Looking up sharply at Gomez—who looked rather sinister with the light from the tricorder shining up on her face, casting odd shadows on her pale complexion—Corsi said, “Commander, I don’t think we should be proceeding anywhere. We’re actually in a defensible position right now. There’s twelve armed Eerlikka out there, and all we’ve got are phaser rifles that are basically glorified clubs, thanks to our friend the computer— who’s already lied to us.”
“I have not lied to you intentionally, Lieutenant Commander Corsi.” The voice of Ganitriul startled Corsi, and she got to her feet and raised her phaser rifle on instinct.
Gomez, however, didn’t look at all surprised, as if disembodied voices spoke without prompting to her all the time. “You told us those were sensor ghosts that Drew picked up, Ganitriul.”
“I believed that they were—just as I believed that the current running through my dataport was safe for 110. I was in error in both cases. It is not something I am accustomed to, but it has become a regular occurrence since this invasive program was placed within me. I also know what has happened to your ship.”
“Are they okay?” Gomez asked, sounding concerned.
“They were attacked by a Pevvni ship. For some reason, the Pevvni have constructed a vessel that is beyond my control. This is in direct violation of Eerlikka law. The First Speaker is on the vessel, as is one of the clergy. Unfortunately, I was unable to maintain contact with either ship, so I do not know what precipitated the conflict. Captain Gold and First Speaker Ansed were discussing working together amiably when I lost contact. The Pevvni ship opened fire moments later. I am unable to detect the da Vinci any longer.”
“What about the Pevvni ship?” Gomez asked.
“It is still in orbit, but damaged.”
Corsi gritted her teeth. She didn’t like the sound of this at all. Of course, the da Vinci just could have been off Ganitriul’s sensors—or those same sensors could have misinformed Ganitriul. Or , she thought with a sigh, the damn computer could be lying to us.
No matter what, though, the away team was on its own.
Gomez turned to the Bynar. “110, you said that there might be a way to remove the invasive program?”
“Yes, there is. It is possible that we can—that I can remove it, but I would need access to Ganitriul’s central core. Even then, I am not sure that I am capable of performing the programming necessary to fix Ganitriul. If 111 were here . . .” His voice trailed off.
Corsi rolled her eyes. “The core is at least a kilometer’s walk from here, and it’s sealed in a large bunker with a computer lock. With the security system on the fritz—”
“Actually, Lieutenant Commander Corsi, the systems that lock and seal the computer core are independent of my systems. It was a precaution against precisely this kind of malfunction. That lock will open and close as normal with the proper codes, which I will provide.”
Gomez smiled. “That’s good planning.”
Unimpressed, Corsi said, “That still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a kilometer from here to there. And I’m willing to bet there are all kinds of entertaining little security measures that you don’t have control over, right, Ganitriul?”
“That is true. I can do my best to guide you, but my control is limited.”
“Commander, there are only five of us, and one of us is injured. We don’t have any weapons aside from three more photonic grenades, and those are only good for a fancy light show. We’re not likely to get reinforcements any time soon, if ever. There are twelve people out there with big swords who are trying to kill us. We’re better off staying here.”
“Maybe we are,” Gomez said, “but Eerlik isn’t. Remember what Carol told us? The longer we take to fix Ganitriul, the worse off Eerlik is.”
“The people hunting us are Eerlikka, Commander. Their leader was on the ship that fired on the da Vinci . Maybe they don’t want our help.”
“Maybe not,” Gomez said calmly and confidently, “but until I know that for sure, we have a mission to perform, and we can only perform it at the core.”
Gomez was half a meter shorter than Corsi, and significantly smaller in build. And yet, anyone walking into the cul-de-sac at that moment would know exactly who was in charge, and it wasn’t Domenica Corsi. The security chief had raised her objections, and they had been responded to—not the way she would have liked, but that was the way things worked. “Whatever you say, sir,” she said. “But I can guarantee you that things will go wrong.”
