“Sickbay, we’ve got a medical emergency coming your way,” Pitcher yelled. “We need a trauma team, Deck Twenty, Torpedo Bay Two.” The communicator channel on their consoles in the torpedo bay were locked on to allow for hands-free communication.

“Acknowledged,”came a female voice. Pitcher didn’t immediately recognize it, but figured it probably belonged to one of the new nurses. “We’ll dispatch a team immediately.”

“Need any help down here?”

Pitcher turned to see Lieutenant Shandra Docksey standing in the open doorway. The pretty East Indian officer generally worked the helm on the beta shift, but if she was here now, Pitcher wasn’t about to refuse her help. She knew that Shandra had had a good deal of previous experience working both in the photon torpedo bays and the phaser stations. Besides, Pitcher genuinely liked working alongside anyone whose disposition was as positive as Docksey’s.

“Stay here with Lemkopf until the medics arrive,” the weapons exec said. “We’ve got to prep these torpedoes.”

Docksey knelt beside Lemkopf, who was moaning in pain. She immediately removed her belt and cinched it around Lemkopf’s leg at mid-thigh. Pitcher turned back to the others and ordered them to get back to loading, then [135] moved to double-check the viability of the torpedo that had fallen on Lemkopf.

She heard a familiar hissing, followed by a thump, and a quick glance to the wall-mounted computer screens confirmed that the port torpedoes had just been deployed. Curry and his crew were no doubt readying their second salvo. We’d better finish getting ourfirst salvo ready.

“ Torpedo Bay Two, is your complement ready?”That was Lojur’s voice from the bridge over the comm channel. Pitcher knew that Lojur and Docksey had been an item for several years now, and that the day of their wedding was fast approaching.

She wondered if Lojur even knew that his sweetheart was down here.

The ship shuddered again as Pitcher prepared to reply. Pushing the torpedo that had fallen on Lemkopf onto the floor-mounted tracks that led into its launching bay, she yelled, “Two more to load, Commander Lojur. Give me five seconds.”

“Acknowledged.”

Bell and Rolquin slammed their own bay doors closed and gave her the thumbs-up sign. “Clear to launch,” Pitcher yelled to Lojur.

An instant later, the hissing sound became much louder and the coordinated thumps grew as sonorous as a gong as the torpedoes launched toward their target. Pitcher turned to see two white-suited medics rush into the room, and then—

A deafening roar filled the chamber, and Pitcher could hear metal tearing and an explosive decompression, directly below. “Warning. Hull breach on Decks Twenty-One and Twenty-Two,”the computer said. A beat later, it added, “Emergency forcefields now in place.”

One deck below us. One deck is all that separated life from death.Pitcher saw the same shocked look on her staff’s faces, [136] and realized that they all were having the same chilling thought.

“ Torpedo Bay Two, are you all right?”Chekov’s concerned voice came over the comm system this time.

“We’re steady. What happened?” Pitcher watched the medics injecting Lemkopf with a hypospray. He passed out beside their antigrav stretcher.

“Weapons fire from the Neyel ship hit two of the torpedoes as they exited the ship,”Chekov explained. “The torps had already been armed.”

The Neyel. That must be who’s firing at us. Never even heard of them before.Pitcher looked to Tagame, Bell, and Rolquin. They all appeared scared but steady. As the medics carefully loaded Lemkopf onto the stretcher, Docksey stood. Pitcher saw Lemkopf’s blood spattered all over the woman’s tunic.

“They must have figured out where our torpedo launch bays are, Commander,” Pitcher said, projecting her words toward the communicator. “Is it safe to prep any more torpedoes?”

“They’re having more effect on the enemy vessel than our phasers are,”Chekov said, pronouncing one word as “wes-sel.” “We’re distributing more shield power across your decks.”

“Very good, sir,” Pitcher said, swallowing. “We’ll have another set prepped and ready in two minutes.” She allowed herself a gratified smile as she watched her crew, busy at their tasks.

“Anything else I can do here?” Docksey asked after checking and loading another pair of torpedoes. Behind her, the medics were gently carrying Lemkopf’s stretcher out toward the corridor.

Pitcher was about to respond when the communicator of one of the medics beeped. “Medical aid needed on Deck Five. Three members of the forward phaser crew are injured.”

“I think they could probably use some help there, Lieutenant,” Pitcher told Docksey. “They sound even more [137] short-handed than we are. As long as we don’t get breached, I think we’ll be able to hold the fort up here. Thanks for your help.”

Docksey gave Pitcher a quick smile before dashing off down the hall. Pitcher had rarely seen Docksey notsmiling; maybe that was part of the reason she was so well liked among Excelsior’screw.

The ship shuddered to one side again as Pitcher turned back to the torpedoes that still needed to be loaded.

Sulu gripped the armrests of his chair as the battle raged, and the two ships exchanged salvo after salvo.

The plan to block the Neyel from firing on the Tholian settlement had gone sour almost immediately, as the Neyel ship instead began to try to hit both Excelsiorand the colony. However, Excelsiorhad finally been successful in drawing most of the Neyel vessel’s attention away from the planet by circling around the aggressor and firing successive volleys at its tough, refractory-metal hull.

And Excelsiorhad indeed inflicted somedamage on the Neyel ship, enough for scans of some of the breached areas to reveal that the ship’s internal design was very different from that of Federation starships—rather than consisting of stacks of horizontally oriented decks, it was effectively a collection of nested curves, cylinders stacked within cylinders. This made the main power systems, which were presumably located in the relative safety of the Neyel ship’s core, extremely difficult to target.

Sulu could only hope that he wouldn’t be forced to destroy the Neyel vessel in order to disable it. And that it wouldn’t finish off Excelsiorfirst.

“There,” Sulu said, rising and pointing to a particular spot on the main viewer, where Akaar had mounted a tactical diagram of what their scans had so far revealed of the Neyel ship’s internal layout. “If we direct a combined phaser [138] and torpedo bombardment there,I’m betting it’ll take down their propulsion system.”

“I agree,” Fenlenn said, and Chekov and Akaar nodded as well.

Lojur spoke into the companel on his console as he touched several lighted keys. “Phaser Array Three, we’re sending a spread to the coordinate sets on Lieutenant Akaar’s tactical display. Torpedo Bays One and Two, prep a set of torpedoes to coordinate set twelve, then another to set thirteen.”

Sulu watched the progress of his weapons teams on the computer, then gave the command, “Fire.”

Turning toward the forward viewscreen, Sulu saw thirty-odd phaser blasts strafing the hull of the Neyel ship, while several light bursts from the torpédos zoomed toward their target. Seconds later, a conflagration erupted in the intended portion of the enemy vessel, almost directly amidships. Suddenly, much of the cylindrical craft seemed to lose power, whole sections of its hull going as dark as the surrounding space.

Several people on the bridge let out small cheers.

“They’re not yet disabled,” reported Fenlenn, quickly damping the sense of triumph. “But there appear to have been significant casualties.”