Ben Zoma supposed it was possible. “I see.”
Kastiigan looked pleased. “Good. So what do you think?”
The human had to pause for a second to remember what he meant. “You mean…about a rescue mission?”
“That’s correct.”
“I’m considerating it,” Ben Zoma said. “But at the moment, I’m still hoping it won’t become necessary.”
“As we all are,” Kastiigan noted.
“But thanks for your input,” Ben Zoma told him.
The science officer shrugged. “I see it as my responsibility to advise my superiors however and wherever I can.”
Ben Zoma smiled. “That’s very dutiful of you.”
“It is then up to you,” Kastiigan continued, “to accept or reject that advice.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” said the first officer, coming around the captain’s desk to escort his colleague to the door. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have some—”
“Of course,” said Kastiigan, “there is the matter of the Lake-Dweller-That-Roars.”
Ben Zoma stopped halfway around the desk. “The Lake-Dweller-That-Roars…?”
“Yes. She’s a Kandilkari vessel, named after a rare but wonderful denizen of a lake near my childhood home. Like so many other onetime titans of the spaceways, she became absorbed into Oblivion many years ago.”
Ben Zoma knew he would regret asking, but he couldn’t let it go by. “What’s this got to do with the captain?”
“Well,” said Kastiigan, “my people’s early spacefaring vessels are something of a hobby with me. It wouldn’t be difficult for me to activate some of her dormant tactical systems from afar and provide a rather sensational distraction, while a rescue team goes in and finds the captain.”
It wasn’t a terrible idea. “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Ben Zoma. “In case we need a distraction, that is.”
And, strangely enough, it didn’t involve Kastiigan putting his life on the line. After all, he would be activating the vessel’s systems from a remote location.
It hardly seemed possible, but Kastiigan had made two entire suggestions without either of them putting him at risk. Ben Zoma was beginning to get the feeling that he had misjudged the sciences chief.
Kastiigan got up to go. “I will be in my section if you have need of me.”
“I’ll remember that,” the first officer said.
The Kandilkari was halfway to the door before he turned and said, “By the way, Ensign Jiterica has detected the presence of an Ubarrak warship.”
That got Ben Zoma’s attention. “Where?”
“Approximately twenty billion kilometers from here. You see,” said Kastiigan, warming to his subject, “the ensign was studying the behavioral nuances of the star in this system, and she noticed something just inside the edge of its corona.
“Now, if I were to take a shuttle a bit closer to the Ubarrak vessel, using the corona as cover, I could attempt to determine their intentions. And if they were to respond to my maneuver in a hostile manner, I could simply—”
The first officer held his hand up. “Hang on. Twenty billion kilometers isn’t cause for concern, Kastiigan—especially when you consider the fact that most Ubarrak transports travel with a military escort. She’s probably just waiting for her date to leave Oblivion.”
The science officer was clearly disappointed. “I see. In that case, I’ll make our scrutiny of the vessel less of a priority.”
“That would be best,” said Ben Zoma.
“However,” said Kastiigan, “if you think of some other effort in which lives must be placed at risk—”
“I’ll put your name at the top of the list. I promise.”
“Thank you,” said the science officer. Finally, he walked out of the room.
As soon as he was gone, Ben Zoma chuckled to himself. He was relieved that Kastiigan had finally volunteered for his customary suicide mission.
Otherwise, he would have felt compelled to see if the stars were falling from the heavens.
Picard hadn’t been lying about the idiosyncrasies of Chezzulid ship design. The tube through which he and his Cardassian allies were crawling was narrow, awkwardly shaped, and colder than anything he might ever have imagined.
It hurt even to breathe, each intake of air cutting like a knife. The skin of his face felt stretched to its limits. And he had to be careful not to let his hands linger on any exposed metal, lest he lose a layer of skin.
All the more reason to move quickly, the captain told himself, his breath freezing in the air in front of him. All the more reason to remember where he was going—and why.
But it wasn’t just the cold that was exacting its pound of flesh. His knees and shins, protected only by the fabric of his pants, were taking a beating from a multitude of protruding ridges and cable clamps.
Picard’s only consolation was that the Cardassians were feeling the same discomfort. In fact, their colder-blooded constitutions were probably getting along even worse under these conditions than his was.
He looked back over his shoulder and saw all three of them—the one called Tain, who was obviously in charge, and two of his more slender lackeys. They were all armed, ready to kill their temporary ally at a moment’s notice.
And there was little to stop them. He had already shown them how to reach Guinan. Tain’s flat, handheld sensor device would let him know when they got to precisely the right spot. And now that they were almost there, they didn’t need Picard to break into his friend’s cell.
But he had been in Steej’s detention facility and they hadn’t, so he knew the place better than they did. And as well, they had to be concerned that Guinan wouldn’t go with them unless she saw a familiar face.
That was all that was keeping him alive, the captain suspected. Once the Cardassians got Guinan out of the tube, he was probably as good as dead.
“Halt!” snapped a voice behind him.
