Chapter 16
The night air was thick as beef stew, chunks of anxiety and tension floating around in a soupy sauce of adrenaline when a transporter beam lit up the inky darkness. Microscopic molecules coalesced into perfect alignment as Ritha, Paul, two other security officers, and one Mechanic appeared behind one of the many outbuildings of Chateau Tyrant. As soon as she solidified, Ritha, her hand damp on the handle of her phaser, darted into the building's shadows where she sent a message to Captain Kirk to let him know her group was in position.
Tam To Tien's residence on the outskirts of Cardabul city was an entire compound sitting on a plateau. An iron fence and four guard towers made moving around the grounds nigh on impossible without being spotted, so she immediately went to work popping off the cover plate in front of her to gain access to the door security system. The system was much the same as could be found on the Enterprise in that it required a thumb print verification to release the locking mechanism. Assuming she could shut down the power grid inside, Captain Kirk's team should be able to safely navigate their way into the mansion under the cover of darkness.
Freaking tyrants. What was it about ultimate power that made men go insane with lust for it? She blew a tuft of hair out of her face, removed a tool from the utility belt she was wearing, and cut the appropriate wires while her small security detail kept watch. Within seconds, the door slid open with an audible whoosh and allowed her to duck inside. Anyone who needed their own self-sustained power grid was up to no good as far as she was concerned.
Power cores--she instantly recognized them as doratonium rather than dilithium crystals--hummed softly, emitting a modicum of light inside the structure. Ritha dropped onto her back under the main console to remove the cover plate and expose all the wiring. Bones and the captain, who had both been completely against her coming on the mission at first, had voted to blow up the entire building until Spock had pointed out how much attention that would bring. Only then had they reluctantly agreed to both let her accompany them and do things her way, which was so much less invasive than their way.
"Make haste, Ensign Aritha Monroe," Sodrin, their Mechanic ally, whispered. "A guard will walk this path on rounds in precisely thirteen minutes."
It had been so long since anyone had called her by her full first name that she actually took her attention away from her work for a moment. Her father was a huge fan of the musician Aretha Franklin, but in his excitement, he'd spelled it wrong when giving her name to the nurse at the hospital where she'd been born. Funny how memories like that came up at the oddest times.
"I'm making haste. Just keep your eyes out for trouble heading our way. Five minutes, and we'll be out of here."
Five minutes turned into ten minutes when she discovered the main terminal was wired completely backwards from the normal configuration. She had to sort out all the different components to figure out which wires to remove. Her hands were starting to shake with adrenaline as the time ticked by, because being caught inside the structure would put her right back into Tobra's hands. Guessing what he would do to them wasn't difficult. Sweat dribbled down her temples, but she finally snipped a bundle of wires and used a small drill to drop the main circuit board from inside the console, plunging the entire compound into darkness.
Turning the power off had the same effect as telling a Klingon his father was an incompetent, impotent weakling; guards were immediately shouting from their towers, giving Ritha and her team a tiny window in which to escape the building. She stuffed the circuit board inside a satchel so technicians couldn't just replace it in five minutes, shoved to her feet, and was immediately sandwiched in between Sodrin and the Starfleet security officers. One of the conditions Captain Kirk had come up with to allow her to join the mission team.
***
Bones was tasked with one primary job; keep Spock alive. The directive was a personal request from Jim. Spock was going to be a father. He needed to be alive to raise his kid, but given Jim's experience with his own father's death, Bones figured the captain was just a tiny bit biased. Protecting Spock was the only reason he was laying flat on his stomach behind a hedge in one of the manicured gardens flanking the mansion. It was the only reason he wasn't plastered to Jim's side with his hypospray ready. As far as he was concerned, Spock was a lot more resilient and harder to kill than the captain.
Perspiration beaded his upper lip and brow. Right next to Jim's name on his list of people to worry about was Ritha. She was out there somewhere being put in more danger than he was comfortable with, especially when it had only been two days since she'd been beaten by a sociopath with delusions of grandeur. Dozens of engineers were stationed on the Enterprise. Why she had to be the one to cut power to the compound was still a mystery to him. Why he cared so much wasn't so much a mystery as it was a fear.
