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My beam hit the Cardassian square in the center of his chest. It knocked him off his feet and sent him skidding backward down the corridor. But no sooner had he fallen than another came forward to take his place.

Then that one fell, too, spun about by a blow to his shoulder. A third took a shot to his midsection and rolled over, clutching himself. The tide of battle seemed to be turning in our favor.

Unlike the prior combat, this one never devolved into a hand-to-hand struggle. We simply fired and fired some more, and kept firing until none of the Cardassians were left standing.

In the strange, dense silence that followed, I surveyed the corridor. Two of my comrades had been hit by enemy fire. One was the Oord, who had sustained only an injury to his shoulder.

The other was the Yridian. In his case, the damage was a bit more serious. Moving to his side, I closed his gaping, dead eyes with a sweep of my hand. Then I glanced at Astellanax.

The first officer didn’t say anything. He just walked over to the nearest Cardassian, who happened to be still breathing, and picked him up by the front of his uniform.

“I want to know one thing,” he said evenly. “Why didn’t you just materialize behind us? Why did you have to try to take us from above?”

The Cardassian looked at him. For a moment, I thought he would give Astellanax an answer. Then he spat in the Orion’s face.

Astellanax let him slump to the floor and wiped the spittle from his cheek. Then he took aim at the Cardassian and killed him.

“Obviously,” said the first officer, “the enemy is having trouble beaming men aboard the Daring. My guess is the captain has found a way to resurrect our shields.”

“It’s possible,” Sturgis remarked.

“Or,” I said, “we managed to disable the warship’s transporters when we fired on her.”

Astellanax looked at me. “I’d like to think so.”

Then he made his way down the winding corridor again, this time with a bit more haste.

Madigoor

DRAVVIN HELD UP his hand. “A question, if I may.”

Picard nodded. “Go ahead.”

“You didn’t seem very happy with the Yridian. I take it you didn’t approve of his decision to survive at the expense of others?”

“That’s true,” Picard replied. “I didn’t approve. Mind you, I think one should do whatever one can to keep body and soul together, but I stop short of endangering the lives of others.”

“I agree,” said Robinson. “If you’ve got coin, buy what you like. But don’t reach into someone else’s pocket.”

The Captain of the Kalliope stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Then, in the Yridian’s place, you would have refused to cooperate? Even at the expense of your life?”

Picard shrugged. “I might have given the appearance of cooperation so as to make myself useful at a later time. But I would not have cooperated with the Cardassians in fact.”

Bo’tex laughed a hearty laugh. “You wouldn’t make a very good Caxtonian, Captain Picard.”

“Nor a very good Yridian, apparently,” said Hompaq.

“Would he make a good Klingon?” Flenarrh asked.

Hompaq grunted. “A Klingon would not have allowed himself to be captured in the first place.”

Picard couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

“In any case,” he continued, “we pressed on. And, as luck would have it, we reached the engine room without further violence.”

The Tale

THE PROBLEM, AT that point, was getting inside the place. After all, the doors to the engine room were closed, and the last thing we wanted to do was blast our way in.

Under normal circumstances, we could have contacted the engineering staff via ship’s intercom. However, the Cardassians were no doubt monitoring for such messages.

Fortunately, Astellanax carried a portable communications device that could interface with the workstations in the engine room. Pulling it out, he tapped out a message and waited.

A message came back. Those in the engine room wanted to know how they could be sure of the first officer’s identity. They suspected the Cardassians had captured Astellanax and were using his device to try to gain entry.

The Orion frowned and tapped out another message. It wasn