Until what he'd been waiting for, what he'd anticipated would happen again, presented itself at the most inopportune moment possible.
"Captain?" Chamberlain called, the slightest panic in his voice. "The alarm is triggered."
"Damn, T'sart," Picard snapped. "He would choose now!"
"Don't you need a mask?" Lotre asked him.
T'sart smiled and shook his head. "No, this will not affect me in small doses. Romulans and like races would need to absorb it through the skin."
Lotre looked toward the door that led into the corridor, where even now the gas was filling the Star fleeters' lungs with painful death. "Then you--"
"It will take some time to affect me," T'sart said as he pulled the breathing apparatus from one of the medical storage cabin eYes "We shall be long gone by then." Nodding as he took the mask and placed it over his mouth and nose, Lotre surveyed the room. The few medical personnel had been easy to render harmless. A few well-placed blows to their nerve centers and each one went down in moments. Kalor, of course, lay helpless on his bed. He, Lotre imagined, T'sart would save for last.
Indeed, T'sart walked to the unconscious Klingon and whispered close. "I would take the time to kill you with my hands, but I cannot spare it," he said. "Die as they all will, when the poison out there finds its way in here." He turned back to Lotre. "Are you secured?"
"Yes."
The door opened just as Lotre approached it.
No time for him to react, Picard appeared--wearing a mask of his own, phaser in his hand.
Orange light launched, filled his brain, and melted into darkness--and he dissolved with it.
For the first time Picard could remember, T'sart looked genuinely shocked.
"Did you think I wouldn't know?" The captain moved toward him, his voice angry, yet muffled by the mask.
T'sart said nothing. He backed up a few paces until his back was against one of the bio bed consoles.
The ship rattled around them, but only T'sart looked up and around. Picard's eyes were intent and unmoving, burning themselves into the Romulan.
"You're going to tell me what we need to do on the planet, and you're going to tell me now," Picard ground out, stepping closer still.
As if studying the entire situation through Picard's expression, T'sart cocked his head and made the play the captain knew he would. "You've let a special poison into this room, Picard. I assume you've begun pumping it out, but that will take some time. Your mask will only protect you for so long, and all your unconscious crew members in here are suffocating as we chat."
Picard waited a moment as if considering that, then bent down--his phaser still leveled at T'sart--and pulled Lotre's mask off. "Then so is he." He dropped the Klingon's mask to the deck.
"He--" T'sart's gaze darted from Picard, to Lotre, then back. "You're bluffing," he sneered.
"Am I?" the captain asked. "He'd kill for you, and you won't even give up some warped claim to power for him. What a father you'd have made."
There was a moment of hesitation before T'sart spoke again. Picard could feel it. The man couldn't be totally heartless, could he?
"He would die for me if I asked," T'sart said finally, shifting his weight nervously from one leg to the other. "And even if I didn't. But you're the one killing him now." The Romulan gestured to the slumped Klingon sprawled across the deck. "What of your exalted Starfleet morals?"
"What about them, T'sart?" Picard stalked closer still. "Do you imagine you can manipulate me to be honorable when you are not? Should I give you that advantage?" He motioned wildly with his phaser, his tone crushing from behind his mask. "We're all dead soon, if you don't stop what you began, so why should I care if you die now or two hours from now, or if he does?" He leveled the weapon directly at T'sart's head. "Why not now?"
The Romulan licked his dry lips. "You're not serious."
One more step, and the phaser was almost touching T'sart's forehead. "I'm as serious as a dead man."
"What about the gas?"
Picard almost shoved T'sart onto the transporter dais, and once he was there the captain removed his mask and tossed it down. "There is no gas."
"But the people--"
"The corridors are clear because we're at battle stations." As if on cue, a few salvos of torpedoes exploded around the vessel. "I found your little automaton and disabled it hours ago. When you sent it commands, we
read them and knew what you were planning. You've been outsmarted, T'sart."
