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“Look,” Gomez had finally said, exasperated, “the captain wants you on the bridge. And I think he’s right. Suppose something does go wrong? We’ll need you up here, in case that ship proves to be a danger to the Intarians.”

  When even that logic failed to placate the chief security officer, Gomez had added, “That’s an order, Lieutenant Commander.”

  She disliked pulling rank, especially here, with this crew, where at times it seemed so unnecessary. They had worked together long enough that everyone knew what to do and usually didn’t need to be told. She especially disliked having to do it with Corsi, who was generally the one keeping all the rest of them on their toes with regards to regulations, protocol, and proper rank deportment. Corsi had stiffened, drawn herself up to her full and imposing height, fixed Gomez with an icy stare, replied, “Yes, Commander,” in a cold voice, and stalked off.

  Gomez wasn’t superstitious, but this was a bad way to start a mission. Her boots rang loudly as she stepped onto the transporter pad.

  “Core-Breach got you?” asked Duffy.

  “Kaboom,” she replied softly. He grinned a little, then looked away quickly. Too quickly. It would take more time than this to get used to each other again.

  Geordi, too, was smiling. She felt a trace of annoyance. She didn’t want La Forge to see any division in the ranks, any hint that she couldn’t take care of subordinates. She wished Gold hadn’t ordered him to accompany the away team. This ought to have been her mission.

  It was only now that she realized that 110 was missing. Her dark brows drew together in a frown. “Where is—”

  The door hissed open. 110 stood there for a moment, looking around as if lost. Gomez’s vexation with Geordi evaporated. Damn it, 110 seemed so very tiny, so very fragile in his envirosuit. So … alone. There was something very strange to her about seeing a single Bynar, something wrong about it. Like watching a Vulcan laugh at a joke. That wasn’t the way this culture was meant to be.

  Were they pushing him too hard? Was 110 really ready for another assignment, without a chance to properly mourn and reconnect with his people?

  Hesitantly at first, then with more determination, 110 moved into the room. He clambered onto the transporter pad and craned his neck to look up, first at La Forge and then Gomez, with unreadable dark eyes.

  “We—I—apologize for being late, Commander.”

  “Don’t worry about it, 110,” said Gomez, with more warmth than she had intended to show.

  She looked up at Wong, who was awaiting their order to transport.

  “Energize,” said Gomez.

  … Jaldark …?

  They materialized in hell.

  The command center looked like a torture chamber to a horrified Duffy. It was a huge, domed area, but there was no skylight letting in the softening light of the stars. The area was completely enclosed. There appeared to be no exits. All was metal, heavy and cumbersome-looking. Everything seemed the same—the arching ceiling, the consoles, the walls. What little light there was was red and eerie, casting a pulsing, bloody hue over the alien equipment and the macabre centerpiece of the disturbing scene.

  For, in the center of the room, its decaying limbs splayed at an odd angle, a corpse was strapped into a chair.

  “So it did have a crew,” said La Forge softly, sadly.

  “Or at least a pilot,” said Gomez.

  Duffy admired the calmness of her voice. Sometimes it was hard to believe this was the same big-eyed girl who’d spilled hot chocolate all over Captain Picard just a few short years ago. But, of course, she wasn’t really the same. She had changed, just as he had, in the intervening decade or so.

  Gomez stepped forward and shone her wristlamp over the humanoid body.

  La Forge and Duffy stepped beside her. Duffy began to take tricorder readings.

  “As Lieutenant La Forge reported earlier, the atmosphere in here is perfectly breathable,” he said to whoever was listening. “It never shut down after the pilot’s death. That’s why the body’s rotting.”

  “Let’s not take our suits off just yet, shall we?” said La Forge. Faulwell and 110, less interested in the dead body than in the computer that might be coaxed to yield information, stepped over to the consoles and began to analyze them. They spoke together in low voices, Faulwell occasionally bending over to hear 110 better. They seemed to be having a hard time figuring out where to begin. For the first time in a while, Duffy heard the oddly musical sound of the Bynar language, as 110 adjusted the blinking buffer he always kept at his side. Duffy wondered why 110 was talking in his native tongue. Could he simply have forgotten there was no one here who could understand him?

