"That's right. Keep in mind their communications might be scrambled."

Hirsch's contemptuous expression showed precisely what she thought of Sindareen scrambling capabilities. "No disrespect, Lieutenant, but I thought you were going to give me something hard to do." She dropped down to one knee, removing the large comm unit from her equipment pack and studying the frequencies registering over it. Her fingers flew over the touch padds.

"Got it, Lieutenant," she announced after less than thirty seconds. "Just need a few more moments to unscramble." She smirked. "Apparently they think we can't do it."

"Enlighten them, Hirsch," said Riker, "as to the error of their ways."

The Sindareen who had cut off Deanna and Chandra's escape was apparently the leader of the group. As was mostly the case with the Sindareen, his hair was tightly swept back and coal black. His skin was pale, virtually to the point of the chalk white shade of an albino. Although he possessed a mouth, it existed exclusively for eating. Speech issued from the nictating membranes on his long throat.

"Baytzah!" he snapped to others of his group. "Zroah! What are you standing around for? Charoset, you and Chazeret get to the other room and clear that out. And you others-move! We don't have all day!"

The Sindareen were moving through the great museum, carrying with them large cases. They hurriedly pulled paintings off the wall, shoved glittering sculptures into the cases. Each action was greeted by gasps and audible protestations by the Betazoids-which were quickly silenced by the leader's subtle movement of his weapon in the direction of the prisoners.

"My dear Betazoids," he said, sounding unexpectedly reasonable. "I am called Maror. If you would be so kind as to cooperate, we can do this briskly and without serious difficulty for any of you."

"But why!"

The uncontrolled outburst had originated from Deanna, who had said it without thinking. Chandra tried to pull her back into the relative obscurity of the crowd, but it was too late. She had attracted Maror's attention. Somehow, though, surviving the emotional trauma of being shoved, courtesy of a blaster in her mouth, had emboldened her.

Maror's gaze wandered along the lines of her body in a manner that made Deanna suddenly feel dirty. She derived the feeling purely from the surface, however. She found that she couldn't get an empathic lock on any of them, which was unusual and frustrating for her. The uncontrolled, and unwise, question had been a manifestation of that small but aggravating defeat.

"But why what?" asked Maror. Behind him the rest of his men continued with their task. "Why should you not interfere with our little procedure?"

Deanna, keep quiet! Chandra's voice rang in Deanna's head. But she knew that wasn't possible. Her outburst had already attracted the Sindareen's attention. Besides... some part of her genuinely wanted to understand what in the world could be motivating these beings into these destructive acts.

She called on the image of her mother, who had never seemed intimidated by any situation. She squared her shoulders and firming up her voice, demanded, "Why are you stealing our art treasures? They can't hold any meaning for you. They're works that spring from the hearts and minds of Betazoid artists."

Maror made a noise that must have been the Sindareen equivalent of laughter-it was a more rapid fluttering of the membranes, unaccompanied by any noise other than the flapping sound. "Are you really under the impression," he asked when he had recovered himself, "that we are going to sit around and look at the pretty pictures? Don't be ridiculous. What we have is a client who is a very avid collector, with a taste for one-of-a-kind pieces. And he is very wealthy, and very willing to pay whatever it takes to obtain those things that have struck his fancy. You should be flattered that your work has attracted his attention-he's very discriminating."

And now whatever fears Deanna might have had were overwhelined by a fundamental sense of indignation. "You would deprive a people of their cultural heritage just to satisfy the greed of an individual? What sort of beings are you?"

His mouth turned up slightly as he replied, "Entrepreneurs." Then he stepped back, clearly ending the discussion, or at least his interest in it. He tapped his wrist comm unit and said, "Karpas. Report."

Over the comm unit came back a voice, saying, "There's a fairly large a.s.semblage on the street. Typical bunch of Betazoids-everyone standing around, trying to understand how everyone else feels about the situation, and n.o.body doing anything about it."

"Yes, that is typical," grunted Maror. "Anything else?"

"Yeah. What appears to be a squad of Starfleet security men. Apparently they're taking charge of the situation."

"Let them. I know their regs. As long as we've got the hostages in here, they won't dare make a move against us. Keep the engines primed. I estimate we have another three to four-"

But before Maror could complete the instruction, another voice broke in on the comm unit. "Attention, Sindareen raiders. You are completely surrounded and cannot escape. Surrender is your only alternative."

