"Is the instrument scrambling in effect everywhere inside the outer defenses?" Tasha asked.

"Yes. Our own computer's shielded, of course. Our anti-aircraft installations should take out most of the flyers-"

"Pris!" from Sdan.

They all turned to the viewscreen-which showed something that was definitely not a flyer zipping through the outer defenses. "Missile!" exclaimed Pris. "Launch counter-attack!"

"Launched and running," Sdan replied, as another point of light shot out of the chasm below the castle, met the incoming missile-seconds after the screen showed the explosion when they met, the castle rocked with the sound of the blast.

"Nalavia's fooled us," said Poet. "The best-laid plans-"

"You didn't consider the possibility of an attack?" Data interrupted.

"An attack, yes," said Pris. "But if she's using missiles, she doesn't care if she kills everyone in the castle. That includes the investigating team from Starfleet!"

Aurora joined them. "Missiles! Nalavia's insane. How do we plot strategy against a madwoman?"

"But you have counter-weapons," Tasha pointed out.

"Certainly; we are prepared for all-out war. But we didn't expect that with you here," said Aurora. "We thought Nalavia would try to take you back, not kill you!"

"It's my message to the Enterprise," said Tasha. "Dare said it would pinpoint our location-but obviously, to send it so steadily we had to have your cooperation. Nalavia must think we've gone over to your side." Her knuckles went white as she clutched the weapon she carried. "d.a.m.n! We should have sent it once only-we might have sneaked that through."

"Too late to worry about it now," said Sdan. "Once that shield goes we'll be up to the armpits in Nalavia's troops." So the castle's force shield was not up to all-out a.s.sault.

"Has Nalavia communicated with you?" Data asked. "Has she made demands for surrender?"

Sdan hit the communications board. "Nothing. But-she's stopped jamming Starfleet frequencies. Sure-she needs all power to push voice communications to her own troops through our scrambling."

Tasha jumped at that. Leaning over Sdan, she quickly programmed in the Starfleet emergency frequency. The Vulcanoid made no attempt to prevent her.

"This is Lieutenant Tasha Yar, on Treva, to any Starfleet vessel. Lieutenant Commander Data and I are under attack, at these coordinates. Emergency priority-repeat, Starfleet investigating team under attack. Any Starfleet vessel, please respond!"

There was no answer-but it could take from minutes to hours for the message to reach the nearest Starfleet vessel to Treva.

There were more explosions as missiles met anti-missiles, and then a flash of white burnout lit the strategy room as one got through and took out the shield.

"We should go up to the ramparts," Data said. "They will need every hand."

"And if there's an answer from Starfleet, we won't get it now," said Tasha, tuning out the burst of static as jamming resumed on Starfleet channels.

Adin, Barb, and the Tellarites were on the ramparts already, armed with guns like those Pris had given Data and Tasha. The first of the flyers approached, guns blazing.

Anti-aircraft fire lit the twilight and the first few went down before reaching the final defenses.

Then one got through. Adin took aim-one quick burst, and it exploded in flame and fell into the chasm.

But more came, wave after wave, locating the guns in the chasm by the bursts of light, bombing and strafing them. Each wave brought more flyers closer to the castle.

The six on the ramparts lay on their stomachs, protected from anything approaching from below. They hoped to shoot down flyers before they could get above the castle.

A troop carrier suddenly emerged from a cloud of flyers, guns blasting outward as from its bottom armored troopers dropped onto the lower ramparts!

"We are outnumbered," Data said, although he never ceased firing, taking down two troopers even as he spoke.

"Not once the locals are mobilized!" Barb told him, disposing of three more with equal efficiency.

Adin tapped his badge. "Sound retreat! Make your way back inside till-"

"Dare!" Barb yelled.

Adin rolled onto his back just in time to put his shots next to Barb's in a silent antigrav flyer that had circled while they were busy with the troop carrier. It sailed in over them, weapons blasting.

All six guns fired at the looming shadow-it spit sparks, but kept coming!

"Run!" Barb shouted.

They had destroyed the craft's steering controls.

Data could see the panicked face of the pilot through the windscreen as the flyer sailed out of control, on a collision course with the castle ramparts!

The Tellarites scrambled for the narrow stairs. Data reached for Tasha, who did not argue, but let him toss her after them, executing a perfect running landing at the top of the stairwell.

Data turned back just as Adin dropped his gun and grasped Barb around the waist, hauling her bodily out of the line of fire of the craft's port gunner, still firing impa.s.sively on his way to death.

