In response to Bat-Levi’s quizzical expression, Glemoor added, “Think of it as trying to scoop up a cracker from a bowl of thick soup. If you chase your cracker, you set up a displacement of the soup itself.”
Castillo brightened. “I get it. There’s so much stellar soup out there you looked for compression of wave fronts.”
“All right, I’m impressed,” said Bat-Levi. “So, is it the T’Pol?Or a Cardassian?”
“The T’Pol,I think. The degree of displacement is too small for a Cardassian.”
“Shall I plot course for intercept?” asked Castillo.
“What about that, Glemoor?”
“Nothing from the planet’s surface yet, Commander.”
“But there must be something,” said Bat-Levi, “otherwise, the T’Polwouldn’t be moving out.” She glanced over her shoulder at communications. “Bulast?”
The Atrean shook his head. “Nothing.”
Bat-Levi pursed her lips. “Then why is she moving? There’s got to be something…”
“Wait,” said Bulast, suddenly. His fingers stroked the controls at his console. “Got it. Same trick she used before. Coned inside the periodic bursts from that neutron star. A signal.”
Glemoor cut in. “Something else, Commander.”
“The captain?”
“No,” Glemoor said. “On long-range sensors. Company, closing fast.”
Seated in the pilot’s chair of her shuttlecraft, Garrett opened a channel to Halak in the Vulcan shuttlepod. “Think she got it?”
“Positive.” Halak’s voice was marred by pops and crackles of static. “She ought to be moving out from behind the larger moon any minute now.”
“Let’s hope.” Garrett looked over at Stern who sat in the co-pilot’s chair. “Well?”
“Too much damned interference,” Stern muttered, twiddling with the shuttle’s sensors, “like pea soup, I don’t see how you expect me to look for Cardassian scouts, they’d…ah! Got ’em.”
“How many?”
“Two. Closing fast. They’ve got a bug up their thrusters, all right.”
“That bug would be us,” said Garrett, bringing the engines on-line. “Or the T’Pol.Let’s hope it’s the latter. What about the Enterprise?”
“Still nothing. She’s gone, all right.” Stern gave Garrett a narrow look. “You sure you don’t want to just sit this one out?”
“We’ve got a much better chance if we’re moving. Hunker down here, and we might as well hand out invitations for those Cardassians to take potshots.”
“We’re not exactly fast, you know. And our range…”
“Let me worry about that. Besides,” Garrett plotted a course out of the system, “there are two of us. With the T’Pol,that makes three. If I were those Cardassians, I’d go for the bigger ship because I’d know there’s no way a smaller ship would get far.”
“Oh, that’s comforting. Let’s hope the Enterpriseisn’t too far away.”
Otherwise, we’re on our own.Stern didn’t say it, but Garrett thought she might as well have. It had been Garrett’s calclass="underline" getting the Enterpriseout of harm’s way if the Cardassians showed up (as they just had). If Bat-Levi had followed her orders, the Enterprisehad left the system at the first sign of the Cardassian scouts. So that meant her ship would be heading for the rendezvous coordinates: seven light years away.
She glanced back over her shoulder at Jase who huddled on a chair just behind her station. “Buckle up. I want to see that restraining harness on.”
“Sure.” Jase managed a wan grin. They’d bundled Pahl into restraints on a makeshift hassock aft. It would have made Garrett feel better if Jase were with his friend; Jase would be that much closer to an environmental suit if they had to evacuate. But Jase had refused, and Garrett hadn’t the heart to press it. They’d just take their chances together. On reflection, Garrett thought that was probably the way things were meant to be.
She watched as her son reached over his shoulders with both hands, grabbed the buckles of his restraining harness, and tugged them down. “Snug it. And hang on now, okay? It might get rough.”
“Promises, promises,” Stern grumbled, shrugging into her own harness.
“If we’re lucky, they’ll go after the T’Poland leave us be.” Garrett punched up the Vulcan shuttlepod. “On my mark, Halak.”
“Ready, Captain.”
“On three, two, one. Mark!” Garrett punched up her engines. There was a perceptible jolt, the rush of a red-hued landscape, and then the blackness of space, stars.
As one, the two ships rocketed up from the planet.
The way was dark as pitch. Chen-Mai blundered along, rebounding off rock walls, the round hump of his helmet banging against stone. He might as well be blind.
He was dead. Chen-Mai felt a bubble of panic pushing at the back of his throat and his chest heaved, trying to pull in air. Or as good as dead: He’d die down here if he couldn’t find his way back. My God, but the air was so close! He ran his naked hands along the rough stone; he’d pulled off his gloves because the fingers were too padded and once the light went, he needed to have more feeling. The walls, they were closing in, he couldn’t breathe! Chen-Mai’s chest was tight, and he struggled to breathe, breathe, breathe….
Hyperventilating. He was getting dizzy. The sour taste of bile filled his mouth, and Chen-Mai doubled over, vomited until his stomach was empty and all he could do was hack dry heaves. Sagged back against stone.
Calm, he had to be calm. Chen-Mai pressed the back of his left hand against his forehead. Sweating like a pig. Hot, so hot in here, the air so close. He had half a mind to get out of this infernal suit, then maybe strip Kaldarren or Mar—yes, Mar, because Kaldarren had something wrong with him, and Chen-Mai wouldn’t touch him, wouldn’t take the chance—yes, he could strip Mar of his suit when he found the room again because he would find the room, he would.
But he might not. Chen-Mai turned his head aside and hawked up foul-tasting spit. There was more than way out of here, there had to be. So he had to keep his wits about him. But which way was out? He had a sense that he was heading down deeper, and that was wrong. That turn he’d taken a while back: He shouldn’t have done that. But he’d been certain he was circling back, to the chamber where he’d been, where that Kaldarren had tricked him….
He tripped over something—a rock lip, a stone perhaps—staggered. Pitched forward into the darkness. He managed to get his hands out in front and caught himself, but the tunnel floor was uneven and dropped a half-meter. Then the heels of his hands banged into the hard rock, and he heard something snap in his right wrist.
Chen-Mai screamed and then he screamed again. His scream bounced off the low walls and reverberated in the darkness. Rolling onto his left side, Chen-Mai cradled his shattered right wrist against his chest. He couldn’t see his wrist, wasn’t sure he wanted to, but he knew that it was broken.
Now, something else: something wet, warm on his fingertips, the fingertips of his left hand. And an odd smell, like wet metal, damp rust. Cautiously, he wormed the fingers of his left hand around his right wrist. Grazed against something sharp, and then moist fabric. Odd. Maybe he’d torn his suit and…
Bone. Chen-Mai’s eyes bulged in the darkness. The jagged ends of bone that had torn through his skin.
Chen-Mai threw his head back and howled.
At just about the same time that Talma spotted both the shuttle and shuttlepod—and before she had a chance to even wonder about why a Starfleet shuttlecraft was in the vicinity much in the less in the company of Vaavek’s shuttlepod—she also saw the Cardassians, barreling her way.
“Hunnh!” Her breath rushed out of her lungs in surprise. For a brief instant, she was absolutely frozen in place, her mind slamming on the brakes. She watched the Cardassian scouts get larger and larger, closer and closer…