Deanna's dark eyes widened and she looked at Chandra, who immediately knew what was going through Deanna's mind. For the briefest of moments, Deanna wanted to shout out. "Will! I'm trapped in here with them! Do something!" But fortunately, and wisely, she held her tongue. Riker certainly did not need personal involvement dragged into the middle of all this.

Maror, for his part, bubbled in fury. "Who is this!" he demanded.

"Lieutenant Riker, of Starfleet," came the stern reply. "Who is this?"

"Maror of the Sindareen. So tell me, Starflect man... where's your ship? We didn't see it coming in, and there's none within light-years of here. We checked."

"A ship isn't necessary to deal with this situation."

"You flatter me," said Maror sarcastically.

"No. I warn you. I have an entire squad of men, with more on the way. The entire area has been sealed off. You cannot escape. If you surrender now, your cooperation will be noted."

"'Noted.' How nice. That will make a lovely tombstone: 'Here lies Maror. He cooperated.' I think I'll take my chances, Lieutenant thank you. Now if you're interested in taking chances. then I invite you to try and impede our departure." Then Maror's voice grew cold and harsh. "And you can explain the three dozen Betazoid corpses to your superiors! Do we understand each other, Lieutenant?"

Riker's reply was firm and unyielding. "You will not escape."

"You will not stop me," shot back Maror. "Now get off my comm unit."

"We are scrambling your transmissions. You will not be able to communicate with your ship for as long as you refuse to cooperate."

"Oh, really." Without hesitation, Maror swung his weapon around and squeezed off a shot.

The blast struck Chandra in the upper thigh. She went down with a shriek that echoed throughout the museum and certainly was audible over the comm unit. Deanna dropped to the floor with her, Chandra clutching her leg and whimpering. An ugly carbon-scored gash was across her thigh.

"Did you hear that?" demanded Maror. "I could have killed her just then! That is the extent of the cooperation you'll have from me, Lieutenant! The next time I fire it's going to be at somebody's heart, and I a.s.sure you, Riker, I hit what I aim at! Now unclutter my transmission or somebody dies in the next ten seconds-and that's on your head, Lieutenant Riker. Yours!"

There was only the briefest of pauses before Riker's voice came back. "In the interest of cooperation, I'll put you back in touch with your ship. I antic.i.p.ate you'll extend further good-faith courtesies in the future."

A moment later, Karpas's concerned voice was back on the air. "They're going to give us trouble, Maror! Did you hear what they-"

"Of course I heard, you idiot," snapped Maror. "And what's more, they're going to hear. Namely, they'll hear everything that's being said over this frequency. I don't need them eavesdropping! Maintain radio silence except in case of extreme emergency! Maror out!"

He lowered his comm unit and turned to the Betazoids. Deanna had ripped a length of cloth from her sleeve and wrapped it around the b.u.m that was blistering the skin on Chandra's leg. She looked up at Maror with anger and defiance flashing in her eyes. Maror, for his part, looked utterly calm, and again Deanna met frustration in being unable to get any sort of feeling for what was going through his mind. Something in his psychological makeup-in the makeup of all of them, in fact-rendered them impervious to Deanna's empathy. Or at least, for the moment it did.

"Your rescuers," said Maror, "are only going to make matters worse for you. I suggest you pray to whatever G.o.ds you believe in that the Starfleet security and their n.o.ble lieutenant are less effective than they think they are. Because their effectiveness will be measured entirely in the number of deaths that arise because of them."

CHAPTER 24.

Riker turned away from Hirsch and looked at Tang with frustration. "That could have gone better," Riker said.

"it could have gone worse," replied Tang. "At least n.o.body's dead."

"We have to determine what they want. What their demands are."

"No, we don't. We know what they want," said Tang reasonably. "It's whatever is in this building. We know what their demands are-they demand we let them get away with it. The only question becomes, do we let them?"

Riker's face was set. "No. We don't."

"Even if people die?"

"We try to avoid that at all costs," Riker said slowly. "But the bottom line is that if we let them get away, we simply invite them to continue their activities at the expense and lives of other innocent people. It has to stop here and now."

At that moment, Gart Xerx appeared at Riker's side, his huffing and puffing indicating that he had been running the entire way. "Sindareen raiders!" he gasped out.

