barely breathing," he said, unable to keep the heavi-
ness of disgust out of his voice. "This midshipman's
already dead."
One, and counting. I thought of Scanner. Dead.
What a word.
The hiss of a turbolift door down the next corridor
drove us quickly up the nearest deck-to-deck spiral
crawlway. We barely made it, and I had to draw my
feet up, out of sight, while several of Mornay's hired
lizards ran past the opening toward the hangar deck.
I listened until there was nothing left to hear of their
footsteps. Above me, Sarda climbed a few rungs, then
stopped. I felt his concern.
"It's not likely that they will move him, Piper," he
said, keeping his voice down.
Until he said it, I hadn't been sure of what I was
thinking. I squinted upward into the brightness of the
tube. "I guess you're right."
He pulled off the uncomfortable mask and attached
it to the communicator belt under his uniform shirt.
"Where are we going?"
Nice handy ladders... empty tube... big ship... I
stripped off my own mask, hooked it to a belt loop,
and shrugged. "Up."
And yet, a more specific destination kept turning in
my mind, no matter how I tried to apply logic to the
situation. Sarda had surmised that Mornay, Perren,
and Boma wouldn't try to install the transwarp device
until they reached a comfortable location where they
213
were totally in charge. They wouldn't be in Engineer-
ing, then. No point in going there. The doctors didn't
need my incompetence in medicine to help them find
the antidote for the narcotic gas, so no point in going
that way. Besides, Merete and McCoy weren't the
people I needed to see right now. I had prevented any
hope Mornay might have of taking the starship out of
the solar system on warp power, and surely they knew
by now that nothing but several weeks in spacedock
would realign Enterprise's delicate nacelle balance.
They wouldn't bother trying to repair such wild dam-
age. All that sounded perfectly logical, and I was ready
in case Sarda asked, but my real motivation was
nothing more than a subliminal echo deep in the least
logical corners of my thoughts. It was an irresistible
call. Rotating and growing ever stronger in my mind
was a single word bridge.
The Enterprise was as quiet as a floating coffin.
Each entry into a new deck, a new corridor, chilled us
with the sight of co!lapsed crewpeople dropped in their
tracks by Mornay's ruthlessness, then mashed to-
gether on the starboard side because of our little trick
with Rex. The starship was worse than empty. It was
cataleptic.
And traveling through it, thanks to me, was like a
maze of dead ends. Everywhere we turned, doors
refused to work or were jammed partially shut, turbo-
lifts scraped and rasped in their tubes, or refused to
open for us at all because they were simply too dam-
aged to allow passengers to trap themselves between
decks. The ship's automated maintenance system was
fully enabled, cutting off many access routes through
the ship that were now dangerous.
Even worse---I couldn't feel the presence of Captain
Kirk. Common sense told me he was here. I'd seen
him and Speck beamed on board. But I couldn't feel
him. Where was he? Had Mornay, in some fit of
unpredictability, beamed him somewhere else to corn-
214
plicate any bid he might have for freedom and the
welfare of his ship and crew? Might she have gassed
him and Spock along with their crew, in case she
needed to impress Star Fleet with the caliber of her
hostages?
As we wended our way through the innards of the
great ship, I kept trying to find Captain Kirk with my
intuitions. I clamped my mouth shut when the inclina-
tion arose to tell Sarda my feelings. Vulcans already
thought humans were a little short of a harvest, and 1
didn't need to throw more fodder on that field.
Finally we were spared any more sights of the
crippled crew when we reached a direct turbolift to the
bridge. We stood side by side and looked at it as
into eternity if we stepped in.
"Disruptors," I uttered, clueing us simultaneously
in to the missing element. As with a single motion, we
drew the weapons from our belts.
"Set for light stun?" Sarda asked.
"Heavy stun."
He looked up. "Not the third setting."
"No. Second."
I looked at my weapon after setting it, unable to pull
my eyes or thoughts away from the dial. I knew Sarda
wondered why I was hesitating, but I had no clear
answer yet. My fingers moved like separate beings on
the disruptor dial. An extra three clicks. And a lock.
Kill/disrupt.
"Kill?" he asked. Whether he was surprised or
disappointed, I couldn't yet tell. He hadn't been with
us when Captain Kirk made me believe in the urgency
of the situation--that any single life was expendable,
even my own. The time had come to act on that sour
truth.
Sarda left his own weapon on stun; I was glad he
did. It fit into my plan.
Even through the conviction, his question made me
215
think twice, forced me to make the awful decision a
second time. "I have to be taken seriously," I told
him. "It's imperative."
