Gauntlet

by Michael Jan Friedman

  Nikolas had barely heard of the White Wolf before he embarked on this mission. But that didn’t keep him from wanting to find the guy, and not just because he had stolen something valuable from the Federation, something that could help people.

  It was the challenge—the idea of doing what no one before them had ever done. Back on the handball courts of Canarsie, Nikolas had itched to take on the legendary Red O’Reilly. Now he was itching to take on the White Wolf.

  Which was why Picard and his people had to come up with a new sensor arrangement—and why Nikolas would try like hell to keep them in the running in the meantime.

  “Look at him,” said Caber, who was sitting at the next console.

  Nikolas looked up from his monitor, still lost in the data he had been scanning. “Look at who?”

  Caber was staring across the room. “Who do you think?”

  Nikolas followed his friend’s gaze. He found himself looking at Obal, who had raised himself onto his tiptoes to peer at a monitor over an ensign’s shoulder.

  “I can’t believe they’ve got him overseeing us,” Caber said, his voice tinged with irony.

  “Believe it,” Nikolas told him, pulling up another sensor graphic on his monitor.

  “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. It’s like taking orders from some kind of pest.”

  “He’s still your superior,” Nikolas reminded him. “You might want to remember that.”

  Silence for a moment. Then Caber said, “Watch this.”

  By the time Nikolas looked up again, his roommmate was walking across the room, headed right for Obal. Oh man, the ensign thought, sensing something bad in the offing.

  Caber stopped when he got to the Binderian, over whom he towered the way an adult might tower over an eight-year-old. “Lieutenant?”

  Obal turned and looked up at him. “Yes?”

  What’s he up to? Nikolas wondered.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir,” said Caber, “but I could use some help here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking at.”

  Obal glanced at Caber’s console, then turned back to Caber himself. “We will take a look,” he said agreeably.

  They crossed the room together and Caber sat down in front of the screen. Unfortunately, he blocked the Binderian’s view in the process, so Obal moved to the other side to see around him.

  “You see what I mean?” Caber asked.

  As he posed the question, he moved his chair around to the other part of the screen, again blocking Obal’s view. Obal frowned, obviously a little frustrated, and moved back to his original position.

  But by then, Caber had moved as well. “Sir?” he said, sounding completely innocent of any wrongdoing. “You do see what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

  Nikolas heard a sound and looked around the room. Some of his colleagues were watching Caber’s antics and trying their best not to laugh at them.

  “Sir?” Caber said again, provoking a snicker. He glanced back at Obal. “Can you help me, sir?”

  It was only then that the Binderian got an inkling of what was going on. Looking up at the big man, he said, “This is not appropriate behavior for Starfleet personnel.”

  Caber turned to Obal and assumed a serious expression. “I’m not sure I know what you mean, sir.”

  The Binderian regarded him for a moment. Surely, thought Nikolas, he’s going to issue Caber a reprimand. Under the circumstances, it’s the only thing he can do.

  But Obal didn’t do it. He didn’t do anything. He just turned from his tormentor and walked away, leaving Caber unpunished and free to repeat his antics.

  Nikolas sighed.

  “Hey, Nik,” Caber rasped at him. He was grinning his perfect, white grin. “Did you see the look on his face? If that wasn’t priceless, I don’t know what is.”

  Nikolas frowned as he watched the Binderian sit down at his monitor and return to his work. “Yeah,” the ensign said with an empty feeling in his gut. “Priceless.”

  Pug Joseph stood behind one of his colleagues in the main security area and considered the big, concave monitor bank.

  In actuality, Joseph was only concerned with a single screen at the moment. It was the one that showed him the other hexagonal room in security, where Obal was presiding over the dozen men and women assigned to special sensor duty.

  The Binderian had seemed like the perfect individual for the job. After all, he had already demonstrated a knack for detail, he could hardly manage to fall asleep in the company of so many other crewmen, and—just as important—he would free up a security officer better suited to actual security work.

  On the other hand, this was an important duty, one requested by the captain himself. Joseph didn’t feel so confident in Obal that he was willing to let him operate without a little scrutiny.

  The security chief had been reminded of a saying he had read back in high school in Colorado, when his class was studying Aristotle: Who watches the watchers?

  In this case, he thought, I do.

  And it was a good thing. Though the monitor allowed him only to see and not hear what was going on, he had witnessed enough of Obal’s encounter with Ensign Caber to understand the gist of it.

  The ensign had ridiculed Obal, and the Binderian’s response had been no response at all. He had simply let it go.

  Not good, Joseph thought. Not good at all. He hadn’t been in charge of the security section for long, but even he knew that an officer couldn’t let a subordinate get the best of him. It was the quickest way to lose control of a section.

  He was tempted, as he turned away from the monitor bank, to relieve Obal of his assignment and put someone else in charge. But he didn’t do it. Part of him wanted to give Obal a chance to redeem himself.

  Even though the other part was sure he wouldn’t.

  Nikolas was about to tell his friend Caber that he didn’t like watching Obal be ridiculed, that he wished like hell that Caber wouldn‘t do it anymore. But before he could get the words out, he caught a glimpse of what was on his screen.

