Just then, I heard the cargo bay's door iris open. A handful of Carda.s.sian guards came in, their weapons at the ready. Finally, Gul Ecor entered and stood among them.

"Unfortunately," Ecor announced, "our friend Sturgis didn't survive his interrogation. It seems he wasn't as durable as he looked."

I could hear Abby curse under her breath. What's more, I understood her anger and her pain. In the end, Sturgis had fallen victim to his fear, it's true. But prior to that, he had been a loyal and efficient crewman a man she had trusted and perhaps even liked.

I, of course, had another reason for mourning the man. As you'll recall, he and I had fought side by side against the Carda.s.sians. For all I knew, Sturgis had saved my life.

"However," the gul went on, either ignorant of Abby's muttered curse or unimpressed by it, "the fellow swore with his dying breath that he hadn't lied to me and that Hel's Gate was indeed the Daring's destination."

He turned to Red Abby. "That presents me with a problem, Captain Brant. I know where you were headed but not what you planned on doing when you got there, or how it was going to help you find the h.o.a.rd."

"And?" she said.

"And I don't intend to expose my ship and crew to a phenomenon like Hel's Gate until I have a better understanding of the situation."

"You won't get it from me," she told him.

Ecor smiled tautly. "I beg to differ with you." He gestured to his fellow Carda.s.sians. "She's next."

As the soldiers reached for Red Abby, I determined I wouldn't stand by and allow them to take her. The fact that I had little or no chance of stopping them didn't enter into the equation. I simply couldn't let her be seized without a fight.

Apparently, Lieutenant Worf was of the same mind. But then, as I've noted, he is a Klingon.

Since there was a Carda.s.sian standing behind me, I drove my elbow into his ribs. As he doubled over, I shoved him as hard as I could into the bulkhead behind him.

Worf attacked the nearest guard as well, with much the same results. His man lay on the deck, bloodied and gasping for air, before he or anyone else could prevent it.

But that was as far as either of us got. I felt something strike me in the side with the force of a sledgehammer a directed energy beam, no doubt, fortuitously set on stun. As I lay on the deck, half-numb, I saw my lieutenant had suffered the same fate.

Gul Ecor came to stand over me. "Be patient, Captain Picard. If Captain Brant doesn't prove cooperative, you'll get your turn." He laughed. "In fact, you'll get your turn no matter what. I'm sure there's a good deal I can learn from the commanding officer of a starship."

As I mentioned earlier, I had already suffered at the hands of a Carda.s.sian torture master. I had no desire to suffer that way again.

Still, as Abby was led away, I found I was more concerned for her than I was for myself.

Madigoor "OUR HERO'S PROSPECTS are not good," the captain of the Kalliope said slyly. "Nor, for that matter, are his friend Red Abby's."

"As is often the case," Dravvin noted, "in a tale of high adventure."

"Indeed," Flenarrh added, "why else would anyone listen to such a tale except to see how the hero escapes his bad prospects?"

"Sometimes he doesn't escape," the Captain of the Kalliope said.

"True," Hompaq agreed. "Sometimes he has the good sense to perish. In fact, that is the hallmark of a good adventure story a brave death in the face of terrible odds."

"I suppose that's good sometimes," Bo'tex allowed.

Hompaq glanced pointedly at Picard and made a derisive sound deep in her throat. "Not sometimes, fat one. All the time. An honorable death is not an enemy, to be feared and avoided. It is a prize to be coveted, the ultimate reward for courage and devotion."

Flenarrh chuckled, enjoying the Klingon's remark. "I do believe our friend is baiting you, Captain Picard."

"Baiting him again," Dravvin noted.

Picard could see that Hompaq's annoyance with him wasn't going to go away. At least, not without some effort.

He smiled, the picture of tolerance. "As well she should," he replied. "After all, Hompaq makes a valid point a particularly Klingon point. And like any Klingon, she's willing to stand up for it."

Hompaq's eyes narrowed. "Then you agree with me?"

Picard shook his head. "Not completely, no. I'm not quite so eager to embrace death as you are. But I respect your opinion nonetheless."

