In the end, they opted to phaser holes in the wall of the container from the inside. By continuing through the back of each lock, they obtained access to its insides and were able to reconfigure it to accept a tricorder signal.
After that, it was a matter of climbing inside. That was accomplished with the help of a couple of strong backs, Ben Zoma’s being one of them.
Garner was the last to clear the wall of the container. Having been a gymnast of some note, she was able to take a running jump and vault over it, though her form was hampered considerably by the bulkiness of her containment suit.
The next step was to drag the lid across the top of the container until it slipped into place, and then to reactivate the locks. They were already depending on their palmlights for illumination, so it didn’t get any darker when they pulled the lid over. But somehow, it seemed like it did.
And their lights had limited power sources. In a little while they would have to be turned off, so the team could make use of them again when they really needed them.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to conserve air as well. They didn’t know what conditions they might face in transit from the supply drone to a warship. In fact, the sooner they made the move, the better.
“Remove your helmets,” Ben Zoma ordered his companions, “and shut down your air intake.”
No one hesitated—except McAteer. The admiral tossed him a look that said he would have liked to give that order.
The first officer had agreed to defer to McAteer, but he wasn’t going to ask permission every time he saw a need to say something. And if the admiral didn’t like it, he could convene a competency hearing for Ben Zoma as well.
He was still thinking that when something unpleasant reached his nostrils. Something very unpleasant. And he didn’t have to look far to realize what it was.
McAteer uttered a sound of disgust. “It stinks in here!”
“So it does,” said Ben Zoma. He pointed to the foodstuff with which they had lined the container. “And here’s the culprit.”
Ramirez took a whiff of it close up, then made a face. “The commander’s right.”
The admiral turned to Ben Zoma as if the first officer had created the smell himself. “What are we going to do about it?”
Ben Zoma shrugged. “Not much we can do, sir. We could put the stuff somewhere else, but if the aliens shallow-scan the container they won’t find what they’re looking for.”
The admiral looked like he was on the verge of supporting that option, even with its obvious drawback. Then he seemed to feel the scrutiny of the away team.
“Very well,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “We’ll do it your way, Mister Ben Zoma.”
The first officer met McAteer’s glare. “Make yourselves at home, then. We’ll be here awhile.”
A few hours, in fact. At least, that was what the aliens’ pickup schedule had indicated.
It might have been more comfortable for everyone if they propped their backs up against the walls of the container. However, no one wanted to get closer to the foodstuff than was absolutely necessary, so they all clustered in the middle.
Then they waited, thinking their own private thoughts, their features sculpted by the glow of Chen’s lonely palmlight. And soon, they would have to give that up as well.
Ben Zoma felt as if he had climbed a beanstalk to a colossal castle and was waiting in a cheese larder for the giant to come home. Of course, he couldn’t imagine any cheese larder smelling as bad as the stuff around him.
But considering the magnitude of what was at stake, he would have endured a lot worse.
Picard had no sooner emerged from his ready room onto the Stargazer’s bridge than he was called over by Gerda Asmund.
“What is it?” he asked, joining her at her console.
She pointed. “I think you should take a look at this, sir.”
The screen the navigator showed him was black with red dots on it, tracking the aliens’ progress through the sector. The captain didn’t have to study it for long to understand why Gerda found it intriguing.
“You see what I mean?” she asked.
Picard nodded. “I do.”
The armada had come within a light-year of several different Federation member worlds, all of them blessed with abundant populations and natural resources. But the aliens hadn’t seen fit to attack them—hadn’t even slowed down to get a better look at what they were passing up.
For no reason Picard could fathom, the invaders were interested only in the Stargazer and her sister ships—even though they had already caught and released half a dozen of them. It was bizarre—beyond bizarre. And yet, there it was, a pattern that was documented and undeniable.
The captain glanced at Gerda. “I don’t suppose you would care to venture an explanation.”
She shook her head. “Not without more to go on.”
Picard grunted. “That makes two of us.”
Still puzzling over what he had seen, he deposited himself in his center seat and regarded his viewscreen. There was nothing remarkable on it at the moment. But in time, there would be.
Their mysterious enemy would fill it with its armada, cutting like a dagger through Federation space. And it would be up to Picard and others like him to turn the dagger away.
He would have accepted the challenge more eagerly if he thought he and his fellow captains had an even chance. But this was one battle he didn’t think they could win.
Four hours had passed in the container, and the aliens still hadn’t come for it. What’s more, the smell inside it hadn’t gotten any better.
Ben Zoma decided his team needed a distraction. Certainly, he did.
“So,” he said, “who’s got an Academy story?”
At first, everyone just stared at him. Then Horombo chuckled to himself and said, “I do, I guess.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Ben Zoma.
McAteer looked at him as if he disapproved of the idea. However, he didn’t actually come out and put the kibosh on it.
“Well,” said Horombo, “you all know Boothby, right?”
There was a murmur of confirmation. Boothby was the groundskeeper at the Academy, a very popular figure with the cadets.
