The Sky's The Limit Part 3

"Doctor!"

Crusher turned away from Weglash, who after nearly three hours had just begun to show positive response to the correctly synthesized vapors he now was breathing, toward the new call of alarm. She saw one of Daret's a.s.sistants turning T'Lan's head to one side as foamy vomit sputtered from the Vulcan's mouth.

"She's seizing," Crusher said, rushing to T'Lan's side and using her fingers to clear the quivering woman's airway. Eyeing the portable diagnostic scanner positioned at the head of her bed, she shook her head. "The swelling in her brain isn't subsiding. d.a.m.n!"

"I thought your drugs were working," said Daret from where he stood next to Commander Spires, who remained unconscious and who, despite the loss of both legs as well as his right arm, was currently the most stable of the three patients.

"The cortical regenerator isn't stabilizing her like I'd hoped," Crusher said as she grabbed a hypospray and pressed it to T'Lan's neck. Within moments, the Vulcan's spasms subsided, but Crusher knew it was a temporary respite. Until she could arrest the swelling of T'Lan's brain tissue, she did not dare risk merely tossing the woman into a stasis unit. "As much as I hate the idea, Ialona, we're going to have to drain the excess fluid physically. I'll have to bore into her skull." The very idea turned her stomach. Such procedures had long ago fallen out of everyday use, thanks to modern technological advances, but when those seemingly miraculous methods failed, even obsolete practices still proved useful.

Crossing the infirmary floor, Daret said, "I'm more accustomed to such a procedure than you are. Let me help."

Crusher nodded. "Absolutely. I'll need your help pinpointing where to drill." Handing him a medical tricorder, she added, "You can guide me through the subarachnoid s.p.a.ce with this."

Sudden movement at the infirmary door caught Crusher's eye, and she turned to see Gul Edal enter at a brisk pace. "How are things progressing, Doctor?" he asked, maintaining a respectful distance from the operating table. Crusher could not help but notice the tinge of anxiety in his voice.

"This isn't a good time," she snapped, returning her attention to T'Lan. "We may lose her if we don't act quickly."

"My concern, Doctor," Edal said, "is that each of you may be at greater risk than you realize. I suggest you do what you can to get everyone aboard your shuttle and out of here as quickly as possible."

Crusher sensed the warning underlying the Carda.s.sian's words, but there was nothing to be done about that now. "I can't move her until she's stabilized."

Edal shook his head. "Doctor, I don't think you appreciate the gravity of the situation. If you choose to remain here, I don't know that I can guarantee your safety."

"It's not a wager I'd make."

The new voice came from behind Edal, and Crusher recognized it as belonging to Malir. Looking past the gul, she saw his second-in-command flanked by a pair of guards-each of them holding weapons to Edal's back.

Edal turned to face Malir. "And what is this?"

"Consider it my refusal to stand by and watch you subvert Central Command's authority," Malir replied. "I'm taking command of the Kovmar and placing you and everyone in this room under arrest."

"On what grounds?" Edal asked.

"Dereliction of duty with respect to the treatment of spies and prisoners of war," the glinn answered. "You've had ample opportunity to take the correct course of action, but instead you've chosen to follow this other path. That cannot be allowed to go unchallenged."

"The crew will never support this," Edal warned.

Malir smiled. "I think you'll find that a sufficient number of the crew are behind me. After all, they have no desire to be executed as traitors, as their commander will be."

Crusher exchanged looks with Yar, and she noted the way the lieutenant's body seemed to tense in antic.i.p.ation. She mouthed a silent no to her, hoping to keep Yar out of the deteriorating situation. Beneath Crusher's hands, Lieutenant T'Lan still demanded her attention.

We don't have time for this idiocy!

Then everything went to h.e.l.l as Edal made the choice for everyone in the room.

With no warning, he lunged for Malir's disruptor. Malir was faster, swinging his sidearm toward the gul and firing. The weapon's discharge howled in the infirmary's confines as the violet energy bolt struck Edal in the midsection, and he fell backward to the deck with a heavy thud.

"No!" Crusher shouted as Daret rushed to the fallen Carda.s.sian's side. "Not in here!" By then it was too late, as Yar took advantage of one guard's distraction. Lashing out with her right foot, she kicked the guard in his throat, forcing him back as he coughed and sputtered. The lieutenant followed that vicious strike with an elbow to the side of his head, dropping him to the deck where he released his grip on his disruptor. Yar wasted no time, scooping up the weapon and firing toward the already retreating Malir.

