[ah447@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Victor W. Wong)]
On board the USS Agamennon, several of Jorel's soldiers were herd-
ing the forlorn crew towards the shuttle bay. From there they
would be phasered out of existence. A few of the more perverted
members had rigged up holocoms to record the slaughter. Jorel had
stated that he wanted the Federation's humiliation to be as public
as possible. They would await Jorel's command for the slaughter to
begin.
In one corridor, two renegade Klingon soldiers were conversing,
while waving scanners. "I still don't see why we have do to this,"
grumbled one of them. "We got them all already, didn't we?"
"Not all of them are stupid," said the other. "Some may have gone
into hiding. There are closets everywhere, you know."
The scanner began to beep. "What did I tell you?" chortled the
second Klingon. The two of them drew their disruptors as they
approached a door marked CREW QUARTERS: PO L. OZAKI, ENSIGN CHIAKI
ONNO, CREWMAN ZENKI ONNO. They opened the door quickly, then
charged in firing--
--and were instantly vaporized by two phaser beams.
Chief Leona Ozaki pocketed her type-1 phaser. "Whoever these guys
are," she said quietly, "they didn't bother to deactivate personal
weaponry. Not to mention gas the ship or something. Their mis-
take, eh Chiaki?"
A pigtailed brunette emerged from the cabin's closet. In tow was
a small boy with blackened nails and wild red hair. "I suppose
so," said the brunette. "But do we have to kill them?"
"Didn't you hear that guy, girl?" said the boy. "He broadcast all
over the PA system, he'll massacre all of us like cattle if we
don't do something!"
"Zenki's got a point," agreed Petty Officer Ozaki. "Chiaki, grab
your phaser and scrolls. The two of you go up to the bridge and
see what you can do. The biggest place for a massacre is the
shuttlebay; I'll go there and see what can be done. Whatever these
guys did, they are NOT going to get away with it."
*****
Up on the bridge, Jorel Tobrin settled comfortably in the command
chair. The slaughter of Starfleet pleased and delighted him, he
had difficulty containing a shudder of ecstasy. And it was all so
easy, too! And the rest of the crew were probably as sheeplike
stupid as Commodore Peters.
He sighed as he remembered the look of hopeless, impotent agony on
Commodore Peters' face as he twisted the dagger in his chest.
"Sir," Cwen said, looking up from the security console suddenly,
"K'tel and M'pec have not reported in."
"Huh?" said Jorel, breaking out of his reverie.
*****
"The fool," muttered the Romulan commander. "The idiotic fool."
"Sir?" said his executive officer.
The Romulan Warbird was one of the finest intelligence-gathering
tools of the empire, and right now all of its eavesdropping
equipment was tuned to the Agamennon. The engineering officer had
assured them all that as long as they matched warp speed with the
Agamennon, they would hear everything that went on board. Jorel's
fatal conversation with Commodore Peters had just been heard all
over the Warbird's bridge.
"To behave so dishonorably," the commander muttered. "To promise
life to a defeated foe, then execute him like a common criminal--
and to slaughter the crew of a starship so callously, after life
has been promised--this is not the behaviour of an honorable man."
The executive officer shrugged. "What does it matter, so long as
we have the information?"
"Do you not understand?" the Commander snapped. "By his actions,
the man has shown himself dishonorable. How, then, can we trust
the information he gives us? We already know that he is not going
to be candid with all of the information contained in the Agamen-
non's core.
"And consider this. We already know that Commodore Peters was
perhaps not among Starfleet's highest ranks. Should we not assume
that Starfleet knows this as well? And that any information they
give him is going to be limited to what he needs to know for his
mission?"
"That is true, perhaps," mused the first officer. "So, we will not
honor his deal?"
The Commander turned to his operations officer. "Is the Dagger
still with us?"
"Yes, sir."
The Commander whirled to his weapons officer. "Scan the Dagger,"
he ordered. "Make all note of its computer and power activity.
Correlate that with everything we have on that class of Bird-of-
Prey."
He turned to the first officer. "Oh, we will honor his deal. But
we will pay him in a different coin than what he had in mind."
*****
Back in Engineering, the Dagger's chief engineer watched with a
grim smile as the Dagger's crewmen continued their work on the warp
systems. His senses suddenly alerted him to a sudden thumping in
one of the Jeffries tubes. He went over to the appropriate one,
reached in--
--and pulled out a toddler-sized boy. His green-haired mop was
topped off with a small, hornlike protrusion. The expression on
his face, however, was of someone who had lingered at Quark's bar
for perhaps an hour too long.
