Oh dear. I guess even this part of the plan isn't going to plan either. Not that we expected it to but this is really going to bring things down to the wire.
The Star Eagle Adventures IV: All The Sinners, Saints
- Thread starter CeJay
- Start date
“What just happened?”
DeMara Deen at operations was still trying to interpret the confusing sensor data she was receiving since they had detected a massive energy spike on the surface. The view screen which had displayed a satellite view of the city had blinked out at about the same time.
The captain turned to his science officer. “Commander?”
“We cannot be certain at this point but all data points to a sudden and possible violent discharge of energy originating within the capital city,” said the Vulcan while he studied his own readouts.
“The antimatter bomb,” said Nigel Bane and looked at his captain. “They weren’t able to stop it.”
But Akinola didn’t want to believe it and shook his head. “We need more accurate sensor data,” he said and looked back towards the screen. “And we need to get a visual, now.”
Eagle’s captain was not offended by Akinola’s demanding tone. The truth was he felt much the same way.
It turned out the stern words had been sufficient to make Eagle’s crew redouble their efforts.
“I’m working on restoring visual data,” said Deen. “Almost there.”
“Sensors are now confirming heavy antimatter radiation permeating the lower atmosphere,” said Xylion and turned to the two captains. “It is consistent with a detonation of an antimatter explosive.”
Joseph Akinola fought the urge to seat down. No matter what had happened, no matter who he had lost, he needed to remain steadfast, even if it was just for appearances sake. He had however, no words to offer.
Owens felt no different. He had come to this world with orders to strengthen an alliance in order to ensure the Federation’s chances to win the Dominion War. Instead he had brought destruction and death. It was an entirely unacceptable outcome to this mission.
“Wait,” said Deen as she glanced up on the screen. “Look at that.”
Everyone on the bridge turned towards the main viewer. The image was interlaced with static and refused to remain steady but it was just about clear enough to make out the huge cloud of superheated water vapor and debris hanging over the city. But not the entire city.
“Can you ascertain where the explosion originated and the radius of destruction?” said Owens.
Xylion was one step ahead of the operations officer. “The approximate coordinates put the origins of the explosion within or very near to the Sanctuary complex. Based on the size of the cloud and the amount of antimatter radiation, the immediately affected area is approximately seven-hundred-fifty-six point nine four square meters.”
Deen’s fingers raced over her console and within moments she had marked the radius of the explosion on the map. She had also highlighted the Temple of Tia’s Landing. It was well outside the affected radius.
Akinola once again had to fight the notion to express his feelings openly. But the relief he felt was nevertheless palpable.
“Get me the away team, now,” said Owens.
But So’Dan Leva slowly shook his head as he tried to raise the Starfleet officers on the ground. “I’m unable to establish a link through the antimatter radiation. Transporter locks are also unsuccessful.”
“I need to be able to speak to them, Commander. Whatever you need to do to boost the signal, do it,” said Owens before he turned to his operations manager. “Dee, I need you to coordinate with local authorities on the ground, they will need medical assistance as soon as possible, especially if their government has been destroyed. They’ll be chaos. I want medical teams to stand by to go down there at a moment’s notice. Get in touch with the freighter fleet and find out what medical supplies can be moved right away.”
Xylion stood from his science post. “Sir, I don’t believe that it would be safe to transfer any supplies or medical personnel at this time.”
Joseph Akinola focused on the Vulcan. “What are you saying, Commander? These people need our help as soon as possible.”
“Agreed. However I have studied the explosion as well as the amount of radiation released. According to my findings the explosive would have contained twelve point six eight percent of the total antimatter the New Light was able to procure.”
“You’re saying there might be more bombs down there ready to go off?” said Owens.
“That would be a logical assumption, sir.”
Akinola nodded. “It makes sense,” he said and looked at Owens. “The away team was working to disarm one of them. Who knows how many more there are? We cannot send anyone else down there while the threat still persists and we need to get our people out as soon as we can.”
Owens’ frowned, clearly not pleased with the idea. They were, at least partly, responsible for this. If they hadn’t been able to stop it, at the very least they had to do whatever they could to help those affected. But if their people were killed in another explosion then their deaths would have been just another unnecessary sacrifice.
He looked towards tactical where Lieutenant Bane had joined So’Dan Leva in an attempt to find a way to contact Star and her team. “Gentlemen, I need to speak with the away team, a-sap.”
“We’re working on it, sir,” said the half-Romulan without wasting the time to look up from his console. “But there are too many adverse factors affecting the com relays. We are trying to utilize the navigational deflector to boost the signal.”
“There is somebody else who would know where the other bombs are,” said Akinola, looking at Owens. “Deite.”
Eagle’s captain nodded. “Dee, are we still picking up Balik’s signal?”
The Tenarian checked her instruments but her stern facial features didn’t appear optimistic. “His last known position was in the eastern hills outside the city. That would have put them well outside the area affected. But the antimatter radiation is spreading rapidly,” she said as she worked her station like a piano player intently focused on her symphony. “The subdermal communicator isn’t powerful enough to cut through it.”
Owens stepped behind her. “Are we still picking it up? Yes or no?”
“Yes, but I cannot triangulate the signal. All I know for sure is that he is still within the eastern hills region.”
“Can you tap into the deflector to boost our gain?” said Akinola, picking up the same idea Leva had proposed for the com relays.
She thought about that for a moment. “I can try,” she said and went to work.
For the next few minutes the bridge turned silent except for the sounds of men and women working without interruption on trying to combat the radiation which was keeping them cut off from the planet’s surface.
Everybody knew what was at stake. They had already been given a taste to the impending apocalypse that would befall Tiaita’s most populous city. So far the damage and casualty estimates were moderate. The entire government building had been wiped off the face of the planet and with it, hundreds of politicians, military officers and dignitaries.
The surrounding neighborhoods were burning with hundreds more injured and desperately requiring help. But they knew it be a futile effort if they couldn’t locate and neutralize what was going to be the main event.
“I’m getting something here,” said Deen with apparent surprise. The signal she had been tracking had suddenly spiked with no apparent explanation.
Owens fought against reprimanding her for the vagueness of her report. “What is it? Can you locate it?”
She shook her head. “No, but I’m getting what looks like an audio signal.”
“Put it on speakers,” said Akinola.
It turned out to be nothing but unintelligible static.
“Can you clean that up?” Owens said.
The science officer went to work. “I am attempting to filter out the interference.”
And then voices emerged. They were nothing but faint whispers at first but began to distinguish themselves after just a few seconds.
“That’s T’Ser,” said Akinola when he recognized one of them. He hadn’t voiced his concerns but ever since the botched exchange he had feared the worst for his Vulcan officer. He had never been so glad to hear her voice. However he could still not understand what she or the others were saying.
“I am re-modulating the data stream.”
Xylion’s efforts bore fruit.
“.. all the technology in the galaxy is not going to prevent destiny from fulfilling itself.”
That was not T’Ser speaking.
“Hold him.”
Somebody moaned in pain.
And then nothing.
“What happened?” Akinola said and looked just about ready to push DeMara Deen out of her chair to get the answers himself.
She shook her head sadly. “We lost the signal. It’s gone.”
“It sounded as if they found the subdermal device,” said Owens.
“Play it again, Lieutenant,” said Akinola.
Deen didn’t hesitate and Deite’s voice once again filled the bridge until the connection suddenly ended just like it had before.
“Again.”
Akinola listened carefully to the recording.
“One more time.”
“Captain, there is nothing –“
But Akinola cut Owens off. “Right after Deite tells her people to hold him. Listen to that part.”
And so they did.
There was an audible struggle, a noise of two or more hands reaching out for somebody and trying to hold them in place. Then two steps, presumably Deite closing in on her victim. Then a beat of silence.
“Right there,” said Akinola.
It wasn’t easy to make out through the static laden recording but Owens thought he could hear it too. A distinct noise in the background. He looked at the Vulcan. “Commander, can you isolate that and try to clear it up some more?”
Xylion was already at work before the captain had even finished his sentence. Then, a moment later the part of the recording in question played again in a continues loop, the static reduced to an unobtrusive background noise.
The sound they had focused on before was becoming much clearer. It was a rapidly intensifying noise and it sounded mechanical in origin.
The Vulcan’s refined ears recognized it first. “Jet engines.”
Owens immediately turned back to Deen. “Are there any airports in the eastern hills region?”
“There is one,” Deen said and highlighted the location on the map.
“Than that’s where they are,” said Captain Akinola. “Can we beam down there?”
“The antimatter radiation would make it extremely risky to attempt the transporter. Chances are the stream would be misdirected or worse degrade beyond a point it could be reassembled,” said the operations officer.
“Then we send a shuttle,” said Owens and tapped Lif Culsten on the shoulder. “Lieutenant, assemble a strike team and take it down there as quickly as you can.”
The helmsman was on his feet in a flash, acknowledged the order and was off the bridge within seconds.
DeMara Deen swiveled around in her chair to face the captain. “It’ll take Lif at least twenty minutes to get there by shuttle,” she said. “The landing party on the surface might be able to get to that airport a lot faster.”
Owens nodded and focused on the team which had been attempting to establish a comlink for the last few minutes. “Tell me you’ve made some progress raising the away team.”
Nigel Bane looked up from the tactical board at which he stood next to Leva. “We’ve linked communications with the navigational deflector array to try and cut through the interference. It won’t be pretty and it won’t be reliable but it’s the best we can do on short notice.”
“It’ll have to be enough.”
DeMara Deen at operations was still trying to interpret the confusing sensor data she was receiving since they had detected a massive energy spike on the surface. The view screen which had displayed a satellite view of the city had blinked out at about the same time.
The captain turned to his science officer. “Commander?”
“We cannot be certain at this point but all data points to a sudden and possible violent discharge of energy originating within the capital city,” said the Vulcan while he studied his own readouts.
“The antimatter bomb,” said Nigel Bane and looked at his captain. “They weren’t able to stop it.”
But Akinola didn’t want to believe it and shook his head. “We need more accurate sensor data,” he said and looked back towards the screen. “And we need to get a visual, now.”
Eagle’s captain was not offended by Akinola’s demanding tone. The truth was he felt much the same way.
It turned out the stern words had been sufficient to make Eagle’s crew redouble their efforts.
“I’m working on restoring visual data,” said Deen. “Almost there.”
“Sensors are now confirming heavy antimatter radiation permeating the lower atmosphere,” said Xylion and turned to the two captains. “It is consistent with a detonation of an antimatter explosive.”
Joseph Akinola fought the urge to seat down. No matter what had happened, no matter who he had lost, he needed to remain steadfast, even if it was just for appearances sake. He had however, no words to offer.
Owens felt no different. He had come to this world with orders to strengthen an alliance in order to ensure the Federation’s chances to win the Dominion War. Instead he had brought destruction and death. It was an entirely unacceptable outcome to this mission.
“Wait,” said Deen as she glanced up on the screen. “Look at that.”
Everyone on the bridge turned towards the main viewer. The image was interlaced with static and refused to remain steady but it was just about clear enough to make out the huge cloud of superheated water vapor and debris hanging over the city. But not the entire city.
“Can you ascertain where the explosion originated and the radius of destruction?” said Owens.
Xylion was one step ahead of the operations officer. “The approximate coordinates put the origins of the explosion within or very near to the Sanctuary complex. Based on the size of the cloud and the amount of antimatter radiation, the immediately affected area is approximately seven-hundred-fifty-six point nine four square meters.”
Deen’s fingers raced over her console and within moments she had marked the radius of the explosion on the map. She had also highlighted the Temple of Tia’s Landing. It was well outside the affected radius.
Akinola once again had to fight the notion to express his feelings openly. But the relief he felt was nevertheless palpable.
“Get me the away team, now,” said Owens.
But So’Dan Leva slowly shook his head as he tried to raise the Starfleet officers on the ground. “I’m unable to establish a link through the antimatter radiation. Transporter locks are also unsuccessful.”
“I need to be able to speak to them, Commander. Whatever you need to do to boost the signal, do it,” said Owens before he turned to his operations manager. “Dee, I need you to coordinate with local authorities on the ground, they will need medical assistance as soon as possible, especially if their government has been destroyed. They’ll be chaos. I want medical teams to stand by to go down there at a moment’s notice. Get in touch with the freighter fleet and find out what medical supplies can be moved right away.”
Xylion stood from his science post. “Sir, I don’t believe that it would be safe to transfer any supplies or medical personnel at this time.”
Joseph Akinola focused on the Vulcan. “What are you saying, Commander? These people need our help as soon as possible.”
“Agreed. However I have studied the explosion as well as the amount of radiation released. According to my findings the explosive would have contained twelve point six eight percent of the total antimatter the New Light was able to procure.”
“You’re saying there might be more bombs down there ready to go off?” said Owens.
“That would be a logical assumption, sir.”
Akinola nodded. “It makes sense,” he said and looked at Owens. “The away team was working to disarm one of them. Who knows how many more there are? We cannot send anyone else down there while the threat still persists and we need to get our people out as soon as we can.”
Owens’ frowned, clearly not pleased with the idea. They were, at least partly, responsible for this. If they hadn’t been able to stop it, at the very least they had to do whatever they could to help those affected. But if their people were killed in another explosion then their deaths would have been just another unnecessary sacrifice.
He looked towards tactical where Lieutenant Bane had joined So’Dan Leva in an attempt to find a way to contact Star and her team. “Gentlemen, I need to speak with the away team, a-sap.”
“We’re working on it, sir,” said the half-Romulan without wasting the time to look up from his console. “But there are too many adverse factors affecting the com relays. We are trying to utilize the navigational deflector to boost the signal.”
“There is somebody else who would know where the other bombs are,” said Akinola, looking at Owens. “Deite.”
Eagle’s captain nodded. “Dee, are we still picking up Balik’s signal?”
The Tenarian checked her instruments but her stern facial features didn’t appear optimistic. “His last known position was in the eastern hills outside the city. That would have put them well outside the area affected. But the antimatter radiation is spreading rapidly,” she said as she worked her station like a piano player intently focused on her symphony. “The subdermal communicator isn’t powerful enough to cut through it.”
Owens stepped behind her. “Are we still picking it up? Yes or no?”
“Yes, but I cannot triangulate the signal. All I know for sure is that he is still within the eastern hills region.”
“Can you tap into the deflector to boost our gain?” said Akinola, picking up the same idea Leva had proposed for the com relays.
She thought about that for a moment. “I can try,” she said and went to work.
For the next few minutes the bridge turned silent except for the sounds of men and women working without interruption on trying to combat the radiation which was keeping them cut off from the planet’s surface.
Everybody knew what was at stake. They had already been given a taste to the impending apocalypse that would befall Tiaita’s most populous city. So far the damage and casualty estimates were moderate. The entire government building had been wiped off the face of the planet and with it, hundreds of politicians, military officers and dignitaries.
The surrounding neighborhoods were burning with hundreds more injured and desperately requiring help. But they knew it be a futile effort if they couldn’t locate and neutralize what was going to be the main event.
“I’m getting something here,” said Deen with apparent surprise. The signal she had been tracking had suddenly spiked with no apparent explanation.
Owens fought against reprimanding her for the vagueness of her report. “What is it? Can you locate it?”
She shook her head. “No, but I’m getting what looks like an audio signal.”
“Put it on speakers,” said Akinola.
It turned out to be nothing but unintelligible static.
“Can you clean that up?” Owens said.
The science officer went to work. “I am attempting to filter out the interference.”
And then voices emerged. They were nothing but faint whispers at first but began to distinguish themselves after just a few seconds.
“That’s T’Ser,” said Akinola when he recognized one of them. He hadn’t voiced his concerns but ever since the botched exchange he had feared the worst for his Vulcan officer. He had never been so glad to hear her voice. However he could still not understand what she or the others were saying.
“I am re-modulating the data stream.”
Xylion’s efforts bore fruit.
“.. all the technology in the galaxy is not going to prevent destiny from fulfilling itself.”
That was not T’Ser speaking.
“Hold him.”
Somebody moaned in pain.
And then nothing.
“What happened?” Akinola said and looked just about ready to push DeMara Deen out of her chair to get the answers himself.
She shook her head sadly. “We lost the signal. It’s gone.”
“It sounded as if they found the subdermal device,” said Owens.
“Play it again, Lieutenant,” said Akinola.
Deen didn’t hesitate and Deite’s voice once again filled the bridge until the connection suddenly ended just like it had before.
“Again.”
Akinola listened carefully to the recording.
“One more time.”
“Captain, there is nothing –“
But Akinola cut Owens off. “Right after Deite tells her people to hold him. Listen to that part.”
And so they did.
There was an audible struggle, a noise of two or more hands reaching out for somebody and trying to hold them in place. Then two steps, presumably Deite closing in on her victim. Then a beat of silence.
“Right there,” said Akinola.
It wasn’t easy to make out through the static laden recording but Owens thought he could hear it too. A distinct noise in the background. He looked at the Vulcan. “Commander, can you isolate that and try to clear it up some more?”
Xylion was already at work before the captain had even finished his sentence. Then, a moment later the part of the recording in question played again in a continues loop, the static reduced to an unobtrusive background noise.
The sound they had focused on before was becoming much clearer. It was a rapidly intensifying noise and it sounded mechanical in origin.
The Vulcan’s refined ears recognized it first. “Jet engines.”
Owens immediately turned back to Deen. “Are there any airports in the eastern hills region?”
“There is one,” Deen said and highlighted the location on the map.
“Than that’s where they are,” said Captain Akinola. “Can we beam down there?”
“The antimatter radiation would make it extremely risky to attempt the transporter. Chances are the stream would be misdirected or worse degrade beyond a point it could be reassembled,” said the operations officer.
“Then we send a shuttle,” said Owens and tapped Lif Culsten on the shoulder. “Lieutenant, assemble a strike team and take it down there as quickly as you can.”
