Cartagia thought that he was going to go crazy.
He felt as if the damned shuttlecraft had been hanging there forever, tantalizingly, frustratingly just out of reach. He had wanted to send multiple messages to it, telling them to get over to the ship immediately, that help was desperately needed, that they were going to die within seconds if immediate aid were not provided. But Muaado had cautioned against it. "They've got their own instrumentation," he advised Cartagia. "If we try to trick them, if we tell them there's immediate danger when there's not, they'll be able to see through it."
"Maybe we should take that chance," Cartagia urged.
"Then again, maybe we shouldn't," fired back Muaado. "What should we say? That our engines are in danger of exploding? That our life-support systems are failing? These are not possibilities, because their own onboard readings will tell them that we're lying. And if they know that we're lying, then they're going to start to wonder what the truth is. And if they do that, then we have a major problem."
"Damn them!" snarled Cartagia, pacing the room. His long and powerful legs carried him quickly around the perimeter, and his blue body armor clacked as he moved. His pale face was darker than usual as he mused on the frustration facing him. "Turhi wasn't part of the plan, but now that he's here----damn him and damn them all to hell!"
"Damning them isn't going to do a bit of g---" Muaado began to say. But then he stopped as a blinking light on the control panel caught his attention. "Incoming hail from the Prennial," he said.
"Took them long enough!" Cartagia fairly shouted.
"Will you simmer down?" Anon said in exasperation. "If we're in communication with them and Turhi hears your bellowing, that's going to be the end of that!"
With effort, Cartagia brought himself under control as Muaado answered the hail. "We were starting to wonder, Prennia."
"Needed to speak we with the Universe," came the deep voice that they knew to be the passenger other than Turhi. "What be present emergency status yours? Can you survive how long aboard your ship?"
Cartagia was gesturing that Muaado should lie, but Muaado was quite sure that wasn't the way to go. He believed in all the reasons that he'd put forward to Cartagia, and there was one other element as well: If Turhi was aboard the Prennia, not all the hosts of hell would get him to depart without his sister by his side.
"Lie!" Cartagia hissed in a very low voice. "They're going to leave if we don't!" And the way his fist was cleaning and unclenching told Muaado a very disturbing truth: namely, that if unanswered the question from the Prennia accurately and then the shuttle craft turned and left for the mothership. Muaado would very likely not live out the hour. Not given the mood that Cartagia was presently in.
But he felt he had to trust his instincts, and on that basis, he said, "Life-support systems are presently holding together. Our main problem is in engineering; our propulsion systems are out. Our batteries are running down and we likely couldn't survive indefinitely, but for the immediate future, the danger level is tolerable."
There was a silence that seemed infinitely long, and Muaado could practically hear his life span shortening. But then the voice said, "Prennia here. Permission with, come aboard we will, give aid whatever can we, as wait we for the Universe rendezvous with us to. Be acceptable that?"
"Yes. Absolutely acceptable," said Muaado, relief flooding through him. Behind him he could see Cartagia nodding in approval.
"One thing more just....?"
"Yes, Prennia?"
"Put please passenger Ovidia called with us on. Brother would speak to her like to."
"Uhm...." Suddenly sweat began to bead on Muaado's pale forehead, his grimacing white teeth gleaming equally white upon his face. "Just one moment, please." He switched off the comm channel and then turned to Cartagia. "Now what?"
"Now?" Cartagia smiled. "Now---we give them what they wanted."678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKKleFMNg4K
Turhi stared in confusion at Jakar Thul. "Why did you ask them to put Ovidia on?"678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡutyf2lR0hd
"Because," Thul said slowly, deliberately----which was more or less how he said everything----"being cautious am I. My job it is for everyone aboard Universe to watch out for. Includes that even those who have business none to be there at all."
"I appreciate the thought."
"Not do. Noted as: My job is." He paused. "Know your sister's voice would you if heard it did you?"
"Of course." He waited for a response, but none seemed to be immediately in evidence. Concern began to grow inside of him. "You don't think there's a problem, do you?"
"Think I always problem there is," replied Thul. "Time and lives saved can be." He checked his instruments. "Life support systems stable seem they. Pity. Lied about that they would have known I. More subtle trap could be this."
