STAR TREK - SCE - 11 - Ambush

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Other eBooks in the Star Trek Starfleet Corps of Engineers series from Pocket Books

1 The Belly of the Beast by Dean Wesley Smith

2 Fatal Error by Keith R.A. DeCandido

3 Hard Crash by Christie Golden

4 Interphase Book 1 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

5 Interphase Book 2 by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore

6 Cold Fusion by Keith R.A. DeCandido

7 Invincible Book 1 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido

8 Invincible Book 2 by David Mack & Keith R.A. DeCandido

9 The Riddled Post by Aaron Rosenberg

10 Gateways Epilogue Here There Be Monsters by Keith R.A. DeCandido

11 Ambush by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur

coming soon

12 Some Assembly Required by Scott Ciencin & Dan Jolley

13 Caveat Emptor by Ian Edgington

Star Trek S.C.E.

11 Ambush

by Dave Galanter & Greg Brodeur

14,800 words

CHAPTER ONE

"Arrrrrgh!" Christian Basile pulled back his freshly bleeding hand. He gritted his teeth and protectively

pulled his wrist toward his chest.

"What happened?" Maria came running up the stone corridor. "What did you do?"

Christian grunted. "I was trying to seal a coupling and my hand slipped. The damn backup generator was

down again. I got 'er going but-at a cost." He tentatively showed her his blood-covered hand.

"Oh, my." Maria's eyes widened at the sight of the gash on her husband's hand. She took off her scarf

and wrapped it tightly around his palm and the base of his fingers. "We need to let the doctor see that."

He shook his head. "Later. Now that the backup is online again I want to make sure she stays that way."

With his good hand Christian pulled a tricorder from his overalls and flipped it open.

As it chirped alive, Maria took the tricorder from him and put it in the back pocket of her work belt.

"You're going to see the doctor."

He ignored her and pushed passed to the computer console at her left. "I think-" He made the mistake of

touching the control board with his bad hand. "Arrgh!"

"Don't do that!" She rushed forward and pulled his arm back.

"Excellent advice," he said through clenched teeth, but had finished pulling up the data he needed. "I think

we're going to be okay for a while."

Maria tentatively guided him toward the center of the mining complex. "Until it breaks down again."

"Yes, until then." He shook his head and let her guide him. "She's a finicky one."

He sensed playfulness in Maria's mock-frown. "Why do you keep calling it a she?" she asked.

"Because she has me up at all hours tending to her every need, and I spend the longest time trying to

please her, only to get a tiny bit of happiness in return. She's the definition of 'high maintenance.' What

else could she be, but a she?"

Maria groaned. "That's mind-numbingly sexist."

"It's the Ferengi in me," he said, chuckling.

"You're from Alpha Centauri," she reminded him unnecessarily. "Not a very sexist culture. And you do

not have any Ferengi in you."

"You said you'd never hold my small lobes against me."

She laughed. "Listen to me and get this straight," she said, stopping them both and pulling him to her. "If

lobe size mattered, I'd never have married you in the first place." She kissed him.

"I know," he said around the kiss.

"I know you know," she mumbled, touching his lips, then his chin, then his cheek.

"So . . . you don't really think I'm a sexist?" By now he'd mostly forgotten his throbbing hand. He kissed

her again.

Maria pulled back just long enough to answer. "You don't taste like a sexist."

"Neither do you," he mumbled, then grunted in pain-she had pressed against his hand.

Her brows knitting, she gasped and saw her scarf was now soaked with blood. "We have to get that

looked at."

He nodded and they continued walking. "I'm hoping the doctor recommends bed rest," he said, and

winked at her.

"You're hoping bed, but not rest."

"Yes, I-"

A chirping alert from the tricorder cut off his thought and he quickly stopped to check it, pulling it clumsily

from Maria's belt.

"It's the backup generator again." Closing the tricorder, he handed it back to her. "Something else this

time. How are we on batteries?"

Maria sighed and brushed a strand of dark hair from her eyes. He loved her hair, her olive skin . . . he

should be thinking of the reactor.

"Last I checked we had forty-three percent charge."

"I wish we could increase the rate of charge," he said, "but I think we'd blow the circuits again."

"Can you fix the new problem? What is it?"

"Overload because the mix isn't clean on the reactor. I'm going to fiddle with the mix again and reset."

"Of course." She nodded. "Do you need-?"