"Oooooooh," he moaned, "I shouldn't've had so many pickled plums."
"Boy," growled the Dagger's chief engineer, "who are you?"
"Hmmm?" said the boy, seeming to see the Dagger's chief engineer
for the first time. "Oh, my name's Jariten, but you can call me
Ten for short. I'm an Engineering cadet." The boy looked green, as
if he were about to throw up.
"No, boy," said the Dagger's chief engineer, "you're not."
"Huh?"
"What you are," continued the Dagger's chief engineer, hoisting his
sniper rifle and aiming, "is dead."
But before he could fire, Jariten belched.
A ball of white-hot flame struck the Dagger's chief engineer's
face. He staggered back, screaming in agony, as his flesh reddened
and blackened into ash.
If the Dagger's chief engineer's brain were not so busy processing
the signals of intense pain and trauma that his body was now
sending it as the flames spread to the rest of him, it would have
noted that Jariten (or Ten) was an Oni, a race of beings with
incredible powers. Ten, of course, had the power to breathe fire,
while his cousin Lum (serving as an ensign on board the USS
Yatsura) had the power of electricity.
However, the Dagger's chief engineer's brain was not in much of a
position to do anything but the most reflex of actions, as the
burning body in which it was housed flailed about and finally
lurched out the door to Main Engineering. And the body that was
once a vicious killer named the Dagger's chief engineer finally
crashed to the deck, a charred pile of bones whose skull was frozen
in an open scream of pain.
"'Scuse me," said Ten apologetically. He looked around.
The Dagger's engineering crew, believing in the better part of
valor, were quickly exiting the chamber. "They didn't tell me
about tangling with fire-breathers!" one of them muttered as he
shot out the door.
A voice erupted from a nearby loudspeaker. "Bridge to Engineering.
What just happened?"
*****
"Bridge to Engineering. Are you all right?" Cwen turned to face
Jorel. "Sir, our chief engineer's not responding. Something's
wrong."
"All right. We'd better check this out," muttered Jorel. "Comput-
er, drop us out of warp. Tell the Dagger to do the same."
*****
In one of the Agamennon's corridors, Petty Officer Leona Ozaki
picked up the telltale hum that told her the starship had dropped
out of warp. "Not much time left," she thought to herself.
Another Klingon suddenly appeared in front of her. Ozaki's phaser
was already out. The Klingon vanished with a cry into the phaser
beam as Ozaki continued her way to the shuttle bay.
*****
"Sub-commander," said the Romulan Commander, "why are we out of
warp?"
"So are the Dagger and the Agamennon, sir," said the executive
officer. "We are still under cloak, sir."
"Fine. Keep monitoring the situation. How is our data analysis of
the Dagger coming?"
"Still in process, sir. We were fortunate that they're still using
the Bird-of-Prey's original shield generators, but even so, pulling
any sort of data through them is difficult."
"Keep working on it."
*****
"All right," said Jorel, "I'm going down to Engineering." He got
out of the command chair with some feigned reluctance, stretched,
and headed to the turbolift.
The turbolift doors opened--revealing a young woman and a little
boy. The pig-tailed woman wore an exotic looking bracelet in
addition to a Starfleet uniform, and the boy had wild red hair and
black-colored nails on his hands.
Jorel jumped back with a startled oath. He was even more startled
when a phaser beam caused one of the guards on the bridge to
vanish.
Another guard charged the turbolift, but found himself clutching at
his throat as one of Ensign Chiaki's "scrolls," a metal card with
edges sharp as a sword, sliced into his jugular.
"Computer," said Jorel, "intruder control system. De-activate
phaser."
"Unable to comply. Ensign Chiaki Onno is a member of the Agamennon
crew and therefore not an intruder."
Inwardly Jorel winced--he'd forgotten to wipe the crew roster from
the computer's memory banks.
The whine of a disruptor caused Jorel to revert back to the
present. Cwen had fired his disruptor at the boy.
The beam threw the boy against a bulkhead. "Hey, that smarts!" the
boy exclaimed.
Cwen frowned. "That was my highest setting. Why aren't you
ashes?"
