Star Trek: The Next Generation: Starfleet Academy #7: Secret of the Lizard People Read online

  “What would you have us do?” the android asked the doctor.

  Steinberg swallowed. “Take me someplace … someplace safe from the creatures, Data. Then head for for…”

  Before she could finish, her eyes closed and her head lolled to the side. Concerned, the android used his tricorder to measure her bio-signs.

  The doctor was unconscious but stable. Unfortunately, there was no guarantee that she would remain that way.

  “What was she trying to tell us?” asked Petros. “What did she want us to do after we took her to a safe place?”

  “The same thing she asked us to do before,” Sinna replied. “Find the operations center and see if we can maneuver the station out of the asteroid belt.”

  The Yanna looked to Glen Majors, as if expecting him to oppose her, as he did earlier. However, the second-year cadet wasn’t even looking at her. He was staring at Dr. Steinberg, paler than ever.

  Data approached Majors, though the human didn’t seem to notice. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Finally, Majors turned to him. But he didn’t answer. He just clenched his jaw, turned back to the medical officer and went on staring.

  It took them a while, but the cadets finally found what Dr. Steinberg had asked them for: someplace safe. A cabin that was free of the lizard creatures and likely to stay that way.

  The search might have gone faster, but as they progressed through several different corridors and maintenance tubes, they were forced time and again to elude the lizard beings prowling throughout the station.

  Several times, Data’s tricorder had warned him that they were close to being cornered by the creatures. But in each instance, the cadets had managed to slip away without actually encountering them.

  Sitting with their backs propped against the cabin’s walls and the motionless figure of the medical officer stretched out between them, the android and his companions took a moment to think things through.

  “One of us has to stay here with Dr. Steinberg,” Sinna said after a while, “while the rest of us try to locate the operations center.”

  Abruptly, Cadet Majors—who had been silent and unresponsive until that point—shook his head. “No,” he stated flatly. “We’re not going to the operations center. We’re staying right where we are until help arrives.”

  Majors looked even paler than before, Data observed. And he was sweating much more profusely than either Sinna or Petros.

  Petros looked at the second-year cadet, a little surprised. “But Dr. Steinberg told us she wanted us to—”

  “Dr. Steinberg isn’t in charge of this mission anymore,” Majors pointed out. “I am. I have seniority here. And I say we stay where we are.”

  It was true that Majors outranked them, the android reflected. However, he had learned at the Academy that a standing order from a commanding officer was to be carried out no matter what—even in that officer’s absence.

  He said so.

  “Wait a minute,” said Sinna, smiling at Data. “That’s right, isn’t it? We have to follow Dr. Steinberg’s instructions, no matter who outranks whom.”

  Majors swallowed hard. “Listen to me,” he told them. His voice was reedier than normal. “It’s too dangerous to try to reach the operations center. For one thing, we still don’t know where it is. And even if we find the place, our friend the android may not be able to accomplish as much as he thinks.” He licked his lips. “Our best bet is to stay put until the captain sends another team after us.”

  Data was as reluctant as ever to question Glen Majors’s judgment. Of all of them, Majors had the most experience in such scenarios—at least in terms of Academy simulations. And besides, every account of him that the android had ever read described Majors as outstanding leadership material.

  And yet…

  The android straightened. “I do not think ‘staying put,’ as you describe it, is the best course of action,” he remarked. “If we wait too long, Dr. Steinberg could die here. Also…”

  Data hesitated. After all, this was Glen Majors he was talking to. Glen Majors, who had not so long ago been the standard of confidence to which he aspired.

  But somehow, he couldn’t be certain anymore that the standard was still valid.

  “I may be more capable than you give me credit for,” he finished.

  Majors seemed taken aback, at first. Then he glared at the android, his eyes narrowing, a cruel smirk taking shape on his lips.

  “How about that,” he said slowly. “The mechanical man thinks he knows more than I do.” The muscles worked in his temples for a moment. “All right, Data. You want to show us how smart you are, go ahead.”

  The human got up and crossed the small room, then looked down at Data from his full height. He pointed a forefinger at the android—a forefinger that was trembling with barely contained emotion.

  “But I’m still the one in charge,” rasped Majors. “I’m still the leader here. And when your little plan turns sour, I’ll be the one who’ll have to figure out a way to get us out of here.”

  For the first time, Data recognized that Sinna might have been right about Glen Majors. The android didn’t know much about leadership, but even he understood that a good commander was not supposed to let his emotions get the best of him.

  Perhaps, he told himself, Cadet Majors is not such a good role model after all.

  CHAPTER

  8

  It turned out to be a simple matter to track down the alien station’s operations center. Data just had to follow the bundles of circuitry in the tubes they’d been traveling through all along.

  Where the bundles became thicker, it stood to reason that they were getting closer to their destination. Where the bundles became thinner, they were getting farther away.

  “And you knew this all along?” asked Sinna, as they crawled through a tube, just ahead of Cadet Majors. Despite Majors’s earlier statements, he was showing no particular desire to lead them.

