Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [89]
Drawing a tight breath, Stiles jumped to the hatchway and grasped the hatch handle, then looked back for Spock. “Mr. Ambassador? Let’s fly or fry:’ “After you, Mr. Stiles.”
The Imperial Palace
What had begun as a complex and troubling medical mission had first metamorphosed into the glimmerings of success-a chance to save a thousand royal family members and shore up the stability of the Federation’s closest and most dangerous neighbor on this side of the street-and had now once again altered its form and function. Now Crasher, Data, and the hapless merchant named Hashly were about to fight for their own lives. As abruptly as wind shifts, they had become the targets of an assassination plan that had seemed as distant to them as stars were apart.
As her stomach muscles spun into spirals, Beverly Crusher thought fast, conjuring up a half-dozen ‘alternatives before settling on one. She couldn’t sedate them all. She couldn’t seduce them all… there had to be something better.
“Allow me to play to your sense of honor” she began, with a bluntness she hoped Romulans would appreciate. “If your men can take my man, Sentinel, I’ll pack up my instruments and leave, and let the empress and her family die. You won’t even have to kill me.”
Sentinel Iavo tipped his head as if he hadn’t quite heard her right. He nodded once at Data after deciding she couldn’t possibly be talking about Hashley. “Him?” “Yes,” Crusher said. “Him.’~ “A duel?” “If you have the integrity.”
Iavo glanced at the sergeant of his guards. The sergeant frowned in suspicion, but said nothing.
“How is it honorable,” Iavo parried, “for five men to do battle with one man?”
Crusher shrugged. “Well, he works out a lot. You know Starfleet.”
The five Romulan men, warriors all, looked at Data and saw a lanky, wiry human who carried Crusher’s medical bags.
Crusher held her breath. Come on, men, think… how do we spell Romulan chivalry?
“He has no weapon” one of the other guards protested as he finally drew his own blade.
“You told us no active phasers or disrupters could get through the palace’s security screen” Crusher said, %0 you can either give him a dagger, or fight him like he is.”
Despite being obviously intrigued by the wager, Iavo’s expression hardened. “There is no integrity in sacrificing everything on a game. I refuse, Doctor. I cannot afford to let you leave here now. You will die today.”
Crusher shrugged. “Have it your way. You still have to fight him.”
Data stood alone in the middle of the carpet, calm and waiting, seeming very small. Perfect-the Romulans didn’t like this at all. Whether they won or not, they were petty about fighting and too chicken to bet on themselves. And she’d piqued their sense of fair play. Conscience could be such a burden, couldn’t it? She hadn’t expected them to take a silly wager, but now they were ashamed to fight Data in what appeared to be a no-win for Starfleet.
The Romulans glanced at each other in waves of hesitation, doubt, suspicion and a flash of guilt?
Over her shoulder, Crusher heard the faint voice of Ansue Hashley. “I… I can fight… a little …. ” “Shh” the doctor murmured. “Go ahead, Data.”
Without verbal acknowledgement, Data moved forward. Crusher pressed Hashley back, and the line of battle drew itself across the fur carpet. There before her, like a museum painting on a wall, stood the stirring vision of four distinguished Romulan charioteers and their Sentinel in rebellion, and thus they descended to the ranks of hatchet men.
Between the two factions in the bedchamber stood the couch and the oblong table and its chair. For a moment these three objects seemed as insurmountable as any moat. The recorded harp lyficals continued mindlessly to play, the fire to skitter and glow, the empress to suffer through her next breaths.
Ultimately the tension in the room became tangible, breakable-or maybe it was just the accursed twangy harp music-and the standoff was shattered by the battle cry of the sergeant of the guard. He flung off his helmet, dashed it to the