But not with McAteer, apparently. He had a queer look in his eye, as if the mention of Boothby brought back a memory he would rather have forgotten.
“About ten years back,” said Horombo, “when I was attending the Academy, Boothby planted a Vulcan tuula bush. It was dark red, with slim, pointed leaves.”
“I remember it,” said Paris, and apparently he wasn’t the only one there who did.
“Anyway,” Horombo continued, “one record-cold night, a few of the other cadets got their hands on some pretty strong liquor—not Romulan ale, but something almost as potent—elsewhere in San Francisco. Two bottles altogether. By the time they got back to the Academy grounds, they had already finished one of the bottles and were half-blind.
“They figured they would sock away the other bottle for another day. But as they crossed Boothby’s gardens to get to their dorm rooms, they saw a security officer strolling in their direction. Afraid that he would ask to see what they were carrying, they panicked and slipped behind the tuula bush, and poured out the contents of the second bottle.
“As it turned out, the security officer took a different route and didn’t bother them, so they had emptied the bottle for nothing. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The next day, when they walked past the tuula bush, it wasn’t dark red anymore. Its leaves were all pink with brown spots.
“Well, all the cadets loved Boothby, and these three were no exception. They knew how hard he had worked to nurture his tuula bush, and how heartbroken he would be to see what they had done to it. And they knew also how angry the commandant of the Academy would be if he found out how the tuula bush had gotten sick.
“In the end, they decided to do the honorable thing and admit their mistake, regardless of the trouble they would face. But first, they wen
t to Boothby to apologize—and it was a good thing they did.
“Apparently, tuula bushes change colors with the seasons, and this one got confused by the drastic change in temperature that evening. So it faded from its summer scarlet to its colder-weather pink and brown in just a couple of hours—and had already made the change when the cadets came along and dumped liquor on it.”
“So it wasn’t their fault,” said Ramirez, a smile on her face.
“Not at all. In fact, the bush had already changed back to its summer coloring. And Boothby being Boothby, he didn’t tell anyone what the cadets had done.”
Ben Zoma laughed. “Good story, Lieutenant.”
Everyone else seemed to think so, too. Except McAteer, of course. But then, he was the odd man out more and more.
“And this was ten years ago?” asked Garner.
Horombo nodded. “My senior year. Were you there?”
Garner shook her head. “Not yet. I got there the year after—when Oonnoommi took over as commandant.”
Ramirez leaned forward. “Wasn’t that the year the Parisses Squares team went undefeated?”
“That was the year before,” said Chen. “My brother—” He stopped in midsentence, his eyes suddenly wide and desolate.
“Your brother what?” asked Ben Zoma, refusing to let the security officer wallow in uncertainty.
“My brother,” Chen said a little more quietly, “was on that team.”
“And how did he do?” the first officer asked.
Chen smiled despite himself. “He did well, sir. As a matter of fact, he led the cadets in scoring.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Ben Zoma.
“That’s it,” McAteer said abruptly.
Ben Zoma turned to him. “Sir?”
“I’m tired of waiting,” the admiral said. “While we’re sitting here twiddling our damn thumbs, the aliens may be mopping the floor with our fleet.”
It was a possibility, all right. But Ben Zoma wasn’t inclined to act on it.
“We’ve got to be patient,” he said.
“Patience hasn’t gotten us anywhere,” the admiral noted. “We’ve got to expedite the process somehow.”
The first officer regarded McAteer. “There’s no need. The aliens might not always stick to their replenishment schedule, but they’ll be by soon enough.”
The admiral scowled. “Soon enough for you, maybe. But I don’t intend to stay here in this can for the—”
Suddenly, a clang went through the deckplates. It sounded as if the supply carrier had struck something.
Or maybe docked with something.
Ben Zoma hoped like crazy that it was the latter possibility. Otherwise, he would have to listen to McAteer that much longer.
“Turn off the light,” he said, “and put on your helmets. I’ve got a feeling this is our ride.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE CONTAINER’S TRANSIT from the supply drone to what was presumably a warship was quick and smooth. Unless Ben Zoma missed his guess, it was made possible by some kind of tractor beam, which lifted them off the drone’s deck and put them down again a few minutes later.
According to Chen’s tricorder, the temperature in the container dropped precipitously for those few minutes, but it was climbing again just as steeply now. That meant the hold they occupied was heated, just like the drone.
Chen whispered that there was air there too—no great surprise. But it allowed them to divest themselves of their suits, which restricted movement, and they would need all the movement they could get.
Then came the big question. “Any guards out there?” asked Ben Zoma.
“We’re alone,” said Chen, his face caught in the glow of his tricorder readout.
That was the best news of all.
Their next step was to locate a data node—a task Ramirez had been assigned while they were still on the drone. Fortunately, they had accessed one on the supply ship and knew what to look for.
