She snapped out of her shock and tried to get her mind working. The Cardassians were here, now, early.But how?
Her forehead crinkled. Could it be the signal, the one Vaavek had sent, that alerted them? But no—as quickly as she had that thought, she dismissed it—the signal had come first, then the Cardassians appeared, and then…
Her eyes went round. ThenVaavek had lifted off the surface and inthe company of the shuttlecraft. Too far away for her to figure out where the shuttlecraft had come from, which ship, though she had a fair idea.
Garrett. The Enterprise.By God! Her fist slammed onto the console. But how had Garrett figured it out? When?
And no matter that: The order was wrong. She should’ve spotted it right away, but she’d let her greed get the better of her. The order was wrong.Vaavek shouldhave lifted off first thenactivated the signal. He—or Garrett—was counting on her moving out from behind the moon.
A decoy. Talma’s brown eyes slitted. Yes, that was it. Vaavek had sent the signal. He knew, somehow, that the Cardassians were there. Using that cold Vulcan calculus she’d come to appreciate, Vaavek would gamble that the scouts would either ignore the tinier shuttlepod completely, or lose it in the confusion of weapons’ fire. How he knew didn’t matter at the moment. Nothing mattered anymore except that Talma was a sitting duck. The Cardassians were faster, more maneuverable than the Vulcan warpshuttle.
Now her mind raced over her options. They were diminishingly few. It was either run, or run.
All right. Bringing the ship’s navigational computer back on-line, she barked out a command as her hands flew over the T’Pol’s weapons’ systems. All right, two could play at this game. They wanted a decoy? Talma’s lips split in a savagely triumphant smile. She’d give them a decoy.
She picked out the shuttlepod’s port nacelle, targeting manually as the computer chittered to itself in Vulcan, spitting out coordinates for taking the ship toward the neutron star. Talma listened with half an ear; her Vulcan was impeccable and she was confident the computer knew what it was doing.
She didn’t bring the weapons on-line. Not just yet. Lock on, and the shuttlepod might see, veer off. Or that shuttlecraft might warn Vaavek. Talma tracked the blip that was the Vulcan shuttlepod. One shot, she figured, then the Cardassians would be on her— unlessshe gave them something infinitelymore interesting to look at.
“Come on,” she urged under her breath, watching as the Cardassians sped toward them. The shuttlepod was nearly in range. “Come on.”
Five, four…the shuttlepod drew closer, closer and she saw that its shields weren’t up and that was very, very good…three, two.
“Now!” Talma shouted. “Computer, nu-at, weedawa! Nave-zehlek, klamacha thes!Dooohchat!
And because Talma’s Vulcan wasimpeccable, the T’Pol’s shields snapped into place, her phasers locked on target, and the computer fired phasers. Full power.
And, at that exact moment, the shuttlepod accelerated straight for her on a collision course.
Chicken. Halak barreled toward the T’Pol.He’d just play chicken and see which of them blinked first.
“Because I don’t trust you, Burke,” he said, his smile vicious and just this side of truly malevolent. “Because I think you’re going to try to blow me out of the quadrant before the Cardassians do. Because that’s what Iwould do.”
An alarm screamed, and Halak’s eyes jerked left. Cardassian scouts and, damn, they were fast!
“Captain, here they come, here they come!” Halak shouted. At the same instant, he saw the phaser lock from the T’Pol.Read that her shields had snapped into place.
“Halak!” It was Garrett. “She’s got a lock! Get your shields up, get them up!”
“Shields! Taking evasive maneuvers!” Halak slammed his palm down upon his shield control as he brought the ship around in a tight, spiraling turn, port and aft. If there had been air, he imagined that he would hear it screaming past his window, feel the force of his acceleration flattening him into his seat, squeezing his chest. But his gravity was holding and so he felt nothing: saw only the dizzying stirring of the stars and ionized gases outside his window, the flickering beams of phasers licking past the ship.
Missed. But she’d fired again. Halak slid the shuttlepod Z-plus 50. Climbing, climbing…and where was she, where was the T’Pol?Halak’s eyes scrambled over his sensor displays. She ought to becoming around for another pass, leaping after him like a hound chasing a rabbit.
But no.Halak gawked. Scrubbed at his eyes to be sure. No, the T’Polwas headed in the opposite direction, toward the neutron star. Not after him, or the shuttlecraft. Probably thinking she could hide in the magnetic well, wait things out.
Then he saw something that made him bang his fists down upon his console in frustration. One Cardassian on T’Pol’s tail, but the other Cardassian was letting her go, at least for the moment.
Because you were so helpful, Burke, pointing us out.Halak punched in a channel. “Captain! The brown star! Make a run for it! Go, go, go!”
Without waiting to see what Garrett did, Halak jerked the shuttlepod around and bore down on the remaining Cardassian. Same game—his hand hovered over his phaser controls— we play the same damn game and let’s see if this Cardassian evenknows what a chicken is.
He managed to evade the first disruptor blast but not the second. For a split instant, the shuttlepod’s artificial gravity wavered, and Halak pitched forward, banging the point of his chin against the edge of his pilot’s console. Pain exploded along his jaw and shivered into his teeth. Blood filled his mouth, trickled down his throat, and he gagged. There was a sensation of spinning; the tiny craft whirling like a top…
I’m dead,thought Halak. The centrifugal force had him pinned in his chair, and he couldn’t move, but he didn’t think there was anything he could do anyway. I’m dead.
Then the gravity clicked back and Halak lurched forward, coughed out a spray of blood. Alarms screamed. With a vicious swipe, he silenced them. He knew how bad things were.
“Halak!” Garrett’s voice sizzled through static. Halak heard the thin high whine of a phaser discharge, then looked out his window and saw the space bloom around the Cardassian scout, watched as one of the Cardassian’s forward shields flared orange from a phaser hit. Instead of making a run for the brown star, Garrett had circled around and was trying to draw the Cardassians away from his ship. “Halak, answer me, damn it!”
“Here, Captain.” Halak coughed again, sponged blood from his jaw. The skin over his chin was split wide open and he was bleeding so much he could feel it pooling at his neck.
He toggled up his displays. “Shields fifty percent. And there’s something wrong with my engines. They’ve kicked out. I don’t understand, the disruptor blast wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t…”
Burke. Halak felt himself go cold. The way she hadn’t come after him. Somehow she’d rigged the engines so a phaser blast or a disruptor hit would take them off-line, would finish him. That’s why she’d only fired once.
But he had no time. He ground his teeth together. The Cardassians out there, angling around for another run, they’d finish him off, and he was out of time, there was no time, no time!
“Captain!” Halak grappled to bring the ship around. The shuttlepod was sluggish, the controls mushy, and Halak had the insane thought that he’d probably be better off getting out and pushing for all the maneuverability he had. “Captain, can you hear me? My navigational control’s shot! I’ve got nothing here! Do you copy? Captain? Captain?”