Quinn eased himself into the pilot’s seat and scanned himself with the tricorder. Within seconds, its display confirmed what he already suspected: he was hypoxic, borderline hypothermic, and seriously dehydrated. In other words, a dead man walking,he concluded. He turned off the tricorder, put it in his pack, and pulled out the medkit. His numbed fingers could barely fit an ampoule of triox compound into the hypospray, but then it clicked into place. He pressed the injector’s nozzle to his throat just above his carotid artery and pushed the trigger. A fleeting hiss and a momentary twinge of discomfort were followed by a sensation of profound relief. Quinn’s head cleared, and his vision sharpened. That’s better.

He put away the medkit, then cracked a few heat sticks and stuffed them into the inner pockets of his coat and the pouches on the legs of his pants. That ought to keep me from freezing on the walk back,he figured. And I can set up a tube from my canteen so I can hydrate while I walk.

Closing the pack, he got up and started aft—then halted as a ping of sensor contact resounded softly in the stillness of the cockpit. He turned back and checked the display, which indicated the arrival of a starship in orbit above the Dulcinea.

About time,he mused, fishing his communicator from his pocket. He flipped open its gold-plated grille and opened a secure frequency. “Bridy, you read me?”

“Yeah,”she answered over the staticky channel, “I’m still here.”

“I’m at the ship and about to head back. And I’ve got more good news: the cavalry’s here.”

“Thank God. We have to get Xiong and a science team down here, pronto.”

“Roger that. We—” Another signal appeared on the sensor display. “Um, honey? What’re the odds Endeavourbrought reinforcements?”

Her reply was freighted with fear and suspicion. “What’s happening?”

“Multiple contacts. Three—no, check that, five ships on approach vectors.”

“Quinn,Endeavour is the only Starfleet vessel in the sector. If you’re reading multiple ships—”

“Then we’ve got company.” He dropped the pack and ran aft to the weapons locker. “You better dig in, darlin’.”

“There’s no time! Listen to me: let the Klingons land and then take off and make a break for orbit. One of us needs to get away.”

“Dammit, Bridy, don’t do nothin’ stupid! Let me call the play this time!”

“It’s too late for that. You need to—”

“No! Not another word! Lay low till I scope the situation.” He slapped the grille shut on his communicator, put the device away, and opened the weapons locker. I need something with kick that won’t give away my position. From his limited arsenal he selected a semiautomatic .50 caliber sniper rifle with a flash suppressor and inertia-free firing mechanism. He nodded. This, two clips of spun-duranium rounds, and a pack of plasma grenades should do nicely.

Rifle in one hand and a bundle of ammunition and grenades in the other, Quinn sprinted to the hatch and elbowed the button that opened it. As soon as it passed the half-down point, he rode it like a slide, dropped off the end, and landed knee-deep in snow. He had dashed a dozen strides toward the edge of the Dulcinea’s narrow mountain perch when the banshee howls of the wind were devoured by the thunderous roar of engines cruising past overhead.

The sound wave hit Quinn hard enough to knock him facedown in the snow. When he lifted his head, he gazed in dismay at three Klingon birds-of-prey making their descent to the frozen lake between him and Bridy. Following the trio of sleek warships were two bulky, gray-green Klingon troopships.

Quinn pushed himself back into motion, and he scrambled into a tight space surrounded by jagged outcroppings of black rock. He balanced the rifle in a narrow gap between two boulders, peered through the scope, and focused its image.

Far below, the birds-of-prey had already set down on the far side of the frozen lake, near the entrance to the caves, and the troop transports were only seconds away from touching down. Wide ramps descended from the warships’ ventral hulls, and armed Klingon troops poured out of them.

Quinn flipped open his communicator and set it beside him on a level patch of rock. “Bridy? You read me, darlin’?”

“I read you.”

“I won’t lie to you, sweetie. It’s bad. Real bad.”

“Give it to me straight.”

“Three birds-of-prey and two dropships, right outside your front door. I’d say two full companies of ground troops, another hundred in flight crew.”

“Okay. Go ahead and say it.”

“You sure?”

“I’ve earned it.”

He sighed. “Told you so.”

Bridy lifted the ordnance package from her backpack. It was heavier than she’d remembered from just a few hours earlier. Part of her refused to believe she was really holding her own death in her hands, or that she would find the will to do what she knew needed to be done.

She wanted to believe there was still a way out, but her training told her that was all but impossible. She and Quinn were outnumbered more than a hundred to one, and he was too far away to do much more than bear witness to the inevitable.

“Listen up,”Quinn said over the communicator. “Use your phaser to collapse the tunnel to the big cave. That’ll slow the Klingons down and buy us some time. I can advance to sniper distance in about ninety minutes.”

“And then what? You’ll start a firefight with two hundred Klingons? In the open? With no cover? Are you out of your mind?”

Her retort was met by several seconds of silence. She admired Quinn’s fighting spirit but couldn’t stand the thought of him sharing her fate.

Suddenly, she regretted all the times she’d taken him for granted, all the moments when she’d cut him with sarcasm or pulled rank simply because she knew he would let her get away with it. Only then, when she knew she would never see him again, could she admit to herself just how much that deeply flawed, strangely idealistic, ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, crazy-brave, barely reformed drunkard of a man truly meant to her.

With the flick of a toggle and the press of a button, Bridy armed the ordnance package’s detonator. Her only remaining decision was whether to set a countdown or to trigger the device manually.

From the caverns beyond the tunnel, she heard Klingon voices shouting.

“Okay, new plan,”Quinn said. “Collapse the tunnel and give me time to get theDulcinea ’s transporter working. Once it’s back up, you phaser that crazy machine into slag and use your recall transponder to beam out.”

Her fingers trembled above the detonator switch. “We don’t have that much time. You need to go back to the ship now,Quinn.”

“Why? It ain’t like they’ve spotted me.”

She wiped a rolling tear from her cheek. “Please—you need to hurry.”

“Tell me you didn’t bring that goddamned bomb with you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not good enough.”

“There’s no other way.”

“Yes, there is! We just haven’t—”

“No, there isn’t! If even one of those bastards gets in here with a scanner, they’ll relay this intel back to their ships, and that’ll be game over. We’ll never stop them all in time. I can’t let them have this.”

“If you blow it up, we won’t have it, either.”

“I know. But those are my orders.”

“Goddammit, screw your orders! Just give me a little more time!”

Footfalls echoed in the tunnel. She had only seconds left. Her voice cracked with grief. “You know I love you, right?”

Quinn’s stoic façade crumbled along with Bridy’s. “I love you, too.”

She shut her eyes. “Then for the love of God, run.”