Strange New Worlds IX Read online

  Sharon ducked with them as several heavy blasts rattled the armory. Data was the first to recover. It glanced at the ceiling, as if its mechanical vision somehow enabled it to see through the building. “That was not disruptor fire. They must have called in air support.”

  Data waved a fourth-year cadet over. “Cadet Cahill, we will create a diversion.” Data indicated itself, Sharon, and the Andorian cadet. “As soon as the firing outside the armory is redirected toward us, get everyone out of here and to better cover.”

  The older cadet confirmed the order then moved to take command of the other people inside the armory. As a fresh exchange of phaser and disruptor fire erupted outside, Data motioned to Sharon and her fellow cadet. “We are going to use the armory’s side entrance and attempt to flank the Breen. Stay low and close to me.”

  Sharon didn’t feel too good about that plan, but Data and the Andorian cadet had moved off before she had a chance to mention it. Glancing back, Sharon saw the other cadets and officers in the armory. Most of them were wounded to some degree, some severely. Only a few were armed.

  A sudden terrible realization struck Sharon. She, Data, and that other cadet were the only hope of escape for this group of people. With the Breen closing in on the entrance and their fighters making strafing runs outside, it wouldn’t take long for this part of the Academy and everyone inside it to be reduced to slag.

  Sharon blinked away hot tears. Data…it—he—wasn’t just throwing the cadets into the fray; he had some sort of plan in mind. He was trying to save as many as he could, right? And somehow, he needed Sharon’s help. She couldn’t believe it. She was in sciences, not security. Why did she have to fight? It was so unfair. She didn’t deserve this; none of them did. Was this a part of being a Starfleet officer?

  The cadet Data had left in charge, Cahill, waved at Sharon. She looked at him and felt ashamed when she saw hope shining in his eyes. If she failed to help all these people—failed to help Data—she’d never forgive herself. Assuming she even survived the battle.

  She gave the cadet a nod that she hoped looked encouraging, then rushed deeper into the armory to catch up with Data and the cadet. She found them in short order. Data had already unlocked the side door. He looked at Sharon as she arrived.

  “I am pleased you are here, Cadet. I was concerned that I had lost you.”

  Sharon shook her head. “No…. No sir.” She mustered her courage and gave him a steady look, actually seeing him for the first time. “Sir, Commander Data. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Data gave her a quizzical look. “I do not understand.”

  The ground shook from another strafing run. The three of them braced themselves against the walls to keep their balance.

  Sharon palmed away her tears. “I’ll try to explain later.”

  “Indeed. We shall see if there is a later.” Data gave her a tight smile, which surprised her. Sharon had assumed he was incapable of smiling.

  Data positioned himself near the door and glanced at Sharon and the Andorian. “Ready? On three.” They all double-checked their phasers and crouched, ready to spring out the door. “One…two…”

  On three, Data keyed open the door and dove outside as soon as the space was wide enough to let him pass. He hit the ground and rolled into a crouch, firing his phaser once he had a target. Sharon went out second, moving as low and as fast as her injuries allowed. She fired off a couple of phaser blasts in the general direction of the Breen and ran for the first cover she saw.

  Finding refuge behind an overturned bench, Sharon spared a glance toward the armory door. The other cadet leaned outside and fired off a couple shots. Data and Sharon added their firepower. Soon they had the attention of a dozen or so Breen. The soldiers started to shoot at them rather than at the front door of the armory.

  Data rushed toward Sharon in a half-crouch. “We have to keep moving! Get to better cover!”

  She nodded and ran with Data. She heard the phaser fire from their counterpart intensify. The Andorian cadet must have seen the two of them—she was providing cover fire for them!

  Sharon and Data rushed toward a low wall bordering a footpath between buildings. They dove behind it as heated energy crashed all around them.

  Sharon ducked as a Breen fighter thundered by overhead, its plasma bursts crashing into the library several dozen meters away. The building came apart, smoke and fire trailing from it as it collapsed with a roar.

  Data glanced over the wall as the Breen soldiers closed in. “Cadet sh’Rave is pinned down! We need to give her covering fire so that she can get out of the armory!”

