A shower of transporter energy swept away the sickbay and replaced it with the shuttlecraft's cramped interior. The tingle on her skin was still palpable as McKenzie confirmed that both Nivek and the wounded Cullen had made the trip with her.
She eyed the shuttle's open door. "Keep a watch out. I'll get the gear." She said, moving toward the bulky cargo container at the rear of the shuttle's passenger compartment.
Kneeling beside Cullen, Nivek waved a tricorder over the unconscious commander's chest. "There's not much time. We must hurry."
"There should be a portable sterile field generator in there as well." Plumley said, her voice distant and washed out as it filtered through McKenzie's combadge. "Once Nivek's ready, place it on either side of Cullen's torso. The field should cover his entire upper body.
"I've got it." McKenzie said after a moment, gripping the generator by its molded carrying handle and pulling it from the container. It took McKenzie a moment to locate the organ stimulator, even with Plumley guiding her. "Found it, Doctor." She said, feeling momentary relief at the small victory but knowing the larger battle was still to come. "What do we do now?"
"First," Plumley said. "You'll need to…"
McKenzie flinched as the rest of the doctor's instruction disintegrated into a burst of static erupting from her combadge, the chaotic hiss and pops echoing within the shuttle. "They're jamming our signals."
"They know we're here." Nivek replied as he set up the stimulator and activated its start up diagnostic protocols. "We'll need to be ready."
Nodding, McKenzie reached for the phaser she had set aside while hunting through the cargo containers. A sudden surge of isolation and fear reached out to grip her, a sensation that had been a fact of everyday life in the 22nd century while fighting the Xindi but that also had revisited her on infrequent occasions throughout her new life in the 24th century, despite her best efforts to bury them beneath training and experience. Clenching her jaw, she felt her muscles as she fought back the impulses.
Behind her, Nivek had succeeded in activating the stimulator and the sterile field generator. She watched as the Vulcan wielded a laser scalpel over Cullen's stomach. Before her eyes, the commander's skin parted beneath the scalpel's beam. Nivek proceeded with the impromptu surgery, cutting with one hand while the other controlled the removal of excess blood from the incision site as he worked to facilitate connecting Cullen to the stimulator and initiating the process of bypassing the commander's damaged liver.
"How long?" She asked.
"Just a few moments, assuming he's not too weak to withstand the stress of the bypass. Regardless, he will require more extensive care if he's to make a complete recovery."
McKenzie began to ask something else but forgot all when she detected movement in her peripheral vision, outside the shuttle. Then harsh orange energy struck the Taylor's hull just to the left of the open hatch, rocking the small craft.
"Stay down." She ordered from where she crouched near the hatch, searching among cargo crates for the source of the attack. She caught sight of a dark shadow near an open door leading out of the hangar bay and fired more from instinct than training. Instinct was rewarded as her weapon lashed out energy and the phaser beam struck the attacker in the chest, driving him to the deck.
More shadows loomed in the corridor beyond the doorway, and McKenzie fired again, not at the Imperialists this time but instead at the control panel set into the bulkhead near the door. The panel exploded in a shower of sparks and the hatch promptly closed, blocking anymore Imperialists from entering the bay.
"Close the hatch." Nivek called out, still engrossed in his treatment of Cullen.
"No." McKenzie replied. "I don't want to give them a chance to surround us." She had no illusions that the Empire would let something as simple as a locked hatch keep them from getting into the hangar. They had only minutes before the guards regrouped at another point of entry. Unless she did something to prevent that.
"Computer, once I close the hatch, you're to open it only on my voice authorization or Nivek's. Acknowledge."
"Acknowledged." The computer replied. "Standing by."
Nivek looked up from his field surgery, his eyes wide. "What are you doing?"
"Stay here." She replied. "I'm sealing you in." Bounding down the shuttle's rear ramp to the hangar's metal deck, she turned and gave him a final look. "If you need assistance, the shuttle's onboard computer can help you." Before Nivek could respond or protest, McKenzie hit the control set into the shuttle's inner bulkhead and the ramp began to close. "I'll be right back." She said as the shuttle sealed itself, she then turned and headed across the hangar bay in search of other entry points she was certain to find.
She located a second hatch along the same bulkhead as the one she already disabled. The door was locked, and she used her phaser to destroy its control panel. She figured similar hatches would likely be found on the opposite side of the bay. Using the haphazard arrangement of the cargo containers and the shuttlecraft for cover, she maneuvered around the chamber's perimeter to where she believed she would find the next hatch.
