The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [23]
Behind her, Daret had succeeded in activating the organ stimulator and the sterile field generator. She watched as the doctor wielded a laser scalpel over the wounded Edal’s stomach. Before her eyes, the Cardassian’s thick gray skin parted beneath the scalpel’s beam to reveal dense, fibrous muscle tissue. With a dexterity similar to what Yar had earlier seen Crusher exhibit, Daret proceeded with the impromptu surgery, cutting with one hand while the other controlled the removal of excess blood from the incision site as he worked to facilitate connecting Edal to the stimulator and initiating the process of bypassing the gul’s damaged mulana.
“How long?” she asked.
Without looking up, Daret replied, “Just a few moments, assuming he’s not too weak to withstand the stress of the bypass. Regardless, he will require more extensive care if he’s to make a complete recovery.”
Yar began to ask something else but forgot all of that when she detected movement in her peripheral vision, outside the shuttle. Then harsh violet energy struck the Jefferies’s hull just to the left of the open hatch, rocking the small craft.
“Stay down!” she shouted from where she crouched near the hatch, searching among cargo crates, Cardassian shuttlecraft, and other assorted detritus for the source of the attack. She caught sight of a dark shadow near an open door leading out of the hangar bay and fired more from instinct than training. Instinct was rewarded as her weapon belched energy and the disruptor bolt struck the Cardassian in the chest, driving him to the deck.
More shadows loomed in the corridor beyond the doorway, and Yar fired again, not at the Cardassians this time but instead at the control panel set into the bulkhead near the door. The panel exploded in a shower of sparks and—as she hoped—the hatch promptly closed, blocking any more Cardassians from entering the bay.
Right. As though there’s no other way in here.
“Close the hatch!” Daret called out, still engrossed in his treatment of Edal.
“No,” Yar replied. “I don’t want to give them a chance to surround us.” She had no illusions that the Cardassians would let something as simple as a locked hatch keep them from getting into the hangar. They had only minutes before the soldiers regrouped at another point of entry.
Unless she did something to prevent that.
“Computer,” she said, rising from her crouch, “once I close the hatch, you’re to open it only on my voice authorization or Doctor Daret’s. Acknowledge.”
“Acknowledged,” the shuttle’s computer voice replied. “Standing by.”
Daret looked up from his field surgery, his eyes wide. “What are you doing?”
“Stay here,” she replied. “I’m sealing you in.” Bounding down the shuttle’s rear ramp to the hangar’s metal deck, she turned and gave him a final look. “If you need assistance, the shuttle’s onboard computer can help you.” Before the doctor could respond or protest, Yar hit the control set into a recessed cavity next to the hatch and the ramp began to rise. “I’ll be right back,” she called out as the shuttle sealed itself, then turned and headed across the hangar bay in search of the other entry points she was certain to find.
Assuming they don’t just depressurize the whole bay. Though the thought rang in her ears, she doubted Glinn Malir would stoop to such a tactic. If the Cardassian had wanted her or Crusher dead, Yar was sure he would have taken care of it before now. No, she decided, Edal’s would-be successor had loftier aspirations in mind, and the capture of two supposedly important Starfleet officers would likely play into achieving those goals.
Good luck with that.
She located a second hatch along the same bulkhead as the one she already had disabled. The door was locked, and she used her disruptor to destroy its control panel. Recalling what she knew of Galor-class warships, Yar figured similar hatches would likely be found on the opposite side of the bay. Using the haphazard arrangement of cargo containers and shuttlecraft for cover, she maneuvered around the chamber’s