by Diane Duane
Chekov jumped out of his seat and hurried over to Khiy. "No good, Mr. Scott. Several Jeffries tubes have been disabled, some major system junctions are out—"
"Bloody. Excuse me, Uhura. Pavel, disable the transporters, the whole lot o' them. The Captain will be usin' the Levaeri transporters to come back anyway, and I'll not have that divil Tafv usin' mine for intraship beaming. If he wants the Enterprise, he can fight for every inch. Also—" Scotty took a deep breath. "Override the emergency protocols and seal off the Engineering hull. Those creatures'll not get at my engines."
Chekov worked bent over at the board, pointing out controls to Khiy, explaining things under his breath. Several moments later there was another horrific screaming through the ship as she announced her own traumatic amputation—the sealing off of the lower, cylindrical Engineering hull and nacelles from the upper disc. The two were able to function separately, though it had been done so infrequently and in such disastrous situations that Scotty hated to think of the results. Nevertheless, all it would take now would be an explosive-bolt sequence, and the two parts would separate, leaving the lower hull and nacelles, with the warp engines, free of Romulans and still able to escape with the Captain and his party and the rescued Vulcans. If they managed to escape …
Till then it was his business to hold that avenue of escape open for them; and Scotty vowed that should the landing party come to grief, Levaeri V would go up in one of the biggest bangs since the big one. He still had the self-destruct option, after all, and that option exercised in this particular spot would take the station and Intrepid and Bloodwing with it. The thought was not comforting, but he put it aside in case he should need it later. Meanwhile there was other business. "How're you doing, lad?" he said to Chekov.
"Executing, sir. The Engineering hull's secure."
"Forty people trapped down there, Mr. Scott," Uhura said. "They're all right, though. A mixed group, our people and the Commander's."
"Aye. . . ." That was the whole problem. These Romulans, that went around behind one another's backs so easily … no telling what they were thinking—But Scotty caught himself. That was hardly fair—look at poor Khiy here, keeping the faith, and doing the best he could for them. "All right. What about the transporters?"
"Out now, Mr. Scott," Chekov said.
"Aye," Scotty said. "We may be trapped here, but so are they, with the shields up … and we can have good hope that some of them were transportin' when the shields reestablished. A few o' them'll have hit the shields and gone splash, at any rate. Uhura, call about and find out who's where. What's our strength without the landing party?"
"Two hundred eight, Mr. Scott."
"We could call the Captain—"
"And he would do what, lass? Our people and Ael's doubtless have their hands full enough just now, else we'd have heard more from them than just the news that they'd arrived in the station. No, we've got to handle this ourselves … no use in botherin' him. Two hundred and eight …" Scotty made a disgusted noise. "And scattered all over the ship. . . .No matter. Call around, Uhura." He paced around the room again, scowling. "Now if I were that black-hearted traitor of a Tafv … where would I be heading?"
"Here, sir."
"Aye, Mr. Sulu. And here we sit all alone on this deck, and sealed away from help. He'll have to fight his way here, burn his way through bulkheads and through our people—but he'll do it, and not count the cost."
"But, Mr. Scott, what about intruder control?"
"Ah, Khiy, lad, you didn't look at that board too closely, did you? He's a clever creature, that Tafv: he took it out with those Jeffries tubes, may he roast somewhere warm. Woe's the day we ever let him near the computers. . . ."
Scotty paced. "So … He may have taken out the most vital systems he could learn quickly. But we still know the ship better than he does. And possibly …" he stopped in mid-stride. "Mr. Sulu," he said, "call up a schematic of the crawlways between here and the main Bridge. While he's at it, Uhura—get into the library computer and transfer it to voiceprint operation. I don't want it working for anyone but Enterprise personnel. And if you can rig a program so that individual terminals'll blow their boards if a nonauthorized person uses them, so much the better. . . ."
"You don't ask much, do you, Mr. Scott?" Uhura said drily. But she bent over her board and got busy.
"Mr. Scott," Chekov said, "what about the Romulans on the main Bridge, our friends?"
"Aye, what about them?" He turned to look over his shoulder. "Uhura?"