  La Forge tapped his combadge. “La Forge to da Vinci.”

  “Go ahead, La Forge,” came Gold’s voice.

  “It appears there was a crew on this vessel, Captain,” La Forge continued. Duffy examined his tricorder as he spoke. Out of the corner of his eye, Duffy saw something on the floor, and directed his tricorder at it.

  “A single pilot,” said La Forge. “Humanoid. It appears to be female.”

  “Injured in the crash?”

  “Negative. It looks as though she was strapped into the seat. Hard to say how long she’s been dead. Long enough for decay to set in.” La Forge stepped closer to the corpse, his face almost touching that of the dead pilot. “No obvious trauma.”

  Duffy knelt and regarded the piece of equipment on the floor. According to his readings, it was the alien equivalent of a tricorder. Gingerly, he reached to pick it up. It was about the size of an old-style tricorder, and weighed about as much. They could take this back to the ship and analyze it while Faulwell and 110 continued to work on the computer here.

  He glanced over at the linguist and the Bynar, and frowned to himself. 110 seemed to be having a hard time cracking the ship’s computer, and Faulwell was looking a tad impatient. I’m sure it would be much faster if 111 was still with us, Duffy thought. Although even a single Bynar is usually several times faster than any human in accessing a computer.

  “No, wait,” said Gomez. She was squatting on the other side of the humanoid in the chair, examining the fastenings. “Look at this, Commander.”

  Both Duffy and La Forge moved to shine their wrist-lamps where Gomez had indicated. La Forge inhaled swiftly, but otherwise gave no indication of how startled he must be. Duffy gaped, seasoned Starfleet officer though he was.

  “Correction, Captain Gold,” Geordi said. “The pilot appears to be impaled upon the chair.”

  That got Bart’s attention. His head whipped around, and he gazed, frowning, at the corpse in the chair. Leaving the Bynar alone for the moment with the conundrum of the computer that would not yield its information, he strode quickly over to the rest of the team.

  “Geez, will you look at that? You’re right,” he said, distaste in his voice. As rigor mortis had set in, the arms had pulled back from the metal of the chair. Three spikes extended from the chair deep into the pilot’s arms. “Do you think this was some kind of torture device?”

  Gomez shook her dark head, recovering her composure quickly. “I don’t know. And we shouldn’t make assumptions without all the data,” she said. “Captain, I think we should transport this pilot to sickbay and have Dr. Lense perform a complete autopsy.” Her eyes flickered to 110. “And 110 seems to be having a tough time figuring out this computer.”

  “What?” Gold’s voice was incredulous. “And Earth is having a tough time spinning.”

  “He’s doing the best he can,” said Bart, almost as if in defense. “It’s still hard for him, by himself.”

  “I’ll send over Pattie and Ina to lend him a hand. Or leg, as the case may be. The rest of you, keep examining that ship. I’ll have the pilot beamed over and I’ll let you know when Lense learns anything.”

  “Aye, sir.” La Forge, Gomez, Duffy, and Abromowitz stepped back from the chair. The figure shimmered, then dematerialized.

  A terrible sound rent the air, a high-pitched scream of agony
mixed with an ear-splitting mechanical hum. As one, they whirled to behold 110, his tiny body arched in agony, screaming as his body shuddered and writhed. Blue light crackled around his small frame, enveloping the Bynar and the console on which his delicate fingers were placed. He was caught, writhing, unable to break free. Unable to do anything but cry out.

  His crewmembers rushed forward. Before they could get to him, a final burst of energy lifted 110 up into the air and hurled him across the room. He slammed into a bulkhead, and Duffy heard an audible crack as the Bynar tumbled, limp, to the deck. The buffer lay beside him, blinking wildly.

  Faulwell was the first to reach him, but by then Gomez was already saying, “Medical emergency! Lock onto 110 and get him to sickbay now!”

  Even as 110 shimmered and vanished, Duffy felt the ship shudder. The light changed from murky red to bright yellow.

  “It’s powering up!” Duffy cried, yelling to be heard above the sudden rumbling that filled the control room.

  Gomez raced back to the chair and began searching for a control panel. “There’s nothing here!” she yelled.

