Star Trek - TNG - Vendetta Read online

to speculate one hell of a lot."

  "No question," said Riker.

  Picard, in the meantime, remained in

  sickbay. He gave up pacing after a short

  time, because it brought to mind the cliche image of the

  expectant father waiting for some sort of word about his

  wife in labor.

  After what seemed an interminable time, Bev

  Crusher emerged from the examining room. If she was

  surprised to see Picard there, she didn't say

  so. Instead, she simply folded her arms and

  announced, "She's fine."

  Picard had finally seated himself but now he

  stood, shoulders squared, posture correct as

  always, ramrod-perfect. He smoothed his

  jacket and said, "What was wrong with her?"

  "You don't understand, Captain. When I say

  she's fine, I mean she's fine. I mean I

  can't find anything wrong with her. I have

  absolutely no idea why she passed out, and

  Deanna's empathic scan doesn't pick up

  anything."

  "Does Guinan know what happened?"

  "If she does, she's not telling me."

  "She'll tell me," Picard said firmly,

  and headed for the examining room.

  He entered and saw Guinan standing next to the

  table, looking calm and self-contained. She was just

  adjusting her headgear. Nearby sat Deanna

  Troi, looking quite distracted, and Picard

  noticed it immediately. But first he turned his

  attention to his Ten-Forward hostess as he said,

  "How are you feeling?"

  "Fit," she said. There was something in her voice

  --a hint of that distractedness that Riker had

  indicated typified her mood before she had passed

  out. But it didn't seem especially drastic.

  "Fit and well. I'm probably just overworked."

  "You do seem to spend every waking hour in

  Ten-Forward, Guinan," allowed Picard.

  "Even for one of your ... special gifts ...

  that seems a bit extreme. Still ... do you have

  any other explanation for your sudden faintness?"

  "Nothing comes to mind," she said.

  For the briefest of moments he thought Guinan was

  keeping something from him. But that would mean she was lying,

  and there was no way in this cosmos that he was going

  to accept the notion that Guinan would lie to him. He

  would just as readily believe that the Federation was

  actually a front set up by the Romulans.

  Or that all of space travel was actually a

  huge case of collective mass hysteria on

  the part of the human race, and mankind was

  still mucking around on the planet Earth.

  Still ...

  "Does the word Vendor mean anything to you?"

  She appeared to give it some thought, and then she

  s hook her head. "No special significance

  other than the obvious."

  He regarded her with a feeling that was alien when it

  came to Guinan--suspicion. Not suspicion

  that she was keeping something from him, but that--bizarre as

  it sounded--she was keeping something from herself.

  Picard was far from satisfied. "Guinan, do you

  have any idea at all what could have caused that

  sudden weakness? It's so unlike you."

  She frowned. "The only thing I can think of,"

  and she slid off the examining table as she spoke,

  "is that it has something to do with others of my race.

  We are sensitive to each others' moods. If

  there was something happening, something that affected us ..."

  "I thought your people had been scattered after the

  Borg attack," said Troi.

  Guinan afforded her a brief glance.

  "Scattered, Counselor. Never separated."

  She turned back to Picard. "An overwhelming

  feeling, Captain. I can't be more specific

  than that, if that's what it is, in fact. As

  soon as I know more, you will too."

  She started for the door, and then Picard stopped

  her with a simple question "Is it the Borg?"

  She looked back at him over her shoulder, and

  Picard might have been imagining it, but he thought a

  brief shudder passed through her.

  "Bet on it," she said.

  The four Ferengi materialized in the main

  corridor of the center Borg ship. There had been

  nothing really to distinguish one ship from the other. Just

  an arbitrary decision on Turane's part.

  The landing party was puzzled by what they saw.

  Corridors that seemed to go on forever, an

  incredible labyrinth that didn't seem to have been

  designed so much as having organically grown

  somehow, in all directions and yet with a ruthless,

  systematic efficiency. Whereas Ferengi ships

  had aspects to their layout that contributed, in a

  variety of ways, to add personality to their

  surroundings, the Borg ship was quite the opposite.

  The Ferengi began to explore, and wherever they

  looked, wherever they searched, they found that the Borg

  personality seemed defined by their utter absence

  of personality.

  Darr was studying the readings from his medical

  instruments. "I'm not detecting any individual

  life readings, Daimon," he said after a long

  moment.

  "Then what do you call those?" said Turane

  immediately, having taken a step back in forcefully

  controlled alarm. He had his blaster out immediately.

  Coming his way, with slow, measured, ominous tread,

  was a Borg soldier.

  "Halt!" shouted Turane, for the Borg was

  bearing down on him, his gaze unwavering, his right

  arm encased in an ominous sheath of metal.

