Sturgis muttered a curse at navigation. "They're powering up their weapons batteries," he reported.

Our captain eyed the enemy vessel as it loomed larger and larger on our viewscreen. "Ready phasers," she said.

"Ready," Worf replied.

"Target and fire," Red Abby barked.

The Klingon did as she said. Our phasers lashed out furiously at the Carda.s.sian vessel, but her shields appeared to be a match for us. I glanced at Sturgis's monitors.

So did the captain.

"Not much effect," the navigator told her.

Worf made a sound of disgust. "They're returning fire!"

The viewscreen confirmed his warning. We held on to our consoles as the Carda.s.sian's weapon batteries raked us with a blinding barrage.

The Daring shuddered and bucked with the impact, but not so badly that anyone was hurt. Recovering quickly, I glanced again at Sturgis's monitors to see how severely we had been damaged.

"Shields down forty percent," he reported.

Red Abby turned to me, the glare of the viewscreen glinting in her eyes.

"Evasive maneuvers, Mr. Hill. And for all our sakes, I hope you're as good as you claim."

I hoped the same thing. After all, it had been a long time since I'd done any tactical piloting, and I wasn't nearly as intimate with this ship as I would have liked.

As I directed the Daring into a sudden, gut-wrenching turn, sending a couple of my comrades tumbling out of their seats, the Carda.s.sians unleashed another energy barrage. This time, they missed.

It seemed I had gotten us one step ahead of them. It was a step I was reluctant to relinquish.

With that in mind, I whipped the Daring about in the opposite direction. The move elicited cries and curses from my shipmates, but this time they hung on. Again, the Carda.s.sians attempted to skewer us on their beams. Again, they fell short.

However, I couldn't elude them forever. It was only a matter of time before I made a fatal mistake or they antic.i.p.ated our next move and made us pay for it. With this in mind, I gambled everything on a single maneuver.

It was one that had originated in the skies over Earth's European continent some four hundred years earlier, in a conflict called World War One. The idea was to loop over and back behind one's pursuer, instantly transforming oneself from hunted to hunter.

In the Enterprise, the move would have been a difficult one. And the Daring was by no means as quick or maneuverable as the Enterprise. Still, I felt compelled to try it.

"Hang on!" I bellowed.

Suddenly, I brought our nose up and accelerated, straining our ship's inertial dampers to their limit. I was thrown back in my chair with enough force to rattle my teeth.

The deckplates screamed as if with a human voice, but I showed them no mercy. In for a penny, I thought, in for a pound. I pulled us up and back into the tightest arc the Daring could handle.

On the viewscreen, a shower of stars plummeted past me. For a moment, I lost all sense of up and down. My stomach flip-flopped and I experienced a brief but awful moment of vertigo. As I mentioned earlier, this was definitely not the Enterprise.

Through it all, I kept my eye on my controls. When the Carda.s.sians tried to shake us with a course change, I compensated. Jaw clenched, fighting inertia, I reached out and activated the starboard thrusters.

We were on their tail. At least, all my instruments indicated as much. But I wouldn't be satisfied until I saw the back of the Carda.s.sian loom up on the screen in front of me.

Another few seconds, I told myself. Just hold on. Another few seconds and we would know if our effort had paid off.

Abruptly, I saw what I was so desperately looking for. The Carda.s.sian warship fell into view, filling our screen with its nearness, its nacelles spilling streams of photons on either side of us.

We were so close to the enemy, we could almost see the seams in her hull. For the first time in our encounter, we had the upper hand. Immediately, I leveled us off.

Nor was our captain slow to recognize her advantage. "Fire!" cried Red Abby, her eyes alight.

Our phasers stabbed at the Carda.s.sians. And this time, at considerably closer quarters, they had more of an effect. The enemy's shields began to buckle under our barrage.

"Keep firing!" Red Abby snarled.

The Carda.s.sians fled, executing some evasive maneuvers of their own. But I maneuvered right along with them, keeping them in our sights so Worf could worry their hindquarters.

The Daring's weapons batteries were hardly up to Starfleet standards, but the lieutenant didn't seem perturbed in the least. His aim was unerring, his timing impeccable. In a matter of seconds, he had knocked out one of the warship's shield generators and was going after the other one.

