Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [30]
“You have seconds before they come about,” Mortash mourned. “We should both cut his throat before they slaughter us!”
Casting a fearless glower, Worf bit his tongue. Why not just pull out their arms?
Luckily, he kept it to himself.
“They are coming about!” one of the Rogues shouted from the aft panels.
On the main screen, sensors were following the Starfleet ship as it arched around, its top hullplates gleaming and showing off the rectangular body shape of the vessel and the glowing red phaser ports. It was coming around to finish them.
“What is it doing?” Mortash shuddered then. “It is— slowing down!”
“Why would it?” Ugulan struggled with the half-frozen helm, trying to bring the bulky freighter around so they could pretend to go down fighting.
One by one the Rogues moved through the noxious stink of damage and gathered around the main screen, crowding up behind Worf and Ugulan. Together they watched the small Starfleet scout come around to kill them. It was slowing down to draw out its own victory and to shame them, so they thought.
Worf watched it, barely breathing. His quaking hands on the console nearly gave away his bitter delight.
The patroller was indeed slowing.
Then, in a shocking change, it pitched to one side and spun half a turn.
“Look!” Ugulan pointed at the screen.
The patroller’s back was broken by a sudden explosion from inside its aft topdeck, blowing the impulse engine across space. The sparks washed back and engulfed the Starfleet scout.
Mortash grabbed for the sensor grid readouts. “It is hulled! It is hulled! Our shot got through! We hulled it!”
He stumbled back to the main screen, just in time to see the Starfleet: ship spark, crackle, then turn itself inside out, its skin peeling back an instant before the warp engines blew themselves into solar balls.
Worf clamped his mouth shut, determined to hold back his grunt of victory. If they showed no restraint, then he would show all of his.
The ignoble crowd erupted into a cheer, and less than a full second later the freighter rocked upward violently on an impact wave and half of them were thrown to the deck. They clawed back to their feet, staring at the screen.
A puff of blue residue twisted where moments ago a Starfleet ship had hovered.
Gone.
“Commander Riker!” Ugulan bolted. “Hah!” Then he spat on the deck, hitting Worf’s boot with his comment.
Chapter six
“THAT’S DONE. DAMNED REBELS.”
The officer from midships, Mr. Pennington, was probably the first officer, Picard now figured. There were other men in blue jackets, too, who would be other lieutenants of various tenure, and midshipmen. They each seemed to have a particular assignment. One tended the main deck gun crews. Another monitored sail handling. There must be more of those men below decks, taking care of other aspects of the ship’s business now that the fight with Chincoteague was over.
“Not so different from the way a starship is run,” he murmured, mostly to himself.
“Is this an important battle?” Alexander asked quietly.
“I don’t know yet,” Picard told him as they enjoyed a moment of fresh breeze pressing through the lingering gunsmoke. “There were thousands of skirmishes between 1776 and 1787. It was a long war.”
“Why don’t you take over the ship and find out?”
“Well, this isn’t like a holonovel, you know. This is real history. I’ve been on pretend ships, but this one was real.”
“What difference does that make?”
A little embarrassed, Picard hesitated, then plunged ahead. “There’s a difference between a passive interest and a way of life. It’s one thing to enjoy naval history, and quite another to actually be on board an historic ship and make it go. No one likes to admit he hasn’t the faintest idea of what he’s doing, but here I am. Let’s just listen and see what we can learn.”
The boy stared at him for a moment of awakening,