“It sure seems like it,” said Horombo.
Ben Zoma smiled. “Distance?”
“Fifty thousand kilometers.”
The first officer was about to ask Horombo to put their objective on a screen. But at that distance, they would be within visual range in a matter of seconds.
“There she is,” said Paris, pointing forward.
Ben Zoma took a peek through the observation port. So did McAteer, getting between Paris and Horombo in the process.
What they saw was daunting, to say the least.
The vessel was colossal, several times the size of the Stargazer and dark gray in color. Its long, angular hull boasted eight small nacelles, their mouths all glowing with a fierce vermilion light.
None of the warships it served were visible. However, the sensors were registering their presence, the nearest one being almost two hundred kilometers up ahead.
“Life signs?” asked McAteer.
“None that I can detect,” said Horombo.
“I think I see a cargo bay,” said Chen. He pointed to a rectangular outline on the drone’s port side.
“I don’t know what else it could be,” said Horombo.
“We can try to get in that way,” said Ben Zoma. “But I’d prefer to find a docking port. Then we’ve got a shot at manual access.”
“I think I found one,” Ramirez announced from an aft station. “And here’s another, on the other side.”
The first officer went back to see what Ramirez was looking at. Sure enough, there was a much smaller outline that suggested a docking facility.
He turned to his pilot. “Mister Paris, you’ll stay with the admiral. The rest of you will—”
“The hell he will,” said McAteer.
Ben Zoma looked at him. “Sir?”
“I have no intention of hanging back in this shuttle, Commander. If you’re going to try this, you’re going to do it with the benefit of my experience.”
The first officer didn’t know how good an idea it was to include the admiral on the away team. Even if McAteer had once been a crack ship’s officer, it was a long time since he had put himself on a bull’s-eye. He might get into trouble and drag the rest of them down along with him.
“Sir,” said Ben Zoma, seizing on the first angle that came to mind, “this is going to be a pretty dangerous proposition. I’d be remiss in my duty if I put the life of a superior officer in jeopardy.”
McAteer smiled a sour smile. “Not if that superior officer insisted on it—which I do.”
There wasn’t much that Ben Zoma could say to that. The decision had been taken out of his hands.
“All right,” he said. He turned again to Paris, who had watched the exchange with interest. “You might as well come too. We can put the shuttle on autopilot.”
“Aye, sir,” said the ensign. But it was clear that he was glad to be going along.
And Ben Zoma was glad to have him. It would be helpful to have another capable officer at his disposal—especially when he would constantly have to keep one eye out for McAteer.
Picard stood in the engine room of the Antares, studying a vaguely hourglass-shaped warp core that was identical to that of the Stargazer right down to the last stem bolt. It was shimmering inside with a ghostly, blue light, looking every bit as vigorous as it should have.
“Well,” Picard observed with satisfaction, “it appears that you are back in business.”
“That it does,” said Captain Vayishra, who was standing beside him, his aquiline features softened by the glare. “But if you hadn’t come along, the Antares would have been as dead as the invaders left her.”
And you and your crew along with it, thought Picard. But he refrained from mentioning that unhappy detail.
“We were pleased that we could help,” he said instead.
Vayishra looked as if he meant to say something more. However, he was interrupted by the voice of his com officer, which Picard had by then heard often enough to recognize as easily as his own.
“Captain,” said the officer, “I have Admiral Mehdi. He wishes to speak with both you and Captain Picard.”
The two men exchanged glances. Vayishra seemed to be of the same opinion as Picard—that they wouldn’t appreciate what they were about to hear.
“Patch it through to the main engineering console,” said Vayishra.
“Aye, sir,” said the com officer.
Picard and Vayishra moved to the console in question. It was in the same place as the one used by Simenon on the Stargazer. A moment later, Mehdi’s image appeared on a monitor screen. He looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping very well.
“Good news?” Picard asked hopefully, despite the admiral’s appearance.
“I wish it were,” said Mehdi.
Do not tell me that something happened to the shuttle, Picard insisted silently. Please do not tell me that.
“Two more of our ships have been attacked,” Mehdi reported. “The Ojanju and the Gettysburg. Both of them managed to send out warnings to the fleet before they fell incommunicado.”
Picard absorbed the information.
“Judging by the coordinates of the attacks,” the admiral continued, “our adversaries are steadily moving toward the heart of the Federation. They’ll reach Earth in a matter of days if we don’t stop them.”
Picard understood the significance of Mehdi’s observation. However, it was Vayishra who expressed it out loud.
“It’s been more than a hundred years,” he said, “since an enemy has gotten within firing range of Earth.”
And back then, Picard noted, there was significantly less at stake—the fate of a single planet, not an entire union of worlds. If Starfleet Command were destroyed, the damage to the Federation would be incalculable.
“Command has decided that we’ll make a stand,” said Mehdi, “with all the firepower we can muster. The Antares, I understand, is in no shape to fight….”
“However,” Picard inferred, “the Stargazer is—and you want her to be part of the effort.”
“What I want,” said Mehdi, “is for you to be off studying worlds we’ve never seen before, looking for new forms of life and undiscovered civilizations. But under the circumstances, yes, I’d like you to be part of the Federation’s defense.”
