by Kem Antilles
Peeking around the side of the vat, Jake looked to where his friend pointed. A gigantic gray box stood in the middle of the cargo bay. A worker using an antigrav lift stood beside it, cranking the box’s top back to reveal a load of raw, unprocessed latinum.
“Wait till I tell Uncle Quark,” Nog whispered “He owes me a bonus for this.”
But Jake hardly saw the latinum. He was too busy gaping at the ore hauler. Nog had been right in calling it a box with thrusters—a very battered and scarred box with rounded corners, except that one of the corners jutted outward in jagged fangs of damaged metal, a little like Nog’s teeth.
Something crusty was splattered on the base of the automatic pilot where it attached to the front of the box, nearly obscuring the ore hauler’s optics. Jake shook his head. This wasn’t the normal wear and tear of space travel. The dents and gouges were too deep. The ore hauler had really been attacked and damaged—many times.
“But the enemy fighters in the game were supposed to be imaginary!” Nog said.
Jake grabbed Nog’s arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
The other boy yearned toward the ore hauler with its gleaming cargo. “I’ve never been in the presence of so much latinum,” he said worshipfully. “Just a minute longer. I want to remember this.”
“Hey!” someone shouted. “You’re not supposed to be in here!”
Jake and Nog turned to find themselves looking into the phaser of the Gorn guard.
“Run!” Jake shouted.
The boys ducked behind the vat, out of the line of fire, then ran as fast as they could. Although machines crowded the cargo bay, providing some cover for the fleeing boys, workers and guards also crawled everywhere in the bay. Jake darted behind an overturned machine with jawlike blades, searching frantically for a place to hide. Nog spurted ahead and ducked behind a storage bin. Jake dived in after him.
Footsteps raced past their hiding place. Jake pressed his lips together, hoping his ragged breathing wouldn’t give them away.
From about ten meters away, the scarred Andorian called out, “Split up! You two—go that way. You two—over there. You—you’re with me. The rest of you—check behind the storage bins. We can’t let them escape!”
A phaser sizzled several meters away. Heavy footsteps ran toward the boys’ hiding place, then stopped.
Jake closed his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable phaser blast. It didn’t come. Instead, Nog jabbed him in the ribs. Jake opened his eyes. Nog pointed wildly at an air duct less than a meter away.
Quickly, they removed the screen and plunged down the shaft. “Pull it closed behind us!” Jake whispered frantically.
Nog nodded and pulled the screen back into place. Less than a second later, a phaser blast whizzed past the vent. Jake and Nog froze. Another blast flashed by.
“Nothing behind this one!” someone shouted. Footsteps raced away.
Jake let out a long-held breath. Nog did the same, then jerked his head toward the dim depths of the air duct. Jake nodded. It wasn’t until they had crawled well out of earshot of the cargo bay that either of them spoke.
“We’ve got to find Kwiltek,” Jake said. “We need to tell him what’s really going on.”
CHAPTER 6
Nog stopped at an intersection of two air ducts, panting after their cramped flight through the maze of murky passages. He looked over his shoulder at Jake.
“Don’t tell me,” he said. “You want to go up again.”
Jake nodded and crawled over to sit next to Nog. “If I remember right, the command center is on the third level,” Jake said. “That’s where Kwiltek will be.” He took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. “Let’s rest for a minute. I think we’re between floors. I doubt anybody will be able to hear us.”
Nog slumped against the wobbly metal side of the air duct. “So long as no one shoots at us again,” he said. He smiled, a dreamy expression on his face. “Did you see all that latinum? Wasn’t it beautiful?”
“Yeah, very pretty,” Jake said impatiently. “But how do you explain the damage to the ore hauler? It looks like someone’s been blasting at it.”
Nog sat up straight. “But it’s only a simulation, Jake. Nobody could live on a hostile planet like that one.”
Jake frowned. “I don’t know what to think. I’m beginning to wonder if any of this really is a game.”
