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Suddenly, one of the aft stations sparked savagely and began to flame. Someone grabbed an extinguisher and began to put the fire out, but the station next to it ignited as well. Smoke began to fill the bridge, searing our throats and making our eyes sting.

“Shields at twenty-eight percent!” Worf reported over the din. “Starboard phaser banks partially disabled!”

On the viewscreen, a half-dozen Abinarri slid toward us. One by one, their weapons spat red fire at us. I was able to dodge some of the blasts, but not all of them.

The bridge was wrenched this way and that, sending us sprawling over our control panels. I thrust myself back and regained my chair, only to be flung to the deck by another energy assault.

A console exploded, sending pieces of hot metal spinning across the bridge. As black smoke twisted up from the thing, I saw one of our men slump against Abby. It was Assad.

He was dead, his throat a gaping wound.

With a stricken look, Abby lowered him to the deck. Then she took in the carnage all around her.

“Mr. Worf?” she said, her voice thick with emotion.

“Shields at thirteen percent,” he told her, reading the information off his monitors. “The starboard phaser array is down.”

Thadoc chimed in with more grim news. “Damage to decks four and five as well now.”

I took us through a twisting turn, eluding one volley after another. It worked better than the other maneuvers I had attempted, buying us some time. But not enough, I told myself.

At this rate, we wouldn’t last another ten minutes. Nor, I thought, would the mercenary vessel. The Abinarri were simply too good at this game, and we didn’t have the resources to change the rules.

Then it came to me perhaps we had the resources after all. Perhaps we had just what we needed.

Madigoor

“AND WHAT WAS that?” asked Bo’Tex, unable to contain himself.

Robinson laid a hand on Picard’s shoulder. “Don’t get our friend the Caxtonian too excited,” he advised. “He’s capable of smells you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.”

“I’ll keep my pheromones to myself,” Bo’tex promised. “I only want to know what came next.”

“Obviously,” Dravvin concluded, “our friend came up with a scheme. He’s all but said so.”

“Yes,” said Bo’tex, “but what scheme? Did he transport a tiny bit of antimatter onto each of the enemy’s ships? Did he use his tractor beams to send one Abinarri crashing into the other?”

Picard shook his head. “We did neither of those things. For one thing, we were on a Romulan vessel, and they don’t carry antimatter.”

“That’s right,” said Flenarrh. “As Picard told us, they get their power from an artificial singularity.”

“What’s more,” Picard noted, “transporting antimatter is a ticklish business. A very ticklish business. I’ve yet to see the containment field that would allow antimatter to pass through the pattern buffer.”

“But what about using your tractor beams?” asked Bo’tex. “That would’ve been a good idea.”

“It might have been,” Picard replied, “except for two things. First, the Abinarri were moving too quickly for us to get a lock on them. Second, our tractor capabilities had been disabled by that time.”

The Caxtonian nodded judiciously. “I see.”

Hompaq grunted disdainfully. “It’s clear what he did. He deployed his escape pods and smashed them into the enemy’s vessels. By the time he was done, the odds were more in his favor.”

“Not a bad notion,” Picard conceded. “That is, if we had still had any escape pods to deploy. When we took over the warbird and forced the Romulans to evacuate, they took anything and everything in the way of auxiliary vehicles. All they left us was a single shuttle, and it wasn’t quick enough to catch up with an Abinarri assault ship.”

Robinson looked around the table. “Any other guesses?”

No one seemed inclined to venture one not even the gecko, apparently.

The Captain of the Kalliope smiled. “So … what did you do?”

Picard smiled, as well.

The Tale

AS I SAID, a plan had begun to form in my mind. I turned to Abby and described it to her as briefly as I could.

She looked