Picard nodded. “Consider it done, sir.”
Mehdi fashioned a halfhearted smile. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll transmit the pertinent coordinates.”
Picard didn’t like seeing the admiral this way. He seemed to be carrying the weight of the entire Federation on his narrow shoulders. “We will stop them,” the captain blurted, attempting to sound as reassuring as possible.
Mehdi appeared to brighten a bit. “I trust you’re right,” he said. He looked around. “I’ve grown rather fond of this place. I’d hate to lose it.”
And his image vanished from the screen.
“This place,” said Vayishra, echoing the admiral’s words. “I wonder if he meant his office…or Earth.”
It was an ominous question. Picard didn’t have the stomach for answering it. Neither did Vayishra, apparently.
Picard turned to his colleague. “I hate to leave the Antares to her own devices.”
“Don’t worry,” said Vayishra, “we’ll manage. It’s the Stargazer I’m concerned about.”
Picard regarded Vayishra, wondering what, exactly, the fellow intended by his remark. After all, he was an ally of McAteer. Was he implying that the Stargazer’s captain wouldn’t be equal to the task in front of him?
“We’ll manage as well,” he said, unable to quite keep the indignation out of his voice. Then he started for the exit.
“Picard,” said Vayishra.
Picard stopped and turned. “Yes?”
“All I meant was that you’ll be on the front line. Nothing else, I promise you.”
Picard took the remark at face value. “Thank you,” he told Vayishra. Then he turned again, and left engineering for the nearest transporter room.
<
br /> Chapter Eleven
ELIZABETH WU WAS LYING on her bed, staring at the ceiling of her quarters as if she might somehow find all the answers she wanted from Ulelo displayed there.
She ran her conversations with him over and over again in her mind, sifting them for just a nugget of something she could use. But it was to no avail.
The second officer was so intent on her introspection, she barely heard the chime that announced someone at her door. And she had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t the first time it had rung.
Getting up from her bed, she left her bedroom behind and emerged into the adjoining anteroom. Then she said, “Come in.”
As the doors opened, Wu saw that it was Jiterica. The ensign was looking remarkably like a humanoid in her new, improved containment suit. But if the look on the ensign’s face was any indication, she was anxious about something.
“Good to see you,” said Wu. She indicated a chair on one side of the room. “Please, have a seat.”
“Thank you,” said Jiterica.
Not so long ago, she would have found it painfully awkward to sit down. Her new suit seemed to have eliminated that problem.
“Is everything all right?” Wu asked.
Shortly after Jiterica came on board, the second officer had appointed herself the ensign’s unofficial guardian. Back then, Jiterica was lonely and unsure of herself, uncomfortable in an environment built for higher-density beings.
Fortunately for Jiterica, that had all changed, and she didn’t need a guardian as much as she used to. However, Wu had yet to relinquish the position.
“It’s Ensign Paris,” said Jiterica.
Ah yes, thought Wu. Paris.
Jiterica and her fellow ensign had become rather close over the last couple of months. And the second officer, who harbored a liking for both of them, had been delighted to see how much they enjoyed each other’s company.
Of course, there was that brief period where Paris appeared to want to avoid Jiterica, when he had pulled back from her. It had bothered Wu to see it, almost to the point where she had said something to him.
But thankfully, that phase had passed, and Paris and Jiterica had become constant companions again. So it was perfectly understandable if Jiterica was concerned about her friend.
“You want to know about the shuttle,” Wu concluded.
“Yes,” said Jiterica. “Has there been any word?”
Wu wished she had better news. “Not yet.”
Clearly, the ensign wasn’t pleased. “Shouldn’t we have received a message by now, either from another ship or from a starbase?”
The second officer nodded. “Perhaps we should have. But I’m not going to jump to conclusions. Unless I hear something to the contrary, I’m going to assume Commander Ben Zoma and his crew found safe haven.”
Jiterica took a moment to consider the remark. “You believe they’re uninjured?”
“I do,” said Wu.
The ensign smiled. “Then I will believe that too.”
Wu was gratified that Jiterica placed such faith in her. She just hoped that when it came to the Livingston, neither of them found a reason to be disappointed.
On the Cargo Hauler Iktoj’ni, Nikolas eyed the plate in front of him, which was heaped high with slender, pale tubers drowned in thick, black sauce.
“It’s better than it looks,” Locklear assured him from his seat on the other side of the table.
“I don’t see how it could be worse,” said Nikolas.
The cargo hauler wasn’t equipped with the state-of-the-art replicators that had become standard on Federation starships. The one they had wasn’t able to work fast enough to create a variety of dishes every night, so they had it make mass quantities of the same dish instead.
This evening, it was a Fayyenh specialty that Nikolas couldn’t even pronounce. Translated, it was rays-of-sunshine-in-old-dark-mud. Somehow, he wasn’t tempted by it.
It occurred to him that if he left it alone for a while and came back to it, it might not seem quite so unappealing. Pushing his chair away from the table, he looked around the mess hall.
