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I looked around in the unnatural quiet. Gob was lying on the other side of the bridge, the side of his face blackened beyond recognition. Corbis’s two other companions were dead as well.

Thadoc stood up from behind his helm console, which featured a smoking hole the size of a phaser beam. He seemed whole, though or at least, no worse off than before.

Worf hadn’t been quite so lucky. His tunic was charred and ripped open in the vicinity of his rib cage and blood had begun to soak into what was left of the material.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

He nodded. “Fine.”

That didn’t tell me anything. He would have said he was fine if he was writhing in agony on his deathbed.

Suddenly, the warbird lurched under the heaviest barrage yet. A plasma conduit broke, unleashing a stream of white-hot vapor. The viewscreen sputtered and went dead for a second; when it came back on, it was plagued by wave after wave of static.

Through them, I could make out more than a dozen triangular ships. They were coming at us from different directions, waiting until they got closer before they opened fire again.

And why not? We had yet to protect ourselves or get a shot off. It must have seemed to them that we were dead in the water which would be true enough if we didn’t act soon.

I flung myself into the helmsman’s seat. At the same time, Worf took charge of the tactical panel. Cradling his wrist again, Thadoc deposited himself beside me at navigation.

“Report!” cried Abby.

“Damage to decks seven and eight,” Thadoc grated. “One dead. Dunwoody’s team is making repairs.”

“All weapon arrays are still functional,” Worf growled. “Shields down forty-two percent.”

“The helm’s responsive,” I noted. That was the good news. “But the warp coils seem to have taken a beating. We could be limited to impulse power at any moment.”

Abby frowned, her cheek bruised where Corbis struck her. “We’ll worry about that if and when it happens. Evasive maneuvers, Picard. Let’s see what you can do with these Abinarri.”

If she had hoped to inspire me with a challenge, it was unnecessary. My desire to keep us alive was inspiration enough.

“Hang on,” I said grimly. As I noted before, Romulan vessels weren’t known for the effectiveness of their inertial dampers.

I engaged the impulse engines and executed a turn that took us out of the Abinarri’s midst. However, they were on us again in a matter of moments, stinging us repeatedly with their energy weapons like a swarm of bees on an intrusive bear.

“Fire at will!” cried Abby.

It wasn’t necessary. Worf was already attending to it.

On the viewscreen, two of the Abinarri vessels glowed with the force of our disruptor barrage. A second later, another Abinarri was dealt a glancing blow. But if they were damaged, it didn’t stop them from harrying us.

The enemy seemed to prefer working at close quarters. That didn’t surprise me in the least. As I’d noted in our last encounter, their weapons were significantly more effective that way.

But beyond any practical considerations, I got the feeling that was simply the way these people liked to hunt. Very likely, it was the way their ancestors had done it by surrounding their prey and bringing it down through sheer weight of numbers.

I was determined that this prey wouldn’t go down so easily. Working furiously at my controls, I negotiated the maze of enemy vessels and emerged from it a second time.

But a second time, the pack caught up with me.

Worf did his best to hammer at the Abinarri, managing to score several more hits. One ship even exploded in a paroxysm of blue fury. But as before, the Klingon’s efforts didn’t seem to faze the survivors.

“Shake them!” cried Abby.

“I’m trying!” I bellowed back.

I looked for the mercenary vessel, hoping it could offer us some relief. But my monitor told me our ally had troubles of her own. Like us, she was besieged on all sides.

On the other hand, the mercenary’s attackers were fewer in number. They must have understood that she was the weaker of us and