The captain resisted the urge to get up and pace. We cannot have come all this way for nothing…
Suddenly, Gerda straightened in her seat. “I’ve got something,” she said.
“A trail?” Picard asked hopefully.
She confirmed it. “It’s faint, but it’s there. And there’s no question it was made by a warp engine.”
“What kind?” he pressed, wanting to get some idea of what they were up against.
That took a little longer. Finally, Gerda looked up from her console and said, “I’d say Yridian.”
It was a common enough drive, at least in the construction of cargo haulers. Good news, the captain thought. Had the trail been left by a warship, they would have faced a more daunting task when they caught up with her.
It would be difficult enough to face Brakmaktin as it was. With a warship at his disposal, it might have been impossible.
“Shall I follow it?” asked Idun Asmund, who was manning the helm.
“By all means,” said Picard.
Then he sat back in his center seat, drummed his fingertips on his armrest some more, and waited.
Pushing himself on his back along the Ubarrak access tube, Nikolas counted the tiny doors set into the metal surface above him until he got to the fifth one. Then he pressed his hand against the plate beside it and watched the door swing open, revealing a set of eight small studs within.
Four were black, two were red, and two were green. Using the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, he pressed the red studs at the same time. It was, as he had learned through painstaking study, the procedure for manually overriding the battle cruiser’s helm controls and activating her starboard thrusters.
That is, if such an outcome wasn’t made impossible by forces beyond Nikolas’s control.
Indeed, nothing was happening—no growl of moving machine parts, no hiss of forced gas-emission. Releasing the studs, he pressed them a second time. Still nothing.
Nikolas wasn’t surprised. This was only the most recent in a long line of failures.
Previously, he had attempted to shut down the antimatter fuel injectors, sabotage the conduits that sent plasma flowing to the nacelles, and create a feedback wave in the power relays that would fry the warp coils. But nothing had worked. Controls had frozen, borrowed tools had stopped working, and backup systems had materialized where they hadn’t existed before.
No matter what Nikolas did, the alien seemed to have anticipated it and come up with a way to prevent it. Which was why, many hours later, the cruiser’s engines were still running and she hadn’t diverged from her course by even a millimeter.
And yet, despite ample evidence of his meddling, the alien himself was nowhere to be seen. There were plenty of Ubarrak lying in the corridors and the lifts, staring into infinity until their bodies finally shut down from neglect. But no sign of the monster who had stricken them.
At first, Nikolas was glad he hadn’t run into his nemesis, since his only chance was to act surreptitiously. Then he began to wonder. At one point, he even tried to locate the alien by accessing the internal sensor grid. However, the sensor logs didn’t cooperate with him any better than the helm controls had, leaving Nikolas to draw his own conclusions.
And the most obvious one, hard as it was for him to understand, was that the alien had left the ship.
But that begged a question—if he wasn’t on the cruiser, where was he? Certainly not on the Iktoj’ni, which was by far the warship’s inferior when it came to speed and power—and that was before she got beat up.
Hadn’t the alien made a comment to Nikolas about the Ubarrak ship being in good condition? Why would he have said that unless he planned to use her somehow? And why would he have gone to the trouble of transporting Nikolas over from the Iktoj’ni when it would have been so much easier just to kill him?
No, Nikolas thought, the alien is here. He’s got to be. It’s just a matter of looking for him in the right place.
And the human would do that—he would have to, because the world the alien had plucked from his mind was a populated one, with hundreds of thousands of Ubarrak mining dilithium in its crust. The alien couldn’t be allowed to do to them what he had done to the crew of the warship.
His jaw clenching, Nikolas started pulling himself back down the access tube.
Picard rose from his center seat and moved forward toward the viewscreen, where Gerda had moments earlier established a visual of their objective.
It was an Yridian cargo ship, identifiable by her snub nose and her widely spaced nacelles. The captain had seen her like at starbases all across the sector, hauling everything from stem bolts to plasma manifolds.
But he had never seen one in this kind of shape. Judging by the savage burn marks decorating her hull, she had been raked by at least one energy barrage and possibly more.
And she wasn’t under way. She was just hanging there in the void, her observation ports only dimly illuminated.
“Slow to impulse,” Picard said.
“Aye, sir,” said Idun, dropping the Stargazer out of warp.
“Mister Ben Zoma,” said the captain, addressing the ship’s intercom system, “report to the bridge, please.”
“Aye, sir,” came Ben Zoma’s reply.
Picard tilted his head slightly as he regarded the cargo hauler. “Life signs?”
Gerda turned to him. “None, sir.”
Picard frowned, unable to trust even in his sensors. For all he knew, Brakmaktin had foiled them somehow and was still ensconced on the cargo hauler, lying in wait for whoever came aboard.
Or he had moved on, and the vessel was as it appeared—empty of living occupants. There was only one way to tell.
Hearing the soft hiss of the turbolift doors, the captain glanced over his shoulder and saw Ben Zoma emerge from the compartment. Before he had gone very far, his eyes were drawn to the image of the cargo hauler.
“According to sensors,” said Picard, “she’s devoid of life. But given what we’re dealing with…”
“It’s hard to be sure,” said Ben Zoma.