Neither of us liked it very much. Only that, the
evenness of our regret for what we had to do, kept
Sarda from controverting my decision. That, and other
things between us that still defied definition.
With a sigh of commitment, I stood up. Fortified
against my own decision, I led the way back to the
bridge turbolift.
There were no words between Sarda and me as we
rode to the bridge, flattened against the sides of the lift.
Words had lost their value. And my mind was already
on the bridge.
The doors hissed open. With a shout of warning, I
burst out, followed by Sarda, led by my disruptor.
Several faces snapped around in shock. Weapons
came up.
I picked a target and fired. A scream filled the bridge
as one of Mornay's mercenaries withered into gory
lights and smoke. I turned my disruptor on Mornay,
my readiness to kill confirmed by the leftover scent of
incinerated flesh and bone.
The first voice was a distantly familiar one. I hadn't
heard it in a long time, and then only briefly, but it
hadn't been soon forgotten.
"You again!" Samuel Boma's face flushed beneath
its deep brown complexion.
Professor Mornay, gripping the handrail on the up-
per walkway, glared at him. "I told you someone had
invaded the compound to get Sarda out," she said
roughly.
Boma drew in
his brows and pointed. "You didn't
tell me it was her! I could've warned you!" "Why? Who's she in particular?"
Boma shook his head. "You don't want to know." It
was hard to believe this was the man who had designed
the dangerous dreadnought that was meant to put the
216
galaxy on the edge of war, who had kept his cool
enough to fool Star Fleet into accepting his help, and
who had somehow managed to take a prime com-
mander like Montgomery Scott by surprise and gas
down the entire crew. I forced myself to remember
those things and not slacken my guard.
By now I'd assured myself there was no one on the
bridge but who I saw Mornay, Boma, and three
remaining mercenaries who were manning helm, navi-
gations, and command intelligence stations. There was
no sign whatsoever of the bridge crew--Mr. Scott, Mr.
S ulu, Uhura... the bridge looked raw without them.
"Sarda," I said, the order silently following.
He took careful aim, holding the disruptor in both
hands, and one by one struck each guard with a stun
bolt. Mornay and Boma had no choice but to watch
and wait until the four of us squared off across the
bridge from each other.
"Where's PerrenT' I asked. "Did you leave Arge-
lius without him after all, Professor?"
She gave me a smug nod. "Keep guessing, hot
spur."
I battled against the quiver of my voice and de-
manded, "Where's the captain?"
"Held tightly hostage, that's where."
"Those aren't answers, Professor."
"I don't owe you answers. My guards are on their
way up here. Do you think I'm foolish enough to let
myself go unprotected? The instant you entered the
bridge, my security forces were alerted. When the
turbolift doors open, you're dead."
That word again. I ignored Sarda's glance. !
wouldn't have known what to tell him anyway. I
waggled the phaser at Mornay and Boma, who were
standing near each other near the Engineering subsys-
tems monitor. "Down there, please, both of you."
Boma hesitated, but Mornay merely widened her
weird little grin. Now what? What could I do if she
217
wasn't even intimidated by a Klingon disruptor set on
kill?
"Gladly," she said then. "Out of the line of fire."
She led the way down to the command module, step-
ping over the crumpled body of one of the guards.
Boma followed.
I hated the fact that she was right; putting them
down there made it easier for her marauders to fire
freely at us when they appeared. "Sarda, can you jam
that turbolift?"
He moved immediately to the communications sta-
tion and placed his disruptor down on the console to
free both hands. What I asked of him was no easy task.
The turbolifts were especially designed to counter-
mand any artificial jamming, to avoid trapping passen-
gers anywhere on the ship. Sarda would have to
reroute its programming both through the computers
and through the engineering of the ship. If he had time.
If, if, if. Another word, like dead.
When he had done what he could at Engineering, he
crossed by me to Communications and started tamper-
ing.
I snaked sideways along the handrail past Sarda and
down the gangway, trying to put myseff in a position
where my single disruptor could protect Sarda from
whatever came out of the turbolift while still keeping a
wedge of threat over Mornay and Boma.
"Hurry, Sarda," I urged.
"Trying."
The communications station clicked and whirred
under his hands, but I could see in the tension of his
jawline that he wasn't succeeding against the auto-
matic resistors of the turbolift system. That was con-
firmed when the turbolift doors puffed open.
Sarda rolled away from the station to give me clear
aim. His disruptor, left on the Engineering console,
was out of commission for us.
