Ragnarok (18 page)

He had gotten the beam roughly halfway from the creature’s head to its feet when the P’nir staggered, made an unhappy noise, and finally toppled over, to lean against the black corridor wall.

It was too tall and rigid to fall all the way over in the confined space, and it had lodged with its head at an upward angle so that Kim couldn’t see whether its eyes were open or closed, but it was clearly unconscious.

Harry straightened up, looked both ways along the corridor, and saw no sign that anyone else had seen or heard the incident. He looked down at the readouts on his phaser.

The charge level had dropped alarmingly; hand phasers were not meant for spraying about like garden hoses, even when set on stun. If he ran into any more P’nir—as he almost certainly would, since this one would be recovering soon and would undoubtedly spread the alarm and get the security forces out patrolling the corridors—he would need to take them down more efficiently if he wanted to get away.

He supposed he could have killed the unconscious P’nir, which would have eliminated the problem of what it would do when it woke up, but that was hardly an appropriate thing for him to do when he was there as part of a diplomatic mission. For all he knew, Chakotay had talked his way past the P’nir’s initial hostility and was even now discussing peace terms with the P’nir captain. If Kim killed an innocent crew member, that might ruin everything.

Besides, Kim really didn’t want to hurt anyone. The P’nir hadn’t meant him any harm; it had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kim told himself he would just need to be more careful, and to move quickly—maybe he could reach the shuttlecraft before this fellow woke up, and before anyone found it.

But if he ran into any more P’nir, he really would need to use his phaser more effectively next time.

Judging by just where the beam had been pointed when the P’nir finally dropped, Harry decided that they kept their brains in the lower thorax, just above the joint in their exoskeletons that let them swivel their upper bodies. That also appeared to be where the chitin, or whatever their hides were made of, was thickest; there appeared to be overlapping layers of the greenish-black stuff.

That made sense, but it wasn’t very convenient. And the lump that Kim thought was probably the braincase was at the back, which meant back-shooting would be more effective than a frontal attack, but somehow, judging by how the first one had behaved, he didn’t think he was going to get many chances to shoot P’nir in the back.

He grimaced, took another look along the passage, then left the stunned P’nir and began jogging in the direction that he very much hoped would bring him back to the hangar where the shuttle waited.

He had guessed right, finally; he made only one more wrong turn before at last, ten minutes later, emerging into the hangar bay.

The shuttlecraft stood out vividly against the dark black-and-green walls. Two P’nir guards were standing beside the shuttle’s closed hatch; they hadn’t spotted him yet as he stood in the corridor entrance, his mostly black uniform blending with the black walls.

After a moment’s hesitation, Kim reset his phaser for maximum stun, adjusted the range and angle, then gunned both the guards down, aiming at the height where he thought their brains were.

It worked, though not as quickly as he hoped; one of them was able to touch a device on its belt, and the other managed to draw a weapon before collapsing. Seconds later an eerie, earsplittingly loud chirping sound rang through the ship—an alarm, Kim was sure.

He dashed to the shuttle in a series of astonishing low-gravity leaps and got aboard as quickly as he could, then sealed the hatch behind him.

He could still hear the alarm, very faintly.

The higher artificial gravity of the shuttle felt odd at first after so long aboard the P’nir cruiser, and he had to squint until his eyes readjusted to normal light, but in moments he was at the controls, scanning the interior of the P’nir cruiser.

The sensors showed only three humanoid lifeforms besides himself aboard the P’nir ship, and indicated that all three were wearing combadges; those had to be Chakotay and the others, and all three of them were in a room by themselves—so much, Kim thought, for any high-level discussions of peace being in progress.

Furthermore, he doubted any conferences were planned. The room where his three shipmates were located was just one of several similar rooms along a corridor, a layout that resembled a line of holding cells much more than it resembled a conference area, and the sensors showed no data links there; Kim could not imagine anyone holding an important conference without computer access.

A quick scan of the forward area that Kim thought must be the bridge showed the P’nir crew going about their business, and an exterior scan showed that the battle was still continuing as furiously as ever.

