Star Trek: The Next Generation - 119 - Armageddon's Arrow (26 page)

Then Kirsten Cruzen appeared from the shadows surrounding the central tower, dropping toward the deck behind the soldier and swinging her right leg. She caught the guard behind his knees, sweeping his legs out from under him and sending him crashing to the floor. Already moving, Cruzen rolled to her feet and kicked at her opponent’s head just as he was trying to regain his footing. She caught the lip of his helmet and snapped back his head, and with an audible grunt of pain, the guard fell once more to the deck. When he tried to get up again, another shot from Konya dropped him for good. Wasting no time, Cruzen sprinted to retrieve the guard’s fallen rifle. As though she had been handling such a weapon all her life, the security officer brought it to her shoulder and spun toward the exit, looking for the remaining Golvonek soldier.

“He’s still in here!” Chen said, having returned to the central control tower. Her hands moved in rapid fashion over the console. “All of the doors are still sealed!” She pressed another set of controls and the alarms stopped, plunging the room into a sudden, merciful silence except for the omnipresent thrum of the
Arrow
’s engines.

“Rennan, sweep left,” Cruzen called out. She moved away from Crusher and Chen, keeping her back to the curved bulkhead protecting this section of the
Arrow
’s primary weapon. Crusher watched Konya direct Harstad toward her and Chen before he moved to his left, with the two security officers implementing a rapid search of the immense room for their lone remaining adversary.

Konya, moving along the room’s far side, suddenly turned and waved frantically in Harstad’s direction. “Doctor!” he shouted, dropping his rifle and dashing across the open deck toward her. As he closed the distance between them, Crusher caught sight of something small and dark bouncing along the floor. Harstad saw it, too, and started running away just as Konya tackled her and pushed her down, sending them both sliding toward a nearby workstation.

“Get down!” Chen yelled, and Crusher felt the lieutenant grab her arm before yanking her toward the floor just as a white flash erupted in the middle of the room, accompanied by a deep resounding thump. She curled into a ball, closing her eyes to protect them against the flash, and over the sound of the blast, she heard bits of metal or some other substance spattering across the console above her head. When that faded, all that was left was someone crying out in pain, followed by more weapons fire from somewhere behind her.

“Doctor, are you all right?” she heard over the ringing in her ears, and she looked up to see Chen staring down at her and offering a hand.

Allowing the lieutenant to pull her to her feet, Crusher looked to where she had seen Harstad and Konya just before the explosion and gasped when her eyes fell on two prone figures lying on the far side of the central tower.

“No,” Chen whispered, taking off across the deck toward them. “Rennan! Doctor Harstad!”

Crusher followed, only partly worried about another explosion or being shot by the remaining Golvonek soldier, but she ignored that thought as she focused on Harstad and Konya. Reaching them first, Chen knelt between them, and as Crusher drew closer she saw that they both were moving, albeit slowly, and there was blood on both of their uniforms.

“Check Konya,” she heard Harstad say, and her pain was evident by the strain in her voice. Crusher noted the nasty gash on her right leg, which Chen was already attempting to treat. In contrast, Konya was in much worse shape. He lay on his side, his back covered with numerous bloody tears and cuts, confirming Crusher’s guess that he had borne the brunt of the blast while protecting Harstad with his body. Though he was conscious, his reaction was little more than a series of moans and slurred words she could not understand.

“I need my kit from the shuttle,” she snapped, unfastening her uniform tunic and removing her blue shirt so that she could press it against Konya’s back. “He’s already going into shock, and I have no idea how bad his injuries are.” Once she had him lying on his side, she looked to Harstad as she closed her tunic. “How’s she?”

Chen, her attention fixed on Konya, nevertheless was able to reply, “Some minor cuts, but I think she’ll be okay. What about Rennan?”

“Working on it.” Hearing footsteps, Crusher shifted around to see Cruzen jogging toward them and brandishing not one but two Golvonek rifles.

“I got the last one.” Her eyes widened in surprise and worry as she caught sight of Konya and Harstad. “Oh, no.”

