The weapons officer glanced at him sideways. “So tell me,” she said, “when was the last time you had occasion to use a laser pistol, Captain I-Like-To-Get-My-Hands-Dirty?”
Shumar patted the weapon on his hip. “Never, Lieutenant. That’s why I brought you along.”
CHAPTER
16
WHEN CAPTAIN BRYCE SHUMAR MATERIALIZED IN THE transporter room of the Tellarite trading vessel, he did so with his laser pistol drawn and leveled in front of him.
As it turned out, his concern was unfounded. Outside of Shumar, Kelly, and the three armed crewmen they had brought with them, there was only one other humanoid in the room—a Tellarite transporter operator.
“Come with me,” he said.
“It would be my pleasure,” said the captain.
He gestured with his weapon for his team to follow. Then he stepped down from the transporter disc and fell in line behind their guide.
The corridors of the vessel were stark and poorly illuminated, but very wide. It wasn’t surprising, Shumar reflected, considering the girth of the average Tellarite.
Before long, they came to a cargo bay. As luck would have it, it was on the same level as the transporter room. The Tellarite opened the door for them and plodded off.
Broj, the vessel’s captain, was waiting for them inside. He wasn’t alone, either. There was a tall, green-skinned Orion with a sour expression standing next to him.
Not that there was anything unusual about that. Tellarite traders often took on financial backers from other species, and there never seemed to be a shortage of willing Orions.
However, this particular Orion didn’t look like a financier. He looked more like a mercenary—which inclined Shumar to be that much more careful in his dealings here.
In addition to Broj and his green-skinned associate, the cargo bay contained perhaps two dozen metal containers. None of them were labeled. They could have contained apricots or antibiotics, though Shumar wasn’t looking for either of those things.
Shumar nodded. “Captain Broj.”
“This is an outrage,” the Tellarite rumbled.
Shumar didn’t answer him. He simply turned to Kelly and said, “Keep an eye on these gentlemen.”
“Aye, sir,” she assured him, the barrel of her laser pistol moving from the Tellarite to the Orion and back again.
Tucking his weapon inside his belt, Shumar crossed the room and worked the lid off a container at random. Then, still eyeing Broj, he reached inside. His fingers closed on something dry and granular.
Extracting a handful of the stuff, he held it out in front of him. It looked like rice—except for the bloodred color.
“D’saako seeds,” said the Tellarite.
“I know what they are,” Shumar told him. “When you run a starbase, you encounter every kind of cargo imaginable.”
Taking out his laser, he pointed it at the bottom half of the container. Then he activated its bright blue beam.
Not even titanium could stand that kind of pointblank assault. The metal puckered and gave way, leaving a hole the size of a man’s fist.
“What are you doing?” bellowed Broj, taking a step forward. He looked ready to charge Shumar, but couldn’t because of the lasers trained on him. “I paid good money for that grain!”
“No doubt,” the human responded, deactivating the beam and putting his pistol away again. “But I’m willing to bet there’s more than d’saako seeds in this container.”
After waiting a moment longer for the metal to cool, Shumar reached inside. What he found was most definitely not seeds. They were too big and hard. Smiling, he removed some.
“Gold?” asked Kelly.
“Gold,” the captain confirmed.
There were perhaps a dozen shiny, irregularly shaped orange nuggets in his open hand, ranging in size from that of a pea to that of an acorn. Shumar showed them to Broj.
“Our informants say this gold is from Ornathia Prime.”
The smuggler grunted disdainfully. “I don’t know where it came from. I only know I was paid to take a cargo from one place to another.”
“According to our informants,” said Shumar, “that’s a lie. You mined this gold yourself, ignoring the fact that you had no right to do so. Then you set out for the Magabenthus system in the hope of peddling it.”
The Tellarite puffed out his chest. “Your informants are the ones who are lying,” he huffed.
“In that case,” said the captain, “you won’t mind our checking your other cargo bay. You know, the one a couple of decks below us? I’ll bet you we find some goldmining equipment.”
The smuggler scowled disdainfully. “Go ahead and check. Then you can apologize to my government for waylaying an honest businessman.”
Shumar knew he would need the mining equipment as evidence, so he tilted his head in the direction of the exit. “Come on,” he told Kelly and his other crewmen. “Let’s take a look at that other bay.”
“Aye, sir,” said Kelly. She gestured with her laser for the Tellarite to lead the way.
But before Shumar had made it halfway to the exit, something occurred to him. He stopped dead—and his weapons officer noticed.
“What is it?” Kelly asked him.
The captain turned to Broj. “Where did those d’saako seeds come from?”
The Tellarite regarded him. “Ekkenda Four. Why?”
Why indeed, Shumar thought. Because an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, back on Earth, is trying to cure Vegan choriomeningitis using the DNA of certain Ekkendan lizards—creatures whose entire diets seem to consist of adult sun-ripened d’saako plants.
If Shumar could find lizard cells among the d’saako seeds, he might be able to conduct some experiments of his own. Maybe he could even expedite the discovery of a cure. It was the kind of work that would make people sit up and take notice. . . .
And see the possibilities inherent in a science-driven Starfleet.
