A Weary Life

by Robert Greenberger

  “Yeah, I’ve always had an affinity for blowing things up,” Daniels said, grinning.

  La Forge interrupted and Riker could practically see the figurative lightbulb over his head. “I had a thought. We have three probes aboard the Anaximenes, and I can rig those to emit signatures similar to the Maquis’ engines and throw them farther off the scent.”

  “Good,” Riker said. “You and Daniels get a head start on rigging the engines. I want a word with the new crew. We’ll meet you at the airlock.”

  “I’ll need maybe ten minutes down there,” La Forge said and Riker nodded acknowledgment.

  Within minutes, the five were in their space suits and were checking each other’s seals. It hurt Riker to watch La Forge hobble across the deck. He hoped there’d be no running involved between ships.

  “Okay, here are the ground rules,” he said, addressing the quintet before him. “We know our shuttle, you don’t, so just sit where I put you and if I ask for help, be ready to do whatever I say without question. The only way we’re all going to survive is if we work together. Your politics, your personal belief systems have to go on hold until we’re clear of the Cardassians. Understood?”

  The girl, Indira, nodded; the Tellarite, Gavron, followed suit; and the Deltan, Banek, simply said, “Yes.” Tregaar and Kalita said nothing, but Riker took their silence as acquiescence.

  He checked a chronometer built into his suit and realized the others weren’t going to be ready yet. Still, he could easily herd these five back to the shuttle and begin preflight.

  “Right, let’s get to the airlock.”

  The line of people trudged single file in their suits, the extra bulk filling the narrow confines of the ship. They all heard the movement of other members of the crew scrambling above and below them.

  Fortunately, the crossing back to the Anaximenes was a lot less harrowing than La Forge’s first trip. Minutes after they began walking on the moon’s surface, Riker saw the first of the remaining crew begin working their way toward the other craft. He estimated that both crafts should be ready to take off within thirty minutes and prayed the Cardassians wouldn’t arrive before that. Even with the rigged explosions and decoys, he still needed a course for the ships.

  As they walked, he fell in beside Kalita, who seemed all too ready to ignore him.

  “Tell me about the other ship,” he asked.

  She said nothing for a moment, then finally replied,

  “It’s a converted pleasure cruiser. We obtained it from salvage after it hit an asteroid. The engine can get up to maybe warp five if the engineer is capable. I don’t know her. Malames, the pilot, is good. Not as good as me, but she can follow.”

  “Good to know,” Riker said.

  “You know, Riker, I really don’t like being in a subservient position to you.”

  “This is all a matter of convenience, not choice. Just come for the ride.”

  He left her alone before she could respond, turning his mind to what he recalled about the system and surrounding DMZ.

  Soon he had everyone aboard the shuttle, and they took their gear off one at a time given the space considerations. Riker went first so he could begin powering up the shuttle for departure. Before heading forward, he pointed out where everyone should remain. The diagnostics showed that La Forge’s ministrations helped tremendously and the propulsion would be sufficient. Riker then called up charts and the sensor readings they took upon entering the zone. He heard the others grumble behind him, keeping their comments to themselves, which was fortunate since he really didn’t want more arguments.

  Exterior monitors showed that La Forge and Daniels were finally making their way to the Anaximenes while the last of the others were vanishing from sight as they neared the other ship. He reached across to the passenger side controls and set up an active communications link to the other ship for later. Then he settled into the pilot’s chair and began activating the systems and engaging the engine. Everything hummed along, the sound emanating from behind giving him confidence.

  Within minutes, his crewmates were aboard and taking off their gear. They made their way through the body of people and took the seats by Riker. La Forge sat beside the first officer while Daniels took his accustomed place behind them. Riker noted that Daniels had a sidearm strapped to his hip. He gave him a quizzical look, and Daniels’s incredulous expression more or less said, “Are you kidding me? I’m not traveling with five Maquis and not be prepared in case they decide to steal the shuttle.” And he couldn’t really argue with his security chief. He’d likely have done the same thing.

