Her relief was short-lived, because Hakron suddenly whirled around with his foot and caught Picard in the knee. The captain started to fall, but he kept his grip on the Romulan"s collar and dragged his prisoner to the deck with him.
"T"ar"Fe:" cursed the Romulan.
At the end of the corridor, his confederate leaped out of the dormitory, saw them, and aimed his weapon. Picard hoisted the Romulan to his knees and ducked behind his torso just as a red disruptor beam streaked down the length of the hallway.
"No!" screamed Hakron as the beam struck him in the chest, setting it aglow. Using the slumping Romulan as cover, Picard fired his own disruptor. The deadly beam pulsed down the corridor and sliced his foe"s left arm off at the shoulder. His screams echoed throughout the ship as he staggered for cover inside the dormitory.
Ro suddenly realized that she was neglecting her duty by watching the melee, so she turned to look at the spiral staircase. When she saw the body on the top step move slightly, she shouted, "Watch out!"
Picard whirled around to shoot blindly at the top of the stairs. The disruptor beam blew the corpse off the steps and forced their adversary to retreat; they heard his scurrying footsteps. Now they were in the difficult position of having to defend both ends of the corridor, although it wasn"t certain that the Romulan on their level could still mount an attack. Picard motioned to Ro and La Forge to follow him as he led the way toward the dormitory.
"Captain," whispered La Forge, "if I could get up one level to the transporter room, I could fix the guy on the bridge-without risking more disruptor fire."
Picard stopped to consider the problem. "But the only way up is that staircase."
"He might be changing course, taking us into Romulan s.p.a.ce," added Ro. "We"ve got to get the bridge under control."
The captain nodded. "Let me see if we have another weapon." He moved cautiously down the hallway and inspected the deck in front of the dormitory door, which was closed. Ro could see the severed arm, but apparently their foe hadn"t dropped his weapon.
Looking sickened by the violence, the captain returned to his comrades. "All right, I"ll cover the stairs and the door to the bridge. Mr. La Forge, you go to the transporter room."
"What are you going to do, beam him into s.p.a.ce?" asked Ro.
"Is that a problem?"
"Not under these circ.u.mstances," she replied without hesitation. She knew that Picard cringed at the thought of fighting to the death, but the enemy hadn"t left them much choice. With Ro keeping an eye on their rear, they began moving toward the spiral staircase.
Startling them, a voice crackled over the ship"s intercom. "To those who are resisting-you must stop! We have control of the ship. You must surrender! We won"t harm you."
Picard never stopped moving, and he was already halfway up the stairs, with La Forge behind him and Ro bringing up the rear. She a.s.sumed that if he was speaking to them on the ship"s comm, he had to be on the bridge, probably with the door shut. When they reached the top of the stairs, she found her a.s.sumption to be true, and Picard covered them while La Forge and Ro dashed down the corridor to the safety of the transporter room.
Ro watched the door while La Forge rushed to the transporter controls. A moment later, Picard joined them, as a voice continued to plead over the intercom: "Lay your weapons down, and we will talk. We are reasonable people, and we have all your weapons. I have control of the bridge. You must deal with me!"
"Not necessarily," said La Forge as he skillfully plied the transporter console. "I"ve locked on to the only life sign on the bridge. That"s an outer bulkhead behind the transporter. Ro, will you pace it off for me?"
"Sure." She leaped upon the raised platform and quickly paced off the rough distance to the wall behind it. "Five meters," she reported.
"All right," said La Forge with a sigh. "Do we give him a chance to surrender?"
"No!" snapped Ro. "They didn"t give our crew a chance."
Keeping watch at the door with his disruptor, Picard shook his head concurring with Ro"s a.s.sessment. "Energize."
La Forge slid an old-fashioned lever forward, and a almost melodic noise sounded in the air. But nothing appeared on the transporter platform.
"It"s done," said La Forge heavily. "What about the one in the dormitory?"
