by David Mack
“Less than two hours.” The Nalori woman added with a tone of mild surprise, “Damn, they’re even faster than I remembered.”
“And getting faster all the time,” Nilat said, reminded of Starfleet’s recent adoption of the revolutionary quantum slipstream drive. “But that just means we need to be smarter. K’mjok, program our last two recon probes to search for any sign of refined duranium or transparent aluminum, then dispatch them to the two farthest of your three candidate moons. Set them for wide-field scans from equatorial orbit. Put us in equatorial orbit of the closest moon, and execute a quick-and-dirty scan for the same factors. And make it fast, because Starfleet’s coming in hot.”
“Understood,” K’mjok said. Then he set himself and Trunch to work turning Nilat’s orders into action.
Nilat returned to Ninivus’s side and leaned close to the Tiburonian. “Nin, are the signal repeaters you deployed still in play?”
“Should be, if no one else found them.”
“Good. We need to keep Starfleet off our back for as long as possible.” She faced the viewscreen and hoped her petty diversion would be enough. “Trigger the damsel beacons.”
Eight
* * *
There were times when Captain Vale couldn’t resist comparing her starship to a living thing. Her analogy du jour for the Titan was a bloodhound, one that could sniff out an otherwise invisible trail left in the fabric of subspace and the rarefied cosmic dust of the interstellar void. The Luna-class starship had some of the most advanced sensor packages in Starfleet, and its partners in the Alpha Quadrant Frontier Exploration Group possessed comparable systems.
Stars stretched and snapped past on the bridge’s main viewscreen, their light distorted by the warp field that shimmered around the Titan like a soap bubble. Vale knew their quarry was somewhere out there, perhaps still in flight, maybe gone to ground.
Either way, we’ll find you.
An alert chirped on Tuvok’s console. Vale swiveled her chair toward the Vulcan, who then tapped at his panel to silence a second, then a third alert. The abrupt flurry proved peculiar enough to raise one of Tuvok’s eyebrows. Vale prompted him, “Report, Commander.”
“Three distress signals, Captain.” He organized the data on his console as he continued. “All nearly simultaneous, yet appearing to originate from markedly different headings.”
“Appearing to?”
Tuvok continued to poke at the intel on his console. “Indeed. One lies almost directly behind us. The other two would also require significant diversions from our present course.”
Rager turned away from the ops panel to add, “I’ve analyzed the signals, Captain. All three purport to be from civilian vessels in immediate danger.” With a dubious creasing of her brow she added, “And all three vessels’ reported positions lie beyond the range of our sensors.”
“Of course they do.” She threw a look at Keru. “What do you think, Commander?”
“It seems more than coincidental,” the security chief said, “that we should receive three distress calls while traveling with two escort vessels. Almost as if someone wanted to ensure there was enough distraction to occupy all three of us at once.”
Vale frowned. “My thoughts exactly.”
Without rising from her chair, Commander Sarai leaned toward Vale. “May I remind you, Captain, that we are required by Starfleet regulations and interstellar law—”
“To investigate all distress signals and render aid as needed,” Vale said, finishing the all-too-familiar citation. “I’m well aware of the regs, Number One. But the timing and multiplicity of these Maydays is more than a bit suspect, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Of course. The likelihood of these being genuine calls for aid is remote. It is far more probable that they are diversions intended to thwart our pursuit of the kidnappers. But our suspicions, no matter how well founded, provide insufficient justification to disregard the law. Even if we believe the calls to be fraudulent, we are still obligated to investigate. Sir.”
And we had been getting along so well lately. “What you say is true, Number One. But the regs only require us to be responsive—not hopelessly gullible.”
Sarai asked Tuvok, “Can we verify the registries of the ship’s requesting aid?”
“Checking,” Tuvok said as he worked.
Moments such as this reminded Vale of what she found vexing about the first officer imposed upon her by Starfleet Command. Sarai was a capable and experienced officer, but she was inflexible. Vale supposed Sarai’s rigidity was a byproduct of her disgrace after the debacle with President Pro Tem Ishan; it certainly didn’t comport with the sort of intellectual adaptability she had come to expect from Starfleet Intelligence field operatives, which was the division that had trained Sarai and honed her skills to a keen edge.