The helmsman was on his feet in a flash, acknowledged the order and was off the bridge within seconds.
DeMara Deen swiveled around in her chair to face the captain. “It’ll take Lif at least twenty minutes to get there by shuttle,” she said. “The landing party on the surface might be able to get to that airport a lot faster.”
Owens nodded and focused on the team which had been attempting to establish a comlink for the last few minutes. “Tell me you’ve made some progress raising the away team.”
Nigel Bane looked up from the tactical board at which he stood next to Leva. “We’ve linked communications with the navigational deflector array to try and cut through the interference. It won’t be pretty and it won’t be reliable but it’s the best we can do on short notice.”
“It’ll have to be enough.”
At least the Eagle and Bluefin crews have an idea where to begin their search. The question is - will they be in time?
Nice character work with the mixed crew on Eagle's bridge. Good to see them working together so well in a very tense situation.
Nice character work with the mixed crew on Eagle's bridge. Good to see them working together so well in a very tense situation.
Concur with that. Good team work and the scene flowed well for all the various bits that were going on. Good to see Akinola and Owens reflected in each other a little. Things so far have put them on the back foot hopefully this time they can be a little more proactive.
“How are you doing, Chief?”
McBride had stepped up to Brin who was resting on his elbows on the floor. He hadn’t done himself any favors when he had taken back to his feet prematurely earlier in order to intimidate Teldro. Shortly after that short-sighted move he had been forced to lie down again and allow the doctor to finish treating his injuries.
Kneeling next to him, she had done so quickly and efficiently and was now in the process of sterilizing her instruments before placing them back into her medkit.
A small bowl on the floor held about half a dozen deformed and bloodied bullets she had removed from the Orion’s body.
“Good as new, Commander,” he said, glancing up with a crooked grin. “Thanks to the doctor’s magic touch.”
“There is nothing magical about it,” she shot back sharply without looking at anyone in particular. “And I would really appreciate if people would stop saying that. You think that because your big and strong and muscular, your invincible. Let me tell you something. You are not invincible, do you understand? You could have been killed. And in some cases, when you die, nobody can bring you back.”
Dale McBride and Solly Brin gave the doctor surprising glances, not having expected such a fierce response.
“I’m sorry,” she said and blushed slightly. She took a deep breath of air. “I’m not sure where that came from.”
“You’ve been through a lot, Doctor, there is no denying that. We understand and there is nothing to apologize for,” said McBride.
She glanced up at him and perhaps took proper notice of the Texan for the first time. His eyes sparkled with a warmth that very much reminded her of Gene Edison. He was a born leader, a perfect first officer and so very much unlike Tazla Star. For a moment she wondered if there was any chance Eagle and Bluefin could swap XOs.
She gave him an appreciative nod and then went back to finish up her tools.
“We have had no luck raising Eagle,” said Nora Laas as she approached. “Chief Deryx believes that the antimatter radiation from the blast is interfering with communications. It might take hours before we can get a clear signal.”
Dale McBride acknowledged and then turned to find Tazla Star.
She stood close to the still recovering Teldro, her arms crossed in front of her chest, she watched him like a hawk.
Two Marines were flanking the prisoner propped up against the wall even though he looked as if he was in no condition to attempt an escape.
“What’s our next move?” Brin asked as he tried to stand. It was a slow process at first and he relied on Nora’s help to get his mass off the floor. He was not too proud to take it. “If there is still a bomb out there we have to get to it before it goes off.”
Tazla Star had apparently been thinking exactly the same thing. She knelt down in front of the Tiaitan. “Where is it, Teldro?”
He looked at her with glaring anger. The woman who had killed him only to bring him back to the land of the living. He could tell right away that she had no shred of remorse for what she had done. And, more importantly, she was ready to do it all over again.
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It is mobile. In transit. I couldn’t tell you where it is now.”
Star measured his response for a moment. “I want to know who is behind all this,” she said. “Is it the Prias?”
He locked eyes with her and then managed a snicker. “The Prias is a weak fool. He’s got what he deserved.”
“Sindron then?”
His silence was answer enough for her. “Where is he?”
“Long gone,” said Teldro. “Do you really think he would stick around for the end?”
“It looks like you’ll be.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “So then we all die. And nobody will be able to bring me back from that one. Nobody.”
Tazla Star stood up straight again, looking down at Teldro with despise but mostly pity.
“Commander,” McBride said as he approached the Trill officer.
She turned to face him.
“We need to get T’Ser and we need to get that bomb,” he said.
Star didn’t miss how he had, consciously or not, put locating his officer before locating the second bomb.
“I don’t think we’ll get anything else out of Teldro. We might have hit a dead –“
“Owens to Commander …, please … in … you receive …?”
Star and McBride exchange a quick look before Star tapped her combadge. “This is Star. We can hear you but you are breaking up. We have been able to neutralize one of the bombs but we believe a third one is in play. This one powerful enough to destroy the entire city.”
“Commander, your … is weak … the antimatter radiation. … tracked Deite … an airport in the … not … far … your position. We have … shuttle but you ….”
The static and interference ultimately overwhelmed the captain’s voice.
“Sir, please say again.”
But the link was already dead.
Star slapped her combadge again but with no success. “Damn.”
“I believe he said that they’ve tracked Deite to an airport,” said McBride. “That’s where she’s holding T’Ser.”
“Airport,” she repeated to herself and then looked back down at Teldro. “You said the bomb was going to be mobile.”
McBride answered in his stead. “They’re putting it on a plane.”
Star nodded. “The question is, which airport?”
The others had quickly joined Star and McBride after Owens had made contact.
Nora Laas already had a tricorder out. “According to the local data network there are six major airports in the city.”
“He said it wasn’t too far from our present location,” said Star. “Just far enough not to be affected by the blast of this bomb but still within close reach.”
The Bajoran ran the figures. “That would still leave us with about three.”
“Deite’s last location was in the eastern hills,” said McBride. “How many are in or close to that area?”
Nora looked up. “One.”
The Trill commander instantly whirled for the exit. “Bring the prisoner. We’re moving out, now!”
He felt a momentary sense of loss as he looked out of the window of the tilt-jet.
The mushroom cloud had not dissolved yet and continued to hang over what had once been the nerve center of the planet like a thick veil, trying desperately to shield the destruction that surely lay within.
The price for what needed to be done was high indeed.
Not only had the explosion killed the most important figure in all of Tiaita but also its entire government apparatus, its ruling members, its administrators and its most sacred infrastructure.
All high level members of the military were gone, Tiaita’s formidable military operations center nothing but dust.
All over the planet civilians and soldiers would find themselves leaderless.
And that was when all sense of loss and regret simply dropped off Sindron-Tia’s mind to be replaced by an acute sense of purpose.
The people of Tiaita wouldn’t remain leaderless for long. In fact, soon enough their entire focus would be required to bring an end to those responsible for these heinous acts of terrorism. Just like he had envisioned it.
“My lord, we are ready to take you to the emergency bunker outside the city,” said a military aid who had entered the passenger cabin of the plane.
Sindron shook his head. “No,” he said and handed the young officer a piece of paper. “Instruct the pilot to take us to these coordinates over the city and hold position until further notice.”
The officer took the paper and looked at it for a moment with an obviously confused expression on his face. With the only surviving member of the government on his plane, his natural instinct was to take him as far away from any possible danger as he could.
“There is no time to waste,” Sindron said sharply.
The officer snapped to attention and nodded sharply. “As you wish, my lord,” he said and headed back towards the cockpit to carry out his orders.
“Soldier.”
The man stopped short and turned back to face his superior.
“I think, considering the circumstances it would be appropriate that you address me as Your Eminence.”
The officer hesitated for just a couple of seconds. But the logic quickly caught up with him. The Simas after all was the second highest government official on the planet and with the Prias dead, Sindron would automatically assume the post.
“Of course, Your Eminence,” he said quickly and stepped out.
Sindron-Tia, the former Simas of Tiaita and now the Prias found that he liked the sound of his new title.
He turned to look out of the window once more just before the plane began to gain altitude. He saw the many panicked citizens running onto the streets, looking towards the massive mushroom cloud in the sky while the expressions on their faces mirrored shock and total incomprehension.
“And the worst hasn’t even yet begun.”
McBride had stepped up to Brin who was resting on his elbows on the floor. He hadn’t done himself any favors when he had taken back to his feet prematurely earlier in order to intimidate Teldro. Shortly after that short-sighted move he had been forced to lie down again and allow the doctor to finish treating his injuries.
Kneeling next to him, she had done so quickly and efficiently and was now in the process of sterilizing her instruments before placing them back into her medkit.
A small bowl on the floor held about half a dozen deformed and bloodied bullets she had removed from the Orion’s body.
“Good as new, Commander,” he said, glancing up with a crooked grin. “Thanks to the doctor’s magic touch.”
“There is nothing magical about it,” she shot back sharply without looking at anyone in particular. “And I would really appreciate if people would stop saying that. You think that because your big and strong and muscular, your invincible. Let me tell you something. You are not invincible, do you understand? You could have been killed. And in some cases, when you die, nobody can bring you back.”
Dale McBride and Solly Brin gave the doctor surprising glances, not having expected such a fierce response.
“I’m sorry,” she said and blushed slightly. She took a deep breath of air. “I’m not sure where that came from.”
“You’ve been through a lot, Doctor, there is no denying that. We understand and there is nothing to apologize for,” said McBride.
She glanced up at him and perhaps took proper notice of the Texan for the first time. His eyes sparkled with a warmth that very much reminded her of Gene Edison. He was a born leader, a perfect first officer and so very much unlike Tazla Star. For a moment she wondered if there was any chance Eagle and Bluefin could swap XOs.
She gave him an appreciative nod and then went back to finish up her tools.
“We have had no luck raising Eagle,” said Nora Laas as she approached. “Chief Deryx believes that the antimatter radiation from the blast is interfering with communications. It might take hours before we can get a clear signal.”
Dale McBride acknowledged and then turned to find Tazla Star.
She stood close to the still recovering Teldro, her arms crossed in front of her chest, she watched him like a hawk.
Two Marines were flanking the prisoner propped up against the wall even though he looked as if he was in no condition to attempt an escape.
“What’s our next move?” Brin asked as he tried to stand. It was a slow process at first and he relied on Nora’s help to get his mass off the floor. He was not too proud to take it. “If there is still a bomb out there we have to get to it before it goes off.”
Tazla Star had apparently been thinking exactly the same thing. She knelt down in front of the Tiaitan. “Where is it, Teldro?”
He looked at her with glaring anger. The woman who had killed him only to bring him back to the land of the living. He could tell right away that she had no shred of remorse for what she had done. And, more importantly, she was ready to do it all over again.
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “It is mobile. In transit. I couldn’t tell you where it is now.”
Star measured his response for a moment. “I want to know who is behind all this,” she said. “Is it the Prias?”
He locked eyes with her and then managed a snicker. “The Prias is a weak fool. He’s got what he deserved.”
“Sindron then?”
His silence was answer enough for her. “Where is he?”
“Long gone,” said Teldro. “Do you really think he would stick around for the end?”
“It looks like you’ll be.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “So then we all die. And nobody will be able to bring me back from that one. Nobody.”
Tazla Star stood up straight again, looking down at Teldro with despise but mostly pity.
“Commander,” McBride said as he approached the Trill officer.
She turned to face him.
“We need to get T’Ser and we need to get that bomb,” he said.
Star didn’t miss how he had, consciously or not, put locating his officer before locating the second bomb.
“I don’t think we’ll get anything else out of Teldro. We might have hit a dead –“
“Owens to Commander …, please … in … you receive …?”
Star and McBride exchange a quick look before Star tapped her combadge. “This is Star. We can hear you but you are breaking up. We have been able to neutralize one of the bombs but we believe a third one is in play. This one powerful enough to destroy the entire city.”
“Commander, your … is weak … the antimatter radiation. … tracked Deite … an airport in the … not … far … your position. We have … shuttle but you ….”
The static and interference ultimately overwhelmed the captain’s voice.
“Sir, please say again.”
But the link was already dead.
Star slapped her combadge again but with no success. “Damn.”
“I believe he said that they’ve tracked Deite to an airport,” said McBride. “That’s where she’s holding T’Ser.”
“Airport,” she repeated to herself and then looked back down at Teldro. “You said the bomb was going to be mobile.”
McBride answered in his stead. “They’re putting it on a plane.”
Star nodded. “The question is, which airport?”
The others had quickly joined Star and McBride after Owens had made contact.
Nora Laas already had a tricorder out. “According to the local data network there are six major airports in the city.”
“He said it wasn’t too far from our present location,” said Star. “Just far enough not to be affected by the blast of this bomb but still within close reach.”
The Bajoran ran the figures. “That would still leave us with about three.”
“Deite’s last location was in the eastern hills,” said McBride. “How many are in or close to that area?”
Nora looked up. “One.”
The Trill commander instantly whirled for the exit. “Bring the prisoner. We’re moving out, now!”
* * *
He felt a momentary sense of loss as he looked out of the window of the tilt-jet.
The mushroom cloud had not dissolved yet and continued to hang over what had once been the nerve center of the planet like a thick veil, trying desperately to shield the destruction that surely lay within.
The price for what needed to be done was high indeed.
Not only had the explosion killed the most important figure in all of Tiaita but also its entire government apparatus, its ruling members, its administrators and its most sacred infrastructure.
All high level members of the military were gone, Tiaita’s formidable military operations center nothing but dust.
All over the planet civilians and soldiers would find themselves leaderless.
And that was when all sense of loss and regret simply dropped off Sindron-Tia’s mind to be replaced by an acute sense of purpose.
The people of Tiaita wouldn’t remain leaderless for long. In fact, soon enough their entire focus would be required to bring an end to those responsible for these heinous acts of terrorism. Just like he had envisioned it.
“My lord, we are ready to take you to the emergency bunker outside the city,” said a military aid who had entered the passenger cabin of the plane.
Sindron shook his head. “No,” he said and handed the young officer a piece of paper. “Instruct the pilot to take us to these coordinates over the city and hold position until further notice.”
The officer took the paper and looked at it for a moment with an obviously confused expression on his face. With the only surviving member of the government on his plane, his natural instinct was to take him as far away from any possible danger as he could.
“There is no time to waste,” Sindron said sharply.
The officer snapped to attention and nodded sharply. “As you wish, my lord,” he said and headed back towards the cockpit to carry out his orders.
“Soldier.”
The man stopped short and turned back to face his superior.
“I think, considering the circumstances it would be appropriate that you address me as Your Eminence.”
The officer hesitated for just a couple of seconds. But the logic quickly caught up with him. The Simas after all was the second highest government official on the planet and with the Prias dead, Sindron would automatically assume the post.
“Of course, Your Eminence,” he said quickly and stepped out.
Sindron-Tia, the former Simas of Tiaita and now the Prias found that he liked the sound of his new title.
He turned to look out of the window once more just before the plane began to gain altitude. He saw the many panicked citizens running onto the streets, looking towards the massive mushroom cloud in the sky while the expressions on their faces mirrored shock and total incomprehension.
“And the worst hasn’t even yet begun.”
Crikey he has a gall hasn't he? And quite a cocky, cool as a cucumber attitude too, to boot.
Maybe he should meet with Wenera, after all she's not afraid to give out to a burly Orin like Solly! Gotta admire such a fiery spirit.
And just thinking of the comparisons made between Gene Addison and McBride is saddening. Aw.
Maybe he should meet with Wenera, after all she's not afraid to give out to a burly Orin like Solly! Gotta admire such a fiery spirit.
And just thinking of the comparisons made between Gene Addison and McBride is saddening. Aw.
The crowd outside the temple had thinned significantly and those few hundred who had remained were eerily quiet.
It wasn’t exactly what Tazla Star had expected. There was no sense of panic or chaos one would have anticipated from the denizens of a city which had just been the target of a major terrorist attack. Most of them appeared frightened and confused as they looked off into the distance where once the massive Sanctuary tower had loomed over the city. Perhaps clinging to a misplaced hope that it would still be there once the smoke and fire had dissipated.
Perhaps it was too difficult for these loyal Tia to be able to believe that the Sanctuary wasn’t there anymore. It hadn’t been an attack just on people and architecture, this had been an attack on the very core of their being. An attack on their faith.
And it was like nothing anyone here had ever experienced.
Most of the people living in the glamorous city of Dar Nu Al knew little about the Ait struggle half a world away. They had heard stories of a distant war against heretic rebels but it had never really affected their lives. Here in the capital the Ait and Tia knew their places in society and nobody had ever questioned them.
Now the war had hit home in the worst imaginable way and it had left them at a complete and utter loss for words and for some, at a loss for a reaction.
Of course Star and the rest of the team had much more important things to worry about then the Tiaitans inappropriately slow response to the attack on the Sanctuary. The only thing that mattered now was the fact that these people were too confused to even consider the possibility of evacuating the city. And if they didn’t stop Deite, the first strike would appear like a Sunday afternoon barbeque compared to what was still to come.
The Starfleet officers and Marines rushed down the steps of the temple.
Star found what she had been looking for immediately. Three official looking vehicles which were parked right in front of the temple. They belonged to the uniformed Fraternity police but the officers themselves didn’t appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere. Instead they clung desperately to their radios waiting for instructions that in most likelihood would never come.
They were so distracted, they never even noticed the large group of aliens approaching them.
“We need your vehicles, now,” said Star without preamble and headed towards the first van.
The ranking officer did a double take on her and her companions and then when he finally realized who they were and where they had come from he quickly stepped into Star’s path, one hand on his holstered gun. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’ve entered the temple without permission.”
“Really?” said McBride without attempting to mask his annoyance. “Don’t you think you’ve got bigger problems on your hands than our trespassing?”