"Aidoann and Khiy and Nniol all filed voiceprints with me," Uhura said, not looking up, but smiling slightly.
"And Tafv?"
Uhura looked up in mild surprise. "Scotty, I never got one from him. He was always off on Bloodwing. . . .
"Aye, indeed," Scotty said, sounding bitter. "I hate to say it, but it looks as if some of Ael's crew haven't as much of that mneh-whatever as she thought. 'Twill break the lass's heart."
"Mnhei'sahe," Khiy said unhappily. "Mr. Scott … some of our crewmembers are newer than others. There are some who were talking about … about the opportunity …"
"… of taking Enterprise for real, aye lad?" Scotty's eyes grew hard.
"Even the thought was disgraceful. Some of us told some of the others so. They stopped talking about it … but it seems they didn't stop thinking. And when the Commander chose the people who would be working on the Enterprise—"
"How did she choose them?"
"Only volunteers were considered. Some of those she left behind—not many. But it was odd that none of the ones who had talked about taking Enterprise actually came here. . . ."
"Our friend Tafv, it seems, has his own ideas about what to do with this situation," Scotty said. "Well, we'll spoil a few of his guesses if we can. Mr. Sulu, Mr. Chekov, let the board be for now. You two are going for a walk."
"Sir," Sulu said, slowly getting that particular feral grin of his on his face, "the armory is next door. . . ."
"Aye, we're thinking in the same direction, Mr. Sulu. But this isn't going to be easy."
"What do you have in mind, sir?" Chekov said.
"Well, if Tafv and his people are going to be making their way here, it's to gain full control of the ship, aye?" They nodded at him. "Well, then, lads, can't you just see his face when he gets here and finds this room either sealed or destroyed—and control transferred back up to the main Bridge where it belongs?"
Chekov started to smile too. "It's a very long way to the Bridge, sir," he said.
"Aye, lad. So you two had best slip next door to the armory and pick up anything you think you might need for the trip. Take plenty; should you feel the urge to leave a few boobytraps in the corridors for the unwary to trip over, I think I'd be inclined to condone the extravagance. And bring all the rest of it in here too. No use letting Tafv have it, and Uhura and Khiy and I may need it for one thing or another."
"Mr. Scott," Uhura said softly as Sulu and Chekov hurried out, "Sickbay wants to talk to you. Dr. Chapel."
"Aye, put her on."
"Scotty, what the hell is happening!"
"Treachery and mayhem, Christine," Scotty said merrily. "Not much else. Some of Ael's people have turned coats on her, it seems, and they're thinking it would be nice to have the Enterprise for their own uses."
"Oh my God."
"So if I were you I'd lock the Sickbay doors and not open them to anyone you don't know. Area bulkheads have been sealed, but there were Romulans beamin' down all over the ship for a while there, and there's no tellin' which of them are 'theirs' and which of them are 'ours,' or even where 'ours' are—"
"Scotty, don't be silly," Chapel said sharply, and the reply was so unlike her usual tone that it brought Scotty up short. "Of course we can tell them apart."
"Well, for pity's sake how?"
"Scotty," Chapel said with rather exaggerated patience, "you were standing right there the other day, watching me stick intradermal translators into people, and complaining about the terrib
le annoyance it was, having to manufacture so many cesium-rubidium crystals for them in bulk—"
"Selective tricorder scan," Scotty said softly. "Any Romulan with an armful of cesium-rubidium is one of ours—"
"—and you can do what you like with the others," Christine said. "Scotty, what I want to know is, are there any casualties? If there are, M'Benga and I have to get out there and do something. We can't just sit here and play doctor."
"Check with Uhura," he said, for Sulu and Chekov were just coming into the room with their first load of munitions from the armory, and Scotty's eye had just fallen on a sonic grenade; the sight had triggered a wonderful memory of how to rig one with a time delay and—"Uhura, handle it. Chekov, lad, let me show you something. . . ."
The two of them labored busily together for some minutes, while Sulu and Khiy went next door again and again, emptying the contents of the armory into the Auxiliary Bridge. When they finished, the walls were stacked three feet deep in phasers, phaser rifles, and disruptors, and the floor was piled with six different kinds of grenades, several semiportable fixed-mount phaser guns, and various other implements of destruction.
