He’d picked out his target carefully. Both the gravity cannon and the dimensional rift were well guarded by Crusaders, but the gravity cannon was obviously drawing a lot of power from the Institute’s generators. If he could knock the power out, maybe he could weaken the gravity beam long enough for the Enterprise to break free.
Which would strand him here on Ephrata, naturally, but that was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He figured Yaseen would feel the same way—as would the captain and Mister Spock, wherever they were.
Unlike the more elegant academic buildings and museums, the generator complex was a blocky, utilitarian facility painted a dull olive green. The unsightly complex was conveniently located at the far end of the valley, out of view of the rest of the campus. A chain-link fence, festooned with warning signs, guarded the generators, as did a pair of bored-looking Crusaders posted at the front gate. The soldiers hummed an Ialatl hymn as they paced back and forth before the entrance. Getting past them was job one.
Sulu crept up on the complex, hiding behind leafy trees and bushes. He took pains to stay downwind of the guards, having no idea what their olfactory abilities were. People said that Klingons could smell an enemy from kilometers away, although Sulu suspected that was just a myth. The Ialatl were even more mysterious.
So why take chances?
The guards stood between him and the generators. He knew his fencing foil was no match for their gravity batons, but he had allowed for that. . . .
The explosion went off right on schedule, back at the campus. A thick plume of black smoke rose up behind him. Fire alarms could be heard in the distance.
Thank you, chemistry labs, Sulu thought. He’d assembled the bomb, as well as the timing mechanism, from materials scavenged from the Institute’s abandoned laboratories. He felt bad about inflicting yet more damage on the ravaged campus, but figured they could spare one empty lecture hall. At least he prayed it was still empty; it had been when he’d planted the bomb.
The explosion got the guards’ attention.
“By the God-King’s holy lineage!” a Crusader exclaimed. “It must be the work of the heretic!”
His partner agreed. “Such perfidy must not go unpunished!”
Sulu hoped the attack would draw the guards away from the generator complex, but he’d underestimated their discipline. To his frustration, the guards remained at their posts.
Guess we’re going to have to do this the hard way.
Stepping out from behind a tree, he rushed toward the gate, waving his foil in the air. His mask made him look like just another “adopted” human.
“Brothers! The new temple is under attack! Defend the Truth!”
The guards went on alert. “Halt! Identify yourself!”
Ignoring the command, Sulu kept running. He thrust his free hand into the heavy pocket of his jacket. His fingers closed on a smooth glass canister.
“I serve the Truth,” he called out, evading the question. “To arms, brothers! The temple must be defended!”
The guards stubbornly stuck to protocol. Their hands found their batons.
“Identify yourself . . . or feel the weight of the Truth!”
“Identify this!”
He plucked the canister from his pocket and hurled it at the guards. The clear container shattered at their feet, releasing a cloud of billowing white fumes that rose up to choke them. The men gasped and clutched their throats. Tears streamed from their dark eyes. They coughed violently.
Yes, Sulu reflected. He had made good use of that chem lab.
The formula was actually an old family recipe, supposedly devised by a distant relative back in the twentieth century. He was supposed to have developed it as a humane alternative to bullets when dealing with the vicious crooks and racketeers who infested that era . . . or so family legend had it. Sulu had no idea how exaggerated the stories might have grown over the generations since. In any event, the formula itself was just basic chemistry these days.
He slowed to a stop, anxious to see if the improvised knockout gas had the desired effect on the Ialatl. The invaders appeared to breathe oxygen, but who knew exactly how their body chemistry worked. Without an adequate knowledge of their biology, he couldn’t be certain that that the gas would do the trick. What if the Crusaders proved resistant to its effect?
“Traitor!” a guard coughed. “Heretic!”
Sulu started to worry. In theory, the gas would have knocked out a Gorn by now, but the Crusaders were still on their feet. Tottering unsteadily, a wheezing guard drew his baton. Angry tears flooded his silver face.
