Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [211]
“Except this one, of course,” Ben Zoma added cheerfully.
“Of course,” the second officer responded. He scanned for the number of Nuyyad vessels. “I’m reading four ships. Can you confirm that, Lieutenant Asmund?”
“I show four as well, sir.”
“It could have been worse,” Picard allowed.
Suddenly, an alert light on the captain’s armrest began blinking red. Noticing it, Picard touched the padd beside it.
“Mr. Vigo?” he asked, feeling an adrenaline rush as he anticipated the weapons chief’s response.
“Aye, sir. I’ve got a problem in the phaser line. Command junction twenty-eight, accessible from Deck Ten.”
“Acknowledged,” said the second officer. He straightened and glanced at his friend. “Let’s go.”
“I’m right behind you,” Ben Zoma assured him.
Together, they entered the turbolift and punched in a destination. Then they removed the phasers they had hidden in their tunics.
When the turbolift stopped at Deck Ten, they got out and pelted down the corridor. Before long, they came to a ladder and a round door that would give them access to the network of Jefferies tubes that permeated the ship.
Picard went up the ladder first, pulled open the door and crawled into the tube. As Ben Zoma had promised, he wasn’t far behind.
It wasn’t easy making progress through the tube’s cylindrical, circuit-studded confines, which forced the Starfleet officers to hunch over as they ran. However, they reached the first intersection more quickly than Picard would have believed possible.
It was then that they heard the clatter of a violent confrontation. Looking in every direction, Ben Zoma finally spotted it.
“There,” he said, pointing.
Following his friend’s gesture, the second officer saw two combatants. One appeared to be Santana. The other was a dark, many-tentacled thing that could only have been Jomar in his natural state.
The colonist was trying to hold the Kelvan off with her arms—the way any human might try to hold off something big and monstrous—and not having much luck. But to Picard’s surprise and dismay, she was also launching a series of tiny, pink lightning bolts at her adversary.
The Kelvan recoiled wherever the tiny lightnings struck, but the rest of him remained unaffected. Flinging one slimy limb after another at his target, he tried to envelop her, to crush her in his powerful embrace. And no doubt, he would have, had it not been for the energy bolts Santana was able to marshal against him.
As Picard and Ben Zoma moved closer, neither Santana nor Jomar seemed able to gain an advantage. In short, their struggle was a standoff—an impassioned and violent one, certainly, but a standoff all the same.
Ben Zoma swore beneath his breath. “For heaven sakes, Jean-Luc, we’ve got to do something.”
Picard nodded. “But to whom?”
Clearly, one of the combatants was the saboteur they had been looking for. But the other was an innocent bystander at worst, and at best a hero who had risked life and limb.
“We’ll stun them both,” Picard decided.
“Done,” said his companion.
As Picard took aim at Santana, he saw her glance in his direction. Her eyes seemed to reach out to him, pleading for understanding.
It was all the distraction that Jomar needed. Lashing out at Santana, he snapped her head back. The colonist went limp. But before she could slump to the bottom of the tube, the Kelvan caught her up in his tentacles.
Picard still didn’t know which of the two was the saboteur. However, he didn’t want to see Santana hurt any worse than she was already.
“Let her go!” he barked at Jomar, his voice echoing raucously along the length of the Jefferies tube.
The Kelvan turned to him and underwent a transformation. He seemed to reshape himself before Picard’s eyes, his tentacles shrinking and consolidating and giving way to arms and legs. In a matter of seconds, Jomar had assumed his human form again.
With an unconscious Santana in his arms, he approached the Starfleet officer. “I have apprehended the saboteur,” he said, his blue eyes steady and unblinking, his voice as flat as ever.
Picard didn’t lower his