At that, Gomez actually smiled. “If things didn’t go wrong, Commander, the galaxy wouldn’t need engineers.” She then looked up. “Ganitriul, are you using a scattering field to jam the weapons?”
“Yes. It is an automatic feature whenever unauthorized weapons fire is registered. Normally, it can only be deactivated by one of the clergy or someone else with sufficient clearance. However, I cannot guarantee that it will last.”
Gomez consulted her tricorder. “Here it is; Security Measure 7.”
“Correct.”
She studied the tricorder for a minute. Unable to stand the silence that followed, Corsi finally said, “What are you doing, Commander?”
“Looking over the schematics of the scattering field. If I’m right, I can adjust the phaser rifles so that they can function anyway. When I was on the Sentinel , during the war, we pulled this trick on a Breen platoon that tried to jam our hand weapons. Ganitriul’s scattering field has a similar design. We’ll only be able to get as high as light stun, but we can do it.” She closed the tricorder. “Here’s the plan. Drew will continue to keep watch. 110, you keep an eye on Hawkins, make sure he doesn’t get any worse. Corsi, go over the map, find us the best route from here to the core. Ganitriul, if there’s anything you can do to distract our pursuers, it would be greatly appreciated.”
“I can make no promises, but I will do my best.”
“Thanks. I’m going to modify the phasers. Shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. You have your orders, people—get to work.”
Sighing, Corsi handed Gomez her rifle, then opened her tricorder. She had a bad feeling about this, but she couldn’t fault Gomez, either—she was finishing the mission she was given, which was, ultimately, the right thing to do.
I just hope we live to tell Gold’s great-grandkids about it.
“Yes, well, we were afraid of something like this. Now, Emarur.”
Alarm bells went off in David Gold’s head at the priest’s words. He turned to Lieutenant McAllan at tactical and started to say, “Shields up,” but he couldn’t get the words out before some kind of weapons fire struck the da Vinci .
“Shields up, red alert!” he was able to say this time, as alarms started ringing out around the bridge. He also saw the priest stab the First Speaker, and watched her crumple to the deck. There’s a helluva lot more going on here than we thought. I should live long enough to find out what, exactly. “Return fire!”
“Phaser controls aren’t responding,” McAllan said. “Arming torpedoes.” Pounding a fist on his console, he added, “I can’t get a lock.”
“They’re taking evasive action,” said Ensign Wong from the conn position.
“Pursue them,” Gold said. “McAllan, target manually—use a damn scope sight if you have to, but target that ship!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damage report.”
Duffy’s voice sounded over the intercom from engineering. “I don’t know what kind of weapon they’re using, sir, but it took out half our tactical systems. Shields are fine, but phaser controls are shot to hell and the targeting systems are off-line.”
“That much I knew. Can you fix it?”
“Working on it.”
Gold thought a moment. They had someone onboard who probably knew as much about repairing battle damage on the fly as anyone. “Gold to La Forge. Get down to engineering and help Duffy out, Commander.”
“Already on my way, Captain.”
“Good.” Turning to the tactical st
ation behind him, Gold said, “McAllan, any good news?”
“I can’t target them unless we get within thirty thousand kilometers.”
“Can you close the gap, Wong?”
“Working on it, sir,” said the young ensign. “That ship’s as fast as we are at impulse.”
From ops, Lieutenant Ina said, “They’re firing again, sir!”
After the impact, McAllan said, with surprise, “Shields down! Sir, I don’t know what they did, but the shields are completely gone.”
“Captain, I can get the shields back on-line, but you’ve got to give me ten minutes.” That was La Forge.
“They’re firing again!” Ina said.
“Veer off, Wong, give us distance.”
Sparks flew as the weapons fire struck the unshielded ship.
“Stevens to bridge. Sir, if you set course for the second planet in the system and maintain a low orbit, we won’t be picked up by their sensors.”
“You heard the man, Wong. Set course for the second planet, full impulse.”
