter bile rising in the back of his throat, so that he could reply without vomiting. “Okay,” he said, his voice hoarse and his breath short. “Good.”

  Razka waved Tierney and Barnes forward. “Go do what you do,” he told them. “We’ll be right behind you.” The two engineers tried to avert their eyes as they passed by, but Riker could see them casting sidelong glances at him. The Saurian security officer squelched their curiosity with a glare and a growl.

  Riker tried to move forward, then clutched the wall as a wave of dizziness flooded his head, which already was caught in the grips of a fearsome, viselike pain.

  Razka reached out and steadied him. “Hang on, sir,” he said as he propped Riker against the wall, then opened his medical kit. He loaded a hypospray. “This should help reduce the fever.”

  The device’s hiss just below his ear was loud enough to make Riker wince, but he relaxed as a cooling sensation extinguished the hot tingling pinpricks that had burned a swath across his neck and face, and calmed the manic pounding of his heart, which he was certain had been seconds away from splitting open his sternum.

  “Can you hold a phaser, sir?”

  Laboring to lift his rifle to a level position, Riker couldn’t make his arms obey his wishes. There was no strength left in his hands. His suspicion that Razka could detect the difficulty he was having breathing was confirmed when the security officer injected him with a second shot from the hypospray. “Tri-ox,” Razka said. “And some antihistamine.”

  Seconds later, Riker’s sinuses and throat opened. Pulling in a much-needed breath, he felt some of his strength return. With a few moments of fierce concentration, he locked his hands around his rifle and held it steady. “Thanks, Chief,” he said, not sounding at all like a man fit for combat. “Let’s go.”

  Moving deeper into the base, they turned a corner at the end of the hall and kept to the shadows as they stole forward. After negotiating a short but steep downward flight of stairs, Razka led him into the firebase’s operations center.

  The room was small, had subdued lighting, and was packed on all sides with Starfleet-style technology. Modern adaptive interfaces had been modified to display readouts in Tezwan alphanumeric symbols.

  Three unconscious Tezwan soldiers lay piled together in a darkened corner. Tierney and Barnes were at one of the consoles, resetting its display to Federation standards. Tierney looked over her shoulder as the first officer staggered in with Razka.

  “I think we’ve compensated for the lost demolition kit,” she said. “By linking the primary—”

  “Can you blow the base or not?” Riker hadn’t meant to sound so gruff, or cut her off so abruptly, but a riptide of sickness was surging through his gut, leaving him queasy and irritable.

  She stiffened her posture and her tone. “Affirmative.”

  Subtly interposing himself between Riker and the engineers, Razka guided the first officer toward the main console. “You can monitor our progress from here,” he said. “With your permission, I’ll take them to their target.” Leaning his weight against the console, Riker nodded and motioned for him to go. The Saurian noncom turned to the engineers and brusquely issued orders in Riker’s name, then led them out to complete the strike mission.

  Twenty-five minutes until the Klingons get here, Riker realized as he glimpsed his chronometer. Hope that’s enough time to do this. New prickles of heat crawled across the back of his neck, and the relatively modest gravity of Tezwa suddenly seemed to increase its pull. He swallowed hard against a fresh wave of nausea churning inside his gut. I hope I last that long.

  Chapter 45

  Kolidos Firebase—0752 Hours

  Local Time

  WHAT TOOK THEM SO LONG, Peart
wondered cynically as he observed the advancing, regrouped Tezwan soldiers.

  He and Sierra Team had stranded the enemy troops roughly eight kilometers away, just under an hour ago. T’Sona had escorted Scholz and Morello into the base, to capture ops and fence in the Tezwan base personnel.

  Peart had stayed behind at the base’s main entrance to activate the signal jammer, and serve as a one-man welcoming committee for the pursuing company of Tezwan grunts. From his prone position beneath his stolen hovercraft, he counted approximately one hundred enemy personnel moving in.

  He began to wonder if facing them alone might be a mistake.

  “Peart to T’Sona. Report.”

  “Scholz and Morello are preparing their demolitions. All secure inside the base.”