“What was that explosion?” Crusher asked, dividing her attention between Cruzen and her patient. “Some kind of grenade?”

“Looks like it.” Dropping to one knee beside Konya, Cruzen said, “It sprayed shrapnel, but the equipment took most of the damage.”

Chen gestured toward the central tower, which now featured all manner of holes, tears, blown monitors, and darkened consoles. “If they hadn’t gotten that thing between them and the blast, they’d probably be dead.”

“We need to get them out of here,” Cruzen said. “Back to the shuttle and the
Enterprise
.”

Crusher shook her head. “I don’t want to move him until I can check all of his injuries.” She grunted in frustration. “I need my damned tricorder.”

“I’ll get it and whatever else you need from the shuttle,” Cruzen said.

Chen said, “You can’t go alone.”

Holding up one of the rifles she had appropriated, Cruzen replied, “I’ve got company.” She patted Konya on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” she said, more to him than anyone else. Rising to her feet, she nodded to Crusher. “Hang tight, Doctor.”

After leaving the other rifle with Chen, the security officer jogged from the room on her way to the landing bay, leaving Crusher and the engineer to tend to their wounded crewmates. Using a portion of her own uniform shirt, Chen was able to dress Harstad’s leg wound to Crusher’s satisfaction. She then moved back to the central tower. The side opposite the blast had escaped damage, and that set of consoles was still functional.

“Damn that Jodis,” said the lieutenant. “He’s even smarter and sneakier than I thought.”

“What?” Crusher asked, still tending to Konya, who continued to mumble incoherently under his breath.

“He’s locked out the computer,” replied Chen, “and brought the main drive up to full power. I’m also seeing that he’s charged all of the ship’s weapons.” She paused, then turned from the console. “Including the main cannon.”

“Are you serious?” Harstad said, and Crusher heard the weakness in her voice. Though she was not as badly wounded as Konya, she still was suffering disorientation from the grenade.

“Any idea what Jodis might be doing?” Crusher asked.

Chen shook her head. “Whatever it is, I think he’s planning to make a lot of noise when he does it.”

26

Of course the Golvonek had posted guards at the docking bay. Kirsten Cruzen would have been disappointed if they had not.

At the far end of a utility corridor that branched from the main passageways running the length of the
Arrow
, Cruzen hunkered near the bulkhead at the T-intersection and studied the scene at the walkway’s far end. Two soldiers stood flanking the reinforced hatch leading to the weapon ship’s landing bay. Each of them, like all of the other rank-and-file troops she had seen, wore helmets and equipment harnesses over dark uniforms. While both soldiers possessed pulse rifles like the one Cruzen had liberated on the engineering deck, only one carried his weapon in a manner that would allow him to bring it to bear in rapid fashion. His companion’s rifle was propped against the bulkhead behind him while he worked to adjust something on his harness. The two of them were mumbling something, but it was soft enough and too far away for her combadge to render a translation.

Not that it really matters
, Cruzen thought,
or that I care
. She had no chronometer, but she knew it had been nearly five minutes since she had left Doctor Crusher and the others in the
Arrow
’s engineering section. Though she was only trained as a field medic, she could tell from the extent of his injuries that Rennan Konya needed more attention than Crusher’s medical kit could provide. His condition needed to be stabilized so that he could be transported back to the
Enterprise
for more extensive treatment, and that meant getting past the two soldiers at the far end of this hallway by any means necessary.

Verifying that the power level of her purloined rifle was fixed on a nonlethal setting, Cruzen rose from her crouch and lifted the weapon to her shoulder as she stepped into the corridor. At the passage’s opposite end, the soldier still carrying his rifle only noticed her after she had already centered him in her sights and was pressing the firing stud. The weapon bucked against her shoulder as it belched forth a ball of roiling crimson energy, which zipped the length of the passageway and struck the Golvonek in his chest before he could make a move. The strike pushed him back against the bulkhead, and he was unconscious before he even began sliding to the floor.

“Don’t!” Cruzen barked, shifting her rifle to cover the second soldier, who froze in the act of reaching for his weapon. It remained untouched, still leaning against the bulkhead as the Golvonek spread his arms and held them out to show that they were empty. As she approached him, she gestured for him to move away from his rifle.