"Hey," grinned the boy nastily, "takes more'n a phaser blast to
knock ME out! My turn!" He leaped up and grabbed at the exposed
cables in the bridge ceiling. Some of them, already weakened by
the initial battering the Agamennon had taken, snapped loose as the
boy descended back to the deck--
--and the exposed end of one of them, pulsating with electrical
energy, struck Cwen in the back.
No Founder or Chameloid had ever survived the passage of 4,000
volts through their bodies, and Cwen was no exception. The
treacherous shapeshifter screamed in agony and his body arched as
the energy ripped apart his body chemistry, until finally Cwen
dissolved into a humanoid-shaped pile of grey, lifeless powder.
Jorel was shaken by the sudden death of his mole, but not so much
so that he lost his sense of presence. He pointed at Chiaki, and
his officers began firing at their highest setting.
Their beams lit up a nimbus of energy around the girl. "I knew
this portable force-field would come in handy!" she grinned.
"Computer!" snapped Jorel. "Shut down her force field!"
"Unable to comply. Shield unit is independent of all systems."
"Girl! That shield of yours can't last forever! Change me now!"
shouted the boy.
"Right!" said Chiaki. Her face set in concentration, she began to
incant. "I summon the power of the Demon Lord!"
*Demon Lord?* wondered Jorel.
Chiaki's braceleted arm moved swiftly, its jewel inscribing a
glowing pentagram. "Burst forth!" she commanded, and the pentagram
passed through her shield and attached itself to the boy, dissolv-
ing into patterns resembling runes.
As Jorel and his officers watched, paralyzed in horrified
fascination, the boy actually seemed to *grow*. He screamed as his
rapidly growing body strained against the glowing runes surrounding
him.
"Vajhra On AAAAAAKH!" Chiaki incanted. "Come forth, ZENKI!"
The glowing runes snapped. Jorel and his officers now found
themselves facing an 8-foot-tall giant, He smiled, revealing razor
sharp teeth. "The Demon Lord ZENKI stands before you!" he rumbled
in a deep, terrifying voice.
*****
In another part of the universe--or in all parts--the Q Continuum
detected something.
<>
*What?*
<>
*Should we do something about that?*
<>
*All right. Shall I make it an AA announcement? Not even renegade
Q disobey that one.*
<>
*****
Zenki's arms reached out, and two of Jorel's officers suddenly
found themselves hoisted by the throat. And Jorel heard the
sickening SNAPs as, with a flick of his thumbs, Zenki casually
broke their necks and tossed them to the deck.
Jorel pulled his disruptor and fired, but Zenki only laughed as his
body harmlessly absorbed the blasts. He found himself against the
bulkhead as the grinning Demon Lord narrowed the distance between
them. His mind dimly registered that his pants were damp.
"It's time for you to experience what you gave the Commodore,"
purred Zenki. "Diamond Horn!" He held up his elbow, and a two-
foot long scarlet thorn seemed to emerge from it. He charged
forward with a snarl.
Despite his terror, Jorel managed to shriek and dodged to his left.
As it now was, the thorn on Zenki's elbow pierced his chest near
the collarbone, pinning him to the wall.
Despite the intense pain, Jorel looked up at the grinning face of
the Demon Lord. "Y-y-y-ou," he managed to say, "haven't--won--yet--
computer--site-to-site--transport--Engineering--"
And Jorel vanished, leaving only a bloody smear on the wall.
A yellow glow surrounded Zenki, and he reverted to his boy-self.
"Damn," he said. "And I was so looking forward to eating his
heart." He looked around.
Only Ensign Chiaki was standing. She held up a phaser. "Everyone
was so distracted by you," she said, "that it was easy to nail'em.
Now help me with this console."
"What for?"
"I don't think they're jamming anymore," replied Chiaki, "so we
have to try to send out a distress call."
*****
"Sir!"
"Yes, I know." The Romulan Commander was hearing the distress
signal on the bridge monitor. "Clearly Mr. Jorel has lost control
of the situation."
"Sir," reported the weapons officer, "we're ready now."
"Excellent. Hail the Dagger."
The commander of Dagger's skeleton crew appeared on screen.
"Gentlemen," said the Commander smoothly, "I believe it's time for
payment."
"Oh? You haven't received our transmission yet," said the Dagger's
officer.
"Call it--a way to gauge our satisfaction with your work so far,"
replied the Romulan Commander.