Hompaq considered him for what seemed like a long time. "Perhaps I spoke too soon," she conceded at last. "It seems you have an appreciation for the Klingon soul after all."

"A great appreciation," Picard a.s.sured her.

"That still doesn't tell us how you escaped your predicament," Bo'tex reminded him.

"Allow me to correct that deficiency," Picard said. "As you'll recall, Red Abby had just been taken away for interrogation. And I was recovering from the stun beam a Carda.s.sian had inflicted on me ..."

The Tale AS SOON AS the Carda.s.sians left us alone, Astellanax knelt by my side. "Are you all right?" he asked.

I nodded. The numbness in my arm and my side was already beginning to wear off, leaving a dull ache in its place.

"I'll live," I told him. I glanced at the door, which had closed in the Carda.s.sians' wake. "But I'm not so sure about your captain. She'll die before she gives Ecor what he wants."

The first officer nodded. "Agreed."

"We can't just let them kill her," protested Thadoc, who was standing behind Astellanax. "We must do something."

"This is a Carda.s.sian warship," Dunwoody reminded him, "full of trained soldiers. It won't be easy."

"No," said another voice. "It won't."

I turned and saw it belonged to Corbis. He looked around the cargo bay at his fellow prisoners, captivating them by virtue of his size.

"I don't know about the rest of you," he went on, "but I signed on to find treasure not to risk my skin for a captain I hardly know."

"She is not just our captain," Thadoc countered. "She is one of us."

"And if I don't do something to help her," said Astellanax, "what right have I got to expect help when they take me away?"

"Well said," I declared, getting to my feet no easy task, I might add, but one I deemed necessary. "However, Mr. Dunwoody has a point. As I told Red Abby herself, there is no easy way out of here."

"Oh, no?" asked a broad, dark-haired Tellarite named Gob. His tiny eyes squinted at me expectantly.

Corbis grunted, picking up on the Tellarite's meaning. "Not even when we've got a high-and-mighty Starfleet captain among us?" He turned to Worf. "And his Klingon lapdog?"

I eyed my lieutenant, counseling patience with my glance. Somehow, he found the wherewithal to embrace it.

"Not even then," I told the Pandrilite reasonably. "Certainly, I have a working knowledge of Carda.s.sian vessels and the technologies that drive them. But before I can use that knowledge to advantage, we've got to get out of this cargo bay."

"Then, let's do it," Astellanax said. He looked around. "There's got to be a way out of here. It's just a matter of finding it."

I frowned. The Orion was long on enthusiasm but short on suggestions. And as it happened, I'd been racking my brain for a way out since the Carda.s.sians threw us in there.

a.s.sad pointed to a narrow, raised section of ceiling running from one bulkhead to another. If you've ever seen the schematics for a Carda.s.sian vessel, you know it contained power-distribution circuitry.

"If we could get up there," he said, "maybe we could short out the ship's energy grid." He looked around at his fellow prisoners. "It's worth a try, isn't it?"

Worf scowled. "Even if there was a way for us to reach it, we would be risking an explosion that would rip this bay apart."

Astellanax started to suggest it might not be so bad a risk after all. I emphasize the word "started," because at that moment we heard the shrill complaint of a half-dozen klaxons.

Clearly, something had gone wrong on the warship. Something serious, I told myself, with a certainty that depended on instinct more than logic.

I looked at Worf, wondering what it could be. An accident in the engine room? Or perhaps the approach of an enemy?

Either way, it represented a danger to us one we were helpless to do anything about. If something was amiss, the Carda.s.sians would likely worry about themselves first and about us not at all.

Then something else happened. We felt a jolt, right through the deckplates. The lights went out at the same time, leaving us nothing to see by except the ghostly glow of blue-green emergency strips.

Corbis moved to the doors and pounded on them with the flat of his big, blue hand. "Let us out!" he cried.

I knew he'd get no satisfactory response. As it happened, he got no response at all.