  “We’re looking good, Commander,” La Forge said as he double-checked the systems.

  “Riker to Maass.”

  “This is Maass.”

  “What’s your status?”

  “We can leave the surface in about five minutes.”

  “We have about that long to begin clearing space if we want to avoid any shock wave from the explosion. Hurry it up.”

  Riker then turned to La Forge, whose fingers were already flying across a control board, configuring the probes. On one screen, he noted the energy signature from the other shuttle taken from the sensor logs. Bit by bit, the signature being emitted from the probes began to resemble it until, at a glance, they matched. It wouldn’t stand up against truly sophisticated investigation, and he hoped the Cardassians were blood-thirsty enough to be hasty, not thorough.

  “Good work, Geordi. Ready?”

  “No question about that, sir,” La Forge said.

  Riker’s hands maneuvered the controls and the shuttle began to lift up slowly. He checked to make certain the propulsion units worked in balance. A warning sensor indicated they were over normal weight tolerances but not enough to cause a critical situation. Good thing this was a temporary arrangement. It would still make evasive maneuvers tough, but he’d already begun rethinking several ideas. After all, if he’d learned anything from Picard, it was to be prepared for any contingency given the circumstances. Having four Cardassian fighters seeking you certainly qualified as a time to be prepared.

  “Probes are ready.”

  “Good. Daniels, you’ll launch them on my mark. Geordi, I want to keep an eye on the systems, just in case.”

  “Since when do you doubt my handiwork?”

  “Doubt your work? Not at all. This just strikes me as one of those times that when we need everything to work with precision, something will go wrong.”

  “I call that Monday,” La Forge said with a laugh.

  Riker chuckled and eased the craft higher above the moon. The craters shrank in size and the mountain range nearby seemed picturesque, no longer ominous. He spotted the other vessel rising from the surface nice and smooth.

  “Kalita,” Riker called behind him, “what’s the name of that ship?”

  “Its pilot dubbed it the Liberté,” she said.

  “That’s ‘freedom’ in French,” Daniels said helpfully.

  “No kidding,” Riker said with sarcasm.

  “I thought you were Irish,” La Forge said.

  “A student of foreign tongues, I guess. I dated a French girl at the Academy.”

  Both ships continued to rise, and Riker plotted out courses for the probes plus the escape route he wanted the ships to take. La Forge confirmed that the decisions made sense to him, and things ran quietly and smoothly. Riker suspected it wouldn’t last, not with the enemy so close by.

  “T minus two minutes,” Daniels said.

  “We going to make it clear?” Tregaar asked from the rear.

  “Don’t see why not,” Riker said tightly, coaxing the shuttle for a little extra energy to be safe.

  “Me either, don’t worry,” La Forge said to reassure his friend.

  At the one-minute mark, Riker warned the Liberté and then banked the shuttle onto its course, leaving the moon’s gravity well and allowing them to safely engage the warp engines right after the explosion. The Maquis ship followed precisely—he was pleased Kalita
’s estimation of the other pilot was accurate.

  Right on schedule, a brilliant white light suddenly blossomed on the surface. Given the lack of atmosphere for drag, the shock waves reverberated through the void, and Riker braced his hands on the controls, suspecting they were not as far away as they should be. Sure enough, seconds later, the shuttle rocked from side to side, though more gently than he expected. Still, someone’s head banged against a bulkhead and he heard an interesting Orion curse from the injured party, surprisingly, the girl Indira.

  Sensors indicated the Liberté was a little more shaken up by the energy emission, but it remained on course, right behind the Anaximenes. Riker silently counted to five, then instructed that the probes be released. As they flew away from the shuttle, he activated their transmission so it might resemble Maquis craft leaving the moon as a result of the explosion.