But the officer shook his head. “I don’t know what is happening here but I cannot just let you take our vehicles without a direct order from –“
“My God, wake up, man,” said Wenera with a surprisingly fierce tone in her voice. “Your city has been attacked. Your government has been destroyed. We barely managed to defuse a bomb in this temple and a third one might wipe out what is left of this city unless we can stop it in time.”
His eyes opened wide and he took an unsteady step backwards. His hand remained on the holstered weapon. “I … I need orders –“
Solly Brin build himself up to his entire massive size. “There won’t be any more orders, numbnuts. Can’t you get that through that little head of yours?” he said, his voice booming so loudly it drew the attention of half the plaza.
The torn expression on the man’s face was clear. He simply could not.
Star decided that they were wasting too much precious time. She pointed her phaser rifle at him and within seconds the Marines had followed, covering all his equally unsteady colleagues.
“I’m going to make this very easy for you. You can give us your vehicles and be a productive force in trying to save your damn city or you can all take a long and painful nap,” she said.
The officer looked down the barrel of the phaser rifle and the many others which were pointed at him and his men. Then he removed his hand from his sidearm and looked at the commander. “Where do you need to go?”
“There is an airport in the eastern hills. Do you know it?” said Nora Laas.
He nodded.
“Take us there.”
Within moments Starfleet, Border Service and Marines Corps personnel had boarded the three vans as they sped away with blaring sirens.
Star who had taken a seat in the first vehicle turned towards the driver. “Whatever happens,” she said. “You do not stop until we get there.”
And so they never did.
They raced through the wide streets and open intersections with surprising swiftness. Like they had been trained for centuries, other traffic parted instantaneously before the procession of Fraternity vehicles, not even the most terrifying destruction they had ever witnessed could break the instinct like habit of the city’s population.
There appeared to be no coordinated rescue effort in progress, no evacuation orders, no tightening of security. With the Sanctuary eradicated the city itself had become like a body whose head had been cut off. The city had turned into a trance like state, awaiting the final act of this tragic play with utter helplessness.
As she watched the empty faces of the people they passed, Star couldn’t help wonder if perhaps the city deserved to be wiped out for all the ignorance and indifference and false worship that had led an entire world to the brink of its own destruction.
She ultimately decided that Nora Laas had been right about one very important thing. It wasn’t her place to judge. Whatever Tiaita was and whatever destruction had been brought upon it, she had played a part in it and now it was up to her and the rest of the team to do whatever they could to avoid one of the greatest losses of life in the history of this planet.
The procession reached the eastern hills no ten minutes after they had set out from the temple square.
Star had the vehicles turn off their noisy sirens as they rolled into the only airport in the region.
It became immediately clear that this was not a small facility. In fact it seemed like a major transportation hub for both cargo and passengers, frequented by hundreds of small and large airplanes alike. And the recent attack had not slowed things down.
On the contrary. While most of the people closer to the center of the city had been stunned into inertia, here a great number of inhabitants had decided to take action, most notably by boarding the first aircraft that would leave the seemingly doomed area.
“How are we going to find them in here?” said Wenera slightly frustrated as she looked out of the window to see row after row of airplanes and hangers.
“We might finally have some luck on our side,” said McBride as he consulted a tricorder. “I’m picking up a number of life-signs coming from one of these hangars.”
The Bajoran security chief shook her head. “I don’t believe in luck. Besides, there are signs of life all around us. What makes this hangar so special?”
“We have had problems distinguishing Tiaitan life signs from those of other races, that’s why we’ve had such a difficult time finding the doctor and T’Ser,” he said. “But the cluster of life signs I’m detecting now shows at least one significant variation from all the ones surrounding it.”
Wenera glanced at the readout. “It has to be her. The variation is T’Ser.”
McBride nodded and then looked at Star. “It’s our best shot.”
“Alright,” she said. “We surround the building and enter from three sides. And one more thing. This is one of those times when it’s better to shoot first and ask questions later. Deite and the bomb are here. Which means if she is put into a corner and sees no way out, she will trigger it and I don’t have to remind everyone that that would really run counter to what we are trying to accomplish.”
* * *
T’Ser and Balik had been tied and grabbed by strong hands to be transferred onto the waiting plane which sat in the aircraft hangar.
The Vulcan Bluefin officer understood this to be a change of Deite’s original plan. Being so close now to achieve her ultimate aim of destroying the capital, the rebel leader had initially lost interest in her captive, apparently content to leave her smoldering in her cell until she was killed in the antimatter explosion.
But that all changed after she had been found trying to assist Balik in stopping Deite.
Now the woman wanted her to watch what she called the direct results of their offworld meddling.
T’Ser had long since understood that besides suffering from delusions of grandeur, Deite also had a serious inferiority complex and wanted – perhaps even needed – to feel superior to the Vulcan and all the other aliens who had come to her planet.
“This is insane, Deite,” said Balik as he was roughly placed in a row of seats in the large cargo hold of the plane and right next to T’Ser. “You’ll be killing thousands of Ait along with Tia if you do this. They don’t deserve such a fate.”
“Don’t they?” she shot back angrily. “Tell me something, Balik, how is it possible that we outnumber the Tia four to one and yet they have been the ones winning this war? It’s because the majority of our people are perfectly contend with the status quo, to continue their lives as ignorant slaves. They are the prime enablers of the Tia tyranny.”
“It doesn’t justify mass murder,” said T’Ser.
“What you call murder, I call the first step to Ait liberation. After today everything will change, after today the Ait will come together as one to fight the Tia,” she said with rising passion in her voice. “Can’t you see that I’m going to unite our people for a common good? Imagine a hundred million Ait rising up as one.”
“Under your leadership?” said the Vulcan with obvious sarcasm. “Tell me, will you make them call you the Anointed One?”
She dismissed the comment with a shrug. “I don’t care what they’ll call me.”
“Good,” said T’Ser. “Because history will remember you as an insane homicidal maniac.”
Deite turned her back on them to look towards the back of the plane. There, just beyond a small passage, a large, complicated looking device was being put in place. “History will be written by those left standing at the end,” she said and faced T’Ser once more. “That’s going to be me.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
The rebel smirked. “Pilot, get us in the air,” she said without ever taking her eyes off the Vulcan.
But the plane didn’t move.
Annoyed she headed for the cockpit in the front of the aircraft. “What’s the hold up?”
“We’re not getting the clearance from airport control.”
Deite reached for her gun. “I don’t give a damn about control, get us out of here, now.”
It wasn’t exactly what Tazla Star had expected. There was no sense of panic or chaos one would have anticipated from the denizens of a city which had just been the target of a major terrorist attack. Most of them appeared frightened and confused as they looked off into the distance where once the massive Sanctuary tower had loomed over the city. Perhaps clinging to a misplaced hope that it would still be there once the smoke and fire had dissipated.
Perhaps it was too difficult for these loyal Tia to be able to believe that the Sanctuary wasn’t there anymore. It hadn’t been an attack just on people and architecture, this had been an attack on the very core of their being. An attack on their faith.
And it was like nothing anyone here had ever experienced.
Most of the people living in the glamorous city of Dar Nu Al knew little about the Ait struggle half a world away. They had heard stories of a distant war against heretic rebels but it had never really affected their lives. Here in the capital the Ait and Tia knew their places in society and nobody had ever questioned them.
Now the war had hit home in the worst imaginable way and it had left them at a complete and utter loss for words and for some, at a loss for a reaction.
Of course Star and the rest of the team had much more important things to worry about then the Tiaitans inappropriately slow response to the attack on the Sanctuary. The only thing that mattered now was the fact that these people were too confused to even consider the possibility of evacuating the city. And if they didn’t stop Deite, the first strike would appear like a Sunday afternoon barbeque compared to what was still to come.
The Starfleet officers and Marines rushed down the steps of the temple.
Star found what she had been looking for immediately. Three official looking vehicles which were parked right in front of the temple. They belonged to the uniformed Fraternity police but the officers themselves didn’t appear to be in a hurry to go anywhere. Instead they clung desperately to their radios waiting for instructions that in most likelihood would never come.
They were so distracted, they never even noticed the large group of aliens approaching them.
“We need your vehicles, now,” said Star without preamble and headed towards the first van.
The ranking officer did a double take on her and her companions and then when he finally realized who they were and where they had come from he quickly stepped into Star’s path, one hand on his holstered gun. “Wait a minute,” he said. “You’ve entered the temple without permission.”
“Really?” said McBride without attempting to mask his annoyance. “Don’t you think you’ve got bigger problems on your hands than our trespassing?”
But the officer shook his head. “I don’t know what is happening here but I cannot just let you take our vehicles without a direct order from –“
“My God, wake up, man,” said Wenera with a surprisingly fierce tone in her voice. “Your city has been attacked. Your government has been destroyed. We barely managed to defuse a bomb in this temple and a third one might wipe out what is left of this city unless we can stop it in time.”
His eyes opened wide and he took an unsteady step backwards. His hand remained on the holstered weapon. “I … I need orders –“
Solly Brin build himself up to his entire massive size. “There won’t be any more orders, numbnuts. Can’t you get that through that little head of yours?” he said, his voice booming so loudly it drew the attention of half the plaza.
The torn expression on the man’s face was clear. He simply could not.
Star decided that they were wasting too much precious time. She pointed her phaser rifle at him and within seconds the Marines had followed, covering all his equally unsteady colleagues.
“I’m going to make this very easy for you. You can give us your vehicles and be a productive force in trying to save your damn city or you can all take a long and painful nap,” she said.
The officer looked down the barrel of the phaser rifle and the many others which were pointed at him and his men. Then he removed his hand from his sidearm and looked at the commander. “Where do you need to go?”
“There is an airport in the eastern hills. Do you know it?” said Nora Laas.
He nodded.
“Take us there.”
Within moments Starfleet, Border Service and Marines Corps personnel had boarded the three vans as they sped away with blaring sirens.
Star who had taken a seat in the first vehicle turned towards the driver. “Whatever happens,” she said. “You do not stop until we get there.”
And so they never did.
They raced through the wide streets and open intersections with surprising swiftness. Like they had been trained for centuries, other traffic parted instantaneously before the procession of Fraternity vehicles, not even the most terrifying destruction they had ever witnessed could break the instinct like habit of the city’s population.
There appeared to be no coordinated rescue effort in progress, no evacuation orders, no tightening of security. With the Sanctuary eradicated the city itself had become like a body whose head had been cut off. The city had turned into a trance like state, awaiting the final act of this tragic play with utter helplessness.
As she watched the empty faces of the people they passed, Star couldn’t help wonder if perhaps the city deserved to be wiped out for all the ignorance and indifference and false worship that had led an entire world to the brink of its own destruction.
She ultimately decided that Nora Laas had been right about one very important thing. It wasn’t her place to judge. Whatever Tiaita was and whatever destruction had been brought upon it, she had played a part in it and now it was up to her and the rest of the team to do whatever they could to avoid one of the greatest losses of life in the history of this planet.
The procession reached the eastern hills no ten minutes after they had set out from the temple square.
Star had the vehicles turn off their noisy sirens as they rolled into the only airport in the region.
It became immediately clear that this was not a small facility. In fact it seemed like a major transportation hub for both cargo and passengers, frequented by hundreds of small and large airplanes alike. And the recent attack had not slowed things down.
On the contrary. While most of the people closer to the center of the city had been stunned into inertia, here a great number of inhabitants had decided to take action, most notably by boarding the first aircraft that would leave the seemingly doomed area.
“How are we going to find them in here?” said Wenera slightly frustrated as she looked out of the window to see row after row of airplanes and hangers.
“We might finally have some luck on our side,” said McBride as he consulted a tricorder. “I’m picking up a number of life-signs coming from one of these hangars.”
The Bajoran security chief shook her head. “I don’t believe in luck. Besides, there are signs of life all around us. What makes this hangar so special?”
“We have had problems distinguishing Tiaitan life signs from those of other races, that’s why we’ve had such a difficult time finding the doctor and T’Ser,” he said. “But the cluster of life signs I’m detecting now shows at least one significant variation from all the ones surrounding it.”
Wenera glanced at the readout. “It has to be her. The variation is T’Ser.”
McBride nodded and then looked at Star. “It’s our best shot.”
“Alright,” she said. “We surround the building and enter from three sides. And one more thing. This is one of those times when it’s better to shoot first and ask questions later. Deite and the bomb are here. Which means if she is put into a corner and sees no way out, she will trigger it and I don’t have to remind everyone that that would really run counter to what we are trying to accomplish.”
* * *
T’Ser and Balik had been tied and grabbed by strong hands to be transferred onto the waiting plane which sat in the aircraft hangar.
The Vulcan Bluefin officer understood this to be a change of Deite’s original plan. Being so close now to achieve her ultimate aim of destroying the capital, the rebel leader had initially lost interest in her captive, apparently content to leave her smoldering in her cell until she was killed in the antimatter explosion.
But that all changed after she had been found trying to assist Balik in stopping Deite.
Now the woman wanted her to watch what she called the direct results of their offworld meddling.
T’Ser had long since understood that besides suffering from delusions of grandeur, Deite also had a serious inferiority complex and wanted – perhaps even needed – to feel superior to the Vulcan and all the other aliens who had come to her planet.
“This is insane, Deite,” said Balik as he was roughly placed in a row of seats in the large cargo hold of the plane and right next to T’Ser. “You’ll be killing thousands of Ait along with Tia if you do this. They don’t deserve such a fate.”
“Don’t they?” she shot back angrily. “Tell me something, Balik, how is it possible that we outnumber the Tia four to one and yet they have been the ones winning this war? It’s because the majority of our people are perfectly contend with the status quo, to continue their lives as ignorant slaves. They are the prime enablers of the Tia tyranny.”
“It doesn’t justify mass murder,” said T’Ser.
“What you call murder, I call the first step to Ait liberation. After today everything will change, after today the Ait will come together as one to fight the Tia,” she said with rising passion in her voice. “Can’t you see that I’m going to unite our people for a common good? Imagine a hundred million Ait rising up as one.”
“Under your leadership?” said the Vulcan with obvious sarcasm. “Tell me, will you make them call you the Anointed One?”
She dismissed the comment with a shrug. “I don’t care what they’ll call me.”
“Good,” said T’Ser. “Because history will remember you as an insane homicidal maniac.”
Deite turned her back on them to look towards the back of the plane. There, just beyond a small passage, a large, complicated looking device was being put in place. “History will be written by those left standing at the end,” she said and faced T’Ser once more. “That’s going to be me.”
“You keep telling yourself that.”
The rebel smirked. “Pilot, get us in the air,” she said without ever taking her eyes off the Vulcan.
But the plane didn’t move.
Annoyed she headed for the cockpit in the front of the aircraft. “What’s the hold up?”
“We’re not getting the clearance from airport control.”
Deite reached for her gun. “I don’t give a damn about control, get us out of here, now.”
I actually now feel very sorry for the Tia in the remnants of the city. They seem so forlorn and desolate. Aw.
Looks like the cavalry might arrive in time. I doubt that Deite will surrender without a fight, though. Cornered, she's crazy enough to detonate the bomb even if it means killing herself too.
Just another ordinary day in the life of Starfleet and the Border Service.
Just another ordinary day in the life of Starfleet and the Border Service.
Just the thing after the week I've had--a very taut and well weaved tale. You've done a magnificent job with the Tia, the Ait, the Eagle personnel, and the Bluefin personnel meshing everything together and it's looking like we're in for a slam bang finale!
Tazla Star and her team had the hangar building completely surrounded, there would be no route for escape this time.
The Trill along with McBride and four Marines were covering the main gate which was the only way for an airplane to enter or exit the large building.
“If they have transferred the bomb onto the plane already our main objective is to stop it without destroying it,” repeated Tazla Star to make sure everybody was perfectly clear on what needed to be done. “Do not fire directly on the fuselage or the engines, it could ignite the highly combustive fuel. Instead aim for the landing gear in order to disable it.”
The Marines nodded in acknowledgement but Dale McBride wasn’t paying her much attention.
“Commander?”
He glanced at her with an asking expression.
“Did you understand what I just said?”
“Yes, I have. And I don’t appreciate your tone. Last time I checked nobody had given you operational command.”
Star didn’t reply to this. While he was technically correct she found it odd that he had decided to pick this time to challenge her authority. Something else was on his mind and she hoped the distraction wasn’t going to lead to mistakes.
Then she tapped her combadge twice, the sign for all teams to enter the building at the same time. Their orders: Shoot on sight.
Dale McBride was the first man in.
Tazla Star and the Marines were right behind him.
She knew immediately that something wasn’t right.
The massive hangar was large enough to contain one or two jet-powered aircraft which the Tiaitans used as bombers or long-haul cargo planes but all she could see was a row of small turbo-prop crafts more likely to be for recreational use.
Solly Brin, Nora Laas and Major Wasco had all the entrances covered and she quickly and quietly gave them hand signals to check the offices and back rooms while she and her team inspected the small planes.
“This is wrong,” said McBride under his breath, putting Star’s own thoughts into words.
It was Wasco’s team who found something first.
The teams quickly converged on his position.
“What is that?” said Lieutenant Nora when she stepped into the one of the backrooms where the major had found a small apparatus standing on a table in the middle of the room. It wasn’t much more than thick rod of pulsating red light on top of a small box.
Chief Deryx referred to his tricorder. “That,” he said, “is the source of our life sign readings. No wonder they were so clear. They’re artificial.”
“Son of a bitch,” said Nora and lowered her rifle. “They’ve tricked us.”
“Does this mean Deite is not really at this airport?” said Solly Brin and looking at the officers surrounding him.
McBride shook his head. “No,” he said and headed straight for the exit. “She’s here.”
“Wait, Commander,” said Star but the Bluefin first officer was not to be stopped and made his way determinedly out of the hangar and back outside.
There were dozens of planes rolling along the taxiways and towards the runway. Dale McBride studied every single one carefully, almost as if he could look right through them.