"All right," Scotty said finally, looking Chekov and Sulu up and down. They were hung like Christmas trees with explosive ornaments; Chekov carried an armful of phaser rifles as if they were a load of firewood. "Take the safest way you can find to the Bridge. It'll have to be crawlways most of the way, with the bulkheads down—but you've got the advantage of the ground. Pick up as much help as you can along the way … there have to be a lot of our people holding out in little pockets all over the ship."
Uhura looked up from her station with an unhappy expression. "Six decks up," she said. "That's a long way—"
"Sir—"
They all turned. Khiy was standing there looking extremely upset. "Mr. Scott, let me go with them!" he said. "I'm not much good to you here. But I know how to fight—and it's my honor that's been debased too. We swore, the whole crew swore, to be as brothers to you … for a while. Now Subcommander Tafv has shamed us all, betrayed us … and if we don't get control of the ship back, he'll surely leave our Commander here to die—or kill her himself. I can't let that happen—none of us can!"
Scotty looked at the young man, thinking how very like Chekov he looked, even with the pointed ears. "Go ahead," he said. "Take some more of the guns, Khiy. Uhura and I will hold this position down till you three call us from the Bridge. Ael's people were there before everything broke loose; the locked bulkheads should have kept them safe in there, and kept Tafv's other people away. We don't dare warn them you're coming—chances are Tafv has tapped into Uhura's scrambled 'com. Just get into the Bridge and signal us when you're ready."
"Mr. Scott—" Chekov looked as unhappy as Khiy. "When Tafv and his people get here and there's no one but you and Uhura to hold this place—and you transfer control—the overrides will cut in and the bulkheads will go up again."
"We'll handle it, lad," Scotty said, though he had not the slightest idea of how. "Get on with you, you're wasting time."
"Yes, sir."
Sulu went to the door. It slid open, and he peered cautiously out; no one was in the hall—the deck was so far deserted. It was eerie in a ship normally as busy as the Enterprise. There came a shock, and a muffled sound, and all of them looked up in surprise and unease. Explosives, somewhere not too far away, were detonating inside the ship; and they heard the whine of phasers, very remote, but sounding venomous as a swarm of bees.
"Out with you," Scotty said. "Don't do anything stupid."
Sulu and Chekov and Khiy headed out.
"And if you do," Scotty said to their backs, more softly, "—sell yourselves dearly."
They paused—then were gone. The door closed again. "Come on, Nyota darlin'," Scotty said. "The youngsters will do what they can. Let's you and I go out there real quick and leave our unexpected guests some presents in the hall."
"Sounds good," Uhura said. She got up, picked up a string of sonic grenades, and started setting them for sequential detonation.
Another shudder, much closer, and another explosion, much louder, ran through the fabric of the ship.
"This deck," Scotty said.
They worked faster.
Fifteen
"Phasers on heavy stun," Jim whispered to the group behind him. "Stand by. . . ."
Silent, hardly breathing, his crewpeople waited. And waited, and waited. Jim pulled his head back from the corner he'd been peering around and held his breath. All four parties were beamed down, and it was still that golden period before one group or another started breaking into things, and setting off alarms. This party, of about fifty, was dedicated to securing one side of the computer areas. Right behind Jim stood Spock, and Ael, and Mr. Matlock; then more assorted crewfolk, Security people, and crewfolk of Bloodwing, with McCoy and Lia Burke and Naraht and some more Security types bringing up the rear. They were all utterly silent, as Jim had never heard such a large group be before. Nerves, he thought. And then, with grim humor: They should be glad they don't have mine.
Right behind him, Spock was scanning with a tricorder from which he had prudently removed the warble circuits. "The corridor ahead of us is nearly clear, Captain," he said softly. "Considerable computer activity ahead and for the next two levels down. We are adjacent to the core."
"And the control areas?"
"If I read this correctly, they are off the main corridor that runs at right angles to the one we're facing."
"What about the Intrepid crew?"
