Finally, a light went on among the Kevrata and a single figure rose from their midst. He seemed exceedingly tall for one of his species, nearly two and a half meters by Picard’s reckoning. The disruptor in his hand looked strangely toylike.
Giving his weapon to one of his companions, the Kevrata stepped forward, his hands extended with their palms up. “I am Hanafaejas,” he said, “leader of these people.”
Picard imitated the gesture. “Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Starship Enterprise. I come as an emissary of the Federation.”
“Welcome to our home,” said the towering Kevrata.
The captain’s thoughts turned to Joseph. “One of my people was hit hard by your weapons fire. He will need medical attention—if he is still alive.”
Hanafaejas dismissed Picard’s concern with a wave of his massive furred hand. “Our weapons were not set to kill. Your comrade will be all right.”
The captain felt a wave of relief. “I am glad to hear that.”
“Hanafaejas!” called one of the other Kevrata, his voice strident with urgency. “It is a trick!”
Suddenly, a beam of light illuminated Decalon’s face. The Romulan squinted but tolerated it without comment.
“A Romulan?” asked Hanafaejas. He turned to Picard, his expression a wary one.
“Decalon is a member of my team,” said Picard. “He lived on Kevratas once. He knows his way around.”
Hanafaejas considered the Romulan for a moment. Then he held up his hand, calling for restraint from the other Kevrata. “We will treat him as we treat our other guests.”
The captain was glad to hear that also. He said so.
By then, additional lights had been activated, and Picard could see that Greyhorse—despite his own injury—was running a tricorder over Joseph. After a moment, the doctor turned to Picard and said, “He is suffering from a mild concussion, nothing more. Unfortunately, I have no stimulants with which to wake him.”
“We do,” said Hanafaejas.
At his signal, one of the other Kevrata produced a small bag made of what looked like natural fibers and gave it to Greyhorse. The doctor opened it, sniffed its contents, and then placed it under Joseph’s nose.
With a groan, Joseph regained consciousness and looked around. Seeing the Kevrata standing about him, he tried to sit up—and grimaced at the pain it cost him. Clutching his head, he asked, “What happened?”
“You were hit with a directed-energy beam,” Greyhorse explained, “but you sustained no serious damage.”
“Also,” said Picard with a glance at Hanafaejas, “we appear to have located the Kevratan underground.”
“We will take you back to our place of concealment,” said the giant. “We have medicines there that can assuage your comrade’s disruptor shock.”
Picard nodded. “Thank you.”
The giant made a snuffling sound and said, “I regret from my heart that you will find our lair inadequately provisioned. We would very much like to be better hosts, but we labor under the burden of a long, bitter occupation.”
“I assure you,” said Picard, “we do not feel slighted in the least. To tell you the truth, I am far less interested in feasting than I am in information about Doctor Crusher. Have you heard anything about her?”
Hanafaejas hesitated for a moment, giving Picard the impression that he had unhappy news to impart. The captain bit his lip as he braced himself for it.
“Unfortunately,” said the rebel, “I cannot help you in that regard. We have no current intelligence concerning the doctor. All we know is that she escaped the tavern where Commander Sela burst in on her.”
Picard frowned. “It was Sela herself who took Doctor Crusher prisoner?”
“Yes,” said Hanafaejas. “She took charge of Kevratas only recently, but she has already proven to be a most unpleasant individual.”
“I know,” said the captain. “I have made her acquaintance.”
9
BEVERLY HAD SEEN A PARADE OF CENTURIONS COME down the corridor outside her cell and check on her at intervals. However, the one who had whispered to her hadn’t been among them.
She couldn’t help wondering if something had happened to him. Had he gotten hurt in a skirmish with the underground—maybe even killed? Or had Sela caught him in an act of disloyalty and thrown him in another cell?
Of course, his absence might have meant nothing. However, he was Beverly’s only hope of escaping this place. That made his welfare a subject of more than passing interest to her.
Finally, on the third day of her captivity, she caught sight of the centurion in question. He was as alive and well as she had hoped. Sitting forward on the side of her bed, she wondered if he would say something to her again.
But when he stopped at her cell, he didn’t look her in the eye. He just examined the emitters that maintained her barrier, as if that were his only concern.
Maybe it is, Crusher thought. Maybe he only said those things the other day to get my hopes up. To tease me.
No. The centurion had been in earnest—she was certain of it. If he wasn’t talking now, he had a reason. She would just have to accept it and remain silent as well.
Just as she made that decision, the Romulan did something none of the others had done. He moved to the control pad on the wall beside her cell and tapped in a code.
What’s he up to? she wondered.
Before Beverly knew it, she got her answer—as she saw her plasma barrier fizzle away. Suddenly and unbelievably, the mouth of her cell was unbarred.
“Come,” the centurion said, gesturing for her to get up and follow him. “Now.”
By the time the doctor went through the open doorway, her benefactor was a third of the way down the corridor. Her heart pounding, she did her best to keep up with him on legs that hadn’t been stretched in too long.
