“I can get us over the prison,” Bolaji said. “But there’s no clear place to land that probably won’t be swarming with Romulan skimmers any minute. Jaza tells me seventeen of them are already en route.”
“And with the transporter scramblers operating, we still can’t beam Tuvok out, or beam ourselves in,” Keru said, looking at the forward window. “We’re going to have to get in there the hard way.” He turned back toward the others on his team. “Remember those swift descent air assault exercises we’ve been doing, folks?”
“How could we forget, O Fearless Leader?” Denken said with a lilt in his voice that didn’t quite conceal his nervousness. Vale nodded as the rest of the strike team made positive noises and double-checked their equipment.
Keru grinned through his helmet’s open faceplate. “Then it looks like it’s about time to put theory into practice.”
Vale couldn’t fault Keru’s plan. Though it was old-fashioned, she didn’t doubt it was the best way to enter the prison undetected—or at least as stealthily as possible under the circumstances. She pointed toward the top of one of the low buildings, where a handful of Remans had overpowered the guards near what appeared to be a landing bay for hover vehicles.
“Get us as close as you can to that rooftop down there, without crossing into the prison’s antitransporter fields,” Vale said. “We’ll beam directly to the dorsal hull, come down firing. Once we reach the roof we’ll have a high, defensible position. With a little luck, the Romulans on the outer perimeter will never even know we were here.” She turned back toward the others. “Phasers on heavy stun. Keep your beams narrow, and keep an eye on the proximity sensors in your helmets so we don’t hit each other. Watch your backs—it’s pandemonium down there.”
She pointed to one of the side viewscreens, then raised her wrist-mounted tricorder. “Tuvok’s biosignature is still coming in strongly, and I read two clear paths to reach him.” She was grateful that the fistrium and kelbonite Titan’s sensors had detected from orbit didn’t seem to be interfering significantly with the Handy’s sensors, or the away team’s tricorders, at close range. “Whoever reaches Tuvok first will signal the rest of the team. Then we’ll all get the hell out of there.”
Vale turned back toward Bolaji and caught her wincing and rubbing her protruding stomach. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Bolaji shot back tersely. “Just a kick.”
Let’s hope that’s all it is,Vale thought, then turned back to face the others. “Let’s move, people.”
As Bolaji held the cloaked shuttle in position hovering over the rooftop, Keru began keying commands into the transporter console. T’Lirin and Sortollo activated their stealth systems and silenced gravity boots, turned invisible, then vanished in the shimmer of a transporter beam. Vale looked through the front window, though she could see no sign of either of them as they glided invisibly downward toward the rooftop.
As Keru and Rriarr repeated this maneuver and began their gentle descent, Vale saw two of the escaped Reman prisoners cast squinting glances toward the essentially invisible shuttlecraft. Damn,she thought, they must have heard the transporter or the gravity boots. Their ears are a lot more sensitive than we thought.Their weapons at the ready, Vale and Denken were next to materialize on top of the shuttlecraft Handy,toward which the Remans had already raised their rifles. Luckily, Vale and Denken managed to squeeze off the first shots.
Even as the stunned Remans toppled, the phaser blasts caught the attention of a dozen or so other prisoners who were already beginning to swarm onto the roof. But moments later, Vale’s proximity sensors revealed that Keru and Rriarr were down on the rooftop, crouching behind what appeared to be a large air-conditioning unit as they began spraying the angry Remans with phaser fire. Sortollo and T’Lirin had taken cover nearby, firing into the melee as well.
Moments later, Vale’s and Denken’s gravity boots touched the roof’s hard surface, where the rooftop rioters were all sprawled unconscious.
“Thanks for leaving some for us,” Vale said, grinning behind her face shield. The acrid smell of ozone hung in the air.
“You’ll get your chance to shoot at something soon enough,” Commander Keru responded, his deep voice sounding slightly tinny in her helmet.
As the team members forced open a door and cautiously lowered themselves into the prison facility, Vale had little doubt that Titan’s security chief was right.
“So much for stealth,” Keru muttered. He realized belatedly that he had badly underestimated the efficacy of the Remans’ nonvisual senses.
Four angry Remans were running toward them now. Though the away team had extinguished all the lights—and though the team’s stealth suits seemed to be functioning perfectly—the Remans were apparently able to locate them as though they were caught in a searchlight’s glare.
Rriarr leapt into the air, hissing as the large Reman approaching him swung a metal bar, narrowly missing his helmeted head. Grasping a pipe hanging from the ceiling, the Caitian flipped himself over and past his attacker and landed in a crouch behind him. A two-handed jackhammer blow to the base of the Reman’s skull drove the man down, making him lay still.
But Keru didn’t have time to watch Rriarr’s back at that moment; he was involved in a close-quarter combat situation of his own. They had entered a room that had scanned as empty, only to face an explosion from beyond the doors on the darkened chamber’s far side. The blast had knocked them both off their feet, tossing their weapons out of reach. A swarm of angry Remans immediately piled inside, and Keru’s night-vision visor revealed opponents who were armed, enraged, and numerous. Though the room was as dark as the night that was enfolding the prison yard, the Remans zeroed right in on Keru and Rriarr. Keru had never expected the darkness to slow down the Remans, who were born and bred to it; he merely hoped that it would conceal the away team’s presence from any Romulans they might encounter.
Already having downed three of the Remans with his hands, Keru was grabbed from behind by another of them. Unable to break the Reman’s grip, Keru pushed backward with his feet, slamming his attacker into a wall. As the blow loosened the bear hug, Keru stamped down hard on the upper arch of the Reman’s foot, causing the bone within to crack loudly.
The Reman released him momentarily, but Keru had to duck to avoid the swinging roundhouse blow of another club-wielding thug. He heard the club connect with flesh above him, then a bellow of rage as he sprinted to one side. He turned to see the larger of his attackers now pummeling the other Reman who had just accidentally struck him.
Keru looked around for the phasers they had dropped, and wasn’t surprised when he failed to find them. Then he noticed that a smallish Reman prisoner had scooped them up, and was, at that moment, attempting to fire at him. He moved quickly toward the Reman—who couldn’t have been more than a preteen—unconcerned. The phasers were specially tuned to the circuitry in the gloves of the stealth suits they were wearing. No one who wasn’t wearing the gloves could fire them.