Star and the others stepped out of the hangar as well. She turned to look at Deryx. “Now that we’ve deactivated the fake transmitter, any chance you can hone in on the real life sign readings?”
But the Denobulan shook his head. “I’ve got plenty of readings but can’t detect anything that would indicate who we are looking for.”
“We don’t have time to search every single building,” said the Bajoran security officer.
“We may not have a choice,” said Star and looked at Wasco. “Major, have your people split up in two man teams and work yourself through the western part of the facility, we take the east.”
The Marine commander nodded and quickly assembled his team to pass down the orders.
“We’ll coordinate our efforts from right here,” she said and then looked at McBride who didn’t seem to be paying attention to what she was saying. “Commander, I would like you to stay here and set up a command post.”
Dale McBride was still not listening, instead his eyes were sharply focused on a two engine cargo plane which was slowly rolling out of an aircraft hanger some four hundred feet away.
“Commander?”
“She’s on that plane,” he said and began to walk towards it.
“What? How do you know?”
But the Bluefin first officer didn’t reply, instead he continued on, determined to stop the aircraft single handedly if he had to. It had become his one and only concern.
The Trill quickly caught up with McBride and grabbed his arm to hold him back. “There is no way for you to know that Lieutenant T’Ser is on that specific plane. Besides our main priority is to find the bomb, not the lieutenant.”
He freed himself easily from Star’s grip. “I know she is on that plane. And if she is on it then so is that bomb.”
“Commander, I don’t give a damn what you believe, you will follow my orders and join the search parties.”
“Your orders?” he said and sounded as if he wanted to laugh out loud. “Who do you think you are? A disgraced former captain who by all rights should be rotting in some dirty prison cell, that’s who you are. The only reason you are here at all is because of this damn war. And you presume to give me orders? The people who follow you orders die and I’m not going to be one of them. T’Ser is not going to be one of them.”
The sudden outburst stunned the Trill commander. She knew that Dale McBride didn’t think much of her but the usually cool-headed Texan had kept such strong emotions well buried. Until now.
McBride eyes mirrored a fleeting insecurity as if he felt he had crossed a line somewhere, that he had said too much. It was gone in a flash, replaced again with an iron-clad determination to stop at nothing until he had T’Ser back. He turned his back towards the Trill and continued towards the plane.
Tazla Star’s perplexity didn’t last long. She drew her phaser and pointed it at McBride. “Don’t make me do this, Commander.”
Solly Brin and Chief Deryx had their weapons out in an instant, training them immediately on the Trill who was now threatening their superior officer.
Nora Laas leveled her phaser rifle at the burly Orion.
The Marines who hadn’t fanned out yet joined the lieutenant.
McBride stopped and turned to be confronted once more with a very familiar sight. “Damn it, we are wasting time –“
“I know,” said Star. “You need to follow my orders.”
“I can’t do that. You can shoot me if you want but that won’t help anything.”
Tazla Star was considering her options. She knew that this power struggle was the last thing they needed but she couldn’t allow for McBride to run off on his own based on a gut feeling either. The best way to stop Deite was for everyone to follow the same game plan. She didn’t lower her phaser.
“We’ve got incoming hostiles.”
Wasco’s cry captured everyone’s attention.
A small army was approaching the Starfleet landing party from the south, the exact opposite direction into which McBride had set out on.
There were at least two dozen foot soldiers which bore an uncanny resemblance to the kind of soldiers Nora and the Marines had encountered in Al Tre Nek, halfway around the globe. They were supported by four weapon mounted flat back trucks.
“A distraction,” said McBride.
The combined force opened fire instantly, forcing the Marines to take cover behind their vehicles and inside the empty hangar.
Nora, Brin and Deryx joined the Marines, putting aside any internal disagreements, at least until this new threat had been eliminated.
McBride and Star however were already too far away from the rest of the team and had to find alternative cover. They slipped behind a tall and rusted fuel tank to avoid the incoming volley which had also targeted them.
“Missile, missile,” one of the Marines shouted and then scrambled to move away from the vehicle behind which he and his comrades had sought cover.
It was a smart move. Not a moment later one the rebel trucks launched a projectile which struck with the government issued van, causing it to be catapulted several feet into the air before it was ripped apart and consumed by an explosion.
Star watched on with a frustrated frown. She hit her combadge. “Major, what’s your status?”
The reply came moments later. “We have one man down, attempting to regroup as we speak.”
“I need you to take them out, now.”
“We’re on it, Wasco out.”
“Look over there,” said McBride and pointed towards the burning remains of the Fraternity vehicle.
Star wasn’t quite sure what the Bluefin officer was seeing at first. But then she realized that he wasn’t looking at the destroyed van but at one of the other ones.
The shockwave of the explosion had thrown another vehicle on its side and somebody was emerging from it.
It was Teldro.
He had apparently managed to overpower his guard and now crawled out of the van. He used the confusion the attack had caused to make his getaway.
Tazla Star aimed her phaser rifle and took him into her crosshairs. It would be an easy takedown.
But McBride pulled her rifle down. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?” she said with obvious annoyance.
“Look.”
He wasn’t heading towards the attacking rebels, instead he was making his way into the opposite direction. Not towards Star and McBride’s position but towards one of the jet planes rolling along the taxiway. The exact same one McBride had headed for earlier.
“The antimatter bomb is on that plane which means so is Deite and T’Ser,” he said and got up to follow Teldro.
But once again he was held back by Star.
He turned on her with anger in his eyes. “What more proof do you need? They are all on that plane.”
She nodded. “Fine but what you’re doing is suicide. Those rebels might not fire on him,” she said and pointed at Teldro who was crossing the wide open tarmac unmolested by the rebel forces, “but they sure as hell will take you down the moment they get a clear shot.”
“So what do you suggest?”
She turned to look at the plane which had noticeable slowed down slightly, now that Teldro was approaching. For a moment Star studied the layout of the taxiways and the runway.
“Wasco to Star.”
She tapped her combadge. “Star here.”
“We’re in position for a counter-attack, however it may leave you exposed. How do you want to proceed?”
“Major, do what you have to do. Take them out.”
“Understood. But I suggest you get find another plane for cover. And quickly. Wasco out.”
“Follow me,” said Star and began to move.
But McBride hesitated when he realized that Star was heading away from the plane he so desperately needed to stop.
She threw him a look over her shoulder. “Just trust me on this. Besides this spot is going to become very uncomfortable, very quickly.”
McBride nodded and followed the commander.
Star had remained right. In order to get their enemy into the right position, the Marines along with Nora Laas, Solly Brin and Deryx had ceased fire for the moment, leading the rebels to believe that the Starfleet team was retreating.
They moved in closer and used additional missiles to soften up the enemy positions. Two went into the hangar which was quickly claimed by a series of explosions as one plane after the next caught fire in a domino effect of destruction.
Another projectile did short work of the fuel tank which Star and McBride had used as cover moments earlier and it crumbled to pieces.
The Marines had retreated but not quite the way the rebels thought.
Wasco had quickly and efficiently moved his team of a dozen Marines behind the enemy and to their right flank.
The rebels even though outnumbering their enemy by at least two to one never had a chance.
Star, confident that Wasco and the others had things firmly in hand, rushed along narrow paths in between aircraft hangars and fuel tanks, ignoring the ear shattering explosions and sounds of phasers and machine guns battling for dominance.
McBride was following closely even though he was beginning to fear that the Trill was taking them into the wrong direction. That was until she came to a halt at the edge of a hanger building and pressed her back flat against the wall.
It was quite literally the end of the tunnel. Beyond lay only open tarmac.
She spied around the corner and when she looked back at McBride she had a playful smile on her lips as if she was quite pleased with herself.
McBride ventured a look himself and was surprised at what he discovered.
A taxiway was running just a few short meters along the building and the plane they were after was coming straight towards them. What was more, the tarmac made a sharp turn here to lead the planes directly onto the runway for takeoff which meant they had to slow down significantly.
“It looks like there is an access ladder by the landing gear. That’s our way in,” said Star. “We wait until the plane gets to the turn and then make a run for it. We should be close enough that they won’t even see us coming.”
McBride gave her a nod and secured his phaser in its holster. He would have to leave the rifle behind, it would only slow him down.
Star did the same.
Then the moment came. The plane reached the turn and slowed down to align with the runway.
The Trill and Dale McBride took off.
The noise of the engines was nearly deafening now and they had to be careful to stay out of their wake.
When they reached the landing gear the aircraft was already speeding up again and this time it would not slow down again, on the contrary.
McBride reached the ladder first and quickly jumped onto it and began to climb up. Star was next. The ladder wasn’t much more than a few rungs placed along the landing gear, certainly not designed to board the plane while it was moving. Star’s foot slipped and her boot missed the massive rubber wheel by inches. At their current speed it was rotating fast enough that it could have ripped her clean off the ladder and turned her into road kill.
They both managed to climb into the landing gear housing chamber.
It was then that the plane lurched forward to reach takeoff velocity.
Neither of them had been prepared for the sudden acceleration. Star tried to hold on desperately to anything but found only a loose hanging wire which immediately snapped off. She tumbled back towards the quickly spinning wheels below.
McBride caught her just as her feet went over the edge.
But he didn’t have the leverage to pull her back in and for a moment they simply hung there, suspended in place.
The Trill along with McBride and four Marines were covering the main gate which was the only way for an airplane to enter or exit the large building.
“If they have transferred the bomb onto the plane already our main objective is to stop it without destroying it,” repeated Tazla Star to make sure everybody was perfectly clear on what needed to be done. “Do not fire directly on the fuselage or the engines, it could ignite the highly combustive fuel. Instead aim for the landing gear in order to disable it.”
The Marines nodded in acknowledgement but Dale McBride wasn’t paying her much attention.
“Commander?”
He glanced at her with an asking expression.
“Did you understand what I just said?”
“Yes, I have. And I don’t appreciate your tone. Last time I checked nobody had given you operational command.”
Star didn’t reply to this. While he was technically correct she found it odd that he had decided to pick this time to challenge her authority. Something else was on his mind and she hoped the distraction wasn’t going to lead to mistakes.
Then she tapped her combadge twice, the sign for all teams to enter the building at the same time. Their orders: Shoot on sight.
Dale McBride was the first man in.
Tazla Star and the Marines were right behind him.
She knew immediately that something wasn’t right.
The massive hangar was large enough to contain one or two jet-powered aircraft which the Tiaitans used as bombers or long-haul cargo planes but all she could see was a row of small turbo-prop crafts more likely to be for recreational use.
Solly Brin, Nora Laas and Major Wasco had all the entrances covered and she quickly and quietly gave them hand signals to check the offices and back rooms while she and her team inspected the small planes.
“This is wrong,” said McBride under his breath, putting Star’s own thoughts into words.
It was Wasco’s team who found something first.
The teams quickly converged on his position.
“What is that?” said Lieutenant Nora when she stepped into the one of the backrooms where the major had found a small apparatus standing on a table in the middle of the room. It wasn’t much more than thick rod of pulsating red light on top of a small box.
Chief Deryx referred to his tricorder. “That,” he said, “is the source of our life sign readings. No wonder they were so clear. They’re artificial.”
“Son of a bitch,” said Nora and lowered her rifle. “They’ve tricked us.”
“Does this mean Deite is not really at this airport?” said Solly Brin and looking at the officers surrounding him.
McBride shook his head. “No,” he said and headed straight for the exit. “She’s here.”
“Wait, Commander,” said Star but the Bluefin first officer was not to be stopped and made his way determinedly out of the hangar and back outside.
There were dozens of planes rolling along the taxiways and towards the runway. Dale McBride studied every single one carefully, almost as if he could look right through them.
Star and the others stepped out of the hangar as well. She turned to look at Deryx. “Now that we’ve deactivated the fake transmitter, any chance you can hone in on the real life sign readings?”
But the Denobulan shook his head. “I’ve got plenty of readings but can’t detect anything that would indicate who we are looking for.”
“We don’t have time to search every single building,” said the Bajoran security officer.
“We may not have a choice,” said Star and looked at Wasco. “Major, have your people split up in two man teams and work yourself through the western part of the facility, we take the east.”
The Marine commander nodded and quickly assembled his team to pass down the orders.
“We’ll coordinate our efforts from right here,” she said and then looked at McBride who didn’t seem to be paying attention to what she was saying. “Commander, I would like you to stay here and set up a command post.”
Dale McBride was still not listening, instead his eyes were sharply focused on a two engine cargo plane which was slowly rolling out of an aircraft hanger some four hundred feet away.
“Commander?”
“She’s on that plane,” he said and began to walk towards it.
“What? How do you know?”
But the Bluefin first officer didn’t reply, instead he continued on, determined to stop the aircraft single handedly if he had to. It had become his one and only concern.
The Trill quickly caught up with McBride and grabbed his arm to hold him back. “There is no way for you to know that Lieutenant T’Ser is on that specific plane. Besides our main priority is to find the bomb, not the lieutenant.”
He freed himself easily from Star’s grip. “I know she is on that plane. And if she is on it then so is that bomb.”
“Commander, I don’t give a damn what you believe, you will follow my orders and join the search parties.”
“Your orders?” he said and sounded as if he wanted to laugh out loud. “Who do you think you are? A disgraced former captain who by all rights should be rotting in some dirty prison cell, that’s who you are. The only reason you are here at all is because of this damn war. And you presume to give me orders? The people who follow you orders die and I’m not going to be one of them. T’Ser is not going to be one of them.”
The sudden outburst stunned the Trill commander. She knew that Dale McBride didn’t think much of her but the usually cool-headed Texan had kept such strong emotions well buried. Until now.
McBride eyes mirrored a fleeting insecurity as if he felt he had crossed a line somewhere, that he had said too much. It was gone in a flash, replaced again with an iron-clad determination to stop at nothing until he had T’Ser back. He turned his back towards the Trill and continued towards the plane.
Tazla Star’s perplexity didn’t last long. She drew her phaser and pointed it at McBride. “Don’t make me do this, Commander.”
Solly Brin and Chief Deryx had their weapons out in an instant, training them immediately on the Trill who was now threatening their superior officer.
Nora Laas leveled her phaser rifle at the burly Orion.
The Marines who hadn’t fanned out yet joined the lieutenant.
McBride stopped and turned to be confronted once more with a very familiar sight. “Damn it, we are wasting time –“
“I know,” said Star. “You need to follow my orders.”
“I can’t do that. You can shoot me if you want but that won’t help anything.”
Tazla Star was considering her options. She knew that this power struggle was the last thing they needed but she couldn’t allow for McBride to run off on his own based on a gut feeling either. The best way to stop Deite was for everyone to follow the same game plan. She didn’t lower her phaser.
“We’ve got incoming hostiles.”
Wasco’s cry captured everyone’s attention.
A small army was approaching the Starfleet landing party from the south, the exact opposite direction into which McBride had set out on.
There were at least two dozen foot soldiers which bore an uncanny resemblance to the kind of soldiers Nora and the Marines had encountered in Al Tre Nek, halfway around the globe. They were supported by four weapon mounted flat back trucks.
“A distraction,” said McBride.
The combined force opened fire instantly, forcing the Marines to take cover behind their vehicles and inside the empty hangar.
Nora, Brin and Deryx joined the Marines, putting aside any internal disagreements, at least until this new threat had been eliminated.
McBride and Star however were already too far away from the rest of the team and had to find alternative cover. They slipped behind a tall and rusted fuel tank to avoid the incoming volley which had also targeted them.
“Missile, missile,” one of the Marines shouted and then scrambled to move away from the vehicle behind which he and his comrades had sought cover.
It was a smart move. Not a moment later one the rebel trucks launched a projectile which struck with the government issued van, causing it to be catapulted several feet into the air before it was ripped apart and consumed by an explosion.
Star watched on with a frustrated frown. She hit her combadge. “Major, what’s your status?”
The reply came moments later. “We have one man down, attempting to regroup as we speak.”
“I need you to take them out, now.”
“We’re on it, Wasco out.”
“Look over there,” said McBride and pointed towards the burning remains of the Fraternity vehicle.
Star wasn’t quite sure what the Bluefin officer was seeing at first. But then she realized that he wasn’t looking at the destroyed van but at one of the other ones.
The shockwave of the explosion had thrown another vehicle on its side and somebody was emerging from it.
It was Teldro.
He had apparently managed to overpower his guard and now crawled out of the van. He used the confusion the attack had caused to make his getaway.
Tazla Star aimed her phaser rifle and took him into her crosshairs. It would be an easy takedown.
But McBride pulled her rifle down. “Wait.”
“Wait for what?” she said with obvious annoyance.
“Look.”
He wasn’t heading towards the attacking rebels, instead he was making his way into the opposite direction. Not towards Star and McBride’s position but towards one of the jet planes rolling along the taxiway. The exact same one McBride had headed for earlier.
“The antimatter bomb is on that plane which means so is Deite and T’Ser,” he said and got up to follow Teldro.
But once again he was held back by Star.
He turned on her with anger in his eyes. “What more proof do you need? They are all on that plane.”
She nodded. “Fine but what you’re doing is suicide. Those rebels might not fire on him,” she said and pointed at Teldro who was crossing the wide open tarmac unmolested by the rebel forces, “but they sure as hell will take you down the moment they get a clear shot.”
“So what do you suggest?”
She turned to look at the plane which had noticeable slowed down slightly, now that Teldro was approaching. For a moment Star studied the layout of the taxiways and the runway.
“Wasco to Star.”
She tapped her combadge. “Star here.”
“We’re in position for a counter-attack, however it may leave you exposed. How do you want to proceed?”
“Major, do what you have to do. Take them out.”
“Understood. But I suggest you get find another plane for cover. And quickly. Wasco out.”
“Follow me,” said Star and began to move.
But McBride hesitated when he realized that Star was heading away from the plane he so desperately needed to stop.