  "Guards! Stop him! He's going to attack

  me!"

  The guards were standing directly in between the

  oncoming Borg and the alarmed Daimon. And then a

  clanking alerted them to the approach of a second

  Borg soldier from behind. They spun and faced him,

  the face on the second one as deadpan as the first.

  "Stop them, you idiots!" shouted Daimon

  Turane. "What are you waiting for?!"

  The guards looked at each other, an

  unspoken decision passing between them. Then, as one,

  they lowered their weapons and stepped back, flat

  against the wall, leaving a clear path to their commanding

  officer.

  The blood drained from Daimon Turane's

  face, and his heart raced. He looked in front

  of and behind him, the Borg soldiers closing in, and a

  fearful curse emerged from his thick lips. "This

  is treason!" he howled. "This is mutiny!

  Darr, do something!"

  But Darr was an old man, and he merely

  cowered behind the nearest security officer.

  Daimon Turane brought his blaster up,

  aimed at the nearest Borg, and squeezed the

  trigger.

  Nothing.

  He howled in fury. The energy indicator

  read a full charge, but obviously someone had

  tampered with it. Perhaps one of these guards. Perhaps

  someone else back on the ship. Perhaps even

  Martok himself. In the final analysis, it made

  no difference. He was dead, that was all. Dead a
nd

  gone.

  The Borg were upon him, their heavy clanging

  echoing around them. They passed in front of each

  other, in front of him ...

  And kept on going in opposite directions.

  Daimon Turane watched in utter

  confusion as the Borg totally ignored him and went

  off about their business as if his presence didn't

  matter at all. Within moments they were gone, the

  only thing left behind them being that inexorable

  clanging. Shortly thereafter, that was gone too.

  What remained was the steady humming and throbbing and

  pulsing of electronic life that seemed to fill

  the walls, the floors, the very air around them.

  Turane, however, did not have the time or the

  inclination to dwell on it. Instead, his fury was

  focussed on his guards as he turned on them with the

  full measure of it and said, icily, "What was the

  meaning of that outrageous behavior?"

  "This was the meaning," said the guard, and he swung

  his heavy blaster up and fired.

  Turane would have been dead right there, had not

  medical officer Darr hurled himself right into the path

  of the assault. Darr hadn't even known he was

  going to do it, until he did. If he'd given

  it a moments thought, or even had it to do over again,

  he probably would have stayed rooted to the spot.

  As it happened, he didn't have the chance to do

  anything ever again, because he died before he could even

  get out a single word to reprimand the guards for their

  attack.

  Turane stood paralyzed for a moment, staring at

  the smoldering body of his medical officer. Then his

  gaze returned to the guards, who were standing there with

  singularly stupid expressions on their faces.

  "Oh hell," muttered the nearest of them, staring

  down at their handiwork.

  Turane realized at that point that he had two

  choices To stay and try and regain control of the

  situation by asserting his authority over the security

  guards who were clearly out to murder him, or to get

  the hell out of there.

  Daimon Turane was nothing, if not a

  realist. Without a second's further consideration,

  he spun on his heel and bolted.

  The movement snapped the two Ferengi guards

  from their momentary paralysis. They immediately started

  firing, but by that time the fleet-footed Daimon had

  rounded a corner and vanished, their blaster bolts

  exploding harmlessly behind him. The guards cursed

  loudly and started off after him.

  Turane tore through the Borg ship, his arms

  pumping furiously, his blood pounding in his

  temples. Turane wasn't in bad shape for a

  Ferengi, but he was far from fit. Fear for his

  life, though, lent him some extra

  strength and endurance. His legs churned up distance

  quickly, and he ran with no heed to direction other

  than simply away from his pursuers. His

  pursuers didn't make it difficult to keep

  track of them, for they raised a hellish racket

  behind them as they followed.

  The frantic Daimon turned another corner

  and ran headlong into a Borg soldier. They went

  down in a tumble of arms and legs, Turane

  shrieking, the soldier eerily silent. Turane

  grabbed the Borg soldier by the front of his

  clothing and practically screamed in his face,

  "Help me! They're trying to kill me!

  Help me and I'll help you!"

  The Borg said nothing. The Borg didn't

  even appear to notice that Turane was there.

  Instead he sat up, brushing Turane aside in

  an offhand manner. It wasn't even a gesture

  acknowledging Turane's presence as a living being

  so much as it was just pushing aside an obstacle, as

  one would a gnat. The soldier got to its feet and

  kept on walking.

  "You call yourselves soldiers!" bellowed

  Turane in frustration. "You won't even fight!

  I have to do everything!"

  The guards suddenly appeared at the far end of the

  corridor. "There!" shouted the nearer one, and they

  opened fire.

