for me to wish that you live long and prosper." He
spoke slowly now, without the edgy tone of underlying
rebellion that had always been there before. Backing
out into the corridor, maintaining his expression, he
vanished.
My hand reached out for Sarda, who was already
moving.
"Sarda, wait!" I gasped.
He paused at the door, cast a glance back at me, and
fitfully gripped the stone for an instant as though
hoping to find something to say that would explain. He
was torn in half. Even a Vulcan couldn't hide that
much torment.
He pushed himself off the door frame. We heard his
boots on the hard floor of the passageway.
"Sarda!" I started for the door.
Scanner's voice caught me back for an instant.
"Piper, I got it!"
I drew an invisible circle around him and the doctors
with my finger as I skidded to a stop at the doorway.
"Beam up! I'll contact youl"
Deep Argelian night had thoroughly penetrated the
stone building now that most of the electricity had
been strangled. I was tired of feeling cold. I'd only felt
warm once since leaving Earth, and that was because
of a Klingon growling at my throat. Even running
through the building failed to heat my blood. The
injured muscles in my back screamed with each stride,
and my head pounded now whenever I took a breath.
At every turn I caught a glimpse of Sarda. He was
healthy and fast; keeping up with him was terrible
work. At the turn of the last corridor, I gave in to a
useless urge and called once again, "Sarda, wait--"
To my utter amazement, he whirled around and
stopped. Was he surprised that I followed? Had he
forgotten so much?
195
He turned again, in time to see Perren's distant form
retreat into a smaller building.
I jogged to a halt a few feet from Sarda and steadied
myself with a hand on the wall. He turned once again
to me, hesitantly at best.
"He's probably getting the last of his equipment," I
said, drawing a deep breath, "before he signals Mor-
nay to beam him up."
Sarda gazed once again through the night at the
other building, now still and darkened. When he
turned back to me, the quandary in his eyes was
frightening. His fists balled up. I doubt he was even
aware of it.
"I cannot leave Perren in this situation," he said.
I closed the space between us by another step.
"You're not leaving him. He's leaving you."
With a step of his own, he widened the gap. "Piper,
you do not comprehend Vulcan complexities. I have
no time to explain them to you."
With a nod I showed him that he was right. Slowly I
asked, "Do you really think Perten doesn't under-
stand what he's involved in?"
Inner struggle tightened his mouth. "That is no
excuse to abandon him."
My shoulders sagged as I tried to think of logical
arguments. But even a partially trained Vulcan knows
his own thoughts. If he had made up his mind to forfeit
the past for the future, even a hazy future, I knew no
power in the universe could pull him back.
When arguments were not enough, when logic could
only fail, it was time to go beyond them. My shoulders
squared as I backed away a pace, showing him that I
was ready to accept his decision.
"Then you'll have to choose."
Sarda no longer glanced indecisively at the building
that had swallowed Perten only moments ago. His
eyes lost their focus as he gazed at me, and I felt
196
utterly unseen. Perhaps he was searching for a way to
explain the inexplicable. With my silence I hoped to
show him that no explanation was necessary. As for
my own message, my presence on this planet would
have to speak for itself.
Sarda privately navigated his sea of uncharted emo-
tions without help from me, for I could no longer help
him, no matter how much I wanted to.
He raised his chin a fraction. "There is only one
choice," he said, his voice solemn and low.
I willed myself not to nod, to flinch, or even to
breathe. I wouldn't show the tiniest hint of feeling
betrayed. I hadn't been betrayed, after all; he had
simply made the best decision for himself. That was all
I had any right to ask of him.
Searching for the final words, the words that would
get me smoothly out of this terrible last encounter,
gave Sarda an extra few moments.
His arms relaxed at his sides. "I go with you."
197
Chapter Ten
"The trigger has been pulled. We've got to get there
before the hammer falls."
--Errand of Mercy
WHEN WE GOT back to the ship, it was unfortunately
in the same shape as when we left. I finally had to
admit Rex wasn't just an industrial nightmare but the
ship I was stuck with. It felt pathetic and small as we
gazed out the viewing portals at the pure beauty of
Enterprise, her design still striking me as elemental. I
would probably always get this shock of awe at a
glimpse of a starship, and I would probably never get
used to it or take it for granted. Engineers and space
technologists may have designed her, but they shared
the heart of an artist.
"Are we in one piece, Scanner?" I asked, leaning
over his shoulder, still peering at the starship in orbit
several degrees farther out.
