“Come on,” she urged under her breath, watching as the Cardassians sped toward them. The shuttlepod was nearly in range. “Come on.”

Five, four…the shuttlepod drew closer, closer and she saw that its shields weren’t up and that was very, very good…three, two.

“Now!” Talma shouted. “Computer, nu-at, weedawa! Nave-zehlek, klamacha thes!Dooohchat!

And because Talma’s Vulcan wasimpeccable, the T’Pol’s shields snapped into place, her phasers locked on target, and the computer fired phasers. Full power.

And, at that exact moment, the shuttlepod accelerated straight for her on a collision course.

Chicken. Halak barreled toward the T’Pol.He’d just play chicken and see which of them blinked first.

“Because I don’t trust you, Burke,” he said, his smile vicious and just this side of truly malevolent. “Because I think you’re going to try to blow me out of the quadrant before the Cardassians do. Because that’s what Iwould do.”

An alarm screamed, and Halak’s eyes jerked left. Cardassian scouts and, damn, they were fast!

“Captain, here they come, here they come!” Halak shouted. At the same instant, he saw the phaser lock from the T’Pol.Read that her shields had snapped into place.

“Halak!” It was Garrett. “She’s got a lock! Get your shields up, get them up!”

“Shields! Taking evasive maneuvers!” Halak slammed his palm down upon his shield control as he brought the ship around in a tight, spiraling turn, port and aft. If there had been air, he imagined that he would hear it screaming past his window, feel the force of his acceleration flattening him into his seat, squeezing his chest. But his gravity was holding and so he felt nothing: saw only the dizzying stirring of the stars and ionized gases outside his window, the flickering beams of phasers licking past the ship.

Missed. But she’d fired again. Halak slid the shuttlepod Z-plus 50. Climbing, climbing…and where was she, where was the T’Pol?Halak’s eyes scrambled over his sensor displays. She ought to becoming around for another pass, leaping after him like a hound chasing a rabbit.

But no.Halak gawked. Scrubbed at his eyes to be sure. No, the T’Polwas headed in the opposite direction, toward the neutron star. Not after him, or the shuttlecraft. Probably thinking she could hide in the magnetic well, wait things out.

Then he saw something that made him bang his fists down upon his console in frustration. One Cardassian on T’Pol’s tail, but the other Cardassian was letting her go, at least for the moment.

Because you were so helpful, Burke, pointing us out.Halak punched in a channel. “Captain! The brown star! Make a run for it! Go, go, go!”

Without waiting to see what Garrett did, Halak jerked the shuttlepod around and bore down on the remaining Cardassian. Same game—his hand hovered over his phaser controls— we play the same damn game and let’s see if this Cardassian evenknows what a chicken is.

He managed to evade the first disruptor blast but not the second. For a split instant, the shuttlepod’s artificial gravity wavered, and Halak pitched forward, banging the point of his chin against the edge of his pilot’s console. Pain exploded along his jaw and shivered into his teeth. Blood filled his mouth, trickled down his throat, and he gagged. There was a sensation of spinning; the tiny craft whirling like a top…

I’m dead,thought Halak. The centrifugal force had him pinned in his chair, and he couldn’t move, but he didn’t think there was anything he could do anyway. I’m dead.

Then the gravity clicked back and Halak lurched forward, coughed out a spray of blood. Alarms screamed. With a vicious swipe, he silenced them. He knew how bad things were.

“Halak!” Garrett’s voice sizzled through static. Halak heard the thin high whine of a phaser discharge, then looked out his window and saw the space bloom around the Cardassian scout, watched as one of the Cardassian’s forward shields flared orange from a phaser hit. Instead of making a run for the brown star, Garrett had circled around and was trying to draw the Cardassians away from his ship. “Halak, answer me, damn it!”

“Here, Captain.” Halak coughed again, sponged blood from his jaw. The skin over his chin was split wide open and he was bleeding so much he could feel it pooling at his neck.

He toggled up his displays. “Shields fifty percent. And there’s something wrong with my engines. They’ve kicked out. I don’t understand, the disruptor blast wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t…”

Burke. Halak felt himself go cold. The way she hadn’t come after him. Somehow she’d rigged the engines so a phaser blast or a disruptor hit would take them off-line, would finish him. That’s why she’d only fired once.

But he had no time. He ground his teeth together. The Cardassians out there, angling around for another run, they’d finish him off, and he was out of time, there was no time, no time!

“Captain!” Halak grappled to bring the ship around. The shuttlepod was sluggish, the controls mushy, and Halak had the insane thought that he’d probably be better off getting out and pushing for all the maneuverability he had. “Captain, can you hear me? My navigational control’s shot! I’ve got nothing here! Do you copy? Captain? Captain?”

“Dead in space,” said Glemoor, his eyes taking in the scene from the bridge’s main viewscreen. He looked back at Bat-Levi. “Whoever’s on board that shuttlepod still has shields, but he won’t last another two, three passes.”

“Life signs? One of us?”

“We’re too far away. Too much interference.”

“So, nothing to lock onto, and no way to beam them out even if we could, what with that mess out there.” Bat-Levi’s jaw set. “Well, at least, we have an idea where the captain is. How’s the shuttlecraft?”

“I read minor damage to the aft hull. Shields are holding. The shock waves from those disruptor blasts are going to be tricky for the captain in terms of maneuverability, but as long as her axial stabilizers are functional she ought to be able to dodge them. She appears to be on course directly for us. She’s fine, for the moment.”

“Dammit, how finecan you be with a Cardassian disruptor pointed down your throat?” said Castillo.

“Anything, Mr. Bulast?” asked Bat-Levi, judging Castillo’s question to be rhetorical.

“Nothing, Commander. She’s not hailing, so she must believe we’ve left the area. Castillo’s right. If the Cardassian can’t see us, then she can’t either. Even if she knew we were here, I can’t imagine that she’d alert the Cardassian to our presence.”

“Well, we’ve got to do something!”Castillo blurted. His face was getting pink. “That’s the captainout there! Look, she’s trying to make a run for the star. Well, we’re here.What, we’re just going to wait and congratulate her if she makes it? We can’t just stand around and do nothing!”

Kodell had come to the bridge as soon as Glemoor had sighted the Cardassian bearing down on the fourth planet. (Bat-Levi thought it curious for him to be on the bridge at all; Kodell could just as easily handle his duties down below. But she found his presence reassuring, and then wondered if that’s what he’d had in mind.) Now he turned from his station and favored the ensign with a cool glance. “I’m sure the commander doesn’t require youto remind herthat something needs to be done, Ensign.”

Bat-Levi held up a hand—her bad one, as it happened, but she wasn’t feeling self-conscious at the moment. “No, it’s all right,” she murmured, her eyes scanning the main viewer and watching how the space around the shuttlecraft and Vulcan shuttlepod erupted in fiery blossoms of ignited gas and plasma. “I’m just trying to figure out how many orders I want to disobey in one day.”