Riker glanced at him and said, "Yes, sir, we know. We're handling this. Now if you'll just-"

"Chandra's in there!"

"What?" Riker turned back to him. "How do you..." And then he caught himself, remembering with whom he was dealing. "Yes, of course you'd know, wouldn't you. Is she all right?"

"She's been hurt. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d shot her in the leg."

Riker's face darkened, thinking of the sweet, eager bride he'd seen all those weeks back. "Is she all right?"

"As all right as can be expected, considering she's been shot," said Xerx evenly. Clearly he was trying to fight down the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He was obviously searching for that place of central calm that Deanna had told Riker about. And then, almost as an afterthought, Xerx added, "Deanna's with her. She's bandaging the wound as best she can."

Riker tried not to show his reaction to this latest bit of information. In fact, instead of acknowledging the news, he merely said, "Good." But the way Xerx looked up at him spoke volumes to Riker; Xerx must have immediately intuited precisely what was going through Riker's mind, and what his true feelings about learning of Deanna's presence were.

Riker was determined to remain all business. "Can you communicate with her? Find out information?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

Deanna dabbed at the wound with the cloth, the bleeding having slowed down significantly. She looked up at Chandra, ready to offer some words of comfort, but she saw from Chandra's expression that her friend's mind was not on the trouble at hand. At first she a.s.sumed that Chandra had merely separated herself in order to spare herself the pain. But then she realized precisely what was going on: Chandra was communicating with someone outside. Chandra took a moment to glance at Deanna and nod slowly in confirmation.

Maror came up behind them and looked at them once before nodding brisk approval. "Good. No whimpering. Keeping things to yourself. That's what we like to see. You're making this much easier on all of us." Then he raised his comm unit to get a very brief a.s.sessment from Karpas as to the movements of the Federation personnel... brief since he was perfectly aware that Riker was doubtlessly monitoring every word.

"Precisely thirty-two of our people in there," said Xerx to Riker. He wasn't looking at Riker, but instead seemed to be staring off into thin air. "There are nine of the Sindareen. This Maror you spoke to is definitely the leader. They aren't threatening the hostages beyond telling them to keep out of trouble. They seem intent on stripping the museum of its works for the purpose of selling them to some private collector." Xerx shuddered slightly. "What a barbaric idea."

"Compared to some of the things I've heard about the Sindareen doing, that's positively civilized," replied Riker. "They're probably the only race in the galaxy that the Ferengi actually enjoy dealing with. All right, Gart... tell her that she should let us know the moment that the Sindareen start moving for their ship. Tang, I want your people deployed-"

"Already done, sir." Tang pointed to several different locations.

Riker looked around and smiled grimly. The security personnel gathered in the street served as a distraction. In the meantime, more of them had been deployed to strategic points in surrounding buildings, crouched on rooftops or poised in windows. They had phasers armed and targeted on the rooftop where the Spider perched like an oversize predator.

"Problem is," continued Tang, "the Sindareen may not look it, but they're pretty tough. Phaser blasts can stop them, but not on lower settings. Ranges that stun the Sindareen can severely injure, even kill other humanoids."

"Humanoids such as Betazoids," said Riker slowly.

"Right. Which means if they bring any of the hostages along as potential shields..."

"You'll have to work around it, Sergeant. Alert your marksmen to take extreme care. We're not going to lose these raiders, under any circ.u.mstances."

"Yes, sir. And just in case they do make it to their ship..." Tang gestured to one of his security team. He was lugging a large case, and he staggered over with it to Tang and placed it at his feet. Tang snapped it open and Riker saw within the case the formidable Level 10, shoulder-mounted phaser cannon, Model II. Tang hefted it out of the case, and Riker was impressed again by the display of strength on the part of the smaller man. As he had before, he patted it affectionately and said, "Believe me, Lieutenant... they're not going to get away."

"That's good to hear. All right, Sergeant. Apprise your people that we definitely have nine Sindareen in there. I don't want any, repeat, any shots fired until we've counted nine of them emerging and approaching the ship. As soon as the last one is out, which means the hostages are unguarded-start firing. If they manage to get airborne, I'll be counting on you to bring them down. I do not," he reiterated, "want to see them get away. We're going to be sending a message to them and all of their kind, and we're sending it now."