  Turane leaped frantically to the left, and the

  blaster bolts exploded over his head. They

  blew out some sort of glowing power units, blasting

  them into fragments, and Turane tripped, knocked

  off his feet by the concussion. He hit the floor

  hard, landing wrong, and it tore up his knees and

  elbows. He skidded and smashed into a nearby

  wall, and then rolled onto his back,

  crabwalking and shoving himself backwards. His back

  slammed up against a corner, his arms up over his

  head, protecting himself as best he could. Daimon

  Turane stamped his feet in childlike

  frustration, howling his fury. "I am the

  Daimon, damn you!" he shouted. "I order you

  to stop!"

  The guards paused, and for one brief glorious

  moment, the Daimon thought they were about to obey him.

  Then he realized that they were merely stopping

  to chortle, to enjoy the pathetic state that he had

  been brought down to.

  "Please," whispered Turane, staring down the

  barrel of their weapons. "Please ..."

  It was at that moment that three Borg soldiers

  converged on the area.

  They ignored Turane, for he was lying

  inoffensively on the floor. For that matter, the

  guards simply assumed that the semi-mechanical

  beings were just going to bypass them as well. So it

  caught them completely flatfooted when the foremost

  Borg soldier reached out and grabbed the nearest of the

  guards with the clawed grabbing end of its mechanical

  appendage.

  The Ferengi guard tried to bring his blaster up

  to defend himself but he was too slow. A bolt of

  blue electricity ripped from the Borg's arm,

  lancing through the Ferengi's, causing him to quiver and

  shake in the creature's grasp. His skin charred

  and he opened his mouth, but no scream managed

  to escape from him. His eyes widened, and the

  corridor filled with the unpleasant odor of

  burning flesh.

  With perfect precision the Borg dropped the

  Ferengi the moment the guard had become a lifeless

  sack of flesh instead of a living being, and turned

  towards the second guard, trapping him between the

  other two oncoming Borg. The Ferengi whirled

  and fired, and his blast caught one of the other two

  Borg square in the chest. The Borg went down

  without a sound and, hop es momentarily buoyed, the

  Ferengi fired on the second one. This time,

  though, the blaster bolt cascaded harmlessly off a

  personal shield.

  The Ferengi tried to readjust, kicking the power

  level up, but was too slow. One of the Borg

  swung its metal arm with incredible force and, with one

  blow, crushed the delicate cartilage of the

  Ferengi skull. The guard went down, blood

  trickling from his nose and large ears, moaning

  softly fo
r a moment before his voice became a

  rattle in his throat.

  Daimon Turane looked from one dead guard

  to the other and wondered bleakly how long it would be

  before he followed them into oblivion. The standing

  Borg soldiers turned and Turane braced

  himself, waiting for some sort of attack, for those

  awful metal appendages to reach out and destroy

  him.

  And the Borg ignored him.

  For one insane moment he wasn't sure whether

  to be relieved or insulted. After all, they'd

  spent time and energy dispatching lowly guards. Was

  he, the Daimon, worthy of less

  consideration than that? Then he realized that such thinking

  might indeed be indicative of someone who had lost

  his mind.

  The Borg, for their part, set about their work, and

  Daimon Turane realized that they were repairing

  the shattered power units that the guards had

  destroyed. It was then that he realized what had

  happened. The Borg hadn't shown up for the

  purpose of protecting him, or even just

  attacking potential threats. Instead, they had

  eliminated the aggressive guards for the simple

  reason that they were disrupting the smooth functioning of the

  Borg ship. Once the disruption was gone, there was

  no need--as far as they were concerned--to pursue any

  further action.

  "Listen to me," said Turane quickly, trying not

  to stumble over the words. "Listen. I am Daimon

  Turane of the Ferengi. I want to speak to your

  leader. I ... I believe that we can do some

  business together."

  One of the Borg soldiers had picked up the

  fallen one and walked over to some sort of

  horizontal wall receptacle. The insensate

  Borg soldier was placed into the receptacle, which

  slid noiselessly shut. The Borg soldier then

  paused, its clawed appendage clicking for a

  moment, the servos on its head swivelling, as if

  in thought.

  "I have a great deal to offer you," said Turane.

  By now he had pulled himself to his feet, trying

  to assemble some measure of his shattered confidence.

  He was aware that he was in an extremely bad

  bargaining position, which was never a good way for a

  Ferengi to begin a deal. He couldn't very well

  return to his ship, considering the reception that he

  would probably get. The last thing that one ever

  wanted to admit to a potential customer, though,

  was that the customer had the upper hand in any way.

  "A great deal," he said again. He cleared his

  throat and said, rather pompously, "I am a