  “I did not know it,” the android corrected her. “I simply suspected. Even now, there is no proof that I am correct in my assumption—though I believe we will know that soon enough.”

  “You mean we’re almost there?” asked the Yanna. She seemed understandably relieved by the prospect.

  “Based on my estimate of the station’s size,” Data replied, “I would say we are not more than three hundred meters from the operations center. If we do not reach it in the next several minutes, we will know that my hypothesis is without a basis in fact.”

  “And then we’ll have to start all over again,” Sinna noted.

  The android nodded. “Yes, an inconvenience, though a significant one. However, for Dr. Steinberg, such a state of affairs might prove disastrous.”

  Petros had volunteered to stay and watch over the medical officer. However, the cadet knew almost nothing about how to care for Steinberg. As the doctor herself had pointed out, she needed the sort of facilities only the Republic’s sickbay could offer.

  Abruptly, Data stopped and looked back over his shoulder, in Majors’s direction. The second-year cadet, who was crawling with his head down, didn’t notice the android’s action. But Sinna did.

  “What is it?” she asked the android.

  Data listened with all the concentration he could muster. A moment later, his effort was rewarded—if one could call the distant sound of growling a reward.

  “The creatures,” he told his friend. “I hear them coming.” He pointed past Majors, back in the direction they had come from. “From that direction,” he elaborated.

  “The creatures?” echoed Majors, suddenly roused from his reverie. He stared hollow-eyed at the android. “We can’t let them get to us in here. We won’t have a prayer in such close quarters.”

  Data returned his gaze. “I do not think we have a choice,” he responded. “There are no exits in sight. I suggest that you and Cadet Sinna get behind me and keep moving. I will do my best to protect all of us.”

  “No,” the Yanna told him,
her expression solemn and determined. “I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself for us.”

  The android took out his phaser and made sure it was set on heavy stun. “I have no intention of sacrificing myself,” he told Sinna. “There is simply no room in this tube for more than one of us to establish a defense. And as the one able to fire the fastest and with the greatest accuracy, it seems reasonable that I should act as rear guard.”

  It was not easy for the Yanna to argue with that. Clamping her lips shut, she crawled past Data. Majors was right on her heels, obviously not eager to remain in the creatures’ way.

  By the time his fellow cadets were up ahead of him, the growling had grown louder. And within seconds, Data caught a glimpse of the foremost creature as it came hurtling toward them along the length of the tube.

  Carefully, the android took aim and fired his phaser. Its fiery red beam hit the lizard being square in the chest. As it slumped to the bottom of the tube, two more appeared in its wake.

  Data was able to take one of these down, but not the other—at least, not right away. And as he made the attempt, two new creatures bounded past the unconscious forms of their pack-mates.

  What followed was difficult even for the android to follow. Even as he disabled several of the lizard beings with his stun beams, a few others appeared to skitter past him by virtue of their great speed. By then, it seemed, Sinna and Majors had entered the fray as well, discharging their phasers with whatever accuracy they could manage in the narrow confines of the tube.

  It was bedlam. Chaos. Data found himself wrestling with one of the creatures. No sooner had he slammed it against the lining of the tube, knocking it senseless, than another leaped at him.

  But fortunately for the android and his companions, the conflict didn’t last very long. When the tube was quiet again, and Data counted nine unconscious lizard beings in all, none of the cadets had been hurt very badly, though their containment suits had been torn here and there.

  The android’s suit, in particular, had suffered several long gashes. However, it had not been in good repair even before this battle. His previous confrontations with the creatures had taken their toll on it.

  “Just great,” said Majors, inspecting a small rip in his garb. “How long am I going to be able to tolerate that radiation now?”

  “I would not worry about that if I were. you,” Data told him. “By the time the radiation becomes a problem for you, the super-Jovian worlds will have become a sun. At that time, we will either be safe back on the Republic or destroyed in the process of ignition.”

  Majors cast a withering look at the android through his faceplate. “Thanks,” he muttered. “I feel a whole lot better now.”

  “Come on,” said Sinna. “Let’s get out of here before a few more of them get wind of us.”

  This time, Majors scurried ahead of them. And though he continued to look back over his shoulder every so often, he set an admirable pace. But after they’d followed the tube for fifty meters or so, they encountered the last thing Data had expected.

  A dead end.

  At least, for the three cadets. The bundles of circuitry continued through a tiny hole in the barrier ahead of them, presumably into the operations center proper. However, the android and his companions couldn’t have hoped to fit through that hole in their wildest dreams.

  “I can’t believe this,” snarled Majors. Frustrated, he pounded his fist on the barrier. “We’ve come all this way and for what?” Turning to Data, he spat, “You said you would get us to the operations center!”

  “I said I would try,” the android replied. “And I have not yet given up on the attempt. Nor did I expect that this tube would lead us all the way into the facility we seek.”

  “We passed an access panel just a couple of minutes ago,” Sinna offered hopefully. “If we’re in the neighborhood of the operations center, we ought to be able to reach it via one of the corridors.”