“Heretic! Infidel!”
“Make up your mind,” Sulu said.
Playing it safe, he reached into his other pocket and retrieved another gas bomb. It shattered against the Crusader’s chest, distracting him. A second white cloud enveloped the men, adding to the fumes.
So much for my last bomb, Sulu thought.
To his relief, the second dose of gas got the job done. One after the other, the two Crusaders sagged to the ground in front of the open gate. Sulu waited a few seconds for the fumes to disperse before cautiously advancing toward the gate. He hated using both his gas bombs on the duo, but at least they hadn’t gone to waste. Holding a hand over his nostrils and mouth, he prodded the guards with the tip of his foil to make sure they weren’t playing possum. Broken glass crunched beneath his boots. The last lingering traces of the gas made his eyes water. He fanned the air to clear it.
Satisfied that the guards were genuinely down for the count, he stepped over their unconscious bodies. The men’s fallen batons caught his eye. After his mix-up with Sokis’s lance, which had nearly taken him on a one-way trip to the planet’s core, he was reluctant to mess with the Ialatl’s alien weapons again, but . . . waste not, want not. Handling them gingerly, he tucked the inert batons into his belt before leaving the gassed guards behind.
Black smoke still rose from the campus behind him, so he assumed the other Crusaders still had their hands full dealing with the blown-up lecture hall. Rushing past the gate, he headed for the main generator building. A sign was posted at the entrance: OFF LIMITS! AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Sulu ignored it.
He sprinted into the building. As expected, the complex was largely automated. He raced down an empty corridor. With any luck, he wouldn’t encounter anyone besides a few brainwashed technicians, assuming they weren’t all out hunting for heretics.
Powerful fusion generators thrummed in the background. From the sound of them, he guessed that the Crusade had them running at full capacity to power the gravity cannon and their other hardware. Sulu hastily reviewed his plan as he searched for the primary control room. Ideally, he hoped to avoid a full-scale overload and explosion; too many lives, including those of the brainwashed Ephratans, would be lost in such a disaster. But maybe a catastrophic shutdown would cause a blackout that would knock out the gravity cannon.
Granted, the Institute surely had some backup generators and batteries elsewhere, but would those be enough to sustain the voracious demands of the gravity cannon? He was gambling that wasn’t the case.
Worth a try, he thought. If I have to, I can always go after the backups later.
Directional signs, in multiple languages, guided him to the central control room, which reminded him of engineering back on the Enterprise. A galleried mezzanine, complete with safety rails, overlooked a vast chamber lined with blinking consoles and computer banks. Wall monitors tracked the energy flow and operation of the fusion generators. They were all within safety margins, but creeping toward the red zone. The Crusade was going all out to keep the Enterprise snared.
But not for much longer, Sulu vowed.
He crept out cautiously onto the mezzanine, wishing that Scotty were along on this mission. The redoubtable engineer would be right at home in this complex and would know exactly how best to foul up the works. Sulu wouldn’t have minded Yaseen’s assistance either. He could probably use some of her Za’Huli prayers r
ight now. . . .
Peering down at the main floor of the control room, he was thrilled to see that Yaseen had beaten him to the punch. A familiar figure in a regulation red skirt stood over a control panel, her back to Sulu. A three-bladed kligat, a Capellan throwing weapon native to that planet’s fierce warrior tribes, hung at her hip. In addition, a length of oxidized metal rebar, roughly as long as Sulu’s foil, rested on the console within easy reach. Clearly, he hadn’t been the only one foraging for weapons.
“Hey there!” His heart leaped at the sight of her. “Looks like we both had the same idea.”
“I knew you’d come here,” she replied. “Tactically, it was the obvious target.”
“Now you’re sounding like Mister Spock,” he quipped. He dashed down a short flight of steps to the ground floor. “Still, you know what they say about great minds thinking alike. . . .”
She turned away from the controls, revealing the silver face masking her true features. A fervid gleam in her eyes gave him a bad feeling. His heart sank.