Then the tide turned.

The Carda.s.sians' shields jumped to full strength again, no doubt drawing on energies from less crucial systems. Once again, our beams spattered harmlessly before they could do any damage.

I engaged the port thrusters, knowing what was coming next. But, despite my best efforts, I was too late.

The Carda.s.sians' weapons banks erupted at us with renewed fury. The Daring shivered and jerked sideways under the force of the attack. A console exploded, sending out a shower of sparks. Smoke filled the bridge.

I felt a hand clutch my shoulder. "Get us out of here," Red Abby demanded of me.

Then the Carda.s.sians struck again. I was flung out of my seat. The next thing I knew, I was dragging myself off the deck, a ringing in my ears and the taste of blood in my mouth.

My comrades had been tossed about, as well. One by one, they began to stir, to show signs of consciousness. All except Sheel, whose head lay at a fatally awkward angle at the base of a blackened console.

Red Abby, who was only a few feet away from Sheel, crawled over and checked the woman's neck for a pulse. Apparently, there wasn't any. The captain cursed and looked to Worf.

By then, he had regained his post.

"Report," she rasped, her blue eyes glittering as they reflected a sudden burst of sparks.

"Shields are down," the lieutenant told her, blinking away the smoke that wafted around him. "Weapons are disabled. And the engines are off-line impulse as well as warp drive."

"What about life supports?" asked Red Abby.

Worf consulted his monitors. "They still function," he concluded. Then he added, "For now."

I looked at the viewscreen. The Carda.s.sian warship wasn't firing on us any longer. But then, it didn't have to.

We were dead in the water.

Madigoor "BUT WHY DID they attack you in the first place?" asked Hompaq.

"I wondered that myself," said Dravvin.

"Did they suspect you of aiding the Maquis?" asked Bo'tex.

Flenarrh grunted. "Perhaps they were a.s.serting a right to territory beyond the borders established by treaty."

Robinson nodded. "Perhaps."

"Unfortunately," said Picard, "I was destined to wait some time before I received an answer. At the moment, my comrades and I were more concerned with the Carda.s.sians' intentions than their motivations. And since they weren't making a move to destroy us ..."

The Captain of the Kalliope shook his head. "They had decided to board you," he concluded.

Picard smiled. "That was our guess as well."

The Tale RED ABBY TOOK in everyone present with a single glance.

Her hair was wild and fiery amid the spark-shot smoke, her eyes slitted with desperation. She had to know there was little chance of winning this encounter, but she was still determined to try.

"We can't let them take the bridge or engineering," she told us adamantly. "Any other section, but not those. Then we'll still have a shot at getting out of this."

"I'll head for engineering," Astellanax volunteered. "They'll need someone to give orders down there."

"I'll go with you," said Sturgis.

The captain nodded. "Take Hill and Dunwoody too. The rest of us will try to hold things together up here."

Brushing aside a loose strand of hair, she looked up at the intercom grid. "All personnel, listen up. We've taken a beating and we're expecting a visit from the Carda.s.sians. For now, find yourself a place you can defend and keep your head down."

a.s.sad, a broad, dark-haired man, chose that moment to speak up. "Captain," he said, "the Carda.s.sians can beam us off the Daring as easily as they can beam themselves on."

It was true, of course. But I knew the Carda.s.sians. The one thing they would not do is bring an armed enemy onto their vessel.

Judging by the look Red Abby shot at a.s.sad, she knew the Carda.s.sians, too. "Next time I need someone to state the obvious, I'll know whom to call on." She turned to Astellanax. "Get a move on."

As the first officer started for the turbolift, I cast a glance at Worf a warning not to do anything I would consider foolhardy in my absence. After all, I needed him more than ever if we were to complete our mission. But I knew my admonition would carry limited weight with him.

The Klingon held only one thing higher than his sense of duty, and that was his warrior's code of honor. If the situation became such that he could survive only through cowardice, he would simply choose not to survive.

With this grim thought in mind, I followed Dunwoody into the lift. Then Astellanax slammed his fist into the appropriate stud on the control strip and the turbo-compartment took us down to the engineering level.

"I've fought the Carda.s.sians before," the Orion told us, though he declined to say where. "They're merciless. We've got to be merciless as well."