She threw him a look over her shoulder. “Just trust me on this. Besides this spot is going to become very uncomfortable, very quickly.”
McBride nodded and followed the commander.
Star had remained right. In order to get their enemy into the right position, the Marines along with Nora Laas, Solly Brin and Deryx had ceased fire for the moment, leading the rebels to believe that the Starfleet team was retreating.
They moved in closer and used additional missiles to soften up the enemy positions. Two went into the hangar which was quickly claimed by a series of explosions as one plane after the next caught fire in a domino effect of destruction.
Another projectile did short work of the fuel tank which Star and McBride had used as cover moments earlier and it crumbled to pieces.
The Marines had retreated but not quite the way the rebels thought.
Wasco had quickly and efficiently moved his team of a dozen Marines behind the enemy and to their right flank.
The rebels even though outnumbering their enemy by at least two to one never had a chance.
Star, confident that Wasco and the others had things firmly in hand, rushed along narrow paths in between aircraft hangars and fuel tanks, ignoring the ear shattering explosions and sounds of phasers and machine guns battling for dominance.
McBride was following closely even though he was beginning to fear that the Trill was taking them into the wrong direction. That was until she came to a halt at the edge of a hanger building and pressed her back flat against the wall.
It was quite literally the end of the tunnel. Beyond lay only open tarmac.
She spied around the corner and when she looked back at McBride she had a playful smile on her lips as if she was quite pleased with herself.
McBride ventured a look himself and was surprised at what he discovered.
A taxiway was running just a few short meters along the building and the plane they were after was coming straight towards them. What was more, the tarmac made a sharp turn here to lead the planes directly onto the runway for takeoff which meant they had to slow down significantly.
“It looks like there is an access ladder by the landing gear. That’s our way in,” said Star. “We wait until the plane gets to the turn and then make a run for it. We should be close enough that they won’t even see us coming.”
McBride gave her a nod and secured his phaser in its holster. He would have to leave the rifle behind, it would only slow him down.
Star did the same.
Then the moment came. The plane reached the turn and slowed down to align with the runway.
The Trill and Dale McBride took off.
The noise of the engines was nearly deafening now and they had to be careful to stay out of their wake.
When they reached the landing gear the aircraft was already speeding up again and this time it would not slow down again, on the contrary.
McBride reached the ladder first and quickly jumped onto it and began to climb up. Star was next. The ladder wasn’t much more than a few rungs placed along the landing gear, certainly not designed to board the plane while it was moving. Star’s foot slipped and her boot missed the massive rubber wheel by inches. At their current speed it was rotating fast enough that it could have ripped her clean off the ladder and turned her into road kill.
They both managed to climb into the landing gear housing chamber.
It was then that the plane lurched forward to reach takeoff velocity.
Neither of them had been prepared for the sudden acceleration. Star tried to hold on desperately to anything but found only a loose hanging wire which immediately snapped off. She tumbled back towards the quickly spinning wheels below.
McBride caught her just as her feet went over the edge.
But he didn’t have the leverage to pull her back in and for a moment they simply hung there, suspended in place.
The action keeps rocking along and the tension never seems to abate. This isn't good for my blood pressure!
Loving all the twists and turns you've thrown into this story. I know eventually you'll have to bring it to an end, but I'll be sorry when the ride's over.
Loving all the twists and turns you've thrown into this story. I know eventually you'll have to bring it to an end, but I'll be sorry when the ride's over.
The rebels were tenacious and battle hardened, of that Nora Laas had no doubt.
Unfortunately for them, they lacked tactics, a major oversight she and the rest of the team exploited to the fullest extent.
As the rebels and their support vehicles closed in on the burning and empty hangar, the Marines had quietly withdrawn only to regroup at the enemy’s flanks.
At first they didn’t even know what hit them as the two teams closed the vise by attacking from both sides simultaneously. A handful of rebels went down without ever firing a single shot in their defense.
They were determined however not to go down with a fight.
Solly Brin was determined to give them one to remember.
While Nora and Wasco had their people hang back and try to pick up the enemy force at a distance, the Orion had decided that they didn’t have the time to play it safe.
And the already surprised rebels never saw him coming which of course was ironic, considering that his size and bright skin color made him stand out like a sore thumb. An incredibly dangerous sore thumb.
He covered the distance in mere seconds and swung his massive body over the hood of one of the rebel’s vehicles with surprising ease before even a single one of them had managed to fully understand this new threat. The startled fighters had never quite expected the battle to turn so close and personal.
Once they had finally realized that the enemy was already amongst them, they hesitated for only about a split second.
Of course it was a split second too long and Solly Brin swiftly dealt out the punishment. Reaching for the back of one of the rebels and smashing him face first into another one, then spinning back instantly to easily intercept the butt of a rifle which had been aimed for his head. He ripped the weapon right out of the astonished man’s grip and wacked him over his own head with it with such force it nearly split it in two.
A fourth fighter was foolish enough to draw a combat knife on the Orion. A move he quickly came to regret when the Border Service chief twisted around his knife wielding arm painfully behind his back and then drove him into the side window of the nearby pickup truck.
Others rushed to their comrades’ assistance and quickly attempted to draw a bead on the red-skinned warrior.
But Solly Brin had already spotted the threat. He had picked up one of his incapacitated opponents which littered the ground by his feet and used him as a shield for the bullets which had been meant for him.
When the two armed rebels were forced to reload their weapons, Brin lifted the bullet-riddled body over his head and launched it at the unprepared rebels who were crushed under the weight of their former comrade.
Wasco and Nora had watched most of the spectacle from a distance, shooting each other quizzical looks as if to ask who this man was exactly and what it was that possessed him. Their irritation hadn’t lasted for very long. They took full advantage of the distraction and picked off the remaining fighters with relative ease.
Then Nora and the Marines approached in a spread-out formation.
One of the rebels was making a last ditch effort at bringing down the Orion by pretending being incapacitated only to sneak up behind Brin and trying to drive a knife into his back.
But the moment he was ready to strike, a well-placed phaser discharge from Nora’s rifle rendered him unconscious.
“Need a hand?” she said casually.
“Do I look like I need a hand?” he said as he build himself up to his impressive size, surrounded by a field of moaning and dead enemies.
She shrugged laconically. In truth she was quite impressed by his performance. Not for the first time she wondered what it would have been like to have a man of his strength and dexterity back on Bajor in the fight against the Cardassians. She quickly shook off the thoughts of her childhood home to focus on the present.
“Lieutenant, we’re all clear,” said Major Wasco, who led his team across the battlefield, collecting weapons and making sure all enemies had been neutralized.
Nora Laas nodded and lowered her phaser rifle. “Well done, people.”
But somebody wasn’t quite so happy. Ashley Wenera had kept her distance during the engagement but now that the battle had concluded she had quickly converged with the others in order to provide medical assistance to anyone who needed it.
She found that none of the away team members had been wounded. The same of course could not be said for the rebels. Most had been stunned but many of the bodies around Solly Brin were either dead or seriously wounded. “My God, could you not have shown a bit more restraint?” she said as she tried to tend to some of the more seriously injured.
Nora Laas stepped up to defend the Orion. “We don’t have the time for subtleties, Doctor. We still need to stop that bomb,” she said and turned to Deryx. “Chief, any sign of our primary target?”
But the Denobulan shook his head.
“The plane,” said Solly Brin and for the first time showed some signs of exhaustion when he was forced to catch his breath. “The plane McBride was after. Where is it? For that matter, where is the commander?”
“And where is Star?” Nora wanted to know.
Wenera looked up. “I believe they followed Teldro. I saw him run after one of the planes.”
“He got away?” said Nora Laas and turned to find their previous vehicles burning or irreparably damaged close to the equally destroyed hanger. Then she shot off a glare towards the doctor. “You tell us this now?”
“Please forgive the oversight, Lieutenant, but clearly you were otherwise engaged,” she said, not attempting to hide the sarcasm even while she attempted to stabilize one of the wounded fighters with the assistance of the Marines medic.
“Where is that plane now? We need to stop it before it takes off or we lose any chance of ending this and getting T’Ser back in one piece,” said Solly Brin and scanned his surroundings. A few of the aircraft at the busy airport had aborted their take-off after the battle had ensued. But at least half a dozen were still taxiing, now more than ever determined to get away from this suddenly very unstable city. None of the planes looked particularly familiar to him. “Doctor, which way did Teldro go?”
But Wenera had her hands full, more preoccupied in saving Brin’s unlucky opponents then responding to his query.
Nora didn’t have time for that. She stepped up to her. “Doctor, let the medic deal with that. I need you to find that plane. Now.”
Ashley Wenera begrudgingly let the Marine take over. She shot the Bajoran a short, disapproving look before she pulled herself all the way up to carefully study her surroundings. She had become very keenly aware how crucial it had become to stop Deite’s plane. If she was allowed to take off, the entire city would be in grave danger. Chances were that they would never see T’Ser again. She wouldn’t have admitted it openly but the fact that she might never see Balik again either was bothering her equally.
She shook her head. “We’ll never catch them on foot,” she said and determinedly headed towards the closest of the rebel’s pick-up trucks. She opened the door to the driver’s cab, reached for the injured man Solly Brin had deposited there earlier and easily threw him out of the vehicle.
Nora Laas and the others watched her curiously as she took the driver’s seat with practiced ease as if she had done this a thousand times before. “What are you doing?” the security chief asked.
The doctor had the engine running within moments. “Hop in, we might be able to cut them off,” she said.
Nora and Brin exchanged surprised glances but didn’t take the time to wonder about the doctor’s unexpected initiative. She had already thrown the vehicle into gear and they had to scramble to manage to jump onto the flatbed before the truck sped off.
Wenera had not been willing to wait for anybody else to join them and accelerated sharply, steering the vehicle in between both stopped and taxiing airplanes with little regard for their safety and towards the airport’s main runway.
Nora Laas had to hold on tightly as they swerved severely across the tarmac. “Doctor,” she shouted to make herself heard over the whistling wind and the noisily revving engine. “How the hells do you know how to drive this thing, anyway?”
“It’s kind of similar to an F-150,” she said as she shot her a small smile over her shoulder.
“A what?” Brin said, clueless as to what she was talking about.
Wenera turned forward again. “A vintage vehicle popular on Earth a few centuries ago. My dad kept one in mint condition on his ranch in Arizona,” she said. “Of course he would have killed me if I ever tried to do this to his baby,” she said and then whipped around the steering wheel to have the truck fly off the tarmac and cut through the rough terrain, dragging a plume of dust in its wake.
The daring maneuver paid off. The all-wheel drive truck crossed onto the runaway only to come up right behind Deite’s plane which had only just taxied into takeoff position.
The ride on the back of the pickup smoothed out as Wenera kept the vehicle in a straight line behind the accelerating plane, allowing Nora Laas to bring up her phaser rifle and take aim.
“What are you doing?” Brin said.
Nora Laas was trying to steady her aim by bracing her rifle against the roof of the cab. She was peering through the digital scope for increased accuracy. “We’re too late to try and cut them off now. But if I can blast away the landing gear, that plane won’t be going anywhere.”
“Leaving Deite no choice but to detonate the bomb right here and now. That’s going to be all she wrote for all of us.”
“Better have her detonate here then over the center of the city,” said Nora Laas. She had a clean shot and only a few more seconds until the opportunity would be gone. The plane was already beginning to pull away as the pickup truck could no longer match the aircraft’s jet engines.
She full well understood the consequences of disabling the plane now. But it simply was a sacrifice she had to make. The death of a few thousand to save a few million. An acceptable compromise.
Her finger was moving over the firing stub, ready to shred the plane’s right landing gear. It was only then that she spotted Tazla Star.
She was suspended just above the landing gear, threatening to tumble out of the plane at any second. But she was holding on to somebody. Dale McBride.
“Wait!” shouted Chief Brin. “Hold your fire.”
But Nora shook her head. “We can’t risk it.”
“Godsdamnit, Lieutenant, give’em a chance.”
Nora’s finger moved off the trigger.
The wheels rose into the air.
That was it. She could no longer stop the plane by shooting out the wheels. She quickly found a new target. The right jet engine affixed under the wing. But she kept an eye on Star and McBride. If for whatever reason they didn’t manage to climb all the way on board she was determined to bring the plane back down. By whatever means necessary.
They watched as the aircraft took to the skies.
The landing gear retracted, allowing Star to get some leverage by pushing herself off against the upwards moving wheels. Then the hatch closed and both the Trill and McBride vanished from sight.
Wenera hit the brakes when it became clear there was no way to get any closer to the rapidly climbing airplane.
Nora Laas lowered her rifle. “It’s all up to them now.”
“Maybe not.”
She gave the Orion a quizzical look.
He had turned to look into the opposite direction and she followed his gaze.
There, high in the skies, she spotted another vessel descending towards the airport. Even at this distance, its shape was quite unmistakable. A Starfleet shuttle craft.
“What was that the humans like to say? The cavalry is on its way,” he said.
But Nora wasn’t quite so sure if they’d be in time to avoid the impending apocalypse.
Unfortunately for them, they lacked tactics, a major oversight she and the rest of the team exploited to the fullest extent.
As the rebels and their support vehicles closed in on the burning and empty hangar, the Marines had quietly withdrawn only to regroup at the enemy’s flanks.
At first they didn’t even know what hit them as the two teams closed the vise by attacking from both sides simultaneously. A handful of rebels went down without ever firing a single shot in their defense.
They were determined however not to go down with a fight.
Solly Brin was determined to give them one to remember.
While Nora and Wasco had their people hang back and try to pick up the enemy force at a distance, the Orion had decided that they didn’t have the time to play it safe.
And the already surprised rebels never saw him coming which of course was ironic, considering that his size and bright skin color made him stand out like a sore thumb. An incredibly dangerous sore thumb.
He covered the distance in mere seconds and swung his massive body over the hood of one of the rebel’s vehicles with surprising ease before even a single one of them had managed to fully understand this new threat. The startled fighters had never quite expected the battle to turn so close and personal.
Once they had finally realized that the enemy was already amongst them, they hesitated for only about a split second.
Of course it was a split second too long and Solly Brin swiftly dealt out the punishment. Reaching for the back of one of the rebels and smashing him face first into another one, then spinning back instantly to easily intercept the butt of a rifle which had been aimed for his head. He ripped the weapon right out of the astonished man’s grip and wacked him over his own head with it with such force it nearly split it in two.
A fourth fighter was foolish enough to draw a combat knife on the Orion. A move he quickly came to regret when the Border Service chief twisted around his knife wielding arm painfully behind his back and then drove him into the side window of the nearby pickup truck.
Others rushed to their comrades’ assistance and quickly attempted to draw a bead on the red-skinned warrior.
But Solly Brin had already spotted the threat. He had picked up one of his incapacitated opponents which littered the ground by his feet and used him as a shield for the bullets which had been meant for him.
When the two armed rebels were forced to reload their weapons, Brin lifted the bullet-riddled body over his head and launched it at the unprepared rebels who were crushed under the weight of their former comrade.
Wasco and Nora had watched most of the spectacle from a distance, shooting each other quizzical looks as if to ask who this man was exactly and what it was that possessed him. Their irritation hadn’t lasted for very long. They took full advantage of the distraction and picked off the remaining fighters with relative ease.
Then Nora and the Marines approached in a spread-out formation.
One of the rebels was making a last ditch effort at bringing down the Orion by pretending being incapacitated only to sneak up behind Brin and trying to drive a knife into his back.
But the moment he was ready to strike, a well-placed phaser discharge from Nora’s rifle rendered him unconscious.
“Need a hand?” she said casually.
“Do I look like I need a hand?” he said as he build himself up to his impressive size, surrounded by a field of moaning and dead enemies.
She shrugged laconically. In truth she was quite impressed by his performance. Not for the first time she wondered what it would have been like to have a man of his strength and dexterity back on Bajor in the fight against the Cardassians. She quickly shook off the thoughts of her childhood home to focus on the present.
“Lieutenant, we’re all clear,” said Major Wasco, who led his team across the battlefield, collecting weapons and making sure all enemies had been neutralized.
Nora Laas nodded and lowered her phaser rifle. “Well done, people.”
But somebody wasn’t quite so happy. Ashley Wenera had kept her distance during the engagement but now that the battle had concluded she had quickly converged with the others in order to provide medical assistance to anyone who needed it.
She found that none of the away team members had been wounded. The same of course could not be said for the rebels. Most had been stunned but many of the bodies around Solly Brin were either dead or seriously wounded. “My God, could you not have shown a bit more restraint?” she said as she tried to tend to some of the more seriously injured.
Nora Laas stepped up to defend the Orion. “We don’t have the time for subtleties, Doctor. We still need to stop that bomb,” she said and turned to Deryx. “Chief, any sign of our primary target?”
But the Denobulan shook his head.
“The plane,” said Solly Brin and for the first time showed some signs of exhaustion when he was forced to catch his breath. “The plane McBride was after. Where is it? For that matter, where is the commander?”
“And where is Star?” Nora wanted to know.
Wenera looked up. “I believe they followed Teldro. I saw him run after one of the planes.”
“He got away?” said Nora Laas and turned to find their previous vehicles burning or irreparably damaged close to the equally destroyed hanger. Then she shot off a glare towards the doctor. “You tell us this now?”
“Please forgive the oversight, Lieutenant, but clearly you were otherwise engaged,” she said, not attempting to hide the sarcasm even while she attempted to stabilize one of the wounded fighters with the assistance of the Marines medic.
“Where is that plane now? We need to stop it before it takes off or we lose any chance of ending this and getting T’Ser back in one piece,” said Solly Brin and scanned his surroundings. A few of the aircraft at the busy airport had aborted their take-off after the battle had ensued. But at least half a dozen were still taxiing, now more than ever determined to get away from this suddenly very unstable city. None of the planes looked particularly familiar to him. “Doctor, which way did Teldro go?”