  Sharon could see the other cadet inside the doorway, throwing shots at the Breen as she scanned the ground near her with one good eye. Sharon knew that there weren’t too many places for her to go.

  Sharon fired a few more times and shot worried glances toward the Andorian. The cadet was looking her way, gesturing at her. Sharon looked at Data. “I don’t understand what she wants!”

  Data looked toward sh’Rave. “I believe she wishes to join us here.”

  Sharon and Data ducked under a new barrage of Breen fire. They heard a yell from the other cadet and rose to give her covering fire. The Breen fired at them with new intensity, blasting apart the ground and sections of the wall all around Sharon and Data.

  The cadet zigged and zagged across the grounds, avoiding the Breen fire, all the while moving toward Data and Sharon. She was ten meters or so from their protective wall when she got shot in the back. She hit the ground hard, her phaser flying out of her hand.

  Sharon and Data intensified their fire as the Andorian struggled to crawl toward them. Disruptor fire chewed up the ground all around her; she was hit at least twice more.

  Sharon looked at Data, despair in her eyes. Taking in his one-armed condition, something snapped inside of her. She leaped over the wall.

  Sharon heard Data call out, but she kept her focus on the Andorian. Sharon ran toward the fallen cadet, scooping up the girl’s discarded phaser as she went. With a weapon in each hand, Sharon sent a furious stream of fire toward the Breen as she reached her colleague.

  A quick glance showed Sharon that the girl was yet alive—she was coughing and still trying to crawl, anyway. Sharon reached down and helped the Andorian to her feet. Sharon’s arms screamed as the weight of the girl leaning hard against her drove the shards of debris in her arms into new, agonizing angles.

  Sharon gritted her teeth and started back toward the wall where Data crouched, waiting. He fired his phaser faster than Sharon could have ever imagined. She hoped he was as accurate as he was fast. The energy blasts hitting all around her did nothing to answer that question.

  The Andorian was crying out, screaming something, but Sharon couldn’t decipher it. Sharon had to drop one of the phasers to get a better grip on the girl, but it didn’t matter. If she couldn’t get them to the wall, another phaser wouldn’t make a difference.

  Everything seemed to slow down to half-speed. A rosebush in Sharon’s peripheral vision exploded into flames. Data’s wide, yellow eyes shined as she neared the wall. The Andorian gained a thousand kilos in a second. The local gravity seemed to increase by a factor of three.

  A stream of questions rolled through her mind. Could we make it to the wall? Would we be shot dead before we can get there? Did many science honor cadets fall in battle? Who would tell my family what had happened, what I’d done?

  The moment stretched into what felt like an eternity. Data fired madly in her direction, missing her and the Andorian by centimeters, firing at unseen targets behind her. The wall was getting closer, closer! She was there—she’d made it!

  Sharon pushed the Andorian over the wall and was just about to leap over it when her legs erupted in fiery agony. Sharon hit the wall and collapsed. She heard Data call out, saw him gesturing at her, but couldn’t respond.

  Dazed, Sharon saw a phaser on the ground next to her. It was hers—she hadn’t realized she had dropped it. She thought
about reaching up to lift herself over the wall, but her body didn’t seem willing to respond.

  In a haze, Sharon saw Data reach over, felt him grab a single handful of her ruined uniform. She felt herself pulled bodily over the wall by his superhuman strength as deadly energies crashed all around them. She hit the ground near where the Andorian had landed.

  Data crouched next to her. “I am sorry, Cadet.” She blinked hard. Was that concern she saw in his eyes?

  Sharon opened her mouth to reply, but the Breen leaping over the wall behind Data stunned her into silence. Data must have seen the look in her eyes, because he twisted around and grabbed the Breen’s disruptor rifle before the alien had a chance to use it. Data and the Breen struggled for control of the weapon, but the strength in Data’s one arm was more than a match for the Breen.

  Just as Data wrenched the weapon from the soldier’s grasp, the Breen’s helmet exploded from a phaser blast plowing into it. Sharon could hear more phaser fire nearby. The other cadets in the armory must have gotten out—their diversion must have worked!