Finding himself in the middle of a firefight, the other guard was confused, and he hesitated. Crusher saw the look in his eyes as he backpedaled away from the melee, the muzzle of his weapon swinging dangerously close to where Commander Spires lay defenseless even as he came abreast of her and seized her forearm in a tight grip. Without thinking, Crusher thumbed the exoscalpel in her hand to its highest setting and aimed it at the guard's weapon hand.

The guard shrieked in pain, dropping his disruptor and releasing his hold on Crusher to clutch his wounded hand. He staggered away from the doctor and Crusher again heard weapons fire as Yar targeted the guard with her own disruptor, the energy pulse striking the Carda.s.sian in the chest and pushing him into a freestanding surgical tray. Instruments and other equipment scattered as he fell unconscious to the deck.

More shots echoed in the infirmary and Crusher glimpsed Malir crouching near the door. When Yar swung her weapon in his direction and loosed another barrage, the glinn pushed the control to open the door and scrambled outside in search of cover.

"Seal the room!" Daret yelled from where he knelt next to Edal. "That large orange b.u.t.ton near the door. It will initiate a containment field around the entire infirmary!"

Yar slammed the large oval b.u.t.ton with the heel of her hand, and an adjacent indicator illuminated at the same time a low-resonance hum flared into existence. "Quarantine procedures are now in effect," said the monotone voice of the Kovmar's...o...b..ard computer. "Entry to infirmary restricted to medical personnel only."

"That won't hold Malir for long," Daret said, "but it will give us some time." He rolled Edal onto his back, and for the first time Crusher could see the ghastly wound in the gul's left side.

"Doctor," she heard Edal say in a weak voice. "You...alert...crew."

Grunting something Crusher did not understand, Daret rushed to a control panel and smacked it with his fist. "This is Doctor Daret to all hands. Glinn Malir has just tried to murder Gul Edal. He intends to take over the ship. All personnel to duty stations. Malir must be apprehended at once!" Deactivating the communications panel, Daret shook his head. "Enough of that."

"What will they do?" Crusher asked.

"It depends on how many of the crew Malir has convinced to follow him," Daret replied. "I have no idea what to expect." He shook his head. "This is my fault. I should never have brought you into this."

"Too late for that now," Crusher said. Still hovering over T'Lan, her attention split between her own patient and the one Daret now served, she nodded toward Edal. "How is he?"

"He's dying," Daret replied. "The disruptor ruptured his mulana. The organ's destroyed. I can keep him alive only a short time without a replacement or a bypa.s.s of some sort, and I don't have that type of equipment here."

Crusher considered the diagnosis. For Yar's benefit, she said, "It functions like a liver in humans. We might have something that can help." She recalled how she had overseen the packing of the cargo containers they had brought with them, instructing her staff to include a number of items as a contingency. "Tasha, on the shuttle is what's called a portable dynamic organ stimulator. You'll have to get it. Transport over and bring it back."

"Understood," Yar replied, nodding.

"Wait," Daret said. "a.s.suming internal security hasn't already blocked your ability to communicate with your shuttle, they will the moment they detect any signal. You may have time for one transport before they react-but that will be all."

Shaking her head, Crusher exhaled in growing irritation. It's always something. "Take him with you," she said. "Treat him aboard the shuttle." Looking to Yar, the doctor was not surprised to see the startled expression on the young lieutenant's face.

"Me?" Yar asked. "I've received only basic medic training." She glanced to Edal's unconscious form. "I can't do this."

"It's a simple process," the doctor countered. "Ialona, go with her. I can talk you through it if necessary, but you need to go now."

Yar seemed to relax, if only slightly, perhaps buoyed by Crusher's crisp, decisive manner. Drawing a deep breath, she offered a single taut nod. "Let's do this," she said, reaching up to tap her combadge. "Yar to shuttlecraft Jefferies. Activate emergency transporter and lock on." Kneeling beside Edal, she looked to Crusher, who turned toward her and offered an encouraging smile.

There was a brief pause before the feminine voice of the shuttle's...o...b..ard computer replied, "Acknowledged. Transporter standing by."

