Kincade unlimbered the long, spindly form of a modified TR-116 projectile rifle from her shoulder and checked the weapon’s telescopic sighting array. “Okay. If we’ve all shaken that off, let’s proceed.”
“When the time comes, I think I’ll walk back,” said Tom.
She ignored his comment and gestured to a rickety tower of scrap-metal sections. “I’m going to take a position up there. I can maintain overwatch across most of the valley. We know the targets are nearby, probably inside one of the larger structures to the north.” She pointed to Sahde. “You take Ashur and Khob, move around to the west, and find the shuttle. It’s imperative you disable that craft so they can’t make a run for it.”
The Elloran’s head bobbed, and she patted a bandolier of thermal charges over her chest. “I can burn out the impulse manifolds; they’ll never be able to get off the ground.”
Kincade looked back to Tuvok. “You go with Tom and Nog—head for the main structure. When the charges detonate, move in and take down all targets of opportunity. All of you, keep communications to a minimum. We’re so close now, we don’t want to risk spooking them.” She shouldered the rifle again and set about her climb. “Move out,” she commanded.
The team split apart, and Tuvok felt the stocky Zeon jab him in the chest before he departed. “Vulcan,” he grated. “Leave some for me, eh?”
He chose not to grace the pale mercenary’s demand with a reply, and instead he slipped out from cover, dropping into a crouch.
* * *
Nog and Tom moved with him, both of them picking their way carefully through the debris field. Each member of the assault team carried a compression phaser rifle; Tuvok’s was keyed to a heavy stun setting, as was Nog’s, but he had his doubts about the rest of the group. Considering the capture orders they had been given by Galif jav Velk, Colonel Kincade seemed quite unconcerned by the possibility of a lethal engagement. As for Thomas Riker, Tuvok was unable to get a firm read on the man’s character; the ex–Starfleet officer seemed to value his former oaths of service, but to what degree the Vulcan could not be certain.
Gusts of wind blew rattling drifts of heavy sand and metallic residue through the debris, and the three of them used the haze left behind to conceal their approach. Slow and steady, they picked their path toward a large, almost intact section of ship hull. The going was difficult. In some places, discarded piles of wreckage blocked potential approaches, and in others, the rocky ground was cracked and broken, forming treacherous fissures that fell away into darkness.
Tuvok paused in the lee of a gutted ground rover chassis and checked the way ahead, activating a passive sensor overlay built into his monocle.
Nog drew his tricorder and took a scan. “I’m not picking up any mines or traps like last time. That’s good, isn’t it?”
Tom gave a shrug. “Let’s hope that means they used up all they had on that ice moon, and not that they’ve just gotten better at hiding them.”
“No life-sign readings, though,” added the Ferengi. “At least, nothing that makes any sense with all this interference.”
Tuvok’s monocle fared better. Motion trackers showed gauzy outlines off in the dust, humanoid figures moving back and forth in what appeared to be a patrol pattern. He watched them for a while, mapping their movements in his mind’s eye. “Two subjects,” he said, turning back to face the others. “Armed with disruptor rifles. They appear to be guarding the entrance to the main structure.”
“I think it might be part of an Orion vessel,” offered the human. “See there? That nearside section looks like it could be the bow.”
Nog gave a nod. “It’s the wreck of an old blockade runner, Wanderer-class. Aft sections are missing, though. . . . Probably cut off to salvage the warp engines before it was dumped here.”
Tuvok was about to offer an opinion, but before he could speak, his ears caught the clatter of metal on metal.
It could have been anything: the hard wind dislodging some fragment of steel or one of the armored, crab-like arthropods native to the planet scuttling for cover. Tuvok instinctively knew that it was something more. He spun as his monocle registered the shape of a third sentry cresting the pile of wreckage before him.
Just as time had seemed to slow during the painful transport down to the surface, now this moment elongated as the sentry jerked in shock at the sight of the three invaders hiding in cover. Tuvok saw no expression, just the pitted bronze surface of a sealed environment helmet and the jade-colored band of a viewer slit, but the sense of surprise radiated off the sentry like heat. The Vulcan grabbed for his slung rifle even as he knew he would be too slow; the sentry already had a disruptor up and aimed. A wide-angle discharge would strike down Tuvok, Nog, and Tom Riker with a single squeeze of the trigger.