"Functional," he answered with a shrug. Even so,
he tapped several linkages just to check.
"How long will it take them to install transwarp?"
From behind me came a mellow voice finally free of
its stress. "Perren has become most efficient in his
engineering," Sarda said. "He and Boma can install
the complex into a starship's warp system in roughly
eighteen hours. Likely they will not do it right away,
but retreat to a safe haven where 'they have access to
other people who are also followers of Rittenhouse."
I nodded my thanks to him. His presence still sur-
198
prised me, but I was finally warm. In our crisis aboard
the dreadnought those few weeks ago, he had been
forced to stay at my side because of circumstances.
Today the decision was his own. For the first time in a
long time, I stopped worrying about what Captain
Kirk thought of me. Sarda's testimonial was all I
needed. Even now I felt the warm buzz of telepathic
support from him, a subtle echo behind my thoughts
that gave me that extra supporting nudge. I still
couldn't interpret that buzz--whether it was inten-
tional or not, whether it was normal for Vulcans or
not--but it was welcome, deeply so.
"We have to act immediately," I said, sliding into
the command chair. The new leather breathed under
me and cradled my legs and back as though it knew 1
was still fier
cely aching from Geit's assault. As ff to
remind me, the Klingon disruptor I'd taken from one
of the unconscious swine dug into my rib. I pulled it
from my belt and handed it to Merete; Sarda did the
same with his. Scanner wisely vacated the seat beside
me and moved to the navigation/sensor station farther
to the right, allowing Sarda to take the place beside
me.
"What do you have in mind?" Dr. McCoy asked
with a controlled touch of incredulity. He was leaning
forward in one of the passenger chairs, watching his
home ship and no doubt wishing he was there to do his
part.
I empathized with his frustration, and it kindled my
sense of purpose. "We've got to keep them from
warping out of orbit."
Every eye in the ship struck me. Scanner straight-
ened up like a long skinny balloon and yelped, "Oh,
yeah? While we're at it, let's rearrange the solar
system so the planets all line up in a row."
McCoy leaned even farther forward. "This ship
against a starship?"
"Sure," Scanner mocked. "If you can get me within
199
fifty meters, I can cut 'em up with my little laser torch.
If you can get me within ten, we got a claw. S'pose
they'd notice?"
The doctor ignored him. "Wouldn't it make more
sense just to get away and notify Star Fleet?"
"By the time Star Fleet could get out here," I said,
"Mornay could have taken Enterprise anywhere in the
known galaxy. They're not leaving this system if I can
help it."
"Piper, we don't even have phasers big enough to
carve a moustache on that ship's face," Scanner said,
pointing descriptively.
An unexpected voice interrupted us. "Leave her
alone."
Gazes shifted again, this time aft. Merete stood
alone in the obscurity of the hatchway, one hand
braced upon the ship's gnarly bulkhead as though to
say she trusted it. Her face was eclipsed by a band of
shadow. The hem of her robe made a purple wedge in a
walklight, and at the shadow's top a crescent of pearl-
blond hair shone in the glow of a tiny bulb near an
electrical access. Beyond that, there was nothing of
her to focus on but her intense presence of purpose.
"Piper is our commanding officer," she said. "We're
going to do what she says and we're not going to argue
anymore. ff we die," she added softly, "then we die
well."
Merete was so quiet and unobtrusive that I often
forgot how much I told her, how much of my past and
my present thoughts she kept diligently stored for me,
things I'd said both intentionally and unintentionally.
Only when one of those things surfaced at exactly the
right moment, thanks to her sensitive timing, did I
remember to appreciate her. I wouldn't forget again
for a long, long time.
True to the drama of the moment, she never moved.
She let her words sink deep into the fabric of what was
to come, and drew no more attention to herself. She
200
wanted me to have the attention, we all knew. Even
Dr. McCoy settled back as though he too somehow felt
better about all this.
Sarda moved slightly, switching from helm tracking
to the computer readout screen before him. It cast a
fine blue glow on his pale alien features. "The Enter-
prise is moving out of orbit on impulse power. Taking a
heading of point three-seven."
"Heading out of the solar system," I uttered.
"When they get clear of the planets, they'!! go to
warp. Follow them. Just don't get so close that they'll
want to fire on us. They'll know we're coming."
"I can already hear 'em laughing," Scanner said.
"Let's hope they are, Scanner," I countered imme-
diately. "It's an advantage not to be taken as a threat
tOO soon."