  All he had to worry about now was being found by the Cardassians. Clever as this plan was, he still suspected that eluding four craft would be virtually impossible before they could clear the DMZ and get back into Federation space. He had them heading for Sol Arion, the nearest Federation system over the border, but if there was a chase, he didn’t doubt for a moment the Cardassians would follow and deal with the political fallout later. They always seemed to think the treaties meant nothing when it came to taking down the Maquis.

  “We’ve cleared the gravity well,” La Forge said.

  “Mr. Daniels, charge the phaser banks and be on alert. Anyone coming this way gets the first shot.”

  “Got it,” he said.

  “They’re clear, too,” said La Forge.

  “Probes are on track,” Riker confirmed. “We can go to warp now, I think.”

  “I’d recommend we not push things for either ship,” La Forge said. “Let’s try warp three and make certain we’re moving smoothly.”

  “Acknowledged,” Riker said. “Anaximenes to Liberté. Prepare to go to warp three on my mark.”

  Malames, the Liberté’s pilot, confirmed and Riker was satisfied.

  He was about to send them into warp when the crimson proximity alert began flashing. Its strobelike effect filled the front of the ship with an intermittent red sheen.

  “What’s going on?” Tregaar demanded to know.

  “Shut up,” Daniels called back. “What’s going on, sir?”

  “Two Cardassian ships just cleared Salva II, heading this way. They picked up one of the probe emissions. I’ll need to move us away, and we can’t go to warp as yet. Riker to Malames.”

  “I see them, Commander,” Malames said. The clipped tone indicated she was used to taking commands, leading Riker to assume she was ex-Starfleet. That was to her advantage.

  “We need to dodge them, and a warp bubble would be sending up a flare,” Riker said as he considered his meager options.

  “May I respectfully suggest we hide in the asteroid belt?”

  “Terrific suggestion. I’ll take point. Also, we’re now running silent.”

  “Acknowledged. Liberté out.”

  “This should be fun,” La Forge said bitterly as he gripped both armrests on his chair.

  Riker dove down the z-axis then banked the shuttle to arc away from the moon and the probes, heading at an angle to the three false signals but making a direct line toward the asteroid belt between the outermost worlds in the Salva system. He moved at impulse power, keeping the ship steady and praying the Cardassians would track each signal separately, from closest to farthest, which would be the Liberté and then the Anaximenes. He wasn’t looking for a fight, simply trying to avoid detection. There were several hundred million kilometers to go, and he noted that the Cardassian ships were increasing speed, finally having something tangible to track. A part of his mind mused as to where the other two might be. Most likely, if he were the gul in command, the other two were just outside the system in case of the very escape Riker was attempting.

  One hundred fifty million kilometers before entering the asteroid belt. Riker began intensively scanning the area, plotting a course that would allow them to weave inside as deeply as was practical. He was pleased to see the variety of metals embedded in the chunks of rock that ranged from the size of his fist to that of the continent of Australia. There were countless asteroids orbiting the Salva sun, and he needed to avoid hitting each and every one of them.

  One hundred million kilometers. He sought sensor gaps—those asteroids with difficult-to-probe mineralogical content, praying for a cluster he could hide two ships near. A few spots but all too small. Unfortunately, that meant going deeper.

  Fifty million kilometers. Nothing was coming up, and Riker was beginning to feel very tense as the Cardassians were now nearing the first probe. Once they realized it was a fake signature, they’d step up their search. Maybe be hasty and let them slip by or spot them like an eagle and make a direct approach. Exposed like this, one phaser bank against two fighters were not odds he liked.

  Small bits of rock appeared on the forward viewscreen. They were entering the outer fringes of the asteroid belt, the Liberté right behind them. He imagined Malames to be a former conn officer, which was exactly what he needed right now.

  Twenty-five thousand kilometers within the asteroid field, Riker began the delicate dance to avoid the smaller pieces from damaging their minimal shielding. They moved along in silence, dipping here, rising there, with one hard bank to starboard that brought a fresh round of curses from his passengers. At least they were remaining mostly quiet.