His heart turned over when spotlights panning the grounds suddenly blinked out, prompting guards stationed in the towers to shout. Vague silhouettes of men darted from the wall, all converging on the power grid outbuilding where Ritha and her small security detail were located. If they didn't get away fast enough… He couldn't finish the thought. Their current plan was another one of Jim's fly-by-the-seat-your-pants ideas, and for whatever reason, those usually worked out for them.
Thankfully, there wasn't enough time for him to freak out over thoughts of how many wounds he would have to treat. Spock moving prompted him to launch to his feet to dash across the open ground between the garden and the side door they were aiming for. Most of the guards were now closing in on the outbuilding, so they had a clear shot. At least that was what he thought until he leaped over a low stone wall at the edge of the garden only to find himself within spitting distance of an automated gun. The gun was mounted on a tripod and swung in their direction with a mechanical whir. USS "Murphy's Law" Enterprise struck again.
Bones grabbed Spock's shoulders in preparation for shoving him to the ground when Arta made an impossible-for-humans leap from the top of the wall. She came down directly on the tripod, the weight of her body bending the tripod's legs. A quick jerk of her hand bent the barrel and caused the gun to malfunction, allowing the rest of them to dodge into the heavy shadows surrounding the building.
"There should be a guard station in the first door on the left, but with the power out, most of the guards will probably be patrolling the mansion. I'll take point. Their projectile weapons will do less damage to me," Arta whispered.
"Logically," Spock returned in a voice that was barely audible. "Clear each room quickly and as quietly as possible."
Truth be told, he was a little surprised Spock didn't argue or simply shove himself in front of Arta when she eased the door open to step inside. Jim would have ignored the Mechanic, would have insisted on rushing headlong into danger. Both he and Spock ducked in after her and flattened themselves against the wall separating them from the guard station to provide cover. A pair of guards shouted from inside when she threw the door open, but their shouts were cut short by two successive blasts from her phaser.
The rest of their team fanned out into the dark interior, soft soles making not a sound on the polished marble floors. Bones, and he'd pointed this out during their mission briefing, was pretty sure someone like Ex-Emperor Tien had a paranoia complex a mile long. Assassination attempts, nobility vying for power, and being dethroned generally led to suspicion and paranoia. There was definitely psychological precedence for it, so it wasn't hard for any of them to guess the Tien had a panic room or bunker somewhere in the building. Finding it would be the problem.
As far as he was concerned, everything was going smoothly right up until the point Arta left the hallway and entered the mansion's foyer. A mechanical whirring sound echoed in the empty room a second before bullets started flying. Bones shouted, grabbed Spock, and flattened him against the wall to get him out of range as projectiles pinged off Arta's metal skeleton, tearing through her skin in the process. She lunged to the other side of the hallway to take cover.
"Where the Hell is the power to work those guns coming from?" Bones shouted over the sudden commotion.
"Internal generators," Spock responded while disentangling himself from Bones' grip.
"Well that's just great! We're being pinned down by old fashioned projectile weapons. Arta, you okay?"
"In a moment," she responded while fiddling with something retrieved from the utility belt she wore. A small device was used to seal the holes in her skin and prevent certaktin from spilling out of her.
The gun stopped firing as soon as they were out of range, so he'd bet his bones the damn thing was motion-controlled. Problem was they couldn't stand there the rest of the night, especially not when he saw flashlights heading for the door they'd entered through. They would be caught between a machine gun and guards in a matter of moments.
***
"Sodrin and his team are pinned down behind the guard barracks at the rear of the property, and Arta's team is taking cover from an automated machine gun in the building's foyer," Voren said softly.
Jim didn't steal the opportunity to curse; he stole the opportunity to get royally pissed off that Tien's guards were more well-organized than he'd hoped. He pressed a button on his handheld to open a channel to the Enterprise. "Scotty, as soon as you've got a lock on Ritha and her team, get them out of here. Acknowledge."
"I'd love to help you out, Captain, but something's preventin' me from gettin' a lock on your tracking chips," Scotty responded, his Scottish accent heavier than normal.