"Or perhaps they're truly in distress. But then.....why hasn't Ovidia come on.....?" It was a disturbing thought. He'd simply taken for granted that his sister was truly a passenger on the science vessel. The notion that she might not be was agonizing for him. To have his hopes raised and then dashed in a such a manner....
But even more disturbing, he realized, was the concept that he hadn't questioned it for one moment. One did not acquire or maintain power by being easily fooled. Had he let his love for his sister, his desire to try and reconstruct some semblance of his former life, completely blind him to all caution? That was a very, very dangerous mind-set to have.
And then a girlish voice came over the comm system. "Vito?" it said.
Turhi came close to knocking Thul aside----or as close as one can come to budging someone who is essentially a walking mountain of granite. "O?" he practically shouted.
"Vito, is that you?"
"Yes---yes it is----O, everything's going to be all right...."
"I'm so glad to hear your voice, Vito...."
Turhi felt himself choking with relief, but then Thul said in a sharp whisper, "Something only she would know you must ask."
"What?" He seemed to have trouble focusing, which of course bugged the hell out of Thul.
"Something only....." Then Turhi understood. "Ask her something only she would know. Of course!"
Slowly, Turhi nodded. "O.....remember that time? That time shortly before we had to leave? Remember that? When I said that I would always be there for you? Remember, when we spoke at our special place?"
There was a short hesitation, one that made Turhi wonder ever so briefly, and then her voice said, "You mean that time by the Forgotten Shrine? That?"
He closed his eyes and nodded. Ovidia, meanwhile, naturally couldn't see him as he continued: "Vito? Is that what you're talking about?"
"Yes, that's it."
"Why do you want to know about that?"
"Just being careful. You understand. These days we can't be too careful." He looked triumphantly at Thul, who merely grunted and edged the ship forward toward the Ilhiolcian Eagle.
"Okay, Turhi. I'll see you soon." And the connection broke off.
And the moment that happened, Thul brought the ship to a dead halt in space. Turhi was immediately aware of it. "What're you doing?" he demanded.
Jakar Thul turned in his chair. "Like it I not do."
"What?"
"Say I like it I not do."
Turhi appeared ready to explode. His body was trembling with repressed fury. "Now, you listen to me," he said sharply. "I know what this is all about."
"Know you for true?" asked Thul, unimpressed by Turhi's ire.
"It's not enough that you continue to resent me, or deny me my right to be aboard the Universe. But now---now you'd hurt a young girl whom you've never met---who's never done anything to you...."
"To be a prince must nice be," Thul said evenly, "to know everything about everything there is to know." Then he glanced at the control board. "They hailing us be."
"Of course they are! They're wondering what's going on." Turhi came around his seat and confronted Thul, fury building. "They have no idea that a resentful Malon is endeavoring to make my life impossible!"
Thul ignored him, instead bringing the hail on line. He began to say, "Prennia this be," but he wasn't even able to get that much about before an upset voice said without preamble, "Why are you backing off?"
"To our vessel returning we be," Thul said flatly. "Situation come to our attention has. Prennia out." And with that he severed the connection."
"What are you hoping to accomplish?" demanded Turhi.
"Being cautious I."
"The hell you are. This is all part of your attempt to upset me, to interfere with...."
Unperturbed, the Malon cut him off with a terse "Solar system revolves around you it does not. Not like I she severed communications with us. A young woman were I, with my brother who might have been dead for all I knew would I keep talking to him until aboard was he. Connection shut down I would not as if were afraid he would figure out imposter I was."
"That is...."
And then a light began to flash on the control panel, a sharp warning beep catching their attention. Thul immediately began to bring the ship around as Turhi demanded, "What's happening?"
"Being targeted we. To fire on us are going to they."
"To---what?!"
Turhi looked out the main window, catching a glimpse of the Ilhiolcian Eagle as the shuttlecraft started to angle away from it. A motion on the aft section caught his attention. Despite their distance, his eyesight was formidable and he zeroed in with impressive visual acuity. What he saw were two gunports opening, and twin heavy-duty phaser cannons snapped into view. And the last thing he saw before their view of the science ship was cut off was the muzzles of the cannon flaring to life.
"Yourself prepare!" shouted Thul. "Trying to bring warp drive online I am before....."
