The change in Salek’s expression was subtle, but Gold recognized thoughtful approval on the Vulcan’s face when he saw it. “Unconventional, yet logical, Captain.”

  Nodding, Gold addressed the rest of the bridge crew. “All right, people, our team needs more time to work, and I’m tired of being shot at. Let’s see what we can do about both.”

  Static burst from Duffy’s combadge, drowning out Gold’s voice.

  “Captain?” he prompted, tapping the device again before looking up to Hrevet. “They must be jamming us.”

  Stevens held up his tricorder. “That’s not all. I can’t get a solid reading on anything. We won’t be able to track their movements.”

  “We won’t have to,” Hrevet said quietly as she moved closer to the front of the cockpit, bringing her phaser rifle up.

  Had she seen something? Duffy jerked his head to look beyond the shattered canopy, his eyes struggling to see whatever had caught the agent’s attention. Something moved to his left, or did it? Nothing more than a patch of black darker than the surrounding shadows, for an instant he thought his eyes might be tricking him.

  They weren’t.

  “There!”

  Orange light flared in the near darkness before Duffy could react, the whine of Hrevet’s weapon assaulting his ears as the energy beam struck the approaching Breen. Less than fifteen meters away, the soldier staggered before falling unconscious to the ground.

  Studying the stunned alien for a few seconds, Duffy realized now why he had almost missed seeing it. Its earth-toned insulation suit and the dull finish of its helmet, which immersed the wearer in a refrigerated environment similar to that of the Breen homeworld, also functioned as effective camouflage. Aided by the darkness and the drab landscape surrounding the scout ship, the Breen were all but invisible.

  “They’re getting bold,” Hrevet offered, not turning her attention away from the rocky terrain flanking the ship’s starboard side.

  Crouching near the main hatch, Rondon said, “Keep your eyes open. They might be getting ready to charge.”

  Until now, the Breen had made effective use of cover and concealment as they moved closer to the ship. It was obvious from their tactics that they were trying to avoid unduly damaging the craft, most likely to facilitate their own retrieval of the encryption prototype. Hrevet had sought to use that to the away team’s advantage by concentrating heavy fire on the most likely avenues of approach to the vessel. So far, the improvised strategy had succeeded in keeping the Breen at bay, but if the probing actions of the soldier Hrevet had stunned were any indication, their aggressors were adjusting to the defensive scheme.

  Or, perhaps they were simply running out of time and patience.

  “What now?” Stevens asked, his voice barely a whisper. He positioned himself as Rondon directed on the opposite side of the hatch from the Zaldan, allowing the two of them to overlap their fields of fire and cover each other’s blind spots. His anxiety was impossible to miss, and matched Duffy’s own. Out of their element here, and with the da Vinci unable to retrieve them, the engineers were dependent on the field agents to guide them through the chaos now enveloping this mission.

  “If we stay here we’re as good as dead,” Hrevet said. “Our only chance is to make them move before they’re ready.”

  Confusion creased Duffy’s brow. “How do we do that?”

  The Bolian’s answer came as she adjusted the power setting on her phaser rifle. “With a little landscaping.”

  Rising from her crouch, Hrevet aimed through the cockpit’s ruined canopy. Phaser energy erupted again, only this time the effects were much more powerful. One large boulder perhaps thirty meters from the ship exploded, launching countless fragments of stone shrapnel in all directions. Hrevet fired again, destroying a second rock before moving the rifle in a straight line to her right, chewing up more and more chunks of the hillside.

  Her actions had an immediate effect as Breen soldiers scampered back from positions of concealment ahead of the destructive swathe. They fired as they ran, but many of their shots went wild. A few struck the side of the ship and Duffy felt it shudder again from the force of the impacts. Trying to ignore it, he concentrated instead on tracking the movements of their aggressors with his phaser rifle. Doing so was difficult amid all the dust and debris thrown about by Hrevet’s unorthodox actions.