  “Well, tell them to hurry it up. The—”

  “We are well aware the Klingon fleet is due in twenty-three minutes…. Sir.”

  Peart considered taking her to task for interrupting him, but seeing the Tezwans dodging from one protective dune to another, he decided the rebuke could wait. “Actually, I was going to say the troops we tangled with in the drop zone are on their way here, and looking to cut off our escape route.”

  That was met by a brief silence.

  “I will join you shortly.”

  “Thank you. Peart out.”

  He removed his helmet to improve his peripheral vision. Searing, merciless heat hit him like a slap. The air was crisp and laced with windblown sand that tore across the back of his neck with scouring force.

  He flipped open the holographic targeting sight of his phaser rifle. Aligning the crosshairs at center-of-mass height in a gap between two dunes, he took a breath and waited. He fired as a body blurred through his sights. The Tezwan soldier spun fully around and collapsed. Squeezing off another shot, Peart took down one of the two soldiers who had tried to duck past behind their braver comrade.

  Taking his eye from the sight, he snapped his attention left, then right, with birdlike acuity. Enemy personnel scurried behind the dunes on either side of him.

  Flanking me. Probably try to pin me down to defend a forward charge. This is gonna get ugly.

  Choosing not to compare his tactical situation to that of Custer at Little Big Horn, or of Tirius at Arkalanna, he stunned two more Tezwans. Then the barrage began.

  Shrieking blasts of radiant blue energy converged on his position. Bolts of charged plasma crackled across the firebase entrance, punched sizzling holes through his borrowed hovercraft, and turned long strips of desert sand into molten glass. Smoke and fumes spat from the hovercraft as a fire erupted in its engine.

  Realizing that the hovercraft’s antigrav system was about to fail—and drop the vehicle on top of him—he shimmied quickly backward on his belly, propelling himself through the sand with his knees and elbows. He cleared the hovercraft just in time to watch it fall the half-meter to the ground with a hollow bump and the clanging of its shoddily assembled metal chassis.

  Flames roared up from the passenger area of the vehicle. Peart used the impromptu blaze as cover while he backed into the base entrance. Reaching for the door controls, he yanked his hand clear a microsecond before a Tezwan rifle blast fragged the panel in a shower of sparks. So much for making them knock before they come in.

  Then he heard the oscillating whine of a damaged antigrav engine being pushed beyond its limits. The sound was getting louder and more distinct as it drew closer.

  Poking his head around the corner, he saw a smoke-spewing, damaged hovercraft speeding toward his own wrecked vehicle—and the base entrance. It shook violently as it raced ahead, and it was obvious that it was barely functional. Regardless, Peart was impressed the Tezwans had been able to make sufficient field repairs to render the craft mobile at all.

  Boosting his rifle to full power, he pivoted into the doorway, rifle stock braced against his shoulder, and fired. His phaser pulse flared as it struck the wobbling hovercraft, which lurched forward, gaining speed but suddenly veering off-center. Its sole passenger, the pilot, abandoned the controls and jumped overboard, rolling in a hard tumble across the sands.

  The hovercraft’s nose scraped the ground, initiating an uncontrolled roll that sent it tumbling like a burning boulder over the low dunes toward the base entrance.

  Dodging a renewed fusillade from the Tezwan soldiers still hiding behind the dunes, Peart ran in a tight crouch back inside the base, just in time to see T’Sona racing toward him.

  He motioned with his hands as he barked, “Get down!”

  The Vulcan woman hit the deck. Peart hadn’t intended to fall on top of her like a human shield, but the shock wave from the exploding hovercraft ramming the entrance behind him flattened him to the deck. A plume of fire and glowing-hot shrapnel-debris shot through the corridor over their heads.

  Seconds later, as the blast impact wore off, Peart rolled onto his back, sat up, and surveyed the damage. The entrance and the corridor immediately behind it had collapsed and were blocked by the twisted wreckage of the hovercraft. Thick hazes of smoke and dust lingered in discreet layers. Chunks of broken metal and shattered stone littered the floor.

