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As it happened, it only dropped one of us. An energy beam hit Murrif square in the face, breaking his neck with its force and his momentum slid him into an unmanned console.

I knew from watching Dunwoody that at least some of the engine room’s defenders were to my left. As I returned the Cardassians’ fire, I retreated in that direction. Then I picked a spot between two workstations and dove full length, hoping to make it to cover before our adversaries’ volley could tear me apart.

Directed energy beams crisscrossed in the air around me, scalding it with their passage. But none of them hit me. I landed, rolled, and felt myself grabbed by several pairs of hands.

I looked up into the faces that went with them. To my relief, one of them was Dunwoody’s.

“Glad you could join us,” he quipped, though the sheen of sweat on his face belied the casual tone of his remark.

“Not half as glad as I am,” I replied.

I glanced about. Astellanax and Sturgis had made it as well, joining the handful of engineers and assorted crewmen holed up there already. We exchanged the grateful looks of men who had risked their lives together and emerged from the experience unscathed.

The Cardassians chose that moment to send a barrage into the workstation I was hiding behind. There was a wretched whining sound and a geyser of sparks, but my comrades and I remained unharmed.

Hefting my phaser, I peered across the engine room at the enemy. What I saw was not encouraging.

The Cardassians were continuing to beam reinforcements into the place. If the captain had discovered a way to befuddle the enemy’s transporters for a time, that time was now past.

It made me wonder if the Cardassians had taken the bridge. It made me wonder if they were assuming control of the Daring even as we risked our lives to save her. It made me wonder what had become of Worf, though my lieutenant had proven himself a difficult man to stop.

And it made me wonder if they had killed Red Abby.

It cut me to think so. Despite her avarice, the woman had shown herself to be a brave and able commander one of the few I had met outside Starfleet. She had won my respect.

And perhaps something more, though I was reluctant to admit it at the time even to myself.

At any rate, I had no way of knowing Red Abby’s fate or Worf’s, for that matter. All I could do was fire away at the Cardassians in their increasing numbers, hope we could hold them for a while, and watch faithfully for a window of opportunity.

It came, all right. But not for us.

Up until then, the workstations in front of us had been our salvation, protecting us from the increasingly fierce attacks of the enemy. In a single moment, they became our greatest danger.

One by one, they began to blow up. With a sinking heart, I realized the Cardassians had taken the bridge after all. And they had found a way to overload the circuitry in the workstations.

The result? Chaos.

Half of us bolted like rabbits driven from their warren only to be cut down by the invader’s relentless barrage. I and some of the others stayed where we were, continuing to fight from cover as long as we could.

Unfortunately, there was no pattern to the explosion of the engineers’ workstations or at least, none I could discern. No doubt, the Cardassians meant it to be that way. I remember wondering whether the console in front of me would be the next to blow up.

Then I didn’t have to wonder anymore.

Madigoor

“IT EXPLODED?” ASKED Robinson.

Picard grunted. “Right in front of me.”

“But it didn’t kill you,” Bo’tex observed.

“Obviously,” said Dravvin.

“I was lucky,” Picard told them. “All I suffered was a few burns. However, the force of the explosion was enough to knock me out.”

“Then what?” asked the Captain of the Kalliope, obviously caught up in the particulars of the tale.

“I regained consciousness perhaps half an hour later,” Picard replied. “I found myself in the Daring’s small, gray transporter room with a Cardassian energy rifle in my face. But it was only one of a dozen carried by a contingent