Beneath the sound of those guns, though- Data whirled, firing at another flyer on a strafing run at the three people left on the ramparts!

He jumped aside then, turning in midair, and dived for the other two in a flying tackle, to knock them out of the line of death patterning across the rooftop.

Hitting Adin with his full weight, he knocked the breath from the man-but there was no time for finesse. Adin's fall took Barb down. She rolled and came up shooting- As the crippled flyer hit, behind her.

The world exploded. Data heaved the half-conscious Adin toward the stairs and turned for Barb- She was propelled into his arms, her life's blood splattering him as debris from the flyer tore her to shreds.

The ramparts were collapsing as the dead flyer settled.

Data turned, found Adin struggling to his knees, Tasha climbing out of the stairwell to help him.

"Tasha! Get back!" Data shouted, letting Barb's body fall and grasping Adin by the arm as he ran for the stairs, forcing the man to turn with him. He shoved him toward Tasha, who hauled him by the other arm as the three of them fled down the narrow, winding stairs, the noise of the exploding flyer pursuing them.

The stairs shook. Dust and debris poured down on them. The two humans were coughing and choking by the time they emerged into a stone corridor. Tuuk and Gerva were waiting. "Where's Barb?" asked Gerva.

"Dead," said Tasha. "Hurry-the roofs collapsing!"

The retreat signal ringing in their ears, they found more stairs leading down-with five of Nalavia's armored troopers at the bottom. Only the Tellarites were armed, but they needed no help. Weapons designed to pierce a flyer's hull sliced as easily through the troopers' armor as through bread. They also, incidentally, destroyed a heavy wooden table behind the troopers and made a rather large hole in the wall. Fortunately, no structural supports were harmed.

Data and Tasha followed the Tellarites, for the Starfleet personnel did not know the designated retreat area for Rikan's castle. Darryl Adin said nothing, merely moved with Tasha, leaving Data to bring up the rear.

In the strategy room, though, Adin went straight to the viewscreen, where Aurora was studying the schematic. "Report," he said.

Pris came in from another direction, took one look at Data, and blanched. "You're hurt!"

He looked down, and saw the green-gold of his uniform stained with the burgundy of human blood. "No," he said, and remembered that Adin's people were at least as close to one another as the Enterprise bridge crew. "I am sorry-it is Barb's blood. She was killed on the ramparts."

Adin turned from the screen. "So should I have been, but for you, Data." He added, "Barb died fighting; she would have asked no more. Now, let's make certain she didn't die in vain. Where's Rikan?"

"Here," came the warlord's voice. Like the rest of them, he had been caught dressing for dinner. He wore an elegant lace-trimmed shirt and perfectly-cut trousers, but no tunic or jacket. One shoulder of his shirt was torn, drops of blood spattered its pristine whiteness, and a bruise darkened the warlord's cheek. But, like Data, he was marked with the blood of somebody else. The knife thrust through his belt, wiped off but not properly cleaned of clinging stains, testified to how he had come by it.

"Jevsithian?" Adin asked.

"I am here." The seer was seated in a far corner, untouched by the activity.

"Poet?"

"b.l.o.o.d.y, but unbowed." The man was seated on the edge of a back table, cleaning his gla.s.ses while someone treated a cut on his forehead.

His remaining people and their charge accounted for, Adin requested Rikan to check his people, and turned back to the viewscreen.

Suddenly Sdan said, "Here they come!"

Everyone surged toward the viewscreens as the schematic of the castle shrank to include the surrounding countryside.

From three directions, Rikan's people were on the move, on foot, in ground vehicles, and in flyers. They might live in the country, but these were no primitive farmers armed with pitchforks and pruning hooks. Soft glows indicated the power packs of phasers, disruptors, percussion guns.

"Where did they get all those weapons?" Tasha asked.

"It's rather that they managed to keep them," Rikan replied. "Nalavia attempted to disarm Treva's citizenry, but the country folk would have none of it. The reason for their delay is that to keep her troops from finding them they have kept their weapons disa.s.sembled, the parts separate and mingled with tools and machinery."

"Your idea, Dare?" Tasha asked.

"Not that one," Adin replied. "One of the reasons I was willing to take this job is that these people are ready to fight their own battles-all they need is some expert guidance."

"Not that we can give them much at this moment," said Aurora. Data heard the frustration in her voice.

"We can give them leadership," said Rikan, and started for the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Adin demanded. "You hired us to protect you."