My finger flinched on the trigger, ready to kill again.
218
The phaser that came out of the lift to aim at me was
also quite ready to commit murder.
"Nobody move!" a strong voice shouted. A single
phaser. Human eyes behind it. A hero's eyes. A
captain's eyes. They reflected his ship.
"Captain!" Like an idiot, I was still holding the
disruptor on him.
He recovered sooner and redirected his weapon at
Mornay, quickly assessing the situation, lumped-up
guards and all. He was still wearing the brown tunic
and beige trousers from Argelius, which told me he'd
been too busy to slip back into a uniform. Either that,
or the uniform had nothing to do with who he really
was deep down.
I forgot to breathe. "You're here !"
He nodded. "Commander, would you mind?" He
pointed at me, then down at Mornay and Boma.
The disruptor. Oh, damn. My hair bounced as I
looked from him to Mornay, back to him, and back to
Mornay. Finally comprehension sank in and the dis-
ruptor in my hands moved itseft to the people it was
supposed to be guarding. "Right .... "I murmured.
"Sir, there are guards on the way up here," I said
breathlessly.
"Yes, I know. They had a little trouble getting by
Mr. Spock and me."
I readjusted my feet. "Oh." So much for the guards.
"Where were you, sir?"
"Before or after we broke out of our cells?"
"Uh... after."
"We've notified Star Fleet Command," he said,
"given Bones the specific name of the drug the crew is
under, incapacitated most of the professor's guards,
and put an isolation field around the transwarp mecha-
nisms," he now looked at Mornay in prime connec-
tion, "so even the Professor and Dr. Boma won't be
able to engage it."
The bridge fell silent.
219
I lowered the disruptor slightly. "Is that all?"
Numb, dreaming, drunk . . . I could're taken my
pick.
"By the way, Piper," the captain began, circling the
upper deck with his phaser still steady on Mornay and
Boma.
"Sir?"
He raised a brow at me. "You wrinkled my star-
ship."
A ball of compunction blocked my throat. "Aye, sir,
I know that, sir. You should see what it did to my ship.
I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do."
"No apologies," he said. "I was considering the
self-destruct sequence myself." I blinked. "You're joking."
"It wouldn't be the first time." His strong words
were directed every bit as much to the two on the
lower deck as to me. He meant to have his message
clearly given. "A starship commander must always be
ready to use the last resort. You'd be surprised."
Darn right I would be. "Aye, sir," was all I said.
Behind us somewhere, my first command ship drifted,
derelict. I heard its noble moans
in my mind.
Mornay and Boma exchanged an unreadable look.
I should're blown the doors off that damnable tur-
bolift when I had the chance. The contemptible thing
opened again behind Captain Kirk. Presuming it would
be Mr. Spock, the captain didn't turn soon enough.
"Phasers down! Don't move, Captain." The form
was Vulcan, but not Spock. Perren held his own
phaser square at the captain's spine. He reached
around and pulled Kirk's phaser away from him, put it
on the floor, and kicked it down the gangway where
nobody could reach it. "Now yours, Commander."
My glance connected briefly with the captain, but
there was nothing I could do. Perten was unpredict-
able, I'd seen that for certain. The captain's face grew
rosy with anger. He didn't like being caught off
guard--another thing we had in common. I lowered my weapon.
"Down here," Perren instructed.
Until I could think of something better, I did as he
instructed. Soon, both weapons were lying down the
gangway, out of reach.
"Now move over there, Captain Kirk."
The captain stiffly obeyed, but ! noticed his true
nature remained unsmudged he made sure he was
standing between that phaser and me.
"That's right," Mornay spoke now. Her voice
seemed strange after all the fluxes of victory and
defeat that had passed the bridge in the last few
minutes. The weird grin was gone, though. Her
transwarp mechanism was out of commission for quite
a while. Isolation fields couldn't just be pulled down
overnight. "My turn again, isn't it? I'm not giving up.
I'll get away." She tapped her graying temple. "It's all
up here. And you'll never interfere again, any of you.
Perren," she said, her tone rising, "for the good of the
galaxy... kill them."
Vulcan or not, he was quite liable to do it. He'd let
us go once before, and we'd returned to haunt him.
The horrifying thought arose that Mornay might in-
deed know him much better than Sarda did, and might
have more control over him than we guessed. No time for analyses.
Perren hesitated, but it wasn't the kind of hesitancy
that gave me any confidence. He leveled the phaser on
Captain Kirk.
Suddenly I said, "No." I stepped past the captain,