The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Thirty

The scene in the building housing the city's shield generators can only be described as bedlam. One generator, a huge bottle-shaped thing reaching up through the structure's roof, still spews and sputters from the explosion, contributing more smoke to the already choking interior of the massive building. Multi-colored sparks fly from the gaping hole in its side into the melee that surrounds its base, here starting fires, there disappearing into a denser cloud of smoke like a child's sparkler tossed into a fog bank.

McCoy and O'Connor crouch behind the darkened remains of what were once control consoles. They are cut off from the rest of the sabotage party. That is, if any of the others are still alive and free. McCoy saw two students killed as they rushed a soldier, and one more was casually shot while trying to surrender.

"What now, Lieutenant?" he asks as a phaser bolt, apparently fired at random, evaporates a section of railing behind them.

"If we can, we stay here and quiet until all this sorts itself out," she yells back, her eyes scanning the scene.

There is little danger of being heard over the cacophony around them;"quiet" is a relative term.

"Then we either try to free some of the captives, or, if that's not possible, we carve a path out of here through the soldiers."

She notices him staring at her. "What's the matter, Doctor? Squeamish?"

"No," he says drily. "I'm afraid I was bending the hell out of my Hippocratic oath long before you were born, young lady. I'm just surprised that you're so casual about killing people."

"I'm a security officer."

"Since when does that give you a license to kill? I'm thinking maybe you've been around our blood-thirsty friend too long."

She frowns and turns away.

The racket seems to be dying down. Through the slowly clearing smoke, McCoy can see at least part of the extent of the damage they caused. Ineffectual as the student underground was, it is hard to not do a substantial amount of damage with modern shaped charges.

If we'd only gotten that other generator before the cavalry got here, he thinks ruefully. Maybe they'd given Monty and the others time enough to free the hostages. Maybe.

Around the corner of the console, he sees a soldier roughly cuff a student, sending blood flying in large drops from his mouth.

But at what cost?

He aches to retaliate.

The soldiers have begun the process of evacuating the building, shoving the few captives in front of them. Repair crews stand by outside, waiting to work on the damage. Soldiers are splitting up into teams now to sweep for any others.

"Get ready, Doctor," O'Connor hisses. She adjusts something on her phaser. McCoy is gratified to see that she has changed the setting from "kill" to "heavy stun."

She looks up, sheepish.

" 'At a girl," he says, then motions toward the door. "Right behind you."

They almost make it.

The two soldiers heading their way crumple into a heap before they can even react, though the phaser's whine is sufficient to sound the alarm. McCoy pauses long enough to scoop up one of their rifles, then hurries after O'Connor.

She has run up against another soldier, a grizzled sargent. He bats her phaser from her hand before she can fire, then sneers at her, bringing up his weapon. She whirls, knocks his rifle away with wheel kick, taps the floor with that foot to kill momentum, roundhouse kicks him in the face. He crumples.

Another soldier appears out of the smoke ahead of her, holding a phaser. He looks at her smugly.

But only momentarily. McCoy shoots him. He disappears.

"Damn!" McCoy looks down at the phaser as if it were a traitor. "I should have known they'd be trying to kill us."

"Thanks," Jean shouts, retrieving her phaser.

A tall, wiry woman suddenly steps in front of them as they are almost to the door. McCoy tries to bring his weapon up to hit her with it, but she absently plucks it from his grasp, then brings it down on Jean's arm, forcing her to drop her phaser. He tries to punch her, simultaneously Jean aims a side-kick at her head. She blocks both of them at once.

"Sorry I didn't get here sooner," she says, casually slapping Jean with her open hand. Jean's head flies to the side, and she collapses to the floor. "I've missed all the fun!"

Another damned one of them, McCoy has time to think before she knocks him to the ground.