The blast never came. Tuvok had the momentary impression of a glowing spot on the sentry’s chest; then the Vulcan’s ears, sensitive enough to perceive the sound of the approaching danger, caught a subsonic buzz as something impossibly fast whined over his shoulder and hit the guard in the chest. The sentry fell backward as if struck down by an invisible hammer-blow, and Tuvok saw the suited form tumble silently into one of the bottomless crevices in the red rock.
“What was that?” gasped Nog, choking back his surprise.
“Guardian angel,” said Tom, pointing back in the direction they had come.
Tuvok’s gaze found the tower of scrap metal where Kincade had secreted herself and picked out the prone shape of the woman aiming down her sniper rifle toward him. The dot of light from the TR-116’s designator bobbed twice.
“Could there be more out there we can’t see?” asked the Ferengi.
“Look sharp,” Tuvok told him. He noted the time on his mission chronometer. “Wait for—”
Off to the west there was a flash of amber, low and close to the ground. A fraction of a second later, the sound of phaser fire echoed across the arroyo.
“Who the hell is firing?” Tom pulled his rifle to him.
Disruptors sang back in reply, and then a muffled crash of detonation signaled the explosion of a thermal charge. Black smoke billowed up over the rise from where the shuttle was parked.
“We’ve got to move now,” said Nog. “If we lose the element of surprise—”
“Tuvok.” He turned as Tom Riker rose to his feet. “Those sentries by the structure . . . I’ll break cover and draw them off.”
It was not a good plan, but it was the best option at that moment. “Agreed. Regroup with Sahde’s team if possible, then bring them here.”
Tom nodded and vaulted the burned-out shell of the rover with a grunt of effort. He hit the ground running and shot off a pair of blasts in the direction of the other sentries. The masked figures reacted as Tuvok expected, both of them breaking away to chase down this new target.
“Quickly,” he told Nog, scrambling across the crevice mouth and over open ground toward the bow of the wrecked blockade runner.
* * *
“Someone is moving inside,” called the Ferengi as they got closer. “One target, maybe two.”
Tuvok caught the sound of desperate footfalls on metal rungs and nodded. Did the targets have more of their number inside the structure? he wondered. Other weapons or a means to summon help? Whatever it was, they could not be allowed to reach their goal.
Tuvok slipped through the entrance passage to the interior of the downed Orion ship. What had once been a functional airlock and boarding corridor was now canted at a shallow angle and carpeted with red sand, open to the elements beyond. Weak biolume lamps hung from the ceiling, shifting in the breeze. They cast jumping shadows that gave the illusion of movement all around them.
Something clanged, steel on steel, on the deck above. Nog pointed with his rifle, using the lamp beneath the barrel to illuminate an area in front of them. “Commander! Over here!”
Tuvok saw a stairwell leading toward the upper levels, and again the echo of movement rang down to them. “They may be moving toward the
bridge deck,” he said. It would be a sensible place to make a stand, armored from without, perhaps with some internal systems still operable.
“Orion ship design is compartmentalized,” said Nog. “We’ll have to sweep each cabin individually.”
“Proceed with caution.” Tuvok brought his rifle to his shoulder and moved up, scanning every corner for signs of traps or targets.
As they reached the uppermost deck of the wreck, gusts of air rumbled through the framework where it was open to the elements. Sections of hull were completely missing here, either torn away by the hard landing the Wanderer-class ship had made many years earlier, or since stripped by opportunist junk hunters.
The deck creaked and groaned as Tuvok put his weight on it. A short corridor ran along the axis of the upper tier from bow to stern, smaller compartments radiating off it at regular intervals.
“We have them trapped,” Nog whispered. “That walkway is the only access in or out, unless they want to risk jumping.”