As she moved past stacks of cargo, she felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck just before the shadows to her right shifted. Without thinking, she turned in that direction, her weapon arm coming up but far too late to be of any use. The lieutenant commander's own muscled arm was slashing down at her and McKenzie ducked to her left to avoid the knife slicing toward her, feeling the sensation of displaced air as the blade passed through the space just occupied by her head.
There was no time to look for a shot, as McKenzie heard and felt Black lumbering after her. Using her free hand to push away from a nearby crate, she threw herself around a corner, bobbing and weaving around the clutter as she fought to gain some maneuvering room.
"There is nowhere to run." Black called out, his voice low and menacing. "We have unfinished business."
Dodging around another cargo container, McKenzie abruptly found herself in an open section of the hangar deck, with nothing in front of her to provide cover. Then there was no time to consider the tactics of the situation before she heard Black's heavy footsteps behind her and she turned, once more bringing her phaser to bear. The lieutenant commander was too close, his left hand sweeping beneath her arm and slamming into her wrist, ruining her aim and sending the weapon flying from her hand. Backpedaling, McKenzie brought her hands up and assumed a defensive stance as Black regarded her with complete and utter hatred.
"I know you've locked Cullen in your shuttle." Black said, stepping to his left and holding the knife in his right hand low and near his side. "Give him to me, and I'll spare your life along with those of your comrades."
"I'm having a hard time believing that." McKenzie said, her attention on the knife and Black's hips, watching for any hits as to which direction he might move when he elected to attack again. Then he lunged forward and she jumped back, realizing as she stumbled that she had stepped on some kind of thick cabling running across the deck. McKenzie tried to correct her momentary loss of balance, but it was too late. She staggered over the cabling and landed hard on the deck, feeling the wind forced from her lungs at the same instant Black made his move, reaching for her with his free hand while bringing the blade around toward her.
With no time to regain her feet, McKenzie instead kicked out with her right leg, sweeping around and catching Black behind his left kneecap with sufficient force to drive his leg from beneath him. He stumbled, dropping to his left knee with a grunt. McKenzie rolled to her side, coming up on one knee and driving the heel of her hand into his nose. She heard the cartilage breaking from the force of the strike as Black howled and reached for his face, his weapon hand slashing more from rage and pain than in any real attempt to hit a target.
He tried to get up but McKenzie was faster, pulling herself to her feet and lashed out another kick, this one to the side of his head. It was enough to drive him to the deck and make him release his grip on the knife, the weapon clattering to the deck. She retrieved the blade just as Black growled in unrestrained fury and lurched to his feet, outstretched hands grasping for her throat.
Without thinking, McKenzie stepped into his attack and sank the blade into the soft flesh just above the neckline of his uniform. Black's reaction was immediate, his eyes widening in shock and renewed agony, reaching for the knife even as McKenzie pulled it free. He coughed and spat, blood appearing around the edges of his mouth as his hands moved to the wound in his neck. Staggering backward a few steps, he crashed to the floor of the hangar bay, his body going limp as he lost consciousness.
Panting and feeling the ache of stressed muscles as she fought to bring her breathing back under control, McKenzie could only stand with her hand on her knees, gripping the huge knife that still dripped with the blood of her adversary. The urge to kill the now helpless Black was all but overpowering. For the briefest of moments, as she looked upon him and noted his chest rising and falling in a weak rhythm, she not a soldier of the Terran Empire but rather one of the countless Xindi soldiers, specifically the reptilian Xindi, who had pursued her in hopes to destroy the rest of humanity. She had fought such enemies all over the galaxy and her memories were haunted by those times she came close to death.
No, she reminded herself. This isn't that place, and you're not that frightened MACO officer anymore. While it would be so easy to finish Black, and though she might even be able to rationalize that act after a fashion, Julia McKenzie knew that there was at least one person who would never approve; one whose opinion and judgment mattered more to her than those of anyone else in her entire life. Were she to obey every primal instinct currently screaming for vengeance, she was certain she would never again be able to look Jermaine Allensworth in the eye. What would he expect from her, here and now?
McKenzie sighed as she loosened her grip on Black's knife, the clatter it made against the deck echoing across the hangar bay of the base on Galorndon Core.