"No," answered Picard, "he"s probably in shock. We should be able to deal with him. All of our weapons must be on the bridge-let"s go get them."
Cautiously, they made their way down the corridor, following Picard and his disruptor. The small bridge of the Orb of Peace, which usually looked so serene, now looked like a chamber of horrors. There were dead bodies everywhere, and an impressive pile of weapons in front of the viewscreen. Ro and La Forge each grabbed a Bajoran hand phaser, and Ro checked the readings on the conn.
"We"re still on course to the black hole," she reported. "Still at warp three."
"I want to question the last Romulan," said Picard, "if he"s still alive."
Once again, they wound their way down the spiral staircase, past the familiar dead bodies. When they reached the dormitory, Picard motioned them away from the door as he pressed the wall panel. When the door slid open, they flung themselves out of the way, expecting fire to erupt from the room-but none came. Cautiously Picard reached around the edge of the door and felt for the panel that would turn on the lights. When he found it, the shadowy chambers were suddenly illuminated by cheerful lighting.
Once again, they pinned themselves against the bulkhead in the corridor, expecting enemy fire to pulse through the doorway. Picard picked up a piece of nearby battle debris. He tossed the debris into the room, and it hit the deck with a loud clunk.
"Unnh!" groaned a voice with surprise, as if they had awakened him from a nap. Suddenly wild disruptor fire streaked out the door and raked the opposite bulkhead.
"Hold your fire!" shouted Picard, backing away from the door. "Your confederates are dead, and we"ve recaptured the ship! If you throw your weapon toward the door, we"ll come in and give you medical attention."
The scattered beams stopped, and they waited in tense silence, punctuated only by their own rapid breathing. Finally, there came a skittering sound as a disruptor bounced across the deck and out the doorway. Ro instantly scooped it up.
"Mr. La Forge, see if you can find a med kit," ordered the captain. "Let"s go."
Still keeping his weapon leveled in front of him, Picard led the way into the hammock-filled dormitory. Ro tried to ignore the sight of more young officers, pointlessly slain in the cowardly attack; she concentrated on searching the room for the wounded Romulan.
"Here!" called Picard.
She caught up with the captain as he knelt down beside a shivering humanoid who was clutching the burned stump of his arm. Sweat and grime smeared his once-proud face, and he blinked at them with terror and shock.
"La Forge!" called Ro.
"Coming!" The engineer reached them a moment later. He popped open a white case and took out a hypospray.
After they injected the hypo into the Romulan"s neck, he calmed down considerably and stopped shivering. Ro figured that they had only a few seconds before he lost consciousness ... probably forever.
She bent over him, her face inches away from his. "The Dominion is building an artificial wormhole. What do you know about it?"
"Must see if it works-" he answered dazedly.
"Why?" He was losing consciousness, and she had to shake him to get his attention. "Why?"
"If it works," he rasped, "we become their allies ... we join the Dominion."
Then he was out, unconscious but still breathing roughly. She looked gravely at Picard and La Forge. None of them needed to say what it would mean if the Romulan Star Empire turned against them, too. They would be caught in a vise.
"It"s not going to work," vowed Picard. "It"s never going to work." He slumped back on his haunches, weary and sh.e.l.l-shocked. The raw struggle for survival had been won, leaving Ro with a sense of failure and a dread of the killing to come.
His fingers twitchy and nervous, Sam Lavelle sat at the conn of the Tag Garwal, waiting for his crewmates to finish their last-minute preparations. In the hold was a mining probe that would soon be dangled over a black hole. He didn"t know why he was so nervous, because theoretically he had the easiest job of the lot of them-to simply maintain their position. Of course, he was captain as well as helmsman, and he knew it would be up to him to take over in an emergency. At the same time, he had to look out for providential opportunities to escape.
He glanced at the viewscreen, knowing it was the Eye of Talek that made him nervous. Although small as black holes went, it looked like a stealth moon-an alien world within the endless void. In some strange way, it made s.p.a.ce seem vulnerable. Although Grof had said that matter escaped from it, the flow of dust, debris, and gas seemed to be all one way.
