The monster doubled in size as it pursued them down the passageway toward one of the temple’s secluded interior courtyards. It bashed through walls and load-bearing columns, and it swatted away multiton slabs of rock as if they weighed nothing at all. It’s a goddamned self-propelled demolition machine,Quinn marveled even as he ran for his life.

At the threshold of the courtyard, the creature had them. Fire and fury blazed in its very essence. Its tentacles reared up and coiled to strike.

Then it shrieked as if in agony, and it contracted in size. Immediately it turned away and charged back inside the temple, hammering through anything and everything in its path. In its wake lay nothing but rubble and dust.

Bridy looked apprehensively up at the crumbling temple ruins surrounding them. “We’re trapped,” she said.

Quinn turned and looked at her—then he looked past her. As the dust cloud dissipated, his eyes pierced the dark to see a sleek, Nalori-built argosy parked on the other side of the courtyard. “The hell we are,” he said with a broad smile. He led Bridy and the nomads toward the ship as he added, “Come with me.”

49

T’Prynn emerged from the rapidly imploding temple ruins to see Tim Pennington hurrying toward her—surrounded by more than two dozen armed Starfleet personnel.

At the front of the group was a tall human woman with fair skin and brown hair. She wore a gold tunic whose sleeves bore the stripes of a lieutenant commander, and she carried a type-II phaser. Making eye contact, the woman asked, “Are you T’Prynn?”

“I am.”

“Report. Quickly.”

T’Prynn halted as she was met by the woman. “To whom am I reporting?”

“Lieutenant Commander Katherine Stano, first officer, U.S.S. Endeavour.” Stano nodded to a dark-haired human man who stopped beside her. He wore a blue tunic and held an octagonal crystal device in one hand. “This is Lieutenant Stephen Klisiewicz, science officer.”

“Very well,” T’Prynn said. “There is a Shedai inside the temple. It has acquired a crystalline object that appears responsive to Shedai energy waveforms.”

A tall, brown-skinned human man with a mustache stepped closer and asked T’Prynn, “Are there any humans inside the temple?”

Stano noted T’Prynn’s reluctance to answer with a small measure of exasperation. “This is Lieutenant Paul McGibbon, our deputy chief of security.”

T’Prynn nodded. “Yes, a civilian named Cervantes Quinn and a Starfleet officer from the Sagittariusnamed Bridget McLellan are inside the temple.”

“Okay,” McGibbon said. “Let’s do this.” He nodded to his platoon of red-shirted security officers, who fanned out into a skirmish line. As they settled into their battle formation, Klisiewicz activated the eight-sided crystal device in his hand.

Pennington edged forward. His eyes went wide as he saw what was transpiring. He asked Klisiewicz, “What’re you doing, mate?”

Grinning like a child with a new toy, Klisiewicz replied, “Using this gadget Ming Xiong built to lure the Shedai out of the temple and here to us.”

Horrified, Pennington exclaimed, “Why the bloody hell would you want to do that?”

Before anyone could answer the anxious reporter, a hideous shriek rose up from the temple and split the night. Then came the low rumble of destruction and the steady rhythm of impact tremors shaking the sand under T’Prynn’s feet.

The Shedai was coming.

With an epic roar, it burst free of the mountain of pulverized rock that once had been a temple.

It swelled as it surged forward, lashing out with tentacles that glowed with millions of motes of energy. Burning in the center of its mass was the twelve-sided crystal object T’Prynn had seen the entity seize from the pedestal inside the now-buried Shedai Conduit.

McGibbon raised his phaser and ordered his men, “Fire!”

Bright blue phaser beams slashed the darkness and struck the Shedai with electric flashes. None of the blasts seemed to cause the creature any harm; if anything, it only grew stronger.

Stano glanced sidelong at Klisiewicz. “Now?”

“Not yet,” said the science officer, his thumb hovering above a button in the center of the device in his hands.

The Shedai scuttled on its tentacles and rapidly crossed the open ground separating it from the landing party. It closed to within twenty meters and was sprouting new tendrils with which to strike.

Visibly nervous, Stano asked Klisiewicz, “Now?”

“Wait for it,” he said.

The ends of the Shedai’s tentacles solidified into obsidian and shaped themselves into massive spearheads.

“Now,” said Klisiewicz, pressing his thumb on the button.

The device in his hand pulsed with blue light—and then so did the crystal artifact inside the Shedai’s body. A volatile reaction ensued around the crystal polyhedron.

Another horrific shriek emanated from the Shedai. It shrank rapidly and forcibly ejected the artifact from its body. The crystal tumbled like a die over the sands and rolled to a stop a few meters from the landing party. Then the Shedai flew straight up, away from the object, toward orbit.

The XO pulled her communicator from her belt. “Stano to Endeavour.”

A woman replied over the comm,

“Go ahead, Commander.”“Captain, Xiong’s little gizmo did just what he said it would, but you’ve got one ticked-off creature heading your way.”

“She’s already gone,”said the Endeavour’s commanding officer. “Broke orbit at full impulse and didn’t look back—just like the Klingons.”

“Chalk that up as one little victory,” Stano said.

“Let’s not celebrate yet. What’s your status?”

Stano surveyed the landscape. “We’ve secured the Mirdonyae Artifact, and the locals seem to have the Klingon garrison under control.” From the far side of the ruins, a nondescript small spacecraft lifted off and cruised away toward the horizon. “Any word from our little cousins?”

“Affirmative,”Khatami said. “They say hello, but they really must be going.”

“Acknowledged,” Stano said. “Stand by to beam us up. Stano out.” She flipped her communicator shut and looked at Klisiewicz. “Go get the artifact and prep it for transport.” Then she nodded at McGibbon. “Lieutenant, you know what to do.”

McGibbon pointed his phaser at T’Prynn, and his security team surrounded her and Pennington. “Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn,” he said. “You are under arrest for multiple violations of the Starfleet Code of Military Justice. Drop any weapons you are carrying, step forward, kneel, and place your hands on top of your head.”

T’Prynn slowly set down her disruptor rifle, stepped away from it, and kneeled as she placed her hands on her head.

Another security guard confiscated T’Prynn’s phaser from Pennington and prodded him toward her. “You too,” the guard said. “On your knees, hands on your head.”

“Timothy Pennington,” said McGibbon. “You’re under arrest for aiding and abetting a fugitive from Starfleet justice.”

As the security team closed magnetic restraints around his and T’Prynn’s wrists, Pennington looked at her and smiled.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I’d almost forgotten about this part. Our heroes’ welcome.”

Quinn sat at the helm of his late rival’s vessel, the Icarion,and admired the way it handled. Zett was a bastard,Quinn mused, but he had great taste in ships.

Bridy stepped into the cockpit, followed by Noar, the female leader of the squad of nomads she and Quinn had rescued from the collapsing ruins minutes earlier. “Starfleet’s on the scene,” Bridy said. “They have the ruins under control, and our friend with the tentacles has taken a rain check.”