The Cardassian city of Rak'tiri was a chaotic mess.
Bodies lay strewn in the streets, both Cardassian and Klingon. Blood from both species flowed freely, and the stench of death hung heavily in the thick, sluggish air. Fires raged unchecked, adding a choking layer of smoke to the mix, and sounds of war – weapons, explosions, the wounded and dying screaming in pain – were everywhere.
Josh and the others arrived at Rak'tiri just before sunset. The Klingons had been attacking the place all day without much success. Expecting an easy victory, they had beamed in carelessly without much in the way of organization or planning. But for whatever reason, Rak'tiri was putting up a hell of a fight. The Cardassian defenders were ready for the assault, and they weren't willing to surrender the city easily.
Early on, the Cardassians had abandoned roughly half of the city to the attackers and were concentrating on defending the other, more densely populated side of the city. At the moment, the battle was raging across an ill-defined "line" that more or less ran down the axis of the city.
True to form, the Klingons were using a combination of modern and archaic weapons. The Cardassians, in contrast, relied exclusively on modern phaser rifles and were clearly much better organized and led.
Maybe a retired Gul lives here and organized the defense, Josh speculated silently as the group picked their way from building to building, carefully negotiating the mass of rubble and ruin that the city of Rak'tiri had become.
After turning a corner, the group stopped in a small, concealed alleyway while T'Katha used the tricorder to get their bearings. Examining the handy device quickly, she announced, "There is a public transporter system not far from our position. According to my readings it is still functioning."
"Which side of the city is it on?" Josh asked.
"It appears to be in the Klingon-controlled area," T'Katha replied.
"Any sign of General Kalor yet?" Josh asked, wincing as an explosion went off only a few hundred yards from where they were standing.
"No. My tricorder does not detect any sign of his DNA. However, I should warn you this method is not foolproof. There is a great deal of weapons fire and other energy surges which could possibly interfere with the readings of a tricorder."
"It'll have to do. Let's go," Josh urged.
Making their way through the macabre streets of Rak'tiri, they stepped over the bodies of many more Cardassians, both civilians and soldiers.
"I can't believe we haven't found any weapons yet," Kramer muttered in frustration. "You'd think some would get left behind."
"Obviously, the other Cardassians have picked up any weapons from their fallen comrades. They're probably in short supply," Josh answered. Privately, he was beginning to get worried. He had not taken the 23rd
Unfortunately, that had left them unarmed. Josh hadn't been particularly concerned about this, since he assumed that there would be plenty of weapons lying around. He figured they would have easily been able to arm themselves.
But it wasn't working out that way, and now they were in the middle of a war zone with no weapons to protect themselves.
No time to fret about it, Josh decided. Continuing onwards, he carefully made his way to the public transport building that was their objective.
Glancing down the street in both directions, Josh was relieved that there didn't appear to be any Klingons in sight, at least for the moment. "T'Katha, scan that building. Is there anyone in there?"
The Vulcan did as Josh asked, then replied, "Negative. The building appears to be empty."
"Good. Let's go," Josh ordered. Sprinting across the narrow street, the trio burst into the building. After the string of bad luck they had experienced, none of them fully trusted the tricorder's readings. Josh half-expected an army of angry Klingons to greet them on the other side of the door.
Instead, the transporter facility was mercifully quiet. The soft glow and low hum of the instrument panels were the only indication of life in the room.
"Thank God," Kramer muttered.
Josh nodded his agreement, then asked T'Katha, "Any sign of Kalor yet?"
"Yes. He appears to have beamed down not far from our position. He is approximately four hundred meters from here, near the front line." She looked up. "Joshua, there are at least fifty Klingons in his immediate vicinity."
"Damn. There's always something, isn't there?" Josh asked rhetorically. "Well, I guess we couldn't really have expected him to be alone. We'll just have to be quick, that's all."
"What do you propose we do?" T'Katha asked.
"Doctor Kramer will stay here to operate the transporter. You and I are going after Kalor."
"Why two of us?"
"It only takes one person to operate the transporter. Getting the comm badge onto Kalor is going to be the trickier part. If one of us fails, the other will have another shot at it."
"Built in redundancy. You'd make a great engineer, Captain," Kramer said, grinning.
"Me fixing warp engines? I don't think anybody wants that," Josh joked, glad for the lighthearted banter.
More soberly, he continued, "We'll need your comm badge, Doctor."
Kramer handed it over. "I've opened a channel between all of our comm badges and this building. We should be able to keep in contact at all times, as along as it's not interrupted, of course."
"Good," Josh said. "Now, once you get my signal, transport all of us to these coordinates," Josh gave Kramer the coordinates of the mountain that he and T'Katha had discussed earlier, "and let's hope you don't drop us in the middle of a lake or something!"
"On this planet? I'd be thrilled to go for swim," Julie replied lightly.
Josh rolled his eyes. "All right. Any last questions?" he asked.
Nobody said a word.
"Then let's go," he said.