"Beautiful, isn"t it?" said Grof, settling into the seat at the ops console.
"It"s still scary to me," answered Sam. "Maybe that"s because I don"t trust it."
"When the Carda.s.sians discovered it," said Grof, "they only had telescopes, no s.p.a.ce travel, and they didn"t know what it was. But they had a myth about a large monster with one eye which consumed everything it saw. That was Talek."
"That makes me feel so much better," murmured Sam. "I take it your main job is to shoot the tachyons?"
"That, and to monitor everything that goes on. I"d like to observe you, for instance, and learn your job."
"I"m sure you would," Sam replied snidely.
"In a positive sense," said the Trill defensively. "We have a small crew, so the more efficiently we can relieve each other, the better off we"ll be."
"Just do your job," ordered Sam, "and let everybody else worry about theirs." In truth, he would rather have had Taurik on the bridge with him, but the consensus was that Taurik was needed at the airlock with the mining probe, which was too heavy for anyone else to lift. Then Taurik would a.s.sist the material handlers in the transporter room and the recombination chambers.
Footsteps on the ladder made Sam jump, and he whirled around to see Tamla Horik, the tractor-beam specialist, emerge from the hatch. The Deltan looked contented and relaxed these days, just glad to be free. This was Sam"s first command, he thought to himself, and he couldn"t even enjoy it.
The Deltan took her seat at the tactical station and reported, "The others are all set. Commence when ready."
"Thank you," said Grof testily. He punched the communications panel, and his voice echoed throughout the ship. "Crew of the Tag Garwal, we are ready to begin our historic mission. Release the mining probe."
Sam shook his head at the pomposity of the Trill. He talked as if he were running the operation when, in reality, the only one in charge was the Jem"Hadar attack ship. It continued to scrutinize from afar, with the power to destroy them at any second.
Knowing he had to forget about them and concentrate on the job, Sam put the mining probe on the viewscreen. The small unmanned craft looked ungainly with its array of robotic arms, sensors, and reflector dishes. And it looked helpless as it cruised inexorably toward the deep emptiness of the Eye of Talek.
Sam tried not to think how much was riding on all this Carda.s.sian equipment, but he knew that Grof, Taurik, and the others had checked every piece a dozen times. He had to rely on their judgment about the equipment, as they relied on his about the ship.
"Tractor beam," ordered Grof.
"Tractor beam on," replied the Deltan at the tactical station.
The escaping probe was engulfed in an invisible beam that registered only on their instrument panels. Nevertheless, the probe now had a leash which, theoretically, would keep it from plunging into the black hole.
"Distance to event horizon: three hundred kilometers," reported Horik. "Tractor beam holding steady."
"Don"t let it cross that horizon," warned Grof.
"Or what will happen?" asked Sam.
"If the tractor beam held, we could retrieve it," answered the Trill, "but that"s a big "if." And I don"t know what kind of shape it would be in. More than likely, we"d be down to two probes."
"Two hundred kilometers," said the Deltan. "I"m slowing speed to one-quarter impulse."
"It"s looking good," said Grof, his eyes intent upon his readouts.
Sam looked at his own readouts to make sure they hadn"t drifted in their orbit, which was matched to the slight rotation of the black hole. It seemed odd to be orbiting nothing, but this nothing had a lot of gravity for its size.
"One hundred kilometers," reported Horik. "Thrusters stopped. We"re now coasting into position one-half kilometer in front of the event horizon."
"We"re sure about those calculations, are"t we?" asked Grof, sounding nervous for the first time.
"Yes," answered the Deltan, "unless this black hole doesn"t obey the known laws of physics, which is always possible with a singularity."
Sam didn"t like the way Grof gnawed on his lower lip as the probe completed its final approach to the black hole. He tried not to think about the incredible gravitational pull on the small probe, counteracted only by their souped-up tractor beam. Sam increased the magnification on the viewscreen to get a better look at the probe ... perhaps the last look at it.