But Wenera had her hands full, more preoccupied in saving Brin’s unlucky opponents then responding to his query.
Nora didn’t have time for that. She stepped up to her. “Doctor, let the medic deal with that. I need you to find that plane. Now.”
Ashley Wenera begrudgingly let the Marine take over. She shot the Bajoran a short, disapproving look before she pulled herself all the way up to carefully study her surroundings. She had become very keenly aware how crucial it had become to stop Deite’s plane. If she was allowed to take off, the entire city would be in grave danger. Chances were that they would never see T’Ser again. She wouldn’t have admitted it openly but the fact that she might never see Balik again either was bothering her equally.
She shook her head. “We’ll never catch them on foot,” she said and determinedly headed towards the closest of the rebel’s pick-up trucks. She opened the door to the driver’s cab, reached for the injured man Solly Brin had deposited there earlier and easily threw him out of the vehicle.
Nora Laas and the others watched her curiously as she took the driver’s seat with practiced ease as if she had done this a thousand times before. “What are you doing?” the security chief asked.
The doctor had the engine running within moments. “Hop in, we might be able to cut them off,” she said.
Nora and Brin exchanged surprised glances but didn’t take the time to wonder about the doctor’s unexpected initiative. She had already thrown the vehicle into gear and they had to scramble to manage to jump onto the flatbed before the truck sped off.
Wenera had not been willing to wait for anybody else to join them and accelerated sharply, steering the vehicle in between both stopped and taxiing airplanes with little regard for their safety and towards the airport’s main runway.
Nora Laas had to hold on tightly as they swerved severely across the tarmac. “Doctor,” she shouted to make herself heard over the whistling wind and the noisily revving engine. “How the hells do you know how to drive this thing, anyway?”
“It’s kind of similar to an F-150,” she said as she shot her a small smile over her shoulder.
“A what?” Brin said, clueless as to what she was talking about.
Wenera turned forward again. “A vintage vehicle popular on Earth a few centuries ago. My dad kept one in mint condition on his ranch in Arizona,” she said. “Of course he would have killed me if I ever tried to do this to his baby,” she said and then whipped around the steering wheel to have the truck fly off the tarmac and cut through the rough terrain, dragging a plume of dust in its wake.
The daring maneuver paid off. The all-wheel drive truck crossed onto the runaway only to come up right behind Deite’s plane which had only just taxied into takeoff position.
The ride on the back of the pickup smoothed out as Wenera kept the vehicle in a straight line behind the accelerating plane, allowing Nora Laas to bring up her phaser rifle and take aim.
“What are you doing?” Brin said.
Nora Laas was trying to steady her aim by bracing her rifle against the roof of the cab. She was peering through the digital scope for increased accuracy. “We’re too late to try and cut them off now. But if I can blast away the landing gear, that plane won’t be going anywhere.”
“Leaving Deite no choice but to detonate the bomb right here and now. That’s going to be all she wrote for all of us.”
“Better have her detonate here then over the center of the city,” said Nora Laas. She had a clean shot and only a few more seconds until the opportunity would be gone. The plane was already beginning to pull away as the pickup truck could no longer match the aircraft’s jet engines.
She full well understood the consequences of disabling the plane now. But it simply was a sacrifice she had to make. The death of a few thousand to save a few million. An acceptable compromise.
Her finger was moving over the firing stub, ready to shred the plane’s right landing gear. It was only then that she spotted Tazla Star.
She was suspended just above the landing gear, threatening to tumble out of the plane at any second. But she was holding on to somebody. Dale McBride.
“Wait!” shouted Chief Brin. “Hold your fire.”
But Nora shook her head. “We can’t risk it.”
“Godsdamnit, Lieutenant, give’em a chance.”
Nora’s finger moved off the trigger.
The wheels rose into the air.
That was it. She could no longer stop the plane by shooting out the wheels. She quickly found a new target. The right jet engine affixed under the wing. But she kept an eye on Star and McBride. If for whatever reason they didn’t manage to climb all the way on board she was determined to bring the plane back down. By whatever means necessary.
They watched as the aircraft took to the skies.
The landing gear retracted, allowing Star to get some leverage by pushing herself off against the upwards moving wheels. Then the hatch closed and both the Trill and McBride vanished from sight.
Wenera hit the brakes when it became clear there was no way to get any closer to the rapidly climbing airplane.
Nora Laas lowered her rifle. “It’s all up to them now.”
“Maybe not.”
She gave the Orion a quizzical look.
He had turned to look into the opposite direction and she followed his gaze.
There, high in the skies, she spotted another vessel descending towards the airport. Even at this distance, its shape was quite unmistakable. A Starfleet shuttle craft.
“What was that the humans like to say? The cavalry is on its way,” he said.
But Nora wasn’t quite so sure if they’d be in time to avoid the impending apocalypse.
Crikey talk about your action set pieces. Lots of action going on and the twists and turns keep coming. This one story that is spiralling all the way towards the climax but each time we think it's here you pull another fast one. Oh boys...
“They could have taken us out,” said Teldro as he looked through the aircraft’s window to see the small vehicle that had been following them down the runway. It was quickly becoming nothing more than a tiny speck as the plane ascended into the skies. “Why didn’t they try to shoot us down?”
“They didn’t want to risk us detonating the bomb,” said Deite and turned away from the viewport, thinking nothing more of it. “And it was a smart decision because if they hadn’t given me a choice I wouldn’t have hesitated.”
“Maybe you are right,” he said but failed to sound entirely convinced.
Deite noticed. “Things are proceeding according to plan. Leave the paranoia to me.”
“I’ve had the misfortune of having to spend some time as these people’s prisoner,” he said and glanced at T’Ser who sat next to Balik on a bench lining the opposite wall. Their hands were bound behind their backs and two guards had their submachine guns pointed at them. “I know they are resourceful.”
“Resourceful or not,” said Deite. “Even they cannot stop destiny.”
“We should kill these two now. Take no chances,” he said, pulled his gun and aimed it squarely at T’Ser’s head. The Vulcan never flinched. Instead she glanced straight back into Teldro’s eyes.
Deite stepped next to the man and lowered his gun arm. “No. I want them to watch what they tried so desperately to stop. Afterwards I’m sure we can come up with some sort of creative way to dispose of them.”
“It’s a mistake,” he said and reluctantly stuffed the gun back into his belt.
“Remember who you are speaking to Teldro,” she said and shot him an icy glare. “Being taken prisoner may have clouded your memory but I suggest you remember quickly.”
He gave her a submissive nod but even Deite didn’t quite miss his hesitation.
“I’ll go and check on our payload,” he said and then quickly headed for the aft cargo compartment before Deite had a chance to probe him any further.
She watched him go with a frown.
“You’re not really telling me that you are trusting that man,” said T’Ser, prompting the guard standing closest to her to raise his weapon closer to her head. She continued unimpressed. “It should be obvious even to you that he has his own agenda here.”
“Is it now?” said Deite with a little, dishonest smile.
“She’s right, Deite,” said Balik. “Teldro cannot be trusted. He has always been a slimy little worm, aligning himself with whoever was in power. He will not hesitate to stab you in the back the moment he gets the chance.”
“In that case you two should become fast friends, seeing that betraying your own is a skill you have plenty of experience with.”
“I’m still amazed at how shortsighted you’ve been,” he said. “You have known me for such a long time, you should have known from the start that I would never sign on to your plan to kill millions for the cause. But you were too blinded by your own ambitions to see that, just as you are too blinded now. You’ve known me like a brother and you misjudged me. Tell me something, Deite. How well do you know Teldro?”
For a moment she allowed a flash of insecurity to cross her facial features. But she caught herself quickly enough and dispelled it with her usual determination. “I know what you are trying to do and it’s not going to work. What you fail to realize is that you are trying the impossible. You simply cannot compete with the forces of destiny. They cannot be deterred.”
Tazla Star and Dale McBride had managed to find their way from the landing gear compartment into the aft maintenance chamber of the plane.
There wasn’t much room in the cramped chamber but their main concern was the fact that they had lost all their weapons in the short struggle against gravity earlier. They had been lucky that it had only been their equipment that had been thrown out of the plane after take-off.
They knew that everyone on the aircraft was bound to be armed which would make it extremely difficult to overwhelm Deite and her people, stop an antimatter bomb and free two hostages.
It was going to be one of the most challenging tasks in Tazla Star’s career and that was saying quite a lot.
The maintenance chamber had only one small hatch which led directly into the cargo hold. Star had knelt down on the floor to carefully spy into the adjacent compartment.
“It’s their plane alright,” she said quietly when she spotted the bomb suspended about one meter in the air above closed loading bay doors. “It’s a big one. That thing goes off over the city, I don’t think there’ll be much left afterwards.”
McBride nodded. “Can you see T’Ser?”
She shook her head. “No. But there are two gangways leading to the front of the plane. No doubt Deite is holding them there.”
The plane shook so suddenly, McBride nearly toppled over Star. He managed to hold on to a hand rail just in time to steady his balance. “What the hell was that?”
“Air turbulence,” said Star. “Clearly these planes don’t have particularly advanced stabilizers.”
He nodded and braced himself as they weathered the turbulent ride in silence, the plane creaking and rattling around them.
McBride waited until the flight had smoothed out again. “Listen, Commander, about what I said to you earlier –“
“There is no need to apologize,” she said. “And some of the things you said are true. I am only here because Starfleet needed every available officer in the fight against the Dominion. If there hadn’t been a war I’d still be on Jaros. I have no illusions about that.”
But McBride shook his head, apparently not willing to let his earlier comments be ignored this easily. “The truth is that I’ve been letting my personal feelings interfere with my judgment. And that is not the kind of behavior befitting an officer in the Border Service.”
“Well, Commander, this is one of those times where your personal feelings were spot on. So let’s focus on trying to stop this bomb for now and decide who was wrong and who was right later.”
He nodded. “Agreed.”
Star returned to spy through the small access hatch just in time to see a man entering the cargo hold. It was Teldro and he quickly moved to inspect the device without an inkling that he was being watched. “We’ve got some movement here,” she whispered.
McBride took a knee next to her in order to be able to look through the hatch himself.
“We have to take him out and disable the bomb,” said McBride quietly. “And we have to do it now. If we wait any longer we might lose our only chance.”
She nodded in agreement. Then they waited until Teldro turned his back to the hatch. As soon as he did, they sneaked out from their hiding place, fully aware that he was armed and they were not. All he needed to do was to turn around and he would have a clear shot at the two unarmed Starfleet commanders and put an end to their daring rescue before it even got started.
The Trill gestured for McBride to slip out of his sight behind a large cargo container secured against a bulkhead while she found a hiding spot at the opposite side of the loading bay.
McBride reached the container but couldn’t quite avoid for it to rattle slightly against its metallic restraints as he slid behind it.
Teldro whirled around.
And at first glance found nothing out of the ordinary.
The hope that the man would disregard the noise as something caused by the ongoing turbulence was dashed when he pulled his gun and slowly closed in on the container McBride was hiding behind.
For the Bluefin officer there was nowhere to go.
Teldro’s face morphed into an ugly, sinister grin when he discovered the stowaway. His gun took aim. “Still chasing after your little lady? Looks like your trip ends here.”
McBride stood slowly. “No. Yours does.”
Too late did Teldro think of checking behind him.
Star had already brought her arm around his neck while her other hand clamped over his mouth to keep him from sounding an alarm. “Remember me?” she whispered sweetly in his ear.
His eyes opened wider when he did remember the Starfleet officer who know had him in a tight grip. He struggled in vain while McBride took full advantage of the distraction and quickly disarmed him.
Teldro immediately understood that he wouldn’t be able to free himself. Thinking quickly, he did the only other thing he could. Throwing all his weight against the woman behind him, he pushed backwards, catching Star by surprise.
They stumbled together until Star bumped harshly into the side of the plane. Ignoring the pain, she refused to let go of the man and instead tightened her grip around his neck until he could no longer breathe. He passed out just moments later and she made sure to drop him to the ground gently.
Not wasting any time, McBride found what he believed to be the control console for the bomb. However very little of what he saw made much sense to him. It didn’t help of course that the script was entirely alien. After studying the display for a few more seconds, he believed he had a grasp of the basics. “It looks as if it set to automatically release once we reach our target destination,” he said, doing his best to interpret the readouts. “If I’m reading this right, and I might not, the bomb is set to detonate just over the city.”
Making sure Teldro was completely unconscious she then turned to find the Bluefin officer. “Can you abort the sequence from that console?”
He shook his head. “I can’t even tell if the altitude indicator is in feet or meters or something else entirely.”
“We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way then,” she said and walked right up to the angrily throbbing antimatter bomb which for the moment was strapped securely over the loading bay doors. “This isn’t a time bomb like the one we had to deal with in the temple. It should be easier to deactivate,” she added as she inspected every nook and cranny of the weapon. “Usually they have manual overrides somewhere … ah, this looks promising,” she said once she found a small instrument panel with a series of flashing lights.
McBride joined her as she studied four key-like switches arranged in a row. “There is no way to know if that’s the manual override to deactivate the bomb or to detonate it.”
She took a deep breath. “Nothing ventured,” she said and turned the first key.
A few of the flashing lights shut off.
“I take that as a good sign,” Star said and turned the next switch which caused more lights to go out.
So she repeated the process once more and then hesitated to turn the last one.
“Do it,” said McBride.
She nodded and very slowly turned the last switch.
The device droned so loudly, it made both of them jump back instinctively.
But the bomb had powered down, the instrument panel was dark.
McBride was concerned for another reason as he looked towards the front of the plane.
“What are the chances they didn’t hear that just now?” she said, clearly thinking the same thing.
Dale McBride answered by drawing the semi-automatic he had taken from Teldro and sliding back the top to ensure a bullet was sitting in the chamber.
“They didn’t want to risk us detonating the bomb,” said Deite and turned away from the viewport, thinking nothing more of it. “And it was a smart decision because if they hadn’t given me a choice I wouldn’t have hesitated.”
“Maybe you are right,” he said but failed to sound entirely convinced.
Deite noticed. “Things are proceeding according to plan. Leave the paranoia to me.”
“I’ve had the misfortune of having to spend some time as these people’s prisoner,” he said and glanced at T’Ser who sat next to Balik on a bench lining the opposite wall. Their hands were bound behind their backs and two guards had their submachine guns pointed at them. “I know they are resourceful.”
“Resourceful or not,” said Deite. “Even they cannot stop destiny.”
“We should kill these two now. Take no chances,” he said, pulled his gun and aimed it squarely at T’Ser’s head. The Vulcan never flinched. Instead she glanced straight back into Teldro’s eyes.
Deite stepped next to the man and lowered his gun arm. “No. I want them to watch what they tried so desperately to stop. Afterwards I’m sure we can come up with some sort of creative way to dispose of them.”
“It’s a mistake,” he said and reluctantly stuffed the gun back into his belt.
“Remember who you are speaking to Teldro,” she said and shot him an icy glare. “Being taken prisoner may have clouded your memory but I suggest you remember quickly.”
He gave her a submissive nod but even Deite didn’t quite miss his hesitation.
“I’ll go and check on our payload,” he said and then quickly headed for the aft cargo compartment before Deite had a chance to probe him any further.
She watched him go with a frown.
“You’re not really telling me that you are trusting that man,” said T’Ser, prompting the guard standing closest to her to raise his weapon closer to her head. She continued unimpressed. “It should be obvious even to you that he has his own agenda here.”
“Is it now?” said Deite with a little, dishonest smile.
“She’s right, Deite,” said Balik. “Teldro cannot be trusted. He has always been a slimy little worm, aligning himself with whoever was in power. He will not hesitate to stab you in the back the moment he gets the chance.”
“In that case you two should become fast friends, seeing that betraying your own is a skill you have plenty of experience with.”
“I’m still amazed at how shortsighted you’ve been,” he said. “You have known me for such a long time, you should have known from the start that I would never sign on to your plan to kill millions for the cause. But you were too blinded by your own ambitions to see that, just as you are too blinded now. You’ve known me like a brother and you misjudged me. Tell me something, Deite. How well do you know Teldro?”
For a moment she allowed a flash of insecurity to cross her facial features. But she caught herself quickly enough and dispelled it with her usual determination. “I know what you are trying to do and it’s not going to work. What you fail to realize is that you are trying the impossible. You simply cannot compete with the forces of destiny. They cannot be deterred.”
* * *
Tazla Star and Dale McBride had managed to find their way from the landing gear compartment into the aft maintenance chamber of the plane.
There wasn’t much room in the cramped chamber but their main concern was the fact that they had lost all their weapons in the short struggle against gravity earlier. They had been lucky that it had only been their equipment that had been thrown out of the plane after take-off.
They knew that everyone on the aircraft was bound to be armed which would make it extremely difficult to overwhelm Deite and her people, stop an antimatter bomb and free two hostages.
It was going to be one of the most challenging tasks in Tazla Star’s career and that was saying quite a lot.
The maintenance chamber had only one small hatch which led directly into the cargo hold. Star had knelt down on the floor to carefully spy into the adjacent compartment.
“It’s their plane alright,” she said quietly when she spotted the bomb suspended about one meter in the air above closed loading bay doors. “It’s a big one. That thing goes off over the city, I don’t think there’ll be much left afterwards.”
McBride nodded. “Can you see T’Ser?”
She shook her head. “No. But there are two gangways leading to the front of the plane. No doubt Deite is holding them there.”
The plane shook so suddenly, McBride nearly toppled over Star. He managed to hold on to a hand rail just in time to steady his balance. “What the hell was that?”
“Air turbulence,” said Star. “Clearly these planes don’t have particularly advanced stabilizers.”
He nodded and braced himself as they weathered the turbulent ride in silence, the plane creaking and rattling around them.