"Oh," said the puzzled Dagger officer. "All right. Shall we lower
our shields?"
"Oh, that won't be necessary." And the Commander pressed two
buttons on his chair.
The first button caused the Dagger's shields and weapons systems to
power down; the second launched the photon torpedo that effectively
stopped the Dagger crew's protests, as the Bird-of-Prey was
instantaneously transformed into four hundred thousand cubic metres
of ionized gas.
"Well," said the Commander, "we've saved the Romulan Empire some
money, at least."
"Brace for impact," the weapons officer cautioned, before the shock
wave from the Dagger's destruction hit them.
*****
The shockwave also struck the Agamennon, and hurled several people,
crew and Dagger crew alike to the shuttlebay deck.
"Now, Uni?" asked one of the Agamennon crewpeople, a tall woman
with wild blonde hair and catlike ears.
"Now, Anna!" replied another crewperson, a woman who could pass for
Uni's twin sister.
The two of them leaped up and drop-kicked two Klingon captors.
Before the Klingons could recover, their disruptors were torn away
and they vanished with a startled oath as the two women fired at
them.
At that moment, the door to the shuttlebay opened and a phaser beam
nailed another Dagger crewman. Petty Officer Ozaki had made one
detour on her way to the shuttlebay. Even after four hours, none
of the Dagger operatives had bothered to secure all of the personal
weapons lockers.
Ozaki threw an open bag into the air. It landed in the middle of
the shuttlebay, scattering type-I and II phasers within the reach
of startled but desperate crewpeople.
*****
"Commander," reported the communications officer, "I am picking up
evidence of a firefight within the Agamennon's shuttlebay."
"Indeed?" said the Commander. "Tell me--who do you suppose will
win?"
"Why--the Dagger crew, of course," replied the communications
officer.
"I wouldn't be so sure," said the Commander. "Have you heard of
the phrase 'desperate ground'?"
"Sir?"
"A concept from an Earth philosopher named Sun Tzu. Required
reading at Starfleet Academy. 'Ground where one can be saved only by
fighting without delay; this is desperate ground.'"
"I don't see the application."
"If you give a warrior no hope whatsoever, he will fight with the
spirit of a man with nothing to lose." The Commander waved towards
the image of the Agamennon on the screen. "As the crew of the
Agamennon seem to be doing, right now. A classic mistake by our
friend Mr. Jorel."
*****
He hadn't been precise enough; the transporter had deposited him on
the Engineering deck, but not Engineering.
Jorel wheezed as he painfully made his way to Main Engineering; he
could get control of the ship there, and use the controls to
suffocated the Demon Lord and that girl. He wondered why his
intelligence reports had never mentioned them, then rationalized
that they had only reported on senior officers.
He would have to fix that in future, he reflected. Junior officers
and crew would know a ship better than the people who commanded
her.
He was still bleeding badly out of the wound that Zenki had given
him, but he didn't think it was serious. It hurt to breathe;
Zenki's wound had bruised his right lung. He also had no sensation
in his right arm; it flopped uselessly at his side as he finally
made it to the door and opened it.
The place was deserted, save for a small Oni who was hovering
around the warp core. "Let's see," he was saying to himself, "if
I make this connection, that should free up the core ejector
systems--"
Jorel's mind, weakened by loss of blood, made an obvious connect-
ion: the Oni stood between him and the controls. He raised his
disruptor and fired.
Unfortunately, the loss of blood had also weakened his arm and his
aim. Instead of the Oni, the disruptor beam struck the warp core.
There was a sudden hiss as leaking coolant began to flood
Engineering. "WARP CORE BREACH IN TWENTY SECONDS," the computer
announced.
"YOW!" yelled Jariten. He sailed over Jorel's head towards the
door.
"HEY!" called out Jorel. He raised his arm and fired the disruptor
at the fleeting Oni.
Once again his aim failed him. The beam struck another tube, this
one clearly marked WARP CORE COOLANT CONDUIT.
A spray of toxic coolant struck Jorel in the face, even as a blast
door slammed shut, sealing him inside.
*****
An Andorian mercenary shrieked as he vanished into a phaser beam.
A second beam tagged upwards, causing a balcony to loosen. This
dislodged Jonathan, who crashed to the deck. The pain of
shattering his hip caused him to lose consciousness.
