Survivors - Jean Lorrah [97]
The warlord grinned in return. “I think you’re right, Adrian. Please get me home so-“
“Commander Data! Lieutenant Yar!”
The voice over their combadges was totally familiar, but totally unexpected: that of Jean-Luc Picard.
“We are here, Captain, safe and well,” Data replied. “Where are you, Sir?”
“In standard orbit. Prepare to beam up.”
“We have one of Treva’s leaders, injured,” Tasha said. “It’s not serious, but he could be healed much more quickly in sickbay than here.”
“I accept your judgment, Lieutenant. Transporter-” he turned them over to the operator.
“Three to beam up,” said Tasha. “These co-“
“Four to beam up,” Data corrected.
Tasha looked at him, puzzled, and then suddenly went so pale he thought she might pass out.
But Tasha Yar was not a woman to faint. “Oh, my God,” she murmured, staring at Adin, whose face lost all expression.
“Is that three or four to beam up?” the transporter operator wanted to know.
“Just one moment,” said Data. He watched Tasha watching Adin … and he waited. She was Chief Security Officer; the duty was hers. But she had to know that if she did not perform it, Data would. Would she force him to-?
Swallowing hard, Tasha turned the gun she still carried on Adin.
Poet made a move for his sidearm, but Adin waved him back.
He continued to look calmly into Tasha’s eyes. Data made no claims to intuition, but he was virtually certain Adin expected her to let him go.
But, although her lips were bloodless, while two spots of fever glowed in her cheeks, Tasha choked out the words: “Darryl Adin, by my authority as an officer of Starfleet Security, I arrest you on the charges of unlawful flight to avoid incarceration, for treason, and for murder.”
Chapter Eleven
TOO NUMB even to curse fate, Tasha Yar trained her weapon on the man she loved. The familiar sensation of the transporter took them, and they materialized in the same position aboard ship.
Dr. Crusher, just entering the transporter room, stopped dead at the tableau.
Yar didn’t move. Dare remained expressionless as she ordered, “Security team to transporter room, on the double. We have a dangerous fugitive in custody.”
Dr. Crusher said to the medics who had followed her in, “Get the patient,” and they moved carefully around Yar and her prisoner to lift Rikan onto a gurney. Out of the corner of her eye Yar saw Data bend to help, and Crusher stare at the android’s bloodstained, disheveled appearance.
“I am quite all right, Doctor,” Data assured her.
“Let me be the judge of that. I’m ordering you to sickbay, too.”
Then they were gone-the doors hardly shut behind them before they whooshed open again to admit Worf and one of the other Security personnel, Lieutenant Carl Anderson.
Never taking her eyes or her gun off Dare, Yar said, “This is Darryl Adin, a fugitive convicted of murder and treason. I know him to be extremely dangerous.”
Worf said, “We can handle him,” in his booming voice. He and Anderson stepped forward, phasers drawn. Dare seemed suddenly small and vulnerable before the towering Klingon.
“Take him to the brig,” Yar instructed. Then, remembering a recent lapse of security with renegade Klingons, she added, “He is probably carrying concealed weapons-and he is Starfleet Security trained.” Which meant he had the ability to turn almost anything into a weapon.
For the first time, Dare let an expression cross his features: his lips curled back in a snarl. He was again that bitter and dangerous man she had met only days ago on Treva.
When Worf and Anderson had escorted the prisoner out, Yar felt her knees weaken. She wanted nothing more than to sit down on the edge of the transporter platform and cry.
But that was not the behavior of a Starfleet officer. She squared her shoulders, held her head high, and proceeded to the bridge to report to the Captain.
Lieutenant Commander Data was released from sickbay as soon as the medics checked him over. In the antiseptic atmosphere, he became conscious of being filthy and reeking-but a few seconds in the sickbay’s sonic shower put both himself and his uniform