  Nikolas wasn’t exactly an expert at interpreting sensor data, but what he saw looked like trouble—the kind he didn’t think he ought to mull over for very long. He was about to call Obal over when he realized what it would look like—a replay of Caber’s antics, which was the last thing the ensign had in mind.

  Getting up from his seat, Nikolas crossed the room and leaned over beside the Binderian. Obal looked up at him and said, “Yes?” every bit as pleasantly as he had responded to Caber.

  Nikolas jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating his monitor. “I think there’s something here you ought to see.”

  Picard felt his jaw clench as he considered the rectangular viewscreen in front of him.

  It showed him and his bridge officers what Ensign Nikolas had noted mere minutes earlier on his computer monitor—an army of vicious, twisterlike formations, each one appearing as an elongated diamond shape in a hue ranging from silver to dusky bronze. They looked as deadly as any phenomena Picard had ever seen.

  “The vortices,” Ben Zoma said.

  The captain nodded grimly. “Yes.” Their predecessors—that is, the three who had managed to venture this far—had described this obstacle in some detail.

  Seeing no way around the twisters, they had attempted to negotiate a slow and careful path among them. Two of them, the captains of the Mongoose and the Leningrad, ended up turning back when the going got too rough. The third, the captain of the Christopher, had refused to give up until she lost a warp nacelle and no longer had a choice in the matter.

  Ben Zoma frowned at the viewscreen. “Too bad we can’t use your warp trick here.”

  “Because we don’t know how far this region may extend,” Picard elaborated.

  “And,” added Ben Zoma, “because the vortices are magnetic in nature. They’d wreak havoc with a subspace field. And then there’s the problem of going to warp this close to a sun.”


  “Point taken,” said Picard.

  Ben Zoma looked at him. “Convene the command staff?”

  The captain smiled, though he was hardly amused. “You must have read my mind, Number One.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  AGAIN PICARD FOUND himself at the head of the long black table in the Stargazer’s briefing room, regarding six attentive officers. “You are all aware of the problem, I trust.”

  Ben Zoma, Wu, Simenon, Valderrama, and the Asmund twins responded with nods and murmurs of confirmation.

  The captain turned to the hologram hovering over the center of the table. It was different from the one he had called for last time in that the debris field and the outer precincts of the solar system had been stripped away, leaving the system’s core and the vortex belt clearly visible.

  “As you’ve learned in your readings,” he said, “these magnetic vortices are what stopped the most enterprising of our colleagues. But they will not stop us. The question is: How can we get past them and continue to pursue our mission?”

  Ben Zoma iterated his remark that a warp-speed jump was not an option. Then he called for suggestions.

  Valderrama was the first to speak. “Magnetic forces of that intensity are going to tear up any shield they touch.”

  “But there’s no way for us to avoid them,” Wu noted.

  “They’re insubstantial,” Gerda observed, “so we can neither punch a hole in them with weapons fire nor clear a path through them with a tractor beam.”

  “What about a competing force?” Idun asked.

  Picard leaned forward. “What do you mean?”

  “A magnetic emission of some kind,” the helm officer expanded. “Something that will fight the vortices and reduce the threat they pose to our shields.”

  The captain looked around the table. Like him, everyone seemed intrigued by the nature of Idun’s suggestion. However, no one seemed able to translate it into a workable strategy.

  “It’s beyond us,” Ben Zoma said finally.

  Picard nodded. “Let’s move on.”

  That’s when he saw the expression on his chief engineer’s face. It was a surly look, a look of discontent.

  The captain had seen it before. It meant Simenon was thinking about something. Thinking hard.

  “Mr. Simenon?” he said.

  The Gnalish turned to him and his ruby eyes blinked. But he didn’t offer any other response.

  “Mr. Sim—” Wu began.

  But Ben Zoma stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. He too knew better than to interrupt Simenon when he was cogitating.

  Finally, the engineer’s eyes became animated again, an indication that he was finished thinking. “I’ve got an idea,” he rasped.

  Picard frowned. “And . . . ?”

  Simenon frowned back at him. “What if we were to change the polarity of our shields?”

  For a moment, the idea hung in the air like a second hologram, inviting everyone’s scrutiny. Then the group’s reactions began to manifest themselves.

  “Can you do that?” asked Ben Zoma.

  Simenon nodded. “I think so.”

  “If you can,” said Valderrama, “it should make the shields a lot less vulnerable to the action of the vortices.”

  Picard hadn’t trained as an engineer. However, he had a rudimentary understanding of the principles involved, and Simenon’s suggestion seemed to make sense.

  “Even if Mr. Simenon’s approach works,” said Wu, “it will still be a dangerous passage.”

  “Yes,” Ben Zoma agreed. “But not as dangerous.”

  “I would like to see a computer model,” he said.

  “No problem,” the engineer assured him. “I can whip one up as soon as I get back to engineering.”

  Taking that as his cue, the captain nodded. “By all means, Mr. Simenon.” He took in his assembled officers at a glance. “You’re dismissed, all of you.”

