Pike weighed Spock’s offer. “It may come to that, but I’m uneasy about escalating a firefight that close to the warp core.” He searched for a better solution. “We need a less incendiary way to neutralize the invaders. One that, preferably, doesn’t involve a heavy-duty exchange of laser beams and disruptor blasts.”
He paused to catch his breath. When did the simple act of inhaling become so hard?
“Hang on,” he said as his respiratory difficulties gave him an idea. “What about the environmental controls? Klingons need to breathe as much any other humanoid. Suppose we cut off the flow of oxygen to the deck until they black out? Granted, this would temporarily incapacitate our own people as well, but that might be safer for them in the long run than being menaced by Klingons.”
“Perhaps,” Spock said, sounding unconvinced, “but there is a significant flaw to that strategy. No offense intended, but Klingons are in many ways physically stronger than humans and, on an average, possess a greater degree of stamina. In particular, Klingons possess three lungs, giving them approximately thirty percent more lung capacity. By the time the Klingons finally succumbed to lack of oxygen, any humans on deck nineteen, including those trapped in engineering, would be at serious risk of permanent brain damage or death.”
“Three lungs, you say.” Pike remembered hearing something about that at a Starfleet briefing once, but he was not quite ready to give up on his idea just yet. “Is there any way to use that against them?”
Number One spoke up. “Down on the planet, Nurse Olson thought to employ a powerful sedative as a weapon. Perhaps we can attempt the same on a more ambitious scale?” Her voice took on confidence as she warmed to the idea. “Three lungs means the Klingons would absorb a knock-out gas thirty percent faster than our own crew.”
“Yes!” Spock said with unreserved enthusiasm. His agile mind quickly tackled the technical challenges. “If one could introduce a quantity of aerosolized anesthezine into the air conduits feeding into deck nineteen, the Klingons could conceivably be subdued without undue violence.”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Pike said, despite feeling like hell. “Get on it, but quickly! The Klingons aren’t wasting any time, so neither can we. Every second counts.”
“I quite agree, Captain.” Spock sprang from his seat and made good time toward the turbolift. “If you can release the lift, sir.”
Pike overrode the command shutting the turbolift down. The action took far more effort than it should have. He needed a moment to recuperate.
“Sir?” Colt asked. She and Number One both gave him worried looks, which he did his best to ignore. Colt tried to do double duty, as a navigator and yeoman. “Anything I can do for you, Captain?
Pike wasn’t about to treated like an invalid on his own bridge.
“Cross your fingers, Yeoman, that Mister Spock can work as fast as he thinks.”
* * *
A sharp blow to his neck rendered the doctor unconscious. He crumpled to the floor of sickbay, and the laser pistol slipped from his fingers. Merata bent quickly to claim it.
“Elzura . . . no!” Soleste gasped. “What have you done?”
Merata did not bother correcting the name. “He will recover. The injury is not a permanent one.”
She spoke the truth. In order to compensate for her relative weakness compared to other Klingons, she had trained extensively to become proficient in advanced hand-to-hand combat techniques. A swift but effective chop to a certain nerve cluster had allowed her to disable the doctor with a minimum of fuss. The old man had earned his years. He deserved better than to end up in one of his own sickbeds.
“But why, Elzura? Why are you doing this?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m leaving.”
The horrified look on Soleste’s face jabbed Merata in the heart. “No! I won’t let you!”
“You cannot stop me.” The taste of cake lingered upon Merata’s tongue like a bittersweet memory. She paused long enough to offer a few last words of parting. “Bid good-bye to our—your—mother for me. Tell her . . . I am sorry I cannot be the daughter she lost.”
“Like hell I will!”
Despite her injuries, Soleste hastily climbed out of bed and limped toward Merata. She winced with every step, but the pain did not slow her. Anguish showed in her single good eye.
“It took me years to find you! I’m not going to lose you again!”
“Silence!” Merata shouted, alarmed and angry. “Get back in bed!”
“Or what? You’ll try to kill me again?”