  The ship lurched violently. All of them lost their balance and fell heavily to the metal deck. The vessel heaved and bucked, then appeared to move forward.

  There was no screen, no way to see what was happening outside this womblike single room. How had the pilot been able to navigate?

  “Gold to away team. I’m getting everyone the hell out of there.”

  “What’s happening?” demanded La Forge.

  “That ship just woke up, and it’s trampling all over downtown. Prepare to beam aboard.”

  They all appeared on the bridge. Duffy materialized directly in front of a furious Corsi. She towered over him, her face red with anger, and hissed, “Look!”

  She pointed angrily at the screen. Duffy stared. His captain hadn’t exaggerated. The ship filled the screen. Earlier, they had wondered what function the four protrusions on the otherwise sleek ship might have performed. Now, they saw those strange spikes, seemingly so awkward, in action. They served the vessel as legs, moving clumsily but effectively across the wreckage that had once been a thriving, peaceful city. Thank God there had been time for an evacuation, or by now thousands would probably be dead.

  “It looks like it’s … walking,” said Bart with faint disgust.

  “It is,” said Gold grimly. “And I think there’s an Intarian ordinance against unleashed ships walking around down-town. Try to make contact one more time, Mr. Wong, then, Mack, it’s your turn.”

  Wong shook his head. “No response, sir. I don’t think it even heard us.”

  Gold sighed. “I hate having to do this. God knows what we’ll lose. Lieutenant Mack, target weapons systems and fire at will.”

  “Sir, I’m unable to detect any weapons systems at all,” replied Mack in his deep, rich voice, taut now with tension.

  “Let me see that,” snapped Corsi, shoving Mack out of the way. Her fingers flew over the console, her body tense and focused on the task at hand. Nobody could concentrate like “Core-Breach.” Finally, she looked up, confusion and irritation on her face.

  “Mack’s right. It’s impossible to distinguish weapons from propulsion from anything else.”

  “Maybe it’s unarmed,” suggested Abromowitz. “Maybe the people who built it are nonviolent. It could have crashed accidentally.”

  “You saw what they did to that pilot,” said Faulwell with unusual vehemence. “That sure wasn’t nonviolent.”

  Duffy quickly took his seat again. Gold leaned forward, resting his head on one hand. He rubbed a finger along his chin as he considered the options. “Let’s find out. Corsi, fire a warning shot.”

  On the screen, their phaser blast appeared angry and red. The ship stopped dead in its tracks. Looking unsettlingly like a dog sitting and begging, its stern section dropped suddenly and it lifted its upper two “arms.” Blue-black balls of energy exploded forth and screamed out of the atmosphere, striking the da Vinci. The ship shuddered with the impact.

  “Shields down thirty-three percent,” said Wong.

  “It’s got weapons,” La Forge commented.

  “And it’s not very nonviolent,” said Gold. “We’ve got to disable it. Corsi, it’s all yours.”

  Corsi’s lips thinned. Inwardly, Duffy cringed. He liked to avoid Corsi whenever possible, because it seemed to him that whatever he said or did was exactly the wrong thing. She was utterly intent upon the task at hand, and her blue eyes were like ice now. He was very glad he was not the object of such intense concentration.

  Corsi fired. And fired again. And again. Red phaser energy shot through space. Despite her fear for those she was charged to protect and her natural passion, she knew what her captain wanted. For some reason, they had been unable to locate the weapons systems—indeed, any specific system—on the vessel. Now that it had fired on them, however, their targets were clear: the two major appendages. Corsi concentrated her fire on those.

  To everyone’s astonishment, the heavy attack seemed to have little to no effect. The ship merely resumed its bizarre squatting position, targeted the da Vinci with deadly accuracy, and returned fire. The Federation vessel rocked violently. The impact knocked Duffy out of his chair, and he fell heavily for the second time that day. He was bruised and bloody, and something felt wrong in his hand. Once this was over, he’d have to go see Lense.

  “Ineffective, sir,” said Corsi in a low, angry voice, stating the obvious. She continued to fire on the ship’s appendages.