  He looked at T’Sona, who was dusting herself off with casual aplomb. Won’t bother asking if she’s fine. If she were hurt, she’d say so. He keyed his com. “Peart to Scholz.”

  “Go ahead, sir.”

  “We’ve got a little snag in the plan. The Tezwans blasted our exit.”

  “Should we abort?”

  “Negative. Finish rigging the charges.”

  “Sir? How do we get out after the timers are set?”

  “Unless we find another exit, we don’t.”

  T’Sona fixed Peart with a cold, reproachful stare. “Well put, sir. I am sure they found your words most inspirational.”

  He glared at her. “For the record, remarks like that are the reason no one likes talking to you.”

  Chapter 46

  Tezwa—Linoka Firebase,

  1955 Hours Local Time

  TAURIK WAITED until the enemy officer was within reach, on the other side of the open doorway. Silently spinning on his heel, the Vulcan engineer pivoted around the doorjamb, reached in, and locked his thumb and first two fingers onto the man’s shoulder, just below the neck.

  He felt the reflexive twitch as the Tezwan officer’s shoulder tensed and his nape feathers ruffled. To Taurik, the lanky humanoid seemed surprisingly lightweight as he pulled him off his feet and out of the room—all without making a sound to alert the two junior officers working at command consoles on the other sides of the room, their backs to the doorway.

  On the opposite side of the doorway, lurking with him in the shadowy corridor, was Ensign McEwan. The delicate-featured human woman had proved quite adept at stealth tactics. Taurik gestured to her that they would wait in the corridor for the two junior officers to come looking for their supervisor.

  The wait was brief. From inside the operations center, they heard the female officer ask, “Where’s the commander?” A few moments later, the male Tezwan called out, “Commander Tregel?”

  In contrast to Taurik, who remained relaxed and limber, McEwan seemed to tense as the two Tezwans’ footsteps drew closer. Perhaps I should offer to instruct her in V’Shan, he thought. He surmised the ancient Vulcan art of self-defense—as demanding as it was graceful, and which many non-Vulcans mistook for a form of dance—would teach her patience and bestow greater fluidity to her technique.

  Signaling her that he would strike first, he allowed himself to become one with the shadows. Dark and silent, his mind quiet and free of distracting thoughts, his breathing and pulse slowed almost to a standstill.

  The male Tezwan stepped into the corridor, his female comrade only a long stride behind him. They turned in opposite directions, and the female officer stepped toward Taurik.

  Before Taurik could attack, the male Tezwan spotted McEwan and shouted an alarm as he reached for his weapon. The female officer spun away from the Vulcan engineer, who lung
ed, grasped her trapezius, and dropped her to the floor.

  McEwan, reacting with surprising speed and grace, ducked into a crouch and sweep-kicked the male Tezwan’s legs out from under him. His weapon discharged as he fell, sending a deafening blast of painfully bright blue plasma into the ceiling. McEwan finished knocking the officer unconscious with a swift snap-kick under his chin.

  Taurik sprinted into the operations center and immediately began locking down the facility. He was certain that many of the base’s personnel had heard the officer’s weapon being fired, and that one or more security personnel would come to investigate. McEwan followed him in a few seconds later, accompanied by the engineers, who moved to other consoles and reconfigured them as they began laying the groundwork for their sabotage of its reactor systems.

  “The base personnel have been contained,” Taurik said, turning to his teammates. “I have prepared an un-obstructed path to your targets on sublevel five. You have twenty minutes.”

  Rao and Mobe acknowledged the order, finished their preparations, and headed for the door. Mobe checked the base floor-plan schematic on his tricorder, while Rao walked briskly ahead of the cautious Bolian, obviously confident that he knew where he was going.

  McEwan watched them depart. “Sir, should I go with them?”

  “Negative, Ensign. I require your assistance here.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  “Copy as many of the Tezwans’ internal logs as possible to your tricorder.”

  McEwan patched her tricorder into the Tezwan firebase computer system. “Sir, almost all these files are encrypted.”

  “I am aware of that, Ensign.”

  “Beginning download,” she said. “What are we looking for?”