Agents of Influence

by Dayton Ward

  “Working on it,” said Kirk, more to himself than anyone else.

  Khatami continued, “For that reason, this will be my last update to the buoy’s memory banks. As I record this, my helm officer is plotting a maneuver that will afford us some concealment from anyone who might be looking for us. We can’t stay out here in the middle of the asteroid field. Without the warp engines to provide primary power, we’re relying on impulse for everything. Deflector shields would cost us too much in energy.” She paused, looking into the pickup as though waiting for Nogura or whoever else might view this file to respond in some fashion. After a moment, she added, “Yeah, you know what I mean. I’m not able to give you a precise fix on our position, because, to be honest, we’re not exactly certain where we’re going to end up. However, if you found the buoy, you should be able to cut through the worst of things and find us, sooner or later.” She smiled. “Here’s hoping you’re as smart as I’d like you to be. Looking forward to seeing you, sir. Khatami out.” The message ended and the captain’s image faded from the screen.

  Nogura frowned. “That’s not much to go on, is it?”

  “It is logical to presume they have soft landed the Endeavour’s primary hull,” said Spock, turning to face Kirk and Nogura. “Such a maneuver would offer the ship greater protection against random asteroid collisions than simply remaining adrift within the field.”

  Kirk was not convinced. “Simply landing on the surface of an asteroid doesn’t get them completely out of the woods. Asteroids slam into each other all the time. Besides, even if we rule out those asteroids that are too small to support landing something the size of the Endeavour’s saucer section, that still leaves a rather large field to search.”

  “Maybe not, sir.”

  It was Uhura, moving from her station toward the group, with Spock stepping aside to allow her to join them.

  “You have something, Lieutenant?” asked Kirk.

  She nodded. “Yes, sir. Remember when I mentioned how the buoy’s been maintaining a largely static position at the asteroid field’s outer boundary? At first I thought it was just a way to make it simpler for us to find it, but now I’m wondering if there’s not more to it.”

  Without waiting, she leaned toward the science console and tapped several controls. Once more, the monitor above the workstation came to life, this time showing what Kirk recognized as a computer-generated representation of the Ivratis asteroid field. Icons appeared on the screen, including one marking the Enterprise’s present location and where the Endeavour’s buoy was found. Uhura pressed another control and a bright blue line began tracing a direct path through the field, beginning at the icon representing the buoy. It did not stop until it sliced through the entire field, at which point it cut across the screen in a line parallel to the field’s far boundary before changing direction and returning to the buoy’s position. The resulting triangular section then highlighted itself in light blue.

  “I’m betting the buoy is acting as a literal flag, marking a starting point to search for the Endeavour,” she said. “Assuming that’s the case, I created a model to account for the drift of the asteroids as they move in relation to one another within the field, giving us a possible search area. It’s still a decent-sized piece of the pie, but it has to be better than nothing.”

  Kirk grinned. “What did Khatami say? If we found the buoy, we should be able to cut through the worst of things and find them?” He offered Uhura an approving nod. “Nicely done, Lieutenant.” He studied the map’s highlighted region. “Compared to other parts of the field, this section really isn’t too dense.” Gesturing to an area just outside the blue triangle, he added, “If I were a civilian pilot looking to escape Starfleet or Klingon scrutiny, this would be the sort of route I might pick through an asteroid field to avoid detection.”

  “I was thinking the same thing, Captain,” said Nogura. “This lends itself rather well to our cover story.” He turned to Uhura. “My compliments, Lieutenant. You may well have saved us a great deal of time we can’t afford to waste.”

  The communications officer nodded. “My pleasure, Admiral.”

  “Spock,” said Kirk, “how long until Scotty’s finished upgrading the sensors on our civilian transport?”

  “Mister Scott estimated less than two hours remaining to complete that task.”

  Though not excited or comfortable with the current situation, Kirk still could take some satisfaction from knowing he and his people now had an actionable plan in place. “All right, then. Let’s figure out how to divide up a search grid that doesn’t make it look like we’re dividing a search grid. Whatever we do, we have to be ready to be confronted, whether by Klingons or anyone else who might be prowling around out here. Mister Spock, your primary task is to determine the nature of the odd interference that started this whole mess. Now that you’ve got the Endeavour’s sensor logs, hopefully you can find a clue in there to point you in the right direction.”

  Spock replied, “Understood.”

  His gaze still fixed on the map of the asteroid field, Kirk tried not to dwell too much on the sheer number of uncertainties and complications that might be waiting for him the moment he, Sulu, and Uhura departed aboard the Dreamline to carry out their part of this scheme.

  “Hopefully, we’ll avoid any unwelcome surprises,” he said.

  “Is that usually what happens with you and your crew, Captain?” asked Nogura.

  Suppressing the urge to chuckle, Kirk shook his head. “Almost never, Admiral. Then again, where’s the fun in that?”