"Understood, Lieutenant."

"Good. Oh... and watch your aim, Sergeant," Riker cautioned. "You miss them and hit the Betazed moon, and we'd have a problem on our hands."

"I won't miss, Lieutenant. Count on it."

The cases were loaded and the other Sindareen were bringing them up toward the roof. Maror stood in front of the Betazoids, studying them apprisingly for a moment.

"As charming as this has been," he said, "we really have to take leave of you now. However... it's my concern that the Federation men might decide to give us problems upon our departure. And so, just for some added protection, I'd like one of you to accompany me. Ideally, I'd bring all of you... but our ship is small, and we're heavily loaded already. So it's going to have to be one. Now, let's see..." He scanned them briefly, and then, tucking his weapon under one arm, he said firmly, "You. You're wounded anyway, so you won't give any trouble." And he reached for Chandra.

"No! Leave her alone!" shouted Deanna as Maror grabbed the frantic Chandra by the arm. Deanna leaped forward, her fingernails raking across Maror's face, and Maror howled in fury as lines of blood welled up on his pale cheek. His face contorted with rage, he hurled Chandra to the parquet floor, and her head cracked with explosive force against it.

Deanna instinctively turned toward her friend, but Maror grabbed her and swung her around. He yanked her forward and snarled in her face, "You know, I thought you had nerve. And intelligence. Out of respect for that, I was going to leave you be. But you weren't intelligent enough to know when you were getting off lucky. So now, foolish little Betazoid... it's going to be you."

Xerx actually gasped in fright and staggered slightly. Riker put a hand behind him to steady him and was almost afraid to ask what had happened.

He didn't have to ask as Xerx said, "I've lost contact. Chandra's unconscious." Riker waited for Xerx to pull himself together sufficiently to provide more information, and Xerx did so. "There was something... they-the Sindareen-were going to take one of the hostages with them. For a shield. And they were taking Chandra. And she struggled and fell... and now I have no sense of her. Lieutenant..." And there was pure terror in his voice.

Tang's comm unit crackled to life. "This is Sommers at Gamma Point," snapped a voice. "I have a visual. They're coming out, sir!"

"All units are to wait for my signal!" barked Tang. "Repeat, not a shot is to be fired until you have the clearance from central command!" He looked to Riker. "You're the CO, Lieutenant. Gonna be your call."

"We stick with the plan. When all nine are exposed, we open fire," said Riker firmly.

"My daughter! G.o.ds, Lieutenant... you can't shoot my child!"

"They'll shoot clear of her, Gart," Riker said, looking to Tang for confirmation.

Tang nodded his head in agreement. Then from his supplies belt, he removed a small pair of electronic sensor binos and, putting them to his eyes, studied the rooftop.

"Get me one of those," ordered Riker.

"Binos for the lieutenant!" snapped Tang, not removing his gaze from the rooftop. Moments later, Hirsch reappeared and handed a pair of the instruments to Riker. Now he had the roof under close scrutiny as well.

At first there was no movement at all, and for a moment Riker toyed with the notion that this was all some sort of scam-that, in fact, another means of escape was all set up, and the ship was simply there as a distraction. But then he saw the door to the roof slide open and the first of the Sindareen appeared-two of them, lugging a large crate between them.

"Hold fire," said Riker softly, and the order was repeated by Tang. It wasn't necessary, really. Everyone knew what their orders were and what they were supposed to do.

There was an eerie silence over the area. When Tang had been in similar situations, the buzz of the crowd was positively deafening, and sometimes came close to interfering with the job. Whatever was going through the minds and hearts of the Betazoids, they were having the exquisite courtesy to do it quietly.

More of the Sindareen appeared, lugging more crates. Riker counted them off softly to himself... five... six... and then he said, "Have we got them targeted, Tang?"

"Target report," said Tang into his comm unit.

"Alpha Point, target acquired," came the first reply. The snipers had chosen their targets in order of appearance based on their designation: Alpha took the first target to appear, Beta took the second, and so on.

One by one the rest of the snipers reported in. All of them had targets in their sights.

Eight of the Sindareen had made themselves visible. Riker muttered a low curse. The lead two were approaching the confines of the ship. Sure enough, a second later one of the snipers reported, "This is Alpha Point. About to lose target acquisition. Awaiting instructions."