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“Get on it,” Gold said with a sigh. At least La Forge had been able to reconstitute the shields after the first shot. That was all that had saved them—if he hadn’t, that second shot would’ve done major structural damage instead of “merely” taking out half their systems. In fact, he thought, that second shot would’ve more than likely destroyed the ship.

He turned back to McAllan. “Contact the surface.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause. “Sir, I’m only reading two combadges—Corsi and Drew.”

“Gold to Corsi,” the captain said.

“Corsi here.”

“Situation report, Commander.”

“Commander Gomez, 110, and Hawkins are currently approaching the computer core, so they can do whatever they need to do to fix the thing. I’m on my way there now. Drew is trapped between two bulkheads that fell down. The security systems have been switching on and off—that’s how I got separated from the others—but Ganitriul’s doing its best to help us out.”

“We’re not reading Gomez, Hawkins, or 110 up here.”

“I’m reading all three of them on my tricorder.”

“Good. We’re in a stalemate up here with the Eerlikka ship. The sooner you people get Ganitriul up and running again, the better.”

“Understood, Captain. Can we get reinforcements?”

“Negative,” Gold said, hating the fact that he had to say it. “Transporter’s down. I’m afraid you’re on your own, Corsi.”

“That’s fine, sir. We’ll get it done.”

“Keep me posted for as long as you can. Da Vinci out.” He looked around the bridge, then hit his combadge. “Duffy, La Forge, how soon until the transporters are up?”

“Maybe six hours,” Duffy said.

“Make that the priority. We can end this if we can board them.”

From the conn position, Wong said, “Why don’t we board them with a shuttle?” The da Vinci had two shuttlecraft, the Archimedes and the Franklin.

McAllan was shaking his head. “Too risky. They’ll know we’re coming when we approach the shuttlebay and open up the bay doors—and they’ve got hand weapons. I can’t tell what kind they are, but if they’re anything like the shipboard weapons, the shuttle will be a sitting duck.”

Gold sighed, then looked at Stevens, seated with Abramowitz and Faulwell at one of the rear science stations. “Can you maintain the hold on their computer system?”

Stevens nodded. “No problem, sir. I installed a dozen passwords on all the systems, and they’re all in-jokes that only about three people in my family would even guess.”

“I doubt they even know what a password is in this context,” Abramowitz said. “We should be fine.”

“Is there any kind of security device we can use against them?”

Stevens shook his head. “They don’t have anything like that. Best I can do is either cut off their oxygen or their gravity.”

“Killing them’s only a last-ditch option,” Gold said, “and knocking out the gravity’ll hardly matter.” He sighed again. “All right then, we’ll wait.” He hated waiting. Rachel always said his impatience would be the death of him. Hope she’s wrong this time, he thought.

Sonya Gomez felt like someone had scraped her throat with a rusty knife. She didn’t particularly want to cough, as it hurt like hell every time she did, but it got to the point where not coughing was worse. So she coughed. And was sorry she had.

This went on for the entire time she, 110, and Hawkins walked the rest of the way to the core.

“Corsi to Gomez.”

“Go ahead.”

“Good news, Commander—the da Vinci is okay.”

Sonya had been trying very hard not to think about the fact that they hadn’t been in touch with the ship. The idea that she’d never see Kieran again . . .

Aloud, she simply said, “That’s good to hear.”

“You’re too far deep for them to pick you up—and I will be soon. I tried to get Drew out, but one rifle can’t cut it without exhausting the power pack. I was able to make a small breathing hole for him, so he should be able to survive until we can get everything under control.”

“All right,” Sonya said. “We’re almost at the core. We’ll meet you here. Be careful.”

“Always, Commander. Corsi out.”

About ten minutes passed in silence,