He aimed his phase pistol in the direction from which the flashes had come and squeezed off multiple bursts, and was gratified to note that T’Pol, Peruzzi, and, behind him, Shran were doing the same.

More muzzle flashes from the doorway had Reed belly‑crawling to the side of the room, where Chang lay. He heard a shriek behind him from an Aenar, and wondered who it was, and whether he or she was merely injured, or worse.

“Why aren’t they…beaming us out?”Chang asked, his voice suffused with pain.

“I don’t know, Chang,” Reed said, breathing a silent prayer of thanks that the MACO was still alive. “Maybe the Romulans found a way to jam our transponder signals as well as our communicators.” That seemed to be the most likely explanation.

A hot disruptor blast from the doorway nicked the heel of the boot on Reed’s environmental suit, and he shuddered at the closeness of the blast.

Another explanation for the sudden failure of the transporter was one he really didn’t want to consider, but it crept into his mind unbidden regardless. Enterprisemight have been captured…or worse.

Gritting his teeth in grim resolve, he took aim at the doorway. And, he hoped, at their shadowy, faceless attackers.

Thirty‑Six

Friday, February 21, 2155

Rator II

TRIP ALMOST HADN’T BELIEVED that they would actually make it to the hangar before Valdore’s forces descended upon it, killing everyone in sight.

I guess it reallyis better to be lucky than good,Trip told himself as he helped a winded Ehrehin through the passage from the corridor into the large hangar that housed the Ejhoi Ormiin’s vehicle pool. Although the doors whisked shut behind him, they only muted slightly the noise and tumult of the running firefight that was swiftly engulfing the entire facility.

In the dim light, Trip saw the pair of guards stationed just inside the hangar at the same instant that they appeared to notice him.

He fired twice, sending both of the black‑clad men–who had either been ordered to avoid the fight in order to defend the Ejhoi Ormiin’s small complement of space vessels, or else were about to make their own unauthorized escape from the bedlam outside–flaming to the deck, their weapons clattering impotently beside them.

In the light cast by their sickeningly burning bodies, Trip saw the corpse of Phuong, which still lay where it had fallen after Ch’uihv had so brutally cut him down. Evidently, between the distraction Ehrehin had created when he had conducted his long‑winded warp‑drive clinic–and the confusion that had engulfed the entire Ejhoi Ormiinfacility ever since–no one had yet been detailed to dispose of Phuong’s body.

Trip regarded the weapon in his hand with disgust. Haven’t these bastards ever thought about carrying guns that come with a stun setting?

“Just a minute, Doctor,” Trip said, and walked quickly toward his late associate’s still, charred form. Carefully, and with no small amount of revulsion, he reached inside the dead man’s ruined jacket and felt around for the inner pocket.

“What are you trying to find?” said Ehrehin, who had come up quietly behind Trip, his question tinged with as much revulsion as curiosity.

Using two slightly shaking fingers, Trip extracted a black, oblong‑shaped object about the size of the palm of his hand. “This. There’s a data chip inside.”

“Hmmm. A data chip doesn’t seem likely to have survived such an intense disruptor blast.”

“Ordinarily, it probably wouldn’t have,” Trip said as he opened the small black box along its hidden hinge. The gleaming amber rod inside appeared to be intact. “But this container is made of pretty tough stuff.”

While recovering the chip, Trip had studiously avoided looking closely at the ruined corpse that he’d been forced to search, and he continued breathing carefully through his mouth so as to avoid the sickening, acrid‑yet‑cloying smell of burned flesh that suffused the hangar. Now, he forced the focus of his attention back onto the problems of the living, and onto their solutions.

One such solution now loomed directly ahead of him, in the form of the micrometeoroid‑pitted hull of a cylindrical, twenty‑meter‑long spaceship whose design Trip didn’t immediately recognize–the very same vessel onto which Phuong had been about to lead him and Ehrehin before Ch’uihv had interrupted their escape and ended Phuong’s life.

Trip walked to the starboard hatch located approximately amidships, and quickly found the exterior control pad that would extend the gangway that someone had closed after Ch’uihv had made his appearance. A moment later, the open hatchway beckoned, and Trip helped the old man begin ascending the entry ramp, which was slanted at an almost forty‑five‑degree angle.

Trip cast a mournful backward glance at Phuong’s still form, which thankfully was visible only in silhouette thanks to the interior lighting now streaming from the ship’s hatchway. I can’t just leave him here,Trip thought. He knew that far more than simple human decency was at play here; if the Romulans were to autopsy Phuong, they might determine that he was in fact a human infiltrator, and the consequences for Earth could be dire. He also understood that while there was no stopping an acquisitive Empire from going to war as it pleased, there was also no good reason to provide it with any after‑the‑fact justifications for its actions.

The ground vibrated in response to a particularly loud exchange of disruptor fire elsewhere in the complex. The jarring sound ascended above the general background wash of combat noise that suffused the place, reminding Trip that time was growing short. At any moment, Ch’uihv and his people could come streaming in, expecting to use the various small vessels housed here to make a hasty escape.

Trip also surmised that Admiral Valdore’s patience wouldn’t be infinite either. Sooner or later, once Valdore finally realized that he wasn’t going to recover Ehrehin, he’d simply order his ships to obliterate the Ejhoi Ormiincompound from orbit. So we’ve got not one buttwo ticking time bombs to race against,Trip thought, desperately wishing to be anywhere but here.

Once he was certain that Ehrehin wasn’t going to take a bad fall and tumble down the gangway, Trip ran back to Phuong and dragged the dead man’s surprisingly light body up the ramp and into the vessel. He left it lying in a narrow passageway just aft of the entryway, then sealed the hatch before making his way forward to the cockpit.

He was more than a little surprised to see that Ehrehin had already begun running the pilot’s and copilot’s consoles through what could only be a standard pre‑flight checklist.

“Thank you, Doctor,” Trip said, taking the pilot’s seat after the old man relinquished it to him and took the copilot’s station on the cockpit’s port side.

The elderly scientist smiled beneficently. “Seeing all the trouble you’ve gone through to keep me safe, Cunaehr, warming up the helm for you seemed like the very least I could do. I flew one of these old scout ships during my military days. I was once a pretty fair pilot myself, you may recall.”

In fact, Trip didn’trecall, but he made no response, busying himself instead with the various controls that were arrayed before him. As the vessel’s numerous interlocking systems continued powering up, Trip continued to study the consoles, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t reveal his imposture to Ehrehin by appearing hesitant or bewildered by the flight instruments and indicators. Fortunately, Romulan instrumentation was fairly streamlined and straightforward, lacking an excess of confusing redundancy. While he knew all too well that this deficiency might pose other potentially fatal problems after they got under way, Trip was grateful at the moment for anything that might enable him to get away quickly, and without unduly raising Ehrehin’s suspicions.