"They won't fire on you," Dr. McCoy pointed out.
"It's a waste of energy. They know they can outrun us
at warp."
I looked at Sarda, and he silently confirmed the
logic. Obviously Leonard McCoy hadn't spent all
those years aboard a starship without learning a thing
or two about military logistics.
"Thank you, sir," I said to him, then hunched
forward on my command console as we eased out of
orbit and slipped into the path of the distant star-
ship.
Rex's old impulse engines grumbled, but soon
pushed us up to the speed of Enterprise and even a
little beyond. We gained on her slowly, while three of
the system's planets rolled by. Four other planets were
well out of our trajectory and only one remained for us
to pass before we cleared the solar system.
"Scanner, how do these terrific tractor beams of
yours work?" I asked.
His boyish face screwed up. "Huh?"
"How do you haul something that's heavier than
your engine thrust capacity?"
201
"For short range, you anchor on the nearest planet
or moon and use it for traction."
"Can we brace on a planet and hold Enterprise?"
"Hold Enterprise? Well, I guess so, long as she's in
orbit or somethin', but--" "No buts."
"You gotta have some buts, Piper." He spun his
chair around to face me. "We can't hold a ship the size
of Enterprise against her own thrust, not even if we
she was adrift." The acrid tone was gone from his
voice, likely driven out by Merete's blanketing prom-
ise. I particularly noticed it.
"How closely can you pinpoint the tractor beams?"
"Hell, I could pull the yoke out of an egg at 20,000
kilometers."
"Good," I murmured. "That's good."
"I give. Why's it good?"
My right shoulder went up and down once. "You
said this ship is a Fesarius. Let's see what it can really
do."
Scanner puffed up at that comment. He had no idea
what I had in mind, but he was suddenly anxious to
prove the truth of his own promise. Even if it killed us.
ff it didn't work, none of us would be around to flay
him with an 1-told-you-so.
"Sarda," I began, "pinpoint the joist where the port
warp nacelle is attached to its strut and feed the
coordinates into Scanner's tractor beam. That's what I
want, Scanner. Put a lariat of traction right around that
joist."
It was so wild he couldn't even think of anything to
say. He blinked hard and took a deep breath, then
glared accusingly at his equipment as though to get a
mental running start on it.
"Make the beam as tight as possible," I instructed. I
punched the nearest computer access switch. "Com-
puter."
202
"Working," the pleasant voice answered.
"Release all safety monitors, overload capacitors,
and limiters for the tractor system to manual control at
the helm station."
"Ac
knowledged."
Good. No arguments from underneath either. I
needed that.
Scanner shook his head, unable to resist a 50 per-
cent grin. "That's the first time I ever heard anybody
ask a ship's permission to rip its guts out." He
squinted and peered at me over his shoulder. "You
sure you got enough authority to do this?"
I gripped the arms of my chair. "Power up the warp
engines. Zero thrust. Power only. Sarda, feed the
energy through to that tractor beam. We've got a lot of
starship to pull on."
"Powering up. Maximum in twenty-point-seven
seconds." Even as he spoke, Banana Republic began
humming with bottled warp power.
"Hold at maximum," I said. "Go to two-thirds
sublight, heading sixty degrees subport."
"At that rate," Sarda read out slowly, "we will be
within tractor range of Enterprise in... one minute,
eighteen seconds."
"When will we be in tractor range of that last
planet?"
"We are nearly there now."
"Scanner, get ready to grab onto the planet. I think
you know what I want to do."
Perhaps it was fortuitous that he only nodded. He
bent close to his sensor console, coordinating the
impossible.
I put my glare unfiinchingly upon the ivory essence
of Enterprise. In my mind the starship had sails. She
surged now through an ocean of splash and stars, but
there were no steady hazel eyes gazing over her bow.
She knew he wasn't on her bridge and she felt help-
less, like a warship with no rudder, rampaging franti-
203
caUy through a blockade. She was calling out to me.
I had finally reached the point at which sacrifice is
more than bravery's flag. Finally, my life meant less
than my mission. Never before had I truly believed 1
would die, much less take these four fine lives with
me. Fail, yes. Die... no.
But now, this time, I was ready.
"Piper, they're outrunning us," Sarda said, urgency
spiking his words.
I clutched the command console. "Don't let them. If
they warp out before we can engagemMerete!" I
snapped. "Get to Scanner's station and keep your
eyes on the matteffantimatter flux monitor for Enter-