A single Klingon soldier burst into the recovery ward, sparing Merata from having to face that question. She recognized him as Wragh, a sergeant under her father’s command. He clutched a tracking device in one hand and a disruptor pistol in the other. A whiff of ionization in the air confirmed that the weapon had been fired very recently. She found herself hoping that any inconvenient sickbay workers had merely been stunned and not killed or disintegrated. Soleste might require their care before this was over.
“Success!” Wragh grinned triumphantly at Merata. “I knew I could find you!”
He thrust the tracker back into his belt now that it was no longer needed. Like the transceiver hidden in her pendant, it had served its purpose, leading him straight to Merata. His eyes registered the unconscious doctor sprawled upon the floor and his wolfish grin grew even wider.
“I see you were expecting me.” He beckoned to her. “Come. Lieutenant Guras and an entire squad of warriors are seizing control of the engine room even as we speak. We need only fight our way to a transporter room to be beamed back to the Fek’lhr as soon as the Enterprise’s shields are down.”
A fine plan, Merata thought. Indeed, the Enterprise’s main transporter room was not far away, on the same deck as sickbay; she recalled passing it on the way here. “Excellent. Follow me.”
“No!” Soleste grabbed Merata’s arm with surprising strength. She glared at the intruder. “You Klingon bastards can’t take her, not again! I won’t let you!”
Comprehension dawned on Wragh’s face. “This is her, isn’t it? The vile jade who kidnapped you?” He looked as though he could not believe his good fortune. “How convenient to find her here as well. Shall I kill her for you, or would you rather take your own revenge upon her?”
“Forget about her.” Merata yanked her arm free and stepped between Wragh and Soleste. “My father awaits.”
Wragh’s smooth brow furrowed in confusion. “I don’t understand. She abducted you. Honor demands that she pay for her crime with her life.”
He stepped to one side, attempting to get a clear shot at Soleste.
“I said, forget about her!” Merata sneered at her sister—for everyone’s sake. She moved to obstruct Wragh’s aim once more. “She’s not worth it.”
Wragh stared at her in shock, as though she had suddenly sprouted antennae or pointed ears. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”
While they quarreled, Soleste staggered to the exit and blocked it with her body. She winced with every movement, which surely aggravated whatever pains remained from her recent surgery. Her face was ashen beneath its sun-baked tan. Her features were drawn and taut, betraying her discomfort. Her crystal eye glowed from within while a tear leaked from the flesh one.
“Listen to me, Elzura! You don’t want to do this. We can still go home to Cypria!”
“My name is Merata!” she roared, only partly for Wragh’s benefit. Perhaps she could ease this final parting for Soleste as well, by making it as rancorous as possible. “A daughter of the Empire—and I care nothing for your pitiful world.” She growled and bared her teeth. “Stand aside, Cyprian!”
“Never!” Soleste refused to budge. “You’re my little sister, Elzy, and you always will be!”
“Enough of this lunacy!” Wragh’s scant patience reached its limit. Charging forward, he seized Soleste by the shoulders and hurled her aside. She went flying across the ward to crash loudly against a steel
bulkhead. Crying out in pain, she bounced off the wall onto the floor. She hit the deck face-first, hard enough to rattle a tray of instruments nearby. A vial of pills spilled over a counter.
The awful sound of the impact made Merata cry out as well.
“That was not necessary!” she yelled at Wragh. “Can you not see she is badly injured?”
Wragh shrugged. “Then let us put her out of her misery.”
“Better killers than you have tried, Klingon,” Soleste said from the floor. Battered by her brutal collision with the wall, she nonetheless climbed to her feet and came at them again. She teetered unsteadily, clutching her abdomen and gasping in pain. She wiped her lips with one hand, which came away bloody. “I gave an eye for my sister. You think I won’t risk the rest of me to stop you from taking her again?”
No! Merata thought. Stay down!
Wragh took aim with his pistol. “Go to Gre’thor, you maddened sow.”
“Don’t!”