Picard turned to Gerda. “Transporter range?”
“At current speed,” said the navigator, “slightly more than eighteen minutes.”
“I am going to take a team,” said Picard, “to see if I can shed any light on what happened there. You have the bridge in my absence, Gilaad.”
Another first officer might have reminded the captain that he was too valuable a commodity to include on an away team. But Ben Zoma had known Picard long enough to know his protest would fall on deaf ears.
So all he did was give Picard a look and say, “I’ll let Dojjaron and Santana know to stand by.”
As the captain went aft, he passed Kastiigan at the science station. The Kandilkari looked up, no doubt hoping to be brought along. After all, he had been requesting to take on hazardous assignments for some time.
Briefly, Picard considered the idea of granting Kastiigan’s wish. But by the time he reached the turbolift, he had come to think better of it.
They were dealing with a most unusual being in Brakmaktin—one who not only was powerful, but had the finely honed adversarial instincts of the Nuyyad. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a better idea to take a team composed exclusively of security officers. Then, if something went wrong, they would be better equipped to respond.
Sorry, Lieutenant, Picard thought, perhaps another time. And as the turbolift doors opened, he left the bridge.
As Nikolas made his way through the Ubarrak ship’s symbol-incised corridors, he got a strong feeling of déjà vu—as if he had conducted such a search before.
I have, it occurred to him. In my dream. But then, he had been searching for his friend Locklear. Now he was looking for the alien who had brought him there…
Brakmaktin.
Nikolas stopped in his tracks, a chill climbing his spine. The alien had never mentioned his name, and Nikolas hadn’t asked. But somehow he knew it.
B
rakmaktin. And he came from a world of wide, cracked plains and clouds of volcanic smoke.
And he hadn’t always been this way—a being of power with shining, silver eyes. Not long ago he was a simple technician, no more fearsome than any other member of his species.
How do I know all this? Nikolas asked himself. Was it possible that when the alien scoured out his consciousness, he left a little of his own behind?
This way, he thought.
Then he realized that it wasn’t his thought at all. It had come to him unbidden, the product of a consciousness other than his own. And strangest of all, he knew which way this way was.
He continued down the corridor he was already following, then made a turn to the left that brought him to a lift. Taking it two decks down, he exited and turned to his right this time.
It was a deck he hadn’t yet had occasion to visit. In fact, he realized as if only now awakening from a dream, it might have been the only one in that category. And the more he thought about it, the less he believed it was a coincidence.
At the end of the corridor, he turned left again and came to a set of doors. They opened at his approach, revealing a large room that had once been the cruiser’s armory.
Its walls were covered with rows of disruptor weapons, short-barreled pistols as well as vicious-looking rifles. Once, it seemed to Nikolas, the Ubarrak must have enjoyed easy access to all the ordnance they kept there.
But that was before Brakmaktin had transformed the place into a fully realized cavern full of mineral pillars, not unlike the ones Nikolas had encountered on the Iktoj’ni. But far from taking the alien days to create, it had taken him less than a dozen hours. Clearly, he was getting more practiced at it.
As for Brakmaktin himself, he was floating in the center of the room a good half meter above the deck—eyes closed, feet together, massive arms extended sideways.
But he looked different from the last time Nikolas had seen him. His fringe of lank dark hair had turned silver, almost as silver as his eyes.
“Levitation,” said the alien, as if to no one in particular, “is a simple matter once you understand the workings of gravity. As simple as shaping a lesser being’s thoughts.”
Nikolas frowned. Which explains why I never ran into him.
Abruptly, Brakmaktin turned his eyes on the human. “I’ve made changes,” he noted.
“Yes,” the human said drily. “I can see that.”
Brakmaktin glared at him, clearly not pleased with the sarcasm. Then, by degrees, his expression softened.
“In any case,” he said, “it is only a temporary measure. When we reach our destination, I will create something more complete. More satisfying.”
Nikolas couldn’t imagine what the alien would do when he reached the Ubarrak world. He didn’t want to imagine it. It was bound to be horrific, worse than anything he had seen so far.
He couldn’t let it happen. He had to stop it—if not by bringing the ship about, then by bringing Brakmaktin about.
“You don’t want to go where we’re headed,” Nikolas said.
“But I do,” the alien told him offhandedly.
“You can’t,” said Nikolas. His mind raced to come up with a reason. “Its atmosphere’s been poisoned…by experimentation with biogenic weapons.”
Brakmaktin looked at him, his head tilted to the side. “There was no mention of that in your vessel’s database. Or the database in this vessel, either.”
He checked the databases? He’s more thorough than I thought. “It happened recently,” Nikolas said.
The alien continued to stare at him for a moment. Then he said, “You’re lying.”
And before Nikolas knew it, he was flying backward across the room, headed for the bulkhead behind him.
Don’t tense up, he told himself.
And he didn’t. But it still sent shoots of pain through his bones when he smashed into the mineral-encrusted bulkhead, and again when he plummeted to the metal deck.
Tasting blood, Nikolas looked up at Brakmaktin. The alien was still eyeing him from the center of the room, his eyes glowing with a fierce silver light.
