His left hand closed on a slim arc of metal, and hope speared through
him sharply enough to make him groan. One of the infrared visors he'd
brought back from engineering yesterday. Wrenching to his knees,
he bit his hand against a swell of pain, and collapsed, gasping, across
the desk chair. The gunner knew where he was--Chekov heard someone push
aside the visitor's chair near the corner. Slapping on the visor, he
shot a frantic look around the office, already knowing he had no route
of escape.
The phasers, measuring the same temperature as the deck and the rest of
the room, showed up against the flooring like deep gray jigsaw pieces,
faint outlines against the bigger darkness. Underneath his desk, the
butt of a phaser rifle barely registered between the legs of his chair.
The heat from Chekov's body showed up warm yellow through the visor; a
cooling handprint in his own blood glowed sickly orange against the
floor.
Only the gunman radiated outside the proper spectrum--framed and
detailed in brilliant silver and white, screaming temperatures no human
could have survived much less sabotaged a ship while suffering. Even the
phaser in his hand showed cherry red from the warmth it had absorbed
from his body.
Not human, Chekov's mind whispered urgently. He tried to connect a race
with the tall, stocky body configuration even as the saboteur slowly
raised his phaser, aiming it over the desk- --and Chekov dove underneath
for the rifle, squeezing off a shot without even lifting it clear of the
floor.
The blast blew out the front of the desk. Chekov heard the intruder
shriek and stumble back into the hall, but pain and blood loss kept
Chekov from gathering his right arm beneath him with enough strength to
scramble after. By the time he'd dragged himself out from under the
desk, his head looped in such sick surges that he didn't make it cleanly
out the doorway. Staggering against the bulkhead, he hugged
the phaser rifle across his chest one-armed, and tried not to give in to
the waves of dizziness crashing over him.
Something brilliant yellow stitched a splotchy trail down the corridor.
I hit him, Chekov realized with some relief. He can't get far.
Unfortunately, neither could Chekov.
A movement at the fringe of his hearing shot adrenaline through him. He
whirled as best he could, bringing the rifle into line with the slim
heat-outline behind him.
"Davidson?" he asked, recognizing the mottled collection of
orange-and-yellow as human, even though he couldn't identify a specific
person.
"Lieutenant?" The tiny voice that drifted to him out of the darkness
didn't belong to either of Chekov's missing guards. "I didn't--" Aaron
Kelly took a shuddering breath, and his heat pattern slumped to sit on
the deck. "Are you the only one here?"
Chekov lowered the rifle, trying not to notice the brittle
tick-tick-tick of his own blood dripping onto the floor. "Are you out
of your cell?"
Kelly's outline n odded, then the auditor seemed to remember that Chekov
shouldn't be able to see him in the dark, and he verbalized, "Y-Yes. I
think he destroyed the generator--"
"I'm going after him," Chekov cut him off, pushing away from the wall.
"See if you can restore the lights. The main panels are near the
turbolift, farther down this hallway. Can you find them?"
Kelly fumbled for a grip on the wall behind him, nodding again. "I can
try."
From an auditor, that's all Chekov could ask.
The saboteur's blood sprinkled an uneven trail down the starship's
corridor. The glowing spots-
already faded from sunburst yellow to a deep green m were large and
spaced at irregular intervals the saboteur was moving fast, then, but
bleeding hard, as well. They had that much in common, Chekov
acknowledged grimly. The lieutenant tried to flex his right hand, and
his blood-slicked palm. It hurt like hell to even think about lifting
his arm away from his side, but at least he knew he could do it if he
had to.
Blood splatters peppered the bulkhead and led around the corner, finally
coming together in a wandering Puddle at the door to a maintenance
ladder. A hand-sized smear marked-where the saboteur had jerked the
doorway open to climb inside.
Chekov slowed, and his equilibrium overshot him and nearly knocked him
to his knees. Breathing deep to quiet his gasping, he made himself
pause to look carefully to all sides, to really see all the pieces of
the multihued infrared puzzle. No, the saboteur's trail really ended
here--this was no clever trick. He eased up to. the side of the access
door, briefly passing the rifle to his slippery right hand, and balanced
the 'muzzle across his left forearm as he reached across to fling the
door open. If the saboteur were crouched inside, ready to shoot whoever
breached his hiding place, at least Chekov wouldn't be standing in front
of the entrance to make an easy target.
When he knocked the door aside, though, the explosive in-rush of air
jerked him into the doorway as the atmosphere around him voided into
sudden vacuum.
