Faces started to appear between the doors. Spillane. Bhatnagar. Croth. A half-dozen other officers and crewman Kira didn’t recognize. “Captain,” Spillane said. “Are you all right?”
“Nothing that kicking my first officer’s ass wouldn’t cure,” Mello said. “Why didn’t you evacuate with the others?”
“Blame Commander Bhatnagar,” one of the engineers said. “She convinced us the ship wasn’t about to blow up—the warp core was at optimum.”
“Spillane and I both had similar suspicions,” Croth said. “We were on the bridge when Montenegro came up unexpectedly, just in time for the computer to announce the alert so he could order the evacuation. We were already inside our pod when we started to question the situation. Thirty seconds to core breach, it occurred to us to ask the computer to locate you, but internal sensors suddenly went off-line. That’s when we were sure that something weird was going on.”
“When the ship didn’t explode,” Spillane continued, “we tried getting back to the bridge, but it was sealed off. We started searching the ship section by section for anyone else left aboard, and that’s when we ran into Bhatnagar and her team. They said their tricorders detected biosigns coming from your quarters.”
“Good work, all of you,” Mello said.
“Sir,” Bhatnagar said. “Why is Commander Montenegro doing this? What is he after?”
“Colonel Kira and Dr. Xiang will explain on the way,” the captain said.
“On the way where?” Spillane asked.
“The armory, then the bridge,” Mello said, stepping out the door. “I’m taking back my ship.”
Turbolifts were off-line. They had to take Jefferies tubes from deck to deck, using wrist lights because illumination abruptly cut out through most of the ship while they were raiding the armory. Using phaser rifles, cutting their way into the bridge once they reached deck one was relatively easy. And to Kira’s surprise, nothing hazardous greeted their arrival. The bridge was dark and empty. Dim emergency lights cast stark shadows across the room, making the lights from the crew stations seem all the more intense.
Spillane went to the operations console and studied the ship’s status. “We’re still on course from Trill,” she reported. “Speed is constant at Warp 9.5, and flight control is locked off.”
“Computer,” Mello said at once. “Take the warp engines off line. Authorization Mello-Pi-Four-Six-Two.”
“Unable to comply. Emergency manual override in effect. Warp-engine control only possible from main engineering.”
“Computer, locate Commander Montenegro.”
“Unable to comply. Internal sensors off-line.”
Mello cursed herself for forgetting. “Can we send out a distress call?” she asked Croth.
The science officer made a guttural noise of frustration. “Communications are off-line or disabled, I can’t tell which.”
Bhatnagar and her engineers quickly ascertained the extent of the damage Montenegro had done. Clearly realizing that he was still facing opposition aboard the ship, the first officer had abandoned the bridge while Mello and her team were preparing their assault. Evidently he hadn’t had enough time to assume complete control of the ship, so he had concentrated instead on locking out tactical, communications, propulsion, and flight control from the bridge, routing them to engineering. He’d also sabotaged the control systems for transporters, turbolifts, and the internal security systems, which meant there would be no easy way of tracking Montenegro’s movements, or using the life support system against him.
“The computer still recognizes my command codes, though,” Mello said.
Spillane nodded. “That’s the irony. He didn’t even bother trying to override your codes. He just manipulated our systems enough to gain manual control of the areas he was interested in and disabled the rest.”
“Like a parasite,” Kira said. “He’s using the ship like a host body, leeching what’s useful to him.”
“We managed to rescind all of Montenegro’s access codes,” Bhatnagar said, “but it may be too late for that to do us any good.”
“What about autodestruct?” Mello asked.
Bhatnagar and Spillane exchanged looks. “You still have it,” the security officer said. “You can activate it unilaterally now. But the time delay is disabled. Once you give the word, there’ll be no going back.”
“We may not have a choice,” Mello said. “So he’s in engineering.”
“That’s our best guess,” Croth said.
“I’m going after him,” Kira said, checking the charge on her rifle.
“Not alone, you’re not,” Mello said, picking up her own weapon.
“Captain, your place is on the bridge,” Kira reminded her.
“Ordinarily, I might agree, Colonel. But until my people can fix the damage the parasite has done, I’m useless up here. One thing I cando is help you track down the creature and stop it. I owe Alex that much.” Placing a backup hand phaser on her hip, Mello took two tricorders from the engineers and handed one to Kira. “With internal sensors off-line, we’ll need to use these to find him. “Lieutenant Spillane.”
“Sir?”
“You have the bridge. The colonel and I are going hunting.”
“Where do you want to begin?” Kira asked.
Standing in the main Jefferies tube junction on the port side of Starship Gryphon,Mello held out her tricorder and slowly panned the room, scanning the six horizontal tubes that surrounded them, as well as the shafts above and below. “I found his combadge signal. It’s coming from starboard and down, close to the navigational deflector.”
“It’s a ruse,” Kira said. “He dumped his combadge there so we’d waste time going after it.”
Mello nodded. “I agree. But I’m not picking up anything else that would suggest where he is.”
“Engineering is the only place that makes sense,” Kira said.
“Maybe,” Mello said.
Kira tested the hatch for the tube that offered the quickest route to engineering. Locked. She searched for an access panel and pried it open. “I think I can override the seal, but it’ll take a minute.”
“Do it,” said Mello.
Kira went to work. A moment into it, she said “Captain, I want to apologize to you for what happened in your quarters.”
“That’s all right, Colonel,” Mello said, then added darkly, “Maybe someday I’ll find some way to surprise you on Deep Space 9.”
“I really made a mess of things. I led a mutiny against you, all because I let Montenegro manipulate me into thinking you were the most likely suspect to be the parasite host.”
“But I wasthe most likely suspect,” Mello pointed out. “Between what happened on Deep Space 9, the message you got from Akaar, and the lies Montenegro had been feeding you, you made the logical choice, and did what you thought was necessary to save lives. I’m not sure I would have acted differently if our positions had been reversed, given the circumstances.”
“I was ready to kill you back there. I almost did.”
“We almost killed each other,” Mello corrected. “But isn’t that the point, Nerys? This thing inside Montenegro tried to pit us against each other, to divide and conquer. It failed then, and it’s going to fail now because were refusing to be divided.” Mello suddenly shook her head and chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I have a confession to make, Colonel,” Mello said. “When I first found out you were put in charge of Deep Space 9, I had my doubts about you. I didn’t think it was right that a Federation starbase or its Starfleet personnel should be placed under the command of a non-Starfleet officer, allied or not, and I resented you even more when you were put in command of the Europa Nova evacuation. I think I would have felt the same even if I’d already known that your Starfleet commission was still active. Because the bottom line was, you didn’t wear the uniform, and your loyalties were still to Bajor first. You were too provincial for my comfort, despite what your advocates in Command thought about you.