I agreed with the sentiment up to a point. Still, I wasn't going to take part in a bloodbath if I could help it. I set my phaser on stun.

A moment later, the lift doors opened. Astellanax stuck his head out cautiously, scanning the corridor in one direction and then the other. Satisfied it was safe at least for the time being he gestured for the rest of us to come after him.

We proceeded in the direction of engineering. As the newcomer in the group, I brought up the rear.

It gave me a chance to watch the others in action. Astellanax and Sturgis looked ahead and behind at every step. They seemed to know all too well what they were doing.

Dunwoody, on the other hand, was something of a novice at this sort of thing. I made a mental note to stay clear of him if and when we ran into the Carda.s.sians.

Moving cautiously, we took a couple of minutes to cover fifty meters of winding corridor. As we approached an intersection, we heard what sounded like the sc.r.a.pe of footfalls up ahead. A second later, it was followed by the rasping of furtive voices.

Those of our crewmates? Or the enemy? We all wondered the same thing.

His back to the wall, Astellanax began inching toward the intersection. Sturgis came next. Dunwoody and I followed. None of us dared even to breathe, lest we give away our presence there.

Abruptly, the Orion whose hearing was more acute than anyone else's in our party stopped and turned to look at us. "Those aren't Carda.s.sians," he said. "They're human."

Accelerating his progress, he peeked around the corner and confirmed his observation for himself. Breathing a sigh of relief, he went out into the intersection and signaled with his phaser.

When I followed, I saw a woman, an Yridian, and a Ferengi at the far end of the corridor. I recognized the Ferengi as someone I'd seen in the mess hall, just before our conflict with Corbis.

Our comrades looked surprised to see us. But for some reason, they didn't seem relieved. Suddenly, I realized why that might be. The insight sent chills up and down my spine.

I searched their faces more closely. The five of them seemed tense, fearful, as if they perceived a danger more urgent and immediate than the general threat of invasion.

Almost as if they had already encountered the enemy ... as if he were close enough to shoot them in the back if they didn't obey his commands.

"Commander Astellanax," called the Yridian. "I'm glad to see you."

"And we, you," the first officer replied. "Didn't you hear the captain when she told you to take cover?"

"Yes," the woman said. "We did. In fact, the three of us were on our way to a cargo bay to do just that."

Her voice trembled ever so slightly. Perhaps I wouldn't have heard it if my suspicions hadn't been aroused already, or if I hadn't been human, too. But I did hear it and I could delay no longer.

Without a word to any of my fellow bridge officers, I moved past them. And not only them, but the crewmen we'd encountered. To forestall the questions I knew would follow, I held up my left hand. Then I planted myself against the wall, took a breath, and waited.

I expected the Carda.s.sians to burst out of concealment at any moment, eager to spring their trap. They didn't disappoint me.

Aiming carefully, I took out the first one with a beam to the center of his chest. As he went sprawling, a second one appeared and took hasty aim. Fortunately, he managed only to sear the bulkhead above my head. And he never got off a second shot because I shot first.

But there were other Carda.s.sians behind them. They poured out into the corridor like locusts nearly a dozen of them firing their lethal beams at anything that moved. And since we had orders to reach engineering, we stood our ground and fired back.

The corridor became a lurid, screaming vision of h.e.l.l, lances of seething energy crisscrossing madly in midair. My back pressed against the wall, I fired this way and that, trying to make out my nearest adversaries between flashes of fire.

Then, just as I was spearing one Carda.s.sian with my phaser beam, I saw two more coming at me. Both of them had me in their sights and there was no time to beat them to the punch. So I did the only thing I could think of I threw myself at them.

Not at their weapons, of course, because that would have spelled disaster. Rather, I launched myself at their ankles, hoping to knock them off their feet in the manner of an ancient Terran bowling ball.

I was fortunate. They missed me and went down in a heap of tangled limbs. But my phaser was kicked out of my hand in the process, leaving me a lot more vulnerable than I had planned.

As the first Carda.s.sian tried to get to his feet, I planted my hands on the deck and lashed out with my foot, knocking him unconscious with a blow to the head. Then I hurled myself onto the other Carda.s.sian.