"Approaching one kilometer," said the calm, contented Deltan. She plied her console. "All right, it"s stopped."
The three of them stared at the viewscreen, half-expecting the awkward probe to vanish forever into the gaping blackness. But the probe was stopped, hanging on the lip of the abyss.
Grof let out a loud sigh, and then he rubbed his hands together, ready for his part in the drama. First he made a shipwide announcement. "Attention, crew: the probe is in place. I"m bombarding the black hole with tachyons-stand by tractor beam, remote control, and transporter room."
Sam hoped that soon they would get proficient enough at this operation to do it without Grof"s melodramatics; but for the moment, he was glad that someone was calling every shot. On the viewscreen, they watched an impossibly long strand of tachyons stretch from their ship, past the probe, into the blackness of the singularity. Sam knew this was a crucial step, the one that would actually quantum-step the particles and force them outward. The tractor beam would capture and guide them into the probe.
"Extend tractor beam," ordered Grof.
"Extending," said the Deltan.
"Start extraction."
Leni Shonsui"s voice came over the comm. "Extraction in progress."
Again there was a tense silence as they watched the timers and their readouts. Sam noticed that some force was slightly altering their orbit, and he compensated without comment. There would be time later to point this out to the others and make a correction for the next shot. Right now, they were all absorbed in their own tasks.
"Load full!" announced Shonsui"s voice. "Let"s reel it in."
Now everyone breathed a sigh of relief, although they weren"t out of the woods yet. Sam knew that they had to perfectly coordinate cutting the tractor beam at the same moment that they transported the probe back to the ship.
Grof held up his finger. "Transport on my mark. Three, two, one ... mark!"
The Deltan punched her board. They waited for confirmation.
"Ma.s.serelli here," came a voice from below. "We"ve got her, and the stasis field is holding!"
"At last." Grof slumped back in his seat and turned apologetically toward Sam. "I"ve got to go down and see it."
"Go ahead. I wouldn"t mind seeing the next step myself." Sam didn"t mention it, but the ship was in extreme danger at this point, with a highly volatile material in stasis.
"You two go on," said Horik at her tactical station. "I can watch things here."
With Grof eagerly leading the way, they tromped down the ladder to the lower level and dashed along the corridor to the transporter room. The glow of the stasis field in the center of the transporter pad captured their attention and forced them to halt in the doorway. Woil, Shonsui, and Ma.s.serelli were wearing protective gear that covered them from head to foot, and Sam and Grof sunk back from the danger.
Jozarnay Woil grabbed a flexible tube that hung from a ma.s.s of pipes in the ceiling and checked its fittings. As if he did this every day of the week, he calmly walked up to the glowing stasis field, stuck the tube in, and clamped it to the elevated mining probe. Woil stepped back, motioning to Enrique Ma.s.serelli, who manipulated the stasis field and the probe with a handheld remote. Shonsui stood at the transporter console, keeping a close watch on an array of readouts. Soon the tube was bulging as the contents of the probe were being evacuated to the recom chambers in the hold.
Grof nudged Sam with an elbow. "Come on."
The human followed the Trill to the stern of the ship. From there, large double doors opened into the two-story-high cargo hold. As an antimatter tanker, the Tag Garwal "s hold was by far her most impressive feature. Antimatter was the most volatile cargo in the galaxy, and it had to be stored in special forcefield containers and transported in special conduits, which snaked all over the ceiling and walls of the hold.
The upright containers looked like ma.s.sive African drums. Having been used strictly for storage, now their forcefields were being used to recombine particles that had, until a few moments ago, existed in another s.p.a.ce-time continuum. Despite Sam"s misgivings, it was exciting to think that they could fill these drums with material dredged from a black hole.
They heard footsteps, and they turned to see Enrique walking toward them with his headgear and a tricorder in his hands, and a big grin on his face. "How does it look?"