Nog pressed his lips together. “Maybe pirates are attacking the ore haulers as soon as they leave the surface. And maybe that Andorian guard is in on it. I bet that’s why they wanted to get rid of us so badly. They’re afraid we’ll tell Kwiltek.”
“Well, we are telling Kwiltek, as soon as we find him,” Jake said, crawling past his friend. He grasped the handholds and pulled himself up. “We’ve got to talk to him before they destroy the evidence.”
Nog followed Jake up the shaft, smiling eagerly now. “Maybe Kwiltek will pay us handsomely for the information,” Nog said. “Maybe he’ll even double our salary.”
Quickly gaining the third level, the two boys crept along. Nog paused every now and then to eavesdrop when they came to a grille over a room. “Hey, how much did that provisioner just say she paid for Saurian brandy?” Nog asked, stopping near a vent in the galley complex. “I’m sure my uncle would be happy to supply the station at a fraction of the cost.”
“Shhh! Quark isn’t going to supply anybody with anything if we don’t get out of here and find Kwiltek,” Jake whispered.
Soon they reached the command levels of the mothership. Jake stopped at another intersection. “I can’t remember enough of the ship’s schematics,” he said, glancing down the right branch of the air duct. “Do you think the command center would be to the right or the left?”
Nog hissed between his pointy teeth. “Left, I think.” Jake headed to the left, but they reached a dead end after only fifteen meters.
“I said, ‘I think,’” Nog protested when Jake gave him an exasperated look.
They crawled back, tired and anxious, taking the other fork this time. As they approached a large vent opening, whistles and clicks drifted down the shaft. It reminded Jake of an educational holoprogram about birds he had once watched.
A loud, flutelike shrill rose above the others. “That sounds like Kwiltek,” Jake said, hurrying toward the vent. “We’ve got to hurry.”
When he stopped in front of the opening, Nog bumped into him from behind. The distant sounds of simulated explosions and whirring, chewing machinery joined the murmuring whistles. “Maybe they’re playing the game themselves,” Nog said.
The vent looked out two meters above the floor. Jake and Nog peered through the slatted barrier into the room below, but they could see only vague shadows and shapes. Three or four tall figures stood watching a big screen. One of the figures detached itself from the group and walked across the room. Tinny-sounding screams and shouts rang from the simulation speakers. One of the operators apparently had just scored big points.
The figures in the command room warbled and cackled. “Good, very good,” said Kwiltek. “Reward Vesta and Rux with extra points for that one.”
Nog’s brow puckered thoughtfully. “I wonder if he awarded us extra points for your steam-explosion idea.”
Jake shrugged, then grunted as he pushed at the vent with his shoulder, trying to nudge it loose. “Help me with this, will you? Boy, is Kwiltek going to be surprised.”
The metal screen popped loose after two more shoves, but Jake hung on so it wouldn’t clatter to the floor. He jumped out of the air shaft, landing in a squat. Nog dropped quietly to the floor beside him. Rising slowly, Jake looked around, still holding the screen in front of him. His heart pounded with anticipation.
Kwiltek stood tall in the center of the room, watching the show. His green scale-feathers bristled with excitement from his beaklike nose to the top of his head. Beside him waited two similar aliens, one with deep midnight-blue scale-feathers and another with stubby gray-green plumage. Another gray-green alien lean
ed over a console. Whistles and snaps filled the room as the aliens clicked their beak-mouths excitedly.
All four aliens stared up at a huge, glowing wall screen that showed a lush purple-and-white jungle of ferns and tall palm trees with oval leaves. Condensed moisture dripped from vines dangling from the tangled branches on the screen.
Growling noisily, a huge machine with churning, clawlike scoops chewed its way across the jungle landscape, leaving a scar of ravaged land in its wake. A battered mining company flyer, like the one in the mothership’s cargo bay, hovered overhead, firing its phaser beam in front of the excavator.
Someone screamed in a wild, alien voice.
Suddenly, a band of slim humanoids broke from the jungle near the disrupted soil and fled. A four-winged creature, its iridescent wings glistening in the sun, dived, hurling something into the machine’s clawlike blades before climbing toward safety. The creature threw back its sleek, triangular head to emit a breathtaking, beautiful cry.