Merata reacted without thinking. A crimson beam shot from her stolen laser pistol, blasting Wragh before he could fire on Soleste. Jolted by the beam, he stayed on his feet long enough to turn startled eyes toward her before crashing to the floor like a toppled statue. Disbelief had flared briefly upon his face like the final rage of a collapsing star.
She was no less stunned by what she’d just done. She stared numbly at the weapon in her grasp.
“I knew it,” Soleste said weakly, only a few paces away. “I knew you were still my sister . . .”
She barely got the words out before collapsing onto the floor, joining the fallen figures of Boyce and Wragh, so that the recovery ward resembled a battlefield more than a place of healing. Merata found herself the last person standing, still gripping the pistol she had used against a loyal soldier who had come to rescue her. Guilt and confusion tangled themselves in her mind and soul.
I can still get away, she thought. I just need to make it to the transporter room on my own.
She could say that Wragh sacrificed his own freedom to save her, that she had been forced to leave him behind. She could still escape the Enterprise and return to her father. She could live as a Klingon should.
But what of Soleste?
The conflict with Wragh, on top of her previous injuries, had left the other woman in a dire state. She lay sprawled upon the floor, senseless and deathly pale. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. Her single eye rolled in its socket so that only the silver could be seen. Merata feared that Wragh’s rough handling had reopened Soleste’s wounds. She was likely bleeding internally.
She could die, Merata realized.
A doctor also occupied the floor, none too far away, but Boyce showed no sign of regaining consciousness soon. By the time he recovered, it might be too late.
Indecision paralyzed Merata. Her desperate gaze swung back and forth between the open exit and the bleeding woman before her. She knew she had to choose between them, but what was more valuable: her freedom or Soleste’s life?
She bit down on her lip. Her mouth still tasted of cake.
Merata hurled the pistol away.
“Help me!” she shouted, dropping to Soleste’s side. She prayed to whatever deities looked after Cyprians that there was still a doctor or nurse within earshot. Scooting across the floor, she took Boyce by the shoulders and shook him violently in a desperate attempt to rouse him. “Wake, Doctor! Rise, curse you! My sister is hurt!”
Eighteen
“Guras to Wragh! Respond!”
Only a worrisome silence greeted Guras’s snarled command. Scowling, he lowered his communicator. His inability to contract Wragh was troubling; Guras feared the young sergeant had been foiled in his attempt to rescue Merata. Why else would he not respond?
General Krunn will not be happy if we fail to recover his daughter.
The stirring sound of weapons fire, coming from both ends of the curved hallway, did little to ease his mind. His marksmen were doing a commendable job of holding off the human soldiers out to reclaim this section of the Enterprise, but they were only two men after all. Granted, two Klingons were worth a dozen humans in a fight, but Guras was not so myopic as to deny reality. They needed to take possession of the engineering room if they were ever to escape the Enterprise. Time was not their ally in this conflict.
“Faster!” he growled at a pair of demolitions experts who were rigging explosive charges to the sealed doorway standing between him and the engineering room. The men were not working quickly enough for his satisfaction, so he employed two of his most effective weapons: scorn and sarcasm. “Are you planting bombs or baking a blood pie?”
“Just a few more moments, Lieutenant,” a sapper named Kaln insisted. He adjusted the settings on a photon grenade, recalibrating its charge and orientation. “This is delicate work.”
“Klingons do not do ‘delicate.’ ” Guras sneered at the man’s excess caution. “Blow that accursed door down before we die of old age!”
“Yes, Lieutenant!” Spurred to movement, Kaln affixed the photon grenade to the door, only to be hurled backward by a powerful electric shock. A bright blue spark flared and crackled. Kaln’s dark hair stood up like the quills of an angered Z’Rojjian spike ape. Smoke rose from his fingertips as he bellowed obscenities at the top of his lungs. He hastily deactivated the grenade before glaring murderously at the booby-trapped entrance. “Human slime! They electrified the door. I’m lucky the grenade didn’t go off in my hands!”