Sulu slammed a frustrated fist against the turbolift's outer door,
barely feeling the impact through his
layered environmental suit gloves. "The power Came back on," he told
Uhura through his suit channel. "It took the lift away before I could
talk to Chekov."
There was a long pause. "I'm not getting any response on the turbolift
intercom," Uhura replied at last. "But Mr. Spock says it went directly
to the security corridor on Deck Seven."
"That figures." A faint film of mist bloomed inside Sulu's face plate
with his snort. "Knowing Chekov, he's probably gone back to work."
A vacuum-sharp shadow slid across him, and Sulu turned to see two
white-suited engineers wrestling a portable bulkhead down the central
hallway. "It looks like they're getting ready to isolate the hull
breaeh I'd better report back to Captain Kirk before they shut the
permanent bulkheads down."
"Acknowledged. I'll tell him you're on your way."
"Thanks." Sulu ducked around the corner after the engineers and hurried
down the corridor, his silent footsteps even eerier now that the ceiling
gleamed with its usual strip lighting. Relief at finding Chekov alive
fizzed through him, tempered only by the nagging worry that the security
officer might be injured. He was healthy enough to bang out his name in
code, Sulu reminded himself. If he was hurt, he could have sent the
lift down to sickbay- A reflected flicker of motion swam up the curved
side of his face plate and Sulu spun to face it, all his instincts
suddenly alert. He tried to balance himself on the edge of one foot to
free the other for a kick, but the thick metal fabric of his boots
refused to cooperate. Cursing, he retreated a step, then realized the
motion was just a cabin door sliding closed. He relaxed with a sigh
that turned into a choke when he noticed the room number.
"Hey!" Sulu launched himself across the hall, banging a fist on the
security plate beside his door. The small message panel embedded there
flashed a golden locked-for-privacy remark at him, which meant there was
someone inside. "Hey, that's my room!"
A memory of smashed plants and scattered clothes tore through his head,
jumbling his thoughts while he tried to punch his access code into the
door panel. What the hell was that new number Chekov had given him?
4729?
"Mr. Sulu, is something wrong?" Kirk's voice in his ear startled him
until he realized the captain was speaking over the communicator
channel.
"There's an intruder in my room, sir." The message display suddenly
flared red, warning him that he'd tried an incorrect access code. "I'm
trying to get in to see who it is."
Kirk's voice sharpened. "Location?"
"Corridor C, sector thirty-nine. Cbin nineteen." Sulu racked his brain
for the access code, trying not to think about the myriad small
treasures left in his
room for a vandal to destroy. Was it 4279? No, that
didn't feel right--he was pretty sure the seven and the nine hadn't
been that close together. How about 7429?
"We're on our way," Kirk said grimly. "Proceed with caution, Mr. Sulu.
Kirk out."
Another red warning message crawled across the security display, this
time informing Sulu that he had only one more chance to enter the
correct code before the door barricaded itself against any further
entries. His face plate misted with the force of his groan. He knew the
silence from inside the room meant nothing, since sound couldn't carry
in a vacuum. Right now,
the invader could be obliterating everything he owned. Did 7249 sound
right?
It was his best guess, Sulu decided, and punched it in with reckless
haste. The message display rippled, then faded to a familiar, welcoming
blue as the doom slid apart. Sulu dove through without thinking and
found himself locked in gathering darkness when the doors slid shut
behind him.
Darernit, he thought in exasperation, I'm getting as bad as Chekov.t The
sweeping arc of his helmet light danced across the contours of his room,
an alien landscape under a glittering shroud of ice. Nothing stirred.
"Sulu." This time, the abrupt crackle of Kirk's voice in his ear made
Sulu jump. "We're having a little trouble getting past Mr. Scott's
iortable bulkheads. We're going to have to circle the deck. Are you all
right?"
"So far, sir. I haven't seen--" Something large and pale hurtled at him
from the shadows, and Sulu leaped out of its way. He recognized the
white gleam of an engineering suit, cursed, then let his momentum
ricochet him off a wall and back toward the intruder.
The collision staggered both of them against the wall, frozen plants
falling around them in a silent cascade. Sulu squirmed inside his
environmental suit, trying to grapple with the bulky white form looming
over him. He knew the two layers of vacuum-proof fabric between them
would blunt the force of any blow he tried to deliver, no matter how
well-aimed. His best hope was a wrestling hold.
His attacker simply ignored his efforts, lifting him as if he weighed
nothing, then slamming him down onto the worktable. It wasn't the jolt
of pain that
galvanized Sulu--it was the pitiful feel of his ice-crusted plants
shattering beneath him. Indignation at this final assault on his
possessions gave him the strength to roll back onto his feet and huff
himself at the intruder.