"Sir, I do not scan them … and the tricorder is not malfunctioning. Possibly they are in some shielded area; there are many sections of this base that incorporate forceshielding in their wall structure, purpose unknown, and tricorder scanning at a distance is therefore distorted and uncertain—"
"What the—" someone said in amazement from way behind them.
"Don't fire!" Jim would have hissed had there been time. There was none; seemingly all at once he heard the surprised voice, turned, saw a dark-clad Romulan figure staring at them from the T-intersection at the end of the hall in which Jim's party stood momentarily concealed. Then he realized, with some astonishment, that he needn't have worried. The last white shape at the rear of the group leaped away from the wall in a blur, and did something too sudden for Jim to clearly make out—except that when it was finished a blink later, the Romulan was lying on the floor with his head at an odd angle, and slender little Ensign Brand was staring down at him, looking rather shocked.
Jim nodded grim approval at Brand, and mouthed at her, "Stunned? Dead?"
She bent down beside the Romulan, then glanced up again, making a cutting motion across her throat, and a little "Sorry, Captain" shrug of her hands.
He jerked a thumb at the side corridor; Brand, and the Andorian Ensign Lihwa beside her, nodded and began to drag the man out of sight. Jim turned back to Spock. "We've got to get moving, Mr. Spock. If a group comes along and finds us here, we might not be so lucky."
"Affirmative. The corridor ahead is clear for the moment. Scan shows movement in the others, but it seems routine enough, and we couldn't wait for it all to die down anyway—"
"All right, let's go." Jim waved the hand holding his phaser at the column pressed up against the walls behind him, then headed out into the hall.
His people closed in around him from behind. Ael moved silently at his left, a tiny shape looking unusually pale in whites—or perhaps from some other cause. Spock paced to Jim's right, never taking his eyes off the tricorder. "We turn right at the next intersection," he said. "Then down to the next left, and ten meters along it to the main corridor—"
A horrible klaxon began howling through the hallways, echoing off the bare white walls. "That's torn it," Jim said out loud. There was no use for whispering anymore. "People, let's go. Close formation, watch the rear, stun first and ask questions later!"
And they were off and running. Unfortunately, at the sound of the alarms, so were the R
omulans. Turning right at the next intersection, there came a crowd of Romulans in dark coverall-uniforms, ten or fifteen of them—by bad luck or fast scanning running right at Jim's party. Jim took his own advice, leaping aside to fire—then became suddenly aware of Ael pounding past him, with Spock pacing her. The Romulans at the head of the group looked at the two, saw 'Romulans,' hesitated—and from behind Jim ten or fifteen phasers screamed together. The Romulans went down in a heap.
"Armed," Jim said. It was upsetting; the Romulans' response time was too fast. "Destroy their weapons and follow," he said to Matlock, and led the rest of the party on at a run while Matlock's people attended to it and then came after. "Where now, Mr. Spock?"
"Past them, Captain, and the next left—"
They ran. And around that corner came more Romulans, not hesitating at all, firing Romulan-style blasters and disruptors. Reacting before he was sure what he was reacting to, Jim threw himself toward Spock—at the same time felt someone tackle him from behind and take him down, so that the three of them crashed to the floor together, out of the way of the massed beams that would have burnt them dead. The three of them rolled to the sides of the hall and came up firing, while behind them Mr. Matlock and his group fired from the hall or from cover, taking the Romulans out one by one. Jim got his feet under him, saw that Spock looked slightly shaken but otherwise all right, and then reached sideways to help up the person who had knocked him down to safety. There was Ael, scrambling to her feet with a smile on her face and a most dangerous look in her eye. "Thanks," he said as they helped each other up.
She cocked an eyebrow at him, then turned to Spock, who was leaning against the wall and looking more than just a little shaken. He was going pale. "Spock?" Ael said, a husky whisper through the howling of the sirens.
"Mr. Spock—" Jim said. "Bones!"
"No, Captain," Spock said, his voice definitely not as strong as usual. "There is something—pressing on my mind. An urge not to move, not to think—making any action pain. The effect got much stronger as we came around that last corner."