“Captain?” said Kelly, sounding annoyed at the delay.
“Hang on a moment,” Shumar told her.
Returning to the open, laser-punctured container, he zipped down the front of his uniform almost to his waist. Then he scooped up a healthy handful of d’saako seeds, poured them carefully into an inside pocket, and zipped up his uniform again.
If there were lizard cells present, his science officers would be able to detect them and pull them out. And if there weren’t, the captain mused, he hadn’t lost anything.
That’s when he felt the business end of a laser pistol poke him in the small of his back.
“No one move,” rasped the Orion.
Apparently, he had had a concealed weapon on him. Shumar’s detour had given him an opening to use it—but he would eventually have used it anyway. At least, that was what the captain chose to believe.
“I’ll kill him if I have to,” the Orion vowed.
Shumar didn’t doubt it. “Easy,” he said. “Stay calm.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel,” the Orion snapped. “Don’t tell me anything. Just tell them to move out of our way.”
“Our way?” the captain echoed.
“That’s right,” said his captor. “You and I are going to take a little trip in an escape pod.”
“What about me?” asked Broj.
“You’re on your own,” the Orion told him.
So much for honor among thieves, Shumar thought. Feeling the prod of the laser pistol, he began to move toward the exit.
Then he saw Kelly raise her weapon and fire.
The flash of blue light blinded him, so he couldn’t tell what effect the beam had had. But a moment later, it occurred to him that the pistol in his back was gone.
“Are you all right?” asked a feminine voice, amid the scrape of boots and the barking of a warning.
The captain blinked a few times and made out Kelly through the haze of after-images. Then he looked down and saw the Orion lying unconscious on the deck. Broj had his hands up, kept in line
by Shumar’s crewmen.
“Fine,” he told Kelly, “thanks to you. I was surprised you were able to get a clear shot at him.”
The weapons officer grunted. “I didn’t.”
Shumar’s vision had improved enough for him to see her face. It confirmed that she wasn’t kidding.
“What would I do without you?” he asked sotto voce.
“I don’t know,” Kelly said in the same soft voice. “Exercise a little more care, maybe?”
“Come on,” said the captain, understanding exactly what she was talking about. “There was no way I could have known the Orion was armed.”
“All the more reason not to leave yourself open.”
Shumar wanted to argue the point further. And he would have, except he knew that the woman was right.
Taking out his communicator, he flipped it open and contacted his ship. “Commander Mullen?”
“Aye, sir. Did you find what you were looking for?”
The captain glanced at the Orion, who was still sprawled on the floor. His actions were all the justification Shumar needed to seize the Prosperous.
“That and more,” he told Mullen. “Send a couple of teams over. We’ve got a smuggling vessel to secure.”
Daniel Hagedorn watched the cottony, violet-colored walls slide by on every side of his vessel, missing his titanium hull by less than thirty meters in any direction.
He and his crew were traveling the main corridor of a nebular maze—a gargantuan cloud of dust and destructive high-energy plasma that dominated this part of space. Unlike other nebulae of its kind discovered over the last thirty years, this one was rife with a network of corridors and subcorridors, the largest of which allowed a ship like Hagedorn’s to make its way through unscathed.
Hence the term “maze.”
The captain’s orders called for him to remain in the phenomenon’s main passageway, where he would gather as much data as possible. Normally, he was the kind of officer who followed instructions to the letter. Today, however, he planned to diverge from that policy.
For the last several minutes he had been scanning the cottony wall on his right for an offshoot that could give him some clearance. Unfortunately, that offshoot hadn’t materialized.
Until now.
“Lieutenant Kendall,” Hagedorn told his helm officer, “we’re going to change course. Take the next corridor to starboard.” He consulted the readout in his armrest. “Heading two-four-two mark six.”
Kendall glanced at the captain, his confusion evident. “Sir,” he said, “that’s not the way out.”
“It is now,” Hagedorn told him.
For a moment, the helmsman looked as if he were about to object to the course change. Then he turned to his console and dutifully put the captain’s order into effect.
Instantly, the Christopher veered to starboard and entered the passageway, which was substantially narrower than the main corridor but still navigable. Satisfied, Hagedorn leaned back in his seat—and saw that his executive officer was standing beside him.
Her name was Corspa Zenar. She was an Andorian, tall and willowy, with blue skin and white hair. Her antennae were bent forward at the moment—which could have signified a lot of things, disapproval among them.
“You’d like an explanation,” the captain guessed.
Zenar shrugged her bony shoulders. “That won’t be necessary.”
“And why is that?” Hagedorn asked, intrigued.
“Because I know what you have in mind,” she said. “You’re going to try to find the exit that will let us out near the Kryannen system.”
He eyed her. “For what purpose?”
“During the war, the Pelidossians aided the Romulans. They sold them supplies, even helped them with repairs. Earth Command returned the favor by destroying a couple of Pelidossian ships.”
The captain was impressed. “And now?”
“Now you want to reconnoiter—and you don’t know when you’ll again be in a position to do so.” Zenar glanced at the viewscreen. “Of course, our orders call for us to chart the main corridor only. But if you’re waiting for me to object, you’ll be waiting a long time.”