He didn't have time to finish the sentence before the Prennia was struck amidships by the phaser cannons. The runabout spiraled out of control as Thul fought to regain control of the battered ship. To his credit, he never lost his cool. Indeed, it might not have been within his makeup to become disconcerted.
Thul was not strapped into his chair. As a result, he was tossed around the interior of the cabin, reaching out desperately to try and grab hold of something, anything, to halt himself. He crashed against one wall and felt something in his shoulder give way.
Sparks flew out of the front console as Thul tried to institute damage procedures. The shuttlecraft was rocked again, and Thul shouted, "Abandon ship we must!"
"What?!" Thul was on his back, looking around, stunned and confused.
There was a gash in Turhi's head which Thul hoped wasn't as bad as it looked. It wasn't going to look good on his service record if he'd left with a live passenger and returned with a corpse. The notion that the status of his record might be utterly moot didn't enter into his considerations. He was not ready to admit that as a possibility. "Down are warp engines. Targets perfect we be out here. Assume we must that keep shooting they will until to pieces they blow us."
"Why are they doing this?"
"Why? You want to kill they. Lucky bystander simply am I." He grabbed Turhi by the arm and Turhi howled in such as agony that Thul quickly released him. He knew he hadn't pulled on Turhi with any force; the mere movement of the arm had been sufficient to elicit the screams, and he realized that Turhi's arm was injured. "Rise!" he said, urgency entering his voice for the first time. "Go we must!"
"Go where?"
"There!" Thul stabbed a finger in the general direction of the science vessel that they had come to aid. Turhi was staggering to his feet and Thul grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, which somehow seemed a less injurious place to hold him. He propelled him toward the two-being transporter nestled in the shuttlecraft's cockpit.
Fire was starting to consume the main console, smoke filling up the shuttlecraft's interior. Moving with surprising dexterity considering their size, the Malon's fingers yanked out a small panel from the wall next to the transporter, revealing a red button which he immediately punched. It was as failsafe device, provided for a situation precisely like this one, where voice recognition circuitry was failing and setting coordinates through the main console was an impossibility.
The emergency evacuation procedure was activated, an automatic five-second delay kicking in, providing Thul and Turhi that much time to step onto the transporter pads. Turhi was nursing his injured shoulder as Thul half pushed, half pulled him onto the pads and hoped that they actually had five seconds remaining to them.
The transporter automatically surveyed their immediate environment, and locked onto the first, nearest destination that would enable them to survive. And an instant later, Vito Turhi's and Jakar Thul's bodies dissipated as the miraculous transporter beams kicked in, sending their molecules hurtling through the darkness of space to be reassembled in the place that was their only hope for survival: the science vessel Ilhiolcian Eagle. The vessel which had assaulted them, and now provided their only chance to live----if only for a few more minutes, at best.
When Cartagia saw the Prennia backing away, he started to tremble with fury. "Where are they going? We gave them what they wanted. Turhi spoke to his sister. Get them back here!" And he cuffed Muaado on the side of the head. "Get them back!"678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrwaCWIe7vg
Muaado barely felt the physical abuse. He was too concerned with the Prennia suddenly moving away from the station, as if they had tumbled to the trick. More on point, he was concerned with how Cartagia was going to react, and what exactly Cartagia might do to vent his displeasure. Hailing the shuttlcraft, he tried to control the growing franticness he was feeling as he asked, "Why are you backing off?"
From the shuttlecraft there came nothing more than a brief, to-the-point response: "Returning to our vessel we are. Come to our attention has a situation. Prennial out."
"They know! They know!" roared Cartagia.
Muaado's mind raced as he tried to determine the accuracy of the assessment. "I---I don't think they do. Suspect, I'm sure, but they don't know. They want to see what we'll do. If we're just cautious......"
"If we're caution, then they're gone!"
"We don't know that for sure! Cartagia, listen to me---!"
But listening was the last thing that Cartagia had in mind. Instead, with a full-throated roar of anger, the powerfully-built Centauri knocked Muaado out of his seat. Muaado hit the floor with a yelp as Cartagia dropped down at the command console. "Get away from there, Cartagia!" Muaado cried out.