  “They’re pulling back,” Rondon called above the din as the agent and Stevens fired their weapons. Peering through the open cockpit, Duffy saw several Breen scrambling among the rocks. One attacker was carrying a companion slung over his shoulder, his movements slowed by his additional burden. It would have been easy to shoot the struggling soldier in the back, but Duffy saw no point to that.

  There were rules, after all, even in war.

  “Look out!” Hrevet shouted as a disruptor bolt struck the ship just below the windshield. The Bolian dropped to the deck in search of cover as a second volley burst inside the cockpit above Duffy’s head. Sparks and debris rained down on him and he threw his arms up to protect himself, tiny points of fire biting into his exposed skin. Stars danced in his vision, each a telling reminder of just how close the shot had come to hitting him square in the face.

  The echo from the blast faded and Duffy became aware of someone inside the ship screaming in agony. Rolling onto his side, he turned and saw Stevens writhing on the deck, his hands clamped around his thigh. Blood, a lot of it, streamed between his fingers and soaked the leg of his uniform. Already it began to pool on the deck beneath him.

  “Fabian!” he yelled. Scrambling across the deck plating, he ignored the sounds of weapons fire all around him as he went to the aid of his friend. Without thinking he covered Stevens’s hands with his own and pressed against the wound. “What happened?”

  Stevens hissed through his teeth. “Shrapnel.”

  “His femoral artery’s been cut,” a deep voice said from behind him as a huge hand settled on his shoulder. Duffy turned to see Rondon leaning over him, his expression one of stone. Only then did the engineer realize that the shooting had ceased.

  “They’ve retreated,” Hrevet explained. “For now, anyway.” She tapped her communicator. “Away team to da Vinci. Requesting emergency transport directly to sickbay.” When no response came, she repeated the call but achieved the same result.

  “They’re still jamming us,” Duffy said. “Dammit!”

  Another burst of phaser energy rattled the ship’s interior, startling him yet again as the beam crossed in front of him and struck Stevens. The wounded engineer collapsed instantly and Duffy instinctively jumped back. He whirled to see Rondon aiming his hand phaser at Stevens, who now appeared to be unconscious, or dead.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Standing next to Rondon, Hrevet held up a hand as Duffy moved back toward his friend. “He’s just stunned. It will make what Rondon’s going to do easier.”

  Eyes wide with anger and confusion, Duffy watched in open-mouthed shock as the Zaldan intelligence operative adjusted the setting on his phaser.

  “If we do not stop the bleeding, he will die,” Rondon said. “This will be more effective than a tourniquet.” He turned back to Stevens and tore the material of the engineer’s jumpsuit, exposing the still bleeding gash in his thigh. A moment of probing with his hand produced a jagged piece of metal, which Rondon extricated from the wounded leg. Then, holding the phaser like a fat, bulky pen between his large webbed fingers while he pulled the edges of the wound together with his free hand, the agent pressed the weapon’s firing stud.

  A thin line of orange energy lanced from the phaser. As it made contact with the edge of the wound, a dreadful sizzling sound filled the cabin. Duffy covered his mouth and nose with his hand to block the stench of burning flesh as he watched the phaser beam cauterize the injured tissue.

  “Disgusting, but I can’t argue with it,” he said, his stomach threatening to heave its contents all over the inside of the ship. “Straight out of the Starfleet Survival Guide.”

  Not looking up from his task, the Zaldan replied, “They taught us the technique in our field medical training, but this is the first time I’ve tried it, or even seen it for that matter.” His work complete, he reset his phaser to its original power level before returning the weapon to its holster. “That will do until we can get him back to your ship, but he has lost a considerable quantity of blood.”

  “Nice work,” Duffy said, impressed with the agent’s quick thinking and decisive action that was, like everything else on this mission, a product born from the desperate necessity of the moment.

  Rondon waved the sentiment away. “Of course it was. He still lives, does he not?”

  Duffy bit down on the impulse to respond to the callous words when he remembered to whom he was talking. As a people, Zaldans detested most forms of social courtesy, viewing such overtures as a ploy to hide real feelings and motivations. Were it not for their tendency toward dramatic emotional displays, they could almost be Vulcan in their regard for total honesty, no matter how harsh or unwelcome the truth might be.