Yar waited for Daret to indicate that he had deactivated the quarantine fields surrounding the infirmary before nodding to Crusher one last time. "Three to beam to the Jefferies," she said, gripping her purloined disruptor pistol in her right hand. "Energize."

"Good luck," Crusher offered as the transporter beam enveloped Yar, Daret, and Edal and the three of them disappeared, leaving the doctor alone in the infirmary with Daret's a.s.sistants. As one of the nurses reactivated the quarantine procedures, Crusher exhaled in resignation. She was getting too old for this sort of excitement.

"Okay," she said, "let's get on with this."

A shower of transporter energy swept away the Carda.s.sian infirmary, replacing it with the shuttlecraft's cramped interior. The tingle on her skin was still palpable as Yar confirmed that both Daret and the wounded Edal had made the trip with her.

She eyed the shuttle's open door. "Keep a watch out. I'll get the gear," she said, moving toward the bulky cargo container at the rear of the shuttle's pa.s.senger compartment.

Kneeling beside Edal, Daret waved a portable scanner over the unconscious Carda.s.sian's chest. "There's not much time," he said. "We must hurry."

"There should be a portable sterile field generator in there, as well," Crusher said, her voice distant and washed out as it was filtered through Yar's combadge. "Once Ialona's ready, place it on either side of Edal's torso. The field should cover his entire upper body."

"I've got it," Yar said after a moment, gripping the generator by its molded carrying handle and extracting it from the container. Handing the device to Daret, she asked, "Do you know how to work this?"

The Carda.s.sian nodded. "Doctor Crusher taught me how to use them on the Sanctuary."

It took Yar an additional minute to locate the organ stimulator, even with Crusher guiding her. "Found it, Doctor," she said, feeling momentary relief at the small victory but knowing the larger battle still lay ahead. "What do we do now?"

"First," Crusher said, "you'll need to..."

Yar flinched as the rest of the doctor's instruction disintegrated into a burst of static erupting from her combadge, the chaotic hiss and pops echoing within the shuttle's cramped interior. "They're jamming our signals."

"They know we're here," Daret replied as he set up the stimulator and activated its start-up diagnostic protocols. "We'll need to be ready."

Nodding, Yar reached for the Carda.s.sian disruptor she had set aside while hunting through the cargo container. Daret's simple statement had spoken volumes; there likely would be no way to know if whoever found them was loyal to Edal or Malir until someone shot at someone else. Though the weight of the weapon in her hand was of some comfort, Yar would have preferred the familiar heft of a Starfleet phaser. A sudden surge of isolation and fear reached out to grip her, a sensation that had been a fact of everyday life on Turkana IV but that also had revisited her on infrequent occasions throughout her adult life, despite her best efforts to bury them beneath training and experience. Clenching her jaw, she felt her muscles tense as she fought back the impulses.

You're not a child. You're supposed to be ready for this kind of thing.

Behind her, Daret had succeeded in activating the organ stimulator and the sterile field generator. She watched as the doctor wielded a laser scalpel over the wounded Edal's stomach. Before her eyes, the Carda.s.sian's thick gray skin parted beneath the scalpel's beam to reveal dense, fibrous muscle tissue. With a dexterity similar to what Yar had earlier seen Crusher exhibit, Daret proceeded with the impromptu surgery, cutting with one hand while the other controlled the removal of excess blood from the incision site as he worked to facilitate connecting Edal to the stimulator and initiating the process of bypa.s.sing the gul's damaged mulana.

"How long?" she asked.

Without looking up, Daret replied, "Just a few moments, a.s.suming he's not too weak to withstand the stress of the bypa.s.s. Regardless, he will require more extensive care if he's to make a complete recovery."

Yar began to ask something else but forgot all of that when she detected movement in her peripheral vision, outside the shuttle. Then harsh violet energy struck the Jefferies's hull just to the left of the open hatch, rocking the small craft.

"Stay down!" she shouted from where she crouched near the hatch, searching among cargo crates, Carda.s.sian shuttlecraft, and other a.s.sorted detritus for the source of the attack. She caught sight of a dark shadow near an open door leading out of the hangar bay and fired more from instinct than training. Instinct was rewarded as her weapon belched energy and the disruptor bolt struck the Carda.s.sian in the chest, driving him to the deck.