Another explosion, somewhere far belowdecks. Picard wished he was on the bridge, but he knew his priorities well.
"How?" T'sart asked as Picard took to the transporter console, placing his phaser within close reach.
"The hole in Spock's shuttle." The captain began keying coordinates into the controls. "One finely carved incision, from the inside out. Between that and our unexplained damage during the battle with Lotre, it wasn't very hard to figure out."
Picard glanced up and could see that T'sart was seething. He'd been trumped twice, and knew it.
The captain stabbed at his com badge "Picard to bridge."
"La Forge here, Captain."
"Status?"
"Two to one now, sir. We're making it, but it's slow going. Shields are partially restored."
He looked down at a monitor. "I see that. I need you to take them down for transport."
"Sir?"
"Mr. T'sart and I are going on a very special away mission."
"/ just got the shields back up, and you want them down?"
"Afraid so, Commander. I need a security team in transporter room one."
"Aye, sir. On their way."
"Picard out." The captain ran the console controls
with one eye on the panel, and one on T'sart. "No more Romulans on the planet," he said. "They'd have been safer there."
"There's nothing to keep them from following you down," T'sart said, his voice filled with outrage.
"Of course there is," Picard said, allowing a smile to curl his lips. "My ship."
The transport was the oddest Picard had ever felt. Space itself was fluctuating, and a transporter beam with it. It itched, almost hurt, but thankfully deposited them in the science installation.
For a moment Picard thought T'sart might lurch away, reach for some hidden weapon, and try to escape. He did not. But he was too somber, too resigned to his fate, and that was worrisome.
Picard motioned with his phaser as the three security guards flanked out to search the room.
"I'll be watching you," Picard told T'sart.
The Romulan sighed out a huff that had it been slightly thicker might have been a hiss. "It's a bit more complicated than flipping a switch from 'broken' to 'fixed." "
His voice tight, Picard motioned again toward what appeared to be the main console. "Then explain it."
As T'sart began to access systems and change monitors, Picard watched. He'd gotten a glimpse of the city outside the windows, and didn't care to dwell on that vision. The Romulans--T'sart--had laid waste to the nearby metropolis. How many were dead Picard did not know, but he wagered that someone like T'sart would, to the last one killed.
Too long a pause between one and another of Tsart's motions, and Picard asked what was wrong.
"I really think these controls are inadequate to the task," the Romulan said finally.
"You what?" Picard marched toward him, looking at the console. With only a stray look, he certainly couldn't make heads or tails of it.
"My intention," T'sart began with seeming difficulty, "was to use the Enterprise to its fullest--its better shields, stronger frame, more complete sensors. We'd had reports the Federation had made certain Borg-inspired enhancements--"
With his free hand Picard gripped T'sart's arm and yanked him close. "You don't have a clue what you're doing, do you? Do you!"
"I do," T'sart insisted, pulling himself away. "I understand this system better than anyone--"
"Which isn't saying much, I gather," P
icard barked, his face hot with anger. "You wanted to do what the Tal Shiar wasted time attempting--sending ships in to dissect the sphere with sensors until they knew how to control it. All along you knew little more than they."
"I knew this system was important," T'sart shot back. "A black hole system next to a normal star system with a flourishing world? I knew it shouldn't even be here, and I was the first to form any hypothesis."
Picard shook his head in disgust. "You're a bigger fool than I ever thought." He grabbed T'sart again and pushed him toward the console. "We need to stop this damn thing now."
"If we put it back--" T'sart offered.
"Spock and Folan have already determined what that would do. You'd doom this quadrant, perhaps the whole galaxy, to being sucked into a subspace black hole."
The Romulan waved that notion off with a sweeping hand gesture. "Conjecture."
Picard glared from T'sart to the console, and knew both were useless to him now. "I trust them far more than I trust you."
Before T'sart could retort, the captain's communicator sounded with La Forge's voice. "Enterprise to captain."
"Picard here."
