The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [70]
“Of sorts, yes. Since we have needed to use the weapons to power our—device.”
Now B’Oraq smiled. “‘Device’?”
“We have yet to come up with a name for it,” Worf said dryly. “Lieutenant Falce wishes to call it ‘Fred.’”
“As good a name as any,” B’Oraq said with a shrug.
“I prefer more—direct terms.”
“Yes, but ‘forcefield overloader’ doesn’t have much poetry to it.”
“True. Shall we return to the fore?”
“I will be right there,” she said. “I want to see if there is anything else I can use in case someone—”
A scream came from the fore compartment.
B’Oraq sighed. “Gets hurt.”
Both doctor and ambassador ran back up front to find the human male—what was his name? Falce?—on the deck convulsing.
The woman—McKenna—said, “There was feedback—somebody didn’t align the circuits properly.” This last was said with a look at Davok.
Predictably, Davok responded by unsheathing his d’k tahg.”Are you accusing me of something, human?”
B’Oraq knelt down beside Falce. He was a young human of considerable height for his species—which made him average by Klingon standards—with close-cropped black hair. At present, all that hair was standing on end, thanks to the shock he’d received. B’Oraq felt naked without her scanner, but the galvanic response of Falce’s skin was already lessening. She suspected this was an intense, but brief, surge of electricity through his system.
“What—what—what—what happened?” Falce managed to ask.
“This idiot didn’t align the circuits the way he was supposed to,” McKenna said.
“That is enough, woman!” Davok cried, and lunged at McKenna with his blade. G’joth made no move to stop him, but simply stood smiling.
Worf started to move to intercept the bekk, but before he could, McKenna herself deflected the attack and, in one smooth motion, relieved Davok of his d’k tahg. Then she twisted his arm around to his back, immobilizing him. It looked to B’Oraq like a poorly executed mok’bara maneuver—probably something from some human martial art.
Then she threw Davok to the floor. G’joth bent over, picked up Davok’s d’k tahg, and handed it to his fellow bekk with a smile. “I think you dropped this, Davok.”
Growling, Davok snatched the blade and started to get up, when a deep voice rang out in the shuttle.
“Enough!” It was Worf. “If you wish to squabble like children, do it another time! We have work to do!” In a quieter voice, he said to Davok, “If you wish to challenge Ensign McKenna, do so after the crisis has passed. But not now.”
“When a woman spreads lies, there is always time for a challenge!”
Worf then grabbed Davok by his chestplate and pulled him close with one hand. With the other, he held the device that they had been working on. B’Oraq hadn’t even noticed Worf picking it up.
“You were aligning these circuits when I went aft moments ago. They are now misaligned, and Lieutenant Falce is injured. Did she spread lies or simply state facts?”
Davok’s face contorted, but he said nothing.
Worf let go of him and turned to B’Oraq. “How is he?”
“I think he’ll be fine.” B’Oraq hoped her voice carried more confidence than she felt. “He needs to take it easy for a bit—and stay away from any live current—but he should recover.”
“Good.” He turned to the others. “We will finish this so we can overload the forcefield and leave this shuttle. Then we will find who has done this to us and we will defeat them. Personal issues can wait. Am I understood?”
“Perfectly,” G’joth said jovially and with a large grin.
“Understood, sir,” McKenna said.
Davok said nothing. Worf turned to him. “Am I understood?”
“You don’t have any authority over me, petaQ. You are a traitor to the empire twice over who gave up a life of glory to be an ambassador of fools. I will not follow your orders.”
“Very well,” Worf said.
Then he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket, took out a tiny hand phaser, and fired it on Davok, who collapsed to the deck.
B’Oraq dashed over to the fallen bekk.”It was on stun,” Worf said. The doctor checked Davok over and saw that he showed all the outward symptoms of a phaser