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“Commander, a patrol’s coming toward us,” Hawkins said, looking at his tricorder. Then he dropped the tricorder and picked up his rifle, bracing it against his shoulder, since he only had the one good arm.

“How many?” Sonya asked.

“Only two.”

The bulkhead started to slowly slide open.

Blaster fire whizzed by Sonya, only missing her by a few centimeters.

She turned and ran for the opening bulkhead. Behind her, Hawkins lay down covering fire.

A sharp pain seared into her left leg, and she went sprawling to the ground, her jaw colliding with the cavern floor.

Her leg felt like it was on fire, but she managed to clamber the rest of the way into the core with her right leg and arms.

She looked back and saw that 110 had made it in, but Hawkins was still on the ground outside the core, firing at their assailants.

Then the door started to slide shut.

“110, keep the door open!”

“I can’t,” he said. “Not until it closes again—it’s on a strict cycle.”

The door slammed shut.

CHAPTER

10

Vance Hawkins did not like the position he was in.

Getting shot at by two people while lying on a cold, stone cave floor with a useless left arm, wielding a phaser rifle designed as a two-handed weapon, and separated from the rest of his team was not his conception of the ideal tactical situation.

So far, his two assailants hadn’t struck. Part of that was because he was flat on the floor, which made it harder to hit him than if he were standing up—but not as difficult as if he were behind a wall.

By an annoying coincidence, behind a wall was precisely where his assailants were. There was one on either side of the corridor, hiding mostly around a corner. Thus far, Hawkins had been able to lay down more or less continuous cover fire that kept them around their respective corners, except when they poked their heads out long enough to shoot—another reason why they hadn’t hit, as they hadn’t been able to aim properly. But sooner or later, they were going to get lucky.

A shot came frighteningly close to his left arm. The magic of modern medicine meant that he could no longer feel the pain, but the limb was also useless until he got back to Dr. Lense’s care on the da Vinci . Hawkins didn’t really like the idea of it being injured further.

The door had slammed shut and showed no signs of reopening. Since Commander Gomez and 110 weren’t armed, Hawkins couldn’t afford to move from his position, even if it had been open, unfortunately.

No , he thought, I definitely don’t like this position.

Then he heard something that sounded like “ Urk!” and a shot went flying a meter over his head. Neither of the Eerlikka had missed by that much before. . . .

The reason became apparent soon enough, when he saw the assailant on the right fall to the ground. Hawkins then saw the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen in his life: Lieutenant Commander Corsi, pointing her rifle at the head of the other Eerlikka.

And she was smiling. The smile that meant whoever she was pointing her rifle at was not going to go home a happy person.

Good ol’ Core-Breach, Hawkins thought. Can always count on her to save our asses. He started to clamber upright with his good hand.

“Drop it,” she said.

The Eerlikka dropped his weapon.

“And the blade.”

Reaching into his tunic, the Eerlikka pulled out his sword and dropped it, too.

“Now put your hands out where I can see them and walk very, very slowly forward. Don’t stop until I tell you.”

As the Eerlikka walked forward, Corsi asked, “What’s your name?”

“I—I’m Utaka.”

“Well, congratulations, Utaka, you’re now a prisoner of Starfleet. Stop walking,” she added when they arrived in front of the bulkhead—

—which started to slide open.

The door opened to 110 and Gomez, the latter sitting on the floor, clutching her left leg. She was also bleeding from a gash in her jaw.

“Glad you could make it, Commander Corsi,” Gomez said with a small smile. “And I see you brought a present.”

“This is Utaka,” Corsi said. “Walk inside the core, Utaka.