Tuvok looked up from his console. “The first message was too garbled for us to make out the ship’s name. The other two vessels purport to hail from alien powers whose registry data is not available to us. Consequently, I cannot verify any of the vessels’ identities.”
The bad news didn’t discourage Sarai. “Our duty remains unchanged.”
“You’re right, Number One. We are obligated to investigate—but just because we received three signals doesn’t mean I need to divert the entire battle group.” Vale stood, to emphasize her control of the situation. “Mister Tuvok, get me Captain Scarfield on the Wasp.”
“Aye, Captain.” His labors were answered by feedback tones from his panel, and then he said, “I have Captain Scarfield on channel one.”
“On-screen,” Vale said. She waited until the image of warp-distorted stars was replaced by the angular cheekbones and raven hair of Captain Fiona Scarfield, the commanding officer of the Starship Wasp. Vale softened the news with a wry smile. “Fiona. Guess why I’m calling.”
“No need. Do those Maydays look as fishy to you as they do to me?”
“More. All the same, I need you and your crew to run them down.”
Scarfield nodded. “The price we pay for being the fastest ship in the group.”
“That’s the spirit,” Vale said. “Plot the shortest route that’ll let you scout all three signals. If any of them fails to ping on long-range sensors, rule it out and move on to the next one. Then regroup with us and the Canterbury, ASAP.”
“Copy that.” To someone off-screen, Scarfield added, “Time to put our new slipstream drive to work. Lay in new heading one-one-six mark four, maximum slip.” With a friendly nod to Vale she signed off, “Christine, I’ll see you when I see you. Wasp out.”
Scarfield vanished from the viewscreen, which reverted to the view of stars. The sleek Starship Wasp arced across the screen ahead of the Titan, then it leaped away in a flash.
We have got to get ourselves one of those drives, Vale thought with mild envy.
She threw a challenging look at Sarai. “Satisfied?”
The first officer remained cool and aloof. “From a regulations standpoint? Yes.”
“Wonderful. Another day, another court-martial dodged.”
Vale’s mild rebuke seemed to sting Sarai more keenly than she’d meant it to. The XO replied, “I am merely upholding my responsibilities as your executive officer, Captain.”
“No offense intended, Number One.”
I just hope you’re that tenacious when it comes time to engage the enemy.
Cherbegrod felt sick. Not just from being beaten. Sick with rage. Embarrassed. The cruel Ferengi and his bullies—they did this. Made Cherbegrod hurt in his belly and his thoughts. Not right what they did. Cherbegrod found the space factory. Opened its doors. It was his salvage.
Now he had to be carried back to his chair on the Gomjar.
Haripog wanted to put him in his bed. Lock the door. Hide him away. But Cherbegrod knew better than that. He was smart. This was the wrong time to hide. If he crawled into his bed now, Haripog would become commander. Take away the ship. Take all Cherbegrod had left.
That would
be too much for Cherbegrod. When the others had tried to put him in his cabin, he’d said, “No. Top deck. My chair. Take me.” He’d kept saying it until they listened.
Eberleg and a couple of his tool-pushers set Cherbegrod in his command chair. It hurt to sit. Every part of Cherbegrod’s body was in pain. He was more bruise than flesh now. If he had not been so angry, the pain would have been too much. He swallowed his hurts and stayed quiet, even though all he wanted to do was cry and scream how unfair it all was.
But there was no time for that. He had to do something. Be in charge.
“Set course,” he said. “Away from the space factory. Warp speed.” When no one else on the bridge seemed to do anything, he pounded the armrests of his chair. “Now!”
His fellow Pakleds scurried into action. It took them a few seconds to stop running into one another. Then they settled, and someone did as he’d said. The ship turned away from the Husnock space factory, and the stars stretched into blurry streaks on the picture screen.
Cherbegrod took a deep breath. He could still give orders. His men still did what he said. He was still captain. He knuckled a few tears from the corners of his eyes.