"We can't keep--" Static scratched the signal. "--they're firing on the installation--"
Suddenly, all the controls and computers before them came alive, flashing and almost quaking with activity.
They heard a whine and the security guards brought their weapons up tentatively, cautiously.
Picard motioned them down.
"Shielded," he whispered, then spoke into his com badge. "Mr. La Forge, I don't suppose you should worry about us. This building seems to have its own self-defense system."
"It does." T'sart murmured his surprise.
The captain turned to him and sneered dryly, "I'm astounded at your knowledge of this alien science."
"What the hell is that?" Geordi La Forge nearly fell out of the Enterprise command chair, but not because of the disruptor charges walloping the ship. He was staggered by what he saw on the main viewer.
Chamberlain was incredulous himself. "It's a de cloaking vessel, sir. Class and configuration unknown. It just rammed one of the warbirds."
"Status?" La Forge asked.
"Warbird is drifting. They've lost propulsion." The lieutenant shook his head. "The other ship is some sort of cargo hauler, sir. And--I--Sir, that ship is trying to beam something onto the bridge."
Leaping from the center seat, Geordi was over the handrail and at tactical. "Can we stop it?"
"Without shields, sir?" Chamberlain shook his head skeptically.
Geordi turned to the lower deck as they heard the familiar hum and saw a flash of sparkle. "I'm guessing we don't have a choice."
A mass of limbs materialized, a lump of... people appeared.
Stepping forward, his brow furrowed in surprise and disbelief, Geordi cautiously asked, "Commander Riker?"
Will Riker unwrapped himself from the huddle of people who'd manifested themselves on the Enterprise bridge.
"We tried to contact you but you didn't respond," Riker said, looking hot and disheveled. He reached down and helped Deanna to her feet. "Counselor--" Geordi greeted, still incredulous. "Only one transporter pad," she explained with a smile. "We had to tear it out of the alcove so we could get here in one beam."
La Forge nodded almost absentmindedly as now his android friend stood. "Data ..."
"I have never felt so loved," Data said, a small smile
quickly turning serious as the Enterprise was racked by disrupter fire.
Data quickly took the ops station and Riker was finding his way to the command chair.
"And who is this?" La Forge asked of the Romulan whom Deanna was helping to one of the free seats.
"I, Tobin," the Romulan exclaimed. "Surrender!"
Deanna took aside, patting his arm. "He doesn't mean that like it sounds," she told Geordi, then turned back to the Romulan. "Your language, Tobin, please."
Tobin took Geordi's hand and shook it as he passed. "Grateful to meet you. I thought we were most certainly dead. Or at the very least, lost."
"I know the feeling," La Forge deadpanned. "We thought you were trapped in a dead zone at the rendezvous."
Tapping orders to damage-control teams into his panel, Riker explained. "We never made it there. We thought we were trapped in a dead zone on the way, but the ship had just lost all power."
"He ordered me to overtax the engines," Tobin added.
"Once we fixed it, we thought you'd gone on, thinking us lost," Riker said. "We knew you were headed here, and the good Mr. Tobin's ship has a cloak."
"Had," Tobin corrected, frowning. He looked up to Deanna. "I will be compensated, yes?"
She smiled. "Yes, I'm sure."
"Status?" Riker ordered.
Geordi shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts. "Right. Captain Picard and T'sart are planet side Thanks to you, now two of the four enemy Romulan ships in this system are disabled. One is trying to destroy the installation on the planet--"
"With no luck," Chamberlain supplied. "That installation is holding up, with no weakening to its shielding."
"And the other," Geordi continued, "is fighting a fifth Romulan warbird--which is on our side. That's where Ambassador Spock is."
Riker nodded his understanding and Geordi bowed to him. "And now, Commander," he said, more weapons fire sending quakes throughout the ship, "the conn is happily yours."
Moving to the command chair, the first officer thumbed a control on its arm. "Riker to Picard."
Silence bit back at them.