  Data glanced over the wall, toward the sounds of battle, then turned to Sharon. “I must go, but I will be back as soon as I can.”

  Sharon managed a nod. “I’ll wait for you…sir.”

  Data gave her a long look. He pushed his phaser toward her with his foot then vaulted the wall and moved toward the fight, firing the heavy disruptor rifle with the one arm that was still attached to his body.

  Now it was just her, the Andorian, and that dead Breen stuck near the wall. Sharon’s legs burned terribly. She crawled the agonizing long meters to the wall as the battle raged outside of her line of sight. She propped herself into a sitting position once she reached the wall. Feeling strangely detached from her own body, she examined the fronts of her legs. Her pants were dusty and torn, but looked to be in otherwise decent shape.

  The backs of her legs, though, were another matter. Her pants were a smoldering ruin and the skin underneath was a mass of ugly black char and white, runny blisters. She had second- and third- degree burns all over her calves and feet. The pain was incredible, but she somehow didn’t feel much of it. Was this what going into shock felt like?

  Sharon glanced at the Andorian. The blue-skinned girl lay where she had fallen, her back to the sky, face to one side. Her one working eye was closed. Her back looked even worse than Sharon’s legs. She could see the girl’s torso moving up and down and her blue antennae slowly twitching, though. She was still alive.

  Sharon called out. “Cadet…Cadet? Can you hear me?”

  Sharon got a low moan for a response, which she took to be an encouraging sign. “Cadet…if you can hear me, can you look at me?”

  A long moment passed. Sharon wasn’t sure if the cadet had heard her; wasn’t sure if she had slipped on to whatever afterlife the Andorians believed in. Then, slowly, the Andorian lifted her head just enough to glance myopically at Sharon. Sharon received the briefest of nods before the girl dropped her head back to the bloodstained grass.

  Another Breen fighter rocketed overhead. Sharon lifted her glance to follow its path, powerless to stop it. Then, Sharon saw something she hadn’t expected—something wondrous. A Federation fighter streaked after the Breen ship, firing beautiful streaks of energy toward it. Somehow the scene brought a smile to Sharon’s face. She couldn’t explain why she felt so happy, so relieved. Maybe because Starfleet was waking up—finally fighting back. Maybe they’d get out of this after all.

  Inspired by that unknown Starfleet pilot, Sharon worked her way over to her fellow cadet and started to drag her back toward what remained of the low wall. The effort took a long, painful eternity. Sharon had to pause and recover her strength several times. The agony in her arms and legs continued unabated, but she was determined to get the cadet to the minuscule safety of the broken wall.

  The sun had set by the time Sharon finally propped herself and her fellow cadet against the wall. Sharon wrapped her arms around the girl for comfort, ignoring the constant pain in her limbs. The Andorian muttered something incoherent, most likely in her native tongue. Sharon didn’t know what the girl needed, so she just pressed closer to her and hoped it was enough. She didn’t have any food or medical supplies, and she wasn’t about to search the dead Breen. Let it rot where it had fallen.

  Sharon drifted in and out of awareness, skated the edge of unconsciousness. Distant sounds of an ongoing firefight and sirens from the city kept Sharon from falling asleep completely. The mumbling Andorian girl kept her up as well, even though Sharon couldn’t do much for her other than hold her for their mutual warmth.

  At some point during the darkness of the night, Sharon was pulled out of her dazed reverie by a low, long groan from the Andorian. The sound scared Sharon, taking her back to the moments before her nana had…no. Sharon shifted her position to try and make the two of them more comfortable. Sharon was not going to let the girl die.

  The Andorian managed a whisper. “What…what happened?”

  Sharon cleared her dry throat. “Attacked, by Breen. We’re both shot up.”

  The Andorian pressed closer to Sharon. “Did…distraction…work?”

  Sharon nodded mutely, stunned at the weakness in the Andorian’s voice, amazed that the injured girl was asking about the others rather than herself. Sharon glanced down at the girl in the darkness. Was the selfless attitude an Andorian trait, or was it something Starfleet taught its officers?

  The Andorian shifted her body so that her head rested on Sharon’s shoulder. “Glad…” was all she could manage.