McBride waited until the flight had smoothed out again. “Listen, Commander, about what I said to you earlier –“
“There is no need to apologize,” she said. “And some of the things you said are true. I am only here because Starfleet needed every available officer in the fight against the Dominion. If there hadn’t been a war I’d still be on Jaros. I have no illusions about that.”
But McBride shook his head, apparently not willing to let his earlier comments be ignored this easily. “The truth is that I’ve been letting my personal feelings interfere with my judgment. And that is not the kind of behavior befitting an officer in the Border Service.”
“Well, Commander, this is one of those times where your personal feelings were spot on. So let’s focus on trying to stop this bomb for now and decide who was wrong and who was right later.”
He nodded. “Agreed.”
Star returned to spy through the small access hatch just in time to see a man entering the cargo hold. It was Teldro and he quickly moved to inspect the device without an inkling that he was being watched. “We’ve got some movement here,” she whispered.
McBride took a knee next to her in order to be able to look through the hatch himself.
“We have to take him out and disable the bomb,” said McBride quietly. “And we have to do it now. If we wait any longer we might lose our only chance.”
She nodded in agreement. Then they waited until Teldro turned his back to the hatch. As soon as he did, they sneaked out from their hiding place, fully aware that he was armed and they were not. All he needed to do was to turn around and he would have a clear shot at the two unarmed Starfleet commanders and put an end to their daring rescue before it even got started.
The Trill gestured for McBride to slip out of his sight behind a large cargo container secured against a bulkhead while she found a hiding spot at the opposite side of the loading bay.
McBride reached the container but couldn’t quite avoid for it to rattle slightly against its metallic restraints as he slid behind it.
Teldro whirled around.
And at first glance found nothing out of the ordinary.
The hope that the man would disregard the noise as something caused by the ongoing turbulence was dashed when he pulled his gun and slowly closed in on the container McBride was hiding behind.
For the Bluefin officer there was nowhere to go.
Teldro’s face morphed into an ugly, sinister grin when he discovered the stowaway. His gun took aim. “Still chasing after your little lady? Looks like your trip ends here.”
McBride stood slowly. “No. Yours does.”
Too late did Teldro think of checking behind him.
Star had already brought her arm around his neck while her other hand clamped over his mouth to keep him from sounding an alarm. “Remember me?” she whispered sweetly in his ear.
His eyes opened wider when he did remember the Starfleet officer who know had him in a tight grip. He struggled in vain while McBride took full advantage of the distraction and quickly disarmed him.
Teldro immediately understood that he wouldn’t be able to free himself. Thinking quickly, he did the only other thing he could. Throwing all his weight against the woman behind him, he pushed backwards, catching Star by surprise.
They stumbled together until Star bumped harshly into the side of the plane. Ignoring the pain, she refused to let go of the man and instead tightened her grip around his neck until he could no longer breathe. He passed out just moments later and she made sure to drop him to the ground gently.
Not wasting any time, McBride found what he believed to be the control console for the bomb. However very little of what he saw made much sense to him. It didn’t help of course that the script was entirely alien. After studying the display for a few more seconds, he believed he had a grasp of the basics. “It looks as if it set to automatically release once we reach our target destination,” he said, doing his best to interpret the readouts. “If I’m reading this right, and I might not, the bomb is set to detonate just over the city.”
Making sure Teldro was completely unconscious she then turned to find the Bluefin officer. “Can you abort the sequence from that console?”
He shook his head. “I can’t even tell if the altitude indicator is in feet or meters or something else entirely.”
“We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way then,” she said and walked right up to the angrily throbbing antimatter bomb which for the moment was strapped securely over the loading bay doors. “This isn’t a time bomb like the one we had to deal with in the temple. It should be easier to deactivate,” she added as she inspected every nook and cranny of the weapon. “Usually they have manual overrides somewhere … ah, this looks promising,” she said once she found a small instrument panel with a series of flashing lights.
McBride joined her as she studied four key-like switches arranged in a row. “There is no way to know if that’s the manual override to deactivate the bomb or to detonate it.”
She took a deep breath. “Nothing ventured,” she said and turned the first key.
A few of the flashing lights shut off.
“I take that as a good sign,” Star said and turned the next switch which caused more lights to go out.
So she repeated the process once more and then hesitated to turn the last one.
“Do it,” said McBride.
She nodded and very slowly turned the last switch.
The device droned so loudly, it made both of them jump back instinctively.
But the bomb had powered down, the instrument panel was dark.
McBride was concerned for another reason as he looked towards the front of the plane.
“What are the chances they didn’t hear that just now?” she said, clearly thinking the same thing.
Dale McBride answered by drawing the semi-automatic he had taken from Teldro and sliding back the top to ensure a bullet was sitting in the chamber.
Very James Bond finale setting this. Wonder who'll land the damaged plane? - if they survive that is.
“Five minutes to target,” the pilot announced from the cockpit.
Deite glanced back at Balik. “Don’t you see, Balik. The truth has always been there. The Prophecy was always destined to come to fruition. It is inevitable.”
He looked at her former comrade in arms as if she was a complete stranger and not the friend and compatriot she had been for the many years he had known her. “What happened to you?”
“It’s called schizophrenia. It’s actually a serious mental condition,” said T’Ser.
Deite shot her an icy stare. “Make your jokes. But in the end you will see –“
A sudden, loud buzzing noise from the back compartment forced her to redirect her attention. The two armed guards were also alerted and turned away from their prisoners for all but a split second in order to investigate the strange noise.
It was a split second too long.
At a great effort, T’Ser had kept every single muscle in her body tense and ready for action ever since she had been put onto the aircraft, ready to exploit the smallest opportunity she was given.
And now it had finally arrived. Not a single eye was watching her and much more importantly, not a single gun was trained on her.
And even though her hands were bound together behind her back, she launched herself forward, smashing her shoulder right into the nearest guard. The pain was horrendous but she willed herself to keep going.
Whatever she had felt was nothing to what the guard went through who had never been tackled by a Vulcan before. He lost his grip on his submachine gun almost instantly as he tumbled to the floor along with T’Ser.
Balik had been much slower to react but T’Ser’s unexpected attack had stunned Deite and the second guard into momentary inaction. It was more than enough time for him to throw himself at his former New Light partner. His impact was much less forceful but what he lacked in speed he made up with his heavier mass and body weight.
This of course left the second guard free and unengaged. The man didn’t bother to think about his next move when he raised his rifle, trying to take down T’Ser.
Deite who still struggled with Balik noticed the guard getting ready to fire. “No!” she cried.
But she was too late.
The weapon rattled off bullets by the second.
T’Ser had seen it coming and flattened herself to the floor.
Instead of taking out the Vulcan, the bullets missed her completely and instead ripped into the cockpit at the front of the aircraft.
Deite had feared that opening fire inside the plane would puncture the outer skin and cause a sudden loss of cabin pressure. It turned out to be an entirely unfounded concern. The bullets punctured the outer skin of the pilot instead. And those that didn’t slammed into the cockpit’s control panels.
The man piloting the plane struggled to hang on to life and the plane itself for all but two seconds. Then he slumped over and the aircraft immediately began to list sharply to its right, throwing the second guard off his feet.
The others tumbled across the floor only to slam into the side of the plane. T’Ser managed to bring her bound arms underneath her legs and in front of her even before she was pushed into the cabin wall. She braced herself skillfully by pulling her elbows in front of her face and then rolled to her side to find the guard she had assaulted earlier. He hadn’t been doing as well and had landed awkwardly. T’Ser instantly dealt out further punishment with a powerful kick against the side of his head to make sure he wouldn’t be a threat again.
Deite in the meantime had been thrown near the cockpit and instantly struggled to get back on her feet. Balik and the others momentarily forgotten, she battled the unyielding forces of gravity to half walk and half crawl her way towards the front of the plane, knowing full well that if she wasn’t able to stabilize the aircraft again all her plans would come to nothing.
Balik’s tumble was the unluckiest of them all as his neck collided with a row of seats before he flopped motionless to the floor.
T’Ser had no time to check on him. The other guard, the man whose careless shooting had gotten them into this position in the first place was trying to reach for his rifle which had slipped out of his grasp earlier.
He was too far away for her to try and knock him out the same way she had the other guard but she found that his rifle was stuck in between two seats just a few short feet away.
For a moment they were both at a stalemate.
The two weapons they were both trying to retrieve were conveniently out of reach and near impossible to get to while the plane was still diving sharply to its side. No matter how much they both tried to stretch, the weapons remained just beyond their fingertips.
Then the pressure which had kept them both pinned against the side of the plane began to relent suddenly.
With the g-forces quickly abating, they both launched themselves towards the weapons and both of them found the grips of the respective rifles at the exact same time. They both drew a bead on each other at the exact same time.
They had been so focused on trying to shoot the other first, they hardly noticed that the plane had since stabilized and they now stood on even ground once more.
But with neither one having a real advantage, neither one fired.
“Drop your weapon.”
Without ever taking her eyes off the determined face of the guard who kept his rifle pointed at her, T’Ser noticed that Deite had reemerged from the cockpit. She quickly surmised that she had reached the controls and somehow straightened the plane.
More importantly she noticed that she had found a dazed Balik and held her gun close to his temple. “Drop your weapon or I’ll kill him.”
The plane trembled again. Not enough to throw them off balance again but T’Ser was getting the distinct impression that there was no pilot at the controls.
Deite could tell what the Vulcan was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ve engaged the autopilot,” she said without removing the gun from Balik’s head. “The controls are pretty well shot up,” she added, “but it’ll be enough to get us back on target. I told you, you cannot stop this. Now drop it.” For emphasis she pushed the gun harder into the side of Balik’s face.
T’Ser knew that she was at a clear disadvantage. The only reason she wasn’t dead yet was because Deite wanted her alive. Deite was the kind of person who enjoyed holding power over others, especially somebody who she thought considered her as inferior. That was nonsense of course. T’Ser didn’t think of Deite as inferior but merely dangerously insane. And there was no arguing with her about this. The only way all this could end was with one of them dead.
Before T’Ser could follow up on her decision to drop her weapon she spotted someone she hadn’t expected to see at all. And it brought a real and honest smile to her face. The first of that kind in a very long time.
Dale McBride slowly stepped through the short gangway leading into the back compartment, holding a gun tightly in his hand. Upon noticing the scene in front of him he wasted no time to take aim at the guard who was currently threatening T’Ser.
Tazla Star emerged from the opposite gangway albeit unarmed.
“It looks as if you could use some assistance, Lieutenant,” said McBride.
T’Ser carefully took a few steps backwards, not daring to take her eyes off Deite or the armed guard. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“It’s over Deite,” said Star. “Drop your weapons and let Balik go.”
But the Tiaitan woman shook her head defiantly. “No, this changes nothing. Don’t you see, it has all come true. All of it. Prophecy will be fulfilled no matter what you do here.”
“I am so sick of hearing about this prophecy of yours,” said T’Ser with a roll of her eyes. “Can you actually hear yourself talk? You are not the Anointed One. And the only reason part of this so-called prophecy has come true is because you have gone out of your way to try and bring it about. This isn’t destiny. You are just following directions. And lousy ones at that.”
The armed guard in the meantime had become uncertain if to keep his gun trained on T’Ser or the newcomers. Tazla Star exploited his indecisiveness and rushed him quickly to disarm him. She struck him across the head with the butt of the liberated rifle and watched him go down by her feet. Then she quickly brought the weapon back up to take aim at Deite who suddenly found herself threatened by three armed opponents.
As a response she pulled the still dazed Balik in front of herself to use him as a shield.
“This is it,” said McBride. “There is no way out. Surrender.”
“You wouldn’t dare to shoot. You could kill us all,” she said as the plane hit another wall of turbulence which forced everyone to fight to stay on their feet.
“Listen,” said Star and took a careful step closer. “You think you are the Anointed One, that you’ve been fulfilling ancient prophecies but what you fail to realize is that you’ve been played from the very beginning. You are not the one pulling the strings of this operation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been used. Your closest ally, Teldro, is not who you think he is. He is a Tia and he’s been exploiting your trust to get you to carry out these attacks.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” said Star. “Think about this for a moment. Who put you on this path in the first place? Wasn’t it Teldro who came to you first? Wasn’t it him who suggested that you get the antimatter from us and construct the bombs? And let me ask you something else. Who was responsible for placing the bombs in the Temple of Tia’s Landing and in the Sanctuary, two of the best protected places on this entire world? He’s been following orders this entire time but not yours. He’s been getting his instructions directly from the Simas.”
The flash of uncertainty that crossed Deite’s face was quickly replaced with a stern mask of anger as the gun came up to take aim at Tazla Star instead. “That makes no sense whatsoever. Why would the Simas allow for a bomb to blow up the Sanctuary? Why would he allow for the entire city to be wiped off the face of the planet?”
“Actually it makes perfect sense,” said T’Ser who was puzzling together the truth herself now. “Just like you, he wants more power. More power for himself, more power to go after the New Light and yourself. Taking out the Sanctuary made him the Prias and who do you think will he blame for these attacks? Don’t you see, you are nothing more than a pawn. The justification to wage uncompromising war against the Ait.”
Balik who was still trying to recover nodded slowly in Deite’s grip. “They are right. By destroying the capital you are playing right into their hands. You think you are trying to save the Ait? You are signing our death sentence.”
“No, no this isn’t true. I am avenging our people.” But Deite’s voice had already lost its conviction as she waved the gun in-between the three Starfleet officers.
That was when the bullets started to fly.
But it hadn’t been Deite or one of the three Starfleet officers facing her who had opened fire. The shooter was somewhere in the back of the plane. And it was Deite along with Balik who went down.
Dale McBride immediately pushed T’Ser down and behind a row of seats for cover, Star jumped behind the seats on the opposite side of the cabin.
“Teldro,” Star fumed angrily and then shot a glance at the Bluefin first officer. “I thought you had disarmed him.”
But McBride was not willing to take responsibility. “And I thought you had knocked him out.”
The floor of the plane began to rattle and Star had a good idea why. Teldro had opened the loading bay doors in order to get ready to drop the antimatter bomb on the city below. Judging by the increasing turbulence and unsteady flight, the plane wouldn’t be able to keep in the air for much longer. Teldro knew this too and was getting ready to fulfill his mission while he still could.
“We’ll assign the blame later, right now we have to stop him,” she said and brought up the submachine gun over the back of the seat in front of her. But she couldn’t see him beyond any of the two gangways leading into the back. She knew she couldn’t risk opening fire. It would have been bad enough if she shot holes into the plane but if one of the bullets accidently hit the antimatter in the bomb all their efforts would have ended with a big, final bang.
McBride had apparently come to the same conclusion. “We have to rush him. He can’t shoot us both,” he said and gave the Trill a sober look.
She nodded.
T’Ser didn’t appear to like what he was saying. “What do you mean, you both?”
He knew immediately what she was implying. She had no intentions of being left out. He shook his head. “I need you to stay back here.”
“Now, listen Dale, I know how you feel and I appreciate that you want to get me out of here unharmed but I’m not going to be –“
T’Ser became distracted for a moment when she caught a glance of Deite struggling back on her feet. Even though she had been in the line of fire when Teldro had started shooting, it had been Balik who had taken the bullets while she had remained uninjured behind him.
She was furious now. Not because Balik was lying next to her, slowly bleeding to death, not because of the interference of these offworlders and not even because her plan had been nearly derailed. It was Teldro’s betrayal which had now finally registered with her that had her in an uproar.
While the Starfleet officers were still considering their options, she sprang into action, raising her gun and firing down the gangway and paying no mind of the sensitive mega-bomb kept there. Defying any sense of safety to herself or others she stormed towards the back like a woman possessed.
“Oh no, you’re not,” said T’Ser and jumped out from behind her cover to tackle the Tiaitan to the ground before she had made more than a handful of steps.
The sensation that came over the Vulcan once she had Deite within her grasp was like nothing she had ever felt before. She had no idea where it had come from or why it was there but suddenly she felt an incredible rush come over her. And it drove her on even after Deite had been clearly defeated by the surprising tackle.
T’Ser didn’t think.
Her instincts took over as she started to pummel the face below her with balled fists over and over again. And she watched on as her former captor’s face turned into a grotesque mask of pain and blood without sympathy, without regret, without any kind of emotion whatsoever. It was as if she was merely a spectator in her own body.
And yet it all felt so liberating.
“T’Ser!”
She didn’t hear McBride call out her name at first.
“T’Ser, stop!”
Only once he had reached her side and pulled her away from the broken Deite did her fists actually stop moving. Only then did she realize that her knuckles were smeared with her victim’s blood. For a second she didn’t realize what had happened, couldn’t quite understand why Deite’s nose was broken, why her jaw was dislocated, why she was barely still breathing.
Then she caught McBride’s incredulous look and she felt immensely ashamed of what she had done. “I … I don’t know what happened,” she said somewhat truthfully.
He nodded understandingly.
Star had taken the time to check on Balik who had taken two bullets to his chest. He wasn’t dead yet but he wasn’t going to live much longer either. She had told him to apply pressure to the wounds and hold on. That was all the time she was willing to afford him before she turned back to McBride and T’Ser who both appeared to have been stunned into inaction by the Vulcan’s surprising behavior.
Teldro had not fired again but she knew that that wasn’t a good sign. He was getting ready to release the bomb in order to turn the majestic capital city below into a burning hell.
Star had no time for the dying Balik or for T’Ser’s sudden rush of destruction and its implications.
She gripped her weapon tightly and quickly moved towards one of the gangways leading into the cargo hold. “Let’s go. Now!” she said in an urgent whisper as she passed the two Border Service officers.
To their credit they both responded quickly and followed her, leaving the severely beaten Deite lying on the floor not too far from her former comrade in arms, fighting equally for his next breath.
There was no intricate plan to stop Teldro and all three of them understood this. Star would take the left gangway while McBride and T’Ser took the right one. Neither of them was to stop until Teldro was down. And they couldn’t use their weapons to stop him.