Riker seemed about to call out again, but the turbolift doors parted and two guards, Picard, and T'sart flooded onto the bridge.
"Right here, Number One," the captain said, "and it is good to see you all." He made his way to the command chair, and before he sat down, he glanced at Tobin. "Even you." He turned to Riker. "I'm sure you'll explain all the details later, but for now, we need a plan, and we need Spock."
"What about the installation he said was so important?" Geordi asked.
"I assume it is important. And whomever built it thought so as well--if their automatic defensive shielding is any indication. I doubt a thousand starships could do it harm," Picard said as another explosion crackled against the shields. "Mr. Chamberlain, disable that ship's weapons, please."
"Working on it, sir."
"So who did build it, Captain?"
"That, Mr. Riker, is a very good question, but one we hardly have the time to answer. Assuming we could." The captain looked back toward tactical again. "Mr. Chamberlain?"
"Of the three warbirds in orbit, two are disabled, one is completely dead, sir."
"Life-forms?" Picard asked.
After a moment, Chamberlain met his captain's eyes. "I can't tell, sir. I don't think so."
Sad, Picard thought, but unavoidable. "Rossi, plot a course back to Folan's ship," he ordered. "Let's hope they've not fared as well."
"They're coming around again," the helmsman called. The irritation in his voice was not masked.
Laws could make people act against their will, but no threat or deed could actually change that will, and so Folan's crew fought, but not with their hearts, and perhaps only barely with their minds.
"Evasive patterns one, then five," she ordered.
Her shields weak, her weapons failing, Folan wished she'd had the power of a planet at her disposal, just as her original experiment had called for.
Another crush of weapons fire rattled the bridge, sending smoke billowing into the air and insulation dust into the open wound on her cheek. She'd almost forgotten about the wound, but the sizzling pain reminded her, and she looked down at the ceiling support strut that had fallen on her just thirty minutes before.
Spock had said nothing during the battle, he simply sat, meditating with the ship's computer. How he could think with all the commotion... he was an amazing man, but his complete single-mindedness also irritated her just a bit. Was he a robot as well?<
br />
"Aft shield generators are down."
"Protect our flank," she ordered.
She had to focus, not think of such things and be mindful only of the battle.
"Sub-Commander, we're venting plasma from our port nacelle."
"Damage control?"
"All units are occupied."
So they said. She couldn't
"Warp power is offline."
"Route sublight drive to weapons and shield systems."
"Yes, SubCommander."
Spock finally spoke. "Folan, I need to get a message to Captain Picard."
"We lost communications ten minutes ago."
"Where is your communications console?"
She pointed.
"May I?"
"Of--of course."
He moved over to work on it.
"What exactly are you doing?"
"I believe the colloquial phrase would be 'calling the cavalry." "
Chapter Eighteen
"MR. data?" picard felt warm. Somewhere there was a circuit burning and perhaps a plasma leak. No time now to track them down.
"I am attempting to reroute sensors, sir."
The android probably had no idea how delighted Picard was to see him, to have him working here. Deanna might know, Picard thought, as he glanced at her.
"Counselor, why don't you take Mr. Tobin here to sickbay?"
"Aye, Captain." The woman nodded, her exotic features more angled in the harsh alert lights. She took the Romulan man and escorted him to the turbolift.
"Captain, one of the warbirds from the planet has repaired their propulsion," Chamberlain said. "They are in pursuit."
Picard glanced down at a side viewer and punched
up a gnarled, distorted aft view. There was one warbird limping after them.
"When they're within weapons range," Picard said, "disable them again."
"Aye, sir."
T'sart stepped forward but the two guards who flanked him pulled him back. "Don't you understand, Captain? Your ship has the tools. You will be able to adjust your shield harmonics, your sensors will handle the overloads."
"It's been tried," Picard snapped. "Spock was informed of three Tal Shiar failures. Two vessels destroyed, the other--the crew was either dead or insane."
Star Trek - TNG - 63 - Maximum Warp, Book Two Page 12