The Garden - Melissa Scott [103]
"Very well," Adamant said again. "I will-Silver-Hammer will go with you to work the transporter."
Torres nodded, and turned toward the door, but Tuvok caught her shoulder.
"This is unwise. The chief engineer should not put herself at risk. I will go."
"I'm already at risk-more at risk if we don't help," Torres answered. "And I think we should all come. The more of us, the safer for all of us." Not to mention, she added silently, more people to take over if something should happen to one of us.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jenar nod, as though he'd read her thought, and Quarante said, "Yes."
Tuvok blinked, the closest thing Torres had seen to an admission of error. "Very well."
Silver-Hammer was waiting outside the door as though she hadn't moved since she'd escorted Torres to the control room. She led them through a shifting maze of corridors, through doors that appeared and disappeared at her command, and finally up a twisting stairway that opened into a long, low-ceilinged gallery. She frowned thoughtfully at the walls, and then adjusted the silver disk in her palm. The transporter sounded, and kept sounding, and then half a dozen doors appeared in the walls. One led outside, clouded sunlight spilling across the stone floor. It opened into one of the enclosed plazas, Torres realized, peering cautiously past the shiny new edge. Then the transporter sounded again, and she turned back to find the room turned into a maze, crossed and re-crossed by a dozen half-walls that funneled anyone entering the room toward a central door.
"I've recalled the guardians," Silver-Hammer said. "And there are no other doors into the citadel now."
"Right." Torres stepped away from the door as the first of the dwarf-soldiers filed inside and began taking up positions behind the low walls. She could hear a low humming, growing louder-probably the
Andirrim attack craft, she knew, but put the thought aside.
"Tuvok, if you and Quarante take the last wall, the one to the left of the center door, Jenar and I can take the one on the right."
Tuvok turned to survey the room, and Torres bit down hard on her own impatience. The hum was getting even louder, the Andirrim coming closer, this was no time to delay-
"Yes," Tuvok said. "From that position, we have a clear field of fire, and can use our phasers to advantage."
"They're here!" Silver-Hammer called, from the main entrance, and her words were punctuated by the whine of phaser fire and then the roar of landing jets. The sunlight vanished, and Torres dove for the protection of the wall. Jenar was there ahead of her, his face tense, but his hands were steady as he adjusted his phaser. Silver-Hammer ducked behind another wall, wedging herself in with several of the guardians, and Torres held her breath, waiting.
The Andirrim were expecting trouble, that much was clear. The air suddenly filled with a hail of phaser fire, so bright that Torres and the others could only duck behind their walls, eyes closed, hands to their ears. It stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and Torres forced her head up, blinking hard, to see the first Andirrim forcing their way into the chamber. She fired, and the first row of guardians fired with her, spearing the leading Andirrim with bolts of light. The second Andirrim fell as well, but more came on, and she lost track of how many shots she had fired as the Andirrim bodies began to pile up. She heard Jenar swearing beside her, glanced sideways to see him firing into the oncoming troops, face screwed up with distaste.
"Why the hell don't they run?"
Torres shook her head, fired again, and saw another Andirrim fall while another took shelter behind the row of bodies. And then, as abruptly as the attack had begun, the Andirrim faltered and fell back, ducking back out the door. The first row of guardians started after them, vaulting the bodies, but the hum of engines sounded, and the shadow abruptly vanished from the doorway.
"They're running," Silver-Hammer cried, and rose from her place behind a middle