"Shut up! You're afraid to do what must be done!" Even as he spoke, Cartagia quickly manipulated the controls.
"I'm not afraid! But this isn't necessary! It's a mistake!"
"It's my decision, not yours! You're lucky I haven't killed you already for your incompetence. And if the phaser cannons you rigged up don't perform as you promised...."
But the need to complete the threat didn't materialize, for the phaser cannons dropped obediently into position, even as their targeting sights locked onto the Prennia.
"In the name of all those whom you abused, Vito Turhi----vengeance!" snarled Cartagia as he triggered the firing command.
The phaser cannons let loose, both scoring direct hits, and the cries of triumph from the half-dozen Centauri in the control room was deafening. Actually, only five of them cheered; Muaado pulled himself to sitting, rubbing the side of his head where Cartagia had struck him. "This isn't necessary," he said again, but he might as well have been speaking to an empty room.
The shuttlecraft was pounded by the phaser cannons, helpless before the onslaught. The Centauri cheered every shot, overjoyed by Cartagia's marksmanship. Even an annoyed Muaado had to admit that, for all his faults, Cartagia was a good shot. Of course, having computers do all the work certainly helped.
"Hit them again," crowed Drego, the shortest, and yet, when the mood suited him, loudest of the Centauri. Drego never voiced an opinion until he was absolutely positive about how a situation was going to go, at which point he supported the prevailing opinion with such forcefulness that it was easy to forget that he hadn't expressed a preference one way or the other until then. "You've got them cold, Cartagia!"
Cartagia fired again, this time missing the shuttlecraft with one phaser cannon but still striking it solidly with the other.
But as Cartagia gleefully celebrated his marksmanship, Muaado commented dryly, "What happened to having Turhi's throat in your hands, enabling you to crush the life out of him?"
The observation brought Cartagia up short for a moment. "If you had done your job better, I might have had that chance," he said, but it seemed a hollow comeback. The truth was that Muaado's statement had taken some of the joy out of Cartagia's moment of triumph. Granted he'd won, but it wasn't in the way he would've liked.
And then a flash consumed the screen as the shuttlecraft erupted into a ball of flame. Automatically the Centauri flinched, as if the explosions posed a threat to them. Within mere seconds the flame naturally burned itself out, having no air in the vacuum of space to feed it. The fragments of the vessel, which had been the Prennia spun away harmlessly, the twisted scraps of duranium composites no longer recognizable as anything other than bits of metal.
"Burn in hell, Turhi," Cartagia said after a long moment. The others, as always, nodded in agreement.
Only Muaado did not join in the self-congratulations. Instead he was busy checking the instrumentation on an adjoining console. "What are you doing?" asked Cartagia after a moment.
"Scanning the debris," Muaado informed him.
"Why?" said Drego, making no effort to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Are you worried they still pose a threat?"
"Maybe they do at that."
The pronouncement was greeted with contemptuous guffaws until Muaado added, "They weren't aboard the shuttlecraft."
"What?!" The comment immediately galvanized Cartagia. "What are you talking about? Are you positive? It's impossible."
"It's not impossible, and they weren't there," Muaado said with increasing confidence. "There's no sign of them among the debris. I wouldn't expect to find any bodies intact----not with the force of that explosion. But there should be something organic among the wreckage. I'm not detecting anything except pieces from the shuttlecraft."
"Are you saying they were never aboard? That it was some kind of trick?" Cartagia's anger was growing by the minute.678Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5TVVqC9XRP
"That's a possibility, but I don't think so. If they were never at risk, then they went to a great deal of trouble to try and force our hand. But here is a thought: Some of the Space Federation shuttles come equipped with transporter pads."
"You think they may have evacuated before the ship blew up."
"Yes."
"But the only place they could've gone to is....." And then the growing realization brought a smile to his face. ".....here. Here, aboard the ship."
Muaado nodded.
Beaming with pleasure, Cartagia clapped a hand on Muaado's back. "Excellent. Excellent work." Muaado let out a brief sigh of relief as Cartagia turned to the others and said briskly, "All right, my friends. Somewhere in this vessel, Lord Turhi and his associate, Lieutenant Thul, are hiding. Let's flush them out...and give our former prince the royal treatment he so richly deserves."
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