  Sharon said, “I think we were able to help most of the others get out of the building. I haven’t seen Commander Data since he left, though. They could all be dead as far as I know. I’ve heard a lot of shooting.”

  Sharon didn’t know if the Andorian could still hear her, but she continued. “You were pretty brave out there. I thought you were going to make it to the wall.”

  The Andorian offered a hollow grunt. Sharon held her tightly, hoping to keep her there. “Just hold on. We’re going to make it.”

  The girl shook her head. “I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.”

  Desperate, Sharon tried to think of something to do to keep the girl awake, to keep her from leaving. “Cadet…what’s your name?”

  The girl whispered, “Randishira.”

  Sharon managed a smile. “That’s a beautiful name. Mine’s Sharon. You’re a second-year cadet, but I’m just a rat.”

  Randishira uttered something Sharon didn’t catch. To Sharon it sounded like charan, but she wasn’t sure. The girl’s voice dropped into a stream of alien words. Sharon couldn’t figure them out. It almost sounded like a song, or a chant.

  Sharon kept talking, pulling stuff off the top of her head to try and keep Randishira with her.

  “I was wrong about Commander Data, you know. I thought he was nothing more than a walking computer, but I was wrong.” Sharon didn’t get a response from Randishira, but she kept talking anyway.

  “He’s a Starfleet officer, and he cares about his fellow officers. I thought he would just mechanically throw us into the fight, but he was really worried about everyone. He was worried about you too.”

  Sharon felt weariness close in on her, tried to fight it off. “I was pretty stupid. I was smart enough to make it into Starfleet Academy, but…but I still have an awful lot to learn.”

  She glanced down at Randishira. The girl didn’t seem to have heard a word she said. Exhausted, Sharon rested her head against Randishira’s and closed her eyes.

  A bright light shining on Sharon’s face dragged her back into consciousness. She blinked her burning eyes. Randishira still lay pressed against her, but wasn’t moving. The Andorian’s eye was closed, her dirt-smeared face strangely relaxed. Sharon whispered the girl’s name, but didn’t get a response. She nudged Randishira, but the girl slid along Sharon’s body, her head coming to rest in Sharon’s lap.

  Sharon gently placed her hands on Randishira’
s head. The girl’s white hair was soft to the touch, but the skin underneath was cold, so cold. Sharon wept. She’d lost her.

  She started as she heard voices moving around the grounds nearby. She was too tired to sit up, in too much agony to call out. She heard Commander Data’s voice break through the muddle.

  “They should be near that wall, over there!”

  Sharon glanced around as Commander Data moved into view. He still had the Breen disruptor rifle in hand, but tossed it aside as he rushed over to kneel next to her.

  He glanced at Sharon, then dropped his gaze to Randishira. He gently pulled the Andorian away from Sharon and laid her on the ground. Sharon just watched as Data folded the girl’s arms on her chest, using such tender care to do so. Tears flooded Sharon’s eyes.

  She’d been so wrong about him. He wasn’t a cold, unfeeling computer. He was a Starfleet officer, and he was grieving for the loss of an ally.

  Sharon sniffed. “Thank you for coming back for us.”

  Data lifted his glance, the grief in his eyes palpable. He said, “It was the least I could do. I regret,” he dropped his gaze back to Randishira, “that I returned too late to save her.”

  Sharon caught his glance. “You did the best you could.”

  Data gave Randishira one last look, then turned to Sharon. “As did we all. Your efforts, and the efforts of Cadet sh’Rave, were sufficient to allow the others to get to safety. We did lose a few more, but had we not successfully distracted the Breen, we all would have most likely been killed.”

  Sharon tried a tired smile. “What about your arm?”

  Data glanced at where his missing appendage should have been. “It can be found, and repaired.” He paused, his gaze distant. “I feel like I have lost more than my arm today, however. I do not know what it could be.”

  Sharon looked at Randishira, looked at the ruined Academy all around her. “I think we’ve all lost something.” She looked at him, a surge of pride and respect bringing new tears to her eyes. “But maybe we’ve gained some things too.”