  Seventy-five thousand kilometers in. He needed to maneuver the shuttle a little more often now, but he was also finding more sensor gaps. There was a particular blind spot that looked promising and he eased the shuttle toward it, the Maquis craft his mirror image. The Cardassian ships had already destroyed two of the probes, leaving just one innocent device out there and the two ships in here. He was feeling tension in his shoulders and a single bead of sweat creased his forehead. A glance showed him that atmospheric controls were nominal, so it was just worry making things hot for him.

  One hundred fifty thousand kilometers in, the signal from the final probe went dark.

  Two hundred thousand kilometers in, Riker was finally getting close enough to the mammoth asteroids that were clustered, creating the blind spot. They were large enough to land on, if necessary, but he preferred a parked position between the frozen remains of some long-dead planet. The Liberté seemed to have found a spot it liked, taking up a point equidistant between three of the asteroids. Riker nodded with approval and then eased the Anaximenes into a similar position but between two of the largest asteroids, making any visual contact with the Cardassians and even the Liberté just about impossible.

  At two hundred thirty-three thousand kilometers inside the asteroid belt, the Anaximenes came to rest, and Riker let out a breath he finally realized he had been holding.

  “Nice driving,” La Forge said, breaking the silence that had lasted for quite some time.

  “We can’t scan for them, either,” Daniels noted.

  “We’ll be going strictly on visual for now.”

  “I’ll take that. We can alternate the watch.”

  “And how long do you expect us to remain here in hiding?”

  Riker rose and took two steps toward the defiant Tregaar. “As long as it takes. Have somewhere to be? Something better to do than survive?”

  Tregaar’s eyes radiated anger, but he wisely said nothing further. Instead, Kalita moved forward, daring to leave her assigned spot. It didn’t look like she cared if that annoyed Riker or not.

  “Let me help. I can take a watch, too. It’s not like I’m inexperienced at playing cat and mouse with the Cardies,” she said.

  She had a point, and better to have her invested in their survival. He nodded in agreement and gestured to the chair next to Daniels. The security chief activated the controls by her position so she too had a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the area. “Welcome to the party,” he said with a grin.

&n
bsp; Kalita settled in, looked at the various controls without touching them, and then stared intently at the screens, seeking the enemy. It took some time before she noticed that she was no longer opposite Daniels, but Riker, who had switched places. He gazed at her with deep interest, which seemed to unnerve her a bit.

  “How well did you know him?”

  She remained silent, unwilling to answer, so he continued to stare at her. Finally, she relented with a heavy sigh.

  “Well enough. We worked together for months planning the operation. He worked very hard. He very much wanted it to be a success.”

  “What was he like?”

  That caught her by surprise and she blinked a few times as she considered the response. “He was funny. Always had a crack for people. He never took his eye off the prize—Orias. The joking façade made him easily liked and readily accessible, but you could tell he had something to prove.”

  “What?”

  “That he was his own man,” she shot at him. “That he wasn’t you. That’s really what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  “I knew he wasn’t me from the moment we met,” Riker said tightly. He could feel himself stiffen, shields going up, but he forced them back. Deep down, he needed to understand the betrayal.

  “Tom truly questioned the Federation’s action,” she continued, not meeting his eyes. “He wasn’t faking to be different. Something about that time in isolation seemed to change whatever you two had in common, and he became someone else. He believed in the cause and readily wanted to help.

  “Where he went wrong, I think, is when he pushed the mission harder than he needed to. We could have cloaked and made a beeline to Orias, discovered if the building facility was true, and if so, blast it and get out. Instead, he had to send the nearby ships away, which brought the rest of the fleet down on us.”

  Riker had read Sisko’s mission briefing report, of course, augmented by the comments appended by Kira Nerys, who seemed to display unusual sympathy for Tom’s situation. He could have done exactly as Kalita outlined but didn’t, and that gnawed at him.

  “He was trying to outcommand me,” Riker said, more to himself than to the Maquis woman.