But that was good the best outcome we could have hoped for, in fact. It meant our guards had abandoned us to attend to an emergency elsewhere on the ship and with the power that maintained the force field down, the only thing that stood between ourselves and our freedom was the doors themselves.

Standing beside the Pandrilite, I tried to dig my fingers into the tiny crevice between the rhodinium surfaces.

"What are you doing?" asked Thadoc.

"Trying to pry the doors open," I explained. "And if it's all the same to you, I could use some help."

Even before I spoke, Worf had come over to join me. As he and Thadoc dug their fingers into the opening, Corbis lent his efforts, as well.

"Heave!" I cried.

We heaved. The doors parted ever so slightly.

"Heave!" I cried again.

This time, with a little better grip, we made more progress. A s.p.a.ce the width of two of my fingers opened between the doors.

"Heave!" I cried a third time.

We put our shoulders and our backs into it, tugging as hard as we could. I felt some unseen restraint give way and the doors slid back into their wall-pockets, clearing the way for our escape.

The corridor outside our cell was dark as well, only the lighting strips providing illumination. With a cheer, the other prisoners pushed us into it, unmindful of what we might find there. Fortunately, there wasn't a single Carda.s.sian in sight but that didn't mean it would stay that way.

Even if all other systems were down, internal sensors from other parts of the ship might pick up the movements of so many beings. It would only be a moment or two before the Carda.s.sians realized what had happened, and less than a minute before they responded.

Two things were clear to me. First, we had to go on the offensive. Second, if we didn't recover Red Abby immediately, we might never get another chance to do so.

And there was only one place they would keep her.

"This way," I shouted over the tumult of voices, and started down the corridor toward the nearest lift.

"Where are you going?" asked Astellanax.

"The gul's quarters," I told him.

"Why there?" asked Thadoc.

"Because," I said, "that's where we'll find your captain, a.s.suming she's still alive."

"Wait a minute!" someone bellowed.

The Oord Corbis's friend from the melee in the mess hall stepped forward with a belligerence characteristic of his species. He made an exaggerated gesture of dismissal with his arms.

"I don't give a d.a.m.n about the captain," he rumbled. "I want to know where the escape craft are."

More than a dozen voices went up in support of the Oord's demand. With the casualties we had sustained on the Daring and the loss of Sturgis, that represented almost half our number.

But there was no time to argue. "Very well," I said, pointing past them. "They're over there. Two decks down."

The Oord looked at me with narrowed eyes, no doubt wondering if I had any reason to lie to him. Then he took off in the direction I'd indicated, with the green-splotched Thelurian and several others on his heels.

To my surprise, Corbis wasn't one of them. The Pandrilite watched his friends go for a second, then turned to me. He seemed ready to follow where I led at least for the moment.

Suddenly, the deck rocked beneath our feet, forcing us to grab the bulkheads for support. I was no longer willing to accept the accident theory. More and more, it was becoming clear to me that the ship was under attack though I couldn't divine by whom and for what reason.

"The captain!" Astellanax cried, even before we'd recovered.

Thrusting myself away from the bulkhead, I made my way toward the lift. Ideally, I'd have proceeded with the kind of caution we had employed on the Daring, but there simply wasn't time for that.

So when we came around a corner and met our first squad of Carda.s.sians, we were almost nose to nose with them before either party knew it.

As we were unarmed, the close quarters worked to our advantage. I drove an uppercut into the jaw of one Carda.s.sian while Worf decked a second with an open backhand. Corbis lifted a third soldier and sent him flying into his comrades, just as Thadoc used a Romulan lightning jab to crush the windpipe of a fourth man.

The fighting was savage and unrestrained, but mercifully quick. And when the proverbial dust cleared, our side had emerged victorious. In fact, we hadn't lost a single combatant. Knowing how lucky we'd been, we grabbed whatever arms we could and surged down the corridor.

Reaching the lift, we jammed in and Worf programmed it for the main deck. I half-expected the compartment to halt in midtransit, interdicted by a command from the bridge. But it did nothing of the kind.

While we were in the lift, the ship lurched twice. The second time was the worst one yet. All the more reason to move quickly, I mused.