“Make no assumptions,” warned Tuvok. He gestured toward the first cabin on the right and Nog nodded, moving slowly toward an open doorway. At the same moment, Tuvok paced out his steps toward an identical hatchway on the left. There was still power on this deck, enough to operate the doors, and the Vulcan reached out to tap the control.
Nog vanished into the gloom across the corridor and Tuvok let the hatch before him judder open before he went in the opposite direction.
The grimy room beyond was missing one whole wall, panels and portholes ripped away so now all that remained were jagged talons of hull metal. The wind plucked at them, making the torn shreds of duranium tap out an atonal rhythm on the buckled support framework beneath. Tuvok paused, raising a finger to tap a control on his monocle, sweeping the room with an electromagnetic scan.
A glow burst into life, less than two meters from the doorway. Tuvok spun about, aiming the phaser—but he had already stepped into the ambush.
He fired nonetheless, even as he knew he had no hope of hitting the target before the suited figure was upon him. A streak of orange fire lit up the interior of the cabin, going wide as a humanoid in the same kind of suit as the sentries threw itself wildly at the Vulcan.
Tuvok was proficient in several varieties of hand-to-hand combat, as well as possessing a greater muscle density than many beings of comparable mass, but his opponent was smaller and relatively nimble, and the added restrictions of an enclosed space momentarily tipped the balance of the engagement away from the Vulcan. He knew instinctively that if he could get a hand upon his attacker, the fight would end very quickly and in Tuvok’s favor. His opponent clearly knew that, too, and had come prepared.
A long rod, wielded like a stabbing short sword, jammed into Tuvok’s ribs. Where it made contact with his torso, a brutal constellation of pain exploded through his nerves. A powerful electro-shock pulse cut into him and his muscles disobeyed. The phaser rifle tumbled from his grip, his hands spasming. Tuvok’s legs gave out from underneath him, and he crashed forward onto his knees, barely able to stay upright.
Striking blindly, Tuvok lashed out with a clumsy blow, swinging his arm back and up in hopes of driving off his assailant. By sheer chance, his hand connected with the edge of his attacker’s helmet, cracking the mask with a spitting hiss of breathing gas.
For daring to fight back, Tuvok was rewarded with a second, longer jab from the shock-rod, and this was enough to drive him the rest of the way to the deck. He rolled away from the agonizing pain. The burn of the transport had been insignificant in comparison. Panting, his breath coming in stuttering gasps, Tuvok blinked his vision clear as his tormentor kicked away his rifle and discarded the damaged helmet, letting it drop to the floor with a clang.
Behind the blank visor were not the smoothed, almost polished features of a Tzenkethi, nor the yellow-green, glowing skin common to that race. Instead, a white-haired visage of granite gray glared back at the Vulcan, a lined and aged face of ropy muscles about deep-set and angry eyes. A Cardassian scowled at him with open, reptilian hatred.
The pain made it impossible for Tuvok to resist as the male reached down and hauled him up to a sitting position. The Cardassian held the shock-rod up, and the Vulcan knew that the next blow would be enough to stop his heart.
“Stop!” Tuvok saw the blurry shape of Lieutenant Commander Nog emerging through the open hatchway, rifle trained on his target. “Drop the weapon now or . . .” The Ferengi’s shouted words died in his throat as he caught sight of the Cardassian’s face, and his eyes widened. “You . . . I know you!”
The moment of hesitation was enough, and Tuvok’s attacker used it to drag him into a chokehold. “Put down the weapon!” spat the Cardassian, using the Vulcan as a shield. “Do it now or he dies!”
Nog’s face fell and slowly he released the rifle, tossing it into the shadows. “All right. But you have to know, you can’t escape. There are . . . five squads out there. Your shuttle is destroyed. You must surrender!”
The wind brought the hiss and snap of gunfire from below. “That will not happen,” growled the Cardassian.
Nog moved slowly, still keeping his hands raised, forcing the Cardassian to keep him in sight as he stalled for time. Tuvok understood what he was doing and worked to regulate his breathing, to gather back some measure of his strength. With each second that passed, he had more chance of regaining the upper hand—and now he had seen the face of the targets Active Four was chasing; more than anything he wanted to know the truth behind the assassination of President Bacco.