“Yes, sir,” Wong said.
“McAllan, full spread of torpedoes—doesn’t matter where they’re aimed, they’re just cover fire.”
Nodding, McAllan said, “Torpedoes away.”
“Go, Wong.”
“Engaging at full impulse.”
“They following?” Gold asked.
“No, sir,” said Ina. “They did take some heavy damage, though.”
McAllan smiled. “Guess my aim was true.”
“We should be so lucky,” Gold muttered.
The Bajoran ops officer continued, “They’re setting course back for the moon.”
“All right, give us a low orbit, and keep an eye on them, Wong.”
“Yes, sir.”
Getting up from his chair, the captain said, “Gold to S.C.E. Briefing room, five minutes. McAllan, you’ve got the bridge. Contact the Sugihara and tell them to get over here, pronto. And the nanosecond something happens, let me know, got it?”
“Got it, sir.”
“Good.”
He headed toward the briefing room, wondering how the hell the mission had managed to go so bad, so fast.
And why, exactly, one of the Eerlikka clergy had killed the First Speaker in cold blood.
CHAPTER
7
“Where are they?” Undlar bellowed. He couldn’t believe it. They had had that Starfleet ship, and now it was gone. “Scanners aren’t picking them up anywhere,” the pilot said.
“Maybe they blew up,” Undlar said, though it was wishful thinking.
“Then we’d be reading debris. There isn’t anything.”
Undlar slammed his fist into a bulkhead. It had been going so well.
The pilot continued to lean over his readout. Next to him, Emarur turned to look at Undlar. “I can’t believe you killed the First Speaker.”
“She was in the way.”
“You never told me you were going to kill her— especially not on my ship!”
Laughing, Undlar said, “What did you think I was going to do, Emarur? Ask her politely to go along with the destruction of Ganitriul? Don’t be ridiculous. She had to die, the same way my brother clergy had to die. Revolutions don’t succeed if the people you’re revolting against remain breathing.” Undlar closed his eyes and once again relived the death of the other priests in his mind’s eye. He had so enjoyed killing those self-righteous imbeciles. “Besides,” he said, reopening his eyes, “the role of naïve young priest was getting tiresome.”
Emarur blinked several times. “You killed the priests?”
“Of course. It’s no good destroying Ganitriul if the people who know how to fix it are still up and about. Besides,” he added with a grin, “it was so much easier to convince the Speakers that this ship was built with the clergy’s authorization when I was the only clergy left alive to verify it. Now then, unless you have any other tiresome questions, I’d like to get on with this before that Starfleet ship comes back—or worse, brings friends. Contact the surface. I need to know if Hagi has neutralized whatever team Starfleet sent down.”
Emarur glared at Undlar. “I’m the owner of this ship, Undlar, not you. You don’t give me orders.”
Undlar moved closer to Emarur and unsheathed his blade, which was still blue with Ansed’s blood. In a low, calm voice, Undlar said, “I hired you, Emarur, and I’m the one who paid to have your precious ship equipped with non-Ganitriul components. Right now, you’ve got the only working vessel in the system. I think, therefore, you should modify your tone before you join the First Speaker. Now, I repeat, contact the surface.”
Continuing to glare at Undlar, Emarur reached back and opened a channel. “ Senbolma to Hagi.”
After a moment, a voice replied, “Hagi.”
“This is Undlar,” the priest said, resheathing his weapon. “We’re proceeding mostly according to plan. Apparently, Ganitriul called for help from the Federation, and they sent one of their starships to try to fix our ‘Great One.’ We took care of the ship, but they sent people to the surface.”
“I know,” Hagi said. “We found them at the main terminal, but they got away. We wounded one before the security protocol kicked in and neutralized the blasters. Luckily, we’ve got the blades, and all they’ve got are useless energy weapons. They’re outnumbered by more than two to one, so they should be dead soon.”
“Excellent. I will join you shortly.”
“I wouldn’t recommend that, Undlar. The security systems are going completely haywire.”
