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“Not if,” Corsi said, “when. Howwi’s the sub-overseer, remember. As soon as Biron realizes his second hasn’t reported in, he’ll send a replacement.”

Unholstering his tricorder, Duffy said, “Assuming that Captain Gold hasn’t taken care of Biron on his own.”

“We can’t assume that.”

Way to keep the morale up, Duffy thought sourly. “That’s why I’m going to be working to punch through the interference. Let’s get to it, folks. We may not have a lot of time before trouble comes back.”

CHAPTER

9

Just once, David Gold thought, I’d like to go on a mission where my ship doesn’t have the crap kicked out of it.

Damage reports were coming in at a constant clip. Much shorter and less impressive damage reports on the Androssi ship were also coming in, but it was a losing battle for as long as they didn’t have shields.

They couldn’t even get out a distress signal as long as Biron kept that interference up. Unfortunately, the ship’s engineers were too busy keeping the ship from coming apart at the seams to focus properly on finding a way to cut through it to contact the away team. Sensors were still detecting five Androssi, seven humans, one Nasat, one Bynar, and one Ferengi on the station—all in the same general vicinity—but they couldn’t determine anything more specific than that. All Gold knew for sure was that his team was alive—for the moment.

“Faulwell to bridge.”

Gold frowned. The S.C.E. linguist/ cryptographer should have been in his quarters. He had no engineering training—aside from what he might have picked up by osmosis from being on the da Vinci —and this particular mission didn’t call for his talents.

But Gold also knew that he wouldn’t have contacted the bridge without a damn good reason. “Go ahead.”

“Sir, what about the runabout?”

“What about it?”

“We have its prefix codes, and I’m willing to bet that it has shields and weapons and other things like that.”

Gold blinked. Then he blinked again. Then he turned to McAllan, whose look of annoyance combined with embarrassment more or less matched how Gold felt right now.

“He’s, ah—he’s right, sir,” McAllan said. “We can remote-control the Rio Grande from here.”

“You want an engraved invitation, man? Do it!”

The da Vinci took another hit. “Structural integrity field down to sixty percent,” Ina said. “Another hit and we’re going to start coming to pieces.”

“Computer, prepare escape pods. McAllan, return fire and get that runabout over here.”

“Sir, we’re down to our last four torpedoes—and I now have control of the Rio Grande,” McAllan added with a grim smile.

Ina whirled around to face Gold. “Sir, Androssi starboard shields are down!”

Gold leaned forward in his command chair. “McAllan, target the starboard shields with those last four torpedoes, but don’t touch that fire control until I say so. Set the Rio Grande’s course to 189 mark 2 and have its phasers do a strafing run on the Androssi’s port side.”

“Yes, sir,” McAllan said. Gold could hear the unasked question as to what the hell the captain was thinking implied in those two words, but the lieutenant was a good enough officer to keep that question unasked.

As soon as the Rio Grande started firing, the Androssi ship changed its position in order to keep its vulnerable side away from the runabout and also to put it at optimum position to return fire.

Which was exactly what Gold was hoping for. “Fire torpedoes!”

The torpedoes blasted away from the da Vinci just as the Rio Grande finished its run. Since torpedoes traveled slower than phasers, the Androssi ship actually had time to try to take an evasive course, but it was too little, too late.

“Multiple hull breaches on the Androssi ship,” Ina said. “Their overall power levels are reading at fifty-five percent.”

“Follow it up with dessert, McAllan,” Gold said. “Fire phasers.”

As the phasers fired, tearing more into the Androssi hull, Gold added, “Bring the Rio Grande about and prepare to extend its shields around us.”

“Sir,” Ina said, “if we do that—”

“We’ll only get twenty percent