Free The Lost Era: Well of Souls: Star Trek by Ilsa J. Bick Page A

she smacked into the wall just behind hard enough that the point of her chin banged into stone. Her teeth clicked, and there was another flash of pain, then the brackish salty taste of blood in her mouth. She’d bitten her tongue. Batra groaned; her vision blacked, seemed to contract.
    Still, she heard Halak grappling with their assailants, the sounds of the fists on his body. Her eyelids fluttered. There was a flash of something shiny, and at first she thought it was at a trick of the light until she remembered—her mind moving so slowly it was like a computer with faulty chips—that the alley was dark and there was no light this far into the Kohol District.
    “Knife,” she croaked. She coughed, turned to her side, felt muck clinging to her cheek, her hair. “Knife ... Samir ... knife, knife!”
    The flash arced up, then down. Halak turned aside, to the right, only just in time to avoid having the knife bury itself in his neck. He screamed.
    No, no, no! Batra rolled, sat up. She swung her head around and tried to focus. She saw that one of the men—and they were men, she saw now, though their faces were shrouded by cloaks, and the light in the alley was too dim—was behind Halak, pinning Halak’s arms back through the crooks of his elbows. The one Halak had sent flying was staggering to his feet, clawing his way up the wall he’d hit. The last held a knife that was black and slick with Halak’s blood.
    “You shouldn’t be here,” she heard the man say. The man thrust his face toward Halak. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
    “Let her go,” Batra heard the pain in Halak’s voice. He was gasping. “Please, she’s not part ... she doesn’t know. Just let her go.”
    No one was paying attention to her. Because Batra was on the ground and because Halak’s arms were pulled back so tightly that the slits in Halak’s runic had parted, she saw what Halak had been reaching for, behind his back. What the men didn’t see.
    Without stopping to think if she could reach it, she did. Springing forward, she snatched the phaser from Halak’s belt, thumbed it to stun. She was already rolling, crouching in an attack stance, before the man with the knife realized what she’d done.
    Batra spotted, and fired. Her aim was true. The phaser beam lanced through the dim light of the alley, catching the one with the knife full in the chest. He jerked back, his arms flying wide. She heard the clatter of the knife on stone. The man staggered, then crumpled. Batra’s nostrils twitched with the acrid odor of singed cloth.
    Seizing the moment, Halak yanked his right arm free, spun to his left, and straight-armed his attacker under his chin with the heel of his right hand. There was an audible thunk of teeth, and the assailant’s head snapped back. Reaching up, Halak grabbed the man’s head between his hands and then brought his right knee up as he forced the man’s head down. There was a sickening crack as Halak drove his knee into the man’s face. The man went down in a heap and didn’t move.
    Batra heard movement to her left and she pivoted on her heels: just in time to see the third attacker angle his way into a side alley and disappear.
    For a minute, the only sound was their harsh, labored breathing. Phaser still in her hand, Batra collapsed into a huddle, her head aching, her ears still ringing. Her mouth tasted sour, and she worked her tongue, dislodging a clot that she spat to one side.
    From her left, she heard Halak’s groan. She looked over. Halak had sagged to the pavement and lay on his stomach. A dark bloom of color stained the left arm of his tunic.
    “Samir!” She crawled over on hands and knees to his side. Tucking the phaser into her waistband, she touched his arm with tentative fingers. They came away wet and black.
    “Oh my God.” Carefully, Batra rolled the sleeve of his tunic up until she saw the wound: easily a six- to seven-centimeter slash along his left bicep, from which blood flowed but