As Harriman made his way back over to port, he drew the disruptor he had picked up from beside the dead body of the Romulan engineer. He verified its setting, then climbed back up onto the walkway and readied himself in front of the emergency access panel. As he waited to take action, though, his thoughts returned again to Amina, just as they had down in the transporter room. And as he had done then, he pushed those thoughts away, knowing that they would not serve him right now.
He counted down to twenty, and then to ten, and then to five. He tensed his muscles as he awaited the explosion, not wanting to move before his diversion manifested itself. He counted to three, two, one, and as though he had willed the detonation himself, the phaser overloaded.
Harriman surged forward at the sound of the blast, driving his shoulder against the knockout panel and pushing forward onto the bridge. The explosion seemed to occur in two places at once, both behind him, in the turboshaft, and to his right, in the lift. He hit the deck and rolled, coming up onto one knee with the disruptor held out before him. Ignoring the effects of the phaser blowing up, he assessed the situation as quickly as he could. He saw a figure pulling itself up from beneath a console at the center of the bridge. Harriman immediately put the officer in his sights, but he’d expected to find two Romulans here and—
Something shifted position on the far side of the bridge. Harriman dropped at once to the deck and crawled behind the nearest console, not waiting to find out what had moved. Above him, the air suddenly sizzled as disruptor fire roared past and hammered into a station behind him. He brought his own weapon up and fired it around the corner of the console, aiming not in the direction from which the disruptor shots had come, but toward the Romulan he had seen in the center of the bridge. He heard the body fall to the deck just before more disruptor shots screamed out, this time striking the front of the console providing him cover.
Something flickered off to Harriman’s right, and he glanced that way to see a series of small flames dancing in the starboard turbolift. One of the two doors had been blown completely off and now lay on the deck, he saw, while the other still stood, but had been badly bent and scarred. When the disruptor fire stopped a moment later, it left the crackle of the fire as the only sound on the bridge.
Harriman peered around at his immediate environs, looking for anything he could use to his advantage. Cautiously, he rose onto his knees and peeked over the edge of the console. Keeping his head low enough that it would not become visible from the other side, he read the Romulan markings on the panel to see which ship’s system it operated: environmental control. He considered several options, then reached up and worked some touchpads.
The lighting went out. The fire in the turbolift sent an eerie, orange glow flickering across the bridge. The numerous consoles threw long, wavering shadows along the deck and against the bulkheads.
Harriman waited, listening fixedly for the slightest sound of movement. He let a full minute pass before he pulled the beacon from his belt. Covering the beam, he activated it, then tossed it spinning away from him with a flick of the wrist. The disruptor fire began almost at once, blasting in the direction of the beacon. Staying low, Harriman emerged from behind the console on the other side. In the semidarkness, the point from which the disruptor was being fired made itself plain. Harriman raised his own weapon and pressed the trigger. Blue light streamed across the bridge, briefly illuminating the face of the Romulan as it struck him.
Both disruptors quieted. Not taking any unnecessary risks, Harriman jumped back behind the console and consulted his tricorder. In seconds, he had confirmed that neither of the two Romulans on the bridge any longer posed a threat.
Harriman stood up and reached to the environmental controls, bringing the light back up. He walked the perimeter of the bridge, over to the Romulan he had just fired upon. The man lay on his side, one arm stretching out above his head, the gray sash of his uniform distinguishing him as a technical specialist. His disruptor sat on the deck a few centimeters from his open hand. Harriman reached down and picked it up.
Walking to the center of the bridge, he regarded the first Romulan he had shot. The man lay prone on the deck, but Harriman did not need to see his face to recognize him. Small in stature, and with the royal purple of his uniform indicating his high position within the Imperial Fleet, Admiral Aventeer Vokar seemed to exude an aura of authority even now.
Starfleet Command deemed Vokar one of the most dangerous people in the Romulan Star Empire, a prime architect of the present lust for war with the Federation. Harriman did not entirely agree with that assessment: he considered the admiral to be themost dangerous Romulan. In addition to Vokar’s staunch conviction in the preeminence of his people, he constantly sought the defeat of all those he considered inferior—the Federation, the Klingons, and others—and he had allies in the Senate, the ear of the praetor, and command of all Romulan space forces.
Harriman peered down at Vokar, stunned into unconsciousness. The admiral had a spanner in his hand, and had obviously been working to restore helm control to the bridge. Harriman peered at the flight-control readouts and verified that Tomedremained at speed and on course. He saw a disruptor sitting atop the helm panel.
He contemplated his own disruptor, and visualized pressing its energy emitter against Vokar’s temple. He recalled his first encounter with the admiral, when Vokar had launched unprovoked attacks on Dakotaand Hunley.He had killed Captain Linneus and dozens of others, and would have captured and tortured the rest of the crews had he not been stopped. Surely those actions alone justified Vokar’s death, even all these years later—perhaps especiallyafter all these years; the admiral had lived free for three decades after committing multiple murders. There hadn’t even been any ongoing hostilities between the Federation and the Empire to qualify him as a war criminal; Vokar was simply a criminal.
Anger grew within Harriman as he remembered that terrible time aboard Hunley.Vokar’s death right now would not only avenge all of those he had killed and maimed, both back then and in other incidents, but it would also limit the risk of notkilling him. If Harriman permitted Vokar to live, there would always be the threat that he would reveal the mission. Starfleet special ops would take measures against that, of course, but the threat would exist as long as Vokar remained alive.
He adjusted the setting on his disruptor, then squatted beside the admiral and pushed the weapon against the back of his head. Beads of sweat formed on Harriman’s skin. The weight of the disruptor felt right in his hand.
He did not press the trigger.
For all of the evil Vokar had perpetrated, Harriman could not kill him in cold blood. He had not done so all those years ago aboard Daami,and he would not do so now. But he would do everything he could to see the admiral imprisoned for the rest of his life.
Harriman stood up and found the tactical console, intending to scan the interior of the ship. On the readout, though, he saw that an attempt had been made to engage Tomed’s self-destruct. Vokar had evidently made some progress with it, as some of the power couplings Harriman had himself rerouted to the containment field had now been isolated and cut off. As a result, containment would now fail sooner, but fortunately not before the mission had been completed.
He operated the ship’s internal sensors, and read four life signs, all Romulan: two here on the bridge, and the two Commander Gravenor had stunned down near the maintenance junction. Including the engineer Harriman had killed, that left one unaccounted for. He pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. “Harriman to Gravenor,” he said, choosing not to use the Romulan names they’d assigned themselves.