It seemed pretty obvious that Chakotay’s mission had failed, and that he and the others were prisoners. And in that case, the obvious thing for Kim to do was to get the three of them out, as quickly as he could.

Kim hurried to the transporter controls.

A moment later the transporter effect shimmered and flared, and Chakotay, Rollins, and Bereyt stood there, a bit startled—Harry hadn’t used his combadge to warn them, for fear the P’nir might overhear.

Chakotay was the first to recover. “Good work, Mr. Kim,” he said, as he stepped from the transporter and headed for the pilot’s seat.

“What’s our situation?”

“One of the guards set off an alarm before I could stun him,” Kim reported. “Besides the guards, I stunned one in a passage about sixty meters from here, so they’ll know one of us was there. I’m sorry.”

Chakotay nodded. “You did fine. You got here alive and got us out, and that’s plenty. What’s the condition of the shuttlecraft?”

“I haven’t had time to check anything but the sensors and the transporter, sir,” Kim replied. “Those seem to be working just fine.

I don’t think any of the P’nir ever came aboard at all; the hatch was still closed when I got here. And did you get a look at them, sir?

I’m not sure they’d fit in here.”

“I got a look at them, Mr. Kim,” Chakotay said. “You may be right.”

“Thanks for the rescue, Harry,” Bereyt said.

“So we’re back where we started,” Rollins said, “with the four of us in the shuttle. So how do we get out of here and back to the Voyager?”

Chakotay looked around, hoping for inspiration. “We could transport someone to Engineering and sabotage the tractor beams,” he said. “And we might be able to blast our way out of this hangar bay if we have to.”

“But we’d have to find their engineering section and locate the right equipment to sabotage,” Bereyt said, “and even then, we’d still be in the middle of the battle.” She studied the sensor reports Kim had left on the display. “In fact, we’re down in the thick of it now, nowhere near clear space.” She frowned, then adjusted the sensor settings and checked the results. “And Commander,” she added, “so is the Voyager.”

Chakotay whirled, sprang from his seat, and leaned over Bereyt’s shoulder.

“Damn,” he said.

“They must have followed us in,” Rollins said.

“More likely they came too close, waiting for us, and the battle grew up around them, the same as it did for us,” Chakotay replied. “Look, you see?” He pointed at the screen, at the fixed-star readings the sensors used to determine relative location. “The entire battle has shifted in that direction.

That round thing we wanted to get a better look at that was in the center is near the farther edge, now.” He frowned. “For that matter, so are we—this ship is moving in that direction at a pretty good speed.”

“What does that mean?” Bereyt asked.

“That means it’s carrying us farther away from the Voyager,” Chakotay replied. “We can’t expect any help from the captain unless we can get ourselves clear.”

“If we go out there now we won’t last a minute,” Rollins said.

“A shuttle’s shields aren’t going to hold up against that sort of barrage.”

“And how long is the Voyager going to last out there?” Kim asked.

“Bereyt?” Chakotay said.

“So far so good, Commander,” the Bajoran replied. “The Voyager seems to be holding her own. I can’t get any exact readings from here, through the P’nir hull and the battle noise, but her shields are still there and she’s still maneuvering freely.”

Kim leaned over and watched.

“Looks to me like Tom Paris is at the helm,” he said. “No one else we have can fly like that.”

“I can,” Chakotay said, his tone flat. Kim glanced up at the first officer’s grim face, and remembered the problematic relationship between Paris and the first officer.

“Sorry, sir,” Kim said, “I didn’t mean…”

“Never mind,” Chakotay said. “Just think of a way to get us safely out of here and out of the combat zone.”

“It can’t be done,” Rollins said. He belatedly added, “Sir.”

“As long as they’re shooting at each other, there’s a good chance we’d be hit by accident, even if they weren’t shooting at us,” Kim said.

“It’d be just about impossible to get safely through that firestorm out there.”

“`Just about’?” Chakotay asked.

“Well, they always told us, back at the Academy, that nothing is completely impossible,” Kim said. “But I’ve got to say, sir, that I don’t see any way out of here as long as the battle is going on out there.”

Chakotay didn’t look at Kim, but instead kept his eyes focused on the sensor displays as he said, “Well, then, we’ll just have to do what Captain Janeway sent us here to do in the first place.”