  “Evasive maneuvers. Transfer all power to the forward shields. Let’s take its hits here. Try different parts of the hull before we back off,” said Gold. “Nothing’s completely invulnerable.” But he didn’t sound too certain.

  Now Corsi directed the da Vinci’s phasers randomly. She attacked the rear appendages, the bow, the stern. At one point, when the ship raised itself again to fire, she got a clear volley in at its underside.

  It stumbled. One spiky leg waved frantically.

  “That’s the spot, Corsi!” cried Gold.

  Heartened, Duffy leaned forward as Corsi fired again. The ship collapsed. It clambered to its “feet,” but Corsi knew where to aim now and was merciless. After five more rounds, the ship teetered for a moment, fell heavily, and lay still.

  Silence on the bridge. The ship was motionless; they had disabled it. Duffy let out his breath. He hadn’t been aware he’d been holding it. All at once, he became conscious again of the alien piece of equipment he’d been clutching in a death grip.

  “Captain,” he said, “I recovered this from the vessel. I think it’s a tricorder of some kind. We may not have been able to access the main computer, but this might have something on it worth knowing.”

  Gold’s eyes lit up. He and Geordi exchanged looks, and La Forge grinned.

  “Duff-Man found a key,” said La Forge with a trace of pride. After all, Duffy had been under his command at one time. Duffy grinned back.

  “La Forge, you and Faulwell start trying to figure out how to use this key. Nice work, Duffy.”

  “Thank you, Captain.” It made the terrible pain in his hand worth it.

  “Permission to go to sickbay to check on 110,” said Gomez.

  “Granted,” said Gold. “You two,” he said to Faulwell and La Forge, “get on this tricorder immediately. Now,” he continued, rising and walking down to the screen, “little ship, are you really disabled, or do you still have a trick or two up your sleeve?”

  Duffy held his injured hand and watched Gomez leave. He knew why she was going, and he understood. It wouldn’t kill him to wait until she’d finished with 110 to get his injury treated.

  Dr. Elizabeth Lense hated this part of the mission. She’d much rather be attending her other “patient.” The dead one, lying on a biobed, awaiting examination with the patience of, well, the dead. But 110 needed her attention now.

  The Bynar was spasming on the bed, his eyes rolling back and forth underneath tightly sh
ut lids. He wasn’t breathing. Lense went into automatic pilot, making the right judgment calls and movements without even thinking about them. Get him breathing. Stabilize the erratic heartbeat. Monitor brain-wave activity. Her hands flew over the small, prostrate figure, attaching monitors, sensors, hypospraying concentrates of this and that.

  At that moment, the ship rocked violently. It would appear as if the hitherto dormant ship had been awakened. Lense swore softly under her breath. Sickbay lost power momentarily, and the emergency backup mechanisms kicked in.

  She had a brief flashback to a similar scene aboard the Lexington in the middle of a battle. Voices were crying out her name, shrieking in agony, begging for help. There had literally been blood almost everywhere in sickbay. Patients with injuries from fractured skulls to severed limbs to sucking chest wounds filled sickbay and overflowed into the corridor. There hadn’t even been the chance to set up the shuttlebays to handle the sheer volume of wounded. The stench of so much blood had been almost unbearable.

  Eighteen of the dead and injured had been her own staff. She and the EMH, an efficient but cold and sarcastic image, had been the only ones able to treat the wounded.

  She remembered Jenson, dying in her arms even as she buried her hands almost to the wrist in his wound, trying to hold closed a slippery, severed artery with her fingers because she couldn’t reach her tools. And Galloway, who kept refusing treatment in order to bring in others more gravely injured than she, breathing her last quietly in a corner, when she couldn’t bring in any more.

  Lense had been able to save about a quarter of them. One lousy quarter of the screaming, bloody people who had begged her for help, pleaded with her to ease their torment.

  Damn it. Damn it all to hell.

  “Stay with me, 110,” she whispered, although she knew the Bynar could not hear her. She couldn’t treat him when the ship was this chaotic. The best she could do was make sure he didn’t fall off the bed, and that the pieces of medical equipment strapped to his little body stayed put.

  For what seemed like an eternity, the ship shuddered under attack. Finally, it appeared that the worst was over. The power surged back on.