He turned and saw Tain training his sensor on the conduit-covered bulkhead to their right. Slowly, the Cardassian tracked forward with the device, stopping only after it was pointed at a spot roughly even with Picard’s shoulder.
The Cardassian looked up from his readout and gestured with two of his fingers. “There,” he said. “That’s her.”
He could say for certain because he had taken a reading of Guinan—as well as Picard—shortly before Steej’s men moved in on them. Or so the Cardassian had said.
In any case, they had come about the right distance. More than likely, Tain was right, and Guinan’s cell was a mere bulkhead’s width away.
Luckily, there was a space between the conduits big enough to facilitate an escape. Without any encouragement from Picard, Tain put his sensor away and took out his disruptor. Then he trained it on the curve of the bulkhead and fired an intense, narrow beam, raising a stream of white vapor where it struck.
But this wasn’t really a bulkhead. In truth, it was the vessel’s hull, the spine in which they were hiding being a mere add-on without any structural significance. Even at his weapon’s highest setting, it would take the Cardassian as much as thirty seconds to punch his way through.
Picard wished he could communicate with Guinan somehow, let her know what was going on. But it wasn’t an option. He just had to hope she would understand the significance of the hole when it appeared, and keep her guards from discovering it until it was too late.
Meanwhile, Tain dug into layer after layer of metal alloy, his face thrown into sharp relief by the pale blue light of his beam. And all the while, the cold took up residence in their bones like an unwanted visitor.
Finally, the bulkhead seemed to boil under the influence of the disruptor, as its last few molecules lost their integrity. Then the final layer of metal vanished, leaving a hole the size of Picard’s thumbnail.
Tain deactivated his beam and gestured for the captain to attempt verbal contact. Picard put his face near the hole, which still stank of burning metal, and made a hissing soun
d.
Then he said, “Guinan? Can you hear me?”
There was no response—at least, not at first. Then the captain heard his friend say, “Picard?”
She sounded surprised to see him. But then, the captain mused, Who wouldn’t be surprised?
“Indeed. Have any of your guards noticed anything yet?”
“Not yet,” said Guinan.
“With luck,” he said, “it will remain that way. Just stay away from the bulkhead, all right? I wouldn’t want you to be struck by the beam.”
“I understand,” she said.
His message sent, Picard pulled his head back and gave Tain access to the bulkhead again. This time, the Cardassian expanded the scope of his beam as much as possible and leaned back against the opposite surface before he pressed the trigger.
With more area to cover, the disruptor beam would take longer to achieve its objective. However, it was the only realistic option they had.
The alternative would have been to stay with a narrow-aperture beam and try to carve a chunk out of the metal surface. But that would have been visible from Guinan’s cell for too long a period of time—and when they were finished, they would still have had a sizable section of bulkhead to push out.
Entire minutes passed while Tain’s beam ate at the barrier, turning it into vapor. But after a while, his shivering began to make his beam quiver as well.
“I could take over,” Picard suggested, though he was shivering by then as much as Tain was.
The Cardassian shot him a dirty look. Then he turned back to his work on the bulkhead.
Finally, the last of the metal surface sizzled away, giving them a window on Guinan’s cell. And from where Picard sat, he couldn’t see any guards.
“Get her,” Tain growled, his teeth clenched against the cold.
Picard extended himself through the opening, grateful that the edges made by the disruptor were smooth and not jagged, and more warm than hot. As his upper body emerged into the cell, he saw Guinan standing by the wall.
And no guards, even on the other side of the energy barrier. Their luck was holding.
But Picard didn’t think that state of affairs would go on for long. Steej’s people were bound to look in on the prisoner eventually. And when they did, they would see she was being spirited away behind their backs.
“Come on,” he said to Guinan, and held out his hand.
Taking it, she let the captain help her through the aperture. It was only after they were both inside the tube that she realized they weren’t alone.
Guinan turned to him, her expression that of someone who felt betrayed.
“It’s all right,” Picard told her. “They are on our side.” At least for now, he added silently, unable to elaborate in the presence of the Cardassians.
“Come on,” Tain rasped.
He didn’t look happy. But then, his upper lip had begun to frost over and he was trembling uncontrollably.
As the Cardassian and his men began to crawl away, Guinan fell in line with them. But before she could get very far, Picard grabbed her arm and thrust himself ahead of her.
He knew that he had to act quickly, before Tain—who was on all fours up ahead of him—could see what was happening. Otherwise, the captain would be sealing his death and, eventually, his friend’s as well.
Shooting forward, Picard shoved Tain into a protruding conduit as hard as he could. Then, before the Cardassian could recover, the captain leaped on him and snatched his disruptor out of his hand.
Tain cried out, alerting his underlings to what had happened. But by then, Picard was pulling back, weapon in hand.
As the Cardassians struggled to get a shot at him in the confines of the tube, the captain aimed his disruptor at a stretch of conduits that sat between him and Tain. Then he fired.
Instantly, the passageway filled with sparks and a white-hot cloud of gas, cutting the Cardassians off from Picard’s view. He took the opportunity to urge Guinan in the other direction.
“That way!” he told her. “And hurry!”