He did curse then. "They must have known we were coming. Tell Sulu to rendezvous with Ritha's team behind the guard barracks to manually extract them with the shuttle."
"Consider the order relayed," said Scotty.
If everyone had agreed to do things his way, the building would already be a smoldering ruin, and Tobra and Tien would be dead. Unfortunately, Starfleet and the Federation frowned upon blowing up buildings to wipe out bad guys. Lengthy trials were apparently much more amusing.
Hunkered down behind one of a half dozen hover and wheeled vehicles inside the mansion's garage, he flicked on the portable schematics finder. The device went to blue screen and flashed an error code. Damned Istabulian scrambling technology. It screwed with every piece of equipment in their possession. Murphy's Law dictated arresting the president and his father had to be as difficult as humanly possible. They couldn't just waltz in and slap the men in restraints. No, they had to pluck a single hair off a rabid baboon's ass, dangle a strip of bacon in front of a crocodile using only their teeth, and give a baby hippo a tooth cleaning while angry Mama was standing nearby without sedatives.
Fortunately, Jim had a back-up plan. He just didn't entirely know what it was yet. A door on the other side of the garage deposited them into a utility room, and from there, he led Voren and several other Mechanics through to a kitchen where simmering dishes had been abandoned on the stove. Gunfire could be heard at various proximities from the kitchen. For now, the other two teams were serving as a distraction, but they were on something of a timeline. One of the teams could be wiped out at any moment. His hand was on the next door when Voren stopped him with a soft clicking sound, prompting him to look back at the Mechanic, who was now hovered over a data pad left on a counter.
"A menu list and delivery schedule," Voren whispered.
"I hardly think Tien ordered dinner brought to his bunker before the lights shut off," Jim responded. "We've gotta keep moving."
The Mechanic actually rolled his eyes before saying, "I was thinking more along the lines of a scheduled delivery to Jiet Je Jong if he's being held in this compound."
"Right," Jim commented. "If he's here, he won't be held in the mansion proper where any guest could find him. Wherever he is, the Tyrant Twins might be nearby." The universe provided.
The small screen lit up when Voren activated the pad, allowing the Mechanic to peruse the contents. "A meal was delivered to the basement level an hour ago."
"Any idea about a point of access for the basement?"
"If the layout of this mansion is anything like a standard Istabulian home, we'll reach the basement from the laundry facilities. Make a left out that door, and it should be three doors down."
Opening the door prompted several guards rushing toward the foyer to whip around. Jim dove across the hall to a small recessed area and used the wall as cover to return fire. Chunks of plaster crumbled when their bullets lodged in the wall too close to Jim's head for comfort, but Voren and his brothers and sisters, all outfitted with borrowed phasers, were quick to dispatch the guards. Running around with Terminator and his buddies, while he might be safer, was far less satisfying than being able dispatch things himself.
He shuddered while shoving away from the wall when a security officer in the foyer shouted for a medic. Would he ever get used to his crew members dying? God, he hoped not. For as terrible as the weight of that responsibility was, the moment he stopped caring was the moment he would hand the Enterprise over to Spock.
It was a short jaunt down to the third door, but Voren insisted on opening said door first. A mechanical swish sounded as soon as the door opened. Bullets were suddenly peppering the doorway, one bullet lacerating Voren's forehead and pinging off his metal skull. The Mechanic didn't just stand there. He leaped through to dash across the laundry room where he actually ripped the gun off its brackets. See, Terminator. Jim was starting to feel a little useless.
A lone door the machine gun had been protecting opened to a set of dark stairs that led into the basement. The place was piled high with what looked to be antiques. It was like any other basement Jim had been inside. Dust was heavy in the air. A moldy smell tickled his nostrils, but he caught the barest hint of a chemical smell.
"There's nothing here," Voren hissed, his tone sounding decidedly irritated and disappointed. "Perhaps there's a second basement."
The Mechanic was on his way to the stairs when Jim said, "Just wait."
His glance was trained on cobwebs in the far corner. A puff of air stirred said cobwebs when there shouldn't be any moving air. Jim smiled and fairly skipped across the basement to feel the seam of the corner until he located a miniscule crack allowing air to flow. The universe provided again. He held up his hand for silence from the others and began pulling through the basement to find some kind of access panel that would open the secret door.