No one stood in their way as they reached the end of the corridor. And no one intervened as they negotiated the next corridor, which doglegged off the first.
Beverly was incredulous. There was a Romulan garrison in this building, with who-knew-how-many centurions. And yet it seemed they were about to walk out without a fight.
Until they neared the end of the second corridor and heard voices. There were Romulans around the bend—more than one for certain, and maybe as many as three or four.
Beverly looked to her companion, wondering what he would do. He seemed strangely calm, despite the considerable peril into which he had placed himself.
She wished she could say the same. Her blood was pounding so loudly in her ears she could barely hear anything else.
Gesturing for Beverly to stay back, her companion seemed to gather himself. Then he swung around the corner, launching himself into the midst of his fellow centurions.
The doctor trusted her unexpected friend, but she couldn’t do as he had requested. Needing to get a sense of what was happening, she poked her head past the corner of the rough, stone wall.
What she saw was an antechamber with five violently clashing centurions. Unfortunately, her benefactor was surrounded by the other four.
At first, Crusher thought she and her ally were done for, and likewise her chances of escape. Then he showed her that he was as skilled a fighter as she had ever seen.
As she watched, amazed, he slammed one of his adversaries into a wall face-first. Then he ducked a blow from a second and sent a third one reeling with a kick to the chest.
Over the years, the doctor had been exposed to several kinds of martial arts—a couple of them under Worf’s tutelage—and in her companion’s repertoire she detected elements of all of them. Clearly, this was an individual who had studied widely, well beyond the boundaries of the Empire.
Each blow he landed was precise and eminently effective, each evasive maneuver smooth and economical. Before long he had leveled all four of his opponents, each of whom seemed as surprised by his prowess as Beverly was.
The moment the last of the centurions hit the floor, the doctor’s
benefactor looked back in her direction—and scowled. After all, he had gestured for her to hang back.
But he didn’t take the time to scold her. All he said was, “Come,” and crossed the antechamber in the direction of a high, arched doorway.
Beverly followed him. But as she picked her way among the unconscious forms of the guards, she saw one of them open his eyes and look up at her.
There was no time to stop him from grabbing his disruptor. It was too close at hand, right there on the floor beside him. And there was even less time for her to warn her benefactor.
So Beverly did the only thing she could do. She took a quick step and launched her booted toe into the guard’s jaw. It snapped his head around, not hard enough to break his neck but more than hard enough to knock him out again.
Her companion must have heard the impact, because he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. But he didn’t congratulate her. He just turned and kept going, with the obvious expectation that she would fall in behind him.
Which Beverly did. Having gotten this far, it would have been the height of foolishness—not to mention ingratitude—to do anything else. But first she knelt and picked up an ownerless disruptor, just in case.
The centurion paused just before the arched doorway, then slipped through it. The doctor went after him and found herself in a narrow, high-ceilinged corridor, which led to yet another arched doorway.
Beyond it there were other voices. More of them than before, Beverly thought. As she caught up with her benefactor, he made another sign for her to stay back. But this time she grabbed his arm, and when he turned to her she shook her head.
She was a commander in Starfleet and an experienced if not exactly accomplished combatant. It didn’t make sense for her to stand by a second time—especially when the odds were so heavily stacked against them.
The centurion looked into Beverly’s eyes for a moment, as if to gauge the depth of the resolve he saw there. Finally, he nodded. Then, removing his disruptor from his hip holster with his right hand, he used his left to count down: One. Two…
Three.
Without a hint of hesitation, he went charging into the room. And Beverly, her weapon clenched in her fist, dove right in after him.
She saw instantly why her benefactor had drawn his disruptor, though an energy discharge would almost certainly set off an alarm. The room was too big for hand-to-hand combat, their opponents too scattered. And their goal, an enormous set of wooden doors at the far end of the chamber, was too far away.
Fortunately, they had the advantage of surprise. The Romulans in the room—as many as seven of them, the doctor estimated—might have expected an attack from the Kevrata outside the building, but never from within.
Before they could react, Beverly and her companion had blasted two of them off their feet. As the rest groped for their disruptor pistols, the intruders took down a couple more of them. Then the confrontation turned into bedlam, a wild, flashing web of fire and return fire.
It turned out that the doctor’s companion was as good a marksman as he was a close-quarters fighter. As Beverly struggled to keep her adversaries in sight, her ally sent two more of his colleagues crashing into walls.
When Beverly cut down a Romulan running for the door, there was just one guard left standing. He managed to squeeze off only a single errant shot before an energy bolt folded him in two.
That left the wooden doors conveniently unguarded. And on their far side was freedom, if the sparkle of snow in the crack between them was any indication.
But Beverly wasn’t dressed for the frigid Kevratan weather, and neither was her companion. She couldn’t imagine them getting far before the cold seeped into their bones and they fell victim to irreversible hypothermia.
She was about to mention this when the centurion reached into his chain-mail tunic and produced something square and white. Saying, “Put this on,” he tossed it to her.
As it flew through the air, it unfolded a little. Once Beverly had it in her hands, she saw it was a garment of some kind, compressed for ease of concealment.
