Maximum Warp Part 21

Oddly, Riker was smiling, too. Startled for a moment by the expression, Lotre hesitated at the blur that Riker became, gray and red suddenly close to him.

"By the Praetor-" Lotre gasped, and Riker was right there, backhanding him onto the deck.

Rage boiled deep without the Klingon. When he spoke he was sputtering with fury. "How the devil are you so strong?"

Riker scooped up Loire's disrupter rifle and leveled it at him.

For a short moment Lotre actually felt defeated, his head pounding in anger. But the warm Federation phaser was still in his hand. He didn't look down at it, but his thumb found the setting control and leaned heavily on it. He fired, and a thin but powerful orange thread connected Riker with the weapon.

Riker howled as the beam swiped down into his weapon arm. Sizzling through flesh and bone, sealing the wound with the same heat that cut it, the rifle-with Riker's arm still attached-fell to the deck.

The Starfleeter collapsed in agony and rolled into the bulkhead.

Lotre scooped up the disrupter rifle. The Klingon checked the weapon's power cell and available state, and chucked it into ready position.

Gorlat approached from up the corridor, various scatered bodies, the stunned carca.s.ses of Starfleet security, littering his path.

He kicked one, for good measure and probably for personal pleasure.

"It is done," he said.

Lotre looked down at Riker's shocky, quivering form and smirked. "So is he."

"Having a central armory is insane," Gorlat snorted. "We vaporized their store in a matter of minutes."

Lotre moved to the next nearest Starfleeter and took his weapon. "But you saved the power packs, correct? We can convert them for our own weapons."

"Of course. This is not my first such mission."

"It is your first Federation Battle Cruiser," Lotre said, taking the next man's weapon, too, and handing it to his comrade.

Gorlat couldn't seem to argue with what Lotre said, so he merely grunted.

"It's time to bring the others." Lotre pulled out a communicator and brought it to his lips. "This is Lotre. Teams three through five, begin transport."

Static crackled back at him and a small spike of apprehension raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

"Topor! Respond!"

Again, biting silence.

"Topor? Lormit? Anyone, respond!"

Nothing.

"We're being jammed, or they've been silenced at the source."

Gorlat snarled. "We cannot maintain control of this vessel with so few men. We were supposed to be the advance team to make sure they couldn't get their s.h.i.+elds back up, and to take out their armory without destroying the rest of the s.h.i.+p."

Marching up the corridor, Lotre spat, "I know the plan, Gorlat! It was a strategy of my own creation!"

"What do we do now?"

"Gather your team," the Klingon said. "We take the bridge, and find out what has happened to our s.h.i.+p."

"The bridge will be heavily protected."

"And we," Lotre said indignantly, "will be heavily armed."

The Starfleeters were formidable, there was no denying that. They'd cut off the turbolifts, and when Lotre found a transporter room, that proved to be useless, too. This was not how it was supposed to have been.

The plan had been to secure Engineering and the armory, a.s.suring the s.h.i.+elds would stay down and the crew would not be armed. Then Lotre would have been free to beam a team directly onto the bridge.

Now he had no such support.

"Three of you take that hatchway," Lotre ordered. "The rest of you, with me."

He didn't like breaking up such a small number, but with the lifts not working that meant more than no one could easily get on the bridge; it meant no one could easily get off.

The three would attempt access through the conduits that serviced the exterior of the bridge. Lotre would take the rest via an open lift shaft.

Without help, he pried the turbolift doors open.

"Hold them," he ordered whoever reached out first. Gorlat held them open as Loire pulled a small device from a pocket and stuck it inside the lift shaft. He switched the small apparatus on.

"Someone check that."

One of the others pulled out a small scanner unit and nodded. "Sensor dampener functional."

Lotre ducked his head in and twisted his gaze upward. "Fools didn't lock the car at the top. We have access."

"It could be b.o.o.by-trapped."

The Klingon nodded. "Yes, Gorlat, it could. You go first."

Gorlat sneered, but leapt to the tube's hand-rungs and began climbing.

The ascent was tedious and, for Lotre, angst-ridden. He tried only to focus on each rung as he rose hand over hand, but his mind kept whirling around the possibilities. He could not hold captive hundreds of Starfleet crew with twenty men. It was going to be difficult with two hundred. And if they couldn't communicate with their reinforcements ... By the time they'd reached the top, it was obvious there was no defense perimeter, no b.o.o.by traps Gorlat stood off on a narrow slice of ledge to one side of the closed entry. He reached to open the door with his hands, but Lotre motioned him off. "Too slow," he mouthed quietly, and motioned for Gorlat to move down the ledge more. He then nodded for the others to climb past him and onto the ledge as well.

He wanted to be first on the bridge. He wanted to take down Picard himself.

Lotre pulled out one of the Federation phasers he'd taken off a stunned crewman and set it to die highest level.

He showed the weapon to the others, then aimed at the door.

"Once in, fan out," he whispered. "Picard is mine."

And he fired a short burst.

The doors decayed outward with an orange flash and a puff of smoke. Balancing on the service rungs, Lotre propelled himself through the hole he'd opened and rolled onto the bridge.

He surged over the guardrail and toward Picard, bringing both the phaser and his own rifle up to aim. His men would take care of any others, and he ignored all but the captain.

Picard's face was etched in surprise as Lotre first backhanded him with his phaser, then dropped the weapon in favor of grabbing Picard's neck and moving him closer.

Blood drizzled from one corner of the Starfleet captain's mouth.

It all felt so good, Lotre thought that perhaps his Klingon blood was betraying his Romulan upbringing.

Should he want this so much, this man's death, that he could taste it? Just for the victory?

No, it wasn't his honor he fought for, it was his master's.

Lotre stabbed the barrel end of his rifle under Pi card's chin and didn't stop himself from releasing a tight, dark sn.i.g.g.e.r.

"The Enterprise," Lotre whispered mirthfully, "belongs to T'sar!"