Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [107]
"It was Maje Dut who sent me here," replied Nimmet easily. "He no longer has faith in your abilities. You've proven traitorous, so who is to say your information would have any merit?" Nimmet shrugged and moved closer, wielding the vicious knife with intimidating familiarity. "Nimmet, my friend, listen to me-was
"I am not your friend, Trabe. You have treated me like a servant since you came on board. Do you think I don't recognize your condescension? It will be a pleasure to see your life's blood draining away."
Nimmet leapt for himand in one sweeping motion Trakis grabbed the lifeless shell of the dead creature and presented its green underbelly toward Nimmet's slashing blow. The knife laced through the belly and, as Trakis had hoped, directly into the parasectoid's poison sac, Nimmet jerked the knife out and then began to scream, clawing at his hand as the toxic fluid began eating into it.
Trakis caught one glimpse of Nimmet's fevered eyes, which fastened on his in a mixture of pain and rage, and then the entire room began shimmering before his eyes. He blacked out momentarily and then, miraculously, he was standing on a small stage in a room he had never seen before, staring at a uniformed Federation. His head swam dizzyingly as the man approached him, took his arm, and said, "The captain wants to see you on the bridge." They swept out of the room, entered a conveyer of some kind, and minutes later Trakis stumbled onto a bridge that appeared to be in chaos. A malodorous coolant gas was venting from a conduit; an alarm was sounding continuously, and in one corner a wounded crewman was being tended to. The ship continued to reverberate as it was pounded by Kazon weapons, and Trakis wondered briefly if he would be any better off on this ship than he had with the Kazon. His mouth was dry and his legs trembling, but he didn't know if that was a result of the strange, disembodied journey he'd made from the Kazon ship to this one, his near-death at the hands of Nimmet, or of his quite natural reluctance to die on an alien ship surrounded by strangers.
A small, trim woman approached him, and he realized this must be the fabled captain of the Federation ship.
"It's not as bad as it looks," she reassured him. "Our shields are holding."
He circled immediately to her, his mission clear. He had to convince her to depart immediately. "There's no need for you to endure this, Captain. If you leave this area of space, the Kazon won't pursue you."
"I can't leave. I have crew who are trapped on the planet."
"The Kazon will never let you get near the surface. They think you want the Tokath, and they'll keep you away at all costs."
"The Tokath?" Janeway began, but then the ship took a comterrific jolt and everyone, including Trakis, went tumbling. Trakis cracked his elbow painfully on a nearby console, and he yelped, rubbing it to reduce the lancing pain that now consumed his arm.
"I can explain everything-but it would be easier if we were in circumstances where we could remain upright. Please-all you have to do is leave, and we'll all be safe."
Suddenly, to Trakis' amazement, the woman captain grabbed his jacket and steered him firmly into one of two chairs at the center of the bridge. She leaned in close to him; her eyes were a penetrating blue-gray, and her voice had a timbre that resonated like a cymbal. "I told you I'm not leaving my crew. Now you tell me what you know about all this, so I can figure out what to do." She turned to the others. "Mr. Paris, continue evasive maneuvers. Rollins, fire at your discretion." Then she turned back to Trakis, who was frankly more unnerved by her than by the Kazon attack. "Most people thought it was apocryphal," he began urgently, for he believed that the faster he could tell his story, the faster they could get away from this ominous planet and the pounding of the Kazon. "But it's true-the Tokath are real. I've examined one myself,