They crashed to the floor in a tangle of bulky limbs, with Sulu mostly
on top. He tried to keep his position long enough to pin his assailant,
but the body below him exploded into a desperate convulsion of violence,
awkward but powerful. The first slamming blow tore Sulu's hold away
completely; the second sent him sliding across his plant-littered floor
to thump against his overturned lily container. He rolled over in time
to see the intruder lurch to his feet and bolt for the door.
"Dammit!" Sulu untangled himself from the marble pond and scrambled up
to follow, his breath hammering inside his suit.
"Sulu, report!" Kirk's voice sounded impatient on the helmet channel, as
if he'd repeated the order several times. Sulu couldn't remember
hearing it. "What happened?"
"I found the intruder, sir," Sulu panted, skidding .out into the hallway
in time to see the white-suited form aim for the turbolift doors. He
sprinted after him. "He's heading for turbolift eight now."
"The lift doors should be locked." The captain's voice sounded almost as
breathless as Sulu's. Running in a bulky environmental suit wasn't
easy. "He's not going to get out that way."
"No, sir." Sulu pounded down the hall in eerie silence, slowly gaining
on his assailant. Sweat trickled down his face and stung at his eyes,
blurring his view of the corridor for a moment. When he shook his
vision clear again, he thought at first that the white-suited intruder
had vanished. Then he saw him-
crouched across the hall from the turbolift, beside the red-rimmed panel
that opened onto the maintenance ladders.
Sulu's breath left him in a horrified gasp. "Captain, he's trying to
get into the repair shafts!"
"Stop him, lad!" ScoWs voice broke into the communicator channel. "The
ladderways are still at atmospheric pressure--opening them will yank the
air out of the entire emergency access system!"
"Kirk to bridge, priority call!" The captain's shout thundered inside
Sulu's helmet as he flung himself down the hallway at the intruder,
praying he could reach him in time. "Seal off all repair shafts above
and below Deck Six. Repeat, seal off all repair shafts"
A battering wall of wind hit Sulu in midstride, huffing him back against
the corridor wall hard enough to slam the air out of his lungs. He
choked and dragged in a trickle of breath, just enough to let him force
his way through the fierce blast of frost-sparkled air, to dive into the
emergency ladderway and onto the intruder's back.
They fell together against the rungs on the far side, both scrabbling to
hold on against the silent blast of wind. Something brushed across the
back of Sulu's neck, tugging gently at the metallic fabric of his suit.
The gusting wind slowed to a clearing whiff, then died in a final flurry
of ice crystals down the dim ladderway.
Sulu's breath eased with relief. Someone on the bridge had closed the
vacuum barriers across this section of the repair shafts, closing off
the supply of air. He wiped the dusty film of ice from his face plate,
then lifted his head to see where the white-suited intruder had gone and
promptly thumped his helmet
on something hard. He looked up to find a gleaming metal bulkhead
directly overhead, and realized how close he'd come to being
decapitated.
He pulled in one last, sweat-tainted breath and scrambled down the dimly
lit passage, his vacuu
rn-booted feet clumsy on the wall rungs. The
narrow shaft curved away steeply below him as it angled down toward Deck
Seven. Sulu couldn't see anything beyond the bulky control panel on his
chest, couldn't hear anything except the trapped rasp of his own breath.
Somewhere below him, he knew, another bulkhead would have sealed the
access shaft below Deck Seven. The intruder could be anywhere in
between.
When the blow came from below, Sulu's adrenaline-pumped muscles
responded before he could think, kicking down viciously at his
attacker's upward shove. It wasn't until his third complete miss that
he realized he was kicking at air. A fierce rush of wind blasted up the
shaft past him, pouring in from an opened access panel somewhere below.
Sounds bloomed in the returning atmosphere, faint at first but growing
louder as the air pressure stabilized. Beyond the thud of frantic
footsteps and the metallic scrape of environmental suits, the only sound
Sulu could identify was the unmistakable whirring click of a phaser
rifle being armed.
The helmsman froze on his wall rungs, guessing from the abrupt lack of
footsteps that his quarry had done the same. In the looming silence,
Chekov's voice sounded oddly fierce.
"Stop fight there, whoever you are," the security officer growled.
"Because even if my first shot misses, the ricochet inside this shaft
won't."
Chapter Twelve
"Citrov?" Suru's voc echoed down the narrow ladderway as though from an
intercom, filtered and tinny. "Don't let him get past you!"