  Having apparently forgotten the exchange already, Rondon reached for his phaser rifle and checked its setting. “It will be light soon. If I were the Breen leader, I would launch another attack before sunrise. We cannot stay here.”

  From where she was keeping watch near the hatch, Hrevet looked to Duffy. “How long will it take you to extract the device?”

  Shaking his head, Duffy said, “At least another hour, maybe more, and that’s without our friends shooting at us.”

  “Too long,” Rondon said. “The Breen are almost certainly stranded here, at least so long as the da Vinci is able to keep their ship from getting close enough to send down reinforcements. They outnumber us, and I suspect that they won’t hesitate to destroy us and the ship if we’re here when they come back. The easy course would be to eliminate the prototype ourselves, find a defensible position and await the da Vinci’s return.”

  Hrevet shook her head. “I’m not ready to do that just yet, so our only other choice is to do a better job of protecting the ship and the device until we can get it removed.”

  “Easier said than done,” Duffy replied. “For all we know, half the systems aboard this ship are tied into that thing. We could spend a week examining the equipment in here and still not figure it all out.”

  The Bolian’s expression was at first one of disapproval, but it disappeared a moment later. “I’m no engineer, but I’m smart enough to listen to one. We’ll find you the time you need.”

  “Wow.” Despite everything that had happened, Duffy still managed a small grin at that. “Any chance you could talk to our security chief when we get back?”

  Spinning…no, rocking…I’m rocking…why am I rocking…make it stop….

  The first thing Fabian Stevens saw as he forced his eyes open were clumps of grass and loose dirt streaming past, up and away from him. Blood rushed in his ears and pounded at his temples. Every breath he tried to draw was forced out of his lungs as something unyielding pushed into his stomach with no discernible rhythm.

  “Unh…what’s happening?” Stevens said, his words slurred as he struggled to talk between the punches to his gut.

  “Quiet,” a voice replied. “We’re almost there.”

  Rondon? What the hell are you doing?

  Opening his eyes wider, Stevens made out a pair of boots below him. He shook his head a bit and got more of a bearing on his predicament, realizing that Rondon was carrying him slung over his shoulder. Judging by the Zaldan’s movements as he navigated up the uneven terrain, he was in a big hurry.

  “Hold on.” Stevens forced the words out as nausea washed over him. “I think I’m going to be si…”

  Unable to stop himself, he vomited down Rondon’s back.

  Wiping spittle from his lips, Stevens mumbled, “Sorry,” but the agent’s only reaction was to keep climbing the rocky slope.

  The engineer’s stomach was still heaving moments later when Rondon pulled him from his shoulder to deposit him uneasily on the ground behind a rocky berm. The abrupt movement elicited a jolt of pain from his injured leg and he groaned in response.

  “Lie still,” Rondon ordered as he moved toward the berm, and Stevens watched as the agent shifted a few rocks aside and uprooted a pair of scrawny shrubs with his bare hands. Tossing the pitiful vegetation away, Rondon peered over the berm through the opening he had created and nodded in approval before turning back to the engineer. “How are you feeling?”

  Sitting up so he could inspect his injuries, Stevens noted how his torn trouser leg had been pulled back together and secured with a length of Starfleet-issue optical cabling, doubtless from his or Duffy’s toolkit. “Like a runabout landed on me.” Looking up, he added, “Sorry again about the, uh…”

  “Forget it,” Rondon replied. “I’ve encountered worse.”

  Stevens found himself believing that, but his stomach prayed that the Zaldan would refrain from offering specific examples. “What are we doing up here?”

  “Taking the high ground,” Rondon said as he dropped his rucksack to the ground and passing Stevens his engineer’s tool kit. “Our job is to cover Hrevet and Duffy while they attempt to retrieve the device.”

  Feeling the cobwebs clearing from his mind, Stevens watched as the agent began to root through his rucksack when an odd odor drifted to his nostrils. “What is that? Did something burn?”

  “That smell,” Rondon replied, not even bothering to look up, “is you.”

