"There is significant damage to the control relays." T'Laihhae points to a control console, which I have to admit is showing a worrying number of blinky lights. "That may not be important, however."
"Unless we want to keep breathing," Zula mutters. T'Laihhae affects not to hear her. She goes over to another console, one with even more blinky lights - one that looks subtly different from the others in the control room.
"The key issue," she says, "is this control console, here. It interacts directly with Thyvesh's doorway - the time-space artifact that connects Priyanapari to the Suliban weapons cache. I believe I understand how to use it. And I believe I understand how Thyvesh wants me to use it."
"How's that?" I ask. I look harder at the console. "Yon's pretty advanced temporal tech, hen. An' it disnae luik familiar tae me -"
"It should be familiar to me," says T'Laihhae. "Apparently, I built it. In another timeline."
"Och, ye clever wee thing. An d'ye ken how tae work it in this one?"
There is a millisecond flash of smile. "I believe so." Then her impassive face turns troubled for a second. "I understand how it is meant to be used, too. Thyvesh intends me to betray him."
"Say whit?"
"I believe his intention is that I should destroy his life's work and leave him stranded outside the time-space continuum." Her face looks positively bleak. "At some point, Thyvesh learned how to manipulate the doorway without being in its physical presence. This device... replicates that ability. Only it is mechanical, it does not depend on Thyvesh's powers of concentration, and it will not flinch from things he could not do, himself."
"Such as?" asks Zula.
"Destabilizing the doorway. Permanently. It would rip the artifact out of its current location at Priyanapari, and the effect on the other side - the artificially created temporal inclusion that holds the weapons cache - should be cataclysmic. For the contents of that inclusion."
"An' where's Thyvesh? - dinnae tell me. Inside yon temporal inclusion." I look hard at T'Laihhae. "Ye're awfae rough on yer friends, hen."
She doesn't answer for a moment. When she does speak, her voice sounds strained. "I have always trusted Thyvesh - he has always shown himself to be worthy of trust. I feel I must trust him, even now. Whatever he has planned -"
A shrill warble sounds from another console. I turn and look, but Zula is already there. "Alert from the docking bay," she says. "Vessel inbound."
"An' whit are the chances it'll be friendly? - Dinnae answer that." I pick up my sniper rifle and check it. "Let's hear the worst, then."
Zula presses a switch, and a viewscreen lights up. Feed from a security camera in the docking bay... showing a big red thing swooping through the force shield to settle on the hangar deck. The colour, and the organic shapes of the design, betray its origins immediately.
"Na'kuhl assault shuttle," says Zula. "Trying to get a read on life signs now -"
"Aye," I say, "an' they'll be daein' the same, an' their tech is way better than oors, an' anyway they'll hae spotted the Scorpion as soon as they came in range. Crivens." A bunch of Na'kuhl reinforcements, just now, is not something we needed.
"Five of them," Zula says. She frowns. On her, it looks cute. "That's below normal complement for those assault craft - they must have taken casualties."
The shuttle is down, the hatch is opening. Red-armoured shapes are moving. There's not many of them, as Zula says, but at least two of them are carrying heavy-duty chronoplasma miniguns, and all of them will be angry and alert. This isn't going to be easy.
One Na'kuhl strides down the landing ramp, holding something in one hand. It looks like a hypospray. One of their injector operatives, maybe? He raises his other hand, touches a wrist control -
And a voice sounds. "To the two humans and one Romulan now aboard this station. I am Chrog, commander of the Na'kuhl resistance vessel Strange Attractor. Surrender now, and I might show mercy. Make me hunt for you, and I will show none."
The voice comes from everywhere at once. He's using one of those broadcast systems that turn every flat surface in range into a resonating speaker. Showy. And effective.
T'Laihhae is on the comms console. "This is Admiral T'Laihhae of the Romulan Republic," she says. Her tone is completely stress-free - urbane, almost. "We have complete control of this station's facilities. You would be well advised to depart immediately."
Chrog's laughter echoes around us. "That would be most intimidating," his voice says, "if I did not already know all the capabilities of this station. Such as they are. Very well, you have chosen death. I will make it interesting." On the screen, we can see him as he suddenly drives the hypospray into his own throat. "I have often wondered what it would be like to have superpowers."
"Whit's he on aboot?" I ask under my breath.
T'Laihhae mutters something indistinct. "He must have obtained access to the Suliban weapons. That hypo must have contained a genetic enhancement."
My eyes go wide at that. "He cannae ken how tae use it, though, can he?"
