The Celestial Temple? The parasites couldn’t possibly pose a threat to the Prophets. Could they?“With such big plans, seems like you’re wasting a lot of effort going after Trill.” Kira peered over the balcony for some sign of Montenegro on the lower level. Nothing.
“You still don’t get it, Colonel. You think the symbionts of Trill are benign little creatures sharing their intellectual immortality with the meat species on their planet. But believe me, they’re even more dangerous to your kind than we are.”
“How?” Kira asked, her eyes tracing the path she’d taken to the ladder.
She felt a breath in her ear….
“Boo,” Montenegro said.
Kira reacted instantly and swung the butt of her rifle with all her might against Montenegro’s ribs. She felt a crunch, but Gryphon’s first officer didn’t even flinch. Instead, he grabbed her by the neck and lifted her off the balcony with one hand, tore the phaser rifle away with the other, and threw her over the railing.
Ingoring the choking pain in her windpipe, Kira tried to control her fall, landing hard but rolling in time to avoid a bone-breaking impact. She looked up.
With inhuman strength, Montenegro swung the phaser rifle against the balcony railing and the weapon shattered. Fragments showered her. Montenegro held on to the jagged remains of the rifle and leaped down effortlessly, landing on both feet in front of her. He showed her the pointed shard of metal he held and smiled.
Kira charged at Montenegro and started flailing him with her fists, each blow a direct hit to his face as she pummeled him repeatedly, left, right, left, and left again. Montenegro staggered back, making no move to deflect the blows, his head snapping back with each punch. At one point Kira felt bone cracking, but wasn’t sure if it was her opponent’s cheek or her hand. Feeling the strength in her arms starting to ebb, Kira pivoted on one leg and landed a devastating kick into Montenegro’s chest with the other, knocking him back against a bulkhead.
Kira bent, hands on knees, panting as she waited for her enemy to fall to the deck. Instead, Montenegro stood up straight, flexed his neck, and said, “My turn.”
Faster than she would have thought possible, he jumped up and spin-kicked her against the warp core. Her back hit the guard rail hard, and for a moment she found it difficult to breathe. Montenegro strode toward her without haste and kicked her legs out from under her. She was flat on her back when he suddenly reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her up to one knee. He forced her to look up at him, once again waving the shard of her phaser rifle above her.
Defeated, Kira’s hands fell to her sides.
“Now, I want you to tell me something, Colonel,” Montenegro said.
Kira’s fingers found her boot.
“Now that you have some small indication here at the end of your stupid, brainless little life about what you’re facing, do you really think anyBajoran has even the slightest chance against my kind?”
Her hand found Captain Mello’s hand phaser.
“Why don’t you ask Shakaar?” Kira whispered as she brought up the weapon and fired.
Montenegro caught the beam point-blank in the face. His head pitched back, followed by his body. His tensing hand yanked out a clump of her hair as he fell back, landing in a heap on the deck in front of the warp core.
Kira climbed to her feet and walked around the body, wanting to be certain he was dead. The beam should have taken his head off, but it didn’t, though most of Montenegro’s hair had been singed away.
Then his jaw moved.
Kira staggered back, expecting him to get up and attack her again at any second. Instead, something came out of Montenegro’s mouth.
Led by a pair of oversize pincers, a clawed, six-legged creature small enough to fit in Kira’s hand slowly emerged on a trail of blood. Its pincers felt the air searchingly before it suddenly scurried toward Kira.
Kira waited until the thing was half a meter away, then raised her foot and brought her heel down with enough force for the impact to echo through the engine room, sending a jolt of pain up her leg. She scarcely noticed, and proceeded to scrape off the smashed remains of the parasite against the lip of the warp-core base.
Kira then went to the master systems display and attempted to power down the engines. She tried once. Twice. Three times.
“Kira to bridge. Montenegro is dead, but whatever he’s done to the engines, I can’t stop it. Warp power is unchanged.”
“We see it, Commander,”Spillane said. “Can you return helm control to the bridge?”
“Stand by,” Kira said. She searched the maze of Montenegro’s reconfigured engineering console and found the manual override for helm and navigation. It was a search of only a few seconds to find the cancelation command. “Computer, this is Commander Kira. Transfer flight control to the bridge.”
“Transfer executed.”
“That did it, Commander! We can change course—oh, no…”
“What is it?” Kira demanded, an instant before the ship shook beneath her.
“Three Federation starships on attack vectors,”Spillane said. “They’re ordering us to lower shields and power down, or be destroyed.”
Akaar,Kira thought. Those have to be the ships that Mello mentioned. He probably ordered the attack ifGryphon got beyond a certain point without contact.Kira searched the board once more, cursed, and started out of engineering. “Take evasive action. I’m coming up.”
“Sir, communications—”
“Are not an option,” Kira said as she searched the corridor for the turbolift. “He slagged both the subspace and RF transmitters. We’re mute. We’ll have to figure something else out. Bridge,” she told the elevator.
Kira stepped onto the bridge to find the Gryphonofficers glued to their seats. Spillane noted her arrival and stood up from the command chair. Without thinking about it, Kira settled into the center seat. The Gryphonshook again.
“They’re targeting our after shields,” Spillane reported.
“Show me a tactical display,” Kira ordered.
A strategic overlay suddenly superimposed the starfield on the viewscreen. Their attackers were the Nebula-class T’Kumbra,along with the Sagittariusand the Polaris,both Norway-class starships. From the look of things, the two Norways were in pursuit, closing in from behind and below. Up ahead and above them, T’Kumbrawas swooping down to intercept. They’d make very short work of the Gryphon,unless Kira tried to fight it out. But as far as she was concerned, firing on another Federation starship was notan option.
“T’Kumbra…”Kira murmured, thinking.
“Incoming fire!” Spillane announced. “Hang on!”
Kira grabbed the armrests of the captain’s chair as the ship rocked again.
“Shields reduced to forty percent,” Bhatnagar said. “Sir, what are your orders?”
“Captain Solok still commands the T’Kumbra,doesn’t he?” Kira asked the room urgently.
It was Xiang who answered. “I believe so, yes.”
Solok,Kira thought. Abrasive, arrogant Academy classmate of Captain Sisko. Solok was so certain of the innate superiority of Vulcans over humans and most other Alpha Quadrant humanoids that he’d once challenged Benjamin to a game of baseball during a quiet moment in the middle of the Dominion war. Kira had played on Sisko’s team, and they had lost spectacularly, but nevertheless claimed a victory by simply taking joy in playing the game—something the Vulcans would never do.
“You are attempting to manufacture a triumph where none exists,”Solok had said.
Kira smiled. All right, Solok, let’s see if you remember….
“We need to communicate with the T’Kumbra,”Kira said.