The door was opening . She couldn't move, couldn't run,
couldn't stop it, could only watch it as it hissed slowly -
Larssen woke gasping, her face beaded with sweat.
"Oh, Ifni." she murmured, her voice bringing her fully
awake. Then she heard the sound that had woken her.
"Larssen to the bridge. Larssen to the bridge. Larssen to
the bridge." her comm. was chattering. Her heart lurched
with the surge of adrenaline and a pulse of panic. She
slapped her comm., scrambled to her feet and ran.
"Report." she said as she came out of the turbolift,
Lieutenant N'o sliding out of the centre chair and Larssen
dropping into it for the first time. First time on her first
command. It would have been a happier moment if there
hadn't been lights bleeding red across her boards, if her heart
hadn't been hammering, if her palms hadn't been sweating.
"We're out past the perimeter, it's plus one hour, but - the
passengers." Klein said from the communications station,
his voice tight. "They've left cargo. About ten minutes ago.
They're - I think they're crazy, ma'am. They're *breaking*
things. I think somebody smashed the main external
communications relay. The board is dead, ma'am. And life
support doesn't look good. We might have lost the
filtration systems on decks three and four."
"How long -" Larssen paused, her mouth too dry with fear
to speak. "How long were you paging me?" Waiting to hear
him tell her it had taken them that long to get her to respond.
Waiting for it to be her fault.
"Only just then, ma'am."
"Only just then?" Larssen asked. "Why only just then, Mr
Klein? And why weren't the section seals brought down
when they started to leave? And where is Yeoman Rand?"
"Ma'am, Yeoman Rand said she'd handle it. She went
down there to talk to them. They've been nervous a while, since
before we pulled out, and at first - it seemed like - it was just
the same. But they went - it was like they just went *up*,
ma'am, and Rand was down there, and she said not to do
anything until she called back but then we couldn't raise
her on the comm. any more, so we paged you." He was
clearly terrified.
Larssen took a breath.
"Give me all call." she said without thinking about
it. If she thought, she'd freeze. "All passengers,
this is Lieutenant Larssen in command of this ship.
You are endangering your safety. Return immediately
to cargo in an orderly fashion." And then, still on a
general channel, words that would make no sense to
anyone but the Starfleet officers aboard. "Situation
Alpha 1, under section 19. Endit." Out of the chair
and moving for the turbolift while they stared at her
in shock. "Eyes on your stations, people." she
reminded them. Eyes on stations no matter what, that
was the rule, and they shouldn't be distracted by the
fact that she'd just called a general emergency
authorising the use of force any more than if she'd
ordered a course laid in for the heart of the nearest
sun.
~ Critical incident procedure dictates... ~ The
Starfleet Academy lecture played in her head as the
door hissed shut behind her. ~ ... dictates securing
essential stations by order: bridge, life support,
engineering ... Well, I just came from the bridge. ~
"Shimona." she said into her comm. as she went down
in the lift, "how many can you spare out of life
support?"
"It's not what we can spare, ma'am." Shimona said. "We
daren't open the doors. We pulled back to the secondary
station when they got into main - I'm sorry, ma'am, but we
didn't know they were coming and we couldn't get the
doors sealed. We're shut in here now. And I don't know what's
going on next door, but some of our indicators have gone
... very odd."
"Do your best." Larssen said. "If you can get out there and
retake main, do it, but don't compromise holding
secondary."
"Yes'm." Shimona said and gave a strained chuckle.
"Here to serve, right, ma'am? Shimona out."
~ Critical incident procedure dictates securing essential
stations by order: bridge, life support, engineering ...
"Madison. This is Larssen. We have a riot."
"Fucking tell me about it." he said. "We broke some
heads when they came in here and they've gone off
elsewhere, but lady, they're ugly. And stupid."
"They're civilians."
"I'm a fucking civilian." Madison said. "They're a fucking
mob. What are you doing about it?"
"How many people can you spare?"
"All of them." Madison said. "I'll lock the doors behind
them and just sit pretty. I reckon I can manage to jockey the
engines myself from here."
"All right. Turn them out, whatever they you can give
them in the way of weapons. Tell them to meet me at
lower deck 9."
"Done." Madison said.
It wasn't something she'd ever expected to see, the
sight that greeted her as the turbolift doors opened.
Starfleet officers holding pipe wrenches and bits of
coupling as well as their standard issue phasers.
Larssen drew her own sidearm.
"They're all over the decks." she said. "We have to push
them back deck by deck into cargo section and seal each
layer as we go. Manually, because tripping the emergency
seal on the bridge will close the whole ship down."
They looked at her, officers and the few civilians who had
been tech or mech qualified, solemn and pale in the dim
light. In the distance, they could hear shouting, crashing.
"That's them." Larssen said. 'For those of you who don't
know what Situation Alpha 1 means, it means I have just
authorised you to use all necessary force to defend this
ship. We may be out from the perimeter and the deadline
might be passed, but it's a long way to the nearest Starbase
and we have to keep the ship running until somebody
picks us up. We've already lost communications, which means
we can't tell anybody how much trouble we're in. Life support
is endangered. We have to get them out of those areas and
locked down, contained, to do the repairs. To save our
lives, and theirs."