An engineer’s trick, Guras thought, with grudging respect, but a good one.
“Can you counter it?” he demanded.
“Yes. I should be able to rig up an electrostatic field that will cancel the opposing charge, or I might be able to ground the current to a neutral bulkhead.”
“Then why are you not doing so?” Guras didn’t care how it was done, just that it was. He stifled an urge to kick Kaln into action. “Did the shock fry your brain cells?”
“No, sir! The door will fall, sir!” He turned to his partner, Dograk. “Get me an EM field inducer.”
The men ran an insulated cable from the door to a compact, boxlike mechanism that emitted an irksome high-pitched hum. Kaln flipped a switch and electricity crackled across the surface of the door before dissipating. The technician scanned carefully before pronouncing it safe.
“Electrostatic countermeasure deployed. The door has been de-charged.”
“Then get back to blowing it open!” Guras snapped.
He tapped his foot impatiently against the deck of the corridor. This entire operation was taking far too long. It was often said that four thousand throats could be cut in one night by a running man, but nobody ever talked about how many locked doors the runner might have to break through first. Guras could hear weapons fire being exchanged at opposite ends of the corridor. Was it just his imagination, or were the Starfleet forces drawing nearer?
“All this,” Kaln muttered under his breath, “for a female who isn’t even a true Klingon.”
“Look who is talking, smooth-brow,” Dograk jeered. Unlike Kaln, the other sapper had proper Klingon ridges. “I know Merata. Her heart is as Klingon as any.”
“More than Mokag’s? Was his life worth hers?”
In truth, that thought had crossed Guras’s mind as well, but now was no time for petty arguments.
“We have our orders,” he said in a tone that brooked no dissent. “What Klingon questions any opportunity to wage war against the enemies of the Empire?” He glowered at the bickering soldiers. “Are the charges set?”
“Yes, Lieutenant!” The men backed away from the door. “All is in readiness.”
Guras also put a safe distance between himself and the rigged entrance. In theory, the directed charges would expend their explosive wrath against the door, but a wise Klingon did not fall victim to his own weapon. Not even for a general’s daughter.
“What are you waiting for?” he snarled. “Do your duty!”
The grenades went off with an impressi
ve roar. A scorching white flash stung his eyes even as the stubborn door crashed inward, reduced to a mangled sheet of charred and smoking metal. The barrier had been breached. The Enterprise’s main engineering room was theirs for the taking.
That’s more like it, Guras thought.
Now if only Wragh would check in with good news!
Nineteen
It was evident at once that much had transpired in sickbay since Spock had left Merata there at the onset of the red alert. Confusion and commotion reigned in what appeared to be the aftermath of a violent incident. Scorch marks could be seen on the walls, along with shattered glass shelves, spilled medicines and instruments, overturned chairs, and other evidence of a physical conflict. Frantic nurses and orderlies were in the process of restoring order, tending to anxious patients as well as to their own injuries. Observing the tumult, Spock could only hope that the ship’s stores of anesthizine had not been compromised; if so, his vital mission would be over before it could begin.
What if the sedative was among the casualties of the attack?
An angry voice, employing notably offensive profanities, called Spock’s attention to a lone Klingon soldier under heavy restraint in a biobed. His vital signs, as displayed on the overhead monitor, indicated an excessive degree of agitation, even for a Klingon. He strained vigorously at his bonds.
“Let me loose, cowards! I must avenge myself on the traitor!”
Traitor?
A nerve pinch silenced the Klingon’s disruptive shouting, restoring at least a measure of calm to the unruly environment. An orderly, bearing a supply of medical dressings and dermal applicators, crossed Spock’s path. Spock stepped forward to detain him.
“Mister Howell,” he said. “What has happened here?”
Overwrought and emotional, Howell was only too eager to tell him.
“You wouldn’t believe it, Mister Spock. A Klingon invaded sickbay, shooting up the place, sending everybody scrambling for safety, but that Klingon-looking girl stopped him. She stunned him with a laser before anybody got killed!”