  Twelve

  Atish Khatami entered the engineering space devoted to overseeing the Endeavour’s impulse engines to find it a hub of activity, if not a gathering spot for members of her crew. Containing six control consoles and their associated status monitors and display screens set into three of the room’s four walls, this area also served as an auxiliary means of monitoring main engineering should circumstances warrant such actions. Under normal conditions, this area was a redundancy, often used for training or conducting noncritical engineering tasks that did not warrant the resources of the primary engineering deck. Given the starship no longer had a main engineering section or an auxiliary control room to substitute for the bridge, this secondary space had received a promotion and increase in its usefulness. While the lighting here was subdued as a power-saving measure, all of the consoles were up and running.

  “Captain,” said Lieutenant Hector Estrada as he took notice of her entering the room. He offered a knowing smile, gesturing around him. “Be it ever so humble.”

  Khatami surveyed the makeshift control center. “Not exactly what was advertised when you made your reservations?”

  “The accommodations aren’t so bad,” said Estrada, “but when I booked rooms, they didn’t warn me the pool was closed.”

  “Remind me to leave a bad review with management after we check out, Lieutenant.”

  As part of the overall plan to reduce the Endeavour’s power expenditures, Khatami had ordered the main bridge deactivated and the use of turbolifts restricted to emergencies only. To that end, she had appointed this space as a “temporary bridge,” where she could gather her communications, science, tactical, and engineering heads without having to use ladders to make the climb up to the saucer’s topmost deck. With piloting the ship no longer a priority, that left Lieutenant Marielise McCormack to help with overseeing what remained of the ship’s weapons and defenses, while Lieutenant Neelakanta set aside his navigator’s duties in favor of assisting Chief Engineer Yataro and his staff with repairs and related tasks. Other bridge officers with nothing to do so far as their primary responsibilities were lending themselves out in similar fashion across the ship. Not for the first time, Khatami applauded Starfleet’s policies of cross-training every member of a starship’s crew. It was a mindset championed by her predecessor, the late Captain Zhao Sheng, and was just one of many traditions and expectations she carried on in his stead.

  Aside from Estr
ada and McCormack, the room was deserted despite all of the consoles being active and displaying information pertaining to systems across what remained of the ship. Katherine Stano had overseen the transfer of functions from the main bridge, making sure she and Khatami had instant access to the most current status updates. The Endeavour’s first officer and the team she assembled for the purpose made quick work of the task, getting this makeshift control center into working order within an hour of the ship’s soft landing.

  “Anything new to report?” asked Khatami.

  Estrada replied, “Lieutenant Brax and his team have just finished setting up the phaser cannons he wanted along the upper hull. They’re making their way back inside right now.”

  “And no problems getting them placed?”

  “No problems.” Estrada tapped a control on his console and one of the station’s small inset monitors activated. On the screen was a computer-generated image of the top portion of the Endeavour’s primary hull. Four blue dots, arrayed around the edge of the saucer section at the forward, aft, starboard, and port positions but all facing to the ship’s rear, signified the quartet of phaser cannons now deployed in a defensive perimeter. Lieutenant Brax, the ship’s Edoan chief of security, had offered the suggestion, after informing Khatami the large weapons were among the equipment that escaped damage both from the fight with the Klingons and the Endeavour’s landing. He submitted that along with the natural cover of the steep canyon walls surrounding the ship on three sides, the cannons could provide at least some means of warding off unwanted visitors should the need arise. Designed to be operated either remotely or by a two-person crew, they did not require constant oversight once placed. With the ship grounded and its primary weapons unusable, this was the best solution Brax and his security team could provide.

  Let’s just hope we don’t need them, Khatami thought.

  She asked, “How about our buoys?”

  “Nothing exciting.” Estrada gestured to the console that he had appropriated for his communications duties. “We’re getting solid signals back from all four of them. They’re transmitting on an extremely low frequency, well below the band you’d normally expect other ships to be monitoring, so they should escape detection unless another ship just happens to wander past our asteroid.”

  “As long as it’s the right ship, I’m good with that.” She nodded toward the console he had commandeered. “Since we’re on that subject, have you detected anything with your new setup?”

  “Not yet, but it’s early. The buoys have only been online for less than an hour.”

  The mission undertaken by Lieutenant Commander Yataro, Lieutenant Tomkins, and other members of the engineering staff to deploy the quartet of sensor buoys had thankfully gone off without a hitch. Using two of the six work pods stored in the primary hull’s cargo bays, Yataro and his team had maneuvered the buoys to equidistant points around the lip of the canyon in which the Endeavour rested. Less than two hours after the engineers ventured from the relative safety of the ship onto the asteroid’s unwelcoming surface, Estrada along with Lieutenant Klisiewicz were interfacing the ship’s communications and sensor arrays into those of the buoys.

  “We’ve set up a process that allows the buoys to remain in a passive mode so far as their onboard sensors,” said Estrada. “Their power output is very low; hopefully low enough that someone else’s scans won’t pick them up.” The lieutenant shrugged. “It’s a gamble, but I figure only a military ship would even bother to reconfigure their systems this way, and only then if they had a specific reason to do so. If somebody finds one of the buoys, they’ll figure out what’s going on and adjust their scans accordingly. Until then, I think this plus the asteroid field’s normal background interference will give us pretty good cover.”