It didn’t take him long to figure out why. “Because you’re a scientist first and foremost, and the more prodding around we do in these tunnels the better you’ll like it.”
The first officer nodded. “Something like that.”
Hagedorn grunted. “I believe you and I are going to work well together, Commander Zenar.”
The Andorian allowed herself a hint of a smile. “Nothing would please me more, sir.”
Hiro Matsura had never fought the Shayal’brun, but he knew some captains who had. They were said to be a vicious species, capable of unpredictable and devastatingly effective violence whenever they perceived that their borders had been violated.
The problem, as Matsura understood it, was that their borders seemed to change constantly—at least from the Shayal’brun’s point of view. As a result, Earth Command had felt compelled to monitor the aliens’movements every few months, sending patrols out to the Shayal’brun’s part of space even at the height of the Romulan Wars.
But now, with Earth Command turning so many of its activities over to Starfleet, responsibility for keeping track of the Shayal’brun had fallen to Matsura. That was why he was slicing through the void at warp one, scanning the aliens’ farthest-flung holdings for signs of hostile intent.
“Anything?” asked Matsura, hovering over his navigator’s console.
Williams shook her head from side to side. “Not yet, sir,” she reported, continuing to consult her monitor. “No new colonies, no new scanner platforms, no new supply depots . . .”
“And no sign of the Shayal’brun fleet,” said Jezzelis, Matsura’s long-tusked Vobilite first officer.
“Looks pretty quiet to me,” Williams concluded.
Matsura straightened. “Then let’s get out of here. The last thing we want to do is start an incident.”
It was a real concern. The Shayal’brun were no doubt scanning them even as they scanned the Shayal’brun. The aliens would likely overlook a fly-by, as long as the ship remained outside their perceived borders.
But if the Yellowjacket lingered long enough, the Shayal’brun would attack. That much was certain.
“Mr. McCallum,” said the captain, “bring us about and—”
Before Matsura could finish, his ship bucked and veered to starboard. The captain grabbed wildly for the back of Williams’s chair and found a handhold there, or he would surely have lost his feet.
“What was that?” asked Jezzelis.
Williams examined her monitor again, hoping to give him an answer. But McCallum beat her to it.
“It’s a subspace chute,” said the helmsman.
Matsura looked at him. “A what?”
“A chute, sir,” McCallum repeated, his fingers dancing across his control panel. The man looked excited, to say the least. “We ran into one on the Pasteur about a year ago.”
“And what did you find out?” asked the captain.
“Not much, sir,” said the helmsman. “Our instruments weren’t nearly as powerful as the Yellowjacket’ s.” He looked up suddenly. “If I may say so, sir, this is a rare opportunity.”
“You mean to turn back and study the chute?”
“Yes, sir.” McCallum looked almost feverish in his desire to retrace their steps. “We may never come across one again.”
Matsura frowned and turned to the viewscreen, where the stars burned brightly against the black velvet of space. He couldn’t ignore the fact that some of those stars belonged to the Shayal’brun.
On the other hand, every captain in the fleet wanted to get a better handle on subspace anomalies, regardless of his background. Lives had been lost during the war because they hadn’t known enough about such things.
And here was an opportunity to rectify that problem.
Jezzelis, who had enjoyed both military and scientific careers, di
dn’t say anything. But his expression spoke volumes.
“All right,” Matsura told his helmsman. “You’ve got ten minutes—not a second more.”
McCallum started to argue, to say that ten minutes might not be enough for the kind of analysis he had in mind. Then he saw the captain’s eyes and seemed to think better of it.
“Yes, sir,” said the helmsman. “Ten minutes. Thank you, sir.” And he brought the ship about.
Matsura glanced at the viewscreen again and bit his lip. With luck, he thought, their little detour wouldn’t be a bloody one.
* * *
Sitting at the compact computer station in his quarters, Aaron Stiles called up the message he had received a few minutes earlier.
Normally, he waited until the end of his shift before he left the bridge to read his personal messages. But this one was different. This one had come from Big Ed Walker.
The first thing Stiles noticed was that the admiral was smiling. It was a good sign, he told himself.
“Hello, Aaron,” said Walker. “I hope you’re well. I’ve been doing my best to keep track of your exploits. It sounds like you’re doing good work, considering the adverse circumstances.”
Naturally, the admiral was referring to the butterfly catchers. He just didn’t want to mention them by name, in case his message accidentally fell into the wrong hands.
“I just wanted you to know that everything is looking good back here on Earth,” Walker continued. “Our side is gaining the upper hand. It’s looking more and more like one of us will get that brass ring they’ve been dangling in front of you.”
The brass ring, of course, was the Daedalus. The upper hand was control of the fleet. And if the Earth Command camp was winning the battle, Stiles wouldn’t have to worry about Darigghi and his ilk much longer.
In the captain’s opinion, it couldn’t happen soon enough.
“Stay well, son,” said the admiral. “Walker out.”
Stiles saw the Earth Command insignia replace the man’s image. Tapping out a command on his padd, he dumped the message. Then he returned to his bridge, his step just a little lighter than before.
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