• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Hang on a second,” Emarur said, turning to the pilot. “What’re you picking up down there?”

The pilot shook his head. “I’ve been reading the same life signs all along. Some of them are faint, though—they’re going deeper into the infrastructure of Ganitriul, and it’s hard to get a reading that far down. And some people have dropped out as they went into some areas, and—”

Undlar had no patience for this. “Are there still twelve Eerlikka down there?”

“Yes,” the pilot said.

“Are there still five aliens?”

“Yes. Four human and one Bynar, in case you’re interested.”

“I’m not,” Undlar said. “We’ll have to—”

An alarm went off. The pilot looked at his readout. “It’s the da Vinci! It’s back—it was in orbit around the second planet.”

Emarur frowned. “How could they have been in orbit around the second planet?”

“I don’t know, but that’s where they’re coming from.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Undlar said. “This time we’ll finish them off. Arm the weapons.”

To Undlar’s annoyance, the pilot looked at Emarur first. Emarur nodded, and only then did the pilot say, “Arming weapons. Shields up.”

“This time, I want them destroyed,” Undlar said.

“Then shut up and let me work,” Emarur replied. Then he turned to the pilot. “Fire as soon as they’re in range.”

“Firing,” the pilot said a moment later. Then he grinned. “Their shields are down.”

Undlar smiled. He had no idea why their ship blasters were so effective against Starfleet shields, but he was willing to accept that they were.

The pilot said, “Firing again.” A pause. “A direct hit, but no hull damage. Interesting—they’ve managed to partly reconstruct the shields. They’re down again, though. They took damage to their weapons, propulsion, and secondary systems.” Smiling a bit, the pilot said, “They’ve got a good engineer or two over there.”

Maybe, Undlar thought, we should consider selling the weapon to the Federation after we take over Eerlik.

Of course, the Federation might not want to deal with a government that had destroyed one of their ships, even if one could consider it a field test. So maybe we can sell it to someone else. The Ferengi or the Breen. The Breen would probably love a chance to even the score after the Dominion War. . . .

Undlar shook his head, bringing himself back to reality. Time enough for that after we’ve triumphed, he thought. “What are you waiting for?” Undlar said impatiently to Emarur and the pilot. “Destroy them.”

“Targeting them n—” The pilot cut himself off. “I’ve lost the lock.” He stabbed at his console, but nothing happened. “I can’t reestablish.”

Emarur cried, “The shields have gone down!”

“What?”

“I’ve lost helm control,” the pilot said, continuing to stab pointlessly at his console.

“Dammit, Emarur, what happened?”

Emarur was also stabbing at his console. “I can’t access any ship’s system. We’ve been completely locked out.”

“That’s impossible!” Undlar cried.

The face of the human captain of the da Vinci appeared suddenly on the viewscreen. “We’re the S.C.E., Undlar. Impossible things are our business. Now then, are you folks going to surrender?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Undlar said. “Fine, you’ve taken over our ship. Now what? You don’t have enough power to do anything to us. Your transporters and weapons and shields are down, so you can’t fire on us and you can’t board us. It’s a stalemate, Captain. And I have righteousness on my side.”

“Righteousness? You call cold-blooded murder righteous?”

The human sounded indignant. Well, let him, Undlar thought. “Every revolution has its executions, Captain. And this is a revolution. We will bring Eerlik out of its decadence and into a new era of greatness. And I can assure you that I will never give up. I will never surrender to you!”

“Screen off,” Gold said, not wanting to look at Undlar’s smug, teal-colored face. “Bridge to engineering. Duffy, La Forge, give me good news.”

“Wish I could, Captain,” La Forge said. “I might be able to get the shields reconstituted again, but I doubt it. And the weapons systems