  Stevens stared down at his leg, his hands moving to pull aside the material of his torn trousers and inspect his wound, but a new protest from his still-quivering stomach stopped him. Instead, he tried not to think about his injuries as he reached for his satchel. Fishing inside the bag, he pulled out his tricorder along with a worklight and his kit of engineering tools. Important to him when carrying out his normal duties, his equipment seemed all but useless now.

  Looking over at Rondon’s stockpile, Stevens saw that in addition to his phaser rifle, the Zaldan had also set out a trio of hand phasers along with two tricorders, one of which looked to have been heavily damaged.

  “Four phasers?” he asked.

  “One of them is yours,” Rondon replied. “Two of them have low charges. They will not last long if we encounter prolonged resistance.”

  Motioning for his companion to hand him the weapons, Stevens said, “Let me see what I can do.” As Rondon watched, Stevens detached each phaser’s power cell and connected them with a strand of monofilament line from his toolkit.

  “Very resourceful,” Rondon said, nodding appreciatively.

  “This is a bit riskier than it looks, so don’t try it at home,” Stevens said and smiled. “I can even use this to drain the power from our combadges, if it would help.”

  Rondon declined the offer as he pulled a new item from his bag, a polished metal ring with three curved blades around its outer edge. Noting his rapt audience, the burly Zaldan actually offered a slight smirk. “Kligat,” he said, “for when the phasers run dry.”

  A nervous lump formed in his throat as Stevens considered Rondon’s words. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “It is the weapon of choice among the people of Capella IV, with a rich and storied history.” He held up the kligat to inspect its blades. “I won this from a royal guardsman there a few years ago.”

  “Won it how?”

  Rondon smiled. “I won it honorably.”

  Figuring his companion was not going to offer anything more on the subject, Stevens opted instead to study their surroundings. “So now we wait?”

  “For now,” Rondon replied, moving back along the berm to the observation post he had created. Reaching again into his rucksack, he extracted a pair of what Stevens recognized as Starfleet emergency ration bars. “Are you hungry?”

  His stomach lurching at the very thought, Stevens shook his head. “Hardly.”

  “Too bad,” Rondon said, tossing a bar his way. “You need energy. I’m done carrying you.”

  Stevens grimaced as he retrieved the bar and unwrapped it. Biting into it, he silently thanked Starfleet nutritionists for the flavorlessness of the field-issue bars that met the minimum meal requirements for most of the Federation’s member races.

  “The Breen will find us, you know,” he said between mouthfuls.

  “Almost certainly,” Rondon replied. “We have nothing to shield us from their scanners.”

  Pausing to think a moment, Stevens said, “Yeah, but we don’t have to be completely surprised, right?” He indicated the pair of tricorders near Rondon’s leg. “Pass those over.”

  Studying the first of the tricorders, Stevens frowned at its damaged condition. “What the hell happened to this one?”

  “That was Commander Donovan’s,” Rondon said, as if that were sufficient explanation.

  Stevens decided that it was as he inspected the broken unit again. It took only seconds to confirm that the tricorder was inoperative, though there was a chance its memory core could still be salvaged. Tucking it into his satchel, the engineer then opened his toolkit and selected a pair of sonic emitters.

  Setting to work, Stevens began to integrate the emitters with Rondon’s tricorder, repurposing them from their more exacting and intended handheld uses to something more appropriate for their current situation. The process took several minutes, after which he tied the hastily improvised device together with a few more loose monofilaments, using his teeth to pull the knots tight.

  “Here we go,” he said, admiring his handiwork. “One motion sensor.” Seeing Rondon’s puzzled expression, he added, “All I did was boost the sonic emissions and set the tricorder to detect any movement. It’s highly directional and probably not any good past a hundred meters or so, but if you point this toward the way you expect the Breen to be coming, we should get a decent heads-up.”

  Rondon reached over and grasped Stevens’s contraption. Eyeing it before setting it on the berm, he said, “I’m starting to see the benefits of having an engineer along for covert operations. Have you ever given thought to joining the Intelligence branch?”