Nothing moved in the corridor but the swells of smoke and dust. As the billows waned, the bits of debris settling, a shape became visible on the deck: a boot, recognizable as a component of a Romulan Imperial Fleet uniform. It was empty.
His phaser still held out before him, Harriman pushed away from the bulkhead and walked slowly forward. He stepped past the boot, wading through the thinning clouds. A stockinged foot appeared, and as Harriman squatted down beside it, the rest of the body to which it belonged appeared too. Thrown onto her back, a Romulan woman—an engineer, according to the blue sash adorning her uniform—stared unseeing at the ceiling of the corridor. A chunk of flesh had been torn from the side of her face, a wide trail of green blood reaching down from the wound to where it had pooled on the deck. On her right side, a section of the door had cut through the upper portion of her torso, from front to back. Patches of her sallow skin showed through her shredded uniform. Blood had splattered everywhere.
A hollow feeling twisted through Harriman’s gut. This wasn’t supposed to happen,he thought, echoing his words to Sulu after the unexpected injuries to the crew of Ad Astra—and the probably mortal wounds to his father. Harriman had devised this plan, and had then fought—with his father and others—for its particulars. The death of a Romulan officer—or even the deaths of many—would not impact the outcome of the mission at all, but Harriman had contrived to avoid killing. What morality would there be, he had argued, in killing to avoid war? The certain murder of one could not be mitigated by the anticipated deaths of billions.
He reached forward and rested the tips of two fingers against the neck of the woman. He felt no pulse, the vital throbbing of her heart—two hundred forty beats per minute for the average Romulan—now stilled. I’m sorry,he thought.
But he had no time to mourn, he knew. He could not reverse what had happened, but he could try to make sure that the price that had been paid actually obtained something of value. He had to complete the mission.
Harriman peered around the corridor, the dust and smoke now reduced to a haze. A couple of meters beyond the Romulan engineer, he saw what he had been looking for, resting in the right angle formed by the bulkhead and the deck: a disruptor, which the woman had obviously been carrying. He stood up and walked over to it. He retrieved the weapon and verified that it still functioned, then hooked it onto his uniform belt.
Allowing himself a final moment of anguish, Harriman looked back down at the dead woman. Then he let the emotion go, and turned toward a future he still hoped to shape for the better. But with or without his efforts, whether he succeeded or failed, he knew that future would arrive very soon.
Harriman marched away, hurrying through the corridors of the Romulan flagship, heading for Tomed’s bridge.
While he awaited word from Subcommander Linavil and Lieutenant Elvia, Vokar continued his attempts to wrest control of his vessel’s direction and speed from the intruders. Lying on his back beneath the helm, he disconnected a series of fiber-optic lines and rerouted them to a different network link. He affixed them using a spanner, then rolled clear of the console and rose up onto his feet. Reaching over to the helm panel, he touched a control, but it remained dark and emitted an atonal buzz, signifying its inactive status. He tapped another touchpad, which flashed red and beeped. “Can you read that?” he asked Lieutenant Akeev.
“Yes, sir,” Akeev replied, checking the readouts at his station. “You’ve bypassed one of the downed relays.” The science officer looked up and faced Vokar across the bridge. “You’re one step closer, Admiral.”
One step closer,Vokar thought bitterly. One step closer to regaining control ofmy vessel.If the Federation criminals could be captured, he would tear the flesh from their bones himself. And if Harriman was among the group of intruders, Vokar would do worse than that.
“Admiral,” Akeev called urgently. “Sensors are detecting weapons fire on the lower engineering deck…outside port maintenance connector forty-seven.” He worked his panel, obviously seeking more information. His controls blinked and chirped, and Vokar could see text advancing across his display. “A single disruptor, it appears.”
“Yes,” Vokar said quietly, though he understood that nothing guaranteed that the weapon had been fired by one of Tomed’s crew. He reached across the helm and pressed a control to open a comm channel. “Vokar to—” A few minutes ago, he had ordered Elvia to transporter room three—to deal with the intruder he had managed to confine there—leaving the other two engineers at the maintenance connector. “Vokar to T’Sil,” he said.
There was no response. On the bridge, the reverberation of the warp drive underscored the lack of voices. Vokar waited, his confidence in the engineering team dwindling, and his anger with the intruders escalating, with each second that passed. At last, he tried again.
“Vokar to T’Sil,” he repeated. “Vokar to Valin.” He waited again, and then looked to Akeev. “Are they receiving me?”
The science officer worked his panel once more. “They are receiving you, Admiral,” he said. “The comm channels are open. They’re just not responding.”
Vokar knew the question he had to ask next, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer. “Are there life signs down there?”
“Scanning,” Akeev said haltingly, a sign that he too dreaded what the sensors might reveal. But instead of determining whether or not T’Sil and Valin were still alive, he reported something else. “I’m picking up more weapons fire, this time in transporter room three.”
“A disruptor?” Vokar wanted to know.
“No,” Akeev said. “A Starfleet phaser…and there’s been an explosion.” Then, not waiting for Vokar’s order, he said, “Scanning for life signs.”
But Vokar already knew what had happened: Tomed’s remaining crew of six had been halved, Elvia, T’Sil, and Valin cut down by Federation operatives—by Federation savages.A moment later, Akeev confirmed at least part of that conclusion.
“I read no life signs in or around transporter room three,” he said. His voice seemed mixed with both fear and anger.
Vokar stood in the middle of Tomed’s bridge and considered his options. He reviewed everything he knew about the situation, analyzed all of the variables, worked through the best-and worst-case scenarios—and found that few differences separated the two. Given the current circumstances, he could reach only one end.
On the navigation console, a light began to blink yellow. Vokar stepped over to the station and examined the indicator. “Where’s Linavil?” he asked at once.
It took Akeev only a moment to respond. “The subcommander’s almost reached the shuttle compartment.”
Vokar brought the meaty side of his fist down on a touchpad to open a comm channel. “Vokar to Linavil,” he said, already moving his hands to work other controls.
“This is Linavil,”came the immediate response.
“Somebody’s opening the shuttle-compartment doors,” he told her. “I’m closing them now and—” The doors would not respond to the commands he sent to them. “They won’t close,” he said. “I’m going to try to drop the forcefield.” He operated the console. “It worked,” he said, actually surprised that something aboard Tomedhad functioned as it should. “Restore it from your end when you get there, Subcommander. You have to reach a shuttle and get a message out. And if the comm systems have been damaged, then take a shuttle and deliver word of what’s happened in person.”
“Yes, Admiral,”Linavil said.
“Vokar out.” He closed the channel with a touch, then peered up at the main viewscreen. Stars shot past Tomedas it hurtled through space. Somewhere ahead lay the Neutral Zone, and beyond it, Federation space. If Linavil could send a message out, if she could get to one of the shuttles before the intruders had incapacitated all of their comm systems, one of the Romulan vessels patrolling the Zone might be able to intervene. But even if a ship could reach Tomedin time, its crew would likely not be able to do more than what Vokar had chosen to do right now.