“How did you escape?” he asked.

Cruzen frowned. “We were smarter than your friends. Now, you want to prove to me you’re smarter than they are? Answer my questions and do what you’re told.” She nodded toward the hatch leading to the landing bay. “How many more of you are inside?” The soldier hesitated enough to tip her that he was hoping to deceive her, at which point she stepped forward and put her rifle’s muzzle to his face. “Don’t screw with me. My friend’s hurt and needs medical attention, which means I have to get what I need from our shuttle. If he dies because you kept me here playing games, then I’m personally going to dropkick your ass out the nearest airlock. Do we understand each other?”

While it was obvious that not everything she said was clear to him, the soldier nevertheless seemed to grasp her overall meaning and had the good sense to nod rather than offer up any displays of misplaced bravado. Instead, his eyes shifted nervously between her and the hatch before he replied, “There are two guards.”

“Tell me you’re not lying to me,” Cruzen said, her tone hardening, and she jabbed the rifle’s muzzle forward an extra few centimeters to emphasize her point. “Make me believe there’s not more than two, and that you’re not hoping the other ones will catch me when I walk through that door.”

The soldier shook his head. “I am not lying to you.”

He then made the mistake of making a grab for her rifle.

Anticipating such a move all along, Cruzen was ready for the sudden attempt. The guard was fast—his right hand darting for the weapon’s barrel—but she still managed to step backward, pulling the rifle away from his reach as his hand closed around nothing.

“Nice try,” she said before she fired. The weapon’s energy bolt punched the soldier and threw him against the bulkhead, and he sagged insensate to the floor. “Idiot.”

After verifying that both soldiers were only unconscious, Cruzen removed the power cells from both of their rifles as she had taught herself to do after a hurried inspection of the weapon she had acquired down. She also relieved one of the soldiers of his sidearm, unzipping the top half of her black uniform tunic and tucking the weapon along her left side. Only when she was done searching the guards’ uniforms for anything else of potential use did she notice the odd new device which had been installed over the hatch’s control pad. The technology was at odds with everything else she had seen aboard the
Arrow
, and she surmised that it was some sort of lock-defeating mechanism installed by one of the Golvonek. It possessed a small display screen and a pair of oversized buttons, one of which was depressed. On a hunch, Cruzen pressed the other control, and as it engaged, its companion popped out before the hatch released a pneumatic hiss and began cycling open.

“Here we go,” she said, raising the rifle in her hands and aiming it ahead of her as she stepped through the hatchway. The landing bay’s interior appeared to be in much the same condition as when she had last seen it, with the notable exception of the Golvonek soldier who wasted no time shooting at her. Throwing herself toward a stack of cargo containers as the soldier fired, Cruzen rolled and winced in momentary pain as her shoulder struck the unyielding metal deck plating. She came up on one knee behind the closest of the containers and pulled up her rifle, searching for her attacker, who now also was moving for cover to her left. Cruzen heard him shout something before she detected movement to her right and saw a second Golvonek scrambling in response to her sudden arrival. He was slow and had been caught in the open and so made an easy target for Cruzen, who sent him tumbling stunned to the deck with a single well-aimed shot.

Then she heard another shout from somewhere straight ahead, and knew the guard outside the hatch had been lying.

Bastard.

How many more were in here? Searching the spacious compartment, she saw no other signs of movement, and from her current position, she noted the distance between her and the
Jefferies
. The shuttlecraft sat where the away team had left it, the rear hatch leading into its passenger and cargo area still open, and Cruzen saw that at least some of the equipment stored aboard the craft had been ransacked. To its left she spied the field transporter pad and its accompanying portable control console, which still appeared to be activated. It was a possible means of escape, to be sure, but perhaps also a way to summon reinforcements from the
Enterprise
. She was certain that Captain Picard considered the away team overdue by now and likely was scanning for them and attempting to make contact.

