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To everyone’s astonishment, the heavy attack seemed to have little to no effect. The ship merely resumed its bizarre squatting position, targeted the da Vinci with deadly accuracy, and returned fire. The Federation vessel rocked violently. The impact knocked Duffy out of his chair, and he fell heavily for the second time that day. He was bruised and bloody, and something felt wrong in his hand. Once this was over, he’d have to go see Lense.

“Ineffective, sir,” said Corsi in a low, angry voice, stating the obvious. She continued to fire on the ship’s appendages.

“Evasive maneuvers. Transfer all power to the forward shields. Let’s take its hits here. Try different parts of the hull before we back off,” said Gold. “Nothing’s completely invulnerable.” But he didn’t sound too certain.

Now Corsi directed the da Vinci ’s phasers randomly. She attacked the rear appendages, the bow, the stern. At one point, when the ship raised itself again to fire, she got a clear volley in at its underside.

It stumbled. One spiky leg waved frantically.

“That’s the spot, Corsi!” cried Gold.

Heartened, Duffy leaned forward as Corsi fired again. The ship collapsed. It clambered to its “feet,” but Corsi knew where to aim now and was merciless. After five more rounds, the ship teetered for a moment, fell heavily, and lay still.

Silence on the bridge. The ship was motionless; they had disabled it. Duffy let out his breath. He hadn’t been aware he’d been holding it. All at once, he became conscious again of the alien piece of equipment he’d been clutching in a death grip.

“Captain,” he said, “I recovered this from the vessel. I think it’s a tricorder of some kind. We may not have been able to access the main computer, but this might have something on it worth knowing.”

Gold’s eyes lit up. He and Geordi exchanged looks, and La Forge grinned.

“Duff-Man found a key,” said La Forge with a trace of pride. After all, Duffy had been under his command at one time. Duffy grinned back.

“La Forge, you and Faulwell start trying to figure out how to use this key. Nice work, Duffy.”

“Thank you, Captain.” It made the terrible pain in his hand worth it.

“Permission to go to sickbay to check on 110,” said Gomez.

“Granted,” said Gold. “You two,” he said to Faulwell and La Forge, “get on this tricorder immediately. Now,” he continued, rising and walking down to the screen, “little ship, are you really disabled, or do you still have a trick or two up your sleeve?”

Duffy held his injured hand and watched Gomez leave. He knew why she was going, and he understood. It wouldn’t kill him to wait until she’d finished with 110 to get his injury treated.

CHAPTER

3

Dr. Elizabeth Lense hated this part of the mission. She’d much rather be attending her other “patient.” The dead one, lying on a biobed, awaiting examination with the patience of, well, the dead. But 110 needed her attention now.

The Bynar was spasming on the bed, his eyes rolling back and forth underneath tightly shut lids. He wasn’t breathing. Lense went into automatic pilot, making the right judgment calls and movements without even thinking about them. Get him breathing. Stabilize the erratic heartbeat. Monitor brain-wave activity. Her hands flew over the small, prostrate figure, attaching monitors, sensors, hypospraying concentrates of this and that.

At that moment, the ship rocked violently. It would appear as if the hitherto dormant ship had been awakened. Lense swore softly under her breath. Sickbay lost power momentarily, and the emergency backup mechanisms kicked in.

She had a brief flashback to a similar scene aboard the Lexington in the middle of a battle. Voices were crying out her name, shrieking in agony, begging for help. There had literally been blood almost everywhere in sickbay. Patients with injuries from fractured skulls to severed limbs to sucking chest wounds filled sickbay and overflowed into the corridor. There hadn’t even been the chance to set up the shuttlebays to handle the sheer volume of wounded. The stench of so much blood