“Sir?”

“We’ll just have to convince these people to end this battle!”

Tom Paris sent the Voyager into a sudden swoop down and to port, then cut sharply up, dodging a concentrated burst of Hachai phased-energy beams; for an instant the Voyager was aimed directly at the stern assembly of a Hachai ship. Then, as two others brought their weapons to bear, Paris wheeled into a right-angle turn to port again, maneuvering the starship as if it were a fighter.

“Damn,” he said, as he aimed for a gap between two dreadnaughts.

“Tuvok, we had a perfect shot at that one; why didn’t you take it?”

“I did not see it in time to use it effectively,” the Vulcan replied.

“My responses are no faster than a human’s, and I was not able to anticipate the opportunity you provided. By the time I could have fired the aligning shot, and then reversed the polarity of the phasers, it would have been too late—we would have turned away.”

“Tuvok, transfer the operation of our secondary phasers to conn,” Janeway ordered, clutching the arms of her chair as the ship’s artificial gravity wavered slightly under the combined assault of Hachai pounding and Tom Paris’s piloting. Get them to reverse polarity automatically after one second. Now, Mr. Paris, if you find another opportunity like that, you can take it yourself.”

“Aye-aye,” Paris acknowledged, as he flipped the ship around and wedged it through another opening in the Hachai formation. “If I can spare a finger.”

“Secondary phaser control transferred, Captain,” Tuvok said, “and I have already automated the polarity reversals.” The primary phasers fired as he spoke, and after the usual interval of harmless dispersion, suddenly tore a gouge through a Hachai heat dissipation fin and cut deeply into a dreadnought’s primary hull.

“Captain,” Evans called from Operations, “I’m losing our fix on the P’nir cruiser that captured Commander Chakotay. It’s moving off toward the far end of the battle, and there’s too much interference, and too many identical ships, for me to keep track of it.”

“Should I try to follow it, Captain?” Paris asked, never taking his hands off the controls or his eyes off the navigation screens.

The Voyager shuddered under another Hachai assault.

“No,” Janeway said. “The Voyager’s safety is still our first priority.

Just get us out of here, Mr. Paris, and we’ll have to hope that Commander Chakotay can find his own way off that vessel.”

“And if he can’t…” Paris muttered, half to himself, as he swung the Voyager into another tight turn.

He didn’t finish the sentence—and Janeway, overhearing the fragment, was glad of that.

Chakotay was Paris’s protector from the animosity of the other Maquis, who saw Paris as a traitor.

He was also a rallying point for the Maquis, Janeway thought, and while he might take their side too often, Chakotay was also the best tool Janeway had for keeping the Maquis in line and integrating them into the crew.

Besides, his services as first officer were almost indispensable.

And quite outside any professional concerns, she liked and respected Chakotay; he was a good man, an honorable man. She did not want to abandon him—but the ship itself was her first responsibility. She not only had to get the ship out of the battle, she had to do it with as little damage as possible; there wasn’t any starbase around the next sun where they could repair whatever the Hachai shot up.

“Damn,” Paris said, as he veered the ship again, so sharply that the artificial gravity shifted a good twenty degrees for an instant.

Something started to beep a warning, then went silent as Evans tended to it.

“What is it?” Janeway asked.

“A P’nir ship cut us off,” Paris replied. “We were trying to squeeze through an opening in the Hachai englobement, and it cut in front of us.”

“Then it was just trying to escape, the same as we are?” Janeway said.

“It didn’t fire on us?”

“No.”

“Good,” Janeway said emphatically. “We don’t need another enemy out here, Mr. Paris.”

“Captain, it’s the P’nir who took Chakotay prisoner and got us into this mess,” Paris replied. “I hardly think that’s the act of…”

He broke off as he concentrated on a complicated maneuver, then finished, “… a friend.”

The ship shook as three smaller Hachai vessels passed it by, firing their weapons in what resembled a strafing run; Tuvok’s phasers flashed out and tore a chunk of impulse engine off one of the three, sending it into a spin that brought it crashing against a Hachai dreadnought.