More shadows loomed in the corridor beyond the doorway, and Yar fired again, not at the Carda.s.sians this time but instead at the control panel set into the bulkhead near the door. The panel exploded in a shower of sparks and-as she hoped-the hatch promptly closed, blocking any more Carda.s.sians from entering the bay.

Right. As though there's no other way in here.

"Close the hatch!" Daret called out, still engrossed in his treatment of Edal.

"No," Yar replied. "I don't want to give them a chance to surround us." She had no illusions that the Carda.s.sians would let something as simple as a locked hatch keep them from getting into the hangar. They had only minutes before the soldiers regrouped at another point of entry.

Unless she did something to prevent that.

"Computer," she said, rising from her crouch, "once I close the hatch, you're to open it only on my voice authorization or Doctor Daret's. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledged," the shuttle's computer voice replied. "Standing by."

Daret looked up from his field surgery, his eyes wide. "What are you doing?"

"Stay here," she replied. "I'm sealing you in." Bounding down the shuttle's rear ramp to the hangar's metal deck, she turned and gave him a final look. "If you need a.s.sistance, the shuttle's...o...b..ard computer can help you." Before the doctor could respond or protest, Yar hit the control set into a recessed cavity next to the hatch and the ramp began to rise. "I'll be right back," she called out as the shuttle sealed itself, then turned and headed across the hangar bay in search of the other entry points she was certain to find.

a.s.suming they don't just depressurize the whole bay. Though the thought rang in her ears, she doubted Glinn Malir would stoop to such a tactic. If the Carda.s.sian had wanted her or Crusher dead, Yar was sure he would have taken care of it before now. No, she decided, Edal's would-be successor had loftier aspirations in mind, and the capture of two supposedly important Starfleet officers would likely play into achieving those goals.

Good luck with that.

She located a second hatch along the same bulkhead as the one she already had disabled. The door was locked, and she used her disruptor to destroy its control panel. Recalling what she knew of Galor-cla.s.s warships, Yar figured similar hatches would likely be found on the opposite side of the bay. Using the haphazard arrangement of cargo containers and shuttlecraft for cover, she maneuvered around the chamber's perimeter to where she believed she would find the next hatch.

As she moved past stacks of cargo, she felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck just before the shadows to her right shifted. Without thinking, she turned in that direction, her weapon arm coming up but far too late to be of any use. The Carda.s.sian's own muscled arm was slashing down at her and Yar ducked to her left to avoid the knife slicing toward her, feeling the sensation of displaced air as the jagged blade pa.s.sed through the s.p.a.ce just occupied by her head.

There was no time to look for a shot, as Yar heard and felt Malir lumbering after her. Using her free hand to push away from a nearby crate, she threw herself around a corner, bobbing and weaving around the clutter as she fought to gain some maneuvering room.

"There is nowhere to run, human," Malir called out, his voice low and menacing. "We have unfinished business."

It was not the first time Yar had heard such taunts leveled at her. As with the words themselves, the contempt they harbored was also not new, nor was it to be taken lightly. Like the gangs that had chased her throughout much of her childhood, she had no doubt Malir would carry out his implied threats.

Dodging around another cargo container, Yar abruptly found herself in an open section of the hangar deck, with nothing in front of her to provide cover. Then there was no time to consider the tactics of the situation before she heard Malir's heavy footsteps behind her and she turned, once more bringing her disruptor to bear. The Carda.s.sian was too close, his left hand sweeping beneath her arm and slamming into her wrist, ruining her aim and sending the weapon flying from her hand. Backpedaling, Yar brought her hands up and a.s.sumed a defensive stance as Malir regarded her with raw hatred.

"I know you've locked Edal in your shuttle," Malir said, stepping to his left and holding the knife in his right hand low and near his side. "Give him to me, and I'll spare your life along with those of your comrades."

"I'm having a hard time believing that," Yar replied, her attention on the knife and Malir's hips, watching for any hints as to which direction he might move when he elected to attack again. Then he lunged forward and she jumped back, realizing as she stumbled that she had stepped on some kind of thick cabling running across the hangar deck. Yar tried to correct her momentary loss of balance, but it was too late. She staggered over the cabling and landed hard on the deck, feeling the wind forced from her lungs at the same instant Malir made his move, reaching for her with his free hand while bringing the blade around toward her.

