BATTLE LINES by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur

Author:Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 1999-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

“WHAT’S THE STUN SETTING ON THIS?” PARIS LIFTED THE weapon, gesturing with it. Stith-ta gazed at it almost longingly. He’d gone from the man in charge, with four guards securing more than four dozen Voyager refugees—to the man held captive, his four guards dead.

Paris fingered the setting dial, spinning it to one end. “Is this the lowest?”

The Gimlon commander was silent, his eyes twitching again, a grayish bruise forming on his chin and spreading to his cheek. He was scared. And Paris liked that.

“You will be dead soon,” Stith-ta said, still coveting the rifle, his threat sounding hollow.

Paris almost hoped the Gimlon coward would make a grab for the rifle so he could get clubbed again.

“Maybe I just don’t need the stun setting for you,” Paris said. He wanted to poke the barrel of the disruptor into the Gimlon’s chest and knock him over. Stith-ta had ordered Chakotay’s death—now he deserved to die as well.

“Chen,” Paris called. “Get up here.” He had to get away from the gutless murderer and he backed away as far as he could without falling from the small pedestal.

Chen quickly bounded up to join them, looking refreshed and recovered. Youth . . . Paris had that once, and not too long ago. Lately he was feeling very Old. Chakotay . . . all the Edesians on the transport . . . all dead. That would age anyone.

It had become obvious who the real villains were in this conflict. The Gimlon were ruthless. The Edesians had treated the Starfleeters with relative kindness, considering the circumstances. Maybe that was only part of the story, but certainly it was enough to make Paris no longer care if Stith-ta lived or died,

“Search him,” Paris ordered Chen, gesturing to the Gimlon commander. “Carefully.”

Nodding, Chen approached the Gimlon slowly, his expression apprehensive. As the young ensign patted down his subject, Paris wished he knew for sure if there was a stun setting on the rifle. He’d have liked to stun Stith-ta and then search him for weapons or communications devices.

“You’re lucky,” Paris said, his voice so hard it somewhat surprised even him. “If I didn’t think I might need you, you’d probably be dead now.”

Stith-ta said nothing as Chen finished frisking him. The young ensign had come up empty, and shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing, sir.”

Paris nodded, but decided the search had been too cursory and superficial, and he wasn’t satisfied. Chen was from Engineering, not Security.

Neither was Paris, but he’d been searched enough times to know how it should be done.

“We want communications equipment,” he told Stith-ta.

The Gimlon commander smirked his nervous smirk. “I will spit on your corpse—if anything is left after you’ve been killed.”

“Trying to convince me or yourself?” Paris stroked the rifle’s trigger with his index finger, ready to fire.

Then again—they were on Stith-ta’s ship, and the Gimlon seemed to combine the worst attributes of the Romulans and the Cardassians, and with more than a little Colonel Greene thrown in.

“Everyone spread out!” Paris spun toward the door through which they’d taken Chakotay.

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