Before the winged creature could escape, though, the flyer spun and blasted it out of the air with its phasers. One of the humanoids scrambled back on-screen, looking up at the sky and wailing in anguish.
Jake s stomach turned over at the realism of the scene. Beside him, Nog paled gnashing his teeth.
Kwiltek and the other aliens cheered in their odd, chirping voices.
“Well done, Kwiltek,” the midnight-blue alien said. “You have chosen your teams skillfully.”
“Thank you,” Kwiltek said, obviously pleased. “I am quite happy with this group of new recruits.”
With a loud crash Jake dropped the vent screen in his hand. “What—what is that?” he said, staggering forward. “Kwiltek who are those people?”
The room erupted with startled whistles, warbles, and clicks as the aliens turned on Jake and Nog. Behind the aliens, the screen went blank for a split second, then reverted to the familiar crude triangles, ovoids, squares, and crystalline shapes Jake and Nog already knew so well from their own simulation games.
The midnight-blue alien shrieked at Kwiltek, who stood perfectly still, staring at the two boys. The membranes along his hardened beak flickered.
Nog caught at his friend’s arm. “Jake, maybe we shouldn’t have—”
Kwiltek silenced his fellow aliens with a glare, then swept toward Jake and Nog, grasped the necks of their tunics, and ushered them from the control room, “What are you doing here?” he demanded, shoving them into the corridor past two Andorian guards. “This is a restricted area.”
“We, uh,” Nog stammered, “we were looking for you,”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “We had to tell you—”
Kwiltek released them, then cocked his head to one side. The anger had vanished from his voice when he finally spoke. “If you wished to talk to me, you had only to ask the computer to contact me. I would have come to you at my earliest convenience. Now, what can I do for you?”
“We, uh…” Nog said, staring blankly at Kwiltek.
Jake tugged at his tunic, straightening the wrinkles from Kwiltek’s rough handling. “Who were those people we saw on the screen?” he said. “And the jungle. What was that all about?”
Kwiltek inhaled with a hiss. “Those people? On the screen? Why, a simulation, of course. We are trying to develop more entertaining simulations for operators such as yourselves. We have been working on a scenario—a rainforest scenario—that will add greater excitement to what might otherwise become a boring exercise.”
“But what about your profits?” Nog said, further wrinkling his already ridged forehead, “You said that the simple displays we’re using are more cost-effective.”
“And you said that better resolution wouldn’t help our efficiency,” Jake added.
“Ah,” Kwiltek said with a fluting whistle. “We have found a way to provide better resolution and more entertaining scenarios for a fraction of the cost. And, because we are so impressed with this new team of operators—yourselves especially—we hope to keep you satisfied and interested. As I told you, we need good operators.”
“The new resolution was great,” Nog said enthusiastically, “It looked very real, much better than the Arcade screens on Deep Space Nine. If you’d like to sell a version of this program to the owner of the Arcade on the station, I’m sure I could arrange it. For a small fee, of course.”
“Ah!” Kwiltek said, bobbing his head. “Perhaps at some future time. For now, this little scenario must be kept secret. To prevent others from stealing our ideas, you understand. Which is why my partners and I were so upset when you appeared in the command center. I’m afraid I will have to ask for your discretion in this matter.”
Jake took a deep breath and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Nog suggested, “It will be hard to keep such a great simulation to ourselves. Do you think we could test it sometime?”
“I quite understand, but it is still under development,” said Kwiltek sympathetically. “If word of our trade secret gets out, we will be forced to dismiss those responsible for the leak.”
Nog’s jaw dropped. “You mean, you’d fire us?”
“Ah,” Kwiltek warbled. “Such an ugly word! But you understand. To continue your employment under such circumstances would show poor business sense on my part.”
“I agree,” Jake said hastily, silencing Nog with a kick in the foot. “Just like losing machinery through clumsy accidents—which is why we were looking for you. We went to the cargo bay to see what the ore haulers looked like.” He smiled what he hoped was an innocent smile and shrugged. “After operating them by telepresence and all, we were a little curious.”
