Tarik and his team beamed in to the lower decks of the Darwin, forward of the Engineering section. Scans from the Arizona had shown there were no life signs in the morass of plasma fires, shorted conduits, and seething radiation that comprised what was left of Engineering.
Tarik opened his tricorder and began scanning for life signs. "There are signs of life in the ship's brig, Deck 6. Let's start climbing," he ordered.
As usual, Tarik took point. He didn't want to have anyone do anything he wasn't willing to do himself. Two of the men Tarik brought with him began working on the turbolift doors with cutting torches. As they worked, Tarik surveyed the surroundings.
Just yesterday, Tarik had seen the bodies of civilians who had been incinerated by the Son'a and their allies, helpless to do anything in their defense. Almost helpless. The father and son on New Canada still haunted his memory. The Starfleet science vessel, while not nearly as helpless as the colony, was still no match for the cascade effect created when the Son'a torpedo impacted the ship's deflector array. Probably what did in Engineering. These people never stood a chance!
The Son'a had sent a boarding party to the Darwin, which had been opposed by the Starfleet vessel's security team. The turbolift car had been sent to the bottom of the shaft as a precaution. The shaft was filled with wreckage from the turbolift mechanism and debris that had fallen down the tube during the battle. Carefully, Tarik and the team pushed it aside and climbed the rungs up to Deck 7.
Deck 7 had been mainly a bank of laboratories, sample preparation facilities, and storage areas. The bulk of the crew had been on Deck 7 at the time. Bodies--those of Son'a, the unknown aliens, and various Federation races--lay everywhere. This crew at least made them pay for it.
"Sir, I've got a lifesign. It's unknown and very weak," the medic reported.
"Take point, Mr. Stavrianos. We'll cover you."
Stavrianos moved ahead, monitoring his tricorder, while Tarik and the rest of the team kept him covered. After traversing 3/4 of the deck, they found the source of the lifesign. One of the unknown aliens who had been accompanying the Son'a during their raids.
"Scans indicate this one has a broken leg, crushed ribs, and probable spinal damage in addition to second and third degree burns," Stavrianos reported.
"Is this anything you can treat here?"
"Given the time, yes."
"You don't have the time. Get a transponder on him and have him beamed to the Arizona."
"But, sir! He may not survive!"
"Mr. Stavrianos, I missed the Son'a attack on New Canada because of some bureaucratic mix-up that got me here eight days before the rest of my command, which is still sitting on its tail at Starbase 736 despite my having to go out there to free them up. I get back in time to survey a village that his buddies--" Tarik snapped, pointing at the now-hapless alien "--decided to raid. Had the 28th MEF been on station like it was supposed to be, we could have saved New Canada.
"More than likely one of his friends decided to burn a sick little boy to death, for no reason other than his own jollies. If you think I'm going to have any sympathy at all if he ends up a big red stain on the transporter platform, you're wrong! If it were up to me, I'd say we leave him to die in pain, but Captain Wallace would probably like to have someone to interrogate. And besides, we've got our own people to worry about on the next deck. Now move!"
"Yes, sir!" Staviranos replied, placing the transponder on the wounded alien.
"Tarik to Arizona--one wounded prisoner to beam out. Have Security ready, and inform the Captain." Tarik commed.
<Aye, sir, one to beam out,> the transporter chief replied.
Remind me to buy you some first quality Romulan ale if for some reason you 'accidentally' corrupt the pattern buffers during transport, Tarik wanted to tell the transporter chief.
The party began climbing to Deck 6.
Deck 6 had fared better; the boarding attempt had been stopped at Deck 7 so Tarik's team merely had to contend with structural damage. An ODN relay sparked and snapped as the group--Tarik once again in the lead--moved toward the brig. Deck 6 contained the crew quarters and was largely empty at the time of the attack. Except for the brig.
Tarik found the security office empty, the weapons lockers completely cleaned out. The terminal at the security chief's desk was still active, although power was failing. <Wallace to Tarik--we've only got 31 minutes of life support left on the Darwin. Finish up your sweep quickly!>
"Aye, sir," Tarik responded. "We're at the brig right now, with another possible survivor."
Tarik examined the security monitor. He attempted to enter his access code, at which point the monitor finally died for good. Inside the holding cell was a single prisoner, a human.
"Please! Let me out! What the hell is going on around here?"
One of Tarik's team, an engineering crewman, examined the cell lock. "There's no way to get this open, sir. That surge that came through the deflector array fused every open circuit on the ship. The cell's circuit was open at the time. Now it's closed, and we can't get this force field down."
"Stand back. This calls for a brute-force solution," Tarik replied, hefting his phaser rifle. He fired a full-intensity burst at the control panel for the lock. The panel (and much of the accompanying wall) vanished. The cell shield dropped.
"Please step away from the entrance momentarily," Tarik ordered. This was, after all, still the brig. Part of what Tarik had hoped to accomplish was to find out who this prisoner was and what he was capable of. "Identify yourself. On what charges were you in the brig?"
"Crewman Apprentice Jerry Peterson, sir. I don't remmemberr, sir," the crewman slurred.
"Tricorder readings indicate the presence of large quantities of alcohol and barbituates in Mr. Peterson's bloodstream," Staviranos replied with a hint of disgust.
Intoxicated while on duty, Tarik thought. At least he's not dangerous--or still too far gone to be much of a threat. "All right, put another transponder on him, and get him out of here. Once we get him dried out he might be able to tell us what the Darwin was doing--at least up until the time he got plastered."
Moments later, Peterson was beamed off the Darwin.
Deck 5 proved to be the most depressing of all. Sickbay was here, and the triage had had bodies lining the corridor. Staviranos scanned the bodies. "Many of these people could have been saved, sir. Their injuries were serious but treatable. A few of these people look as though they committed suicide a few days after the attack." Tarik turned away from the charred remnants of yet another man holding a phaser to his own body.
Upon entering Sickbay, the team found out what had led to this tragic state of affairs. A patient--Tarik was able to identify him as the Darwin's Chief Medical Officer--was on the operating table, with an abdominal incision still open. He had taken some shrapnel in an explosion that had destroyed most of Sickbay. The EMH had been operating on him when another hit--probably the hit to the deflectors--burned out the hologram's emitters. Surgical instruments looked as though they had been dropped in place, and the ship's doctor became the first casualty from a lack of medical treatment.
"All right, people, it looks like we're done here. Tarik to Arizona--six to beam out."
As the transporter beam engulfed Tarik he began composing a plan--The Plan--to neutralize the Son'a threat. But that was mainly to put the images of the past few days, and his own guilt, out of his mind.
Suddenly that post on Ceres didn't look so bad after all...