Finding a hooded hole for her head, she slipped the garment on. Mercifully, it reached all the way down to her knees, with a belt that could be tightened at the waist. While it didn’t do anything for her feet, it did have glove-like appendages for her hands.
Her companion had a second such garment for himself. Pulling it on, he motioned toward the doors. They attacked the task together, sliding a black metal bolt aside and then pushing one of the doors as hard as they could.
The thing was heavy, making them work. And when it finally swung open, it gave them a faceful of snow for their trouble. Brushing it out of her eyes with her free hand, Beverly tried to get a glimpse of what was ahead of them.
All she could see was blowing whiteness. But at least there weren’t any guards out there.
Her benefactor leaned close to her, close enough to be heard over the hooting of the wind. “Stay with me,” he barked. Then he showed her his arm and pointed to it.
She got the message. They were all in white—an advantage when it came to their escape. But if she let him get too far ahead of her, she would lose sight of him.
“I will,” Beverly assured him.
She had barely gotten the words out when a shaft of green fury pierced the air between them. Recoiling from it, she almost fell on the slippery surface underfoot. But with an effort she righted herself and peered back into the building to see the centurion who had unleashed the beam.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one in the chamber. As others poured in and discovered the prone forms of their colleagues, they added to the barrage. Their blasts were like emerald flames erupting from the maw of a wooden-toothed serpent.
“Run!” bellowed Beverly’s companion, grabbing her arm to pull her after him.
Knowing she could be skewered at any moment, she turned from the guards and pelted after her benefactor. The Romulans’ disruptor bolts buried themselves in the storm on either side of her, but somehow none of them found their mark. And after a while, they stopped coming after her.
Sparing a glance over her shoulder, the doctor could barely make out the form of the building in which she had been imprisoned. It would be even harder to spot a couple of fugitives, even if they weren’t dressed all in white.
As for where they were going—Beverly had no idea. And even if she did, she would never have been able to get them there. She could barely keep her eyes open without exposing them to the slash of wind-driven snow.
Her companion, on the other hand, seemed to know exactly where he was going. How? she wondered. Romulans had inner eyelids that protected their vision from sudden changes in their environment, but they were opaque. If the centurion’s had descended, he wouldn’t have been able to see at all.
Maybe a com beacon, or something similar? Her companion could have planted it at their destination so they could home in on it, storm or no storm.
Beverly imagined she would find out eventually. That is, if Sela didn’t find them first.
As Worf sat in the shuttlecraft he had selected for himself and Geordi and ran a diagnostic routine, he found himself wishing his comrade’s memory were better.
Though to be truthful, he reflected, I do not believe I would have remembered a passing reference either. It was impressive, he supposed, that Geordi recalled the incident at all.
Unexpectedly, his combadge beeped. Tapping it, he said, “Worf here.”
“It’s Geordi,” came the response. “There’s a shuttle requesting access to the bay.”
“A shuttle?” the Klingon echoed. “I do not recall scheduling anything of the sort.”
“Well,” said the engineer, “someone’s here. I think you ought to see who it is.”
“Of course,” said Worf. He added: “Any luck?”
Geordi sighed. “I’ve got it narrowed to three worlds. At least, I think I have.”
“Keep trying,” said the Klingon. Then he moved to t
he bay’s freestanding control station, which would be manned around the clock once the ship was fully repaired—and confirmed that there was a craft requesting entry.
Hailing it, he asked its occupants to identify themselves. When they complied, it made him wonder what the purpose of their visit was. However, considering with whom he was dealing, that was a question best asked face-to-face.
It took a moment for the craft to pierce the semipermeable barrier that separated the shuttlebay from the vacuum of space. The moment it set down on the deck, Worf approached the door built into its starboard side.
As it slid open, it revealed a woman in a black and gray Starfleet uniform. She was slender, almost dainty from a Klingon perspective, her hair pulled back on one side in keeping with the style of the day. However, with her broad forehead and piercing gaze, she radiated authority like few other officers of Worf’s acquaintance.
Stepping out of the craft, she said, “Commander. It’s good to see you again.”
“Admiral Janeway,” said the Klingon. “We were not expecting you.”
The admiral smiled. “I apologize for dropping in without warning. I promise I won’t do it very often.”
That begged the question of why she had chosen to do it now, but Worf chose to let it go for the moment. “Will you be staying long?”
“As long as I have to,” Janeway told him.
He didn’t know what to make of that.
“You see,” said the admiral, “repairing a ship isn’t as simple as it looks. Take the parts problem, for instance.”
“The parts problem?”
“That’s right. You think you’ve got them all at hand, just where you expect them to be, and suddenly some of them disappear on you. It’s rather frustrating.”
Worf had the feeling that Janeway wasn’t talking about parts at all—that, in fact, she was talking about personnel, and certain personnel in particular.
Had she somehow discovered what he and Geordi were up to? It made the Klingon’s guts squirm like serpent worms to think so. With Janeway breathing down their necks they would never be able to identify the captain’s destination, much less join him in his efforts to rescue Beverly.
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