It would be a three-on-one which technically should have put the favors squarely on their side except for the fact that Teldro had little to nothing to lose.
They made their move.
And then things progressed rapidly.
Tazla Star and Dale McBride got into the cargo hold first but McBride was closer to Teldro who had been expecting company.
He had McBride dead to rights when he took aim.
Turbulence saved the Bluefin’s officers life. At least for the moment.
The shot went wide.
With nothing to hang on to, McBride lost his footing and after failing to shoot him dead, Teldro was more than happy to help the commander along by throwing him onto the floor which was made easier by the aircraft’s refusal to remain stable.
McBride found himself slithering along the smooth floor and right towards the open loading bay doors beyond which lay nothing but a twenty-five thousand foot drop.
Star rushed Teldro too late to prevent it.
T’Ser had been just two steps behind McBride and when she saw him tumbling towards the opening in the floor, Teldro was all but forgotten. She leaped after him in an attempt to reach him before he was thrown out of the plane.
While Star and Teldro struggled, McBride tried desperately to find something to hang on to. Ultimately the only thing he could find were T’Ser’s outstretched fingers which slowed his momentum.
But not enough as to avoid going over the edge.
“Hold on,” she cried as she felt his entire weight hanging on to just a couple of her digits. Her body instantly jerked painfully as it was asked to support too much weight without enough leverage. Her boots had a firm grip to keep her in place but McBride was slipping away.
“I can’t.”
And he was right.
Just before he lost his grip on T’Ser, she could see something approaching from the clouds below. It took her a second to realize that it was a Starfleet shuttle. And it was shooting directly towards them.
Ashley Wenera had opened the upper emergency hatch of the shuttle and was loudly urging the pilot to speed up.
McBride’s hand slipped off T’Ser’s and he fell.
Three meters.
Right on top of the shuttle.
Wenera immediately held on to him, trying desperately to keep him from being blown away, not an easy task considering the wind shear caused by their high speed and the freezing temperatures at their altitude.
“Don’t’ worry, I’ve got you, Commander,” she shouted to make herself heard.
But McBride it turned out was more concerned about something else. The shuttle, he noticed, had been followed and the military aircraft was now closing in mercilessly.
Deite glanced back at Balik. “Don’t you see, Balik. The truth has always been there. The Prophecy was always destined to come to fruition. It is inevitable.”
He looked at her former comrade in arms as if she was a complete stranger and not the friend and compatriot she had been for the many years he had known her. “What happened to you?”
“It’s called schizophrenia. It’s actually a serious mental condition,” said T’Ser.
Deite shot her an icy stare. “Make your jokes. But in the end you will see –“
A sudden, loud buzzing noise from the back compartment forced her to redirect her attention. The two armed guards were also alerted and turned away from their prisoners for all but a split second in order to investigate the strange noise.
It was a split second too long.
At a great effort, T’Ser had kept every single muscle in her body tense and ready for action ever since she had been put onto the aircraft, ready to exploit the smallest opportunity she was given.
And now it had finally arrived. Not a single eye was watching her and much more importantly, not a single gun was trained on her.
And even though her hands were bound together behind her back, she launched herself forward, smashing her shoulder right into the nearest guard. The pain was horrendous but she willed herself to keep going.
Whatever she had felt was nothing to what the guard went through who had never been tackled by a Vulcan before. He lost his grip on his submachine gun almost instantly as he tumbled to the floor along with T’Ser.
Balik had been much slower to react but T’Ser’s unexpected attack had stunned Deite and the second guard into momentary inaction. It was more than enough time for him to throw himself at his former New Light partner. His impact was much less forceful but what he lacked in speed he made up with his heavier mass and body weight.
This of course left the second guard free and unengaged. The man didn’t bother to think about his next move when he raised his rifle, trying to take down T’Ser.
Deite who still struggled with Balik noticed the guard getting ready to fire. “No!” she cried.
But she was too late.
The weapon rattled off bullets by the second.
T’Ser had seen it coming and flattened herself to the floor.
Instead of taking out the Vulcan, the bullets missed her completely and instead ripped into the cockpit at the front of the aircraft.
Deite had feared that opening fire inside the plane would puncture the outer skin and cause a sudden loss of cabin pressure. It turned out to be an entirely unfounded concern. The bullets punctured the outer skin of the pilot instead. And those that didn’t slammed into the cockpit’s control panels.
The man piloting the plane struggled to hang on to life and the plane itself for all but two seconds. Then he slumped over and the aircraft immediately began to list sharply to its right, throwing the second guard off his feet.
The others tumbled across the floor only to slam into the side of the plane. T’Ser managed to bring her bound arms underneath her legs and in front of her even before she was pushed into the cabin wall. She braced herself skillfully by pulling her elbows in front of her face and then rolled to her side to find the guard she had assaulted earlier. He hadn’t been doing as well and had landed awkwardly. T’Ser instantly dealt out further punishment with a powerful kick against the side of his head to make sure he wouldn’t be a threat again.
Deite in the meantime had been thrown near the cockpit and instantly struggled to get back on her feet. Balik and the others momentarily forgotten, she battled the unyielding forces of gravity to half walk and half crawl her way towards the front of the plane, knowing full well that if she wasn’t able to stabilize the aircraft again all her plans would come to nothing.
Balik’s tumble was the unluckiest of them all as his neck collided with a row of seats before he flopped motionless to the floor.
T’Ser had no time to check on him. The other guard, the man whose careless shooting had gotten them into this position in the first place was trying to reach for his rifle which had slipped out of his grasp earlier.
He was too far away for her to try and knock him out the same way she had the other guard but she found that his rifle was stuck in between two seats just a few short feet away.
For a moment they were both at a stalemate.
The two weapons they were both trying to retrieve were conveniently out of reach and near impossible to get to while the plane was still diving sharply to its side. No matter how much they both tried to stretch, the weapons remained just beyond their fingertips.
Then the pressure which had kept them both pinned against the side of the plane began to relent suddenly.
With the g-forces quickly abating, they both launched themselves towards the weapons and both of them found the grips of the respective rifles at the exact same time. They both drew a bead on each other at the exact same time.
They had been so focused on trying to shoot the other first, they hardly noticed that the plane had since stabilized and they now stood on even ground once more.
But with neither one having a real advantage, neither one fired.
“Drop your weapon.”
Without ever taking her eyes off the determined face of the guard who kept his rifle pointed at her, T’Ser noticed that Deite had reemerged from the cockpit. She quickly surmised that she had reached the controls and somehow straightened the plane.
More importantly she noticed that she had found a dazed Balik and held her gun close to his temple. “Drop your weapon or I’ll kill him.”
The plane trembled again. Not enough to throw them off balance again but T’Ser was getting the distinct impression that there was no pilot at the controls.
Deite could tell what the Vulcan was thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ve engaged the autopilot,” she said without removing the gun from Balik’s head. “The controls are pretty well shot up,” she added, “but it’ll be enough to get us back on target. I told you, you cannot stop this. Now drop it.” For emphasis she pushed the gun harder into the side of Balik’s face.
T’Ser knew that she was at a clear disadvantage. The only reason she wasn’t dead yet was because Deite wanted her alive. Deite was the kind of person who enjoyed holding power over others, especially somebody who she thought considered her as inferior. That was nonsense of course. T’Ser didn’t think of Deite as inferior but merely dangerously insane. And there was no arguing with her about this. The only way all this could end was with one of them dead.
Before T’Ser could follow up on her decision to drop her weapon she spotted someone she hadn’t expected to see at all. And it brought a real and honest smile to her face. The first of that kind in a very long time.
Dale McBride slowly stepped through the short gangway leading into the back compartment, holding a gun tightly in his hand. Upon noticing the scene in front of him he wasted no time to take aim at the guard who was currently threatening T’Ser.
Tazla Star emerged from the opposite gangway albeit unarmed.
“It looks as if you could use some assistance, Lieutenant,” said McBride.
T’Ser carefully took a few steps backwards, not daring to take her eyes off Deite or the armed guard. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“It’s over Deite,” said Star. “Drop your weapons and let Balik go.”
But the Tiaitan woman shook her head defiantly. “No, this changes nothing. Don’t you see, it has all come true. All of it. Prophecy will be fulfilled no matter what you do here.”
“I am so sick of hearing about this prophecy of yours,” said T’Ser with a roll of her eyes. “Can you actually hear yourself talk? You are not the Anointed One. And the only reason part of this so-called prophecy has come true is because you have gone out of your way to try and bring it about. This isn’t destiny. You are just following directions. And lousy ones at that.”
The armed guard in the meantime had become uncertain if to keep his gun trained on T’Ser or the newcomers. Tazla Star exploited his indecisiveness and rushed him quickly to disarm him. She struck him across the head with the butt of the liberated rifle and watched him go down by her feet. Then she quickly brought the weapon back up to take aim at Deite who suddenly found herself threatened by three armed opponents.
As a response she pulled the still dazed Balik in front of herself to use him as a shield.
“This is it,” said McBride. “There is no way out. Surrender.”
“You wouldn’t dare to shoot. You could kill us all,” she said as the plane hit another wall of turbulence which forced everyone to fight to stay on their feet.
“Listen,” said Star and took a careful step closer. “You think you are the Anointed One, that you’ve been fulfilling ancient prophecies but what you fail to realize is that you’ve been played from the very beginning. You are not the one pulling the strings of this operation.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve been used. Your closest ally, Teldro, is not who you think he is. He is a Tia and he’s been exploiting your trust to get you to carry out these attacks.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” said Star. “Think about this for a moment. Who put you on this path in the first place? Wasn’t it Teldro who came to you first? Wasn’t it him who suggested that you get the antimatter from us and construct the bombs? And let me ask you something else. Who was responsible for placing the bombs in the Temple of Tia’s Landing and in the Sanctuary, two of the best protected places on this entire world? He’s been following orders this entire time but not yours. He’s been getting his instructions directly from the Simas.”
The flash of uncertainty that crossed Deite’s face was quickly replaced with a stern mask of anger as the gun came up to take aim at Tazla Star instead. “That makes no sense whatsoever. Why would the Simas allow for a bomb to blow up the Sanctuary? Why would he allow for the entire city to be wiped off the face of the planet?”
“Actually it makes perfect sense,” said T’Ser who was puzzling together the truth herself now. “Just like you, he wants more power. More power for himself, more power to go after the New Light and yourself. Taking out the Sanctuary made him the Prias and who do you think will he blame for these attacks? Don’t you see, you are nothing more than a pawn. The justification to wage uncompromising war against the Ait.”
Balik who was still trying to recover nodded slowly in Deite’s grip. “They are right. By destroying the capital you are playing right into their hands. You think you are trying to save the Ait? You are signing our death sentence.”
“No, no this isn’t true. I am avenging our people.” But Deite’s voice had already lost its conviction as she waved the gun in-between the three Starfleet officers.
That was when the bullets started to fly.
But it hadn’t been Deite or one of the three Starfleet officers facing her who had opened fire. The shooter was somewhere in the back of the plane. And it was Deite along with Balik who went down.
Dale McBride immediately pushed T’Ser down and behind a row of seats for cover, Star jumped behind the seats on the opposite side of the cabin.
“Teldro,” Star fumed angrily and then shot a glance at the Bluefin first officer. “I thought you had disarmed him.”
But McBride was not willing to take responsibility. “And I thought you had knocked him out.”
The floor of the plane began to rattle and Star had a good idea why. Teldro had opened the loading bay doors in order to get ready to drop the antimatter bomb on the city below. Judging by the increasing turbulence and unsteady flight, the plane wouldn’t be able to keep in the air for much longer. Teldro knew this too and was getting ready to fulfill his mission while he still could.
“We’ll assign the blame later, right now we have to stop him,” she said and brought up the submachine gun over the back of the seat in front of her. But she couldn’t see him beyond any of the two gangways leading into the back. She knew she couldn’t risk opening fire. It would have been bad enough if she shot holes into the plane but if one of the bullets accidently hit the antimatter in the bomb all their efforts would have ended with a big, final bang.
McBride had apparently come to the same conclusion. “We have to rush him. He can’t shoot us both,” he said and gave the Trill a sober look.
She nodded.
T’Ser didn’t appear to like what he was saying. “What do you mean, you both?”
He knew immediately what she was implying. She had no intentions of being left out. He shook his head. “I need you to stay back here.”
“Now, listen Dale, I know how you feel and I appreciate that you want to get me out of here unharmed but I’m not going to be –“
T’Ser became distracted for a moment when she caught a glance of Deite struggling back on her feet. Even though she had been in the line of fire when Teldro had started shooting, it had been Balik who had taken the bullets while she had remained uninjured behind him.
She was furious now. Not because Balik was lying next to her, slowly bleeding to death, not because of the interference of these offworlders and not even because her plan had been nearly derailed. It was Teldro’s betrayal which had now finally registered with her that had her in an uproar.
While the Starfleet officers were still considering their options, she sprang into action, raising her gun and firing down the gangway and paying no mind of the sensitive mega-bomb kept there. Defying any sense of safety to herself or others she stormed towards the back like a woman possessed.
“Oh no, you’re not,” said T’Ser and jumped out from behind her cover to tackle the Tiaitan to the ground before she had made more than a handful of steps.
The sensation that came over the Vulcan once she had Deite within her grasp was like nothing she had ever felt before. She had no idea where it had come from or why it was there but suddenly she felt an incredible rush come over her. And it drove her on even after Deite had been clearly defeated by the surprising tackle.
T’Ser didn’t think.
Her instincts took over as she started to pummel the face below her with balled fists over and over again. And she watched on as her former captor’s face turned into a grotesque mask of pain and blood without sympathy, without regret, without any kind of emotion whatsoever. It was as if she was merely a spectator in her own body.
And yet it all felt so liberating.
“T’Ser!”
She didn’t hear McBride call out her name at first.
“T’Ser, stop!”
Only once he had reached her side and pulled her away from the broken Deite did her fists actually stop moving. Only then did she realize that her knuckles were smeared with her victim’s blood. For a second she didn’t realize what had happened, couldn’t quite understand why Deite’s nose was broken, why her jaw was dislocated, why she was barely still breathing.
Then she caught McBride’s incredulous look and she felt immensely ashamed of what she had done. “I … I don’t know what happened,” she said somewhat truthfully.
He nodded understandingly.
Star had taken the time to check on Balik who had taken two bullets to his chest. He wasn’t dead yet but he wasn’t going to live much longer either. She had told him to apply pressure to the wounds and hold on. That was all the time she was willing to afford him before she turned back to McBride and T’Ser who both appeared to have been stunned into inaction by the Vulcan’s surprising behavior.
Teldro had not fired again but she knew that that wasn’t a good sign. He was getting ready to release the bomb in order to turn the majestic capital city below into a burning hell.
Star had no time for the dying Balik or for T’Ser’s sudden rush of destruction and its implications.
She gripped her weapon tightly and quickly moved towards one of the gangways leading into the cargo hold. “Let’s go. Now!” she said in an urgent whisper as she passed the two Border Service officers.
To their credit they both responded quickly and followed her, leaving the severely beaten Deite lying on the floor not too far from her former comrade in arms, fighting equally for his next breath.
There was no intricate plan to stop Teldro and all three of them understood this. Star would take the left gangway while McBride and T’Ser took the right one. Neither of them was to stop until Teldro was down. And they couldn’t use their weapons to stop him.
It would be a three-on-one which technically should have put the favors squarely on their side except for the fact that Teldro had little to nothing to lose.
They made their move.
And then things progressed rapidly.
Tazla Star and Dale McBride got into the cargo hold first but McBride was closer to Teldro who had been expecting company.
He had McBride dead to rights when he took aim.
Turbulence saved the Bluefin’s officers life. At least for the moment.
The shot went wide.
With nothing to hang on to, McBride lost his footing and after failing to shoot him dead, Teldro was more than happy to help the commander along by throwing him onto the floor which was made easier by the aircraft’s refusal to remain stable.
McBride found himself slithering along the smooth floor and right towards the open loading bay doors beyond which lay nothing but a twenty-five thousand foot drop.
Star rushed Teldro too late to prevent it.
T’Ser had been just two steps behind McBride and when she saw him tumbling towards the opening in the floor, Teldro was all but forgotten. She leaped after him in an attempt to reach him before he was thrown out of the plane.
While Star and Teldro struggled, McBride tried desperately to find something to hang on to. Ultimately the only thing he could find were T’Ser’s outstretched fingers which slowed his momentum.
But not enough as to avoid going over the edge.
“Hold on,” she cried as she felt his entire weight hanging on to just a couple of her digits. Her body instantly jerked painfully as it was asked to support too much weight without enough leverage. Her boots had a firm grip to keep her in place but McBride was slipping away.
“I can’t.”
And he was right.
Just before he lost his grip on T’Ser, she could see something approaching from the clouds below. It took her a second to realize that it was a Starfleet shuttle. And it was shooting directly towards them.
Ashley Wenera had opened the upper emergency hatch of the shuttle and was loudly urging the pilot to speed up.
McBride’s hand slipped off T’Ser’s and he fell.
Three meters.
Right on top of the shuttle.
Wenera immediately held on to him, trying desperately to keep him from being blown away, not an easy task considering the wind shear caused by their high speed and the freezing temperatures at their altitude.
“Don’t’ worry, I’ve got you, Commander,” she shouted to make herself heard.
But McBride it turned out was more concerned about something else. The shuttle, he noticed, had been followed and the military aircraft was now closing in mercilessly.
With all that's going on in my life recently, your story and the other fine stories here are helping to keep me sane! Your tale is racing towards the end here and I can't help but have a bad feeling about Star...redemption often comes with a steep pricetag.
Yikes. 'Gripping' stuff. Hee hee, pun intended. Anyway, you keep throwing us into more action scenes and keep the climax to the story from coming. Dear oh dear. How is this going to end?
Similar threads