The captain, a Vobilite, was discussing something with a couple of her mates on the other side of the room. Like all of her ruddy-faced species, Rejjerin had to speak around the curved tusks that protruded from the corners of her mouth, a condition that made her look argumentative sometimes.
But not this time. As she sat there trading remarks, she seemed confident, relaxed—and for a good reason. The Ik’tojni had nearly cleared Starfleet’s danger zone. In another day at their present speed, they would be home free.
Of course, there was still a chance that the captain would come to regret her decision. But to that point, it looked like she had made the right one.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” asked Locklear.
Nikolas saw that his friend was studying Rejjerin as well. “I guess you could say that.” He didn’t think Captain Picard would have taken that kind of risk—not unless there was a lot more at stake than a cargo delivery.
Locklear chuckled. “I remember how nervous you were when I told you the captain was forging ahead.”
“No,” said Nikolas, “actually that was you.”
His friend looked at him, his brow creased down the middle. “Now that you mention it, maybe it was. Anyway, I’ll be damned if her luck isn’t holding.”
Nikolas couldn’t argue with the facts. “I just hope our next job takes us somewhere far from this danger zone. I don’t think I’d want to push Rejjerin’s luck twice.”
Locklear turned a little pale beneath his freckles. “Amen to that.”
Nikolas took a fresh look at his dinner plate. Unfortunately, it didn’t look any more appealing than it had before. If anything, it looked less so.
It almost made him wish that the mystery marauders would show up after all. That way, he wouldn’t have to eat the stuff.
Ben Zoma watched the alien vessel’s docking port loom nearer and nearer, until it was so close that he could see the scratches on its hatch plate.
Only then did he say, “Ease her in, Mister Paris.”
“Aye, sir,” said the ensign. Then he turned the shuttle sideways and gently applied port thrusters to nudge her toward her target. After a moment or two, he married one surface to the other with a metallic thunk.
Unfortunately, the shuttle’s door didn’t fit the docking port precisely, and anything less than a perfect accommodation would leak dangerous amounts of oxygen. However, Starfleet’s engineers had long ago foreseen such an eventuality.
Using a separate set of controls in the corner of the console, Paris extended a flexible seal around the docking port. Then he reinforced it with a transparent electromagnetic barrier, not unlike the one used in the Stargazer’s brig.
Ben Zoma put a hand on the ensign’s shoulder. “Are we good?”
“We are,” Paris confirmed.
“Good work,” said the first officer. Then, glancing at the others, he said, “Don suits and check phasers.”
It took a couple of minutes for everyone to do that. As it happened, McAteer took the longest. But then, it had probably been years since he even looked at a containment suit, much less confirmed the charge in a phaser pistol.
“Ready?” said Ben Zoma, his voice sounding tinny as it came to him over his helmet’s receiver.
Everyone nodded in their helmets. Even the admiral, though he was the highest-ranking officer aboard and could have led the mission himself, if he had wanted to.
“All right,” said Ben Zoma. And he depressed the stud on the control panel that would open the shuttle door.
As it slid aside with a soft exhalation, it revealed the supply vessel’s hatch cover, which had six sides and was made of the same dark metal alloy as the rest of the ship. There was something protruding from it that was clearly intended to be a handle, indicating that the aliens had appendages not a great deal unlike Ben Zoma’s own.
He turned to Chen, then Ramirez. �
�Open it.”
The two security officers slipped their phasers into the appropriate slots on the exterior of their suits. Then they advanced to the hatch door and bent to the task of turning its handle in a counterclockwise direction.
Of course, it might not have been designed to rotate in that direction. It might not have been intended to rotate at all. But it certainly seemed to be the required approach.
For a moment, nothing happened, leading Ben Zoma to wonder if their expectations had led them astray. Then finally, the handle turned, and they heard a distinct clunk—suggesting that the hatch’s locking mechanism had disengaged. Chen and Ramirez looked at each other, then pulled.
With a slight puff of equalizing gas pressure, the hatch door swung open. As Ben Zoma had anticipated, there was an airlock beyond it—dimly lit and cylindrical in shape—and a similar door on the far side.
Hunkering down, he entered the lock. Then he gestured for the rest of the team to follow. When they were all inside, Chen and Ramirez pulled the hatch door closed behind them and relocked it with an interior handle.
A moment later, Garner and Horombo started working on the opposite hatch. This one yielded more easily than the first, perhaps because they were turning it with more confidence.
As the hatch swung aside, all Ben Zoma could see beyond it was darkness. He stuck his head through the opening and confirmed it—nothing but darkness in every direction. But then, the ship was unoccupied. Why waste energy on illumination when there was no one there to benefit from it?
Activating his palmlight, Ben Zoma took a few quick stabs at the place. It seemed immense. His beam traveled a long way before it finally hit something solid.
And even then, it wasn’t a bulkhead. It was a sprawling terrain of squat, cylindrical containers. But that was good news. It meant they were in the vessel’s main cargo hold.
“Come on,” Ben Zoma said. “Let’s take a look around.” And he moved out into the benighted expanse.
One by one, the others followed—first McAteer, then Paris, and finally the security officers. Their palmlights sliced through the darkness like knives through fat, dark flesh.
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