At the same time, Garner set about finding something resembling a shuttlebay. Ben Zoma’s plan was to split the team into two groups. One would hunt down the node, download the data, and transmit it across the ship tricorder-to-tricorder. The other group would secure a shuttle—if the warship even had one—receive the data, and retransmit it using the craft’s com system. They would hold the shuttle until the other group rejoined them.
Of course, the first officer knew that escape was a long shot. Their main priority was just to get the data off to Starfleet.
Unfortunately, Ramirez had only been searching for a few seconds before Ben Zoma’s plan hit a snag. He could tell by the security officer’s expression.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
Ramirez frowned. “Something in the bulkheads is blocking the signal. I think I can find a node, but we’re not going to be able to transmit intraship.”
“We’ve got a shuttlebay,” Garner announced, “or something like it. Three decks down.” She swore under her breath. “I just can’t tell if it’s guarded or not, thanks to that problem with the bulkheads.”
“All right,” said Ramirez, “I found a node. One deck up.”
“We can use the lift system,” Paris chimed in. His assignment had been to figure out how the invaders got around their vessel, since the drone was all on one level and didn’t need such a thing. “It’s a little like ours,” he said, “but it only moves up and down. No horizontal routes.”
“What’s the best lift for us to take?” Ben Zoma asked.
Paris studied his tricorder screen. “After we leave this room, it’s down the corridor to the right. About fifty meters.”
Ben Zoma absorbed the information. “All right. We’ll do this the hard way.” He took in the rest of the team at a glance. “We’ll download the data and carry it to the shuttlebay. And we’ll all go together, to minimize the chances of our being discovered.”
No one objected—not even McAteer. All he said was, “What are we waiting for? Let’s spring the locks.”
For once, Ben Zoma agreed with him. Turning to Horombo, whom he knew was beside him, he said, “No time like the present.”
“Aye, sir,” said Horombo.
Activating his palmlight, he gave them something to see by. Then the other security officers used their tricorders to open the locks one at a time.
That done, they slid the lid partway off the container. It gave them access to ambient light, allowing Horombo to douse his palm device.
With help from Paris, Ben Zoma peeked over the edge of the container wall. He saw the same serpentine motifs they had encountered in the supply drone, but they covered a much smaller space—perhaps five times the size of the Livingston.
At the moment, theirs was the only container in the enclosure. That supported a theory Paris had put forth that the aliens destroyed each container when they were done with it. After all, there weren’t any empties on the drone, and the warships didn’t have a lot of room for them.
Ben Zoma pulled himself over the top of the wall and lowered himself to the deck. Then he drew his phaser and whispered for the others to follow.
After they were all out, they pushed the lid back into place and reset the locks. That way if an alien entered the bay, he wouldn’t think anything was amiss. To discover that, he would have to open the container.
But the aliens might not do that for some time. And by then it would already be obvious that someone had slipped aboard the warship—because the team had either escaped or been killed for their trespass.
“Remember what we talked about,” said Ben Zoma. “We move quickly and quietly. And we stay alert.”
They all nodded by way of acknowledgment. All except McAteer. Asserting his rank, he said, “Let’s go.”
As the admiral moved off, Ben Zoma gestured for Chen to stay close to him. After all, someone had to.
They didn’t find any door controls at the cargo bay’s exit. But then, they didn’t need any. The doors opened automatically, giving them access to t
he corridor.
It was narrow and dimly lit. In accordance with Paris’s instructions, they went right, their phasers at the ready. But they didn’t run into any opposition.
When they reached the lift it opened for them, just as the doors to the bay had. After they piled into the narrow compartment, barely fitting their entire team, there was a tense moment when it seemed the door might not close.
But eventually, it did. And a few moments later, it opened again, giving them access to the floor above. Again, the corridor was empty. Ben Zoma thanked whatever fate had seen fit to smile on them and led the way to the node.
It looked exactly like the one they had accessed on the drone. In a matter of seconds, Horombo had it open and had begun the downloading process.
They all listened for approaching footsteps. But there weren’t any. At least, for the time being.
Above all else, Picard hated waiting. And yet, he had done more of that than anything else in the last couple of days.
At the moment, he was doing his waiting in his ready room. He was going over reports from helm, weapons, engineering, security, even medical—assurances that everyone would be ready when the battle got under way. And that would have been fine, except he had gone over the reports twice already.
There was simply nothing left to do. Nothing but watch the stars and wait for the enemy to emerge from among them.
The captain was pleased when he heard the chime that told him someone wanted a word with him. If nothing else, it would serve as a break in the monotony.
“Come,” he said.
It was Wu. And judging from the vaguely troubled look on her face, she had just come from another visit with Lieutenant Ulelo.
“Anything new?” Picard asked.
“Nothing,” she replied. “Unfortunately. All I’m doing is making him more agitated with all my questions.”
“Perhaps you should let up for a while.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “Or perhaps I should push even harder. I just don’t know.”
It wasn’t often that Wu allowed herself to express uncertainty. The fact that she had chosen to do so now was a measure of how very difficult her assignment was.
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