by Shards
"My controls aren't responding," said Gerda Idun.
"Run a diagnostic."
But she was way ahead of him. "The controls have been bypassed." She shot a glance back over her shoulder. "All helm functions have been rerouted to the auxiliary control panel in the cargo bay."
"It's not just the helm," said Kochman, who had taken Joseph's place at the tactical station. "It's everything. Engine core, life support, shields..."
Ben Zoma tapped the intercom button in his armrest. "Krollage, what's going on down there?"
No reply.
"Krollage?" he said again.
Still nothing.
Swearing under his breath, Ben Zoma got up and headed for the lift. Removing his phaser from his belt, he said, "Refsland, Garner, arm yourselves and meet me in the cargo bay. I think Picard is on the loose."
"Which way?" asked the captain of the Lakul, watching Ulelo's expression in the soft light of his tricorder screen.
Ulelo answered by pointing to the opposite slope. "That way. And they're not that far from here."
The captain nodded. "Good." But she couldn't let the Daa'Vit remain exposed-not with the Klingons searching for them with all the scanner power they could bring to bear. She glanced back over her shoulder and said, "Let's find them."
But before they could leave their hiding place, the need to do so was abruptly eliminated.
"It's the Daa'Vit," said Wu, gazing across the valley.
There were four of them, all tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in loose-fitting brown garb that allowed them to blend in with their surroundings. If they had been much farther away, they would have been difficult for the captain to spot, even if she were looking right at them.
"I don't think they see us," Joseph observed.
The captain didn't think so, either. As far as she could tell, the Daa'Vit were merely making their way to the rendezvous site, albeit about ten minutes late.
Moving out from concealment, she waved her arms. It took a couple of seconds, but the Daa'Vit finally seemed to catch sight of her. She was certain of it when they adjusted their angle of descent to correspond with the rebels' position.
The captain was just beginning to breathe easier when the sky opened and started dropping lightning bolts into the valley.
Not the kind she was used to, either. These were pale violet in color and straight as an arrow, and they dug a pit six feet deep wherever they struck.
At first, the Daa'Vit froze in their tracks, uncertain how to help themselves. Then they struck out across the valley, seeking the only cover they could find.
The rain of disruptor fire continued, savaging the landscape. But somehow it missed the Daa'Vit. It didn't hurt that they were so fast, their long legs eating distance at a furious pace.
Finally, the first of them reached the shelf of rock and dove for cover beneath it. In quick succession, the other three followed. But the barrage didn't stop. It kept going, gouging deep holes in both sides of the valley.
"Glad you could make it," said the captain.
The Daa'Vit all glanced at her, but none of them responded. They were too busy catching their breath.
Finally, one of them removed the brown cowl wrapped around his head and said, in a voice exceedingly deep and melodious, "So am I."
Morgen was big, green-skinned, angular. His cheekbones looked as if they could cut plastisteel.
"My transporter operator put us down in the wrong place," he explained. "We've been walking for the last ten-"
The captain cut him off. "Tell me later."
"What is it?" asked Morgen.
She scanned what she could see of the valley. The energy bolts were gone. "They've stopped."
Morgen's eyes narrowed as he sized up the situation. "They will be coming for us."
The captain nodded. "Any second now."
Ben Zoma took less than thirty seconds to reach the cargo bay. His expectation was that Refsland and Garner would be there when he arrived, since they had been closer to the bay when he contacted them.
He got there just in time to see Refsland go flying backward into a bulkhead, then slide to the deck and lie still, joining a sprawled and unconscious Garner. Somewhere around the corner, Krollage was probably laid out as well.
Ben Zoma frowned and placed his back against a bulkhead, keeping himself hidden from Picard, and vice versa. "This isn't going to get you anywhere," he said, his voice echoing in the enclosure.
"You don't understand," said Picard over the hum of the engines. "We need to get moving if we are to save your friends."
"Why would you want to do that?" asked Ben Zoma.
"We can go into it some other time," said Picard. "For now, you will just have to trust me."
Right, thought Ben Zoma. Like that's going to happen. "You just want to turn us over to the Klingons. Obviously, I can't allow that."
"Even if that were my objective-which, I assure you, it is not-how do you think you could stop me? I have rerouted control of all your systems through the auxiliary station, and I have taken care to ensure that you will not get them back."