T'Laihhae frowns. "It depends on how extensively they have researched the weapons cache. I spent some time there with Thyvesh.... I cannot claim any extensive knowledge, though." Her dark eyes have turned very calculating.
"Aye, weel, we cannae stay here and let him catch us, am Ah right?"
"It would be unwise." T'Laihhae checks her disruptor pistol. "It would also be preferable, I think, to minimize any further damage to the station's systems."
"Tell that tae th' guys wi' th' miniguns," I say. "Right, then. Let's gae break some heids."
I run for the door, followed by the sound of Zula sighing.
---
"I'm scrambling comms." Zula's voice sounds tinny in my ear. "And I've got as much sensor spoofing going as I can, but don't rely on it." Na'kuhl gear is better than ours.
The question is, what do they expect us to do? I thought about that for, well, some seconds. As far as I know, Chrog doesn't know about T'Laihhae's magic console, so they don't know we've got any pressing need to stay on this station... so, they'll expect us to make a break for the docking bay, grab our ships, and get out of Dodge.
So now we are circling around the observation gallery above the docking bay, trying to figure out where Chrog's people are waiting to ambush us, so that we can ambush them. We've split up, using our combadges to talk, and hoping the Na'kuhl aren't good enough to crack our encryption....
The bleak gallery doesn't offer much in the way of cover. I sidle along it, crouching low so I can't be seen from the docking bay. We think at least one of them's stayed with the shuttle. It would be the sensible thing to do. Never bet against your opponent being sensible, unless they're me.
I sidle all the way to the end of the gallery, where it stops at the housing for the docking bay's force field generators. I pause. To one side of me, there's a stairwell, leading to another entrance to the bay. If I were a Na'kuhl, that's the sort of place I might station a sentry, to pick off anyone heading for the shuttles that way.
I peek quickly round the edge of the door. I'm thinking along the right lines; there's a Na'kuhl trooper one flight of steps beneath me, facing away from me, covering the dock-level door with his minigun. I smile. I raise the rifle to my shoulder, take careful aim, and fire.
The tritanium slug hits him between the shoulder blades, and he goes forward on his face. Good.
Then he swears and gets up again. Less good.
I pull the trigger again, and yell, "They've got heavy duty armour on!" into my combadge. Zula and T'Laihhae need to know, and I've already sort of given myself away. Pale green chronoplasma bolts come streaking upwards towards me, and I duck back round the doorway, though not before one of them makes my personal shield flare and waver.
The bolts slam into the wall... the one with the field generators behind it. Sparks fly. Then the lights flicker, and there is a piercing warble of an alarm from somewhere nearby. It doesn't quite cover the sound of heavy Na'kuhl boots coming up the stairs towards me.
He comes through the doorway at a rush, spraying fire in random directions. More sparks fly. I scream "Creag an tuire!", firing the rifle from the hip. More plasma bolts splash off my shield, and I feel the burn as some of the heat bleeds through - and then, somehow, I hit a weak point in the battle armour, and the Na'kuhl goes down in a heap.
The lights are still flickering, and the alarms have gone from a warble to a steady piercing whine. That can't be good.
I kick the Na'kuhl trooper's minigun away from him, in case he's not quite dead, and then take the stairs at a run. Safe bet I've attracted attention here, and need to be somewhere else. I get to the bottom, ignore the door to the docking bay, and take off down an adjacent corridor. I get about a dozen steps before the lights go out completely.
I blink. Emergency lights kick in... not red, pale violet instead. Denobulan eyes must be different from human ones, that way. They don't light up anything I want to see. Chrog is standing at the end of the corridor, flexing his arms, grinning at me. I point the rifle at him.
"I think we can do without that," he says, and reaches for it.
He's a dozen metres away at least, but his hands reach out and grab the rifle, and pull. Even elongated as they are, his arms are still strong enough to pull the gun out of my grip. His grin gets broader. He holds the rifle across his chest, and flexes his arms again. The rifle groans and creaks and bends into a nice neat U shape.
"Aw, jings," I say, and run for the docking bay door.
Chrog's laughter pursues me. "Keep running!" he shouts. I reach the door, and it fails to slide open in front of me. There's a panel on the wall beside it; I slam at what I hope is an override switch.
Air gusts around me, and the door opens, and there is a low keening noise which says atmosphere leak. I dive through anyway, into the docking bay, and a world of cold.
