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“What is it?” he asked.

“There’s a vessel approaching!” she told him. “A Benniari vessel!”

Picard knew instantly what it meant. “Jack,” he breathed. “And Tuvok.” They had followed the ion trail, albeit more slowly than the Stargazer-but the important thing was that they were there.

“Sir” said Ben Zoma, “the Benniari vessel is powering up her weapons!” The first officer paused. “She’s firing, Captain!”

Picard studied the viewscreen, where the Durikkan was so close it seemed it would ram itself down their throats at any moment. But before it could send a volley at the Stargazer, the Benniari ship sliced into the picture and unleashed an energy barrage of its own.

Caught by surprise, the Durikkan had no time to put her shields up. She had no time to do anything but take the full impact of the other vessel’s assault. For a moment, the Durikkan heeled under the force of it and glowed with an eerie blue fire.

Then her warp engine tore itself into atomic particles in a savage fit of white-hot splendor.

Thul stood there in front of his center seat, refusing to believe the evidence of his eyes, denying what he had witnessed with every shred of strength in his body. Mendan, he thought. My son…

My son is dead.

Feverish with rage, robbed of his ability to reason, he staggered over to his weapons officer. “Fire!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Destroy the Stargazer! Destroy Picard!”

Ubbard looked up at him helplessly. “My lord, our weapons are still offline. We are incapable of firing.”

“No!” cried Thul, slamming his fist down on the weapons console. “You will fire, do you hear me? You will annihilate Picard and his crew!”

Ubbard held his hands up, palms exposed. “My lord, I-“

Before the governor knew what was happening, a blast of blue energy struck the officer and he went flying backward out of his seat. When he landed, there was a smoking hole where his chest had been.

And Thul’s pistol was in his hand, still hot from use.

He rounded on the officer who sat at the next console. “You!” he thundered, pointing his hand weapon in the Thallonian’s face. “Fire the weapons! Do it now, damn you!”

The officer gaped at the pistol, stricken with fear. He moved his mouth, but nothing came out. Worst of all, he didn’t move a muscle to comply with his governor’s command.

Abruptly, he too was driven out of his seat by a dark blue beam. And like his comrade before him, his chest had become a blackened ruin.

Thul whirled and saw the wide-eyed expressions of the others. They were backing off from their consoles, hands held in front of them, begging for their lives. But not a single one of them offered to blow the Stargazer out of space for him.

What kind of bridge officers were they? he wondered wildly. Why could none of them carry out a simple command?

He would have to punish them as he had punished the first two. He would have to hammer them with one crushing energy beam after another until they remembered who was in command of this vessel.

Maybe then he would get some-

“Thul!” said a voice, taut with urgency.

It wasn’t Thallonian, but there was something familiar about it nonetheless. The governor turned to find out who had had the gall to call his name and saw Picard standing in front of him.

Picard! he seethed.

But before he could aim his disruptor pistol, before he could do anything at all, he felt something smash him in the face. As he stumbled backward, it occurred to him that his weapon had slipped from his fingers.

Then his head struck something and consciousness flickered. When his senses stabilized again, he saw that he was slumped on the deck at the base of a control console, the taste of blood strong in his mouth.

Thul spat it out, grabbed the edge of the console and pulled himself up. He had to fight back, he told himself. He had to regain his ship and get his revenge on the bloody, interfering human.

Suddenly, the object of his hatred loomed in front of him again, his eyes hard and determined. “Don’t move,” said Picard, the governor’s pistol clenched firmly in his right hand.