The first few decks were easy. They encountered a few
small groups that backed off quickly when they saw the phasers
and the engineering tools. Thank god for Wrenth, Larssen
thought, for Wrenth had apparently taken an extension
course in computer tech and was able to bypass the safeties
on the section seals and bring them down quickly and easily.
Two decks up, and for the first time Larssen had to fire,
stunning one refugee and setting the others to panicked
flight. They dragged the stunned man over the section
barrier, brought down the seal, and moved on.
It was the deck that housed main engineering and life
support that gave them the problem. Larssen realised that the
groups they had previously encountered were made up of people
who hadn't been seized by the mass panic that had stricken the
mob she now faced. She stood in the corridor facing
them, her back to a group of crew members she knew to be only
seconds away from panic of their own.
"I am Lieutenant Larssen." she said in a loud, calm voice.
"I am in command of this ship. I instruct you to return to
cargo immediately. You are endangering your own safety."
The mob jostled and pushed a man forward. Larssen
recognised him as one of those who had claimed
administrative experience, one of those she had made a
team leader. Bad call, Cory. He drew himself up to
his full height, faced Larssen, and said: "I am the
spokesman for these passengers. We have your officer
Rand. We'll exchange her when you release us from this
ship."
"I'll release you right out the airlock." Larssen said.
"That's the only place there is to go right now. You
people have cut off our communications and damaged our
life support. We are already in a very precarious
position. Return to cargo so we can carry out repairs."
"You are keeping us in conditions that aren't fit for
animals!" the man said. "And you want us to tamely
walk back there?"
"Those are the best conditions available." Larssen said.
"May I remind you that you were evacuated due to a
real and present threat to your lives?"
"A threat no-one has seen! No-one has explained!
Starfleet says there's a threat and we have to leave all
our belongings, leave our homes, be driven into the
hold of a ship like animals and taken who knows where?
How do we know what the truth is? I think you're lying
to us, Lieutenant Larssen. I think there was no threat
to Starbase 18." A low murmur of agreement came from
behind him. "Starfleet just wants to take over a fully
functioning base to use as a military installation, and
not pay any compensation to those of us who put our
lives work into it!"
"I sympathise with your distress," Larssen said, but she
couldn't make herself heard over the cries of agreement
from the passengers. "I assure you that - please, listen
to me - I assure you that -"
Pressing forward now, they ignored her. Larssen didn't
want to give ground, but she had to or be surrounded.
She fell back a few paces until she felt the presence of
her crew at her back.
"Return to your accommodation!" she shouted. "We will
fire if necessary!"
That just encouraged them to press forward more eagerly.
Larssen unholstered her phaser. "Fire when ready." she
said.
The first rank fell to stun beams, but the next simply
pressed over them, moving faster now. Larssen could see
feet tramping down on unconscious bodies. She fired
again, and again, backhanded a woman who had got within arm's
length of her, fired. She had to take a step back. Next
to her a civilian technician swung a pipe and then made
a retching noise when it met somebody's skull with a
sickening crunch. Hands reached for them, mouths
screamed, and it was only the narrowness of the corridor
that kept them from being surrounded and pulled down.
Stunned bodies mounted up in the corridor, and Larssen
wondered if their phasers would last long enough to make a
barrier of the unconscious from floor to ceiling. Someone
grabbed at her hand and she jerked the phaser away, straight-
armed her assailant, kicked a kneecap and fired again. And
again. And again.
"Fall back!" she gasped. Her comm. was bleeping at her,
and she knew on the bridge they'd be thinking the worst.
"Fall back!"
They got around the bend of the corridor, found a door
they could close and seal. Larssen looked down at her
phaser and saw that the charge was almost gone.
"They're crazy!" someone said. "Don't they realise they'll
kill us all?"
"They're a mob." Larssen said. "The IQ of a mob is fifty
points below that of its stupidest member." She pulled out
her comm.
"Larssen."
'Ma'am, ma'am!" Klein sounded almost in tears. "Ma'am,
there's a fire! A fire on deck 3!"
"Lukewarm, stinking, rotting, festering-" Larssen said. "At
what scale?"
"It's registering a three."
"Is the fire control system working?"
"No'm."
"Lukewarm, stinking, foetid, rotten - When it hits five,
notify me. Thirty seconds after that, drop the section
seals." She turned to Wrenth. "There's an emergency pod
forty feet along the hull from main engineering B door.
All of you, head for it. Get in, get it sealed. Go now."
"What about you, ma'am?"
"I have to find Yeoman Rand." Larssen said.
"The refugees have her! And there's a fire!"
"If they had her, they would have shown her." Larssen
thought, adding only to herself, I think. "I'm betting she's
lost her comm. and has holed up somewhere. Clock's
ticking, Wrenth. Emergency pod. Now."
When the door opened there was a yell from up the
corridor as the mob spotted them. The crew and technicians ran
hell for leather down towards the emergency pod, and before
anyone could look in through the doorway Larssen
dropped her comm. in her pocket, stood on the nearest chair and
lifted the crawlway access hatch clear.