The warlord stopped, turned, and looked down at the man from his imposing height. "No, sir, I did not. I hired you to help us fight Nalavia." Rikan might be old, but he had lost none of his n.o.ble bearing. "A Trevan warlord does not hide while other people fight his battles."

"And if Nalavia succeeds in killing you-who will be the rallying point for those who oppose her?" Adin threw back at him.

"Not a coward, you may be certain," Rikan replied with dignity.

"Rikan is right," Jevsithian suddenly spoke up. "He is the last of the warlords-and his crest will be adopted as the sign of Treva's true freedom."

Rikan's man, Trell, turned on the seer. "What are you saying? That my lord will win? Or that he will be made a martyr?"

But the Grokarian replied only, "I see what I see: Rikan's crest as the emblem of freedom, side by side with the sign of the Silver Paladin."

Rikan put a hand on Trell's shoulder. "I must lead my people. Trell, if I die, it is my time. I fought in my youth on the field of battle, but in recent years only in the halls of politics. This is my last battle-I know it in my blood!"

Rikan went to arm himself, as Sdan reported, "The rebel flyers are engaging Nalavia's-and her infantry are being diverted to fight Rikan's ground troops. They're pulling away from the castle-now's the time to reclaim it!"

So Adin's gang, Data, Tasha, and Rikan's personnel began working their way up through the castle, clearing out Nalavia's soldiers. Someone had adjusted Tasha's combadge to the frequencies Adin used. Data stopped and adjusted his own, so that he was able to follow more of the battle than what was happening in his own vicinity.

Sdan left communications to Aurora, and joined in the fight to reclaim the castle. It was slow work, even with the aid of the security system, for once they had spread out it was necessary to check just who a life form reading was before attacking, lest they end up fighting themselves.

But finally the castle was secure. One tower and part of the upper floor were in ruins where the antigrav flyer had hit, but most of the huge old structure was still standing in the first faint gray of dawn.

Forty-three of Nalavia's troops had managed to enter the castle. Sixteen of them were now dead-one by Rikan's dagger at the opening of the fray-and the rest imprisoned in the kind of cells Data had suspected had to be here: ancient rooms dug out of the solid rock of the cliff, but now protected with force fields that would, indeed, hold even an android prisoner.

Barb was the only casualty among Adin's gang, but seven of Rikan's people had died fighting, and a number of others were too badly injured to continue.

Everyone else, though, gathered in the courtyard as daylight brightened and Rikan prepared to go into battle.

The warlord was resplendent in tough but lightweight body armor, carrying the helmet that bore his crest. His people cheered as he entered his waiting flyer-a vehicle also decorated with the symbols of his ancient lineage. There would be no doubt as to who was in that well-armed flyer ... either to Rikan's people, or to Nalavia's.

The battle was on the other side of the chasm now, flyers and ground troops alike engaged in a struggle to the death.

But how could Rikan and Adin hope to win, Data wondered. Nalavia could throw fresh troops at them long after their own were exhausted.

Nothing he had seen in Adin's armory was the kind of weapon that could destroy a city-not that such weapons were ever supposed to be in private hands, but he had no doubt at all that only moral scruples kept this strange band of mercenaries from building them.

So there was no way to defeat Nalavia by numbers; it had to be done with skill, cleverness, and the desperation of Rikan's people fighting for their lives, homes, and families.

When Rikan had gone, Adin and Poet took one small, sleek fighting flyer, the Tellarites another, Sdan and Pris a third, and sailed off to escort him. Data turned to Tasha, who stood watching them leave with a look of yearning.

Of course-while she espoused Starfleet's teaching that to be forced to fight was in itself a defeat, once battle was engaged it called to her blood. Data looked after the flyers sailing toward the battlefront. "There are no more vehicles."

"There's our shuttle," said Tasha.

"It is not designed for fighting," he reminded her. The craft was unarmed, and because it was built for deep-s.p.a.ce voyaging one could not open the ports to shoot conventional weapons.

But then Data remembered, "There is the flyer I stole to get here. It is probably still where I hid it."

Tasha looked at him in amused surprise. "You stole a flyer?"

"It was too far to walk," he said honestly, and was once more puzzled when something he said in all seriousness caused a human to break into laughter.

But Tasha gave him no time to ponder the vagaries of humor. "Let's go find it!" she said, but she ran back toward the castle instead of the road.

"Where are you-?"

"Weapons!"

The light phaser rifles they had been issued for searching the castle were indeed inappropriate for midair combat.

But the heavy-duty guns were just inside, cleaned and reloaded after the night's activity. They each took one, and extra charges. No one questioned them as they set off on foot down the road.