"That's the last one!" yelled Petty Officer Ozaki. "We did it!"
"Are you sure?" asked Uni.
Ozaki looked around. Even though there were only Starfleet
personnel standing, far more were lying, unmoving, on the decks of
the shuttlebay.
She then raised her head and heard a computer voice intone:
"CORE BREACH IN FIVE--FOUR--THREE--TWO--"
A second later, the former USS Agamennon exploded into nothingness.
*****
Ozaki blinked. She and the other Agamennon crewmembers were
standing on a cargo transporter platform.
"Hands up," said a voice.
She found herself pointing her phaser at a Romulan officer.
"Oh, don't bother," the man said testily. "We drained your weapons
when we beamed you aboard. Not that there was much charge in them,
anyways."
"What's gonna happen to us?" said Anna.
"You're going back to DS9," replied the Romulan.
"Oh, really," said Ozaki sarcastically.
"Yes, really," retorted the Romulan sarcastically. "We're not
COMPLETE animals, you know. Besides," he smiled grimly, "the
Federation will more likely believe they lost a starship under
stupid circumstances if they heard it from an actual survivor--or
more than one."
A wall panel blinked. "Commander," said a voice, "our comrades
report they beamed out everyone from the bridge and main
engineering."
"Excellent," smiled the Commander. "Is Mr. Jorel among them?"
"Well, sir," said the voice, "he is, but--"
"But what?"
"If you want to see him, sir," continued the voice, "you'd better
have a strong stomach."
*****
In the main office of space station Deep Space Nine, Captain
Benjamin Sisko looked at the motley group before him.
Petty Officer Leona Ozaki. Ensign Chiaki Onno. Crewman Zenki Onno.
The cadet, Jariten, floating above Zenki's head. The two catwomen,
Anna and Uni.
He sat down at his desk. "I'm still not sure," he said, "whether
you should be decorated or court-martialled."
"Sir, we did what we had to--" Ozaki said.
"I didn't give you permission to speak, PO."
Ozaki lapsed into silence.
"The Agamennon," continued Sisko, "was lost by a misadventure that
should never have happened. Out of a crew of--what, three
hundred?--only 29 were picked up by the Romulans, in addition to
the 5 surviving members of the team that hijacked it." His
expression became grim. "Frankly, that sort of figure is far too
low."
He got up and paced. "I'll concede," he said, "that once you were
captured, you did take the initiative and do your best to stop your
boarders, but even so--" He looked sternly at them. "There WILL
be a board of inquiry. Do all of you feel up to it?"
They all nodded.
"Fine," Sisko nodded back. "In the meantime I am recommending
that you be transferred to the Animada fleet at the Otakun system.
I don't know if Rear-Admiral Wong can put you to use, but I think
your talents lie in that direction. Dismissed."
As the Agamennon crew filed out, Sisko pressed a button on his
console. "Sisko to Security. Odo, how's our prisoner?"
"Silent, but harmless. I've got him in a holding cell, he's clean
as a Jorbanian whistle. This 'Jonathan' won't give us any
trouble."
"Good. Keep it that way." He pushed another button. "Sisko to
infirmary. Doctor, how's our patient?"
*****
In the Infirmary, Dr. Julian Bashir was looking grimly at what was
once a man named Jorel Tobrin.
"Frankly, it's not good," the doctor was saying. "The right arm
had to be amputated, and there's not enough bone or tissue left to
support a prosthesis. The right eye was completely destroyed, and
there was enough significant damage to the optic nerve that I'll
have to classify him as legally blind. Only half of one lung is
still usable. And there's no way the plastic surgery of today and
totally remove all the scars from the remaining half of his face.
"But what's even worse is what that brand of coolant gas did to his
brain. 60 percent of the higher neural functions were destroyed,
and 80 percent of his nervous system is now useless. The only
functions working are the vital and renal functions, and even they
need help. For all intents and purposes, this man is now a
vegetating basket case."
"That's too bad, Doctor," said Sisko's voice. "The survivors say
he was a pretty clever man."
Bashir looked down at Jorel, and his eyes filled with pity.
"Well," he said finally, "he'll never be that again. Not anymore."
He walked towards his desk to continue his written report, not
seeing the tear of impotent agony that welled in the one remaining
eye of the being known as Jorel Tobrin.
*****
--
Copyright (C) 1996 Victor W. Wong. All rights reserved.