Ben Zoma didn't doubt it. To regain control of the Lakul, he would have to incapacitate Picard-and, considering that Picard held the high ground, that would take some luck.
Ben Zoma gathered himself. Then he took a couple of steps, sprang, and launched himself past the corner of the bulkhead, seeking his target as he flew through the air.
He had just enough time to catch a glimpse of it, and realize it wasn't what he thought it would be, before he was blasted into unconsciousness.
Melekh happened to be standing behind the Tlhab's tactical officer, checking his scanner screen, when the transport registered on it.
"Captain!" the tactical officer cried out, and put the cargo vessel on the forward viewer.
Druja made a sound of triumph deep in his throat, his eyes glittering beneath his jutting brow. "Disable it," he said.
But whoever was piloting the transport knew what he was doing. As the Tlhab fired its disruptor spread, the smaller vessel undertook evasive maneuvers and somehow managed to come out of them unscathed. Before the cruiser could retarget, the transport dipped into the thick white atmosphere of the planet below.
At first, Melekh thought the transport's captain meant to take refuge below the cloud cover. But a few seconds later, the vessel erupted from the planet's atmosphere and headed for the star at the center of the system.
But it hadn't had enough time to rescue its people, Melekh thought. Not by half, if he knew anything about the efficiency of human transporters.
Druja cursed and snapped off a series of orders. He would be leading a party down to the planet's surface, he advised them. It would be up to Melekh to catch and cripple the transport.
Melekh assured his captain that he would hold up his end of the bargain. After all, it would be harder for the transport to conceal itself near the center of the system.
The question in his mind, as Druja left the bridge and Melekh took over the captain's chair, was why the transport had shown itself at all.
Ben Zoma came to with Garner and Refsland hovering over him. His first impulse was to sit up, but it was thwarted by a terrible ache in the side of his head.
"What happened?" he groaned.
Even before the words came out, the memory started flooding back. He wrestled with it, tried to come to grips with it. But he couldn't make any sense of it.
"Picard?" he asked, though it felt funny to call the man that after what Ben Zoma had seen.
"He's left the ship," said Refsland. "Transported down to the planet's surface, as far as we can tell."
The landing party, thought Ben Zoma, fearing for their lives.
A shudder ran through the deck plates. Then another, more noticeable than the first.
"We're under attack," Garner explained, relieving Ben Zoma of the need to ask.
"Gerda Idun's trying to keep them off our tail," said Refsland. "But every now and then..."
Obviously, they had restored systems control to the bridge already, or Gerda Idun couldn't have been piloting the transport. But if not for Picard, they would still have been in the asteroid belt, secure and undetected.
"Got to get up to the bridge," said Ben Zoma, propping himself up on one elbow. "Before-"
His words were interrupted by an impact that sent them all tumbling to the port side of the vessel. It emphasized the urgency of their situation, as if that were at all necessary.
Dragging himself to his feet, Ben Zoma lurched into the corridor and headed for the turbolift. He didn't know what good he would be to Gerda Idun up on the bridge, but he was determined to get there.
The captain of the Lakul checked the charge on her phaser.
The Klingon barrage had stopped several minutes earlier, but that didn't mean the cruiser was done with them. It wasn't the Klingons' way to destroy their enemies from afar.
The energy strike had been a distraction. The real threat would be arriving soon in the form of a fully armed Klingon landing party.
From which direction? the captain wondered, looking for the first sign of trouble.
Then she got her answer. The attack came from all directions, Klingon warriors firing down at them from ten or twelve different positions along the perimeter of the valley.
What's more, the Klingons enjoyed a significantly better angle than their ship, as evidenced by the way their beams snuck under the rebels' ledge.
If the captain and her people stayed there, the Klingons would dig them out one by one. Certain of that, she gave the order to disperse. They would be better off seeking cover from the assorted boulders protruding from the long brown slopes and trying to return the Klingons' barrage.
It worked-for a little while, anyway. Then Wu cried out and went spinning to the ground, raising a cloud of dust, and Joseph followed her a moment later. And they couldn't find out if their comrades were alive, not unless they wanted to expose someone else to the same fate.
Not good, the captain thought. Not good at all.
Peering out from behind her boulder, she squeezed off a couple of phaser bursts. But neither of them found its mark. The Klingons were moving around the edge of the valley, making it difficult for the captain and her allies to draw a bead on them.