Brakmaktin had the power to kill him with a gesture. Both Nikolas and his tormentor knew that. And for a moment, Nikolas thought that Brakmaktin would do it.
Then the alien turned away, as if Nikolas no longer interested him. The human breathed a sigh of relief.
But he didn’t understand Brakmaktin’s restraint. Why had he kept Nikolas around in the first place? Why was he continuing to keep him around?
Did he think that Nikolas had something he needed—some hard-to-get information about Ubarrak space, maybe? Or did the alien just want some company as he moved to meet his objective, whatever that might be?
Clearly, Brakmaktin could read Nikolas’s thoughts. But if he had “heard” the question in the human’s mind, he didn’t seem the least bit inclined to answer it. He just hung there in defiance of the ship’s artificial gravity…
And everything else in the universe.
Chapter Seven
PICARD MATERIALIZED in a centrally located corridor of the cargo hauler along with Joseph, Pierzynski, Pfeffer, and Iulus, all five of them wearing Starfleet environmental suits.
The garments were meant to protect them against radiation, extremes of heat and cold, and airlessness. However, they might not be of much use if Brakmaktin had set a trap for them.
Once the captain’s team was all accounted for, he cast a glance in either direction. The corridor was empty. But then, Refsland, the transporter operator, had made sure they wouldn’t appear in a location likely to present problems.
According to Refsland, a number of corridors and compartments were filled with “formations,” though he couldn’t say exactly what they were. Before Picard and his team were through, he intended to answer that question.
Among others.
“Mister Joseph,” he said, “take Lieutenants Pfeffer and Iulus, and check the engine room and the lower decks. Mister Pierzynski, you are with me.”
The Stargazer’s sensor scans had shown them where the ship’s lifts were. While the captain and Pierzynski set off in one direction, Joseph’s group went in the other.
Picard and Pierzynski found a lift station just where it was supposed to be. Getting inside, they punched in a destination and made their ascent to the ship’s bridge level.
When the lift doors opened, they emerged and looked around. The captain hadn’t known what he would find, but he certainly hadn’t expected this.
The corridor was filled with a forest of hourglass-shaped shafts connecting the deck below with the ceiling above, and everything—bulkheads included—was covered with a slick orange-and-blue veneer. If Picard hadn’t known better, he would have said he was surrounded by mineral deposits, the sort one might encounter in a subterranean chamber.
A quick tricorder scan showed him that it was true—they were mineral deposits. Formations, Refsland had called them. Now the captain understood what his transporter operator had been talking about.
Turning sideways, he slid between two of the shafts and made his way in the direction of the bridge. With a muttered curse, Pierzynski followed. In a matter of moments, they reached the set of doors they were looking for.
When Picard laid his hand on the bulkhead plate, the doors slid open—and released a puff of gray smoke. Exchanging glances with Pierzynski, the captain went inside.
He found plenty of support there for the notion that the ship had been through a battle. One of the control consoles had been thoroughly blackened, an exposed data conduit was still spewing sparks, and a break in an EPS line was causing the overheads to strobe insanely.
What Picard did not find was even a hint of captain and crew. That puzzled him. If they had perished in the battle, their bodies should have been sprawled there.
They had been removed, probably by Brakmaktin. But for what purpose? And was it before the battle or after?
And while he was on the subject
, with whom had the cargo hauler clashed? If Brakmaktin wasn’t to be found there any longer, they would need to identify his means of escape.
“Mister Pierzynski,” he said, “download the sensor logs—internal as well as external.”
“Aye, sir,” said the security officer.
Picard looked around the bridge. Next to the center seat, he saw a dark stain on the carpet. Kneeling, he scanned it with his tricorder, which identified it as blood—the Vobilite variety, shed between two and three days earlier.
He wasn’t sure what to make of it. Had Brakmaktin caused the injury, or was that the work of whoever had left his claw marks on the hull? Had the Nuyyad even been on board at the time, or had he arrived later on?
“Captain?” said Pierzynski.
Picard turned to him—and saw by his expression that the security officer was less than pleased with the results of his effort. “Problem, Lieutenant?”
“I’m afraid so, sir. The sensor logs have been wiped. There’s not even a shred of data left in them.”
The captain looked at him. “You mean they were damaged?”
Pierzynski shook his head. “No, sir. Erased.”
“I see,” said Picard.
So Brakmaktin was covering his trail. That meant it would be difficult to take him by surprise.
“See if you can access anything at all,” said the captain. “Even if it is only a record of repairs.”
“Aye, sir,” Pierzynski said, and bent to his task.
In the meantime, Picard contacted Ben Zoma and described the situation. “I would like to speak with Dojjaron,” he added, speaking into the communicator grid that was part of his helmet. “Perhaps he can tell me about those shafts out in the corridor.”
“Acknowledged,” said the first officer. “I’ll have Cadwallader patch you through.”
A few moments later, Picard heard the jangling voice of the foremost elder. “What is it?”
The captain told him about the mineral deposits. “Any idea what they might be?”
Dojjaron made a sound deep in his throat. “Brakmaktin is re-creating the safe-cavern of his clan. He’ll need it if he’s to produce young ones.”
Maker Page 7