  He looked forward to seeing what the Gnalish came up with. If luck was still on their side, Simenon’s strategy would keep alive their hope of finding the White Wolf.

  If not . . .

  Picard caught himself. There is no alternative, he reflected. At least, not one he could live with.

  * * *

  Greyhorse was deep in reverie when he heard the captain’s voice over the intercom system.

  “What is it, sir?” he asked Picard.

  “I’ve gone over Mr. Simenon’s computer models and approved his plan for getting us through the vortex belt. Mind you, I believe we will come through with minimal damage. However, I want you to be on medical alert—just in case.”

  Greyhorse nodded even though he knew the captain couldn’t see him. “Acknowledged, sir.”

  “Picard out.”

  The doctor’s first thought was always the same: Gerda. Would she be endangered by what Simenon had proposed? Would he see her carried into sickbay on a gurney, her body broken and bleeding?

  As he had on other occasions, Greyhorse forcibly put the unwelcome image from his mind. It was his duty as a physician and as a Starfleet officer to provide medical care for everyone on the ship, not just a single individual.

  No matter how he felt about her.

  As Picard emerged from the turbolift, he saw everyone on the bridge glance in his direction. His officers looked as determined as he was—an encouraging sign, to be sure.

  “Mr. Simenon,” he said, “this is the captain.”

  The engineer’s voice flooded the bridge with its sibilance. “Simenon here. Time to give it a go?”

  As Picard approached his center seat, his first officer abdicated it and exchanged glances with him. Ben Zoma’s eyes crinkled at the corners, an expression of his particular brand of fatalism.

  What could possibly go wrong? he seemed to say.

  “Let us indeed give it a go,” the captain told Simenon.

  “Reversing shield polarity,” the engineer announced.

  Nothing changed on the forward viewscreen. The vortices still loomed ahead of them, savage twists of magnetic force daring ship and crew to try their luck.

  Picard glanced at Gerda. “Lieutenant?”

  She nodded. “He’s done it, sir.”

  “Very well, then,” the captain told her, his words ringing ominously across the bridge. “Let’s proceed. One-quarter impulse.”

  The Stargazer started forward, heading for the narrow gap between the two nearest vortices. Picard felt the deck shudder beneath his feet as mighty forces reached out for them.

  “Steady as she goes,” he said.

  Idun’s best bet was to follow a course midway between the vortices, keeping the ship from being savaged by either one of them. She did this with unerring accuracy, even when the magnetic phenomena tore at the Stargazer and her shields, causing the vessel to slide and buck and creak in protest.

  The captain trusted Idun as he had never trusted any other helm officer, and he wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Captain Ruhalter had said once that his right arm was less precious to him than Idun’s services at the helm.

  If anyone could pull this off, it was she. Of course, the captain of the Mongoose might have felt that way about his helmsman. The same for the captain of the Leningrad or the Christopher, and they had been proven dead wrong.

  So where did Picard get the gall to think he could prevail over the vortices? To imagine that he and the Stargazer could succeed where all the rest had failed?

  He didn’t know. But he knew this—he wasn’t going to stop until he had snared the White Wolf and brought him to justice.

  As if in answer to his vow, the ship jerked suddenly to one side and then the other, jostling them in their seats and forcing a groan out of the deck plates. Someone cursed beneath his breath.

  “Shields down eight percent,” Vigo announced.

  The captain frowned as the vortices on either side of them waxed immense on the forward viewscreen, two spectacular dynamos sizzling with magnetic energy. Come on, Picard urged his
helm officer silently. You can do it, Lieutenant.

  Sweat stood out on Idun’s brow in beads. And not just Idun’s brow, but Gerda’s as well, for the Stargazer’s navigator was sifting through incoming sensor data and feeding her sister whatever tidbits she deemed most critical.

  Slowly, with infinite care and patience, Idun guided them along the razor’s edge. And finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the first two vortices fell away from them.

  Only to reveal a great many more, rank upon rank as far as the eye could see.

  Picard forced himself to take the sight in stride. After all, he was the captain now. He had to set an example.

  Juanita Valderrama clung to the sides of her monitor in the science section and saw the same thing Captain Picard and his officers were seeing on the bridge.

  One vortex after another muscled its way onto her screen, majestic in its deadly, dazzling splendor. The ship shivered and jerked and reeled in the phenomenon’s prodigious grasp like a fish caught on a very large hook. And then, through luck or skill, they managed to wriggle free of each vortex’s influence.

  But the battle had to be taking its toll on the Stargazer. It had to be sapping their resources, just as it had sapped the resources of the other vessels that had braved this passage.

  Valderrama wished she had been able to do something to help their cause back in the briefing room. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe that Simenon’s theory could work; in fact, she did think it could. It was that the captain had placed his faith in her, made her the chief of his science section, and she was letting him down.

  When he had called for suggestions, she hadn’t come up with one. All she could think to do was state the obvious—that the vortices were liable to tear up their shields. For all the good she had done, she might as well not have been in the room at all.

  Suddenly, the deck shot out from beneath her feet. Valderrama tried to hang on to her monitor and stay upright. But just as she thought she might be able to keep from falling, the ship lurched again and she found the floor rushing up at her.