Kwiltek’s scale feathers bristled. “Ah,” he trilled.
Jake continued quickly. “But the hauler we saw looked pretty beat-up.”
“Horrible,” Nog said, shaking his head adamantly. “Dents, scratches, damage—”
“Like someone had been firing at it,” Jake said. “With real weapons.”
Kwiltek’s head bobbed again with that odd jerking motion. He chuckled, a cross between a wheeze and a whistle. “Ah! Yes, the cargo crew told me. It seems the ore hauler encountered a meteor storm on the way back to the mothership. Meteor storms are infrequent, but they happen—one more reason we feel it would be too dangerous to send actual workers to the planet’s surface. Imagine what might have happened if a real person had been piloting that ore hauler.”
Neither boy had to fake a shudder.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Kwiltek said, “I must return to the command center. And remember—not a word about the new simulation.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t dream of it,” Jake said, still suspicious but pretending to agree.
“You can count on us,” Nog answered, eyeing Jake. “You have our word.”
“Good,” Kwiltek said. “Why don’t you boys go back to your quarters and rest before your next shift? I’ll check in on you a little later to see how you’re … adjusting.”
Jake took Nog’s elbow and steered him toward their quarters. “Come on, Nog,” he said.
Nog turned one last time to grin and bow to Kwiltek with typical Ferengi deference. “A pleasure doing business with you, sir.”
CHAPTER 7
Do you think Kwiltek believes us?” Nog asked anxiously as the door to their quarters whished shut behind them. “He could dock our pay if he felt we were trying to steal their trade secrets. We could lose all of our profits.”
Jake’s narrow face clouded with concern as he headed for the food synthesizer slot on the wall. “That’s not what’s bothering me.”
Nog had noticed that in times of crisis, his human friend often fixed himself a snack. Perhaps Jake needed the extra energy to help him think.
“One vegaburger, hot, catsup and mustard, no relish, no onions,” Jake said to the food replicator. “And two Antarian shakes, mixed fruit.”
Jake looked Nog straight in the eye, handing him a shake. “The problem is, I don’t know if I believe Kwiltek,” he said.<
br />
Nog almost dropped the Antarian shake. Jake continued, his face serious. “We saw some things that are just a little too suspicious—the real damage to the ore carrier, that detailed jungle simulation where people and animals were being destroyed. It looked too real to me.”
That brought Nog up short. He had been more concerned with whether or not they would lose their lucrative, if temporary, positions with the mining company.
“You’re right, Jake,” he said, flashing his friend a sharp-toothed grin. “You know I never trust what anyone tells me—not even my own family.”
The other boy rolled his eyes. “Especially not your own family.”
“So what’s your point?” Nog asked, taking another sip of his shake. It was refreshing and delicious, and he knew he could have another one if he wished. Jake took a bite of the juicy vegaburger and gulped his own Antarian shake. This place was too good to be true. Too good to be true. Putting down his drink with an abrupt thunk, Nog began to pace the room.
“Think about it,” Jake said. “They haven’t told us the whole truth about this mining operation. They didn’t even tell us about the latinum, for instance. They said we were mining less valuable minerals.”
Nog said scornfully, “They’d be fools to tell us. Pirates would be all over this world if they knew about that much latinum just waiting to be mined.”
“But what else aren’t they telling us about?” Jake persisted. “What about that jungle we saw? Sure looked real to me. And why was Kwiltek so upset about us seeing them? Don’t you Ferengis have some sort of proverb about employers?”
“We have many.”
“I mean something about covering things up with money.”
Nog rubbed an ear ridge. “You mean, ‘The hand that holds the latinum may also hide a dagger’?”
Jake chuckled. “That wasn’t the one I was thinking of, but it’ll do.” He took another bite of his burger and wiped the juice from his hands. His face took on a worried look again. He swallowed hard. “What if Kwiltek has been lying to us all along? What if we don’t know what we’re really doing? Maybe they’re just telling us kids what we want to hear.”