"A hand?" He raised his bad paw but shook his head. "Tell the doctor I'll stop by the infirmary when I'm

done."

She nodded. He could tell she didn't like letting him work on the generator before seeing the doctor, but

she also knew how important it was to keep power running on a class-D planetoid.

"I'll let people know the power will be back soon."

"And see if you can reach the da Vinci again," Christian added as he trudged back toward the reactor

section. "We've got to get the replacement parts, or we're all going to freeze . . . if we don't suffocate

first."

"We'll keep it together," she said encouragingly. "And they'll be here soon."

"Shields!" Captain Gold bellowed from the command chair just as the first volley of phaser fire crackled

across the da Vinci's bow. "Red alert."

"They're coming around again," McAllan called from tactical.

Gold nodded. "All hands, battle stations. Evasive action, Wong." He gestured to ops. "Ina, try to hail

them."

"They're jamming all the channels, sir," Lieutenant Ina Mar replied.

"Did our message to Starfleet make it out?" Gold asked.

Ina shook her head. "I'm not sure, Captain."

McAllan huffed out a frustrated breath. "Let's hope so. I'm reading two more ships coming in."

"Who the hell are they?" Gold barked.

"Checking configuration." David McAllan's voice was unwavering in the heat of the battle. "Mid-size

cruiser . . . design used by the Munqu. We have a file on them, but I've never seen one."

An explosion rattled the bridge and sent a shudder up everyone's spine.

"Well, now you have," Gold said. "With this reception, I could have waited."

"Battle stations! All hands, battle stations! First officer, report to the bridge!" Not a call often heard on

the da Vinci, Sonya Gomez thought as she hurried to the turbolift. Battle stations? Who'd be attacking

us? Starfleet Corps of Engineers ships weren't usually called into battle-hers was the type of ship that

went in after a battle, to clean up the mess left behind.

The turbolift doors opened to a much more chaotic bridge than Gomez was used to seeing. An aft

console looked like so much slag and one of Chief Engineer Barnak's noncoms was already working on

it. Saber-class ships had cramped bridges to begin with, but for some reason, with the red lights of their

alert status blinking and the burned-out console, it felt even more claustrophobic. Like most Starfleet

vessels, the da Vinci had a circular two-level bridge, with the captain's chair in the center on the lower

level, the conn and ops positions right in front of him, tactical right behind him, and various science and

engineering stations lining the wall, broken only by the turbolift to the captain's left, a door to the captain's

right, and the viewscreen right in front of him.

That viewscreen presently showed what looked to Gomez like a Munqu ship firing on them.

"I thought the Munqu were pretty reclusive. Why are they attacking?"

"They seem to be coming out of their shell," Gold deadpanned as another aft console exploded and they

both cringed just the slightest bit.

"Do we know what they want?"

"They're jamming communications," Ina offered.

"We might have gotten a call out to Starfleet, but I'm not counting on it," Gold told Gomez.

It made no sense. Who attacks such a small ship with a crew of mostly technical experts for no reason?

The da Vinci was on a fairly simple mission to restock a mining colony and transport a mineral important

to cure a Horta plague on Janus IV. Not exactly a covert mission to steal new cloaking technology or

repair the engines of a disabled dilithium cargo freighter.

"Sir," McAllan called, "shields are down to forty-seven percent. We seem to be more maneuverable, but

they're packing more of a punch."

"Do we have any data on these ships?" Gomez asked. "Weak spots?"

McAllan shook his head. "Only what we're scanning now. There's nothing but the basics in the database."

Gomez tapped her combadge. "Abramowitz, report to the bridge."

Gold nodded. "Good call."

Grunting as he pushed the ship this way and that, Ensign Songmin Wong spoke from the conn station.

"Sir, I think they're trying to disable us. Multiple shots at our port nacelle, where the shields are weakest."

"Is this about our mission?" Gold thought aloud. "Why would the Munqu want to keep us from the Beta

Argola colony? It's the smallest of mining operations."

"I was wondering the same. All I can think of is that we're stocked to the struts with mining equipment,"

Gomez said. "If they've scanned that, maybe they want it."

"Badly enough to attack a Federation starship?" Yet another explosion racked the bridge, and Gold

frowned at Wong. "Ensign, 'evasive' means evade."

Nervously, Wong struggled with his console. "Aye, sir."

Cultural specialist Carol Abramowitz entered the bridge and began to ask what was happening. With a

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