Pressure. The force field at the entrance must have been compromised, air is leaking out. Failsafes should have kicked in - but we don't know how this station works, we don't know how well it works, and the gunfight in main engineering must have done more damage than we'd thought. It is very cold, and the thin air is pulling at my chest and making my pulse hammer in my ears. There's another door, at the other side of the bay - I have to get to that -
I run, and it's like I'm running in a dream; sounds are muffled, and the awful emptiness is pulling at me from all sides. Movement. Nearby. A turret on the Na'kuhl shuttle is turning, the muzzles of plasma guns trying to point at me. I duck down, hope they can't depress far enough to get me in their line of fire. The other door must be thirty metres away. No distance, really, I could cover it in a few seconds - normally - if I could breathe -
My combadge is saying something, I don't know what, I can't hear properly over the buzzing in my ears. And there is something else - a voice behind me.
"Keep running."
I turn and glance back, across the freezing deck. Chrog is behind me. The thinning atmosphere doesn't seem to be bothering him at all. Something else is moving. The shuttle. The access hatch is opening.
I have a phaser pistol in my transporter buffer. Doubt it'll do any good. But I have a few other things besides, and I pull one of them out now.
The assault shuttle's hatch is open, and another Na'kuhl is coming out, a pistol in his hands, a sealed helmet on his head. Should have brought one of those myself. I am maybe fifteen metres from the door, now. I concentrate, summon up whatever's left in my muscles, pick up the pace. Fifteen metres - ten - five.
I spin around and yell, "Catch!" at Chrog, and throw the grenade.
Give him credit, he doesn't try to catch it. He dives to one side, but the neutronic grenade has a nice big blast radius, there's no way he can dive far enough. The grenade goes up in a bright colourless flash. The other Na'kuhl is caught in the blast too, I watch him arc upwards, over the hull of the shuttle. The blast wave is slightly weaker when it hits me, weak enough that my shield can cope. It shoves me hard into the wall, and I fumble for the door controls, and fight the wind as the door opens for me -
I'm through, into the next corridor. My chilled lungs suck in oxygen eagerly, too eagerly - I double up in a coughing fit. The main lights are still off. Somehow, I straighten up, start to stagger down the corridor. I need a weapon. I touch the controls for the transporter buffer, hidden in the braid of my left cuff. The phaser pistol materializes, and drops through my numbed fingers. I swear, and bend down to pick it up.
When I straighten up again, I hear the door hiss open behind me. Wind gusts about me - the docking bay must be nearly in vacuum by now. "I did not appreciate that." Chrog's voice sounds thick. Maybe the soft vacuum and the neutronic explosion have hurt him.
Hey, I'm an optimist.
I turn around and aim the phaser. He doesn't bother grabbing it, he just makes a fist and hits me from ten metres away. Stars explode in my vision, and suddenly I'm flat on my back and don't know how I got there. I've dropped the phaser. I'd like to stand up and get it, but my body doesn't want to cooperate.
Heavy footsteps lumber towards me. I grit my teeth, and see more stars. My body needs to cooperate, whether it wants to or not. I roll over, gather myself, get my legs under me.
Something heavy thuds to the floor beside me. The noise is startling, it would make me jump, if I could jump. As it is, I manage to stagger to my feet.
Dim shapes in front of me resolve into familiar figures. Zula. T'Laihhae. And another shape, lying on the floor beside me. I stare down. Chrog's face is livid and suffused, and beneath his red armour, his body is bulging and misshapen. Zula's hand is on my shoulder, supporting me.
"Ye've got th' ither two, then,"I croak.
Zula nods. T'Laihhae is kneeling by Chrog, a tricorder in her hand. "What got him?" I ask. "The grenade, or the air loss? And why'd it tak' sae long?"
"Biochemical imbalances," says T'Laihhae. "The Suliban genetic enhancements were usually provided by their - future ally. There was always a temporal component in their administration. Very likely, the tailored retrovirals were implanted early in development, possibly even in utero. Simply dosing himself with them was not enough - it has provoked a massive auto-immune reaction to the altered cells. And every time he drew on his new abilities, the process accelerated."
"Should've read the manual," I mutter. I look down. Na'kuhl aren't pretty, by human standards, even at the best of times. The look of this one's face... well, let's just say it's not the best of times.
I take a deep breath. Somehow, I manage not to cough.
"Aye, weel," I say. "That jist leaves us where we were before, am Ah right? We need tae figure oot some way tae get your friend Thyvesh -"
I don't get any further before T'Laihhae draws her disruptor pistol and shoots me in the head.
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