“Just winded,” Rriarr said, his esses rendered slightly sibilant by his prominent canines. The Caitian’s helmet visor was raised, revealing golden, vertical-pupiled eyes that probably rivaled the night-vision system built into the stealth suits. “But if my tail weren’t tucked into this damned suit, I suspect there’d be another big chunk missing from it after that little dustup. Give me a second to catch my breath.”
Keru spoke into the mouthpiece in his helmet. “Commander Vale, how goes it?”
“Not good,”came the exec’s response. “We got ambushed in one of the corridors. They sliced Denken up pretty badly. I’m putting a field dressing on him now, but if we don’t get him back toTitan soon, I’m afraid he’s going to lose the arm.”
Stifling a curse, Keru let out his breath in a whoosh. “Sortollo, report.”
“We’re holding steady up here, but the Romulan skimmers have definitely arrived. Right now, they’re under heavy fire from escapees in the prison’s outer perimeter. But it’s only a matter of time before one or more of the skimmers makes for the roof you used to get inside.”
“I’m getting intel fromTitan that confirms this,”Bolaji said, breaking in. “I’d say we’ve got five minutes, maybe less.”She paused for a moment, then came back on, her voice sounding strained. “Commander Keru, you’re positioned closest to Tuvok. My scans show he’s located two chambers past you, but something strange is going on there. We’ve got a group of life signs approaching him, heavily armed.”She paused again, and Keru thought he heard a moan. “They’re coming up from underground. I’m feeding you the data now.”
Keru saw a rough electronic map flashing on one section of his helmet’s faceplate, and he turned to Rriarr. “Let’s go get him. Double time.” Into his mouthpiece, he said, “Commander, get Denken back to the Handy.Rriarr and I are going in after Tuvok now.”
In the corridors leading away from the first chamber, Keru and Rriarr found only unconscious or dead Reman prisoners and Romulan guards. As they neared the entrance to the second chamber, Keru felt his already-elevated adrenaline levels beginning to peak. I’m probably going to need anesthezine to get to sleep tonight,he thought. Assuming I manage to make it back toTitan.
Weapons at the ready, the pair burst into the final darkened room, firing at the first Reman prisoners that appeared on their night-vision displays. As the rioters began to fall under their phaser barrage, Keru saw a huge, battle-scarred Reman standing beside a shabbily dressed, dark-skinned Romulan on the far side of the ragtag cluster of escapees. Keru also quickly gathered from the Romulan’s actions and appearance that he was working with the Remans, a fellow prisoner rather than a captured prison guard.
“Hold fire!” Keru said to Rriarr as they both sought cover behind a stone pillar.
He shouted over the return fire, and the aggressive shouts of the Remans. “Commander Tuvok?”
A moment later, the Remans quit firing. “Who are you?” The voice that filled the sudden silence was shaky and hoarse, but clearly had not come from a gravel-throated Reman.
Still hunkering behind the pillar beside Rriarr, Keru quickly considered his options. No one at the prison knew that they were Starfleet officers, but to gain Tuvok’s cooperation, he knew he was going to have to reveal that fact. He hoped that decision wouldn’t come back to haunt him.
“I’m Lieutenant Commander Ranul Keru, U.S.S. Titan,”he said. “I’m here to extract you, and I’m running out of time.”
“How do we know you aren’t Romulans?”
Keru realized that even if he and Rriarr had been seen at all, they wouldn’t have looked like Starfleet officers, thanks to their stealth suits. He could think of but one way to prove his identity. He reached into a flap on his stealth suit’s equipment belt and plucked out a small backup transceiver unit. The rectangular, silver-colored device was about the size of his thumb, and for discretion’s sake lacked the distinctive chevron-shape of standard Starfleet combadges; but a Starfleet intelligence operative like Tuvok would surely recognize it for what it was.
“I’m tossing you my communicator,” Keru said. He threw it in the direction of the group of escapees, and was gratified that he hadn’t heard the small device clatter to the hard floor. Someone caught it.“You can use it to contact our personnel in orbit, or on the surface.”
“Yhaim hraen teidr!”This voice clearly belonged to a Reman. Peeking from behind the pillar, Keru saw that the speaker was the large Reman who stood beside Tuvok. The quintet of remaining Remans lowered their weapons as one, apparently in response to their leader’s order. Some of them looked less than happy about it, though Reman facial expressions were hard to fathom, with or without night-vision gear.
Keru heard the man whom he assumed to be Tuvok speaking to the large Reman at his side, but couldn’t clearly parse what was being said, even with his helmet’s auditory enhancers. Finally, the Vulcan approached. He was holding the combadge.
“I am Commander Tuvok,” he said. “I will go with you, Commander Keru. But I must insist that those who assisted me in my escape accompany—”
Tuvok was interrupted as the wall exploded inward behind him, showering the room with stone, metal, and dirt. The force of the explosion blew even the sturdiest of the Remans off their feet, and cracked the column that Keru and Rriarr had been using as cover. Keru felt something heavy fall on him, and a bright nimbus of pain flared in his left hip and leg.
Fighting to keep himself from blacking out, Keru sat up and pushed at the heavy chunk of masonry that was pinning him down. A disruptor blast skipped off his helmet; he saw a brilliant flash just before his internal faceplate displays went abruptly dark.
Dropping his head back down to make himself less of a target, Keru groped in the darkness for his again-missing phaser. Effectively blinded and pinned, he could hear a cacophony of shouts and cries in Romulan, all of them coming from the direction of the blast.
Then he felt a gloved hand pressing down against his. “Stay still, Commander,” Rriarr said. “They’ve got us pinned down good.” With his other hand, Keru lifted his helmet’s faceplate. Despite the darkness, he saw the gleaming golden eyes of his subordinate officer, who was on his belly to stay out of the line of fire. A flash of disruptor fire revealed the dirt and dust that clouded the air and dusted Rriarr’s deactivated stealth suit.
As the seconds ticked slowly by, the gabble of Romulan voices seemed to be growing steadily fainter. Rriarr cautiously poked his head up, then turned to Keru.
“Whoever they were, they’re gone now.”
“Good. Now get this stuff off me,” Keru said, pushing at the heavy chunks of shattered stone and duraplast. Rriarr strained with him in vain, then cast his bright eyes past the debris. Though Keru couldn’t see it, he could hear someone moving on the other side of the pile of debris that still pinned him down.
Keru groaned in pain as the rubble shifted and fell away from his body. Though he could see only the silhouette of his rescuer, Keru realized who it was: the hulking, battle-scarred Reman who had stood at Tuvok’s side. Limned in the blaze of a searchlight whose beam leaked in through a shattered exterior wall, the Reman was covered in dirt, sweat, and green blood, some of which had to be his own.
The Reman reached for Keru’s hand, helping him up. “They took Tuvok,” he said.
“Who?” Keru winced as another jagged lightning bolt of pain shot down his left leg. He saw Rriarr checking the room carefully, his weapon in his gloved hand.
“Other Remans. Ten of them, maybe more. They weren’t prisoners.”
Rriarr was now nearing the portion of the wall that had exploded inward. “There’s a tunnel here, Commander. Looks old. I think they—” He stopped and listened, then looked back at Keru. “Commander, is your comm working?”