Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman [88]
My god, thought Picard, his heart sinking in his chest.
He stared at the viewscreen, where all that was left of the Pike was a raggedly expanding collection of debris. He tried to come to grips with that fact, to absorb it.
Troi … dead? It didn’t seem possible.
The counselor had been with him since he took command of the EnterpriseD years earlier. She hadn’t just been a skilled and respected colleague. She had been a close and valued friend.
And now …
The captain swallowed. He felt empty. Numb.
Nor was it only Troi he had lost in the explosion. Wolverine and Colossus had been destroyed along with her—and five of his surviving security officers as well.
“Sir?” said Lt. Yeowell, who was manning Ops in Data’s absence. Picard turned to him.
“Yes, Lieutenant?”
Yeowell smiled hopefully at him—a strange thing to do at such a time. “Sir, I picked up evidence of transporter activity just before the shuttle was torn apart.”
Picard looked at him, ready to grasp at any straw. “Transporter activity?” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. But the away team didn’t transport back to the Enterprise.”
The captain looked at him. “Then …”
He turned to the viewscreen, where the Connharakt seemed to be veering away from the Enterprise. Was it possible … ?
“They’ve beamed onto the bridge of the Draa’kon ship,” Yeowell reported, confirming Picard’s suspicion.
“Hold your fire,” the captain told Ensign Suttles.
After all, their own people were at risk on the Connharakt. All they could do for the moment was wait and see what happened.
High Implementor Isadjo grunted as he studied his scanplate, where one of the Connharakt’s pale-green disruptor beams had finally stabbed an Enterprise shuttle craft.
Before the Implementor’s eyes, the scanplate blanched with white light. When it cleared, there was hardly anything left of the enemy craft. Vessel and crew had been destroyed.
It was meager compensation for what Picard and his people had done to the Draa’kon’s plans on Xhaldia. However, Isadjo had yet to expend his energy stores. With a little luck, he would yet wreak havoc on—
“Implementor!” roared one of his officers.
Scowling, Isadjo turned in his command pod—and took in a sight he had never imagined he would see, even in his wildest lodge visions. As difficult as it was to believe, his bridge was peppered with Enterprise intruders.
As the Implementor watched, spellbound, the enemy aimed their weapons and fired. His own people did the same. There were shouts of pain and surprise, and a series of thuds as Draa’kon bodies hit the deck.
In the melee, an energy inverter was punctured. It spewed thick, yellow gas across the bridge, making it difficult to see anything—except, of course, the energy bolts that continued to lance in every direction.
Slipping his own weapon free of its sheathe, Isadjo got up from his pod and peered into the hissing, yellow miasma, waiting for an enemy to show himself. None did. But a moment later, one of the Implementor’s officers came hurtling out of the fog, his face bleeding freely from four parallel cuts.
Isadjo cursed and took a step forward, trying to catch sight of a likely target. But before he could get very far, another of his officers spun free of the gas cloud, his tunic ripped and bloody.
The Implementor didn’t like what was happening. His gill-flaps fluttered uncontrollably. His lips pulled back and a cry of rage filled his cranial cavities.
“Show yourselves!” he demanded of the enemy. “Face me like warriors!”
As if in response to Isadjo’s order, a trio emerged from the fog. One was Ettojh, his second-in-command, who was staggering backward under the influence of a powerful blow. Another was Cyggelh, his helmsman.
And the third …
The third was a figure clad in yellow and blue, with a mask covering half his face. The invader was grinning, as if he liked nothing better than fighting for his life in close and dangerous quarters.
He wasn’t armed with a directed-energy device like his comrades. In fact, all he had in the way of weapons