  Khatami nodded. “Good work.”

  A tone from the console made Estrada turn from her, frowning as he studied the information being relayed to the station’s various monitors. Khatami watched as the communications officer pressed several controls, leaning closer to review data streaming across one screen.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  Khatami asked, “What is it?”

  “Our distress buoy.” He stood up, turning from the console. “It’s gone.”

  Feeling her eyes narrow as she pondered this news, Khatami looked to the workstation, reviewing the various readings and other updates. “Gone? Destroyed?” A knot of dread formed in her stomach as she considered the possibility of an enemy vessel finding them all but defenseless down in this canyon.

  Estrada moved to the adjacent console, which she knew was now configured to act as Lieutenant Klisiewicz’s interface to the ship’s sensors and main computer. “We weren’t even able to get a lock on its position until the buoys came online and we tied in our sensors. It was there an hour ago.” After a moment spent reviewing the data being fed to that station, he shook his head. “I don’t think it was destroyed. So far as I can tell thanks to the other buoys enhancing our sensors, there’s no sign of any weapons discharges or debris. It’s just… gone.”

  “Could someone have picked it up?” Khatami grimaced at the potentially unhappy possibilities that conjured.

  Estrada replied, “Maybe.” He tapped a few controls. “We’re too far from its last position to get a clear look with sensors. Not without increasing the buoys’ power levels and possibly giving away their location.” He frowned. “And ours.”

  Khatami did not like this. Somewhere out there, beyond the hull of what remained of her ship, things were happening that she could not see. It was possible Starfleet had received and decoded her messages and dispatched someone to find her ship. They could very well be searching for them right now, using the purposely vague clues she had left hidden within the distress buoy’s memory banks. Every fiber of her being wanted to activate every means of attracting attention the Endeavour had to offer, even as she knew that was a foolhardy course of action. No matter how frustrating it might be for her, the best thing she could do for the sake of everyone involved, rescuers and her crew alike, was sit tight and await the right opportunity to make contact with their saviors.

  Patience, Captain, she reminded herself.

  Another alert tone from Estrada’s console made the lieutenant return to the workstation. He turned from reviewing the litany of information displayed on various monitors to face Khatami.

  “We’ve got a problem. One of the buoys has increased power to its sensor array. It’s not much, but it’s out of sync with the others. I only noticed it because I was running a diagnostic on our connection with them.” He pressed several controls, and one of the status monitors changed its output to display long strings of computer code. “I’m not doing anything that might have triggered such a change, and so far as I can tell it’s not a malfunction, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. I’m taking them all offline until we can figure this out.”

  Summoning Yataro to join them, Khatami spent the ensuing minutes working with Estrada to review the sensor data now being relayed from the quartet of deployed buoys. So far, their attempts to scan for the presence of other vessels had turned up nothing, and now that Estrada had deactivated them until this new problem could be addressed, the Endeavour was back to being in the dark.

  The entrance doors slid apart to admit Yataro and Lieutenant Ivan Tomkins. Both engineers wore utility jumpsuits in lieu of their standard duty uniforms, and each appeared as if it had been some time since they last slept. Khatami knew that much was true for the bulk of the crew, to say nothing of herself, but for now sleep remained a luxury.

  “Commander,” she said, greeting the new arrivals. “We’ve got a problem.” She allowed Estrada to provide the details of the current situation. Once Yataro and Tomkins had time to process this news, she asked, “What can we do?”

  Yataro replied, “Implementing a full diagnostic of the buoys by remote would impact their power utilization, Captain, and perhaps draw unwanted attention. Alternatively, conducting such a t
est on site while interfacing directly with the onboard systems would pose a far lesser risk with respect to discovery.”

  “Another EVA?” Khatami frowned at the thought. Extravehicular activities, while routine aspects of life aboard a starship, especially for those members of a crew’s engineering contingent, still came with unavoidable risks under the most benign of circumstances. The current situation was anything but benign and she did not relish the thought of sending any of her people out a second time even to conduct what should be a fairly simple test and possible repair.

  Stepping forward, Tomkins said, “I can do it, Captain.” He looked to Yataro. “Commander. It’s an easy check and fix. Maybe a circuit’s acting up. I can take spares and swap out anything that looks questionable.”

  “You may be correct,” said the chief engineer, “but I propose a simpler alternative. We can simply recall the buoy, carry out whatever tests and repairs are required, then program it to return to its previous position. Indeed, we could easily reconfigure another buoy and send it out to replace the one we are bringing back.”

  “I like that idea a lot better,” said Khatami.

  Tomkins seemed to consider that before replying, “With all due respect, we had to place those buoys in specific locations in order to best take advantage of their enhancement to our communications and sensors. That required teams to be hands-on with the buoys on the surface. If we send one back remotely, there’s a chance we might position it incorrectly.”

  “Then we can adjust it accordingly,” offered Estrada. “Now that we’ve got the enhanced readings from the other buoys, we can use our boosted power to make a better calculation for the one giving us problems.” He glanced to Khatami. “It’s still a lot less risky than another EVA.”