“Of course they are. Ganitriul itself is haywire. That was the point of the exercise,” Undlar said slowly, as if talking to a small child.
“Yes, but if you transport down and a security shield chooses that moment to activate, you could wind up scattered to the solar winds.”
Undlar sighed. He hadn’t thought of that. “We’ll have to land, then.”
“I’m afraid not,” Emarur said. “One of those torpedoes the da Vinci hit us with damaged our landing gear. We can only land with a tow—which is impossible, since, as you so kindly pointed out, we’re the only working ship in the system. Well, except for the da Vinci , but even if they do come back, I doubt they’re going to be accommodating enough to help us land.”
Growling, Undlar said, “Fine. Hagi, let me know as soon as you’ve killed the Starfleeters.”
“I will. Hagi out.”
Emarur turned to Undlar. “If you don’t mind, will you please do something with the First Speaker’s body?”
Undlar blinked his lower eyelids. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t like dead bodies on my flight deck. Remove it.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Dispose of it.”
Undlar’s face twisted. He took great pleasure in killing, but the idea of touching a dead body . . . “I can’t do that.”
“You’re the one who killed her, Undlar. If you’re squeamish about touching the body—well, you should have thought of that before you killed her. Now get that body off my flight deck!”
Emarur stared hard, right at Undlar. The priest was sorely tempted to slice open the ship owner’s neck. But that would be foolish. The Senbolma only had a crew of two, and if he killed Emarur, Undlar would probably have to kill the pilot, too— and Undlar hadn’t the first clue how to fly one of these things. His specialty was computers, after all—it was why, among all the Purists, he had been the one chosen to infiltrate the clergy and infect Ganitriul.
“Very well,” he finally said. And, fighting down his revulsion, he dragged Ansed’s limp corpse off the flight deck.
Hagi backed up against the wall, counted to six, and then whirled around, swinging his blade upward in order to catch any humans that might be there in the chest.
There was nobody in the cavern.
“Clear,” he said to Yanasa.
“This is ridiculous,” Yanasa said. “If we had proper scanners—”
“—they wouldn’t work
anyhow,” Hagi said. “They’d be tied into Ganitriul. Besides, the whole point is to get away from all this dependence on technology. This is the way it should be— searching on foot, with a blade in your hands, only relying on your own instincts.”
Yanasa sighed, scratching the side of her head. “I still wish we had a scanner.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find them. There’s a dozen of us, and we know these caverns better than they do. We’ll—”
Hagi was cut off by a sudden jolt and an invisible force impeding his forward progress. “What the—?”
He took a step back, then gingerly reached forward. His finger tingled with the feeling of a forcefield, and he pulled it back. “Dammit. Let’s go back,” he said, turning around, but Yanasa was shaking her head.
“No luck,” she said, performing the same action and also touching a forcefield.
“We’re trapped.”
“Yes,” Yanasa said, sounding annoyed, “we’re trapped. So, what do your instincts tell us to do now?”
“I don’t appreciate your tone, Yanasa.”
“And I don’t appreciate being stuck in a cavern on a moon with a malfunctioning computer. I said from the beginning that it was stupid to leave people here for precisely this reason, but I was outvoted.”
“First of all, we needed to secure the location in case something like this happened. Unscheduled civilian and alien ships come to the moon all the time, and one might have been on the way here when Ganitriul went down. We had to be here to stop them. Secondly, the security measures are constantly flipping on and off. The forcefield will come down eventually.”
Yanasa rolled her eyes. “And then what? The Starfleet people—”
“Are hitting the same problems we are, only they don’t know the caverns, and they’re unarmed, except with those useless rifles of theirs.”
“Did it occur to you, Hagi, that the same security measure that deactivated their weapons may also ‘flip off ’?”
Hagi found himself fighting the urge to take his blade to Yanasa’s throat. Impatiently, he said, “In that case, our blasters will work as well, and we’ll still outnumber them.”
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