Dujonian's Hoard by Michael Jan Friedman

Author:Michael Jan Friedman [Friedman, Michael Jan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 2012-07-13T17:36:38+00:00

Madigoor

FLENARRH SIGHED AND shook his head. “I was hoping,” he said, “that Astellanax would survive this adventure.”

The Captain of the Kalliope nodded. “I was beginning to like him.”

“So was I,” Picard replied. “He was loyal, dependable all the things a first officer should be.”

“He was a warrior,” Hompaq said. “He died as one.”

Picard decided Hompaq’s epitaph was as good as any he could have come up with. Satisfied, he went on with his story.

The Tale

RED ABBY WAS saddened by the Orion’s death that much was clear. But she didn’t let it incapacitate her.

“What about the others?” she inquired.

“Some chose to leave in a shuttle while they could. Those you see elected to stay and effect a rescue.”

Red Abby spared them a glance. There was gratitude in it, spoken without words but sincere nonetheless.

Then she grabbed my arm. “We don’t have much time,” she said, and pulled me in the direction of the next room.

Through the open archway, I could see a shadowy pair of legs lying on the gray, carpeted floor. Unless I was mistaken, they belonged to Gul Ecor. Yet, the last I had seen of the gul, he was accompanied by a contingent of guards.

I turned to Red Abby. “What happened?”

“The lights,” she said, “couldn’t have gone out at a better time.”

She didn’t seem inclined to provide more of an explanation than that. But then, she didn’t have to. I had an imagination.

As I entered the room, I saw that Ecor wasn’t the only one lying there. Two of his guards were sprawled on the floor as well. I didn’t need a medical officer to tell me all three Cardassians were dead.

Red Abby led me across the room to the gul’s workstation, which stood in the starlight cast by an oval-shaped observation port. The workstation would give me access to the warship’s entire command network assuming, of course, that the system was still operational.

Some of the others entered behind us and moved the corpses over to a bulkhead. Perhaps pitched them would be more accurate.

Again, the deck bucked beneath us. Reminded that time was of the essence, I sat down at the chair in front of the workstation, propped my energy rifle against the bulkhead beside me, and got to work. A minute or so later, I found the entry point I was looking for.

It gave me access to not only the ship’s command logs, but its sensor logs as well. I took a moment to scan them, to assemble the pieces of the puzzle. What I learned caused me to exclaim in surprise.

“What is it?” asked Red Abby.

I looked at her. “We’ve been attacked all right and not just by anyone. It seems our adversary is a Romulan warbird C Class.”

Dunwoody cursed. Worf scowled at the mention of the Romulans, for whom he had no great love. After all, they had killed his parents in the now-infamous Khitomer Massacre.

I turned back to the monitor. “The Romulan commander, an individual who identifies himself as Tacanus, claims the Cardassians were trespassing in Romulan space.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.