We're going to have to find another way, she told herself. Otherwise, we're screwed.
As if her thoughts were prophetic, Pernell caught a stream of disruptor fire. It sent him tumbling backward down the slope, his weapon flying out of his hand, his body limp.
Finally, he came to a halt, his neck craned at an impossible angle, his eyes fixed on infinity. If there was a question about Wu and Joseph, there was none about Pernell. The captain took note of the sight long enough to stamp it into her mind. Then she turned to the Klingon who had shot her colleague and fired back at him.
He went to the ground, but she couldn't tell if it was because she had hit him or because he had stumbled. She was about to fire again when she heard another Klingon's cry.
It came from behind her. She could hear it ring long and loud across the intervening distance. But it wasn't a cry of pain, the kind someone might make if he had been clipped with a phaser beam. It was a cry of surprise.
No, she realized, more than that. Of terror.
Glancing back over her shoulder, the captain saw a black, kraken-like creature as big as a Cardassian scout ship, a pair of Klingon warriors clutched in two of its several tentacles. As she looked on, it flung one of the warriors through the air, head over bootheels.
He landed awkwardly, bounced a couple of times, and lay still. Just like Pernell.
But how was it possible that a tentacled life-form was intervening on their behalf? She and her people had checked out the planet long before they suggested it as the site of their rendezvous with Morgen. It didn't have any life-forms big enough to get in their way, much less pick up a Klingon warrior and throw him around like a doll.
And yet there it was.
It held the remaining Klingon aloft, shook him, spun him. He bellowed with rage and tried to pry himself free, but to no avail. The tentacle was too tight about him, too unyielding.
Without warning, it slammed him into the ground, and the captain heard a distinct crack. When the tentacle loomed again against the sky, it was distinctly unencumbered.
Abruptly, the Klingons turned their fire on the monster, leaving the captain's party free to do as it wished. She didn't have to give any orders, didn't have to say anything at all. As one, they made their way up the slope, weapons blazing.
A second later, one of her bursts found a target, flattening one of the Klingons. Then another warrior went down under an energy volley, and another. And the tentacled creature sent two more of them flying over the captain's head.
Seeing a chance to end the battle, she pressed her attack. Yet another Klingon was sent sprawling by the force of her phaser beam, and the others were on the run. Then, just as she was about to claim victory in her mind, something happened.
The kraken screamed.
Turning to find out why, the captain saw the beast caught in a crossfire of blue energy bolts. It twisted, trying to get away from them, but it was no use. The beams were relentless.
For a moment, the creature just stood there, shuddering under the barrage. Then it toppled to one side, raising a cloud of dust as it hit the ground.
The captain looked about, hoping to locate the source of the barrage. She expected to find a Klingon, someone she could punish with a beam of her own. But it wasn't the Klingons who had brought the creature down.
It was the Daa'Vit.
It took her a moment to process the information, to accept it. And in that moment, her window of opportunity slammed shut. As she raised her phaser to fire at the nearest Daa'Vit, she saw something bright and blinding-and felt it hit her hand with bone-breaking force.
Her fingers numb, the captain couldn't hang on to her phaser any longer. It fell from her grasp and struck the ground. She knelt to pick it up, but another blast sent it skipping away from her.
At the top of the slope, someone got to his feet. A man, clutching his arm as if it were broken. Picard, she thought. But what's he doing here?
Then she put it all together.
Picard was the creature. Or, rather, the creature had taken the shape of Picard. A shapechanger, she thought.
It wasn't the first time she had run into one.
"Are you all right?" she called to him.
"I'm fine," he called back.
But it was clear from the way he said the words that he had been hurt rather severely. He wasn't going to turn into a form as difficult as that of the tentacled creature again any time soon, or he would have done so already.
Suddenly, a disruptor beam skewered him from the side, causing him to collapse. Instinctively, the captain started toward him.
But Morgen cut her off, making his way across the slope. "Keep your hands where I can see them," he said, his disruptor pistol pointed at the captain's chest.
Ben Zoma made his way out of the turbolift just in time to see the bridge's tactical console explode, sending Kochman flying backward. Reaching for the fire extinguisher, he played a stream of fire-retardant foam over the sparks and the smoke.