The Ferengi’s thoughts were moving along the same path. “You were there, on Deep Space Nine, as part of the Cardassian delegation. I saw your face. When Castellan Garan had to go back to Cardassia Prime, you stayed behind with Lustrate Vorat. . . .”
“Did he send you?” growled the Cardassian, ignoring Nog’s words.
“Who? Vorat?”
The Cardassian snorted with annoyance. “Fools. You do not have the slightest inkling of what is going on!”
Tuvok blinked as something hazed his vision momentarily. At first he thought it was an artifact of the ebbing pain, but then he realized it was a dot of projected laser light, invisible to the naked eye but revealed to him through the lens of his sensor monocle. The emerald-hued dot wandered slowly up over Tuvok’s chest, wavering as it moved to seek a place directly in the center of the spoon-like crest in the middle of the Cardassian’s forehead.
From here, he couldn’t see Kincade in her sniper’s hide, but she could clearly see him and his assailant through the hole in the starship’s hull. If he did nothing, Tuvok knew that in the next second the Cardassian’s skull would be cored by a tungsten-tipped bullet, and whatever questions that could have been asked would go unanswered.
He reacted immediately, twisting in the Cardassian’s grip and bringing up his arms. With one hand he grabbed the tip of the shock-rod, even as it discharged again, numbing the entire left side of his body. The other found the vital nerve plexus at the nape of the Cardassian’s neck, and Tuvok squeezed hard, compressing the pressure point with all the effort he could muster.
The Cardassian stiffened, his eyes rolling back to show their whites as a groan escaped his lips—and this time it was he who collapsed to the deck, consciousness fading.
Tuvok staggered back a step, moderating his breathing. “Target . . . neutralized,” he said, speaking into his mask’s comm pickup.
“Roger that.” He heard Tom Riker’s voice in his ear. “Sentries are all down. Four fatalities, two . . . make that three live captures outside.” There was a moment’s pause before the human spoke again. “Snipe, are you seeing this? These targets, they’re not—”
“All units stand down.” Kincade’s voice broke across the channel, and her tone was sharp, brooking no challenge. “Secure the site and prepare for immediate extraction.”
Nog stood over the insensate Cardassian, studying his face. “Commander, this man’s name is Onar Throk. He’s no smuggler or terro
rist. He is . . . I mean, he was an aide to Rakena Garan, the former Castellan of the Cardassian Union.” Tuvok heard the surprise in the younger officer’s voice as he tried to rationalize what he was seeing. “Sir, what is going on here?”
Tuvok saw no reason to be anything but completely honest. “I do not know,” he said, glancing back out of the tear in the wreck’s hull and into the windstorm.
* * *
“That’s not what I’m saying,” said Maslan, reaching for a cup of fruit juice.
“Yes it is.” Kader made a face at the Lionheart’s science officer, absently brushing a stray thread of hair back into the confines of her headscarf. “You’re suggesting that Commander Vale’s assignment is part of some kind of . . .” She groped for the right word. “Plot.”
At her side, Lieutenant Commander Darrah made an amused noise and took a bite from his lunch. The only other person seated at their table in the mess hall was the first officer, and Atia’s attention seemed fully and completely on the replicated meatloaf she was eating.
“Okay, fine,” Maslan replied. “Maybe I’m overstating it. But you have to concede that it is unusual.”
Darrah mimicked the pose of a cleric at benediction. “Starfleet Command, like the Will of the Prophets, moves in mysterious ways.”
“Thompson agrees with me,” continued Maslan. “He knows someone on McKinley Station. He said there have been a lot of odd comings and goings from the Titan.” He glanced at Atia. “I mean, okay, after Captain Briggs retired, we all knew this ship would be getting a new CO . . . but suddenly Vale is dropped on us, hours before we’re due to set off across the quadrant. And it’s just supposed to be a temporary posting, but couldn’t that be handled by, you know, one of us?”
Star Trek: The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice Page 18