She moved as quickly as she could, with the captain right behind her. As he passed the hole in the wall of Guinan’s cell, he allowed himself a look inside.
There was still no sign that anyone had noticed her absence. That was good, Picard told himself, as he left the escape hole behind. They needed all the head start they could get.
Meanwhile, he could hear the Cardassians’ cries of outrage behind them. But they wouldn’t be able to follow—not with all that flesh-searing plasma in the way.
Eventually, they would see that they had no choice but to retrace their steps, even if they had lost the prize they came for. After all, it was preferable to getting caught.
But Tain had to be wondering what Picard had accomplished. By cutting himself off from the Cardassians, it must have seemed he had also cut himself off from his escape route.
Of course, that wasn’t quite true.
What Picard hadn’t told Tain was that the spine of the Chezzulid ship had more than one opening. In fact, the one for which he was headed was actually a bit closer than the one he had entered by.
Suddenly, he heard Guinan hiss at him over the greater hiss of escaping plasma. Looking back, the captain saw her pump her thumb over her shoulder, a look of anxiety on her face.
Her message was clear. Steej’s security people had discovered that she was missing, or were about to.
Picard hadn’t heard any sounds to support that observation—not yet, at least. However, Guinan had already proven that her powers of perception were superior to his own. If she believed her captors were on to them, he certainly wasn’t going to debate the matter with her.
Stopping and turning, he took aim at another conduit—this time, one that was almost directly in line with Guinan’s escape hole. Then he sent a spear of disruptor energy into it, creating a second sibilant plasma cloud as big as the first.
Of course, Steej’s security officers might still be tempted to fire blindly through the roil of gases—and since Guinan had no weapon, Picard was the only one who could fire back at them. With that in mind, he stood his ground for the moment and let his companion crawl on.
You know, he complained to himself, it is even colder in this place when one stops moving.
That was when he heard the shouts and curses of Steej’s officers—just as Guinan had warned. But he didn’t see any resulting energy beams.
Maybe Steej’s men were afraid that they would ignite the plasma, or else accidentally poke a hole in the vessel’s hull. No matter the reason, Picard was glad of it.
Making haste again, he caught up with Guinan. “Not too much farther now,” he told her.
“Good,” she said. “If I had known it was going to be this cold, I might have stayed in my cell.”
A joke, Picard thought.
It was strange that Guinan should choose this place and time to make one, when she had been so somber since the moment he met her. Perhaps it was just a release of anxiety.
Yes, he told himself. That’s it. What other explanation can there be?
After a moment, Guinan spoke up again. “I think I see something up ahead.”
“Something that looks like a handle?” the captain asked.
“Yes, I think so.”
The exit, he thought.
“That is where we get off,” he told Guinan.
“Not a moment too soon,” she returned.
A few moments later, they reached it—a round hatch in the floor of the tube with an L-shaped metal handle. A few turns and they would be out.
Picard put his disruptor down and tried to do the honors. But he couldn’t get a grip on the thing. His hands were too frozen, too clawlike.
He looked up at Guinan, his tongue thick and unresponsive. “C-can you…?”
“Clockwise or counter?” she asked, trails of white steam streaming from her mouth.
“Cl-clockwise,” the captain told her.
Without another word, Guinan pu
t her hands on the handle and bent to the task. And though she must have been devilishly cold as well, she managed to turn the handle—once, twice, and then a third time.
“Now pull it toward you,” he told her.
With the creak of an undoubtedly long-neglected hinge, the hatch came open. Picard could feel the welcome rush of warm air in his face.
“A-after you,” he said.
He watched her lower herself through the opening to the deck below—apparently without anyone’s notice. Scooping up his disruptor in his hands, he tossed it down to her. Then he lowered himself through the hatch as well.
The captain found himself in an irregularly shaped, unused, and unoccupied section of the Chezzulid vessel—one that Steej must have known about but ignored.
And for the first time since Guinan had crawled out of her detention cell, he was able to look at her, face to flushed, sweaty face.
Guinan couldn’t believe it.
Picard had come back for her. And despite the apparent impossibility of the task, he had plucked her from right under Steej’s nose.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Fine,” Guinan told him, though she thought her heart was going to pound its way out of her chest.
“I’m glad to hear it,” the captain said.
“But I must admit,” she said, “when I saw you take off into that crowd, I wondered if I was ever going to see you again.”
“I only ran,” he told her, “so I could have a chance to free you later on.”
Guinan could hear the unmistakable sincerity in his voice. It made her ashamed of herself for doubting him.
“But you jeopardized your mission,” she told him.
“And I would do it again,” Picard assured her.
Unbelievable, she thought. She was starting to get a lump in her throat.
“The question,” she said, before it could get any worse, “is what took you so long? I was in that cell for almost an hour.”
Picard chuckled. “I was just waiting for the right moment—the way you would have.”
For the first time since she left the Nexus, Guinan broke out in a smile.
But then, she had a reason, didn’t she? Her faith in her companion had been restored. Once again, he was the wise and courageous man who had risked everything for her.
Stargazer Oblivion Page 16