Victory Snatched
As soon as the freighter and the runabout Ankh lowered their shields to (presumably) transfer prisoners, we put my plan into effect. Both targets were hit with the Murgatroid's pulse phasers, which had been illegally (we assume; I never did get around to checking the regulations before I broke them) modified to allow for an area-affect stun setting. This option used to exist in older Starfleet models, such as the Constitution-class, but was no longer employed.
I immediately met the Murgatroid's quartermaster (my wife, T'Vit) in the transporter room. She was carrying a large rucksack. We beamed over to the Ankh to board it and take control; another team (two security officers) were waiting for their turn to beam over to the freighter to take command of it.
While T'Vit made sure that
T'Sorvik and
Evil Storvik were unharmed, I quickly dragged all of the
Khans onboard to the transporter platform, and beamed them to out. I did not bother to set co-ordinates; presumably, the transporters were already programmed for the freighter which was to receive the abductees. I then raised shields on the Ankh. We were in a hurry.
On the bridge of the Murgatroid, Lieutenant Ditzbrain noticed that both vessels on her screen, first the Ankh and then the freighter, raised their shields and powered up their drives. "Bridge to transporter room!" she cried out. "Did the boarding parties beam out to their targets?"
"
Storvik's team make it to the Ankh," the transporter room replied, "but the security team for the freighter is just getting into position now."
"Belay the transport," Ditzbrain commanded. "The target has raised shields."
"How? They're supposed to all be stunned!"
"I'm receiving incoming transmissions," Lieutenant Heavens interrupted, "from both the Ankh and the freighter!"
After the briefest hesitation, Ditzbrain asked for the Ankh's transmission to be forwarded to the main screen first. "Attention Murgatroid," announced their captain. "This is Storvik. I shall be taking the Ankh for … some time, you might say. Qaren has command until I return, which means that Ditzbrain is in charge until you can extricate Qaren out from under
Major Beefcake. You should hear from me … soon." Storvik ended the transmission before they could reply.
"Khan to Murgatroid," began the transmission from the freighter, as the second signal was routed to the main screen. "I'm not sure how you found us or what you plan to do next, but Khanworld has already been apprised of what has happened here. And now, as they say, 'You'll-'"
"Wait!" interrupted Heavens. "Aren't you supposed to be stunned?"
Khan turned to show them a strange device strapped to his arm. She recognized some of the parts as belonging to a hypospray and a medical tricorder. "You've heard of a dead-man switch? This is similar. It can tell when I've been stunned or otherwise rendered unconscious, through a variety of common methods, and automatically injects me with the proper antidotes and stimulants to wake me back up again as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, I'm the only one who was wearing one, since it's a prototype that I was working on. Still, everyone else on Khanworld knows about its effectiveness now." He snickered. "Anyway, as I was about to say before I was so rudely interrupted, 'You'll never take us alive, coppers!' I've sent out a copy of my memory, so…"
Heaven watched on the main screen as the freighter self-destructed. "Khaaaaan!" she yelled.
Ditzbrain watched on her navigation panel as Storvik took the runabout on a course almost directly toward the Apollo system's sun. "Aaaaankh!" she yelled as the runabout did a slingshot manuever around the star and vanished from her instruments.