A blast of weapons fire striking the cargo container made her flinch, and Cruzen ducked back behind it. The shot had come from her left, but more from her flank than ahead of her, which meant that the first Golvonek she had encountered was on the move. This much was confirmed when another shot hammered the container, and she had to scramble forward to keep from being exposed. Her movements carried her around the oversized box’s nearest corner and that’s when she caught sight of the third soldier maneuvering in her direction. He was using the
Jefferies
itself as cover, keeping the shuttlecraft between them as he advanced, and Cruzen realized he had given her an opening to exploit.

Lunging from her hiding place, she jogged for the shuttle, keeping it in front of her and using it to conceal her own advance across the open deck while at the same time using the cargo container to shield her back. If this was going to work, she would need to capitalize on being out of her opponents’ sight for these few precious seconds. Cruzen sidestepped to her right, aiming her rifle down the shuttlecraft’s starboard side just as the Golvonek stepped into view. He was unprepared for the sudden sight of her standing right in front of him when she fired. The rifle’s energy bolt struck him and tossed him backward where he collapsed in an unmoving heap on the deck.

Cruzen heard running footsteps behind her but she was already moving, sprinting for the
Jefferies
’s bow and imagining she felt a white hot target between her shoulder blades. She ducked around the shuttlecraft just as the first shot struck its hull and kept moving, sliding around its front and stopped as she reached its port side. Listening to the sound of approaching footsteps, she smiled to herself as she realized the Golvonek was attempting his own version of the maneuver she had just used on his companion. Her smile faded when a metallic disc bounced into view and skittered across the deck.

Oh, shit!

She lost her grip on her rifle as she threw herself back around the shuttlecraft’s angled nose just before the explosion came. It was close enough to shake the
Jefferies,
and Cruzen heard shrapnel peppering its hull, but the shuttlecraft had proven a worthy shield, protecting her from the blast. Her ears still ringing, she pushed herself to her feet and darted back the way she had come, gambling that the third—and hopefully last—Golvonek soldier would be moving forward to inspect the results of his grenade. She had run the length of the shuttle’s port side and was almost at the rear hatch when the guard stepped into view. Cruzen had but a fraction of a second to realize that her adversary was female before lowering her shoulder and driving it into the Golvonek’s chest.

Caught by surprise, the soldier released a grunt of shock and pain as Cruzen plowed into her, pushing both of them toward the deck. Cruzen lashed out with a free hand, swiping the guard’s rifle from her hands and sending it sliding across the floor away from them. The soldier was already recovering, rolling away from Cruzen and trying to regain her footing, but the security officer got there first. She struck the Golvonek’s chin with the top of her booted foot, the kick driving the guard’s head up and back. Her opponent again fell back to the deck, giving Cruzen enough time to draw from inside her tunic the pistol she had taken from the guard outside. With no time to check its power setting, she leveled the weapon and fired, and the pistol bucked in her hand as it released the compact ball of flaring scarlet energy. The soldier gasped in renewed surprise and crumpled to the deck, and Cruzen stepped forward, aiming the pistol at her opponent’s chest. A quick look verified the guard was still breathing, and Cruzen allowed a small sigh of relief when she confirmed that the weapon had been set to a stunning force.

After first verifying that there at least appeared to be no other Golvonek lurking in the landing bay’s shadows, Cruzen boarded the
Jefferies
and inspected its cockpit console. As far as she could determine, everything looked functional. She tapped a command sequence into one control pad to unlock the rest of the station, at which point all its displays, indicators, and interfaces flared to life.

“Now we’re talking,” she said to herself, settling into the pilot’s seat. “Well, not really,” she added, eyeing one scan reading which showed that whatever the Golvonek were using to jam communications frequencies, it was still in operation. Contacting the
Enterprise
—for the moment at least—was not an option.

“No time to worry about it,” she said, relocking the console and pushing away from the seat. Moving to a storage locker along the shuttle’s bulkhead, she keyed its security code and the door opened, giving her access not only to a medical kit for Doctor Crusher, but also spare hand phasers, of which she availed herself of four. Cruzen dropped three of the weapons into a satchel that she then slung over her shoulder before she holstered the remaining phaser on her left hip.

Guess we’re doing this the hard way
.