Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [62]
Releasing a few last shots into the fireshot confusion in which they had left the engine room, Worf herded his charges down the corridor. After all, his mission wasn’t over yet.
And it wouldn’t be until he got his team home again.
Through narrowed eyes, High Implementor Isadjo watched the interlopers make their way along a corridor, leaving a scattering of fallen Draa’kon in their wake. Enraged, he cursed in the sacred tongue of his ancestors.
So these were the invaders who had destroyed the remainder of his mighty propulsion capabilities. Isadjo’s gill-flaps fluttered. Had the Connharakt’s internal sensor net not been damaged in its battle with the Enterprise, he would have gotten a look at them a good deal sooner.
And now that he had gotten a look at them, his mind raced with a multitude of questions. Who were these beings that they could cut down his soldiers like stands of marsh grass? Could it be that someone else had seeded a world as the Draa’kon had long ago seeded Xhaldia?
Isadjo was loathe to throw any more of his forces at the intruders, as it barely seemed to slow them down. Yet neither could he allow them to continue on their path of destruction.
Fortunately, he still had another option. “Ettojh,” he snapped, “in which section are the invaders?”
His second-in-command consulted his scansurfaces. “Level three, section twenty-two, Implementor. Moving toward section twenty-three.”
Isadjo’s lips pulled back, exposing his many rows of teeth. “Activate the fire barriers ahead and behind them,” he rumbled. “Then remove the air from their corridor.”
As far as he had been able to tell, the intruders carried no personal oxygen supplies. With nothing to breathe, even the most formidable of them would turn weak and die.
Of that, at least, he was certain.
Chapter Twenty-three
WORF PELTED DOWN the corridor, Kirby and Ditko close behind. Archangel circled up ahead, having already scouted the next corridor.
If the Klingon’s memory of the Connharakt’s schematics served, Worf and his team were swiftly approaching the transporter facility. That was where they would find Data and Nightcrawler, whose orders had been to precede the other teams there and prepare the place.
And if Data and Nightcrawler hadn’t made it? If the Draa’kon had captured or destroyed them, and perhaps even set a trap for the other teams in the transporter room?
The Klingon would worry about that when the time came. At the moment, he was busy enough trying to get them to the rendezvous point.
Suddenly, he saw a flicker of yellow light up ahead. Knowing what it might mean, Worf cried out a warning. But before Archangel could heed it, he passed straight through the center of an intensifying energy field.
The mutant jerked and twisted in supreme agony, his momentum carrying him through the barrier and out the other side. Fortunately for him, his pain didn’t last long. He went limp and lost consciousness well before he hit the deck and rolled to a halt.
By that time, the energy field had stretched from one bulkhead to the other. It reached as high as the dark, rounded ceiling and as low as the floor, and it looked to be airtight into the bargain.
Banshee uttered a curse and tried to go after his fellow X-man, but the Klingon restrained him. “You must not touch that barrier,” he grated. “It may knock you out as well.”
“We can’t just let Warren lie there,” the mutant insisted. “Can ye nae see the lad needs help?”
Glancing back over his shoulder, Worf saw that a similar barrier had been erected in back of them. Realizing the nature of their trap, he shook his shaggy head.
“What is it?” Banshee demanded.
“It is a response to the outbreak of fire,” the Klingon replied, “not unlike those one finds on Starfleet vessels. Force fields drop on either side of the blaze. Then vents in the bulkheads draw the air out of the enclosure.”
The skin at the bridge of the mutant’s nose gathered in a knot. “You mean they’re gonna try to suffocate us?”
Worf nodded. “I believe so.”
Ditko looked up at the ceiling, then aimed his phaser at it and unleashed