Oh, no, he thought. Please let that just be a disguise.
“My mind has been opened to the Truth,” she said with the conviction of a true believer. “But all is well, Hikaru. You too can be rescued from oblivion.”
Sulu felt sick to his stomach.
Not her, too. Not Fawzia. . . .
“Sorry,” he said. “No thanks.”
“It is not for you to decide. None can refuse the Truth.”
Her finger stabbed a button on the control panel. Sirens blared and crimson warning lights flashed on and off. Sulu glanced anxiously at the nearest exit, where a force field crackled into existence, trapping him in the control room. He knew that reinforcements had to be on the way.
“Don’t do this!” He couldn’t resist trying to get through to the real Yaseen, somewhere beneath the Crusade’s programming. He took off his own counterfeit mask and flung it away from him. “Take off that awful mask and let’s get the hell out of here!”
She shook her head.
“You can’t escape the Truth, Hikaru.”
“I think I liked it better when you called me d’Artagnan.” He approached her warily. “Remember that? ‘One for all and all for one’?”
The motto left her unmoved.
“The Truth is one. The Truth is all.”
Sulu realized time was running out. More Crusaders would be here soon and the only way out was through that control panel, which was also his best shot at shutting down the generators while he still had a chance.
He just had to get past Yaseen first.
“You have no idea how much I hate doing this.” He brandished his foil, wishing to heaven that he had one more knockout bomb. “Step away from those controls . . . please.”
She did not step aside.
“You will be delivered to the Truth . . . or at least most of you!”
She plucked the kligat from her belt and flung it at him. The razor-sharp weapon spun through the air with potentially lethal accuracy; an identical weapon had once killed a friend of Sulu’s, Lieutenant Bob Grant, back on Capella IV. This one was on track to take Sulu’s sword arm off.
Yaseen was playing for keeps.
Keen reflexes, honed by countless hours of fencing practice, barely saved Sulu from dismemberment. His foil flicked out, deflecting the kligat, which struck an auxiliary display panel instead. Plasma erupted as the deadly blades lodged in the console, causing a short circuit. Sulu threw up a hand to protect his face from the surge. The close call sent adrenaline shooting through his veins.
“Are you out of your mind?” he shouted. “You almost took my arm off!”
She shrugged. “The Truth demands sacrifices of us all.”
Not done yet, she snatched up the length of rusty rebar and held it like a sword. She lunged at him, swinging the bar.
“En garde!”
He parried the blow just in time. Rusty metal rang against a tempered steel blade. Sparks flew where the swords met, like a deflector field flashing when struck by a phaser beam. He attempted a riposte, thrusting at her shoulder, but she expertly danced away from the attack, keeping her guard up. Obviously, she was no slouch at sword fighting.
Just my luck, he thought. Another thing we have in common.
They dueled across the floor of the control room, trading thrusts, feints, and parries. Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed the bout, but at the moment, he found himself wishing that Yaseen were a bookish historian or linguist, not a seasoned security officer.
“Surrender to the Truth!” she demanded. She swung the rebar like a cutlass, trying to batter her way past his defense, but his sturdy modern foil withstood the jarring blows. “Do not wallow in ignorance!”
“Take off that mask!” he countered. “Then we’ll talk!”
A flying kick knocked her backward into a bank of consoles. Her sword arm drooped, and for an instant, he had a clear shot at her chest. He hesitated, unwilling to run her through, and the moment was lost. She rebounded from the console, going for the kill, but he batted the thrust away with his own sword and counterattacked.
“Abandon your rebellion and you will be spared!”
She exhorted him through crossed swords, their faces only inches apart. Her eyes were wide with fervor. Sulu glimpsed his own reflection—and future?—in the polished silver surface of her mask. Her breath was incongruously sweet. She forced him backward across the chamber, toward the steps leading to the mezzanine. The rebar skated across the guard of the grip, sparing his fingers. A forceful cross almost tore his sword from his grasp.