  Majors’s eyes opened wide. “The corridors? But there’s no telling how many of them could be out there.”

  “If they’re in the tubes,” the Yanna observed, “we’re not safe anywhere. Don’t you see that?”

  “We would’ve been safe if we’d stayed in the cabin with Steinberg and Petros,” Majors argued. “We never should have left that place.”

  “It is too late for this discussion to gain us anything,” Data reminded them. And without another word, he headed back toward the access panel they’d left behind.

  Sinna had the sense to follow him. And without anyone to contend with, Cadet Majors had no other option but to trail along.

  It only took a few moments for Data and his comrades to find the access panel, exit the tube, and make their way through the corridor to a set of doors. Like the doors to the botanical garden, they opened with a soft hiss at the cadets’ approach.

  But as those same doors closed behind them, the android observed that they were not in the place they had been looking for. Judging by the look on Majors’s face, he had come to the same conclusion.

  “This isn’t an operations center,” he said, walking across the room toward its only console and scanning the monitor on the bulkhead above it. “It can’t be. It’s too small, too sparsely equipped.” He cast a withering glance at Data. “You blew it, Tin Man. Again.”

  The android conceded inwardly that he had miscalculated. They seemed to be in a specialized facility of some sort—one with its own small airlock, no less. He guessed that it was an environmental control nexus or something similar, but definitely not an operations center. However, there was no point in dwelling on that now. He could ponder his failings later.

  If there was a later.

  At this moment, Data told himself, the preferred course was to assess their situation and see what steps were required to reach the goal they had set for themselves. Advancing to the console where Majors stood, the android took a closer look at the monitor.

  It displayed a cross section of the station, rendered in thin, blue lines. There were red and green dots at intervals, perhaps signifying life-support stations. Using his forefinger, Data started with their point of entry and traced the path they had taken through the alien facility.

  “What are you doing?” asked Sinna.

  “Attempting to determine our present location,” he explained. A moment later he found it. “We seem to be here,” he noted, indicating the spot for his companions’ edification. “If I am correct, we are near the middle of the station.”

  “And the operations center?” asked the Yanna.

  The android moved his finger to the representation of a somewhat larger cabin than the one they occupied.

  “That would appear to be here,” he told her. “Approximately one hundred meters away.”

  “Sure,” spat Majors, the muscles working in his jaw. “Lead us on another wild goose chase. And how are we supposed to get there this time?”

  Frowning at Majors, Sinna went over to the airlock hatch and hunkered down beside it. “Too bad we can’t get around outside the station.”

  Too bad indeed, Data agreed silently. Unfortunately, their containment suits weren’t proof against the rigors of space, and since they had been ripped in the latest lizard attack, they were even less so.

  The android’s head tilted as something occurred to him. Knowing what that meant, Sinna approached him.

  “You’ve thought of something,” she said.

  “I have,” he admitted. “Specifically, that one of us can have some mobility outside the station.”

  “That one being you,” Sinna noted.

  “Precisely,” Data replied. “After all, the station is not moving through space. And since I do not require air to breathe, or a strictly controlled environmental temperature range, I can survive for a limited period in the vacuum. Certainly, long enough to make it to the next airlock.”

  “Which conveniently opens on the operations center?” asked the Yanna.

  “I do not believe so,” the android an
swered, glancing again at the diagram of the ship on the alien monitor. He pointed to what he believed was the location of the next airlock. “However, it appears to open on a facility just down a short corridor from it.”

  Sinna looked at him. “And if it doesn’t?”

  “Then I am risking no other life but my own,” Data assured her, though it was, the android gathered, not the answer she was hoping for.

  “Wait a minute,” snarled Majors, drawing his companions’ attention. “You’re not really going to do this,” he told Data.

  “Why not?” asked the android. If the cadet had a valid reason that prevented him from proceeding with his plan, he wanted to hear it before he went any further.

  “Because I made this trip to humor you,” Majors continued. “I never had any intention of letting you try to pilot the station out of the asteroid belt.” His eyes narrowed in what Data now recognized as contempt. “You’re not a pilot,” the cadet rasped. “You haven’t got the instincts or the experience. All you’ll do is get us killed.”

  Data looked at him. “Nonetheless,” he said resolutely, “it is the only way to save the station and its occupants—ourselves included.”

  Believing that their conversation was over, the android moved to the airlock—until a bright, red beam of light speared the bulkhead just ahead of him, leaving a smoking, black char mark on the metallic surface.

  “Data!” cried Sinna.

  Data turned and saw the phaser in Majors’s trembling hand. It was pointed right at the android. And at this close range, it was highly unlikely that it would miss.

  CHAPTER

  9

  “I told you you’re not going anywhere,” said Cadet Majors. He swallowed hard. “Now step away from the airlock, both of you, and there won’t be any trouble.”

  The Yanna did as she was told. But Data just tilted his head. There was only one way to ensure their survival—that much was clear to him. How was it possible that Majors did not understand that?