Haripog clomped across the deck to stand next to Cherbegrod’s chair, huffing like he had just been running. His jaw muscles bulged, and a vein on the side of his head throbbed. “They took all our salvage,” he said. “Months of gathering. Took it all. And half our fuel.”
“We could be dead. Be glad you’re not.”
“Needed bigger boom,” Haripog said. “More boom.”
His complaining riled up the men. They surrounded Cherbegrod.
“Haripog smart,” said Garagool, the pilot. “We need more boom.”
Famapeg, a tool-pusher, joined in. “They took our factory with booms.” He poked Cherbegrod’s chest. “Give us booms, we show the Ferengi we are strong.”
“Strong and smart,” slurred Uugalog, another fix-it. “Take back what is ours.”
Too many lies. Too much dumb. Cherbegrod was tired of it all. “We are not strong. Not smart. We could have all the booms—they would still have the factory. And we would be dead.” He hurt everywhere when he stood, but Cherbegrod needed to be seen on his feet. It was the only way his men would listen. “More boom will not help us. Boom is stupid way. Boom gets us killed.” One aching, dizzying step after another, he moved through his crew, looked them in the eyes so they would know he was tough. “We are Pakleds. No good at fighting. Good at salvage.”
“We salvaged space factory,” Haripog said. “Ferengi took it away.”
It hurt when Cherbegrod breathed deeply, but he did it to buy thinking time. “Ferengi cheat. Ferengi steal. That is what Ferengi are good at.” He shuffled in agonizing steps to the forward panels. It took him a moment to find the control to switch the angle of the picture screen. He set it to look behind the Gomjar, then he poked the controls to make the image bigger. He looked up at the fast-shrinking image of the Husnock space factory. “We will come back. Get even with Gaila.” He faced his men. “I will make this right. And make him pay.”
There was no such thing, in Sarai’s opinion, as a good time to be compelled into making contact with Admiral Batanides, but some moments were demonstrably worse than others. Seeing the admiral’s secret code appear among the other reports on the tactical display beside her chair while she was on the bridge, in the middle of a red-alert crisis, was arguably the worst yet.
She dismissed the notice with a quick tap, knowing that her action would have three simultaneous effects: it would alert Batanides that Sarai had seen the clandestine summons, erase all record of the incoming signal and Sarai’s response from Titan’s comm logs, and trigger the antisurveillance systems in Sarai’s quarters in preparation for her secret check-in.
The hard part, Sarai knew, would be excusing herself from the bridge in the midst of the hunt for the Nausicaan ship and the kidnapped scientists without attracting undue attention. In her experience as a Starfleet Intelligence field operative, she often had found that the less one said and the fewer details one offered, the better.
She looked at Vale. “Captain? Permission to leave the bridge.”
Her request puzzled Vale. “For what?”
Sarai lowered her voice. “I suspect Admiral Riker might insist on leading the rescue op. As a precaution, I’d like to retrieve some gear from my quarters, so I can back him up.”
Vale nodded her consent. “Okay, but be quick, Number One.”
“Aye, sir. Back in a flash.”
Sarai got up and maintained her trademark calm as she walked inside the turbolift, which she directed toward her quarters. So far, so good.
Less than a minute later she stepped inside her quarters and locked the door. A quick check of her countersurveillance equipment confirmed that her suite remained secure from eavesdropping. She moved to her desk and opened the encrypted channel. “Active. Ready.”
The face of Admiral Batanides appeared on the screen. “We have a situation.”
“I know,” Sarai said, unable to mask her irritation. “I’m in the middle of it.”
“Mind your tone, Commander. And don’t assume I’m ignorant of your mission status. That’s precisely what makes this conversation so urgent.”
Calmer but still aloof, Sarai said, “I’m listening.”
“I’ve been reviewing Vale’s and Riker’s logs concerning the kidnapped scientists, as well as Riker’s logs from his initial encounter with the Douwd. When analyzed in conjunction with Vale’s and Riker’s psych profiles, the data suggests the two of them might make . . . unfortunate decisions with regard to this mission’s priorities.”