Things were going remarkably well. That meant disaster had to strike, and it struck with a vengeance when the two corner walls suddenly slid inward. Jim caught just a glimpse of Tobra and an older Istabulian before half-completed androids, their metal skeletons still exposed where skin had yet to be placed, stepped into the opening.
Ten androids all spoke at the same time and in precise unison, their voices sounding more digital than the voices of the Mechanics. "Loyalty and prosperity to Emperor Tam To Tien."
***
"Ritha, if you don't keep your head down, I'm knocking you senseless!" shouted Paul over the rapid barking of projectile guns.
"So what? You want me to stand here with my thumb up my ass?"
She leaned around a corner to fire a few shots at the guards taking cover behind the low garden wall. They were at an impasse. Neither could advance without sustaining heavy casualties, and with Sodrin challenging a knot of guards that had come up in a flanking position, there was little they could do but stand there and exchange fire. Stalemate, at least until their phasers ran out of charge or the guards ran out of bullets.
One of the two security officers suddenly shouted and crumpled to the ground, a bullet passing through her body to imbed in the wall of the building they were using for cover. Ritha spun around to see a third contingent of guards coming up on their rear from behind another outbuilding. She shouted a warning to Paul a second before a bullet grazed his temple to tear a laceration in his skin. His blood splattered her face.
Paul went down on one knee but struggled back up to open fire, dropping three guards in rapid succession, but the distraction cost them. Guards from the garden wall used the opportunity to bail out from behind their cover and race toward the barracks. They would be overrun, surrounded, and taken into custody or outright killed in a matter of moments, and there wasn't a damn thing Ritha could do to stop it. She fired off shots as quickly as her phaser could reload a charge, but there were just too many of them, an entire freaking army loyal to the emperor.
The situation was looking pretty hopeless when precision photon blasts from above mowed through the guards advancing from the outbuilding and left them screaming and scattering in all directions. She glanced skyward to see exterior lights from the Enterprise shuttle they'd brought with them hovering overhead. Said shuttle set down nearby. The door was flung open, and she could see Chekov leaning out taking pot shots at guards approaching from the garden with a phaser.
"Ensign Monroe, I cover you!" Chekov shouted. "Get your team out of there."
"Sodrin, we're extracting!" That was the captain's order. As soon as she'd cut off the power, Scotty was supposed to have beamed their team out of harm's way, and defying the captain's order, no matter how much she wanted to, was just not in the cards. One didn't ignore an order from one's captain just because it didn't happen to be convenient.
Ritha slung her arm around Paul's waist to steady him as much as she was able and hurried for the safety of the shuttle. Their dead comrade could be retrieved after the battle for a proper funeral. The living came first. She'd just darted into the shuttle when Sodrin leaped from the roof of the barracks, the weight of his body leaving a depression in the ground when he hit. Guards were on his tail, but he launched into a handspring, twisted in mid air, and came down running backwards while dropping the guards. She wanted to learn how to do that!
"Take off, Ensign Chekov," Sodrin said. "I will rendezvous with the second team and lend support."
"Are you sure?" Chekov asked.
"There are more guards than we expected. Take off." That said, Sodrin dashed in the mansion's direction.
A protest was on her lips. If there were more guards than expected, Jim, Spock, and Bones would need every available phaser, but Chekov input the command to close the shuttle door before the temptation to defy the captain's orders became too strong. Bones was in there getting shot at! The very real possibility of his death churned her stomach.
"Sulu, we're clear," Chekov said.
"We can't just leave the other teams here," Ritha bit out.
"We're not," replied Sulu from the pilot's chair. "Just hang onto something and help Lieutenant Brighton get his bleeding under control. Leave mowing down the guards outside the building to us."
As Sulu lifted the shuttle from the ground, she hurried over to Paul to retrieve a field hypospray from her utility belt, standard equipment on a mission. It was pre-loaded with a mender, which made it idiot proof. She popped him in the neck and then grabbed hold of a support railing to avoid being thrown across the shuttle when Sulu swung them around to open fire on a knot of guards headed for the mansion.