With no time to regain her feet, Yar instead kicked out with her right leg, sweeping around and catching Malir behind his left kneecap with sufficient force to drive his leg from beneath him. He stumbled, dropping to his left knee with a distressed grunt. Yar rolled to her side, coming up on one knee and driving the heel of her hand into the Carda.s.sian's nose. She was rewarded with what sounded like cartilage breaking from the force of the strike as Malir howled and reached for his face, his weapon hand slashing more from rage and pain than in any real attempt to hit a target.

He tried to get up but Yar was faster, pulling herself to her feet and loosing another kick, this one to the side of his head. It was enough to drive him to the deck and make him release his grip on the knife, the weapon clattering to the deck. She retrieved the blade just as Malir growled in unrestrained fury and lurched to his feet, outstretched hands grasping for her throat.

Without thinking, Yar stepped into his attack and sank the blade into the soft flesh just above the neckline of his chest armor. Malir's reaction was immediate, his eyes widening in shock and renewed agony, reaching for the knife even as Yar pulled it free. He coughed and spat, blood appearing around the edges of his mouth as his hands moved to the wound in his neck. Staggering backward a few steps, he crashed to the floor of the hangar bay, his muscled body going limp as he lost consciousness.

Panting and feeling the ache of stressed muscles as she fought to bring her breathing back under control, Yar could only stand with her hands on her knees, gripping the huge ugly knife that still dripped with the blood of her adversary. The urge to kill the now helpless Malir was all but overpowering. For the briefest of moments, as she looked upon him and noted his chest rising and falling in a weak rhythm, she saw not a Carda.s.sian soldier but rather one of the countless thugs and tormentors who had pursued her throughout her tortured youth. She had fought several such enemies on Turkana IV, and her memories were haunted by those few instances where she had been forced to kill in defense of her own life.

No, she reminded herself. This isn't that place, and you're not that frightened girl anymore. While it would be so easy to finish Malir, and though she might even be able to rationalize that act after a fashion, Tasha Yar knew that there was at least one person who would never approve, one whose opinion and judgment mattered more to her than those of anyone else in her entire life. Were she to obey every primal instinct currently screaming for vengeance, she was certain she would never again be able to look Jean-Luc Picard in the eye. What would he expect from her, here and now?

Yar sighed as she loosened her grip on Malir's knife, the clatter it made against the deck echoing across the Kovmar's hangar bay.

For the first time in uncounted hours, Crusher allowed the tension to flee her tired muscles, slumping in her seat and making no attempt to keep her worn body from rocking along with the maneuvering of the Jefferies as Yar piloted the craft out of the Kovmar's landing bay and into open s.p.a.ce.

"I hope this isn't the last time we meet, Beverly," said the image of Ialona Daret as displayed on the helm's central viewer. "And when we do, let us both hope it is to celebrate peace between our people."

"I'm looking forward to that, Ialona," Crusher said, offering a weary smile. "Thank you again, for everything."

On the viewer, Daret nodded. "And to you, and Lieutenant Yar. Thanks to you both, Gul Edal will likely make a full recovery, as will Glinn Malir."

Crusher nodded at the prognosis. Though bedridden and weakened from his ordeal, the Kovmar's commander had already dispatched his own thanks to Crusher and Yar. Although brief, Malir's failed mutiny attempt had resulted in several dozen injuries and claimed three lives on board the Carda.s.sian ship. Crusher and Yar both had a.s.sisted Daret in the treatment of the wounded.

"Until that time comes, then," Daret said, nodding, "safe journey, my friends."

"And to you, Ialona," Crusher replied before the communication ended. A moment later, the stars before them stretched to multicolored streaks and Crusher felt a shift in the deck beneath her feet as Yar accelerated the Jefferies to warp speed.

Turning in her seat, the doctor studied the portable monitor that relayed to her the status of the three stasis units, each bearing its precious cargo. Crusher, with Daret's help, had succeeded in stabilizing all three patients for transport until they could receive extensive treatment at a Starfleet medical facility. Commander Spires would receive bionic transplants for the limbs he had lost, but it appeared that Ensign Weglash's lungs would heal on their own and not require replacement. T'Lan would likely have the hardest road to recovery, though Crusher was thankful that extensive brain damage had been avoided.

For the moment at least, there was nothing else Crusher could do except close her eyes and rest.

Who'd have thought this d.a.m.ned chair could feel so comfortable?