The ominous nature of the admiral’s words unsettled Sarai. “I’ve seen nothing to suggest either one of them would do anything to jeopardize the scientists’ lives or safety.”
Batanides looked skeptical. “Exactly my concern. The admiral and the captain both seem so fixated upon the immediate issue that neither is capable of accounting for the bigger picture.”
“You’ve lost me, Admiral. Bigger picture?”
“The attack on the expedition represents an imminent threat to Federation security.”
Sarai felt a sick churn of dread as she asked, “How so?”
“Our research into the Husnock is motivated by more than a love of pure science. As noble a goal as it might be to preserve aspects of their culture, Starfleet’s investment in the project is driven by the need to keep the Husnock’s military technology out of the wrong hands.”
Where was the admiral going with this? “I can’t imagine either the admiral or the captain would allow hostile powers to abscond with Husnock ships or weapons.”
“Nor can I, Commander. My concern is that, if Husnock ships or munitions were found, Riker and Vale might be tempted to take excessive preemptive action to prevent their capture. In their zeal to preserve the status quo, they might deprive Starfleet Research and Development of the chance to study the Husnock’s science for our benefit.”
“Considering what the Husnock did to Delta Rana IV, such measures seem warranted.”
The admiral frowned. “That’s tactical thinking. Think strategically. Consider the future.”
“But why worry about the Husnock’s technology? For all we know, it’s no better than anything we already have.”
“Need I remind you what the Douwd called them? A species of hideous intelligence. If the Husnock were nothing else, they were dangerous.” Batanides moderated her tone to one less confrontational. “As we push farther into the galaxy, we encounter new threats. Some have abilities we’ve never imagined. So whether we’re facing the Solanae, or the Hirogen, or who knows what else, we’re going to need every advantage we can get.”
“And what do you imagine that means for me, here and now?”
“I need you to stay aware of every decision Vale and Riker make regarding Husnock ships and weapons. Don’t compromise the safety of your ship or its escorts, but do all you can to persuade Riker
and Vale to preserve Husnock technology for further study.”
“Even if doing so presents a danger to interstellar peace?”
“The short-term risks are outweighed by the potential advances we could make in our defensive capabilities. Do whatever it takes to keep Husnock weapons out of foreign hands, but don’t let Riker or Vale rob us of the opportunity to master that technology for ourselves.” She lowered her chin and fixed Sarai with a piercing stare. “Understood?”
“Perfectly, Admiral.”
“Update me when it’s done. Batanides out.”
The screen went dark as the admiral terminated the connection. Sarai stared at its black surface, stunned by the blatant conflict of interest Batanides had just forced upon her.
What if the captain or the admiral are dead set on destroying the Husnock’s weapons, no matter what I say? What does Batanides expect me to do then? Mutiny?
She sighed to expel her frustration, then gathered up a few pieces of gear she had once used as a field agent for Starfleet Intelligence. She hoped none of them proved necessary for the rescue of the kidnapped scientists, but if they did, she knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use them.
If only I could be so sure of how to handle Batanides’s orders.
Exiting her quarters with a lightly packed duffel and a heavily burdened conscience, Sarai understood at last what it really felt like to be forced to serve two masters—and she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like it at all.
Nine
* * *
No matter how long the group trudged across the rocky moonscape, no path appeared. It was an untrammeled wilderness of dust and stone, desolate and unforgiving. Kilaris had learned to keep her eyes on only two things, in alternating turns: the ground below her feet, and the back of Varoh, the Nausicaan who had been tasked with serving as the column’s trailblazer.
It had been a rough walk, but the Nausicaans had endured the hike with a minimum of fuss. The Bynars, however, had collapsed after the first two hours and since then had been carried on the backs of a matched pair of Nausicaan dullards named Motar and Zallas—an act of favor about which Doctor Pek had groused for an hour. Kilaris had gotten the impression that the Tellarite was unaccustomed to long marches or hard exercise. She, meanwhile, remained silently thankful for her upbringing in the thin air, strong gravity, and merciless heat of Vulcan: it had tempered her to face nearly any ordeal.