I’m holding back, he realized. And she’s not.
A skillful feint failed to penetrate her defense. She charged at him head-on, driving him partway up the steps. The rebar stabbed at his face, but he spun around, dodging the strike, and punched her in the face with the hilt of his sword. The blow dented the silver mask, giving her metal lips a permanent sneer. She staggered backward, momentarily stunned.
“Stop this!” he begged. “Don’t make me fight you!”
“The fault is yours! The Truth brings only harmony and peace!”
The rebar came whistling through the air. He parried in time, but the impact sent a numbing jolt through his arm. Sensing an opening, she lunged again, but he ducked beneath the attack and dived out of the way.
We’re too evenly matched, he thought. I need an edge.
Desperate, he grabbed one of the batons in his belt and aimed it at her. “Don’t make me use this!” he bluffed.
“I do not fear the weight of Truth!”
Taking hold of the rebar with both hands, turning it from a sword to a spear, she charged forward, intent on impaling him. His hand forced, he twisted the control rings on the baton, praying that this time he got it right. Otherwise, he might be smashing through the floor once more.
Let’s try this again. . . .
The baton lit up. An emerald beam struck Yaseen, halting her charge. Crashing to the floor, she skidded to a stop less than a meter away from him. She let go of the rebar before its heightened weight crushed her fingers. It sank into the floor, carving out a deep depression in the tiles.
“How about that,” Sulu said. “It worked.”
Her fall did nothing to shake her artificially imposed convictions. “Sacrilege! That weapon is meant to serve the Crusade!”
He still couldn’t believe those words were coming from Yaseen. Worse yet, that she actually believed them. He couldn’t bear to see her like this one minute more.
“Let’s get that mask off you,” he declared. “I miss your real face.”
“That is her real face,” a deep, stentorian voice intruded. “Now.”
Sulu looked up to see Sokis, along with an honor guard of Crusaders, gazing down at him from the mezzanine. In the heat of the duel, he hadn’t even heard the soldiers arrive. More Crusaders appeared at the lower exits. The force field evaporated. The sirens fell silent.
“Stay back!” Sulu pointed his
glowing baton at Sokis and his entourage while edging toward the unattended control panel. If he hurried, maybe he could still shut down the generators long enough for the Enterprise to break orbit. “I’m not sure that gallery will support your weight . . . if I zap you with a little supergravity!”
Sokis chuckled scornfully. “Do you truly think you are in control here?” A new lance had taken the place of the one Sulu had inadvertently banished to the center of the planet. Its polished head spun like a top. A jade radiance burned along the length of the spear. “Have you forgotten I am a High Brother?”
Uh-oh, Sulu thought. He’s up to something.
Acting quickly, he fired the baton at the smirking warrior-priest, but nothing happened. The glow within his own weapon sputtered and died, going black and lifeless in his grip.
“Great,” Sulu said sarcastically. Apparently the commander’s lance had the ability to override the lesser Crusaders’ batons. Not a bad way to enforce discipline, he conceded. “Rank has its privileges, I see.”
“Indeed,” the High Brother said. “As is only fitting.”
Sulu tossed the defanged baton aside. He still had his fencing foil, of course, but somehow he doubted that would be enough to overcome a host of Crusaders. He was seriously outgunned here.
Sure enough, a barrage of gravity beams dropped him to the floor, even as Sokis used his own lance to lift the weight from Yaseen. The triumphant warrior-priest strode down the steps to personally help her up.
“Rise, my adopted sister. You have truly redeemed yourself for your earlier disobedience.”
“Thank you, High Brother.” Yaseen took his hand and climbed to her feet. “I was blind, but now I see.”
Sulu was sickened by her declaration. The unquestioning devotion in her eyes and voice was a hundred times worse than the weight grinding him into the floor. He let go of his useless foil.
“What now?” he asked bitterly. “Are you going to brainwash me, too?”